Last updated on 2012.12.23
Ed Randazzo flogs the "Primary for Daugaard!" meme that his blog boss, Gordon "Potemkin" Howie has been stoking for over a year. Much to my surprise, Randazzo makes a cogent case that Governor Dennis Daugaard is not a conservative. Randazzo's points:
- Randazzo says taxes have increased under Gov. Daugaard's watch by $100 million. A glance at this year's budget brief says true! State receipts in the last Rounds budget totaled $1.148 billion. State receipts in the first Daugaard budget totaled $1.249 billion. Pierre projects FY 2013 receipts at $1.272 billion.
- Randazzo says Gov. Daugaard is implementing the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act even while participating in the lawsuit against it. Team Daugaard has made it clear that they are eager to see ObamaCare gone. But we can acknowledge the conservative absolutist interpretation that any facilitation of the PPACA is less conservative than no facilitation of PPACA.
- Randazzo criticizes Gov. Daugaard's doling out of $5 million dollars to out-of-state Manpower Inc. to recruit 1000 out-of-state workers. Using tax dollars to make happen the hiring that the free market should do by itself doesn't sound conservative to me.
- Randazzo gives a vague critique of Gov. Daugaard's education reform bill, the infamous HB 1234. I'll firm up Randazzo's conservative critique: HB 1234 increases centralized control of education and pours money into policies that don't work. Bonus critique: HB 1234 inappropriately applies the free-market model to a realm where it will not work; the failure of HB 1234's reforms to improve education will weaken public faith in the free market and increase the chances of socialist revolution. (If I got conked in the head and got amnesia, I could so easily work for Gordon and friends. Think Kermit in Muppets Take Manhattan.)
- Randazzo dings Daugaard for his five hubristic primary endorsements of legislators he says are neither fiscally nor socially conservative. Randazzo et al. must resort to absurd rhetoric on culture-warrior issues to make this point.
Randazzo will have a hard time making the case to Democrats that Governor Dennis Daugaard is not a conservative. He'll have an even harder time getting Democrats, Independents, or 60% of Republicans to replace him with Gordon Howie in 2014. But as a Democrat who enjoys chaos behind enemy lines, I welcome Randazzo and Howie to try.
The sooner these people realize they will never get more than 15% of the primary vote the better off they will be.
They will only get the attention of the establishment if they start running as independents in the general election. Now imagine if Daugaard lost 5-10% of the vote in the general?
That would cause him to take notice.
Same for Kristi if she was losing 5-10% in the general.
And if Kristi came close to losing because the TP took votes away. She would have more respect for them during her next term because she would know it might happen again.
Looking at that $5 million to manpower, I am also struck by the fact that the majority of positions that they are looking to fill need a collage degree. Folks with college degrees are more likely to be a Liberal, so in effect the spending of this $5 million will have the net effect of bringing more Democrats into the state. Albeit a very small number but heck we need all the help we can get.
Exactly, Barry. This is pretty much why Sibby argues that people should stay ignorant. Because if they get too much education, they'll turn into a liberal. LOL.
It's good to see Cory defending our Governor.
Michael, I can't tell if he (Cory) is or he isn't (defending the Gov.), but I am. Not crazy about the education bill, but in general, I think he's doing a better job than Rounds did, and Rounds wasn't really all that bad. Howie would be a disaster. Gordo and I are friends, but he would make an even worse governor than I would, and that's saying something. LOL.
"Because if they get too much education, they’ll turn into a liberal."
Bill, your problem with me is that I have obtained too much education outside the indoctrination centers. Liberal Demcrats need to set down the Kool Aid and understand that the problems they see in the GOP are problems caused by the liberal members of the GOP. If you watched Inside Keloland last night you saw Charlie Hoffman argue that the liberal Democrats and the liberal GOPers have common ground, and the conservatives (who were again maligned by the "Tea Party" label) were the extremists. The only common ground is the desire to grow government. Once Democrats understand the solution to corporate oppression is to take power away from them...the power they obtain through the force of government...all in the name of economic development, then they will smarten up and side with the conservatives who are correctly saying government is not the solution, it is the problem.
Sibby, your problem with me is that you have forgotten how to laugh. Reading too much crackpot doom and gloom stuff will do that to ya, brother. You're out of balance philosophically, having spent too much time on the dark side. LOL.
I laugh at something that is funny, not mockery of others.
I find it interesting that he calls universities and other places that help give you the ability to empathize with people and to better understand the world around you (I'm going on my 6th year in university. They don't actually teach you these things. They're something you pick up) "indoctrination centers" while he calls his rants about becoming a conservative to battle the Masons and the NWO, which are constantly full of B.S. and misinformation "educational".
Yes, Carter, Sibby is a comedian who doesn't realize he's funny. It's a paradox. He's like the Steven Wright of the far right.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YD0KApiFdLg
Carter, the indoctrination centers are run by the NWO. Have you studied Daugaard's workforce initiative and Clinton's school-to-work policies? It is all about cheap human capital for the corporatists. And Obama is right there with them, or else he will not receive enough money to run for president.
If you stick to only math, science, and business classes you'll be alright. If you attempt to take any "Language Arts" classes you'll have some hippie in a muumuu jumping around insisting there is some deep liberal meaning in the clearly conservative writings of the past. If you disagree, she'll give you poor grades.
From,MASONIC EDUCATION FOR THE NEW WORLD ORDER:
Cleon Skousen, assistant to J. Edgar Hoover of the FBI, discovered the 45-point plan for Socialists/Communists to destroy and capture America. Point #17 states: "Get control of the schools. Use them for Socialism and current Communist propaganda. Get control of TEACHER'S ASSOCIATIONS." Now you can understand WHY the Federal Government is so against church related schools. They cannot capture your child's mind if they don't control WHAT he or she is being taught.
