News Flash: Politics Is About Elections

Posted on Comments

It shouldn’t be necessary to say this in a crucial mid-term election year, but I have been troubled to find that it’s difficult to get conservatives to concentrate on supporting individual candidates in actual elections.

When I spent three weeks covering Tim Burns in the PA-12 special election, traffic to the blog actually went down. That was discouraging.

Everybody’s always saying we need more reporting by bloggers and yet, when I actually go out on the road to do reporting, it produces less traffic than when I’m just sitting here in my basement snarking about headlines.

Part of the problem, I think, is that conservatives don’t really like politics. The grubby business of electing politicians and enacting legislation strikes many conservatives as something uncouth and menial. And there is a notable tendency among conservative bloggers to limit themselves to three basic categories of topics:

  1. Liberals are evil.
  2. The media is biased.
  3. Whatever is on the Drudge Report.

Some people would rather speculate about the 2012 GOP presidential field — Sarah? Mitt? Newt? — than to expend the effort to research congressional races. Why? Because it’s much easier to do.

Everybody has an opinion about Sarah Palin. She’s a celebrity, and the latest gossip about her gets more readers than actual news about an obscure candidate that nobody’s ever heard of.

The problem, however, is that slinging snark about celebrities or media bias isn’t going to change anything in Washington. I might as well be blogging about Alyssa Milano or Justin Bieber, if all I’m going to do is pontificate about Barack Obama or Sarah Palin (who is never going to re-Tweet me, either).

Anyway, after doing plugs this morning for GOP challengers John Dennis (vs. Nancy Pelosi in CA-8) and Allen West (vs. Ron Klein in FL-22) I saw this Tweet from Amy Miller:

This aroused my curiosity: Who is Ron McNeil and what election did he lose? So I clicked the link and saw this news story:

PANAMA CITY — A Congressional candidate told local high school and middle school students Tuesday that Islam’s plan is to destroy the American way of life.
“I’m totally against it. If I had my way, it would pretty much be over my dead body,” said Ron McNeil, a candidate for the U.S. House District 2 seat, who was referring to a controversial plan to build an Islamic center and mosque near Ground Zero in New York City. “That religion is against everything America stands for. If we have to let them build it, make them build it nine stories underground, so we can walk above it as citizens and Christians.”

OK, if you talk to Pamela Geller, I think she’d argue that McNeil’s statements are quite literally true: Islam is “against everything America stands for.” And for all we know, a majority of FL-2 residents share that sentiment, so that McNeil’s comments might actually win him more votes.

A bit of research, however, discloses that Ron McNeil is a marginal candidate in a crowded Republican primary, whose fundraising has been effectively zero. The Florida primary is next Tuesday, and it is extremely unlikely that McNeil will win the GOP nomination.

Frankly, I was shocked to learn that this district in the Florida panhandle has been held by Democrat Rep. Allen Boyd since 1997. FL-2 is a very winnable district for Republicans; it was carried by Bush in 2004, and John McCain got 54% of the vote there in 2008.

Based on minimal information about the GOP candidates in FL-2, I’ll say we need to get behind Steve Southerland. He has the support of Eric Cantor, as well as the House Conservatives Fund, and that’s good enough for me.

STEVE SOUTHERLAND for U.S. CONGRESS

Everybody got all excited by the news that Republicans are leading on the “generic ballot” poll, but taking back Congress means winning a majority of House elections — 218+ seats in districts all across the country, including FL-2. We’ve got to focus on these key races. Generic ballot polls don’t win elections, candidates do.

Only 76 days left until Nov. 2, people: Start paying attention!

Florida Democrats Think This Allen West Video Will Help Ron Klein

Posted on Comments

The Florida Democratic Party has created an attack Web site called “The Real Allen West” — which showed up here via an Adsense rotation — featuring this video:

Isn’t that great? Ron Klein has gone from ignoring Allen West to trying to convince people that the Republican is some kind of dangerous radical. In other words, Klein’s starting to sweat.

