The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

‘The Demagogic Bloggers on the Right’

Posted on | November 13, 2010 | 287 Comments

Frequent commenter “Joe” calls our attention to Patterico’s dig at Jeff Goldstein (and unnamed others) in which the prosecutor endeavors to play the Instapundit card:

Now that Glenn has said the same thing the “pragmatic” conservatives are saying, will the blogospheric demagogues who seek out Mark Levin’s favor put Glenn Reynolds on the list of “pragmatic” conservatives whom they bash on a regular basis?
I boldly predict they will not. They need his traffic. So, even if he’s saying the exact same thing as I am, they won’t bash Instapundit.
The demagogic bloggers on the right are happy to be pure when it comes to the fate of the country. But when it comes to their own self-interest, I suspect they will be a little more . . . pragmatic.

This is absurd. Professor Reynolds did not say “the same thing the ‘pragmatic’ conservatives are saying.” Professor Reynolds has been an out-front supporter of the Tea Party movement from Day One — which is certainly not what any soi-dissant “pragmatic” conservatives have ever said, or are saying now, or are ever likely to say in the future.

In reacting to Professor Reynolds’ supposed endorsement of “pragmatism” (the word, as Patterico uses it, demands scare-quotes), I said: “Busting the balls of the Establishment is a process not an event.”

This was not merely a joke. The Tea Party has made activists of conservative-leaning people who had been content to limit their civic engagement to showing up on Election Day and otherwise let the Establishment control the political process. Believing that such passive participants in the process would vote for any candidate with an “R” beside his name, the Establishment blatantly attempted to rig primaries in favor of insiders without regard for any discernible political principle.

This was the meaning of my GOP operative friend’s comment shortly after the NRSC endorsed Charlie Crist in May 2009: “All they care about is getting their chairmanships back, and they don’t care how they get there.”

From the standpoint of Republican senators eager to wield the chairmen’s gavels and enjoy the other perks of majority status, anything that got them to 51 seats was wonderful — and to hell with the promising career of young conservative Marco Rubio.

Remember: When the NRSC endorsed Crist, a Mason Dixon poll showed Crist beating Rubio by 35 points. In the ensuing five months, there were six more polls, none of which showed Crist leading by less than 22 points. The average of the first seven polls in the Florida GOP Senate primary was Crist +29.4%:

At that point, “pragmatists” might have said Rubio’s challenge to the GOP Establishment was hopeless, and I’m sure they chuckled at the folly of “demagogic” conservatives a couple months later when it was announced that Crist’s fundraising had outpaced Rubio by a factor of more than 12-to-1:

Crist announced [July 9, 2009] that in just 50 days he raised an eye-popping $4.3 million for his U.S. Senate campaign. That not only dwarfs the previous Florida Senate fundraising record set by Republican Mel Martinez — $1.7 million in his first fundraising period in 2004 — but it highlights the huge hurdles for Republican Senate rival Marco Rubio, who raised just $340,000 in the same period.

All the smart money was Charlie, you see, and by the end of September 2009, Crist’s fundraising total had reached $6.7 million, compared to less than $1.4 million for Rubio. A mid-October poll showed Crist still leading by 24 points:

“This poll shows that the Gov. Crist beats his challenger handily, and the Governor also has an extremely high approval rating . . .
“It appears that Republican voters are quite satisfied with Governor Crist’s management of the affairs of Florida and approve of his campaign for the U.S. Senate. . . . His numbers would be the envy of any candidate.”

Why were those “demagogic bloggers” continuing to back Rubio against the “pragmatic” Crist? How could Rubio possibly hope to overcome such enormous disadvantages?

It would take a miracle for Rubio to beat Crist — and he got one, from an entirely unexpected direction.

Marco Rubio may have never heard of Saranac Lake, N.Y., and he probably never imagined that the startling courage of a geeky accountant would provide the spark that lit the fuse that finally blew up Charlie Crist’s campaign.

It was Wednesday, Oct. 14, when Lisa De Pasquale organized a conference call with about a dozen bloggers who heard Doug Hoffman explain how the GOP had picked Dede Scozzafava for the NY-23 special election: “It was an anointment . . . The party bosses, the lords of the backroom, made this selection.”

Two days later, on Oct. 16, Michelle Malkin condemned Scozzafava as an “abomination” and urged her readers: “Fight the GOP Beltway establishment. Contribute to Doug Hoffman today.” On Oct. 22, Dick Armey of Freedomworks endorsed Hoffman: 

“Doug saw the need to have a conservative in this race and stepped into the race. I believe that instantaneously made him the front-runner.”
— Dick Armey, Oct. 22, 2009

A few hours later that same day, Sarah Palin endorsed Hoffman. On Oct. 31, Scozzafava quit. On Nov. 1, Scozzafava endorsed the Democrat, Bill Owens. Two nights later, in the ballroom of the Hotel Saranac, I watched a courageous man struggle to hold back tears as he gave his concession speech.

