It’s a phenomenon I’ve long found perplexing; otherwise-smart women who, when the subject is politics, will always vote for the woman first.  Or, should I say, “always” vote for the female candidate, since they are frequently women who grunt and roll their eyes when the likes of Margaret Thatcher or Condi Rice are mentioned; what they mean, naturally, is liberal women.

Oprah endorsed Obie.  And it’s ruffling some of that same wad of feathers:

Yet a backlash by Clinton supporters appears to have prompted a rethink by Winfrey, the African-American media titan who is routinely described as the most influential woman on television…a reader called austaz68 said she “cannot believe that women all over this country are not up in arms over Oprah’s backing of Obama. For the first time in history we actually have a shot at putting a woman in the White House and Oprah backs the black MAN. She’s choosing her race over her gender.”

I’ve met people – most of them women – who literally say, in as many words, they vote for women first, regardless of their policies.  Of course, most of these people are in Saint Paul, where the only real choice in politicians is “liberal” or “more liberal”.

Doug at BoGo has perhaps Bthe most salient sign that the Huckaboom is fading: Hugh Hewitt is defending him:

You had a nice run HuckaJesus, and gave He of the Immaculate Hair a heck of a (huck-of-a?) scare. But it’s obviously over for you now. You can stop the push polling and the pathetic pandering on immigration any time now. If you do perhaps we’ll remember you as the charming fellow with the quick wit and gentle demeanor, rather than the oily prick beneath the surface that act was designed to cover up.

I’m not going to diagnose what was beneath the surface; the oiliness was in the national media that tried to build him into an electoral strawman for Hillary to light on fire – and succeeded in making him a costly diversion on the GOP’s road to choosing a nominee.

Realists on the right realize that, for the conservative movement, someone like a Ronald Reagan comes along maybe once in a lifetime.  We won’t likely see another.

Of course, most lefties don’t know this.

Well…one of them seems to (video).

I’m not sure if that’s merely an astute observation, or some wicked triangulation.
(From Peter in New York)

Hearing this from Michelle Malkin might jolt a few people awake…:

I need a man.

Luckily for Mr. Malkin, it’s just about politics.  And it’s a dang fine point:

A man who can say “No.” A man who rejects Big Nanny government. A man who thinks being president doesn’t mean playing Santa Claus. A man who won’t panic in the face of economic pain. A man who won’t succumb to media-driven sob stories.

A man who can look voters, the media, and the Chicken Littles in Congress in the eye and say the three words no one wants to hear in Washington: Suck. It. Up.

Someone who embraces limited government and a doctrine of supporting prosperity rather than subsidizing failure, maybe?

I don’t want to hear Republicans recycling the Blame Predatory Lenders rhetoric of Hillary Clinton, John Edwards and Jesse Jackson. Enough with the victim card. Borrowers are not all saints.

That’s my biggest worry about Romney’s victory in Michigan; the sound bites I’ve heard look like he got at least part of the win by triangulating toward the center.

I don’t “endorse” anyone – because, like, who cares what Mitch Berg thinks? 

And as I showed the other day, I’m still figuring out my short list of GOP candidates; JMac shows signs of joining Rudy, Mitt and Fred on my personal rotation.

First Ringer states a great case for Giuliani, though.

Or…is it?:

He’s down in the polls.  His cash is low.  TIME remarked that his “hang-on insistence is all the more puzzling because of his lackadaisical campaigning style.”  That he was “out of gas.”  Rudy?  No.  Reagan, before his stunning primary resurgence in 1976.

Of course, “America’s Mayor” isn’t the Gipper.  In fact, no one in the 2008 GOP presidential field was, is, or will be Ronald Reagan.  Nor should they try to be.  But while all of the Republicans contenders can lay claim to the heritage of Reagan’s presidency in various ways, whether in their communication style, conservative values or tough foreign policy, Rudy Giuliani’s best attribute in common with the Gipper is something conservative candidates have been short on recently – accomplishments. 

And what accomplishments (emphasis added):

While all remember what New York City used to be, few seem to remember the visceral disgust and hopeless that once shadowed Gotham.  New York was Dante’s seventh level, a city whose future seemed best depicted in movies like Escape From New York where the last vestiges of order had been stripped away.  It was the epitome of liberal mismanagement and it was beyond salvation.  Certainly New York couldn’t be saved and certainly not by a Republican mayor who espoused a law-and-order, fiscally conservative mantra.  Before Giuliani’s tenure, doing what he accomplished with New York wasn’t considered difficult – it was considered impossible.  And perhaps the great intangible of Rudy’s candidacy is how he did it – by utterly pissing off the liberal establishment.

