Category Archives: Elections

Bill Clinton just gave the best political speech of this century, thus far

Earlier today I wrote something about the contrast that was expected between Elizabeth Warren’s speech and Bill Clinton’s. That was certainly dead on. She gave one of those speeches full of resentments and blame, the kind that makes me dislike political parties so much.

And then Bill Clinton gave a speech that, while lifting the crowd in the arena to their feet, talked right on through them and to all of America, making the case for Barack Obama as no one has ever made it before, in a way that was a feel-good celebration of politics and democracy and this country and the things that make it great.

I can’t remember the last time I heard a political speech this good. Here are my thoughts, via Twitter, as it unfolded. You can see my enthusiasm build from the moment the former president started talking. The Tweets that follow, starting at 9:29 p.m., are mine, except where otherwise indicated:

The most warmly positive, uplifting speech I’ve heard tonight so far was from the sister from Nuns on the Bus. It was beatific…
Back in the day, when there were 3 networks covering gavel to gavel, I seem to recall less gab and more voting; less show, more action.
Wow, they weren’t kidding about this woman [Warren]. Who wrote her speech? Huey Long? https://bradwarthen.com/?p=17980
amhistorymuseum ‏@amhistorymuseum Abraham Lincoln was the first presidential candidate to distribute his campaign portrait all over the country. #campaigncollecting
… Which you wouldn’t automatically assume would have been to his advantage…
Billy’s doing his duty, actually talking about Obama rather than himself. How about that?
Good line about “cool on the inside”…
“Business and government working together… ” That’s a welcome contrast to Warren’s anti-biz, populist rant…
He’s giving the Third Way a hard sell, and doing it well…
They’re not quite sure what to make of Clinton’s lauding of Republicans for the good things they’ve done…
The speech Bill Clinton is giving fulfills the Democrats’ best hopes (and stills their worst loose-cannon fears). This is impressive.
Bill Clinton is reminding American what it’s like to be a Democrat, a winning Democrat, whose politics aren’t based in resentment…
Maybe President Obama should let Bill Clinton do the speech TOMMOROW night, too…
He may have lost weight, but he hasn’t lost his touch. The Comeback Kid still has it. Maybe some of it will rub off.
No, Bill! Don’t say “listen to me…” Shades of the Lewinsky denial. You’re on a roll! Don’t go off course…
When Bill Clinton’s talking, it almost sounds like it would be fun to be a Democrat…
Warren Bolton ‏@BoltonWarren If nothing else, this will have Obama juiced for tomorrow for sure. Can he deliver?
I don’t know, but Bill sure is teeing it up for him. The key to what he’s doing is the confidence, and the sheer joy.
He [Obama] just needs to come out cool on the outside, and burning inside for America…
Bill is the first person speaking positively to independents tonight — except for maybe Sister Simone…
I’ve never heard anyone make the case for Barack Obama this well.
The thing about Clinton is, he convinces you he really understands the wonkish details (mainly because he does), and is really INTO them.
“It takes some brass.” His second best line of the speech. The best was the “cool on the outside” thing…
He knows he’s got them. He can feel it. He can slow it down, or speed it up, and they’re right there with him every second…
John O’Connor ‏@johnroconnor I really only needed Clinton 101, not 201 and 315
This is the graduate seminar course. This is Bill Clinton under a yellow sun, with all his powers.
One of the many things Bill Clinton understands is the importance of talking to the millions of us who are NOT in that room.
Bill knows how to tear the Republicans a new one — or two — without making you think he hates them…
Warren Bolton ‏@BoltonWarren This is where the preacher, with the congregation firmly in his hands, says “I’ about to take my seat.” Then 15 minutes later …
Now he’s schoolin’ ’em on ‘rithmetic…
No, don’t shake your finger at us, Bill. It evokes bad stuff. Stick with the good stuff…
This speech is the most generous and selfless thing that Bill Clinton has done in his whole life.
Bet on America… we always come back… Man, he’s hitting every note, and hitting it just right…

It was amazing. He’s just that good. And I say that as the editor who presided over an editorial board that was tied as first in the country to call on him to resign after he admitted lying to us. But he was always really, really good at this, and I don’t just mean in ways that were good for him. It’s actually good for the country to hear a speech like this. So much of politics these days is depressing, dispiriting. We all needed a lift like this.

Some were complaining that the speech was too long. No. Bill Clinton has given some of the longest, most tedious speeches most of us can remember. But tonight he wasn’t indulging himself. Tonight he was giving.

On tap tonight, competing strains of liberalism

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I thought this piece at the NYT site was interesting, contrasting the two strains of liberalism that compete for control of the Democratic Party these days — personified in two speakers at the convention tonight. An excerpt:

Wednesday, though, begins the hard sell of President Obama to the middle class. And for this task, the campaign has juxtaposed two prime-time speakers — Elizabeth Warren and Bill Clinton, one right after the other — who in their core philosophies represent contradictory, even irreconcilable strains of American liberalism….

Mr. Clinton is the president who made the sustained case to Democrats that they had to be pro-growth and pro-Wall Street, not just to get elected, but also to build a more modern economy. He was the one, as spokesman for the centrist Democratic Leadership Council, who told Democrats again and again that they couldn’t succeed as a party that “loved jobs and hated business.” Mr. Clinton transformed welfare, balanced the budget and declared an end to the liberal era of government, which is why a lot of conservative-leaning independent voters would re-elect him if they could.

As a Harvard law professor during the Bush years, Ms. Warren, who is now a candidate for Senate in Massachusetts, came to represent a rebuke of such Clintonian expedience. Her indictment against the excesses of Wall Street and the abdication of centrist Democrats became popular among a new generation of old-style economic populists (most notably John Edwards and then Mr. Obama), who often cited Ms. Warren’s arguments in making the case that the party had to reverse course from the Clinton years and rein in a business community that was prospering at the expense of the middle class…

Of course, if I had to pick one of them, it would be the Clinton strain. There are things I liked about Bill Clinton, and things I didn’t like. I tended to like him when he was being a Third Way guy, when he seemed to be channeling my main man Tony “New Labour” Blair.

Comments about the first night of the DNC?

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The First Lady tells about the "rusted-out" car in which Mr. Obama used to pick her up for dates.

I have to confess I did not watch the convention last night — during the portion of the evening I devoted to television, I watched the last episode of the “Breaking Bad” season from Sunday night — although I plan to catch Bill Clinton’s act this evening. Watch for my comments on Twitter in real time.

