Archive for the ‘Tea Party’ Category
Ted Cruz Talks About Texas, David Dewhurst’s Attacks and Money, The Tea Party & More
Thursday, May 10th, 2012
Tonight, I had the very special opportunity to talk to former Texas Solicitor General Ted Cruz. Ted is running for U.S. Senate but first he must win a very expensive and very challenging primary against an opponent who is spending a million dollars a week to beat him. He’s still confident.
Ted received another big endorsement — this time from Governor Sarah Palin. He’s also been endorsed by Rand Paul, (and just now, RON Paul!!), Mike Lee, and a bunch of other people.
What Ted needs is your vote and money.
Please go to TedCruz.org and DONATE HERE. He needs your help. He’s running against a pile of money.
Have a question about Ted Cruz? He answers it here. Everything from social to fiscal to economic issues. Listen and share!
The Culture War IS The Fiscal War: Feminism And The Big Slutty Lie
Monday, March 5th, 2012
People like to separate fiscal conservatives from social conservatives. It’s impossible to do.
The nut of Sandra Fluke’s argument is this: pay for my contraception. If it doesn’t work, pay for my abortion. If I decide to have the kid, but not work and do something like “community organizing” or “reproductive rights activism”, pay for my lifestyle choice. [More on Sandra Fluke here.]
And herein lies the problem with a purely libertine argument: Someone has to pay for all this freedom.
True personal liberty comes with a lot of personal responsibility.
The way it stands now, though, feminists are pushing for the state to take care of everything.
At the least, a man should pony up a condom to have sex, but no. A woman is too afraid to have this discussion, evidently, and refuses to force the man to buy and wear a condom. Were she mature enough to have this conversation, her sex life would be “free” so long as the condom wasn’t defective or broke.
Then, of course, whether the woman is on the pill or using condoms, there’s always contraception failure. The woman will have to live with the STD or baby consequences. And again, she’ll want the taxpayer to pay for that, too. Antibiotics and prenatal care aren’t free, after all. Worst, she wants people of conscience to pay for her abortion. They, in turn, feel forced to pay a hitman to kill an innocent person.
A truly “free” woman would pay for her choices, but the fact is, that these choices can all be very expensive.
In the past, when sex was more the provenance of two monogamous and committed people, the man and woman would negotiate these things. And if a “mistake” did happen, the man would “do the right thing” and marry the woman.
Old fashioned? Maybe. Cost effective for the taxpayer? Absolutely. Good for the fabric of society and for that child? No question.
Barack Obama and his merry band of slutty misfits want to have all the fun and none of the responsibility of the consequences should things not go just the way they’re supposed to in the sexual arena (and when do they ever?).
So, in the last year of a horribly failed presidency, President Obama wants the focus to be on “contraceptive rights” when there are no such thing. It’s a great way to distract from the statist policies he’s employing: He wants to diminish the role of faith in the public space, and in the place of men/husbands/fathers, he wants an all-powerful state to pay for, mold, and control the next generation. Or kill them.
If this fight feels primal and visceral, it is because it is. The cultural war that the left has started has had dire public policy consequences. The welfare state has failed.
We have a nation of fatherless children living in poverty because their mothers bought the feminist lie that having sex like a hound-dog man, outside of marriage is “empowering”.
Single mothers are faced with the bitterness of powerlessness.
Defend that, liberals. Explain how living in poverty, alone, with multiple children, no education, an STD and no father is better than a two-parent family, feminists.
Answer: It isn’t.
There will be no apologizing from me. The feminist movement as symbolized by the useful idiot Sandra Fluke has lied to and cursed a generation of women. Meanwhile, putting future generations of responsible tax paying men and women on the hook. [Update: Dana Loesch on faux rage.]
The culture war is a fiscal war. And America’s children are the losers both ways.
Teri Cristoph of Smart Girl Politics to Women: You’re Being Used. Teri says:
Knowing that women voters are leaving Obama, the left has deliberately waged a war designed to scare them into thinking their birth control will be taken from them. EMILY’s List calls these disenchanted women voters “defectors” and they’ll stop at nothing to get them back.