Is he perfect – especially as a conservative?  Of course not:

But a presidential race isn’t a mix-and-match set where we can combine Thompson’s wit, McCain’s conviction, Rudy’s record, Huckabee’s charm and Newt’s brain in Romney’s body.  To ape Donald Rumsfeld, you go to an election with the candidates that you have, not the candidates you want. 

But Rudy Giuliani has made a political life out of doing the things that others say cannot be done.  At a time when the general public has doubts about GOP competency, Giuliani has demonstrated an agenda and a record that doesn’t ask for blind trust from the electorate but merely asks them to open their eyes to what he has accomplished.  

 Read the whole thing.

We – and by “we” I mean Republicans, conservatives and America – could do much worse.

Joe “Learned Foot” Tucci could be a speechwriter for Barack Obama.

…by how many points “the polls” gave Kerry the ’04 election in January of ’04.  Or for that matter Algore in ’00.
I seem to remember them looking pretty bad for the President in both cases.

Just saying.

Jeff Kouba’s piece on the upside of McCain this morning prompted me to drag out a bit I did – very obliquely – on the NARN show last weekend.

Going through my short list based on the principles that matter. 

There are two lists of those principles that I like:  Hugh Hewitt’s, and the one we use over at True North.

Hugh’s list:

• Win the war.
• Confirm the judges.
• Cut the taxes.
• Control the spending.
• Secure the border.

The True North list:

• Liberty
• Security
• Prosperity
• Culture
• Limited Government
• Family

For the sake of “brevity”, let’s consolidate these two lists into one.  For argument’s sake, and with apologies to Hugh Hewitt, I’ll mash ’em together like this:

• “Win the war” and “Secure the Border” are both narrow applications of “Security”
• “Confirm the judges” and part of “Cut the taxes” fit under “Limited Government”
• “Controlling the spending”, along with  “Cutting the taxes”, fits under “Prosperity”.
• Liberty
• Culture
• Family

So let’s go through ’em one at a time, candidate by candidate:

Limited Government

• Romney – Although being governor of Massachussetts means he’s never had to really prove it, I think Mitt makes all the right noises.  When Ed and I interviewed him last summer, he at least talked the talk – and he was a CEO’s faith in private enterprise that I think will serve us all well.  Grade: A
• Giuliani – On the one hand, anyone who can face down New York’s public employees’ unions deserves some points.  He has been as strict a limiter of government as anyone on the parade of candidates.  Of course, he broke a few eggs to make the omelet that is New York, so I’m going to dock him half a point  Grade: Tough one.  Call him a A-. 
• McCain – He’s always made most of the right noises here – except, of course, for McCain-Feingold.  And while Thorley Winston is right – the BCRA is hardly alone among things we’re all willing to forgive an otherwise-better-than-the-alternative candidate for, now is the time to make our displeasure known.  Grade: B
• Thompson – Says the right things, but I dock a point for both McCain-Feingold and for never really having had to prove it.  Grade: B.
• Huckabee – Bad nannystater.  No donut.  Grade: C.
• Ron Paul – Well, he certainly qualifies here.  Grade: A
• Hillary – Please.  I’ll give her a point back if only because she might have a shred of DLC left in her pedigree – and it’s a gift, at that.   Grade: D
• Obama: He’s got a program for everything.  Grade: F 

Prosperity

• Romney – Probably the best, most untrammelled free-enterpriser in the bunch.  Grade: A
• Giuliani – On the other hand, anyone who could create the New York of today out of the New York of the Dinkins era has got something going for him.  Whatever Rudy’s other faults, I think he’s close enough to fiscal conservative to score.  Grade: A
• McCain – I worry about his take on tax cuts; they would seem to be the biggest blemish on JMac’s pedigree.  Grade: A-
• Thompson – Makes the right noises, again.  Docked a minus for having never had to deliver on those noises.  Grade: A-
• Huckabee – Nannystatist.  Grade: C
• Ron Paul – While I’m a small-l, free-market libertarian, burying one’s head in the sand and failing to recognize that government has a role – positive and negative – in prosperity is not what I want in a president.  Grade: B-
• Hillary – Not as stupid as the liberals would like her to be, but would certainly reprise her husband’s tax-jacking practices.  Grade: D-
• Obama – A program for everything and everyone.  Grade: F+

Liberty

• Romney – Can’t seem to find any major problems with Mitt.  Grade: A
• Giuliani – Docked a point for his stances on gun control.  Grade: B
• McCain – Docked a point for BCRA. Gets a plus back for having a lifetime “A” from the NRA Grade: B+
• Thompson – Again – says the right things.  Grade: A
• Huckabee – I can’t find a reason, off-hand, to disparage him here.  Grade: A
• Ron Paul – Well, if a Libertarian can’t score points on liberty, what’s he good for?  Grade: A
• Hillary – The Fairness Doctrine.  ’nuff said.  Also, would revert to her husband’s awful policies on gun control. Grade: F-
• Obama – Relentlessly anti-gun; led the Senate in gun-control efforts.  Supports campaign finance reform.  No position against the “Fairness Doctrine”.  Grade: F- 

