Live blogging CD-7 Assembly

by Donald E. L. Johnson | 6:36 pm, May 20, 2010

No one’s ready to call the CD-Assembly for either of the two leading candidates, Ryan Frazier or Lang Sias. I’ve live blogged the meeting. Click on head to complete post.

Local Protectionism You Won’t Believe

by Jon Caldara | 4:47 pm, May 20, 2010

Our friends over at the Institute for Justice (IJ) are taking up another fight on behalf of liberty. This time it’s in a small town in Minnesota, where instead of embracing property rights and free markets, Lake Elmo has instituted left-wing style local protectionism. Farmers are being threatened with fines and jail time [...]

Same Show, Same Time, Different Name

by Jon Caldara | 4:24 pm, May 20, 2010

There are lovers of the First Amendment on both sides of the argument when it comes to Net Neutrality. Decide who makes a better case: Barry Fagin of the Independence Institute or Tony Shawcross of the Open Media Foundation who argue over the intricacies of internet ownership and control. This under-the-radar, wonkish policy [...]

Here’s what we think of your financial “reform”

by Rossputin | 2:48 pm, May 20, 2010

The stock market made an attempt to stabilize at lower levels during the middle of this afternoon but was crushed, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average falling about 180 points in the last hour for a total fall of about 375 points on the day following news that disappointment-in-chief Senator Scott Brown changed his cloture vote on the Democrats’ financial regulation bill, giving Harry Reid the 60th vote he needed to bring the measure up for a final vote, most likely in the next couple of days.

The Senate bill will be merged with the House bill to create a Frankenstein package which will make credit more difficult to get and more expensive for small businesses and ordinary consumers alike.

I am not arguing that we don’t need financial regulatory reform.  We certainly need to rein in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and we need to demolish the effective monopoly granted by the government to ratings agencies Fitch, S&P, and Moody’s.

But Barack Obama’s hyper-partisan rhetoric to the contrary, this bill will absolutely not “bring security to the folks on main street.”

As I write this, Barack Obama is speaking and stock index futures are falling even more.  All of his language is class warfare, anti-capitalist, anti-fossil fuel, anti-bank…and essentially anti-American.

It’s no surprise with this government and this sort of regulation that we see a day with every member of the Dow Jones Industrial Average down on the day…and not one of them down less than 2%.  Perhaps more dramatically, 497 of the 500 stocks in the S&P 500 were down today and of the three that were up, two were discount retailers which are “defensive” plays in that they tend to to relatively better than other companies when the economy is weak.

Tomorrow is going to be an extremely scary day, particularly with the market now sitting on the 1065 level in the S&P 500 which is the low for the “mini meltdown” on May 6th when the market fell 700 points in 15 minutes and then recovered 600 points in the next 20 minutes. It’s an important technical level, as is the psychologically important 10,000 level in the Dow Jones. The only reason I have some hope that the market doesn’t get killed is that a rally would surprise a lot of people and the market frequently likes to surprise people.  Still, one would have to think the upside is very limited from here over the medium term.

Scott McInnis 44%, John Hickenlooper 44%; independents favor McInnis 46%-42%

by Donald E. L. Johnson | 2:26 pm, May 20, 2010

Republican Scott McInnis is tied with Democrat John Hickenlooper at 44% each, compared with a Hickenlooper lead of 50%-39% in March, according to Public Policy Polling, which works mostly for Democrats.
Impact graphs
Hickenlooper now draws only 78% of his party’s vote, similar to the 79% of the GOP which McInnis earns, but down from the 85% he got in March. He also only gets 9% of the Republican vote, down from 13% in March and now less than McInnis’ 11% of the Democratic vote.
Most crucially, Hickenlooper has seen a 48-34 lead with independents evaporate to a 42- 46 deficit, and a 54-37 lead with what is by far the largest age group, those 46 to 65, drop to 46-43. Hickenlooper also led with the 79% of the electorate that is white 47-42, but is now down 42-45. His lead among Hispanics has decreased slightly, from 59-32 to 57-37.
Hickenlooper still enjoys a much more positive favorability rating than most candidates and elected officials in this political climate, at 47-33, but that is a decline from 51-27 just two months ago. The entire drop has come among Republicans (30-41 to 21-57) and independents (49-28 to 44-34).
McInnis is less popular but also less known; his narrow positive margin is the same as in March—28-27 then and 31-30 now.
Of the voters surveyed, 20% said they are liberals, 44% moderates and 37% conservatives; 37% Democrats, 33% Republicans and 31% independents/other; 14% Hispanic, 79% white, 3% African American and 4% other; 45% voted for John McCain, 47% for Barack Obama and 8% for someone else/don’t remember.
“PPP surveyed 1,060 Colorado voters from May 14th to 16th. The margin of error for the survey is +/-3.0%. Other factors, such as refusal to be interviewed and weighting, may introduce additional error that is more difficult to quantify,” PPP said in a news release.

