From Capitolwire:

Toomey told the Union County Republican Committee dinner that by 2006, “Republican voters, and a surprising number of Democrats and independents, still believed in a less intrusive government, more freedom and lower taxes. But they did not believe the Republican Party in Washington was the best way to achieve those goals.”

Toomey, the president of the Club for Growth, which works to advance fiscal conservatism and Republican primary candidates who will work to achieve it, said: “I am extremely optimistic about the conservative movement and the future of the Republican Party. … It was absolutely not a repudiation of conservative principles. It was a repudiation of a Republican Party that in many ways had abandoned conservative principles.”

Toomey said: “The war in Iraq was very unpopular and presidential popularity was very low.”

But Toomey said: “There were factors entirely in the control of Republican House and Senate members and they can’t point a finger anywhere else. …

“First was corruption,” he said, referring to scandals or charges filed against several House members or House-GOP-tied lobbyists. “Let’s be honest: the litany got too long: [lobbyist Jack] Abramoff, [GOP Rep. Duke] Cunningham, [former House Majority Leader Tom] DeLay, [Rep. Rob] Ney, [Rep. Mark] Foley, [Rep. Don] Sherwood, [Rep. Curt] Weldon. This is a problem, because this is too long a list.

“Democrats offered no vision, and no message except ‘we’re not them,’” Toomey said. “In 2006, that was enough.”

Between the unpopularity of the war and the president, and the various scandals, the Republican-held governorships dropped from 27 to 21. The party also lost the U.S. Senate due to a tough climate for statewide Republican candidates, Toomey said.

All of this is stuff that has been echoed by a lot of us since the slaughtering that took place in November.  I still stand by the fact that I am not the least bit upset about the Republicans losing Congress, as retaining it would have only encouraged further ill behavior on their part.  The party can easily take back Congress by listening to people like Toomey.

Asked if he would run for U.S. Senate or governor in 2010, Toomey said he had plenty of time to think about such decisions and had come to no decision yet.

Told that, one supporter said: “Pat is now in a great position to run for governor: he is well-liked, hard-working, and his job nowadays introduces him to rich people across America who give lots of money to conservatives, and puts him in a position where they will like him. And remember, for governor, they can each give him $1 million. For Congress, they can give him about $5,000. That alone has to make a politician think about running for governor.”

Dinner organizer and Union County GOP committee powerbroker Yvonne Morgan said: “He is a candidate, and we hope he’ll be a candidate for governor.”

This is the other point I want to touch on.  Toomey came within one percentage point of unseating Arlen Specter in the Pennsylvania Republican Primary of 2004.  It was because of his message of principle and fiscal conservatism that resonated with the voters.  Had he not been fighting against the entrenched establishment along with former Senator Santorum and President Bush, he would have beaten the pants off of Specter in a landslide.

I wholeheartedly hope that Pat will make a run for governor in 2010.  He is the one person that can truly turn this state around and get it back on a positive track.  Pennsylvania is a dying state.  As another young adult who will shortly be another contributing member to the “Brain Drain” by fleeing the state, nothing would please me more than to see someone like Pat step in and salvage the place of my birth and make it a great state to live in once again.

First of all, I think that’s the first blog headline I’ve ever seen with the word “y’all” in it, and I’m happy to supply it.

Second of all, I had yet to notice Jim Gilmore’s campaign site before this morning.  What do y’all think of him?  Could he be a conservative dark-horse candidate?

Sorry for the technical difficulties.

Well I know this isn’t a tech blog, but I just had to write about my new purchase, the Sonos music system. I had been for some time looking for a solutions that would allow my several gigs of music to be played in my living room. I had an iPod stand that plugged into the TV, but that limited me to just the music I could fit on my iPod. So I began looking for other options, and at first fell in love with the Apple TV. Yet, in the process I discovered that the old downfall of Apple (proprietary software) had reared its ugly, ugly head. The Apple TV only works with iTunes and with songs imported into iTunes or purchased from the iTunes store. Moreover it was more designed for streaming movies, which while a cool technology is not practical yet.

