The Other McCain

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

Brown Clown Going Down: ‘Sorry Charlie’ Crist Isn’t Tanned, He’s Toast in Florida

Posted on | September 26, 2010 | 10 Comments

The latest poll tells the sad tale for Mr. RINO-No-More:

A statewide poll released Saturday night shows Republican Marco Rubio building on his lead over independent challenger Charlie Crist, while Democrat Kendrick Meek appears to be closing in on Crist in the closely watched contest.
Rubio is favored by 40 percent of likely voters, up from 38 percent last month; Crist’s support has dwindled to 28 percent from 33 percent, according to the Mason-Dixon Research & Associates survey of 625 likely Florida voters. . . .
The poll found that Meek is gaining on Crist, with his support rising sharply to 23 percent of likely voters, up from 18 percent. Nine percent are undecided.
“Rubio seems to be in a solid position to win, while Crist is fading,” said Mason-Dixon pollster Brad Coker: “Crist is bleeding Democrats to Meek and independents to both Meek and Rubio.”

Hey, I knew it all along. Immediately after Crist declared he was running as an independent, when the polls showed him leading the three-way — keep in mind Crist led every single Quinnipiac poll from April through August — some people seemed on the verge of panic, but I never broke a sweat.

Why? Because independent voters can’t stand a waffler. Read more

Category: Election, Florida, Marco Rubio, Polls, Senate

Estimate The Head ‘Splosion If Bubba Saw This

Posted on | September 26, 2010 | 10 Comments

by Smitty (h/t Lucianne)

Hillary? Sorry. Lady Gaga? Not really.

Lady Gaga dressed as Hillary? Dare I say ‘strangely compelling’? Read more

Category: Celebrities, Hillary Clinton

VIDEO: A Short Tea Party Overview

Posted on | September 26, 2010 | 10 Comments

by Smitty

“The Tea Party: Brewing up a movement” features none other than the Instapundit, especially on the origins of the Tea Party, and other good speakers, like Dr. Bruce Wheeler, an historian. It’s very slightly Tennessee specific, and focuses on the Tea Party’s irritation, and desire for an outlet:

My (mostly useless) prognostication is that the Tea Party will have massive effect this November, and things will get interesting. The economics of the current crisis are far too centralized. Pure political liberty, for which the Tea Party currently agitates, is worth fighting for, but the cash really pours out of DC in ways that Tea Partiers have failed to grasp. The cash calls the shots.

Discussion of the federal spending and the national debt is crucial, but public discussion has thus far steered mostly clear of the unfunded pension liabilities. The “fertilizer will hit the air circulator” when the realization sinks that carrying out a Tea Party Restoration will require a lot of people getting screwed.

For example, as a Navy Reservist on the cusp of retirement, the benefits I’m hypothetically owed a couple of decades out may simply not be there. Or, in insisting that “I get my cut”, I may personally help perpetuate a lousy situation. Given the choice between perpetuating unfairness or absorbing it, I’m in favor of the latter, but that’s a sentiment you cannot broadcast.

Thus, the Tea Party needs to keep doing what it’s doing, and not lose sight of the ideals and principles the country is founded upon. Progressivism, the Devil’s politics, has offered enslavement disguised as a cheap imitation of liberty. Brace yourself for pain, Tea Party, in reclaiming that liberty, and don’t let the liars distract. On the other hand, don’t pretend legitimate concerns don’t exist.

Thank you, Instapundit, for your leadership and good cheer.

Category: Instapundit, Tea Party, Video

Rule 5 Sunday

Posted on | September 26, 2010 | 24 Comments

by Smitty

Rule 5 Sunday, and a good variety of links. Enjoy!

UPDATE: sorry for missing the link, Paco.

  • Piece of Work in Progress:
  • Theo Spark:
  • St. Angilbert Press:
  • Reaganite Republican Resistance:
  • Paco Enterprises:
  • The Lonely Conservative:
  • GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD:
  • Smash Mouth Politics:
    • There is your Rule 5. Keep the links coming, and I’ll see you in a week!
    The Tear Line of Shame

    Giovana Huidobro looks like the sort of Rule 5 that we actively discourage. Appreciating beauty should never go in the direction of homewrecking.

