And these Day One ads are good, because if you’re a Republican you want to show folks what it would mean to elect you. Obama got elected in 2008 on a bunch of patently false, airy promises with zero specifics to them, and a Democrat can get away with it if he’s not pinned to the wall on precisely how to slow the rising of the oceans, for example.

Thank John McCain for that.

Romney, on the other hand, can rely on the fact that while people might still be uncomfortable telling pollsters they think Obama’s a jackass they’re not on board with Obama’s policies and they know those policies won’t work.

The first ad mentioned the Keystone XL pipeline, tax reform and ending Obamacare. This one has three new changes to offer…

It seems like the general reaction is that it’s a devastating ad, and it was certainly focus group-tested like crazy.

The concept for the newest advertisement and even some of the lines in the script were culled directly from focus groups of undecided and sometimes torn voters that were held over nearly a year. As Crossroads strategists would learn after 18 different focus groups and field tests, from Missouri to Colorado to Ohio to Florida, the harshest anti-Obama jabs backfire with many Americans.

Middle-of-the-road voters who said they thought the country was on the wrong track were unmoved when they heard arguments that the president lacks integrity. And they did not buy assertions that he is a rabid partisan with a radical liberal agenda that is wrecking America.

“They are not interested in being told they made a horrible mistake,” said Steven J. Law, president of Crossroads GPS and the affiliated “super PAC,” American Crossroads. “The disappointment they’re now experiencing has to be handled carefully.”

In interviews with voters, Crossroads strategists picked up on some common sentiments that they concluded could provide a clear rationale for voters to deny Mr. Obama a second term.

Some said they felt that the president was an eloquent communicator, but that his actions had failed to live up to his words. They said they thought the country’s budget problems had gotten out of hand, yet the government kept spending recklessly — like someone with maxed-out credit cards. And they reported being worried that their children would not have the same opportunities to get ahead as they had.

It’s definitely an ad for squishes. No red meat, no mudslinging. Just a mildly-depressing, sign-of-the-times piece designed to appeal to people who voted for Obama four years ago.

Kinda like a Peggy Noonan column.

Not really my cup of tea. I’d be more about ridicule, because (a) folks need entertainment, (b) Obama is ridiculous, (c) the best way to break down this “likability” business the talking heads keep touting is to point out the emperor has no clothes and (d) the reaction from the other side will only amplify the effect of the ridicule – they have zero sense of humor and they royally stink at rapid response.

That said, you’ve got to appeal to all kinds of people – and independent voters do like a soft touch. They hate all this fighting. So this ad is an attempt to reach them.

What do you guys think? Is it too wimpy, or is it persuasive?

Well, something is very wrong in the Democratic presidential primary election.

Large numbers of Democrat voters turned out yesterday in Arkansas and Kentucky to show that they prefer anybody—even nobody—over Barack Obama.

Regular readers of The Hayride are already familiar with John Wolfe Jr., the Tennessee lawyer who scored enough votes in the March 24 Louisiana primary election to merit three delegates at the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, N.C. in September.

There were 17,804 Democrats in Louisiana who voted for Wolfe, giving him over 15 percent of ballots in three of Louisiana’s seven congressional districts.

Impressive for a candidate who isn’t exactly a house-hold name, but Wolfe did even better—much better—in Arkansas yesterday where he walked away with 41 percent of ballots cast in Tuesday’s primary election.

Stop and think about that for a moment—four in 10 Democrat voters in Arkansas said Obama is not their guy.

And in Kentucky, where Wolfe wasn’t on the ballot, about as many Democrat voters picked no guy—or rather “uncommitted”—over the incumbent president of their party. Uncommitted got 42 percent of the vote.

Understandably, it’s going to be hard to award a candidate that doesn’t exist any delegates. The Kentucky Democratic Party has an easy out, but it doesn’t have the opportunity to take stand on an issue close to Democratic hearts—- voter disenfranchisement.

In Arkansas and Louisiana there is a flesh-and-blood candidate who won nearly as large a percent of the vote as Obama’s non-existent Kentucky contender did and he should get his due.

Up in Arkansas, like here in Louisiana, the Democratic Party is refusing to award Wolfe delegates he earned, saying he broke party rules by not filling out some paperwork. Wolfe has countered by pointing out that the $2,500 he spent to get on  ballots was eagerly accepted and none of this came up until polls showed him advancing on Obama.