Culture

• Romney – Relentless proponent and role model for personal responsibility: Grade: A
• Giuliani – Let’s invoke the Clinton doctrine here; what a guy does in his personal life isn’t the public’s business.  Move On, people.  Rudy kicked the Mafia’s ass, got New York’s welfare recipients to work, and put a gag on at least parts of the entitlement culture.  Imperfect, but damn good about the parts that matter most to me.  Grade: A
• McCain – Our culture would benefit greatly by being led by a genuine hero.  Grade: A.
• Thompson – Our culture would benefit greatly by being led by a genuine conservative.  Grade: A.
• Huckabee – Our culture would benefit greatly by being led by a genuine Christian.  However, I dock him a bit because of the focus of his single-issue supporters.  Grade: A-
• Ron Paul – Our culture would benefit greatly by Ron Paul staying in Congress and serving as a gadfly.  Grade: D.
• Hillary – “Stagflation” was the great historical paradox of the seventies.  “The Authoritarian Libertine” would be the paradox of a hypothetical Hillary! era.  Would destroy Western civilization  Grade: G.
• Obama – Docked many, many points for being a nanny-state ultraliberal.  Gets one back for at least repudiating the Clinton Machine’s politics of destruction.  Grade: D+

Family

• Romney – If the Mormons have one thing going for them, it’s their focus on families.  Grade: A
• Giuliani – If he holds to his promise to appoint constructionist judges, I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt.  Suspect he’d not repudiate the Department of Education.  Grade: B.
• McCain – I dock him half a point for being less-than-enthusiastic about reforming education Grade: A-
• Thompson – I think he’s making all the right noises, again.  Grade: A
• Huckabee – Oh, what the heck: Grade: A
• Ron Paul – For his stance on schools, alone, I say Grade: A
• Hillary – The paradoxical support of both Hollywood and the Teacher’s Unions and NOW is dispositive, here.  Grade: F
• Obama – Like Hillary, only less oppressive.  Grade: D-

Security – This is, of course, the make-or-break issue for me.  Given that this is wartime, I will give it extra weight in the final grading.

• Romney – Right noises, but no experience.  The Olympics were impressive; they are not a war.  Grade: B-.
• Giuliani – Says the right things.  Has the right experience.  Grade: A.
• McCain – Rock solid.  Grade: A.
• Thompson – A solid defense conservative.  Docked a point for being a Senator rather than an executive; gets half a point back for having been the best DA in the history of Law and Order.  Grade: A-.
• Huckabee – Are you inexperienced?  Yes, and not convincing even by that standard.  Grade: C.
• Ron Paul – The second-biggest reason I left the Big-L Libertarian Party was their myopia about defense.  Defense does not start at the border.  Even the paladin of the Libertarians, Thomas Jefferson, realized this, and built a standing Navy and Marine Corps to project American  power and protect our interests overseas. Grade: D.
• Hillary – Not as dumb as the opposition, although her husband’s record in dealing with the military counts against her, as does her relentless triangulation.  Grade: D+
• Obama – All of Huckabee’s inexperience, none of the wisdom.  Grade: F.

Final Scores – Of course, the exercise only really helps if it shows any differentiation.  Well, there is, but not in a way that helps me narrow my own choices.

Below, I calculate each candidate’s “Grade point average” based on the grades I issued above.  I gave Security extra weight in the grading, since it is by far the most important issue.

• Romney – Very strong B+ (3.46), hampered by lack of foreign policy and defense experience.
• Giuliani – An A- (3.53); could gain a few points back on civil liberties, maybe, assuming he puts some meat to the bones of his promise to appoint constructionist judges.
• McCain – Squeaks into A- (3.53), tied with Rudy based largely on security.
• Thompson – Very nearly a dead heat with JMac and Rudy (3.57) for an A-.
• Huckabee – Weak B- or strong C+ (2.74)
• Ron Paul – I call him a C+ (2.61), largely based on having a security position that’d pass muster with the Daily Kos.
• Hillary – Squeaks into D- territory by the skin on her teeth (.51), largely based on at least being able to fake being tough on security.
• Obama – F+ (.3).

Well, I know who I won’t vote for, anyway.

My other neighbor, Peter, went on a mission the other day:

Last Thursday, I got to thinking that it might be fun to watch the Iowa returns with some other political junkies in a bar or coffee shop. Mind you, I’m not so addicted to politics that I thought up this idea myself. I read about a caucus watching party at SLOG, the blog of Seattle’s alt weekly, The Stranger.

