A series of diaries and even a front-page post here on Redstate recently is making me think about the whole notion of ‘electability’. What is it? What does it mean? What are its features and factors? After all, there is no point in supporting a candidate in the primary if he’s just going to lose in the general election against Barack Obama. Kevin Holtsberry, in | Read More »
It goes without saying that things could change overnight in primary politics. Someone might say something stupid, or some scandal might blow up, thereby changing everything. But as of right now, there are three main candidates for the nomination: Mitt Romney, Rick Perry, and Herman Cain. On Friday, Rick Perry released the first part of his economic plan, focusing on energy. And earlier today, Cain | Read More »
There are two front page stories directly attacking Herman Cain’s 999 Plan. They are both serious and fair attacks, by serious and fair people. I’ve been around a long time on Redstate and both streiff and Ben Howe carry a great deal of weight with me. But I can’t help shake the feeling that they’re… willfully ignoring certain things to denigrate the 999 Plan. While | Read More »
It appears that the GOP race is now down to a <a href=”http://www.redstate.com/neil_stevens/2011/10/04/confirmed-we-have-a-three-way-race-for-now/”>3-way race between Romney, Perry, and Cain</a>. The end of the beginning draws near. It would be a fine time for the second tier candidates to think about which of the three main guys they’d support. (I don’t think Bachmann is entirely finished… but her window is small and closing fast.) Feels like | Read More »
Of late, I’ve seen a real spike in the rhetoric on Redstate when it comes to primary politics. I mean, yeah, sure, I understand you really believe your guy to be the Best To Beat Obama and all that… but jeez… I’ve heard Rick Perry be called an amnesty-loving liberal, Romney called an Obama clone, Cain called a traitor, among other things. Can we please | Read More »
Well, by now, you all know that <a href=”http://www.redstate.com/thesophist/2011/09/26/the-herman-cain-victory-scenario-in-which-i-return-to-the-fold/”>I’m in the tank for Cain</a>. Which is not to say I’m in the tank against anyone else in the field just yet. Well, except maybe Ron Paul. But that’s another diary. So feel free to disregard this whole line of thinking as partisan pap designed to push my candidate of choice. Although, keep in mind that | Read More »
I have been a supporter of Herman Cain since he spoke at Redstate Gathering 2009, and hinted at a Presidential run. I thought he is exactly what the country needs at this inflection point in our history: a non-politician with decades of management experience, decades of turn-around experience, and decades of working in consumer-oriented businesses where understanding customer demands is absolutely critical to survival. Then… | Read More »
As many of you, I watched the GOP Debate from Orlando last night with something approaching exasperation. The kabuki theater that is the modern day political “debate” is a bit hard to take sometimes. So much of the so-called analysis is around style, delivery, who came off “looking Presidential” and the like. But one exchange last night that really caught my eye, and left something | Read More »
So this morning, I get an email from one of my almae matres advertising one of those lecture events for alumni. The idea is to get us into an auditorium, listen to some speaker talk about some topic or another, then hit us up for donations afterwards at cocktail hour. I won’t be going, since I’m nowhere near NYC these days, but the email caught | Read More »
I was pleasantly surprise to see a podcast on Ricochet.com featuring two of my favorite political figures on the Right: Paul Ryan and Marco Rubio. Of course, like many of you, I immediately downloaded it and listened to it on a recent flight. Made the unfriendly skies seem just a little brighter. [If you’re not a member of Ricochet, consider joining. It’s an interesting site, made | Read More »
Throughout Redstate 2011 in Charleston, I heard one elected official after another, from Haley Barbour to Rick Scott, as well as candidate after candidate, state something that is extremely appealing to the activist base: They told us we couldn’t do it, that we had no chance. But here we are. The “they” here is everyone from the Establishment GOP to the left, the media, | Read More »
It has been 10 months since my last diary here at Redstate, and frankly, almost a year since I’ve been actively engaged. There are many reasons and even more excuses, but in retrospect, they are just that: excuses. Last year, when I attended the Redstate Gathering in Austin, I went as an aspiring activist, wanting to do more than just write blogposts from time | Read More »
