As a Jewish person with a fair degree of historical literacy about my faith, I am fully aware of the historical resonance of the term “blood libel”.

And I’m fully comfortable with Sarah Palin using it in this circumstance in which, like the Jews of the original blood libel, conservatives, Tea Party supporters, and Palin herself have been recklessly smeared by the liberal media and leftist politicians by being accused of having blood on their hands– a charge of which they are entirely innocent.  In fact, “blood libel” is a perfect metaphor for what is going on here.

Which brings me to a larger point about Sarah Palin–Generally speaking, I have always been a fan, even though we come from very different cultural and religious backgrounds.  I was delighted when McCain put her on the ticket. But as a Presidential candidate I’ve always had reservations about her– with her occasionally excessive “freelancing”  and because (as an academic) I would like to see her address policy in a more detailed and substantive way.

But watching the entirely predictable reaction to this episode, this Jew has had his own “Road to Damascus” moment.  And my realization is simply this:  No one on the right exposes the true insanity of the left better than Sarah Palin– No one else exposes them for the unhinged, unprincipled cowards that they are.  No one else is so unafraid to take them on whatever the consequences.

Sarah Palin is a fighter, and we desperately need fighters, if we are going to turn back the statist nightmare envisioned by our leftist overlords.  I might personally be more comfortable engaging in policy wonkery with a Mitch Daniels or Mitt Romney, but neither of those men have the power to expose our enemies and send them into paroxysms of blind rage like Palin does.

Palin is the one that they hate.  She is the one that they fear.  She is the one that they know can tear down their false idols.  She can lead conservatives as we attempt to cleanse the temple of American Constitutional governance and rededicate it to our founding principles.

And that’s why, as of right now, she not only has my support in this controversy, she has my vote for President.

I got a little nervous after reading a couple of recent polls (one by a Democratic firm PPP) that showed a dead heat in CO-Sen– but I felt a lot better after looking at the just released actual vote totals.

About 27% of the 2006 vote total has already been counted in 2010 (more than 440,000 votes.) Of those votes 41.7% were Republicans and 36.0% were Democrats.  As the most recent 200,000 absentees have come in, the Republican share has dropped only from 42.1% to 41.7% while the Democratic share has dropped from 37.0% to 36.0%.  This indicates that Republican share of the two-party vote is increasing as the vote count continues.  This is also a considerably better split than that assumed by PPP, which assumes a 38% to 35% Republican turnout lead.  With approximately 1/4 of the votes already in, Bennett needs a much better Democratic turnout with remaining voters to hit those 38-35 numbers.

Even better news from Survey USA, which also showed a 47%-47% tie in their results.  According to the Survey USA results 51% of Bennett voters had already voted vs. only 45% of Buck voters.  Yet the current turnout numbers suggest a 5.6% Republican turnout advantage, which strongly indicates that Survey USA has oversampled Bennett voters.  If Republicans are turning out 6% more than Demorcats in the real election, but polls are showing that more Bennett voters have already voted than Buck voters, I really like our chances here.

“A year before the National Reviewwas founded, I spent an evening with Whittaker Chambers, and he asked me, half provocatively, half seriously, what exactly my prospective journal would seek to save. I trotted out a few platitudes, of the sort one might expect from a twenty-eight year fogy, about the virtues of a free society. He wrestled with me by obtruding the dark historicism for which he had become renowned. Don’t you see? He said.The West is doomed, so that any effort to save it is correspondingly doomed to failure. I drop this ink stain on the bridal whiteness of this fleeted evening only to acknowledge soberly that we are still a long way from establishing, for sure, that Whittaker Chambers was wrong.But that night, challenged by his pessimism, I said to him that if it were so that providence had rung up our license on liberty, stamping it as expired, the Republic deserved a journal that would argue the historical and moral case that we ought to have survived: that, weighting the alternative, the culture of liberty deserves to survive”

-William F. Buckley, remarks at the National Review’s 30^th Anniversary Banquet, to an audience including guest of honor Ronald Reagan.

I’ll confess to being a resident“Whittaker Chambers” at this site.While I’m very optimistic about the upcoming elections, when I look at the broader trends in our society—cultural, economic, demographic, and social, I am unfortunately rather baleful about the long term prospects for our country and for American conservatism.

But that’s not what I want to write about tonight—Instead, I’d like to take a tone of hope.

