In attempting to explain the Tea Party movement to the British public, the BBC decided to interview a very moderate former Republican governor. Surely someone with the reputation of Christine Todd Whitman could properly dispense with these teabagging lunatics, right?

Wrong! Instead, Whitman heaps praise on the movement throughout her entire four minute radio interview – causing the BBC presenter to become obviously flustered with an interview that clearly did not unfold as expected.

Then again – misinterpretation of Tea Party politics by British elites is not exactly a new phenomenon. After all, we know what happened after the FIRST Tea Party (you know, the one in Boston Harbor).

Thanks to Hot Air for this:

Dave Weigel has been covering the Tea Party Convention in Nashville for the Washington Independent, and earlier today walked into an unplanned but heated debate between World Net Daily’s Joseph Farah and Andrew Breitbart.  Farah claimed that the Tea Party movement was partially fueled on the notion that Barack Obama isn’t really a native-born citizen of the US.  When WND reporter Chelsea Schilling asked Breitbart- to comment on Farah’s speech, he criticized the attack and said the Tea Party movement would do better to focus on substance.  Weigel asked Farah for a response, which led Farah to start an argument:

I told Farah that his speech was getting negative attention already, and that Breitbart, who’d taken the stage after him, had criticized the “birther” parts of the speech. Farah shook his head and walked over to Breitbart in what seemed like an attempt to debunk my question.

“Andrew is my friend,” said Farah. “He has the right to disagree, and he has the right to say anything to a socialist newspaper that he wants. And if he wants to criticize his friend to you, and he’s dumb enough to do that…”

Breitbart raised his eyebrows. “I’m dumb to do what?”

“Criticize your friend to this socialist newspaper.”

“I was talking to her,” said Breitbart, pointing to Schilling. “I was talking to you. And I was saying that I disagreed on the birther stuff.”

“OK, well, did you know that Dave Weigel from The Washington Independent was”–

“I was talking to her,” said Breitbart. “She was asking me if I thought it was was to bring it up, and I said, no. We have a lot of strong arguments to be making, and that is a primary argument. That is an argument for the primaries that did not take hold. The arguments that these people right here are making are substantive arguments. The elections in Virginia, New Jersey and Massachusetts were all won not on birther, but on substance. And to apply to this group of people the concept that they’re all obsessed with the birth certificate, when it’s not a winning issue–”

“It is a winning issue!”

“It’s not a winning issue.”

I know Dave a little from a few meetings at events that he’s covered, and whether or not he’s “socialist” — I’d say center-left having read his work, but usually very fair — it didn’t make any difference to whom Breitbart spoke.  If Breitbart was rebutting Farah’s argument, then Farah needs to address the argument, not question Breitbart’s motives in choosing Dave, which isn’t what Breitbart did.  He was challenging the birth-certificate issue to Farah’s own WND reporter, and Farah leaped to an incorrect conclusion.

Moreover, Breitbart is entirely correct, and perhaps even understated the case.  In the earlier exchange with Schilling, she said that her boss was asking Obama to prove something rather than disprove Birtherism, to which Breitbart responded, “When has a president ever been asked to prove his citizenship?”  But in fact, Obama did do just that when he released the Certification of Live Birth in June 2008, in response to an entirely different question.  That may have been the first time a Presidential candidate has ever done so, and the COLB is a document that could get Obama a passport, a driver’s license, and a Social Security number.  It’s all the legal proof required.  If that wasn’t enough, Obama’s political opponents found contemporaneous records of his birth in the Honolulu Advertiser from August 1961.

The wins in Virginia, New Jersey, and Massachusetts over the last three months did not come from people questioning Obama’s birthplace.  They resulted from grassroots opposition to the Obama-Nancy Pelosi policy agenda.  Scott Brown won the seat held by the Kennedys and their cronies for almost 60 years by pushing back hard against ObamaCare and the counterterrorism policies of the White House.  If anything, the continued focus on Birtherism at these rallies undercuts the mainstream nature of the opposition to the Democratic agenda and allows the media to paint it as a paranoid mob obsessed with conspiracy theories.  Not only is it not a winning issue, it will hang like an albatross around the necks of conservatives who tacitly or expressly link themselves to it.

The American public rejected the birth-certificate argument in November 2008.  We now have much better and more rational arguments to make against Obama and his allies in Congress.  Let’s stay focused on those issues, where we have much stronger footing with a disillusioned electorate.

Update: HA commenter Knucklehead says that Carl Cameron at Fox reported a few minutes ago that other Tea Party organizations will hold a presser later today to condemn Birtherism and distance themselves from it.  That sounds like a healthy decision.  Also, be sure to read the rest of the exchange between Breitbart and Farah in Weigel’s article; it actually went downhill from there.

(Note: I know Mark had posted a similar story to this here earlier, but as my data and review are a little different I’m posting mine as well.)

With the last bit of fundraising data in (the total number of donors to Romney’s PAC), we can now make a proper evaluation of the fundraising abilities of the 4 most-likely-to-run GOP candidates and their respective PAC’s. One major problem is that there are so many uncommon denominators in the results that there is no easy indication of a clear winner, nor of a clear loser.

First let’s look at the raw numbers. Before anyone gets too excited about it, you should recall that T-Paw’s PAC was only in operation in the fourth quarter, plus other variables that I will explain.

(*** Disbursed=expenditures COH= Cash on hand $ to Cand.= money given to GOP campaigns for office)

Review of performance:

Mitt Romney Mitt Romney’s Free and Strong America PAC, is the most cut and dry scenario we have of the four. His PAC was intact for the entire year. He didn’t have distraction or obligations that others did. The numbers here tell the most of the story. He raised money very well, and he notably spent more also. The story here that is not told in the numbers is even though most of the would-be GOP nominees gave about 2% to other GOP candidates for office, Romney’s impact on behalf of other GOP candidates can arguably claim to be the highest as he has had time and means to hold many fundraisers for them. A fundraiser bringing $200,000 (as some did) is of lot more value than the max $5000 his PAC can contribute directly to them. A few of the unseen benefits of Romney expenditures include items of great reward: freedom to travel as necessary to endorse, raise funds, do media appearances and speeches, and otherwise keep his name and face out there. Plus he is able to maintain he excellent campaign team through to the next election cycle, which is virtually the same team that helped propel Senator Scott Brown to victory.
Mitt Romney’s Grade: a (solid) B+ Romney raised the most (from the highest number of donors) and has the most cash on hand, but with his network and relative freedom that would be expected. Expectations are the only reason I don’t score him higher.

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Sarah Palin SarahPAC didn’t quite pull in as much as the FSA-PAC, or from as many donors, be she certainly didn’t focus on it much because of a number of factors: SarahPAC didn’t form until a couple months into year (she was still Governor of AK at the beginning of ’09), she focused some fundraising efforts on her legal funds rather than her PAC, and much focus of the year went to writing and touring for her new book. Even so she has a healthy amount of cash on hand that she’ll be able to disperse of more liberally (to conservatives) as we go throughout 2010. Also her star power is a huge asset at this time. She may not have raised as much, but it won’t matter as she can use some of her own new found wealth to more than compensate for a relatively small difference in total number of dollars raised.
Sarah Palin’s Grade: B- With a little more focus on her PAC she should be able rival Romney’s numbers. The decision to focus on that is hers to make. With her new contract with FOX News, I’m not sure if that will happen. But then again the net benefit of being on FOX may be more than any funds she can raise… unless her contract brings her to the point of over exposure. I believe there is some risk in that.

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Tim Pawlenty T-Paw and his Freedom First PAC got a much later start than the rest but it has impressed with his good-sized catch. The high average dollars per donor shows that he does have at least some ties and connections that will be vital should he decide to run (I’m sure he has already decided.) Even so, one should not make that mistake of thinking that since he only had 1 quarter to raise funds that $1.3 Million x 4 = $5.2 Million for the year. Certainly as some donors begin to max out ($5000 max contribution) that rate cannot be continue to be sustained. One way to be certain is to see where we are at the end of June 2010, where it will be easier to compare apples to apples. One other item that limits his current freedom is that he is still a sitting Governor whereas the others are merely former Governors and are free to move about.
Tim Pawlenty’s Grade: A- Sometimes it’s not how much you’ve raised, but how you did compared to expectations. I expected some, but not that much, especially given his lower name recognition.