“This one was worth the fight. . . . And this is only one fight in the battle.”
— Doug Hoffman, Nov. 3, 2009

Just “one fight in the battle,” and some were shrewd enough to see the significance of that fight.

“For all intents and purposes, NY-23 is a trial run for Florida.”
— Erick Erickson, Nov. 4, 2009

“Demagogic bloggers,” you see, were going to carry this fight against the Establishment as far as they could, come hell or high water.

And then the tide turned in the Florida primary: A mid-November poll showed Rubio closing the gap to 10 points, and a December poll showed Crist and Rubio tied at 43 each.

Meanwhile, there was a guy driving around in a truck telling people he wanted to be their next senator.

The weird thing was, this was in Massachusetts. This was the Senate seat held for more than four decades by Ted Kennedy. And this guy from Wrentham was a Republican.

“Let them take a look at what happened in Massachusetts, because what happened here in Massachusetts can happen all over America.”
— Scott Brown, Jan. 19, 2009

Indeed, if Scott Brown could win in Massachusetts on the basis of promising to be the “41st vote” in the Senate against ObamaCare, anything was possible. And a week after Brown’s victory in Massachusetts, on Jan. 26, 2010, Quinnipiac University released a poll that — for the first time — showed Marco Rubio leading Charlie Crist in the Florida primary.

Three months later, with polls showing Crist trailing Rubio by an RCP average 22.8 points among GOP primary voters, Charlie Crist quit the Republican Party.

Am I the only one who sees a narrative arc here?

Dede Scozzafava. Charlie Crist. Mike Castle.

What connects these three names in my mind is that, in each case, the GOP Establishment tried to handpick the candidate. And in each case, the choice was defended with the “electability” argument: These RINOs can win!

Yeah. Way to go, geniuses.

To those three examples, we might add the bizarre and anomalous situation in Alaska, where a sitting Republican senator lost the GOP primary and then mounted an apparently successful write-in campaign.

But let’s not get into that story just now. What about Delaware? It was my colleague Smitty who first blogged here about the Christine O’Donnell campaign in March. Matt Moran, who had managed the Hoffman campaign in NY-23, was O’Donnell’s campaign manager, but it wasn’t until July that I took notice:

O’Donnell has important support from conservative New Media, including endorsements from Red State’s Erick Erickson and Pamela Geller of Atlas Shrugs, and was featured last month on Mark Levin’s popular radio show. Last week, she picked up the endorsement of the pro-life Susan B. Anthony list, which may help O’Donnell close the fund-raising gap with Castle (according to the June 30 FEC report, he had more than $2.6 million cash on hand.)
With the Sept. 14 primary now less than two months away, some O’Donnell supporters are beginning to ask a question that has proven crucial in other GOP primaries: “Where’s Sarah Palin?”

I then spent three days at Right Online shadowing O’Donnell and her campaign staff, and it appeared that the stars were once more aligning, as we’d seen them align before, to help an underdog score an upset victory over the Establishment. And indeed, as O’Donnell’s supporters had hoped, Palin did make a crucial endorsement and O’Donnell did beat Castle in the primary.

As to what happened after O’Donnell won the primary, I offered my campaign post-mortem Wednesday in response to Patterico’s attempt to pit Michelle Malkin against Mark Levin. Now, three days later, Patterico’s trying to pull a similar trick to pit Professor Reynolds against “demagogic bloggers,” requiring this extensive response.

To repeat: Busting the balls of the Establishment is a process not an event, and this ball-busting process will continue — it must continue — without regard to whether Patterico understands it or endorses it.

Patterico evidently wants to shut down the ball-busting process — to declare that Dan Riehl and Mark Levin and other ball-busters are irresponsible “demagogues” — so that the Establishment can go back to re-arranging the deck chairs on the GOP Titanic.

This isn’t 2003-2005. The GOP isn’t riding high in the saddle with control of the White House and both chambers of Congress. The Republican Party reached its low ebb of 2008 by following the advice of Karl Rove and others who thought they were The Smartest Guys in the Room. The establishmentarian political style of the Bush era isn’t going to defeat the Obama Machine, and Republicans aren’t going to win future battles by promising a return to the status quo ante.

People are sick and tired of that same old politics-as-usual crap. If John Boehner and Mitch McConnell try to shovel the usual Establishment crap in the 112th Congress, the result on Nov. 6, 2012, is going to be a helluva lot more disappointing than the loss of a single Senate seat in Delaware.

