Santorum: Not Much of an Opening for the Former Senator

Several sources are predicting a Santorum surge in Missouri and Minnesota tonight, but there’s reason for pause before we order out the “Rick 2012″ bumper stickers. Caucuses depend on two things: money and organization. Santorum has neither. Despite an impressive win in Iowa, it is getting harder and harder for him to keep up, because he is second to last in the delegate count with only eight so far.   That may well change tonight, but here are some reasons to be skeptical of a Santorum win, even if he manages to pull off a victory in Missouri or Minnesota:

1. Even if Santorum wins in Missouri, it’s nothing more than a beauty contest. Knowing full well that their vote won’t have any effect on the delegate count, election officials are predicting that only 23% of party loyalists will bother showing up to the polls, according to stl.today.com. Given that Newt Gingrich’s name isn’t on the ballot, Santorum is hoping to show that his victory in the Show Me State will show GOP activists he’s the best anti-Romney. “Protest vote” or not, Santorum needs the win, but what if he loses to Romney in a symbolic race?
2. Santorum isn’t on the ballot in several other states, including Indiana and Virginia, meaning he will forgo 46 and 49 delegates respectively. Santorum is also not on the ballot in Washington, D.C. and lacks full delegate slates in North Dakota, Ohio, and Illinois.

(more…)

The 2012 election is quickly approaching, but the majority of youth are not inspired by the candidates, on either side of the aisle.

Focus groups recently held by the Harvard Institute of Politics in Iowa exhibited the young voters’ opinions on the upcoming, Presidential election. The majority of the youth were not in full support of any particular candidate, but really, there was an overwhelming lack of support.

Similar meetings were held before the 2008 election, and the outcomes were vastly different. Youth were full of inspiration and awe for candidates like Obama, Clinton, and Huckabee. Now, though, they are left with the after taste of “hope and change” and no one, in their opinion, to faithfully rally behind.

(more…)

How else to explain this photo from the Machinists’ Union recent contract election?

Unions and other leftist partisans bleat ad nauseum photo ID requirements for voting would disenfranchise voters, especially the poor and minorities. Just this past weekend, the AFL-CIO co-sponsored a march for “voting rights” in New York City. In the coalition statement announcing the march, the unionists noted:

photo ID requirements will introduce the first financial and document barrier to voting since the poll tax

The pro-labor site Unions.org was breathless in it’s report on these proposals [emphasis added]:

The right-wing billionaire Koch brothers are big proponents of these new laws. The American Legislative Exchange Council, funded heavily by them, prepares model voter-suppression legislation.

Critics call the new laws a modern-day version of the Jim Crow-era poll taxes and literacy tests — which are no longer limited to the South or African Americans.

“There is once again a quiet but systematic movement that would deny many African Americans and other American citizens the ability to vote with 21st century versions of old exclusionary practices,” said Marian Wright Edelman, the president of the Children’s Defense Fund, in an article in the Huffington Post.

“The generations ahead of us had to face Jim Crow,” said the Rev. Al Sharpton at the Nov. 8 press conference to launch the “Stand for Freedom” campaign. “We face his son, James Crow Jr., Esq.”

Of course, when union bosses are pushing workers to approve a new contract, damn straight they’re going to make sure only those eligible to vote are able to do so.

Racists.

(more…)

EAGtv reports even though the Ohio law SB 5 was signed into law by the governor, it’s on hold until voters decide the matter in November. But the bill is already saving Ohio school districts, like Lordstown, money and jobs.

From The American Independent:

A Lansing medical marijuana dispensary is offering medical marijuana patients a choice of a half a gram of medical pot or a marijuana-laced baked good called a “medible” in exchange for registering to vote.

On the dispensary’s website, owner Skekina Pena writes:

Protect Your Access! Vote 2011:

All dispensaries are doing a voter registration drive. If you sign up at Your Healthy Choice, we will assist you in filling out the registration form and will mail it out for you. We believe in power in numbers and everyone taking a stand. So in appreciation, we will reward legal patients with a .5 gram free or a free medible! I’m planning an event for the preliminary voting that will have shuttles to the polls! We have to amend our Lansing ordinance! May God bless our efforts!