It’s probably just as well I missed it all, since I read that last night “was crafted to make a special appeal to women and Latino voters,” which by the logic of Identity Politics means that the Dems weren’t interested in speaking to me. I used to be a member of the South Carolina Hispanic Leadership Council (really; I’m not making this up), but I ended up resigning on account of, you know, not being Hispanic. So I don’t think that qualifies me. And even if I were a woman, I doubt the way the Dems would speak to me would appeal. Speeches from NARAL are not the way to win points with me.

The highlight seems to have been Michelle Obama’s speech, which I’ve heard described in various ways, but I don’t feel that I have enough of a grasp on it to comment in any way. Well… except to react to some nonsense I heard this morning on the radio on the subject. Someone was paraphrasing Alessandra Stanley at the NYT as saying, in essence, what a terrible thing it is that in this day and age, a First Lady or one who would be First Lady defines herself in 1950s terms, talking about how she met the candidate, etc.

Listen, folks: I care about what the person running for office has to say, and after that my interest drops off sharply. Were I to care what that person’s spouse thinks — whether that spouse is Michelle Obama, Ann Romney, Michael Haley, or Dennis Thatcher — the only conceivably useful information for me would be any light they could shed on the candidate himself or herself. Since the only reason for that spouse to be on the podium is his or her relationship with the candidate, why would I want to hear about anything else?

And truth be told, probably the only thing a political spouse could say to me that would affect my vote would be this: “Look, I know this guy. Nobody knows him better. Do NOT vote for this joker, not matter what you do.” But so far, I’ve never seen that happen. But it could. Which is why, if I were to run for office, I would not insist that my own better half make any campaign speeches…

But as I say, I didn’t even catch any of these speeches. As to those of you who did tune in last night — your thoughts?

God is all very well and good, as long as he makes himself useful to the cause?

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So I noticed on Facebook that a blogger with the Christian Broadcasting Network is making a bit of an issue of the fact that a plank in the proposed Democratic platform that mentioned God four years ago no longer does:

Guess what? God’s name has been removed from the Democratic National Committee platform.

This is the paragraph that was in the 2008 platform:

“We need a government that stands up for the hopes, values, and interests of working people, and gives everyone willing to work hard the chance to make the most of their God-given potential.”

Now the words “God-given” have been removed. The paragraph has been restructured to say this:

“We gather to reclaim the basic bargain that built the largest middle class and the most prosperous nation on Earth – the simple principle that in America, hard work should pay off, responsibility should be rewarded, and each one of us should be able to go as far as our talent and drive take us.”

Yes, that could have been the work of an overzealous secularizer, but it could also have been inadvertent. After all, “God-given” (something a Deist could well have said, by the way, not exactly a Bible-thumping sort of mention) wasn’t just deleted, as such; the whole sentence was recast.

I was more interested in what the blogger went on to cite as the platform’s only remaining mention of “faith:”

“Faith has always been a central part of the American story, and it has been a driving force of progress and justice throughout our history. We know that our nation, our communities, and our lives are made vastly stronger and richer by faith and the countless acts of justice and mercy it inspires. Faith-based organizations will always be critical allies in meeting the challenges that face our nation and our world – from domestic and global poverty, to climate change and human trafficking. People of faith and religious organizations do amazing work in communities across this country and the world, and we believe in lifting up and valuing that good work, and finding ways to support it where possible. We believe in constitutionally sound, evidence-based partnerships with faith-based and other non-profit organizations to serve those in need and advance our shared interests. There is no conflict between supporting faith-based institutions and respecting our Constitution, and a full commitment to both principles is essential for the continued flourishing of both faith and country.”

Anything strike you about that? Here’s what struck me: that the value of faith is set entirely in terms of how it furthers the political and social agenda of those writing the words. “a driving force of progress and justice… critical allies in meeting the challenges that face our nation and our world… We believe in constitutionally sound, evidence-based partnerships…” In other words, there is no particular inherent value; religion is only useful insofar as it is, well, useful.

Which isn’t exactly the way most people of faith would look at it. In fact, they’d be more apt to evaluate a party in terms of the degree to which it further’s God’s, or Allah’s, will. This seems the other way around, more like, God is good, but only when he votes our way.

I in no way malign the Democrats by interpreting the paragraph this way, though. Does anyone doubt that Republicans try to use the Almighty in the same manner? The Dems are just being franker about it. The main difference is that Democrats feel that they have to go through all kinds of explanations as to why it is, too, constitutional for them to be talking about faith.

Democrats ask Nikki to come home soon, please

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Mia Butler Garrick and James Smith urge Nikki Haley to come home. That blinding light is emanating from the direction of the governor's vacant office.

Alleging that she is now entering her third week of absence from the state for political purposes, Reps. James Smith and Mia Butler Garrick, both Richland County Democrats, stood outside Nikki Haley’s office this afternoon and asked her to return and do the job she was ostensibly elected to do.

Among the points the two representatives made about the gov:

The state’s unemployment rate is climbing.
Her trips have been purely political.
Her activities don’t even have anything to do with South Carolina politics, but are purely national.
She isn’t really benefiting Mitt Romney doing this, but merely herself.
They fully understand that a governor would go to her own convention, just as SC Democrats are now flocking to Charlotte — but she doesn’t have to spend the week attending theirs as well.
No other full-time state employee — a teacher, say, or a DHEC worker — would be able to take such a purely personal extended vacation, at least not without being fired.
It is unclear who is paying for her junkets.

I had not realized that the gov was planning on spending all of this week out of town as well. For that matter, I had not known she stayed in Tampa after her speech, but that would be par for the course.

It’s also far from unprecedented for a governor to visit the opposing party’s national convention, when it is in a neighboring state. I remember seeing Carroll Campbell at the DNC — the one Don Fowler ran — in Atlanta in 1988. (It was kind of a hoot because Campbell — or maybe his press guy Tucker Eskew; I forget — noted that he didn’t bring with him nearly the extensive security retinue that Lt. Gov. Nick Theodore had with him there all week, complete with a command post set up on the ground floor in the delegation’s hotel.)

It’s a very tacky partisan practice, this business of trying to spoil the other side’s celebration — I’ve thought so ever since I saw Campbell do it — but it’s certainly not unusual.

But, noted Mia and James, Nikki is spending the whole week up there for the “counter-convention,” doing various national media interviews, with her schedule for the week showing her having no scheduled events here.

That’s hardly fair to the governor, I pointed out. If practically the entire retinue of national political media — Nikki Haley’s constituency, the people who elected her — are just up the road in Charlotte, how could anyone expect her to stay down in Columbia? After all, anyone who voted for her expecting her to do anything other than just what she is doing at this moment was sadly deluded.

Precisely, said Rep. Smith.

Guess I’ll be watching this convention on TV, too

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I'm hoping the Democratic Convention will be more engaging than this was.

