Cerebral Alpha's blog

https://www.saxby.org/Contribute.aspx

Greetings to my friends, family and extended family. Last week on November 4 we as conservatives and Republicans took a huge drubbing in the general and Presidential elections. Democrats now have a huge chance to reshape not only the political landscape but to affect the very way we live our lives. I am not trying to spread fear or to make people paranoid but we need to realize the gravity of the situation.

But the news is not all bad. Saxby Chambliss the Republican senator from Georgia won his senate race thereby ensuring that the Democrats do not have a filibuster proof majority in that house. Unfortunately Chambliss won less that %50 of the vote which means he faces a runoff election on December 2nd against his democratic challenger Jim Martin.

The Obama camp, seeing an opportunity to get closer to the 60 votes they need to override vetoes in the senate, are pouring money and people in to Georgia to help defeat Saxby. And he needs our help, he has to campaign again since the Democrats are going to be working very hard to change people's minds.

So here is the proposition: we are going to drop a Money Bomb on Georgia! We are not going to give large amounts of money, we are regular people, but there are a lot of us. If each of us donates just $5 but also gets all of our friends on facebook and our email buddies to donate $5 we can truly make a difference. Our power comes not from our wallets but from our connections to friends through a common goal.

So here's the deal, Money Bomb this Saturday. Mark it on your calendar: on Saturday November 15 donate $5 to the Saxby Chambliss campaign. Your job is twofold, first is obviously to donate $5(more if you can) on Saturday morning using this link: https://www.saxby.org/Contribute.aspx . Second and probably MORE important is to send that link to all of your friends, post it on your facebook, writ about it in your blog and write emails to all of your friends. You have two days to get the word out the key is not how much you donate but how many donators you can recruit.

We can do this, we can make a difference, our way of life literally depends on it. The liberals in the Democratic party have signaled that they are going to do whatever it takes to enact their agenda. Which includes but is not limited too:
-Return of the "fairness doctrine" to silence Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity etc
-The repealing of all abortion laws including parental consent and partial birth laws
-Return of the death tax
-Repealing of all the Bush tax cuts, including the return of the death tax

And that's just a few. Democrats have also signaled that they will force all Democrats to toe the leftist line, including the Southern Democrats who won by running on conservative platforms. So there will be no dealing, filibusters are literally our only defense against liberal attempts to remake this great Country.

All it takes is $5 and the courage to share your enthusiasm for what you believe with the people around you. It's not too late to make a difference, pass the word on!

 Republicans are pointing to a speech Nancy Pelosi gave right before the floor vote on the huge bailout bill as the reason their support dwindled. The speech she gave was of a very partisan nature and very inappropriate considering the situation. You can watch the video of it here.

The criticism that is bound to come around is that Republicans got their feelings hurt and so decided to punish the country by voting against the bill. This is the meme that will be pushed by the Democrats, but is it true? Aren't Republicans used to having their party bashed via slams against their President?

To get the answer you have to look at why there was so much opposition to the bill in the first place. It is felt, quite correctly, that the bill undermines the free market. Also of great concern to all Republicans was that the Democrats would use this bill to further their own political fortunes by filling the coffers of their special intrest groups such as ACORN. 

The support that the Republican whips had for the bill, slim as it was, hinged on convincing representatives that the bill was desperately needed. This was proven by assuring them that the bill had bipartisan support, was not hostile to the free market and was made in good faith. That is what the President and the Republican whips were trying to convince the conservatives of all day. Pelosi's speech destroyed all of that work, she made bipartisan statements, slammed the free market and generally blamed conservatives for everything. 

So it was not that the Republicans 'feelings were hurt' by the speech. In reality it confirmed conservatives fears that they were being forced to eat a rotten apple. Republican whips, like Eric Cantor, are well with in their rights to be indignant. Pelosi clearly thought that the vote was assured and was trying to score political points for the future.

Pelosi's own party knows that - however necessary it may be - this is a rotten deal. She can bash on the Republicans all she wants but it will not change the fact that 94 members of her own party voted against the bill. 

The bitterness dripping from this AP article is almost palpable:

By H. JOSEF HEBERT, Associated Press Writer H. Josef Hebert, Associated Press Writer – Wed Sep 24, 5:54 pm ET

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WASHINGTON – For Democratic leaders, it's a striking defeat as they agree to allow expanded offshore drilling in waters they once called sacrosanct, giving Republicans a rare victory on energy policy six weeks before the election.

