Senator Ted Cruz(R-TX) was elected to office after a difficult primary campaign against Texas Lt. Governor, David Dewhurst. Let us be thankful for that. He was instrumental in helping stop the gun control legislation that was shelved by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid(D-NV) last week. In this video clip, he describes the reaction of the other Republican Senators who were angry with Cruz, as well as Mike Lee and Rand Paul, for daring to stand on principle. Watch this video, from a little talk Senator Cruz had with the FreedomWorks Texas Summit:
Last week, there was the following news from Senator Cruz on another front:
A new SarahPAC video launched as a call to political action for conservatives and independents. The video includes a number of highlights of her recent CPAC speech, and is another confirmation that despite the wishes of the lamestream media, Governor Palin isn’t going away as she gears-up for the 2014 fight. As the video explains, there are many important elections in 2014, and conservatives cannot afford to take a wait-and-see approach. If the Democrats succeed in taking over the House, Obama’s last two years will be a virtual slaughter. More, there is still an opportunity to take the Senate, and to strengthen it with real conservatives, perhaps sending some of the RINO legion home. It’s clear from this video that Governor Palin will remain a force for change in the Republican party, and many grass-roots conservatives hope she will succeed. H/T Tony Lee at Breitbart, citing the video in his article:
After a string of speakers this week who hope one day to be President of the United States, Sarah Palin spoke to a packed house as she explained her vision of the future, and also what conservatives must do to regain electoral success. She was introduced by Texas Senator Ted Cruz, who had been the keynote speaker. Of all the rhetoric to come out of CPAC 2013, it will be this speech that is remembered. Governor Palin reminded conservatives that it is their principles they must abide, and not the political winds of the day, but she also cautioned conservatives to speak to a broader audience, instead of merely preaching to the choir. She also pointed out that rather than abandoning their principles, conservatives should abandon the consultancy that has led the party to so many defeats. As has always been the case, Governor Palin energized the crowd. At a time when conservatives are still reeling from Obama’s re-election, her speech laid out the only rational course conservatives can take in order to rebuild the country. Here’s the video:
Dr. Benjamin Carson appeared on Friday night on Sean Hannity’s show to discuss the reaction to his speech. Rather than talk about Hannity’s show, I’d rather you watch his speech so that you might understand why Dr. Carson has gotten such a positive reaction to his speech. You may also quickly realize why at certain points, President Obama seems to have become annoyed and uncomfortable in his seat, particularly once Dr. Carson began to speak about America’s resemblance to Rome. Obama’s reaction to Dr. Carson’s views on taxes and health savings accounts didn’t seem to help the President feel at ease.
Karl Rove appeared on Hannity on Tuesday night to deflect criticism that he’s an agent of the establishment at war with the Tea Party. I don’t buy it, and I believe his own professions in this clip should give you a sense of how he views the rank-and-file conservatives in the country. You see, he explains that it’s the goal of his “Conservative Victory Project” to support “the most conservative candidate who can win.” You may well notice that there exists a mile of wiggle-room in that statement, and it’s made from a deeply held sense of arrogance that is simply undeniable. If you watch carefully, at roughly 3:43 into the clip from Hannity’s show, as Sean asks him a question about the reaction to the Time article, you will see what “Tokyo Rove” thinks of Mark Levin, shrugging him off in derisive dismissal(screen-capture at left.) Watch the segment:
Rove attacked the motives of a wide range of people in the Tea Party movement, both in the blogosphere and in activist endeavors, as seeking some financial end. The irony of such a claim is galling. Mr. Rove insists that his new group exists to support “the most conservative candidate who can win.” This prompts a few questions in my mind, and I’d like to see them answered by Mr. Rove or any of his numerous establishment apologists:
Who decides what constitutes the “most conservative?” According to whose standard? Karl Rove’s?
Who decides who is able to win? According to whose calculations? Karl Rove’s?
What do we know about Mr. Rove’s success rate in his selections of candidates?
