Simply in terms of production values, the Republican Governors Association continues to put out the best ads:
14 Weeks from Republican Governors Association on Vimeo.
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Proponents of big government are running out of places to hide. Having been uncovered long ago in the Democratic Party, some had migrated to the Republican side, moving among us as if they were true conservatives. But these wolves in sheep’s clothing were exposed during the recent run of Republican government, as they ran up spending and debt. Now, they are being removed:
Rep. Bob Inglis (R-S.C) became the third House member and the fifth member of Congress to be defeated this year, losing by an overwhelming margin Tuesday in a GOP primary that served as a referendum on Inglis’s conservative credentials.
…Before the ballots had been cast Tuesday, many Republican operatives in Washington and South Carolina had written off the prospect of an Inglis victory, chalking up his seemingly inevitable loss to a combination of an anti-incumbent tide and local frustration with his departures from conservative orthodoxy.
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Much of the animosity we’ve witnessed directed at the Tea Party over the last year has come from political and cultural elites who find regular people disturbing, if not downright disgusting. The peasants, according to elites, are prone to temper tantrums and just don’t get how things work in the sophisticated political world. That same attitude was on display this last weekend following the primary defeat of Sen. Bob Bennett.
On last Sunday’s Meet the Press, David Brooks described Bennett’s defeat as a “damn outrage.” Liberal E.J. Dionne went a step further and called it “a nonviolent coup” because the Utah voters dared “deny the sitting Republican senator even a chance of getting on the primary ballot.” Why, it’s almost like these voters think they’re allowed to choose their own representatives or something!
Brooks insists that Bennett is a “good senator” just “trying to get things done.” Unfortunately, what he was trying to get done was not what his electorate wanted him to get done. While he was busy supporting TARP and advocating an individual mandate for health care, the people of Utah wanted spending restraint and less intrusive government. On the most important votes regarding these issues, Bennett was too often on the wrong side for their taste.
It’s no damn outrage that voters would send a senator packing after serving three terms when he promised to serve only two. It’s no damn outrage that a Washington insider be sent on his way following the mess Washington has created. The real damn outrage is the disdain with which elitists like David Brooks treat voters who don’t share their sophisticated policy preferences.
Cross-posted at Big Government and RightWingNews.
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The media spin cycle was in full overdrive following the RGA Remember November video. Act II responds to their distortions, fabrications and scare-mongering.
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After failing in his efforts to beg both Giuliani and McCain for a VP slot in the 2008 election, running away from the problems facing Florida’s next governor despite being eligible for the office again, and now so far behind in the polls to principled conservative Marco Rubio, Charlie Crist has made a liar of himself again. Reversing repeated denials, he is bolting from the GOP to make an independent run at the Senate.
Crist will play up his new role, portraying himself as bravely against the unpopular two-party system. It won’t work, because it’s transparently dishonest. His move is just another in a long line of decisions designed to enhance the power and prestige of Charlie Crist. The bright side is that after he loses to Marco Rubio, his political career will be over. Good riddance.
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We Will Remember from Republican Governors Association on Vimeo.
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Rumors of a possible Crist defection to run as an independent began a few days ago. Now, sources indicate it may be a done deal.
Two highly placed and independent sources, speaking strictly on background, tell me that Gov. Charlie Crist is preparing to leave the Republican Party and run as an independent in the race for the U.S. Senate…
Another well-placed source tells me the reason several Crist campaign staffers left recently is because, being committed Republicans, they refused to take part in an independent Senate run by Crist. That’s not confirmed by an independent second source, but it does ring true.
Now, reports from anonymous sources are sometimes wrong, so I have stopped short of reporting a Crist independent run as a verifiable fact, even though I believe my sources are accurate.
Electorally he probably does have a slightly better shot in a three-way race than against Rubio in the primary, where polls show him currently getting creamed and losing more ground everyday. But he won’t get much Republican support, and likely will pull more Democratic voters. In other words, Rubio still wins.
My first thought upon hearing that he might do this was similar to that of Erick Erickson at RedState. The party establishment will try to cover their rear-ends by blaming this on conservatives, instead of putting blame where it belongs: on supporting and promoting the kind of opportunist who so can’t stand to lose a primary that he’d pack it up and leave at the first sign that he might have miscalculated.
Ultimately this confirms what conservatives have been saying about Crist. He is an opportunist snake that only came into office on Jeb Bush’s coattails, but has no real draw of his own. We don’t want him as our Florida senator under any label, so good riddance.
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Marco Rubio, upstart challenger to Republican governor Charlie Crist, is speaking now. The two main themes of his speech are that there is an elite class in Washington and in the media that is out of touch with the American people – he clearly includes Charlies Crist in that group – and that America is a nation of greatness.
On policy he hits all the conservative notes, calling for lower income, capital gains and corporate taxes.
“There is no greater risk to the country than the risk posed by radical Islamic terrorists.” They attacked us not because of what we have done, but because they want to impose their radical view on as many people as they can.
One of the largest cheers he got was pledging to stand by our allies in Israel. Even bigger was the one he got for promising to bring terrorists to justice “in front of a military tribunal in Guantanamo.”
But the majority of the speech was spent on the larger question of the choice we have between two different futures. We can choose to be like everyone else, or we can continue to be exceptional. He definitely tapped the “call to greatness” quality that is common in all of America’s great speeches. There is no doubt that Marco Rubio has a strong future and is desperately needed in the Republican Party.
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Another Democrat is bowing out from the 2010 races. Indiana Senator Evan Bayh, one of the few less liberal members of the party, has been popular in a state typically more favorable toward Republicans. This decision is a bit surprising, as the polls have not had him behind any of his possible Republican opponents. Without an incumbent with a lot of cash, and given the fact that Bayh was unusually popular as a Democrat in Indiana, it’s quite likely that today’s announcement has shifted the state from the leans Democrat to the leans Republican category.
The Democratic leadership cannot be happy.
Update: Mike Pence is reconsidering his decision not to run for the seat.
Update II: Pence again declines to enter the race.
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Granted, the GOP still has no power. But the unprecedented swiftness of the Obama/Pelosi collapse, as evidenced most recently by Scott Brown’s win in Massachusetts, makes recapturing the House in 2010 a real possibility. I wonder whether or not Republicans are ready for that.
Here’s what I mean. My question isn’t whether or not they’re ready to win, but whether they are ready to govern with principle. My worry is that Obama’s surprisingly fast collapse, due to his unprecedented overreaching, has not given the party bureaucracy the time necessary to properly internalize the reasons for their defeat. Obviously, I hope that concern proves to be unfounded, and that Republicans are able to recruit principled, small government conservatives to run, and win, in the next election.
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I am a libertarian-conservative blogger living in the DC area. I have a Master's degree in Political Science and work in public policy, but please don't hold that against me.
