Another vampire needing a stake

by Smitty (h/t Insty)

Ashby Jones blogs in the WSJ on the "Hillary: The Movie" case, which is causing such a McCain-Feingold ruckus.
As with other government attempts at controlling stuff, the idea may sound plausible, but the implementation is nothing but a source of billable hours for pinstriped highwaymen. Or, as Ancient Commenter Solomon put it,

There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.--Proverbs 14:12

Not a bad summary of collectivism, in fact.
Related, also via Insty, from proto-blogger Jerry Pournelle:

It was obvious to me at the time DHS and Patriot Act (and TSA!) were bad moves. Aside from the fact that amalgamating many inefficient bureaucracies into one multiplies not divides the inefficiencies - efficient government is not an overriding concern of mine - centralizing power to meet a crisis leaves the centralized power available for abuse long after the crisis is forgotten. The chances that a future Democrat administration would disband DHS and repeal Patriot Act were patently zero even at the time. Expand, politicize, and abuse now are the order of the day, and I am not surprised in the least.
Both major parties seem now irredeemably statist. Many Republicans are starting to say the right things once more, but I doubt 51% will trust the party again soon enough to help. Nor should we, on the record. I attended the public signing of the Contract With America, and I watched as it was abandoned by Republican "realists" who seemed to think that absolute power in *their* hands was kinda neat.
What becomes of the Tea Parties looks crucial to me. "Federalist" might be a good name for the result - small-f federalism would be far better than what we have, and regardless of the details of the history the name has an intrinsic respectability that would make the new alliance somewhat harder to demonize in the bitter political warfare it would instantly face.
Look at what Governor Perry of Texas has been saying in recent days, and at the response. Arguing that Washington has become overlarge in the nation's affairs and that power should flow back to the regions and the people, that the 10th Amendment means what it says, seems as if its time may have arrived as the common ground for a new governing coalition.
It seems highly unlikely that all the factions the Republicans would need to unite to govern from the center-right will ever again simultaneously trust them (or anyone) with the current scale of massively centralized Federal power. Nor should we. Too many Republicans have swallowed far too many contradictions, have met the enemy and become them.
The Federalist Party. It has a certain ring.

This seems to invite the question of whether the GOP is reformable at all. Forming a third party that cares about the Constitution is going to give the centrists to the Democrats. This is tactically acceptable if the strategic result is restoration of what made these United States great. Can I get a Wolverines?

'What do we do now?'

Michelle Malkin:

"I'm getting a lot of moan-y, sad-face "What do we do now, Michelle?" e-mails.

The first thing to do is to recognize what went wrong, as I explain in my American Spectator column:

Try not to take it personally. You did not lose this election.
Perhaps the most important statistic for conservatives to keep in mind today -- as pundits pore over and pour out exit-poll data to tell us What It Means -- is this: 53 percent of Republican primary voters did not vote for John McCain. . . .
Conservatives who sought to prevent McCain's nomination cannot be blamed for his defeat. And it is his defeat, not yours.

Please read the whole thing. This morning I watched Mort Kondracke and Fred Barnes on "Fox & Friends" trying to explain the result. Allow me to suggest that the Kondrackes and Barneses of the world, who have done so much to help drive the Republican Party into the ditch, are probably not the guys who'll figure out how to get out of the ditch. They won't even admit they're part of the problem, so why look to them for solutions?

(Cross-posted at Right Wing News.)

UPDATE: Greg Ransom:

John McCain did a selfish disservice to America and to the principles we hold by putting his ambition to "be somebody" ahead of the leadership requirements of the Presidency. I know that's harsh, but it's what I believe.

Harsh, indeed. With politicians, it's hard to differentiate between an admirable commitment to public service and an vainglorious exaltation of the self. (Also basically true of journalist, LOL.)

'Stand up and fight!'

My latest American Spectator article:

"Fight!…Fight!…Fight!" The word punctuated John McCain's peroration to thousands of Pennsylvanians who turned out in Hershey on a cold, drizzly morning to cheer him and running mate Sarah Palin.
"Fight for the ideals and character of a free people," McCain urged, as he neared the end of his speech. "Fight for our children's future. Fight for justice and opportunity for all."
The crowd inside the Giant Center at Hershey Park was cheering so loudly as to drown out most of the Republican candidate's words, so that all they heard was "fight!" That was enough, however, for Republicans like Joe the Recording Engineer. Joe Trojcak owns a sound studio near Hershey and says he's been a Republican activist since 1992. "I got tired of yelling at my TV," explains Trojcak, 44, who worked as a volunteer at yesterday's "Road to Victory" rally.
Small businessmen like Trojcak have become Republican heroes ever since the Oct. 12 chance encounter between Barack Obama and "Joe the Plumber" Wurzelbacher in Ohio.

