TvM has added Pat Shortridge to their already-imposing lineup of writers – and he comes out of the gate swinging with a great post on some poor assumptions that the conservative Presidential candidates are making – in this case, trying to court conservative voters by going through big conservative groups:

First, it’s incredibly stupid to try and reach conservative voters by talking to them through a group of folks in Washington, DC – or Arlington, VA in the DC suburbs.  The liberals found this out in 1980 when all the union bosses were lined up behind Carter and yet Reagan did incredibly well among union members by talking to them directly.

Thompson, and any other candidate of the center-right, will do well or poorly with conservatives depending on how well they speak to and deliver on our issues, not by how many endorsements they line up from group heads or party officials.  I can tell you first hand, the issues that top the list of concerns of conservative voters in America are often very different from the agenda of people who purport to speak for them in Washington.
Look at the polling data from ’06 if you want to see that in painful detail. There were a heck of a lot of pro-life, pro-marriage, socially conservative voters across America who pulled the lever for some extremely liberal candidates.

That is a huge point.  For people whose prime motivation in politics is not political idealism – like, 90-odd percent of the American voting public – group affiliations and the pronouncements of one consortium or another are pretty meaningless.  Especially among conservatives, who – outside the pro-life movement – really aren’t school fish.

To paraphrase Bill Clinton, it’s the vision, stupid.

Speaking of vision, Shortridge also remembers the GOP’s last successful big one  – the Contract with America, whose tenth anniversary was yesterday.  Shortridge was working for Dick Armey; my triviageekitude compels me to point out that Rep. Armey and I are both graduates of the same college…

Carnivore at TvM notes a little bit of fun psychology:

 I like to do all my converting of anti-gun or ambivalent people by inviting them to empty a 30 round AK-47 magazine at the gun range. The big smiles on their faces tell me that a little safe fun is all it takes to convince them that guns aren’t evil. The blacker the rifle, the bigger the smile.

…but the real “beef” of the post is some good news from the Giuliani campaign; Hizzoner seems to have gotten his head a little straighter about the Second Amendment, in time for his invitation to speak at an NRA special convention:

[Giuliani] said his thinking on gun rights also was influenced by a federal appeals court decision that overturned a 30-year-old ban on private ownership of handguns in Washington on the grounds that the Constitution gives individual citizens the right to own guns.

“It is a very, very strong description of how important personal liberties are in this country and how we have to respect them,” he said of the ruling, adding it “sort of maybe even did more to crystalize my thinking on the whole gun issue in light of Sept. 11.”

He no longer argues, as gun control advocates do, that the right to bear arms applies only to the rights of states to maintain citizen militias. He now says that right also applies to individuals as well, and he cites the court ruling, Parker v. District of Columbia, that said the Second Amendment gives citizens the right to own handguns.

Carnivore – who may be the only blogger in town more pro-gun than I – approves: 

… if it takes 9/11 and the Parker decision to change Giuliani’s mind, then I welcome him to the club. As a person who grew up and was a product of New York, with its (originally anti-Italian) gun laws, dating back to the early 1900s, I can see how he might have lived his life with his previous view of the Second Amendment and the feeling that it’s not important since most New Yorkers can’t even exercise that right.

So one of Giuliani’s big sticking points for this conservative seems to be getting a little less sticky.

I ran into Katie Kieffer at the Laura Ingraham event.  She had some great news; the Saint Thomas Standard – the conservative tabloid that has caused Saint Thomas’ president, Fr. Dennis “Havana Denny” Dease such a headache – is now available online.  And with the school year underway, we can no doubt expect another issue shortly!

And then we can spend another year of watching the official phumphering and unofficial derangement you get when conservatives dare to speak up on campus.

Mark Gisleson of Norwegianity, apparently bummed about finishing way out of the big money in the Unintentionally Funny Leftyblog contest (despite years of dedicated striving from colleague MNob, would would definitely be a contender in the Individual category, if I had the bandwidth to present such a contest) apparently didn’t like this line, from a post last week about conservatives and protesting…:

 Conservatives are like sharks; any one of us is a match for dozens of liberals, and our very presence at marches or school board meetings or community council elections provokes unreasoning fear, panic, irrationality and an “end justifies the means” mentality.