The Republican Party “brand damage” problem, a legacy of the Bush era, is not going to be repaired by nominating unprincipled career politicians, whether those politicians are 71-year-olds who’ve held public office since LBJ was president or 54-year-olds with Permatans. 

Say what you will about Mitt Romney, at least he’s got some meaningful private-sector experience. But if you want a successful businessman for the 2012 GOP nomination, how about a dark horse?

“We’ve got some altering and abolishing to do!”

Yeah: Herman Cain. Having backed a few can’t-possibly-win underdogs in the past couple of years — I went all-in for Rubio when he was 35 points down — I’m taking a long, hard look at that dark horse. It might not be the “pragmatic” thing to do, but I’m thinking a few “blogospheric demagogues” might be in a mood to really bust some balls for 2012. 

There was a press release a few days ago inviting “all of the leading contenders” to Simi Valley for a debate this coming spring, and surely they would not disinvite Herman Cain, eh?

Or should I say . . . Heh?

UPDATE: Weirdness in the comments below, but nothing like the weirdness in the comments at Protein Wisdom.

To any troll who thinks it funny to provoke Jeff G.: You really wouldn’t want to see Jeff G. when he’s angry.

I’ve seen him slightly irritated. 

That was terrifying, and he wasn’t even irritated at me.

UPDATE II: Let me be clear that I have not deleted any comments on this thread, unless it was somebody promoting herbal penis enlargement or something. Smitty installed the Disqus commenting system, which I barely even know how to operate, and now he’s off somewhere doing top-secret Navy super-ninja training for Afghanistan. Maybe the system auto-moderated your comment, or maybe I accidentally clicked the wrong button on Disqus, but otherwise I’m sure that nothing has been deleted.

Oh, in case you didn’t notice: Once there are a certain number of comments on a post, Disqus creates new pages. We’re now up to nine pages of comments on this, which makes it the most-commented post since Champagne Dream.

Category: Christine O'Donnell, Doug Hoffman, Herman Cain, Instapundit, Marco Rubio, Protein Wisdom, Tea Party

Comments

287 Responses to “‘The Demagogic Bloggers on the Right’”

  1. Anonymous
    November 13th, 2010 @ 3:32 pm

    “actually brought other Senate Candidate’s down. ”

    That’s utter nonsense. Look at all the Tea Party victories all over the country, in congressional and state races. Senate alone, you had Rand Paul in Kentucky, Marco Rubio in Florida, Ron Johnson here in Wisconsin. Rob Portman in Ohio. Etc. Etc. Etc.

    If you’re going to cite Colorado and Nevada, you also have to cite the existence of Democrat voter fraud (SEIU and illegal aliens in NV, Mi Familia in CO) and wonder if those results are legitimate. Neither one matched the polling data, and there’s been enough circumstantial evidence to suspect the Democrats and George Soros stole those two seats.

    Then let’s look at Mexifornia, shall we? Two Vichy Republican candidates handpicked by the Establishment went down in flames, spending a ton of their own money (after all, only self-funded candidates can win, right?). A pair of old fossils are returned to statewide office in races that could have been won with real conservatives.

    The GOP bench in blue states isn’t very deep, in no small part due to the national party writing them off and the state parties thinking they need to recruit progressive lite candidates in order to win. The Karl Rove approach.

    You cannot advance conservatism by electing progressives with R’s behind their names. A progressive is a anti-American turd merchant whether it has a D or an R behind the name.

    And yes, the likes of Charlie Crist, Dede Scozzafava and Mike Castle are progressive turd merchants.

  2. Demosthenes9
    November 13th, 2010 @ 5:09 pm

    There’s one huge issue that people seem to miss in looking at Patterico’s position, as well as that of the guys over at Powerline and other places.

    They AREN’T saying that the establishment shouldn’t be challenged. What they are saying, is that if the “challenge” is a non-electable, borderline whack job, then perhaps the pragmatic thing to do is to vote for the RINO.

    It’s hilarious that those against this position keep citing Scott Brown of Massachusetts. You know, the guy who went against the party and voted for cloture on the unemployment extension benefits ?

    Hell, just do a Google search for “Scott Brown RINO” and see for yourself.

    IF an electable Conservative like Allen West, or Miller n Alaska, or Rubio in Florida are in the race, sure, by all means support them and get them elected into office.

    But, here’s the fundamental calculation. An ELECTED Conservative > An ELECTED RINO > An ELECTED Liberal Democrat.

    IF the Conservative is NOT electable for a number of reasons, then swallow the pill.

    Look at O’Donnell in RI. What on earth in her background would give people reason to vote for her ? She has no accomplishments what so ever.

    Rubio ?? “Majority Whip, Majority Leader and Speaker of the House” in Florida, i.e. a proven record. Also, he has a “compelling narrative” as pundits might say.

    Miller in Alaska ? West Point Grad. Served in the US Army. Yale law degree.

    West in Florida ? LTC in the US. Army. Served in Iraq. Has demonstrated leadership ability.

    O’Donnell ? ——- Fill in the blank if you can find something other than “well, she says some things that we like”.

    Hell, much has been made of the Buckley rule but let’s actually look at it. Choose the most Conservative person who IS ELECTABLE.

    Miller in Alaska ? Electable.
    Rubio in Florida ? Electable.
    West in Florida ? Electable .
    O’Donnell in RI ? NOT ELECTABLE !!

    RS McCain, you MIGHT have a point if Patterico had been out there saying that we should support all the hand chosen establishment candidates.

    BUT, you won’t find where Patterico said that because he DIDN’T say it.

    What you and others have done is to completely misunderstand the argument and to twist it into meaning something that it never was.

  3. Jeff Goldstein
    November 13th, 2010 @ 9:24 pm

    Ooh. I get sooo hard when you go into full-on cross-examination mode.

    You are a joke. A raging hypocrite playing silly gotcha games. And everyone knows it.

  4. Joe
    November 13th, 2010 @ 11:02 pm

    Saturday Night Live with Pat and Jeff

  5. Joe
    November 13th, 2010 @ 11:32 pm

    Now John Hitchcock is running me down at McCain’s.

    Did he ever come back and respond to my answer to his critique?

    No, he did not.

    Comment by Patterico — 11/13/2010 @ 7:00 pm

    John: Pat sends hearts and hugs.

  6. Pablo
    November 13th, 2010 @ 11:33 pm

    “Pablo, I think you are referring to something I said to you in a conversation you assured me would be private but then published on the Internet, correct?”

    No, Patrick, I’m referring to your published work. Aside from what you told me you were going to do to Jeff, does the name Levi Juhl ring a bell, dirtbag? But your thinking that making such comments off the record makes them kosher is…revealing. To those who don’t already know what you are. And for those who don’t already know what you are, I’ll direct them to everything they need to know about how I violated your farging rights. Bastige.

  7. Jeff Goldstein
    November 14th, 2010 @ 12:12 am

    I set out to get a Levin link? What the hell are you talking about?

    I don’t send out emails asking for links, and with all due respect to Mr Levin I’ve been showing you up to be a grade-A douche since before he ever had the misfortune of stumbling into your weird obsessions and distorted idea of “honor.”

    And let me add this: we already KNOW why you are doing this — trying to run me down in public, much like you do all those who you perceive have crossed you or pose a threat of some sort. Hell, you did it to Stacy McCain with your infamous “I’m not saying he’s a racist, just that he says racist things, and besides, has he stopped beating his wife yet? READER POLL!” – posting.

    You think that Levin’s readers don’t already have you pegged? You think they don’t see you here trying to make a big deal out of my standing up to a guy who I first tried banning over 100 x before finally letting him know what I’d do to him if I met him — and that only AFTER he posted about my son having cancer, and posted it AS ME?

    Look: we know that you like to try to game Google. We know you’ve tried to Google bomb me, we know you’ve engaged in a years’ long back channel effort to have me frozen out of conservative circles, we know that you like to blow smoke up the asses of the big traffic sites while simultaneously trafficking in vile insinuation and out and out falsehoods in order to bring down those who dare question you.

    What you DON’T seem to know is that we KNOW all this about you, and that each new time you engage in such behavior, more and more people catch on to just who you are.

    You backed the wrong horses politically, and now you’re showing your ass again personally when called on it.

    It’s great theater, frankly. In the way a car wreck can be titillating to the average rubbernecker.

    But so long as we’re into telling the truth about people, have a look, folks! This is the kind of thing Frey likes to do in the shadows — and as you can see from his response to Pablo, below, he’s not happy when his slimy, petty machinations are illuminated.

  8. Serr8d
    November 14th, 2010 @ 10:28 am

    I wonder…how many Deputy District Attorneys across this great nation actually perform in such public seedy squabble spectacles, fighting internet blog wars like this one and all the others, stretching now over a span of years, involving alcohol at the very least, and getting progressively worse as time passes, even drawing the attention of Mark Levin ?

    None who want to actually rise above Deputy District Attorney, I’ll wager. I’d guess there’s not going to be a nominating committee contemplating promoting this backstabbing anal pore Patrick Frey to a higher level anytime soon. “Strong words in the staff room” might be a fate not limited to Dr. Yelverton’s hearing. But Yelverton has tenure; Frey, not so much.

