RedState

Where the VRWC Collaborates Online
  • Rasmussen: Castle greatly outperforms O’Donnell

    Delaware

    I’m definitely a latecomer to following the Delaware Senate primary between Republicans Mike Castle and Christine O’Donnell, but now that I’m aware of it, it’s striking to me just how differently the two candidates perform in the new Rasmussen poll featuring each candidate against Democrat Chris Coons.

    This is a case where the top lines truly speak for themselves. Castle leads Coons 48-37 (MoE 4.5) for an 88% chance of being ahead after this poll. However O’Donnell trails 36-47 for an 11% chance of being ahead. The results basically flip from Republican to Democrat depending on which candidate the Republicans nominate, with Coons going from down 11 to up 11 if O’Donnell manages to knock off Castle.

    As I said before, O’Donnell’s challenge in doing that is to find a way to get Delaware Republicans to vote against the very popular Castle, and Castle still shows as popular in this poll. His favorability ratings are lopsided in his favor at 67% favorable/30% unfavorable/3% not sure. I question how Coons at 49/34/15 can come back to win in the general against Castle, but I also question how O’Donnell at 39/44/17 can beat either Coons or Castle.

    In particular, Liberty.com’s attacks on Mike Castle, questioning his loyalty both to his party and to his wife, seem not to have moved the needle in Christine O’Donnell’s favor.

    If Castle weren’t quite as popular among Delaware Republicans, maybe O’Donnell would have a shot. But I just don’t see it happening for her. Delaware is a small state and Castle has done so much retail campaigning over the years during his runs for the House that it’s all added up in his favor.

    From Unlikely Voter



  • A Connecticut Conservative In the House of Representatives

    I never thought I’d see the day, but it is looking likely.

    Sam Caligiuri has released one of his internal polls showing he is one point behind Chris Murphy. Now, the Democrats will say this is an internal poll and scoff. But if they erect a firewall around CT-5 to try to save Chris Murphy, we know this internal poll is accurate.

    And frankly, it would not surprise me given how Murphy is behaving on the ground, i.e. running scared.

    We just may see a Connecticut conservative go to Congress. Wow.



  • Understanding Carly Fiorina

    We endorsed Chuck DeVore in the GOP California Senate primary over Carly Fiorina. We did so because of DeVore’s proven record of staunch conservatism — which he continues fighting for now, having just helped kill a California open-carry ban — but also because we didn’t really trust or know anything about Fiorina. Carly’s conservative record was thin to nonexistent, and there were many troubling signs that she held liberal views. From her praise of Jesse Jackson, to her playing the race and gender cards against DeVore, to her support for the Wall Street bailouts, to her qualified support for the Obama stimulus, to her past support for taxation of sales on the Internet, to her waffling on immigration, to her support for Sonia Sotomayor, to her Master’s thesis advocating greater federal control of local education, to her past support for weakening California’s Proposition 13, to her statement to the San Francisco Chronicle editorial board that Roe v. Wade is “a decided issue,” Carly Fiorina’s oft-repeated claim to be a “lifelong conservative” was only plausible in the universe of NRSC staffers who recruited her in the first place.

    During the primary, Fiorina aggressively positioned herself to the right, aided by millions in self-funding and the support of a DC-based network more interested in her money and her connections than in any conservative principles. In addition to the NRSC’s unashamed support, Fiorina received the endorsement of major DC “pro-life” groups like the Susan B. Anthony List and the National Right to Life Committee — and got the backing of Gov. Sarah Palin and a host of DC Republicans, from Lindsey Graham to John McCain.

    All these groups, and our supposed betters in the party establishment, fed us several lines on Carly: that no matter what her actual record said she was “one of us”; that she would hold to her conservatism in the general election and in the Senate; that she had a better chance of beating Barbara Boxer than Chuck Devore; and that even if she wasn’t conservative, she was still better than Barbara Boxer.

