WE'RE MOVING!

Last night's New Hampshire wrap-up was the last blog for me at this address. "America Needs Me" can now be found HERE. I've got a rudimentary version of the blog up and the posting has already begun. Also, podcasting will soon begin HERE.

The Big People's Table

I'm just watching Hillary in her latest Chairman Mao-with-an-upholstery-pattern jacket give her victory speech. Her victory, she tells us, is really one for the people stupid enough to buy adjustable rate mortgages. Yep, that's where she went first.

Ah, the Democrats are back.

Is it a dangerous world out there that requires us to have a strong Commander-in-Chief? It is if you're house shopping armed with nothing more than public school math skills, according to the Democrats.

Did terrorism rate a mention in The Madame's top five? Nope. The mortgage bailout was followed by Evil Oil, Evil Insurance, Evil Pharmaceuticals and "predatory" college loan people. The victims of the above were assured that they weren't invisible to Mrs. C. At that, I brought up a little bit of my dinner and shut her off.

At least she didn't invoke the horror of climate change right away. The Clinton dislike for Al Gore still trumps all.

The Madame's talking points are yet another perfect illustration of why we shouldn't let a Democrat get close enough to the White House to even take pictures of it any time soon. They continue to look inward for all of America's enemies. Al Qaeda's got nothing on Exxon, MetLife and Merck as far as the Democrats are concerned.

On the Republican side, the guy with the most to bring to the table as a Commander-in-Chief began his comeback. While the Democrats were planning a protracted war against American businesspeople John McCain was promising to pursue Osama bin Laden "to the gates of hell" if he had to. While other conservatives want to focus on a few issues that McCain's gotten weird about I prefer to focus on the fact that he's always known who the bad guys are and what we should do about them. He's not going to waste a lot of time and taxpayer money trying to open a can of whoop-ass on the CEO of an American oil company. I'm not old fashioned about too many things but I do like the thought of a war hero being in charge during a war.

Yeah, I like Fred Thompson too, but he finished behind "Other" in New Hampshire. I know that Fred didn't spend a lot of time or money in the state but I don't think "Other" did either. There may be some magic out there yet but banking on that seems about as sensible as saying that you're contributing to your 401k every time you buy a lottery ticket.

There's a lot of campaigning left but I am very glad that New Hampshire helped the GOP to begin moving away from its Huckafetish. Let's hope that Chuckles had his one moment in the frozen corn fields last week and is about to fade like the smile on Hillary's face whenever the cameras are turned off.

Tonight was also a reminder of how much fun politics is when it doesn't play out the way everyone has planned for so long. Surprises are always a blast in this age of incessant polling. Less than a week ago the media was agog over St. Obama of Nothing and King Gomer the Second. We heard the word "change" so often that I thought everyone had been dropped into a baby nursery full of poopy diapers. Now we have competition and choices again.

It's nice that the primary season will be relevant at least into the middle of January.

And I suppose we can all sleep better now knowing that Hillary Clinton is on the watch for any predators who are trying to send kids to college.

Cross posted at Grizzly Groundswell

The Ms. and the Mrs.

Arrogant types such as myself aren't fond of admitting we're wrong but it looks like I'm going to have to do just that today. 

The past decade has been filled with unspeakable horrors against women played out on the world stage. From Bill Clinton's permanently meandering libidinal apparatus to Sharia rape laws that punish the victim for having the poor taste to bring her genitalia with her in public, there's been enough going on to keep feminists screaming at the tops of their lungs 24/7. 

From the first "ZIP" heard in Clinton's Oval Office to the war against terrorists who would keep women partying like it's 1599, the silence from American feminists has been overwhelming. Surely those who have dedicated their lives to advancing the cause of women would have something to say about the American military enabling Afghan girls to go to school again or the fact that Saddam Hussein's rape rooms no longer exist. 

Maybe you can understand how the deafening silence led me to believe that feminism was dead. 

I was wrong. 

Today's New York Times has managed to dig up Gloria Steinem and give her a gig on the Opinion page. Ms. Steinem complains that Mrs. Clinton is being judged unfairly because of her sex.

Writing as if she spends her time cryogenically frozen in 1968, Steinem asks "why is the sex barrier not taken as seriously as the racial one?" This during an election where the Democratic front-runners consist of an African American male and two women (Mrs. Clinton and John Edwards). Oh, let's not forget that Barack Obama's most prominent and powerful wealthy supporter is Oprah Winfrey who, by all accounts Gloria, is an African American female. If someone were to get Ms. Steinem an Internet connection or a newspaper subscription she could also find out that the current Speaker of the House can wear women's clothing without being described as a fetishist. 

You see, G, the problem with Hillary Clinton is, well, Hillary Clinton. The almost hourly repackaging of Hillary's message right now reminds me of an old article in The Onion about a guy who keeps blaming his hangovers on everything but consuming too much alcohol. Neither of the Clintons has a real gift for looking inward during times of trouble. It's always the fault of somebody else. 

Hillary wants to present herself as a bold new choice so who does she trot out? Madelyn Albright, Gloria Steinem, Paul Begala and James Carville. They couldn't have looked more old school if they'd brought FDR in riding on a mastodon. Voters see this sham for what it is and act accordingly, which is what the Clintons don't understand. It's not because she's a woman, it's because she is, and always has been, a phony. 

I understand the confusion of long time Clinton supporters right now. The Bill and Hill Show has been jerking this country around and lying to it with great effectiveness for almost two decades. The Republicans never found a way to counter it. Barack Obama has finally found a way by doing something completely foreign to Hillary: he's being genuine. True, he has absolutely nothing to say but at least he's himself while he's not saying it. 

