As always, when I make these rankings, I’m not concerned about whose leading for 2012, but rather who is most likely run based on what happened last quarter:

Likely Candidates

1) Tim Pawlenty-73% (+15)

Pawlenty removed a lot of ambiguity from his 2012 plans by delivering a well-received speech at the Values Voter summit, starting a PAC and hiring top drawer talent to run it. There are many questions about the viability of Pawlenty’s campaign, but whatever those questions, it looks like a go.

2) Mike Huckabee-70% (+10)

Huckabee had a few things go right this quarter. His win at the Values Voter Strawpoll and his trip to Israel.  In addition, I think the chance of Huckabee running increase at half the rate that Palin’s chances of running decline. Huckabee has hedged his bets. He’s made it clear that he’s not running if there’s not a chance of victory. Whether we see a Huck-repeat will probably have a lot to do with how the Obama Administration fares, and potentially the success or failure of Bob Vander Plaats in Iowa.

3) Mitt Romney-68% (+8)

Nothing appears to indicate that Romney’s not running for President again and the word came out this quarter that Romney’s expected to write a 2012 book.

Unlikely Candidates

4) Haley Barbour (-2)-40%
4) John Thune (-3)-40%

Both of these men have been out of the spotlight and nothing indicates that they are running, other than speculation about it. I downgraded Thune more because  he’s had more opportunity to get national press in DC hasn’t availed himself of it.

6) Sarah Palin-39% (-10)

There are two sides to this equation. On one hand, Sarah Palin hasn’t done anything that would show interest in 2012. She skipped the Values Voter summit, and hasn’t at any events that woul indicate interest in the election. On the other hand, she could be planning an unconventional campaign that will go away from the endless and ultimately useless nine digit campaigns to instead go back to a Front Porch style of campaign where the candidates doesn’t throw herself out there every night and spend her time constantly fundraising. My bet at this point is that Palin lacks interest in a campaign, however, Palin is the one unlikely candidate who changes everything if she gets in.

7) Gary Johnson-38% (+2)

This bump is based solely on Kristopher’s rumor report.

Newt Gingrich-32% (+2%)

9) Rick Santorum-30% (not ranked)

The Santorum possibility is interesting, but I wouldn’t bet him on pulling the trigger. He was far more popular inside the beltway than outside of it and he’s going to need a lot of money to get this done. My bet is that Santorum is trying to raise issues and draw attention but won’t pull the trigger.

10) John Huntsman-29%  (NC)

11) Mike Pence-20% (Not Ranked)

Pence says he has no plans to run for President.  I tend to believe him, but that leaves some wiggle room.

12) Mitch Daniels-17% (-2)

13) Bobby Jindal-16% (-3)

His Star has come back to Earth a bit in Louisiana. I still think on balance, he’d make a good VP and if Republicans still don’t hold the White House come in 2016, Jindal could look very good.

14) John Cornyn-14% (-5)

Who needs the Presidency when you feel that you can dictate to every state GOP in the nation who their senate candidates will be.

15) Charlie Crist-12% (+3)

Crist’s talk of a Carteresque defeat for Obama could indicate that Crist is interested in doing the deed. Too bad for him, he committed himself to this race with Marco Rubio that lessens his national stature and ensures whether he wins or loses in Florida, the party base will have a bad taste in their mouth when it comes to him.

16) Jim DeMint-11% (-2)

17) Rudy Giuliani-9% (NC)

18) Jeb Bush-8% (+3)

Do polling companies know something we don’t know when Jeb Bush starts getting included in trial heats? Probably not, but perhaps Jeb is way too low.

Chances are greater of me getting a tongue ring and the Cubs winning the World Series on the same day candidates…

19) Ron Paul-5% (+4)

Okay I concede that despite the fact I don’t see Paul running for President,  there’s a greater than 1% chance of him running. Happy?

20) Tom Ridge 4% (-11)

Memo to Ridge: If you thought the book was going to improve your chances of being seen as a Presidential candidate, think again.

21) David Petraeus: 3% (-)

22) Mark Sanford-1% (-1)

Yeah, it’s unlikely, but who knows if running for President could become part of Mark Sanford’s “secret agent mission?”

I wrote a while ago about how sticking up for our furry and feathered friends has been financially fabulous for PETA, and now its looking like our favorite bunny-lovers are cashing in even more than I thought.

Over at HumanEvents.com, Rowan Scarborough has a great piece detailing many different ways that PETA is partnering with big business, taking a cut of the funds, and turning a blind eye to business practices that they supposedly condemn. I personally love the part about how they attack MasterCard for not being animal-friendly but partner with VISA (which has big connections in the beef and horse racing industries…oops).

So, I guess you CAN get more than a just warm fuzzy inside if you work with our friends at People for the Ethi¢al Treatment of Animal$™.

According to Politico, high-level Republican Party officials have taken umbrage to Michael Steele’s recent foray into the policymaking arena:

GOP leaders, in a private meeting last month, delivered a blunt and at times heated message to RNC Chairman Michael Steele: quit meddling in policy.

The plea was made during what was supposed to be a routine discussion about polling matters and other priorities in House Minority Leader John Boehner’s office. But the session devolved into a heated discussion about the roles of congressional leadership and Steele, according to multiple people familiar with the meeting.

The congressional leaders were particularly miffed that Steele had in late August unveiled a seniors’ “health care bill of rights” without consulting with them. The statement of health care principles, outlined in a Washington Post op-ed, began with a robust defense of Medicare that puzzled some in a party not known for its attachment to entitlements.

…The RNC, according to one source, was planning to roll out more policy initiatives.

Steele said he was getting asked during his travels around the country where the GOP stood on a range of issues and that he wanted to respond to these questions.

And at one point, Steele, a Washington native, said that his upbringing in the “streets” made him a fighter and that he was determined to continue fighting and aggressively defending the party, according to two people familiar with the account.

Alexander, who initiated the discussion and, sources say, was the most uneasy about Steele’s crafting policy, told POLITICO that he spoke to Steele last weekend about the matter and that the congressional leadership and the RNC chairman are now all on the same page.

Thankfully, it appears that Steele has taken steps to assuage the concerns from GOP leaders.

Today, Bobby Jindal wrote an op-ed for the Washington Post, in which he offers his take on health care. Coming from one of the party’s rising stars, this article is worth your time. He focuses on some commonly suggested elements of reform – purchasing across state lines, tort reform, portability, electronic medical records and refundable tax credits, among others – and some not-so-commonly suggested ideas (at least from Conservatives) – requiring coverage of pre-existing conditions, voluntary purchasing pools and covering young adults, just to name a few. Give it a read.

The independent institution set up to monitor TARP has asserted that Ben Bernanke and Henry Paulson “misled” the public about the financial health of the companies on the receiving end of the program’s funds:

The federal government last October loaned Bank of America and eight other “healthy” financial institutions a total of $125 billion – the initial payout from the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP – in an attempt to avoid a series of major bank collapses that would push the sputtering economy into a free fall or depression.

The rationale for giving money to stable banks and not failing ones, regulators said, was that such institutions would be better able to lend money and thus unfreeze tight credit markets – a major factor in last year’s Wall Street losses.

But an audit released Monday by TARP Special Inspector General Neil Barofsky says senior government officials and Wall Street regulators, including Mr. Bernanke and Mr. Paulson, had “affirmative concerns” that several of the nine institutions were financially shaky.

If you ask me, this provides further proof that we shouldn’t trust the government to administer and manage programs effectively and efficiently. This story may also provide additional ammunition for people who opposed TARP from the start to criticize initial supporters of the program.

As detailed by the Chicago Tribune, Pres. Obama has begun a “behind-the-scenes campaign” to muster up support for a public option in the eventual health care bill that emerges from Congress:

But now, senior administration officials are holding private meetings almost daily at the Capitol with senior Democratic staff to discuss ways to include a version of the public plan in the health care bill that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., plans to bring to the Senate floor later this month, according to senior Democratic congressional aides.

…At the same time, Obama has been reaching out personally to rank-and-file Senate Democrats, telephoning more than a dozen lawmakers in the last week to press the case for action.

Administration officials are also distributing talking points and employing other campaign-style devices to rally support for passing a bill this fall.

The White House initiative, unfolding largely out of public view, follows months in which the president appeared to defer to senior lawmakers on Capitol Hill as they labored to put together gargantuan health care bills.

…He has met repeatedly in private with Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, who has floated a proposal to allow states to set up government plans as a fallback if commercial insurers do not control premiums.

The president has also discussed health care at least three times recently with Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., one of the most outspoken Democratic critics of the public option.

…But Obama and Reid are treading carefully, wary of including a provision that would scare off moderates such as Snowe, Nelson and Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., who have all indicated they would not support a national public plan.

As our own Benjamin Hodge has suggested, government-run health care remains a possibility, so we must not become complacent in our opposition.

Finally, the infamous Karl Rove has announced that he has donated $1,000 to Marco Rubio’s campaign. This endorsement from a textbook party insider, like Rove, should unsettle Gov. Crist. If Marco reports respectable fundraising totals when he files his FEC report on the 15th, Good Time Charlie will really have to start worrying.

Long a subject of derision from conservatives, the National Endowment for the Arts ran into more trouble when it was revealed NEA funding was granted to artists for creating works of art designed to promote President Obama and his domestic policy agenda. This was a clear case of the taxpayer-supported NEA stepping outside the ideals under which it was created.

