Rudy Giuliani, whose positions on abortion and homosexuality mark him as the most socially liberal Republican presidential candidate in more than a generation, is so far winning the contest for the support of social conservatives, according to a new analysis of recent polls.

The Politico

I have said for a while now that I think Rudy’s numbers are coming out of fear, from the impression that he is the most electable candidate in 2008 and the GOP’s best chance of holding onto the White House, preventing the Democrats from holding all three branches. I still think his numbers will erode as time goes on, particularly if a certain former Tennessee Senator jumps into the fray.

The Politico would seem to agree with my reasoning:

Widespread perceptions that Giuliani is the most electable Republican in this year’s field are driving his support among social conservatives, according to the analysis by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.

If the trend holds, this apparent willingness to support a candidate who fails what were once regarded as litmus-test issues would mark a landmark shift in the political behavior of a constituency that has been a pillar of the modern GOP. Already the shift is spurring sharp debate among prominent Christian conservative leaders, some of whom warn that Giuliani backers are abandoning core principles.

So says Newt:

Newt Gingrich is one of those who fear that Republicans have been branded with the label of incompetence. He says that the Bush Administration has become a Republican version of the Jimmy Carter Presidency, when nothing seemed to go right. “It’s just gotten steadily worse,” he said. “There was some point during the Iranian hostage crisis, the gasoline rationing, the malaise speech, the sweater, the rabbit”—Gingrich was referring to Carter’s suggestion that Americans wear sweaters rather than turn up their thermostats, and to the “attack” on Carter by what cartoonists quickly portrayed as a “killer rabbit” during a fishing trip—“that there was a morning where the average American went, ‘You know, this really worries me.’ ” He added, “You hire Presidents, at a minimum, to run the country well enough that you don’t have to think about it, and, at a maximum, to draw the country together to meet great challenges you can’t avoid thinking about.” Gingrich continued, “When you have the collapse of the Republican Party, you have an immediate turn toward the Democrats, not because the Democrats are offering anything better, but on a ‘not them’ basis. And if you end up in a 2008 campaign between ‘them’ and ‘not them,’ ‘not them’ is going to win.”

The New Yorker

Pretty hard to argue with that.

There are some pretty heated comments going on over at this RedState post about President Bush’s speech today about immigration in Georgia in which he apparently told the conservative base to shut up and trust the government and further maintained his insistence that we need this new “comprehensive” immigration law (wait, what’s that? He won’t enforce the current laws? Ignore the man behind the curtain).

Anyways, my observance upon reading a lot of these comments was that the “burning the village to save it” mentality seems rampant amongst conservative bloggers (the village being the GOP in its current state). This appears to be the tipping point of Bush’s many transgressions; people could stomach NCLB, budget-busting bills, earmarking out the wazoo, etc, but not this. The discussion over at RedState eerily reminds me of the attitude espoused by the Strikers in “Atlas Shrugged”. Readers of this blog aren’t unfamiliar with this attitude, as we’ve been very harsh on the current direction of the Republican Party and even asked in a recent post, “So what happens if we lose?”

Who is John Galt?

Presidential hopeful Hillary Rodham Clinton outlined a broad economic vision Tuesday, saying it’s time to replace an “on your own” society with one based on shared responsibility and prosperity.

The Democratic senator said what the Bush administration touts as an “ownership society” really is an “on your own” society that has widened the gap between rich and poor.

“I prefer a ‘we’re all in it together’ society,” she said. “I believe our government can once again work for all Americans. It can promote the great American tradition of opportunity for all and special privileges for none.”

AP

Shared prosperity? This is the same vision that Stalin, Marx, and Lenin all had too. It’s the same type of government Hugo Chavez is trying to create in Venezuela while he is seizing peoples’ private property. It is the same society that is pushing people to risk their lives on a raft floating to here from Cuba. There is no mistaking what this woman wants and it’s not American freedom.

Directing back to this earlier post, I think there is a lot at stake if we lose.

