Ann Romney's RNC Speech

How does it feel, Marco? Was it worth it?

Yesterday Robert Stacy McCain broke the story of how Marco Rubio's staffers — and possibly the Senator himself — were instrumental in the ploy to move Florida's primary date drastically forward, in an attempt to throw the primary to former GOP front-runner Mitt Romney.

Although DC insiders such as Karl Rove feel a Romney nomination is inevitable, in spite of his failure to win a primary challenge against John McCain in 2008, who went on to lose by substantial margins to President Barack Obama, the surging popularity of Herman Cain, particularly in Florida where Cain now leads solidly and would WIN an early primary if held today, is raising a chilling spectre of upset for the entrenched GOP Old Guard... and their alleged belated ally.

Rubio formerly enjoyed great popularity with the populist "tea party" base of the GOP, which powered him to victory over establishment figure Charlie Crist.  But Rubio's Washington operation is headed up by Chief of Staff Cesar Conda, a former Romney campaigner.

Is Conda a loose cannon, or has he convinced Rubio that what he and the Tea Party accomplished pales to what the GOP machine could do for — or to — him?  If the former, Conda's career is ruined — you do NOT embarrass the Boss and survive in DC.  If the latter, Rubio's populist base, already expressing its dismay and anger at even the possibility of his involvement in the primary shenanigans, will simply blow away.

Rubio would then have to rely on the GOP Machine he affronted taking care of him in return, a position not unlike being the last Batista loyalist in Havana.

Perhaps Marco should ask his neighbors in Florida how THAT worked out...

Will Sarah Palin endorse... and who?

Even with her decision not to seek the Presidency in 2012, Palin remains a powerful motivational and ideological force for a huge part of the conservative base, as indicated by the response to her at the Searchlight Tea Party in Harry Reid's home town, below...

This means she still has a role in the ongoing election, where Hermain Cain's popular support is posing an unexpected challenge to the GOP's intended annointment of Mitt "It's My Turn Dammit" Romney as the party's nominee.

The thing is, she has only one bullet for her endorsement gun, one shot at leading her base to support another particular candidate.

So when does she pull the trigger?  Note, I am presuming she is not considering pulling it for Romney.  Romney is not popular with her base, and contrary to Ace of Spades, her base is largely supporters, not followers.  There's a difference.  Also, I don't see her endorsing Perry unless he can get his campaigning act together and do a better job of convincing the country he's the hotshot governor we thought he was.

She could pull it before the primaries.  Select who she believes to be the strongest, truest conservative candidate, that would put a lot of money and workers behind that candidate.  

That would also be a direct challenge to the corrupt, tired RNC to pull out all the stops in favor of Romney.  GOP leadership is already screwing with the primary schedule to try and prop up Mitt, and the GOP's poobahs have demonstrated a truly remarkable ability to backstab, viz. Rove and Castle, Dede Scozzafava and the NYS GOP leadership, or the RNC's championing of absurd outsider candidates like Fiorina and Whitman.  I suspect, given the provocation, though, they could outdo themselves this time.  The earlier she endorses, the more time it gives them to foul the nest.

She could pull it during the primaries.  That would give her more time to see which candidates were prepared to make a fight for it, and minimize the time the RNC would have to screw things up.  But it would mean writing off early primary states whose delegates might be needed down the line.

That would be a viable option if, as was assumed by the RNC and Romney's backers, the earliest states, FL, NV, NH were a lock for Romney.  But Cain is leading in the polls now in FL, and rising in New England; those early delegates could serve to build momentum for Cain, for instance, in the later states.  So it becomes a juggling act of what's to be gained and lost.

Or, and this is a counsel of desperation, she could withhold her endorsement until after the nomination.  I say counsel of desperation because this presumes Romney is the candidate.  If one of the base's candidates were to be nominated, her endorsement would not strictly be necessary, the base would already be energized.  In that case Palin would be smartest to turn her endorsement and assets to House and Senate races in key swing states.  But if Romney is nominated, she would be facing the task of  motivating her base to support a candidate they do not like now and would like less for losing to him.  It would be difficult for her to do this; as I said above, she has supporters, not followers who will slavishly march where she points.  Sarah Palin is a leader because the parade likes the way it is going with or without her.  In this case she might also be smartest to turn her efforts to the House and Senate as a cushion against Romney's failure... or, perhaps worse, success.

