That’s right Mitch, the Market didn’t exactly endorse Obama’s victory. In fact, Barack Obama made history two days in a row: the largest post-election stock market plunge in history.

Nov. 5 (Bloomberg) — The stock market posted its biggest plunge following a presidential election as reports on jobs and service industries stoked concern the economy will worsen even as President-elect Barack Obama tries to stimulate growth.

Apparently the market has a different idea as to what will stimulate growth. Does the market not think that raising taxes and expanding government are good things? Is the market wondering why Liberals and their followers haven’t learned their lesson yet?

History…

Year Dow President-Elect

2008 -5.05% Barack Obama

2004 +1.01% George W. Bush

2000 -0.41% No decision: G.W. Bush v Al Gore*

1996 +1.59% William Clinton

1992 -0.91% William Clinton

1988 -0.43% George H. W. Bush

1984 -0.88% Ronald Reagan

1980 +1.70% Ronald Reagan

1976 -0.99% James Carter

1972 -0.11% Richard Nixon

1968 +0.34% Richard Nixon

1964 -0.19% Lyndon Johnson

1960 +0.77% John Kennedy

Draw your own conclusions…

Not everyone is celebrating The One’s ascenscion:

A case of post-election nerves sent stocks plunging Wednesday as investors, again anxious about a recession, began questioning what impact a Barack Obama presidency will have on business and the overall economy. The Dow Jones industrials dropped more than 400 points and the major indexes all fell more than 4 percent.

That last brief flash of pre-election McCain optimism, I’m pretty convinced, was what gave us that nice Monday rally.

From another Financial Advisor and close friend of mine “Casey R.”:

A few very important things occurred to me as I was watching predictable election results unfold last night.  An obvious fact remains based on the votes received by each candidate – we are still very much divided in this country, very evenly divided.

Obama won the majority vote and a delivered a corresponding “pounding” in what both parties recognize as a “quirky” electoral college.  Even though I was more comfortable with the experience of McCain, I understand and appreciate the rationale that lead so many to look to a motivational and charismatic man as an impetus for change.

I became very worried throughout the campaign as I learned more about Obama’s liberal voting history and limited efforts to vote outside his party. Democrats held McCain to the same standard and found that, although he did tackle non-partisan issues in Washington, he sided too often with a misguided President during his first term for their comfort.

Obama earned respect from me with his moment of candid humility last night.  It came with the admittance that for the nearly 50% of the country that didn’t vote for him, he needed to do his best to earn their support and confidence and he knew he couldn’t simply assume it.

(more…)

When I say “righties, please keep this in perspective”, this is what I”m talking about – Joe “Learned Foot” Tucci at KAR writes:

For those leftybloggers out there trolling for a little schadenfreude, that’s all I got. Sorry. He is my president. He was elected, not selected. Somewhere in south Chicago there isn’t a village missing an idiot. My happiness is not dictated by who’s in office. I’m still an adult, and you’re still a spittle-chucking rage-addicted child. What Nihilist said.

And what did Nihilist say?

Now we conservatives are free to adapt the tactics of the left, to abandon reason and make inflammatory proclamations with regard to our new chief executive.

I want to be first. I want to say something so antithetical to the beliefs of the MoveOn, Kos, Olberman nuts that it will give them a taste of what they put us through for eight years. Here goes.

Tonight I say a PRAYER for our new President-elect, Barak Obama. I hope GOD will guide his decisions and give him the strength and wisdom to lead America forward. I also PRAY for our leaders in Congress, that GOD may watch over them too. I realize that this may be too much for the nuts to bear, but tonight I PRAY for them too. To paraphrase Jeramiah Wright (sort of):

GOD bless America? Yeah, what the heck! GOD bless America!

What they said.

…have apparently gotten together and tubed same-sex marriage in California:

A measure to once again ban gay marriage in California led Tuesday, throwing into doubt the unions of an estimated 18,000 same-sex couples who wed during the last 4 1/2 months.

The Democrats won the election – but even in California, most Americans are conservatives, even if they don’t always vote (or know) it.

…last night?

Mark “I’m Not Guy” Richie, former DFL “community organizer” and party hack, and current Minnesota “Secretary of State”. 

In my four hours on the air last night, I could not once get election results from the POS SOS website.  I got constant server errors; “the server can not handle current traffic levels” (and, as this is written, it’s still down!).

Under Mary Kiffmeyer – the utterly capable SOS that Richie deposed in the bloodbath of 2006 – the site ran like a charm.

