The first is the Romney camp's response to President Obama's "you didn't build your business" nonsense. Now any 7th grader with half a brain and a Milton Freidman book can debunk the President's lazy pandering. The better news is that the comment seems to have lit a fire in Romney's belly, and the campaign is producing pieces like this one:

Secondly, there's a chart on AEI's website from the University of Michigan that relates consumer confidence with presidential reelections. It is not good news for the President. 

Lastly, those of us pulling for real reforms in spending, taxes, and the like not only want Romney to win, but want him to win with a bit of a cushion to have the space to be able to do some bold things. Looking at the battleground states, Romney has a very realistic shot to get over 300 electoral votes (270 wins). In fact, here's an interactive map I did giving Romney wins in battleground states like Florida, Ohio, Virginia, New Hampshire, Nevada, and Colorado, and one unexpected win, Michigan. I kept Pennsylvania, Iowa, and Wisconsin all in the President's column. The result? Romney 307 - Obama 231.

That said, when conservatives pick fights with each other, they should be constructive and helpful. And when they do, they should certainly not parrot lazy and trite talking points from the left. In addition, we should be especially careful to not to do these things during the season of what anyone who is remotely on the political right will agree is a crucial election as our nation nears and economic and social tipping point. Three intelligent and prominent conservatives recently engaged in ridiculous attacks on their ideological kin and deserved to be called out on it.

First offender is former governor and presidential candidate turned media personality and rocker-pastor-comedian hybrid guy, Mike Huckabee. He recently had this exchange in a New York Times interview: 

Q: During the Republican primary debates, audience members booed a question from an active serviceman who was gay and shouted, “Let him die,” about a hypothetical gravely ill patient without insurance. Is this different from the party that you know and love?

A: Very much. It’s one of the reasons that I did not think this was a good time to run. The atmosphere was so toxic that it would not be an atmosphere in which I would breathe well. There is almost a hyperorthodoxy that is gripping the party that you have to go out and prove that you can be tougher, meaner, more hard-line than anybody else on the stage. It may lead to effective campaigning if the goal is to be the most ideological puritan on the platform, but the ultimate goal is more of what I’d call a true Reagan model. Not the Reagan model that has been invoked — but Ronald Reagan who understood that governing is an art.

This is all just so lazy and dumb. The idea to the GOP primary having a "toxic" atmosphere and being about "hyperorthodoxy" is right out of the MSNBC playbook. I'm not sure what kind of "toxic" atmosphere he's referring to. A few dozen idiots in a debate crowd does not a toxic atmosphere make. The atmosphere is urgent, sure. Impassioned. Impatient. But "toxic"? The kind of salt of the earth Americans who comprise most of the GOP primary voters in early states did not create a toxic atmosphere, Mr. Huckabee, and shame on you for implying that they did. 

Secondly, what is this hyperorthodoxy people keep claiming, and Mr. Huckabee is sadly parroting? The GOP just nominated Mitt Romney. Mitt. Romney. Massachusetts-governing, health insurance-mandating, "I was an independent during Reagan"-claiming, Mitt Romney. If this were about hyperorthodoxy, Michelle Bachmann would have won in a walk. She lost. Badly. Or maybe Rick Perry, or Ron Paul, or Rick Santorum, or anyone but Mitt Romney. This is also the party who has nominated a Bush four times, Bob Dole, and John McCain going back to 1988. Hardly a lineup of fire-breathing, hyperorthodox, ideologically pure, super-scary right-wingers. I expect this cliche from a David Gergen, but not from you, Mr. Huckabee.

Offender number two is noted federal judge, Richard Posner. Now let it be said that Judge Posner, appointed to the seventh circuit by President Reagan, is arguably the most influential living legal mind to have not sat on the Supreme Court. There may be no one in the past century who is more of an authority on law and economics. However, he said the following in a recent NPR interview:

"Posner expressed admiration for President Ronald Reagan and the economist Milton Friedman, two pillars of conservatism. But over the past 10 years, Posner said, 'there's been a real deterioration in conservative thinking. And that has to lead people to re-examine and modify their thinking.'

'I've become less conservative since the Republican Party started becoming goofy,' he said."  

This is also lazy, in addition to being of questionable truth. Without even looking at the claim, ponder his premise for a moment. Why would the Republican party, however exasperating he finds it, influence his political philosophy? That would be like saying that since the Dallas Cowboys are lousy, I no longer like football. The Republican party is a part of conservatism, but that is it. Conservatism has a deep and rich philosophical history that has absolutely zero to do with the Republican party. Ask conservatives who their idols are and, outside of probably President Reagan, you'll scarcely hear a GOP politician's name mentioned. As for the claim that the GOP has become "goofy" in the past ten years, I mean ok, if you don't like Sarah Palin and think the party has made too many political mistakes that's fine, but I am still unsure why all that would impact the political philosophy of someone as intelligent and thoughtful as Judge Posner.

