Dan Cleary

Ted Cruz: "Obama Understands the American People Don't Agree w/Him. The Purest Evidence of That is He Didn't Campaign on This"

Earlier this month, Ted Cruz - former Texas Solicitor General and candidate for Texas Attorney General - gave an inspiring, captivating speech to the RedState crowd in Atlanta.

I recommend watching the entire video, but there is one particularly notable part of the Q&A session (beginning at the 29:00 mark) that I want to highlight here. The question was from a recent Harvard Law School graduate in attendance, and he asked for Cruz' thoughts on the liberal mindset of the campus:

Q. ..."I checked out your bio, and I see you went to Harvard Law School, and I just graduated from there. And it was a very tough year to be on campus at Harvard Law School, Obama’s alma mater. The toughest thing about it was that there were conservative professors at the law school, and in general, who announced three weeks before the election that they were voting for Obama, and I remember emailing them and saying "I can’t believe you’re doing this." And they had no explanation or justification for what they were doing. So, I want to know if you can talk a little bit about your experience - because I know how hard it was for me to come up through Harvard, in a very liberal city and very liberal campus - and how a guy from Texas ended up there, and is now ending up as a champion of the conservative cause. What was your experience like?"

Cruz: “Well, thank you for that question. And I will admit, as I travel across Texas, and visit East Texas and West Texas, and they hear I went to Princeton and Harvard, that I have a lot to apologize for.

I will secondly point out that actually understanding the institution that is Harvard Law School, I think, is a very important part to understanding Barack Obama. Obama was a student at Harvard Law School five years ahead of me. And he is very much a creature of the Harvard Law School.

Now you have to understand what a radical community that is. When Obama and I were students there, it is no exaggeration to say there were more self-declared communists on the Harvard Law School faculty than there were self-declared Republicans. And it’s not even close! There was one open Republican on the faculty. There were at least a dozen communists. This isn’t me calling them communists – this is if you asked them, they would say “I’m a Marxist-Leninist. I advocate the principals of communism.“

Every idea that Obama has advanced is orthodox wisdom in the faculty lounges of Harvard University. And one of the problems in Washington is the Republicans fighting against it do not understand the radical objectives of this administration. All of these proposals are linked together, and they are linked together for an economic agenda of having a government takeover of the economy.

And Obama understands the American people don’t agree with him. The purest evidence of that is he didn’t campaign on this. He campaigned as a tax-cutting, small government conservative. Imagine if he had campaigned and said, a year ago, “If you elect me President, the first thing I will do is fire the CEO of General Motors. I will then take over the company, tear up the contracts with the bondholders, and hand it to the union thugs who are backing my campaign. But we’re just getting started! I’ll then propose tripling the national debt in 10 years, socializing one-sixth of the economy, imposing the largest energy tax in history. And then I’ll go on a world tour, apologizing to every two-bit tyrant on the globe. I won’t forget to stop in Cairo, and give a speech that Iran has a right to nuclear technology.

He didn’t run on that because he understands the American people don’t believe it.

And there’s a basic truth in politics. Conservatives and Republicans win nationally when we effectively communicate what it is we believe. And there’s a reason for that - the American people are fundamentally a conservative people.

Democrats win when they effectively obfuscate what they believe.

Here's the video:

Ted Cruz from David Thompson on Vimeo.

Via Dave_in_Fla at RedState.

Rep. Diane Watson (D-CA) "Hearts" Cuba's Health Care System, Fidel Castro & Che Guevara

Oh, and anyone who opposes Barack Obama is a racist.

But of course, we already know that!

What a dingbat.

Via Gateway Pundit.

The Health Care Ad You Won't See on NBC or ABC

Via Viral Footage.

What is Going On?

Via IBD Editorials.

Drinking with Bob: The Martha's Vineyard Rant

Exactly...

h/t: Devil's Advocate.

Dick Morris: Dems Could Lose 100 Seats in 2010

That would be a breath of fresh air, for sure.

And from Obama's standpoint, not necessarily a bad thing.

Via Breitbart.

Gird Your Loins, Harry Reid - You're In For an Election Battle

It's still early, but this is an encouraging sign for conservatives heading into 2010: Harry Reid is trailing Republican challenger Danny Tarkanian by 11 points, according to a recent Mason-Dixon poll:

It’s the highest stakes ever for a Nevada election, and former boxer Sen. Harry Reid is on the ropes early. Either Republican Danny Tarkanian or Sue Lowden would knock out Reid in a general election, according to a recent poll of Nevada voters.

The results suggest the Democratic Senate majority leader will have to punch hard and often in order to retain his position as the most accomplished politician in state history, in terms of job status.

Nevadans favored Tarkanian over Reid 49 percent to 38 percent and Lowden over Reid 45 percent to 40 percent, according to the poll.

Reid’s status makes him an icon of the Democratic Party and ties him to Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and President Barack Obama, both of whom are losing ground among centrist and right-leaning voters in the country.

Tarkanian, of course, has strong name recognition in Nevada (he played college basketball for UNLV and is the son of former UNLV head coach Jerry Tarkanian), but still, the double-digit lead comes only two weeks after he announced his candidacy (Lowden has still not officially entered the race).

Clearly, Nevadans are starting to get fed up with Reid...

h/t: Michelle Malkin.

