Ebby Calvin “Nuke” LaLoosh throws the mother of all political curveballs.  Or did he?

With the speed of Ferdinand Magellan on crack strapped to an Apollo rocket engine, news that actor/liberal activist icon Tim Robbins had contributed thousands of dollars in campaign contributions to conservative Republicans candidates – including Minnesota’s own Michele Bachmann – circumnavigated the blogosphere.  To Robbins’ ideological allies, the news proved more shocking than learning that Susan Sarandon is actually Robbins now former lover, and not mother:

Loyal Dems would undoubtedly be gobsmacked to learn that, if Federal Election Commission records are to be believed, Robbins has not only donated regularly to Democratic candidates over the past 18 years, he also has written checks to conservative Republicans. In the 2006 election cycle, according to public records, the actor gave $5,000 to 10 Republican candidates for the House and Senate—including, most shocking of all, Minnesota’s resident wingnut, Rep. Michele Bachmann. Why such largesse to the enemy? Former GOP congressman J.D. Hayworth of Arizona, who lost in 2006 despite Robbins’ $500 donation, was baffled and surprised when I reached him over the weekend. “Maybe because I covered the Durham Bulls as a sports broadcaster in the late 1970s and early ’80s?

The concept that the former Bob Roberts actor would have willingly contributed to any candidate with an ‘R’ next to their name is admittedly disarming – especially in light of Robbins and Sarandon’s past support for such candidates as Ralph Nader (leading Robbins to pen an op-ed defending his vote in the Nation).  But the FEC doesn’t distinguish between individuals and simply names submitted by a campaign committee from a check.  While a search for Tim Robbins in California produces results as seen below…

ROBBINS, TIM
LOS ANGELES, CA 90064
SELF EMPLOYED/ACTOR

…it also gives other, less entertainment-related results for multiple Tim Robbins living in the Los Angeles/Beverly Hills area.  Considering Robbins lists himself supposedly as anything from self-employed to a producer, or director, or actor and there are at least 7 different Tim Robbins in the industry, the possibility that multiple Robbins have been lumped together is not only feasible but likely.

And perhaps the most likely reality is that Robbins, well, simply goofed.  Almost all of Robbins’ supposed Republican donations took place in 2006, suggesting anything but a longstanding pattern of support to conservative candidates or causes.  

Unless Robbins suddenly starts showing up at Bachmann rallies and publicly endorsing her, I’m chalking this up to error – either on Robbins’ part or on overly zealous writers for The Daily Beast.

Boots On, by one “John Galt”, has been around for a while.  It’s not the highest-profile MOB blog, but it’s mighty good – hard-right, unapologetic, consisten and articulate.

Galt attended a Ramsey County “Truth In Taxation” meeting a few weeks back.  And he didn’t like what he saw:

Last but not least, don’t forget the 25% pay raise the County Commissioners voted themselves about 18 months ago. I just checked–the pay for the regular comm’rs is $82,400, and the chair takes home just shy of $85k. Someone who recently ran for comm’r told me this is supposed to be a part-time job. I’m betting when you have to dole out money to golf-course developers, developmentally-disabled helpers, oversee library additions, consider the needs of “corrections nurseries,” on top of your compost and mulch production and whatnot, it’s more than a part-time job.

But this is precisely the point. They’ve MADE it a big job. They’ve usurped authority and responsibility that properly belongs to families and churches and universities and non-sectarian NGOs and on and on, and then they want to don a halo and call themselves brilliant for a property tax levy that will continue to increase 2.7% per year for the next two years, while unemployment is pushing 10% and landlords can’t raise rents.

AND they want to whine. When an elderly lady got up to complain about the sky-high salaries the comm’rs pay themselves while failing to get the hedgerows cut back along the road, I happened to be in the front row and heard Tony Bennett mutter, “that was three years ago.” I’m sorry, Mr. Bennett–relevance? What if it was 3 years ago, would it be right for you to scowl and mutter under your breath at an elderly constituent? Mr. Bennett clearly fails to appreciate the phrase “public servant,” or realize it applies to him.

Check it out!

Not sure what I’m doing this evening.

I know what I’m not doing, of course;  I certainly don’t have the clout to kype an invite to Katie Kieffer’s party.  She looks like she’s got some high-speed guests coming (drawn by free champagne?  I dunno); it may be the only party in town with both Ben Bernancke and Michael Moore on the guest list.

If you scored a golden ticket, let me know  how it went.

The Republican attempt to soil Massachusetts’ tidy Senate election gets bleached.

In a state where only 24 of the 200 legislators who occupy the legislature are Republicans and which last reliably voted GOP at a national level during Dwight Eisenhower’s era, most pundits and pols could be forgiven for tuning out their interest in the race to succeed the late Ted Kennedy after the lopsided, low-turnout Democratic primary of earlier this month.  Between Massachusetts’ historically liberal leanings, State Attorney General Martha Coakley’s convincing primary victory and her sizable cash advantage, national Republican leaders and even conservative activists have largely written off St. Sen. Scott Brown’s erstwhile attempt to score even a moral victory in the Bay State.

While there’s no question that despite being an articulate communicator whose good looks allowed him to put his posterior in Cosompolitan magazine for posterity in 1982, Brown faces taller odds than Hervé Villechaize at a slam dunk competition.  Still, some are questioning the national GOP’s disinterest in the campaign.  NRO‘s Jim Geraghty gamely expresses the NRSC and GOP’s likely logic of throwing away good money after bad considering the simple political math that Massachusetts presents any right-of-center candidacy:

But to illustrate how tough the odds are for Brown, let’s pretend that every registered Republican in the state, as of 2008, shows up and votes for him. And let us pretend that the independents split evenly, and that only one third of the state’s Democrats show up and vote for Coakley.

Under that scenario, Coakley still wins by about 1,045 votes.

With Brown trailing Coakley in cash-on-hand alone by nearly $1.6 million, in addition to having been already outraised $4 million to $400,000, there’s little logic at hand for any national Republican organization to spend the kind of money necessary to deliver, in the words of one snubbed Bay State Republican, “a level playing field.”  Had the state’s beleagued GOP recruited any one of the higher-profile candidates mentioned months ago, including Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling or former White House chief of staff Andy Card, funds would likely be more forthcoming.   Such realities explain the lack of organizational support for Brown – but it doesn’t explain why conservative activists have wiped Brown from their radar.

Massachusetts may be solidly blue but the Democratic establishment has rarely been less popular.  Gov. Deval Patrick, who successfully broke a 20-year streak of moderate Republican governors with his victory in 2006, has a 47% disapproval rating, which is actually a slight improvement.  The state’s health care system, once seen as the template for Congress’ national health care reform, has been seen as successful by only 26% while merely 10% believe the system has actually improved the quality of care.  Throw in your run-of-the-mill scandals that happen in states that lack much competition at the polls and at least a pyrrhic Democratic victory seems possible.

The same scenario played out three years ago as Republican Jim Ogonowski nearly upset Niki Tsongas in Massachusetts’ 5th Congressional district.  Despite being outspent 4-to-1 and residing in a district where only 18% of voters were registered Republicans, Ogonowski captured 46% of the vote.  And while the numbers once again sizably favor the Democrat, the intangibles love the underdog:

[T]he number of votes there are in the Democratic Primary is usually the high-water mark of what the Democrat will get. In 2001 special congressional election, Steven Lynch got more votes in the Democratic Primary than he received in the General Election.  Fewer people voted for Nikki Tsongas in 2007 in the general than voted in the Democratic Primary.
…Coakley has basically shut-down and set the cruise control. She thinks she’s already won. Her base is no longer motivated. Scott is Senator 41. Obama’s Agenda screeches to a halt if Scott is elected . . .

Despite Brown’s potential importance, few conservative activists and fewer conservative dollars have rushed to his aid.  But recriminations are likely to abound should Brown pull closer than expected come Election Day, leaving the RNC and NRSC in an impossible position – spend money only to see Brown lose in a modest landslide or save for 2010 while likely losing dollars from yet another blog-inspired embargo on committee contributions.

Much like the Doug Hoffman candidacy in nearby New York, if conservative activists want to see Scott Brown supported, they’re best advised to start by doing so themselves.

Befuddled, a blog written by a woman named “Louie”, is skimpy (or so it seems at first impression) on autobiographical details.  But she’s an excellent writer, covering a very, very wide range of topics.

This post from earlier this month – a memoriam to teenager that used to attend Louie’s daycare – caught my attention:

Pat and I went away for the weekend AND attended the Chicago/Vikings game on Sunday. (Thanks R & R) All that sounds like a great time … hmmm, I beg to differ on that because of…well, if you’ve read my previous posts you know. The weekend away was to be a moment to forget, a moment to feel normal…

Well…it started that way and it was really nice to be with my hubby…then on Saturday, I read the paper and there was a small blip about a car accident and a teen dying. The name didn’t register at that time, I was skimming and briefly sad for yet another loss on Highway 8 of a young life….a couple hours later, our daughter called knowing that she should only call if there was something urgent….

The girl who died….she was one of the kids I did daycare for only a few years ago. It was after that phone call that I thought I was going to have a nervous breakdown…I shut down. Too much for my human emotions to handle. At a certain point, the wall that I created to try to help my friends, crumbled, and I found myself lost.

Read the whole thing; it’s some excellent writing on a very difficult subject.

So support your local MOB blog – whoever they are…

This is actually a political post.  But you gotta be just a little patient.