    Whether the latter two are true or not, and I think for certain that Carly Fiorinia will be demonstrably better than Barbara Boxer, everything is hypothetical now except that those of us who knew better understood that in the general election, the great lurch left of center would begin.

    Let’s not abandon Carly Fiorina, but lest you be under some impression that she’ll be solidly and forthrightly with us in the Senate, understand what you are getting.

    The moment the great lurch left began came this past Wednesday, September 1st, in the televised debate between Carly Fiorina and Barbara Boxer.

    In the debate, which was dominated — as I told you repeatedly during the primary that it would be — by Boxer going on offense over Fiorina’s time as CEO of Hewlett-Packard, Carly Fiorina let loose three bombshells on conservatives:

    On that last, Barbara Boxer was swift to respond: “If you can’t take a stand on Proposition 23, I don’t know what you will take a stand on.” Which brings us to the only time in the history of RedState we’ll agree with her. On September 3rd, her campaign sent out an e-mail saying she supports Prop 23 — not quite 48 hours after refusing to take a position in the televised debate with Boxer.

    To restate all this, Carly Fiorina abandoned pro-lifers, immigration conservatives, and every Californian who can’t find work because of their state’s eco-radical legislation (she did try about 48 hours later to get that group back). Here’s the kicker: none of this is a surprise. At least, none of it is a surprise if you paid attention to Carly’s actual record, instead of her campaign claims.

    So what now? Do we abandon Carly Fiorina? Polls show that she’s got an even shot at becoming the next Senator from California, which is better than any Boxer opponent has managed since 1992. Now that she’s shed any pretense of being a full-on conservative — and now that she’s apparently decided she doesn’t need her own party’s base — where does that leave us? Sure, she’s still better than Boxer. So is my dog, at least my hypothetical dog I intend to get and name Max once I have a house and yard big enough to accommodate a Chesapeake Bay Retriever.

    Here’s what we need to understand from this:

    • A candidate’s record always means more than the candidate’s rhetoric. Always.
    • A liberal masquerading as a conservative is a feature, not a bug, of the NRSC and its allies.
    • Many DC advocacy groups are more interested in the “DC” than the “advocacy” part (not to mention their win-loss record).
    • Celebrity candidates don’t need you as much as they tell you.
    • Your best guides to candidate selection are the Club for Growth and Senator Jim DeMint’s Senate Conservatives Fund.

    If you’re in California, absolutely and willingly vote for Carly Fiorina. But do so understanding who Carly Fiorina actually is. The mask is off, and there’s a squishy moderate underneath. In the Golden State, the sad truth is that our best hope is to replace a radical with a RINO. Considering the choice we could have had, that’s a shame.



  • The Right Technology

    I have a confession to make: I think the Right is still bogged down on the technology front in a way the Left is not. I also think the reason is simple. If you look at the major players on the right, they have little interest in working with each other when they could be seeking competitive advantages against each other as well as major contracts with campaigns and businesses.

    Certainly there are those on the left who compete and seek contracts, but there is, in my mind, a substantial difference: the left put down the shared infrastructure first, then went out and started competing against each other. On the right, technologists started up competing against each other intending to get rich off the coming wave of tech infrastructure.

    Consequently, the left has Act Blue and the right has . . . well . . . had a variety of ultimately failed platforms the most successful of which was Slatecard, which is still gearing up for the 2010 election cycle. One of the only truly successful state efforts was RedStorm PAC, which has not been successfully duplicated to my knowledge.

    With RedState’s being owned by a corporation, it is more difficult for us to raise and control a pot of money through which we can fund worthwhile projects. I think, frankly, one of the advantages the left had early on is that there were very big blogs and only a handful of them. On the right, there are varied, competitive, and competing blogs of all roughly the same size save for Michelle Malkin and Hot Air, both of which dominate the rest of the right-o-sphere.

    This is one reason I am so excited about the Concord Project. A group of RedState readers got together and just did it.