The above is WHY the Federal Government will not allow the professing Christian religion to have prominence in the schools any longer. The Communist Rules for Revolution was captured in Dusseldorf, Germany, in May 1919 by the Allied Forces. In part it states: "(A) Corrupt the young, get them away from religion. Get them interested in sex. Make them superficial, destroy their ruggedness."
"Through the activities of our state organizations, the New Age Magazine, our clip service and News Bureau, we are stimulating the public interest and furnishing much valuable material to speakers and writers, and thereby can reasonably claim much credit for the growing interest in favor of compulsory education BY THE STATE."
Supreme Council of Scottish Rite Freemasonry, Charleston, S.C., September24, 1924 (Scarlet and the Beast, John Daniel, Vol.1, p 235, JKI Pub.,Tyler, TX)
http://www.angelfire.com/music2/fullcircle/mas1.html
I knew it! I knew those pesky NWOers were behind everything! Them and the reptilians! Soylent green is people!!
Steve, man. You need to relax. You can be hyper-conservative without shouting about NWO and a secret society that lost most of its power in the 1800s. Also, what about Skull and Bones? I haven't heard much about that from you! And what about the Bilderberg Group? And the Trilateral Commission?
Bree, I had Cory for Speech. That's Language Arts, right? He didn't jump up and down with his socialism. In fact, he didn't seem altogether pleased with my pro-socialism speech, although that was more likely because it was terrible speech than because it was about socialism. So I wouldn't say that language arts teachers are going to shove socialism down your throat.
Also, the founding fathers were quite socialist. The past was actually very socialist. Why does no one know this? The American Indians were socialist, and tons of people left to join them. The US was founded on the principles laid down by the (socialist) Iroquois League. Rome was pretty socialist until later periods. Did you know that, in times of economic recession, most medieval and ancient societies would cancel everyone's debts? Did you know that in ancient Israel, all debts would be canceled every (I think) 50 years, and every 100 or so years ancestral lands would be returned to their traditional owners? Did you know that nearly every single medieval culture had many laws regarding the prices of goods, and there was a 14th century law stating that price gougers and forestallers were "oppressors of the poor and the community at large and enemies of the whole country"?
Point: Please don't give history lessons about the past being "conservative" when for most of it, it was clearly not.
Well, liberalism does seem to go hand in hand with a lack of ruggedness in men. Maybe that's the real reason I'm conservative. I certainly don't get the emo movement. I recently read an article about the Japanese "grass-eater" male, so I suppose it isn't just an American problem.
"lost most of its power in the 1800s"
Not so Carter. Here is some educational material you will not find in the UNESCO indoctrination centers:
NEA belongs to a world organization called World Confederation of Organizations of the Teaching Professions. "WCOTP plays a role at the INTERNATIONAL LEVEL similar to that of the national teachers association within a country (WCOTP Pamphlet, R 1067). WCOTP's income comes from the NEA mostly and 'external contributions" such as tax-free foundations, and UNESCO grants and contracts projects (WCOTP Annual Report, 1967. p.41,4346, WCOTP XVI Assembly of Delegates, Proceedings. 2-9 August 1967, Vancouver, Canada, p. 6). According to the President of the Ford Foundation, directives had been coming from the White House [during the 1 940s] to so alter life style in the U. S. to comfortably MERGE it with the Soviet Union. The Foundations were [and are] using their tax-exempt status to alter textbooks to teach world government or Socialism. Delegates to WCOTP from individual countries takes "positive action" to indoctrinate state and local teacher organizations (WCOTP Annual Report 1967, p.19, item 5, p.23, item 11) This program is done so artfully that local teachers do not know from where these programs come. They usually think they come from other teachers in school systems as the need arises. October 1966 saw WCOTP hold a Regional Conference at Bogota, Columbia, where the representatives endorsed the UNESCO Recommendation Concerning the Status of Teachers. They declared that: "The teacher's organizations taking part in the Conference pledge themselves to the implementation of the parts related to their work by ALL the means within their power and in the shortest possible time." Then they called on "all the governments and educational authorities of the hemisphere to accept their full responsibilities for the fulfillment of the UNESCO Recommendation" (Report of WCOTP at Bogota, op. cit., p. 49.59).
Read more starting at Page 30:
http://www.angelfire.com/music2/fullcircle/Masonic_Education_NWO.pdf
The author of this blog has so far proven himself to be an intelligent, honest liberal who is willing to discourse fairly. Your second paragraph proves my point. I certainly wouldn't have wanted you teaching me any English classes in college.
I'm not surprised that the various northern American Indian tribes could be considered Socialist, since they failed to build an advanced civilization (with an advanced military). Their GDP growth must have stagnated under the weight of all those socialist programs. One needs only compare Estonia to Greece to see the value of a trim free market society.
"liberalism does seem to go hand in hand with a lack of ruggedness in men"
Don't tell that to Che Guevara. He was a beast. Also, Cory can grow a fine Karl Marx beard. Also, Karl Marx could grow a fine Karl Marx beard. Their beards out-rugged Grizzly Adams any day.
Also, are we really going to start equating the decency of an ideology with some kind of arbitrary physical form? If so, Communists are known for their rugged beards.
Steve, what? Do you really get all your information from Anglefire pages?
Bree, I'm not exactly trying to teach an English class (did my post even mention properly conjugating verbs?). You made a sweeping statement saying about conservativism and history, and I gave you quite a few examples of liberalism. I don't see any point where I even pretended to say "This is an all-encompassing summary of the history of man".
Yes, Che Guevara was a beast. I'm glad we can agree on that.
I made a sweeping statement? That's strange. Surely I would have remembered.
Sweet mother of Jesus. Every time I post something, I come back to see some mind-blowingly ill-informed statement I feel obligated to respond to.