The Democratic Party has used technicalities before to make sure delegates don’t slip away from the president, as in the case of Randall Terry, an anti-abortion activist who managed to wrest a delegate from Obama in the Oklahoma primary. The delegate wasn’t awarded, of course.

Wolfe is threatening a lawsuit in Louisiana to get his delegates and has told me that it’s almost certain that the Obama camp didn’t dot all the ” i’s” and cross all the “t’s” to get on the ballot.

The re-election bid has been pretty sloppy and it’s likely that a few mistakes could be unearthed that would show the president is guilty of missing a filing deadline or two—something the Louisiana Democratic Party is accusing Wolfe of doing—if party officials were inclined to dig for them.

They are not so inclined, but it’s really not necessary for Wolfe to have to engage in a tit-for-tat of technicalities. A lawsuit could be avoided too, if a party that purports to stand for the rights of disenfranchised voters would do the right thing and stand on principle.

We have heard U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder equate state’s voter photo ID laws to Jim Crow-styled voter disenfranchisement of the Old South, striking down such laws in South Carolina and threatening to do the same in Texas.

Documentaries have been made by Democrats revealing how Republicans have caused voting machines to malfunction and rain to fall on election days—all in an effort to disenfranchise people likely to vote a Democratic ticket:

The above video if from a movie called “Uncounted,” but a more apt name would be “Uninterested,” because it shows that a lot of people didn’t vote because the didn’t feel like getting out in the rain or to be bothered with showing a photo ID.

Votes would have really been uncounted if people who actually voted were to have had their ballots cast into waste baskets, like the votes of nearly 18,000 Democrats in Louisiana and many more in Arkansas.

Voter disenfranchisement laws have been a central theme of Democrat politics in recent years, so let party rules be damned and do the right thing, Democrats.

All it would take is for Louisiana Democratic Party Chair Karen Carter Peterson to give the go-ahead and for party bosses in Arkansas to do likewise.

It might go against every fiber of their being and would cause the president a little embarrassment—like a non-candidate coming within striking of the nomination distance in Kentucky and a convict doing the same in West Virginia.

Democrats, if you are gonna continue to lecture Republicans on voter rights, just give Wolfe his delegates. In other words…

When the opposition can slap together a web ad like this, you’ve officially become dog food. Not usin’ dogs as food, mind you; they already did that. But actual dog food. As in, Alpo.

And the thing of it is that Cory Booker is at least as likable a guy as Obama is. And for him to be put upon like that and thrown under the bus, well…

Safe to say these goofballs can’t do much more with their Bain Capital stuff. That horse done keeled over on ‘em.

Speaking of, the new hotness is that Ann Romney likes riding horses. She does dressage, which is like equestrian ballet for super-rich people. And of course, because she does, and she spends a roll of cash that could, er, choke a horse, on dressage – that means she’s out of touch.

And never worked a day in her life, dontcha know.

Beating up on the MS victim again. Cuz that worked like a real charm the last time these morons tried it.

There’s another parallel to this one – which is food.

Because while Ann Romney never made one of her ponies ride on the roof, there is this…

Romney, who frequently takes riding breaks as she campaigns with her husband, Mitt, the presumptive GOP presidential nominee, regularly ferries at least one of her horses, a mare called Schone, between Moorpark and Boston. But moving horses can be dangerous as well as costly.

In 2003, a newly purchased horse, Marco Polo, was flown from Germany to Boston, where his container tipped on the runway. The horse tore a hind ligament and spent a year recuperating. But the accident might have been much worse, Romney revealed in her deposition. “Somebody in the container almost got killed we found out later. It was terrible.”

So Mitt almost kills Seamus makin’ him ride on the roof from Boston to Canada, Ann almost kills her horses puttin’ em on cross country planes.

But while that’s fa-sho evidence that the Romneys are just too mean (and Mormon, too, and didja know those mean Mormons whacked a bunch of people from Arkansas before the Civil War?) to occupy the White House, just like the dog business Obama’s all about makin’ a meal out of the critters in question.

Bet you didn’t know Obama wants us to eat horse meat, huh?

