Obama has a massively-historically-ginormous organization in Virginia proclaimed the Washington Post. He aims to take this state to put him over the top. We hear it every single election, and every single election, they are wrong. The media tries to discourage Republican voters here (like everywhere) and make us think it is all over but the counting (or stealing - whatever it takes). But I went to the McCain/Palin rally in Fairfax last month and it was rockin’. Northern Virginia is where Obama thinks he’ll win it, but he forgets that two get to play in this sandbox and our side is jazzed too. From The Campaign Spot.

Mike Ginsberg, chairman of the 8th District Republican Committee for the Republican Party of Virginia, writes in to let me know that the effort in my neck of the woods isn’t as bad as the television advertising disparity would seem.

I know it looks like this area is for Obama by a mile, with all the yard signs and everything, but I wanted to make a few points to give you some reason for optimism.

One of the jobs of our committee is to provide bumper stickers and signs to supporters. We can’t keep enough of these materials in stock. We get cleaned out of signs and stickers week after week at local farmers’ markets and local festivals and events. There is an enormous amount of support up here in NoVA for the McCain-Palin ticket. The response has been extremely encouraging, absolutely phenomenal. Witness the 23,000 person rally in Fairfax. Bring McCain and Palin back up here to NoVA, and I’ll bet you get another 23,000 folks. The enthusiasm generated with the Palin pick is also still very, very strong.

(I’m going to quibble oh-so-slightly with Mike’s number here, noting that the fire marshall put the turnout at 15,000, but Fairfax City Police put it at 23,000. Having said that, believe me, it was a big crowd.)

Our volunteer centers in Arlington and Fairfax are some of the most packed in the country. There are more people than phones! We have canvassed more houses than ever before, called more people than ever before, and have staffed tons of events. The volunteer response up here in NoVA has been simply overwhelming. and the absolutely first-class campaign staff has done a great job of deploying resources to maximize this enthusiasm.

And one thing to keep in mind — Jim Webb needed to absolutely run the table in NoVA to squeak past George Allen in 2006. Even with the Iraq war going badly, the Washington Post screaming “macaca” from the rooftops for three straight weeks, and general national malaise about Republicans, Jim Webb won by less than 10,000 votes, and he did so only by running up big margins in NoVA. I don’t think that will happen this year. Republicans in NoVA are energized, and they are coming out to vote.

So take heart — Northern Virginia Republicans are working very hard and are very enthused, and remember that yard signs don’t vote. The medians may be festooned with Obama signs, but medians don’t vote either. I am optimistic, and I really believe the polls are just not capturing this enthusiasm.

Of course the polls aren’t capturing the enthusiasm. Do they ever say the Republican is ahead at this point in the cycle?

Obama may very well have peaked early and all this talk about his having the election in the bag will affect his turnout to some degree (a nice soaking rain wouldn’t hurt either - Obambots melt). Virginia Republicans are keenly aware that (1) our state is in the cross-hairs, (2) our team is the underdog, and (3) Marxism is our take home prize if we lose.

Fear is a great motivator. So is protecting America from a strange politician who seems to have come right out of a science-fiction novel.

Also find Bill Dupray at The Patriot Room

Let’s name names, shall we. Out of control, partisan, ignorant, incompetent fools responsible for the country’s financial meltdown.

Via Hot Air, here is the video with transcripts of these morons. Throughout the video, Republicans are pointing out the mismanagement and malfeasance of Franklin Raines and the instability of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and are positively begging for more regulation and oversight. The Democrats stopped them cold.

Rep. Maxine Waters (D.CA).

Through nearly a dozen hearings where frankly we were trying to fix something that wasn’t broke [sic]. Mr. Chairman we do not have a crisis at Freddie Mac, and in particular at Fannie Mae, under the outstanding leadership of Mr. Frank Raines.

Rep. Gregory Meeks (D.NY)

As well as the fact that I am just pissed off at [inaudible] because if it wasn’t for you I don’t think we’d be here in the first place and now the problem that we have and that we are now faced with is maybe some individuals who wanted to do away with GSE’s in the first place, you’ve given them an excuse to try to have this forum so that we can talk about it and maybe change the direction and the mission of what [sic] the GSE’s had, which they’ve done a tremendous job. There has been nothing that was indicated that’s wrong, you know, with Fannie Mae. Freddie Mac has come up on its own. The question that then presents is the competence that your agency has, with reference to uh, deciding and regulating these GSE’s. And so, I wish I could sit here and say that I am not upset with you, but I am very upset, because you know what you do is, you may giving any reason, you know, as Mr. Gonzalez said, to give someone a heart surgery, when they really don’t need it.

Rep. Lacy Clay (D.MO)

This hearing is about the political lynching of (Fannie Mae CEO) Franklin Raines.

Rep. Arthur Davis (D.AL)

The concern that I have is you are making very specific, what you have correctly acknowledged, broad and categorical judgments about the management of this institution about the willfulnes of practices that may or may not be in controversy. You’ve imputed various motives to the people running the organization. You went to the Board and put a 48 hour ultimatum on them, without having any specific regulatory authority to put that kind of ultimatum on them. Uh, that sounds like some kind of an invisible line has been crossed.

