Moe Lane

Via Jim Geraghty, meet Brad Woodhouse, who came to a discussion of the Alaskan Senate race with precisely zero clue of who his own party’s Senate nominee is.

As some may remember, I am not exactly happy with Woodhouse – I dislike it when party flacks try to irresponsibly fundraise, and by ‘irresponsibly fundraise’ I mean ‘deliberately use inflammatory language to raise money without worrying that it might encourage violent stalkers of the other side’s politicians‘ – but this relieves me, in its way. It raises the hopeful possibility that when Woodhouse was inciting violence on the DNC’s behalf earlier in the year he wasn’t cognitively capable of understanding what he was doing.

Seriously?

Not a single Democratic lawmaker appears in the ad, and there is no mention of President Obama, who won’t be on any ballots this year. A teacher and a masked factory worker make brief cameos in the ad, but the only recognizable individual in the spot is President Bush, who says, “You can’t get fooled again.”

Shoot, when a representative of the working class doesn’t even want to show his face on your campaign ad, that’s a ‘problem.’ And by problem I mean ‘opportunity for hysterical laughter.’

Moe Lane

PS: Betcha it took them at least 100K to make that ad (no, it shouldn’t have, but it probably did). They should make a ton more.

PPS: Do you think that Jeb Bush flashed the Loser Sign on his forehead? Probably not, but he should have.

Yes, the title is meant to be subtly mocking.

This article in the New York Times on the awkward disconnect between the President of the United States and the political party that he’s presumably in charge of is actually… not  too bad, really.  This, for example, is pretty clear-headed:

In 2006 and 2008, Democrats did something that had not been done in American politics since the Great Depression, which is to string together two consecutive “wave” elections — roughly defined as a gain of at least 20 seats in the House of Representatives. They gained a total of 55 House seats and 12 seats in the Senate; the tide came in twice and with unusual strength. That means that some significant number of the Democrats elected in the last two cycles, to put it bluntly, really don’t have much business holding their seats in the first place. Either their districts normally trend Republican — 49 Democratic House members were elected from districts that voted for John McCain — or they themselves probably wouldn’t have cleared the threshold for a successful candidacy in a more conventional election year.

…where it breaks down is in considering some of the implications.  Well, that’s why we’re here. (more…)

Anonymously, of course.  The next Democratic staffer who has the guts to attack a conservative woman to her face will be the first.

The DNC, the political wing of a president who launched his campaign decrying slash-and-burn campaign tactics, is highlighting new stories about a sex scandal rocking a GOP primary.

[snip]

“We don’t see a thing wrong pointing out when a politician of the other party lies to voters which the story in question shows here,” the spokesman said.

So, how do you know she’s lying, again, Mr. Anonymous Hero? Or was this just covering up for the fact that your staffers can’t tell an internal email list from a external one?

Moe Lane

PS: Your sabotage of the President’s own soaring rhetoric on the need to transcend petty politics is duly noted.

Crossposted to RedState.

No, really: check out the job description.

Email campaigners are responsible for planning, writing, and executing grassroots campaigns to advance the President’s agenda for change.

Back in December when Ben Smith reported on this the first time, the DNC’s response was “Your in-box isn’t going to fill itself.” Which is a very unintentionally revealing statement, given that it essentially concedes that the DNC assumes that there’s no such thing as a spontaneous popular movement. After all, if they don’t exist on the Left – and if they existed, the DNC wouldn’t be advertising for people to create them – then they don’t exist anywhere. This probably explains their more nonsensical statements about Tea Parties: the idea of a legitimate populist, grassroots-driven movement is as alien to them as a reactionless drive would be to a modern physicist. (more…)

You just can’t trust some people.

Moonbattery has the juiciest details if you don’t feel like giving FrumForum traffic; suffice it to say that the Democrats have been using their money for some verrrrrrrry interesting things.  Six grand on go-go bar visits, thirty-seven grand for having a celebrity chef on-call, three hundred grand on top-flight hotels, and… well, let me quote:

Put perhaps the most questionable expense was the DNC’s use of the trappings of the White House for partisan purposes: $232,436.81 spent on White House helicopters and White House In-flight Services since August of last year.

