On Wednesday, Ken Hoagland, chairman of Restore America’s Voice Foundation, delivered the petitions of 1.6 million Americans demanding the repeal of Obamacare to legislators on Capitol Hill.
Pay attention to Rep. Steve King at 2:15, where he says, to paraphrase: We have very little experience undoing bad law. Once it’s on the books, it’s treated like the voice of the people. That’s why we have to be very determined to repeal this thing.
Lots of other good soundbites from other conservative Senators.
WASHINGTON, D.C.
When former Texas solicitor general spoke today at the FRC Values Voter Summit, as Cameron Joseph of The Hill says, the crowd went wild:
Former Texas Solicitor General Ted Cruz might not be a household name, but the candidate for Senate was cheered heartily at the conservative Values Voter Summit in Washington, D.C.
Working without notes and pacing the stage like a preacher, Cruz talked about defending “American values” and said liberals have “a reason to be worried” about the next election.
He got big laughs when he said that President Obama blaming the Tea Party for America’s credit downgrade was “a little bit like Charlie Sheen blaming [his problems] on the Betty Ford clinic.”
Cruz went on say that “our conservative values [are] under assault,” that Christians were being forced to participate in abortions and that the “gay rights agenda” is hurting Americans.
Cruz is truly a dynamic speaker, and his campaign for Senate has invoked inevitable comparisons to Tea Party hero Marco Rubio. Cruz was kind enough to grant me an exclusive interview this afternoon:
McCain: We’re here at the Values Voters Summit in Washington, DC, with Ted Cruz, former Solicitor-General of Texas. How are you today, Mr Cruz?
Cruz: Doing fantastic, Robert. McCain: And I understand you’re running for Senate.
Cruz: I am, running for US Senate in Texas, and we have seen some incredible momentum and excitement. We’ve really seen Conservatives across the state of Texas and nationally uniting behind our campaign. McCain: And as some people have compared you to Marco Rubio, as the “Marco Rubio of Texas,” you are yourself also Cuban.
Cruz: Well, that’s right. And that’s an incredibly kind comparison. Marco and I share a very similar personal story, which is that my dad is from Cuba, he was born there, he grew up there, and he was imprisoned and tortured in Cuba as a teenager when he was 17. And he fled Cuba, he came to the United States. When he was 18, he showed up in Austin. Had no money, didn’t speak English, had 100 dollars sewn into his underwear, and he went and got a job as a dishwasher making 50 cents an hour. And he worked 7 days a week and he paid his way through school at the University of Texas. And I’ll tell you, Robert, when I was a kid my dad used to say to me all the time, “when we faced depression in Cuba, I had a place to flee to. If we lose our freedom here, where do we go?” And there’s no question that better explains why it is I’m running for Senate than that question right there. McCain: And so your website is?
Cruz: It’s tedcruz.org. Tedcruz.org and we’re also on FaceBook. We’ve got over 64,000 supporters on FaceBook nationwide. What we are doing is building a Conservative TEA Party Army all across Texas and all across the country. And we have seen tremendous support. Just this week, National Review magazine made the very generous decision to put our campaign on the cover of the magazine. And I’ll tell you, Robert, the last US Senate candidate who they put on the cover was Marco Rubio almost exactly two years ago. And it worked out pretty well the last time. I hope we see the same result here. McCain: Alright, well good luck to you, Ted Cruz. That’s tedcruz.org.
Cruz: That’s it. McCain: Alright, thank you.
One is stunned, and left to wonder where these people [Update: yes, the #OWS weenies, not the ReasonTV folks, sorry for the ambiguous definite article] were for any Tea Parties?
There may be some muscle and skeleton somewhere to support the concerns of some that that #OWS is supposed to provide shock troops for 2012, but the bone and beefcake managed to evade the camera effectively, in my opinion.
And, in defense of these guys, I’ve met people at Tea Parties also needing to do some homework.
WASHINGTON, D.C.
