Talk about hand-writing on the wall.

In what can be termed as nothing less than "big", the latest poll of the Republican candidates in the Florida Senate primary has House Speaker Marco Rubio ahead of incumben Governor Charlie Crist by 32 points.

Via Public Policy Polling:

Rubio now leads Crist 60-28, including a staggering 71-17 lead with conservatives. Crist has a 49-36 advantage with party moderates, but they account for just 31% of likely primary voters compared to 65% who describe themselves as conservative.

Rubio is benefiting from a widely held sentiment among Florida GOP voters that Congressional Republicans are too liberal and that Crist would add to the problem. 41% of them think that the party leadership in Washington is too liberal, and with those folks Rubio holds an 83-10 lead. 50% think that Crist himself is too liberal and with those voters Rubio’s advantage expands even wider to 90-5.

Wow.  And, believe it or not, it gets worse for Crist.

It also looks like it’s too late for Crist to audible and make another run for Governor. GOP voters say they’d prefer likely nominee Bill McCollum over Crist by a 49-35 margin. In fact Republicans generally just want Crist to go away- 56% say they’d like him out of office a year from now to 19% who’d like to see him continue as Governor and only 14% who want him in the Senate.  read more »

It’s getting to be a little like a ‘Price is Right’ scheme. Behind this window we have… and behind window #2… The difference is that no one knows how to score this one yet. There’s a bunch of hype going on, primarily by a not-quite-panicky Democratic leadership. But the Republicans aren’t that far behind in taking advantage of the situation either.

With President Obama telling his Democrat membership to pay no attention to your jobs… you must sacrifice your careers for the greater good… makes you wonder how many judgeships he has to give out? I want my bill and I want it now. Uh, ok Barry, but just how motivated do you think these folks actually are in following you to Valhalla?

There’s a bunch of political experts and pundits wading in on this one. With the count, and the amount, ratcheting up from day to day. That is the count: the price that this monstrosity is threatening to cost you and your children, and their children, and their children. The number: those politicians who are actually going to be bold enough to sign away the freedom of choice of the entire populace of this country for a very bad piece of legislation on a straight party line reconciliation (there’s that word that Obama won’t use anymore, it’s no longer newspeak) vote of 51 lawmakers.  read more »

What difference a year makes!

We're a long way from where we were after "The One" took office.  The economy is still in the tank, most of his agenda is stalled (thankfully), and his polling numbers continue to head south.

For Republicans, things are looking up as we approach the mid-term elections.

But how should Repubicans continue to deal with Obama?  Who would you like to see in a leadership role?  What direction should the party take overall?  Where are the best Republican ideas coming from?

All important questions.

The Republican Leadership Survey is an ongoing project we use to take the pulse of the conservative base, and we want to add your opinions to the mix.

So if you haven't taken the survey yet, click here and do so today. Then pass it on to someone else.  read more »

Some of the latest from the ongoing debate over ObamaCare...

Obama orders full speed ahead

The Washington Times op-ed has a nice paragraph that summarizes fairly simply why the plan needs to be defeated.

At stake is the biggest policy initiative of the year-old Obama presidency, a rewrite of the nation's health care system that would trim hundreds of billions of dollars from Medicare, expand Medicaid, mandate that every American join a plan and rewrite rules telling insurance companies how they can operate.

Exactly.

Are Democrats whistling past the graveyard on ObamaCare?

Via Julie Mason:

Republicans warned they will use Obama's reliance on parliamentary moves to push the unpopular bill through as a top campaign issue in the fall. Democrats are hoping Americans ignore rhetoric about voting procedures in Congress and credit them with passing something.

"I don't know how this plays politically, but I know it's right," Obama said of his latest proposal.  read more »

Last summer, NBC’s Brian Williams wrote a piece called “The Hurt Locker: Hurting for a Fact-Checker” regarding one of the top two contenders for Best Picture at this weekend’s Oscars.  Williams noted, “I found a slew of technical inaccuracies based only on my few trips to Iraq during the height of the conflict.  Seeing the movie made me go back over many of the positive reviews I read…  [I]t is now clear none of them was written by anyone who had spent any time with U.S. armed forces in Iraq.”

