Karl Rove writes a butt-kissing mash note to his boss’ administration:

This may knock me off some Christmas card lists, but I can see a case for history being kinder to Bush than might seem imaginable now.

Yes, there are any number of better decisions he could have made. Foremost among them would have been to bring a quick and decisive end to the war in Iraq shortly after it began.

And yes, he appears to have been soft on big business, especially the oil and energy sector.

There are areas, though, where Bush has excelled.

He has faced a number of crises that either no president or at least few have had. First, he was commander in chief when the United States was attacked at home on September 11, 2001. He was decisive in his response and showed admirable leadership both at home and abroad.

The nation now appears headed for disastrous financial calamity, the worst since The Great Depression. His administration has been forceful in trying to bring calm and to allocate money to industries fighting to survive.

And the economic woes of this country — just like other monumental, sea-change problems — did not simply appear one day or go away the next. Sure, this happened under his watch but the seeds for our mortgage, home loan crisis and those of the domestic automobile industry collapse were sown long before Bush first took office.

His administration rid the world and a nation of Sadaam Hussein, a despot whose sordid, tortuous crimes against humanity are well documented.

He paved the way for democracy in Iraq and other countries. It is still too early to tell if democracy will stick in any of those places, but people who have never voted are voting and, among others, women have new found rights to education and liberation.

Well, that’s the best you can expect from a racist neocon neocon Israeli-tank-driving neocon torturemongering neocon neocon like Rove.

UPDATE: Whoops.  It wasn’t Rove at all.  It’s Richard L. Connor, at CQ.

I regret the misunderstanding.

Karl Rove – whom some Minnesota liberals have called the Michael Brodkorb of national politics – offers advice for Obama:

Rove, who is considered the architect of President Bush’s election victories in 2000 and 2004, described the latest contest as a “very localized, particularized and, if you will, personalized victory for Barack Obama.”He noted, as evidence, that Democrats failed to pick up as many state legislative seats as past presidential victors from the party had.

“I love John McCain, but with all due respect, he had a dreadful campaign. And having a dreadful campaign, for an opponent, is always helpful,” Rove said to laughs among the crowd of more than 1,500.

That, indeed, was the most frustrating thing about this past fall; how McCain’s campaign could go from its upset win in the primaries and its pre-election conventional-wisdom status as the “moderate’s favorite Republican” and turn it into…well, the campaign we got.

With an eye to the 2012 elections, both strategists were asked whether Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin could re-emerge as a national candidate.

Rove said he thinks she will resurface if “she could grow to become a major policy player with wonderful ideas.”

[Co-panelist and former Clinton and Gore majordomo] Brazile’s rapid-fire answer didn’t miss a beat: “You betcha.”

Nothing really new here.  I’m just sorta working through the novelty of getting material about Karl Rove…

…from Rove’s twitter feeds.

You got it, lefties; after eight years in office, all of us on the right finally  have a connection to Rove!

After the September 11, 2001 attacks, the US military was faced with a challenge unlike any they’d faced, ever; how to root out and depose a government that was providing a safe haven for the terrorists that had launched the 9/11 attacks?

Attacking Afghanistan, the mountanous anarchic home of peoples who’d been warring with each other since the Stone Age, dominated by people who put the “war” in “warlord”, was a formidable challenge. In theory, it was all the more so given that in the previous decade the US military had downsized precipitously; of the eighteen ground combat divisions in service at the end of the Cold War scarcely a decade earlier, we were down to ten on 9/11.

Our response? The US Special Forces (the “Green Berets”) airdropped several detachments of soldiers – fewer than 100 men, initially – into Afghanistan, along with some CIA paramilitaries. Using their primary strengths – flexibility, cultural and language skills and a cultivated ability to think outside the box in life-and-death situations – they made contact with the Northern Alliance (the guerrillas, not the radio show), hatched a plan, and went on the offensive. Using weapons both bleeding-edge (laser designators for guiding bombs in from orbiting aircraft, GPS systems, radios) and timeless (exceptional fieldcraft skills, mastery of small-unit tactics, bravery), those 80-odd men, riding horseback, led the Northern Alliance to, over and after the Taliban, routing them to and out of their main strongholds, and toppling their government in weeks – sometimes by bringing in B1s to carpet-bomb Taliban attacks, sometimes leading the Northern Alliance by example, closing in and rooting the Taliban out themselves with rifles and grenades.

One of the keys to this stunning victory? The Special Forces operators had boundless power, right there on the scene. A Master Sergeant with a designator and a radio could call almost directly to the Air Force, orbiting high above in their F16s and B52s and AC130s (and yes, Fingers, the Navy and Marines in their FA18s as well) and get air support on the scene in moments. He did not have to file a request with his headquarters, to be bounced up through higher echelons of approval and then back down the Air Force’s chain of command, hours or days or weeks too late too do any good.

Robert Kaplan in Imperial Grunts, writing three years after the stunning victory, noted that the Special Forces’ approach was not unlike that of a good, bleeding-edge company that decentralized the power – and the decision-making and tools that enabled and supported that power – down and out through the organization. For the liberation of Afghanistan, the military did the unthinkable; pushed power downward from the Pentagon, down from CENTCOM, down from the higher-level headquarters in the ‘Stans, down to the three-man teams of Green Berets and their Air Controllers in the field; it short-circuited layers, and generations, of bureacracy, moving the decision loop down as close to the sergeants in the field, and the pilots in the air, as has ever been done.

Of course, decentralization is a hothouse flower even in lean, limber corporations; in the military – the most hidebound bureaucracy of all (and often for good reason), it was even more so. As the Taliban fell, “Big Army” came in, imposing the bureaucracy and chains of command and all manner of (to the Green Berets’ perspective, as related by Kaplan) impedimenta, including, most disastrously, requirements for multiple levels of approvals and accountability for every mission plan. This (say the Green Berets Kaplan interviewed) bogged down the pursuit of many of the Taliban and Al Quaeda hiding underground, leading us eventually to the situation we have today.

0f course, I’m not here to write about the liberation of Afghanistan. I’m writing about the Minnesota GOP.

But there’s a parallel dynamic at work, here. Empowered, motivated people with the right tools can do the impossible.
———-

The Minnesota GOP is all a-froth in the process of selecting a new chair and leadership. It’s getting ugly out there, with people bagging on the current leadership and their associates, and the current leadership bagging right back.

I’m not going to bag on personalities. This isn’t about personalities (yet). This is about structure.

The GOP is a very top-down organization. Everything from “message” to the tools of the job – databases, voter lists and the like – flow or are mandated from the national office, down through the states, and finally down to the BPOU level.

“Well,that’s as is should be”, the party apologist will say; “the people who show up and work for the party should have the final say on things”.

Which makes sense, sort of. But it also gives conventions from the Congressional District level on up a sense that delegates are spectators at the Central Committee’s event -that all the real decisions were made months before. And when you live in a district that hasn’t put any winners on the board in years, it’s not hard to think maybe it’s time for new decision-makers.

