You know, Politico does itself – or, more to the point, its readership – no favors when it does stupid nonsense like this:
‘Greeted by a crowd of hundreds.’ Hmm. What does a ‘crowd of hundreds’ look like, anyway? Why, apparently like this (credit: Drudge, care of Gateway Pundit):
Continue reading #rsrh Politico lies about Romney-Ryan Wisconsin turnout. Yes, you’re shocked.
The most entertaining part of this story about Paul Ryan’s journey to the VP nomination: the candidate’s evasion of the media, the night before.
Ryan returned home in the early afternoon and went inside through the back as he was locked out of his side door, telling reporters who stood watching on the sidewalk he must have forgotten his keys. That would be the last time anyone saw the congressman in Janesville, because sometime after 3 p.m., he exited his home into the back yard (where reporters couldn’t see) and went into the woods.
“I grew up in those woods. The house I grew up in backs up to the house I live in, so I know those woods like the back of my hand. So it wasn’t too hard to walk through them. So I just went out my back door, went through the gully in the woods I grew up playing in. I walked past the tree that has my own tree fort I built back there,” Ryan said.
Hey, Democrats, don’t feel so ashamed: why, I hear that Joe Biden once had to stand in line for the Amtrak dining car for a whole hour.
Continue reading #rsrh QotD, Paul Ryan The Wisconsin Ninja edition.
Christian Schneider has the details, and they’re hysterical. Short version: John Lehman is – assuming that he wins the various recall challenges – the new Democratic state senator for Wisconsin Senate District 21. Small problem for Lehman, though: he’s eligible for recall himself a year from now. Even worse: his district has been previously redrawn, the better to excise out the folks that voted for him in the last recall. Basically, it works out like this:
If a small percentage of district residents (about 15,000 people) decide they want to hold a new election under the new map, they must simply wait until July 2013 to begin recalling Lehman. And if Lehman is recalled, he will lose the seat. According to the GOP’s demographic numbers, the new 21st Senate District is 57.5% Republican, while the old district was split evenly.
I really, really hope that Wisconsin Democrats truly enjoy the breeze that is coming out of the door that they’ve opened, here. And I would like to gently remind them: it’s a little late to try to placate Wisconsin Republicans now. You people threatened their families. That’s not going to be forgiven in a hurry.
Moe Lane
Assuming that the poll is correct – or even correct enough – sixteen points is… a pretty comfortable lead. What may be more of interest is that Rep. Baldwin only gets about 42%-44% against the other Republican candidates; she’s effectively tied with all of them. This is not good news for the Democrats; they are simply not prepared for an election battlespace where they have to pump money and energy into Wisconsin.
Particularly since these results don’t exist in a vacuum. If Wisconsin is really as in-play as its numbers suggest (and Rasmussen is showing a trend in the WI Presidential race that suggests that it is), then… what about the other states in the area? The Midwest was exceptionally blue in 2008; but since then the Democratic party’s taken, as they say, an arrow in the knee. Has everybody calibrated accordingly?
…specifically, that he had, um, stuff to do that kept him from Wisconsin until progressives had been sufficiently spanked by the electorate last Tuesday – anyway. It’s not just a lie; it’s a stupid lie. And we all know that it’s a stupid lie. The President only cares about getting more money and (not incidentally) re-elected. Since the participants in the Wisconsin recall will already undoubtedly be ponying up personally – they’re rather good at that, from what I hear – and since too-close an association with said forces will end up being a net negative for the President, then clearly progressives need to understand why Obama just wants to keep their relationship… special. Secret. The world can’t understand the purity of the bond that they and he share.
:shrug: You can’t make me respect somebody who won’t respect themselves. I believe that we’ve gone over this already, yes?
Moe Lane
PS: For the record: George W Bush had his flaws, like everybody else. But I’m blessed if I can think of any time where Bush showed anything like the casual contempt towards his own political base that Barack Obama routinely shows towards progressive and liberal Democrats. Even when Bush was breaking with us over things he at least had the elementary decency of respecting our dignity…
Lord, please continue to make my enemies’ cheerleaders ridiculous. Amen.
