Romney Wins Arizona, Looks to Win Michigan UPDATE: Wins Michigan Too

Looks like the Santorum surge has run its course and Romney will sweep both of today's primaries. The GOP establishment can get down off the ledge, their guy will survive.

Michigan hasn't been called yet, but Karl Rove has been running the numbers based on what's been reported so far and thinks Romney is on his way to a 4-5% win. Certainly as a guy who was born in that state and whose dad was a former governor, you would have expected Romney to win by a wider margin, but two weeks ago he was down 15 points in the polls, and down 5% last week. His advertising effort has clearly paid off.

And the efforts by the left to create a Santorum upset in Michigan have apparently failed. Though the Democrats who voted today have gone overwhelmingly for Santorum there weren't enough of them to make a real difference.

UPDATE:  The networks are now projecting Romney the winner in Michigan.

Political Quote of the Day

From idiot leftist actress Janeane Garofalo, on why Republicans would support Herman Cain:

"Herman Cain is probably well liked by some of the Republicans because it hides the racist elements of the Republican party. Conservative movement and tea party movement, one in the same.

"People like Karl Rove liked to keep the racism very covert. And so Herman Cain provides this great opportunity say you can say 'Look, this is not a racist, anti-immigrant, anti-female, anti-gay movement. Look we have a black man.'"

This is exactly why a Herman Cain candidacy would not stop the racism talk about the Republican Party. Any opposition to Obama will still be considered racism, even if the Republican candidate is black. He'll be depicted by the mainstream press and Democrats as a token, no matter how genuine the support is for his candidacy.

The Next Move on the Budget Deal

Karl Rove has some good ideas:

Having gone on offense with “Cut, Cap and Balance,” House Republicans must keep moving forward by now proposing a plan B. Led by Vice President Joe Biden, bipartisan discussions over the last few months have produced what White House Press Secretary Jay Carney declared on July 14 are a trillion and a half dollars in cuts that “everybody can agree on.” Fine: The House GOP should bundle the majority of those cuts with a debt-ceiling increase smaller than the total of the cuts, making certain the cuts are real and happen sooner rather than later and include easy and popular cuts as well as hard and controversial ones.

The House GOP should then pass the package, likely with Democratic votes. Even if Mr. Reid won’t like it, the Senate will have to take it up and pass it. It’s inconceivable that Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke would allow Mr. Obama to make good on his threat to veto any deficit reduction that doesn’t raise taxes. And yesterday afternoon the White House said Mr. Obama might be willing to sign on to a short-term debt-ceiling increase, though probably not with big spending cuts.

But a robust package of cuts paired with a smaller debt-ceiling increase would buy Republicans months to fight for additional spending cuts and possibly fashion a revenue-neutral tax reform that cleans out and simplifies the code while lowering rates. Next spring, the House GOP can run the spending cut/debt-ceiling play a second time if needed.

House Republicans must not stand still. In a close-fought campaign, whichever side has momentum near the close of the contest tends to win. The same for congressional action. If the GOP hopes to win this important battle to make a down payment on reducing the debt, it needs to build on the momentum of Tuesday’s vote by running yet another successful play.

Never retreat. Never.

Can the GOP Kill Obamacare With Only 51 Votes in the Senate?

Filibuster rules say no, but Karl Rove says it can be done via reconciliation.  Too long to excerpt - read it here.

Of course, that wouldn't stop Obama from vetoing it and it would never get enough votes for an override, but if it's possible to get a repeal out of the Senate, it should be done.

Rove on Pelosi

I think is pretty much what most GOP political analysts think:

If Speaker Nancy Pelosi succeeds in becoming minority leader, then House Democrats will get more of the same of what they got on Tuesday night.

Pelosi is a damaged, deeply polarizing figure whose retention as House leader will guarantee continued difficulties for those Democrats who had rough races in red districts Tuesday and those Democrats whose seats tilt more red because of redistricting next year.

The soon-to-be former speaker will also feed President Obama's worst instincts. She shares the White House view that Tuesday was the result of inadequate communications, insufficiently liberal initiatives, and not curt enough dismissal of Republicans. These got Democrats into their electoral pickle: Pelosi's continuation will only make conditions worse in the House.