By allowing the U.S. Department of Agriculture to resume horse meat inspections, the new law will effectively allow the operation of slaughterhouses in the U.S. that butcher horses for human consumption.  The last U.S. slaughterhouse that butchered horses closed in 2007.  But now, our president wants us to start eating horses again.

…

Interestingly, during the 2008 campaign, then-candidate Barack Obama said, “Federal policy towards animals should respect the dignity of animals and their rightful place as cohabitants of our environment. We should strive to protect animals and their habitats and prevent animal cruelty, exploitation and neglect…. I have consistently been a champion of animal-friendly legislation and policy and would continue to be so once elected.”  Obama announced that he had co-sponsored legislation to stop the sale for slaughter of wild free-roaming horses and burros, and signed on as co-sponsor to the bill to ban horse slaughter for human consumption. When asked specifically during the campaign, “Will you support legislation …to institute a permanent ban on horse slaughter and exports of horses for human consumption,” Obama gave an unqualified “Yes.”

Guy can’t even stick to a position on Mr. Ed Ribeyes or Trigger T-Bones. And he’s gonna send his minions out to rip Ann Romney for blowin’ big cash on ridin’ horses? Shaddap already.

MacAoidh has pointed this out already a couple of times, but the thing is Obama’s people are idiots. LaBolt, Axelrod, Plouffe, Valerie Jarrett – none of these clowns are worth spit. They’re just a bunch of crooked goats from Chicago who got lucky enough to latch on to a no-name empty suit who had Soros’ money behind him and Oprah’s endorsement – at the same time the Republicans were runnin’ the all-time worst candidate they’d ever sent up. And it happened after eight years of a pretty forgettable Republican presidency that was bogged down in two wars in overseas bungholes, in the middle of a financial Bill-Buckner-at-Shea-Stadium.

Talk about your Perfect Storm, this was it. Of course Obama won under those circumstances.

Reminds me of that football team I heard about one time. They were gettin’ beat 70-0, and the stadium was in a bad neighborhood. There was a gunshot close by, the other team thought that was the referee signalin’ that the game was over with like three minutes left, and they hit the showers.

And six plays later these guys managed to score to make it 70-7 for a final.

Axelrod and LaBolt and Plouffe and the rest are the guys who score in six plays with no defense on the field. Except in their case, they think they just won a Super Bowl. And they’ve got morons in the media reporting they just won the Super Bowl scorin’ with no defense on the field.

Romney ain’t McCain. Which is not to say Romney’s guys would outscore Obama’s guys 70-0 or that Romney’s guys would win the Super Bowl. Then again, so far this looks like it could be 70-0 before it’s over. Because it’s pretty clear Obama’s gettin’ scored on with every one of these things he launches.

After all, he goes home to Chicago and gives a speech at that NATO summit – can’t get a better podium than that for a campaign speech if you’re tacky enough to use it – about how Romney sucked at Bain Capital and it’s cool to say so because Romney’s using that as his calling card, and before that’s even out of his mouth all anybody wants to talk about is how Cory Booker done blowed up his narrative.

And that’s the same deal as how the War On Women turned out once Hilary Rosen chewed up her Jimmy Choo, or how the Seamus On The Roof thing ended up in #DontEatMyDog.

If you’ve got good people, you don’t get your ass kicked like this every day.

But Obama’s people get their ass kicked like this pretty much every day, seems like. It’s almost like they’re back in high school.

Bet they wish they could run against John McCain again. And that Cory Booker would stop tryin’ to help.

Newt hits all the highlights here. First, that when he and Rick Perry tried to beat Romney up over Bain Capital it didn’t work, because people recognized that sometimes an equity firm will have a hit investing in a given company and create lots of jobs, and sometimes they’ll miss and have to lay a bunch of people off. Folks get that, and because they get it they’re not going to see Romney as the devil for having been in that business.

And second, Newt nails it on Obama being precisely the wrong guy to attack Romney on Bain Capital. Who is Obama to talk about Romney’s record on jobs? Obama is the guy who brought us Solyndra, and Beacon Power, and Ener1, and LightSquared. Obama can gripe all he wants about Bain Capital’s bad economic bets and the people who lost their jobs when some of those bets were liquidated – but it wasn’t taxpayer money wasted on stupid green energy crony investments by a president who decided to play at being a venture capitalist.

Newt’s going to make a heck of a surrogate for Romney in this campaign. Probably a lot better surrogate than a candidate, truth be told. And on this issue, he’s got a good story to tell.