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Mike Huckabee HuckPAC is a little harder to grade than the others for the reason that- yes, he’s got some boots on the ground, but does that make up for the relatively low fundraising? Huckabee also has a distraction with his show on FOX. That kind of weekly exposure should be a boon to name recognition, which it is as evidenced by him being right at the top of most polls, but it all needs to transfer into some increased ability to raise funds. Huckabee did great on meager funds in the 2008 election, and it may turn out similar for him in the 2010 primary, but such a plan would not work in the general election. Raising more funds will be a must for him at some point in the future.
Mike Huckabee’s Grade C+ In comparison to the amount that T-Paw raised in one quarter, and to Romney’s 3 times average dollars per donor, the fundraising is unimpressive. BUT… 16,000 donors is a very good number. I would think to give a lower grade otherwise.

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Newt Gingrich: Newt? Hey, he doesn’t have a PAC. Yes, but many are quick to point out that his 527 (American Solutions for Winning the Future) raised $6.4 Million. That’s more than the others put together! … Yes, but a 527 group is a totally different animal. It does not have the $5000 donation limit that PAC’s have. They are also limited in that they cannot directly support (or oppose) candidates for office …. just for clarification.
Newt’s Gingrich’s grade N/A Apples to apples… Besides my guess is that he will only tease and hint at running, but will not enter the fray.

Result: Yes, in my opinion the winner by a slight degree is T-Paw, mostly because of the ever present “expectations”. Time will tell if his fundraising is sustainable. If it is, welcome to the top-tier.

~Nate Gunderson

One other note: we should see the low percentages of money given to other campaigns go up as we get closer to the 2010 elections. The year 2009 was more of a ‘fill up the treasure chest’ type of a year.

FEC filings (for you data geeks): Free and Strong America PAC, SarahPAC, Freedom First PAC, HuckPAC

Today, February 6th 2010 would have been Ronald Reagan’s 99th birthday. Huck PAC members have posted 200+ comments recalling one of the greatest presidents in American history. Here are some of the memories posted by Huck PAC members:

John B. Jones from Team Huck North Carolina:

What I loved about President Reagan (and I truly loved the man) was his ability to make America believe in itself again. As a Vietnam vet, I was just sick about the state of our country after the sellout by politicians in Vietnam, the Watergate fiasco, and then the total ineptitude of the Carter administration. America was being verbally beat up on by the Europeans and laughed at by the Russians and Asians. Our economy was in tatters, and Americans had almost totally lost confidence in themselves, our military, and the government. Enter Ronald Reagan; I remember the first speeches he made and how I began to hold my head just a little higher. He made me so proud to be an American and even a Vietnam Vet. He told us how great we still were.

He told the Russians to go fly a kite. He forced the Europeans to remember who had saved their bacon twice in thirty years. With Reagan, you got what you saw. The man had an abiding faith in America’s greatness, and he made us have that faith again. I wish he was here today; we badly need a man like President Reagan again.

Loren Sanders from Team Huck Wisconsin

I was 17 when Reagan entered office, and angry punk that I was, he seemed to be the epitome of everything I was against – the establishment, the man, traditional values blah-blah-blah. All through college he was a favorite target for me to rant about as all I really cared about at that time was what girls I could get into bed, and how stoned I could get (hence why I voted Libertarian once I was able).

In recent years I’ve come to a very real respect for the man, his character, and the stands he took for the good of our nation and due to his commitment to Christ. Churchill was correct about 20 & 40 years old, and being liberal or conservative, and I find myself looking for someone of his depth to rally (not Republicans) conservatives around to try and regain some of the so much we’ve lost in just the last 20 years…

Barbara A. Stallings, El Cajon, CA from Team Huck California

I remember the “Gipper” fondly from his movies, when he met Mrs. Reagan, when he showed his integrity even on the screen. Then later, of course, when as our Governor and then President when his deep love for this country came through and his honesty made us all so very proud to have him serving us as our President. I watched his funeral, in Washington and here in California and cried at every scene. Thank you for remembering him and honoring a man who definitely deserves our praise and thanks.

You can add your own thoughts on Ronald Reagan at Huck PAC here.

David Schmidt can be reached at david.schmidt@evercor.com

The latest salvo…

He finished his speech telling the liberal media, ‘It’s Not Your Business Model That Sucks, It’s You That Sucks”.

“If you don’t start reporting the truth I will organize a protest in New York City on Madison Avenue and you won’t be able to escape to the Hamptons for the weekend.”

The Year-End reports for the various PACs are now in. Here are the raw numbers for the Free and Strong America PAC (Romney), Sarah PAC (Palin), Huck PAC (Huckabee), and the Freedom First PAC (Pawlenty):

	FnSA-PAC	Huck-PAC	Sarah-PAC	FF-PAC
Cash On Hand Start of 2009	$338K	$80K	$0K	$0K
Cash On Hand End of 2009	$1125K	$192K	$928K	$884K
Contributions > $200	$2022K	$223K	$756K	$1141K
Contributions <= $200	$849K	$590K	$1367K	$94K
Contributions from other PACs	$42K	$10K	$8K	$45K
Total Contributions:	$2870K	$813K	$2131K	$1280K
Other Income	$695K	$11K	$1K	$0K
Total Income	$3565K	$824K	$2132K	$1280K
Operating Expenses:	$2669K	$668K	$1142K	$380K
Donations to Others:	$58K	$20K	$46K	$17K
Other Expenses:	$51K	$24K	$16K	$0K
Total Expenses:	$2,778K	$712K	$1204K	$396K

First, a few comments:

• Only FnSA-PAC and Huck-PAC were in existence the entire year of 2009. Sarah-PAC was in operation for eleven months and FF-PAC only for the last three.
• The first three months of a PAC’s existence are often “Barn Burners”.  Their numbers usually settle down after that first quarter.
• The “<=$200″ and “>$200″ categories are often misunderstood.  The numbers reflect the total contributed by that person for the entire year. So for example if one supporter donates $20 every month to a PAC, they would end up donating $240 for the entire year and thus would be classed in the ‘>$200′ catagory even though they had made twelve sub-$200 donations.

Here are the Contributions per Month numbers:

FnSA-PAC	Huck-PAC	Sarah-PAC	FF-PAC
$239K	$68K	$194K	$427K

As you can see, Pawlenty did far and away the best here.  Since this consists entirely of the FF-PAC’s first quarter year of existence, it is difficult to compare apples to apples with the rest of them.  The numbers next year will give us a better idea on how well he is doing in relationship to the others.  In the meantime, Romney led the rest with Palin close behind with about 80% of his total.  Huckabee is far back with only about 16% of Pawlenty’s, 28% of Romney’s, and 35% of Palin’s.

Here are the percentage of $200 or less donations for each candidate:

FnSA-PAC	Huck-PAC	Sarah-PAC	FF-PAC
30%	73%	64%	8%

Huckabee  received the greatest portion of his donations from small donations — nearly 3 out every 4 dollars he took in came from this catagory.  He was followed closely by Palin — nearly 2 out of three dollars.  Romney had one out of three dollars of donations that came from this source.  Pawlenty had less than one in ten.

As with all percentages, it is important to remember the raw numbers here.  For instance, even though Huckabee’s percentage was more than double that of Romney’s, he in actuality took in considerably less money from “sub-$200″ contributors than Romney.

Here are the percentages of “Donations to Others” to “Total Contributions Received”:

FnSA-PAC	Huck-PAC	Sarah-PAC	FF-PAC
2.00%	2.14%	2.13%	1.31%

As can be seen, Romney, Huckabee, and Palin are all well within the same ballpark while Pawlenty lags behind.  This is understandable since they are just getting started.

