“The tea party has dispersed,” Gloria Borger proclaimed on CNN after the Romney victory in Nevada.

Huh? what does that mean?

She concludes, as many in the Activist Old Media have, that a Romney victory in Nevada is a defeat for the tea party.

My conclusion; the media is looking for any reason, any reason, to declare the tea party dead. Plus, a few recent polls show that Romney actually is getting tea party support.

The Super Bowl is a big game so that means the tea party is dead. There is snow in Denver, so the tea party is dead. As long as you say the tea party is dead, you have a spot on a panel with the Activist Old Media.

It just amazes the media that Mitt Romney can run away with a state like Nevada, with a prominent tea party contingent (albeit for the first time in the primaries; it’s too early to say it’s a trend), so they conclude the tea party must be dead.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

(more…)

It’s been 50 years since the famous Nixon/Kennedy debates first hit the airways, and Democrat Harry Reid hasn’t seemed to learn much about being on TV.

Two nights ago, Reid, with his 24 years of experience in the US Senate, squared off against his Republican challenger Sharron Angle. Reid looked dazed and confused at times, Angle, a relative political novice and grandmother looked confident and poised. Reid would never look at Angle–except for at their introduction, not once that I saw did he look over to even give a glance to his opponent. She addressed Reid, looked at him often and told him exactly what she thought and what the people of Nevada thought. Like the debate of 50 years ago, if you watched it on TV I’m sure you got one impression, for the few who may have listened here on radio in Nevada you may have gotten another impression. Either way, Sharron was impressive.

Reid was also seen often fumbling with his papers and taking notes. Angle spoke from her heart. There were nerves, but did I mention this was a Reno grandmother taking on the most powerful person in the Senate?

As for the substance, the two could not be more clearly divided. Angle made it clear that this is a battle between larger, more intrusive government and smaller government dedicated to liberty for the people. At times she got specific and direct.  “Man up Harry Reid, we have a problem with Social Security,” quipped Angle at one point. Reid played the typically evasive lifelong politician who could not defend his foolish comments of the past, like, “this war is lost,” when talking about a pre-surge Iraq while soldiers were still fighting and dying in the battlefield. (more…)

While Harry Reid and Sharron Angle have been going toe to toe (they are tied in the polls) there is a “Tea Party of Nevada” candidate, Scott Ashjian, who wants his 15 minutes of fame. The problem for Angle is that Ashjian’s 15 minutes of fame could cost her the race.

Scott Ashjian

There was no “Tea Party of Nevada” until Ashjian created it and the media relished the novelty. He has never been to a Tea Party event and has not been endorsed by any Tea Party out there so the left loves that he could help give Reid six more years in the U.S. Senate by people mistakenly voting for the “Tea Party” candidate. Speculation has it that Reid is behind Ashjian’s candidacy, but that has not been proven. All Ashjian can do in this race is save Harry Reid. Certainly nobody with any real Tea Party affiliation would ever want that to happen.

Now there are the audio tapes.

The Chairman of the “Tea Party of Nevada,” Syd James (it is basically a party of two), arranged a meeting with the Angle camp under the premise that Ashjian would drop out and endorse Angle (Ashjian’s name would still be on the ballot). Ashjian has claimed that it was Angle who arranged the meeting, but James assures me that it he arranged it and he’s sorry he did.

Ashjian wore a wire into the meeting and covertly taped the conversation with Angle. James said he had no idea that the meeting was taped and would’ve never done it had he known Ashjian was going to tape it. If you listen to the tapes, understand their surreptitious nature and understand the context was that Angle thought Ashjian had come bearing gifts of an endorsement. If Angle made a mistake it was trusting Ashjian, but since James arranged the meeting, the Angle camp was trusting James, who is a highly respected doctor in Las Vegas.

