"If you think this movement is more circus sideshow than actual threat, you'd be mistaken. Republican candidates are falling all over each other to get [Sarah] Palin's endorsement, and the tea party movement is responding. Money is pouring in.
"Either we match the passion and activism of these new forces in the Republican Party, or they'll be choosing who's sitting in the Senate, steering our country's course...And the loss of even one or two would flip crucial votes in their favor and doom President Obama's agenda [author's emphasis]...The best chance we've had in generations to make positive change will have ended." —Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), in a recent Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee fundraising letter
Because she is not currently holding or running for elected office (while having not ruled out the possibility), Gov. Palin is free to speak her mind and help conservatives get elected across the country. From now and into 2010 is the perfect time to leverage Palin's rising popularity and influence. Help "doom President Obama's agenda." Donate to SarahPAC.
The Pop Tarts section of FoxNews.com captured some refreshingly strong and articulate political views from TV's Law and Order star Angie Harmon this week. Harmon's wide-ranging comments went from racial political correctness to Sarah and Bristol Palin to bigotry in the Democrat party and tolerance in the GOP:If I have anything to say against Obama it's not because I'm a racist, it's because I don't like what he's doing as President and anybody should be able to feel that way, but what I find now is that if you say anything against him you're called a racist...If I'm going to disagree with my President, that doesn't make me a racist. If I was to disagree with W, that doesn't make me racist. It has nothing to do with it, it is ridiculous.
The fact that this woman [Sarah Palin] has made the decisions she's made and literally lived her life according to that and takes heat for it is absolutely disgusting to me.
I don’t care what anybody says, this person [Bristol Palin] is still a young person and okay she's got a big situation on her hands but for anyone to sit there and make fun of her or judge her is just cruel and wrong...So if everyone could just get off her and let her live her life and do it in a way that she thinks is best, I'm all for it. I really am. She has my support 100 percent, she's a sweetheart. I've got three daughters and I'm going to stand up for them and support them in whatever they want to do.
Not all of us are supposed to believe the same things and think the same way. I think the difference between the parties is, with the Democrats you can sit down with them and have a 15 minute conversation and if you’re not believing everything they say and buying into what they’re selling you, it is like you’re some dumb hick who doesn't deserve to live here anymore. But with the Republicans, it is like okay I want to know what you know, you want to know what I know, okay great let’s go have a beer after work, we're still friends. I’m just confused as to where we lost that in America because it is everyone’s God-given right to think the way they think and that's fine. That's why our ancestors came here to America, to believe what they want, pray how they want and follow a religion with whoever they want.
Maybe there really is a political center-right in Hollywood.
Lynn Forester de Rothschild, a prominent Hillary Clinton supporter and member of the Democratic National Committee's Platform Committee has joined the long and growing roster of Democrats and independents supporting John McCain for President.
What is a "limousine liberal?" Someone who says, "Green for thee, but not for me." Example: last month's Democratic National Convention (CNET News, "Democrats find 'green' political convention tough to enforce," August 28, 2008):The Democratic Party has boasted that its convention here will be "the most environmentally-sustainable" gathering in the party's history, complete with a director of sustainability, low-power lighting in some areas, and calculations of carbon footprints.
But reality doesn't always match expectations. Bikes aren't permitted inside the convention's security perimeter, so golf carts and other vehicles are used. The wooden card keys proved buggy, and some were replaced with more-reliable plastic. Fried mini-donuts were prominently on sale inside the Pepsi Center. Party VIPs and celebrities told their decidedly non-green town cars and GMC Yukon XL mega-SUVs--rented from limo provider A Class Above Transportation--to idle, with engines and air conditioning on, in the nearby pickup area. (What self-respecting conference-goer wants to climb into a GMC Yukon when it's a toasty 93 degrees in the shade?)
Plus, a gathering of tens of thousands of people (and perhaps 70,000 for Barack Obama's Thursday acceptance speech) generate a whopping amount of trash. Even if it's sorted, recycling Obama-Biden signs takes energy, as does trucking in what the Journal reported to be 900 volunteers to monitor waste cans and perform the trash-separation, thereby taking them away from tasks that might be more productive.
Let us stipulate that the Democratic Party, perhaps because it was good marketing or perhaps because it was a sound principle, made an effort to promote recycling here. But whopping huge mounds of trash remain unavoidable—and the presence of idling SUVs--show that the concept remains more of a slogan than reality. (Then again, probably the only way to hold a "green" convention is to do it entirely over the Internet.)
But Matt Burns, a spokesman for the Republican convention, looks on with undisguised glee at some of the Democrats' efforts -- such as the "lean 'n' green" catering guidelines.
Among them: No fried food. And, on the theory that nutritious food is more vibrant, each meal should include "at least three of the following colors: red, green, yellow, blue/purple, and white." (Garnishes don't count.) At least 70% of ingredients should be organic or grown locally, to minimize emissions from fuel burned during transportation. "One would think," says Mr. Burns, "that the Democrats in Denver have bigger fish to bake -- they have ruled out frying already -- than mandating color-coordinated pretzel platters."
Laura Hylton, general manager of Biscuits & Berries catering, agrees in principle. But she has been testing her recipes using local ingredients for weeks and still can't get the green peppercorn sauce right when she uses white Colorado wine. The state's high-altitude wine industry took off in the early 1990s and produces some award-winning labels, but Ms. Hylton says diplomatically, "It's a little...lacking. Our wineries out here aren't what you'd see in California or France."
Joanne Katz, who runs the Denver caterer Three Tomatoes, will take one for the green team by removing her fried goat-cheese won tons with chipotle pepper caramel sauce from the menu. But she questions whether some of the guidelines will have the desired earth-saving effects.
According to at least one Democrat blogger, this sort of kooky puritanism is leaving centrist Dems squirming under nanny-state correctness:
…this is EXACTLY why my beloved Democratic Party loses elections. The various factions that make up our party spend so much time trying to ensure that each one of their core principles is thrust upon Americans with little or no choice. After all ‘we’ know ‘better.’ … this information only adds to the perception that Democrats care more about engineering society in a politically correct fashion, than we do about helping working families put food on the table.
The CD-3 campaign of Ashwin Madia for Congress reports that he leads the DFL delegate count with 81.5 delegates, picking up 32 of 49 delegates at Saturday's eleven DFL BPOU conventions.
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