You see, when I answer these questions, I come to several conclusions, and none of them support Mr. Rove’s fanciful explanation on Hannity’s show. Karl Rove has shown no understanding of conservatism. His relentless appeal for immigration reform, his attacks on other conservative causes, candidates or efforts, and his involvement in the Bush administration with the passage of very liberal programs suggest to me quite strongly that Karl Rove is not an appropriate or even qualified judge of conservatism in any respect.
Since when is Mr. Rove the final arbiter on who is able to win? He told us throughout the primary season that only Romney could win, and through the general campaign that Romney would win, and that it might be a big win(though he did not quite go down the fantastic rabbit-hole with Dick Morris who predicted a Romney landslide.) Still, if 2012 is the measure of Mr. Rove’s ability to pick winners and losers, I’d say he did pretty poorly, and on his performance in 2012 measured against his own predictions and his own direction of funds, I would suggest that a blind-folded ape flipping coins could have done as well, and probably much better. For somebody who now indicates he supported Steelman in Missouri, it’s funny that he twice refers to her as “Deb,” though her name is Sarah. I can’t say it adds much to his credibility.
Hannity’s apologetic interview with Karl Rove does nothing to convince me that Rove intends anything but that which has already been said. His history of efforts against the grass-roots of the Republican Party are evidence enough for me that what he’s after is not conservatism, and certainly not victory. Translated, “the most conservative candidate who can win” means: “Vote for the people we recommend, or we’re going to destroy your candidate, depriving your candidate of just enough votes to make them lose.” It’s clear to me that Rove and his bunch would just as soon lose as have an actual conservative win office, and I’m not inclined to believe a word Mr. Whiteboard has to say in his own defense. Sure, the article at the beginning of this latest flap appeared in the New York Times, and I’m certain there’s a bias there, but it hardly excuses Rove’s past actions, and doesn’t explain away his current ones either. One of these days, conservatives will begin to catch on that an “R” following somebody’s name doesn’t necessarily imply the first damned thing about their philosophical leanings.
One of the things I have grown to detest is the absolutely biased media coverage in the wake of tragic events such as the Sandy Hook shooting. The event was awful enough, but must news coverage also be biased with such regularity in favor of the leftists’ agenda? Naturally, the invariable answer is “yes,” and as we were treated to the sad testimony of parents who have just been through heart-rending disaster being exploited by politicians and media who are reliably intent on pushing their agenda, it is clear the media will never give coverage to the whole story. Here is Newtown Connecticut resident Bill Stevens giving testimony regarding the ongoing attack on the right to keep and bear arms in the wake of the tragedy at the school his own daughter attends, a clip I am fairly certain you did not and will not see on your evening news.
As usual, Mr. L is on point. He takes on the same moderate Republican whiner I took on here. It’s ridiculous to think that guys like James Arlandson comprise any more than a tiny fraction of Republican thought, but somehow, they always manage to get the press. Always. Meanwhile, as Mr. L rightly points out, the RINO, Mini-Dem, Neo-Liberal front continues to pretend it’s our place to submit. Endlessly. Check out Mr. L’s rebuttal to James Arlandson below. Be sure to let him know what you think over on his website. Here’s the video:
It’s hard to believe that so many Americans can be so gullible. Limbaugh calls them “Low Information Voters,” but you might call them something less flattering. The same electorate that produced two victories for Barack Obama is the same general grouping of people who believe that Sarah Palin said that she could see Russia from her home in Alaska, despite the fact that it had been a parody on Saturday Night Live. This sort of tragic ignorance in which people are so easily manipulated by entertainment media speaks to a country now dominated by people who are largely plugged into movies, television, comedy, and all the other facets of pop-culture, but who will not take the least little opportunity to educate themselves with facts, news, political study, or philosophical contemplation. On Jimmy Kimmel’s show, a show I don’t watch, on a channel I don’t receive, the host sent out a crew to do a man-on-the-street segment to ask people about their appraisals of the inauguration of Barack Obama’s second term, an event that will not happen until Monday. Here is the video, as played on Greta Van Susteren’s show, passed along to me by a Facebook friend:
Listening to the poor, wretched “Low Info Voters” who responded to the question, I couldn’t help but laugh at the fact that they could be manipulated so easily by the questioner. Obvious hoaxes, like “throwing bears into the crowd,” or “giant cake” didn’t stop them from acknowledging these events as not only real, but as the highlights of the inaugural festivities that have not transpired. They even concocted notions of what Obama had said in a fictional speech that never occurred, and yet these are the people who think the rest of us should surrender our right to keep and bear arms to their emotional whims? It’s a shocking display of grotesque, popularized ignorance, but it also speaks to something more chilling: The people answering these questions had to at least mentally fill in blanks with knowledge concocted in their own minds. I have heard it said that “liberalism is a mental disorder,” but if ever you needed proof of that thesis, it is in full demonstration here.
