Texas’ Wendy Davis: Restricting Abortion is ‘Demonizing Women’

-By Warner Todd Huston

Texas State Senator Wendy Davis made a name for herself at the end of June by launching a filibuster on the floor of the state senate to stop new regulations on abortion in The Lone Star State, and now she is warning Governor Perry to “stop demonizing women” by pursuing such restrictions.

The bill Perry supports would place new requirements of cleanliness and safety on Texas abortion mills, rules that opponents of the bill say would shut down many abortionists. This, Davis claims is “demonizing women.”

On CNN with Wolf Blitzer Sen. Davis addressed Governor Perry directly. “Gov. Perry…let’s stop demonizing women who face very difficult choices in their life. Let’s make sure that we don’t close down 37 of the 42 clinics in Texas and leave women with nowhere to go and put them in a situation where there health will be at risk,” she said.
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Texas’ Wendy Davis: Restricting Abortion is ‘Demonizing Women’”


Turning Texas Blue: Obama Tours Austin

-By Warner Todd Huston


President Obama recently conducted a “tech tour” of Austin, Texas looking to get more federal money sent to support Austin’s tech boom.

The visit is part of a new campaign Obama is conducting across the country to cajole Congress into adopting some of the economic ideas he offered in his last State of the Union speech and his budget proposal.

In a visit to Applied Materials Inc., Obama said, “We’re poised for a time of progress, if we’re willing to seize it.”

The “it” he wants seized is greater federal spending. Obama has a long history on supporting “green” and tech spending on failed companies like Solyndra, Fisker Motors, and a score of other such bankrupted companies.

The President also warned that if Congress allowed “sequestration” to cut off funds to tech companies and research “We could end up losing our edge” to companies in Asia.
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Turning Texas Blue: Obama Tours Austin”


What is the difference Between Obama’s Economy & Texas?

-By Warner Todd Huston

This chart doesn’t really even need much commentary. The high growth policies of Texas compared to the high unemployment and Great Depression level mess in the rest of the country (or Obama’s America) is just too obvious.


Click to embiggen!

(H/T Williams and Canman’s Musings.)


Politico Tries to Sink Another Perry Campaign

-By Warner Todd Huston

In a March 28 article, Politico made to report on the situation in Texas Governor Rick Perry’s inner circle but instead of a concise report this long and oddly repetitive piece was seemingly more interested in constantly reminding readers that the Governor didn’t fare too well in the 2012 Presidential election.

The quixotic piece by Politico’s Alexander Burns is ostensibly about a lightly manned Perry campaign staff. Many older Perry staffers, Burns reports, have now left the Governor’s employ and there seems to be some confusion as to public knowledge of who is doing what inside Perry’s organization.

But Burns’ motivation for the long piece is questionable. For one thing, he notes several times that Perry is in a “different” phase of his work as Governor in that being governor is his chief job at the moment. Therefore, future campaigns have taken a back seat to governing. This, of course, would be a good reason why Perry has thinned his campaign staff. He just doesn’t need an entire retinue of advisors and campaign staffers to do his job as Governor. In fact, this point seems to make much of Burns’ speculations rather moot, yet his reporting leads readers to imagine that Perry’s staffers are like rats leaving a sinking ship.
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Politico Tries to Sink Another Perry Campaign”


The Most Superficial Political Analysis Ever: The Candidates Ranked by Their T-Shirt Designs

-By Warner Todd Huston

For months, now, we have all been involved up to our ears in policy debates, discussions of the candidate’s records, and general mud slinging in this Republican primary season. There’s more to come, too. So, let’s take time out to be completely shallow, shall we?

Let’s judge the six remaining candidates by the most substantive measure we can muster: their t-shirt designs.

That’s enough yackity yak… on with the contest.

The Winner And Runner Up

Newt Gingrich wins the shirt wars, for sure. His campaign t-shirt has to rank as the best of the remaining six candidate’s designs. It sits just right on the shirt, it holds together well as a logo, and it is quickly recognizable from a distance. My only qualm is that the color red is a bit darker than I’d have picked. But none of this should be a surprise, right? Who knows branding and salesmanship better than Newt Gingrich?

Mitt Romney comes in second in this t-shirt contest. His has a fairly good logo, but the design is unbalanced by the line, “Believe in America.” It is it is just too long and makes the logo look less important than it should be. Worse the design is wrecked by the stupid website on the front. The website should be on the back, not the front.

The Boring

Ron Paul just fails in t-shirt design. Befitting his aged status as the cranky old uncle of the GOP, Ron Paul’s shirt stands as a boring one. Not much style to it, for sure. All the little type on the shirt doesn’t help, either. No one wants to get that close to a Paul supporter to read all that.