32 D, 22 R and 38 I.

Does anybody really believe that only 22 percent of the electorate in November will be Republican?

For those who do, be advised – you have no idea what you’re talking about.

In 2008, which was the largest Democrat advantage in recent times, the split was 39/32/29. In 2010 for the midterms it was 35/35/30. By any estimation you’d have to figure this fall’s electorate would look more like 2010 than 2008.

And yet this poll undersamples Republicans by 10 percent compared to 2008. Why on earth would anybody think doing so would produce a credible result?

That’s an unanswered question. But Hot Air notes that whatever the answer, this undersampling Republicans is a bad habit of the poll in question…

Take a close look at the Republican representation in WaPo/ABC polls this year. Starting in January, that has been 25%, 23%, 27%, 23%, and now 22%.  The pollster seems incapable of finding a representative number of Republicans for this poll series.  Perhaps that should give the two news organizations involved a hint about finding a new pollster.

So we know that the poll is rigged in Obama’s favor, whether intentionally or because the pollster can’t find a good list of Republican voters to call. And this poll is of registered voters rather than likely voters, which means it both skews to the Democrat and it’s less reliable. But given that, here’s what they came up with – a lot of numbers the Obama camp can’t be too fired up about…

• Obama leads Romney, 49-46 among the registered voters. Within the margin of error despite a built-in 10-point lead. He leads Romney 49-45 among the total sample.
• Obama’s underwater on approval rating, 47-49.
• He’s very much underwater on the economy, 42-55.
• Only 48 percent of Obama’s voters are “very enthusiastic” about voting for him, with 43 percent “somewhat enthusiastic.” That’s better than the number for Romney (23 and 50), but then Obama didn’t have a primary to get beat up in. The poll didn’t ask whether respondents are very or somewhat enthusiastic about voting AGAINST Obama or Romney.
•  52 percent of the poll said the economy was the most important issue in the campaign.
• How good is the economy? 1 percent said excellent, 16 percent good. The other 83 percent said not so good or poor.
• 49 percent blame Bush for the economy, 34 percent blame Obama. This after three years and change of Obama blaming Bush for everything, and with a sample undersampling Republicans by at least 10 percent.
• Romney beats Obama on who would handle the economy better, 47-46, though Obama leads Romney on who would create more jobs, 47-44. No idea what that means.

There are some other results, but they’re obviously colored by the lefty slant of the poll sample.

We talked about the CBS/New York Times poll last week which showed something relatively similar; it had a sample that was skewed to the Democrats as well and yet generated lousy numbers for the president.

What we’d like to see is a poll built on a sample that mirrors the 2010 electorate. Sure, that was a midterm election and as such it probably had a different turnout model than you could expect with Obama on the ballot – but it was also the most recent sample of voter preferences, and little has changed economically or otherwise since then with respect to the public’s perception of what’s going on in Washington.

With such a sample – or even with a sample that mirrors the 2008 election – Romney is leading Obama, and probably by a substantial margin. But the mainstream media refuses to show such a poll.

Wonder why that is.

Read more at http://winwithjmc.com/archives/4054

Continue reading at http://winwithjmc.com/archives/4022

Republicans are kind of used to it, but there remains hope that Mitt Romney—if elected president—won’t screw us as much as his East Coast RINO pedigree suggests. That hope largely resides in legislators that rode to Washington on the tea party tidal wave in the 2010 midterm elections.

Among them is Rep. Jeff Landry, Tea Party Caucus member and House freshman who will be contesting Rep. Charles Boustany (R-Lafayette) for Louisiana’s newly drawn 3rd Congressional District. I don’t live in the district, so I won’t be able to pull the lever for either candidate in November.

There are some things to be considered in deciding which man will remain a member of the downsized Louisiana Congressional Delegation, foremost which one will Republicans be able to trust to not act like a Democrat when they feel we aren’t paying attention.

Mulling this over, I was reminded of something I read in a biography of 19th Century Mississippi Congressman Seargent S. Prentiss a few months back.  Scanning through the book for the fun of it—yes, I am a wild man— I ran across this quote from a Prentiss speech:

“When men’s liberties are attacked by open force, there is but little to fear; they see the danger and meet it boldly. When under the guise of friendship a blow is struck at the constitution of the country, then it’s time for alarm.”

That little passage seemed to contain the crux of the problem of the Republican Party, so I decided to write it down. I thought it might come in handy one day.

Prentiss was a Whig and was chastising members of his own party for voting like the opposition—the Democratic Party. He was bothered that no one in his party seemed to have a problem when Whigs voted against things they professed to believe in, they only got upset when Democrats voted that way. The real problem was when “under the guise of friendship, a blow is struck.”

Until the emergence of the tea party, today’s Republican Party seemed to have the same problem. That’s changing for the better, as evidenced by the unseating of long-time establishment Republicans by tea party candidates in Congress—the most recent example being Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana losing to state Treasurer Richard Murdock.

Conservative voters are kind of tired of electing Republicans who advocate small government and fiscal responsibility while running for office and are amalgamated instantly into the Washington political class once arriving at the Potomac.

Could Boustany be said to be guilty of this? Landry is trying to make that case and it seems to have some merit.

Upon announcing that he was running for re-election, Landry came out against Boustany for, among other things, voting to raise his pay back in 2007:

As shown in the video, Boustany has countered Landry by saying he has never voted himself a pay raise…only there’s the little  matter of the congressional record.

So is Boustany lying? Well, I guess that depends on what your definition of  ”is,”  is.

The case could be made, if you were to engage in some Clintonesque hair-splitting, that what Boustany actually voted on back in 2007 was a bill not to block an automatic pay raise of $4,400 to congressmen’s annual salaries, advancing his pay to $170,000.  It’s not a vote to actively raise his pay, just to not stop an automatic raise in pay…pretty much the same thing if your aren’t a typical politician.

Wouldn’t it be nice to not have to go through the trouble of voting to raise you salary and just put an increase on automatic pilot?

I don’t know if Boustany would make the argument I’m suggesting, because he’s  ducking my questions.

The Hayride  has put a few calls into his office to ask him about the discrepancy between the public record and what he has said, but Boustany nor any of his staff  has called back. Incidentally, I have never called Landry when he hasn’t returned my calls promptly to answer questions.

It would be nice to give Boustanty the chance to fire back at Landry’s criticisms that cast him as a fixture of  the Washington establishment detached from his constituency, but we can’t do that if he won’t talk to us—kinda like a fixture of the Washington establishment detached from his constituency wouldn’t.

Landry is going to continue to paint Boustany as a member of the Washington elite who did things like vote multiple times to increase the national debt ceiling and even supported Obama’s Cash for Clunkers program—I’m not sure whether or not Landry has used that last one yet, but it’s coming.

The Hayride has certainly been fair to Boustany, recently running columns that could be said to be a little less than kind to Landry.  If  he is willing to take a few questions from Louisiana’s most read political blog to blunt his opponent’s attacks, it might do him some good.  Boustany seems like a smart guy, so it’s likely something he will soon do.

If not, stupid is as stupid does.

But if all you’ve got is 30 seconds to work with, the Keystone Pipeline, tax reform and ending Obamacare is a pretty good way to go.

In follow-up ads it might be a good idea to talk about financial reform targeted toward making it easier to launch a startup, reeling in and reworking the EPA so it’s not a hindrance to the economy and individual freedom, reorganizing the federal government to cut waste and make its operations cheaper and less intrusive, prioritizing defense in the budget while making some relatively massive cuts to it, ending wasteful and corrupt investments in “green energy” and a few others.

Guess you can’t do all of that stuff on Day One. Doubt you could end Obamacare or pass tax reform on Day One, either, so we can allow some license.

Still, it’s not a bad strategy to pick out three things everybody knows suck about Obama’s presidency and doesn’t want to see continue, and say “you put me in there and that stuff stops immediately.”

How does Obama answer an ad like this?

Here was Miller, last night on O’Reilly…

And then today, Romney is down in Florida giving a speech, and look what’s in the background?

Mitt Romney continued to drive a debt-oriented message here on Wednesday morning, extending his “prairie fire” of debt metaphor with the assistance of a prop.

In a nod to the independent voters who pushed the Sunshine State into the Democratic column in 2008, Romney noted that both parties were responsible for pushing the debt to the “incomprehensible” levels – which were represented on a giant prop debt clock behind him.

