The Silkypony campaign is mortally insulted by Ann Coulter:

Can you help us raise $100,000 in “Coulter Cash” this week to keep this campaign charging ahead and fight back against the politics of bigotry?

Bigotry? Why, what would the Silkypony campaign know about bigotry? (via RWV)

Jeff Kouba on the Spartanburg, SC Republican straw poll – which Rudy Giuliani won, with 158 votes.  Duncan Hunter was in second with 152, McCain came in third at 116 votes, with Brownback, Romney and Huckabee trailing by more distant margins.

Kouba:

Skipping the usual blandishments about how little these polls count, straw polls normally reward on-the-spot organization and ideological fidelity more than electability, experience, or money – witness in Minnesota two examples, Gary Bauer’s 1999 victory and Newt Gingrich’s 2006 win.

The catch? 

But the campaign organizations in South Carolina claiming victory were, well, Spartan.

As The Hotline’s excellent primer for the straw poll revealed, Giuliani’s organization consisted of 2 paid staff and were already talking down expectations before the vote. Hunter had no paid staff – none – and claimed only 25 to 30 volunteers. In contrast, McCain had “the most advanced field team in the state” and 11 paid SC staff members to come in third. Romney had 10 on the payroll, headlined a major dinner recently and has been airing TV ads, which bought him 3 votes more than soon-to-be conservative also ran Sam Brownback.

In other words, Giuliani’s straw poll win – insert eternal “16 months ’til the convention” blurb here – was against type for these kinds of straw polls.

The result also hints at the true depths of the current popularity of Giuliani when Hizzoner wins a straw poll in one of the more conservative counties in South Carolina with next to no campaign structure.

The left – including some of them who frequent this blog – continue to insist that the conservative base will eventually shun Rudy.  And yet Rudy keeps on winning conservative straw polls, and handily, including this latest one – deep in the fanny pack on the back of the Bible Belt. 

The kind of place that’s supposed to eat smartass New Yorkers alive…

Katherine Kersten takes on the U of M’s doltish decision to give Algore a PhD in…something.

Rad the whole thing.  But I liked the decision – “what degree?”

Early on, the doctorate in science had an edge. But the recently released summary of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change changed all that. It made clear that a centerpiece of Gore’s sky-is-falling claim — ocean levels rising 20 feet as a near term prospect — is wildly off base. The panel projects that by 2100, sea level will rise a mere 7 to 23 inches.

So how about an honorary doctorate of laws, based on Gore’s efforts on behalf of the Kyoto global warming treaty? Unfortunately, skeptics might point out that Gore couldn’t even talk Bill Clinton into submitting the treaty to Congress, after the Senate voted 95-0 for a resolution discouraging it, and that compliance has been poor among countries that did sign the treaty.

Humane letters? Naw, that’s not for real men like Al.

Which degree will it be? The Daily article contains a clue. It quoted Ingrid Scantlebury, a precocious U of M freshman not yet caught up in the Gore glow. According to the Daily, Scantlebury “agrees with Gore’s work but doesn’t feel the university should award him a degree for it. ‘It’s mainly a publicity thing,’ she said.”

You guessed it — Gore’s going to get a special honorary doctorate in marketing.

I think “Creative Writing” or “American Fiction” would do, too…

David Strom runs down the list of Minnesota political luminaries – and former luminaries (mostly the latter) and notes:

 Hmm.

The McCain campaign has announced its “Minnesota Team,” and overall the list is very heavy on the liberal Republicans.

Very Heavy.

Very very heavy on the liberal Republicans.

And, after noting the list’s leftness of center and longness of tooth, asks…:

Why was Pawlenty so unsuccessful in filling out this list with big names? Where are the big money people other than Eibensteiner?

Hmmm. Where is everyone else going? Romney or Guiliani? Or just waiting in the wings?

 MOB Mayor Andy Aplikowski says:

I can tell you that many people I have talked to about McCain, are supporting him solely based on his military career, and time served in the Hanoi Hilton. I would never begin to attack them or McCain for that, but I would strongly urge anyone seriously considering McCain to look at his Senate career instead. That’s the kind of President we will get with McCain.

Some other names on the list that I know can simply be summed up by saying that they believe the Government should solve every and any problem. RINOs, if you will. We’re gonna be ground zero in the 2008 Presidential melee for Republicans, and this is the list of people McCain and Pawlenty put together to go twist arms? Frankly, a lot of these people won’t even be listened to by the conservative base of the Republican party.

Gotta confess – I’d love to be able to support McCain.  He’s a war hero, for crying out loud. 