I was at the movies with my younger son Sunday afternoon watching “The Bourne Legacy” (which I’m sorry to say I found far less engaging than “The Bourne Identity”), and the character played by Rachel Weisz had just been introduced when my phone started buzzing.

It was E.J. Dionne. I stepped out into the corridor to see what was up. He was just driving down from Washington, taking the scenic route through the Shenandoah Valley, one of the most beautiful drives in America (I drove that way many times when my youngest daughter was studying at Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet). But E.J.’s not the kind of guy who finds pleasant vistas enough occupation for his hyperactive mind, so he wanted to chat.

The first thing he asked was whether I would be crossing the border this week, and I had to think a second before realizing he meant heading up to Charlotte.

Nope. I’m not. Or at least, I don’t think so. Ever since the DNC venue was announced a year or so ago, I had had it in my mind that since it was just up the road, I might bop up for part of it. But since that didn’t require any preparation, I made none. Then, a couple of weeks ago, I emailed Amanda Alpert Loveday with the SC party to see about credentials. That’s the way I had arranged it the couple of times I went to conventions before — just contact the state party, since it’s the state delegation I’d be following. But she said, “Press credentials were required to be requested by April and they are done by the Convention staff.” April? Like I’m going to prepare for an impromptu drive up to Charlotte in April?

I could still go. After all, when I’ve covered conventions in the past, I may have entered the actual hall where the convention was going on a couple of times total. But then, having those credentials did help get me into other places as well. Add to that the fact that the events worth being there for tend to happen early in the morning or very late at night — delegation breakfasts, and after-session social gatherings — and it just seems really inconvenient to try to cover any of it from home.

So I’m going to stick to Columbia, and watch the speeches on the Tube, just as I did the one in Tampa.

What do I expect to see? Well, I’ll tell you what I hope to see.

I hope to see a party that’s reaching out to independents and undecideds — a party that emphasizes things that pull Americans together — rather than a party that’s firing up its base with its ginned-up “War on Women” and other Kulturkampf flashpoints. You say there are no undecideds? Well, E.J. and I were talking about that, and he referred me to this analysis by ABC showing a large number of “persuadable voters:”

One in four registered voters may be persuadable in the 2012 presidential election – rich pickings if either Barack Obama or newly minted GOP nominee Mitt Romney can win their support. But doing so may be a challenge, requiring both subtle and substantive political persuasion.

That’s because persuadable voters, as identified in this analysis for ABC News, are less apt to be ideologically committed ones, and more likely to take middle-ground rather than strongly held positions on issues such as Obama’s job performance, Paul Ryan’s Medicare plan and their own partisan views.

Good to hear that I’m not alone. OK, we’re out here — so persuade us.

Dick Harpootlian says Jim Clyburn’s role in speaking tonight is to “excite the troops.” That’s exactly the sort of garbage I don’t want to hear. Guys, you don’t have “troops.” You’re not in a war. You are in a marketplace of ideas, and you’d better have some that are compelling to people outside that convention hall.

Anyway, that’s what I’m looking for. How about y’all?

First sign of the post-convention bounce

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This from Reuters is the first indication I’ve seen of the usual post-convention bounce:

(Reuters) – Mitt Romney has moved into a narrow lead over U.S. President Barack Obama in a small bounce for him from the Republican National Convention, a Reuters/Ipsos poll found on Thursday.

Romney entered the week four points behind Obama in the first installment of a Reuters/Ipsos rolling poll, with Obama leading 46 percent to 42 percent.

But the most recent daily rolling poll gave Romney a two-point lead of 44 percent to 42 percent among likely voters…

Possibly that bounce will increase. I heard someone from Gallup (I think; it was on the radio) yesterday say that historically, Republicans usually get a 5-point bounce, and Democrats get 6 points, making it pretty much a wash.

But we’ll see, as more numbers come in over the next week or two.

Oh, you know how I learned about this? From a DCCC email soliciting money. This is how the party functionaries work: “If we’re up, give us money. If we’re down, give us money.”

A good speech that failed to move the needle

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Here’s my reaction to Mitt Romney’s big speech last night (you remember Romney; he came a couple of speakers after Clint Eastwood’s extraordinary presentation of surrealistic performance art), in two parts:

First, I really appreciated his tone. We had heard he would take this opportunity to reach out to us swing voters, and he did, mainly by leaving out any hint of the crazy hate-Obama talk that has become so common among Republicans. Not that he would have talked that way anyway — without the condescension that Marco Rubio applied in saying the president is a “good man,” let me say that I see Mitt Romney as a nice man — but he could have thrown the crowd a little more red meat, and he didn’t. He reached out.

In fact, I think he made his case in as positive a way as anyone could. He mentioned “Hope and Change” without the usual sneering contempt with which Republicans imbue the words, and said too bad, it just didn’t work out. So let’s try something different.

I think that’s his case, put as positively as possible.

That’s part one of my reaction. Here’s part two: I don’t think he made the case — again, to us swing voters, not the faithful in the hall — that he necessarily has a better approach than Obama. In fact, when he tried to explain the difference between the Obama approach and the Romney/GOP approach, he had a tendency to fall back on the red meat stuff, the favorite stereotypes that Republicans spout with regard to Democrats. You know, like the one about how liberals hate success, which was probably one of his bigger applause lines. It went like this: “In America, we celebrate success, we don’t apologize for it.” It has the added bonus of implying, I don’t know how they do it in the country YOU come from, but in America…

And the problem, for folk who are not Tea Partisans or birthers or Club for Growth types, is that we don’t hear much positive in what Romney would do instead that would be better. The clearest message about what he would do that is more or less understandable to all is repeal Obamacare. Which I certainly don’t want him or anybody else to do, especially when they don’t want to replace it with anything better.

And that brings us to the problem with Romney. The poor guy; he’s just a non-ideological businessman who wants this job, and he has to charm all these crazies in order to get to it. So you get some odd behavior. Someone on the radio noted this morning that in the video before his speech, there was not one mention of his one great accomplishment as governor of Massachusetts — the health care reform that helped inspire the national reform that he is obliged to attack.

So here’s what we’re left with: Romney is this nice, non-ideological guy who makes the entirely credible case that what President Obama has done hasn’t worked, or hasn’t worked very well. So we are asked to trust him, as a proven, competent businessman, to run things better. Never mind the details (because when we get into details, it doesn’t help his case).

On the whole, I think it was a good speech. He didn’t hurt himself. But I’m not at all sure he moved the needle, in any way that will last through the polling bump that Democrats will likely get next week.

