defining moment

Uber political strategist Dick Morris called this Mitt Romney's "defining moment". I call it the moment he makes a liberal's head explode. Others have noted that the question was "right in his wheelhouse". And then some, I would add. Just imagine what it might be like to have a President who understands how business works.

9-12

Comment Buster

This RFL post is going for the comment record.

Comment 90:

The Rube Goldberg approach of creating layers and layers of arbitrary regulatory nonsense and then claiming it will cut costs while at the same time covering millions of more Americans for free is not something people are buying into and therefore it will never work.

Have you dudes on the Left even figured out yet whether or not a "public option" is an essential part of reform?

Let us know when you figure that one out and then ram the legislation through already with no Republican support if its such a swell idea.

I'm happy to hang all these bad policies around Obama's neck. Let's get this era over with, The Opacity of Hope or whatever.

Jon

serious leadership.

Stimulus?

The massive spending bill being debated this week on Capitol Hill is not a stimulus bill. The $819 billion pork laden bill passed the House of Representatives yesterday and is now going to the Senate. Despite the fact the Barack Obama went and visited House Republicans in an effort to get them on board, the only thing bi-partisan about the bill was that both Democrats and Republicans voted agaisnt it.

Eleven blue dog Democrats and each and every Republican in the House voted against consigning future generations to pay for the subsidization of liberal special interest groups like ACORN and pet projects like global warming research.

Perhaps some of the items in the bill are worthy, but apparently not many can be accurately argued to be stimulative to the economy. So what we have then is a massive Democratic pet project spending bill not too convincingly masquerading as an emergency economic stimulus bill. Thank god no Republican voted for this thing (John McCain hasn't voted yet). The Republicans might actually be becoming a viable party again that stands for something.

Sadly, it is the Republican alternative proposal (which was voted down) that stood a chance of actually stimulating the economy. Cutting taxes allows the private sector a better chance to begin to dig our way out of the recession rather than relying on government make-work projects and theoretical R & D type projects to somehow lift us out of the doldrums. By cutting the corporate tax businesses will be able to plow some more money back into their own business and eventually begin hiring rather than firing. And cutting the income tax understands that the people know better how to spend their own money than the state does.

Spending 2.4 billion dollars on "carbon-capture demonstration projects" won't do much to stimulate the economy. Cutting certain taxes will have an immediate effect.

If Barack Obama is truly a transformative and transformational leader, he will listen to the Republicans and in the 'stimulus' bill include some more serious tax cuts and dramatically less Democratic pie-in-the-sky pet projects.

It's that simple. Barack Obama's legacy and the future of this country are at stake.

Schism

There seems to be now a rift developing in the Republican ranks between the moderate and conservative wings of the party.

The following is comment I found on a friend's blog post concerning the future of the Republican party:

Hey what about Charlie Crist. He would get my vote. Long live the moderates!!
BTW. I firmly believe that if McCain had chosen Joe Lieberman rather then Palin he wins. Palin was clearly the choice of the RNC rather then McCain in my opinion. He lost because he chose to cave into the party and go right rather then stay center. I can name several Big Liberal who would have voted for a McCain Lieberman ticket rather then Obama.

While I respect this opinion because Republicans do need moderates in their ranks, I generally disagree with the conclusion that the party needs to essentially move to the left in order to be successful. The other school of thought, reflected by the above cartoon, is the camp that I find myself in moving forward.

The solution to this rift will be the ability of the party to rally behind a compelling leader who appeals to both moderates and conservatives. Someone competent who is yes, a conservative, but is not seen as someone who is necessarily on the far right.

I think we can all agree that a Democrat-light like John McCain, was clearly not the answer. After all, if you run a Democrat against a Democrat, the Democrat wins every time.

Rubbing raw the wounds

Just when I start to think that Mike Huckabee might be worthwhile, he begins to unravel and undermine any notion that he has something positive to contribute to the conservative movement.

The Huckster is on a book tour now bashing Mitt Romney again. And in a way Huckabee is the perfect foil for Romney. For all Romney's class and dignity, Huckabee is petty and classless. For all of Romney's patient logic, Huckabee is highly emotional and illogical. Who knows, if not for the collusion of McCain and Huckabee conspiring to destroy Romney in the Republican Primary, we may now have a president who actually knows something about the economy heading into this recession. Would have, could have, should have.

