We were, around these parts, fairly divided on the original bailout. Some of us thought it needed and some of us thought it perhaps needed, but a terrible idea and a road we should not travel.

Well, now we know. The bailout gave Hank Paulson a pile of cash that he is spending on his friends on Wall Street without very little accountability — the law of unintended consequences for some and the natural outcome of a reckless plan for many of us.

Now General Motors wants a bail out. The Republicans are pushing a restructuring of existing obligations and a demand that GM and the UAW renegotiate excessive employee perks. The Democrats want an all or nothing nationalization of General Motors. The money to be coughed up could better be spent on starting a new car company or reinventing the car company.

Liberals seem to believe in Darwinian evolution and natural selection in every part of the world save business. In business, liberal economic policy is to keep propping up decayed and dying businesses.

This is a hill to die on for Republicans. If a restructuring of existing obligations cannot be worked out, let General Motors die. Sure, it would be a painful hit to our economy. But better this short term hit than the long term destruction that keeping General Motors alive would bring.

In the natural world, the liberals see the old buffalo being picked off by the wolves and refuse to intervene. They say it is natural selection. If we intervened for the buffalo, who knows what long term havoc that spared life could wreck in the ecosystem. If only they’d think the same way about business.

Let General Motors die.

The Franken camp is working over time to steal Minnesota now. With them worried they won’t catch up, Roll Call reports the Franken camp wants a delay.

With the State Canvassing Board set to certify the results in Minnesota’s unresolved Senate race Tuesday, the campaign of comedian Al Franken (D) has asked the board not to officially call the race until the votes of several voters who cast absentee ballots are included in the final count.

The Franken campaign filed a brief with the five-person board Monday, demanding that every vote be counted.

“We would ask them to not certify the vote count,” Marc Elias, a Democratic election lawyer working for Franken, said in a news conference Monday.

Notice they aren’t asking to count every legal vote, but every vote. This is important because some people who voted straight Democrat still couldn’t bring themselves to vote for an ass like Franken. Nonetheless, Franken wants the person to be deemed a Franken voter because the person voted for every other Democrat.

Having spent years surrounded by fawning admirers paid to worship him, Franken just can’t handle the real world where everybody knows his name and hates him.

Awesome guys. Seriously well done. If we’re to win, we’re going to have to pay attention to this stuff.

Here is a state by state roundup from the diaries:

Paulag1955 on Washington’s 1st Congressional District.

Spiral on Indiana’s 7th.

NightTwister on Colorado’s 4th.

Dave on Maryland’s 7th.

Birdmojo on Colorado’s 5th.

Azaeroprof on Arizona’s 1st.

Alchemist17 on Massachusett’s 2nd..

Oh, by the way, if you haven’t figured out yet, the state by state blogs have front pages too. And you don’t have to be promoted to be on the front page there. If you diary is about a particular state, it shows up there automatically.

In a few weeks, we’ll be adding even more cool features to promote cross-collaboration and offline activism between users in the various states.

Keep it up! It makes me excited to be a part of this.

Lt. Gov. Steele knows I like him. And he knows I’d support him if he were RNC Chairman. But at this present moment I am in the no camp. I can be persuaded, but I stand at “no thanks” right now.

And frankly, I’m a bit aggravated by a lot of folks on our side who have gone all fan boy on Michael Steele. To use Joe Biden’s lingo, “a mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy” is no more a qualification for RNC Chair than for President of the United States. And that, frankly, is why a large number of people are supporting Michael Steele.

I want to support Michael Steele because of what he has done, not because of who he is or what he represents. I would encourage people who are supporting Lt. Gov. Steele to start talking about him as a serious leader, not him as a face to put up against Barack Obama. Why? Because the RNC Chairman’s role is much more of a behind the scenes role than an “in front of the camera” roll.

And thus far, based on what he has done, I have concerns. Again, I am persuadable, but I’d like to get these addressed:

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But RedState could not do it without readers/users like you.

On newsstands Monday is a profile of RedState in Newsweek. You can check it out here complete with a misspelling of my last name in the first line. Heh.

After suffering demoralizing losses in the Nov. 4 election, the GOP is searching for new voices to spur a comeback. But the party’s right wing tends to distrust anyone who’s too comfortable inside the Beltway, which is partly why Erickson—White House visits aside—has built such a following. The worldwide headquarters of his RedState.com is a sleepy coffee shop in Macon, Ga., 700 miles from Washington. They must brew a strong cup of joe there, because from his remote perch, Erickson has grabbed his party’s power brokers by their elephant-stitched suspenders. Avid readers include Rush Limbaugh, former senator Fred Thompson and House Minority Leader John Boehner. When rising GOP star Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia decided to run for minority whip, the party’s No. 2 post in the House, he announced it on Red State. When Thompson wanted to share that he’d had a bout with cancer but was now in remission, he posted a personal note on Red State.

