Rick Scott of CPR has a good post up over at RedState on "Public Option Trickery." 

Here's an excerpt:

What are we up to now, six different names for the public option? Let us count the ways desperate Democrats have tried to re-brand, re-tool, re-name or re-invent what is, by all accounts, a plot that will ultimately force millions of Americans into the waiting arms of government health care bureaucrats.

During the 2008 campaign, the public option was described as “government-run plan similar to Medicare.” Whoa…really? The same Medicare plan that cannot now meet its own financial obligations and is projected to be come up short by $38 trillion by the time the youngest Americans will need it? No wonder we haven’t heard that description much lately.

A while back, I wrote of how important Scott's efforts have been to fighting socialized health care (most people thought it would sail through this summer).  As this debate continues in the Senate, look for him to ramp up efforts to defeat it...

According to Rasmussen Reports:

Governor Rick Perry is back out front of Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison with an 11-point lead in the 2010 Republican Primary gubernatorial race in Texas.

A new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Texas GOP Primary voters finds Perry with 46% of the vote while Hutchison earns 35%. Four percent (4%) support Debra Medina, a tea-party activist who joined the GOP race a few months ago, and 14% are undecided.

Yesterday on MSNBC, Amanda Terkel and I discussed President Obama's failure to fulfill his campaign promise to his base, regarding "Don't Ask, Don't Tell"...

On November 16, Morton Blackwell will celebrate his 70th birthday.  Tonight, there will be a dual celebration: Morton's 70th birthday -- and his Leadership Institute's 30th birthday.

If you're not familiar with Morton, you should be; few modern conservative leaders have done more to advance the cause of liberty.

Morton has had a long and distinguished career.  Before founding The Leadership Institute (Li) in 1979, he was Barry Goldwater’s youngest elected delegate to the 1964 Republican National Convention in San Francisco.  In 1980, he organized and oversaw the national youth effort for Ronald Reagan.  He then served as Special Assistant to the President from 1981-1984.  In 1984, he became the full-time President of Li.

Having worked at Li for four years, I can personally tell you that the organization is one of the most important in the nation -- and that Morton is one of the most dedicated and honorable men I have ever known.  I feel truly blessed to have known him and to have worked for him.  Clearly, I would not be doing what I am doing were it not for the lessons I learned from Morton.

Aside from being dedicated to training the next generation of conservative leaders, Morton and his wife Helen are proud grandparents.  And Morton also has an interesting hobby: He is an avid beekeeper. 

Morton has said of his late friend Paul Weyrich that, "If there were a Mount Rushmore for conservative leaders, Paul's face would have to be on it." 

I think it's fair to also say that Morton's face would be right there, too...

I have been around enough campaigns to know that you can usually identify the front-runner as the candidate who has the most wacky, personal attacks thrown at them. 

Sue Lowden is the front-runner in the Republican primary to unseat Majority Leader Harry Reid, and if the election were held today -- she would win by double digits (so would Republican Danny Tarkanian, by the way).  Still, there's a long way to go -- and she will surely have to fend off attacks from her Republican opponents, as well as from the Harry Reid political machine.
 
The latest controversy regards accusations that, as Chairman of the Nevada GOP, Lowden may have suggested using showgirls to spice up a 2008 John McCain campaign rally at the Las Vegas airport.  On a phone interview this morning, Lowden denied officially submitting this idea as proposal, though she said it's entirely possible she may have joked about it at some point. 

Regardless of the veracity of this, the accusation hardly seems controversial.  After all, it is typical protocol for Las Vegas' Mayor to greet dignitaries at the airport with Show Girls.  Having showgirls greet a candidate in, say, Alabama, might raise some eyebrows -- but in Las Vegas, of all places -- it's not really taboo.  In fact, it's an iconic part of the Las Vegas tourism industry. 

Of course, this is really a distraction from the issues that matter, and from the fact that Lowden seems to have the best shot at ousting Harry Reid.  If you are interested in the conservative record of Sue Lowden and what kind of Senator she would be, read her recent op-ed on BigGovernment.com.

Yesterday I had the chance to chat with Mark McKinnon, a media expert and a former presidential adviser to George W. Bush and John McCain. 

After dispatching with out conversation about the circa-1970's Austin, Texas music scene, talk turned to card check. 

McKinnon is advising The Workforce Fairness Institute, a group dedicated to educating Americans about the dangers of what they have dubbed, the "Employee 'Forced' Choice Act."

As you may recall, card check was a big issue a few months ago.  But, it seems, Democrats have warned big labor to back off the issue, at least, until health care reform is passed.  But make no mistake, the issue is dormant, not dead.

McKinnon pointed out to me that Bob McDonnell, who recently was elected governor of Virginia, focused on only  a few national issues, but card check was one of them.

As McDonnell said on FOX News's Hannity Show, "Some of the policies that this Congress has pursued and supported by the president like cap and trade and card check and tax increases ... I've made those issues in this race and I think Virginians are not enamored with those policies."

Pointing to the McDonnell victory, McKinnon described card check as, "a huge liability for Democrats."  The question, though, is whether or not Democrats will walk the plank in order to pay back big labor.  Clearly, this is a vitally important issue to watch, and I will continue monitoring it. 

