Category Archives: GOP 2012

Why should I?

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We are quickly approaching the 2014 political season. I get five to ten emails a day begging me for money for one reason or another. They all go into the trash can—some I brand as SPAM. These emails aren’t from some tin-foil beanie conspiracy theorists. Many are from various GOP committees and campaigns.

I quit contributing to the Party in 2006. I do contribute to specific candidates and campaigns but not to the party. Why should I? All they do is take my money and then ignore me. This last time around, all my contributions were to state and local candidates.

It appears my viewpoint is spreading.

GOP campaign committee sidelines finance director as fundraising lags

By REBECCA BERG | SEPTEMBER 4, 2013 AT 4:19 PM

In a major staff shakeup, the National Republican Senatorial Committee will sideline its finance director after falling behind Democrats in fundraising during the first half of the year.

Shelly Carson, finance director since January, will remain on the NRSC’s payroll, but her role at the committee will diminish considerably. She will act more as a consultant to the committee, which provides campaign cash and other assistance to Republican Senate candidates.

“Shelly is a valuable member of our team whose strength and skill is working directly with donors and will focus directly on fundraising efforts instead of day-to-day operations,” said NRSC spokesperson Brad Dayspring.

Heather Larrison, president of the Washington, D.C.-based Larrison Group, will take over Carson’s management and operations duties, a source familiar with the decision said. Larrison is an ally of Sen. Rob Portman, the NRSC vice chairman, and has done fundraising for him in the past.

The staff shuffle comes after a disappointing fundraising run through the first half of the year. Although the NRSC has paid down its debt, the committee raised just $20.3 million so far this year, far short of the nearly $31 million raised by its Democratic counterpart.

The GOP has been out-of-touch with its base for a decade or more. Dubya wasn’t the best President we ever had, but he was a good, moral man—and everyone, even democrats, knew it. Since that time, the GOP has nominated nothing but losers. McCain, as we now see, was the worst. In 2012, the Establishment attempted to hide McCain’s incompetence by adding Sarah Palin as VEEP then worked diligently to sabotage her press.

That scenario was repeated in 2012. Romney was a marginally better candidate than McCain, but he too was a slave to the establishment. The GOP repeated their 2008 tactics by adding Paul Ryan to the ticket. Now, with hindsight, we know that Ryan, too, was a slave to the Establishment. Just look at his lock-step support for illegal alien amnesty.

The ennui of the GOP is not limited to the national committee. We have examples here in Missouri. Just look at the effort to override Governor Nixon’s tax cut veto. Too many GOP Senators and Representatives want nothing to do with voting on the vetos. Why? It forces them to make a stand that can be used against them come the next election. The stupidity of that stance is that we, the voters, will remember their inaction and failure to support the vetos anyway. It’s a specious argument.

‘Course some of those GOP office-holders were elected by democrats—I mean, with union, democrat money. They’ve been bought. The question now are they honest and will stay bought. The dems certainly are applying pressure to keep those GOP Reps and Senators, “honest.”

So, the GOP is hurting for money. Events have some full circle. In 2012, 3 million of the GOP base stayed home away from the polls. The way the GOP is manipulating Congress against the DEMANDS of their base is leading to a worse turnout in 2014.

The Republican Party is quickly sliding towards irrelevancy.  This is where 3rd Parties come from. It’s not too late for the GOP to learn from their mistakes but with national leadership like Boehner, Cantor and McConnell, I’m not confident that change will come.

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Pugsley wins

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As we get closer to November, the polls are tightening. Romney is either at par or slightly ahead of Obama in most of the polls. He’s doing better in the crucial swing states as well.

If that is true, why do I not feel optimistic—I usually am? Perhaps it’s the travesty of an election in Venezuela. Chavez, known in some circles as Pugsley, was up for his third 6-year term. This time he had a courageous opponent. One who had a real chance of winning.  On election day, exit polls indicated a huge win for Chavez’ challenger. Hours after the polls closed Chavez was called the winner with 54% of the vote.

Something smells.

Obama congratulated Chavez.

We have had ample examples of democrat vote fraud, locally and at the state and federal levels. We’ve already seen democrat controlled states disenfranchising the military by refused to send them absentee ballots within the time-frame required by law. Ohio and Wisconsin are the most obvious examples.

