Month: April 2015

Two old bulls are facing off in the South Carolina Senate, and we’re caught in the middle.  One wants a gas tax, the other an ethics bill.  Neither one wants what the other does, and it takes 2/3 to do anything.  In order to force the issue, one of them, 85 year old Hugh Leatherman, is refusing to allow anything to pass, including our bill, which he doesn’t like anyway.  This impasse could last until the end of the session, and carry over to next year.  In which case we don’t get South Carolina this year, even though we have the votes.

Leatherman’s a piece of work.  He’s made a living, and a good one, being a State Senator for 34 years.  His income from his legislative salary is chump change.  He’s found other ways.  He’s really a Democrat. He just switched parties to keep his chairmanship when the Republicans took over the Senate.  No one has any influence over him, except fellow state senators.  I like to think that I’ve got a good imagination.  But I’m damned if I can think of what to do with Hugh Leatherman.  I’d give him his damn gas tax, but that’s not in my power.

On a brighter note things are looking up in Oklahoma.  We got out of the Senate committee 7-5 and will be on the floor in a week or two.  CoS has already passed there, so we should too.  Gary Banz, on the ground, is feeling better about his chances.  If we don’t get South Carolina this year, Oklahoma would be sweet consolation.

There’s a lot of presidential poll numbers floating around right now, and most of them are meaningless.  But one caught my eye today, from Colorado and a couple other purple states.  It’s from Quinnipiac, which means it’s non-partisan.  Asked if Hillary was honest and trustworthy, 38% said yes, and 56% said no.  That’s kind of amazing.  If 3/5 of voters don’t trust you, how in the hell do you get elected President?

One way, and one way only  — destroy your opponent, just like Bill Clinton did to Dole in ’96, and Obama did to Romney three years ago.  Whoever the Republican is, he or she will be smeared, libeled, and slandered.  Put it in the bank.  Just win, baby.  The Clintons are the Oakland Raiders of politics.  It will be ugly.

If they knew who the nominee will be, they’d be after him right now.  Without doubt they’ve begun opposition research on all that they think could win.

That’s why Hillary is going to run, in spite of the political problems a lot of people see in her path.  She’ll get the nomination, and she’ll win by running the dirtiest campaign in modern American history.  That’s why introducing the American people to Paula Jones is so important.  What the Clintons, and their allies, did to her, and tried to do to her, is absolutely disgraceful.  I get pissed off about it to this day.  If the American people hear her story they’ll understand who these pests are who wish to disgrace the White House yet again.

I’m 69, Dan Fleming is 68, and we still learn things about each other.  Dan’s always been a bleeding heart liberal, and I’m finally beginning to understand why.  It all came from his dad.  That was his dad’s politics, so that’s going to be his politics.  His father was a lot bigger, and a lot meaner, than Danny.  He was a professional basketball player and the President of a Teamster’s local.  This was at a place, and during a time, when it was helpful to be a huge and violent man, with a hair trigger temper.  And he was a professional Irishman as well, who would not fight in World War Two because he hated the English.

Danny and I have mostly stayed clear of politics on our camping trips.  He was a huge fan of Obama.  We went camping before the first Obama-Romney debate and he told me he couldn’t wait to see Obama clean up.  I told him not to be so sure.  A couple days ago we were at Steep Ravine on the Pacific Coast and he asked me who I was supporting for President.  He said he liked Rand Paul.

I was floored.  Danny has been very active in California Democratic politics his whole life.  He was served it at dinner.  He was a Sacramento lobbyist and political activist, involved in countless campaigns.  I know it’s just a straw in the wind, but if Rand Paul appeals to Danny, he may have something going for him.

I think I know why Danny likes Rand Paul  — he sees him as antiwar, which is what Danny, and his father, are, and were.  Danny hated Bush’s war in Iraq, and does not want to see another one.  He was right about that war, and I was wrong.  The older I get, the more I hate war.  I reminded Danny of Hillary’s vote in favor of that war, and what it said about her.  It was a completely political vote.  She voted for war because she thought it would help her politically.  She was willing for young Americans to go to the Middle East and die, in a pointless war, because it was good politics.  This woman must not be allowed near the White House again.

Article V is the goal.  Hillary will be collateral damage.

I love politics.

In 1765 she came with her family to the Waxhaw region on the border of the Carolinas.  They were poor Scotch-Irish, and couldn’t afford good land, and her husband worked himself to death within two years, trying to scratch out a living.  She was carrying his third son, which she named for him.  She moved in with her cousin Jane Crawford, who had eight children of her own.  Jane was unwell, and she did the work of two women, taking care of the whole family.

