Richardson – I can’t compete, so give me tax dollars.

Governor Bill Richardson, former presidential candidate, was just on Hannity and Colmes  and said something along the lines of “We need public financing of these things (elections). I can’t compete with people who raise tens of millions of dollars.”

Governor, maybe there’s a reason you can’t raise money; the people don’t want to give you money because they like the other candidates more than they like you. 

If we had public financing Richardson would still be in the race, losing primary after primary while wasting our money doing it.  Governor, you didn’t need public financing, you needed to be a better candidate.

Clinton to Obama – At least I waited a term, jerk!

 

Lost in the article where Hillary (above, holding the parts of her record she’s released thus far for all to see) says that “No woman is illegal,” apparently showing a gender bias in the immigration debate, is this little quote about Senator Obama from the newly “humanized” front-runner.

“He was a part-time state senator for a few years, and then he came to the Senate and immediately started running for president,” she said. “And that’s his prerogative. That’s his right. But I think it is important to compare and contrast our records.”

Everyone would love to compare your records, Senator, but YOU’VE refused to release your papers from your years as First Lady of the US AND of Arkansas.  You claim a hand in everything good your husband did while washing your hands of the bad.  Since you won’t release your documents or engage in difficult media interviews, comparing records with you is a little difficult.

Is anyone really shocked that racism is rearing its ugly head in the Democrat’s primary?

The Clintons are starting to take some heat for the growing racial comments they are making against Barack Obama by them and their surrogates.  It’s not surprising, we and anyone who has looked at them through non-hero worship eyes has known for a long time that they will do anything, absolutely anything to win.  (What else explains a wife running a program to slander and discredit women who’d had an affair with her husband?)

These stories don’t need commentary, but they are worth reading.

Racial tensions roil Democratic race - Politico

Cuomo’s ’shuck and jive’ comment spurs controversy- Newsday

“If you want Obama to be your imaginary hip black friend and you’re young and you have no social needs, then he’s cool.” – The Guardian

…vast numbers of Latino voters are thought to be skeptical of an African-American candidate. (One Democratic operative recently described this to me as the Do the Right Thing factor.) – The New Republic

It seems the Democratic party has yet to emerge from their segregationist ways, but that doesn’t stop the left from accusing conservatives of exactly what the left has been doing for year.  Check this out, about half way down where you see IT TAKES A GREENWALD.

This story will continue to develop as votes approach.

Bill Clinton even went on the Al Sharpton radio show to attempt to stomp down this story.  Time will tell where this ends up…

UPDATE: Here’s the Sharpton link.

A blog worth reading – Liberal Fascism

 Jonah Goldberg, NRO editor, author and future First Friday guest has a blog going on the issues raised in his book, Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning (an excellent, well researched read, by the way).  You can read his thoughts on reviews and attacks on both the book and him (because when liberals can’t attack what someone is saying they simply attack the person saying it) and his book tour schedule. 

We can’t recommend the blog or book highly enough, though we’ll probably be called a fascist by left-wingers for saying it.  We don’t mind, we’ve been called worse by better people. 

And if you are thinking we’re pimping it because he’s agreed to be a special guest, we aren’t, you cynical bastard!  Heh.

Kos as field marshall for Michigan Dems

We’ve pointed out in the past that Markos Moulistas, Duckie as we like to call him, isn’t as sharp as what he gets credit for.  This is another example where he fails to really “get it”.

Kos is encouraging Michigan Dems to “have some fun” with the GOP primary in that state, by participating in the open primary and voting for Mitt Romney.

Moulistas’s logic?  That by keeping Romney, who he seems to view as unelectable, in the race, Dems could help keep the GOP field fragmented, forcing candidates to exhaust resources and damage one another’s reputations.

He raises the example of the state’s Democrat voters crossing over to vote for McCain in 2000 as one where Democrats were able to ‘meddle’ in GOP affairs.  What he doesn’t mention, though, is that these voters crossed over for McCain largely because they liked him.  Some may choose to do so again.

The most important facts that Moulistas ignores, however, are that 1) there will be no shortage of resources on the GOP side once a clear nominee emerges, and 2) having already withstood the full barrage of a close intra-party race will mean that all the bones have been dug up, and any chinks in that candidate’s armor will be old news come crunch time.  If, as seems likely, the Democrat nominee is made clear earlier than his/her GOP counterpart, Republican forces will have been using that time to dig up damaging information and will be set to launch a formidable attack at the time of their choosing.