If Ms. Steinem were to take a bold leap into the 21st Century she'd find that much of her hard work paid off. Hillary Clinton is actually being judged on merit. 

That's why the whole thing is falling apart.

Cross posted at Grizzly Groundswell and Real Clear Politics (VOTE for it!)

Note To Iowa: Bite Me

Well, after months of having candidates, press and volunteers backed up inside of it, Iowa finally caucused. I hope it's very relieved. I know I'm glad that I won't have to hear anything about it until 2012.

And now for some thoughts on the first votes we thought we'd never see.

OK, it was fun to watch The Missus not only lose but come in third. Don't get too excited though, Obie, nobody falls in manure and ends up smelling like roses better than the two-headed Clinton monster. Be careful, if you make them really mad they'll send James Carville out to make a mess on your carpet and bite you in the groin.

It is absolutely stunning that Barack Obama won so handily in a state where African-Americans are more of a rumor than a voting demographic. 

I curse Iowa for making Mike Huckabee relevant for a few days. If he continues to be and somehow ends up with the nomination I think we should seriously look at trading the state to Mexico for a few hot Telemundo hosts. I don't know how they would say "caucus" in Spanish but I bet it sounds even dirtier. 

GOP voters are constantly told that Mitt Romney would make a great president because he is a great businessman. He just spent twenty or more million dollars to come in second place to a Gomer Pyle impersonator in a state that has fewer voters than the Best Buy store up the street from me. That doesn't sound like a ringing endorsement for letting him be in charge of my money. 

  

The Ron Paul Revolution doesn't seem to work as well when his supporters can't vote over and over between bong hits and handfuls of Cheet-Ohs like they do in online polls. They might want to look into getting him on "American Idol" instead. 

Christopher Dodd and Joe Biden both dropped out of the race after the caucuses. This will now give Dennis Kucinich a chance to make his move up in the polls from "no chance in hell" to "dead last". 

I'm still not sure who Mike Gravel is. 

I got an email just before midnight Pacific time from the Thompson campaign indicating that he isn't quite ready to quit this race. McCain still looks strong in New Hampshire. The GOP might just be able to survive Iowa's efforts to Huck it up.

The First Tooth Is Pulled

Our long national nightmare, aka "The Early 2008 Primary Season", finally gets under way with some actual voting tonight. Michelle Malkin, Wake Up America and A Newt One have already done the heavy lifting on the speculation derby leading up to the circuses caucuses. I'll just weigh in with my two cents which isn't worth much after being adjusted for inflation and having the taxes taken out of it. Still, pontificate I must, because it's kind of like breathing for an egomaniacal wingnut like me.

This drawn-out extra year on the campaign has cheapened the political process more than Dennis Kucinich (D-Pluto) and Ron Paul (R-Bong Hit) could do if they bred with each other in a lab and created a hybrid political ass thorn. That we're rewarded with the first votes being cast by fringe representatives of each party in the weird Iowa caucus process makes the pain of the season more unbearable. Don't get me wrong, I firmly believe in everyone participating but having a bunch of frozen subsidy addicts hold sway over the national debate for this long gets annoying after a while. Mitt Romney (R-Coifed) doesn't deserve to be president just because he spent roughly the equivalent to the GNP of Portugal there in the last year. Likewise, Mike Huckabee (R-Shucks Folks) doesn't deserve it simply because the twelve Iowa Republicans who will caucus are willing to overlook his laundry list of negatives and pay attention only to the fact that he's a Baptist preacher. We're not electing Best Guy To Run The Tent Revival Mission.

I will admit that saying "caucus" all the time is fun in an extraordinarily juvenile way. That the Democrats and Republicans each caucus differently makes it creepier. I don't mind that the state gets to have a different way of doing things. I grew up in Arizona, where contrariness was a birthright. However, shouldn't election related matters be the same for each party?

What's really got me to ready find a brick wall that's compatible with my head this year is that Romney and Huckabee are getting all of this attention because of Iowa. Although I'm a big fan of the two party system (they tried having just one in the Soviet Union and that sucked) I truly believe that any of the current Democratic candidates would be a disaster as president at this point in history. The last thing this country needs is a Commander-in-Chief who thinks that a one degree spike in temperature over the last 150 years is more dangerous than rogue nuclear states or Islamic terrorism. The Democratic field is loaded with candidates who are going to end up battling terrorism by crying, "Be nice to me, I drive a hybrid!"

The Republicans have only two serious candidates to handle any of this: Fred Thompson and John McCain. Sorry, Rudy fans, he's a train wreck of scandals that the Dems are just salivating at the prospect of picking apart in the general. So we have two great candidates for the job but we're talking about Slick Mitt and Aw Shucks Huck.

Romney has done a 180 on just about everything but his hairstyle. Somehow, serious conservatives take him at face value but still say McCain, who is solid on all the things Romney's flip-flopped on, isn't conservative enough. I don't believe any candidate who shows up to an election with a whole new set of ideals. I have no reason to believe he won't trade those in once elected. Romney seems like the kind of guy who won't exhale unless the polls say it's popular with the voters. We have another name for poll-driven politicians who shift positions a lot: Democrats.

Social conservatives love Huckabee because he's solid on pro-life issues. Go ahead, vote for him, you won't be able to afford a baby based on his record of taxation as governor. Oh wait, we're not supposed to talk about his record.

Hopefully, the GOP can weather this inane first round of voting and let the big people step to the fore. If not, you can look forward to trying to outrun a terrorist attack while listening to President Obama on the radio in your federally mandated Toyota Prius.

I don't know about you all, but I'm going to use Al Gore as a shield if that ever happens.

Cross posted at Grizzly Groundswell and Real Clear Politics (Vote for it!)