The Savage Republican

Earth shaking advice!!!

I'm friends with Ed Morrissey over at Hot Air. I met Ed nearly three years ago. He's a great guy and has a great gig at Hot Air. A much respected blogger who has access to sources I can only dream about. But, we have had a few differences over the years.
And now, I really need to take him to task.
In his blog entry "Notes From the Collapse" he makes this comment near the end regarding why the voter turnout was low for McCain and how McCain lost votes:
"John McCain and the GOP didn’t get their turnout in this race. They lost almost seven million voters from 2004, a rather stunning number. We’ll be chewing on this for a while, but that’s more than 10% of the Bush vote that got lost in this election..."
Ed then goes on to say:
"The GOP demoralized their base by acting like Democrats for too many years, and the winds of “change” proved too dispiriting this time around...The Republican Party lost its soul when it launched its K Street Project, and the spendfest of 2001-6 only made that more clear." And I'd like to add "DO YA THINK???"
He ends this way:
"If the GOP wants to win 60 million votes in future national elections, it has to stand for something other than being Democrat Lite. The Republican Party needs clarity, purpose, and most importantly, an end to the hypocrisy of talking smaller government while porking up their districts. When given only a choice between real Democrats and fake Democrats, Americans will choose the former, which we found out in 2006."
Here what I put into comments:
"Great advice...that I was giving over 6 years ago starting with Norm Coleman (no drilling in ANWR) and No Child Left Behind. I warned people that GWB was making a huge mistake by cuddling up to people that would never vote for him (lefties).
But, I was beat down time and time again by the BS mantra "We HAVE to elect Republicans!!!"
Well, how did THAT work for ya.
And I hear some of those same buttheads/bullheads now trying to convince me that they're "on board" to clean the party up.
Don't pee on my back and then tell me it's raining.
You are the people I've been screaming at for over 6 years.
From the apropos quote from Samuel Adams:"...go from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen!” "

I've worked with these people down here in the south metro area of Minneapolis/St. Paul. I've heard the "Elect Republicans" when I/we were trying to get conservatives elected. These people have sometimes actively and aggressively fought us who were trying to bring the party back to it's roots. They have tried and sometimes succeeded in silencing conservative voices and then "high fived" themselves over their success.
As Rush said today the rage we feel is at "those" Republicans.
If you are one of "those" Republicans, we're coming for you.

My pledge for bi-partisanship

I was reading some of the comments posted at Prairie Pravda's story on the Coleman/Franken race:
Republicans
go cry in your beer LOSERS!
posted by Monkeypaws on Nov 7, 08 at 8:55 am

waive his right to a recount??
So sleazy Norman is trying to convince people that he would waive his right to a recount if he were in Franken's shoes. Anyone that, doesn't know that history of Chameleon Norm Coleman.
posted by dylandon on Nov. 6, 08 at 11:39 AM

Red Star bias
Why is it "Franken's Deficit"? Why not "Coleman's lead"?
posted by jagebe on Nov 7, 08 at 8:55 am

And so, to "heal our souls" and to "unite us" in the spirit of bi-partisanship as demonstrated by the tolerant, inclusive left, as Harry Reid has shown to Joe Lieberman and Rahm Emmanuel has shown to all, I make this solemn pledge: I will show the same amount of respect, deference and temperament to President Obama as the left has shown to President Bush over his eight years in office.
I truly promise.

Bashing Sarah

Came across this article about "unnamed" or "anonymous" sources making snarky comments about Sarah Palin. Great van Susteren and Karl Rove are spot on. Palin was the breath of fresh air that the McCain camp needed and needed badly. Palin was mishandled and mishandled badly (see my previous entries). As Susteren and Rove point out that these comments are worthy of a NYT hit piece on Palin or Cindy McCain. Why do the work of the left on your own? Reagans 11th Commandment:"Thou shall not speak ill of any fellow Republican." Now, I can stand accused of breaking that commandment in my previous posts.
With the results of Tuesday, and 2006 still fresh in memory, Repubs such as this need to be spoken of and to.

