Month: October 2015

State Senator Chris Kapenga is our man in Wisconsin, and has told us he’ll take care of getting our Resolution passed.  Last year he got through the House, but was a vote short in the Senate.  Turnover in the Senate led us to believe that we now had a majority there, and all was well.  We’ve been waiting for the uncommunicative Kapenga to push it through.

He’s also one of the principals in the Assembly of State Legislatures, and has determined that bipartisanship is critical to its existence and effectiveness.  Thus four of the nine members of the ASL board are Democrats.  They are involved, in my opinion, because of their desire to use Article V to overturn Citizens United, and their involvement with the group pushing it, Wolf-pac.  Kapenga wishes to be as accommodating as possible to these Democrats, and apparently intends to introduce, and pass, an “open” Article V resolution, which would be intended to aggregate both with our current 27 Resolutions and Wolf-pac’s three or four.

The Heartland Institute’s Kyle Maichle spent a few days in Madison with Dave Guldenschuh and gave the Task Force a detailed report today.

On a related note, we learn that Kapenga is opposed, for some reason, to ratification  by Convention, and is therefore assuming that any proposal that came out of an Amendment Convention would need ratification by a Democratically controlled chamber of a state legislature.  As a result, he thinks any proposal should get a 2/3 vote at the Convention.  His reasoning is that since we’ll need bipartisanship to ratify, we may as well require bipartisanship to propose.  This is Kapenga’s proposed Convention Rule, which he hopes the ASL will approve at its Nov. 11th meeting in Salt Lake.

The Task Force is unanimously and vociferously opposed to this proposed Rule.  If it is adopted it would kill us in some of our target states.  We hear again and again the fear that somehow the Democrats would wind up in control of the Amendment Convention.  Our response is simple:  if it’s majority rule, the D’s have no power.  31 states are Republican controlled.  26 is a majority.  Let the majority rule.  Fruth, Biddulph and the rest of us are going to do all we can to get legislators to the Salt Lake ASL meeting to vote down this proposal.

The Task Force is in favor of ratification by Convention, but it’s Congress’s call.  If they want it ratified quickly they’ll choose Convention.  If they want to be cautious, they’ll choose legislative ratification.

Which can be accomplished.  It is my belief that a lot of the Democratic opposition to an Article V BBA is political, not substantive.  Let’s face it, the BBA is a Republican issue, and a winning one.  D’s just want it to go away, because it hurts them politically.  But if an Amendment Convention is held, and a BBA proposal comes to a Democratically controlled chamber for ratification, the political calculation changes.  They almost certainly have to put it up for a vote.  And at that point, if you’re a Democrat from Minnesota, or Washington, or Kentucky, serving in the state legislature, with your constituent’s eyes on you, what’s in your best political interest?

Which leads me to Delaware, where we’re worried about rescission.The Senate is 12 D’s, 9 R’s, so we’d need to get two Democrat State Senators to vote no on rescission.  These guys are up for reelection a year from now.  This will be an issue.  Do they really want to make this vote?  For what?  For who?  What do they get out of it?

Which brings us to the Wisconsin Center for Media and Democracy, another Soros front group, like the one that killed us in Montana.  These people aren’t that bright.  They pulled some stuff on us in Montana that blew up in their face, and gave us the opening we needed.  But then they got to the Governor, and that was the end of that.

These people are on us.  They may even read this blog.  Hi.

We’ll be looking for help in Delaware from my cousin, Sen. Brian Pettyjohn.  There are a lot of Pettyjohns in Delaware.  We were originally from Virginia.  My branch moved to Delaware, then Ohio, and points west.  The first American Pettyjohn, James,  was born in Northampton County on the Eastern Shore of Virginia in 1633.  On July 4th, 2033, I will be 87 years old.  If I’m still kicking, my sons have promised me that they’ll get me back there for a 400th birthday party.  There are probably 5-10, 000 named descendants of James Pettyjohn.  They’re all my cousins.

I hope to see some of them there.

A lot of people in Congress who want a BBA think it’s best if Congressmen write it.  They don’t want a Convention to do it.  They want us to get to 33 and scare Congress into doing it.  Many assume that if Congress proposes a BBA, our Article V campaign will be moot.

There’s no support for such an idea in the language of Article V, and no reason we should fold our tent if Congress goes first.  The States, acting in unison in Convention, would write a different BBA than Congress would.  It might be a supply side BBA, with revenue enhancements as well as spending restraints.

I get the sense that even the most true blue conservatives in Congress don’t want a Convention.   It reduces their clout, so they don’t like it.  But that’s not a bug, it’s a feature.  Taking power from Congress and giving it to the States is the whole idea, at least for me.

I’ll get a better feel for all this after attending NTLC’s 40 birthday party next Tuesday, which should have a lot of Lew Uhler’s old friends in Congress come by.  If I get a chance to talk to them.

The 100 Year Tide piece will be up at AT tomorrow.  Editor JR Dunn took out the line about Article V, but actually he’s right.  I just kind of threw it in there.

