Fighting For The Female Vote...

...and why it's probably a waste of effort.

This Lunatic has been busy this week, which is why I haven’t been posting. My apologies to all my loyal readers who come here first for diseased commentary, but I reckon that once you know exactly what I  have been doing, you’ll find it in your heart to forgive me.

For I have been doing important political research.

You see, it all began when I started really paying attention to all these news reports about poll numbers in the upcoming Presidential election. Normally, I could care less about polls because they are typically useless for just about anything except which brand of dishwashing liquid is more popular than another, Typically, when a newscast or somesuch starts talking about polling data, my eyes glaze over, and I retreat into a sort of semi-conscious reverie in which I become Wolverine, and I’m fantasizing about using my incredible mutant powers – and those way-too-fuckin'-cool claws – to rob banks, and my incredible animal magnetism (complete with mutant pheromones!) to get Salma Hayek out of her clothing and into the sack.

Why Conservatives Fear Newt Gingrich...

I used to think I was a Conservative, but that was before I realized what the difference between a Conservative and a Republican really was. This realization didn't just sneak up on me, arriving with one of those "Eureka!" moments where the skies seem to part and thunder echoes across the valley, with the trumpets of angels heralding some great epiphany.

What's Wrong With The Establishment?

The Closet Conservative asks "WTF is Going On With Krauthammer"?

Here's your answer:

People like Rove, Krauthammer and Peggy Noonan (who all swore that Obama was a moderate, or would be reined in by the realities of governance) are really no different than the "liberals" ("libertines") they rail against.

They went to the same schools, have similar backgrounds and experiences, attend the same cocktail parties, belong to the same Country Clubs, have the same friends, and the same thought process; Their hope is that all the problems of this country can be solved by throwing someone else's money at them -- only a "conservative" believes he can do it cheaper so as to provide a moral basis under which he may keep more of his own. Liberals hide their own miserly ways by transferring responsibility for paying for anything by evoking the collective (i.e. "The Government", "Society", etc.).

The major differences revolve around their own peculiar mental constipations; the Libtards still find the struggle for Socialism to be a romantic pastime, the Old Guard R's are still fighting the Cold War. One side wants to relive the Age of Aquarius, the other pines for a lost vision of an America that never really existed except in a Norman Rockwell painting. Both are out to tell you how you should live, and how you may thank them for overpaying for the privilege of their enlightened guidance.

Both Establishment Republican and Democrat are deathly afraid of the prospect of having to work for a living like everyone else, or worse, of being in a position where they will have to actually live with the consequences of all the things they've advocated (or legislatively enacted) for everyone else. That's when they aren't in mortal fear of being exposed (and prosecuted) for the retarded crooks most of them truly are.

In between this Scylla and Charybdis is the greater mass of the American public which is tired of being lectured to and robbed blind by both sides. Sarah Palin is not so much a leader of this force as much she is an opportunist; She has identified the need this mass has for a visible face, and taken advantage of it. I don't dislike her -- I used to cream, figuratively, over her -- but now I wouldn't follow her through my own front door, even if I agree with her 90% of the time. Her "success" is less about HER (and her supposed political skills) and more about US.

Voting anti -establishment pisses these folks off because the party apparatus has much (other-people's) money invested in them. The purpose of getting elected has become an exercise not so much in responsible governance, but in how to use the levers of power to dole out patronage, or to try to enact policies that will affect the actions and behaviors of the masses in a way that's favorable to oneself and his confederates. And shareholders (i.e. campaign contributors).

A few loose threads:

* On John McCain: he lost because he was a Bad Candidate who couldn't beat an empty suit that gave Good Speeches. When McCain should have shown Leadership, he opted for Drama instead, before pulling a reverse-Kerry on TARP ("I voted against it before I voted for it"). Palin was not going to "save" him, and her only contribution was to make McCain look like an idiot for choosing someone so obviously Not-Ready-for-Primetime. Not that this mattered so much to the Other Side, did it? McCain made the choice easy with his scattershot theatrics and inability to adequately identify and explain the problems of the day in way that gave him an aura of command.