Williams suggested that the filmmakers botched the following minor details: the vehicles, the armor, the armaments, the helmets, the uniforms, the communications technology, the military jargon, the unit structure, the command procedure, and the mission logistics.

On the plus side, Williams noted that the filmmakers accurately portrayed soldiers’ fingernails being dirty and their eyelashes being covered with dust.  Score one for cinéma vérité!  Williams also praised the film’s lovely desert scenery.

Williams ended, “I’d like to watch ‘The Hurt Locker’ with a combat veteran, but my layman’s eyes found way too much to quarrel with.”

Fortunately for Williams, combat veterans have already seen the film.  Unfortunately for director Kathryn Bigelow, their criticism of the film is even more scathing than that of Williams.

Paul Rieckhoff, Founder and Executive Director of the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, recently concluded in Newsweek that “Hollywood’s latest attempt to define the Iraq War and the American troops who have fought in it is just as disappointing as all the others produced so far.”  read more »

Obama is like a twelve year old whose skateboard and video game privileges have been taken away. His petulant attitude was in full bloom at the health care summit this week.

Eric Cantor and John Boehner, along with John McCain and other Republicans, made the Democrats look pretty silly at times. Every Democrat that spoke had to come out with the obligatory sad health care sob story, no matter how improbable. Rep. Louise Slaughter (D) NY told how one of her constituents had to wear her dead sister’s false teeth. I guess these Democrats have got to be collectively tone deaf, because they sure don’t hear themselves the way we hear them.

Conversely, I was totally impressed with Minority Leader John Boehner and the Republicans, their grasp of the bill and the solid refutations that they presented to President Obama, despite being held to a mere 110 minutes as opposed to a full 222 minutes for Obama and his Democrats, with the bulk of the time being taken up by President Obama continually interrupting Republicans when he didn’t like what he was being told, which was most of the time. His facade of bi-partisanship went out with his opening statement.

 read more »

Van Jones probably wasn’t referring to the ‘economy’ President Barack H. Obama pretends to have inherited from his predecessor when at tonight’s NAACP awards ceremony he saluted Barry, who as he put it “volunteered to be the captain of the Titanic after it hit the iceberg and we [are] still floating.”

Van Jones, who was fired almost immediately after Obama appointed him “White House Council on Environmental Quality” for his prevalent communist sympathies, previous statements made in strong support of 9/11 conspiracies, and vulgar behavior was more than likely referring to the sinking ship of American Capitalism in the wasn’t-socialist-enough vein.

What’s so ironic is that not only is the NAACP so ready and willing to throw support to an individual whose comments when asked why Republicans seemed to be able to muster more bipartisan support while in control than Democrats included “they[Republicans]‘re assholes.”

In case you just need to see this for yourself, here’s the video:

What’s not Ironic is that Van Jones is still willing to support Obama even after Obama threw him under the bus.  In his answer to this same question he continues to say:

“As a technical, political kind of term. And Barack Obama is not an asshole. Now, I will say this: I can be an asshole, and some of us who are not Barack Hussein Obama, are going to have to start getting a little bit uppity.”  read more »

Imagecolumn: 

Over the course of 2009 conservatives and Republicans have done a far better job than anyone would have thought possible when it came to blocking ObamaCare from becoming law.  Everyone thought it was a fait accompli, but it ran into the brick wall of public opinion.

In light of the recent elections in Virginia, New Jersey and Massachusetts, as well as his own falling poll numbers, Obama wants Republicans to come together with Democrats for a grand health care “summit” to search for a bipartisan compromise.  In other words, he wants some cover.

But even as Obama and Democrat leaders have publicly pressured Republicans about attending their summit, they’ve spent hours in private backrooms planning to get around a Republican filibuster and pass their bill by resorting to the legislative trick of the budget reconciliation process.

So much for bipartisanship.

The fact is that liberals are desperate.  They’ve seen the polls and they know that it’s time for them to grow as much government as they can before voters have a chance to head to the polls and turn Washington on its ear this November.

They understand that the current versions of the bill may not be their idea of liberal perfection, but it surely represents one of the best opportunities they’ve ever had to lock in the biggest expansion of government in living memory.  It means more bureaucrats, more government jobs, more regulations and more control over how people can live their lives.  In short, it means power.