Rep. Barney Frank (D.MA)

You seem to be saying, well, these are in areas which could raise safety and soundness problems. I don’t see anything in your report that raises safety and soundness problems.

Waters again.

Under the outstanding leadership of Mr. Frank Raines, everything in the 1992 Act has worked just fine. In fact the GSE’s have exceeded their housing goals. What we need to do today is to focus on the regulator and this must be done in a manner so as not to impede their affordable housing mission, a mission that has seen innovation flourish from desktop underwriting to 100% loans.

Clay again.

I find this to be inconsistent and a rush to judgment. I get the feeling that the markets are not worried about the safety and soundness of Fannie Mae as OHFAL (phon.) says that it is, but, of course, the markets are not political.

Frank.

But I have seen nothing in here that suggests that the safety and soundness are at issue. I think it serves us badly to raise safety and soundness as a kind of a general shibboleth, when it does not seem to me to be an issue.

The stubbornness of Obama on Iraq and the Surge and of these people on the pending financial disaster, in the face of all known facts, is exactly what the Democrats accused the Bush administration of doing for 8 years.

These House Democrats saw the “intelligence” on the housing crisis. There were WMD’s sitting in the financial system. They could have gone and gotten them, but made a conscious decision not to do it. And they blew up in all our faces.

Somebody call the FBI to come and get these financial terrorists.

Also find Bill Dupray at The Patriot Room

While the campaigns go about their business of calling each other lying bags of dog excrement, and the left wing media (who actually are lying bags of dog excrement) go about trying to smear Sarah Palin, her daughters, her husband, Alaska, mayors, small towns, bitter clingers, and anyone who disagrees with Barack Obama on principle; A word of caution.

The voters are watching.

Listen to the frustrated rage of the woman at McCain’s townhall. Transcript follows.

Audience member: “I just wanted to take an opportunity to ask the media: ‘Where’s your thirty investigators over in Chicago look at Ayers?’”

“We want the media to start doing their job and stop picking on little children because of their age and their pregnancies. Shame on you, shame on all of yous.”

McCain: “That is a great question.”

McCain assures crowd: “She can take it.”

The media are doing more for the McCain/Palin GOTV than all the McCain ads combined. The only way these SOBs will learn their lesson, is for Obama (and his obscenely left wing ideology) to lose so badly and completely that there can be no doubt that their bias and their brand of liberalism were the cause of the train-wreck. And when they start talking about how racism in America was the real reason, we will have a short and simple response: Go scr*w yourselves you lying bastards.

For more red meat, Hot Air has bonus audio of McCain campaign manager Steve Schmidt positively nuking the New York Times for their biased coverage.

From Political Hub TV via Hot Air.

Also find Bill Dupray at The Patriot Room

John Edwards once said there were two Americas. He was right. Pretty sure I know which one I want to live in.

You can almost hear Barry’s little bell on the handle bars.

Nancy Pelosi’s House of Representatives yesterday passed on a party line vote a drilling bill that effectively allows no drilling. She hates drilling, and this bill was solely an attempt to avoid becoming the Former Speaker of the House. The Senate bills aren’t any better. Wherever the House bill would allow limited drilling, say in the eastern Gulf of Mexico, the Senate bill would forbid it.

The real story is that the Republicans know they are on the winning side of this issue and if they can kill this legislation, the moratorium will expire on September 30, and drilling can begin everywhere. The Dems can expect a filibuster, and, if they get by that, a veto from the President.

No matter what the proposal, it is expected to face a filibuster and no one has yet to predict with certainty that any drilling bill will garner the 60 votes needed to overcome such a roadblock.

The drilling measure passed late Tuesday in a largely party-line vote by the House is unlikely to survive the Senate.

President Bush, who has called for ending the offshore drilling bans, signaled he would veto the legislation if it reached his desk, arguing that it would stifle offshore oil development instead of increasing it.

The Republicans are in the catbird seat on this. They can force the Democrats to either pass an honest (heh) wide-ranging drilling bill or the alternative will be to just let the moratorium expire, in either case, drilling will begin. The Dems will cave, because if the moratorium expires, not only will drilling begin in places that would give them fits, the Republicans can show how they stopped additional Democratic attempts to limit America’s energy options.

Also find Bill Dupray at The Patriot Room

Yeah, I know the worst kept secret in America is that the Governor will get a nasty October surprise when her political enemies in Alaska release their findings a week before the election, finding that she abused her power in firing a guy who would not fire a rogue ex-brother-in-law trooper. This thing has always looked to me like a bullshit case by Palin’s opponents who can literally find nothing else to criticize her about.

But it looks like Palin has a September surprise for her opponents. The Governor released some internal documents showing that the the fired supervisor was not only nightmarishly insubordinate and needed firing, he also needed a good beating. From Anchorage Daily News via Hot Air.

