…whenever the times are as dismal as they are right now…

“…we shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the… beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender,”

Now, that was a crisis.

Not that Obamacare isn’t.

Chad from Fraters Libertas steps on to my favorite turf; comparative history:

It’s interesting to note how often military battles are invoked for comparisons or metaphors for political battles. Commentary on President Obama’s recent campaign for health care is replete with references to historical military campaigns or specific battles.

Last summer, Senator Jim Demint was the first, but far from the last, to speculate that failure to enact health care reform could be Obama’s Waterloo. At the time, I thought that Stalingrad might be more appropriate as a health care defeat for Obama wouldn’t necessarily be the beginning of the end, but rather the end of the beginning. More recently, we’ve seen speculation that even if health care reform is somehow rammed through, it will be a Pyrrhic victory for the President.

Now, it seems like there’s a new favorite making the rounds with more and more pundits comparing Pelosi’s health care cramdown to Pickett’s Charge at the Battle of Gettysburg. This one does seem to be especially apt at the moment. For like General Lee at Gettysburg, President Obama’s final push on health care is a desperate gamble in the hopes of achieving a smashing victory that will change history. Like Lee’s choice after two hard fought days at Gettysburg, President Obama could have chosen to disengage, to step away from the fight, lick his wounds, and wait for another opportunity.

All of them are good examples.  But I have a better one.

Suomussalmi.

In the winter of 1939-1940, the Soviets invaded Finland; I wrote about the 70th anniversary of the Talvesota, the Winter War, last winter.

One of the defining battles took place near the village of Suomussalmi.  Two Soviet divisi0ns – 30,000 men and hundreds of tanks – charged into terrain that was a lot like the Iron Range; swampy, wooded terrain broken up by thousands of lakes.  The Finnish military – regular citizens with guns who’d done a year of national service in their teens, and got called back to service wearing civilian winter duds and their own skis – knew they couldn’t fight the armored Red juggernaut face to face, outnumber 10 to 1. 

So they faded into the woods, and the dark and the -40 cold, slipping out of cover at night to kill sentries and fell trees across roads and blow up field kitchens (without which fighting at -40 is a pretty dicey prospect) and cutting the Soviets off from supplies, rescue and, eventually, hope.  90% of the Soviets who went into Suomussalmi died, in Finnish hit-and-run ski attacks or from snipers that hid in the woods or, finally, from exposure. 

When Obama and his minions in Congress have to try to justify not only their taxation and spending, but their unprecedented bulldozing of our legislative system, to the people this summer and fall, they may look and feel – rhetorically, at least – like the thousands of Ivans stranded in the Finnish woods.  Tic congresscritters may look and feel a lot like the vaunted Russian tanks after an army of literal and proverbial Davids get done with them.

The Russian printing on the side says "David Walz". I kid you not.

.The Russians responded to the crushing defeat (the first of several along their long border with Finland) with huge callup of reserves, following by an immense, relentless, bloody offensive that wore the Finns down.

And that’s where the parallel breaks down.  Because in this battle, the Davids are gaining strength; the lumpen statists are whizzing theirs away as I write this.

Sisu, everyone.

Via RealClearPolitics:The way the 2010 Senate races are shaping up, the Administration is going to need to use the nuclear option and/or reconcile pretty much everything in the next term, if these results hold up:

TOSSUP

• Colorado: Bennet (D)
• Illinois: Open (D)
• Missouri: Open (R)
• Ohio: Open (R)
• Pennsylvania: Specter (D)

LEAN REPUBLICAN

• Kentucky: Open (R)
• Nevada: Reid (D)
• New Hampshire: Open (R)
• North Carolina: Burr (R)

LEAN DEMOCRAT

• California: Boxer (D)
• Indiana: Bayh (D)
• New York: Gillibrand (D)

LIKELY REPUBLICAN

• Arkansas: Lincoln (D)
• Delaware: Open (D)
• Florida: Open (R)
• Louisiana: Vitter (R)

LIKELY DEMOCRAT

• Washington: Murray (D)
• Wisconsin: Feingold (D)

SAFE REPUBLICAN

• North Dakota: Open (D)

SAFE DEMOCRAT

• Connecticut: Open (D)

Better…

The big news among conservative bloggers in Minnesota this past week is that one of our own, my NARN colleague and longtime friend King Banaian, is running for the Minnesota House in District 15B. 

Gary Gross at Let Freedom Ring compares Haws’ record with Banaian’s game:

A couple of years ago, I had the privilege of working with King, Rep. Laura Brod and Rep. Matt Dean on what essentially is a vision statement for Minnesota. The central theme to that document was essentially to get government out of the way so that Minnesota’s entrepreneurs would unleash their creativity in creating a more prosperous Minnesota.

That meant lowering taxes, shrinking the regulatory burden Minnesota puts on small businesses and keeping unfunded mandates to a minimum.

I’ve known King long enough to know that he’s a man of gravitas and a great public policymaker. When I look at Rep. Haws’s record, what I see is a man who is a reactionary and a man who votes too often for status quo policies.

Central Minnesota needs a visionary leader. The only man fitting that description is King Banaian. That’s why we must elect King this November to represent the residents of HD-15B in the Minnesota legislature.

This is, obviously, a major initiative among conservative bloggers.  Knocking off an incumbent gravy-monger, even in a year that should have a big conservative tailwind, is never easy.  We have to all pitch in and help out any way we can.