As a result, James feels used by Ashjian and has told me he will resign from his position with the “Tea Party of Nevada” and endorse Angle. When’s the last time you heard of the head of one political party (if you want to call the “Tea Party of Nevada” a party) resigning to endorse another party’s candidate less than a month before the election? (more…)

I like Harry Reid personally. I’ve known him and his family for almost 30 years and I actually like them. I’d never vote for him in a million years, but personally, I have no problem with him or his family (A side note, Harry’s son, Rory is running for governor and won’t use his last name—he’s Rory2010.)

Which leads me to why we vote for the Congressfolk that we vote for. I’m going to vote for the person who will most vote like me. It’s as simple as that.

The activist old media works hard to make elections about minutia, the little “he said, she said” garbage that make the media what it is. They love that stuff for a few reasons, it gets ratings, it usually fits their agenda and it makes them cash, lots of cash. If campaigns are about petty little things like what a candidate did in high school or what they said in grade school or who their Junior High gym teacher was, then it costs lots of money to counter that garbage with TV ads. Ding, ding, ding—follow the money. (more…)

The widespread feeling among the national media is that Sen. Harry Reid has the candidate he wants in Sharron Angle—to Harry, I would say be careful what you wish for.

Here in Nevada, we know Harry… and books have been written on the damage he has done to our state and the nation in his 24 years in the Senate. Few know Sharron yet, and Democrats will work hard to define her as horribly as they can.

Let me say this, what Angle did in Nevada is nothing short of remarkable. I watched this race closely (having worked with one of her opponents in the race) and saw Angle in action. I know the good and the bad. There is no perfect candidate. Races are relative. All that matters is that you are better than your opponent. (more…)

Drudge Report readers woke up this morning to the news that GOP senatorial candidate Sharron Angle won the Republican primary last night in Nevada.  Associated Press writer Michael R. Blood’s linked piece on Drudge represents the MSM’s template in its upcoming biased reporting against Angle, and other conservative GOP candidates.  It’s all in the language.

Blood’s piece begins:

Nevada Republicans Tuesday picked tea party insurgent Sharron Angle to take on Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid…

“Tea party insurgent.” Blood’s lede links a broad citizen movement with a word that connotes roadside bombs and civilian casualties. Angle is a…

…conservative renegade who wants to turn Washington on end.

Not just a “conservative,” but a “conservative renegade.” When John McCain was a “maverick” – a label first given him by the New York Times – he was the GOP favorite of much of the MSM.  When Barack Obama promised to turn Washington end, he was a “transformational candidate.”  Sharron Angle, though, is a “renegade.” The spin is in the chosen language. (more…)

And so they’re scared. Scared as we should all be, if the truth be known. The truth would have to be TOLD first, of course, and as usual the MSM is missing a great story.  What is coming? Long lines at the “medical collective?”

Yeah, that, but now that the administration has proven it can make us eat a law that nobody wants, they’re going to pull another dead rabbit out of the hat, and even the people who haven’t been paying attention feel it coming.

Amnesty.

Not for people who’ve sent angry emails to their congressman.

For illegal immigrants.

It’s already started. Obama needs to replace the millions of voters who are angry at the way the Health Bill was passed. The quickest way is an amnesty program that would make an estimated 35 million illegal immigrants instant democrat voters.

For the regular U.S. citizen who lives on or near the Southern Border with Mexico, this is not just the fodder for Sunday morning news shows and talk radio. This is something they live with. Chuckie Schumer says 15,000 people cross the border illegally every day. That number is only going to increase as the possibility of a new Amnesty grows brighter – every time the Obama Administration announces it is abandoning the “virtual fence” and cutting funding for Border Patrol and INS operations, or Los Angeles immigrant rights’ groups file lawsuits forcing requests that police “ease up” on nationality checks on arrested suspects, the message is clear:

“Welcome.” (more…)

Wasilla, Alaska (UIP)— Shocking news last night as former Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin announced that she is following in the footsteps of the noble senator from Pennsylvania, Arlen Specter, and is switching parties to become a Democrat.

