Friends Of The Constitution - Minnesota Style

Congratulations to this years group of Minnesota Legislative Evaluation Assembly honorees. I was especially happy to see Scott County's own Mike Beard, Mark Buesgens and Laura Brod (ok - I know it's a stretch to include Laura since such a tiny portion of her district is in Scott County but we love her anyway) on the list.

Senate: Chris Gerlach, David W. Hann (100%), Debbie J. Johnson, Michael J. Jungbauer, Amy T. Koch, Warren Limmer (100%), Julianne E. Ortmann, Ray Vandeveer.

House: Bruce Anderson, Michael Beard, Laura Brod, Mark Buesgens (100%) Matt Dean, Chris DeLaForest, Steve Drazkowski, Rob Eastlund, Sondra Erickson, Brad Finstad, Pat Garofalo, Tom Hackbarth (100%), Mary Liz Holberg, Joe Hoppe, Paul Kohls, Mark Olson (100%), Joyce Peppin, Marty Seifert, Ron Shimanski, Kurt Zellers. Honorable Mention: Bob Dettmer.

The criteria for this honor includes:

LEA bases its evaluation on the traditional American principles of constitutionalism, limited government, free enterprise, legal and moral order with justice and individual liberty and dignity.

Their take on the past legislative session mirrors that of many Minnesotans....

The 2008 legislative session ended with great fanfare and the legislators and the governor declared it a victory. But, from the perspective of LEA, it was a travesty. The legislature made pronouncements on how families should be organized, how their health should be managed, how the state should bail out loan failures, what children should be taught, how babies should be monitored, and why the DNA of everyone should be kept by the State. It was an assault on civil rights and liberties. It was a triumph of the state over its people, not a government of the people.

Legislation was enacted that ignored and circumvented established Constitutional checks and balances. By proposing specific taxes be made part of the Constitution, they evaded a veto by the governor. The new tax would provide a $200 million per year to newly appointed committees that would spend those funds on the arts and the environment. Legislation is increasingly directed at special interests, at the expense of taxpaying citizens. House File 1812, the Omnibus Budget Bill that got so heated it was dubbed the “war of 1812,” made it through the legislature and was signed into law despite a challenge for violating the “single-subject rule.” The elites who expect money for their councils, their programs, their departments, and their corporations were the real winners. They got nearly everything they asked for in omnibus bills packed with enough pork to entice a majority vote. Individually, most of the items would not have passed on merit. The state budget increased 9.8% despite economic turmoil causing citizens to make personal budgetary cutbacks.

The legislators ignored warnings of an expected two billion dollar shortfall in 2009. Rather than developing a strategy of spending cuts they compounded the problem by spending a billion dollar surplus on new programs. Additionally, the state borrowed money to buy more parkland when a surplus of parks exists, and purchased equipment with loans that go beyond its life expectancy. Because bond interest doubles the cost of purchases, bonds should only be used to pay for facilities that will generate enough use to cover the costs. Irresponsible borrowing places burdens on future generations. Another tax burden became entrenched in a bill that requires the state to cover half the of the operating deficits of any light rail lines. This not only bails out a financially unsound transportation system, but taxes people who have no use for light rail. This is a characteristic of a socialist regime, not a republic, and is not in keeping with the credo of LEA.

Minnesota voters should take this into account when they go into the polling boothes in November.

Crunch Time

Well it crunch time. While there is oodles of news (Sarah Palin - WOW!) I have to get myself packed and ready to go to Minneapolis for the RNC Convention. For those of you who might not know, I am a credentialed blogger for the RNC Convention. I know I will be on the floor for Monday's speeches (President and Mrs. Bush, VP Cheney and others), but the rest of the week will be up in the air.

I will be blogging from the convention both here and at True North and broadcasting daily at MidStream Radio (link in sidebar) so please check in often for updates. If there is anything you readers would like to hear about, feel free to email me and I will try to get at it for you.

Oh No She Didn't!

Diane Sawyer did NOT just go there (transcript courtesy of Newsbusters).

SAWYER: And last night we heard the Democrats say that on key issues in this complex new globe that Barack Obama has been right and John McCain has been wrong. Your reaction?

PAWLENTY: Well, my goodness it's amazing that we're three days into the Democratic Convention and 60 or so days away from the actual election and they're still trying to plead with the American people or convince us that Barack Obama is ready to be president. The fact of the matter, he is not. President Clinton had 12 years as governor as an executive and commander in chief of the National Guard before he became president and Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton, and Joe Biden all said during the primary season Barack Obama was not ready. Bill Clinton called it a roll of the dice. Joe Biden said he wasn't ready for the job as did Hillary Clinton and so for them to now say he's ready with great enthusiasm is quite hypocritical at least inconsistent with what they said previously. As to Senator Biden and Senator Obama's judgment, the record is replete with the fact they've made a lot of errors in judgment and John McCain has been a steady hand on the throttle.

SAWYER: But on the questions of resume, you know, some Democrats have said you're the same age as Barack Obama. You've been governor for just two years. You were in the state legislature. He was in the state legislature. Does this raise questions about your qualifications to be a heartbeat away from commander in chief?

PAWLENTY: Well, setting aside the issue of vice president, Diane, I've been governor for six years and commander in chief of the Minnesota National Guard for six years. When I was in the legislature I was also majority leader and did a variety of other things. But the questions continue to be, what have you done and what have you run? His accomplishments are nonexistent or essentially nonexistent and he hasn't run anything. He hasn't been an executive or been in charge of anything and lastly, the big problem or one of the big problems facing our country is the ability to work across party lines and get things done. John McCain actually has a record in that regard. Barack Obama does not. He has good oratory but when you shut the teleprompter off there's not much else there.

Emphasis mine.

For "journalists" they sure are doing a shoddy job of researching! I mean really - how could they mistake a two term governor for a two year governor? It is simply unconscionable that they could go into an interview like this!

If Tim Pawlenty is John McCain's VP pick and this is the best that the Democrats can come up with to ding him on, especially when the Democrats are bent on self-destruction, well shoot it may not be so glum of a year for Republicans after all.

Rock Star!

Remember this John McCain ad? It was put out (in part) as a reaction to the cult of personality that has sprung up around barack Obama after his European tour, among other things. The reactions (and denunciations) that came from the Obama Campaign were heated. So why is it Senator Obama (and his campaign) continue to do things that perpetuate that celebrity/rock star perception?

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama's big speech on Thursday night will be delivered from an elaborate columned stage resembling a miniature Greek temple.

The stage, similar to structures used for rock concerts, has been set up at the 50-yard-line, the midpoint of Invesco Field, the stadium where the Denver Broncos' National Football League team plays.

Emphasis mine. Senior Democrats are concerned about the whole thing....

Senior Democratic officials are expressing serious concerns about the political risks posed by Barack Obama’s acceptance speech at Invesco Field at Mile High Stadium Thursday evening.

From the elaborate stagecraft to the teeming crowd of 80,000 cheering partisans, the vagaries of the weather to the unpredictable audience reaction, the optics surrounding the stadium event have heightened worries that the Obama campaign is engaging in a high-risk endeavor in an uncontrollable environment.