There is no point in rehashing the Republican Primary now. I've attacked Huckabee many times on this blog but even I tire of thrashing anyone who still wants to regard themselves as conservative. So I won't say any more about Huckabee other than to point out why his attacks against Romney are so laughable, namely this: All of Romney's criticisms of Huckabee, which occurred early on in the primaries and went away as soon as Huckabee became irrelevant, are provably true (that he raised taxes as Governor, for example). The converse also applies: All of Huckabee's attacks against Romney are provably false (that Romney is responsible for gay marriage in Massachusetts).

Mike Huckabee does himself a disservice by continuing to attack Romney simply because he's still smarting from Romney's legitimate and substantive attacks that were made nearly a year ago now. Think about this, would Huckabee be reacting this way still if Romney's attacks were baseless? People don't respond this vigorously to ridiculous and blatantly false accusations. It's precisely because Romney's critisms of Huckabee hit home so effectivley that the Huckster can't let this go.

Notice how Romney ignores Huckabee? That's the appropriate response to attacks that are not worth the time of day.

unreal

In an effort to influence the election by influencing voters, ABC News apparently edited out whole chunks of the Sarah Palin Charlie Gibson interview.

Here we go again with blatant left leaning media bias. I'm sure ABC News would argue that they edited for time constraints or some other lame argument, but the effect of editing out certain key passages of what Palin was saying had the obviously intended effect of making her appear less coherent on matters of foreign policy.

Why do liberals have to constantly cheat in a pathetic attempt to win the argument?

Here's some advice to ABC News: If you don't want to be accused of cheating and being guilty of left leaning media bias, just run the interview of a Republican candidate in it's entirety. Don't edit out whole passages of the strongest arguments of the candidate! Because we're gonna find out what you did, you stupid bastards.

Would it even be possible to have someone at ABC News editing the interview who isn't in the tank for Obama?

If Charlie Gibson had any knowledge of this insipid editing then he's no better than Dan Rather (who I'm sure most lefties privately regard as a hero for fraudulently trying to take down President Bush on the eve of the 2004 election).

Here's the full context of the foreign policy discussion with the bold and underlined sections being those that were conveniently left out in order to shape people's impression of Sarah Palin's grasp of the issues being discussed.

grand slam & smack down

In case you missed Sarah Palin's killer speech last night, like Barack did, here it is in it's entirety. It's gonna be pretty tough for McCain to top this speech, but clearly, picking Sarah as the VP nominee was a stroke of genius.

Fred Thompson, thy hitter of home-runs

Many of the pundits were raving about Joe Lieberman's speech last night but I was partial to Fred Thompson's, I thought his speech was excellent.

He delivered a masterful blend of story telling and red meat dispensing. Fred Thompson knows how to get my conservative leaning juices flowing. He used his acting skills to regale the hall with perhaps the most interesting and compelling account of John McCain's POW experience and then he delved into some of the reasons as to why Obama is decidedly unprepared and unqualified to be president. Here are some of the best lines of the night delivered by Fred Thompson.

On McCain's Hanoi Hilton experience:

We hear a lot of talk about hope.

John McCain knows about hope. That's all he had to survive on. For propaganda purposes, his captors offered to let him go home.

John McCain refused.

He refused to leave ahead of men who'd been there longer.

He refused to abandon his conscience and his honor, even for his freedom.

He refused, even though his captors warned him, "It will be very bad for you."

They were right.

It was.

On tele-prompters:

Because John McCain stood up our country is better off.

The respect he is given around the world is not because of a teleprompter speech designed to appeal to American critics abroad, but because of decades of clearly demonstrated character and statesmanship.

On Democrats:

To deal with these challenges the Democrats present a history making nominee for president.

History making in that he is the most liberal, most inexperienced nominee to ever run for President. Apparently they believe that he would match up well with the history making, Democrat controlled Congress. History making because it's the least accomplished and most unpopular Congress in our nation's history.

Together, they would take on these urgent challenges with protectionism, higher taxes and an even bigger bureaucracy.

And a Supreme Court that could be lost to liberalism for a generation.

This is not reform.

And it's certainly not change.

On taxes:

A President who feels no need to apologize for the United States of America.

We need a President who understands that you don't make citizens prosperous by making Washington richer, and you don't lift an economic downturn by imposing one of the largest tax increases in American history.

Now our opponents tell you not to worry about their tax increases.

They tell you they are not going to tax your family.

No, they're just going to tax "businesses"! So unless you buy something from a "business", like groceries or clothes or gasoline ... or unless you get a paycheck from a big or a small "business", don't worry ... it's not going to affect you.

