The conflict between two major Democratic candidates (mentioned in yesterday’s RedHot) for the nomination for Governor continues to escalate. For the benefit of those catching the story late, the two individuals are as follows:

Brian Moran: former Virginia state legislator. Brother of notorious anti-AIPAC conspiracy theorist Rep. Jim Moran (D, VA-08).
Pros: Is not Terry McAuliffe.
Cons: Is probably best known for being brother of notorious anti-AIPAC conspiracy theorist Rep Jim Moran (D, VA-08).

Terry McAuliffe: former chairman of the DNC (2001-2005) and Hillary Clinton’s 2008 Presidential campaign.
Pros: very good at raising money.
Cons: Is Terry McAuliffe, former chairman of the DNC (2001-2005) and Hillary Clinton’s 2008 Presidential campaign.

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…to write about the fairly predictable way that his comments about liberalism and the paranoid style were brushed off. Actually, I do know why. He wanted to write this last paragraph:

The point is that when liberals and leftists spout conspiracy theories and paranoid delusions — as they have for generations now — it’s written off by the liberal establishment as either an isolated incident, or an understandable exaggeration or, simply, the truth and therefore not a conspiracy theory. And: It Is Annoying.

Which It Is: and I recognize full well that it’s necessary and proper to keep pointing out that the major difference between their nuts and our nuts is that our nuts spout off their conspiracy theories on the Internet and local media outlets, not Congressional committees*. None the less, it’s a particularly thankless task, even if it is necessary. It’s not even the hostile responses that grate (those are, in fact, kind of fun to witness)…

Moe Lane

PS: At some point, I guess I should read Liberal Fascism: I hate depleting the personal budget for a partisan political book, but enough people pro-and-con have read and referenced it that at some point I’ll have to take the hit. I’d get it from the library, except that the local one lacks a copy…

Moe Lane

*Yeah. Waters was probably talking about the Jews, there. Hey, don’t look at me: it’s not my fault. When my party chose its legislative leaders unwisely we just picked people who bellied up to the trough right next to the Democrats. Besides, at least we kept gas prices down and the Dow up.

Crossposted to Moe Lane.

Via Glenn Reynolds, a person (Jon Cannon) that you probably never heard of has just withdrawn from the Deputy EPA position over his links to a group (America’s Clean Water Foundation) that you probably never heard of.

“It has come to my attention that America’s Clean Water Foundation, where I once served on the board of directors, has become the subject of scrutiny. While my service on the board of that now-dissolved organization is not the subject of the scrutiny, I believe the energy and environmental challenges facing our nation are too great to delay confirmation for this position, and I do not wish to present any distraction to the agency.”

Interestingly, said group is currently being investigated by the EPA for seriously mismanaging roughly 25 million dollars in funds. Even more interestingly, Sen James Inhofe (R-OK) (the top Republican on Environment & Public Works) staffer Matt Dempsey reported that while Cannon had been questioned on Monday on his links to ACWF, nothing came up that would have derailed the nomination. In fact, Inhofe was planning to support the nomination (H/T: Track-a-’Crat) at the confirmation hearings on Thursday. And nobody – and I mean, nobody – is talking about it on the administration’s end.

There’s something going on here.  Something more than a overreaction leading to a nomination withdrawal and a cruel joke played by a Teleprompter.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to Moe Lane.

Fresh from their general campaign last Saturday of utterly failing to convincing Congress to do anything, Organizing for America is now engaged in regional spamming of their email lists to go after of individual legislators considered either hostile or insufficiently favorable to the President’s plan to saddle the next three generations with even more crushing, unnecessary debt. This is primarily targeting Republicans: in fact, based on admittedly extremely limited communications with other people who might get spammed, I’m concluding OFA is not generically targeting Democrats. But they did go after Evan Bayh:

OFA sent an email to Indiana residents on Wednesday asking them to phone Republican Rep. Steve Buyer, Republican Sen. Richard Lugar and Democratic Sen. Bayh to let them “know where you stand on President Obama’s budget.”

Bayh has been one of the Democratic party’s most outspoken members against President Obama’s spending, penning recent op-ed in the Wall Street Journal to outline his opposition to the $410 billion omnibus bill the Obama signed. He also announced he leading a 15-member working group of moderate Senate Democrats last week. Bayh said the group was informally called “the practical caucus.”

Bayh, of course, is hated by progressives – it’s one of his more endearing traits, really – and he’s certainly been on the administration’s radar since he announced his so-called “Gang of Fifteen.” While supposedly there were no public problems between the White House and the centrist Democrats over this unwillingness of the latter to blindly follow the former over the cliff*, it’s not really a secret that President Obama likes to have deniable proxies do his dirty work for him. Which is probably why Bayh is scheduled to be personally targeted by Moveon.org, Campaign for America’s Future, USAction, and the rest of the usual suspects: apostasy is always the worst of sins to the True Believer.