All PAC s have similar numbers.  The sad fact of the matter is they are all extremely inefficient at getting your money into the hands of outside people and causes the PAC supports.  They exist primarily to promote the cause of the PAC’s controller.  If you want money to get to a particular candidate, it is far better to contribute directly to his campaign or his PAC than to an outside PAC.  Less than a penny of your donation dollar will make it to him from the outside PAC.

I am looking forward to July of next year.  That is when the mid-year numbers will come out.  All PACs must file them mid-year reports.  They will all have been in existence for more than three months.  That means those numbers will be apples to apples — no caveats.

-R4’12 is pleased to feature this guest post from Matthew Newman-KWN
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In 2010, a conservative superstar was born in Adam Andrzejewski. He ran a spirited campaign for Governor of Illinois with a great deal of grassroots support that, sadly, lost the GOP primary. For the politically inexperienced Andrzejewski, the fact that he received 14.5% in the GOP primary is actually a major accomplishment considering he began the primary season polling around 2%. Conservatives have shown an affinity to Andrzejewski and it would be disappointing if his promising political ambitions end with the loss in this campaign. My suggestion? Run for Congress in 2012.

Andrzejewski currently resides in Illinois’ 13th District, which is currently represented by 72 year old Republican Congresswoman Judy Biggert. Biggert is a member of the Republican Mainstreet Partnership and Republicans for Choice. While she has a mostly conservative record on issues of taxation, a review of major votes and interest group ratings paint an interesting picture on other conservative issues. Biggert totes the party line when whipped, but she has crossed party lines on issues that may annoy some conservative such as to expand hate crimes, increase spending federal community service programs, give the FDA power over tobacco products, and to support overriding Bush’s veto of federal spending on embryonic stem cell research. She’s decidedly pro-choice and has gotten high marks from a PAC which supports expanded federal funding of the arts. In 2009, the Club for Growth gave her an 18% on their RePORK Card. In the end, the people of the 13th district can do better – Andrzejewski would be much better.

For those who do not know, Andrzejewski is a 40 year old self-made millionaire. In 1997, he founded the publishing firm HomePages Directories with his brother. The company published “hometown” phonebooks which were hyper-local (~7 mile radius) and became very successful. Success Magazine highlighted their business in 2006. After he sold off his portion of the company, he created a grassroots organization to teach people how to organize and lobby to get local school boards / counties to post specific spending details on-line. The results in increasing transparency across Illinois have been remarkable.

Andrzejewski is an across the board conservative who is young, charismatic, and can eloquently present his views on the issues. As a member of Congress, it would give Andrzejewski a forum to discuss the issues and a new arena that needs someone fighting for transparency. It’s not the executive position he was born to fill, but it is a good role that he can succeed in. It will also allow him to hone his political skills with difficult, but winnable campaigns. Following success in Congress, Andrzejewski becomes an increasingly viable candidate for Governor in future elections (2014 or 2018) or potentially for US Senate (2014).

America needs more people like Andrzejewski. I hope we see more of him on the national stage in the future – a Congressional run is a great way to start.

My latest column is up at Pajamas Media

Advocates of legalized abortion bristle when pro-life advocates call them pro-abortion. Their typical position is best defined by President Clinton’s position on the procedure: that abortion should be “safe, legal, and rare.”

Six years ago, I examined the abortion polls, and the polling data indicated Americans were quite conflicted on the issue. A change of wording changed the whole outcome of the poll.

A 2003 CNN poll did show some amazing results regarding abortion restriction questions asked in straightforward ways. Americans oppose abortion in the second (68%) and third (84%) trimesters. Americans likewise support informed consent laws (88%), a 24-hour waiting period (78%), parental consent for minors (73%), and even spousal notification for married women (72%).

Yet not many on the left advocate for these policies. Indeed, each restriction on abortion only passes as a result of herculean efforts to shepherd the bill through the legislature and then fend off years of court challenges. While many Americans are sincerely pro-choice, the leftist groups that claim to represent pro-choice Americans have shown themselves to be sincerely pro-abortion.

First consider the Super Bowl ad starring college football standout Tim Tebow. The ad is a thirty-second spot produced by Focus on the Family that tells the story of how Tebow’s mother continued her pregnancy despite complications that threatened her life. Abortion rights groups have gone nuclear with calls for the ad not to be aired and attacks on Tebow and Focus on the Family. (A second ad, also featuring Tebow, was announced by the pro-life group on the Friday before the Super Bowl.)

The ad doesn’t advocate for or against any legislation. It only encourages women to choose to continue their pregnancies. If the goal of pro-choice America is to reduce the number of abortions, why does anyone have a problem with the ad?

Peggy Noonan writes a truly fantastic column in today’s Wall Street Journal. Some of the best bits are below:

The American version [[DS: of Britain's Question Time] might not translate so well. The Brits have a certain tradition of elegance in debate, and enjoy insulting each other. American politicians are more conflicted about obvious aggression, not about feeling it but showing it—it might not play well!—and so they tend to go under or over the line. “You lie!” “Yeah? Well you’re blankin’ developmentally challenged!” We will miss Fritz Hollings, the former Democratic senator who once said to then-Sen. John Glenn, in a presidential primary debate, “But what have you done in the world?”

If an American version could take place regularly, outside Congress and on neutral territory, as the gangs say in “West Side Story,” there could be benefits. It would momentarily force members and the president to focus together on what’s actually happening this week, and, more important, it might force members of Congress to be more familiar with the bills they support. They might actually have to know what’s in them and show a grasp of details. This might tend to produce fewer omnibus bills. “You expect me to know and talk about what’s in that? It’s 2,000 pages! Cut it down to 20 and give it a new name.”

Both our political parties continue, even though they know they shouldn’t, even though they’re each composed of individuals many of whom actually know what time it is, even though they know we are in an extraordinary if extended moment, an ongoing calamity connected to our economic future, our nation’s standing in the world, our strength and our safety—even though they know all this, they continue to go through the daily motions, fund raising, vote counting, making ads with demon sheep, blasting out the latest gaffe of the other team. Our political professionals cheapen everything they touch because they are burying themselves in daily urgencies in order to dodge and avoid the big picture.

America doesn’t need to be told that something bad will happen. America needs to be told what is being done, what will be done and what can be done, how together we’ll get through it, what information and attitude to take into the future. They don’t need to be made anxious, they need to be recruited into a common endeavor.

Instead both parties, understandably and yet wickedly, destructively, irresponsibly, use the nation’s safety as another issue on which to protect their political position.

But the tendency of both parties to default to politics when they think about terrorism—”You’re weak,” “No, you’re bellicose,” “You’re avoiding reality to advance some dreamy geopolitical vision,” “You’re exploiting reality to make cheap points”—cannot be heartening to the public.

The biggest historic gain of this administration may turn out to be that Democrats in the White House experienced leadership in the age of terror, came to have responsibility in a struggle that needs and will need our focus. It wasn’t good that half the country thought jihadism was some little Republican obsession.

But both parties should sober up. The day after the next bad thing, we will all come together, because that is what we do. Republicans and Democrats will work together, for a while.

It would be better to do it now. It is their job to do it now.

My uncle, a Chief of Staff on Capitol Hill, and I were talking about the state of political affairs in this country on Monday, and he pointed out how between an increasingly polarized media and an increasingly polarized political situation in Washington, DC, it is hard to work on the major issues. These issues include but are not limited to Social Security, Medicare, health care, energy and national security. Related to this point, Noonan said:

I think sometimes of the suburbs around Washington, which are planted thick with knowledgable veterans of government—old national-security and foreign-policy hands, patriots of both parties who’ve served within government, in and out of the military. How painful it must be for them to watch all this, knowing what they know and understanding that political party, at a time like this, means nothing. There is so much experience to share, and so much wisdom, from both parties. I wish those old hands had more say.

As I said above, this column is truly excellent. That said, Noonan does miss two key points that my libertarian friend Jon O’Neill pointed out. His first point was that the real issue at hand is that our officials are not following the Constitution. Secondly, we let ourselves be satisfied that the same officials who failed us on 9/11 (I would add that government officials also failed us regarding the economic crash in 2008 and America’s fiscal crisis) will take good care of us and our loved ones. To paraphrase Jon, this is folly.