Which we got, to an extent, last spring, as the Ron Paul candidacy sent ripples of panic through the MNGOP leadership. Make no mistake – Ron Paul is a nutcase. But his followers – at least the ones that weren’t awash in 9/11 truthiness and rambling on about Trans-American Freeways for hours on end – brought something to GOP caucuses and convos that they’ve needed for years; the sense that parts of the event were unscripted. Time will tell if the Ronulans will stick around the caucuses. I hope they do – which isn’t to say I’m not going to try to talk them into keeping the libertarian-conservative principles, but ditching Paul himself.

The GOP, nationwide and in Minnesota, needs to learn from its mistakes, to decentralize its thinking, and most of all get better at doing its job.

It needs to reward initiative; it needs to seek out, reward, cultivate and channel ideas and energy that come from outside the party’s bureaucracy, rather than getting paranoid about them.

Being this state’s genuine big tent party, it needs to come up with a way to get its message out, without turning on and eating carriers of other messages. It needs to focus on the parts the party agrees on, rather than ripping itself to shreds over the things it doesn’t.

And on the other hand, I say this as a fire-breathing Reagan conservative; it’s time for conservatives to grow up and play the damn game. The Ron Paul phenomenon can teach us all one thing; for decades, Libertarians sat with their feet firmly in the clouds and declaimed from a position of absolute ideological purity. Finally, they wised up, got into the game, organized, played to their strengths (and the MNGOP’s weaknesses) and came withing a trice of taking over the party’s agenda. Minnesota’s conservatives did the opposite, turning out in droves for the state caucuses and getting Mitt Romney endorsed, but then taking their toys and going home. They were underwhelmed with John McCain, Norm Coleman and Tim Pawlenty; their fit of pique helped doom the party in the last eletion cycle, and weakened the state and the nation. And in so doing, Minnesota’s conservatives weakened themselves and their cause, making Minnesota conservatives look like flighty, temperamental prima-donnas. Gary Gross calls this pathology out in one of the most timely political posts of the year so far. Politics, down to the root of the word itself, is about compromise; the art is in making the compromise as favorable to you as possible.

The Minnesota GOP faces yet another difficult situation in the next two years. And it’s a battle we have to win, because the stakes are this state’s future and the well-being of the nation itself. The DFL is the party of instant gratification, of taxing and spending and the tyranny of institutional compassion. This state needs a viable opposition like Afghanistan needed dead Taliban.

And Minnesota Republicans should take courage – and knowledge – from that lesson; empowered, motivated people with the right tools can do the impossible.

What does that mean for the GOP? We’ll talk about that in the coming weeks.

[NOTE: While this blog is as a general rule an untrammeled free-speech zone, this particular comment thread is mainly for Republicans talking about the future of the GOP in Minnesota and elsewhere. Non-Republican posts, especially snarks, are likely to get lost down the memory hole. Non-Republican snarkers are a free as ever to romp and play elsewhere on this site; this thread is for the grownups.]

For those days when Swiftee and Anti-Strib are just too damn oblique and tactful, Cigar Mike at Babalu gets specific:

They don’t want to admit it. They like to say things are more dangerous here today than they were pre 9/11, but the fact is they are so full of caca that they will come up with some other inane argument (stolen from Noam Chomsky) to say something to the contrary. They’re tearing down their Obama altars since they are pissed that not enough “progressives” have been appointed to the cabinet, and will continue to blame Bush for everything including the festering sores on their bodies.

If only Mike would learn to open up and express himself.

Mike, of course, directs us to Peggy Noonan, who is – well, less obstreporous, but makes a similar point:

She notes:

This is an argument that’s been around for a while but is newly re-emerging as the final argument for Mr. Bush: the one big thing he had to do after 9/11, the single thing he absolutely had to do, was keep it from happening again. And so far he has. It is unknown, and perhaps can’t be known, whether this was fully due to the government’s efforts, or the luck of the draw, or a combination of luck and effort. And it not only can’t be fully known by the public, it can hardly be fully known by the players at all levels of government. They can’t know, for instance, of a potential terrorist cell that didn’t come together because of their efforts.

To some extent both sides have to swim through weed-choked hypothetical ponds – Bush’s critics will be right, to some extent, in saying “you can’t know what might have happened!”.

But we know what did not happened – the thing that has happened to countries that tried to steer a “moderate” course on the issue – nations like India and Indonesia, who’ve been pummeled by terror strikes since 9/11. 

The thing that everyone sincerely believed would happen, inevitably, about this time seven years ago.

If Obama does as well, it’ll largely be due to Bush’s efforts, unpopular as they turned out to be (in 51% of the US, at least temporarily).

John Boehner must make Lori Sturdevant’s leg all tingly:

House Republicans are not shifting to the political right, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) told CNSNews.com on Wednesday, just hours after two of the top three GOP leadership spots were won by conservative lawmakers in an internal leadership election.

I said it before.  I’ll say it again; John Boehner presided over the most disastrous session the GOP House Caucus has suffered that didn’t involve a Great Depression or a presidential resignation.

Members Reps. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), Mike Pence (R-Ind.), and John Mica (R-Fla.), however, told CNSNews.com that they think the conference is shifting to the political right.
 
But Boehner said, “No, I don’t think it’s right or left. It’s what are the issues Americans are concerned about, and how do we build solutions on our principles? It’s not left or right.

The hell it’s not. 

He should have gone.  He has to go. 

I heard the results of the GOP House caucus elections – Boehner retains the (I’m not kidding, this is really what they call it) “leadership” post – and was…

…underwhelmed?

First Ringer at TvM puts it well:

Proving themselves to be the political equivalent of William Ford to the GOP leadership’s Matt Millen, Republicans in D.C. re-elected Rep. John Boehner (R-OH) to the post of minority leader despite the party’s nearly 20 seat dip two weeks ago.  Surviving a last-minute challenge by conservative California Rep. Dan Lungren, Boehner once again pick up his mantle of leadership and tossed it at the feet of the incoming Democrat supermajority:

“America needs us to be the party of reform again,” Mr. Boehner told House Republicans Wednesday. “We have a chance to pull together and be the party America needs us to be.

“I wasn´t born a Republican … I didn´t know I was a Republican until I looked up one day and realized Washington was at odds with everything I believed. If history is any guide, millions of Americans will have a similar experience in the coming months as President-elect Obama and the Democrat Congress move their agenda. Our job is to make sure those Americans find a proud home in the Republican Party.”

I doubt if Speaker Pelosi’s heels buckled.

It wasn’t all bad – some youth and conservative fervor in the form of Cantor and Pence got moved up the ranks – but if Conservatives were looking for a resounding tonic from today’s maneuvering, we’re still waiting.

A few days after the election, regular commenter Angryclown (an old friend of mine, by the way) left this bit in a post-mortem about the election:

 Palin, Quayle, Shrub: stupid.

Bush 41, Dole, Kemp, McCain: smart enough.

A cacaphony of comic routines from the eighties and nineties rattled through my head as I pondered the response; when George HW Bush was in office, his verbal tics, bumbles and occasional attack of food poisoning certainly got their press; Kemp was only obliquely a factor in presidential politics, but he was usually portrayed as someone who’d taken a few too many concussions during his years as an NFL quarterback, especially when he got on the radar during his years as Reagan’s HUD secretary; Dole’s campaign was pretty much DOA in ’96, so his portrayals were a milder form of ridicule.  As to Mac – well, we’ll come back to that.