FOXNews.com – Liberty Bell Center Evacuated After White Powder Found

by Mr. Bob | 1:55 pm, May 20, 2010

#tcot #teaparty #terrorism
Care to take bets on which public official will blame either this on someone angry about the health care bill, a tea partier or a conservative talk show host? We all know which MSM personality will…he works at MSNBC.

FOXNews.com – Liberty Bell Center Evacuated After White Powder Found

Posted using ShareThis

School Choice Advances in New Jersey Over Petty Teachers Union Obstruction

by Eddie | 10:39 am, May 20, 2010

This is the education story of the month you may have heard nothing about. In light of having recently seen the movie The Cartel, the scene seems especially poignant. In fact, if a sequel were to be made to The Cartel, you certainly can imagine this being a part of it.
The scene is last Thursday [...]

Colorado GOP posts state assembly rules, resolutions, agenda

by Donald E. L. Johnson | 10:38 am, May 20, 2010

The Colorado Republican Party has posted the rules, resolutions and agenda for the state convention in Loveland Friday and Saturday. Click here.

Paul Ryan: Wall Street “Reform” Just More Crony Capitalism

by Rossputin | 8:40 am, May 20, 2010

Congressman Paul Ryan, almost certainly the most expert member of either chamber of congress on matters relating to budget and economics, has written a remarkable and important article warning conservatives against blind support of big business and against falling into a trap of accepting “reform” for its own sake at the expense of capitalism.

It’s a must read, and you can do so at this link:

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/05/20/wall_street_reform_just_more_crony_capitalism_105659.html

Ryan Frazier for Colorado 7th CD

by Ben DeGrow | 8:29 am, May 20, 2010

This evening is Colorado’s 7th Congressional Republican Assembly, and conservatives’ best and strongest chance to unseat liberal Democrat Ed Perlmutter is Ryan Frazier. A great new video that makes the case in two minutes:

Ross on the Kudlow Report

by Rossputin | 6:34 am, May 20, 2010

While at the airport on the way to Chicago last Friday, I received a phone call from Eric, a producer for Larry Kudlow’s program at CNBC saying that Mr. Kudlow would like me to be a guest on his show that very evening.

With a few phone calls apologizing to my friends for having to be a couple hours later than planned, I drove my rental car to an office building in the Chicago Loop and had the opportunity to be on Kudlow’s program – a show which I think is one of the most economically intellectual on television.  It was a most fun privilege to be asked and I hope I get the opportunity again another day.

If you want to see me (no brutal criticism, please…my ego is very fragile), my time is on-and-off starting at about 5 minutes into the video below, as part of Kudlow’s 3-person panel discussing the Euro, gold, markets and politics:

(Direct link to video HERE)

The anti-Obama tide

by Donald E. L. Johnson | 6:20 am, May 20, 2010

Fred Barnes agrees with my GOP activist friend Ron Michel that Tuesday’s primaries weren’t about turning out incumbents. It reflected the anti-Obama tide that’s sweeping America.
“The idea that anti-incumbent fever, striking equally at Democrats and Republicans, is the defining feature of the 2010 election is as misguided as last year’s notion that President Obama’s oratory would tilt the nation in favor of his ambitious agenda. Yet the media, echoing the Obama White House, has adopted anti-incumbency as the all-purpose explanation of this year’s political developments,” Barnes writes in today’s http://www.opinionjournal.com.
In another Opinion Journal column, A bad day for Obama agenda, the primary election results show rising intensity among Republican voters, Karl Rove writes: “Campaigns are a complicated mix of issues, personalities and impressions. Voters settle on a candidate after using an algorithm that varies from person-to-person, contest-to-contest, and year-to-year. Tuesday’s election results reflect an anti-Washington, anti-Obama, anti-establishment feeling among voters, but they also reflect the candidates’ individual winning messages.”