Thanks guys. This really is a testament to all of you. The next four years will be one hell of a ride. I couldn’t think of a finer group of people to travel with than all of you.

BTW, that cofee shop is Joshua Cup Coffee, where all the profits go to a faith based children’s charity. Yes, our part of the VRWC is, when not run out of my house, run out of a Christian coffee house with a great big old sign when you enter that reads, “Fear of the Lord is the root of all wisdom.”

UPDATE: It’s been a long time coming. Josh Painter is now a front page contributor.

Is found in this headline: “Can Obama Save the Media Industry?”

And from the article:

How long can the Obama-fueled print-run last? That’s unclear, but publishers are banking on increased reader interest and circulation up until the inauguration. The New York Times is hawking, for example, a reprint from the Election Day issue of just the front page; the press plates of the front page; a collection of Obama photographs and a commemorative issue of “Elections & Inauguration: George Washington to Barack Obama.” The St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times, among others, is weighing special sections to insert in its post-Inauguration Day editions. Next week, USA Today and ABC News are jointly releasing a book and DVD titled “America Speaks: The Historic 2008 Election.” Separately, Gannett’s flagship is considering a commemorative edition covering the inauguration.

The Obama transition team has a very detailed questionnaire for job applicants.

Now, what’s so funny about it is that the questionnaire does not ask about traffic tickets under $50.00, which Obama apparently got a lot of in college and never paid, and the questionnaire does not ask about associations with known terrorists. I guess that’d put all the Friends of Bill (Ayers) off the jobs list.

But, they do ask this one:

(59) Do you or any members of your immediate family own a gun? If so, provide complete ownership and registration information.  Has the registration ever lapsed?  Please also describe how and by whom it is used and whether it has been the cause of any personal injuries or property damage.

I guess they want to make it very easy to round up all the guns once they’ve stacked the Supreme Court with anti-gun Justices.

Dear Senator Cornyn,

Congratulations. You are now de facto NRSC Chairman. I trust you will do a competent job.

I’m very concerned though, sir. Members of the House and Senate, when they get in leadership positions, sometimes surround themselves with people who want to be there for the resume line, not the cause.

Your cause, sir, is to pick up seats in 2010. That will be a year that sees Jim DeMint, Tom Coburn, and other good conservatives on the ballot as Senate candidates.

It would concern me greatly, then, if you hired Rob Jesmer for any position at the NRSC. I realize he was on your Senate campaign in Texas, sir, but I’m troubled by him.

As you know, Congressman Scott Garrett is a die hard conservative champion in Congress. And as you know, Congressman Garrett was in the fight of his political life this year.

It was, therefore, unfortunate, that Mr. Jesmer would try to hit on or otherwise play nice with your opponent’s press secretary by bashing a conservative leader like Scott Garrett.

In fact, with a tape recorder on, Rob Jesmer called Scott Garrett a nut to Garrett’s opponent’s daughter. She served as your opponent’s press secretary.

And guess what? Your campaign manager’s statement that Garrett is a “nut” made the papers in New Jersey.

Rob Jesmer showed (A) distain for a true conservative; (B) terrible judgment; and/or (C) great immaturity in that act. I would be deeply, deeply concerned about having him in the NRSC in such a critical election cycle.

Sincerely,
Erick Erickson
Editor, RedState.com

I went after David Brooks yesterday.

Stacy McCain wants Brooks and George Will air dropped into Afghanistan without parachutes.

Ann Coulter drew blood.

And now R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr. is weighing in. And he makes roughly the same point I made, but does so from a different angle:

What provoked Brooks’ fandango with the Traditionalists and the Reformers was a meeting the former group held in the Virginia hills outside Washington to prepare for the years ahead. As Brooks reported, I was present; his term Traditionalist, however, is misleading. There was more variety within the group than you would find among liberals planning a revival in 2004. There were libertarians, evangelicals, tax cutters, hawkish foreign policy advocates, and others. It was indeed the kind of turnout that could be termed “Reaganite,” and there are other meetings coming up. For years, the conservative movement has had more variety than the liberal movement, which might explain why only 22 percent of the American people call themselves liberal, while 34 percent call themselves conservatives. There is vitality on the right, and there will be vitality in the wilderness, though the last time we were out here, we only stayed two years. Liberal overreach and incompetence saw to that.

