No Runny Eggs

The repository of one hard-boiled egg from the south suburbs of Milwaukee, Wisconsin (and the occassional guest-blogger). The ramblings within may or may not offend, shock and awe you, but they are what I (or my guest-bloggers) think.

Archive for January 21st, 2008

Roll bloat – stay on target

by @ 16:02. Filed under The Blog.

That’s exactly what Fred Keller, late of the FranklinNOW-osphere, is doing with Bullseye.

Cold, hard reality check to The Corner

As long as I’m delivering (or is that reflecting?) cold, hard reality checks, I have to deliver one to The Corner’s Ramesh Ponnuru. As much as I want to believe a Republican can carry Wisconsin, I know that as long as the current power structure is here, no Pubbie will. Allow me to explain why:

– First, we’re the state that foisted Russ Feingold on the rest of the country. Even in a year when Tommy Thompson carried the state with nearly 60% of the vote, and after 6 years of federal liberalism out of Feingold, he won re-election.

– Similarily, our corrupt, lying ‘Rat of a governor, Jim Doyle, handily won re-election last year. Heck, we even tossed out our long-time Republican state treasurer for a part-time department store clerk.

– We’re the state that gave the country “smokes-for-votes” and slashed tires. With nothing of consequence done after the 2000 and 2004 elections, and the opportunity to oust the only prosecutor even remotely-interested in vote fraud present, all of the stops will be pulled out to ensure yet another tainted, yet certified ‘Rat win.

Video of the day

by @ 14:29. Filed under Politics - National.

(H/T – MKH)

This video of the various Presidential candidates belting out David Bowie’s “Changes” ought to keep you from playing Russian Roulette with all the chambers loaded (I’ve gone back to the safer practice of leaving one chamber empty):

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJtgEfIla0A[/youtube]

Presidential Pool – What went wrong for Fred Thompson?

by @ 13:57. Filed under Politics - National.

It’s either this or reflection on the end of the Packer season, and this happened first (besides, I’m more-apt to put the latter over at TheWisconsinSportsBar, and my fellow bartenders pretty much already summed it up complete with expletives). First, let me state for the record that I’m nowhere near a professional political operative (the rambling nature of this post ought to be a dead giveaway), and that while the anticipated pronouncement that the boat is below the waves is tomorrow, it isn’t official yet.

A lot of people are saying and are going to say that Fred Thompson got into the race too late. If by late, you mean he got in later by an “absolute” calendar standard than successful candidates got in previous cycles, no. If by late, you mean he got in after everybody else did, yes. The “buzz” in politics, specifically press coverage and fundraising, is much like the time near the end of a race at Darlington, with only one green-flag pit stop left to go (I’ll ignore that Darlington tends not to have a lot of long green-flag runs). For those of you not familiar with NASCAR or Darlington Raceway, the surface at Darlington is very abrasive, and cars with a fresh set of tires turn laps that tend to be at least 2 seconds faster than cars that are at the end of their runs.

Yet, that was not nearly the fatal blow. Thompson did get a lot of buzz, especially in the conservative blogosphere, and more than enough cash to compete with at least John McCain and Mike Huckabee once he got in the race. Morever, all of the states had significant moves in support well after Thompson got into the race, so the “late” argument doesn’t exactly hold a lot of water for me.

That “late” argument does not explain why Duncan Hunter and Tom Tancredo, both of whom ran credibly on what was supposedly the number one conservative issue in 2007 (opposition to illegal immigration) and both of whom entered the race at the same time as everybody else, never gained more than token support and ultimately dropped out. It also does not explain why Mitt Romney, who poured a lot of money and time into every pre-Florida state and who ran to the right of Rudy McCabee for much of the pre-primaries/caucii portion of the campaign, essentially collapsed in every state contested by any third of that three-headed monster. I know, Romney did take a contested Michigan; however, there are a pair of mitigating circumstances. First, the Romney name is still remembered fondly in the state across the lake. Second, Romney went away from his previous broad-based conservatism message, especially in the economic department.

I’m left asking the same question the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute asked last April in “Wisconsin Interest” (Volume 16, Number 2), “Is conservatism out of gas?” I’m now leaning more toward my very-pessimistic Wisconsin-specific answer than my somewhat-more-optimistic national one, with the further revision that there are no gains to be had by focusing solely on social conservatism. Indeed, I’m almost ready to ask the follow-on question of whether conservatism is dead.

I’m also just about ready to ask and answer the question on whether the right-of-center part of the blogosphere has any actual influence. That really deserves its own missive, but I’ll give the upshot now; whatever influence we have is with the politicians themselves, not with the masses.

Ultimately, it was a combination of the cumulative effects of 70 years of almost-unchecked liberalism and complete chaos that was the Thompson campaign that doomed Thompson to the scrap heap of political history.

Roll bloat – beautification edition

by @ 11:39. Filed under The Blog.

I probably would have done this yesterday had I not the need to unleash an expletive (which through an unusual amount of self-restraint did not turn into a long string of them), and I should have done this long before today, but the combination of conservatism and a nom de plume of Vivian Lee (along with a comment left yesterday) gets Conservative Belle added to the roll. What can I say; I have a weakness for good-looking conservative women.

This was declared “Blue Monday” before the events of the weekend

by @ 11:28. Filed under Miscellaneous.

Charlie points us to a British study that declared that the third Monday in January, today, is the gloomiest day, “Blue Monday” if you will.

Despite the fact that this year has already turned into a disaster, both in sports and in politics, there is a mitigating circumstance on this side of the pond that doesn’t exist on the other side – we’re more-likely to have a vacation (or as the Brits call it, holiday) long before August. Collegiate spring break is less than 2 months away, Easter is early this year, we have Memorial Day that, in addition to its intended role as a remembrance of those that sacrificed all so we are free, serves as the start to summer, and scholastic summer vacation begins within a couple weeks of Memorial Day.

Attached to the end of the article is what James Taranto would call a “What would we do without researchers?” moment. Those same researchers found Friday night was the best night of the week. Well, duh!

Revisions/extensions (11:41 am 1/21/2008) – Yet another reason to declare this Blue Monday; today is the 35th anniversary of Roe v. Wade (H/T – Conservative Belle)

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