MASON CONSERVATIVE

So How's That Drag On The Ticket Doing?

The first big post-convention/primary poll has come out, and low and behold the entire ticket is six to seven points up on the Dem rivals.  But wait . . . I thought Ken Cuccinelli was suppose to be a drag on the ticket, I thought he couldn't beat Steve Shannon?

What this poll shows me is that Republicans up and down Virginia are incredibly unified, and that the strength of the ticket is that it constitutes the spectrum of Virginia Republicans.  And don't forget, no state has turned ticket-splitting into the artful that Virginia has, especially when it comes to electing Republicans.  Democrats have swept all three offices three times ('81, '85, '89), but the Republicans have only done it once ('97) in the post-Byrd era.  Routinely you'll see at least one holdout make like Andrew Miller in '77 and Jerry Kilgore in '01.  So what this shows me is that Republicans in Virginia are, for the first time in a loooooong time, very unified behind this ticket.

As for the Dems, they have amassed a very strange ticket that has no coherency.  Deeds is a rural state senator who's claim to fame seems to be that he's a "conservative" Democrat, but that doesn't jive very well with the increasingly progressive turn of Democrats both in Virginia and nationally.  And you can't out conservative this GOP ticket, I'm sorry.  Wagner has nothing positive in her background, unless you count massively underestimating the state debt and consistently proving useless when it came to finance, gaining the nomination because nobody else of substance would run.  As for Shannon, he's in the strange place of trying to prove he's more law-and-order than Cuccinelli, and has a thin record of any accomplishment.  Democrats have been winning in the 2000s by a combination of anti-Bushism, a perception of being conservative, and the GOP warring within itself.  This year Bush is gone, these guys can't get tot he right of our ticket on anything, and clearly the GOP is unified behind its ticket.  

I also wonder if there is something of an enthusiasm gap.  My theory on winning elections is that its based on energy, what kind of energy is created by the base and by supporters.  I believe that independent voters generally, in the end, want to be on the winning side and tend to swing towards the side with the most enthusiasm, organization, and energy.  Our team has that right now on all ends of the GOP spectrum.  Nothing about Deeds, Wagner, or Shannon seems to be exciting any Democrat but the most committed.  I don't see either of these three inspiring voters to sway their way.  All three are bland, unaccomplished, and have no base outside of their elected districts - there is nothing ideologically that seems to link the three the way it does on our side.  All three of our candidates have statewide organizational experience (McD and Bolling in '05, and Cuccinelli w/ the marriage amendment '06).  

That being said, its still only a six point lead and none of the GOP team are over 50% so anything can sway this election.  McDonnell has done a good job so far running a structured, disciplined message . . . he clearly understands why Earley and Kilgore failed.  Though "a jobs governor" might sound kind of hokey, its effective because it makes it easy for people to understand what he wants and what he stands for.  He's defining himself before he gets defined.  Four months out, we are where we want to be and its up to these three guys to really stay dialed in, work hard and get the message out.  

"Hercules," St-Pierre vs. Alves

George St-Pierre vs. Thiago Alves is this weekend. Its gonna be beast, I have a feeling that Alves will put up a much stronger challenge than BJ Penn did last winter.

Sarah Palin, Herself To The Bitter End

Many know my affection for Sarah Palin, but even I was taken aback by her decision to resign as opposed to just sitting out her term.  But then again, if she feels that all she wanted to do has been done, and she doesn't want to sit around collecting a paycheck.  Normally I would agree with a lot of the ankle-biters but I think the distance Alaska is from what Palin wants to do combined with the constant harassing and baseless ethics complaints by political opponents that have cost her tons of money makes this a smart move in my opinion.  Its not without serious risk, but a smart move nonetheless.  How refreshing after seeing nonstop selfish and self-serving behavior by governors and other political leaders who hang around for the sake of office and titles.  I understand the critics, that she quit on the people of Alaska, but honestly if Sarah Palin has aspirations outside the state I think its very honest to step aside so the state won't have pay for her travel, and the state can have a governor fully focused on its needs at the local level.  To give up power, to step away from the title . . . its somewhat refreshing, even though she is trying to move on to another.

Clearly, Palin been bitten by the presidential bug.  I don't believe for a second those who say she is retiring for good.  She may fade a bit, but she is testing the waters and is employing something of a fabian strategy, trading space for time.  Its risky, but Palin is banking on the freedom of not holding office being the ace in the hole in being able to contact voters and building alliances and support across the country.  Its just not something she can do working out of Juneau, and it would be a disservice to Alaska if she tried.  She's doing it her way, which I love.  She's junking the consultants and she's junking convention because things have changed.  The old convention doesn't work, and I think we could use someone unconventional.

