Author: Fritz Pettyjohn

I had to do a lot of driving yesterday, so I tuned into talk radio.  Mark Levin apparently just realized that Cruz is virtually alone in condemning the ethanol subsidy, or Renewable Fuel Standard.  I gather Levin has been even handed in his treatment of Cruz and Trump, but not so yesterday.  He realizes that ethanol is a perfect example of crony capitalism, and that Trump is acting out of pure political expediency.  Levin is the brightest of all these conservative hosts, and I expect most of the others will follow his lead.  If talk radio turns on Trump, it’s a very big deal.

One of Levin’s callers from Iowa downplayed the significance of the Palin endorsement.  A lot of Tea Party voters are still upset with her for endorsing Branstad for Governor in 2010.  The caller said Iowa Tea Partiers refer to him as Governor Braindead, and the fact that he used the Palin endorsement to turn back Tea Party and evangelical candidate Bob Vander Plaats has not been forgotten.  Vander Plaats, of course, is the political leader most identified with Iowa evangelical conservatism, and one of Cruz’s most prominent supporters.

I read and see ethanol now being discussed in detail, all over the place, all of which benefits Cruz.  He’s bringing it up in town halls in New Hampshire, laying the groundwork for the schwerpunkt.  I saw Steve Hayward on Special Report say that he’s talked to knowledgeable people in Iowa who tell him that Cruz will actually be helped by the criticism he’s receiving from Gov. Branstad.  I can believe it.  Even if you’re in Iowa, you know damn well this ethanol mandate is a special interest payoff.  I’ve actually talked to some people from Iowa, and they seemed pretty sheepish about the whole thing.

Cruz is under the gun in Iowa.  He’s an existential threat to Big Corn, and they’ll do everything they can to stop him.  These guys are intelligent, experienced and well funded.   They’re locals, always a huge edge.  Since big money is involved, we can’t rule out the possibility of some kind of foul play.

The media can’t resist a good story, so they’ll eventually get over their distaste for Cruz and start covering this one.  It’s an easy story to tell.  And it’s compelling.  Because if Trump can win in Iowa, of all places, where can’t he win?  And if he loses, after announcing today that Iowa is a must win, his whole candidacy will begin to implode.  And people are going to start to realize the same thing about Cruz.  If he can take out Big Corn in Iowa, something no one else has had the courage to do in 30 years, he can ride that momentum to a win, or something close, in New Hampshire.  And if he wins New Hampshire, where can’t he win?

Doug Truax is conservatism’s brightest light in Illinois, and a man to keep an eye on.  He’s formed Restoration PAC in order to run attack ads against Hillary.  The first one is on Benghazi.  There will be many such PACs formed this cycle.  They can be decisive, as seen with Swift Boat Vets.  If you get an itch to make a campaign donation, if you really want your money’s worth, send it to Truax or some other independent PAC.  Any campaign veteran will tell you:  there are some things a candidate, and his campaign, can’t do that these PACs can.  They get the bang for your buck.

I was going to say a few words about David Brooks, in today’s NYT, calling for the formation of an army of Republican moderates, but I guess not.  He’s probably a nice guy, with a nice family, and why make fun of the poor guy.

Back in the early 90’s, when Palin was getting started in politics on the Wasilla City Council, I was writing a conservative political column in the Anchorage Daily News.  If you were a Republican politician in south central Alaska, you read it, as I’m sure Sarah did.  I also was hosting a conservative radio talk show on KENI from three to five in the afternoon.  As Sarah was driving around, taking her kids to hockey practice, I was on the air, the first real conservative talk show host in Anchorage.  I’m sure she tuned in.

So I tried to cash in by asking her to make a couple phone calls to Montana legislators last year.  No dice.  Now she’s endorsed Trump.

We’ll see how this all works out.

NRO’s John Fund writes that Ted Cruz is refusing to kiss King Corn’s ring.  That has a familiar ring to it, and I’m flattered.  Kudos to Fund for seeing the merits of this story.  Contained within is the seed of the Cruz schwerpunkt in New Hampshire, whereby he springboards from a big win in Iowa, vaulting to a late breaking win in the Granite State, and an overwhelming advantage for the nomination.

Here’s the link to my piece in American Thinker, including a little editing by JR Dunn, which I appreciate.  A couple hundred commenters so far, and very little in the way of defending New York values, even from the normally voluble Trump contingent.

Trump’s running around, waving the bloody shirt of 9-11, and he may think he’s holding his own on this kerfuffle.  I’m betting he’s making the first big mistake of his campaign, and it will cost him.  It could be that his attachment to New York City  — which he seems to identify with, personally  —  blinds him to the negative reaction people have to the phrase “New York values”.

I suspect the Cruz camp  — campaign or Super-pac — is using social media in Iowa to circulate the tape of Trump endorsing partial birth abortion.  I bet it works.