I can't disagree with any of that. The new more liberal House Dem caucus will fight any effort to moderate their views, and with Pelosi in charge there's won't be much of an effort to do anything but save the liberal agenda and block what they can from the GOP.

Incoherence

That's how Karl Rove describes Obama's closing message:

At an April 2008 fund-raiser in San Francisco, Barack Obama let loose with his famous "they cling to guns or religion" line. Last Saturday at a West Newton, Mass., fund-raiser, the president said, "facts and science and argument [do] not seem to be winning . . . because we're hard-wired not to always think clearly when we're scared."

Memo to White House: Calling voters stupid is not a winning strategy.

The economy and jobs are the No. 1 issue in every poll. Yet Mr. Obama of late has talked about immigration reform and weighed in (unprompted) on the Ground Zero mosque. He devoted Labor Day to an ineffective Mideast peace initiative. He demeans large blocs of voters and now is ending his midterm pitch with attacks on nonexistent foreign campaign contributions and weird assertions that "the Empire is striking back." [...]

Much of the blame lies with the president, who has left his party with an incoherent closing argument 12 days before the election.

In a penetrating piece in the New York Times Magazine on Oct. 12, Peter Baker profiles a president who "believes he is the smartest person in any room," according to one prominent Democratic lawmaker. He and his aides think that the core of their difficulties is "a communications problem" and the result of a "miscalculation" that the president could "forge genuine bipartisan coalitions."

Communications? After the president devoted 58 speeches and events to health care over a 51-week period, his bill grew progressively less popular.

The comment about bipartisanship is a joke. As a candidate Mr. Obama spoke about it, but as a president whose party enjoyed massive majorities in both houses of Congress, he ignored it. He could have severely weakened his opposition by drawing them in. Instead, Mr. Obama strengthened Republicans by taunting them with their seeming irrelevance, and he fashioned legislation that only Democrats could vote for. Now many of them will lose their jobs because of their votes.

I'm actually kind of surprised Obama hasn't asked the networks for time to make a last minute TV speech to once again remind us we're not smart enough to understand his wise ways and that our only hope is continuing Democrat majorities in both houses of Congress.

Barry and Michelle did try YouTube for a last minute pitch.  It's failing badly.

Who Gets the Credit?

Politicians and pundits are trying to figure out who will get the credit should the GOP have a really good day on Nov. 2. I'll give you my answer in the minute:

Who will be the Republican Rahm Emanuel in 2010?

In 2006, Emanuel was acclaimed as the architect of Democrats’ sweep to power in the House and Senate. It helped launch him toward a job as President Obama’s chief of staff, which he has since vacated for a run at mayor of Chicago.

Now, Republicans look poised to take back the House, and possibly the Senate. GOP politicians and operatives demur when asked who will get credit for a big win on Nov. 2. But that doesn’t mean they’re not thinking about whose political star might be launched after a successful election.

The top names mentioned by the more than two dozen political insiders – most of them Republicans – were Karl Rove, Haley Barbour and Ed Gillespie, overshadowing the heads of the campaign committees, Texas Rep. Pete Sessions and Texas Sen. John Cornyn. Sessions and Cornyn were nonetheless generally described as having redeemed themselves after shaky starts to the cycle.

“My hunch is it’s going to be more the Eds, the Karls, the Haleys than the people at the party committees themselves, in part because the people at the committees are not generally known in the public,” said Ari Fleischer, a former White House press secretary for President George W. Bush.

In my book it's not a politician or political activist that will deserve the credit for a big GOP win, but people like Rick Santelli, the CNBC financial reporter whose rant back on February 19, 2009 began the Tea Party movement.  Credit also has to go to the millions of voters, many of whom had not previously been politically active, who took to the streets and are forcing the GOP to listen to their demands for smaller government.

In my book, they're the ones who made this possible.

Dem Funds Failing

With a Dem flop pending for November 2nd, Dem organizations are having problems raising money to defend themselves:

A late effort by Democrats to match record fund raising by conservative organizations has come up short, leaving the party more reliant than usual on the campaign efforts of labor unions.

