Before The Deluge

Mitt Romney will be our next President. The only genuine, interesting question remaining between now and the election is the margin of victory. Romney is up 7 points in Gallup's daily tracking over President Obama. The second debate confirmed to an almost equally-as-large as the first debate television audience that we are overdue adults in our government.

Picture President Obama today in New Hampshire, of all places, hawking the binder line from that second debate to his unresponsive, deflated base. The smarter ones know it's over. No less a stalwart liberal on FOX News than Bob Beckel said so today, assuming all the numbers in the most recent Gallup poll were, in fact, accurate. And he had no reason to doubt them.

Some in the media knew it was over last month. I know I did when I saw the SEPTEMBER 13th article in The National Journal by Reid Wilson. The article's title?

"What if there is an election wave?"

Yeah, what if? My own instinct at that time was confirmed by this article and Wilson was clever in laying down a marker indicating he'd thought of it long before the wave's arrival. Read his article by clicking here.

I supported Mitt Romney from the moment he got into the primaries. I've endured a fair amount of nonsense from my fellow republicans in doing so and not just the usual back and forth of preferring different candidates. I heard a great many stupid things about Romney from people who now can't wait to vote for him. That's good, I suppose. Most have said to me at one point or another lately that they had radically under-judged the man. I actually do understand how that is possible. I always felt Romney a far stronger general election candidate than primary one. But the primaries helped him as a candidate so it all worked out in an excellent way.

I've already said on Twitter to liberal Minnesota activists that if Obama is kept under 5% I think republicans keep both majorities in the legislature. I could be fantastically wrong on that score, however, and, unlike the presidential race, we'll actually have to wait until Election Day to find out.

A Romney restoration of America is coming soon. The American people have requested it.

Locally, the hapless Republican Party of Minnesota must be dealt with by activists. Mostly it needs to be trimmed, made slightly more irrelevant than it currently is and put on the shelf. Those who enabled the Ron Paul interlopers will be held to account. The builders must destroy the destroyers.

Momentum is clearly on the side of those who realize we are already in a post-party political structure and need to adjust accordingly. In fact, republicans are shockingly behind. To this end I have a few ideas and projects that I'll be promoting:

• Minnesota Media Monitor: They Do It To Themselves™

This is both a short and long term project about which more later. Media have disgraced themselves beyond description this election and the fallout from that has only just begun. This inflection point, to use a hideous phrase, is a good opportunity to explore local media in myriad ways. News in Minnesota will never be the same.

• The Balance Project™

Minnesota republicans and conservatives will step up after the election and assist in massive programming changes at both TPT and MPR. Tax payer funded news outlets can no longer have the bias and luxury of reporting from the left of life's center line. Simply by showing up and demanding coverage of the center right we win: how can it be otherwise? But we have never done it and ceded the field to liberalism for a very long time. Breitbart always said politics was downstream from culture. Shall we help ourselves to their inner sanctum?

Balance also needs to be brought to higher education, the Humphrey School in particular. Poor academic quality wholly to one side, the lazy left/liberal tilt of its curriculum must come to an end.

Public institutions are the easiest for conservatives to approach and change. One came to me in an email today: Friends of the Hennepin County Library. Let's make sure a "range" of authors are invited to speak under its auspices. When you start thinking balance, an endless number of organizations, structures and activities can be reclaimed by the right. All things in their time.

For now though, I'll enjoy the remaining days of the campaign, watch the third and final presidential debate and look forward again to believing in America. Fortunately for liberals, they can go back to being ashamed of it.

The Clint Eastwood Political Rorschach Test

Clint Eastwood's brilliant interview of an absent President Obama during the Republican Convention's final night is a singular example of an earthquake happening while the political classes and media pretend not to notice.

Of course, they did notice but only to bemoan the performance they completely failed to comprehend. Media, dishonest & low as ever, dilated on the unscripted nature of the performance. Really, it doesn't take much thought to realize had Eastwood been scripted the effectiveness of his address would have been muted to the point of failure. It worked in large measure because every moment while we watched him we knew Clint was making it up as he went. Authenticity is often demanded by the media yet when it is encountered in real time--at a Republican National Convention no less--the whining begins.

Make no mistake: the press understood instantly that Eastwood had broken through their filter with a withering criticism of a failed president the media has protected at all costs, including the scraps of whatever integrity they possessed.

More distressingly to me, however, were those on my side who didn't get it. The Empty Chair has become a national meme. Twitter is filled with pictures of various empty chairs in an enormous range of settings and locales. The symbolism of an empty chair is perfect for the vapid, badly educated Obama and his disastrous administration. Photos of empty chairs will remain a hilarious leitmotif of this election down through November 6th.

Here's a tip to my fellow republicans: if media collectively start screaming bloody murder about something we've done or are doing, carry on. That's the surest sign that we are effective in the moment.

And it was just a moment. Some say it knocked Romney off message but there's approximately zero evidence for that. To the contrary, his and Ryan's appearances since the convention concluded have been packed. August represents the third consecutive month Romney has raised 100 million dollars. The selection of Ryan fundamentally changed, to use an Obama phrase, the presidential race. At a minimum we've argued Medicare to a draw, if not slight edge. The enthusiasm gap terrifies the democrats, as well it should. Media know it and consequently will never write about it.

I've gotten a sense that a lot of people are changing their minds since last Thursday night.  Eastwood gave something unlike anything anyone had ever seen before at a national political convention. But by today there's not much excuse for seeing this performance piece as anything but brilliant. Do yourself a favor and watch it again. Click here.

That sensible democrat Mickey Kaus noticed the shift in how to understand Eastwood. He wrote the day after:

Old CW: Eastwood a  disaster.
New CW: Eastwood brilliant, but Romney incompetent because his advisers fell for previous CW that Eastwood a disaster.

Too many republicans, and not just Romney advisors, fell for that media generated conventional wisdom. Do you think Andrew Breitbart would have? Well do you, punk?

Equally astute was Teri Christoph, co-founder of Smart Girl Politics, who tweeted:

"The fact that Obama and his campaign team are now saying nice things about Clint Eastwood tells me Clint is very popular with independents."

That's pretty much the game, isn't it? Let's hope republicans can be as smart as Team Obama, enjoy the laugh Eastwood provided, smile at the new verb "Eastwooding" and suppress laughter at the discomfort it brought the media. Phew, how much more can one 82 year old man do in a 12 minute speech?