Research 2000 Iowa Political Survey

Gubernatorial Election

• Terry Branstad (R) 54%
• Chet Culver (D) 38%

• Chet Culver (D) 41%
• Bob Vander Plaats (R) 38%

• Chet Culver (D) 44%
• Chris Rants (R) 33%

UPDATE: Chris Rants has ended his gubernatorial campaign.

• Chet Culver (D) 48%
• Rod Roberts (R) 26%

Do you approve or disapprove of the job Chet Culver is doing as Governor?

• Approve 42%
• Disapprove 51%

Senatorial Election

• Chuck Grassley (R) 56%
• Roxanne Conlin (D) 35%

Favorable / Unfavorable {Net}

• Terry Branstad 61% / 24% {+37%}
• Charles Grassley 59% / 35% {+24%}
• Barack Obama 52% / 41% {+11%}
• Roxanne Conlin 41% / 36% {+5%}
• Bob Vander Plaats 36% / 34% {+2%}
• Chet Culver 44% / 43% {+1%}
• Rod Roberts 13% / 16% {-3%}
• Chris Rants 21% / 25% {-4%}

As you may know, same-sex marriages have been legal in Iowa for over a year. Would you favor or oppose a constitutional amendment which would overturn current law allowing same sex marriages in Iowa?

• Favor 39%
• Oppose 42%

Among Independents

• Favor 33%
• Oppose 45%

Among Republicans

• Favor 66%
• Oppose 13%

Regardless of how you feel about same-sex marriages, do you favor or oppose allowing same-sex couples the same benefits allowed to heterosexual couples, known as civil unions?

• Favor 51%
• Oppose 40%

Among Independents

• Favor 55%
• Oppose 35%

Among Republicans

• Favor 16%
• Oppose 68%

Do you approve or disapprove of the job Barack Obama is doing as President?

• Approve 49%
• Disapprove 46%

Among Independents

• Approve 47%
• Disapprove 48%

Do you favor or oppose the health care reform bill passed in December by the U.S. Senate?

• Favor 36%
• Oppose 57%

Among Independents

• Favor 35%
• Oppose 63%

Survey of 600 likely voters was conducted February 15-17, 2010. The margin of error is +/- 4 percentage points. Party ID breakdown: 33% Democrat; 29% Republican; 38% Independent.

Planned Parenthood urges extensive sex ed for 10 year olds.  (Hat Tip: Wizbang Blog.)

Planned Parenthood expands as Independent clinics close with your tax dollars.

Orwellian bureaucrats call mayor to account and demand apologies.

Nancy Pelosi misrepresents Catholic teaching-again.

Lest we forget: Hitler brought abortion to Poland.

Second Amendment Update from Gun Watch.

Virginia denies prisoner Christian CDs.

Music by Maetross via the Podsafe Music Network.

Click here to listen, click here to download.

Here is some coverage that I picked up of Huckabee in South Carolina earlier this week…

Mitt’s “Free and Strong America PAC” recently announced his upcoming book-signing schedule. It’s quite the tour. This is how they described it:

Mitt Romney’s nationwide tour in support of “No Apology: The Case for American Greatness” will take him to 19 states, the District of Columbia and Canada.

Publicity for the book begins March 2 in New York City, where Governor Romney will appear on NBC’s Today Show, ABC’s The View, FOX’s Sean Hannity and the David Letterman Show on CBS.

He is going to be one super busy guy. It starts on March 2 with the NYC media visits and runs with precious few days off until May 5th. He then gets a break for a couple of weeks, starts it up again and finally ends May 27 in Denver. Let’s not forget that it is doubtful many of those days off are set in stone. They could easily add more book-signings, media visits, and speeches as time goes on.

We now have the reason why Romney will be missing the SRLC this year.  It occurs smack dab in the middle of his book tour.

I tabulated the states he will be visiting expecting to see a pattern tied to Presidential politics. I don’t see one. For example, the first four states are IA, NH, SC, and NV.  You would expect him to be paying close attention to those, right?  Yet he only visits IA twice, NH and SC once each, and Nevada five times — and Nevada is probably the least important of them all.  Meanwhile he is scheduled in CA six times, FL six times, and TX three.  While Florida was important in 2008, there is no guarantee it will be that important in 2012.

So far the only pattern I can discern is a desire to sell a lot of books.  Which only makes sense if you think about it. The primaries are still nearly two years away. Any residual effect from the book tour publicity will be long dissipated by then.

Here is the results of the tabulation I did.  See if you can discern the pattern that I couldn’t.

We now interrupt our regularly scheduled CPAC commentary to discuss an issue of the utmost importance: the federal deficit.

Today, James Pethokoukis offered some insightful commentary on the President’s much-heralded deficit commission:

President Barack Obama might have stumbled upon a three-step path to financial crisis: 1) admit nation is dangerously in debt; 2) create high-profile deficit commission to find solution; 3) have commission fail. Subsequent market tumult could, of course, force a sudden, dramatic and harsh fix to America’s fiscal ills. But a rush job would be a poor way to solve the country’s long-term financial problems.

The immediate casualty of failure, however, would be the markets. Recall the House’s first vote against the $700 billion bank bailout in September 2008. The Dow industrials fell an unlucky 777 points in a flash. The bill passed two days later when panic set in on the Hill. Failure of the commission would send a frightful message to investors globally who have continued to buy trillions in Treasuries under the assumption hard budget choices would eventually be made.

True, a market jolt would again focus Congress’s attention. But that risks a hasty, ill-considered budget fix such as hiking taxes without a structural reform of America’s social insurance system. That would really be no solution at all.

Pethokoukis also provides a shout-out to Paul Ryan’s Roadmap at the end. I never considered the implications of an abject failure from the commission, but it seems entirely plausible, unless Obama arranges the commission through executive order. The fact that the bond vigilantes have yet to punish the government for deficits as far as the eye can see has thoroughly surprised me.

With the government embracing short-term measures to prop up the housing market and economy as a whole at the expense of allowing the free market to eliminate malinvestment built up over the years, they have simply put off the inevitable: a shock most likely scarier than what Pethokoukis suggested.

He also has a website asking people to make him president of the United States by constitutional amendment. Best quote, “I’ve been ‘running for President’ since Kerry got the Democratic nomination. A choice between two Yale satanic cult frat brothers is not democracy.” Okay…um…good luck with that…

Also, rumor flying around is that Sarah Palin will make a surprise appearance to introduce Glenn Beck – but then again I heard a rumor yesterday that George W. Bush would make a surprise appearance. So, take it for what you will.