I saw a picture of one of Cruz’s daughters at the debate, and initially thought she’s a cute little girl.  But then it dawned on me, that she is not of my kith or kin, but is instead part of the great wave of Hispanics and others that are in the process of turning me into a minority in my own country.  To conservative old white guys like me, this girl is demographic threat.  But then I looked at that picture again, and figured what the hell.  Maybe it won’t  be so bad.

Is Big Corn about to back off from Cruz in Iowa?  They’ve been stalking him, and if he’s managed to appease them it could be very significant.

Kevin D. Williamson of NRO is always worth reading, but today he’s showing his urban provincialism.  He thinks dissing New York is a mistake.  What is this normally sensible man thinking?  Maybe he lives there, which is his problem.  Anyway, partly in reply to Williamson I put an article in to American Thinker on Noo Yawk, Noo Yawk.

As expected, Cruz is pushing back on the whole NY, NY thing.   Five days ago I pointed out the Meet the Press video on Trump and New York values, and the Cruz campaign is putting it to good use.  I’m not implying they picked up on it on this blog.  I only mention it because, well, actually I like giving myself a little credit.  And for new readers who think I’m some kind of whack job it shows my thinking is in line with the Cruz campaign.  In fact, it’s a little scary.  It’s like I’m channeling these guys.

Here’s piece from NRO by David French that shows why the Bush 3 campaign tactic of showing that Trump’s not a real conservative was useless.  As he says, a lot of Republican voters aren’t Chamber or Tea Party  — they’ve just been run out of the Democratic Party.  They’ve been shown the door, and have walked out.  But that doesn’t mean they’re conservative, except, perhaps, in the cultural sense.  And their culture has nothing to do with that of Donald Trump’s New York.  Ergo, attacking The Donald on New York values is smart not just with evangelicals.

I read somewhere that  Cruz screwed up by giving the Donald an opening to talk about New York heroism on 9-11.  Wrong, IMHO.  He may or may not have anticipated the line Trump was using, but it didn’t matter.  Letting Trump score a point in a debate is a price worth paying to get the whole discussion started on New York vs. the rest of America.  I’ll bet there are a lot of people in Iowa think anyone who’d live in New York City is crazy.  That’s the way we felt about them in Alaska when I lived there.

And, of course, everybody in New York thinks anyone living in Alaska is a nut.

There’s a word for that:  diversity.  We’re a big country, with room enough for both Alaska and New York City.   In Alaska nobody worries about what’s going on in New York.  But when Alaskans want to develop their natural resources the environmentalists in New York raise hell about it.  They see pictures of polar bears on PBS and get all fired up.  They want Alaska to be a park, and the residents all a bunch of park rangers.  New York is not popular in the West, where I’ve lived all my life.  And Donald Trump is New York down to his bones.

Two hundred years ago, fresh off his victory in New Orleans, Andrew Jackson returned to the Hermitage and his cotton plantation.  The American economy was just coming under the control of the Second Bank of the United States, created in 1816 to replace the First, whose charter had expired in 1811.  For twenty years thereafter Jackson fought the eastern money interests.  It was one of the animating reasons behind his politics.  When the Bank’s charter came up for renewal, it was passed by Congress and vetoed by President Jackson, killing it.  The election of 1832 centered on that veto.  Jackson won easily.

The moral of today’s history lesson is that the eastern money interests  — epitomized today by New York City, its bankers, politicians and values  —  have been disdained by the rest of the country for a long, long time.

My fingerspitengefuhl is whispering to me, telling me Trump will not win Iowa, and Cruz will.  He could win it big.  If he does, he’s going to be hard to stop.

If I could have made it there, I could have made it anywhere.  But when I got out of law school in 1974 I gave up any hope of getting to the top of the hill, and being king of the heap.  I went north, to Alaska, not to the city that never sleeps.

That’s what most of us do  —  we’d rather live in Cut and Shoot, Texas than New York City.  But New Yorkers take perverse pride in living with eight million other people all squished together.  I spent a few days there in 1968 and couldn’t see the attraction.  Really different folks, really different strokes.

So while the Donald won the little debate skirmish with Cruz about the Big Apple, if it turns into a war he’ll lose.  New York City is sui generis, unlike any other place in the country, and always has been.   In American Nations, Colin Woodard makes this case persuasively, calling NYC the New Netherlands to emphasize its distinctiveness.

Because it has always been America’s financial center the American people don’t trust New York City.  We, the people, in the hinterlands, produce the tangible wealth of this country through hard labor.  The shysters on Wall Street are able to manipulate the markets to cut themselves in on the lion’s share of this wealth, and mock us as ignorant rubes while they do it.  This is not popular.