ALLEN WEST for U.S. CONGRESS

Nancy Pelosi: Don’t Investigate Ground Zero Mosque, Investigate Opponents

Posted on Comments

Via Larry O’Connor at Breitbart.TV:

“There is no question there is a concerted effort to make [the Ground Zero Mosque] a political issue by some. And I join those who have called for looking into how is this opposition to the mosque being funded.”
— Nancy Pelosi

Kerry Picket of The Washington Times:

Calls to investigate the funding for those proposing the $100 million “Cordoba House” have fallen on deaf ears, though, as New York’s Mayor Mike Bloomberg has described such an investigation as “un-American.”

So it is “un-American” to investigate who’s footing the bill for the Ground Zero Mosque, but Pelosi has no problem calling for an investigation into the funding of the mosque’s opponents.

Speaking of opponents, did you know that Nancy Pelosi has a Republican challenger? You should investigate him. And fund him.

JOHN DENNIS for U.S. CONGRESS

UPDATE: Walid Shoebat says we should listen to what the Ground Zero Mosque imam says in Arabic.

Pacific Ocean Wants To Sue Gulf Of Mexico For Limelight Thuggery

Posted on Comments

by Smitty

Seth Borenstein, in Salon reports that we still have plenty of oil to fear in the Gulf:

The evidence of microscopic amounts of oil mixing into the soil of the canyon was gathered by scientists at the University of South Florida, who also found poisoned plant plankton — the vital base of the ocean food web — which they blamed on a toxic brew of oil and dispersants.Their work is preliminary, hasn’t been reviewed by other scientists, requires more tests to confirm it is BP’s oil they found, and is based on a 10-day research cruise that ended late Monday night. Scientists who were not involved said they were uncomfortable drawing conclusions based on such a brief look.

The Pacific Ocean took a peevish view to this report. Pacific Ocean spokesman Buffington Imboodaga stated that:

We really need to get attention focused back on that trash vortex the size of Texas.
Specifically, we need:

  • A panicked, guilty public that hates its very humanity.
  • Legislation by the ream, specifying whole divisions of unelected bureaucrats to suck vitality out of the economy, thereby reducing the pollution.
  • Increased funding for our research staff, at the usual campaign kickback rate for our sugar mommas and daddies.

Screw the Gulf of Mexico. We’re a far more senior source of gnawing fear.

In related news, Anthropogenic Global Warming is still maintaining a low profile at an un-named Carribbean resort. A spokesman for AGW denied the rumor that it may be getting a makeover, with a re-launch in its old Global Cooling guise. AGW press agent Morriston Baxter-Dempsey rejected the notion:

We are keeping an eye on the 1970’s, but, other than politically, the ’70s are not sufficiently ‘in’ for AGW to go the cooling route.Specific plans to kick start AGW have been pushed back to December. It really all depends on the weather. Who can predict that?

Is The Government My Shepherd?

Posted on Comments

by Smitty

Via Insty, John Samples at Cato says “They Should Earn Our Trust“.

He concludes that these signs of distrust “point toward a widely shared conviction that the country’s public and private leadership is protecting its own interest at the expense of average (and even comfortable) Americans.”

Via HotAir Gene Healy at the Examiner starts off by noting:

By 2012, our national debt will be larger than the entire U.S. economy, according to the International Monetary Fund. So what’s on the front burner in Washington these days? Zoning issues in lower Manhattan!

Ace of Spades develops the theory that Blagojevich went on TV to establish some humanity in advance of his trial, so that a TV-junky jurist might be persuaded by the charm and the hair to hang the trial.

Faith in government is wholly misplaced. It is never more than a necessary evil. As there seem to be some fans of my arguably tasteless, cynical re-writes of Biblical passages, here is a shamelessly cooked reading of the 23rd Psalm:

  1. The GOVERNMENT is my shepherd; I shall not want capitalism.
  2. It maketh me to lie down in green, environmentally cleansed, carbon-managed pastures: it leadeth me beside the still, occasionally oil-slicked waters.
  3. It restoreth my propaganda: it leadeth me in the paths of collectivism for its brand’s sake.
  4. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of liberty, I will fear no outbreak of capitalism: for thy propaganda art be with me; thy rod and thy staff and their reams of legislation, they comfort, discipline, and otherwise satisfy me.
  5. Thou preparest a cheese table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.  Thou swappest it with a smaller vessel occasionally, as supplies dwindle, so that the ‘runneth over’ fiction be maintained for all my thirsty days.
  6. Surely managed goodness and something which objectively sucks, but has been conveniently re-labeled mercy shall follow me all the days of my carefully managed life: and I will dwell in the house of the GOVERNMENT for ever, for reasonably ‘fair’ values of ‘ever’, as determined by faceless bureaucrats armed with a spreadsheet in some posh office.

