The Joys Of Travel

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by Smitty

McCain is off to Wasilla, and I’m off to see my mother-in-law, a lovely German lady, on the occasion of her birthday. I have the camcorder along, and hope to coax her to re-enact my last arrival.
There was some street work underway, requiring my wife, D., to park some blocks off. Mother-in-law was aware of a visit at some point from D., but no mention of me in tow. Sporting a goatee, I walked up to the door alone.
I knocked, and she opened in the cold morning air. She didn’t recognize me immediately, and assumed me part of the road crew. Seconds passed. Recognition. She slapped me.
All that to request the indulgence of the readers, as comment approval may be delayed in all this travel.
The FMJRA must go on. Email me your links, and any title suggestions you may have.

Meet Team Joe

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ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Yesterday I dropped by the Joe Miller campaign office, where the staff was busy gearing up for the Nov. 2 general election. Two top members of Team Joe took time to talk:

Continuing a theme we started yesterday, let’s take a look at the front page of this morning’s local paper:

Notice that there are four election-related headlines on the front page, but Miller’s name appears in none of them:

  • Murkowski fall ends an era — Every liberal journalist’s favorite kind of Republican: A loser.
  • Walker considers options after loss — This is about a candidate who finished second in the GOP gubernatorial primary. Walker now angling to get onto the ballot of the Alaska Independent Party, so that in addition to being a Republican loser, he can also be a spoiler. That makes him a double  favorite with the local newspaper.
  • Is the tea party the new Grand Old Party? — A story from the Associated Press of the perennially familiar GOP-hijacked-by-extremists variety. Remember when underdog Barack Obama beat Hillary Clinton in the 2008 Democratic primaries? That was the Triumph of Hope. When an underdog wins a Republican primary, however, that’s Hijacked by Extremists.
  • McAdams campaign for Senate ramps up — The Democratic candidate gets a big, wet sloppy kiss: “Ten days ago, Scott McAdams had a volunteer treasurer and a few thousand dollars to help him pursue the Democratic nomination for U.S. senator in Alaska. With the shocking upset victory by tea party darling Joe Miller over U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski for the Republican nomination, volunteers and money are flowing his way.”

The one thing the Democrat won’t be spending money for: Newspaper ads. No need for that, when the local newspaper is doing somersaults and cartwheels and shaking its pompoms for him.

JOE MILLER for U.S. SENATE

PREVIOUSLY:

Delaware Castle Under Siege

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by Smitty

Via the ever-detailed Swing State Project, a lefty blog that gives good detail, Hotline On Call reports of Mike Castle:

The Republican has purchased $113K worth of airtime before the primary.

Castle is facing off against Christine O’Donnell on Sept. 14 in the GOP primary for Delaware’s open Senate seat.

. . .

The buy shows that Castle isn’t leaving anything to chance. O’Donnell was initially written off as a long-shot outsider candidate, but she is backed by the Tea Party Express — the same group that was behind Joe Miller’s surprise upset of Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R) in AK last week.

The Tea Party Express is preparing to wade into the primary in these final two weeks. The Hill reported earlier this week that the group plans to spend six figures on behalf of O’Donnell.

Castle is a favorite of the GOP establishment, which believes it has a very good shot at picking up Vice Pres. Joe Biden’s former Senate seat.

So, Castle fortifies the citadel of his old and tired GOP campaign, to keep the new hotness from endangering his Ruling Class château.
Best wishes on that, Mike.

Update: Yeah, we prefer Malkin’s opinion to Ace’s on this one.

Update II: So I finally got to Ace in the RSS reader, and actually read the Politico article and couldn’t be less impressed with any of it.
What will be interesting in two weeks will be seeing whether the loser of the race gives us the Full Murkowski.

Will Libertarians Decry The Boston Tea Party?

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by Smitty (h/t Dan Riehl)

I was just listening to the Levin rant, which is a must-hear. Levin starts with the Boston Tea Party. Dumping the tea into Boston Harbor was a gross violation of private property.
That’s a cute historical point, but, if those Bostonians had been fully committed to Libertarian navel-gazing, we’d still be under a monarchy.
So, if the people then were intolerant of oppression fromo London, and are considered patriots, why are New Yorkers asking for space between the area impacted by the 9/11 attack and a mosque not also patriots for resisting what could be considered an act of oppression?
Over to you Kn@ppster.

Dodging Federalism

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by Smitty

I don’t dispute Andrew Ian Dodge’s point about fiscal vs. social conservatism here in the Examiner:

In order to retain those in the middle, non-commital and of other parties that have become part of the tea party movement its essential to produce a spectacular event, or rather events, on 9/12 in DC, St Louis & Sacramento. The tea party movement needs to show that fiscal conservatism is an even stronger force in the American politics than social conservatism.

It’s a battle over who speaks for the grassroots of the county, and its one the fiscal conservatives need to win lest they lose all those moderates, Democrats and independents who have been attracted to the non-partisan, non-religious and non-denominational nature of the tea party movement.

Let’s make the point though that the question isn’t so much what as where. Fiscal conservativism is the obvious Federal thrust because money drives Federal over-reach. A proper chain of command has the Federal government dealing primarily with the States, and leaving to the States the concerns about citizens, insofar as the States aren’t abusive. Given sufficient money and power, debacles like Fannie and Freddie follow.
Social conservatives, and I am one, need to grasp that worrying about private behavior at the Federal level (e.g. variations of marriage) sets the precedent for much evil, like abortions and the Department of Education, but I semi-repeat myself.
Of course, the root of this foulness is the 16th Amendment and Federal Reserve in 1913, subsequent to which the District of Columbia has become the Distributor of Cash. Granted, that gravy train is going to make restoration harder, but it has to be done.
The Founders wrote a Constitution to delegate certain powers to a central government for specific reasons. The time has come to work the wisdom of that Constitution in reverse, to return the Federal government to its intended bounds. Social conservatives really need to ponder this point.