Moe Lane

Seriously, what’s the freaking point of having a sinister shadow conspiracy if we can’t use it to mess with this guy’s head, anyway?

A House Democrat inspired by the last James Bond movie has offered legislation to produce handguns with “personalization technology.”

The idea is to produce guns that can only be used by the gun’s owners. Rep. John Tierney (D-Mass.) cited the latest James Bond movie, Skyfall, as inspiration for the bill.

“In the most recent James Bon…

…and I don’t want to kill any of my readers’ brain cells, so I’ll interrupt there: NO.  Bad Congressman!  Bad! No biscuit! (more…)

Slightly contra Instapundit, this call for Mickey Mouse as a write-in on the California ballot is a blogger’s joke rather than an actual movement [UPDATE: I am informed in comments here that this is meant absolutely seriously; please be assured that I had no intention of mocking either the sentiment or the activity], but if it’s kidding then it’s kidding on the square.  And it’s illustrating something that is perhaps being under-reported: the way that Obama’s not been doing all that well in the primaries for an incumbent.

I mean, yes: we’ve had it noted that Obama only racked up 59.4% of the West Virginia primary vote; 80.9% of New Hampshire’s; and 79.2% of North Carolina’s.  But here are some other primary race vote totals, thus far (all via The Green Papers): Rhode Island, 83.4%.  Louisiana, 76.5%. Alabama, 80.8%. Massachusetts, 81.2%, Oklahoma, 57.1%.  To give you a baseline… if you remove places like American Samoa or Guam, if I read this right in 2004 George Bush never dipped below 89.5% (Idaho) of the primary vote in states he won and 79.6% (New Hampshire) in states that he didn’t.  Other states of note in 2004, to give you an idea: Alabama, 92.8%. Kentucky, 92.5%. Massachusetts, 90.6%. Rhode Island, 84.9%. (more…)

As mentioned earlier, I was kind of taking last night off, so this will be a little scatter-shot.  Anyway:

• Heh.  Called it.  Not that getting the order was all that hard, or even unsurprising; also note that I didn’t predict the percentages.  By the way:  the end results (Gingrich 40%, Romney 28%, Santorum 17%, Paul 13%) were pretty close to what PPP predicted (Gingrich 37%, Romney 28%, Santorum 16%, Paul 14%).
• Sean Trende over at RCP has done a pretty good job explaining just how bad this night was for Mitt Romney.
• I predict that we’ve heard the last of any suggestion, by the way, that Romney will skipping most or all of the remaining debates.
• Most importantly: none of this suggests that Newt Gingrich is now the inevitable nominee.  Just that Romney isn’t actually inevitable.  But it’s going to be one of those two.
• Florida is going to be epic next week.  Nine days of (metaphorical) knife fights in alleys, because there’s some people out there who are scared for the first time in this campaign cycle.  Hope everyone else is prepared for that, because it’s going to happen anyway.
• Looking further at the schedule… Nevada, Arizona, and Michigan’s caucuses/primaries look like the results will be binding; Maine, Colorado, and Minnesota’s technically will not. Don’t expect that to be reported in the media.
• If Romney doesn’t start winning primaries, the Super Tuesday narrative will have a disproportionate amount of space dedicated to the minor detail that the frontrunner is not on the ballot in Virginia. Fallout from that: if Romney wins the nomination then Bob McDonnell will not be his Vice Presidential pick.
• Last but not least: if the Gingrich campaign is wondering what to send RedState in the way of a gift basket, I personally like those chocolate praline stick things.  Although, honestly, I didn’t do the heavy lifting on this one.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

OK, let me try to explain just what is going on in this court order involving the VA GOP primary ballot.  For those who came in late: back in December, Virginia’s primary registration system ended up producing a result where only two Republican candidates (Mitt Romney and Ron Paul) qualified for the ballot.  This resulted in some frankly unkind things said about virtually everyone involved in the process, from the candidates to the Republican party of Virginia – usually involving competence levels, although conspiracy theorizing certainly wasn’t underrepresented.  While that was going on, Gov. Rick Perry filed a lawsuit (one later joined by Newt Gingrich, Jon Huntsman, and Rick Santorum*) challenging the constitutionality of the process.  Yesterday the judge hearing the case ordered the Commonwealth of Virginia not to issue absentee ballots; today’s order explains why.

(more…)

Worst possible news, in fact:

April 6, 2009 – Voters Say 3-1 Paterson Does Not Deserve Election, Quinnipiac University Poll Finds; Most Say He Should Announce Now He Won’t Run

New York State voters disapprove 60 – 28 percent of the job Gov. David Paterson is doing, the lowest approval ever for a New York Governor, and say 63 – 22 percent that he does not deserve to be elected to a full four-year term, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today.

With numbers like that, it’d take a special miracle from God to convince the man to run for election next year; more to the point, even if Paterson refuses to admit to the inevitable the rest of the NY Democratic Party won’t be quite so stubborn. Hence, the use of the word ‘depressing.’ I much prefer to see the Other Side engage in rather vicious primary battles. Like the one that may be happening with Gillibrand: (more…)