“There was another area during [President Obama's] campaign, he said he would focus on. You see, he was very critical of his predecessor for the debts his predecessor put in place. And sure it’s true you can’t blame one party or the other for all the debts this country has, because both parties in my opinion have spent too much and borrowed too much when they were in power,” Romney said in this key swing state.

Romney should absolutely push the debt. Obama can’t win that argument. He’s avoided that argument for three years and refused to engage the public on it. He’s lied through his teeth about what it will take to fix it, he’s refused to present a credible budget – he can’t get so much as a single vote for his proposals in either the House or Senate – and he’s wasted our air with insipid crap about the Buffet Rule and evil oil companies getting tax breaks.

Obama hasn’t done his job the entire time he’s been president. He ought to be thrown out on his ass for that fact in and of itself, and people will understand that.

So yeah, Romney should be carrying that debt clock around at every speech he gives. Miller is precisely right about that. And while there are people howling today about this Super PAC-Jeremiah Wright business, and accusing Romney of being the second coming of John McCain because he doesn’t want to run his campaign on Jeremiah Wright, those folks need to understand that Romney’s sweet spot isn’t on Jeremiah Wright or even Bill Ayers. And while Romney should signal to Obama that whatever distraction the president wants to throw in his path to distract from debts, deficits and bad fiscal and economic policies will be answered with ruthless vigor, as he’s been doing, those things are secondary. They’re not the sweet spot either.

No, his sweet spot is those numbers on that clock, adding up at lightning speed. He can win the election on that alone, and what’s more he can get some coattails behind him and end up with a friendly Senate.

And if that clock is a mainstay on the Romney campaign roadshow, it might be that Miller planted the idea for it.

Politicians can be thoroughbreds or mutts. This is what we deal with in Louisiana.

There’s a contest between Representative Boustany (R) and Representative Landry (R) in the new district developed under Federal mandate in this post-Katrina world. Members of the Grand Old Party (GOP) are NOT members of one happy family as witnessed by this soon to be rancorous contest between two (2) Republicans. Boustany is technically a veteran. Landry’s the rookie. The differences are obvious.

Boustany learned to play the game according to the rules left behind since the beginning of the American Republic. Those with seniority cow their subordinates into submission and servitude until they’re ready to slide into harness and pull the sled in the same manner as has always been done. Each dog in the harness learns its place and behaves as they’re expected to behave. Boustany’s now a part of the entrenched team with his pedigree certified and stamped by his groomers and governing council of the Kennel Club. Some consider him a RINO (Republican In Name Only). They say he takes a moderate stance willing to give some to get little.

Landry’s an outsider and a mutt. And, that’s a good thing. It’s mutts you find most endearing generally. It’s the mutts we find friendliest most of the time. Mutts capture our hearts and imaginations and serve us as familiars and friends over time. They become family and are appreciated as such.

Landry’s in harness but he’s headstrong and passionate. He’s looking to change the speed, direction and control of the team. He’ll fight to become lead dog and doesn’t mind getting scuffed up in the fight. He’ll give as good as he gets. Stephanie Grace (Times-Picayune political writer) pointed out Landry gets his way by doing the outrageous but: “…what he didn’t get was much of anything for the people he represents”.

Landry’s said in the past: “I’m going to employ any tactic I can think of to get someone’s attention”.

And it’s there we see the difference in the candidates: their approach to whom they serve and how they feel best capable of representing them.

Boustany prefers to play along to get along. Personal power, wealth and recognition follow Progressive recipes for this cocktail known as Washington Politics. The position of Representative can lead to a position of Senator. The ranking changes from a ratio or 1:435 to a ratio of 1:100. That’s a quantum ego leap.

Landry’s moseyed up to the bar and wants change from within. But instead of serving up the same stale cocktail formula, Landry creates a newer attention getting taste for his patrons. Where Boustany appears mellow and follows the smooth development of a single malt whiskey; Landry is Jagermeister grabbing your attention. You take notice something different is happening: immediately. As is the case with the liquor in question; you may not appreciate what its flavor initially says but, you do pay attention.

Boustany went to Congress with the understanding he’d learn the rules and play under the tutelage of his elders. That was okay for that constituency at that point. Go along; get along. Maintain the status quo. Cream rises to the top.

So does sewage.