A key pro-Democratic group, recently created by top party insiders to build a "firewall" around the Democrats' majority in the House, said Thursday it hoped to raise $10 million. That's a fraction of the $50 million that an alliance of GOP groups said Tuesday they would spend to help Republicans in dozens of House races.

"We are David vs. Goliath," said Ramona Oliver, a spokeswoman for the new Democratic group, called America's Families First Action Fund. Founded this summer, it began raising money after Labor Day to help counter Republican fundraising efforts. It once hoped to help protect up to 30 Democratic House seats, but is now focusing on just 18 campaigns, Ms. Oliver said.

In total, outside conservative groups—such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, American Action Network and American Crossroads—could spend more than $300 million on TV advertisements, campaign mailings and other efforts to elect Republicans to Congress this year. Outside Democratic groups, by contrast, plan to spend about $100 million on those activities. The largest labor unions say they will spend $200 million combined, but most of their focus will be on rallying union voters.

You can tell things are pretty bad if they have to spend that much money to rally union voters, and even that effort could backfire given that a great many rank-and-file union members no longer support the Dem agenda. They may be turning out GOP voters.

Obama himself has turned out to be a great fundraiser...for conservatives.  In the week after he attacked Karl Rove and the American Crossroads group Karl and his bunch raised $13 million and upped their planned support for GOP candidates by $15 million.  The Chamber of Commerce, also under attack by the White House, has had a surge in memberships and contributions.

Now, if I could just get Obama to attack HolyCoast.com....

This is How You Respond to Attacks

I mentioned this story briefly yesterday, but it deserves a little more attention, not so much because of the facts but because the way Christine O'Donnell is handling the attacks from all sides:

Republican Senate candidate Christine O'Donnell is making light of comments she made more than a decade ago when she was in high school about having dabbled in witchcraft.

"How many of you didn't hang out with questionable folks in high school?" she asked fellow Republicans at a GOP picnic in southern Delaware on Sunday.

"There's been no witchcraft since. If there was, Karl Rove would be a supporter now," O'Donnell jokingly assured the crowd.

Rove would be a supporter...or a frog, as I mentioned yesterday.

What I like about this response is it's exactly what I've been preaching for a long time - don't respond with anger, respond with humor, sarcasm and ridicule. It's amazingly effecting at combating attacks.  The attacker is trying to get an angry, hurt reaction and when they're greeted with a witty comeback they simply don't know what to do.  The attack falls apart.

Sarah Palin is probably one of the best at this, as was Ronald Reagan.  Palin has been the subject of innumerable assaults on her character, intelligence, her family, etc., and yet has managed to deftly deflect those attacks with humor.  Rather than get in a shouting match in the newspapers or TV talking heads shows, she posts something on Facebook and the next thing you know everybody is reporting it.  She's been incredibly effective at knocking back the opposition.

There are a number of conservative bloggers who could use a dose of this as well.  Several of the big conservative blog sites are cannibalizing each other over either their support for Mike Castle or support for Christine O'Donnell.  I really don't want to have a Rodney King moment, but c-c-c-can't we all just get along and instead of trying to prove how smart we are just band together and try to get a Republican elected in Delaware?  Like her or not, O'Donnell is the nominee and the conservative infighting needs to stop.

Political Headline of the Day

From Fox News:

O'Donnell: No Witchcraft Since High School -- If so, Rove Would be a Supporter

Or a frog.

GOP Establishment Can't Control Tea Party Energy

And it drives them nuts.  That explains, better than anything, the outburst by Karl Rove on Fox News when Christine O'Donnell won the nomination in Delaware, and the groanings from people like David Frum who just want us all to get along with Democrats.  People like Rove and Frum were upset when Tea Party candidates won the nominations in Delaware and Nevada because they saw those as easily won seats with the "right" Republican.  However, without the Tea Party many other seats might not have been possible at all:

If the GOP picks up eight Senate seats and loses Delaware and Nevada, the establishment will blame the Tea Party for losing the majority. But that ignores the fact that the Tea Party -- and not John Boehner or Mitch McConnell -- has provided nearly all the energy for the GOP takeover.