Back in my senior year at college, I was sitting in the Philosophy “department” (my college had one philosophy prof; I was waiting for him in his office), reading one of the academic philosophy administration’s trade mags (sorta like Variety or Radio and Records, only advertising job trends for post-structuralists and help wanted ads for Nietscheans).  And I happened upon an article that explored a trend (or “trend”) of people applying to medical school with Bachelors’ in Philosophy (as well as, y’know, degrees in Chemistry and/or Biology, to boot).  The piece touched heavily on the worth of, and need for, doctors who could see beyond the numbers in the test results (as important as they are) to the larger values and ethics of the field.

And in twenty-odd years of dealing with doctors (mostly pediatricians), I’ve seen there’s some merit to this; while medicine is at its core a scientific field, most of them still have to not only deal with people, but with people who are frequently under immense stress, undergoing some of the most miserable traumas in their lives.  The best doctors do it very well; the worst are terrible.

The  Minnpost last week had a post on the subject:

Do you have the personality to be successful in medical school?

A recent study, co-authored by a University of Minnesota psychology professor, has found that certain personality traits may be a better predictor of success in medical school than MCAT scores — particularly during the latter years, when students are out interacting with real patients.

As medical students become “more involved with patients and applied work, personality becomes more and more relevant and predictive” of how well they do in their coursework, said Deniz Ones, professor of psychology at the University of Minnesota and one of the co-authors of the study. I talked with her about the study on Thursday.

In other words, the real predictors of success in medicine are not the grades a student gets in high school, college and med school, or the half-decade of test scores leading up to medical school. 

It’s the personality.

The study, which was published in the November issue of the Journal of Applied Psychology, looked at five personality traits (neuroticism, extraversion, openness, agreeableness and conscientiousness), each with six different sub-traits.

The one trait that remained consistently important throughout the seven years of medical training was conscientiousness (competence, order, dutifulness, achievement striving, self-discipline, deliberation), said Ones.

“This is the dimension that is particularly found in education achievement because it’s related to effort and hard work,” she said. “It’s been shown to be related to college performance in other graduate settings as well.”

In medical school, however, conscientiousness became doubly important, said Ones, because attention and diligence is not only essential for good study habits, but also for diagnosing and treating patients.

But there’s a surprise; extroversion is the other apparently-dispositive trait for predicting success.

But another personality trait that showed up among successful medical students did surprise Ones and her colleagues: extroversion (warmth, gregariousness, assertiveness, activity, excitement-seeking, positive emotions).

“At the beginning of medical school, this trait was actually negatively related to performance,” said Ones. After all, extroverted students are more likely to spend their time socializing rather than hitting the medical texts.

“But over time, if they managed to hang on, this liability became an asset,” said Ones. “This is the dimension that allows them to talk to patients, to have an interest in them and care about them.”

Of course, we’ve all run into doctors who lacked any human-interaction skills whatsoever.  I’m willing to bet that the resident who presided over the early labor before my daughter’s birth, a dour Hindi woman with the people skills of the west end of an eastbound lawn mower, got really good grades in high school, college and med school.

“Most of education is geared toward the acquisition of knowledge and skills. That’s what MCAT assesses,” she said. That’s OK, she says, but, as this study and other research shows, how smart someone is often fails to predict how successful they’ll be at a specific profession — particularly one like medicine, which requires such strong people skills.

Of course, it goes well beyond doctors.

I read this study, and I’m reminded of the concentrated snootiness that the left – the “party of the people” – focuses on politicans who, for whatever reason, did things with their early lives other than playing the paper chase.  Sarah Palin’s an obvious example – and too current, really.  A much better one – Reagan.  Reagan was an adequate high school student, went to a very obscure college (Eureka), got further adequate grades…

…and pretty much ended his academic career. 

During Reagan’s political career, some razzed him for not having had a more distinguished academic career – as if he’d have done a better job of reviving the economy, restoring America’s mojo and peacefully toppling the Soviet Union if he’d started his adult life as an insufferable Ivy Leaguer.

Indeed – as the survey of medical students shows – he’s have likely not done nearly as well.

Think about it; the people who get into either medical school or the Ivy League based purely on their high school grades (let’s leave out legacy admissions for now) did so because they were among that thin film of high schoolers who were motivated from Junior High onward to do one thing; get grades.  Not develop social skills; not diversify their personalities; not develop all the soft skills that go along with having to deal with people and navigate real life.

What do you get with a doctor or a politician whose highest pre-adult achievement was getting straight A’s, thereby getting into top-ranked schools?  Someone whose entire formative experience is focused on the academic skills – reading, regurgitating facts on command, kissing ass – and who may or may not have the faintest interest in or empathy for you, the patient/voter.

And someone who may have put grades, if not in the back seat, at least in the shotgun position? 

Well, the article above explains the results with doctors.

So do you think things are different for everyone else in the real world?  Say, with the leader of the free world?

But there they were, the United States Senate, at 1 a.m. Monday, rushing to vote in the middle of a snowstorm to close debate on the most important piece of legislation of our time — the nationalization of the U.S. health care system.

This holiday season consumers armed with smartphones are using the internet in their palm to find the best deals, keeping retailers on their toes, and presumably driving prices down.

The rise of smart phones, with their go-anywhere Web access, is changing the shopping game this holiday season.

Tech-savvy shoppers are finding it easier than ever to work the system to get the best deals.

They’re scanning barcodes with their cell phone cameras to load into price comparison Internet sites while standing in store aisles, using GPS to find discounts at nearby stores and flashing electronic coupons straight from their phones.

This is how a free market works.

Now, imagine of you will, a time when health care consumers, free to choose from multiple providers of insurance and care, armed with reviews and cost comparisons via the internet and driven by the same motivation to get more for less.

…if only the government would get out of their way, reform indeed we would have.

Talking Points Memo on why lefties hate Michele Bachmann:

Michele Bachmann (R-MN) sat down for an interview with MinnPost, and among other things was asked why she is the object of so much loathing among liberals.

“I don’t know. I’m a lovable little fuzz ball!” said Bachmann.

I am starting to get the impresison that Bachmann has the one thing any conservative woman must need to stay in the game without going nuts; the ability to keep her most deranged detractors firmly in perspective.

Which is a nice way of saying “mocking them”.

 “I have no idea what they would have to fear. I guess you would have to ask them; they would have the better answer to your question. I am doing my job. That’s what I was elected to do. I don’t fear the left, and maybe that’s part of the loathing that they feel toward me. I’m not afraid to speak out on conservative positions and on issues.

Which is, of course, the problem for the left; wimmins are supposed to be barefoot, pregnant and dewy-eyed over Obama.

Eric Kleefeld, the writer, tries to answer Bachmann’s question – sort of:

Bachmann has previously wondered why Democrats don’t like her. We’ve collected some of the reasons — such as her having called for revolution against President Obama’s Marxist tyranny, and calling upon conservatives to slit their wrists and become blood brothers in the fight against the Democrats on health care, and many other examples.

I”m always fascinated that the party of “nuance” gets so flatly literal when a conservative woman talks. 

But here’s a serious question:  whenever a woman “comes out” as a conservative, she is instantly branded “teh crazee”, “extremist”, “stupid”, and the whole range of petty defamations.  For Bachmann, of course, it’s old hat – her detractors date back to before her time in the State Senate, when she started the Maple River Education Coalition; the regional left has been sputtering over Bachmann for over a decade.  The contradiction is grating; Bachmann is vastly more accomplished than Betty McCollum, and no more “extreme” to the right than McCollum is to the left.

But I am assured by various liberal friends out there that “there are consevative women that we can respect”.

And I disagree.  Until we reach some critical mass of conservative women in this country, I suspect that every single woman who comes to prominence as a conservative will draw the attentions of the liberal machine.  I can not thing of a single woman of any prominence as a conservative at any level, from local through national, that doesn’t draw the same exact response.

So prove me wrong.  Name a conservative woman of any prominence that hasn’t gotten smeared beyond reason.  And by “conservative”,  I mean conservative; not Christine Todd Whitman or Olympia Snowe.

Ready?  Go.

 Two reviews of Sarah Palin’s book – sort of.

On the one hand, we have local leftyblogger “Penigma” from, well, Penigma.  You’ll recognize him from this blog’s comment section; after years of telling him to “start his own blog”, he went and did it a while ago.  And while this may be taken as damnation by the fainest emanation from a penumbra connected to “praise”, it does in fact suck less than most regional left-wing blogs. 

Anyway, Pen writes:

Bob Schieffer, long-time CBS newsman, political conservative, and host of “Face the Nation”, has described her book as, “This is Sarah Palin’s turn to get even, as it were.”

He goes on to describe her national political future and the book as, “I think she’ll be a great attraction as an amusement. She’s interesting, she’s a celebrity. But I can’t imagine that she has much future in politics, I really don’t.”

While I give mad props to Schieffer – who is indeed one of the rarest critters in the world, a conservative in the upper reaches of the mainstream media – his very status makes him the wrong person to ask about a populist phenomenon like Palin.  His perspective – like that of George Will, to pick a not-entirely-random example – is that of someone who’s more time talking with Presidents and Congresspeople than, say, plumbers and ranchers.

I bring this up because it’s the same mistake the nation’s “elites” made about Reagan.  He’d never played the paper chase; his BA was from an undistinguished college in the middle of nowhere – he couldn’t be as capable as a Yalie, could he?  His “credentials” didn’t involve any time at Columbia School of Public Policy! He’d never worked for a think tank!  How could he have a future in politics?!

The “elites” were wrong about Reagan.  Are they wrong about Palin?  We’ll see. 

