The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

#OccupyWallStreet Weenies Get No Love From Schlichter

Posted on | October 16, 2011 | 7 Comments

by Smitty

Your rant of the day comes from Kurt Schlichter. A sample:

The mainstream media’s cameras can’t get enough of these pierced protesters, with their crudely written signs proclaiming their unfocused discontent and general anger at society’s selfishness in failing to satisfy their every want and desire.
Of course, those cameras discreetly turn away when the placards demanding socialist revolution and blaming the Jews come out. The protesters’ function is to demonstrate inchoate outrage simply by being there. When they start talking, they start alienating the normals.
These are Potemkin protesters, community organized by government worker unions to allow liberal Democrats a way to triangulate to the center next year. Only the rebel media outfits will actually stick a mic in the protesters’ dirty faces and let them talk.

Kurt’s spleen dump recalls an old Smith family saying: “If you’re looking for sympathy, it’s in the dictionary between s**t and syphillis.”

Category: Blogging

OK, It’s $1,179 One-Way to Auckland …

Posted on | October 15, 2011 | 33 Comments

. . . if I book now for an early February departure from Dulles International, and the connection via Air New Zealand to Bauerfield International Airport in Porta Vila, Vanuatu, would be another $400, so that my basic cost to get there would be roughly $1,600. Expedia offers a low rate of $147 a night at the Grand Hotel and Casino in Porta Vila.

We’ll worry about my return flight later. The key thing is that I must get to Vanuatu as soon as the Jan. 31 Florida primary is over and conduct my research mission, as I explained to Charles G. Hill at Dustbury:

Dear Mr. Hill:
Your interest in U.S. relations with Vanuatu is sincerely appreciated by the Cain administration, and the Shadow Secretary of State asked me to thank you for reminding us of the lack of an embassy in Porta Vila. Rest assured that remedying this “serious foreign policy failure” (to quote the Shadow Secretary) will be a top priority for President Cain.
Meanwhile, in order to further our diplomatic efforts, I am currently researching air travel arrangements to lead a delegation to investigate possible embassy sites in Porta Vila. It is not yet possible to provide a final estimate of airfare (via Brisbane) to Bauerfield International Airport, as the Cain foreign policy team must decide whether to schedule our “fact-finding mission” to depart in early February (i.e., following Mr. Cain’s victory in the crucial Florida primary), in June (i.e., after the primaries are complete), or in September (i.e., after the drunken bacchanalia at the GOP convention in Tampa). Nevertheless, your assistance in this matter is most welcome, and we have provided a special Web site for those wishing to help with the Vanuatu Project.
Thanks again for all you do.

Patriotically Yours,

Robert Stacy McCain
Future Ambassador to Vanuatu

* * * * *

Once I get to Porta Vila — immediately after the rainy season ends in February — I’ll be able to estimate how long this fact-finding mission will take. Choosing a site for the U.S. Embassy is a very serious business and not until that mission is complete will we worry about the return flight. Your help with the Vanuatu Project is profoundly appreciated.
 





 
And, of course, our delegation must have the proper supplies:


 

 
UPDATE: Welcome, Instapundit readers! It’s always good to have the endorsement of the future Attorney General. And as to the professor’s question about “what could go wrong” . . . .

Well, define “wrong.” I mean, we just sent Special Forces to Uganda. They’re still fighting in Libya and Qaddafi is still at large. The Obama administration has established a new threshold for what’s considered “success” in foreign policy, and it’s low enough that nothing that might result from my ambassadorship to Vanuatu could possibly be called “failure.”

UPDATE II: Linked by Don Surber — thanks! So far, I haven’t had much success with the #OccupyVanuatu Twitter hashtag, but I’m sure it will catch on any day now . . .

PREVIOUSLY:

 

Category: Cargo Cult of the Blog Gods, Dustbury, Vanuatu

Art That Cannot Find A Market Is Art That Can Find A Landfill

Posted on | October 15, 2011 | 16 Comments

by Smitty

via Gateway Pundit

Category: Uncategorized

Conservatives Support Boston Needy Who Were Harmed By #OccupyBoston

Posted on | October 15, 2011 | 24 Comments

by Smitty

You pick your battles. When @ali chimed in on Twitter that Boston’s  “Greenway Mobile Food Fest” fundraiser was getting wrecked by #OccupyBoston, making a donation seemed a twofer: support the genuinely needy, and sticking it to the mooch. Normally, I like more personally directed charity, but this was OK.

