I'd like to divert for a moment to clear up some misconceptions about Operation Chaos. If you're a Limbaugh listener, you know very well what it is and what its intention is. If you've only heard the MSM side of the story, you've got the wrong idea about it. Back in February, McCain's top adviser announced that he would resign rather than attack Barack Obama. Without the willingness to stand up and fight (fairly, of course), McCain was more or less done before the contest even began, and Limbaugh realized this. At the time, Barack Obama was looking bulletproof, but Limbaugh reasoned that Hillary would stop at literally nothing to get herself into the White House. Therefore, there was no one else willing -- and really, who could do it better -- to politically 'bloody up' Obama than Hillary Clinton. Operation Chaos commenced. The stated goal was to have Reps cross over -- which could be done easily, since the Rep process was essentially over at that point -- to vote for whichever Dem candidate was behind. In just so happens that Clinton has been behind for much of the time since then, so the MSM has mistakenly assumed that Limbaugh wants Clinton nominated because he'd rather have McCain go against her than against Obama. The intent was not to promote either Dem candidate...the intent was to cause as much chaos in the Dem party for as long as possible. There are a number of stories about record low Rep turnout as well as record high Dem registrations in the last few states, so although we will probably never know the exact numbers following Limbaugh's brainchild, it is clear that it is being enacted by the masses of Rep voters. And, given the mud being thrown between Clinton and Obama over the past few weeks -- damaging both candidates for the November election -- the only conclusion available is: mission accomplished.
Now that you know the story, we can get back to the update. Rick Moran explores just how far Hillary is willing to go to beat Obama, and it does not bode well for the Democrat party. Basically, he suggests -- and all evidence seems to support him -- that she will lean hard on the DNC committee, which is very friendly to her, to force the seating of Michigan and Florida delegates. It will cause outrage like nothing seen since 1968, potentially fracturing the party, but Moran thinks she is quite willing to do it. I agree.
We'll see how these two big primaries come out today. Drudge reported this morning that the Clinton camp is now expecting as much as a 15-point defeat in North Carolina, and is already working on damage control. The race is up for grabs in Indiana. We'll see how it comes out tonight after the votes are counted. I'll post analysis later in the week when the dust settles.
On a related note, polls are all over the place right now, with a wide variety of results. Moran explains a bit about the insider view of polling and how certain media outlets can put a spin on the same numbers so that they reach entirely different conclusions. Interesting and quick reading, if you're curious.
Now, for some specific stories on the candidates.
Ed Lasky thinks that Obama will eventually win out for one reason: his Internet fundraising and networking prowess. He has clearly shown an ability to reach an enormous pool of people (many of whom are new to donating), and the Democrats view that as a very positive point for the future of the party at large.
Michelle Malkin actually found one instance in which Barack Obama stood for limited government, which is a distinctly conservative principle. The only problem is the context...
Sen. Barack Obama won the endorsement of the Teamsters earlier this year after privately telling the union he supported ending the strict federal oversight imposed to root out corruption, according to officials from the union and the Obama campaign.
So, he's cutting back government efforts to reduce corruption in the Teamsters union. Wow, what a great reason to stand for limited government!
Charles Krauthammer revisits Obama's race speech, now that he's thrown Wright under the bus. Excerpts:
At a news conference in North Carolina, Obama explained why he finally decided to do the deed. Apparently, Wright's latest comments -- Obama cited three in particular -- were so shockingly "divisive and destructive" that he had to renounce the man, not just the words.
What were Obama's three citations? Wright's claim that AIDS was invented by the U.S. government to commit genocide. His praise of Louis Farrakhan as a great man. And his blaming Sept. 11 on American "terrorism."
But these comments are not new. These were precisely the outrages that prompted the initial furor when the Wright tapes emerged seven weeks ago. Obama decided to cut off Wright not because Wright's words or character or views had suddenly changed. The only thing that changed was the venue in which Wright chose to display them -- live on national TV at the National Press Club. That unfortunate choice destroyed Obama's Philadelphia pretense that this "endless loop" of sermon excerpts being shown on "television sets and YouTube" had been taken out of context.
Obama's Philadelphia oration was an exercise in contextualization. In one particularly egregious play on white guilt, Obama had the audacity to suggest that whites should be ashamed that they were ever surprised by Wright's remarks: "The fact that so many people are surprised to hear that anger in some of Reverend Wright's sermons simply reminds us of the old truism that the most segregated hour of American life occurs on Sunday morning."