Could I find a caucus watching party in the Twin Cities?

I wondered about that myself.  I’ve never heard of such a thing.

And I’m not alone…

I took a look at the City Pages blog, The Blotter, but there was no mention of any caucus watching party. Heck, there wasn’t a single mention of the Iowa caucus. Meanwhile, on SLOG, the Stranger was offering regular updates from the reporter they dispatched to Iowa and the former intern who was now attending college there.

So I Googled the following: Minneapolis Iowa caucus watching party.

I found one — from four years ago.

 And I’m gonna bet it was a bunch of those “Drinking Liberally” people. 

Okay, so maybe this stuff doesn’t get to Google. I tried Seattle Iowa caucus watching party. Four decent hits, including the SLOG post.

Damn. I’m living in the wrong city.

Or we need to throw a party on Super Tuesday.

After I get done at my caucuses, if you please…

“‘Liberated’  Women voters seize the day” is the Times’ headline re Hillary!’s “upset” comeback in New Hampshire:

Yesterday she claimed to have “liberated” women politicians, after a campaign in which she revealed a previously unseen passion and personal empathy.

And how did she do that?

Mrs Clinton played down claims that her tearful appearance in a Portsmouth coffee shop on Monday had been the catalyst for the turnaround in a contest that Mr Obama had expected to win easily. Instead, aides said that a more personal and open approach had allowed voters to see the “real Hillary Clinton”.

See “Ron Brown’s Funeral“.

Hillary in Cthe last round of Democrat debates (emphasis added):

This is the toughest job in the world. I was laughing because you know in that debate, obviously Sen. Edwards and Sen. Obama were kind of in the buddy system on the stage. And I was thinking whoever’s up against the Republican nominee in the election debates come the fall is not gonna have a buddy to fall back on. You know, you’re all by yourself. When you’re president, you’re there all by yourself.

Yep.  All by yourself.  Nobody to whine about.

I’m fairly sure that Ahmadinejad, Chavez, Kim Jong-Il and Hamas operate in something of a “buddy system”, too, Hills.  What’s Katie Couric going to do for you there?

I’m not the only whom events are dragging into near-existential political conflict.

Kouba writes:

With Duncan Hunter out of the race, it surprises me to no end, given that a few months ago I wouldn’t have given him the time of day, I am all but prepared to declare myself a McCain supporter.

I’m not quite there yet; I’m still sorting out who’s on the short list.

• Reagan said if you agree with someone on 80% of issues, give him the benefit of the doubt on the other 20 and support him.  Giuliani comes in somewhere between 65% and 85%, depending on my mood. 
• So, as a matter of fact, does McCain.  Thorley’s excellent defense aside (we did forgive Bush for signing McCain-Feingold; I respond that now – rather than after the election – is the time to register that displeasure, and so I shall), McCain-Feingold is a problem, and I plan on raising it until such a time as JMac is the candidate, in the unlikely hope he repudiates it.
• Do I dock points because someone seems too slick, smooth and polished?  If not, Romney looks good.  But is he a wartime leader?  That’s the $64,000 question.
• Fred?  Fred?  Any ol’ time, here.
• The Hucker has one advantage; he’d be better than any Democrat.   It’s not enough to get him elected, of course.  He’s got all of Bush’s weak spots ($pending) and none of his strengths. 

On the other hand, I do love a horse race.

The “bad” news:  yesterday’s New Hampshire primary clarified nothing.

The good news:  yesterday’s New Hampshire primary clarified nothing.

On the right side, frankly, the fact that the GOP race is wilder and woolier than ever is a good thing; if I have anything to say about it, it’ll draw people out in droves on Super Tuesday, especially to the Minnesota caucuses.  For reasons I’ve elaborated before, I’m glad to see McCain resurging, although I’m nowhere close to deciding who I want as a candidate yet.
As to the Dem side – more of the same.  Much, much more.

With the almost-irrational hype over Obama this past few weeks. I was starting to wonder if Obama wasn’t close to re-capturing the woozy hype of the Kennedy clan – the style-and-appearance-over-substance delusions that impelled a generation of Americans to vote for a slate of hug toys.  An irrational America is an America that listens to the Doors and thinks Abby Hoffman is groovy and that Kathleen Soliah is a solid citizen.  So I’m deliriously happy to see that rumors of Hillary’s demise are premature, and her semi-trailer full of negatives is still solidly in the race.

While I think the Huckabee train may have left the station for now, the frighteningly prolific Miss O’Hara sums up something I’ve been pondering for quite a while:

Christians of varying stripes support [Governor Huckabee] for no other reason than “he’s one of us”, an intellectually and spiritually neglectful position to take. Don’t tell me this isn’t happening; I’ve heard talk show caller after caller and read person after person saying, “We’re supporting the Christian!” Whoop-dee-doo. Thompson and Hunter are believers as well. So is Ron Paul. Mitt Romney may be Mormon and Rudy Giuliani may be Catholic, but I dare say they believe in Jesus too. I believe in Him. So do satan and his minions. Care to use Huckabee’s evangelicalism as your route to logic again?