Clear The Bench Colorado Director Matt Arnold discusses Colorado Supreme Court – Live on the Richard Randall Show Thursday starting 9AM

by CTBC Director | 5:56 am, May 20, 2010

Need more reasons why voting “NO” on the four Colorado Supreme Court justices up for re-election this year are the MOST important votes you can cast in this very important year for Colorado Politics?
Clear The Bench Colorado Director Matt Arnold discusses the impact of Colorado Supreme Court rulings leading to a massive expansion of government power [...]

How the race between Ken Buck, Jane Norton and Tom Wiens looks

by Donald E. L. Johnson | 5:21 am, May 20, 2010

The Republicans’ race between U.S. Senate candidates Ken Buck, Jane Norton and Tom Wiens has become complex and fun to watch and cover.
More than any other blogger, I cover both Norton and Buck on my blog. I’ve interviewed Buck twice and reported on him in about 106 blog posts. I’ve interviewed Norton once and covered her in about 103 blog posts. Because I’ve considered Wiens a marginal, self-funded candidate, I’ve only covered him about 29 times and I’ve never interviewed him. But I’ve heard Wiens at candidates’ beauty contests a few times and have reported his comments at those appearances. Search this site for the names of candidates to see the coverage or find the interviews.
Like everyone who’s paying attention, I like Norton and Buck and I have problems with both of them. They’re both fiscal and social conservatives. Wiens doesn’t impress me. Activists like Cleve Tidwell, a business executive, but despite his hard work, I don’t think he’s being taken seriously.
Buck’s a lawyer with little private sector experience. Norton’s an educator, administrator, trade association executive and health care expert. Norton openly goes to Washington to raise money from special interest groups and lobbyists. Buck mysteriously draws more than $1 million in support from three or four Washington-based, secretive special interest groups but can’t raise serious money for his campaign. Both candidates have shown they know how to work with the establishment and how to get things done. Both are drawing support from establishment Republicans as well as from Tea Party folks. And both are vulnerable to attacks from the Democrats. Because he has a more detailed and more controversial record, Buck probably would be a bigger target for the Democrats than Norton would be.
Like appointed Senator Michael Bennet, Buck is an incumbent, and he has political enemies who don’t like his style or his record. Yet, for his supporters, Norton is the Washington and McCain-backed insider, and they seem to despise her as much as any incumbent.
With Tom Wiens, a business owner and rancher, in the primary mix, it seems Norton has the advantage. She’ll get the votes of moderates and most women. The guys will split the other voters.
Because Norton and Wiens are petitioning on to the August 10 primary ballot, this week’s state convention probably will help Buck rally his troops, but, at this point, it doesn’t look like it will choose the Republican nominee for the Senate.
I don’t have a candidate and probably won’t until after the primary. So much can happen between now and August 10 primary. The candidates still have to prove themselves.
LINKs:
Election 2010: Colorado Senate; GOP hopefuls still hold slight edge. Rasmussen Reports.
Bennet takes narrow lead over Norton. Public Policy Polling.
Democrats to control Senate after 2010 congressional elections. Intrade.com.
Speculators give GOP 70% chance of taking Michael Bennet’s Senate seat. Intrade.com.

The ethics of so-called health care “reform”

by Brian Schwartz | 1:30 am, May 20, 2010

Jason Sagall at Americans for Free Choice in Medicine has written an excellent health care parable showing that politically-controlled health care turns ” turns each person into, at once, prey and predator, victim and thief.” It begins:
Your wife is stricken with a terrible medical condition. Her insurance benefits just ran out. You need money [...]