What I didn’t stress in that piece was the war weariness which Americans felt in the 1920 election, another similarity to today.

I’ve seen tapes of the D debate, and I’m thinking, what does Joe Six Pack make of all this?  He didn’t watch, of course.  He was watching the baseball playoffs.  But he will watch the debates a year from now, which looks like it will be between Hillary and one of the Cubans.  What a contrast, in every imaginable way.  A man and a woman from two different worlds, as different as day and night.  All those working class white guys who refused to vote for Romney are the ones I’m focused on.  These are my guys, and I know what they’re going to think.

When you run a bunch of ads, and your numbers go down, you’re in a world of hurt.  You can’t blame the ads.  I saw this happen in Alaska in 1986 when Bill Sheffield ran for reelection as Governor.  The ads were fine.  But they just reminded everybody of Bill Sheffield, who they couldn’t stand.  Fox is saying Bush has had 60% of the political ads in New Hampshire in the last three weeks, and his number actually slipped.  This is a screaming tell.

There’s nothing he can do.  He is what he is, and that’s all that he is.  I guess he goes negative.  It’s the strategy of last resort.  I think it backfires if he does it, and he doesn’t get out of New Hampshire.  The honorable thing to do would be to admit you’re not going to make it, and exit gracefully.  Going negative would poison the Republican waters for the entire Bush clan.

Wouldn’t be prudent.

It can be theme song as Hillary makes her triumphant entry into the National Convention.  It’s lyrics are the essence of her appeal, and that of her party.  Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons continue the Ballad of the Democrats:

“Don’t let go, girl, we’ve got a lot

Got a lot of love between us

Hang on, hang on, hang on,

To what we’ve got

Doo-wop, doo-wop, doo-wop”

Since I think the next election is a rout, I try to see what the dark side says.  Maybe I’m missing something.  The slimy munchkin, David Brock, is one of the leading intellects in Clintonland, so I want to hear what he’s thinking.  Come November of next year he says the Democratic voters are going to get really excited to turn out and vote to protect Obama’s legacy and the Supreme Court.  No, seriously, that’s his game plan.  And you wonder why I’m feeling good?  That’s what made me think of the song.

People say last night’s debate may keep Crazy Joe out of the race.  Not.  He was only going to get in if the Queen of the Hive and Valerie Jarret signal to him that they will continue to let out damaging information on her.  Last night doesn’t change anything.  He was never going to take her out on his own.  He needs help, and if he thinks it will be forthcoming he can go for it.  If he wants to, which I believe he does.

I was hoping someone would ask Bernie about his support for Article V.  He’s a big Wolf-pac guy, so he’s a big Article V guy.  It would be nice to see Bernie explaining and endorsing it.  He knows a corrupt Congress will never pass meaningful campaign finance reform, and the only way around it is Article V.  Maybe next time.

I didn’t see the debate, but it sounds like there were five people on stage with no balls, and only one was born that way.

Part of the Weaver/Huntsman/Kasich strategy in New Hampshire is to attract Democrat crossover votes in the primary.  That’s a big part of how McCain won there in 2000. and they’re using that campaign as a template.  But with Sanders, Hillary and possibly Biden on the D side, there might not be a lot of potential there this year.

After they win the nomination, Cruz or Rubio should give a speech on affirmative action at the University of Michigan.  It would win the election.

There’s a very popular website called Conservative Treehouse.  It’s devoted to the theory that all the Republican candidates, except Trump, are in a conspiracy to elect Bush 3.  He’s very serious, and does a lot of analysis.  Some of it is actually pretty good.  But he’s obviously never been really involved in a political campaign.  Like a lot of people on the internet, he doesn’t understand what it’s like to campaign for public office.  He’s never done it, and he doesn’t know anyone who has, at least in a serious way.  He seems like a well meaning guy, but he has absolutely no idea of what he’s talking about.  Like a lot of people.

Chapman University poll finding:  We’re more afraid of corrupt government officials (58%) than we are of terrorism (44%).  This is why we win in a landslide.  Stu Rothenberg, normally a pretty bright guy, doesn’t get it.  He thinks Cruz would get killed in the general.  But when the Democratic candidate is a proxy for the government, and the government is disliked as much as it is today, the candidate doesn’t matter as much.  It’s an issue election, like 1920.  Harding didn’t win by 26 points because he was such a great politician.  He wasn’t any better than Cruz.  The issue in 1920 was the same as it will be next year  — the Goddamn federal government was out of control.  Harding didn’t matter, and any Republican but Bush will win in a walk.

Unless they scare people with chest beating.

Boots on the ground

Is a terrible sound.

It was a time of bewildering change, of amazing technological innovation, and of massive disruption in the way everyday Americans earned a living.  Wave after wave of immigrants arrived, and there was justified concern that many of these newcomers did not believe in the American form of government, and would not assimilate.  Political corruption was endemic, with Congress blatantly under the thumb of special interests.  There was a huge and growing concentration of wealth, with the rich getting incredibly rich and the masses living from day to day.  Environmentalists battled industry.  Unions battled big business.  Americans were uncertain about their role in the world, with many rejecting an active part in world affairs.  And for the first time in our history, a political party, and a political movement, believed the Constitution itself was outmoded and an impediment to progress.