I responded:

Any Republican can be “smart enough”, when he/she is not a contender or a threat.

Bush41, Mac, Kemp and Dole are all “smart enough” now that they’re retired. When they were contenders, they were all “stupid” or worse.

Sorta like McCain; “Maverick” was every Democrat and media outlet’s favorite Republican, until he actually got endorsed. Then he was a crazy old man – until his career ended. Now he’s “smart enough”.

If Palin retired from politics tomorrow, all the “Palin be dum” stuff would disappear overnight.

It’s true, of course; to the Democrats and the media, the only good Republican is an irrelevant one.  Whether that irrelevancy comes from expired shelf-life (Dole, Kemp, George HW Bush) or being indistinguishable from Democrats (Arne Carlson, Dave Durenberger, and the media’s official “Good Republican”, Chuck Hagel – in Minnesota terms, any Republican that Lori Sturdevant endorses), the idea is the same; the media and the left will tolerate Republicans who are no threat whatsoever to Democrats.

Take the example of John McCain.  He has for the past decade been every liberal’s favorite conservative.  I can’t count the number of Democrat friends who, between 2001 and 2007 or so solemnly intoned “McCain is the only Republican I’d ever think about supporting”.  And conservatives were duly lukewarm on him; he earned an American Conservative Union rating of 87, only a point or two better than notorious moderate (and fellow “Democrat’s Favorite!”) Jim Ramstad, the departing Congressman from Minnesota’s Third District.

And yet the moment he got through the endorsement process, what did his years of accomodation, his “maverick” appelation, his “goodwill” and “reaching across the aisle” get him?

Along with being labelled an “extremist” Republican by a media that managed to shunt Mac’s moderate past down the public memory hole with record speed, I mean? 

Bupkes.

In the wake of the Republican Governors’ Conference, the MSM’s talking heads are prescribing…running to the center. 

Patterico looks back at his own predictions on the subject:

One post that I think has held up pretty well is one that I wrote on February 4, 2008, while the Republican primary was still going hot and heavy. My post was titled John McCain: The Myth of an Electable Candidate. Responding to a Wall Street Journal piece by Steven G. Calabresi and John O. McGinnis calling John McCain the most electable Republican, I said this:

It’s my view that McCain only seems electable because of his media image, which will collapse once the country actually gets to know him in the general election.

. . . .

Many voters will eventually learn that McCain’s image is nothing like the reality. People who know nothing of McCain except his image are finally going to sit down and watch a debate. At that point, a lot of them are going to say: “Holy crap! That’s the guy I thought I liked?!” The antiwar crowd will finally realize he makes George Bush look like Neville Chamberlain. And everyone will see McCain’s smug condescension, born of a background of elitism and privilege. It will manifest itself in that self-satisfied mockingly contemptuous grin that he can’t hide.

As one should beware of Greeks bearing gifts (unless it’s Michael Dukakis trying to look martial astride an M-1), conservatives should beware of the approval of the agenda media.

So what should  we do? 

More later.  Like, over the course of the next year.

Sometimes, being a Republican feels like being a Bears fan.

Over the years, there’ve been good seasons, and legendary seasons; there’ve been plenty of 9-7 and 8-8 seasons, as well.

Of course, the past two election cycles feel a little more like that stretch after Gale Sayers and Dick Butkus got too injured to play, but before the days of Peyton and Ditka and Singletery and Dent and McMahon; the Abe Gibron years; the years when Wes Montgomery led the team’s rushers with 240-odd yards (on the season); the years when quarterback Bobby Douglass was the team’s top gainer.

The seasons where Bears fans muttered “we’re rebuilding”, year in, year out.

Of course, how one “rebuilt” is always a dicey question – because so many people have so many wildly-different visions of what a team, or a political party, should be.

Patterico tackles David Brooks’ take  take on the GOP’s future.

Brooks:

In one camp, there are the Traditionalists, the people who believe that conservatives have lost elections because they have strayed from the true creed. 

Yep.  Not even just “traditionalists”, but people who are Conservatives first, Republicans second.  It’s one of the reasons we at True North opted to distance ourself from the party, to base our message on “first principles” rather than a party identifier.

To regain power, the Traditionalists argue, the G.O.P. should return to its core ideas: Cut government, cut taxes, restrict immigration. Rally behind Sarah Palin.

Patterico responds: 

Cutting government, cutting taxes, and restricting immigration (at least illegal immigration) sound good to me.

And by the way: “rally behind Sarah Palin” is not a “core idea” of the Republican Party, David. It’s true that most Traditionalists have rallied behind her, and she may well be a Traditionalist candidate in some future race. But however much Traditionalists might like her, let’s not load the dice by suggesting that supporting her is a “core” Republican idea.

Maybe Brooks misspoke mis-wrote; Palin is, indeed, not a “core value”. 

But finding, or if needed cultivating, party leaders that put first principles first is in fact the big mission for “traditionalists”.  Right up there is finding and promoting candidates that not only follow them, but can make the case for them to the people.  It’s something Reagan excelled at; it’s a trait at which Sarah Palin has great potential (which is why the media-industrial complex is spending so much energy trying to destroy her). 

Back to Brooks:

The other camp, the Reformers, argue that the old G.O.P. priorities were fine for the 1970s but need to be modernized for new conditions. The reformers tend to believe that American voters will not support a party whose main idea is slashing government. The Reformers propose new policies to address inequality and middle-class economic anxiety. They tend to take global warming seriously. They tend to be intrigued by the way David Cameron has modernized the British Conservative Party.

Moreover, the Reformers say, conservatives need to pay attention to the way the country has changed. Conservatives have to appeal more to Hispanics, independents and younger voters. They cannot continue to insult the sensibilities of the educated class and the entire East and West Coasts.

Patterico: 

I don’t think the future of the Republican party is to be Democrat Lite.

There lies the Way of Sturdevant, the Way of Rockefeller. 

The way to “appeal” to any voter, young or Hispanic or Nigerian lesbian, for that matter,  to show them how our beliefs are in synch with their own enlightened self-interest.  I’ve observed this on the blog and on the show almost to the point of cliche: if you could get people to strip away groupthink and tradition and just-plain-bigotry, the inner city should be chock-full of conservatives.  Nobody is more sour on the debacle in our educational system than inner-city blacks (and audacity and hope aside, the Obama administration isn’t going to change a thing there); Hispanic catholics (and the growing number of hispanic evangelicals) are socially-conservative right out of the box, and while the immigration issue polarizes the community now, there’s evidence that that peters out among Hispanics who’ve been in American more than a generation or two; Asians are, of course, stereotypically free-enterprise and strong on education.  Why would they vote Democrat?  It’s a question Brett Schundler asked, and a code he cracked for three terms as the conservative mayor of Jersey City back in the nineties.  The fact that the New Jersey GOP gundecked his further aspirations in favor of a series of gutless moderate hamsters proved the NJGOP should have nothing to do with engineering the national GOP’s road back.

Patterico:

While I disagree with the Traditionalists on some issues — gay marriage, the environment, animal rights, and the like — I tend to fall into what Brooks calls the Traditionalist camp on the major issues.

