Savage Republican

I have written before (in my column in the Savage Pacer) about the new gotcha politics.
Well, the MN GOP’s own pit bull has sunk to a new low (maybe not a new low, maybe just a low).
I have no problem exposing candidates illegal or immoral deeds. And if a candidate is having relations with subordinates or outside of marriage that is fair political game.

But Michael Brodkorb of Minnesota Democrats Exposed has decided that digging into a single ex-candidates posting on Match.com is good politics.
(Post is: MDE EXCLUSIVE: WEB PAGE LISTS FORMER U.S. SENATOR AND POTENTIAL 6TH DISTRICT CANDIDATE DEAN BARKLEY’S TURN-ONS)

I think no other words are necessary.
This is bad politics.
This is bad behavior.
And I am embarrassed that the man who help run our current Party chairmans campaign is responsible for this post.

Take it down Michael.
For us, for the party and for your own reputation Take it down.

Enough said.

Are you?
http://www.imwithfred.com

Quick update – Ron wins re-election.

More Quick thoughts:
-If you tell a joke make sure it not over 20 years old.
-Evie is the best joke teller in the party (Sorry KJ)
-No, when I made my motion I did not really want to give a chance for each and every delegate to ask a question – I was trying to make a point (I learn from Mark Buesgens and the if we are going to ban smoking, lets ban it everywhere legislation) Most people got it, but I had a few ask me if I realized how long that would take.
-I want to learn sign language
-I will miss Deputy Eric – He keep the meeting moving right along (as best he could)
-When will people learn that if it is a close contested election that we will have issues with seating alternates and ballots. Someone has to find a better way to make sure the right number of people are there to vote
-Holding up your candidates sign while the other candidate is speaking is bush league at best, ignorant and rude at worse – Does anyone think they will get someone to change there mind by holding up a sign so you can’t see the speak??
-Have fun at the convention. Too many people just sit there and give the golf clap and get up and down with the restof the group. If an elected official says something you like, give a good “Right on” or “Amen brother” and a polite hiss or cough lets them know they are way off track.

More later

On Saturday, I will be giving up a beautiful Saturday to go pick leadership for MN GOP.
After listening to the candidates and watching their actions since the CD meetings, I am voting to keep Ron Carey as our chair.

This decision was based on a number of reasons.

1) When I called for change in 2005, one of my concerns is that we could not wait until now to make a change. The 2008 elections have already started and we do not need someone without experience trying to learn the job and help run a parties campaign strategy.

2) Even after reason 1, I still thought a change might be needed based on the loses – but a look at other states (Colorado for one) shows that the GOP party hurt the base of support country wide and the results in MN were no worse (and actually better) then a lot of other places.

3) Ron seems to really want the job and has been responsive to requests. When I needed his help in 2006 he was there. And while he has not done everything I asked, when I talked to discuss policy or strategy, I understood that he did have a plan (and most of the time it worked.)

4) Even if I wanted to change, the other candidate while exciting at first mention has failed to show me any reason to vote for and a few reasons to vote against – specifically

4) Joe started his speech at the CD complaining about anyone making too much money.
I thought it was the start of a DFL tax increase speech.
(Something like “anyone who makes over x dollars raise you hand”)
Now I know he was trying to show off that he would work for less than the current chair – but insulting anyone who is successful and has achieved shows a tin ear. Class warfare against the party is not something I want for a chair.

5) The McCain factor. I think it is no shock that I am not a RINO lover, so when I heard that Joe was going to lead the Veterans for McCain in MN I nearly fell off my chair. Say it ain’t so Joe?
When I confirmed it, I shook my head. Now he may have done it to support a fellow veteran, but I want leaders who look at candidates based on party principals – and from the recent polls, so do lots of Republicans (McCain 3rd in polls)

6) Leadership experience – I looked around and could not find any political leadership. Part of that is because he was busy being a real leader (And for that I give him my sincere admiration and thanks) but leading men in combat is not the same as leading volunteers. Joe is a great PR guy for the party but not the greatest campaigner. Slogans and signs are one thing – herding a campaign committee is another

Which leads me to

7) His campaign. Joe either by choice or lack of control has had an odd array of folks be the face of his campaign. Allegations that his supporters leaked party documents to the press (which they continue to deny – and to which some say “thou doth protest too much” or “if you are playing defense you are not playing offense”) Carey got ahead of the problem, Joe didn’t and if Joe thinks things are going to be easier from the DFL??
His supporters range from the Angry, to the nasty, to the truly bizarre (a local leader is reported to claim Carey leaked the documents himself to help his campaign). But none of which have show any sort of unified front. This campaign has run him.

So if anyone cares what I think, on Saturday I will be voting for Ron Carey.

