2016

Kirk’s Other Weird Moment – Defending Calling Obama Drug Dealer in Chief

ArchPundit October 28, 2016 0 Comment

While I don’t want to take away from Mark Kirk’s racist meltdown last night, he also went off on a weird tangent.  Some time ago he referred to President Obama as the Drug Dealer in Chief.

Duckworth brought this up last night:

Kirk:I would say that when we talked about drug dealers are that I strongly opposed the 400 million dollar ransom payment that the president made in cash to the Iranians even after he certified that they are the State Sponsor of Terror.   Those a drug dealer words are not mine there they were words of the European Union.  Remember the European Union canceled the printing of the 500 Euro note because they said it… Remember  most of the payment for the  four hundred million dollars was in 500 Euros so if you do the math there eight hundred thousand five hundred Euro notes were in that payment.  They canceled the printing of the 500 euro note because the European Union, and this is a quote directly, they said the note was too involved in drug dealing of terror.

I Want What He’s On

ArchPundit May 3, 2016 0 Comment

The California GOP consigned itself to permanent minority status when it became anti-immigrant and the non-white population has only grown since then.

When Insane People Take Over Our Politics

ArchPundit May 3, 2016 0 Comment

When insane people take over our politics.

Kilmeade almost made an attempt to stop Trump, but then he decided, what they hell.  In truth, it is better TV.

We Have Dan Proft To Thank For All of This

ArchPundit February 18, 2016 0 Comment

Without Dan Proft bringing in Alan Keyes in 2004 at the beginning of conservatives losing their mind about Barack Obama, I don’t know that we get to to the peak of the anything, but the black guy movement with reality show host Donald Trump and sociopath Ted Cruz running to replace Obama—and doing well.

Bruce Dold Becomes Tribune Editor

ArchPundit February 18, 2016 0 Comment

Dold has been the editorial page editor at the Tribune for some time now. So if you loved the well reasoned editorials, now you get a whole paper of it.

I’m sure Dold is a nice guy and the Trib has hardly ever been a liberal bastion, but the comical turn of the Tribune editorials with Rauner have only taken the slide that started with Zell on Earth and exacerbated it.

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Just Stop.

ArchPundit February 18, 2016 0 Comment

If you are arguing that the most recent insider endorsement of Rubio (Nikki Haley) or any other establishment candidate is a big deal…just stop. Stop. It doesn’t matter. At some point you need to realize the rules don’t apply to this election. I argued Trump was a flash in the pan for several months. He’s not though and it’s going to be easier for you the sooner you accept that.  This is a similar point to when people kept insisting that each time Trump ups the ante and says something even more offensive that it will now hurt him.  All the establishment opposition and all the ugly racism, sexism, xenophobia, etc etc etc aren’t hurting him.  In the words of the early blogosphere, the establishment opposition and offensive behavior are bugs, they are features.

The models aren’t holding this year on the Republican side especially. What is most disturbing is that people aren’t putting together what has changed in the last several years.

First, we see unprecedented amounts of money from outside groups. The money is no longer funneled through the party or party elites. That weakens the influence of the party and the party elites.

Second, we have new political tools that don’t require candidates to use party leaders as gatekeepers. You used to need to have lists from the party to build an operation–phone lists, address lists, e-mail lists. Now campaigns can just build those lists in a short amount of time.

Third, the media is no longer an establishment media that goes to party leaders only. There are multiple sources and people tend to choose their media based on their beliefs leading primary and caucus voters away from the establishment sources.

All of this has been going on for some time, but the impact is hitting now as these forces have become stronger and reinforce each other.

It’s all centrifugal forces at work away from the party and the center since the stronger believers who are dominating this year are more polarized and view moving from the center as a good thing. Is it going to be like this going forward in the next election? I don’t know.

We need to remember our models are based on assumptions that the same processes are at work in each election. The processes have changed and the outcome is going to as well. I don’t know if it is a lasting change, but you shouldn’t expect the same result from different actions.

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