One might wonder, looking at recent poll or election results, how many of the participants are fueled by such abject stupidity, but it’s a depressing proposition and I suspect there were at least some who knew they were being scammed even if their rejection of the spoof landed on the cutting-room floor. I must believe that, or accept that the country is irretrievably lost, and I’m simply not willing to draw that conclusion just yet. What videos like this one should accomplish is to provide you with firm evidence that we have a serious problem in our populace, and that the rest of us have a good deal of work yet to do. That any American adult doesn’t know when Inauguration Day is or isn’t suggests a complete failure of our education system, our news media, our polity and our cultural priorities.
One can only guess at how many of these respondents could speak with clear-minded authority on the cases of disgraced cyclist Lance Armstrong, or hoaxed Notre Dame football player Manti Te’o. While they keep up with the latest developments in such cases, they haven’t a clue about what’s being done to their country, or by whom, and how their self-imposed status as “Low Information Voters” is lending assistance to the very people who are wrecking their futures.
I realize that the vast bulk of the readers of this blog don’t fit into that category, not merely because they may tend to be in rough philosophical alignment with me, but because they’re here at all. The sort of people who make up the respondents to Kimmel’s hoaxing are the sort of people who will never find their way to a site discussing seriously the matters of state and culture that I cover, but they’re also the sort who will be taken by surprise when the world they’ve taken for granted comes crashing down. At best, they skim headlines, filling in the blanks with imaginary remembrances of events, to which they were not witnesses, but to which they will happily add their own fictional appraisals. It’s small wonder we’re losing the country, as we’ve lost the attention of the pop-culture-absorbed audience. Cakes and circuses, indeed!
Now, what do you think of Obama’s second inaugural address, that he hasn’t yet delivered?
There’s not much one can add to the simplicity of this message. Barack Obama’s children go to school and enjoy the protection of armed guards. Why should your kids have any less? This video courtesy of the National Rifle Association’s NRA Stand and Fight website:
Governor Palin appeared on Fox with Eric Bolling to talk about the Ted Cruz victory, as well as other matters. Bolling asked her about a remark by lobbyist and former Senator Bob Bennett(R-UT) who had said that the “Tea Party wave is receding.” Gov. Palin responded: “Bless his heart, he’s a little out of touch… Bolling also asked Governor Palin about the convention, and she said “I just want to help,” but that “sometimes, helping means you step aside,” apparently meaning that Governor Palin won’t be part of the convention as a speaker, at least as it stands. Here’s the video, courtesy of the Barracuda Brigade:
On Tuesday evening, after sending out a congratulatory message to Ted Cruz on his Senate run-off victory in Texas, former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin went On the Record with Greta Van Susteren. She discussed a number of issues, from Chick Fil-A to Ted Cruz, and the GOP convention, as well as Dick Cheney’s insulting proclamation. Gov. Palin had a number of interesting things to say, and you should watch the video. Pay particular attention to the way she answered the question about former Vice President Dick Cheney’s remarks about her qualifications for the office of President. She also gave Mark Levin credit for providing the basis of her curiosity about Ted Cruz, who she had endorsed.
“Well seeing as how DICK, excuse me, VICE PRESIDENT Cheney, never MISFIRES…”
By the time I finished laughing, the segment was nearly over, so I replayed it once more.