In the last election we had examples of democrats shuffling illegals through polls and registering the dead. Breitbart investigated A.C.O.R.N. and exposed their fraudulent tactics.  A.C.O.R.N. continues to get federal funding despite legislation passed in Congress.

After his extremely poor performance in last week’s debate, Obama and the democrats are getting desperate. When ‘rats get desperate, they do desperate things. If Obama loses, we can expect protest, lawsuits, more examples of the “hanging chad,” any tactic to whittle away votes for Romney. Think Florida of 2000 but across the country, especially in those critical swing states.

I do not expect this election to be quiet even with an overwhelming margin for Romney. ‘Rats and the parasite class won’t give up their government subsidies without protests.

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Principles, Values and Motivations

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As conservatives, we base our principles on the Constitution, the writings of our Founders, of Thomas Paine, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson. These writers and others expound the theories that our nation has placed into practice as our Constitution.

From these principles, we create our values: individual liberty, self-reliance, personal responsibility and growth through personal effort and work. These values give meaning to our lives, our families and our children. Together, our principles and values, have created a culture that is foreign to many. Particularly, the left, whose principles and values differ radically.

Today’s topic, however, is not about those differences. It is about motivations—what drives us towards our goal of reclaiming our state and federal governments, of reinstituting those cherished values into government and reclaiming our individual liberties and self-worth.

At the root, while creating a personal framework, neither principles nor values truly drive our motivation. It is the imposition of contrary principles and values that motivate us. I found an article by John Hawkins on PJ media (H/T to Dinah H) that enumerates the issues that motivate us as we move toward the elections in thirty days. John writes of five issues…agendas, perhaps, that has been adopted by the left. These agendas, as they have been and continue to be implemented on a national scale creates conflicts with our established, conservative culture, principles and values. Those differences, ours from our values and the left’s from the agendas below, creates and supports our motivation.

5 Revolting Facets Of American Culture

The black mold in the walls of American culture.

1) An elevation of victimhood

In a weird reversal of how the world has worked since man was raised up out of the dust, it has become good to be a victim in America. In fact, many of the people held up as “victims” in our country are loving every second of their “victimhood.”

The best recent example of that phenomenon is Sandra Fluke. Here’s an unaccomplished 30 year old student who went to Congress and demanded that other people be forced to pay thousands of dollars a year to subsidize her birth control. It’s like the set-up of a stand-up comedian’s joke, except that when people responded with the natural punch lines which featured lots of “She’s a slut” jokes, Sandra Fluke was treated like a victim. Next thing you know, she’s on TV, she’s treated like a heroine, she gets a speaking slot at the Democratic Convention. For a 5th rate mediocrity like Sandra Fluke, her supposed “victimhood” was the best thing that ever happened to her.

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2) A fascination with freaks, failures, and deviants

For many Americans, the easiest way to get your name in the papers, get people talking about you, and make money isn’t to be great at something, it’s to be a dirtbag. Make a sex tape, flash your vagina getting out of a car, or just behave like a jackass and everyone will be saying your name. If you don’t think that’s true, then why do you know who Snooki is?

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When you reward bad behavior with money and fame, you shouldn’t be surprised when you get more bad behavior. Snooki may be a skanky loser, but how many young girls are thinking, “A skanky ‘loser’ with money, fame, and a TV show sounds pretty good to me!”

3) Infantilization

America is a country that was born in revolution and peopled by some of the most independent human beings ever to walk the earth. Our ancestors explored, conquered, and settled this nation under some of the harshest conditions imaginable, even in many places where “government” was more of a theoretical concept than a functioning entity. Now, the government educates your kids, gives you money and food if you don’t have a job, picks which toilets and light bulbs you’re allowed to buy, runs your health care, and takes care of you when you get old.

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We’ve become a society where adults are encouraged to behave like children and as Mark Steyn has said, “A society of children cannot survive, no matter how all-embracing the government nanny.”

4) Hyper-sexualization:

Sex is a healthy, normal, and good part of life. For that matter, so is water. But just as you can drown in a flood, our society is drowning in sex. It saturates our magazine ads, TV, and the Internet to such an extent that gyrating women in bikinis trying to sell us beer or teenagers having sex on TV barely even catches our attention.

