Huntsman Postmortem
Great comment follows this column on why John Huntsman failed.
astorian| 1.17.12 @ 4:39PM
There is certainly much for a conservative to admire in John Huntsman’s record. And if he’d chosen to RUN on that admirably conservative record, he might have stood a chance of winning.
But he DIDN’T run on his conservative record. Instead, from Day One, he ran as a liberal. He treid to appeal to the Jon Stewart’s, Anderosn Coopers and Stephen Colbert’s, while not too subtly sending out hints that “I’m not a stupid yahoo, like all those OTHER conservatives.”
I thought EVERYBODY knew that, if you want to become President, the trick is to win over your party’s base during primary season and THEN start moving toward the center AFTER you’ve nailed down the nomination. Remember, Bill Clinton didn’t attack Sistah Souljah until long AFTER he’d sewn up the allegiance of the Democratic party’s black and McGovernite voters.
By contrast, Jon Huntsman began his “Sistah Souljah” attacks right at the start of his campaign. That was unforgivably STUPID! If Huntsman were well known and well respected as a principled conservative, the Right might have forgiven him his attempts at posing as a moderate- they’d have understood that, “He’s really one of us, but he has to be practical and broaden his appeal.” . But despite Huntsman’s impressive resume, most conservatives just didn’t know him very well yet and had no reason to trust him or to give him the benefit of their doubt. When he started acting and talking like a liberal, they had no way of being sure it was an act.
Given a choice between a lifelong liberal who’s been trying to SOUND like a conservative (Mitt Romney) and a lifelong conservative who’s been trying to SOUND like a liberal, a large plurality of conservatives went with the guy who’s campaigning (however implausibly) as a conservative.
Ode to the Welfare State (1949)
Three cheers for Ohio Republican Clarence J. Brown, Sr. (1893-1965).
(Be sure to click on the document)
Now That’s a Writer!
A new biography about Kurt Vonnegut. Should we be that surprised. From The Guardian:
Yet Shields’s book is unsparing in its portrayal of Vonnegut’s dark side. It reveals that the writer – whose experience as a PoW during the firebombing of Dresden scarred his psyche for life – had no qualms about investing in firms that made napalm or indulged in a host of other morally suspect activities. He fell out with friends, editors and relatives and had a shocking temper. In later life he appeared deeply bitter and lonely.
Why I Despise Occupy Wall Street Hippies
I graduated from Hillsdale College in 1983 long before it became the popular conservative powerhouse marketed on talk radio by the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Mark Levin.
We were the first wave of Reaganites to land at that small liberal arts college, located in southeastern Michigan, during the regime of our very own “Sun King” — President George Roche III.
Teachers and fellow students strengthened my knowledge of free market economics with the wisdom of Hayek, Bastiat, and von Mises.
Probably the best part of the Hillsdale experience centered on any history class lead by Dr. John Willson, especially the early American days. Willson taught that the American Revolution was more an evolution of experience than some radical French Revolution. Here is a quote from his speech before The Philadelphia Society (well worth the read too):
John Adams once said about the American and French revolutions, “Ours was resistance to innovation; theirs was innovation itself.” A flippant comment, certainly; it nevertheless captures an important truth: insofar as it was successful, the American Founding was rooted in ancient truths, it was not attempting to “touch-off” a transfiguration of the world.
While Hillsdale deepened my resolve for an America more in line with the vision of the Founding Fathers, my basic instinct for the conservative path began well before Ronald Reagan’s ascendancy to the White House.
My right-wing seeds were planted in the 1960s with the hippies and their sit-ins, sit-downs, riots, and firebombing of cities.
As a young kid they scared the hell out of me. They looked like Charles Manson and Squeaky Fromme.
Hippies fried their minds on LSD. Burned the American flag and spat on soldiers. They embraced America’s enemies: the Viet Cong, Castro, Mao, Che Guevara, and the Soviets.
Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) organized the Left. Bill Ayers, Angela Davis, Tom Hayden, and the Weather Underground led them.
The freaks hated California Governor Reagan, mocked John Wayne, and cheered for the traitor “Hanoi Jane” Fonda.
For all the sins of Mayor Richard J. Daley and his corrupt big city machine, he redeemed himself when he unleashed Chicago’s Finest on the Chicago Seven and thousands of counterculture rioters.
That’s right. I said it.
I rooted for those cops swinging their clubs and spraying tear gas at the Radical Left during the 1968 Democratic National Convention.
As Mayor Daley would say, ”Law and order will be maintained.”
Now in 2011 we have another Marxist group called the Occupiers with yet another “Blame America First” campaign.
Will this grow into a law and order headache for mayors across the country?
Looks like it so far.
Arrests and confrontation in New York, Denver, Seattle, Cleveland, Boston, Portland, and Phoenix. Even the USA Nazi and Communist parties support Occupy. Around the world we witness Occupy violence and explosions in Rome and the liberals can always count on Red China to bless Occupy.
Did I mention support from the Nazis?