While Marco Rubio may have been the keynote speaker of CPAC, the man speaking shortly before Glenn Beck is the one who I’ve got my eye on. His name is Lt. Col Allen West, and we have an obligation as a party to get this man into office.

He’s running for the House in Florida’s 22nd District against Democrat Ron Klein, who found his way into office in 2006. The Cook Index puts the district at +1 Democrat — in other words, a total swing district. A candidate like West can wipe the floor with Klein, given the proper resources and grassroots support. He ran in 2008, losing by roughly ten points — but as Ann Coulter reminded us today, what a difference a year makes!

West abhors victim complexes. He blasts those who blame others for their failures and expect them to clean up their messes. He proudly stands up for the individual over the progressive cancer of collectivism. But most fascinatingly, he may be the only aspiring politician on the national scene who really understands the jihadist threat and is willing to speak frankly about it. He proudly spoke alongside Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer in pointing to Islam itself as the root of Islamic terrorism, eloquently defending Western civilization, true free speech, and individual rights. (He’s a devout Christian, too, which I don’t care one whit about, but that social conservatives will meet with glee.)

“Take this country back from the inept, the incompetent, the corrupt politicians that are ruining our country right now! Join me in a dream…that will promote the future of this great republic for our children and our grandchildren!” he said, firing up the CPAC crowd, with what Harry Reid would call a “negro dialect” — in that particular way that only the great black speakers are able to do. Watch out, Obama!

And watch out, Ron Klein!

Donate to Allen West!

Talk to Alex Knepper at apkkib@aol.com

A lot of congressional candidates have made the rounds here at the CPAC bloggers lounge – some decent, some nutty, some with a chance, some with no chance in hell. Of those – a few have really impressed me – and we can add Katherine Jenerette of South Carolina to that list.

Jenerette, a veteran and paratrooper in the Army Reserve, has a tough race in the GOP Primary to succeed retiring Rep. Henry Brown. Among her opponents are Paul Thurmond,  the youngest son of Strom Thurmond, and and Caroll Campbell III, the son of former Governor Carroll Campbell. However, I will say that Jenerette has the drive and the strategy to succeed. She ran a tough campaign in the primary against Rep. Brown in 2008, and managed to win 19% of the vote with a shoestring budget.  This time, she’s back for more – and now she’s in decent position as a Tea Partier facing off against a more fractured field of establishment opponents.

After spending a few minutes with her – I think this woman definitely has a shot. For one, she is a PISTOL - and I’m not even sure that term does her justice, even when bolded, italicized, underlined, and capitalized. She sat and chewed that fat with several bloggers for a few minutes - and this woman doesn’t just come off as a real person, she IS a real person. In all my political experience I have NEVER met a candidate with such a total lack of pretension.

Of course, she’s solid on the issues, and very well spoken (although in a very down to earth fashion) – but it was the “what you see is what you get” attitude that really hit home for me. She pulled absolutely no punches and made no appologies for either her demeanor, her thick southern accent, or anything else about herself.

To give you an example, when the topic turned to Sarah Palin (who Jenerette REALLY remind me of) - she not only said she likes Gov. Palin, but that she’d love it if Sarah would  be willing come to South Carolina and skydive with her and her friends in the U.S. Army Golden Knights (the army’s elite parachuting unit).

When I explained to her just how difficult it is to get a Palin endorsement, Jenerette looked me in the eye and told me, “Oh, I don’t want an endorsement, I just want to jump out of an airplane with her!”

Maybe this is rather superficial of me – but that was the moment I decided we NEED this woman in Congress. That sort of attitude could go a long way in the stodgy halls of the U.S. Capitol.

Rumblings…a reliable source has told me that Gary Johnson is 100% in for 2012 and that he will be focusing on New Hampshire.

111:56 – Overflow crowd. However, there are about 100 empty seats in the reserved seating section. But hey — I’m up in the press section, so what do I care?

11:57 — Here she is, in a trademark slinky black dress!

11:58 — “What a difference a year makes” is the general mood of the conference.

11:59 — “Ted Kennedy’s probably rolling in his grave, dropping his drink.”

12:01 — Standard Coulter. Lots of great jokes. What can I say?

12:03 — “Sarah Palin has created more jobs than Obama has: eleven at the AP alone, to fact-check her book!”

12:03 — The new commission on fiscal responsibility’s first recommendation: Resign, please! The second recommendation: Stop wasting money on commissions!

12:04 — “Why couldn’t Obama have picked someone respectable as his running mate, like John Kerry did?”

12:05 — “Edwards is like a creepy, blow-dried evangelical, without the belief in God.”

12:07 — The upside of the cap-and-trade bill: if it passes, DC will finally see snow again!”

12:08 — “Jimmy Carter said that most people who oppose Obama’s health care plan are motivated by racism. And if there’s one guy who has his finger on the pulse of what Americans are thinking, it’s Jimmy Carter!”

12:09 — “CNN calls them ‘Teabaggers,’ which is the gayest term I’ve ever heard on CNN besides ‘Anderson Cooper.’”

12:09 — “The last time I heard this much race-baiting, I was sitting in my front-row pew at United Church of Trinity!”

12:10 — “You’ve been a great crowd, considering that you’re my paid shills from the insurance company. God bless America, thank you for being here, and Keith Olbermann is a girl.”

Question time…

12:11 — Whoever we run for president, don’t tell the media who it is until a month before the election, so the media doesn’t hone in on them and destroy them — because they’re so obsessed with “Who’s your leader? Who’s your leader? Glenn Beck? Michael Steele? Sarah Palin?”

12:12 — To a questioner about the North Carolina press not covering John Edwards: “I can’t believe anyone here is still relying on newspapers for news!”

12:16 — A high school student is asking her how to be persuasive. In all fairness, Ann Coulter isn’t really the person to ask about being persuasive.

12:17 — A questioner says that the ‘C’ doesn’t stand for ‘Libertarian,’ asks if libertarianism is conservatism, because of foreign policy and abortion. Coulter: “I’m more libertarian than most libertarians, I just wish they’d stop babbling about the legalization of pot. Shouldn’t we focus on eliminating the departments of Agriculture, Commerce, and Education?” Crowd yells: “End the Fed!” Coulter: “We’re far away from the perfect libertarian state where you can take whatever drugs you want and I don’t have to pay for you when you lose your job.”