The third offender is every liberal's favorite Republican, Jon Huntsman. The former governor of Utah and Ambassador to China thought it would be wise to run a presidential campaign-- after the last Republican president had a serious overspending problem and the last Republican nominee was a "maverick" who had a penchant for joining with Democrats to sponsor unconstitutional free speech limits-- on the premise that the party needed to be more moderate. Shockingly, it did not turn out well. 

"I will not be attending this year's convention, nor any Republican convention in the future, until the party focuses on a bigger, bolder, more confident future for the United States," Huntsman said in a statement. "A future based on problem solving, inclusiveness, and a willingness to address the trust deficit, which is every bit as corrosive as fiscal and economic deficits."

He said he encourages "a return to the party we have been in the past, from Lincoln right on through to Reagan, that was always willing to put our country before politics."  

I'm not even sure what the hell that means. But I guess if you look at from Huntsman's position, he is an ivy-league educated Mormon who was a moderate governor born to a famous father. So it would make sense that he does not want to attend the GOP Convention where they nominate… an ivy-league educated Mormon who was a moderate governor born to a famous father. I do not think it's worth responding to what Huntsman said, but I do think it is worth pointing out that it is sad. Huntsman is a talented individual with a great resume who could have remained influential and relevant in conservative circles for years to come, possibly running again for president or serving in a prominent position in a future administration. Unfortunately, he has chosen to become a clown who will have a permanent spot on lefty tv shows to regurgitate all of their (incorrect) preconceived notions about conservatives.

Just to recap before I step down off my soapbox and end the sermon: Constructive conservative in-fighting is good; parroting lefty talking points to undercut your ideological kin is annoying, unnecessary, and unhelpful.

“I think it was naive,” Krohn now says of the speech. “It’s a 13-year-old kid saying stuff that he had heard for a long time...The speech was something that a 13-year-old does. You haven’t formed all your opinions. You’re really defeating yourself if you think you have all of your ideas in your head when you were 12 or 13. It’s impossible. You haven’t done enough.”

1. The ruling will force Republicans to offer a better alternative.  Had Obamacare been ruled unconstitutional, it would have been an easy out for Republicans.  Having been upheld, Republicans will be more likely to offer a well-considered and more attractive alternative.
   
   
2. The ruling will further energize the right.  This is a reminder to conservatives that the fight with progressivism is ongoing.  We are reminded that nine judges have no more right to decide our country’s fate than do the demagogues in the White House.  We will decide to restore our country’s future this November.
   
   
3. The ruling confirms it: Obamacare is a tax.  Expect Mitt Romney to exploit every video of Obama claiming he would not raise taxes on the middle class, not even one dime.  As it turns out, the foundation of Obama’s signature law was a tax increase on the middle class.  This broken promise is not lost on the Romney team, and they are already making plans to exploit it.
   
   
4. The most important goal of Conservatives is not the defeat of Obamacare but the defeat of Obama himself.  If Conservatives want to discourage government overreach, we should know from decades of precedent the Supreme Court is not our savior.  The only real chance we ever had to stop our leftward slide is at the ballot box.  This law remains unpopular and will encourage a change at the top.  As such, this ruling helps the conservative cause. 

On to November.

Question: Were the politics of the show appealing to you as well?

…There was a time when…I got all into the idea of politics and anarchists and Kropotkin, this Russian guy who founded the anarchist party. I got completely besotted by the idea of anarchy as the way that we should all live our lives and I was ready to kind of go fight for my belief, but then I got to university and did lots of plays and kind of forgot about that.  

It is a common story:  Up and coming anarchist with a dream to fight for mayhem and chaos, but, alas, she forgets her love affair with political dysfunction because she did lots of plays and stuff. 

Question:  Are you as troubled by America’s news culture as Sorkin seems to be?

I can remember when Bush got in for the second time, just feeling like so much of the problem about the way that politics go here is that people are improperly informed. That they didn’t know that they had been lied to, or they didn’t understand exactly to what extent they had been, and they still thought that there were weapons of mass destruction. And that was just crazy to me that people could be so under-informed.

If there is one issue of which we are fully informed it is the no WMD in Iraq issue. To be under-informed on this issue one would have had to ignore every major news outlet, every late night talk show host, every screenwriter, every opinion columnist, every blogger, and every democrat for at least five years.