Even liberals at MSNBC itch for more destructive ends. Can you say Kent State?
It’s funny how a peace and love movement spawns so much violence and civil discord.
It’s interesting how the Tea Party rallies never gave the police any trouble.
The Tea Party’s roots can be traced to honorable men like George Washington, Ben Franklin, and Alexander Hamilton. Conservatives swear to defend the Constitution of the United States.
The Left embraces the French Revolution and its Reign of Terror as well as the violent worldwide communist uprisings. Revolutions in Russia and China that had their seeds watered from bloody heads severed by a falling French guillotine blade.
Parade these hippies up and down the avenues with their Hate America attitudes and I turn a deaf ear, as do most reasonable Americans.
I listen to the squares. I cheer the proud waving of the American flag and not wearing it around your mouth and nose as a Hamas terrorist mask.
(Hat Tip: Daily Mail)
I root for the guys with shirt pocket protectors and not with guys who wear earrings and lower their pants to crap on police cars. I’ll listen to conservative commentators S.E. Cupp and Dana Loesch over hippie, zombie chicks who litter their faces.
Appearances matter especially when these radicals claim they speak for 99% of us. What arrogance to think they represent 99% of Americans. How dare they!
I am one of the 53%, which suddenly chops the 99% to 46% at best.
These techno hippies are so unkempt that others have to supply them with toothpaste and other toiletries. They are so out of control that they depend on shipments of condoms.
(Perhaps the Trojans were a gift from shrewd conservatives who saw an opportunity to prevent more Woodstock generations).
Most groups rally or protest for a couple of hours, make their point, gain some publicity, and then go grocery shopping.
Instead this communist party disrupts the everyday activities of normal men and women who operate small businesses and want their families to enjoy community amenities such as Zuccotti Park.
Hippies are not the middle class. Not even close.
(Hat Tip: Moonbattery)
These lefties only want to outlaw profit and eat the rich.
Listen. Take the 1% by the ears and seize their assets. Give them a perp walk to a kangaroo court presided by Michael Moore, find them guilty, shove them into gas chambers and pipe in carbon monoxide and hydrogen cyanide, and then grind their bodies into hamburger.
Then what? The government runs for five months on the confiscated income, the private sector turns to dust, and the 20% real unemployment number skyrockets to that of a third world country in Africa where a cup of water is a full meal.
Wow. Really solves our economic problems. Plus smart people know that the lefty definition of the 1% is based on myth and lies.
Money is everything to liberals. They hate those whom they perceive are better off. They demand more pricey government programs. They spread the wealth through legislative force as opposed to the creativity of the private sector and the marketplace.
They are some of the most materialistic people you will ever meet.
James Carville’s famous phrase, “It’s the economy, stupid!” doesn’t cross the finish line. Culture always trumps the economy. What we see now is a fight for the future of America. The good side wants to preserve our American heritage and excellence while the Left — in the words of President Barack Obama:
John Adams shudders from the grave.
One Indy Street in Need of a Name Change
Indianapolis Star elitists Tully & Smith treated us again to their Sunday morning Exchange of Letters, this time on whether or not we should rename our downtown Georgia Street in light of the new boardwalk designed for convenient shopping and carousing.
It’s another one of the hundreds of pre-Super Bowl street projects that have hassled our city dwellers who know deep down that we need this infrastructure facelift. Now if we could only persuade Colts owner Jim Irsay and the rest of his NFL colleagues to stage Super Bowls in Afghanistan for the next five years, we could finally bring that country into the 1930s.
Anticipating the Big Game festivities, city planners and civic busybodies sponsored a controversial name change contest for Georgia Street to make it unique, contemporary, hip, or justify a PR consultant’s reason to be … who really knows.
Tully has a number of reasons not to change the name, but the historical reason won me over the most. He writes:
There is the history angle. As has been noted, Georgia Street has been Georgia Street since Alexander Ralston laid out the city’s original plat 190 years ago. Now, on a whim and because the Super Bowl is coming, some are pushing a quick-hit name change? Give me a break.
I have a reverence for history and hate to see it trampled in the name of “progress.” Georgia never hurt anyone.
If the street plates do change to a nonsensical name, then at least Ralston’s pick had a nice run. Another city father has not had it so well. Oh, he has a street named after him all right, but it is an insult more than a passageway.
I give you Hudnut Boulevard.
When I think boulevard I imagine a well-traveled street filled with scenic grand homes or important businesses with movers and shakers plotting the next deal. It’s top-tier. It’s French after all.
Not so much in this case.
If you’re traveling south on Harding Street from I-70 with a box full of household chemicals and used motor oil, you’ll seek Hudnut Blvd for it is there that you turn right for the jaunt to the Tox Drop located on the grounds of the Belmont Advanced Wastewater Treatment Facility.
Yes for all the work that former Mayor Bill Hudnut provided to turn our city into what it is today — one of America’s major metropolitan areas — we have awarded him posterity wrapped around a sewage dump shaped like a one finger salute from his successor Mayor Steve Goldsmith.
