FIRST IN THE NATION, LAST IN OUR HEARTS….

The New Hampshire primary has a certain prominence within the election cycle.  There’s a folklore to the place, in part because of the state’s tendency to give a flailing candidate life with an unexpected second place finish. The voters are known for being mercurial, irreverent, and for rewarding intangibles like grit, hustle, and the ability to rebound the basketball. New Hampshire holds a sway with the Beltway media. After all, this state is where media types come to bury one candidate and coronate another.  And to all of this, I say…

For *FOUR* measly electoral votes — candidates cater to New Hampshire — WHY EXACTLY?????

FOUR Electoral votes??? Are you serious??

I’m curious — and this is addressed to Republicans — why do you pay attention to a state where Democrats can literally select a candidate for you?? Leftist whackadoos can vote in your New Hampshire primary, so why do you pay them any mind??

Pundits and media types point to some track record that New Hampshire has with picking candidates or reviving other candidates. Well, it is in fact the second major election during the election cycle. New Hampshire, they say, plays a major role in deciding who gets nominated. Well, there are only a couple of serious contenders. You’re not exactly doing March Madness brackets here, ya know? I hate to disillusion New Hampshire citizens and the overemphasized importance they place on their primary, but I wouldn’t put great stock in that particular state as a forecaster of things to come (especially not in the new Tea Party climate).

Why does New Hampshire have this reputation for picking Presidents?? They’ve picked John McCain twice (thanks N.H.). They picked Pat Buchanan once (the state’s one interesting move in the past 20 years). Henry Cabot-Lodge and Howard Stassen some other times. (On the Dems side you’re looking at Hillary Clinton, Kerry, Gore, Paul Tsongas, Dukakis, Gary Hart, Muskie, and Kefauver — just to name a few of the losers time forgot.)  New Hampshire isn’t exactly batting 1.000 there. Nostradamus they are not. I ask again, Why do we give a flying fudge about New Hampshire??

People also mention the crush of media attention that the state gets as being a part of New Hampshire’s allure. But it’s early in the election season, of course media types hungry for a news story are going to make a fuss about the second big election of the year. The media and their bloated self-important coverage is as much a centerpiece of New Hampshire politics as the candidates themselves. You have legions of media players stuffed into this state that no one usually cares about, and media pundits get their World Cup. For hours on end media figures are in front of a camera asking people variations on the same question, “Hey, Howard Fineman, what do you think is going to happen??“, “Hey, Eugene Robinson, let me turn it over to you, do you have a read on which way this thing is going??“, “Jonathan Alter, you’ve been on the ground for three days, do you have a feel for the voters?“, etc.

The truth is, the New Hampshire primary is built for people like Chuck Todd, Chris Matthews, and the late Tim Russert. People who no longer have any significance in the political landscape. People who like waxing poetic about their political insider-ism. The liberal arts education in these journalists appreciates the novelistic irony of city slickers from the Washington Beltway hanging out in New Hampshire where “real people” live their lives. Places like coffee shops, diners, barber shops, and the old towne mill that serves as a symbolic motif of some long ago promise……………

Journalists love that crap. They think it’s folksy and charming.

What I’m saying is — it’s not cute anymore. This is an extremely important upcoming election. It’s an election that is about paying bills and prioritizing where money goes and where it does not go. Spigots will be shut. Who has the time to waste trying to appease the wishy-washy sensibilities of a Dartmouth crowd and their desire for someone who knows how to reach out to people all over the solar system??

The other day I heard Chuck Todd say, if Romney wins Iowa and New Hampshire, then the GOP nomination process is over. What?? After two states, it’s over? Just like that? No need to let the other 48 states speak (or 56 in Obama terms)? Who decides these things? Oh yeah…Chuck Todd does. Not responsible citizens. Not real people. Not those horrible Tea Party types. David Gregory decides when the election is over.

New Hampshire is known for it’s supposed “fiercely independent political spirit”. Who does New Hampshire pick? In the last three GOP primaries they’ve had a history of picking middle-of-the-road big-spending RINO’s (McCain, Dubya). Ohhh, those wild and crazy New Hampshire voters! Do they give life to the Mike Grevell’s and Dennis Kucinich’s or Ron Paul’s? No. Since 1992 they basically vote for moderates who are losers. In 2000 and 2008 they rewarded John McCain for what exactly? Being mavericky?

Why not let Florida go first? Why not allow a state which has picked Marco Rubio and Rick Scott in recent elections pick your GOP standard-bearer for 2012? That’s 29 electoral votes, by the way. A state that historically has actual national relevance in deciding these things. No one stays up on election night anxiously waiting for Chuck Todd’s grave pronouncement, “This election will come down to New Hampshire, New Hampshire, New Hampshire…”

A few years ago a leftist tool asked, ‘What’s wrong with Kansas?’ I wonder, Why should anyone give a damn about New Hampshire?? (What have they ever done for anyone??) This state shouldn’t be the one deciding who has momentum going into the election campaign season.

PLAYING WITH AUTOMOBILE METAPHORS

With George W. Bush, at worst, we were in a ditch. Manageable.

Barack Obama drove the car straight into a hole.

He’s got no ideas other than to blame everyone else but himself. He’s trying to make the argument, “Well, I wouldn’t have driven us into the hole, if Bush hadn’t gotten us into that ditch!” The man has no ideas. Why would he? He’s a community organizer. So he’s just giving up. And he’s gone golfing.