Liberal Democrats in politically “safe” districts and states are fixated on pressing ahead, pushed ever forward by their radical base.  But, as Massachusetts Democrats recently found out, the notion of “safe” districts or states doesn’t mean what it used to.  A thought not lost on more moderate Democrats in more marginal seats.

Each day seems to bring another retirement announcement by another Democrat, another poll showing Republicans with big leads over incumbent Democrats, and the American people growing increasingly opposed to Obama’s programs.  All of which makes it harder for Obama to convince enough Democrats to go along with his agenda, as they are all too aware that his name isn’t on any ballots this fall. 

When incumbent Democrats like Senator Evan Bayh (with over thirteen million dollars in the bank) decide that it’s too risky to run for re-election, the writing is on the wall.

But for liberal Democrats, the goal is so tantalizingly close.  Just think of it – regulatory control over another 1/6th of the US economy in an area that they can extrapolate out to virtually every aspect of American life.  (Put that soft drink down!  No more McDonalds for you!)  They’ve come too far to turn back now.

As for Obama, he knows the Democrats are in for a beating at the polls this November, and he’s already thinking about his own re-election.  He will use health care “summit” and its aftermath as an opportunity to disingenuously portray Republicans as being against any reform and on the side of groups Americans dislike, (like insurance and pharmaceutical companies).

For Republicans, this is no time for bi-partisanship.  Especially given that bi-partisanship usually means that Republicans go along with how liberal Democrats want to do things.  They need to resist the urge to do anything other than demand that Obama, Pelosi and Reid go back to square one with health care.  Current versions of the legislation should be absolutely off the table.  Further, any more “comprehensive” bills should be declared off-limits.  “Comprehensive” is a Washington, DC euphemism for legislation that’s easier to fill with things that the public would never approve of.

Instead, the GOP should demand a series of stand alone bills that promote issues such as medical malpractice reform, allowing consumers to purchase insurance across state lines, and allowing small businesses to band together to buy insurance.  Each of these are issues that are commonly understood to have a tremendous impact on the cost of health care in America.  And they’re all supported by large majorities of the American public.  Unlike ObamaCare.

Short of that, congressional Republicans shouldn’t fear being labeled as the “party of no”.  There are worse things that they could be in the coming election. 

Just ask the Democrats.  read more »

“This president is a real slow learner.” – Oscar Goodman, Mayor of Las Vegas

Speaking of gambling, President Obama has subpoenaed weary Democrats and disgusted Republicans to a Blair House summit tomorrow for a day-long policy-palooza to be broadcast on C-SPAN for Americans who didn’t get enough of the health care reform debate last year.  Obama has decided to wager what little respectability he has left on the hope that the American people will be charmed by his vision of health care reform, will develop amnesia, and will forget everything they hate about the bills passed by Congress last year.

The Associated Press announces that the new proposal released by the President “is important, but not as critical as the political skill Obama can apply to an impasse that seems close to hopeless in a pivotal congressional election year.”

Hmm…  Let’s tally up the campaigns Obama has fought and lost using his “political skill” over the past four months: securing the 2016 Olympics for Chicago, electing Creigh Deeds governor of Virginia, reelecting John Corzine governor of New Jersey, getting UN members to agree to a climate change accord in Copenhagen, and electing Martha Coakley Senator in Massachusetts.  Oh—and of course his year-long crusade to sell Congress’s health care plan to the public, which resulted in voters increasing their opposition to the plan in direct proportion to the number of syllables Obama emitted in his attempts to explain it.

Obama views the populace as a huddled mass of slow learners to whom he must explicate Congress’s monstrous health care legislation over and over until it penetrates their thick skulls.  read more »

Fellow Conservatives,

This coming Thursday Barack Obama will convene his "health care summit" - and he and the Democrat leadership are trying to lay a trap to find some Republicans that will agree to some version of ObamaCare.

We can't let that happen.

(Click here and contact your members of Congress)

For over a year conservatives have managed to keep this from becoming law.  We're close the finish line, but it's not over yet.

Tell the Republicans to stay strong and oppose Obama and the liberal congressional leadership.  Tell them you're fine with their being the "Party of No".

Tell Democrats that you oppose any move to implement ObamaCare or any form of a "public option" by using tricks like the "budget reconciliation" process to get around a filibuster.
 read more »