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.

June 16, 2010

“Shut up!”, they said – national edition

by @ 8:01. Filed under Politics - National.

(H/T – Owen)

There is a piece of legislation called the DISCLOSURE Act (H.R. 5175 on the Congressional calendar) that would, among other things, require disclosure of all donations to corporations, non-profit organizations, and unions of at least $600 to an account used for campaigning within 120 days (a new extension in and of itself) of an election (whether the entity uses a segregated political account or a mixed-use account), as well as all donations to corporations/unions of at least $6,000 regardless of purpose if said entity particpiates in campaigning.

Side note – while many are saying that this doesn’t apply to unions, that non-application, at least as of the May 25 mark-up, is a function of the way the triggers are written rather than an express exemption. Unions are already required to segregate political funds, and I don’t know of too many unions that take either $600 for that segregated political fund or $6,000 for total dues.

In order to grease the skids for shutting up the less-connected, Politico reported that the National Rifle Association negotiated a deal with the Democrats to exempt itself, and contrary to Democrat claims, other groups like AARP and the Humane Society, from the donation-reporting requirements. Specifically, the deal would “exempt organizations that have more than 1 million members, have been in existence for more than 10 years, have members in all 50 states and raise 15 percent or less of their funds from corporations”.

“Shut up!”, they said – Wisconsin edition

by @ 6:59. Filed under Politics - Wisconsin.

The Crist-ification of Mark Neumann continues unabated. As part of his pitch to Democrat cross-over vot…er, continuing string of street theater, this time outside the Democratic Party of Wisconsin convention, he told every commenter on the Wisconsin governor’s race to shut up. Christian Schneider grabbed the video for the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute…

[flv width=”480″ height=”380″]http://www.wpri.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/multimedia/videos/Mark_Neumann_on_Citizens_United.flv[/flv]

In case you couldn’t quite hear that, allow me to transcribe for you:

Unseen questioner – “What do you think about corporate money…the Supreme Court decision that equate (sic) corporate money with free speech and individuals, and unlimited corporation spending on campaigns? What do you think of that?”

Neumann – “I think they should shut down every outside source of information in this campaign except the candidates themselves standing right here in front of people like yourselves debating back-and-forth between them – that’s what I think.

“Now, whether that’s not constitutional so we obviously can’t do that. But if Mark Neumann got to have what he wished, that’s what would happen, sir.”

“Ironic” is probably too weak for this, but I find it hilarious that the person most dependent on the “independent” voters wants nothing but spoon-fed information from the campaigns given to them. Sorry Charl…er, Mark; I might have the blogging blahs, but I will not be silenced by you and your kind.

June 14, 2010

More Of The Same?

by @ 14:08. Filed under Miscellaneous.

President Obama is making yet another trip to the Gulf. After 3 trips and no change in results, what makes him think that a fourth time of making obvious to a blind man, demands and speaking in vulgarities could make any difference?

Our NRE paparazzi snapped the enclosed picture which provides the only logical explanation for a fourth, gulf trip.

June 11, 2010

Sticky Fingers Larson to take on Plale

by @ 11:12. Filed under Politics - Wisconsin.

(H/T – Charlie Sykes)

I guess the Democrats don’t want criminal activity to be an August surprise in their now-every-4-year push to Lieberman state Senator Jeff Plale (D-South Milwaukee). The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel is reporting they’ve recruited ticketed shoplifter and Milwaukee County Supervisor Chris Larson to take out Plale because he hasn’t quite fully-earned his “East Side” nickname.

I guess the Dems’ desire for somebody crooked might be a function of the unique shape of the 7th Senate District, which links Oak Creek to the UW-Milwaukee campus via MMSD’s Jones Island Water Reclamation Facility.

The Morning Scramble – Rocking GOP Women edition (guest-host Jo Egelhoff)

by @ 10:46. Filed under The Morning Scramble.

If you are not reading Jo Egelhoff’s FoxPolitics, you really should. As part of the site, she puts together a rather lenghty (week)daily e-mail summary of links that rivals the larger Scrambles.

