I'm back...

My apologies for the last of posting in recent weeks.

First, I've been busy constructing a secret bunker in a wooded area near my place so that I'll have somewhere to hide when President Obama sends his thought police after me next year. I'll be able to hear them coming because they'll all be totally brainwashed and mumbling something like this:

"Fired up... ready to go... Yes we can... Fired up... ready to go... Yes we can..."

Oh wait. You're telling me that Obama supporters are already doing that? Dammit. I better work faster.

Secondly, as some of you know, I have been out all over Wisconsin, eating crappy broasted chicken and reconstituted mashed potatoes, and looking for the next crop of lackluster Republican Assembly candidates. This is where one tends to find them all, either owning or congregating at supper clubs. And man, is this crop ever going to be lackluster! Woo-hoo!

I mean, it's so bad that we're running Debi Towns again, against the wishes of 92% of the people who ever had to work with her. Good luck finding people to help out with that one. Seriously, who's next to step up? Chuck Schafer? Bill Lorge? Gary Drzewiecki? I can't wait to find out.

Oh, and I've noticed that the GOP has continued to screw the pooch on a number of key legislative items (not that the Dems have been stellar lately, either). I'll look forward to getting to those in the coming days.

I Do Not <3 Barack Obama. At all. (Or, Playground Primary Endorsements!)

I wish to frame my endorsement of Hillary Clinton in the negative, because it's not so much about the fact that I think Hillary Clinton is great. Frankly, the Democrats ran their most qualified candidates out of the race already.

Rather, I wish to focus on her last remaining opponent, because I cannot begin to tell you how much I have come to loathe Barack Obama's candidacy in the last few months. You should vote for Hillary Clinton tomorrow because she is not Barack Obama.

First, some frank words for the Democrats. Begin by looking at Obama's demographic base - African-Americans and affluent, white liberal suburbanites with college degrees. When it comes to the traditional Democratic base - blue collar types, working-class families - Obama gets slaughtered. And frankly, if I were a Democrat, I would be sure to think back to where these voters went the last few times you didn't give them a candidate that appealed to them.

1988. 1984. 1972. Dukakis. Mondale. McGovern. Didn't work out so well, did it?

Of course, Obama is black - well, okay, he's half-black - and that surely is a difference worth noting. All it proves, of course, is that the liberal elites have caved to the identity politics that increasingly defines the Democratic Party. So now they've got Barack Obama, the candidate of convenience, the half-black Trojan horse carrying Howard Dean's old supporters and, somewhere beneath the piles of rhetorical bullshit, Howard Dean's old message.

The left couldn't do it alone, but hey, maybe if they co-opt the black vote, that'll get them the win they've been after. The Obama campaign sets new heights when it comes to political manipulation of black Americans by old white liberals.

Secondly, Barack Obama has been given nothing short of a free pass by the fawning press corps, guys like Chris Matthews who can barely contain their orgasmic bliss anytime Obama opens his mouth. Think that's going to last for another eight months? No way in hell. The print media is already starting to turn on Obama. Everyone's heard every bad thing about Hillary Clinton that could possibly be said, and she still polls even with McCain. Nobody's heard a bad word about Barack Obama ever, and he's barely beating John McCain in head-to-head matchups. Obama's numbers have nowhere to go but down.

But without even thinking tactically, there are so many reasons to detest the shallow superficiality of the Obama candidacy and what it says about America.

A bi-racial candidate who grew up abroad, went to Columbia and Harvard Law, taught at the University of Chicago, and spent his entire adult life in environments in which his skin color was only an asset and never a liability, Obama has done nothing but run for higher office for the last 12 years. If Barack Obama were running as a Republican, you can bet that every left-wing, mocha-colored talking head on television would be calling him a ladder-climbing Oreo or an Uncle Tom. He'd be getting the same treatment that J.C. Watts, Michael Steele, Thomas Sowell, and every other black Republican gets subjected to. The hypocrisy is astounding.

Obama tries to distract voters by using the word 'hope' in every other sentence. Like the magician, he waves his right hand wildly to distract you from his left hand - a left hand which holds a message about America that is profoundly negative and pessimistic. In speech after speech, Obama builds his rhetoric around the theme that anyone who is facing adversity in life should basically throw in the towel because the institutional obstacles that exist are far too great for any of them to overcome.