The webpage then encourages readers to support Lansing City Council candidates Derrick Quinney, A’Lynne Robinson and Harold Leeman. It also encourages readers to vote against City Council candidates Carol Wood and Jody Washington.

(more…)

In June we attended the Printer’s Row Literature Festival in Chicago. City blocks were closed off for tents and booths full of all types of literature. We presented a board with a selection of well known book covers and asked visitors of the event if they could choose to ban any of the books on the board, which if any, they would in fact ban. They were allowed to choose any three of the eleven choices.

The authors of the books we offered to ban were Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, Ann Coulter, Andrew Breitbart, Ayn Rand, Michael Savage, Bill Clinton, Michael Moore, Karl Marx, Adolf Hitler and Barack Obama. While there were in fact less than two handfuls of individuals who did tell us they don’t think any books should be banned, unfortunately there were a shocking amount of guests at this book fair who were quite open to the idea, and in fact lined up quite excited for the opportunity to voice their opinion.

Participants overwhelming chose Sarah Palin who received 53 votes putting her at 36% overall, Glenn Beck at 23% and Ann Coulter at 22%.

(more…)

On March 23, 2010 at 6:41pm, Sarah Palin’s infamous “cross-hairs” map was posted to her facebook page.  It instantly sparked controversy.  On March 26, 2010, at a rally for Senator John McCain, Palin clarified her intentions with the map and defended herself and other conservatives against charges of inciting violence during the period of heightened debate surrounding the Democrats’ overhaul of the health care system:

TRANSCRIPT:

And ya know, hearing the news reports lately, kinda this ginned up controversy about us, common sense conservatives, inciting violence because we happen to oppose some of the things in the Obama administration.

Interrupted from audience: “We do it with our vote!”

Amen, brother! That’s what you do it with, with your vote! You got it right. We know violence isn’t the answer. When we take up our arms, we’re talking about our vote. We’re talking about being involved in a contested primary like this, and picking the right candidate too–John McCain, we thank you for that.

But this B.S. coming from the lamestream media lately about this, about us inciting violence. Don’t let the conversation be diverted. Don’t’ let a distraction like that get you off track. Keep fighting hard for these candidates who are all about the common sense conservative solutions that we need. (more…)

By now, your mail man… excuse me, mail person, is probably cursing every politician and special interest group out flooding mailboxes with mailers telling you how to vote. Your email inbox is full, and “Robocalls”, those annoying automated phone calls that seem to always come in the middle of dinner, are imparting their recorded wisdom.

Talk show hosts are telling you exactly what you should do, and the people around you are constantly trying to get you to vote their way.

Congratulations, you just became a member of Congress.

Alright, maybe not really, but in a sense, you are going through one day of what goes on for voting members of congress every day of the year. Lobbyists, other politicians, talking heads, etc are constantly trying to sway the congressional members to vote their way.

The result is that they don’t always fully understand what they are voting for, or why. They go along with their influences and vote in accordance, completely forsaking thier duties and responsibilities.

The notorious health care bill was passed by a large amount of people who never read the bill. It is what is helping to spur the Tea Party movement, and energize conservative voters to get out this election and make their voice heard. Chants of “Read the Bill” have been heard at rallies around the nation in protest of the audacity of congress to vote on something they don’t understand…

… But have you done the same?

(more…)

As I have said over and over and over, the left has one trick that it will use again and again when its back is in the corner: shout ‘racist’ in a crowded country.

On Saturday, during the peaceful and patriotic tea party protest at the Capitol, the Democrats staged a series of symbolic acts meant to manipulate the media to do its bidding. The Congressional Black Caucus pulled the Selma card and chose to walk through the crowd in the hopes of creating a YouTube incident. This is what it looked like:

and this:

There is no reason in 21st century America on an issue that is not a black or white or a civil rights issue to have a bloc of black people walk slowly through a mostly white crowd to make a racial point. The walk in and of itself — with two of the participants holding their handheld cameras above their heads hoping to document “proof” — was an act of racism meant to create a contrast between the tea party crowd and themselves. (more…)