12:19 — Gold standard? Audit the Fed? End the Fed? “Um, if Ron Paul is behind it and it has nothing to do with foreign policy, I agree.”

12:20 — Have you ever dated a liberal before? “They weren’t liberal for long…”

12:21 — She’s apparently forgotten the middle and end mic lines. Some girl is now babbling on and on and on about her own opinions — Ann Coulter’s like “OK, we’re all concerned about Obama, I need to catch a plane, OK…”

12:22 — “I’m from Massachusetts, and for the first time in my life, I’m proud to be from there…” “OK, that’s a great note to end it on, thank you!”

Andrew Breitbart is doing a Q&A here in the bloggers lounge. Lots of interesting stuff about Hollywood and calling out the left in the entertainment industry.

Biggest specific thing I found interesting is that he said he wants to make Henry Waxman the face of the Democratic Party – and that he “wishes people would moneybomb” Ari David, who is running against Waxman in his Hollywood/Malibu centered 30th Congressional District of California.

CPAC attendees boo and heckle a speaker and basically run him off the stage for condemning gay Republicans:

File this under things that make me go, “Heh.”

Also check out the way that the moderator got control of the crowd: by reminding them that everyone is entitled to freedom of opinion, not by chastising them for refusing to submit to someone else’s morality. All the energy in the room (and on today’s Right) appears to be on the side of maximizing individual freedom and autonomy and not using the state to coerce folks into abiding by a collective orthodoxy.

George W. Bush’s Republican Party this ain’t.

This is a good moment for America. Huckabee shows that conservative can be civil and at the same time hold to and advocate strongly for conservative principles. An example of that is when Gov. Huckabee rallied against Nelson’s support of ObamaCare in Nebraska…

“I don’t know Alex Jones,” Gary Johnson said to me, putting his hand over his face and moving the mic far to his left. The crowd laughed; someone remarked “I know what he’s doing!”

I laughed into the mic. “That’s a good answer, governor!”

Johnson, the libertarian former governor of New Mexico, is positioning himself as the Ron Paul of the 2012 election cycle. His newly-launched PAC, Our America, is his first step into those waters. Trying to feel out where Johnson, who was hosted by Ron Paul’s Campaign for Liberty, intersected with the Paul cult, I had asked him for his opinions about a couple of men who have clear consensuses around them by normal people — ones that are completely reversed when entering Paulworld.

The Alex Jones Problem thus deflected, what about Abraham Lincoln? I had asked specifically for the governor’s opinion on Lincoln and radio host Jones — in that order — but the emcee, “for the sake of time,” suggested he just answer the question about Lincoln. The crowd, being hardcore Paul fans and thus familiar with Jones, a 9/11 truther, Bilderberger conspiracy theorist, and good friend of Congressman Paul, picked up on the host’s game and laughed. Johnson instead actually chose to address the Jones question — well, in the same way George W. Bush addressed his opinion of Marco Rubio (“who dat?”) — but then moved onto Lincoln.

Mike Church, the libertarian radio host and Johnson panel-mate, had earlier called Lincoln “Honest Abe” — mockingly, to crowd-calls of “yeah, right.” Johnson sat back and grinned widely at Church’s anti-Lincoln jabs. Johnson, who spent the entire speech speaking in a bizarrely dull manner, claimed to recently have become interested in the Civil War. He’d been reading “a book, I forget which one, um, uh…” “Team of Rivals?” an audience member suggested. “No, not that.” After somehow forgetting what book he’s been reading, he said that he’d recently watched the Ken Burns Civil War documentary series and gained a great appreciation for what Lincoln had to go through — and what he did for the country. To his credit, he did not pander to the anti-Lincoln cult that surrounded him.

But despite his pretenses at supporting “a strong national defense,” with boilerplate platitudes about the greatness of our men and women in uniform, he smiled and enthusiastically clapped when the emcee promoted the following day’s event, “You Have Been Lied To: Why Real Conservatives Don’t Support the War on Terror.” Johnson went on to call for a complete and immediate withdrawal from both Iraq and Afghanistan. We’re building their roads overseas with money we don’t even have, he explained. “For every dollar we spend, forty-three cents is borrowed.” Expect to hear that statistic a lot from Johnson during his 2012 campaign. Fine. The financial system is a mess. But what happens if the situation explodes when we leave due to our unfulfilled commitments? Blank-out.

He was more on-target when speaking about our unfulfilled commitments here at home: he forthrightly, unequivocally declared that we have to make cuts in Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security — that the programs are objectively unsustainable as they are. He touted his own record as “Veto Johnson,” the man who went through thousands of line-item vetoes and over seven hundred full ones — even on some bills that were passed unanimously. This part of his speech touched my capitalist spirit. Alas, he will gladly defend the country against domestic lies — but not against foreign enemies.

Most memorably, though, Johnson was weirdly and almost creepily out-of-focus. Did he merely call for the legalization of marijuana, or was he also on it? He droned on and on in this dry, dull voice and at one time took a ten-second pause that made everyone in the room uncomfortable. He appeared to be on the verge of tears. When the tape emerges, it will be available for all to see: he was totally out of it.

Perhaps he was just tired. But he wasn’t too tired to declare that we are not at war, that we should not be fighting the jihadist enemy abroad, and that we should not bother rebuilding the countries we invaded. Because of that, he is too extreme for ‘Our America.’

Talk to Alex Knepper at apkkib@aol.com

Mitt’s 2010 CPAC speech was a triumph. Pundit after pundit has praised it. The liberal press had difficulty dismissing it. A number of his committed non-supporters here at Race4 have expressed their admiration of it. His grasp of the issues was superb. He was confident. He was at ease. It was evident to almost all that he was having a good time. What a performance!

Mitt’s last major public address was at the 2008 Republican Convention. That one was nearly universally panned. His 2009 CPAC speech was nothing to write home about. And here we are a year later, and we have this masterful speech. Where did that come from?

I fully admit that as a Romney supporter, I would sometimes wonder before his speeches which Mitt would we be seeing? Would it be the Mitt Romney that bowled them over at CPAC 2007, or would it be the Mitt Romney that put them to sleep one month earlier at the National Review Institute’s 2007 Conservative Summit. He seemed to vary between hot and luke-warm. This didn’t bother me so much because I’ve always gone for substance over style, but it did bother and turn off a number of other people. “Too Plastic”, was a common complaint. “Unauthentic”, was another. He often seemed ill-at-ease standing before a crowd. He often sounded less than solid about what he was saying, which only served to feed the “flip-flopper” charges leveled at him by his opponents.

