1. The Whupping in Wisconsin: Seven Key Conclusions

2. Scorecard: Solyndra vs. Konarka

3. A Risk of Contagion: The Growing Threat from Syria’s WMD

4. Obama and Reid: Destroying the Economy; Stimulating Trial Lawyers

1. The Whupping in Wisconsin: Seven Key Conclusions

Last night in Wisconsin, Democracy died because Republicans spent a bunch of money and Wisconsin saw record voter turnout levels across the state where they decisively sided with the incumbent Republican Governor against the ongoing childish assault on representative democracy by leftists unhappy with the hand the voters dealt them in 2010. Or something like that.

Remember, the left was perfectly fine with money in politics when they thought Barack Obama was going to raise $1 billion with which he would bludgeon the GOP. Now that it is not happening, money in politics is again evil. It is no coincidence that the left seized on this talking point even before the polls closed. They think it sells well. But it doesn’t. Remember in 2010, they tried to claim the Chamber of Commerce was spending foreign money to help the GOP? Lot of good it did them then.

These are also the same people who once told us the Wisconsin recall was a harbinger of GOP overreach and voter retaliation would ensue. Suddenly, the recall means nothing according to these same people. The Chairwoman of the Democratic Party once called last night a “dry run” for the general election. Heh.

Last night in Wisconsin, despite a disastrous run of exit polling, made more difficult by the dynamics of a recall election, Scott Walker handily beat Tom Barrett. What exit polls suggested would be a close race turned into a romp. The left has resorted to screaming about money in politics. What they cannot reconcile is that, most likely, were Barack Obama and MItt Romney on the ballot tonight as well as the Walker v. Barrett race, Barack Obama would have won despite all the GOP money pouring in.

I maintain that special elections mean very little to general elections. The flawed exit polls were flawed because people who vote in recall elections vote in different ways from general elections. There was a massive union vote in Wisconsin last night. We can conclude that Scott Walker winning big with a big union turnout means even private sector union members hate public sector unions. But we should be careful not to over conclude things based on Wisconsin.

Republicans around the country should take note of that. While I maintain recalls and special elections are not really good indicators of anything beyond the dynamics of those races, there are a few things Wisconsin tells us that do bode ill for President Obama and that are easy to conclude.

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2. Scorecard: Solyndra vs. Konarka

In a move that they’ll surely regret, the Obama campaign has called attention to a “green energy” loan to Konarka Power Plastic of Lowell, MA hile Mitt Romney was governor. They have accused Romney of hypocrisy in his criticism of the Obama Administration’s DOE loan guarantee to Solyndra and other “green energy” firms.

Here’s how the two loans panned out:

You’ve gotta wonder about someone who can draw any kind of equivalence between these two programs. Maybe that’s the difference between a community organizer and a businessman.

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3. A Risk of Contagion: The Growing Threat from Syria’s WMD

Recent reports of al Qaida infiltration of the Syrian resistance have strengthened our national reluctance to intervene in the slow-motion train wreck that is the Syrian civil war. After all, we hardly want to be in the position of arming our enemies (that didn’t go so well with the Mexican drug cartels), and should they be successful an al Qaida backed regime is one of the few things that would be worse than the Assad thugocracy that has oppressed Syria for so long.

Furthermore, our options are limited at best. All the high hopes pinned to Kofi Annan’s diplomatic effort to broker a cease-fire have been dashed. Despite international outcry over ongoing atrocities such as the Houla massacre, there now seems to be little we can do beside plead with Vladimir Putin to get his buddy Bashir al-Assad to stop slaughtering his civilian population.

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4. Obama and Reid: Destroying the Economy; Stimulating Trial Lawyers

Over the past few weeks, we’ve been hit with a torrent of negative economic news, portending a prolonged period of stagnation for the foreseeable future. While most recessions end with a period of robust growth and job creation, this recovery has been stymied by odious regulations and a cloud of uncertainty painted dark black with Obama’s anti-business policies. Naturally, the response from Democrats is to impose even more regulations. This time they plan to tap one of their favorite tools; wage controls.

Harry Reid is planning to bring the “Paycheck Fairness Act” (S. 3220) to the floor today. Behind this mellifluous sounding name rests a plethora of onerous paperwork for small businesses, a strong disincentive to hire women, and a Pandora’s box of class action lawsuits designed to enrich the trial lawyers – a group that happens to be prolific donors to the Democrat Party.

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