CARTOONS TO DIE FOR – Everybody Draw Mohammed Day

by El Marco | 8:25 pm, May 19, 2010

Humor-challenged “Religion of Peace” is out for blood.
Today is “Everybody Draw Mohammed Day”. If you don’t know what that is I will try to explain. It all started on September 30, 2005, when the Danish newspaper, Jyllands…

Susan Beckman says Scott McInnis will get 70% of Arapahoe County delegates’ votes

by Donald E. L. Johnson | 6:50 pm, May 19, 2010

Scott McInnis will win 70% of the delegate votes from Arapahoe County at Saturday’s state convention, Arapahoe County Commissioner Susan Beckman told this morning’s weekly breakfast meeting of the Arapahoe County Republican Men’s Club. This suggests, of course, that Dan Maes will get the other 30% of the votes. Whether this pattern will hold true for the convention remains to be seen, but insiders seem to think Maes’ campaign has been losing steam. A candidate needs 30% of the convention’s votes to get on the August 10 primary ballot without petitioning on. Beckman is an Arapahoe County co-chair of the McInnis campaign.
Public Policy Polling, which is affiliated with Democrats, says its latest survey of 448 likely Republican voters in Colorado shows McInnis with 50% support versus 15% for Maes, 4% for Y.J. Mager and 3% for Mark Vanderbilt. 27% were undecided. The margin of error is +/- 4.6%.

When candidates and office holders lie

by Donald E. L. Johnson | 6:27 pm, May 19, 2010

Having lived through the terms of LBJ, Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and now, Barack Obama, Americans are used to presidents, senators, governors, congressmen and candidates who lie. Many voters just say “they all do it” and let it go at that, but for others, lying politicians are the kind of job candidates who should never be given another interview or, if in office, should be asked to resign.
This week, a holier than though Republican from Indiana, Rep. Mark Souder, admitted to cheating on his wife and family and resigned from the U.S. House. But Richard Blumenthal, the attorney general of Connecticut and a candidate for the U.S. Senate, has been caught lying about serving in Vietnam. And he’s determined to stay in the race even if it costs his party its seat in the Senate.
His service as a politician has been “exemplary,” according to the NY Times, which uncovered the scandal. But who knows how many other lies he’s told to advance his career. How many people has he hurt as a politician when it was convenient? We don’t know. Nobody has gone back and looked at his record in detail, but they shouldn’t have to. He should withdraw his candidacy.
Why don’t editorial writers demand that liars resign their offices or withdraw their candidacies? The NY Times editorial writers scold Blumenthal, but then they back off with “Mr. Blumenthal, who has an exemplary record as attorney general, has only a few months to demonstrate that they are an aberration and not a disqualifying character trait.”
I guess that after living with Obama’s lies about health care, physicians, businesses, taxes and so many other things, Blumenthal’s “embellishments” seem small and irrelevant. That’s a sad commentary on our times.
LINKs:
The Blumenthal rules; Why should anyone give Richard Blumenthal a break? By William Saleton, Slate. h/t Instapundit.com.

Hugh Hewitt endorses Jane Norton for U.S. Senate

by Donald E. L. Johnson | 5:51 pm, May 19, 2010

Hugh Hewitt, a conservative law professor, blogger and radio talk show host, has endorsed Jane Norton for the GOP’s nomination for U.S. Senate in Colorado. She is running against Ken Buck and Tom Wiens for the opportunity to oppose appointed Democrat Senator Michael Bennet or his primary rival, Andrew Romanoff.

DougCo school board says no to bullies

by Amy Oliver | 3:24 pm, May 19, 2010

Taxpayers should write a big thank you note to the members of the Douglas County School Board. They had the nerve to say “NO” to the school bullies that defend the education establishment.
The Douglas County School Board won’t use taxpayer dollars to sue taxpayers for more — you guessed it — taxpayer dollars, according to [...]

iVoices: Innovative Rocketship Education Charter Network Looking at Colorado

by Eddie | 3:14 pm, May 19, 2010

Several weeks ago I very briefly highlighted a School Reform News piece written by my Education Policy Center friend Ben DeGrow on an innovative public charter school network in California that may someday soon come to Colorado.
The name? Rocketship Education. It couldn’t be more cool, makes me think about becoming an astronaut someday. Even better, [...]

