Allen's blog

Today, on the once conservative editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal you will find a column that is a poorly sourced,  flat-out attack on McCain adviser Charlie Black (neither a friend or a colleague of mine) and the Young Americans for Freedom (I was never a member). The columnist digs deep into the archives to build a nonsensical case that YAF equals Fascist, which is suppose to lead to the conclusion that Black as a YAFer was a fascist.

No where is there mention that YAF was founded by Bill Buckley and that its founding statement is an important statement of conservative principles. While there is a sinister sounding aside that many YAF members went on to important positions in government there is no reference to the thousands of YAF volunteers who dedicated countless hours to promoting conservative principles and candidates.

Is this column an example of the new Wall Street Journal? This lousy piece of journalism should never have seen the light of day in any publication. The author writes with the fervor of a paid Obama supporter. Check it our for yourself.

Promoted and bumped. -Patrick

Earlier this campaign season, My Barak Obama came under criticism for being the platform for some unseemly content posted by private individuals. While I  thought this content was fair game for the opposition I doubted the amount of energy expended exposing this "outrage" would  be justified.

Obama's campaign has made the conscience effort to provide his supporters many opportunities to speak their minds. Along with these opportunities comes the possibility that some renegde will do something stupid on Obama's platform.

But on the flip side,  the campaign appears to be reaping the benefits of letting the masses speak out and organize. You may be aware that Obama has decided to support the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). This has caused an uproar on the Left led by the ACLU and the Netroots movement.

[Promoted - Allen makes the case for McCain to pick Eric Cantor as VP.  I don't have a favorite yet, so it's interesting to see the case made for potential candidates. - Jon Henke]

Frankly, I've grown weary of the ad nauseam repetition of the fact that Obama and the Left are cleaning the clocks of McCain and the Right on the web. Having been reared as a conservative in New York  I am battle tested in fighting against long odds and making progress. Occasionally we actually score big victories by successfully taking on big challenges.

As I've watched McCain make successive wrong political decisions I have concluded that McCain needs help from outside his political brain trust. If McCain is to get traction on the web and on the ground his campaign needs to get the attention and win the support of grassroots Republicans and conservatives.

Probably his last big opportunity to this will be with his selection of  his running mate.

Giuliani went from failed presidential candidate to Kiev to advise a former heavyweight boxer on his campaign for Mayor of the capital of Ukraine. Rudy's magic touch helped turn a national celebrity hero into a losing candidate. In fact the young man came in third.

Today, Fox News's Rupert Murdoch indicated the likelihood he would vote for Obama and predicted an Obama rout of McCain. Speaking at a tech conference Murdoch is another example of the challenges McCain faces.

When Conservative Party candidate Boris Johnson defeated Left-winger Ken Livingstone the national Conservative Party did not celebrate into the night.  In Britain everyone who follows politics knows that Johnson presented and presents a challenge to the so-called modernist movement led by Conservative leader David Cameron.

In fact, Cameron and his leadership team did not embrace Johnson as  their London standard bearer. Because along with his larger than life personality, Johnson has a long history of being an independent thinker who had crossed swords with Conservative leaders in the past. Cameron's predecessor had demoted Johnson from the front benches in Parliament and Cameron left him as a backbencher.

Johnson's books, articles, and interviews over the years are filled with pointed conservative assessments of the issues of the day. Johnson's opinions on crime, radical Muslims, London's two tier buses, and his support of the United States were out of step with Cameron's modernist notions. Cameron has been so coy that after a few years at the helm he has not adopted issues platforms on a majority of issues.And he clearly felt uneasy about an opinionated conservative like Johnson.

Throughout the campaign Johnson was left to his own devices and he embraced a Thacherite no nonsense approach to crime in London, he did not back down when the media falsely accused him of anti-Muslim prejudice, and he championed London's old style public buses that Livingstone had banished.

Johnson ran as an unabashed conservative candidate who presented a very different platform than his Left wing opponent. Despite persistent attacks that he was indifferent to the plight of ethnic minorities Johnson stuck to his law and order platform. He (in the footsteps of Thatcher and Reagan) offered non-conservative voting groups, conservative solutions to the ever worsening crime situation. A much larger portion of these voters ended up voting for him than anyone predicted.

Johnson ran a disciplined conservative campaign that did not attempt to turn him into a Leftist but emphasized conservative alternatives to failed leftist polices to serious quality of life issues. His opponent tried to paint him as inexperienced and out of touch with a majority of Londoners. Livingstone failed as Johnson's robust conservative agenda appealed to many of Livingstone's base voters.