Sorry, lefties, the Tea Parties are well-funded enough to stick around for a good long time:
The Woodstock, Ga.-based Tea Party Patriots reported raising $12.2 million for the year ended May 31, 2011. That vaults them into the ranks of some of the most successful conservative activist groups, including FreedomWorks, the Club for Growth and Americans for Tax Reform.
Ever since Andrew Breitbart passed away, something’s been nagging at me. I may be wrong, but it seems to me that a lot of people on the right are desperately searching for a hero to save us:
During the time leading up to the American Revolution, one of the best ways the Founding Fathers had to spread their concepts, ideas, and information was through pamphlets, of which one of the most famous is Thomas Paine’s Common Sense. These short, inexpensive, quickly printed, easily distributed monographs were undeniably popular–Common Sense sold half a million copies in its first year, and that’s in just the original 13 colonies–and almost certainly framed the debate over independence.
Now a conservative imprint of HarperCollins Publishers is aiming to do the same thing with e-pamphlets for the popular e-reader platforms: Introducing Broadside Books’ new line, Voices Of The Tea Party.
The series publishes short, pamphlet-like political works on topics such as Obamacare (”First Do No Harm“) and grassroots activism (”Community Organizing for Conservatives“).
At $2 per e-book, the purpose of these long essays is to “reinvigorate and democratize the conservative intellectual movement by lowering barriers to entry for citizen-activists who have something important to say,” according to Adam Bellow. Bellow, the son of Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Saul Bellow, is the editor of Broadside Books.
And now, straight from the publishers’ website:
Voices of the Tea Party is a real-time collaborative forum for Tea Partiers around the country that delivers in-depth information on tactics, strategy, and policy from the on-ground activists through the use of inexpensive and easy to download e-books. The series will serve the vibrant online community of everyday American who launched and continue to drive the Tea Party movement, by taking their collaborative discussions to a much higher level. Tea Party suporters around the country will now be able to instantly access “best practices” that have succeeded elsewhere, hear the stories of others in the movement, and learn from Tea Partiers with specific policy ideas and expertise. Perhaps more important, they will be able to engage with other thought leaders by submitting their own e-book proposals for possible inclusion in the series.
I’ve already purchased and read First, Do No Harm on my Kindle. It was well worth the $1.99 I paid for it, and I’m eagerly awaiting the next entry in this series. God willing, this new idea will help spread conservative principles to the current generation.
By the way, if you don’t have a Kindle or other supported e-reader, there’s always the Kindle for PC app.
And kudos to HarperCollins for doing this!
Looks like T-Paw has just tossed his hat into the ring.
Long hinting that he will run for president, Pawlenty announced on Facebook that he has established an exploratory committee.
Check out his video here: http://vimeo.com/21296895
It’s a cinematography familiar to those who’ve seen Pawlenty’s recent videos on his YouTube channel — youtube.com/user/GovernorTimPawlenty — except it’s the first production paid for by The Pawlenty For President Exploratory Committee.
The 1-minute, 55-second video consists of a rousing soundtrack with quick images of iconic “middle America,” from the former governor shaking hands with a greasy-handed assembly plant worker to a farmhouse as seen from a passing car window. Additionally, there are numerous alternating shots of Pawlenty donning hockey gear playing with regular folks and donning Carhardt or flannel talking with regular folks — images that he has appeared eager to cultivate.
Pawlenty’s words are — not-unsurprisingly given the purpose of the brief message — short on policy specifics but laced with general Republican philosophy, from the need for smaller government to the need to help small businesses. References to Republican Presidents Ronald Reagan — de rigeur for Republicans these days — and Abraham Lincoln are included, and he refers to the closing of the stockyards in his native South St. Paul, as historical images flash, as well as images of what appear to be St. Paul’s Ford plant.
Personally, I think T-Paw would make a much better POTUS than the current one. But then, that’s not a high bar… Elmer Fudd would probably be better than the current POTUS, if he could be convinced to take time off from wabbit hunting to campaign, and if people would vote for him despite his speech impediment.
I really don’t think this is gonna help his standing with social conservatives:
Newt Gingrich says his passion for his country contributed to his marital infidelity. In an interview posted Wednesday by The Christian Broadcasting Network, Gingrich – who recently converted to Catholicism – said he had sought God’s forgiveness for mistakes in his past.