As ever, Governor Palin was on point, and right on time. As she continues to campaign for conservatives in key races, the establishment continues to take their shots at her, calling her “irrelevant,” telling us her endorsements “aren’t worth snot,” and that she wasn’t qualified.
After a while, it should beg the question: Who isn’t qualified? Who isn’t relevant? Whose endorsements aren’t worth snot?
On Tuesday in Texas, we are having our run-off between Ted Cruz and moderate Republican David Dewhurst. This video was created in support of Ted Cruz by Roderic Deane, and rather than offering all the reasons to support Cruz, I’ll let the video speak:
Already, the dirty tricks are in full swing, as Dewhurst continues to court Democrats to vote in the Republican primary and vote for him in order to sabotage Ted Cruz. Texas conservatives need to show up and vote. The polls will close at 7:00pm. Get it done!
Ted Cruz has been endorsed by leading constitutional conservatives from around the country, including Sarah Palin, Mark Levin, Jim Demint, Rand Paul, Rick Santorum, and a host of others.
On Friday, I drove the two-and-one-half hours from my home to the Ted Cruz rally at The Woodlands, just North of Houston. The venue was Town Green Park and the speakers included a number of Tea Party leaders, like Amy Kremer, and also Senator Jim DeMint(R-SC.) Ted Cruz gave a very encouraging, impassioned speech about what he would do if elected to the Senate, and he appropriated Barack Obama’s catch-phrase “Yes, We Can” in a little dialogue with the crowd, asking the crowd “Can we repeal Obama-care?” On cue, the crowd responded with a thundering “YES WE CAN!” Cruz exuded confidence, but the truth is that with early voting now ended, the real crunch is on from now until Tuesday to turn out the vote across Texas on his behalf. In her customary form, former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin made her speech to thundering applause and enthusiastic support. It was a remarkable speech, and Palin was fiery with the energy and passion that have made her the premiere speaker in the Republican party over the last four years. Conservatives turn out for Sarah Palin, and there’s simply no escaping that fact.
(Note to GOP establishment: You may want to rethink this plan to exclude her from the convention in Tampa next month.)
I was also heartened to see so many of my friends from TxO4P on hand, including Josh Thuma, who was so enthusiastic in Indianola, Iowa last September, so it was no surprise that at The Woodlands, he followed up in similar form, waving signs and cheering-on all of the speakers. I saw Cynthia Dixon and Del Parker, and some other faces I recognized, so I decided that rather than spending my time trying to capture the event, I would simply join in the fun. It was a good time for all, and Jim DeMint gave an excellent talk about needing help in the Senate, meaning he want more constitutional conservatives. He went on to extol the virtues of Ted Cruz, introducing the candidate to great applause, and Cruz made mention of the effort to repeal Obama-care, saying he would work every day until it had been repealed, killing off the notion of replacement: “Every last word…” must be repealed, vowed Cruz. The crowd roared in approval.
Hearing the Roar
Cruz went on to introduce Governor Palin, and the crowd’s cheering was so loud from my vantage point that I couldn’t hear the first few words of her speech. As always, when Governor Palin speaks at such an event, she speaks as much for those gathered as to them. This event was no different, and she focused in particular on three themes, including the wreck Obama has made and is making of the country, and the intractability of the permanent political class in the mission to restore our constitution, and naturally, how Ted Cruz will be an important player in that fight. She mentioned that she intended to try out Chick Fil-A on her way back to the airport, and as always, Governor Palin made good on her word, later posting this on her Facebook page:
The Palins Stop at Chick Fil-A
She wore the boots Governor Perry gave her on a previous visit to the Lone Star State, saying “at least in that one case he made a good decision,” but also gently chiding Perry for his present support of David Dewhurst in the primary against Ted Cruz. She mocked Obama’s assertion of last week in Texas that he’s seeing “shades of purple,” implying that the state might one day go Democrat. With the amnesty-by-executive-order that Obama has put in place, there can be little doubt that is part of his aim. Governor Palin exhorted the crowd to not let Texas go purple or blue. Said the Governor:
“There will be an Alaskan-sized blizzard on the Brazos before Texas turns blue for Barack.”