Please read the whole thing. One of the things I enjoy most about covering a campaign is the chance to talk to the people who attend these rallies -- some of the nicest people in the world. All that chatter a couple weeks ago about episodes of ugliness at McCain rallies was a complete misrepresentation of the overwhelming majority of people I've talked to at events this year -- and that's true of Republicans, Democrats and Libertarians.

Attending a campaign event is an act of civic engagement, and civic engagement tends to correlate with good personal qualities. So the delegates at the Democratic convention in Denver were nice people, and so were the people who attended the Hillary rallies and McCain rallies I've covered.

BTW, here's video of McCain's peroration:

Campaign update: New McCain ads

The past couple of days, I've been busy with the Sarah Palin e-mail hacking and haven't blogged much about the back-and-forth in the presidential campaign. The big news is that Team Maverick has come out with a series of hard-hitting TV ads:

Obama-Chavez (en Espanol)

Nothing New

Jim Johnson

Patriotic Act

Juan La Raza McCain

John McCain and Barack Obama will both pander to the National Council of La Raza on Saturday. Michelle Malkin lists NCLR's 15-point agenda, and says:

Only in America could critics of a group called "The Race" be labeled racists. Such is the triumph of left-wing identity chauvinists, whose aggressive activists and supine abettors have succeeded in redefining all opposition as "hate."

"Supine abettors"! Look that up in your Funk & Wagnall's, kids! By the way, did you notice that Bob Barr isn't scheduled to speak to La Raza?

And don't forget to vote now!

'McCain needs a strong message'

Brilliant suggestion:

Senator McCain must improve his standing with independents and moderates. . . . Interestingly, Senator McCain receives a 56% favorable rating among independents compared to Senator Obama who receives a 55% favorable rating among independents. The difference is that, Senator Obama has a 13-point advantage among these independent voters – 30% Senator McCain / 43% Senator Obama / 28% undecided. Again, Senator McCain needs a strong message to bring these voters back into the fold.

He "needs a strong message" -- doesn't matter what the message is, so long as it's "strong." Thanks for that, guys!

That's from a memo by McGlaughlin & Associates (more at the link) and if it's a fair sampling of the kind of "analysis" and advice McCain is getting nowadays, it's no wonder he's floundering. Another sample:

It's time for Republicans to develop a new brand of conservatism that directly contrasts on the issues to Senator Obama and the Democratic Party.

This kind of advice is useless, especially to a non-ideological candidate like McCain, who's likely to take it as carte blanche to say and do whatever strikes his fancy: "Look a me! I'm developing a new brand of conservatism!"

The only good thing in the memo is that hint that this "new" conservatism should "directly contrast on the issues" with Obama. Considering that Obama is a down-the-line 100% liberal, what this means is if Obama says "yes," and McCain says "no," then McCain would be taking a conservative position by the process of elimination.

The problem is, McCain has spent so much time hanging around Ted Kennedy and Russ Feingold, his natural tendency is to go along with whatever liberals do. McCain can't get over his desire to make liberals to like him, which is the essence of his problem.

Politics means occasionally sticking your thumb in the other guy's eye. It's inevitable; you can't make 100% of the people happy. But McCain's spent the past 10 years sticking it to conservatives, and it appears to be a hard habit to break.

Why no 'Swiftboats'?

John McCain can expect little help from Republican 527 groups this year, Steven Thomma reports. I endeavor to explain this mysterious dearth of big-money Hope-haters at the AmSpec blog:

One major reason for the shortage of anti-Obama efforts is that many conservative activists put all their eggs into the anti-Hillary basket. Conservative authors in the past couple of years had issued a whole catalog of anti-Hillary books that are now politically irrelevant. Richard Collins rolled out his StopHerNow.com group in 2006, and in January, Citizens United premiered "Hillary: The Movie." Having invested so heavily in stopping her, the "usual suspects" on the Right have fewer resources left for stopping him.