The use of the word “defector” by the left is supremely insulting. A defector is someone who switches allegiances, usually in a manner deemed to be traitorous. Got that? If you are a woman who voted for Obama in ’08 but don’t like what he’s done as president and don’t plan to vote for him again, you are considered a traitor by the left. Newsflash: Women are not born with a genetic allegiance to the Democrat party and its liberal causes. Plenty of us prefer to think for ourselves.
Democrats are running scared knowing that a significant number of women are wise to the fact that the economy has tanked, true unemployment is around 25 percent, and our president is wholly unequipped to deal with any of it. They also know that women voice their discontent at the ballot box. So they are waging this war against women. They use people like Sandra Fluke to distract from the real issues at stake this election season. They use women as pawns in their political game.
Yes, there is a war against women in 2012 and it’s certainly no fluke.
UPDATE & ASIDE:
What Rush Limbaugh should have done in the face of the attack by Mean Girls (emphasis on girls–women don’t act irresponsibly and then want to be personally bailed out):
There are many conservatives who unfortunately allow the left to take their morality and use it to stifle their dissent. Limbaugh should have gone on the attack. He should have said “no apology” and exposed her for the partisan hack that she is. Do I care if Fluke fucks 50 guys? No, but I do care if she uses her position to gang up with other mean girls (and guys) to ram a political mandate down the throats of companies who do not believe in what she is peddling.
Standing up to mean girls is hard. I am in the process of writing a book on men’s attitudes towards marriage and society and it is damn hard to get individual men to be interviewed. If I ask questions on the internet or in an anonymous setting, I am flooded with comments from men. I recently had over 3200 men answer a poll about paternity fraud, but try to get just a few men to talk in person? That’s tough. And most are very concerned that their name will not be published. I don’t blame them. The mean girls are out in society in full force.
If Rush Limbaugh can’t stand up to the mean girls, who can?
Via Instapundit
More on Fatherhood from LaShawn Barber.
Andrew Breitbart: R.I.P. Happy Warrior
Thursday, March 1st, 2012
Andrew Breitbart is dead. I still cannot believe it. [Details here.] [Updated: Father In Law says it was probably a heart attack.]
Andrew Breitbart lit up a room. Out at Western CPAC in Southern California a couple years ago, his star was rising, and he gave an interview. I asked him what he was doing; as in, how do you see your role?
He told us that he saw himself as a “merry mischief maker”. He wanted to turn the media upside down. He wanted to destroy them.
Andrew succeeded. He created the most surreal media moment ever: He ended up speaking at Anthony Weiner’s late and ill-fated press conference. He was at once the press and the news. It was a seminal moment. It was the moment I felt that Andrew had achieved his ends.
Everything had changed. The New Media was rising.
The grief-making part of it? He’d just really started. So much work to do. So much vitality.
In the spring of last year, Andrew called me and asked if I’d help him promote his book Righteous Indignation
If you haven’t read Andrew’s book, you really must. Not only is he a great story teller and beautiful writer, and he is, he also gives great hope through his own story. His biography shows a man, who like most Americans, didn’t pay attention and how he “woke up”.
And boy, did he wake up. He was the righteous, pointed finger in the chest of the empty and sanctimonious left. He had their number and they knew it.
As I sit here crying, I fear looking at Twitter for seeing all the nastiness and venom that will spill forth about Andrew from the left. He was hated because he was effective. They hated his persona. They hated his gumption. They hated him. [Updated: Do they ever.]
Knowing Andrew–knowing his sweet nature, knowing his kindness, knowing his generosity–I would just marvel at the contrast between what the left caricatured him as being with who he really was.
You know that carousing guy? That guy who skates on the edge or goes over it? The guy who cheats on his wife while out of town or likes to give the impression of being a player?
That wasn’t Andrew. Ever.
Andrew was devoted. He was a true family man. He chortled about people implying that he was gay as his domestic life with his wife and four kids was so tranquil and happy. He liked that someone viewed him as edgy.
At one small gathering, I found Andrew walking aimlessly around the hotel lobby with his iPad. I asked him what he was doing. Well, he couldn’t find anyone and was waiting for people to show up–for three hours. When it was suggested that he could have called one of us, he responded, “I’m not very good without my wife or Larry.”