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Hyper-sexualized Halloween costumes, nudity on the Internet and in film, and musicians wearing outfits that would have been considered risque for prostitutes fifty years ago have become the norm. Worse yet, we don’t know how to stop ourselves. Any time someone suggests that we turn the dial down a notch or two from acting like a society full of pimps and whores, you’d think it was a suggestion that we put everyone in formless robes and chastity belts. There should be some setting between Leave it to Beaver and a strip club that we can embrace as a country.  (RELATED CONTENT: What Father Would Permit His Young Daughter to Wear a Bikini? and The Difference Between Sexy Bikinis and Slutty Thongs — And Why Little Girls Should Wear Neither)

5) Indifference towards societal disintegration

Thomas Sowell had it right when he said, “Civilization has been aptly called a ‘thin crust over a volcano.’ The anointed are constantly picking at that crust.”

We seem to start out with an assumption that our culture is healthy, vibrant, and can’t be damaged by any of our societal tinkering. It’s hard to understand what would give anyone this impression when roughly a third of the population has been divorced, 73 percent of black children, 53 percent of Latinos and 29 percent of whites are born outside marriage, and 1 out of every 32 Americans is in prison or on parole.

Yet, we slur Christianity, encourage gay marriage, talk up single motherhood, push deviancy in TV and movies, mock morality and scoff at codes of honor. Throughout most of history, civilizations haven’t looked at attempts to stave off cultural rot as religious zealotry or prudishness; they’ve considered it to be simple common sense.

Truly, we are in a culture war. A war between those of us who cherish our traditions, our Christian values and the principles that built this country against those of the dependency class, those who have neither values based on religion or on self-improvement but of personal aggrandizement—a transitory display of self that fades with age and without gaining wisdom.

The next battle in that war comes in a month when we go to the polls to determine which of these two cultural visions will be sustained.  The war between these two cultures will not be resolved in a single battle for there is no end as long as greed, sloth and a lust for power exists. This election will not determine the winner of the culture war. If we lose, however, it could be a devastating to our continued survival as a nation of free individuals. The nation is becoming fragile and it could take little for it to be permanently damaged.

When you enter the polling booth next month, think on these motivators and check the box, flip the lever for the conservative candidate…the candidate whose personal ethos supports our common principles and values, the candidate who is motivated, like us, in defense of our nation, our principles, values and culture.

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Reflections

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My wife and I didn’t watch the debates last night. It’s just as well. Twitter kept my phone and tablet beeping. We watched some video excerpts later. It was a pitiful performance by Obama—an example of an amateur meeting a professional.

The dems were so outraged they attacked their own—Jim Lehrer of PBS, the moderator.

Obama’s Stephanie Cutter knocks Lehrer

DENVER, Colo. — Obama spokesperson Stephanie Cutter took a swipe at moderator Jim Lehrer’s largely passive debate performance tonight, saying the PBS anchor had allowed Mitt Romney to act as the moderator.

“I sometimes wondered if we even needed a moderator because we had Mitt Romney,” Cutter told CNN shortly after the debate, though she told POLITICO that Lehrer did his job as moderator and that her comments were strictly about Romney.

Pitiful! But, I’m not in the pitying mood.

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Univision had an expose’ over the weekend—on Fast and Furious. It was the first many in the Hispanic communities heard of it.  They aren’t happy.

Fast & Furious: Univision Continuing to Ask the Tough Questions

On the heels of staging a successful presidential forum, Univision, the largest Spanish-language network in the U.S., has uncovered more information on the failed Operation Fast and Furious.

Fast and Furious resulted in nearly 2,000 high-powered weapons travelling across the border to be used by Mexican drug cartels that has resulted in the deaths of dozens, if not hundreds, of innocent civilians.

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As we have been reporting, Administration officials have been less than revealing about what they knew about the ill-conceived Fast and Furious Operation, including the strong possibility that Attorney General Eric Holder may have contradicted himself in sworn congressional testimony.

It was embarrassing to Obama so he took steps to correct the situation.

He selected the wife of the owner of Univision to be an Ambassador. I guess if you can’t refute the facts, try bribery.

Obama appoints wife of Univision owner to UN diplomatic post

By El Nuevo Herald Staff Report

President Barack Obama appointed Cheryl Saban, wife of the owner of Univision, as U.S. representative to the United Nations, according to reports from various news blogs.

According to the Politico blog, Haim Saban, owner of the television network, backed Hillary Clinton in 2008, but during the summer donated $1 million to groups supporting the campaigns of Democrats. And according to another blog in Spanish of Yahoo, the appointment of Cheryl Saban to the diplomatic post was made last Wednesday, the day before Obama appeared at a forum at the University of Miami hosted by Univision.

Quid pro quo?

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As a parting shot today, I’ll give you this link.  I’ll not quote it. But if you follow the link, I think you’ll agree with the article.  We’re suffering from “Obama fatique.”

EDITORIAL: Obama fatigue

Familiarity with the president breeds desire to vote for someone else

A Campaign of Lowered Expectations

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As we move towards November, Romney and Obama appear tied, or nearly so, in the polls. Some of the polls are very questionable—oversampling dems vs. ‘pubs by as much as 12%. Others, like Rasmussen, have the difference only 2% in Obama’s favour. That’s well within the margin of error. The battleground states appear to be tightening as well.

The margin of error for 1,000 interviews among registered voters is 3.1 percentage points, and the margin is 3.4 percentage points among 832 likely voters. The poll was conducted from Sept. 26 to 30.

Meanwhile, in the all-important swing states of Florida and Virginia, Mr. Romney has seen his standing tick up from mid-September in new NBC News/Marist/Wall Street Journal polls. Mr. Obama holds statistically insignificant leads of 1 point and 2 points, respectively: 47 percent to 46 percent in Florida and 48 percent to 46 percent in Virginia. In the previous polls, he held identical 5-point leads, 49 percent to 44 percent, in both states.

Ohio, though — at least in public polling — continues to appear as a potential firewall for Mr. Obama. He holds an 8-point lead, 51 percent to 43 percent in the Buckeye State — essentially unchanged from a 7-point lead in mid-Septmber at 50 percent to 43 percent.  — By David Sherfinski – The Washington Times,October 3, 2012, 09:38AM.

The NBC/Wall Street Journal poll of likely voters has the national spread between Obama and Romney as 3%. That matches last week’s Rasmussen poll. At the state level, the poll used “registered” voters and those polls had a wider spread. That begs the question, “Why use likely voters for the national coverage but registered voters at the state level?”

It’s as if the pollsters are hedging their bets.  A sense of lowered expectations is a keystone in the dem agenda—four years isn’t enough to ruin fix the country so we need another four years to finish the job.

Lowered expectations extend to tonight’s debate between Obama and Romney.

(CNN) — The Obama and Romney campaigns are seeking to manage — and in some cases lower — expectations for their candidate’s performance in the first presidential debate.

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Obama advisers threw out the first pitch in the expectations game on Sunday, with Robert Gibbs saying that Romney is primed for success following a string of debates during the rigorous campaign for the Republican nomination.

“Mitt Romney, I think, has an advantage, because he’s been through 20 of these debates in the primaries over the last year,” Gibbs said on Fox News. “He even bragged that he was declared the winner in 16 of those debates. So I think, in that sense, having been through this much more recently than President Obama, I think he starts with an advantage.” — CNN, updated 5:47 PM EDT, Fri September 28, 2012.

For many of us on the right, Romney wasn’t our primary choice…nor secondary in many cases. But…he’s what we have. Romney, for the most part, has been making a low-keyed campaign.  We continue to wait for him to campaign as he did against Gingrich and Santorum. It worked in the primaries. Why should it not work against Obama? I can’t answer that question.

We’re getting closer to the election and contrary to some pundits, Romney isn’t gaining support. I’m beginning to believe some establishment ‘pubs prefer to be the underdog yapping around Obama than to be pushed into the position of actually leading us out of this mess.

We need a fighter in this election. Romney can be that fighter—he’s been one before as we’ve seen in the primaries. It’s time, no, past time, to take off the gloves. There’s no future in being a gentlemen. The dems aren’t.

Tuesday’s Notes

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Robert A. Heinlein created a science-fiction universe for many of his books. In that universe we would be in the middle of what he called, “The Crazy Years.” We have some fine examples of that just scanning today’s news items.