The American Indians had a phenominally successful society up until about 1500. They had a population of possibly 100 million people. Then they all got smallpox and 96% of them died. So, don't say that they failed because of socialism. They failed because 96% of them died.
Also, do you have any concept of Scandinavia? To a one, they have incredibly high GDPs, incredibly high standards of living, and incredibly high levels of socialism. What were you saying about a free market?
Yes, I could see where you would consider loin cloths and bows a successful society.
Che was not a beast - he was an enigma.
I doubt the Cuban refugees who survived his reign of terror would term him an "enigma."
The Americas supported a population of 52 million before they were extirpated by colonizing forces.
Barry, I actually "beast" as in "rugged mountain man". According to biographies I've read on the man, he was just incredibly arrogant (and a misogynist), but was overall a pretty good guy. Castro's not the villain they make him out to be, either. Not that he's a saint.
Bree, what kind of argument is that? What are you even talking about?
You are still stepping around the truth. The American Indians failed to build an advanced civilization with an advanced military, and so they lost. There was also a great deal of fighting between the tribes.
Wait, did you miss the part about smallpox killing 96% of them? I'd like to see one of the technologically advanced cultures beat anyone else after losing 96% of their population to the plague.
You realize that the Spanish didn't conquer a single group of natives without help from huge armies of other natives?
Why do you keep equating technological superiority with cultural superiority?
The American Indian developed technology that penetrated Spanish armor. Disease and christianity killed all but 2.5 million.
The United States has incredibly slow average internet speed. Korea has the fastest. Does that mean Korea is culturally superior to us, because they have better internet?
The Chesapeake Bay estuary was dead by 1900.
Now, the Big Sioux River is dead.
Che Guevara was such a "pretty good guy" that to this day conservative Cuban Republicans are a thorn in the side of liberals during Presidential elections.
Technology that penetrated Spanish armor? You mean the longbow? Let's call it what it is - less advanced than European firearms.
I am not going to get into an emotional discussion about past wars with apologists.
http://www.miamiherald.com/2009/03/06/936810/ecologic-tourism-helps-environmental.html
If you can't stand the heat don't fry your eggs on the sidewalk.
What is sad in this discussion is that you really want to talk about what did or didn't happen 400 years ago, while failing to address the documented atrocities of 50 years ago.
They are happening now.
Che and Castro were exactly what Cuba needed at the time. They could do with a bit more democracy now, of course, but Che and Castro were 10,000 times better than Batista.
You still haven't defended your claim that technological superiority means cultural superiority. I'm actually pretty sure that viewpoint fell out of favor sometime in the late 1800s. You'd be a hit with the Victorians, though.
Atrocities 50 years ago? You mean the Cuban Revolution, I'm sure? Might I point you to atrocities 30 years ago in Chile?
Once again you change the subject while whitewashing the issue - which is the real problem with being schooled by liberals, since they leave anything out of the textbooks and classroom that does not align with their philosophy.
Precisely what is culturally superior about raping and scalping your neighbors? Is there some lost Alexandria on the North American continent I don't know about?
She's playin' with ya, Carter. Good luck, man, there are bigger fish to fry.
Of course you won't read about any fighting among the American tribes in a textbook. As far as the liberals are concerned, American Indians were living in Happy Rainbow Land before the white man came over and destroyed the Socialist utopia.
Larry is right on this one Carter. She is blowing smoke just to see it come back out of your ears. LOL
Quite correct, actually. I made the mistake of feeding the troll. Cory, there's a troll in the dungeon!
A typical liberal tactic, to brand something as something other than what it is, rather than address the truth.
Holy cow, I step out to run errands, and a bar fight breaks out. Awesome!
Bree, Bree, Bree, I'm disappointed to see you going for the cheap shot and conflating conservative politics and machismo. I do appreciate Carter's vote of confidence in my beard, but rhetoric and government by testosterone is a really bad idea. And "emo" and "liberal" are two very different categories.
Taking only math, science, and business classes is a sure route to getting beat in a job interview by someone with a broader education who can talk about more than the nuts and bolts of the job. I do appreciate Bree's compliment at 11:11... and I'll point out that you can find unacceptable political bias in either direction in any field. My South Dakota education, K-12 and university, seemed devoid of any liberal or conservative bias. When I took my education classes in the early 1990s, I did a little Rush Limbaugh karaoke against the multiculturalism I heard preached in that program at SDSU, but it wasn't so much that I had firebrand liberal profs as that most of the texts we read included shoddy philosophy that the faculty did appear to have analyzed to its harmful logical conclusions.
Bree, you are as full of sh*t as a Christmas goose. LOL.
We are totally off-topic, but I find it intriguing that "advanced military" is one of Bree's criteria for a succcessful civilization. Might we not also posit that a society that doesn't need an advanced military is at least as successful? Or is such a society impossible, since there will always be other, more militant societies who will crush anyone who tries to remain seriously pacifist?
If only I could get Dennis Daugaard and Gordon Howie to weigh in on the questions of the quality of pre-Columbian Native American culture and the merits of the Cuban revolution. Would those issues help us tell whether Dennis Daugaard is sufficiently conservative?
Yup, that's what we need alright, Cory. And maybe a little insight into the meaning of the Mayan calendar and a discussion of the stonemasonry of Machu Pitchu. Sibby could probably chime in on that. Seems the original Americans were the best Masons of all. Must be something about working with living stone that enlightens a society. (Actually, no less an author than Cormac McCarthy has written a play about it.) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Stonemason
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machu_Picchu
Hello Cory, so glad to finally make your acquaintance. It is good to see the liberals protect one of their own when they've mistepped and are clearly drowning.
An advanced military requires an advanced civilization in order to form. Whereas an advanced civilization can exist (if allowed) without an advanced military. However, the North American Indians were neither advanced culturally nor militarily. Reference my comment about loin cloths and bows.