All Cruz needs to do, whenever the appropriate opportunity presents itself, is to talk a little bit about the culture and politics of New York City.  The list is long.  He could do one shtick just on all the various and sundry taxes City residents pay, and the massive spending it supports.  What does NYC spend on schools, and what does it have to show for it?   How many live births, versus abortions?  He could talk about violent crime, and gun control, New York style.  Economic development, the middle class squeeze, rent control, on and on the list goes, never ending.

This, of course, is not an attack on the long suffering people of New York.  Rather, it is an indictment of the ruling class, of which the Donald is so prominent a member.

Winning New York’s electoral votes is in no GOP electoral battle plan, so risking offense to Gotham voters is worth doing.  I hope Cruz road tests this theme, maybe inserting a few one liners in his stump speech about New York vs. the rest of America.  Barry Goldwater went too far when he said he’d like to saw off the eastern seaboard and let it drift into the Atlantic.

He should have just sawed off New York City.

 

 

Pleased to see the Cruz  campaign put out the hit on partial birth abortion.  I’ve assumed these people were up to speed.  It’s reassuring to see that they either had this video in the can or were quick enough to find and use it. Iowans can now choose between Trump and partial birth abortion, or Cruz and the end of the Renewable Fuel Standard.  Their choice.

The BBA Task Force’s newest Co-founder is Joseph Semprevivo, CEO of Joseph’s Lite Cookies and the Economic Development Commissioner of New Mexico.   When Joseph was a kid with diabetes he made some sugar free ice cream that was so good he and his parents began selling it commercially.  They switched to cookies and now make about 14 million a day.

Joseph has discussed our project with Arizona Gov. Ducey, and if all else fails we will request that the Governor call a special session devoted to our Resolution.  Former Senate President Russell Pearce advises that current Senate President Andy Biggs would then be forced to allow a floor vote.   No one has been able to have any impact on Biggs.  He will kill our bill in regular session, and there’s nothing we can do about it.  But if we’ve reached 32 or 33, and Arizona could get us over the top, the Governor will be able to justify calling a special session.  They’re fairly routine in Arizona.  Welcome aboard, Joseph.

Semprevivo* also has a close connection with Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who recently made a big splash coming out for Article V.  Abbott is the former Attorney General who worked hand in glove with Ted Cruz when Cruz was Solicitor General.  If Abbott can’t convince Cruz of the merits of Article V, no one can.

Looking at things from Cruz’s perspective, I can see why he’s being cagey.  There are whack jobs like Andy Biggs who fear Article V.  There aren’t very many of them, but every vote counts.  If Cruz came out for Article V he’d lose them.  And what would he, personally, gain?  Kasich is the BBA Task Force’s most prominent champion, and Rubio is all in with the Convention of States.  So where does Cruz go, and what does he get out of it?

This is all a purely political analysis.  On the merits, we’ll get Cruz.  He’s bright enough to figure that out in a heartbeat.  But it may not happen until he’s starting to wrap it up.  The sooner the better.

Democratic Rep. Walt McLeod of Little Mountain, South Carolina is the key subcommittee vote in the South Carolina House.    Walt’s a Blue Dog, one of the very last.  He’s 79, and calling it a career after 20 years.  If we can get his vote we’ll pass the House, and take some momentum into the Senate.  If you know any body down in Little Mountain ask them to give Walt a call in support of our Resolution.

We’re live in Kentucky, as House Minority Whip Jim DiCesare has filed HCR 50.  The Tea Party Express is now totally on board, and have been promised a meeting with Gov. Bevin by the end of the month.  If Bevin buys in, and we flip one more House Democrat, we’ll get Kentucky.

We’re also live in Virginia, filed in House and Senate.  We’re setting up events for legislators in most of these states, usually in conjunction with the Tea Party Express.

Idaho Speaker Bedke is supposed to be having a talk with Sen. Bart Davis this week.  A lot will depend on that little chat.

Watching the debate last night I thought about how Hillary would have fared matched up against Rubio, or Cruz, or Christie, or even Trump.  She’d be humiliated.  Any of these guys would chew her up.  And debates matter.  Remember the first Romney-Obama?

I don’t think the debate changed anything.  The most important thing, to me, was the tone of the Cruz-Trump exchanges. They were tough, but civil, Cruz referring to Trump as “my friend.”  The smartest thing Cruz did was applaud when the Donald did his riff on 9-11.  Cruz lost the whole “New York” exchange, but that’s not all bad.  He did it gracefully, showing that he doesn’t think he has to win every time.  To Trump, I think that’s important.  And we want Trump.

As for the others, they all did well enough to keep fighting, with the exception of Carson, who needs to leave, soon, and gracefully.  But there are six serious contenders in New Hampshire, at least in their minds.  Four in the “establishment” lane, plus Cruz and Trump.  Ideally, for Cruz, the four centrists would all run neck and neck, allowing him to win with a fairly small plurality.

Hey, it could happen.

 

*It means everlasting life.  Why didn’t I have a name like that?