The question is, should Matthews win will anyone notice a difference?

Specter: ‘I’ll be prepared’ for 2010 race

MANCHESTER – About 30 state Republican leaders and activists agreed yesterday that they and other party faithful need to become more aggressive in contrasting the differences between GOP and Democratic principles in the future.

The group, invited by activist Neil Levesque, a former aid to former U.S. Rep. Charlie Bass, discussed how to rebound from the party’s election day losses as they ate cheeseburgers and french fries at Richard’s Bistro in downtown Manchester.

One attendee who asked not to be named called it an upbeat, lively discussion with a “pretty representative room of activists.” He said that “the message coming out of the meeting was that we need to distinguish ourselves and stop being ‘Democratic-lite’” and become more pointedly critical of Democratic Gov. John Lynch and the Democratic-dominated Legislature.

New Hampshire Union Leader

It’s nice to see that there is still life in the New Hampshire GOP.  After their resounding defeat at all levels in 2006 they all just sat back and said, “Oh well, what can you do.”  The party controlled the state legislature for 140 years and when they got served with one defeat it was as if they just took their ball and went home and didn’t care any more.  They’d better to do something too, because the most anti-tax state in the union is now run by a bunch of taxing leftists who are looking to feed the beast in Concord a bigger meal.  I doubt that is the hope and change that was voted for.

Horn said Republicans do not need to redefine “what a Republican is.”

Instead, she said, “It’s a question of articulating that message. We need strong leadership in this state and we don’t have it right now.”

Horn said she was not referring to Cullen, but rather a need for strong Republican leadership in in-state elected positions.

Sounds like she gets it.

Thank God we dodged this bullet.  California State Senator and ultra fiscal conservative Tom McClintock will be “informally” claiming victory tomorrow in the race for California’s 4th Congressional District which encompasses the northeast part of the state.  This is the man that should have been governor of California, but frankly I’d rather have him in Washington.  Californians can reap what they have sowed.  McClintock in Congress helps us all.

Former Congressman Pat Toomey, President of the Club for Growth, published an open letter to the Republican leadership in National Review pushing for the appointment of Jim DeMint to the Senate Finance Committee.

Senator DeMint is exactly the kind of leader the GOP could use at this low point in its history. Not only does DeMint have a business background, he has demonstrated a sophisticated grasp of the country’s tax and entitlement problems. He is one of the few members of Congress to think creatively about solving these problems in a manner that increases personal freedom and prosperity.

And this is exactly why he won’t get the appointment.  He’s the best guy for actual reform and the Republican leadership doesn’t actually want reform.  They want to give lip service to reform.  They’ll allow a bone to be thrown to the voters to make it look like they are actually doing something, but in the grand scheme of things it will be business as usual.

According to Mr. Toomey, Ohio Senator George Voinovich is also seeking the post.  With him being more moderate and a longer serving Senator I am willing to bet that is who McConnell will turn to.  We’ll see.

What’s the good word?

I’m spending a few days down in Jacksonville, Florida for the holiday.  I was going to head over to a library this afternoon to do some studying for an exam I have on Wednesday, but when I got there it was closed.  So, I decided to run into the Orange Park Mall and see what kind of sales were going on.  The place was packed, there was traffic everywhere and they also said on the radio that the mall parking lot was at 90% capacity.

If the economy is in the crapper I sure couldn’t tell.

In a dramatic, closed door meeting, the owner of a renowned Mexican eatery in Hollywood expressed regret in her decision to donate $100 to the “Yes on Prop 8? campaign, but her remarks before a group of about 60 members of Los Angeles’ LGBT community fell short of an outright personal apology.

“I’m sick of heart that I’ve offended anyone in the gay community,” said Marjorie Christoffersen, co-owner of El Coyote Mexican Cafe for 17 years. “I have had, and do have family, friends, and people I work with of course who are gay…and you are treasured people to me.”

This is the brave new world of liberalism on the march. A world where traditional values are dismissed at hateful, Christians are threatened and attacked, and anyone who has an opinion other than the “politically correct” one gets hauled in front of angry crowd to explain themselves… or else.

