Category: Politics

I saw Marco Rubio on television last night. He was a petulant child and an embarrassment to the electoral process. His vitriol towards Trump was the stuff I would expect to see on late night television parody skits. That he really said it speaks volumes to me about his inability to act like an adult in public.

To a national audience, Rubio cried about Trump being a fraud and vowed to stay in the race just so he can deny Trump the nomination. In what universe Marco? Trump has the one thing you are incapable of getting, delegates. Your campaign rhetoric is the exact reverse of your voting record and you take offense when people point that out.

Rubio has gone to his patrons in Washington to get help. As a result, they are rolling out Mitt Romney tomorrow. Romney is a rich establishment guy who they think has the gravitas (oh how I despise that word) to go after rich guy Trump. Somehow this must have something to do with a supposedly brilliant strategy to invigorate Rubio’s lethargic campaign just in time for tomorrow’s debate.

Frankly, I think putting Romney on the board makes Rubio look like a pansy and his patrons look like dull, out of touch Washington Elites ( oh, they are).

Rubio is a dead man walking. Whatever happens, there is no chance in hell he is on the ballot in November.

Dr. Carson has stepped aside. He should have done it sooner but it clears the lane for Cruz.

For the first time in about two years, I went out of my way to listen to Rush today. He said he found some pundit in Washington that said The Establishment is even considering going with Cruz to thwart Trump. Rush thought this was nonsense and I agree.

Cruz is an ideologue and a self-proclaimed Constitutionalist. The elites would be better off with Trump.

Truthfully, the elites want the status quoi. This is the only option that voters find unacceptable.

The Republican Party is changing or going extinct; how that turns out probably depends on their treatment of Trump.

Eight years ago the major political parties put up their worst candidates—John McCain and Barack Obama—for the Presidency. Their worst beat our worst and every day Obama continues to prove it.

Now in 2016, our loudest is going against their loudest.

Hillary Clinton—whose accomplishments are limited to sleeping with the President and killing people in Benghazi—is trying to crush Bernie Sanders tomorrow so she can have a clear shot at the Whitehouse; (FBI indictment notwithstanding.)

Meanwhile, the spineless Republican Establishment and certain conservatives in the Party are faced with the likelihood that Donald Trump will be their nominee. Trump has many flaws but sleeping with the President and killing American Ambassadors are not amongst them. Trump is rough around the edges but he has proven that he can achieve his goals.

Unlike the Clinton’s, Trump earned his money the old fashioned way; not as a result of screwing average America citizens and getting obscene amounts of money for speeches and libraries. The Clinton’s were dead broke when Bill and Hillary left Washington and now they have a net worth of hundreds of millions of dollars.

The Republicans have owned both houses of Congress for two years now and have absolutely nothing to show for it. It fact, the Democrats still run the place. The Republican leadership earned Trump as their candidate. They are a gutless lot. Republicans (and many Democrats) are tired of the political class being ineffective. The Congressional Leadership behaves like a simple minded dog that knows three tricks:
• How to play dead
• Roll-over
• And beg.

The biggest substantial difference between Trump and Hillary is this:
• Hillary will appoint people on the basis of political payoffs
• Trump will appoint people qualified for the job

The idea of Bloomberg or Romney coming in to save the Republican Establishment at the eleventh hour via a brokered convention is nonsense. Bush has been burned and Rubio is a clueless poser. It looks like the GOP Establishment has found someone they hate more than Ronald Reagan.

Washington is all about Power and Control—Hillary is both and Trump is neither.

Super Tuesday may be more than just the election that cements the field in November, it may be the cement that sinks the Republican Establishment, and that would be a very good thing.

Iowa Results in percent

Cruz   28
Trump 24
Rubio   23
Carson   9
Paul   5
That’s 89 percent of the vote!

Where’s Bush?

Huckabee is out.

Look for Carson to decline further. I expect his support to shift to Cruz.

Paul, like his dad, will stay in as long as he can. The real question is when he does drop out, will he endorse anyone? And when he does will it matter?

Next it’s New Hampshire. Look for more GOP hopefuls to drop off after that.