By blaming government for everyone's ills, he first liberates anyone from actually assuming any responsibility for their own lot in life. His is the message of victimization, the same one we've heard for ages from the far left reaches of American politics. He then immediately offers a solution: vote for me and let me do it all for you.

Don't kid yourselves. It's not really "yes, we can." It's "yes, I can." It's not "we are the change we've been waiting for." It's "I am the change you have been waiting for."

Beyond that, Obama then insulates himself from criticism by using another classic weapon of organized religion: shame. He laughingly mocks those who would call him a "hopemonger," and basically attempts to dump guilt on those who would dare subject his fluffy, feel-good message to any degree of intellectual rigor. Those who would ask questions are nothing but heretics, disbelievers in the message of all that is correct and good.

If you take the time to connect the dots, the message is clear. Vote for me. But don't you ever dare question me.

And this is the cardinal flaw of the Obama campaign. At its heart, it is preening and narcissistic. It is the San Francisco lampooned by South Park, filled with smug people who bend over to bask in the smell of their own flatulence. It's filled with supporters so overcome by his perceived eloquence and the collective groupthink of large audiences that it fails to realize it couldn't tell you five concrete things Obama would do as president.

Michelle Obama offered even more proof of this arrogance in her speech today in Madison, when she said that "for the first time in my adult lifetime, I'm really proud of my country." Okay Michelle, that's the first time since 1982. Apparently Mrs. Obama wasn't proud the day the Berlin Wall fell. That over 100 million people in Eastern Europe live under democracy now? Yeah, we had a lot to do with that. But no pride there. Our nation's collective response in the days following 9/11? Nope, no pride there either. There's only pride now that a bunch of suckers are buying into her husband's Benny Hinn-like approach to the presidency. Hold big rallies, make broad statements that virtually no one could disagree with, watch a couple of women faint, then get everyone's email addresses and hit them up for money.

This is your day, Barack.

That a guy from Harvard Law opts not to appeal to people's sense of intelligence, but instead skillfully exploits their emotional vulnerability, is almost disgraceful. And that's important too. Based solely on their academic backgrounds, one might excuse a guy like Mike Huckabee for his emotional and populist appeals. The guy's got a degree in religion from a little school in Arkansas. But the fact is, the preacher has run harder on ideas than a guy who was editor of the Harvard Law Review.

Of course, that Obama has herded so many sheep speaks no better of the Democrats than the Bush campaign in 2000 spoke of the Republicans. Fact is, many Democrats have become the very people they chastised the Republicans for being in 2000. People who don't care about qualifications or experience, but rather will pick the guy with the superficial appeal in order to pull one over on the voters.

And so the Playground endorses Hillary Clinton, because at least she talks to you like you're not in the crowd at a grade school assembly. She will acknowledge that change is not easy, that wishing for something or believing in something doesn't magically bring it into existence. She knows that come January 21, 2009, Republicans aren't going to roll over and go "oh gee, Barack, I can't believe we've been so wrong about all of this for so long. You're right, together we can do it... your way, of course."

Hope is easy, the opiate of the ignorant, downtrodden masses. Just turn your television on some Sunday morning, and you'll see a whole bunch of charlatans peddling hope. Walk through a Barnes & Noble and pick up some book by a guy with greasy hair and bonded teeth, like Joel Osteen or Anthony Robbins. They'll be happy to sell you hope for $24.99 plus tax.

Solutions are hard. And not only is Obama light on solutions, he has absolutely no idea how to get America to the utopia he's promising in vague, abstract terms. He sells hope because it's easy. He sells hope because it's the only thing he's got.

Barack Obama has spent months telling you that "yes, you can." And tomorrow when you vote, yes, you can vote for Obama. But if you're looking for a qualified candidate, then no, you shouldn't. Since the Republican primary is all but decided, all Wisconsin voters would be well-served by casting their votes for Hillary Clinton tomorrow.

Barack Obama doesn't need to save us. We need to save ourselves from another 8 1/2 months of his shallow, self-absorbed idiocy.