Scattered, brimming with ideas, mulish, and hell-bent, Andrew could be a handful. His best friend Larry Solov is as sweet, calm, and circumspect as Andrew is bombastic, frenetic and bold. Larry helped Andrew succeed in so many ways. When it came to the business of Andrew Breitbart, Andrew and Larry were two parts of a whole.
Andrew was so full of life, it is almost impossible to fathom the emptiness that will be felt by those close to him. I feel it and I didn’t interact with Andrew every day.
I worried for Andrew. Before CPAC this year, there had been threats made on his life. Andrew was symbolic for the left and his death would be a triumph. And yet Andrew didn’t seem concerned at all. He just plowed on and engaged.
He gave his phone number to anyone. He would talk to anyone. He was not a respecter of persons.
I wish he was still here. There’s too much work to do. Who will do it? Who will do it like Andrew?
Someone will have to do the work, but no one will do it like Andrew.
Andrew Breitbart. Happy Warrior. Devoted husband and father. Generous friend and co-worker. Merry mischief maker.
I miss him already.
More:
Andrew’s best friend Larry Solov.
Matt LaBash: By way of greeting, I used to ask Breitbart what kind of evil he was up to. “Most kinds,” he’d say, gamely.
Andrew’s speech at CPAC:
Andrew’s last tweet:
I called you a putz cause I thought you werebeing intentionally disingenuous. If not I apologize. @CenLamar @dust92
— AndrewBreitbart (@AndrewBreitbart) March 1, 2012
Jonah Goldberg and Jonah says this here:
I’ve never known someone, perhaps with the exception of Drudge himself, who had more of a savant’s sense of media, old and new — but especially new. In the early days of the Drudge Report there was a lot of talk about how Drudge made the news, and that was often true. But he could only do that by understanding the news and how it worked at a visceral instinctive level. Matt saw this same gift in Andrew, which is why he hired him. The two of them changed the course of the massive river of news for literally billions of people. That’s no exaggeration, even venerable enterprises and institutions that despised the Drudge Report and pretended it didn’t exist had to change course because of it.I’ve never known someone, perhaps with the exception of Drudge himself, who had more of a savant’s sense of media, old and new — but especially new. In the early days of the Drudge Report there was a lot of talk about how Drudge made the news, and that was often true. But he could only do that by understanding the news and how it worked at a visceral instinctive level. Matt saw this same gift in Andrew, which is why he hired him. The two of them changed the course of the massive river of news for literally billions of people. That’s no exaggeration, even venerable enterprises and institutions that despised the Drudge Report and pretended it didn’t exist had to change course because of it.
Matt Drudge says this:
“DEAR READER: In the first decade of the DRUDGEREPORT Andrew Breitbart was a constant source of energy, passion and commitment. We shared a love of headlines, a love of the news, an excitement about what’s happening. I don’t think there was a single day during that time when we did not flash each other or laugh with each other, or challenge each other. I still see him in my mind’s eye in Venice Beach, the sunny day I met him. He was in his mid 20′s. It was all there. He had a wonderful, loving family and we all feel great sadness for them today… MDRUDGE”
Roger Simon: “When a whirlwind dies, there is a sudden quiet.”
William Jacobson: “Andrew is irreplaceable, but we would serve his memory well to aspire to more freedom of thought and more freedom of action.”
Uncut podcast at Liberty Pundits with Clyde Middleton and Andrew Breitbart.
Andrew gives birth with his mouth
Ace who drubs David Frum aka The Rat.
Felicia Craven: Andrew Breitbart was our William Wallace.
Andrew Malcolm: So?
The Tea Party’s Purpose: True The Vote, Results The Left Hates [See Also Wisconsin Recall]
Wednesday, February 29th, 2012
So, Tea Party Patriots co-leaders Mark Meckler and Jenny Beth Martin weren’t so much “co” and fought over leadership. And then they spent $250,000 on the ridiculous Southern Republican Leadership Conference to host the debate which by all accounts was an unmitigated debacle.
What will come of the Tea Party?
