From Pollster John McLaughlin:

It appears Fred Thompson’s announcement of next week’s campaign kick-off has a few of the other campaigns a bit on the defensive, scrambling to release “strategy” memos and whispering to the media actually trying to suggest that it is too late to enter this race. In a Republican primary, it is never too late for a true leader with authentic conservative credentials.

Here are the facts:

– With months left to go before voting, this election is VERY fluid.
– Virtually every GOP primary or caucus exit poll taken in the last 20 years has shown that huge percentages of voters make up their minds in the final week before voting. It is foolhardy for any campaign to suggest that voter positions are already solidified at this stage of the cycle.

Consider the following:

GOP voters not satisfied with current crop: According to several recent public surveys taken prior to Fred Thompson’s announcement that he plans to be a candidate for president Read the rest of this entry »

FUNNY stuff!

Seems to me that all of the great appointees that served under Dubya served in the first 4 years of his administration, then beat a hasty return to their own lives.

All the incompetents hung-on much longer, but only due to “loyalty” to Bush, as opposed to loyalty to the US of A and the Constitution. I’m thinking Rumsfeld, Gonzales, “Brownie,” etc.

Janet Reno sucked as an AG. Alberto Gonzales sucked worse. Goodbye and good riddance.

Technorati Tags: Alberto Gonzales

There really aren’t too many things ticking me off these days. You likely could have guessed that with the shortage of Vines I’ve been issuing over the past few months. I am extremely busy with REAL work and don’t care to spend too much time on trivial, non-paying activities like engaging in slam-politics. At least, certainly not as much as I used to.

However, not to spend TOO much time on this particular matter, I do feel the need to discuss with you a group calling themselves Americans For Prosperity (“AFP”).

A month ago, I issued a Vine that included a promotion for an event held by AFP. At the time of my personal review of their Website and the reading of the announcement thought…”this looks interesting…and, it covers topics that have long been of interest to me….so, I’ll send out a notice.”

I attended the event a couple of Saturdays ago. Approximately 70 people were there…the majority of whom were (I kid you not) all die-hard supporters of Ralph Reed’s former quest for the Lt. Governorship of Georgia. Note I am not saying that they are “former die-hard supporters” but “die-hard supporters of his former campaign.”

I thought their presence was rather strange because THESE people (really, I could list them here, but I don’t feel like it) had spent the last decade+ in Georgia politics playing the Christian Coalition brand of character assassination politics of ANY candidate who didn’t bow down before them.

So, I’m sitting in the room, listening to the speeches of people who were NOT former members of Ralph’s Army of God (Speaker Glenn Richardson, Stephen Moore, etc.) when I take notice of the little paper brochure about AFP and I start thumbing through it.

And then I came upon a picture of a guy making a speech outdoors with an array of congressmen behind him….and I thought to myself “that guy looks familiar…why does he look familiar?…” and then I read the caption that identified him: It was none other than Tim Phillips, Ralph Reed’s former business partner/hatchet man at Century Strategies.

Folks, I don’t know how to explain this to you (you Ralph Reed folks will never understand how well I can smell a rat, but I can), but, this is what I know: WHEREVER Tim Phillips is, Ralph Reed is there, somewhere, as well. He may be far in the background of AFP, but he is there. Hell, his pepes were all there in that meeting.

Just to refresh your memories, it was Ralph Reed who was the front “salesman” for Century Strategies, and Tim Phillips was the actual guy who put together the mechanics of designing the mail and getting it out the door. So, when Ralph was e-mailing Jack Abramoff about the casino scams they were running in Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas, it was Tim Phillips who developed the mail programs that got all of the Christian groups fired-up to fight the casinos that Ralph was being paid by competing casinos to stop.

People like Tim Phillips and Ralph Reed will lie to your face without batting an eye or ever feeling a sense of shame. Their followers (i.e., the folks I recognized in the room I was in) are also of the same mindset. It is the only way they know how to operate.

AFP, as an FYI, claims itself to be some sort of right-wing, pro-business, pro-American group. Knowing that Tim Philips is President of AFP tells me that that is a front for some other agenda/agendas.

You know, as much disdain as we on the right have for groups like MoveOn.org, the simple fact of the matter is that we KNOW who is financing MoveOn.org (George Soros). We have NO idea who is financing Americans for Prosperity. And, we never will, either. Because they are not required to disclose.

