October 29th, 2014
Has there ever been a campaign with as much national hype behind it as Wendy Davis’ that ended up doing so poorly? Maybe Edmund Muskie’s Presidential race in 1972, Ed Koch’s Governor’s run in 1982, or Gary Hart’s abortive 1988 Presidential run. But all those were already major political players before running smack into Nemesis, and Muskie and Koch still had careers after their debacles.
Perhaps McGovern’s 1972 general election campaign comes closest, with one disastrous decision following another and a healthy streak of bad luck to boot. (Which only compounds the idiocy of Nixon’s dirty tricks team monkeywrenching an election that was already in the bag.) But the McGovern 1972 team can rightfully claim to have displayed real tactical brilliance in winning the nomination in the first place. And McGovern was already a Senator.
Davis doesn’t even have that going for her. This was her first (and undoubtedly her last) statewide race. After this horrendous showing, I’m not sure Democrats would even nominate her for the Railroad Commission.
Various media outlets are already busy writing Davis’ political obituary:
“How Wendy Davis became the Todd Akin of the 2014 midterms.” (Ouch! That’s gonna leave a scar.) “It turns out that the electorate can be just as unfriendly to bumbling liberal candidates who are identified almost exclusively with social issues.”
Michelle Malkin in National Review: “Wendy Russell Davis is on fire. And I don’t mean that in a good way. I mean it in a five-alarm, set-her-own-skirt-aflame, billowing-human-torch kind of way. To say that Davis is smokin’ hot is not a compliment. It’s a campaign incineration status update.” More: “Militant gender-identity politics [can] only get you so far.”
The Houston Chronicle‘s Patrick Svitek: “If Democrat Wendy Davis loses the governor’s race next week, there’ll be no shortage of commentary on what may have led to her downfall — early stumbles in conveying her life story to voters, coming across as too poll-tested and stage-managed, going too negative too early on Republican Greg Abbott.” He also notes Davis’ singular failure to grapple with border-security issues. That’s understandable, since Democrats keep crowing that Hispanics are their ticket to regaining majority status, and are notably hostile to securing the border for fear it might keep out future Democratic voters via their desired illegal alien amnesty.
And to top it all off, no one is buying Davis’ book:
Despite enormous levels of media buzz, Nielsen BookScan numbers provided to Slate by a publishing source show only 4,317 copies of the memoir, called Forgetting to Be Afraid, have been sold since its Sept. 9 publication.
Nielsen BookScan doesn’t include all book sales, notably sales at many independent retailers, so the actual number of copies sold is probably higher, although still likely below 6,000. As a point of comparison, Elizabeth Warren’s memoir, A Fighting Chance, sold more than 70,000 copies in its first few months on shelves. And David Limbaugh’s book Jesus on Trial, which was published the day before Davis’, has sold about 65,000 copies, including 6,778 just last week, according to BookScan.
In some cases, selling 6,000 hardback books would be a good number. For a first-time novelist, for instance, 6,000 hardbacks would be a pretty good number. (And it’s more than all but one of this year’s Booker Prize nominees sold in the UK.)
But for a book with a $132,000 partial advance? Not so much…
Tags: 2014 Election, 2014 Governor's Race, Democrats, Edmund Muskie, Elections, Gary Hart, George McGovern, Texas, Wendy Davis
Posted in Democrats, Elections, Texas | No Comments »
October 29th, 2014
I just got a Breitbart direct email solicitation from a “Conservative Action Fund” talking about David Perdue’s race against Michelle Nunn in Georgia.
Well, guess what? Conservative Action Fund is another Dan Backer scam PAC, just like Patriots for Economic Freedom.
You know how much money they’ve contributed to conservative candidates in 2014? Zero.
If you want to contribute money to David Perdue, do it directly.
And Breitbart should kick “Conservative Action Fund” off their list of accepted advertisers.
Tags: Breitbart, Crime, Dan Backer, Elections, fundraising, Republicans, scam
Posted in Crime, Elections, Republicans | No Comments »
October 28th, 2014
Your “one week until Election Day” roundup of news:
Republicans lead going into the final stretch. (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
Thomas Sowell: “Many Democrats are running away from Barack Obama, but they can’t hide their record of voting for Obama’s agenda more than 90 percent of the time.”
