Archive for the ‘tea party’ Category

Use the widget to listen to the interview with Dan Bongino.

I can’t look at a picture of Senator Ben Cardin (D-MD) anymore without thinking of how Red State’s Caleb Howe once described him. In the movie The Sixth Day with Arnold Schwarzenegger the villain cloned himself and the clone came out of the oven before he was “done.” Cardin looks a lot like that underdone clone according to Caleb. There’s definitely a slight resemblance and Cardin is definitely a “half-baked” Senator who needs a pink slip.

America doesn’t need another rubber stamp for Harry Reid and Maryland deserves better than the one party monopoly which neglects the concerns of large portions of the state’s population.

Today Cardin vowed to continue his fight against those who want the federal government to exercise fiscal restraint and respect the limits placed upon it in the Constitution.

“We have to stand up against the people who want to take this country back,” Cardin (D) said in a telephone interview Monday… “My top priority is to create more jobs.” (emphasis mine)

One must assume that the Senator means his top priority is to create more government jobs because nothing his party has done or proposed lately has helped create any significant private sector job growth–quite the opposite actually. Government jobs and salaries have however risen under the current administration for whom Cardin and his partner in crime Barbara Mikulski are both guaranteed party line votes.

“Clean air and clean water help grow our economy,” Cardin said. “It’s a false dilemma to say you can’t have a good economy and clean environment.”

Who exactly expressed this dilemma that Cardin is calling false? The answer is no one. The Senator is knocking down a weak strawman argument in order to avoid discussing the real issues. In the age of Obama the strawman seems to be the Democrats’ favorite logical fallacy.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for clean air and water, but by what mechanism will clean air and clean water grow our economy? Is he referring to Obama’s ongoing “green jobs” fraud? Maybe he’s in favor of doling out more cash to failed companies like Solyndra or companies who will build inefficient electric cars in Finland.

The real false dilemma is to say that we can’t have a clean environment without massive government regulation and the unchecked growth of a disconnected and incompetent Washington bureaucracy.

Maryland needs real change in 2012. We need to elect someone who understands the hurdles that Washington continues to place in front of the people who actually make the economy work. We don’t need to re-elect a half-baked clone of Barack Obama to the U.S. Senate.

Read more: Cardin Announces Re-election Drive

Defeated Maryland state senate candidate Saqib Ali has been using the upcoming Maryland Conservative Action Network Turning the Tides conference as a vehicle for keeping his name in the news. As the conference approaches, he’s become increasingly unhinged. Ken Timmerman writes in The Daily Caller:

“This is just exactly the same as if the Ku Klux Klan is coming to town and the Double-Tree hotel decided to host them,” Ali said.

Really? “Exactly the same?” Perhaps Mr. Ali is unfamiliar with the violent history of the KKK (a primarily Democrat organization, by the way). Left wing Democrats typically aren’t big on getting their historical facts straight. However, what they lack in historical accuracy they more than make up for in hyperbolic rhetoric and name calling. The Saul Alinski tactics have become all too familiar.

Earlier this month, Mr. Ali seemed to be promoting the “Occupy” movement. By his own childish method of reasoning, this would make him “exactly like” the Nazi Party of America, the Communist Party, and even Republican pariah David Duke.

Of course, drawing such equivalencies would be absurd. Wouldn’t it?

Recent history shows that left wing demonstrators are exponentially more likely to resort to law breaking and violence to spread their message than is the Tea Party movement. In light of that, I hope if anyone does show up to protest the conference, they obey the law and respect private property. Most of all I hope Mr. Ali’s irresponsible rhetoric does not provoke anyone more unhinged than himself to do something stupid.

This generated controversy focuses primarily around members of one panel discussion out of nearly a dozen that will take place at the conference. (Alinski rule 12: “Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.”)  Attendees will hear and participate in discussions about private property rights vs so called “sustainable” development plans, education, illegal immigration, new media activism, defeating voter fraud, and more. Attendees will also meet and hear from conservative candidates vying for the chance to run against Senator Ben Cardin in 2012.

So far the efforts of the left haven’t dampened enthusiasm for the networking event. Registrations are still coming in and as of yet there are no signs that the venue will buckle to the attempts at intimidation.

Pithy remarks from Dan Bongino at the Tea Party Caucus rally in Annapolis yesterday.

Ben Cardin is getting worried. And he should be.

He knows he’s not as ensconced as his left-wing fireplug counterpart Barbara Mikulski. He only beat Michael Steele by 10 points in a far more Democrat friendly political climate. National Republicans and tea party activists need to stop conceding Maryland to the leftist Democrats and take notice of Cardin’s vulnerability.

There is a renewed enthusiasm on the right in Maryland. Last election cycle, despite defeats at the ballot box, the Brian Murphy gubernatorial campaign, the Jim Rutledge campaign for U.S. Senate, and the Charles Lollar campaign for Congress built a solid infrastructure for future candidates to build on, as did Congressman Andy Harris‘ successful Congressional run. Conservatives didn’t just go home after the last election. They channeled their energies into building networks and founding political action committees dedicated to getting conservative candidates elected in Maryland at all levels of government. The right is no longer demoralized in Maryland and we are getting organized. This frightens Democrats (and some dead wood Republicans) in the Old Line State.

The word still needs to get out nationally though. If you really want to help take the Senate back from the leftist Democrats in 2012, you need to put Ben Cardin in your crosshairs (yes, I said crosshairs…the left’s attempts at intimidating people into not using innocent metaphors has failed as badly as their economic policies).

We’re still in the primary race but one Republican candidate, Dan Bongino, is a clear front-runner. He’s got an intriguing personal story which has netted him a lot of national media attention with more to come. Glenn Beck, CNN, and Fox News, among others have noticed this former U.S. Secret Service agent who took the risk of resigning his prestigious position to try and serve his country in a more public way. He’s even featured in an upcoming special on The Discovery Channel.

What should frighten Democrats about Dan Bongino is that he is genuinely conservative and able to candidly explain why liberal economic policies have failed. Bongino talks economics like a Marco Rubio or a Paul Ryan. He is also unafraid to campaign in traditional Democrat strongholds like Prince George’s County and Baltimore City. In fact, he adamantly refuses to forfeit those areas as past Republicans have. When he speaks, he wins converts. He may not win over everyone in those places, but he doesn’t need to in order to win–and Cardin knows this.

I encourage my friends in the blogosphere to get the word out about Dan Bongino.  Go to www.bongino.com and make a donation. Get Bongino on your podcast or interview him for your blog. We can win in Maryland if we make the effort.