WhackyNation

David Goldstein is openly challenging TVW, Washington’s public affairs television channel, to defend its copyright.

Violating TVW’s published copyright, the pro-Darcy-Burner blogger has posted a 37 second clip of Congressman Dave Reichert’s speech to the Mainstream Republicans last month which TVW caried in its entirety.  So far, Democrat Darcy Burner has not disavowed Goldstein’s action.

The latest epidsode is reminiscent of a 2006 TV attack ad when Darcy Burner supporters stole another Reichert speech from TVW.  Although chastised by the Seattle Times editorial page for exhibiting “bad leadership,” Burner did not denounce the tactic which probably cost her the election.

So Goldstein in his egoistic need to pretend he’s a journalist defending the public’s right to know, is setting up his favorite candidate, Darcy Burner, for more leadership criticism.  Goldstein is too closely allied with the Burner campaign not to cause public scutiny of Burner’s support or non-support of Goldstein’s challenge to TVW.

Goldstein doesn’t appear to be a chess player.

The other question is, how will TVW respond?  I’ve suspected TVW to be a paper tiger and will not defend its copyright.  If it doesn’t, then nobody will respect TVW’s copyrights and its archives will become opposition research for campaigns.  I suspect there are a lot of Democrats and Republicans who would not like to see this happen.

So, it will be interesting to follow this story in the weeks to come.  Maybe the liberal blogger of the Horses Ass site will earn the moniker “Horses dick,” even among Democats.

My hero of all time, Marcus Cicero, said “Words once spoken fly forth irrevocably.”

The power of a word can truly change the world.  And that’s what Senator Barack Obama, his supporters, and the other Democrats will realize in the coming months.

If the Democrats don’t dump Obama for another nominee, then the Democrats will lose big time in November, perhaps way down the ticket.

The word in question?

“Bitter.”

That’s how Obama described the working class who ”cling” to religion and guns and are mad about illegal immigration.  He said they vote that way because they are bitter about Washington.

Whoa!  What a condemnation of a whole class of Americans and their values.

Obama just lost the presidency with that remark because he deeply insulted the swing constituency in the key battle ground states, especially Ohio and Pennsylvania.  The Senator won’t apologize.

If the Democrats don’t start doing damage control, this put-down of the working class could seriously damage the party brand.  What’s been obvious to a lot of conservative commentators is now becoming obvious to the population at large.  The Democrats are the party of anti-war kooks and elitists and are out of touch with most Americans.

I have been watching the GOP returns come in over the past few weeks. The results have made me think about a variety of issues (structurally, psychologically, and culturally) about the Republican nomination process and Republican primary voters. All of them bother me in a different way.

Let’s start with the structural problem/strength of the GOP nomination process. The reality is, Republicans are not picking our nominee…independent voters are. John McCain is wining for one reason and one reason only. Many of the early primary states allow independents to vote in the Republican primary. McCain can’t win in states that have “closed primaries.” It is why Bush beat him in 2000. But with independents carrying the day in N.H. and Michigan he has become the proverbial “front runner.” On one level this bothers me. I want Republicans to pick the Republican nominee. True blue Republicans care about illegal immigration, low taxes, and free speech. John McCain does not. On the other hand, independent voters may be saving the GOP from its own myopia. All the polls suggest John McCain is the most likely candidate to beat both Hillary and Obama. If Republican primary voters got who they really wanted, we might end up with Huckabee and that would result in another 1964 election for us. In the end, we true blue conservatives may have to abdicate purity for electability.

The second thing that disturbs me is how quickly GOP primary voters are willing to change their mind based on the results of a primary in another state. What ever happened to picking a candidate based on who you thought would be the best president. I looked at polls that had Giuliani way up in Florida and then down a few days later because McCain won in Michigan. Did McCain unveil any new ideas? No. Did Giuliani make a gaff? No. So what is the reason for the big shift? Unfortunately, it’s the “bandwagon effect.” People think they will be a winner if the back a winner. It’s why there are lots more Patriots fans this year. But, I think that is a terrible way to vote. If you want to change your mind based on a debate or a policy shift, fine. But I have no respect for people who change their vote simply because someone won a primary a few days earlier.

Finally, the Ron Paul over Giuliani vote in S.C. is just scary. What does that say about the sophistication of Southern Republican voters? On one side you have a man who wants a complete pull out of Iraq…the consequences be damned and an economic policy that suggests we should eliminate the Fed. On the other side, we have a man who turned the biggest city in American around. He cleaned up the crime, brought the city back in the red, performed magnificently on 9/11, and is the only guy in the debates to actually answer the questions. But S.C. voters picked Paul over Giuliani 2 to 1.

All this tells me it is time to change our nomination process. First, I don’t think the first in the nation primary should be a state with an “open primary.” Second, I don’t think we should put S.C. in such a prominent position. Third, I wouldn’t have our first in the nation caucus in a state where evangelicals have so much power.

I’ll save my next post for what I think we SHOULD do.

For years, insurance companies and their agents have been banned from giving campaign contributions to candidates for State Insurance Commissioner.  The ban is in place presumably so that the insurance industry cannot “buy” influence from the person who might be elected to regulate the industry.

