Erick Erickson's Blog, page 246

Breaking Ranks When The Heat Is On: What Happens When Amateurs Go To War (With Each Other)

I have long maintained that while this administration is great at running campaigns, it is a miserable failure at actually running an administration. It has become rudderless with too many people competing to steer the ship.

One minute Rahm Emanuel calls the shots. The next it is Valerie Jarrett or David Axelrod or Robert Gibbs. Then back to Rahm and over to Patrick Gaspard, etc.

Save for Emanuel, we see a group of amateurs sailing the ship of state and fighting on the battlefield of policy ...

Conservatives Rally for Ron Johnson in Wisconsin

A friend of mine pointed out the other day that while I endorsed Ron Johnson for the Senate in Wisconsin several weeks ago on Twitter, I never wrote about it here.

Let me remedy that today by pointing out Jim DeMint, the NRSC, and me are all on the same side on this one.

DeMint will be making his endorsement today. Later today and this week I hear other conservative organizations will also be coming out for Johnson.

Polls in Wisconsin show Ron Johnson giving Russ Feingold a serious run for his ...

I have reservations with Paul Ryan's "Roadmap"

"I don't think that conservatives have to assume that the Roadmap with its inherent tradeoffs is The Conservative Plan From On High for the next several decades. "

I like Paul Ryan. He is an above-average conservative who can often articulate good policy, even though his actual voting record sometimes does not reflect his conservatism. These days his "Roadmap" is all the rage in conservative policy circles, and people continue to ask me what I think about it.

To be sure, the Roadmap has s...

The Too Simple Side of Race

I long ago accepted that whenever a conservative talks about race in a way the left does not like the conservative is immediately branded a racist. Look, for example, at Rush Limbaugh who does not have a racist bone in his body and is vilified as a racist. When he attempted to purchase the St. Louis Rams, the left spent days attacking him as a racist. But after 20 years on the air, the left had to use fabricated quotes.

Doesn't matter.

Take my post on Willie Horton and King Samir Shabazz...

Morning Briefing for July 14, 2010

RedState Morning Briefing

For July 14, 2010

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1. The Too Simple Side of Race

2. King Samir Shabazz Should Be 2010's Willie Horton

3. Shocking Emails Show National Rifle Association Worked to Prohibit Rifles From National Parks

4. NRA Openly Floats A Harry Reid Endorsement

5. Democrats Go to Canada. It's a Fundraising Excursion

6. Did Harry Reid Know The Surge Was A Military Strategy?

New Poll Has Handel in the Lead

Magellan Strategies has come on strong this year with a number of polls across the country. They've made their way to Georgia to deliver good news to Karen Handel.

A Magellan Strategies survey of 1,227 likely Republican primary voters finds Secretary of State Karen Handel has a 14 point lead over her nearest opponent. Handel is getting 32% of the vote, while former Congressman Nathan Deal and Commissioner of Insurance John Oxendine are statistically tied for second with 18%. Senator Eric...

Shocking Emails Show National Rifle Association Worked to Prohibit Rifles From National Parks

You know things are bad for the National Rifle Association when it has to get the New York Times to run a puff piece on it.

But in their zeal to get a puff piece out there as well as their collaboration with the left on the DISCLOSE Act, the NRA has angered a number of people on Capitol Hill.

Shocking new e-mails obtained by RedState show that the National Rifle Association actively opposed and sought to undermine gun-rights legislation offered in the Senate by Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK).

The...

NRA Openly Floats A Harry Reid Endorsement

The NRA is now openly floating, or at least allowing to be floated, its endorsement of Harry Reid, a man who voted for the Brady Gun Bill. In a New York Times puff piece on the NRA that largely gives the NRA credit for things it tried to undermine (more on that later), there is this:

A point of contention on both the left and the right is the N.R.A.'s close working relationship with Mr. Reid, the Senate leader who helped get a number of pro-gun rights measures included in broader bills.

That...

King Samir Shabazz Should Be 2010's Willie Horton

Moe suggested this yesterday and I am here to say I agree.

In 2010, Republicans across the nation should make King Samir Shabazz their 21st century Willie Horton.

I know Democrats scream at the top of their lungs that the Willie Horton ads, originally raised by Al Gore by the way, were racist. They and their friends in the media have developed the common narrative that somehow pointing out that Michael Dukakis let a convicted murderer out of jail for the weekend so he could again attack was...

Democrats Go to Canada. It's a Fundraising Excursion

Rand Paul's opponent, Jack Conway, has ventured outside the United States to raise cash from trial lawyers.

Conway headed north, to Canada, for a meeting of trial lawyers from whom he wanted cash.

The trial lawyers ponied up. Conway's campaign said it welcomes support from across the country, which Canada is not.

But it wasn't just Conway. The mob banker from Illinois, Giannoulias, went too and money was raised for these Democrats, most of whom were present:

Michael Bennett running Colorado