A common concern: that the stadium appearance plays against Obama’s convention goal of lowering his star wattage and connecting with average Americans and that it gives Republicans a chance to drive home their message that the Democratic nominee is a narcissistic celebrity candidate.

...as well they should be. The campaign seems determined to undermine (at every possible opportunity) to hand deliver ammunition to the McCain campaign. I mean what better way to say "I'm not a rock star" than to deliver your acceptance speech in a football stadium on a set designed by Britney Spears set designers! I wish I were kidding, but I am not.

If there was ever further evidence needed (especially after Wednesday's speech) that the Democrats picked the wrong candidate to be their nominee this just might be it.

UPDATE: It gets better. Apparently a replica of AF1 is being brought in for the speech tonight!

But his grandiose style lends itself to accusations of hubris – the Greek word for pride before the fall - and he was advised to keep last night simple as he made an impassionaed call for change.

Enlarge

Presidential image: A full-scale replica of Air Force One fuselage arrives at Invesco Field before Mr Obama speaks

It all reminds me of a bit of Biblical wisdom....something about pride and a big fall...

Open Mouth...

As phenomenal as Hillary Clinton has been (for Barack Obama) the same can not be said of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Her open feud with the Catholic Church on abortion seems to be the final straw for the Obama Campaign (HT Gary Gross).

The Obama campaign has asked Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi to shut her mouth, but in as nice a way as they possibly can. That isn't to say they aren't mad about her recent activities.

"It's like 'Thanks, madam speaker, you've done quite enough. Please move along,'" says one Obama adviser. "She got us stuck on three different issues that we wanted no part of. She's no master strategist, no matter what she may believe. You may see more of her, but if her mouth is open, what comes out won't be anything that our campaign wants anything to do with.

Emphasis mine! It seems that the Speaker's ego has threatened to overshadow the Presidential nominee's ego.

According to several House Democrat leadership staffers, Pelosi grew increasingly angry several months ago that she was not being given a strategic role in directing the Democrat convention or being actively sought out by the Obama campaign for advice. "She made a point that she was queen of the far left, which was the group that really helped Obama get to where he was," says Democrat leadership staffer, adding, "She didn't call herself a queen, but you get the point, and so did the Obama people."

Emphasis again mine. Now having an ego is a necessity for a politician - especially a politician that wants to be President. However, Speaker Pelosi has to recognize that she is not the one with the power that she craves. Barack Obama is....

OH Hillary!

About the only part of the Democrats Convention that I got to watch was Senator Clinton's speech...and what a speech it was. It was everything her stump speeches in the 1990's were. She was sharp, focused and on point every second. While I disagreed with almost all of her policy points, I thought the speech was spot on! She said all the right things to be perceived as a "team player" and a gracious loser. That has not stopped people from speculating that her support of the nominee was "tepid". I won't go there, but I will say this....thank God Hillary Clinton is not the Democrats nominee. She would have been tough to beat - especially with John McCain.

Well it appears that her barnburner of a speech last night didn't have the intended consequence.

DENVER, Aug. 26 -- Hillary Rodham Clinton's most loyal delegates came to the Pepsi Center on Tuesday night looking for direction. They listened, rapt, to a 20-minute speech that many proclaimed the best she had ever delivered, hoping her words could somehow unwind a year of tension in the Democratic Party. But when Clinton stepped off the stage and the standing ovation faded into silence, many of her supporters were left with a sobering realization: Even a tremendous speech couldn't erase their frustrations.

Despite Clinton's plea for Democrats to unite, her delegates remained divided as to how they should proceed.

There was Jerry Straughan, a professor from California, who listened from his seat in the rafters and shook his head at what he considered the speech's predictability. "It's a tactic," he said. "Who knows what she really thinks? With all the missteps that have taken place, this is the only thing she could do. So, yes, I'm still bitter."

There was JoAnn Enos, from Minnesota, who digested Clinton's resounding endorsement of Barack Obama and decided that she, too, will move on and get behind him. "I'll vote for [Obama] in the roll call," she said, "because that's what Hillary wants."

There was Shirley Love, from West Virginia, who smiled at Clinton's composure, waved a button bearing her name and felt a renewed pang of regret that she had lost the nomination. "She deserves it," Love said. "That's the thing that sticks with you. Even if she can move on easily, that's not as easy for everybody else."

But not everyone was convinced that it was time to "move on".

"I'm not going to vote for Obama. I'm not going to vote for McCain, either," said Blanche Darley, 65, a Texas delegate for Clinton. Darley wore a button saying "Obamination Scares the Hell Out of Me."

"We love her, but it's our vote if we don't trust him or don't like him," said Darley, who was a superdelegate for Bill Clinton in the 1990s.

Weeping, Dawn Yingling, a 44-year-old single mother from Indianapolis, said that the speech was "fabulous" but that she still isn't going to work for the Obama campaign. "She was fabulous, nothing less than I expected. It's hard to sit here and think about she would have accomplished. We're not stupid -- we're not going to vote for John McCain," she said. But she'll limit her campaigning to a House candidate. "It will take a Congress as well as a president. That's what I can do and be true to who I am."

If last nights speech did nothing else, it set Senator Clinton up very nicely for 2012 should Senator Obama lose this year. She again showed why the Clinton's are masters at playing the game of politics and Senator Obama would be wise to remember and utilize that mastery.

Thoughts On Night 1

"If this party has a message, it's done a hell of a job hiding it tonight, I promise you that."

James Carville, Monday night of the Democratic Convention 2008

I was watching the convention up until Senator Claire McCaskill took the stage and he has a point. Although I did enjoy the tribute to Senator Kennedy.

Denial

She just doesn't get it. We need to be producing our OWN oil.

House Democratic leaders and protesters waving McCain signs had a war of words Tuesday at a press event outside an old train station. The demonstrators interrupted House Speaker Nancy Pelosi with chants of “Drill here! Drill now!”

Pelosi paused and asked the group, “Right here?”

Seeming to enjoy the back and forth, she followed with another question: “Can we drill your brains?”

Only if we can drill yours too Madame Speaker.....

She went on to refer to the protestors, who continued to chant sporadically, as “handmaidens of Big Oil.” (I'm still waiting for my check since I too am apparently a paid operative - at least according to the liberal commenters here!) Arguing that increased offshore drilling would only reduce gas prices two cents in 10 years, she referred to the demonstrators as the “two-cents-in-ten-years-crowd.”

That is a lie that has been debunked time and time again Madame Speaker. It's called basic economics. Maybe you can take a refresher class AFTER you take a refresher in Catholic theology.

Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer swiped at the demonstrators, too, saying that “sophomoric chanting” (yet it will win the war in Iraq or get rid of President Bush right?) won’t solve the energy crisis and that “all thinking Americans know” — stressing the word "thinking" and looking at the crowd — that America doesn’t have a quarter of the word’s fossil fuels yet uses a quarter of the world’s energy.

That too has been debunked many times. Between oil shale, oil sands and crude oil we have enough oil to power this country for over 100 years.

Look - I have said multiple times that drilling ALONE is not the answer. However, the Democrat Majority needs to get off of their cynical aversion to domestic oil production. It is an absolutely necessary part of a well round approach to domestic energy!