Locally, Tea Parties are either getting involved on issue advocacy or remaking their state GOP or working on getting elected, etc. Nationally, I’m not sure the groups continue to have much purpose anymore–thus the acrimony.
It is long past time for Tea Party leaders (of whom?–the Tea Party movement was/is like an amoeba breaking apart and coming back together depending on need) to either go back to civilian life and make a difference by getting a job and getting involved civically locally or to have a concrete mission. There is already an over-abundance of political organizations who don’t do much good but do manage to fundraise a lot of money.
A couple years ago when the Houston Tea Party split up, the two leaders displayed some wisdom: they chose different missions and stayed friendly.
One, True The Vote, has been doing the tough job of cleaning up elections–cleaning up voter registration lists, validating registered voters, teaching people how to be poll watchers, etc. They had over 17,000 volunteers to help Governor Walker verify signatures on the recall ballot and managed to get it 92% finished by the absurd deadline.
The volunteers from all fifty states entered over 4.5 million pieces of data in only 32 days. In stark contrast to anything Democrat, the data is uploaded and completely transparent for all to see.
What did they find? Donald Duck. They found people who signed the petition multiple times.
In short, they found Democrats being Democrats.
Unsurprisingly, the Democrats are displeased. They operate more happily when they can commit their fraud unchecked. Well, they’re being checked.
Democrats view the Scott Walker recall election as symbolic and worthy of all their resources. They figured they could push through the recall with no transparency.
Republicans need to see the urgency in Wisconsin, too. The Left must be pushed back. Please listen to Alan Vera, National Training Director of True the Vote, implore activists to get involved. [Text at link, too.]
Catherine Englebrecht, founder of True the Vote, has been sued, vilified, threatened, and continually harassed. Yet, she sees True the Vote’s most important work ahead and that keeps her motivated.
“If the government won’t do their job, we as citizens must do the job they won’t do,” she says of stopping voter fraud.
So, what should the Tea Party groups do? Find a mission like True the Vote. Find issus to advocate. Get or make a job and do it.
The next phase after awareness is action. Part of the reason for all the scuffling is one, a fight over resources and two, a lack of clear mission. The latter will clear up the former.
Learn more about True the Vote Summit here.
I Can Feel It Coming In The Air Tonight……
Wednesday, February 22nd, 2012
….oh Lord…..
A debate cometh. Gird yer loins.
Who will win tonight?
The better question is: who won’t lose?
Right now, big government Republicans are winning and therefore, America loses.
The only solace? Obama is destroying America and killing the country faster. Will being less bad be good enough?
Ah, hope springs eternal, which is why I write about politics.
Join me on Twitter and/or Sulia. See you then!
The Tea Party Is Killing The Republican Party And Therefore America
Thursday, February 16th, 2012
The Tea Party would be the assemblage of the most annoying people on the planet if the Republican Party didn’t already exist or if Tea Partiers didn’t breath the same air as Democrats, Liberals and the Occupy Wall Streeters. Political people are annoying. They are, by their very essence motivated by ideas and care enough to do something about it. Most people just want to live their lives and be left alone. People in the political realm want their ideas and rantings to matter. They want to change things. That makes them annoying.
Tea Partiers are getting a bad rap right now. In fact, I just spent far too long debating Outside The Beltway’s libertarian curmudgeon James Joyner about the root cause of trouble in the GOP. It’s the Tea Party’s fault, he says:
@MelissaTweets Could well be. I think the Tea Party will take the party over the cliff, as it did with Angle, O’Donnell, Raese, Buck, etc.
— James Joyner (@drjjoyner) February 16, 2012
Oh dear. Bad Tea Party! Bad, bad Tea Party!
Whenever I see these assertions, I never see the GOP pondering their really bad choices in politicians that had money but had little charisma, political deftness or policy intelligence. See also: Meg Whitman, Carly Fiorina, and Linda McMahon. And that’s just three of them. Many bad candidates put forth by the GOP got trounced in the primaries by these Tea Party candidates because the candidates stunk so badly.
GOP apologists also don’t seem to remember what prompted the Tea Party to begin with: The Bailouts. TARP (something I was on the fence about, myself, but eventually came out against on the principle that everything the government touches turns to poo), GM bailouts, the stimulus and the gnawing anger that Republicans left their values behind with the creation of things like Medicare Part D and the Department of Homeland Security (two things that infuriated me at the time).
