Daily Whackjob

Alex has won the SWACiest SWACjob contest! He started off with an early lead of 40% but lost some ground to finish with only 34% of our readers viewing him as the SWACiest SWACjob. Even with this drop in numbers he still managed to received more votes than the next two highest vote getters combined. Way to go Alex! That’s what I call a mandate! Your prize will be on it’s way sometime next week. Never fear; it’s nothing illegal or immoral, but it may push the limits of proper SWACistan blogging.

Second place go to Lynn Mitchell who I figured would finish in the top three. And Anne Taetzsch surprised me with an upset by surpassing Chris Donkey for third place. Congratulations ladies! Better luck next time, Chris.

Kurt, Steve, Cliff and Yankee Phil, I’m sorry but compared to the overpowering SWACiness radiated from the great JMax you just aren’t all that SWACy. Even trying to bribe Whackjob with Wizard of Oz photos can’t help you. (try cookies next time)

Zen, I have two words for you: YOU FAIL!

And now a message from Alex Davis himself. (Bolding is mine.)

Hey everybody. If you know me, I am very involved with politics on the local and state level. Currently, I am serving as Secretary for the Staunton Republican Committee. Though most of you know my political leanings, I NEVER try to ask favors of my good friends… …until now.

Now, I need your help. On MARCH 29, 2008 (a Saturday) AT 10.00AM the Staunton Republican Committee is holding their Mass Meeting. A Mass Meeting, in its simplest form, is when people like me get re-elected (and in some cases elected into) back into their positions. I ask you to come out and support me. I don’t care if you’re left wing, right wing, libertarian, conservative, liberal, apathetic, or whatever you are — I ask you to support me for ME.

Why you ask? There is a faction out there who hate me and some of my other friends on the committee. They have spread rumors and lies about me. They have called me untruthful, irresponsible, disrespectful, a liar, and unqualified, and mouthed countless profanities at me during our meetings. They would like nothing more than to see me get the boot. For them, it’s not about politics. It’s totally about personal grudges they have against me. And you all know me. You all know I AM NOT what they are spreading around.

It will take you less than an hour. Remember, I don’t usually ask favors of this magnitude. But I am now. I hope you can make it home on MARCH 29, 2008 (a Saturday) and help support me. And if you can’t, get your folks to come out!

Please let me know and thank you in advance.

Also, my phone number and email are provided below. I hope you all (if you have questions, comments, etc) will call or email if you need to and ask me anything you need to know.
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Here’s the only catch–you need to live (aka have residency) in Staunton, be a registered voter**, and be at LEAST 18.

** If you’re not a registered voter, let me know and I’ll make you one!

There is a reason Davis is leading in our poll. Careful, JMax, Chris Green frowns on this type of thing. Remember the uproar all of SWACistan was in when Democrats may have voted in an open Republican primary? REAL Republicans don’t solicit help from anything other than fellow REAL Republicans. You might find yourself booted out of the tent.

Somewhere someone College Republican Federation of Virginia is holding a crazy liberal contest, but this should be more fun.

Go vote on the sidebar. The poll lasts a week and winner will win something very fantastic that I am personally picking out. Since BNN calls us a liberal blog you can vote every day. But since I’m not liberal you are limited to just one vote each day.

Good luck to you all!

Of the three Republicans left, I like Ron Paul the best. He is the one that most closely represents what I like:

• Secure the border and let more immigrants in legally
• Prolife
• Low tax and low spend
• Tax credits for education your children
• Against Federal Marriage Amendment
• Government not in charge of health care
• There’s more, but this is enough

But I really don’t think he has a snowball’s chance. (I can feel Mad Hatter making evil eyes at me.)

So that leaves Huckabee and McCain. The rantings against John McCain by certain SWACistan bloggers makes me want to vote for him, but I’m not going to let them dictate who I vote for. So I think Huckabee is my next best choice. I just wonder if he has any better of a chance than Paul.

During one of the three Sunday talk shows he appeared on, it was noted that his prospects for getting to that magic number were virtually impossible.

If this is the case and we really are stuck with McCain, maybe it would be best to vote for a Democrat. After all, if McCain it the nominee, the “Real Republicans” will flock to the Democratic candidate and there will be a donkey in the White House.  This would be my only chance to help decide which Democrat we end up with.

What do you think? Does Huckabee stand a chance?* Is Hillary or Obama better than McCain? I am leaning toward Obama right now but only because he is a man and has out that lovely “yes, we can” video. And what happened to Romney’s delegates?

*Don’t tell me to vote Huck just because he isn’t McCain. I want real numbers to show that he could win. And don’t give me any of that If everyone votes for him, he will win stuff. I don’t want your fantasies; I want reality here.