    Category: Rule 5

    In Defense of Doug Hoffman

    Posted on | September 25, 2010 | 119 Comments

    “Doug Hoffman isn’t even in Congress yet and he’s already lining his pockets with tens of thousands of dollars. . . . Doug Hoffman — lining his pockets like a typical Washington politician.”
    — Doheny for Congress, September, 2010

    “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.”
    — Exodus 20:16 (KJV)

    My previous post about the unfortunate situation in New York’s 23rd District seems to have been misunderstood. Some have suggested that I am striking a “True Conservative” (purist) stance; others are calling Doug Hoffman a “sore loser” a la Crist/Murkowski/Castle. Both interpretations are mistaken.

    1. In explaining that Republican candidate Matt Doheny can’t win Nov. 2, I was trying to give readers an advance warning, because I know what we’ll hear on Nov. 3 after Doheny loses. Hoffman will be blamed, and this will be filtered through the MSM’s warped prism to support their usual explanation for any GOP defeat: Conservatives are the cause of the Republican Party’s problems. That this argument is false, I think all my regular readers will agree — even those readers who were scalding me in the comments of the previous post. Only by explaining the background of the situation in NY-23 now, and giving you advance warning of the outcome, could I prevent you from being deceived by the MSM’s post-election spin.
    2. Hoffman is not a sore loser. As has been previously explained, the Conservative Party of New York decided after the 2009 special election that Hoffman would again be their candidate for 2010. I heard Mike Long say that on Election Night at the Hotel Saranac, as soon as it became evident that Hoffman had lost to Owens. Hoffman had “stepped up,” as Long said, when nobody else was interested in challenging Dede Scozzafava, and the Conservative Party was going to stick with him through thick or thin. Given that kind of steadfast support, and having accepted the Conservative nomination, should Hoffman tell Mike Long, “Thanks, but I’m going to quit now”? No, of course not. To do so would be dishonorable.

    It was because of his desire to unify the Republican/Conservative coalition — the only hope for defeating Bill Owens in NY-23 — that Hoffman sought the GOP nomination. When Mike Long issued his May warning that Doheny was not acceptable to the Conservative Party, which was sticking with Hoffman all the way, that was the time for the voices that are now crying “unity” to have spoken up and rallied Republicans behind Hoffman.

    That did not happen, and now I’m going to tell you why it didn’t happen. Go back to March of this year, when Hoffman was the first candidate to officially announce for the GOP primary in NY-23. At that point, as Hot Air’s Ed Morrissey said, “This time . . . Hoffman has to be an early favorite to run the table. He has a high profile, thanks to his amazing run last year.” Given Hoffman’s overwhelming advantage, why did Matt Doheny decide to challenge Hoffman for the GOP nomination? And why did Doheny win?

    As I told you before, Doheny invested $1 million of his own money in the campaign and yet, as the Sept. 14 primary approached, it appeared that Hoffman would win anyway. That’s when the Doheny campaign sent out these two mailers:




    The first mailer accused Hoffman of wrongly enriching himself, and the second mailer involved Hoffman’s payment of an FEC fine for campaign-finance violations. Doheny’s campaign also spent thousands of dollars to turn those accusations into radio and TV ads.

    The accusation that Hoffman was “lining his pockets” is so vile and baseless that I regret even having to rebut it. Let’s go back to the 2009 campaign:

    A month before Election Day, the Hoffman campaign had been nearly broke. Despite endorsements from organizations like Club for Growth and the pro-life Susan B. Anthony List, the Conservative Party candidate’s challenge to liberal Republican state assemblywoman Dede Scozzafava was on the verge of fizzling out in early October.
    “Truth be known, for a long time, we were running on empty,” said Hoffman, sitting in his campaign headquarters the morning after the election. “If we didn’t get the support when we got it — well, it was touch-and-go for a while.”

    During that lean period, Hoffman spent his own money to keep the campaign going. The campaign subsequently reimbursed him for those expenses, which is entirely legal and proper. For the Doheny campaign to try to portray such a routine and honest transaction as Hoffman “lining his own pockets” with “special interest money” is absolutely dishonest.

    The explanation of the FEC fine is equally innocent. The McCain-Feingold law requires campaigns to provide notification within 48 hours of all contributions over $1,000 received in the last 20 days before the election. There were 37 such contributions (totalling $55,000) which the Hoffman campaign received between Oct. 15-31. (Election Day was Nov. 3, so the 48-hour notification requirement obviously did not apply from Nov. 1 onward.)

    None of these contributions were illegal or secret. The only violation was the failure to make notification within 48 hours. And, remembering that the Hoffman campaign was understaffed and in danger of going broke in early October — before Dick Armey and Sarah Palin made their endorsements — it’s easy to understand why the required notifications were not made in a sufficiently timely manner.

    Yet there were additional mitigating circumstances, as the Hoffman campaign explained to the Watertown newspaper:

    Robert H. Ryan, the candidate’s spokesman, blamed SecurePay.com, the campaign’s Internet credit card processor for the missing reports.
    “We received an avalanche of money in the final weeks of the (last) campaign,” he said Tuesday. “When it hit zenith, the credit card processor could not handle the volume.”
    Daniel A. Ehring, an Albany lawyer representing Mr. Hoffman, said the campaign started noticing discrepancies in its actual and reported contributions on Oct. 20 – one day after FreedomWorks chairman and former House majority leader Richard Armey endorsed Mr. Hoffman.
    By Oct. 24 – two days after former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin backed Mr. Hoffman – the candidate’s staffers were receiving numerous phone calls from “irate campaign contributors” who were double and triple billed. Others, the attorney said, were charged $1,000 when they gave $100.
    This continued until Nov. 2, the day before the election, Mr. Ehring said in a letter soon after the last election to Northern Merchants Services, SecurePay’s parent company.
    Despite numerous phone calls from the campaign, Mr. Ehring said the number of billing issues only increased before the vendor ceased all communication with Mr. Hoffman’s team.

    Ask any campaign official who has experience with online contributions. These kinds of problems are common enough to cause major headaches for even the best-financed campaigns with the most professional staff. That these problems overwhelmed the resources of a grassroots operation like Doug Hoffman’s 2009 campaign, putting them in violation of the 48-hour notification requirement, is hardly surprising.

    The FEC assessed a total fine of $6,930 in the case and, while the Hoffman campaign might have appealed the ruling and gone to court, the attorney’s fees for such litigation would have exceeded the amount of the fine, so they paid the fine in August.

    However, it wasn’t until Sept. 13 — the day before this year’s primary — that the FEC publicly released its report in the case, by which time the Doheny campaign had long since sent its mailers and run its TV ads falsely accusing Hoffman of “lining his pockets” and implying that this FEC fine was somehow evidence of corruption.

    So now you know what Matt Doheny did with his $1 million campaign and how he won the GOP primary by 700 votes.

    And I know Doug Hoffman. I’ve met him, met his wife, met his friends and his neighbors and his grassroots supporters. Everyone who knows him will tell you that Doug is a thoroughly decent, honest, Christian man. On Nov. 2, will those people vote for Doheny, who last year made the maximum donation to Dede Scozzafava and this year spent his money to defame Doug Hoffman?

    It’s a free country, and people have to decide for themselves what to do in such a situation. I can only speak for myself.

    Hoffman was a hero when we badly needed a hero. I cannot abandon him now, no matter what anyone else may say.

    And I tell you this: Matt Doheny will not be elected to Congress.

    Not this year. Not ever.

    DOUG HOFFMAN for U.S. CONGRESS

    Category: Congress, Doug Hoffman, Election, New York

    VIDEO: Allen West to Barack Obama: ‘Welcome to the Jungle’

    Posted on | September 25, 2010 | 22 Comments

    by Smitty

    The Shark Tank has 1:48 of pure righteousness:

    It sounds like an impromptu Tea Party may break out on 11 October down in Florida. How will the POTUS stand up to a Jungle Tea Party? Promises to be interesting.

    ALLEN WEST for CONGRESS

    Category: Barack Obama, Florida

    Do You Share My View That Cohen’s Ideas Are Symptomatic Of Why Progressivism Must Be Utterly Rejected?

    Posted on | September 25, 2010 | 29 Comments

    by Smitty (h/t HotAir)

    I wish good health and long life to Richard Cohen. Let’s start off in a positive vein, as, turning to the risible pile of false ideas he served up in Tuesday’s WaPo, the opening sentence represents the nicest part of this post.
    The title refers to the survey in the right column of the page posing the question “Do you share Cohen’s view that the GOP is ‘unfit to govern’?” Fit to govern, Cohen? Do you really want to go there, after a Democrat brought a comic in on Friday to have his colonoscopy result read into the Congressional record? On the same day where the Civil Rights Commission heard just exactly how little the Democrat party and its political appointees care about the sanctity of elections? Unfit to govern. Allow me to wish good health upon you again, in lieu of expressing a less savory opinion, Cohen.
    Moving on to the column proper, “Republicans under a spell”:

    Cohen Smitty
    Christine O’Donnell, the Tea Party candidate from lil’ ol’ Delaware, confesses to have once “dabbled into witchcraft” — a fittingly ungrammatical revelation that not only was to be expected but explains what has happened to the Republican Party. Someone — possibly you know who — has cast a spell on it, and now it has a candidate whose main contribution to political thought or, indeed, the plight of the poor is to have railed against masturbation, which she likened to adultery. Only a spell can explain such thinking. Or she was referring to High School. Of course, you were, no doubt, too busy translating The Odyssey or whatever to have a life, explore, do anything regrettable.
    Only a spell also can explain how Newt Gingrich, possibly a presidential candidate, can attribute the politics of Barack Obama to “Kenyan, anti-colonial behavior.” Obama allegedly picked up this behavior from his father, whom he knew only fleetingly, which is to say almost not at all, and who has long been dead. This, as Gingrich and others under the spell can tell you, is proof of the demonic power that can come out of the grave, enter the White House (look, the gate-crashing Salahis did it) and pervade the very body and mind of the commander in chief. It’s enough to give you the willies. Look, if you don’t know about Bill Ayers, then what exactly is it that you know, Cohen? The Newt segue is a non-sequitur from your Tea Party starting point. Or maybe Newt trolled you like you troll your readers.
    Similarly, only a spell can explain why much of the Republican Party insists on calling Obama a socialist. To apply this label to the very man who saved Big Finance, who rescued Goldman Sachs and the rest of the boys, who gave a Heimlich to the barely breathing banks, can only be explained by witchcraft or voodoo or something like that. It has caused the GOP to lose its mind. Obama did something similar to the American auto industry, saving it from itself. He did not let it fail or nationalize it, as a socialist would have done, but pumped cash into it so that — this is me speaking — it can fail later on. At least give some linkage in the web version to where you think any of these things occurred, Cohen. The truth is that We The People think TARP was a big fat stinking lie, a run on the till by thieves knowing that the economic jig is essentially up, and a payoff for electoral favors done. One way of telling if your opinions are idiotic is whether they are congruent with those of Paul Krugman, the World’s Ugliest Cheerleader. After the election, when we shine a light down the dark hole, we’ll grasp the depths of the falsehood of the current fiscal policy.
    The unseen effects of witchcraft are clearly the reason about one-fifth of Americans believe Obama is a Muslim. In fact, as time goes by, more and more people subscribe to this belief — a phenomenon so at odds with logic or rational thinking that the explanation has to lie in the darkest of arts — witchcraft and voodoo. (The GOP does the voodoo that you do so well.) Many other Americans think Obama was not born in the United States but abroad, in Indonesia or Kenya or even Hawaii, which unknown to a lot of people is an American state. (It’s Alaska that’s a foreign country.) The new GOP Senate candidate and Tea Party favorite in Alaska, Joe Miller, answers almost any question by referring to the Constitution. Nothing in it about Social Security, he observed. It also permitted slavery, he fails to observe. Since you bring it up, Cohen, why do you bring it up? Has it occurred to you that bringing it up tends to bring up the number? If you think the idea not worth discussing, then we could at least agree on something. But you insist on bringing this up. Possibly you are in the 20% who feel comfortable making that kind of assertion about another person’s relationship with the Almighty. However, precious few bloggers deign to mention it. The idea seems to have the most traction on the Left. Is that because the Left are the 20% (I doubt that) or the Left feels this is a fine, shiny distractor? Ah, now there we may have something.
    This fatuous infatuation with the Constitution, particularly the 10th Amendment, is clearly the work of witches, wiccans and wackos. It has nothing to do with America’s real problems and, if taken too seriously, would cause an economic and political calamity. The Constitution is a wonderful document, quite miraculous actually, but only because it has been wisely adapted to changing times. To adhere to the very word of its every clause hardly is respectful to the Founding Fathers. They were revolutionaries who embraced change. That’s how we got here. [breaking format for readability]

