It’s not the game-changer for this campaign.  But it could shave off a lot of votes for a lot of candidates.

It’s the Stop Online Piracy Act.  Posited as a means of protecting copyrights and against counterfeit drugs, the act – sponsored by Lamar Smith, with a slew of co-hosts – is rife with opportunity for abuse; it would make it frighteningly easy for government to censor online content on any dubious grounds it sees fit to find; it’ll make the user-content industry (think Youtube, Flickr and, potentially, any blog) exceptionally hazardous – not for abusers of copyrights, but for the service providers themselves.   It’s possible, according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Center for Democracy and Technology, for as little as a single complaint to shut down, say, Hot Air (and we all know what side is full of complainers who just loooooooooove to use the bureaucracy to stifle debate).

And the issue is gaining traction among those who pay attention to these things:

To the ranks of same-sex marriage, tax cuts and illegal immigration, add this to the list of polarizing political issues of Election 2012: the Stop Online Piracy Act.

The hot-button anti-piracy legislation that sparked a revolt online is starting to become a political liability for some of SOPA’s major backers. Fueled by Web activists and online fundraising tools, challengers are using the bill to tag its congressional supporters as backers of Big Government — and raise campaign cash while they’re at it.

Al Franken and – as luck would have it, the up-for-election Amy Klobuchar – both support SOPA.  Elements of the left have been beating on them, especially on A-Klo; both are, of course, in the bag for Hollywood.

It’s time to join in the bashing!

People ask me “who are you backing for President”.

It’s not “anyone but Mitt”, if that’s what you’re curious about.

No, where I stand so far in this race is “a point waaaay to the right of where Mitt is, so that he knows that I, and a few million people who think like me, remain to be convinced, and that he’d better hustle on over to the right to join us.  And stay here”.

In an election where I wanted a candidate that would bowl me over with his firebrand free-marketeering gun-toting Iranian-scaring tax-slashing government-throttling mettle, Mitt Romney is…

…acceptable.

As in “waaaay better in the Oval Office than Obama”.  As in “maybe so much better than this nation has a chance to survive into my grandchildren’s’ adulthood”.  Fingers crossed.

But to paraphrase Donald Rumsfeld, you don’t go to November with the candidate you want; you go with the candidate who gets nominated.

And so while I will do my best as an individual to make Romney know that he’s got Reagan-sized shoes to fill, and he’d better make a game effort at filling them, he’s…

…acceptable.

And apparently I’m not the only one that thinks so:

Mitt Romney is the now the only candidate that a majority of conservative and moderate/liberal Republicans nationwide see as an “acceptable” GOP nominee for president. Conservative Republicans are more likely to say Romney would be an acceptable nominee than either Newt Gingrich or Rick Santorum.

I shudder to ask how they polled that – but that’s what Gallup says.  Gallup’s no Rasmussen, but they’re not the Humphrey Institute, either.

Acceptable.

It’s high time someone made a better case, if one is to be made.

The patient may be still wiggling on the table, but it’s never too early for a “pre-mortem” on the GOP New Hampshire primary.  [UPDATED BELOW]

• Margin Call:  With even the Suffolk daily tracking poll showing Romney’s numbers rebounding despite a week of attacks, the question isn’t whether Romney will win but by how much.  Perhaps the only margin worth watching is to see where Gov. Jon Huntsman finishes.  Short of a close second, it’s hard to see how Huntsman justifies going forward unless he believes Florida can be his bulwark.

• Rick-Rolled:  Rick Santorum is desperately trying to become 2012’s Mike Huckabee, right down to repeating the 2008 candidates’ mistakes.  Following his Iowa victory four years ago, Huckabee chose to contest New Hampshire and Michigan instead of turning to South Carolina and arguably friendly political territory.  Huckabee seemed temporarily vindicated by rising up from single digits to finish in third, winning a handful of delegates and lingering momentum.  Instead, the time and treasure spent elsewhere helped cost him South Carolina and the mantle as the sole “anti-McCain.”  Santorum might finish fourth or fifth tonight – and probably would have even if he hadn’t campaigned in the Granite State for the past week.

• Bain & Conservatism’s Dark Night: No, we’re not talking about the next Batman film, but some of the comments from the field this week over Romney and his history with Bain Capital do seem Two-Faced.  Romney’s “I love being able to fire people” is likely to end up in a general election ad should he win the nomination, but did the rest of the GOP field need to beat the Democrats to the punch?  Romney’s comment certainly shows a tin-ear, even if he clarified his stance within the next few sentences.  Yet nearly every Republican candidate has decided not only to take a swing at Romney on the issue but poke capitalism as well.  A pro-Gingrich Super PAC is planning a $3 million-plus ad campaign in South Carolina lambasting Romney’s Bain record as well.  As NRO’s Jim Geraghty muses, “the demonization of the free market is complete.”

