Ohio and the limits to Demagoguery.

The unusual thing about this article (“Losing the Class War“) is not its message.  Its message is in fact pretty straightforward: to wit, that the Democratic nominees for Senator and Governor in Ohio are both trying, and failing, to rouse public anger against the Republican nominees through some good, old-fashioned pseudo-populist demagoguery.  They’re trying this because both Gov. Strickland (who is losing his re-election bid to John Kasich) and Lt. Gov. Fisher (who is losing the Senate race to Rob Portman) are heavily reliant on Big Labor to generate some sort of buzz for their moribund campaigns; and they’re failing because under their watch Ohio’s economy has, well, tanked.  More to the point, the population of Ohio is aware that the current leadership team of Ohio consists of two gibbering, would-be rabble-rousers who apparently have, as they say, Poor Impulse Control.  So, again, that’s not the unusual thing of that article.

No, the unusual thing is that it was on NPR: there’s some sort of partnership thing going on there with National Review Online.  I guess somebody over at NPR can put two and two together, and get Armageddon

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

“What wonderful news! Callooh, Callay!”

“…Republican primaries conclude today!”

Well, there’s still Hawaii and the Louisiana runoffs, but the rest of them cook off today – and, given the way that the Delaware primary now resembles a duel with flamethrowers, is a very, very, very good thing. Much longer, and the conflict would wreck roughly two years’ worth of patient activist networking. As it stands, there’s been a lot of what was frankly avoidable damage done to people’s reputations and effectiveness, and it’s only gotten more Amateur Hour as the deadline looms*. If this sounds slightly irritated of me, it is: I was very much looking forward to starting tomorrow with a happy, innocent grin on my face as I contemplated all the awful things that we’re going to be doing to Democratic incumbents in November. Instead, I’m mildly worrying about what media fallout from the Delaware race is going to do to the Toomey campaign in Pennsylvania and a couple of possible pickups in New Jersey.

No, people need to think about that sort of thing when they’re participating in a national party system. Those who don’t want to consider the implications of their actions on fellow-Republicans are perfectly welcome to try to win races on their own…

Moe Lane Continue reading “What wonderful news! Callooh, Callay!”

Translating the ‘America is ungovernable’ meme.

I thought that I would offer a translation service for those trying to work out a certain mood that seems to have arisen in our pundit class.  Ben Smith noticed the underlying phenomena, too – but I don’t think that he’s quite prepared to be quite as blunt as I am, or as happy to be blunt about it as I am prepared to be.

Anyway, onto the translations: Continue reading Translating the ‘America is ungovernable’ meme.

Moonbeam Brown (D CAND, CA-GOV) opens mouth, attacks… CLINTON?

Shared ellipsis unintentional.

Wait, what?


A quote from the video: “Meg Whitman. She stops at nothing. She’s even got Clinton lying about me. That’s right.” Note the tense, there… and, yes, that’s what Brown really said. And a little while later he went on to mock Bill Clinton by saying “I did not have taxes with that state.”

I assume that Brown wants to win the California gubernatorial election, yes? The one in 2010?
Continue reading Moonbeam Brown (D CAND, CA-GOV) opens mouth, attacks… CLINTON?

#rsrh Oh, this will smart just a bit…

My RS colleague Leon Wolf seriously did not like Meghan McCain’s new book:

On June 20, 2002, the United States Supreme Court decreed, in the case of Atkins v. Virginia, that the mildly mentally retarded were categorically exempt from capital punishment, reasoning that fully functional adults of diminished mental capacity were as a matter of law not as culpable for their acts.  Writing eloquently in dissent, Justice Scalia drew a sharp distinction between the severely mentally retarded (who are truly not responsible for their actions), and the merely stupid (the category into which Mr. Atkins undoubtedly fell).  Scalia argued forcefully that, with respect to the merely stupid, at least sometimes they deserve to be punished for their antisocial and destructive behavior.

This article, of course, is not about capital punishment. It is a book review of Dirty, Sexy Politics by Meghan McCain.

…and it just went downhill/uphill from there.

Moe Lane Continue reading #rsrh Oh, this will smart just a bit…