In the interest of helping, I’m going to present King with ten bits of campaign advice that should, with any luck, smooth his path to Saint Paul:

10. Find a winning message, repeat it relentlessly to every voter in Saint Cloud.  That’s the easy part.  Heck, every blogger’s got a winning message for their candidate, right?

9. Easy on the Radiohead.  Seriously.

8. Find a snappier way to explain “The Austrian School” to the layperson.  Perhaps given you’re in Saint Cloud, “The Oktoberfest School” would be a good start.

7. Get a couple of barrels of that Armenian brandy, and apply, er, liberally throughout the district.  Seriously.  Yummy.  That was some good breakfast brandy.

6. Carry the NARN tradition of the Speed Round to candidate debates.  Hilarity will ensue. Hilarity means votes.  Maybe.

5. Don’t even think about using Joy Division to intro your stump speeches.  Dude.

4. Go for the gutter.  Counterintuitive?  Work with me, here.  You know how one classic bit of Radio 101 advice is “smile as you talk – it helps your voice?”  Same deal here.  Most politicians are frighteningly uninformed and inarticulate. You have to drag them into some semblance of sounding literate.  That’s never been KB’s problem.  Quite the opposite; he can actually explain how fed policy works.  And if he doesn’t work to pull his level of discourse toward a more general audience level, he’s going to get 100% turnout among wonks.  Between the economic-wonk base of knowledge and the mental pull toward the ‘Bottom”, everything should even out about right.

3.  Ixnay on the Oxsay.  This is Twins country. Just saying. 

2. Think of a snappy name for your lit drop.  I’m thinking “The Caucusus Caucus”.  You’re welcome.

1. Enlist a couple of liberal whackadoodles to start the “Dump Banaian” blog.  We all know that it was the doop-di-doos that gave Michele Bachmann her margin of victory in 2008.  Every point counts.  You’re an economist with Eastern European ties; perhaps you could pull some surreptitious strings and get George Soros to pony up for it.

There y’go, KB.  Go to it!

Jerry Brown orders a surge to counter insurgent activity in California:

Faced with the daunting prospect of being significantly outspent by his Republican opponent, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jerry Brown spoke to a labor group Tuesday and urged them to go on the offensive.

“We’re going to attack whenever we can, but I’d rather have you attack,” Brown said at a gathering of the California delegation of the Laborers’ International Union of North America in Sacramento. “I’d rather be the nice guy in this race. We’ll leave [the attacks] to … the Democratic Party and others.”

You mean, like when George Soros pours a bunch of money into “independent” groups to help you?

I suspect Moonbeam will be fine.

Tucker Bounds, a spokesman for GOP candidate Meg Whitman, said Brown’s pitch was unseemly and perhaps even illegal.

“I think this is pretty clear evidence that Jerry Brown is actively seeking independent support to prop up his campaign from the unions attacking Meg Whitman,” Bounds said. “And more importantly, I think, it’s Jerry Brown in his own words laying out a very cynical campaign strategy that’s playing fast and loose with the campaign rules in California.”

But it’s comedy gold.

The DFL is heading toward a convention that will bestow its usual “kiss of death” to whomever gets it – usually the candidate that makes the “progressive” activists that control the party the most tingly; this will lead to a summer of hammer-and-tong DFL fratricide leading up to a September primary that will determine the real candidate for governor.

This combined with the fact that the DFL is in a historically disorganized state, and heading into a headwind of disaffection with Barack Obama and a GOP with new leadership at its head and a Tea Party chasing it to relevance, and the DFL and its minions are desperately in need of a sideshow to draw attention away from their own cage match.

Dave Mindeman at mnpAct wants to direct the reader to the sideshow they’re counting on – the neck-and-neck GOP endorsement battle between Marty Seifert and Tom Emmer:

The Emmer vs. Seifert free for all on the GOP side of the governor’s race is heating up. Both sides are capable of some prolific attack dog politics. And it will get nasty.

It is gradually developing into a conservative base vs. party establishment fight. Emmer is increasingly drawing endorsements and support from conservative bloggers, conservative activists, and conservative leadership. Seifert has support from old line party leadership and the more traditional Republican base.

Which is an interesting way for the local leftysphere to put it, given that both Emmer and Seifert are routinely portrayed as “conservative extremists” whenever they’re mentioned in any other context.  But it’s not untrue; Seifert’s got the organizational mojo, Emmer’s a conservative firebrand and the best stump speaker in Minnesota politics today.

The two have developed a recent history. Emmer had challenged Seifert for Minority Leader a few years back and then refused to vote for him for Speaker in 2009. Emmer has been waiting awhile for this opportunity and he is cashing in.

Add to all of this the fact that delegate strength to the convention is nearly evenly divided and you have the makings of an old style, no holds barred, nasty party convention.

Yep.  The GOP convention is going to be a donnybrook, very possibly crazier than the 2002 convo.

It is noteworthy that Seifert has been particularly critical of Emmer’s voting record of late. The in-depth research style has the definite ring of a Brodkorb type tactic. Although the former MDE attack blogger has been careful to be neutral in his capacity as party deputy chair, his fingerprints are almost detectable in the current Seifert strategy.

It’s no big secret; Seifert’s the “insider”.   The party has several years invested in Seifert as minority leader.