I suspect his problems came from the fact that although Romney believed in conservative principles, he had difficulty expressing them convincingly. He had not studied them in depth throughout his life as he had studied business, management, organization, and finances. Those he could expound upon for hours off the cuff. He knew the language backwards and forwards. He had no such background on the language of conservativism. He knew in his gut they were right and true. He had lived with them and seen their results his whole life, after all. Yet he could not articulate them as well as he would like. He was a native speaker of business, not conservative politics. That caused him difficulty when he was called upon to speak it in public.

There was no sign of that hesitancy in his 2010 CPAC address. He knew exactly what he was saying. He had the background. He had the knowledge. He had the vocabulary and syntax of conservative speech down cold. He had confidence in what he spoke. He was totally in his element.

Where did he get those heretofore missing pieces of his conservative language? Would it surprise you if I said part of the answer lies with Ronald Reagan?

Ronald Reagan was often dismissed by his critics as an intellectual light-weight, yet he overcame and outsmarted them all. He knew what worked. He knew how to articulate it. And he persevered until he obtained it. He never had a fully Republican controlled congress at any point during his time in office, yet he was able to get nearly all the important parts of his agenda passed . In the process, he changed the way most Americans viewed government, and his influence is felt even today more than twenty years after leaving office.

Where did he get those conservative intellectual chops? Since his death, studies of his papers has revealed that Reagan spent years honing his intellectual arguments. He studied. He took detailed and careful notes. He wrote out draft speeches. He was constantly correctly, adding, and refining his arguments. He honed them to the point that when the time came, he was ready.

Mitt Romney has done essentially the same thing, but has crammed it into little over a year. What has he been doing? He has been writing a book. Not just any book, but a detailed study, a tome, a manifesto if you will of America — where she has been, why we are great, where we are now, where we need to go in the future, and how we can get there. For over a year while Mitt’s rivals for the 2012 nomination have been doing politics as usual, or writing light-weight memoirs dwelling upon their past, Mitt has been out of sight, nose to the grindstone writing his book. He would emerge occasionally to make some comment about what was going on, but he would head right back to his studies. It was hard, focused work, but Mitt Romney has never been afraid of hard detailed work. The results are obvious. Writing his book has given Romney what he has needed, the background, the vocabulary, the insights necessary to be fluent in the language of conservative politics. He is now fully articulate. He now speaks it with confidence and with ease. And his 2010 CPAC address is our first taste of it.

PPP (D) North Carolina Political Survey

Do you approve or disapprove of President Barack Obama’s job performance?

• Approve 45% [44%] {48%} (47%) [45%] {45%} (46%) [49%]
• Disapprove 51% [50%] {47%} (47%) [49%] {51%} (47%) [44%]

Among Independents

• Approve 40% [33%] {46%} (41%) [41%] {39%} (40%) [44%]
• Disapprove 53% [61%] {50%} (57%) [51%] {56%} (46%) [44%]

Among Men

• Approve 39% [41%] {41%} (45%) [39%] {40%} (43%) [46%]
• Disapprove 58% [54%] {55%} (50%) [57%] {56%} (53%) [49%]

Among Women

• Approve 50% [47%] {55%} (49%) [51%] {49%} (49%) [52%]
• Disapprove 45% [47%] {39%} (43%) [42%] {46%} (42%) [39%]

Do you support or oppose President Obama’s health care plan?

• Support 38% [38%] {41%}
• Oppose 53% [53%] {50%}

Among Independents

• Support 33% [30%] {37%}
• Oppose 55% [63%] {51%}

Among Men

• Support 35% [37%] {34%}
• Oppose 58% [56%] {57%}

Among Women

• Support 41% [39%] {47%}
• Oppose 49% [51%] {43%}

Do you think gay men and women should be able to serve openly in the military?

• Yes 50%
• No 40%

Among Independents

• Yes 59%
• No 30%

Among Republicans

• Yes 26%
• No 63%

Among Democrats

• Yes 67%
• No 24%

Among Moderates

• Yes 65%
• No 27%

Among Conservatives

• Yes 22%
• No 63%

Among Men

• Yes 45%
• No 46%

Among Women

• Yes 54%
• No 34%

If there was an election for Congress today, would you vote Democratic or Republican?

• Republican 44% [45%]
• Democratic 41% [43%]

Do you have a favorable or unfavorable opinion of the Democratic Party?

• Favorable 38%
• Unfavorable 51%

Do you have a favorable or unfavorable opinion of the Republican Party?

• Favorable 32%
• Unfavorable 48%

Who did you vote for President in 2008?

• John McCain 48% [49%]
• Barack Obama 48% [46%]

Note: In the 2008 presidential election, Barack Obama received 50 percent of the vote in North Carolina.

Survey of 788 voters was conducted February 12-15, 2010. The margin of error is +/- 3.5 percentage points. Party ID breakdown: 44% [48%] {47%} Democrat; 38% [35%] {34%} Republican; 18% [17%] {20%} Independent. Political views: 44% [43%] {45%} Conservative; 39% [38%] {37%} Moderate; 17% [18%] {19%} Liberal. Results from the poll conducted January 15-18, 2010 are in square brackets. Results from the poll conducted December 11-13, 2009 are in curly brackets. Results from the poll conducted November 9-11, 2009 are in parentheses. Results from the poll conducted October 2-4, 2009 are in square brackets. Results from the poll conducted September 2-8, 2009 are in curly brackets. Results from the poll conducted August 4-10, 2009 are in parentheses. Results from the poll conducted July 10-12, 2009 are in square brackets.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. The following image, with the few dozen words below it, are worth ten thousand words. Thanks to Drudge for the link, and Getty Images for the picture and words.

Exiled Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama (L) walks out the doors of the Palm Room of the White House by trash bags waiting to be picked up due to delays from the snow storms of last week in Washington, DC, February 18, 2010 after meeting with US President Barack Obama. The Dalai Lama appeared in public at the White House Thursday and said US President Barack Obama was ‘supportive’ in a meeting that drew angry protests from China. AFP PHOTO/Jim Watson (Photo credit should read JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images)

The Dalai Lama, already delayed in meeting President Obama because our president did not want to tick off China, met with Obama yesterday. No press was allowed, and the Dalai Lama had to leave by the back door. How shameful for our country.