Walt Monegan lost his job as public safety director because he resisted Gov. Sarah Palin’s budget policies and showed “outright insubordination,” say papers the governor’s lawyer filed Monday with the state Personnel Board.

It was Palin’s strongest effort yet to snuff allegations she sacked Monegan because he refused to fire a state trooper involved in an ugly divorce with the governor’s sister.

Along with the papers filed Monday were a slew of e-mails from the governor’s office purporting to show Monegan’s “rogue mentality” as a member of Palin’s Cabinet.

In one message, the governor’s budget director, Karen Rehfeld, wrote that she was “stunned and amazed” that Monegan appeared to be working with a powerful state legislator, Anchorage Republican Rep. Kevin Meyer, to seek funding for a project Palin previously had vetoed. . . .

The papers filed Monday accuse Monegan, during his time as public safety commissioner, of “an escalating pattern of insubordination on budget and other key policy issues.”

THE LAST STRAW

In pursuing his own goals for the Department of Public Safety, Monegan “sought out the governor’s political opponents behind her back,” Van Flein wrote, and in December 2007 he “unilaterally orchestrated a press conference” on his budget with state Sen. Hollis French, an Anchorage Democrat who is leading the Troopergate investigation.

On May 7 of this year, Randy Ruaro, the governor’s deputy chief of staff, complained in an e-mail to Rehfeld, the budget director, that Monegan’s department “is constantly going off the reservation.”

“The last straw” leading up to Monegan’s firing, Van Flein wrote, was Monegan’s planned trip to Washington, D.C., to seek funding for a new, multimillion-dollar sexual assault initiative the governor hadn’t yet approved.

She fired him . . . for that? As much as I respect and admire Sarah Palin, I have to criticize her for this. This guy was a government employee, who was there to help the people of Alaska. He had rights and a family just like everyone else. My beef is that she didn’t call a press conference after the first instance of misconduct, drag this SOB out into the sunlight, publicly tear him a brand new asshole for gross and unconscionable insubordination, fire him on the spot, and then turn to the camera and tell her fellow Alaskans that that is how you fight corruption and reform government.

The McCain/Palin ticket ought to turn this right around and use it as a shining example of how Sarah Palin will bring change to Washington. Entrenched, do nothing bureaucrats who refuse to do their job will be fired and new civic-minded team players will be brought in to make our government work for Americans.

Also find Bill Dupray at The Patriot Room

Rove talked about this chart on Fox News Sunday (transcript at the link) yesterday, but the chart was not put online until today.

John McCain now leads in the Electoral College for the first time since early June, with 227 electoral votes to Barack Obama’s 226 votes and 85 votes as a toss-up. Florida (27 EV) switched from toss-up to McCain to give the Republican his lead. McCain drew closer in both Minnesota (10 EV) and Washington (11 EV), where he now trails by 5 and 4 points respectively, putting both states on the edge of being toss-ups. McCain has also expanded his lead in several red states, such as North Carolina (15 EV), where he went from a 5-point last week to an 11-point lead today. McCain’s lead may be a result of his convention bounce, or it may be a sign of real progress—only time will tell.

Click map for larger view.

Washington and Minnesota on the edge of being toss-ups? If they get there, Obama may be tossing up those waffles. Add to that the very ugly specter of New York possibly being in play. From The New York Post.

Boosted by the selection of Sarah Palin as his running mate, Republican John McCain has experienced a surge of support among women in heavily Democratic New York state - where he has closed the gap with Barack Obama, new private polls show.

The internal Republican and Democratic polls, details of which were provided to The Post, have stunned members of both parties - and produced deep worries among Democrats.

One great concern for Democrats is that the data show a continuous movement toward the McCain-Palin ticket by women, a majority of whom traditionally favor Democrats.

The movement by women toward McCain is being credited to Democratic attacks on Alaska Gov. Palin, last week’s “lipstick on a pig” crack by Obama and to the continuing unhappiness by female Democrats over Obama’s failure to pick Hillary Rodham Clinton as his running mate.

Hmmm. I guess pigs can fly, at least when they are Republicans.

The Siena poll of likely voters in New York brings Obama the bad news.

Seven weeks until Election Day, the race for President has tightened in New York, with Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) leading Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) 46-41 percent among likely voters, according to a new Siena (College) Research Institute poll released today. Obama’s five point lead is down from eight points in August, 13 points in July and 18 points in June, when he led 51-33 percent.

Serious question. Is this over? I mean there is no objective reason for a thinking adult to vote for Obama over McCain. Barry has all the earmarks of a flash in the pan, a guy who could be expected to lose in a landslide. Landslides don’t just happen on election day, they start with a trend leading to that result. A blind man can see this is a very bad trend for Obama. Soon-to-be landslide victims flail and insist right up until election day that they will win. They are then discarded on the ash heap of history’s losers with the historians left to sort out how so many voters in the primaries could have been so stupid to nominate such a colossally bad candidate.

H/T Hot Air

Also find Bill Dupray at The Patriot Room

Fire up the smoke machines and break out the mirrors. The Democrats are about to pretend they support offshore drilling. From The Washington Post.

Congressional Democrats, balancing political reality against a policy they have long opposed, are on the cusp of approving legislation that would open the Atlantic and Pacific oceans to oil drilling as close as 50 miles offshore.

With votes scheduled this week in the House and Senate, Democrats have essentially given up defending the current ban on drilling within 200 miles offshore along both coasts. Instead, led by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), they are offering a mix of proposals that would allow drilling, with the waters off Massachusetts, Virginia and Georgia most likely to be the first affected.

Keep in mind that the current ban is on any drilling within 200 miles of the coast. If I am not mistaken, international waters begin 12 nautical miles off the coast. So Cuba and China can drill, at say 20 miles from our coast, but we cannot drill for 200 miles off the same coast.

Anyway, here is Pelosi’s plan.

Pelosi took the first formal step Wednesday by unveiling a proposal that would open the Atlantic and Pacific coasts to drilling at least 100 miles offshore. If governors and state legislatures agree, drilling off each state’s coast would be allowed 50 miles from shore.

Pelosi had previously suggested opening only portions of the southeastern Atlantic coast and some of the eastern Gulf of Mexico to drilling, but ultimately offered to allow drilling off both coastlines. The eastern gulf off Florida’s west coast would remain off-limits.

Under the Pelosi bill, scheduled for a vote Tuesday, the federal government would not share royalties with the states, devoting the money instead toward federal funding for renewable energy resources. Taxes on oil companies would be increased, with that revenue also going to alternative energy sources.

So Pelosi, on the east and west coasts only, will pull back the 200 mile limit to 100 miles, and to 50 miles if the governors of the affected states agree. So would any drilling actually get done under that proposal?

Some industry experts question the effect of the proposals, citing federal studies that show that more than 80 percent of known oil reserves are inside the 50-mile limit and therefore unavailable. Very little is known about oil reserves beyond 100 miles. Waters off almost the entire Pacific coast — where *all three governors oppose drilling at the 50-mile* barrier — is considered too deep for drilling 100 miles offshore.

So none of the west coast governors will play ball, so the limit stays at 100 miles, where it is too deep drill. Nothing happening in the Pacific.

What about the Atlantic?

With revenue sharing, Virginia and Georgia would quickly approve offshore drilling at the 50-mile mark, Kennedy and some environmental experts predicted. The biggest target for new drilling at the 100-mile mark would be in the Georges Bank, off the coasts of Massachusetts, Maine and New Hampshire, where cod fishing was once the dominant industry.

Alas, Pelosi’s plan does not offer any revenue sharing with the states, thereby removing any incentive for them to drill. There goes the Atlantic.

But what about the oil-rich Gulf of Mexico?

The most sought-after area, however, is the eastern Gulf of Mexico near Florida’s western coast. Drilling rigs already operate in the gulf off Houston, New Orleans and Mississippi, giving oil producers a near-certain guarantee of finding oil near Florida. It also would be less costly for producers to move their production and delivery systems to the other side of the gulf than to place new rigs in previously unexplored regions of the Atlantic or Pacific.

Well, Pelosi’s plan would not allow it at all and Senator Bill Nelson of Florida, to put it mildly, doesn’t like the idea either.

Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) has vowed to filibuster any legislation that would open the waters off Florida’s western beach resorts, to protect his state’s tourism industry and the military testing areas for Navy and Air Force bases in the region. “If they want to get something done, they have to deal with me,” Nelson said in an interview Friday.

The Senate has a plan that would not allow any drilling in the Pacific, limit Atlantic drilling to Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia, but would allow drilling off Florida’s west coast.

So the Democrats’ plan allows no drilling in the Pacific, no drilling in the Atlantic due to a lack of revenue sharing with the states, and no drilling off Florida.

That is not an offshore billing proposal. It is a bunch of 9% approval-rating buffoons thinking they can fool us that they are doing something to fight the energy crunch.

Also find Bill Dupray at The Patriot Room

Gallup has breathed the unthinkable. Republicans have a shot a retaking the House. Of course, one has to presume that such a result would mean the White House is thrown in for good measure.

The positive impact of the GOP convention on polling indicators of Republican strength is further seen in the operation of Gallup’s “likely voter” model in this survey. Republicans, who are now much more enthused about the 2008 election than they were prior to the convention, show heightened interest in voting, and thus outscore Democrats in apparent likelihood to vote in November. As a result, Republican candidates now lead Democratic candidates among likely voters by 5 percentage points, 50% to 45%. If these numbers are sustained through Election Day — a big if — Republicans could be expected to regain control of the U.S. House of Representatives..

But there is also more bad news for the Dems. Congressional approval ratings are in the historical range where the party in power gets tossed into the street.

The last time the yearly average for approval of Congress approached this low a level was in 2006, when the Republicans lost majority control of Congress after 12 years in power. The previous occasion was in 1994, when the Republicans wrested control from the Democrats. In both of these midterm election years, the average congressional approval score was 25%. However, with an 18% approval rating for Congress in 1992, the Democrats succeeded in holding their majority in Congress. That was a presidential year in which the Democratic candidate, Bill Clinton, won.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but the Republicans were blown out of office in 2006 with a 67/25 Disapproval/Approval rating, a spread of 42 points. In 2 years the Democrats have expanded the disapproval spread to 73/20, or 53 points, an additional 11 points of disapproval. If the GOP was booted with their numbers, what strategist in their right mind would conclude that the Dems can hold Congress this year?

The one-two punch of Sarah Palin as jet fuel for the Republicans and the Democrats who utterly refuse to govern, may make this year one for the record books.

Also find Bill Dupray at The Patriot Room

BWAAAAAA HA HA!! Folks, Sarah Palin has the entire Obama campaign in therapy. They have absolutely no idea what hit them. Listen to the panic.

At campaign headquarters in Chicago, the Palin phenomenon is clearly getting under the skin of some aides, who complain she is getting “celebrity” treatment. “The McCain campaign attacks Obama as a celebrity, but they are completely managing Palin’s celebrity — with only handpicked interviews and magazine covers in People and Us,” one Obama adviser said. “We’re not running for American Idol here — ultimately we believe the country is smarter than this.”

So last month’s American Idol winner, Barack Obama, wants the show cancelled, so we don’t get a newer, fresher winner this month? They are actually squealing about how the McCain campaign is managing Palin’s celebrity. I am sensing either lunacy or mild retardation in Camp Obama.

Even the boss is having trouble coping.

Sen. Barack Obama, slipping in national polls, is showing signs of being distracted by the enthusiasm generated by the McCain-Palin ticket and is planning a sharper message focused on economic anxiety. [snip]

For his part, Sen. Obama has appeared flustered at times as he defends himself against Republican attacks.

His supporters are panicking.

Obama backers are worried. During a question session in Norfolk, a voter told Sen. Obama he was frightened that tactics that led to John Kerry’s 2004 defeat by President Bush could throw his candidacy off track. Sen. Obama replied that he would respond by emphasizing issues such as the economy, education, health care, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Obama is going to meet with Bill Clinton and I think topic Number One is to drop Biden and add Hillary to the ticket. Otherwise, Obama will lose this thing.

Also find Bill Dupray at The Patriot Room

According to the Wall Street Journal, the McPalin rally in Fairfax, Virginia today broke the record, with an estimated 23,000 people. We were there and have some pics. The crowd was very enthusiastic and loved the surprise appearance of Fred Thompson. The energy was so high, and has been since the Palin pick was announced, that the Journal reports that the GOP ticket will continue to campaign together, breaking with the tradition of splitting up the ticket to cover more ground in the last weeks of the campaign.

You couldn’t help but walk away thinking that McCain and Palin are ready to steamroll Obama and the other guy.

[Note: I tried to post a gallery, but I think it knocked out the body of the post, so I'll just have to give you the link to my site - sorry]

Also find Bill Dupray at The Patriot Room

More paranoid fallout from the We-Didn’t-Get-To-Vet-Her whiners in the MSM. Palin is afraid to face us!!

Grab some Rolaids, you’ll have to suffer through Olbermann and Howard Fineman to get the initial story.

Note the insults. Fineman calls the Palin pick the “accidental brilliance” of John McCain and reminds us that Palin is actually the “Heiress of George W. Bush.”

The McCain campaign says they spirited her out of Alaska to keep the announcement a surprise and she needs to return to Alaska for a few days to get her affairs in order (she is the sitting governor, jackass) and wants to be there on September 11, when her son Track ships out for Iraq.

Fineman, however, sees a conspiracy. He says the campaign’s “excuse” is that she needs to wrap things up and see her son off to war, but in reality, the trip is just so they can “educate Sarah Palin” (who is a bumpkin moron) on the issues. Yup, she’s just a pretty face, so we need to be sure that her pea-brain is filled with all the right answers so she can fool everybody into thinking she knows what she is talking about. Note well the continuing sexist, empty-headed bimbo meme here.

Washington Monthly advances the Scared Sweetie story.

NBC News’ Chuck Todd reported the same thing yesterday, saying Palin will “hole up in Alaska” and we “may not see her on the campaign trail for a little while.”

Election Day is in just 60 days. The conventions are over, Labor Day has come and gone, and the stretch run is underway. Now, however, it’s time to “pause to train”? It sounds like the campaign still has some serious concerns about Palin’s ability to answer questions about her readiness for national office.

This is then turned into fleeing from the media and hiding out until journalists forget about her.

These reporters already underestimated her once, to McCain’s and Palin’s great benefit. If they keep up the good work, they might just provide McCain/Palin the landslide they so justly deserve.

Also find Bill Dupray at The Patriot Room

More paranoid fallout from the We-Didn’t-Get-To-Vet-Her whiners in the MSM. Palin is afraid to face us!!

Grab some Rolaids, you’ll have to suffer through Olbermann and Howard Fineman to get the initial story.

Note the insults. Fineman calls the Palin pick the “accidental brilliance” of John McCain and reminds us that Palin is actually the “Heiress of George W. Bush.”

The McCain campaign says they spirited her out of Alaska to keep the announcement a surprise and she needs to return to Alaska for a few days to get her affairs in order (she is the sitting governor, jackass) and wants to be there on September 11, when her son Track ships out for Iraq.

Fineman, however, sees a conspiracy. He says the campaign’s “excuse” is that she needs to wrap things up and see her son off to war, but in reality, the trip is just so they can “educate Sarah Palin” (who is a bumpkin moron) on the issues. Yup, she’s just a pretty face, so we need to be sure that her pea-brain is filled with all the right answers so she can fool everybody into thinking she knows what she is talking about. Note well the continuing sexist, empty-headed bimbo meme here.

Washington Monthly advances the Scared Sweetie story.

NBC News’ Chuck Todd reported the same thing yesterday, saying Palin will “hole up in Alaska” and we “may not see her on the campaign trail for a little while.”

Election Day is in just 60 days. The conventions are over, Labor Day has come and gone, and the stretch run is underway. Now, however, it’s time to “pause to train”? It sounds like the campaign still has some serious concerns about Palin’s ability to answer questions about her readiness for national office.

This is then turned into fleeing from the media and hiding out until journalists forget about her.

These reporters already underestimated her once, to McCain’s and Palin’s great benefit. If they keep up the good work, they might just provide McCain/Palin the landslide they so justly deserve.

Also find Bill Dupray at The Patriot Room

Wiping the nervous sweat from his brow, Adam Nagourney at the New York Times tries to figure out who misplaced the emperor’s clothes.

It is a question that has hovered over Senator Barack Obama even as he has passed milestone after milestone in his race for the White House: Why is he not doing better? [snip]

And it is back again as he returns from an overseas trip that even Republicans have described as politically triumphant. In this case, the question is why — given how sour Americans feel about President Bush and the Republican party, and the perception that Mr. Obama is running a better campaign than Senator John McCain — the senator from Illinois is not scoring even higher in national opinion polls.

How about he’s a nobody with no experience doing anything? Pretty easy answer. But the Times needs to consult big-time official pollsters to tell us what any 6th grader can see.

“They’ve known John McCain for years,” Bill McInturff, a pollster for Mr. McCain, said of survey participants. “But people say in focus groups, ‘Who the heck is Barack Obama? Had you heard of him before six months ago?’ And he’s 46 years old. He’s somebody nobody knows about.”

Mr. McCain is “running ahead of where he should be based on the environment,” Mr. McInturff said.

Peter Hart, a Democratic pollster, said the statistics are a reminder of the particular obstacles that Mr. Obama faces. “Here’s a 46-year-old African American with a narrative that is very unusual and that few other Americans can relate to,” he said. “Add to that the fact that he has had four years in the United States Senate and very little international experience. That’s a large leap for the American public to make.”

And then the wishful thinking kicks in. He’s Reagan.

Some analysts said that Mr. Obama could be like Ronald Reagan in 1980. Mr. Reagan was up against an unpopular incumbent, President Jimmy Carter, who for all his weaknesses was a known quantity. Only after Mr. Reagan persuaded voters that he was credible as a president did the polls break in his direction.

“It took a long while for the American public to test and look at Ronald Reagan before they were willing to go with him,” Mr. Hart said. “And then, when the dam broke open, it broke open very, very wide.”

Methinks Mondale might be the better comparison.

Even Mr. Obama’s advisers say they are uneasy about his difficulty so far in breaking the 50 percent barrier — a reminder, in poll after poll, that there many Americans who are not yet ready to cast their lot with him, and may never be.

They worry with good reason. The bounce may never come.

Also find Bill Dupray at The Patriot Room

The Old Dominion has lowered the boom on illegals. Flush ‘em out baby! From the Washington Post.

A year after Prince William County launched a crackdown on illegal immigrants, Virginia has implemented a law that requires something similar for every jurisdiction in the state. Jail officials are now required to notify federal authorities of all foreign-born inmates regardless of their immigration status.

The little-noticed law went into effect July 1 and aims to make every corner of the state as unwelcoming as Prince William for illegal immigrants charged with crimes.

“With our new law, these people who are here illegally should be afraid of living anywhere in Virginia right now,” said Del. David B. Albo (R-Fairfax), who helped write the law and chairs the state’s crime commission. “If you’re here illegally, it’s not any scarier to live in Prince William than in any other county.”

Prince William and about 60 other jurisdictions nationwide had previously joined in a separate partnership with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials to identify immigrants who have committed crimes. But now, under the Virginia law, officials across the state have begun routinely filing similar reports to the same federal authorities that Prince William does. Under the state law, local jails probably will spend a fraction of the $10.5 million Prince Willliam has budgeted over the next five years for the ICE partnership.

If Congress won’t do their job, then states like Virginia will take matters into their own hands, and the liberals in the sanctuary states can pay for all their brand new residents when they arrive.

Also find Bill Dupray at The Patriot Room

Yeah, the left supports the (Rapist) troops all right. They also support (Fascist) America, and George W. (Hang Him) Bush. If you can muscle through and keep lunch down, the last minute will make you feel better.