But this – and the idea that for every yin there needs to be an opposite yang – leads Mindeman to a fatally flawed assumption or, if you are more cynical, to the gaping whopper the DFL wants you all to believe about the MNGOP in the upcoming election; the sideshow, if you will, to try to distract the voters and encourage the DFL troops as they go through their own cage match this summer.

He starts out OK…:

Looking over the general Republican landscape, let me make a speculation…and mind you this is only an opinion.

The conservatives are putting a vested interest in Emmer. He is emerging as their consensus choice. Emmer has a wind at his back as he makes his case for the convention.

Yep.  The GOP’s conservatives are using the endorsement process as it was intended to be used; as the time to reject compromise, to declare “death or glory”, to come home with their shields or on them; to campaign for the most conservative candidate left in the race.  They don’t want the consolation prize; they want it all.  And correctly so; now is the time to fight like hell for the brass ring.

Seifert’s supporters, by the way, are doing exactly the same thing.  Because now is the time for the fight.

But it’s on May 2 that Mindeman’s theory goes to pot.

If Seifert manages to wrest the nomination away from Emmer in a bloody convention, you will see a party that will go into the fall campaign divided. A conservative backlash might just stop the conservatives from coalescing around Seifert, reducing his turn out and possibly moving toward some other third party or maybe even forming one.

Let me take you back in time to 2002.  Brian Sullivan – who was and is every bit as conservative as Tom Emmer – had the backing of the conservative base.  Tim Pawlenty – who held the same position in the GOP caucus that Seifert does today – and Sullivan were every bit as closely locked together as Seifert and Emmer are today.   And some of the punditry, especially on the left, predicted exactly the same result; that Sullivan’s supporters would stay home, that conservatives would break away, that the GOP would battle itself into irrelevance.

But the convention, as long and brutal as it got, had exactly the opposite effect.  To win the endorsement, Tim Pawlenty had to adopt one of Sullivan’s key driving points – the Taxpayers League’s “No New Taxes” pledge.  And for the imponderably vast majority of Minnesota conservatives, that was more than enough.

Tim Pawlenty took the pledge – and, more importantly, has honored it for eight years, now.  And I, as a fire-breathing conservative talk show host, could care less if he took a trip to the arctic with Will Steger that had absolutely no policy ramifications, as long as he stuck to the point that mattered – stymying the DFL’s plan, “spend like crack whores with stolen gold cards”.

In short, the bruising endorsement process had exactly the effect it was supposed to; a candidate won, but as a result of his fight to get endorsed, he took the keystone of his challenger’s platform to the Governor’s Mansion with him.

Emmer may have a better chance of holding the party together but he is going to carry some baggage as well.

Nope.

Look – I’m not backing any particular candidate, at least not publicly.  Not yet.  But I’ll tell you this; even if you are a stone-cold Tom Emmer zealot, you have to realize that not only would Marty Seifert be a better governor than any of the DFL’s pack of hamsters, but that Marty Seifert’s voting record in the House is more conservative than Tim Pawlenty’s ever was.   Seifert is a conservative.  As conservative as Emmer?  Perhaps not – but plenty good enough.

So campaign like hell for whomver your candidate is – Seifert or Emmer.  Because for once,  conservatives are in a win-win situation.   Whomever gets the nomination will be a better, more conservative governor than any of the alternatives available to us today.  Neither will be perfect – but perfect, as they say, is the enemy of “plenty good enough”.

There will be blood.

No.  There will be coffee, and shouting, and more coffee, and pictures of delegates sleeping at 2AM with drool coming out of the corner of their mouth, and more coffee, and Excedrin, and five or ten or fifty ballots, and concession and acceptance speeches, and handshakes, and meetings, and buried hatchets and smoothed feathers, and looks out the window at the Tea Partiers who are done asking nicely for results.

And on the morning after the final gavel, there will be a campaign that hits the road at the head of a mostly-unified GOP that has a three month headstart building a winning campaign, on its way toward capping off an epic comeback.

There will be coffee, drool and victory.

Three words to live by.

Over at Minnesota “Progressive” Project, a writer named “MNBearBud” plaintively asks “Can Minnesota Elect a Bold Progressive Governor in 2010?”

It’s a mash note for

As I have been helping out at a couple different DFL Conventions in the past couple weeks I have been hearing something that kind of disturbs me. The following quote is a paraphrase of several like it that I have heard.  “Minnesota is not ready for a bold progressive Governor, we need a nice slow moderate progressive.”  

I find this remark to be quite interesting given the present state of affairs with Gov. Tim Pawlenty running what used to be a great Minnesota right into the ground.

[So far “into the ground” that our unemployment rate is better than most of the nation in the midst of the Great Depression “Recession”.  But I digress – Ed.]

Our State Legislator can pass progressive bills, but they get stopped in their tracks by the Governor’s office. This is exactly what happened with GAMC. Yet, as much as people want progressive change, there are those who think that a bold progressive guy like John Marty just cannot be elected Governor. I am going to the State Convention as an alternate delegate for John Marty and I stand by that decision.  

The plea is something I hear from a lot of “progressives”; “why can’t we have another Elmer Anderson or Floyd Olson, and have him now?”

Well, the answer is simple.  No, Minnesota will not have a bold “progressive” governor this go-around.

