I’ve never been noted for my brevity, but I’m going to attempt to keep this short so that ya’ll will actually read it.

Folks, the country we love is in deep kimchee. We’re spending our children’s and grandchildren’s money like it’s ours. We have a President who believes that he can defy court orders at will (cf. among others, the Gulf oil moratorium) and whose nominees to the courts and to Administration posts reads like a Who’s Who of the radical Left. The Middle East is a bubbling cauldron and our President’s solution is for Israel to move back to its indefensible 1967 borders. The dollar is being debased by trillions of dollars of spending and we can’t get $100 billion worth of cuts from a $3.7 trillion budget (btw-speaking of trillions, were you aware of the fact that it would take you 37,000 years to count to a trillion one second at a time?)

So here’s the $14 trillion question: What are you planning to do about it? Today? Tonight? Tomorrow? Next Week? Next Month?

If you’re like me, you’ve spent a fortune in time and money calling your Congressmen and Senators, writing letters to them and to the Editor, and contributing money to candidates only to see them go to Washington and vote for the same garbage they said they were going to take out.

So what did I do about it? I wrote more letters, made more phone calls, sent more money, yelled at my TV set, and started complaining in person, by phone, and on various blogs about conservatives who weren’t conservatives, Republicans who always managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, and the utter lack of testicular fortitude among our so-called ‘leaders’ to anyone and everyone who cared to listen (and proably to a lot who didn’t).

In other words, I did absolutely nothing.

Until 3 years ago.

In 2008, anyone who bothered to read or investigate Barack Obama’s background knew what was coming if he ever got elected. And I got scared. I got scared for my wife. I got scared for my children. I got scared for the country that I love.

So for the first time in a life filled with political activism, I put on my coat, got in my car, and drove to the school where the 2008 precinct caucuses were being held. And nothing’s been the same since.

Today I am the Chairman of our GOP County Board; I’m a delegate to our Congressional District convention; I serve on our CD’s Central and Executive Committees and on the State Central Committee. I also serve on the State Candidate Search Committee.

And how did I accomplish all this in three years? It’s simple:

I showed up.

Oh…and I raised my hand.

That’s right. Does anyone want to serve as a Precinct Delegate to the County convention from Precinct 2? Sure, I’ll do that (there were more slots than there were ‘candidates’. Even I can win those kinds of elections).

Who’s interested in becoming a delegate to the Congressional District convention from your Commissioner District? Hmmm…I’ll give that a shot. Have to give a short ‘speech’ to about 10 people as to why you want the slot? I can do that. Five minutes later and, voila, I’m a delegate to the CD Convention.

How did I get to be County Chair?

I showed up…at parades, lit drops, lit stuffing, sign staking, and candidate forums. Next thing I know, our state representative is recruiting me to run for County Chair.

The rest of the stuff? Same ol’ same ol’. I’m living proof of the veracity of the old adage that 90% of life is just showing up. State Central Committee? Sure, I’ll be one of the two names nominated for the two positions. Congressional District Central and Executive Committees? Yeah, you can put my name down for those, too. You need volunteers for the State Candidate Search Committee? (looks around room waiting to see how many hands among the 60 activists at the CD Central Committee Meeting go up and, seeing none, says “sure, I’ll do that)

So after 30+ years of beating my head against this amorphous wall called the Party, I made an amazing discovery: It’s a lot easier to change the Party if you are the Party! Now I don’t have to try to get my elected officials and Party leaders to take my calls or answer my letters. They call me. I get to vote at our state and congressional district nominating conventions for who will be our congressional candidate and all of our nominees for statewide offices (heck, I get to play a role in recruiting who our nominees will be); I get to vote for the officers of the Executive Committee who run the State Party, and I get to choose who will be our RNC Committeemen.

Guess who gets phone calls from people who desire those postions? Guess who gets to tell them what his views are on issues and what they need to do to obtain his support? Guess who, until 3 years ago, never had that kind of influence and input despite a lifetime of “activism.” Guess who said countless times “Boy, would I love to give them a piece of my mind?” Well, now I can.

Still not convinced about the impact you can have on “the game” by getting into the game? Ya know that “election” I won to be a delegate to our CD convention (which is really how this snowball began)? Well, the other person running was a 30 year veteran of the State Senate who was serving at the time as Asst. Minority Leader. He happened to live in my precinct. I didn’t even know that until I went to the precinct caucus. He was probably the most moderate member of the State Senate. He was also one of the most powerful. I almost withdrew my name from contention when I found out he was running thinking there was no way I’d beat a guy with that high of a profile.

But you know what? He lost because a whopping 10 conservatives became precinct delegates, who bothered to show up for a 3 hour meeting and who decided that they had had enough. Ten people! A 30 year State Senate veteran who was the Asst. Minority Leader in the State Senate. Ten people! Three months later he announced his retirement and we elected a staunch conservative to take his place. I have zero idea whether losing an election to be a delegate from his own precinct to a CD convention is what led him to believe that his time had come, but I’d like to think it did.

Bottom line? Folks, if you’re tired and scared…if you fear for the future of your country and for the future of your family…if you are sick and tired of Party leaders saying one thing and then doing something else…if you wonder why things never change (ya know, that old saying that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result?), then get out from behind your keyboards, put down your phones, give up 2 or 3 hours of TV, or puttering in the garden,or the garage, or the kitchen, or reading, or whatever.

Quit complaining about the Party and become the Party.

It’s as easy as showing up.

Crossposted at Unified Patriots

As many of you know, my Father was buried this past Monday (and I would be remiss if I didn’t take this opportunity to thank all of you for the overwhelming response my tribute to him received. I wrote it because I believed in my heart he deserved it; the response was beyond anything I could have ever imagined. I wept while I penned it; I wept again as I read each of the responses from you each describing your own ‘hero.’)

This past week was spent cleaning out the accumulation of 60 years of ‘I can use that someday’ from my Dad’s ‘barn’ (the house, basement and garage are still await me . Hauling away what ended up to be a 1,000 lbs of scrap steel (no wonder I’m sore this morning) and enough flammable material to fuel a burn pile for 24 solid hours gives one a lot of time to recount the hundreds of conversation he had with his hero through the years (whilst contemplating just exactly for what purpose dear ol’ dad planned on using the “For Sale sign from the house we sold….in 1972)

I mentioned in my eulogy that I could have recounted more pearls of wisdom from my dad that either you or I had time for. Well, you might not have more time this morning, but I do so…here goes with what I will term Life Lessons from Dad:

1) If you have enough energy to complain about a situation, you have enough energy to do something about it;

2) Bosses make rules. Your job is to follow them.

3) Never say anything behind someone’s back that you wouldn’t say to their face (and it’s corollary – don’t say anything about someone publicly that you haven’t already said to them privately).

4) If someone’s paying you to do a job, do it.

5) If you don’t like what’s going on in an organization, either try to fix it or join another organization. because whining never accomplished a thing.

6) Praise people publicly and often. Criticize them seldom and in private.

7) Judge actions, not motives. There’s only one person who can judge hearts and motives, and trust me, you ain’t Him.

I obviously haven’t been able to spend a lot of time on here this past week but I did get enough snippets off my BlackBerry to know that the RS that I’ve called home for the past 3 years has undergone some major and painful changes in the past week or so. Now, I’m not going to spend any time recounting whether I think this was/is a good or bad thing (LLfD #2) or why it happened (LLfD #7). Besides, there seems to have been plenty of that done already.

But as I read the Diary entitled “An Explanation,” another LLfD came to mind: “Any man who doesn’t stand up for the honor of those he calls ‘friend’ isn’t much of a man.” So with those words ringing in my ears, here goes.

I was a 10 month member of ‘The List’ that was described in that diary. I read communications from it almost every day and all I know is an incomplete picture has been painted. In the process, some people who I’ve come to know, love and respect for their love of country have had their reputations and honor impugned . Why? Don’t know. Don’t care. (LLfD #7). All I do know is that based on some of the comments in response to the diary, that for whatever reason, it’s happened.

The List had as its stated goal to bring about synergy in the conservative movement to help move it forward in tangible and intangible ways. As others have noted, it included regular RSers and some FPers. It also included individuals who rarely if ever visited RS but who worked in other aspects of the Movement. In other words, it was a Network more than it was a List.

While one of the ways in doing this was to find and promote those who articulated well the conservative movement, it was one of many objectives, the other’s being more involvement in GOTV, grassroots involvement in the Party, the promotion of conservative candidates and fundraising for such candidates.

Now, I’m not going to tell you that this was a perfect group who never did anything that, in hindsight they shouldn’t have. Nor am I going to say that, like in all groups, egos didn’t sometimes get in the way (as I recall, there was a certain group of 12 otherwise fine men with whom Christ had to have repeated discussions of keeping there egos in check). And yeah, that sometimes got out of hand as friends rushed to defend friends against what they perceived to be unfair or inaccurate comments.

And yeah, the incident described in the Diary occurred, and yeah, the author did call that incident to light, and yeah, he resigned from the group. But what wasn’t described (I’m going to give the author the benefit of the doubt and say he didn’t know because he was no longer with us LLfD#7) was that the group had a collective navel gazing moment, and that from that time forward, if there were any dustups between members of The Network and other diarists, they were serendipitous, not coordinated (and, as is demonstrated even in the comments sections of Mr. Wolf’s diary, RSers are a rather feisty, independent lot who don’t exactly require a lot of encouragement to get into dust-ups with each other; or, in the alternative, just dig out any diary with the words “Sarah Palin” on it).

But the assertion that bothered my conscience the most was the assertion that The Network kept otherwise good material from rising to the Recommended List when my experience tells me that was simply not true. There were people in The Network who almost daily scoured the Member Diary list to bring to our attention well-written but unrecommended diaries from “Non-Network”. The folks who did this were people who would be recognized instantly by regular RS reaaders as some of the most genteel and polite of creatures on this site and who were wholly dedicated to the promotion of the sense of Community here.

I couldn’t begin to count the number of times I would receive an email which stated, in various ways, “such and such wrote an awesome piece on such and such and it’s falling off the diary list; go take a look at it and if you feel it warrants it, give it some lovin’.” Not only, IMHO, did The Network not conspire to keep other diaries off the Recommended list, many diaries made it onto the Recommended List because of The List.

And even those who were in the network more often than not inevitably accompanied the announcement that they had written something with the comment ‘if you find it worthy, feel free to reco and tweet’. Sometimes I did…sometimes I didn’t. And I’m guessing that there were more than a few of my colleagues who took the same approach (Vassar’s diaries made it to the top so often because so many of RSers period apparently appreciated his writings because if you go back and look at the number of recco’s some of his diaries received, I guarantee you that a significant majority of the hordes of reco’s that he received did not come from “The Network”).

