After not caring about the Polymet permitting process for years, Jim Oberstar finally cares. Sort of:

It’s been in the works for more than four years, but when the environmental review came out last fall, the federal government blasted the report as inadequate.

Oberstar says he wants a thorough review, but it shouldn’t take so long.

“The red tape, the slowdown, the lack of full attention by federal and state permitting agencies has dragged this process out much too long,” said Oberstar.

Oberstar said the No. 1 issue people talk about in northeastern Minnesota is jobs. And the Polymet mine promises 400 jobs.

“I’ve heard some concerns, ‘Be careful about our environment. We love this land, we don’t want our waters to be adversely affected.’ And I’ve assured people that corners will not be cut, there will be no exceptions made, but we have to do this in an expeditious manner,” he said.

It’s been 4 years since the permitting and inspection process started. Finally, it’s got the attention of Rep. Oberstar? Why didn’t he take interest before this? There’s a simple answer for why it’s finally got his attention: Tom Emmer has made this a focal point of the campaign and Sen. Dayton is looking like he doesn’t care about job creation.

Enter Rep. Oberstar to cut the red tape. Enter Rep. Oberstar so jobs can be created. What a great guy Rep. Oberstar is. For that matter, what a great guy Sen. Dayton is.

There’s just one problem with this picture. If Rep. Emmer hadn’t brought it up, and if the issue hadn’t gained traction, it’s likely that this project still wouldn’t be getting attention. Let’s remember that Sen. Dayton wasn’t worried about streamlining the permitting process during the final DFL debate before the primary.

As for Rep. Oberstar, why didn’t he take an interest in the process long before this? Polymet’s been run through the ringer for 5 years. Suddenly, he cares? Why didn’t he care before the MNGOP candidate brought it up at a debate? Why didn’t he care prior to Tom Emmer making this a major political issue?

Mining is the bread and butter of the Iron Range economy. Creating hundreds of jobs should’ve been Rep. Oberstar’s first priority. Iron Rangers now know that it wasn’t Oberstar’s top priority.

Chip Cravaack is the MNGOP-endorsed candidate for MN-08. Unlike ‘Lord Oberstar’, Cravaack will represent the district. That’s because he’s actually listening to the people of the Eighth District. Had Rep. Oberstar listened to his constituents, he would’ve taken an interest in Polymet sooner.

Instead, he jumped into action when his political ally, Sen. Dayton, got into political hot water. That’s just what I’d expect from the guy whose highest priority many years is getting bike paths built with highway Trust Fund money.

Sen. Dayton and Rep. Oberstar won’t represent Minnesota because they’re too busy catering to their political allies in the environmental movement.

Technorati: Polymet, Mining, Jobs, Tom Emmer, Debates, Permitting, Reform, Chip Cravaack, MNGOP, James Oberstar, Mark Dayton, Special Interests, Environment, DFL, Election 2010

Tonight’s gubernatorial debate on Almanac produced several noteworthy moments. Each of the candidates created an impression, which wasn’t always a positive impression.

First, I’ll say this about Mr. Horner: He is a world class BSer. About 13 minutes into the debate, with health care being discussed, Mr. Horner said that Mr. Dayton wants to put everyone one government-run health care and Tom Emmer wants to have everyone “rely on charity care.”

That’s utter nonsense.

Just prior to that, Tom Emmer explained that he favored reforming MinnesotaCare and staying away from Early MA because it would “cost Minnesota $480,000″ each of the next 3 years.

Later, Horner said this:

“Representative Emmer talks about the status quo, he’s right,” Horner said. “But all we hear over here is ‘Let’s just cut the status quo and everything will be better” and from the other side it’s ‘let’s just make the status quo bigger and everything will be better.’ I believe most of us in Minnesota are saying we need something different than the status quo.”

That’s just intellectually dishonest. Tom Emmer spent a significant portion of his time talking about how he’d restructure government. It’s Mr. Horner’s First Amendment right to mischaracterize Tom Emmer’s statements but it’s dishonest to say that.

Throughout the debate, Mr. Horner tried to portray himself as the only reasonable man in the debate. Too many times, though, his answers were flippant and dishonest. If you can’t even tell the truth, then you aren’t a viable candidate.

The last thing I’ll say about Mr. Horner is that he’s all schtick. There isn’t much in the way of substance there. His “split the difference between the two extremes” act isn’t because he’s thought things through. I don’t want half-baked, artificial policies. That’s all you’ll get from Mr. Horner.

Sen. Dayton stuck with his script most of the night but had a couple embarassing moments. One such moment came after Tom Emmer talked about streamlining Minnesota’s permitting process. When Sen. Dayton said that he’s all for streamlining government, Tom Emmer replied that he’s watched Dayton’s career and he’s never seen Dayton write legislation that streamlined anything.