My fellow blogger Savage Republican and I have never been wont to be shy when it comes to criticizing Republicans. He and I worked pretty hard down here in Scott County running the Bush/Cheney ’04 campaign and also working to get Republicans elected in 2000, ’02, ’04 and ’06. I’ve been a conservative (not ever to be confused, and certainly not to be confused with the current crop of Republicans) for decades. Oh, and I’m a radical…one of those who wants his liberties back! Savage Republican and I chafed at the appointment of Harriet Miers as a Supreme. We said that McCain/Feingold was and is a bad idea (here’s a concept: you want money and influence out of politics? Just have Congress honor their oath of office to adhere to the 10th Amendment). We said that the Prescription Drug Act was throwing gas on an out-of-control fire called Medicare bankruptcy. No Child Left Behind? Another nice sounding disaster. But, now, I have irreconcilable differences. The nice, easy title from GWB is “Immigration Reform”. Now, what it appears to reform is the concept that illegal activity should be penalized. The reform: It rewards law breaking. The New Left (what I used to call RINO’s) even says that if I oppose the “Immigration Reform” bill, why I’m not Christian and I’m a racist as I’m unwilling to forgive these ILLEGAL immigrants. I heard a pundit say that that statement is the equivalent of saying that it’s like “forgiving” a carjacker by letting him keep the car, not prosecuting him so he stays out of jail, then giving him an yearly check for $22,000… that the original car owner has to pay.
Well, I’m here to say that it appears many GWB with his illegal immigration supporters and I have reached irreconcilable differences. If I didn’t know better, I’d say the evidence would suggest that GWB is a radical left wing plant to destroy the Republican party by thoroughly and completely estranging the conservatives from the party.
Peggy Noonan has written an excellent article on the dangers of what GWB and other Republicans are risking to the Republican Party and what we as conservatives need to do. She has also written about the squandering of a great legacy by both GWB and his father:
“One of the things I have come to think the past few years is that the Bushes, father and son, though different in many ways, are great wasters of political inheritance. They throw it away as if they’d earned it and could do with it what they liked. Bush senior inherited a vibrant country and a party at peace with itself. He won the leadership of a party that had finally, at great cost, by 1980, fought itself through to unity and come together on shared principles. Mr. Bush won in 1988 by saying he would govern as Reagan had. Yet he did not understand he’d been elected to Reagan’s third term. He thought he’d been elected because they liked him. And so he raised taxes, sundered a hard-won coalition, and found himself shocked to lose his party the presidency, and for eight long and consequential years. He had many virtues, but he wasted his inheritance.

Bush the younger came forward, presented himself as a conservative, garnered all the frustrated hopes of his party, turned them into victory, and not nine months later was handed a historical trauma that left his country rallied around him, lifting him, and his party bonded to him. He was disciplined and often daring, but in time he sundered the party that rallied to him, and broke his coalition into pieces. He threw away his inheritance. I do not understand such squandering.” And neither do I. She goes on to say that we conservatives need to do what we accomplished in 1980: take the Republican Party back from the Rockefeller Country Club Republicans. And time is very, very short.

I have absolutely no clue as to why GWB and the others are doing what they are. And at this point I don’t care. At all. (When somebody’s attempting to carjack me, trust me, I will not be contemplating “My lands…why would they be doing this?””They have pilloried all who have taken the time to go through the bill page by page (Robert Rector [also here], Hugh Hewitt and World Net Daily to name a few. And they make great points). And how do GWB and his supporters in criminalization legalization respond to the point by point arguments? They parrot the radical left wing in their screeds and demagoguery while refusing to answer our argument.

Time to scar my knuckles in a knock down.

Yikes…it’s been over a month since I blogged? Yup. Sorry. Memorial Day, however, has snapped me back to my senses.
First of all, I need to quote a stunningly accurate statement about America: The Star Spangled Banner (1st verse) ends with “o’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.” The accurate statement is “The land of the free because of the brave.”
I’m listening to Dennis Prager broadcast live as he always does on national holidays. As his compatriots on talk radio usually do a “Best of” Dennis rises head and shoulders above the rest by doing live radio. And I compliment him for it. Today he is talking about taking a minute, today, at 3:00 p.m. local time to remember those who died in defense of the rights we enjoy. He was referring to a website that refers and talks about refreshing National Remembrance Day. The reason for 3:00 p.m.? It was reasoned that at that time Americans are most likely to be fully enjoying the rights and liberties that others have fought and died for. And the saddest parts of the website are where the Commsion’s director asked a group of school children what Memorial Day means. Their reply: “That’s the day the pool opens!” And the second part is where a gallup poll shows that only 28% of Americans know what Memorial Day means. One out of four Americans. Yup, government run schools have certainly done exactly what they , the Democrats and their supporting teachers unions have set out to do. To incredible shame of which they all have none of.
As I once heard about those who serve “Because you and your brothers-in-arms risked and often gave up all their tomorrows, I live today in the greatest nation on earth. And I owe you and them a debt that I can never hope to repay except only by token by also defending those God given rights and liberties to hand down to my children as a sacred trust.”

This is the way to respond to a nut like Michael Moore:

Fred answers Moore’s call for a debate: http://www.breitbart.tv/?p=611

Also coming Soon – The Republican Candidates which ones I have eliminated from my list.

As I promised those at the CD2 convention.
I will post links to information about the Draft Fred Thompson work.

For now, please use the Request Info link and I will update you as information is made available.

More info will be up later, but wanted to address a question in comments (and that some else mentioned about Fred and McCain-Feingold).