Present day China? Soviet Union, circa 1955? Those wonderful little tribunals in Canada that haul you in for “diversity training” for daring to anger some minority-comprised grievance lobby?

Nah. Welcome to America; California specifically. Yeah, I know- California is hardly representative of all of America, thank God. But don’t kid yourself- if the raving, raging protesters marching down the Presidio had their way, all of America, from Seattle to South Florida, would get a good ol’ fashioned dose of “tolerance”.

Click to continue »

There’s a way to make this all go away. Raddon, and I say this as a friend, needs to put out a statement clarifying his views on gay marriage — why exactly does he support the Mormon view on this measure? — and fully explain the basis of his (presumably) religious objections to same. Nobody wants to see him gone, but his financial support of Proposition 8 has put his neck in the wringer.

 

-Jeffrey Wells, a useless and self-important Hollywood columnist

Jeffrey Wells, a few months ago, publicly pondered the idea of blacklisting Jon Voigt. Voight, you see, had penned a rather brutal but entirely accurate anti-Obama/pro-McCain editorial. Now, he and his fellow fascists are threatening Los Angeles Film Festival director Rich Raddon, a Mormon who donated $1500 to the campaign in support of California Proposition 8.

Is this any different from the “Red Scare” Hollywood blacklisting back in the 1950’s? Only in the sense that those blacklisted in the 50’s were being punished for supporting an ideology that led to the slavery and systematic murder of millions of people around the planet. Those being threatened and blacklisted today are being pilloried for supporting the traditional definition of a religious and cultural institution that goes back thousands of years. Punishment in both cases appears to be ostracism and job loss.

To people like Wells, the first blacklist was a horrible miscarriage of justice. But this new one is to be encouraged in the name of “tolerance”. Welcome to the Wonderful World of Resurgent Liberalism.

UPDATE- Shortly after I posted this, Dirty Harry’s Page reported the following:

 After weeks of mounting pressure, Rich Raddon, Festival Director of Film Independent’s Los Angeles Film Festival, has resigned from the post he has held since 2000.

While not directly addressing concerns that were raised when it was revealed that Raddon, a Mormon member of the film community, had donated $1500 to the campaign in support of California Proposition 8, he did release a statement apologizing for the “negative attention that my actions have drawn to Film Independent and for the hurt and pain that is being experienced in the GLBT community.”

IndieWire

::Takes out Lib-Speak Decoder Ring*::

::Runs several quotes from “tolerant” liberals through it::

Message Decoded: ”Hey knuckledragging conservative gorillas, stop burning crosses and sending your kids to Jesuscamps and listen up. If you live in Hollywood or any other area dominated by tolerant and open-minded liberals like us, and you’re dumb enough to take a political position that we -being far more intellectually advanced than you- deem unacceptable, we will drag your name through the mud and economically ruin you. Because that’s how we define ‘tolerance’ and ‘diversity’. So tow the line, you Sarah Palin loving neanderthals.”

*-My Lib-Speak Decoder Ring translates with 93% accuracy.

As expected, he’s right on the money (pun intended).  Via the Club for Growth.

And that would be, that the Presidency of the European Union is shifting to the Czech Republic, meaning to Vaclav Klaus:

PRAGUE: In the 1980s, a Communist secret police agent infiltrated clandestine economics seminars hosted by Vaclav Klaus, a fiery future leader of the Czech Republic, who had come under suspicion for extolling free market virtues. Rather than reporting on Marxist heresy, the agent was most struck by Klaus’s now famous arrogance.

“His behavior and attitudes reveal that he feels like a rejected genius,” the agent noted in his report, which has since been made public. “He shows that whomever does not agree with his views is stupid and incompetent.”

Decades later, Klaus, the 67-year-old president of the Czech Republic — an iconoclast with a perfectly clipped mustache — continues to provoke strong reactions. He has blamed what he calls the misguided fight against global warming for contributing to the international financial crisis, branded Al Gore an “apostle of arrogance” for his role in that fight, and accused the European Union of acting like a Communist state.