The Twin Cities media hasn’t written about this, perhaps because they’ve forgotten what he said during the last pre-primary DFL debate. During that debate, Dayton essentially said that he didn’t think another 2 years of investigating Polymet, which would mine copper and nickel on the Iron Range, was too long a wait while unemployed Iron Rangers suffered and lost their homes.

Horner said that Polymet had already spent 5 years and $100,000,000 trying to satisfy one evinronmental complaint or another.

Tom Emmer jumped in and said that there were a couple thousand jobs waiting and that people on the Iron Range needed those high-paying jobs now to prevent their homes from being foreclosed.

Dayton’s feeble reply was to say that he’d gotten the endorsement of the Mesabi Daily News because the newspaper said he was best equipped to provide jobs. I’m betting that it’s because his running mate is from the Iron Range because Dayton’s lack of urgency to create high-paying jobs in a repressed area doesn’t tell me that he’s that serious about creating jobs.

Another embarassing moment for Dayton, I thought, came when he was asked by Eric Eskola what types of education reform he supported. Sen. Dayton’s immediate response was that the first reform should be to restore the money that had been cut, which he said had been cut “$1,300 per pupil in inflation-adjusted dollars over the last eight years.”

Based on Sen. Dayton’s words, education reform doesn’t mean alternative licensure or Race to the Top or anything like that. It’s throwing more money at the education unions.

I’m betting that most parents wouldn’t agree with Sen. Dayton on that.

The other thing that must be said is that Tom Horner and Sen. Dayton had a couple of cat fights that weren’t based on sticking to their principles but rather were based on Dayton trying to be smug and Horner just not having the poise to avoid the catfight. I thought that these moments didn’t help either candidates.

Tom Emmer took a couple of shots on not being more specific on how he’d restructure government, though he did have one strong reply about not needing a state OSHA when we have a federal OSHA, that we didn’t need both the Department of Health and the Department of Human Services, among other agencies.

Another strong portion of the debate was when Rep. Emmer talked about some farmers that he’d talked with. He said that they raised hogs, chickens and turkeys and that they wanted to expand in Minnesota. He then said that they invested $40,000 and 2 years into the state permitting process without any guarantee that they’d get the local permits.

Eventually, they expanded in North Dakota, where it took them less than 6 months to get things into operation. Rep. Emmer noted that these farmers “now have a payroll of $1.4 million.”

Rep. Emmer’s final strong moment came when Cathy Wurzer talked about Sen. Dayton’s alcoholism and Rep. Emmer’s alcohol-related “situations”. Rep. Emmer said that he felt bad for the woman in the ABM ad who’d lost her son to a drunk driver. He then said that he’s never tried to rationalize what he’d done, that he accepted full responsibility for his actions.

He then turned it around and said that he’d appreciate it if Sen. Dayton would call off his family members and have them stop running the ads. Dayton seemed momentarily surprised that the subject was brought up but he quickly recovered when Horner jumped in.

The Pi-Press’s Bill Salisbury wrote that “there weren’t any winners” but that Horner probably benefited most because Sen. Dayton and Rep. Emmer took him seriously.

I watched the debate. I’d say that they were polite to Mr. Horner. I don’t think they took him seriously. At one point, Sen. Dayton jumped on Horner’s stock reply that there was too much bickering at the debate, saying that that’s Horner’s favorite soundbite, then suggesting that Horner should just record it and replay it on schedule.

Frankly, I thought Dayton hurt himself with swing voters because of his Polymet and education reform answers. He didn’t help himself by appearing smug at times, when he tried taking over the debate by asking his own questions.

Each group of partisans will think their guy won. Dayton played to his union base, making sure to promise to keep the spending spigot wide open. Horner played his I’m-the-only-reasonable-candidate schtick, perhaps too often.

Tom Emmer is right about what it’ll take to create a dynamic economy: Get government out of the way. Keep taxes low. Retool the permitting process. Don’t put mining companies and farmers through multi-year permitting processes.

If people want a prosperous Minnesota, there’s only one serious choice. His name is Tom Emmer.

UPDATE: Mitch has more on Dayton’s flexible numbers.

Technorati: Debate, Tom Horner, Mark Dayton, Tax Increases, Education, Spending, EdMinn, DFL, Tom Emmer, Permitting, Capitalism, Reform, MNGOP, Election 2010

Thanks to Tony Sertich’s op-ed in this morning’s St. Cloud Times and Mark Dayton repeatedly saying he’ll tax minnesota’s job creators into submission, we now have the outlines of the DFL’s job creation strategy. Here’s what Rep. Sertich said about the DFL’s most recent job creation bill:

On Aug. 3, Minnesota held its bond sale, putting up for bid state bonds that will fund ag loans, transportation projects, and various infrastructure improvements across the state. The sale was a resounding success, with competition among private bidders resulting in a historically low interest rate that will save Minnesota taxpayers millions of dollars.

The results of this sale made clear this year’s quick and decisive passage of a bonding bill by House Democrats was exactly the right thing to do. Bids will now be let for projects such as road and bridge improvements, clean water and improvements to our state colleges and universities.