I don’t expect Mark Richie to be in there cranking out ASP code on his own – but delivering election results to the people is a part of his job.  A big part.

I think the move to toss this amateur poseur from office needs to take on Manhattan Project-level urgency.

(…like some snivelling beeyotch liberals are always whinging about doing if their anointed one loses)…

…but I’m feeling pretty good today.

Here’s why:

Can’t Fight History

I’m not going to say Barack Obama was “inevitable” – there is virtually no such thing in electoral politics – but the GOP hit a perfect storm last night:  a popular (if skin-deep) candidate, a war, an economic crisis, the historical fact that it’s very hard for a party to keep power after eight years even if it’s doing its ideological blocking and tackling correctly, and the fact that the GOP and the conservative movement have pretty much blown most of their blocks and tackles this past four years.  It would have been hard for any Republican to win; that Mac kept it within four and change defied the media’s “conventional wisdom”.  It was a win, and a mandate, for Obama – but it was not a landslide. 

One thing, by the way, I will not do is countenance on the right is the kind of flagrant, whinging, infantile, and occasionally deranged and paranoid disrespect that has befouled the once-noble American left this past eight years.  The left gave us “smirkingchimp.com” and “democraticunderground.com”, and visits them constantly.  I suspect if some conservative starts “jug-eared-fop.blogspot.com”, it will languish in obscurity.  Let’s hope so.  Even if you don’t respect the man (and Obama is a respectable person, wrongness about all things political notwithstanding), you respect the office.  I do expect the Right to behave better than the left has; I doubt I’ll be disappointed.

And here’s the kicker:  Now The One-Elect has to go on and prove to the mass of people who came out to vote for him that he can, indeed, walk on water and heal the sick.  Some pundits say Obama needs to “lower expectations” – but while Chris Matthews can smear Anbesol on his leg to stifle the tingling, there are a whole lot of people who elected Obama with very high expectations.

So good one, Democrats.  You won this one.  Try (some of you, at least) to be a little less insufferable in victory than you’ve been in defeat. 

Thanks.

We Can Filibuster

The Democrats expected to get 60 in the Senate.  Last night, Ed and King and I figured they’d come out with 57 or 58 – bad, but still filibusterable.

As of this moment, it’s 55-41, with three races still out:  Stevens will likely win in Alaska (and then be removed, and have a successor appointed by Governor, ahem, Palin); Smith has a decent chance of pulling an upset in Oregon (he’s up a point with 75% reporting), and while Georgia will need to do a runoff to get to its unique, mandated “50%+1” threshold, Saxby Chambliss will likely pull it off.  It’s not a “victory”, but in a year like this, staving off annihilation is mighty fine.

The Tics picked up 20 in the House.  It could have been much worse.  And Minnesota is a key reason I’m feeling good about both houses of Congress.

Because…

Purple, Schmurple

Presidential results notwithstanding, Minnesota got just a bit more red last night. 

You read that right. 

Coleman pulled it off, against an utterly despicable Franken campaign.  The polls just before the election showed either a Franken lead or a tossup – and the latter were right.  Coleman is going to get by with a razor-thin majority when all the recounting is over.  And if he could survive last night, Norm can survive anything.

But much better was to come.

Michele Bachmann in the Sixth District not only beat Elwin “E-Tink” “The 35W Ghoul” Tinklenberg, she beat Chris Matthews, the entire agenda media, funding from coast to coast, and a feckless GOP national apparatus that cut and ran when the media sodomized the context of her remarks on Tinglyball.  Conventional “wisdom” called it a toss-up to a slight edge for E-Tink.  And yet again, the most unrepentant conservative in Minnesota Politics won, and won by way outside anyone’s wildest expectations.  Her three-point win was misleadingly small, I think; the Ventura “Independence” Party’s Bob Anderson is one of the IP’s tiny minority of fiscal conservative/social libertarians that the likes of Dean Barkley have pretty much driven back to the GOP; running unendorsed (the district’s V“I”P endorsed E-Tink, who’d “served” in the Ventura “administration”), he pulled an extremely respectable 10%, indicating the Sixth District is redder than anyone on the left was willing to admit.

Even better news?  The conventional wisdom a few days back showed Ashwin Madia having an edge over Erik Paulsen.  The Lori Sturdevants of the world declared it a fait accompli that the Third District was “turning purple” – it has, indeed, been one of the statements of faith among the Metro’s chattering classes for years.  And yet not only did the Third replace the very moderate (and fellow Jamestown, ND native) Jim Ramstad with the more-conservative Erik Paulsen, but they did it with a margin that absolutely crushed any expectations. 