I bet more people in America know there were no WMD in Iraq than know telling a lie requires knowing beforehand what you say is untrue.

Question:  You’ve lived in America for more than a decade, but you’re British. Have you always been engaged with American politics?

… The first 10 years of my being here there was a guy in charge (Bush) who was just so terrifying and it made me feel so unsettled the whole time that this guy was making those decisions. And it’s such a nice feeling having this guy (Obama) in charge now.

I’m glad Obama makes someone feel better.  At least that is some recompense for the people still out of work and all of us concerned about government overreach and global instability. 

And what was so terrifying about Bush exactly? He had many faults, but did he add five trillion to our debt in three years? Was he responsible for an impending Greek style meltdown? Did he turn Egypt over to the Muslim Brotherhood?  Or turn his back on reformists in Iran?  Did he encourage class envy?  Turn the Justice Department over to ideologues?  Ignore the mass execution of Syrians?  Did Bush forswear the Constitution?  Counteract the rule of law?  Again, Bush made several mistakes while in office, but at least he was grounded in reality, he governed responsibly, and he operated in good faith with the American people.

I’m sure Mrs. Mortimer is a fine and charming lady.  She is just guilty of what many liberals—especially those in Hollywood—are guilty of:  she doesn’t know what she doesn’t know. For this reason Mrs. Mortimer can say such nonsense and feel smart doing so.  It’s a good thing ignorance is bliss.

It is hard to know if Obama is this bad at economics or if he is purposely misleading the public.  Regardless, the argument has little merit if considered beyond its face. 

Since the public sector does not produce wealth, the public sector must rely on taxing the private sector to fund its activities; tax revenues pay the salaries of government workers.  So when the private sector falters, state and local governments have less money to employ people.  Put another way, if the private sector really was “doing fine,” the public sector would be as well.   

What Obama is advocating is a temporary bailout of the public sector—federal money to hire more bureaucrats at the state and local level.  The federal government, however, is also reliant on the private sector for tax revenue.  Even when the feds borrow what they spend, they are stripping the private sector of the capital needed to grow the economy.  And the only way jobs are coming back—in either the private or public sector—is if the economy starts growing again.  My guess is that won’t happen until sometime after November 2012

"In Romney’s economic philosophy, CEOs and wealthy investors prosper by any means necessary, even when it meant companies failed and workers were left behind."

If this really is "Romney's economic philosophy", I would like him to explain it to me.  How could a CEO or wealthy investor prosper by investing in a company and causing it to fail?  Seems to me that is a pretty difficult task: making money bankrupting your own companies. Last I checked, investors--especially value investors like Bain--invest in companies to make them better, not to cause them to fail.

Maybe Obama is just projecting.  His economic philsophy is one that encourages failure and discourages production.  And his campaign could be hoping America's economic failure produces electoral prosperity.  The more people relying on government handouts, after all, the more people likely to vote in Obama's favor.  

Last year, Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn announced the city had won a coveted $20 million federal grant to invest in weatherization…McGinn had joined Vice President Joe Biden in the White House to make it. It came on the eve of Earth Day. It had heady goals: creating 2,000 living-wage jobs in Seattle and retrofitting 2,000 homes in poorer neighborhoods.  But more than a year later, Seattle's numbers are lackluster. As of last week, only three homes had been retrofitted and just 14 new jobs have emerged from the program.

The president recently toured Johnson Controls Inc., a Michigan company that received $300 million from “Obama’s stash” to create - drumroll, please - a whopping 150 jobs. Do the math: That’s $2 million per green job. And this is the company the White House chooses to showcase? Evergreen Solar, a Massachusetts company, also received stimulus money, but the White House that is “the most open and transparent in history” won’t say how much, only that Evergreen is “hoping to hire 90 to 100 people.” Instead, it declared bankruptcy and shipped 800 jobs overseas. Well, so much for green jobs.

In the 2009 stimulus, the feds gave nearly $3.2 million in green-energy grants to my county of Arlington, Va., with almost $300,000 used to install solar paneling on the roof of our local library. (Don't ask why the feds are giving one of the five wealthiest counties in America free money.)

Arlington officials boast the project will save $14,000 in annual electricity costs, but the solar panels have a life span of no more than 10 to 15 years. So the feds spent $300,000 to shave at most $150,000 off the net present value of Arlington's electric bills. Some 3,000 counties across the country received federal funds for the same kind of negative-return energy conservation "investments." This is the kind of "clean energy" program the administration wants to expand.