While some form of federal funding for the arts has occurred practically since our nation’s founding, the National Endowment was created by an act of Congress and signed by President Lyndon Johnson in 1965 as part of the Great Society. Instead of shilling for a particular candidate or issue, the endowment’s original charge was to “help create and sustain not only a climate encouraging freedom of thought, imagination, and inquiry, but also the material conditions facilitating the release of this creative talent.”

The NEA survived a funding cut in the mid-1990’s brought on by a controversy over NEA-funded artists Andres Serrano and Robert Mapplethorpe, among others, but the current allegations are much more severe because the funding supposedly went to art designed to fit a political agenda.

Obviously it’s nothing new that artistic works are created for the purpose of glorifying a person or an entity – one need only look at the Sistine Chapel or any of the numerous monuments around Washington, D.C. as examples of art intended to deify or pay tribute to a person or group. Indeed, most of the newer examples about Washington were paid for at least in part by taxpayer dollars.

Yet the idea of art sanctioned by a governing body leaves it too broadly open to interpretation as to what is reasonable or proper, particularly in this age of political correctness we live in. Further, one needs to wonder about the vanity of a leader who uses public funds to engage in political propaganda masquerading as artistic effort rather than allowing free expression and encouraging the improvement of public taste and culture.

Those who are not the prototypical starving artists should not be fed on the taxpayer’s dime, regardless of whether public tastes favor their works or not. Needless to say, what is considered beauty is in the eye of the beholder and one man’s masterpiece might get quizzical looks from someone else; in either case the decision should not come at the cost of a taxpayer-funded grant. Millions of people make the choice on their own to cultivate and promote culture through donations and their patronage of many worthwhile artistic events. It’s clear the public good is not well served by government picking and choosing winners in the artistic field, and using art to promote a self-serving political agenda reeks of the practices of the worst tyrants the world has known.

In a political climate as charged as ours coupled with a government set on bailing out its friends in the business world, this usage of the National Endowment for the Arts for crass political purposes places the onus on Congress to finish a job it half-heartedly started a decade ago. It’s long past time to save the American people over $150 million and withdraw federal funding from the National Endowment for the Arts. Simply convert the NEA into a completely private entity and let them compete in the free market just as millions of those who make their living in the artistic field manage to do every day.

Then if artists wish to promote a political agenda at least it won’t be paid for through funds confiscated from the American taxpayer.

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-Michael Swartz is a Liberty Features Syndicated writer.

Governor Huckabee talks about the different standards that are applied to behavior by different and how this duplicity is not good:



(Transcript Here)

An excerpt:

Some things are either right or wrong. It doesn’t matter who does them. When Hollywood hero Roman Polanski drugged and raped a 13-year-old girl and then fled the country instead of facing the consequences of his own guilty plea, there should be no defense of him from anyone. What he did was evil and reprehensible. The fact that he is a great director doesn’t obscure the fact that he robbed a child of far more than Bernie Madoff stole from his victims.

What has our culture become when people can commit despicable criminal acts and yet get defended and excused because they are celebrities. If David Letterman takes advantage of subordinates who work for him, then it’s not funny, it’s pathetic and immoral. The audience shouldn’t laugh and applaud; they ought to walk out in disgust. And instead of actors and even governments seeking the release of Roman Polanski, they should be screaming for justice.

A couple of Republican mandarins, Mike Murphy and David Brooks, went on Meet the Press this weekend.  Sarah Palin came up, as she often does.  Brooks promised to “eat his hat” if she won the Republican nomination and, in the following clip, Mike Murphy agreed:

Now, regardless of what you think of how Sarah Palin would play in a general election, this blaise attitude towards Palin’s prospects in the primaries seems incredible to me.  Palin has given two national interviews which can only be called disasters.  She’s been mocked ruthlessly by Saturday Night Live, David Letterman, and every non-Fox television personality worth speaking of.  She resigned her governorship, with the feeblest of explanations, 31 months into her first term.  And still she has the highest favorables among conservatives; still she can drive a revolt against national policy from her facebook page; still she can get herself on the top of a best-seller the day it’s announced.  She’s indisputably better liked, among Republicans, than the putative front-runner, Mitt Romney.  It may well be that something will happen to erode her appeal to Republicans, but wouldn’t a reasonable analysis wait for, like, any sign that this is happening?

As much as I like Palin, I’m pretty obviously not a Palin supporter.  Still, there’s something almost surreal about the comments of men like Murphy and Brooks.  Sarah has her fans, they admit, but insist that this group can’t win her the nomination.  They literally laugh at the possibility.  But, again, where is the evidence?  If such a sizable portion of the Republican electorate still likes and listens to Palin- after all of the negative press- doesn’t this suggest that she has more than a few vocal fans?  I’m not convinced Sarah Palin will win the Republican nomination.  I’m not even sure she’ll run.  But, I am sure that the Republican establishment couldn’t find milk on a dairy farm.  I just hope these aren’t the fellas doling out advice to whoever does become our nominee.

-

Matthew E. Miller can be contacted at Obilisk18@yahoo.com or at his Pawlentyesque blog

The status of health care reform, since Congress went on recess, has captured every columnists, pundits, and even economist’s rants and raves. Now that Congress has reconvened, the speculation of what will and will not be in the bill is coming to a close. But one thing is for sure: Congress does not want to leave without some type of government growth.

The public option quickly became unpopular due to the massive amounts of debt and government intrusion that many were proposing. Senator Max Baucus (D-MT) thought that he could garner bi-partisan support with his mandated insurance plan, but right now it has been lost in a fight over the details.

Whether or not the plan “cuts too much out of Medicare benefits,” as Senator John Coryn (R-TX) stated to reporters, is salient. But, it’s really the core principle of the effects of a mandated insurance plan will have on the American people is what needs to be in front of the debate.

Mandates for certain types of coverage are not new, but mandates requiring citizens to buy health care insurance are. Many states have already passed plans, containing some sort of mandates, including Massachusetts under former Republican Presidential Candidate and Governor Mitt Romney.

So it is no surprise why the Democrats have taken the mandated health insurance route over the public option route, as of late.

Mandated health insurance is an escape route that government takes for an indirect tax on people’s income. Without raising the income tax, the government mandate will reduce the employee’s wages by the amount it costs for the employer to offer it.

Lawrence Summers, economist and current Director of Obama’s National Economic Council, wrote in 1989 that after a mandate was put in “A new equilibrium level of employment and wages is reached, with lower wages and employment…” because (unlike government) business cannot just print new money to make up for new costs.
And that’s not all.

Paul Hsieh, MD, and founding member of Freedom and Individual Rights in Medicine (FIRM), found in Massachusetts that once mandates were in place the cost to get an insurance plan rose rapidly. This is because the government decides what must be covered in an insurance plan and special interest groups make sure the politicians include everything under the sun. Hsieh states:

“For example, Massachusetts currently requires insurance plans to include forty-three mandatory benefits, including in vitro fertilization, blood lead poisoning treatment, and chiropractor services – whether or not customers want them. Residents must purchase alcoholism therapy benefits, even if they are teetotalers. These mandated benefits have raised the costs of health insurance in Massachusetts by 23 to 56 percent.”

Economically, mandated coverage lowers “wages and employment,” while not even controlling cost. It puts more red tape and burden on the small business with penalties possibly including jail time.

And with Barack Obama’s commitment to eventually getting the United States on a single-payer plan, this individual mandate “compromise” will be nothing but a facilitator of that very plan.

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-Justin Williams is the Senior Commentary Editor of ALG News Bureau and, as always, he accepts questions and comments at jwilliams@libertyfeatures.com.

Rasmussen Kentucky Political Survey

2010 Senatorial Election

• Trey Grayson (R) 44%
• Daniel Mongiardo (D) 37%

• Rand Paul (R) 43%
• Daniel Mongiardo (D) 38%

• Trey Grayson (R) 40%
• Jack Conway (D) 40%

• Jack Conway (D) 42%
• Rand Paul (R) 38%

Favorable / Unfavorable (Net)

• Trey Grayson 53% / 20% (+33%)
• Rand Paul 51% / 23% (+28%)
• Jack Conway 49% / 27% (+22%)
• Daniel Mongiardo 41% / 43% (-2%)

How would you rate the job Barack Obama has been doing as President?

• Strongly approve 29%
• Somewhat approve 18%
• Somewhat disapprove 12%
• Strongly disapprove 41%

Note: In the 2008 presidential election, John McCain defeated Barack Obama in Kentucky by 17 points; 58 to 41 percent.

How would you rate the job Steve Beshear has been doing as Governor?

• Strongly approve 17%
• Somewhat approve 42%
• Somewhat disapprove 25%
• Strongly disapprove 16%

Generally speaking, do you strongly favor, somewhat favor, somewhat oppose or strongly oppose the health care reform plan proposed by President Obama and the congressional Democrats?

• Strongly favor 25%
• Somewhat favor 14%
• Somewhat oppose 12%
• Strongly oppose 45%

If the health care reform plan passes, will the quality of health care get better, worse, or stay about the same?

• Better 24%
• Worse 53%
• Stay the same 15%

If the health care reform plan passes, will the cost of health care go up, go down, or stay about the same?

• The cost of health care will go up 56%
• The cost will go down 17%
• Stay the same 18%

Is the health care reform legislation being considered by Congress likely to increase the deficit, reduce the deficit, or have no impact on the deficit?

• Increase the deficit 69%
• Reduce the deficit 5%
• Have no impact on the deficit 19%

To cover the cost of health care reform, how likely is it that taxes will have to be raised on the middle class?

• Very likely 62%
• Somewhat likely 20%
• Not very likely 10%
• Not at all likely 4%

In reacting to the nation’s current economic problems, what worries you more….that the federal government will do too much or that the federal government will not do enough?