From The DNC - A Preview of St. Paul

The blogger known as Zombie is in Denver prowling the streets with the Recreate '68 crowd. His report from yesterday was interesting to say the least.

Word had disseminated among the protest crowd that there was to be an "Anti-capitalist march" as well as a "Meet-up for Fundraiser Disruption" jointly announced by Recreate 68 and DNC Disruption 08, two radical groups dedicated to causing problems at the Democratic National Convention in Denver. A notice online said, "Interested parties will gather at 6pm at civic center park" where "top-secret information on a couple of the choicest fundraisers and parties in Denver" was to be handed out. Then, "at the appointed time monday night, we'll emerge from the shadows to reconvene in downtown and get down and dirty."

OK - note to the protesters....advertising where you are going and when on the internet or the radio is NOT a smart thing. Yes it is a great way to get the word out to your people but they aren't the only ones reading/listening...the cops are too!

After the police managed to contain the protesters (and any observer who was unfortunate enough to get caught up in the action as Zombie found out) one protester turned to a makeshift target.

Denied their primary targets, the anarchists made do with what they had: some began spraypainting slogans on the walls. This guy was writing "We're taking St. Paul next!"

Oh goodie...St. Paul next. I hope the St Paul PD is paying attention to what is happening in Denver. Because this is a preview of what we will see.

Torture?

Mitch and Ed bring us stories today of the total lack of.....I don't know what that tends to run rampant in "progressive" circles. Call it a stunning lack of knowledge of history or simply an over-use of over wrought rhetoric these stories echo a common theme.

Let me put this as plainly as I possibly can....waiting for a cup of "free range, vegan Guatemalan" coffee is not torture. Neither is anything that is happening at Gitmo. What is torture is having food and water with-held from you. What John McCain went through in Viet Nam is torture. What IS torture is having cigarettes put out on your body just because.

What we have at Gitmo or in "Gitmo by the Platte" is not a "concentration camp". To quote my friend Doc Farmer...

Concentration Camp?

CONCENTRATION CAMP?

Uh, Earth to lib/dem/soc/ commies. This isn’t a concentration camp…

This, however, IS.

As is this…

And This…

AND THIS…

Oh, and keep this in mind. Those “original” concentration camps weren’t devised by Bush or Cheney or Halliburton. They were devised by Hitler. A political SOCIALIST.

Thanks Doc for the timely history lesson.

Silverio Salazar

My radio partner Jazz Shaw scored a major interview over the weekend...Silverio "Silver" Salazar - Democrat activist, related to Ken and John Salazar (Senator and Representative respectively) of Colorado and John McCain supporter.

JAZZ SHAW: I see from a previous interview that you haven’t actually left the Democratic Party. Do you view the party today as still being mostly in line with your basic political ideology, or is it moving further away? Or are your views perhaps changing over the years?

SILVERIO SALAZAR: I’m glad you asked me that. When asked why I’m still a Democrat, I tell people that I haven’t left the Democratic Party and I’m not leaving it. The Democratic Party is leaving me. Some of our local legislators – and the Democrats are in control of both the state house and senate - have done things which are not in the JFK and FDR mold of Democrats.

Go read the whole thing and let me know your thoughts.

Walking Wounded

One of the things that I am doing in all my spare time, is reading the book "Regret The Error: How Media Mistakes Pollute the Press And Imperil Free Speech" by Craig Silverman. It is an entertaining look into media errors, the history of biased media reporting. For anyone who is interested in media coverage of anything (and especially for bloggers) it is must reading.

The charge of media bias is no longer one leveled by bloggers on the right (although we were the first to sound the warnings). Many on the left have also started to notice a bias in media reporting.

Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell was supposed to give “closing remarks” during this afternoon’s Shorenstein Center-sponsored panel discussion with all three Sunday show moderators — NBC’s Tom Brokaw, ABC’s George Stephanopoulous and CBS’s Bob Schieffer — but instead, he opened up a can of worms about bias in 2008 election coverage

"Ladies and gentleman, the coverage of Barack Obama was embarrassing," said Rendell, in the ballroom at Denver's Brown Palace Hotel. "It was embarrassing."

Rendell, an ardent Hillary Rodham Clinton supporter during the primaries, now backs Obama in the general election. Brokaw and Rendell began debating campaign coverage, including the on-air comments by Lee Cowan, and when MSNBC came up, Rendell went after the cable network.

“MSNBC was the official network of the Obama campaign," Rendell said, who called their coverage "absolutely embarrassing."

Chris Matthews, Rendell said, "loses his impartiality when he talks about the Clintons.”

Of course, the progressive bloggers will tell you that the media is biased toward Republicans which is not the case at all. Oh sure they point to Fox News but they have MSNBC, CNN (or as conservatives called them in the 1990's the CLINTON News Network for it's fawning coverage of President Bill Clinton), HNN, ABC, CBS, NBC, the NY Times, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, the LA Times and many many more. That is what gave rise to the success of talk radio superstars like Rush Limbaugh, Laura Ingraham and Hugh Hewitt. It is no secret why these alternative media outlets have seen such success...the mainstream media has forgotten the main purpose of reporting - to bring people the facts about what is going on and letting the PEOPLE form their own opinions based on those facts.

There is a reason why circulation and viewership numbers are way down for these media outlets and why the number of alternative media sources (talk radio and the blogs) are going up. People know what they are getting with talk radio and blogs. Rush and Laura and O'Reilly and most bloggers readily admit that they are opinion based in their writings and utterances. They don't pull the wool over their listeners and readers eyes by claiming to be "journalists". That is the difference and why alternative media will continue to grow and conventional journalism shrinks.

Mainstream media needs to get it's act together quickly and get back to basics or they will be replaced by the main STREET media.

Follow The Genes

I have written before about the nature of Chicago politics and the power of the machine. For those of you who have not lived there it may be a little difficult to unravel the layers of this onion, but Michael Baron made a valiant attempt at it today. It is not about what you know or even necessarily who you know (although that helps) as much as who you are related to.

That's how William Ayers got where he was. When he came out of hiding because the federal government was unable to prosecute him (because of government misconduct), he got a degree in education from Columbia and then moved to Chicago and got a job on the education faculty of the University of Illinois-Chicago Circle. How did he get that job? Well, it can't have hurt that his father, Thomas Ayers, was chairman of Commonwealth Edison (now Exelon) and a charter member of the Chicago establishment. As Mayor Richard M. Daley said recently, in arguing that the Ayers association should not be held against Obama, "His father was a great friend of my father."

In none of our other major cities is genealogy so important. I remember a story that Bill Plante of CBS News has often told. Plante was working for WBBM, the Chicago CBS-owned and -operated affiliate, during the violence-plagued Democratic National Convention. At a press conference, he asked the late Mayor Richard J. Daley a question "da mare" thought was impertinent. Daley's answer was, "Sometimes even in the best of families there's a bad apple." It baffled the members of the national press, ut not those from Chicago. Plante's father and brother were Democratic precinct committeemen in the 49th Ward. The late Mayor Daley had the whole city of Chicago in his head. It is only natural that his son should vouch for someone by saying that their fathers were great friends.