David Balmer calls on Colorado Republicans to unify after primaries

by Donald E. L. Johnson | 2:57 pm, May 19, 2010

Colorado is a “tinder box waiting to explode,” and all Republicans have to do is “touch a match to it” and watch it explode into a landslide victory in the fall, but that won’t happen unless Republicans unify and run a positive campaign, State House Asssistant Minority Leader David Balmer told this morning’s weekly breakfast meeting of the Arapahoe County Republican Men’s Club.
“We have to dismantle everything Democrats have done to make Colorado unfriendly to business,” Ballmer declared. He said that every bill passed by the Democrat-controlled General Assembly included pro-union provisions that make Colorado one of the least business friendly states in America. Tax increases enacted by the Democrats will kill jobs and keep businesses from moving to or expanding in Colorado and will reduce the state’s tax and fee revenues. And, Balmer said, trial lawyers got laws passed that will discourage inventors from inventing in Colorado and entrepreneurs from taking the risks of starting new businesses in the state. New businesses create the most new jobs of any employers.
The same kind of job destruction is happening in Congress under President Obama because Democrats are anti-business, Balmer said.
This is why for the first time in years, Republicans can exploit their brand and run on the same issues in Colorado and on the national level, Balmer said.
Republicans must be pro-business because growing businesses create jobs, he said. “We will protect small and large businesses from unreasonable taxes, fees and insurance mandate,” Balmer promised.
Colorado-specific mandates makes insurance premiums in many areas higher than anywhere in the U.S. other than California. (As I’ve frequently noted, mandated health insurance benefits in Colorado increase insurance premiums more than 50% over what they would be without the mandates.)
“We’ve got to be for repealing the tax increases enacted by the Democrats,” Balmer said. If the Democrats weren’t committed to protecting teachers’ incomes and pensions, there would be “plenty of areas” where Colorado’s budget could be cut.
There have been no budget cuts in Colorado, Balmer said. Instead, the Democrats have reduced the size of planned budget increases and called them budget cuts.
Balmer pointed out that the Democrats ignored the constitutional provisions of the Taxpayer Bill of Rights (TABOR) and raised taxes without going to the voters for approval.
Republicans support TABOR and must not agree to any tinkering with it to satisfy special interests, he said. Government contractors and teachers unions want to virtually nullify TABOR, but voters know it works. It’s a good brand, Ballmer said, and Republicans will support it.
Balmer said Democrats and the teachers’ union have taken money out of transportation and infrastructure budgets and put it into boosting teachers’ incomes and pensions.
“We have to be committed to transportation infrastructure,” he declared. “People see transportation as a government function” and support spending money on it, he said.
On the other hand, Balmer took a swipe at higher education. Higher education, he said, “needs to be about teaching college students, not doing research for research sake.” Balmer said that a lot of state- and federally-funded academic research is done to build arguments in favor of liberal causes such as climate change programs.
Balmer warned GOP candidates that are in primaries that they must avoid annihilating each other. If GOP gubernatorial candidates Scott McInnis and Dan Maes trash each other and John Hickenlooper, who is unopposed in the Democrats’ primary, gets through the primaries untouched, that will hurt the GOP nominee, Balmer warned. 
After the primary, he pleaded, Republicans must unify even though “all of us are unacceptable to each other in some respects.”
“We have to accept the blemishes of each other. If we don’t unite, we don’t win.”

Is Blumenthal vulnerable in Connecticut?

by Rossputin | 10:12 am, May 19, 2010

On Monday, the NY Times reported that Connecticut Attorney General and Senate candidate Richard Blumenthal has repeatedly lied about having served in Vietnam.  Instead, Blumenthal got multiple deferments and ended up serving “state-side” in the Marines, despite his multiple claims of having served overseas.

Following the news, Rasmussen ran a quick poll and found that Blumenthal, who had seemed all but unbeatable, has lost 10 points of support in two weeks and now leads Linda McMahon, former CEO and co-founder of the World Wrestling Federation, by only 3 points, 48% to 45%.  It’s also important that Blumenthal’s support has fallen below 50%.

Outright lies about having served in Vietnam are indefensible.  Blumenthal’s lies are even worse than John Kerry’s; at least Kerry was overseas even if he lied about the details of his service there.

It’s remarkable to see reporting like this from the NY Times, a newspaper which certainly does not want a Republican to win the Connecticut Senate seat: “In 1970, with his last deferment in jeopardy, he landed a coveted spot in the Marine Reserve, which virtually guaranteed that he would not be sent to Vietnam. He joined a unit in Washington that conducted drills and other exercises and focused on local projects, like fixing a campground and organizing a Toys for Tots drive.”

