The Crystal Ball

Larry Sabato has his baseline 2012 electoral college map available. This is the map upon which all the campaign strategies (and predictions) will begin for candidates considering a run against Obama.

There are 270 electoral college votes needed for victory. Looking at the map and the baseline votes, the optimistic view suggests Republicans will need to gain 100 electoral votes beyond their solid red states (safe and likely). The "leans" Republican and "toss up" states total to 121 votes, if every one of those is won by a Republican nominee.

This is going to be extremely difficult and challenging, with or without a strong GOP nominee. Here's why. Several of those states are union states, which will fight to the death for Obama. They are going to focus on those states heavily with money and their SEIU thug tactics. Another factor will again be retirement states such as Florida and North Carolina. Those two toss up states alone comprise 44 electoral votes. It is close to impossible, basing estimates on this baseline, to see a Republican 2012 victory without those two states.

The good news here is that we have some newly-elected Republican governors in the union states and in Florida. If they are building strong GOP state chapters and the RNC is focusing on helping them organize, this could help a Republican nominee. Also, there are some redistricting factors that haven't even been realized yet and they could play heavily into the favor of the Republicans.

Bottom line: if the GOP puts up a weak candidate, who can't generate enthusiasm for a GOP "big tent" by reaching conservatives and independents, then the optimistic scenario is completely unattainable. Polarizing candidates won't win the electoral votes needed in the toss-up states. Difficult and controversial issues (entitlement spending and the national debt) are going to have to be treated with kid gloves by the GOP nominee. He or she will have to swing hard at Obama and present realistic and maybe even reserved solutions. It can't be emphasized enough how important it will be to select a candidate who can win. It may not be the favorite of the Tea Party or the establishment GOP or the independents or the social conservatives, etc..., but a Republican who can unseat Obama will certainly be my favorite.

I won't go into the gory analysis of the pessimistic viewpoint of the electoral votes needed by the GOP in 2012. I think the "optimistic" view sets a difficult enough tone by itself.

ObamaCare For Thee But Not For Me

SEIU lobbied long and hard for the passage of ObamaCare then turned right around to receive a waiver exempting them from the same law that they helped pass.

Hardly sounds fair now, doesn't it?

Monday Morning Palate Cleanser

It's Monday and I'm waiting to hear back from a couple of people involved with the Richmond Tea Party about how they thought the Convention went off.

In the meantime, how about a palate cleanser. Call it, "When The Tables Are Turned".

The headquarters of the SEIU in Arizona get picketed.



I can't find where exactly but I believe it was Moe Lane who said that when filming, you need to do it in teams of two. One person being the obvious camera man, the other guy off to one side, capturing the entire event. Even in the worst case scenario and the main party gets arrested, the second camera man can slip away with the footage tucked safely away.

This Is Disturbing On Many Levels

I want to be careful uttering the 'F-Word' (fascism) here but this does seem eerily similar to how I would picture Hollywood making a movie with a Police State society as a backdrop.

The family of Greg Baer, Bank of America executive, is located in a jurisdiction protected by the Montgomery County Police Department (MCPD), which responded promptly to a disturbance call from his neighborhood last weekend.

According to Corporal Dan Friz, an MCPD spokesperson in Rockville, Maryland, the department received a disturbance call from one of Baer’s neighbors at 4:10 pm last Sunday. Four MCPD units arrived at Baer’s Greenville Rd. address at 4:15 pm. At least two Metropolitan Police Department units from the nearby District of Columbia were already at the scene when they arrived.

Why? Because police cars attached to the Washington MPD’s Civil Disturbance Unit had escorted the SEIU protesters’ buses to Baer’s home.

Be sure to read the rest and see the video.