I think Jon has hit the nail on the head- however, Noonan’s points are still very well-taken. Americans tend to ask “what,” which is important. But it is just as important is to ask “why” and “how.” Without these two, knowing the “what” of any situation is very, very limited.

*This was originally posted at THE LOBBYIST.

Research 2000/Daily Kos New Hampshire Senatorial Survey

GOP Primary

• Kelly Ayotte 36%
• Ovide Lamontagne 27%
• Bill Binnie 4%

Among Men

• Ovide Lamontagne 31%
• Kelly Ayotte 30%
• Bill Binnie 5%

Among Women

• Kelly Ayotte 44%
• Ovide Lamontagne 22%
• Bill Binnie 3%

Senatorial Election

• Kelly Ayotte (R) 46% (39%)
• Paul Hodes (D) 39% (38%)

• Paul Hodes (D) 45%
• Bill Binnie (R) 35%

• Paul Hodes (D) 46%
• Ovide Lamontagne (R) 36%

Favorable / Unfavorable {Net}

• Kelly Ayotte 54% (36%) / 24% (13%) {+30%}
• Paul Hodes 47% (34%) / 29% (21%) {+18%}
• Barack Obama 55% (62%) / 38% (30%) {+17%}
• Bill Binnie 31% / 30% {+1%}
• Ovide Lamontagne 34% / 39% {-5%}
• The Democratic Party 38% / 49% {-11%}
• The Republican Party 32% / 54% {-22%}

Survey of 600 likely voters was conducted February 1-3, 2010. The margin of error is +/- 4 percentage points. Results from the poll conducted July 13-15, 2009 are in parentheses. Party ID breakdown: 31% Democrat; 30% Republican; 39% Independent.

The Democrats officially ceded the seat of their fallen hero—a seat they had held since the late Ted Kennedy’s brother occupied the White House—when Vice President Biden administered the oath of office to Republican Scott Brown this week. Brown’s arrival in Washington sounds the death knell for the dreamlike demands of President Obama’s liberal base. Gone are the days of health care optimism and cap and trade consensus. Silence reigns where there were once cries for a second stimulus and righteous calls for a New York City civilian trial for 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

At least Obama had fair warning. Fragmentation of Democratic majorities began last November in New Jersey and Virginia. At the time, I described the gubernatorial victories of Republicans Chris Christie and Bob McDonnell as needed boosts for a desperate Republican Party, not direct repudiations of Obama’s policies. For the GOP to continue such success, it would have to court Independents and field “the right candidate…trumpeting a tailored message.” Three months later, despite doomsday predictions of the Tea Party’s rise, Republicans have utilized this game plan to perfection. The American public has indeed rejected the Democratic mantra of more: more spending, more debt, and more centralization of power in Washington. Judging by history, however, Obama should be quietly cheering his party’s fall from grace this coming November. Yes, you heard me correctly—root for the Republicans, Mr. President.

Telling of a man who grounded his 2008 campaign in centrist rhetoric, Obama has been willing to punt the liberal agenda to Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Capitol Hill. On top of the criticism that boxes him in from his left and right, the president has watched the center slip from his fingers. Therefore, Obama cannot tie his legacy to Democrats in Congress if he has any hope of turning his fortunes. In fact, working with a resurgent opposition party after 2010 would insolate the president from warring factions in search of his head. Then-candidate Obama enraged many Democrats when he claimed that Ronald Reagan had altered the trajectory of the political landscape in a way Bill Clinton had not. He did not mention that, as Jonathan Rauch of the National Journal reminds us, both Reagan and Clinton, the most popular and successful recent chief executives, shared power for significant portions of their terms. Detractors to the divided government theory may argue that George W. Bush benefited from Republican majorities in Congress throughout most of his presidency. How did that go for him in the end?

Data derived from the American Presidency Project demonstrates the counterintuitive notion that a Congress run by the rival party need not cripple a sitting president. The combined concurrence percentage of combined House and Senate votes to the expressed wishes of President Eisenhower (an underrated president) was roughly 70 percent. This statistic is relatively high until you consider that less successful presidents like Jimmy Carter (77%) and G.W. Bush (81%) witnessed better levels of concurrence. Reagan left office with a 62 percent concurrence mark and a 63 percent approval rating. Clinton’s Congress voted for his policy proposals only 57 percent of the time, but he exited the White House with support from two-thirds of the nation.

Christie, McDonnell, and Brown are just the first wave. Voters are frustrated with the priorities of Democrats in Washington. The economy is slowly recovering, but it will be a long march out of the woods. Republicans are priming viable, jobs-focused candidates in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. Shift to the center and Obama could enjoy a Clintonesque revival after the midterm elections. Embrace arrogance and partisanship, and Obama’s legacy will follow the path blazed by Carter and Bush.

In 1993-94, Democratic support for allowing gays to serve openly in the military was part of a trifecta of issues that convinced Americans that the Republican Party — which had been discredited as a big-spending, knuckle-dragging party thanks to the leadership of a president named Bush — was actually the party closest to the political pulse of mainstream America. Along with Bill Clinton’s attempt to overhaul the health care system and a huge tax increase, “gays in the military,” as the issue was framed, provided Americans with evidence that Democrats were generally opposed to the principles that made America exceptional, that is, the principles and traits that make the United States of America different from pretty much every place else. The result was the election of a Republican House of Representatives for the first time since the 1950s, led by a techno-libertarian Speaker named Newt Gingrich.

Now, in the wake of another Republican collapse thanks to another socially conservative Rockefeller Republican named Bush, the GOP appears to be mounting yet a second comeback based on libertarian and small government principles as the Democrats once again prove themselves to be the enemies of individual liberty, fiscal sanity, and American exceptionalism. This time, instead of HillaryCare, it’s ObamaCare. Instead of Bill Clinton’s middle class tax hike, it’s Barack Obama’s tax hike on the future middle class through the stimulus and the bailouts and the trillions that will be spent down the road based on Democratic budgets. All of this was enough to create a big enough tent around small-government conservatism that a supporter of tax cuts and waterboarding just took his place in the U.S. Senate as the junior senator from Massachusetts. Republicans are a national party once again.

But some Republicans, reminiscent of the 1994 trifecta, want to take this opportunity to potentially screw everything up by making the GOP the party opposed to the repeal of the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy regarding gays serving in our armed forces. If Americans’ views on health care, taxes, and spending haven’t changed since 1994, these folks reason, then Americans probably remain opposed to gays serving openly in the military as well.

This view collapses like a house of cards with a look at the polling data on the subject over the past few years. The latest poll on the subject suggests that 61 percent of Americans support the ability of gays to serve openly in the military, with Republicans evenly divided on the subject and Independents opposing DADT by nearly forty points. This makes perfect sense, as America is a nation that tends to evolve over time when it comes to specific social mores even while it maintains the broader cultural traits that constitute American Exceptionalism. Americans will always be a fiercely independent, individualistic, strong-willed people with an innate distrust for central planning. That’s why it took a massive economic depression to usher in the New Deal, which paled in comparison to the socialist revolutions going on throughout the world and much of which was repealed in the years ahead. Americans’ opposition to fiscal insanity and economic collectivism is and always will be timeless, which is why Americans are reacting to Obamanomics much like the way they reacted to the initial version of Clintonomics.

But because of America’s individualism and dynamism, American culture is far from static, and is in fact a rapidly changing animal, along with its social norms. The radio is replaced by the television is replaced by the Internet. Records become CDs become MP3s. Artificial contraception is illegal and taboo, until it’s readily available and completely socially acceptable. Interracial marriage isn’t even recognized by some states, until it is. Gays are considered non-existent, and then folks to be kept in the closet, and finally, just fellow members of civil society.