Almost eight points.

Like Bachmann’s eight-point win two years ago (in a similarly difficult year), it’s proof that the “Minnesota is Purple” talk is a gross oversimplification.

And while there was little doubt that Second District representative John Kline was fairly safe, his fifteen point win over Steve Sarvi should stifle the left’s wishful bleating that the Two is moving to the middle. 

The Power Of Talk

What were the biggest surprises in Minnesota last night?  Obviously – Bachmann and Paulsen’s unexpectedly-big wins, and the margin by which John Kline crushed Steve Sarvi.

A week ago, nobody predicted this.

A week ago, the Three Tenors of Talk came to town.  They got out an avalanche of the base; the Patriot expected perhaps 1,500 people, maybe; we drew almost 3,000, and were turning people away at the door by the time we were ready go get going last October 28.

A conservative Republican electorate that was widely reported as “despirited” going into that week came out afterward and, to quote Minnesota’s great sage, “shocked the talking heads” at 425 Portland a week later. 

Where does the core of AM1280’s demographic live?

In the Third, the Sixth and the Second Districts.

I’d only “declare victory” this morning as a hyperbolic joke. 

But there is a big silver lining, folks. 

In 2010, if an Obama Administration can’t manage to actually walk on water, the Dems are going to bleed through the ears.

And we will be there pounding on the sides of their heads (rhetorically speaking). 

So be of good cheer, Real Americans.  Not only is the tide going to turn – it’s going to whipsaw.  And Minnesota is going to lead the way.

No need. We just became Canada.

The line forms here.

Am I a sore loser? Show me a good loser and I’ll show you a loser.

The Big Stink captures the essence for me…

Last night does not mean that my side is wrong – we were merely outnumbered.  …I’m going to be much more selective about whom I fight alongside in the future.  The old allies of “moderate” conservatives, I believe, led us to this dead end.  I no longer have a stomach for them.  They can pack sand.  If the party wants me to hitch my wagon to anything less than a Palin/Reagan conservative – get lost.  I’d rather go down in flames with my principles intact than ally myself with a bunch of rodents who believe conservatism means destroying just a few less liberties than liberalism.

As for me, I am going to work hard as always; not look to the government to solve my problems or pay my mortgage. I am going to enjoy watching Obama’s minions try to cash in the lottery tickets he’s given them, rhetorically speaking. You promised Obammy! -er, I mean Mr. President, sir.

Ah, the perils of high expectations.

Today begins the campaign of ’12.

Barack Obama discovers a leak under his sink, so he calls Joe the Plumber to come and fix it. Joe drives to Obama’s house, which is located in a very nice neighborhood and where it’s clear that all the residents make more than $250,000 per year.

Joe arrives and takes his tools into the house. Joe is led to the room that contains the leaky pipe under a sink. Joe assesses the problem and tells Obama, who is standing near the door, that it’s an easy repair that will take less than 10 minutes.

Obama asks Joe how much it will cost.

Joe immediately says, “$9,500.”

“$9,500?” Obama asks, stunned. “But you said it’s an easy repair!”

“Yes, but what I do is charge a lot more to my clients who make more than $250,000 per year so I can fix the plumbing of everybody who makes less than that for free,” explains Joe. “It’s always been my philosophy. As a matter of fact, I lobbied government to pass this philosophy as law, and it did pass earlier this year, so now all plumbers have to do business this way. It’s known as ‘Joe’s Fair Plumbing Act of 2008.’ Surprised you haven’t heard of it, Senator.”

In spite of that, Obama tells Joe there’s no way he’s paying that much for a small plumbing repair, so Joe leaves.

Obama spends the next hour flipping through the phone book looking for another plumber, but he finds that all other plumbing businesses listed have gone out of business. Not wanting to pay Joe’s price, Obama does nothing.

The leak under Obama’s sink goes unrepaired for the next several days.

A week later the leak is so bad that Obama has had to put a bucket under the sink. The bucket fills up quickly and has to be emptied every hour, and there’s a risk that the room will flood, so Obama calls Joe and pleads with him to return.

Joe goes back to Obama’s house, looks at the leaky pipe, and says “Let’s see – this will cost you about $21,000.”

“A few days ago you told me it would cost $9,500!” Obama quickly fires back.