As I said before, I’m not going to pretend that this was a pristine and perfect group of people who never had lapses in judgement, or who, in hindsight, didn’t reflect back on things and make ‘course corrections’ as to how things were being done. But what I know for a fact, and it’s the only reason I took the time to pen this post, is that a more dedicated group of conservatives with deep love of country would be hard to find.

There have been a lot of opinions expressed on here regarding how this matter was handled, the reactions to it, the reactions to the reactions, etc. Personally, I would’ve preferred to have seen more of #s 3, 6 and 7; but then I recall LLfD #2 and am left with contemplating LLfD #5.

All I know is that it’s been a great ride these last 3 years and RS has done much to further the cause of conservatism in the time I’ve been here. I’ve met some great friends and being here (which led me to The Network) ultimately culminated, on the Saturday after my Dad died, in my election as GOP County Chair, as a member of my Congressional District’s central committee, and, most importantly, as a member of of our state’s GOP Central Committee. (my daughter’s reaction, upon hearing that we’d have to wait to leave till Saturday afternoon to because the County convention was in the morning, was to burst into laughter and say “so we’re leaving late because you have to attend a political meeting. How utterly appropriate that we would leave late for Grandpa’s funeral because you’re gong to a political gathering. He’d be so proud!) This means that in April, I’ll get to cast a ballot to elect our state party officers, and, more importantly, our RNC committemen. (Somehow I know that somewhere in this great land, ColdWarrior’s smiling.)

I’m not sure, based on LLfD#5, how much I’ll be around here in the future but ya know, that really doesn’t matter. The Movement is much more important and all-encompassing than any one person, and that certainly includes some guy who goes by the name ‘eburke’. What is important is that no matter who we are, or where we choose to go to advance the cause of The Movement, we focus laser-like on what unites us, not what divides us. The Foe is too great, and our country too precious, to do otherwise. So, whether it’s here…or whether it’s there…

Let’s Roll!

Yesterday, at 11:00 a.m., the United States of America buried one of its heroes. Most likely you missed this event, for his death wasn’t covered by the Mainstream News Media; it wasn’t recorded on the front page of the country’s “Newspaper of Record”; and there were no foreign dignitaries in attendance. Not a single reporter found the event noteworthy enough to place it on his “to do” list, and the only “dignitaries” in sight as the hearse pulled up was the 3-man honor guard standing at attention by the curb, whose hands slowly came up in perfect salutes as the flag-draped coffin exited, borne by 7 young men impeccably dressed in dark suits, white shirts and ties.

No medals for valor or bravery in battle adorned the coffin…nor were any pinned to the lapels of the perfectly pressed suit that lay on the lifeless body it held. To the casual observer, it appeared like no more…no less than the funeral of yet another World War II and Korean War Veteran; a scene that is repeated in hundreds and thousands of cemeteries every day across the fruited plain. So, how do I know that this man, who by all appearances was just a common, ordinary, unremarkable man, was an American hero?

Because he was my dad.

Dad grew up in the Great Depression, and like so many of his era, it was the defining event of his life. His father, a successful businessman, lost all he owned and my dad was sent to hoe and pick cotton in the fields around Malone, Texas, at the age of 7 to help make ends meet. The want and deprivation they endured shaped my Dad’s entire life and, I’m sure, was the driving force behind him saving every bent nail (hey, you can straighten those later), every discarded electrical engine (you can run a pump with one of those), and every bit of barbed wire, bailing wire and twine imaginable (you never know when you’re going to need that), and doggone it all, he was usually right.

From my earliest rememberances, it was my dad’s stated mission in life to make sure his children understood that life was a gift from God, and it was our responsibility, nee’ our duty, to live it in a way that gave full witness to that gift. I learned from early on that my Dad’s philosophy of life could be summed up quite simply:

Duty. Honor. Country.

It would take more time than I have, and more patience than you have, to recount the myriad of ways that my dad lived that credo. This August, he and my mom would have celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary.  Remarkable one might think; but not to Dad. He and mom certainly didn’t have a “perfect” marriage but leave her? Why, he had made a promise on August 25, 1951, to love her for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, till death parted them and to my dad, a man’s word was his bond. It would never have occurred to him to even consider breaking something that precious.

Duty. Honor. Country.

Miss voting in an election? Receive Dad’s lecture about the hundreds of thousands of men who gave their lives at Bunker Hill…on the beaches of Normandy…on the Inchon Peninsula…to preserve the precious right and freedom to cast a ballot. And you’re too lazy to get off your butt and honor their sacrifice by doing something as simple as casting a ballot in the greatest country on earth? For shame!

Duty. Honor. Country.

My Dad’s favorite record album? Gen. Douglas McArthur’s Farewell Address to Congress. Heard it so many times that I’m sure I was the only kid in the first grade at L.L. Hotchkiss Elementary School who knew that Douglas McArthur said “Old soldiers never die; they just fade away.” I was also the only kid at L.L. Hotchkiss who, in the 2nd grade, had bumper stickers plastered all over his notebooks which said “How do you kill Johnson grass? You pour Goldwater over it.” Dad never missed an election and he served as a poll watcher and election judge for more years than I could possibly remember, even when late in his life, he had to be wheeled into the polling place.

Duty. Honor. Country.

I can’t begin to think of which conversation Dad had with me that influenced who I am today…because there are far too many of them. 

“So…when do you want me home from my High School graduation party?” “I don’t care. What I do care about is that you remember who you are. Oh, and by the way, we leave for church at 7 o’clock tomorrow morning;” or,

“Son, human beings can take away from you everything in the world you own – your house, your money, all your earthly possesions, your family, even your life. But there’s 3 things they can never take away from you and that’s your honor, your reputation, and your faith. Those you have to give away.”

Duty. Honor. Country.

But I think the one I cherish the most occurred in 3rd or 4th grade. Growing up in Texas where football isn’t a sport, it’s a religion, all the neighborhood kids had their own football uniform (I’m talking helmets, shoulder pads, jersey’s hip pads, the whole nine yards) and we gathered on a regular basis at the vacant lot across the street from our house to engage in long hours of tackle football. So, it was no surprise that one Saturday morning I looked out the front window to see the neighborhood urchins gathering for our weekly football game. I rushed to my room to don my football togs which initiated this exchange with my Dad:

“So…where ya going?”

“To play football across the street.”

“Ummm….aren’t you supposed to mow the Jackson’s lawn today?

“Ummmm…well….yeah…but I’ll do that after we’re done playing.”

“No, you’ll do it now. You have a commitment to the Jackson’s to mow their yard and that comes before your football game.”

Duty. Honor. Country.

I must have set a world’s record for mowing a lawn and, 30 minutes later I was out cavorting on the vacant lot w/my football peeps alternately thinking I was Don Meredith or Bullet Bob Hayes. Well, at least I was until I looked up and saw my Dad striding across the street. The gait didn’t look overly positive to my trained eyes and as he drew closer, and I could see the whites of his eyes, I knew he hadn’t come over to tell me that my mom had just baked a batch of chocolate chip cookies. He strode right onto the field, and stepped right into that holy of holies (our huddle) where the following conversation ensued:

“Thought you were going to mow the Jackson’s yard before you started playing football.”

“I did!”

“So you did, huh? Did you do a good job?” (I may have been young and dumb, but I knew there was only one answer to this question)

“uhhhh….no.”

“Did Mr. Jackson pay you you for mowing his yard?

“Yeah”

“How much?”

“Three bucks.”

“Well, I took a look at the job you did this morning and that was the sorriest job of mowing a yard I’ve ever seen. You didn’t edge it like you were paid to do and you mowed it so fast that you left ridges of grass all over the place. Mr. Jackson paid you to do a job and you didn’t do it which means you stole $3 from him as sure as if you had walked into his bedroom and took it off his dresser. So here are your options, you either give Mr. Jackson his $3 back and apologize to him for stealing money from him, or you march over there and finish the job he paid you to do and that you should have done the first time.”

Duty. Honor. Country.

My Dad wasn’t the richest guy in the world but he always had a good job that more than took care of our needs, and he lived the work ethic that he preached both around the house and on the job. He wasn’t the smartest guy in the world but he could figure out more ways to jury-rig and repair things than anybody I’ve ever met (and being an accountant and a computer programmer, he wasn’t exactly lacking in intellect, either). But he was never about stature…he was never about living in the biggest house on the block…he was never about ostentatious displays of anything. Because none of those had anything to do with what was really important in life: Duty. Honor. Country.

And he never stopped inculcating and teaching those simple truths. The last words my Dad ever spoke to me? In our last conversation right before he died, I sensed he was getting weary and it was time to say good-bye for what I knew in my heart would be the final time. So, with wavering voice and tear-filled eyes I thanked him for having instilled in me love of God, love of family, and love of country. And the old war horse gathered all the energy left in his frail, 87 year old body, and in a raspy but resolute voice said “Son, we live in the greatest country God ever created; He is still in control and he always will be and don’t you ever forget it.”

Duty. Honor. Country.

Yet it wasn’t until this weekend that I realized the depth and breadth of the lives that Dad touched. But as I watched the unending stream of people, young and old, who for two hours came to pay their last respects to him on Sunday night, I realized just how much Dad truly lived his values. The mother of an autistic 18 year old who told me that Dad always took the time to talk to him and to teach him how to look a man in the eye and shake his hand…who touched Dad’s lifeless hand and looked up at his mother and said “He’s with Jesus now, right?” The niece that drove over 200 miles to pay her last respects who recounted all the times that mom & dad helped her while she was in college and how they visited her father continually even when he had Alzheimers and Parkinson’s disease. A man whom I had never met or known, who walked up to me at the end of Dad’s funeral, and with eyes brimming with tears, shook my hand, introduced himself and said “your father was the most honorable and decent man I’ve ever met. It was a privilege to be able to call him my friend, and an unspeakable honor for him to call me friend.”

Dad would’ve wondered what all the bother was about. After all, he was just giving back to God all that God had given to him. You know, Duty…Honor…Country; the simple, humble belief that the world was about much more than just your own wants and needs; the belief that the most important things in life can’t be measured by the numbers in your bank account or the square footage of your house; the belief in a cause greater than oneself, a belief that motivated patriotic Americans to drop their pitchforks, grab their muskets and head for Lexington and Concord; that drove them up the cliffs of Omaha Beach in the face of whithering fire; that cause millions of men and women today to pledge their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor to battle the forces that would wrest away from their children and grandchildren the greatest country God ever created. A heart that yearned to someday hear the words of his Lord say “Well done, thou good and faithful servant; come and enter the kingdom I have prepared for you.”

And so unfolds the final scene of this humble hero’s life: The lone bugler…the mournful strains of Taps wafting over his gravesite…the corporal and Master Sergeant folding the flag he loved so much perfectly, expertly, crisply, 13 times. The sergeant kneeling before my mom…looking into her eyes and quietly, softly saying “Ma’am, on behalf of a grateful nation, and with gratitude for your husband’s faithful service to it, I present to you this flag.” My mom clutching that symbol of all that Dad held near and dear to his heart, next to hers. That final, perfect, crisp salute to my mom as the master sergeant rose from his knees.

And as I looked from my mother to those gathered to pay the last respects, I saw the tear-filled eyes of 12 grandchildren to whom Dad resolutely and endlessly preached the same vision I heard so many times: Duty. Honor. Country. Because, after all, freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction, and that wasn’t going to happen on Dad’s watch. No way. No how.

Rest in peace, Dad.

Mission Accomplished

The hardest thing about penning this diary is this introductory part here where I have to come out of the closet and reveal for the first time publicly that I actually gave Mitch McConnell a donation in the 2008 election cycle. (RedStaters, please forgive me for I knew not what I was doing).

Ya see, due to Mitch’s ardent fight against the McCain-Feingold abomination, I had this picture of Mitch being this principled conservative willing to go to the mat for conservative values and conservative causes. And in the midst of the tornadic storm that was brewing in the fall of ’08, I succumbed to one of Mitch’s dire fundraising appeals and sent him a check. (hey, you over there in the first row…put down those tomatoes and you, there in the back, stop rolling your eyes and muttering under your breath as to my mental capacity and acuity…or lack thereof).

As I watched Mitch over the last two years repeatedly get rolled by Harry Reid and whose response to such rolling was to utter in front of the cameras: “Thank you, my friend across the aisle, can I have another, please,” I came to the realization that I’d been had. After two years of watching Mitch enmesh himself in ‘the process’, and witnessing him continually undercut grassroots candidates in favor of “Establishment” lackeys, I realized I had never been more wrong in contributing to a candidate, and have never regretted it more.

Well, until this weekend.

Because of that contribution, I am now on Mitch’s solicitation list for campaign money. Which means that this weekend I received a letter from Mitch pleading for funds so he can ‘stop the onslaught of the Obama-Reid liberal agenda’.

And that meant, I got to write Mitch the following letter:

Dear Sen. McConnell,

Yesterday, I received a campaign contribution solicitation from your office. Since I am certain that the only person who will see the note that I attached will be the campaign worker who opens your mail, I felt it only right that at least someone on your staff is made aware of my response which was as follows:

“Hell no, I won’t send you any money, and I regret having ever contributed to your campaign in the first place. Your refusal to use every Senatorial procedural rule at your disposal to derail Health Care Reform was inexcusable. Your support for “Establishment” candidates over grassroots Tea Party candidates, your gutless refusal to strip Lisa Murkowski of her chairmanship(s) when she refused to abide by the results of a GOP primary, along with your current fight to maintain the practice of earmarks which is despised by Republicans and Independents alike show that not only did you learn nothing from the Nov. 2^nd elections, you are, indeed, part of the problem in Washington D.C. (the fact that Barack Obama is going to be able to paint himself as more fiscally conservative than you on this issue demonstrates that you are either utterly enamored with the power of Washington D.C., politically brain dead…or both)

So, I will not be contributing to your campaign now, or at anytime in the future. But I will be contributing heavily to whomever decides to mount a primary challenge to you in 2014.”

Sen. McConnell (or whoever’s actually reading this) the old days of Republicans being able to talk like conservatives back in their Red states, and then go back to DC and be part of the ‘good old boys’ club and Georgetown cocktail circuit are over. Congressman Boehner gets this. Apparently, you don’t.

See ya in 2014!

Won’t do a damn bit of good…but take this as fair warning, Sen. McConnell and the rest of you “Establishment Elite” types: In case you missed this message on November 2nd, the days of Beltway Banditry by those who purport to represent conservative values in the Republican Party are over! You work for us…not vice versa.

If you think that we’re hitting the snooze alarm, rolling over, and going back to sleep like we did in ’04, you are sadly mistaken. To paraphrase one of Bill Cosby’s schticks – we brought you into office and we can damn well take you out.

Sincerely,

Your Boss

In what is shaping up as a wave election for limited-government Republicans, there has been no shortage of high-profile gubernatorial races throughout this country: Kasich vs Strickland in OH; Scott vs Sink in FL; Whitman vs Brown in CA; Perry vs White in TX; etc. But one race, for whatever reason, seems to have flown beneath the radar: the race for governor of Minnesota.

That’s unfortunate because I can’t think of a single race for a statehouse that has a more clearly defined ideological difference than the one in the state I now call home.

Tom Emmer, the GOP nominee is facing ex-Senator Mark Dayton and ex-RINO now Independent Party candidate Tom Horner. Dayton was a one-term senator from MN who compelled a stellar 11% lifetime ACU rating and heir to the Dayton Department Stores fortune. Thus, the only job he’s ever had is to run for political office. Tom Horner, running as an ‘outsider, owns a PR firm whose biggest clients have been…government entities. Or, as Tom refers to them: “the hobbyist and the lobbyist.”

I had to the good fortune of meeting Tom at various events leading up to the nominating conventions (I was a voting delegate) and he always impressed me with his passion, his ability to articulate conservative principles in ‘everyday person’ terms, and his ready wit and self-depracating sense of humor. So, I contacted his press secretary (who, I was to find out, vists RS on a fairly regular basis) to conduct an interview for posting on RedState. Well, recently, he managed to wrangle a 30 minute block of time out of Tom’s frenetic and hectic campaign schedule.

To say I was blown away would be a gross understatement. I sat for 30 minutes and listened to Tom field questions on a variety of issues and philosophies. And for 30 minutes, I listened to Tom articulate conservatism in terms that left me as impressed as I’ve been with anyone in the last 30 years. He spoke from the heart, and there wasn’t a teleprompter in sight.

Many of you may remember the outstanding post that Erick Erickson wrote last December about the difference between being a ‘noun’ conservative and an ‘adjective’ conservative. Well, folks, Tom Emmer is a ‘noun’ conservative if I’ve ever seen one.

In fact, the biggest challenge I had (and it was mega timeconsuming) was figuring out a way to reduce 30 minutes of awesome down to a timeframe that you ADD-addled online activists would actually click on to and listen to (’cause I knew the odds of you listening to the whole 30 minute gig was slim and none).

So, in a welcome change from my usual rambling, lengthy prose,  I’m not going to tell you about Tom Emmer; I’m going to let Tom tell you about himself, his views on the issues facing Minnesota and the nation, and his conservative philosophy in his own words. I split it into 6 segments and while I certainly hope you’ll take the time to listen to all six, if you choose only one, you’ve got to listen to Tom expound on his core values.

So, without further adieu, here’s Tom Emmer – ‘noun’ Conservative.

On his core values:

On the major issues in the upcoming election:

On State’s Rights under the 10th Amendment and HCR:

On strengthening the GOP and the politicians he most admires:

Tom’s background and why he’s running for governor:

On the importance of the upcoming election and America’s future:

The latest polling on this race shows it to be a dead heat: SUSA has it 39-38, Dayton, and Public Opinion Strategies has it at 40-40 (in the interest of full disclosure, NPR has Dayton with a 12 point lead and the Minneapolis Star-Tribune has Dayton w/a 7 point lead; NPR is, well, NPR and the Strib may be to the left of the NY Times and they haven’t called a race accurately in, well, forever).

On top of that, both Houses of the MN state legislature are both heavily Democrat and the only thing that has stood between Minnesota becoming California-lite has been Tim Pawlenty’s veto pen. Toss in redistricting (MN is rumored to be on the list of states that may lose a seat under redistricting) and the need to have a ‘noun’ conservative hold the Governor’s chair is absolutely essential.

Mark Dayton, being the ‘hobbyist’ that he is, has spent millions of his trust fund dollars on this race. Tom has had to raise his money the hard way – through the thousands of donations from conservative activists in MN and throughout the country. And he has spent that money on some of the best campaign ads I’ve seen this year (check ‘em out when you visit his site).

Folks, I know that there are a lot of tight races out there right now that have great conservative candidates. But if you’re looking for that one last race in which you want to make a difference in these last hours before the election, I submit to you that it would be difficult to find one more important, or one on which you can make more of an impact, than this one.

Help push Tom over the top. Help Tom keep the momentum going. Help elect a ‘noun’ Conservative to be the next governor of Minnesota.

[promoted from the diaries by haystack-good work in here eburke... more of these please folks?!]

Barring a miracle (or unprecendented vote fraud) it would appear that the reign of Nancy “We Have to Pass the Bill to Find Out What’s in the Bill” Pelosi will be washed out to sea on November 2nd by a wave of voter discontent with the far-left policies of the Pelosi-Reid-Obama cabal. Even the sycophantic MSM, while endeavoring at every turn to trumpet every real or imaginary failure, no matter how inconsequential, of every Republican candidate, have resigned themselves to gazing at their collective navels and contemplating whether this will merely be a ‘normal’ sized wave or a tsunami of 1894 proportions.

But while it’s great to dream dreams as we giddily contemplate getting rid of a Barney Frank or a Jim Oberstar, what makes waves tsunamis is making sure that every single district that by all rights and voter registration numbers should be ours, is ours. My district, MN CD-01 is one of those districts that presently belongs to them; on the morning of November 3rd, it needs to belong to us!

Right now, MN-CD 01 is represented by Tim Walz (D). LaborUnionReport did a masterful job a week or so ago in outlining Walz’s far-left voting record so I shan’t repose the entire, sordid record again except to remind readers that he voted for the trifecta: ObamaCare…the Stimulus…and Cap & Tax. He has perfect 100% voting records from NARAL and from Planned Parenthood so on top of the fact that he apparently has never met a spending bill he hasn’t liked, he apparently has never met an abortion procedure that didn’t meet with his approval either.

Read More →

Dear Jason,

It’s often been said (at least in Texas where I grew up) that anything and everything you needed to know about life could be found in the lyrics of Country music. Now, like most sayings, it’s not true all the time, but that doesn’t mean there’s not at least a kernel or two of truth to it.

