CNN Political Party Poll

Do you think it is good for the country or bad for the country that the Democratic party is in control
of Congress?

• Good 45% (50%) [53%]
• Bad 48% (41%) [37%]
• Neither 7% (7%) [8%]
• No opinion 1% (2%) [2%]

We’d like to get your overall opinion of some people in the news. As I read each name, please say
if you have a favorable or unfavorable opinion of these people — or if you have never heard of
them. (RANDOM ORDER)

The Democratic Party

• Favorable 46% (53%) [52%]
• Unfavorable 46% (41%) [39%]
• No opinion 8% (6%) [8%]

The Republican Party

• Favorable 44% (36%) (41%)
• Unfavorable 45% (54%) [50%]
  
• No opinion 10% (8%) [8%]

Which of the following statements comes closest to your view of the way the Democratic party and
Republican party have been dealing with the country’s problems: (READ IN ORDER)

• You are angry at both parties 48%
• You are only angry at Republicans 9%
• You are only angry at Democrats 11%
• You are not angry at either party 32%

This was crazy-funny!

_____________________________________________

Kristofer Lorelli is the Senior Editor of Race42012 and can be contacted at kristofer.lorelli@rightOsphere.com, on Facebook and Twitter/Kris_Lorelli

A friend told me about this tonight in the gym- the video is from Friday.

Thanks to Daily Kos for a front page post about James O’Keefe and three other men who were arrested trying to bug Senator Mary Landrieu’s (D-LA) New Orleans office.

I don’t know if O’Keefe will end up being found guilty, but if so, the judge should throw the book at him and his cohorts. No matter which side activists and others are on, following the law is absolutely crucial, especially with something as brazen as bugging an elected official’s office, even if that official is as easily bribed as Landrieu. More importantly, it’s critical for Republicans and conservatives in power and in media to call for an investigation to show the American people we hold everyone to the same level of accountability.

Unfortunately, it seems no important post at Daily Kos can go up without the requisite “Anyone to the right of Dennis Kucinich is evil incarnate” rant:

These scary freaks are heroes to a frightening conservative movement that reaches from militias and racists in every dark nook and cranny of the nation clear to the senior Republican leadership in the House and Senate. It’s a movement that has been flirting with armed revolution and secession, disrupting political meetings in the tradition of the German Brown Shirts of the 1930s, and carrying semiautomatic rifles to town halls and Presidential addresses. The last time right-wing terrorist nuts were ignored two of them ending up blowing up a building in Oklahoma City and killed 168 innocent people including 19 children.

This incident demands immediate, aggressive open investigation and public hearings beginning now.

Obviously, O’Keefe was a hero to many before he was arrested. One very illegal act that has not been proven in a court of law does not make his previous actions unethical or illegal. After all, despite what DK fans may think, ACORN was not your average “community-minded” organization. Supporting prostitution is as illegal as, I don’t know, wiretapping a United States Senator’s office. Furthermore, it’s not as if people who respected O’Keefe could tell that he was going to break the law in the future. That would require skills even President Obama doesn’t have.

One last note: Media Matters does a hit job on the 31 House of Representatives Republicans who supported a resolution honoring O’Keefe. This was on October 07, 2009. Three-and-a-half months ago. Apparently, Media Matters also expects prescient abilities from Republicans.

There’s an old quip about the British Foreign Office, that just as the Ministry of Defense is for defense, the Foreign Office is for foreigners. Another in similar vein: They found a mole in the Foreign Office – he was working for Britain. And who can forget if he’s once seen it the episode of ‘Yes, Prime Minister’ in which an especially slithery FO official, informed by the PM that he’s being posted to Israel, protests, ‘But you know I’m on the Arab side!’ and the PM retorts, ‘I thought you were on our side.’

Career diplomats, at least in the First World, tend to lose sight of what their job is really all about – to look after the interests of their country in dealings with other countries – and instead come to believe that their high, almost priestly, calling is to maintain amicable relations with their foreign counterparts; so as soon as a conflict of interest arises, they are ready to negotiate the terms of their surrender. In Britain this standard maneuver is called the pre-emptive cringe.

A perfect illustration is the US State Department’s transactions with the Taliban. The history is related in some detail by Michael Rubin in Commentary (Taking Tea with the Taliban, February 2010). ‘The story the documents tell,’ he writes, ‘is one of engagement for its own sake – without any consideration given to the behavior or sincerity of an unambiguously hostile interlocutor.’

The exercise in futility, a dialogue of the credulous and the cunning, began in February 1995 when US diplomats met seven Taliban spokesmen in Kandahar. The diplomats wanted information. They got none. Therefore they reported that ‘the Taliban appeared well-disposed toward the United States’.

‘Later the same week, another US diplomat met a Taliban “insider” who told the official what he wanted to hear: the Taliban liked the United States, had no objection to elections in Afghanistan, and were suspicious of both Saudi and Pakistani intentions. This was nonsense, but it was manna for American diplomats who wanted to believe that engagement was possible.’

America wanted the Taliban to stop sheltering Osama bin Laden. When the Taliban took Kabul and became the de facto government of Afghanistan, the US ambassador to Pakistan, Thomas W. Simons, met with Mullah Ghaus, who bore the title of Foreign Minister, to ‘discuss the fact’ that they were giving safe haven to terrorists. Ghaus said there weren’t any terrorists, but if the US would give the Taliban money, they might possibly be ‘more helpful’ to the US. What could he have meant – that they’d find some terrorists lurking about after all? Clarification was not requested, however, and by this hopeful suggestion Simons apparently felt much encouraged.

Even without getting American aid, the Taliban had scored a success. They had violently seized power, but were being negotiated with by the US State Department as a legitimate government. It was enough and more than enough to gratify them, and they had achieved it without making a single concession: they still sheltered bin Laden, and could carry on savagely torturing prisoners and making the lives of Afghan women unrelenting hell without it costing them anything at all.

The US was grateful to the Taliban just for being willing to talk, and the Taliban were grateful to the US for being willing just to talk – because they knew that as long as the talk went on, the Americans would do nothing else. It was a match made in diplomat’s heaven. But what the State Department or President Clinton thought they now had to bargain with, only heaven could tell.

In 1997 Madeleine Albright became Secretary of State and was eager to continue the engagement. ‘Diplomats met Taliban representatives every few weeks … What resulted was theater: the Taliban would stonewall on terrorism but would also dangle just enough hope to keep diplomats calling.’

The very refusal on the part of the Taliban to expel bin Laden seemed to the Clinton administration a compelling reason to go on talking. Not to talk to them would ‘isolate’ them, and that, the National Security Council reckoned, would be a dangerous consequence. Instead they were to be shown yet more goodwill by the US: they were given the money they’d asked for. Of course the funds were carefully labeled: this for providing schools for girls; this for sowing new crops in the fields that had hitherto grown only poppies for the heroin trade. The Taliban took the money, spent it on arms or whatever they liked, continued to deny education to girls, left the poppies in the fields, and pocketed the lesson that the more obstinate they were the more they’d get from the United States.

The US had no compunction about leaving the Northern Alliance isolated, ‘the group of one-time rebels and chieftains that constituted the only serious resistance to the Taliban’. In April 1998 the American ambassador to the UN, Bill Richardson, went to Afghanistan and deceived himself into believing that he brokered a cease-fire between the Northern Alliance and the Taliban, while in fact the fighting between them intensified and continued until the US invasion three years later.