This news comes just five days after Palin appeared as the keynote speaker at a Tea Party rally in Searchlight, Nev., where she appeared in her former guise as an angry white female and told the crowd of at least a dozen or so people that she was tired of government intrusion into her life and that she was going to do everything she could to “send Harry Reid back to Searchlight where he would be lucky to be elected as part-time street sweeper.”

Sometime since then, Palin said, she had an epiphany and realized “the weather of Nevada must’ve unfrozen my cold, steely Alaskan heart,” and that she had awakened from her icy slumber of neocon-ism.  “What the hell was I thinking?” She also resigned as a Fox News contributor, effective immediately.

Reaction was swift from the Democrats across the nation. (more…)

Who’s your daddy? Sounds like Barack Obama wants that role. Or perhaps mommy, I’m not sure.

During his recent visit to Las Vegas, one of the gems of wisdom that Barack Obama shared with the audience at Green Valley High School is to tell us to floss.

President Obama took audience questions, they were not broadcast widely by the media and they seemed fabricated. The first four questions had to do with healthcare. The second question came from a dentist and Obama took it upon himself to tell the people in attendance to make sure to floss. Twice he said it. Floss.

What have we elected here? My parents told me to floss—my wife sometimes reminds me to floss, and occasionally I do it on my own. Did we elect a President of the United States of America to tell us to floss? (more…)

Many have declared the dubious “Cap and Trade” scheme dead, so Obama went ahead and had the EPA suggest they were going to impose it under their own regulations. The truth is, they’re not likely to do that. They want the “Climate Bill” to pass because it’s designed to gouge the energy and manufacturing sector out of $646 billion in tax dollars over ten years. All to finance his crypto-socialist programs.

The Democrats see the climate bill as a cash cow, but Republicans aren’t buying it. So in his State of the Union address, the president didn’t mention cap and trade. He mentioned the “green jobs” that would be created by the “Climate bill.”

But to create more of these clean-energy jobs, we need more production, more efficiency, more incentives. And that means building a new generation of safe, clean nuclear power plants in this country.

Doesn’t that sound swell? Except nuclear power plants are already safe and sound in the US and have been for over 50 years. (more…)

If you live in Chicago and your only source of news is the venerable Chicago Tribune, it would take you a while to figure out that something happened in Massachusetts Tuesday night. One would think that an editor might place a story with the following lead – oh, I don’t know – front page, top of the fold, maybe?

In a stunning blow to Democrats, Republican Scott Brown ended the party’s half-century grip on the Senate seat once held by Edward M. Kennedy, coming from nowhere to give the GOP the crucial 41st vote needed to thwart President Obama and his agenda, possibly starting with healthcare.

It ended up on page fourteen.

Allow me to repeat: page fourteen. An election that stunned both parties, sent a thundering message to the President and his party, threatens the very existence of the signature piece of legislation that this administration – and the Chicago Tribune – believe is vital to the health and welfare of Americans is a story that, in the judgment of what used to be the beacon of Midwestern values, less important than finding Asian carp DNA in Lake Michigan yet again. (more…)

“Psycho Talk” got a little out of control last week. Liberal talk show host Ed Schulz said, “If I lived in Massachusetts I’d try to vote 10 times. I don’t know if they’d let me or not, but I’d try to”. He followed it up on his TV show by saying, “Ya, that’s right, I’d cheat to keep these bastards out, I would.”

At first I thought Big Eddie was just trying to be provocative, but he sounds like he really means it. I guess that’s why I’m sort of worried about the guy.  If he were just a whacked-out talk show host we could laugh at this, but Eddie has a background in journalism so he has to be held more accountable. Words have meaning.

For years Ed Schultz and I have had similar career paths (until his MSNBC gig) so there’s a lot that I can relate to with the guy. We’re about the same age. We both love the outdoors. We’ve both hosted talk radio shows; we both did sports at local TV stations for years. I did a lot more “hard news” reporting, but for the most part, there’s a lot of common ground here. (more…)