Been thinking a lot about one of my favorite Country tunes ever since you and Dr. Dan Benishek fought to almost a draw in your primary race. If my information is correct, Dr. Dan held a 1-vote lead over you on Election Night. Now, with the canvass of all the counties complete, that lead has “stretched” to 15 votes.

That means that Dr. Benishek continues to cling to the narrowest of margins, and you are looking at another old saying: “So close, and yet so far.” And now you have a major, strategic decision to make. Do you accept the canvassed results which leaves the apple just out of your reach? Or, with victory so close you can probably taste it, do you demand a recount?

Well, here’s where my Country music analogy kicks in. It’s one of Kenny Roger’s all-time classics, from the Gambler, and it’s refrain goes: “Ya got to know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em; know when to walk away, know when to run.” And that, in a nutshell, Jason, is the decision you have: do ya hold ‘em (and demand a recount), or do ya fold ‘em and walk away?

Now the temptation to do the former will be tremendous. The pressure from family, staff, sycophants, and your own innate ego will be to go for the brass ring ’cause it’s oh so tantalizingly close. But in the best interest of our country, the best interest of the MI-1 Congressional District, the best interest of the Republican Party, and, yes, even your own best interest, I’m asking you to fold ‘em.

I’m asking you to step back and look at the big picture. See, there’s no guarantee that a recount will find you those 15 votes. And, in the meantime, while you and Dr. Dan are slugging it out and sucking through time and resources, Democrat nominee Gary McDowell will be focused laser-like on the November election. That’s time and money we simply don’t have.

But let’s say that your Hail Mary and the $100,000 you’ll need to spend to pull out a recount victory actually pays off. Where’s that leave you in November?

Well, the harsh truth is that, to the best of my knowledge, no Troll (person living below, or south of, the Mackinac Bridge) has ever represented this District. Why? Well, it seems that Yoopers (those living in the Upper Peninsula) aren’t overly fond of Trolls and don’t/won’t vote for them. On the other hand, Trolls don’t seem to have a big problem with voting for Yoopers.

Now, I don’t know why this is, and I’m not sure that it’s necessarily “fair” or right; but it is what it is and with Yoopers making up 45% of the electorate of this District, and with you being a Troll and Dr. Benishek being a Yooper and all that…well, that’s a pretty sizable voting block that Dr. Dan will be able to make a play for that will not be as available to you.

Strike One.

Second, I don’t know if you realize this or not, but your campaign tactics (insert non-family friendly epitah here) off a lot of conservative activists in the District and around the country. Activists that you will need to provide money and shoe leather to pull this off, especially considering the whole Yooper/Troll thing.

Now, the whole SEIU $2,000 campaign contribution/unionization bill 2 weeks later doesn’t help, but what really chapped the drawers of the Right was your unconscionable mail drop in the last few days of the campaign which, well, flat-out misrepresented Dr. Benishek’s position on his desire to reduce taxes through the Fair Tax. You told voters that he was in favor of raising taxes 23% on a whole host of items that people don’t pay taxes on already. Aside from the fact that folks already do pay taxes in some form on the items you mentioned, you left the impression that his desire was to add taxes on top of the taxes they’re already paying.

Now, if you want to debate the merits and demerits of a Fair Tax honestly and openly, more power to ya. Personally, I’m not a big fan of The Fair Tax for a variety of reasons, but I know enough about it to know that those who do advocate for it are, with few exceptions, in favor of it as a way to reduce the overall level of taxation. Either you also know this and consciously chose to distort (also called lying about) what Dr. Benishek is proposing, or you don’t have even the most rudimentary understanding of the Fair Tax in which case you are unfit to debate and vote on the economic direction of our nation.

Suffice it to say that that little campaign tactic pretty much cut off any hopes you have of unifying the base. All those folks who supply the money and shoe leather to help Republicans win elections? Yeah, they’re the one’s you royally hacked off. 

Strike Two.

And finally, all that union help that you received from your ‘friends’ in the SEIU and the other Michigan unions? You know, the ones that helped out in your campaign and who crossed over to vote for you because there wasn’t a contested primary on the Democrat side? You don’t really think that they’re going to be there for you in November, do you? Your chance of getting union help and endorsements over Gary McDowell this November is somewhat on the same line as the Lions getting to the Super Bowl next February.

Strike Three.

So, Jason, what you’re looking at is a situation where even if you manage to pull off the recount victory, your odds of actually pulling off a victory this November are somewhat akin to having to draw to an inside straight when all you’ve got are the 3 and the 7.

On the other hand, you can do what Karen Handel did earlier this week in the Georgia governor’s race. She conceded the election to Nathan Deal (after what could only charitably be called a nasty primary) even though there were still uncounted absentee ballots from a county very friendly to her, and even though she was well within her rights to ask for one. She did so for the good of her party, and for the good of our country.

Jason, I’m asking you publicly to do the same thing. For the good of your country, for the good your Party, and for your own future personal political aspirations (I’m here to tell you that not asking for a recount will go light years toward repairing your fractured relationship with the Republican Base; we’re a loyal and forgiving lot), do the right thing…do the smart thing…

…fold ‘em…and walk away.

The August 3rd primaries in Michigan, Missouri and Kansas gave political junkies yet another opportunity to peer into the mind and psyche of the American electorate. So…what fresh, new insights did last night’s results give us?

Well, if you ever wondered whether or not your vote makes a difference, or whether you should really send out that email to your list of friends and relatives shilling for your favorite conservative candidate, or whether you should talk to your next door neighbor about voting, the results of the GOP primary in MI CD-1 should forever disabuse you of that notion. According to the unofficial tallies at the Michigan Secretary of State site, grassroots conservative Dr. Dan Benishek leads SEIU-backed career politician Jason Allen by one vote (yes, you read that right). There are four words for conservatives to ponder and pound in the 90 or so days left to the November 2 elections: Get. Out. The. Vote.

Second, the Republican Party simply must do something about allowing open primaries to skew the results of its candidate selection. The state of Michigan allows a voter to select which primary he wishes to vote in at the polling place. I have absolutely no doubt, in the absence of a contested Democrat race in the aforementioned MI CD-1, that many SEIU/labor union-type folks “crossed-over” to vote for Allen in the GOP primary. The same may very well be true in the Michigan GOP gubernatorial race where moderate-to-liberal Rick Snyder bested his 3 conservsative rivals by acquiring 37% of the vote. If you’re really tired of watching moderate/liberal Democrats and Independents choose your Party represesentative, do something about it.

And while on the subject of the Michigan primary, how many times are conservative candidates going to watch the sole moderate/liberal candidate become the party nominee with substantially less than a majority of the vote before they figure it out? In MI CD-1, Linda Goldthorpe and Tom Stillings, who held positions virtually identical to Dr. Benishek, combined to attract approximately 10,000 votes. They never had a chance to win from the day they entered the race, polling showed a week before the end of the race that they had no chance, and virtually every vote they received would most likely have gone to Dr. Dan. Same dynamic in the governor’s race: 3 conservative candidates split 63% of the vote allowing the most liberal candidate by far to win the nomination.

Memo to conservative candidates: I know you’ve got egos like everyone else but for just the next 2 or 3 election cycles while we’re trying to take back our country, if you don’t have a chance to win? Get! Out!

And finally, just like the sun rising in the east and setting in the south, Tuesday’s results reaffirmed the ineffable ability of the LSM to demonstrate it’s bias. In Missouri, Proposition C allowed Missourians to express their opinion on the unprecedented mandate that individuals buy health insurance. It passed by a crushing 3 to 1 margin. From the LSM? Crickets chirping.

But the award for making lemons out of lemonade? The Kansas Senate race where you had the Media’s two favorite conservative villians – Sarah Palin and Jim DeMint – endorsing different candidates (Todd Tiahrt and Jerry Morran, respectively). Since obviously one of them had to win, and knowing the Media finds no greater delight than to be able to marginalize the influence that either of these conservatives have, I was curious as to how they would handle this seemingly impossible situation.

Not a problem. Headline on the Yahoo news bites? “Palin-backed candidate loses Kansas Senatorial Bid.”

It’s nice to know there are immutable constants in the world.

Originally posted at 73wire.com

Originally posted at 73wire.com

What a difference eighteen months makes. In November, 2008, the Republican Party was left for dead at the side of the road with mainstream press organs pontificating about the causes of its permanent demise.

Today?

Even the LeftStreamMedia is acknowledging that a Republican takeover of the House isn’t just a possibility, it’s a likelihood and the latest LSM meme is that the Senate might just be in play as well. Why? Because the American people have seen up close and personal what an unvarnished Marxist, socialistic economic program looks like and they’re not buying it.

Not only are the Dems on the run, but conservatives are nigh unto giddy as, one after another, Establishment candidates in GOP Primaries are defeated by Movement conservatives. The outpouring of conservative activism the likes of which hasn’t been seen in my lifetime has propelled conservatives into the ranks of the Party. There is a palpable excitement growing on the Right that we might actually be able to stop this headlong careening into socialistic irrelevancy.

And then comes this article from The Hill with the somewhat stunning title “Centrist Republicans Pin Their Political Hopes on the Class of ’10″.

Say what? I thought this was the year of the conservative? Let these money quotes serve as a cold splash of water in the face:

But if centrists such as Reps. Mike Castle (Del.) and Mark Kirk (Ill.) win their races, it might soften the influence of conservatives in the 112th Congress. Congressional experts and lawmakers say a strong class of centrists could blunt the influence of conservative freshmen sent to Washington by Tea Party voters.

and,

The goal of anybody who wants to solve a problem is to create some momentum for other people to join in,” said Graham who added that centrists such as Castle and Kirk would be more likely to join bipartisan talks.

Castle and Kirk, for example, were helpful allies to Democrats after they captured control of the House in 2006. They both voted for several proposals of the legislative agenda Democrats campaigned on to oust Republicans from power.

That’s right. The “centrists” in the Republican Party are already licking their chops at the prospect of enacting “meaningful” legislation (one of the “successes” of “bipartisanship” mentioned in the article was the passage of the $787,000,000,000 stimulus package). If this sounds eerily familiar, it’s because it is.

In 1994, after 40 years in the minority in the House, conservatives took over the agenda and rode the Contract with America to one of the most resounding triumphs in American electoral history. So, of course, on the heels of this great success of conservatism, a group of “centrists” formed what they called the Republican Main Street Partnership dedicated to, well, undoing and blocking the conservative agenda.

In 2008, we reaped the harvest of that Partnership.

What does this mean? It means that the work of conservative activists is not complete. It’s not even close to complete. There still lurk among us those who not only aren’t committed to the cause of Constitutional freedom, they are openly hostile to it. They place a higher value on “accomplishing something” than they do adhering to the wisdom of the Founders.