I didn't choose the topics at hand if you remember, and was only politely joining in the discussion with the conservative viewpoint.
Fair warning, guys: Bree is a troll. Don't feed her and act like an internets noob like me. :(
Also, I thought it was common knowledge that aliens built Machu Pichu! That's what I saw on the History Channel! It must be true. It's a positioning beacon to guide UFOs throughout the galaxy.
Troll indeed.
And a racist, sexist, blood lusting one at that.
Will you protect this one as well? Lol. Besides, Carter was poking Sibson unnecessarily and I saw fit to distract him.
David, David, David. I happen to be part Cherokee. Perhaps I should apply for a professorship?
Just to be clear, Bree, I'm not circling to anyone's defense. I enjoyed The Motorcycle Diaries, but I'm not convinced I would have survived Che and Fidel's revolution. Now enough with the easy and irrelevant shots on professorships. We don't fight the typical culture war here.
Wendell Berry would have something to say about viewing advanced technology as a sign of cultural or moral superiority. Better tech helps you win a war, and there's a lot be said for winning. I am curious, though, how many of our cultural artifacts and achievements would have lasted had the Chinese visited Europe with slightly more force, wiped most of us out with smallpox, and proceeded to set up shop on the Mediterranean coast.
Oh yeah. Sorry Carter. You're right. Aliens...What the heck was I thinking!
...and in an effort to pull us back, Bree, I'm curious how conservative you consider our Governor and his Tea Party detractors.
Either one would be more conservative than a Democrat Governor, who would gridlock the capitol.
(...Dr. David, my guess is, the only thing red about Bree is the back of his/her neck. LOL)
If we take South Dakota's advanced military capacity and invade Wyoming and North Dakota I bet we could take them over before they knew what hit them and maybe without a shot being fired. We will then have all the fossil fuels and tax base we need to follow the Keystone pipeline north to the really big booty in Alberta. Does Gov. Daugaard have the machismo needed to use his advanced military and build a GOP Shangri La, or does he suffer from a lack of ruggedness - having graduated from both college and law school?
"Kill one man, and you are a murderer. Kill millions of men, and you are a conqueror. Kill them all, and you are a god." — Jean Rostand
I think the main underlying question is this: will this apparent divide, this "infighting" among Republicans be beneficial to the liberal cause? And one only has to look at the demographics and policies of the Ron Paul movement to know a liberal shouldn't count his eggs before they hatch.
Yeah, and I'm part Winnebago. My grandfather was an RV. You know, that famous nomadic tribe. A Cherokee maiden would not sport such a cheesy name. Unless she spent too many hours in the commodity distribution line and was trying to gussy up her Velveeta. However, it smells more like Limburger.
Even the most mischievous provocateur cannot forget the difference between parody and pointed denigration, which provides a fix on the viewpoint from which one works. Ain't no problem gettin' that tar baby to talk.
...somehow I think the word "maiden" might be a bit of a stretch here, Professor. But if you're convinced the writer is female, I guess I'll play along.
Let me see if I can help pull this discussion out of the ditch and back on the road. Oh yeah, it was about whether or not Tony's father-in-law, the Governor, was conservative enough.
If it makes Dennis Daugaard feel any better, Jeb Bush noted today that Ronald Reagan wouldn't fit in with the radicals that are hijacking not just the Republican party, but also our state.
Here's what he had to say about the extremes: "Ronald Reagan would have, based on his record of finding accommodation, finding some degree of common ground, as would my dad — they would have a hard time if you define the Republican party — and I don’t — as having an orthodoxy that doesn’t allow for disagreement, doesn’t allow for finding some common ground," Bush said, adding that he views the hyper-partisan moment as "temporary."
Heck he didn't even mention tax hikes and Reagan's penchant for deficit spending, amnesty for undocumented workers and growing big government...which I'm sure would make Randazzo, Howie, Stace, Sibby, Hubbel, et. al. just cringe or even worse.
Of course we will never see the purity tests and scorecards they love to use applied to Reagan. Which is good, because exploding heads are a horrible way to start the week. Good thing I didn't bring up the fact that Ronald Reagan was a union leader or that the Republican god of testosterone, Chuck Norris, is a current union member...that would leave a mark.
I can see I have obviously scored a few points when the respondants denigrate my ancestry, name, maidenhood (lol), and how should I put this.. um, my "redneckiness?"
What will liberals do when the youth vote, and social liberals such as the gay rights crowd realize they'll get more traction with the libertarian movement? Once libertarians begin to take over the Democratic Party, who will the socialists appeal to then? I'm not saying I agree with the libertarians on the issues, but I foresee the problems they have the possibility of causing for the Socialist Democrats, and I find it rather funny.
Not denigrating. If you are a liberal, there is nothing wrong with being any of the three Indian, redneck, or non-maiden. You may however get looked at askance if you pretend to be what you're not. We do have this thing about authenticity.
p.s. I for one would entertain the Libertarian philosophy if I could just get somebody to explain to me what the heck it is. Just when I think I've sort of got it figured out, it seems like they morph it into something else.
I'm starting to think they do that in order to always remain disagreeable with everyone else. And that's not all bad. There's probably good reason to have a party of skeptics (if they could ever get together long enough to agree on what the rules are.)
What libertarian movement? The libertarians have yet to have any discernible impact on practical politics... largely because they, like me in my younger days, thought that pretending everything would just fix itself constituted brilliant political philosophy.
The chances of libertarians taking over any party are nil, because they can't get their poop in a group. The chances of a GOP schism from the likes of Ed Randazzo and Gordon Howie are much more likely than any similar split in the Democratic Party at either the state or national level.
Well, I highly recommend the position papers published by the Cato Institute. They are very well written. And on social issues the libertarian philosophy is simple - live and let live.
Don't tell me you haven't noticed the demographics of the Ron Paul movement? If I was a liberal, I'd be concerned.