    Really, Cohen, really? The oath I swore to support and defend the Constitution of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic, is fatuous? The millions who have endured, bled and died for the ideals in that document are “witches, wiccans and wackos”? Would you go on an FSO tour and tell that to the troops, please? Because they would cheerfully tell you that they support and defend your First Amendment right to sound like an utter worm in print, sir. “nothing to do with America’s real problems”, you continue? The very problems themselves are predicated on the ignorance you espouse. Lacking the eminent domain over the individual wallet, an un-elected, un-accountable Federal Reserve to support endless irresponsibility, your ideas, your ilk, are the source of our economic and political calamity. This may help explain your vigorous finger pointing.
    “wisely adapted to changing times” when, exactly? Abstract principles like liberty are invariant. Available technology varies over time. The historical truth is that Progressives perverted princiles in ways that may have seemed expedient at the time, but have proven devastating, giving rise to a Ruling Class of incumbents that are currently robbing the country blind in their avarice. Have I wished you long life lately? I sincerely want you to outgrow these moronic ideas and repent of them.
    “To adhere to the very word of its every clause hardly is respectful to the Founding Fathers. They were revolutionaries who embraced change.” While I am toeing a pleasant, relatively civil line here, Cohen, I submit that those founding fathers would not. They were revolutionaries against the kind of Ruling Class authoritarianism in front of which you cannot wait to genuflect. They embraced liberty, and, I daresay, have put a bayonette through falsehoods like ObamaCare.
    [returning to tabular format]