Here at the FRC Value Voters Summit, I was walking through the lobby of the Omni Shoreham Hotel when I saw a familiar face: One of the daughters of former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum. The candidate’s three oldest children and his lovely wife were sitting in the lobby, awaiting the candidate’s return from an interview with Megyn Kelly at the D.C. bureau of Fox News. After a few minutes, Santorum returned, and we had lunch — sandwiches and chips — then he agreed to a brief video interview:
I’m in kind of a hurry here — Herman Cain speaks at 4:15 p.m. — so there’s no time to transcribe his quotes. If some of our blog friends and commenters would care to do so (just stick the quotes down in the comments), I’d be much obliged.
While we were having lunch, one of Santorum’s staffers walked up and told us the news that Iowa has scheduled its caucuses for Jan. 3. So, good-bye Christmas, eh? But Santorum has campaigned hard in Iowa, and has a solid base of grassroots support, so he may be positioned to take advantage of What Florida Hath Wrought.
McCain – We’re here in Washington, DC, at the Value Voters Summit at the Omni Shoreham Hotel talking to former Senator Rick Santorum. How are you, sir? Santorum – I’m doing great, Stace. How are you? McCain – I’m doing pretty good. How’s your campaign been going the last couple weeks since we’ve seen you? Santorum – We feel very, very good. I think we’re picking up some traction, I think getting the recognition as being a serious candidate has got the grass-roots effort out there, as well as the substance to do the job as President and to win a tough election against what will be a tough opponent. I think the more people look at the candidates and make an assessment as to who can deliver the mail, who can stand up for conservative principles, get things done in Washington, bring the country together, and first and foremost win the election, that we’re going to be on top. McCain – You just got back from a 3-day swing from Iowa… Santorum – I was in Iowa for most of the week, actually, in, I think, close to my 70th county in the state. I’ll be back again into New Hampshire this coming week, then South Carolina, and then the following week back to Iowa. So, we’re working all the three early-primary states and giving the chance for the voters to get a chance to kick the tires and find out about who we are, not just go give speeches or do television interviews, but really have a chance for the interaction that, at least I’m told the voters in Iowa really appreciate and that pays off, if you do well, in the long term. McCain – And your debate performances; a lot of people have praise for your performance in Orlando, and I believe I characterized you as a “brutal counter-puncher”. Sometimes these debates have been kind of rough at times. Santorum – My feeling is there are differences between the candidates on substance, you have to let the folks who are going to make these tough decisions, you have to let them know what those differences are. There clearly were differences between me and Governor Perry on the issue of immigration and this issue of mandatory vaccines, his executive order on vaccines. There have been differences between me and Ron Paul on the issue of Iran and Israel, and our position in Afghanistan. I’m not shy about pointing those differences when they are, and looking forward do more of that in debates ahead on other issues. McCain – All right then. And your website is… Santorum – ricksantorum.com. Go and send us a check. McCain – All right. Thanks. Santorum – Thanks.
Rick Santorum came out with his own economic plan Friday to top the 9-9-9 plan pushed by Herman Cain.
“I’ve got a better plan. It’s the zero-zero-zero plan,” the GOP presidential candidate and former senator told the Value Voters Summit.
Santorum said his plan would levy zero taxes on repatriation of funds invested overseas, cut corporate taxes for manufacturers to zero and eliminate every regulation put in place by President Obama.
Santorum has long been a favorite son of the socially conservative voter bloc that flocks to Washington every year for the Value Voters Summit, but has yet to define himself as independent thinker on economic issues within the Republican presidential field.
My 12-year-old son Jefferson, who’s here with press credentials as my assistant, overheard one of the conference attendees say that he’d decided to support Santorum for the very reason that he met and talked to him in the hotel lobby. Santorum is the most accessible candidate here, and he spent most of the afternoon in the lobby meeting voters one-on-one. He posed for a photo with Jefferson:
Of course, Santorum knows I’m a Cain guy, but also knows that I’m friends with his strongest online supporter Lisa Graas. And speaking of which, I ran into K-Lo here and she said to me, “Who’s this Lisa Graas who CC’s me on all her Tweets?”
That’s because Cain has no national security experience. He’s never worked in the field; he’s a businessman, so it’s not so surprising. He’s also never held high office before, so national security hasn’t come onto his radar from that perspective either. Unlike Perry, Romney, Johnson, and Huntsman, Cain has never had to deal with these issues. He doesn’t, as Republicans used to say, have “executive experience.”
Cain’s business background — as CEO of Godfather’s Pizza and president of the National Restaurant Association — doesn’t count as “executive experience”? But never mind that: How does Mitt Romney’s term as governor of Massachusetts qualify him as a national security expert? And who is Michael Merritt, a 25-year-old with liberal arts diploma, to be offering these assessments?
We’ll leave this aside, not because Merritt doesn’t deserve a more thorough punk-smacking, but because we want to link T.C. Lynch at Leather Penguin, who notices something in an article about erstwhile Chris Christie fundraisers:
Understand something, Tea Party Sheeples: these people are better than you.Notice that in that entire article, the name “Herman Cain” never makes an appearance; he doesn’t exist in their world view, and anyone considering his candidacy to be credible are just run of the mill, bien-pensant fools, who don’t understand the Big Picture.
Read the whole thing. You may have noticed that some of our Republican friends seemed to lose interest in the GOP nomination fight just about the time Rick Perry melted down and Herman Cain surged into contender status. These people are already making peace with the idea of Romney carrying the 2012 Republican banner.
Far be it from me to accuse these Republican friends of racism, because I don’t think that’s really the problem. Rather, I think they have internalized the mystique of the Cult of Expertise, the belief that being president of the United States is a job that only experienced professionals can perform. And I think it’s high time that we destroy that myth, demonstrating once and for all that the professional political class is our fundamental problem.
Populism is an appropriate response when the elites have shown themselves incapable of governance. With all caveats about Cain’s political inexperience considered, and no illusions of him as “Hope and Change” rainbows-and-unicorns saviour a la Obama, I believe he is a man fully qualified to fulfill a vital purpose at a crucial time.
Some of our Republican friends are guilty of “fighting the last war,” when Republicans invested their hope in the “experience” argument on behalf of John McCain. But this is a new election, and Americans are eager to hear a new argument on behalf of a new candidate. I’ve got no grudge against Romney, but if the Republican Party nominates the “It’s His Turn” candidate this year, they will have missed a chance to rally the kind of populist wave that might finally bring real reform to Washington.
OK, I don’t necessarily agree with the presumption that BHO attains re-election:
With regard to Gov. Palin, I do hope she sets her sights on running for president in 2016 to succeed Obama. When Gov. Palin spoke on Sept. 3 to a Tea Party audience in Indianola, Iowa, she laid out the most positive and practical path for restoring America to prosperity of any of the candidates. She has the ability to make people believe in themselves and their ability to overcome their greatest challenges, which is not only required for a nation to prosper but also is the most powerful cure for the pathological desire to depend on the government to solve every problem. If she does what she has to do to overcome the objections that establishment Republicans had to her candidacy this time around, she is exactly the person most capable of cleaning up the mess that Obama will leave.
However, the potential for BHO to retain power should be used freely to nudge the slackers into participation.
This basement-office pundit game gets old after a while. It’s been more than three weeks since my last road trip (to cover the Sept. 12 Tampa debate) and the hunger to go out and do some actual shoe-leather work has been gnawing a hole in my soul.
UPDATE (RSM): The strongest sentence is when Condell says of the Palestinian leaders, “They don’t want peace, they want victory, and the won’t be happy until Israel is wiped from the map.”
Palestinian nationalism is a toxic legacy of an era young people don’t remember and which too many older folks never really understood, when the Soviet Union sponsored “movements of national liberation” throughout the Third World. Yasser Arafat was to Palestine what Ho Chi Minh was to Vietnam. Everything I need to know about Palestinian nationalism I learned as a boy in June 1968 when we turned on our TVs and learned that Robert Kennedy had been assassinated in Los Angeles. That’s why I refer to modern liberals as the Sirhan Sirhan wing of the Democratic Party.
