Communications Breakdown

This afternoon, I fell asleep while reading Craig Shirley's new book, Rendezvous With Destiny: Ronald Reagan and the Campaign That Changed America.

When I woke up, Glenn Beck was on TV, talking about this New York Times story that I blogged about yesterday. In his opening monologue, Beck explained that a key part of this story -- about the massive interest payments required by federal deficit spending -- was actually in his own Common Sense book, published five months ago.

Think about that. Today's front-page news for the New York Times was reported five months ago by a radio/TV talk-show host. Meanwhile, we're discovering that scientists have fudged the global warming data. And Florida Gov. Charlie Closet Crist is calling Marco Rubio a liar? Does Charlie's beard wife know about this?

"Communication Breakdown, it's always the same . . ."

Charlie Crist going negative on Rubio

This is what the National Republican Senatorial Committee is endorsing:

Buffeted by weeks of negative press and a newly threatening rival from the right, FL Gov. Charlie Crist's (R) campaign will step up direct engagements with his opponent, insiders tell OnCall.
Crist will attack former FL House Speaker Marco Rubio (R), citing his rival's failure to advance some conservative causes while leading the state House, for spending excessively while in the Speaker's office and for dragging his feet on immigration legislation that many Republicans favored.
"We're now running a campaign, and it's one where this campaign will aggressively talk about the governor and his record and his vision heading to Washington as a candidate for the Senate, and we will aggressively talk to voters about our opponent's record, a record that was eight years in the state legislature, a record that has not been discussed to date," said Eric Eikenberg, Crist's new campaign manager.

So this is what your NRSC donations are paying for: Republican attacks on Marco Rubio, one of the most promising young Republican leaders in Florida.

NOT ONE RED CENT!

UPDATE: Pat Austin notes that Crist's new campaign manager has a predictable habit:

According to The Buzz, Rubio isn't worried about the addition of Eikenberg to the Crist team. Rubio supporters point to his work on the campaigns for both Clay Shaw and George LeMieux. They both lost.

More at Memeorandum.

Support Rubio

by Smitty (Carol's Closet)

Sanest words on the topic yet:

NRSC's John Cornyn Keeps Fumbling Away GOP's Senate Chances for 2010

The halfwit senator from Texas, whose wrong-headed interference in the Florida primary sparked the Not One Red Cent rebellion against the National Republican Senatorial Committee, has continued his campaign to destroy what little hope remains of the Republican Party's hope for gaining Senate seats in the 2010 mid-term election. John Hawkins of Right Wing News reports:

After [the Charlie Crist] endorsement, the NRSC continued meddling in primaries, but they've done it more subtly. In California, I've been told that Cornyn has told private donor gatherings that Carly Fiorina is the NRSC's choice. Why keep it below the radar like that? To try to cut off funds to Chuck Devore without catching the attention of blogs like this one.
The NRSC is also infuriating Republicans in Colorado with these same kind of the behind the scenes moves . . .
"The chairman of the Colorado Republican Party says he plans to inform a national GOP group today that it created a 'backlash' by registering two domain names for potential U.S. Senate candidate Jane Norton." . . . .
How dare these arrogant jackasses at the NRSC disrespect Republicans across the country be interfering in these primaries? I know what they're thinking, "2010 is going to be a good year. We'll win some seats no matter what and then everyone will agree that we were smart to interfere." . . .

Please read John Hawkins' entire column and send a message to John Cornyn and those treacherous sellout swine at the NRSC:

NOT ONE RED CENT!

NEW GOP SEX SCANDAL? Latino Politician Gets 'Sticky Fingers' WithFemale Right-Wing Journalist!

Don't you hate it when the MSM make a scandal out of something perfectly innocent like Marco Rubio's "posh hotel" rendezvous with Jillian Bandes?

Marco Rubio has sticky fingers, and he wants to rinse them off.
"Some of the pancake syrup got on my hands, I'll be right back," he told me in the lobby of his posh Dupont Circle hotel in Washington, D.C. just after breakfast.
Maybe he should've kept his sticky fingers. After all, the Florida House Speaker might have to go to some extraordinary lengths to get the cash he needs after the release of his latest fundraising numbers: he came in at $340,000, compared to his rival Gov. Charlie Crist's $4.3 million. . . .