Go away or go away bitter, but just go away

Allahpundit at Hot Air has an article about the McCain staff and Sarah Palin. He's included a You Tube video from Shep Smith and Carl Cameron. About mid-point they start to talk about when McCain's numbers, after passing BHO with the Palin pick, start going down. Cameron says that downturn happened when McCain said, after the demise of Lehman Bros. that the fundamentals of the economy are strong. Mac, with his comments on the fundamentals was right. All he had to do was explain that the connection to the economic disaster from the Dems having gotten in the way and screwed with the market. It would have been a step, not a leap. Instead, Mac fell flat!
Notice toward the end the discussion about the Katie Couric interview. It was at that point that McCain's numbers went down according to Smith. The comments from McCain staffers indicate that Palin refused coaching about the interview, that many of the questions were anticipated, etc. Smith, Cameron and especially the McCain staffers miss the glaringly obvious cogent point: What idiot decided that a Couric interview was going to be a good thing? What was she doing going to talk to Charlie Gibson? What on earth was McCain doing on "The View"? His staffers then put Palin in front of subtly hostile interviewers whose audience was going to vote for BHO anyway. Mac and Palin should have been on Glenn Beck, Fox News, Fox and Friends, every single conservative talk show in the country. He needed to convince and rev up people like me. And Palin was the way."The View"? Where the audience thinks that Whoopi Goldberg should win an Academy award for every voice over she does? And Joyce Behar is the font of wisdom? Are you nuts? As much as I respect Bill Bennett, I couldn't disagree with him more when he said McCain ran a good campaign.
Let the McCain staffers and RINOs and neocons go away. Go away bitter and with their trite comments if they wish, but go away. (BTW, a great letter by Congressman Jeff Flake [R-AZ] about how the Repubs can come back. I especially like his comment that we as conservative Repubs , with a fully left wing controlled Congress and White House are not beholden in any way to the promises of John McCain or George Bush. We are now able to throw off all vestiges of neocons, "bi-partisianship" that only allows us to compromise and any other tripe. Now is clean break time.)

The morning after view...from last night

I'm a WWII history buff. Last night at a fairly happy election night party where all our local people (save my candidate for Scott County Commissioner) won, I made a couple of WWII comparisons. I asked a number of people what important battle occurred six months after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Thousand mile stare... The Battle of Midway. A resounding and pivotal battle. At that point, at that battle, the war in the Pacific was turned and won. We didn't know it at the time however. But the Japanese lost four aircraft carriers and a large number aircraft and well experienced air crew. The Japanese never recovered. Six months after Pearl Harbor.
I also mentioned the Battle of the Bulge. Patton recognized the huge opportunity this presented. The Germans had come out. They were exposed. And Patton saw the opportunity to crush the German divisions. But initially there was panic in the troops. I mean real panic. But, the Germans had expended vital resources. They had cannibalized their troops on the Eastern Front.
The radical left has expended so much to get BHO in office. BHO expended $600,000,000 to campaign. The MSM contributed at least another $500,000,000 in support and cover. With all that, BHO was only able to eke out a 5% winning margin. 5%. Not a landslide. Not a mandate. A lot of resources for a minimal win. Against a badly run campaign that never had a message other than the repeated Republican campaign slogan from 2004 and 2006-"It will be worse with the other guy!" Not exactly a rallying cry.
I agree with Glenn Beck: The pressure is off. I don't have to worry about screaming at President McCain "That's NOT a conservative position/program/statement." I don't have to defend "The Maverick". I don't have to explain his reaching across the aisle. The radical left is out there with their inexperienced leader. They have the majority in Congress-with a 9% approval rating.
But, there is a caveat here: the Battle of Midway was the brainchild of Chester Nimitz. I had the opportunity to meet and talk, at length and a number of times, to a gentleman whose desk was right outside the door to CinCPac Nimitz. His read:Chester Nimitz was absolutely brilliant. He was a warrior. He knew what he had to work with and what he had to do. He was behind the Doolittle Raid on Tokyo (which had the added advantage of limiting the number of aircraft carriers deployed to Midway from 6 to 4). We need a Chester Nimitz. A warrior. Someone who knows how to fight. Not someone who reaches across the aisle but someone who is willing to allow the other side to reach out to us.
The time to start is today, now.