• “Anti” Gravity:  While the battle to become the “anti-Romney” seemed more like a poor man’s episode of “Survivor” earlier in the campaign as candidate after candidate was eliminated from the race, the remaining Anybody But Romneys now look to be in an electoral game of chicken.  Paul, Gingrich, Santorum, Perry and Huntsman have all taken their measure of the field and (fairly correctly) determined that none of the remaining candidates have the organization, financing, or momentum to displace the front-runner.  But the hour for someone to coalesce the anti-Romney vote is growing late and despite all the talk of the gravity of nominating Romney, none of the pretenders has yet signaled a willingness to move their support to another.  Thus the rest of the field waits for someone else to drop out in increasingly vain hopes that the last man standing can inherit the cumulative frustrations of the base.

• Days & Weaks Ahead:  Playing upon the last note, it’s hard to see where the anti-Romney forces can possibly stage a comeback given the upcoming primary calendar.  Romney holds solid polling leads in South Carolina and Florida and looks likely to enter February having won every caucus/primary.  But Feb 7th could be the date that sees Romney lose – twice.  Colorado and Minnesota hold their caucuses that night and if the field has narrowed down to one or two major competitors, the evening could contain the first electoral chink in Romney’s armor.  The only problem with that theory?  Neither state is actually pledging delegates to the convention – both votes are beauty contests and will likely be spun as such by Romney should he lose.

The Strib Editorial Board has declared itself in the bag for Mark Dayton and the DFL.

Not a huge surprise, if you follow these things.

More importantly, and much worse, it expresses the Minnesota Left’s real priorities.  Although it does it in a slippery, weaselly way designed to actively disinform voters – which, of course, is another way of supporting the DFL.

The state budget is set and in the black, if only temporarily.

But that hasn’t stopped DFL Gov. Mark Dayton from expounding on the virtues of the budget proposal he touted and the GOP-controlled Legislature spurned last May.

Those virtues include a bottom line that would remain in positive territory in 2014-15, according to a new “what if” analysis by the state Revenue Department.

Wow.  Positive territory!  That sounds good – right?

Let’s read on:

It applied the Dayton offer of last May 16, which included $1.8 billion in new tax revenue in 2012-13, to the latest forecast for 2014-15. Do that, and the $1.3 billion deficit that’s been forecasted for 2014-15 disappears, leaving a $35 million surplus.

Let’s be clear on a couple of things – since the Strib and the DFL (pardon the redundancy) desperately want the reader and voter not to be clear on them:

• The “bottom line” they’re talking about is the state budget.
• The “deficit” is the gap between what the bureaucracy wants and is demanding, and the revenue expected at current levels.  It is not a budget passed by a legislature.
• We, the people, elected a legislature that promised to take a different approach to how this state handles budgeting; to give this state an intervention, and wean it from its addiction to limitless spending and the assumption that we’re just going to like it or lump it during a recession.
• This charade has nothing to do with “bottom lines” in any sense that a business owner (or family budgeteer, for that matter) would recognize.  It’s about making sure that government’s various stakeholders – who are suffering from a few mild diet pangs after the last session – needn’t want for their least desire any more.

Modern American liberalism is predicated on the notion that you, the people, aren’t to be trusted.

On much of anything,really; there’s experts for pretty much everything; they all know more than you, and you, peasant, should defer to them.  Because that’s what peasants do.

Educating your kids?  There’s experts. They know more than you.  Just shut up and do what they say.

Your health?  Oh, for the love of pete – experts!  They’ll tell you how to live – and for how long.

And protecting your life and property, and your family’s safety?  Well, that’s the big kahuna.  That’s the one that liberals see as the real finger in the eye.  It’s the ultimate rejection of the idea,that the state – with its cops and social workers and theorists – is the ultimate arbiter of life, death and freedom.

The left has been quiet on gun control for years now.  But that doesn’t mean there’s not a strong undercurrent of gun-grabbing sentiment.

Moe Lane at Redstate reports:

In the course of reading this subtly bitter (and thus subtly entertaining) story (via Instapundit) about the effective collapse of the anti-gun movement on the grassroots level, I came across this passage: “In November the Republican House approved a measure that would require states to respect concealed carry permits issued by other, less restrictive states; it now awaits action in the Democratic-controlled Senate, where its fate is uncertain.”

For all the Dems’ talk of moderating on the issue, you see their true colors here; where they have any power, they will eat your freedom.

And it is peoples’ freedoms we’re talking about here:

As people reading this probably know, reciprocal respect of other states’ right-to-carry laws is a hot topic: it recently came to the forefront when a Tennessee woman got arrested for trying to check in her firearm at the 9/11 Ground Zero site. I should also note in passing that Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s (INDEPENDENT) attempt to smear said woman by claiming she was also in possession of cocaine backfired: the woman didn’t have any. But she’s still facing several years of jail time – no, really – for a ‘crime’ that more enlightened portions of the United States of America decriminalized some time ago*.

