Moe Lane

This is the result of roughly ten years’ worth of looking on – sometimes horrified; sometimes amused; sometimes just bewildered – at our current Media environment.  Note that capital, by the way: I’m pretty much describing the Media as a singular and monolithic institution, mostly because on a practical level that’s pretty much how it acts towards conservatives/Republicans. Also,  I’m really not interested if individual Media-units feel bad about the more unsavory aspects of the paradigm that they’re supporting, either; guilt, like gratitude, is worth its weight in gold.

So let’s go. One final note: if you need a quick summary of this list… well, just remember the first truth and you’ll be fine. (more…)

Let me explain this one: there’s a debate Thursday that’s being sponsored by FoxNews & Google.  Google is letting people submit questions via YouTube – frankly, this has more than a slight whiff of gimmick about it, but let’s roll with the notion for a moment.  The preliminary survey of submitted questions indicate that the top two categories of questions submitted are “Government Spending” and Debt (17%) and “Jobs & Economy” (16%), with “Social Issues” (12%) and “Energy and Environment” (9%) being the next two.  By my calculations, that means that roughly 54% of the questions being submitted involve one of those four topics, which I think that we can all agree are legitimately of interest to Republican voters, yes?

Well, WE HAVE YET TO HAVE A 2012 REPUBLICAN PRIMARY DEBATE WHERE FIFTY-FOUR PERCENT OF THE QUESTIONS WERE LEGITIMATELY OF INTEREST TO REPUBLICAN VOTERS.  We have, instead, had inane questions at worst and invitations to intra-debate sniping at best. I for one am getting tired of it.  And, apparently, I’m not the only one, either. (more…)

I had completely forgotten about this one until Jim Geraghty reminded me.

I’ve come to the conclusion that – nothing against CNN – but we need actual conservatives to moderate Republican debates.  Even when they mean well (and I think that more of ‘em mean well then we generally give ‘em credit for) liberal media folks simply don’t know how to ask the right questions that will demonstrate the difference between various Republican candidates.  From what I managed to see last night, they were trying to determine said differences… and failing.

Just saying, that’s all.

The bill is SB5, and it will limit future collective bargaining for Ohio state employees to base salary: it passed the Ohio Senate with a one-vote margin (all hail the power of having a strong enough majority to allow you breathing room: elections matter, folks*).  The bill now goes to the House, where the GOP has a 59-40 advantage: and a simple majority constitutes a quorum in the Ohio legislature, which means that the bill will likewise almost certainly pass there with sufficient margin to permit a defection or two.  Governor Kasich will of course sign the bill once it is law.

While this is all of course good news for advocates of reform generally, it does also have a bearing on the specific situation in Wisconsin.  The time has come for union leadership and other Democrats in that state to ask themselves what they want to do.  To wit: do they want to start an armed insurrection against the legitimate government of Wisconsin?  Or do they want to start preparing their supporters for what promises to be a crushing defeat of their (misguided) hopes?  (more…)

You want to tell me how great your candidate for RNC chair is?  Excellent!  Make your pitch.

You want to tell me how awful somebody else’s candidate for RNC chair is?  …well, there are a lot of people out there who I am sure will be happy to take that call.  I ain’t one of them.

Moe Lane

PS: This rule will also be in effect for the 2012 primary season.

PPS: No, I’m not going to name names.

PPPS: I am, of course, happy to see any evidence that a Democrat is involved in skulduggery.

Republicans (H/T: Bearing Drift, The Other McCain):

ABC News has learned that the House Republican Leadership plans to unveil its legislative agenda Thursday morning in Sterling, Virginia. House GOP sources say members of GOP leadership, including Minority Leader John Boehner, will make the announcement after a small business roundtable at a local hardware store.

“[The agenda] will be the result of the months-long process we’ve been engaged in dubbed ‘America Speaking Out’ in which we asked Americans what their top priorities are,” a GOP leadership source tells ABC News. “What we heard from Americans are that their top priorities are jobs, spending, health care, national security, and changing how Congress works. This will be reflected in the agenda.”

Democrats (H/T: Hot Air):

House leaders are considering adjourning as early as the end of this week, which would give lawmakers five and a half weeks to campaign before the Nov. 2 election but could also leave them exposed to allegations that they didn’t finish their work in Washington.

The House hasn’t adjourned before Sept. 30 in an election year since 1960.

One comment: it’s not an allegation that the Democrats didn’t finish their work in Washington. It’s objective reality. WHERE IS THE BUDGET?

DOOM implies a lack of giggling.

An average of 59% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents have said they are more enthusiastic than usual about voting this year compared with past elections, the highest average Gallup has found in a midterm election year for either party since the question was first asked in 1994.

Via Jim Geraghty.  Just try not to giggle at that article.

Try.

