Archive for the ‘politics’ Category

Amherst NH 9:03 A.M. with Herman Cain: Updated with photos and Video

Posted: March 11, 2011 by datechguy in elections, primaries 2012
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I’m sitting at the counter of Joey’s Diner

Joey's Diner in Amherst NH

where Herman Cain makes a presentation to a group of invited locals.

Mr. Cain will be in NH for several events culminating in a keynote speech at the Hillsborough Lincoln-Reagan Day Reception and Dinner- Keynote Address tonight in Nashua. I hope to be there to cover it.

Update: Had breakfast with an elderly WW 2 & Korean War navy vet named Bob McCloud. He’s seen many presidential candidates pass through NH over the years, his favorite was Ronald Reagan. He is Mitt Romney fan and is not familiar with Herman Cain which is exactly the reason why Mr. Cain is up here.

Herman cain in the Back room making his case

Scored an interview and will have it up when I have a faster upload location to work from.

Update 2: Video is up:

Yes E.D. Kain Wisconsin is the Republican Waterloo…

Posted: March 11, 2011 by datechguy in opinion/news, politics
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…they are playing the role of Wellington.

Was it only 48 hours ago that liberals buoyed by polls and news reports were convinced that Scott Walker and the republicans were about to back down?

Now not even one day after they were proved spectacularly wrong the left has decided on a new meme to replace the old one that didn’t seem to work. Apparently now this vote is a case of political suicide for Republicans. E. D. Kain is convinced this will be their doom:

And now conservatives have chosen public-sector workers and teachers as their hill to die on. They have followed the most radical voices in the party and the movement, and elected Scott Walker, Rick Scott, and various other Tea Party candidates. Heavily funded by big campaign donors like the Koch brothers and other corporate interests, the Republican party has made a concerted effort across the country to take on unions, public pensions, and social services for the poor.

It is to laugh. Apparently E. D. hasn’t figured out that the “interest” that public unions fight against is…”the public” that is the taxpayer.

Richard Trukma is also playing the lemons into lemonade game as Jennifer Epstein reports:

While blasting Walker and Wisconsin’s Republican legislators for their “absolute corruption of democracy” in passing an anti-labor bill, the leader of the nation’s largest union group thanked the governor for getting activists fired up. “We probbably should have invited him here today to receive the Mobilizer of the Year Award,” Trumka said Thursday morning while speaking to the National Press Club in Washington D.C. “Wisconsin is the beginning — it’s pushing the start button” for pro-labor activism.

Right, he mobilized people so well that unions had to bus in supporters and were unable to match anything near tea party numbers in national rallies across the country.

Let’s cut to the chase here. The unions went all in here because they understand what is at stake, not bargaining, but the political clout that the union monies bring the leadership and the democrats who reward them with those monies. This is was what the unions were defending. That’s why they were willing to give up so much to avoid this vote.

Think about what it has cost the Democrats/unions:

1. War Chests: The three weeks of protesting had to have been a drain on both union and democratic funds. The monies they claim to have raised are not insignificant but they have not reported the expenses of their national campaigns. I would not be surprised if the funds raised are not sufficient to cover what they’ve already spent. In fact they will need the extra money to fight in all the other states that, seeing the union defeat in Wisconsin, will find themselves willing to take them on.

2. The schedule: Unfortunately for democrats this took place at the beginning of the term of Governor Walker. This means that this plan will have time to make the difference in the state economy meaning the voters will be able to see actual results by the time he is facing re-election. The unions are making a lot of fuss about recall efforts forgetting that recall efforts are also being placed against democratic lawmakers who actually fled the state as well. Those efforts will not reverse the bill nor did they manage to intimidate the lawmakers in question.

3. Voting with their dues: Even worse for the unions is the reality that the state is no longer obliged to collect union dues for them. The compulsion is gone. Legal Insurrection has it nailed:

The vote will be taken with the feet of tens of thousands of Wisconsin public employee union members, who will have the choice for the first time in memory of deciding whether to join the union and pay the union dues, which have been estimated in the $700-1000 per year range.

The public employees will have to make a choice, take a pay increase or pay the union.

I think we know how that vote will turn out, and whether the employees — once given a choice — will buy what the unions are selling.

I think the unions knew how this vote will come out too. That’s why they decided to die on this hill. They understand that where union membership is not compulsory it has dropped like a rock. They understand that this vote will be before any election and will signal nationwide how weak and narrow their actual support is within their own ranks.

4. Public Opinion: That’s the other card that the unions and the media tried to play. I’m going to make the wild assumption that the office holders of Wisconsin are no more brave that other office holders across the nation. If they actually believed that they were going to suffer the public harm that the unions and the media insist they are going to get, don’t you think that they would have backed down? I think they didn’t back down not because they were any more courageous than other polls, I think they knew how to count and saw the protests for what they were and acted accordingly. As I’ve said, if the unions were convinced it would have resulted in a huge turnaround (particularly in an election year with Obama on the top of the ticket) they would have acted differently.

5. The visuals: This is the big one. The visuals of this protest favored the tea parties and the governor from the start and continue to do so. People don’t like to see their capital occupied, or doors handcuffed shut or people threatened with death, or their legislators running away. There is supposedly a big protest with Michael Moore this weekend. Yup Michael Moore and Jessie Jackson are really going to be able to sell this nationally. As I said in my examiner piece yesterday:

There has been an awful lot of video shot of the Wisconsin protests, there has been even more taken of both tea party protests and tea party meetings. The question becomes: which set of images are more likely to elicit the support of the majority of the American Populace? We will find out in 2012.