High school band marches with hammer & sickle

Posted: Sep 25, 2012 8:01 AM CDT Updated: Sep 25, 2012 10:03 AM CDT
By FOX News, By Todd Starnes

newoxfordbands.com / FOX NewsA Pennsylvania high school marching band is raising eyebrows with a halftime performance that commemorates the Russian revolution, complete with red flags, olive military-style uniforms, and giant hammers and sickles.

“St. Petersburg: 1917” is the theme for the New Oxford High School Marching Band. Ironically, the school’s athletic teams are called the Colonials and their colors are red, white and blue. The band’s website features a picture of the group with students holding a hammer and sickle.

“There is no reason for Americans to celebrate the Russian revolution,” said one irate parent who alerted Fox News. “I am sure the millions who died under Communism would not see the joy of celebrating the Russian revolution by a school 10 miles from Gettysburg.”

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How is this for a surprise? Romney pulls in more campaign donations in HOLLYWOOD than Obama does in New York City aided by Beyonce.

Romney Eyes Hollywood Return After Successful Weekend Fundraiser

By DOMINIC PATTEN | Monday September 24, 2012 @ 11:06am PDT

Turns out Mitt Romney is a big fan of Hollywood. After pulling in $6 million in a fundraiser Saturday at the Beverly Hilton, the GOP candidate could be back in town soon. “This weekend’s event was very successful and there are plans to try to get the Governor back in Los Angeles again after the first or second debate for a similar occasion,” a source close to the Romney campaign.

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The event pulled in about $2 million more than what President Obama raised at his most recent celebrity-hosted event last week in NYC with Beyoncé and Jay-Z.

And Obama is doing soooo good? All the while Romney gathers more money than Obama in Beverly Hills? Who’da thunk it!?

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The more California taxes and spends, the more the state goes into debt like a 3rd world despot, people are voting—with their feet.

The Great California Exodus: A Closer Look

Tom Gray & Robert Scardamalia

For decades after World War II, California was a destination for Americans in search of a better life. In many people’s minds, it was the state with more jobs, more space, more sunlight, and more opportunity. They voted with their feet, and California grew spectacularly (its population increased by 137 percent between 1960 and 2010). However, this golden age of migration into the state is over. For the past two decades, California has been sending more people to other American states than it receives from them. Since 1990, the state has lost nearly 3.4 million residents through this migration.

This study describes the great ongoing California exodus, using data from the Census, the Internal Revenue Service, the state’s Department of Finance, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Federal Housing Finance Agency, and other sources. We map in detail where in California the migrants come from, and where they go when they leave the state. We then analyze the data to determine the likely causes of California’s decline and the lessons that its decline holds for other states.

The data show a pattern of movement over the past decade from California mainly to states in the western and southern U.S.: Texas, Nevada, and Arizona, in that order, are the top magnet states. Oregon, Washington, Colorado, Idaho, and Utah follow. Rounding out the top ten are two southern states: Georgia and South Carolina.

A finer-grained regional analysis reveals that the main current of migration out of California in the past decade has flowed eastward across the Colorado River, reversing the storied passages of the Dust Bowl era. Southern California had about 55 percent of the state’s population in 2000 but accounted for about 65 percent of the net out-migration in the decade that followed. More than 70 percent of the state’s net migration to Texas came from California’s south.

What has caused California’s transformation from a “pull in” to a “push out” state? The data have revealed several crucial drivers. One is chronic economic adversity (in most years, California unemployment is above the national average). Another is density: the Los Angeles and Orange County region now has a population density of 6,999.3 per square mile—well ahead of New York or Chicago. Dense coastal areas are a source of internal migration, as people seek more space in California’s interior, as well as migration to other states. A third factor is state and local governments’ constant fiscal instability, which sends at least two discouraging messages to businesses and individuals. One is that they cannot count on state and local governments to provide essential services—much less, tax breaks or other incentives. Second, chronically out-of-balance budgets can be seen as tax hikes waiting to happen.