Republicans need to be careful not to confuse the unchanging principles on which America and her culture is based with the ever-changing manner in which that culture is expressed. Equating continued opposition to government-run health care with continued opposition to gays in the military just because both were present in 1994 is folly. It would be like saying that because people supported economic freedom in the 1980s, and because the Bangles were popular in 1980s, if economic freedom is still popular, that means the Bangles are still popular. This clearly is not true. The Bangles were popular because they wrote songs that were consistent with the tastes of a particular generation at a particular time. Economic freedom was and is popular because it is a timeless principle on which our society is partly based. That’s the key distinction. As such, Republicans need to “walk like an Egyptian” away from the Siren’s song of DADT, and must remember that changing norms and evolving cultural mores are the natural products of a dynamic and individualistic society, the pillars on which American Exceptionalism rests.

Rasmussen Nevada Senatorial Survey

• Danny Tarkanian (R) 47% {50%} [49%] (50%)
• Harry Reid (D) 39% {36%} [43%] (43%)

• Sue Lowden (R) 45% {48%} [49%] (50%)
• Harry Reid (D) 39% {36%} [43%] (40%)

• Sharron Angle (R) 44% {44%} [47%]
• Harry Reid (D) 40% {40%} [43%]

• Brian Krolicki (R) 44%
• Harry Reid (D) 41%

Favorable / Unfavorable {Net}

• Sue Lowden: 48% {47%} [46%] (48%)/ 27% {28%} [32%] (27%) {+21%}
• Danny Tarkanian: 50% {49%} [49%] (57%) / 35% {28%} [30%] (30%) {+15%}
• Brian Krolicki 40% / 33% {+7%}
• Sharron Angle: 37% {39%} [40%] / 30% {33%} [37%] {+7%}
• Harry Reid: 44% {41%} [40%] (45%) / 55% {55%} [57%] (54%) {-11%}

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

• Strongly approve 27% {29%} [29%] (37%)
• Somewhat approve 19% {20%} [17%] (9%)
• Somewhat disapprove 9% {9%} [11%] (8%)
• Strongly disapprove 45% {41%} [44%] (45%)

How would you rate the job Jim Gibbons has been doing as Governor?

• Strongly approve 9% {9%} [7%]
• Somewhat approve 30% {26%} [28%]
• Somewhat disapprove 17% {27%} [24%]
• Strongly disapprove 42% {36%} [37%]

Survey of 500 Likely Voters was conducted February 2, 2010. Results from the poll conducted January 11, 2010 are in curly brackets. Results from the poll conducted December 9, 2009 are in square brackets. Results from the poll conducted September 14, 2009 are in parentheses.

Inside the numbers:

Male voters prefer the Republicans by double-digit margins in all four potential contests, while female voters trend slightly toward Reid. Voters not affiliated with either party break strongly toward the Republicans, particularly when Tarkanian is the choice.

This may not be the most relevant story here in the States, but the status of Nigerian President Umaru Yar’Adua has been the biggest story in Africa for months – and the issue finally came to a head today when he declared that he would step back and allow Vice-PresidentGoodluck Jonathan to become acting president while he convalesces.

Yar’Adua has been hospitalized in Saudi Arabia since November, suffering from both heart and kidney problems. However, he remained nominally in charge and did not cede even temporary power to his vice-president,  leaving a huge power vacuum. The cabinet had the power to declare the president incapacitated, but was hesitant to do so because the dominant People’s Democratic Party (PDP)prefers the presidency to rotate between the country’s Muslim North and Christian South every term. Yar’Adua is a Muslim from the Northern State of Katsina – but Vice-President Jonathan is a Christian from Bayelsa State in the South.

Hence, ceding the presidency to Jonathan would give the office to the South several years ahead of the time it was scheduled to take over. However it now appears that pressure from the opposition and within the cabinet has forced Yar’Adua’s hand.

The reason this is relevant is that Nigeria has a history of Muslim-Christian violence, and there have been clashes in recent months. Temporarily ceding the presidency to Jonathan solves the Yar’Adua health crisis, but it could inflame religious and ethnic tensions – and considering the state of Yar’Adua’s health, it seems likely that Acting President Jonathan could be in charge for more than just a few weeks or months. Here’s hoping he can provide a steady hand.

Footnote: How cool would it be to have “Goodluck” for a first name? I like it!

The headline at Politico reads: Al Franken lays into David Axelrod over health care bill

Sen. Al Franken ripped into White House senior adviser David Axelrod this week during a tense, closed-door session with Senate Democrats.

Five sources who were in the room tell POLITICO that Franken criticized Axelrod for the administration’s failure to provide clarity or direction on health care and the other big bills it wants Congress to enact.

The sources said Franken was the most outspoken senator in the meeting, which followed President Barack Obama’s question-and-answer session with Senate Democrats at the Newseum on Wednesday. But they also said the Minnesotan wasn’t the only angry Democrat in the room.

“There was a lot of frustration in there,” said a Democratic senator who declined to be identified.

“People were hot,” another Democratic senator said.

Democratic senators are frustrated that the White House hasn’t done more to win over the public on health care reform and other aspects of its ambitious agenda — and angry that, in the wake of Scott Brown’s win in the Massachusetts Senate race, the White House hasn’t done more to chart a course for getting a health care bill to the president’s desk.

To which I have to ask, “Well, what did they expect?” Just what in his resume suggests he would be a leader? Obama has practically no experience at it. He voted “Present” time after time in the Illinois State Legislature. He hardly did a thing while a U.S. Senator. The one thing that his resume says he’s good at is campaigning for his next job. And that is practically all that he has done since assuming office over a year ago, campaign.

I am, quite frankly, surprised it took this long for the Democrats’ anger and frustration to boil over. Last month’s State of the Union address had to be the last coal tossed on the fire. It was long on criticism of Congress for not getting Obama’s agenda passed, but short on any concrete leadership and help from the White House. Further heat was caused when members facing angry voters this fall got precious little sympathy from Obama. “Damn the torpedoes. Full speed ahead!” was the mantra coming from the administration with little concern for the political lives being sacrificed for the aggrandizement of “The One”.

I never thought I would see the day when I was cheering Al Franken on.

Which liberal is telling the truth; President Obama or Robert Reich?

Robert Reich served in the Clinton Administration as the 22nd Secretary of Labor.

CNN/Opinion Research Favorability Survey on Sarah Palin and the Tea Party Movement

Favorable / Unfavorable {Net}

• Tea Party movement 33% / 26% {+7%}
• Sarah Palin 43% {46%} (42%) [39%] {46%} / 46% {46%} (51%) [48%] {43%} {-3%}

Survey of 1,009 adults was conducted January 22-24, 2010. The margin of error is +/- 3 percentage points. Results from the poll conducted December 2-3, 2009 are in curly brackets. Results from the poll conducted October 16-18, 2009 are in parentheses. Results from the poll conducted July 31 – August 3, 2009 are in square brackets. Results from the poll conducted May 14-17, 2009 are in curly brackets.

Inside the numbers:

“The Tea Party movement is a blank slate to many Americans, which is not surprising for a political movement that is only about a year old,” says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland. “Not surprisingly, opinion breaks along partisan and ideological lines.”

According to the survey, Democrats by a two-to-one margin have an unfavorable view of the Tea Party movement; Republicans like it by a three-to-one margin. Among Independents, 35 percent of Independents holding a positive view and 24 percent a negative view.

“Opinion on Sarah Palin also breaks down along party lines, with seven in ten Democrats disliking her and seven in ten Republicans with a positive view of Palin. She has a net-negative rating among Independents: 42 percent favorable and 47 percent unfavorable,” adds Holland. “She also continues to rate better among men than women.”

2010 is shaping up to be a banner year for Republicans. The American people are learning once again that when you scratch a Democrat, you will nearly always find a good old-fashioned tax-and-spend liberal. Spending is up and going higher. Deficits are up and going higher. Taxes are up and going higher. So you would think that now would be a great time for Republicans to drive home the point that we are the fiscal conservatives. Right?

Apparently the Republican Senator from Alabama, Richard Shelby, didn’t get the memo. He has placed a hold on all of Obama’s nominees in the Senate. Not one, not a couple, not a few, but ALL of them. The latest count is somewhere around 70.