The only thing the Wisconsin democratic protesters and the tea party protesters have in common is both will likely be prominently featured in GOP ads in 2012. I’m sure the death threats against the Wisconsin legislators and those against Scott Walker (some actually signed on twitter) are going to go over real well come election day.

6. Bigger Events: Even if the unions want to keep the pressure on unfortunately for them bigger events are overtaking them, the rising costs of Gas, the war in Libya, and the national budget battles are going to trump any attempt to keep the furor up in anyone except for the truest of true believers.

E.D. Kain is trying to pull the Albert Sidney Johnston who with insufficient military to stop a union advance, used propaganda to keep the enemy thinking he was stronger than he was.

My advice to the Republicans? It hasn’t changed: Ride right through them, they’re demoralized as hell!

Update: Yup that should have said Albert Sidney Johnston, thanks to Edward for the Catch.

Update 2: Unsurprisingly the NYT doesn’t get it but Obi Wan does.

Captain Ed and Kaus get it

Posted: March 7, 2011 by datechguy in economy, politics
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In Wisconsin the word is that the absent senators are on their way back

Playing a game of political chicken, Democratic senators who fled Wisconsin to stymie restrictions on public-employee unions said Sunday they planned to come back from exile soon, betting that even though their return will allow the bill to pass, the curbs are so unpopular they’ll taint the state’s Republican governor and legislators.

Or maybe not:

Wisconsin Democrats who fled the state more than two weeks ago to block a vote on a Republican plan to limit public union collective bargaining said on Sunday they have no immediate plans to return.

Or perhaps maybe:

Senate Minority Leader Mark Miller (D-Monona) said in a letter sent out Monday that he wants to meet with Republicans “near the Wisconsin-Illinois border to formally resume serious discussions” on Walker’s budget repair bill

So they want to meet at the border, what is this the cold war? Ed Morrissey nails it:

I suspect that Walker will explain yet again that the state of Wisconsin already provides a forum for that discussion, and it’s not “near the Wisconsin-Illinois border.” It’s in Madison, which is where the Democratic legislators should have been all along if they wanted to take meetings.

Protesters or no all the visuals help the GOP. Walker can make his statements from the statehouse where is supposed to be. Every Democratic statement has to come from hotels or “undisclosed location”. Ed gets that as long as this keeps up Democrats look bad and Republicans (re-Walker) looks good.

I think that Kaus has it right:

To the extent a liberal MSM conspiracy helped produce and publicize those polls–and it can only be a limited extent since one of the polls is Rasmussen’s– did they inadvertently do Gov. Walker a favor by giving the Dems the PR cover they need to save face while they lose the actual legislative battle?

The problem for the dems it its too easy to understand the whole playing hooky angle. Even people who don’t follow politics get it.

I’m pretty sure how this is going to end, (they come back, bill is passed) I’m just not sure when, the decision however will not be made by the Wisconsin Senators, but by the democratic and union money that is currently backing them up.

The upside down world of the left and Wisconsin

Posted: March 4, 2011 by datechguy in opinion/news, politics
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As you may have already heard, the absent senators in Wisconsin are being held in contempt and not just by voters:

Republicans voted, 19-0, to find the Democrats in contempt of the Senate and issued orders to Wisconsin law enforcement to detain them.

“We simply cannot have democracy be held hostage because the minority wants to prove a point,” said Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald (R-Juneau).

The Senate voted in the morning that absent Democrats would be in contempt of a Senate rule requiring attendance if they did not return by 4 p.m. When they didn’t return, the Senate reconvened and Fitzgerald signed for each missing senator an “order to detain (in the nature of a warrant to arrest and deliver).”

Additionally the protests at the Capital has come at a cost to the voters, literally:

State officials said Thursday that damage to the marble inside and out the State Capitol would cost an estimated $7.5 million.

Cari Anne Renlund, chief legal counsel for the state Department of Administration, said in Dane County court that estimates of damage to marble includes $6 million to repair damaged marble inside the Capitol, $1 million for damage outside and $500,000 for costs to supervise the damage.

Much of the damage apparently has come from tape used to put up signs and placards at the Capitol.

Meanwhile two different recall efforts are under way in Wisconsin. Two weeks ago recall efforts were launched against some democratic senators for fleeing the state. Now the Union supported democrats are launching counter recall efforts against republicans who stayed and they are putting some serious green into it:

The Wisconsin recall effort is only a day old, but it’s going strong. The state Democratic Party has launched a website called Recall the Republican 8 to coordinate events. They have volunteer and contribution pages. There’s also a separate ActBlue page set up for the recall. A separate effort to air a powerful TV ad from the PCCC and DFA, filmed on the day of the 100,000-plus protests last Saturday, has already raised over $225,000.

I suspect a lot of help for union families could be done with 225k but leave that aside for a moment. Let’s look at the arguments:

This past weekend, constituents of Republican state Sen. Alberta Darling, R-River Hills, gathered in an effort to recall her.

“She let it out of committee. She had a chance to look at the bill and say, ‘This reaches too far,'” Darling recall organizer Kristopher Rowe said Saturday.

Or as State Democratic Party chairman Mike Tate puts it:

“In 60 days you can take Wisconsin back by recalling the Republican senators who have decided to push Scott Walker’s divisive attack on the rights of workers and his assault on schools, universities and local communities,”

While on the other side:

“You’re not representing me if you’re not in the Capitol to vote,” said constituent Amanda Cabrera, as she signed the petition.

“Vote yes or no, whether they agree or not, but they need to be in Madison,” said constituent Sandra Dolye. “If (Wirch) can’t do his job, he should get out.”

That’s all you need to know about this: Republicans want to recall people for playing Hooky. Democrats and Unions wants to recall people for showing up.

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