The Other McCain

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

What Florida Hath Wrought: Will Christmas Be in Iowa or New Hampshire?

Posted on | October 1, 2011 | 71 Comments

Geographers have long noted that the Florida peninsula hangs off the East Coast of the United States like a small, limp penis. The metaphorical significance was made manifest Friday morning when what I’ve come to regard as “The Evil State” announced that it was moving its primary to Jan. 31, prompting a memorable reaction from Iowa GOP Chairman Matt Strawn:

“The arrogance shown by Florida’s elected leadership is disappointing, but not surprising. Equally troubling is to see this petulant behavior rewarded with our national convention. The consequences of Florida’s intransigence must be swift and severe, including the refusal by the RNC to credential or seat any member of Florida’s presidential primary date commission at the 2012 RNC convention in Tampa.
“Regarding the timing of the First in the Nation Iowa Caucuses, Iowa will remain first. Consistent with tradition, the final Iowa Caucus date will be announced once New Hampshire sets the date of its First in the Nation Primary.”

As I said in my Friday American Spectator column, the RNC-approved schedule — with the Iowa caucuses Feb. 6 — was reasonable and humane. What Florida has done is cruel and insane. Manchester (N.H.) Union Leader columnist John DiStaso has reaction from the Granite State:

The Republican National Committee this afternoon made clear that Republican parties in any state, including New Hampshire, that violate the national party’s primary/caucus calendar by moving their primaries or caucuses earlier than the schedule set out in an RNC rule will lose half its delegates to the national convention next summer.
A senior RNC official said there will be “no discretion, no waivers. Those penalties are in place in our rules. They were enforced in 2008 and they will be enforced in 2012.”
A Florida commission today voted to jump up its primary to Jan. 31 in violation of the RNC rule. It means that New Hampshire, Iowa, South Carolina and Nevada will also violate the rule and move their events into January, and possibly, in New Hampshire’s case, into December of this year . . .
[New Hampshire’s Republican National Committeeman Steve] Duprey, a member of the RNC rules committee who was among those who worked since 2008 on the new rule, said of Florida, “I thought they’d be smarter than this.
“This (Florida jump to January) effectively precludes Sarah Palin and anyone else from getting into the race, and it’s unfortunate for the Republican Party and for democracy. It also makes it much more daunting for any candidate who doesn’t have huge cash reserves to be able to compete and capitalize on an early state win.”
Duprey predicted the New Hampshire Primary will probably be held “right after the first of the year again, and could be even earlier than that,” meaning perhaps even in December.

Of course, if New Hampshire moves to December, Iowa’s law will require them to move to December, too. And all of this — all of it — is the fault of the Florida Republican Party leadership. The Hill notes:

The front-loading of the calendar also means presidential candidates will likely have to campaign through Christmas and New Year’s Day.

Isn’t that sweet? “The Florida Republicans Who Stole Christmas”!

By the way: Don’t believe a word those Florida Grinches say about their reasons for doing this. They’re lying through their teeth if they say this has anything to do with trying to make Florida votes count for more in the primary process. What they are doing — and everybody knows this is the real reason — is trying to force an early end to the fight for the GOP nomination.

So far the only candidate in the field who’s said a word about this crooked Florida deal is Rick Santorum. Everybody knows that Florida’s state House Speaker Dean Cannon has endorsed Rick Perry, and many people suspect Florida Senate President Mike Haridopolos is a Mitt Romney supporter. By front-loading the primaries, Florida now is in effect trying to stop Herman Cain (or anyone else but Perry or Romney) from having a fair chance to compete with the big-money front-runners.

The Underground Conservative predicts “a front-loaded presidential primary system guaranteed to pick an establishment GOP candidate. Mitt Romney = John McCain 2.0,” and adds:

That’s the end result: the Cocktail Party GOP showing the Tea Party who’s boss.

You may have noticed that the sudden announcement of Florida’s Jan. 31 date swiftly followed Cain’s upset win in the Florida straw poll — a result that had caused some people to urge New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie to get in. But there won’t be time now for Christie to organize a campaign in time to compete in Iowa or New Hamphire.

Bonus for the old-boy Establishment? By making this move, the Florida GOP makes it all but certain that Sarah Palin can’t run in 2012.

What would really shake things up — and it would be just like her — is if Palin decided to pay back the Establishment by messing up their little insider game and endorsing Herman Cain.