As Warner Todd Huston relates, acts of charity which Violate The Narrative go unnoticed:

The media should love this. It’s got clueless, uninformed, cretins hurting an organization that helps feed the needy. It has a more caring group rising to the challenge to help replace those lost donations. Perfect story, right?
Ah, except that it is conservatives in the role of good guy and the Old Media can’t have that, now can they?

It’s all right. Our audience in Heaven, the one who matters, notices. The rewards, positive and negative, shall not go ungiven.

Category: Media Bias

FMJRA 2.0: Family Snapshot

Posted on | October 15, 2011 | 5 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho


 Top Rubio Staffer Reportedly Pushed for Early Florida Primary to Help Romney

‘‘Mr. Cain, Who Is Lawrence O’Donnell to Tell You How to Be a Black Man?’

We Don’t Get Bloomberg TV …

Who Said It? July 14: ‘I No Longer See a Path to Victory for Herman Cain’

Because RINOs Always Travel in Herds: Chris Christie Will Endorse Mitt Romney

Vegas, Baby: Republican Armies March Toward Political Battle of the Century

REPUBLICAN ARMAGEDDON LOOMS: New Hampshire Threatens December Primary Unless Nevada Moves Caucus

Nate Silver Wonders: Will N.H. Primary Move to December Backfire for Romney?

Memo From the National Affairs Desk to the Herman Cain Presidential Campaign

Conventional Wisdom on Herman Cain

BLAME FLORIDA!

#OccupyIowahawk

PAULBOT-MANIA: Ron Paul Supporters Buy Victory in ‘Value Voters’ Straw Poll

Dennis The Constitutional Peasant Lives!

#VVS11: Campaign Spin Wars Follow Values Voters Summit Straw Poll

‘This Was Supposed To Be Our Chance To Disarm The American People’

‘Veering Into Incoherence’?

The Awful Burden of Influence

. . .And The Government You Elected Is Occupying Your Bank. Go Figure.

Don’t Get Castroated

The Crazy Guy at The American Spectator Who Made the Big Headlines …

In Praise Of Gridlock

Go Darrell Go!

Candy Crowley, Your Ignorant Toolishness Is On Display

#OccupyWallStreet = DIE, YOU COWARDLY COMMIE SCUM!

Rule 5 Monday: Global Exploitation Edition

#OccupyThisPost

‘The President’s Supreme Confidence in His Intellectual Abilities …’

Ouch: Former ‘Americans for Rick Perry’ Iowa Operative Joins Team Santorum

LIVE AT FIVE – 10.11.11

A Frothy Flagon O’ Fisk

I Was Not Going To Rip Troglopundit For Being So Weak As To Allow Gov. Walker To Come Under Recall Threat

Comity Of Errors

8,000,000: Fear and Loathing on Vegas Debate Media Credential Deadline Day

Would The Golfer In Chief Pose For Such A Shot?

DNC’s Debbie Wasserman-Schultz Does Post-Debate Spin for … Newt Gingrich?

The Adults You Seek: The Left’s Masters

Pundette Likes Herman Cain

LIVE AT FIVE – 10.12.11

Don’t See How This Helps Bruce CampbellMitt Romney’s Campaign

I Laughed, I Cried, It Was A Part Of Me

Herman Cain Surges Ahead in New Poll; Mitt Romney, Allahpundit Hardest Hit

LIVE AT FIVE – 10.13.11

It’s Not So Much The VAT As The Precedent

#OccupyWallStreet Clears Shark In Substantial Jump

Paco Enterprises Gets Protest Management

Karl Rove Says Herman Cain Campaign ‘Not Gonna Have a Nice Ending’

LIVE AT FIVE – 10.14.11

You Don’t Do Champagne Work On A Kool-Aid Budget

Zonation Suggests Herman Cain ‘Smoke Crack’ To Impress Cornell West

Well, Of Course He Denies It

Top linkers this week:

  1. Lonely Conservative (13)
  2. The Camp Of The Saints (12)
  3. (tie) Daily Pundit and Conservative Commune (8)
  4. (tie) Don Surber and Da Tech Guy (7)
  5. Rio Norte Line (6)
  6. (tie) Herman Cain PAC, The POH Diaries, and Maggie’s Notebook (5)


Thanks to everyone for their links! To be included in next week’s FMJRA if you’re using Blogger or some other platform WordPress hates, send your links (along with the post linked) to me with the subject line “FMJRA” or “Shameless Blogwhoring” by October 21st.