Speaking of that — some commenters on the radio this morning were saying that puts the Democrats in “a box” — they have to prove next week that what they have done has prevented things from being worse, and that better days are ahead with them in charge of the executive branch. That’s probably doable, if Democrats can rise above their own pander-to-the-base foibles and project pragmatic confidence. We’ll see.

But in the meantime, here are my Tweets and reTweets from last night, showing my real-time impressions of the proceedings from 10:05 p.m. on. All are by me, except where otherwise indicated:

I’m Clint Eastwood, and I don’t have to comb my damn’ hair if I don’t feel like it, punk.
Larry Sabato ‏@LarrySabato George H.W. Bush briefly entertained the idea of making Clint Eastwood his1988 VP ticketmate. It’s true.
I wish Clint weren’t struggling like this…
Scott English ‏@scott_english Clint Eastwood is doing a one man show at the #RNC entitled “This what happens when you cut Medicare.”
Wesley Donehue‏@wesleydonehue Watching Gamecocks, but according to twitter Clint Eastwood is either sucking or killing it.
Kinda both. It’s weird…
Roger Ebert ‏@ebertchicago Clint, my hero, is coming across as sad and pathetic. He didn’t need to do this to himself. It’s unworthy of him.
OK, what’s up? Rubio’s wearing that same weird flag pin with the superimposed star that Ryan was wearing last night. Is it a cult thing?
Oops, I was wrong. It’s not a star; it’s an “R”…
Todd Kincannon‏@ToddKincannon I think the Eastwood speech is absolutely brilliant. He’s not a politician and he doesn’t sound like one.
No. “Gran Torino” — now THAT was brilliant.
Wesley Donehue ‏@wesleydonehue Gotta get Phil back on twitter so that he quits suggesting tweets to me all night. He may become my ghost tweet writer.
Is he trying to get you to post something about a “Mormon Jesus“?
I’ve never watched Rubio before. Good speaker. But I’m struck that Eastwood is followed by someone you’d expect him to call a “punk”…
Wow, they’ve got Mitt doing a “Bill Clinton” through the crowd. Are they desperate to humanize him or what?
Well, the suspense is over — he accepts…
Mitt just said “iPod.” Wow, he must be cool…That hepcat!
Bruce Haynes‏@BrucePurple 10:34pm EST. Working people parties want to appeal to really want to be in bed now. And probably are. When will convention planners get it?
Yeah. And all the really cool voters live in EDT…
At this point, I’d like to see Clint come back out and pretend Mitt is an empty chair: “No, Mitt! I can’t do that to myself!”
Ed O’Keefe‏@edatpost The Clint Eastwood transcript:http://wapo.st/UfbT12 #gop2012
You mean that was WRITTEN DOWN???
Greg Reibman ‏@Greg_Reibman I’m still chuckling over the story of Mitt’s mom discovering her husband died. Nice to see the real Mitt.
You mean like, “Where’s my flower?” That was … odd.
Todd Kincannon ‏@ToddKincannon We may have a new Reagan.
Maybe they should have invited him to the convention… 🙂
Rick Stilwell ‏@RickCaffeinated Somebody please explain the “attack on success” to me. Haven’t seen it, want to know where that’s coming from. #learn #notjudging
Dunno, but @KarenFloyd just quoted it without irony. It’s something Republicans are convinced Democrats believe…
I liked that he cited “Hope and Change” without sneering. OK, that shouldn’t be a biggie, but the civility bar is really low these days…
He’s playing his role. He showed up for work, and he’s doing the job. Not inspiring, not exciting. But solid, workmanlike…
“Unlike President Obama, I will not raise taxes on the middle class.” OK, remind me again where “middle class” starts and ends…
“I want to help you and your family.” Is this the Democratic convention? I mean, is that what I want a POTUS for?
TeresaKopec ‏@TeresaKopec There sure are a lot of countries with CIA installed dictators that would disagree with Romney on that “America takes out dictators” line.
On that one, he was right. Moral relativism (“Oh, America is just as bad as anybody”) is dead end, politically & geopolitically
TeresaKopec ‏@TeresaKopec Obama has never said that. (At least the Obama who is visible to the human eye & not the invisible one Clint was talking to.)
No, he hasn’t. But some of my Democratic friends DO talk that way, as though this country were a net evil in the world.
Where he was WRONG is that in the aggregate, Obama has projected US power more aggressively than any predecessor.
Jack Kuenzie ‏@JKuenzie Ah, the K-Tel version of “Living in America.” #GOP2012
And if you act now, you get The Fifth Dimension performing “Up, Up and Away”…
Bonus question: Compare and contrast this balloon drop to others throughout history…
Amy Derjue ‏@derjue Joe Biden is gonna SCHOOL Clint Eastwood on how to ramble incoherently in Charlotte. See ya next week, nerds! #gop2012 #dnc
Scott English ‏@scott_english Sometimes I wish it was the Party of “Hell No.” RT @tdkelly: Mitt leads crowd in reaffirmation of “party of no.’
No, that would be the Tea Party…

Note that there were a couple of errors, only one of which I correct here (changing “Wow, he must me cool” to “Wow, he must be cool”). Romney did not exactly say, “I want to help you and your family.” He said, “MY promise… is to help you and your family.” That was my best effort to reproduce it on the fly; I messed up.

Paul Ryan: The Deerslayer, policy wonk version

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OK, you know veep candidate Paul Ryan is a major policy wonk. One thing you might not think of him as is a good old boy. But a magazine with a name that sounds like a stutter — Deer and Deer Hunting — is aiming to set you straight. See this release:

Republican vice presidential candidate Rep. Paul Ryan opens up to Deer & Deer Hunting Magazine about his love of the outdoors.

“Bowhunting is my passion,” said Ryan to Deer & Deer Hunting’s Editor Alan Clemons. “Studying the strategy, preparing food plots, the strategy of where a dominant buck is living or will be moving and then being in position to get a shot, that’s really exciting.”

Ryan talks more about his childhood, being a father and balancing his hunting and Capitol life in an exclusive interview with Deer & Deer Hunting. The column will be in the October issue of Deer & Deer Hunting and will be available on newsstands September 4.

If you’d like to learn more about the interview, I can provide you with the pre-released interview, a press release, a copy of the magazine issue or any additional information you may need.

For more information on Deer & Deer Hunting, please go to www.deeranddeerhunting.com. For any questions, please do not hesitate to ask.

I didn’t get to read the whole story because I didn’t want to give the mag my email address and have a whole new batch of emails to delete (I’ve made that mistake too many times in the past). But I confess to being curious as to whether the piece contains any other quotes as, um, interesting as “Studying the strategy, preparing food plots, the strategy of where a dominant buck is living or will be moving and then being in position to get a shot, that’s really exciting.”

