Miscellaneous

I’ve got a piece up in American Thinker.  Here’s the link.

What are Democrat leaning independents in New Hampshire, who are passionately opposed to Trump, going to do to stop him?  Especially if Sanders fades, and Hillary’s locking up the Democratic nomination,  John Casssidy in the New Yorker suggests they vote for a Republican, just as they did in 2000 when they put McCain over the top.

So if Cruz wins Iowa, someone, probably other than hard core Cruz, may beat Trump in New Hampshire, at which point the Trump bubble pops.  I’ve never bought into Christie, which is why I hope he’s the one to benefit.  He’s got nothing going beyond New Hampshire, so is not a serious threat.  So if it’s Cruz in Iowa, Christie in New Hampshire, and Cruz again in South Carolina, you should see Kasich, Paul and Bush pull out, leaving the far more appealing Rubio as the last real establishment hope.

I got an email from the guys at a site called the wonkreport, who want to put my posts up on their site.  It’s a platform site, like AT, which hasn’t seen much activity lately.  Somebody reads it, even if it’s just the guys that set it up.

The brave souls at 538.com had a bull session about the D debate, which they were all apparently required to watch (why else?).  These guys have some money behind them, it’s a commercial site.  I wish them well.  There may be other sites which feature conversations about politics at this level, but I’m unaware of them.  They’re all lefties, but have the good sense not to let that overwhelm the evidence.   This is an ideal year for their site, which spends an inordinate amount of time on trivia like sports.  But then, the trivial is where the people, and the money, are.

Nate Silver opined that VP’s are selected to counteract a nominee’s perceived weaknesses, or accentuate his strengths.  Actually, that’s just the beginning of the discussion.  Many times it’s much more focused.  Look back at some recent examples.   Johnson was picked to carry Texas.  He did, and Kennedy won.  For the Republican this year, the choice will be easy.  If it’s Cruz, who has the wind at his back for the moment, prevails, he picks Rubio to carry Florida.  If it’s Rubio, he picks Kasich to carry Ohio.

Hillary needs help with the white working man, the guys that Biden supposedly appeals to.  I don’t have any idea who Biden 2 would be.  That part of the D bench is pretty depleted.

The problem with the guys at 538 is that their analysis is usually static, almost always backwards looking.  It only holds if present trends continue.  Dynamic analysis accounts for changes in the direction of the electorate.  Take immigration.  538 thinks the Republican move to the right on this issue hurts them.  Au contraire.  If the R’s are able to conflate immigration with Syrian refugees, which they’re in the process of doing, this move is a winner.

We’re all in our own little bubble.  The one I’m in says, for Hillary and the D’s, this whole Syrian refugee thing is a time bomb ticking in a tar baby.

Their little bubble is about to pop.

 

I’ve got a piece up at American Thinker on Trump, the indispensable man.  Deputy editor Drew Belsky did a little touch up work on it, which I appreciate.   Here’s the link.

I mentioned a while back that Cruz reminded me of Nixon.  I didn’t mean it as a put down.  But now I think he’s really similar to Bibi Netanyahu.  That’s a compliment.

In law, the plaintiff bears the burden of proof.  He is the one seeking relief from the court, and is therefor required to make his case.

A refugee seeking asylum in this country is, in that sense, a plaintiff.  He is seeking admission.  The country he wishes to enter has no obligation to him.  If he fails his burden, and is unable to demonstrate his fitness, his case has failed and the relief he seeks must be denied.

This is the way a rational refugee policy would operate.  All this business of “vetting” is ass backwards.  We are not under any burden to establish an asylum seeker’s fitness, or lack thereof, for entry.  This burden is theirs, not ours.

I wish the Donald would pick up on that.

Tomorrow morning I’m picking up my sons and Reagan Project co-founders Darren and Brendan, and Darren’s serious girl friend, at LAX.  Blogging will be intermittent for a while.

Darren’s something of an internet expert, and spent a weekend a couple years ago setting up this website and blog.  I’ve done Darren a good turn or two, and with that he repaid me in full.