• Federal government will do too much 52%
• Federal government will not do enough 32%

Generally speaking, how would you rate the U.S. economy these days? Excellent, good, fair, or poor?

• Excellent 1%
• Good 4%
• Fair 49%
• Poor 45%

Are economic conditions in the country getting better or worse?

• Better 36%
• Worse 37%
• Staying the same 21%

Survey of 500 Likely Voters was conducted September 30. The margin of error is +/- 4.5 percentage points.

One of my favorite polling questions is this one, updated on Sept. 1 by Rasmussen:  If you could, would you support replacing the entire US Congress with 435 people randomly selected from the phone book?

The results:

• 42% agree, 42% disagree, and 16% are not sure.
• Republicans agree by a 2-1 margin.
• A plurality of unaffiliated voters agree.

Related findings from Rasmussen on Aug. 30:

• If possible, 57% of voters would vote out the entire US Congress, and replace it with 535 new members.
• Just 25% would keep the current Congress.  18% are not sure.
• 70% of unaffiliated voters would replace the entire Congress.  Republicans “overwhelmingly” agree.

In May, Rasmussen found that 69% of Republican voters think that Republican Congressmen are out of touch with GOP voters.

In Kansas, here are recent SurveyUSA polling results:

• Republican Senator Sam Brownback:
  • 48% approve, 42% disapprove
  • 60% approval from Republicans (41% of electorate).
  • 61% approval from conservatives (36% of electorate).
• Republican Senator Pat Roberts:
  • 54% approve, 37% disapprove.
  • 72% approval from Republicans.
  • 61% approval from conservatives.
• Democratic Governor Mark Parkinson, the 2002 state GOP chair who became the Democratic Lieutenant Governor in 2006, and who then alienated Democrats shortly into his term as Governor by signing into law a controversial-to-some coal plant construction bill that former Governor Kathleen Sebelius consistently opposed.  He’s not expected to run for anything again:
  • 53-33% approval.
  • 57% approval from Republicans.
  • 54% approval from conservatives.

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Benjamin Hodge publishes the Web site KansasProgress.com, based in Johnson County, KS, in the Greater Kansas City area.  Hodge is a delegate to the Kansas GOP and a former state representative. You can join Hodge’s efforts on Facebook, through his personal Web site, on Twitter, and through his PAC.

Rush Limbaugh matters. This may seem strange to say about one of the most popular and controversial figures in American public life, but I think it needs to be said in this most curious and possibly dangerous moment in our nation’s relatively short public communications history.

I do not always agree with Mr. Limbaugh. In fact, I thought his stand, echoed by several other radio talk show hosts, on immigration was partly wrong-headed. I did agree that we needed to close our borders to illegal immigrants, even building a wall in Texas to assist in that. I did agree that we needed to register all non-citizen residents, legal or otherwise. And I did agree that any illegal immigrant who commits a crime in the United States should be immediately deported after conviction in a proper trial. But I did not, and do not, agree that most illegal immigrants should be ejected from our country. Interestingly, for all their incessant commentary and advocacy for deportation or other severe penalties, Mr. Limbaugh and his allies did not prevail.

That’s because most Americans, Republicans, Democrats and independents did not agree.

Rush Limbaugh is a partisan conservative, but not always a partisan Republican. Yes, Rush Limbaugh has his idiosyncracies; yes, he is in part an entertainer and sometimes overdramatizes; and yes, he makes mistakes, but who of us does not?

On the other hand, anyone who listens to his radio broadcasts knows that he is preoccupied with serious subjects about American public policies, domestic and international. In spite of a veneer of verbal pride and egotism, much of which I take to be at least half self-deprecating by its droll excess, there is a sophisticated understanding of politics, public policy issues, and human psychology that exceeds any of his radio host colleagues on the left and the right. No politician I know can match his impact in the political market place.

He has recently been a target of Democratic activists who view him as a threat. Their efforts, however, only expanded his base. He now has, I am told, about 30 million listeners. There have been, and probably now are, entertainers with a greater following. But I can’t think of a political commentator, liberal or conservative, who can match him now, or ever, possibly with the exception of Will Rogers in the 1930’s, with as much attention among the public atlarge.

The real reason Rush Limbaugh matters, however, is because he represents a vital part of the check to a prevailing trend in the old established media which is uncritical of current events and developments in Washington, DC, in the Congress and the White House, and elsewhere. These events and developments are attempting to move our country in directions that do not have the consent of the governed. A national media uncritically allied with a political establishment is a very dangerous matter in our republic, whether that alliance is liberal or conservative.

There is currently an effort to silence Rush Limbaugh and many of his colleagues by reinstating the discredited so-called Fairness Doctrine. As David Rehr, the former president of the National Association of Broadcasters, says, “the Fairness Doctrine is not fair.” That is because the requirements of the Fairness Doctrine would prevent broadcast stations from presenting anyone with a political viewpoint without having to provide equal time to virtually anyone who demands it. Since this is impossible, in practical terms, opinion journalism would disappear from the airwaves. With the myriad of media outlets in radio, TV, cable, print and the internet now available, the Fairness Doctrine is hopelessly out of date.

President Obama rightfully said during the 2008 presidential campaign that he opposed the Fairness Doctrine, and after taking office, reaffirmed that view. But Democratic leaders in the Congress, obviously trying to silence their critics, have nontheless pushed forward efforts to restore the Doctrine. Since there seems to be little support in the Congress among members to do so, advocates of reinstatement have suggested a “backdoor” approach through the Federal Communications Commission. Such a maneuver might work, unless the public is made aware of it, and expresses its opposition.

If politicians in Washington, DC today are successful in silencing Rush Limbaugh and others who voice dissent, a new set of politicians in a few years will likewise succeed in silencing dissent to a conservative president and Congress. Such a pattern could not be more disastrous to free speech and a healthy representative democracy.

This is what’s at stake, and why Rush Limbaugh matters.

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-Please visit Mr. Casselman’s personal site, The Prairie Editor.

Back in August civil liberty activists were appalled to find that the Obama Administration was openly encouraging supporters of the Democrats’ health care plan to report items they thought inaccurate to an e-mail address set up for that purpose. Hundreds reported getting unsolicited e-mail messages from the White House, purportedly to set them straight on the facts as Obama’s team presented them. After much initial public outcry, the flap over the “flag@whitehouse.gov” e-mail address dwindled down.

A new report made the news this week, however, and this time the crosshairs have been trained on a number of popular social networking sites such as Facebook, Myspace, and Twitter. It was revealed that the White House is collecting and storing comments and videos placed on its respective social networking sites but is not advising users or asking for their consent about the data collection. This runs counter to the vow made by President Obama back in January that he would make an “unprecedented” effort to “establish a system of transparency, public participation and collaboration” during his tenure.

The practice is defended by Obama’s apologists, saying that the information is required to be collected by the Presidential Records Act (PRA). But the PRA, which dates back to 1978, only requires the collection of “documentary material”, meaning “all books, correspondence, memorandums, documents, papers, pamphlets, works of art, models, pictures, photographs, plats, maps, films, and motion pictures, including, but not limited to, audio, audiovisual, or other electronic or mechanical recordations.” Eventually it may be up to a court to decide whether comments left on a social networking website fall under any of these categories but in the meantime it provides a chilling effect on discourse, particularly on that critical of Obama’s policies.

Another development in this area finds President Obama seeking to extend three provisions of the PATRIOT Act, further angering supporters who were enraged with the original adoption of these restrictions under former President Bush.

Obama asked Congress last week to consider extending three portions of the PATRIOT Act dealing with the seizure of certain business records, roving wiretaps, and apprehending so-called “lone wolf” terrorists. While this administration still seeks to close down the holding facility at Guantanamo Bay, try suspected terrorists on our soil and grant them as non-citizens and enemy combatants full Constitutional rights for their defense, conservatives rightly fret that these tactics could be used to further stifle lawful dissent.

It’s not a difficult step to take from fighting the real threat of Islamic terror within our borders to perhaps something akin to this situation. Imagine a businessman and TEA Party organizer who made a comment on the White House Facebook site opposing socialized medicine or some other initiative thought to run counter to Constitutional government. Would it not be out of the realm of possibility for Big Brother to run through his business records in order to harass him into silence? The next step could be listening in on his private conversations as a perceived “lone wolf” threat.

This example, mythical as it may be, was certainly an argument for making the PATRIOT Act a temporary one. Placing the reins of our nation in the hands of an appeaser can be the prelude to taking an act enhancing national security in a time of threat from without and standing the intent on its head. A President who twists “love thy neighbor” into “love thy enemy” and “hope and change” into “snitch on our opponents” deserves to be stripped of as much power as legally possible.

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-Michael Swartz is a Liberty Features Syndicated Writer.

Despite what its detractors might say, the fact remains that the Republican Party is the party of opportunity. Contrast the historical success of this approach with the historical failure of the opposite approach, dependency, taken by the Liberals and currently embraced by the Democratic Party.

America has long been known as the land of opportunity, however there is now a belief among some that it should become the land of dependency. For hundreds of years immigrants risked everything to come to America not because of the programs it offered, but because of the opportunities it provided.

History has shown that when workers and entrepreneurs get to keep most of what they earn, they work harder and put money back into the community in the form of purchases and charitable contributions.

When governments impose income redistribution schemes to “spread the wealth,” workers and entrepreneurs loose their incentive to work as hard and have less to reinvest back into their communities. This is especially true in the case of charitable giving. Why should individuals make voluntary charitable contributions when the government has already invoked involuntary charity?