Joe explains the reason for the dramatic increase. “Well, because of the ‘Joe’s Fair Plumbing Act,’ a lot of rich people are learning how to fix their own plumbing, so there are fewer of you paying for all the free plumbing I’m doing for the people who make less than $250,000. As a result, the rate I have to charge my wealthy paying customers rises every day.

“Not only that, but for some reason the demand for plumbing work from the group of people who get it for free has skyrocketed, and there’s a long waiting list of those who need repairs. This has put a lot of my fellow plumbers out of business, and they’re not being replaced – nobody is going into the plumbing business because they know they won’t make any money. I’m hurting now too – all thanks to greedy rich people like you who won’t pay their fair share.”

Obama tries to straighten out the plumber : “Of course you’re hurting, Joe! Don’t you get it? If all the rich people learn how to fix their own plumbing and you refuse to charge the poorer people for your services, you’ll be broke, and then what will you do?”

Joe immediately replies, “Run for president, apparently.”

HT “Uncle Dave”

I’m not sure what to think of Senator “Chuckles” Schumer’s take on the return of the “Fairness” Doctrine. 

Three possibilities present themselves:

1. He’s an idiot.
2. He assumes his audience and constituency are idiots.
3. 1 and 2.

Read this and then you be the judge:

Asked if he is a supporter of telling radio stations what content they should have, Schumer used the fair and balanced line, claiming that critics of the Fairness Doctrine are being inconsistent. 

 

“The very same people who don’t want the Fairness Doctrine want the FCC [Federal Communications Commission] to limit pornography on the air. I am for that… But you can’t say government hands off in one area to a commercial enterprise but you are allowed to intervene in another. That’s not consistent.”

There’s a vote for #1; if he thinks political speech is in the same weight class as pornography, he’s clearly been hanging out with Barney Frank and Al Franken too long.

In 2007, Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), a close ally of Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) told The Hill, “It’s time to reinstitute the Fairness Doctrine. I have this old-fashioned attitude that when Americans hear both sides of the story, they’re in a better position to make a decision.”

There’s a vote for #1 and #2:  Americans can hear dozens of sides to every story, 24/7.  There is no shortage of free speech in this country.

Senate Rules Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) last year said, “I believe very strongly that the airwaves are public and people use these airwaves for profit. But there is a responsibility to see that both sides and not just one side of the big public questions of debate of the day are aired and are aired with some modicum of fairness.”

Another vote for both.  “Fairness” comes from having the ability to get your point out there.  Nothing prevents the left from being heard in (it’s absurd that I have to even mention this) the media. 

 

He also defended “card check” legislation [saying] “there has to be some counter” to the leverage businesses have, claiming “employers have every leg up on people who want to organize and that’s why union workers have gone down from about 25 percent to 6 percent [in the private sector].”

 

There’s a vote for #1, because nobody could be stupid enough to think that a private ballot benefits business any more than it harms unions.

So that’s four votes for “Schumer is an idiot”, and two for “He thinks everyone else is an idiot”. 

As long as Chuckles Schumer sits in office, no New Yorker has any reason to feel superior to any toothless, Klan-voting yokel from Alabama.

Loyal Opposition’s sonar shack has detected a transient…

…on the same election night where Jesse Ventura got elected “Governor” that I got around 37,855 votes for State Treasurer, running as a Libertarian. 

(My only platform plank?  Abolish the office of State Treasurer.  As luck would have it, that was also the subject of a ballot initiative that year, which passed by a 2-1 margin. While some DFL hack got most of the votes, I declared moral victory; the people decided they didn’t need some party flak to do their abolishing for them). 

But this year, I didn’t even know my hat was in the ring…

A flag-waving gunman closes down traffic in Santa Barbara, California for hours…

…until he’s allowed to carry out his demand:

A masked gunman waving an American flag and a handgun on a freeway overpass surrendered to police Monday after forcing a traffic shutdown for hours.

The man gave himself up at midmorning west of downtown Santa Barbara at Highway 101, a major route along the California coast. No shots were fired. Traffic was backed at least three miles in each direction.

The man agreed to give up after he was allowed to attach a Barack Obama campaign sign and the flag to the overpass railing, said police Sgt. Jim Pfleging.

Audacious, indeed.

Starting in 2010, if Obama wins, watch for jokes about Hindu shopkeepers to become as politically correct as jokes about uppity conservative women have become in the past eight weeks.

You’ll have to find a new bit of dirt to obsess about:

Palin – running mate of Republican presidential candidate John McCain – violated no ethics laws, according to a report released by the state personnel board on the eve of Election Day.