As many as 20,000 construction jobs will be created, as well as hundreds of spinoff jobs in areas such as manufacturing, materials supply, food service, health care and retail. Communities across the state benefit when workers come to eat at their restaurants, buy gas at their gas stations and shop in their stores.

As fascinating as that was, this paragraph was most revealing:

For more than 150 years, bonding bills have been exactly what Minnesota needed to stimulate the economy and create jobs. Minnesota’s businesses, workers and families can feel confident we will continue to make job creation our top priority, with a responsible bonding bill as the cornerstone.

There it is!!! Rep. Sertich admits that the DFL’s annual bonding bills are the Minnesota equivalent of a federal stimulus package. He’s just admitted that we’re spending money we don’t have on projects we don’t need. What Rep. Sertich didn’t admit, though, is that the people getting the jobs are the DFL’s union allies. Certainly, the IBEW and other construction unions benefit greatly from the DFL’s spending our money. In return, the DFL benefits greatly from the unions’ campaign contributions.

That’s a pretty sweet racket if you can keep it a secret.

This setup also begs another question. Why does the DFL focus on the government spending money on creating jobs instead of government getting out of the way and letting the private sector create jobs?

The DFL’s and Rep. Sertich’s insistence on spending our taxes on annual stimulus bills is frightening enough. As bad as that failed economic model is, it’s nothing compared with Mark Dayton’s tax plan. Here’s what Pat Kessler wrote about Dayton’s tax-the-rich plan:

Dayton’s proposing as many as three new income tax brackets.

Singles and couples with incomes between $130,000 and $150,000 would pay “slightly more” according to Dayton. For those earning more than $500,000 a year — a sharper spike. And at $1,000,000 and above: “significantly more” in income taxes.

Dayton says million dollar “homes” deserve special attention too.

Remember that $53 million home for sale on Lake Minnetonka?

It’s taxed at the same percentage as a $500,000 home in Fridley.

It’s TRUE.

Currently, Minnesota has two property tax rates: 1.0 percent for homes valued under $500,000 and 1.25 percent for homes valued above $500,000.

Dayton would change that with a special tax on homes worth $1 million or more.

And ONE MORE THING:

Avoiding winter is one thing but if you’re snow-birding to avoid taxes, your wings could get clipped. Minnesotans who live 6 months and 1 day outside the state currently don’t pay Minnesota income taxes.

Dayton said that’s over if he’s elected: You live in Minnesota and pay taxes or you don’t.

that last sentence should tell you everything you need to know about Dayton’s tax policy. If you spend a single day in Minnesota, you’ll get hit with his tax increases. The only way to avoid Mr. Dayton’s punishing tax rates is to leave the state permanently, which is exactly what the vast majority of snowbirds will do.

When Minnesota’s snowbirds leave, two things will happen. First, Mark Dayton and the DFL will whine that those greedy snowbirds won’t pay their fair share. (Nevermind the fact that it’s their privately saved retirement money.) Next, Mr. Dayton’s budget projections will be off by a significant amount. They’re off already but they’ll be off by a bigger amount when Sen. Dayton chases the snowbirds out of Minnesota.

Finally, during tonight’s debate, Tom Emmer highlighted Mark Dayton’s job creation weakness. Rep. Emmer talked about a mining company on the range that’s gone through 5 yrs. of environmental studies and permitting processes. At the last DFL debate, Sen. Dayton said that it’d be ok with him if it took another 2 years to complete.

Tom Emmer said that it’s immoral to stretch the permitting process out that long, especially with people on the range unemployed or in danger of losing their home.

I agree with that. What will those extra years of studies and waiting produce other than bigger debts and more foreclosures for the people of the Iron Range?

Simply put, we can’t afford to put the DFL in charge of job creation. Rather than maintaining a construction-oriented economy that Rep. Sertich and Sen. Dayton favor, Minnesota needs leadership, both in the governor’s mansion and in the legislature that seeks to unleash Minnesota’s entrepreneurial spirit.

That will only happen if we elect leaders that trust the people rather than people who think government has a big role to play in the private sector.

It’s time to reject the DFL’s economic plans because they don’t work. It’s time to enthusiastically support the GOP because they’re the only leaders who trust in Minnesota’s innovators and entrepreneurs.

Technorati: Economy, Bonding, Permitting, Overregulation, Mining, Iron Range, Tony Sertich, Mark Dayton, Unemployment, Foreclosures, Tax Increases, Property Taxes, Income Taxes, Tax The Rich, DFL, Tom Emmer, Capitalism, Election 2010

Yesterday, Tim Walz got into a heated debate with Randy Demmer over Walz’s cap and tax vote. This morning, the Strib’s Hot Dish Politics blog has posted an interview they did with Walz. Based on his answers, Walz would’ve been better off not doing the interview:

In an interview after the event, Walz said it is “debatable” whether a cap-and-trade system is superior to other methods of clean energy legislation, such as tax credits or imposing a carbon tax.