That was then. On Tuesday, Obama declared that he himself was surprised at Wright's outrages. But hadn't Obama told us that surprise about Wright is a result of white ignorance of black churches brought on by America's history of segregated services? How then to explain Obama's own presumed ignorance? Surely he too was not sitting in those segregated white churches on those fateful Sundays when he conveniently missed all of Wright's racist rants.
It's hard to think of an act more blatantly expedient than renouncing Wright when his show, once done from the press club instead of the pulpit, could no longer be "contextualized" as something whites could not understand and only Obama could explain in all its complexity.
This is a big problem for Obama. It may not be killing him in the polls right now, but that's because the only polls that count are of Democrats. When it comes to a contest against McCain, with lots of Reps and Indies in the mix, it's going to hurt a whole lot more. There is no way that Obama can spin this so as not to look like a total racist himself.
In another related article, Krauthammer explores Obama's changing moral equivalence. This guy is a disaster waiting to happen!
Let's switch gears. How about John McCain?
First, he has once again clarified his remarks about staying in Iraq for 100 years:
"You have seen an ad campaign that is mounted against me that says I wanted to stay and fight in Iraq and fight for 100 years," McCain told about 300 people at the Robert E. Loup Jewish Community Center.
"My friends, it's a direct falsification, and I'm sorry that political campaigns have to deteriorate in this fashion," McCain said. "Because there's legitimate differences between myself and Senator Obama and Senator Clinton on what we should do in Iraq."
The Democratic presidential candidates want to set a date for withdrawal from Iraq, which McCain argues would lead to chaos and genocide in the Middle East.
"After we win the war in Iraq, and we are succeeding—and it's long and hard and tough, with enormous sacrifices—then I'm talking about a security arrangement that may or may not be the same kind of thing we had with Korea after the Korean war was over," he said.
At issue is McCain's answer, in January, to a question about Bush's theory that troops could be in Iraq for 50 years.
McCain said: "Maybe 100. As long as Americans are not being injured or harmed or wounded or killed, that'd be fine with me, and I hope it would be fine with you, if we maintain a presence in a very volatile part of the world where al-Qaida is training, recruiting, equipping and motivating people every single day."
He'll have to keep explaining it for the next few months, but as long as he stays consistent, I think that a lot of Americans (even Democrats) will agree with him once they understand what he actually said rather than what the Dem commercials are saying he said.
McCain's definitely on the right track on health care. Both of the Dem candidates support massive, tax-payer funded universal health care that would spell disaster for American health care (see my many previous blogs on the subject). In total contrast, McCain would open up our health care system to competition and private selection. From the man himself:
The problem is not that Americans don't have fine doctors, medical technology, and treatments. American medicine is the envy of the world. The problem is not that most Americans lack adequate health insurance. The vast majority of Americans have private insurance, and our government spends many billions each year to provide even more.
The biggest problem with the American health-care system is one of cost and access, and as a result tens of millions of individuals have no insurance. For example, we currently spend for about 2.4 trillion dollars a year on health care. A decade from now that number, under current projections, will double to over four trillion dollars.
I believe the key to real reform is to restore control over our health-care system to the patients themselves. To that end, my reforms are built on the pursuit of three goals: paying only for quality medical care, having insurance choices that are diverse and responsive to individual needs, and restoring our sense of personal responsibility.
He goes on to endorse health savings accounts, tax credits to individuals, choices of providers for individuals, and allowing insurance providers to cross state lines (I live in Missouri, so this would allow me to buy a potentially cheaper and better plan in Kansas). His is an outstanding plan, and would truly allow freedom for individuals to choose the plan that best suited them, as well as opening health care up to a private market system, which would increase quality while decreasing cost. This is conservatism, and exactly what needs to happen!
