Month: October 2010

#rsrh A PSA for 2012 third-party enthusiasts.

As brought up here and here.  Anyway:

  • A group of very smart, very skilled men went to some time and trouble to create a system that hates political parties in the first place.  That’s why we only have two of them in the first place.
  • To win Electoral Votes, you need to win states.  All but two are winner-take-all; and if any of them have 50%+1 runoff rules for Presidential elections it’s news to me.
  • If you get enough votes to throw the election into the House then keep in mind that the Twelfth Amendment dictates that each state votes for one of the top three vote-getters, and they do so as individual states: thus, you can get 219 House members to vote for your candidate and still lose easily.  What has to happen is that you need to win the count in 26 of the state Congressional delegations. Continue reading #rsrh A PSA for 2012 third-party enthusiasts.

#rsrh What’s worse than having Walter Mondale…

…give you political advice?

Walter Mondale being right.

“He uses these idiot boards to read speeches in television, and I think he loses the connection that he needs emotionally with American voters,” Mondale said in an interview set to air this evening on CNN’s The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer, according to a transcript from the network.

But that’s not the best part! The best part is Ben Smith’s update, where ‘a source’ (that’s Beltway for ‘a White House official wanting a little payback for being lectured by Walter Mondale’) wanted to make sure that people knew that Mondale would be using his own idiot board at a rally tomorrow.  Normally I’d assume that it was Rahm Emanuel who ‘leaked’ that – it’s ineffectual and petty, after all – but Rahm’s gone off to the Emerald City.  Something about getting a heart*…

Via Hot Air.

Moe Lane

*It may not be going well.

Meet Nan Hayworth (R CAND, NY-19).

Dr. Hayworth – odd, there are a lot of medical doctors running as Republicans for Congress this session; I wonder why that is? – is up against John Hall in NY-19.  She is, in fact, well-positioned to take the seat away from the man, and not before time.  We spoke about the campaign:

Nan’s site is here.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

Ami Bera (D CAND, CA-03) covering up sex offender tenants?

There are two parts to this: what is known, and what was reported.

It is known that the aforementioned Bera owned a transient hotel in California that had a registered sex offender (case involved a minor) living there in April of 2010.  It is also known that living at the location in question would be effectively banned for sex offenders under the California Penal Code, as it is too close to both a playground and a high school.  Lastly, it is known that the property was sold in December of 2009.  These things are all known.

It has been reported to RedState that in April of 2010 an agent of the Bera campaign ran a focus group on Bera’s ownership of this hotel and the residency of the sex offender.  If the information provided to RedState is as reported, then the Bera campaign was both aware and actively worried about the possible implications of it being revealed that their candidate was renting to sex offenders (the information provided to RedState used the plural).  It also indicates that at least one sex offender was living on the premises when Bera owned it; obviously, it would hardly reflect badly on the candidate if a pedophile moved in after Bera sold the property.
.  In short, there seems to be a bit of potentially-disturbing development going on here.

Now, it is entirely possible that the answer to the question Did Ami Bera knowingly violate the California Penal Code by renting to a pedophile? could be ‘no.’  However, given that this was apparently important enough for his campaign that Bera had an outside group focus test it among voters, it seems clear that the question should be asked.  If it turns out that the candidate had merely not done due diligence as per the law… well, that’s bad, but it’s not really nasty.  But regardless of whatever is going on here,  it certainly needs to be resolved.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

PS: Dan Lungren for CA-03.

#rsrh Gloria Allred: long-time Brown supporter.

I can’t read the linked article, but California Watch (H/T Chaos Party) can – and they report that Allred was involved with Jerry Brown’s first gubernatorial bid, too.  CW also reports that Allred has a history of relatively small but consistent contributions to Brown and other Democratic candidates over the years.  Judging from the Whitman thing, I suppose that means that Allred prefers to donate time and labor instead of money.

Moe Lane

PS: Meg Whitman for Governor.

Meet Alex Armour, Jan Schakowsky’s (D, IL-09) CoS.

…judging from his Twitter account (H/T: The Campaign Spot) Armour despises and loathes the roughly 60-70% of the population* of the United States that had a problem with the Ground Zero Mosque.  Extra points: Armour apparently also thinks that the expression of said problem demonstrates an ignorance of the purpose of the First Amendment, instead of it being what the First Amendment is for.  I note “extra points” because Armour probably ran around yelling about how dissent was the highest form of patriotism, back when he was fighting the establishment instead of cashing its checks.  He seems the sort who would do that.

Here’s the screenshot, for when Armour takes down the tweet: it uses too many obscenities to be safe for work.  The real question is, of course, whether Jan Schakowsky agrees with her own Chief of Staff: if the answer’s no, she should probably say so quickly.  Note that I am not calling for any kind of sanction, though.  Unlike Armour (and apparently Schakowsky), I respect these fools’ right to sound like fools in public…

Moe Lane (Crosspost)

PS: Joel Pollak for IL-09.  Not a fool.

*No real national polling on this recently, sorry.

Book of the Week: 1635: The Eastern Front.

Hey, I like alternate history and 1635: The Eastern Front has all sorts of interesting things going on in the margins. Besides, the more Eric Flint sells, the more likely he is to get the latest book in his Trail of Glory series published.

And so farewell, Red State Uprising: How to Take Back America.

Moe Lane

Yet *more* violence at a Lefty rally.

The first amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America: clear.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Basic rule of thumb for filming in public places: straightforward.

Legally, it’s pretty much always okay to take photos in a public place as long as you’re not physically interfering with traffic or police operations. As Bert Krages, an attorney who specializes in photography-related legal problems and wrote Legal Handbook for Photographers, says, “The general rule is that if something is in a public place, you’re entitled to photograph it.” What’s more, though national-security laws are often invoked when quashing photographers, Krages explains that “the Patriot Act does not restrict photography; neither does the Homeland Security Act.”

Continue reading Yet *more* violence at a Lefty rally.