Here’s why:

• The term is wrong.  “Progressivism” isn’t progress; it’s statism.  It’s glopping the deadening morass of government onto the life of our state.  I know – I’m nitpicking terminology.  I’m doing it for a good reason.  “Progressivism” as practiced by the MNDFL isn’t progress; it’s back to the thirties.
• But language-nerd nit-picking aside, sure – it’s possible a “progressive” might get elected.  The conventional wisdom tells us that a conservative just can not win the governor’s race in Minnesota this year.  Just like the conventional wisdom said that Skip Humphrey and Roger Moe would win the governor’s race, that Erik Paulsen ran too far to the right to win the Third, and that Michele Bachmann’s goose was cooked in 2008.  So it’s possible that a “progressive” might win the gubernatorial race. 
• But if he or she does, he or she will not be “bold”.  He or she will be fighting hard to float an agenda, because the MNGOP is going to either take back a chamber this year, or come very close.  The progressive will likely be a fairly timid one, by necessity.
• And while I said above that it’s “possible” the DFL could win this year, that’s just prudency beating optimism.  The GOP, even in this most miasmically-blue state, has a tailwind this year.  Obama is chasing the independents away from the left, although Twin Cities liberals, stricken with Pauline Kael syndrome, might not see it in their daily lives.   The DFL field – Marty, R.T. Rybak, Mark Dayton, Tom Rukavina, Margaret Anderson-Keliher, Paul Thissen, and Matt Entenza – are the people behind our serial multi-billion-dollar deficits, borne of the DFL’s extended orgy of irresponsible spending.  Their answer – heap more taxes on the peasants to keep the lords in Saint Paul fat and happy – is flying with fewer and fewer Minnesotans.  And both GOP candidates are not only well-placed to ride that wave, but one of them will be on the ground, running at the head of a newly-energized MNGOP and tens of thousands of newly-minted tax hawks in the Tea Party movement, during the first week of May, while the Minnesota  “Nude Thugs In The Shower” party will face three months of duking it out until the primary (because the DFL party endorsement, other than in great Democrat years like ’06 and ’08, is a traditional kiss of death).   Will it be enough to put “the Conventional Wisdom” to the pike yet again?  We’ll see.
• And just look at the Nude Thug lineup:  Marty? Rybak? Dayton?  Rukavina?  Anderson-Kelliher?  Thissen? Tom “Baby Got” Bakk?  Entenza?  I’m sure there’s a genetic engineering project out there that might be working on building a less-interesting, less-inspirational person than any of these, but scientists say results are years away. And the DFL is melting down almost as fast as the national Tic party is; four years of being unable to overcome the leadership of a lone governor has made them ornery and peevish.  And ornery and peevish don’t win elections.  But the DFL message, no matter which DFLer burbles to the top, is going to be “I’ll spend more, I’ll raise taxes more, and I hated Governor Pawlenty more still!”  I don’t think that’s going to be a winner this year.

So at the convention last night, we were debating one of the final resolutions of the evening – a proposal by a delegate to remove language supporting the Death Penalty in the current GOP platform.

It wasn’t my resolution – I submitted two at the caucuses, both of which passed easily – but I spoke in favor, for reasons discussed elsewhere in this blog.  Now, “speeches” around resolutions are pretty limited; two in favor, two against, generally short; they’re never what you’d call “great oratory”.  Mine was something like “I support the death penalty for every reason but one – the inevitability of human error.  Now, in the 34 years since the Supreme Court reinstated the Death Penalty, there’ve been over 200 complete exonerations – as in, people who were considered guilty beyond a reasonable doubt that were released directly from death row.  And it now seems absolutely certain that Texas executed an innocent man.  Since government can’t even fill in potholes correctly, should we trust them with the power of life and death?”

A woman a few rows in front of me rose to speak for the resolution.  “That just seems wrong, saying the government can’t get anything right.  Aren’t we the part of possibilities?”

The rules didn’t allow me to respond to the response, so I couldn’t leap to my feet and say “NO! We are the party that believes the people are capable of anything they set their mind to, and the government is too stupid to trust with a cardboard knife!”

We are, indeed, a huge tent.

Derek “Chief” Brigham over at Freedom Dogs has taken an unscientific (!!!) poll of Minnesota conservative bloggers for the gubernatorial race.  Unsurprisingly, Tom Emmer won, bigtime. 

I’m listed under the “Has a candidate, but isn’t spilling it publicly yet” category, along with David Strom, Margaret Martin and Sue Jeffers.   The fact is, with the departure of Dave Hann from the race, I am leaning in one direction – but I’m not going to say which one yet.  Partly because, hello, I’m a schmuck blogger and nobody cares what I think.  Partly because it’s early, and I could still change my mind, depending on how this session goes.  And partly because, hello, do I want to get the other candidate’s people cheesed off at me so they’ll never appear on the NARN again?

And mainly because the fact is, whichever one wins the nomination, I’ll back him 100%, along with pretty much the entire MNGOP slate.  While I’ve never considered myself a straight ticket voter, the only DFLers I’ve been able to justify voting for since the mid-nineties have been Norm Coleman and Randy Kelly.  As to the Independence Party?  Get serious.  Jim Gibson’s Senate candidacy was the only IP bid I’ve ever considered voting for (and I didn’t; Rod Grams needed my vote more).  The GOP, imperfect as it is, is the only party in Minnesota that covers most of what I believe in and has any impact on the way this state is run (shaddap, Constitution Party).

Over on Facebook, a DFL-leaning lobbyist asked what kind of record conservative bloggers have at predicting general elections.  The answer is “none”; we’re not the general public.