UPDATE: I just heard that Huckabee will be at the Shenandoah Valley Regional Airport this afternoon. Maybe I’ll head on down and see if JMax ends up on the floor again.

George W Bush is a RINO.

John McCain is a “true conservative,President Bush says, although the likely Republican presidential nominee may have to work harder to convince other conservatives that he is one of their own.

McCain “is very strong on national defense,” Bush said in an interview taped for airing on “Fox News Sunday.” “He is tough fiscally. He believes the tax cuts ought to be permanent. He is pro-life. His principles are sound and solid as far as I’m concerned.”

But when asked about criticism of McCain by conservative commentators Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter, the president said, “I think that if John is the nominee, he has got some convincing to do to convince people that he is a solid conservative and I’ll be glad to help him if he is the nominee.”

I am admired by a swacistan blogger.

“I admire anyone who puts aside their ambitions, their jobs, and their egos to commit to their families for years, sometimes decades. These parents should be commended, and my hat is off to them.” ~SWACgirl, 2/7/08, on homeschooling

…Ann Coulter will not only vote for Hillary but campaign for her as well.

I think Jmax must be sobbing into his pillow right about now.

It’s good to see the SWAC bloggers have decided that people can be republicans even if they don’t support the SWAC chosen candidate.  Mr. Kenney, glad to see you aren’t getting the same treatment I got.

Also, make sure to read the first (only?) comment on SWACgirl’s post. I would like to remind Mr. Donkey that the bloggers in the Sayre/Hanger race were far from loving.

Remember the photoshops, Emmett gas, former Republican, ect.

P.S. You clean up real nice. And I mean that. No, really, I do.

This is hilarious.

Augusta County Republican Chair Kurt Michael, Vice Chair Lynn Mitchell, Taetzsch and their band of zealots are completely out of touch with the sentiments of most Republicans in Staunton and Augusta County.

If our party is to begin winning elections again, we must shun the narrow, dogmatic mentality espoused by Michael, Mitchell, Taetzsch and Davis. The divisive and unethical tactics used by these self-appointed party spokespeople has brought disrepute to the Staunton-Waynesboro-Augusta County area. If our party keeps the doors to the “big tent” closed, as they urge, we cannot expect local Republican candidates to win many elections.

Recall my remarks here.

That’s what my sources tell me from SWACistan.

Actually, from Rockingham Whacketteland. But that’s close enough.

Once Saxman announces he is officially in the race I will tell more about what I know of this “rising star” in the Republican Party. This is going to be a lot of fun.

Talk about not getting it. Some of the rightwing SWAC bloggers are quite fond of using a bloodstained graphic (scroll down and take your pick) on their sites that questions the awareness of Democrats in today’s world. Yet the ambitions of these same folks to move the Republican Party to the extreme right illustrates that they really don’t “get it” themselves.
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If you learn one thing from me, ever, it should be this: immigration matters. Regardless of what the Democratic spin machine - whether in the press or RK or dKos - might say, immigration mattered in the 2007 elections and it will matter in 2008.

I’m not saying that immigration was a winning issue for Republicans - it wasn’t. What it was, and I will show this in a later post, is the bandage the Republicans needed to get their base to the polls and keep working-class whites from voting Democratic. In short, immigration stopped the Republican bleeding.

I will also write a post detailing how inaction by Gov. Kaine’s administration and the Democratic caucuses probably lost 3 Senate seats that were very close, but I want to spend this post looking ahead to next year and the U.S. Senate race.

Right now Mark Warner is the favorite to win the election because his only known opponent is Jim Gilmore, and Gilmore alienates moderate Republicans. Also, Democrats who question Warner’s commitment to progressive values and initiatives are unlikely to mount a Ned-Lamont-type challenge for fear of helping Gilmore win. So Warner looks like he can continue showing up late to events and still be our next U.S. Senator.

But there is one Republican candidate who could give Warner fits and possibly re-align Virginia politics.

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I know that may be shocking, but bear with me…

Cliff Garstang currently has a really good post up about the extremely creative “analysis” being used by the SWACites concerning the recent election results. It seems there has been quite a bit of chest thumping by some SWACies for local Republican wins.

Garstang dispells with these stretches of imagination by citing some compelling observations:

• Hanger won handily without the help of “the local radical rightists” that “despise” him. (In fact, Chris “STD, Spanky” Green wasted no time stabbing Hanger in the back.)

• Saxman, Cline and Landes ran unopposed. Even so, many no-votes and write-ins, challenged the notion that they were so widely favored by voters.

• Augusta County BOS races had a Democrat and an Independent beat Republicans, without comparable effort and expense used by the GOP candidates.