And, I can assure you that as long as Tim Phillips and the folks who are all former members of the Ralph Reed “do anything it takes to earn a buck or win a race” support group are involved in AFP, the subversive nature of AFP will never be known. Con-artists never reveal their true intentions; they just collect their largesse of dollars and start scoping out some new victims.

Technorati Tags: Americans For Prosperity, Ralph Reed, Tim Phillips, Century Strategies, AFP

No sh*t! Whiny US Senator Ted Stevens’ (R-Alaska) home got raided by the FBI yesterday afternoon!

The probe into corrupt Republicans from the 2002-2006 era continues…

Allow me to term the $931,000 spent by lobbyists to bribe the 2007 Georgia General Assembly in the politically-correct terminology people like the Pavlovian-lobbyists and their (complementary) legislator-dogs want us to believe:

From Pavlov’s perspective: “This $931,000 is an INVESTMENT for our sales and marketing divisions. When our lobbyists sacrifice their expense accounts in order to court legislators, it is just like any other business out there that is trying to build relationships with a prospective client.”

From the Dogs’ perspective: “Every time we go out to eat with a lobbyist, it is the same as it is with any other vendor taking a client out to eat. True, we usually chow-down on extraordinary food and good wine, but, keep in mind, we are sacrificing our family time to make sure that we become educated on the positions of these lobbyists so that we can truly make the best decisions in the legislature.”

I am reminded of the case of State Rep. Stacey Reece (R-No Longer In Office). Back in early 2006, the lobbyists who are practitioners of the this-is-just-like-any-other-business practice threw Reece and his fiance a wedding shower. Then, Reece termed the expenditure on his personal business as [paraphrasing here because I don’t have the original AJC article…but can dig-it up if anyone is stupid enough to challenge me on it] “something that happens all the time between friends…”

Yes, yes, why those Pavlovian lobbyists are just “friends” of the legislators, aren’t they?

I want to know something: Do these lobbyists have any friends besides legislators? Do they also spend copious amounts of their client’s money on treating them to sports events and dinner?

And, I’d like to know…any of those lobbyists who considered Reece their “friend” last year, are they still calling on him and making plans to take him to dinner and to the World Series/Super Bowl, etc.?

NO? Wow…some friends these folks are. Hell, they might as well skip the financial bribes and just send them all companions of the opposite gender to demonstrate their “friendship” with the legislators; at least that demonstration of friendship will never show-up on a lobbyist’s disclosure.

This is how the current landscape of presidential logoes looks:

Wonder what Fred Thompson’s logo will look like? Wonder how much they paid someone to develop it?

(Hat Tip to 2 blogs:
http://www.viksmarketingblog.com/
http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/522-presidential-candidate-logos-politics-as-usual)

Rumors have it that the Republican political consultants in Gwinnett County who hate another Republican political consultant, Bill McKinney, are going to have to keep on hating him with no help from their friendly DA.

In a 7-0 decision issued this morning, the Georgia Supreme Court has ruled that the case filed by Gwinnett District Attorney Danny Porter against Bill McKinney was filed in the wrong county. In the analysis of their decision, it appears that because the Georgia State Ethics Commission resides entirely in Fulton County, any case regarding violations of the Ethics Act must be filed in Fulton County.

Here is the excerpt of their decision: “In the case now before us, the statutes in question required Defendants to file reports with the State Ethics Commission, which is exclusively located in Fulton County. In enacting this law, the Legislature provided no definition for he act of filing and included no statutory component to the crime which would qualify it as a continuing offense. Compare State v. Kell, 276 Ga. 423 (577 E2d 551) (2003) (venue for Medicaid fraud). As a result, under the statute as it is currently written, the only proper venue in this case was Fulton County, the county where the State Ethics Commission is located and the disclosure reports in question are required to be filed. Therefore, the trial court erred by denying defendants’ motion to dismiss the indictment. Judgment reversed. All the Justices concur.”

You may ponder what the heck this has to do with in your part of the political world. Well, something interesting, actually. This case, you see, came about because of a politically-driven district attorney (Porter) and the ability of political consultants to feed him information about a political race and get the DA to actually become involved in the race 2 weeks before the election.