These days, there’s a stark contrast between the warm reception Sen. Jim DeMint gets at home in South Carolina for “fighting for something” and the chilly distance he feels on Capitol Hill.

Few colleagues are happy to see the man who’s crusading to get rid of so-called pork-barrel projects or earmarks — pet projects that often serve only local or special interests. He doesn’t think a ban is possible, so at a minimum, he wants lawmakers to own up to the money they’re asking for.

“I get a lot of cold stares up here, a cool reception,” said the Greenville Republican, who has made this a signature issue.

Charlotte Observer

This will continue to be an uphill battle for a very long time. This needs to be made into a national movement, with Republicans all across the country demanding their representatives are more responsible and transparent with spending our money. Case and point:

“There aren’t enough of them,” said Tom Schatz, president of Citizens Against Government Waste, a watchdog group that monitors government spending.

And of course the absurdities they get spent on know no end…….

Perhaps most notorious in the Carolinas is the Sparta Teapot Museum, planned for Alleghany County, which got $500,000 in 2005 from the federal housing budget.

Another notable one: Upgrades to the University of South Carolina’s Thomas Cooper Library so it could feature a rare book collection and a political section named after former U.S. Sen. Ernest “Fritz” Hollings, D-S.C., himself a big pork harvester.

The project got $1.98 million in the National Aeronautics and Space Administration budget, $3.94 million from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and $8 million from the Small Business Administration, according to federal budget data from 2005. Nowhere did it indicate who was seeking the money.

A bill prohibiting public funds from being used for most abortions has become law in Oklahoma after a deadline passed for the state’s governor to veto the measure.

“If the governor doesn’t act, it becomes law,” said his spokesman, Phil Bacharach. Gov. Brad Henry had until midnight on Wednesday night to veto the bill.

Henry, a Democrat, vetoed a previous bill that contained no exceptions for publicly funded abortions even in cases of rape or incest. The new version allows such an exception if the victim reports the crime to the police.

It easily passed the Republican-controlled House and got through the evenly divided state Senate with several votes from Democratic lawmakers.

Reuters

Another step forward for respecting life.

According to a newly released poll by Rasmussen Reports, the American public trusts Democrats more than Republicans on ten key issues. The most overwhelming being healthcare where 57% of Americans trust Democrats while only 30% of Americans trust Republicans, but healthcare has been for sometime a Democrat strength. Take two bread and butter Republican issues: taxes and defense. 46% of Americans trust Democrats on national security while only 43% trust Republicans, on taxes 47% of Americans trust Democrats and only 42% of Americans trust Republicans. Also the number of self identifying Republicans is at an all time low of 31% while 36% are Democrats and 32.4% are independents, a record high number of independents.

All in all should be a real lesson to the GOP that they are far, far, far from out of the woods yet.

Mexico is beefing up its consulates here in the States to better serve its citizens, many of whom reside in America illegally.

As the consulate that opened last month in Little Rock illustrates, the Mexican government is following its citizens far from the border into the growing quarters of Latino migration, much of it illegal.

Since 2000, consulates have opened in places where immigration from Mexico has soared, including St. Paul; Indianapolis; Kansas City, Mo.; Omaha and Raleigh, N.C.

I guess you just have to go where your citizens are.

Bill Hobbs over at Elephant Biz has a nice write up on why Fred Thompson is just so damn popular.  Is it because he is the “real conservative” and everyone else is just a poser?  I highly doubt that.  While it is correct that Fred is a true conservative that doesn’t seem to be the real source of his appeal to the average American.

Fred Thompson is keepin it real and that is why they love Fred.  If he doesn’t know the answer to a question he doesn’t spew jargon out of his mouth to cover his ignorance, instead (in a truly novel approach) he simply admits that he isn’t educated on the issue at hand.  If he doesn’t believe in something, like tort reform for example, he simply says so even though he knows it will cost him conservative votes.  Fred Thompson is honest and has credibility, something that virtually no one in politics today has.  The GOP is so lost they don’t even seem to understand that they lack credibility with voters (both conservative and independent) and are making no effort to regain the trust they have managed to shatter over the last ten years.

