Archive for April 15th, 2009
Wednesday Open Thread
Last night, we met RNC Chairman Michael Steele. We’re working on a larger piece for you about it, but here’s the Cliff’s Notes for you:
(1) Steele is seriously one of the most amazing and personable people we have ever met. We don’t say this about people often, but he’s a very cool guy. And he’s as easy to talk to for us as Hillary Clinton is — and there is no higher compliment from us than that. We felt so comfortable around Steele and were able to tell him exactly what we thought and had a few conversations with him over the course of the day, just like we’ve had with Clinton. And Steele really listens. We are officially very impressed with him (and part of us felt like we just me our next Vice President…or even a future President someday).
(2) We brought ACORN up to Steele — and wow, he HIT THAT OUT OF THE PARK. At dinner, there were about 40 people in the room, and Steele asked us what’s a concern we have here in Illinois, and we related to him our experiences with ACORN/Obama’s tagteam in not only Iowa, Texas, and other states in the primaries, but during the General Election as well. We told him how important it is to take ACORN on, and to basically treat it like the cancer that it is for our democracy. ACORN, in our opinion, is practically a terrorist group. Well, Steele blew us away, because he said the first thing he did when he became Chairman was to tell the RNC’s lawyers that they need to stop waiting around to defend against frivilous lawsuits crazy people file against the GOP every day and start attacking ACORN in court in every single state until ACORN is completely dismantled. Steele reminded everyone that Obama taught ACORN a lot of its tricks when he was a community organizer, and he used ACORN as a defacto arm of his campaign in 2008. Republicans have never fought back — and have allowed Democrats to use ACORN to do nasty, rotten things that the DNC can’t directly do. It is time to strike back and put ACORN on the run. Steele is outraged that Obama wants ACORN to run the US Census. It was crystal clear he plans on doing what should have been done years ago: putting ACORN out of business.
(3) Steele basically said it’s time for everyone to get off their tushies (his word) and start working hard to take back this country from the spendthrifts and loons who pass legislation without reading it. Steele noted that Democrats plan who’s going to run for election years in advance (like the DNC picking Obama in 2004 and then forcing his nomination this year). Republicans end up with crazy people in many races (like Rosana Pulido in the 5th Congressional race last month) because they seem surprised by elections. Democrats are already looking at 2014 and 2016. Republicans don’t know what’s going to happen in November. Steele said that Republicans win an election and then say, “Whew, we won. Let’s rest”. Democrats just maintain a perpetual campaign. Obama is already running for re-election in 2012. This needs to change. Pronto.
(4) We told Steele he needs to make the GOP about controlling wasteful spending, not dividing people on social issues that remain continuously unresolved over 35 years later. Let’s get the country back on track and stop wasting so much money. THEN, when we’re safe again, maybe we can all be crazy people again and fight over Roe v. Wade and “gay marriage” some more, because we all love fighting the same ridiculous fights the media encourages over and over and over again. But, first, let’s just all be Americans, and get off our tushies and work hard to fix the mess we are in. When the roof’s patched and the water stops leaking, we can go back to fighting over the interior decorations like idiots. But nothing else will matter much unless we get our current act in gear.
(5) After Steele told us he would go after ACORN, and talked for about 20 minutes on what he wanted to do to clean their clock, we told him there are three people in politics we’d do anything for: Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton, Sarah Palin, and now Michael Steele. And we mean every word of that. Taking ACORN down is one of the great goals in our lives: that, and eliminating the caucuses. We think ACORN’s demise is a first step to scrapping the caucuses. Rooting out the corruption that’s oozing out of the Obama Trillion Dollar Spending bill is another area in which moderate Dems and Republicans can agree. If we keep focusing on what we have in common, when it matters more than ever, then we can always fight those other social battles another day. Steele and the other Republicans all agreed.
(6) We told Steele there needs to be a new Pecora Commission to investigate what the banks, George Soros, and other villains in the world did to crash our economy in September and cause the current mess we are in now. How involved was Obama’s team in this? What was ACORN’s involvement? What did Geithner do at the Federal Reserve? What’s REALLY going on at the private Federal Reserve that answers to no one? What did Greenspan do all those years? In 1932, Republicans began the Pecora Commission to investigate what caused the Depression. FDR then backed it and let it do its work. Since Obama loves copying other presidents, maybe this could paint him into a corner that would force him to launch a new Pecora Commission when we need it most. Steele and his team listened, took notes, and agreed this is something that merits more research. It was very encouraging.
(7) In general, Steele hammered home that Republicans had a bad 2006 and 2008 and will have a bad 2010 unless they get in gear and start standing up for average Americans who work too hard to have their tax dollars dunked in the toilet by Obama/Pelosi/Reid. Republicans need a solid narrative. They need to communicate better. They need to tell Americans what they are about. STEELE GETS IT. He really, really gets it.
More later, as we have more time to relate it, but have a very busy Tax Day in front of us. We’ll be at both the afternoon Tea Party in Chicago and the Navy Pier Tea Party from 430-10pm at the Billy Goat Tavern as well. It’s going to be a busy, busy day.
We hope you are out at a Tea Party near you today too. As soon as we can, we’ll post photos, reports, and hopefully video from today’s events as well.
