Going Too Far

Okay, I can kind of understand, Larry LaRocco announcing for Senate 18 months before the election. I can even get W. Lane Startin announcing his exploratory committee 3 1/2 years before an election, but for Pete’s sake, give me a break! This is too silly:

District 19 state rep Nicole LeFavour is kicking off her 2008 re-election fundraising efforts tomorrow – Wednesday, May 30 – with an evening of live music and art at Pengilly’s, 513 Main Street, Boise.

A State Representative holding a fundraiser 18 months before an election. You know what the dumb thing about this is? LeFavour was unoppossed in the most Democratic District in Idaho.

I’m concerned with what the Democrats are doing right now, because they seem to be moving the election earlier. I think last time in Ada County that caught us in the GOP a little flatfooted by campaigning out in May of ‘06 through the election while a lot of GOP people waited until Labor Day to get started. That’s fair enough.

The Democrats seemed to have reached a conclusion: the earlier the better. I fear it’ll escalate, so we’ll guarantee ourselves nothing but careerism in the legislator and start shutting out regular folks as no one but a fool is going to spend 18 months campaigning vigorously for a job that pays less than $20,000 a year. Hopefully, there’s some natural point where this snaps back, a Laffer Curve of electoral politics that will at some point start punishing people for starting too early in Idaho.

Made for a Woman…Ph Unbalanced for a Man

This Reuters story comes as no shock to me:

CHICAGO (Reuters) – So, this guy walked into a grocery store … and got completely overwhelmed.

U.S. men are doing more and more grocery shopping, both for themselves and their families, but retailers are still not doing much to make the trip any more enticing, retail consultants and industry experts said.

If you want to find me in an irritable mood, find me at the grocery store. My reasons are a little different than some of the men in the story. I always look for good prices, for one. But, it’s downright overwhelming going from one end to another. I see my paycheck slowly draining away. Perhaps, the most tortorous thought I have when I buy something is how many hours of work something cost. “I worked 45 minutes to buy that steak.”

One thing in here did ring true:

Unlike women, men tend to hone in on the specific thing they want to buy instead of surveying the entire aisle, consultants said. That can be a problem for manufacturers and retailers trying to promote new products that are the life-blood of packaged food companies.

I’m finished with an aisle when I got everything I planned on getting off of it, Andrea is finished when she’s looked at every single item.

I want to get and go, to her the store’s an adventure. You’ve got to find the happy media. I’ve been hard at work on it for years. I’ll let you know when I get there.

The Beauty of the 2/3 Requirement

Betsy Russell explains how it took a bi-partisan team effort to get Western Idaho College passed:

Lehosit said the three-month campaign cost just more than $400,000 and ended with some debt, but drew more than 350 donors. He credited a large group of influential community members of all political stripes who came together. “It really took everybody to get this done,” he said.

This to me is the beauty of a super majority requirement to raise taxes. We’re all going to pay the increased tax for the college, it requires a broad cross-section of the community to come together. Particularly on a relatively well-advertised issue like this one. We’ll all share the burden, and a simple majority ain’t enough to head off resentment.

Doing the Job the Mainstream Media Should Do..

Alan at Idablue hosted a Blog Q&A for Senate Candidate Larry LaRocco. I even tossed in a question about term limits after rejecting several snarky questions on issues like earmarks and the amount of money the Dems have taken from big oil while criticizing them. I was tring to be nice for some reason.

Of course, the live blog was lightly attended. Partially, it was with good reason. This is May, 18 months before the election. Really, it’s too early for this. But there’s another problem, the event depended on the liberal blogosphere, which while bigger than the conservative version is still pretty tiny.

Which brings me to a point. Why aren’t these type of events being held by the Idaho Statesman? Or a local news organization? We have the technology to do things like live chats. Sadly the Idaho media’s not on board. Though, to be fair national live chat sessions are on the wane for some reason or another. But if we had the media willing to do it, I think people would show up and we’d get a lot more interaction and a lot more challenging questions.