I still think people believe in cutting taxes and limiting government. They just want a party that is actually going to do it.

And that’s part of the key right there:  not only do we need a party that can translate Hayek for the NASCAR crowd and  sell Friedman to the “soccer moms” and convince Mainstreet that we’re better for the pocketbook and the safety of this nation (which we can do, and have done!), but we need to actually deliver. 

Which is something that Reagan did, and where Gingrich fell a little short, and where the post-2000 GOP was an abominatal failure.

Which is why I support Michael Steele in the battle for the GOP leadership with Newt Gingrich.  There’s no denying Newt’s place defining the roots that the party needs to return to; I just believe that Steele is a clean break with the baggage of the past (ignoring Gingrich’s personal baggage completely, by the way), and a nod to the bench of new talent that the GOP has neglected for far too long.

One of this blog’s most popular posts ever was one I put out on election day four years ago.  Entitled “100 Reasons I’m Voting For Bush, Not Kerry“, it spelled out my thought process for my vote in 100 easy steps.

I figured this election deserves at least as much.

1. Because Mac, whatever you wanna say about him, is the genuine article -warts and all.  Does he have a foul temper at times?  So what?  So do I. 
2. So do you. 
3. So will Barack Obama, a couple of days into this job, if he’s elected. 
4. Because in a culture that overuses the word “hero” (among many others) pretty gratuitously, Mac is the real thing.
5. Mac can keep things in perspective.  Age’ll give you perspective. 
6. So will five and a half years in the Hanoi Hilton.
7. Because the various tyrants of the world see Barack Obama, and they think “How Sweet.  Fresh Meat”.
8. Because France, Canada and Germany have both elected more-conservative leaders since 2004; for once, they have a point. 
9. I’m not going to say “Bin Laden Endorses Obama” – but when Bin Laden goes to sleep at night, who do you think he dreams will have his head stuffed and mounted above the fireplace in the East Wing? 
10. Even if Bin Laden doesn’t think Mac’ll do it, he’s gotta have visions of Sarah, Todd and Track Palin snowshoeing across the Hindu Kush, finding, shooting and stuffing him.
11. Because while abortion has never been the sine qua non of politics for me, it matters.
12. And at the end of the day, Obama is pro-choice.
13. And Biden is worse – a pro-choice Catholic.
14. Because partial-birth abortion is inexcusable, and still Obama excuses it (and I’ve heard Biden say not a thing about it).
15. Because as bad as Bush was on spending, Obama will be much, much worse…
16. …and “balancing the budget” with tax hikes is economic suicide.
17. For the good of the party, the GOP needs to return to fiscal conservatism.  Whatever Mac’s other sins, he’s got a much better claim to that than does Obama. 
18. Or Bush, for that matter.
19. What I said in 17 about “the good of the party”?  The same goes tenfold for the nation.
20. Because the words “Chicago Democrat” mean something.
21. Because that something is worse than “Minnesota Liberal”, which itself is a horror to behold.
22. Because I work hard for my money.
23. Raising taxes kills jobs. Including mine.
24. Because Hollywood is getting the vapors for Obama.
25. Because a lot of bigots and racists want to think I’m a bigot and racist for not voting for Obama.
26. Because the 3AM Phone Call is a real thing – moreso in our world today than fifteen years ago, even. 
27. And Obama has shown us no evidence that he’s ready to take that call…
28. …or do much of anything else.
29. Because Obama has voted “Present” in the Senate over 100 times.
30. Because Obama has spent less time in the Senate…
31. …than Mac spent in the Hanoi Hilton.  Yes, Mr. Messiah, sir, experience counts.
32. Because while I believe Obama isn’t a bad person, his presidency will grant sweeping power to the Pelosi/Reid Congress, perhaps the most depraved pack of hacks ever to wield political power in the history of this country.
33. No, I mean the most depraved pack of hacks, just like I wrote it.  The post-Watergate Democrats were at least largely people with their nation’s best interests at heart; many were WWII and Korea veterans, people for whom the flag meant something.  If you’re to the right of Jane Fonda, the Reid-Pelosi Axis of Weasels should make your skin crawl. 
34. Because Sarah Palin, as relatively new to politics as she may be, is vastly more qualified to lead the most powerful nation on earth than Barack Obama is.
35. Because having Joe Biden a heartbeat away from the presidency scares me a lot more than having Sarah Palin there. 
36. Because having Joe Biden a heartbeat away from the presidency scares me more than having Courtney Love, Lindsay Lohan or Crispin Glover there.
37. Because Mac will extend the Bush Tax Cuts.  Because…
38. …tax cuts are always good. Always. There are no exceptions.  Especially if they force you to cut spending.
39. Mac may not cut spending – but he will be not nearly the spendthrift Bush was…
40. …and a year into an Obama administration, Bush will seem like a miser.
41. Because hundreds of union goons can’t be right.
42. Because, unlike millions of “people” registered by ACORN and the like, I exist, and someone needs to stand up for all of us actual humans.
43. Because all of the fictional “people” that sent anonymous (and illegal) contributions to Obama’s donations will be rendered moot by everyone who repudiates their fraud. 
44. Because every vote against The One is a finger in the eye of MoveOn, George Soros (and his paid minions), Democrats.com, Media Matters, and on, and on, and on.
45. Because Mac has a lifetime A from the NRA…
46. …and Obama was for gun control, before he was against it…
47. …before, given the company he keeps (and the chits he owes), he will no doubt be for it again
48. Because too many of Obama’s supporters have been just too insufferably triumphalistic.
49. Because just enough of Obama’s supporters have pledged to do crappy, unamerican things if Obama loses…
50. …and an Obama loss will be a wonderful way to flush out what truly must be called “Unamerican” – the rejection of the votes of ones’ fellow citizens.  Let us get them out into the open – indeed, let them “McCarthy-ize” themselves – so we can do something about them.
51. Because Obama will make Jimmy Carter look like a wise, cool-headed, competent statesman. 
52. Because it’ll give Keith Olberman a stroke.
53. Because Chris Matthews’ leg will finally stop tingling. 
54. Because I’m dying to see Katie Couric’s face the morning after.
55. Because P. Diddy and Sam I Am will stroke out.
56. Because Mac is old enough not to give a rat’s ass what people think about him…
57. …and Obama seems to need approval.
58. Because Mac blows up at people and the press…
59. …but hasn’t ever kicked anyone off his plane.
60. In spite of Because Palin is such a lightning rod for the paranoia and misogyny of the institutional left.
61. Because Sarah Palin has teenagers who’ve made her life difficult…
62. …and an infant whose very existence upholds the value of life…
63. …a fact that makes the Orthodox Left purple with rage.
64. Because while Obama might have a bracelet from a soldier whose name he can’t remember, Mac has two sons who are veterans…
65. …and a son who’s an enlisted Marine serving overseas…
66. …where Track Palin is right now.  Yes, I do  think having an investment in the issue will make for better, saner leadership – and certainly less palaver about, say, invading Pakistan.
67. Because while I’ve been a conservative for over 20 years, I grew up a Democrat, around enough Democrats to care what happens to the party. John F. Kennedy and Harry Truman would puke if they saw what Howard Dean and Nancy Pelosi and Michaal Moore had done with their party. If you’re a responsible Democrat, so should you. Help your party re-discover its real legacy by sending Reid, Pelosi and Obama back to Palookaville.
68. Because Jimmy Carter endorses Obama.
69. Because the only evidence I’ve seen about Obama’s performance under pressure – his response to Georgia – makes Jimmy Carter look pretty good in comparison.
70. Also Neville Chamberlain. 
71. Because I love my country more than I love the UN.
72. Because the GOP embodies confidence in this nation – something the Democrats do not.  Belief that the US could be a good nation if we adopted their platform in toto, perhaps, but not confidence.
73. Also exceptionalism.  America is the shining city…
74. …which is a notion that makes Obama’s most-vital supporters nauseous. 
75. Because Obama, like Kerry and Algore and Carter, consistently mistakes “plans” and “summits” and “negotiation” for productive action.
76. Because as we saw in the wake of the market meltdown, Mac will put “doing the right thing” ahead of political expediency.
77. Obama wouldn’t know how.  Like with Kerry and Gore, “the right thing” changes depending on the audience he’s talking with.
78. Because I’m a “bitter, gun-clinging Jesus Freak”, and damn proud of it.
79. Because I am Joe The Plumber.  I don’t want to tie my destiny to one company, one employer, one line of work forever.  I’ve been in a union – but there’s an entrepreneur in there somewhere.  He’s like an opportunity one of these days.
80. Because I value freedom of speech – everyone’s speech, including speech I disagree with – and an Obama Administration (and a Congress under the unfettered control of the Tics) will start with imposing the “Fairness Doctrine” to strangle conservative talk radio by fiat, and start working its way down.
81. Because you know people by their friends.  And Obama’s friends include the Teachers’ Union…
82. …and the AFL-CIO…
83. …and AFSCME…
84. …and his “Mentor” Jeremiah Wright…
85. …and Bill Ayers.
86. Because Mac has one genuine skeleton in his closet – being part of the Keating Five, albeit its least consequent member – and he’s owned up to and made amends for it.
87. Becasue I survived the Carter years…
88. …and I don’t want my kids to have to do the same.  Indeed, I’ve spent my entire adult life dedicated to trying to prevent that.
89. Because this nation’s “soul” is in fine shape, and doesn’t need any politician to fix it. 
90. Because, as I noted (presciently?) four years ago:  this country is a better place with Republicans in charge. Lower taxes, lower spending, smaller government…oops. Yeah, we conservatives have to take our party back. Guess what? It’s easier to do when you’re in office.
91. Because the Media deserves a huge, stinging rebuke for having been in the tank for the left for the past 30 years. They deserve it more now than they did four and eight years ago.  Every year, I’m more convinced that this nation’s well-being, even survival, depends on bringing the mainstream media down to size.
92. Because I supported Rudy Giuliani and Fred Thompson until there was nothing more to support.  Mac had to earn my support. 
93. And he did. 
94. Because Mac is not from the coast.
95. Because Sarah Palin oozes “flyover land”.  America’s “flyover land” is not only this country’s heart and soul; it’s this world’s best hope.
96. Because liberalism’s track record for setting economies on the right path is 0 wins, hundreds of losses, and (with the New Deal) one weak tie.  And we need better than that.
97. Mac hasn’t forgotten the hard lessons of war.
98. Obama would have no reason to have known them…
99. …and most of his supporters actively repudiate them.
100. Because we’re at war. And Barack Obama is not only not a serious leader for a nation at war – he is indeed a criminally trivial choice. And with two kids that will both be of military age by 2012, I don’t want to learn how to co-exist with this war – I want it over.

