A friend sent me a link to a post at Whatever, a blog that John Scalzi runs.  Scalzi, who describes himself as a “pinko commie socialist,” is interested — truly, not snarkily, interested — in the views Republicans/conservatives/libertarians currently hold when looking at the Republican primary field.  Having the luxury of my own blog, I thought that, rather than weigh in there, I’d weigh in here, and ask you all to chime in as well.  I’ll stick to Scalzi’s rules, which I think are very good ones for this question:

1. This comment thread is for people who are US potential primary voters who identify as Republican and/or conservative (libertarian is also fine, if you see your libertarianism more aligned with general Republican/conservative principles and/or intend to vote in the GOP primaries). If you’re not any of these things, don’t comment, please. Seriously. We have enough politics back and forth on other threads; this one is not about that.

To amplify this point I will also stay out of the thread except in my capacity as site moderator.

2. For the purposes of this thread, please take as given that you likely believe the policies and practices of the Obama administration to be varying levels of bad, so it’s not on point to go on about that. I’m interested on your take on the actual candidates running for the GOP nomination and your thoughts on their individual pluses and minuses as well as on the group as a whole.

[snip]

4. Commenting between the people in the thread (who have already identified themselves as Republicans/conservatives) is of course fine but in general I’m more interested in people’s individual opinions regarding the candidates/group than I am in people trying to argue to others in the thread for their favorite candidate. So if you’d keep campaigning to a minimum and focus on the actual question, I’d be appreciative.

As a Californian, of course, none of my votes count.  My primaries are too late to matter and the state is so Blue, it’s kind of like a corpse when it comes to the actual election itself.  So, while I care deeply, my caring is sort of academic.

Having said that, I’ve been enjoying Newt.  Considering that all the candidates just yak away like crazy, it’s a kind of rare, delicious, almost illicit pleasure to hear someone who can string multiple sentences together, who has a rare depth and breadth of knowledge, and who often says what all of us have been thinking.  I have serious doubts about his abilities as an executive (I do think Romney wins in that category), but he’s like chocolate for the conservative political brain — and that’s despite the baggage, the loopiness, the history of random statements, the FDR worship, and whatever else one can say about Newt.

When it comes to thinking seriously about a primary candidate, I don’t know and, as I noted above, for me the question is academic (especially since California now has open primaries).  What I’ve said for months is that my candidate is NOT OBAMA.  Of course, I have to ask myself, what if the NOT OBAMA candidate is Ron Paul?  I think he’d be better for America on the home front than Obama is, but I think he’d manage to be even worse than Obama when it comes to America’s national security interests, both at home and abroad.  I don’t want to have to make an Obama versus Paul choice.

My current plan is to vote for the person with the “R” after his/her name.  I’m not going to teach anyone a lesson by withholding a vote, thereby weakening the NOT OBAMA Party, of which I am a member in good standing.

If you’re in California, it’s easy to figure out which people should get your vote:  Fiorina over Boxer, Whitman over Brown (and yes, that’s something of a nose-holder), anyone over Pelosi, etc.

It gets much more confusing when you get to the numbered items on the ballot.  Prop. 23 is easy:  Vote for that unless you want the state bankrupt in a couple of years.  But all the other numbered ones, the ones about taxes and fees and assembly majorities, are ridiculously confusing, especially since some of the tax and fee propositions appear virtually identical in wording for the confused voter, but will have markedly different outcomes if passed.

Fortunately, someone sane has stepped into this confusion.  J. E. Dyer, a former military analyst, and current blogger at Commentary’s Contentions, Hot Air’s Green Room and Patheos, also has her own blog, and it’s there that she spells out the numbers. (And yes, I did mean to be silly with my words there.  This is such a serious time that a teeny bit of humor is a nice safety valve.)

If you are a California voter, and you haven’t yet cast your vote, I urge you to study Dyer’s post very, very carefully.

Have you ever been in a debate with a Liberal/Lefty and been so overwhelmed with either the vapidity of their arguments or the absolute volume of misstatement, sloganeering or fact-twisting that you are left open-mouthed and unable to respond. After the interchange, you kick yourself by thinking, “I should have said….”. Happens to me all the time. Instead of constructively engaging, my mind asks “where do I begin?”. Or, alternately, I may start hammering them with facts and my own positions, none of which they will retain.

Over time, in business negotiations, I have learned that the best way to buy time while digesting information is to ask questions to better flesh out the issue. I don’t mean a Socratic dialog, I mean questions meant to make the other person think about their position(s). I offer the following in the context of the very excellent comments that have been made on this blog, recently, about how to constructively engage Liberals, especially the Liberals who have no idea of why they think the way they do, not to mention having a clue regarding why conservatives and libertarians think as we do. I propose that this latter designation represents a very significant block of prospective voters and we need to work on them, not just before November but with an eye to 2012.