The concept of dependency is most extreme in communist nations such as the former USSR and Cuba, where the government controls all aspects of one’s employment and income. The individual is completely dependent upon the government for every aspect of his or her livelihood, and even their life, in these repressive regimes. The same dependency occurs to varying degrees in socialist countries all over the world, however the results are always the same, dependency destroys opportunity and economic growth.

In a recent article by Fareed Zakaria in Newsweek magazine, he correctly states that it has been the spread of capitalism in countries like India and China that has lifted millions of people out of poverty. When one studies the economic winners and losers around the world, the winners are those countries that provide opportunities for its citizens and the losers are those countries that make their citizens dependent upon the government and consequently their government dependant upon IMF loans and international subsidies. Cuba has not survived since 1959 because of its vibrant economy. It was subsidized by the USSR for much of its communist history and is now being subsidized by the leftist government of Venezuela.

Clearly, despite its perceived inequities, opportunity provides a far better life for the citizens of a country than dependency, the alternative being proposed by the Obama Administration and the Democratic Party.

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-David Nace is a Liberty Features Syndicated Writer.

The Daily Telegraph reports that Pres. Obama has become “furious” with Gen. Stanley McChrystal, thanks to the General’s recent public statements on the situation in Afghanistan:

According to sources close to the administration, Gen McChrystal shocked and angered presidential advisers with the bluntness of a speech given in London last week.

The next day he was summoned to an awkward 25-minute face-to-face meeting on board Air Force One on the tarmac in Copenhagen, where the president had arrived to tout Chicago’s unsuccessful Olympic bid.

Gen James Jones, the national security adviser, yesterday did little to allay the impression the meeting had been awkward.

Asked if the president had told the general to tone down his remarks, he told CBS: “I wasn’t there so I can’t answer that question. But it was an opportunity for them to get to know each other a little bit better. I am sure they exchanged direct views.”

…In London, Gen McChrystal, who heads the 68,000 US troops in Afghanistan as well as the 100,000 Nato forces, flatly rejected proposals to switch to a strategy more reliant on drone missile strikes and special forces operations against al-Qaeda.

He told the Institute of International and Strategic Studies that the formula, which is favoured by Vice-President Joe Biden, would lead to “Chaos-istan”.

When asked whether he would support it, he said: “The short answer is: No.”

He went on to say: “Waiting does not prolong a favorable outcome. This effort will not remain winnable indefinitely, and nor will public support.”

The remarks have been seen by some in the Obama administration as a barbed reference to the slow pace of debate within the White House.

…A military expert said: “They [Obama and McChrystal] still have working relationship but all in all it’s not great for now.”

…Relations between the general and the White House began to sour when his report, which painted a grim picture of the allied mission in Afghanistan, was leaked. White House aides have since briefed against the general’s recommendations.

The general has responded with a series of candid interviews as well as the speech. He told Newsweek he was firmly against half measures in Afghanistan: “You can’t hope to contain the fire by letting just half the building burn.”

It appears that the President has some major work to do with developing a clear strategy and shoring up his relationship with the General and other senior military officials. For someone who made victory in Afghanistan a central foreign policy focus during his campaign, Obama has exhibited a troubling neglect of the actual conditions on the ground.

In recent months, rumors of Gen. David Petraeus running for President in 2012 have quieted from the volumes they reached this Spring. However, the New York Times has resumed some of the stirrings with an article published today:

Gen. David H. Petraeus, the face of the Iraq troop surge and a favorite of former President George W. Bush, spoke up or was called upon by President Obama “several times” during the big Afghanistan strategy session in the Situation Room last week, one participant says, and will be back for two more meetings this week.

But the general’s closest associates say that underneath the surface of good relations, the celebrity commander faces a new reality in Mr. Obama’s White House: He is still at the table, but in a very different seat.

No longer does the man who oversees the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have one of the biggest voices at National Security Council meetings, as he did when Mr. Bush gave him 20 minutes during hourlong weekly sessions to present his views in live video feeds from Baghdad. No longer is the general, with the Capitol Hill contacts and web of e-mail relationships throughout Washington’s journalism establishment, testifying in media explosions before Congress, as he did in September 2007, when he gave 34 interviews in three days.

The change has fueled speculation in Washington about whether General Petraeus might seek the presidency in 2012. His advisers say that it is absurd — but in immediate policy terms, it means there is one less visible advocate for the military in the administration’s debate over whether to send up to 40,000 additional troops to Afghanistan.

… “General Petraeus has not hinted to anyone that he is interested in political life, and in fact has said on many occasions that he’s not,” said Peter Mansoor, a retired Army colonel and professor of military history at Ohio State University who was the executive officer to General Petraeus when he was the top American commander in Iraq.

“It is other people who are looking at his popularity and saying that he would be a good presidential candidate, and I think rightly that makes the administration a little suspicious of him.”

General Petraeus’s advisers say he has stepped back in part because Mr. Obama has handpicked his own public face for the war in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, who last week gave an interview to CBS’s “60 Minutes,” met with Mr. Obama on Air Force One and used a speech in London to reject calls for scaling back the war effort.

…What is clear is that General Petraeus’s relationship with Mr. Obama is nothing like his bond with Mr. Bush, who went mountain biking with the general in Washington last fall, or with Mr. Obama’s opponent in the 2008 presidential campaign, Senator John McCain of Arizona, whose aides briefly floated the general’s name last year as a possible running mate.

By then the general had been talked about as a potential presidential candidate himself, which still worries some political aides at the White House.

…“He understands the Congress better than any military commander I’ve ever met,” said Senator Lindsey Graham, the South Carolina Republican, who said that General Petraeus had the nationwide influence to serve as a spokesman for the administration’s policy on the Afghan war.

But until the president makes a decision, and determines if he wants to deploy General Petraeus to help sell it, the commander is keeping his head down. “He knows how to make his way through minefields like this,” said Jack Keane, the former vice chief of staff of the Army.

Not exactly a full-fledged rumor, but still, the possibility of Petraeus throwing his hat in the ring seem more plausible now than they did a few months ago. This definitely qualifies as a story to monitor.

The Fix’s Chris Cillizza recently listed his top 10 most competitive, interesting primary races around the nation.  In his ratings, it appears that Cillizza is including more than just the closeness of the election, and it’s therefore more difficult to debate the “correctness” of his evaluation, since we all use different methods of measurement.

His ratings, with #1 being the most interesting primary:

• 10. Michigan Governor, Republican
• 9.  Colorado Senate, Democrat
• 8.  Kansas Senate, Republican
• 7.  California Governor, Democrat
• 6.  Illinois Governor, Democrat
• 5.  Kentucky Senate, Democrat
• 4.  Connecticut Senate, Republican
• 3.  California Governor, Republican
• 2.  Pennsylvania Senate, Democrat
• 1.  Texas Governor, Republican

My commentary:

• Rubio-Crist?
• I think I’d put the Specter-Sestak Democratic primary as #1.  Cillizza leans left, and I can understand how one’s a little more entertained with members of the opposite party beating up on each other — particularly when it’s connected to George W. Bush’s former lieutenant governor — so I won’t fault him for putting Texas at the top.
• It’s hard not to cheer on an underdog, particularly when it’s the Ron Paul family.  I’d probably include the Kentucky US Senate Republican primary on this list.
• In my voting experience and as a Republican, most GOP primaries that I observe or vote in tend to be issues-driven.  But in the Kansas Senate primary, Congressmen Tiahrt and Moran have a near-identical voting record; I’m not at all sure whether this will make the race more interesting, or less interesting, and what type of turnout will result.  I’m going to assume that this is a similar reality (that there’s little disagreement on the issues) in the GOP primaries in the Kentucky Senate and Michigan Governor.
• While I could always be wrong, my assumption is that Rick Perry wins his primary fairly comfortably.
• California:  I find the Democratic primary more interesting than the Republican primary, in large part because Gavin Newsom and Jerry Brown appear to both be political giants within their party.  Perhaps it’s because I’m making the assumption that Whitman is better suited for the general electorate of California.

Click here to read the whole article at The Fix.

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Benjamin Hodge publishes the Web site KansasProgress.com, based in Johnson County, KS, in the Greater Kansas City area.  Hodge is a delegate to the Kansas GOP and a former state representative. You can join Hodge’s efforts on Facebook, through his personal Web site, on Twitter, and through his PAC.

Over the last few days I have been considering writing a critique of Republicans and conservatives who went after the President for his trip to Copenhagen and cheered his defeat once Chicago was eliminated. Not that there aren’t legitimate criticisms, but many of the attacks have been petty, unhelpful to the country at large and even embarrassing. I was still deciding until yesterday morning, when a guy I ran into at the Americans for Prosperity ”Defending the American Dream” summit- I’ll write about that later today or tomorrow, it was REALLY cool (note the emphasized “really”)- told me, unprovoked, to write about how bad it is for Republicans to be cheering that Chicago was not picked for the Olympics. Since I agreed with his assessment, here I go.

As is well-known by now, President Obama took a trip to Copenhagen last week to make the case for Chicago to be the host of the 2016 Olympics. From the start, the trip was a public relations disaster. President Obama was under fire for taking time away from important legislation such as health care reform, the threat of Iranian nuclear weapons, the released 26-year high of 9.8% unemployment and for seeming ambivalent about his only months-old strategy in Afghanistan and a severe lack of communication with his chosen general on the ground, General McChrystal (update: the president and the general met Friday. Worse, multiple jets were used on the trip (only a PR disaster, though a legitimate one, to the chortling right- global warming, anyone?) and First Lady Obama mentioned “sacrifices” she, her husband and TV host Oprah Winfrey had made in taking the trip. Lastly, a teenage boy was beaten to death in a violent gang fight recently, underscoring both the dangerous atmosphere in Chicago (click to see the number of children killed in gang violence in Chicago compared to past years as well as Los Angeles) and the fact that many residents either were against the Olympics being held in Chicago or had a myriad of concerns regarding the event’s presence.