H/T Wolking’s World, Ace, and Hot Air.

Also find Bill Dupray at The Patriot Room

You knew this was coming.

Wall Street analysts late yesterday downgraded the stock of ABC, NBC, and CBS to “Paparazzi” status in light of the widespread perception that in covering presumptive Democratic nominee Barack Obama’s trip to Europe and the Middle East, that they had lost a substantial amount of objectivity and were instead focusing more on the candidate’s image and star power.

Jeffrey F. Goldberg, an analyst with Bear Stearns, said, “You can’t have NBC, for example, telling us what kind of sunglasses Obama is wearing or spending so much time setting up a photo-op [see below] of the candidate sitting in a Humvee looking like some kind of stud muffin, while the troops are waiting to eat lunch, and expect to maintain the higher standards required of a bona fide news network.”

Looks like the yellow journalists don’t mind the company.

Responding to Wall Street’s downgrade of the stock of the major networks, David Coverdale, editor-in-chief of the supermarket tabloid, The Star said, “Those guys have turned their noses up at us for decades. It’s nice to see them get their comeuppance, but I have to say, this story itself is a great one for us. Maybe the newly anointed tabloid icon Brian Williams and I can go to the Caymans together, hide in the bushes and get some long lens topless shots of Gwyneth Paltrow.”

This, of course, is what we conservatives have long hoped for. Professional punishment for being totally in the tank for the left.

One other interesting development along the same lines. My buddy Todd just got back from his annual overseas summer vacation with his family. They hit England, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Spain, and the Netherlands. Upon his return, he got a call from the Obama campaign. They told him that his having spent a entire week overseas visiting foreign countries obviously gave him a tremendous amount of foreign policy experience. They thought that a guy with that kind of experience would be eminently qualified to serve as Secretary of State in an Obama Administration. Todd asked them where they got his name. They told him that a 17 year old girl, a big Obama fan, liked Todd’s cool baseball cap, and gave them his number.

He told them he was a conservative, it was a Fred Thompson cap, and hung up the phone.

Also find Bill Dupray at The Patriot Room

Few things warm my heart more than a story about political incorrectness and cigars.
Love these guys.

Dutch smokers are flocking to a religious movement known as “The Only and Universal Smokers Church of God” following a ban on tobacco smoking indoors.

Michiel Eijsbouts, founder and “Smokelighter” of the church he founded in 2001, has insisted that the Dutch smoking ban in place does not apply to members of his church under national and European human rights legislation.

“We think we have all the marks of a religion,” he said.

“We will have to find out what the secular powers-that-be think. For us the constitution and European rules say we have the right to express our religion and we express our religion through smoking.”

Church members receive a card, for a fee of £3, to prove their religious denomination as a “Holy Smoker” to the authorities.

Believers sign up to a creed asserting a trinity of smoke, fire and ash. In terms of holy rites their god is honoured by smoking.

The Smokers Church or Rokerskerk has over 2000 members including a “missionary” in Britain, Mr Eijsbouts told The Daily Telegraph.

“For a smoker with a small s it is just a bodily need. For a smoker with a capital S it is a spiritual need, you have to have a religious experience. When you are lighting up you have to think of God,” he said.

Turns out the liberals have unwittingly created a wave of converts and filled the pews. Church elders are clinging tenaciously to their beliefs and fighting back against their oppresors. The church offers both smokey treats and beverages.

“Converting people was not easy until the smoking ban started but now people are flocking to the church.”

Smoking has been banned in Dutch bars since July 1 and over 100 cafés have applied to the Church so as to be counted as religious institutions.

“We stand firmly behind the church’s teachings and that is smoking,” said Cor Busch, owner of the Lindeboom bar in the northern Dutch town of Alkmaar.

“Smokers are being discriminated against, a beer and a cigarette belong together.”

This is funny until you realize that this is what freedom in extremis looks like. Normal people taking wasteful and unnecessary measures to simply live their lives their way.

When totalitarian governments take away rights, people start huddling in private places. When the activity is banned in private places, they hide from the authorities to exercise their freedom. That was the Soviet Union’s modus operandi, and liberals the world over are merely the junior varsity members of the same team. Don’t worry though, at this rate, they’ll be playing varsity ball real soon in a neighborhood near you.

Also find Bill Dupray at The Patriot Room

At first glance you are inclined to think that Obama may really have a shot at flipping Virginia into the Blue column for the first time since 1964. Juicy headline; fresh new politician; Hope (at least by the Post) . . .. You get the picture. From the Washington Post.

Sen. Barack Obama’s campaign announced Wednesday that it is adding 20 offices across Virginia, an unprecedented effort by a presidential candidate and another sign that he plans to compete vigorously in a state that has been on the sidelines during past presidential contests.

The offices, which will open Saturday, will be in nearly every medium-size city in the state, along with a few locations often overlooked by statewide candidates, much less a presidential campaign.

He’s even taking the fight right into the enemy’s back yard (so new, so bold).