• And finally one of the craziest delusion, in my opinion, is the 16 vote victory pulled off by Jeremy Shifflett. A staunchly red district and big Republican endorsements resulted in a squeeker of a 16 vote victory over a Democratic challenger bashed by the SWACholes as being some scary “radical liberal” MoveOn.org activist. (Note: The majority of America agrees with MoveOn.org about the war. Boo!)

The number sixteen used to be so insignificant to the GOP. It really makes one wonder if Shifflett’s campaign manager, Chris “STD” Green, had spent more time and effort on this election and risked a few more limbs instead of snowboarding most of them time there could have been a crushing 25 vote victory.

Cliff sums it up nicely:

The real lesson here ought to be that the local races shouldn’t really be politicized in the way that the local Republican committees have attempted to do. It is clear from the issues that have faced the Supervisors over the last couple of year that party politics have little to do with the positions that individual supervisors take. They get it, but apparently the local GOP leaders (who are unclear on a number of such points) do not.

In closing, my sincere congratulations go out to all of the candidates in the local elections—those who won, and those who did not. The civil, issue-driven campaigns have been a refreshing change to recent patterns. Well done, and much appreciated.

Augusta County Republican Committee Chairman, Kurt Michael, endorses Emmett Hanger…except not really.

Following up on a couple of earlier posts on the subject (here and here), it seems that the “support” of the local Republican committees has not included holding any fundraisers for the incumbent Emmett Hanger in his race to retain his 24th District State Senate seat.

Is this what he still considers supporting him through their actions? Hanger’s Democratic challenger garnered nearly $5k more than Hanger through the month of October. And outspent Hanger by nearly $10k.

The SWACjob’s disinterest and lack of enthusiasm is notable. Likely communicating that they really do not stand behind the results of the hard fought primary, are sore losers, and are holding a grudge against Hanger.

We’ve seen how spiteful and nasty their words have been toward Hanger before his primary win. It will certainly be interesting to observe what’s to come after the general election—win or lose for Hanger.

On September 5, 2007, the News Leader reported that the Staunton Committee planned to contribute $3,000 to Senator Hanger’s campaign.

Go ahead. Read it all.

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Maybe my expectations were too high, but I really expected a little more excitement out of the 24th district senate race. The SWACjobs all pledged to support the winning Republican (Hanger) and with three people running for the seat I would have thought they would be more vocal about keeping Virginia red.

Considering all the chest pounding they did during the primary for their candidate I am very disappointed to find that they haven’t set up a blog dedicated to the re-election of Senator Hanger and solicited the help of well respected Republican bloggers from around the state. I was also looking forward to bad photo-shopped pictures of Sime and Cox.

Things have been pretty dull since the primary.

But maybe not as dull as it first appears. You just have to dig a little.

Ironically the same day the Staunton News Leader runs a front page banner story pronouncing that “Republican leaders support Hanger,” in their “Our View” editorial feature titled “Who needs who?” they ask “Why is this news?”

I suppose that likening a local party leader to an ideological traitor, contributing immense time, energy, and funds to overthrow his reelection bid, waiting three months to actually congratulate him and then proposing a peace offering of $3,000 just to help keep one more “republican” label in the House is somewhat newsworthy.

To me it isn’t about what people have the “right” to do. It’s more about the way in which they choose to conduct themselves. The voters obviously disagreed with the local party leadership in the primary race. So what influence do they really have? Other than $3,000, what’s in it for Hanger to make nice with people that worked so hard to destroy him? They tried sticks, now out come the carrots.

The moneyquote from the NL column:

The truth of the matter is this; they need Hanger more than he needs them.Sen. Hanger will do as he pleases on Sept. 18. However, he would be justified if he was to spurn this invitation and continue to campaign against his challengers, Democrat David Cox, and Libertarian Arin Sime, solo, without local GOP “help.” After all, he didn’t need their aid to win the primary; he could likely do as well in the general election without them — perhaps even better.

Dreams are like funhouse mirrors that reflect your emotional state.

OK, the strange dreams during pregnancy have really gotten out of hand. It’s good to know it isn’t uncommon to have really odd dreams during this time, but this is the third time I have dreamt about bloggers.

The first dream involved the Ditzocrats mowing my yard while I shopped for maternity clothes from Waldo’s ebay store.

The second one was about Greg driving too far south on I81 and ending up in Staunton. He was a little upset when he called, but I told him to just turn around and go north. He ended up lost in New England and cussing out my answering machine.

Just last night I dreamt that Mr. Donkey and I were trading t-shirts at the blogger conference.

I don’t think I really want to know what this says about my emotional state.