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Don Tapia, a Trump-backer who served as U.S. Ambassador to Jamaica under former President Donald Trump, is making it crystal clear that his allegiance is behind the former president rather than Gov. Ron DeSantis, explaining why other major donors are turned off by the Florida governor well over five months into his presidential bid.In February, Politico described Tapia as one of many “defectors” who was leaving Trump for DeSantis. At the time, the outlet reported that he “gave more than $50,000 to DeSantis’ reelection bid and hosted a pair of fundraisers for him” and asserted that donors were growing “tired...

Three years ago, the only people who’d ever heard of Pete Buttigieg were likely to be residents of South Bend, Ind., the town of 103,000 people where he served as mayor. South Bend is home to Notre Dame University. It has a bus station with a fleet of 60 buses, a small train station and a small regional airport. So, who better for Team Biden to nominate as secretary of the Department of Transportation, which employs more than 58,000 employees – more than half the population of South Bend – and has a budget of $87 billion?

By the time of Thursday night's debate between Vice President Biden and Congressman Ryan, the polls will reflect the early consequences of President Obama's disastrous debate performance from Wednesday night. Mitt Romney had a superb night and the contrast between his calm and in-command performance and that of a flailing, rambling president could not have been sharper, and indeed it could not have been more disorienting for the Chicago Gang running the president's re-election campaign. The day after the president's face-plant in front of 67 million viewers, the geniuses behind the nation's dismal economy instructed the president to go ugly,...

Despite being thoroughly unqualified to occupy the bench, Elena Kagan will most likely be confirmed to the Supreme Court. This is because most of our hundred senators are almost as unqualified to judge a judge as she is to be one. What is the proper criterion to apply? Well, a simple analogy illustrates the point best. Let's say you needed to hire a football referee. If he said that he was a "pragmatic" referee, who viewed the rule book as "living" and thus would interpret the rules to suit the "times," would he be your man? Since it's the job...

For the last few days, we've heard about how this is the Year of the Republican Woman. It may also prove to be the Year of the Oddball. Nevada's Republican Senate candidate, Sharron Angle, has, knowingly or not, served as a front for the Scientology cult and its preposterous system for reforming American prisons. Kentucky's GOP Senate candidate, Rand Paul, first said he wasn't really sure about the necessity of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, then said he was sure in a way that indicated he probably still wasn't. Connecticut's Republican Senate candidate, Linda McMahon, got immensely rich off the...

Even now, Mr. Obama looks like a spectator, albeit an angry one, barking at White House aides to "plug the damn hole" (now that's a good idea no one has thought of) and telling NBC's Matt Lauer he's in search of an "ass to kick." But the main political behind that's being kicked is Mr. Obama's. The latest ABC News/Washington Post poll says Americans give the federal government a 69% negative rating for its handling of the spill, compared to a 62% negative rating for Washington's handling of Katrina in August 2005. This pattern of being merely present has been...

Many voters had concerns over McCain winning due to their fears that, as old as he is, were he to become for any reason unable to fulfill his duties as president, that would have left his VP, Sarah Palin, in the Oval Office. Their concern was her supposed dangerous “inexperience.” Whatever your views on Palin’s experience, one thing is certain; her years as Mayor, then Oil Commissioner, then as Governor, provided her with tests of her executive abilities and delegatory skills which she quite obviously passed. Of all the myriad barbs slung her way by her often rabid detractors, none...

The chattering class was entranced with candidate Barack Obama. So literate. So polished. So cool. We were assured that his lack of executive experience was irrelevant. After all, he ran a campaign. And then there were his years as a community organizer and Harvard Law Review editor, which showed… well… it showed something about his magnificent intellectual skills. But it turns out he lacks some key abilities — executive leadership, decisiveness, deal-making prowess, flexibility, and basic people skills — that are essential to a successful presidency. This is not simply the conclusion of conservatives. The entire country witnessed his agonizing...

"One man's meat is another man's poison," as the saying goes. Let me explain a most striking case in point. Last year at about this time, David Brooks of the New York Times anticipated an enormous intellectual dividend for our country. After cataloguing the Obama administration's numerous Ivy League J.D.s and Ph.D.s, and with no mention of their real-world experience, he went on to write: "Already the culture of the Obama administration is coming into focus. Its members are twice as smart as the poor reporters who have to cover them, three times if you include the columnists." While Mr....

Former Vice President Dick Cheney said Monday that President Barack Obama’s “inexperience” might be keeping him from making a decision on an Afghanistan strategy. Asked in an interview with Scott Hennen, a conservative radio host, if Obama's prolonged war strategy review was a “dereliction” of his duties as president, Cheney said: “Well, I haven’t gone that far, and it may in part be inexperience on Obama’s part. ... It may be that there’s confusion on the staff, but I’m not encouraged by it.” Cheney also called the administration’s decision to try the Sept. 11 terrorism suspects in New York City...

The beauty of being a narcissist is that even when disaster stares you in the face, you feel neither doubt nor remorse.” —Carl Vogel, A Field Guide to Narcissism Former Senator Rick Santorum added, “The international community now is beginning to become aware that not only is [Obama] naive in his pursuit of a whole bunch of things including complete nuclear disarmament, but that his ego gets in the way of him learning anything about why he’s wrong on these things. That’s a very dangerous combination - to not know anything and to think you know everything.”

Someone asked me to name examples of people who had very little experience being asked to run something and succeeded. This was in response to the thread of the 31 year old in charge of dismantling GM http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2262191/posts I came up with three examples 1.Sarah Palin (who didn't have a whole lot of experience but was and has been quite influential in reviving some hope for the GOP while having success in steering Alaska through these troubled economic waters. 2. Theo Epstein, the very limited experienced GM of the Bosox who was named GM at 28 and helped guide the...

Isn’t it about time President Barack Obama got off the campaign trail, stopped trying to act like a rock star while globe-trotting and started acting presidential? So far, he has shown himself to be the epitome of inexperience. It seems every time he has a news conference, the stock market falls. Again. Do you think if they took away his teleprompter he would be speechless? It’s time for him to stop talking and start showing us some action. He’s been in office for three months and, so far, in addition to a shameful number of his Cabinet appointees being tax...

America has a former New York Times journalist, Steven Rattner, as our auto czar, a man with zero auto industry expertise. And it shows. To be completely fair to Rattner, he did leave journalism for investment banking, and went on to run a private investment firm, but he has no actual experience in the auto industry. Even worse his firm is now mired in a pay-to-play scandal. This was a problem that the Obama team knew about when it nominated Rattner as the car czar; in Chicago, these types of scandals are met with a blasé attitude. Perhaps Barack Obama...

The LA Times and the MSM foist this inexperience hack on the American people, all the while claiming that the most popular governor in America was too inexperienced for the job, and then act surprised when the guy shows that he doesn't know what he's doing? How very MSM of them.

Pressure mounts over replacement for Clinton By Harvey Morris in New York Published: January 2 2009 19:45 | Last updated: January 2 2009 19:45 Facing one of the most nail-biting choices since the presidential election, David Paterson, the New York governor, has been told he would be guilty of “political malpractice” if he named anyone other than Caroline Kennedy as the state’s new junior representative in the Senate. Mr Paterson, under intense pressure from some of the country’s most powerful political dynasties as he ponders his decision, has sole discretion to appoint a replacement for Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, who...

The Obama phenomenon has been such a success, it has already inspired an imitation. Caroline Kennedy may not have Obama's ethnic credentials or a name like a terrorist, but she is just as unqualified as the Moonbat Messiah, matches his aura of entitlement, and promises to do to nuclear power what The One wants to do to the coal industry. Here's Obama's plan for the coal industry, which is primarily responsible for the lights coming on when you flip the switch: So if somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can; it's just that it will bankrupt them because...

...is there going to be an even bigger gamble, by putting the fate of a nation in the hands of a man whose only qualifications are ego and mouth? Obama has the kind of cocksure confidence that can only be achieved by not achieving anything else. The signs of Barack Obama's self-centered immaturity are painfully obvious...

Truer words were never spoken from Michelle Obama's lips...

Senator Joseph Biden made remarks yesterday which should be the focus of the American electorate for the next two weeks (when they aren't considering the implications of Senator Obama's desire to "spread the wealth around," and the reliability of Senator Obama's promises measured against his spectacularly broken pledge to accept public financing.) Here's a detailed report from ABC on what Biden said at a Seattle fundraiser Sunday: "Mark my words," the Democratic vice presidential nominee warned at the second of his two Seattle fundraisers Sunday. "It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did...