HALF-FULL REPORT 08/27/10

Published August 27, 2010 | By Jack Kelly

Who replaced Willie Mays in center field for the Giants? I don’t know, either. But I feel like that guy, whoever he is, filling in for Jack as he treks through the wilds of Tajikistan and some other places we haven’t heard of. The Half Full Report won’t be the same without him, but I hope you’ll find it entertaining.

Last week’s HFR would more accurately have been called the “Cup Runneth Over Report,” because the news was so good for our side. It isn’t quite as good this week (how could it possibly be?) but this is still an MFR – Mostly Full Report. Let’s start with the primary elections in Alaska, Arizona and Florida.

Alaska. With 100 percent of precincts reporting, Joe Miller leads Sen. Lisa Murkowski in the Republican primary by 1,668 votes, 50.9 percent to 49.1 percent. The outcome is contingent upon the counting of absentee ballots. The state sent out about 16,000 absentee ballots, of which 7,600 had been returned as of Monday (8/23). Absentee ballots must be postmarked by election day, but will be counted if they are received as much as ten days after election day.

If essentially no more than the 7,600 absentee ballots already received are counted, Sen. Murkowski would need slightly more than 60 percent of them to overtake Mr. Miller. Whether she can do this depends (obviously) on who cast the ballots, and when they were cast. Mr. Miller surged at the end of the campaign. Absentee ballots cast before his campaign took off might not reflect the surge. So it’s certainly possible for Sen. Murkowski to pull this one out.

But University of Virginia political scientist Larry Sabato, a go-to guy for the “mainstream” media, doesn’t think it’s likely. On Wednesday (8/25) he tweeted: “Just talked to some solid Alaska sources. They do not think there is any realistic chance Lisa Murkowski can make up the votes she needs.”

Some in Ms. Murkowski’s camp must agree, because there already is speculation she will pull a Crist and run in the fall election. “A source inside Murkowski’s campaign tells the Daily Beast the senator may abandon the GOP for a third party run,” Shushanna Walshe reported Thursday (08/26).

Alaska has a “sore loser” law, so Ms. Murkowski can’t run as an independent. But she could run as the candidate of a third party. The only third party that has qualified for the ballot in U.S. Senate race in Alaska is the Libertarian Party. Drew M., who blogs at Ace of Spades Hq, emailed the candidate, David Haase, who indicated he might be willing to step aside, if Sen. Murkowski met several conditions.

How much difference would it make if Ms. Murkowski does run in the fall? Maybe not much. Nearly three times as many votes were cast in the Republican primary (92,386) as in the Democrat primary (30,885). The Democrat winner, Sitka Mayor Scott McAdams, is so little known that Brad Woodhouse, the spokesman for the Democratic National Committee, couldn’t identify him when asked about his party’s nominee on ABC’s “Top Line” program Wednesday.

Here the plot sickens. Nicole Allan of the Atlantic reports that if Mr. Miller prevails, Alaska Democrats are thinking of dumping Mr. McAdams for former Gov. Tony Knowles, the way New Jersey Democrats dumped the radioactive Sen. Bob Torricelli for former Sen. Frank Lautenberg in 2002.

All of this is moot if Sen. Murkowski prevails after the absentee ballots are counted. But whether he wins or just misses, Joe Miller’s performance is the biggest surprise so far in this election year.

Much of the credit for Mr. Miller’s stunning upset or near upset goes to Sarah Palin, whose endorsement brought him out of obscurity. But most of the credit belongs to Mr. Miller himself. A West Point and Yale Law graduate who received a medal for valor in the first Gulf War and later became a federal judge, Joe Miller is a principled and articulate libertarian conservative, and I think (after Allan West) the most impressive Republican candidate running this year.

But even though Joe deserves more of the credit than does Sarah, the schadenfreude in this is too good to pass up: Tuesday morning, Alexandra Gutierrez wrote in Slate about “The End of Palin as Kingmaker.”

“When Joe Miller loses the primary today, hardly anybody in Alaska will be surprised that Palin’s chosen candidate did poorly,” wrote Ms. Gutierrez, who is the girlfriend of Journolista and faux conservative Dave Weigel.

We can always count on the MSM for insightful analysis.

