The Occasional Observer

So I'm at a wedding this weekend and it's getting near the end of the night. My friend comes back from the bar, obviously annoyed, and declares that the bartender is screwing him. He says he's watched the last few pours and the guy is putting in the bare minimum amount of alcohol and mostly filling with soda. (I of course don't have this issue since I'm drinking Dewar's rocks all night.)

So he says "Next time, I'm going to have to order my drink bin laden style." I say "What's that?" He says "Two shots and a splash."

Apparently this is what another bartender in NYC had suggested to him the previous week.

Classic!

Obama the Weak

Jack Kelly notes a key lesson from Bibi's visit stateside: the GOP needs a nominee that is more Christie and less Minn nice.

From the Midwest to the West Wing | The Weekly Standard

I hit this topic repeatedly in the 08 cycle, but it may be more true now...

An interesting possibility.

Jeb certainly approved of T Paw's campaign announcement, as per CNN.

If a heavyweight like Jeb gets behind Pawlenty, and the Bush fundraising machine follows suit, that could bode very well for T Paw solidifying his position as the Mitt alternative in the field (a position that already seems pretty solid). Come to think of it, it would bode well for Pawlenty in Florida. Somehow it wouldn't surprise me to see Mitt take NH and T Paw take Iowa and have SC and FL decide the nomination.

I'm shocked by this one. Gov. Daniels has announced he is not running for President.

This leaves Mitt as the prohibitive front runner, T-Paw as the most likely Mitt-alternative, Huntsman as the only viable dark horse, and the door slightly more ajar for one of the fringe candidates (Bachmann, Cain, Santorum, etc.) to make some noise in Iowa and make the GOP look a little more fringe.

BTW, what a weak a statement from My Man Mitch:

What could have been a complicated decision was in the end very simple: on matters affecting us all, our family constitution gives a veto to the women’s caucus, and there is no override provision. Simply put, I find myself caught between two duties. I love my country; I love my family more.

If you're not running b/c your wife doesn't want you to, own the decision. Don't throw her under the bus in the national press. "I've decided not to run, largely because I know it will disrupt my family and they are my first priority." Not "she vetoed my choice to run." Weak.

I logged on to my computer this morning only to find about a dozen emails that didn't make much sense to me. They were posts to a pro-gay marriage Facebook group. Of course I was confused, so I looked through the emails to the least recent. It turn out an acquaintance from high school, who I liked well enough when I knew her then, is gay and living with another woman, added me to the group. This is despite the fact the my profile says conservative under politics. My experience is that liberals can't even conceive of a reasonable person who doesn't share all of their views. Needless to say, I immediately left the group. I wonder how she would have reacted had I made her a member of a group opposing gay marriage?

Democrats like Charles Schumer certainly think there's blood in the water:

He’s the Republican canary in a coal mine,” Schumer said in a conference call with reporters this morning. “When that canary speaks truth, he is snuffed out.”

He started off the call by saying, “Newt and I are considered political opposites, but I couldn’t agree with him more on what he said on Republicans plan to end Medicare. … It was refreshing to hear such candor from a top Republican, but it's equally startling to then see the hard right turn so quickly on him for his comments."

Newt says that the Ryan plan represents a "radical change" and "right-wing social engineering." He also agrees with Obama (and Mitt v 2.0, but not v 3.0) about the fact that individual mandate is a good thing.

Here's a story from the Washington Examiner about the GOP reax.

I can't figure out what Newt thinks he's gaining by this stunt. He's just executed his own nascent campaign, and not a minute too soon, if this is how he's going to conduct himself.

He's actually given countless Democrat candidates an easy ad spot. Imagine the voice over:

John Thune supports the Ryan plan to destroy Medicare as we know it, a plan that is so dangerous that even Newt Gingrich refers to it as "right-wing social engineering" and "radical."

Newt Gingrich is betraying the GOP on the crucial issue of the day (constraining entitlement costs) for some imagined political gain--one that I cannot even imagine what it might be. Gain a few senior voters in FL but lose the entire base?

Bye bye Newt. You were once a great conservative leader.

EDIT: Ross Kaminsky from the American Spectator agrees, saying that Newt disqualified himself from serious consideration as the GOP nominee based on his statements yesterday.

This leaves a top tier of candidates that currently consists of 4: Romney, Pawlenty, Daniels, and Huntsman. T-Paw's the only one who's officially started an exploratory committee.

Huckabee's exit should really helps Pawlenty. T-Paw is the only top-tier candidate who seems to be making a full out appeal to SoCons.

Daniels, with his "social truce", has clearly tried to move to the center on social issues (despite the fact that, if you look at his record and past statements, he's clearly a SoCon); yet he is a full-throated fiscal conservative. Social conservatives never really trusted Mitt, or he would've won the nomination in '08. Huntsman, IIRC, is actually pro-civil unions and is perceived as soft on illegal immigration, so he's a non-starter for many SoCons.

Unless one of these lower tier SoCons, like Bachmann, Santorum, or Gingrich can really gain traction, T-Paw may have one of the clearest paths to the nomination at this point, unless Daniels can really sneakily play to centrists and conservatives with a wink and a nod.

The inner circle supporters of Mitt, Huntsman, and even Daniels are probably hoping for a Palin entrance to split the SoCon support. For Daniels and Huntsman, an Autumn announcement for Palin would give their candidate time to unseat Mitt as the frontrunner. For Mitt, I'm sure he'd like to see Palin get in right now--the mere threat of a Palin candidacy could probably coalesce much of the GOP around one candidate as the anti-Palin, and right now that would probably be Mitt. In three or four months, after Mitch, Paw, and Huntsman have hammered away at Mitt's incongruous positions on Health Care--the situation may be very different.

Getting to Yes for Mitch and Cheri Daniels

He has obviously given some thought to the area beyond Indiana's borders, too.
Daniels accepted an invitation from those 55 students to meet at a spacious bar several blocks away after the event; he sipped Woodford Reserve bourbon as he asked them about their own lives and families. In return, they asked him who he might like to tap as his vice presidential nominee if he runs.

Hypothetically, he told them, he'd like to pick Condoleezza Rice.

Woodford, you say?

According to this article, Obama was out of the loop until near the end of the Bin Laden mission. If the conservative media folks are smart, they'll directly call him out on this. He'll certainly deny it, but if enough evidence comes out to the contrary, he'll be more done than he is already.

Thank you to all of our armed forces and law enforcement that have been working to make this happen for the last ten years.

And I'm sorry that you all have to carry the enormous weight of someone riding your coattails to try to take all the credit for your efforts...

But anyways, go SEAL Team 6 and U-S-A, U-S-A, U-S-A!