If that’s the case, then why not ban campaign contributions from trial lawyers and their PAC’s?  Don’t they buy similar influence from prospective insurance commissioners?

And while we’re at it, we need to take a look at how trial lawyers get around the law regulating maximum PAC contributions to their Democrat candidates.  The law limits just how much money a political PAC can donate, but it doesn’t limit the number of PAC’s that trial lawyers can give money to nor reconcile that all these different PACs from the same industry all give to the same candidates thus circumventing the intent of the campaign limitation law.

Reform is needed, but unlikely as long as corrupt Democrats hold control of the legislature and governor’s office.  Trial lawyers buy a lot of influence with them.

Perhaps the Republican nominee for Insurance Commissioner, whoever that will be, can challenge his Democrat opponent to refuse money from trial lawyers.  Do you think that will happen?

Without naming sources, I learned that the politically savvy in the business community in Washington State have been stunned by an analysis of their political contributions for campaigns in 2006.

According to the analysis, the 20 top political business PAC’s contributed $6.4 million to 132 separate campaigns, some of them Democrats.

By comparison, labor unions contributed the same amount of money to just 16 races, and no Republicans.

Business lobbyists now realize that up until now they have been buying access to elected officials with their political contributions, whereas labor has been buying control of the legislature.

My prediction is that business contributions will be more highly targetted in 2008.

House Minority Leader Richard DeBoldt would be smart to put his HROC’s campaign contributions into the same races as the business community.

Maybe then, the Republicans can start bouncing back in the legislature.

2008 may be a comeback year for the GOP if these things happen.

Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton proposed PRIVATE SAVINGS ACCOUNTS today! You can read it at this link. After scorching the Bush Administraton a few years ago for suggesting the PARTIAL privatization of Social Security, Hillary goes and proposes essentially the same plan. But here is the kicker. Hillary would fund about half of it with taxpayer money.

So let me get this straight. As Americans, we should NOT be allowed to invest our own money in private accounts as President Bush suggested. But, we SHOULD be allowed to invest government money in private accounts. Liberals just kill me sometimes. According to Hillary, I can’t invest my money, but I can invest the money I TAKE from my fellow citizens. She should write this stuff up for Saturday Night Live. It’s that funny.

When President Bush tried to save Social Security, Democrats criticized the plan as too expensive. Now, Hillary wants to provide “matching funds” for every dollar you save. What happened to the idea that individuals should save money for retirement becuse it is a smart idea. Now we have to have the government bribe us to save for retirement? Why?

Secondly, why should someone ELSE pay from my retirement? At least with Social Security I get back the money I paid into it. With Bush’s plan, I got back the money I paid into the system (PLUS MY INTEREST). Now, Hillary’s plan suggests that I deserve someone else’s money in my retirement account. This plan is a glimpse into the mind (unused as it is) of a liberal. They feel they have a “right” to take anything they want. All they need is 51% and they can take, take, take.

As long as I have been teaching, I have never been able to teach a liberal that there is a difference between a “want” and a “right”. Looks like Hillary would have failed my class too.

As once-proud and once-free America continues its slide down the slippery, dangerous road toward total Socialism and the Big Brother specter, I have wondered what needs to be done to return this once-great nation to the essence of personal liberty it once espoused. These are the steps I believe we must take to restore that greatness:

1. We must restore individual and states’ rights we once had and that were gradually usurped by the federal government, beginning with the Socialist measures adopted by FDR’s New Deal and LBJ’s Great Society. That should include privatization of most agencies of the federal government.
2. The two-party concept conceived by our forefathers and detailed in the U.S. Constitution but fragmented by politicians in the middle of the 20^th Century must be reborn, with both parties shedding Socialist principles on one hand and ultraconservative and even theocratic principles on the other.
3. The historic, traditional definitions of “conservatism” and “liberalism” must be restored to the field of political endeavor and to every political office from the local to the state and federal levels.
4. To counter the fact that virtually all skullduggery in public office is committed by those who are in office too long, we must adopt the six-year-limit formula to every elected office in the land, with no person being permitted to run for re-election and with the electorate being granted the right to “dis-elect” whomever they choose without cause. Public office should be a limited privilege, not a career.
5. Immigration must be strictly controlled and the once strictly observed quota system must be policed without exception, with immediate action taken to send all illegal immigrants back to their homeland.
6. The widening gap between the haves and the have-nots in America must be closed with the passage of laws requiring corporations and all other establishments to adopt “sharing” rules that require them to share their profits with their employees.
7. Federal-government bureaucracies must be eliminated in the fields of education and health; education should be the province of the states and private institutions, not the federal government, and the nation’s health-care system should be controlled and administered by the medical and dental professions, not a federal agency.
8. With no exceptions permitted, English should be declared to be America’s language by congressional law; at the same time, Congress should consider adopting sign language as the nation’s second language, with the intention of encouraging all other nations to accept it as a second language, as well.
9. Courses of study in American history, the federal and state constitutions, and local, state, and federal government should be made required subjects in all public and private schools.
10. Periods of election campaigns at all levels should be strictly limited to three months before a primary election and another three months before a final election; campaigners not observing these rules should be forced to withdraw their candidacy.
11. The U.S. should withdraw from the United Nations and form a new organization composed only of those free nations that endorse U.S. principles of freedom; at the same time, the U.S. should inaugurate a volunteer military force composed of paid men and women to police the world and stop internal conflicts and uprisings wherever they arise to threaten the peace of the world.