What it does predict, I think, is a spirited endorsement process and State Convention, the kind that’s going to lead to a much better GOP effort in the fall. 

Eight years ago, MNGOP establishment candidate Tim Pawlenty had lukewarm support from a conservative wing that’d been ignored for decades, but which was gaining power.  Their candidate, Brian Sullivan, ran a highly successful insurgency, driving the final convention race out to 560 ballots over the course of 467 straight hours of voting at the 2002 MNGOP convention; he only clinched the nomination when he took the Taxpayer’s League’s “No New Taxes” pledge, promising to spend his term(s) as a fiscal hawk – something that’d never have happened without the Sullivan challenge.   Would Brian Sullivan have won the general election had he gotten the nomination?  We’ll never know; conventional wisdom was that he was “too conservative”, but Roger Moe was a bit of a stiff, and probably a lot more vulnerable than the keepers of the “conventional wisdom” want to admit.  But in a sense he, and his supporters, did win; their insurgency pushed Pawlenty to adopt a key piece of Sullivan’s platform, in a sense perhaps the most important one.

This year?  The delegate count is shaping up pretty tight so far, although there’s a long, long way to go.   Emmer’s done a good job of staying in front of the Tea Party, but Seifert’s organization is a formidable one.

The point being that, from where I sit, either Seifert, the establishment candidate, or Emmer the conservative firebrand, will make a better governor than any of the vacuous hamsters the DFL is putting forward.  And an imperfect “good enough”, whether it’s an imperfect conservative (who’s been driven to the right by the Tea Party and an Emmer push) or an unrepentant Conservative (who’s got the whole MNGOP working for him) is going to be better than any of the alternatives.

Victorian Harry Reid wants to pass a huge pork-barrel “jobs” bill that will benefit only government jobs…

…to protect women from the foul, urge-driven Neanderthals they’ve shacked up with against their better natures:

Reid, speaking in the midst of a Senate debate over whether to pass a $15 billion package meant to spur job creation, appeared to argue that joblessness would lead to more domestic violence.

“I met with some people while I was home dealing with domestic abuse. It has gotten out of hand,” Reid said on the Senate floor. “Why? Men don’t have jobs.”

Men, you see, are slaves to their base urges.  Harry say man no have job, man hit:

Reid said that the effects of joblessness on domestic violence were especially pronounced among men, because, Reid said, women tend to be less abusive.

“Women don’t have jobs either, but women aren’t abusive, most of the time,” he said.

Well, that’s not really true, but Reid’s gotta answer to his political masters, and it’s a little off-topic anyway.

“Men, when they’re out of work, tend to become abusive,” the majority leader added. “Our domestic crisis shelters in Nevada are jammed.”

Hear that, all you guys in Nevada?  If Big Brother doesn’t keep you amused and occupied, you just can’t help taking it out on those around you.  Your little male peabrain can’t handle the tough times.

Here’s hoping the voters of Nevada send Reid home to pummel his wife to sit in a support group for potentially violent out-of-work Democrats soon.

Derek “Chief” Brigham, at Freedom Dogs, has been tallying up blogger “leanings for Republican Governor candidate endorsement.”  He has some interesting observations. Definitely worth a look.

Derek puts my own opinion into the (surprisingly) rare “Uncommitted” tally, but he doesn’t seem sure about it. So just to clear things up… Make that a definite uncommitted opinion. I hope whomever wins the endorsement makes a fine candidate in the general, and an even finer governor thereafter. But I’m too cynical to get caught up in all the primary hoopla this time around.

Again – Republicans prefer to win this nation back at the polls.

But Senator Lautenberg (D-NJ) is giving the Tics a scare:

A bleeding ulcer is behind the hospitalization of longtime New Jersey Sen. Frank Lautenberg, an aide said Tuesday.

Chief of staff Dan Katz said that no discharge date is set, but that he expects the 86-year-old Democrat to be released soon.

The senator was taken to a hospital Monday after becoming lightheaded and falling at his Cliffside Park home. He later underwent a successful endoscopy procedure, spokesman Caley Gray said.

Lautenberg was expected “to make a full recovery and will be back to work soon,” Gray said.

I send my best wishes for Senator Lautenberg’s health.

And so, as it happens, do the Tics:

Any health decline for the Senate’s second-oldest member would be a serious concern for the party, because Republicans won control of the governor’s office in November. If Lautenberg were unable to finish his term, Gov. Chris Christie would appoint an interim successor. That could give a Republican candidate the added advantage of incumbency at a time the GOP already enjoys a favorable political environment.

Naturally, Jersey Democrats – whom mobsters shun socially as being “not ethical enough” – have been trying to make sure the rule of law comes in a close second to “the rule of the Democratic Party”:

New Jersey Democrats tried, but failed, to advance legislation to take the interim appointment power away from Christie. The legislation was introduced during the lame duck session with Lautenberg in mind.

And there are rumors – albeit contested ones – that Barbara Mikulski may yet announce a retirement.

Just saying.

…it looks like we’re gonna need some more Democrat senators.

James Joyner has an excellent piece on the defining-down of slurs in our current discourse:

Views held by pluralities of Americans are now routinely dubbed Fascist, Communist, treason, unpatriotic, or un-American.

Let’s not forget “neocon” – a slur that’s fairly unique, since almost nobody who uses it can define it in any sense – and, most recently, “teabagger”.