For yet more talks, the Clinton administration then welcomed Taliban delegates into America. The issues were again the treatment of women and terrorists using Afghanistan as a base. An ‘acting minister of Islam and culture’ explained that it was Islamic custom to treat women the way the Taliban did, implying that in the name of the American idea of multicultural tolerance Americans could raise no objection to it. As for bin Laden, they promised to keep him isolated and subdued.

So subdued was he kept that shortly afterwards, in August 1998, his al-Qaeda terrorists carried out their plots to attack the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, killing hundreds and injuring thousands. Clinton retaliated by having a factory flattened in the Sudan, destroying a terrorist training camp with a cruise missile in Afghanistan – and continuing diplomatic engagement with the Taliban.

The Taliban were furious about the training-camp. Mullah Omar, ‘spiritual head’ of the Taliban, phoned the State Department and complained angrily about it. The plots had not been hatched in Afghanistan he insisted, and it was grossly unfair of the US to avenge itself on his country. But he was open to dialogue, he conceded – to the relief of Madeleine Albright. The Taliban’s ‘foreign minister’ Maulawi Wakil Ahmed, met the US ambassador to Pakistan, William B. Milam, and reiterated that they would not expel bin Laden, whose presence in Afghanistan he referred to as a ‘problem’, by which he might have meant for the Americans than rather than the Taliban, but the word made Milam feel hopeful. The ‘diplomatic pressure’, he concluded, was working, and must be kept up. So the talks continued.

When a court in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan found bin Laden not guilty of being involved in the East African attacks, a suspicion rose in the mind of Alan Eastham, a diplomat in the Islamabad legation. “It is possible that the Taliban are simply playing for time,” he wrote; but nevertheless he thought “it is at least [also] possible that they – some of them – are serious about finding a peaceful way out.” [My italics]

Unable or unwilling to see that the Taliban and al-Qaeda were two claws of the same beast, and disregarding all proofs that the Taliban were acting in bad faith, the Clinton State Department insistently proceeded with its pointless, fruitless, self-defeating dialogue. The Taliban and al-Qaeda ‘exploited American naiveté and sincerity at the ultimate cost of several thousand [American] lives.’ For while the talks were proceeding, bin Laden and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed were putting their heads together in Tora Bora to plot 9/11.

When George W. Bush became president, the talks were broken off. And when, after 9/11, America struck at Taliban-ruled, al-Qaeda-harboring Afghanistan, it won a swift military victory – but then lingered on to try and transform the primitive tribal nation with a long history of unremitting internecine strife into a peaceful democracy.

The Taliban fought back, and are winning. And President Obama is returning to the policy of engagement. His administration has revived the fiction that there is a good Taliban and a bad Taliban, and in their desperation to end the war without seeming to be beaten, they are trying to include the Taliban in the farcical ‘democratic’ government that has been established under American auspices. It’s a weird concept: you win a war if you empower your enemy, pretending that he has been born again as your friend.

Now General McChrystal will try to persuade America’s allies at a London conference that the surge he is planning with 30,000 extra troops will lead to a negotiated settlement. But the Financial Times of January 25, 2010, reports that the general acknowledges his ‘growing skepticism about [winning?] the war’.

This seems to be the best he is hoping for: ‘By using the reinforcements to create an arc of secure territory stretching from the Taliban’s southern heartlands to Kabul, Gen McChrystal aims to weaken the insurgency to the point where its leaders would accept some form of settlement with Afghanistan’s government. … But the general warned that violence would rise as insurgents stepped up bombings to try to undermine his strategy.’

The allies he needs to persuade at the conference ‘suffered a 70% rise in casualties last year ‘ and they doubt the credibility of the Afghan government. No wonder there is not much vigorous, confident hope to be detected in the general’s expectations of his allies’ response or in his own strategy if the FT report is to be trusted. It conveys deeply dispiriting indications of McChrystal’s state of mind. The one thing it claims that he and the Taliban agree on is that ‘110,000 foreign troops should go home’. The Afghan government, it says, has ‘little incentive to alter the status quo while atop a lucrative war economy’. And ‘with Barack Obama planning to start withdrawing US troops in mid-2011, the Taliban may believe it has far more resolve than the west’ – meaning, presumably, that it has only to wait and the whole country will be back in its bloodstained hands again.

McChrystal bears the responsibility of saving Obama’s face, which unfortunately is also America’s face. For this desperate if not entirely ignoble purpose the lives of brave soldiers in the magnificent fighting forces of the United States are now being hazarded.

Meanwhile bin Laden apparently lives and al-Qaeda grows, and they continue to plot death and destruction. It seems that diplomacy is not after all the most effective means of stopping them.

Jillian Becker is editor-in-chief of The Atheist Conservative

-R4’12 is please to publish an Op-ed from one of our second page contributors, “DJ Tablesauce”-KL

-

This afternoon, Ohio Governor Ted Strickland delivered his State of the State speech from the Ohio Senate chamber in Columbus.

With four straight polls showing an average lead of 8 points for his Republican opponent, former Congressman and budget Chairman John Kasich, Strickland needed to take this opportunity to hit Ohio’s jobs crisis head-on.

Instead what did Ohio’s voters get? A speech full of excuses and calls for bigger government.

Governor Strickland likes to say the recession Ohio faces isn’t his fault. Well, Governor, no one said it was. The problem instead lies in how your policies enhanced job loss and how your ‘kick the can down the road’ approach to reforming state government dug Ohio deeper into long-term fiscal ruin.

But don’t take my word for it, here’s John Kasich responding this afternoon to the Governor’s speech.

When the guy known as the architect of the first balanced federal budget since man walked on the moon speaks on how to fix what ails government, you listen.

Kasich’s right, “we need a real balanced budget. A more effective, more efficient government that doesn’t cater to special interests. Lower taxes to create jobs, especially for small businesses. Better trained workers. Fewer lawsuits and fixing workers compensation for our small businesses.”

Additionally, one aspect of Strickland’s speech particularly caught my eye.

The Columbus Dispatch noted the Governor’s priority of making “green jobs” the central focus of economic recovery.

We are not just sitting back and letting other states pass us by,” Strickland said, adding later that, “Our renewal lies before us, not behind us.”

The governor said Ohio already has a good start, pointing to a survey by the Council of State Governments that he said shows Ohio ranks 1^st among all 50 states in the creation of “green” jobs last year.

So, Governor Strickland believes the CSG report validates his focus on green jobs as a way out of the jobs crisis, using Ohio’s record in producing green jobs as evidence of success.

But a closer look at the CSG report reveals some interesting information.

The report in question, released this past December, highlights the number of “green” jobs produced by President Obama’s stimulus. In fact, Ohio does lead the nation – with only 2,567 jobs.

Of those, 2,296 jobs come from a single grant – the Weatherization Assistance Program. The cost of this grant to taxpayers is $267 million. To be generous, let’s say half of those dollars go to pay for materials. That leaves us with jobs that cost each and every one of us $58,144 each.

Taking into account the number of unemployed Ohioans has increased by 339,900 since the Governor’s inauguration – and under what Strickland defines as a program to be emulated at $58k a job – it would cost taxpayers over $19.7 billion to pay for the jobs lost under Ted Strickland’s watch.

Unbelievable.

Finally, one passage of the Governor’s speech was particularly frustrating. Speaking of wind and solar energy companies, he said:

We should give those companies every reason to choose Ohio. That’s why I am asking the legislature to erase Ohio’s tangible personal property tax on generation for wind and solar facilities that break ground this year, create Ohio jobs, and begin producing energy by 2012.