Now the Czech Republic is about to assume the rotating presidency of the European Union and there is palpable fear that Klaus will embarrass the world’s biggest trading bloc and complicate its efforts to address the economic crisis and expand its powers. His role in the Czech Republic is largely ceremonial, but he remains a powerful force here, has devotees throughout Europe and delights in basking in the spotlight.

“Oh God, Vaclav Klaus will come next,” read a recent headline in the Austrian daily Die Presse, in an article anticipating the havoc he could wreak in a union of 470 million people already divided over its future direction.

This is going to get pretty interesting, and fun to watch.  All conservatives and freedom lovers are well-aware of Klaus’s many challenges to the religion of man-made global warming, and staunch defense of free-market principles.  Many Europeans will no doubt be horrified by having him as their leader, but who knows, something historic may happen in the next few years that leaves them thanking him many years down the line.

Nov. 24 (Bloomberg) — The U.S. government is prepared to lend more than $7.4 trillion on behalf of American taxpayers, or half the value of everything produced in the nation last year, to rescue the financial system since the credit markets seized up 15 months ago.

The unprecedented pledge of funds includes $2.8 trillion already tapped by financial institutions in the biggest response to an economic emergency since the New Deal of the 1930s, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Bloomberg

Bush and Paulsen seem to be determined to bankrupt this nation and hand out as much money as they can to their Wall Street cronies before they leave office.

The producers of “24″ evidently have zero respect for the UN. To hammer the point home, their two-hour movie - “24: Redemption,” premiering Sunday, Nov. 23 - includes a representative of a UN “peace-keeping” force who just might be the most spineless, loathsome character ever created for this show.

The NY Post

HELLZ YEAH!!!!

The first and only time I went to NYC, I made a special pilgrimage to the East River just to get a picture of myself giving the middle finger to the UN building. ‘Cuz that’s just the kind of guy I am.

h/t- Dirty Harry’s Place

As a charter member of the Vast Left-Handed Conspiracy, my fellow southpaws and I have always known that left-handers were just the next step up in human evolution. Sure, we may be only 10% of the population now, but what an amazing 10% we are! One day, after we have taken over the world that the right-handers built for us (and build backwards, by the way) we shall revel in the glory of a world that works the way it should- where can openers operate easily, the picture buttons are on the left side of cameras, and all the clocks run counter-clockwise.

This day is coming, and it is approaching faster than you think. How do I know? Consider the following:

In the race for the White House, lefties seem to have the upper hand. No matter who wins in November, six of the 12 chief executives since the end of World War II will have been left-handed: Harry Truman, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, the elder Bush, Clinton and either Obama or McCain. That’s a disproportionate number, considering that only one in 10 people in the general population is left-handed.

The Washington Post

Of our first 32 Presidents, only one, James Garfield, was left-handed. Founding Father Benjamin Franklin was left-handed too, but never president. Contrast that early paucity of left-handed talent against what we’re seeing now. In 1992, 1996, and 2008, you either had to vote for a lefty or stay home, as both Ross Perot and Bob Dole are left-handed (Dole had to do it the hard way, but we still welcome him into our fraternity). I’d certainly be happier with left-handed John McCain than with left-handed Barack Obama, but we would have gotten a lefty either way. Not bad for just 10% of the population.

So beware, my right-handed friends. The left-handers are taking over, and your awkward and backwards world may finally be coming to an end.

If you’re gonna say stuff like this to the press, at least have the guts to go on the record about it.

Hell yeah:

You know, it’s odd; when Republicans won elections, no one seemed to mind Rush and his energy to bring conservatives to the table.  When Republicans stopped being conservatives, or at least stopped acting like conservatives and more like the kind of Democrat Lite that Kondracke and Harper prefer, they stopped winning elections — and started blaming Rush Limbaugh for it.  Kondracke wants Republican politicians to ignore Rush, Laura, and Sean, but they’ve been doing that since 2001, and that’s not Rush’s fault.