Julie might be taking it a tad far when she writes:

I really have to wonder whether Larry Craig would have the guts to subject himself to this sort of exchange.

I think Julie underestimates Senator Craig. He’s very good on his feet. I doubt it’s the lack of guts, but rather the lack of return. I don’t think this will pay off, but the Daily Kos live blog will.

Bottom line, we need this type of electronic townhall done by the media on a mass level (closer to the election.)

Never Try to Please a Liberal

Consider this a free tip to the Dems. If Dennis Kucinich can’t do it, nobody can. The liberal blogosphere is in a huff because he accepted an invitation to a debate sponsored by the Black Caucus and Fox News. Mike Gravel and Joe Biden will also be there. Pam Spaulding opines:

Sorry Dennis, you just lost a ton of respect from me on this one. After Edwards, Obama and Clinton withdrew from the September Fox News debate sponsored by the Congressional Black Caucus, the long-shot 2008 presidential candidate has picked face time over principle.

Well, given that Pam has dedicated most of her blog to attacking GOP Candidates and Democratic Candidates she doesn’t like, I doubt Kucinich will miss it. Same thing goes for Gravel. Both candidates have been strongly pro-homosexual rights (Pam’s blog is a big lesbian blog) and have gone nowhere in the polls and gotten short shrift from the left blogosphere.

I also have to ask what principle Kucinich is compromising on it. Is it the great American principle, “Our opponents shouldn’t be allowed to have media outlets?” “Only left wing TV stations should host Democratic debates?” Are these great principles? Kucinich is fighting for ideas and you go where your opponents or the middle of America is and make your pursuasive arguments, you don’t whine, pull up the draw bridge, and only talk among your own.

Kucinich may be a bit nutty, but I have to give him props for ignoring left wing blogosphere komisars and going to the people.

Dissing America

The shameful treatment of Miss USA at the Miss Universe pageant was disrespectful to the United States. The Anti-US attitude given how much comes to Mexico from the US shows the problem with a nation that’s producing illegal immigrants with an entitlement mentality.

This is talked about on tonight’s Truth and Hope Report along with the following topics:

-Conservatives Selling Out
-The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly in Congress
-Double Standard on Violence
-Bush Takes Action on Dictators

-Who’s Afraid of the Creation Museum?

Click here to download. Click here to add my podcast to your I-tunes.

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Related:

Heading Right:

Choosy Social Cons Choose Rudy

Human Events:

Right-o-Meter: Cindy Sheehan Leaves Democratic Party and Anti-War Movement

Jack Murtha’s Friends

One News Now:

Immigration bill benefits illegal aliens, not U.S., Coburn says

Protestors Turn Out for Opening of Creation Museum

Save the GOP:

DeMint Fights Lonely Battle Against Pork

CNS News:

Snuf the Gunshop Owner, Priest Says

Live Blog:

Breaking News: Sanctions on Sudan for Darfur

Reuters:

Bush Concerned With Activist Arrest in Vietnam

Stop the ACLU:

Christian Teachings Banned, Wiccans Okay

Trackposted to Perri Nelson’s Website, The Random Yak, Maggie’s Notebook, Big Dog’s Weblog, Webloggin, Leaning Straight Up, The Bullwinkle Blog, The Amboy Times, Conservative Cat, Pursuing Holiness, third world county, stikNstein… has no mercy, Pirate’s Cove, Blue Star Chronicles, Dumb Ox Daily News, Right Voices, and The Yankee Sailor, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