See? Strickland does get it. Almost. Lower taxes attract business. But why must Strickland limit these incentives to only wind and solar businesses? Strickland says he “believes in Ohio”. If that’s the case Governor, incentivize all business to invest in all of Ohio.

With a Business Tax Climate ranking Ohio the 4^th worst in the nation, businesses are running for greener pastures. The Buckeye State needs a Governor willing to remove the barriers that prevent Ohio from prospering. Ohio needs John Kasich.

—————————————

Third Base Politics was named one of Ohio’s best political blogs by the Washington Post, and can be followed on Twitter and Facebook.

Newsmax/Zogby 2012 Presidential Election Poll

Barack Obama – 46.5%

Scott Brown – 44.6%

4,163 responses, Margin of Error +/- 1.5%

Now, I would have preferred to know the composition of the sample, methodology, whether/how they screened likely voters, favorability ratings, name recognition, and parallel polls for Palin, Romney, and Huckabee for comparison. However, I think they do show that Brown at least has the potential.

The real danger of populism isn’t in rallying American citizens against entrenched special interests. That’s not populism. That’s simply just. No, the real danger is a pestilence that exists on the collectivist left: when class envy is stirred by those entrenched interests in their own favor.

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee sent out an e-mail today with a fake newspaper headline declaring “Court Rolls Back Decades of Reform: Dems Vow to Fight for Citizens, GOP Sides With Corporate Money.” This is objectively incoherent. Are members of corporations not citizens? Are our nation’s great entrepreneurs necessarily opposed to citizens? When corporations run advertisements supporting Obamacare, are they opposed to citizens? When corporations donate to Democrats, are those Democrats not any longer standing with citizens? This doesn’t even make sense. A straw man is erected so that citizens don’t see what’s really going on.

But it’s worse than that. We raise our children to want to do great things. But once they accomplish great things, many of us — those of us who haven’t found as much success, typically — want to tear them down. In other words: pursue happiness, work for success — but God help you if you happen to accomplish that goal! These corporate workers are despised not for their vices, but for their virtues.

I generally admire corporate executives. I don’t like it when they get into bed with the government to promote their own interests. But this is a human vice, not a corporate one. To single out corporations is to arouse envy and stir class resentment. It’s dangerous, immoral, and dishonest.

Talk to Alex Knepper at apkkib@aol.com

What a great column by Thomas in today’s Washington Examiner:

Thomas brings up a great point that I was critical of in my take on the March For Life. Namely, that young people are increasingly more pro-life than older people. What a fantastic change this is, and an inspiring one.

PPP (D) Survey on Trust in Television News

CNN Fox News: The Most Trusted Name in News

Do you trust ______________?

Fox News

• Yes 49%
• No 37%

CNN

• Yes 39%
• No 41%

NBC News

• Yes 35%
• No 44%

CBS News

• Yes 32%
• No 46%

ABC News

• Yes 31%
• No 46%

Trust Among Republicans

• Fox News: 74%
• CNN: 23%
• ABC News: 19%
• NBC News: 17%
• CBS News: 17%

Trust Among Democrats

• NBC News: 62%
• CNN: 59%
• CBS News: 55%
• ABC News: 51%
• Fox News: 30%

Trust Among Independents

• Fox News: 41%
• CNN: 33%
• CBS News: 22%
• NBC News: 22%
• ABC News: 21%

Trust Among Moderates

• CNN: 47%
• NBC News: 44%
• CBS News: 41%
• ABC News: 39%
• Fox News: 33%

Trust Among Men

• Fox News: 49%
• CNN: 32%
• NBC News: 30%
• ABC News: 26%
• CBS News: 24%

Trust Among Women

• Fox News: 48%
• CNN: 44%
• NBC News: 39%
• CBS News: 38%
• ABC News: 35%

Survey of 1,151 registered voters was conducted January 18-19, 2010. The margin of error is +/- 2.8 percentage points. Party ID breakdown: 36% Democrat; 35% Republican; 29% Independent. Political views: 47% Moderate; 39% Conservative; 14% Liberal.

On Monday, Emily McCoy (37) of New York City drove across the Canadian border to Burlington, Ontario (home of President Obama’s brother-in-law) to attend a speech that was to be given by a Senior Minister in the Canadian government. The Minister was Gail Shea, who holds the portfolio of Fisheries and Oceans in the Harper conservative government.

Soon after the Minister began her speech, she was assaulted by Emily McCoy, a radical progressive and a member of PETA (People for the Ethical treatment of Animals.  McCoy has been charged with assault by Halton Regional Police.

This is not the first criminal incident perpetrated by Emily McCoy and PETA.  In October, McCoy was charged with trespassing during  PETA protest at a Fisheries Council of Canada event.

In response, a Member of Parliament is asking for an investigation on whether or not to label PETA as an outlawed terrorist group under the criminal code, which includes such groups as Al Qaeda and Hamas.

“There has to be a review whether or not PETA has crossed the line now by attacking a federal minister of the Crown for the purpose of public intimidation of an office holder,”

“It would be illegal to make funds, to contribute funds, to what is termed a terrorist organization,” Byrne said.

“It would also severely restrict the movements between borders, between Canada and the U.S., of PETA members, especially their executive, and it would cause a matter of surveillance to occur of PETA members who would be labelled as members of a terrorist organization.”

Minister Shea responded to the attack;

“I can tell you that this incident actually strengthens my resolve to support the seal hunt,” she said. “If this is what it takes to stand up for Canadian sealing families and this industry I’m certainly very proud to do it.”

Shea said she believes the attack on the seal hunt is just the beginning, and other industries will become targets.

Technically, one could make an argument that PETA could be classified as a terrorist organization under the Canadian criminal code.  PETA has declared war against the industry (including the families of the fisherman) and the Canadian government, through their intimidation tactics in the media, threats and their criminal acts of trespassing, assault and vandalism.  At one point they had even convinced the E.U. to impose sanctions on some Canadian exports in retaliation for the seal hunt.

Most Canadians do believe that seal pups are cute, but are not prepared to destroy dozens of rural towns and villages along Canada’s east coast and the families that inhabit them, just to appeal to radical environmentalists.

Of course, the fact that many of these protests and attacks are planned from the United States and are perpetrated by Americans, who have crossed into Canada will not endear the great white north’s citizens to this progressive movement.

_____________________________________________

Kristofer Lorelli is the Senior Editor of Race42012 and can be contacted at kristofer.lorelli@rightOsphere.com, on Facebook and Twitter/Kris_Lorelli

Rob Bluey, The Director of Online Strategy for The Heritage Foundation, was kind enough to invite me to the weekly Bloggers Briefing held at The Heritage Foundation every Tuesday. Today’s speaker was Representative Mike Pence (R-IN), a leading conservative in the House and the first Member of Congress to have a blog, which can be seen here.

Below are my takes from the event:

1. I met a number of interesting people, including Dan Kotman, Press Secretary for American Solutions and Steve Johnston, Associate Director of New Media for the office of the Republican Whip. I also met bloggers from Think Progress and RedState, and managed to give my card for www.thelobbyist.net to all of these people.

2. Pence spoke and, as always, was excellent (this is the third time since October I have heard him speak in person). He turned down the opportunity to run for the Senate this year, and he said it was because he wanted to lead a “conservative majority” in retaking the House in 2010. When asked if he wanted to run for President in 2012, Pence said of course he did (as he said, “Isn’t that the American Dream?), but that it would depend on the time and circumstances. He also said he was staying because he felt it was his “duty.”