John McCain looked like a doddering, clueless old man, and so he stampeded the independents into Barack Obama's camp. They took a flier on "Hope!" instead of "Duh!"

* I loved GWB, but he was only elected because he uttered "Jesus is my favorite political philosopher", and then re-elected because the thought of another 9/11 with Kerry/Edwards in charge was too terrible to contemplate. If Bush -- father and son -- was a "real" conservative, you'd never know it.


* On the term "RINO": It refers specifically in "conservative" circles to people who don't espouse the complete "God-Guns-and-Gays" agenda of the Pantybunched Right. Rudy Guiliani was far more conservative than both Bushes put together, and he could never make it through a Republican presidential primary. You can be a fiscally-responsible, law-and-order, pro-growth republican, but if you don't promise to frogmarch gays to the ovens, execute the abortionists and put prayer back in the public schools, then you're a RINO.

But now the people WANT an Army of Guilianis, and this frightens the Establishment on both sides. They're not inclined to vote social issues right now, and this threatens Rove's/Kruathammer's/Noonan's ricebowl, as well as discrediting the Religious Right/Recipient-Class Left coalitions that these people have spent the last 30 years assembling, talking up -- and milking for a living.

Detroit, New York, What's the Diff?

J. Robert Smith at Pajamas Media muses upon the Post Office and a Green Detroit, and it's a cautionary tale for the rest of us.

Mr. Smith shouldn't fool himself into thinking it's only democrats that think this way. Our so-called republican (probably because it was the cheapest label to buy) Mayor of Noo Yawk, Michael Bloomberg -- Patron Saint of Virgin Spinsters and the Perpetually-Pantybunched -- was so convinced that only his divine beneficence could "save" this city from it's looming Wall-Street-induced fiscal crisis that he went out and had the goddamned election laws changed so that he could serve a third term.

And once he'd accomplished re-election -- spending $100 million bucks of his own hard earned coin. At least he had that much decency -- and then winning by a mere 4% over a democratic candidate that ran such a lackluster, torturous, tedious campaign of inanity, inertia and hot air that you would have thought he was the National Spokesperson for Constipation, did Saint Bloomberg turn his considerable talents towards helping New York navigate the current financial crisis?

No.

Did he, perhaps, set about enacting the vital reforms that are needed in this city, which is slowly having it's lifeblood sucked out of it by voracious public unions, a rising crime rate, fleeing businesses, rising unemployment rates, shrinking tax base, unchecked illegal immigration and higher levels of government spending?

Of course not.

Then what, exactly, is he doing?

Trying to pass a law restricting how much salt finds it's way into my food...

That's after, of course, he's already passed laws outlawing transfats, making certain I have all the nutritional information available on my Whopper with Cheese posted at the cash register, and eliminated the serving of sugary drinks in public schools (where they still somehow manage to serve corndogs, pizza and processed chicken nuggets, according to my nephews).

This is the Mayor who's also cordoned off sections of the city that used to be open to vehicular traffic so that now you can walk all the way up Broadway, from Times Square to Central Park on the weekends, assuming you'd want to considering there's a subway available to save you the trouble and shoe leather. It's not as if there's much scenery to enjoy between 42nd and Columbus Circle -- unless you like office towers.

It's the same Mayor who once suggested "congestion pricing" plans by which tolls charged on river crossings to enter the city from the Outer Boroughs would be adjusted by time of day and general level of traffic. The idea was a) to restrict vehicle traffic into the City and thus, clean the air and make traffic flow more smoothly, and b) raise a shitload of money while simultaneously denying the benefits and niceties of the City to those who live in the Outer Boroughs for the benefit of the transplanted Upper East Side libtards.

It's both class and economic warfare, veiled by the pledge of "it's all for the Common Good..".

The City of New York is always on the lookout for a buck; so much so that it inspects your garbage, which had better be thrown in out in clear, see-through plastic bags, and placed in the proper trash receptacle if you wish to avoid a fine greater than that given to speeders, drunk drivers or public urinators (don't ask me how I know that!).