Not that there was much doubt – and as far as the Democrats were concerned, the rumor served its purpose. 

7:07 AM Today

Minnesota’s Secretary of State was kind enough to post my precinct’s ballot.

So here’s my “to-do” list for the day; my votes are in bold:

POTUS:

JOHN MCCAIN AND SARAH PALIN REPUBLICAN
BARACK OBAMA AND JOE BIDEN DEMOCRATIC-FARMER-LABOR
CYNTHIA MCKINNEY AND ROSA CLEMENTE GREEN
ROGER CALERO AND ALYSON KENNEDY SOCIALIST WORKERS
RALPH NADER AND MATT GONZALEZ INDEPENDENT
BOB BARR AND WAYNE A. ROOT LIBERTARIAN
CHUCK BALDWIN AND DARRELL CASTLE CONSTITUTION
US Senate
DEAN BARKLEY INDEPENDENCE
NORM COLEMAN REPUBLICAN
AL FRANKEN DEMOCRATIC-FARMER-LABOR
CHARLES ALDRICH LIBERTARIAN
JAMES NIEMACKL CONSTITUTION
US Fourth Congressional District
ED MATTHEWS REPUBLICAN
BETTY MCCOLLUM DEMOCRATIC-FARMER-LABOR
Minnesota House District 66B
MARK A. ROOSEVELT REPUBLICAN
ALICE HAUSMAN DEMOCRATIC-FARMER-LABOR

Soil and Water, Districts 2, 3 and 5

I will follow Saint Paul’s endorsements to the letter.  Whatever it was.

Judicial Elections

Well, I won’t be voting for either Howard Orenstein or Gail Chang-Bohr in the Second District Court race: as usual, I’ll be writing in my cat, Nosemarie Berg, for this office, partly as a protest against the paucity of acceptable candidates, partly (as noted in the past) because it’s my way of ensuring that my vote is in fact counted.  Of course, I’m not the only one that votes for Nosemarie – she’s actually developed some traction over the years – so I’ll be writing in another pet for another one of the unopposed seats.  Will it be Clu, the dog?  Candy, the other cat?  We don’t know. 

Stay tuned.

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

I figured this election deserves at least as much.

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

See you at the polls.

Over the weekend, I appeared on Marty Owings’ “Radio Free Nation“, a Blogtalkradio show on which I’m generally the sole conservative voice.

After listening to a steady cavalcade of callers who were already revelling in an Obama victory, I had to ask (the victim in this case was an African American fellow from Detroit) – “So let’s say, hypothetically, that McCain wins.  What do you do?”

“He ain’t gonna win”, the caller exclaimed.

“But, hypothetically, what if he wins?”

“Then I’ll move to Canada”, the guy exclaimed without skipping a beat.

So what about the rest of you libs?  What are you going to do if Mac does manage to pull this thing off?

And “He’s not going to pull it off” is not acceptable as an answer; the entire premise of the question is based on the hypothetical issue of a McCain victory, whether you find it plausible or not. 

So let’s hear it, libs…

If someone held a gun to my head and said “pick the Presidential Race” right now, I’d say Obama by a point or so. 

I also think that the factors are there for an upset – perhaps a one in three chance.  The factors are…:

1. Huge numbers of undecideds:  Over the weekend, the AP said around 14% of voters hadn’t made up their minds about the race as of last weekend.  That’s phenomenally high – and as Ed and I noted during the show on Saturday, I don’t think most of them are going to take a flyer and vote for the least-experienced Presidential candidate in US history. 
2. Obama always overpolls:  Remember – Obama won the caucus states by a huge margin, indicating his popularity among activists.  Hillary Clinton won most of the primary states – the states that decide their endorsements by popular votes. 
3. Mac underpolls:  He always has.
4. Americans underpoll, too:  As Ed noted on the show, pollsters are reporting hang-up rates around 80%.  Since Democrats are vastly more likely to be the ones sitting in their armchairs on a Friday night praying to Marx that a pollster calls them so they can add their opinional grease to the Obama skidway, I think it not at all outrageous to think that Democrats are overrepresented; the crosstabs on a disturbing number of polls show oversampling of Democrats.
5. Pauline Kael Syndrome:  Obama has saturation media coverage, of course – and the media, nationally and regionally, is centered in the hotbeds of Obamania; state capitols, university towns and so on.