“That’s the debate that I think should be asked on this,” Walz said. “I think many of us, Collin included, [are] not altogether comfortable with the cap-and-trade mechanism, but there were so many other things in [the bill] that went the right way.”

He was comfortable supporting the legislation, he said, because he knew it would change substantially before it came back for a final vote, after it had been sent through the Senate and conference committee.

“You’ve got to start somewhere,” Walz said. “I never thought that the final version I would vote on would look anything like it, but it’s to move it forward.”

What Rep. Walz wants us to believe is that he just voted for the largest tax increase in United States history to move the bill along the process. Rep. Walz wants us to think that the tax increases in the final cap and tax legislation wouldn’t cripple farms or raise gas prices or affect the prices at the local grocery store.

The whole idea behind Cap and Tax was to raise taxes so people wouldn’t use fossil fuels. PERIOD.

Here’s an exchange between Rep. Walz and Randy Demmer:

Cap and trade should give farmers a boost, Walz said, by discouraging buying fossil fuels from other countries, often countries that do not like the United States. “They will hate us for free.”

Demmer, a Republican in his second run for Walz’s job, said he thinks cap and trade could cost agriculture $5 billion. “Cap and trade is not an energy policy, it is a tax,” Demmer said. “It is tough on agriculture. We need to grow agriculture, not shrink it.”

Steven Wilson, an Independence Party candidate for Walz’s seat, agreed with Demmer that cap and trade is more of a tax. “We don’t have to sacrifice our small businesses,” he said.

Walz is right that “Cap and Trade” would discourage us from “buying fossil fuels from other countries.” Unfortunately, it would discourage us from buying fossil fuels.

This shot from Demmer is the right strategy:

One of Demmer’s biggest criticisms of Walz is that he votes for San Francisco liberal Nancy Pelosi to be speaker of the House. Demmer said Walz talks like a moderate back home, then votes liberal in Washington.

But when asked after the forum why he supports liberal leaders, Walz said he may seek a leadership job next year if Democrats maintain House control. “Maybe I will be one of them,” he said. Walz rattled off a list of groups that have praised him for work on veterans and education issues, and hinted he could be in line to lead one of those areas.

Rep. Walz, we don’t care which caucus you join. During the last 2 years, we’ve seen supposedly conservative Blue Dog Democrats cave on Cap and Tax and staunchly pro-life Democrats cave on Obamacare. The notion that there’s such a thing as a moderate Democrat is myth.

Your statement that “voting for health care was the easiest vote I’ve ever taken” speaks volumes about whether you’re a moderate or whether you’re actually a hard left leftie.

After voting for the trifecta, aka the failed stimulus bill, Obamacare and the job-killing Cap and Tax legislation, there’s little doubt but that Tim Walz votes the way Speaker Pelosi wants him to whenever she wants him to.

It’s time to vote for someone who represents southern Minnesota, not San Fransisco.

Technorati: Tim Walz, Speaker Pelosi, Cap And Tax, Obamacare, Stimulus, Tax Increases, Environmentalists, Fossil Fuels, Democrats, Randy Demmer, Agriculture, MNGOP, Election 2010

Talk to any conservative pundit and they’ll tell you that they’d love to see Harry Reid defeated this fall. Stephen Moore’s WSJ article provides alot of reasons why conservative pundits, and Nevada residents, want him out of office:

When I ask whether it is really possible to knock off a Senate majority leader, she laughs and replies, “only Reid thinks he’s too big to fail.” Her strategy against the Reid attack machine is to link him to the lousy economy in Nevada. When I ask her if Nevadans want to give up Mr. Reid’s clout in Washington, she replies: “When Harry Reid got to be majority leader, the unemployment rate was 4.4%. Now it is 14%, higher than even in Michigan…What has Harry Reid’s power done for our state?” Her new TV ad, unrolled this week, hammers this message. “We know he is going to attack me constantly,” she says, because “he can’t possibly run on his record.”

I said in this post that Harry Reid’s supposed clout hasn’t helped make life better for Nevada. If anything, his earmarks have helped a tiny sliver of his cronies to the exclusion of others. Here’s more proof that Reid sides with the special interests first, Nevadans second:

Regarding jobs, she points to Mr. Reid’s role in killing three clean coal-fired plants in rural Ely, where she and her husband have lived since 1971. After years of opposition by Mr. Reid in league with various environmental groups, NV Energy halted development of a $5 billion plant in February 2009. That meant the loss of 5,000 jobs, Mrs. Angle says.

“That’s really when we realized Harry Reid doesn’t care about jobs or people losing their homes. And it’s also when ‘Anybody but Harry Reid’ signs first began to sprout up all over the state.”

Reid either believes in letting job-creating opportunities disappear or he sided with the environmentalists in killing this project. I don’t believe for a split second that Reid hates job creation. I don’t have trouble believing, though, that he’d side with Washington’s special interests so that their campaign contributions would keep flowing.