Landry was elected and supported by people wanting a spokesman willing to impact what’s seen as a corrupt and corrupting juggernaut more interested in what it can get for itself and its participant members The system subjugates the people elected it. Landry’s doing what he feels best. That threatens the hierarchy his elders and now, Mr. Boustany, have carefully maintained and sustained.

One of the signature lines issued by a character is the James Bond line when asked his preferred drink in Dr. NO. It’s a vodka Martini: “shaken, not stirred.”

Landry wants to shake up Congress. Boustany wants to stir the ingredients but accepts the drink’s standard, tasteless and flaccid performance as acceptable.

Thanks for listening.

Continue reading at http://winwithjmc.com/archives/4016

I am writing this letter in the hope it will help end the current situation you have found yourself in. It seems you are being ripped apart in the media because of your claim of Cherokee ancestry and you don’t like it. According to a recent article in the Boston Globe, you believe your opponent is “creating a distraction” by “ridiculously” attacking you “with questions that have already been answered.” It seems you would like the “attacks” against your claims of Cherokee ancestry to stop so I thought I would offer some advice on how to make it stop.

Tell the truth….

While you cling to a family story and the inaccurate report that ONE document was found that supports your claim, we real Cherokees understand that those things mean nothing. You see, we Cherokees have lots and lots and lots of documentation supporting our claims of our ancestry. Our Cherokee ancestors are found on every roll of the Cherokee Nation (30+ rolls!) dating back to before the removal and in all sorts of other documentation, including but not limited to claims against the US government for lost property; the Moravian missionary records; ration lists before and after the forced removal, etc…yet your ancestors are found in NONE of those records.

But, your ancestors are found in plenty of historical records, and every time, they are found living as white people among other white people. Never are your ancestors ever found living among the Cherokees. Never, never, never, never…….yet you claim they were Cherokee….

So, Ms. Warren, you see, it is not just your opponent who has questions. We Cherokees have questions too and those questions have yet to be answered by you. You see, for us Cherokees, this is not political. This is about the truth.

You have claimed something you had no right to claim — our history and our heritage and our identity. Those things belong to us, and us alone. These are not things we choose to embrace when they benefit us and then cast aside when we no longer need them, but that is what you seem to have done by “checking a box” for several years and then no longer “checking” it more recently, when apparently you no longer needed it.

Barnes went on the radio in Boston yesterday and clobbered Warren even further. A little taste…

“I think she owes the Cherokee Nation an apology, I think she owes all American Indians an apology, and I think she owes the American public an apology”

She’s said that several Cherokee genealogists – Cherokee tend to be into genealogy, and get pretty good at keeping records on such things – have been looking into Warren’s background and found zero evidence she has a drop of Cherokee blood.

Several people who are experienced researchers in Cherokee genealogy have been working together exploring Elizabeth Warren’s ancestry. They have uncovered many documents that, combined, paint a very clear picture that Warren descends from white people who had no connection whatsoever to the Cherokee Nation. These documents will be posted soon.

Well, that “no connection” part isn’t exactly true. After all, it’s been uncovered that Warren had an ancestor who helped round up Cherokee for the Trail of Tears, which means that the Warren family probably had Cherokee blood after all – it’s just that blood was on their clothes rather than in their veins.

What’s a trifle or two when you’re an esteemed lefty professor with Harvard and Penn on your curriculum vitae, after all?

As Hot Air notes today, what Warren ought to do is to call a press conference and apologize, say that it’s been widely thought in her family that there was Cherokee ancestry and that she wasn’t trying to glom on to minority status to advance her career. But the damage is pretty much done – especially now that folks like Barnes are on the case and determined to ruin her political career for having posed as a Cherokee in order to rise as an affirmative action baby through the ranks of academia.

After all, what Warren has essentially done here is akin to going around claiming victim status because “I was at Auschwitz,” and then having the word get out that while that’s true you were a camp guard rather than a prisoner. How do you unring that bell? “Yes, but it was very traumatic?”

Scott Brown is a middling conservative at best, but he’s a terrific politician and a Republican that Massachusetts Democrats have proven they’ll vote for. Elizabeth Warren is showing she’s the same loathsome, incompetent fraud that Martha Coakley was. And with this original professional sin having been laid bare it’s difficult to see how she’ll do any better than Coakley did three years ago.