Fred Thompson is doing something much more important that running for president, he is showing America how the political process can work again and what a true leader looks like.

For those of you who don’t work in the biz, so to speak, you may not have heard of TechPresident but it is a website run by the Personal Democracy Forum that focuses on the intersection of technology and politics.
The Personal Democracy Forum runs a website, TechPresident, that has become the focal point for a lot of chatter lately about the intersection of the internet and politics. It has been mostly a place to follow the sort of “inside baseball” chatter about how the business works. But since their conference last weekend they have launched a new project calling on the presidential candidates to be “Tech Presidents.” Their proposal encompasses six different proposals, which they say will bring technology into government and help the country. A thorough examination finds that they reflect a sort of big government thinking that one would have thought the decentralized world of the internet would naturally reject. The truth is we don’t need a “Tech President.” Technology will flourish when government stays out, not when it gets involved. I am sure that these were all very well intentioned, but each of these proposals would set the way for stagnation of ingenuity and freedom. Their proposals and my comments are below: Click to continue »

Senate leaders agreed Monday that they would wait until June to take final action on a bipartisan plan to give millions of unlawful immigrants legal status.

The measure, which also tightens border security and workplace enforcement measures, unites a group of influential liberals, centrists and conservatives and has White House backing, but it has drawn criticism from across the political spectrum. In a nod to that opposition, Senate leaders won’t seek to complete it before a hoped-for Memorial Day deadline.

Associated Press

Honestly, this bill was just farcical.  The amount of bureaucracy and expanded government that would go into this doesn’t help anyone in the long run.

Keep up the pressure.  Call your two Senators and your Congressman if you haven’t already done so.  Amnesty by any other name is still amnesty all the same.

The annual American Conservative Union Congressional ratings are out for 2006.

Scoring a perfect 100% were five Republican Senators:

Tom Coburn (R-OK)
Jim DeMint (R-SC)
John Ensign (R-NV)
James Inhofe (R-OK)
John Thune (R-SD)

And the following members of the House of Representatives:

Jeff Flake (R-AZ)
Trent Franks (R-AZ)
Scott Garrett (R-NJ)
Jeb Hensarling (R-TX)
Steve King (R-IA)
Randy Neugebauer (R-TX)
Mike Pence (R-IN)
John Shadegg (R-AZ)

The lowest scoring Republican Senator is no surprise because he has always been the lowest scoring Republican Senator, none other than Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island who scored a 24, but thankfully we have rid ourselves of him. Throwing him out would leave the honors going to Senator Olympia Snowe of Maine, who scored a 36. The highest scoring Democrat was, as every other year, Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska who scored a 64.

Some interesting scores as well from others. Presidential candidate John McCain scored a sad 65, only one point higher than the leading Democrat. George Voinovich is getting steadily worse, with a 56 last year. We can do so much better in Ohio. Same in Mississippi where Thad Cochran only managed to get a 67. Ted Stevens got a 64 and there is no reason why in such a conservative state like Alaska we shouldn’t have two 100s there.

In the House the lowest scoring Republican was Chris Shays (CT-4) with a 36. The highest scoring Democrat was John Barrow (GA-12) with a 76.

As for my representatives, it’s kind of a mixed bag:

• Jim Demint (R-SC) 100
• Lindsay Graham (R-SC) 83
• John Spratt (D-SC-5) 44

How do yours measure up?

Bill Quick over at DailyPundit, who has been extremely harsh on the Bush administration for screwing up the war in Iraq and on terrorism, and who also is a true conservative who has railed against the GOP for losing its way as far as the Constitutional responsibilities and duties of the federal government, has this to say about Rep. Ron Paul:

Paul is a delusionary idiot who gives decent libertarianism a bad name, and his followers are true-believing sheeple who think religious maniacs with more than a thousand years of murderously aggressive history will respond nicely to their warped notions of the thoughts of Ayn Rand.