The Rick Perry shirt is a big miss and is the most boring one of the bunch. It looks like he just took the design off his political yard sign circa 1998 and slapped it on a t-shirt. It’s like his team didn’t put any thought at all into this thing. Ugh. At least it is fully visible at a distance, though, unlike Paul’s.

The Total Fail

Jon Huntsman has had the hardest time trying to convince everyone that he is a real Republican and his t-shirt design sure as heck isn’t helping him. Look at that thing! First of all who can tell that those white stripes are supposed to represent the letter “H”? But even worse, this looks like the bad design of a European soccer team shirt, not that of an American political candidate! Finally, it is not easily recognizable from a distance at all. It just looks like a bunch of white bars. This thing is horrible.

So, there you have it. If we were going to elect based on a t-short design, the Newtster is the winnah!

(Note: Santorum does not have a store on his campaign website. I can only assume that he is still having his campaign sweatervests produced.)
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The Most Superficial Political Analysis Ever: The Candidates Ranked by Their T-Shirt Designs”


Santorum/Romney/Paul: So What Did Iowa Prove?

-By Warner Todd Huston

The 2012 Iowa Caucuses are now over and in a nail biting ending the two highest vote getters were separated by only eight votes. So, what did this caucus prove? It proved that organization matters, personal contact matters, and finally big money spent on TV might not matter as much.

The biggest news was that Rick Santorum came from the back of the pack — his numbers had been so bad that he almost got excluded from some of the many debates — almost taking first place in Iowa. He was, in fact, leading for most of the night until that final count showed him in second place losing only by eight votes. This was fantastic showing was due to one thing: Santorum’s hard work at retail politics.

Santorum spent much of his campaign treasury and much time in Iowa. He visited all 99 counties in the state and was for weeks on Iowa radio and TV morning noon and night. He pressed a lot of flesh and kissed a lot of babies. Santorum invested his campaign and himself in Iowa in a last ditch effort to keep his campaign alive. If he hadn’t it is likely that today he would be announcing the end of his campaign for the White House.
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Santorum/Romney/Paul: So What Did Iowa Prove?”


How Ron Paul Might Win Iowa and STILL Get No Hawkeye Delegates

-By Warner Todd Huston

My friend Michael Bates has raised some interesting — if technical — points. He notes that Ron Paul could very will win Iowa but still come away with few or even no Iowa delegates. After looking over Bates’ points, I think he has it right. But one thing he said is really trenchant when he noted that journalists don’t bother to read the party rules of correlate past history to see if Paul’s win in Iowa would really mean anything at all.

But first, we should note that the winner of the Iowa Republican caucus rarely becomes president. Many others have noted that the Iowa caucuses don’t pick winners. In fact, over the last six GOP presidential contests, only one Iowa winner became president (George W. Bush). Two others won the caucuses in Iowa but did not win the White House (Bob Dole and Gerald Ford).

That aside, Bates makes some important points in the delegates process. He finds that Ron Paul might win a plurality in Iowa and still come away with no delegates. The most important point he makes is to remind us all that the Iowa Caucus is not a primary election. It is only a straw poll and what happens there is not binding. This is a point that the media almost never make.

As the popularity polls are telling us, Ron Paul is neck-and-neck with Mitt Romney with Santorum have a last minute surge. But this shows that Paul will not be running away with it all, here. This also means that his support will be spread all over the state in numbers that will not commandingly control too many districts. This leaves the door open for the other candidates to band together to prevent Paul delegates from getting any traction and just might result on Paul have few or even no delegates at the state convention.

As Bates has it:
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How Ron Paul Might Win Iowa and STILL Get No Hawkeye Delegates”


Yes Virginia The Internet Does NOT Replace Old Fashioned Politics

-By Warner Todd Huston

When Howard Dean became a surprise front runner in the Democrat primary of 2004 doing so on the basis of a strong Internet-based campaign effort, tongues began to wag that the Internet might replace old fashioned retail politics. This time ’round Herman Cain and Newt Gingrich served to get people to question the old way of organizing a campaign.

But this week we’ve seen in Virginia why these airy claims of the Internet’s new dominance is a bit chimerical. We see that old fashioned, boots on the ground politics is still the best method to election.