    But that goes back to Act Blue. I would love to embed links to a central site at RedState to give to candidates — either individually or as a slate of candidates. That’s not going to happen. We don’t have the technology on our side.

    The conservative donor infrastructure, which has too often been burned by the charlatans on our side, remains hesitant to fund tech projects on our side outside of existing 501(c)(4)’s. One of them needs to step up. This is ridiculous.



  • The Concord Project: Every Man A Paul Revere

    A group of RedState diarists have gotten together and collaborated on a new project I think you need to pay attention to.

    The Concord Project is a get out the vote website for ordinary Americans — normal people called to action or modern day Paul Reveres if you will.

    We preach a lot about getting out the vote and local activism here at RedState, but frankly, I don’t have enough time myself, nor do a lot of others. Luckily for us, some of our enterprising readers are making it easy.

    Go sign up right now. The elections are coming. Know how to motivate people to get out and vote.



  • Tech at Night, er, Morning: Banning books, Net Neutrality, Free Press, NPR

    Tech at Night

    Yes, I’m sorry. When I found out yesterday morning that it was Labor Day, I did shift gears and relax a bit. By the evening I was treating it like a weekend and forgot all about Monday’s Tech at Night. So we’re making it a Tuesday morning Tech in the Morning instead.

    Let’s get started with what happens when you let government regulate: they begin to ban things over their content. Yes, The DSCC is sending lawyers after the book Young Guns. Or at least, the Democrats are trying to ban the promotion of the book, which effectively amounts to banning any mass-produced book of this nature, because you can’t afford to publish a book without making sure it sells.

    Just imagine what they’d do online once we gave them regulatory power there.

    Speaking of Net Neutrality, James DeLong at Digital Society found a great gotcha as in 1875, AP paid for its own prioritized use of a telegraph line under the Atlantic instead of having its telegraph traffic have to wait in line with everybody else’s. They’re lucky Free Press and the FCC weren’t around then, or as DeLong said, “AP would probably be in its 50th round of hearings as to whether this proposal was in the public interest.”

    Note that the Google-Verizon Net Neutrality proposal specifically allows this kind of private network arrangement, and the radical left hates that. So it’s interesting to see that even the AP back in the day saw this as a reasonable, common-sense approach to getting things done, one that clearly didn’t hurt anyone.

    Last point this morning: Something to watch for is the use of federal subsidies to promote radical Net Neutrality proposals. Take as an example WAMU, an NPR affiliate in DC: Their formerly Google-subsidized morning show has frequently had guests from organizations like Free Press. These true radicals of course have as a greater agenda the total government subsidization and control over the mass media… which means they want to put more money into NPR, CPB, and similar efforts. NPR affiliates take your subsidized programming to keep themselves in operation, then turn around and use their subsidized existence to promote getting themselves more money.

    That is corrupt and should not stand.



  • GOTV: Fighting for Freedom in the Fall

    promoted from the diaries by haystack…if we’re serious about winning, now truly is the time to get off the pot…

    On November 2nd, Americans will, once again, head to the ballot box in what may be the most important election facing this nation’s future in at least a generation.  As in all elections, the outcome will be determined by those who actually vote—which is why it’s called Getting Out The Vote or GOTV.

    In a moment, a powerful tool will be shared with you that is being launched today. It’s called the Concord Project and it is an extraordinary tool that ordinary, hard-working Americans can use to take their country back in November.

    It’s important that you know a little bit about its history, as well as what it is and what it is not.

    Some History About The Concord Project.

    Over these past two years, unless you have been hiding under a rock or seeing double rainbows, you’ve no doubt noticed the influence of today’s union bosses on just about every major piece of legislation and executive order coming out of Washington, from the nationalization of health care to bailouts and project labor agreements.  And, unless Americans put a stop to it in November, there’s still more to come (including the $165 union pension bailout and potential of the job-destroying Employee Free Choice Act).