Jana,
You are so right. I was in DC when Reagan was there and he was the master compromiser. He had to since Tip O'Neil ran the House. I worked for Sen. Abdnor from 19981-1985, the heart of the Reagan Revolution.
But, the big thing is he liked diversity of opinion around him. Half his cabinet came from the moderate (or as Sibby would say the New World Order) wing of the party. They include:
Chief of Staffs & Treasury Secretaries: Jim Baker and Don Regan
Commerce: Mac Baldridge
HHS: Richard Scheiker & Margaret Heckler (actually from the liberal wing)
State: Alexander Haig & George Schultz
Labor & US Trade Rep: Bill Brock
Two things incense me:
1) Reagan held up as this uncompromising ideologue who wouldn't deal with "liberals" because he did. It's as if Reagan wasn't really real.
2) How Bob Dole is thrown under the bus as RINO.
Dole was just as conservative as Reagan. It mostly showed up behind the scenes in how he managed his committee chairman to bring the bills to the floor as conservative as possible forcing votes to make them more liberal.
Much of what he is criticized for is making legislation more conservative on behalf of Reagan when the House was run by Democrats doing so with compromise. He had to compromise to move the Reagan agenda forward. He ran to the right of GHWB in 1988.
Yes, he wasn't the greatest candidate in 1996 but it wasn't because he wasn't conservative enough. He was a master legislator and that doesn't always translate to the executive branch. He not led most of his career with a Democrat House but even in the majority he had a handful of moderate/liberal Republicans (Weicker, Chaffee, Mathias, and a few I forget).
Bob Dole should be held in the same esteem as the "Conservative Lion" as Ted Kennedy is as the "Liberal Lion." They both had firm convictions but knew how to deal with the other side to advance their agendas. Being a legislator isn't about sitting in a corner and railing about the system. it is about making legislation better.
No Bob Dole, Reagan's legacy would be significantly less. No Bob Dole, Clinton never would have agreed to welfare reform.
"Half his cabinet came from the moderate (or as Sibby would say the New World Order) wing of the party."
Daddy Bush was the VP and ran the show. Reagan was just for theatre so that conservatives could be deceived. The term conservative has become meaningless due to RINOs, and now liberal Democrats, trying to claim everyone is a conservative.
In the West, Gary Johnson could take 10% of the vote from Willard Romney during the Fall Classic handing the victory to my President. Ron Paul may even endorse him from the pulpit in Tampa.
Thune flouts red state conservatism, beds w/Dems:
The 2012 Farm Bill currently sets aside $100 million for beetle-mitigation efforts. The bipartisan amendment Udall offered today with Senators Bennet, John Thune (R-SD) and Max Baucus (D-Mont) would double this to $200 million in order to meet the U.S. Forest Service goal to treat more than double the acres for bark beetle than in previous years."
Bob Dole wasn't charismatic enough to be President. Women were throwing their underthings at Clinton. George H. W. Bush was just riding Reagan's wave, and he wasn't charismatic enough for another term. Charisma is a necessary component of leadership.
Speaking of fissures in the party...Rand Paul is endorsing Mitt Romney over own father. That's gotta hurt!
And that's what I meant about the policies of the Ron Paul movement. This shows that the Democrats should be concerned. It isn't a divisive movement. They want to affect the direction of the party, not divide it. So yeah that's gotta hurt... socialists. How does it feel to lose the votes of millions of college students and "20-somethings?"
This message is for Carter. My husband wants me to let you know that your earlier post about ..."and there was a 14th century law stating that price gougers and forestallers were “oppressors of the poor and the community at large and enemies of the whole countryâ€" Your are actually referring to anti-Semitism that existed for hundreds of years and Frederick the Great supported in his military writings and 'Testament politique.' Not a good example of the fairness and humanity of Socialism. Even though it was actually feudalism.
Very quickly as I must get to Pierre for our first meeting on the emerging oil production boom possibly coming to SD. Sibby; Old friend, What I said on KELO is that 90% of the people in SD would fit into the middle third of the political spectrum. Maybe not those exact words but close. The "Scorecard" bit exemplified the lunacy of taking 8 or 9 votes out of 400 and saying this proves all the folks who did not score a 9 or 10 are Liberals and RINO's. I could take any five votes I get to pick and turn every Democrat into a conservative and every Republican into a liberal if I only scored those few votes. Divide and lose buddy. Embrace and win. You can govern from the far right or the far left; but not for very long.
Bree, I see no evidence that the Ron Paul campaign has made any practical impact on youth voting or the Democratic Party. If Ron Paul threatens any credible threat to anything other than my patience, it is to the GOP. Now if you could tie Paul to the relative decline in Democratic vote registration since 2008 in South Dakota, that would be interesting. Or just show me that Ron or Rand Paul plan to run as Democrats next time.
To some extent, I hope Charlie is right, that 90% of South Dakotans are in the middle. Our politics don't seem to indicate that, given a number of the right wingnuts that get elected to the Legislature (Charlie, you're still helping the radical 10% in District 23 see the error of birtherism, aren't you?). And out-of-staters would consider South Dakota's center to be well to the right.
There is a big difference between Ron Paul and Rand Paul.
For starters, Rand Paul isn't a libertarian, he's a Republican.
Plus, how do you support a kid that would throw his own dad under the bus?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGfcS6NkiAY
DD created a post for a non-white: JR LaPlante; that's liberal. DD is fluent in ASL: that's liberal.
Rest assured that DD will face a primary opponent. The trend among earth haters currently are KKK, christian identity or JBS.
Stace Nelson is a synthesis of those philosophies.
"The “Scorecard†bit exemplified the lunacy of taking 8 or 9 votes out of 400 and saying this proves all the folks who did not score a 9 or 10 are Liberals and RINO’s."