Guilded Age of Politics

by Andrea Graham

In Church yesterday, we joined a class studying from the Vander Laan series, which gave us a history lesson on guilds in ancient Rome, particularly in Asia minor. These “Trade unions” as the teacher watered them down to, each had a patron god or goddess, and if you wanted to practice a particular trade, for instance, carpentry, you would be pressured to join the Carpenter’s guild, and sacrifice (worship) the patron god of Carpentry. If you refused, the guild would use their collective muscle to ensure you did not make it as a Carpenter. If you attempted to go it alone, at the very least, no one would bring you business in fear of angering the Guild (or it’s god, but same difference to my thinking)

Think guilds are gone? By Heaven, no. We’ve even expanded them into the political arena. We have not one, but two politics guilds in this country. The name of one starts with a “D” and the other starts with an “R” And it seems they have four paths to membership:

Start small and work your way up. Run for state legislature, or better yet, precinct committeeman, excuse me, person.

Have a mother, father, or say, uncle who’s a senior member of the guild. In this case, you can enter the guild by running for, say, the House of Representatives, or even, say, Governor.

Be a senior member of another guild, such as Hollywood. Note the CEO and Investors guild doesn’t count unless you’re also a member of the Billionaire Guild.

Have already ascended Mount Olympus and been admitted as a member of the Gods (otherwise known as a national platform or name recognition)

What effect has the guild mentality had on modern politics? Adam has the story

Do You Digg It? Midweek Open Trackbacks

Some of you (the more observant anyway) may have noticed the “digg” button at the bottom of each posts. You may wonder, what is digg?

Digg is a social bookmarking site (not to be confused with a social networking site like MySpace.) Posts are promoted in part based on their popularity. My personal record heretofore is something like 47 diggs for a post on this blog.

When posts are dugg on digg, they’re more likely to be read, shared, or spread. Sign up for an account with digg and any posts you think other people should read, you have the option of hitting the digg button to let other people know about it, not just your friends. Do you digg it?

Now, onto today’s trackback party. Here are the rules.

1) Post about anything that’s in good taste. No porn, no spam, no profanity.
2) Send me a trackback of any tasteful post you want and as soon as I check my blog, I’ll update this post with your link provided you link back to this thread. If your software won’t allow you to send trackbacks, just use the Wizbang Standalone Pinger.
3) Deadline is Wednesday at 11:00 PM MT. Further trackbacks won’t be posted after that time.

For your convenience here’s today’s link. If you’re a registered user, the, trackback should appear below. If not, here’s the process:

Enter the characters as shown in the box and something like this should appear

This is a Trackback URL that’s good one time only so that we can seperate humans from spammer bots.

Below are other great parties:

Planck’s Constant

Linking In:

The Florida Masochist:

The Knucklehead of the Day award
Today’s winner is Mercury Energy.
The Florida Masochist:

Eighteen year wedding anniversary

Dear Wife and I were married May 30, 1989 in a civil ceremony in the City of Tacloban, The Province of Leyte in The Philippines. Hard to imagine there is a woman who can put up with me that long? Actually DW and I got married twice, we had a church c…

Conservative Cat;

Pelosi Trip May Violate Separation of Church and State
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi recently returned from a trip to Greenland where she saw “firsthand evidence that climate change is a reality.” It’s possible that somebody took her to see a glacier that is smaller than it was several years…

The Florida Masochist

Imposter

Some students believe Azia Kim did this because of parental pressures.

Anyone see Kim getting a television, movie or book deal out of this? See she may yet be sucessful, just not in the way Ms. Kim’s parents planned or hoped for.

Open Trackbacks

The Use and Abuse of Cindy Sheehan

Through her bitterness, Cindy Sheehan has a valid point. She was used by the Democratic Party and cast aside when she became inconvenient to them. Of course, this isn’t the first time this has happened and no, Democrats aren’t the only ones to do it. Republican suppoft for Linda Tripp dried up when she was no longer of use when Bush became President.

We have an abusive political system and I discuss it in my 269th shortform podcast.

Click here to download. Click here to add my podcast to your I-tunes.

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Related:

Daily Kos:

“Good Riddance Attention Whore” (Hat Tip: Instapundit.)