Democrats and their leftwing allies are touting the fact that they reached their 1 million-signature goal in the effort to recall Governor Scott Walker. Political observers on both sides of the spectrum had predicted that a recall would proceed because organizers would eventually get enough signatures to force Walker to defend his post less than two years after taking office.

While recall advocates only needed to gather 540,208 valid signatures to force an election, reaching the 1 million mark was a symbolic goal that they set to prove the strength of the movement. However, before judging their efforts a complete success, several factors must be noted.

First, the petition process was riddled with fraud and tainted with questionable ethics at several points. Early in the process the Soros-funded One Wisconsin Now encouraged those opposed to Walker to sign recall petitions multiple times. Although not necessarily an illegal act (unless there is the specific intent to commit fraud), signing a petition multiple times does raise questions about how best to properly calculate the true number of signature since, in theory and according to state law, only the first signature will count. Even the Government Accountability Board’s announcement that it will use software to help catch duplicates, though a step in the right direction, doesn’t promise to catch every or even most of those kinds of errors.

When a Milwaukee man proudly said he signed recall petitions 80 times as a way of getting back at Republicans who, he believes, stole the 2000 election in Florida, he proved just how error prone the process can be.

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The impact of the Tea Party has been felt. After an historically short period in the wilderness, Republicans have recaptured a share of the government, and brought with them a fairly impressive new class of small government advocates.  However, with so little time for the party to absorb the lessons of its prior losses and adjust accordingly, there is reason to be worried about whether Republicans truly get it.  It is therefore imperative that advocates of limited government continue to hold their collective feet to the fire.

When Republicans were the controlling majority, they lost their way and vastly expanded the size and scope of government. For this, they were severely punished in the voting booth. Despite these losses, many in the Republican establishment argued for further promotion of big government and marginalization of principled conservatives.

The Tea Party stepped in to battle these establishment Republicans over the future of the party. Some of them were taken down in primaries, but many more remain. Due to the extraordinarily radical Obama administration, Republicans were not in the wilderness for long. This meant less time to clean house. And right this very minute, the remaining establishment figures are looking for ways to “co-opt” the new class. They will try to stack their offices with establishment staffers, and teach them how to go-along-to-get-along.

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In response to the announcement that I would provide my analysis on ABC News from Arizona on election night, like-clockwork, from the George Soros-funded Media Matters to Keith Olbermann to Huffington Post to Daily Kos to Talking Points Memo to Twitter (#boycottABCNEWS), the institutional left began on Friday to inundate ABC News with a wave of partisan objections and unfounded allegations against me.

Make no mistake: this is a calculated “astroturf“ intimidation campaign by the well-funded and frightened-for-their-political-lives institutional left to quash dissenting voices. It’s what they do.

What was ABC News’ response?  Not standing up for free speech and the 1^st Amendment.  Not sticking by their original invitation.  Not standing up for diversity of opinion.

Instead, on Saturday, ABC News issued an official statement that was immediately heralded as a victory by the anti-free speech forces on the left:

Since conservative commentator Andrew Breitbart announced on his website that he was going to be a participant in ABC’s Town Hall meeting at Arizona State University, there has been considerable consternation and misinformation regarding my decision to ask him to participate in an election night Town Hall event for ABC News Digital. I want to explain what Mr. Breitbart’s role has always been as one of our guests at our digital town hall event:

Mr. Breitbart is not an ABC News analyst.

He is not an ABC News consultant.

He is not, in any way, affiliated with ABC News.

He is not being paid by ABC News.

He has not been asked to analyze the results of the election for ABC News.

Mr. Breitbart will not be a part of the ABC News broadcast coverage, anchored by Diane Sawyer and George Stephanopoulos. For the broadcast coverage, David Muir and Facebook’s Randi Zuckerberg will contribute reaction and response gathered from the students and faculty of Arizona State University at an ABC News/Facebook town hall.