He responded:

The first graf is the award-winner [for some hypothetical “unintentionally funny conservative blogger” contest – of which more below], the latter is the clip and save for next year to see if he’s still using this excuse for the pitiful wingnut counterprotester presence at the RNC.

He was talking about this quote from me:

 So I have neither the illusion of nor the desire to try to get thousands of conservatives out into the street next year for the Republican National Convention in Saint Paul. But I do want to get dozens out on the street, and spotted around the city’s various choke points, with cameras and video and laptops and wireless cards, to make sure that the “demonstrators” are held accountable to the world for the actions of their, er, less-restrained fellows.

 Of course, Gisleson misses the point; if he could see the point, he’d be a conservative.

Nobody – least of all me – is under any impression that conservatives will ever clog the streets of Saint Paul, waving signs and carring papier-mache puppets and chanting like a bunch of lobotomized droogs.  That’s the left’s monopoly, and y’all are welcome to it.  We cannot “fail” to spark a mass movement “in the street” at the convention, because there is not the faintest intention to try to create one.

Never has been!

Never will be!

The real intentions?  They’re hidden (apparently) in plain sight, in one post or another here and on True North, for whatever it may be worth to you.

So read again.  And focus.  Belay your dreams of bobbing down Kellogg Boulevard inside a giant Cheney head puppet for a few moments. 

Leave the goalposts alone.

Over the last few weeks, I’ve been writing off and on about the situation that local conservative volunteers and bloggers are in – and about the need to get rallied for the new electoral season.

I wasn’t just flapping my gums to enjoy the sound of it.

More details later this week.

It’s been a hard year for a lot of conservative activists – including bloggers.

Remember, especially in Minnesota, the GOP relies on volunteers to do most of its grunt-level organizing, sign-posting, call-banking and door-knocking – the stuff for which the DFL pays a small army of “activists”. 

And each and every campaign in recent memory – 2000, 2002, 2004, 2006 – has been a “Make Or Break” campaign for the Minnesota GOP; in each election, Minnesota flirted with purplehood; Minnesota’s legacy as a big-L “liberal” state hung in the balance, and held on by a thread. 

For Minnesota’s conservative volunteers, for four straight election cycles, it was “just one more big push”.  And they delivered; they turned out in droves; they worked countless hours; like the patriots that won this country’s independence, they devoted hours and weeks of their lived for the pure love of the cause; the Democrats’ paid help, like a horde of Hessians, showed up because that’s where the money was. 

And they worked wonders.  They got the word out.  But for the Ventura fluke, they’d have gotten Norm Coleman into the governor’s mansion in 1998; they contributed mightily to his performance against Wellstone, before the late Senator’s death; they almost pulled off what a generation ago would have been unthinkable – putting Minnesota in the Red column, twice. 

And they’re tired.  Some of them are very, very burned out.  I’ve talked with some of them, men and women with families and day jobs and lives, who’ve put all of them to some degree aside every two years for going on a decade now. 

And some of them don’t know that they can do it again.

It’s similar among bloggers.  The “Class of ’04” – the surge of center-right blogs and writers that kicked off during the ’04 campaign – was, and remains, the most dynamic group of political bloggers in the US.  But you could feel a collective fatigue, in some ways, after the ’06 elections.  Many of the ’04 blogs went dormant; some of the bloggers flamed out (although the MOB’s attrition is lower, I suspect, than for just about any other group of 100-odd blogs you can find); others, tired of having to churn stuff out every day, dropped their own blogs to join one the big superblogs (Freedom Dogs, Anti-Strib, TvM) that are positioned to be so very important in this next go-round.  I know I took a step back from politics for a while after the election, and I’m still not entirely back into it.

Yet.

But that’s going to have to change.  There’s a new election season coming up, and it’s going to be huge – even without  the Republican National Convention and the hordes of mischievous pranksters following it to Saint Paul next September.  It’s going to be a donnybrook, on the state and federal levels, here in Minnesota.  The Presidential context will once again have Minnesota teetering on the brink of Red and Blue, and our ten electoral votes are mighty tempting to both parties.  The Senate race will be the dirtiest in Minnesota history, and the ACORN volunteers will be floating down our streets on waves of George Soros’ money.  In Minnesota, Tim Pawlenty stood athwart the flood of DFL tax-‘n-spend proposals like the Finns at Suomussalmi, outfoxing and outmaneuvering his bovine, lumpen enemies and their “All Your Money Is Ours!” platform.  The Dems’ majority in the House is built on sand, with a bunch of seats held by DFLers who won by paper-thin margins in traditionally-GOP-leaning districts; expect them to pour on the money, the dirt, and the media play to keep it that way. 