By all methods of measure, Texas Governor Rick Perry is still a strong candidate in the 2012 GOP Primary race. He sometimes comes in second, third or fourth in polls, but is still considered a top contender for the nomination. Yet as the time came to file his petition signatures in Virginia, it turned out his campaign could not collect enough to get his name on the ballot. So, a reputed front running candidate for the nomination, Rick Perry, will not even appear on the Virginia primary ballot.
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Yes Virginia The Internet Does NOT Replace Old Fashioned Politics”


Eating Our Own & Providing Strategy

-By Frank Salvato

One cannot turn on the television or radio without some talking head or so-called political analyst pontificating about how Newt Gingrich is grandiose, how Mitt Romney isn’t really a Conservative – and how they both have flipped on several issues – or how Ron Paul’s foreign policy is isolationist. Glenn Beck, to many people’s extreme disappointment, even went so far as to call Speaker Gingrich a Progressive (I guess ratings are down as GBTV). It makes for good news show content, to be sure. In certain respects there is truth to the critiques. But this hyper-critiquing and self-immolation also does two things that Conservatives and Republicans fall prey to each and every time the General Election cycle comes calling: It deflects from addressing the differences between the GOP field and the opposition; and it provides the opposition with talking points, opponent research and the luxury of hiatus.

Make no mistake, the primaries are where each party – when not in incumbency – needs to critique and evaluate their prospective candidates. A hard-fought primary, when devoid of “it’s my turn” establishment national party politics, usually results in the fielding of the best candidate, and a candidate who is sufficiently prepped to engage in the “main event.” But there is a difference between an intellectual meeting of the minds, where policy differences and a juxtaposition of experiences are proposed, examined and debated, and the childish, nonsensical “braggateering” (to coin a word); of trading insignificant insults; of executing a campaign of personality-based mudslinging.

As we approach the actual start of the primary cycle – yes, we haven’t begun the cycle just yet – this act of political stupidity is coming into play, yet again, among the front runners for the 2012 Republican Presidential Nomination.

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Eating Our Own & Providing Strategy”


Three More GOP Hopefuls Calling for Holder’s Resignation Over Fast and Furious

-By Warner Todd Huston

Last week I noted that not too many of the candidates for the GOP nomination for President had said much about Obama’s murderous Operation Fast and Furious. But since then we’ve gotten two more than Just Bachmann to call for Holder’s resignation.

As I mentioned a few days ago, Michelle Bachmann became the first GOP hopeful to call for Holder’s resignation over the disastrous gunrunning program that armed Mexican narco-terrorists, arms used to kill over 200 Mexican citizens…

Read the rest at RightPundits.com.


Media Tries to Make Rick Perry a Birther

-By Warner Todd Huston

The left-wing media’s newest attack on Rick Perry is an attempt to make him into a “birther” — one of those folks that think Barack Obama is not a natural born American, a requirement to become our president. This new attack, though, is almost Clintonian in its careful avoidance of the truth.

The main attack started in a Parade interview featuring Texas Governor Rick Perry, but is being taken up as the cause célèbre by the left-wing, George Soros-funded attack dogs at Media Matters, Think Progress, and TPM as well as sites like Mediaite. But this “story is, as they say, all smoke and no fire.

In the interview Parade directly asked whether Perry thought Obama was born in the United States. Perry’s actual answers were, “I have no reason to think otherwise,” and “It doesn’t matter. He’s the President of the United States. He’s elected. It’s a distractive issue.”
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Media Tries to Make Rick Perry a Birther”


Herman Cain Leading in Palatine Straw Poll

-By Warner Todd Huston

A gathering of Tea Partiers in Palatine, Illinois held a straw poll of 38 attendees and Herman Cain came out on top. The group met to watch Tuesday’s GOP debate.

38 Republican primary voters attended a “viewing party” in Palatine, IL on Oct. 18, 2011 for the Republican presidential candidate debate in Las Vegas on CNN. Compare these results to the straw poll for a very similar group last week after the debate in New Hampshire. Herman Cain expanded his lead with this group. Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich remain close to each other, and Michele Bachmann picked up some support. Rick Perry continued to decline.

This poll of a small group of Tea Partiers may seem sort of meaningless. Maybe on its face it is but this poll seems to reflect what Tea Partiers and conservatives are feeling throughout the movement, so this is a pretty good snapshot of where we stand today.
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Herman Cain Leading in Palatine Straw Poll”


Polls Show Ohio and Penn. Voters Say Obama Doesn’t Deserve Reelection

-By Warner Todd Huston

CNN is reporting that Obama “has his work cut out for him” if he wants to get reelected in 2012 and a poll of Ohio and Pennsylvania is the evidence.

There has been a lot of speculation on how bad things are looking for The Obammessiah these days. Even Democrats are afraid that it is looking bad for Obama winning a second term…

Read the rest at RightPundits.com.


Illinois GOP State Central Committee Meeting: Sound and Fury Signifying No Changes

-By Warner Todd Huston

In one of the most well attended yet contentious State Central Committee meetings for some time, the movers and shakers of the Illinois GOP met on Tuesday evening to attempt to decide if the system for certifying delegates for GOP presidential candidates should be changed. The short answer is that there was a lot of sound and fury from party members lower on the food chain, much debate from those on top, and questions all around all of which resulted in a failure of the proposal to make the change. In the end a resolution was passed to keep it all the same as it was in 2008.

Beginning at 5 PM the meeting at the Boilingbrook Country Club was well attended by both SCC members, concerned party members, a few county party chairs, committeemen, and Tea Party activists. House leader Tom Cross made an appearance as did long-time conservative activist Jack Roeser. Illinois State Treasurer Dan Rutherford was also there, like many of the others, to speak about the proposed rules change.

I should note that one reason this rules change was contemplated is that the national Republican Party is trying to get every state to change their system into one of proportional representation of delegates to the convention. The RNC gave Illinois the leeway to change its process and several activists took this opportunity to propose a major change to the system, a change that meets the law as well as state and national party rules.

Certainly the change being contemplated was extensive. Currently, the presidential candidates are awarded delegates via the ballot box, a method only three other states favor. Campaigns come to Illinois, build their Illinois machine, and solicit for delegates. These delegates then have to stand for election on the primary ballot. To do so they must each get 600 signatures of voters in their district so that they, the delegates, can get on the election ballot. Then, those elected are considered official delegates to the GOP nomination convention.
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Illinois GOP State Central Committee Meeting: Sound and Fury Signifying No Changes”


Kinky Friedman Goes Heavy for Perry for President

-By Warner Todd Huston

Kinky Friedman, the self-professed Governor of the Heart of Texas, is the wild man of Texas politics. In fact, he ran against current Governor Rick Perry for the Guv’s chair so when it comes to Perry’s bid for president, one might expect that the Kinkster has something to say about that. Well, he doesn’t disappoint.

Friedman has run for office several times — never won — and in debates was the straight talking “Jewish cowboy” that everyone loved to hear go off on a rant. He’s a singer and writer and entrepreneur (He even has his own line of cigars) for a living, but he really made an interesting name for himself in Texas politics…

Read the rest at RightPundits.com.


Time Mag Movie Review: G.W.Bush and Rick Perry Just Like Blood Thirsty Conan The Barbarian

-By Warner Todd Huston

Did you know that Texas Governor Rick Perry and President George W. Bush are just like the fictional, prehistoric, sword-wielding, mass murderer, Conan the Barbarian? Well Time Magazine entertainment reporter Richard Corliss is here to inform you all about it in his review of the new action movie released this week based on the Robert E. Howard character. What is it with these people that they have to bring their hatred for Republicans into their reviews about films that have nothing whatever to do with politics?

It is clear that Corliss is not a fan of this flick, for sure. And he mixes metaphors and abuses sayings to beat the band to show his disdain. But it is his second, non-sequitur-filled paragraph that goes for Perry’s and W’s throats. Corliss features this attack prominently in the second paragraph of the review so that no one will miss it.

Corliss describes how at the beginning of the movie a young Conan watches his entire family slaughtered in front of him. To Corliss, this seems somehow “kind of like” the way Saddam Hussein plotted to kill George W. Bush’s father, H.W. Bush.
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Time Mag Movie Review: G.W.Bush and Rick Perry Just Like Blood Thirsty Conan The Barbarian”


It’s A Weak GOP Field Facing Romney

-By Collin Corbett

Jon Huntsman, fighting to gain traction in his presidential bid, took a jab at frontrunner Mitt Romney in New Hampshire this week saying, in reference to the recent debt ceiling debate, “to dodge the debate or to wait until the debate is over effectively and to take a side, I don’t consider that to be leadership.” Huntsman is absolutely right, but when it comes to Romney’s Presidential campaign, he’s following the straightest possible path to the Presidency. Romney’s best strategy, running contrary to what seems logical, is to stay out of the Primary fray, mostly out of the news, and as far away from controversy as possible. He may not be creating as much of a buzz or leading on current issues as many would like, but right now he’s showing definite leadership in the one area that matters most to his campaign: the polls. Hovering above 20% and in first in all major polls, Romney does not need to stick his head out in a debate or attack his opponents, a stark contrast from where he stood four years ago.

Around this time during the 2008 primaries, Romney trailed Rudy Giuliani, Fred Thompson and John McCain in every poll and was forced to run a momentum-based campaign: the same strategy many of the challengers have to employ today. Since coming up short then, Romney has essentially been running as the front-runner for the 2012 nod, all while avoiding the over exposure that could allow voters to outright reject him and move on to another candidate.

A majority of Republican Primary voters are looking for someone, anyone but Romney. Romney hasn’t even put much effort into energizing the base, knowing that eventually Primary voters will come home. Following the GOP South Carolina debate in May, a Fox News focus group hosted by Frank Luntz expressed some disappointment that Romney had decided to forgo the early debate. However, Romney pulled 24% of likely Primary voters in a PPP poll that same week, fending off Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin who polled second and third respectively. It is obvious that regardless of what Romney does, or doesn’t do (absent a misstep), he won’t see serious movement in the polls. He needs to let voters flirt with other candidates for a while before they eventually come home and marry him, or they’ll never be content.

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It’s A Weak GOP Field Facing Romney”


More Dem. New Tone: Of Obama Lies and Epithets At Tea Partiers

-By Warner Todd Huston

Yes it’s that vaunted new age of Obama, folks. You remember; the one where we were all going to walk into the sunset, hand-in-hand, being all nice to each other because politics had gotten “too divisive”? You know, that new tone that the Democrats insisted that the ascendancy of Obmaa meant for the country. Yeah, the one where Obama and his administration underlings simply lie outright about Republicans and where Democrat Congresscritters tell Tea Partiers that they can “go straight to hell.” Yeah… THAT new tone.

Let’s start with the always loquacious Maxine Waters. This queen of ignorance was pretending to act all bold and everything by saying she reused to be intimidated by the Tea Party movement. In her eloquent, lady-like manner she said, “This is a tough game. You can’t be intimidated. You can’t be frightened. And as far as I’m concerned, the ‘tea party’ can go straight to hell.”

Sadly, neither Maxine Water, Obama nor Arne Duncan care much about the truth. After all, they have a country to downgrade….

Read the rest at RightPundits.com.


New York Times Columnist Attacks Perry With Twitter, Gives Biden/ Demos A Pass

-By Warner Todd Huston

As if we needed another example of the utter hypocrisy of the Old Media, we get New York Times screed-maker Binyamin Appelbaum who used his Twitter feed to smear Gov. Rick Perry over his Bernanke comments while giving V.P. Joe “Tea Partiers are Terrorists” Biden a complete pass.

Once again, Twitter catches the unhinged left revealing itself as the hypocrites they are. On Aug. 16, Appelbaum was all a twitter on Twitter over Rick Perry’s slap at Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Benrnanke.

If you missed the story that caused Appelbaum’s heart to skip a beat, on Aug. 15 in Cedar Rapids, Iowa Texas Governor Rick Perry said that in Texas Chairman Bernanke wouldn’t be given the wide latitude to muck up the economy as Obama has allowed him to do in Washington D.C.
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New York Times Columnist Attacks Perry With Twitter, Gives Biden/ Demos A Pass”


Rick Perry: A Major Squish on Immigration?

-By Warner Todd Huston

Many conservatives across the nation are panting in anticipation of the entry of Texas Governor Rick Perry in the race for the 2012 GOP nomination for president. With his jobs creation record and his undeniable conservative fiscal record, many can’t wait to see this tall Texan join the race. But former Congressman and one-time presidential candidate Tom Tancredo of Colorado begs to differ. He says Perry is no conservative, at least on matters of immigration.

Tancredo penned an op ed at Politico slamming Perry as an amnesty supporter and a major squish on immigration. In truth there is no way to explain away Tancredo’s criticism, either. It’s all pretty undeniable….

Read the rest at RightPundits.com.


Texan Rick Perry In For 2012 Election (All But Announced)

-By Warner Todd Huston

Looks like Rick Perry, current Governor of Texas, is in for the hunt for the GOP nomination for president of the United States. At this point, he’s all but had his official announcement and word is that the announcement is to come Saturday.

Below is the first Perry campaign video and it is smartly focused on the incredible jobs record that Texas has amassed under Perry. After all, having created some 73 percent of all the new jobs in the country is a pretty amazing record.

Tag Line: It’s Time for America to Believe in Itself Again, It’s Time for Rick Perry

Read the rest at RightPundits.com.


Tea Party Poll: Rick Perry On Top

-By Warner Todd Huston

According to a McClatchy-Marist poll from Wednesday, Texas Governor Rick Perry is the Tea Party favorite to be president of the Untied States in 2012.

Perry has not made any announcement of running as of yet, but he comes in above Mitt Romney, Michele Bachmann and the others either announced or mulling still.

The poll shows that Perry garners 20% support with Mitt Romney coming in second at 17%. Palin comes in third at 16% while Michele Bachmann rings in at 12%.

Read the rest at RightPundits.com.