It has been my custom for the last fourteen years to wander around in the woods at Miller time, having a few cold ones, and thinking deep thoughts.  When I started thinking hard about politics again, after the 2012 election, I realized I was not alone.  There’s nothing unique about me.  All across this country there are patriotic men and women who understand politics just as I do.   People who actually think about politics, and know something about it.  People who were extremely concerned, like never before in the past, about the very viability of this country.

It was frustrating.  I wanted to communicate with these people.  I had a lot of ideas, and I wanted to share them.  Danke schoen, Darren.

And danke schoen to everyone who reads this blog.  You are a select group, however large.

Speaker Greg Stumbo’s Majority is dwindling in Kentucky.  It was 54-46, but then, after the 2015 gubernatorial election, a Louisville Democrat changed parties.  Gov. Matt Bevin appointed another House Democrat to his cabinet, and yesterday gave one of the plums at his disposal, a $125,000 a year workmen’s comp judgeship, to yet another House Democrat.   Stumbo’s down to 51.   Two House Republicans also took appointments, so there will be four special elections.  I’m not sure when they’ll  be, but it’s pretty obvious what Bevin is doing.  I’ll wager there are at least two more House Democrats who are pondering their future.  When Stumbo assured his members, after Bevin’s election, not to worry, because Hillary Clinton would be coming to their aid, I doubt it had the intended effect.  Odds are even that Stumbo’s gone in the next few weeks.  Another target state for the Task Force.  All we’d need is the green light from Bevin, and we’d get Kentucky.  This is what our sponsor, Rep.DeCesare told me, and I think he’s right.

I’ve been saying all along that Trump, Carson and Fiorina were media candidates, meaning they were created and are sustained by media coverage.  My buddy Nate Silver at 538.com went out and proved my point.  O. K., Nate’s not my buddy, but I have to admit the stuff they’re producing at 538 is very valuable and persuasive stuff.  I make light of number crunchers only because I’m not one.  But crunching numbers only you gets you part way there.  If you’re good at politics you see things coming before they show up in any poll.  Take Jeb!, please.  As a politician, I knew he didn’t have a prayer, even though he was ahead in the polls last spring.  Those polls meant absolutely nothing but name I.D.  Period.  They weren’t worth the paper they were written on.  Bush 3 never had a prayer.  You gotta smell the zeitgeist, dude.

The best thing about the debate last night was the tone  —  relatively civil, especially  between the Cubans and Trump.  This is very important.  Stay civil, by all means.  The highlight, for me, was Cruz saying he’d get Donald to pay for the wall, and Trump laughing right along.  I want these two guys to be buddies.  How smart is Cruz?  Trump calls him a bit of a maniac, and Cruz tweets back the song of the same name, and does it with a smile on his face.  That’s smart.

In fact, the more I think about Cruz the smarter this guy looks.  He knows he needs Florida, and that Rubio could get it for him.  So when he’s asked about the Libyan debacle, he attacks it, but he doesn’t call Rubio out on it.  He could have easily thrown in a shot about Rubio’s support of it, but he didn’t.  He’s not going to get nasty with Rubio.  And Rubio, no dummy himself, will reciprocate.  I feel like a boxing referee, giving instructions to the fighters  — no low blows, no rabbit punches.  Now shake hands and come out fighting.

Natalie Hill, former Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown’s daughter, sang the national anthem.  Boy, was his election a sign of things to come.  If he’d lost, the D’s would have still had 60, enough to fix some of the obvious flaws in the Obamacare bill they’d previously rammed through the Senate.  But when they lost their cloture proof majority, they had no choice.  They were stuck with an unworkable piece of garbage, but they swallowed hard (at B. J. Clinton’s urging) and figured they’d get it to work somehow.  Wrong.  Thanks, Scott.  Your career was short, but you accomplished more than some lifers ever do.

That anthem was the nicest part of the debate.  Seeing the nine candidates, good Americans all, hands over their hearts, singing or whispering along, with all the American flags everywhere.  Over in Europe they look at that and say, Those people are weird.

Yup.