So who are the Senators who voted to make civil rights contingent on geography?

Lane notes the Senators from (mostly) shall-issue states who voted against civil rights:

• Senator Amy Klobuchar (D) is from Minnesota, which is a Shall-Issue state. Is Senator Klobuchar really comfortable with putting nursing students in jail for owning guns and taking them to NYC? Does that mean that she will continue to let gun-grabbers keep this bill in the Judiciary Committee?
• Senator Herb Kohl (D) is from Wisconsin, which has just become a Shall-Issue state; and, judging from the number of applications for CCW, it was a popular decision. Is Senator Kohl really comfortable with repressing civil liberties by not voting to move the Senate bill out of committee? And does he really want to make this an election year issue for the Democratic candidate that will be running for his seat?
• Senator Jim Webb (D) …
• Senator Bill Nelson (D)…
• Senator Debbie Stabenow (D) …
• Senator Claire McCaskill (D) …
• Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D) may be from New York, which is obviously not a Shall-Issue state – but she’s from the upstate portion of it, which has a somewhat different take on the subject than does NYC. Is she putting pressure on fellow New Yorker Chuck Schumer to get this bill out of Judiciary and on the floor? If not, can we safely assume that New York City has two Senators and New York State has none?
• Senator Sherrod Brown (D) …
• Senator Bob Casey (D) …
• Senator Maria Cantwell (D) …
• Senator Joe Manchin (D) ..

Now, remember – on the issue of gay marriage, liberals are fond of saying “we don’t put civil rights up to a vote”.  And the right to defend one’s life with a firearm is, unlike gay marriage, specifically enshrined in the Constitution.  There is no rational debate on the subject, certainly not since the McDonald decision.

I bring this up because if Minnesotans across the political divide showed us one thing in the past ten years, it’s that outside the thin film of Metrocrat DFL nannystaters, Minnesotans across the political spectrum – Republican, Democrat, Independent, Apathetic – support the right to keep and bear arms.  In the 2000 and 2002 elections, even before the Legislature passed the Minnesota Personal Protection Act, legislators who opposed the right of the people to defend their lives and property – especially outstate DFLers – were roundly shredded at the polls.  And Republican and DFL voters supported candidates who supported that civil right.

The right to keep and bear arms, and be able to use them when needed, may be the single most bipartisan issue in Minnesota.

But for all her moderate rhetoric at home, once Amy Klobuchar goes to DC and sits down in her inside-the-beltway office, she dons a leash; that leash gets yanked by the ultra-liberal anti-gun lobby.

Does this represent Minnesota?

The following email was received by DFL Legislative staffers and legislators early last week.

And, via an accident on the sender side, pretty much everyone else in Minnesota Politics.

Members & Staff,

As we prepare for the start of the 2012 session, I wanted to update you all on a few items:

First, thanks to all of our members – too many to mention here – who helped with our Caucus fundraising efforts in 2011. As a result of your hard work and the hard work of our staff, we are in an incredibly strong financial position heading into the elections in November. You’ll hear more about that at our Caucus meeting.

Speaking of that meeting, we will be caucusing at 10 AM on Monday, January 23rd, at a to-be-determined location in St. Paul. The annual pre-session event begins at 3 PM with a VIP reception followed by the general reception at 4 PM. We’d love to have as many members there as possible, and have invited our candidates as well. Frank Hornstein and Marion Greene have also invited members and staff to gather at [address redacted out of basic decency.  Would “Cucking Stool” redact an address?  Pfftt – Ed], after the event. Please RSVP to Marion ([Email redacted]) or Frank ([Email redacted]) if you plan to go.

As you know from Paul’s personnel update email earlier this week, we are making some staffing changes that affect both our official and political operations. Today was Zach Rodvold’s last day in his current capacity with the Caucus. Beginning on Monday, January 16th he will be assuming the role of Campaign Director and will be working from our offices at the DFL. On Tuesday, January 17th [redacted] will return from maternity leave and will be stepping into the role of Director of Caucus and Legislative Services, the job held by Zach until today. Please welcome them both into their new roles.

Here’s the funny part:

In addition, Jaime Makepeace, who has been the Deputy Finance Director for the Caucus, will be moving into the role of Director of Candidate Services. This is a position created to respond to some of the criticism we heard coming out of the last election that some candidates – and some members – didn’t feel like they had a point of contact on the staff if their races weren’t targeted. She’s been working closely with Erin Murphy in our candidate recruitment efforts already and so this will be a smooth transition for her. Please also welcome her into her new role.

Sort of a human border collie?

Finally, a word about redistricting. As you all know, the precinct caucuses will be on Tuesday, February 7th, yet the new lines won’t be released by the courts until the 21st. This will undoubtedly create some difficulties for our candidates and potentially some of our members in going through the endorsement process. Because the new districts lines are unknown, however, and because there are potential scenarios where members may be paired together, the Caucus cannot provide constituent or voter information to anyone outside of your current districts. We will work with the party and with the DNC to ensure that, once the new map is released, members will have access (through the VAN) to the voters within their new lines as soon as possible.

If you have any questions about that or anything else, feel free to contact Paul or me any time.

Thanks, and have a great weekend. I look forward to seeing you all on the 23rd!

Sincerely,

[Name redacted]

Shortly later came the following:

Hi-

Due to technical difficulties with our e-mail database you recently received an e-mail that was intended for House DFL Caucus members and staff. While there are no state secrets included, given the confidential nature of the content we would appreciate if you did not share the e-mail!

Thanks for your understanding and I’m sorry for any inconvenience.

Best,

[Another different redacted person]

Nah, I think I’ll circulate it.  Thanks anyway.

Over at the MInnPost, Karen Boros laments the near-demise of the City Hall reporter. She notes that thirty years ago, both papers, the TV stations and some of the radio operations all had reporters prowling both City Halls, actively working their sources for stories.

Then…?

Then someone invented the focus group – one of those gathering of citizens who are given nice snacks and asked to share their opinions on a product. One of the “products” they analyzed was the television news operation where I was a foot soldier.

What these citizens often said was that they did not want so much government news. They especially did not want Minneapolis City Hall news or St. Paul City Hall news, because many of them lived in the Happy Suburbs. News from the core city did not apply to their lives. Or so they thought.

So according to Boros, people moving to the “Happy Suburbs” (anyone else getting tired of the patronization, here?) got tired of city government news.

It’s a theory.  And I think it’s got merit – only Boros has it backwards.  And I think Karen Boros (who I’m going to use as a surrogate for the rest of the Twin Cities media) are at least in part to blame.

Both of the Twin Cities have been DFL fiefdoms and sinecures for generations – literally.  Since the forties.

And a key part of the infrastructure that has kept the DFL in office, in a place of honor alongside the unions, the public-service bureaucracy and the non-profits, has always been the Twin Cities media, whose bias toward the DFL has been palpable and constant.  No, not each and every reporter, every time; many reporters, even reporters with demonstrated political beliefs, did a perfectly fine job of staying personally detached.  But at the management and editorial level, the bias toward “progressivism” – they like to call it “Good Government” – has been a constant theme.   And that has been one of the many factors that have led the Twin Cities, like most major cities to have become one-party “progressive” hegemonies.

And that DFL hegemony has done what “progressive” one-party rule always does to cities; brought blight, misery, bloated budgets, a culture of entitlement (and I’m not talking welfare recipients, here), decayed and worthless schools.  Like many cities, the Twin Cities are slowly becoming enclaves of the wealthy and upper-middle class (Kenwood, Summit Avenue, Linden Hills, Saint Anthony Park) surrounded by neighborhoods that serve as warehouses for the poor administered by the social service bureaucracy, in turn surrounded by suburbs full of those who’ve had the option to secede from the system.

And the media dutifully played along, doing its bit to keep the DFL firmly in charge.  And a large part of the reason for the decline, decay and rot of the Cities must certainly be that when Boros conjures all those “tough questions” from the reporters of the past, it was never enough to make voters question the wisdom of the ruling one-party states the Cities had become.

And, tired of being the ATM machines and ripe sucks for the system, people moved to what Boros sneeringly calls “the Happy Suburbs”.  They pulled out of the the schools – leaving the school systems skewed and warped, and begging for warm bodies to put in seats.  They took jobs in the “Happy” and productive suburbs, skewing the machine’s assumptions about demography (and prompting an orgy of spending on transit and punitive taxes to try to corral them back downtown.  They moved to redder zip codes, changing the traditional political assumptions and slowly eroding the DFL’s power base, prompting ever-more-desperate gerrymandering to try to shore up the DFL’s power base.

For a couple of generations, people have been voting with their feet to try to reduce the power of the DFL, its minions and its machine in their lives.

Why should they want to get dragged back to it on the 6PM news every night?  It has nothing to do with them.  And they spent a lot of time, effort and money to make it that way.

Times and technology change. Now, those Minneapolis City Council meetings are telecast on Channel 79.  You can watch from the safety of your own living room as council members debate the fees to license a dog or work their way through the budget.  But you can’t ask questions after the meeting like a reporter can if they are in the building.

But if the reporters had asked the “tough questions” that really needed to be asked over the past sixty years – is this spending wise? Is Urban Renewal/tearing down Rondo and Phillips to make way for freeways/warehousing the poor in the inner city/the war on drugs a good idea in the long run?  Why do our schools get worse, the more money we throw at them? Is one-party rule, even if it is rule by people who reflect our worldview, the way to get better Cities? – then there might not have been a problem in the first place.

And if there are two competing reporters in the building, you know that each of them will be trying to get something for their story that the other won’t have. News is still a competitive business — which is why I miss that crowd of reporters.

But the media stopped asking the “tough questions” that mattered decades ago.  And long before bloggers took over the “asking tough questions of the DFL” beat that the media stopped bothering with, the people asked them themselves.  They did the only “City Hall Reporting” that really matters, and asked the toughest question of all; “are the taxes, the trouble, the crime, the denigration, the eroding standard of living, the systematic disenfranchisement of dissent, worth it?”

And the answer sent them not to the news stand, but to the, ahem, “Happy Suburbs”.

Boros blames the people who fled the cities for wanting news that made her beloved, mythical hard-nosed gumshoes obsolete.  But the media machine played its role in the flight in the first place.

Will they ever learn that lesson?

Jack Jablonski – the kid injured and potentially paralyzed after a hockey accident – is apparently moving his arms, which is a good sign:

Eight days after a check sent the Benilde-St Margaret’s hockey player into the boards breaking his spinal cord and paralyzing him, Jablonski moved his arms.

In an interview with several media members prior to Benilde-St Margaret’s hockey game Saturday night, Jack’s mother Leslie delivered the encouraging news.

Leslie Jablonski says Jack moved was able to flex his left arm at the elbow, something doctors intiially said he would not be able to do.  He also was able to move his right arm away from his body.

I promised someone I’d mention the case on the show over the weekend, and I may have booted it (sorry… :P) but hopefully this helps too…

By the way, the link to learn more about the case is right here.

Tim Tebow beats the Steelers,credits God, moves on:

“When I saw him scoring, first of all, I just thought, `Thank you, Lord,”‘ Tebow said. “Then, I was running pretty fast, chasing him — Like I can catch up to D.T! Then I just jumped into the stands, first time I’ve done that. That was fun. Then, got on a knee and thanked the Lord again and tried to celebrate with my teammates and the fans.”

Behind Tebow’s 316 yards passing, the Broncos (9-8) are heading to New England for a second-round game against the top-seeded Patriots on Saturday night.

And let the caterwauling begin.

Young mother erases drug-cadging stalking scumbag with a 12-gauge.

The more law-abiding Americans are armed, the better this country gets.

Rich Lowry at NRO on the shooting:

Instances of self-defense are the anecdotes that gun controllers never want to hear. The NRA keeps a running list of them on its website: attempted armed robberies, home invasions, and other attacks rebuffed every month by the would-be victims. Surely, Sarah McKinley’s assailants thought the young, slender, widowed mother was an easy mark. Her shotgun meant they were wrong. Who would have it any other way? Otherwise, the intruder has the knife and she has nothing except a cellphone and the wan hope that someone armed with a gun makes it to her in time.

It should be considered the moral duty of every law-abiding American to be able to do the same.

The media knows that Obama’s in trouble.  An incumbent elected in a near-landslide should not be flirting with “unelectable” numbers in the face of the GOP offerings in this campaign.

And so look for any pretense of “objectivity” to be more a joke than normal…

…as we saw in Saturdays’ debate, where George Stephanopoulos reprised his prior career as a Democrat spinmeister:

When questioning former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, Stephanopoulos, a former senior advisor in the administration of Democratic President Bill Clinton, premised some inquiries on the assertion — offered without supporting facts — that Romney’s job-creation statistics were inaccurate.

“Now, there have been questions about that calculation of 100,000 jobs. So if you could explain it a little more,” Stephanopoulos asked Romney of the former governor’s claims about jobs created by companies he has helmed. “I’ve read some analysts who look at it and say that you’re counting the jobs that were created but not counting the jobs that were taken away. Is that accurate?”

“No, it’s not accurate,” Romney bluntly responded. “It includes the net of both. I’m a good enough numbers guy to make sure I got both sides of that.”

Stephanopoulos did not cite any analysts by name.

All mainstream media – from the Big Three down to the Star/Tribune  – will check all claims of detachment at the door for the next 11 months.  Between now and November, I predict, will be the nadir – so far – of the American MSM’s propensity to bias.

Dave Osmek is running for State Senate.  Check out his campaign – and feel free to pony up a few bucks – at his campaign website.

And look here for more info on the Jack Jablonski situation.  Jack was gravely injured in a hockey accident about a week ago.  .And the American Spinal Injury Association is right here.

The 2012 Minnesota Organization of Bloggers Winter Party – the eighth annual – is coming up shortly!

When:  Saturday, February 25.  7PM until we’re done (11ish, usually).

Where: Ol’ Mexico in Roseville.  It’s on Lexington, about a block and a half north of Larpenteur:

View Larger Map

Hope to see you there!

Today, the Northern Alliance Radio Network brings you the best in Minnesota conservatism!