But McCain/Feingold would only be forgiveable if McCain were to ask for forgiveness – and, better yet, seek atonement by sponsoring an immediate repeal.

Without that?  I just can’t see it.

Tom Vilsack bails out of the Prez race.

Vilsack left office in January and traveled through states holding early tests of strength, but he attracted neither the attention nor the campaign cash of his top tier rivals — Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, Sen. Barack Obama and John Edwards.

In the most recent financial documents, Vilsack reported raising more than $1.1 million in the last seven weeks of 2006 but only had around $396,000 cash in the bank. Some campaign finance experts contend the candidates will need $20 million by June 2007.

Vilsack’s decision still leaves a crowded field of eight Democrats dominated by Clinton, Obama and Edwards.

The best I could say about Tom Vilsack was that “he’d suck less as a president than Hillary! or Obama – but I’d be lying.  Vilsack’s moderate credentials were forged.

Still, the farther left the field drifts, the better.

…and doesn’t get body-slammed to the ground!

Read the story.

Wesley Clark, that is.

America’s favorite Clinton-era general is back, and is pimping another non-cause.  And if you’re online around 12:30, he’s going to be on Jim Boyce’s show on BlogTalkRadio.  I may try to call in; it’d be nice if he was facing someone  besides sycophants…
He’s also popping up on the Huffpo.

Coincidence?

Al Franken announces.

Poll number bounces.

The poll shows Coleman getting 57 percent of the vote and Franken getting 35 percent.

The poll also looked at a possible matchup between Coleman and attorney Mike Ciresi, who is also expected to seek the DFL nomination. Coleman also wins that match by a margin of 57 to 34.

The margin of error on the poll is +/- 3.9 percent; 632 registered voters were polled on Feb. 12 and Feb. 13.

The signs?  Coleman trounces…

…but the Strib?  It renounces (any claim to objectivity; it will be in the bag for Franken, or whomever the DFL anoints.  Look for a campaign dirty enough to make Alan Fine feel lucky).

Not many things will get me to miss a two-hour 24.  But it was worth it.

I attended a “Lincoln’s Birthday” fundraiser for Minnesota Senate District 62 last night, at Minnehaha Academy in Minneapolis.  Dan and Karen Mathias and their kids organized the event, and did a fantastic job.  About sixty of the hardcore faithful (including BuddhaPatriot and the ubuiquitous Pink Monkeybird) turned out to see a panel hosted by Annette Meeks and including Katherine Kersten, David Strom and (who doesn’t belong in this picture?) me discussing the state of conservatism today – the way we got here, and where we go. 

I had a blast, of course.  Great company, great dinner, and a great time. 

(more…)

Barack Obama digs at Australia, via Scott Johnson:

Australian Prime Minister John Howard criticized Obama’s call for immediate American withdrawal from Iraq. When Obama was asked to respond, he declined simply to express respectful disagreement with a loyal American ally. Instead he insulted Australia’s contribution to the war effort, belittling the 1,600 Australian troops in Iraq. He said that if Australia was so dedicated, maybe it should raise its contribution to 20,000.

Obama not only insulted our ally, he formulated the insult in the inelegant fashion of an intellectual thug. CNN reports that Obama said if the Australian prime minister was “ginned up to fight the good fight in Iraq,” he needs to send another 20,000 Australians to the war. “Otherwise, it’s just a bunch of empty rhetoric,” Obama said.

Not as empty as Obama’s.  Australia doesn’t have 20,000 combat troops.  The 1,600 men they currently have in Iraq are a very large share of their active military. 

Please, Democrats;  nominate this hamster. 

Barnett on the epidemic of vacuity that’s paralyzed leftyblogs from day one; today, my old kicktoy Ollie Willis:

There actually is a lot of interesting stuff in the left wing blogs. But some of the left-wing blogs serve as a vehicle for their authors to prove their ignoramus bona fides on an almost daily basis. I call this the Oliver Willis School of Blogging. For a wonderful example of this art form, check out Oliver’s mini-post regarding his indifference to the death of Barbaro. Ollie scolds, “The idea that so much ink is being spilt over a horse just kind of appals (sic) me.”

Of course, all bloggers are entitled to their opinions, even when they’re ill-informed or intemperately expressed. What is unfathomable is why a campaign would hire a person who delights in gratuitously causing offense as its representative.

Like so many of us, Barnett tackles Mandy Marcotte:

Amanda Marcotte, the blogresss from Pandagon that Edwards hired, happens to be one of the worst of the lot. In fairness to Oliver who actually comes across as a nice albeit not particularly talented guy, Marcotte is a bitter, angry person who thrives on offering offensive and obtuse observations. Her now infamous post from just days before the Edwards campaign hired her shows Marcotte at her “best”:

The funny part is that none of it is a surprise.

