Author: Fritz Pettyjohn

Lauren Enns has secured the support of Bryce Christiansen, chair of the Utah College Republicans.  They played an important role in winning passage in Utah.  Bryce is very active with the national college YR’s, and believes he can convince other college YR leaders in target states to duplicate the success which was achieved in Utah.  This is something which should have been done long ago.  I tried to reach out to college YR’s in Montana and elsewhere without success.  College YR’s are perfect grass roots lobbyists for our cause.

Lew Uhler has talked with Greg Casey in Idaho, and will follow up with efforts to get to Sen Bart Davis.  Lew is having a 40th birthday party in D.C. for the National Tax Limitation Committee on Oct. 20th, and hopes to have Sen. Enzi in attendance.  If Enzi goes, I’ll go.  I think he’s our best shot at Nicholas and Wyoming.

Man of mystery Sen. Chris Kapenga has gone radio silent.  He’s given assurances that he’s got Wisconsin covered, but we’d like to hear from him.  Chris, give us a call!

Dave Guldenschuh represented us at a Heartland Institute meeting in Dallas, which went well.  They have been distracted in the past by the Compact approach, but are apparently coming to their senses.  They could be a big help if they want to.

John Knubel continues to work at setting up a revived 501(c)(3), and is making progress.  Dave and Susie Biddulph are picking up the tab, as usual.  He has gotten the ear of old acquaintance David Boren, President of the U. of Oklahoma.  He is apparently willing to work with Gary Banz on getting Oklahoma next year.  Boren has the clout to put us over the top there.

John Steinberger, acclaimed unanimously today as a new Co-founder, advises that Sen. Tim Scott is hosting town halls for all Republican presidential candidates in South Carolina.  Trump is scheduled for September 23rd, and we’ll do all we can to get BBA supporters to show up and ask him if he supports using Article V to get to a BBA.  This is the way we can break through to all these candidates — town halls, where they take questions.  If we were better organized we’d have supporters asking our question in every town hall in the country.  As my grandmother used to say, if wishes were horses, beggars would ride.

Bill Fruth and Dave Guldenschuh will team up for a do over in Mississippi next year.  Their Resolution dates from 1975, and may have some technical flaws.  Nothing that couldn’t be overlooked by Congress, but a distraction we don’t need.

Biddulph went to the big Americans for Prosperity meeting in Columbus last week.  There were 4,000 people there, but he did manage to speak to those at the very top of the Koch political empire.  Because the father of the Koch brothers was a militant Bircher, we have explained our lack of support from AFP as a result of the brothers Koch taking a cue from their father.  The runaway convention bugaboo.

They didn’t know anything about us.  They haven’t shunned us because of some Birch inspired superstition.   They never heard of us.  These guys are neck deep in conservative politics.  If there’s any thing going on, they would know about it.  We continue to work in the shadows.  This has got to stop.

This is completely ridiculous.  I informed Biddulph and the rest that my personal involvement is going to be in spreading the message on the internet, not field work (which I’m not that good at, anyway).  This blog is a start, and it’s gaining in circulation.  Over the next couple weeks I’ll continue to submit pieces to AT, and will attempt to spread them across the internet.  If we ever got the word out on what we’re up to we’d be half way home.

It’s hard to know who reads my stuff at AT.  About a third of the numerous commenters are smart and thoughtful.   Another third are smart as well, but very hard right, as far right as you want to go  — no compromise.  And then there’s the Trump people.  These are good people, my kind of people, patriotic people who are scared to death about the future of their country.  They are not politically sophisticated, but they’re not stupid, and only a few are abusive.  If we can get them to the polls in ’16 we’ll get a landslide.

Even though he won’t be the nominee, Trump can win the election if he brings these people to the polls.  He should be satisfied with that.  It would be a service to his country.

We could make America great again.

Here’s the link to my AT piece:

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2015/08/trumps_moment_of_truth.html

Cruz is going to fight to stop funding Planned Parenthood.  McConnell will fund it in order to avoid a shutdown.  I think this is significant because it intersects the real work of legislating with the politics of the campaign.  If Trump doesn’t support what Cruz is doing he’s acquiescing to the McConnell Doctrine, which no good populist can do.