    Only in California could such an ‘overpaid civil servant‘ get away with such histrionics.

    Patrick Frey, are you not concerned about your future? Stand down and STFU.

    Might be too late for that: g00gle is forever.

  9. darleenclick
    November 14th, 2010 @ 11:20 am

    I don’t believe it, Pat, that you have sunk so low as to compare Fr*sch’s alleged behavior toward you with what happened to JeffG and his family and attempt to declare Jeff’s handling of an obviously disturbed being and the family members who directly enabled and assisted in her criminal behavior was wrong!!

    What fucking chutzpah! You are contemptable.

  10. Serr8d
    November 14th, 2010 @ 11:56 am

    Patrick Frey, Deputy District Attorney of Los Angeles, California. Seldom have I encountered a more wretched drive(r) of scum and villainy.

    Just how many other DDA’s across this Nation are behaving in such an irrational and career-threatening manner? I thought it was over-the-top a year ago when you drunk-blogged your way through December, spending hours in the comment section of pw with your self-serving rants. This is only worsened my opinion of you.

    Does anything think the word ‘Deputy’ is going to go away anytime soon?

    You, Frey, called Dr. Yelverton a ‘non-entity’. What makes you, Frey, an ‘entity’? At least Yelverton has tenure, doesn’t have to worry about his future. You, given your retched behavior as an ‘overpaid California civil servant’ who ‘need[s] to be confronted’ (Mark Levin, a real-live ENTITY), will be lucky to keep your current job, much less get a promotion anytime soon.

    Because, you know, g00gle is forever.

  11. Serr8d
    November 14th, 2010 @ 12:05 pm

    Because, you know, g00gle is forever.

  12. Jeff Goldstein
    November 14th, 2010 @ 2:11 pm

    Some more!

    Is it any wonder people like Radley Balko run screaming from this douche?

  13. Jeff Goldstein
    November 14th, 2010 @ 2:19 pm

    This is an oldie but goodie, too.

    You see, people, this newest pretend outrage is nothing new for Frey. In fact, it is just Patterico being his obsessive, persistent, vindictive self.

    Couple that with his widely-noted last word syndrome, and voila! You get this thread!

    Don’t be too hard on him, though. He can’t help it. It’s who he is.

  14. Jeff Goldstein
    November 14th, 2010 @ 2:30 pm

    Oh, he did have plans for me, this honorable Mr Frey…

  15. Patterico
    November 14th, 2010 @ 3:11 pm

    That was not an attempt to Google bomb you, but an attempt to direct readers’ attention to your tendency to issue violent threats, primarily on posts where you had slandered me.

    Before I did that, you had first written approximately a dozen posts about me. Most contained my name, combining my name with the words “anti-Semitic” and my job title, in an explicitly labeled attempt to Google bomb me. You then went back and linked those posts in dozens of posts all over your site, OCD style, again in an explicit attempt to Google bomb me.

    THEN, in each and every single one of the comments I left linking your violent threats, you went back and altered the links, with no notice, to a different link (one in which I had threatened to tell the truth about you). In other words, you changed my comments without notice.

    And you did it, in true OCD fashion, to every single one of those comments.

    Rewriting comments is something you do to any commenter you don’t like, on a regular basis. People should know this about you. You rewrite the comments of people you don’t like.

    You out people who insult you, because hey, if someone’s first initial and last name appear in their e-mail address, and they use a mean word to refer to you, then they are subject to being outed, per your ethics as disclosed in this thread. As you prepare to move to a registration system for commenting, this is something that people probably should know about you.

    You threaten the lives of people who are assholes to you on the Internet. Then you pretend you didn’t. That you were just using the word “kill” the way we speak of a comedian “killing” onstage. Which is your most laughable lie yet.

    Sure. When you threatened to “fucking kill” a commenter who had just talked about your son having bone cancer, you really meant you were going to tell him jokes.

    Lie.

    You are a liar. And a bad one. That was one of your worst yet.

  16. Patterico
    November 14th, 2010 @ 4:12 pm

    It is a good post in many ways. My only problem with it, as I stated in my original comment, is that it seems to associate me with Scozzafava, Crist, Murkowski, et al. I called Scozzafava a turncoat. You won’t find a word on my site supportive of Crist but you’ll find posts supportive of Rubio. I have set forth a solid legal analysis for Joe Miller that rejects intentionalism (a position that Goldstein actually agrees with, and which is not intentionalist, his 40,000 words of screeching to the contrary notwithstanding). And so on.

    I absolutely believe we have to bust the balls of the Establishment. I will never understand how the race of a single person in Delaware with problems telling the truth somehow became a proxy for whether someone supports limited government or taking it to the Establishment.