Arizona. I know many of you are unhappy that Sen. John McCain won renomination. I’m not. I wish Sen. McCain had retired. If he had, then he might have been replaced by a popular, principled, effective conservative such as retiring Rep. John Shadegg or Rep. Jeff Flake. But J.D. Hayworth is no John Shadegg or Jeff Flake. He’s an earmark porker of limited intelligence and questionable ethics, who might actually have lost the Senate race to the Democrat in November.

Many wonder, understandably, whether Sen. McCain will revert to his “maverick” ways once the election is past. But I don’t think so. McCain’s move to the left (which wasn’t very far; his lifetime rating from the American Conservative Union is 82) was more out of pique against George Bush for allegedly dirty campaigning in South Carolina in 2000. Now Sen. McCain is torqued off at Zero, which means this unlovely character trait of his will work to our advantage.

National Review’s Yuval Levin noted an irony in the McCain win.

"McCain (who has raised and spent more money than any Senate candidate in this cycle, other than self-financed candidates) must be glad that none of the smug busybodies who have tried through the years to restrict political expression by preventing candidates for public office from raising enormous amounts of money and spending them on attack ads has succeeded."

The important news from the Arizona primary is that GOP turnout statewide was twice that of the Democrats, and that in the three congressional districts in which there could be Republican takeovers, incumbent Democrat Reps. Harry Mitchell, Gabrielle Giffords and Ann Kirkpatrick received 29.2 percent of the total primary vote, 38.3 percent, and 39.6 percent, respectively.

Florida. The best news out of Florida is that Rep. Kendrick Meek defeated zillionaire Jeff Greene in the Democrat primary. This virtually guarantees Marco Rubio will win the general election. He jumped out to a 40% to 30% lead over Charlie Crist in Rasmussen’s first post primary poll. The Democratic firm Public Policy Polling shows a similar result. And Rubio has just begun to advertise on television.

The next best news out of Florida is that despite the fact Democrats have a 612,000 edge in voter registration, turnout for the Republican primary was much, much greater than it was in the Democrat primary. In the Senate primary, where Democrats had a hot contest and Republicans didn’t, Democrats got only 42 percent of the two party vote. In the gubernatorial primary, where Republicans had a hot contest and Democrats didn’t, Democrats got only 40 percent of the two party vote.

This mitigates the one bit of bad news out of Florida. In the GOP gubernatorial primary, insurgent conservative businessman Rick Scott beat out Attorney General Bill McCollum. The campaign was personally nasty, in large part because there was little difference between the two on issues. Thanks, I suppose, to the personal attacks they made on each other, and their reluctance to make up, the Democrat, Alex Sink, has opened a lead in the first post-primary polls. But – given the pathetic Democrat turnout in the primary – I don’t think this will hold up.

Oh, and Pam Bondi, the former Hillsborough County prosecutor Sarah Palin endorsed, defeated two better known rivals to win the Republican nomination for attorney general. Does Ms. Gutierrez think this is another sign of: “The End of Sarah Palin as Kingmaker?”

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Rasmussen reported Thursday (8/26) that for the first time, Republicans are more trusted than Democrats on all ten issues surveyed in this monthly poll. This includes leads on such Democrat faves as education (41-40) and Social Security (44-38). The leads are large on the economy (47-39) and national security (49-37).

For the first time in a long time, Republicans lead on government ethics (40-38). I think we owe this to Charlie Rangel and Maxine Waters.

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Blaming everything on George Bush isn’t working out so well. A Democratic polling memo indicated only 25 percent of Americans think that if the Republicans retake Congress, they’ll return to President Bush’s economic policies. So the White House is targeting House Minority Leader John Boehner for two minutes of hate. He’s to be the new boogey man.

Since most Americans have never heard of Boehner, some doubt the wisdom of this strategy. Lefty blogger Greg Sargent of the Washington Post explained the administration’s thinking:

“Dems and White House advisers know they must not allow Boehner and the GOP to achieve a clean relaunch of their party and their ideas heading into the midterms,” Mr. Sargent wrote.

So far, the demonize Boehner strategy is working…for Boehner.

On Tuesday (9/24), Boehner made what he billed as a major speech on economics in Cleveland. It was mostly standard Republican boilerplate, spiced up with a demand that President Obama fire his chief economic advisers.

Democrats rose to the bait like trout to a shiny lure. The White House “threw everything they have” at the speech, Mr. Sargent said. Vice President Joe “Buffoon” Biden attacked Boehner, as did various Democratic congressional leaders and White House aides.