UPDATE: This is incredible! In a Facebook message to “Sunshine State Sarah,” Speaker Cannon admits what the Florida GOP is doing:

I’ll describe what happened in 2008 as the best proof that the threats of calamity in [Florida RNC member Paul] Paul’s letter are unfounded. In 2008, Iowa went Jan 3, NH went Jan 8, MI on Jan 15, NV and SC on Jan19, Florida went Jan 29, and FL had huge, arguably decisive influence. Twenty six states then held their primaries the next week on Feb 5–the “super Tuesday”–and it was over.

That is to say, Cannon and the Florida GOP are trying to guarantee a repeat of the preposterously early decision in 2008! And this disaster (which gave the nomination to John McCain) Cannon cites as proof that a front-loaded primary calendar in 2012 won’t produce a “calamity”!

Read the rest of Sarah’s post. Like many Floridians, Sarah doesn’t seem to understand how evil this Crist/Greer-style trick really is. Go back to the story I wrote on Election Night 2008:

Perhaps the most important statistic for conservatives to keep in mind today — as pundits pore over and pour out exit-poll data to tell us What It Means — is this: 53 percent of Republican primary voters did not vote for John McCain.

And how did that happen? Florida Republicans led by the corrupt Jim Greer moved up their primary, forcing the front-loaded 2008 calendar described by Cannon. Then Florida’s RINO Gov. Charlie Crist (after promising to endorse Rudy Giuliani) gave his endorsement to John McCain. Just as Cannon said, “Florida went Jan 29, and FL had huge, arguably decisive influence” — McCain won with 36% to Romney’s 31%, and then Super Tuesday sealed the deal.

Yet the Florida GOP’s attempt to repeat that rigged process — which produced a Republican nominee who didn’t get a majority of Republican votes — is claimed by Cannon as proof that 2012 won’t be a “calamity”!

Once Tea Party activists figure out what the Florida GOP bosses are up to, I guarantee you there will be hell to pay.

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Category: Election 2012, Florida, Iowa, New Hampshire

Award-Winning Reagan

Posted on | September 30, 2011 | 19 Comments


Our 8-year-old daughter Reagan began public school this year as a third-grader, having previously been home-schooled or attended Christian school. Less than a month into the school year, she won the Respectful Student Award which I’m told (by our 22-year-old daughter, now a school teacher herself) is a very impressive achievement.


Parents were invited to the special lunch where the winners of the award sat at the special “Golden Table.” As you can see, Reagan inherited her father’s good looks. Or perhaps . . .

Yeah, fortunately Reagan takes after her beautiful mother. But I still think I deserve some credit.

Well, maybe not credit. Cash is generally preferred, although PayPal accepts Visa and other major credit cards. IYKWIMAITYD.

Category: Family

Joe Biden Sends Me E-Mail

Posted on | September 30, 2011 | 7 Comments

As noted yesterday, the fund-raising e-mails from Obama’s re-election campaign are becoming increasingly desperate:

Robert —

I need to ask you one last thing before tonight’s midnight deadline:
If you know you’re going to donate to this campaign eventually, what’s stopping you from doing it right now?
If you’re going to be a part of history in 2012, it’s time to get off the sidelines.
So, before midnight, will you chip in what you can and say you’re in?
This has never been about Barack and me.
We’re just two guys. It’s folks like you out there who will decide this election.
And what you’re capable of is incredible — if you decide to do it.

Thank you,
Joe

P.S. — That deadline also applies to the dinner Barack is having with four supporters. Donate today and you’ll be automatically entered for the chance to be there.

Anyone who signed up for Obama’s e-mail list in 2008 — which I did in an effort to obtain campaign news — has been bombarded by fund-raising e-mails for the past 10 days. Team Obama is already making excuses and seeking to lower expectations.

Category: Democrats, Election 2012, Joe Biden

Come to Think of It — No, Wait …

Posted on | September 30, 2011 | 26 Comments

My unfortunate penchant for double-entendres made it rather difficult for me to read the following article:

A lawyer who donated sperm to pay his way through college has learned that he has fathered an astonishing 70 children.
More than 15 of those have already attempted to contact 33-year-old Ben Seisler.
The donor confessed to his fiancée as part of a new reality show, Sperm Donor, that aired on the Style Network on Tuesday.

I came across this via Instapundit, who links to Ann Althouse, one of whose commenters was amused by a quote from the story:

“On the one hand, these kids are biologically my kids. On the other hand they are not my kids.”
Does it really matter which hand he used?

Another quote, from the man’s fiancée: “Did you think of the consequences that would come of it?” Ba-da-BOOM-crash!