The scorecard had 20 votes. I looked at the comprehensive version and the results were similiar to the scaled down version. When you look at all the votes from the 2012 session, Vehle scored a 36, the same as the 2011 scorecard.
"What I said on KELO is that 90% of the people in SD would fit into the middle third of the political spectrum."
It is not the middle third, it is the liberal third. The entire political environment has moved to the left over the decades (thanks to indoctrination from educaiton and the media[Inside Keloland for example]). JFK would be too conservative to win the GOP nomination for president nowadays.
Steve: you have everything to worry about in the chemical toilet; but, religious zealotry will keep the non-whites and women out of power.
You guys threw Gene Abdallah out of office because he's not even white enough for the Nelson/Howie wing of your party.
Sibby, now you're just playing word games. What you said about an imagined shift left and JFK's unelectability is just satire, completely removed from reality. You are playing the cycnical Republican game of simply saying back the words of your opponents as fabricated charges.
Today's Democrats would nominate — and Americans elect — JFK in a heartbeat. Especially if he were running against Mitt Romney.
JFK, Don't ask what your country can do for, ask what you can do for your country versus ObamaCare/RomneyCare.
I rest my case.
One does not make a case with silly word games.
I thought the Scorecard was a great idea, but it needs some improvement. Maybe only include bills that actually get a full vote. And it needs to be double checked for errors, because I found several. So if the argument is that too few bills were included to be representative of the actual voting record, then include more bills. Don't give them any sound bytes to work with. What they are attempting to do is marginalize the result and convince people not to have any confidence in the scoring process.
"What you can do for your country."
Pay your fair share of taxes so people who can't otherwise afford it, or have preexisting conditions, or are too old, can have health care.
In France apparently a "fair share of taxes" is a 75% marginal tax rate on income over one million euros. Which is what you get when you elect a Socialist President.
Earth hater Schlekeway withdraws:
http://www.argusleader.com/article/20120612/NEWS/306120040/Todd-Schlekeway-withdraw-from-race-state-Senate
That would be like the 90% marginal rate the God-fearing Commie-fighting United States of America had back in the prosperous 1950s, right? But I suppose Eisenhower wasn't conservative enough, either.
What? Did the conservatives get to Schlekeway? Oh, I learn from non-paywall KSFY that he's quitting to take a job as the exec of the National Association of Tower Erectors. T-Schlek says he's excited. I dread Larry's next line....
Anywhere is up from the SD legislature, CAH.
The GOP scrapes the barrel ever deeper for contenders after imprisoning their former standard-bearer, Ted Klaudt: Kopp, Hunt, Hoffman, Nelson, Hickey...they should draft Donald Moeller to run.
"Pay your fair share of taxes so people who can’t otherwise afford it, or have preexisting conditions, or are too old, can have health care."
So your country is to pay for your healthcare. Thanks for proving my case Bill, even though Cory uses words to duck the point. You would have to be in full spin mode to support JFK.
...and yours Sibby. You shouldn't have to go broke and/or die just because you get sick or have an accident, regardless of how much money you make or don't make. Governments are formed to help people take care of one another and to provide collectively what people can't provide for themselves individually. (You know... as in "promote the General Welfare.")
And the RINOs fight back at the crazy. Lindsey Graham broke with anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist and Joe Scarborough lit into conservative bloggers who were critical of Jeb Bush saying:
"You know, you can go online and act like a jackass and say what you want to say. And now everybody is calling Jeb Bush a RINO. Just shut the hell up."
"You can stay in your mother’s basement, you can eat your Cheetos, you can type on your dinty laptop, that’s all you got," he continued. "But you are not the future of the Republican party, so keep screaming at your walls downstairs, your day is done."
Any chance he'll speak at the GOP state convention?
I have my disagreements with young Mr. Sibby, but I know for a cold fact he does not live in his mother's basement.
Cheetos and wall screaming, hey we all do that stuff, but only an insane man would live in his mother's basement.
Side and off topic note: If you post at the DWC about how much better Mr. H's blog is, you get whacked like a gopher on an ant hill. Touchy bastard, that Bill Clay. He is NOT a Conservative with Common Sense.
I'd be a little more worried about the pot-smoking pacifists deserting Obama for the fiscally conservative Ron Paul, who's wrapping them up in the Republican Party. There may be some disagreements in the Grand Ol' Party, but at least the new Counter Culture isn't bleeding us dry.
The new counter-culture is led by earth haters:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jun/09/did-republicans-deliberately-crash-us-economy
Yes, you would be worried about them, Bree, if you thought they showed up to vote and donate and build parties. Your denial of the obvious is reaching satirical proportions. There is no even semi-organized movement to take over the Democratic Party the way the Tea Party and Howie fundies are trying to take over the GOP. Even my crazy cousin Aaron and Sibby are focused on overturning the GOP leadership, not the Dems.
Jana, I'd love to see Graham have that fight with the RINO criers straight up at the convention.
Grudz, one of my comments yesterday went straight to moderation. DWC is clearly unhappy and bitter over their multi-level failure. Tell your friends to bring their conversations over here.
Madviile has become one of the few blogs where anyone can have conversations in South Dakota. The far right blogs allow no discourse and the anonymous discourse that goes on at the war college can many times be anything but civil.
The problem at the War College is, and has always been, the fact that half of the people there post as 'anonymous.' That saps meaning and coherency out of the discourse. It's impossible to tell whether one is talking to three people or thirty. It's a chaotic environment of half baked ideas offered as a daily snapshot of the South Dakota Republican mind, run for the most part by an apparantly schizophrenic moderator who refuses to join in the discourse he invites. All in all a dysfunctional mess. It was somewhat more cohesive when Powers was at the helm, but not much.