I also think it’s highly likely that he’d side with Washington’s special interests so that he wouldn’t be the subject of their criticism. Thanks to Ms. Angle’s recent fundraising efforts, she’ll be able to remind people day after day after day that Harry Reid sides with the special interests first, Nevadans after that. This isn’t the year where voters will let their politicians ingore their wishes.

This information shouldn’t be overlooked this year:

Sharron Angle’s first foray into activism was when her son was held back in kindergarten in 1983 and “the poor little guy was made to feel like a failure. He hated school.” She wanted to home school him, but the school system and the courts said no. Her response was to open a one-room school with a Christian-based curriculum. It soon had 24 students.

“I didn’t realize how many other parents were angry with the school system,” she recalls. She charged $125 a month to cover the cost of supplies but taught for free. (Mrs. Angle has a degree in education from the University of Nevada, Reno.)

In 1985 she rallied hundreds of parents behind her successful effort to pass a bill through the Nevada legislature allowing parents to home school anywhere in the state. The result of her effort is that in Nevada home schooling has become a popular alternative to the public schools, and Mrs. Angle is referred to as the “home school heroine.”

“I was just a mother, and the government had gotten between me and my child, and that’s like getting between a mother bear and her cubs,” she says. “I think that’s what activates the tea party movement. What they see is the government interfering with their lives, and with the inheritance of their children. Are we going to pass down liberty or deficits? And that’s really what this movement is about.” The cub—her 6-year-old son—now has a masters degree and teaches high school history in Yerrington, Nevada.

Elitist America sneers contemptuously at Sarah Palin’s momma grizzlies. That’s exceptionally foolish. The indicators are there that Republicans will do exceptionally well with women voters this cycle because they’ve perceived, rightly in my opinion, that Democrats care more about pleasing their special interest allies than they care about doing what’s right for the Momma Grizzlies’ children.

It’s one thing to criticize moms. It’s quite another to advocate policies that would give their children a brighter future.

Sen. Reid likes talking about his boxing background. This information from Stephen Moore’s article says that Mrs. Angle is a feisty, combative woman who’s won some fights against Goliaths:

Mrs. Angle’s most legendary fight was within her own party. In 2003, then Gov. Kenny Guinn, a Republican, schemed to raise the sales tax by half a billion dollars. Mr. Guinn declared that anybody who opposed his tax was “irrelevant, irresponsible and cowardly.” The governor seemed to be pointing directly at her, says Mrs. Angle. “He knew from the start I would be against it.”

The frustrated governor couldn’t get the constitutionally required two-thirds vote of approval without her. As she tells the story, “at one critical point, the minority leader asked me: ‘So, Sharron, what’s your number?’ That meant how big a tax increase could I tolerate? And I told them my number was zero.”

When the bullying failed, the Nevada Supreme Court, in a spectacular abuse of the constitution, allowed the tax hike to go through without the two-thirds vote. The justices decreed that the money was needed for the schools and that the right to an adequate education took precedence over a procedural safeguard.

The next day, Ms. Angle recalls, “I went into the conference room and was told there’s nothing you can do, Sharron. It’s all over. The Supreme Court has the last word. And I said, ‘No, it’s not over.’”

She spearheaded a movement to get the Supreme Court replaced. In the next election in 2006, voters threw out five of the seven members of the Nevada Supreme Court; the other two had retired. “It was a referendum on that tax increase vote,” she argues. “And the new court came in and reversed that decision and made our constitution whole.”

Sharron Angle sounds just irreverent enough to laugh at conventional wisdom in the morning and smart and determined enough to defeat it that afternoon. Getting 5 members of a state’s Supreme Court isn’t routine. In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me if it’s unprecedented.

Sharron Angle is exactly the type of senator that’s needed to provide support to Jim Demint and Tom Coburn. If Angle, Marco Rubio, Pat Toomey and Rob Portman are added to the Senate GOP, we’ll finally have the nucleus of a fiscally conservative Senate.

This might be Mrs. Angle’s best weapon in this fight:

To win, Sharron Angle is going to need a major money influx from the conservative groups that pushed her over the top in the primary to counter the $25 million Mr. Reid is expected to spend. What Mrs. Angle has going for her is a contagious optimism that Nevadans would never send Mr. Reid back to the Senate given the fiscal carnage in Washington.

Nevada voters, she says, “are disillusioned, disappointed and disgusted with what had happened since the 2008 election. They are tired of this establishment machine that doesn’t understand that we—the people— are in control. They are saying ‘We don’t care if you’re a Republican or a Democrat. We don’t believe either one of you.’”

If there’s anything that’s motivating voters this cycle, it’s voting out politicians that they perceive to have ignored them. If any politician fits that particular description, it’s Harry Reid.

In an ordinary year, Sharron Angle wouldn’t have this good a shot at winning this election. This isn’t an ordinary year and Sharron Angle isn’t an ordinary candidate. This cycle, she’s the right candidate in the right race at the right time.