Keep Georgia Street, but along that new boardwalk let’s sculpt a statue for Hizzoner — the kind that Chicago has for Michael Jordan and Harry Caray.
Without Hudnut’s leadership of long ago, we would not have the Super Bowl today.
1940 RNC Movie — Same Ol’ Debate
I laugh and I laugh and I laugh whenever I hear these “Independents” and “Third Way” cultists try so hard to hatch schemes to get around the traditional Liberty vs. Tyranny debates.
Take a look at this article from LIFE magazine (April 29, 1940) where you might find a familiar debate. It includes stills from a movie produced by the Republican Party. Of course President Franklin Roosevelt beat Republican Wendell Willkie of Elwood, Indiana that same year, but perhaps the theme of the movie started to lay the groundwork for the post WWII conservative movement.
As an added bonus after you scroll the two page article, read the short paragraph about the Pennsylvania Milk Act. Even the poor wanted the government out of the way.
Defeat The Left. Teach history.
(Make sure you click the ZOOM IN icon a few times so you can read the article).
Out of touch Indianapolis Democrats took a direct hit today to their dwindling prospects of winning the mayoral election in November. In an article that identified hot spots of economic activity around the nation, The Wall Street Journal praised the City of Indianapolis for its successful development of the life sciences.
Indianapolis used to be the quintessential Rust Belt city. Now it’s at the center of a statewide boom in the life-sciences business.
The state has added 8,800 jobs in the life sciences in recent years, and today some 825 medical-device companies, drug manufacturers and research labs call Indiana home.
Indianapolis, which is home to big names in the field such as Eli Lilly & Co. and health insurer WellPoint Inc., is leading the transformation. Corporations like these have added the lion’s share of the state’s new life-sciences jobs. Now they’re helping smaller companies get off the ground, too—by spinning off new businesses as well as by backing independent start-ups. Eli Lilly, for instance, has contributed roughly $60 million to seed and venture funds that are supporting entrepreneurs.
That isn’t the only way big companies are easing the way for small ones. With new firms arriving to supply the large drug makers, start-ups are getting access to a range of services at competitive prices.
“We have access to companies in Indiana where we can outsource functions like toxicology, analytics and clinical supply,” says Ron Ellis, president and CEO of Endocyte Inc., a 65-employee firm that’s testing a cancer treatment.
Many small firms, meanwhile, are helping others get off to a good start. David Broecker, president and chief executive of BioCritica Inc., an Eli Lilly spinoff, says his peers have referred employees, suggested work space and given information on tax and financial incentives.
It’s just the environment he hoped for when he left the East Coast to build a company. He considered other spots but settled on Indianapolis because “it’s all new and exciting here for these folks, so there is a hunger for doing this type of thing.”
Despite President Obama’s anti-business policies that have shattered much of the economy, Indianapolis Mayor Greg Ballard has soldiered on creating and maintaining a friendly business environment which in the end means more jobs for Hoosiers.
Indy Mayor Greg Ballard’s First Ad on the Air
Mitch Daniels Draft?
US NEWS Washington Whispers reporter Paul Bedard wonders if we may still see Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels in the 2012 race for the White House. The Hoosier governor has a new book, Keeping the Republic, Saving America by Trusting Americans, ready for the bookstores in September — just a few months away from Iowa and New Hampshire.
Highlights from the book:
• Work to restore American participation in government.
• Stop calling Social Security and Medicare “entitlements,” and instead call them the “safety net,” so the nation gets away from looking at the programs as must-have gifts.
• Means test Social Security and raise the eligibility age, while grand fathering older Americans in.
• Cut federal spending, slash the federal workforce, and reduce the pay of those who remain employees of Uncle Sam.
• Consider military spending cuts.
• Eliminate all taxes on savings, including capital-gains tax.
• Reform welfare again with an interesting system of handing the poor cash to use as they see fit, moving to a “culture of independence,” and eliminating bureaucracies that run food stamp, health, housing, and other agencies.
• Kill federal regulations that hurt businesses.
• Expand American production of energy, including wind and biofuels.
• Allow more legal immigration to attract “those with brains or money to invest…”
I would pay money to watch Daniels debate these points with President Obama, along with watching the Secret Service step in and rescue the president from himself. Daniels intellect and plain-speaking would overpower Obama who should have served as mayor of Calumet City, IL before going to the big leagues.
Cable channels will give Daniels plenty of free air time to hawk his book, but I doubt “The Blade” will run at this late date (although Texas Governor Rick Perry is announcing in a few days and Governor Palin remains interested in something other than Alaska in August), but whomever the GOP nominee is he or she had better adopt what George Will refers to as the “Daniels Doctrine.”
Unwind after a 634 drop in the Dow . . .
by listening to some haunting, soothing piano keys played by Scott Tobin who does a remake of Air’s “Alone In Kyoto” from the Lost in Translation movie soundtrack.
