The Other McCain

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

How Could @Alyssa_Milano Use Twitter to Challenge Media ‘Explanation Space’?

Posted on | September 21, 2011 | 4 Comments

In a long post about why mainstream reporters love Twitter but hate blogs, Craig Henry points out how blogging undermines MSM dominance in a way Twitter really can’t:

Blogs, especially the long-form blogging that Den Beste did or that Neo-neocon still does, has the potential to break the MSM’s monopoly on “explanation space.” . . .
It is one of those quirks of history. One new thing is revolutionary. The next new thing consolidated the position of the powers that be.

It’s an excellent point — you should read the entire post — but I think in some sense Henry both underestimates the continued significance of blogging and overestimates Twitter’s potential to replace blogging.

One of the beautiful things about Twitter is its utility for promoting links, and this promotional power is the same whether the truncated links are to a New York Times article or a blog post. A good post with a good headline, re-Tweeted by several people, can sometimes generate nearly as much traffic in the span of an hour as a link from most medium-sized blogs. And since most bloggers are on Twitter, this provides a medium through which information can be shared among bloggers rapidly.

So I see Twitter as a tool that can enhance the impact of blogging, if people use it with impact as their objective.

But a lot of people aren’t really thinking in any strategic way about how to use Twitter as a medium, any more so than they think strategically about blogging as a medium. And that’s why I mention Alyssa Milano. She’s got 1.7 million followers on Twitter and, unlike some celebrities, her Twitter feed isn’t just silly stuff. Alyssa is pretty much your standard-issue Hollywood liberal on most issues, but she Tweets links to all kinds of news articles of general interest. Plus, she’s a connoisseur of cute videos.

Will she re-Tweet this post? Probably not, but the point is that Alyssa Milano is aware of Twitter’s potential, and uses her Twitter account with some sense of how her large readership can be influenced through her messages. Maybe if I throw in a shout-out to Baby Milo?

Category: Blogging, Celebrities

Twitter Avatar Humor

Posted on | September 21, 2011 | 5 Comments

by Smitty

See, these two guys name Smith walk into a web site wearing space suit avatars. . .

Category: humor

Perry Boomlet Already Fading?

Posted on | September 21, 2011 | 53 Comments

In a comment on my own post Aug. 9, I wrote:

There have been a few little things . . . that lead me to think Perry is a lot less certain ultimately to win the nomination than some people seem to think. What I fear will happen is that Perry will spend several months sucking up media oxygen and burning through GOP donor cash, only to collapse early next year. This will have the effect of suffocating other conservative candidates, and thereby lead to … Romney 2012.

And now we learn that, after Rick Perry’s first two debates, polls show his early popularity waning:

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey of Likely GOP Primary voters shows Perry with 28% support and Romney capturing 24%. Before Perry entered his first debate, the Texan held an eleven point advantage over Romney, 29% to 18%.

That’s a seven-point shift in Romney’s favor in the span of five weeks, and I know: It’s just one poll and it’s still early. But six of the first eight polls taken after Rick Perry’s Aug. 13 announcement showed Perry with a double-digit lead over Romney, whereas the past five polls show Romney within single digits. If Perry doesn’t shine in tomorrow night’s debate . . .

Well, don’t say you weren’t warned. And if Perry can’t go the distance as the “Anybody But Romney” candidate, what then?

What will the bandwagon jumpers do, if the bandwagon on which they’ve jumped ends up in the ditch? I sincerely wish conservatives would take a second (or perhaps third) look at Herman Cain, who keeps chugging along. I also feel that more attention is due for Rick Santorum, whose fourth-place finish in the Ames Straw Poll would have been heralded as a newsworthy miracle, but was overshadowed by Perry’s entrance into the 2012 field and Tim Pawlenty’s exit the next day.

Whenever I mention Cain or Santorum, the response is always the same circular “can’t win” arguments, but if Perry can’t put Romney away, why not take a chance on a long shot? Because I think whoever gets the GOP nomination is going to get a huge boost next summer in Tampa when the Republican ticket becomes “[BLANK]-RUBIO.” With Marco Rubio as a running mate, I’d say any Republican would be at least an even bet against Obama.

And now it’s time to take notice of another fact: Last night on Sean Hannity’s show, Sarah Palin — having previously specified September as the deadline for her to enter the 2012 field — appeared to extend her timeline to November. That alone is enough to make all the pundits groan at the prospect of another two months of will-she-or-won’t-she drama, but what do you make of this?

“This is going to be such an unconventional election cycle. … Mark my word, it is going to be an unconventional type of election process.”

Is Palin hinting at a possible third-party campaign? I strongly doubt it, but neither would I rule it out, and I’m also thinking about the possibility that the changes to the delegate apportionment rules — no “winner-take-all” primaries in March — could lead to a brokered convention at Tampa. Whatever the tea-leaf readers see in Palin’s comments, I think she’s absolutely right: 2012 has already been an unconventional election cycle, and people should be skeptical about bandwagon organizers who think they can predict events many months in advance.