Can we please stop pretending David Brooks is a conservative now?

When I first posted on Operation Leper, I put Steve Schmidt on the list. His name appeared in both a CNN story as someone saying negative things about Sarah Palin and in a Politico story.

I can no longer say that Steve Schmidt was one of the smear artists out to harm Palin in order to protect his reputation. In fact, at this time I feel extremely comfortable saying Steve Schmidt has gotten a bad rap. That I played a part in it, I must apologize to him.

To his great credit, he has refused to talk one way or the other. I did not put Steve on the list until seeing the Politico and CNN stories, as well as talking to people I trusted who were familiar with the situation. Nonetheless, I think those of us who judged Steve Schmidt harshly and were willing to list him as a smear artist got it wrong.

I’ve obtained the internal flow chart in PDF form of how the Obama administration is shaping up.

Very interesting stuff.

For example, Obama is considering Shirley Franklin, Atlanta’s mayor, for HUD Secretary. Franklin, you’ll recall, participated in a hate filled race-baiting ad two years ago in which she and Rep. John Lewis claimed Republicans in charge was more dangerous to black people than the police and police dogs in the streets during the 60′s civil rights struggle.

He’s also got Penny Pritzker listed as a potential Commerce Secretary pick. This is Penny “shady loan” Pritzker who ran her bank into the ground and hob-knobed with Ahmadinejad.

The list also considers Howard Dean for Secretary of HHS and both Dick Gephardt and David Bonior to undermine the Labor Department.

See the whole thing here

By the way, the Alonzo Jackson notation in the chart is wrong. The memo that accompanies the chart makes that clear. I’ve put the memo below the fold.

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You’d think Obama might not want a filibuster proof Senate, so they still have an effective foil to blame in the GOP. But it’s looking more and more like Saxby’s could be the sixtieth seat and Obama is sending his minion horde to Georgia:

“Obama’s former campaign workers are now assisting Martin in his 25 offices across the state, Martin said. Those ground troops, he said, are more important than big-name politicians for getting voters back to the polls. Some prominent Democrats have volunteered to come down for his campaign, Martin said, without offering specifics.”

If you don’t think staff makes a difference just remember the discrepancy in Florida between Obama and McCain’s staffers and look at the results.

With uncertainty in Alaska and Democrats doing their best to steal the election in Minnesota, Georgia looms large as a firewall against a filibuster proof Democrat controlled Senate. This is going to be fun.

More on the migration of Obama’s minions can be read here.

We had a server error earlier forcing a reboot of the system. If you are getting a “You May Not Post” error, please log out and then back in. That’s the fix. No, Moe has not banned you (probably).

I spent six years as an elections lawyer. I handled a lot of very wacked election canvasses and recounts. One thing they all had in common: when new votes were found, they generally went both ways — a few for one candidate and a few for the other candidate. It didn’t quite follow the polling, but then close races only happen at the 50-50 margin.

Here’s something that never happened: the votes did not all go 100% for one candidate except in the two instances where there was only one misplaced ballot discovered.

In Minnesota, though, the votes are all going for Al Franken — pretty much all 600 of them. That defies statistical probability.

Here’s something else canvasses of ballots have in common: a lot of ballots drop off. It’s an undervote, e.g. 20 races on the ballot, but only 15 get votes. Sometimes people don’t want to vote for the Republican, but they can’t stomach their own Democratic candidate.

Al Franken’s campaign strategy is now premised on the undervotes in Minnesota. His legal team would have us believe that a vote for Barack Obama is also a vote for Al Franken — never mind the Democrats who could not stand voting for an ass like Franken.

Of course, this is fatuous nonsense. Just look at the polling. Franken trailed Obama by 12.6% in the final poll conducted before Election Day. In fact, for the last months of the race, Franken chronically trailed Obama.

But Franken would have us believe that if a ballot shows up with no vote for Franken, despite having votes for other Democrats, the voter intended to vote for Franken and just, I guess, forgot to.¹

Al Franken must be the only man on earth who doesn’t recognize how many in his own party hate him.

The Don’t Go Movement has up a petition I’d encourage you to sign. It’s to ask the government to not bail out the auto industry.

From the letter accompanying the petition:

A free market is a market in which property rights are voluntarily exchanged at a price arranged completely by the mutual consent of sellers and buyers. If the seller, or the buyer, finds that a business decision has less than desirable consequences, we believe it is the responsibility of the party involved to find a solution to the problem.

