Month: March 2015

Pam Roach was just what I expected.  We had a great meeting.  She gets the Reagan Amendment.  She’ll get it a lot more when she’s had time to think about it.  She’s very proud of her family.  Her 17th grandchild is due soon.  She said that’s just what Mormons like her do.  She got out her cell phone to show me a picture of her daughter-in-law, a 125 pound Olympic weight lifter.  She cleans and jerks 250 pounds, twice her weight, which is some kind of record.   Pam and I got along just fine.

The Capitol in Olympia is one of the best I’ve seen.  It’s uncluttered.  A lot of Capitols ruin their internal décor by hanging a bunch of pictures of dead politicians all over the place.  And some of the statuary I’ve seen is atrocious. Not so in Olympia  Everything in good taste..

Now it’s on to Boise, in quest of a third state.  If we don’t get to 34 this year, it’s not all bad. More time to line up support for the Reagan Amendment.  I don’t know if I’ll be able to turn Senator Davis.  To tell you the truth it doesn’t matter all that much.  We’ll get Idaho next year.  But 30 sounds so much better than 29.

Rep. Jim Kasper will getting an award at the Reagan Amendment Summit.  North Dakota, today, is #27.  Passed the Senate 29-17.  We always thought North Dakota wouldn’t be that tough.  But a win is a win.  It puts everybody in a good mood.

Co-founder Darren is starting his own business in Bozeman on May 1st.  He’s got a million things to do to open the doors, but he’s all jacked up about the Reagan Amendment, so he’s moonlighting on the web site.  I can’t wait to see it.  I’m like a kid at Christmas.  He thinks we’ll be able to raise some money on it.  The man’s a marketing whiz, so maybe he’s right.

I really didn’t know what to expect with Pam today.  When I talked to her last summer I could tell she was a character.  But the Reagan Amendment is a real departure from conventional thinking, and I was worried she might think I was some kind of nut.  Not a problem.  She didn’t blink an eye.  That was the best thing about the whole meeting.  She says she’ll be at the Reagan Amendment Summit, as long as it doesn’t interfere with her foreign travel.  I guess she’s a globe trotter.

Pam is a leader.  I could tell.  And she’s a pro.  And a solid Reaganite.  She can be a major asset going forward.  Plus she’ll be fun to be around.

I’s nice working with people it’s fun to be around.  Rep. Dick Schultz from Tok was a funny guy. Great sense of humor.  We played a lot of handball together.  He was an athlete, a big guy, from Nebraska.  He was recruited by Alabama as a running back.  He told me a story about winning the big game in high school and coming home, cock of the walk, and more or less demanding the keys to the family car.  He said his dad got up and flattened him with one punch.  He said he went up to his room and cried.

Dick loved his dad.

I first heard about it in high school.  Back then the birth rate of black Americans was very high, and had been a long time. If you projected a continuation of black versus white birth rates, blacks were going to be a majority in this country some time in the 21st century.  A lot of people back then believed it.

Now the Republicans are doomed because whites are becoming a minority.  Good God, how stupid can people be?  They look at the present, and the recent past, and figure they know the future?  Fools.

There are such things as political realignments.  The New Deal produced one, a big one, that lasted a couple generations.  I’m becoming convinced that the political flood tide which began with the rollout of Obamacare may result in a political realignment to rival it.

If it happens I will live to see it.  Thank you, Jesus.

Article V is perfectly proportioned.  It’s the Dolly Parton of the Constitution.

Up to now we’ve been focused on 34.  That’s where our focus will remain, but I think it’s time to look past 34, to 26 and 38.  Moving on up, so to speak.  For the first time since I got involved, eighteen months ago, I think the odds of 34 are in our favor.  Getting 26 of 50, to organize and control the Amendment Convention, shouldn’t be that tough, as long as people don’t let their egos and personal ambition get in the way.  There are 31 red states, with solid red legislatures, which share an interest in saving our country through the rapid economic growth which would result from the Reagan Amendment.

Some of the 31, like Virginia, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin are purplish, it’s true.  But the real key to 38 are the seven actual purple states, with legislatures half red, half blue.  Of these, I think New Mexico, Colorado, and Kentucky would easily ratify the Reagan Amendment, getting us to 34.  The deciding states will be Maine, Iowa, Minnesota, and Washington.  These are the states the Amendment Convention must be cognizant of as it fashions the actual amendment.  There are other possible targets, of course.  Delaware, perhaps, and definitely Oregon, where 52.6% of the state is owned by the federal government.