I went through a phase a few years back where I read leftyblogs with an eye partly turned to criticism, and partly to ridicule; there was plenty of grist for both mills.

And then I gave it up.  The vast majority of leftyblogs, with precious few exceptions – even among the big ones – were puerile, sophomoric, pointless…just plain dumb. I found that if I wanted, for whatever reason, a leftyblogger’s perspective, I was better off going with one of the less-stupid, less-insane locals, like Powerliberal or Flash or even the New Patriot Collective For Make Better Distribution of Information for Glorious DFL.  We have knocked heads for years – but they, along with many (albeit not all) local leftybloggers do a much better product than the deranged Kos, the Peter-Principled Atrios, the dumb Ollie Willis, and the angry-funny-without-the-funny Jesus General.

And especially Pandagon.  Although they had the occasional reason to exist when giggly fratboys Ezra “John” Klein and Jesse “Ringo” Taylor ran the show, once the blog turned into a collective, it became essentially a “Kos” wannabee; all of the heat, less of whatever pittance of light “Kos” emits.

One of the band of intellectual midgets that inherited Pandagon from Taylor and Klein was Amanda Marcotte, a fatuous screechblogger with a record of giggly bigotry and purple-faced religious hatred who was recently hired as the Edwards campaign’s official blogger.

Leftybloggers are closing ranks around their own:

I suspect that they are trying to tear her down because they are justifiably afraid that she will excel at her new job.

Um, no.  Actually, I hope every liberal candidate hires a screechblogger; they will provide us a treasure trove of material for the next couple of years (or until they get fired for embarassing their bosses, which would seem likely, sooner than later, in Marcotte’s case). 

How likely?  This bit here is making the rounds:

One thing I vow here and now–you motherf**kers who want to ban birth control will never sleep. I will f**k without making children day in and out and you will know it and you won’t be able to stop it.

At the considerable risk of sounding catty, I don’t think I’m going to be needing to “stop” anything.

But I digress:

 Toss and turn, you mean, jealous motherf**kers. I’m not going to be “punished” with babies. Which makes all your efforts a failure. Some non-procreating women escaped. So give up now. You’ll never catch all of us. Give up now.

It’s not that I want to “catch” anyone, least of all Ms. Marcotte.  Enjoy your life, whatever it may be, by all means!  It’s just that I’m thinking John Edwards isn’t going to be picking up a whole lot of red-state action with that kind of vibe going out on his frequency.

Leftybloggers – some of them – have a curious sense of what’s really important. 

Along with disparaging her on the most ridiculously inane grounds (E.g. “She uses profanity! Holy f**king s**t!”)…

I’ve noticed that from quite a few leftybloggers, big and small, find profanity to be a symbol of accomplishment; with some, the attitude seems “Woo hoo! Let’s see you godbags keep up with this profanity game, m****r******g d****e**g s*****ni-eating s****s!”, as if fluency with profanity is a sign of…anything?  I remember one fairly vacuous former local leftyblogger, writing about an even more vacuous local leftyblogger; “he might drive the wingnuts crazy with the swears!”.  Welcome to fourth grade!

I’ve lived around Chicagoans long enough to say with absolute assurance; I can swear more fluently than any leftyblogger (who’s not from Chicago and also brain-dead).  I don’t take especial pride in it; profanity merely substitutes shock for thought.  Which, with some people, is the only rhetorical tool in the belt.

Including, according to everything I’ve seen, Amanda Marcotte.

Two of my favorite regional conservative bloggers take up sides on Giuliani:

Jay Reding:

If Giuliani can moderate his position and speak in the language that social conservatives understand, I don’t necessarily think that there will be a huge backlash against him from social conservatives. Social conservatives aren’t going to hand the White House to a John Edwards or a Hillary Clinton or a Barack Obama just because they have some issues with Giuliani. Even though some social conservatives might stay home, Giuliani can pick up the libertarian-leaning Republicans, fiscal conservatives, and moderates who abandoned the GOP in the 2006 cycle. So long as there’s more of them then there are Republicans who would never consider Giuliani, he is still very much in the game.

Assuming Giuliani doesn’t flame out sometime in the next year or so which, admittedly, is always a possibility he has a strong chance at picking up the nomination. He’s going to have to have a road-to-Damascus moment on the Second Amendment, but he’s got the time to do so. Giuliani’s greatest asset is that he exudes a sense of leadership — when he’s in the room, there’s no doubt that he’s in charge.