“There’s no question at times of my life, partially driven by how passionately I felt about this country, that I worked far too hard and things happened in my life that were not appropriate,” Gingrich said.
“What I can tell you is that when I did things that were wrong, I wasn’t trapped in situation ethics, I was doing things that were wrong, and yet, I was doing them,” he said. “I found that I felt compelled to seek God’s forgiveness. Not God’s understanding, but God’s forgiveness.”
In other words, stress and the requirements of his earlier job–Speaker of the House–led him to have an extra-marital affair.
Now, this is a really poor choice of an excuse for one simple reason. The Presidency is far and away a more stressful and difficult job than Speaker of the House, so if the stress of being Speaker made him have an affair, what would the stress of being President make him do?
And, do we really wanna find out? Especially after 4 years of Obama’s blunders?
I think not, and I think a lot of other conservatives are gonna agree with me.
Here’s one for all those that think that in order to get Hispanic support for the GOP, the party has to support open borders. This proposal from the Conservative Hispanic Society seems to put the lie to that meme:
Steve Navarre, the President of the Conservative Hispanic Society, called for the U.S. military to be deployed to the U.S. Mexico border. Navarre outlined the proposal on America’s Radio News on Thursday. The plan is called the “Secure the Border First Initiative.”
Sorry, squishy-borders proponents, apparently not all Hispanics support letting illegals into the country freely.
(Washington DC – 2/12/11) The National Board of Young Americans for Freedom (YAF)—America’s oldest conservative-libertarian activist group—has, per curium, voted to purge Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) from YAF’s National Advisory Board.
YAF’s concern with Rep. Paul stems from his delusional and disturbing alliance with the fringe Anti-War movement.
“It is a sad day in American history when a one-time conservative-libertarian stalwart has fallen more out of touch with America’s needs for national security than the current feeble and appeasing administration,” said YAF’s Senior National Director Jordan Marks.
Marks explains exactly what the YAF’s problem with Paul is.
“Rep. Paul’s refusal to support our nation’s military and national security interests border on treason, aside from his failure to uphold his oath to the United States Constitution and defend our country and citizens against all enemies, foreign and domestic,” Marks continued.
“Rep. Paul has strayed to the left of Obama and allied himself with the radical anti-war left by laying the blame on America for the unprovoked attacks of Sept. 11th. Additionally, Rep. Paul has not condemned the 9/11 “Truther” conspiracy theorists that support him, and he has repeatedly insisted, that the United States not bring justice to those who have murdered thousands of our civilians and soldiers at home and abroad. This is simply unacceptable. Clearly Rep. Paul cares more about a doomed presidential run than he does our country,” Marks added.
Another YAF official also smacks Paul hard:
YAF National Chairman Michael Jones issued the following statement:
“The United States is in a time of economic crisis, but this is no excuse to abandon the principles that have built this great country and spread its ideals to the darkest recesses of the planet. The United States is the world’s leader–a beacon of light for the wretched and the oppressed. God has blessed the United States with liberty and the strength and heart to spread that liberty to all of his children. Rep. Paul has abandoned this mission, abandoned the United States’ citizens, and abandoned the citizens of the world in their quest for their God-given natural rights.”
Good for them. Paul is a loony who needs to be kept at arms’ length from any sort of leadership position, especially one involved with young conservatives and libertarians interested in politics. The great William F. Buckley, Jr. helped push the John Birch society into irrelevance around the time he started National Review, it’s time people started doing it again with the current crop of loonies on the right.
It’s rare these days for me to agree with columnist Peggy Noonan, especially after Noonan wrote so glowingly of Obama in the run-up to the 2008 elections, but this time she has a point, and a good one (emphasis in original):
In attempting to praise Ronald Reagan and his legacy, NBC’s Andrea Mitchell ruffled the feathers of conservative columnist Peggy Noonan on Meet the Press when Mitchell claimed Republicans are “trying to appropriate Ronald Reagan for their own political purposes now.” Noonan, the former Reagan speechwriter, immediately called Mitchell out and got her to clarify exactly what she meant.
Noonan responded, “Republicans are not, I think, trying to appropriate Ronald Reagan – Ronald Reagan was a Republican. Conservatives aren’t trying to appropriate him – he was a conservative.”