Juan Cole gloats:

It could be that the country is in such a mess that even rich cranky white people are not sure they trust McSame not to give us another Bush term.

We note for the record that Juan Cole is both white and cranky. Further note that he is a full professor at the University of Michigan, where annual salaries of $300,000 for professors are commonplace. To say nothing of the fortunes to be earned in the lucrative field of blogging . . .

Maverick's anti-tax agenda?

This might be taking matters too far:

San Diego County officials, it turns out, have been sending out tax notices on the La Jolla property, an oceanfront condo, for four years without receiving a response. County records show the bills, which were mailed to a Phoenix address associated with Mrs. McCain's trust, were returned by the post office.

An overblown nothing of a story, as it turns out. It appears to be a case of misdirected mail. The bank that oversees Mrs. McCain's family trust never got the tax notices, and the property -- where Mrs. McCain's elderly aunt lives -- owed less than $1,800 in taxes per year. Just a paperwork snafu, and the check's in the mail. No biggie.

The lede of the Newsweek story tries to play the class warfare card a bit too obviously. This is nothing but confirmation of Newsweek's status as the most left-leaning of the newsmagazines.

UPDATE: Leave it to Media Matters to complain about not enough class warfare in the media.

Maverick to conservatives: Screw you!

Interviewed by the Las Vegas Sun:

I haven't won on every issue. I didn’t win on immigration reform, but I'll go back at it. And I'm glad I did it.

Allahpundit:

Why on earth would he feel compelled to say he’s glad he pushed for a bill that the base hates with a nuclear passion? . . . This is him flipping the bird to amnesty opponents.

My hunch? John McCain doesn't want to be president. He only ran for the GOP nomination out of spite, so that he could prevent a conservative Republican from getting the nomination. He's sticking his thumb in the eye of conservatives now for the same reason: Because he hates conservatives.

That's why the McCain campaign shifted into neutral the minute Mitt quit in February, why the campaign has done nothing to build a grassroots infrastructure at the state level, why the McCain campaign's fundraising plan is to drain the Republican National Committee treasury -- the most important goal for John McCain is to destroy the conservative wing of the Republican Party. And he's right on track!

UPDATE: I'd feel a lot better about getting linked by Think Progress if they were attacking me and calling me names.

McCain drills Obama

Very good zinger:

For Senator Obama, the solution to every problem and the answer to every challenge is a new tax. And he is convinced that a 1970’s-style windfall profits tax is just what America needs in the 21st Century. . . .
When I announced this policy the other day, Senator Obama wasted no time in mischaracterizing it. He described my position as -- you guessed it -- another example of Bush’s third term. I guess the senator has changed his position since voting for the 2005 Bush energy bill -- a grab-bag of corporate handouts that I opposed. Come to think of it, that energy bill was the only time we’ve ever seen Senator Obama vote in favor of any tax break -- and it was a tax break for the oil companies.

Now that's more like it, Maverick. Amazing how much better Crazy Cousin John does, once he gets on the right side of an issue. Don Surber says, "Bush’s third term? I can only wish. Beats Jimmy Carter’s second."

Hillaryites roll over

Remember when Hillary's supporters screamed that they would not, under any circumstances, support Obama? They lied:

Barack Obama is enjoying a modest bump in support following Hillary Clinton's exit from the presidential race. The latest Gallup Poll Daily tracking update finds Obama leading Republican John McCain, 48% to 42%, among registered voters nationwide. . . .
Obama has consistently held a lead of five to seven percentage points each night since it was reported that Hillary Clinton intended to suspend her campaign.

These soi-dissant militant feminist voters now surrender to Stockholm Syndrome, internalizing the worldview of their captors. Hillary's erstwhile supporters rally to the standard of the sexist chauvinist oppressor.

It's almost as pathetic as listening to conservatives who once opposed John McCain but are now making excuses for the RINO, and denouncing as "disloyal" anyone who maintains the anti-McCain stance they themselves once took.

Conformist bandwagons never were my scene.

'Trainwreck' of a speech?

Josh Marshall calls it "already legendarily awful":



Michelle Malkin says, "It’s pedestrian–and even McCain seems to have lost interest in his text," and links Mark Levin, who calls it "a mash and tough to digest."

Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton spoke in New York:



(Via Hot Air.) Hillary says:

So many people said this race was over five months ago in Iowa, but we had faith in each other and you brought me back in New Hampshire and on Super Tuesday and in Ohio and in Pennsylvania and Texas and Indiana, West Virginia, Kentucky, Puerto Rico and South Dakota. . . .
Now the question is, where do we go from here, and given how far we've come and where we need to go as a party, it's a question I don't take lightly. This has been a long campaign, and I will be making no decisions tonight. But this has always been your campaign, so to the 18 million people who voted for me and to our many other supporters out there of all ages, I want to hear from you. . . .
In the coming days, I’ll be consulting with supporters and party leaders to determine how to move forward with the best interests of our party and our country guiding my way.

Hopey also gave a speech:

In our country, I have found that this cooperation happens not because we agree on everything, but because behind all the labels and false divisions and categories that define us; beyond all the petty bickering and point-scoring in Washington, Americans are a decent, generous, compassionate people, united by common challenges and common hopes. And every so often, there are moments which call on that fundamental goodness to make this country great again. . . .
America, this is our moment. This is our time. Our time to turn the page on the policies of the past. Our time to bring new energy and new ideas to the challenges we face. Our time to offer a new direction for the country we love.

Notice how completely free from any actual content this speech is. It's all just vaguely cheerful rhetoric. I especially like the part about "make this country great again" -- implying that our country is now not great. I suppose Democrats imagine that somebody turned off the Greatness Switch on Jan. 20, 2001, and that, on Jan. 20, 2009, as soon as Obama walks into the Oval Office, he'll just flip the switch again.

Selma Freaking Alabama???

So I'm lying in bed this morning, half-awake, getting ready to get up, get dressed and get on the road to Harrisburg.

The TV's on Fox News. They go into the 10 o'clock hour, and suddenly it's Carl Cameron talking about John McCain kicking off something he calls the "Time For Action Tour" in Selma, Alabama.

Selma. Alabama.

Holy freaking crap! That's when I notice that Cameron is telling me this while standing in front of an arched bridge over a river and now I realize that John McCain is about to speak at the Edmund Pettus Bridge.

Edmund. Pettus. Bridge.

Some clever Republican political strategist has just proven himself too clever by half. Whatever PR value there is in having a Republican talk about the need to "take action" on poverty, it's more than canceled out by the glaring idiocy of sending him to the Edmund Pettus Bridge to talk about civil rights and John Lewis:

"There must be no forgotten places in America, whether they have been ignored for long years by the sins of indifference and injustice, or have been left behind as the world grew smaller and more economically interdependent. In America, we have always believed that if the day was a disappointment, we would win tomorrow. That's what John Lewis believed when he marched across this bridge. That’s what he still believes; what he still fights to achieve: a better country than the one he inherited."

What the bloody hell is this? Going to the buckle of the Bible Belt and talking about "the sins of indifference and injustice"? Talking about "places left behind"?

To start with, nobody in Alabama needs or wants a lecture about "injustice," and certainly not from a Republican senator. Look at the calendar: 2008. Anybody old enough to have marched with John Lewis in the 1965 voting-rights march is now more worried about Social Security and Medicare than anything else.

Second, if you want to talk about "places left behind," leave Alabama out of it. Anybody with Google can easily discover that the economy in Alabama has been growing faster than the overall U.S. economy for several years, for example:

In 2006 and 2007 24 new auto plants opened in Alabama. Although Birmingham residents are most familiar with Lincoln's Honda Manufacturing and the Mercedes-Benz U.S. International plant in Vance, supplier plants also play a significant employment role. Since 2003, supplier plants have reported 6.8 percent growth in jobs. Jefferson County's supplier job growth has increased 41 percent.

But the most obvious blunder involved in John McCain going to Selma and talking about John Lewis is that John Lewis is a Democrat. And not just a generic Democrat, but a feisty liberal Democrat.

John Lewis, partisan Democrat, is sure to be enraged by watching the McCain campaign attempt to co-opt Selma and the Edmund Pettus Bridge for a GOP campaign photo-op. And if the McCain campaign tries to use that photo-op in an advertisement, the Democrats will immediately trot out Lewis to preach a sermon about the transparent bogusness of John McCain.

For crying out loud, while John Lewis was preparing to march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge, John McCain was preparing to kill Commies in Vietnam.

Who can account for the fathomless idiocy of a GOP strategist who, not content to have a genuine Commie-killing war hero as his candidate, decides it's a clever move to co-opt the most famous episode in the life of a Democrat like John Lewis?