He has been invited as one of several guests, from a variety of different political persuasions, to engage with a live, studio audience that will be closely following the election results and participating in an online-only discussion and debate to be moderated by David Muir and Facebook’s Randi Zuckerberg on ABCNews.com and Facebook. We will have other guests, as well as a live studio audience and a large audience on ABCNews.com and Facebook, who can question the guests and the audience’s   opinions.

George Stephanoplous quickly tweeted, “Breitbart NOT on ABC network broadcast http://bit.ly/bgkseJ.” (more…)

Are you opposed to Obamacare or illegal immgration? You’re a racist. Are you opposed to gay marriage? You’re a homophobe. Did you oppose Elana Kagan’s appointment to the Supreme Court? You’re a sexist. After less than two years of complete Democrat control of government, there aren’t many Americas progressives haven’t accused of some sort of bigotry for simply having an opinion different from theirs. The politics of “hope” and “change” have devolved into exactly what those espousing them claimed they would end. Is this really Democrat’s plan to win votes in November?

Barack Obama campaigned under the banner of unity and ending the “politics of division.” But that banner was swiftly furled and the true banner of progressive politics began flying over our country. Progressivism leaves no room for debate or disagreement. To paraphrase former President Bush, to progressives you’re either with them or you’re with the enemy.

During the Obamacare debate, opponents were compared to opponents of civil rights legislation. The ethically challenged Congressman from New York, Charlie Rangel, said “The group that were in Washington fighting against the health bill and fighting against the President, [they] looked just like and sounded just like those groups that attacked the civil rights movement in the South.” Left-wing blogs ran with this mantra and agenda-driven media outlets like MSNBC dutifully followed. They still advance the lie that African-American Members of Congress were pelted with racial slurs as they walked to cast their vote, something even the New York Times has acknowledged there is zero evidence of.

The ends justify the means, no matter how sickening and divisive the means.

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From the always interesting Michael Barone, in the Washington Examiner:

In 1994, I wrote an article in U.S. News & World Report arguing that there was a serious chance that Republicans could capture the 40 seats that they needed then, as now, for a majority in the House. It was the first mainstream media piece suggesting that, and it appeared on newsstands on July 11.

I cited as evidence five polls showing incumbent Democratic congressmen trailing Republican challengers. None of those Democrats had scandal problems; all five lost in November.

Today a lot more Democratic incumbents seem to be trailing Republican challengers in polls. Jim Geraghty of National Review Online has compiled a list of 13 Democratic incumbents trailing in polls released over the past seven weeks.

Some of these poll numbers are mind-boggling.

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Much of the animosity we’ve witnessed directed at the Tea Party over the last year has come from political and cultural elites who find regular people disturbing, if not downright disgusting.  The peasants, according to elites, are prone to temper tantrums and just don’t get how things work in the sophisticated political world. That same attitude was on display this weekend following the primary defeat of Sen. Bob Bennett.

On Sunday’s Meet the Press, David Brooks described Bennett’s defeat as a “damn outrage.”  Liberal E.J. Dionne went a step further and called it “a nonviolent coup” because the Utah voters dared “deny the sitting Republican senator even a chance of getting on the primary ballot.”   Why, it’s almost like these voters think they’re allowed to choose their own representatives or something!

Brooks insists that Bennett is a “good senator” just “trying to get things done.” Unfortunately, what he was trying to get done was not what his electorate wanted him to get done.  While he was busy supporting TARP and advocating an individual mandate for health care, the people of Utah wanted spending restraint and less intrusive government.  On the most important votes regarding these issues, Bennett was too often on the wrong side for their taste.

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As incumbent Utah Sen. Bob Bennett (R) was losing the right even to run in the primary for the seat he’s held for 18 years, word from California was coming in that Meg Whitman, long considered a shoo-in in the Golden State’s gubernatorial primary, might be in trouble.

Whitman has invested close to $60 million of her own money for the right to lead a state careening toward bankruptcy and at one point enjoyed a seemingly insurmountable lead over Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner reminiscent of, say, the lead Florida Gov. Charlie Crist once enjoyed over Marco Rubio in that state.

