I was just getting ready to post, when I thought, hell, this is pretty damn good, maybe I should submit it to AT? So I’ll look it over in the morning, and if I think it’s good enough I’ll send it in.
It’s a comparison of the 1920 and 2016 elections, and the end of the 100 year long blue tide.
I swear I’m turning into a damned optimist.
It’s the big affirmative action case to be argued on December 9th, and decided next spring. It’s perfect launching pad from which a Presidential candidate can attack racial discrimination against whites and Asians. All you need to do is say that the first question you would ask of any potential Supreme Court nominee is this: Do all Americans stand as equals before the law, or do some get special treatment?
This is a legitimate issue. Every candidate should address it. And if they want to win they should campaign on it.
Thanks to JR Dunn and the editors at American Thinker for putting my Cubano piece up as a featured article, rather than a blog post. The commenters crowd at AT are mainly Trump people, and they get totally pissed off when anyone disrespects the Donald. Some of them operate at grammar school level, making fun of my name. But they’ve actually got a fairly diverse readership, conservatives of different stripes. Here’s the link.
Mark Levin says the R’s need to grow a set and impeach Obama. He’s right, of course. When the courts won’t stop a President from exceeding his constitutional authority, the only remedy is impeachment. For the last 50 years I’ve wondered why Congress was so timid with its power to impeach. I wanted to impeach Earl Warren. Clinton was impeached for lying, it’s true, but lies are expected of politicians. Having one bunch of politicians call another politician a liar doesn’t really resonate.
I like writing something in this blog, and then seeing it repeated by some big foot. I don’t like repeating what I’ve read elsewhere. George Will has a piece in the WaPo today which is a preview of what I’ve got coming up in tomorrow’s AT. For some reason my editor, JR Dunn, decided to put it up on Sunday, not today. The Church Lady says it could very easily get down to the two Cubans in the finals. And, as I did mention yesterday, he says the key to Republican victory isn’t Hispanics, it’s working class whites. It’s the gal who works down at the 7-11, or the guy who changes your tires.
He says Cruz is the one who’ll appeal to them, and he could be right. These people are royally pissed off, and so is Ted Cruz. Of course, they have every right to be pissed off. They’re getting screwed, and they know it.
Affirmative action could be the key to these votes. It is perfectly understood, and roundly despised, by working class whites. They are the ones who are being discriminated against. So far in this campaign it hasn’t come up, as far as I know. It’s incendiary to talk about “equal rights for white people.” The media brand any such talk as racist, and will come down hard on any candidate who appeals to the self interest of whites. It’s O.K. for everyone else. But in this country, to decry discrimination against white people is to begin the march to the death camps.
Only a guy with balls will do it. As official “Hispanics”, Cruz and Rubio have an advantage. You see, they’re not white. They may look and act white, but they’re not. They’re Hispanic, and as such are eligible for affirmative action themselves. I’m certain Cruz never benefited from affirmative action. With his IQ, he didn’t need any leg up. And the same for Rubio. He may not have the sky high IQ that Cruz has, but he’s plenty smart, graduating cum laude from the University of Miami Law School.
Either one of them can pull this off. Tell people that, as Hispanics, they may have been eligible for affirmative action, but they and their families never considered it. And they will never think of using it on behalf of their own children. Because it’s wrong. Everything about it is wrong. It’s an affront to more than just the Constitution. It’s contrary to a truth which predated the Constitution, though it’s embedded in it.
We are all equal before the law.
I know, that’s racist. It would take tremendous courage to say something so outrageous. So it will probably never happen.
Scraped my Kasich sticker off the truck, and ordered one from Rubio. He’s frugal, he doesn’t give them away. His fundraising is weak, but that’s O. K. He’ll have enough to compete in Iowa and New Hampshire, and before too long the “Establishment” will see the logic of his candidacy and start funding him. In the mean time he can run an economy campaign. He won’t have to live off the land, as McCain did in ’08, and he himself did when he started his Senate campaign.
If it does get down to the Cubans I’m putting my money on Marco. He may not be as smart as Cruz, but he’s got instincts and skills. And he’s a cool guy. You’d enjoy having a couple beers with him. Out of high school he got a college football scholarship. This is while Cruz was a debate champ.
Who do you think gets the votes, a handsome dog of a football player, or the smarty pants debater?
Retired Admiral Bill Owens was Vice Chair of the Joint Chiefs, and is heavily involved in the world of big business, as an executive and board member of Fortune 500 companies. This is a man with connections. John Knubel of the BBA Task Force was acquainted with him, and has succeeded in convincing him of the dire necessity of our Article V movement. Owens has reached out to some of the most prominent business leaders of the country, and has already elicited enough interest to get everyone on the Task Force hopeful. If even one of these guys would take it upon himself to provide us funding, we could probably get this thing done this year. Admiral Owens is a serious man, who “gets it.” We’ve had our hopes up before. There’s an excellent chance former Michigan Governor John Engler may be able to garner some help as well. We will see.
I submitted a piece to AT describing my current view of the nomination contest, to wit: it’s going to be one of the Cubans. I’ll print or link to it tomorrow. It’s humble pie time for Captain Fritz. I’ve been touting Kasich at AT for a couple months, and taken a lot of abuse for it. Now all these guys get to say I told you so.
The thing is, I misread Kasich. I thought he was smarter than he really is. It’s not personal, at all. I never really cared for him, personally. The one time I had any personal interaction with him was in Phoenix last December. He led a meeting of Arizona state legislators in a discussion of the Article V BBA campaign. I was seated ten feet from him, and made a few remarks which seemed to be well received. Later, after his press conference, I tried to introduce myself and explain that our paths might be crossing in our western target states. He totally blew me off, acting like I was some kind of nuisance.