Gay Republican vs. Libertarian-leaning conservative Catholic. *Ding*

I don’t think we had been sitting there for more than ten minutes before the name Ron Paul came up, and we just went at it over foreign policy- Alex basically took the position that there is none of the moral equivalency Paul talks about regarding us invading Iraq and China invading us, and that we have the moral right to invade any country that does not have a good human rights program. He also said, however, that just because we have the right, doesn’t mean we should. (For example, we don’t have the resources to take out China or Russia.)

I took the position that America sticks its nose in where it doesn’t belong, and that we should look at military conflicts from a tactical, strategic point of view. Moral equivalency aside, we should go with trade, travel, etc. well before military action. Unfortunately, I think Alex may have won that round, as he clearly had thought through this particular discussion before, whereas I had never tackled the debate from quite the angle he put on it. Kudos to him.

Round 1: 10-9, Gay Republican.

Next we talked about terrorism. As Alex put it, “Oh, you’re one of those who thinks the root problem of terrorism is poverty?” Which is not quite accurate, but close enough that I defended the position. After ten minutes of that- during which Alex pointed out the high education level of the 9/11 and other terrorists- I realized we had a disconnect and clarified that I agree with him that Islam is the root cause of the terrorism we face, but that poverty doesn’t help. Case in point, how the Sunnis stopped attacking us once Petraeus started paying them to help us flush out terrorists. Most people just want a roof over their head, food in their bellies and safety and some comfort for them and their family, after all. Furthermore, the terrorists on 9/11 had high education, but do we know how they started out? I suspect they were on the poorer end of things growing up. Alex said, however, there is no evidence to back up any of my assertions on poverty and its importance on terrorism.

Round 2: 10-9, Libertarian-leaning conservative Catholic. Mostly, because this is my post and I say so.

There was no round 3- we briefly discussed Israel, moral equivalencies, etc., but I had to get back to working on my computer. One funny part of the discussion- Adam Brickley, who was sitting between us, left for a while to do something (I suspect to stay out of the debate). When he came back, and saw us “discussing” our differences, he threw up his hands and said, “I’m going to McDonald’s.” He didn’t come back for a while.

5:21 — He’s being introduced by a fat man. Stand up against tyranny. “End the Fed! End the Fed!” chants begin. Good grief.

5:23 — I keep walking up to people going “We have to stop the Bilderbergers!”

5:24 — Here he comes. The crowd is absolutely freaking wild.

5:26 — Adam Brickley and I want to yell during a silent part “Down with the Bilderbergers!” and see if the crowd screams.

5:26 — “We need to make sure we’re not talking about different things” when we talk about conservatism.

“Being conservative means to preserve the good parts of America and to preserve our Constitution.”

Thanks for clearing up the vagueness.

5:28 — In 2000, we had a Republican president and Republican Congress, but we didn’t get the revolution! We want limited government, we want our liberties back!

5:29 — Boos for the injunction of the name of Woodrow Wilson, “rightly deserved,” says Paul. “He stood for world government. The Republicans stood up against it…how many people today are even saying it’s the conservative position to not even belong to the United Nations?” And the crowd goes wild!

5:30 — Something about the 16th Amendment. Zoning out.

5:30 — Says “END THE FED!” and the crowd goes wild! “End the Fed! End the Fed! End the Fed!”

5:30 — The new goal is endless war, to “make the world safe for democracy.” The war is one we “should have never gotten into.” Tepid applause. “It’s not our constitutional goal.” Applause even more tepid. Notes that George W. Bush ran on a more humble foreign policy, and that he was elected on that. “There’s nothing wrong with being a conservative and coming up with a conservative foreign policy where we have a strong national defense but do not go to war so carelessly!” Big applause, there.

5:32 — “What is not conservative about saying that if we go to war, we go to war properly, with a full declaration of war?” Proceeds to call the Iraq War unconstitutional. Says that war is the health of the state and that our current policy is “militant.” Says we’re “telling the world how they ought to live.”

5:33 — Comments to those who disagree: “The bottom line eventually for all conservatives and constitutionalists will be: How we gonna pay for it?” With money?

5:34 — “Eventually, this country probably won’t do what I suggest…[mumbles]…I’ve made two promises in my district. I will always vote as I promised, with the Constitution, and I will not vote for one single penny that won’t be paid for, because debt is the monster.” — Um, then stop putting earmarks in bills and then voting against them, knowing your district will still get its ca$h.

5:35 — “There will be a rejection of the dollar.”

5:35 — “Woodrow Wilson was not an individual who respected civil liberties. And the conservatives at the time fought him on the Espionage and Sedition Act — conservatives didn’t like it. He arrested thousands of people who dissented against the war. You want it that way?…We all ought to be together that you should have the right of dissent and that you should never be put into prison for dissent!” — The crowd goes wild! — But, like, what does this have to do with anything?

5:36 — Keeps going on about Wilson throwing people in jail. This ought to help Paul in the 1920 elections.

5:38 — “I don’t live in the past.” Except when you keep talking about the oppressive policies of a man who was president one hundred years ago.

5:38 — Says that global intervention is a “neoconservative position,” not a conservative one. A lone little boo somewhere. Praises Robert Taft.

5:39 — “Strongly opposed NATO, and the UN…who was it that coined the term military-industrial complex and warned us of it?! It was Eisenhower!”

5:40 — “If he have one group over here, defending economic freedom as good — except a Republican president said we’re all Keynesians now! How many people on the Hill are saying ‘End the Fed’?” Again, this should be a burning issue in the 1920 election.

5:41 — “You don’t have freedom because you’re a hyphenated American.” “We [nowadays] think that freedom only comes in pieces. Economic, but not personal liberty.” But it’s not so. Two little gems, I suppose.

5:42 — “We have now endorsed the principle of preventive war. Also  known as aggressive war, because somebody someday might do something to us! That is not part of the American tradition!” Actually, the first pre-emptive war was fought by Thomas Jefferson, but that’s okay.

5:44  — “We now have accepted the idea that habeus corpus is only acceptable in some circumstances…” and that torture is acceptable. “We’re much better than that and we has conservatives must realize that we have to bring this back together again. Good conservatives can believe that personal liberty is a [mumble] value…” Blasts Wall Street. Blasts the Federal Reserve again. Also paper money. (It has to be backed by something! — What? Gold. Well, what gives that its value? Blank out.)