The is a vaccumin the GOP right now, none of the '08 wannabes excite anyone.  Romney is well respected but I cannot get past RomneyCare in Massachusetts.  Mike Huckabee is simply an evangelical who's appeal is very limited.  Tim Pawlenty is deeply experienced but doesn't move anyone.  There is a burgeoning movement in the country that is beginning to take its early form in these Tea Parties across the country . . . its rather amorphous right now, it hasn't taken full shape, but its the natural constituent base for Sarah Palin to start a national movement towards a takeover of the GOP.  These folks at the Tea Parties are those who feel that government has failed them, and believe its the political establishment inside the beltway - and its both parties.  Tea Party conservatives are tired of Republican insiders who ran to change DC but instead became apart of it.  They see Republicans and Democrats alike growing government, bit by bit taking away our freedom from government takeover of auto companies, environmental regulations that tell us what light bulbs to use, and foreign policy that simply shrugs to freedom movements in places like Iran and Hondorus.  These folks don't necessarily care about party . . . though they clearly see the path to change through the Republican Party.  What Sarah Palin has done, in a state as far away from DC as you can get, and the treatment she got from the very insiders Tea Party conservatives despise, make a likely marriage.  Sarah Palin is a lot of things, but above all she is anti-establishment.  Its often inherent in female politicians, since they are often left out of the old-boy club they seek to change it rather than join it.

This is why Sarah Palin doesn't necessarily need an incumbent office to run for president.  Now she needs to get to work on national issues of all kinds.  Palin is risking it all on the fact that this Tea Party movement will be ready in three years to take over the Republican Party.  It will take a lot of work, and it might not even materialize.  But as a conservative desperately searching for a candidate that wants to lead the base and defend conservative values and traditions, I appreciate that Sarah Palin wants to do this.  It remains to be seen if she can.

Deeds's DPV Dilemma

The DCPost is reporting that the Democratic Party of Virginia has bit hit by a fine form the FEC for its murky financial disclosures dating back to 2006!  First off, seriously?  You can't get this right?  Its lazy at best, and slim shady at worst.  The FEC made 31 different request for info.

What makes this amazing is that the executive director of the DPV during much of this mess is Levar Stoney, and now he's running Creigh Deeds's campaign.  Is this condoned by Deeds?  Clearly hiring one of the chief obstructionists in this mess indicates that to me that he does.  Its bad enough Deeds was a guy who tried to change lobbyists rules for lawyers as a senator that he had already broken to justify it, now his campaign is run by a guy who obstructed FEC investigations into campaign finance disclosures of the state party.  

And they are attacking Bob McDonnell for his fundraising?  Come on . . . 

Krauthammer

He has a knack of distilling things down, doesn't he?

John McCain, 90210

No wonder we lost.  

The Vanity Fair straight-up hit piece on Sarah Palin might be garbage based bitter campaign staff and enemies back in Alaska, but it is valuable in showing how the John McCain campaign's was more interested in internal cliques, gossip, and fights than actually winning.  This is the damning accusation at Steve Schmidt, who's job was to run a tight ship based solely for the purpose of electing John McCain.  Instead, he got caught up in how to deal with Sarah Palin, and those who were excited by here.

Thats what this is really about.  Schmidt, a known moderate, wanted nothing to do with the religious and social conservatives that proved to be the backbone of the two preceding George W. Bush elections.  He wanted to win on his own terms, creating a coalition of moderate Dems, Repubs, and Is - and then dragging the base with it at the end.  But the problem is that is now how you win, you win with your base first and build out . . . its how both George W. Bush and Barack Obama won the presidency.  When Sarah Palin was selected, based on her record as governor, he knowledge of energy issues, and her noted attack on the corrupt Alaska GOP establishment; suddenly the social conservative Bush voters were back in the fold, and in force.  I was at the Fairfax rally, I saw it.

The problem with Schmidt, and we see it over and over with Republican "centrist" or "moderates", was that his planned was flawed from the beginning.  After eight years of Bush and 12 of the last 14 years of a GOP Congress, Democrats were never going to vote for McCain or anybody.  Obama captivated not only the left, but also the center-left.  The McCain campaign strategy to appeal to the center first and the base last was never going to work because the center was drifting to Obama and the base did not enjoy being  ignored and/or objected too.  When Sarah Palin came on board, conservatives openly talked about voting for the Palin-McCain ticket.  She drove the ticket up in the polls, but Schmidt couldn't control it, and didn't want a McCain presidency to owe anything to the right.  

Its revisionist history that Sarah Palin was a disaster as a VP candidate . . . she didn't get off to a great start with the Couric interview, but that was a gotcha game to begin with.  The McCain Campaign had no way to prepare her because they were so use to being media darlings they never realized they would get turned on so badly.  And it was a terrible performance.  But Palin bounced back with an amazing convention speech and a strong showing against Joe Biden in the VP debate.  Like very other presidential election, the reason the candidate lost had nothing to do with the VP candidate.  If anything, Palin was the fighter.  She wanted to go to Michigan.  The weekend before the election, she got 18,000 people in Jefferson City, MO.  Don't tell me she was the reason the GOP lost.  The reason the GOP lost was a presidential candidate who spent half a debate talking about pork and government spending being the evils of our recession - then vote for a stimulus bill laden with pork (twice!), and then talked about buying people's mortgages!