We’re going to meet someone familiar next:

A little more than a year ago I told a local conservative blogger (just after the Republican National Convention) that Sarah Palin was an albatross, that her political star was ascending temporarily because she was an unknown who had given a fiery speech, but as her past and especially her comments became public, she would be a boat anchor on McCain’s campaign.

If memory serves, I’m that “conservative blogger”.   Memory may not serve, but the conversation (a comment thread, if memory serves, and more and more it does not) rings a bell.

I was told by that blogger that I was mistaken, that Palin “was exactly what the campaign needed right now.” His point was of course that to the “tea party set” McCain was too liberal, and so to get the ‘base engergized” an issue light-weight, but ultra-conservative photogenic candidate like Palin was needed.

Well, no.  For starters, I have never said that Palin was a lightweight.  Indeed, I repeatedly expressed that I believed she was vastly more qualified to be President that the one we got.

It should go without saying that, being a conservative, a woman’s photogeneity is secondary to her accomplishments and talent, of which more in a bit here.  And while I realize that “from Sacramento, Denver is way out east”, Palin is no “ultra-conservative” in any sense that matters to, y’know conservatives. 

But he got the rest of it right; Palin was what the campaign needed; indeed, Palin was the only reason the 2008 election wasn’t a 15 point debacle.

Perhaps that was the case for the right-wing base, but as the election bore out, it was the undecided and independent voters, not the base, who would ultimately decide the election and who needed to feel ‘safe’ with the VP candidate, and Sarah Palin made virtually no one feel safe thinking she was John McCain’s heartbeat away from being President.

I think it’s highly monumentally implausible that, as bad a year as it was for Republicans and as polarizing a person as Palin was, that a single voter anywhere in the country felt “safe” with Joe Biden. 

In the year (plus) since, Palin has time and again proven herself to be a goof-ball, a daffy ill-informed, fire spewer ready to mouth idiocy like death panels,

(Show of hands:  Anyone tickled pink that a Democrat – someone from the party of Saul “Frame Your Opponent!” Alinsky – is complaining that a “dumb” conservative has out-framed them on their pet issue?)

and one who talks about having to ‘work for a living’ (as compared to a ‘community organizer), but who then went and quit her job because she was not seeking re-election.

Which, at this remove, is a move that makes more and more sense.  Had she stayed in office, the Democrat Smear Machine (R) would have kept lobbing an endless series of phony, borderline-defamatory “ethics complaints”, whose only purpose was to provide grist for the chattering classes’ mill, at Palin.  It was a risky move, and we’re three years away from knowing if it’ll pay off, but it gave Palin one key advantage; it allows her the time and bandwith to define herself, especially with that most important of tasks for any conservative – to outflank the media and define herself directly to the people.  Again, it’s a risk – but what did she have to lose?

She berated Levi Johnson – who maybe even deserved derision, but she appeared cheap and petty

Really?

That’s an interesting “but…”.  Levi Johnson knocks up her daughter, and then goes on a defamatory spree in the media attacking not only her (no big whoop if you’re a public figure) but her daughter?  And responding is “cheap and petty?”

The mainstream media and the Sorosphere (pardon the redundancy) have observed a fascinating double standard in re the Levi Johnson “scandal”; while most people agree that Johnson is a disgusting low-life, Palin’s response (which has been both low-key and fully proportionate to what any parent should do in defense of their children and grandchildren) has been pilloried for no better reason than “she’s a family-values conservative, she deserves what happens to her”.

 and got into a national TV fight with David Letterman – a stupid move that could have resulted in her becoming the same kind of clown Dan Qayle proved himself to be with “Murphy Brown”/Candace Bergen.

“Could have?”

Leaving aside the fact that the two episodes were utterly different (Quayle was criticizing a fictional character, albeit quite correctly; Letterman told a disgusting joke about a child; if I were A-Rod, I’d have bitch-slapped Letterman long before Palin’s fairly mild response got on the air) – it didn’t. 

That this women continues to enrapture the right-wing tea-party crowd speaks only to their enormous ability at self-delusion (rivaled by Palin’s own ability in that regard).

Ah.  Really?

“Self-delusion” means “to decieve oneself into believing something that isn’t true”.  I’m not quite sure what “Penigma” means by calling either Palin or the “Tea Party Crowd” “self-deluded”, and he’s not helpful enough to elaborate. 

But here’s the part that got my dander up:

She appears to be a petty and shallow back-biter, looking more like a mean-spirited and dishonest hick queen dressed up in Versace than a serious and educated candidate and this books seals that impression in gold-plated tell-all tin-foil hats.

“Hick Queen dressed in Versace?”

For starters, the term “Hick” is less onerous than “Nigger” in one, and only exactly one, way; lower-class rural whites were never formally enslaved, never had their rights systematically stripped away due to that status and their skin color, and got the slur due to a condition applied by society rather than birth and ethnicity alone.  It is a thoroughly disgusting, demeaning slur that deserves no less approbation than, say “dirt-worshipping heathen”.  It demeans and dehumanizes based not only on the most trivial, surface aspects of personality, but aspects that are in Palin’s case completely inaccurate and wrong. 

And what does “Hick Queen in Versace” mean?  That them backwoods wimmins should know their place and not pretend to be above their station?  Feminists, you wanna take this one?

Can anyone imagine a liberal referring to, say, Mike Huckabee as a “Hick King?”  Of course not – because Huckabee, being male, is not an apostate.  And it’s to apostates that all the worst punishments are reserved.

And when Pengima says “s books seals that impression in gold-plated tell-all tin-foil hats”, my first question is…

…well, it’s “Huh?”  I have no idea what that means.  I even tried to diagram the dependent clause; I got hung up on the concept of the “tell-all hat” before giving up.

But my second question is “Really?  How does it “seal” that impression?  What part of the book did you read to get that impression “sealed?”  Did you actually read  the book?”

Of course he didn’t.  The “book” didn’t “seal” anything; Penigma’s preconceptions, like those of most of her critics, did.  And it’s about the Big Left’s canonical line (at one point, I’d have called it a “talking point”) about Palin, or indeed about any conservative woman (Latino/Afro-American); she’s “teh crazee/extremist/out of touch not “elite” enough/a hypocrite”.

But retired Brigadier General Anthony Tata did read the book.  And A he “sealed” an entirely different impression, to say the least:

When I got about halfway through the book I set it down, stepped outside of my Washington, DC townhouse and went for a run around the U.S. Capitol. Listening to the Outlaws, Marshall Tucker Band, and Lil Bow Wow (my daughter slipped that one in there) on my iPod, the recurrent thought in my mind was that this woman is far more qualified to be president of the United States than the current occupant of the White House.

Which is something an awful lot of us noted before the election – and in which this Administration’s hapless first year has borne us out.

When I completed the journey that is Going Rogue, I wrote down five things:

–She is a positive role model for all Americans
–She is an executive, takes on hard problems and makes tough decisions
–She has tremendous energy, balance and intellect
–America shafted itself in this last election
–Alaska is lucky to have her

Oh, and a sixth, Sarah Palin could be the next president of the United States.

She certainly could.  And not just because Obama set the bar so low Jimmy Carter must even be feeling good right about now.

Her book washes away all doubts that any reader might have had about her readiness to be president. She comes across as exceptionally bright, dedicated, and passionate about public service. Her moral compass is strong, pointing true North in this case. And she has a wicked sense of humor.

Which are a slew of things that liberals dislike under any circumstances; when they occur in a woman  (or a Latino, or Afro-American)? They must be destroyed.

The most salient take-away from Going Rogue for me was what I admired most in her campaign, which was that she had been in charge as either a mayor or a governor whereas none of the other candidates on either ticket had. Having been a commander several times in the military I know that there is a huge difference between being a hardworking and important staff officer and an ‘alone at the top’ commander. No matter how fancy the title, executive officer or Senator, at the end of the day, you are recommending to someone who actually makes the decision.

As a Governor, mayor or commander, you have the unparalleled responsibility to actually make decisions that have ramifications. There is little training that can prepare you for all those heads turning in your direction when it is decision time. You can’t blithely abstain on a vote or hide behind the guy in front of you, because you own the decision.

Remember all those “present” votes during the two whopping years Obama spent in the Senate?  Did you think it was just an abstract thing?

Case in point is Obama’s inexcusable delay in making a decision on Afghanistan. His indecision, cloaked as ‘sleeves-rolled-up-pensiveness’, is an indicator that he was, at a minimum, unprepared to be commander in chief…Palin, on the other hand, demonstrates decisiveness and vulnerability. Is she prepared for the enormous breadth of responsibility of president? I think she’s ready for the hard part, which is making tough decisions. She’s no “Ruminator-in Chief”, that’s for sure, and if the American people think a second year back bench senator was ready to be president, I’m not sure we’ve got the right rubric out there.

Palin’s got warts; of course, so does every other person in the world.  It’s one of the reasons many of us love Palin, political aspirations notwithstanding; we have kids who givegive us hell; we got through college in fits and starts, and didn’t have time or resources to play the “paper chase” game; most of us tried a couple of different courses in life before settling, at least for now, on what we are.  And she’s not the “perfect” candidate, whatever that is.  But  Conservatism does not expect politicians to be the revealed font of perfection.  Quite the opposite; the imperfection of people and the temptation of power are two of the many, many reasons we advocate limiting government power.

Palin is real. She takes counsel of her fears and continuously comes back to her foundation of family, God, state and nation for reassurance and guidance. She has strong moral guideposts that she uses to navigate the shark infested political waters. Reading about the decisions Sarah Palin faced at multiple levels of government reminded me of something my command sergeant major in the 82nd Airborne Division used to say when we faced a tough decision together: “Sir, when you’re right, don’t worry about it.”