So the GOP is going to have to call on the things that really make it a contender in this next election; its’ strength in the parts of this state that actually pay the way; its volunteers that make it competitive everywhere; and finally, the alternative media, blogs and talk radio.

Who’s going to pull that all together?

Well, stay tuned.

I got an email the other day.  It’s from a group claiming to be anarchists, claiming to be planning to disrupt the Republican National Convention next year. 

“Highlights”:

!!BEAT THE REPUBLICANS TO THE PUNCH!!

In case you haven’t heard, the stage is already being set for the republicans visit in 2008. August 31st through September 3rd of 2007  (that’s Labor day weekend for all of you making big BBQ plans) will be the twin-cities pReNC. We want you to come, have fun, learn, plan, and share with us. You can get to know our cities, see all the great stuff we  have going on, and take part in planning for the main event in 2008.

Don’t wait for the pReNC, however. Start thinking about what you want to see NOW and come with ideas to work with. We are putting up ride and housing boards soon. They will be linked off our website with a lot of other good stuff at www.nornc.org.

It’d almost be interesting to sign up to house some of these people.  Lotta good info there.

Below is an agenda. We have a weekend of events planned, but we still want you to teach a workshop or organize an event. We have some ideas of the
sort of things we want, but if you have something special please let us know and we will do what we can to make it happen. Some of our ideas include: Un-arresting/ Street tactics, Gas masks, Medic training, Self defense training, Protest 101, Know your rights, DIY riot gear, Squatting basics, Urban gardens, etc. We will also set aside space for guerrilla workshops during the weekend.

!!THIS TIME THE REVOLUTION’S GETTING AN EARLY START!!

And y’all know how I love it when Muffy and Joshua start talking “revolution”. 

Seriously; the Saint Paul City Council – dominated as it is by far-left DFLers who romanticize the Sixties and its so-called protest culture – passed a resolution welcoming protesters to the RNC.  Now, of course they’re referring to the legal ones.  But while the police departments from both cities have made noises about dealing with the loonies who are likely to accompany the legitimate protesters, neither City Council has resolved to explicitly condemn and “un-welcome” those planning to disrupt either the convention or the rest of the city’s daily life.

Which isn’t to say that at least some of their hearts aren’t in the right place; at least one St. Paul City Council member has voiced disdain for the “anarchists” in a non-official capacity. 

So why not make it official?  Why not stand on the side of an orderly practice of the democratic process? 

Here is some of what we have planned so far:

FRIDAY AUGUST 31ST

12:00am to 5:00pm at the Jack pine Community Center
Pick up a “welcoming guide” with the weekends plans. There will be snacks
and nice people. Stop by when you get into town so we can get an idea
of numbers and you can have updated information. We will also be giving
radical bike tours throughout the afternoon.

I might just take that afternoon off.  A “radical bike tour” sounds like fun. 

4:30
at Loring Park
A pre-Critical Mass discussion on de-arresting. We don’t want anyone in jail
for this super fun weekend so let’s figure out how to look out for each other.

This, I want to attend.

As well as this:

9:00pm and on
EVERYWHERE
Night games!

Hm.

And finally:

MONDAY SEPTEMBER 3RD

10:00am starting location TBA

Intelligence/info gathering march through St. Paul. NO CHANTS ALLOWED.
March through St. Paul and gather information, take measurements, check
drain covers etc.

Drain covers?

Someone wanna ‘splain me that one? 

RNC Welcoming Committee

Come visit in September 2008!

http://www.rncwelcomingcommittee.org

http://www.nornc.org

The Strib got the email too.

It might just be time to start organizing the counterprotests.

Colonel Joe Repya is planning on running against Norm Coleman in the primary.

Allow me to say:  Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh.