Speaking as a Republican, I wholeheartedly support this activity, and think that it should be encouraged. Although I think that there are limits.

Moe Lane

*Note that they might still do it anyway.

Crossposted to Moe Lane.

They had a debate last night, where Tedisco hit Murphy over the ‘stimulus’ bill that the former opposes and the latter supports. Congressional Democrats are hungry for this race, no matter that Obama/DNC (I repeat myself) don’t want to get involved.

contribute:

We’re making the Democratic Party spend money on a race that their own ideology says that they should be winning handily, and they’re losing it anyway. Now is the time to keep pushing this.

Crossposted to Moe Lane.

While I understand the concerns of both Gateway Pundit and Dan Collins of Protein Wisdom Pub about restrictions made on individuals affected by HR 1388 – I don’t particularly trust the government, either – this particular situation is both more and less worrisome than you might think. Which is an impressive trick, really.

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In one of the more memorable television moments yesterday, the lunatic Democratic fringe group known as Code Pink got smacked in public for being, well, Code Pink:

I understand that there are some people for whom rational discussion is not an appropriate means of expressing themselves. You are entitled to do that in general, but not in a way that interrupts those of us who are trying to have rational discussions… I do not know how you think you advance any cause to which you might be attached by this kind of silliness.

Who said it? Clearly a hardcore neoconservative or war hawk, yes? Bobby Jindal? Tom Coburn? Sarah Palin? Thad McCotter? Mark Sanford? Marsha Blackburn?

Nope. Barney Frank.

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Bobby Jindal can draw a crowd, it seems.

NRCC raises $6 million for annual dinner

The National Republican Congressional Committee raised more than $6 million for tonight’s annual March Dinner, surpassing its goal for the event.

95 percent of the GOP House Conference contributed to the event, the committee announced.

For those following at home, that will mostly wipe out the NRCC’s existing debt, assuming that they apply it accordingly; it’s also about a million more than their goal of $5 million. This dinner’s usually a good fundraiser for the GOP; in fact.  The Democrats’ first fundraising dinner is of course tomorrow, and is for the DNC: President Obama will be the highlight of the evening.

If you want to go to that, by the way, tickets are still available.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to Moe Lane.

Mind you, this is all perfectly accurate (Via Ace):

…but a bit unexpected to have happen quite this early. Admittedly, the President hasn’t been having the best of months, but this is something that normally takes place after, say, disastrous midterms for the party in power.

I think that the answer is in the format: Ed Morrissey notes, this is a web-only ad*. It may be designed primarily to kick an anthill or two on the other side; from the NRSC‘s point of view, it’s not so much why the Online Left screams, as long as it screams. Which would also explain why the AIG shout-out; just a little extra flick of the earlobe. Cheap enough to do, and it’s kind of a slow season for the NRSC right now anyway while they wait for the next spectacular Democratic meltdown.

Moe Lane

*A point lost on a good number of critics of said ad, from what I’ve seen so far.

Crossposted to Moe Lane.

They may call it “delay,” but they mean “eliminate” – and the Washington Post is happy to assist with putting this story on the seventh page.

Senate Will Delay Action on Punitive Tax on Bonuses

Jarred by a cool reception from the White House and fears of unintended consequences across the financial world, Senate leaders are likely to delay until late next month legislation to punitively tax bonuses at banks and investment firms that receive federal aid.

Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) announced last week that the Senate would move ahead with the legislation as soon as possible, and he attempted to bring the bill to the floor Thursday night. But he revised that timetable yesterday, saying that the chamber will spend this week debating a national-service bill before turning to a long-scheduled showdown over the budget for fiscal 2010. With just two weeks to go until Congress departs for a spring recess, action on the tax measure would be unlikely before late April.

That will effectively kill the bill, because everyone in Washington is betting that a month should be enough time for the populace to have something else besides the Democrat-inspired and Democrat-encouraged AIG bonus PR fiasco to focus upon; which is not a bad bet, actually. Already people are starting to notice that the Democrats’ House bill has a good deal of faux-populist outrage associated with it; and as Glenn Reynolds over in Forbes is pointing out, the Democrats are going to be soon having to hit up the very people that they’re currently demonizing for campaign contributions. Time to let this story die, and that’s why there’s a Senate in the first place.

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Via Tim Blair, American border enforcement is apparently now a pub game:

The United States has unveiled an unlikely weapon in its battle against drugs gangs and illegal immigrants at the Texas-Mexico border – pub-goers in Australia.

The drinkers are the most far-flung of a sizeable army of hi-tech foot soldiers recruited to assist the border protection effort.

Anyone with an internet connection can now help to patrol the 1,254-mile frontier through a network of webcams set up to allow the public to monitor suspicious activity. Once logged in, the volunteers spend hours studying the landscape and are encouraged to email authorities when they see anyone on foot, in vehicles or aboard boats heading towards US territory from Mexico.

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If you might remember, back in February it was reported that Bart Gordon (D, TN-06) went to Europe on taxpayer money to… essentially, ski. He wasn’t on any relevant committee that would justify his presence in that particular junket, but he is a twelve-term Democrat whose party overwhelmingly controls Congress right now, which apparently is justification enough. Now Dave Evans, Gordon’s most likely Republican challenger in the general election, has come out with an estimate that Gordon’s travel costs were approximately $7,250; he’s calling for the Congressman to give that money back, fully disclose how much was spent by Gordon and his family on the trip, explain why he didn’t disclose earlier, and explain why the Congressman was on this junket in the first place.

What makes this potentially damaging is that Bart Gordon is a Blue Dog Democrat; their primary distinguishing feature is supposed to be fiscal conservatism. While this has been overshadowed by their willingness to vote for things like the miscalled “stimulus” bills – which Gordon voted for – individual members of that caucus still hope to run on individual records of financial probity. Which is quite probably why Gordon has been notably uncommunicative about his reasons for going to Europe at taxpayer expense. If there was anything resembling a valid reason for it, he would have said so by now. Early days yet for the race, but that’s sometimes necessary when a long-time incumbent is being challenged.

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Although there is a fairly massive caveat there:

The honeymoon is over, a national poll will signal tomorrow as President Obama’s job approval stumbles to about 50 percent over the lack of improvement with the crippled economy.

The sobering numbers come as the president backpedals from two prime-time gaffes – one comparing his bowling score to a Special Olympian and another awkwardly laughing about the economy, which prompted Steve Kroft of “60 Minutes” to ask “are you punch-drunk?”

Pollster John Zogby said his poll out in the morning will show Americans split on the president’s performance. He said the score factors out to “about 50-50.”

(H/T: Protein Wisdom & Jules Crittenden)

“About” in this context could mean anything from 48% to 54%, and if it isn’t 50% it’ll be closer to the latter.  The RCP average implies that this is the first poll that Zogby’s doing for President Obama’s approval ratings, so we don’t know whether he’s looking at likely voters, or adult ones.  Although it should be noted that a 50 approval rating from adult voters wouldn’t be bad news for the President: it’d be the kind of catastrophic news that makes people start exploratory committees.

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Worried? Sure. Who wouldn’t be? Somewhere around 2 PM on January 20, 2009 what had previously been a fairly smooth and responsible conducting of the country’s business abruptly melted down. Since then the economy’s gone into a tailspin, everyone’s stopped pretending that post-partisanship is anything except a null statement, every two-bit dictator and strongman in the world is testing the limits of our forbearance, and we’re seeing the first signs that our chattering classes are nursing one powerful post-Inaugural hangover.

I SAID, WE’RE SEEING THE FIRST SIGNS THAT OUR CHATTERING CLASSES ARE NURSING ONE POWERFUL POST-INAUGURAL HANGOVER.

So worry I can understand. Depression? Not so much – at least, not for me, and not for you, either. Do you know why?

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The Poughkeepsie Journal – which endorsed Obama for President – has endorsed Jim Tedisco for next week’s special election:

The 20th Congressional District seat – which includes much of northern Dutchess County – has been without a representative for about two months now. In many ways, this could not have come at a worse time. With the economy teetering, Congress has been moving at a fever-pitch pace to make critically important and highly expensive decisions that would have far-reaching ramifications.

The district needs someone to jump right in and make a difference, and veteran state lawmaker James Tedisco has those abilities. District voters should give him the opportunity to serve.

Tedisco has considerably more experience than his opponent, Democrat Scott Murphy, who has never sought office before.

There is at least one misstatement in the endorsement, however: Tedisco is against the stimulus. Nonetheless, good news.

contribute:

Crossposted to Moe Lane.

Good thing that he cleared that up:

AIG’s $100G donation to Democrats was unknown to Gov. Paterson, he says

Gov. Paterson stuck to his guns Saturday, insisting he knew nothing about a $100,000 donation from AIG to the state Democratic Party days before his office helped save the insurance giant.

State Republicans charged the Democrats with stonewalling an investigation into the Aug. 29 donation, uncovered last week by The Associated Press.

In the first week of September, Paterson launched negotiations to save the financially strapped company. GOP officials questioned whether there was a quid pro quo.

Otherwise suspicious individuals might ask whether September’s relief efforts were perhaps lubricated by such a transaction. Paterson’s intervention stopped the company’s financial free-fall back then, and it took place two weeks after AIG made a donation to the state Democratic party that was ten times higher than previous contributions. But Paterson, the Democrats, and AIG are all swearing that there was no quid pro quo. Or pay-for-play.