To make matters worse, we no longer have our AAA.

LEFTIST TO ENGLISH TRANSLATOR: “Obama is not a socialist.”

LEFTIST:  (Nervous laughter) “Hahaha…Obama is not a socialist!

Translation: (I hope they’re buying this) “Obama isn’t socialist enough!!’

LEFTIST: That’s ridiculous!!

Translation: I wish he was willing to forcefully take over the means of production in this country.

LEFTIST: I don’t know why people keep saying that.

Translation: I got so aroused when Obama said spreading the wealth around is good for everybody.

LEFTIST: Seriously, that’s ridiculous….hahaha

Translation: Oh well, this is the part where I unconvincingly pretend people are crazy for even thinking Obama might be left of center.”

PUT. THE BONG. DOWN! Obama Smoking Something When It Comes to Green Jobs

MIKE BROWNFIELD, THE FOUNDRY: “President Barack Obama has a problem on his hands when even his stalwart allies at The New York Times have no choice but to admit to a glaring reality: The President’s “green jobs” promise has failed miserably. On Friday, the Times printed a harsh assessment of the state of the “green” economy—including a conclusion that the President’s promise to create five million green jobs over 10 years has proven to be nothing more than “a pipe dream,” with California’s Bay Area providing a particularly poignant example of how “green” jobs have actually been lost, not gained:

In the Bay Area as in much of the country, the green economy is not proving to be the job-creation engine that many politicians envisioned . . .

A study released in July by the non-partisan Brookings Institution found clean-technology jobs accounted for just 2 percent of employment nationwide and only slightly more — 2.2 percent — in Silicon Valley. Rather than adding jobs, the study found, the sector actually lost 492 positions from 2003 to 2010 in the South Bay, where the unemployment rate in June was 10.5 percent.

California isn’t the only place, though, where the green dream is falling short of reality. Last year, Seattle won a $20 million federal grant to invest in weatherization programs. The money was to be spent on insulating crawl spaces, serving to create jobs while helping the environment by reducing the energy needed to heat homes. The program, which was announced at the White House on the eve of Earth Day, has proven to be a total flop. ”

[Read more of “Obama’s Green Jobs Pipe Dream” at heritage.org]

BEYOND THE RICK PERRY MYTHOLOGY

Shikha Dhalmia lays out the good and the bad. She forcefully defends Perry’s record on job creation, but also nails Perry’s record on three points that Tea Party supporters and Libertarians should note carefully: an increase in government spending, accepting stimulus money, and links to crony capitalism.

REASON: “However, if liberals underestimate Perry’s jobs record, conservatives overestimate his fiscal record. Perry boasts that he has plugged the recession-induced hole in the state budget three times without raising taxes. Still, for the 11 years Perry has been in office, overall government spending has gone up by 4.2 percent every two years, compared with 2.3 percent under George W. Bush, after controlling for inflation and population growth. Perry’s supporters dismiss that comparison, noting that nearly half of this spending is tied up in federal programs he can’t control. The general revenue spending that he does control, they claim, has gone down for the first time since World War II. Moreover, Perry patched the 2011-2013 buget less with long term structural reforms and more with one-time fixes and budgetary gimmicks such as deferring payment to public schools by one day so that it isn’t technically due till the next budget cycle.

But if Texas has lost control over its budget, the blame lies with Perry—and his Republican legislature—both of whom have aggressively scavenged for federal grant dollars. Indeed, Perry has habitually touted the great subsidies he has extracted from Uncle Sam for state programs ranging from homeland security to disaster relief. Even as Perry condemned President Obama’s stimulus and bailout package, he actively courted these funds, plugging the $6 billion hole in his previous budget almost entirely with stimulus money.”

“He also has a crony-capitalism problem. Grants from two funds he created, ostensibly to seed tech startups and lure companies, found their way into the pockets of his campaign contributors. This won’t go down well with voters weary of government waste and abuse, especially since Perry had final authority over the funds, and not an independent agency as is usually the case. Worse, Perry refused to axe these programs even to plug the deficit.”

[Read more of Shikha Dhalmia’s “Rick Perry: Economic Wizard?” at reason.com]

UNCLE JIMBO — THE PROGENY OF THE WELFARE STATE

JIMBO: “London is burning and the search is on for a way to avoid the bleedingly obvious, the welfare state has created a class off looters and moochers. Atlas Shrugged is actually some of the best political satire since Gulliver’s Travels. Rand didn’t know she was doing satire, but she created a perfect caricature of the modern welfare state. And now London and Athens and everywhere else the non-productive class feels slighted, are reaping the rewards of redistributing the wealth to those who lay claim to entitlements that must be provided by government.

Liberal social policies have brought western civilization to the breaking point. They had the best of intentions, just ask them. But they, and sadly we, are getting a heaping dose of the law of unintended consequences. If you train an entire cohort of society to believe that the government doesn’t just offer a safety net but a way of life, well you get this- gangs of scum who will take what they want if the free lunch stops showing up. The chattering class is doing their level best to paint this as a legitimate reaction to dire economic times, and for once I agree with them. This is what happens when you run out of other people’s money.”

[Read Uncle Jimbo’s “The Progeny of the Welfare State” at blackfive.net]