Category: FMJRA Award

‘A Real Leader Dot Com’

Posted on | October 15, 2011 | 44 Comments

“They launched some Web ads, banner ads … and they are proving effective. … As they’ve already said, they raised two million bucks in the first two weeks [of October]. You project that out over the course of the quarter and you’re talking … Romney-esque fundraising numbers. … If you’re raising a million dollars a week, times twelve weeks, you’re talking twelve million bucks. … And actually, there are thirteen weeks in the quarter, so if they continue — as they have said, they raised two million dollars in the first two weeks of the quarter — project that out. … With no debt. … The FEC reports for the second quarter already came out and they announced that they raised two-point-eight million … and Herman said in an interview yesterday that he would report having a million dollars in cash on hand. … If you look at his second-quarter report, and the numbers being talked about, you’re looking at a campaign that has a quarterly burn rate of roughly two million dollars. And while that is obviously going to increase in the fourth quarter as they add staff, et cetera, et cetera — let’s say they go from a burn rate of two million [per quarter] to three million and raise thirteen million — you’re conceivably looking at a campaign that hits January 1st with, potentially, ten million bucks cash on hand.”
— a GOP strategist, in phone interview this morning

To which my reaction was three words: “Wow. Wow. Wow.”

When I reported Herman Cain’s second-quarter fundraising numbers just after midnight, I didn’t get the full significance of what the numbers meant. People who are criticizing the Cain campaign as unserious — e.g., “Why is he in Tennessee?” — probably weren’t paying attention in July when I wrote about the long-term strategic thinking behind a campaign that was then bumping along in single digits in national polls.

So I’m not even going to bother looking that up and linking it now, because heaven knows we don’t want the clueless to get a clue now that Team Herman’s strategy is starting to pay off. (The new front-runner will be on Meet the Press on Sunday.)

You’re hearing a lot of blowback over the “9-9-9” plan right now, but all that blowback is coming from people who never expected Herman Cain to be where he is right now: Leading national poll by as much as 8 points, neck-and-neck with Romney in the RCP average, moving ahead in Iowa, raising a million dollars a week, with a million in the bank and no campaign debt. Three weeks ago, none of Cain’s critics imagined this was possible, and now that the impossible is actually happening, the critics are in denial, doing the Kübler-Ross grieving process over their lost credibility, telling everybody Cain can’t sustain his momentum, and mocking the “9-9-9” plan as if it were a joke.

Oh, yeah?

The Club for Growth just endorsed “9-9-9.” Jokes’s on you, Karl Rove.

Now, if you think Herman Cain’s tax plan is too “simplistic” and “unrealistic” as policy, let me tell you something else you won’t believe:

ARealLeader.com

When I first heard that phrase, I was like, “Yeah, whatever. Catchy slogan. What’s the point?” The point is, it’s so simple you can’t forget it.

Just like “9-9-9,” the phrase sticks in your mind: Easy to say, easy to remember, and if you’ll click the link, you’ll discover that the URL re-directs to the online donation page for the Herman Cain campaign.

ARealLeader.com

Now, we know that Mitt Romney is sucking up all the GOP Establishment cash, and part of the perils of Herman Cain’s success is that the grassroots small-donor types might get the idea that Cain’s doing OK now, so they can stop giving those $25, $50, $100 contributions. But if the projection my source made — the Cain campaign potentially having $10 million in the bank by Jan. 1 — is going to happen, then it’s important to keep pounding one message: Give, Give, Give.

ARealLeader.com

In business management, as in communications theory, there is something known as “The KISS Principle” — Keep It Simple, Stupid.

Rather than confuse people with a bunch of complicated explanations, distill the essence of whatever it is you’re communicating to something people can understand and remember. The Herman Cain campaign appears to be applying The KISS Principle with remarkable success.