Fiscal conservatism for thee, but not for me

Last week, Mike Huebsch announced the return of the near-traditional election-year hiring freeze in the Assembly. Some reflexively decided that upholding this tradition warranted praise, as though the bar is now set so low for Assembly leadership that simply not f@!#ing up the things that were done in the past is now cause for a ticker-tape parade.

But before we cue the drum major, it's worth taking a spin through the latest copy of the Assembly staff salary list.

Anyone remember this debacle from last summer?:

From: Rep. Huebsch
Sent: Friday, June 15, 2007 2:13 PM
To: *Legislative Assembly Republicans
Subject: Staff Changes in the Huebsch Office

Members and Staff:
As you know, after more than 10 years in the Huebsch office, Bob Delaporte decided to move on and pursue new opportunities. He will be missed and we wish him all the best.

On Monday, John Murrary will join my office as an LTE. As most of you know, John has worked in state and local politics for many years, most recently as staff for Senator Dale Schultz. John will assist with our media efforts until a permanent press secretary is hired.

Mike Huebsch

Now, this horse has been beaten long enough, and frankly, it's far more fun to listen to Bob Dohnal rag on Murray for his leadership skills during Murray's time with Dale Schultz. What's worth noting is that, in this time of supposed fiscal hardship, Huebsch turned a $10.63 an hour LTE into a $60,000 staffer. This from a guy who practically anguished over whether a handful of redlined staffers could have an extra $50 a month.

I'm not sure what's sadder. That Mike Huebsch doled out a 541% raise sometime before telling others to do without, or that in the "search" for a permanent press secretary, the stand-in was the best they could find.

A request of the MSM

Dear big media,
Could you please stop referring to conservative goofballs as "Republican activists"? Frankly, if you were to read their blogs or listen to their diatribes at places like the Defending the Delusion summit, you would know that time and again they insist that they are conservatives, not Republicans. Let's grant them their wish.

John McCain might win in November. Or he might lose. Either way, it will almost certainly not be because a handful of guys who sit in their basements and jerk off to pictures of Vicki McKenna decided they don't want to put a McCain sign in their yard. After all, if there were enough of them to matter, John McCain wouldn't be the presumptive nominee in the first place.

Thanks for reading.

Cheers,
RS

Romney's exit strikes a blow for sanity in the GOP

As many of you can imagine, there is no small amount of glee here at the Playground now that Mitt Romney has finally seen the writing on the wall and given up on his bid for the presidency. But there's no point in tap dancing on his grave, because he wasn't even the biggest loser yesterday. The biggest losers were those who would have us believe that there is some conservative tidal wave out there in the distance, just waiting to overwhelm everything in its path.

In a matter of a month, Republicans delivered to America a crash course on the state of movement conservatism in this country, and its thesis is clear. The movement is vocal. The movement is miniscule. The movement is not representative of the Republican Party as a whole.

Almost inevitably, ideological movements fail to translate into effective governance because those leading the charge are so resistant to compromise and cooperation that they are unable to accomplish anything in the rare event one is elected to office. But there is something unique about the conservative movement that makes its road to political success an especially difficult one to traverse.

The movement politics of the right fails to capture the imagination of those who are not otherwise inclined to cling to anger and blame as a form of therapy.

Barack Obama and the conservative right are both selling revolution. But Obama sells a message of hope and optimism, one that is far more in the vein of Ronald Reagan than anything the conservative sloganeers have to offer. Whether one agrees with the details of Obama's agenda is irrelevant. Like Reagan, Obama is a happy warrior who appeals to our sense of hope and of optimism. That by working together, we can create a better America.

Conservatives are selling nothing other than their anger and rage that society doesn't pay attention to their arguments. Look at their message. We hate taxes. We hate gay marriage. We hate affirmative action. We hate immigrants (there are solid arguments against illegal immigration, though too much of this argument is proffered by those attempting to conceal their own xenophobia).

Conservatives offer only a negative message. There's no hope. There's no optimism. Just anger. Rage. Frustration. And when's the last time you saw a political candidate for a major office unite people around those emotions?

