During the California Senate primary, my major criticisms of Carly Fiorina were that she had no public track record to back her on the issues, and that as a novice campaigner she was liable to make mistakes and lose a winnable race. During the race I didn’t quite give her the Tom Campbell treatment, but I gave Chuck DeVore all the support I could.
During the Nevada Senate primary, the major criticism of Sharron Angle were that she was liable to make mistakes and lose a winnable race. She received so many attacks not just during the campaign, but even after when Danny Tarkanian and Sue Lowden came out to criticize her campaigning. At least Chuck DeVore endorsed Carly Fiorina without delay or weasel words.
Meanwhile few said a word about Mark Kirk being unelectable. After all, he’s a veteran House member from a district analysts rate as favored by Democrats. He was supposed to be the safe, comfortable, sure path to a win. And yet he is the one who made a critical mistake that turned his sure pickup into a tie.
And of course there’s Charlie Crist. The popular incumbent Republican governor of Florida was supposed to be just the man we needed in a state that went for Barack Obama, a seasoned politician with the ability to reach out to Democrats and Obama voters and win that state easily. Except now Kendrick Meek is taking his votes from Democrats, Marco Rubio won over Republicans, and he’s falling apart a second time after shivving the Republican party with his spiteful Independent run.
Sometimes we’re all just plain wrong about a candidate, and a person who wins a primary has more of what it takes than outsiders ever expected.
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Yes, I’m sorry. When I found out yesterday morning that it was Labor Day, I did shift gears and relax a bit. By the evening I was treating it like a weekend and forgot all about Monday’s Tech at Night. So we’re making it a Tuesday morning Tech in the Morning instead.
Let’s get started with what happens when you let government regulate: they begin to ban things over their content. Yes, The DSCC is sending lawyers after the book Young Guns. Or at least, the Democrats are trying to ban the promotion of the book, which effectively amounts to banning any mass-produced book of this nature, because you can’t afford to publish a book without making sure it sells.
Just imagine what they’d do online once we gave them regulatory power there.
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California’s 47th Congressional District isn’t one of the ones getting national attention this year, but it should be. Loretta Sanchez may not be one of the most hated Democrats in Washington, but the circumstances surrounding her initial electoral “victory” are so shady that she has no business being there. She’s been kept in office thanks to California’s lockdown gerrymandering, but somehow her seat is still being listed as competitive this year by some analysts.
It would be a great victory if we could avenge Bob Dornan, take that seat away from Loretta Sanchez, and send Van Tran to Washington. His family driven from Vietnam by murderous Communists, himself once an intern for B-1 Bob and now a veteran of the California Assembly, Van Tran would be an asset in Washington even without the added joy of finally sending Loretta Sanchez packing.
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Another quick one tonight. I’d feel bad, but the Net Neutrality situation is so important that the current developments by themselves are worth noting. And here’s the key fact right now: It is confirmed that Net Neutrality will not be on the agenda at the FCC’s September meeting. They’ve talked for months, but they’re going to talk some more.
My theory is that Google has pulled out the rug from everyone, the White House is considering going along with the plan as it can be said to meet the President’s campaign promise (transparency online, no discrimination on the public Internet, no two tiers of public Internet traffic, you name it). Another theory is simpler: public and industry support for the Free Press plan is collapsing, so the FCC has to throw out that idea and start over.
Even if Free Press pet Commissioner Michael Copps says the sky is falling. Again.
P.S. Remember when I said that Eric Schmidt sounded like he belonged in politics? he’d better work on his image a bit before he tries. He’s just too much of a target right now after he’s made so many outrageous remarks denying Americans should have privacy.
Good evening. I’ve been hung up today and unfortunately could not do my usually full range of reading for tonight, but I have a few Net Neutrality points to make tonight, so here we go.
First, AT&T has apparently come out against the Verizon-Google Net Neutrality proposal, writing to the FCC in favor of paid prioritization of Internet traffic. So much for this proposal being a huge benefit for big, wireless-heavy firms, eh?
Of course, there’s some political scheming already going on with Net Neutrality, too, beyond the corporate posturing going on.
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Good evening (it’s still Monday night for those of us in the west at least). Let’s start off tonight by remembering when Barack Obama and the democrats complained about so-called domestic spying under the Bush administration? Well, a team of organizations went after the FBI for watching possibly terrorist Islamic organizations. The FBI responded by saying they don’t need to already believe an organization is breaking the law in order to begin preliminary spying on that organization.
Now I’ll be blunt: I think this IPS news service is bunk. But it makes me laugh to remember that using modern technology to gather information about terrorists was supposedly a horrible thing when George Bush did it, but now that Barack Obama is using actual live, in-person spies you have to go to radical fringe groups to find out it’s even happening and see the progressive outrage.
Wouldn’t it be easier, safer, and more respectful of our rights just to tap the phones of foreign terrorists, than to send people into houses of worship on false pretenses?
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Here we go again. Carol Greenberg, also known as RedState diarist LadyImpactOhio, has begun her charge to peel off another ally from the neo-Marxist group Free Press and its Net Neutrality front group Save the Internet. She’s going after the Christian Coalition now. Amusingly enough they tried to defend themselves by telling her that the Gun Owners of America were an ally of Save the Internet, when Greenberg herself got the GOA to flip on that issue.
Individual activists can make a difference.
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Good evening. Yes, I’m late again on Tech at Night. Even later than I was on Monday in fact. But instead of scolding me, let’s take out our anger on Democrats like Barbara Boxer and Jerry Brown for threatening California’s long-established high tech leadership.
More and more companies and their good, high-paying jobs are fleeing the state. Green tech firms, medical supply firms, information service firms, you name it, they’re leaving. Every field a state wants to be good in over the next 20 years is being hurt by California’s oppressive regulation, increasing taxation, and refusal to cut the kickback spending to union fatcats.
I have to wonder if Texas will reclaim the high-tech crown from California, leaving the Silicon Valley to be more like Death Valley when it comes to jobs, growth, and innovation.
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Good evening RedStaters. I spent all weekend battling a monster cold, so I’m still a bit thrown off, and so didn’t even try to get tonight’s installment of Tech at Night in before midnight Eastern. In fact it’ll be a reach to get this done before midnight Pacific, but such is life.
RedState diarist ladyimpactohio (follow her on Twitter at @ladyimpactohio) already scored one big win by peeling the Gun Owners of America from the Free Press radical Net Neutrality coalition, but the right is already at work on the next target: the Christian Coalition. Dick Armey and FreedomWorks are leading this fight, and I’m glad of it.
Way back when I started covering this issue, I said there were three names on the Save the Internet (Free Press front group) list that bugged me: Gun Owners of America, Christian Coalition, and Glenn “Instapundit” Reynolds. If we can peel off at least two of three, I’ll be happy.
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