Month: September 2010

Interview: Rep. Kevin McCarthy and NRCC recruitment.

As the timestamp shows, we actually had this interview earlier in the month; given that Rep. McCarthy has been doing a series of posts about his road trips on behalf of candidates this election season, I decided that it was long past time that I got the interview actually up. In it we talk about the general details of recruitment, and how it’s been going this cycle.

The NRCC’s site is here.

Moe Lane (Crosspost)

#rsrh The iconic image of the 2010 election.

Picture a freshman Virginia Democrat; one with the stink of DOOM about him.  This Member of Congress has just watched his last, remaining (and faint) hope for electoral salvation slip away, thanks to his own party… and his own ideological faction, at that.  It is after midnight in the halls of Congress.  The next time that he walks those halls, it will be as a defeated man whose name nobody will remember to spell correctly.  He just wants to go home, in the rain and the dark, and prepare for his fate with what dignity he possesses, or can muster.

But the Member of Congress may not simply walk off into the dark unremarked… because the Speaker of the House who has ruthlessly sacrificed his career and his energies for the last two years has insisted that he turn back and attend upon her.  There is no need, of course: but she requires one last ritual display of her power over his life; and out of habit, he obeys.  And then, once the Speaker’s whim is obeyed, the Member of Congress is free to go… wherever it is that sacrifices go, once they have been sacrificed.  And broken.

(pause)

Only one thing to say there, really: Robert Hurt for VA-05.

Moe Lane

(Via Fishersville Mike, via The Other McCain)

#rsrh DSCC throws $250K down the Blumenthal rathole.

Makes you wonder who they took the money from in order to try to shore up a bad campaigner who lied about serving in Vietnam. Probably Illinois (mob banker) or Florida (legacy Congressman); or maybe one of the states where they actually believed that they’d get a pickup – hey, stop laughing!  It was really cute of them*.

Couple this with the ad buys in West Virginia and it’s turning into an interesting case of too many champagne glasses, and not enough champagne…

Moe Lane

PS: Linda McMahon for Senate.

*The DSCC really needs to learn how to attract a better class of recruits.

#rsrh QotD, Jim Treacher edition.

The rest of it is pretty good – all about global cooling, which will be the they-bristle-when-we-call-their-religion-a-religion crowd’s next big devil figure – but this first line is prime:

James Delingpole at The Daily Telegraph reports on this summer’s Bilderberg meeting, where the secret rulers of the universe meet every year to decide how to destroy Alex Jones.

Speaking as a professional, that’s a damn good line with which to get the links. Obviously.

Congress backstabs POTUS on recess appointments.

It seems a bit odd that Senate Democrats have agreed to use a rules technicality to prohibit the President from making any recess appointments between now and the election – particularly since Senator Dick Durbin (D, IL) seemed to be suggesting earlier this week that a recess appointment for blocked OMB nominee Jacob Lew would be possible if the hold on his nomination was still active.  None the less, the prohibition is now in effect: and in exchange, the Republicans gave up…

…nothing.

No, really: as near as I can tell, we gave up nothing at all.  All the GOP had to do was threaten to throw some pending nominations back to the White House for resubmission, and the Democrats simply folded like a cheap suit; thus making it impossible for the President to do one of the few things that he can do to mollify his base right now.  This was pretty craven of Reid and his cadre; not that I’m objecting, but I was under the impression that the Democratic party controlled both the legislative and the executive branches of government these days. I mean, I’ll be expecting this gambit maybe next year (or maybe in 2013, or whenever is the next time where the GOP controls Congress but not the White House), but having it happen right now is a bit odd.  Very welcome, but odd.

Moe Lane (Crosspost)

PS: We would have traded something for this, probably.  Being able to stop recess appointments would have been an opportunity worth bargaining for.  So… thanks?

#rsrh Amusing leftover IL tidbit.

Via QC Examiner, I noticed this entertaining nugget from yet another He’s Just Not That Into You article about progressives and the POTUS:

[Darcy] Burner said [Progressive Congress Action Fund] and other progressives are focused on helping candidates such as Ann McLane Kuster in New Hampshire, Rep. John Hall in New York, Rep. Alan Grayson in Florida, and Rep. Phil Hare in Illinois.

It turns out that I remember the name: Darcy Burner was a three-time loser resume-padder best known for being unable to topple a vulnerable West Coast Republican in 2008.  This takes skill, because the 2006 and 2008 Congressional Democratic freshman classes do not precisely overwhelm with their civic greatness: but it’s nice to see her getting work.  Particularly when it’s apparently rebounding to my side’s benefit.

No, seriously.  Look at that list:

Those people have two things in common: first, all of them are listed as Toss-Up seats.  Second, none of them were listed as such a year ago.  Hall and Hare in particular only slid off the beam quite recently.  If Burner and her PCAF are so inclined, I can give them a list of more Democrats to ‘help’…

Moe Lane