Make no mistake about it; I’m a Christian.  So is most of this nation.  It stands to reason that I’d And I believe that being of faith is an important thing in a person; all other things being equal, I’d vote for a person of faith over an atheist. 

Of course, all other things are rarely equal.  Would I vote for a pro-growth, low-taxes, strict-constructionist, pro-defense Moslem over, say, Jimmy Carter?   Well, let’s burn that bridge when we come to it, shall we?

Too many believers are not thoughtful as the Bible admonishes us to be, but buy into anything proclaiming itself as faith-friendly hook, line, and sinker without ever stopping to consider what it is we’re aligning ourselves with.

Which is, unfortunately, what I see from a lot of “people of faith”.

Note:  the first conservative candidate for whom I was ever genuinely active was Jack Kemp, back in 1988.  Kemp, along with Reagan, P.J. O’Rourke and Brett Schundler, is one of my lifetime heroes of conservatism.

GeeEmInEm notes:

Just days after I mourn the absence of a genuine pro-growth candidate in the GOP race, Jack Kemp comes out and endorses John McCain.

Snap.

While I take the endorsement as an article of faith, I take it nevertheless.

With this field, I’ll take what I can get.

Which, in my case, is “yet another reason to move JMac back onto my short list”.

“Zack” at MNPublius called last week’s brouhaha between Drew Emmer and my NARN colleague Michael Brodkorb and I a “GOP Circular Firing Squad”

Zack.  Bubbie.  It was a circular firing squad.  In the same sense that the 101st Airborne was, at Bastogne; facing outward. 

 (No, I’m sure “Zack” doesn’t get the reference.  It’s history.  Ask a Republican about it).

That is all.

I see politics – at large, and within parties – as a big game of tug of war. In the exact middle of the rope is a ribbon.

The difference between this and a real tug of war is that you will never pull the ribbon all the way to your side of the pit in the middle, to say nothing of pulling your opponents into it. Oh, it’s a goal – but it will never happen. So every so often – say, every four minutes, or every four years, whichever fits your metaphor better – the referee blows the whistle, and measures where the ribbon is. I’m rooting for the ribbon to move to the right – so I get into the scrum and pull for all I’m worth to get that ribbon moved.

Let’s stretch the metaphor even further. It’s not just a single tug of war; it’s a tournament. And the farther your side gets the ribbon to your side in the semifinals, the more of you will move on to the finals for the big championship round. The catch is, if people get too pissed off at the results of the semifinals and take their cleats and go home, you jeopardize your team’s shot at the finals.  Because the other guys will be pulling with all their might to not only get that ribbon pulled to the left; they want you, and the whole rest of the country, to fall into the mud pit.

We had one of those tugs of war Saturday on the NARN Volume III. Michael Brodkorb wrote about it on MDE;

The point of lampooning of Drew’s and Mitch’s posts was highlight a larger problem that I see that with a certain element of the conservative movement. Some people like to complain and act, while some people just like to complain. It was my opinion that Drew’s and Mitch’s posts were about complaining and not about acting. As I wrote, neither of them had done any volunteering for the Republican effort in SD 25, yet they were the first to complain about the loss. But they both complained because they care about the conservative movement in Minnesota. In reality, our very important conversation wouldn’t have occurred without Drew’s post. For that, we should all offer our sincere thanks to Drew.

The caucuses are a month away (more – much more – on this later). We’re in the semifinals, now – time for the tug of war within the GOP. It’s time for those of us who do stand for the First Principles of conservatism – liberty, prosperity, security, limited government, culture and family – to do what we can to move that metaphorical ribbon within the party to the right.  It’s the time when all of you who think Tim Pawlenty is a RINO, or that Jim Ramstad is too conservative, or who think that Norm Coleman is a Democrat in a nicer suit, or that we need Fred Thompson rather than Rudy Giuliani in the White House, or that the Sixth District needs a moderate rather than an evangelical conservative – need to turn out to the precinct caucuses on February 5.

You need to show up.

You need to vote.

You need to run for the delegate positions, promising to support conservative candidates and principles.

You have to volunteer for your precinct, district, congressional district, and the state convention.

You need to show up at the conventions, and vote for those candidates and principles.  In areas that swing between moderate, conservative and single-issue voters, you need to not only represent your principles – but be involved in the horse-trading that involves forcing the compromises that are at the very root of the word “politics”.

You need to help pull that ribbon to the right.