And the reason for this massive gum-up the works? Does he doubt their qualifications? No. Does he have a problem with their records? No. Is he concerned with their attitudes, ideology, and/or approach to their prospective jobs? No. Well, if not any of those, then what?

Shelby doesn’t think the Obama Administration is moving fast enough in delivering pork to Alabama.

Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) has put an extraordinary “blanket hold” on at least 70 nominations President Obama has sent to the Senate, according to multiple reports this evening. The hold means no nominations can move forward unless Senate Democrats can secure a 60-member cloture vote to break it, or until Shelby lifts the hold.

According to the report, Shelby is holding Obama’s nominees hostage until a pair of lucrative programs that would send billions in taxpayer dollars to his home state get back on track. The two programs Shelby wants to move forward or else:

- A $40 billion contract to build air-to-air refueling tankers. From CongressDaily: “Northrop/EADS team would build the planes in Mobile, Ala., but has threatened to pull out of the competition unless the Air Force makes changes to a draft request for proposals.” Federal Times offers more details on the tanker deal, and also confirms its connection to the hold.

- An improvised explosive device testing lab for the FBI. From CongressDaily: “[Shelby] is frustrated that the Obama administration won’t build” the center, which Shelby earmarked $45 million for in 2008. The center is due to be based “at the Army’s Redstone Arsenal.”

Notice the word “earmarked” in that last sentence.

This is already causing GOP embarrassment:

- Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s office first doubted the story was true. Later, after Shelby confirmed it, McConnell’s office refused to talk about the holds.

With friends like these…

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

-

Ever since Adam fell, man has longed for Eden.  But mortal men, being prone to error and mischief, can’t agree on how to achieve it.  Enoch lived so well that “God took him,” whereas Noah floated away from social strife and started over at Ararat.

Since then, things haven’t gone too well.  On every continent, history is littered with tribal wars, power-hungry Caesars, Napoleons, and Hitlers.  Utopian proposals from Plato’s Republic to Marxist philosophy fill library shelves. War, intrigue, poverty and mass murder are man’s lot.

Today, two great social philosophies vie for the mind of man: individual freedom with the rule of law as embodied in America’s Constitution, and Communism, as embodied in the Communist Manifesto (later the Humanist Manifesto).  Both claim to be an attempt to satisfy the needs of man, the one clearly stating that individual freedom is endowed by God, the other teaching that intelligent men can organize and provide for the needs of the masses.

The Manifesto lists steps to be taken in order to achieve world totalitarian government:

Free public education for all children; combination of education with industrial production; ownership of industry and banking by the State; centralization of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State; a heavy progressive or graduated income tax; abolition of private property ownership and right of inheritance; equal liability of all to labor…

Note how events occurring in our country today closely follow these steps.  And since Communism is atheistic, there are no rules, so anything—deceit, force, immorality, greed—is justified as means to an end.

Communism (in the guise of socialism, humanism, progressivism, liberalism, etc.) has been around for a long time; it became more aggressive in the 19th century, and exploded in the 20th.  An attempted purge of American communists after WWII led by Senator McCarthy was a failure, leaving the movement free to grow and prosper right here in our Constitutional Republic.

By the 1960’s, we had “flower children,” university students indoctrinated in Marxist propaganda, protest techniques, and how to foment dissent and conflict.

Calling themselves progressives, those students today are ensconced in positions of leadership in corporations, foundations, education, politics, the judiciary, and the media.

Since most Americans still believe in personal freedom and self-reliance, America is the biggest obstacle to world domination; thus, great care is taken to camouflage the ultimate goal of the progressive movement.  It is hidden behind twisted logic, double talk and outright lies, and is the power behind the environmentalist movement, the global warming farce, and the economic crisis.  Today, Communist disciples—some who know clearly what the end goal is and some who gullibly follow the propaganda line—have taken over the Democratic Party and infiltrated the Republican Party; they run unions and serve in cabinet posts.  And last year, they finally made it to the White House.

- Silver Fox

Rasmussen Survey on Political Labels

Suppose a candidate was described to you politically as a liberal. Would you consider that a positive description, a negative description, or somewhere in between?

• Positive description 14% (15%)
• Negative description 39% (41%)
• Somewhere in between 45% (42%)

Suppose a candidate was described to you politically as a progressive. Would you consider that a positive description, a negative description, or somewhere in between?

• Positive description 22% (32%)
• Negative description 35% (27%)
• Somewhere in between 36% (36%)

What if a candidate was described to you politically as a conservative? Would you consider that a positive description, a negative description, or somewhere in between?

• Positive description 40% (32%)
• Negative description 16% (29%)
• Somewhere in between 43% (37%)

What about a candidate who was described to you politically as a populist? Would you consider that a positive description, a negative description, or somewhere in between?

• Positive description 8%
• Negative description 36%
• Somewhere in between 49%

What if a candidate was described to you politically as a libertarian? Would you consider that a positive description, a negative description, or somewhere in between?

• Positive description 18%
• Negative description 31%
• Somewhere in between 47%

Survey of 1,000 Likely Voters was conducted February 3-4, 2010. The margin of error is +/- 3 percentage points. Results from the poll conducted September 8-9 are in parentheses.

Inside the numbers:

Fifty-five percent (55%) of liberals think the term liberal is a political positive, and a plurality (47%) of those voters like progressive, too.

Sixty-nine percent (69%) of conservatives regard conservative as a politically positive description.

Sixty-five percent (65%) of Republican voters rate conservative as a positive, a view shared by 39% of voters not affiliated with either party and just 17% of Democrats.

Rasmussen Colorado Senatorial Survey

• Jane Norton (R) 51% (49%) {46%} [45%]
• Michael Bennet (D) 37% (37%) {37%} [36%]

• Jane Norton (R) 45% (47%) {45%} [42%]
• Andrew Romanoff (D) 38% (35%) {34%} [34%]

• Tom Wiens (R) 45% (44%) {42%}
• Michael Bennet (D) 40% (38%) {41%}

• Tom Wiens (R) 42% (44%) {41%}
• Andrew Romanoff (D) 40% (39%) {40%}

• Ken Buck (R) 45% (43%) {42%}
• Michael Bennet (D) 41% (38%) {38%}

• Ken Buck (R) 45% (40%) {41%}
• Andrew Romanoff (D) 39% (39%) {39%}

Favorable / Unfavorable {Net}

• Jane Norton 49% (51%) {49%} [47%] / 31% (26%) {32%} [30%] {+18%}
• Ken Buck 43% (38%) {36%} / 26% (20%) {26%} {+17%}
• Tom Wiens 35% (36%) {37%} / 30% (24%) {30%} {+5%}
• Andrew Romanoff 40% (40%) {44%} [37%] / 37% (36%) {35%} [41%] {+3%}
• Michael Bennet 42% (42%) {39%} [36%] (41%) / 40% (40%) {46%} [49%] (34%) {+2%}

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

• Strongly approve 33% (32%) <32%> {31%} [35%] (35%)
• Somewhat approve 12% (15%) <13%> {19%} [13%] (16%)
• Somewhat disapprove 8% (9%) <7%> {6%} [8%] (7%)
• Strongly disapprove 45% (43%) <47%> {43%} [43%] (41%)

How would you rate the job Bill Ritter has been doing as Governor?

• Strongly approve 17% (16%) <14%> {18%} [11%] (15%)
• Somewhat approve 23% (29%) <30%> {29%} [29%] (34%)
• Somewhat disapprove 24% (27%) <15%> {20%} [25%] (20%)
• Strongly disapprove 32% (28%) <37%> {31%} [32%] (29%)

Survey of 500 likely voters was conducted February 2, 2010. The margin of error is +/- 4.5 percentage points. Results from the poll conducted January 6, 2010 are in angle brackets. Results from the poll conducted December 8, 2009 are in curly brackets. Results from the poll conducted September 15, 2009 are in square brackets. Results from the poll conducted September 9, 2009 are in parentheses.