Can you imagine the negative ads which will be made about Blumenthal with this imagery, maybe something like him carrying around some toys – or maybe playing with toy soldiers – while saying like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz “there’s no place like home”?  With the creativity behind WWF, I can hardly wait to see what they do…

The NY Times also points out that Blumenthal didn’t correct erroneous bios and reports about him (in addition to his own direct false statements). As well as his military service lies, he didn’t correct reports that he had been captain of the Harvard swim team…a team of which he was not a member.

Republicans need to stick with this issue like a pit bull on a raw porterhouse steak.  Blumenthal is a liar who will say anything to win election.  Just keep saying it.

Blumenthal says he “takes fully responsibility” for “misspoken” words.  They’re not misspoken; they’re lies.  So what does taking responsibility mean other than admitting lying?  If there’s no consequence for a long-term pattern of reprehensible behavior, there’s no consequence for anything in the Democratic Party or among the electorate in general.  If he wants to take responsibility, he should drop out of the race.  He won’t, but the fact he won’t just means that his “taking responsibility” is nothing more than piling a lie on a lie.

Ryan Frazier For Congress

by Mr. Bob | 10:05 am, May 19, 2010

Hard hitting new commerical. Hat tip the Business Word Inc.

Primary election update

by Rossputin | 8:05 am, May 19, 2010

There were a few interesting elections last night, with potential implications for November.

On the Senate side, Republican-turned-Democrat Arlen Specter was beaten by leftist admiral-turned-congressman Joe Sestak.  This election perhaps more than any other shows the anti-incumbent sentiment in the nation.  It’s true that Specter might be expected, especially by those outside Pennsylvania, to lose badly; after all, who among the “real people” really has any use for a guy who changes parties for the explicit purpose of avoiding a primary?  (Can you say “Charlie Crist”?) But Obama and labor unions both supported Specter.  The fact that neither The One nor the unions could motivate their voters says a lot about voter motivation and enthusiasm – about which more at the end of this note. One can argue that this vote was a mini-referendum on Obama, but there’s certainly more to the situation as well. It’s also worth noting that black voters did not turn out in Philadelphia in nearly the numbers which Specter needed or expected, a danger sign for Democrats in November. Sestak will run against and lose to former Congressman Pat Toomey in the general election in November.  While I would not have been surprised to see Specter run as an independent, Pennsylvania rules prohibit it after losing a primary.  In political betting on Intrade.com, there isn’t much trading but the middle of the bid-ask spread shows about 45% chance for Sestak versus 55% for Toomey.

In Kentucky’s Republican Senate primary, Rand Paul, son of Ron Paul, crushed the state’s Secretary of State General Trey Grayson in an enormous victory for the Tea Party movement and a huge slap at the GOP establishment, essentially all of whom (at least who had expressed a preference) had endorsed Mr. Grayson.  While Mr. Grayson was not an incumbent in this seat, it seems that the endorsement by John Boehner and others was at best not helpful.  In November, Paul will face Kentucky’s Attorney General Jack Conway, who narrowly won his primary, to replace retiring Senator Jim Bunning.  In political betting, Paul is trading a bit under 70% to win in November.

And in Arkansas’ Senate race, incumbent Democrat Blanche Lincoln got a plurality but not a majority of the primary vote (i.e. got more votes than Lt. Gov. Bill Halter, but did not get over 50% of the vote because of the presence of a third “spoiler” Democratic candidate, D.C. Morrison, who got about 12% of the vote.)  This forces a June 8 runoff which is interesting for a couple of reasons.  First, since Halter is running from Lincoln’s left (and with support of big labor unions), Lincoln will feel compelled to try to stick with her heavy-handed and generally unpopular amendment to the financial regulation bill which would require certain financial institutions to spin off their swaps trading desks into separate entities, thus requiring the firms to either close those desks or raise a lot of new capital – hardly an easy task in this environment.  If Lincoln insists on keeping the provision, it will probably delay the passage of reform (which would not be as good as killing the Dodd bill entirely).  If she gives up the provision, Halter will beat her up about it notwithstanding that it’s a bad provision.  Second, the runoff forces both Lincoln and Halter to raise money for another election before the general election, draining their potential resources for November and likely leading to an even more bruised Democrat candidate to face Congressman John Boozeman who avoided a runoff and who polls as likely to beat either Lincoln or Halter.  On Intrade.com, Boozeman is trading 85% or higher to beat whichever Democrat comes through the runoff.