When the Revolutionary War came to the Carolinas her oldest boy, Hugh, rode with William Richardson Davie at the Battle of Stono Ferry.  He died from exhaustion right after the fight.  He was 16.  Her remaining sons rode with Davie at the Battle of Hanging Rock, then became guerillas, and were captured and imprisoned at Camden with 250 other men.  They were dying of starvation and disease when she rode the 45 miles to see them.  She pleaded with the British to let her boys go, and they were finally released in a prison exchange.  When she got them home they were in desperate condition, and after two days her middle boy, Robert, died.  He was 15.  She nursed her youngest, 13, to a semblance of health, and then rode with two other ladies to Charleston to nurse and comfort the Americans being held on prison ships there.  Some of them were her kin.  She contracted cholera and, shortly after the great victory at Yorktown, died and was buried in an unmarked grave.

Her surviving son became a truly ferocious man, a lion.  He was his mother’s son.  She gave birth to him on March 15, 1767, and in less than two years we will celebrate the 250th anniversary of that day.  If she’s not the Mother of this country I don’t know who is.  Let’s all honor the life of Elizabeth Jackson on that day.

I’ll wager the vast majority of Millennials have never heard her.  Since Bill Clinton wants to be, at the minimum, a Co-President if Hillary wins, it’s relevant.  She was his, or so he said.

Paula was working as a receptionist at a hotel in Little Rock in 1991 when Governor of Arkansas Clinton spotted her.  She was 25, and attractive.  So he had a state trooper escort her to his hotel room, where he pulled down his pants and asked for sex.  A few years later she read an article In American Spectator that misrepresented what happened.  Her reputation damaged, she sued Clinton for sexual harassment.  Placed under oath and questioned, he committed perjury.   For this he was cited for contempt of court which cost him his law license in Arkansas.  He paid her $850,000 in an out of court settlement.

This same man now wants to go back to the White House.  His wife would be President, but I think calling him just a Co-President is selling him short.  He’d be pulling the strings.  Hillary is old and tired, and will rely on him to guide her.

I think the story of Paula Jones should be told in a sixty second TV spot.  You don’t have to mention Hillary’s name, though you’d want a lot of footage of her, with Bill.  People need to understand she wasn’t a victim in all this.  Paula Jones, and dozens of other vulnerable young women, were the victims.  Hillary was a facilitator, an enabler.  She and her team called these blameless women bimbos and trailer trash, even though they had done nothing wrong.  It was a real war on women, but the victims aroused no sympathy.  Poor Southern whites seldom do.  Towards the end of the ad you could have Clinton talking about how Hillary was his Co-President.

Paula Jones is no longer heard from.  If I could find her I’d like to talk to her.  Maybe she could be convinced to do a voice over in the ad, and be seen in the final shot.  I interviewed her lawyer on my radio show, even had R. Emmett Tyrell Jr., publisher of American Spectator, as a guest.  He was being accused of leading a vast right wing conspiracy, which I wanted to join.

I think, professionally done, this could be a powerful ad.  I can hear, in my mind, the shrieks of protest from the Clinton Machine.  If it was a hit we could follow up with one on Monica Lewinsky, or even Juanita Broderick, who claims Clinton raped her.  This could be a lot of fun.

Younger people, especially, really don’t know anything about Clinton.  They need education.  You could go after Hillary on a whole raft of scandals, but, politically, you’re on very dangerous ground when you attack a woman.  Women, and men too, really don’t like that.  It makes them uncomfortable.  But her Co-President is fair game.  I’ve got a year to sell this idea, get some money behind it.  Even if it doesn’t ever happen it’s fun to talk about.  And I can always come up with another one.  Something about Clinton stimulates my creative juices.  I really don’t like anything about this man.  He is the essence of a punk.  If I could play a role in sticking it to him I would be very happy.

Women are the key to success in politics, as in most things.  When I meet a politician in a social situation, I try to pay close attention to his wife.  When she talks, I listen.  Political wives, from Nancy Reagan on down, judge you not on your politics, but on your character.  And they’re not shy in telling their husbands what they think.  My wife always told me her mind, on this, and everything else for that matter.

On our first date she told me about her Porsche, and why she was working at Payless.  She was a full time student at Cal, living at home, and didn’t need a job.  Her parents wouldn’t buy her a Porsche, because the engine was in the rear.  So she took some money she had inherited and bought the damn thing herself.  She was working to pay back the principal on her inheritance.

I’d never known anyone who had an inheritance, much less a Porsche.  And she lived in a damn mansion in Piedmont, the ultra ritzy part of the East Bay.  She was tall, blonde, slender and very smart.  Oh, and she was beautiful.

After the movie we sat in a bar in Orinda, drinking beer, for close to two hours.  I’ve made some pitches in life, and some of them have been pretty good.

None better than that one.

I hope to be involved, somehow, in the Presidential election next year.  Not working with a campaign.  I want to associate myself with an independent group, to attack Hillary.  When I heard about the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth I immediately sent them all I could afford.  It wasn’t that much, but I knew these guys were on to something.  Kerry was a phony lying bastard, and they proved it.  Another such group, or groups, will form to take out Hillary.  I’m going to join up, and we’ll do some damage.  I haven’t thought it all the way through, but we’ll come up with something.  There’s so much to choose from, such a target rich environment.  Snakehead Carville will be pissed.  It could be a lot of fun.

