Redstate

Posted at 1:42pm on May 7, 2008 California Republicans open primaries

By Neil Stevens

I was sitting here, reading my sample ballot for the June primary election here in California, and noticed something startling. It says here that nonpartisan voters may request a ballot for any of the following parties: Democratic Party, Republican Party, American Independent Party. This is a change. In the past, independents could only vote in the Democratic and AI primaries.

Clearly, the California Republican Party has changed the policy. I assume this happened at the last convention in San Francisco, during which my attention was focused on the platform fight.

This is disappointing to me. As things stand, conservative stalwarts in the party do the state a great service by leveraging their Constitutional prerogatives and limiting the tax-and-spend desires of the Democratic majority. If we allow ourselves to be watered down by 'independents,' then we could destroy that, and the Democrats would be able to run amok raising taxes, supermajority requirement or no.

I, for one, personally prefer we go back to having truly closed primaries. Even if "moderating" on spending, taxes, and culture would net us a few more seats, it could cost us what limited success we do have in Sacramento.

Posted in California | open primaries | primaries | Republicans | State Politics — Comments (12) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 5:51pm on Apr. 3, 2008 Rejiggering The Presidential Primary Schedule Just In Time For 2012

By Martin A. Knight

This story in the Washington Times about the RNC rejiggering the 2012 Primary schedule reminded me of one of the more interesting diaries, especially in terms of being forward looking and creative, that I've seen thus far this year; EPU's starter proposal diary to alter/fix the Primary system so that actual Republicans, those who are as close to a 100% certain of casting their votes for a Republican President on Election Day get to have (at the very least) the first word on who the nominee would be.

I actually wanted to write this up back then, but I didn't and I thought the entire subject had gone too stale to bring it back up, especially with the spectacle of our good friend Barry Henry O'Bama's recent travails. But since the higher-ups in the GOP (one of the few times the rank-and-file and the leadership are actually seeing eye to eye) have brought it up ...

Either way, long-term Redstater Saul Anuzis, who also happens to be the Chairman of the Michigan GOP, posted up a diary about this earlier this morning. Take a look and get to find out about the "Ohio Plan" (and the alternative "Delaware Plan") the RNC Rules Committee just recently voted out to be considered by the full Republican National Committee in August before the convention where we are going to coronate John McCain as the successor to President Bush.

Posted in Archived | primaries | republicans picking republicans — Comments (1) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 11:49pm on Mar. 31, 2008 John McCain: Mainstream Press Bypass Candidate?

By Neil Stevens

Stephen Dinan at the Washington Times put forward a highly unconventional idea today: He suggests that John McCain bypassed an uncooperative press corps during the primary season by reaching out directly to the right on the Internet, and rode that support to victory.

Can he be serious? After all, the common sense viewpoint is that the Senator has spent the last decade making allies on television and in the newspapers, honing a Maverick™ image to make him the favorite Republican of the mainstream press. Patrick Hynes, who does Internet outreach for the campaign, seems to think it made no difference once McCain fell in the polls, says Dinan:

"During the unpleasantness, whenever Senator McCain put himself in front of reporters, the question was always, 'How much did you raise today, when are you dropping out,' " said Patrick Hynes, a conservative blogger who Mr. McCain hired in 2006.

So how did he deal with that and get his message out?

Read on...

Posted in 2008 | Internet | John McCain | primaries | The Press — Comments (7)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 12:27pm on Feb. 6, 2008 And they said WE were bitter.

By Paul J Cella

According to Noemie Emery, in a brief but muddled piece over at The Weekly Standard, it seems that “the ideological right is filled with a vast, free-floating fury that can't find a target upon which to dump all this ire,” because . . . well, basically because some of us are still suspicious of McCain.

It is a bizarre polemic which, in order to appeal for unity behind a shaky candidate, calls upon hackneyed Leftist smears to disparage whole chunks of that candidate’s party. Thanks for that. Thanks, also, for the rehearsal of exactly the same tissue of mendacities and ill will that greeted Reagan and the 1994 Revolution from our beloved Liberals. Angry irrational bigots, those Reagan and Gingrich voters: cretins and fire-eaters and coddlers of fascists — how many times have we heard this innuendo from the Left?

Well it rings even more hollow and false from someone on the Right.