In any case, she put together a GOP Women Rock Scramble for both me and you, the loyal reader (as with Dean’s Guest-Scramble earlier in the week, comments from me will be in italics)…

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQHZ7nvBSLY[/youtube]

  • The week started with Sarah Palin’s ‘mama grizzlies’ moniker. Great piece from The Daily Caller. One thing you never do is get between a mother grizzly and her cubs.
  • Regardless the party, should women court women? (Yes, sure, says Suzi Parker at the Christian Science Monitor. But you won’t get them just because you’re the same gender they are.) It’s all about the issues, and the middle of the road is a great place to get run over by both sides.
  • Post-Tuesday from Politico: Palin backing pays off for her pals. Love it. Interesting to see that Palin often uses the pro-life Susan B. Anthony List as a barometer…. I believe the gender-neutral term is roalty-maker.
  • Pre-Tuesday, the Christian Science Monitor asked – Is the Year of the Republican woman dawning? (Nod with me – YES.) I believe it was Jay Weber that said yesterday that they’re simply coming out from behind the scenes, mainly because of the Palin Factor.
  • No, according to Kudlow, this isn’t the Year of the Woman – but rather the year of the women from the past vs. the women for the future. Mostly he’s talking about Carly Fiorina, but lots of these new feminine faces qualify. Those who remember history….
  • Mama grizzlies or not, it’s cool that at least somebody noticed (WaPo) that these women for the future didn’t make their gender an issue. Rock on. I’m lovin’ it. Again, it’s all about the issues.
  • Ohmigosh – Fiorina’s the first one to screw up – into an open mike – messing with Barbara Boxer’s hair of all things.

    “…it is not a good way to start a woman-on-woman race by playing into negative stereotypes about female culture.”

    …. “If a man had made the comment, it would have been viewed as sexist. When a woman says it, it would be viewed as catty.”

    Senator Boxer saw an opening, and took it. “Let her talk about hair; we’re talking about jobs,” said Rose Kapolczynski, her campaign manager..

    When will politicians learn to not speak into a microphone that might be open? As someone who makes hay out of that situation, I hope never.

  • Will media call this the year of the woman? Ed Morrissey says well, probably not.

    Assuming these Republican women triumph in November, don’t expect the media to fawn over them the way they did in 1992 with the Democrats. Besides overcoming the natural liberal bias we see throughout much of the national press, it would also require the media to give Palin and Bachmann some credit, which will happen when global cooling hits Hell.

    Yeah, well… Because they don’t have the “correct” views, Ed is, as usual, right. I do, however, have a frozen sign of Hell, Michigan in the archives on the off-chance they do so.

Now go and thank Jo for putting together this morning’s Scramble.

June 8, 2010

Should the Wisconsin Tea Parties endorse candidates?

The opening item in the Guest-Host with Dean Edition of The Scramble noted the various Wisconsin Tea Party Movement groups are getting together this weekend, and the subject of endorsements is on the agenda. Because there’s so many groups, this really needs to be split into two questions – whether they should endorse if they agree on a single candidate and whether they should endorse if different groups want to endorse different candidates.

As Jay Weber said on this morning’s show, it simply isn’t effective to just carp from the sidelines. While endorsements are not the end-all/be-all, the cold, hard fact is that politicians quickly discount those who are merely gripers who do nothing more substantial in the political process than vent and vote.

An active and united, or even a nearly-united, Tea Party Movements (yes, I am intentionally butchering the grammar and using the plural) front is a rather powerful thing. Just ask Scott Brown, Doug Hoffman, or Rand Paul how much a united front helped them. Of course, the Hoffman experience shows the limits of that.

A badly-fractured set of Tea Party Movements, on the other hand, especially when there is a candidate quite unacceptable to any of the Movements, is extremely counterproductive. I’ll let Warner Todd Huston explain the lessons of Illinois (unlike my contemporaneous excerpt, I’ll take the Illinois governor primary):

There was the same problem with the six candidates that were running for the GOP nomination for Governor. Tea Party groups spilt their votes between Dan Proft and Adam Andrzejewski. Andrzejewski got a last minute surge from Tea Partiers, but it was too late to help. But if you combined the polling numbers that Proft and Andrzejewski were seeing into one that number was a winning number. Unfortunately, the vote was spilt between the two candidates, not settled on just one of them.

I am not saying that the worst-case scenario of the Tea Partiers splitting their votes and allowing a full-blooded RINO slip through is going to happen en masse in Wisconsin, but that is something that the various Tea Party groups have to keep in mind.

The good news is that they are taking the other lesson that Huston drew out to heart – they’re going to at least talk to each other about this. That’s something the Illinios Tea Party Movements singularly didn’t do.

