Governor-elects Christie, McDonnell fib at the RGA shindig.

They were asked why they didn’t bring in former Governor Sarah Palin to campaign for them in Virginia & New Jersey, and both of them made what are entirely excusable fibs about scheduling conflicts and the need to stay focused on state-specific problems.  Come, I will hide nothing from you: they didn’t bring her in because both of them concluded that her reputation had taken a hit and had not recovered enough.

Yet.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

Three new races to look at.

Drawing on and expanding from Jim Geraghty’s summary:

  • IA-03. D+1.  Leonard Boswell is the incumbent (first elected 1997); Cook currently does not list the district as in play (Likely Democratic).  Former wrestler Jim Gibbons (no campaign website yet) has just announced; he’ll be facing former National Guard chopper pilot Dave Funk in the primary.
  • MN-01. R+1. Tim Walz is the incumbent (first elected in 2006); Cook currently does not list the district as in play (probably because the Congressman won handily in 2008).  Former state legislator (and lightning rod) Allen Quist has declared; he’ll be hammering Walz on the latter’s support of the ‘stimulus,’ cap-and-trade, and health care rationing.
  • CT-04. D+5.  Jim Hines is the incumbent (freshman); Cook currently lists the district as in play (Likely Democratic).  Rick Torres (no campaign website yet) joins Rob Russo, Dan Debicella, Rob Merkle, & Will Gregory as competing for the Republican nomination.

Yup, the 2010 campaign season’s started. Time to start paying attention to your own, local races…

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

Meet Grant Bosse (CAND, NH-00).

On the principle that if a Congressional District that doesn’t exist can still generate 2,800 jobs (which also don’t exist) thanks to a ‘stimulus’ (which really doesn’t exist), it can generate a Congressman:

See also here. Congressional hopeful Bosse has also called for a national Phantom Congress Movement. There’s already been several people joining up; somebody should start an official website. Or run for their state’s own phantom CDs.

Or, heck, run for real ones.

Moe Lane

PS: Feel free to provide links to you, or somebody else, jumping on this particular bandwagon. The more creative, the better.

Crossposted to RedState.

Book of the Week: Take Back Your Government.

This one via Instapundit, and I’ve heard of it in the past:Take Back Your Government, by Bob Heinlein. I’d say “Yes, the Bob Heinlein” – except that nobody would dare write under the same name. It’s a practical treatise on local electoral politics that I suspect a bunch of people would like to read right now.

And, it being Sunday, we say goodbye to Destroyer of Worlds.

Actually, Reid/Pelosi don’t need 60/218 Democrats to pass health care reform.

They only need twenty Democratic Senators, and forty-one Democratic Members of Congress.  I think that we’ve demonstrated that the GOP can take care of the rest.

The terms?  Bless your heart, why would either of them care?  They can just send over that nice Rep. Dan Boren of Oklahoma to do the negotiations; we’ll send him back with a bill that they can browbeat enough of their caucuses to vote for.  Then they can have a nice press conference where they pat themselves on the back for being bipartisan, the President can keep telling himself that he’s relevant, and we stop the Democrats from doing something stupid with their current Congressional majority.  Everybody wins.

Well, everybody who matters.

Moe Lane

PS: No, we’ve heard the Democrats’ ideas already; we’re seeing us going in a different directions.  Just their votes will be fine.

PPS: Of course they won’t do this.  But they could.

I don’t often fisk…

…and I almost never bother with Maureen Dowd, but this paragraph is impossible to resist. Dowd on the President, and why he should act more like THAT WOMAN (no, really):

He’s a highly intelligent man

Actually, he’s a reasonably intelligent man. 130 IQ, tops.

with a highly functioning West Wing,

Err, no. I’m drawing a blank on things that the executive branch haven’t messed up, lately. These people can’t even manage an Easter Egg roll properly.

and he’s likable,

He’s likable enough. I guess.

but he’s not connecting on the gut level that could help him succeed.

This implies that he ever did (a statement that will no doubt confuse people not on my side of the aisle).

Moe Lane