I expect Trump to win in New Hampshire but who gets second? If Cruz finishes third, it may be a rough March for him. If he gets second, then we may have a more interesting contest.

Update 02-03-2016
Paul did drop-out. Wow.
Ditto for Rick Santorum

Also, is it the “Bush effect”? Not a single governor has a snowball’s chance to make it. This used to be proof that you could handle the Executive duties of the job.

Michael Bloomberg, is threatening to run as an independent for President if he doesn’t like where the race is heading. Supposedly, he will make-up his mind come March. link for article “President Michael Bloomberg”

This is nothing but wishful hoping by a bunch of Democrats that are fearful that Hillary won’t be their nominee. By March, Bloomberg will not only have missed most filing deadlines to run but missed participation in all early primaries and missed-out on being on the ballot during the “Super Tuesday” contests in March. By the time he would jump into the race and actually get his name on a ballot somewhere, the Republicans will likely have their nominee and we will know if Bernie Sanders really has the support of Democrats.

Bloomberg’s entrance into the race would cement a Trump victory and a fractured Liberal ticket. It would be worse that what Ross Perot did to George Bush back in 1992.

While it would be fun to watch, there is no way that it will happen. However, it does raise some interesting questions.

• Are Sanders voters voting for Bernie or against Hillary?

• Suppose Bloomberg managed to get on California’s ballot by the March 25th deadline. What happens in a State like California where only the top two vote getters in the primary appear on the November ballot? Suppose he is a serious candidate going into November but California says he can’t be on the ballot.

• Perhaps Bloomberg and Sanders show-up on the November ballot but a Republican does not.

Often a political candidate makes exactly two decisions for his entire campaign; the first is to run for an office and the second is hiring his political consultant.

In the case of Sheriff Scott Jones, after much arm twisting and pleading, Jones agreed to run against Ami Bera in the 7th Congressional District.

The second decision—that of choosing a political consultant—is often a function of the decision making process.

Often candidates recruited by the Party are handed off to one of their loyal consultants. Republican consultants have proven track records of consistently loosing every two years but somehow it is never their fault.

The first thing to know about consultants is that once hired, they treat candidates as their employees. They tell candidates what to say or more importantly not say, where to go, how to dress, etc. Typically, from the date they are hired until after the election, consultants functionally lobotomize their candidates. Candidates fail to realize that the consulting firm is supposed to work for them. Consultants do what makes money for them, not what helps candidates to win.

The other thing consultants do is load balance their schedules. They calculate that half their candidates will not make it past the June election so they plan on loosing half their races. They then go to November hoping to win half that number. So a successful consultant has a seventy-five percent loss record with twenty-five percent victories. The loosing employees in June are the ones assigned to Jones’ campaign in November. Try that level of success in the private sector and see how long you would remain in business.

Since Jones will likely have no credible Republican opponent in June, his consultants have already decided not to do any campaigning until after the summer. It has been a month since he announced his candidacy and there is no one at his consulting firm assigned to his campaign. Posts to his campaign Facebook account and calls to the consultant’s office are all but ignored. As they are able, the consulting firm will respond—typically weeks later. The Jones campaign currently has zero people on the campaign staff. In addition, there are no plans of opening any campaign headquarters in the district. Clearly Jones’ campaign is on the back burner.

But never fear, things are even worse than I just described. Jones’ consulting firm has no clue about him. Jones won every precinct in Elk Grove when he ran against Jim Cooper for County Sheriff but his consultants didn’t know that. Like the Ose campaign before them, the consultants were planning to write-off Elk Grove and cede it to Bera.

Furthermore, the consultants have no clue who the influence makers are in the district. It’s just another job to them. How Jones got to be Sheriff or what base of support he may have from previous campaigns is beyond their ability to even investigate. They have their campaign in a box already figured out.

A friend described this to me as a “Groundhog Day” campaign. Repeat the same mistakes and expect a different outcome…sounds like insanity to me. Actually, both are true.

Lastly, there is no way that the RNC, RCC, or CRP will give Jones any meaningful financial support in the race. The national Party gets more bang for their buck in other states and has too many seats to defend in this cycle. Taking out an incumbent like Bera in a state like California is too costly to be achieved. The best they can hope for is pinning down some money that Bera would otherwise spend in other districts.