Palin is right on many issues such as energy policy, defense, business, and size of government.

And underneath the carefully-arranged slime jobs, the impeccably-unflattering editing of her first, ill-advised round of interviews with Couric and Gibson, and the endless torrent of hatred disguised as “humor” from the left, that’s what many of us still love about Palin; she’s right.  Above and beyond her personality and history and record, she stands for what I stand for“.

As her father said, “Sarah’s not retreating; she’s reloading.”

We should hope so, because she’s precisely the kind of leader America needs.

Need I repeat that Gen. Tata read the book?

Read the rest of the review – which includes a Hillary Clinton story that sets this whole thing off perfectly.

While Democrats and Republicans battle it out, most Americans have lost no love for either party and may be lining up behind…neither.

Main Street America has entered an era of populism that embraces neither party. People are tired of government bailouts, spending and unchecked corruption, as well as the media’s perceived lack of curiosity or investigation into all three.

They are really tired of being told their values and way of life are not politically correct.

America is pissed off. Unless an independent candidate can connect with enough Americans to garner a majority, Republicans probably have a chance to end Obama’s Reign of Pain. But, thanks to George W. Bush’s invention of the modern liberal Republican, there are no guarantees.

Americans lost faith in Republicans as evidenced by their willingness to vote a charismatic, well-spoken but otherwise completely unqualified decoy into the White House.

While President Obama enjoyed a brief honeymoon, since about June more Americans think we’re moving in the wrong direction; less Americans believe we are moving in the right direction. Obama’s popularity is sinking like a lead zeppelin. Clearly the honeymoon is over for the Democrats.

But Republican’s don’t have to outrun the bear as the saying goes, they just have to outrun the other guy the bear is chasing. Thanks to Obama, Reid, Pelosi and their ilk, Democrats have a lot more ground to cover when it comes to the issues America will soon hold most high.

“Elites like President Obama see government as a force for protecting the little guy,” explains University of Arkansas political scientist Robert Maranto. “But regular folks on Main Street see government as incomprehensible and unpredictable.”

Even with the best of intentions, government almost always does more harm than good.

When President Obama orders corporate bailouts, a stimulus plan that costs a quarter-million-dollars a job, or talks more about expanding government than reducing unemployment, folks are naturally skeptical, Maranto says.

Most Americans are Jeffersonians: They want limited government – totally at odds with Obama, who wants government without limits.

Let the footrace begin. The first party to fiscal sanity wins. Unfortunately for them, the Democrats don’t even know where the starting line is, and with unemployment above ten, a series of failed bailouts and stimuli, dithering on defense, and foreign policy gaffes, they’re wearing concrete boots.

Meanwhile, the bear smells blood. Blue blood.

Via Andrew Malcolm; Sarah Palin’s numbers are rising as fast as The One’s are dropping:

Not that it matters politically because obviously she’s a female Republican dunce and he’s a male Democrat genius.

But Sarah Palin’s poll numbers are strengthening.

And Barack Obama’s are sliding.

Guess what? They’re about to meet in the 40’s.

A very wide variet of polls are showing Palin’s numbers are moving up:

Riding the wave of immense publicity and symbiotic media interest over her new book, “Going Rogue,” and the accompanying promotional tour, Palin’s favorable ratings are now at 43%, according to ABC. That’s up from 40% in July.

One poll even gives her a 47% favorable.

And this includes the big one…:

Most recent media attention has focused on the 60% who say she’s unqualified to become president. Her unfavorable rating is 52%, down from 53%, which still doesn’t ignite a lot of optimism for Palin-lovers.

On the other hand, 35 months before the 2008 election, that Illinois state senator was such a nobody that no one even thought to ask such a question about him. Things seem to change much more quickly these days.

So we have a candidate who was swept into office on a wave of uncritical – dare I say, “know-nothing” – media adulation, versus a candidate whom the media framed from the word “go”; every move the media made with regard to Palin was intended to show her as “dumb”, a “hick”, a scatterbrain, in way over her depth, who is having to earn approval one vote at a time.

And she’s approaching those voters, one at a time and in big crowds as well…

Everybody thinks 2012 when they think of Palin, who last week pushed Oprah’s show to….

… its highest ratings in nearly three years. Remember, though, in 2012 the first hurdles a rehabbed candidate Palin would face are her own party’s primaries, where diligent conservatives conscientiously come out to play.

…and all of a sudden, leaving the Alaska governor’s office is making more and more sense.

Indeed, something jumped out as me as I was writing this:

That same ABC poll finds Palin’s GOP approval right around 76%, 45% among independents and a surprisingly substantial 21% among Democrats. Among self-described liberals she’s seen favorably by a slightly larger 22%, among moderates 38% and among conservatives 60%.

This past year has seen an epic resurgence in bottom-up conservative – not necessarily Republican – sentiment around the country.  You can tell it’s working, because it’s being met with top-down media condescenscion intended to, again, frame the discussion as one of “smart people” versus “teh dum ReThugLiCons” in the media’s mind’s eye. 

The phenomenon is so organic and grass-roots that it doesn’t have a leader yet; there is momentum, but nobody to ride it.

Palin’s campaign book tour might change that.

…are not so evil after all.

The government recently advised that women don’t really need so many mammograms…that it takes 1900 of them to save one life.

Insurance companies’ reply?

Don’t worry. You’re covered…

Insurance companies contacted by USA TODAY say they will continue paying for annual mammograms amid widespread fears that new breast cancer screening guidelines from a federal task force could lead women to lose coverage for those tests.

The guidelines – suggesting that most women under 50 don’t need routine mammograms and that women over 50 need them only every other year – were issued Monday night by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force.

…until the government takes over that is.

I don’t go to the WaPo’s Chris Cilizza for keen-eyed observations on conservatives or Republicans. 

But his piece in “The Fix” on the Minnesota goober race provides some junk food for thought:

Norm Coleman (R) isn’t expected to make a decision on the 2010 governor’s race until next year but a new Rasmussen poll suggests the former senator has plenty of time to make his decision. Coleman led the Republican field with 50 percent while state Rep. Marty Seifert at 11 percent was the only other potential candidate to break double digits. Coleman’s lead is almost entirely attributable to name identification gained from his time as mayor of St. Paul and his six years in the Senate but it does suggest that if he decides to run, he will be a clear favorite. On the Democratic side, former Sen. Mark Dayton and Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak each received 30 percent of the vote while none of the other candidates scored in double digits. Coleman would give Republicans a chance to hold this seat, which is being vacated by Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R) after two terms. But, if Coleman takes a pass this race looks extremely difficult for any other GOP candidate given Minnesota’s Democratic tilt.

Before we get to Cilizza’s actual piece, let’s take a moment to remember how well the “cult of the inevitable” serves the Democrats.  While it’s entirely possible that the second coming of Ronald Reagan would have had trouble in the 2008 election, it’s also a fact that the “inevitability” of John McCain – cultivated through many careful years by the media, who spent the better part of a decade building up John McCain as the “Good Republican”, so they could spend six months tearing him right back down – didn’t serve the GOP especially well in the past election.  McCain was built up to serve as a beacon for “Moderate” Republicans, and “moderates” discredited themselves utterly and completely between 2002 and 2008.   Don’t believe for a moment that Big Media doesn’t desperately want to do the same again; look for a wave of approving stories about what an “acceptable”, work-across-the-aisle kinda guy Republican Mike Huckabee is, sooner than later.

But for the moment, let’s do two things; leave media perfidy out of it (or just accept it as a given and move on), and accept Rasmussen’s numbers at face value, and assume that Norm Coleman’s name ID gives him a prohibitive advantage in the GOP field (and, at first glance – again, let’s accept the numbers at face value – an edge over the Rybak and the ludicrous Mark Dayton), what does it mean?

I’ve disagreed strenuouosly with plenty of my conservative friends on Coleman, based on one key principle – a principle that guides so very much in life.

Perfect is the enemy of good enough.

Coleman, like Tim Pawlenty, is no conservative’s icon.  But like Pawlenty, he is conservative enough, at least on the issues that matter.

Coleman, like Pawlenty, has angered conservatives with a number of his stances over the past 16 years.  But, like Pawlenty, he has been a thoroughgoing conservative on the things should matter; taxes, spending, growth and security.

As Mayor of Saint Paul, he presided over eight years (and keynoted four more) of holding the line on taxes, on living within the city’s means, and on job and business growth – things that are nearly forgotten four years after Coleman’s successor Randy Kelly left office.  Like Pawlenty, his conservatism may fray a bit around the edges, but at its core it’s just fine.

So who do I support for Governor?

I think the race boils down to one thing, if you’re a Republican; not moving the party to the center, but communicating what the right really stands for to give “the center” a reason to move right.

Do I think a thoroughgoing conservative like Tom Emmer, Dave Hann or Pat Anderson has what it takes to communicate the benefits of a real conservative vision to a middle that’s shell-shocked by Obama’s incompetence and excess?  Yes, I do  – and so does the Twin Cities’ media, which is why you never see Tom Emmer or Pat Anderson’s name in print without some variation on “extreme” or “hardline” conservative in front of their names.    I’ve seen Emmer, Hann and Anderson talk with mixed crowds; I’ve even heard Emmer on a liberal-leaning internet talk show – he did a spectacular job of articulating the conservative vision to a non-conservative audience, and I have no doubt Anderson and Hann can do the same  (which is why the Strib and the rest of the Twin Cities media will make sure that they don’t give any of them the opportunity to do it to a larger audience).