They say they are not going to take any water out of your side of the bucket, just the "other" side of the bucket! That's their idea of tax reform.

In conclusion, a salute to McCain:

Tonight we are being called upon to stand up for a strong military ... a mature foreign policy ... a free and growing economy and for the values that bind us together and keep our nation free.

Tonight, we are being called upon to step up and stand up with John just as he has stood up for our country.

Our country is calling.

John McCain cannot raise his arms above his shoulders.

He cannot salute the flag of the country for which he sacrificed so much. Tonight, as we begin this convention week, yes, we stand with him.

And we salute him.

We salute his character and his courage.

His spirit of independence, and his drive for reform.

His vision to bring security and peace in our time, and continued prosperity for America and all her citizens.

For our own good and our children's, let us celebrate that vision, that belief, that faith so we can keep America the greatest country the world has ever seen.

Fred Thompson, thy hitter of home-runs.

Sarah Palin

It appears as though McCain will pick Sarah Palin, the Governor of Alaska, as his Vice presidential running mate.

Putting aside the transparent identity politics play of this decision for the moment, I give McCain credit for picking someone with at least some executive experience.

If Sarah Palin is the Vice Presidential nominee, at least one of the four politicians on the two major party tickets will at least have had some experience running something. The other three: Obama, Biden, and McCain have never run so much as a corner store let alone something like the US Government, the largest enterprise in the world.

But then again I could just be being petty by imagining that the CEO of the free world essentially, should have at least some experience running something other than a self-serving political campaign.

Enter Sarah Palin, a fresh face with executive experience who represents an obvious attempt by the McCain campaign to win over disaffected Hillary voters. I wish her and McCain luck in their quest to defeat the Obama juggernaut and his getaway driver, the mainstream media.

McCain/Palin '08.

UPDATE: As of 10:40 a.m. eastern it has been confirmed that Sarah Palin is indeed McCain's VP pick.

the Huckster: part deux

As a Romney supporter, there's one thing I can always safely rely on John McCain for. That is, doing whatever it is that hurts Mitt Romney and those that support him the most.

So to find out that McCain is about to pick the amiable Southern Baptist pastor Mike Huckabee as his vice presidential running mate is clearly more disappointing than it is surprising. Come to think of it, it makes perfect sense for the pseudo-Republican "Maverick", John McCain, to have Mike Huckabee, the populist preacher/charlatan, as his right hand man. And then there's all the electoral benefits of the political betrothal of Juan Pablo McCain and Mike "Chuckabee" Huckabee detailed here.

McStain

John McCain did not win amongst Republican voters tonight in a race that was supposedly a "closed" primary. I guess it was wishful thinking to assume that everything would be on the up-and-up in the land of 'hanging chads'. Exit polling data showed that Romney won by a few percentage points amongst actual Republicans, but McCain ended up defeating Romney once all of the non-conservative and independent votes were counted. Apparently independents showed up at polling places and declared themselves Republicans on the spot and promptly voted for McCain. Call me crazy, but I was under the impression that these events were 'the Republican primaries' not merely primary events in which Republicans happened to be running.

"Romney won [The GOP vote] 33-31 according to CNN exits. Even in Florida, independents were McCain's margin of victory. Kind of incredible." -Rich Lowry

According to the exit polls in tonight's "Republican" Primary, only 8 in 10 voters were actually registered Republicans. Somehow Independents and Democrats managed to account for 20 percent of the Florida Republican primary vote again corrupting the process and making it look more and more like the general election choice will between a Democrat and Democrat pretending to be a Republican. The New York Times will be pleased.

I wonder if now McStain will at least stop inventing facts about his opponents. I guess we'll see what lies he comes up with about either Hillary or Obama. It will be poetic justice to have the McStain dishonor campaign go up against the Clinton character assassination attack machine. After all, they essentially have the same campaign strategy, characterized by avoiding mentioning their own shaky records and instead simply making up lies about and personally attacking the character of their opponents. And on a side note, they also both have their own special type of creepy laugh. The forced, inappropriate cackle of Hillary will go up against the angry and over-confident snicker of old man McStain. These two candidates, Hillary and McCain, do truly deserve each other.

It's still hard to comprehend that all of the sleazy tactics of McStain ultimately paid off tonight. After all the lies, all the distortions, all the personal attacks, all the robo-calls and the push polling, all the tag teaming and piling on with help from henchman Huckabee and this is how the results turn out? It's hard to be optimistic about our country tonight, the dumbing down of America is in full effect.