I dislike Hillary, but my personal motivation is to get Bill.  They ought to do a poll on him, approve, disapprove, or despise.  I’d be in the latter category.  People don’t change.  You are who you were in high school.  And Bill Clinton was a slimy chalk board monitor, a kiss ass and a punk.  That’s who he was, and that’s who he is.  Ask yourself, what kind of man gets elected President and then seduces some fat intern to come to the Oval Office to give him blow jobs?  Is that your kind of guy?  He’s been that way all his life.  He’s a sexual predator, who tries to take advantage of young women.  I hate that kind of guy.  When I was growing up in Richmond my father wasn’t around.  He was a sperm donor, and that was it.  The less said of him the better.  I was raised by my grandmother, my mother, and my Aunt Mary.  I was not deprived.  My mother and my Aunt Mary worked in retail, and didn’t make much, but it was enough.  They were both beautiful women, though they were just working poor.  They were the kind of women who attract sexual predators, men who want to take advantage of them.  When I heard about Paula Jones, down in Arkansas, I knew she was kind of like my mother and my Aunt Mary, and I tried to raise money on my radio show for her lawyers.

I never want to be in the same room with Bill Clinton.  He’s got Secret Service protection, and I want to punch him in the mouth.  Knock him on his ass.  He’s the kind of guy who wouldn’t get up.  We’re the same age, but I hope to outlive him.  He’s on my bucket list.  I want to piss on his grave.

On a lighter note, I’m off to go camping with Danny, who is an anti-Clinton.  He’s everything that Clinton is not.  He’s a big, tough guy.  Girls were always crazy for Danny.  He married the most popular girl at Piedmont High.  If there was ever any trouble, you wanted to stick close to Danny.  He’d take anybody on.  Everybody liked Danny.

And still do.

Along with Kraig Powell, he got us Utah.  He’s been all over the country talking to legislative leadership in his role as incoming President of NCSL.  There was a story in the WaPo yesterday which quoted Utah Senate President Wayne Niederhauser.  He said you can’t really be sure what would happen at a Constitutional Convention.  Rob Natelson took exception to his comments, and put out an email highly critical of them.  Curt took exception, and fired back.  I jumped in and promoted the Reagan Initiative Summit.  This led to a long phone call with Curt, which I had been looking forward to.  He liked the idea of having the meeting, and said there would be a big Utah contingent at NCSL, and some of them would attend.  I’d already talked to Kraig, and so I was counting Utah as one of the seven states I had so far.  This was confirmation, from the President pro tempore of the Utah Senate.

Georgia Senate Majority Leader Bill Cowsert was in on the emails, and emailed me back, saying count him, and Georgia, in.  I was counting on Bill, and Georgia makes eight.  I’ve emailed Article V Caucus Co-chair Yvette Herrell, and she and I will talk tomorrow.  I’m quite confident she’ll be eager to participate, which would mean New Mexico can be added as number nine.  The way things are breaking we might get to 26 by the end of the month.  Then on to 38, or more, if possible.

The national media will not be our friend.  They will undermine us however they can.  It’s really impossible, at this point, to have any message discipline.  Too many people involved, and no coordination.  That’s something we could talk about in Seattle.  I’m not too worried about the press.  State Legislators in West Virginia and Idaho don’t pay a lot of attention to big media.  They all know it’s biased.  In some cases, like the New York Times, they’re nothing more than a publicity machine for the Democratic line, whatever it is.  The real left wing media is going to accuse us of wanting to repeal the 13th Amendment, and bring back slavery.  I’m not kidding.  They will say anything.

I’ll be off the blog for a few days.  I’m going camping with Dan Fleming, a friend from high school.  He’s on daily dialysis, so I don’t know how this is going to work, but we’ll find out.  I doubt I’ll be able to do much camping with Dan in the future.  We’ve been going camping for fourteen years.  This may be it.  I owe this to Danny.

When I was 25 I moved from Alaska back to California.  I had applied to several California law schools, and was sure I’d be accepted somewhere.  I went to work at Payless Drugs in Oakland, where I’d worked in high school and college.  I was trying to save money for law school.  I think I only had a few thousand dollars to my name, and knew I needed more.

So Danny comes in one day, and we have a nice talk.  Everybody likes Danny.  He’s one of those kinds of guys.  He tells me there’s a cashier I should ask out, Babbie Hawksley.  He was engaged, and Babbie was his fiancée’s best friend from Piedmont High.  I’d noticed her before, of course, but hadn’t really thought of asking her out.  I’d graduated from Cal four years ago, and hadn’t really accomplished anything since.  I couldn’t afford to hang out at bars, or do the kinds of things you might do to meet girls.  I figured all that would come later.

So a few days later I worked up my courage and asked her out.  We were married eight months later.

Yeah, I owe Danny.