Maybe once Crazy Cousin John figures out what a dumb move this Selma trip was, his infamous temper will take hold of him and he'll strangle the GOP strategist who dreamed up this idiotic stunt.

If any Republican campaign wants to stage a photo-op at a famous bridge and invoke the name of a famous Democrat, my suggestion would be Chappquiddick and Ted Kennedy.

No. Freaking. Way.

Roger Simon (the Politico columnist, not the Pajamas Media CEO/blogger) writes a bizarre column suggesting the possibility that John McCain could win California in November.

Bizarre, I say, in that Simon suggests that being pro-life is McCain's major handicap in California. McCain's major handicap in California is that he is a Republican.

The Republican Party in California fell completely apart in the 1990s, and the GOP is insignificant as a political force in the state. The election of Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger was only made possible by (a) Schwarzenegger's movie star fame and (b) the transparent incompetence of former Democratic Gov. Gray Davis.

After being elected governor, Schwarzenegger was unable to accomplish any of the conservatives reforms he had proposed and was forced to adopt a liberal agenda in order to get re-elected.

Simon devotes the bulk of his column to a scheme proposed by a California Republican strategist:

Giving driver's licenses to illegal immigrants is unpopular in California. Schwarzenegger successfully exploited opposition to such driver's licenses in both of his elections, and McCain would have a shot at winning California by exploiting it also. . . . .
Dan Schnur, who was McCain's communications director in 2000 and is now a political strategist based in California, says the driver's license issue could trump the abortion issue when it comes to McCain.
"Even some Democrats who are pro-choice would turn to McCain over the issue of driver's licenses,” Schnur said. "There is a pretty straightforward template for winning California: You do what Schwarzenegger did two years ago, which is run to the middle on the environment and most social issues, draw a stark line on taxes and an even starker line on illegal immigration and driver’s licenses."
Still, Schnur does not minimize the difficulty of an anti-abortion-rights Republican winning California. . . .
"McCain is better-positioned to win California than any other Republican," Schnur said, "but it is still going to be an uphill fight for him."

"Uphill fight"? No, it's an impossibility. Of course, conservatives would be happy if McCain would take a tough stance against illegal immigration. But it ain't going to win him California, and every dime his campaign spends in the state will be a dime wasted. As far as California is concerned, the best hope for Republicans is reconquista: California secedes and becomes the northernmost province of Mexico, and the Democrats lose 2 Senate seats and 55 Electoral College votes.

My inner cynic tells me that this whole Politico column is just about Roger Simon helping his old buddy Dan Schnur get himself some RNC/McCain '08 consulting contracts. And my inner cynic is usually right.

There are few things so pathetically desperate as a "political strategist" hustling for a contract.

Fisking the L.A. Times

Patterico is the all-time champ of busting the Los Angeles Times, and now he does it again:

The L.A. Times saves space on its Sunday front page for a hit piece on John McCain. The main thrust of the piece is to say, in essence, “Nyaah, nyaah, John McCain said that Iraq would be a cakewalk, but it wasn’t.”

Lots of people got Iraq wrong, but the LAT really is taking a cheap shot here. If they're going to hit Crazy Cousin John, I wish they'd hit him on immigration, tax cuts or campaign finance. But since his positions on all those issues are liberal, he gets a pass on those.

Don Surber proves himself wrong

UPDATE 2:10 p.m.: "John and I will have a respectful debate," Hillary says.

UPDATE 2 p.m.: Because Mitt Romney isn't running attack ads, some people see this as a signal he doesn't really want to win. Allah sees it otherwise, and reinforces my point (citing Karl at Protein Wisdom):

Karl reminds us that 45% of the delegates will still be in play after Tuesday, so McCain ain’t clinching anything this week.

* * *

I greatly appreciate the effort Don Surber has devoted to crunching the numbers on the Super Tuesday primaries, in an attempt to depict John McCain's nomination as a lead-pipe cinch: "The numbers crunch McCain’s way for a final decision on Tuesday." (Via Memeorandum.)

But while the title of his post is "It's over," what Surber has actually shown is that it's not over. Even according to his own math, Don has demonstrated, with 1,192 delegates needed to win, the current polls indicate an outcome Tuesday that will leave the delegate count at McCain 652, Romney 311.

This has been what I've been trying to say all along: Despite his post-Florida momentum, McCain is nowhere near locking up the nomination.

