‘Kathleen Parker Is an Idiot — a Remarkably, Stunningly, Jaw-Droppingly Incompetent and Mean Woman’

Posted on | October 5, 2010 | 12 Comments

Oh, wait — Aaron Sorkin wasn’t talking about CNN’s new co-hostess with Client Number Nine!

Let’s be clear about who Aaron Sorkin is and what he does: He is most famous for having created a prime-time soap opera during the 1990s whose only evident purpose was to glamorize liberal Democrats and demonize conservative Republicans. This is a man who, at age 40, was arrested for felony drug possession while trying to board a plane from Burbank to Las Vegas.

That Aaron Sorkin would say bad things about Sarah Palin is not news. What would be news is if I got  linked by Allahpundit.

Hey, wait a minute . . .

I Can’t Figure Out Why Dr. Wolf Is So Conservative

Posted on | October 5, 2010 | 3 Comments

by Smitty

The President’s medical doctor, anti-ObamaCare cousin, Dr. Wolf, is touting the Election Day Tea Party:

Check out #41, Todd Young–my Naval Academy classmate! Go, Navy!
What I can’t grasp is the focus on 50. It’s as though we should. . .stop there, or something. Up that! There isn’t a single Democrat incumbent that doesn’t merit cashiering on 02 Nov. Even if loss of circulation above the neck in your district has turned heads particularly blue, you still want the tattered shreds of the Democrat party that remain; huddled, weakened, fearful, to spend more time planning their retirement after the 112th Congress than they do anything else.
So support your local candidate!

PATRICK MURRAY for U.S. CONGRESS

Christopher Malagisi Urges GOP to Remember the True Lessons of 1994

Posted on | October 5, 2010 | Comments Off on Christopher Malagisi Urges GOP to Remember the True Lessons of 1994

The president of the Young Conservatives Coalition offers constructive criticism at the Washington Examiner:

As Republicans ready to lead at least one chamber of congress in 2010 it would be wise for them to revisit the unfortunate mistakes of the 1994 “Republican Revolution.”  There is no doubt the 1994 revolution changed congress and passed important legislation such as welfare reform and the first balanced budget in over a generation but the revolution was incomplete because it did not accomplish what it set out to do.  In order for Republicans to be successful in the upcoming congress they should learn from their prior mistakes in order to avoid costly setbacks again for their party.

Palin Backers Suspect Huckabee Loyalists on Joe Miller Staff Behind E-Mail Leak

Posted on | October 5, 2010 | 37 Comments

“This is the worst sort of betrayal I’ve ever seen,” one source close to Sarah Palin said in describing the leak of an e-mail that Todd Palin sent to Joe Miller, the Alaska GOP Senate candidate.

The source noted that some of Miller’s campaign staff have connections to 2008 Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, and suggested that these staffers have been advising Miller to distance himself from Palin.

Based on information in a post by notorious Alaska anti-Palin blogger Jeanne Devon, one pro-Palin source in Alaska deduced that the leak could only have come from Miller’s staff — unless Miller himself leaked the e-mail.

UPDATE: Cubachi, Sissy Willis and other Palin supporters on Twitter had initially asked me to confirm that the e-mail is genuine — and obviously it is.

What was truly shocking, however, was to discover that some employee of the Miller campaign apparently thought it was a clever political strategy to leak this private communication to a liberal Democrat like Devon. Even if a Miller campaign staffer wished to embarrass Todd and Sarah Palin, why give an exclusive like this to a blogger who has made her career attacking Republicans?

But Miller’s staff has been “f–ing up everything” in recent weeks, said my source, pointing to a number of tactical and strategic blunders by the Republican campaign for which the Huckabee-connected staffers are believed to be responsible.

UPDATE II: In my haste to get this post online, I may have pulled the trigger too quickly — a hazard of the light-speed news cycle in the Internet age. 

A few words have been changed, so that no one draws the wrong conclusion.

There are a couple of stories behind this story, and my sources (I have more than one) are telling me to cool my jets until this unfortunate situation can be officially clarified. But the problem of divided loyalties within the Miller campaign staff — that some Huckabee supporters are “f–ing everything up” — is dead-on accurate. For several months, I’ve been concerned that the mid-term campaign might suffer because some Republicans are looking ahead to 2012.

Miller’s supporters in Alaska are learning the hard way why I say you can’t spell Huckabee without an “F.”

UPDATE III: Give credit to Dave Weigel (who is certainly no Palin fan) for pointing out the obvious:

It’s not news that Todd Palin is — what’s a nice word? — zealous in his defense of his wife.

Indeed, and as I suggested in my American Spectator article last month, the Palins have been burned so often by “disgruntled” sources and scoop-crazed journalists that I feel kind of guilty even having to do reporting about them.