Unfortunately, many of the critiques and post-result reactions were unnecessarily inflammatory and completely unconstructive. I wouldn’t be writing this if the majority of Republican and conservative pundits and others were quoting the above violence in Chicago, or the concerns that its presence would increase corruption in the city’s politics or even the concerns that costs will be added to the citizens’ taxes (I can’t find the source where I read that particular concern- sorry). However, this is not the case, by and large. A few examples: The Heritage Foundation went after the President’s arrogance in its blog; Drudge Report had one offensive headline for an article about the Chicago boy’s earlier in the week and one ridiculous headlining article after the IOC’s decision; and people at the Defending the American Dream Summit I mentioned above cheered when the news came in. (I had not arrived at the event at that point.) Too, Redstate and Michelle Malkin were quite out of line in some of their comments in reaction to the IOC decision.

It pains me to criticize RedState, Malkin, Heritage and attendees at the Summit- I’m a huge fan of Heritage and AFP, and a middle-sized fan of RedState and Malkin. However, some things are just tiring, petty and over the line. I’m not trying to say that red meat shouldn’t be taken advantage of by conservatives- after all, they’s why we are conservatives. We can make fun of just about everyone, including ourselves. I seem to remember enjoying many of Laura Ingraham’s comments about the Olympic vote at the Summit, where she was one of the keynote speakers, and Townhall posted a great video showing utter, humorous shock by a CNN anchor when Chicago was eliminated. However, zealous reaction to red meat should be tempered by the fact that were a Republican being criticized by liberals for the same, we would be incensed, and liberals and Democrats should remember this situation in the future and not critique a Republican president just to get back at us, as is too often defended in Congress and influential media voices on both sides. The President SHOULD be making a strong bid for the Olympics, as Heritage notes, and should not necessarily be blamed for Chicago’s not making the cut (we can debate the merits of that point at a later date), given the anti-American biases by the IOC and the various political concerns such as not holding the Summer Olympics in two English-speaking countries twice in a row (the 2012 Olympics will be held in London).

I know this piece won’t be popular with this site’s readers and Republicans in general, because there are many legitimate reasons to oppose the President’s trip. Let’s just make sure we keep our eyes on the bigger picture and not criticize for the sake of criticizing. Michael Steele tried the latter…and flopped. The President can’t succeed at everything- Ronald Reagan ran deficits despite his wish to balance the budget, according to Dinesh D’Souza’s Letters to a Young Conservative, and President Bush tried to pass immigration reform that failed, for two examples. Given that President Obama probably did some work while traveling (that’s what Blackberries are for, similar to the work I’m certain President Bush did while on his Democratically-criticized vacations), and he WAS only gone for 18 hours, are we opposing President Obama’s trip because he is ignoring bigger issues such as Afghanistan, Iran, health care reform, the unemployment rate and general economic circumstances…or are we attacking him because he’s a Democrat, and therefore not worthy of our support in any situation?

For my part, I do think President Obama should have stayed put. The appearance of taking time away with the circumstances our country finds itself in was unwise both politically and practically, especially with the prospect of losing. As Heritage pointed out, “Either the White House knew where they stood and arrogantly thought the President could change minds, or they didn’t know, meaning the White House had little or no ability to use dozens of high-profile insiders to gage the temperature of less than 100 IOC voters. Both scenarios are hard to believe.” What is not hard to believe is that the President ignored the political risk of losing, and while political courage is to respected, it is also unwise to spend it too quickly, particularly in the difficult times we are in. Too, spending it in the wrong areas, such as a non-critical trip overseas, is also unwise.

One last note: I am pleased that Chicago was not picked, as the opposition to the 2016 Olympics made great arguments against it being held there and thus convinced me it was not a wise location, and I am pleased that President Obama personally lost because it weakens his foreign affairs political strength and therefore strengthens conservatives and the Republican Party. However, personally, as an American citizen, I am not pleased that an American president was embarrased on the international stage. Not in the least. I hope most conservatives and Republicans can see the difference and agree.

Irving Kristol:

Irving Kristol, an influential political writer who was the intellectual father of U.S. neoconservatism, died in September 2009 at the age of 89. Although less active in his final years, Kristol’s lasting influence on the direction of U.S. political discourse is widely acknowledged. Awarded the Medal of Freedom in 2002 by President George W. Bush, Kristol’s impact was felt “across generations,” opined a New York Times obituary, “from William F. Buckley to the columnist David Brooks, through a variety of positions he held over a long career: executive vice president of Basic Books, contributor to The Wall Street Journal, professor of social thought at New York University, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. He was commonly known as the godfather of neoconservatism, even by those who were not entirely sure what the term meant. In probably his most widely quoted comment—his equivalent of Andy Warhol’s 15 minutes of fame—Mr. Kristol defined a neoconservative as a liberal who had been ‘mugged by reality.’”

Watch part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5 and part 6.

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Kristofer Lorelli can be contacted at lorville@rogers.com, on Facebook and Twitter/Kris_Lorelli

Anti-Communism, Safety Nets for the Truly Needy and Compassionate Conservatism

The conservative movement lost two of their greatest leaders last week with the passing of Irving Kristol (pictured) and William Safire.

Forty years ago, before he went on to become one of the great journalists at The New York Times, Safire, while a speechwriter for Vice-President Spiro Agnew, famously characterized critics of President Richard Nixon’s war strategy as “nattering nabobs of negativism.” Also, in the late 1960′s, Kristol launched The Public Interest, a political journal which came to define a large number of former liberal Democrats that defected to the GOP in large part due to their rejection of the anti-anti-communist left that seized control of the Democratic Party.

These former Democrats came to be dubbed “neo-conservatives” by socialist writer Michael Harrington in 1973 due to their continuing sympathies for big government on domestic policy, despite their more conservative social values and advocacy of an aggressive foreign policy to promote Liberty abroad.

Safire’s speech writing partner for Agnew, Pat Buchanan contemporaneously characterized weak on defense liberals at the time as “pusillanimous pussyfooters” and with the election of his future boss president Ronald Reagan and later Bush 43, America embraced a neoconservatism for three decades that won the Cold War and so aggressively responded to 911 that America’s homeland has enjoyed eight years of peace.

In so doing, the conservative movement embraced an optimistic vision of America as the Shining City on a Hill. I find it quite telling, with respect to foreign policy, just how much more divided the country is today on war and peace, even as compared to the 1960s. Reagan chose Nixon over John F. Kennedy in 1960 partly due to his perception that the Republican Party was stringer on defense than the democrats. Yet, could that “bear any burden in the cause of liberty” Democrat possibly remain in the party of ObamaDems today? I think not.

But Reagan’s conversion from an FDR-New Dealer to the GOP was also driven by more traditional conservative principles of smaller government which conflicted with the more liberal views of the neo-cons. Reagan seemed to have united the two factions of the party and dispelled the liberal myth of a heartless conservatism that would starve the old and weak, with his declaration as President that he favored a federal “safety net for the truly needy.”

Reagan was unable to reduce the size of the federal government in domestic affairs with Democratic congresses, nor was Newt Gingrich with a Democratic president. But, the growth was greatly slowed for two decades with President Bill Clinton famously declaring in 1995 that the “era of big government was over.”

It wasn’t, and even more significantly, neither of the two the leading candidates for the GOP nomination in 2000 could be characterized as movement conservatives, with the eventual winner even calling himself a “compassionate conservative”, seemingly accepting the false liberal media slander that conservatism is inherently indifferent to the poor.

I don’t know if the neo-cons that I embraced in 2001 due to their advocacy of an aggressive arsenal of democracy largely due to the persuasive rhetoric of Kristol’s son Bill of The Weekly Standard, were partially to blame for Bush 43′s surrender to Senator Kennedy on the Education bill and Medicare Rx Drug legislation that greatly increased the size of domestic government.

I suspect that what we have witnessed in the GOP’s dismal performance on this score in the 2000s is, as George Will asserts rather a manifestation of We the People’s predilection for philosophical conservatism but operational liberalism. We want our cake and we want to eat it too. Robert Bork sees as as slouching towards Gomorrah.

I thank God that Irving Kristol and those that followed left the Democratic Party to form a majority that lifted the darkness of tyranny from millions that has also made this sweet land of liberty safer.

But I also hope that the exponentially worse example of the humongous government growthulus policies of the ObamaDems for the past nine months births a domestic policy neo-conservative movement for the 21st Century that looks more like the conservatism of, Grover Cleveland, the last Democratic Party President of the 19th Century. Or has it already begun in the name of Sarah Palin?

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Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer, Examiner.com and Minority Report columns

“One man with courage makes a majority.” – Andrew Jackson

Originally published @ Examiner.com, where all verification links may be accessed.

Rasmussen Survey on Health Insurance and the Public Option

Would you favor or oppose the creation of a government-sponsored non-profit health insurance option that people could choose instead of a private health insurance plan?

• Favor 46%
• Oppose 37%

Suppose that the creation of a government-sponsored non-profit health insurance option encouraged companies to drop private health insurance coverage for their workers. Workers would then be covered by the government option. Would you favor or oppose the creation of a government-sponsored non-profit health insurance option if it encouraged companies to drop private health insurance coverage for their workers?