Last weekend though I dropped into the local audio-video store and was browsing the TVs and home theater systems, when I happened across a little white box, the Sonos. Basically it allows me to play music throughout my house with two different zones (bedroom and living room). Each Zone can be operated independently with different music or you can link the zones together. You can have as many as 32 zones, but that would get pretty expensive. All of the zones are controlled through a remote which allows you to pause, skip tracks, browse your music collection, etc. All-in-all a great product, which I promptly purchased and installed in my home, only to discover that Apple’s evil nature was two-fold. Apparently, Apple will not release their DRM (Digital Rights Management) codec to people so all of the music I purchased on iTunes can’t be played through my Sonos system. This basically allows Apple to use their leverage in the online music purchase market to extend their brand through hardware, a practice that Apple lovers the world over used to complain about when Micro$oft did it.

I had not noticed a tab in my new Sonos controller, but in playing with it saw that it had something called “Rhapsody” installed. Rhapsody is an online music store like iTunes, except that for a $10/month fee you have access to the entire 2.5 million song catalog. I immediately fired it up and began browsing, and realized that I had basically purchased a 2.5 million song jukebox. The only songs I couldn’t find were Led Zeppelin and the Beatles (because the owner of the rights to the Beatles and Led Zeppelin have chosen not to sell their music online anywhere).
In short, Sonos + Rhapsody has revolutionized my music listening experience. I will never buy another track from iTunes, why would I when I have all I need on Rhapsody.

The Tennessee Center for Policy Research has a very interesting report about our friend algore:

“Gore’s mansion, located in the posh Belle Meade area of Nashville, consumes more electricity every month than the average American household uses in an entire year, according to the Nashville Electric Service (NES).”

 Another case of Do As I Say, Not As I Do? I don’t think he’s using that mansion to advance Social Justice.

Republican Mitt Romney, flush with cash from early fundraising, this week will air his first presidential campaign ad to introduce himself to voters in several early-voting states.

The 60-second spot describes the former Massachusetts governor as a ”business legend” who ”rescued the Olympics” and “turned around a Democratic state.”

Romney adds: “This is not a time for more talk and dithering in Washington. It’s a time for action.”

The ad is set to air starting today and will be shown in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Michigan and Florida.

It is the first ad by a top-tier contender in a campaign experts believe will cost more than $1 billion by the time it ends in November 2008.

Miami Herald

While Romney has not had any problem raising cash, I think his political history is what is causing him to falter in the polls. Romney has done a complete 180 on many social issues, in what many feel is an attempt to appeal to the conservative base of the Republican party. The result is a lack of trust among Republican voters as it is hard to know for sure where he truly stands on the issues. It will be interesting to see what effect, if any, these ads will have. I predict that if his number haven’t improved toward the end of the year he’ll withdraw from the race before the primaries start.

SPARTANBURG - U.S. Sen. Sam Brownback said Monday he is calling every Republican he can in this S.C. county before a presidential straw poll to be held later in the week.

It’s that kind of personal attention the senator from Kansas hopes can take him from obscurity to the front of a crowded field for the GOP’s 2008 presidential nomination.

The straw poll in Spartanburg County will be one of the candidates’ first tests in South Carolina, which will hold one of the earliest presidential primaries in 2008.

Charlotte Observer

It’s definitely possible that Brownback could emerge as a darkhorse candidate, but I honestly don’t believe he could win the general election.  Nothing about the man excites me.  I think he is a boring candidate with little enthusiasm and charisma and his support of amnesty for illegal aliens kills any hope of ever getting me as a supporter.  I think the best thing he could do would be to step aside and let a more viable conservative move in.  I’m still keeping my fingers crossed for Newt.

The city council of Baltimore has voted 9-2 to ban smoking in public places including bars, restaurants, and taxicabs.

What is it about private property rights these people don’t understand?

HARTFORD, Conn. –After losing a tight re-election battle in November, former Republican U.S. Rep. Rob Simmons is in line to become Connecticut’s first business advocate.

The position was created by the legislature last year and fellow Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell nominated Simmons for the job Monday.

Simmons will be responsible for informing businesses about various public and private assistance programs, technical help, job training, state services and financial assistance that are available in the state.

Associated Press

The deadline to submit candidacy to become the next chairman of the Rhode Island Republican Party is looming this Saturday. The State Committee will vote for the chairman during their upcoming March 15th meeting. It should be a quick vote. Only one person has applied. Not many people want to do the job in the most Democrat state in the country.

On one hand, it is somewhat surprising there is such little interest. For the Democrat Party having such a huge registration advantage the Republicans have yet to become irrelevant. They currently have a Republican governor who just got reelected to another term and up until this past November, they have had a Republican Senator for a few decades.