5:46 — “They don’t want perpetual war!” Brags about how he got more support from the military than any other campaign, a statistically illiterate point. Who cares? The lurking variable: enthusiasm. Most military members simply didn’t contribute.

5:47 — Fox News has had me on about sixty times since the campaign was over!” since I predicted the financial crash.

5:50 — The end. He is just an awful, awful speaker.

What the birthers believe, from the mouth of the movement’s king…

AK: This seems awfully quixotic. Why continue this clearly fruitless quest?

PB: I think it is bearing fruit. I think significant, about two weeks ago, I put out my latest press release calling for a birth certificate march on Washington. The next day was the national Prayer Breakfast — Obama spoke there at the very end, and I’m paraphrasing…but at the end of the speech, he said: No one should question my faith. Then he paused, and he said, or my citizenship. I think that we’re getting to him by now. It’s the first time that he brought the subject up. Biden jokes about it, but it’s not a joke, it’s for real. And Glenn Beck, who doesn’t touch the birth certificate issue, talked about me for at least three days…I made the blackboard. He’s saying that I am a threat to Obama. I’m not sure what he meant by that…I’m not a physical threat. I’m calling for a peaceful revolution on this issue. For our March of Washington, I’m hoping to get a million people to bring hteir birth certificates, faxing them or e-mailing them to my office.

I think we are bearing fruit. I think the courts are taking their time, unfortunately…if I can raise public awareness, I think the American public will force Obama to either prove he’s constitutionally eligible to be president or they’re going to force him to resign. Because — here’s the thing — American citizens must produce their birth certificate during their lifetime between one and ten times. You definitely need to to do Little League. They keep putting up the COLB — which is not a birth certificate. It’s missing the baby’s length, the baby’s weight, the name of the hospital, and the doctor’s signature. So Obama…even though Chris Matthews shakes it saying it’s his birth certificate, it’s not his birth certificate. And you definitely need it for a passport! Even to travel to — the Caribbean, or Puerto Rico –

AK: But hasn’t he traveled to those places?

PB: I think he traveled his entire life on an Indonesian passport. So that’s why the issue isn’t what happened when he was born, but what happened in Indonesia. In one of his books, he mentioned that he found his birth certificate. And in his book, he mentioned his stepfather, Lolo Soetoro, “returned to Indonesia before my mother and I.”

Well, we have his school record on our site and his name is Barry Soetoro, his nationality being Indonesian and his religion being Islam. Every time since then, when he’s used the name Barack H. Obama, he’s committing fraud. He severed relations from the prior country and took on the parents’ last name, so he hasn’t legally changed his last name. But how did he come back from Indonesia in the United States?

AK: So your contention is that Anne Dunham gave birth to him…

PB: …in Kenya. But even if he were in Hawaii, he would have had his birth certificate in Kenya. Now, there’s a law that says a parent can’t give up their rights for their child. But between the ages of 18 and 21, Obama would have had to renounce that citizenship with Indonesia and reaffirm any citizenship he had in the United States. But because he became a natural of Indonesia, he could not have kept his status as natural-born, even if he was natural-born, in Hawaii, which I don’t beliee  he was. I think he went back to Hawaii on his Indonesia passport, never reaffirming his allegiance to the United States between the ages of 18 and 21. There’s a question of — you know — in 1980, when he’s 20, he travels to Pakistan, but he also stopped in Indonesia, I think, to renew his Indonesian passport. Someone put in a FOIA request asking me about his passport and it came back that he had no US Passport, so I think that goes along with the fact that he probably uses his Indonesian passport and from his time as US Senator forward used a diplomatic passport, and see, all this can be cleared up really easily if Obama would just come forth with his original birth certificate, like he said he found it, in his book — now, a COLB is now legitimate for a birth in Hawaii but not anymore, they changed it recently.

AK: Why do you think that Hawaii has Obama’s certificate of live birth on record?

PB: We don’t know if that document came from there. That document was put on the Obama campaign website in 2008 to try to refute questions from the year before that. He put this phony document up, two months before I even got involved in this lawsuit. Notice they have not put any other document up; they keep referring to that COLB as a birth certificate.

AK: See, when I sit around with theorizing with people, we tend to say — well, he’s not releasing it because it causes needless distractions division on the right, and people will look at the radical right, and it will undermine conservatives and Republicans.

PB: How would it undermine anyone? From the time I first found my first lawsuit, I have continuously said, if I am wrong: Obama, prove me wrong, and I’ll withdraw my lawsuit. But he hasn’t. And the reason he hasn’t is because he can’t. Listen, we’re not talking about a stupid person here. Obama…supposedly went to Occidental College…

AK: Supposedly?

PB: I’m  not sure anymore. Reverend Manning is going to have a trial in May of 2010 over the fact that no one shows — he questions — they interviewed everyone that went to Columbia. No one remembers him being in school at Columbia — students who went to school at the time, and no one recalls Obama at all. I think he did some research but no one remembers him doing the job he supposedly did.

He sealed all his records — and for one main reason: that he received foreign aid for his admission at Occidental and Columbia. There are others who say he never went there, I’m not going there. But he’s not stupid. He went to Occidental, Columbia, and Harvard, and when he graduated he was a tort constitutional lawyer for ten years, so don’t tell me he doesn’t know his status. He knows if he’s legit or not, and I think he’s not, and there’s no evidence put forward that he is legit. He’s the biggest phony in our country’s history, all 230 years…I’m doing this because there’s nothing more important than the US Constitution. I’m doing it for the 305 million-plus citizens who deserve to know the truth, and for our soldiers who have fought overseas to defend our Constitution, and the millions of others who have fought over the years in these battles to protect our Constitutional rights. Arnold Schwarzenegger comes forth, people asking him to run for president — and he says — amend the Constitution, because I’m from Austria. What does Barack Obama say? Basically nothing, but by saying nothing, he is saying that I’m walking all over the Constitution, that I don’t care about the Constitution, and I think it’s a disgrace. Also, who’s a disgrace, the national media. I was interviewed by the New York Times about six months ago and said that I wished I could sue the natioal media for not vetting Obama. Look what they did to Sarah Palin, they went behind every door and under every rock asking lots of questions. What do they do with Obama? Nothing. They have asked him nothing about his past and it’s like — a taboo topic. And the reason it’s a taboo topic is because the major media is owned by three or four corporations. And they say — stay off this birth certificate issues. And that’s why I think a Birth Certificate March on Washington is really going to identify so many people, the initial response in overwhelming…people contacting me, can I help, can I get buses, so we’re gonna pick the date soon.