He’s right that Republicans have done the same sort of thing in the past with Michigan’s Democratic primaries; voters of both parties have been crossing over for similar reasons for years.  Whether it’s wrong or right is up to the individual voter to decide; that’s not the point we’re making.

The point is just that our buddy Kos just doesn’t think more than one move ahead on the chessboard.  His talents don’t seem to extend to enlightened political thought or strategy.  It’s hard to have a ‘gotcha’ moment when writing about his antics, as he’s rather amorphous — not a complete idiot and certainly not a genius by any measure; more of an underdeveloped reactionary, a simple peddler of an extremist agenda.  The ‘gotcha’ is directed at those who seem to worship the man, regarding him as some sort of sage or hero.

Anyone who thinks Markos Moulistas is more than a glorified website operator should watch his interview with the very reasonable Charlie Rose and ask themselves if his ignorance of nuts-and-bolts facts about politics, history and philosophy is even slightly defensible.

Douchebag of the Week

While some of you have expressed your dislike of the award for Douchebag of the Week because it’s ”divisive,” in the comment sections of other posts, we’re going to keep awarding it anyway.  If you think the term douchebag is mean spirited, we’re sure you’re too busy trolling the left-wing blogs pointing out in insanity, hypocrisy and plain wrongheadedness of calling conservatives fascists to really take notice that one site uses the word douchebag to describe someone once a week.  As for the sensitivity problems you have with our other chosen tags being divisive, tough.  You’re free to suggest alternatives, but they’d better be good because we’re free to reject them.  Anyway, on to the winner.

This week’s winner isn’t a single person, it’s an industry, two industries, as a matter of fact.  You could call it a tie, but one couldn’t win without the other, so they count only as one this week. 

The first Douchebag of the Week for 2008 is the media and pollsters.  The only way they could’ve been more wrong on the outcome of New Hampshire is if Kucinich or Duncan Hunter had won. 

Polling is an inexact science, if it can be called a science at all.  Getting people to talk to you is difficult enough, especially  when you rate on the level of phone solicitor in the minds of most Americans, but the age of cell phone has made it even more difficult.  Still, they do a semi-accurate job, most of the time.  But not this week.  Not only did they get the pre-primary polls way wrong, they even got the initial exit polls wrong.  In fact, they were so far off that had this been the general election in a state a Republican won, left-wingers would be running around screaming of how the vote was rigged by Diebold.  Since it’s a primary, and everyone knows Democrats would never commit voter fraud (except those who’ve looked into it), the media simply said, “oops, we got it wrong,” then inundated us with discussions of how the numbers worked out.

That brings us to the media, where polls are news only because the media hires the pollsters to make the news.  Does anyone really think a random sampling of Americans have an opinion on the “sub-prime ‘crisis’” that is anywhere close to educated?  Such a small fraction of Americans have sub-prime loans, so the vast majority of don’t know what they are, let alone understand them.  But you poll people with the word crisis and tell them people could lose their homes (not that they bought home they couldn’t afford in the first place), and people think “Oh God, we must do something, then they call their bank to find out if they’re one of those people.  But the media will report those “poll results” as though they’re gospel carved in stone from the mountain top.  Hell, the reporters probably don’t understand the issue, but they understand 70 percent are concerned and think something must be done.  That sells.

So the media creates news by asking pollsters to find out what people who don’t understand complex issues what they think in the most simplistic terms.  That’s how news is born.  Those numbers drive front pages and nightly newscasts across the country, because the art of real reporting has died.

That leads us back to New Hampshire.  The media and pollsters don’t win simply because they got it wrong in the New Hampshire primary, they win because their getting it so wrong in the New Hampshire primary exposes the fraud that is polling, yet both will continue to do what they do in the way they’ve been doing it. 

For continuing to manufacture news based upon surveys of uninformed people (people the media is supposed to help inform), which creates an endless cycle of misinformation and miseducation and for having no interest in stopping this cycle, the media and pollsters win Douchebag of the Week. 

At least Kucinich is consistent in his paranoia

Congressman Dennis Kucinich wants a recount in New Hampshire because, in his words, there are:

“serious and credible reports, allegations and rumors” about the integrity of Tuesday results.

What, does he think he made it to 2 percent instead of just not quite 2 percent?

We’ve said before that Kucinich was fast becoming the Pat Paulson of the Democrats, but that may not be the most accurate comparison.  The correct way to put it may well be that he’s becoming the next Lyndon LaRouche, living a portion of his life off of the taxpayer’s matching funds.