    Cohen Smitty
    To hear Republican conservatives at the recent Values Voter Summit was to hear speaker after speaker talk about things that could not be seen and did not exist. One is the so-called homosexual agenda, which has made a political movement out of sexual orientation. This agenda, whatever it may be, must be a mystery to gay conservatives, of which there are several. And so what exactly do you think Harry Reid was recently trying to attach to the defense authorization bill, Cohen? A lousy Hardy Boys mystery? An Archie comic book? Stephen Colbert’s colonoscopy results? One of your columns, insofar as it differs from a colonoscopy result?
    O’Donnell is where the GOP has been heading for some time. The party’s leaders have steadfastly refused to take a stand against any idiocy, even suggesting they agree that Obama might not be a Christian. Their intellectuals have supported and advanced the know-nothingness of Sarah Palin. Nothing to them is beyond the pale. This party is not fit to govern. It would support the Joker but not Batman, who hangs too much with Robin. Here’s the deal, Cohen: if the American people agree with you and the Democrats, we’ll know on 02 November. When We The People drive an electoral bus right over the Progressive falsehoods you espouse, my suggestion is that you just retire and go work on a memoir. I’ll give you one last read, as you weep for Socialist Utopia Lost, but then we must truly set about ignoring your useless distractions. You’ll have ceased to be fun, and be just another brick in a wall of false prophets.
    So now it has a candidate in Delaware who truly is a career politician. She seems to have no means of support except campaign funds. She supposedly lives in her headquarters, although this is somewhat in dispute. Whatever the case, she has no job and no views worth a moment’s consideration. (She even appalls Karl Rove.) She’s not likely to win, but the way things are going this year, she just might. People are angry. People are mad. The night is dark.
    Witch way out of here?    		 The ~$2 million she raised in a week are a clear sign the correctness of your guage of We The People. Oh, and your guage is broken, Cohen. Your snarky little troll editorial is spent, and my rage at your lousy ideas with it. Truly sad stuff, your ideas. The real work will be explaining to everyone the Progressives have thoroughly rooked the American people. If we had a philosopher’s stone that could turn your distortions and finger pointing into cash, we could afford your Utopia.

    You stay healthy, Cohen.
    –Smitty

    Category: Liberals, Media Bias, Progressivism

    Scozzafava Republican Matt Doheny Seeks to Re-Elect Democrat Bill Owens in NY-23

    Posted on | September 25, 2010 | 69 Comments

    “For the first trimester, I believe in a woman’s right to choose.”
    — Matt Doheny, March 29, 2010

    “I am pro-life. Period.”
    — Doug Hoffman, March 29, 2010

    It’s Dede Scozzafava all over again in NY-23. Pro-abortion GOP candidate Matt Doheny spent $1 million of his own money to buy the nomination, squeaking out by 700 votes over Doug Hoffman in the Sept. 14 primary.

    Conservative Party chairman Mike Long said all along that Hoffman would once again be their party’s candidate in NY-23. Long warned that Doheny was unacceptable for the Conservative endorsement. The chairman explained that, after the Republican establishment picked RINO Dede Scozzafava in 2009, the Conservatives had asked Doheny to run on their ticket, but he turned them down: “Matt Doheny failed at that defining moment.”

    Chairman Long also noted that on Oct. 10, 2009 — after conservatives nationwide began rallying behind Hoffman — Doheny made the maximum $2,400 contribution to Scozzafava:

    Doheny did more than max out to “Dede for Congress Inc.” On Oct. 29, after Hoffman had gotten the endorsements of Sarah Palin, Dick Armey and other national conservative leaders, Doheny donated $10,000 to the only major group still actively supporting Scozzafava, the New York Republican Federal Campaign Committee.

    Two days later, Scozzafava pulled the plug on her campaign and endorsed Democrat Bill Owens.

    Thus, Doheny gave $12,400 to beat Doug Hoffman in 2009 — which is $10,900 more than the total of all Doheny’s other contributions to Republicans ($1,500), as listed on the FEC Web site.

    Many Republicans will argue that conservatives should ignore Doheny’s RINO record and support him anyway. They’ll make the same argument they made when they argued that conservatives should support Mike Castle: “But he can win!” 

    Let ’em argue until they’re blue in the face. They’re wrong.

    No pro-life group in the country would dare endorse Doheny. According to 2008 exit polls, 12% of New York voters are Catholics who attend Mass weekly. If even half of those faithful Catholic voters share Hoffman’s view — “I’m pro-life. Period.” — he’ll get more than enough votes to prevent the election of a pro-abortion Republican like Doheney.

    Doug Hoffman had the guts to take on a tough fight. Doheny didn’t.

    No guts, no glory. Doheny can’t win. Period.

    DOUG HOFFMAN for U.S. CONGRESS

    UPDATE: In recognition of, and in response to, the complaints of loyal readers: IN DEFENSE OF DOUG HOFFMAN.

    Category: Abortion, Congress, Doug Hoffman, Election, New York, Republicans
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