    My problems with O’Donnell were always based on her lack of honesty. Again: she lied about how many counties she won against Biden. Even if you ignore the Zoominfo/LinkedIn controversy she misrepresented her academic record in several ways. In my opinion, she would have ended up in some major scandal as a Senator and would have dragged down honest conservatives with her.

    You don’t have to agree with me on this. Just don’t paint me as a supporter of Crist, Scozzafava, or Murkowski.

  17. Joe
    November 14th, 2010 @ 4:23 pm

    It is so much more honorable to allude to private correspondence:

    Most of the support I get is of the quiet e-mailed variety. Most people don’t want to go on record opposing these character assassins. They have seen what they are capable of. I won’t say who writes but you might be surprised.

    Comment by Patterico — 11/13/2010 @ 6:12 pm

  18. Daleyrocks
    November 14th, 2010 @ 5:08 pm

    Stacy – Good post although I’m not sure what rehashing your history of involvement with the midterms has to do with what Patterico has been saying.

    “To repeat: Busting the balls of the Establishment is a process not an event, and this ball-busting process will continue”

    Hey, that sounds similar to what Reynolds said and does not actually contradict anything Patterico has said.

    “Patterico evidently wants to shut down the ball-busting process — to declare that Dan Riehl and Mark Levin and other ball-busters are irresponsible “demagogues” – so that the Establishment can go back to re-arranging the deck chairs on the GOP Titanic.”

    I think Patterico, like Reynolds, is concerned over unnecessary circular firing squads doing damage to conservative efforts, not as a means of reinforcing Establishment positions. That interpretation is so far off that it makes me think you have not read many of his posts.

    The Levin and Riehl objections are based on factual errors in their posts and the juvenile nature of their smears. Riehl speculating the Mirengoff dodged the draft without any evidence? Seriously?

    You are usually better than this Stacy.

  19. Anonymous
    November 14th, 2010 @ 6:22 pm

    What a nice little pissing contest.

    On the subject of death threats, sorry Jeff, you did indeed make a specific threat to a specific person in regards to something that they said. That’s wildly different than “kill them all” or some generic throwaway comment.

    Now, would I have done the same thing in your shoes ? ABSOLUTELY. But, instead of ducking, weaving, and spinning, I’d come right out and admit it. Then I’d offer an explanation as to why and let people judge for themselves whether it was irrational, wrong, or completely justified and understandable.

    Now, onto the actual issue of McCain’s post. It seems that McCain and others really have misunderstood what Patterico, the guys at Powerline, Ace, and others are saying.

    Your interpretation is that they are saying not to question to establishment. To accept whatever candidates they hand pick.

    That just simply isn’t the case. What they are saying is that Republicans AND Conservatives should nominate ELECTABLE people, not just go for the most Conservative person in the race.

    Look at Allen West in Florida. He was a LTC in the US. Army. Has tons of charisma. Has demonstrated leadership ability.

    He has a Masters from Kansas State and Masters of Military Arts and Sciences from the U.S. Army Command and General Staff Officer College.

    As for awards, he was awarded the Bronze Star; Meritorious Service Medal; (two Oak Leaf Clusters); Army Commendation Medal (two Oak Leaf Clusters, one Valor Device) amongst others.

    Lastly, he served in both Operation Desert Storm and Operation Iraqi Freedom (Both Iraq / Gulf wars).

    Hell, what’s not to like about the guy ? That’s one hell of an impressive resume !!

    Next, Marco Rubio. Son of Cuban exiles. Holds a BS in Polticial Science from the Univ. of Florida and a J.D. cum laude from the Univ. of Miami.

    He was City Commissioner before becoming a member of the Florida House of Reps. In 2006, he was elected Speaker of the House in Florida.

    Again, a very impressive resume.

    On to Mr. Miller up in Alaska.

    B.S. in Political Science from West Point. Served in the US. Army for 3 years, was a tank platoon commander in the First Gulf War and was awarded the Bronze star.

    What do these candidates have in common ? IMPRESSIVE resumes. Something where you can look at their accomplishments and actions and say “Damn, I want them to represent me”.

    Contrast that with Christine O’Donnell ?

    Again, the problem wasn’t that O’Donnell was a “tea party candidate” and a stick in the eye of the “establishment”. Rather, the problem is that she was a LOUSY CANDIDATE who didn’t stand a chance of being elected.

    I’d be willing to bet that if anyone like West, Rubio or even Miller had been running in DE, none of us “rationalists” would have had a problem with them getting the nomination.

    THAT is the argument being made.

  20. Pablo
    November 14th, 2010 @ 6:51 pm

    If it’s any help, here’s another one detailing yours.