It was America at the turn of the 20th century, and it gave birth to the 100 years of Progressive politics that have, with a few interruptions, been the political trend in this country.  The big blue tide, if you will.  Things started going to hell in 1913 with the adoption of the 16th and 17th Amendments.  We’ve been going downhill, in terms of our constitutional freedoms, ever since.

This century long political trend was halted in October of 2013 with the implosion of the Obamacare website and the subsequent realization, by even the most low information voters, that the federal government was, in fact, stupid, incompetent, dishonest and profligate.  A reversal of our political direction has taken place.  The question is, how strong will this new tide run, how long will it last, and what can be done with it?

In the best case scenario we adopt reforms as significant as the 16th, 17th, and 19th Amendments.  We can abolish the IRS, and even repeal the 16th Amendment, if necessary.  We can return half the functions of the federal government back to the states, restoring the federalism which the 17th Amendment undermined.  And we can eliminate the abomination of affirmative action root and branch, in all its insidious tentacles.  And we can do a lot, lot more.  If the tide is strong enough, and we are skillful in channeling it to our purposes.

We have five conviction candidates, Trump, Carson, Fiorina, Cruz and Rubio.  While we can all have our disagreements over which will win the nomination, and who would be strongest in the general, or who would be most effective if elected, any of them would take office with a mandate for fundamental reform.   They’re not Governors, but we don’t need somebody to run the government.  You hire people to do that.  We need someone who’s ready and eager to ride this tide as far as it can take us.  An agent of institutional change. A true believer.

Kasich’s running on competence.  How’d that work for Dukakis?  Bush plays the competence card as well.  It doesn’t sell.  This whole beltway idea that people were going to want a Governor for President turns out to be a fiction.

After the landslide of 1920  — the most lopsided win in the history of contested Presidential elections  — Harding gave us a Return to Normalcy and the Roaring 20’s, but they didn’t last.  Neither Harding nor Coolidge was able to make any structural or institutional reforms.  The cancers of the 16th and 17th Amendments would soon metastasize into the New Deal.  What could be different from 1920 is that, this time, we can have structural, Constitutional change, the kind you only get to make every 100 years.

The kind you can make with Article V.

Most of the forces at play a century ago have returned, with a vengeance.  The American people are again desperate, hungry for something more than a change in the cast of characters.  A majority know that federal government is not benign, it is the greatest threat to their freedom.  Something big has to change if we are to continue as a functioning constitutional republic.

It seems every four years we’re told that this election is the one that matters, that this time we really do face a fork kin the road.

The timing of the D debate tonight is a tell.  It’s up against a baseball playoff game, by design.  They really don’t want an audience, unlike the Republicans, who avoided such a conflict.  The rest of the D Debates will be on weekends, in a further effort to minimize viewership.  That’s a tell.

The Democratic field of candidates is a tell  —  weak and thin.  The Republican field is also a tell  —  strong and deep.

I see a lot of tells, and they all tell the same.  The stars are coming into alignment for a blowout next year.

Which brings us to Don Juan of Florida.  Is he really up to this?  I’ve looked at him hard, and I can’t see anything wrong with this guy. He’s got the temperament and the skills.  He’s strong, with a great family.  I just hate putting all my bets on one horse.  They can trip.  We’ll just to have to watch him run.

Lew Uhler’s 40th anniversary of the NTLC is on Tuesday, the 20th at the Capitol Hill Club, a swanky Republican retreat within short walking distance of the Capitol.  This is the first day of business as Congress returns from a recess.  One of Lew’s attendees was supposed to be Rep. Price of Georgia, who was at one time in the running for the new Majority Leader.  This whole House leadership thing will not be resolved, so it should be an interesting evening.  I’ll be asking a question of whoever I get a chance to talk to.  Why shouldn’t a Republican Presidential candidate want to use Article V and the BBA as an issue in their campaign?  I don’t know if I’ll get a chance to ask that, but I hope I do.

The Speakership business is a distraction.  It’s a lousy job, but somebody will take it, and we move on.  Congress is in gridlock with Obama, and nothing will get done.  Everything in Washington, from now until the election, is about the election.  Obama and the Democrats, and all the Republicans, are focused on the same goal.

This is why the IRS scandal was so disturbing.  The Democrats are the party of and by the government, and I don’t think we’re being paranoid if we think, Why couldn’t something like that happen again?  The federal government is very powerful, and if the election were close it would be worrisome.  But I don’t think it’s close.

It shouldn’t be close for a reason, which is that if the Democrats are kept in charge of the White House, this country is in serious trouble.  We need big change, and we need a big change election.

Put yourself in Rubio’s, or Cruz’s shoes.  They know what they’re getting into.  It can be a monster of a job, if you let it.  I admire both of these guys for stepping up.  They’ve both got balls, and they’ve both got brains.

But only one is Don Juan.