I shook it off. He misjudged me, but that’s not that big a deal. But now I’m beginning to think that’s just who he is, an arrogant and insecure man. This whole business of shaming your opponents as un-Christian is a sign of weakness, of desperation. He doesn’t have a satisfactory answer on the Medicaid expansion, so he just gets pissed off. Maybe there’s something wrong with this guy. It’s too bad. He’s got the tools to do a good job. He won’t win the nomination, and he’ll be bitter. But if he’s a patriot he’ll shake it off and go to D.C. and pitch in, at least for a year. There’s a ton of work that will need to be done, and the President is going to want his help. I hope he’s a big enough man to give it. It would be the Christian thing to do.
The thing is, when it comes to politics, Americans consult the Constitution, not the Bible.
What we need to do is make sure Rubio understands Article V, and our BBA campaign. If he becomes the nominee, we’re going to rely on him to get us over the top. He’s signaled support for what we’re doing. Duh. But he either doesn’t appreciate the significance of Article V, or he thinks it’s Kasich’s issue, and he doesn’t want to be a Johnny come lately. I’m confident we’ll have no problem with Rubio. He’s plenty bright, and you have to be a numbskull not to see the attractions of Article V.
Sometimes I think of the Task Force as a bunch of religious fanatics, believers in the True Faith of Article V. As proselytizers, we’re a bust. But our faith is undiminished. The day when the ignorant masses see the light will soon be upon us.
One of my favorite songs when I was in high school was a black gospel tune called “On my way”. I haven’t heard it in 40 years, but I can play it in my mind.
I’m on my way, glory, Hallellujah, I’m on my way.
The John Weaver hire was a tell, but one that I was too blind to see. This is a guy who went to work for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in 2002, and thus played a role in making Pelosi Speaker. Later, he was the brains behind the Huntsman for President train wreck. Since Weaver believes the right wing base cost Romney the 2012 election, it follows that his candidate, Kasich, must avoid the same fate. He must not cater to the right, as Romney did by declaring himself, and pretending to be, a severe conservative. Kasich must follow the Bush 3 strategy, and be willing to risk losing the primary to win the general. So the 30-40-50% of the Republican Party who are strong conservatives can go chew rocks.
The disdain Kasich feels for us is the reason he wants to give us Bible lessons. He and Weaver are two peas in a pod. I liked Kasich because he gave the Article V BBA campaign a boost. He visited the Capitols, lobbied the state legislators, and made the phone calls. I figured he’d make it part of his Presidential campaign, and once he brought attention to, and made the case for, an Article V BBA, we’d get a boost over the top. I didn’t like his Medicaid expansion, but, hell, when you’re an elected official and you get a chance to pass out goodies to constituents, it’s hard to resist. I’d been aware of Kasich since ’94, and admired his conservative record in Congress. He was a Reagan man, and he stuck by his guns. If anyone was going to actually balance the federal budget I thought it would be him. I thought his record in Ohio was conservative. If he won, he’d have the experience and connections to get the job done.
That was then. Now it’s Don Juan or the Parson. In fact, there’s nothing much that Kasich can do for us on the Article V front any longer. The state legislative leaders who we need are, by and large, not interested in Kasich or his candidacy. This spring, once one of the Cubans wrap up the nomination, whoever prevails can help a lot. Until then, we’re on our own. Our job is to get to 32, and then the entire Republican Party will clamber aboard. Five to go.
The media candidates are a distraction, Christie’s going nowhere, Bush 3 will not get the nomination, and Kasich has taken himself out of contention. We’re left with the Young Guns, Senators all: Rubio, Cruz and Paul. I still like Paul, but he’s flailing as a candidate, so it’s one of the Cubans. Rubio has vastly more political appeal than Cruz, so he’s my guy. I’m going to be in touch with his Nevada campaign.
I’ve been taking shots at Nate “Numbers” Silver and the 538 boys, with all their useless mathematical models (at least at this stage). But they also get together and B.S. about what they think is happening, and they’re actually not far off. They think there’s a 75% chance the nominee will be Rubio, Bush or Kasich (in that order), with the other 25% going to Cruz or some other hard right candidate. They do not acknowledge — because they’re statisticians, not politicians — that Bush and Kasich are or will be damaged political goods, with heavy negatives among the rank and file. But all in all a pretty impressive analysis. These guys are worth keeping an eye on.
Here’s the question Kasich can’t answer: You say it’s immoral for us to spend money we don’t have, when we know full well that our children and grandchildren will be picking up the tab. But every nickel of federal Medicaid money you chose to take was borrowed. In order to provide services to the people of Ohio, you took borrowed money and spent it, and because someone else has to pay this bill down the road, it’s not your problem.
Rubio’s too damn hawkish. He thinks Russia is an enemy. He used the word. Wrong. It’s a competitor, not an enemy. We have some common interests with the Russians. Why be enemies with a guy with 5,000 nuclear warheads? It doesn’t make sense. We can sit down and work things out with Bad Vlad. Marco’s bright. He’ll figure it out. Hopefully.
Like Kasich, Rubio’s a blue collar guy, but at only 44 he’s closer to his roots. He’s clean, which means he hasn’t enriched himself at the public trough. When he starts doing New Hampshire seriously, he should do very well. He can relate.
I spend a lot of time analyzing the field, thinking things through, and trying to reach conclusions. Babbie, not so much. When I convinced her to watch the first debate, I was rooting for Kasich. She wasn’t impressed. She liked Rubio, hands down.
You really need to pay attention to the ladies.
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