Which I bring up for a reason:

It’s an effective tool, at first, just as Saul Alinsky predicted: “Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.” But, as he also warned, “A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag.”

I think “teabagger” – the favorite of a lot of dimwitted leftyblog shrieking-point recyclers and MSM party hacks – has upped the curve.  I can’t put my finger on it, but I think the slur was starting to backfire on the left.

This next nine months will be interesting; the left’s been hitting the Alinsky playbook so hard it’s starting to get stale.

Going all populist is all the rage these days.

Which is a fine thing if you’re running for Senate in Nevada, or your supporters are a bunch of out-of-work manufacturing workers.

Not if your main support is, say, Wall Street plutocrats:

“Chuck says, ‘I’ve been there to help you,’ ” says one lobbyist. “Well, that’s when we were playing stickball. Now we’re in a cage match and he’s hiding under his desk.”

Schumer’s critics—who accuse him of adopting a populist streak so he can be the next majority leader—have no hope of unseating him, but they can take revenge in other ways, writes Smith in New York magazine. That includes getting behind Harold Ford Jr. as he tries to oust Kirsten Gillibrand—”a virtual ward of Schumer’s”—from her Senate seat. “A lot of what’s fueling the Ford thing is Chuck’s donors, who are furious at him,” says a political consultant. “They feel he’s walked away from them.”

Cool.

But I’m confused; I didn’t think corporations had any influence over Democrat politicians before the Supreme Court scuppered McCain/Feingold.  What happened?

Paul Krugman doesn’t like Republicans very much. This is not a recent development. However the extent of his loathing often takes him along truly unique rhetorical paths. Such as the notion that Republicans are dooming America into non-existence, just like what happened to Poland a couple of centuries ago.

Lest you think I’m taking his words out of context, here’s how Krugman says it himself:

Instead of fraying under the strain of imperial overstretch, we’re paralyzed by procedure. Instead of re-enacting the decline and fall of Rome, we’re re-enacting the dissolution of 18th-century Poland.

A brief history lesson: In the 17th and 18th centuries, the Polish legislature, the Sejm, operated on the unanimity principle: any member could nullify legislation by shouting “I do not allow!” This made the nation largely ungovernable, and neighboring regimes began hacking off pieces of its territory. By 1795 Poland had disappeared, not to re-emerge for more than a century.

Today, the U.S. Senate seems determined to make the Sejm look good by comparison.

What this comes down to (surprise, surprise) is that cursed forty-first vote Republicans picked up in the Senate with the election of Scott Brown in Massachusetts to fill the former “Ted Kennedy seat.” Apparently once this happened Republicans devised a clever new scheme, never attempted before by any other Senatorial minority, to use to their advantage a bizarre and little understood Senatorial procedure called… get ready for this, it’s a pretty obscure one… the “filibuster.”

(more…)

I can say with absolute honesty that I would have preferred John Murtha left office standing up, after losing an election this fall.

Sadly, it’s not to be.  John Murtha passed away today after complication from gall-bladder surgery.

For all the policy stances I disagreed with, and the way he dealt with opposition (not well), one still must respect his story:

Born June 17, 1932, John Patrick Murtha delivered newspapers and worked at a gas station before graduating from Ramsay High School in Mount Pleasant.

Military service was in Murtha’s blood. He said his great-grandfather served in the Civil War, his father and three uncles in World War II, and his brothers in the Marine Corps.

He left Washington and Jefferson College in 1952 to join the Marines, where he rose through the ranks to become a drill instructor at Parris Island, S.C., and later served in the 2nd Marine Division.

Murtha moved back to Johnstown and remained with the Marine Reserves until he volunteered to go to Vietnam. He served as an intelligence officer there from 1966 to 1967 and received a Bronze Star and two Purple Hearts.

He spent much of his political career as a “blue-ish dog” Democrat.  Indeed, he only became the toast of the left after coming out against the Iraq War.  In this, he was both wrong…:

Murtha’s criticism of the Iraq war intensified in 2006, when he accused Marines of murdering Iraqi civilians “in cold blood” at Haditha, Iraq, after one Marine died and two were wounded by a roadside bomb.

Critics said Murtha unfairly held the Marines responsible before an investigation was concluded and fueled enemy retaliation.

…and presciently correct…:

“This is the kind of war you have to win the hearts and minds of the people,” Murtha said. “And we’re set back every time something like this happens.”

Which, eventually, we learned.

I’m not one to let a political disagreement obscure the record of a great American.

RIP, John Murtha.

I attended the GOP caucuses in 66B last night.

Attendance was down from two years ago, which answers the question “will the Paulbots keep their energy and influence?”   But it was way, way up from two years before that , which is a good thing; non-presidential-year caucuses are frequently painfully slow.

In my precinct, the Seifert machine was in full effect; Marty won my precinct pretty handily.

Statewide?  Emmer closed the polling gap he had at the Central Committee straw poll; he’s just a tad over 10 points behind Seifert.  Hann got about five points, so he could well be in a position to be a kingmaker at the state convention in May.

So it’s off to the BPOU (in Saint Paul, that’d be State House District) conventions on March 2!

It’s precinct caucus night.

“But where’s do I go, Mitch?”

The MNGOP has it all right here.

You can also follow, and post on, your caucus on Twitter using the #MNGOPCaucus hashtag.  You can also add an MNGOP Caucus Twitter Ribbon to your avatar (I refuse to call it a “Twibbon”, I’m sorry) at this link, if you’re so inclined.