What’s better yet is that Harry Reid is the wrong politician who ignored the will of his constituents for far too long. That’s why Nevadans will send Harry Reid to an invuluntary retirement this November.

Technorati: Harry Reid, Unemployment, Special Interests, Crony Capitalism, Earmarks, Obamacare, Democrats, Sharron Angle, Sales Tax, Tax Increases, Supreme Court, Sarah Palin, Momma Grizzlies, Conservatism, Election 2010

Cross-posted at California Conservative

In a just world, I wouldn’t have believed it had Sen. Boxer criticized Carly Fiorina about creating jobs. Since we don’t live in a just world, I shouldn’t be surprised with this NPR article. Here’s what’s rich to me:

“She laid off American workers without a second thought,” Boxer said at the site of a highway transportation project near the Golden Gate Bridge that is partly funded by federal stimulus dollars. “And if she had been in the Senate instead of me, the economic recovery act would not have passed. And these people would not have their jobs,” she said of the construction workers surrounding her.

If Sen. Boxer wants to argue that California is better off because she voted for the failed stimulus bill, that’s her right. The First Amendment certainly lets Sen. Boxer say extremely foolish things. It appears that she’s just exercised that right. Why anyone would willingly tie themselves to the failed Obama/Pelosi stimulus bill is beyond me.

That’s before we start talking about the damage that the Endangered Species Act, legislation that’s under the jurisdiction of the Environment and Public Works Committee, which she chairs, has had on killing jobs in California’s San Joaquin Valley. Sen. Boxer could dramatically improve the employment conditions in the San Joaquin Valley if she wasn’t such a committed environmentalist. Her not lifting a finger has helped drive up unemployment rates in the San Joaquin, a rate that’s been high for well over a year.

The policies that Sen. Boxer enthusiastically supports are crippling California’s economy. It’s my opinion that she’ll be in deep trouble the minute Carly Fiorina starts her advertising blitz highlighting the policies that Sen. Boxer has advocated and the effect that those policies have had on California’s jobs situation.

When Carly’s ad blitz happens, Sen. Boxer’s pathetic career will be exposed for supporting an endless string of radical, anti-capitalist, job-killing causes. In short, I wouldn’t want to be in Sen. Boxers’ shoes.

Technorati: Economy, Stimulus, Endangered Species Act, Environment, Barabar Boxer, Unemployment, San Joaquin Valley, California, Agriculture, Democrats, Carly Fiorina, Ad Blitz, Capitalism, Republicans, Election 2010

Cross-posted at California Conservative

This video of Carly Fiorina’s interview with Greta van Susteren is extremely illuminating:

To me, there are 3 highlights to the interview, starting with Fiorina saying that, during her time as HP CEO, many things improved, including growing the company from $44,000,000,000 a year in revenues to $88,000,000,000 a year. Another highlight came when she said she’d run on her “record all day long”, saying that this race essentially came down to her results vs. Sen. Boxer’s rhetoric. Finally, when Greta asked if she’d debate Boxer, Fiorina’s reply was a crisp “Anytime, anywhere.” When Greta asked whether Greta could moderate it, Fiorina said she’d love that.

That’s a debate I’d love watching because Greta is a great interviewer who ins’t afraid of asking fair, tough questions, including followup questions.

Frankly, I think Sen. Boxer better be prepared to wage the best campaign of her life. If Sen. Boxer just decides to go negative to cut Fiorina down, she’d better plan on giving a concession speech the first Tuesday in November because Fiorina has the financial wherewithal to both criticize Sen. Boxer’s lackluster record and to highlight Fiorina’s pro-growth agenda.

One thing that I’ve thought from the beginning about Carly Fiorina is that she’s got an engaging personality, something Sen. Boxer doesn’t have. Frankly, during their years in the Senate, I don’t know if Sen. Boxer was the most argumentative or cantankerous or if that honor went to Hillary.

If there’s anything more lacking in Sen. Boxer’s bio than accomplishments, it’s her lack of a personality. That difference, I think, will be apparent the minute the two are compared with each other.

The other thing that makes this a difficult fight for Sen. Boxer is that California is ripe for a senator who’s got a history of creating jobs and growing businesses. With California’s unemployment above 12 percent, there’s bound to be a thirst for a candidate with a vision for putting California on stable financial footing.

The thought that Sen. Boxer fits that job description is laughable. There’s nothing in her bio that says she’s anything more than a reliable liberal who’s championed things like Cap and Trade and other items on the environmental extremists’ wishlist, going so far as saying that global warming is a national security threat.

I know that Ms. Fiorina isn’t a federalist or a down-the-line conservative but she’s representing California, not me. I’m confident that she’ll do a good job in writing legislation that helps create jobs.

More than anything else, that’s the thing Sen. Boxer should worry most about.