U.S. Rep. Jeff Landry finally admitted he is running for re-election to Congress. The New Iberia Republican has played coy about his future political plans, but he was apparently the only person who wasn’t sure he was going to take on incumbent U.S. Rep. Charles Boustany, R-Lafayette. Now, he’s made it official.

The message Landry delivered to supporters is the one we will hear thousands of times between now and the Nov. 6 open primary. He plans to portray Boustany as a liberal, a career politician, a congressman who will do anything to hold on to his health care and retirement benefits, an insider who is too close to the Washington establishment and a supporter of raising the nation’s debt limit.

Landry picked up his first major endorsement months ago when the Tea Party of Louisiana said it drafted him to run for re-election. He is the tea party personified and will say and do anything to get attention and grab headlines. Getting results isn’t his major concern.

Supporters cheered the congressman when he held up a “Drilling equals jobs” sign during President Obama’s jobs creation speech to a joint session of Congress. The photo was widely circulated.

Landry called employees of the U.S. Interior Department the “Gestapo,” the name of the Nazi secret police in Hitler’s Germany. Those words were particularly hurtful to Michael Bromwich, head of the department’s drilling division, who is Jewish.

When the president in early-2011 called members of Congress to the White House to talk about the debt and deficit problems, Landry refused to attend. He called it a waste of time.

Stephanie Grace, a political writer for The Times-Picayune, summed up those antics well in one of her columns last September.

“Each time he got the attention he so clearly craves,” Grace said.

“What he didn’t get was much of anything for the people he represents…”

Landry is unapologetic about his actions.

“I’m going to employ any tactic I can think of to get someone’s attention,” he said.

Boustany and no one else should underestimate the lengths to which Landry will go to win. He captured his current 3rd Congressional District seat by destroying the political reputation of former state Speaker of the House Hunt Downer.

Downer was a state representative from 1976 to 2004, served as assistant adjutant general of the Louisiana National Guard and was the first director of the Louisiana Department of Veterans Affairs. Landry portrayed Downer as a tax-and-spend liberal, a convenient campaign tactic that voters have seen people like him use over and over again. Fortunately, it doesn’t always work.

Louisiana is losing a seat in the U.S. House, and redistricting has forced Boustany and Landry into the same district. If Landry and the tea party had prevailed during the Legislature’s redistricting session last year, Calcasieu and Jefferson Davis parish voters wouldn’t even be voting in the newly drawn 3rd District. They wanted to put the whole or parts of those parishes into the 4th District that stretches all the way to Shreveport.

Boustany’s Republican colleagues, the Louisiana party hierarchy and Gov. Bobby Jindal even ganged up against him to try and protect two north Louisiana GOP congressmen. Thanks to a coordinated political effort between Lake Charles and Lafayette, Boustany’s current 7th District remained pretty much intact.

Landry has another ace up his sleeve. He and U.S Sen. David Vitter, R-La., have become bosom buddies, and Landry doesn’t miss an opportunity to play up the connection.

“Sen. Vitter joined me in voting no (on raising the debt limit) and requested me to join him at his forums in Lake Charles and Lafayette, explaining why this vote was, in and of itself, a disaster for our nation,” Landry said.

The Times-Picayune calls Landry “a nimble and natural campaigner with an infectious personality.” Ask people who meet him for the first time, and they will say he gave them the impression he’s known them for a long, long time.

Boustany has an edge in fundraising, and is running in a district pretty much like the one that has elected him to Congress four times. He won a runoff in 2004 with 55 percent of the vote. He won the 2006 and 2008 primaries with 71 and 62 percent of the votes, respectively. And he was unopposed in 2010.

The political philosophies of the two men couldn’t be more different. Landry shoots from the hip, and Boustany takes a quiet, reserved approach to politics.

“It’s important to have good relationships with other members of Congress, including the leadership to get things done,” Boustany told The Advocate in a telephone interview. “It’s not sufficient to give speeches and have bumper-sticker politics.”

Voters of the new 3rd District had better fasten their seat belts. Their congressional campaign promises to be as wild and woolly as they get. We hope they will be able to separate fact from fiction and not be blinded by wild and unsupported accusations.

Jim Beam, the retired editor of the Lake Charles American Press, has covered people and politics for more than ÿve decades. Contact him at 494-4025 or jbeam@americanpress.com.