• Brad Carlson’s show – “The Closer” – is on from 1-3 on Sunday.
• Ed is in New Hampshire, and as this is written might join us from a studio in Nassagawpahaqua Crossing.  We’re on from 1-3PM Central. We’ll be talking the Iowa Caucus results, the outlook in the Granite state, and much more.  Also, we’ll have Mound city councilman Dave Osmek to talk about the real cost of light rail, and – in the 2PM hour – new MNGOP state chairman Pat Shortridge to talk about – well, what do you think, huh?
• The King Banaian Show! – King is on AM1570, Business Radio for the Twin Cities!  Join him from 9-11!

(All times Central)

So tune in to all six hours of the Northern Alliance Radio Network, the Twin Cities’ media’s sole guardians of sanity. You have so many options:

• AM1280 in the Metro
• streaming at AM1280’s Website,
• On Twitter (the Volume 2 show will use hashtag #narn2)
• UStream video and chat (at HotAir.com or at UStream) (not today – Ed’s got the camera).
• Good ol’ telephone – 651-289-4488!
• Podcasts are now available on the AM1280 page!  (Ed and I are #2 – Brad is #3).
• And make sure you fan us on our new Facebook page!

Join us!

Was George H. W. Bush a charlatan?

I mean, he wasn’t a Reagan-style conservative; during the 1980 nomination drive, he aggressively attacked Reagan’s economic proposals, calilng them “voodoo economics”, proposing a much Sturdevant-friendlier, “moderate”, less-anti-Keynesian approach to the economy.

He was wrong, Reagan was right.

And Reagan made damn sure everyone knew it, comdemning the elder Bush’s anti-Austrian apostasy with a vigor that destroyed Bush’s career in the GOP…

…wait.  No.  That’s not right.  Reagan made his case gently and with good humor and – for better or worse – brought Bush into his inner circle and reached out to his supporters and, most importantly, convinced them he had the right idea.  He beat Bush and the moderate wing of the party with fact, with rhetoric, with a better plan (in a year when the country didn’t want just an incremental rejection of Jimmy Carter and stagflation), and with the understanding that your opponents in February need to be your staunch, solid allies in November.

Which is why I’m concerned with some of the Romney-bashing I’m seeing.

Over at LFR, Gary Gross tucked into Romney yesterday, in a piece called “What’s In A Word”, as he – who is, to be sure, to the right of Romney on the great conservative continuum – has been wont to do this cycle:

Wednesday night, Hannity interviewed Sarah Palin. Though he didn’t say it in this interview, Hannity has repeatedly said that Mitt’s a conservative. Shame on him for pulling his punches with Mitt. It’s intellectually reprehensible for him to criticize the mediaa for not digging into President Obama’s past, then do a half-assed job of scrutinizing Mitt.

Now, before I get overwhelmed with comments and email from the “Anyone But Romney” (ABR)  crowd – I’m with Gary so far.  Scrutinize away.  Pull like crazy for your candidate, Newt or Santorum or Perry or Paul or Huntsman or, I don’t know, Mitt, even.  Now’s the time to stand on principle and accept no substitutes.

Go for it!

Here’s where I gotta push back, though:

If the gutless media, Hannity included, did their jobs, charlatans like Mitt Romney wouldn’t gain traction in a GOP presidential campaign. At minimum, they wouldn’t be allowed to call themselves conservatives. They could mouth the words but they’d be ridiculed mercilessly.

And as Reagan would say, “there you again”.  Let’s address Gary’s question, “what’s in a word?” – in this case, “conservative”.

What’s a “Conservative?”  In America, the inconvenient truth is that it means three different things, and that’s just counting significant American political movements:

• Southern Conservatives:  They are largely evangelical, and focused heavily on social issues – abortion, euthanasia, gun control, gay marriage – and, oddly, frequently quite comfortable with big government (because the South needed lots of government help to rebuild itself from the 1870’s through the 1940’s).  Think Mike Huckabee, and Dubya and to some extent Rick Santorum (although it’s not a perfect description, and these definitions allow for significant overlap) The media have spent the past thirty years trying to make this synonymous with “conservative” in the media – largely because it’s easy and convenient (albeit largely mistaken unto the point of group slander) to play the race card here, and partly because its overt connection to fundamentalist Christianity makes it big John Stewart-fodder.
• Western Conservatives: Think everyone from Reagan through the Tea Party; heavily libertarian, pro-growth, the bastard child of Jefferson and Jackson in many ways.  
• Northeastern Conservatives:  Soft on social issues, comfortable with big government (because that’s what most of the Northeast has and has always had), but pro-business (in many varying degrees) and pro-law-and-order (which, again, means many different things.  Think Nelson Rockefeller, George H. W. Bush, Rudy Giuliani, Brett Schundler, Chris Christie (and Arne Carlson, maybe, and that’s being charitable) and the guest of honor in this post, Mitt Romney.  

Every once in a while you run into a lawyer – or wannabe lawyer – whose idea of argument is to tell you “you’re not positive you don’t not know you’re right, are you? Are  you?  ARE YOU?”