The Republican party leadership left their party planks and so people who actually believe in smaller government, in personal liberty, in freedom, left the GOP.
The sense that the government is doing too much for too many for little or not return; the sense that the government is piling up debt for a future generation enslaving them and their children horrified average people who decided to become politically involved and joined the Tea Party.
Anyone who is a third generation Christian knows the joy and dismay being around a new convert. It’s wonderful to see their wonder, love and affection for God and His word. It’s a little disconcerting to see scriptures distorted and extreme behavior in the name of zealotry.
The new Tea Partiers are nothing if not zealous. Sometimes, they misdirect their energy, but overwhelmingly, their impulse has been the right one.
Do Republicans really want to argue for the individual mandate, government control of the internet, and on and on? Well, actually, the current crop of Republican presidential candidates seem to, yes. They’re being “pragmatic”. No, they’re being sellouts.
The Republican party has consistently chosen big money candidates hoping self-funding will help the party. They’ve been consistently proven wrong on this account.
The Republican party continues to cling to big government ways and means. It’s power after all, and they seem disinclined to give it up. Even Paul Ryan’s budget is incremental, long-term and likely to not be enough to save the Republic.
The Republican party leaders cannot articulate conservative values (Santorum articulating conservative social values, notwithstanding) in a positive way because they don’t believe them.
And yet, it’s the Tea Party, the group who reflects what regular Americans believe, who is going to ruin the Republican party and by extension, the Republic?
The Government is too big and too powerful average Americans believe. This is not some wild-eyed notion. And yet, Republicans are not articulating a smaller government message.
Worse, Republicans are not voting that way. So, to the dismay of many long-time Republicans, notorious Dem-liters like Orrin Hatch and Dick Luger, don’t represent their states constituency or their party’s planks. Why have them? Terror at being primaried and losing power seems to be the only thing that penetrates the consciousness of politicians. So, pain is on the way.
Before the Tea Party came along, the Republican Party was a hot mess. The New York, California, Nevada, Ohio, and Colorado GOP (just to five states off the top of my head) stunk. Calcified, self-protective, hierarchical, detached, and consumed by infighting, it’s rich that people want to blame the Tea Party for failure when the Tea Party new blood is coming in and attempting to right the sinking ship.
Is the Tea Party blameless? No. I was dismayed when Tea Party Express went into the Nevada primary and endorsed Angle. The other two candidates were good enough and had a great chance against a very weak Harry Reid. In Pennsylvania, one Tea Party leader has nearly derailed very good school choice initiatives by being absolutist and self-aggrandizing.
Still, the Tea Party energy and idealism has been great for the Republican Party, the body politic, and the country. America teeters on the edge of insolvency and has been pushed leftward fiscally by not only liberals, but so-called “Blue Dog” Dems and Republicans, too. It’s appalling.
Two years ago, I wrote that Mitt Romney was a weak candidate and that the GOP leadership should be looking, and intently, for better alternatives. They chose to travel the path of least resistance. They should not be surprised that the majority (not just the hard-core Tea Partiers, who seem to be divided themselves) are seeking a candidate who shares at least some of their conservative values.
As for me, I’m not particularly attached to any of the candidates. It would be nice for a GOP complainer to make an affirmative conservative, or even Republican (read the party planks) case for Mitt Romney. I have yet to see it. But I do see a lot of pre-emptive blaming of the Tea Party.
Sorry, the GOP needs to look for another scapegoat. Looking in the mirror would be a good start.
CPAC: The Conservative Movement’s Confusing Conference
Monday, February 13th, 2012
CPAC 2012 seemed surreal. The event was anchored by two staunch conservatives.
Thursday, Governor Rick Perry gave a rousing speech with multiple standing ovations. Saturday, Governor Sarah Palin gave a barn burner of a speech, firing up the crowd. She deftly dealt with protesters. She painted a soaring vision.
Sandwiched in between these speeches: Moderately interesting political speeches from Santorum, then Mitt, then Newt.