For more reading on this topic:
Sadly, he has discarded conservatism when it comes to immigration. He says he 'learned his lesson' from the comprehensive immigration reform debacle last year, but has he really? He has launched a Spanish website to reach Hispanic voters. He is scheduled to speak the a La Raza conference this summer. For those of you who don't know, La Raza (translated as "the race") is one of the most rabid anti-free speech, open-borders activist groups in the country. See the following compilation of McCain's associations with La Raza from Michelle Malkin:
Despite saying what conservatives (and most Americans, when it comes to immigration) want to hear, McCain has surrounded himself with open-borders fanatics. I ask you which speaks louder: actions, or words?You want straight talk? McCain's tongue says he's "listened and learned." But his heart is with La Raza, the militantly ethnocentric, anti-immigration enforcement Hispanic lobbying group that honored him in 1999 and whose annual conference he keynoted in 2004…
…Crooked talk: He says he'll build the fence.
Straight talk: He resents what he calls the "goddamned fence."
John McCain and La Raza-The Race share a deep-seated contempt for grass-roots conservatives who worked successfully to defeat the disastrous amnesty bill. And they share a common impulse to marginalize their political opponents as "haters."
Thus, La Raza-The Race has launched a new "We Can Stop the Hate" campaign–smack dab in the middle of the campaign season–to redefine tough policy criticism from the Right as "hate." They protest that it is "racist" and out-of-bounds to talk about reconquista–even as the McCain campaign boasts a "Mexico First/"Just A Region"/"Free Flow of People" outreach director who's practicing it out in the open for the leading GOP presidential front-runner.
Yes, an ethnic separatist group that calls itself "The Race"–a group that has embraced John McCain and vice versa–has the gall to crusade against "hate." Chris Kelly notes that La Raza-The Race head Janet Murguia is calling for networks to keep immigration enforcement proponents off the airwaves and that both La Raza-The Race and another open-borders group are pushing for Fairness Doctrine policies to shut up their foes.
There could be one problem with his support of La Raza, though. The latest housing bill in Congress contains a massive earmark for La Raza. His anti-earmark stance is going to come squarely into conflict with his pro-La Raza stance. Which way will he go? My guess is he'll side with La Raza, but either way he loses in my opinion.
For some suggestions on how to handle La Raza, Michelle Malkin offers the following ten reasons why McCain should repudiate the vile activist group:
This is one of the biggest problems McCain has when it comes to his base. La Raza encapsulates just about everything that conservatives hate, and McCain has embraced them. Thus, little conservative support.10. La Raza supports driver's licenses for illegal aliens.
9. La Raza supports in-state tuition discounts for illegal alien students that are not available to law-abiding US citizens and law-abiding legal immigrants.
8. La Raza opposes cooperative immigration enforcement efforts between local, state, and federal authorities.
7. La Raza sponsors militant ethnic nationalist charter schools subsidized by your public tax dollars, including the "Aztlan Academy" in Tucson, AZ, the Mexicayotl Academy in Nogales, AZ, and Academia Cesar Chavez Charter School in St. Paul, Minn.
6. La Raza gives mainstream cover to a poisonous subset of ideological satellites, led by Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan, or Chicano Student Movement of Aztlan (MEChA), which the late GOP Rep. Charlie Norwood rightly characterized as "a radical racist group…[and] one of the most anti-American groups in the country, which has permeated U.S. campuses since the 1960s, and continues its push to carve a racist nation out of the American West."
5. La Raza opposes a secure fence on the southern border.
4. Former La Raza president Raul Yzaguirre, Hillary Clinton's Hispanic outreach advisor said this:
"US English is to Hispanics as the Ku Klux Klan is to blacks." He was referring to US English the nation's oldest, largest citizens' action group dedicated to preserving the unifying role of the English language in the United States.
La Raza also pioneered Orwellian open-borders Newspeak and advised the Mexican government on how to lobby for illegal alien amnesty while avoiding the terms "illegal" and "amnesty."
3. La Raza is currently leading a smear campaign against staunch immigration enforcement leaders and has called for TV and cable TV networks to keep immigration enforcement proponents off the airwaves–in addition to pushing for Fairness Doctrine policies to shut up their foes.
2. La Raza has consistently opposed post-9/11 national security measures at every turn.
1. The National Council of La Raza means The National Council of "The Race," for God's sake.
Their signature slogan, chanted at pro-illegal alien rallies from coast to coast, is "La raza unida nunca sera vencida."
"A united [Hispanic] race will never be defeated."
What possible good will come out of a GOP presidential candidate giving legitimacy and credibility to a sovereignty-undermining, assimilation-rejecting, law-defying group that calls itself "The Race?"
Now you're up to date!
There's my two cents.
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