The idea, of course, is to bog your own sense of logic and reason down with so many non-sequiturs and strawmen that you’re not sure you don’t not know you’re right.

Or something like that.

It may not make sense the way I explain it.  But if you watch what the partisan media will be doing this next eleven months, somehow it all makes sense.

It fits in with the great sales bromide “if you can’t dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with BS”.

Which brings us, for the final time, to Katrina Vanden Heuvel’s WaPo op-ed earlier this week in the Strib, which is to this year’s effort to make people ignore the question “are you better off now than you were four years ago?”

Third, the media’s obsession with false equivalence: How the election is covered will almost certainly have a measurable impact on its outcome.

When we think of this, conservatives may think of things like “the inexperienced and radically-connected Barack Obama not getting vetted as much as your typical mid-sized city mayor, while GOP candidates get their records gone over with electron microscopes”, or “The Twin Cities media gave Tom Emmer and all his contributors the equivalent of a rectal exam, while the sum total of the Strib’s coverage of Mark Dayton’s well-known mental illness and alcohol issues was a single story the January before the election, about eight months before anyone outside the wonk class gave a crap”.
That’s not what Vanden Heuvel means, of course:

The New York Times’ Paul Krugman describes what he’s witnessing as “post-truth politics,” in which right-leaning candidates can feel free to say whatever they want without being held accountable by the press.

There may be instances in which a candidate is called out for saying something outright misleading; but, as Krugman notes, “if past experience is any guide, most of the news media will feel as though their reporting must be ‘balanced.’ “

[MItch doesn’t even know what to say here.  He’s at a loss for words. I mean, the obvious – “Paul Krugman has become the nation’s crazy great-uncle, slowly descending into madness as the family watches the disintegration around the table every Thanksgiving” – but Krugman’s a gimme.  The idea that someone could say “political reporters strive for balance” is absurd on its face; the idea that they pull punches on Republicans because they want to appear balanced is less deranged than “there’s a bunch of elders of Zion that have these evil protocols…” only in a moral sense.  Anyway – Mitch is otherwise at a loss to address that last bit, and invites contributions from his reading audience – Ed]

In that world, candidates can continue to say things that are “flatly, grossly, and shamefully untrue,” as The Washington Post’s E.J. Dionne described it, without fear of retribution.

Obama has traveled the world and “apologized for America,” says Romney.

Except that, no, he hasn’t.

Wait – so the media is “biased toward conservatives” because they don’t attack conservatives’ opinions of Obama’s “America Last” philosophy in slavish detail?

The stimulus “created zero jobs,” says Rick Perry.

Except that it created or saved at least 3 million.

Wait – the media is “biased toward conservatives” because while reporting Republicans campaign rhetoric, they don’t counter with Obama Administration chanting points, which are themselves wrong and largely unchallenged in the mainstream “conservative” media?

Obama is going to “put free enterprise on trial,” claims Romney.

How does he square that with the nearly 3 million private-sector jobs created under Obama policies in the past 20 months?

And then, agreement with the Administraiton’s chanting points is the barometer of truth?

These three factors are key not only to understanding this campaign and election but to seeing just how far we have to go to reclaim a democracy that is driven by the people themselves.

The biggest factor in going as far as you “have to go”, if you’re on the left, is making people see everything but how far they’ve slipped since 2008.

Think the media is up to the job?

The Strib seems to be getting into its A game.

More over the next ten months or so.

It’s going to be a big show on the Northern Alliance Radio Network tomorrow.

For starters, we’ll have Mound city councilman Dave Osmek on, to talk about the story about light rail that you’re juuuust not hearing from the rah-rah mainstream media.

Then, we’ll be talking with newly-elected MNGOP chair Pat Shortridge about the way forward from the party’s mess, and – more importantly – how the MNGOP is going to capitalize on last year’s epic gains.

And there might be more.  Stay tuned!

Joe Doakes from Como Park writes:

Somebody got fired from a government panel that nobody knows existed, let alone what they do, and naturally it’s the Republicans’ fault.

Proof that we have too much government.

Joe Doakes

Como Park

Naturally.

And when King Banaian’s Sunset Commission goes into effect, the Strib will refer to all of the sunsetted boards and bodies “layoffs”.  Mark my words.

…and I don’t endorse violence against insane geriatrics…

(Language not safe for work – not even close)

…but if our idiot former governor did say “we deserve to lose some guys” at a wake for a dead SEAL, I can’t say as a defense attorney wouldn’t be justified in exercising their peremptory challenge to keep me off the jury, if I were the jury pool for a hypothetical assault trial.

Hypothetically.

(Via commenter PJKelly)

Talk about timely.

On the Northern Alliance on Saturday, I’ll be interviewing the new chairman of the Republican Party of Minnesota, Pat Shortridge.

We will, naturally, be taking calls.  If you have questions of the new chair, by all means tune in and call in.