UPDATE: On Twitter, Jerry Wilson reacted to this story by saying “@AceOfSpadesHQ hardest hit,” which is perhaps a bit unfair. Yes, Ace jumped on the Perry bandwagon, but he’s honest enough to admit: “The Perry erosion I believe a little more — it’s been a not-terrific two weeks for him.”

Ace keeps bashing Bachmann over the Gardasil thing (and more) as if destroying Bachmann will help Perry, which I think is mistaken. Perhaps this is the best place to point out something I think has been under-appreciated: Bachmann’s claims last week about Gardasil have exposed her to much criticism, but she had less to lose than Perry did.

Bachmann’s highest national poll rating — by Rasmussen, in the immediate wake of Bachmann’s strong performance in the June debate in New Hampshire — was 19 percent. Her highest RCP average was 14% on July 20, and as soon as Perry got in, Bachmann’s support dropped rapidly, so that her current RCP number is 7.7 percent. And here’s the lead of my American Spectator column last week about the Tampa debate:

Rick Perry came into last night’s debate here with a target on his back, leading in the polls only a month after his late entry into the Republican presidential campaign. His fellow GOP candidates fired at the Texas governor all night, but it wasn’t until Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann said the phrase “innocent little 12-year-old girls” that he suffered any serious wound. . . .

Without regard to whether Bachmann helped herself, she hurt Perry with that phrase. It hurt him with the Traditionalist Mom (and Grandma) Vote, who are an important segment of GOP primary voters. You can say Bachmann hurt Perry unfairly, and suffered damage herself as a consequence, but you cannot deny that she hurt him. So if Ace wants to get some payback on Bachmann, that’s his choice, but I don’t think hurting Bachmann will help Perry.


Category: Election 2012, Herman Cain, Mitt Romney, Polls, Republicans, Rick Perry, Rick Santorum

A Mom Named Stacy

Posted on | September 21, 2011 | 49 Comments

Names are curious things. Sometimes I have to explain what should be obvious, that the name of this blog is “The Other McCain” because I did not support my distant cousin John’s candidacy in the 2008 GOP primary campaign. (Don’t Blame Me, I Voted for Bob Barr!) And when people ask, “Should I call you Bob? Rob? What?” I explain that I’ve always been Stacy McCain, but learned early in my journalism career to use my full name as my byline, because otherwise newspaper readers would call the office and ask to speak to her.

This kind of “Boy Named Sue” situation is something I’ve lived with since childhood — “My fists got hard and my wits got keen,” as the Man in Black said — and so I’ve learned to shrug off such things as the 2003 Fountains of Wayne song, “Stacy’s Mom.” Which brings us, by a roundabout route, to my friend Lisa Graas and her friend whom we’ll have to call The Other Stacy.

Stacy Trasancos is a married mother of seven who lives in Worcester, Massachusetts. A twice-divorced former Texas Baptist, she converted to Catholicism, quit her job as a research chemist and became a full-time mom and homemaker. She blogs at Accepting Abundance.

You may well wonder why Mrs. Trasancos would be targeted by trolls who leave comments like this:

The answer to that mystery — but it’s really no mystery, is it? — is that Mrs. Trasancos wrote something that offended the Left, which responded with the Civility™ for which the Left is so famous. Her offense was to write an Aug. 26 post called “Can’t Even Go to the Park,” which described her reaction to everyday circumstances of public life in the Bay Gay State:

The same people who say I shouldn’t impose my morality on them, are imposing immorality on me and my children to the point that I literally have a hard time even leaving my home anymore to do something as simple as visit the park. And this is freedom?

Within a matter of hours, Mrs. Trasancos’s maternal complaint had drawn the attention of those Advocates of Tolerance whose common parlance is obscene epithet-laden expressions of misogynystic hatred, otherwise known as The Gay Community. My friend Lisa Graas urged her fellow Catholics to support Mrs. Trasancos against “the tactics of the ‘gay rights’ movement against people of faith,” but Lisa is wrong about one thing: Hate isn’t merely their “tactic.” Read more

Category: Catholics, Gays, Liberals, Lisa Graas, Massachusetts

Yes, Tea Party, The Ship Refuses To Turn On A Dime

Posted on | September 21, 2011 | 19 Comments

by Smitty (via Insty)

The Daily Caller has a post on a Tea Party challenge to Speaker Boehner.

Republican leaders face a growing perception among some tea party factions that they are not interested in holding the Obama administration’s feet to the fire on spending. Some say the Republicans talked a good game going into the 2010 midterms but have failed to deliver since winning control of the House of Representatives.

“Everybody knows that the debt ceiling deal was a completely fraudulent deal,” Mark Meckler, national coordinator of the Tea Party Patriots, told The Daily Caller. “We were told that if we passed this deal we wouldn’t be downgraded, but we were still downgraded.”