And as if the tag team duo of McStain and Hackleberry wasn't enough, it now appears that Giuliani will bow out and endorse McStain. If you didn't have a reason to question the conservative credentials of Giuliani before, you do now.

I haven't quite given up hope yet that there might be some conservative representation moving forward into November but tonight it's hard to see the silver lining. If there are any conservatives left in America, I urge you to please vote for Mitt Romney because any Republican who votes for McCain is either not any kind conservative, a shockingly uninformed conservative, or a RINO.

A sad state of affairs

Strategery

John Kass of the Chicago Tribune is urging conservatives to cease the 'whompin' of John McCain.

"While they're whomping, they might want to answer this question: Don't they want to win the White House?

Or would they feel better if Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama were commander in chief, dealing with the Islamofascists, filling a vacancy on the Supreme Court and turning the Justice Department over to a big city political machine?"

As a Romney supporter, I have to admit that I have used this kind of an argument to attempt to convince people not to vote for Mike Huckabee. My rationale is simple; if Huckabee wins the nomination, he will certainly lose the general election almost solely because he does not believe in Darwin's theory of evolution. I simply don't believe that Americans, in this day and age, would elect such a blatant enemy of science and scientific advancement.

But the argument that I had better embrace McCain or face the prospect of a Barack Obama presidency, for example, is not convincing. I know that it's a conservative apostasy to say this, but I think I would prefer Obama to McCain at this point, so to try to scare me with an Obama presidency rings hollow.

Hillary Clinton is attacking Obama on the campaign trail today because in a radio interview Obama conceded that, "I think it's fair to say that the Republicans were the party of ideas for a pretty long chunk of time there over the last 10 to 15 years in the sense that they were challenging conventional wisdom."

Obama is of course, correct. Whether Republicans can still claim to be the party of ideas is perhaps debatable, but this statement by Obama shows remarkable frankness and an accurate grasp of reality.

Hillary responded in a nasty tone, "That's not the way I remember the last ten to fifteen years."

Here we have an example of the stark contrast of old style partisanship -not willing to concede anything- versus forward looking open-mindedness and a willingness to bring in new ideas, regardless of the source. This is a mature attitude for Obama to adopt and I have to say that I am impressed.

In another study of contrast, McCain seems anything but mature at times. In his ABC New Hampshire debate performance he looked at times childish, petty, and thin-skinned. Couple this with the fact that his 'maverick' attitude seems at times to adopt the contrarian view simply for the sake of being contrarian and we have a picture of a man who, like Hillary, represents the old style of ego-politics. McCain seems obsessed with showing that he is own man at the expense of his own willingness to listen to good ideas. In this regard Obama seems to have much more of a sensible and reasonable approach. As right leaning individuals, we don’t ask that liberals become conservatives overnight, but a willingness to at least listen to conservative ideas and not dismiss them out of hand like Hillary Clinton would is refreshing. Maybe there is something to the ‘new politics’ that Obama seems to be peddling. One thing is sure, Hillary Clinton represents the old guard, characterized by bitter partisanship, the politics of polarization, and the politics of personal destruction. There is not a more divisive figure in American politics than Hillary Clinton.

I would welcome a debate on ideas between Mitt Romney and Barack Obama and I hope that they both win their respective nominations. Both men strike me as honorable and earnest in their desire to improve the country. Of course, because Republicans are more interested in substance than they are flowery rhetoric, we have the benefit of knowing a lot more about what Romney would do as president when compared to the tabula rasa of Barrack Obama. And While Romney has had to go into much greater detail about issues of policy than any Democrat has ever been asked to, we can at least have the 'audacity to hope' that Obama would be a president who would listen to well reasoned ideas regardless of the source.

I really don’t care if Hillary is considered more beatable than Obama in a general election and similarly, I don’t care if McCain is considered more viable than Romney in a general election. It’s time to dump the old guard, time to bring about more solutions instead of more Hillary Clinton 90’s style partisanship and/or the ego trip of John McCain.

"Manifestly the best candidate."

Ann Coulter has written a very illuminating and somewhat scathing article explaining to Republican voters, hopefully once and for all, that Mitt Romney is "...manifestly the best candidate."

Coulter makes an argument that I have been making for about six months now and that Rush Limbaugh has been hinting at lately. The argument is essentially this:

"The candidate Republicans should be clamoring for is the one liberals are feverishly denouncing. That is Mitt Romney by a landslide."