There is much work left to be done to retake our Party; to become the Party. There are thousands of Precinct Committeemen slots to be filled. GOTV tasks to be completed. Educational efforts in which to engage. Volunteer campaign activities to finish. And, in the case of Mike Castle, there’s an alternative to be had by the name of Christine O’Donnell who would deny the Quislings yet another voice and vote.

We can’t elect a Jim DeMint conservative in every state of the Union (yet). But American’s in every state are starting to feel the effects of liberal/social policies in every aspect of their lives. They fear it. They’re weary of it. Conservatism works every time it’s tried. You know that. I know that. It’s time to let the country know that.

In 2004, countless conservatives (myself included) surveyed the political scene and concluded that we had reached the pinnacle for which we had worked so many years. Well, as Thomas Jefferson stated: “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.”

We are not at the end, fellow conservatives. We are not even at the beginning of the end of this war to rescue our country from those who wish to remake it. We made that mistake between 1994 and 2008. Let’s not make it again.

Let’s Roll!

There have been about a gajillion bytes-worth of pontificating and prognositicating as to whom will control the House of Representatives after the November elections. In fact, last week even Rapid Robert Gibbs felt compelled to enter the fray. Well, at least until The Bay Area Beauty, aka Nancy Pelosi, stepped in to, ahem, “encourage” Mr. Gibbs to speak more kindly of the Dem chances. And with the recent entrance of CA, WA and WI into “toss-up” territory, the once unfathomable thought that the Republicans could actually take control of the U.S. Senate this November just became fathomable.

A conservative’s dream. A Harry Reid/Nancy Pelosi nightmare.

But if you want to see Rahmbo Emmanuel and David Axelrod morph into sniveling, sobbing Lindsay Lohan look-a-likes as the reality of their futures sinks into them, utter the words “state legislatures”.

Now, in most years, paying attention to state legislative races is about as exciting as watching the Yankees buy another World Series ring. But if you’ve looked at your calendar lately, you’ll notice that we are in a year which ends in a “0″. Unless you slept your way through Civics class, that means that you recoginize that not only did the Census take place this year but that the decennial bar room brawl known as redistricting is soon to follow.

Now certainly not every state uses just the state legislatures and governorships to shape redistricting boundaries. But most do, either with the Legislature/Governor completely controlling the process or having substantial input into it and influence over it. So what’s it looking like out there for Team Obama? Well, the current legislative line-up shows 26 legislatures controlled completely by Democrats, 14 completely controlled by Republicans, and 9 which are divided (Nebraska has a “non-partisan” unicameral legislature). In addition, there are currently 26 Democrat and 23 Republican governors (with turncoat Charlie Crist of Florida being the lone “Independent” governor.)

Here’s where it gets scary for Democrat strategists. According to a Washington Times article dated July 12, the preeminent prognosticator of legislative races, Governing magazine, estimates that 27 of the 98 legislative chambers are “in play”. Of those 27 chambers, 23 are Democrat and only 4 are Republican. If Governing’s prodigious prognostications are correct, the alignment of state legislative chambers post-November 2nd will reflect a mind-numbing shift from a current line up of 61 D/37 R to 42 D/56 R.

But that’s just the beginning of the nightmare on electoral street for the Dems. That 26 to 23 lead that Democrats currently have over Republicans in governerships? Well, if one looks at the RealClearPolitics no toss-ups, “as we speak” analysis of the Governor’s races one finds a staggering 11 seat pickup projected for the Republicans. That would lead to a lineup of 35 Republican governors and only 14 Democrat governors. The effect of that number of executive chairs being occupied by Republicans is, well, nightmare-inducing if you’re George Soros.

But the best news about these races, especially the state legislative ones, is that the impact that the average conservative activist can have on one is enormous. With the exception of states like California and New York, most legislative races are rather low key, low cost affairs. That $50 donation which seems like a drop in the bucket in a $2,000,000 congressional campaign, or a $15,000,000 senatorial race, is a substantial and much more impactful donation to a $20,000 legislative campaign. A couple of hundred GOTV phone calls will make a good-sized dent in a legislative district. And door-knocking your way onto the front porches of a substantial percentage of the registered voters in your district is more than just some nascent dream. And the added bonus, borne of experience, is that if you do any or all of the things noted above, you will get to know, on a first name basis, the name of your state senator or representative. These campaigns operate on shoe-string budgets and the candidates become very appreciative of those who man the barricades with them.

Too often, we conservatives, task oriented as we are, find ourselves myopically focused on the plate set before us while the leftists are plotting to craft strategies which will come to fruition years and decades hence. After suffering through close to two years of the most anti-free enterprise, socialistic, statist, intrusive legislation in our history, the prospect of actually taking back the U.S. House and Senate is almost stultifying in its contemplation. But this November, we not only have the opportunity to stop in its tracks the maddening rush to a command economy, we have the opportunity to mold and frame and shape the debate in this country for the next ten years.

Google the state representative in your district. Bing the state senator who’s supposed to be representing you. Find their websites. Click on their donate buttons. Find out what volunteer activities they need. Stuff envelopes. Hang door hangers. Get involved. Be the Party.

Come November 2nd, let’s not leave any chips on the table.

Originally posted at 73wire.com

Last week, Robert Gibbs, feckless Press Secretary for Barack Obama, experienced first-hand the fiery wrath of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. Gibbs’s impertinent act? Having the audacity to aver verbally and publicly that which virtually every pundit and politico knows in their hearts: the Dems are going to take a beating this fall and that it’s quite likely they could lose control of the House of Representatives.

Now, being the good Democrat that he is, one would think that Bobby would know that speaking the truth is not highly thought of in Democrat circles. Gibbs will never win any awards for being the smartest press secretary in Presidential history but even he has to have the intellectual acumen to know that Nancy would be none to pleased with his prognostication. So why would he say something so, well, stupid?

Perhaps it was because he knew this was coming (quoted from The Hill):

President Obama said in an interview Friday that voters should hold him accountable for the struggling economy…“If somebody’s out of work right now, the only answer that I’m going to have for them is when they get a job. Up until that point, from their perspective, the economic policies aren’t working well enough…That’s my job — as president — is to take responsibility for moving us in the right direction.”

Now aside from the fact that it really isn’t the job of the president to take us in the right direction (all we need is a president who will quit throwing up socialist obstacles to the private sector and the private sector will take care of that quite nicely, thank you, please), it was almost stunning to see the President actually take responsibility for something. After having spent 18 months blaming everything from the war in Afghanistan to the Gulf oil spill to racking up a $1.5 trillion dollar deficit on George Bush, it was nice to see President Obama finally offer to actually be held accountable for something.

So, that means that the American people now have permission from the President of the United States to blame him for not creating enough jobs. That would include our 9.5% official and approximately 16% unofficial unemployment rate despite his promise that if we passed his $1,000,000,000,000 stimulus slush fund we’d never see unemployment rates above 8.0%. Way to man up, Mr. President.

However, considering that Democrat losses in the House are now projected at anywhere from 30 to 60 seats; considering that every poll (even the ABCNBCCBSCNN polls of just “Adults”) now show more American’s disapproving of his economic policies than approving; and considering that the RealClearPolitics Generic Ballot average of Registered and Likely Voters shows a 4.2% lead for Republicans, I’d say that Americans have already taken him up on his offer.

Originally posted at 73wire.com

On May 5, 2009, a little known Speaker of the House from Florida by the name of Marco Rubio announced his candidacy for the U.S. Senate. The media yawned, the pundits rolled their eyes, and the National Republican Senatorial Committee endorsed and slobbered over Gov. Charlie Crist as the “best chance to hold this seat” candidate. Meanwhile, Marco soared all the way to the low single digits in early polling in the race.

But a funny thing happened on the way to Charlie’s coronation. Marco worked tirelessly to build up a grassroots campaign, influential consevative leaders such as Erick Erickson at RedState endorsed his candidacy, and Charlie Crist was, well, Charlie Crist. The next thing you know, Marco’s leading Charlie by 30+ points in the polls, Charlie has left the party he ostensibly loved to run as an Independent, and the NRSC was left looking, well, rather sheepish.

Now, while Charlie Crist could charitably be described as a “moderate” Republican, Mike Castle is, quite simply, a liberal Republican as has been outlined here. But “conventional wisdom” has chanted in unison that a) Mike Castle must be the pre-ordained GOP nominee for Senate because, b) only a liberal Republican like Castle can win in Delaware (a fact someone should point out to conservatives Gov. Pete DuPont and Sen. William Roth).

Well, Mike Castle may have more in common with Charlie Crist than just his “presumed nomination” and left-of-center voting record. According to a poll released by Rasmussen on July 15, there are some interesting trends a brewin’ in the upcoming GOP Primary between Castle and his primary opponent Christine O’Donnell.

For the chart-viewing challenged, here are the highlights from the poll:

1) Castle’s 29 point lead over Democratic nominee Chris Coons has dwindled down to 9 points (causing Rasmussen to move this race from “Solid GOP” to “Leans GOP”);

2) The “unfavorable” ratings for Castle (31%), Coons (29%) and O’Donnell (33%) are roughly equivalent;

3) 25% of Likely Voters do not yet have an opinion of O’Donnell which leaves her with a lot of upside whereas only 9% of voters don’t have an opinion of Castle; and, finally (and the big one)

4) Rasmussen shows O’Donnell ahead of Coons 41% to 39%.

For the Castle camp who’s chief raison d’etre for supporting Mike is that he’s the only electable candidate, this news could not have been greeted with champagne, cavier and cigars all around. In fact, as we speak, I picture members of the Castle staff punching in the cell numbers of the Crist staff and asking in bewildered voices “How can this be?”

Well, here’s the bottom line. Voters, even in Delaware, are fed up with 2,000 page unread bills jammed through in secrecy and trillions of dollars in debt piled onto their kids and grandkids. They’re looking for someone who’s going to be part of the solution, not someone who’s been part of the problem for the last 44 years. They’re looking for a leader outside the political cesspool, not a politician who has spent his entire adult life going from one political office to another.

Christine O’Donnell has cultivated and garnered the support of the grassroots activists, just like Marco Rubio did. Christine O’Donnell raised over $100,000 in the quarter just ended, not from PACs (like so much of Mike Castle’s donations) but from the same small donor base that catapulted Marco Rubio past Charlie Crist. Christine has been endorsed by Erick Erickson from RedState as well as the influential pro-life Susan B. Anthony List. Christine doesn’t need to match Mike dollar for dollar or anything close because she has something money can’t buy: the passionate energy of those who are fighting for a cause not for just another step on the political ladder.