The voters of Chicago and Illinois respect family ties in a way that voters in no other state or city do. The current Mayor Daley is, of course, the son of the late Mayor Daley; the two Daleys have been mayors, and effective and competent mayors, of Chicago for 40 of the last 53 years. The attorney general of Illinois is the daughter of the speaker of the Illinois House of Representatives. The governor of Illinois is the son-in-law of the Democratic ward committeeman in the 33rd Ward. The congressman from the 2nd Congressional District is Jesse Jackson Jr. Jackson's predecessor-but-one in the district was Morgan Murphy Jr., whose father was chairman of (get this) Commonwealth Edison.

But my favorite example of the importance of family ties is 3rd District Rep. Dan Lipinski, who was first elected in 2004 to replace his father, Bill Lipinski, who was first elected in 1982. Bill Lipinski won the Democratic nomination in the March 2004 primary. But on August 13, he announced he would not seek re-election and would resign the Democratic nomination. The deadline for replacing him was August 26, and a meeting was set on August 17 for the 19th Ward and township Democratic committeemen to choose a new candidate. Lipinski announced his support for his son, who was then a professor of political science at the University of Tennessee and had not lived in Chicago for many years. Among the committeemen making the decision were: 11th Ward committeeman and County Commissioner John Daley, son of the late mayor and brother of the current mayor; 13th Ward committeeman Michael Madigan, speaker of the Illinois House and father of Attorney General Lisa Madigan; 14th Ward committeeman Edward Burke, who succeeded his father as a council member in his 20s and and was longtime chairman of the Finance Committee, and whose wife is a justice of the Illinois Supreme Court; 19th Ward committeeman Tom Hynes, former Cook County Assessor and father of Illinois Comptroller Dan Hynes; and 23rd Ward committeeman Bill Lipinski. An electorate more averse to an argument against nepotism cannot be imagined. Lipinski advanced his son's name and said, "I'm optimistic, but one never knows in politics until the votes are counted." It did not take long to count them: Dan Lipinski was nominated without opposition. To the charge that the nomination was rigged, one participant dryly noted that anyone could have run.

Emphasis mine - go back and read again the family ties in the bolded section.

One more family needs to be added to the geneology....Emil Jones' family. Remember, this is the same Emil Jones who, when announcing his recent retirement, endorsed his son as his replacement. This is (partly) how Senator Barack Obama fits in to this story.

What stood out about the skinny, 25-year-old community organizer the first time Emil Jones met him?

"He was a little pushy," the president of the Illinois Senate recalls of Barack Obama.

Jones was just a state senator back in 1985 when he noticed a handful of people gathering down the block from his South Side district office. Jones walked over to see what they were up to.

It wasn't till he read about it in Obama's book, years later, that he realized the group had been gathering to organize a protest.

"I sort of startled them by warmly greeting them," Jones said, sitting in his state office in Chicago's Thompson Center. "They were organizing to get some attention for the dropout rate at Fenger High School. I had the same concerns, so I invited them in to my office. We sat down and had a dialogue. They weren't just there to complain. They actually had solutions to the problem. "

Years later, Jones would welcome Obama into the state Senate and help shepherd him into the U.S. Senate.

Now comes the rest of the Obama tie in...

How did this outsider from Hawaii and Columbia and Harvard become somebody somebody sent? His wife, Michelle Robinson Obama, had some connections: Her father was (I believe) a Democratic precinct committeeman, she baby-sat for Jesse Jackson's children, and she worked as a staffer for the current Mayor Daley.

Emphasis again mine. Note more family ties and ties to the Daley family. Now what so you suppose happens when you cross "la famalia"?? Journalist Stanley Kurtz found out the hard way.

Conservative writer Stanley Kurtz—researching an article for the National Review about connections between Barack Obama and former Weather Underground terrorist William Ayers—made a big mistake.

The poor man took a wrong turn on the Chicago Way. Now he's lost.

Kurtz's research was to be done in a special library run by the University of Illinois at Chicago. The library has 132 boxes full of documents pertaining to the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, a foundation vested heavily in school reform.

Care to take a wild guess as to whose name is on the UIC Library? The one that houses the Annenberg Challenge documents? You would be wrong if you said any other name but Daley...

You don't understand, Mr. Kurtz? Allow me to explain. The secret is hidden in the name of the library:

The Richard J. Daley Library.

Eureka!

The Richard J. Daley Library doesn't want nobody nobody sent. And Richard J.'s son, Shortshanks, is now the mayor.

And in the City of Chicago - what the Daley family wants, the Daley family GETS!

This is the "power" behind Senator Barack Obama. He did not get to where he is today without a lot of help from "family" and that "family" is going to expect favors in return once Barack gets into the White House.

Think about that for a moment. Take from now until October 31 if you need to but realize what is behind the so-called "Candidate of Change".....the same old politics of 1968. Talk about Recreating '68!

Too Close To Call?

The University of Minnesota's Humphrey Institute and MPR released their latest poll on the MN Senate race. In it, the polling shows Al Franken with a 1 point lead over incumbent Senator Norm Coleman. Now the minute that the poll came out, the MN GOP started screaming bloody murder - saying yet again that MPR poll is biased against Republicans which is partly true. As always, the MPR/Humphrey Poll oversampled Democrats in their poll. Of the registered voters polled, 50% of the sample identified themselves as Democrats, 10% were Independents and 39% were Republicans. No hint as what that missing 1% was. However, as much as the MNGOP says that the MPR poll is inaccurate (again) remember that the MNGOP said that in 2006 when Republicans got slaughtered in the polls!

All of that said, there are some secondary statistics that belie the results of the poll. First, 46% of those Democrats polled (who say that they are likely to vote in the September primary) say that Franken's views are "too liberal". In the main polling sample, more voters considered the political attitude of Senator Coleman to be "about right". Only 33% said Franken was "about right". Conversely, 46% of this group said that Franken was "too liberal". More of the "swing voters" said that they supported Coleman 35% to Franken's 26%. Coleman's support with his base is greater than Franken's (81% to 71%) .

One other point to consider (in this equation) comes from this Rasmussen poll (HT Powerline). If the poll is accurate and Democrats are losing people who identify themselves as "Democrat", this oversampling could drastically skew the results of the poll dramatically.


The key to this race may just be Dean Barkley. Most of Barkley's support comes from Democrats which hurts Al Franken. With 9% of those responding saying that they support Barkley, that could prove to be Franken's undoing.

In the end, this is why polls are at once a helpful tool and a potentially unreliable bellweather. Especially now, there is too much change taking place for the polls to accurately keep up with. Which is going to make this election all that more fun to watch.

Out of Touch Again

The headline says it all "Candidate does not know how many houses he owns". Only the headline is not from 2008. It's from 2004! In the last two days, Senator Barack Obama has tried to make hay over a remark by Senator John McCain where he said that he didn't know how many homes that he and his wife owned. Sen. Joe Biden even quipped today that Sen. McCain needs to "figure out which of the seven kitchen tables to sit at". The problem with this is that when Republicans raised the charge about then nominee John Kerry in 2004.....