WMUR Granite State Poll

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

• Approve 48% (55%) [61%] {63%}
• Disapprove 47% (40%) [33%] {29%}

Among Independents

• Approve 39% (65%)
• Disapprove 53% (29%)

Do you approve or disapprove of the way President Obama is handling the economy?

• Approve 41% (51%) [57%] {58%}
• Disapprove 54% (46%) [39%] {35%}

Among Independents

• Approve 29% (59%)
• Disapprove 59% (37%)

Do you approve or disapprove of the way President Obama is handling foreign affairs?

• Approve 53% (52%) [63%] {65%}
• Disapprove 40% (40%) [29%] {26%}

Among Independents

• Approve 48% (61%)
• Disapprove 40% (28%)

Do you approve or disapprove of the way Barack Obama is handling health care policy?

• Approve 36% (44%)
• Disapprove 58% (49%)

Among Independents

• Approve 23% (45%)
• Disapprove 64% (43%)

The U.S. House and Senate have just passed legislation that would overhaul the nation’s heath care system. Based on what you have seen or heard, do you favor or oppose the health care legislation that is going through Congress?

• Favor 26%
• Oppose 57%

Among Independents

• Favor 19%
• Oppose 57%

(Among those who favor the health care legislation) Suppose the current healthcare legislation does not get final approval and is not signed into law. Would you be very upset, somewhat upset, not too upset, or not upset at all?

• Very upset 44%
• Somewhat upset 39%
• Not too upset 10%
• Not upset at all 6%

(Among those who oppose the health care legislation) Suppose the current healthcare legislation gets final approval and is signed into law. Would you be very upset, somewhat upset, not too upset, or not upset at all?

• Very upset 57%
• Somewhat upset 33%
• Not too upset 6%
• Not upset at all 3%

Do you have a favorable or unfavorable opinion of President Barack Obama?

• Favorable 52% (56%) [62%] {64%}
• Unfavorable 41% (35%) [30%] {27%}

Among Independents

• Favorable 52% (64%)
• Unfavorable 37% (27%)

Survey of 500 adults was conducted January 27 – February 4, 2010. The margin of error is +/- 4.4 percentage points. Results from the poll conducted October 2009 are in parentheses. Results from the poll conducted July 2009 are in square brackets. Results from the poll conducted April 2009 are in curly brackets.

I suppose the idea of having your pint served in a non-threatening vessel is a good thing. But for government to mandate new glasses is a little absurd (though the test video is pretty cool).

Wouldn’t it be easier to mandate that we give people their beer in plastic sippy cups? It works for toddlers, they’re absolutely unbreakable, and you wouldn’t even lose the beer if you drop it!

In discussions about ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’, there’s a lot of storytelling and anecdotes from people who’ve never served in the military. That’s fine.

Uninformed opinions are covered under the 1st Amendment. As some who’s served and who presently works for the Army I thought I’d examine this issue on the basis of fact.

First, I’ve noticed the loudest voices are using DADT as a proxy for their stand on other “gay’s rights” issues. This is to be expected since relatively few homosexuals violate the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” regulation. Between 1-2% of homosexual warfighters are disciplined for disobeying DADT each year (~600).

The military is another society. We have our own laws, our own courts and our own standards of conduct. While we are accountable to civilian law and civilian authority, we are clearly not a part of that society. When civilians treat our society as a mirror of the civilian society they forget that we’re different for reasons. We’re a society tasked with obeying orders, accomplishing the impossible, acting primarily as a team, and facing life threatening danger.

So let’s dwell on fact not stereotypes, propaganda or on anecdotes.

As stated before relatively few soldiers are disciplined for DADT. This may mask many homosexuals who don’t want to serve in the military unless they can disclose their homosexual preference.

So the downside of DADT is likely relatively mild (for the military) but we can’t be sure.

The benefits of DADT are likewise hard to quantify. About 24% of warfighters in a recent militarytimes poll claimed they’ll resign or not re-enlist if DADT is repealed. It’s hard to tell how many warfighters will do so.

I suspect the areas of the military least likely to tolerate public homosexuality are the least likely to attract homosexuals who value making their sexual preference public (Marines and Army have far below their proportion of warfighters discharged for DADT). From my personal experience I expect the services that have more female officers (USAF, USN) to attract more open homosexuals. I expect the Army, Marines and Special Forces to continue attracting closeted homosexuals who prefer privacy over acceptance.

I can’t really predict the quantitative effect of repealing DADT but I suspect we’ll see a lot of the warfighters who oppose DADT having worse morale and weaker trust of their leadership. That argues for opponents of DADT to wait until fewer warfighters are deployed and allowing services to gradually implement the new policy.

Perhaps things will be no worse than the UK’s peacetime repeal of their version of DADT. However given the more religious, conservative and blue collar nature of our military I think that’s a bit optimistic.

We should expect after this policy to see legions of politically correct weenies hassling warfighters over sensitivity training and accepting homosexuality. Hopefully the Army, Marines and Special Forces will be able to avoid that torture for the safety of the political correct weenies.

As an Army employee I will continue to support and work for those who serve and protect.

Lead singer Tom Jefferson tells George III that it’s “Too Late to Apologize”, ably assisted by fellow band members Ben Franklin and John Adams.

Rasmussen Kentucky Senatorial Survey

• Trey Grayson (R) 49% [44%] (44%)
• Dan Mongiardo (D) 35% [37%] (37%)

• Rand Paul (R) 48% [49%] (43%)
• Dan Mongiardo (D) 37% [35%] (38%)

• Trey Grayson (R) 44% [45%] (40%)
• Jack Conway (D) 40% [35%] (40%)

• Rand Paul (R) 47% [46%] (38%)
• Jack Conway (D) 39% [38%] (42%)

Favorable / Unfavorable {Net}

• Trey Grayson 61% [57%] (53%) / 18% [21%] (20%) {+43%}
• Rand Paul 54% [57%] (51%) / 26% [25%] (23%) {+28%}
• Jack Conway 47% [46%] (49%) / 32% [36%] (27%) {+15%}
• Dan Mongiardo 45% [44%] (41%) / 43% [44%] (43%) {+2%}

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

• Strongly approve 28% [22%] (29%)
• Somewhat approve 14% [19%] (18%)
• Somewhat disapprove 11% [13%] (12%)
• Strongly disapprove 46% [46%] (41%)

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

• Strongly approve 10% [14%] (17%)
• Somewhat approve 39% [39%] (42%)
• Somewhat disapprove 29% [31%] (25%)
• Strongly disapprove 19% [13%] (16%)

Survey of 500 Likely Voters was conducted February 2, 2010. The margin of error is +/- 4.5 percentage points. Results from the poll conducted January 6, 2010 are in square brackets. Results from the poll conducted September 30, 2009 are in parentheses.

Because I tend to assume the best of people, I’m going to choose to believe that Adam didn’t really mean that devious gay men would  join the military for the sole purpose of raping heterosexuals.  For one thing, I suspect such criminally insane miscreants would never pass the psych eval.  Anyone who’d endure basic training, a grueling fitness schedule, and possible combat,  just to get a little illicit action, was born in a padded cell and has only stepped out to get medical attention for the body parts they’ve gnawed off.

But, let’s assume something that is probably reasonable- some gays, like some straights, are likely to commit sexual crimes and the law of probability suggests that some of those gay sexual “predators” will eventually end up in the military.  Is this really relevant to a DADT debate?  In the current climate all military gays are, by definition, anonymous.  With DADT repealed they would be “out”.  It’s not remotely clear to me why making their sexuality more apparent would make them more effective as predators.  If anything, it ought to be the other way around.  It’s easier to work evil in the dark, as it were.

More importantly though, Adam’s argument fails the simple test of history.  How have extreme minority groups, historically, behaved when surrounded by the majority?  Are there any instances, anywhere, of a minority banding together, without superiority of weaponry, social power, etc, to oppress the majority?  And remember, these deviant gay predators aren’t just minorities.  They’re an extreme minority of an extreme minority.  Maybe 5% of 2%- for the mathematically challenged, 1 in 1000.