The upshot is, the SDGOP presents itself online as a wacky assortment of ignorant louts with rare (but welcome) exceptions like Troy, Lee, Charlie Hickey, Nelson, Ellis, Grudz, Ymous etc. who do the place a favor by using their real names, or at a minimum, picking a pen name and sticking with it. The rest is just crowd noise.
These Ron Paulians were not created by the universe out of thin air. They came from the ranks of the independent 20-somethings who swung so heavily for Obama last election. Not only are they voting, they are delegates to the RNC. These are people who were most likely voting with the Democrats four years ago.
The words "organization" and "libertarian" don't really belong in the same sentence. That didn't stop them from influencing the roots of both the Tea Party and Ron Paul Movements. I don't know what libertarian ideals will spin off into the Democratic Party or what that movement will look like. But declaring it won't happen is merely wishful thinking.
Squirt guns have been banned at the GOP convention, tho' firearms have been welcomed: can't wait.
Thanks, Barry! Bill, I'm starting to worry that DWC is becoming pathological. We need to do more to promote Blanchard's blog as a site for more intelligent conversation. He seems to have a better grasp of the need for intelligent discourse as well as free interaction among the blogs, and he's most clearly not just toeing/blowing the party line. The blogosphere needs more Blanchard, less "Bill Clay."
Bree, show me an independent polling agency or news service (not a Ron Paul fantasist forum) that shows a clear movement of youth voters from Obama to Ron Paul. If there were, those youth voters should have helped Paul win the nomination the same way they helped Obama win the nomination, right? Give me one link, one source that supports the thing you're trying to make true by constant repetition.
Where is this Blanchard Blog, so that I may share its location in the blogspear with the Conservatives with Common Sense at our next breakfast?
I'm looking for the youarel of the Blanchard Blog, is what I meant. I don't want to find out it's located in Madison, SD, on Round Lake or some such location. The youarel.
Oh! Sorry: South Dakota Politics, the one spawn of the the 2004 Lauck-Thune blogstorm-astroturf that didn't turn out half bad. Dr. Blanchard has even updated the template; I think he's signaling a big PR push to topple DWC. ;-)
don't ferget yer waders, grudz....
Doc Blanchard is on a twelve-cliff program over there...
...but he's still more respectful, intelligent, and inviting that the folks mouthing the Party line at DWC.
Yes that is an excellent blog, and you can read the last post "Obama is losing" with analysis included from Jay Cost showing the current swing of young independent voters.
A search of the internet gives me this CBS poll from Jan:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2012/01/09/cbs-poll-independents-prefer-ron-paul-vs-obama/
This one is from March:
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-57392075-503544/ron-paul-gets-boost-from-crossover-voters-in-vermont-and-virginia/
I've already learned a bunch over at the Blanchard Blog. Also, it seems this gentleman is an actual college professor. I think that could be good, could be bad.
This from the end of May on MSNBC:
http://www.dailypaul.com/235623/chuck-todd-undecided-voters-dislike-romney-and-obama-but-love-ron-paul
I didn't actually watch that one but I found it interesting that it was on Hardball.
omg: Kristin Lavransdatter and her grandfather. what next, obiwan?
No, Bree, not one of the text links you provided said what you said, which was that "20-somethings who swung for Obama last time are now swinging for Paul." Cost says Romney is beating Obama. The other two polls showed Indies turning out for Paul but not supporting your specific thesis. Three strikes... but in our crazy baseball, you're still not out. Keep trying. Show me a real movement of young people strongly alinging with Paul/libertarianism and able to do something about it.
Well, Cory, we can certainly disagree on the implications of the evidence. I didn't realize this was a thesis paper I was writing, but if this isn't "young people strongly aligning with Paul/libertarianism" I don't know what is.
No, baloney. Don't dodge with accusations of hyperintellectualism. No, you're not "writing a thesis paper"; you're making a claim. If you make a claim, you have to back it up. Not one of your submitted pieces of evidence referred to a big shift of youth from Obama to Paul, let alone any indication that Ron Paul could cause a schism in the Democratic Party. Your evidence doesn't imply a break-up of the Democratic Party into left and libertarian factions any more than Obama's support among the youth in 2008 portended a huge upswing in Democratic voter registration. Both parties are losing registered voters; if anything, Ron Paul is just the placeholder benefiting from, not the driver of, any voter affiliation shift. Your claim remains substanceless.
And Bree, in another thread, you said you were a libertarian. Why no longer? Were they really heading too far toward the Dems for your taste, or did you realize that they are a poseur group incapable of effecting change?
How about this article Cory:
http://redalertpolitics.com/2012/05/08/in-a-3-way-race-polls-show-ron-paul-steals-young-voters-from-barack-obama/
I did no searching on this issue before I stated my analysis of the trends. I don't spend much time with my nose buried in poll results so I don't know if anyone has done a poll specifically asking young voters who are currently supporting Paul if they previously supported Obama. But as I stated previously, these Ron Paul voters did not appear magically from thin air. A net gain for Ron Paul is a net loss for someone else.
It seems you choose to deliberately misunderstand me, just as Warren chooses to deliberately misunderstand Romney. I don't believe I stated anywhere that the Democratic Party was in danger of an immediate libertarian schism. I speak of the likely possibility of a future movement within the Democratic party colored by the ideals of libertarianism. As I can't see into the future I couldn't possibly prove this, we simply have to wait and see.
I am no longer libertarian because as I grew older I became more socially conservative. The "I don't personally support something but let other people do what they want" philosophy crumbled under the weight of reality, such as the abuse of children by drug addicts. A 22 year old crack addict with five children once told me she was about to have her seventh abortion.
Kira at Bashi. Temba at rest.