3. The Think Progress blogger- a very brave young man, showing his face and speaking up, I might add- asked Pence about the Citizens United vs. FEC decision by the Supreme Court last week. In short, Pence made two points: first, that “Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech” means just that. Secondly, he said he agreed with the great conservative writer George Will, in that transparency was the issue at hand, not who can and cannot have freedom of speech. He said he would have no problem with a requirement that all Members of Congress should have to put received funds on their websites at the end of every day.

One thing Pence avoided answering by sticking to the transparency and freedom arguments was the Think Progress blogger’s second question, which was what did Pence think of the ramifications of the SCOTUS decision regarding international funding of campaigns. Pence made reference to the Democrats having to pay back such funding in the 1990s, said foreign funds should not have influence on our elections…and then never really answered the question any further.

4. I managed to put a plug in for www.rightosphere.com. A CATO blogger sitting next to me immediately began asking me about www.Race42012.com, which he said he enjoyed reading.

5. I asked Pence two questions. The first was would he prefer a Republican majority in the House or a conservative majority? He stated that he believed the new conservative majority would be made up of a new generation of leadership in Washington, DC, but never answered the real question I had, which was the difference between conservatives and Republicans.

The second question was what would a new conservative majority in 2011 push for their first step in transparency. While he never directly answered the question, he did reference negotiating bills in front of the public and a couple of other basic points that are slipping my mind at the moment.

6. Four excellent quotes from Pence:

A. On the expected move by President Obama to try to freeze billions of dollars over three years: “I never met a spending freeze I didn’t like.” Pence was also asked when he had first heard about this freeze proposal, and said it was in December, when Republicans recommended it to President Obama at a jobs summit. 

B. “Any gesture at fiscal sanity would be welcome.” Pence said , however, that Republicans would compare that proposed freeze to the laundry list of expected spending programs in tomorrow’s State of the Union speech. 

C. “This isn’t anymore about debates about actuarial perfection – this is about what kind of country we are.” Possibly the best quote of his 50-minute presentation (including Q & A). Pence made the point that the bailout in 2008, the stimulus from 2009, the takeover of the private industry etc. by the government was about who we are as a country regarding the role and size of government, as well as regarding personal responsibility. Regarding the latter, Pence was almost entirely directing his comments at Wall Street.

D. Paraphrased: “Two things have happened [since I came to Washington in 2000]. My opinion of national government has gone down and my opinion of the American people has gone up.”

*Originally posted at THE LOBBYIST.

CNN/Opinion Research Survey on Barack Obama

Do you approve or disapprove of the way Barack Obama is handling his job as president?

• Approve 49% [51%] {54%} <48%> (55%) [54%] {55%} <58%> (53%) [56%]
• Disapprove 50% [48%] {44%} <50%> (42%) [45%] {43%} <40%> (45%) [40%]

Do you think President Obama is doing a good job or a poor job keeping the important promises he made during the presidential campaign?

• Good job 48%
• Poor job 52%

So far, would you say Barack Obama has had the right priorities, or that he hasn’t paid enough attention to the country’s most important problems?

• Has the right priorities 45%
• Hasn’t paid enough attention to the most important problems 55%

Looking back on Barack Obama’s first year in office, do you think he accomplished more than you expected, about as much as you expected, or less than you expected?

• More 12%
• About as much 44%
• Less 44%

Survey of 1,009 adults was conducted January 22-24, 2010. The margin of error is +/- 3 percentage points. Results from the poll conducted January 8-10, 2010 are in square brackets. Results from the poll conducted December 16-20, 2009 are in curly brackets. Results from the poll conducted December 2-3, 2009 are in angle brackets. Results from the poll conducted November 13-15, 2009 are in parentheses. Results from the poll conducted October 30 – November 1, 2009 are in square brackets. Results from the poll conducted October 16-18, 2009 are in curly brackets. Results from the poll conducted September 11-13, 2009 are in angle brackets. Results from the poll conducted August 28-31, 2009 are in parentheses. Results from the poll conducted July 31 – August 3, 2009 are in square brackets.

Things just keep getting better for Adam Andrzejewski. He’s got a big moneybomb tomorrow at Give2424.com - shooting for $24,000 in 24 hours, and I think he may go well over that number.

Also, Erick Erickson has now alerted the RedState Troops about Obama-endorsing Republican Kirk Dillard - and Andrzejewski seems to be his preferred alternative. Here’s his post:

Illinois Republicans are Obligated to Vote Against Kirk Dillard

Triple P polling shows the GOP racefor Illinois Governori si tight. Eight points seperate 5 candidates.

Surprisingly, the leader is Kirk Dillard. We must oppose him.

Dillard endorsed Barack Obama. He even shot a commercial for Obama. When McCain became the nominee for the GOP, Dillard shut up, but the record is still there.

We must oppose this guy.

I know folks in the McKenna camp. He’s a rather establishment fella, but not bad and would be much more acceptable than Dillard.

Then there is the intriguing choice of Adam Andrzejewski. He just got endorsed by Lech Walesa who said, “I applaud Mr. Andrzejewski’s commendable effort to bring real reform to politics. His insistence on transparency in public life is badly needed not only in the great state of Illinois, but in any democracy.”

Walesa also seems to feel Andrzejewski talks like Reagan. That’s a heck of a compliment

With all of the other candidates stagnating – Andrzejewski is surging. Prepare for a massive upset on Tuesday!

Rasmussen Delaware Senatorial Survey

• Mike Castle (R) 56%
• Chris Coons (D) 27%

Favorable / Unfavorable {Net}

• Mike Castle 66% (61%) / 25% (34%) {+41%}
• Chris Coons 47% / 30% {+17%}

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

• Strongly approve 26% (35%)
• Somewhat approve 24% (19%)
• Somewhat disapprove 12% (10%)
• Strongly disapprove 37% (35%)

Note: Barack Obama carried 62% of the vote in Delaware in the November 2008 election.

How do you rate the way that the government responded to the attempted bombing of a U.S. airliner on Christmas Day?

• Excellent 14%
• Good 23%
• Fair 26%
• Poor 34%

How would you rate the job Jack Markell has been doing as Governor?

• Strongly approve 15% (12%)
• Somewhat approve 42% (47%)
• Somewhat disapprove 24% (25%)
• Strongly disapprove 12% (12%)

Survey of 500 likely voters was conducted January 25, 2010. The margin of error is +/- 4.5 percentage points. Results from the poll conducted September 30, 2009 are in parentheses.

Inside the numbers:

Castle, who is an announced candidate, holds virtually identical two-to-one leads over Coons among both male and female voters.

While 86% of Republicans support Castle, just 49% of Delaware Democrats back Coons. Thirty-one percent (31%) of Democrats favor the moderate GOP candidate. Sixty-one percent (61%) of the state’s unaffiliated voters choose Castle at this point.

Obviously, many people are disappointed that Mike Pence has opted not to take on Sen. Evan Bayh this year. However, Bayh is still a vulnerable red state Democrat and should remain on the target list – even if he is one of our more formidable opponents this year. There are already two Republicans in the race against him, former Congressman John Hostettler and State Senator Marlin Stutzman. Hosttetler may be the better known candidate nationally, but he also has a lot of baggage. Conversely, Stutzman has no name recognition but looks to be building a competent campaign that can compete.

