Moe Lane

A somewhat longer assessment of the debate:

• Bachmann. Her candidacy is now effectively over.  Her soft anyone-but-Romney support went elsewhere once Perry got into the race; her soft anyone-but-Perry support is now possibly lining up behind Romney; and her hard we-like-Bachmann core will not put her over the top.
• Cain.  Did very well.  Had the best crowd response of the night (his cancer story). Still not going to be the nominee.
• Gingrich. Also did very well. Still not going to be the nominee.
• Huntsman.  Apparently people have been telling him to lay off of the Democratic party thing.  Also not going to be the nominee.
• Johnson.  Crazy eyes in the beginning, best line at the end.  Need I say it?
• Paul.  …Well, he didn’t make me yell at the computer screen.  This time.
• Perry.  It’s fair to say that he lost the debate last night.  Perry needs to learn how to debate*, and he needs to nap before these things.  Lots of people are wincing at last night’s performance; luckily for him, Perry can give a speech and he’s good at working a crowd.  His immigration stance is going to hurt him in the primaries, though.
• Romney. It’s fair to say that he won the debate last night.  The problem is that people in the grassroots just don’t really like him all that much.
• Santorum.  When a serving member of the US military asks you a question, Mister Santorum, you will in the future preface your response with sincere thanks for that man’s service.  Particularly if he happens to be fighting in a war that you support.  And I do not care if you have a problem with that man’s choice in adult sexual partners.  Are we absolutely, perfectly, completely clear about that, Mister Santorum?

(more…)

Stupid thing decided that I tweeted too many times tonight.  Anyway, short version of my take on the debate: Romney won, Perry lost, Cain was at his best (which is pretty damn good).  Romney will continue to get establishment support, Perry needs to get better at debating if he wants to win.  If Perry was a better debater this nomination fight would be over; if Romney was anybody else besides… Romney it might be over the other way.

And those are the only two candidates who matter at this point.  Everyone else has faded and/or never had a shot to begin with.

Moe Lane

What today’s Democracy Corps poll DOESN’T say.

The Greenberg/Carville-sponsored poll certainly does have a good deal to say about the current state of House races, albeit from as positive-towards-the-Democrats position (Hotline called it ‘sugary spin‘) as possible. For example, for all of the talk about how ‘cool’ the electorate was towards Republican incumbents the truth is that they’re averaging a 40/32 approval/disapproval rating, and that the generic Congressional vote went from 48/42 Republican/Democrat in 2010 to 50/41 R/D today (which is up from 46/44 R/D in March). And while the poll will happily tell you that Greenberg & Carville’s recommended message will shift that advantage down to an even-steven 45/45 R/D generic Congressional number, what they don’t mention is that the last time they polled this survey they were able to ‘turn’ a 46/44 R/D into 44/47 R/D. In other words: things have gotten subtly worse for the Democrats since March.

As Hotline said: sugary spin.

But the big numbers here are President Obama’s: he went from a 48/47 approval/disapproval rating in the surveyed districts to a 41/55 today. That… is a disaster; but not as much as one as the fact that both Perry and Romney beat Obama 49/45 and 49/43, respectively. Couple that with the aforementioned incumbent approval ratings, and… well. It is an article of faith among the Democrats that their problems with the electorate are solely due to their poor messaging; if nothing else, this election cycle should test that theory to destruction. (more…)

Don’t get me wrong: it’s early days yet.  But this line from a Politico article detailing the solidifying trainwreck which is the Democrats’ attempt to take back the House:

The DCCC is working 24/7 recruiting excellent candidates and helping them and our members build top-notch campaigns.

…has pretty much no backup evidence for it.  At all.  The so-called “Drive to 25” initiative that the Democrats were supposed to be pushing heavily has sort of… dissipated.  Not to be mean-spirited about this, but if the DCCC has any people running for all those open/Republican held seats, then the committee has done an excellent job at hiding its light under a bushel.  An examination of the site reveals, well, no recruits at all.

Again, it’s early days yet.  And obviously the NRCC shouldn’t get complaisant.  Still, this was a fairly uncritical acceptance of Democratic agitprop on Politico’s part: tsk, tsk.

Moe Lane

You know what the most exciting statement in science is?

“Huh.  That’s weird.”

Scientists at the world’s largest physics lab said Thursday they have clocked neutrinos traveling faster than light. That’s something that according to Einstein’s 1905 special theory of relativity – the famous E (equals) mc2 equation – just doesn’t happen.

