Blog

Last night, when chatting with a friend of mine who is a much more prominent political author than I, I engaged in some speculation about who Rudy's big endorsement of the day was going to be. Given that it coincided with the Club for Growth's big do in DC, our joint money (you might have said) was on it being someone who we know commands a lot of respect with the Club, and who is probably rather DC-based. We speculated about it being Judd Gregg (which would have been fantastic), and...

> More

Today, there's an election going on in MA-5! Yes, yes, I know, significantly less exciting than presidential politics, but still-- the MA-5 race represents an opportunity for the GOP to pick up a seat in the bluest of states and-- what's more-- it's not complete pie in the sky.

Here's the latest on the race. From the Politico:

The most recent polls in the race show Ogonowski trailing by narrow margins. A SurveyUSA poll released last week shows Tsongas maintaining a 51 percent to...

> More

I was away over the weekend, attending (and speaking at) CLC 2007 in Reno, so I haven't been online too much in the past few days. But, sifting through my email, I saw a link that had been sent to me to this YouTube clip relating to Ron Paul's candidacy-- together with a mention that Jon Stewart and Bill Maher both back Paul.

So, I checked it out (note to readers: put "Jon Stewart" anywhere in an email, where gmail will pick it up without me opening the message, and I'll probably read...

> More

Yesterday, I was experiencing some problems with my internet connection, which prevented me from blogging—apologies for that.

One of the things, however, I had meant to write about—and am writing about now—was a debate going on over at NRO’s The Corner involving the definition of “conservative.” Specifically, I’d like to point to two posts by friend-of-a-friend David Freddoso here and here.

Freddoso, a very smart guy whose writing I enjoy and who I generally have a lot of...

> More

I'm gearing up for today's debate here at home, and hope you'll be tuning in later on also.

Needless to say, this is going to be a big one, because Fred is participating. It's on economic issues, and Fred generally has a lot to say here. He's quite good at railing against extravagant spending, and big, bulky entitlements like Medicare Part D and Social Security. So, I think this could be good for him-- as long as he adjusts the monotone, and comes off as a wee bit more energetic than...

> More

... and Fred just stumbled on the word "recession," which he seems to have forgotten. But, he has leapt into talking about excessive spending, which I appreciate. Sadly, he doesn't seem to be doing much of a good job at explaining why so many people think that we're headed into a recession.

Oh-- Romney thinks it's everyone's duty to solve the problem of large numbers of home foreclosures in Michigan, including the government's. He is giving a lot of good Michigan-specific chat,...

> More

I actually liked the way Fred handled that comeback to Hunter. He's right to say that China is a didgy dealer, but he's also right to say that nixing free trade is the wrong way to handle the issue.

I am liking Brownback's talk about the optional flat tax. Brownback himself is rather uninspiring, but this is a good idea in terms of giving people a choice that, if taken, will no doubt propel us towards serious tax reform. I'm glad to see he immediately whipped out the name of one...

> More

I am baffled as to why, in a debate about economic issues, we're talking Iraq. But whatever.

Aw, the McCain-Rudy love club continues with McCain's comment about credit for uniting Americans after 9/11!

McCain is highlighting his early stance in bashing the administration on Iraq. Good. He has a point.

***

The problem with talking about Iraq is Ron Paul gets going. He has some fair points, yes, in terms of how much we're spending, but I'm not enthused about this...

> More

I don't really know why McCain thinks it pays for him to talk about immigration, but I don't think it does.

Ah, Romney's going to talk about how Hillary Clinton has no private sector experience except as a lawyer. And he's raised his health care plan. Well done, Mitt. Perhaps you haven't noticed, but what she's advocating essentially is your health care plan!!!

***

It would be ever so nice if Rudy would start talking about how Hillary's health care plan basically is...

> More

Huckabee is right that SCHIP was about political posturing. But his answer is too detailed already-- he's out of time. Huckabee's basically saying he wouldn't get to the point of having to veto SCHIP because he would have run the PR better. He's also saying he might not have vetoed the bill, essentially (I think he's saying) because it might have been a waste of political capital. Yet, by defaulting to the individual control of insurance point, he gets a round of applause. ...

> More