Colonel Repya:  Don’t.  Run for State House; if I’m not mistaken, a DFLer grabbed your home district (stop me if I’m wrong), which will set you up nicely for a run for higher office.  Or you could move to the Fourth, and run against the loathsome Betty McCollum.

But against Coleman?  He’s far from the perfect conservative, but he’s WAY better than average. 

Sorry, Joe.  I can and will back you on a lot of crusades. But I gotta sit this one out.

Speaking of Lieberman…

Salina Zito writing in the Pittsburg Trib on the battle for the “Reagan Democrats”:

In 2005, Howard Dean was the new chairman of the Democratic National Committee and saddled with a party weakened after years of national losses. Determined to turn the tide, he commissioned a massive poll with Cornell Belcher aimed directly at values voters.

After poring over the polling data, Dean recognized a couple of things:

 

• First, Democrats did not speak about their faith — but they should. 
• Second, when Democrats talked about abortion, they didn’t emphasize that it should be a last resort. While Democrats needed to protect the rights of women, they also needed to talk about taking care of every child brought into the world — an aspect on which Republicans are perceived to fall short.

Dean took his poll to the party’s leadership and to labor leaders. He pointed out that while swing voters do share Democrats’ values, the party was not speaking to them in the right way.

Which is, by the way, true of both parties.  But I digress:

Dean’s mission became to link things in a way that makes it more difficult for cultural conservatives to walk away from Democrats.

The challenge for both parties is similar: dealing with the control of the primaries by the parties’ extremes. For Democrats, it is their bloggers who want out of Iraq tomorrow; for Republicans, it is the extreme pro-lifers.

One wonders what Ms. Zito means by “extreme pro-lifers”, exactly, but there’s a point there.  Some of my worst political memories involve walking into district caucus meetings where half of the crowd were there purely to introduce and pass infinite varieties of the same pro-life resolutions – not that I disagreed – and who were completely illiterate about any other issues. 

If Republicans want to win, they should remember that Reagan, as president, never let the abortion issue define what it meant to be a Republican. He was against it but he never took steps to make it harder to obtain.

That’s a tough pill for many erstwhile Reagan Conservatives to swallow; Reagan was no dogmatist on abortion or, for that matter, Second Amendment issues; he believed the right things in both cases; he just didn’t push either. 

The more each party must run to its corners and defend what mainstream America considers extreme positions, the harder it becomes to win over Reagan Democrats.

Which is the conundrum for Republicans; getting both “Reagan Democrats” and Evangelicals – both of the “must-turnouts” and “must wins” for the GOP – to play nice together.

Usually, that’s what inside-the-GOP party mechanics, especially the “State Chairman” race, is like.  The machinations of the GOP State Central Committee are kept pretty much out of the reach of us plebeian activists-on-the-street, or so it sometimes seems.  Both at the Congressional District and State level, it often seems that we foot soldiers have as much say in things as Catholics in the pews do in the selection of the next Pope.  The difference is, most Catholics actually know how the election is carried out.

This year, though, things are a little more interesting – interesting enough that I’m actually going to write about it for the first time in this blog’s history. 

Ron Carey is, of course, running for re-election.  He was dealt a bad hand in the last election; it was a bad cycle to be a Republican.  A lot of my good friends support Ron; I think the party could do worse.

Colonel Joe Repya is also running.  He’s an intrigueing possibility; a natural PR whiz, of course, but most of all a leader in both the military and Reaganesque senses of the term, a guy with a vision and the ability to convey it.  If elected, he just might help counteraction some of the “passion fatigue” that’s been afflicting the hordes of volunteers that the GOP depends on.  This is nothing to sneeze at; while the DFL rents people to do the door to door work (like they rent their bloggers), the GOP uses volunteers – people in it for the love of the cause – for both.  And volunteers stepped up in ’98, ’00, ’02 and ’04 – all of them “Must-Win” elections in which we did, indeed, kick donkey.  But all of that volunteering has a cost – in energy, job time, family quality time, the works.  In ’06, the usual suspects among the volunteers, the people that run things, seemed tired; after the election, they seemed dejected, like they needed the break that this accelerated season can’t give ’em. Repya might be, figuratively, the tonic for the metaphorical troops. 