Yeah, OK. I thought he only got that excited about cutting Medicare costs.

Of course, I’m a bit of an old hand with a bow myself. One day when we were in England last year, we were strolling in Hyde Park and came across a sort of carnival, which had a booth called “Robin Hood,” which enticed marks to shoot an arrow at balloons. Sure, it could have been a trap set by the sheriff, but I couldn’t resist. I immediately laid down my five quid (the real Robin Hood would have loved to find a fat friar carrying that on him), gave my camera to my wife to record the moment, and took my three shots. Unfortunately, my wife thought the camera was set for still photos rather than video, and merely aimed it at me, pressed the shutter release, and turned away.

So it was that she missed when I actually burst one of the balloons. But the great tragedy was that she missed my next shot, which split the previous arrow… yeah, that’s the ticket…

OK, so that last part didn’t really happen. But I did get one of the balloons. Of course, I’m sure that doesn’t match the excitement that Ryan speaks of. But that’s OK by me.

Take THAT, ye oppressor of good Saxon yeomen!

Yay! We can stop saying ‘presumptive’ now!

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Just got this bulletin on my phone from AP:

Republicans nominate Mitt Romney for president.

No, really. They interrupted my day to tell me that. I guess if you’re still out there in the MSM, and you’ve been forced by your cautious editors to type “presumptive” several hundred times in the last few months, this is a big moment.

Nikki Haley still to speak (I’m sure all of y’all will be greatly relieved to know it)

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At first it appeared that planet Earth had gone to great trouble to prevent Nikki Haley from addressing the nation. But the GOP convention planners, not ones to take a hint, have rescheduled her:

TAMPA, Fla. — Gov. Nikki Haley will address the Republican National Convention at nearly 10 p.m. Tuesday under the new, storm-altered schedule of events.

The governor was originally slated to speak at 10 p.m. tonight, but Tropical Storm Isaac forced organizers to scrap the opening night activities and move the Monday night speakers to Tuesday.

Haley, who made history as the state’s first female and minority governor, will follow Artur Davis, a former Alabama Democrat and supporter of President Obama who became a Republican this year after badly losing his bid to become Alabama’s first black governor.

She will speak before GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s wife, Ann, and another popular Republican governor, Chris Christie of New Jersey, according to the revised schedule. Christie was supposed to deliver the keynote speech Monday night…

So I’m sure all of y’all are relieved, right?

What’s really wrong with Todd Akin

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All the moralizing on this previous post about the work Wesley Donehue is doing for this month’s pariah, Todd Akin, goads me to share what I actually think of Mr. “Legitimate Rape.” Even though I know it’s going to make pretty much everybody mad at me.

Well, here goes…

To begin with, Akin is one of those people who makes you furious because he’s on your side of an issue (if you’re me), and he’s giving people on the other side of the issue more than enough excuse to dismiss you and all who think like you (or, once again, to be more accurate, me) as idiots or evil or both.

The issue here being abortion, not rape. The thing (I think) I agree with him on, that is.

As for being an idiot or evil, well, I reject both with regard to myself, although of course I’m not perfect. With regard to Akin… I don’t think he’s evil, although he possesses a certain very common character flaw (which will be my point, when I get to it) in an extreme form. And as to the idiot part… well, my wife often calls me down for calling people idiots, which is one of my character flaws — and after all, we are specifically enjoined from doing so, and very sternly warned about it, in the Bible.

But… confession time here… when I heard about what Akin said, and then saw a picture of him, one of my first thoughts was, Yes, he looks stupid enough to have done that. Which I know is wrong, to leap to such a conclusion just from looking at someone. I am in fact quite embarrassed to confess it. But there it is.

Basically, Akin tried to make a point that would have been extremely objectionable to most people even if he had put it in the most diplomatic way possible. And then, he managed to put it as offensively as possible. This suggests a sort of genius for offending, but again, I look at him and I think he only stumbled on this perfect combination by accident.

Neither I, nor I suspect his most vehement political opponents (although I could be wrong here) thinks that Akin meant to say that any sort of rape is “legitimate,” in the sense of being licit, or a good thing. So we can set that aside. (And yes, I know I’m setting aside a whole, complex discussion about how some people reject that all cases of rape are “real” rape, but I’m trying to address a separate point, and believe me, this post is going to be long enough.)

And of course, I think he was just trying to defend a political position that I share — the notion that if one truly believes that abortion takes a human life, one cannot defend exemptions for rape or even incest.

And yet, I, too, am deeply offended by what he said. I see it as both foolish and wrong. But then, I think his sin is a very common one.

Finally I get to my point: Like many, many people across the political spectrum, Akin sought to rationalize away any human cost of his own political position. What he did reflects both sloppy thinking and a sort of moral cowardice. And it’s a function of the absolutism that infests our politics today.

Akin and I agree that you can’t have exemptions for rape when you’re talking about a human life. That innocent unborn human didn’t commit the rape, and condemning him or her to death for it is unjust in the extreme. I’m deeply opposed to the death penalty even for murderers, but I can certainly see more justice in that than I can in this.

But here’s where Akin and I diverge: He wants to explain away the consequence of this position. He wants to say, well, if it’s really rape, then the woman won’t get pregnant. Which is amazingly foolish and ignorant, but which seems to arise from a very human desire to believe that no innocent human being will suffer because of the position I’m taking.

I know better. I’m not going to shy away for a moment (I hope) from the fact that the human cost to a woman caught in this kind of situation is horrific, beyond even imagining. I can’t even begin to think of what to say or do that would ease the suffering of a woman in such a situation (aside from such weak expedients as providing material support). I don’t want her to be in that situation, any more than the pro-choice person does. It awakens in me powerfully strong protective impulses, and vindictive ones, including a determination that the person responsible for it must be punished to the fullest extent of the law (while, at the same time, knowing that no amount of punishment could possibly erase this woman’s pain). I am fully aware of the terrible odds her child will face — not only not being wanted by his or her mother, but being the material embodiment of the most horrible moment in her life.

But none of that justifies killing the child, either before or after he or she is born. Not in any truly moral balance that I am capable of conceiving. As much as I understand the pro-choice advocate’s desire for a magic solution that makes at least this one facet of the crime go away for the woman, I can’t see any way that that expedient is justified in a society that is just. It in fact adds another moral horror to that which already so unjustly exists.

It’s not comfortable to face and acknowledge the additional pain to which having to bear this child would condemn a rape victim, but I see no moral alternative to doing so. Akin? He wants to cop out on it.