Regionally, one more bit of good news for Republicans; election day is supposed to be cool and rainy.  Historically, Minnesota Democrats are more likely to stay home for inclement weather; Republicans will drag themselves through blizzards over paths strewn with razor blades in weather that’ll make Dems stay home and watch Just Shoot Me reruns.

So we shall see.

When voters enter the booth tomorrow, Iraq won’t be much on their mind as a whole. Iraq is going so well (as wars go) that the media has turned a blind eye. Covering it after all would only benefit John McCain whose criticism of George Bush and promotion of the surge proved to be dead on.

In the days, hours and moments leading up to the moment of truth in the booth, it will be the economy, once again.

I have heard numerous comparisons of Barack Obama to Jimmy Carter in the sense that like Carter’s administration, an Obama era will create such an economic disaster that Americans’ short memories will be restored and an era of fiscal conservatism will be ushered in once again.

It’s a sad day when the upside is how bad things will be.

Then again, is this a lesson America needs to learn once and for all?

Chances are, our economy is going to get a lot worse before it gets better no matter who ends up in the White House. Even Ronald Regan, if elected on Tuesday, wouldn’t be able foster an economic turnaround for at least a year if his presidency is any measure.

There is great cause for concern however that a President that has among his many ambitions a desire to further the Socialism experiment that has weaved its way through our history as a nation.

Raising taxes on the wealthy and giving it to the less-so, isn’t Socialism; but it is one of it’s major tenets. Forcing lenders to lend to borrowers not qualified to do so isn’t either but it it also smacks of Socialism and social engineering.

If Obama’s platform was to raise taxes for everyone and pay off the national debt, I would consider it but even then, he’d have to cut them first to stimulate the economy and stimulate job growth, wait for the result, and then raise taxes. This assumes that raising taxes is the means by which to pay down our debt – and that’s a stretch at best.

Then again, if he cut taxes, revenue to the government would increase dramatically, as has been proven time and again, and those dollars could then be funneled to pay down our debt. In order to stimulate our economy and pay down our national debt, it’s magnitude having become a national security issue, our nation faces the inevitable pain of our government cutting spending dramatically while at the same time cutting taxes to stimulate the economy.

This will happen by choice, if sooner; by force if later, under the weight of simple economics and mathematics. It’s coming friends, whether we like it or not.

Barack Obama lacks the character, leadership, experience and political inclination to make these tough choices, encourage temporary sacrifice and guide our nation through the most dire and precarious economic conditions in modern times.

John McCain on the other hand has the all of the above and a record to prove it. I will be voting for him because of the two, I think he has the best chance of steering us clear.

#1:  Because the Minnesota Poll says Franken’s up by four.

A new Star Tribune Minnesota Poll shows DFLer Al Franken clinging to a slim lead over Republican Sen. Norm Coleman among likely voters, 42 percent to 38 percent. That’s within the poll’s 4.1 percentage point margin of sampling error.

The Minnesota Poll seems to spot DFLers four to eight points, over the last several elections (with 2006 being a partial exception).

I think Coleman’s going to win this by 3-4 points.  The MNPoll is evidence of this.

Oh, yeah – further proof of the triviality of the MNPoll:

Independence Party candidate Barkley, who held steady at 18 percent in the two previous Minnesota Polls, slipped three points to 15 percent.

The Minnesota Poll always seems to put Ventura “Independence” Party candidates about double where they end up. 

Fearless prediction:  the Ventura “Independence” Party’s days as a “Major Party” in Minnesota will end after the 2010 election. 

In political scandals, it’s not so much the crime as it is the cover-up.

There’s more to Ohio’s Democrat establishment’s outing of Joe the Plumber’s personal data than the official denials would have you believe, according to my radio partner Ed Morrissey:

What’s becoming apparent is that Ohio officials have something to hide.  The records-check request came from an assistant deputy director for child support.  When the story went public, the deputy director “literally demanded” Niekamp write the e-mail that would get them off the hook.  The agency’s leadership engaged in a cover-up — and that strongly implies that a crime got committed.

Niekamp told the Dispatch that she’s seen people get fired for unauthorized records checks, and that she herself fired one employee for the violation of public trust.  This has gone beyond just a mere firing.  It now looks as though Helen Jones-Kelley’s staff engaged in an attempt to obstruct justice, and Jones-Kelley’s lie about the Famous People Records Check appears to be part of it.

Go read the whole thing – before the act of reading the whole thing sets Mark Ritchie to releasing your personal data to the Strib.