The aggregate value of these five homes is roughly$29 million, but the claim that John Kerry "owns" all of these properties is problematic. John and Teresa Kerry signed a prenuptial agreement and have kept their premarital assets separate.

Hmmmm.....now where have I heard that before???? Oh yeah that's where...

When I did a story about John McCain's release of his tax returns a few weeks ago, I somehow missed out on the glaring fact that Republican Presidential hopeful John McCain has a prenuptial agreement with second wife Cindy McCain. Well, at least she let him keep his maiden name.

So let's see just who owns those homes...the condo in Arlington, the Phoenix high rise and two of the four properties near Sedona are all owned by the Cindy Hensley McCain Family Trust. The 2nd Phoenix high rise condo and the Phoenix duplex...all owned by the Wild River Rental LLC. The two condos in Coronado CA are owned by the Dream Catcher Family Trust LLC. The other two Sedona properties (a house and a vacant property) are owned by the Sedona Hidden Valley LP. The condo in La Jolla CA is owned by the Margurite Hensley Survivors Trust. Eleven total properties and not one of them has John McCain's name on it. All are owned by either a business trust or by his wife - just the same as John and Teresa Kerry.

So before any of you Democrats decide to cast stones remember this. Four years ago, you defended John Kerry when he was faced with the same accusations. Do you really want to go down this particular road?

Who Needs "Comprehensive Reform"?

One of the strawmen that the amnesty supporters (like Bennion Spencer) have thrown out in response to the demands that America enforce it's immigration law is that you simply can not deport the millions of illegal immigrants that are in this country. Well as this story points out, you don't need to deport them....if the conditions are right.

DALLAS — Illegal immigrants are returning home to Mexico in numbers not seen for decades — and the Mexican government may have to deal with a crush on its social services and lower wages once the immigrants arrive.

The Mexican Consulate's office in Dallas is seeing increasing numbers of Mexican nationals requesting paperwork to go home for good, especially parents who want to know what documentation they'll need to enroll their children in Mexican schools.

"Those numbers have increased percentage-wise tremendously," said Enrique Hubbard, the Mexican consul general in Dallas. "In fact, it's almost 100 percent more this year than it was the previous two years."

The illegal immigrant population in the U.S. has dropped 11 percent since August of last year, according to the Center for Immigration Studies. Its research shows 1.3 million illegal immigrants have returned to their home countries.

I have no doubts that the weakening economy has a lot to do with it, but let's not discount the effect of the ICE raids that took place in states like Minnesota and Iowa in recent months. No one arrested in these raids were for illegal entry into the United States....they were all arrested for identity theft! Another contributing factor to the mass exodus has to do with strengthened immigration legislation being introduced in states like Oklahoma and Arizona.

The fact that 1.3 million illegal immigrants have left of their own volition tells you that there is no need for the type of mass deportations that people like Lindsay Graham, John McCain and Bennion Spencer (see - I can be tough on the Republicans too) say will be necessary to curb the problems we are currently seeing as a result of illegal immigration. All we need to do is enforce the existing laws and the problem will take care of itself.

Then once we have control of our borders, we can talk about a real comprehensive reform that will allow more people to come into the US quickly and legally.

A Dogs Eye View

This was sent to me by the worlds best border collier (patent pending) and the crazed mini-aussie Captain Jack (with the help of a human friend).

10 Peeves about Humans

1. Blaming your "gas" on me...not funny...not funny at all!!!!!

2. Yelling at me for barking. I'M A DOG YOU IDIOT! (Guilty as charged)

3. Taking me for a walk, then not letting me check stuff out. Exactly whose walk is this anyway? (OK - point taken)

4. Any trick that involves balancing food on my nose...stop it!

5. Any haircut that involves bows or ribbons. Now you know why we chew your stuff up when you're not home. (never done that...yet)

6. The sleight of hand, fake fetch throw. You fooled a dog! Whoooo Hoooooooo! What a proud moment for the top of the food chain.

7. Taking me to the vet for "the big snip", then acting surprised when I freak out every time we go back! (That reminds me....)

8. Getting upset when I sniff the crotches of your guests. Sorry but I haven't quite mastered that handshake thing yet.

Thanks for the laugh guys and I promise to let you sniff more on the next walk.

9. Dog sweaters. Hello??? Haven't you noticed the fur?



10. How you act disgusted when I lick myself. Look, we both know the truth, you're just jealous.

In The Tank

On Wednesday, the SLTrib breathlessly reported...

Obama out-raising McCain in Utah

As always, the truth is not exactly what was reported...

The rumors of John McCain's Utah demise are at least slightly exaggerated.

Media reports citing Barack Obama's sizeable fundraising advantage only show part of the picture. It is true the Democrats' presumptive nominee has outraised the GOP contender over the entire campaign -- $706,046 to $595,320. But trends are everything in politics, and a closer look at the numbers shows a story more murky than Utah Lake.

Conventional wisdom is that Mitt Romney simply drained Utah pocketbooks in his attempt to secure the nomination. (He took nearly 90 percent of the Utah vote in the primary.)

Romney and McCain were also bitter rivals in the primary races, putting McCain on many Utahns' bad side. So it's no wonder he had raised only about $160,000 here by February, when Romney suspended his campaign.

The first thing to look at in a McCain-Obama race then, is fundraising after Romney dropped out to see if the state's Republican base forgave the GOP pick. Beginning in March, Utahns gave about the same amount to each presumptive nominee through Aug. 20 -- $433,470 to McCain, $431,659 to Obama.

The Herald even did the basic reporting that the AP and the SLTrib neglected to do.

•¬ According to Federal Election Commission reports, McCain took it on the chin for two more months after Romney suspended his campaign, bringing in less than $20,000 each month. But in May, things turned around in a big way, with Utahns giving $257,862 to McCain when Romney and President George Bush came to town for a fundraiser.

• Obama had a huge March, bringing in $119,699. But he was in a battle royale with Democratic opponent Sen. Hillary Clinton until June, and his fundraising here has also been up and down. But if you count just the last three months, Obama has out-raised McCain by about $47,000.

Again I have to ask, is it any wonder at all why the average Joe and Jane Voter have little trust in what they hear from most major media outlets? I mean when they can not even be bothered to do the basic research that is required of their jobs...

Slamming The Door.

I was going to write on this yesterday, but I got bombarded with so many other more timely stories so I let it slide to today. Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty was campaigning for Senator McCain in Wisconsin on Monday and he gave a speech on energy at the UW Madison.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, often mentioned as a potential running mate for Sen. John McCain, promoted the presumptive Republican presidential nominee's energy policy and critiqued his rival's as he campaigned across Wisconsin on Monday.

Pawlenty said Democratic Sen. Barack Obama would "slam the door shut" on additional nuclear power and offshore drilling if elected president because of his conditional support for those options.

McCain's plans to open more U.S. coastal waters to exploration for oil and gas and to add 45 nuclear power plants by 2030 would do more reduce the nation's dependence on foreign oil, Pawlenty said.