See you at the polls.

Once upon a time, Minnesota had a congressional delegation member who was one of the most incredibly polarizing figures in state history. 

This person – who came to politics relatively late in life – never minced words, campaigning from the heart with a platform based on solidly, articulately-held beliefs.  The Congressperson was an activist before getting into politics, and even then had been a polarizing figure, who had either rabid supporters or fervid enemies.  Nothing changed on the campaign trail…

…or, for that matter, in Washington, where the Congressperson got into an awkward scene with President Bush that made the detractors titter with glee.  The Congressperson was not afraid to be on the “wrong” side of issues – indeed, to buck the tide in voting on the basis of beliefs that, for the Congressperson, trumped politics.

Which drew admirers – on both sides of the aisle, at least from fellow legislators who respected commitment to principle.  Naturally, it also drew detractors – people who detested commitment to principles who were not their own.  The Congressperson was a lighting rod for media figures who found boundless “red meat” in the Congressperson’s tendency to put the heart on the sleeve.

These beliefs and principles were sure and steady enough to prevent excessive insecurity even when the Congressperson, shooting from the hip, would say things that’d draw ridicule from enemies (and the odd groan from more politically-sensitive, less issue-and-principle-driven supporters).  The tendency to shoot from the hip – to put principle first and political expediency somewhere down the list – was a headache to orthodox politicians, and material on the hoof for the detractors.

It also made politics interesting for the casual observer.

Being a conservative, I don’t generally much care about celebrities’ political leanings (and was embarassed by the slavish devotion to pop culture and the celebrity party circuit that seemed to preoccupy the local Sorosphere in the weeks leading up to the Republican National Convention in Saint Paul). 

But this bit on “right-leaning celebs”, along with a few “no, duhs”, had a few surprises. 

Of course, plenty were just plain obvious:  Chuck Norris, Richard Petty, Trace Adkins, Tom Clancy, Ahnold, Ben Stein, Tom Selleck and Elizabeth Hasselback? Pretty much public knowledge.

A few others made some waves, largely for the act of “coming out”:  John Voight, Angie Harmon and Stephen Baldwin.

A few, I gotta confess – and remember, I’m a conservative, so I really don’t pay that much attention to the subject – surprised me:  Bruce Willis, John Elway, Pat Sajak, Dennis Hopper, Rick Schroeder and Robert Duvall? 

And seeing the list, I’m starting to figure out why it took Susan Lucci so long to win that Daytime Emmy…

Still, if only Mike Ditka had managed to run against a young Barack Obama for the Senate; he’s have won with 95% of the vote, he’d be president today, per-capita income would have doubled, and Franklin Raines would be doing push-ups and wind-sprints in Leavenworth.

Seriously.

There are two categories of people; those who categorize people, and those who don’t.

Likewise, I think, there are two different types of politicians.

One type, we’ll call the Political Engineer.  He or she pragmatically breaks down every issue, like a good Engineer does, carefully calculating the best path to take through the issue.  Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, Norm Coleman, Karl Rove – all of them are Political Engineers.  Just as no engineer drives a pile or moves a circuit from spec to prototype without enough analysis to mitigate risk and controlling uncertainty, the Political Engineer figures the angles before things hit the fan – or tries to, anyway.  Politics involving real people rather than steel and electricity, it doesn’t always work – but then, the Political Engineer knows that.  Political Engineers may have principles and beliefs – they’re human, after all, and rarely driven by pure pragmatism – but those principles and beliefs are wrung through a lot of deconstruction before they go out into the world.