Here is what Fred has said about his support:

Many on the right remain angry he supported the campaign finance

“There are problems with people giving politicians large sums of money and then asking them to pass legislation,” Mr. Thompson says. Still, he notes he proposed the amendment to raise the $1,000 per person “hard money” federal contribution limit.

Conceding that McCain-Feingold hasn’t worked as intended, and is being riddled with new loopholes, he throws his hands open in exasperation. “I’m not prepared to go there yet, but I wonder if we shouldn’t just take off the limits and have full disclosure with harsh penalties for not reporting everything on the Internet immediately.”

John McCain’s response – We need to pass new laws.
So while I was not happy with his original support, I am happy with his explanation and his stance on it.

Much to do, little time. So, in conclusion, the 7 marched to Lagoon where the amorphous mass joined a larger amorphous mass at Lagoon and Hennepin. And there we were confronted by charter members of LLOLLL.

In an attempt to engage us, there were sporadic encounters. One woman came up to me (notice that members of LLOLLL can usually be readily identified by their eyeglasses?) and asked me if I were a veteran. I said no. I returned the question…blank thousand mile stare. Well, what about the fact that we’re losing? My reply was what’s your evidence? Another thousand mile stare. The ensuing conversation solidifies the proverb “never argue with a fool”. All I heard around me were the same tired, discredited, repeated ad nauseum lies, myths, half-truths that we’ve heard for years:”We’ve made more enemies” (as logical as”My rapist will hate me and I’ll be raped more if I defend myself”), “I support the troops but not the mission” (“Hey trooper-you’re an idiot on an idiot’s mission, dying and being maimed for no reason…But I support you!”), “Iraq had no role in 9-11” (ever hear of Salman Pak?), “The were no WMD’s” (except here and here ). And to top it off, another protester challenged Mitch Berg and me with the long repeated lies “Why did GWB go AWOL? Where was he for 18 months? Why did he miss his physical?” To which Mitch and I basically said “You don’t know what you’re talking about!” We mentioned that the F-102 was the most dangerous fighter ever put into the US military inventory (nearly 1/3 of which crashed). Then Mitch repeated something I hadn’t heard “Did you know that GWB volunteered to go to Vietnam?” My reply “Mitch, that would have been a full year long tour wouldn’t it, rather than the four month tour that John Kerry experienced?” “Right you are Randy!” Mitch went on to relate the reason GWB wasn’t assigned? It was 1972. The war was winding down. The US military needed ground support aircraft. The F-102 was an interceptor. It would have taken a year to train GWB in a ground support fighter. Not enough time, and no need as we were de-escalating our involvement.
As I was walking back to Dunn Brothers for a post protest-protest coffee, I reflected on Miss Left Wing Eyeglasses “I support the troops by bringing them home!” She’s never directly asked any currently deployed trooper, sailor, Marine what they need. She has never asked how best she can support the military, how to best support the men and women who are “boots on the ground”. Nope, she decided what was best for the troopers, sailors, Marines, airmen. No discussion with them. She had made up her mind, she knew best. Her moral arrogance on parade. She and all her ilk just repeat the same old tired lies and just like they know best how to run your life, my life, the health care system, Social security, Medicare and every other aspect of life, they also know exactly what the troops need as far as support.
They never change. Same lyrics, different tune.

The LLOLLL (languishing lack of logic loony left), after dutifully blocking traffic for a few blocks, disappeared into Calhoun Square, near Figlio’s, which caused us to wonder if the patrons would be losing their lunch. Mitch and James disappeared into the building. I was with my four remaining patriots when I heard a brusque “EXCUSE ME!!!” and turned to promptly be shouldered by this oxygen wasting biped(with the red backpack:

I immediately addressed Bosco the Bloviating Biped, to which his rapid retort was “You didn’t clear the ramp!” I was standing near the curb cut-out used by bicyclists, wheelchairs and the like. He continued to scream “YOU DIDN’T CLEAR THE RAMP!” My reply was “You assaulted me.” His reply “I SAID EXCUSE ME! I HAD BRAIN SURGERY TWO WEEKS AGO!” My thoughts immediately were that “Lands! As there are no scars, sutures present and he has a full head of hair…WOW, arthroscopic brain surgery!” My reply “Brain surgery! So, they GAVE you a brain? Any good reason you’re not using it?” His reply “I SAID EXCUSE ME! I RECORDED IT! IT’S RIGHT HERE!”(brandishing his cell phone. Well, one cell phone digital record is certainly worth another). While taking out my evidence recording device, he screamed again “I SAID EXCUSE ME! I RECORDED IT! YOU MOTHERF****R”. My reply “Sooooo, you think you can get your money back on that surgery?” Well, I hope he gets that refund as his only comeback at that point was a stream of obscenity, at which point Mitch spoke up “Hey man, there are children here!” More obscenities from Bosco the Bloviating Biped, who later became known as “Brain Boy”.
Alas, my cheap entertainment for the day walked away just as I was finding the range to bring up the heavy artillery.
Next: I futilely attempt a debate with a LLOLLL charter member.