 At first glance, I think he could be marketable and I like his offbeat advertising. With an infusion of NRSC cash and the right strategy, he could be very viable – and he’s certainly the sort of fresh face that you need to run a giant-killing campaign.

So…is this the chosen one?

 .

PPP (D) Illinois Political Survey

GOP Gubernatorial Primary

• Kirk Dillard 19%
• Andy McKenna 17%
• Bill Brady 16%
• Jim Ryan 13%
• Adam Andrzejewski 11%
• Dan Proft 7%
• Undecided 17%

GOP Senatorial Primary

• Mark Kirk 42%
• Patrick Hughes 9%
• Don Lowery 4%
• Andy Martin 3%
• Kathleen Thomas 2%
• John Arrington 2%
• Undecided 39%

Survey of 573 likely Republican primary voters was conducted January 22-25, 2010. The margin of error is +/- 4.1 percentage points.

Via RedState

h/t to Matt Lewis on Twitter.

Quinnipiac Florida Senatorial Survey

(If registered Republican) If the 2010 Republican primary for United States Senator were being held today and the candidates were Marco Rubio and Charlie Crist, for whom would you vote?

• Marco Rubio 47% {35%} [26%] (23%)
• Charlie Crist 44% {50%} [55%] (54%)

(Among Rubio supporters) If you were convinced that Charlie Crist would definitely win the general election in November, but Marco Rubio might not win the general election in November, would that change your vote in the Republican primary for Senator?

• Yes 20%
• No 74%

(If registered Republican) Regardless of how you intend to vote, Who do you trust more to do in office what they say they will do during the campaign; Marco Rubio or Charlie Crist?

• Marco Rubio 43%
• Charlie Crist 42%

(If registered Republican) Regardless of how you intend to vote, Who do you believe most shares your values – Marco Rubio or Charlie Crist?

• Marco Rubio 45%
• Charlie Crist 40%

(If registered Republican) Regardless of how you intend to vote, Who do you see as more consistently conservative – Marco Rubio or Charlie Crist?

• Marco Rubio 48%
• Charlie Crist 34%

If the 2010 election for United States Senator were being held today and the candidates were Kendrick Meek the Democrat and Charlie Crist the Republican, for whom would you vote?

• Charlie Crist 48% {51%}
• Kendrick Meek 36% {31%}

Among Independents

• Charlie Crist 48% {58%}
• Kendrick Meek 33% {22%}

If the 2010 election for United States Senator were being held today and the candidates were Kendrick Meek the Democrat and Marco Rubio the Republican, for whom would you vote?

• Marco Rubio 44% {33%}
• Kendrick Meek 35% {36%}

Among Independents

• Marco Rubio 41% {31%}
• Kendrick Meek 27% {27%}

Favorable / Unfavorable {Net}

• Marco Rubio 32% {24%} [15%] (14%) / 14% {11%} [9%] (11%) {+18%}
• Charlie Crist 52% {58%} [60%] (60%) / 36% {30%} [27%] (28%) {+16%}
• Kendrick Meek 18% {20%} [14%] (12%) / 8% {8%} [5%] (7%) {+10%}

Among Republicans

• Marco Rubio 53% {44%} [24%] (24%) / 4% {3%} [6%] (8%) {+49%}
• Charlie Crist 64% {63%} [68%] (70%) / 27% {30%} [23%] (21%) {+37%}

Do you approve or disapprove of the way Charlie Crist is handling his job as Governor?

• Approve 50% {59%} [60%] (62%)
• Disapprove 38% {31%} [30%] (28%)

Among Republicans

• Approve 62% {62%} [66%] (68%)
• Disapprove 32% {30%} [28%] (21%)

Among Independents

• Approve 51% {65%} [63%] (61%)
• Disapprove 36% {17%} [27%] (31%)

Do you approve or disapprove of the way George LeMieux is handling his job as United States Senator?

• Approve 21% {16%}
• Disapprove 21% {18%}

Do you approve or disapprove of the way Barack Obama is handling his job as President?

• Approve 45% {48%} [47%] (58%)
• Disapprove 49% {46%} [48%] (35%)

Survey of 1,618 voters was conducted January 20-24, 2010. The margin of error is +/- 2.4 percentage points. The survey includes 673 Republicans with a margin of error of +/- 3.8 percentage points. Results from the poll conducted October 12 – 18, 2009 are in curly brackets. Results from the poll conducted August 12-17, 2009 are in square brackets. Results from the poll conducted June 2-7, 2009 are in parentheses.

Today, DaveG  has written a good article on former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani: “Five Reasons Rudy 2012 Might Out-perform Rudy 2008.”

To summarize his arguments:

1. Small government is cool again
2. Health Care Reform
3. If he can make it there…
4. A strong America that protects its interests
5. It’s the charisma, stupid

The only thing I’d like to add, in terms of why Giuliani may out-perform his 2008 numbers, is on the first bullet point:  ”Small government is cool again. And for many, it’s cool for the first time.”  What I mean is that many pro-life, pro-traditional-marriage Republicans simply do not view the size of government to be a key moral issue — I know this because I was once one of these voters.  The Republican party hasn’t done much on behalf of the moral arguments for smaller budgets, property rights, and consumer-driven markets; fortunately, President Barack Obama may have over-reached to such an extent that perhaps millions of already-active Republican voters are, for the first time, becoming aware of the very real dangers of socialism.  Perhaps these social conservatives, in 2012, will be more willing to consider the difference between a Legislator Giuliani (where he would be pro-choice) and a President Giuliani (where he has pledged to appoint Supreme Court justices who are in the mold of Justices Samuel Alito and John Roberts, who are expected to support a reversal of Roe v. Wade).

The obstacle: unanswered questions on the taxpayer-funding of human cloning, elective abortions, and the “non-profit” groups that actively promote abortions.

As I wrote in a May 2009 article, I am impressed by much of Rudy Giuliani’s record, but I believe a major obstacle to Rudy Giuliani winning the Republican nomination is that he has not adequately explained whether he is truly pro-choice, or whether he is somewhat pro-abortion.  I do recognize that some readers may not like the term “pro-abortion,” but I will defend the use of that term:  there is no “choice” in the ideas that I should be forced to pay for abortions through my tax dollars, and that I should not ever be able to vote on abortion-related laws (the result of Roe).

In the 2009 article, I wrote that there remained confusion about Giuliani’s views on the following three themes:

1. “Roe v. Wade: Giuliani repeatedly stated that a constructionist judge could either overturn or uphold Roe. I realize that there is a SMALL argument to be made among the conservative legal community that the idea of “precedent” carries some weight. But, really, a bad law is a bad law, and bad laws need to be overturned. I also realize that there is likely a small political liability to any presidential candidate committing to overturning Roe — certainly, the liberal media will try to damage any pro-life candidate on the issue of abortion, but, at the end of the day, I’m not sure this matters: candidates must decide whether or not to stand on principle, regardless of “what might happen.” Perhaps an acceptable compromise is for Giuliani to not explicitly commit to overturning Roe, but to at least STOP re-stating that Roe is an acceptable court decision.
2. Signing pro-life legislation: If pro-life legislation were put on a President Giuliani’s desk, would he sign it? Does this include limitations on the destruction of human embryos?
3. Taxpayer funding of research involving the cloning and the destruction of human embryos: My recollection is that Giuliani never committed fully one way or the other on this issue. I do remember reading a quote from him, indicating that he questioned the purpose of creating/cloning life, merely to destroy/research it, but I don’t recall a firm commitment.”