How does he really feel about it?!?

PS.  That is great news about Fred Thompson winning the Georgia GOP strawpoll.  I hope to hear more about the event from those who attended.

We received a response from Saul Anuzis under the Saul Anuzis Should Read the First Amendment thread in the form of an open letter he has sent out. I went to the Michigan Republican Party blog site and the same letter is posted there as well, so it would appear to be a genuine reply and not someone just pretending.

RNC Debate Petition…getting lost in the rhetoric

After consulting with my fellow RNC members, I believe there isn’t anything to be gained by advancing a petition aimed solely at removing Congressman Paul from the debates. The primary is and will continue to work itself out.

I do however think we should continue to look at the bigger picture, the problem of how our party is going to adapt to the new realities of this very long primary season.

Congressman Paul’s controversial statements about the United State and who’s to blame for 9-11, combined with the splendid reaction of Mayor Giuliani and then my own heated reaction, stole the spotlight from the bigger point I really wanted to make and still think is important – continuing these “debates” as they are currently structured is not to our benefit, nor to our candidates, not to our party, nor to the country.

This is a very important process and it’s critical that we get a chance to get to know our leading and most viable candidates better. The idea of 10 candidates each getting a little over 6 minutes each and competing for the best “sound bite” of the evening isn’t very helpful in determining who our nominee should ultimately be.

NO one, at NO time, ever implied or said we should censure, restrict or deny any candidate the right to Free Speech. Specifically, Ron Paul, who is a sitting Congressman, will always have the same right as any other American and/or anyone in America has to express themselves. However, there is no constitutional right to participate in a party run debate or forum.

Although my initial response and what prompted me to action were the Congressman’s comments blaming America for 9-11, this discussion should really have NOTHING to do with the positions individual candidates take. We obviously have a difference of opinion on many issues…and I expressed my personal outrage and let that get in the way of the bigger question.

I am and have always been a big supporter of open primaries, open discussion and the sharing of broad and diverse opinions. At the same time, I think it makes sense to at least discuss various options of making these debates/forums more useful and informative. Setting certain standards or criteria for folks to participate is NOT censorship or infringing on anyone free speech. Everyone has the right to run a commercial, put up a website or buy soapbox.

Every candidate has the right to run…some with a chance of actually winning the nominations and others just for the sake of making a point or two. But the party also has the right to arrange their venues in such a way that best serves this interest of the party. We have given 10 candidates 3 hours of national TV time. Our many local and state parties have opened our doors to them. And we have certainly invited all them to help us raise money J. In short, the so called 3rd tier candidates have had their chance to make an impression and if they cannot poll beyond 1 or 2 percentage points of support, they are simply getting in the way of the real debate of how to move our party and our country forward.

Finally, I want apologize to the RNC and our State Committee leadership (and my wife) who received obnoxious, annoying and disruptive emails or phone calls. My best advice to you is to ignore them (and/or just blame me).

There is one thing I disagree with him on and that is on the point that the debates should be limited only to the “viable” candidates. At this point in time, which is pretty early in the election cycle, why shouldn’t all candidates be given equal time to get their message out? The lower tier candidates already struggle against the front runners in terms of money, so what do they do if they are shut out of national debates as well? Diversity of opinion is crucial when determining who we are going to choose to represent our party for the highest office in the land. As it gets closer to the first primary next year the lower tier candidates will drop out one by one and then the debates will become more substantive and specific with plenty of time for people to make an informed decision.

We all knew this was coming. Is anyone surprised? I am pretty sure at this point that my days in the GOP are numbered. I will not be able to continue to support this party if they put this into law.