But at the moment, I support one thing; fighting like hell – as I put it a few years ago, grabbing one side of the rope or another in our inter-party tug of war and pulling like mad.  Getting out the caucuses early next year and fighting like there’s no tomorrow for your candidate.  Because for Minnesota conservatives, it’s a win-win situation.  Either we get a genuine movement conservative, an Emmer or Anderson or Hann or Seifert, someone who can genuinely articulate conservatism to the undecideds, running for (and winning) the race…

…or we get Norm Coleman, after having to survive a tough, spirited nomination battle against three superb candidates to his right.  Which will make him tack right, while still remaining Norm.  Norm is no slouch at articulating the key tenets of conservatism to a crowd either; and as a “worst case” that isn’t all that bad, having to overcome Emmer, Anderson and Hann will force him to walk the conservative walk in a way he has not had to before.

Which is not a bad thing.

Perfect is the enemy of good enough.  Would I prefer that Emmer, Anderson, Seifert or Hann won with a forty p0int margin?  Absolutely – and I plan on pulling like hell for one of the three of them.

And whomever gets through the convention – Tom, Pat, Dave, Marty or Norm?  I’ll pull like hell even harder for any of them.

Because any of them will make a better governor in these times than Rybak or Dayton.

Instead of apologizing for it’s past.

The Chinese, though members of a famously old civilization, seem to possess some of the vigor that once defined the U.S. The Chinese are now an astonishingly optimistic people. Eighty-six percent of Chinese believe their country is headed in the right direction, compared with 37 percent of Americans.

Take a bow, indeed Mr. President.

This is how a recession gets fixed…

A crop of potentially groundbreaking companies is emerging from the wreckage of the Great Recession. No question, some will blow up, and others will fail to reach their potential. But the downturn has done little to dampen the entrepreneurial spirit. During the first half of this year, angel investors financed 24,500 new ventures, 6% more than during the same period last year, according to the Center for Venture Research. The overall amount of money going into startups has declined, but the figures suggest that this year will see the birth of roughly 50,000 companies with enough promise that someone is betting money on them. “It may be that this is the best time to start a company,” says Carl Schramm, president of the Kauffman Foundation, an organization that promotes entrepreneurship.

History shows that great companies are often built during bad times. In 1939, at the tail end of the Great Depression, two engineers started Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) in a garage in Northern California. Silicon Valley itself was largely created during the nasty recession of the mid-1970s. During that decade, entrepreneurs laid the groundwork for the boom of the 1980s, building companies that pioneered three new industries: Atari in the video game business, Apple (AAPL) in personal computers, and Genentech in biotechnology. “The only people who venture out in tough times are on a mission, which is what you need,” says Michael Moritz, managing partner of Sequoia Capital, a venture capital firm that invested in Apple back in the ’70s.

The entrepreneur; the capitalist, seeking the American dream of wealth and freedom, has always been the seed of who we are as a nation, our standard of living and what we’ve done for other nations. Despite Michael Moore’s attempts to discredit it, and Barack Obama’s attempts to destroy it, capitalism is still our only hope for recovery.

It’s The Unemployment, stupid.

The announcement a week ago of 10.2% unemployment is a significant political event for President Barack Obama. It could well usher in a particularly serious crisis for his political standing, influence and ability to advance his agenda.

Double-digit unemployment drove Ronald Reagan’s disapproval ratings in October 1982 up to a record high 54%. It was only when unemployment dropped to 7.3%, roughly two years later, that he was able to win a landslide victory over Democratic challenger Walter Mondale in the 1984 presidential election.

Alas, Barack Obama will not have the same opportunity that Reagan did – he doesn’t have the tools (the ideology)…or the people.

Barack Obama is all-in already with his “Stimulus Plan” in the sense that

1) He wants us to think that it’s working, and it is not.

2) As such, he doesn’t want us to think that his Stimulus Plan made things worse, which it did.

Had Barack Obama given America the message that they should have had, that they deserve, it would have been something like this:

Dear fellow Americans: You’ve lived beyond your means and so has your government, and now we must all pay the painful price as our economy returns to a more normalized state. We in the federal government will do what we can by extending unemployment benefits and such, but beyond that, as much as you will hear otherwise from those on the far left, stimulus programs and other gargantuan government spending programs will only worsen and extend the inevitable pain we must all go through to right the ship.

Instead, he doubled down on the failed fiscal policies of George Bush and simply dug the hole deeper.

Now the hole is filling with water and Barack Obama can’t get out.

Obama’s only option politically is to lobby for more stimulus spending and sell the American people on the efficacy of the last one. The former will fall on deaf ears as the deficit becomes an issue with the American people; the latter as the din of high unemployment washes over Obama’s Teleprompterings^™.

His dithering on Afghanistan and misappropriated focus on health care “reform” will be transferred to his economic impotence, and so on and and so on.

A look at more detailed data shows why Mr. Obama’s ratings are likely to drop even further.

A CNN poll released Nov. 6 found that 47% of Americans believe the top issue facing the country is the economy, while only 17% say its health care. However, the bulk of the president’s efforts over the past six months have been not on the economy but on health care, an issue in which he continues to draw negative ratings.

In a Rasmussen Reports poll taken after the House of Representatives passed health-care reform by the narrowest of margins last Saturday night, 54% of likely voters say they are opposed to the plan with only 45% in favor. Furthermore, in the all-important category of unaffiliated voters, 58% oppose the bill. That’s one of the reasons why so many moderate Democratic House members opposed it.

The CNN poll also shows that in addition to health care, a majority of Americans disapprove of how Mr. Obama is handling the economy, Afghanistan, Iraq, unemployment, illegal immigration and the federal budget deficit. Put simply, there isn’t a critical problem facing the country on which the president has positive ratings.

The only way the President gets out of this alive is to willfully and publicly abandon the failed liberal approaches to virtually every issue that has presented itself in his short Presidency.

What are the chances?

Mr. President, Mr. Rock.

“Hello, nice to meet you.”

“Likewise, Mr. President.”

Mr. President, Mr. Hard Place.

“Hello, nice to meet you as well.”

“It’s an honor, Mr. President. Thank you for inviting us into your Presidency. Should we get started?”

2012.

Indeed.

I joke, constantly, with liberal commenters and critics – the few that are worth engaging, anyway – “If a princpled conservative orders a pizza in the woods, and no liberal is there to hear it, is he/she still crazy?”

It’s a joke that covers a very serious reality; for a big chunk of the left, individually and as an institution, “insanity” is the only possible reason for dissent.  You encounter is from lefties small (“Suddenly John McCain got crazy!”) to big (the Soviets considered dissent a psychiatric condition, and filled psychiatric prisons to prove it).  To altogether too much of the American left, not being part of the American left is (to paraphrase Michael Savage) a mental disorder.

I saw that Dave Mindeman had written a piece entitled Bachmann has close to “Unsinkable” status” and thought briefly that perhaps Mindeman – who is one of the more estimable regional leftybloggers – was going to try something we’d not seen before; a sober, responsible, dispassionate look from the left at the success of one of the most drearily, rotely, predictably maligned figures in Minnesota politics.

If you’ve been reading this blog for any length of time, or know anything about Minnesota politics, you already know not to take any action on that bet.

Any post that starts with a Paul Krugman quote is off to a bad start, of course:

The point is that the takeover of the Republican Party by the irrational right is no laughing matter. Something unprecedented is happening here — and it’s very bad for America.– Paul Krugman (NY Times)

So sit down with someone like  Paul Krugman, a Lori Sturdevant or, I’ll take a wild flyer here, a Dave Mindemann and ask them “what would the “rational right” look like?”.  If they get past the stumbling and the phumphering (I give you about one-to-four odds), they’ll describe something that looks, talks and votes indistinguishably from a Democrat.

Because, to these people, everything to the right of Dave Durenberger or Chuck Hagel is not just putatively wrong; it’s “crazy”.

Mindemann:

Outside of Bill Prendergast at MN Progressive Project (as well as some of the local 6th District bloggers like Hal Kimball and Political Muse), a lot of left leaning writers and activists (including myself) have considered Michele Bachmann to be a kook or extremist. [Really?  The hell you say. I’d put it more like “every regional leftyblogger has “Bachmann is teh crazee” on a hotkey – Ed.] Someone to make a caricature of, but not somebody to accept as a spokesperson for the right on the scale that she has nurtured.

That has to change, because Michele Bachmann is beginning to remind me of someone else….someone much more sinister….

Who might that be?

Margaret Thatcher, who presaged Ronald Reagan by fighting against not only a blinkered, ossified liberal leadership with immense success, but countered countless scabrous insults about her state of mine – because the British left was no less prone to see dissent as a mental illess as our own left?

Sarah Palin, whose own struggle with media/left (pardon the redundancy) orthodoxy has so completely paralleled that of Bachman (and Thatcher!)?

Who, pray tell?

Joe McCarthy.

{{facepalm}}

Wow.  Never heard that one before.

McCarthy rose to prominence because of fear. Fear of communism, the red menace. He turned those fears into an irrational paranoia. It ruined lives and paralyzed the US government. For a time, everyone had to tread carefully around the potential accusations that came out of McCarthy’s committee.

Bachmann is becoming the icon that the paranoid right is turning to now. She equates their fears into a “fight for freedom” or a “war against tyranny”. This new paranoia is not about real fears but about a loss of power that eight years of President Bush and 6 years of a Republican Congress kept in check.

Wow.  Speaking of paranoia.