On the other hand, TvM’s Jeff Kouba:

If Giuliani does not unequivocably state he believes abortion is wrong because it ends an unborn human life, period, I don’t see Giuliani ever winning over conservatives on this one.

Giuliani would have to hope he seems tough enough on matters of terrorism and national security for conservatives to give abortion a back seat in the list of priorities.

And the trouble with that is the country is becoming weary of war, with seemingly little obvious progress in Iraq. Conservatives may be prone to want to turn their attentions back home, wash their hands of the world, and focus again on domestic issues. If so, Giuliani will have a tough run for the party’s nomination.

I’m still nowhere close to figuring this one out. 

Ed and I had a great conversation about the ’08 GOP race on the show Saturday. I think we are in similar places.

For both of us, seeing Rudy Giuliani speaking in ’05 at the Center of the American Experiment was a bit of an epiphany; Rudy has something that is sorely lacking from too many in the GOP, especially on the short list; leadership.

Giuliani isn’t a conservative true believer; he’s very weak on abortion and the Second Amendment. But if you’re a conservative, abortion is best handled by the states, and as long as the President refrains from turning the BATF loose on the people and pushing to repeal the Second Amendment, I can look at other issues more seriously. Indeed, the most important way the President interfaces with either of these issues is via the judges he nominates to the federal and Supreme Courts.

And it’s there that Ed got some good news:

On the Federal judiciary I would want judges who are strict constructionists because I am. I’m a lawyer. I’ve argued cases in the Supreme Court. I’ve argued cases in the Court of Appeals in different parts of the country. I have a very, very strong view that for this country to work, for our freedoms to be protected, judges have to interpret not invent the Constitution. Otherwise you end up, when judges invent the constitution, with your liberties being hurt. Because legislatures get to make those decisions and the legislature in South Carolina might make that decision one way and the legislature in California a different one. And that’s part of our freedom and when that’s taken away from you that’s terrible.

This, combined with the pragmatic desire to have a leader running for the White House, has given Giuliani a surprisingly good start.

I am still undecided. I was impressed with Romney last week, and Giuliani is on my short list. McCain isn’t – he has a lot of forgiveness to grovel for.

I love the lede in this story about the word of rumors of a possibility of Al Franken’s long-awaited (hahaha) announcement  of his impending candidacy:

Comedian and national radio commentator Al Franken will run for the U.S. Senate in 2008, according to a source with Minnesotas Democratic congressional delegation.

“Comedian and talk show host”?

Uh, yeah.  And now, bar-band guitarist and English major Mitch Berg will respond.

Franken told a Democratic congressman days ago that he intends to run for the seat now held by Republican U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman, a high-ranking staffer of the delegation member confirmed Wednesday.

The staffer declined to be identified or directly quoted for fear of ruining the relationship between the congressman and Franken.

Riiiiiight.

Additionally, a senior Democratic official from Minnesota told the Associated Press on Wednesday that Franken also told her of his intentions. That official, who did not want to be identified because Franken has not made an announcement, said the discussion was recent.

For the moment, at least, those close to Franken officially are remaining mum.

No, those close to Franken are doing his bidding, firing off semi-official trial balloons to a compliant, nudging-and-winking local media that is already at least partly in the bag for him.

Al Franken, it seems, might just sign off his failed talk show by announcing he’s running for Senate:

Al Franken announced Monday that he will end his radio talk show on Feb. 14, increasing speculation that he is preparing to run for Minnesota’s U.S. Senate seat in 2008.

“I’m definitely giving it serious consideration, and I plan to make a decision soon and announce that, hopefully not on the same day that Barack Obama makes his decision and announces that,” Franken said on his liberal Air America radio show.

I suppose it’s more likely than, say, apologizing for this very tasteless joke.  And it doesn’t matter – because the only real questions are “how far in the bag for Franken will the Strib be?” and “how many “journalistic ethics” will they waterboard to make it happen?”

Giuliani is flirting with running:

Though he has long been thought to be a presidential contender, he has fallen behind other candidates in declaring his intention, and the language he used on Saturday, while suggesting a run, also contained built-in escape hatches. Speaking to a convention of the New Hampshire Republican Party, he advised the delegates on “what you should look for in whatever decision you make in presidential primaries,” and added, “when I promise you things, if I do, when I do, as I do, I’ll promise them because I’ve done them before.”He returned to that theme moments later, and as he has done in recent days, drew a direct analogy between fighting crime in his home city and establishing peace in Iraq.

“When I say to you that we should reduce taxes to stimulate the economy, I’ll say it to you because I did it and I saw it work,” he said. “When I say we have to bring peace and security as sort of the beginning of anything, whether it’s in Baghdad or in other parts of the world or here at home, I’ll say that to you because I saw that happen in New York, and I made it happen. I did it.”