Internet connectivity was spotty to an enraging degree. I couldn’t write, upload, and sometimes even tweet. Any coverage I did give, came via my phone and 3G.
Aside: This is the fourth time I’ve been to CPAC and this is the fourth time the internet has been a problem. If they want their event to be reported effectively, you’d think the organizers would make the investment into some serious bandwidth.
A couple people asked me how I felt CPAC compared to years past. Well, in 2008, Mitt Romney got out of the race at CPAC and there were multitudes of weeping Romneybots there. Mitt Romney still won the straw poll that year.
Romney edged out Santorum for the CPAC Straw Poll this year. In years past, paid Romneybots or Ronulans stuffed the vote. It was a competition to see who could win. The Straw Poll has never mattered, but the press loves to blab about it anyway. That Santorum came so close to winning this year is somewhat significant. He must have some organic following amongst the faithful to even compete with Romney’s Straw poll ballot-stuffing machine.
Generally, the energy just didn’t seem to be there for CPAC this year–not like I think it should be during an election year. Does it concern me for November? Yes, it does. This should be a shoe-in year for Republicans. I’m afraid it’s going to be close because our candidates can’t articulate a clear, inspiring vision. We’ll see.
Some fun moments included the Paul Begala – Tucker Carlson slap fight, Andrew Breitbart’s rousing speech and the promo for the Hating Breitbart movie, and Steve Crowder and Chris Loesch’s parody rap (watch for the N-word–lefties fell right into the trap).
Mostly, CPAC is about networking. On that account, it was a spectacular success.
Some years back, Hillary Clinton groused about a “vast right-wing conspiracy”. That statement was laughable when she said it. Now, there’s a right-wing network. No, it’s not the top-down MMFA-Obama machine fueled by Journolist like on the left. The more a patchwork of people who tolerate each other and work together when forced to achieve a useful end. Ever try to rangle a hoard of one-man-bands? Well. The bands are starting to become aware of one another, work together, and help promote each other’s work. It’s heartening.
A couple events help with that. For the third year, Ali Akbar, Aaron Marks and I decided to torture ourselves by throwing a party for bloggers. Microsoft on the dreaded K-street hosted and the party was an alcohol-soaked success. As John Brodigan says, the proponents of limited government are not for limited alcohol. See also karaoke.
At the Blogbash awards were given by and for bloggers. They weren’t the only ones. The TeaParty.net presented some awards, too.
Winners included Michelle Malkin (legacy award), Andrew Breitbart (changing the narrative — Weiner Press Conference), Ezra Dulis (video–Attack Watch), Jimmie Bise (podcast–The Delivery), RB Pundit (Twitter–@RBPundit), Peter List (Activism — unions), Lisa DePasquale (friend of bloggers), Jason Hart (state level blogger of the year — Ohio politics), True The Vote & Catherine Englebrecht (bloggers stand with), James O’Keefe & Project Veritas (Sunlight–New Hampshire voter registration fraud) and John Sexton who won both investigative post AND Blogger of the year for work at Verum Serum with Morgen Richmond.
One heartening part of CPAC: Hollywood types are starting to come out of the closet. Kirk (Growing Pains) Cameron spoke for the first time. Allen Covert and Dan Kessler launched their patriotic iPhone/iPad app CherryTree for children. I saw Chuck Wollery on Radio Row.
CPAC seemed better and more discouraging than in past years. Better because it was wonderful to make more new friends and renew old acquaintances. Worse because I believe that the country is moving leftward both morally and fiscally to our eventual demise. Conservative actions are spreading locally and at the state level. Nationally, conservatism is voiceless and leaderless and that’s too bad.
Newt the Alinskyite?
Wednesday, January 25th, 2012Is Newt being Alinskied or is he an Alinskyite?
Newt is an Alinksyite says Phil Klein:
“Gingrich’s clashes against the establishment are classic Alinsky.”
I’ll admit that primary elections of all stripes have more than a little Alinsky, a lot Machiavelli and a dollap of Sun Tzu thrown in for fun, but the brass knuckle tactics go with the territory.