It’s pretty simple; if you’re there, you come in, you vote for precinct officers (someone can feel free to don my mantel as precinct chair!), you vote for delegates, you vote for resolutions, and at the end you get to vote in the “preference poll”, the straw poll for Governor among other races.  (Note; while the DFL lets you vote the preference polls and just leave, in the GOP the preference polls are the last event of the evening).

It’s going to be a fun year; the Tea Party crowd will hopefully turn up and continue the work the Paulbots started two year ago, reinvigorating and pushing the party to do better.

(And if you’re looking for a DFL “Assimilation Brings Joy” meeting, go here)

Tomorrow is caucus night in Minnesota.

Republicans will gather at hundreds of community centers, schools, city halls, auditoriums and libraries around the state to vote for resolutions, local party leadership, and – most importantly – delegates to go to their House District (called “BPOU”, in curious MNGOP parlance) conventions, there to begin a process of delegate selections and candidate endorsements that will end at the State Convention from April 29 through May 1; each round of conventions will, in turn, endorse state legislators and representatives, Congressional candidates, and candidates for Governor as well as the other constitutional offices, and any local races in play.

And if you have a vision for the Minnesota Republican Party, now’s the time to speak up.

I’ll be going, of course; I’m the convener for my precinct in the Midway.  I’m hoping we continue the fantastic turnout from the 2008 cycle; that year, the hordes of energetic Ron Paul supporters stormed the gates, and in so doing energized the party, motivating it to actions that had eluded it for many years.

This year, the Tea Party movement – a cousin of the Paul campaign, but broader and not focused on any personalities or, indeed, any parties – will no doubt dominate the discussion at the conventions.  While the Tea Party movements are, in fact, non-partisan, there is just no room for that sort of populist-libertarian philosophy in the DFL, and the Independence Party is a joke that will likely lose major-party status this election.  (And yes, I have friends in the IP, so I know this’ll lead to an argument or two – but it’s the truth; the “Independence” Party, AKA “DFL Lite”, without Jesse Ventura, is just another self-marginalizing third party, existing only as a spoiler; even Minnesotans, as flighty as they are, are getting tired of the joke.  Any party that can consider Dean Barkley a serious candidate deserves to fade, and quickly).

Who’s doing to be the winner?

We won’t know for sure until we get to each level of endorsing convention, of course.  But the big ‘tater is obviously the Minnesota Governor race, along with the various Constitutional Office races (Secretary of State, State Auditor and Attorney General).

For governor, it’s a tough call this year.  There are three great conservatives running for the nomination this year; Dave Hann, Tom Emmer and Marty Seifert.  Each of them has a fairly impeccable conservative record (tempered by, yes, a few of the compromises that politicians always wind up making in a deliberative body like the legislature; the only people who can manage pure and uncompromising in their political records are those who have no political record at all).

The real question for me?  Which is the conservative who will do the best job of going to “independents”, and convince them to move to “the right?”

That’s the thing I’ve gotta figure out by tomorrow night.

What’s everyone’s sense this time around?  Leave a comment, and vote in the poll…

I’ll be taking votes through Tuesday. Who’s the frontrunner?

…you need to get out and support Doug Wardlow.

On the one hand, there’s no such thing as a “safe seat” for Republicans in Minnesota.  Between a mercurial population given to flights of bizarro fancy (Jesse Ventura?  Al Franken?  Hello?) and a deep messianic liberal streak running through the population (Paul Wellstone?  Aaagh!), no Republican should ever get too complacent.

One of the bright spots in the dismal ’08 election was Erik Paulsen, who ran to the right of conventional wisdom (the district was supposed to be much more purple than Paulsen, after nine terms of Jim Ramstad).

But Derek Brigham at the Dogs and True North warns against complacency:

Today I got a request from Katie Nadeau and Sheila Kihne who are heading up the GOTV effort for CD3 this year. They wanted me to make a map to illustrate the reality of just how blue CD3 had become to help dispel the myth that CD3 is an easy territory for the Republican party.

Image by Derek Brigham

I took the 2008 Minnesota House election results map showing the winning party by precinct and enlarged the northwest metro area. Next I cut out all the areas that were not in CD3 (there are a few flaws I left in like SD45 so I did not have to cut off the names). The results?

You see the results on Derek’s map.

I don’t know how many people believe that CD3 is “safe” for the GOP, although I think Paulsen is an excellent incumbent to have in place; he’s to the right of what the “conventional wisdom” said could win, but he’s crafted a pretty careful message to his very mixed district.

Derek goes on to note that there are infinite variables – it’s looking to be a better year for the GOP than ’08, for starters – but now’s no time to relax.  If you live in the Three, and you care about the future of this nation, you need to get out and help not only keep Paulsen in office, but flip some of those baby-blue State House districts to red.

Gallup has Obama’s approve/disapprove numbers dead even.

Oh, that Gallup.  They must be working for Karl Rove, too.

Question, Democrats:  As more and more polls show Obama in freefall, will they all be in bed with Fox, too?

And since Zogby has predicted a Democrat victory in every race since 1984, would it be safe to say that a) he’s in bed with MSNBC, and b) you lefties’ snarking about Rasmussen’s supposed Fox-friendliness is an example of Berg’s Seventh Law?