And then, when the conventions are over, you – we, all of us, conservatives and Republicans of all stripes, “moderates” and Buchananites and libertarians and Reaganites and every flavor in between, having fought the good fight for conservative principle to the absolute hilt through the caucuses and at each and every level of conventions, need to do something that hardly anyone talks about.

We need to close ranks.

Having fought – and, hopefully, won – the good, conservative fight at the caucuses and in the conventions, we need to get some perspective; while not all Republicans will meet a good conservative’s approval, it’s a safe bet that virtually no Democrats will. It will be time to realize that even an “imperfect” Republican is, in almost every case and on nearly every issue, better than a Democrat.

Because while I join many of you in disparaging the “Republicans in Name Only”, the “moderates”, the Republicans who are liberal enough to earn endorsement from the Strib, and get Lori Sturdevant’s approval, there are two reasons to suck it up and hold your nose and work your butt off, even for “RINO” Republicans, even if they offend some of your conservative principles.

The first reason: Every ten years, the state’s congressional districts are reapportioned. And the party with the most seats controls the process. And the DFL, if they are in control, will gerrymander the state’s districts to reinforce their control over this state.

The second: there will, in the next four to eight years, be between one and three Supreme Court seats opening up. And a Republican-controlled Senate will be better for seeing responsible, constructionist, sane judges confirmed.

And in neither case does it matter one iota if the GOP majority is 100% Reaganite purists or 40% Sturdevant-approved moderates. In these cases, literally, a majority that is 2/3 of “good enough” is better – as in, better for the sake of 10 years of state legislation and 20-30 years of SCOTUS decisions – than an ideologically perfect minority. When it comes to reapportioning the state and US legislatures, numbers count, and count drastically. If you don’t think it matters, then ponder if you will the way the DFL drew the legislative map in 1990; Minnesota’s legislative map looked like a Rohrschach blob, drawn to maximize the effect of DFL votes. It made getting any serious reform impossible throughout the nineties. It made it possible for the DFL to spend surplus after surplus, defeat concealed carry reform, create the Department of Children Families and Learning,  and impose the Profiles in Learning,  and fund and design the Ventura Trolley; for a decade (really, for the third of three decades) it allowed the DFL to spent money like crack whores with stolen Gold Cards. All because the GOP lost a bunch of Legislative seats in the eighties.

My favorite example – the one I’ve been dinging on pretty mercilessly for the last year – is the people who told me before the ’06 election (and after the convention) that they were staying home and not voting for Mark Kennedy because he voted for ethanol subsidies. And I’d like to look each and every one of them up right now, and ask “do you think Amy Klobuchar is any better on ethanol? Is a Supreme Court seat worth losing over ethanol? Do you think Amy Klobuchar is better on immigration, defense, education, life or even, ironically, spending – the issue that ostensibly kept you home – than Kennedy would have been?”

Is there such a thing as “going too far” in finding the point where princple and pragmatism intersect?  Of course.  But I’m at a loss to think of one in the running in Minnesota today.  To pick the most recent example, Ray Cox was far from my personal ideal Republican – he got a “26%” score from the Taxpayers League, and got the Strib’s endorsement, for crying out loud.  Would he be better to have in the Senate than DFLer Kevin Dahle?  Without question.  But to take Michael’s point – the time to argue that would have been before and during the endorsing convention. 

And don’t say you can’t argue with the party leadership.  Although I’ve criticized my district and state leadership in the past, the fact is that grassroots movements work.  Michele Bachmann upended the wishes of the CD6 leadership in ’06 by getting her base out in teeming droves that put wildebeest migrations to shame, upsetting many a CD6 establishment figure’s applecart – and winning the nomination, and the race.  Because conservatives turned out, and worked hard, to see their vision through.  Another great example – Tim Pawlenty; the governor was a pragmatic moderate in the House; it was the grassroots groundswell of support for Brian Sullivan that pushed him to the right.  While it didn’t make him a perfect conservative governor, it did make him a vastly better alternative than Roger Moe – all because conservatives got out and voted at caucuses and conventions.

So argue like crazy, today. Stand on absolute principle. Work your butts off for absolute rigid stiffnecked rock-ribbed conservative idealism. I’m going to; I don’t care if it offends the GOP or not! I’ll fight the good fight, and throw bricks at every part of the GOP that doesn’t measure up to the party I want to see…

…until the conventions. And then, starting with my BPOU, and then my Congressional Distict, then within the state, and finally with every other real American Republican nationwide. I’m going to make my notes for the next nomination and caucus cycle, file ’em away, and get out and try to get Republicans – even the lame, “RINO”, not-quite-conservative-enough ones – elected.