Conservative activists scream loudly these days. They beat their chests. They write on their blogs and they pretend to speak for way more people than they actually do. And this is indeed what has been the greatest achievement of this primary. Emperor Limbaugh, Emperor Hannity, Emperor Hewitt, Emperor Sykes, Emperor Dobson, Empresses Coulter and Ingraham, all of them, they're all naked. And they can see it and the world can see it and it absolutely terrifies them. Because they have discovered what so many of us have known for so long.

They are not the voice of the Republican Party. In fact, they might as well start writing about technology and guns.

A McCain victory is a win for Reagan's brand of conservatism. Reagan's conservatism was principled, but practical. It was inclusive, not exclusive. It appealed to moderate voters who flocked to Reagan by the millions. Reagan expressed a belief in God, but not a hard-edged faith that judged others and appealed more to exclusion than inclusion. In fact, it was Reagan himself who wrote in a 1951 letter that "my personal belief is that God couldn't have created evil so the desires he planted in us are good."

This is the conservatism that so many of us have never stopped believing in, even while so many of us have been forced to shun the label lest we be grouped with those who have so perverted the legacy of Reagan.

One of the common threads of philosophical conservatism throughout history is that nothing is perfect. There is no utopia. While liberals pushed a message that we could have a perfect world if only government were more involved, conservatives were the pragmatists. And yet all we hear from conservative radicals today is that anyone who doesn't toe their line 100% is not worthy of support. A real conservative wouldn't sit this one out because they didn't get their guy - and they surely wouldn't support "worse" over "bad" simply because it gave them someone else to blame.

That's not pragmatic. It's not practical. It's unfocused zealotry at its worst.

California Republicans held a closed primary on Tuesday, this in a state where changes in registration must be made two weeks prior to an election. Even given these restrictions, California Republicans delivered an astounding majority to McCain, one unforeseen by polls or by the talking heads. McCain won 49 of 53 congressional districts in a state where Romney supposedly had momentum. Yet Romney's momentum, time and again, proved to be the same kind of momentum that Fred Thompson supposedly had. Invisible momentum, the kind that only exists in the wildest fantasies of the reactionary right.

Conservatives decried the results in New Hampshire, complaining that McCain could only win in states with open primaries. Then, McCain won sizable victories in two states with closed primaries, Florida and California. And conservatives had no response, because the reality was unmistakable. McCain was indeed the choice of more Republicans than any of their preferred candidates.

Conservative extremists speak now of how the Republican Party has left them, but the facts are clear. The Republican Party never belonged to them to begin with. They may scream louder than other factions under the tent, but they are an unambiguously small portion of the crowd. And with McCain's victories in diverse, mainstream states like Illinois, Missouri, and California, it is clear that Republicans have grown tired of the screaming, pouting children in the corner. Millions of Republican voters have stood up and said loudly and clearly to their elected officials that these conservatives do not represent where the party is, and it does not represent where they want the party to go.

The only question now is whether Republican leaders at the state level are smart enough to get the message. Had Mitt Romney stayed in the race, he would've been lucky to win three counties in Wisconsin, and none of them would've been outside southeast Wisconsin. The question is whether people like Mike Huebsch and Jeff Fitzgerald are smart enough to recognize that it is precisely people like Leah Vukmir and Mark Gundrum, Joel Kleefisch and Robin Vos, who are leading the party straight off the edge of the cliff.

For too long, Assembly leadership has mistaken those who speak loudest in their caucus for those whose views represent the overwhelming majority of Wisconsin Republicans. And what Republican voters nationwide have declared loudly in the last month is that it is never too late to change the course.

Are legislative leaders and the folks at RPW smart enough to hear the message? We'll know soon enough.

66% less John Nichols is always a good thing.

Apparently someone over at Madison Newspapers Inc. finally figured out that the Cap Times was a total, money-losing liberal screed. While they spin their decision to reduce print distribution from six days to two quite nicely, the fact remains that the Cap Times was widely seen as a bottomless money pit that sponged off the Wisconsin State Journal for years.

They now join the ranks of fine state tabloids like the Platteville Journal that publish twice a week. Oh, but there were still be lots of internet content, they say. Well, that's lovely. I read lots of internet content. A lot of it, like much of the Capital Times, is garbage.