That’s enough for now. I hope these 11 principles will serve as prompters for a new look at democracy in America and everywhere else on the planet.

Two Mainstream Republican Representatives told me today that their fundraising letters are bringing in less than half of what they have raised in previous years.  And they are concerned.

I don’t feel right to name the two reps as they spoke in confidence.  They assume the reason the fundraising response is down is because Washington State is more and more anti war and their nemesis, Frank Chopp, is brilliant.  I’m wondering if part of it could be that fundraising letters are going the way of dinosaurs.

On the plus side, they said the House Caucus is turning fundraising around ever since they renamed their PAC the “Reagan Fund.”

I’ve got to admit it.  I am impressed by the NutRoots’ fundraising success for Darcy Burner.  Over 3,000 people contributed more than $127,000 during the past few days in response to President Bush visiting Bellevue to attend a Dave Reichert fundraiser.

That’s considerable money for Burner and a testament to the strength of the Bush Derangement Syndrome infecting the American Left.

One thing is certain: the Left can successfully fundraise via the net because Leftist activists have reached a critical mass online.  That’s missing on the Right.  And it’s a disadvantage going into the next election cycle.

Conservative activists remain unhip to the net and are losing out on the net’s tactical and strategic capabilities.

Just as I have been predicting, the left-wing bloggers are infiltrating Dave Reichert’s public meetings with camcorders and cameras in order catch an embarassing moment.

Inside, Dave was clearly leery of the video cams he saw recording his every word (”this is my Macaca-nator” one guy told me), questioning each operator as to whether they were working for one particular campaign or not - Paranoia becomes him, I thought.

Get ready for more of this crap.

Hat tip to HowieinSeattle. 

Camcorders, YouTube and political activists.  A new recipe for both positive and negative campaigning. 

At Mainstream’s Cascade Conference, I spoke about the changing media and that Democrats seem to have an upper hand because that party tends to have a younger (and more immature) demographic that’s more at ease in the electronic world.

So, I am delighted to provide a link to a public relations essay written by a firm that’s advising campaigns how to live in the YouTube world:

1. Two-camera strategy at all times.
2. Watch the footage. Archive well.
3. Monitor opponent’s channel / organic search results.
4. Prepare known hit responses early / “flood the zone.”
5. Several different campaign YouTube accounts.

Read in detail here.  It’s very much worth the time.

I have been saying for some time now that the Democrat-backed highway and transit package plus tolls for the Lake Washington bridges will be the issue to take back legislative seats in the so-called suburban crescent of Seattle.

Middle-of-the-road voters — [sorry for the pun] — will realize that the Democrats are indebting an entire generation of taxpayers to build a poorly designed and managed light rail system that overfavors Seattle at the cost of other cities and counties while not providing the solution to congested highways.  If given the information, suburban voters will revolt and cast their ballots for Republicans who prioritize highways over trains and buses.

Construction of the light rail system must be stopped for its incompetence.  Incompetence in that it is not a regional transportation solution when it will average less than 35 mph because it travels on some city streets.  Light rail was selected over heavy rail (think faster and better) because transit proponents did not seek adequate funding in 1996 when voters approved the Regional Transit Authority.  Red-faced, RTA Manager Doug Bob White recommended to the RTA board a cheaper light rail solution which also appealed to special interests of some Seattle neighborhoods and the Mayor’s office.  Think how Rainier Valley was chosen for the light rail corridor instead of the industrial South Seattle neighborhoods and Boeing Field.   I guess getting industrial workers out of their cars was not a high priority.

We should stand back and let the Democrats do it to themselves.  I am reminded by what Newt Gingrich has had to say about the lesson learned in 1984 — the Walter Mondale lesson:

I think 2008 is going to be a wonderful year.

I love it.  The D’s are beginning a civil war over who should be the challenger to Dave Reichert in Washington’s eighth.  I agree with the author that Darcy Burner is not the best candidate to unseat Reichert, but I disagree that the war in Iraq is the reason Democrats won nationally in 2006.  One word, “Macacca”, tipped the Senate, and Tom Mark Foley flipped the House.  Democrats need be more careful about national security.  They are about to get their asses handed them.

Communications like this one from Mitt Romney are going to change campaign communications.

Posting a video on YouTube and then grass-roots emailing is changing the election process.  It’s much more cost effective to produce a camcorder video and post in on YouTube than it is to produce TV spots and pay for the air time or to do mailings and phone calls.

Starting in 2007, grass-roots emails embedding or linking to 60-second candidate YouTube posts likes Romney’s will be the most cost effective campaigning for your candidates.

Mitt’s campaign posted this video on Wednesday.  By tonight it had been viewed over 358,000 times.  Think of what you could do with your legislative or city candidates.  You probably already own the technology.

.