Because the big tug of war is coming next – and the Democrats’ philosophy has always been “compromise is for losers” (until they lose – then they whinge about the “need” for “bipartisanship” and “cooperation”), and moving that ribbon to the right isn’t just inside-the-party beanbag. It’s for laws. It’s for judges. It’s for your pocketbook and our kids’ education and our nation’s security, and all of the first ten Amendments and the unborn to boot.

And if that ribbon is one foot left of the center of that metaphorical pit because any of us stayed home because we didn’t like how the GOP’s tug of war ended up, it’s our fault.

Romney wins one:

Mitt Romney captured his first win of the Republican presidential race, gaining most of Wyoming’s delegates at stake in GOP caucuses on Saturday.The former Massachusetts governor won six of the first eight delegates to be selected.

Until I got this news, I was worried we’d hear about Hugh holed up in a house with Britney Spears, with a stack of pistols and a crate of cigarettes, telling the coppers they’d never take either of them alive.

Glad to hear that was a premature speculation.

Peggy Noonan has a take on the “why” of the Hucker’s win:

From the mail I have received the past month after criticizing him in this space, I would say his great power, the thing really pushing his supporters, is that they believe that what ails America and threatens its continued existence is not economic collapse or jihad, it is our culture.

We’ll get back to this.

They have been bruised and offended by the rigid, almost militant secularism and multiculturalism of the public schools; they reject those schools’ squalor, in all senses of the word. They believe in God and family and America. They are populist: They don’t admire billionaire CEOs, they admire husbands with two jobs who hold the family together for the sake of the kids; they don’t need to see the triumph of supply-side thinking, they want to see that suffering woman down the street get the help she needs.

Much has been written about Huckabee’s stealth liberalism, by much better observers than I. 

But the Huckabee’s great strength – “it’s the home, family, schools and culture, stupid!” – is also the deepest pitfall.  It points out an inward-facing, insular coccooning instinct that is the flip side of the post-cold-war euphoria that gave us Bill Clinton.  In 1992, the electorate said “History is over; let’s talk about underwear!”.  Today, it’s “the world is a dangerous place, here and abroad; I wanna focus on “here””.  It’s a current that melds nicely with Huckabee’s propensity to bury problems in money, and his foreign policy naivete.

They believe that Mr. Huckabee, the minister who speaks their language, shares, down to the bone, their anxieties, concerns and beliefs.

Sorta like that other candidate from Little Rock did. 

But history didn’t stop in 1992, and you can’t wish it away today.

Two of my favorite local center-right bloggers – Jeff Kouba and Jay Reding – write posts I’d like to have written myself.

Reding:

Obama, to his credit, does signal a break from the Clintonite school of politics which have corrupted American politics for years now. The “campaign war room” and the politics of personal destruction that marked the Clinton years hardly helped America’s politics. Getting rid of that would be a step in the right direction.

And Obama as “The New Carter”… 

The problem with Obama is that he’s winning on some vague notion of “change”—while doing little to describe what direction he’d take the country. Obama would be a formidable challenge for the GOP, but ultimately he doesn’t have the executive experience needed to be a successful President. He also votes like a doctrinaire liberal, which undercuts his ability to reach across party lines. He would do better than Edwards, but in the end his appeal is largely skin deep.

Place your bets…:

The worst case scenario is an Edwards/Huckabee match, in which case I’ll say to hell with it and end up voting for Ron Paul just out of spite for such big government paternalists. Ideally, I’d like to see an Obama/Thompson contest—Obama’s idealism is a nice contrast to the general pessimism of the Democratic Party, and Fred Thompson has the strongest grasp of policy. An Obama/McCain race would also be interesting for much the same reason.

I’ll differ from Jay here:  the worst case is an Obama/Hucker match; the media has carefully groomed Huckabee as America’s Second Choice against any Democrat, and the’ll call that marker in in spades.  And I’m nowhere near ready to count Rudy out of this.  But I agree; Thompson’s surge makes me want to hope “he’s just been pacing himself for the past six month”. 

And then there’s McCain; as I noted a few weeks ago, he’s so close to being acceptable. 

Cut Speech Rationing loose, JMac, and you could get yourself a supporter.  Have your people call my people.

Kouba:

This is why I think McCain will now be the likely nominee, because Republican voters will still value a strong candidate on national defense. On the Democratic side, we’ve already seen they want an American defeat in Iraq, and so Obama is perfectly acceptable on that count.

However, let’s not assume history has ended just because the surge in Iraq has produced encouraging results. Think back just a year ago, at the end of 2006 Iraq was in danger of sliding into the abyss. This election was supposed to be all about Iraq. Now it’s gone from the headlines.

We can’t allow ourselves to be fatigued. Our enemies still plot and scheme. We must resolve, as Churchill said,

We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this Island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God’s good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old.