For me, at this exact moment, the GOP nominating race is Romney vs. Giuliani.

My new neighbor Gary Miller’s new mission statement for Truth v. The Machine:

because if you can’t have fun with the impending collapse of Western Civilization you might as well go home and turn on the gas.

Granted, Ryan Rhodes has been doing both for quite some time…

…but point taken.

(more…)

David Gregory in yet another softball interview with some pro-Clinton pundit:

“I want the drama of a Clinton Administration – prosperity, peace around the world…“

Whoah!  That’s how simple it’ll be!  Elect Hillary!, and radical Islam will be satisfied!

Who knew?

Checks and Balances (in its usual misspell-o-licious form) via Minnesota Democrats Exposed ©

“Looks like our specualtion on Al Franken has been right all along. On Saturday, he attended the DFL Inaugural Ball and told anyone who asked that he was [definitely] running against U.S. Senator Norm Coleman (R-MN).

These next two years are going to be the most fun ever.

…but Matt Lauer, “interviewing” Hillary! Clinton, seems to be feeding the former First Lady her answers re her recent trip to Iraq.

I’d hope that her big idea – a “phased retreat”, first from Baghdad (!), then from the rest of the country – is her own, since it’s pure madness.

And I had to wonder who it is that briefs Clinton on these things; she said “we’ll need two new battalions in Afghanistan – why should those two battalions be in Iraq”.  Of course, “two battalions” is about 1,500 troops.  Is she merely parroting information from people who don’t understand the field very well (likely, given the Clinton Adminstration’s history), or does she just think the American people won’t know the difference?

Jay Reding on one of the Dems’ favorite memes; the incredible shrinking middle class, and their inevitable solution to the nonexistent problem (you get one guess), in re Byron Dorgan and Sherrod Brown’s latest bit of anti-free-trade demigoguery:

Either the middle class is getting shorter, or this is just more populist garbage. There’s no evidence that supports a “shrinking” middle class. Instead, reality tells a different picture. We’ve had years of solid growth. Unemployment is at record low levels. Consumer confidence is high. For all this talk about how terrible life is for the middle class these days the numbers state otherwise.

Here’s how you tell an economic bullshit artist from someone with a clue: if they start resorting to sob stories about how little Mary Jane Pityme lost her job at the mill because of some big bad corporate fatcat, you’re dealing with a bullshit artist. Real economists go for the head, not try to pull wool over people’s eyes with sad stories. Senators Dorgan and Brown are bullshit artists, as will soon be demostrated.

Read the whole thing.

Watch for the media to note that the middle class has stopped shrinking in about January of ’09, by the way – assuming a Democrat wins.

Barack Obama was a cheetoh-chomping cheeba zombie in high school and college, and he admits it…:

Obama’s revelations were not an issue during his Senate campaign two years ago. But now his open narrative of early, bad choices, including drug use starting in high school and ending in college, as well as his tortured search for racial identity, are sure to receive new scrutiny.

As a potential candidate, Obama has presented himself as a fresh voice offering a politics of hope. Many say he offers something new in American politics: an African American with a less-than-traditional name who has so far demonstrated broad appeal. What remains to be seen is whether the candor he offered in his early memoir will be greeted with a new-style acceptance by voters.

…and, like Ed in his piece on the subject, yes, I am qualified to criticize; I’ve never smoked pot in my life (largely because in my punk-rocking high school years I figured pot was for dozey, dim hippie bulbs; punks, in my little worldview, were all about beer and speed. Of course, I didn’t do speed or, until college, drink beer either).  And I say…who cares?
I don’t support Obama – I think the notion that he’s a “moderate Democrat” are pure marketing – but I think it’s a safe bet that he, like President Bush, has reflected on, recovered from, and gone on to abjure his youthful vices.

Of course, it’s incumbent on all of you Democrats who claimed that Bush’s old (and thoroughly-controlled) addictions disqualified him for office to get out there and oppose Obama. Right?

When you remember that 37% of Minnesotans had a collective brownie moment and elected a professional wrestler (who was even dumber than the initial desciption would have you think) as governor, things like this just aren’t funny anymore.

(Via KVM)

South Dakota Senator Tim Johnson has suffered an apparent stroke.

If Johnson were to pass away, or be forced to retire, the US Constitution delegates the task of appointing a replacement to South Dakota lawmakers, who in turn, often turn that task over to the Governor. The Governor of that state, Mike Rounds, is a Republican, and both houses of the state legislature are dominated by Republicans.

Prayers, naturally, for Senator Johnson.  We’d rather get the Senate at the polls.