Read the whole sticky thing.

NOT ONE RED CENT!

UPDATE: Thanks to the commenter who directed me to this July 8 video of an MSNBC appearance in which Jillian drove Jane Hamsher into paroxysms of seething rage:

Not that it is difficult to drive Jame Hamsher into seething rage, but didn't Jillian look cute doing it?

Hey, Jillian, what's up with the blond curls? Last time I saw you, your hair was auburn red and straight.

Marco Rubio on Immigration:'We must secure our borders'

Beth Reinhard reports in the Miami Herald:

In response to a question about immigration, Rubio dropped his previous pleas against harsh attacks on illegal workers. He said he would not have voted in favor of the legislation -- backed by Crist and Sen. Mel Martinez -- that would have allowed illegal workers to earn legal status, which he called "blanket legalization."
"Nothing is more disruptive to legal immigration than illegal immigration,'' he said. "We must secure our borders."

Read the rest. Meanwhile, a press release from "Not One Red Cent":

[John] Hawkins says the NRSC made a strategic blunder by backing Crist over former Florida Speaker of the House Marco Rubio, a GOP conservative who is also seeking the Senate seat in 2010.
"The leadership of the Republican Party keeps saying we need to get back to our principles and talking about how important it is to attract more young voters and Hispanic Americans," Hawkins said. "Then, we get a viable, young, conservative, Hispanic candidate running for Senate and they arrogantly try to shove him aside to make way for a better connected, moderate pol who's more acceptable to the GOP establishment. This cuts to the core of what's wrong with today's Republican Party."
After [Erick] Erickson reported that he was under pressure from Republicans "begging" him to shut down the anti-NRSC Facebook group, hundreds more conservatives joined the group.
"The NRSC endorsing Charlie Crist, the man Barack Obama calls his favorite Republican, sends a strong signal that the NRSC believes it can take the GOP base's money, then tell them to shut up," Erickson said. "It is an admission that the Senate Republicans, after two back to back disasters, have yet to properly diagnose their problems."

Get the latest updates at Not One Red Cent.

(Cross-posted at Hot Air's Green Room.)

UPDATE: Charlie Crist was for Keynesian bailouts before he was against them. (Via Memeorandum.)

UPDATE II: Club for Growth asks, "Will Crist Pull a Specter?"

"Charlie Crist has shown he's willing to say one thing and do another," said the Club's resident, Chris Chocola. "Voters deserve to know just how far he'll go for the sake of political expediency."

Pundette has excerpts of Rubio's interview with NRO.

ALSO SEE:

• American Spectator: Texas, Florida Rumbling About Cornyn's NRSC Move
• Not One Red Cent: The Rebellion Goes Viral!
• Hot Air: Video: What Charlie Crist Is Up Against
• Green Room: Behind the 'Not One Red Cent' Rebellion
• American Spectator: Video: Interview With Florida Conservative Candidate Marco Rubio
• American Spectator: Florida Conservatives Slam NRSC Crist Endorsement

VIDEO: What Charlie Crist Is Up Against

Moe Lane is becoming a believer. As I said at the Hot Air Green Room, everybody who has seen this video is asking the same question: Why in the world would John Cornyn and the NRSC back Charlie Crist against this guy?

Hat tips to Pat and Carol.

BTW, the Not One Red Cent rebellion is growing rapidly: 3,400 visits in the first four days, including nearly 1,400 yesterday, with a boost from Conservative Grapevine.

UPDATE: Now front page at Hot Air, and John Hawkins has just published the petition to the NRSC. If you're a blogger who wants to sign the petition, e-mail John.

Meanwhile, Matt Lewis reports on the movement, linking to Erick Erickson's latest "Not One Red Cent" message at Red State.

UPDATE II: Now a Memeorandum thread.

UPDATE III: Dave Weigel of the Washington Independent and Eric Zimmerman of The Hill both report the story. Blogged by Dan Riehl of Riehl World View and at Hyscience.

UPDATE IV: John McCormack at the Weekly Standard offers side-by-side comparison of Rubio's speech with video of Crist introducing Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Townhall's Greg Hengler is now a Rubio fan, as is Fausta Wertz.