What not to do

OK, like I said before, John McCain is the Bob Dole of 2008. Time to move on and do a thorough Passover type housecleaning to get all the leavening out of the house. Let the RINOs join the Independence Party and support Dean Barkley in his run for President in 2012.
I see that "Bridge to Nowhere" Rino Ted Stevens won in Alaska. Any lefty, ANY lefty that makes any comment about Stevens, push their nose into the name "Murtha" or "William Jefferson".
Now, Stevens is going to be tossed. If not by the Senate, then by the Repubs. That means there will be a vacancy that usually the governor selects. I would recommend and urge that Governor Palin NOT appoint herself. I know of precious few governors who have done that where it succeeded. We have an example of that in Minnesota. When Walter Mondale became Vice President in 1976, Wendell Anderson had himself appointed to replace Mondale. End of Wendy's career right there. Now this was a guy who had his picture on the cover of Time magazine (the Minnesota Miracle, which he got credit for but was set up by Republicans over the preceding twenty + years).
So, there are other ways for Governor Palin to stay in the public eye.
Self appointment to the Senate is not the way however.

The post I hoped never to write

I'm writing this on Monday morning, 3 November. It is posted after the Election of 2008. I spent Sunday listening to some dire predictions from the Fox All Stars on Fox News Sunday. The best prediction for the election is that McCain had an uphill battle. I agreed. I've said that this was a marathon, that McCain put his best weapon, Sarah Palin, under wraps for three weeks, and then had to sprint to catch-up to Obama. This election reminds me a rugby game about 25 years ago. It was the All Minnesota Rugby Tournament (the state championship). We on the Minneapolis Rugby Club were the pre-tournamnt favorites. We had a winning streak of three state championships in a row. On late Saturday,in the quarter finals we played and lost to a team we should have rolled over. They didn't win. We lost. They knew it and we knew it. We played an absolutely miserable game. Obama didn't win. McCain lost. He ran a miserable campaign. In the debates, there was so much low hanging fruit that he could have harvested and didn't. Granted that the Tanning Bed Media (TBM) gave BHO at least $500,000,000,000 in in-kind campaign contributions. The TBM has finally fully abandoned its responsibility in a free society to keep the citizens informed. But, the fault lies fully, completely with the neocons and "evangelicals" in the Republican Party. We had McCain who was "the maverick". How quaint. How did we get him? Because the "evangelicals" who were voting against the "Mormon" by voting for Huckabee who was nothing more than a populist. OK Huckabee supporters- How'd that work for ya? Don't get me wrong. I'm a born again Christian. Romney was not, repeat NOT my first choice. Thompson was. Thompson waited too long. But McCain was absolutely my last choice. But the vote against Romney eventually gave us the old warhorse who can't debate, was the "maverick" who supports cap and trade, gave us McCain/Feingold, who proudly "reached across the aisle" but seemingly never had the flexibility (physically, politically or intellectually) to reach behind him to the conservatives.
Anyhow, we now have Barack Obama. And a Congress that will give him what he wants and that he'll sign. Judicial appointments? See my previous post. The Republicans lost.

What next? I sat next to Savage Republican at the Republican Convention the night Sarah Palin accepted the nomination. I commented to him that if Guilliani or Huckabee or Romney had won the nomination we would not have Palin speaking to us. He agreed. She was and is a breath of fresh air that McCain let die on the shelf and the TBM attacked beyond civility.
So, here is what I intend: all you neocons- you're gone as in gone. I've seen you lack of courage destroyers of liberty who keep repeating "We HAVE to elect Republicans!" Yup. And we get the Arne Carlsons who support a Marxist for President and Tim Pawlentys who sign stadium funding and anti-smoking bills. I've worked with you down here in Scott County. I'll work with you no longer. You'll have a seat at the table, but it will be the kiddy table like when you went to Aunt Jane and Uncle Kent's house for Thanksgiving. As you are children, act like children and think like children you don't get to sit at the adult table anymore. It's cost us too much for you people who can not take an adult, principled and courageous stand. Away with you I say. AWAY! I and my fellow liberty lovers are taking the party back. Don't get in our way. You'll just get hurt. And I won't care.
You can join us, but don't even think about opposing us or getting in our way.
You've been warned.