At the opposite extreme is the Political Artist.  They’re driven by something – an issue, a hot-button, a vision.  They have visceral, rather than political, reactions to issues; their heart, not their calculations, tell them the proper response to a political stimulus.  They tend, I think, to be charismatic, driven – and, sometimes but far from always, to have short careers.  For many, I suspect, the emotion that drives them is focused on an issue that precludes a lot of big-picture ambition.  For others, burnout ensues; a person can only maintain that level of emotional intensity for so long.  For still others?  When you wear your heart on your sleeve, as opposed to calculating exactly where you should wear your heart for best results, it’s easy to make a “mistake”, when things get hairy; those who don’t share your emotional commitment to the presenting issue might find allegiance to a Political Engineer less off-putting.  There are quite a few of ’em out there, too; Dennis Kucinich, Keith Ellison, Ronald Reagan (to an extent, although he substituted Ideals for Emotions, I think)…

…and, I think, Michele Bachmann.

First things first:  I support Rep. Bachmann.  No two ways about it; she is one of Minnesota’s very best congressional representatives.  She is vastly more qualified (to say nothing, at this point, of experienced) than her challenger, Elwin “E-Tink” Tinklenberg.  She is a lighting rod for all the usual constituencies that find an uppity, articulate conservative woman to be a huge threat, of course – but any woman that breaks from the mushy-left, pro-“choice” pack is going to be.

And Rep. Bachmann wears her heart on her sleeve.  She’s patriotic.  She’s American.  And in her infamous interview last week with Chris Matthews, she – like any hip-shooter up against a tingly-legged, in-the-bag huckster might – certainly uncorked on “anti-Americans”.

So what is “anti-American?”  Someone who actively connives to destroy this nation?  Certainly.  And in context, I don’t believe Rep. Bachmann was talking about this.

Someone whose actions, you hold, are inimical to this nation’s best interests?  Someone whose actions make this nation a weaker, worse place?  Someone who thinks this nation would be hunky-dory if it were just completely different than it is? 

That, I think, was what Rep. Bachmann was talking about, in context.  And I agree with her; I think there are a lot of people whose beliefs, platforms, agendas and actions could make this nation a really crappy place. And they need to be rooted out – at the polls.  Via our political process.

Would I have picked a different word to describe this idea than “anti-American”?  Probably. Do I wish Rep. Bachmann had?  Perhaps.  Did her propensity to shoot from the hip – to be other than a Political Engineer – slide her into a moment that everyone who wants to see her out of Congress can use to spin until we’re all ready to puke?

Give me a break. Chris Matthew’s leg was so tingly, it could have generated static electricity.

UPDATE:  Kouba’s take is pretty essential:

A conservative is going to get zero breaks from the media, so we need to minimize unforced errors. I’m eternally glad Bachmann is in Congress voting on the side of angels, and I hope it stays that way for a long time. Hopefully this, too, will fade, like so many other campaign flaps before it.

Reason number 10,393 I dig Sarah Palin:

So get this … we found out when Sarah Palin checked into the Omni Berkshire Hotel in NYC for her “Saturday Night Live” performance, she used an alias — first name, Tina.

I smell a “Crocodile Dundee”-style remake here…

…almost as despondent as Roosh seemed to. 

Mac generally does well in a “Town Hall” format – and I personally don’t like “town hall”-style debates a whole lot.  And like Roosh, my first impression was that Mac was too polite; that he didn’t go inside and mix it up with Obama nearly enough.

And then I thought slept on it, and didn’t feel nearly so bad.

Just as Mac doesn’t need to play to the media (indeed, just as he and Gov. Palin need to outflank them and go directly to the people), Mac doesn’t need to destroy Obama; he needs to convince millions and millions of people who are not political junkies – people not remotely like me, by the way – that he’s someone they can trust to lead this nation during the most difficult time in recent memory.  He needs to appear like a statesman and a leader, not a trench-fighter (that’s Palin’s job – one she’s finally gotten to take on in the past week). 

While last night’s performance was bound to leave doctrainaire conservatives and political junkies [Roosh and Berg raise their hands, glancing nervously about – Ed.] a little unsatisfied, Mac knows that they’re not the ones he needs to win; while that issue may have been in doubt six weeks ago, putting Palin on the ticket guarantees that no movement conservative who’s not in Lori Sturdevant’s rolodex is going to stray.  That means Mac can – and, last night, did – play to the vast horde in the middle who don’t care much for “R” and “D”, but who do balance their checkbooks and watch their 401Ks and whose kids are going to be of military age sooner than later. 

And I don’t think Mac lost a single vote in that crowd last night.

He needed to look like a leader, a statesman, a President.  And I think he did.

“The Palin honeymoon is over”, the lefties chant, looking over their shoulder.

Yep.  Over like clover.

Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin told wildly cheering, flag-waving, chanting supporters that John McCain is “the only great man in this race” and promised Sunday he will fix the nation’s economy if voters give the GOP four more years in the White House.

“He won’t say this, so I’ll say it for him,” the Alaska governor said in an almost confidential tone at the close of her first Florida stump speech. “There is only one man in this election who has ever really fought for you. John McCain wore the uniform of his country for 22 years — talk about tough.”

The Villages, a vast, upscale planned community north of Orlando, has about 70,000 mostly adult residents — many of them military retirees — who vote reliably Republican in statewide races. Tens of thousands inched along roads into the picturesque town square of the complex, where they stood in sweltering heat for about four hours as local GOP officials and a country band revved up the crowd.

“Well, yeah, but she’s not really affecting the race!”

Post-convention swing state polls are tipping toward Sen. John McCain, the TV pundits are waxing about “The Palin Factor,” and Sen. Barack Obama’s California supporters are freaking out about a race Democrats were uncommonly confident about only a month ago.

“Well, sure – in Georgia or Utah or North Dakota, maybe”

Conversely, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s addition to the GOP ticket jolted Northern California Republicans out of what one described as their “Underground Railroad” existence in one of the nation’s most liberal regions. Ever since her speech to the Republican National Convention on Sept. 3, party officials say volunteers have been contacting California GOP offices in numbers unseen since Ronald Reagan was on the ballot for the White House.

“But – but – but…”

Hush, children.  It’ll be OK.

District 41B voters ignore Neil Peterson’s desperate lie and advance Jan Schneider to the general election.

Schneider won by a handy 57/43 margin.

Peterson, in this Strib clip, sounds graceless and petulant in defeat:

“We got blown right out,” Peterson, a two-term House member, said of his primary race against Jan Schneider, who had won the GOP endorsement in March. “It was the state [Republican] party that beat me, it wasn’t the candidate.

“It’s just like the Cosa Nostra; they decide to put a mark on you,” he added. Peterson said he suspected his override vote was the principal reason for his defeat, and said “I’m probably the only Republican in history whom the Republican Party has targeted.”

It was the candidate that beat you. Actually, two; Schneider has the right message, and Peterson has the wrong one. The override vote was just a noxious turd atop the sewage sundae that’s been Peterson’s career as a Sturdevant Republican who’s voted with the DFL 52% of the time during his two-term stint in the House.

Mary LaHammer:

Rep. Neil Peterson fom Bloomington had character and spunk and that’s always appreciated in the press.  But once again, you can’t bite the hand that feeds you:  local party activists.