On the other hand, that Senate seat was held by the Chafees, the father being fairly liberal and the son having a voting record more left than Hillary Clinton. Who would really be interested in pimping Republican candidates from that pool?

What would you do to stop wasteful government spending in Washington? Submit your answer here.

I had to chuckle when I read this recent article today by Peter Brown, author for RealClearPolitics, concerning his notion that “moderation” may be the new religion for the Republican Party. I am not overly familiar with Mr. Brown’s writings so I do not know if he possesses a leftist bias in which he yearns daily for a moderate GOP or if he has just drawn the wrong conclusions based on poor test subjects. Whatever the case may be, it’s easy to dissect the flaws in his logic.

Although moderation is in the eye of the beholder and difficult to define, the GOP message and messenger are much more likely than in the recent past to be less beholden to, or a member of, the party’s strongly conservative wing.

There are two reasons why:

* The background and views of the two leading candidates for the Republican presidential nomination, Sen. John McCain of Arizona and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani.

Let’s start with the first set, which I have to add, am quite surprised he would even hold up as evidence for his conclusion. Anybody who is involved in even the most remote political circles knows why McCain and Giuliani are the front runner for 2008 at this point in time. John McCain is a darling and whore of the media. You can barely turn your television on without hearing his name or seeing his face. He’s got the reputation of being a Senate maverick which promotes his image with an American people frustrated with polarizing, partisan politics. However, Senator McCain turns 71 this year and he is looking it. Additionally, his fund raising has been suffering as of late and I have no doubt that he’ll fade out by the time the primaries roll around. His day was in the past.

As for Giuliani, he is clearly the front runner due to his 9-11 reputation as “America’s Mayor”. Come on, everyone knows this. If he weren’t in the right place at the right time most people would have never even heard of the guy. Once the primaries get closer and his liberal social views get more exposed he will drop in the polls, however, he could still prevail because of his hawkishness on the War On Terror. It just depends how many Republicans make that issue their number one priority during the 2008 primaries. Rudy could come out on top if Republicans are more concerned about his foreign and defense policies rather than social issues. Either way, there is no endorsement of moderation by the people anywhere here.

* The lesson that may lie in the success of GOP governors with high approval ratings. Florida’s Charlie Crist, California’s Arnold Schwarzenegger and Connecticut’s Jody Rell are thriving with a vision that features a larger role for government.

This second set of examples are even poorer choices than the first. Throwing Crist aside as I know nothing about the man’s politics, it’s easy to debunk Schwarzenegger and Rell as evidence of welcoming a moderate GOP. California might be the most leftist state in the country, though it’s getting heavy competition from Massachusetts these days. Anyone to the right of Joseph Stalin is a conservative in California so while Arnold may be a moderate in the eyes of the rest of us, he is Barry Goldwater in the Golden State. As for Rell, Connecticut is similar, though not as extreme. Connecticut is one of the most wealthy states in the country full of liberal elitist snobs who firmly believe it is the government’s duty to redistribute that wealth because they have bought into the Marxist tripe that they should feel guilty and ashamed of their success. Hence, it is quite unlikely that these folks are going to take a small government and social conservative Republican under their wings. Rell is a good fit for what the people of Connecticut desire.

If Mr. Brown had been capable of producing left leaning Republicans who were popping up in states that are grounded in firmly right wing politics, then he may have had a point worth looking into. Since he could only point out the obvious, that leads me to believe that this article was written with an agenda in mind. Let’s also not forget that we lost far more so called “moderates” from our ranks in 2006 than staunch conservatives.

So, move along folks; there is nothing to see here.

A: When they drop direct mail against a private citizen!

Bob Guzzardi, one of my biggest supporters in my campaign, is getting plastered in a direct mail campaign against him by none other than Jubelirer and Brightbill’s bag man… Ron Harper.

Good job Bob!

More Americans killed by illegal aliens than Iraq war, study says

I found this interesting site called TechPresident where they focus on how Presidential candidates are using the web, and how the web is using them. In terms of online communities the Democrats are leaps and bounds ahead of Republicans. Most of the disparity can be explained as differences in core voters but it goes deeper than that. The Internet and the various technologies surrounding Web 2.0 are the future of communication. Web 2.0 refers to the second generation of web service where the focus of the web moves from merely research and commerce to online communication, interaction, and collaboration through social networking sites, blogs, wikis, and other folksonomies.