Exit polls

From the Drudge Report yesterday on exit polling. A warning to post far and wide:
McCAIN CAMPAIGN MEMO: READING THE EXIT POLLS BILL McINTURFF, INTERNAL POLLSTER Mon Nov 03 2008 16:53:14 ET As we have seen in previous election cycles, the exit poll results do leak early and that ends up influencing the coverage of the race before even the first state polls close at 6:00 PM Eastern. However, we want to remind the campaign that the media’s own post-election study of the exit polls in 2004 showed that the exit polls overstate the Democratic candidate’s support. Therefore, we would discourage a rush to judgment based on the exit polls and wait until there has been a representative sampling of actual tabulated results from a variety of counties and precincts in a state. Here are the key points to keep in mind when the exit poll data starts being leaked: 1. Historically, exit polls have tended to overstate the Democratic vote. 2. The exit polls are likely to overstate the Obama vote because Obama voters are more likely to participate in the exit poll. 3. The exit polls have tended to skew most Democratic in years where there is high turnout and high vote interest like in 1992 and 2004. 4. It is not just the national exit poll that skews Democratic, but each of the state exit polls also suffers from the same Democratic leanings. 5. The results of the exit polls are also influenced by the demographics of the voters who conduct the exit polls. After the 2004 election, the National Election Pool completed a study investigating why the exit polls that year showed John Kerry over performing 5.5 net points better than the actual results showed him to have done. Their conclusion was that the primary reason the exit polls was that Kerry voters and Democrats were more likely to participate in the exit polls. “Our investigation of the differences between the exit poll estimates and the actual vote count point to one primary reason: in a number of precincts a higher than average Within Precinct Error most likely due to Kerry voters participating in the exit polls at a higher rate than Bush voters. There has been partisan overstatements in previous elections, more often overstating the Democrat, but occasionally overstating the Republican. We believe that this will hold true this year. The recent Fox News survey showed that 46% of Obama voters said they were very likely to participate in the exit polls, while just 35% of McCain supporters are. In fact, even the 2004 exit poll report noted that higher turnout nationally and higher levels of voter interest in both 1992 and 2004 correlated with greater Within Precinct Error. The overstating of the Democratic vote did not only occur in the national exit polls, but also occurred in the state exit polls. The 2004 exit poll report cited that the Kerry vote was overstated by more than one standard error in 26 states, while the Bush vote was overstated in just four states. So we should also expect the individual state exit polls on Tuesday to be more Democratic as well. So given that turnout is expected to be even higher than 2004 and that Democrats are more likely to participate in the exit polls, this means we should expect greater fluctuation and variation in the exit polls from the actual election results. The 2004 exit poll report also showed that the greatest error in the exit poll came in precincts where the interviewer was younger. The completion rates were lower and the refusal rates and Within Precinct Error was higher when the interviewers were under the age of 35.[6] Complicating this is that nearly half the interviewers were under the age of 35, including 35% who were 18-24 and another 15% were 25-34. Conclusions Based on the previous exit poll results, we should expect once again that Tuesday’s exit poll data could overstate the Obama vote and under represent the McCain vote. It is important that the campaign make sure the media realizes this, so that when the exit polls do leak, people do not overreact to the early exit poll data. Rather than looking at the exit polls, we should wait until we start seeing actual election results from key precincts and counties to gauge who won the election.

Why the end of the republic is at hand

From The Weekly Standard via Mary Katherine Ham talking about Congressman Jim Moran (D-VA) on the "simplistic notion" that people who earned money have the right to keep it:

Moran always manages to stick a foot in his mouth shortly before elections, but it makes little difference, as he's running in the heavily blue Northern Virginia 8th District. In 2006, he proclaimed that, “When I become chairman [of a House appropriations subcommittee], I'm going to earmark the sh** out of it.”

He won 66-31 percent.

This time around, he reveals to us his very frank feelings about redistribution of wealth, which he feels has been impeded by simplistic notions such as right to property. This is the kind of Democrat Obama the Redistributionist will have obliging him in Congress, if elected:

And who pray tell who votes for people like this? The very same people who vote for Barack Obama. And this voter tells us why:

Again, the final end of the experiment called America. Alexis de Tocqueville was right.

To wit:

"A democratic government is the only one in which those who vote for a tax can escape the obligation to pay it." (which why we were constructed as a constitutional republic, not a democracy).

"Americans are so enamored of equality that they would rather be equal in slavery than unequal in freedom. "

"The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money."

But, that being said, he also told us why it took from the 1820 until now to accomplish this:"The dignity of man is not shattered in a single blow, but slowly softened, bent, and eventually neutered. Men are seldom forced to act, but are constantly restrained from acting. Such power does not destroy outright, but prevents genuine existence. It does not tyrannize immediately, but it dampens, weakens, and ultimately suffocates, until the entire population is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid, uninspired animals, of which the government is shepherd."

