Hmmm. Why Did Jeri Thompson Endorse Sue Lowden Today?

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LAS VEGAS — Just settling in for an hour or two of reporting before I head out to Searchlight this afternoon (it’s 9:30 a.m. out here) and I saw this column by Jeri Thompson in The American Spectator:

In the Senate race to defeat Senate Democrat Leader Harry Reid, we have several candidates who want the opportunity to challenge and defeat him. Each candidate has different skills and a particular constituency. But to defeat a sitting Senate Majority Leader will take someone with the “total package” — an experienced leader, who has run the political and public gauntlet, who can raise money on a national level and who can clearly communicate their principles. For Nevada, that person is Sue Lowden. . . .
While there are other Republican candidates in this race, I am convinced Sue is the only conservative Republican with the toughness and experience to go toe-to-toe with former boxer Harry Reid. Harry seems to be acknowledging that, because Sue is the only Republican who Reid is regularly attacking. . . .

And something weird at the end:

On the issue of life, the past week has made it clear to us what it means to be a “pro-life” Democrat. Sue has made it clear she knows where she stands and how she will legislate. She will be pro-life.

Weird, I say, because . . . well, is there a pro-choice Republican in this primary? Not that I know of. So why does Jeri feel the need to assert Lowden’s pro-life bona fides?

Maybe my initial impressions of this Nevada primary are screwy, but I thought Danny Tarkanian was the grassroots populist “outsider” candidate and Sue Lowden was the GOP Establishment candidate. So why is Jeri Thompson backing Lowden and making these pro-life rumbles? Then I checked Tark’s site and found this:

I believe life begins at conception and that we have a responsibility as human beings to protect that life if at all possible. That is why I oppose abortion, except where the mother’s life is threatened. I also oppose federal funding for abortions.

Ah, now I see. This could be trouble for Tarkanian. But wait a minute, what’s this story in the Las Vegas Sun?

In the Republican primary race for U.S. Senate, Danny Tarkanian has hit fellow candidate Sue Lowden — a casino owner worth an estimated $50 million and former chairwoman of the state Republican Party — with the socialist label.
In a recent automated telephone message, Tarkanian tells listeners his “latest message for freedom” — accusing Lowden of supporting the Wall Street bailout, which led to taxpayer money propping up the auto and insurance industries. “That’s not freedom. Let’s call it what it is: socialism,” Tarkanian says.

Oooooh. This is getting good . . .

UPDATE 1:35 p.m. ET: Just got off the phone with Lisa Graas, talking about contested GOP primaries this year. Couple of items at Memeorandum:

No plans to go to Utah on this trip, but I’ll be in Arizona on Sunday and Monday. Meanwhile, I’ve got plans for some serious shoe-leather reporting this afternoon. Just keep hitting the tip-jar, folks.

Does Fabius Maximus Consider The Constitution A Delusion?

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by Smitty

Fabius Maximus quotes an email I sent regarding his post “About the political significance of the conservatives’ health care propaganda“.

Now Fabius is playing a equivalency card, pointing out historical warnings about major legislation. Fabius, have you seen the national debt? Have you seen that the Congress is willing to tamper with Article I of the Constitution, if necessary, continue the deconstruction and impoverishment of the country?

Fabius sorts quotations going back over a century in your post with a “what, me worry?” attitude. Sure. Those that have sufficient resources now may live out their lives comfortably, but don’t we care about future generations?

The final descent into a soft despotism (even this Judas Congress wasn’t brazen enough for DemonPass) may take a little longer, but your complacent attitude saddens. Possibly Fabius should consider changing pseudonyms to Elric of Melniboné, to capture better that sort of bored, decadent air. Yours is not the passion that drove the Apollo program, Fabius.

Those who, in emulation of the Founding Fathers, retain a passion for individual liberty will fight and win this battle against creeping Socialism, and its enfeebled, debt-laden results that we see in Europe. See also Bill Whittle.

Fear and Loathing, Et Cetera

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Yes, I’m here in fabulous Las Vegas, Nevada, home base for my coverage of the kickoff of the Tea Party Express III tour, among other things.

Fortuitously, I arrived on the birthday of Minority Report blogger Steve Foley, and his birthday was celebrated in appropriate fashion. IYKWIMAITYD. Even more fortuitously, when JSF of Valley of the Shadow blog heard I was coming to Vegas, he offered me this excellent advice: “Put it all on red.”

Dude. You’ve got no idea how well that advice paid off. But as for those other losers . . .

UPDATE 11:10 a.m. ET: My biological clock is screwed up. I’d left a wake-up call for 9 a.m. — i.e., noon ET — and snapped wide awake to see 7:43 on the clock. But was that a.m. or p.m.? All things considered, it was entirely possible that I’d slept 16 hours and missed an entire day’s work. But no, I’d slept only four hours and the question now was, should I get up and start working or go back to bed for another hour? But if I went back to sleep, I might oversleep for real this time. While I debated this, I checked the headlines at Memeorandum:

Obama Refuses to Dine With Jewish Leader

Binyamin Netanyahu humiliated after Barack Obama ‘dumped him for dinner’

Obama demands Netanyahu’s peace answers by Saturday

OK, I’m awake now. Armaggedon looms. Four hours sleep will have to do.