In a matter of months, Republicans turned offshore oil drilling from a non-issue — even one feared as a political liability by many Republicans in Congress — into political gold as anger over high gasoline prices made voters receptive to calls for more domestic energy production.

After vowing to protect a quarter-century ban on drilling off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, Democrats on Wednesday moved through the House a stopgap spending bill that allows the offshore drilling moratorium — approved each year by Congress for the last 26 years — to expire at the end of this month.

"It's a very big step forward," said House Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio.

"Democrats have finally recognized the significance of this energy crisis," gloated Rep. Roy Blunt of Missouri, the No. 2 ranking Republican.

Sensing a Democratic weakness to be further exploited, they vowed to press in the next Congress for more of the GOP energy agenda including a sharing of royalties from offshore drilling with states — a necessary carrot to get states to go along with opening waters off their shores to oil and gas companies.

It was not long ago that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a longtime ardent defender of the drilling bans along each coast including her home state of California, called GOP demands for lifting the federal offshore drilling off moratoria a "hoax" that should be dismissed out of hand.

Admittedly this report was called an "Analysis" so the editorial nature isn't particularly egregious. But you can tell that Mr.Hebert is sore over this and who's side he was on.

Starting with his framing this as a defeat and then going on to describe GOP 'gloating' his contempt is obvious. In this article he spends more time discussing the defeated position of the Democrats whil barely touching on the arguments used to defeat it.

So when the going gets rough blue collar workers may cling to their 'guns and religion' but liberals in the press cling to their crunchy feel-good legislation.

Gallup has shows that the Palin bump has lost momentum and the race is now tied.

Where has the momentum gone? What happened? It seemed like we had Obama on the ropes gasping for air.

It started last week with Lipstickgate. Instead of rising above the fight and playing it off with the humor that has worked so well for McCain thus far they played the victim with a silly web ad. Then came the Charlie Gibson interview, instead of highlighting the good parts and finding ways to help  Sarah the Hockey Mom shine through, all we seemed to be able to do was whine about how unfair the interview was.

In fact that has been our response across the board. Yes the media coverage of Palin has been horrendous. But we have let that dominate our blogging and McCain has tried to play the victim card to win votes.

So all the average voter sees is a bunch of mini scandals about Palin based on half truths and lies.While at the same time all they hear and see from conservatives is complaining about the journalism and blogging about how unfairly we are treated. This does not win votes.

So how do we fix it? I say we first have to ignore Obama. He's going to say what he's going to say. But, as all of us have said, he is an empty suit with lots of baggage. So running against him is just going to go around in circles and get everyone muddy. Yes we can attack him, but we should keep the sarcastic humorous tone that worked so well for McCain before the convention.

Meanwhile Palin and McCain come out hard against the establishment in DC. McCain needs to show his maverick cred and take on the do-nothing congress, the bork barrel spenders and of course now the corrupt CEO's. Palin meanwhile needs to show her stripes, her toughness on corruption and more than anything else she needs to connect as a human and as a mother. The Palin wave was possible because people saw her as a human, someone they could relate too, someone they liked and empathized with.

We need to do three things. Fist have McCain target the DC status quo in a practical and easy to understand manner(financial crisis is a good place to start). Second Palin needs to rise above petty scandals and bad media coverage and connect with people the same way that got her such a high approval rating in Alaska. Third we, as bloggers, need to get back to being positive and having fun, especially when it comes to Palin. She is now the highest profile conservative in the country we have to support her. We do that by balancing our posts in defense of her with ones that explain why she is so great. We have to treat her as more than an excuse to condemn the media.

From Joe Biden in North Carolina:

Biden said the policies of running mate Barack Obama make his presidency even more urgent and declared this to be the most important election that any living person has seen in their lifetime. But he particularly singled out the meaning of electing someone who is black.

"That will be a transformative event in American politics and internationally," Biden said. "That all by itself will be significant."

This is racism. If it's not ok to vote against someone just because of their skin color it is also not ok to vote FOR someone just because of their skin color. And for a campaign to suggest that is even more egragarious, especially when he claims to be the "post-partisan" candidate. Attitudes like this will only perpetuate racial divisions instead of healing them.

And it's amazing to me that the running mate of a candidate would objectify the candidate this way. It would also horrify me if John McCain came out and said "vote for Sarah and I because she is a woman".

Last night I attended a meeting of the DC Young Republicans at the Hawk 'N Dove bar in downtown DC. I liked this bar, it featured the only Republican bartender in town(also $5 hamburgers).