Thus Jones is being thrown under the bus; just more grist for the consulting class to chew-up in 2016 so they will be there in 2018 to do likewise to some other schmuck.

Scott Jones is a good man and deserves better.

My wife spends too much time on social media. A few weeks ago, she found this car for sale on Facebook. Yeah, not my first choice either but the car was priced to move at $800.

We ended up contacting the owners. The car was drivable and had some cosmetic issues but to did run. After agreeing to buy it, we did have to remind the owners that state law requires the seller to get the vehicle smogged. Not surprisingly, it failed the first time on visual inspection. The owners replaced a hose and then go it to pass the emissions test.

We paid them for the car and then my wife went on the internet to make an appointment at DMV.

Our appointment was for 9:10 AM. When we got there, the line was literally out the door. There were 12 to 18 people just waiting to get into the building. We got in the appointment line—which was much shorter. After waiting a few minutes, we got to the check-in counter and told the lady why we were there. She gave us a form and clipboard and we waited our turn. A few minutes later, my wife and daughter were at the counter doing the paperwork for the title. After paying fees, taxes and registration, my daughter was out $166 on an $800 car and we were leaving to go home. The whole process was over in about twenty minutes.

I know state workers want to spend time with their families on Thanksgiving so considering that they were shorthanded, I thought things went well. Moral of the story, make an appointment; it will lower your frustration level and save time.

Before I comment on this news report, I wanted to cite the source and some relevant paragraphs because news reports often get dropped off websites after a short time.

A proposed reservoir project in Western Colusa County would help keep more water in Folsom Lake, according to Rep. Ami Bera.

The Elk Grove Democrat announced on Thursday his support for the Sites Reservoir project. The announcement came as state park rangers took Bera on a tour of the dry bed of Folsom Lake.
http://www.kcra.com/news/rep-bera-says-planned-reservoir-would-help-keep-folsom-full/36418428

Later in the article

Bera joins fellow Democratic Rep. John Garamendi and Republican congressmen Doug LaMalfa and Jeff Denham in supporting Sites.

In a statement to KCRA 3, Rep. Doris Matsui, D-Sacramento, said she believe Sites “could be a piece of the puzzle in solving California’s water crisis, but there are important financing and operational details that are still being finalized and under my consideration.”

My grandfather used to tell me tales of the Sites Reservoir Project back when Ronald Reagan was Governor of California. The land earmarked for this lake included the thirty thousand or so acres owned by my great grandfather. We used to go deer hunting on the property when I was a kid. In fact I killed my first deer at age ten on this very property.

After my great grandfather died, the estate was thoroughly screwed-up by the Bank of America and then the IRS. As a result the family had to liquidate the property. The new owners promptly came in and cut down every single oak tree on the property. It was horrifying to behold thousands of acres denuded by bulldozers and chainsaws. Somehow cutting all the trees was believed to be a benefit to the cattle that the new owners introduced to the property.

Concerning the Sites Project, I find it a real stretch of credibility that any Democrats would claim to support the construction of Sites were we not in a drought; especially since they are the ones that oppose any new water storage anywhere in the state. Clearly the Sierra Club has not gotten to these folks or perhaps they are remaining quiet in hopes that we will forget these quotes by Democrats hoping for re-election.

As a newcomer, I can somewhat excuse Bera for his remarks; however, John Garamendi and Doris Matsui are without excuse; especially Doris. It was her husband Bob that singlehandedly worked to block the Auburn Dam. It was special interest groups in his Sacramento congressional district that coordinated the campaign with Matsui to kill the dam project.

The proposed Sites Project was well known to Matsui, Garamendi, and other elected officials in California. This project was old news in the 1970’s. Oh, yeah. Jerry Brown knew about it before he ever served his first term as governor. If these folks wanted Sites for water storage, it could have happened decades ago.

Unfortunately, much of this is lip service to current conditions and not a genuine concern for California’s future. After all, a politician’s chief job is to get re-elected.