Were Republican voters as well behaved as Frum would like, Senate seats in Washington, Wisconsin, California, and West Virginia would not be within reach. Without the enthusiasm ginned up by the rowdy conservative populists, Pennsylvania, Missouri, Ohio, and North Carolina would not look as good for Republicans as they do now.

Had conservative leaders somehow tamped down -- rather than stoking -- the Tea Party flames, the GOP would be looking at a three- to five-seat gain including Delaware and probably Nevada. Instead, Republicans will gain six to 10 seats this fall -- with a much more conservative caucus.

In other words, the Tea Party may mean we get Sen. Coons instead of Castle, but it also probably means Marco Rubio instead of Charlie Crist, Joe Miller instead of Lisa Murkowski, Mike Lee instead of Bob Bennett, Rand Paul instead of Trey Grayson, Ken Buck instead of Jane Norton, and maybe even Ron Johnson instead of Russ Feingold -- just to name a few.

Rove and Frum would somehow like the energy of the Tea Party without the willfulness. They want the force of the flood, but they want it to go in a direction of their choosing.

Rove and Frum are smart people, but they don't understand the conservative rage in the electorate. They'd still like to be able to pull the strings and move voters in the direction they wish them to go, but conservatives are tired of being told what to do by people who don't always share their values.  Rove hurt himself with conservatives with his rant on Fox and he'll have a hard time getting them to listen to him again.

Rove and Barnes Respond

In an earlier post information came to light that at least one member of Journolist, the email chat room for liberal journalists, suggested that in order to take the heat off of Obama because of the Rev. Wright story it would be appropriate to smear prominent conservatives like Karl Rove or Fred Barnes as racists.  Rove and Barnes have now responded:

Weekly Standard editor Fred Barnes and former White House senior adviser Karl Rove told The Daily Caller they were disappointed that there was not more criticism from other Journolist members for Ackerman’s plan of attack.

“I’d like to hear an explanation from those who participated in the Journolist about this,” Barnes said. “Why didn’t they quit the thing when smearing other journalists to help Barack Obama was advocated? Why didn’t they denounce the idea in unison?”

Rove played down the notion that members of the mainstream press agreed with Ackerman but he said he found it curious that such talk was tolerated within the group. It was important, he added, not to judge the motives of members who chose not to respond.

“I thought it was a revealing insight in the attitude of one minor player in the D.C. world of journalism,” Rove said of Ackerman’s comments. “It’s an even more important insight into a broader group of more prominent journalists that they seem to be willing to tolerate the suggestion that they should all tell a deliberate lie or that they should take somebody’s head and shove it through a plate glass window. I would hope that somebody would say, ‘Mr. Ackerman, do you really believe we ought to fabricate a lie about people just because we don’t agree with them?’”

Barnes added that even if there was an effort on the left to smear opponents as racists, the plan wouldn’t work.

“The charge has been made so often without any evidence that it has lost its sting,” he said. “It has become the last refuge of liberal scoundrels.”

Washington Independent writer Kevin Drum, who participated in the Journolist discussion, said in an interview Monday that charges of racism should only be used “sparingly.”

“It’s not something you should do unless you’re really, really sure,” he said.

Barnes is right about the fact that a charge of racism doesn't carry much water these days. Look how badly it all worked out for the NAACP when they tried it on the Tea Party.

2010 Senate Map

Karl Rove's organization has posted an updated map of what the Senate races for 2010 look like right now:

It's a little hard to read this size, so click here to see the large version.

Bottom line, as Rove looks at it now we could end up with 48 Dems, 2 Independents, and 47 Republicans with three that are too close to call.  Even if all three toss-ups went GOP the Dems would retain control because the 2 independents include a Socialist (Bernie Sanders-VT) and Joe Lieberman, both of whom will vote for Dem control.  With 50 voting for Dems and 50 voting for the GOP Joe Biden becomes the tiebreaker.

Still, this scenario is a heckuva lot better than what we have now, and it would certainly make it nearly impossible for Obama to continue to pass his leftist agenda.