'Red Eye' Crew Rips MSNBC

Gutfield: "So why did MSNBC go waaaay out of its way to obliterate the race of Chris? Because it didn't fit the story MSNBC wanted to tell -- that if you disagree with Obama, you must be a white, crazy person with guns. Even if you're black."

Via Jim Treacher.

"Stop Playing Footsie with Nancy Pelosi and Barney Frank!"

Last night, I attended a town hall meeting held by "Blue Dog" Democrat Lincoln Davis - my representative - in Columbia, Tennessee. It was the second of seven scheduled town halls that Davis is holding over this week and into next week.

It was a great experience, even though I came away still uneasy about how Davis will vote on H.R. 3200 (or whatever equally disastrous health care bill is ultimately put up for a vote in the House).

The meeting was held at Columbia State Community College, in the Waymon Hickman Building's Cherry Theater. News reports estimated the crowd at 500, and I'd say there were definitely that many, probably even a little more. The place was packed solid.

Although there was clearly a lot of emotion, anger, and frustration in the air, this was not an out-of-control, back-and-forth shouting match, a la Barney Frank or Arlen Specter. There were no union thugs on hand, at least none that I noticed - just a few UAW members, but they were just there to say their piece like everyone else in the room.

The format was such that the audience asked all the questions first, then Rep. Davis responded to them all at once at the end (he and his aide took notes while the questions were asked). There were two lines formed (one on each side of the auditorium), and it took nearly a full two hours just for everyone to work their way up to the microphone to ask their question or make their comments.

The vast majority of the crowd was against any sort of government takeover of health care - be it outright single-payer, the 'public option', or 'co-ops.' To be sure, there were more than a few people there in support of the public option. One pro-Obama woman even lamented that the Democrats are too conservative for her (the crowd got a kick out of that one). But the overwhelming sentiment was that H.R. 3200 should be torched right there on the spot (Davis had a printed-out copy in front of him on the table).

To his credit, Davis sat there very politely without saying a single word for nearly two hours, taking in what everyone had to say. Which is exactly what he should be doing at these meetings - listening to his constituents.

As you'll see in the video below, I had a little something to say to Davis myself. Here is what I had roughly outlined in my head (I was going from memory at the town hall, so it didn't come out verbatim like this, but it was pretty close):

I have two things I'd like to say – one question, but first a statement.

You describe yourself as a “Blue Dog” Democrat. That means you are supposed to be a fiscal conservative, and that you were elected mainly on the premise that you would act as a check on the more liberal wing of your party (Nancy Pelosi, Barney Frank, etc).

And yet you supported the $787 billion dollar so-called “stimulus” bill, which has done nothing to stimulate the economy. There is nothing fiscally conservative about that.

You supported the $410 billion dollar omnibus bill. There is nothing fiscally conservative about that.

You supported the $33 billion expansion of SCHIP. There is nothing fiscally conservative about that.

You supported the $3.5 trillion dollar FY10 budget. There is nothing fiscally conservative about that.

When Obama took office, the national debt was already at a record $455 billion dollars. Last month, it hit $1.3 trillion according to the Congressional Budget Office - and they predict will hit $1.8 trillion by September 30.

With all due respect, sir – you’re a phony when it comes to this "Blue Dog" business. [Yeah, I said that]. You need to get your act together fast and stop playing footsie with Nancy Pelosi and Barney Frank! [This line is in the video]. You are supposed to be representing your constituents here in the Tennessee 4th!

Now my question:

Obama and your colleagues in Congress keep telling us there are 46, 47, 50 million uninsured Americans. That is wrong. When you factor out illegal immigrants, people who choose not to buy insurance (ex: young people), short-term uninsured, etc., the figure is more like 15 million uninsured Americans (give or take) who want/need insurance but cannot afford it. If we can’t trust you to be straightforward with us concerning a basic statistic like this, why should we trust you on other aspects of the health care issue?

Davis didn't answer my question on the '46 million uninsured Americans' statistic. But he did talk generally about debt. He mentioned that the national debt first approached $1 trillion under Ronald Reagan in 1981. Deficit spending continued under Reagan/Bush 41/Bush 43. Under Clinton? A projected surplus! So, he asked, where were you guys back then?

That was his answer to my question, I guess. And yeah, I get it - conservatives in the main probably weren't as vocal as they should have been about deficits back then (although to suggest they were silent is not correct either). But how that justifies Obama quadrupling an already record-high national debt in less than one year (and for what?!) is mind-boggling to me. It's just not a rational response. Plus, I specifically recall Democrats like Claire McCaskill carping about Bush's deficit spending during the election last year. Where are those voices on the left now? There is talk now about "deficit-neutrality" from Peter Orszag, the White House, and many Democrats - but what good is being deficit neutral after you've driven the economy over a cliff with staggering, unprecedented levels of pure deficit spending?

If the rest of Davis' town halls are like the one I attended last night, then he'll know exactly where his constituents stand on the health care issue, if he doesn't already. The rest is up to him. But if he ends up voting in favor of H.R. 3200 or anything close to it, it will be a deliberate thumb in the eye of the people he is supposed to be representing.

He seems to be toying with that idea.

Lincoln Davis Town Hall - Columbia, TN

I'll write more about it tomorrow, but for now here's the Fox 17 video clip. I do make a brief, uncredited cameo about three-quarters of the way in (I'm waiting on line behind a guy named Alexander Mosley, who is asking the question).