You can no longer smoke in public, assuming you can afford cigarettes; which now average nearly $10 a pack. Michael Bloomberg has succeeded in making crack a cheaper and more attractive alternative to tobacco. In the meantime, the city's poor continue to get fatter and sicker (a steady diet of welfare-funded Twinkies and Fatback will do that to you), and the hospitals ever-more crowded with pregnant illegals with tuberculosis and AIDS, and the Union workers who run them get richer and do less work, and this is why the taxes on cigarettes had to be raised in the first place; to save the hospitals.

At least that's what they said...

The rot started under democrats (I remember the days of Abe Beam, Hugh Carey, Ed Koch and David Dinkins with something less than nostalgia, more like nausea), but then something mysterious happened: some republicans came along -- like Rudy Giuliani and Mike Bloomberg -- and they not only did their republican schtick and cut crime and spending (although Bloomberg loves raising taxes), they also carried on some of the stupidity and freedom-choking policies of their predecessors. For Rudy it was mostly about guns, but for St. Mikey it's all about his Upper East Sider friends and their "enlightened" sensibilities.

Blooomberg's fiercely-mextrosexual, self-appointed-Manhattan-elite are the new Lords of the Manor, and we're the serfs.

Now Micheal Bloomberg spends all his time, and his vast fortune, to ensure you're eating arugula and lemon grass and his friends get to walk their fancy, teacup lapdogs in Central Park, or to enjoy the boisterous Open-Air flea markets selling counterfeit goods and authentic West African food poisoning that now dominate Midtown on the weekends, all without having to encounter a taxi, an SUV, or a tourist (unless they have really neat European accents), or worse -- one of the proles from Queens or Staten Island -- while every potential employer flees the city because of crushing tax burdens, regulatory expenses and overpaid Union labor, and the State floats upon a sea of red ink.

The only thing missing from Micheal Bloomberg's New York City is a Bastille for us scum to storm.

And people wonder why nearly a decade after 9/11 there's still a great, big, gaping 19-acre hole in the ground?

In many respects, New York and Detroit are already sister cities.

No Carpetbaggers Need Apply...

Harold Ford drops out of NY Senate race.

Fabulous. We've already had enough of libtard Carpetbaggers in this state. New York is where libtards from all over the country eventually settle to work, and so we get everyone else's libs, and then we get blamed for being too liberal for the country's good. Just so you know, it isn't entirely our fault; keep your own liberals at home!

So, this November, we might be one libtard lighter: Kirsten Gillbrand might have to defend her job as Chuck Schumer's Ventriloquist's Dummy With Tits (CSVDWT) against a republican (assuming we can find one who can chew gum and walk at the same time someplace in New York) and if that is the case, she'll probably lose.

I say "probably" because the NY Republican party is a bunch of dunces. They couldn't organize a gang-bang in a prison shower. They find the most unattractive (but politically-well-connected) candidates to run for statewide and federal offices, and they get beaten about the head and face by democrats who are barely capable of counting without removing their shoes and socks (see: New York Congressional delegation). In other words, they get beaten by people just slightly smarter than bread mold.

And since the NY Repub Go-to-Guy -- perennial loser Rick Lazio -- is already in the Governor's race, the NY Repubs are left to find someone just as dull and just as beatable to run against Gillibrand, because that is their modus operandi. Does the name George Pataki ring any bells?

If it does, you'd better scream "HELL NO!".

There are two other possibilities; if she could be persuaded to get into the race, there is former Congresswoman Susan Molinari, who gave the keynote address at the Republican convention back in the days when that actually meant something. Molinari is from my hometown (Staten Island), comes from another NY Political Dynasty (that might be a strike against her -- we've had enough Political Dynasties, thank you), and she's smarter than Gillibrand is. Then again, lobotomized cocker spaniels are smarter than Gillbrand, but that's not to take away from Molinari; She is smart as a whip and realizes that we still have a Constitution, which puts her miles ahead of the Repub Party Apparatchiks.