Here is a scene from the show:

That scene is the climax of the first episode. Ba-da-BOOM-crash!

More seriously, we learn that there is a “Donor Sibling Registry” that connects the offspring of sperm donors to their half-siblings and their biological fathers. The Boston Globe reported:

The situation highlights the complicated issues that are starting to emerge now that a sizable cohort of donor-conceived children are growing up and wanting information about their biological fathers. Issues such as: What if the kids want to meet the fathers? What if children from the same sperm donor meet each other, and unwittingly get married? When’s the right time to tell your girlfriend that you were a sperm donor?
These are issues a lot of men may not have considered back at the sperm bank, a lucrative source of quick cash. Seisler averaged $150 per donation . . .

This is another one of those unintended consequences of “progress” that no one seems to have foreseen when technology made possible the long-term storage of semen as a marketable commodity. Being the father of six children myself — did it the old-fashioned way, IYKWIMAITYD — I’m happy with the result. Thinking back to my youth, however, I might bemoan the missed opportunities for profit.

Hell, I could have been a millionaire by the time I was 17 . . .

Perhaps you’ll want to hit the tip jar as a gesture of gratitude that there aren’t hundreds of my offspring in the world, and to help provide for the (relatively) few there are.

Category: Culture, Science, Sex

They Told Glenn Reynolds …

Posted on | September 30, 2011 | 78 Comments

… that if he voted for John McCain, Americans would be executed without trial — and they were right!

The due-process-free assassination
of U.S. citizens is now reality
 
American Citizen Anwar al-Awlaki
Assassinated in Yemen

Big Gator notes that Anwar Al-Awlaki has the right to remain silent.

Da Tech Guy wonders if Glenn Greenwald and David Dayen would extend their human-rights concerns to certain other . . . uh, critics of U.S. foreign policy. (Should I be insulted by the analogy?)

Meanwhile, human rights advocates must condemn that bloodthirsty neocon warmonger Dick Cheney Andrew Sullivan.

UPDATE: Donald Douglas calls attention to another typical reaction from British international relations expert Stephanie Carvin:

I’m no fan of Awlaki and I will certainly not mourn his passing, (really – he seems like a total jerk) but this raises serious questions about the targeted killing program, who is being targeted and why. Presumably, in the case of targeted killing, its important there is evidence BEFORE the killing, rather than a scrabble now to piece together a case, after the fact.
I hope there is evidence that he actually materially supported terrorism.

“I hope there is evidence”? Under what rock have you been hiding, lady? But what stuns me is Professor Carvin’s evident need to stipulate that she is “no fan of Awlaki” — which is, I’m sure, a welcome reassurance to Scotland Yard and the Home Secretary — before she proceeds to “serious questions about the targeted killing program.” It’s one of those noticeable tics of liberalism, the telltale flinch of a confused and guilt-ridden mind, and as such almost impossible to parody:

I’m no fan of Martin Bormann and I will certainly not mourn his passing . . .

I’m no fan of James Earl Ray and I will certainly not mourn his passing . . .

I’m no fan of the Green River Killer and I will certainly not mourn his passing . . .

Where do they find these people? Are the parents of students at the University of London aware that their children are under the tutelage of this bewildered idiot?

UPDATE II: The passing of one of Al-Awlaki’s comrades tempts John Hitchcock to satire:

Editor Of Popular Internet Magazine Dead At 25
Samir Kahn, 25, was born in Saudi Arabia but grew up in New York. He later returned to the Middle East and began publishing the popular e-zine “Inspire” in an effort to educate English-speaking youth in world politics by speaking in their own vernacular. . . .

Category: Andrew Sullivan, Da Tech Guy, Instapundit, Terrorism

Dear NYPD …

Posted on | September 30, 2011 | 47 Comments

NYPD resisted the temptation to kill this Commie douchenozzle

Permit me to praise you, courageous officers of the New York Police Department, for your admirable restraint in dealing with the smelly Marxist scum currently infesting your city.

While I haven’t previously bothered to grant any underserved publicity to the vermin involved in the “Occupy Wall Street” protests, I did notice some accusations of “police brutality.”  For a few minutes Sunday, I wrestled with a sudden and nearly overwhelming urge to write an article recommending Medals of Meritorious Service for any NYPD officer who billy-clubbed or pepper-sprayed one of those protest pests.

My notorious tendency toward sarcastic hyperbole was resisted, however, until today Moe Lane linked an article by a progressive blogger praising the anti-capitalist creeps.