Now, I don’t ever take sides on things like State Party Chair races.  Besides being of not that much interest to me, the last thing I want is for my blog and the Northern Alliance show to be seen as having a dog in an intra-party fight, when my/our real mission is supporting conservatism as a whole.  That’s job number one.   It makes it difficult, of course, that I know, and have had extensive interactions with, both candidates – which makes staying neutral all the more imperative (not that I think I actually have any influence in the party, don’t get me wrong).

But this is going to be the first interesting State Party race I’ve ever heard about.

So as Gary Miller notes, Rudy Giuliani didn’t exactly say, as I reported the other day, “If a Democrat is elected president in 2008, America will be at risk for another terrorist attack on the scale of Sept. 11, 2001.”

So to preserve the universal stasis, Gary adds…:

That didn’t stop Senator Obama from saying Giuliani had taken the “politics of fear” to a new low.

Well, the Mayor may not have said it but I am, Senator.

If you or Ms. Rodham are elected president in 2008, America will be at risk for another terrorist attack on the scale of Sept. 11, 2001.

Any questions, beotch?

None here.

Word has it Colonel Joe Repya is going to run for State GOP Chair.

Retired Lieutenant Colonel Joe Repya is announcing a run for the state Republic Party Chairman. Repya tells KNSI news the reason why he’s running is the state needs leadership and the downward trend of losing Republican seats needs to stop. Repya will make the announcement at the capital April 11th at 10 in the morning. No word if the current chair, Ron Carey will run for reelection.

It’s going to be an interesting month to be a Republican.

I personally have no dog in the race for state GOP chair.  I worked for one of Ron Eibensteiner’s companies when this blog started (not, I should note, a successful company, although its certainly wasn’t Eibensteiner’s fault), and always admired him.  I thought he deserved better than the party gave him after the ’04 election.  Current chair Ron Carey excites strong emotions in some, but also has eloquent defenders. 

I think fate dealt Carey lemons, to an extent – it was a lousy cycle even for great Republicans with long track records (see Phil Krinkie); the 2006 cycle was a “test of leadership” in the same way that the sinking of the Titanic was a “test of seamanship”; it was hard to make much of a positive showing.  That being said, Minnesota Republicans needn’t have suffered that bad a debacle, either. 

And of course I admire Colonel Repya.

I haven’t made up my mind yet. 

I suspect this’ll be a big topic on NARN Volume III (“The Final Word“) this Saturday.

Dennis Miller – one of my five all-time favorite comics – starts his latest venture, a radio talk show, today (coincidentally, just in time for the re-christening of AM1570, the Patriot’s sister station, as the “Talk of the West Metro”.  Miller appears from 9-noon on 1570). 

Good news?

Maybe.  I’ve commented in the past about how standup comics and talk radio really don’t mix.  Much of Air America’s initial, ballyhooed lineup was former standups – Marc Maron, Janeane Garofalo, Lizzzzzz Winstead, Al Franken, Sam Seder.  Let’s give credit where it’s due – all of them but Seder were quite successful at comedy.  The qualifier – they were successful in their element, working on a stage in front of a crowd, giving them instant feedback (or, in Franken’s case, as a writer, which is another medium entirely). 

And, like most comics who try to do talk radio – a very different medium requiring a very different energy and focus – all of them were disastrous flops on the air. 

On the other hand, Miller is one of the best at what he does – blazingly-literate, funny-in-a-byzantine-intricate-way commentary about people and events.  He’s vastly better at comedy that could  translate to talk radio than Franken, Garofalo or Maron.  And he’s been edging closer to the radio medium – via his great HBO series and his failed stabs at Monday Night Football and his CNBC show – for most of a decade, now.   If there were a standup comic who could do talk radio – who might have learned how to make the transition from talking to a room full of people to talking to a microphone and a slate of phone callers and an audience that one must imagine rather than see – it could be Miller.

And he’s a libertarian conservative.  That’s going to help, of course; liberal talk was and remains DOA, while conservative talk promises to surge as the next election cycle approaches.  Miller should be in his element.

Brian Maloney on the challenges Miller faces:

An astounding glut of syndicated weekday fare, with far more programs than the market can support.

True, but that’s been the case for years, and is hardly a reason not to give it a try.  I mean, it’s only money, right?

A curious time slot choice, 10am – 1pm ET, which will have him up against Rush Limbaugh and many other successful mid- morning shows.

That is, indeed, a strange choice.  Far better, I’d think, to run Miller either in the morning slot, against the likes of Laura Ingraham and Bill Bennett, or perhaps as an alternative in the afternoon to Sean Hannity. 

Though 80 stations signed up for his debut, quite a decent number, most are tiny, including a number of Salem Communications- owned outlets.

True – including here in the Twin Cities; 1570 is a smaller, more niche-oriented signal (albeit much better-placed now than during its years as “the Patriot II”, broadcasting shows that didn’t quite make the cut for AM1280).  Maloney correctly notes that these small stations are notorious for tape-delaying shows, making it impossible for people in their markets to call in and participate (and accordingly lowering listenership).  AM1570 will be running the show live in the Twin Cities, which is a very good thing – but 1570 is, at best, a very new project (as in, on its first day today!), and is a smaller, weaker signal than even AM1280.

Miller brings baggage to the radio, including his failed CNBC show, where his performance was lackluster. Does he have a real passion for the issues? Can he develop a topic?

We’ll see! As I noted above, Miller might be a more auspicious candidate for this than the vast majority of comics – indeed, more than any comic I can personally think of at the moment. But having some solid radio experience on his production team will help a lot, too (presuming Miller breaks from traditional standup comic form and can actually listen to their advice…)

Most of all, he simply lacks the experience in talk radio needed to hit the ground running. We’ve repeatedly seen celebrities plucked off the street and given shows, only to fail when they quickly run out of steam.

Always a good point; from Soupy Sales to James Hightower to Al Franken, the radio landscape is littered with the carcasses of celebs who were “the next big thing” (or more recently “the alternative to Limbaugh”). But I think Miller has paid more applicable dues in the business than any of the others; he’s in the right place (right of center!) and, arguably, at the right time.

Handicaps aside – and there are some big ones – I think Miller stands a chance.

One of my great inspirations has to be Tony Snow.

Two years ago, he came down with colon cancer.  Like a lot of people (of all political walks), I sent him a “get well soon” email; I’ve long respected Snow’s chops as a radio guy. 

His email in response was truly a gift of insight into dealing with difficult times.  I’ll find it and share it one of these days, if it survived the last couple of system crashes.

It’s a shock to see he’s apparently going back for more surgery, to remove another abominable abdominal growth.

And it’s good to see that good people still know what comes first:

“The biggest problem you have sometimes with cancer is flat-out fear,” Snow said. “When you see an Elizabeth Edwards saying, ‘I’m going to embrace life and I’m going to move forward,’ that is a wonderful thing.”

After hearing the news, John and Elizabeth Edwards called Snow, during a refueling stop on their way to Los Angeles, to express their support and concern, said Edwards adviser Jennifer Palmieri.

Snow’s news is by no means necessarily bad – they don’t know it’s a relapse – but please keep him and his family alongside the Edwardses in your prayers, wishes or what have you.

(more…)

Carnivore from TvM notes:

No Democrat running for president has had anything to say about the ruling. If a Republican candidate, say a former mayor from New York, who needs help on the gun issue, would come out and actually endorse the ruling and say he would appoint judges likes those who decided the case for the majority, he would nearly guarantee picking up the Republican nomination. It would be enough to convince me and I’m to the right of Attila the Hun.

Note to Rudy (or his people):  this is not the kind of flip flop that’s going to hurt  your chances at a nomination.

My NARN Radio colleague Ed Morrissey asks:

 If anyone has contact information for Senator Thompson, I’d love to get it.

I’m always happy to help:

City Hall

(212) 788-3000
260 Broadway,
New York, NY 10007

Saint Paul will be getting the 2008 GOP National Convention.

The good news:  They have selected a planner:

A federal Transportation Department official and former Republican Party operative will decide where delegates sit, how to keep the media happy and what events to stage at the 2008 Republican National Convention in the Twin Cities.

Maria Cino, who was named deputy secretary of transportation two years ago by President Bush and was his national political director in 2000, will be the Republican National Committee’s lead planner for the convention, committee spokesperson Chris Taylor said Monday.

Cino will work with the local host committee and city officials to coordinate an event that’s expected to draw more than 45,000 people — including delegates, media and visitors — to the Twin Cities…Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn, said Cino was the perfect choice to bring people together in planning the convention.

“Throughout her exemplary career, Maria Cino has been known for her ability to roll up her sleeves and get things done,” he said.

So far so good.

Of course, for the 75-odd-percent of my adopted hometown that votes DFL – and for the 5-20% of that number who could fairly be called the “lunatic fringe” – it’s all about them:

  At the first of three St. Paul forums on the convention Monday morning, officials heard concerns about limited access to downtown, protesters and taxpayer liabilities…Some, like West Side resident Gerry Berquist, said they want officials to ensure that protesters are treated fairly and that downtown business won’t be adversely affected.

“There needs to be a huge community gathering so that these questions can be asked,” he said.

Bergquist’s remarks are the tip of the iceberg.  The local left – expressing their wishes on a number of local email discussion forums and blogs – want unprecedented access to the XCel Energy Center during the convention.  Some of them want absolutely untrammelled access to not only the facility, and to the President himself, but even to the conventiongoers as they go about their daily business.  Some want to “debate” convention delegates on the street – “debates” that sound in most cases more like harassment – in order to perhaps “educate” them.  When questioned, they seem to studiously avoid references to their more deranged cohorts, as if they’re just no way an anti-Republican demonstrator will cause problems.

I have a couple of ideas in response:

• Democrats – let’s meet out on the street for a real debate.  Send your people up against the legion of right-leaning bloggers that’ll be descending on the event.  See who “educates” whom.
• While we’re so concerned about free speech (and I am in fact a bigger proponent of genuine free speech than any “liberal” I know), how about we think globally before acting locally.  Start by lifting the free speech restrictions at the St. Paul Planned Parenthood clinic.  What?  You say you can’t, because a deranged person might commit violence against some innocent customer?  Hm.  Are we seeing the disconnect yet?

Counting the hours until 9/08.

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.

It’s Reagan’s Birthday today:

I’ll be taking the kids out tonight, talking a little bit about what Reagan’s presidency meant to their future (all of it good), as well as the lies that their schools have told about the era, and what to tell to the teachers who will no doubt diss merrily away.

Oh, yeah – and jellybeans at work!

Happy Reagan’s Birthday, America!

(more…)

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. 

…until Reagan’s Birthday, the official holiday of Shot In The Dark.

I’m laying in jelly beans for the office, and getting ready to take the kids out for dinner to celebrate.

I urge real Americans to do the same. 

Senate Bill S.1 has garnered a fair amount of controversy.  Intended to reform rules for lobbyists, it is in some ways a fair idea (and apparently a retread of a bill sponsored in the last session by Trent Lott).  It would put limits on lobbyists’ transactions with Congress.

The controversy comes from its attempts to classify blogs and bloggers as lobbyists:

Section 220 of the bill “would require grassroots causes, even bloggers, who communicate to 500 or more members of the public on policy matters, to register and report quarterly to Congress the same as the big K. Street lobbyists,” said [direct-mail campaigner Richard] Viguerie in a statement, but the truth isn’t that simple.

First, a couple of facts: though groups like the Family Research Council claim that “the liberal leadership in the US Senate seeks to silence groups like the Family Research Council,” the bill was actually cosponsored by Mitch McConnell (R-KY), the top Republican leader in the Senate. What’s more, the bill appears to be an exact reintroduction of last year’s S.2349, which was introduced by Trent Lott (R-MS) and actually passed the Republican-controlled Senate, complete with section 220.

The fact that Lott introduced it is hardly prima facie evidence that it’s a great idea.  But let’s proceed:

So much for the liberal plot. In fact, some liberal groups oppose the measure, including the ACLU. The group argues that the reporting requirements are “onerous” and that “people must be able to disseminate information, contact their representatives, and encourage others to do so as well.”

And with this, I agree with the ACLU.

More below:

Section 220 introduces a series of modifications to the 1995 Lobbying Disclosure Act. The most important is that “paid efforts to stimulate grassroots lobbying” now counts as “lobbying” under certain circumstances…This is what has inspired claims that bloggers and activists of all stripes will suddenly be classed as lobbyists and will be monitored by the government.

Hm.  So is it a fact?

What the bill says, though, is that the rules only apply to people who are paid by clients to encourage the public to contact Congress about specific legislation. The rules do not apply to any communication directed at less than 500 people, they do not apply to any communication directed at a group’s current membership, and they do not impose any speech regulations (all that is required is a quarterly report describing where one’s money came from and what bills were worked on).

Would this apply to a political blogger? Not usually. Because section 220 is only a series of changes to the Lobbying Disclosure Act, that legislation’s other rules still apply. According to OMB Watch, a government accountability watchdog group, the LDA’s registration requirement is only triggered by groups that spend more than $24,500 on lobbying semiannually and employ a least one person who spends 20 percent or more of their work time on lobbying. The bill also concerns only the federal government; groups operating at the state level are exempt.

On the one hand, like most “Reform” legislation, it leaves more questions than answers; the big one for me is “do I fit in?”  I reach a lot more than 500 people, but I might make $50 a month in blogads, if I’m lucky.

This sort of thing is a two-edged sword.  On the one hand, more transparency in this sort of thing would be good – and it would be best to depend on the honesty of all involved.  I do, in fact, disclose every non-advertising nickel I get from this site.  Other sites’ financial underpinnings are a little fuzzier and closely held.

Still and all, there’s a chance it’ll come to naught:

Sen. Robert Bennett (R-UT), though, is concerned that section 220 is overly broad. He has introduced amendment 20, which would kill section 220 but leave the rest of the bill intact. (As a sign of just how much interest the bill has received on Capitol Hill, it currently has 96 proposed amendments).

Worth watching.

The retroactive spin in GOP circles has begun; some of the people who laid out the losing side’s strategies this past campaign have been backing and filling and trying to phumpher their way out of the realization that while the GOP got smacked on election night, conservatism fared better.

Sisyphus tries to dispel Nih[i]list in Golf Pants’ ongoing shame by poking a big hole in that theory. 

In the House, the Republicans in the more fiscally conservative half saw their margin of victory diminish by an average of 2.6 percentage points from the 2004 election. The RINO half saw their margin decline by nearly twice that, 4.9 percentage points. In the Senate the effect was even a little more pronounced with the fiscal conservative Republicans losing 5.4 and the more RINO Republicans losing 12.

He’s got tables and everything.  Read it.

Deroy Murdock on Giuliani’s shot at winning the GOP base in time for the ’98 race:

Surveys consistently demonstrate that Giuliani, not Arizona Senator John McCain, is this race’s frontrunner. It’s not even close…Among likely Republican voters polled in Michigan, McCain beat Giuliani 33 percent to 25. Rudy romped elsewhere in Strategic Vision’s November 6 survey. Giuliani outran McCain by nine points in Georgia (33 percent to 24); 19 in Florida (46 percent to 27) and Washington State (42 percent to 23); 22 in New Jersey (47 percent to 25); and 23 points in Pennsylvania (47 percent to 24). Governor Mitt Romney (R., Mass.) scored, at best, a distant third in these states…Some argue that Giuliani’s prominence in this and other polls merely reflects his high name ID. But this notion shatters beside McCain and both Clintons — three household names.

Most conservatives have their troubles with Giuliani. I do.

But they’re solveable problems – to me, anyway.

Question for conservatives; given that Rudy seems to have immense legs and that he’s right on so many conservative issues (while being dead-wrong on a few), what would it take for Rudy to make nice enough for you to vote for him in a primary?

And if he was the one that got out of the convention with the nomination, would you vote for him?

I’ve been wondering; if Rudy Giuliani made some sort of amend to the base for his anti-gun, pro-choice history, would he have a shot?

Jay Reding thinks so:

I’m quite convinced that the CW on Giuliani is wrong. He can win in the primaries by focusing on his stance on illegal immigration and national defense. The American people trust Giuliani right now, despite his sometimes checkered past. He’s one of the few candidates who can reach beyond the 49-51% divide between the political parties and attract voters on both sides of the aisle. There’s a whole lot to be said for a politician in that position, and only a few are capable of pulling that off.

More later.