Of all the candidates, either Republican or Democrat, Senator Barack Obama has the largest presence both at MySpace and threw his own site My.BarackObama.com where users can not only create their own blog but can also develop a community of “friends” similar to MySpace. Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s YouTube channel is one of the most visited and watched sites on the monster that is YouTube. About the only attempt at embracing Web 2.0 comes from Senator McCain. Senator McCain is using YouTube to create a Virtual Town Hall where citizens can post a video question on YouTube and the Senator will respond. It is kind of hokey but it is an effort.

In 2004 Howard Dean had a huge internet presence with his Meet-Me groups. This presence did not translate into victory, but it did help catapult him to the front of the pack. But I wonder if in the future, online communities and how candidates interact with them will play a larger role. I am not sure if a large Web 2.0 presence will translate into victory in 2008. It is way too early to tell. But candidates especially on the right need to engage in Web 2.0 or they just may be left to behind.

Sen. McCain was in Georgia yesterday and made a visit to the State Capital. I was there and got to meet him (biting my tongue thinking of all the things I would love to say to him but did not) as he made the rounds wooing the state legislators. He spoke at caucus meetings for both the house and senate. An interesting note is that also there with him was Sen. Phil Gramm, who I also talked to briefly. Sen. Saxby was there, but did not appear to be there with Sen. McCain. Saxby was addressing the house while McCain was addressing the Senate. McCain was a very big help to Lt. Gov Casey Cagle (who SaveTheGop endorsed) in his race against Ralph Reed. Mitt Romney is having a huge fundraiser down here tonight. On a side note, McCain looked terrible. He looked old, tired and pale. I am not sure how much support he picked up if any. Romney is bringing in all the old bush money in the state and is bringing in key endorsements as well. I will try and write more of my thoughts and observations later.

Our favorite leftists over at Daily Kos are busy handicapping who will oppose Senator Saxby Chambliss in 2008. All the expected players are mentioned. Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin, Congressman Jim Marshall of Macon, and former Secretary of State Cathy Cox. But the most interesting is former Heavyweight Champ and Dancing with the Stars contestant Evander Holyfield.

Holyfield has given money to the Democrats before (and, according to newsmeat, only to the Democrats), would probably have the ability to self-fund (in addition to his boxing career he owns a record company, a piece of The Black Family Channel, and I’ve heard that he is co-owner of the Atlanta cable system).  Having said that, I believe Holyfield has been found to have had a large number of illegitimate children which would probably hurt him.

H/T: AJC Political Insider

Italian Judge Imposes Abortion on 13-Year-Old

H/T: Drudge

This extraordinary article claims that a document to be released late this year as a joint statement between Anglican high officials and the Vatican will layout a path towards eventual unification of the Anglican Churches and Bishops under the Pope.

It would be a very interesting thing to take place, apparently Catholicism has already passed Anglicanism in Church attendance in England (not that it says much) but the major hurdles would be the likely rejection by both the liberal elements in the Church, [American Churches would be unlikely to give up gay and female ordination] and conservative evangelical elements [I am not sure if places like Truro and the Falls Church are ready to accept Catholic doctrine over their currently decidedly evangelical doctrine].

Either way it is surely a shot heard round the world in the religious community.

What appears likely to be the way forward is that the male Anglican Bishops who chose to come under the Pope would be granted Bishop status in the Catholic Church and all married Anglican Priests would be allowed to remain married. The Anglican Bishops would have full control over the Anglican Churches in the Diocese and the Catholic Bishops who overlaps the Diocese would have control over the original Catholic Churches. It would be likely overtime as Bishops died that combination would occur. All female priests would definitely be forbidden from remaining priests though maybe a path would be opened to being a nun, that much is unclear. It would likely mimic what a similar arrangement with the orthodox would look like with a church within the Church, a church “breathing with two lungs” as theologians have referred to it. It would probably look something like the Oriental Catholic Churches where Priests are allowed to still marry to serve Oriental parishes, and much the same would be the case for Anglicans. Going to an Anglican mass would serve as meeting ones Holy Obligation as going to a mass in an original Catholic church.

Where this is likely to do the most good would be in African and elsewhere where the combined Churches would be in a better position to fight the growing spread of Sharia induced radical Islam

There can be little doubt that if we lose this war against Islamic extremism that historians will look back on this as the day the defeat began in earnest. Sadly it seems that our resolve to leave the world a better place has faltered, because it just seemed too hard. This is a day of shame of tremendous proportions for our country. Shame that falls on all of us for allowing this to happen by our elected body. Shame. See how your congressman voted