Mindemann’s piece is marinaded in a crock-put full of the modern left’s most durable, and durably predictable, memes:

• To a liberal, a conservative never, ever fights the culture war because they have concerns and they wanna take their shot at correcting what they see as a problem in society.  It’s always about “fear”.
• No matter how carefully, even punctiliously, a cultural or social (or, these days, even a fiscal or security) conservative spells out a case, they are without exception “paranoid”.
• It is impossible for a conservative to speak on any issue, in any rhetorical terms, without it being considered “hate” on one level or another.
• Any conservative thought is assumed to immediately link to the most ludicrously extreme possible end results – and the most ludicrious fringe is inevitably concatenated with the most mainstream conservative thought.  This is not just intellectual laziness (although in the case of most lefty pundits, it certainly is the path of least resistance); this is part of a concerted pattern on the part of the left to frame all disagreement as one form of depravity or amother.

This is the lens through which the left – not even the extreme left, mind you, but the mainstream left that got Barack Obama elected – sees all dissent, and into which they want to frame all dissent for everyone else.  Too much of the media accepts it as the baseline; much of the American left can’t be bothered to question it.

That’s gone, and now their paranoia has a face and its quite different from the faces they have been used to.

Michele Bachmann has become the rallying point for this new paranoia. She listens to them…she understands them….she IS one of them. When she calls them to Washington to stand against health care, they come. Never mind that a lot of that crowd was paid for by astroturf front groups. The fact that deep pocket astroturf groups are willing to bankroll a Bachmann rally makes her all the more dangerous.

Mindemann is shocked, shocked, that right-leaning groups spend money to get across right-leaning messages and support right-leaning causes.  Because goodness knows the entire left-wing slander machine is funded through bake sales.

She has an entire news channel (Fox News) at her disposal.

Because goodness knows the left gets short shrift on ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, CNN, the NYTimes, WaPo, LATimes, the AP, Reuters…

Her message can reach the people it needs to anytime she chooses. She is also recognized as an “official” opposition voice by other media as well. And she loves the attention, doesn’t care about “facts”, and makes it all personal.

Tangent alert:  I was at a town hall meeting in Saint Paul before the ’08 election featuring Elwyn “E-Tink” Tinklenberg and Bachmann.  E-Tink spoke in vague blandishments, and seemed about as sincere and connected to the moment as the moaning in a porn video.   Bachmann, on the other hand, did something I’ve never seen a pol do; she grabbed a whiteboard and a marker, and she started putting up the numbers; the amount of Porkulus; the morgage bailout; the upcoming, inevitable bailouts of other industries; the amount this’d add to our per-capita deficit figure, and what that meant not only to our paychecks, but to our children’s futures…

…in short, the facts. She not only waded through the numbers, but she made them – the facts – accessible to everyone in the room.  It was the most affecting explanation of the gravity of our current fiscal situation that I had seen to date, and just about the most effective I’ve ever seen, period. From anyone, in or out of politics.  Ever.

As to anyone on the left – the party of Saul Alinski – carping about a politician “making it personal?”  I’ll hold my tongue, so that my contempt doesn’t overtake me.

And dare I say it, she has a certain charisma that convinces her supporters she can do no wrong.

No.  She has a charisma that convinces her supporters – and even a few intellectually honest detractors – that she’s right.

The Democrats chance to defeat her was in 2008. They had the right candidate [um, no – E-Tink was a disaster – Ed.] and the right opportunity [True – Ed.] — it just all came together too late.

(Also incorrect, if  you’ll indulge the tangent; “it”, in the form of a Keith Olbermann interview about not much that got its context carefully doctored and blown up into a much-ado-about-not-much-ado  event by an uncritical all-too-compliant media – “came together” too early; Bachmann was able to get The Real Michele back in front of the voters in enough time to stanch the bleeding.  Thank God.

Tarryl Clark is an excellent candidate [Hah! – Ed.]. So is Maureen Reed. Clark could be a consistent winner for the DFL…..just not in the 6th District. I doubt Reed or Clark is prepared for the type of war they are about to embark on. The DFL candidate, whomever it is, is taking on an incumbant that now has an unlimited national war chest of funding…An incumbant who can call on high profile names to support her campaign.

Which is apparently only a bad thing when the  “high profile names” don’t come from Hollywood and the  “unlimited war chest” isn’t from George Soros.

An incumbant who will be protected by a national party that has become dependent on her followers.

Which is a pejorative way of saying “found its conservative voice and unifying principles” – the only voice and principles since the Great Depression that has led the party to any sustained success and impact on politics, in 1980 and 1994.

Which, frankly, terrifies the crap out of the Democrat establishment.  This is why the left and media (pardon the redundancy) push the meme of the “responsble” (inevitably “moderate”) Republican – in their world, Dede Scozzafava and Arne Carlson are the voice of the GOP! – to divide and then to conquer the party, to marginalize conservatism and conservatives.

Because we not only win, but we win against all odds and conventional wisdom.

Mindemann comes oh-so-close to an answer…

Is the state DFL prepared to meet that kind of challenge? I have my doubts. They can treat MB as a buffoon, but it will only enhance her appeal. Their candidates have shown an ability to raise some money but nowhere near the amounts needed to compete with Bachmann.

I hope I’m wrong. I hope that the 6th District has enough discerning voters that she can be defeated.

…but swerves away.

The worst thing you can do in any form of public life is to “believe your own press”.  Likewise with memes about ones opponents.  When conservatives start to write their opponents off as a bunch of gutless entitlement symps and lumpen government employees – and all too many conservatives fall into that trap, too – then it takes ones’ edge off.  You should never underestimate your opponent.

But the only real arrow in the left’s quiver in the Sixth District is underestimation to the point of collective slander, not only of Representative Bachmann.  The left’s entire point of view about Rep. Bachmann is framed by a years-long propaganda campaign waged by some of her most, let’s just say, “focused” destractors, people who find her social conservatism anathema to the point they lose their faculties of reasoning.  This has framed the entire 6th CD DFL’s thought on Rep. Bachmann – a myopia that can only have helped send Rep. Bachmann to Washington twice now.

Dave Mindemann – do you honestly think that Rep. Bachmman’s successive victories, in two of the most anti-Republican elections in 35 years, was the result of “undiscerning voters”?

Voters of the Sixth – to Dave Mindemann (oh, I’ll be fair – to the Institutional Left), you are nothing but half-trained lab animals in a pavlovian experiment designed by that most devious mind-warper, Karl Rove.

Not people who arrive at intelligent conclusions for reasons of your own.

Hold that thought for another year.

But at this moment, that seems nearly impossible.

And one is torn between hoping Mindemann, and the rest of the state and 6CD DFL, do and/or do not figure why.

“Conservatives hate women” is conventional wisdom…

…among people who aren’t all that wise

– in this case, Politico’s Meredith Shiner and Glenn Thrush:

But the growing schism between the Republican Party’s ascendant right wing and its shrinking moderate core has clear gender undertones — and Scozzafava’s departure raises fresh questions about the GOP’s ability to recruit, elect and even tolerate the sort of moderate women who used to be part of its ruling mainstream.

While Republicans scored a pair of impressive electoral victories in New Jersey and Virginia with solid support among female voters, the events of the last week offer harbingers of serious trouble ahead with the largest swing voter bloc in the country — women.

Right.  Because Dede Scozzafava is the only woman in the GOP.

As opposed to Sarah Palin and Sarah Palin?  Or – here in Minnesota – conservative movement stalwarts Pat Anderson and Laura Brod?

Rob Port from Say Anything:

The problem with this analysis?  It’s awfully selective.  It leaves out people like Arlen Spector and Lindsey Graham, both frequent targets ofthe conservative base.  And it also leaves out Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann, both very popular figures within the resurgent conservative movement.

If the tea party movement had a problem with women, why would people like Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann figure so prominently in it?  And why wouldthe opposition to so-called “RINOS” or ‘moderates” include both men and women?

Leave aside the fact that many of the Tea Parties – including the Twin Cities’ ones – are largely organized by…women?

Politico has a conclusion in search of data.

It was twenty years ago today that the Berlin Wall fell.

It’s hard to remember at twenty years remove that it, and the Communism it represented, didn’t just get swept away in a wave of small-l liberal euphoria. 

Dinesh D’Souza, in his excellent bio of Reagan, notes that between 1980 and 1983, the experts were united in their belief that the “Second World”, Communism, was here to stay.  Make no mistake, people had recovered from the spell of Walter Duranty long enough to know that the Soviet system was cruel and corrupt gangster-run autocracy even worse than Chicago.  The publication of The Gulag Archipelago and other releases from the samisdat media, and the flood of people who fled Germany from 1948 through 1961, popped the bubble of acceptability that had accompanied travesties like Stalin’s “Man of the Year” awards in 1939 and 1942, and Stalinism’s embrace by “intelligentsia” throughout the West (including the early version of the Minnesota Democratic Farmer/Labor Party).   The stories of the thousands of heroic Soviet-bloc citizens who risked death and imprisonment fleeing their foetid, starving, lumpen homelands inspired many a young patriot in the day.

But while the bloom was long off the rose of western acceptance of Communism, the number of western intellectuals who seriously believed in 1980 that the decade would see the fall of the Berlin Wall and, in short order, communism itself would have fit in a single room at a Ramada Inn. 

There had been resistance, of course; in Budapest and Gdansk in 1956, Prague in 1967, Gdansk again in ’71 – all put down with ruthless brutality by the authorities, including the Soviet military.