Video of the day (part, I lost count)

by @ 11:27. Filed under Miscellaneous.

Uncle Jimbo knows a thing or two (million) about kicking ass, so enjoy him putting Teh Won’s candy-ass threat In the Crosshairs…

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cK2T4GbsnHY[/youtube]

The Morning Scramble – Guest-host edition (6/8/2010)

by @ 7:00. Filed under The Morning Scramble.

I had not intended to restart The Scramble this early because that poll is open until next Monday, but Dean from Musings of a Thoughtful Conservative decided to try to force my hand. I’m not saying that this will come back even after that, but since he put a heap of effort into what he sent me, I do have to run with it. I don’t believe I’ve played Kansas yet, so let’s roll on the Dean edition of The Morning Scramble (any comments of mine will be in italics):

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=koBWtYVRf-0[/youtube]

  • From the Wisconsin State Journal, Wisconsin tea parties face a difficult choice as their convention approaches. “About 140 activists will gather this weekend in Marshfield to decide the role of tea parties in Wisconsin’s political future.” Will they endorse any candidate? I definitely have to do some commentary on this; probably later today.
  • Liberty Pundits have The hottest conservative men 2010. Not for me but the ladies might like this list. Hey, I know a few of the judges (one of them even has guest-blogging keys), and a few of the 20. I missed it by “that much” (and by “that much”, I mean the width of the Milky Way).
  • TaxProf Blog quotes from Laffer about the coming expiration of the Bush tax cuts: “The result will be a crash in tax receipts once the surge is past. If you thought deficits and unemployment have been bad lately, you ain’t seen nothing yet.” I hope he’s wrong but I fear he’s right. I had intended to run with that Wall Street Journal piece today, but I haven’t gotten fully back into the swing of things after the fishing trip. I still might when the May Monthly Treasury Report comes out later this week because Tom Blumer has noticed a serious drop in tax revenues over the last 1 1/2 years.
  • If you’re a friend of James T. Harris on Facebook, he has some great pictures of Jerusalem. Hopefully I’ll make it there, and James will make it out of there, before that place blows up.
  • OK, he’s liberal but this Caffeinated Politics has a pretty evenly balanced look at nine “Super Tuesday” races to watch. Mostly because he pretty much cribbed from a Time piece, but hey, it counts under the Hat Tip Rule.
  • James Wigderson is impressed with Homeland Security again…well, for awhile. No comment really necessary, considering Shoebox’s war with the TSA.
  • Meghan McCain’s upset with Obama. Really? “I do believe Obama is working as hard as possible, but his problem is that he is not conveying this to the American public.” Well, I guess Teh Won took MeggieMac’s advice because he’s now looking for ass to kick.

If you want to guest-host a Scramble, go ahead and send me some links. I will, of course, vet the list (as much for blogs to add as anything else), and toss some of my own commentary in. I won’t promise music though (I don’t know if I’ll do music if I bring back my own edition).

Now, go thank Dean for the (temporary for at least now) return of The Scramble.

June 7, 2010

Headline of the day

by @ 19:17. Filed under Presstitute Follies.

Courtesy Jon Ham regarding the suddenly-retired Helen Thomas on the editorial page of The Washington Times

Hag gagged

I wish I had written that one.

24-hour warning for the June Drinking Right

by @ 18:46. Tags:
Filed under Miscellaneous.

This is the Emergency Blogging System. It has been activated because the second Tuesday of the month is as early as it gets.

Since tomorrow, June 8, is the second Tuesday of June, that means that it is the day of the June 2010 edition of Drinking Right. You are hereby instructed to be at Papa’s Social Club (7718 W. Burleigh in Milwaukee) at 19:00L (that’s 7 pm CDT) and tip a few of your favorite beverage(s) with some of the Milwaukee area’s best bloggers (and Steve).

This concludes this activation of the Emergency Blogging System

New NRE poll – Should I bring back The Morning Scramble?

by @ 11:08. Filed under NRE Polls, The Morning Scramble.

I’m not at all promising to abide by the results of this poll, but it’s been a while since I discontinued the daily linkfest known as The Morning Scramble. With something north of 400 blogs I at least try to read, I just couldn’t keep up with it. Another reason of the dropping was it has become harder to find embeddable songs from YouTube (oh well; the free music party couldn’t last forever).