UPDATE IV: Talk about earth-shattering news! I get linked by Allapundit about as often as Aaron Sorkin says nice things about Republicans. So let’s see what He Who Seldom Linketh has to say:

The big media takeaway, obviously, is Todd Palin allegedly demanding an endorsement from Joe Miller, which supposedly points to a Palin presidential run. The way the e-mail reads to me, though, is more as an accusation of ingratitude, not an expectation of official support. . . . Miller forwarded the alleged e-mail from Todd to a number of people (their addresses are blacked out), but it looks like they’re members of his staff — and presumably one of them is either the leaker or forwarded the e-mail on to someone who leaked it to the anti-Palin blogger. The question is . . . why? Even if there are Huckabee loyalists involved in the campaign who want to trip Palin up, why create a headache for Miller by doing this now? Wait until after election day.

OK, one point at a time:

• Is this e-mail a signal that Palin is running in 2012? — The obvious answer is, “Maybe.” The GOP has for decades picked its presidential nominees according to the It’s His Turn principle and — along with Huckabee and Mitt Romney — Governor Palin can make that claim in 2012. Earlier this week, I had a conversation with my 11-year-old son Jefferson, explaining how it is that people organize presidential campaigns. And I explained that at sometime around Thanksgiving (i.e., after the election) there will be meetings at which the prospects are evaluated: “OK, if we’re running, what do we need to do now? When do we form the exploratory committee?” et cetera.  Anyone with two eyes and a brain can see that Team Sarah is keeping that possibility in mind. The victories of Palin’s endorsees in GOP primaries certainly hasn’t diminished that prospect. But getting those endorsees — including Miller, Sharron Angle, Rand Paul and Christine O’Donnell — to the winner’s circle on Nov. 2 is clearly crucial.
• Did Todd Palin “demand” an endorsement from Miller? — Joe Miller was a Sarah Palin supporter before anybody outside Alaska ever heard of Sarah Palin. But, just as obviously, Todd Palin is foremost among Sarah Palin supporters, unless you expect Chuck and Sally Heath to throw Sarah under the bus. So the question expressed by the Todd-to-Joe e-mail could be best summarized in three words: “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?”
• Are there Huckabee loyalists on the Miller campaign staff? — It won’t take a clever person 10 minutes of Googling to figure this out. There are also Huckabee supporters who are volunteers and contributors to the Miller campaign.
• Did such a person leak that e-mail to “trip Palin up”? — That’s the big question, and you can imagine why some people would suspect that. There may be an innocent explanation, or perhaps somebody on the Miller staff is about to become a fresh unemployment statistic.

Now, I have never been a Mike Huckabee fan. He seems like a nice guy and is a very skilled communicator. But the two big strikes against him in my book are (a) he is too much of an open-borders softie, and (b) at a couple of points during the 2008 campaign, Huck made some atrocious class-warfare statements.

I have said that the best thing for Huckabee to do would be to spend two weeks in an intensive cram course on Austrian economics at the Ludwig von Mises Institute, disabusing himself of any inclination toward “social justice” concepts. The U.S. government is not the First Baptist Church soup kitchen, OK?

Given my profound doubts toward the Huck-for-President bandwagon, I harbor doubts about the political judgment of anyone who ever got aboard that bandwagon. So if ex-Huckabee people are “f–ing everything up” on the Miller campaign staff, I’m willing to attribute that to incompetence, rather than anti-Palin malice.

At any rate, thanks to Allahpundit for linking me. Did I mention that Wednesday is my birthday? Did y’all hit the tip yet?

UPDATE V: Ian Lazaran at Conservatives for Palin correctly observes that the e-mail destroys two favorite liberal anti-Palin memes, including this one:

That the Palins are not close. If they aren’t close, why is Todd sending out e-mails asking a candidate to endorse his wife?

Surely the Grassy Knoll theorists of Anti-Palindom will find some answer to that question which fits their Sarah-Is-Satan worldview. Some liberal bloggers are already trying to spin my reporting as if it somehow substantiates that worldview. It’s either (a) “If a pro-Palin journalist reports something, it must be false,” or (b) “If a journalist contradicts anti-Palin bloggers, he’s obviously evil.”

This is merely an extension of the problem I described in last month in “How to Write an Anti-Palin Hit Piece.” Once someone sets out in search of that “smoking gun” scandal — the silver bullet that will destroy Saran Palin — every new tidbit of information is evaluated from that perspective.

BREAKING: Doug Hoffman Ends NY-23 Campaign, Endorses GOP’s Doheny

Posted on | October 5, 2010 | 14 Comments

Adirondack Daily Enterprise via Maggie Haberman of Politico:

SARANAC LAKE — Doug Hoffman has dropped out of the race to represent New York’s 23rd Congressional District. Hoffman’s name will still appear on the ballot on the Conservative line; however, Hoffman said Tuesday morning that he wants his supporters to vote for Republican Matt Doheny.
“Our nation is at a crossroads, and it is imperative that on Election Day we wrest control of Congress from Nancy Pelosi and the Democrat majority,” Hoffman said in a prepared statement. . . .

Read the whole thing.

UPDATE: Now a Memeorandum thread, and Ed Morrissey at Hot Air writes:

The split on the Right last November allowed Bill Owens to win the race  . . .