“The feeling that most people have is this can’t be right, this can’t be real,” said James Gillies, a spokesman for the European Organization for Nuclear Research, or CERN, outside the Swiss city of Geneva.

Hot Air Headlines (via AoSHQ Headlines) said it best: “Dude?”

Dude.  Although you shouldn’t get your hopes up.

OK, true, that’s just one way of looking at this fascinating exercise in clueless class warfare. 

To set the scene: below is an annotated excerpt from the ‘independent’ video that is currently causing shortness of breath (and soon probably lightness of wallet) among the contingent of the Online Left who really and truly believe that their professional politician class is avoiding full-throated, Huey Long-style, Left-populist rants for no good reason.  Well, Elizabeth Warren, new-minted sacrificial lamb Democratic candidate for MA-SEN, is there to give ‘em what they want!

What do they want?  To tax the poor!
When do they want it?  Right now… wait, what?

Yeah, there’s the problem there.  This interpretation (which I first saw from Lee Stranahan) of what Warren was trying to say takes into account rhe minor detail that making our current tax system more ‘fair’ will first require us to go out and tell the 45% of American households not paying income tax that they need to start paying income tax.  Elizabeth Warren’s too afraid to do that, of course – heck, she wouldn’t even show the elementary courage needed to support Obama’s dead-on-arrival jobs bill – so I did her a favor by putting up the video.  Because, really, it’s very responsible of her to take the position that taxes need to be raised – gathered – on people making less than fifty grand a year.  Pure political suicide, but responsible. (more…)

…after seeing something like this, but let’s be honest: Drinking and Tweeting is absolutely awesome.  When it’s not your side doing the drinking/tweeting, at least.

Not that I can prove that “alcohol may have been involved.”  It’s just a reasonably safe way to bet*.

Moe Lane

*(singing) “Pub-lic fi-gure doc-trine!”  I figure that if Alec Baldwin can say that Cheney/Rumsfeld should be put on trial for murder, I can suggest that Baldwin might have been drunk when he wrote that.

This is going to be more or less tossed-off, very subjective, and REFLECTIVE OF NOBODY’S OPINION EXCEPT MY OWN. That last bit? Kind of important: the next few months are going to be a time where people are going to be ascribing ulterior motives with what they used to call ‘gay abandon’ before the cultural referents shifted.

Anyhoo:

(more…)

No, really: all three African-American Congressmen from Illinois are loudly complaining that the current redistricting map as drawn may be in violation of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.  Illinois Republicans are currently suing to have the map overturned, largely on the grounds that under the usual interpretation of federal law the new map needs to have more than one majority-Hispanic district.  As this Roll Call article notes:

The Hispanic population in Illinois is greater than the black population. But the map drawn by Illinois Democrats creates three districts with a black voting-age population of more than 50 percent and one district with a Hispanic voting-age population of almost 66 percent. The district with the Hispanic super majority was drawn for Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D).

…and that Representatives Danny Davis, Jesse Jackson, Jr., and Bobby Rush all refused to contribute to the Democratic defense fund set up to handle court costs from the lawsuit (Jackson in particular has been pushing Section 2 issues with this administration).  To call this open break within the Democratic party ‘awkward’ is an understatement; it is in fact seriously jeopardizing the Left’s attempt to retroactively destroy the GOP’s remarkable gains in Illinois in 2010. (more…)

It’s videos like this that make coming up with one every day so totally worth it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66aqcOsnP2E

Pat Benatar – Shadows Of The Night by jpdc11

Shadows Of The Night, Pat Benatar

Pat Benatar.  FIGHTING NAZIS WITH HER P-51 MUSTANG.  AND HER BAND.

Why the hell didn’t they make that movie?  I would have watched that.

Stay bad, Belkar!  Stay bad!

…What?  It’s just a webcomic, for crying out loud.  I’m allowed to like the psychotic Chaotic Evil halfling ranger just fine the way he is.

PJ Lifestyle asks if this is the worst car commercial of all time.

It is, but not for the reasons that he (or Glenn, or Autoextremist) may be thinking.  It’s the worst car commercial of all time because of its target audience mismatch.  You see: in the great Venn Diagram of life, the overlap between Fans of American Football and Fans of Bollywood Musicals is probably not all that great. (more…)