In my own evolution from Scoop Jackson Liberalism to a blended libertarian conservatism, I recalled how one memorable question could completely change my world view. It didn’t happen right away, but over time I would mull that question and it would have its intended effect of making me change my mind. So, I would like to ask for your help with this question: how can we use single questions to help puncture the Liberal/Left bubble-sphere?” I also propose that using “why do you think…” is a good way of appealing to the other person’s intellect.

Here are some examples of what I mean:

When a Liberal uses the race card: “why do you think that people on the Left are so utterly obsessed with peoples’ race?”

When a Liberal talks about America’s supposed insults to Islam: “Why do you think that all countries the surrounding the world of Islam are subject to Muslim attacks and terrorism?”

On Democrats being for the little guy: “Why do you think it is that the Democrat leadership is so filthy rich?”

On the Tea Party: “With what beliefs of the Tea Party do you disagree?”

On Democrats being for minorities: “Why do you think that blacks have fared so badly in Democrat-controlled inner cities since Johnson’s War on Poverty of 50 years-ago?”

One Liberal Dependency on Government: “Please share your thoughts with me on how one can be simultaneously dependent on Government programs and still be free?”

When Liberals talk about Islam’s tolerance for others: “How many Muslims do you know? Can you tell me what’s in the Koran about tolerance toward others?” (OK, that’s two questions).

Would anyone else like to either help improve upon or add to this list of  ”one, memorable questions” that can puncture Liberal/Lefties’ world views?

Question for all of you: A friend thinks that we shouldn’t get our hopes up over November and beyond. He thinks that, aside from the concern political junkies are exhibiting, most Americans actually don’t care enough about the political scene to vote for politicians who would put a stop to this. They got their voting excitement out of their system when they collaborated to put the first black man in the White House. He freely concedes that, living as we do in the Bay Area, our view about “most Americans” is pretty warped, but still….

So, do you think that the political junkies are getting exercised, but that this will go nowhere? And even if it’s trying to go somewhere, do you think that the MSM, which is ululating in delight over the bill’s passage and using Alinsky tactics hard and fast to paint the bill’s opponents as racists, homophobes and whack jobs, will successfully whitewash the whole thing so that American voters are pacified and inert by November?

As for me, I think the battle is over only if we give up. Abject despair and surrender are a guaranteed recipe for failure.  Think of Winston Churchill, who had a miserable political failure during WWI, was a political outcast during the 1930s, and led the only nation standing up to Hitler in the first years of the War. Unsurprisingly, he had a whole lot to say about not giving up (and about the freedoms and system for which we fight):

A man does what he must – in spite of personal consequences, in spite of obstacles and dangers and pressures – and that is the basis of all human morality.

All the great things are simple, and many can be expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope.

Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference.

Before Alamein we never had a victory. After Alamein we never had a defeat.

Difficulties mastered are opportunities won.

Do not let spacious plans for a new world divert your energies from saving what is left of the old.

However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results.

I am an optimist. It does not seem too much use being anything else.

If you are going through hell, keep going.

If you have an important point to make, don’t try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time – a tremendous whack.

If you have ten thousand regulations you destroy all respect for the law.

In war as in life, it is often necessary when some cherished scheme has failed, to take up the best alternative open, and if so, it is folly not to work for it with all your might.

It is a mistake to look too far ahead. Only one link of the chain of destiny can be handled at a time.

Kites rise highest against the wind – not with it.

Never, never, never give up.

Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.

One ought never to turn one’s back on a threatened danger and try to run away from it. If you do that, you will double the danger. But if you meet it promptly and without flinching, you will reduce the danger by half. Never run away from anything. Never!

Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.

Some people regard private enterprise as a predatory tiger to be shot. Others look on it as a cow they can milk. Not enough people see it as a healthy horse, pulling a sturdy wagon.

Success is going from failure to failure without a loss of enthusiasm.

Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.

The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.

There is no such thing as a good tax.

This is no time for ease and comfort. It is time to dare and endure.

To build may have to be the slow and laborious task of years. To destroy can be the thoughtless act of a single day.

Victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival.

War is a game that is played with a smile. If you can’t smile, grin. If you can’t grin, keep out of the way till you can.

We shall draw from the heart of suffering itself the means of inspiration and survival.

You can always count on Americans to do the right thing – after they’ve tried everything else.

As part of a longer rumination about the stability that the Cold War provided for our political system, James Taranto makes the following observations about yesterday’s House vote:

Why did it happen? Last November voters sent what seemed to us a pretty clear message by rejecting Democratic candidates for governor in New Jersey and Virginia, both states Obama carried a year earlier. It didn’t seem so clear to the Democrats in Washington, who were able to argue that in the one contested race for Congress, in upstate New York, a Democrat (assisted by a GOP circular firing squad) picked up a previously Republican seat. The House’s initial ObamaCare vote took place the following weekend.