During the 2008 election cycle, I was despairing, as I had been for several cycles before that about the future of our country. And what upset me most was not that we lost but that we nominated a candidate, who, despite having certain personal strengths, seemed to encompass so much of what was wrong with the Republican party’s Washington culture—And this was after two terms of big-government “compassionate” conservatism, joined witha seemingly daily stream of reports of Republican corruption in dealings with lobbyists etc. What’s more, I felt that those of us who attempted to reach out to change things were generally met with scorn and hostility by the party establishment.

What a difference two years makes.I got involved early in the Tea Party movement and supported grassroots Constitutional conservative challengers to a corrupt establishment.And with the support of so many at Red State (and in particular with Erick Erickson’s leadership here), we have created a movement that has shaken the foundations of Washington and struck fear into the hearts of our enemies.

We’re not going to win all of our races during this election cycle. And we can expect the liberal establishment’s attacks to take on an even greater hysteria.But when I look out at the grassroots conservative movement today and the candidates that we have nominated, I can’t help but feeling a tremendous degree of satisfaction.

We may or may not win in the long run, but we have put out a message and a group of candidates that deserve to win, and those candidates are delivering the conservative message without equivocation or apology.After many years in the post-Reagan wilderness, We are finally offeringAmericans “A choice, not an echo”And for that, I am both proud and grateful.

Are you, or are you not, going to support the Republican nominee for the U.S.  Senate in Alaska?

We know that you are already calling on your buddies at the NRSC to help with the vote count.  The least we could expect at the end of that process is that you are going to honor the result.

You are saying now that it’s “too premature” to speculate on whether or not you would make an independent or third-party run if you lose the final count.

No it’s not to premature to speculate. Let me end that “speculation” for you right now.

You are a Republican officeholder from the state of Alaska. You and your father have been supported by the money and efforts of countless members of the Republican Party for decades. If, after all that, you cannot decide IMMEDIATELY and without weasel words whether or not you are going to respect the will of the Republican voters of Alaska, you are not fit to be supported by the Republican Party or hold office as a member of that party.

To be clear, if you make a declaration to respect the result and if you win the nomination, I will support your candidacy, despite the fact that I strongly supported Joe Miller in the primary.  But if you will not immediately make such a declaration, I call on the NRSC and the Republican Party to declare Joe Miller the presumed victor in the race and to dedicate their resources to bolster him immediately against the avalanche of Democratic Party attacks that are already beginning.   A close election and a possible recount unavoidably put our party in a difficult situation– the least we can expect when we come out of it is that the will of Alaska’s Republican voters is respected.

If you agree, call or email the NRSC (202-675-6000 or info@nrsc.org) and let them know that it’s time for Lisa Murkowski to let us know in no uncertain terms where her loyalties lie. 

The post of the excellent and much-recommended Diary “Nathan Hale– How much do you love liberty?” caused me to reflect on a few things.

Hale’s bronze statue sits in front of Connecticut Hall at Yale University where he lived as student before graduating in 1773.   The top givers to Yale are  honored as “Nathan Hale Associates”.

I saw Hale’s statue this weekend when I was back on Yale’s campus for my fifteenth reunion.  The class of 1945 was also present, for their final (65th) official reunion.  As they walked slowly around campus, I could see many of them fondly recalling their youthful days.

At the close of our reunion, all of the classes gather together in Yale Commons for an all class breakfast.  Commons is a magnificient and imposing structure at the heart of Yale’s campus. It was A Greek/Roman style building modeled after an ancient original and  constructed as a war memorial for Yale’s dead in World War I.  Anyone who has seen it recognizes it as an emotional  and  aesthetic centerpiece of Yale’s beautiful campus. At one point after I had eaten, I wandered back into the marble rotunda in Commons, on which are etched the names, dates, and places of death for all of Yale’s war dead, starting with a large number who fought for our Independence in the American Revolution– Nathan Hale was among them.

Scanning the list of World War II, I counted 70 names from the class of 1945 that would not live to see their graduation (this is out of maybe 1000 students total that would have been in that class).  I thought of the experience that these older men I saw today had had as young boys, and how much they had sacrificed- and how sadly shallow by comparison my own class was.

On my way out of the Rotunda, I made sure to find a couple of the members of the class of 1945 to thank them for their sacrifice.