Precisely. Someone needs to tell Andrea Mitchell that one cannot “appropriate” that which already belongs to one. But I guess that kind of logic is a mystery to someone who believes history began 2o January 2009.
The Republican National Committee’s inability to reach its own fundraising goals for this year’s elections was more serious than its budget makers expected and the malaise has even spread to small-money donors, The Washington Times has learned.
As a result of poor fundraising compounded by controversial spending practices, the RNC will enter the 2012 presidential election cycle between $20 million and $25 million in debt — not the $15 million reported over the weekend.
“It’s the biggest debt the national committee ever had going into a presidential election cycle — at least in my memory,” said former RNC General Counsel David Norcross.
To be honest, since Michael Steele took the reins, the RNC has been involved in one scandal (or scandal-ette) after another, so it’s no wonder that people have decided to give to their preferred candidate directly… and thanks to the internet, it’s now easier than ever to do so!
I think this will be the last straw that makes The Powers That Be within the GOP decide they need someone other than Mr. Steele at the helm of the RNC.
Over at Stephen Green’s “Vodkapundit” section of PajamasMedia, there’s a lively debate (which I participated in) about who could be the GOP nominee in ’12.
Rather than take up Stephen’s space, and take the chance that it’d get buried under the 200+ other comments, I decided I’d share my own expanded thoughts here, since I do have this handy forum for doing that. 
The theme I want to take up today are the extremely popular Ron Paul and Sarah Palin. To start off, I want to make it clear I have no personal animus against either of them… some of Paul’s policies I disagree with on philosophical grounds, but I am not a “hater” of either person. Unfortunately, that disclaimer is necessary due to the fanaticism of some (note: I didn’t say all) of their fans.
However, I think it extremely unlikely that either of them can capture the nomination, and, if they did, they almost certainly wouldn’t be able to beat Obama in 2012. The reason is simple: They may rally the base, but they lose the majority of the middle.
By “the middle,” I don’t mean dedicated moderates (isn’t that a bit of a contradiction in terms?), I mean the people who only pay attention to politics between Labor Day and the First Tuesday in November in even-numbered years. These are the people who, though they may have right-of-center leanings, get most of their political news from the three Dinosaur Media broadcast networks and CNN, or from their own–probably left-of-center–local newspaper. They might have heard of blogs, but probably have seldom if ever read them, even the biggies like PJM, and much less a small effort like this little corner of the blogopshere. In fact, if they have heard of blogs, it was probably with a negative connotation, as in “look what those whackos on the right are doing now!” Fox News probably faces the same dynamic as blogs do, though to a lesser degree… more people have heard of Fox, and might watch it from time to time, but for many non-political-wonks, it’s still filtered through the lens of “those right-wing-nuts at Faux News” (using the pejorative term for Fox as an illustration, not because I believe that myself).
I think that a large portion of the blog-reading public forgets that there’s a huge mass of people out there who just don’t follow political news that closely, and that these peoples’ perceptions of candidates are largely filtered through the Dinosaur Media lens. Unfortunately for Ron and Sarah, as good a President as they might make–and I’m making no judgments on that at this time–they would have to convince the great unwonkish center that they deserve the nomination, because, by definition, about half of the center is gonna vote in the GOP primaries, and let’s face it, they probably outnumber either the Paul base or the Palin base.
The situation looks even less rosy if one of them does manage to capture the GOP nomination somehow. Despite the ongoing train wreck that is the Obama Presidency, if the center isn’t convinced that the GOP candidate can do better, they won’t vote Republican… they’ll either stay home or vote for “the devil they know” in the Oval Office while voting in a Republican Congress to ride herd on him.
We also have to face facts… both Ron and Sarah have made statements that, well… the center would find somewhat… unusual. You can bet your last dollar that the Dinosaur Media would trumpet those as loudly as they could, while (wink, wink, nod, nod) hiding Obama’s many gaffes.
So, while the passion of the Ron and Sarah camps is admirable, I really don’t think either candidate has much of a shot. I do hope, for the future of the party and the nation as a whole, that those passionate folks will be just as passionate about whoever the GOP candidate is, even if it’s not Ron or Sarah. For my part, I promise to support Ron or Sarah to my utmost should they happen to capture the nomination. Now, that’s fair, isn’t it?