But if November’s results left room for ambiguity, January’s did not. Scott Brown campaigned for a Senate seat in Massachusetts–Massachusetts!–by promising to be the 41st vote against ObamaCare. He won in a state that had not elected a Republican to the Senate since 1972. The voters sent a clear message: that the Democrats were going too far, jeopardizing their power.

Obama and Pelsoi, it now seems clear, took the opposite message: Our power is in jeopardy, so we’d better use it before it’s too late. A dispatch from the Associated Press’s Liz Sidoti illustrates the topsy-turvy results:

The initial blush of President Barack Obama’s health care triumph immediately gives way to a sober political reality–he must sell the landmark legislation to an angry and unpredictable electorate, still reeling from the recession.

Voters may not buy it.

Gee, ya think, Liz? Normally, politicians sell their programs to the public before enacting them into law. Representative democracy is premised on the consent of the governed, not the idea that it’s better to ask for forgiveness than permission.

It’s a done deal, awaiting Obama’s signature.   I am truly too disheartened to write anything tonight.

Please use this open thread to share your thoughts, provide insight and inspiration, give practical advice, etc. I’ve already received several emails from conservative groups (the GOP, Republican politicians, etc.) urging fund raising.  (Just FYI, in less than 1 hour, the GOP has already raised more than $86,000 in its 40 hour fund-raising drive towards a $402,010 goal.)

In the fall, we were disgusted with Republicans, and some of us, after the election said that they didn’t deserve money.  I think that they’ve gone a long way to redeeming themselves with this fight.  They showed remarkable cohesion, intelligence, and savvy.  With a single issue burning before them, the Republicans proved that they could fight the good fight, even if they lost the first big battle. 

Since this same single issue will be what unites Republicans, conservatives, libertarians, and independents into the November election cycle, it is time for us to dig into our pockets and help out.  I know that I will.  Remember, the momentum is now, before we get resigned to a dismal, socialist status quo.

I’ll be back blogging sometime tomorrow, but for tonight I’m going to creep off and quietly mourn the end of the world as we know it.  In a day or two, I’ll be ready to come out swinging.

One of the things the last few elections has revealed is escalating voter fraud in America, fraud of the type that aligns us more closely with a banana republic than with a traditional Western nation.  Thus, we know that groups such as ACORN have registered thousands of non-existent people.  And because America has traditionally had an honor system at the ballot box (“If you say you’re Minnie Mouse, than I guess you’re Minnie Mouse.  Please, go vote.”), little has been done to stem the impact at the ballot of those fraudulently registered voters.

There is now a ballot initiative circulating in California that officially concedes that the honor system no longer works.  It will require all California voters to show photo ID at the polling place, and it mandates steps to protect against voter fraud in absentee ballots too.  Lastly, as a little extra benefit, it allows an extra 15 days for votes sent in by overseas troops.  In other words, the whole ballot is meant to slow down fraud and allow every vote to be counted.

I only heard about this ballot initiative today, but I can assure you that the Democrats will hate it.  They’ll waffle on about the fact that poor people just can’t manage to obtain government ID, making this an impossible hurdle between themselves and democratic participation.  That this argument is demeaning is obvious.  It also makes no sense when one considers that these same people are able to handle the system with some level of skill when it comes to collecting government benefits.  (And I speak with solid second hand knowledge about this, since someone close to me lives at that level, as do her friends.  Whacked out on perpetual 60s head trips they may be, but they know how to get their welfare checks and food stamps.)

If you are a California voter who is interested in making this initiative a reality on California’s ballot, go here, print-up the petition you’ll see, sign it, and mail it to

Vote SAFE
925 University Avenue
Sacramento, CA  95825

A couple more things:  First, time is of the essence, since all petitions must be received 131 days before the election.  Second, each petition is written so that two people from the same county can sign it.  Of those two (or even if there is only one signatory), though, one must not only sign it, but also fill out the “circulator” declaration.

Here’s a beautiful matched set:

The first part of the set is Daniel Henninger’s truly brilliant article about the way in which President Kennedy’s 1962 executive order allowing federal workers to unionize “transformed the Democratic Party into a public-sector dependency.”  Henninger thinks this dependency broke down yesterday in Massachusetts.

The second part of the set is the Supreme Court’s decision to break the back of McCain-Feingold, prompting this petulant outburst from President Obama:

“With its ruling today, the Supreme Court has given a green light to a new stampede of special interest money in our politics,” Obama said.

“This ruling gives the special interests and their lobbyists even more power in Washington — while undermining the influence of average Americans who make small contributions to support their preferred candidates.”

