Author: Fritz Pettyjohn

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.

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.