“Damn straight.” (So said many in the crowd.) She also went after the “lap-dogs in the media practicing yellow journalism,” but then she shifted her focus to the permanent political class in Washington DC that has managed to confound some of the efforts of the Tea Party patriots who sent more conservatives to the House in 2010, managing to co-opt some of them. She was brilliantly on point as she made clear that politicians in both parties have failed to carry out their constitutional responsibilities, passing Obama-care over the objections of the American people, and failing to enact a budget in four years, but she reminded the crowd:
“There’s nothing wrong with America that a good, old-fashioned fair election can’t fix.”
She then explained that she was supporting Ted Cruz because he is a common-sense, constitutional conservative, saying “Ted Cruz represents the positive change we need.”
As has been the case at events in which Gov. Palin speaks, after the conclusion of her remarks, and to the cheering of the crowd, she and Todd went off-stage and to the rope line, where she signed autographs for a long while, and as usual, the rope-line was mobbed.
I don’t have a firm grasp on how many people were in the park for the event, but I would guess there had been well over one-thousand, perhaps closer to twice that number, despite the sweltering heat. One thing is certain: Texas really is Palin country, and all who want to support a common-sense, constitutional conservative in this election ought to follow Governor Palin’s lead. With early voting over across the Lone Star State, what remains is election day, Tuesday, 31 July. Let’s get out the vote and put Ted Cruz over the top!
GovernmentGoneWild has put out a new video, detailing what happens if you surf over to your favorite search engine and watch what it auto-suggests when you begin to type:
“how do I qualify for”
It works, and the video is right. What’s stunning is that in the top ten suggestions, I don’t see:
“how do I qualify for a job?”
There’s really not much I need to add here. The video says it all, and it’s not good. I urge you to watch this and send it to your friends and family. You may wonder why our country is in decline, but if you want to know one of the big reasons why our country is mortal danger, this video holds the answer. (H/T CutiePi2U on Twitter)
I watched the Huckabee Show on Fox News this Sunday, and while Scott Pruitt, and Ken Cuccunelli(Attorneys General for Oklahoma and Virginia respectively,) both acquitted themselves reasonably well, Pam Bondi, the Florida Attorney General, and Huckabee himself, looked foolish. In truth, however, Cuccinelli said some troubling things, both in this appearance and earlier on Fox and Friends. I can even permit that Huckabee was playing dumb for the sake of dragging out answers to questions to which he really knew the answers, but if I was a Floridian, I would know that my state had been cursed with the dumbest Attorney General to appear regularly on TV. After discussing with the panel the absurd logic implicit in Roberts’ decision, and after positing the notion that Roberts had bent to pressure in switching his vote, Bondi went on to state that she believed Justice Roberts was of the highest integrity. What?
I don’t understand how one can be both the sort of noodle who wilts under pressure and simultaneously maintain one’s alleged integrity. The two notions simply don’t fit in the same conceptual soup. If one is true, the other is almost certainly false. She explained that Roberts was seeking to maintain the integrity of the court, but she didn’t explain how voting in what he knew to be exactly the wrong way accomplishes that end. I believe Pam Bondi is confused about the meaning of the word “integrity.” Being on Mitt Romney’s Health-care task force, this doesn’t exactly inspire confidence in that candidate’s promises.
(Fox News hasn’t made this segment of the Huckabee show available on-line – if they do, I will post it here.)
Pam Bondi is, after all, the same AG who bent to political pressure along with her governor, appointing a special prosecutor for the Trayvon Martin case, going after George Zimmerman for murder when all the evidence in-hand really suggests a murder charge is not warranted. In truth, Bondi’s appearance on Huckabee was riddled with similar incongruities in her apparent thinking, and one wonders if she’s qualified to be Attorney General in a State the size of Florida simply on the question of her mental capacity. Being charitable, she spoke like an empty-suited politician, full of hot air, most of it without any discernible meaning, and all of it intended to serve some aim other than to discuss the outcome of this case. Does she have other cases pending she expects to be elevated to the Supreme Court, hoping to win “nice points” with the wayward Chief Justice? Your guess is as good as mine, but after listening to her spewing gobbledygook, I really wanted to turn the channel, though I wound up suffering through the segment until the bitter end.