Unfortunately, like many American institutions Yale has, in many ways, fallen greatly from its glory days. The “old blues” scorned by many contemporaries for having benefited from privileges of race, class and gender, didn’t hesitate to risk their lives  when their country called in an hour of need.  By contrast, my own class, a product of the so-called meritocracy, has no names on the memorial wall– and few who have served at all in our armed forces.

If you are looking for symbols of the decline of our elite institutions, you needn’t look much further than our “Best universities” that produce investment bankers and “social activists” by the thousands, but are very unlikely to produce a Nathan Hale for this generation.

Sarah Palin gets it.

There’s a reason why the left-wing press is out to flay Rand Paul (a story that, started, not so-coincidentally, on government-sponsored NPR).

It’s because the Tea Party movement that both Palin and Paul represent is a threat to their power.

It’s because his views that people should have a right to determine how they use their own property is a threat to the left’s view view that the government should control how everyone gets to use their property.

It’s because by using the false smear of racism that Rand Paul has never and will never endorse, and the evil specter of Jim Crow laws, which were enforced by the state the liberals worship, they seek to make permanently illegitimate principled criticism of their own state-enforced racist policies (frivolous “Disparate impact” lawsuits, affirmative action, racial quotas, minority set-aside contracts, and many other obscenities.)

When is the last time the Republicans in Congress have made any serious efforts to attack any of these state-sponsored racist attacks on the equality of each citizen before the law? (sound of crickets chirping.)

These are not some hypothetical Jim Crow questions from 50 years ago, but actual instances of racist discrimination today. All of these are the result, directly or indirectly, of liberal activist judges and bureaucrats running amok with the Civil Rights Act, just as principled conservative opponents (such as Barry Goldwater, a life member of the NAACP) feared that it would.

Do I wish Rand Paul had brought the conversation to the policies of today rather than getting caught up in the left-wing media’s trap? Absolutely. But am I glad he is willing to talk honestly about these issues and make the left defend their views? Absolutely. By attacking Rand Paul, they want to make you think that you are alone. But you are not alone.

Predictably, the Lindsey Graham/David Frum/Michael Gerson wing of the Republican party has been quick to attack him. Encouragingly many conservatives, RedStaters among them, have sprung to his defense. This is (as Thatcher would say) no time to go wobbly.

When the left attacks ferociously it is because they are afraid—afraid their racist, socialist policies of today (not hypothetical questions about policies of a half century ago that I, Rand Paul, and 99% of Americans condemn) will be exposed.

Did anyone ever give you the impression taking our government back from the left’s socialist and racist power structure would be easy? It will not be easy. They don’t care about fighting Mitch McConnell because Mitch McConnell doesn’t threaten their power. Rand Paul does. They are going to be vicious. They are going to use the worst, McCarthyist smear tactics. But we have one comeback—We can take on their hysterical rhetoric and win the election anyway. And I firmly believe we will do that in Kentucky.

From Nikki Haley to Mike Lee to Allen West, there are a number of amazing conservative candidates I’ve felt genuinely privileged to donate money and time to this cycle. But Rand Paul stands at the head of that list. So much of what passes for conservatism these days is really just a desperate attempt to defend what is left of our premises (liberty, private property, traditional  values) from the continual assault by liberal forces. We’re constantly playing football in the shadow of our own end zone, thrilled if we can somehow eke out a three or four yard gain against the left that gets us to our own 10 yard line.

But throughout this campaign, Rand Paul has been forcing the left to play on their side of the field. They aren’t used to it, and they will howl and scream and use every dirty trick in the book to avoid doing it. But we need to make them do it anyway. Because forcing *them* on defense and putting the ball on their side of the field is the only way conservatives can win the game in the long-term, rather than just attempt to lose by a narrower margin.

Stacy McCain has a wonderful defense of Rand Paul that everyone should read, pointing out that Rand Paul’s views are not some strange esoteric Libertarian theory, but part and parcel of our conservative tradition. At one point in it, he notes:

“Well, it’s still a free country, and you are free to throw Buckley, Reagan and Goldwater under the bus along with Rand Paul.”

And indeed some Republicans and so-called “conservatives” will do just that. But I’m not going to throw Reagan under the bus. And I’m not going to throw Buckley under the bus. And I’m not going to throw Goldwater under the bus.

And I’m sure as heck not going to throw Rand Paul under the bus.

And neither should you.