While I understand why a candidate would prefer not to touch controversial issues, voters expect leaders to make tough decisions.  I also will disagree with the premise that, outside of the New York Times and CNN, it is highly controversial to support a states-rights position on matters that do not appear in the US Constitution.  By installing Republican Scott Brown as US Senator, Massachusetts voters just demanded a states-rights position on health care, and I think most American voters will support the same with regard to abortion.

The above three questions, particularly #2 and #3, are not going to go away for Giuliani.  For a man who is to the right of most elected Republicans, anywhere, on education — he boldly supports school vouchers — I hope Rudy Giuliani will consider taking the fully libertarian, hands-off position on the use of federal tax dollars for activities that many Americans oppose.

______________________________________________________________

Connect with Hodge on Facebook, his Web site, Twitter, and KansasProgress.com.  From 2005-’09, Hodge represented 300,000 voters and 50,000 students at Johnson County Community College.  He served in the Kansas House from 2006-’08.  His record is recognized by AFP, the NRA, the Kansas Press Association, and the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education.

Or, “Change.”

Once the frontrunner for the 2008 Republican nomination and the favored candidate to become the 44th President of the United States, Rudy Giuliani exited the race for 2008 with a single delegate committed to nominating the Mayor at the Republican National Convention. But with a dramatic shift occurring in the political winds, in all regions of the country and especially among independents, towards a small government consensus, it’s possible that Rudy’s performance in 2008 had more to do with the year than with the candidate. As such, following are five reasons that a Rudy run might actually go as planned a second time around:

1) Small government is cool again. Both in NYC and during his presidential run, Rudy ran as a pro-freedom Republican, meaning that he was in favor of minimal government in both the economic and cultural spheres. But this formula wasn’t what either the GOP or the country wanted just two years ago. The Bush Establishment which had taken over the GOP had been molded in the image of its president; after eight years, President Bush had most certainly placed the Republican Party on a Christian Democrat trajectory, and candidates were charged with the task of running against their party’s president without running against their party. And while conservatives roasted Rudy over social issues, independents had not yet made the connection between government and the nation’s economic woes. Independents were still blaming the Bush Administration for spending, the rising costs of health care, and the financial sector’s collapse, when in reality they should have been blaming the big-government foundation for the policies of the last two decades which culminated in all of this. Big government creates problems that can only be solved with more big government, and that cycle continues until Social Democracy is achieved and freedom is lost. Independents were right that Bush had added to the problem, but he did so by abandoning conservatism, not by governing in accordance with it.

But because Republicans, exhausted from eight years of being in power, were unable to make this argument to the country, the nation voted for yet more big government, hoping that growing government just a tad more would be the easiest path to normalcy. As such, Giuliani was in the absolute worst position in 2008. He was too small government for both the socially conservative base of the GOP and for independents who were prepared to take the mighty hand of Social Democracy instead of plunging into the unknown. Just a year into Obama’s presidency, though, all of this has changed. Obama’s presidency, being an all big government, all the time administration, has sparked a citizen revolt of small government types, and all the energy in the room is now on the side of killing the Leviathan. These are the folks who will be standing in line in Granite State snow in 2012 to cast ballots for the next Republican nominee. And their choice will be the candidate who is the most supportive of freedom. Further, independents, after realizing that a Faustian bargain with Social Democracy means the gradual but inevitable end to individual autonomy in the United States, have instead selected to plunge into the unknown knowing that whatever awaits them has to be preferable to serfdom.

2) Health Care Reform. Nothing moved the nation to the right on fiscal issues quite like health care reform. At first, the president’s attempt to enact a sort of national RomneyCare on the nation seemed like a sensible centrist compromise. But once voters started thinking the issue through, it became clear that this bevy of new regulations would ultimately require yet more new regulations, which in turn would lead to more new regulations, and eventually Sarah Palin’s death panels, or at least the rationing of care, would become inevitable. New regulations on insurers sounded great until folks found out they couldn’t be enacted without an individual mandate. Expanding access sounds good until the basic principles of economics kick in, meaning that an increase in demand for a good or service without an increase in supply raises the cost for everyone. As costs increase, access decreases, and subsidies increase, meaning debt increases, meaning taxes increase. At the end of the day, ObamaCare looked like it would take away a lot of freedom and raise the cost of medical care while providing the average American with the same product he has now, if that. It doesn’t take an Obama-level education to reject a deal like that.

All of this would allow a small government candidate supportive of economic freedom and fiscal prudence to make the connection between these principles and true health care reform that would lower costs and expand access by reducing government, removing regulations, and allowing the market to work. Rudy’s views on the issue do just that: allowing for interstate competition between insurers, providing a big tax credit so that Americans can buy insurance, and essentially creating a market for health insurance that doesn’t exist now thanks to big government. This makes Rudy the candidate with small government solutions to the nation’s problems, and allows him to contrast himself with establishment candidate and New Hampshire favorite Mitt Romney, who cannot escape the albatross of RomneyCare. And speaking of New Hampshire…

3) If he can make it there… In the race for 2008, being from the Northeast was a liability for any Republican presidential candidate. The Bush GOP was based in the buckle of the Bible Belt, and the Northeast viewed any and all Republican candidates as quislings of the new Dixiecrat party, which is why Northeasterners threw out scores of GOPers in 2006 and 2008. But now, the Republican Party, re-organized around the small-government Tea Partiers, is actually winning elections in the Northeast again, and doing so with candidates far more economically conservative than David Frum and David Brooks would have thought possible after the 2008 elections. Both Chris Christie and Scott Brown are well to the right of the Rockefeller-esque dinosaurs that remained in the Northeast after 2008, and there may be many more to come in 2010. A nationwide Republican wave in 2010 would end the notion that the GOP is a Southern party and would allow potential GOP presidential candidates from every region to claim that he or she is capable of drawing a new electoral map in 2012.

4) A strong America that protects its interests. This is, I think, what the foreign policy consensus will be in America in 2012. Gone are the utopian dreams of Middle Eastern Thomas Jeffersons rising from Baghdad and Tehran to usher in carbon copies of the U.S. in those regions. But Obama’s rejection of the Bush/McCain fantasy, while saying goodbye to all that, said hello again to Clintonite small wars fought for humanitarian reasons under the wrong rules of engagement without any meaningful benefit to the United States. At least Iraq, for geopolitical and economic reasons, is an important ally for the U.S. to have in the Middle East. Afghanistan was, is, and probably always will be a sleepy tribal society of no interest to anyone. Further, Obama’s foreign policy has probably been the most hostile to Israel since the Carter years. Israel, of course, remains America’s strongest ally in the region.

Rudy has always been a strong pro-Israel candidate, and, while lumped in with the NeoCons during 2008, was never actually one of them. I still remember Rudy’s characterization of his Iraq policy back during the race for 2008; he viewed success in Iraq to mean that the country was made stable and made an ally of the U.S., not an enemy. This never sounded like the Bush/McCain American Idol style search for the Iraqi Thomas Paine. And rightly so. If Rudy comes out as the strong on security, pro-military candidate who supports using the military to defend the United States and advance U.S. interests on the world stage, that type of candidacy could probably win the majority of Americans who don’t want a return to Bushism but who also fear the isolationism of the Paulites as well as the Carter/Clinton medley that is Obama’s foreign policy.