  21. Daleyrocks
    November 14th, 2010 @ 7:12 pm

    Good post Stacy. I am at a loss, however, to understand how recounting you involvement in the midterm elections proves or disproves your thesis on Reynolds and Patterico.

    “To repeat: Busting the balls of the Establishment is a process not an event, and this ball-busting process will continue”

    Reynolds essentially said this and I don’t think you would find evidence of Patterico disagreeing, even though you seem predisposed to think in that direction. Patterico’s positions, with which you do not seem very familiar, are not to automatically entrench the establishment.

    “Patterico evidently wants to shut down the ball-busting process — to declare that Dan Riehl and Mark Levin and other ball-busters are irresponsible “demagogues””

    I think what bothers Reynolds and Patterico about Riehl and Levin is the unnecessary nature of the circular firing squads created by them. Riehl and Levin’s posts have been childish and packed wirh factual errors. Riehl smearing Paul Mirengoff for dodging the draft without any evidence sounds like it came straight out of Media Matters. Levin calling Patterico an overpaid civil servant blogging on the taxpayer’s dime speaks for itself. Demagogues or principled conservatives? You make the call.

    You are usually better than this Stacy.

  22. Daleyrocks
    November 14th, 2010 @ 7:30 pm

    Good post Stacy. I am at a loss, however, to understand how recounting you involvement in the midterm elections proves or disproves your thesis on Reynolds and Patterico.

    “To repeat: Busting the balls of the Establishment is a process not an event, and this ball-busting process will continue”

    Reynolds essentially said this and I don’t think you would find evidence of Patterico disagreeing, even though you seem predisposed to think in that direction. Patterico’s positions, with which you do not seem very familiar, are not to automatically entrench the establishment.

    “Patterico evidently wants to shut down the ball-busting process — to declare that Dan Riehl and Mark Levin and other ball-busters are irresponsible “demagogues””

    I think what bothers Reynolds and Patterico about Riehl and Levin is the unnecessary nature of the circular firing squads created by them. Riehl and Levin’s posts have been childish and packed wirh factual errors. Riehl smearing Paul Mirengoff for dodging the draft without any evidence sounds like it came straight out of Media Matters. Levin calling Patterico an overpaid civil servant blogging on the taxpayer’s dime speaks for itself. Demagogues or principled conservatives? You make the call.

    You are usually better than this Stacy.

  23. John Hitchcock
    November 14th, 2010 @ 8:00 pm

    Ah, yes, that old complaint about Christians who *gasp* actually espouse Christian values in public! How dare those Christians do that!

    I am a Christian Conservative. I am a Christian first, a Conservative second and a Republican third, but only because there is no viable Conservative party at present. But, due to the TEA Party movement, it appears that may well be changing.

    Yep, I’m a “bitter clinger.” I cling to my Bible and my guns and I know how to put both to their proper uses. Resentful? That is a lie, of course.

    About the rest of the ad hom from the weak-minded nk, he knows full well that I am my daughter’s “alternate parenting plan” since she is a SGT in the US Army and she has a son. I sold my great-grandmother’s house, which I owned, so I could move 1200 miles away to support my daughter. Nothing resentful there. I do not sleep on a couch. I lost my full-time job in Nov, 2008, and have not found a permanent replacement in this economy. It is what it is.

    But nk is a vengeful, hate-filled liar. Nothing new there, either.

  24. Daleyrocks
    November 14th, 2010 @ 11:06 pm

    Good post Stacy. I am at a loss, however, to understand how recounting you involvement in the midterm elections proves or disproves your thesis on Reynolds and Patterico.

    “To repeat: Busting the balls of the Establishment is a process not an event, and this ball-busting process will continue”

    Reynolds essentially said this and I don’t think you would find evidence of Patterico disagreeing, even though you seem predisposed to think in that direction. Patterico’s positions, with which you do not seem very familiar, are not to automatically entrench the establishment.

    “Patterico evidently wants to shut down the ball-busting process — to declare that Dan Riehl and Mark Levin and other ball-busters are irresponsible “demagogues””

    I think what bothers Reynolds and Patterico about Riehl and Levin is the unnecessary nature of the circular firing squads created by them. Riehl and Levin’s posts have been childish and packed wirh factual errors. Riehl smearing Paul Mirengoff for dodging the draft without any evidence sounds like it came straight out of Media Matters. Levin calling Patterico an overpaid civil servant blogging on the taxpayer’s dime speaks for itself. Demagogues or principled conservatives? You make the call.

    You are usually better than this Stacy.