Nor does Adam take the least notice of the structure of the military.  Men and women who serve, aside from being brave beyond the normal and decent beyond the normal, are also pressed beyond the normal.  Their lives are ordered.  They have places to be, duties to fulfil.  There’s no rest for the weary and the soldier wishes he were merely weary.  In order to accept Adam’s argument I’d have to believe that exceedingly rare sexual predators, hidden in an exemplary bunch of individuals, would somehow find each other and, against the incredible order of their daily lives and against the recorded behavior of every known minority in history, somehow band together and terrorize an overwhelming majority as capable of fending for themselves as any in human experience.  It is ludicrous.  It defies belief.

And frankly it defies common decency.  Whatever one thinks about homosexual behavior, homosexual behavior is not at issue in DADT.  No one, gay or straight, is permitted to have sex while performing their duties.  No one, gay or straight, ought to be protected from justice if they violate this rule.  DADT will not change this.  But it will allow thousands of patriotic and law-abiding Americans, who’ve committed no crime, to exist in a profession they love without lying to everyone around them.  It will give them a measure of peace.  I don’t know them but I know the world and I’d wager everything I own that they, not the poor defenseless heterosexual majority, will be the ones to suffer any negative consequences from DADT’s repeal.  If they’re willing to take that risk, who am I to stop them?

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Matthew E. Miller can be contacted at Obilisk18@yahoo.com

“We’re not going to save our way out of this recession. We’ve got to spend our way out of this recession.” – U.S. Majority Whip Jim Clyburn

Just days before Congressman Jim Clyburn had the “audacity” to admit what D.C. politicians were actually doing with our tax dollars, U.S. President Barack Obama had the cowardice to continue concealing government’s unprecedented generational larceny.

“It is critical that we rein in the budget deficits that we’ve been accumulating for far too long,” Obama said in unveiling his latest effort to distract American citizens from a looming fiscal Armageddon.

Of course, after proposing a so-called “budget freeze” in his State of the Union speech, Obama rolled out the “Mother of all Boondoggles” (for now, at least), a $3.8 trillion spending plan for the coming fiscal year that includes a record $1.6 trillion deficit (on top of the $1.4 trillion deficit government will run in the current fiscal year). By the end of this month, the Treasury now projects that the U.S. will hit its $12.4 trillion debt ceiling, coming on the heels of a vote last week in the Senate to raise the debt ceiling from $12.4 trillion to $14.294 trillion. And just this week, Moody’s warned that the nation’s Triple-A rating could be in jeopardy “if the current upward trend in government debt were to continue and become irreversible.”

“It would be a terrible mistake to borrow against our children’s future to pay our way today,” Obama said – but then he did just that, endorsing a spending plan that grows government by hundreds of billions of dollars when the nation can least afford it, and when the country’s first major entitlement bubble is about to burst.

According to a new CBO report, Social Security outlays will exceed revenues for the first time in 25 years in 2010 – and a wave of red ink is rapidly building up behind this immediate tipping point as the program will run permanent deficits beginning in 2016. Meanwhile a similar Medicaid implosion is on the horizon, and on top of these brewing disasters we have the hundreds of billions of dollars America must devote to interest payments on its mushrooming debt.

Yet amazingly, with the same sleight of hand that his so-called stimulus “created or saved” imaginary jobs (in non-existent Congressional districts), Obama now claims that federal deficits will begin to magically decline by 2012 – although even his rosiest numbers don’t envision annual deficits falling below $1 trillion until after 2020.

Where will our national debt be at that point? $24 trillion?

That’s classic Washington calculus though, isn’t it? Nothing ever gets cut from government, as we just have politicians who promise to borrow less of your money at some point in the increasingly distant future.  But that point in the future never actually arrives, because there is invariably some emergency or perceived social obligation which crops up to justify yet another massive expansion of government.

In addition to excluding such politically-correct contingencies from his spending plans, Obama also erroneously claims that future deficits could be reduced if only the U.S. Congress were to pass his socialized medicine proposal – with its estimated $2.5 trillion price tag.

Only according to Obama’s asinine arithmetic do spending explosions and entitlement expansions equate to future savings.

This fiscal lunacy is clearly not what the American people want. Yet even though they held up unmistakable “STOP” signs in elections in Virginia, New Jersey and Massachusetts, Obama and his Congressional allies are ignoring the message and pushing the pedal to the floor as they drive this nation off of a fiscal cliff.

Obama’s rampant spending isn’t even the gravest danger, either, as his budget threatens to exacerbate the damage by putting future economic growth in a stranglehold.

While Obama claims to have placed “jobs”  at the top of his priority list, his budget raises taxes on capital gains and hikes upper income tax brackets as part of an effort to pump more than $460 billion into government’s coffers – mirroring the faulty “payment plan” behind his socialized medicine proposal.

And while soaking the rich makes for great populist rhetoric, it doesn’t create jobs – in fact, it ensures that job creators keep what little money Washington leaves them with buried in their back yards, not making payroll.

With his presidency on the ropes, Barack Obama is portraying himself to the masses as a deficit hawk focused on improving our economy.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

His unprecedented spending binge would stab at the very heart of job creation in this country, while plunging this nation deeper into a deficit spiral from which it might never ever be able to escape.

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-Howard Rich, Chairman of Americans for Limited Government, is a Liberty Features Syndicated writer.

On average, gay men and women are better educated and have a higher earned income than Americans who live a heterosexual lifestyle.

Unfortunately, gay Americans continue to prove that a higher education and a comfortable bank account balance does not necessarily translate to being an educated voter.

There has been a lot of talk on the Obama administrations willingness to repeal the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell legislation, and predictably as with any political discussion surrounding gender, sexuality and race, anger is what is dominating the discussion, instead of reason.

I stand by the belief that only our military leaders should be allowed to develop social policy for our fighting forces.  Historically, this has proven to be the correct path, as it has protected our ability to fight wars and maintain social cohesion in our armed forces, and in the case of desegregation, it has positively influenced our civilian society.  Our military leadership will always make the correct decision when faced to make a decision on social policy, as they understand that the men and women in uniform fight for one another as much as they are inspired to fight for their country.

Case in point was President Clinton’s willingness to set back the rights of gay and lesbian servicemen and women by writing legislation that allowed for commanding officers to terminate the employment of a member of the armed forces if it were to be discovered that they were non-heterosexual.

William Jefferson Clinton’s decision to force the military leadership to politicize this issue pushed gays and lesbians further back into the closet.

The reason why not a single Republican President prior to the Clinton administration entered into this debate, was not because of a desire to protect gay and lesbian soldiers, but because they understood the role of the federal political leadership was to provide oversight, not politicize our military and the wars they fight on our behalf.

Ironically enough, the significant improvement in tolerance towards gays and lesbians that have occurred in our society in the last 15 years would have trickled down to our military personnel and their families and would have resulted in a more open and accepting 21st century military.  The Clinton agenda of social engineering prevented this natural course from occurring.

The changes in attitude and acceptance of gay Americans serving in the military would not have been official with a Rose Garden ceremony, or much discussed in today’s newspapers and talk radio, but the acceptance of gays and lesbians would have been unofficially…official in the minds of military personnel.  In fact, we would probably be reading about anti-harassment programs extended to include same-sex sensitivity training, as they are currently being expanded to reduce the number of male-to-female harassment and rape cases. 

But as we know, this is not the liberal way of dealing with social change.  To liberals, it must always be legislated, filled with pomp and circumstance, using the argument that, ‘it was a moral crusade’.

So before we turn the guns on one another or allow the Obama administration to portray conservatives as intolerant, let us remember who is the blame for this ongoing controversy that this tearing military units and families apart, and leaving gay Americans with the perception that they are excluded from serving their country.

The individual to blame is the man who was always willing to betray one of his core constituents, to achieve a political gain; William Jefferson Clinton.

The question I have for gay Americans and all traditional Democratic constituents, is how long are you planning on turning a blind eye to the  exploitation from which you suffer at the hands of liberal political leaders?  When will you realize that the party of personal liberty, is the Republican Party?