Another disappointment in the discussion, that I think would apply across the board to all the participants is how they all claimed this had not been foreseen, and that nobody had briefed on the issue of taxes, instead focusing on the commerce clause arguments. This is simply not true, because Landmark Legal Foundation, spearheaded by the brilliant Mark Levin, spent many pages in the Landmark amicus briefs (Here and here) discussing this very matter, taking great care to show how the penalty could not fit into the definition of any of the constitutionally allowable forms of taxation Congress has the power to impose. I like Ken Cuccinelli, and I think he’s a good Attorney General, but I wonder if in this case, he wasn’t a bit asleep at the switch. The same is true of Scott Pruitt. Wake up, fellas!
As for Huckabee, for a guy who has been “working tirelessly” to kill Obama-care, I would have expected he would know the issues a good deal more thoroughly than he did. After all, he did serve as governor of Arkansas, so one would tend to expect he’d have a little more sophisticated understanding of the legal matters, but I suppose it is possible that he was playing dumb to draw out answers, but honestly, that’s not the impression I got from his statements. It made the segment all the more baffling, and doubly disappointing. I kept waiting for him to break out the guitar and sing the Obama-care Blues.
I suspect our troubles with this law are worse than we may have imagined. The more I watch, the more I notice the tendency of some to shrug their shoulders and to tell us to “get used to it.” I have noticed that there is also a tendency to to paint this as though there is some positive, and I was surprised at Ken Cuccinelli’s attempt to tell us about “silver linings” to this decision. Watch this schlock from Fox and Friends:
What? There is no limit in this decision. The commerce clause was not restrained. There is no majority decision in restraining the commerce clause. It’s astonishing to see this, and while I know Mark Levin holds Cuccinelli in high regard in most instances, Levin has completely debunked these alleged “silver linings,” as has been discussed here already. Here is the first few minutes of Levin’s show of Friday, 29 June, 2012, to explain why Cuccinelli is absolutely wrong about his “silver linings” thesis:
Alternative content
The evidence of what Levin is saying is plainly evident in these two amicus briefs filed with the court going all the way back to 2011, both in the Florida suit, and the Virginia suit. No two states’ Attorney Generals should have been more prepared for the tax argument than AG Bondi and Cuccinelli, but they’re pretending that this material hadn’t been covered, and was completely unforeseen. Why? What’s the coverup? This is an embarrassment. Surely, somebody bothered to point this out to these Attorneys General before they embarrassed themselves all over Fox News on Sunday.
Ladies and gentlemen, I don’t pretend to have any special insight into this case, but I can read, and I can listen. What I’m reading and hearing these days from our ostensible leaders is that we ought to just suck it up, “accentuate the positives”(while pretending there are some,) and prepare to live with it. “But be sure to vote for us in November if you’re really, really mad!” There’s no excuse for these Attorneys General not knowing the briefs in this case, inside and out, and the fact that they don’t means they’re spending too much time in front of a camera and too little time practicing law. I realize they have clerks and associates, and junior attorneys to handle some of this, but let’s not ignore that while Mark Levin has been providing them the answers right along, they’ve been oblivious to the details. Mark Levin is a hero in this, and his Landmark Legal Foundation is doing great work, despite the fact that neither the court nor the states’ AGs seem to be paying enough attention, and if you want to know the difference between the leaders we have, and the leaders we ought to have, you need look no further. Dr. Levin would decline such a role, but that merely means we need to listen to his counsel all the more closely. I suspect he would be much more generous to these Attorneys General than I have been in this posting, but only because he is much more gracious than I.