The data also reveal the motives that drive individuals and businesses to leave California. One of these, of course, is work. States with low unemployment rates, such as Texas, are drawing people from California, whose rate is above the national average. Taxation also appears to be a factor, especially as it contributes to the business climate and, in turn, jobs. Most of the destination states favored by Californians have lower taxes. States that have gained the most at California’s expense are rated as having better business climates. The data suggest that many cost drivers—taxes, regulations, the high price of housing and commercial real estate, costly electricity, union power, and high labor costs—are prompting businesses to locate outside California, thus helping to drive the exodus.

There is much more data at the website. I suggest you read the entire article and consider how you and your home state can take advantage of California’s folly and idiocy.

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Turning Point?

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I may be premature saying this, but I really don’t think so. I believe we’ve reached a turning point in this election and it’s turning for Romney. No, it isn’t the attacks on our embassies in the middle east that is expanding to other Islamic countries today. The turning point was earlier this week.

Obama’s post-convention bounce is over. Instead of a bounce, it was more like a “Thud!” The media hyped the convention and tried to give the impression that it was all wonderful and everything was great for democrats.

It isn’t.

From the removal of God in their platform, to the non-recognition of Jerusalem as the capitol of Israel, to using photos of Russian naval ships in a video that was supposed to show support for our servicemen and veterans, the democrats have inadvertently exposed themselves to the nation—and the nation saw it all. Yes, the dems, over the loud vocal objections of their delegates, reinstated God into their party’s plank saying it was just an oversight.

Yeah. Sure. You can fool the democrat cool-aid drinkers but not all of them. The country saw the true nature of the democrat party.

They didn’t like it.

Evidence of that turning point began to emerge this week. Here in Missouri, despite the attacks of the democrats and the establishment ‘Pubs, Todd Akin may have reached a turning point in his campaign against Claire McCaskill.

On Wednesday, Rasmussen release a poll showing the Akin had narrowed his earlier 9 point gap to 6 points. That poll was conducted over the weekend.

The fallout appears to linger in the Missouri Senate race, with incumbent Democrat Claire McCaskill still holding a six-point lead over Republican challenger Todd Akin. But the race is tightening.

The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey finds McCaskill will 49% support to Akin’s 43%. Four percent (4%) prefer some other candidate in the contest, and another four percent (4%) are undecided. — Rasmussen.

Citizens United commissioned a poll in Missouri this week that supports the turning point. Romney leads Obama by 20 pts(!) and Akin leads McCaskill by 5.  I went through the poll internals to see if it contained any rightward skew. Yes, there was some but not nearly as much as I expected given the results.

The party, gender demographics were equal. The age distribution was higher among those 50 and over—those who are more likely to vote. The geographic distribution was skewed to the regions containing St. Louis, Kansas City, Springfield and Columbia. Those areas are not ‘Pub strongholds. You’d expect those areas to lean to the democrats.  One area of skew was the racial divisions, Only 8% of those polled were black.  That seems odd when you consider the geographic distribution. In short, I found nothing in the poll dynamics to make me believe this poll was skewed beyond the usual statistical deviation.

Yesterday, a Rasmussen poll confirmed Romney’s rise in Missouri.

Mitt Romney has edged back into the lead in Missouri.

A new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey finds that Romney earns the support of 48% of Likely Missouri Voters, while President Obama picks up 45% of the vote. Four percent (4%) like another candidate in the race, and three percent (3%) are undecided. — Rasmussen.

Today, new Rassmussen polls arrived in my inbox that covers those “inmportant” swing states.  Romney has risen above Obama again.

Rasmussen has a record and reputation for accuracy. In 2008, Rasmussen was the most accurate pollster, followed closely by Pew.  Consequently, I tend to believe their polls and those polls look good for ‘Pubs in November.

I’d be more confident if the ‘Pub establishment weren’t so busy stabbing conservative candidates, like Todd Akin, in the back—‘Pub establishment types like Karl Rove, Rience Priebus, and now Haley Barbour. I’d be happier and more confident in winning this election if the ‘Pub establishment wasn’t working so hard to hand it to the democrats.

There is an increase in grassroots support for Akin. One example is that pleas from the RNC for donations in Missouri is dropping. Conservatives are funneling their money to Akin instead. It appears, from the actions of our ‘Pub leadership in Washington, the ‘Pub establishment is more concerned with the rise of grassroots conservatism than they are with taking the Senate and the WH back from the dems.

What a sad state of affairs that is!

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