But that’s a common impulse. Too seldom do any of us face up to the very real consequences of the positions we take. We like to believe that our attitudes are all to the good, that nothing bad would happen if only the things we believe were acted upon. And in the take-no-prisoners absolutism of today’s politics — in which each side wants to see itself as all good, and the other side as all bad — people regularly paint themselves into corners trying to make their positions look as good as possible. And to make themselves feel good about those positions. There are a lot of Todd Akins out there.

For instance… and here’s where I make everybody mad… there are those on the opposite side of the abortion issue who rationalize away the human life that is destroyed by abortion. They say it isn’t a human being at all, even that it’s nothing more than a random collection of cells, and ridding oneself of them has no more moral weight than sloughing off dead skin.

(Not all do this, of course. Right off the bat, I can think of pro-choice friends who have persuaded me that they are fully cognizant that abortion takes an innocent human life and that it is deeply wrong — but that the imperative of choice overrides it. This chills my blood — just as my antiwar friends are chilled by my advocacy of some military actions in spite of my pro-life beliefs — but I can’t criticize them for failing to face reality.)

They say this — that the fetus is not a human being — because they would find the moral burden of believing their position results in the destruction of innocent human life even more unbearable than Akin would find it to contemplate the suffering of a rape victim. (Now, before all my pro-choice friends shout that they say it because they believe it, let me quickly interject that I know you believe it. I just, personally, find it very hard to believe that you would believe such an unlikely thing without a powerful human need to rationalize, which is related to the fact that you are a good and caring person.)

Now to an empiricist, of course, there’s a difference between Akin’s rationalization and the it’s-not-a-human-being rationalization — one that I readily acknowledge. After all, you can physically, scientifically prove that Akin is wrong in his fantasy about true rape not leading to pregnancy. Whereas science can’t prove or disprove that a fetus is human — no matter how strongly I believe it unlikely that smart people would assert that it isn’t, in the absence of this powerful cause for rationalization. Nevertheless, I’m convinced that similar mechanisms are at play.

This dynamic translates to other issues, of course. There are those who advocate war, and blind themselves to the worst aspects of the human cost — such as the deaths of noncombatants, at the most extreme end of that spectrum. On the other side are those who are so opposed to war and its horrific human costs that they try to rationalize away the cause for war — minimizing the evils of the Saddam Hussein regime (how many times have I read that we invaded an inoffensive country that wasn’t doing anything to anybody, as though it were Switzerland?), or the costs of a precipitate withdrawal from Afghanistan, allowing the Taliban to rise again.

There are costs both to acting militarily and not acting militarily, and it’s wrong to blind yourself and try to wave them away. For my part, seen as I am here as the bloodthirsty warmonger, I try never to turn my mind from the horrors of war, and I recoil from efforts to make war seem costless just as much as I reject attempts to paint it as never worth engaging in. And for me, the horrible thing about war is not just that innocent civilians, or one’s own soldiers, get killed and maimed. Every armed enemy’s death also diminishes us. (I’m reading right now a phenomenal book about the cost of killing in war, Dave Grossman’s On Killing. It powerfully reinforces something I have long believed — that the greatest price we ask of a soldier is not that he die for his country; the most awful thing we ask of him, the thing that costs him the most, is expecting him to kill for his country.)

Well, I could go on and on. Actually, I have. There are other places I could go with this, carrying this phenomenon out of the realm of life-and-death issues. I could get into how, for instance, in this absolutist political atmosphere, neither those who want more government spending nor those who advocate shrinking government small enough to drown in a bathtub like to face that there are tradeoffs to their positions… but I think this is enough for how…

SC’s Donehue raising money for Todd Akin

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Last night, local GOP political consultant Wesley Donehue shared with me some surprising news, by way of explaining why he had to cancel a breakfast we had scheduled. Well, it was sort of surprising. When he said he had a new client (Donehue Direct does web work for candidates across the country) who was going to be keeping him really busy immediately, I thought, Who? Todd Akin?

Yep. That’s right. So I’m thinking shocking is a better word than “surprising.”

But Wesley didn’t tell me much — just that a consultant working for Akin turned to him for help with fund-raising. He promised to tell me more later. I was willing to wait for a more complete story.

But tonight, Todd Kincannon tweeted this:

In fascinating news, hearing that SC’s own@wesleydonehue has been Todd Akin’s online consultant since Tuesday night.

So it’s out, so I’m telling you what I know. I’ll call Wesley tomorrow and learn more. If I can get him. Something tells me he’s going to be getting a lot of calls tomorrow. Wesley’s Twitter profile says “Named Worst Person in the World by liberal idiot Keith Olbermann.” Now that this is out, Olberman may not be alone…

There’s nothing wrong with negative campaigning

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This is a favorite topic of Cindi Scoppe’s; let me see if I can beat her to the punch in saying it in this cycle…

There is nothing wrong with negative campaigning. Not a thing in the world. In fact, if there’s something wrong with your opponent that the voters ought to know in making their choice, and there’s a reasonable chance they don’t know it, you do them a disservice by not telling them.

Something that used to drive me nuts in endorsement interviews is when I’d begin the process knowing little about either candidate, and I’d ask one of them to compare and contrast himself and his opponent. Sometimes, the question was as simple and innocent as, “I haven’t met your opponent yet. What can you tell me about him?” The candidate would get all lofty and self-righteous and say, “I’m not going to talk about my opponent.” My reaction to that was, well, then, why are you here? There have to be reasons why I should endorse you and not the other guy; if you’re not going to help me in discovering what they might be, then you’re wasting your time and, closer to my heart, my time….

What sets me off on this minor tirade is that about an ago in my car, I heard a discussion on NPR about negative campaigning. A caller said he had worked in a campaign, and complained that people seemed unable to distinguish between telling what’s wrong with one’s opponent and “negative campaigning.” Well, pal, there’s a reason they can’t tell the difference — there is no difference, if language means anything. Criticizing your opponent is being negative. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

What’s wrong is misleading, unfair, irrelevant, out-of-context campaigning, or campaigning that plays on the emotions of the electorate, rather than their reason, in a way that is detrimental to one’s opponent’s electoral chances.

For instance… one of the examples mentioned during the radio program was the Willie Horton ad. What was wrong with that? Well, a couple of things. One, it’s ridiculous to try to condemn a governor because one person let out of jail in a program he supervised committed a terrible crime. If that’s your standard, then we would never, ever let anyone out of prison again, given the recidivism rates.

Eddie Murphy as Tyrone Greene

But of course, that wasn’t what was really wrong with that ad. What was really wrong was that everyone involved knew that what was really going on here was an appeal to race — saying Dukakis is soft on those people, and don’t you know you can’t give ’em an inch! The picture said it all. It was such easily understood cultural shorthand. It was the very archetype of the Dangerous Black Criminal. Eddie Murphy mocked this iconic visage, so frightening to the white bourgeoisie, in the skit in which his character, Tyrone Greene, recited his poem, “Images.” (You know, the one with the refrain, “Kill my landlord.”)

To bring it to the present day, acceptable negative campaigning is for Mitt Romney to “blame” the president for Obamacare, and make it clear that he would try to appeal it. What’s not acceptable is repeatedly lying in saying that the president has tried to do away with welfare-to-work requirements (a false charge that employs another racial stereotype, by the way — the black president who wants to undo welfare reform).

Similarly it’s perfectly fine for Obama to accuse the opposing ticket of favoring tax cuts that he opposes (although I could do without the “for the rich” mantra; it gets old). What’s unfair is to blame him for that woman dying.

Sometimes, in my more quixotic and masochistic moments, I think about running for office. I think about, just as an example, running against Joe Wilson for Congress (I think of that because I have no major problems with how my county councilman or state legislators represent me). And I imagine how the campaign would go. And I’ll tell you right now, I’d say negative things (how could any writer of my blog doubt it?).

But I’d be fair. The way I would approach it would be beyond reproach, in my book.

I’d say, first, that I like Joe. He’s a likable guy, and he’s always been nice to me. He sincerely believes in public service, and loves, more than anyone else I’ve ever seen (even Floyd Spence) being a congressman.

But… he is a walking, talking, hand-shaking representative of what’s wrong with Washington. He is a perfect representative of the partisanship that tears our country apart and paralyses our national government. If Joe has ever had an original thought that didn’t come right out of the Republican (or more recently, Tea Party) playbook, I wasn’t around when it happened.

My beef with Joe isn’t that he cried out “You lie!” We all get carried away sometimes. Why once (although when I was only 4 years old), I yelled right out in church, interrupting the preacher, and to this day when I visit Bennettsville, old folks mention it when they see me. Joe got carried away, and he knew he’d done wrong, because he immediately apologized for it.

So I don’t blame him for yelling out, not much anyway. What I blame him for is his deliberate, shameless, continuing effort over the past few years to capitalize on that wrong thing he did, to boast about it and remind folks that he did it, so that they will send him campaign money. That continuing, unapologetic pandering to some of the worst, lowest-common-denominator impulses in our political life, is what I’m running against…

And so forth. See, that’s relevant criticism. And it’s negative. But there wouldn’t be anything wrong with it.

What do you mean, “we,” Kemo Sabe?

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I imagine some in the GOP will be echoing that classic punchline after the latest pronouncement from Todd Akin:

“I haven’t done anything morally or ethically wrong,” Akin told Huckabee, saying the backlash against him “does seem like a little bit of an overreaction.”

“We are going to continue this race for the U.S. Senate,” Akin continued. “We believe taking this stand is going to strengthen our country, going to strengthen, ultimately, the Republican Party.”

So… who is this “we,” Kemo Sabe?

I’ve often wondered at politician’s odd penchant for saying “we” when they mean, “I.” So many times over the years I’ve asked an elected official, “What do you think about X?” and heard in reply, “We’re taking the position that…” No. There is no “we” here, white man. It’s you. You are the elected official (or the candidate), the only person responsible to the voters for the position you are taking, so don’t be trying to dilute accountability. You might have a team behind you, but you’re the only player who counts.

Sometimes I think pols believe it sounds less self-centered to say it that way. Other times, I believe they are presuming a certain grandiosity, as in the royal “we.”

Of course, a casual observer might note that I have often written “we” during my career as an editorialist. But that was different. If I were speaking of a personal column, I said, “I think.” If I were speaking for the editorial board — expressing the opinion of an institution, not an individual — I said “we.” The word added to clarity (assuming the listener was paying attention to the distinction), rather than detracting from it.

In any case, I would imagine there are plenty of Republicans right now who wish Akin would ixnay the eeway.

Nyah, nyah! Your Catholics are as bad as ours!

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A columnist in The Wall Street Journal (“Social Justice and Ryan the Heretic“) this morning took on liberal Catholics’ criticisms of Paul Ryan. For a moment, my heart leapt at the prospect of a discussion of the meaning of “subsidiarity” (hey, some people get excited that football season is coming; go figure) but it was not to be. This piece existed on a more modest intellectual plane. It was more in the line of, “Oh, yeah! Well, so’s yer mother!”

That is to say, the writer was accusing the left of adopting such a position.

Here’s how the piece concluded:

Unfortunately, suggesting that Mr. Ryan is a bad Catholic is the entire case. Stuck with the fact of Mr. Biden, who has long since made his peace with the party’s absolutism on abortion, progressive Catholics know that it would be laughable to try to present Mr. Biden as faithful to church teaching. They know too that clarity about church teaching does not work to their advantage. The only way to take on Mr. Ryan is to tear him down.

In the past, the liberal Catholic vision sought to inspire. Today, in the pages of the venerable lay Catholic magazine Commonweal, a blogger tries to diminish Paul Ryan by saying, “like the rest of us, he is a Cafeteria Catholic.” Surely it says something about a movement when its most powerful argument against an opponent is this: You are just as lousy as we are.

Think about that. In another age, Catholic progressives would have laughed at the suggestion that people were corrupted by reading certain works; now they believe Paul Ryan’s soul is in peril for his having read Ayn Rand. Before, they would not have feared science; now they insist that a program such as food stamps ought to continue ad infinitum without consideration of its effects. And while they believe that the pope and bishops have nothing of value to offer about the sanctity of marriage or the duty of protecting unborn life, when it comes to federal spending, suddenly a miter means infallibility.

But while columnist McGurn accurately pegs the liberals, he comes up with little substantive defense of Mr. Ryan’s rather odd interpretation of Catholic social teaching, beyond quoting a column by Ryan’s own bishop saying that unlike on abortion, Catholics might legitimately disagree “on issues such as how best to create jobs or help the poor.” I think the bishop has a point. But I’d still like to see a serious discussion of how well Mr. Ryan applies Catholic principles.

Lacking such a ringing endorsement, we are left to conclude, if this is all the evidence we go by, that there is no “good Catholic” to be found on either ticket.

But let’s be optimistic. Let’s say that Mr. Ryan and Mr. Biden reflect different sides of the faith. Put them together, and pare away their objectionable positions, and you have one pretty good Catholic.

From ‘legitimate rape’ to the Country Club

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Just a quick post to give y’all a chance to comment on today’s two main trending stories. First this:

Rep. Todd Akin said Monday that he will not give in to calls for him to end his Missouri Senate campaign after his controversial comments about “legitimate rape.”