Delaware has elected conservative leaders in the past and if there was ever an election cycle in which they will do so again, this is it. Christine can be that leader because Mike Castle’s coronation into the U.S. Senate is no more pre-ordained than Charlie Crist’s.

But wishing something doesn’t make it so. Our nation is in deperate need of a conservative choice not a liberal echo. Christine is that conservative choice but Christine needs our help now.

Let’s Roll!

Originally posted at 73wire.com

Mike Castle is the presumptive nominee for the GOP senatorial seat in Deleware this fall, or at least that’s what conventional wisdom says. That’s what the power brokers say. And that’s what the MainStreamMedia says.

The same folks who insisted that the road back for the GOP lay with Arlen Specter, Charlie Crist, Trey Grayson and Tim Bridgewater are now saying that only Mike Castle can bring to the GOP the pickup of the seat formerly held by Joe “Gaffemeister” Biden.

So, interested in examining just how Mike would advance the conservative, Republican agenda? Well, let’s see what the non-partisan On The Issues and Project Vote Smart have in the way of revealing how Congressman Castle might vote as Senator Castle:

Abortion: Castle has been rated as low as 0% by the National Right to Life Committee having voted Yes on federal funding of embyonic stem cell research, No on resticting the transportation of minors to receive abortions, and Yes on requiring taxpayer-funded military hospitals to provide abortions. Question: Considering Rep. Castle’s pro-choice voting record, would he have a pro-Roe v Wade litmus test for judicial nominees to the federal courts?

Social Issues: Rep. Castle received as low as a 0% rating from the American Family Association and an 18% from the Family Research Council garnered as a result of votes for repealing the Defense of Marriage Ammendment and banning employment discrimination against gays and against a Constitutional Ammendment banning same-sex marriage and ending affirmative action when it comes to admission to a college or university.

2nd Ammendment: Mike Castle received an “F” from the National Rifle Association (I do believe that’s as low as they go). ‘Nuff said.

Energy: Mike Castle voted in favor of the economically detructive government takeover of our energy production misnamed “Cap & Trade” (one of only 8 Republicans to do so) but has repeatedly opposed oil exploration in the forsaken tundra of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Immigration: The anti-illegal immigration group Americans for Better Immigration has rated Castle a C+ overall with grades ranging from an A to an F in individual years.

Taxes & Spending: 57% lifetime average from Citizens Against Government Waste (31% in 2008); the Tea Party-affiliated Freedom Works scored him at 35% in 2007; and the National Taxpayers Union gave Castle a grade of D for the 2008 session (probably because of votes against eliminating the Death Tax and against exempting middle-class taxpayers from the onerous burdens of the Alternative Minimum Tax, a tax enacted in the 1960′s to ensure the top 400 wage earners in the country paid taxes but which now ensnares millions of middle-class filers).

With a record like that, it’s no wonder that Human Events has Mike Castle listed as one of its top ten RINOs (Republicans in Name Only); or that the Club for Growth rated him at 43% in 2009 or the American Conservative Union rated him at 28% in 2008. Just how “Republican” is Mike Castle? Well, in 2008, Castle joined virtually every Democrat in the House to ask a Congressional Committee to investigate whether George Bush lied about invading Iraq and whether that should lead to impeachment procedings.

Now, that’s a rather lengthy exposition of Mike Castle’s decidedly left-of-center voting record and, thus, might be a bit much for the average person to remember off the top of his head. So, with that in mind, perhaps a picture will be worth 488 words:

Yes, that would be Mike Castle joining in applause with pro-life stalwarts Barack Obama, Henry Waxman (D-CA) and Nancy Pelosi as President Obama signed the bill which allows the use of American tax dollars to fund embryonic stem cell research. Apparently, Mike wasn’t content just to vote with the liberal Dems, he found himself like-minded enough and chummy enough to celebrate with them as well.

Now, if that picture gives you a rather nauseous, disgusted feeling in the pit of your stomach, the antidote is that you don’t have to accept electing a person with Mike Castle’s liberal voting record to the Senate because there is an alternative.

And before you go there, everyone said Marco Rubio didn’t have a chance either.

Originally posted at 73wire.com

Earlier this week in an interview with Politico re: the 2010 mid-terms, Joe Biden, he of sophomoric wit, brevity and intellect, opined that he didn’t really see what everyone was getting all uptight about. According to the king of plagiarism, he didn’t foresee any “grand debacle” engulfing his Party this November.

Now Joe’s not exactly noted for being the most humble guy in the world…nor the brightest. So at first glance, this sounds like Biden gaffing it up again. I mean, can’t the guy read? (Ok, that was supposed to be a rhetorical question but then again, this is Biden we’re talking about here) By every metric, this is looking to be at the very minimum, a “grand debacle” for the Dems this fall.

Gallup’s latest poll shows Obama’s approval rating among Independents at 38%, down 18 points from this time last year, and his 44%, 3-day average among those surveyed ties his lowest total to date (what makes those numbers even more debacle-inducing for Dems is that this wasn’t a survey of Likely Voters. It wasn’t even a survey of Registered Voters. It was a survey of Adults). On the Generic Ballot, RealClearPolitics is showing an average of a 1.7% lead for Republicans vs a Democrat lead of 11.6% the week before the 2008 election.

Presidential approval ratings? Obama’s current RCP approval rating stands at 46.7% vs a disapproval rate of 47.6%. Past election results have shown that when a President’s approval rating moves below 50%, his party loses a substantial number of seats (2006 (Bush) – 38%/-30; 1994 (Clinton) 46%/-53; 1982 (Reagan) 42%/-28)

So is this just Joe Biden being, well, Joe Biden, he of engage mouth before engaging brain fame? Well, it’s hard to argue with that considering Joe’s bombastic propensity. But the Democrats didn’t get to where they are by being stupid (well, at least not politically; as one of my blogging friends wrote the other day, the Dems could figure out a way to elect a jar of Miracle Whip (h/t Amy Miller)). So whether Joe knows something we don’t, or whether he’s just being Joe, we conservatives had best be ready for whatever they will throw at us and remember (insert favorite sports metaphor about over-confidence here).

And what they’re going to throw at us was probably outlined quite nicely in a July 9th WSJ article. They are going to have more photo ops than Keebler has crackers to talk about all the “jobs” that supposedly have been created by all their spending. Look for a CongressCritter near you to be standing on roads and bridges, in front of nursing centers, local museum projects, you name it, talking about how they brought all this to you and the mean, wascally, Wepublicans want to take it all away (in the case of my Congressman, Tim Walz, D-MN1, he will do so while on the next page of his taxpayer funded brochure solemnly intoning about the need to be “fiscally responsible”).

And then, (and here’s the part we better be ready for), when the GOP hits back with the enormous cost of all this (at least we better hit back with that), they will play the “hypocrisy” card. They will find any government program that the Republican candidate has benefitted from and accuse them of hypocrisy for, on the one hand, wanting to cut programs for the poor, downtrodden masses, while they themselves lap at the largess of the public trough.

If you’re a farmer, you’ll be accused of accepting farm subsidies. If you’re the father/mother of a student in college, you’ll be pilloried for accepting college federal aid. Work for a bank that received TARP funds? Expect the hypocrisy card to be played if you’ve received an increase in compensation post-bailout (ask Michele Rollins, Delaware House candidate).

The Democrats know the 2010 electorate is fed up with them. Fed up with their spending, their Cornhusker Kickbacks and their Louisiana Purchases, their passing of unread 2,000 page bills in the dead of night. They might not be Constitutional scholars but they are smart enough to know what a 71.2% Congressional disapproval rating means to their employment prospects post-November.

It would behoove the Republican Party in general, and the campaign staffs of individual candidates in particular, to come up with a strategy now to deal with these charges that they are hypocritical for benefitting from government programs, while they advocate for the reduction of government programs. Our response cannot be some long, dissertation on economic policy, or some esoteric riff on the proper role of Constitutional government. It needs to be short, snappy, and phrased in a manner that will resonate with voters for whom 30 seconds of political interaction is a lifetime.

In other words, if we’re going to ensure that Joe gets his Grand Debacle, we’re going to need to be a bit more like Joe Biden. We’re gonna have to learn how to elect a jar of Miracle Whip.

Originally posted at 73wire.com

It has become acceptable except amongst the most ardent of Kool-Aid drinkers in the MainStreamMedia to discuss the possibility that the Republicans might just (gasp) regain control of the House in the Fall elections. However, discussion of actually taking over the Senate in addition to the House has generally been reserved for those of ardent conservative fervor or those under the influence of controlled and banned substances.

Well, perhaps no more. Take a gander at the latest release from Rasmussen in which Rasmussen opines that the impossible might just be…well, possible.

Based on their analysis, Rasmussen currently projects that the Democrat’s safely hold 49 seats and the Grand Old Party has locked down 41. Included in the GOP’s ‘locked down’ 41 are three states where the Democrat incumbent isn’t running (Deleware, Indiana and North Dakota) and one state where Rasmussen has determined that the incumbent, Blanche Lincoln, is toast (cap doffing to the labor unions for wasting $10,000,000 of their member’s money on trying to oust Blanche; nice job, guys!).

Of the 10 ‘toss-up’ races, 6 are seats currently held by Democrats and 4 are held by Republicans. While that doesn’t sound like that big of an advantage for the GOP, of the 10 ‘Toss-up’ seats identified by Rasmussen, the GOP maintains a lead in 6 of them, is tied in 3 others and only trails in 1. And this list of ‘Toss-ups’ doesn’t even include the Nevada race between Harry Reid and Sharron Angle as a ‘toss-up’ even though their own poll taken June 22 has Angle up by 7 (technically w/in the MOE which is probably why they show it as a toss-up but a well-known incumbent who’s at 41% this close to the election whose numbers haven’t budged above that for, well, ever…?)

The delectable, electable 10 according to Rasmussen? Colorado, Florida (thanks for being a team player, Charlie!), Illinois, Missouri, Nevada, North Carolina (Burr is the only Republican Incumbent in the ‘toss-up’ column), Ohio, Pennsylvania, Washington and Wisconsin. Yes, you read those last two correctly: Patty Murray (WA) and Russ Feingold (WI) are currently in ‘toss-up’ races; two races which 6 months ago were not on anybody’s radar screen save a few ‘Pollyanna’ types on the Right who saw a wave election coming almost a year ago.

Chuckie Schumer may just want to hold off on measuring for drapes for that Senate Majority Leader’s office he’s got his eyes on.