Mitt Romney ran to the left of Rick Perry on Social Security, called Perry a “crony capitalist”, and became a positively scandalized church lady in the face of Perry’s reasonable solutions to illegal immigration–solutions, I’d add, that he supports now that Perry, his chief nemesis, is gone.
If Newt is Alinsky, we’re all Alinsky now.
Added: Ann Coulter is going all-caps on Newt. She makes a compelling case for Mitt Romney. The arguments are nuanced and policy oriented. I’m not sure how that works against Prez Hope and Changey.
I will say this: I’m not willing to fall on my sword for any of the remaining candidates. I don’t like any all that much.
The bigger macro issues of fighting with the press and fighting dirty like Obama, I think Newt may be better equipped to do. And that goes to electability, too.
Emmett Tyrrell Jr. makes a compelling anti-Newt case, too. He calls him “our Clinton.“
Maybe there should be a new TV show: Everybody hates Newt.
Just a thought. Clinton was scandal ridden and awful and evil. He was also expedient. So, here’s the question: If Newt got elected, and has a Republican Congress, and is a Clintonian expedient President, which way does he go?
Does he go this way to keep the Tea Party happy? Here’s what Reagan said about Newt’s plan.
Terrifying.
Updated:
When I say everyone hates Newt, I think maybe, it’s not an exaggeration.
Newt the honey badger. Not kidding.
Found someone who likes Newt. He DID work with Reagan and make positive change. Not so fast says another writer at NRO. Newt is the devil and never met Reagan ever (I’m taking liberties at this point).
Another defense of Newt?
More Newt hate. Jim Geraghty channels Tom Coburn (who I like but blocked me on Twitter because I tweet to much, so what does HE know)?
Newt: Why People Are Choosing An Unlikeable Guy
Wednesday, January 25th, 2012
“I don’t want a nice man,” said Kenny The Nail Guy, “I want someone to beat Obama. I choose Newt.”
This was a very interesting statement from a Vietnamese immigrant who despises communism and knows a socialist when he sees one. He sees one in Obama.
Kenny is onto something.
Pretty much everyone, except Callista and his daughters, believes Newt Gingrich isn’t a very nice guy. I felt like his multiple marriages and “angry little attack muffin” persona as Peggy Noonan called him would be a deal breaker.
I am coming to believe his impatience with the bullshit and general grumpiness is the reason people like Gingrich.
First, people are sick of the stupid. And the government is big, stupid, annoying, interfering, and run by incompetent boobs. Gingrich is willing to concede it. In fact, he has a difficult time bearing the stupidity. In psychological terms, this is called mirroring. Gingrich mirrors the national mood perfectly. We’re a nation of angry little attack muffins except no one is really listening to the average out of work, miserable citizen. Who will speak for them?
Second, Newt is battling the media–his real enemy. He has declared war on them. If he’s going scorched earth on Mitt, he’s going nuclear on the Press. People are loving it. Why? Because the press aggressively, arrogantly pushes their agenda which is a hard left agenda. America is NOT a left-leaning country. They are center-right. They self-identify as conservative.
The press pets this cycle have been Jon Huntsman and Mitt Romney. Lavish spreads in Vanity Fair. Extraordinary deference in debates (especially Mitt).
Today, Romney cluck-clucks to Newt that going after the press is easy. No it’s not, otherwise Romney would do it. But Romney doesn’t want to antagonize the ones who have been giving him such generous ink.
Any Republican running for office is not only running against his Democratic opponent, he’s running against the press. A conservative’s CHIEF enemy is the press. Let me say this another way, a Republican CANNOT win unless he speaks around, above and in all ways that avoid going through the press liberal filter.
Romney, like McCain in ’08, wants to be buddies with the press. And yet, the press is on Obama’s side. When Romney goes into the general, he’ll be constantly flustered and offended and dismayed by the abuse he’s taking. It will be a shock after the sloppy kisses of the primary where the press would rather the choice be between a Republican liberal and a liberal-liberal.
Newt, in contrast, knows who he’s running against and right now, it ain’t Romney and in the general, it won’t be primarily Obama. It’s the press. He gets this now.
Finally, around 75% of the GOP base has been against Romney since the beginning. In 2008, the base knuckled under, again, for a guy who was a terrible candidate. They’re unwilling to do it again.