In the most anticipated House election result of the day, Pennsylvania’s 12th Congressional district elected Democrat Mark Critz to replace Congressman Jack Murtha who died earlier this year from a complication following surgery. Critz was Murtha’s Chief of Staff. Democrats will trumpet this outcome as meaning that there will not be a tidal wave against Democrats in November.  I disagree: The mood is as much anti-incumbent as anti-Democrat.  Incumbent Democrats are more vulnerable than a Democrat running in an open seat, not least an open seat in a district that has an overwhelmingly Democratic registration advantage and a Democrat like Critz who ran by saying he would have voted against Obamacare among other relatively conservative positions.  Burns won the Republican primary in a landslide and will challenge Critz again in six months.  (It would have been especially interesting if Burns had won this special election and lost the primary for November, but that didn’t happen.)

In a race which was brought to my attention yesterday when the Heartland Institute’s Climate Change conference was addressed (in a recorded video) by PhD scientist Art Robinson (who was scheduled to speak here but was unable to attend after deciding to run for Congress), Dr. Robinson easily won the Republican primary in Oregon’s 4th Congressional district, looking to unseat incumbent Democrat Peter DeFazio, Oregon’s most senior member of Congress having represented the district since 1987.  Robinson is looking to become Congress’ only professional scientist and to “shake the trees” regarding the massive hoax of manmade global warming.

In Hawaii, their special election is on May 22nd, but I’ll comment today anyway: Republican Charles Djou is likely to win in a solidly Democratic district after two Democrats seem to be splitting the vote in the type of circular firing squad which we normally expect of Republicans.  Unfortunately, unless November turns out to be one of the biggest political routs of all time, Djou would likely be one of the shortest-tenured Congressmen in our history.  There will be only one Democratic candidate for him to face in November’s general election – thus no vote splitting – in a district that’s been in Democrat hands for all but 4 years since the district was created in 1971.

Meanwhile, yesterday Gallup released results of their latest poll of voter intensity by political orientation under the headline “Conservatives Most Enthusiastic About Voting in 2010 Midterm“.

It’s not really surprising that the “very liberal” are motivated, like the “very conservative”.  Anybody who self-identifies as “very” anything is likely to be motivated. And, although they’re important in primaries, they are a small percentage of the electorate; Gallup says “very conservative” is 10% and “very liberal” 4%.

The really interesting part is the comparison between “conservative” and “liberal”, where conservative intensity is double the liberal intensity in the “very enthusiastic” category.

As if that weren’t bad enough for Democrats, the gap between the number of voters self-identifying as conservative is double the number self-identifying as liberals.  In other words, Gallup is finding that 2/3 of their sample is conservative and that that 2/3 is twice as motivated to vote as the 1/3 of the sample which is liberal.

Beyond the likely advantage that would directly translate into at the ballot box should these trends be maintained for the next five months, there’s a good chance it would also mean that citizens’ giving to conservative political candidates (which is distinctly not the same as giving to the GOP) and the ability of conservative candidates to get volunteer campaign help would both be dramatically improved over 2008, translating into even greater gains for conservative candidates.

Although I would never doubt the Republicans’ ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, I continue to be happy with my bet that the GOP will take back the House of Representatives in November.  And I still think taking back the Senate isn’t out of the question, although it’s clearly far more difficult a task.

Shocker: bank with ties to Obama gets bailout

by Amy Oliver | 8:02 am, May 19, 2010

No regular readers or regular listeners can forget what the failure of New Frontier Bank did to our community.  I’ve said repeatedly how much I hate bailouts because government picks winners and losers, and Northern Colorado was slapped with the “loser” label.
A Fox Business report reminds NoCO residents of our “loser” status. Unlike NFB,  ShoreBank, [...]

“Public option”: kept alive by health control bill?

by Brian Schwartz | 7:45 am, May 19, 2010

[Post updated in response to Max's comment. Thanks!]
The San Francisco Examiner reports:
Remember when Obama and congressional Democrats made a big show of dropping the public option government insurance program that was supposedly going to give private insurers competition and drive rates down? The truth is the public option is alive and well, [...]