A perfect example of how they dealt with Palin was this:  at the Fairfax rally, they had several liberal female professionals talk about how they are supporting McCain because he picked Palin and what it meant for feminism.  That doesn't appeal to anybody in the Republican party, was awkward and out of place, and the wrong way to sell her out of the box.  They should have talked about her pro-life credentials, her fighting corruption, and her stand for less government.  They introduced her on liberal terms, not conservative.  

I've said it a million times, I've always had a soft-spot for John McCain going back to 2000.  I agree with Bill Kristol that he was done wrong by his staff who focused on internal power, winning on their own stubborn terms, and the passing the buck on the VP candidate for the pasting they ate on election day.  Was she perfect?  Of course not.  But she was a secret weapon, a true conduit into the conservative base, and clearly an eager, articulate, and energetic campaigner who the campaign was almost ashamed of because she represented the people in the Republican coalition that Steve Schmidt and John McCain wanted nothing to do with.  

For everything about her, look at THIS crowd Sarah Palin drew.  

Surely instead of worrying about ideology, the McCain campaign leadership could have found a better way to harness the excitement and curiosity that she created.  They allowed her to be defined the way she was, and did nothing to defend her past press releases.  The lesson in all of this is you cannot run campaigns ignoring your base, and you cannot win based solely on "moderates."  Both the Bush and Obama victories will built from the base generating excitement that feed over to moderates, who want to be on the winning side above everything else.  Steve Schmidt should never work another campaign again.  Both Sarah Palin and John McCain deserved better.

Pray For North Dakota

Yes, one of the most sparslsly populated states in the Union could be a bellweather as to how candidate recruitment and the chances of Republicans gains fare in 2010.  North Dakota has for years ineplicably been represeted by three Democrats in Congress - Sens. Dorgan and Conrad and Rep. Pomeroy, despite being one of the most reliably reddest of red states for a generation.  The reasons are varied and understandable.  Most important to me is that for years Sens. Dorgan and Conrad were in the minority so they had the senoirity the needed to steer pork ND's way, but also they could avoid tough votes because they were in the minority.  But now, they have to own everything that is happening in the country because both of these guys are behind most of this insanity coming from Congress.  

The GOP is, once again, putting the hard sell on Governor John Hoeven, who sports something close to an 80% approval rating.  Byron Dorgan is up this year, and a Hoeven for Senate candidacy will put Obama economic takeover on trail in a farm state that might be culturally conservative but is steeped in the old progressive tradition.  It will also test the GOP Senate Campaign Committee and John Cornyn if they can recruit serious candidates against Reds State Democrats, something that the House has been doing a good job on.  

So please, pray for North Dakota because John Hoeven needs all the help convincing he can get to run for this seat to help take Congress back.

"I'm Willing To Lose"

The National Review has a nice profile on Ken Cuccinelli up on its website today, focusing on Ken's quest not only win the AG race but also bring certain principles forward to reborn the GOP.

Cuccinelli says the founding fathers got the principles right: “It’s a foundation that can’t be improved upon.” He offers this foundation as a remedy for disenchanted Republicans. “My view is that the GOP platform should read ‘Life, liberty, and property.’ It would save us a lot of paper.” He goes on to criticize Republican efforts of the past decade. “What have the Republicans been supporting? No Child Left Behind, Medicare Part D, and supporting TARP I. So much for the party of small government.”

Cuccinelli becomes most animated when he’s talking about the philosophy behind the principles. He cites the Declaration of Independence’s most famous line, about the self-evident truths that “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,” including life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Then he makes an important observation: “Most people forget the next phrase, which explains that it is for these purposes that governments are created.” Cuccinelli considers this phrase — “That, to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men” — the key to understanding what the founders were thinking: Rights are inherent and universal, and governments exist only to guarantee them, not to grant them.

You know, he's right.  We need to simple things up a bit, instead of agonizing endlessly without a solid base of principles to rely on for guidance.  Its a basic rallying cry to bring the party back to where it should be, where it needs to be, to properly fight the juggernaught in Congress that we are seeing ramming through bailout after bailout, taxes on energy, and soon to be more taxes on the middle class.  There is enough time to stop this, and electing guys like Ken and McDonnell and Bolling will help with this cause as we build for 2010 and 2012.

I Just Gave $50

What are YOU going to do to help Ken Cuccinelli?  June 30th is the end of the first post-convention cycle and we need to put in a strong showing for Ken to make sure everyone knows we mean business in this race.  Now, money isn't everything and lord knows Cuccinelli's career proves this but having money is nice and it will help him keep pace on building a statewide organization that was started in the convention run-up.  So to all Republicans and Independents ready for conservatism to make a comeback in Virginia, please give as much as you can.

HERE