Originally posted at 73wire.com

NY-23. You remember NY-23. You know, the place where the nascent Tea Party movement first spread its political wings and flexed it’s political muscle. The place where 11 GOP county chairman sat behind closed doors and anointed a candidate so liberal that the Democrat candidate actually positioned himself as the conservative in the race.

NY-23. The place where prominent conservative Republicans bucked the “Establishment” and endorsed a little known Conservative nominee named Doug Hoffman while “Establishmentarian” Newt Gingrich took to the airwaves to castigate said conservative Republicans for having the temerity to buck the “Establishment” all while bemoaning the narrow-mindedness and lack of team play of said endorsement.

It’s where the relentless exposure of Dede Scozzafava’s liberal voting record caused her poll numbers to drop faster than the stock market following an Obama economic speech.

NY-23, where those cratering poll numbers caused Dede to withdraw the weekend before the election whereupon, in the true spirit of the ‘big tent’ philosophy that RINO/liberal Republicans promulgate ad nauseum, she promptly endorsed the Democrat nominee.

Yeah, that NY-23.

So, that debacle having played out on the national stage, now that the 2010 elections have rolled around, one would have thought that the chastened, egg-encrusted GOP leaders in northern New York who foisted this disaster upon the Republican Party would realize the error of their way and look to the guy who despite this fiasco lost the election by only 4%, right?

Wrong!

In a recently conducted series of votes, 9 of the 11 GOP County Executive Committees in NY-23 have endorsed not Doug Hoffman but a candidate who sits firmly to the left of Doug, especially on social issues, and who has been endorsed by the populist Independence Party which, among other things, is pro-choice, pro-gay marriage, believes in public financing of elections and has endorsed Andrew Cuomo for governor.

Initially, one’s ire is drawn inexorably toward these 9 GOP Executive Committees and their chairmen. So, what’s the deal, guys? Having not succeeded in getting a moderate/liberal GOPer elected last time, are you bound and determined to try, try again?

But then reality sets in. Why would anyone expect a different outcome? By what rule of logic would one expect the same people who endorsed a liberal for the last election to suddenly endorse a conservative this time? Maybe they’re not the problem. Maybe, ahem, we’re the problem.

You see, those moderate/liberal Executive Committeemen were elected by moderate/liberal precinct committeemen. And if NY-23 is anything like the rest of the country, over half of it’s precinct committeemen slots are filled with….no one. That’s right. No. One.

Now, imagine what might have happened had movement conservatives taken the time and effort these past 8 months to fill those slots with…conservatives. That’s right. Imagine if we were the Party.

Think that’s a pipe dream? Think it’ll never happen? Think that’s it’s too hard… or you have to be ‘connected’… or it takes too much time? Wrong, wrong and wrong. Need proof? It’s already happened in Maricopa and Clark counties, the largest, most populated counties in Arizona and Nevada, respectively.

Take too much time and effort and connections? Suggestion – head on over to the Precinct Project and see just how incredibly simple it is to become part of “The Party’s” infrastructure. Got the time to write a letter to your CongressCritter, or take in a ballgame? Becoming “The Party” takes about the same amount of time and you don’t even have to pay for parking.

NY-23? It serves as a beacon in the war against Establishmentarians who believe that this fight between the forces of freedom and the tentacles of an all-consuming government will be won by compromising, who continually snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, who are more enamored by the DC cocktail circuit than they are conservative values, and who seemingly never tire of worshiping at the altar of bi-partisanship.

Tired of the NY-23′s? Fed up with “The Party” promising to fight to the last man and then meekly succumbing to the ‘inevitable’? Weary of having to vote between a Democrat and “The Party’s” Dem-lite candidate? Exhausted from writing seemingly endless letters to the leadership of “The Party” only to see the same old cave-ins?

There is a solution.Become “The Party”! Be The Party!!

Originally posted at www.73wire.com

“These are the times that try men’s souls”.

Thus penned Thomas Paine in December of 1776.

How applicable these words are today as we survey what the presidency of Barak Obama hath wrought over the past 14 months. The One, and his Marxist Minions, have embarked on the takeover of private corporations and entire sectors of our economy, mounted an unprecedented assault on the Constitution, engaged in a spending orgy that would leave Paris Hilton gasping for breath, and appointed more czars than Josef Stalin could depose in 3 lifetimes.

As conservatives survey the wreckage left by the Pelosi-Reid-Obama machine, we might be quite tempted to follow the lead of Howard Beale in the classic movie “Network” who, after a rant and tirade as to the current state of society, encouraged his listeners to rise from their lethargy, go to their windows, fling them wide and yell “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore.”

Personally, I prefer the words of the outlaw Josie Wales:

Now remember, when things look bad and it looks like you’re not gonna make it, then you gotta get mean. I mean plumb, mad-dog mean. ‘Cause if you lose your head and you give up then you neither live nor win. That’s just the way it is.

Folks, since there ain’t no such thing as a 5-run homer and there ain’t any one single action that’s going to fix the mess we find ourselves, today I raise the curtain on what I will dub Act One, Scene One of the Josie Wales call to action: sending to Congress real-live Americans who will actually remember that they are bound by the Constitution of the United States of America, and that they represent us , not the elite power brokers who reside within the Beltway.

As a county delegate to our Congressional District’s nominating convention , I am one of only 250 people in the entire 1st District who get to choose our nominee to oppose Tim Walz (S-MN1). Up until Mr. Walz won this seat in ’06, MN-1 had been in GOP hands for decades as it is an R+3 district. However, Walz votes like he’s in a D+20 district: Cap & Trade – yes; HCR – yes; TARP – yes; Porkulus – yes; staffer who told eburke that the profit motive in health care is immoral and who hung up on eburke when informed that that made him a Marxist – yes.

So how’d he do it? Simply put – he’s a veteran in a district that has lots of vets, and he has an A rating from the NRA in a district in which hunting begins right after potty-training, so his media-abetted persona is much more moderate than his actual record.

Enter Jim Engstrand – Lt. Col. (ret) Minnesota National Guard. Like all of the 4 candidates I have spoken to, Jim is dead-on when it comes to the issues (paraphrased responses below):

Health care: tyrannical, unConstitutional, an affront to liberty, repealing it is non-negotiable;

Cap & Trade – devastating, stifling, massive government interference in people’s lives, a massive tax increase;

Illegal Immigration: pro-legal immigration; “We’re spending trillions and trillions of dollars we don’t have on unConstitutional expenditures, and we can’t find the money to actually engage in the Constitutionally-authorized protection of our borders?”

Spending – unsustainable; a freeze isn’t enough; this unsustainable spending level must be reduced; we’re destroying our children’s futures;

Social Issues – Passionately pro-life and pro-traditional marriage (his campaign manager, who I’ve also met, is a member of Concerned Women of America and a director at the Christian Coalition of America)

Defense Issues – retired Lt. Col in the MNG, and his campaign manager is a vet who married an officer. ‘Nuff said.

Now, I understand that no Republican who wants to be selected as the Party nominee this cycle is going to spew anything other than Reagenesque sounding platitudes. So the question becomes how does one separate the aspirers to the mantle from the real thing.

First, Jim Engstrand speaks these beliefs with a passion and conviction that either makes him the best actor since Dustin Hoffman, or they form the very fiber of his being.

Second, I formulated a series of open-ended questions which have given me great insights into where a particular candidate is really coming from. They are:

1) Name the 3 Congressmen you most admire and most desire to emulate?

2) How will you handle your interactions with the MSM?

3) In 2004, the Republicans controlled the House, the Senate & the White House. Today, the Democrats control all three. Why?

4) In 2003, the House Leadership, left open the vote on Medicare Part D for 3 hours while they ’rounded up’ the final 2 votes they needed for passage. How would you handle that kind of pressure and arm-twisting from the president and the leadership of your own party?

And here is where Jim Engstrand secured my vote and passionate support (paraphrased for the sake of brevity):

1) Without the slightest hesitation: Paul Ryan, Mike Pence, and Michelle Bachmann.

2) We need to push right back at them and challenge the premise of their questions. When we do an interview, we put our tape recorder right next to theirs; when we film an interview, our camera sits right next to theirs.

3) Because we forgot who we were and decided to go along to get along. Republicans win when we’re conservatives; we lose when we’re liberals. Do the math.

4) (and here’s the grand slam, boys & girls) I don’t work for any president or any party leader, I work for you. I don’t care about leadership positions, I don’t care about swanky parties, I don’t even really care if I get reelected. In fact, the problem in Washington is that we’ve gotten away from what the Founders intended which was citizen legislators who served for 3 or 4 terms and then returned to their homes. That’s why I will only serve 3 or 4 terms. I represent you and the Constitution of the United States of America, not the leadership of my party or anyone else’s.

Game. Set. Match.

Is he electable? Well, Mrs. Burke, who because I’m a policy geek who would vote for a 500 lb. ugly bald guy who stutters if his policies were good, sat in on the interview to give me exactly that perspective. Her take? Words like sincere, articulate, passionate, great communicator, leader, commanding presence, can connect with the common person because he is a common person. In fact, she made it pretty clear that if I didn’t support Mr. Engstrand I was a) nuts; and, b) might want to explore alternate living arrangements…like in the garage.

But there’s more! As I explored with him his strategy for winning the district, it became evident that he and his campaign manager have crafted an outstanding post-convention strategy for ousting Mr. Walz. Again, in the interest of brevity I won’t lay them all out but they were impeccably thought out:

They have great connections into the social conservative network;

They have already met w/Michael Steele and procured his support post-convention (his campaign manager, who, we agreed, is the ultimate minority as she is a conservative, black female, personally knows Steele and worked on his campaign for Lt. Gov. in Maryland)

He has received acceptance into the Young Guns program of the NRCC if he wins the convention nod. (an aside here, one of the things that became crystal clear as we talked was that the blowback that the national committees received over the NY-23 ScuzzyFuzzy debacle must have been intense and must have had an impact as they basically told the Engstrand team that they aren’t getting involved in any primaries, period).

As a veteran, he has great connections into the veteran’s groups in the district, and will have the support of various veteran’s groups, most notably Vets for Freedom

In sum, his game plan is as impressive as is his positions and his philosophy of governing.

So here’s where you guys come in. Because Lt. Col. Engstrand was serving our country in Iraq until 9 weeks ago, he got into the fray later than the rest of the field. He needs the help of conservatives, (read RedStaters like us) to make up for lost time. However, because this is a caucus and he only needs to reach 150 people to win the nomination, he doesn’t need millions of dollars… he doesn’t need hundreds of thousands of dollars… he doesn’t even need at this point in time tens of thousands of dollars. He just needs enough money and support over the coming weeks to continue the momentum with caucus goers that he’s built since getting into the race.