As my friend Leon noted, Ms. Emery once announced that she would sooner vote for Joe Lieberman than Sam Brownback; now she presumes to lecture Conservatives on what Republican unity should look like — and even hauls poor Sam Brownback into the train of her shoddy argument!

The answer to this is really quite simple: This is the primary season; McCain has a commanding lead, but he is not yet the assured nominee; there is no inherent dishonor or disloyalty in still opposing him, voting against him, even working for his defeat. I repeat: we are talking about the GOP primary race. This is precisely the time to hash this stuff out.

Most of this pack of bigots possessed by “vast, free-floating fury,” looking for a sensitive soul like Johnny Mac upon which to “dump all [its] ire” — a group which those of us less agitated and embittered call “Conservatives” — will certainly come around and support McCain in November. You know that. I know that. Even Ms. Emery probably knows that.

There is no question but that the air is filled with hyperbole. Tension, excitement and genuine uncertainty tend to invite that. But few things are more dispiriting, and more suggestive of a fundamental pettiness, than the spectacle of right-wingers opportunistically embracing some of the worst rhetorical conceits of the Left.

Posted in 2008 | Conservatives | primaries | Republicans — Comments (40)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 1:21am on Jan. 20, 2008 Suggested Fred Goodbye Remarks

By haystack

Our own Ben Domenech has, through secret back channels and insiders known only to him, obtained a copy of the speech Fred Thompson intends to give tomorrow from the front porch of the family home in Tennessee.

Hey there folks. I'm Fred Thompson. I'd say I'm glad to be here, but I'm not, so f*** that.

I want to thank all of you who gave, volunteered, and worked for my campaign. You all know from those whiny b**ches in the media that you worked harder than I did for the most part, so thanks, even if you didn't work hard enough to get me a win. It's much appreciated. After I speak today, you can pick up some cake shaped like an American flag as a reward. You don't like cake, well, go back to France.

I have a few things to say about my fellow presidential candidates before I go back home to shag my hot wife and make kicka** coin talking to you all on the radio and doing ads for Viagra, which I don't need by the way, as if that fact was not obvious.

My fellow candidates are all men. Not good men, I say, cause most of them aren't. In fact, most of them just can't handle it if you asked them to get into a fight. They whine and complain about personal attacks, they flip and they flop like retarded carp, or they check to see if they broke a nail. I have never seen such a bunch of pansies strutting about pretending to be leaders.

Rudy Giuliani? Slick cheater. Mike Huckabee? Jesus freak. John McCain? Crazy. Mitt Romney? Woman.

All of these are reasons they should be forced to give this d**n speech today, not me.

This field of candidates isn't just unconservative, people. They're anti-conservative. They're anti-honesty, they're anti-honor, they're anti-courage. And I wouldn't trust them to watch my dog, let alone my country. They are the all singing all dancing crap of the world, as a fella once said. And they can kiss the fattest part of my a**.

That's why I ran. But it was clear to me from the get-go that America just wasn't ready for the awesome manliness of Fred Thompson. I'm just too much for you to handle. You want a candidate who will cater to your every whim, who will cuddle you in a blankie, coo over you in your crib. You want that cause you're all a bunch of selfish babies. No wonder you all went government to put a bandaid on your little skinned knees. Well, you're gonna get what you've got coming to ya all right, and I ain't gonna change ya when it all turns to a big ole' mess of baby crap. Who do you think I am, people? I'm Fred freaking Thompson.

A lot of you have been talking about who I'm going to endorse. Well, guess what: no endorsement from me. I still think those idiots are all a bunch of sorry-a** d****ebags. There's more principle in my left nut then they have in their entire bodies.

They want an endorsement? I endorse a brokered convention, so we can get a president who believes in the things I believe in: in big guns, red meat, cigar-chomping, manly suits, and hot trophy wife poontang.

That's the America I believe in. It's the America I grew up in. And it's the America we all deserve.

You can all suck it. Now get the hell off my lawn.

Posted in Elections | primaries | thompson — Comments (52)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 1:13pm on Dec. 17, 2007 The Kamikaze Candidacy

By Martin A. Knight

Just after the thumpin' last year I got into an extended fight with the regulars/denizens of GOPProgress - which billed itself as a home for "moderate" i.e. Republican Main Street Partnership types, and "Libertarian" Republicans - the proprietress of which considered it a worthwhile endeavor to come over to Redstate and post a diary boosting Lincoln [*spit*] Chafee(!) as a "Republican" worth donating to in the final stretch of the 2006 campaign.