There’s a worthy observation, there, GOP legislators; you’re not in office to please Lori Sturdevant or Cathy Wurzer or Nick Coleman.  You’re there to serve the district that sent you to office.  And if you got elected with the support of a party, you owe something to the party’s principles.  Go ahead and vote your conscience and defy those principles if you feel you must – it’s a matter of your personal integrity.  But realize that there’ll be consequences, and that while Lori Sturdevant may paint your toenails, she’s not necessarily going to help you with the people who matter.  The voters. The people who sent you to St. Paul in the first place.

Goodbye, and good riddance.

Now, it’s time to get Jan Schneider elected.

Neil Peterson was perfectly fine ditching the GOP last spring, when he joined with the rest of the Override Six to stab Governor Pawlenty and his district’s voters in the back by voting to kill the veto of the DFL’s Transporktation bill, the biggest tax hike in Minnesota history.

But with the primary here today, it’s another story:

That’s a voters’ guide card mailed to residents of District 41B, listing Peterson among the endorsed Republicans in today’s primary.

Of course, Peterson was not endorsed. Jan Schneider was.  The 41B GOP rejected Peterson by a staggering, Georgia Tech Vs. Cumberland-like margin at their convention.
Peterson’s scurrilous dirty trick is clearly aimed at duping the disengaged voter into pulling the lever for him. It is a lie.

If you are a 41B Republican, don’t be fooled, please. Vote Schneider.

If you know a 41B Republican, don’t let them be fooled.

Peterson trashes the Republican party – until he believes he needs it to stay in office. This can not be allowed to succeed.

Vote Schneider in 41B.

I was sitting two booths down from Hugh Hewitt last night, on Radio Row. At one point, I was in a clutch of guys – Hewitt, Dennis Prager, Duane Patterson, King Banaian, Ed Morrissey – that’d challenge anyone’s intellectual adequacy (unless you, like I, ignore the concept).

And you could tell they were elated at the Palin speech. We interviewed Duane and Hugh after the event – that’s a matter of record (and should be going up on Townhall soon). Dennis Prager had another story he shared with me that I’ll hold off on until after his show (since I’m assuming he’ll use it; it is that good).

Hewitt writing on Townhall this morning:

Until yesterday the collective MSM sneer was that Palin was “Hello Kitty,” reeling backwards under the pressure. Now she’s Gorgo, smashing up the MSM’s cars. The dismayed punditry is pondering the “meanness” of her attacks and her lack of details on health care refom. A complete triumph over the Beltway-Manhatan media elites, but they will of course regather in Mordor and try again next week.

That, again, was Duane’s salient point; her address was straight out of the Reagan playbook. It bypassed the media and went to her real audience, the American people.

Of course, nothing cheeses off Big Media like being bypassed.

The Obamains decying “mean-spritiedness” are diminishing Obama the former giant slayer turned victim. They think Sarah Palin, Rudy, Mitt and Huck are tough? Remember Obama is scheduling meetings with Ahmadinejad, Kim, and Chavez for ’09. Disarray is far too complimentary a word to use for the Obama campaign.

So here’s hoping Mac scores the kill tonight.

I’ve said it before – I’m an oratory geek.  It’s the family business; Dad was a speech teacher for most of four decades, and has actually had a longer radio career than me (he’s been doing weekly editorials at KDSU, a public station in Fargo, since the eighties).  And of course, I’ve noodled around the trade a bit.

I was watching Palin on the closed-circuit last night from Radio Row.  And for most of the speech, she was in control.  Unlike most political speakers – who are slaves to the teleprompter, and who are largely terrible in front of crowds – Palin radiated confidence and control.

She has some gestures when she speaks; a few times, when she wanted to throw in some subtext, she had a little wink she’d toss off.  A little gesture, but one that says “this is my house, and I’m just getting started”.  She radiates cool unflappability; I’m looking forward to all of that going up against the Joe Biden we’ve seen in all of those Senate hearings – the endlessly-yammering self-adulating blowhard Biden that’s made such a caricature of himself.

If the Sarah Palin we saw last night shows up against the Joe Biden we saw in the Alito and Edwards hearings, the Democrats are in huge trouble.
I really need to watch the whole thing again.

One of the things I loved about Lady Margaret Thatcher, former conservative Prime Minister of the UK, was her sheer gleeful unrepentance.  She – like her friend Ronald Reagan – had a vision and mission; they both took it to the people directly, bypassing the media and going straight for mainstreet in their respective nations, ignoring the slings and barbs of the nattering classes.

Thatcher needed few defenders, since she was always on the attack.

Kevin Ecker sees some of the same traits (writing at True North and Eckernet).  Defend Palin?

Me? I not gonna bother.

Why?? Because ultimately it only benefits Palin and she’s already proven that she’s more than capable of handling it. Part of me even wonders if she thrives off it.

Even if one looked only at her acceptance speech, it’s obvious this is no fragile flower of a woman. She has no problem being tough and aggressive. She can defend herself and honestly I think it puts her in her element. She’s earned the reputation of being a tough tenacious figher, and a spirit like that likes to be challenged. So let them challenge her. Let them underestimate her. Let them mock her. I think she’ll answer back much better than she takes.

I think it was last weekend that someone – I can’t remember who – invoked Thatcher in referring to Palin.

The coming weeks will tell, but I think she got off to a great start.

The lefty spin machine is trying to fire back at Palin.

One of Palin’s best lines last night – one of many, many great lines – was

“I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a “community organizer,” except that you have actual responsibilities.

I think Ed, King and I jumped up in our chairs and did the “we’re not worthy” at that one (to the Pacifica folks’ irritation; I think we disrupted their broadcast. Sorry, Pacs).

This was in my inbox this morning from the Obama email machine:

Both Rudy Giuliani and Sarah Palin specifically mocked Barack’s experience as a community organizer on the South Side of Chicago more than two decades ago, where he worked with people who had lost jobs and been left behind when the local steel plants closed.

Let’s clarify something for them right now.

Community organizing is how ordinary people respond to out-of-touch politicians and their failed policies.

Well, no. It’s how groups get people organized for whatever purpose they want. It can be a noble calling; it can also be a means for chiding and harangueing people from above.  And they’re not accountable to voters – merely to whomever sets the agenda for the “organizing” that needs to be done.
“Community organizers” do it on behalf of one group or another. Others change the poliices of “out of touch politicians” by going to PTA, running for school board or mayor or whatever.

In Chicago, “community organizers” are agents of the status quo, the Chicago democrat machine.

Sarah Palin started out in politics to be, um, an “agent of change” – and she made real changes, in Wasilla, in Juneau and, last night I think, in the way Republicans look at this race.

So yes.  Yes we can.

…the impact of Palin’s speech to those sitting in the building to those who weren’t.

Electric. Powerful. Intense. Like you’re part of something big.

My first impression – she’s telling Middle America, the “bitter, gun-clinging Jesus freaks” to grab their pikes and pitchforks and get ready for a rumble. She did everything but yell “Git ‘er Dooooone”; having Gretchen “Redneck Woman” Wilson among the post-speech entertainers was an interesting touch; the whole speech said “yes, all you disaffected, distressed people in flyover land – you production workers in Michigan and Ohio, you middle-class professionals in Tulsa and Omaha – I’m talking to you”.