    In late May, a couple of us were on a bike ride (as in V-Twin, for those motorcycle aficionados) and, while sitting in a hotel parking lot on the bikes late one evening, we started talking about how the majority of Americans don’t understand the power that unions and special interests have to sway elections.  As former (some say ‘reformed’) union activists, we realize that most Americans don’t know the sheer amount of money unions devote to politics.  For example:

    As unions collect well over $13 billion per year in union dues (from the private sector alone), it’s been estimated that unions spent upwards of $1 billion on the 2008 elections.  In addition, the AFL-CIO (which is a federation of 56 national unions) boasted of putting 250,000 boots on the ground in targeted states in 2008.

    This year, however, the unions are trying to beat what they did in 2008.  The AFL-CIO has announced it will spend more than it did in 2008 and has created a firewall strategy targeting 27 states to prevent huge losses of its union bought politicians.

    The AFL-CIO has 17 million members and has already communicated with 1.75 million working people, Trumka said.

    At least 30 percent of voters in battleground states like Pennsylvania Ohio, and Michigan come from union households, so reaching those voters is crucial, said Democratic strategist Steve Rosenthal, the union’s former political director.

    “Making sure they’re maximizing turnout of their members and that they’re doing the important persuasion to make sure that 65 to 70 percent support the union candidate, that’s going to be vital. None of those candidates win without those votes,” Rosenthal said. “We can mitigate some of the national mood and some of the factors that are playing against the Democrats by changing the equation and turning to those voters.”

    When you combine the $100 million pledged by the SEIU and AFSCME, $50 million from Organizing for America, and another $53 million from the AFL-CIO, you’re looking at over $200 million pledged so far. [And that's not counting any of the 60 other individual unions, the other special interests, or George Soros.]

    When you have the OFA contacting over 568,000 in a single weekend, as well as using all the latest technology to get its boots on the ground, you wonder: what’s the other side doing to combat this?

    Moreover, when you have most of the Marxist front groups allying themselves to get out the vote, it makes you wonder whether, despite the passions, the expected tidal wave in the Fall may wind up being less a wave and more a ripple.

    Back in May, as we discussed the GOTV of unions and the special interests, a suggestion was made to organize a Get Out the Vote for ordinary Americans who love their country, don’t like big government, socialism or the special interests that are bankrupting the nation. The question was: how?

    The answer was simple:  Organize a GOTV where all the disparate, but like-minded individuals, activists, and groups could work together, learn about GOTV and coordinate their activities. It was a task, like most, that is easier said than done, to be sure.  However, the concept is simple:

    Whether individuals are tea party activists, NRA, GOA, VFW, or bikers; whether they belong to churches, knitting clubs, bowling leagues, or the ivy league, if people work together, they can do amazing things through an organized GOTV effort.

    Well, after sitting on the idea for a few days, the idea was kicked around with some bloggers and other activists who thought it was a great idea and someone came up with the revolutionary name, the Concord Project.

    Welcome to the Concord Project: What it is and what it is not.

    Over the last couple of months, on a shoestring budget, some very dedicated activists (like RedState’s Cold Warrior and Ron Robinson, as well as several others) donated their time, feedback and, most importantly, commitment to seeing the Concord Project launched.

    As of now, there are 55 days until November 2nd.  It is time to concentrate on GOTV.

    Before you go to the Concord Project’s site, here are some things you should know:

    • The Concord Project is not “a group” looking to build members, it is a tool for individuals, activists, and existing groups to use.
    • The Concord Project is a hub where ordinary Americans can learn basic GOTV techniques, coordinate their efforts and work together to take America back.
    • The Concord Project is a platform for bottom-up politics, instead of top-down politics dictated by the ruling class.
    • The Concord Project is based on a ‘wiki’ platform that enables people and groups in each state to contribute content and work with others in their state by using message boards to work together, district by district and precinct by precinct.
    • Due to its wiki-based platform, after November, the Concord Project is a tool that individuals, activists and groups can use as a bridge-builder for issue-based education, activism and mobilization at the city, state and federal level to hold politicians (from school board officials to senators) accountable to the people who put them there.