Posted in Archived | Mike Huckabee | primaries — Comments (41) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 10:22pm on Nov. 6, 2007 I am a RiNO

By Neil Stevens

Hello, my name is Neil, and I am a Republican in Name Only.

No, it's true. Really. I fit the classic definition. My views are outside the party mainstream, so much so that I cannot in good conscience vote for the Republican every election, every time, regardless of who gets nominated1.

I'm not alone, either. Between people like me being RiNOs, and the great mass of voters who don't even register for a party, non-Republicans and RiNOs just might carry more right-leaning electoral weight than 'real' Republicans.

This has consequences for the party, and especially for Republicans voting in the primary with an eye on winning in the general election.

Read on...

Posted in Archived | primaries | Republicans | RINOs — Comments (155) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 3:32pm on Oct. 22, 2007 Nominating contests too early? The RNC might sue!

5 States could be stripped of half their delegates.

By Mark Kilmer

The Republican Party will hold a nominating convention next year from September 1-4 in St. Paul Minnesota. There is a move afoot by some party leaders, however, to strip half the voting delegates from the States of New Hampshire, Florida, South Carolina, Michigan, and Wyoming. Why? They moved their primary dates to earlier than the national peeps want. (Iowa and Nevada wouldn't feel the strong arm of the law, as their caucuses don't really count. They do not bind delegates to votes for any particular candidate at the national convention.)

Under the RNC's action Monday, Florida would lose 57 delegates, Michigan 30, South Carolina 23, Wyoming 14 and New Hampshire 12.

Why are they doing this?

"It's very important that our party uphold and enforce the rules that we unanimously voted into place at the Republican National Convention in 2004," said Mike Duncan, chairman of the Republican National Committee.

The rules ban holding votes before Feb. 5.

The Republican National Committee does not pay for these primaries, but they do try to make rules.

Duncan said there is plenty of legal precedent granting political parties the authority to set their own rules.

"I'm very confident of our legal footing," he said.

So they want to start chucking delegates in a de facto willy-nilly manner, fouling the nominating process, because they do not want a nominating contest when they do not want one?

Read On…

Posted in 2008 | primaries | Republicans | RNC — Comments (30)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 9:55pm on Aug. 12, 2007 I Still Think He Won't Win

But then again, I don't think any of them should

By Thomas

Full disclosure: I have no dog in the 2008 Presidential brouhaha, am unlikely to develop a dog in the immediate future, and frankly, share a sentiment with a commenter/diarist whose handle rhymes with MeveFellBay, to-wit: None of the above. Part of this is because I have a hard time getting enthusiastic about political campaigns (yes, a great guy indeed to have a Director of RedState); part of it is because, with or without Fred! I'm underwhelmed by the current candidate pool, which ranges from a liberal New Yorker to a nativist to a crazy libertarian to some guy named Cox, with not a lot of improvement or fall in between; and part because, as I've said so many damned times, we are taking our eye off the ball of Congress, the State elections, and 2007, and royally hurting ourselves in the process.

Believe it or not, however, all of that was a digression. The point of this post was to say, for pretty much the only time in over a year, Mitt Romney blew my socks off (go to 9:30):

Now, the mandatory carping: I disagree with the old Mittster on a few things, not least of which being that if you're going to put faith in the public square -- an enterprise of which I'm an enthusiastic supporter -- you need to be prepared to discuss and defend it there. I'm fully aware of why Romney isn't interested in that conversation, but Catholics have had to do it for decades; I see no reason why this should be different. There's more, but it's just nit-picking.

With that said, Wow. If you could get him to drop the Ken-doll approach that he insists on adopting when the mike is on, I'd have been on this guy's team for a year now. That you can't concerns me in many of the same ways Al Gore concerned me, and the parallels are disturbing; but if this was how Mitt Romney was 24/7, I'd be a Romneybot too.

Posted in 2008 | bungee jumping | culture | Life | off-the-cuff | primaries | religion | Romney — Comments (96)/ Email this page » / Read More »