In recent days Poizner has closed the gap considerably and is within eight to 10 points of Whitman in a race already far closer than anyone would have predicted possible six months ago. Poizner has thrown a good bit of the money he’s made since serving in the Bush administration into his campaign, but while his pockets are deeper than most, there’s no way he’s going to outspend former eBay CEO Whitman. If he wins the primary, it will have to be because he strikes California voters as better able to deal with the continuing crisis in which the state finds itself or because they reject Whitman as too much of an establishment candidate. Either could happen in today’s political world.

It’s difficult for one who doesn’t spend an inordinate amount of time immersed in the peculiarly unique political world Californians inhabit to understand what goes on out there, so while I won’t pretend to predict who will win the June 8 GOP primary, the contest itself is interesting and instructive.

Whitman apparently decided early on to position herself as the “establishment” candidate in the race. Her campaign chairman is former Gov. Pete Wilson, and she has sought and advertised the endorsements of every Republican with a recognizable name, from Mitt Romney to Eric Cantor. In some years, this would have been a great strategy, but this year, voters are leery of such endorsements and seek  candidates who will look at problems anew. As a result, Whitman allowed Poizner to position himself as an outsider in the year of the outsider.

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The U.S. economy is on the mend and has been for some time. The reason is that, as Marx acknowledged in The Communist Manifesto, the capitalist system is an engine of powerful forces.

Market capitalism, true capitalism and not big government colluding with big business to engage in what Bastiat called “legalized plunder,” is the most efficient way of organizing resources. As a system it drives innovation, which is the source of our increased standard of living. In fact, this system is so powerful and efficient that our economy is doing well in terms of producing goods and services, not because of government intervention, but in spite of it. There is no question that the federal government has been engaged in activities that have suppressed and will continue to suppress economic growth and will leave millions of our person unemployed for lengthy periods. But the economy as a whole will be productive and our gross domestic product will continue to increase in the near future.

There is substantial empirical evidence that the economy is recovering. Fourth quarter real GDP grew at a 5.6% annual rate, the Federal Reserve Industrial Production Index was up in March for the 9th month in a row, the ISM manufacturing index was up in March to 59.6 and the employment index was at 55.1, the fourth straight month above 50, housing starts and existing home sales were up in March, the Conference Board’s Index of Leading Indicators increased 1.4% in March, and one can cite more data showing the upside of the business cycle is underway.

At issue is why is the economy recovering and is it likely to be a sustained recovery? We may also ask why unemployment remains stubbornly high while production is increasing. Normally, as the economy comes out of a recession productivity increases, part-time employment increases, and finally full-time employment increases. Why have we yet to see the last stage of this process?

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We don’t have to wait until we have a Republican in the White House to rid this nation of the shackles of Obamacare. We can do it next year if we win simple majorities in one or both houses of Congress.

The Obama health care bill was an authorization measure which established a program and set down its parameters. But authorization bills are not appropriations. Each year the Congress must act on appropriations for each department and agency in the government. If no funds are appropriated, nothing can be spent.

So if Republicans take the House (where appropriations have to originate) – and especially if they also take the Senate – they will have the capacity to zero fund Obamacare, appropriating not a dime for it in their spending bills. Indeed, they can and should include a specific amendment to their appropriations bills banning the expenditure of any of the funds on Obama’s health care program.

In the wake of the passage of the health care bill, states are filing lawsuits and talk of repeal is in the air. Both are useful efforts. But litigation takes time and the key challenge – to the constitutionality of the requirement that everybody buy insurance – cannot even begin until it takes effect in 2014. And repeal will obviously be impossible as long as Obama wields the veto from his Oval Office. It would be impossible mathematically for the Republicans to get a two-thirds majority in the Senate and unlikely in the House, so an override is out of the question. Repeal will have to wait until 2013, after Obama’s defeat in 2012. (more…)