==

I was just handed a business card and handout sheet by the Birther lawyer Phillip Berg. Someone was yelling at him to stop his nonsense because it was embarrassing conservatives; I simply could not find it within me to do anything other than look away as he handed me his materials.

Rasmussen Oregon Gubernatorial Survey

• John Kitzhaber (D) 40%
• John Lim (R) 38%

• John Kitzhaber (D) 42%
• Chris Dudley (R) 36%

• John Kitzhaber (D) 42%
• Allen Alley (R) 34%

• John Kitzhaber (D) 48%
• Bill Sizemore (R) 25%

• Bill Bradbury (D) 38%
• John Lim (R) 35%

• Bill Bradbury (D) 39%
• Chris Dudley (R) 36%

• Bill Bradbury (D) 41%
• Allen Alley (R) 35%

• Bill Bradbury (D) 48%
• Bill Sizemore (R) 23%

Favorable / Unfavorable {Net}

• Chris Dudley 40% / 24% {+16%}
• Bill Bradbury 46% / 31% {+15%}
• John Lim 31% / 28% {+3%}
• John Kitzhaber 44% / 42% {+2%}
• Allen Alley 30% / 29% {+1%}
• Bill Sizemore 22% / 60% {-38%}

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

• Strongly approve 35% (30%)
• Somewhat approve 18% (20%)
• Somewhat disapprove 7% (12%)
• Strongly disapprove 40% (37%)

How would you rate the job Ted Kulongoski has been doing as Governor?

• Strongly approve 10% (7%)
• Somewhat approve 30% (33%)
• Somewhat disapprove 20% (24%)
• Strongly disapprove 36% (34%)

Survey of 500 Likely Voters was conducted February 17, 2010. The margin of error is +/- 4.5 percentage points. Results from the poll conducted February 16, 2010 are in parentheses.

Inside the numbers:

Male voters favor any of the Republicans except Sizemore against both Democrats. Female voters strongly prefer either of the Democrats in every case. Voters not affiliated with either major party like the GOP contenders best unless Sizemore’s the candidate. Anti-tax activist Bill Sizemore was indicted last November for failing to pay state income taxes for three years.

From a mini press-conference…

AK: I don’t think it’s an accident that you’ve been showing up in Iowa and South Carolina, and that you’ve been making speeches next to Mitt Romney and Tim Pawlenty at the events of various organizations. Uh…you’re running, aren’t you? [Laughs in the room]

MP: I don’t have any plans on running for president. [Room murmurs -- 'Of course you'd say that!'] But there are two things I want to do. Number one, is to serve the people of Indiana right here in Washington DC. And two, to do everything in my power over next nine months to return the powers of Congress to the American people. I’m someone who really believes — and I said this in my speech today — one of the things that faces us as a movement, and as a party, is focus. And the reality is that we have nine months and it’s halftime in the locker room. And I think if everyone puts their head down and speaks on behalf of the American people, then things will work themselves out.

AB: You talk about taking the House back in 2010, but right now we’re mired in primary season. What do you say to people who might be taking on establishment candidates?

MP: You know, it’s never the bad thing when the American people become more involved in the American political process. And the reality is, we have a number of competitive primaries in Congress in districts where we had a hard time finding a candidate in the past. We have men and women coming forward to contest these seats and I think that is nothing but a good thing. It’s good for America, let the people work their will, let the candidates to their best. But the important thing is, once we get through all of these primaries…it’s gonna be imperative that people who cherish conservative values get over anything that might have happened in the primary and line up behind the conservative candidate.

AB: Do Republicans have an obligation to support Parker Griffith in Alabama?

MP: I’m pleased to see him join the ranks. I know he’s gotten the support of the Republican governor from that state and all the Republican Congressmen from that state. But being in the minority, we’re glad to see someone who has been voting right come our way…it’s altogether appropriate for us to support his re-election. But that doesn’t mean I think it’s not appropriate for people not to let their voice be heard.

Congressman, I live in that district, and I’d rather have a conservative!, someone yelled. Everyone ignored him.

Someone else asked “Do you think you could convince Mitch Daniels to run for president?”

MP: Let me say that it is a great soruce of joy for me to come from the state that has the best governor in the United States of America. And I believe that Governor Daniels has said he’s not running for any other offices, and I’ve known him for about twenty-five years, and he’s a man of his word. We’ll let the future take care of itself, but he’s a great man with courage and great principle.

The conservative alternative to Kelly Ayotte sits down with Race42012. The audio recording got somewhat garbled. Ellipses indicate where that happened, unfortunately.

===

AK: The most recent Rasmussen poll shows you as the only Republican candidate losing to Paul Hodes — by six points, while Kelly Ayotte wins by seven — and the candidate with the lowest favorability ratings in the field of prospective senators. Why do you think this is?

OL: It’s because I’ve been a conservative activist for many years, with a record of service that makes you controversial, but I think people will rediscover who I am — and that I have the authentic conservative message. I was chairman of the State Board of Education in the 90s. We opposed the Education stimulus package under the Clinton administration…and that made me very unpopular with the education establishment, as you might imagine…that made me controversial…When I ran for governor, we had a hotly-litigated school funding suit that we actually won in the Superior Court, and again…that put me in the crosshairs of the educational establishment, so, when you try to do things that will make a difference and if you champion causes you believe in, you’re gonna draw some criticism. But whoever wins the primary is gonna win the general election, because what Paul Hodes wants is more taxing, more spending, he supports federal funding of abortion…People are gonna see the difference between us, and who has the true conservative principles…

AB: How, then, do you beat Kelly Ayotte in the primary?

OL: It’s a good question*…she’s the establishment candidate, we’re gonna win the old-fashioned way: by organizing the field. We’ll get the right coalition of pro-lifers, Second Amendment supporters, homeschooling, and the anti-tax coalition…

AB: We all know you’re running against Kelly Ayotte — what’s your opinion on Judd Gregg? Is he a good Republican, is he a RINO? Where does he fit into the Republican Party?

OL: Senator Gregg has served us long and well in a lot of respects, but he voted for the confirmation of Justice Sotomayor. He supported the appointment of a blue-ribbon panel to raise taxes and cut spending…it was a commission that wanted to raise taxes. There are some things, I also think that, um, it’s time for a new breed of leaders, who are truly independent, not part of the party establishment. The Republican Party has to bear much of the blame for where we are now, although the Democrats, of course, take it to a new level. But we have to make sure that the Republican candidates really get back to where our principles are — limiting the size of government, national security, really looking at, and consolidating — cutting the size of government.