"Senator McCain's proposal is bold, it's aggressive, it's an all-of-the-above approach," Pawlenty said at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. "Senator Obama has taken a very minimalist, or none-of-the-above, or very-few-of-the-above approaches."

Senator McCain has stated many times that he would support an energy program along the lines of the American Energy Act which is currently bottled up by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. To be fair he was not always in favor of expanded drilling - however, given the current circumstances, he has realized that his prior plan will no longer work. Senator Obama also has come around to the realization that prior restrictions on domestic energy production can not longer work, however his conversion to the cause has been tepid at best. All of his speeches on the subject have been made with one foot firmly planted on EACH side of the debate.

On Sunday, Obama accused McCain of dropping his longstanding opposition to offshore drilling in recent months only because he saw it was a popular position in polls. The Illinois senator has said he could accept some additional drilling -- but only as part of a comprehensive energy package.

To be fair Senator Obama - Senator McCain at least made the change before the AEA debate got "popular". The same can not be said of you. Your policy shift was made in just the last two weeks when it became overwhelmingly apparent that the American people wanted more domestic energy production and they wanted it NOW!

Obama also has said nuclear energy would be on the table if he's elected.

Pawlenty said Obama's positions would be a roadblock to increasing the nation's energy supply. "I personally believe that if Barack Obama gets elected, he will slam the door shut on these options," he said. "If Senator McCain is elected, he will open the door to these options and allow our energy supply to be increased and take some of the pressure off our energy crisis in the country."

To be fair to both Senators, I am issuing a challenge. Even though the discharge petition does not apply to the Senate - PUT YOUR NAME ON THE PETITION. Show the American people that you mean what you say. Tell Speaker Pelosi that it is time for a real American Energy plan - one that will enrich the American people and not just her family and the businesses SHE has money invested in. Let the House debate and amend the American Energy Act TODAY.

Sign the Petition. Show the American people that you really mean what you say!

Letter From A Democrat

I got this email from a friend who now calls himself a "former Democrat". Could this be the feeling of other former Obama supporters? Names changed to protect the emailers privacy.

“Well, uh, you know, I think that whether you’re looking at it from a theological perspective or, uh, a scientific perspective, uh, answering that question with specificity, uh, you know, is, is, uh, above my pay grade.” - Sen. Barack Obama, on “When does a baby get human rights?”

In 1948, they had Harry Truman and “The buck stops here!”

In 2008, they’ve got Barack Obama and it’s “above my pay grade.”

This is definitely not your grandfather’s Democratic Party.

Certainly not mine. My grandfather, Roy F, was a lifelong FDR Democrat, the kind who would proudly rather vote for a wife-beating, syphilitic drunkard than for a Republican. In fact, he would find the previous sentence entirely redundant.

My grandfather helped push Patton’s tanks across Europe, and one reason for my grandfather’s unshakable party loyalty was his belief that Harry Truman saved his life by dropping the A-bombs on Japan.

If Truman hadn’t made the call - if he’d demurred that such a profound life-and-death decision was “above my pay grade” - my grandfather believed that he and untold thousands of Americans would have died invading the Japanese mainland.

I miss my grandfather, but I’m also glad that he isn’t around to witness the tragic descent of his beloved Democratic Party.

Watching Obama with the Rev. Rick Warren this past weekend, answering questions - or, more accurately, not answering - about his most basic beliefs was simply embarrassing.

Obama supports partial-birth abortion and voted against the “Born Alive Infant Protection Act.” When he got the invitation to an evangelical forum hosted by a pro-life pastor, he had to know that issues regarding life and the law were going to come up.

And his prepared answer to the most fundamental question about public policy and abortion (“is the fetus a human being?”) is that it’s “above my pay grade?”

There are certain sentences that should never appear on the lips of the Leader of the Free World. “That Vladimir Putin, what a great guy!” is one of them. “I did not have sex with that woman” is another.

But on the very top of the list of statements about our nation’s laws that should never be spoken by a guy whose job it is to sit next to the Big, Red Button is “That’s above my pay grade.”

With all due respect, Sen. Obama, being president is above your pay grade. And the voters are starting to figure that out.

Politico.com reported yesterday that 75 percent of Americans believe that John McCain can “handle the job of commander in chief.” Only 50 percent feel the same about Obama. A whopping 42 percent told pollsters they believe Obama is simply not up to the task.

Who can blame them? Obama wants the difficult duty of taking on Iran and North Korea, but he can’t even handle Rick Warren or the Clintons - the latter having commandeered Obama’s own convention in Denver next week and forced their way into a pro-Hillary roll call. Having been routed by the Clintonistas, Obama wants a chance to lead against al-Qaeda? Please.

Leaders don’t pass tough questions to the next “pay grade.” They don’t need five minutes to answer yes-or-no questions about the surge or Russia’s invasion of a democratic neighbor.

Politicians flip-flop on taxes and FISA and the Second Amendment to meet the political needs of the moment. They try to explain away the votes they’ve already cast, like Obama’s extreme pro-abortion voting record. Or they courageously cast 130 non-votes of “present” in the Illinois legislature and pass the buck that way.

That’s not leadership, that’s politics. And Barack Obama is 100 percent pure politician.

He is certainly no Harry Truman

VeepStakes

Taking a look at the RNC Speakers schedule I have to honestly say that it appears highly doubtful that Governors Palin, Jindal or Pawlenty, Sen. Lieberman or former Governors Romney, Ridge or Huckabee will get the VP nod as they are already scheduled to speak at other times during the convention. So who does this leave us?

Rep. Eric Cantor of VA. Pro he could bring Virginia back into the red - especially if blue collar Democrats in VA stay home (as suggested yesterday). Another pro is that the DNC already has an attack site up dedicated to him which means they fear him just a bit. However, if all they can come up with is "he's Jewish you know..." they are really stretching their already thin credibility. I mean how many "next Cheney"s are out there?

Another name I have heard bandied about is former Michigan Governor John Engel. That could certainly help keep Ohio in the fold and flip Michigan to the red column. It could help him in parts of Pennsylvania.

Speaking of Ohio another name mentioned is former Ohio Congressman John Kasich. Kasich is young enough to be tapped as the "heir apparent", conservative enough to make the base happy as clams and because of his roots could keep Ohio and possibly flip Pennsylvania.

Obviously we are in prime dark horse territory here. As the speculation heats up it will be interesting to see what other dark horse names pop up here.

Speaking At The Convention

As I posted at True North, the RNC has released their line up of speakers for the convention. Here are my thoughts on each day's line up.

Day One

• U.S. Sen. Joseph Lieberman (Conn.)
• Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (Calif.)
• Vice President Richard B. Cheney
• First Lady Laura Bush
• President George W. Bush

Nice way to start the convention. You knew that you were not going to keep a sitting President and Vice President away from the convention, so it is best to start with them and get it done and over with. The fact that Senator Lieberman is speaking early gives Sen. McCain the bi-partisan feel that he wants, while taking the bases concerns in mind.