The Cap Times could never figure out if its job was to report the news or advocate for a cause. Too often, the difference between the news section and the opinion section were marginal, at best. Apparently, even the most liberal county in the state likes its news a little more neutral and unbiased.

RIP, Crap Times. See you never.

The Real Ronald Reagan...

...brought to you by the only person who is apparently sane enough to remember what Reagan actually did, Michael Kinsley.

A problem: Reagan actually signed the law that authorized the last amnesty, back in 1986. Romney deals with this small difficulty by declaring: "Reagan saw it. It didn't work." He offers no evidence that Reagan had a change of heart about amnesty, and learning from experience was not something Reagan was known for. The proper cliche is McCain's: "Ronald Reagan came with an unshakable set of principles." And -- pointedly -- "he would not approve of someone who changes their positions depending on what the year is."...

Would Reagan "walk out of" Iraq? Far from clear. He scurried out of Lebanon in 1984 after things got hot there. During the Reagan years, the United States was pro-Iraq in its war against Iran, although we also sold weapons to Iran to raise money for a terrorist war we were secretly financing in Nicaragua, while denouncing terrorism. It's hard to find any "unshakable set of principles" in this mess...

When Reagan took office in 1981, federal receipts (taxes) were $517 billion and outlays (spending) were $591 billion, for a deficit of $74 billion. When he left office in 1989, taxes were $999 billion and spending was $1.14 trillion, for a deficit of $141 billion. As a share of the economy, Reagan did cut taxes, from 19.6% to 18.4%, and he cut spending from 22.2% to 21.2%, increasing the deficit from 2.6% to 2.8%. The deficit went as high as an incredible 5% of GDP during his term. As a result, the national debt soared by almost two-thirds. You can fiddle with these numbers -- assuming it takes a year or two for a president's policies to take effect, or taking defense costs out -- and the basic result is the same or worse. Whatever, these numbers hardly constitute a "revolution."

Rudy was right. If Reagan were running today, Romney would be cutting ads against him and conservatives would bemoan his lack of purity.

Conservatives openly share their lunacy...

Man, Charlie Sykes is hilarious this morning. He's been talking about Ann Coulter's endorsement of Hillary Clinton, and taking callers. Even Charlie seems taken aback by how insane his callers seem to be, all of these wingnut Kool-Aid drinkers who agree with Coulter.

I must say, I have enjoyed this week greatly. It's been kind of like a video game. You get to the final boss and just before you vanquish it, it goes totally apeshit, starts glowing, whipping around, firing wildly but aiming at nothing in particular.

Conservatives never had the power they thought they did, and this week has put us at the precipice of beating this boss once and for all. So they're doing what they always do - they're freaking out, screaming irrationally about how they'd rather have Hillary than McCain, pouting like little children, conveniently forgetting that even their made up savior, Ronald Reagan, increased some taxes and passed actual amnesty. They think that somehow their histrionics are going to be enough to keep millions of Republicans and like-minded independents from putting this party on a course than charts away from the absurdity than has been the Bush administration and more towards a place where most of us are.

Next Tuesday will be the final blow. Romney will be lucky to win one state that isn't in the Mormon West or Massachusetts. McCain is going to roll Romney in most every major state that is in play. Romney, like the boss, will flail wildly, spending millions more on ads this weekend.

And ultimately, it will be for naught.

Listening to the Kool-Aid drinkers has effectively run the Republican Party into the ground in just six short years. And now, their fearless leaders, media whores like Coulter and Rush Limbaugh, are panicked and doing everything they can to mask the fact that they, and their readers and listeners, are not the ones ultimately in control. They never have been.

John McCain is conservative, but make no mistake, John McCain is not A conservative, as is currently defined. That's good, because those conservatives could never win a national race, and there are barely ten states in America where they could win any election at a statewide level.

Are their viewpoints valid? Sure, they're great from a philosophical standpoint. They should be a part of the broader discussion. They, like their nutty liberal brethren, help us to define the extremes in the debate. But in terms of finding an agenda that can win elections and build governing coalitions, their ideas are a woeful failure because their agenda is so inflexible and so narrow.

For conservatives, anger is a security blanket. They'd rather lose because it allows them to continue their complaining. And this week, we've seen and heard all we need to know just how valid that statement is.