The MSM (and McCain's Republican supporters) are trying to paint McCain's nomination as a fait accompli in order to (a) hurt Romney's fundraising; (b) discourage his supporters; (c) cause a "bandwagon effect" in McCain's favor; and (d) prevent Romney from getting anything but more discouraging press coverage.

It won't work, because a lie cannot defeat the facts, and a free people cannot be permanently deceived. When Wednesday morning comes, and Romney is still a viable candidate, a lot of Republicans will recognize that they've been the target of a dishonest propaganda campaign, and there will be a monster backlash against McCain.

Don, I love you, man, but this fight may very well go all the way to Minnesota.

P.S.: Don't miss Daily Pundit's analysis of the GOP race.

John McCain: Dishonest or Stupid?

Those are the possibilities as Bryan Preston sees it, and it's kind of hard to argue:



This is why it's so easy to dismiss the assertions of Michael Medved, et al., that McCain's problem with conservatives is entirely the fault of conservatives.

In this instance, McCain's insinuations are false, as any direct examination of Romney's statements clearly reveals. Yet this does not stop McCain from going back and repeating the insinuation.

McCain is trying to cast Romney as John Kerry, a characterization with no basis in fact. He attempts to create the appearance of an important policy difference where no such difference exists. Romney is completely committed to victory in Iraq. Romney has never proposed a time-certain pullout, which is what McCain is trying to suggest.

People who have watched McCain closely over the years recognize this as the man's habitual method of attacking fellow Republicans.

He routinely accuses conservative adversaries of arguing in bad faith. If you oppose McCain-Feingold, then you are pro-corruption, a greedy minion of Big Money. If you oppose McCain-Kennedy, then you are a racist who hates the Latino community. Et cetera. Ad infinitum.

It scarcely matters what the issue is, or what the merits on either side of the argument might be. Any Republican who disagrees with John McCain can expect to have his motives impugned and his character maligned. Bryan says:

[T]he entire exchange underlines the problem that he has with the base. We don’t trust him because of episodes like this. ... It’s disgraceful. Every time I start to get used to the idea of McCain as the nominee, he pulls a stunt like this and proves that he can’t be trusted.

I think, in fact, what this exchange actually underlines is John McCain's massive sense of unlimited personal entitlement.

Mortals do not have the right to argue with John McCain. To disagree with him is to insult him, as he sees it. He is omniscient and cannot possibly have his facts wrong.

So when McCain repeats the fact-deficient accusation, and Romney tries to defend himself, McCain can barely resist shouting: "HOW DARE YOU QUESTION ME, YOU GUTLESS PUNK!"

The temperament issue, you see.

And OMG, class warfare?

"I think that there's some greedy people on Wall Street that perhaps need to be punished."

-- Sen. John McCain, Jan. 30, 2008

This, coming from a man whose own political career was originally funded through his marriage to the heiress to an Anheuser-Busch fortune. Jaw-dropping hubris!

If McCain ever hoped to get any libertarian votes, he can kiss those good-bye. (Are you listening, young Paulistas?)

Olympic flip-flop finals

UPDATE: Michelle Malkin really doesn't like Crazy Cousin John:

I spy with my little eye something that rhymes with schmypocrite.

* * * PREVIOUSLY * * *

Considering the Olympic-caliber double-reverse backflip that Crazy Cousin John performed on the issue of "shamnesty" -- a coalition-killing scam he twice attempted to ram through the Senate -- it ill-behooves him to call Mitt Romney a flip-flopper.

At risk of being accused of "objective opinion," I will praise Romney for this swift response:



(Hat-tip: Bryan at Hot Air.) Speaking of Hugh Hewitt, I remind you that he's executive producer of a new documentary, "Article VI," which explains why anyone who votes against Romney is (objectively) un-American and un-Christian.

Meanwhile, it looks like Mittens is gaining in Florida (objective good news) and let me complete this shameless sellout by reminding everyone that CPAC is Feb. 7-9. (Only $125 for a three-day pass.)

Crazy Cousin John skipped CPAC last year, a profound diss to the conservative movement when even arch-liberal Rudy Giuliani was not ashamed to plead his case to the GOP base. Of course, St. Mitt of Romney was there. (Sorry about the jokes, Mitt, but if I don't throw in a good shot now and then, someone might accuse me of being "objective.")