Code Pinko Wannabe

Dumb way to spend a day:

A 12-year-old girl has been arrested for trespassing after she allegedly refused to leave U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin's office in Des Moines while protesting the war in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Frankie Hughes was arrested late Wednesday. Her mother, Renee Espeland, who was standing outside the Iowa Democrat's office, was ticketed for contributing to the delinquency of a minor.

Next thing you know she'll be trying to arrest Karl Rove.

The Immaturity of Code Pink Continues

Here's a photo of a major donor to Obama and the Dem party greeting him in September, 2009:
And here's the same major Obama donor one year almost to the day earlier as she attempted to interrupt Sarah Palin's Republican National Convention speech in 2008.
Who is this red-headed piece of human debris? Jodie Evans, co-founder of Code Pink, who is still acting as immature as ever (from Big Government):

Top Obama funder, terrorist supporter and Code Pink co-founder Jodie Evans assaulted former President George W. Bush adviser Karl Rove Monday evening at a Beverly Hills appearance by Rove to promote his new book, “Courage and Consequence: My Life As a Conservative in the Fight.”

Jodie Evans approached Rove while he was speaking to an audience at the Saban Theater and announced she was making a “citizen’s arrest” as she attempted to place metal handcuffs on him.

Video by KCAL-TV shows Rove pushing Jodie Evans away as she tries to cuff him. The audio picks up Rove saying to Jodie Evans, “No, no, no I didn’t say go ahead. I looked at…You get away!

Two men intervened and pulled Jodie Evans away from Rove.

Jodie Evans can be heard yelling at Rove, “Look what you did! You outed a CIA officer! You lied to take us to war! You ruined a country! Totally ruined a country!”

I'll believe she seriously cares about the ruination of this country when she starts screaming at Obama.

Karl Rove: How Bush Chose Cheney

Karl Rove's new book will be filled with a lot of revelations about the Bush presidency, and it includes the story of how Dick Cheney became the VP choice:

The parts of the 516-page book that cover the selection of Cheney as Bush's running mate suggest that the longtime Republican insider was not comfortable when offered the position.

"Cheney arrived at Bush's Crawford ranch in early July with a stack of binders on other prospects," Rove writes. "After they had worked their way through the pile, Bush took Cheney out to the backyard. I'm sure Cheney wondered what was up: Crawford in July is hot. Bush surprised Cheney by asking him to think about becoming his running mate. Cheney said he'd consider it but wasn't certain it was a good idea for Bush or for him."

Rove goes on to deny that Cheney, who was tasked with helping Bush vet potential vice presidential candidates, somehow manipulated the selection process to his advantage.

"Some people have suggested that Cheney engineered his own selection. This is far-fetched. I saw the man squirm as Bush pressed him to accept," Rove writes. "Cheney had a clear understanding of what John Nance Garner, FDR's first vice president, had said about the office - that it was 'not worth a bucket of warm piss.' Cheney was too much of a patriot to act on that knowledge."

Before settling on Cheney, Rove writes that Bush considered nine other candidates: Govs. Tom Ridge of Pennsylvania, Frank Keating of Oklahoma, and John Engler of Michigan; Sens. Jon Kyl of Arizona, Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, and Bill Frist and Fred Thompson of Tennessee; former Sen. John Danforth of Missouri and former Gov. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee.

I think Bush made the right call. Those other guys would have been strong candidates, but what we didn't know at the time was how much we'd need a guy with Cheney's Defense Department background when 9/11 happened.

Karl Rove: I Made a Mistake on Iraq

Karl Rove's new book will have some surprising revelations:

Political strategist Karl Rove says President George W.
Bush made the right decision to launch the Iraq war in 2003, but the former White House adviser admits the failure to find weapons of mass destruction badly damaged the administration's credibility.

In his new memoir, "Courage and Consequence," Rove blames himself for not pushing back against claims that Bush had taken the country to war under false pretenses, calling it one of the worst mistakes he made during the Bush presidency.

Rove says Bush did not knowingly mislead the American public about the existence of such weapons.

It should be a good read. You can order your copy at the link above.

The 2010 Senate Map

Karl Rove takes a look at the 2010 Senate elections and sees some big changes:

A much bigger version is available at this link. Bottom line - Dems lose 8 seats but retain control with 51 members of the Dem caucus (both independents will likely caucus with the Dems).

This assumes that both California and New York stay in Dem hands, but I still think Barbara "Dumb-as-a-Box-of-Rocks" is still very beatable. Gillibrand in New York also looks weak if the GOP can come up with a good candidate. And although Rove gives Wisconsin solidly to the Dems, that position could be a little shaky too.

Obama's Secret Language

In order to fully understand Barack Obama (and for that matter, Sonia Sotomayor) one must learn a new secret language. You must always understand that what's said today will mean different things in the future. Karl Rove points out the difficulty in comprehending what Obama is trying to tell us:

So what's a president to do when the promises he made about his economic stimulus program fail to materialize? If you're Barack Obama, you redefine your goals and act as if America won't remember what you said originally. That's a neat trick if you can get away with it, but Mr. Obama won't. His words are a matter of public record and he will be held to them.

When it came to the stimulus package, the president and his administration promised, in the words of National Economic Director Larry Summers, "You'll see the effects begin almost immediately." Now it's clear that those promised jobs and growth haven't materialized.

So Mr. Obama is attempting to lower expectations retroactively, saying in an op-ed in Sunday's Washington Post that his stimulus "was, from the start, a two-year program." That is misleading. Mr. Obama never said if his stimulus were passed things might still get significantly worse in the following year.

In February, Mr. Obama said this about the goals of his stimulus package: "I think my initial measure of success is creating or saving four million jobs." He later explained the stimulus's $787 billion would "go directly to . . . generating three to four million new jobs." And his Council of Economic Advisors issued an official analysis showing that the unemployment rate would top out in the third quarter of this year at just over 8%.

That quarter began on July 1, and unemployment is now 9.5%, up from 7.6% when Mr. Obama took office. There are 2.6 million fewer Americans working than there were on the day Mr. Obama was sworn in. The president says now that unemployment will exceed 10% this year, and his advisers say it will remain high through much of next year.

Earlier this year, Mr. Obama assured us that most of the stimulus money "will go out the door immediately." But it hasn't. Only about 7.7% of the stimulus has been spent in the six months since its passage, and more of it will be spent in the program's last eight years than in its first year. So now the president claims he said something different. "We also knew that it would take some time for the money to get out the door," Mr. Obama said in his weekly radio address on Saturday.

You have to assume one of two things - either Obama is changing his story to meet current realities, or he lied to us from the start. I imagine there's a little of both going on.

You can read the rest of Karl's piece here.

Karl Rove Sticks Another Fork in Nancy Pelosi

Her tenure as Speaker is looking more and more tenuous:

So is the speaker of the House lying about what she knew and when? And, if so, what will Democrats do about it?

If Mrs. Pelosi considers the enhanced interrogation techniques to be torture, didn't she have a responsibility to complain at the time, introduce legislation to end the practices, or attempt to deny funding for the CIA's use of them? If she knew what was going on and did nothing, does that make her an accessory to a crime of torture, as many Democrats are calling enhanced interrogation?

Senate Judiciary Chairman Pat Leahy wants an independent investigation of Bush administration officials. House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers feels the Justice Department should investigate and prosecute anyone who violated laws against committing torture. Are these and other similarly minded Democrats willing to have Mrs. Pelosi thrown into their stew of torture conspirators as an accomplice?

It is clear that after the 9/11 attacks Mrs. Pelosi was briefed on enhanced interrogation techniques and the valuable information they produced. She not only agreed with what was being done, she apparently pressed the CIA to do more.

But when political winds shifted, Mrs. Pelosi seems to have decided to use enhanced interrogation as an issue to attack Republicans. It is disgraceful that Democrats who discovered their outrage years after the fact are now braying for disbarment of the government lawyers who justified EITs and the prosecution of Bush administration officials who authorized them. Mrs. Pelosi is hip-deep in dangerous waters, and they are rapidly rising.

You live by political correctness and you die by political correctness. There are plenty of Democrats in the House who would love to see Pelosi moved out of the way, and there are those in positions of power at the White House who wouldn't mind tossing her aside too (see Emanual, Rahm).

She may have blustered her way into early retirement.