Archive for January, 2008
Gingrich Writes Reagan Era Obituary, Rush Limbaugh Apoplectic
14 January 2008No one is a bigger fan of Ronald Reagan than I am. Reagan stood for conservatism long before it was fashionable and he is the model of conservatism. But we aren’t facing the Soviet Union, Reagan defeated that. We aren’t facing many of the problems we faced in the eighties. We have a whole new set of problems and we have to face them head on as a party and decided how we’ll deal with them and articulate that to the electorate. We can’t do that if we’re constantly bickering over Reagan.
Reagan’s Eleventh Commandment
14 January 2008During Ronald Reagan’s 1966 campaign for governor of California, Republicans established the so-called Eleventh Commandment: “Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican.” It was proposed by State Republican Chairman Gaylord Parkinson to help prevent a repeat of the liberal Republican assault on Barry Goldwater that laid the foundation for Goldwater’s trouncing in the [...]
Looking Toward the South Carolina Primary
13 January 2008The South Carolina primary is a week away and at present Huckabee is projected to win here. Thompson, however, had a very good night in the debate on FOX News Thursday and McCain is pulling out all the stops to prevent a repeat of 2000. What is the likely outcome? Regular readers will recall that [...]
Thoughts on New Hampshire
12 January 2008After the New Hampshire primary I got to thinking. Everyone has their theories about what happened. McCain much bigger than expected and Hillary won when Obama was supposed to win big. What happened? I think it was a combination of two things. Remember in 2000, many Democrats crossed over to Republican primaries to vote for [...]
Mil Blogger Dies in Iraq
8 January 2008Today I learned that a great mil blogger was killed in Iraq. Andrew (Andy) Olmsted was a Major in the Army stationed in Iraq. He was killed on January 3rd, along with Cpt. Yom Casey while attempting talk three suspected insurgents into surrendering. Both were victims of sniper fire. Andy wrote a blog at www.andrewolmsted.com. [...]
Republican Presidential Forum
6 January 2008I vastly prefer the format of the Republican Presidential Forum tonight vs. the standard debates. Issues are dealt with on a much deeper basis and the candidates have the opportunity to actually answer question in depth. Tonight was outstanding. Chris Wallace was relentless in seeking answers to the questions he asked and he was equally [...]
Talking Points on the Right
5 January 2008For years now I’ve noticed how the left works off talking points. One day you hear some theme and suddenly it’s everywhere, virtually word for word. Whether it was “the politics of personal destruction” or “Republican corruption” it was clear that every Democrat talking head was working from the same play book, using virtually identical [...]
The Pundits are Wrong
5 January 2008Watching the caucus returns Thursday night one thing stood out. Virtually all the pundits credited Huckabee’s commanding victory to evangelicals. It was often noted that Huckabee didn’t have his own ground team in Iowa. Rather, he had the natural ground team of local churches. This, they said, made the difference in Iowa but they speculated [...]
Early Iowa Observations
3 January 2008It’s late on caucus night and I’m about to go to bed. I’ll have more to say tomorrow but I didn’t want to close the evening without a few comments about the Iowa caucus and my predictions. I nailed Huckabee. He won with a significant margin. I was off on Romney and McCain. McCain didn’t [...]
Iowa Caucus Predictions
2 January 2008To voters in primary states the Iowa Caucus is not well understood. That’s because a caucus doesn’t work the way a primary works. In a primary everyone comes out and votes for their candidate and the one with the most votes wins. In some states if no one gets a majority of votes there may [...]