Which leads to some questions:

• Is all of this expected behavior for a national political party? The helicopter rides need to be checked out* before I say ‘Yes,’ but nice hotels and celebrity chefs and, yes, strippers are all part of the background at this level.
• Is the GOP somehow more hypocritical for availing themselves of comparable services? I don’t know: how many soup kitchen meals could have been funded by the Democrats’ celebrity chef budget?  And what does doing business at a strip club say about the national Democratic party’s attitudes towards women?  See how that works?  It’s always different when it’s your stated ideals that are being… challenged by your actual behavior.
• Will certain people now loudly yelling about the RNC (on either side) change their tune? Don’t be absurd.  The ones on the Right have no emotional attachment to any particular excuse for piously not involving themselves in practical politics; and the ones on the Left have no emotional attachment to the poor.  I have hopes that individuals in either group (here and there) will reconsider their rhetoric, but that’s only because I’m a raging optimist.
• Did you make up the name ‘Wolfgang Puck?’ I swear that I did not.

Moe Lane

*The problem there is that DNC = Organizing for America = Obama administration; navigating the interlocking oversights, permissions, and restrictions there without breaking the law requires, as they say, a very steady hand. Since we’re talking about a White House that doesn’t even spell-check its own diplomatic documents…

…this time, against local police.  Via @cprater:

Saturday, Senator John McCain and Sarah Palin spoke at Mesa’s Dobson High School and as reported by the East Valley Tribune, about five minutes into Ms. Palin’s speech Ethan Elder a nineteen year old from Chandler began spouting anti-McCain statements. He was quickly apprehended, handcuffed and detained for questioning; no citation or arrest was made. On Sunday Mesa police received an e-mail that read:

Since the names of your pig scum that beat up the man at the (Sarah) Palin event just for exercising his free speech are not released, I’ll just have to pick out some Mesa pigs at random for pay back.”

Which is precisely what can happen when you irresponsibly incite your followers in order to raise money.  Some of them won’t turn themselves off afterward.

Moe Lane

Pleased, Brad Woodhouse?

Well, this is the sort of thing that happens when you scare the mob in order to get money out of them: some of the members of said mob are disinclined to stop being scared once they’ve written the check. And so:

Police are investigating vandalism at the Albemarle County Republican headquarters.

The Daily Progress of Charlottesville reports that someone threw bricks through the headquarter’s windows, breaking three of them. The vandalism was discovered Friday morning.

(Via the Corner) If I were the Albemarle County GOP, I’d send the bill for the windows to the Democratic National Committee.  After all, they adamantly refused to take responsibility for their own rhetoric, so it only seems fair that they at least pay out some monetary compensation for their demagoguery…

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

Yeah, you: Brad Woodhouse of the DNC!  It’s cool if the state GOP raises some money on NH Democrat Nickolas Levasseur’s hate speech, right?

My Interests

Medicine, biology, mathematics, anything that doesn’t involve Organic Chemistry, cars that don’t begin with “Ford” and end with “Aspire”, HBO series, Bill Mahar, politics, the hunting of neo-conservative Reaganites (a shooting sport brought to you by the republican party in more ways than one!), sleeping (it is sad when necessary life takes become occational hobbies).

(Via Riehl World View) I mean, I know that he hangs with the President and everything, but, hey: on spelling errors alone surely we’re entitled to raise some cash off of him.  Particularly since he’s an actual racist, and not one of the imaginary ones that you constructed to get monthly revenues back up after February.

Moe Lane

PS: You guys should really start thinking about how many Nikolaus Levasseurs are out there and habitually talking trash because nobody in the Democratic party (present company not excluded, Brad) has had the backbone to police its own side.   Or maybe you shouldn’t: we’d like as many seats as possible in November.

Crossposted to RedState.

Well, well, well. Short version? All three Republican national committees raised more than their Democratic counterparts for the first time in… well, a while.

A while.

(more…)

The combination of CPAC and a reduced feeling of urgency delayed this for a couple of days, but here are the numbers for January.  Short version: RNC over DNC, effective ties (as in, less than 10K/20K differences ) for the Congressional and Senatorial committees, and the Democrats retain their cash-on-hand advantage.

(more…)

It’s that time again.  Short version: RNC above DNC, DNC took a big cash on hand hit, NRSC over DSCC in the biggest shocker, NRCC/DCCC more or less the same, DCCC has a big CoH advantage, and blessed if I know how much any of this means, post-Citizens’ United and post-Brown.

(more…)