Oh well, since I’m starting to run out of steam to do my own posts, I might try to bring it back. That’s where this little poll comes in.

Should I bring back The Morning Scramble?

Up to 1 answer(s) was/were allowed

  • Yes - I'm too lazy/time-constrained to do the reading myself. (75%, 6 Vote(s))
  • Yes - and I'll send you links to help out. (13%, 1 Vote(s))
  • No - I never really paid attention. (13%, 1 Vote(s))
  • No - I already read a lot of the blogs you link to. (0%, 0 Vote(s))
  • What's The Morning Scramble? (0%, 0 Vote(s))

Total Voters: 8

Loading ... Loading ...

Neumann has REALLY lost the Klausers

by @ 9:08. Filed under Politics - Wisconsin.

Charlie Sykes posted an open letter from former Department of Administration Secretary (under Tommy Thompson) James Klauser to gubernatorial candidate Mark Neumann, asking him to leave the field and return his and his wife’s contributions. A bit of background – Klauser endorsed Neumann’s bid before it was officially launched, and his wife served as Neumann’s first campaign treasurer. However, by November, the Klausers pulled their support and backed Scott Walker. Since then, Neumann has started taking talking points from the One Wisconsin Now crowd.

The letter:

Dear Mark:

The last time I wrote you I stated it was time to coalesce around the Republican candidate best able to be elected governor in November 2010. While I appreciate you may have a different view, time has validated my judgment.

Earlier in 2009 when I considered your candidacy you told me that you would conduct a positive campaign with ideas that could address Wisconsin’s problems. You assured me that you would run a positive campaign; that you would adhere to Ronald Reagan’s eleventh commandment not to attack a fellow Republican.

Today I write to you as I am aghast at where your campaign has gone. You are violating the Reagan commandment.

The event you “staged” at the Republican convention was phony and hollow. I watched in amazement your shallowness and contrivance. You well know, since you were the Republican candidate in 5 elections (2 you won, 3 you lost), that guests are allowed “inside” if they register and pay the appropriate fee. At this convention I arranged for several people to so observe. Your claim of outsider, not being allowed in, was staged and phony.

Now I see you are holding press conferences to attack your primary opponent. As a math teacher you know that your criticism is contrived. All this for media attention; to mislead the voters.

My dad always told me to sell myself; not to knock down the other fellow. I expect yours did as well. You’re not following that sage guidance

I hope you stop; you are only helping the democrats. It is time for you to leave the field before your integrity is permanently besmirched.

In any event I must ask you to return the contributions which Shirley and I have made to your campaign. You obtained them under the false pretense that you would run a positive campaign focusing on the liberal democrats. You haven’t done that.

Sincerely,

/s/ James R. Klauser

June 7, 2010

One item I may or may not have mentioned – as the Saturday RPW convention morning session was letting out, and before his street theater, Neumann was standing at one of the two exits of the convention floor pressing the flesh.

Also, Charlie mentioned on his show that the Neumann campaign might ratchet up the mud by taking it onto the TV airwaves. Mark, if you have even a shred of integrity left, don’t do that.

Perfect analogy for blogger/reader relationship

by @ 7:16. Filed under The Blog.

R.S. McCain nailed it in a post ranging from him getting a mention from Allahpundit to South Carolina voters (or at least those being polled) rejecting the smears against Nikki Haley. The Drinking-Right-worthy quote:

While I despise the pompous expression “online community,” it nevertheless contains a truth. The relationship between a blogger and his regular readers (many of whom, it should be noted, are also bloggers in their own right) is like the relationship between a bar owner and his clientele. The bar is open to everyone, but if someone starts making a scene that spoils the fun for everyone else, the unruly patron will be shown to the door (and customarily stomped senseless in the parking lot by the bouncers, as was the policy at one nightclub where I worked as a DJ many years ago).

Oh yeah – Drinking Right is tomorrow night at 7 pm over at Papa’s Social Club (7718 W Burleigh in Milwaukee for those either stopping in for the first time or with short memories). That’s right – we’re almost to the second Tuesday of June already.

One more housekeeping note – if you haven’t read The Other McCain, what are you waiting for, Christmas? You’re already too late to be visitor number 4,000,000, but there’s always the off-chance you’ll be number 5,000,000.

June 6, 2010

Back-from-vacation Hot Read – Stacy McCain’s “The Holy Church of St. Pancake”

by @ 11:34. Filed under War on Terror.