Forcing taxpayers to pay for bad business decisions is not the solution. Nor is it the American way.

If you ever wanted to know if there are coordinated spin efforts by the mainstream media on issues, look no further to David Brooks’ latest piece of bird cage liner that is still buzzing around Washington.

It all started Tuesday night with the new meme that we’re a center-left nation from the pundits on the networks. Funny they should all raise the same point that night.

Then it headed into the pages of newspapers.

Finally, David Brooks, the New York Times pet moderate who calls himself a conservative (or at least used to be thought of as one), buys some straw men by wholesale and throws them into a column. You know the one.

There are traditionalists and reformers, according to Brooks. “Traditionalist” is code for conservative. “Reformer” is code for liberal. If you ever needed any more evidence that we are a center right nation, this column is it. Brooks cannot call liberals “liberal.” He won’t even call them “progressive.” No, now it is “reformer.” And he can’t call conservatives conservative because too many people would have embraced the term. If you can’t call yourself what you are for fear of rejection by the majority of the country, then what you are must be predicated on ideas rejected by the majority, i.e. the majority of this country rejects the left and its big government ways.

The facts are these:

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As they do after each election, the fine folks at McLaughlin & Associates, have released some post-election surveys for everyone to chew on. One poll looked at the size of government and the other looked at 2012 Republican candidates. Both surveys were of 1000 people with a margin of error of +/- 3.1%.

McLaughlin & Associates asked this question:

Would you say you most favor a smaller government with fewer services, or a larger government with many services?

53% were in favor of smaller government and 28% were in favor of larger government. Breaking that out, and pay attention Fred Barnes, David Brooks, etc.:

78% of Republicans favored smaller government, 54% of independents did, 78% of self-described conservatives did, and 46% of self-described moderates did. Democrats were at 33% and liberals at 25%.

More importantly, Hispanic voters were split with 38% wanting smaller government and 39% wanting larger government with 22% undecided.

Age wise, the only group wanting larger government was the 18 to 25 year old bracket.

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CHECK OUT www.chuckdevore.com

Late last week, I interviewed Chuck Devore, a California Assemblyman representing Orange County. Mr. Devore intends to challenge Barbara Boxer in 2010 for the United States Senate. He is an interesting candidate and a compelling choice for Republicans to embrace early.

Devore represents the Republican bastion of Orange County that, demographically, is slowly turning from red to blue. Despite the demographic change, Devore has been able to hold on the area in a way others have not. In 2004, Devore won a greater percentage of votes in his district than George Bush did, despite Devore having a Libertarian candidate on the ballot opposing him. In 2008, again Devore won a greater percentage of the vote than John McCain. “The GOP vote was depressed this year,” he tells me. The party ran with “a muddled vision of Democrat lite” and voters chose the real thing over the pretender, Devore explained.

Devore is one of those candidates who likes to make clear there are real differences between the Republicans and Democrats. “A majority of Californians now agree nuclear power is needed,” he tells me, pointing out Barbara Boxer disagrees. “A plurality also favor offshore drilling,” he tells me, again pointing out Barbara Boxer disagrees. Boxer, he emphasizes, “is an unreconstructed extremist liberal.” That’s red meat rhetoric that will play well to the Republican base.

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Tom Rath is the former Attorney General General of New Hampshire. He’s also been a Republican National Committeeman. He is not the type of guy people should treat lightly.

I am, consequently, rather disturbed that several people, both inside and outside the McCain campaign — trusted people — tell me Mr. Rath is responsible for the Newsweek story about Sarah Palin’s temper tantrum in New Hampshire.

To recap, Newsweek reported Palin refused to go on stage with Senator Sununu and Jeb Bradley because of their pro-choice politics and opposition to drilling in ANWR. Later, it was revealed that Palin had been on stage with them and, in fact, had appeared on stage with several pro-choice candidates without incident. Oh, and she was running mates with John McCain, a man who opposes drilling in ANWR.

In any event, Rath is one of those who hitched his wagon to Mitt Romney. It is, however, people in the Romney camp pointing fingers at Rath, in addition to McCain staffers.

I called Mr. Rath at his office to ask him about it. I said I was calling about the latest Sarah Palin smear. He seemed to know which one I was talking about. He vigorously denied the charge, said he had never met Sarah Palin before, and was not responsible for it.

I guess the question then is why are people close to Mitt Romney and John McCain looking disapprovingly in his direction?

You can sign the Operation Leper petition below. Want to measure the impact? Well, just look at the McCain staffers now rushing to say nice things about Sarah Palin, including Nicolle Wallace, who we’ve already outted.