And don’t be deceived, Mitt Romney is a horrible candidate. Romneycare, global warming, increasing taxes, bland, not a great communicator, flip-flopper, abortion, distant, removed, owned a chop-shop.
My brother said of Mitt,”Everyone knows that guys like Mitt exists,” speaking of Mitt’s company Bain which went into distressed companies and sometimes chopped them up and sold off assets,”and people know that that work is a necessity and someone has to do it. They just don’t want their president to be that guy.”
Mitt isn’t particularly likable either, he just seems like a nice guy. Well, Obama seems like a nice family guy, too. Big deal. People have decided nice is overrated.
Mitt has another negative though. Mitt Romney is the caricature of “evil Republicans” that the Democrats are salivating over. The press, meanwhile, like Mitt because he’s Harvard educated, urbane, cool, and a touch less liberal than Obama. They could live with him if their coverage doesn’t destroy his campaign.
People are wondering why Newt is doing so well. But the more I think about it, it makes sense.
Voters want someone who will fight and fight for them and against their common and frustrating and powerful nemeses.
You know that friend you have who is kinda a jerk? Why do you keep him around? Because in a fight, he’s gonna beat your enemy to heck.
The job with Newt will be pointing him in the right direction. So far, he’s been responsive to the ideas of his fellow candidates and seems willing to take on the federal leviathan.
As a friend said of Newt: He fights.
More at Newt Judges You.
Rick Perry, Government Reform, & Moving The Conversation
Wednesday, November 16th, 2011
Governor Perry freaked out the political class this week by suggesting bold government reforms like these [it's only 19 seconds long]:
Oh wait! That’s not Governor Perry! That’s Ronald Reagan and he was suggesting the same thing. He even talked specifically about getting rid of 75,000 government employees.
Doug Mataconis, resident cynic and Outside The Beltway (misnamed–should be Conventional Wisdom) blogger, says this:
In reality, though, much like Perry’s own chances to win the Republican nomination, there’s very little chance any of these ideas would ever see the light of day. To the extent Perry intended to propose a real plan, he failed here. Instead, all we’ve got are gimmicks.
Gimmicks, eh?
Rhetoric is not a gimmick. And a Ron Paulian purist like Doug Mataconis should feel slightly ashamed for attacking a candidate that has little chance of success. I would wager that Rick Perry’s chances are far greater than Ron Paul’s.
But back to the point.
America has been pushed leftward both rhetorically and policy-wise for years. Bush senior, Clinton, and then George W. Bush all believed in a sort of government care-taker state. Most damaging to the body rhetoric was “Compassionate Conservatism”–a phrase that ceded rhetorical ground to the mean ways of big government and socialism.
It’s frankly rather astonishing that a libertarian would complain about a plan to get rid of government departments, but then, that’s what libertarians do. They complain.
For too long, self-reliance, ingenuity, creativity, personal responsibility, American exceptionalism, optimism, and all those other plucky American values have given way to Obama’s maudlin mealy-mouthed malaise.
Words matter. Rhetoric matters.
No one wants empty words. Words and ideas push in the opposite direction, lead the mind and heart different ways and open the policy world to ideas that have been long maligned are NOT empty. They’re purposeful.
Just like Ronald Reagan knew what he was doing when facing Debbie Downer Jimmy Carter, Rick Perry knows what he’s doing facing Bob the Blamer Obama.
Politics is about deeds AND words. Rick Perry has the deeds covered. One only has to look at his Texas record of reform and conservative (and yes, libertarian) change to see that.
A leader, though, must also use words and push ideas. For those having trouble with Perry’s government reform plan, pretend you’re a teenager again. Perry’s plan is like a kid asking for a 2 am curfew when he really wants 1 am or even midnight. He’s still getting to stay out later than he wanted.
Rick Perry is pushing the envelope and he knows it. So did Reagan, though, and Reagan’s words and ideas pushed America into a couple decades of growth and prosperity.
Words and ideas matter. They are the precursor of policy. The libs know this, which is why they’re howling. What’s confusing is why a libertarian would be bothered by small government rhetoric and a plan to match it.