And so I’m not aware that anyone held out that much hope for change in 1979 – thirty years ago – when Lech Walesa, a young electrician in Gdansk, led a pro-democracy union strike in Gdansk.  The movement had traction, of course – it swept Poland, and threatened to spin out of control; the Polish Army under General Wojciech Jaruzelski staged what amounted to a last-ditch military coup to bring down the government and declare martial law to quell the strikes, siccing “ZOMO” thugs (no, it’s not Polish for SEIU) on the protesters and strikers.  Jaruzelski was reviled around the world for the action – although there is evidence that history has misjudged the General, that he acted as did many in the Polish Army, as a Polish patriot, to prevent a Soviet invasion, which would have been much, much worse).

And indeed, had the status quo ante held sway after 1980, nothing much would have happened.

But in 1980, the election of Ronald Reagan signalled an end to detente – the diplomatic legitimazion of the Soviet gangster regime.  Reagan jacked up the rhetoric war, and the civil support for trade unionists behind the Iron Curtain (with considerable help from Margaret Thatcher, the Pope and, speaking of strange bedfellows, Lane Kirkland of the AFL-CIO), as well as building up the US military from its post-Vietnam nadir (although to be fair Jimmy Carter had realized the problem, and taken a few of the necessary high-level steps to start facilitating this).   The rhetorical confrontation peaked at Reagan’s classic Brandenburg Gate speech in 1987…

…but the diplomatic war had reached its Battle of Stalingrad at the Rejkjavik conference the year before, when Reagan called Gorbachev’s bluff on intermediate-range nukes.  Lily-livered pundits in the west flew into a panic, expecting mushroom clouds over London…

…but Gorbachev blinked.  He realized the communist East could not outlast the free West.  He accelerated the “liberalization” of the USSR and the Communist bloc – not to extinct it, initially, but to try to save it.

It was too late.  The Poles tossed aside the commies, followed by the Czechs. 

It didn’t go entirely without a fight, though.  As the Baltic States – Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia – tried to follow neighboring Poland’s suit, Soviet soldiers attacked some demonstrations.

But in dizzyingly short order, the Communist Bloc, which had killed tens of millions of people in the previous seventy years (estimates range from 20 to 60 million) and floated on a sea of blood that dwarved even Hitler’s monumental crimes against humanity, fell, kicked to the curb in a sea of ebullient humanity.

The left never got it.  Some of them had backed the wrong team.  Others were so invested in the idea that capitalism and western-style liberty were obsolete that they couldn’t wrap their arms around the new reality.

Some believe that if western-style democracy and liberty were so cool, the nations left in the wake of the fall of The Wall should have been able to get up and run from the get-go.  I distinctly remember Tom Brokaw, in 1992, describing Poland’s difficulties in changing from a command economy to free-enterprise.  “Et wrold sheem thut Eesturrrn Yurp’s ukspurramunt in Kapetelezm hez FEHLED” (“it would seem Eastern Europe’s experiment in capitalism has failed“), he said, with no further comment, apparently seeking his own Waltern Cronkite “this war can not be won” moment, writing off three whole years of effort on Poland’s part.  He was wrong, of course; Poland survived, and thrived.  And while the road to prosperity has been difficult for some former Soviet counties (indeed, for Russia itself, which may or may not be socially amenable to small-L liberal goverment), most of Eastern Europe thrives today, free of prowling Black Marias and windowless trains in the dark for long enough that people are starting to forget what they meant. 

Which must be an incredible blessing.

But Brokaw’s pronouncement, more than anything I can remember, started curing me of the habit of watching network news.

There are those who still say the whole fall of The Wall was Gorbachev’s idea – an idea that requires a preposterous suspension of disbelief, buying the notion that the Politburo – think Capi di Tutti Capi in Russian – would turn the Premiership over to anyone whose goal wasn’t the survival of the system. 

Whatever.

My many friends and acquaintances and neighbors and co-workers over the past twenty years who fled to the West tell me that they and their people back home remember who their real friends are.

So – Fröhliche Zwanzigste Jahre der Freiheit, Deutschland.  Und viele mehr.

May the rest of us remember.

At least better than our feckless current leadership does.  Obama blew off the observance, just as he blew off Poland’s observance, six weeks ago, of the beginning on its soil of the greatest single cataclysm of human history.

Just as well.  He’d probably deliver a heartfelt apology for the US having won.

This morning the Pastor at our church brought up the recent health care debate thusly:

“A friend came up to me this morning and asked ‘So what do you think about the health care vote yesterday.'”

It was clearly a loaded question, the Pastor explained.

His reply was that he would respond with a God-centered perspective. Every person, every life in this country is precious; sacred. “Our health care system should reflect that.” He said further that he didn’t know how it should be managed or paid for but that is how he believes we should be approaching this issue.

…and I found myself agreeing with him in principal, although I’m not sure he believes government is the answer or not.

Is there a way to look at this debate from a “What Would God Do?” perspective?

I would not presume to know what God would think and recognize that many of you don’t even believe that God exists.

I do believe that individuals and families should have access to quality health care in America and should have a choice as to where they buy insurance to protect them against catastrophe, and how much of that risk they are comfortable retaining. They should have a choice as to where they seek care and from whom.

While I believe it is inevitable that all citizens be required to carry some form of health insurance, I believe they should have more choice as to where they obtain it, not less, and without regard to where they work. For those times that they are not able to afford it temporarily due to unemployment or being unemployable, the government should provide a backup and help those that can’t help themselves.

So far I think most Americans would agree with me and would deem it common sense. Believe in God or not, most would agree government should have a benevolent and responsible role in health care. Where Americans find themselves divided is how to get us there.

I believe God helps those that help themselves and expects us as individuals to help those that can’t. Teach a man to fish and if he can’t, give him one.  If we all lived this way, much of our federal government would find itself out of a job.

As for health care, creating incentives and removing barriers is or should be the conservative approach. Private enterprise has a way of filling a vacuum if it is allowed to do so. After all, there certainly is a demand for quality health care, and people are willing to reasonably pay for it. That sounds like the preamble of any good business plan.

But liberals would say that the private enterprise system has failed here and it is time for a benevolent government to wrest control. They offer more of what broke the system (and many others) in the first place.

If Congress cares so much about Americans, their health care and actually improving it, why is there such a rush to ram it through the legislative system?

Why are they not recognizing who they serve and honoring the promise to allow legislators and the public time to read and understand the bill?

Why are they lying about how many people are uninsured by choice?

Why is the trillion-dollar burden not borne by everyone equally, and not skewed for political bias?

Why is Congress exempt from the plan?

If there are such savings to be gained why does it cost a trillion dollars more than the current system?

Liberals think that an ever-growing government is the only means by which to effect change on any front.

The fact that many Americans don’t have health insurance or access to quality care is not a function of a lack of government intervention rather a result of too much of it.

Government has so regulated the industry such that most Americans have their health care choices made for them by their employer, who has the ability to choose from only a few insurance companies and thus care providers in each state.

If insurance carriers have been allowed to dictate to doctors and patients, have failed to cover preexisting conditions, while at the same time jacking up costs and profits, it isn’t due to a lack of regulation, rather a lack of competition because of over-regulation.

As I have said before, don’t blame the free market system when the market isn’t free.

A truly free market would force insurance companies and health care providers to vie for consumer health care dollars on the basis of coverage, quality and cost, just like auto insurance, which is also required by law.

Beyond that, a compassionate, benevolent (and mostly God-fearing) citizenry would see the mutual benefit of a federal government that takes care of those that legitimately can’t take care of themselves.

But what about those that can help themselves and choose not to? What would God say to this? For example, you don’t exercise, you eat too much, and you smoke or take drugs?

Does God expect us to pay the wages of our sins, or does he call for a benevolent government to transfer those burdens to others? That is admittedly also a loaded question and the answer is clear.

The current bill says that the government will not allow private and public insurance companies to penalize you for the higher burden you will eventually be to the system.

I think God would expect you to pay the wages of your ill-chosen behavior. I think God would expect you to take care not to be a burden to your neighbor. I think God expects you to live your life with others in mind.

God would have voted against this bill.

Anita Moncrief in the GreenRoom writes knows why the left – and the “elite” of the GOP – are so shaken up by NY23; it upsets the cozy system the parties had worked out amongst themselves:

Doug Hoffman’s candidacy was much bigger than him. It signaled the reemergence of the American citizen as “the ruler of the roost” and both parties have taken notice. Some career politicians find the notion of having to answer to “the people” galling, and continue to undermine the will of the people. However, politicians like representatives Steve King of Iowa, Michele Bachmann of Minnesota and of course, Sarah Palin. are continuing to shake up Washington.

And Washington doesn’t like getting shaken up!

Look at how the media, the leftymedia, and their subordinates in the lefty blogosphere are painting each of these events; count the number of times you saw Hoffman portrayed as a “Teabagger’s” candidate – har di har, lefties, another gay sex joke.  If we admit you’re comic geniuses, will you let it drop?

The left’s canonical response to Michele Bachmann and Sarah Palin is a matter of shameful record.

Someone left a quote in my comment section yesterday, attributed to Mahatma Gandhi:

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then yo win.

(Wikiquote says the sourcing is disputed; it may have come from a speech by unionist Nicholas Klein: “And, my friends, in this story you have a history of this entire movement. First they ignore you. Then they ridicule you. And then they attack you and want to burn you. And then they build monuments to you.”  We’ll ignore the next step; he was with the United Clothing Workers).

So watch for those SEIU thugs.  It’s a good sign.

I’m a white, Christian, straight male.  According to current left-wing victomology theory, that means that’s all I’ll vote for.