I have maintained that in all such cases, we can discern who is with us, and who is against us, or at least those who may be ambivalent to the outcome. It’s becoming clearer in the wake of this ruling, and I think we conservatives should begin to recognize that when it comes to guarding our constitution against the statist hordes, we are all alone. It’s we conservatives against them all.
I had this video passed along to me, and I must say that it’s very much in line with what I’ve been saying on this blog since its inception. Those who want America to fail are indeed following this model, and while the Obama administration fiddles, America is burning. This video was published by www.freemarketamerica.org, an organization that says it exists to fight for free markets and against the environmental extremists. Take a look. It’s well done:
Former GOP Vice Presidential candidate and Alaska Governor Sarah Palin appeared on NBC’s Today Show on Tuesday. She co-hosted the show, and she also answered a series of question from Matt Lauer. It’s an interesting this to see her place Barack Obama in the proper context, that I submit is a better characterization of the manner of the current president: “…when Barack Obama took over.” This is exactly the right sense of the manner in which Obama has presided over the country. He hasn’t led anything. He simply “took over.”
Governor Palin went on to explain why she thinks this election is so important, but also why she thinks the GOP shouldn’t play it safe when it comes to picking its Vice Presidential candidate. Here’s the interview segment with Matt Lauer:
Governor Palin was featured in a number of entertaining segments throughout the show, and you can watch some of the highlights here:
Greta Van Susteren interviewed former Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin on Monday night, asking her about a range of issues including the Obama-care case and its relevance to the 2012 election. She was asked what she thought of the effect it would have on Mitt Romney’s campaign, and it was an accurate, and concise answer as usual. Said Gov. Palin: “Romney will have his hands full with this one because he’s now been dubbed the father of Obama-care.” That’s an apt description of things, and I believe it’s the prevailing opinion among conservative voters.
The talking points suggesting that this race is all but over have really begun to get on my nerves, because there’s really no evidence this is true. As long as Gingrich and Santorum remain in this race, the race continues until somebody obtains 1144 delegates, or we wind up at the convention. The question is whether it is numerically possible for anybody but Romney to get enough delegates, and as Drudge couldn’t wait to point out to the world Sunday, it’s going to be tough for Santorum or Gingrich, in second and third in the delegate count respectively. The truth this conceals is that Romney isn’t in much better shape at this juncture.
Demonstrating my point about Romney, and the reason the Drudge page pointing out Santorum will need 74% of delegates to win was a bit dishonest, what is missed in all of this is that it omits the fact that Romney’s path isn’t exceptionally better. Former RNC Chairman Michael Steele makes this clear in the following video of a March 16th appearance on MSNBC:
From my point of view, the thing that must happen throughout the remainder of this primary season is that Gingrich and Santorum must arrive at the convention having prevented Romney from obtaining 1144 delegates. If they do this, anything is possible, and it could be that between them, they are able to forge some sort of strategic alliance to overcome Mitt Romney in a brokered convention. This is why Romney and all his surrogates in media continue to press the theme that either Newt Gingrich or Rick Santorum should get out: If either one does, it will make Romney’s job of obtaining 1144 delegates that much easier.
I don’t think most conservatives are interested in seeing that happen, whomever they support, because the fact is that we are still in the position where roughly 60% of the party wants somebody other than Mitt Romney. Of course, Romney’s defenders are quick to point out that the others are in worse shape, but that ignores something critical: Romney is the apparent front-runner, and as yet, he has shown no ability to put the contest to an end by defeating all of his competitors, at once and finally.
This is video is both hilarious, and sad, but I think we should be able to get a laugh from this, while also realizing the more serious nature of what it implies about the character of this president, and what Governor Palin termed his “empty, recycled rhetoric” in a tweet just minutes ago. It’s true. Barack Obama doesn’t seem to have an original thought in his head, and his treatment of our allies in this video is a classic reminder. Thanks to Governor Palin for reminding us of this scandalously poor commander-in-chief’s behavior, and the sort of national embarrassment his presidency has become. One can imagine foreign leaders coming to our country, wondering if they’re going to be given the same old song and dance. It’s cookie-cutter foreign policy, and it’s typical of Barack Obama’s pathetic leadership.