UPDATE 2:08 p.m. ET: Just so the tip-jar hitters know this trip isn’t all fun and games, I’m about to go do some actual shoe-leather reporting today.

PREVIOUSLY:

Christine O’Donnell For Senate

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by Smitty


Those who thought that 2008 was merely an election for the 44th President may have been surprised to hear, via the Reverend Al Sharpton, that Hope and Change really meant a Constitutional Convention and we opted for Socialism.

That hogwash isn’t selling well here, either. What is so infuriating about Reverend Sharpton’s statement is the number of people who implicitly or explicitly subscribe to it. In the general case, people enjoy moderation, like to consider opposing views, and are not unwilling to trade some horses to advance their cause. In the particular case of health care, no one is seriously arguing against reasonable reform.

Invoking Thomas Jefferson, we have:

In matters of principle, stand like a rock; in matters of taste, swim with the current.

Anyone who thinks that the founding principles of the country, even the first article of the Constitution, have not been corrupted by this Judas Congress and atrocious Administration really needs to re-examine every scrap of the last two years of American political history.

So the question moves to what degree the otherwise congenial and collaborative conservatives should engage and support ObamaCare? I submit that we should be more receptive to Al Gore’s AGW hooey than Al Sharpton’s Socialist surprise. ObamaCare must be opposed, not just because it is legislative compost, but also because the kick in the groin delivered by the Judas Congress cannot be let stand.

Which brings us to Delaware. For a small state, she’s got a big RINO in the form of Mike Castle running for the Senate. Via Mark Levin Fan, Delaware Online reports:

Castle won’t join GOP effort to repeal health law. Rescinding legislation is ‘unrealistic’ goal.

Well, Representative Castle, the Revolution itself wasn’t terribly realistic either. Had we a bunch of Stupakian thinkers like yourself at the time, our currency would still be pounds sterling. My personal, unrealistic opinion is that we should have an Article V cramdown, with 35 States and blow away:

  • ObamaCare,
  • The Great Society,
  • The New Deal,
  • The Federal Reserve Act, and
  • The 16th and 17th Amendments

. . . which is why I have not been left in charge.

So how about with think American, think big, and, for Delaware voters, think about supporting Christine O’Donnell, the Sarah Palin of the East. Representative Castle’s positions just aren’t packing the heat needed to restore America to greatness.  Christine O’Donnell, while probably not as take-the-hill-crazy as me, is the principled sort of Republican we need in the 112th Congress.

Crazy New Days

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by Smitty

Since Tuesday, 23Mar10 is the line of demarcation between the Good Old Days and the Post-Traumatic Legislation Era, how about some crazy images, just to make you wonder what was in my salad:
Stixblog reprises Knowledge is Power, trying to capture the good-but-twisted, inefficient, and occasionally dubious aims of the government in a single image:

Via Digg, this one is even less explicable, yet strangely compelling, after Mini-Kiss during the Superbowl:

If you’ve no idea what I’m referring to:

Finally, and perhaps most disturbingly, there is this from Grandpa Steve:

What to do with that? Previously, Grandpa Steve has ‘shopped me onto a Cthulhu figure, but now he’s trying to turn Stacy into either some kind of ‘Silence of the No Sheeples Here’ reference, or possibly a date for a Certain deranged blogger tHAt shall Remain nameLESs.

VIDEO: ‘Too Late to Apologize’

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Thanks to my good friend Nathan Cossey for finding this cool patriotic rock video:

By the time you read this, I’ll be on my way to Vegas for Saturday’s start of the Tea Party Express III tour. Thanks to everyone who has hit the tip jar so far for this Fear and Loathing expedition, including Sissy W. in Chelsea (“It doesn’t stay in Vegas”), Nathan in Illinois, Chad in Leonardtown,  Jeff in Walla Walla (car rental money), Phil in Texas, Michael R. in Kansas, Michael B. in Ardmore (coffee and smokes for me, drinks for Barbara Espinosa) and Carlos in Tucson (“chemicals to loathe with”).

PREVIOUSLY:

Gee, ObamaCare Is Still Unpopular!

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Rassmussen Reports: 55% Favor Repeal of Health Care Bill.

Quinnipiac: Obama Gets Small Bounce From Health Care Win.

Do you recall somebody being very skeptical of that Gallup/USA Today “turnaround” claim?  And do you recall somebody writing this?

A lot of things have changed in seven months, but amid all the changes, ObamaCare has been reliably unpopular. . . .
Democrats seeking a forecast for Nov. 2 would be wise to ignore the cheerleading from their media friends and instead take a closer look at the poll numbers.

Speaking of numbers, Ed Morrissey notices that the administration is tinkering with unemployment statistics, perhaps trying to make unemployed people think they’ve actually still got jobs, just like Democrats spent months trying to convince people that ObamaCare would be a bargain:

Democrats dragged themselves over the health-care finish line in part by repeating that voters would like the plan once it passed.  Let’s see what they think when they learn their insurance costs will jump right away. 

Democrats have succumbed to David Axelrod’s approach of treating every problem as a public-relations problem. Unfortunately for Democrats, sooner or later, economic reality is immune to spin.