Technorati: Economy, Environmental Extremists, Debates, Barbara Boxer, Cap And Trade, Unemployment, Tax Increases, Hillary, Democrats, Carly Fiorina, Hewlett-Packard, Job Creation, Republicans, Election 2010

Cross-posted at California Conservative

It isn’t often that a congressman makes a naked attempt to exponentially expand government control of the land we own. Such is the case with Rep. Jim Oberstar’s attempt to dramatically change the Clean Water Act.

Oberstar, who represents the 8th District in the Land of 10,000 Lakes, wants to strike from the Clean Water Act the word “navigable,” a restriction in the original bill based on constitutional principles that limit Washington’s regulatory reach.

Without that check, the federal apparatus will have dominion over all waters in America. Rainstorm puddles, mud holes, drainage and irrigation ditches, ponds, intermittent streams and prairie potholes on private lands. These have nothing to do with interstate commerce, but would suddenly be subject to federal rules, as would adjacent property…if the word is removed from the law.

This naked power grab is despicable. This modification of the Clean Water Act’s language would give the federal government the authority to regulate every parcel of land in the United States.

Before the DFL tries spinning this as conservative paranoia, I’d ask them what legal restraint would exist if this change was passed. They won’t answer that question because that answer doesn’t exist.

Based on their actions, Democrats at all levels of government want to change government from being of, by and for the people into of, by and for bureaucrats far removed from positions of accountability.

IBD is spot on with this observation:

Farmers should be particularly concerned. The Oberstar bill gives federal regulators the power to police farming practices and to take their land through regulatory restrictions if those practices are deemed to be in violation of the law.

With the federal government already hobbling California farmers by denying them water, in large part due to the Endangered Species Act, Oberstar’s ambition is an existential threat to farms.

Here’s some questions CD-8 voters should be demanding answers of Rep. Oberstar:

• How will this change in the CWA improve water quality in the United States?
• Does this change in the CWA improve water quality? If it doesn’t, what’s the benefit to landowners?
• What protections would landowners have against regulatory abuse?
• If this modification in the CWA doesn’t improve water quality, doesn’t that indicate that the modification is just a naked regulatory power grab?

For far too long, Rep. Oberstar hasn’t operated with the best interests of his district in mind. Yes, he’ll point to the pork he brings home from the transportation bills as proof of his operating in the best interests of the district but that’s a feeble attempt. The reality is that most of Rep. Oberstar’s pork is a monument to himself.

Let’s remember that Rep. Oberstar, as ranking member of the House Transportation Committee, diverted federal highway funds from road and bridge maintenance to pay for his bike trails. That isn’t implying that Rep. Oberstar is to blame for the I-35 Bridge collapse. I’ve said before what I’ll repeat here: That collapse wouldn’t have happened had MNDoT replaced the gusset plates on the bridge.

My argument is that Rep. Oberstar has operated with misplaced priorities for far too long. It’s time that CD-8 was represented by someone who will represent the people of CD-8, not Rep. Oberstar’s special interest allies in DC.

If the many outdoorsman’s clubs in CD-8 found out about Rep. Oberstar’s attempted regulatory hijacking, he’d be less popular with outdoorsmen than President Obama is with doctors.

It’s one thing to want to ensure a cleaner environment, including cleaner water. It’s another to sanction the type of regulating Rep. Oberstar has in mind.

Technorati: Takeover, Regulations, Clean Water Act, Pollution, Extremism, Environment, Bureaucrats, Jim Oberstar, Special Interests, Endangered Species Act, DFL, Election 2010

Yesterday, Rep. John Dingell told Jon Stewart that “People are afraid and frustrated and a lot of times they don’t know who they’re mad at.”

With all due respect to Rep. Dingell, that’s utter nonsense. The American people know exactly who they’re upset with and why they’re upset. Mostly, they’re upset that the Democrats aren’t listening to us. They’re upset that Democrats are doing their best to control every facet of our lives, whether it’s taking over the health care industry, financial institutions, student loans, car manufacturers and the energy industry.

It’s time that Rep. Dingell quit with the spin and stop denying the fact that this is the most arrogant, most secretive Congress in history. It’s so secretive that they’ve written a health care law that they intended to impose on everyone except themselves, only to find out that they didn’t exempt themselves from it.

This provision likely would’ve been stripped from the bill if the bill hadn’t been written by Democrats in Harry Reid’s office.

We’re upset with the amount of reckless spending that’s happening in DC, too. Never in my lifetime have I seen spending be this out of control. It was bad under President Bush but it’s exponentially worse under the Obama administration’s control.

The Democrats’ health care legislation raises taxes by $670,000,000,000. If the House Cap and Trade is signed into law, that would represent another $1,900,000,000,000 in tax increases, not to mention gas prices and home heating bills that “would necessarily skyrocket” according to President Obama.

That’s without considering how Cap And Trade would bankrupt the coal companies, driving the economies in Indiana, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky and Ohio into total ruin.