AB: So  then, we’re talking about a new breed of Republican, so how do you feel –vis a vis — you’re not the only anti-establishment candidate running — how do you feel about JD Hayworth? Is that good or is that bad?

OL: Well, keeping in mind that McCain is coming to New Hampshire to campaign for Kelly Ayotte, the establishment candidate, I would point out that the New Hampshire nomination should be left to New Hampshire residents. I think someone who is outside of New Hampshire, would come to New Hampshire — shows a lot about the process. I’ve been endorsed by Steve Forbes, Dan Quayle…they’re outside of the system. But they all represent a certain segment of conservative positions. Senator McCain, you know, has been there a long time, I believe in term-limits, self-imposed and otherwise…I commend JD Hayworth for trying to breathe some new life into that race.

===

* – This was meant in the context of Adam Brickley asking a good question, not in the sense of ‘Gosh, hell if I know!’

I got to CPAC late today- so far, I haven’t done much, but I’m into the third round of the sumo suit competition. (I am a shade under 5’8 and weigh 168 pounds. I just beat a guy who is over 6′ tall and weighs 298 pounds.)

I also met Ed Morrissey of Hot Air and gave him my business card.

Update: They called the first time I won a draw (the other guy went out, but they thought I did until I appealed, so instead of giving me a victory they called it a draw). Next time, the guy outmaneuvered me, so I pulled on his head to drag him out of bounds, but they said that was illegal. (I mean, come on- what is head gear for?) The last time, he got me with the same move about the second time. So…I lost. Darn.

Well — do you honestly think you can win?

Yes — well, first of all, let’s start with the opponent. Very unpopular, a large group of disaffected San Franciscans from across the political spectrum with her. I’m a libertarian-conservative — I can reach across the spectrum in a way that others might not be able to do. I was involved with the Campaign for Liberty; I was a county coordinator. We have a real grassroots precinct operation built up. Nancy Pelosi’s never run a real campaign. So we have a formula that if the right number of Democrats and Independents turn out for us, like they did for Scott Brown, and get all the Republicans out, we can win.

Sorry, but this is San Francisco, not a state at large. The Republican candidate got 9.7% of the vote in 2008. The Green and Democratic parties received 88% of the vote. This man is not going to win.

Here’s the man’s website, if you want to check him out, though.

Pamela Geller of the Atlas Shrugs blog blared in righteous indignation from the microphone — “If we weren’t here, if Robert and I weren’t here, there would be no event at CPAC about jihadism.” “The only other event about the war is ‘You Are Being Lied To,’ telling you to oppose the War on Terror!”

Indeed, things have gotten bad on the foreign policy front.

Geller and her brother-in-arms Robert Spencer –the latter the author of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam — are fighting a losing battle, I’m afraid. With genuine luminaries like Wafa Sultan by their side, this shouldn’t be so. And indeed, they are all correct: Islam is a totalitarian, misogynistic, violent faith. Our values are not Islam’s values. Speaker after speaker — from a Pentagon official fired for daring to, via Powerpoint, instruct his colleagues on the nature of jihad in Islamic history; to a European woman indicted for hate crimes for “defaming Islam” — gave the straight, unvarnished truth about Islamic totalitarianism, its roots in the Qur’an, its horrifying implications for the future of the West, and what it has meant for those who live under sharia.

As I pointed out to Spencer and Geller after the talk, there were six marvelous speakers, two hours of invigorating, refreshingly honest discourse. But not once did the word reason cross the lips of a speaker. What are we fighting for? Free speech, Western civilization, ‘Judeo-Christian values.’ But why are we fighting for it? We live in a culture barraged with multiculturalist, relativistic claims about the need to balance freedom with “sensitivity,” to balance man’s rights with man’s whims — we have a population ignorant of history and the great Western tradition. How do we convince such people to rise up and fight against what seems like such an abstraction? After all, it’s just Europe’s problem, right? — If it even is at all. Ought they not be more “open” to different cultures? — Alas, because of this, I feel that we may be starting this discussion in midstream. We need to get back to the basics, and start a grand campaign to invigorate Western civilization about its tradition of inquiry, openness, individual rights, and reason. Exclusions are deliberate: this cannot turn into a battle of Judeo-Christianity vs. Islam. Theirs is a totalitarian faith. At its philosophical core, we must combat that with reason, not with competing mysticisms. It must be a battle of the evidence-based, the logical, and the provable versus the mystical, the unfalsifiable, and  mere assertions — for mere assertion is no valid claim. Islam loathes reason — it says it has all the evidence it needs in the Qur’an, in divine revelation. Instead of debunking it, we cannot merely say: No, it is we who have the real divine revelation! It is our faith that is true. How do we know? Well, we just do.

Robert claimed to me that philosophical discourse was simply above the heads of people; that we live in an anti-intellectual age and that it’s good to employ utilitarian arguments about how free speech is a bulwark against tyranny; that one cannot speak of individual rights rooted in nature — that’s too abstract; it doesn’t call people to action, it’s over their heads.

He may be right. And as Pam pointed out, one must admire the Muslims’ cultural confidence, wrong as they are about which culture they’re defending. We have no such confidence. This is why I fear that the battle is a losing one. But even if the battle is a losing one, I’d rather go down fighting, trying. Because as the speakers kept saying — we refuse to surrender my rights. We refuse to submit to dhimmitude. We refuse to shut up in the face of a totalitarian ideology.

But right now, we’re too busy arguing about whether we’re going to raise or lower the tax rate by 2 percent. In the meantime, we have no values, we have no culture, we have no morals, we have no goals beyond materialism and instant gratification. Islam has a mission; a reason to exist. Why should the West exist if its own people don’t even believe in its values — or don’t even care about it enough to know? As we speak, Islam is answering that question for us.

Talk to Alex Knepper at apkkib@aol.com

In his speech at CPAC, Gov. Pawlenty accurately describes the anger of the American Conservative Movement with the reckless direction this county is headed in:



People outside of Minnesota may be surprised by T-Paw’s frank statements, as the usual perception of him nationally seems to be that he is easy going and rather mild-mannered. This is not an accurate assessment of his style, however. Throughout his tenure, Governor Pawlenty has never been afraid to speak bluntly on issues that matter to conservatives.