Deal may legalize millions of immigrants

Much has been said about Ron Paul’s influence and positions within the Republican debate and race in general.  I am in agreement with Alex; I admire Paul greatly for his domestic views on following the Constitution and his fight against the growth in the federal government, but think that he is greatly misguided on foreign affairs.  For the GOP to embrace rank isolationism would be a poison pill and would mean the downfall of American power should it be implemented in an administration.  Like it or not, the United States is a principle hegemony in the world system, and has a right and responsibility to maintain the balance of power in favor of the security of the United States and the stability of the worldwide system.  We can argue about the specifics of that, such as whether we should get involved in humanitarian crises, or only situations that directly affect United States security, et cetera, but I think that Ron Paul really does not get my previous statement.

Ron Paul’s political isolationism is just as dangerous as Duncan Hunter’s economic isolationism.

Nathanael Blake makes a good concluding point over at the Right Angle Blog of Human Events:

Finally, and more substantially, Ron Paul is an ideologue who refuses to deal with the realities of the world as it is. His extreme non-interventionism didn’t even work at the beginning of the American Republic, and is impossible now. He is lacking in prudence, the hallmark of the conservative statesman. 

The chairman of the Michigan Republican Party said Wednesday that he will try to bar Ron Paul from future GOP presidential debates because of remarks the Texas congressman made that suggested the Sept. 11 attacks were the fault of U.S. foreign policy.

Michigan party chairman Saul Anuzis said he will circulate a petition among Republican National Committee members to ban Paul from more debates. At a GOP candidates’ debate Tuesday night, Paul drew attacks from all sides, most forcefully from former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, when he linked the terror attacks to U.S. bombings.

MLive

I think someone needs to send Chairman Anuzis a copy of the Constitution and bold the part about the First Amendment.  I didn’t realize that shutting someone out of debate because you disagree with their opinion was a conservative viewpoint, let alone one that fosters freedom and liberty.  Sounds more like Stalin to me.

This would change the rules that have been in place for 185 years!

In a stunning move, House Democrats today revealed they will attempt to rewrite House rules that have gone unchanged since 1822 in order to make it possible to increase taxes and government spending without having to vote and be held accountable. House Republican Leader John Boehner (R-OH) today vowed Republicans will use every available means to fight this unprecedented change.

“This is an astonishing attempt by the majority leadership to duck accountability for tax-and-spend policies the American people do not want,” Boehner said. “The majority leadership is gutting House rules that have been in place for 185 years so they can raise taxes and increase government spending without a vote. House Republicans will use every tool available to fight this abuse of power.”

Rudy Giuliani made clear in Tuesday night’s Republican presidential debate that he is not ready to let the facts get in the way of his approach to foreign policy.

The most heated moment in the debate, which aired live on the conservative Fox News network, came when the former New York mayor and current GOP front-runner angrily refused to entertain a serious discussion about the role that actions taken by the United States prior to the September 11, 2OO1, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon may have played in inspiring or encouraging those attacks.

Giuliani led the crowd of contenders on attacking Texas Congressman Ron Paul after the anti-war Republican restated facts that are outlined in the report of the The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States.

The Nation

There is only one thing I don’t completely agree with Paul on regarding last night’s comments.  Even if the U.S. hadn’t had a sustained presence in the Middle East over the last twenty something years, I am not certain that we still wouldn’t be feeling some of their aggression.  Islamic fundamentalism plays a large part in the role on exercising terror across the globe.

Aside from that, Ron Paul was right.  When we stake out a position to be the World’s police force, we are going to incur resentment.  I have always been against the idea that it is our job to police the world.  The Monroe Doctrine be damned.

To prevent school shootings, some South Carolina legislators want more guns on campuses.A House subcommittee approved a measure Wednesday that would allow concealed weapon permit holders to carry guns onto public school campuses, from elementary schools to universities. Supporters say having trained and armed gun owners in schools could prevent massacres like the April 16 shootings at Virginia Tech, where one armed student killed 32 people.

Only Utah currently has a law allowing concealed weapons on campuses.

Charlotte Observer

Oh, baby!  Now I know why I moved here!  This is long overdue.  Gun free zones are simply a farce.  Let’s be real already.