I almost shouldn’t have any right to post, given how little time I’ve had to do anything of substance. Suffice to say I’ve been home a total of five days out of the entire month of October, and I jot this down before dashing off to the airport once again. And given the historic victory by the Tea Parties and the GOP on Tuesday night, | Read More »
Today, we celebrate our Independence Day, when on July 4th of 1776, the men of the Continental Congress pledged their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor to the cause of freedom from the British empire. What strikes me forcefully is the date that we celebrate. American independence was not won on July 4th, 1776; it was, rather, won on September 3, 1783 when the Treaty of | Read More »
As we know by now, there is great consternation in the land due to Arizona’s racist law SB1070 that seeks to enforce the laws of the United States against illegal immigration. I mean, just read these words of hate from the Fact Sheet: Requires the act to be implemented in a manner consistent with federal laws regulating immigration, protecting the civil rights of all persons | Read More »
That the economy is horrible beyond the government’s “statistics” is not in doubt. And that too much debt is at the heart of our economic malaise also cannot be doubted. As I made the trek from left-wing Marxism to the vast right wing conspiracy, I started to believe that it might not be a bad idea if we had rather less credit overall and more | Read More »
Recently, Hanna Rosin, a journalist for the Washington Post, The Atlantic, and other outlets, wrote an article called “The End of Men” in which she asks: What if the modern, postindustrial economy is simply more congenial to women than to men? For a long time, evolutionary psychologists have claimed that we are all imprinted with adaptive imperatives from a distant past: men are faster and | Read More »
This is likely to be a long and rambly post, so for that, I beg for forgiveness. And yet, I can’t help put some of these thoughts on… er… pixels, if for no other reason than to clear my own thinking. The Transformation of America to Europe project that the Left is currently slamming down our collective throats is a scary thing, to be sure. | Read More »
Markos Moulitsas, the operator of DailyKos, was on the Brian Lehrer show on WNYC with Scott Ott debating various topics when he dropped a bombshell. Here is the recording of the show, and Kos’s stunning announcement comes at 21:20 in the recording: Foreigners should not be allowed to try to influence American elections. Wow. So he’s opposed to scenes like this one: And this one: | Read More »
So here we are, at the eve of the “most momentous vote in the history of Congress” or some such thing. News networks and blogs and the twitterati are breathlessly counting down every single vote, every arm twisted over at Pelosiville, all the maneuvering, all the posturing, all the tactics. The phrase “whip count” is now a prominent part of our vocabulary. Dan Perrin calls | Read More »
I know that there is a massive protest planned for tomorrow in Washington DC, and elsewhere. Tea Partiers and their allies, like FreedomWorks, and others will be descending on Congress in a last ditch desperate effort to stop healthcare reform. Apparently, many of you are able to take time to go wave signs, sit in congressmen’s offices, shout slogans, and generally make a nuisance of | Read More »
In all seriousness, if this guy can deliver on what he’s saying in this speech, he should be our candidate in 2012. He won’t need more than 2 years to do what needs to be done in NJ; most of his changes will happen in this year and next. But holy cow, this is the kind of executive we need in the White House: http://njn.net/television/webcast/ontherecord.html | Read More »
The recently released Mount Vernon Statement is an attempt to formulate a common vision for what conservatism in the 21st century means. It isn’t the definitive statement by any means, but a catalyst for further discussion, as this excellent diary makes clear. There is, however, a topic on which Mount Vernon Statement – as well as any other conservative-focused statement of principles – is completely | Read More »
I would like to propose the following Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. “The President, members of Congress, Justices of the Supreme Court, and all of their appointees or delegates, shall add the phrase ‘of your money’ to any communication about expenditures or revenues of the government.” That is it. A modest proposal indeed. After this Amendment, blogposts like this one from the | Read More »
Amazing. Silent for months on end, and a second diary in the span of two weeks. Blame it on the snowmageddon that is blanketing the DC area, and shutting me down from going to the client’s office. But I’ll take it, as it gives me time to cogitate publicly and ask for your thoughts as well. Assumptions Likely To Be Wrong First, a bunch | Read More »
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