The legendary origin of supply-side economic theory is that Art Laffer (who has also praised 9-9-9 lately) drew the now-famous “Laffer Curve” on a cocktail napkin, and thereby created the theoretical basis for what became the Reagan Revolution. Maybe that’s just a legend, but the point is that Laffer’s insight, like so many other breakthroughs in human history, had the kind of genius of simplicity that made people say, “Wow, why didn’t I think of that before?”

So if you want to see Herman Cain sworn in as the 45th president of the United States, if you want his campaign to arrive on the eve of the Iowa caucuses with $10 million cash on hand, this is your cocktail napkin:

ARealLeader.com

During the 11 months that I’ve been covering the Cain campaign — as a strictly neutral objective journalist, just like all those MSM reporters — I’ve often been asked by people, “Stacy, what can I do to help? I love Herman, but when I tried to get in touch with the campaign, I didn’t get a call back.” Yeah, well, a low “burn rate” means they’re always understaffed and overworked at Team Herman HQ, and it’s a miracle anybody gets a call back from them now that everybody wants to be part of the team. But like I said during the now-legendary Doug Hoffman campaign: “Stop asking what you can do, and start doing what you can.”

If you’re sitting around waiting for somebody at headquarters to tell you what to do, you’re doing the wrong thing. Become a Campaign of One. Do everything you can think of to help the Cain campaign. Grab some stuff off the Internet and print up your own flyers to give to your Republican friends and — most of all — include that cocktail-napkin URL so they’ll know where to go to give money:

ARealLeader.com

Of course, I am not one of these Famous Genius Pundits who’s always telling people what to think. I don’t even get invited to BlogCon, because I don’t know nothing about nothing worth knowing. All I know is how to rock and roll all night, and party every day. IYKWIMAITYD.

ARealLeader.com

 

 
UPDATE: Welcome, Instapundit readers! And you may enjoy an update about my future career as U.S. Ambassador to Vanuatu.

UPDATE II: Linked by The Lonely Conservative — thanks!
 
UPDATE III: Linked by Nice Deb — thanks!
 

Category: Election 2012, Herman Cain

Can You Make Peace With Stupid?

Posted on | October 15, 2011 | 43 Comments

by Smitty

Erickson over at Red State has a post about “Finding Common Ground With the Occupiers“. His four suggestions toward the end are completely agreeable to about every conservative I’ve ever met. In summary, put the public sector cart behind the private sector horse, where it belongs, unless you are stupid.

And he’s even making the sort of argument I would, that we should have a go at diplomacy with the #OccupyWhipperSnappers, and try to use #OWS as a teachable moment:

But let’s presume there are some people out there who are reachable. We on the right should not be as dismissive of what is happening in this movement the way the left, to their determine, wholly dismissed the tea party movement. There is, in fact, some shared ground even beyond the superficial ground I’ve already covered.

This really boils down to a question of pedagogy, not just policy (where I really agree with Erickson’s suggestions in the post). You’ve got a park full of bratty, ignorant students who not only lack respect for you, they have had their heads filled with false and opposite things. I’ve had a couple of teaching experiences. Teaching can be fun, if there is some level of positive engagement on the part of the students. The Animal House, or Breakfast Club situations, while funny in film, are no fun for somebody behind a podium.

Or somebody dealing with a park full of petulant, overgrown children. At that point, I’m far more inclined to tough love. If the little brats really think they are making a statement, teachers such as cold and hunger should be brought in. Also, the word ‘no’. Let these knuckleheads cry ‘uncle’. Then put the little jackwagons in a Gunny Ermy situation, where they can find out what real authoritarianism is like. I have it on some authority that a boot camp environment can be a great way to go ‘cold turkey’ on stupid.

Such a stick/carrot approach, with emphasis on ‘stick’, in my opinion, is the best way to shake out the tiny few who are worth two hoots (in an economic sense: theologically, they are certainly God’s children) in the #OWS crowd. As for the rest: no more love than bread and water. Because making peace with Commie stupid is the first step toward becoming Commie stupid.

Category: Red State

Strictly As A Thought Experiment

Posted on | October 15, 2011 | 95 Comments

by Smitty

Say there was a dynamic candidate with a, call it ‘reasonable’, shot at a major party nomination.

Say that candidate got the impression that a fix was in already for that nomination, and all of the debates and polls and flesh pressing were really just so much dog and pony.

Say that candidate mounted a third party run.

What is the over-under on head ‘splosions among the Ruling Class Overlords?

Category: Uncategorized
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