UPDATE V: K-Lo has a new poll on the Florida Senate race, showing Crist with only 49% favorable among Republicans. Compared to that, Rubio's relatively low name-ID is inconsequential. How many Americans had heard of Barack Obama 15 months before the 2008 Iowa caucus?

UPDATE VI: The Rebellion Goes Viral! Meanwhile, Matt Lewis sees the video and says:

To be sure, the NRSC's premature endorsement of Governor Crist would have evoked some negative reaction -- even if his primary opponent were some right-wing nobody . . . or a squishy liberal Republican. But with Rubio, the Republican establishment has essentially pushed aside a young, attractive, conservative, Hispanic, highly-qualified, experienced leader.

BTW, you know who has a man-crush on Charlie Crist? Republican "kingmaker" Fred Malek. NTTAWWT.

UPDATE VII: Dad29 and Sundries Shack applaud the Rubio video, Pundette says, "The last two minutes made me cry," and St. Blogustine says, "It's Payback Time!"

Republicans 'begging' Erick Erickson to shut down Facebook protest of NRSC

You may remember my reaction when the "treacherous bastards" at the National Republican Senatorial Committee endorsed Charlie Crist in the Florida Senate race -- 15 months before the primary!

Erick Erickson of Red State started a Facebook group to protest the NRSC's endorsement of Crist, and Erick just sent this message to group members:

Subject: They are listening
I've been getting all sorts of emails begging me to shut this group down.
Instead, please consider inviting ten friends each.
The NRSC will not listen to us unless we help shut down their fundraising. You can help.
Thanks,
Erick

CLICK HERE TO JOIN THE FACEBOOK GROUP.

Meanwhile, there is a new blog HQ for the grassroots anti-NRSC protest: NOT ONE RED CENT.

UPDATE: John Hawkins of Right Wing News is circulating this petition:

Dear Senator Cornyn,
We the undersigned believe that the National Republican Senatorial Committee should be committed to serving ALL the members of the Republican Party.
Additionally, the NRSC should be focused on defeating Democrats, not Republicans. Towards that end, we believe it was completely inappropriate for the NRSC to endorse a candidate in the Florida primary race.
Therefore, we request that both you and the NRSC alter your position on the Florida Senate race, maintain neutrality, and promise to spend no money directly or indirectly in that race.

Things are getting hot for Cornyn and the NRSC.

UPDATE II: Welcome, Instapundit readers! Please also see my post at Hot Air Green Room: "Behind the ‘Not One Red Cent’ Rebellion."

UPDATE III: Red Hot at Red State. And a Memeorandum thread. Certain left-wing bloggers are laughing, failing to understand what this is about. It is good that they don't understand.

UPDATE IV: Welcome, Ann Coulter readers!

Economics is not a popularity contest

Yesterday I posted about the idiocy of NRSC endorsing Florida Gov. Charlie Crist in the Senate race against conservative Marco Rubio.

Greg Sargent, who has apparently gone from Talking Points Media to a Washington Post site, gets all snarky about Rubio's first TV ad:

Another mark of just how far to the right the GOP has moved:Barely moments after the news broke that Governor and stimulus-supporter Charlie Crist has entered the Florida GOP primary, his conservative opponent already has a new ad attacking him -- with an image of President Obama, whose performance is supported by strong majorities and by Independents. . . .
It isn’t every day that a politician seeks to turn a race into a referendum on his opponent’s support for a President with an approval rating in the 60s, but these aren’t ordinary times for today’s GOP.

Let me see if I can explain what Greg Sargent evidently doesn't understand. It doesn't matter how popular Obama or his policies are, if his policies bring disaster. Remember how high Bush's numbers were in 2002?

At this point, Obama is popular for being Not Bush. But there is a sell-by date on that commodity, and I'm betting that the Not Bush brand won't have much value on the first Tuesday in November 2010.

The biggest problem Obama will face going forward is that the deficit-spending Keynesian approach that he and the Democrats have embraced cannot produce recovery. It never has and it never will. It Won't Work and The Fundamentals Still Suck.

Greg, try to wrap your mind around what Megan McArdle is telling you about the bond market. And I'd say Megan is a wee bit on the optimistic side. After all, with trillions of dollars in new government debt soaking up so much scarce capital, what will the resulting shortage of private credit do to the already weak housing market? Unemployment is already near nine percent and will not decline soon, and without new buyers entering the market, the mortgage-default problem will likely get much worse in the near future.