From Hot Air Headlines comes this entertaining Wisconsin post-mortem, and the first paragraph will tell you why I used that adjective:
A controversial incumbent hangs on and retains his job despite fierce opposition in a bad economy. Sounds like a hopeful scenario for the Obama campaign, right? Instead it was Republican Scott Walker’s impressive victory in Wisconsin. If President Obama is smart—and he is nothing if not that—he will go to school on Walker. Here are some lessons he has probably already absorbed.
I’ll just list the ‘lessons’ – Money Matters Most, Ground War Can’t Counter Air Superiority, The Base Ain’t Enough, Go Ugly Early, and Class Warfare Has Already Begun – to reassure my readers that the Democrats (well, Paul Belgala) haven’t actually learned a darn thing from Wisconsin. No, that actually covers The Base Ain’t Enough: Paul Begala seems to think that the President doesn’t need to move any further to the right to keep independents, which is funny as all get-out. Just like the thought that the President learns lessons; but that’s not what I want to get into. What I want to get into is what’s missing from that list of lessons. Continue reading The Democrats’ Lost Wisconsin Lesson for Obama.
And by ‘down’ I mean… oh, just watch the video. I kept waiting for Stewart to leave off kicking the Left on this – I was prepared and ready to accept that Stewart would leave off kicking the Left – but he. Did. Not. Stop.
Unless there was more than what was on that clip. But what was on that clip was not so much brutal as it was completely aimed at one side. That wasn’t mine. Highly surreal.
The Hill reports that the Obama administration is privately “fretting” about Tuesday’s Wisconsin recall vote… as well they should, as it was an unmitigated* disaster. The interesting thing: it was also a predictable disaster. In fact, it was a predicted disaster. Once the primary results came in, it was clear that there wasn’t a chance for the Democrats to topple either Gov. Walker, or Lt. Gov Kleefisch. Which leads to the question: what would have happened if Obama and the national Democratic party had come out and simply admitted it?
The short answer is, of course, that Obama would have been scapegoated for the loss. The unions and progressives would be screaming right now about how they had been stabbed in the back; the media would be lecturing the President about how he did not use his power to save Tom Barrett; and the conservative grassroots would not be taken as seriously as they are being taken, right now. Which is an alternative way of saying that the unions would not be looking impotent; the President would not be looking powerless; and the conservative grassroots would not have a prime recruiting tool.
Sounds a bit different when put that way, huh? Fortunately, the President is a narcissist who loves his own image too much to tolerate damaging it for the sake of mere moral courage, so we dodged a bullet there.
(Via Hot Air Headlines)
Moe Lane
*The likely gain of a state Senate seat by the Democrats is not a mitigation, for two reasons. First, the WI Senate will not meet again before January 2013, by which time it will be likely again under the control of the GOP (thanks to redistricting**). Second, WI Democrats will be on the hook for everything Walker does and they didn’t stop. What’s that? The two reasons are contradictory? Yup! Isn’t politics fun?
**Elections have consequences.
From this almost-hiding-their-panic Politico article cataloging the big losers last night in the WI recall elections (spoiler warning: probably nobody that you’d particularly care about):
A Republican National Committee official confirmed the two dozen Walker campaign offices would immediately be converted into Romney working space as soon as later this week.
Hey, Wisconsin progressives? Thanks for giving us the ability to set up Mitt Romney‘s* 2012 Wisconsin campaign infrastructure and have it going at full guns right away, and essentially for free! Much obliged.
Moe Lane
*By the way, I should take this opportunity to note something to the Activist Left: if all y’all didn’t want conservatives to start enthusiastically lining up behind Mitt Romney, then all y’all should have kept your mouths shut and not attacked Mitt Romney’s wife. Because that sh*t’s not right.
Via @cayankee comes this heartwarming example of one of Dizzy City’s favorite games: Whose Fault Is It, Anyway? – And the common answer from Democrats is, of course, Everybody’s – except ME. It’s pretty funny, really: failure might be an orphan, but there’s a lot of people out there prepared to assign paternity to it anyway.
There’s a lot of unintentional entertainment in the article, in fact. I particularly enjoyed reading the bit where supposedly the WI Senate is about to flip back to the Democrats: as somebody in the Hill article’s comments section helpfully pointed out, even if that does happen (it’s possible) the state Senate is not going to be back in session this legislative season, and there’s another election between now and then. One using new maps… designed by the current GOP majority. Don’t expect that to be mentioned tomorrow if that one seat flips…
