The Rathje Report

Steve Rathje's U.S. Senate campaign website is up and running. Steve is an interesting guy and the website is well worth the visit. Steve is also the only Republican in the field against the archtype of liberalism gone bad.

This is no endorsement, 'cause I don't think SCC types shold endorse in most primaries, and we might have a primary, but history seems to indicate that we won't beat Harkin running a status quo campaign. Don't you all think we need to start bleeding Harkin a little right now? Why wait until Bahama Tommy is twenty points up in October of '08 to expose the Real Harkin-a uniquely disingenuous and destructive socialist. Not a Real socialist of course, his millionaire lifestyle belies any genuine belief in egalitarianism, more like the 60s radical turned grey. Aging but still at war with America and our friends abroad; still determined to create that government big enough to give everyone everything the enlightened think you should have, while still big enough to take from you everything you have.

So Steve, how about a radio ad reminding all of Iowa's hunters that Tom Harkin wants to sink their guns in the ocean or maybe you target Tom's support of Castro, Chavez and Daniel Ortega just for starters. We can get to the serious stuff later.

CPAC-Iowa Update

The Real Sporer was unable to attend this year’s CPAC so I took a page from the old Krusty playbook and had correspondents on site to provide an update to interested Iowans.

The Conference was, itself, a huge national success, as I’m sure many loyal readers saw on the weekend cable shows. CPAC had 1705 straw poll participants. Mitt Romney lead the field with 21%. Rudy Giuliani-17%; Sam Brownback-15%; Newt Gingrich 14% and John McCain-12% rounded out the top five. The results alone prove how close our horse race truly is.

The conference was a big success for Iowa as well. Our state E.D., Chuck Laudner was on hand to help sell the Straw Poll and fortify first in the nation status. By all accounts he found a welcome marketplace. Chuck reports that the “most striking thing was the upbeat atmosphere. Nobody wanted to dwell on the losses and everybody wanted to focus on winning in ‘08” as the prevalent mood of the conference. This is a key road marker because fighting over '06 only helps the Democrats.

Chuck and several other attendees reported substantial interest in the straw poll. No doubt. Given the media coverage of the 1705 voters in the CPAC poll, and the 776 voters who gave John McCain a two vote win over Rudy in the Spartanburg S.C. poll (a great event I think, although we didn't have a correspondent on site at that one) can you imagine the impact that 25,000-35,000 voters at the Iowa Straw Poll will have on the national campaign? The Straw Poll will hit Iowa at the same time as the State Fair and stock car Nationals in Knoxville making Iowa a vast political battlefield in early August. Everyone with whom I've spoken felt the CPAC attendees were highly aware of the magnitude of this opportunity and the significance of the challenge for both the contestants and the hosts come August.

Chuck L gets the Calvin Coolidge Award for Outstanding Economy of Expression. When asked by RNC Treasurer, Tim Morgan of California why Iowa should have the first in the nation primary status, like the true Hawkeye his is, Chuck asked “Why do they play the Rose Bowl in California?” Well said! Silent Cal is smiling today.

Do any other attendees have other thoughts that can be expressed without the necessity of subsequent rehab?

Just when you thought...............

.............. it couldn't get any dumber, it does.

This morning, the Real Sporer shoveled snow (so, Ghost of Gerald Ford, you might lose me to a heart attack) came in and decided to check the morning news before heading downtown.

What did I find, a story that proposes that M. Hussein Obama's white ancestors owned slaves. Given the prevalence of slavery in Africa, I'll bet his black ancestors did as well, if we just look a few generations more distant.

The Obama story is worse because they have to go all the way back to his great-great-great-great-grandfather, whereas the smear merchants could link Mitt to his great-great-grandfather (only four generations removed instead of six), although an Obama great-great-grandmother may have owned two slaves so perhaps Mitt and Oby might be equally guilty by ancestral association.

So, a Romney/Obama debate would turn on whose ancestors engaged in practices that society now condemns sometime around the middle of the 19th Century?

............ and people have to ask why reality TV is popular.

Poll Update

The dynamic nature of the Presidential race continues. All kinds of polling news out today, most all good for Mayor Rudy Giuliani. But the Straw Poll is in August and the Caucuses are in January of next year. Since we didn't get the fun of running against Howard Dean, I don't think that anyone is placing too much certainty in these early polls.

The Real Sporer believes that Condi Rice really is serious and isn't going to be persuaded to leave wonkdom for pure politics. Too bad, she'd be a killer against the Dems when we started talking about the real world.

However, with one out another jumps in. Cong. Ron Paul, a libertarian kind of Republican has "unofficially" entered the race. While not well known, Cong. Paul seems like a very interesting guy with much to offer the public debate. Ron Paul demonstrates the Republican good fortune of a large resevoir of ideas and talents in the face of the shallow constellation of anger, resentment, disingenuity and deception that masquerades for leadership across the aisle.

Welcome to Iowa Cong. Paul. Your supporters can now display their love by voting for you on the Real Sporer internet poll to the right.

Useful idiots …………..

…………… is the description Hitler (the Real Hitler to the liberal bloggers, as opposed to any Republican with whom they disagree) of “peace activists” in the 1930s.

The DMR highlighted two local “peace activists” who were recently apparently arrested while protesting a war (I presume Iraq, but since they are “peace activists” I assume they are opposed to all war) in Sen. Grassley’s office. The intrinsic naiveté and ego centrism of these aging Vietnam protesters is a complaint that “civil disobedience” is harder today because the civil protester gets arrested. Well, uh ….. yeah, I guess when you trespass in public buildings or disrupt the legitimate business of the occupants, you sort of expect to get arrested. Is that not the point of civil disobedience?

Where do these people want peace? Surely not Iraq, since no rational person argues that Iraq would be more peaceful if the U.S. left. Our troops might not be exposed there but Iraq itself would surely be far bloodier.

Does the reader wonder why “peace activists” aren’t protesting the provision of Iranian explosives to Shia terrorists and militia gangs outside of the United Nations building in New York. Those explosives are killing far more Iraqis than American military efforts. Could any thinking person find a scenario in which Iraq would become more unraveled and less peaceful if the Iranians stopped supporting terrorists and political gangsters in Iraq.

I haven’t seen too many old Vietnam protesters outside the Syrian Embassy in D.C. I wonder how much more peaceful the world in general, and the Middle East in particular, would become if the Syrian Baathist dictatorship stopped supporting Sunni terror groups like Hamas and Hezbollah. How many lives in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Israel (I know, dead Israelis don’t matter to liberals but they do get killed by Syrian stooges) would be saved if the Syrians discontinued arming and funding the terror groups doing the killing.

If their interest in only in saving the lives of American soldiery, then wouldn’t the Vietnam relics best spend their time ending Iranian and Syrian support for terror and tyranny in Iraq. Does anyone think American soldiers would have much of an enemy to fight if the terrorists and Baaathists in Iraq didn’t obtain weapons and money from Iran and Syria?

As Hitler knew, peace activists are idiots because they misdirect public attention from the real enemy, Eurofascism in the 30s, Islamofascism now. These people deserve public scorn and rebuke, not reward and recognition.