Many offices will be in traditional Republican strongholds, such as Harrisonburg in the Shenandoah Valley and Lynchburg in southern Virginia. In southwestern Virginia, where Obama performed poorly in the Feb. 12 primary, the campaign will open an office in Bristol and in Castlewood, a town of 2,000 in the heart of the region’s coal country.

And this year will be different because the Dems have the sitting governor, a U.S. Senator (and maybe another come November), and that means Virginians love Democrats.

Recent successes by Democrats, including the elections of two successive governors and a U.S. senator, and demographic shifts have many analysts saying that Virginia may be up for grabs in the presidential race.

Oh, and there is the changing-demographics-of-Northern-Virginia angle.

[D]emographic shifts have many analysts saying that Virginia may be up for grabs in the presidential race.

Wait a minute. I seem to recall hearing this stuff before. Oh yeah, here it is from 2004.

First, the bold stroke.

The Kerry campaign recently stunned the national political community with its announcement that Kerry would seriously contest Virginia, which has not voted for a Democratic nominee since President Lyndon Johnson won a sizeable 53.5 percent in 1964.

Then Virginia’s new love for Democrats.

The Democrats were attempting to capitalize on the presence of a strong ally in the Governor’s mansion, Mark Warner, who has twice triumphed due to a nasty split in Virginia’s GOP to win both his office and a new tax-hike package.

Then the dreaded “changing demographics of Northern Virginia.”

First, the state is changing demographically, just as the Kerry campaign insisted in announcing its strategy. Northern Virginia (NoVa), which is un-Virginian to most downstaters, has grown to a quarter of the vote, with Democrats having a clear edge.

And so, this turns out to be just another quadrennial story about a brave new campaign by a Democrat, who says this time it will be different.

With one new exception. Even some Virginia Democrats have doubts about Obama’s plan. Back to the Post.

Dave “Mudcat” Saunders, a Democratic strategist in Roanoke, said Obama will have to do a lot more than just open offices if he hopes to improve his standing in the more conservative parts of the state.

“It’s a good strategy, but rather than have 20 campaign offices all across Virginia, he is going to have to make a lot of visits, especially out here,” Saunders said. “He is not doing well out here. I don’t care what the polls say. . . . He can open offices on every corner, but if he doesn’t talk to these people, he is not going to win Virginia.”

Maybe Obama should learn from Kerry’s mistakes. But since he’s so much smarter than Kerry, Obama probably knows . . .

This time it will be different.

Also find Bill Dupray at The Patriot Room

As a rough estimate, if you believe the country is split 50/50, that means all of the white Republicans and 40% of the white Democrats do not have a favorable opinion of the Democrat nominee. Can you win a presidential election with those numbers?

McCain has a 35% favorability rating.

The real kicker for Hillary supporters is that their candidate has a favorability of 40% among whites.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but among whites, Hillary beats McCain. Obama loses.

Bubba still beats ‘em all at 42%.

The Times did the poll largely to take the temperature of race relations.

Americans are sharply divided by race heading into the first election in which an African-American will be a major-party presidential nominee, with blacks and whites holding vastly different views of Senator Barack Obama, the state of race relations and how black Americans are treated by society, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll. [snip]

After years of growing political polarization, much of the divide in American politics is partisan. But Americans’ perceptions of the fall presidential election between Mr. Obama, Democrat of Illinois, and Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, also underlined the racial discord that the poll found. More than 80 percent of black voters said they had a favorable opinion of Mr. Obama; about 30 percent of white voters said they had a favorable opinion of him.

So there’s the gist of it. But some of the stuff in the guts of the poll that the Times did not discuss in the article are pretty interesting.

On Illegal Immigration, the Republicans have a winning issue here, but the wrong candidate to capitalize on it. Fully 60% of all respondents believe illegal immigration is a “Very Serious” problem, and 29% a “Somewhat Serious” problem, for a total of 89%. Opportunity lost there. The irony is that among Hispanics 48% say “Very” and 30% “Somewhat.” That is 78% of Hispanics. So why are these idiot candidates pandering?

Then there is this little gem. On the question, “Would you personally vote for a presidential candidate who is black, or not?” 5% of whites said no, and 6% of blacks said no. Who are the racists again?

Also buried in the numbers is bad news for the enviro-kooks. When asked what they thought was the most important problem facing the country today, there were 24 different issues mentioned. The top three.

Economy 38%

Heating Oil/Gas Crisis 14%

War 10%

Environment (note - Global Warming or Climate Change were not specific categories) got 3%.

Only 50% of voters were happy with the choice of the two candidates, with 47% wishing they had “other choices.” It wasn’t broken out by party affiliation. How many of the 47% are Hillary’s crew?

Only 32% of whites think Obama is “Very Patriotic” versus 77% for McCain (a lot more than double). That’s one of the intangible, gut issues voters will grapple with while standing in the voting booth. Bad news for BHO there?

Only 37% of whites think Obama says what he believes; 57% think he says what people want to hear.

Big surprise.

Also find Bill Dupray at The Patriot Room