Yesterday was Dunkirk for conservatives – and supporting Mike Huckabee and Ray “26 out of 100” Cox and, really, any RINO (you hear me, CD3GOP?) is the march to the Dyle).

Will we have D-Day in October?

Stay tuned.

DFLer Kevin Dahle rode to disappointing victory in the SD25 Special Election yesterday, carried to the Capitol on a wave of college kids that drove over a Strib-endorsed, District-Leadership-approved, not-very-conservative Ray Cox, who proceeded (apparently) to phone in a campaign.

Drew Emmer calls it:

…the DFL has revealed a private side that is strategically superior to the GOP campaign mechanism. We should pay attention. Especially those of us that think being philosophically “superior” to our socialistic opponents is somehow going to carry the day in fall 2008. We can be as right as right can be on the philosophical arguments but as Wheelock Whitney said in his complaint about Pat Robertson’s takeover of the party in the late ’80s “Victory goes to those who show up”.

And the GOP didn’t show up – at least, not enough of them to counter the DFL’s play:

Local politics is finite math. The DFL found victory in coy manipulation of same-day registration and what is reported as a higher than expected student turnout in Northfield proper. There was no credible rallying alarm for the conservative base to respond to. That was largely because many in the conservative base felt somewhat excluded by the process whereby Neuville anointed Cox without the benefit of a grassroots vetting of the GOP endorsement.

Are you paying attention, Third District?  When you take an imperious, top-down process (see:  CD4) and add a “play it safe”, “Sturdevant-Approved (R)” “moderate” Republican who is “safe” for the party leadership (he was endorsed by the Strib!  I mean, what kind of warning sign do you need?) but puts out no reason to vote for him (because if you give the voters a choice between a DFLer and a DFLer-in-all-but-name, they’ll take the DFLer)…

…you lose the veto.

“We” were out-smarted, out-flanked and out-worked. For the record, I did nothing to help in SD25. How about you?

Didn’t think I’d need to, frankly.  I’ve got my own tide to try to turn in my own town.

Without the veto, the next session is going to look like the shower-room scene in Midnight Express.  Hang onto your wallets; if you thought you could escape the Komintern by fleeing to suburbia, hang on.

More – much more – on the NARN tomorrow, and in this space on Monday.

So we’ve determined a few things so far in this series:

1. It can be frustrating, being a conservative in the city.
2. Tossing “warm body” candidates out there to take their shots at Congress, State Legislative and city/county offices can feel pretty futile.
3. It’s largely because the Democraticicicicic party has spent several generations and four decades patiently insinuating itself into every facet of urban life.  The entire infrastructure of the city is tied up in the DFL; many of the inhabitants of both cities are either government employees or – after several generations of using the city as a warehouse for the poor or an unloading point for immigrants – beholden to the government.  (It’s not entirely a bad, or at least malicious, thing; Bruce Vento was instrumental in bringing the H’mong from refugee camps in Thailand to Saint Paul.  Did the late congressman do it to earn the loyalty of thousands of future voters?  It was Bruce Vento, for crying out loud; he didn’t scratch his nose if it didn’t benefit the party.  But no sane person begrudges the H’mong their place in America; they earned it, and, if you leave out the whole “patronage” thing, it was perhaps Vento’s greatest achievement). 

So how do we – Republicans who live in the city, and/or Republicans who know this state’ll never be a “red” state until we can at least contest Saint Paul and Minneapolis – start to put the city in play?

There are a couple of options:

1. Wait for a Ronald Reagan or a Brett Schundler.  You might be waiting a long time.
2. Keep throwing candidates at offices they’ll never win, barring a visit from a Democraticicicic-seeking virus that leaves the entire DFL electorate flat on its back on election day.
3. Start building some real grass roots in the cities.

We’ll talk about #3 on Monday.

Mike Huckabee – the GOP’s Jimmy Carter, the Republican that Hillary! wants to face in November – has apparently won the Hawkeye Cauci:

Mike Huckabee, a Baptist preacher turned politician, grabbed a slight lead over former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney Thursday night in the Iowa caucuses, first test in the race for the Republican presidential nomination. Hillary Rodham Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards vied for the Democratic victory.

Sigh.

Decent finish for Thompson, anyway.

Ed is liveblogging the Iowa Caucuses.

(Not to be confused with King Banaian, who’s been known to liveblog from the Caucasus).

Me?  Well, one of my neighbors asked me why the heck someone isn’t throwing a Iowa Caucus party.

Hmmm.

There’s an idea for the New Hampshire Primary…

Special election in Senate District 25 today.

It’s cold out there; bad weather usually favors Republicans.  Ray Cox would seem to be a serious favorite anyway, but after the last round of elections, it’d be fun to wad a DFLer up like used kleenex and toss him under the bus.  Electorally speaking, of course.