Instead we should hold our ground and look forward to November, when we will hear the sound of anguished but impotent wails from liberals as they vent their fury on the newly elected conservative Republican Senator from Kentucky.

After reading ColdWarrior’s excellent diary from several days back about our grassroots victory in Utah and a spectacularly irritating and disingenuous op-ed from the Salt Lake Tribune decrying the same. I started thinking about some of the broader issues about our victory Utah and what we can do to build on it elsewhere.

It is no accident that we have had two major grassroots victories in Utah recently—Jason Chaffetz’s thumping of Chris Cannon last election cycle and the booting of Bob Bennett—this cycle. As the Tribune editorial makes clear—with its breathless invocations of “smoke-filled rooms” (Not likely in the Utah Republican party, I’d think) is that (much as they hate it)—as an incumbent accountability tool, conventions are outstanding

The Tribune article calls Bennett “ a clear favorite of the Republican rank and file in public opinion polls, may well have won.” While that statement is factually debatable it’s also irrelevant—or should be.

Lets face some honest facts—most Republican rank and file voters have absolutely no clue about what is really going on in Washington—that’s not a slam on those voters—like many of us, they are busy doing their jobs, chasing after the kids, or whatever other important things take up their time—and they don’t have time to pay close attention to politics. So they see a bunch of news puff-pieces and slick campaign ads by Bob Bennett and they think he’s doing a good job. But grassroots activists know better.

The Salt Lake Tribune seems to think the whole convention process is an affront to democracy—but to my mind it’s a wonderful example of republican politics (in the classical sense) in action. Our candidate selection processes currently suffers from an excess of democracy—incumbents and anyone who can raise a bunch of money to buy fancy commercials have a huge advantage.

Rather than succumb to democratic excess, the Republican party should follow the founders’ example and build a check on the system—potential candidates should be chosen by the most committed and knowledgeable voters—the types that will show up at a caucus or convention. After they select the most promising candidates, the people should have a chance to choose between them in all of their democratic glory. As activists, we should be focusing on how to bring a Utah-type system to more states—since that is the best way of bringing accountability.

While Utah’s system isn’t perfect, it is far from just an insider’s only system (which I am not suggesting we adopt– any process we adopt should be open to any Republican voter willing to put in some time at a caucus or convention). In Utah, starting with caucuses in which ~15% of registered Republicans participated, delegates were selected to the convention. Contrary to the breathless insinuations of the Salt Lake Tribune, those voters knew darn well that they were voting to get rid of Bennett. Any reader of RedState pretty much knew Bennett was a goner the day the Utah Caucuses ended.

There are some problems (IMHO) with Utah’s system. Allowing the convention to narrow things down to two candidates is probably too much power to give to a convention if there is no incumbent running—three might be better. And 60% seems like an awfully low threshold to select a nominee without going to the general electorate. One could also envision a higher standard for incumbents (i.e. an incumbent who couldn’t break 35% at a convention on the first ballot is automatically booted). But these are details.

The central point is that, as a party, we should remember we don’t want to just throw our nomination process to whoever has been in office the longest or can run the most campaign commercials. We need to encourage activism and there should be a role for the most knowledgeable and committed voters to have an important place in the candidate selection process. If we want to take back the party, we need to change not just our candidates, but the rules of the game that are in most cases, now stacked against us.

There’s a meme that keeps floating around the news stories about the demise of Bob Bennett’s Senate career.  According to the litany, he was rejected because he was an incumbent, and because he voted for TARP, and bailouts.

I’m not from Utah, so I’ll tread a bit carefully here, but from my perspective as a Mike Lee donor, that isn’t why Bob Bennett had to go.  After all, people like Paul Ryan  voted for TARP, and the bailouts (both big mistakes in my opinion), and he is an incumbent.  Yet, he’s generally a very popular figure in the conservative grassroots.

So It wasn’t his individual votes but something else about Bob Bennett– and let me speculate on what that something else was.  More than any particular vote Bennett was voted out because, despite coming from one of the reddest states in the country, he was never a leader for conservatism.  I don’t always agree with Paul Ryan, but I get a strong sense from his overall performance (particularly considering that he is from a marginal district)  that he cares about consevatism, and is willing to advance bold conservative policies, and to be a public spokesman for conservative political positions.  That’s more than enough to make me enthusiastic about someone, even if I really dislike a few of their votes.