This was my first meeting and the speaker was a member of the Log Cabin Republicans. I cannot remember his official position within that organization, but he attended the RNC and is frequently interviewed by NPR and the like.

He mentioned several things that I thought interesting:

• He said that the LCR's get very little support from Old White Men, which of course is not shocking. But he said that the group of people that they get the least amount of support from is inner city blacks.
• He also said that THE most common insult they get is actually from other gays who use the term "Jews for Hitler".
• Apparently their ranks are swelling since the Sarah Palin pick. In the funniest comment of the night he said "There are a lot of lesbians who are pissed off at Obama. And the looove Sarah Palin". I find it amazing at how transcendant the Palin affect is.
• 50,000 Floridian gays voted for Bush in 2004. They hope to expand greatly on that number this year. And we know how important each vote from that state is.

Overall it was a good experience. It will be interesting to watch the effect of the LGR on the upcoming election. They are still definitely a divissive group however the Republicans feature the most inclusive and diverse Presidential ticket ever(on the Republican side).

Note on the Palin effect: There was a definite energy in the room whenever Palin was talked about. Along with this energy was also a sense of relief. A lot of these people, young politicos, live to get excited about politicians and McCain wasn't doing it for them.  Now they have conservatism personified at the top of the ticket with loads of personality to boot.

So apparently tonight on Anderson Cooper Barrack Obama will claim that he has more experience that Sarah Palin. To prove his point he will offer up the fact that he has managed his large Presidential campaign.

Here's how The Hill reports it:

Sen. Obama (D-Ill.) said in an interview with CNN that he is more experienced than Palin, the Arizona senator's running mate, because his campaign has a budget much larger that the small Alaska town where Palin was mayor.
 

Tucker Bounds, a McCain spokesman, said in a statement that Obama's argument is "laughable," and he cited Palin's state-level experience.

“For Barack Obama to argue that he’s experienced enough to be president because he’s running for president is desperate circular logic and it’s laughable," Bounds said. "It is a testament to Barack Obama’s inexperience and failing qualifications that he would stoop to passing off his candidacy as comparable to Gov. Sarah Palin’s executive experience managing a budget of over $10 billion and more than 24,000 employees."

The Obama campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Obama earlier said in the interview with CNN's Anderson Cooper that his "understanding is that Gov. Palin's town of Wasilla has I think 50 employees."

"We've got 2,500 in this campaign," Obama said. "I think their budget is maybe $12 million a year. You know, we have a budget of about three times that just for the month. So I think that our ability to manage large systems and to execute I think has been made clear over the last couple of years."

So basically he is saying "The experience of running my campaign for the Presidency has provided me with enough experience to be President." That logic is circular and would be laughed out of any high school debate class.

However it is a good exercise in comparing Palin and Obama. Obama fully admits that most of his experience has been undertaking the process of getting elected for one office or another. Palin, on the other hand, has a record of successful reform that she ran for office to achieve. In other words Obama has used 'Change' as an agenda to get himself elected while Palin has gotten elected in order to actually change things. Please note that Palin's desire for reform is reflected in her non-elected positions as well as her time in public office. See the difference?

Here are ten things about Sarah Palin that the Liberals and their Opposition Research Department, aka the News Media, will try to convince people.

1.She is not a reformer
2. She is inexperienced
3. She is not a good mother
4. She is being exploited by the Republicans because of her gender
5. She has a shady past
6. She is morally bankrupt
7. She has not accomplished anything of note
8. She was a desperation pick by McCain
9. She cannot handle being President if the need should arise
10. Is a criminal

None of these things are true, but all of them are being peddaled by the NYT, WaPo, CNN, and MSNBC to one extent or another.

The will do anything to distract from Palin's accomplishments, the true nature of her upbringing/character and the way she has lived conservatism.

The New America Foundation is hosting an event called Whither The GOP:

This event will begin with a discussion by Reihan Salam of the GOP's inability to consolidate their periodic gains among working class voters and a new social model under which they might do so. Salam's first book (co-authored with Ross Douthat), Grand New Party: How Republicans Can Win the Working Class and Save the American Dream, has received enthusiastic praise from influential columnists on the right, including David Brooks and Michael Barone. Following this, a panel of journalists and political observers will discuss the points raised by Salam and Douthat, and the feasibility of crafting a Republican working class agenda.

I am mid way through their book and I am finding it to be an excellent analysis. I plan to finish it tonight and then attend the panel tomorrow. I will blog the highlights here when it is finished.