Democrats: “Jerk your knees, women! Damnit, jerk your knees!”
Speaking of pandering to women: Evidently, it isn’t working for Mark Udall in Colorado. “A myopic focus on reproductive freedom and the ‘War on the Women’ does not seem to be an effective way to mobilize and motivate women in a year when the economy and jobs are at the forefront of voters’ minds.”
Indeed, the gender gap is working against Udall, since Gardner’s lead among men is much bigger than Udall’s narrow lead among women.
Denver Post: Udall sucks so bad we’re actually endorsing a Republican.
An ad that targets Kay Hagan the same way the last one targeted Mary Landrieu:
(Hat tip: Moe Lane.)
The latest poll has Hagan tied with Thom Tillis, a precarious place for a Democratic incumbent a week out from a Republican wave election.
Early signs point to Republicans picking up a new Nevada congressional district which was D+4 in 2012.
Texans favor voter ID by a 3-1 margin.
Wendy Davis has just over a half-million funds on-hand for the last week of the campaign.
Texas State Rep. Dawnna Dukes (D-im): Greg Abbott is a guy who “just rolls around.”
Texas Democrats thinking “this time will be different!” because of money spent targeting Hispanic voters are forgetting Tony Sanchez’s big bucks 2002 campaign. “Perhaps Texas Latinos just don’t like the shoddy liberal product that Texas Democrats keep trying to sell them.”
Why you should vote against exapanding Capitol Metro’s toy trains.
More on the same theme.
Holly Hansen’s Round Rock ISD endorsements.
Remember: When in doubt, it’s always safe to vote against the Austin Chronicle‘s endorsements.
Tags: 2014 Election, Colorado, Cory Gardner, Dawnna Dukes, Democrats, Elections, Greg Abbott, Kay Hagan, Mark Udall, Media Watch, Nevada, North Carolina, Texas, Thom Tillis, video, Wendy Davis
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October 27th, 2014
Since we’re in the home stretch, here’s a quick roundup of various election news:
A whole whopping 9% of Americans are “enthusiastic” about Obama. “Only about one out of 10 people who heads to the polls on Nov. 4 will go there being enthusiastic about the Obama presidency.”
Democratic pollster predicts disaster for Democrats, largely thanks to young voters abandoning their party in droves. “That’s the biggest concern right now for Democrats and progressives in particular, is that millennial voters look very, very discouraged. They don’t think that anyone has particularly spoken to them, anyone has been doing anything for them, it’s a bad economy, it’s expensive education, and all the kinds of concerns that millennials have.”
Nevada Democrats are just the latest Democrats that seem to be sitting the election out.
Even more evidence of Kay Hagan’s family benefiting from “green energy” stimulus pork. “A Carolina Journal examination of the JDC Manufacturing grant file at the N.C. Department of Natural Resources revealed that Tilden Hagan and William Stewart, Sen. Hagan’s son-in-law, had significant involvement in the project. Records from the stimulus file show direct payments to Tilden and Stewart of $12,785.”
“Immigration Activists” (i.e., supporters of illegal alien amnesty) are not happy at Hagan’s waffling and flipflopping either.
Boston Globe endorses Republican Charlie Baker for governor. (Hat tip: Moe Lane.)
Tags: 2014 Election, amnesty, Border Controls, Democrats, Elections, fraud, Kay Hagan, Massachusetts, Nevada, North Carolina, Stimulus
Posted in Border Control, Democrats, Elections, Waste and Fraud | No Comments »
October 27th, 2014
So how the hell did this ever get past the editors at Salon?
As they rampage and behead their way through Syria and Iraq, ISIS fighters know they have the Koran on their side – a book they believe to be inerrant and immutable, the final Word of God, and not at all “malleable.” Their holy book backs up jihad, suicide attacks (“martyrdom”), beheadings, even taking captive women as sex slaves. This is not surprising; after all, the prophet Muhammad was a warrior who spread Islam by the sword in a dark, turbulent time in history. (Christianity’s propagation had, in contrast, much to do with the Roman emperor Constantine’s fourth-century conversion and subsequent decriminalization of the faith.)