In as many words!:

I might add that in small towns, we don’t quite know what to make of a candidate who lavishes praise on working people when they are listening, and then talks about how bitterly they cling to their religion and guns when those people aren’t listening.
We tend to prefer candidates who don’t talk about us one way in Scranton and another way in San Francisco.

Not everyone gets it, of course. Pacifica Radio Network, the granola-chomping conspiracy-mongering San Francisco-based (if memory serves, and it might not) far-left network had about eight people in their extra-large booth (along with the biggest mound of electronics anywhere in the place); they were attempting sort of an MST3K-type commentary during the speech, tut-tutting about her outfit, her hair, baby Trig’s sleeping through most of it. “Like she’s running for student body president”, one of them chortled in that smug way all of them, from Garrison Keillor down through Mark Heaney, do when they think they’ve uncovered some fetid truth about “the enemy”.

But the best observation of the night belonged to Duane “The Generalissimo” Patterson, Hugh Hewitt’s producer, who talked with Ed, King and I after the show let out. He pointed out that it borrowed one of Reagan’s key stylistic elements; bypassing the media and the chattering classes and going straight to the American people. He’s right, of course
It was, all in all, an amazing night.

More in a bit.

Charisma.

Magnetism.

Youth.

Vigor.

Icon for Change.

Oratorical Skills.

Accomplishment.

…were all trumped last night. Every last one of them…only Sarah Palin actually possesses the last one.

Sarah Palin dashed the hopes of Obamanistas by standing in front of thousands as millions watched, and nailed it – never sounding artificial and never not being herself. She confidently delivered a masterful speech with a dash of Alaskan twang,  then pulled out the whoopin’ stick and gave Obammy a lickin’ only she could deliver.

…and he was stinging already as Romney, Huckabee and Giuliani had already softened him up for her.

And to the media…

“Here’s a little news flash for all those reporters and commentators: I’m not going to Washington to seek their good opinion. I’m going to Washington to serve the people of this country.”

Despite her disdain for them, they gushed for her.

Media swoons over Palin’s fiery speech

Fired-up Palin rocks arena, rips her foes

Palin Assails Critics and Electrifies Party

Afterwards, John McCain ambled onstage in a surprise early appearance, and wisely had little to add. Essentially saying “See?”

Obama’s camp responded with already well-worn talking points; a veritable knife in a gunfight.

“The speech that Gov. Palin gave []well delivered, but it was written by George Bush’s speechwriter and sounds exactly like the same divisive, partisan attacks we’ve heard from George Bush for the last eight years. If Gov. Palin and John McCain want to define ‘change’ as voting with George Bush 90 percent of the time, that’s their choice, but we don’t think the American people are ready to take a 10 percent chance on change,” said Bill Burton, Obama campaign spokesman.

And now they must scramble to adjust…again.

To a Democrat, a female politican’s gender is her stock in trade, her reason to exist. She is a piece of chattel that puffs up a caucus’ numbers; she is a statistic to show how far “women” (who are liberal, or to be more accurate pro-infanticide) have or have not come in our political system, as a group; they are a mass of mouths commissioned primarily to repeat lines written for them from above. Any actual legislative or executive talent is largely an “extra”.

To a Republican, a politician of any gender is judged by her or his talents and accomplishments. Among Republicans, the idea of “a female vice president” comes in far down the list of things we’re excited about with Sarah Palin. She is accomplished. She walks the walk – and it is a walk that would make Ronald Reagan smile down from heaven; principled and yet pragmatic; expansive yet intimately personal; big-picture and yet applied to real life. She is the real thing.

She hunts, ice-fishes and is a crack shot who knows how to fire an M16 rifle. “I was raised in a family where gender was not going to be an issue,” she said. “The girls did what the boys did. Apparently in Alaska that’s quite commonplace.” No softy, she sued to stop the federal government making polar bears an endangered species and favours drilling for oil in the Arctic wildlife refuge. However, she also levied a windfall tax on oil companies.

Palin was glamorous enough to have entered beauty contests to earn money for college. She was crowned Miss Wasilla in her home town and was runner-up in the 1984 Miss Alaska contest. “They made us line up in bathing suits and turn our backs so the male judges could look at our butts. I couldn’t believe it,” she told Vogue, more amused than outraged.

Counterbalancing McCain’s reputation as a political dinosaur, Palin smoked pot when it was legal in Alaska, admitting, “I can’t claim a Bill Clinton and say I never inhaled”, and her children, Track, 19, Bristol, 17, Willow, 13, Piper, 7, and Trig, four months, have hippie-sounding names.

Which is why liberals hate her. Liberalism – as it is practiced in America – is profoundly sexist. Senator Barbara Boxer – perhaps the stupidest person in Congress – says:

“If John McCain thought that choosing Sarah Palin would attract Hillary Clinton voters, he is badly mistaken.

“The only similarity between her and Hillary Clinton is that they are both women. On the issues, they could not be further apart.

“Senator McCain had so many other options if he wanted to put a women on his ticket, such as Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison or Senator Olympia Snowe – they would have been an appropriate choice compared to this dangerous choice

I won’t say the left’s reaction to Sarah Palin is consistently “sexist” so much as a range of thoughts, from “clueless” to “incomprehensible”. Palin, to Boxer, isn’t a person with ideas, a personality, motivation and talent. She’s a set of ovaries – one that is interchangeable with a couple of mushy-middle (pro-choice!) RINOs who are on many issues interchangeable with most liberal women. Like Boxer who, in her supremely arrogant statement, tips the lefty hand; women (a monolithic bloc of Clinton supporters, naturally) should let Big Women like Babs Boxer do their thinking for them..

Sean from MnPublius:

My obnoxious post earlier aside — this pick is catastrophically bad.

Most obviously, this pick is a craven attempt to try and peel off just enough women for McCain to win. That’s the math now in McCain land.

Dang that craven John McCain -not only playing politics, but doing it by picking a politician with more political experience than their presidential nominee, and more executive background than the entire Tic ticket, and who has the potential to not only lop off the odd Hillarista but solidify Mac among the conservative base that’ve been Mac’s biggest detractors to date.

Yep. Pretty desperate.

Of course, Flash from Centrisity refrains the left’s attempt at the “experience” meme:

New York, N.Y. 8,143,197
Los Angeles, Calif. 3,844,829
Chicago, Ill. 2,842,518
Houston, Tex. 2,016,582
Philadelphia, Pa. 1,463,281…

[Remainder of list abridged. You get the idea]

To which I respond: combined populations of states where Barack Obama and Joe Biden have held executive office of any type: 0.

But I hope lefties continue to buy the memes their overlords are imposing on them. I’ve not seen the right this energized by any decision by any GOP candidate in recent memory.

And we needed it.

To:  The John McCain Campaign

From:  All Conservatives

Re:  The Tactical “Error” of Selecting Sarah Palin

Dear Senator McCain:

Parts of the Sorosphere (albeit not the parts smart enough to get out of jury duty, if you catch my drift)  have been calling your selection of Sarah Palin a mistake.

Please make many more, just like it.  We approve. Thanks.
That is all.