“The protesters are what you’d expect, a kind of hippie dippie group of students, anti-globalization activists, and antiwar movement actors. . . . They believe themselves to represent all Americans who are frustrated by politics and finance. Whether or not this is true, what is happening is that there is a belief that their actions matter, that they themselves are moral beings who have dignity and power simply by the very act of self-expression.”
— Matt Stoller, “former Senior Policy Advisor to Rep. Alan Grayson and a fellow at the Roosevelt Institute”

What super-human willpower your officers have hitherto exerted is now so apparent that I am compelled to send you this note of praise.

Also, speaking on behalf of decent Americans everywhere, I wish to offer in advance my sympathies for whichever member of your riot squad is the first to break under the unbearable strain. We hope the NYCPBA has provided counseling to officers struggling against the temptation to engage in the “very act of self-expression” by whipping out their 9mm Glocks, emptying the magazine into these advocates of “civil disobedience,” re-loading with a fresh clip, and continuing to fire for effect so long as there is ammunition available and fresh targets in sight.

However, there is only so much that can be accomplished by psychological counseling, and not even the iron discipline of the NYPD can forever suppress the basic instinct that will, I know, finally unleash the pent-up fury the hard-working men and women of your force must feel toward the “Occupy Wall Street” protesters.  Whether the result is merely a few hippie skulls busted by baton-wielding officers or, as I greatly fear, something more like the Ohio National Guard’s historic 1970 victory over Viet Cong sympathizers at Kent State, I just want to say to the officers involved in the unfortunate incident: We understand. We care. We’re here for you.

Sure that I speak on behalf of a grateful nation, I remain

Sincerely yours,
Robert Stacy McCain

Category: #Occupy, Crime, New York, Progressivism, Terrorism

Candid Neo-Commie

Posted on | September 30, 2011 | 11 Comments

by Smitty

Doubling down on the holy-cow commentary of Bev Perdue, we have Peter Funt, son of Alan, appearing at The Moderate Voice:

Despite nagging evidence to the contrary, Ralph Nader is basically a smart guy. Certainly he’s aware of the damage he wrought in 2000 by taking enough votes from Al Gore to hand the presidency to George W. Bush. So, you would assume he would never again gamble with the nation’s highest office.
But Nader is back, telling anyone with a microphone that he’d like a clutch of Democrats, perhaps a half-dozen, to challenge President Obama for the 2012 nomination. Nader doesn’t plan to run himself; in fact, he claims he doesn’t want any of his Trojan candidates to actually win the nomination. All he wants is a good brawl in the form of pre-convention debates.

Oh, that vastly over-rated democracy! If only the philosopher-kings could silence the opposition and simple set about fixing the evils of Reagan Bush [your conservative demon goes here].

The most shocking piece of all this remains the deafening Lefty silence about the fascism underscoring this line of thought.

Category: Uncategorized

Florida: The Evil State

Posted on | September 30, 2011 | 22 Comments

Last night on Fox News, Rick Santorum alluded to the fact that Rick Perry supporter Dean Cannon is one of the Florida GOP leaders pushing to move up their primary. Santorum did not, however, refer to the growing suspicion among many Americans that the so-called “Florida Republican Party” is actually a terrorist cell organized by clandestine agents of Kim Jong Il and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Here’s my American Spectator column today:

America is threatened by many crises, ranging from economic recession to international terrorism, but none of these threats are quite so immediate or so fundamentally hostile to our democratic form of government as the existential menace of Florida.
Perhaps this is a slight exaggeration, but not by too much, when you consider the multiple ramifications of Florida’s announced plan to hold its 2012 presidential primary on Jan. 31. This would completely wreck the primary schedule as other states move up their dates, and would also result in the Republican National Committee stripping Florida of half its delegates to next year’s convention, which will be held in Tampa. So Republicans in the host state of the GOP convention would be punished for a decision made by their own elected Republican leaders, who seem indifferent to the consequences.
“We know the risk we’re taking, but we’re talking about satisfying maybe 100 people versus 19 million people who could have a say in who the nominee is,” Florida state Senate president Mike Haridopolos told the Wall Street Journal, as if a Florida primary in March — where it should be, according to RNC rules — would be utterly irrelevant to the nomination process. This kind of pretzel-logic is inexplicable to sane people, but we’re talking about Florida Republicans . . .

Read the whole thing. Let’s just hope Reince Priebus can stop these crazy Florida bastards from ruining Christmas.

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Category: Election 2012, Florida, Republicans
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