In the 2006 GOP primary in Gwinnett, incumbent county commissioner Kevin Kenerly was being opposed by newcomer Jodie Rosser. Rosser was McKinney’s candidate, and, apparently, too much of a threatening challenger to the political hierarchy of Gwinnett County government. This is likely why Porter decided to involve himself…that, and his relationship with other political consultants in Gwinnett who hate McKinney.

Within two weeks of being handed all of the “evidence” against Bill McKinney (from political sources opposing Rosser), Danny Porter moved quickly to push this case forward so that it became the spotlight and helped slam Rosser’s candidacy right before the July 2006 primary. And, now, his entire case against McKinney gets thrown-out due to wrong venue.

Several questions should be asked, and answered, before Danny Porter’s next election:

1) Does Mr. Porter think his oath to office entitles him to engage the resources of the taxpayers to play sides in political races? How many other cases has Porter received evidence from in Gwinnett County that caused him to move so quickly, and have an impact on an actual political outcome?

3) Is justice blind in Gwinnett County with Danny Porter as the DA?

Here’s one thing I know with 95% certainty: Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard will not be engaging the resources of his office to help one faction of the GOP settle their ego with another faction of the GOP.

Now, our Legislature does have the option to amend this law so that Ethics Act-related cases that occur in counties like Gwinnett or Chatham, or wherever in Georgia, can be heard and prosecuted in those local jurisdictions. Until that time, however, district attorneys cannot be used to stick sharpened knives from one campaign into a competing campaign.

In the 1990s, the political buzzword the GOP used to label wasteful spending on projects was termed to be “pork.”

During this decade (and, since the GOP has run Congress for most of it) the GOP has developed a new term for pork: earmarks.

Pork by any other name is still just as full of arterial-cramming lard as it once was, regardless of the terminology. The spending still results in a redistribution of wealth of federal tax dollars taken from one section of the country and given to people in another section of the country.

AND, the Fair Tax people want to have their new system of taxation implemented because MORE tax money will be generated more easily, by taxing consumption. And, everybody consumes something, sometime, right?

I like our tax system just fine the way it is…the less money that is generated means the less money spent on earmarks or pork or whatever the new term will be to make our Robin-Hooded Congress appear to be doing “the right thing” with our tax dollars.

What an interesting story about Rudy’s “patriotism”…that is, trading it for a pandering opportunity to hobnob with Ralph Reed last year:

“WASHINGTON – Rudolph Giuliani’s membership on an elite Iraq study panel came to an abrupt end last spring after he failed to show up for a single official meeting of the group, causing the panel’s top Republican to give him a stark choice: either attend the meetings or quit, several sources said.

Giuliani left the Iraq Study Group last May after just two months, walking away from a chance to make up for his lack of foreign policy credentials on the top issue in the 2008 race, the Iraq war.

He cited “previous time commitments” in a letter explaining his decision to quit, and a look at his schedule suggests why – the sessions at times conflicted with Giuliani’s lucrative speaking tour that garnered him $11.4 million in 14 months.

Giuliani failed to show up for a pair of two-day sessions that occurred during his tenure, the sources said – and both times, they conflicted with paid public appearances shown on his recent financial disclosure. Giuliani quit the group during his busiest stretch in 2006, when he gave 20 speeches in a single month that brought in $1.7 million.

On one day the panel gathered in Washington – May 18, 2006 – Giuliani delivered a $100,000 speech on leadership at an Atlanta business awards breakfast. Later that day, he attended a $100-a-ticket Atlanta political fundraiser for conservative ally Ralph Reed, whom Giuliani hoped would provide a major boost to his presidential campaign.”

Yeah, that Rudy…what a clever man he is (not!). He thought he could swoop-in to Ralph’s enclave of the party and suck-up all of the available air (and support) to himself. He’s as short-sighted AND ignorant as John McCain was last year when McCain made a speech in front of Falwell’s school, trying to pander to THAT group.

When will these candidates EVER learn that tricks are for kids, not politicians?

Hat tip to PeachPundit.com for the story on State Rep. Mike Jacobs switching to the GOP.

While there will be massive gnashing of teeth on the Dem side, perhaps they should stop and think as to why they lose people to the other side.

Here’s a link to Mike’s new blog: Mike Jacobs