• Favor 29%
• Oppose 58%

Would a government-sponsored non-profit health insurance option save taxpayers money or cost taxpayers money?

• Save taxpayers money 34%
• Cost taxpayers money 53%

Who is likely to provide better service and more choice- a government-sponsored non-profit health insurance option or a private health insurance company?

• A government-sponsored non-profit health insurance option 37%
• A private health insurance company 48%

What is more important — giving consumers the choice of a government-sponsored non-profit health insurance option or guaranteeing that no one is forced to change their health insurance coverage?

• Giving consumers the choice of a government-sponsored non-profit health insurance option 30%
• Guaranteeing that no one is forced to change their health insurance coverage 63%

Survey of 1,000 likely voters was conducted October 2-3. The margin of error is +/- 3 percentage points.

Barack Obama wastes credibility on an Olympic bid.

Hollywood sticks up for Roman Polanski, but NOW stands firm.

The debt ceiling raised. 

Senate Finance Committee rejects amendment that would hinder illegals signing up for Obamacare.

Virginia argues they don’t have to send out military ballots in a timely manner.

Happy recession: Planned Parenthood offices close.

Michael Moore used non-union labor to make capitalism bashing movie. (Hat Tip: Michelle Malkin.)

Rampant porn surfing at the National Science Foundation.

To make anti-Capitalism movie, Michael Moore used non-union labor.

ACORN planned to take over Oklahoma.  (Hat Tip: Red State.)

Smoker sued for smoking in their own home.  (Hat Tip: Right Mind.)

State of Michigan v. a mother who takes care of neighbor children. (Hat Tip: Don Surber.)

Second Amendment Update. (Hat Tip: Clayton Cramer.)

Tufts bans sex in dorms with roommate present.

It’s safer for kids to drive the family car.

Few no religion Americans are Atheists.

Click here to listen.

The New Hampshire Union Leader published has an excellent response today to V. Gene Robinson’s, the Episcopal bishop of New Hampshire, and John McCormack’s, the Roman Catholic bishop of New Hampshire, joint Op-Ed from last week which claims that Christianity compels universal, single payer health care. Here’s a snippet:

Both men are entirely wrong.

Robinson confuses the forced redistribution of wealth with charity. It is Christian to give one’s own time or treasure for the care of others. It is decidedly unChristian to force — at threat of fine or imprisonment — others to do the same whether they have the will or not.

Christianity is based upon free will. God does not compel us to obey Him. He gives us the choice. Robinson would empower the state to deny us the choice that God Himself grants us.

McCormack confuses a moral good with a right. It is good to provide care for others. However, when others are granted a “right” to that care, they then have a claim upon others that cannot be denied.

Read the rest here.

I love America. What self-respecting young right-winger does not? It is the land of opportunity, of individualism, of free enterprise. Everyone sane loves America, right? “I love America.” I must confess that I don’t know what that phrase means.

What defines America? What is it, exactly, that we profess to love when we say that we love “America”? Is America’s essence its people? Its government? Its culture? Its history? Its potential? Some combination of all of these?

On an absolute level, I’m not too enthused with America’s government right now. It’s bloated, it encroaches into areas which it should never have even considered entering, it violates tenets of individual liberty on a daily basis, it overtaxes, and it is eyeballs-deep in debt. Our government, in thirty years, could actually collapse without a serious change in direction. To be sure, on a relative level, America’s government is glorious: our freedoms of speech, religion, and the press are standing strong after nearly 250 years and in many ways have been made stronger. But this is a preference. And is a preference the same as a love? And should we really be granting our love and respect to a government that is merely doing (some of the) things that it’s supposed to be doing, anyway? And since when have we conservatives loved America for its government?

What about America’s people? Quite frankly, I’m not too impressed. Over half of the electorate just cast its votes for a man who is quite possibly the least-qualified and most blatantly radical man ever nominated for the office of the presidency in all of American history. Ignorance is no excuse; all that means is that they are ignorant rather than willingly leftist. And that’s no better. In the meantime, a fairly strong majority has utterly abandoned that sense of individualism and the anti-entitlement mentality that truly built this country up. I will appeal to self-evidence on that point. Elsewhere, at least a third of the people actually think that being gay is a choice, and more still find it to be an “unacceptable lifestyle choice.” Three-fourths of us still believe that raising the minimum wage helps poor people. Oprah Winfrey is able to push hundreds of thousands to buy the idiotic New Thought tome The Secret. Something is seriously amiss with the American people.

What about America’s culture? Yeah, right. We now live in a culture where a song called “Birthday Sex” can become a Top 20 hit on the radio, Transformers 2 makes over three hundred million dollars at the box office, and the events of the useless Jon and Kate Gosselin take up more daily news space than developments in the Senate. Surely the reader can come up with countless other examples. Our culture? Give me a break.

Our history might point us in another direction. Who can dispute that America’s history is glorious? I don’t have many qualms, even after accounting for mythmaking and hagiography. But being an enthusiastic patriot is far different than lamenting the fact that our glory days are behind us. Similarly, loving the potential of something is not the same as loving the object in itself.

So what do we mean when we say that we love America? Or, for that matter, when we say that we “hate Iran”? Or that we loathe Palestine, or China, or Venezuela (or France)? Who are we talking about? Isn’t it a tad hypocritical for we as conservatives to claim that we love America not for its government, but for its people, and then to turn around and say that we oppose “Iran”?

Surely, the answer would come: context is key. When we claim that we hate Iran, we mean Ahmadinejad and Khamenei, not the people, who want freedom. Alright, then what is wrong with saying that we hate America? We loathe the Obama administration with full force. And yet we seem to have no problem saying that we loathe Iran and love America. What’s the difference? What is the difference in context that makes these language sensitivities arise?

Am I overthinking this? I could just as easily say that “I love America because we have built a civilization in which an individual can achieve his potential and craft the good life for himself and his loved ones.” But that isn’t good enough: we again are just going to need to unpack a completely new set of terms by which different people mean different things: what is “America,” here? Who are “we”? What is our civilization? The rest of the terms can be, as they properly should be, left to the individual. But who are we? (Is it actually our Constitution and Declaration of Independence that I love, and the men who crafted it that I admire? Is this different than loving a country?)

Quite honestly, no definitive answer comes to mind. These are uncomfortable questions. But they are ones that we have to ask and answer if we are to live the proverbial examined life and make sense of the world we live in.

Talk to Alex Knepper at apkkib@aol.com

1) Mitt Romney – Gov. Romney remains in the best position to win the GOP nomination, though his potential rivals have taken several strides to catch up with the frontrunner.  Many of his future and past opponents have taken aim at his healthcare reform plan, dubbed Romneycare, and have used the national debate on healthcare reform to pound the former Massachusetts Governor.  Finding a clear message on Romneycare is Gov. Romney’s first tough task of the 2012 cycle.  Still, with a book on the way in early 2010, as well as courting 2008 nominee John McCain for fundraisers will continue to give the impression of Romney as inevitable establishment favorite.

2) Tim Pawlenty - Minnesota’s governor has made some significant moves in his pursuit of the 2012 nomination.  He has created a PAC, Freedom First, and announced several major hires from previous campaigns.  He has also taken direct aim at both Barack Obama’s and Mitt Romney’s healthcare plan, likely to be a favorite line of attack as Pawlenty sets out to overtake 2012 frontrunner Mitt Romney.  With two terms as a conservative governor of a blue state, an inspiring life story, a finalist for Vice President in 2008, and a slew of positions on issues that line up with all corners of the GOP base, Pawlenty is fast becoming the alternative to Mitt Romney among the establishment.  His virtual tie with Governor Romney at the Values Voters Summit, a poll Romney won the last several years, shows just how fast Pawlenty is rising.

3) Sarah Palin - After taking a hit due to her sloppy resignation, former Governor Sarah Palin has built considerable momentum, using a new media strategy that surpasses anything else other potential candidates have at their disposal.  She has hammered the President on healthcare and cap and trade, using op-eds, twitter, and facebook to consistently hammer a message across.  With the announcement that her book release will be moved up, ‘Going Rogue: An American Life’ is set to shatter all sorts of records for non-fiction books.  Palin is establishing herself as easily the GOP’s biggest media star, but it has yet to be seen if she can channel that into an effective campaign organization.

4) Mike Huckabee – Huckabee continues to poll well while struggling to match his rivals in fund raising. This is Huckabee’s greatest problem; no matter how likable or how well he polls, his inability to raise money when hypothetically matched up against a billion-dollar Obama Machine will make Huck a tough sell for a party that will be desperate to win in 2012.  As Palin begins to regain her footing, and with other social conservatives like Rick Santorum threatening to scoop evangelical support, Huckabee’s chances could hinge on whether or not he can find a way to raise money like a candidate at this level should. Still, the charming former Arkansas Governor has shown tougher lines of attacks both on Obama and on his favorite target, Mitt Romney, and their healthcare reforms.  A big win at this year’s Values Voters Summit reminded everyone, however, that if Huck runs he will remain a favorite of the evangelical base, perhaps far more so then in 2008.

5) Newt Gingrich – Speaker Gingrich, amazing as it is, is beginning to look like an old, steady hand compared to some of the young guns, and given his potential for bold ideas and solid fundraising, puts him back near the top of the list.  It is quite possible that if Obama fails that the country would prefer a more proven, older leader to that of some new, young unknown.  Newt continues to build support behind the scenes and his 527 raised more then $8 million in the first half of the year, far more then any other potential candidate (though 527s have different rules then PACs).