The other possibility is Rudy Giuliani, America's Mayor. The problem with Rudy is that the national Republican Party would probably bust a blood vessel because of his stances on Gay Rights and Gun Control (it's why he never made it through the 2008 primaries, you know), but the Tea Parties and the non-panty-bunched republicans (the one's not tied directly to, or earning their living from the party) could easily put him over the top. We need to have Rudy somewhere in a position of responsibility in New York State, if only because he's proven to be a responsible person with actual abilities. Having just one person like that puts us head and shoulders above the other 49 states.

The problem is that the NY Republican party will probably not tap either. It has a bigger list of well-connected-but-even-bigger losers to promote. That's where it's true interests lie, because it is not so much A party as much as it is many-smaller parties, and they can never agree on anything or anyone, and this is the main reason why it's so ineffective. It's provincial and it's politics and infighting are, ultimately, local and not state-wide.

For once, the NY State Republican Party should do the right thing, and fuck their friends over. These elections in November are too important to the future of the country for the same stupidity to play out; that system coughed up Dede Scozzafava, after all.

Tap Susan or tap Rudy. You'll get the Tea Partiers on your side, and you'll be able to actually win something for a change. You'll finally succeed in doing something meaningful, NY-GOP.

If Tim Pawlenty Falls in the Woods, Does Anyone Give a Shit?

Tim Pawlenty, lilly-white-panty-buncher-nonentity from Minnesota, is in New Hampshire, announcing his intention to garner the republican nomination for President in 2012. The announcement is greeted here in Lunaticland with a great, big yawn.

Just when the republican party needs a figure capable of formulating a sane response to the Hopenchange message of it's political rivals, just when it requires someone capable of exciting The Base while still appealing to the great mass of 'independents' (i.e. those too stupid to choose a side, or simply waiting for a bribe in return for their votes) the republican establishment throws up this dude.

And 'throws up' is the proper term.

At a time when the great mass of the public is concerned with a political class that 'just doesn't get it', the political class goes out and proves it in spades.

Now, I'm not telling you I'm an expert on Tim Pawlenty, but if you asked me to give you an opinion on who I believe to be the top five republican prospects, Pawlenty rates somewhere near the 160th on the list. Right after Cholera, and just before Bubonic Plague. Someone must be pissing in this guy's ear with the usual claptrap about how he 'represents a sizable segment of public opinion', or how he speaks to 'conservative values' (having once been a Conservative before that actually lost any meaning whatsoever, I can tell you that it's my considered opinion that 'Conservative' now simply means 'Bible-thumping-gay-hating-redneck-with-a-fifth-grade-education-and-a-Norman-Rockwell-delusional-view-of-America'). Conservative no longer means a believer in the sovereign right of the people and advocacy of individual liberties; it's a tribal affiliation. Sorta like gang colors.

Tim Pawlenty couldn't be elected dog catcher outside of Minnesota, but that doesn't matter; he's ideologically pure.

It's time to get some real conservatives into the fight, and I don't mean the God-fearin' sort that would make the pilgrimage to Bob Jones University; I mean the ones who actually espouse conservative positions that don't find their genesis in Scripture (pardon the pun).

Start with Sarah Palin (who is at least wildly popular, if relatively unprepared), and then include Rudy Guiliani, Condoleeza Rice, Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich.

The last four, despite their obvious talents and proven records, will never get a chance because that Calvinist wing of the republican party will do their level-best to chase them off the stage -- because their social views don't pass Godbot muster, their position on abortion is unknown, one's a Mormon (next to devil worship!), and the other cheated on his wife, despite the fact that he engineered a republican takeover of the Congress and advanced a plethora of true conservative issues. True to form, the republican party seems determined to go down in flames with the likes of a Pawlenty than to do the right thing and establish conservatism before Calvinism, and so they will never get a fair hearing.

The RNC continues to listen to the wrong people who put their religion and their hang-ups before their reason. At this point in history, social issues need to take a back seat to the more crucial requirements of rebuilding the political system and structure, reestablishing the rights of the governed, and fixing the economy.

Discuss.