    This week, when you visit the Concord Project’s individual state pages, you will see that the state message boards are coming on line, state by state.   However, by the end of the week, each state page should have multiple volunteer moderators to assist in coordinating GOTV and each state will “go live” as moderators are added.

    In addition to going to the Concord Project site, you can also connect to the Concord Project through Facebook, as well as follow Concord Project tweets on Twitter.

    With labor unions and other left-wing organizations spending hundreds of millions of dollars and coordinating activities to influence elections, the Concord Project is Prometheus’ flame, designed to give you the knowledge, platform, and tools to take back America through GOTV education and open-source coordination.

    Now, it’s time to GOTV.

    __________________

    “I bring reason to your ears, and, in language as plain as ABC, hold up truth to your eyes.”  Thomas Paine, December 23, 1776

    For more news and views on today’s unions, go to LaborUnionReport.com.

    Follow laborunionrpt on Twitter



  • Introducing Concord Project.

    It’s a website dedicated to promoting grassroots GOTV for the Right, on a practical level: how to do it, how not to do it (particularly if you’re an employer), advice on why you need to do unglamorous, tedious and non-sexy tasks like walking the district to recruit voters and donors… things like that. Of particular interest to conservatives is the emphasis on precinct committeemen (which is something that RedState has brought up in the past, but bears repeating):

    Concord Project is up and running today, and they’re looking for people to be involved on the state level. From what I’ve seen and read, this election cycle there’s an existing and welcome interest in GOTV by the Right - a polite way of saying that ‘conservatives are ready to crawl across broken glass in order to vote this year’ - but enthusiasm may be outstripping organizational awareness and skill. Hopefully, this will help in that regard.

    Moe Lane

    Crossposted to Moe Lane.



  • The Victim in Chief Makes a Pitch for Greater Socialism

    Barack Obama went to Milwaukee, WI yesterday to speak to one of the few friendly audiences he has left in America — Big Labor.

    Our Victim-in-Chief, with no sense of history, declared that people talk about him like a dog. First, it is worth point out he named his dog after himself — Bo. Either the dog stinks or got Mr. Obama’s initials. It could be people are talking about the dog. And, our Victim-in-Chief should consider himself lucky considering the smears against many of his predecessors, including the most recent who was routinely compared by the left to Hitler

    By the way, I think it is starting to dawn on the American public that the reason they don’t like him is not just that he’s a socialist. It’s a thin-skinned wimp. Americans like winners, not wimps.

    The Victim’s speech is not worth remembering for anything other than its hypocrisy wrapped up in a sales pitch for socialism. Suddenly Mr. Obama is for tax cuts and Republicans are against them. Suddenly Mr. Obama is against spending. Suddenly Mr. Obama is against bailouts. Mr. Obama is for saying “yes” to everything and the Republicans are for saying “no” to everything.

    The problem for Mr. Obama is that the American public believes him — he is for “yes” to everything, but that includes spending, bailouts, and ever greater socialism in our lives.

    Consequently, while Mr. Obama may say “yes we can,” it is the voters, not Republicans, replying, “No. You can’t.”



  • Morning Briefing for September 7, 2010

    RedState Morning Briefing

    For September 7, 2010

    Go to www.RedStateMB.com to get
    the Morning Briefing every morning at no charge.

    ———————————————————————-

    1. The Victim in Chief Makes a Pitch for Greater Socialism

    Barack Obama went to Milwaukee, WI yesterday to speak to one of the few friendly audiences he has left in America — Big Labor.

    Our Victim-in-Chief, with no sense of history, declared that people talk about him like a dog. First, it is worth point out he named his dog after himself — Bo. Either the dog stinks or got Mr. Obama’s initials. It could be people are talking about the dog. And, our Victim-in-Chief should consider himself lucky considering the smears against many of his predecessors, including the most recent who was routinely compared by the left to Hitler

    By the way, I think it is starting to dawn on the American public that the reason they don’t like him is not just that he’s a socialist. It’s a thin-skinned wimp. Americans like winners, not wimps.