6) John Thune - Senator Thune is the most likely member of the Senate to get the GOP nod in 2012.  He has the conservative resume to win over the base, the looks and communication skills to win over the broader electorate, and a chance in the Senate leadership to become the rhetorical counter to Obama the next four years.  Senator Thune could emerge as a unifying figure in a field with a number of candidates who have difficulty winning over certain parts of the party; Romney with evangelicals, Huckabee with fiscal cons, Palin with moderates.  He has the potential to be the compromise candidate, bringing the Romney and Palin wings of the party together behind a consensus choice, but he will have to start moving before Tim Pawlenty beats him to it.

7) Haley Barbour - Governor Barbour is perhaps the greatest strategist in the party.  Putting those considerable skills to use, he could build a strong campaign and give himself a good chance to win the primary.  However, Barbour is also the man who virtually invented modern lobbying and ran the most powerful lobbying firm in D.C., and while this may make him a legend to the inside-the-Beltway crowd, it would make him a tough sell to average voters.  Barbour is still going to be a very important player in the rebuilding of the party, whether he runs or not. Mark Sanford’s affair and resignation as head of the RGA moves Barbour into the leadership role ahead of schedule, and elevates Barbour by process of elimination. As troubles for other governors mount, Barbour could continue this elevation by his competence alone, and further it with his famed political instincts.

8 ) Mitch Daniels - A very successful Rust Belt governor, Mitch Daniels proved himself by running what many call the best governor’s campaign of 2008 despite the dreadful climate for republicans. He is a graduate of Princeton and Georgetown, and served as Director of the OMB, while also sitting on the National Security Council and Homeland Security Council. Oh and he’s Arab-American(Syrian to be exact), proving once again that the GOP is far more inclusive then advertised.  Recently Daniels has stepped up not only his criticism of Obama’s policies, but of the GOP’s current standing too, sounding a lot like someone who wants to lead the party out of the wilderness.

9) David Petraeus- Four-star Army General David Petraeus has been Shermanesque in his denials about interest in public office. However that hasn’t stopped GOP activists from courting the idea, and it hasn’t stopped media speculation about the possibility.  Former Senate Majority Leader and GOP candidate Bob Dole suggested Petraeus seek the presidency as a latter-day Ike.  Perhaps, like Eisenhower, it will take a citizen draft to convince the General that his service is needed elsewhere. However, changing situations, like a collapse in Afghanistan due to Obama’s shifting strategies or a potentially destructive conflict between Israel and Iran could force the general into presidential politics. 

10) Jeb Bush - Bush joined the National Council for a New America, signaling his desire to take on a larger role in the national GOP.  His name hurts now, but his popularity in Florida shows that he can outrun his brother’s shadow.  As of December his brother’s approval rating in Florida was 29%, while his was 65%. His passing on a guaranteed senate victory is telling though. The National Council for a New America gives Jeb a new forum to reintroduce himself and his family name in a much different light, showing people that he is much more the pragmatic and thoughtful leader his brother never was.  His name has started to come up from both welcome sources (the Daily Beast) and unwelcome sources (Dick Cheney) as a potential candidate.  Expect those calls to get louder and louder, especially with Sonia Sotomayor’s nomination to the SCOTUS possibly creating even greater losses for the GOP among Hispanics and Jeb’s proven appeal to the Hispanic community.  With the continued stumbles of potential candidates like Palin, Jindal, Sanford, and Ensign, how much longer can the GOP afford to keep Jeb sidelined because of the perception of his brother?  It’s time to be grownups, and time for Jeb to take a larger role.

11) Rick Perry – The long serving Texas Governor has bounced back from poor early polls to take a solid lead in the GOP primary against Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison.  A successful primary followed by likely reelection (and perhaps an important Senate appointment) will help raise Gov. Perry’s profile further in the national party.  He is already winning populist support for his anti-Washington screed, and won the endorsement of Gov. Palin.  But it’s his state’s strong economy that just might push the Texas Governor into contention. As blue states like California and New Jersey head into spiraling fiscal crisis, Texas stands as a strong example of successful conservative economics in the face of a President pushing tax-and-spend liberalism.  This factor, combined with a long, experienced career can put Perry in the mix for 2012.

12) Jim DeMint - DeMint has a rock solid conservative record and is likely to be a visible opponent of Obama these next 4 years on virtually everything the President wants to do.  Senator DeMint happily endorsed Club for Growth head and former Congressman Pat Toomey against then-Republican Arlen Spector, followed by an endorsement of Marco Rubio despite establishment support for Charlie Crist, showing just how far DeMint is willing to go for an ideologically pure GOP as well as sending a message to disloyal Republicans. With a record that can win over Iowa’s GOP and a home base in South Carolina, DeMint could emerge as more then a vanity candidate from the Senate, but rather a real dark horse.

13) Rick Santorum –  Former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum has scheduled a number of appearances in Iowa, and all indicators seem to be pointing to a presidential run.  Santorum is a strong neoconservative with very strict social conservative values.  While the former Senator may have some strong inroads with values and religious voters, he was also crushed in his 2006 reelection bid, and therefore may find it difficult convincing party activists that he can appeal to the broader electorate.

14) Rudy Giuliani – America’s Mayor is gearing up for a run against Governor David Patterson in 2010, and if that race happens, a likely victorious Governor Giuliani could instantly be back among the front-runners in 2012.   Rudy remains a popular figure in polls both among Republicans and independents, and in an environment of a poor economy that is likely followed by high crime rates, the former mayor and potential governor could find himself in a strong position.  Lessons learned from 2008 could serve Rudy well in the early states, and with no McCain to compete with he could become the consensus leader among the GOP’s moderate and national security wing.  If another Presidential bid isn’t in the cards, a VP slot may not be far off.

15) Mike Pence – The Indiana congressman has been drawing some buzz about a potential presidential run.  A trip to South Carolina as well as a surprising 5th place finish in the Values Voters straw poll  (behind Huckabee, Romney, Pawlenty, and Palin) has boosted speculation about a potential run for the White House.  Trips to Iowa and California, as well as a big speech during the 9-12 Tea Party march on D.C. continue to fuel buzz about Rep. Pence’s future plans.  Some feel he may be taking steps to run for the senate seat held by Richard Luger, who will turn 80 before his seat is up again in 2012 and is likely to retire, while others think he may have his eyes on succeeding Gov. Mitch Daniels.  Then again, some grassroots activists would like to see Rep. Pence aim for an even higher office in 2012.

(more…)

It was an interesting week.  Some things that were somewhat interesting:

• MY representative in DC, Rep Alan Grayson, is a total jackass.  There’s no other explanation for coming to the floor of the House of Representatives and accusing your political opposition of wanting people to “die quickly.”  People try and equate this to the rude comment (though being proven accurate more and more as time goes on) by Rep Wilson, where he yelled “You lie!” on the House floor.  It’s total bunk, because there IS NO COMPARISON between (somewhat factually) saying something is a lie and accusing someone of wanting others to die, and further calling it a holocaust.  I am going to support whomever opposes him, and with relish.
• Janeane Garofalo is an idiot, along the lines of Pres Carter.  Thank God she’s not in political power.  More “activist” nonsense about Republicans being racist, if you don’t know what I’m talking about.
• Despite (and maybe because of) a personal appeal by Pres Obama, Chicago did not win the Olympics.  Further, they lost out in the first round of voting! How’s that “improved image” with the rest of the world working out?
• This site was graced by one Ken Hoagland, a national spokesman for the Fair Tax, earlier this week.  I would like to thank him for taking the time to answer some question.  As an accountant, I think this plan is probably the best I’ve ever seen, mainly because, in comparison to our current system, the tax is obvious, can be controlled by each taxpayer by choosing to live within their means, and doesn’t encourage economic inefficiencies.  Unfortunately, it’s not politically viable at this time (mainly due to the complexities of the current system hiding the true cost and level of taxation on the citizenry).  Given enough time and education on our current system (as the Fair Tax itself is pretty straight forward), it will become viable.
• Speaking of the Fair Tax, I would love to have a list of questions people have on the Fair Tax to get answers for.  If you have some that you would like answered, email them to me at richard.murray.001@gmail.com.

As always, start your own topics if none of the above appeal to you.  It’s a busy day at my household, but that’s what happens when you are a father and are trying to build a small business into something you can make a living off of.

Foghorn Leghorn (Rooster crowings at obfuscating liberal and media fog) on Liberals’ continuing apologies for mass murdering communism

Given the 5000-year old archaeological evidence that China is the world’s oldest continuous civilization, I did a double-take this Thursday headline in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

“Future bright as China turns 60″

It turns out that October first was the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China and, as related by Mary Brown Bullock, president emeritus of Agnes Scott College and author of the AJC column:

“…60 years since Mao Zedong stood on the Tienanmen Gate and proclaimed: “The people of China have stood up.”

Over the next 27 years until his death, Mao reduced the number of standing Chinese by over 45 million thru brutal political repression and starvation, i.e. mass murder, and also known in academic circles as “The Cultural Revolution.”

The second double-take occasioned by this Dead-tree Drive-by media article, was the identity of the author, about whom I have long heard high praise from ones whose opinions I value and the products of whose Decatur, Georgia academic institution are widely admired for their scholarship. Therefore, despite my misgivings about the Bullock column and its consistency with many of the liberal tendencies it seems to reflect that eventually led to my separation from the Democratic Party, I reach no conclusions as to the author’s intent; will couch my examination in the form of questions; and am simultaneously sending this column to her should she wish to respond.

I must also observe that the column superbly written; makes many important points and is obviously the product of a very learned and thoughtful expert on China. But I also observe that many of her astute observations of positive facts seem disconnected from their actual causes. Further, I do not know who decided on the headline that appeared in the AJC, so do not know if Bullock wrote or approved of same.