R.S. McCain put together a very lengthy piece on Rachel “St. Pancake” Corrie, and compared her life to one who truly was innocent, Shiri Negari. I’ll take up at the point Stacy introduces Negari:

Those who have promoted the death-cult of Rachel Corrie insist that she must be remembered exactly as they wish her to be remembered, as a victim-hero whose name can only be spoken with hushed reverence for her innocent righteousness. To remember Rachel Corrie that way, you see, requires us to forget the victims of her terrorist allies.

In 1998, when Rachel Corrie was a high school senior, a 19-year-old Israeli girl traveled to America, touring the Grand Canyon and other sites. Later, the Israeli girl spent a year in Latin America, where she learned Spanish, hiked mountains and went scuba diving. She was the daughter of a dentist, third of five children, by all accounts beloved by everyone who knew her, and she signed her e-mails “Shiri Negari, World Traveler.”

“Shiri loved to laugh and made others laugh with her. She loved to dance and knew how to enjoy the little things in life. She had the gift of being able to see goodness and beauty in every person she met, and she kept up many close friendships with a wide variety of people. . . . Always full of life, she loved to sing and make music. A born actress, she often delighted family and friends with her spontaneous improvisations and impressions. She wrote poetry. She loved swimming.”

Shiri loved America so much that, shortly after her 21st birthday, she moved to New York City and got a job in a restaurant. After the 9/11 attacks destroyed the World Trade Center, her family became concerned for her safety, and eventually Shiri returned home to live with her parents near Jerusalem. She got a temporary job in a bank, working to save money for college where she planned to enroll in the fall of 2002.

Shiri Negari was on her way to work at the bank one Tuesday morning — June 18, 2002 — when she boarded Bus No. 32A in Gilo. A few minutes later, a little before 8 a.m., another passenger boarded the bus:

19 people were killed and 74 injured . . . in a suicide bombing at the Patt junction in Jerusalem. . . .

Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack and identified the bomber as Muhamed al-Ral, an Islamic law student at An-Najah University. . . .

Al-Ral boarded Egged bus no. 32A from Gilo at 7:50 A.M. at the stop in Beit Safafa, an Arab neighborhood opposite Gilo, and almost immediately detonated the large bomb which he carried in a bag stuffed with ball bearings.

Shiri died that day, just two weeks before her 22nd birthday, in a blast that ended the lives of 18 other people ranging in age from 11 to 72. They were all killed on orders of Hamas — the same terrorist organization that rules Gaza, where 23-year-old Rachel Corrie arrived to join the anti-Israeli ISM contigent in January 2003, barely seven months after the blast that destroyed Bus No. 32A.

June 3, 2010

Open Thread Thursday – The EBS Edition

This is the Emergency Blogging System. It has been activated because Steve is fishing, and it’s Thursday.

Have fun…

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYa-MOJthWM[/youtube]

June 1, 2010

Another Arizona Boycott

by @ 12:54. Filed under Immigration, Politics - National.

After Arizona passed its “we’re going to enforce the law if the Feds won’t enforce the law” immigration law, numerous members of the politically correct class called for boycotts of doing business with Arizona.  It got so ridiculous that MLB continues to be challenged to pull the All Star game from Phoenix and the Arizona Tea company, whose products have no affiliation with Arizona other than their name, have been suggested as a possible boycott target.

After the initial calls for boycotts, President Obama was queried as to whether he believed boycotts of Arizona were appropriate.  His response was that while he didn’t agree with the law, yet understood the frustration of the Arizona people:

“I’m the President of the United States. I don’t endorse boycotts or not endorse boycotts.”

So, President Obama has a dilemma. He doesn’t support a law that has been enacted by Arizona but obviously wants to do something about the problem because he also understands the frustration of the Arizona people (Oh, by the way, the people of Arizona are frustrated by the lack of effort, focus, urgency by anyone at the Federal level).

Arizona Governor Jan Brewer, while approving of the Arizona law, also fees the frustration of the Arizona people.  As an executive leader who takes her position as one of action and not just show, she reached out to the White House in an attempt to meet with President Obama about their law and to discuss a future course of action supported by both Federal and State authorities.  Obama’s response? I’m too busy!

Too busy?  Doing what?  Dealing with that oil spill in the gulf?  Nope, he’s got a host of his lackey’s running interferenceso that Governor Jindal can’t do what he believes is right for his state!

Busy dealing with the events involving Gaza and Israel?  Nope, in fact, now has time on his calendar as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu cancelled his visit to return home to deal with the issue himself.

Oh, I almost forgot. I’ll bet President Obama is working on that Korean issue. Opps, nope, he’s farmed that one off to the UN.

Early in his presidency, when one of his community agitator friends got in a tussle with the local police, President Obama, along with Vice President Biden, cleared their schedules to allow for a beer tasting photo op. This, over an issue that should never have elevated itself above the local community police/college relationship. Now, on an issue that clearly has national significance, President Obama is too busy to meet with Governor Brewer.

If I were the synical type, I’d think that President Obama’s shunning of Governor Brewer was in fact, his own, private boycotting of Arizona!

May 29, 2010

Gone fishing

by @ 15:02. Filed under The Blog.

I’m gone for the next week, so the content will come from Shoebox and the long list of guest-bloggers.

See you next week Sunday.

May 27, 2010

Back to the front for Walker

by @ 12:17. Filed under Politics - Wisconsin.

That didn’t take too long – Rasmussen Reports released a fresh poll on the gubernatorial race, and Republican front-runner and Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker is up on Democrat presumptive nominee and City of Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett 48%-41%, his largest lead since February. Meanwhile, former Congressman Mark Neumann once again inched ahead of Barrett 44%-42%, after they were tied in April.

While one might say that, and the simultaneous Senate poll, reflects a RPW convention bounce, a couple of other items in that poll suggest otherwise. President Barack Obama’s approval/disapproval split was 49%/50% (Approval Index -9), significantly better than his contemporary overall -8 to -14 national spread (Approval Index between -16 and -22) and a slight improvement of his April 48%/52% (Approval Index -9) numbers.

Meanwhile, Governor Jim Doyle, who is (at least as of this moment) not running for re-election, saw his overall approval/disapproval split improve from 37%/60% (Approval Index -17) in April to 41%/57% (Approval Index -18).

Open Thread Thursday – Hitting the road

by @ 7:53. Filed under Open Thread Thursday.

If it’s the end of May, it’s time for me to go catch some walleyes. I’m out of here on Saturday, and Shoebox and the guest-bloggers will have your backs covered. It’s time to go on the highway…

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fuMF3Bjr84[/youtube]

The thread is now open for business.

Wisconsin Senate updates

I’m sure you’ve heard by now that Oshkosh businessman Ron Johnson is the Republican Party of Wisconsin-endorsed candidate. There’s a few items that have happened since then.

Rasmussen Reports took a poll of 500 likely voters, and found that Russ Feingold (D-WI) holds a mere 46%-44% lead over Johnson. Feingold continues to have a 6-point lead over Terrence Wall (47%-41% this month, compared to 49%-43% in April), and a 9-point lead over Dave Westlake (47%-38% this month, compared to 49%-38% in April).

Meanwhile, George Will is singing the praises of Johnson. Will praised Johnson’s choice of reading material (“Atlas Shrugged”), and noted that, unlike John Galt, Johnson chose to run.

WisPolitics is reporting that the Senate campaign of Terrence Wall, in the wake of losing the RPW endorsement race to Johnson, is imploding. They are reporting that his campaign manager, Ryan Murray, is out, that his honorary campaign co-chairs, Jim Klauser (Tommy Thompson’s Secretary of Administration) and Mary Buestrin (the RPW national committewoman), will be endorsing Johnson (Buestrin is obligated to do so as a party official), and that his departure from the race is “imminent”.

For his part, Westlake told WISN-AM’s Jay Weber this morning he’s in it until the end.

Revisions/extensions (3:12 pm 5/27/2010) – Here’s the official statement from the Wall campaign:

With great reluctance, I am withdrawing my candidacy from the United States Senate race against Russ Feingold. Since we began this journey last October, I have been so grateful for the support of Wisconsinites hungry for real fiscal conservatism and change in their government. And no matter how much I want to stay in and fight, I feel the honorable thing to do is exit.

When I started this effort, I had two goals: First, to turn this country around before it’s too late, and second, to prove that Russ Feingold could be defeated. We did show that we could win this race and we did so running an honest, clean campaign.

Last October, the polls showed us down double-digits and few had heard my name outside of Dane County. Recent polling now shows that we have closed within the margin of error.