The GOP will go nowhere if it engages in scapegoating talk radio for the next couple of years.  Republicans have lost two successive elections because American voters will choose Democrats when given a choice between an authentic Democrat and a fake Democrat.  We’re not going to win elections by making Republicans more like Democrats.  We will win elections when Republicans do the following:

• Find a First Principles approach that will unite the conservative coalitions, as Reagan did in 1980
• Have a zero-tolerance policy for corruption
• Stop supporting pork-barrel spending
• Take concrete steps to shrink the federal government
• Take responsibility for their own actions and the consequences for them instead of scapegoating talk radio

Note to Kondracke and Harper: Rush doesn’t work for the Republican Party.  The Republican Party doesn’t follow Rush’s policy agenda, and hasn’t since George Bush came to office.  The notion that the main problem with the GOP is Rush Limbaugh is profoundly foolish, so much so that only Beltway insiders could possibly reach that conclusion.

HotAir always knows how to bring it, hardcore.

Sorry, for this but the new Guns ‘N’ Roses album, um…. sucks. 17 years for this crap. Wow.

It looks like Tom Price will be elected Chairman of the Republican Study Committee.

Meet Joe Knollenberg. He is a Republican who represents the 9th congressional district of Michigan. Here are his thoughts on the second potential auto bailout in a conversation with Neil Cavuto of Foxnews:

“It’s not your money.” And that Joe is why you just lost your bid to get re-elected. You are exactly what is wrong with the GOP and this attitude that is no different than the one any hardcore socialist would take towards the proper role of government is an outrage. You lost the election and you still don’t freaking get it. The Constitution expressly forbids this kind of spending, but not only do you ignore that in violation of your oath of office you then arrogantly claim that money being spent by the government somehow doesn’t in actuality belong to the people.

If the party were healthy, the conservative leaders in the GOP would be lining up to have press conferences to absolutely blast this RINO cretin. Instead the blogosphere is going nuts but where is the leadership from the GOP? John Boehner needs to release a statement saying how much he despises this kind of thinking. Why doesn’t he? Because deep down this is also how he thinks about the government. Think that is unfair? Well then let him step up to the plate and prove his conservative bona fides. If you want to win America back, tolerating this kind of RINO socialism is not the way to do it.

Hat-tip: Jason Pye

When you get pounded this badly in an election there are usually multiple issues that need addressing. One of the main issues, though certainly not the only fly in the ointment, is that the GOP seems to insist on running candidates that can’t communicate the basic ideas of the GOP platform to the voters.

I was going to write a more indepth post on this boneheaded strategy when I came across Optimistic Patriot’s post at New England Republican (and you’d better be an optimist if you are a Republican patriot living in New England). His bottom line is this: Run candidates that can communicate. Sounds simple right?

What do I think the GOP really needs? They need candidates that can communicate. When President Bush first hit the scene, I didn’t see his tendency to mangle the English language as a real impediment or reflection on his intelligence. I’m still not convinced that he’s “dumb”, but his communication skills caused considerable harm to his presidency and the conservative cause.

Bush simply didn’t have the skills required to rally people from the bully pulpit of the presidency. The few conservative programs he pushed, like privatizing a portion of your Social Security tax, went down in flames. His inability to communicate meant he was forever at the mercy of the MSM where all things Republican wither and die.

The next Republican standard bearer doesn’t have to be Reagan, but he does need those kind of communication skills. Reagan faced the same MSM bias in an era before talk radio and blogs. However, he overcame them and is now widely regarded as a very successful president. Even liberal academicians, a redundancy I know, consistently rank him in the top 10 for everything he got accomplished.

It goes on and it gets better. The MSM has been gunning for us for decades now, the ability to effectively communicate your ideas through the media noise is a skill the GOP will acquire or it will stagnate.

Cruising around the rightosphere I came across a couple of blogs that had some good looking imagery.

Pirates and the GOP, simply awesome. From Decidedly Right:

Mainstream Conservative says, “right this poor critter.”

And from Toasty Aroma, some new GOP logos.

The infamous RINO:

And the new and improved RINOcrat for RINOs who so badly want to be Democrats (John McCain look in the mirror):