5) It’s the charisma, stupid. In politics, style as well as substance matters. At the end of the day, the competent uberwonk who “looks good on paper” almost never gets to be president. I seem to recall Orrin Hatch claiming during the 2000 presidential campaign that he couldn’t understand why he didn’t have more support, as he had more governmental experience than anyone else in the field. The political graveyard is filled with the Bob Doles of the world who have been salivated over by the chattering classes as men and women who “would’ve made a good president.”

But before you can govern, you have to win, and before you can win, you have to connect. Even a failed President Obama will still be one who is personally hard to dislike. Republicans will also need a candidate who is able to personally connect with voters. Giuliani has that personal touch that many other candidates don’t. He is a natural when placed against the backdrop of today’s high-tech right-wing media, which will be important if the GOP nominee is going to connect with voters via forums led by O’Reilly, Hannity, and Beck. I still remember Dick Morris proclaiming, “That’s a president!” after a Rudy interview on Hannity & Colmes back in 2006 or 2007. That’s a quality that can’t be purchased and it is innate to Rudy, who will have to sell himself and his ideas to the nation and best Obama in several presidential debates.

For all of these reasons, I suspect that that a second Rudy presidential run could be more successful than the Mayor’s initial endeavor. I think that Rudy, freed from the baggage of Bush’s GOP, and fueled by a growing small government movement, could be the candidate who unites the Tea Partiers and takes the GOP nomination and the presidency. There are other candidates who could potentially do the same, and Rudy may not even run. But if he does, those who were laughing over his single delegate finish in 2008 may find that it’s Rudy who will have the last laugh.

If Adam Andrzejewski is such a long-shot in the race for Illinois’ governorship – why is he the only candidate drawing national attention? The latest national outlet to take notice is Big Goverment – which scored an exclusive by obtaining a copy of former Polish President Lech Walesa’s official endorsement letter.

From their article:

There is no clear frontrunner in the crowded field of candidates. Most of those in the race have deep ties to the Illinois Republican establishment, which isn’t the best qualification in the current climate. In the closing days of the campaign, the race seems wide-open.Big Government has also learned that several tea party organizations, both in Illinois and out of state, are mobilizing their members behind Andrzejewski. This could be one to watch next week.

With a week to go in this race, tons of undecideds, a crowded filed, and no clear frontrunner – Adam Andrzejewski suddenly finds the wind at his back.

Jim Ryan is not generating national buzz, nor is Andy McKenna, nor is Kirk Dillard. Only one candidate has the attention of the conservative movement and his name is Adam Andrzejewski.

This is an interesting post for me. I don’t remember Sen. Charles Mathias, he left office barely four months after I was born, and frankly I knew nothing about him before I heard of his death last night. Furthermore, I probably would have been among his most vociferous critics had he and I been active at the same time.

However, we were not active at the same time – and upon his death today I think he deserves a eulogy as on of our party’s historic figures, especially on a site like this one – which is designed to foster civil debate among all wings of the GOP.  Sen. Mathias made many Republicans uneasy in his day, and he likely would have drawn even more fire in today’s post-Reagan milieu – but he did serve three terms in the United States Senate and leave an indelible mark on our party.

For those of you unfamiliar with Senator Mathias, as I was just a few hours ago – he was certainly a character. First elected to the House in 1960, Mathias staked out a firm position in the GOP’s liberal wing – drawing more ire in his day than Arlen Specter could have ever dreamed of. In 1964, he even refused to endorse Barry Goldwater by name, although he would  say that he supported “all Republican candidates”. He rose to the Senate in 1968, campaigning largely on troop reduction in  Vietnam. Upon his arrival in the upper chamber,  Mathias quickly became persona non grata to the relatively conservative Richard Nixon – voting with the administration only 47% of the time and voting with congressional Republicans only 31% of the time in his first term.  He was also one of the first Republicans to call for an investigation of the Watergate scandal.

An outspoken crtitic of the party’s shift to the right and Nixon’s “Southern strategy”, Mathias briefly considered challenging Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan in the 1976 presidential primaries. Instead returning to the Senate, Mathias was in line to inerit the ranking membership of the Senate Judiciary Committee, but was blocked by Strom Thurmond - the only more senior Republican on the committee - who gave up his ranking membership on the Armed Services Committee in order to prevent Mathias from getting the job.

Mathias grew even more isolated during the Reagan years, and did not seek a fourth  term in 1986.  He remained a maverick in retirement – endorsing Barack Obama over John McCain in the election of 2008 (by the way, anyone who calls McCain a “liberal Republican” should probably study real liberal Republicans like Charles Mathias).

So, Mathias was certainly not my kind of Republican, and I probably would not have liked him had I been around to witness his exploits. However, he was indeed a powerful  three-term senator for our party - and he certainly left his mark on history. As such, he deserves a fitting eulogy from his fellow Republicans.

Rest in peace, Senator Mathias.

The Headline: ‘President Barack Obama to freeze some federal spending’

CNN cheers!

The cable news network is hailing this decision by our President, but in reality this will have little impact on our deficit, the impending bankruptcy of our nation, the lowering value of the U.S. dollar and the need to raise the debt ceiling.

Freezing $500 billion from a $3.5 trillion budget for three years, in an economy that shows little sign of achieving robust growth, may save a couple of hundred billion dollars between now and 2012.

As we have learned from history, for governments to reduce deficit spending, programs need to be cut and eliminated, education and health services must be downloaded to the States, taxes on capital gains must be reduced, small business owners must gain access to credit, and regulation must be rolled back.  Although our President now has talking points for his Wednesday SOTU speech, he is not offering real solutions to the financial/economic crisi.

In addition to the proposed spending freeze on 1/6 of the federal budget, President Obama is going to cap student loan payments at 10 percent of the income of the loanees.  While this may become a politically popular proposition, this is another misguided attempt to use legislation to interfere with the market system.  As we have learned from the subprime mortgage crisis, over-extending credit by legislating wealth distribution ultimately harms the market, lenders and those who rely on credit for access to education, investments and home ownership.

President Obama and his cable news cheerleaders may be hailing this decision as bold and significant, but I believe voters can see through the façade.

Next, I’ll expect President Obama to delivery the SOTU speech sporting a brown, Wrentham barn jacket.

_____________________________________________

Kristofer Lorelli is the Senior Editor of Race42012 and can be contacted at kristofer.lorelli@rightOsphere.com, on Facebook and Twitter/Kris_Lorelli

In an interview to be aired this evening, President Obama tells Diane Sawyer of ABC News, “I’d rather be a really good one-term president than a mediocre two-term president”.

Well, I hate to break it to our 44th President, but with Jimmy Carter sporting a smile that hasn’t been seen in thirty years just giddy over the thought of no longer being considered the worse President since the Civil War, I would say that Barry has a ways to climb just to have his first term considered “mediocre”.

Republican Rick Crawford is running for Arkansas Congressional District 1. Just recently, Democrat Marion Berry announce that he would not seek re-election. This seat looks like a likely Republican 2010 takeover.

Listen to the ad at: http://www.meetrickcrawford.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/Crawford-For-Congress-Huckabee-endor-60.mp3

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

This piece is right on- where are the urgent calls from conservatives, liberals, Democrats and Republicans regarding America’s inept energy policies? It seems like they have forgotten all about America’s energy crisis:

Maybe we just dreamed the whole thing? Or perhaps I’ve only now awakened from some sort of alternate reality, Twilight Zone style fantasy. Does anyone else remember the election of 2008 when it seemed like every candidate and their mothers had a plan to address the nation’s energy woes and promote domestic security by making us more independent in terms of energy production? Everyone was staking out a position. McCain had the Lexington Project. Obama had a plan. Hillary had a plan. I’m pretty sure Dennis Kucinich wanted to wrap giant copper wires around the Sears Tower.