I'd like to see her endorse before the primaries, and I'd like, frankly to see her endorse Cain as the last real conservative standing who is not a part of the old 20th-century GOP machine and dynasties.  But as per usual I assume Sarah Palin will make up her own mind for her own reasons... and likely surprise us all.

Bloomberg GOP Debate Displays Weak GOP Commentariat Field... Twitter and blogging hardest hit

A special guest editorial by Frumley Brooks, Esq., Mainstream Conservative Pundit


In keeping with the highest traditions of the Brooks family motto, "Uno dies tardus quod uno denarius brevis" ("a day late and a dollar short") Mr. Brooks decries the latest failings on the part of the American conservative movement.

Last night's debate on the influential and widely popular "BloombergTV" shone a brilliant spotlight, not on the regrettable list of rural extremists trying to impede the campaign of the Presidential candidate and our fondly-remembered classmate Willard Mitt Romney, but on the slapdash and dispiriting performance of our modern-day conservative commentariat.

When discussing Internet political commentary, of course, one must acknowledge that we are forced to deal with two elements: the self-appointed pundits themselves, and their correspondents, or "commenters."

The "commenters" may in large be dismissed out of hand, of no more relevance than those faceless throngs trudging through the factory gates; their guttural yawps infused with no more content and significance than the barkings emanating from the high "bleacher seats" at Wrigley Field on "Dollar Beer Day." (Or so one is informed, certainly never having imposed said "bleachers" on oneself.)  Of a surety one can read an entire "thread" or series of debate comments by them and come away without the slightest idea of what was actually said by the debaters.

The pundits themselves are another matter.  While it is a priori regrettable that they have arrogated this position to themselves without the years of prior vetting and conditioning at the proper schools and publications to which the rest of us have had the upbringing and associations to submit ourselves, their performance during the BloombergTV event was particularly lackluster.

Given that far too many of the hoi polloi have far too little judgment to select "BloombergTV" for their cable assortments over the likes of "ESPN," "Spike" or (one shudders to think) "Fox," one would hope these pundits would make a particular effort to provide some detailed exposition of the actual goings-on that transpired at the debate: to lay at least a token pearl or two before their swinish audiences. Alas, it was not so.  

With the token noteworthy exceptions of one or two bloggers with at least nominal proper journalistic experience such as Michelle Malkin and Robert Stacy McCain, the online punditry wallowed in its subjective incontinence.  Even those who arranged special commentary feeds for the event were too often reduced to subjective banalities such as "so and so looked uncertain" and "that could have been clearer" with no further elaboration, even had such been comprehensible to their notional audience.

Far more attention was paid to the pundit's approval or disapproval of specific candidates, in a narrative stream seemingly scripted specifically to discourage the electorate from any of the choices on view.  The performance of these pundits offered abundant grist for the mills of any canny Democratic operative in the forthcoming elections, a litany of despair and pettifogging criticism that could drown any lesser man than Governor Romney, and may well have.  Even the plucky rustic Ron Paul was subjected to hypocritical mockery  — the equivalent of stopping a film review to specifically complain about the performance of Gabby Hayes — first for speaking out and then for remaining silent, making too big an affair of a tiny little man.

The pundits' lack of experience and perception further showed in their uniform criticism of the hosts, the topics and the specific questions presented in the debate.  Partisan amateurs at heart, they do not see the value of forcing the candidates to address the public in the terms of their opponents' talking points; they do not see the importance of reassuring possible Democratic watchers of the validity of their own points of view, and of demonstrating the GOP's continued commitment to comity and collegiality in the unlikelihood one of them takes office.

Fortunately for the nation, the remaining Republican candidates recognize this, and have been eagerly snapping up the remaining GOP consultants and campaign managers still unemployed, doughty men and women who understand from New York and California and the bloody battlefields of 2006 how a Republican campaign should be run to keep the voters engaged before the Party's own man is nominated.  If the blogging pundits can learn this lesson it should be a rousing show.

"The only proper choice for the right sort of person;

it doesn't bear thinking about..." Frumley Brooks

41 Other States to Pay for Massachusetts Health Care...!

...an obscure provision in Obamacare calls for the outlay of $1.4 billion to Massachusetts hospitals, to be paid for out of other states' Medicaid...

"I can fix the economy, too! 
I just need to find 41 other countries to pay for it!"

THANKS MITT! Damn good thing Romneycare pays for itself, eh?