Of all the chatter by alleged experts in blogosphere, perhaps the best analysis of the Guantanamo Bay issue came from my brother Mike. After all, anyone who has seen the movie Ghostbusters knows what happens when you shut down a containment unit.
Two projects have launched in the wee small hours of the morning over the past couple of days that have caught my eye.
Patrick Ruffini, whose most fitting title may be “Republican organizational entrepreneur,” has announced “Project Battleground” on The Next Right. The project recruits bloggers by state and Congressional district. Aside from keeping out-of-work GOP political operatives engaged and ready for 2010 and 2012, Project Battleground will help build the grassroots communications networks that will be critical to future Republican victories. And it’s worth mentioning that grassroots online movements have had big election impacts in the recent past – like Ned Lamont’s primary upset of Joe Lieberman.
On the philosophical side, several conservative activists have teamed together to launch TheSupermajority, a site that defies categorization. Essentially, it serves to answer the policies of the Obama Administration and his Congressional allies with “solutions” – an important development. While it’s all well and good to criticize liberal and/or Democratic policies, The Supermajority offers positive alternatives. Perhaps even more important, the site offers activists tools to spread those ideas. Plus it looks nice.
Two projects have launched in the wee small hours of the morning over the past couple of days that have caught my eye.
Patrick Ruffini, whose most fitting title may be “Republican organizational entrepreneur,” has announced “Project Battleground” on The Next Right. The project recruits bloggers by state and Congressional district. Aside from keeping out-of-work GOP political operatives engaged and ready for 2010 and 2012, Project Battleground will help build the grassroots communications networks that will be critical to future Republican victories. And it’s worth mentioning that grassroots online movements have had big election impacts in the recent past – like Ned Lamont’s primary upset of Joe Lieberman.
On the philosophical side, several conservative activists have teamed together to launch TheSupermajority, a site that defies categorization. Essentially, it serves to answer the policies of the Obama Administration and his Congressional allies with “solutions” – an important development. While it’s all well and good to criticize liberal and/or Democratic policies, The Supermajority offers positive alternatives. Perhaps even more important, the site offers activists tools to spread those ideas. Plus it looks nice.
Two projects have launched in the wee small hours of the morning over the past couple of days that have caught my eye.
Patrick Ruffini, whose most fitting title may be “Republican organizational entrepreneur,” has announced “Project Battleground” on The Next Right. The project recruits bloggers by state and Congressional district. Aside from keeping out-of-work GOP political operatives engaged and ready for 2010 and 2012, Project Battleground will help build the grassroots communications networks that will be critical to future Republican victories. And it’s worth mentioning that grassroots online movements have had big election impacts in the recent past – like Ned Lamont’s primary upset of Joe Lieberman.
On the philosophical side, several conservative activists have teamed together to launch TheSupermajority, a site that defies categorization. Essentially, it serves to answer the policies of the Obama Administration and his Congressional allies with “solutions” – an important development. While it’s all well and good to criticize liberal and/or Democratic policies, The Supermajority offers positive alternatives. Perhaps even more important, the site offers activists tools to spread those ideas. Plus it looks nice.
Happy Monday
Happy Monday
Sunday Funnies: Dennis Miller on the Inaugural Concert
Making the rounds last week was video of Dennis Miller on the O’Reilly Factor, criticizing Young Jeezy and Jay-Z for their racially charged diatribe during pre-inaugural festivities.
I’ve always found Miller funny, but give him credit. In 2003, Miller became an outspoken supporter of the War on Terror. Now, I don’t want to get off on a rant here, but circa 2002 the pro-Bush, Republican bandwagon was so crowded that it made last week’s Obamafest look like the Australian outback after a nuclear winter. And among the intelligentsia, this was less-than welcome news; Miller was so reviled as a turncoat that some wondered if he was some Dr. Moreau-esque genetic amalgam of Benedict Arnold, Alger Hiss, and Lando Calrissian. Some on the right even questioned whether Miller’s outspoken conservatism (though he eschewed the conservative tag) was more a finger-in-the-wind capitalization on the post-9-11 zeitgeist from someone who had just gotten booted from the Monday Night Football booth.
But things change and today the only place on TV talking positively about Bush is the Home and Gardening network. For someone in Miller’s position, it would have been easy to embrace Obama’s hope and back away from previous support for Republicans under the mantra of independence.
Yet Miller stuck to his guns – and revealed much about his outlook by proclaiming high hopes and well wishes for Obama even while admitting he didn’t support his candidacy. Miller isn’t a politico: Like most people, he has an informed opinion, but also like most people he isn’t boxed in by an Attica-like ideology that confines “open thinking” to one daily jaunt to the prison yard that is echo-chamber opinion press you always agree with. If the casual political observer like Dennis Miller is still more conservative than liberal based on an understanding and acceptance of principles, there might by a chance to win back the rest of America.
Of course, that’s just my opinion. I could be wrong.
Handicapping the RNC chair race
Bill Pascoe has an insightful article in CQ Politics about the race to become the new face of he Republican Party. It’s worth a read because in addition to talking about who the favorites are (he thinks Michigan GOP chair Saul Anuzis has the inside track so far), Pascoe breaks down the behind-the-scenes influences that will help shape the process.
Handicapping the RNC chair race
Bill Pascoe has an insightful article in CQ Politics about the race to become the new face of he Republican Party. It’s worth a read because in addition to talking about who the favorites are (he thinks Michigan GOP chair Saul Anuzis has the inside track so far), Pascoe breaks down the behind-the-scenes influences that will help shape the process.
Tech revisionism?
This week the Washington Post reported on the frustration of new Obama Administration staffers at the state of technology in their new White House offices. Though the headline suggested the Bush Administration was in the “technological dark ages,” a careful reading suggested otherwise: workstations had desktops instead of laptops, and they all ran on Windows XP.
As Patrick Ruffini points out, the Obama online team is not necessarily in the moral authority to talk about tech issues, as updates to the shiny new whitehouse.gov have been slow in coming in the first days of the administration.
But beyond that, Craig Colgan reminds us that the Bush Administration pioneered the use of the internet to create an online White House presence – but the facts aren’t always enough:
“This White House was of course the first with a rigorous online presence. The contribution of the Bush administration in this regard will of course not be a part of the official narrative. How this all works is no surprise. The reigning meme out there goes like this: When Republicans get it right online, and/or do it well, then it doesn’t matter. Or doesn’t matter anymore.”
Jim Eltringham 