In response, I’ve said for years that if a white, Chrsitian, straight liberal male were to face off in an election against a conservative black Taoist lesbian or a pro-growth, limited-government Uzbek Moslem, I’d vote for either conservative in a heartbeat; I’m electing a politician to represent my political beliefs, not a human security blanket for my social identity.

If I lived in Queens, I’d have been able to test that theory on Tuesday:

Republican Dan Halloran won the race New York City Council in Queens yesterday, despite a bunch of last minute articles focused on the fact that he practices Theodism, which involves Norse gods like Odin and Freyr. Says Halloran:

It is our hope to reconstruct the pre-Christian religion of the Germanic branch of the Indo-European peoples, within a cultural framework and community environment.

Score one for tolerance. Sure, it’s just the city council. And sure, it’s New York. But this guy is a full-on Pagan, for Odin’s sake, and he just got elected to a pretty important public office. As a Republican.

That’s because when push come sot shove, Republicans in general are more tolerant.

One of the Democrats’ most irritating memes is the idea that there’s some “Moderate Republican” out there that, if the GOP would just send ’em to office, would unite with Democrats and, well, fix everything! 

There’s a complementary meme, of course; that conservatism – government that favors the utterly Jeffersonian ideals of lower taxes and free markets and security – is “Extremist”. 

Of course, this is never accompanied by the equal-but-opposite idea – that nationalizing a sixth of the economy, taxing achievement and subsidizing failure is equally “extreme”,  as opposed to being just what people (wrongly, in this case) believe and how they differ from you. 

In so doing, Democrats pine for the days before 1980 (2002, in Minnesota) when the GOP did nothing more than try to bring a little restraint to the statist fantasies of the far left that has been the mainstream of the Democratic Party, with a six-year break from 1994 to 2000, ever since 1972.

And after last night, as The Obama Dream staggers off to Wisconsin with a black eye, expect Dems to start pining for those days again – the days when Republicans had Stockholm Syndrome.

Jeff “Don’t Call Me Joel” Rosenberg of MNPublius  gives the meme voice:

Once upon a time in American politics, there was a character known as a Moderate Republican. The defining characteristic of the Moderate Republican was his or her tendency to occasionally Compromise on Things. Very young political observers may not understand what I’m talking about, but there was a time when the occasional Republican would actually vote for a bill sponsored by a Democrat.

They’d have to be very young “political observers” indeed. John McCain was one of them. 

So, for that matter, was George W. Bush; except for foreign policy and that whole “God” thing, he wasn’t far to the right of Jim Ramstad.  He presided over a domestic policy that only a moderate-to-lefty could love; prescription drug subsidies, co-sponsoring an  Education bill with Ted Kennedy, racking up a spending record to the left of Bill Clinton.

The problem is, once a “Moderate” Republican is in a position to threaten Democrat power, he/she is instantly labelled an “extremist”; see John McCain, whose lifetime ACU voting record of two points to the right of Jim Ramstad and “Maverick” label and history notwithstanding got branded by the Dems attack-PR machine and the media that basically spent the last two years working as their adjuncts as “an extreme conservative”.

The lesson all Republicans (and smart Democrats) should learn is that, when the chips are down, “the Moderate Republican” does not exist.

Today, however, Republicans fit into a much narrower band of ideologies. In fact, Newt Gingrich, a onetime leader of the conservative wing of the party, is now on the moderate side of his party.

{{facepalm}}

Now, Jeff is not by a long stretch a dumb guy.  Indeed, in a Twin Cities leftyblogosphere dominated by the stupid and the depraved, he’s near the top of the curve.  But this is just absurd.

Gingrich, in his capacity as both an intellectual and party leader, threw some institutional love to the party apparatus in a generally-insignificant, backwater upstate district.  That apparatus hand-picked Dede Scozzafava, who is a textbook example of a RINO – a woman who ran to the left of the Democrats’ endorsed candidate.  The endorsement is a sign that Gingrich didn’t think the race through, and that Palin and Pawlenty saw an opportunity and ran with it.  Not that Newt turned into a hamster on us.

Anyone to the left of Gingrich is considered an America-hating communist 

Oh, good lord, Jeff.  Give it a rest.

It’s all well and good that conservative activists want to elect politicians who reflect their beliefs. What they’ve created, though, is a monster — a Republican party that votes en masse against any bill sponsored by a Democrat,

I’m sure Rosenberg is aware that the GOP controls neither house of Congress. 

 that’s more interested in fire-breathing political gamesmanship than participating in the legislative process.

Jeff:  If you and I play a game of chess, and I actually move my pieces to try to put your king in check, it doesn’t mean I”m “not particpating in the chess process”.  It means I’m doing what I set out to do at the beginning of the chess game; enact my agenda (by beating you).

The left’s meme (for Republicans) would have it that agreement is the end.  It is not – or rather, it is not the end that any given elected official should seek as of election night.  It is a means to the end.

And the truly amazing thing is, it’s going to get worse.

Where “worse” equals “present the left all of that scary cognitive dissonance that comes from having to defend your agenda, rather than get it for the asking”. 

Doug Hoffman, the Conservative Party candidate who upended the race in New York’s 23rd District, is just the tip of the iceberg. Right-wing extremists have big plans for replacing Republican to the left of Glenn Beck with “real” conservatives.

Notwithstanding Rosenberg’s invocation of boogeyman-du-jour Beck, as well as the absence of any commensurate move by the Dems to replace anyone to the left of Byron Dorgan with moderate Joe Lieberman clones to show the sincerity of their commitment to “compromise”, why would he care?  I mean, if conservatism is truly “extreme”, and truly doesn’t reflect the electorate, then wouldn’t a good Democrat want the opposition to immolate itself?

Because, I suggest, Rosenberg (or the K-street spinmeisters he’s echoing, knowingly or not) knows it’s a bunch of baked wind.

When the Tea Parties can turn out millions of people in the shadow of the Obama Honeymoon, and when the best the left can do is call them naughty names in response, the left knows the “swing to the right” isn’t just a passing fad.

When the left has to demonize entertainers like Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, rather than just let them do the voodoo they do (which, you’d think, would only help the left, if any of them were so “extreme” that they really did marginalize themselves and their followers, you know they’re scared of something.

When the left has to try to impart a patina of illegitimacy, depravity and even criminality on simple cognitive dissonance – everything from Janet Napolitano’s “enemies list” to the recurring slurs about the Town Hall meeting dissenters to Barbara Boxer’s “Nazi” references – you know it’s not because they think dissent isn’t self-abnegating.

On the bright side, this internal battle is going to make a mess of the 2010 election cycle for Republicans, who could have had a pretty good year in 2010. On the not-so-bright side, it’s going to mean even less cooperation from Republicans in Congress over the next year, if that’s even possible.

Um, Jeff?  If the GOP has a bad year in 2010, building on our almost-negligible position today, then why is our cooperation even an issue? 

Republicans will remember what happened to Scozzafava, and toe the conservative line lest someone challenge them, too.

That is the idea. 

I’m sure that will strike hardline conservatives as major progress. The funny thing, though, is that in the long run this scorched-earth strategy is likely to do major damage to the Republican party. That’s what Gingrich warned conservatives about after Scozzafava withdrew from the race:

If we get into a cycle where every time one side loses, they run a third-party candidate, we’ll make Pelosi speaker for life and guarantee Obama’s re-election

 And it’s there that Rosenberg gets close to a point, although he might not know it. 

Gingrich was warning about the dangers of excessive purism, and of the Pat Buchanan approach of taking ones toys and leaving the sandbox.   It’s a legitimate concern – ask Algore! – but should not be confused with what’s been his real message for 15 years now; selling conservatism to the middle, rather than running to the middle (the loathsome Scozzafava notwithstanding) like a $2 streetwalker to get some cheap votes.

And those are wise words indeed; which is why the left is working hard to try to portray all conservatism as “extremism”.

Taxpayers vote with their feet. They’re hoofin’ it to Texas…and from California; two diametrically opposed microcosms of political ideology:

What is surprising is the growing evidence that the low-benefit, low-tax alternative succeeds not only on its own terms but also according to the criteria used by defenders of high benefits and high taxes. Whatever theoretical claims are made for imposing high taxes to provide generous government benefits, the practical reality is that these public goods are, increasingly, neither public nor good: their beneficiaries are mostly the service providers themselves, and their quality is poor.

while California and Texas are comparable in terms of sheer numbers, their demographic paths are diverging. Before 1990, both states grew much faster than the rest of the country. Since then, only Texas has continued to do so. While its share of the nation’s population has steadily increased, from 6.8 percent in 1990 to 7.9 percent in 2007, California’s has barely budged, from 12 percent to 12.1 percent.

Unpacking the numbers is even more revealing—and, for California, disturbing.

What’s so special about California?

California and it’s economy are faced with the fallout of massive over-spending, immigration, health care and arbitrary and burdensome emissions regulations – which have failed by the way. Sound familiar?

What’s so special about Texas?

between 1998 and 2007, the states without an individual income tax “created 89 percent more jobs and had 32 percent faster personal income growth” than the states with the highest individual income-tax rates. California’s tax and regulatory policies, the report predicts, “will continue to sap its economic vitality,” while Texas’s “pro-growth” policies will help it “maintain its superior economic performance well into the future.” The clear implication is that California should become more like Texas.

…and so should the US. With Texans hinting at secession, is the Lone Star state the lifeboat for the other 49? Might it be time to jump in?

Nawwww. Let’s see how the Vikings finish the season first.