Classic Obama:
You can read more of former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin’s tweets here: @SarahPalinUSA
This one just came over the transom and I thought readers might want to take a look. It’s a pretty sharp critique of Mitt Romney’s record, and I think the more conservatives know about his record, the less attractive he is as a candidate. The video touches on a number of stories I’ve covered here over time, so much of this will be at least vaguely familiar. There has been a great deal of vetting of Mitt Romney’s record on the Internet, in blogs and on conservative websites, but the problem is that most of it never gets into the mass media. They’re simply not interested in showing Republicans much of his record as it pertains to governance, including particularly the Romney-care debacle under which the people of Massachusetts now live.
Viewing time is approximately three-and-one-half minutes:
It’s hard to understand why a politician would run an ad that seeks to minimize the story that is doing the most political damage to one’s chief rival. In my view, to hit Gingrich and Santorum while leaving Romney untouched hints at another motive. Ron Paul’s camp is running an ad slamming the two non-Romneys for their focus on Romney Communications Direct Eric Fehrnstrom’s “Etch-a-Sketch” remark. He apparently thinks it’s ridiculous to be focused on what he considers a sideshow, but I wonder if that’s his real objective. After all, he’s been rather friendly with Mitt Romney, and at times it has seemed he was working on coordinating his attacks on the others with the former Massachusetts governor, who one would think would receive the most scrutiny from the Paul camp, since Romney is clearly the most liberal of the four.
Here’s the ad:
Not once in this ad are viewers informed about the nature of the controversy, although you do get a clip of Fehrnstrom’s remark, but what viewers receive is a series of repeated iterations of Gingrich, Santorum, and media saying “Etch-a-Sketch,” portrayed in such a way as to mock the subject. Romney’s been playing damage control ever since his Communications Director’s remarks, and they’ve tried several approaches to change the subject. I suppose if all else fails, you let Ron Paul’s campaign do your dirty-work, and try to downplay the meaning and impact of the “Etch-a-Sketch” remark. Of course, this could be Paul’s way of trying to get a little attention, but whatever his motive, I think it’s dishonest to downplay the significance. After all, if the Romney campaign will bear a resemblance to an etch-a-sketch if he secures the nomination, one would think this is information all of the other candidates would want voters to possess. To me, this looks like an attempt to minimize the damage to Romney. Is this part of a collusion between Paul and Romney? Nobody’s certain but it’s odd that Paul’s campaign would posit a thesis that reduces the damage to an opponent.
With very nearly half of the vote, Rick Santorum easily defeated his Republican opponents in the Louisiana GOP Primary. Mitt Romney finished second, more than 20% behind Santorum, with Gingrich back in third, and Paul finishing out of sight in last. This sets the stage for a continuing primary fight, and it’s one that may go all the way to the convention. At this point, it may take a brokered convention to keep Romney out, although the math becomes muddled once you consider all the possible permutations. What’s clear at this stage is that while Romney remains the front-runner in the delegate count, he’s in for a hard road ahead. My thought is: Good! I would prefer a brokered convention at this point, since it seems that it will be the only available method by which we get a nominee who stands a chance of defeating Barack Obama.
Santorum’s campaign released a new ad on Saturday, presenting a dramatic portrayal of the future should Barack Obama be re-elected, but then again, much of it is already true. The ad runs just more than a minute, and it makes the point perfectly clear: Barack Obama must go. The alternative is Obamaville:
Senator Ted Cruz(R-TX) was elected to office after a difficult primary campaign against Texas Lt. Governor, David Dewhurst. Let us be thankful for that. He was instrumental in helping stop the gun control legislation that was shelved by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid(D-NV) last week. In this video clip, he describes the reaction of the other Republican Senators who were angry with Cruz, as well as Mike Lee and Rand Paul, for daring to stand on principle. Watch this video, from a little talk Senator Cruz had with the FreedomWorks Texas Summit:
