Free Republic

Gov. Bob McDonnell has conceded a "major omission" for not noting slavery in declaring April Confederate History Month in Virginia. As part of his mea culpa, McDonnell inserted into the proclamation a paragraph condemning slavery as "evil and inhumane" and blaming it as the cause of the Civil War.

Via JWF. Actually, this strategy isn’t new — remember this post at TPM four months ago? — but I can’t tell if it’s a pet idea of DCCC chief Chris Van Hollen or if the whole party’s lining up behind it. Van Hollen’s the focus of both stories and he’ll surely exert considerable influence over party strategy, but even so: With voters screaming at them about unemployment, O-Care, and trillion-dollar deficits, Democratic candidates are going to look them in the eye and tremulously whisper … “Bush”? Basically, they’re going to try to make the election a referendum on that “Miss...

Former President Bill Clinton's top political strategists, who had a front-row seat for the Republicans' 1994 electoral successes, said Wednesday that the GOP today is peaking too early and is unlikely to see a repeat performance this November. Pollster Stan Greenberg said a "change election," as political scientists call major shifts in electoral preferences, already happened when Republican Scott Brown's surprise victory for Sen. Edward M. Kennedy's Senate seat, and between then and November, Democrats will have gained back ground. "When we look back on this, we're going to say Massachusetts is when 1994 happened," Mr. Greenberg said.

I am at a loss... are there ways to 'come out ahead financially' in a Socialist country?

A race began today, when the President signed his health-care takeover bill. The vast majority of Americans opposed to this legislation have two election cycles in which to defeat it. If 2010 does not see a Republican House of Representatives, the first victims will disappear under the leading edge of a tax and regulation avalanche. A complete GOP takeover of Congress and the White House in 2012 could begin the process of repeal, and the implementation of real “reforms” that will actually improve the quality, and reduce the cost, of medical care. Even such a transfer of power would not...

If you ever thought we didn’t love you, we hope today proves you wrong, because we just read a piece over at Daily Kos for you. It was icky. We had to take a shower afterwards, with that stinky antibacterial soap to kill all the orange germs. Kos is a very nasty, rotten place, but we got a tip they were in full-on pants-wetting meltdown mode over “Motions to Recommit” and wanted to know what the fuss was about.

NOW ZAD, Afghanistan, March 9, 2010 – Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates’ visits with Marines here and with soldiers at Forward Operating Base Frontenac in Afghanistan’s Kandahar province have reinforced his belief that the strategy is working in Afghanistan. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates participates in a promotion ceremony during a visit with the 1st Battalion, 17th Infantry Regiment, at a forward operating base in Afghanistan, March 9, 2010. DoD photo by Cherie Cullen   (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. “I feel reinforced that the path we’re on is the right path, but it will take a long time,”...

The Grand Strategy of the Byzantine Empire by Edward N. Luttwak Belknap Harvard, 498 pp. Civilization in the city of Rome was extinguished by the year 476, but scholars today recognize that the Roman Empire continued to thrive in its eastern capital of Constantinople, in what we call the Byzantine Empire. As Edward Luttwak notes, the Byzantines did not use the word "Byzantine." They called themselves Romans, and their enemies called them Romans as well. The Byzantine Empire carried on Roman traditions of civilization, commerce, law, and education for nearly a thousand years until they met a heroic end...

Memo to Republican Leaders: Republicans should exploit the HUGE advantage they have in education. Everybody knows, deep-down, that it's liberals who are screwing up the schools. Let's start shouting this from the rooftops! Every day! The linked article, published almost a year ago, gives all the basic points. Please pass this along to candidates, campaign managers, etc. (I have 100+ articles on the web explaining how the Education Establishment is dumbing down the country. I can usually explain what various policies actually achieve, versus what is promised.)

President Barack Obama, after weeks of private talks, is putting the finishing touches on a new election-year strategy that replaces sweeping "change" with incremental reform, according to senior White House officials. “Reform is the new change,” a senior aide told POLITICO. The revamped 2010 plan focuses extensively on new reform efforts, starting with a “competitiveness” push, a call for tighter campaign finance laws and renewed attention to Obama’s open-government agenda.

Repeat the lie often enough and people will believe it. Taking a cue from the Democrat playbook, the White House is preparing to kick communications propaganda into overdrive to spread their message in 2010. Apparently 158 interviews during Obama’s first year wasn’t enough face time for the Campaigner-In-Chief. Let’s face it, only 90 were on TV. The Washington Post reports President Obama’s new strategy campaign will have four planks: First, “Return to the disciplined messaging that was a hallmark of the 2008 campaign, in which unhelpful themes were filtered out in favor of topics that advanced the candidate’s goals.” [Translation:...

This master plan was clearly hatched in super-secret, high-level, eyes-only briefings. But the wait is finally over. The plan to prevent every single last Democrat from being bodily thrown into the Capitol fountain on November 2, is, wait for it . . . to be more bipartisan. Obama is going to offer to include Republicans in the governing process, and if they don't vote for his legislation, he'll call them obstructionists. . . . Sounds great . . . and rather familiar. Let's take a stroll down memory lane. This was from one year ago, February 11, 2009.

The “blame Bush” strategy flamed out in Massachusetts so they’re moving on to an even more substantive Plan B. “Given the pressure Republican candidates feel from the extreme right in their party, there is a critical – yet time-sensitive –opportunity for Democratic candidates,” a DSCC memo, obtained by CNN, states. “We have a finite window when Republicans candidates will feel susceptible to the extremists in their party. Given the urgent nature of this dynamic, we suggest an aggressive effort to get your opponents on the record.” Specifically, the DSCC wants Democratic candidates to pin down their likely opponents on several...

Democrats are looking for someone to blame for their electoral woes — and Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Chairman Robert Menendez is working hard to make sure it’s not him. Showing that they’ve learned the lesson of Massachusetts, Menendez and his staff will distribute a memo Tuesday advising Democratic campaign managers to frame their opponents early — and to drive a wedge between moderate voters and tea-party-style conservatives. “Given the pressure Republican candidates feel from the extreme right in their party, there is a critical — yet time-sensitive — opportunity for Democratic candidates,” the DSCC writes. “We have a finite window...

HONOLULU (AP) - A high-tax, big-government Democratic bastion for five decades and President Barack Obama's birthplace, Hawaii would seem a curious place for the Republican National Committee to hold its winter meeting. But riding high after Republican Scott Brown's surprise victory in last week's Senate race in another Democratic stronghold, Massachusetts, 168 RNC delegates are arriving Wednesday unconcerned about this isolated island state's past political proclivities. On the heels of Massachusetts plus GOP triumphs in New Jersey and Virginia governor's races last fall, Republicans are invigorated after national elections that saw them lose control of Congress and then the White...

This memo was just distributed to all Senate chiefs of staff: From: Adam Green, co-founder, Progressive Change Campaign Committee -- on behalf of the PCCC, Democracy for America, and Credo Action RE: The right lesson from Massachusetts & the path forward on health care We wanted to make sure you saw the Massachusetts Research 2000 poll, reported on by the Wall Street Journal, NBC, Politico, Huffington Post, TPM, and others. It polled critical 2010 swing voters: the 18% of Obama voters who returned to the polls and voted for Republican Scott Brown. • On health care, they oppose the Senate...

I think that a lot of congressional Democrats are going to pay the price of Obamacare, but Andrew McCarthy highlights a key point: The best thing about Mark Steyn's guest-host stint on Hannity last night -- other than Jonah's joining him on the panel -- was that Mark asked some pointed questions of two brilliant political strategists, Dick Morris and Karl Rove, that seemed rooted in Mark's theory that, on health care and all it entails,"The Dems are thinking strategically; the Republicans are all tactics." For my money, I think the theory is being borne out: Democrats have their eyes...

When President Obama announced his decision to deploy 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan, he presented a clear argument for why he believes U.S. national security is threatened by violence and extremism in that country and in the region. What was missing from the speech, however, was a sense of how and to what degree continued U.S. involvement in that region fits into the United States' comprehensive national security agenda. That evaluation is the key to keeping U.S. foreign policy consistent and balanced, and should be based on the president's national security strategy (NSS). Almost one year has passed since Mr....

Last month, Americans watched as Virginia and New Jersey elected two new governors. While the lessons of both campaigns are still being dissected, virtually everyone agrees that Chris Christie profited most of all from having a terrible incumbent as an opponent. The real lessons for political candidates in competitive races stem from Virginia’s Bob McDonnell. McDonnell didn’t just win big. He helped his party win every statewide seat with on coattails. The talking heads chalk up his astounding victory to his singular focus on jobs and the economy. And as usual, the talking heads are 100% wrong. To be sure,...

Bird influenza viruses have a variety of strategies to cross the species barrier and spreadThe 2009 H1N1 influenza virus used a new strategy to cross from birds into humans, a warning that it has more than one trick up its sleeve to jump the species barrier and become virulent. In a report in this week's early online edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, University of California, Berkeley, researchers show that the H1N1, or swine flu, virus adopted a new mutation in one of its genes distinct from the mutations found in previous flu viruses, including...