Sure, everybody knows now, but where has everybody been for the last. . .decades? I credit my awakening to Liberal Facism. Amazon helpfully reminds me that I ordered that in February, 2008. Three and a half years ago. Seems a different lifetime.

I’m still only dimly aware of how screwed up the U.S. economy is. It runs substantially backwards, with the Federal Reserve plucking money from the ether and using it to simulate economic vitality where none exists. The magic spell involves saying ‘Quantitative Easing’, plus some Cthulhu references, and maybe some innocent life forms.

The point here is that the last century of cart-before-horse isn’t going to be undone be the 2010 election. It’s going to be four or five straight Tea Party-driven boots to the head before we can expect anything good out of DC. And that’s if

  • we succeed in breaking the entitlement shackles,
  • people don’t lose heart and want back on the dole,
  • no other egregious external catastrophes of the World War variety spring up.

In other words, if we were talking about any group of people other than Americans, hope would be completely extinguished. American Exceptionalism gives us a shot at a near-run thing.

Keep the feet of the officials in the primary fire, but understand that we can’t lose all of the expertise, or the city slickers will tie up us country Tea Party bumpkins.

Category: Tea Party

Salon Trashes Zooey Deschanel; Dustbury Hardest Hit

Posted on | September 21, 2011 | 21 Comments

by Smitty

I have no problem admitting Zooey is totally Rule 5. A brunette Meg Ryan, even. She even does some recording, in addition to acting roles, with a delightfully retro feel:

Maybe Zooey is insufficiently trashy. Her new show was panned at Salon:

In fact, there are times in tonight’s pilot where Deschanel’s character, Jessica Day — a goofy, highly emotional quasi-basket case recovering from a busted relationship with a cheater named Spencer — seems as though what she needs isn’t True Love, but tough love, or very strong medication. To its credit, “New Girl” seems inclined to critique the Deschanel screen persona when it’s not celebrating it as irresistibly darling. “I could pretend to be more like you, and live on a sparkly rainbow, drive a unicorn around and just sing all the time,” a more jaded female friend tells her. That’s a good start, but it’s really not enough to sustain a very thin, very cutesy sitcom that rarely rises above the merely pleasant.

What should she do, a duet with Katy Perry?

Meanwhile, deep in Oklahoma, a blogger plots courses of action.

Category: Rule 5

Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell: Don’t Care

Posted on | September 21, 2011 | 20 Comments

by Smitty

Via American Power, I guess some policy thing or other happened having to do with Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.

While I’m essentially done with my military involvement, I’m confident that my opinion is mirrored by a huge chunk, if not the overwhelming bulk, of people in uniform: we don’t care. Specifically, no one really cares about anybody else’s junk. Sure, we live and conduct personal hygiene in some relatively immodest ways. Yes, the transcript veers a bit into the graphic from time to time. Indeed, there was some historically reactionary attitude offered toward the alternative lifestyles crowd.

Yet the military is first and foremost about rounds on target in support and defense of the U.S. Constitution. It has never been about being a dating service. My personal interests, sexual or otherwise, have never been a priority. We’re walking back our liberty to behind a line drawn by the UCMJ so that, when the time is up, that liberty is preserved and maximally enjoyable.

I bear no ill will to anyone over their sexuality. Indeed, I have known some gay service members. It never passed the ‘so, what?’ test. The military mission just has no sexual component.

What I hope will be clear to all parties involved is that this was no military decision. It was a political decision, not pure and simple, but impure and complex. The alternative lifestyles crowd may or may not represent a significant constituency within the military (I doubt it, both for reasons of history and temperment) but they appear to contribute cash and work hours to Lefty causes.

Cynically, the Left has used sexual liberation to paper over its strangulation of liberty. In the manner of the thieving tart, the Left has stroked the public erogenous zones with the one hand, while picking the pocket with the other. This military drive-by on DADT is more of same.

My prediction is that, years on, this event shall have proven as meaningful as the President’s budget. The percentage of homosexuals serving in the military will probably hold constant, and the military bias favoring ‘form follows function’ shall be about what it’s always been. The Administration could as well have issued an Executive Order stating 2+2=5. Such thinking was confined to the budget, however.

Update: linked at Daily Pundit.

Category: Uncategorized

Could Michelle Bachmann’s PAC Please Quit Calling My House?

Posted on | September 21, 2011 | 5 Comments

by Smitty

I have the utmost respect for Michelle Bachmann, but her fund raising minions are really irritating Commander-in-Chief, House (CINCHOUSE). And when CINCHOUSE isn’t happy, no one is happy. Michelle’s courage and long-term effort in support of conservative causes are admired and respected. I will contribute further to the PAC when funds are available. At the moment, the robo-calling is truly annoying and not helping matters.

Request the correct people locate the Chris Smith entry in Alexandria, VA and eliminate it from the calling database.

Thanks in advance!

Category: Uncategorized
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