I do not deliberately misunderstand anyone. You are still not making your case. You are imaginging/wishing that Ron Paul poses a greater long-term threat to the Dems than the GOP. Your Rasmussen poll is the closest you've come to substantiating that thesis (thank you for the effort). The split is noteworthy; compared to Rasmussen's binary poll showing Romney winning 48-44, the 44-39-13 split shows Paul pulling roughly equally from GOP and Dem and undecided.
But you're still reaching. Nothing in that poll shows that the youth are really grokking Ron Paul; they're just disillusioned (and rightly so) that half of them are unemployed and that Obama and the mainstream political system haven't brought the big change they thought it would when they voted Obama in 2008. They just want a "something else" to vote for; they know Mitt ain't it, and Ron Paul happens to be the most convenient protest vote. Other Dems just aren't showing up. None of what's happening now supports your claim that there is a "likely possibility" that some significant portion of that 5% Obama loses to Paul are going to come storming into the Democratic convention shouting "Hey, y'all! We're here to turn this into the Dem-Libertarian Party!" They're just the same people who will vote for Ross Perot or Ralph Nader or a well financed toaster that offers something vaguely representing an alternative.
The handful of self-proclaimed libertarians who are thinking about practical politics recognize that their routes to real power are co-opting the GOP or building their own party. That indecisive split already weakens them. Trying to create a Libertarian movement within the Democratic Party only wastes more energy and thus is not on anyone's radar.
And before they do that, a majority of them will experience what you did: they will see their inexperienced, unaware, and immature philosphy crumble under the weight of reality, and they will abandon their selfishness in philosophical drag.
Ron Paul poses no threat to anyone. The idea of liberty requires no figurehead, and will spread on its own.
The Youth for Ron Paul Program began in September of 2011. There are now more than 110,000 members in 627 chapters nationwide. That's pretty good numbers in nine months and doesn't demonstrate a convenient protest vote.
You are speaking of a conscious desire of a libertarian movement to take over the Democratic Party, and I am speaking of the inevitable spread of the ideals of libertarianism. A "D" next to someone's name does not stem the flow of ideas.
I wouldn't call Austrian Economics immature or selfish.
Larry, if the hyperintellectualism fits, then wear it.
Austrian economics? Inevitable spread of liberty? Oh, no! You are a Paul-bot! Where are you based, Bree?
And now you are changing what you were speaking of. You were speaking of specific electoral phenomena for which your evidence is thin. Now you're falling back to the vague stump-speech abstractions of Ron Paul fantasists.
Look again at the Huffington Post article to which I linked above at 16:16: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/12/obamas-perilous-relations_n_1590948.html
This article doesn't talk about any "inevitable spread of ideals of libertarianism." It talks about specific economic discomfort. It talks about specific policy disappointments. It does not link defection from Obama to Ron Paul or Libertarianism.
To quote myself:
"The words “organization†and “libertarian†don’t really belong in the same sentence. That didn’t stop them from influencing the roots of both the Tea Party and Ron Paul Movements. I don’t know what libertarian ideals will spin off into the Democratic Party or what that movement will look like. But declaring it won’t happen is merely wishful thinking."
Libertarianism is an economic movement which addresses specific economic discomforts. Probably one of the reasons it's spreading so quickly now.
It is also the death of Socialism in this country.
I am based in Pierre. And although I did root for Paul in 2004, I have never been actively involved in his organization. I am in fact not particularly active in any organizations, which is a stubborn libertarian trait.
Hey, BS: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9S7yhD5M9A
Most politicians sell comfort—that American is the greatest, rich and mighty and right, and what small problems we have can be solved by electing our guy and getting rid of the other guy. Ron Paul wins passionate devotion selling a vision of great discomfort.
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012/06/05/why-gop-cant-afford-to-ignore-ron-paul-and-his-many-fans/#ixzz1xof6B83W
Ron Paul has an admirable consistency, but it is a foolish consistency. The far right pitches nonsense that has failed to work in the past. Their economic mindless mythology gets hammered as zombie economics, dead as a doornail, but periodically dragged out of the political grave by corporations and their shills knowing an unknowing.
There is however an even better label for the far right economic mythology than "zombie economics", it is "economic coprolites".
I ran across a group called the "Blue Republicans" whom are Democrats and Independents who have joined the Republican Party for one year to support Ron Paul.
"The right pitches nonsense that has failed to work in the past." This statement is hilarious since it is Socialism that has been proven over and over again not to work in the real world. Europe is currently falling apart and we're talking about libertarianism and Austrian Economics failing? *chokes on laughter*
Holy Cow! First we have orange Republicans in DC. Now a group of BLUE! Republicans wandering around Pierre.
No nation is currently governed by Libertarianism... largely because Libertarianism can't govern. Europe is not falling apart; that's alarmist rhetoric. Socialism works every day: public education gets the vast majority of students in America, Canada, and Europe ready for work and citizenship; public dollars build most roads, pay most police and firefighters, and fund most military activity.
Libertarianism "spreading so quickly"? Sounds like the fantasy of a party propagandist or just a wishful thinker manufacturing external validation. In South Dakota, which ought to be one of the hottest beds of Libertarian activity, Libertarian registration has declined since 2006. Libertarian vote totals in the Presidential election peaked in 1980, then plunged and haven't cracked 1% since.
Not so fast, CAH:
"Bowman is correct that some state polls have shown higher levels of support for Johnson than national polls have. PPP polls have shown Johnson at 15 percent in his home state of New Mexico, 9 percent in Arizona, 8 percent in Montana and 7 percent in New Hampshire. A poll conducted by ORC International for the libertarian magazine Reason found Johnson taking 6 percent in Wisconsin."
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2012/jun/06/gary-johnson/gary-johnson-tells-jon-stewart-he-has-8-percent-su/
Oooh! That would be interesting. Now, is Johnson pulling more Romney voters or Obama voters?
He needs to poll well enough to get him into the debates. That's where the Ron Paul people become a factor in the race.
Newland as elder statesman: there is a god.