John Dingell has served too long in DC. He needs to go. He reminds me of a doddering old Sen. Howell Heflin during the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings. Sen. Heflin was reading from the Democrats’ talking points when Justice Thomas told him that he’d gotten his facts wrong. Sen. Heflin’s response was first to flash a look of confusion, then saying that he was confused.

Sen. Heflin never ran for re-election again.

Unfortunately, Rep. Dingell will likely be re-elected as long as he wants to serve. The only things he’s contributed to Congress and to Michigan is higher taxes and his being named, along with Rep. John Conyers, CAIR-Michigan’s men of the year.

But I digress.

Seriously, I wouldn’t doubt that Rep. Dingell thinks that people are upset for no good reason. Once you’re inside DC’s echochamger, the whole world changes. It’s a world where Speaker Pelosi’s words are treated as gospel. In the real world, it’s the people’s words that should be treated as reality.

The ultimate test would be to have Rep. Dingell talk with people on the street in Michigan, find out what their priorities and their worries are. Then I’d have him ask them whether they’ve ever attended a TEA Party rally. I’ll bet that the TEA Party people that Rep. Dingell would talk with would know what they’re upset about.

Who knows? He might actually learn something and become a public servant again.

Technorati: Daily Show, John Dingell, Jon Stewart, Cap And Trade, Health Care, Tax Increases, Deficits, President Obama, Speaker Pelosi, Democrats, DC Echochamber, TEA Parties

Cross-posted at California Conservative

According to Salena Zito’s column, Democrats know that the stakes couldn’t be higher than they are in the special election in PA-12:

On paper, the nine Western Pennsylvania counties in the 12th Congressional District numerically favor Democrats by a nice margin.

In reality, the 12th’s people could not be more removed from the Democratic Party ruling out of Washington. More rural/suburban than urban/suburban, the district is chock-full of conservative Democrats who believe in hard work, God and guns.

It is a world that elite liberals fail to understand, as one Democrat strategist confessed in an e-mail: “Have to admit that America is about as foreign as France to me.”

On May 18, ex-congressional aide Mark Critz, a Democrat, and Johnstown businessman Tim Burns, a Republican, will face each other in a special election for the unexpired term of the late Congressman Jack Murtha, a contest that will be repeated, for a new two-year term, in November.

Democrats have a long winning streak in House special elections, notes Isaac Wood, a University of Virginia political analyst: “If that ends now, it will be interpreted as a sign of impending Democratic doom in November.”

Thsi figures to be a test of the Democrats’ November strategy. As that anonymous Democratic strategist admits, they’re out of touch with heartland America. Instead, Democrats seem intent on running against evil: evil Wall Street, evil big banks and evil profiteers. (Hint to Democrats: in Heartland America, small businesses making profits aren’t known as evil profiteers. They’re known as employers.)

The Democrats’ problems run far deeper than just their disconnect with Heartland voters. This says everything:

In a year clearly about Main Street’s disconnect from Washington, Critz curiously asked Vice President Joe Biden to raise money this Friday in downtown Pittsburgh, outside the district. If you’re having Biden fundraise for you, why not have “Mr. Scranton, Pa.” stump for you as well, inside the district?

The simple answer: This is coal country, and Biden famously said during the 2008 campaign that he did not support “clean coal,” backing that up emphatically: “No coal plants here in America!”

The Obama administration’s approval rating in coal country is low. (Think lower than Harry Reid. By ALOT.) Two years ago, people ignored what President Obama said about coal. Had they reacted then the way they’re recoiling now, voters would’ve spared us from the Obama administration’s radicalism.

Critz isn’t running a smart campaign either:

Critz is running as the bearer of Murtha’s legacy. Yet Critz is no Murtha and does not have the power to do what Murtha did in this district.

People instinctively know that the ‘heir’ to Murtha’s throne doesn’t exist. When it comes to influence-peddling and corruption, there was only one John Murtha, though other Democrats aspire to that position of influence.

The Biden problem is emblematic of a bigger problem for Democrats. Think of it this way: If Republicans want to help a candidate in a tight race, they can call on Tim Pawlenty, Rudy Giuliani, Mike Pence, Paul Ryan or Sarah Palin to go to that district and fire up the troops and win people over. Democrats facing difficulty with re-election, and there will be many in such a situation this year, can’t call on Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, Joe Biden or President Obama.

If presidential prestige was measured in wins where President Obama campaigned for his candidate, his prestige would be tiny or nonexistent after Virginia, New Jersey and the Massachusetts Senate race. If I’m a Democrat running for re-election in Pennsylvania or Ohio, I’d plead with President Obama to not visit. If he theatened a visit, I’d publicly announce that I’d be out of the country that day.

I don’t know how this special election will play itself out but I’ll confidently say that if Critz loses, it will be an indication that running against Wall Street doesn’t work as well as running on getting government out of the way of job creators.

Technorati: Mark Critz, John Murtha, Special Elections, Joe Biden, President Obama, Wall Street, Democrats, Tim Burns, Economy, Jobs, Republicans, Election 2010

Cross-posted at California Conservative