What I’d really like to see is someone confronting McConnell with the implications of his own Doctrine.  For if Congress surrenders the power of the purse, it is a hollow shell of an institution.

Now that I think about it, Trump’s strategy comes into focus.  He’ll oppose “shutting down the government” but will demand that Congress slash spending before approving a debt limit increase.  It’s almost like he’s thought this all through, which is a little scary.

Trump may actually know what he’s doing.  Which means he may be one of the last men standing when the field winnows.  It used to be the perceived wisdom that it would all boil down to a one on one between a “moderate” like Bush and a Tea Party type like Cruz.  But Bush doesn’t look like he’ll make the cut, and Trump is hogging all the Tea Party support.  If you take Bush out of the picture, which you should, it looks like Walker, Rubio or Kasich would be the choices of the “establishment”, with Cruz and Trump competing to be the Tea Party insurgent.

We’ll have to wait six months to see.

Jeb! is losing it.  No one saw Trump coming, and with his arrival the Jeb! game plan lies in tatters.  He doesn’t have a Plan B, and is making stupid mistakes.  First he calls out Asians on anchor babies, and now he’s touting an endorsement by disgraced  and defeated former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor.  The defeat of Cantor may have been the high water mark of the Tea Party insurgency, and Jeb! is telling every Tea Party member or sympathizer that they’re a bunch of idiots.  Way to go, Jeb!  Insult a third, maybe a half, of Republican primary voters, and have every serious political observer wonder if you’ve lost your mind.

The reason this is troubling is that it demonstrates the disdain the Jeb! crowd feels for the ignorant hoi polloi in flyover country.  Eric and the Bush family are probably good buddies.  Eric is one of the “right people”, who understands how things really work, not some right wing zealot.  Jeb! and Eric are doubtless very comfortable with one another’s company.  They’re practical and reasonable men of the world, who know that in the end, it always gets down to money.  They deserve each other.

I’d hoped the Article V push for a Balanced Budget Amendment would become relevant in the Republican nomination contest, but it won’t happen for a while.  It could still be a topic in a debate, but that doesn’t seem likely.  Maybe the way it comes up is like this:  Kasich does well enough in New Hampshire to make it into March.  He hangs on until March 8th, when he gets a boost out of the Ohio primary.  At that point the Article V BBA gets real, and relevant.  Wisconsin will have been #28.  If things go well, Wyoming (adjourns on March 3rd) is #29, Virginia and West Virginia are #29 and #30 (adjourn March 5th), Idaho is #31 (adjourns March 17th) and Oklahoma is #32 (assuming we get it done early in the session, which adjourns May 25th).

If Kasich’s still on his feet, and we’ve got 32 states, he can start pounding it.  Politically, it is, quite simply, beautiful.  I just can’t imagine a more perfect issue to campaign on in Republican primaries.  Arizona’s primary is set for March 22nd.  Kasich could win Arizona on this issue, if it’s gotten traction.  Depending on where he’s at, it could be a much needed boost.

All idle speculation, I know.  But at this point, and for the foreseeable future, anything could happen.

Bush needs to come to California and get Schwarzenegger’s endorsement, and then sic him on Trump.

Arnold vs. the Donald.  Bread and circuses.

This is the subject of an article submitted to AT.

I wrote yesterday that the whole premise of the Bush candidacy  —  he loves Mexicans, they love him  — doesn’t add up. politically.  So this morning David Byler and the esteemed Sean Trende put a piece out on Real Clear Politics that says essentially the same thing.  Here’s the link:

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2015/08/26/demographics_and_the_2016_election_scenarios.html

Hispanics are not the key to 2016.  If blacks revert to their pre-Obama levels of turnout, a small increase in the working class white vote in Middle America would be enough for a win.  Right now a lot of these folks are supporting Trump.  They aren’t Bush types.  What will appeal to them is one of their own.

Like, maybe, a mailman’s son from McKee’s Rock, Pennsylvania.