Day 2

• Former New York City Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani
• Former Gov. Mike Huckabee (Ark.)
• Former Gov. Tom Ridge (Pa.)
• Gov. Sarah Palin (Alaska)
• Gov. Jon Huntsman (Utah)
• Rosario Marin, California Secretary of the State and Consumer Services Agency and former Treasurer of the United States
• Former U.S. Sen. Fred Thompson (Tenn.)
• Gov. Linda Lingle (Hawaii)
• Former Lt. Gov. Michael Steele (Md.)

Killer Day two. Lots of heavy hitters and favorites of the conservative base (Thompson, Palin) mixed with a couple of new faces for the future (Huntsman, Lingle, Steele) and a lot of serious policy gravitas. The addition of Governor Huntsman was a pleasant surprise - especially in the company he is in. I have been a raving Michael Steele fan for the last 4 years so I am excited to see him get this opportunity. He is a true rising star in the party.

Day 3

• U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman (Minn.)
• Meg Whitman, National Co-Chair for McCain 2008 and former President and CEO of eBay
• Carly Fiorina, Victory ‘08 Chairman for the Republican National Committee and former Chairman and CEO of Hewlett-Packard Co.
• Former Gov. Mitt Romney (Mass.)
• Mrs. Cindy McCain
• Gov. Bobby Jindal (La.)
• Republican Party’s Vice Presidential Nominee

Mitt Romney speaking on Wednesday night (ahead of the VP nominee slot) pretty much assures us that he is most likely not the VP. Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina are great choices (IMHO) and Bobby Jindal is another rising star that should go far in coming years.

Day 4

• Gov. Tim Pawlenty (Minn.)
• Gov. Charlie Crist (Fla.)
• U.S. Sen. Sam Brownback (Kan.)
• U.S. Sen. Mel Martinez (Fla.)
• John McCain

While on one hand, I am happy to see Governor Pawlenty land this prime speaking slot (let's face it more people will turn in on the final night in order to see the Presidential nominee) I suspect that this pretty much means that he is out of the Veep-stakes as well. This night is the night for the longstanding McCain supporters to get their "reward" for their loyalty.

All in all it's not a bad line up. A nice mix of views and ideas. I am happy to see Minnesota get two prime speaking spots (after all we are the "host" state). It also shows the seriousness of the McCain campaign toward the issues we are facing going forward. Who knows better what the consequences ofthe fight against terrorism than Rudy Giuliani? Who knows more about the effect of out of control spending and high gas prices on the economy than a couple of business owners? Who knows more about how harmful out of control federal regulation can be than a bevy of governors who have to implement things like No Child Left Behind?

Contrast that to the Democrat speakers line up which contains several of Obama's Chicago cronies including Mayor Richard M (Richie) Daley (what no Tony Rezko?), a union organizer and John Kerry.

The next two weeks should be very enlightening indeed.

Why People Distrust The Press

Here is a prime example of why people distrust the press. At 12:15 Mountain Time, I pulled the following story off of both Fox News AND the Cleveland Plain Dealer websites.

EAST CLEVELAND, Ohio — U.S. Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones, the first black woman to represent Ohio in Congress, has died, FOX News confirms.

Tubbs Jones, 58, was earlier sent to the hospital Tuesday evening after suffering an aneurysm while driving her car.

Tubbs Jones' car veered off the side of the road Tuesday night. Police found her unconscious behind the wheel.

According to a police report, an officer was driving behind Tubbs Jones' car at about 9 p.m.ET and observed her weaving.

After a couple of turns, the officer turned on his lights to stop the congresswoman. When she pulled to the side, her car then started to roll across the lanes of oncoming traffic. The officer then pulled his cruiser in front of her car to block it from oncoming traffic, the report said.

When the officer walked up to her sedan, he noticed she was in "medical distress" and called for an ambulance.

Only one problem with that....as both sites (and numerous others) are reporting Rep. Tubbs Jones is not dead but in critical condition.

This is what happens when you rush to be the FIRST to report anything. You run the very real risk of ending up with egg on your face.

My prayers go out to Rep. Tubbs Jones and her family.

UPDATE AND BUMP: The Cleveland Plain Dealer says that the family is confirming that Rep. Tubbs-Jones died t 6:12pm (EST) as the result of a brain hemorrhage caused by an aneurysm in an inaccessible part of her brain. Our prayers and sympathies go out to her family as they mourn her loss.

Losing Ground Part 2

I have been talking about some of the things that have pointed toward vulnerability in the Obama campaign and their effects on the polls. The latest has been the Russia/Georgia conflict.

War doesn't change anything? Wish it were true - but war has been humankind's preferred means of effecting change.

We're all - right and left - getting an in-your-face lesson about how the world really works. Passive resistance only has a chance when your opponent believes in the rule of law and respect for human rights. Gandhi was effective against law-abiding Britain, but he would've frozen to death in the Soviet gulag - if he'd lived long enough to reach the camps.

I'd love it if we lived in a world where war truly didn't work. But war does work. That doesn't mean we shouldn't pursue other means of resolving international crises - but effective idealism has to be grounded in a practical grasp of present reality.

To make the world a better place, we have to begin with a clear-eyed assessment of what kind of place the world is.

Putin just showed us what stirring words about democracy and freedom are worth in the face of tanks and combat aircraft. The Georgians had the noble ideas and lofty dreams; the Russians had the troops and ammunition. Guess who won?

Today, Reuters/Zogby released their new poll and IF it is to be believed, the American voters have taken this "in your face" lesson to heart.

As Russian tanks rolled into the Republic of Georgia and the presidential candidates met over the weekend in the first joint issues forum of the fall campaign, the latest polling includes drama almost as compelling - Republican John McCain has taken a five-point lead over Democrat Barack Obama in the race for President, the latest Reuters/Zogby telephone survey shows.

McCain leads Obama by a 46% to 41% margin.

While the methodology appears to be valid, I still have my doubts about John Zogby and his polling methods. Zogby has had a horrible track record of late - missing the mark in the 2000 and 2004 elections badly. However the raw numbers, when taken with the context of the Rasmussen, SurveyUSA, USAToday and other polls (and the RCP average that I posted on last night) seem to back up the contention that Senator Obama's campaign is in real trouble heading into the convention. Take this data for example:

Obama Support July August Difference
Democrats 83% 79% -9%
Women 50% 42% -8%
Catholics 47% 36% -11%
Under 35 59% 47% -12%
College Grads 51% 40% -11%
Live In Cities 54% 43% -11%
Income < $50k 53% 46% -7%
Southerners 46% 35% -11%

The double digit loss of support among key Democratic demographics (Women, Under 35, Collete grads) should be the most troubling trend for the Obama campaign as these are the core of the "new voters" that Senator Obama is staking his campaign on. His support among Souther voters is also troubling, especially as word of his vote on the Illinois Born Alive Protection Act starts to get around.

What should really trouble the DNC is the fact that their guy is going into his convention in a statistical tie with a candidate who the pundits said early on had no shot...especially when you consider that prior to Obama's grand European tour he held an easy double digit lead.

One has to wonder if the super delegates are suddenly reconsidering the wisdom of throwing their support behind Senator Obama as early as they did. Is that the phone I hear ringing? Senator Clinton on line 1!