The job of the part of the media that supports Democrats and Obama – let’s be honest, it’s most of them – is starting to coalesce around and about the big killer requirement for anyone who wants to see Obama re-elected: divert people from the essential question “are you better off now than you were four years ago?” by all means necessary.

Which brings us to Katrina Vanden Heuvel’s WaPo op-ed, which appeared in the Strib earlier this week.

 Second, the rise of super PAC spending: Among the most devastating consequences of the 2010 Citizens United ruling is the rise of organizations that are not required to disclose their donors but that can recruit and spend unlimited sums in direct support of candidates.

As opposed to the unions, which also recruit and spend fundamentally unlimited money in support of candidates, and had enough clout to get themselves mostly exempted from campaign finance reforms during the Bush years.

That money is apparently juuuust fine.

Thus far, these super PACs have reported spending nearly $7 million. Fred Wertheimer of the watchdog group Democracy 21 told USA Today that the organizations represent “the most dangerous vehicles for corruption in American politics today.”

But not unions – perish the thought – which have their own SuperPAC and have been flooding Washington and every state house with money forever, with no end in sight, and which apparently is not a “dangerous vehicle for corruption”

While super PACs may not coordinate directly with campaigns, there is little means of effectively enforcing that rule.

The treasurer of Mitt Romney’s super PAC, which spent $3.1 million in Iowa running mostly negative ads against his opponents, served as chief financial officer of Romney’s first presidential campaign.

Jon Huntsman’s super PAC, which has spent $1.9 million, is bankrolled, at least in part, by his father. President Barack Obama’s super PAC is run by Bill Burton, his 2008 press secretary and a close adviser who left his White House post to gear up for the election.

The question about super PACs is not whether they will have an impact but how big it will be and whether a people-powered movement can stop them.

…and what SuperPAC will bankroll that “People-Powered” movement.

“Campaign Finance Reform” is, inevitably, an effort to silence conservative speech.

And the only spending Vanden Heuvel cares about is the spending dedicated to sending Barack Obama back to community organizing.

By asking the question:  “Are you better off than you were four years ago?”

Tomorrow – Vanden Heuvel gets really dumb…

Over the past month, it’s come to my attention that I am the only Republican in Minnesota not getting money from either the Racino lobby, the Tribal lobby, or the anti-gambling lobby.

While I never, ever gamble, I’m also perfectly libertarian on the subject, and thus have no baggage on any side of the debate – making me the perfect spokesman for any take on the issue.

Please have your people call my people.  And get with the program.  Thanks.

As part of Barack Obama’s campaign to keep Americans from asking themselves the vital question “are you better off now than you were four years ago?”, they’re getting back to an oldie but goodie – one that’s been more or less on the sidelines since the end of the Healthcare debate; how anyone opposing Obama is some sort of “extremist” or another:

In keeping with its previous line of attack, the Obama campaign’s manager Jim Messina said in a statement that the “extremist Tea Party agenda won a clear victory” shortly after the results were announced early Wednesday.

“No matter who the Republicans nominate, we’ll be running against someone who has embraced that agenda in order to win — vowing to let Wall Street write its own rules, end Medicare as we know it, roll back gay rights, leave the troops in Iraq indefinitely, restrict a woman’s right to choose, and gut Social Security to pay for more tax cuts for millionaires and corporations.”

This from the administration that spent all fall using Social Security funding as a political football.

Messina also warned of “unprecedented” spending by outside groups on campaign ads and urged the president’s supporters to step up donations and on-the-ground organizing ahead of the November vote.

And remember – BOO!  Extremists are around every corner!

That was the line that a number of media outlets featured prominently on a couple of the evening newscasts last night – corn-fed, well-padded Minnesotans (of unrevealed political orientation, naturally) grumbling “I feel Michele Bachmann threw in her lot with Iowa”.

To all of those people; please take your faces and pound your kitchen counters with them for a few moments. I’ll tell you when to stop.

Keep going.

This is the USA.  We don’t have internal passports.  Decades of living in Minnesota, working in Minnesota, representing a district in the Minnesota Senate and then a Minnesota district in DC is not negated by observing a bit of Iowa heritage.  And – let’s face it – Minnesota’s provincialism is cute in an annoying kind of way at best, kind of pathetic at worst.

No, keep bashing.  I’m not done yet.

I live in Minnesota.  I grew up in North Dakota.  If I were running for President, I’d play that for whatever it was worth in both states  Because I can.  Because this isn’t a place where peasants are tied to the land, like a bunch of Russian serfs or Chinese subjects who need to show their papers to leave their home province.

No, keep bashing.

The fact that it’s mentioned at all in the media is part of the media’s attempt to start digging up anything they can find to try to jack Bachmann out of office next November.  They’ll need all they can get.

OK.  Stop bashing yoiur face now.

I hope we’ve learned our lesson.