As I traveled across this great State, county-to-county, city-to-city and handshake-to-handshake, I realized that the vast number of people I’ve met believe that we need people just like us to bring structural change to Washington.

The Republican Party has an opportunity in this environment to bring in new and out-of-the-box candidates who have made the grassroots effort and done the hard work that is necessary to beat Russ Feingold.

I will continue to fight for fundamental change, such as those solutions I present in my Patriots’ Bill of Rights. I urge you to go to www.patriotsbillofrights.org and sign the Patriots’ Bill of Rights. Just as our politicians try to govern us, so now we must govern them.

I cannot begin to express my sincere gratitude for all of the people I’ve met on the trail who have supported me, from those who have volunteered on my campaign and provided financial support, to the thousands of honest, hardworking Americans that I’ve met as I traveled the state over the last seven months.

I’ll continue to be involved in getting our country turned around, but it’s time for me to take a step back and take a hard look at how we move our country and the Republican Party forward.

May 25, 2010

My Daily Stress

by @ 5:09. Filed under Miscellaneous.

Offically plummets as of today!

May 24, 2010

Leinenkugel’s exit less-than-amicable

by @ 7:20. Filed under Politics - Wisconsin.

Jerry Bader found the last interview Dick Leinenkugel did as a candidate, done with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Leinenkugel blamed talk radio for his demise, and claimed the GOP needs to “broaden” the party.

I would say that actions such as endorsing combined reporting (done after he entered the race) and being a key part of the Dirty Talgo Deal did more to torpedo his campaign than simply being the “token opposition party Cabinet member”. Of course, talk radio is what brought those actions out of the memory hole.

May 23, 2010

Post-convention wrap

by @ 20:52. Filed under RPW Convention.

I really wish I would have made Sunday’s session. However, allergies really knocked me flat, so I missed the big surprises of the convention – Dick Leinenkugel dropping out, and Ron Johnson earning both Leinenkugel’s and the party’s endorsements. Let’s see if I can play catch-up as part of the wrap.

Before I get to the main part, I do need to clarify to those not familiar with what an RPW endorsement means. It gives the endorsed candidate access to party money, staff and lists. It does not either make the endorsed candidate’s ballot access easier (much less guaranteed) or make the other candidates’ ballot access harder. All candidates still need to circulate and get the same number of signatures on nomination papers filed with the Government Accountability Board.

  • Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty’s Friday pitch to the delegates was enough to carry himself to a bare plurality in WisPolitics’ straw poll of 457 of the the attendees for the 2012 Presidential nomination. He received 87 (or 85, depending on where in the write-up one gets one’s numbers from) votes, with former governor Sarah Palin second with 68, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney (widely seen nationwide as the Next-In-Line™) third with 65, Newt Gingrich fourth among the “official” candidates with 45, Ron Paul 5th with 32, and Mike Huckabee tied for 6th with 18. Notably, 55 people specifically wrote in Paul Ryan, who was not listed on the ballot, while 31 people wrote in somebody else not on the ballot (which also included Bobby Jindal, Haley Barbour, Mike Pence and Rick Santorum) or otherwise said “other” and 6 declined to vote.
  • There were also two other questions on the abbreviated straw poll – whether the attendees supported the endorsement process, and whether they supported the Tea Party movement. By a vote of 316 yes to 74 no to 58 no preference, they supported the endorsement process. By a 425-20 margin, they support the Tea Party movement. Do keep those results, especially the second, in mind, for a few of the other items.

    Speaking of that second result, it is a recognition that the RPW under Chairman Reince Priebus has made significant strides in regaining its small-government mantle after the Thompson-Graber-Schultz-Gard era.

  • Owen Robinson and Deb Jordahl thoroughly blew apart the street theater the Mark Neumann campaign successfully sold to the LeftStreamMedia. Unlike the LSM, Owen actually interviewed RPW Exective Director Mark Jefferson, who said that the convention hall was limited to credentialed delegates, alternates, guests and media, and that at that point, nobody from the Neumann campaign had complained to the RPW about the situation.

    Jordahl noted three elements that would earn the Twitter #fail hashtag for those who actually pay attention. First, after trying to get a massive protest organized through his “50,000 Facebook friends”, he was only able to get a few dozen to show up, and most of those were from his campaign staff. Second, among those few dozen was at least one credentialed delegate, who as a delegate had full access (and indeed, voting rights in the endorsement process). Third, Neumann himself promptly went back into the hall and voted in the endorsement process.