That said, the sentence (and paragraph) immediately following the identification of October 1, 1949 as the date marking the founding of Mao’s ”Red China” is consistent with what troubles me about the 4,940-year disconnect between history and the headline:

Recent events give the Chinese people much to celebrate, including a successful Olympics and leading a global bounce out of a devastating recession.

Bullock goes on to recount many other events, all, significantly, after Mao’s death in 1976, and never provides any causal connection between the celebratory events and Mao’s 27-year dictatorship. Nor could she. rather, it is what goes unsaid that concerns me.

Bullock is impressive in her recitation of the significant Chinese event anniversaries coinciding in A.D. 2009:

May 4th marked the 90th anniversary of student demonstrations that ushered in the Chinese enlightenment, an anniversary that evokes now-repressed Chinese liberalism. June 4th marked the 20th anniversary of the Tienanmen massacre.

“Now” repressed Chinese enlightenment? Now? Yes, as Bullock notes, the Chinese government is an “authoritarian” one that denies much free speech, especially of the political kind, but best as we can determine, there was no repression remotely equivalent to the 45 million slaughtered in China before 1949, nor since 1976. Moreover, in Olympic terms, Mao’s Red China won the Evil Empire gold medal in a runaway, with more “points” that the USSR silver medalist, Nazi (National Socialists) Bronze and even the fourth place Kymer Rouge communists combined. These atheists make all the so-called Christian Wars/mass murder look like child’s play, but I digress.

No mention of the Mao repressions in the article.

Bullock rightly cites recent liberal moves by the Chinese government to improve relations with Taiwan, but never mentions why there is a separate Chinese nation on the small island. Hint: it relates to the 45 million Chinese that Mao excluded from those that were to “stand up”. They lie in six feet under.

Bullock then cites the progress of the past 20 years:

Looking back 20 years, China has come a long way. Snubbed by most Western countries after Tienanmen, few outsiders thought the Chinese Communist Party could survive. Instead China embarked on an aggressive round of diplomacy that secured natural resources and political influence in Latin America and Africa. It has also improved its overall image in Asia and played an important role in negotiations with North Korea. Domestically, the Communist Party embraced internal reforms that led to term limits on political leaders, a regulated succession process and an increasing appeal to China’s younger generation.

Growing at about 10 percent a year, the economy has boomed, transforming some of China’s cities into the most modern in the world while also lifting 300 million people from poverty. For the first time, agricultural taxes have been abolished. Anyone who thinks China is still intellectually “closed” should talk to Chinese students who have mastered the art of Internet access — despite official efforts to close it down.

Bullock never mentions why China was “snubbed” nor what happened at Tienanmen in 1989. What happened: The communists deprived freedom seeking Chinese the ability to “stand up” by killing them in cold blood. Seems a good reason for a snub to me.

Even more significantly, the column nowhere connects the survival of the Communist Party with the changes it made precisely for the purpose of ending the snubbing. To add insult to injury, the article not only seems to gloss over the positive effects of “market reforms”, including tax cuts, on reducing poverty but then seeks to blame “capitalism” (aka market reforms) for “corruption.”

Where to begin? How about with the implication that there was no corruption before government allowed people to make a dollar. Was there no “corruption” under Mao, Stalin, Lenin or Nebuchaddnezzar? Were the builders of the Tower of Babel pure as the driven snow?

Bullock correctly sees a brighter future for China 60 years after Mao’s acension; millenia after the Khans; and nine years after the election of George W. Bush. But that future has brightened in direct portion to China’s rejection of Mao’s communism.

September 9, 2036 will be the 60th anniversay of the main event that led to this brighter future: Mao’s death.

Finally,  as a former activist Democrat of 18 years before 2001 and a trial lawyer, let me offer a defense of Bullard before I relate the above to my own conclusions about modern day liberals and the history of my former party since the death of rabid anti-communist President John F. Kennedy at the hands of a communist: Bullock obviously loves the Chinese people and in this column wishes to praise them. I join her, and reach no conclusion that she intends to leave the implications I fear from the ommissions in the column. That I think the column should have been written differently is just my opinion.

But the implications I reach were first manifested soon after I became an adult Democrat when fellow party members mocked President Reagan’s characterization of the USSR as an “evil empire”; liberal Democrats sided with Nicaraguan communists against Reagan’s support for the Contras; mocked the rescue of Grenadans from a communist takeover; and said for free over the past 9 years what Osama bin Laden, Saddam’s lawyer and Iran’s mullahs would have paid them to say and do.

And now we have the culmination of all of the above with a Democrat President that will not tolerate bedroom additions to Jewish homes in Bethlehem but seeks dialogue with those that seek the extinction of the Jewish State in Tehran.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer, Examiner.com and Minority Report columns

“One man with courage makes a majority.” – Andrew Jackson

Originally published @ Examiner.com, where all verification links may be accessed.

So Tim Pawlenty’s PAC launch received a fair amount of coverage this week, most of it positive.  At least one person had a different take:  Rachel Maddow.  Here she is attacking his team:

Now, I think this is just hysterical and utterly predictable, but I suspect it surprised Pawlenty.  Why?  Because Pawlenty has been on Maddow’s show more often than he’s been on conservative talk radio.  Pawlenty’s probably been on Maddow’s show more often than all the other major Republican politicians combined.  Tim Pawlenty and Rachel Maddow arelikethis.  Here he is in February:

In March

In April

And here she is, over a year before he’ll announce for anything, running a 6 minute attack segment on him without providing, as best as I can tell, any opportunity for Pawlenty or his team to present a counterpoint.  The deuce you say?

Now Maddow’s a liberal and not just a John King liberal.  She’s an avowed liberal, a personally pleasant but rhetorically equivalent Keith Olbermann- a Sean Hannity of the left.  No one should expect her to give a Republican fair coverage in the long-term.  But, the thing is, there are Republicans who expect exactly that.  Presumably, for awhile, Pawlenty was one of them.  We sure know John McCain was one up through 2008.  It gets them all of nowhere.  It’s fine to engage the avowed left, or the secret left (MSM), but that’s what it should be: engagement.  You should go into each interview, not attempting to show how “reasonable” you can be but  to varying degrees, to challenge the assumptions of the left.  Because the media’s favorite Republican is the worst job on the political scene.  Even worse than John Edwards’ pseudo, homo-erotic baby-father.

-

Matthew E. Miller can be contacted at Obilisk18@yahoo.com and at his Pawlentyesque blog

Rasmussen War on Terror/National Security Survey

Who is winning the War on Terrorism…the United States and its allies or the terrorists?

• United States and its allies 43% {42%} [48%] (48%)
• Terrorists 25% {25%} [21%] (19%)
• Neither 24% {25%} [21%] (25%)

Over the next six months will the situation in Afghanistan get better or worse?

• Better 18% [22%] (29%)
• Worse 55% [41%] (39%)
• Stay the same 27% [24%] (21%)

Over the next six months, will the situation in Iraq get better or worse?

• Better 31% [34%] (32%)
• Worse 34% [29%] (34%)
• Stay the same 27% [25%] (24%)

Which country is a bigger threat to the National Security of the United States…..Iran, North Korea, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, China or Russia?

• Iran 32% [20%] (17%)
• North Korea 19% [31%] (38%)
• China 14% [16%] (18%)
• Pakistan 8% [9%] (8%)
• Afghanistan 7% [4%] (3%)
• Iraq 5% [4%] (2%)
• Russia 3% [3%] (3%)

Is the United States today safer than it was before the 9/11 terrorist attacks?

• Yes 44% [47%] (45%)
• No 37% [33%] (37%)

Survey of 1,000 Likely Voters was conducted September 30 – October 1. The margin of error is +/- 3 percentage points. Results from the poll conducted August 29-30 are in curly brackets. Results from the poll conducted August 1-2 are in square brackets. Results from the poll conducted July 1 are in parentheses.

Last night Governor Huckabee appeared on Greta’s program to talk about his new effort to give a voice to the American people who want their government to balance the budge, cut spending, and save our families from a disastrous economic future.



The response to the “Balance.Cut.Save” petition was so strong that HuckPAC servers could not handle all the requests due to the load. The HuckPAC serves are now able to meet the load and 69,933 signatures have been collected as of 2:36PM PST. The goal is 100,000 signatures and the petition is directed at President Barack Obama, Majority Leader Harry Reid, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the Democrat Members of Congress.

Research 2000/Daily Kos New Jersey Gubernatorial Survey

• Chris Christie 46% [48%] (46%)
• Jon Corzine 42% [40%] (39%)
• Chris Daggett 7%

Among Independents

• Chris Christie 52%
• Jon Corzine 33%
• Chris Daggett 9%

Among Men

• Chris Christie 50%
• Jon Corzine 38%
• Chris Daggett 10%

Among Women

• Jon Corzine 46%
• Chris Christie 42%
• Chris Daggett 4%

Favorable / Unfavorable {Net}

• Barack Obama 60% / 34% {+26%}
• Chris Daggett 26% / 12% {+14%}
• Chris Christie 47% [44%] (38%) / 36% [29%] (15%) {+11%}
• Jon Corzine 37% [35%] (36%) / 53% [56%] (55%) {-16%}

Survey of 600 likely voters was conducted September 28-30. The margin of error is +/- 4 percentage points. Results from the poll conducted August 3-5 are in brackets. Results from the poll conducted May 25-27 are in parentheses. Party ID breakdown: 61% Independent; 26% Democrat; 13% Republican.