If McCain wins

My predictions if McCain wins:
If McCain wins, it will be a squeaker. Maybe 272 +/- 1. He will collapse like Phippides over the finish line.
If McCain wins there will be riots in some major cities.
If McCain wins the Dems and BHO will sue in a handful of states that went for McCain: New Mexico, Colorado maybe Nevada. They and he will sue with a eye to winning enough of the suits to give him just enough Electoral College votes to give him a squeaker win. Possibly suing in Pennsylvania if he gets greedy if the Keystone state understands that cap and trade will bankrupt PA and send coal miners onto the unemployment lines. Can't have that. Bankrupting the state is for the greater good afterall.
But, lands, over 45% of the American electorate will vote for Obama. So, why not in PA?
And if BHO wins? Possibly lawsuits. Much lower probability though.

What I did on Sunday before the election

Sunday afternoon, 2 November 2008, I spent doing three things, well, four:
1. Enjoying the fabulous season we call Indian Summer here in Minnesota with the windows open.
2. Watched the Vikings put an end to the Texans' winning streak.
3. Prepared for teaching a bunch of 8-10 year old kids in Bible Study Fellowship about grumbling Israeli's who forgot about God's goodness within a month of being set free from slavery.
4. Preparing to write a number of articles about Barack Obama and his stated views on some very serious issues.
So, with number 4 in mind, I did a bunch of research and opened up a number of tabs. Some of my, and what should be your concerns:
Courts and judges-
How Obama will select judges and how he sees the law:
"We need somebody who’s got the heart, the empathy, to recognize what it’s like to be a young teenage mom. The empathy to understand what it’s like to be poor, or African-American, or gay, or disabled, or old. And that’s the criteria by which I’m going to be selecting my judges. " Justice will no longer be blind but prejudiced. The blindfold is torn off Lady Justice.
A warning by Jonah Goldberg. A warning from his Obama Messiahness.
Personal choices- HAH! Kiss those GOOD BYE!!!!! They may not be quite appropriate . Under the BHO enlightened administration, "price signals" need to be sent to you and the economy to "encourage" you to make "appropriate" choices to have changed behavior.
The money quote? "

Q: How do you convince people to change their lifestyles, to live differently, or to turn the question on its ear, are voters ahead of the politicians on this stuff? Do they get it, and maybe the politicians don’t?

A: Well, I think, uh, I think voters do understand it. I think it is important for us to send some price signals to change behavior.

the se
Remember, this is the POTUS candidate that says that we can't drive what we want or heat our homes because the world doesn't like that.
Go here to read Ed Morrissey's comments at Hot Air.
Defense-
Asymmetrical warfare (like flying fully fueled planes into buildings) is a danger. It was in 1993, in 1998, in September 2001. BHO wants to cut defense spending and especially, and dangerously, missile interceptors when danger of ICBM's is just around the corner (go down to "Ballistic Missile Defense...") or read this. This is what BHO wants to cut or eliminate. Just when we need it most. However, a BHO teamed up with Pelosi and Reid and the rest of the crackpot left that couldn't see an energy crisis, and economic crisis coming won't see this coming either. But, when Jerusalem and Tel Aviv are turned into glass parking lots or there is an EMP attack here in America, they'll blame Bush and the Republicans. Or evil "Big Defense".
The following is the second video I decided to embed. The reason is that Frank Gaffney knows exactly what he's talking about. Hugh Hewitt defaults to Gaffney when there are matters of national defense. On the morning of 9-11, as I was on my way to the pharmacy for pain meds after extensive foot surgery, I had my Mom pull the car over so I could hear Hugh interview Frank Gaffney at about 10:30 that morning. Mr. Gaffney is a sober reasoning intellect when it comes to security and threat analysis. He needs to be listened to and heeded.

But for me, the most chilling and most ominous position were the righteous Obamessiah comments on the Constitution that, if he wins the election, he will swear an oath to "Preserve, protect and defend". His views are that the Constitution is flawed because the Founding Fathers didn't see to the necessity of "spreading the wealth around" and that the Supreme Court didn't attend to that glaring flaw in the supreme law of the land.
Listen here.

There is so much more that I planned to and could go on to say.
This will and should suffice.

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Friday, November 07, 2008