    I might have noted this before on the blog, but Neumann hadn’t exactly been trying to court either the party regulars or the Tea Party movement crowd in the first 7 months of his campaign. When he finally tried to tie himself to any portion of the Tea Party movement, he chose the national Tea Party Express rather than any of the local groups, such as the Racine, Wausau or Oshkosh Tea Party groups.

  • The lieutenant governor’s vote showed a couple of interesting “insider baseball” elements. First, regional campaigns, such as the one Dave Ross has been conducting, don’t exactly work. Second, running a campaign based as much on one’s gender as anything else is not a winning strategy in the GOP. Third, record does matter, even if one reaches out significantly to the Tea Party movement and has significant “insider cred”. That 2007 vote for the Doyle budget kept Brett Davis from topping 50%.
  • Dick Leinenkugel’s drop-out from the race was only a bit of a surprise because of his previous service as Democrat Governor Jim Doyle’s Secretary of Commerce. I truly wish I had been able to interview him, because his subsequent endorsement of Ron Johnson, which was a huge surprise, certainly appears to invalidate at least part of the conventional wisdom that Leinenkugel was a stealth Democrat candidate.

    Something I had not had the opportunity to mention prior because I didn’t quite complete the background research also breaks part of that conventional wisdom – the only state or federal-level donation I could find from Leinenkugel was a single 2004-cycle donation to the Republican Assembly Campaign Committee. Again, keep that in mind.

  • Speaking of surprises, the biggest surprise was the party endorsement of Ron Johnson on the second ballot. Johnson is, outside the Tea Party movement (and even within parts of it), a rather blank slate on specific issues.

    There is a recognition that in a high-cost race, one-on-one campaigning simply isn’t enough. That lesson was driven home in 2004, when the NRSC and a previous RPW leadership took their wads of cash and went home after Tim Michels upset their prefered candidate, Russ Darrow, in the primary. The victim of that was Dave Westlake, who went out of the endorsement race on the first ballot with 15.1% of the vote.

    Repeating one of the themes in the lieutenant governor’s endorsement race, record matters. In this case of political neophytes, it was Terrence Wall’s donation record, littered with donations to various Democrats, from Jim Doyle to Tammy Baldwin, that overwhelmed everything else. It even overwhelmed a closing trend on Russ Feingold in polls. He didn’t get higher than 23.6% of the endorsement vote, and that was on the first of the two ballots.

  • It wouldn’t be a convention without a review of the hospitality suites. Even though the food offering was weak compared to previous conventions, and everybody who had food the first night ran out very quickly, Paul Ryan’s suite (guest-hosted by Jim Sensenbrenner after the Ryans had to leave early in the wake of Jenna’s mother’s passing) did not disappoint. Ron Johnson’s hallway spread the first night probably was pretty impressive, but by the time I got to it, everything was gone.

    The best theme was Ben Collins’ military theme. He had ammo boxes and a pair of shooting games (one electronic, one airsoft gun). The RACC highway signs were pretty nice as well, but the fact they were stuck on a different floor than the main set of suites hurt the attendance.

Coincidence? I Think Not!

by @ 12:12. Filed under Miscellaneous.

I drink Leinenkugel’s and he follows me on twitter. Conincidence? I think not!

 

I wonder, if he realized that I can’t vote for him, if he’d be following me?

May 22, 2010

RPW convention – endorsement liveblog – UPDATE – Walker endorsed

by @ 13:42. Filed under RPW Convention.

Since updates might be fast and furious, I’ll be firing up Cover It Live for the endorsement liveblog.

Revisions/extensions (4:22 pm 5/22/2010) – In case you missed the liveblog, Scott Walker was overwhelmingly endorsed by the convention with 91.3% of the vote.

R&E part 2 (6:31 pm 5/22/2010) – Yes, we’re running way late. Round 1 of lieutenant governor endorsement balloting done, and Brett Davis led with 37.40%. Dave Ross (25.20%) Ben Collins (13.85%) also move on to round 2. Rebecca Kleefisch eliminated with 13.75%.

The Senate endorsement votes will be tomorrow.

R&E part 3 (7:42 pm 5/22/2010 – There will be no endorsement in the lieutenant governor’s race. Unofficially, Brett Davis ended the 3rd and final ballot with a bit under 50%, with Dave Ross a bit under 34%.

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