... On another note, I did have a chance to ask McKinnon about a recent controversial quote he gave the Washington Post, in which he appeared to disparage attendees of a "Taxpayer March" as, "right-wing nutballs." 

McKinnon tells me the quote was taken out of context -- that his point was that the media would seek to interview only those attendees who were most on the fringe, in order to negatively portray mainstream conservative attendees. 

Ironically, the Post seems to have made McKinnon's point by picking and choosing the most controversial of McKinnon's own quotes.  McKinnon tells me that he's been around long enough to know that he should have avoided giving them an opportunity to use his quotes out of context.

Some activists have apparently begun appropriating imagery from the "V" sci-fi series. 

... I argue that's not necessarily a good thing.

My latest column deals with the possibility that conservatives might take the same energy used in NY-23, and replicate it in primaries across the nation. 

Here's an excerpt:

... significant primary races dot the horizon: In Texas, Gov. Rick Perry (a trailblazer in reducing the size and scope of government) seeks to fend off a challenge from moderate Republican Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison. In California, conservative Assemblyman Chuck DeVore seeks to paint former Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiorina as an establishment liberal in their race to win the GOP nomination to challenge Sen. Barbara Boxer. In Florida, former House Speaker Marco Rubio is running for U.S. Senate against moderate Gov. Charlie Crist.

When all is said and done, we will have seen a tug-of-war for the heart and soul of the GOP playing out in three of our largest states (by population). Something to note is that the timeline allows for conservatives to focus and transfer their energies from one state to the next. The Texas primary is in March; three months later the battle shifts to California; after that, it's on to Florida for an August primary.

Read the whole thing here.

Sometimes I write something, only to later discover the perfect quote that should have been included.  This, of course, is terribly frustrating.

It happened again recently. 

The other week, I wrote a column describing why, in my estimation, Newt Gingrich would not suffer for his endorsement of Dede Scozzafava in NY-23.  As I explained,

... Newt Gingrich is brilliant, and liberals know it. We conservatives like that. In an era when conservatives are criticized for lacking ideas, Gingrich is an idea machine.

This weekend, while thumbing through Jon Meacham's "Franklin And Winston," I discovered a quote about Winston Churchill which seems to sum up my hypothesis regarding Newt:

In 1918, Felix Frankfurter was visiting Cliveden, Nancy Astor's country house in England, and listening as she attacked Churchill, who was not there, at length.  At last, A.J. Balfour, a former prime minister, told her: "Nancy, all you can say about Winston may be true, but Winston has ideas, and to a statesman with ideas much shall be forgiven."

While I do not wish to make too much of the Churchill/Gingrich comparison, it is fair to say that Newt has ideas, and, thus, "much shall be forgiven"...

It's not just health care that could endanger 2010 Democratic incumbents. 

As several recent news stories indicate, the Obama administration's environmental policies may also be putting Democrats in a vulnerable position. 

This is especially true, when you consider the impact regulation may be having on the economy and unemployment. 

The Washington Times recently reported on how the EPA's onerous regulations may be harming business:

To appreciate the extent to which the Environmental Protection Agency under President Obama is a regulator reborn, consider this: EPA officials have begun to cut air pollution by invoking the Clean Water Act. …Long quiescent under President George W. Bush, the agency is churning out initiatives and regulations at a pace that pleases its friends in the environmental movement and frightens many in the business community. (Amanda DeBard, “Obama’s EPA is a regulator reborn,” Washington Times, November 4th, 2009)

[# More #]
Many of the recent articles focus on how the Obama administration's policies are impacting the coal mining industry in West Virginia.  For example,

Since February, the EPA has placed 175 surface coal mining projects under review and halted 79 of them because of their effects on surface water. For 30 years, the agency did not object to the air pollution caused when miners blast dirt into the air to expose coal deposits. Now, invoking the Clean Water Act, the agency is moving to block, at least for now, the projects when they sully nearby streams with the same pollutant. … The agency also has, for the first time, revoked a permit for a surface mine because the project in West Virginia could violate the Clean Water Act. (Amanda DeBard, “Obama’s EPA is a regulator reborn,” Washington Times, November 4th, 2009)

This appears to be putting Democrats in West Virginia in a vulnerable position:

West Virginia Congressman Nick Rahall II -- the loyal Democrat and friend of labor -- is squarely between those who want to restructure the American economy and those who see coal and affordable energy as critical to the nation's strength. His support for candidate Barack Obama in 2008 helped to put him in this tough situation. … Last summer, Rahall had a major role in the congressional drama that led to the House passing cap-and-trade legislation 219-212. The bill would impose costs on power generators for emitting carbon dioxide -- a greenhouse gas -- and make coal a less appealing fuel. With rumors surfacing back home that Rahall would have a serious challenger next year if he voted the wrong way, he cast his vote against the cap-and-trade legislation. (Dan Page, WTRF, “Coal, Rahall caught in political vice,” November 5th, 2009).

It is being reported that this may mean Rep. Rahall has a "serious challenger:"

The whole state is watching, and Rahall knows it. He also must know those rumors are back about a serious candidate emerging to challenge him next year. (Dan Page, WTRF, “Coal, Rahall caught in political vice,” November 5th, 2009,

These excerpts are focused on West Virginia, but with many states like Ohio and Michigan experiencing tough economic times, you can be sure this is not the last you will hear of this issue ...