  25. Dustin
    November 14th, 2010 @ 11:23 pm

    “Patterico evidently wants to shut down the ball-busting process — to declare that Dan Riehl and Mark Levin and other ball-busters are irresponsible “demagogues” – so that the Establishment can go back to re-arranging the deck chairs on the GOP Titanic.”What’s your evidence that Patterico wants to shut down this process?He’s pointing out that Instapundit’s point, regarding not demanding perfection, is useful. I think this point is the best argument for not targeting Mike Castle, or Chris Christie, or Scott Brown.Pretending Patterico is supporting that list of RINOs RSM lists in this post is incredibly unfair. I think RSM should clarify or correct.I know there’s a lot of bad blood between Jeff G and Patterico. I think Jeff’s been unbelievably unfair to someone who has tried to get the discussion to a more honest and respectable place repeatedly and been rebuffed. I’m sure a lot of people equate Patterico noting O’donnell’s defects (in other words, making truthful points) with the kind of crap Patterico has taken from a lot of nuts. If so, click through and actually think about what Patterico was trying to say.As best as I can tell, RSM’s long response is totally off base, and complains about things Patterico didn’t do. It completely distorts and also conflates to a ridiculous degree.I remember accusing RSM of racism, and being rebuffed by Patterico because my claims were assumptions based on my interpretation of comments about how natural it would be to reject my mixed race heritage. He tried to be extremely fair to RSM’s troubling comments (which I realize are ancient history and I do not hold against RSM). I can’t recall the exact comment I quoted, but it wasn’t just the famous one, but rather one which was overtly racist and one Patterico insisted was sarcasm.That’s why I think RSM should reconsider his view of Patterico. Sometimes he is sober about inconvenient facts. He refuses to pretend O’Donnell is honest (she isn’t, though I don’t want to bash the poor woman). Just as with the RSM discussion, most of Jeff G’s strange little crew of character assassins were insisting the entire discussion must not take place at all.I don’t really care that much what Prof. Reynolds’s opinion is of this, and I don’t want to pretend to speak for him, but he links a lot of stuff he doesn’t necessarily agree with. I’ve NEVER seen him demand someone shut up. I’ve seen that demand on Patterico’s blog for a long time. I think this entire spat is because people tried to force conservatives to shut up about O’Donnell’s problems.RSM: don’t try to shut down the ball-busting process by piling on here. Patterico speaking his mind, right or wrong, is not shutting down the process. You know quite well that Dan Reihl is an irreponsible demogogue. For Chrissake, Dan, said Castle voted to impeach Bush (yeah, I know, a lot of Jeff G readers actually still believe this irresponsible demogogeury). We do NOT need a crew of corrupt politicians who merely give lip service to the Tea Party. The only way to avoid it is MORE speech, which these demogogues are trying to shut down. O’Donnell was running for the US Senate and that’s why she was scrutinized. It had nothing to do with ensuring the ‘establishment’ stays RINO.Anyhow, I’m not trying to insult Dan or RSM or Jeff G. I think it’s important that we find a way to disagree without being horrible to eachother so that we avoid what happened in DE. We can do better than Castle and we can do better than O’Donnell, too.

  26. Patterico
    November 14th, 2010 @ 11:43 pm

    Hmm. Stacy says in the post that he is confident nothing is being deleted if it’s not genitalia enlargement spam; your comment seems to suggest something different.

    In any event, daleyrocks has tried many times to post the following comment, which does not strike me as particularly obnoxious:

    Good post Stacy. I am at a loss, however, to understand how recounting you involvement in the midterm elections proves or disproves your thesis on Reynolds and Patterico.

    “To repeat: Busting the balls of the Establishment is a process not an event, and this ball-busting process will continue”

    Reynolds essentially said this and I don’t think you would find evidence of Patterico disagreeing, even though you seem predisposed to think in that direction. Patterico’s positions, with which you do not seem very familiar, are not to automatically entrench the establishment.

    “Patterico evidently wants to shut down the ball-busting process — to declare that Dan Riehl and Mark Levin and other ball-busters are irresponsible “demagogues””

    I think what bothers Reynolds and Patterico about Riehl and Levin is the unnecessary nature of the circular firing squads created by them. Riehl and Levin’s posts have been childish and packed wirh factual errors. Riehl smearing Paul Mirengoff for dodging the draft without any evidence sounds like it came straight out of Media Matters. Levin calling Patterico an overpaid civil servant blogging on the taxpayer’s dime speaks for itself. Demagogues or principled conservatives? You make the call.

    You are usually better than this Stacy.

    I myself posted a very similar comment about my positions, and whoosh! it disappeared as well.

    Sure, you don’t have to justify your comment policy. But if it appears one-sided, or if it appears that the moderators’ statements don’t correspond with the host’s claims in the post, we have the right to notice that and comment on it — if not here, then elsewhere.