In contrast, as someone who is not from Utah, but who pays close attention to national politics, I almost never saw Bennett out there in front of an issue– making a powerful case for conservative policies and castigating liberal ones– even though he would have been politically safe in doing so, unlike many Republicans from more marginal states and districts.

I can’t recall him taking initiative to create conservative legislation (as opposed to just “voting the right way”) and he did nothing to check, and much to foment, the free-spending excesses of the most recent Republican rule on Capitol Hill.  Plus he was one of the closest supporters of Mitch McConnell, a man who seems to pretty much define the failed Republican establishment .  In other words, while his votes might not have been terrible overall, there was just nothing about Bob Bennett that really justified sending him back to Washington.

Simply put, he was a waste of a Senate seat for conservatives.  There’s no reason we should expect anything less than an outstanding conservative in that seat.  And since Mike Lee has now advanced into the runoff, we don’t have to.

The recent brutal murders of Chelsea King (and Amber Dubois) by a convicted sex offender led to a remarkable scene in a California court on Friday.  King’s anguished father declined to pursue the death penalty against the defendant, despite the strong evidence for conviction, not because of moral opposition to capital punishment, but because he realized that in California, Democrat activist judges and their allies in the defendant’s bar have made capital punishment “an empty promise”.

Noting that only 13 people had been put to death of all of the thousands of murderers in California since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976, Mr. King, quite reasonably, attempted to forgo what would have been an emotionally brutal trial, followed by equally brutal appeals. In a state where even such monsters as  Randy Kraft, a man responsible for somewhere between 16 and 67 murders, can remain alive on “Death Row” 27 years after his apprehension and 22 years after his conviction, why should Mr. King have any confidence that his daughter’s case would be handled differently.

The death penalty is a difficult issue, even for many conservatives.  No one relishes taking a life, nor in investing the state with the power over life or death. I personally believe that we should make sure that any accused person on trial for their life has access to effective and competent counsel–befitting the seriousness of their potential sentence.

But that is not what this is about.  This is about nothing less the collapse of the rule of Law in California (and many other states in the U.S.) which is why, in Pennsylvania, leftist activist Mumia Abu Jamal remains alive more almost three decades after his conviction and death sentence for killing police officer Daniel Faulkner.   When a father of a murder victim declines to pursue a sentence that is available to him under the law because he has lost confidence in the state to administer justice, that should be a major wake up call to all of us.

Conservatives must push for real victims rights bills with teeth, so that the families of these murder victims do not need to continue to be tortured for decades after winning their victory in court.  They will never get any synpathy from the liberal media or from the activist Democrat judges who seek, through a process of endless technical legal delays, to subvert the wills of judges and juries.

Conservatives need to pursue these policies in every jurisdiction, so that the parents of the next Chelsea King are not forced to confront another  “empty promise” when they seek justice.

Is not how many followers he has, but how many leaders he can create.

That’s why Jim DeMint is the best Republican in Congress right now.  It’s not because he is great on the issues– though he is– it’s because he realizes that what the Republican party most desperately needs is real leaders– not the same old establishment hacks.  And from Florida to Colorado, he is finding those leaders and helping to build them up.

Right now, there’s no one hotter in the Republican Party grassroots than Marco Rubio.  But without Jim DeMint’s endorsement– when all of the establishment Republicans were running to Charlie Crist, Rubio might never have emerged to be a new Republican party hero.

The Republican party doesn’t need to pick up 60 seats in the House and 11 in the Senate next term (though I’ll be happy if we do!).  We need to send 10 more Jim DeMint’s to congress– regardless of the number of seats we win.  We need people who will not be afraid to take an unpopular position and hold it steadfastly on principle.  We need people who will fight for conservative values in the face of scorn from the mainstream media and the “get along-go along” D.C. establishment.  Even more than whether or not I agree with a candidate on every issue, the measure of my vote and my support is whether I think that candidate will stand up for what they believe to be the right conservative principles– even if doing so will not win them friends on the D.C. cocktail circuit.

I see several potential new Jim DeMints running in this election cycle– From Rubio in Fl. to Nikki Haley in SC to Ken Buck in CO to Rand Paul in Kentucky.   I’m sure many of you know other outstanding candidates in your area.

It’s our job to help find those leaders wherever they may be– and let them know that we, the conservative grassroots, have their back.