A year and a half ago, pundits speculated that Barack Obama, if elected President, would either work to move the country far to the left in pursuit of a liberal ideology and to satisfy decades of pent-up liberalism or govern from the center in the interest of furthering his personal ambitions and extending the pinnacle of his political career.

The first year of the Obama Presidency ended all speculation. Ideology trumped ambition, and it’s been a disaster for the President and for Democrats.

January 20th marked the beginning of his second year and also served as a demarcation between the pre-Brown and post-Brown era for the Obama Presidency.

This week offers peril and opportunity for the President to elucidate his New New Way Forward, if like many Democrats recently, Obama acknowledges the Coakley defeat as the comeuppance that it was.

Mr. Obama’s campaign-style speech here capped one of the most bruising weeks of his year in office. The President traveled to this swing-state manufacturing town ostensibly to deliver a speech about jobs and the economy, but instead he repeatedly veered off-script to interject pledges to battle his political foes over health care and other issues “so long as I have breath in me.”

Sadly for alert Democrats and in an inconceivable dream scenario for Republicans, instead of shifting gears from health care reform to job-creation; to align Washington with the rest of America, Obama opted this week to cement his station as an ideologue. Without regard for fairness, public sentiment or for that matter, securing a second term, the President declared war on the banking industry, sending the market into a minor (thus far) sell-off, undermining sentiment tied to economic recovery, and positioning himself within a new Democratic sub-minority, of, well, he and Nancy Pelosi. Even Barney Frank has said “Uncle.”

Save for later the discussion of the fact that his edict fails to recognize the corruption and culpability of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, both being spared, and the fact that we already have procedures in place such as increasing reserves and FDIC premiums to protect the system and “punish” banks for taking on excess risk. I’ll also forego the well-worn but valid discussion of the of the fact that much of the risk-taking at issue was forced upon them by government policy and that some of the corporations and practices Obama named specifically had nothing to do with the financial crisis.

[Treasury Secretary Timothy] Geithner is concerned that the proposed limits on big banks’ trading and size could impact U.S. firms’ global competitiveness, the sources said, speaking anonymously because Geithner has not spoken publicly about his reservations.

He also has concerns that the limits do not necessarily get at the root of the problems and excesses that fueled the recent financial meltdown, the sources said.

Lawrence White, a professor at New York University’s Stern School of Business and a former regulator, said Obama’s proposals were “a solution to the wrong problem.”

Ironically, these policies may result in the transfer of some pretty good jobs from Wall Street to Europe.

The new rules would ban the use of a bank’s own capital for hedge fund or private equity investment, or for trading unless it was directly connected to client activity.

However, some foreign banks believe they could escape the ban by switching their operations from Wall Street to London or continental Europe.

What Obama’s proclamation does represent is a presidency inexorably out of sync with America; especially the meaty middle, whose voice was heard load and clear in Massachusetts this week. A years’ experience has done little for a man who has never held a real job, owned a business, or exhibited a basic comprehension of the fundamentals of economics or a genuine acknowledgment of the gift that is free enterprise.

Mr. Obama’s display of anger with big financial institutions and insurers may not reassure voters who are dubious about his proposed solutions to the country’s economic problems.

Barack Obama has essentially been out of touch his entire, calculated, and increasingly apocryphal political career and may soon find his presidency floundering having sailed his most avowed mission to reform America’s health care system into a tsunami of taxpayer revolt.

Despite the fact that his policies have been soundly rejected and support within his own party is eroding, Obama’s political capital and popularity aren’t completely exhausted. The opportunity remains to move quickly to realign his presidency with the pressing needs of an American citizenry that haven’t yet completely lost hope in him.

most continue to like and respect the man they gathered around televisions to watch sworn in as president on a cold noon hour a year ago, and most still hold out hope for his presidency. Yet many also worry that, in his quest to mobilize government to solve the nation’s problems, he may have moved too far too fast.

If Obama’s upcoming State of the Union address focuses on restoring full employment, judicicious enhancements to the regulations that govern our financial system, and a renewed confidence in America’s ability to recover, rebuild and prosper once again, Obama’s may find his stock rising again.

“In his State of the Union, Obama has to slim down his ambitions. It should be short and simple and focus on jobs.”

“Obama has to decide whether he wants to be a transformational president, which looks optimistic at this stage, or merely an effective president,” says Bruce Josten, head of government affairs at the US Chamber of Commerce

Odds are, Obama will continue on his latest vector: vilifying banks, demonizing those who would dare seek an honest profit, penalizing employers, mushrooming the federal government and broadening an ongoing orgy of government spending under the guise of economic timulus, which is almost as dirty a word now as health care reform.

In short, Mr Obama’s nightmare January could easily slip into a nightmare February. “Unless and until the president changes the way his White House, works, things are going to continue to go badly for him,” says the head of a Democratic think-tank.

In turn, this will continue to fuel the tea party movement, mobilize the middle, neuter the left and manifest a Jimmy-Carteresque dreamscape only the most opportunistic Republicans could envision before last Tuesday night.

Only Obama’s teleprompter knows which path the President will chose.

Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown’s campaign may have caused a small surge in truck sales.

“I’m Scott Brown, I’m from Wrentham, and I drive a truck”

Al Cerrone, owner of a local GMC dealership, claims, “We’ve gotten eight to 12 phone calls from people asking, ‘Do you sell trucks like that?”’

Why Yes! And we sell Brown trucks and they come in an assortment of colors!