Coulter chides voters who have thus far supported Mike Huckabee and/or John McCain. And as I have pointed out in various formats, the votes for McCain or Huckabee are derived from almost any other method than critical thinking. Emotion, identity politics, popularity contest, nostalgia, random implulses ... pick your poison, but those who take a moment to think things through in only even the most minor of ways will arrive at the same unmistakable conclusion that Ms. Coulter has.

"One clue that Romney is our strongest candidate is the fact that Democrats keep viciously attacking him while expressing their deep respect for Mike Huckabee and John McCain."

Coulter brazenly chastises her own audience, urging Republican voters to "...please do one-tenth as much research before casting a vote in a presidential election as you do before buying a new car."

I share her frustration with some of the voters so far who, other than in Michigan and Wyoming, seem to treat the election with a noticeable lack of seriousness and due diligence. It would be nice if voters could take a break from watching American Idol and tracking the latest Britney Spears news long enough to put at least some thought into who should be elected as the next leader of the free world.

Chaos Theory?

Does Romney's win in Michigan represent a three way split for the Reagan Coalition?

I know what my answer is. Here's a hint... No. Romney is strong in all three areas of concern: Economic, National Security, and Social.

On the heels of tonight's Romney win comes the latest talking point out of the McCain camp, that Romney was somehow against the surge and has been or is anti-Iraq war. Just like the McCain campaign would like us to believe that McCain is a tax cutter and that he's tough on illegal immigration, this 'Romney was anti-war' argument is divorced from reality. Let me save the McCain camp countless advertisement dollars.

There is no substantive piece of evidence that you can point to that suggests that Romney has been or is anti-Iraq war.

If I was advising the McCain campaign, I'd advise against attacking Romney for not being Hawk-ish enough on the war in Iraq. It would further burnish the notion that McCain is a one issue candidate. That, and it has no basis in objective reality. Romney, by no stretch of the imagination, has ever been opposed to the surge. Short of jumping up and down with pom poms, Romney has been in full support of our efforts in Iraq. Let us also remember that on the issue of torture, that while McCain has the high moral ground for being categorically against it, Romney has the more responsible and more practical approach by not arbitrarily ruing it out. So if anything, McCain is weak on national security when compared directly to Romney. In any event, there simply is no running room with this issue for McCain based upon objective reality.

Romney takes Michigan

Escape & Evasion

Fred Thompson was strong in last night's South Carolina GOP debate. For once, it wasn't only Romney who effectively targeted Mike Huckabee for the pretender that he is.

In one exchange, Thompson ticked off a devastating litany of the not-so-conservative credentials of Mr. Huckabee. When given the chance to respond, as pointed out by the guys at Powerline, Huckabee addressed exactly none of the very valid points made by Thompson.

Instead, Huckabee smiled and trotted out one of his tired cliches:

"The Air Force has a saying that says that if you're not catching flak, you're not over the target. I'm catching the flak, I must be over the target."

This huckster-ism wasn't even appropriate. He's certainly not "catching flak" because he is too conservative, that's for sure. In fact, exactly the opposite. If the "target" is Reagan conservatism, he's at least three timezones away from being "over the target". Chuckabee must have zoned out during Thompson's laundry list because this generic answer, meant to charm the audience, was not a good fit rhetorically based upon what Thompson said.

I, for one, have had my fill of one-liners and quips in this election cycle. Mike Huckabee is trying to smile and wise crack his way into the White House at this point. He's the used car salesman of Presidential politics.

Here's what Thompson said of Huckabee to which the silver tongued Huckster escaped and evaded with no substantive response:

"This is a battle for the heart and soul of the Republican Party and its future. On the one hand, you have the Reagan revolution. You have the Reagan coalition of limited government and strong national security.

On the other hand, you have the direction that Governor Huckabee would take us in. He would be a Christian leader, but he would also bring about liberal economic policies, liberal foreign policies. He believes we have an arrogant foreign policy and the tradition of, blame America first. He believes that Guantanamo should be closed down and those enemy combatants brought here to the United States to find their way into the court system eventually. He believes in taxpayer-funded programs for illegals, as he did in Arkansas. He has the endorsement of the National Education Association, and the NEA said it was because of his opposition to vouchers. He said he would sign a bill that would ban smoking nationwide. So much for federalism. So much for states' rights. So much for individual rights.

That's not the model of the Reagan coalition, that's the model of the Democratic Party."

Right on Fred, right on.