Moreover, the razor-happy butchers of little girls’ clitorises and labia majora, the righteous wife-beaters, the stoners of adulterers, the shariah clerics denying women’s petitions for divorce from abusive husbands and awarding sons twice the inheritance allowed for daughters, all act with sanction from Islamic holy writ. It matters not a whit to the bloodied and battered victims of such savagery which lines from the Hadith or what verses from the Koran ordain the violence and injustice perpetrated against them, but one thing they do know: texts and belief in them have real-life consequences. And we should never forget that ISIS henchmen and executioners explicitly cite their faith in Islam as their motive.
To be sure, writer Jeffrey Tayler couches his critique (which focuses on Islamist apologist Reza Aslan) in the usual “look at the violence in the Bible” rhetoric, and in a general defense of atheism. Still, it’s quite remarkable for Salon to be catching up with what conservatives have been saying for more than a decade.
Who are you and what have you done with the actual Salon staff?
(Hat tip: Robert Spencer of Jihad Watch, who notes “Has Bill Maher made it safe for Leftists to admit that there is a problem with how jihadis and supremacists use the texts and teachings of Islam to justify violence and oppression?”)
Tags: Islam, Jeffrey Tayler, Jihad, Media Watch, Reza Aslan, Robert Spencer, Salon
Posted in Jihad, Media Watch | 1 Comment »
October 24th, 2014
It’s Friday and I’m feeling lazy, so enjoy the comedy of Bill Burr, who’s actually willing to make fun of women and feminists.
Enjoy it while you can. If the Social Justice Warriors win, merely listening to these routines will be categorized as a hate crime…
Tags: Bill Burr, feminism, video
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October 23rd, 2014
With all this election news popping up, this may be the last Texas cs. California roundup until after November 4:
New poverty figures are out from the Census. To quote a Texas Public Policy Foundation email about them: “The government report shows that, when accounting for some cost of living differences from state-to-state, Texas’ poverty rate dipped 0.5 percent to 15.9, the national average. Meanwhile, California still has the nation’s highest poverty rate at 23.4 percent. ”
“Back in 2005, some 1,841 retirees pulled down more than $100,000 a year in pension checks from the California Public Employees’ Retirement System. By 2009, this so-called “$100K club” had more than tripled, to 6,133 members. And by the end of 2013, membership had nearly tripled again, to 16,838, according to data from CalPERS.” (Hat tip: Pension Tsunami)
“How CalPERS ranks: average service, high costs.” (Ditto)
“With the Los Angeles Unified School District Board ready to fire Superintendent John Deasy, he resigned as head of the nation’s second-largest public school system just six months after he spiked his annual salary to $384,184 with $54,184 in buy-outs.” Bonus: Deasy came from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, where he pushed Common Core.
The police union is suing the city of Vallejo for cuts made to their pensions during the city’s bankruptcy. if they win, they could push the city into bankruptcy again.
Among those 99 CalPERS pension-spiking buffs: Library Reference Desk Premium, Front Desk Assignment Premium and Audio-Visual Premium. “Hey look, I plugged the projector into my laptop! Give me a pension bonus, California taxpayers!” (Pension Tusnami again.)
California plows forward with drivers licenses for illegal aliens.
San Francisco landlords win in court: “A federal judge ruled Tuesday that San Francisco cannot solve its housing shortage by requiring landlords, through a relocation assistance ordinance, to retroactively pay massive amounts to evict tenants under California’s Ellis Act.”
A California athlete earning a gross of $20 million a year is down to $9,100,000 remaining after taxes and commissions.
Though Texas is doing better than California when it comes to pensions, there’s no reason not to move from a defined benefit plan to 401Ks for new hires.
Tags: Border Controls, California, CalPERs, Illegal Aliens, pension crisis, San Francisco, Texas, unions, Welfare State
Posted in Border Control, Democrats, Texas, Welfare State | No Comments »
October 22nd, 2014
The fun just won’t stop!