The was no “split on the Right,” because Dede Scozzafava was never “Right.” Dede was, as Michelle Malkin famously said, “An ACORN-Friendly, Big Labor-Backing, Tax-and-Spend Radical in GOP Clothing.” Ed is closer to the mark here:

Hoffman . . . has proven himself much more of a team player and class act. . . .

Indeed, considering the dishonest smear campaign by which Doheny eked out a 700-vote win in this year’s GOP primary, Hoffman’s endorsement is one of the most generous and noble acts of recent political memory.

Hey, Look at Bristol Now!

Posted on | October 5, 2010 | 3 Comments

Bristol Palin on Dancing With the Stars:

Via Cubachi, who also links Rachelle Friberg’s interview with Bristol, who broke my heart:

I don’t read blogs . . .

She really knows how to hurt a guy, huh? Here I fly all the way to Alaska and drive to Wasilla to hang out with the First Dude, and the First Daughter doesn’t even notice.

America’s Least Respected Conservative Blogger™  . . .

When Will Christine O’Donnell TV Ads Hammer ‘Baldy the Tax-Hiking Wanker’?

Posted on | October 5, 2010 | 8 Comments

Woke up this morning to discover that last night’s post about Christine O’Donnell’s new ad was the top item at Memeorandum, with links by Da Tech Guy, Left Coast Rebel, Gateway Pundit and, of course, not Allahpundit. Yet I will quote He Who Linketh Not:

Not a syllable is breathed here about policy, party affiliation, or conservatism; it’s a straightforward “everyman versus the establishment” appeal which, thanks to O’Donnell’s poise and the direct, soft-spoken conversational appeal to the camera, ends up being quite arresting.

RightKlik at Left Coast Rebel sees the ad as a familar product of its creator, Fred Davis. Our MSNBC-watching friend Pete Da Tech Guy reports:

The Morning Joe crowd is laughing their heads off. I’m sorry they have no clue. If I’m O’Donnell I’m playing the clip of them laughing at her at every rally there is. That clip of the Morning Joe team laughing at her is a fundraiser waiting to happen.

This is predictable, and let them laugh. Dave Weigel has observed that liberals seem obsessed with O’Donnell “because at the end of the day they expect to beat her.” Their expectation may yet be disappointed and, meanwhile, O’Donnell is drawing media fire that might otherwise be directed at other Republicans. Jim Hoft at Gateway Pundit notes a non-coincidence:

We haven’t seen the state-run media attack anyone so viciously since Sarah Palin came on the national scene in 2008.

This is not a coincidence because O’Donnell was the knockout blow in a rapid one-two combination — following Joe Miller’s Alaska triumph over Lisa Murkowski — aimed at the GOP Establishment by Sarah Palin, Tea Party Express, Mark Levin, and others who have sided with grassroots conservatives in this year’s primaries. After Miller beat Murky, the Establishment saw this punch coming and still couldn’t beat O’Donnell.

Knowing that O’Donnell represents the more powerful populist side of the Republican coalition — the one with the votes — the media are endeavoring to destroy her, to tell their audience: “See? We told you. They’re all a bunch of kooks.” Or, more to the point, a bunch of clowns.

If I had to offer one criticism of the O’Donnell campaign, it would be that they seem to be moving too slow. Three days after the Sept. 14 primary, Byron York called attention to the vulnerability of Democrat Chris Coons:

Coons, 47, is the top executive of New Castle County, home to a majority of Delaware’s population. From a Republican perspective, there’s one really important thing to know about his time in office: In 2004, when Coons first ran for the job, he promised not to raise taxes. Since then he has raised taxes not once, not twice, but three times.
Coons inherited a surplus. Celebrating victory on election night in 2004, he said his “top priority would be to continue balancing the budget without increasing property taxes,” according to an account in the local News Journal. Yet in 2006, he pushed through a 5 percent increase in property taxes. In 2007, he raised property taxes 17.5 percent. In 2009, he raised them another 25 percent.
Coons wanted to raise other taxes, too. He proposed a hotel tax, a tax on paramedic services, even a tax on people who call 911 from cell phones.

A week ago, the O’Donnell campaign sent out this mailer:

Having some relevant experience with video production, I bet it wouldn’t take 48 hours for anyone with access to Final Cut Pro to turn those basic facts into a hard-hitting 30-second ad. And had I been in charge of the O’Donnell campaign, saturating the Delaware TV market with that attack ad would have been Priority One. Yet here we are three weeks after the primary, and it hasn’t been done yet. So where is the attack ad making that argument?

“Chris Coons: He’s bald. He raised taxes. And he masturbates way too much.”

Make him deny it!

NC-2: Tammy Bruce Has a Fever and the Only Cure Is More Renee Ellmers

Posted on | October 5, 2010 | 2 Comments

In case you’ve forgotten, Renee Ellmers is the Republican challenger to North Carolina Democrat Bob Etheridge, notorious for man-handling pesky students with video cameras.

Tammy Bruce has audio of her radio interview with Ellmers, and also calls our attention to this provocative ad from Ellmers:

That ad should be enough to make Ellmers an instant contender for CAIR’s coveted “Republicans We’d Like to Car-Bomb” Award.

RENEE ELLMERS for U.S. CONGRESS

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