What happened? Once the economy crumbled, the election ended and we all decided to fight over health care, it seems like all of those pressing concerns faded away like last week’s fish wrap in the rain. Well, there’s one group of citizens who don’t seem to have forgotten, and they are holding a rally today in Albany, New York, telling the government that they want it to stop dragging feet and start drilling wells.

ALBANY, NY – Landowner Coalitions from New York’s Southern Tier will hold a rally and news conference in Albany in support of the safe exploration for natural gas and to debunk the myths associated with it.

Busloads of landowners, business leaders and scientists will appeal to Albany lawmakers to focus on the facts about natural gas exploration in the Marcellus Shale, specifically the safe process of hydraulic fracturing. Hydraulic fracturing – or “fracking” – releases gas locked in shale by injecting pressurized fluid into the formation to shatter the rock. This process, which occurs deep underground and far from groundwater and surface water, has been performed safely in New York for decades. It will produce efficient, abundant and environmentally clean fuel, increase New York’s energy independence and bring thousands of jobs and billions of dollars to New York.

This process has been slowed to a crawl in New York, while other states like next door neighbor Pennsylvania have been using this same hydraulic fracturing process to tap into natural gas resources. This has been going on for a couple of years now, even though a report commissioned for the area seeking development concluded that the state’s aggressive groundwater protection laws and environmental protection measures met or exceeded anything the EPA would do, and the development of these resources would bring billions of dollars and thousands of long term jobs to the area. And just when it looked like the finish line was in sight, New York Congressman Maurice Hinchey has introduced the FRAC Act, which would drag the EPA into the process, pushing it back years further.

Hinchey’s likely opponent in the 2010 Congressional race, George Phillips, immediately came out on the side of the landowners.

New York residents are in need of precisely this sort of advantage, yet it continues to be delayed by government interference, such as the proposed FRAC Act, introduced in Congress by Maurice Hinchey. Development of domestic energy supplies is not only an issue affecting jobs and economic prosperity, but of national security as well. Albany needs to listen to these concerned citizens and look at the facts, rather than the myths surrounding hydraulic fracturing. I am determined to keep the federal government out of this process, which would unnecessarily delay progress for years. Maurice Hinchey’s bill is a job-killer for the region and is only standing in the way of economic recovery and job creation.

What have we really done since the last election ended to improve our domestic production and decrease our dependence on foreign energy suppliers? Not much that I’ve seen. If you run on this as an important part of your platform, you should actually do something about it once you’re in office. Unemployment continues to dog us. Wouldn’t it be good to put some more people to work here in the United States producing energy?

(Disclosure: The author is a volunteer on the Phillips for Congress campaign.)

I actually wondered the same thing the other day- why haven’t we drilled yet, especially with gas at almost $2.75 per gallon?  Certainly there are enough moderate Democrats who would favor limited drilling with the supposedly gung-ho Republicans. Speaking of gung-ho Republicans, why hasn’t Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN), who was so eager at a Republican Capitol Hill rally I attended as an intern at The Heritage Foundation, to drill, made this a number-one priority issue? Why hasn’t former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin made this the central point of her probable 2012 presidential run, since it’s about the only policy issue she’s qualified on? Yes, other pressing issues take precedence on a day-to-day and month-to-month basis, but why didn’t Republicans proactively go after good drilling policies when they held both Congress and the presidency only a few years ago?

When I was in college, some liberal pundit said that if President Bush had concentrated on being an energy president, he would have been remembered as well for that as President Kennedy is for America’s space efforts. I completely agree. As I’ve said many times over the last couple of months, energy policy is a critically important part of blunting terrorism, helping free people around the world, helping the environment and, of course, creating a huge opportunity to replace the many jobs we have lost since this recession began.

I suppose I should add, for the sake of that pesky full disclosure thing, that President Obama and the United States government gave two billion dollars towards drilling in Brazil. Of course, it would have been nice if America had benefited…

(H/T to Real Clear Politics.)

-R4’12 is please to publish an Op-ed from one of our second page contributors, “Silver Fox”-KL

So the Supreme Court has goofed again!  Just as flawed as the ruling on Eminent Domain is the recent ruling that corporations and unions may donate to political causes in unlimited amounts.  The ruling should have gone to individuals, not to groups or organizations.

The Constitution is built around the individual.  Picture yourself as a union member.  Let’s say your union takes your dues—in most states by force—then donates to a cause with which you disagree.  Do union leaders have the right to spend your money on their own personal political choices?

It’s the same for corporations, clubs, or any other group.  Unless every member of the group agrees on what to do with the money, there is no constitutional right to spend it on any cause.  An individual should not have any one else speak for him by giving corporate or union monies—to  which he has contributed by dues, wages or work—to a cause that he may not wish to support.

And what’s this about forbidding “overly large” donations to elect the candidate of your choice?  This, too, falls under the First Amendment, which puts no limits on the amount of speech, funding or effort one may engage in to forward either a cause or an election campaign.

This does not prevent any group or business from organizing a campaign for a general cause, such as selling Girl Scout cookies or discouraging drunk driving.  However, even donations for such causes should also be freely offered by individual members, and not be taken from a general fund that has been created by all members or employees—even if a majority vote has been taken in favor of it.  Such a cause would properly have to be agreed upon by every member who has money in the fund.

In summary, our campaign laws, in order to be truly constitutional, must allow individuals—without restriction—to support, advocate and promote any candidate or cause of their choice; however, no organization, corporation, union or other group whose members are of diverse opinions should be allowed to make campaign donations or promote causes in behalf of their members or in the name of their organization.  This does not prohibit the CEO or executive officers from making donations in their own names from their own personal incomes.

It is a tragedy that even our judges, as well as the candidates we have elected to local, state and national office, are woefully ignorant of constitutional principles and the errors perpetuated in current laws.  Only if Americans can elect enough knowledgeable, freedom-loving candidates, both locally and nationally, will we be able to return to the kind of government envisioned by the Founding Fathers.

Research 2000/Daily Kos Nevada Senatorial Survey

• Danny Tarkanian (R) 52%
• Harry Reid (D) 41%

• Sue Lowden (R) 51%
• Harry Reid (D) 42%

• Danny Tarkanian (R) 46%
• Shelley Berkley (D) 40%

• Sue Lowden (R) 45%
• Shelley Berkley (D) 40%

• Danny Tarkanian (R) 44%
• Ross Miller (D) 36%

• Sue Lowden (R) 43%
• Ross Miller (D) 37%

• Oscar Goodman (D) 44%
• Danny Tarkanian (R) 41%

• Oscar Goodman (D) 44%
• Sue Lowden (R) 40%

Favorable / Unfavorable {Net}

• Oscar Goodman 47% / 19% {+28%}
• Sue Lowden 45% / 26% {+19%}
• Danny Tarkanian 48% / 31% {+17%}
• Shelley Berkley 34% / 25% {+9%}
• Ross Miller 23% / 15% {+8%}
• Barack Obama 45% / 50% {-5%}
• The Democratic Party 39% / 52% {-13%}
• The Republican Party 36% / 57% {-21%}
• Harry Reid 34% / 55% {-21%}

Survey of 600 likely voters was conducted January 18-20, 2010. The margin of error is +/- 4 percentage points. Party ID breakdown: 44% Democrat; 39 Republican; 17% Independent.