Defining Life

Over at Anti-Strib, I put up a post about how the Minneapolis Star Tribune quickly buried a story about how Barack Obama has mislead the voters of this country on his actions regarding the Illinois version of the Infant Born Alive Act. I suppose I should give them some credit - the Salt Lake Tribune has yet to cover this story...I wonder why.

Painted during the Democratic primary as weak on abortion rights, Barack Obama is now being portrayed by opponents of abortion as an extremist who literally supports killing babies.

Both portraits are based on his handling of a related issue in the Illinois Senate, and Obama insists they distort his position.

The Democratic presidential candidate says he firmly supports a woman's right to choose but can accept some restrictions — including a requirement that medical care be provided for any fetus that survives an abortion.

When asked specifically about abortion in last Saturday's Saddleback Forum, Senator Obama assured Pastor Rick Warren that he supported "reasonable" restrictions on late term abortions. However, apparently providing medical care to an infant that survives an abortion was not "reasonable" in Senator Obama's eyes when he was still in the Illinois Senate.

Over the years, Obama repeatedly has said the Illinois measure was different from the federal version in a key way — it lacked language spelling out that it would not interfere with abortion rights. If the Illinois legislation had that provision, he said, he would have backed it.

Now, however, abortion opponents have pointed out that Obama opposed a version of the bill that included a "neutrality clause." The bill was killed in 2003 by a state Senate committee Obama chaired.

Emphasis mine. The Obama campaign has changed their story on this multiple times. When the issue was first brought up, the campaign accused the people that raised it of lying. Then they said well it conflicted with existing Illinois state law. Then he just said well yeah they're right....but I was for the bill before I was against it (I'm searching for the exact quote). Sound familiar?

Look - I understand that Roe IS the law of the land and until the day that it no longer is, abortions will be legal. However, a child that survives an abortion is legally a US citizen and is therefore endowed with a Constitutional Right to Life. We are talking about a fetus that has shown itself (by surviving the abortion process) to be viable. If a doctor had denied lifesaving care to any other human being he/she would have been charged with negligent homicide at a minimum.

A lot of voters out there are like me when it comes to abortion. We realize that it is legally protected and that there are some circumstances where it is necessary. We may not like it and it will never be an option for us but we realize for some people it is an option. We therefore are fine with common sense restrictions on the process.

Read David Freddoso's chronology of the bill and the vote and decide for yourself. He has included language from the bill for his readers to judge for themselves. I suspect that many Utah voters are like me and while OK with in limited circumstances they are NOT OK with the thought of with holding medical care from a baby that survives abortion. That is common sense and it is unfortunately not what Senator Obama has in mind as a "reasonable" restriction.

Losing Ground?

Yesterday's WaPo did a long piece about how the Obama campaign is registering new voters and how that is key to their campaign in Virginia.

Virginia has added nearly a quarter-million registered voters since the 2004 elections, and about half of that growth came from increasingly Democratic Northern Virginia.

With Virginia a battleground state in the presidential race for the first time in 44 years, the additional voters have the potential to alter long-standing electoral patterns in some historically Republican counties while reinforcing the Democratic tilt of others.

According to a review of registration statistics from Nov. 1, 2004, through Aug. 1 of this year, Virginia has 235,976 more registered voters than it did in 2004, when President Bush carried the state by 262,000 votes.

Democrats say the newly registered voters are fueling the Democratic resurgence in the state, including the election of Gov. Timothy M. Kaine in 2005 and U.S. Sen. James Webb in 2006.

While I am not one to complain about new voters, I think getting these new voters are a fantastic thing. However, new voters are not always the most reliable voters as many campaigns have found out. The reliable voters are the ones who have worked their behinds off for the party, year in and year out. These voters come from all walks of life and from cities and rural areas and some of those reliable voters are not happy with the way the Democrat's nominee is handling the campaign.

The sea of shining, hope-filled faces that routinely flood Barack Obama's rallies would be an alien environment for the grizzled features and tobacco-stained temperament of Dave “Mudcat” Saunders.

His preferred habitat is up a tree gunning down deer or on the mud flats — which lent him their name — catching catfish, part of an endless struggle with Appalachian wildlife.

Along with his Confederate flag bedspread, the stag heads on his walls, his preference for profanity over punctuation, he would horrify what he calls the “northeastern elitist, Metropolitan Opera wing of the Democrats”.

But, as one of the party's few (some say only) rural strategists, this might just be part of Mr Obama's problem.

“The Democrats talk of tolerance, but in reality the only tolerance they ever exhibit is for their own intellectual arrogance — and they don't have tolerance for my culture,” says Mudcat. “They think we're a bunch of hillbilly heathens who go out and burn crosses and do crazy bullshit.

Emphasis mine. Notice how we (again) had to go to London to find this story? While I certainly don't agree with all of Mudcat's analysis, he offers a lot of wisdom that anyone would be foolish to ignore.

Although Mr Obama won Virginia and has since identified it as a prime target in November's general election, Mudcat cautions that Democrats cannot rely on urban liberals and African Americans in the north of the state.

He describes his hometown of Roanoke as “a trading post, like Tombstone”, belonging to a different culture west of the Blue Ridge mountains of which Mr Obama has no more understanding than Al Gore and John Kerry before him — who lost the rural vote by 16 and 19 per cent respectively.

Senator Obama lost blue collar voters (in the primary) to Hillary Clinton in every state. Mudcat has a record of being on the winning side of Democratic campaigns in Virginia so he knows his state and has a real feel for what is going on there. His thoughts...

He is scathing about the reliance on registering new voters. “If that's how he runs his campaign, he is going to lose. I'd rather bet on those who voted before. When he stands up and says that I'm gonna get 30 per cent more black voters — I'm gonna get 30 per cent more of my people to turn out for me — what is Joe Six-Pack thinking?”

Mudcat suggests that John McCain could win Michigan while holding Ohio and Florida. And, unless Mr Obama changes course, “he ain't gonna win Virgina either”.

Maybe Mudcat is right. If the LATimes/Bloomberg poll is any indication, the bad news is starting to hit Team Obama.

When last we had a L.A. Times/Bloomberg poll to peruse, the result that stood out (aside from Barack Obama's 12-percentage point lead over John McCain in a head-to-head match-up) was what we termed the "passion gap" -- a marked difference in enthusiasm levels that favored the Democrat in the June survey.

The new, just-released poll not only shows the race between the two dramatically tightening -- into a virtual dead heat, with Obama leading in the head-to-head by only 2 percentage points -- but it also identifies a distinct McCain asset: a huge advantage on the question of experience.

Now this is a poll of registered voters (versus likely voters) but the registered voter polls tend to favor Democrats. Also, the LAT/Bloomberg polls traditionally over sample Democrats in their polls. Knowing this, it makes the results all the more telling.

The Obama campaign should be up by 10 points or more. All the indicators say this and yet poll after poll after poll after poll has the race within the margin of error. The campaign is Obama's to lose and it sure looks like he is trying his hardest to do so. If he does not come out of his convention with more than a 6 point bump, it's pretty much all over but the crying.

UPDATE: The RCP state poll update is out and it has even more bad news for Obama. The updated Electoral map shows John McCain with 274 electoral votes and Barack Obama with 264.