“I’m not a quitter. My belief is we’re going to move this thing forward,” he said during an appearance Monday afternoon on Mike Huckabee’s radio show. “To quote my friend John Paul Jones, I’ve not yet begun to fight.”

Akin also said he still sees himself as the right candidate to take on Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), even as many Republicans have begun to doubt it. He apologized for his remarks but said it doesn’t mean he should end his campaign.

“I feel just as strongly as ever that my background and ability will be an asset in replacing Claire McCaskill and restoring some sanity in government,” Akin said. “Just because someone makes a mistake doesn’t make them useless.”

Akin has found himself in hot water after saying in an interview airing Sunday that “legitimate rape” rarely causes pregnancy. Akin was explaining his no-exceptions policy on abortion…

And then this:

The Augusta National Golf Club, home of The Masters tournament, said Monday it had admitted female members for the first time, following years of criticism both public and private over its stubbornly-held policy of admitting only men as members.

Former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and South Carolina investment banker Darla Moore were both invited and accepted membership, golf’s most prominent club said in a statement. The club’s next season opens in October.

The step breaks with the 79-year-old private club’s practice of admitting only men, who make up a veritable who’s who of corporate America. The club has been under pressure from corporations, some members, a prominent women’s organization, and most recently President Barack Obama, who said through a spokesman before this year’s Masters tournament in April that he thought women should be invited to join….

I congratulate Darla and Ms. Rice, assuming of course that they wanted to join. If they invited me, of course, I’d have to refuse in light of the Marx rule (that would sound so much better than admitting I couldn’t afford the dues). I’m not sure whether this changes anything in the larger picture, unless they didn’t have ladies’ tees before. But as I said, I’m happy for the new members, especially since I know one of them.

I am not capable of thinking like a feminist or anyone else who is into Identity Politics, but I’m imagining that if I were a feminist, I’d be looking at today as sort of a mixed bag. You win some ground, you lose some ground.

No, scratch that. Given the general reaction to Akin, it looks more like a win-win.

One last thought — someone needs to break it to Nikki Haley that Darla got in and she didn’t…

This should make the oppo research a LOT easier

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This just in from Billy Keyserling, mayor of Beaufort (and one of my favorite ex-legislators, since he served in Columbia as an independent):

August 17, 2012

Dear Friends:

At 12:30 on Wednesday afternoon, I learned — as the deadline for filing for Mayor passed — that no one will be on the ballot running against me. Gearing up and ready to run, I had a funny feeling.

How am I going to run for re-election if there is no opponent?

You see being mayor is not about Billy Keyserling. Rather, it is about making our “best hometown in the world” even better. It’s about communicating more clearly, as well as listening and learning to work well together toward shared goals. It’s about having the confidence to consider new ideas and opportunities even though we may not fully understand the consequences. It’s about achieving success, admitting when something does not go the way we thought it would, acknowledging so and making it right.

Being mayor is about being accessible to Beaufort residents — those who encounter problems with government plus those who need help how we can build on our history and natural beauty without destroying all we have inherited. In all cases we must continuously be aware that we are merely custodians of the city we love for just a relatively short span within the 300-year timeline of our community.

I had looked forward to campaigning because I learned long ago that elections are the people’s best opportunity to hold you accountable for what you promised, and measure how they think you have done. People generally think more about public life when a local campaign is underway and are more engaged in civic matters.

So even though I have no “official” opponent, between now and election day I am going to campaign anyway in order to be a part of the process of listening, learning and gauging how am I am representing you as Mayor of Beaufort.

In this case I am going to take a page from a successful big city mayor who told the city’s voters when he had no election opponent, “I’ve never been one to sit out an election and, while I am grateful for what some of my friends have said is voter confidence in my public service, I will be engaged and available as if I had a serious opponent.”

I thank the people of Beaufort for the chance to serve another term. You’ll be seeing a lot me at campaign events this fall- whether they be Republican, Democrat or non-partisan.

As Michelangelo said at age 91, “I am still learning.”

Sincerely,

Billy Keyserling

Just to be on the safe side, he should get his opponent to sign a pledge to keep the campaign clean and positive. You just never know, these days…

Some of you cynics out there may doubt that this is a real campaign. Oh, yes it is. I refer you to the postscript:

PS: Unfortunately, every campaign needs funding, so I hope you will consider a small donation to help support my initiatives to better communicate with you and the many others in Beaufort about issues facing our community. Last year I invested nearly three times my $6,000 annual salary on newsletters, website, my weekly television show and the many other expenses associated with being Mayor.

I would appreciate what you can to do help defray some of these expenses… You can respond on line by going to

www.mayorbilly.com and clicking “Support” and using PayPal or by sending a modest check to Billy Keyserling for Mayor, Post Office Box 2145, Beaufort, S.C. 29901-2145.

If you have already responded to my initial solicitationand contributed, please disregard this email as I do not want to be redundant or bothersome or seem like a greedy nag. Sorry if that is the case

Never fear, Billy. Not even your opponent would call you a greedy nag…

Paul Ryan, back before his voice broke

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Here’s one of those videos that proves that your memory is spot on — back in the day, everybody was really, really young.

You will see a 25-year-old Paul Ryan, early in his career as a, well, career politician, appearing on C-SPAN as legislative aide to then-Rep. Sam Brownback.

This is the sort of programming that people are talking about when they make fun of C-SPAN. If the date had been a decade or so earlier, I would have sworn all three of these kids — Ryan, the Democrat, and the moderator — were on Quaaludes. It’s like a contest to see which one can make the other two fall asleep first.

Of course, this is probably as excited as young Paul Ryan ever got, since the topics were the budget, Medicare and Medicaid. It’s… eerie to see him and these other two kids, dressed up like Daddy and looking and sounding every bit like participants in student government. I keep expecting the next topic to be the frat that’s on double-secret probation. Except that it never gets that interesting.

My favorite parts? When Master Ryan predicts Medicare will be “bankrupt” by 2001, and when he mentions a news story by “Knight Ridder,” which still existed then.

National media starting to get a clue about Haley

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I wasn’t familiar with Newsday columnist Lane Filler. Maybe The State runs him all the time, and I never noticed before. But when my friends there ran him yesterday, I found a good reason why in the 7th graf:

And Romney dodged the splashy picks that could have backfired like a 1986 Yugo: South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who, honestly, makes Sarah Palin look presidential, and Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, a smart guy who is, unfortunately, best known for a State of the Union rebuttal in 2009 that would have garnered last place at a grade school Optimist Club speaking contest.

It’s nice to see someone outside SC picking up on the obvious. This guy needs to ditch Newsday and head down to Washington. I don’t think they’ve gotten the word there yet.