The oh-so-rude Sarah Palin

by Rossputin | 5:49 am, May 19, 2010

UPDATE: I have spoken with management at 710 KNUS and gotten the following information.  The station was aware of the assembly date and was specifically told by the Colorado GOP that the assemblies would be over by 3 PM or so.  The station’s intent was to “create a sort of double-header” where Republican activists could go from their assemblies to the Palin event.  Everything was scheduled before Norton dropped out of the assembly.

 

From the “give me a break” files comes a Denver Post report entitled “GOP Senate rivals trade shots over Sarah Palin’s visit to Denver.”

As many of you know, Sarah Palin has been on a bit of a kick about “Pink Elephants”, described by Palin as “commonsense conservative women (who) get things done for our country.”

The first I heard of Palin’s “Pink Elephants” was in coverage of remarks she gave to a political breakfast in Washington, DC last Friday. She named a few of these conservative women, including California’s Carly Fiorina, South Carolina’s Nikki Haley, and Colorado’s Jane Norton, who (as all readers of these pages well know) is facing Weld County District Attorney Ken Buck (among others) for the Republican nomination to oust appointed Senator Michael “Who?” Bennet.

Denver radio station KNUS 710 AM is having an event this Saturday, May 22nd at the Magness Arena in Denver featuring Sarah Palin as well as radio talk show hosts Hugh Hewitt and Dennis Prager.

The Denver Post reports Ken Buck as calling Sarah Palin “rude” for having the event on the evening of the assembly, in particular given the possibility – and that’s all it is – that Palin might take the occasion to officially endorse Norton.  I have a few thoughts about Mr. Buck’s comments, and I offer them as someone who likes Ken Buck and think he wouldn’t be a bad Senator for our state:

First, if Mr. Buck were able to wrangle an endorsement as important as Palin’s wouldn’t he take it on whatever day the endorser were able to give it?  The claim that Palin’s endorsing someone is a “rude” action, regardless of the timing, strikes me as petty and as much more naive than Ken Buck really is.  Reading that was sort of an “are you kidding me, Ken?” moment.

Second, and perhaps more importantly, are the basic facts about the organization of the event. I don’t know this as a fact, but I’d bet that the staff at the radio station who organized had the event didn’t know that May 22nd was the day of the state assembly.  [Update: As mentioned above, that bet would have been lost…] I do know for an absolute fact that they’ve been working on scheduling the event since well before Jane Norton’s decision not to attend the assembly.  And of course, the event was scheduled before Sarah Palin had ever mentioned Jane Norton and with no reason to think that Palin would have or offer any preference among Colorado’s Republican hopefuls.  Indeed, I have known about the Palin event being worked on (though not the specific date) since at least a month before Norton’s decision to petition on to the ballot.

Sarah Palin’s visit to Colorado was organized by KNUS and its parent company, Salem Communications, for which I thank them (even though I’m personally about “neutral” on Governor Palin; I like her talking to the public about politics even though I disagree with her on a few important things, and I really hope she does not run for president.)  The visit had nothing to do with Republican primary politics, nothing to do with any anticipated Palin comments about a specific race, and represents nothing more and nothing less than the various participants working to help each other get “listeners”.

There’s nothing “rude” about it, whether or not Palin endorses Norton on the occasion, and any statement to the contrary is simply wrong, leaving me to wonder just how thin the skins are of those who would offer such a comment.

ObamaCare: Insurers Need Permission to Survive; Citizens, to Live

by Brian Schwartz | 1:30 am, May 19, 2010

This is the provocative title of Dr. Paul Hsieh’s recent article in Pajamas Media. It begins:
Suppose our government declared that everyone had the “right” to a nice steak dinner. The government would require restaurants to sell $50 steak dinners to all comers. But to keep prices affordable, restaurants could [...]

The Denver Post Continues to Flail

by Rich Bratten | 10:46 pm, May 18, 2010

As MediaNews Group Inc., the holding company for the Denver Post and other newspapers, fights for survival through a Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing, alternative competitive media outlets continue to gain traction. While there are certainly many factors that are driving the demise of many newspapers, like plunging print advertising revenue, etc., one of the factors [...]

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