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Susan Estrich is very unhappy that apparently nothing stands between the Democrats and their desires right now:

Imagine how different things might be right now if there were a Republican Party. I mean a party like the one led by Ronald Reagan, George Bush or Newt Gingrich; a party with a program, a single set of talking points, and the technological and communications advantages to get their message across. That kind of Republican Party. The kind that doesn’t exist right now.

…which is particularly funny, given that she’s been actively trying to put the Democratic party in this position for the last decade or so. Not that this was exactly what she wanted: what she wanted was probably more like the 110th Congress, only with a Democratic President. That way those awful Republicans would still be in a position to block the Democrats’ worst enthusiasms, while still gnashing their teeth over all that legislation being sent over by the White House. Put another way, she clearly still wants anything besides the Democratic party to take the blame for the current mess; alas for her, if 2008 demonstrated nothing else it demonstrated that the Republican party is not in charge. And it’s been remarkably united in refusing to take on responsibility without also taking on an equal amount of power.

As for vacuums… nature abhors them, and what Estrich is “complaining*” about is a self-correcting feature. What’s confusing her on that point is probably that ‘populist’ movements on the Left are exclusively a top-down affair these days (the recent CWFP embarrassment is a pretty good example of same): artificially creating a popular response to a perceived outrage pretty much requires that somebody organize the community from the start to get the desired response. The concept that the true leaders of a movement would naturally come from the movement themselves is just too tainted with free market thinking for our academic and pundit classes… which causes them to discount societal trends that are not being shepherded from the start. Essentially, everybody’s looking in the wrong place.

No, not “everybody except me is looking in the wrong place.” I don’t have a clue who the new leaders of the Republican party for the 2010 elections are going to be, either. It’s just that I’m going to wait a bit until it actually becomes steam engine time. Whether or not a Democratic pundit wants to nag my party into solving her problems for her.

Moe Lane

*Scare quotes because if the economic situation resolved itself tomorrow she’d jump up and down for joy at our supposed destruction. She’s only concerned now because she’s afraid, not to mention as pessimistic about the ability of the Democratic Party to fix things as I am.

Crossposted to Moe Lane.

From Blue Crab Boulevard we see the first subtle signs of panic from the Obama administration over the likely repercussions of letting Congressional Democrats attempt to scapegoat Wall Street for their own sins.

Obama Seeks to Soften the Punitive Legislation

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration wants to soften the impact of bills speeding through Congress that would impose heavy new taxes on Wall Street bonuses. But some potential allies in the Senate are reluctant to cooperate, fearing the political consequences of watering down the legislation.

Financial-industry officials launched a campaign Friday to fight back but are finding their hands tied: Anti-Wall Street sentiment following the American International Group Inc. bonus payouts is making it difficult to reach once-friendly lawmakers to make their case. Key senators and their staffers, nervous about appearing to support the industry, are refusing all meetings, and, in some cases, turning away phone calls. “Unless you have a pitchfork and a noose nobody’s listening to you” on Capitol Hill, said one financial lobbyist.

The White House has yet to publicly criticize the bonus tax proposals. But administration officials say privately they are concerned the House and Senate bills could lead to an exodus of employees or whole companies from the Troubled Asset Relief Program, known as TARP, as well as other government-sponsored financial rescue efforts.

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The Washington Times is reporting on more details of the possible retail store “Card Check” compromise that Brian Faughnan wrote of yesterday, and the details of this one are definitely more palatable than the proposal presented in the Wall Street Journal. The plan being offered by the retailers preserves more than the secret ballot:

Their compromise would reject the card check method of voting and keep secret-ballot voting as it is now practiced in most instances. The compromise would also eliminate the union-backed provision that would force the settlement of certification disputes through mandatory arbitration.

To assuage the unions, the plan would for the first time permit union organizers to press their cases at work sites and would also prevent long delays before a union certification vote must be held.

…which, as Ed Morrissey notes, is much more likely to pass the Senate than the current version. In fact, the current version is not likely to pass the Senate at all.

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This new feature comes from Ed Morrissey, and it’s pretty much in direct response to Slate’s unaccountable decision to not let go of what was never a particularly funny joke in the first place. But if Slate wants to play, hey, we can play too. With more video footage.

You can send in your tip to Ed at obamaisms@edmorrissey.com . He figures that he can make this a daily feature, and so do I. Who knows? There even might be a book or two in it – and now we know why Jacob Weisberg’s so keen to keep this thing going. You get used to income streams, know what I mean?

Moe Lane

*I’m not entirely loving the name, though.

Crossposted to Moe Lane.