Thinking about it, Scott Brown’s election as the Senator for Massachusetts may be more significant than any election in my lifetime, including the Reagan Revolution and the 1994 Congressional takeover.  I know this sounds silly.  In 1980, the political shift involved a President, not a mere Senator; in 1994, it was an entire Congress, not just a single Senator.  The thing with the previous elections, though, was that they represented the usual pendulum of politics.  Of course, that pendulum shift is going on here too, although it’s significant how quickly the pendulum swung.  This unusually swift voter backlash — in Massachusetts yet! — has to do with the fact that (a) voters have come to realize that Obama lied to them consistently about his political beliefs, going far beyond the puffery that is normative for political campaigns and (b) voters are seeing that unlimited one party rule is precisely as dangerous as the Founders feared it would be.  Still, the back and forth of political winds is nothing new.

What is new is that Scott Brown represents the first populist candidate in my lifetime.  As you recall, the Republican machine tried to ignore him.  It was the people, galvanized by the internet, who elevated this campaign from a simple regional special election to a national referendum on the White House and Congress.

Nor can the power of people on the internet be discounted by saying “Well, it was Obama who first ran the perfect internet campaign.”  While it’s true that he used the internet as a good fundraiser (although I believe I read that most of his money ultimately came from big bundlers), the campaign simply used the internet as another means of disseminating information from the top down and raising money from the bottom up.  It was all very centralized.

The difference with Scott Brown’s campaign is that the internet did not function from the top down.  Instead — and here’s the staggering thing — it functioned from the bottom up.  This was the first big win of the Army of Pajama-clad Davids. The internet finally fulfilled the grassroots political promise all of us were expecting to see.

Think about it:  Brown leaped to national prominence because his “It’s the people’s seat” went viral on the internet.  He stayed in the public eye because bloggers and emailers everywhere spread the news.  It was the internet functioning from the bottom up that enabled him to raise more than $1,000,000 in a single day, in donations averaging $77 each.  In other words, not only did Scott Brown win “the people’s seat,” as opposed to the Kennedy Seat, for the first time in my lifetime, we also had the people’s candidate.  This should shake them up, not only at the DNC, but at the RNC too.

All of this, of course, was helped by Scott Brown himself.  The increasing unpopularity of health care and the Democrats’ other big-government initiatives, combined with an appallingly bad candidate, might have been enough for a squeaker, with Brown sneaking into the Senate seat under a cloud of recounts and recriminations.  Brown, however, put the thing over the top.  He proved to be an unusually deft and sophisticated candidate, who handled his sudden appearance on the national scene with great aplomb.  He managed to maintain an intelligent focus on the issues, all the while projecting a warm, folksy populism.  It didn’t hurt that he’s physically attractive.  In a media age, people would rather look at Brown than at Reid.  The question now, of course, is whether he’s a perpetual candidate, a la the increasingly weary and wearisome Obama, or if there’s substance behind the image.  I would like to think we’re seeing a new Republican star being born here.

I also hope that Brown manages to remain grounded.  The sudden wave of adulation can be very heady stuff.  Someone who is weak could easily start discounting both the public mood and the horrible Coakley as factors in the election, and begin to think “it’s all about me.”  My friends and I don’t think Brown shows any signs of narcissism, but I’m still nervous.  Fame is dangerous.

UPDATE:  More details about the true grassroots nature of Brown’s victory.

UPDATE II:  More evidence (do we still need it?) that Brown’s victory came from below, not above.  Wheeee!!!  The people!

It’s vintage Mark Steyn, with Barney Frank diving into mosh pits, references to Cosmo magazine, and this gem-like writing:

If you’re one of the dwindling band of Bay Staters who rely on the [Boston] Globe for your news, you would never have known that a Massachusetts pseudo-“election” had bizarrely morphed into a real one — you know, with two candidates, just like they have in Bulgaria and places.

[snip]

“The educated class” turned out to be not that educated — if, by “educated,” you mean knowing stuff. They were dazzled by Obama: My former National Review colleague Christopher Buckley wrote cooing paeans to his “first-class intellect” and “temperament.” I used to joke that “temperament” was for the Obammysoxers of “the educated class” what hair was to Tiger Beat reporters. But you don’t really need analogies. As David Brooks noted after his first meeting with Obama, “I was looking at his pant leg and his perfectly creased pant, and I’m thinking, a) he’s going to be president and b) he’ll be a very good president.” And once you raised your eyes above pant level it only got better: “Our national oratorical superhero,” gushed New York magazine, “a honey-tongued Frankenfusion of Lincoln, Gandhi, Cicero, Jesus, and all our most cherished national acronyms (MLK, JFK, RFK, FDR).”

Read the whole thing here.