We should get Washington, where 28.5% of the land is federal.  So we’re down to Maine, Iowa, and Minnesota.  Down on its luck Maine would, like every state in the Union, benefit economically from the Reagan Amendment.  Maybe that would be enough.  Maine’s legislature flips back and forth between red and blue, and its Governor is a right wing Ross Perot type.  We should get Maine.  Iowa just elected Joni Ernst, striking terror in the hearts of hogs across the country.  This is a seriously conservative woman.  They’ve had a Republican Governor for umpteen years.  We ‘ll get Iowa.

So it all boils down to Minnesota, where my mother’s family hails from.  Bemidji, up north, to be precise.  Harriet Brennan Achenbach was her maiden name.  Minnesota was settled almost exclusively by northern Europeans  — Germans and Scandinavians.  Prairie Home Companion, and all that, where all the kids are above average.  They’re good people, but they do have a socialist streak in them.  But I think that’s fading.  Socialism doesn’t mesh well with diversity, and I think they’re figuring it out.  The Twin Cities have a lot of population, but most of Minnesota is farm country.  Yeah, we’ll get Minnesota.

I learned a valuable lesson in Minnesota  — don’t trust strangers.  We were staying in Wilton, about ten miles north of Bemidji on Highway 11.  We went to the County Fair in Bemidji, and a guy offered me ten dollars if I’d pass out flyers all afternoon.  My family was heading back to Wilton, but they let me stay to earn the money, since I could hitchhike back.  I busted my ass for hours passing out flyers, and when it was time to get paid the guy gave me a pen set he said was worth ten dollars.  My ass.  A quarter at best.  I’d been cheated, but there was nothing I could do about it.  I really wanted that ten dollars.  It would have doubled my entire wealth.

That was in 1954.  I was nine.  I’ve tried, ever since, not to be taken advantage of.

It still pisses me off.

Co-founder Darren is spending his weekend doing over the website. Big changes coming. We’re jacked.

I’ve been thinking a lot about how to spread the word on the Reagan Amendment.  I’ll decide now, in the woods.

North Dakota will be 27, maybe as early as Monday, according to Guldenschuh.  South Carolina will be 28.  John Steinberger reports we passed out of the full Senate Judiciary Committee 15-6, with two D’s.  We could be on the Senate floor by the end of next week.  The House is wired.  In Wisconsin Lou Marin reports that sponsor Chris Kapenga is waiting on the special senate election to fill the seat of now-Congressman Glen Grothman, the blockhead who beat us last year.  Chris knows what he’s doing.  He’s fairly young, but he has skills.  Wisconsin will be 29, though it might not be ’til fall.

We came in to 2015 ten short.  We’ll almost certainly get five.  But 30 sounds a lot better than 29, and 31 sounds really good.  I’ll be in Boise on Wednesday, and I’ll stay until I get to talk to Bart Davis.  I’ll tell him about the Reagan Amendment, and what it could mean for the economy, for jobs, in his state.  Every Republican legislator I’ve ever known cares about jobs.  A lot.  It’s one thing that unites us all.  I hope he gets it.  Depending on the reaction I get from Davis, I may want to go to Oklahoma City in a few weeks to talk about what the Reagan Amendment would mean for Oklahoma.

Biddulph’s still talking about getting it done this year.  That would require special sessions in West Virginia, Wyoming, and either Montana or Arizona.  I don’t see that happening.  But if we go viral, anything’s possible.

The closer we get, the more focused.

Loren Enns will be doing a pledge campaign in Virginia.  The filing deadline for November’s legislative elections is getting close, if it hasn’t already passed.  The quicker those letters go out, the more effective they will be.  You never know.  Virginia could be 34 next year.

Some guy in California filed our bill.  I may have some free time in Sacramento at the end of next week.  If I do I’ll drop by his office and tell him that when California Governor Jerry “Moonbeam” Brown ran for President in 1980 an Article V BBA was one of his principal campaign themes.  Jerry used to be a thinker, an innovator.  Maybe somebody should remind him of who he was, 35 years ago.  I’ll say this about Jerry.  If he was ten years younger he’d run against Hillary, and he’d beat her.  He smells weakness.

The Republican Party in California is dead.  A big reason is abortion, which is a religion to the women of this state.  If I run for Congress next year it will be as a Reagan Democrat.  I became a Democrat a year ago.  I’d call upon my fellow Democrats in Sacramento to place on the ballot a pro-choice constitutional amendment.  If Rowe v. Wade is overturned they’re going to do it anyway, so why not now?  Because, of course, they want the issue.  To beat Republicans up with.

Running for Congress might be fun. Hell, I know it would.