Moe Lane (more…)

This made me laugh:

“Hey Jim, could you put together a list of House races where it’s either an open seat race or a vulnerable incumbent?” the editors ask, oh-so-innocently.

Do they have any idea how much work that entails?

…because even if the NR editors don’t. I do. It entails thirteen webpages’ worth of work, and it’s interesting to see all of that in one place. Well worth reading, the better to refresh your memory; and bear in mind that this isn’t the final list; we’re still six months out from the election.

Mind you, I always thought that we would, although I guessed that it’d take about 20 months to show up, not 12.

“GOP to tie Obama to Dem candidates.”

Isn’t it pretty? More:

The challenge will be to link Democrats with the administration on such issues as spending, bailouts, healthcare and cap-and-trade while not personally attacking Obama, who remains personally well-liked even as his standing erodes. So, at least in purple states or districts, don’t expect to see an ad where the faces of Democratic candidates are morphed into that of the president—a time-honored approach from past campaigns.

But Republicans are unmistakably enthusiastic – and downright giddy in some cases – about the prospect of Democrats stumping with the president in their states, a vivid reminder about how starkly different the political landscape seems now than when Obama took office.

Thus, expect a lot of the President being lumped in with such… iconic… Democrats as Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, John Murtha, and Al Franken (add your own favorite clown, crook, or creep, of course). Which suggests that there’s an interesting counter-move for this administration…

Moe Lane

Full disclosure: this is all going to be as-I-think-of-it-opinion, I have no interest in interrupting the narrative flow by looking for links, and so I freely admit that it would be fair to discount or dismiss the results accordingly.

The Democrats are in for a bad election cycle, to the point where people are actually talking about the Democrats losing the House – and starting to hint that maybe, just maybe, it’s not entirely bizarre to suggest that the Senate might be technically in a position where the Republicans could take control of it. Long since past time that this happened to this party, to be sure: but why?

I think that it’s for a pretty simple reason: the American people subscribe to a pretty simple political mathematics.  They divide our political class into Those Idiots Running Things and Those Idiots Out Of Power.  Then they modify it with (I Hate Those Guys).  Typically speaking, election cycles depend on which party gets the modifier.  For example:

• 2002 (post-9/11): Normally a time for Those Idiots Out Of Power to win seats, but being at actual war meant that (I Hate Those Guys) continued to apply to the Democrats.
• 2004: This is where (I Hate Those Guys) began to shift away from Those Idiots Out Of Power. As I recall, House gains were largely from redistricting; if Those Idiots Out Of Power had put up somebody better than Kerry, the race would have been a heck of a lot closer.
• 2006: At this point, Those Idiots Running Things had officially gotten the (I Hate Those Guys) designation. And we got shellacked in Congress.
• 2008: Interesting case, here: the holding of the Presidency by the GOP meant that we got to be still treated as Those Idiots Running Things (I Hate Those Guys), instead of Those Idiots Out Of Power (I Hate Those Guys). The more I think of it, the more I think that maybe that saved us seats.

(more…)

The country is indeed ungovernable.

…By Democrats.

I mean, seriously: remember what life was like four years ago, when it was the GOP running things?  Miss it yet?  You should: rather more of the people reading this had jobs back then.  And fatter retirement accounts.  And better value in their houses.  And soon – very, very soon – lower taxes.

Remember, folks: the GOP can run things without Democratic input. At least, the Democrats certainly spent six or so years saying that we did*.  In contrast, the Democrats can’t run a Sunday School picnic without a Republican supervising them every step of the way.

Moe Lane

PS: I don’t really think that Reynolds would disagree with this.  Or that Yglesias would agree, although I mention that last only out of completeness.

*Which is, by the way, not true.

Crossposted to RedState.

Like Gateway Pundit, I didn’t think Bobby Jindal’s speech was bad*, but this DC Examiner article by Byron York is still of interest:

“A Major Doctrinal Shift for Republicans” I just got off the phone with a very plugged-in Republican strategist who told me that Republican reaction to President Obama’s speech, which the party will roll out in the next few days, will mark the beginning of a new GOP approach to opposing the president’s initiatives. (No, Bobby Jindal’s ineffective response was not part of that new approach — everyone seems a little embarrassed about that.) The Republican leadership in the House has concluded that in the stimulus debate, the GOP succeeded in dominating a number of news cycles but failed to score any points on actual policy. That, the leaders believe, has got to change. “You’re seeing a major doctrinal shift in how Republicans are going to focus all these debates,” the strategist told me. “The key is to focus on winning the issue as opposed to winning the political moment. If you win the issue, people will think you are ready to govern.” [snip] Just a few weeks ago, House Republicans cheered and high-fived each other for unanimously opposing the stimulus. Now, having realized they won the soundbite contest but lost the war, they don’t want to talk about it. That is a major shift indeed.

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