If you’re like me, sometimes you look at the millions of dollars that races in places like California, Florida and Pennsylvania cost and wonder if those $25 or $50 or $100 or $250 donations that most of us can afford to make can even begin to make a dent or a difference…and then send them anyway. But if you’ve been looking to invest in a RedState Republican (and, yes, he’s familiar with the site) where your seemingly small contribution can have an impact far beyond it’s actual size, I encourage you to let the moths out of your wallet, wipe the dust off of your credit card and help Jim Engstrand be the kind of voice that constitutional conservatives yearn for.

To sum it all up, Jim Engstrand is one of us. Jim Engstrand has sacrificed to serve our country before and he’s willing to sacrifice to serve it again to do battle against the forces in Washington that are assaulting all that we believe in. But Jim could sure use our help.

Let’s Roll folks!

Ok, boys & girls, I know these last 72 hours have been gutwrenching. The future of the Republic may hang in the balance. The Fabian Dems are throwing everything including the kitchen sink at this unconstitutional takeover of 1/6th of the American economy and their lapdogs in the media are dutifully lapping up the vomit they are spewing and spitting it right back out at us.

The spin has come fast and furious and all those CongressCritters who voted “yes” last time, and then conveniently decided that they were “undecided” have come rushing to the fore with the media trumpeting their every ‘conversion’ to create an air of inevitability. This has left those of us who have been fighting this with every fiber of our being looking in the liquor cabinet for our favorite adult beverage and crawling out to the ledge of our abode in anticipation of the dismantling of that for which our forefathers fought and died.

Folks, it’s time to come in off the ledge because SanFranNan, Dingy Harry & His Excellency need the space that you’re occupying. About an hour ago, I decided to take a step back from the dizzying array of numbers coming out and adopt the KISS method and here, my fellow warriors, is where we are at.

For those of you who don’t wish to trudge through the feature presentation, I’ll give you a sneak peak at the ending – The Marxist triumvarate need to draw an inside straight to actually pull this off.

No, I haven’t been nipping at the brandy (ok, to be honest, I did go downstairs and find my best friend “Jack”). But here’s the deal. Screw all these names coming out; here’s the bottom line. HCR passed the first time on a vote of 220 – 215. Since then, 4 members have departed the House (some voluntarily, others forced out by scandal; one at room temperature (so how’s the weather down there, Jack?)) They comprised 3 yes votes and 1 no.

So, if everyone voted exactly the same as they did the first time, the vote would be 217 – 214. Cao, the lone Republican to vote yes last time (with the Speaker’s permission) is a solid no this time. Score: 216 – 215. The Botox Queen ain’t got any wriggle room right out of the gate.

No matter what kind of bilge the Dems and the media (but I repeat myself) have been spewing, the only thing that matters are the numbers of votes that have changed since the November vote. And here, sports fans, is where we’re at on this. There have been 7 “no’s” that have flipped to “yes” (the traitors are: Boccieri-OH, Boyd-FL, Gordon-TN, Kosmos-FL, Kucinich-OH, Markey-CO, and Murphy-NY). Score at the end of the first quarter? 223 – 208.

However, there have been ten yes-to-no switches (the heroes are, with the Stupak group in italics: Arcuri-NY, Berry-AR, Costello-IL, Donnelly-IN, Driehaus-IN, Lipinski-IL, Lynch-MS, Rahall-WV, Stupak-MI, Space-OH). That makes the half-time score 213-218, the Good Guys.

There are 4 no-to-yes possibilities left: Baird-WA (ret.), Tanner-TN (ret.), Davis-TN, Nye-VA (Update – Nye is a No; that means Nan’s gotta get all 3 of ‘em and folks from TN are saying Davis is solid. In addition, Sanchez -CA is AWOL in Florida somewhere, voted against the Slaughter Solution earlier this week and has told folks she’s a ‘no’ and she hasn’t been on anybody’s radar screen). Simple math tells you that if all 10 yes-to-no’s hold, the Botox Queen has to get 3 of these 4 to win the game. If you assume that she gets both Baird & Tanner because they’re retiring and they don’t need a ‘get of jail free’ card, that means she has to get either Davis or Nye (I think that’s why Davis has been in seclusion the last few days. The pressure has been intense and if he announces as a ‘no’ he can’t go back and the gig is probably over)

If SFN can’t get one of those two, she has to flip one of the Stupak 7 who have declared opposition. But it gets even harder for her. There are still (per FDL) 9 undecideds. Among those 9 are 3 Stupak members: Dahlkamper (R +3), Mollohan (R+9) and Kaptur (D+10). She can’t lose any of those 3 or she has to pry either a firm ‘no’ to a yes (and anybody flipping back to yes right now would be absolute toast in November) or pry off another Stupak member. So if you want to know why she lowered herself to negotiate with Stupak again last night at the risk of infuriating the pro-abortion crowd…now you know.

She. Can’t. Win. This. Without. The. Pro-Life. Democrats (is that the ultimate in irony or what)

I’ll make this even easier on you. FireDogLake is showing:  ”Firm Yes” – 205; “Firm No” – 207; “Leaning No” – 10;     “Undecided” – 9. Simple math tells you Nan’s got to get all 9 undecideds (which include 3 Stupak members) and 2 of the 10 “Leaning No’s”.

Now, I haven’t spent enough time with my buddy Jack to think that this ain’t doable for the utterly corrupt, lying, conniving, bribing, Constitution-hating gang of Marxists ’cause the pressure on some folks for the next 18 hours will be beyond anything we can imagine. This ain’t over till it’s over.

But just out of courtesy for the less fortunate, you may want to step back off the ledge. I think there just may be some people who need the space more than you.

So last night, shortly before retiring for the evening with Mrs. Burke, I did my usual last-minute nightly check of RedState, The Hill and FireDogLake whereupon I came across the announcement that there appeared to be an agreement between our favorite Botox Babe and Rep. Stupak on his abortion concerns. So, of course, I did the logical thing and decided it was a great time to write a diary. Mrs. Burke was less than amused…but then again, she long ago gave me up as hopeless.

That endeavor then led to me to a second endeavor – an attempt to figure out how this side-car ammendment (an ‘enrollment ammendment’ I believe it’s called) would work Constitutionally (not that that document means a bloody thing to the Dems). But that started to make my head hurt so I did the next logical thing – I took 2 Jacks and went to bed.

But as I stared at the ceiling (been doing that a lot the last couple of weeks) several thoughts flitted through my head and, at one o’ clock in the morning, a diary was conceived; to wit – no matter what happens on Sunday, for conservatives, several long-term thoughts need to be taken away from this abomination.

First, for all the conservatives who spent the last week obsessing over every faux announcement made by the Dems and their sycophants in the media, this whole episode with Stupak proves that all the bluster from the Marxist Dem leadership all week about ‘having the votes’ was just a mirage designed to create a sense of inevitability. It was the greatest slight of hand since Houdini and the greatest flim-flam since P.T. Barnum said that a sucker was born every minute. That so many people who know how full of (insert your noun of choice here) the Democrats and their lying, biased, worthless, Marxist allies in the media are to be sucked into the vortex of their sewer was disappointing.

Second, this whole sordid, corrupt, unConstitutional abomination revealed to the average American the cesspool that is Washington today. There have been a lot of unConstitutional shenanigans going on for years (including, to be honest, some by the GOP although nowhere near the level of what the Dems have and are doing) that are about to be exposed in Court because if this thing passes, it’ll be tied up in court for years.

Third, and most importantly,the sleeping giant of the Americans who actually make this country work has been awakened. For many years, (and I absolutely include myself in this) we were content to go to work, raise our families, and vote in elections and while we would, between friends and family, bemoan the encroaching tentacles of government, and the ‘chipping away’ of our freedoms, we just went on with our daily lives of being productive citizens of this greatest of all countries.

But I believe, and I pray that I am right, that Obama and his minions may have made a strategic long-term mistake with this egregious and sordid assault on the very foundations of our liberties. For years we, the American silent majority, have been the frog in the kettle only vaguely aware that the Fabians were slowly but continually raising the temperature of the water. Well, this whole debacle had the effect of applying a blow-torch to the kettle and, judging from the activism I’ve seen in the last 6 months, and especially the last few weeks, the frog is no longer in the kettle; he’s been singed by the fire…and he’s hopping mad.

Their is a quote, perhaps apocryphal, attributed to Admiral Yomomoto following the Japenese attack on Pearl Harbor where, when asked why, in this moment of ultimate Japenese truimph, he seemed in despair, he replied “I fear we have awakened a sleeping giant.’

Historians don’t know if that quote ever actually was uttered or whether it just came from the fertile imagination of a screenwriter’s mind. But what I pray historians will be certain of is that no matter what the outcome of tomorrow’s vote, this has become our Pearl Harbor.

The giant is awake.

We are the cavalry.

Let’s roll.

….’cause this is gonna be fun.
 
The Hill is reporting that Pelosi is close to reaching an agreement with Stupak to give him a separate vote on his abortion resolution (called an ‘enrollment resolution) which would instruct the Senate clerk to change the language in the Senate bill to match that of the House. Aside from the minor details as to whether this is Constitutional, or whether the Senate would even pass such a measure, the Pro-Abortion caucus in the House is out of their minds with rage.
 
Their visibly angry head abortionist came out after a 30 minute meeting w/Pelosi and said that any agreement w/Stupak on this and Pelosi will lose 40 – 55 votes “and we mean it this time. If that causes healthcare reform to fail then it will be the fault of the Republicans and the anti-abortion Dems”.
 
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the Botox Queen wouldn’t even be lowering herself to talk to Stupak if she had the votes elsewhere. That means we got a nice little game of chicken going on here where Nancy gets to decide who’s bluffing – Stupak or the pro-choice Dems. My money is that she knows Stupak ain’t gonna fold so she’s gonna try to convince her murdering sisters that this whole reconciliation thing ain’t gettin’ through the Senate anyway and they don’t want to really kill their Holy Grail they’ve waited 70 years for.
 
No wonder Stupak looked like the cat that ate the canary a couple of days ago when he said that the leadership list of his Dozen wasn’t even close and he predicted that on the last night they’d be coming to him looking for a deal. I’m betting that means a couple of his people are hiding out in the ‘yes’ column so as to not attract attention.
 
Bottom line – SanFranNan’s gotta be filling her drawers right now.
 
Heh.Heh.
 
Where’s the popcorn?