    The Victim’s speech is not worth remembering for anything other than its hypocrisy wrapped up in a sales pitch for socialism. Suddenly Mr. Obama is for tax cuts and Republicans are against them. Suddenly Mr. Obama is against spending. Suddenly Mr. Obama is against bailouts. Mr. Obama is for saying “yes” to everything and the Republicans are for saying “no” to everything.

    The problem for Mr. Obama is that the American public believes him — he is for “yes” to everything, but that includes spending, bailouts, and ever greater socialism in our lives.

    Consequently, while Mr. Obama may say “yes we can,” it is the voters, not Republicans, replying, “No. You can’t.”

    Please click here for the rest of the post.

    2. Save the Light Bulb

    Dear John Boehner, Ted Poe, and Members of the incoming 112th Congress,

    If you do only one thing in your time in Washington, and frankly I hope you do only one thing given your propensity to expand government (other than eradicating Obamacare), it is this: SAVE THE LIGHT BULB.

    People may not realize it, but one of the first acts of the Democratic Congress in 2007, was to ban the light bulb effective in 2014.

    Seriously.

    Please click here for the rest of the post.

    3. Ovide Lamontagne Rising in New Hampshire

    A lot of really good people have come out for Kelly Ayotte in the New Hamphire GOP Senate Primary. I have quietly pulled for Ovide Lamontagne, but supported those who cast their lots with Ayotte.

    For a good while it looked like Ovide was getting no traction and were he not in the race, Kelly Ayotte would be my pick. The other guy in the race, whose name is not worth remembering, is on video saying he supported abortion rights because if he ever had a kid with a defect, he’d want the right to kill the kid.

    That’s unacceptable.

    So with Ovide going no where in the polls, people understandably went with Kelly Ayotte.

    Well, in the past couple of weeks things in New Hampshire have shaken up.

    Please click here for the rest of the post.

    4. Congress Needs Reforms, but Committees Don’t Need More Power

    If Republicans win control of the House of Representatives, I have no doubt that John Boehner as Speaker will make the chamber far more transparent and fair to rank-and-file legislators of both parties. There will be more time to debate legislation, more chances to offer amendments, and more opportunity for the public to digest the implications of major legislation.

    But one reform idea was previewed in the press last week that I think is terrible–the notion of giving Republican committee chairmen more power and deference to write the bills as they see fit.

    Why is this such a bad idea?

    Because committee chairmen are typically in Washington too long.

    Please click here for the rest of the post.

    5. Robert Reich: Economic Illiterate

    There’s no better day than Labor Day to examine the nonsense that passes for high-minded economic policy proposals among the cognoscenti on the Left. To assist our examination is the erstwhile Secretary of Labor himself, the diminutive Robert Reich, who happens to be flogging a new book, “AFTERSHOCK: The Next Economy and America’s Future”, to be published in a couple of weeks. I can’t wait.

    Please click here for the rest of the post.

    6. “[F]ew observers believe the violence was due to racial hatred.”

    This story in today’s Washington Post is about a school in Philadelphia that is apparently 70% black, 18% Asian, and 12% unidentified “other.” On December 3rd of last year, many of the school’s black students erupted in violence that was systematically and exclusively targeted at the school’s Asian students. All of this is clearly set forth in the article.

    In case you … thought that the Washington Post was describing racially-motivated violence, they were quick to set you straight.

    Please click here for the rest of the post.

    7. Democrats argue it is fine to ban book promotion

    The “Young Guns” have a book. They also have a promotion tour and a video. Now, the Democrats could engage in a battle of ideas. But that’s not what they do. (are you surprised?)

    Instead the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee files a complaint with the Federal Election Commission that promoting the book violates election law. Really. By their interpretation, a book publisher cannot promote a book if it is political.

    Please click here for the rest of the post.