So first the Wendy Davis Twitter account posted this:
Oops!
Then hilarity ensued.
Anyone can make a mistake. But as of this writing, the Wendy Davis Twitter account still hasn’t apologized for stealing a Virginia college Republican photo and claiming it as their own…
Tags: 2014 Election, 2014 Governor's Race, Democrats, Elections, Texas, Twitter, Wendy Davis
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October 22nd, 2014
You’ve really got to hand it to the Wendy Davis campaign. Every time you think they’ve sunk as low as they possibly can, they break out the heavy construction equipment and start digging.
Now the campaign who asked if the guy in a wheelchair hated the disabled is wondering whether the guy married to a Mexican-American would ban interracial marriage.
The reviews are in, and they’re not pretty:
Davis is “doubling down on a big blunder by defending the indefensible.”
“Republicans expected that Davis’s bid for governor would go nowhere. But the slow-motion seppuku that has been the Davis campaign has surpassed even the most optimistic expectations. It has been nothing short of schadenfreude-tastic.”
Then of course there’s the whole attacking Abbott over dildos issue. Look, from a libertarian viewpoint I happen to agree that the state’s rarely-enforced sex toy ban is pointless in the Internet age. However: 1.) Davis still doesn’t seem to understand what an Attorney General’s job is, and 2.) Everyone who would vote for Wendy Davis over dildos was already voting for her, so talking about it wins her no additional votes, and probably loses her a few among older voters.
I’m sure there have been more incompetent campaigns than Davis’, but I’m wracking my brain trying to think of one so high-profile and well-funded that crashed and burned so spectacularly, or that managed to alienate so many people in such a short period of time with such sleazy and counterproductive tactics.
Its almost as if Democrats know her campaign is doomed, and have encouraged this offensive incompetence as a means of distracting attention from their deeply flawed senate race candidates in other states.
“I suspect her candidacy is an elaborate prank pulled on the people of Texas, and she is actually a middle-aged actress from southern California hired by Funny or Die.” [Disagree: There’s precious little evidence the Funny or Die people are capable of coming up with something this funny.]
Maybe she has a secret bet with a billionaire (ala Brewster’s Millions) that she can run a campaign so unbelievably sleazy and incompetent that she can get The Nation to endorse Greg Abbott. Or maybe she’s a Karl Rove plant.
Also this:
(Would have had this up yesterday, but too much news puffing up…)
Tags: 2014 Election, 2014 Governor's Race, Democrats, dildos, Elections, Greg Abbott, Texas, Wendy Davis
Posted in Democrats, Elections, Texas | No Comments »
October 21st, 2014
Remember Kenneth “Buddy” Barfield, the political consultant who was accused of embezzling over $2 million from David Dewhurst campaign funds? When last we checked, he had sold his house to settle a civil lawsuit from Dewhurst.
Well, Barfield just plead guilty to embezzling $1.8 million from various David Dewhurst campaigns.
“While working on behalf of the David Dewhurst Campaign and Dewhurst for Texas, Barfield knowingly and intentionally engaged in a scheme to defraud the entities of campaign dollars for his own benefit,” a plea agreement signed by Barfield stated.
“Barfield used the stolen funds to pay for expenses such as his home mortgage, school tuition for his children, personal investments and other living expenses.”
Dewhurst campaign officials said Barfield concealed his theft from the campaign accounts by falsifying bank deposit slips, vendor invoices and finance reports to make it appear that the accounts had far more cash on hand than they actually contained.
In the meantime, Barfield and his side businesses, such as Alexander Group Consulting, were paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for services that were never performed.
As I noted in the original story, the embezzlement was a symptom of disorder in the Dewhurst campaign, not its cause. It also shows why it’s a good idea for any political campaign with funds of $1 million or more to have outside auditing…
Tags: 2012 Election, Crime, David Dewhurst, Elections, Kenneth Barfield, Texas, Texas Senate Race
Posted in Crime, Elections, Texas | 1 Comment »