The result was the news media paid much more attention to Boehner’s remarks than they otherwise would have. Focus shifted back onto the economy (where Boehner wants it to be) and leading Democrats were once again caught saying rosy things about the economy just before more bad economic news came out.

Remind me again why people think these guys are smart.

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President Obama plans to give a major speech from the Oval Office on Iraq when he returns from his latest vacation Aug. 29. I’m surprised at this, and pleased, because I think it’s a mistake.

The occasion is the withdrawal of the last combat brigade from Iraq. But what will Zero say about it?

Will he graciously give credit for this milestone to the man who deserves it, George W. Bush? That would make me feel a little better about Zero, but it would never get me to vote for him, and it would drive the moonbats crazy. They’re going batty enough over Afghanistan.

Or will he try to claim credit for himself? That will seriously annoy people who know the truth.

Besides making himself look (even more) like a liar and a narcissist, claiming credit for a triumph in Iraq is dangerous for Zero, because, as Ralph Peters notes this week, it isn’t over over there. Things could still go south. And – given Ralph’s recounting of Zero’s inept diplomacy – that may be the way to bet.

If Iraq succeeds, Bush will get – and deserve – the credit, no matter what Zero says. But if it should now fail, Zero will own the failure. What he says Aug. 29 won’t matter much this November, but it very well may in 2012.

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Speaking of mistakes, the Commandant of the Marine Corps, Gen. James Conway, said Tuesday (8/24) that the date President Obama set to start withdrawing troops from Afghanistan “is probably giving our enemy sustenance.”

Just about everybody in the U.S. military thinks that, but it is rare to have a general actually say it. I suppose Conway did because he’ll retire in a few weeks.

If what Conway had to say is accurate, “then the president has inexcusably endangered our troops, made the American war effort more difficult, and refused, despite available evidence, to reverse himself,” said Jennifer Rubin of Commentary magazine.

When asked to comment on what Gen. Conway said, Mr. Obama demurred. He was buying shrimp. (To put on his waffles?)

The editorial board of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch was incensed that Conway, a St. Louis native, “thumbed his nose at President Barack Obama’s policies in Afghanistan.”

The editorial ridiculed Gen. Conway for quoting a lance corporal in Afghanistan who told him: “Sir, don’t let our country go wobbly on us now.”

“Nine years and $327 billion into the war and the Marine commandant is quoting a lance corporal about going wobbly,” the editorial snarked. “Twenty or 21 year old lance corporals can think like that, but 62-year-old generals are supposed to have a better grasp of political reality.”

Isn’t it fascinating how liberals are always more interested in protecting Zero’s reputation than in protecting the lives of our troops?

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The teacher unions which battered Chris Christie with millions of dollars in attack ads must be wondering what kind of value they got for their money. According to a Quinnipiac poll released Aug. 19, Gov. Chris Christie’s job approval rating has soared. Fifty one percent of voters now approve of him (up from 44 percent before the advertising blitz), and only 36 percent disapprove (down from 43 percent in the last poll).

Christie is more popular in New Jersey than President Obama, of whom only 47 percent of voters approved. This clip illustrates why:

A friend of Bill Kristol’s wrote to the Weekly Standard:

“The Chris Christie answer on the clerical error regarding the state’s education application which is on your blog is the single most impressive response I’ve seen a politician give to a tough situation that I can remember. Am I off track or is this about three times better than the norm?”

Update: It turns out Chris Christie was in error in part of his impressive performance in the clip above. His education commissioner, Bret Schundler, had told the governor Schundler had tried to provide correct information to the feds in a face to face meeting, but that turned out not to be true (click here). So Christie fired him, Friday.

This does not diminish my view that Christie is the most impressive Republican officeholder we have today. He was powerful and effective in the videotape, saying what he believed to be true. And he acted decisively and properly and quickly once he found out that what he had been told was not true. He’s the most effective communicator since Reagan, Sarah Palin included. More important, he’s a leader.

And here’s a terrific ad for Sharron Angle:

I think the odds are now slightly better than even that she’ll pull this out. Harry Reid has spend a ton of money calling her names, but they’re back in a statistical dead heat . There are only so many more ways he can call her an extremist. If she doesn’t do anything to reinforce that point, the attacks will lose traction. But Harry can’t change his record.

Compare that with this cringe worthy video of a Democratic candidate for mayor in Providence, R.I.

Let’s conclude the HFR with Jack’s theme song for this election: