I know you’re working hard to modernize the Republican party and all the while keeping your boot thumb on the pulse of the conservative movement..but we haven’t been RedState.org in years.
We’ll be over here with the icky Palin people, trying to actually get folks elected. I’m sure when we do, they’ll need a fancy speechwriter or two to polish them up and make them presentable, so there’s hope yet.
kthxsbye.
Oh, how I’ve missed the mailbag.
From: kestrel9000 <kestrel9000@gmail.com>
Date: July 29, 2009 1:34:57 PM EDT
To: contact@redstate.com
Subject: erickThere is still time to stop the Democrats” from providing medical care to the least among us?F**k you, you evil co*ks****r.
How do you sleep?
If I saw your face I would put a fist in it. Where is Krempasky?
You’re a bastard. A hateful, evil, piece of sh*t, and I hope you get cancer and die.
Two posts in one day…the hell is wrong with me?
Anyway, sorry to be late to this particular discussion - but it looks like Google (specifically Blogger) had drawn a ton of flak this week over placing a blog behind Blogger’s “interstitial” content warning and accusations of political bias have followed quickly behind. Without rounding up all the links (Moe did that quite well here), I would like to weigh in on this: Rick Klau, the Product Manager for Blogger at Google has posted a response.
A couple things: first, I think that if the company Google can be attributed to hold political views, they probably (ok, pretty much certainly) aren’t mine. I think as a rule, conservatives have a lot to disagree with the way that Google sees the policy world. They do quite a bit to earn distrust on the right (come on, would it freaking KILL them to toss out a Memorial Day logo instead of Tetris’ birthday fercrissakes?)
Second - I’ve known Rick for years. While he was at Feedburner he was a great friend to RedState in its early years trying to scrap together a few nickels to keep the lights on and the beer flowing. Yes, he’s a Democrat - and he’s also an honest broker and I take him at his word.
And no, I wouldn’t believe for ONE SINGLE SECOND that he’d let political concerns affect the way Blogger is run. No way, no how. Everything else is just faked moon landings and forged birth certificates.
P.S. [insert likely unnecessary disclaimer about my employer having many clients in the technology arena]
Arnold Schwarzenegger isn’t exactly my kind of Republican. He’s squishy on a lot of issues I care about. He seems a little too concerned with the opinion of some in the media. All that said, how can you characterize the news today that California political leaders have reached a budget deal as anything but a crushing win for the Gov? No new taxes, deep budget cuts, some reform to the state’s welfare system AND access and fees for offshore oil drilling?! [insert Conan joke about lamentations]
SRSLY? Holy crap.
Don’t get me wrong - the deal’s not perfect by any means. And folks with many more accounting degrees than I will find reasons to object to some of the shifts of both revenues and costs. And don’t forget - the very existence of the budget standoff that Arnold just won is a direct result of the failure of several of his key ballot initiatives.
But as I was driving to work this morning, listening to NPR lament the deal as one of the sharpest contractions in government anywhere in the country in recent memory, I couldn’t help but smile. When the chips were down, Arnold held firm. Well done, sir.
If this means (to steal the phrase) that Arnold’s back on the juice - can we pass it around at the next RGA meeting?
P.S. And meanwhile, across town - while Arnold was winning almost every concession he asked for..the SEIU is authorizing a strike. Good luck with that.
Culture11, we hardly knew ye. And what a true tragedy for us, that we failed to recognize such brilliance, a guiding star, a beacon to lead us back to the path of…of…well, that was the problem, wasn’t it? That the people busy trying to win elections just weren’t cool enough. Not enlightened enough? Or just too stuck on Sarah?
“One of my proudest moments,” Kuo told me, “was when someone at RedState”—the conservative blog that attempted to mount an online purge of the movement’s reformists in the last weeks of the campaign—”said, ‘We aren’t even going to post a link to Culture11.’ “
SRSLY? *THAT* was one of your proudest moments? Not when you “left the administration unhappily and went on to write Tempting Faith, the most personal of the dissenting White House memoirs of the Bush years”? Or was it when the money ran out and you surveyed all you had built for a mere $X million? Give me a freaking break. Here’s your gold star-embroidered hemp sweater for standing up to The Man.
Please. First, to get this out of the way: there was no official RedState policy of not linking to Culture11. Culture11 had quite a few defenders inside RedState and readers in our community - and to be more precise, several of the folks involved with Culture11 had quite a few fans. Many of us didn’t just defend the site, but rooted for its success. Some of us even got used as professional references when all those writers ended up on the street.
But at the same time, there were more than few folks at RedState that looked at the sneering attitudes like Kuo’s and frankly didn’t shed a tear when that bunch failed to cajole even an angel investor (and I use the term loosely in the absence of a identifiable business model) to continue throwing good money after bad. We weren’t sad that a bunch of folks who burned through a load of righty cash and ended up at the end with nothing but fawning praise from the left got a little lesson in how markets work.
And see, that was the problem all along. It’s not just that Culture11 didn’t know what they were really setting out to do. It’s that they weren’t very good at it.
With so many people and discussions focused on what Republicans can do to prepare for 2010, many forget that political ground zero this year will be the Commonwealth of Virginia where the governor is elected in odd years, and incumbents can’t run - so it’s always a near-free for all. Rasmussen has it pretty wide open, which isn’t surprising.
Now, enter the former Chairman of the Democratic National Committee. This LA Times blogger posits that Virginia’s lack of campaign finance limits is bad news for Republicans since Terry has raised almost a billion (with a B) dollars for Democrats - a sum that even the President-elect can respect. And his ability to raise cash has already had a very direct impact on the race. One of his opponents, State Delegate Brian Moran actually resigned his seat prior to the start of the legislative session primarily because he would be prohibited from raising campaign cash during that term.
So yes, there’s going to be no shortage of dollars for Dems in the Commonwealth this year. But I highly doubt that’s the biggest problem. While the GOP has lost a slew of statewide offices over the last six years, the Virginia party has…well, it seems like they’ve gotten pretty good at throwing pointy objects at each other.
The only bright spot? We’ve got a great candidate in VA Attorney General Bob McDonnell. Solid conservative who’s been successful in both office and the ballot box. Can he raise the money to compete in the absence of a well-oiled GOP machine? You can help with that. (This is my first donation of 2009, but it won’t be my last.)
What a country.
10 years ago TODAY, Congressman Ray LaHood from Illinois gaveled an extraordinary vote. From the Speaker’s chair in the House of Representatives, he presided over the impeachment of President. William Jefferson Clinton.
Today, President-elect Obama is preparing to formally announce his pick for Secretary of Transportation: none other than Congressman Ray LaHood from Illinois.
I’m sure this must warm the hearts of all those Hillary Clinton supporters, watching their hero share*that* cabinet table.
Seriously. $369/year? Is that all Joe Biden can contribute? If so, must have taken some Delaware-sized stones to sit and smirk in the audience at the Columbia Presidential Forum on Service last night while John McCain talked about his love for the sacrifices our military makes.
One of the RedState contributors came up with a great out-of-nowhere pick for Senator McCain to add to the ticket: Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn. Yes, please. Only problem - what sort of slogan could they run on together? Here’s a couple that got tossed around over email:
McCain-Coburn 2008
Dark Horse? No, The one You Road In On.
McCain-Coburn 2008
100% Ted Stevens-free
McCain-Coburn 2008
We Could Give A Crap
McCain-Coburn 2008
“They like me, they really like me.”
“John, why do you care?”
McCain-Coburn 2008
Honor. Duty. Ornery.
McCain-Coburn 2008
Slightly More Pleasant To Work With Than A Colonoscopy.
Slightly.
Suggestions?
Looks like Radley has finally gotten his white whale. For those who’ve followed TheAgitator for the last two years or so, you’ll join in offering no small measure of congratulations, too. Pretty damn corrupt/incompetent Mississippi “medical examiner” Dr. Steven Hayne has made his last taxpayer-funded Y-incision.
Man. This guy is teh awesome. I’d offer to nominate him for some sort of leadership award…if I thought for a minute he’d give a crap.
Seriously, the folks at TPM Muckracker are like a dog with a bone with this BMW story. But with every post they prove their ignorance of direct mail, or their willingness to just ignore the facts, or worse - a penchant for dishonesty. In the latest, Tilghman is outraged (outraged!) that a Republican who raised about $670k this quarter:
At the same time, he spent $442,990, almost all of it on expenses related to the direct mail effort and paid to BMW Direct and its affiliates (some of which share the same downtown Washington office).
“Almost all”, eh? So I presume that BWM is a printing company? Even better, it appears that BMW has really mastered this business by figuring out how to print their own postage or convince the Post Office to carry all those letters out of charity.
Seriously, shrieking about the high cost of prospecting using direct mail without mentioning the actual PROSPECTS you get is such an obvious omission, I’d lean towards calling it a lie.