Walking back from this cynical outburst, you might enjoy Dr. Zero’s Churchill-esque palate cleanser:

We don’t have “unrealistic” expectations about “oversold” government programs. We don’t have any more expectations about Big Government at all. That’s why we’re going to tear it down, and reclaim what it has taken from us. We aren’t expecting the government to work miracles with our tax dollars. We expect it to return them. We’ll handle the miracles.

RTWT.

Liberal Women Try ‘Mama Grizzly’ Shtick: ‘You Know What Threatens Me? My Daughter Not Having the Right to Choose’

Posted on Comments

From the pro-abortion group Emily’s List, which presumes to answer Sarah Palin:

Ace does the “Top Ten Reasons” this video doesn’t work, but I stopped cold at the woman expressing adamant support for her daughter’s “right to choose.”

Isn’t that kind of creepy? Basically, you’re saying that the abortion of your own grandchild is such a grand idea as to assume paramount importance in your political worldview.

Yeah, I know: She’s talking about the “right to choose,” but the abstract right to abortion can’t be separated from the concrete reality of abortion, and that reality is a gruesome, blood-chilling thing to consider. Philosophical theorizing about “rights” can’t elude that reality. And neither can bear costumes.

Bumped: VIDEO: If You Liked Reagan, You’ll Love Whittle

Posted on Comments

by Smitty

Those of you who have not done so, watch Bill Whittle’s PJTV essay discussing the Ground Zero Mosque.

Bill juxtaposes our modern cowards with the British cowards of 1938, then moves to the Mosque question.

Wow. Spread this one around. Devastating on every level.

Update: The Moderate Voice, for contrast, serves up Eugene Robinson emitting an example of Grade-A knobbery.

Update II: They went right to YouTube with this one:

Yeah, But Tell Me About The Frogskins

Posted on Comments

by Smitty (h/t Paco)

Thomas Sowell in RCP, on the Constitution being a urinal cake:

While various political leaders have, over the centuries, done things that violated either the spirit or the letter of the Constitution, few dared to openly say that the Constitution was wrong and that what they wanted was right.

It was the Progressives of a hundred years ago who began saying that the Constitution needed to be subordinated to whatever they chose to call “the needs of the times.” Nor were they content to say that the Constitution needed more Amendments, for that would have meant that the much disdained masses would have something to say about whether, or what kind, of Amendments were needed.

The agenda then, as now, has been for our betters to decide among themselves which Constitutional safeguards against arbitrary government power should be disregarded, in the name of meeting “the needs of the times”– as they choose to define those needs.

The first open attack on the Constitution by a President of the United States was made by our only president with a Ph.D., Woodrow Wilson. Virtually all the arguments as to why judges should not take the Constitution as meaning what its words plainly say, but “interpret” it to mean whatever it ought to mean, in order to meet “the needs of the times,” were made by Woodrow Wilson.

Via Insty, we have the Freedom Works dudes on the hostile GOP takeover by the Tea Party:

The American values of individual freedom, fiscal responsibility and limited government bind the ranks of our movement. That makes the tea party better than a political party. It is a growing community that can sustain itself after November, ensuring a better means of holding a new generation of elected officials accountable.

All this is swell and spiffy, but if you haven’t answered the mail on the Federal Reserve Act, and the ludicrous Federal expansion of power it has enabled, then you simply haven’t said much.

Stacy would say “Smittiot! We’ve got to win the election first!” Fine. But be thinking about ways in which we’re going to support the leadership needed to roll back 100 years of incumbency, elitism, and ruling class over-reach.

My chief worry is that, faced with the ugly realities that our government is more or less effectively hiding from us, the Tea Party will wet itself, and the Cloward-Piven will prevail. We have to get ready with the “bring it on, mike foxtrot”.