It took the New York Times a year to acknowledge I was right.  From an article in the 18 August 2011 issue:

...the green economy is not proving to be the job-creation engine that many politicians envisioned. President Obama once pledged to create five million green jobs over 10 years. Gov. Jerry Brown promised 500,000 clean-technology jobs (in California) by the end of the decade. But the results so far suggest such numbers are a pipe dream...Federal and state efforts to stimulate creation of green jobs have largely failed, government records show.

Not only has the green jobs push failed to create jobs, it has been a huge waste as well:

Two years after it was awarded $186 million in federal stimulus money to weatherize drafty homes, California has spent only a little over half that sum and has so far created the equivalent of just 538 full-time jobs in the last quarter, according to the State Department of Community Services and Development.

According to these numbers, this program spent well over 170,000 USD per full time job created.

Of course, the Times doesn't explicitly acknowledge the real problem--that being, that the market economy and individual consumers are not so easily manipulated.

The problem isn't economics, according to "advocates and entrepreneurs" the Times interviewed. The problem is with government.  Washington, they contend, didn't do enough to pass cap and trade and tighten environmental regulation.  More government intervention, they contend, is the answer. Isn't it always?

This ideological thinking is why in Obama's September jobs speech we aren't likely to hear the President admit his green jobs plan has failed.  He's more likely to double down on his mistake.

Thank you.

Thank you Pete Sessions, for your tireless leadership. 

And thank you to all our candidates, supporters, and volunteers who have worked so hard to make this moment possible.

Let me just say this: it’s clear who the winners are tonight, and that’s the American people.   Your voice was heard at the ballot box!  Your voice! 

Listen, I’ll be brief, because we have real work to do – and this is not a time for celebration … not when one in 10 of our fellow citizens are out of work … not when we have buried our children under a mountain of debt … not when our Congress is held in such low esteem. 

This is a time to roll up our sleeves.  To look forward with determination.  And to take the first steps toward building a better future for our kids and grandkids.  

Across the country right now, we are witnessing a repudiation of Washington … a repudiation of Big Government … and a repudiation of politicians who refuse to listen to the people. 

Of course, this campaign is not yet over.  To folks out in the West, where the polls are still open, seize this opportunity to be heard … to reject the spending sprees, the bailouts, the backroom deals, the takeovers and all the nonsense … and to join your fellow Americans in putting Washington on notice.

Because for far too long, Washington has been doing what’s best for Washington – not what’s best for America.

Tonight, that begins to change.  

With their voices and their votes, the American people are demanding a new way forward in Washington.  And I’m here tonight to tell you that our new majority will be prepared to do things differently… to take a new approach that hasn’t been tried before in Washington – by either party. 

·         It starts with cutting spending instead of increasing it. 

·         Reducing the size of government instead of expanding it.

·         Reforming the way Congress works and giving government back to the people. 

·         And for all those families asking ‘where are the jobs?,’ it means ending the uncertainty in our economy and helping small businesses get people back to work. 

The people’s priorities will be our priorities.  The people’s agenda will be our agenda.  This is our Pledge to America … this is our pledge to you!

While our new majority will serve as your voice in the people’s House, we must remember it is the president who sets the agenda for our government.  The American people have sent an unmistakable message to him tonight, and that message is:“change course.”  

We hope President Obama will now respect the will of the people, change course, and commit to making the changes they are demanding.  To the extent he is willing to do this, we are ready to work with him.  

But make no mistake, the president will find in our new majority the voice of the American people as they’ve expressed it tonight: standing on principle, checking Washington’s power, and leading the drive for a smaller, less costly, and more accountable government. 

These are the principles our new majority will stand for, and we hope you will stand with us in the hard work that lies ahead.  Because we are humbled by your trust in us.  And we recognize that with this trust comes the responsibility to listen, and listen we will.  

Let’s start right now by recognizing this is not a time for celebration.  This is a time to roll up our sleeves and go to work. 

We can celebrate when small businesses are creating jobs again.   

We can celebrate when the spending binge in Washington has stopped.  

And we can celebrate when we have a government that has earned back the trust of the people it serves … when we have a government that honors our Constitution and stands up for the values that have made America, America: economic freedom, individual liberty, and personal responsibility. 

I hold these values dear because I’ve lived them.  I’ve spent my whole life chasing the American Dream. 

I started out mopping floors, waiting tables, and tending bar at my dad’s tavern.  I put myself through school working odd jobs and night shifts.  I poured my heart and soul into a small business.  And when I saw how out-of-touch Washington had become with the core values of this great nation, I put my name forward and ran for office.

So I want to close by thanking my wife, Debbie … my girls, Lindsay and Tricia … my brothers and sisters … and all my friends and neighbors in Ohio for giving me the chance to serve and the opportunity to stand before you now ready to lead.

Thank you.  God bless you, your families, and the United States of America.