None of these economic problems (and I've merely scratched the surface) can be solved by pointing to Obama's poll numbers. As it becomes evident that Obama's policies are making matters worse, that there is no magic to Hope, those poll numbers will decline, and being seen as associated with Obama's policies will be political poison.

Snark all you want. Crist is a "dead man walking" politically speaking, and Rubio is making the smart bet by vocally opposing Obamanomics.

Oh, and not incidentally, remember that promise about "tax cuts" for everybody earning less than $250,000 a year? Well, now we have the details. Just a big fat lie:

40% of the value of new "tax cuts for families" is actually new spending, not new tax cuts. . . .
Families with taxable income of $230,000 and individuals with taxable income of $190,000 will see their income tax rate rise. . . .
By limiting tax breaks for the production of domestic energy and a raft of other energy tax hikes, the Obama budget blueprint will raise American families’ energy bills by $105 billion over the next decade. . . .
Small businesses will shed jobs to pay for the higher small business tax rates. The Obama budget blueprint calls for the top tax rate to climb from 35% to 39.6%, and for the second-highest rate to climb from 33% to 36%. . . . These tax rate hikes would be devastating for small businesses, which pay taxes on their owners’ tax forms. $2 out of $3 in small business profits pay taxes at these tax rates.

Good-bye, Hope! Hello, Change!

UPDATE: Thanks to Michelle Malkin for reminding us that the recession has accelerated the impending insolvency of Social Security and Medicare.

Like the lady said, the fundamentals suck. And, as Jimmie Bise reminds us, the Obama administration is "creating jobs" in much the same way Jayson Blair "reported news" -- they're just making stuff up.

Those treacherous bastards!NRSC to endorse Charlie Crist?

Politico reports that the recto-cranial inversion cases at GOP-HQ are planning another atavistic blunder:

Even as Gov. Charlie Crist comes under fire from Florida conservatives, he will be getting some important political backing today as he announces that he’s running for the Senate in Florida.
The National Republican Senatorial Committee will be endorsing Crist, according to a senior Hill operative, marking the first time it has taken sides (for a non-incumbent) in a competitive GOP primary this election cycle.

(Via Memeorandum.) Why would any conservative ever send another dime to the NRSC after this? Marco Rubio is the conservative in that primary, and it was Charlie Crist whose endorsement of John McCain help deliver Florida to that dingbat loser.

To hell with Charlie Crist and to hell with the NRSC. Go give some money to Marco Rubio.

UPDATE: At AmSpecBlog, I quote the chairman of the Conservative Republican Alliance:

"In case the NRSC forgot, it was Governor Crist that openly supported the Obama 'stimulus' plan, and gave the plan political cover here in Florida," CRA chairman Javier Manjarres said in a press release. "Why does the NRSC issue an endorsement without even waiting to find out where the respective candidates stand on the issues?"

Here's Marco Rubio's first ad hitting Crist:

UPDATE II: Mitch McConnell endorses Crist, prompting John Hawkins to ask:

Can endorsements from Kathleen Parker and Colin Powell be far behind at this point?

Hawkins is calling for Cornyn's resignation as NRSC chairman. Just don't send 'em money, whatever you do.

UPDATE III: Oh, good: Now Ed Morrissey hates me, too.

UPDATE IV: Lots more negative reaction from conservatives, including Erick Erickson of Red State, who calls our attention to Dan McLaughlin's Red State blog post, "Charlie Crist picks a fight Republicans don't need."

Dan Riehl is more approving, but perhaps he hasn't studied the situation in Florida in the detail McLaughlin has. Basically, the old wobbly moderate, Crist, is stepping on the career of the promising Latino conservative, Rubio. It's the exact opposite of what we need. It's a triple disaster: Crist will forego a reasonably safe re-election bid as governor, to waste NRSC money running for an iffy Senate seat, creating an expensive GOP primary in the governor's race. It's just bad basic politics, all the way around, and only an idiot like Cornyn could think this was a smart move for the NRSC.

Jimmie Bise Jr. at Sundries Shack doesn't want any of what John Cornyn is smoking.