81st Rant: The 2016 Presidential Primary Election Schedule

At the Republican National Committee (RNC) Winter Meeting over the weekend, RNC Chairman Reince Priebus had taken what I think is a major step toward taking the White House back in 2016 by strengthening the nominee (whoever it is, and if we are EVER to take the White House in 2016 we need to follow what Andrew Breitbart had said. More on that below) and empowering the voters during the primary process.

One of the main things he did is shorten the primary process for the goal of having the convention in late June or early July. The following is a list of the rules that were passed to make it happen.

[So] on Friday, we passed new rules to shape the 2016 presidential primary process.

• First, the “carve out” states (Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada) will hold their contests in February.
• Other states can start their contests on or after March 1.
• Any contest between March 1^st and March 14^th must allocate delegates on a proportional basis.
• Any contest after March 14^th may choose to allocate delegates proportionally or on a winner-take-all basis.
• The deadline for selection of alternates and delegates will move from 35 days before the convention to 45 days before the convention.

You can read the whole thing on breitbart.com. Now while he is on the right path toward having the convention in June or July (which I had said should happen when I wrote my 26^th Rant and my 27^th Rant on these very topics back in January, 2012) he is doing it wrong. Granted, I know I am but a drop in the Republican Party as a voter and as such have no say in the process, but at least I agree that Priebus is leading the party in the right direction with holding the convention in June or July so as to give our nominee a fighting chance during the dog days of summer and also accomplish a little of what I had mentioned in my 26^th Rant.

One thing I would see with [having the voting at the end of the month] is that all of the voting and tabulations would be done by May which means that the nominee would have three months to find a running mate and get the grassroots campaign at least started by getting the main headquarters set up before the convention. Then the day after they give their acceptance speech they can get started on their general election campaign.

You can read the whole thing at ricktheranter.blogspot.com. This in a sense also brings the dates of the Republican National Convention back to what it was during the first nomination of Ronald Reagan, when the 1980 convention was held July 14 to 17. It is also important to note that even before then the Republicans had traditionally held their conventions as early as the middle of May and as late as mid July from 1856 (when the Republicans held their first convention and nominated John Charles Fremont) until 1952 when they nominated Dwight David Eisenhower.

However, no matter what happens on our side, we all have to coalesce behind the nominee (whoever it is) after the convention because as I had pointed out in various rants during the 2012 election, the only two people who have a VIABLE chance of getting the electoral votes are the Republican and the Democrat nominees regardless of who is running as a minor (ie 3rd party or other party) candidate. We need to remember the words of Andrew Breitbart at CPAC in 2012 when he said the following (f/t to Biff Spackle of Director Blue for the transcript)

I don't care who our candidate is

You want a unity speech? I'll give you a unity speech. I don't care who our candidate is.
I haven't since the beginning of this... ask not what the candidate can do for you, ask what you can do for the candidate!
And that's what the Tea Party is.
We are there to confront [the radical left] on behalf of our candidate!
I will march behind who ever our candidate is. Because if we don't, we lose.
There are two paths! There are two paths! One is America, the other is Occupy! One is America, the other is Occupy! And I don't care, and along the way... I've realized over the last three years that the Republican Party and the conservative movement is not what ABC, CBS and NBC put on the screen.
They try to portray you in the worst possible light... and when I travel around the United States meeting people in the Tea Party who care -- black, white, gay, straight -- anyone that's willing to stand next to me to fight the progressive left, I will be in that bunker, and if you're not in that bunker 'cause you're not satisfied with this candidate, more than shame on you. You're on the other side.

Read that part again: “anyone that's willing to stand next to me to fight the progressive left, I will be in that bunker, and if you're not in that bunker 'cause you're not satisfied with this candidate, more than shame on you. You're on the other side.” That is right. We might be zealous and support our candidate in the primary, but when the convention comes around and our candidate is not nominated, we have to support whoever the nominee for the Republican side is after the convention – even if it means holding our nose at the poling place on election day – because when we get to the fork in the road, we have to decide which branch of the fork (and from what I had seen there are only branches of the fork in the road) to go. As Andrew said, one path is America, and the other is Occupy or – since Occupy has dispersed in the middle of 2012 – Socialism. Choose wisely the path you wish to traverse, because there is no going back.

Priebus is taking the first steps to taking the White House back in 2016 with the moving of the convention to late June or early July, as well as moving the first four primaries to February, but we need to take the steps to help our candidate get across the finish line to get nominated. If we can, that is fine. If not, then we need to get behind the candidate that does ultimately get the nomination.

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78th Rant: The Third Party Candidates and the Ruination of Another Election

Diane Sori of The Patriot Factor GETS IT

Democrat Terry McAuliffe was elected Virginia’s governor by a margin of 48% to 46% (1,066,149 to 1,010,929) over Ken Cuccinelli, Virginia’s conservative attorney general. And while Virginia has historically been a conservative-leaning ‘swing state’…a state that backed every Republican presidential candidate from Richard Nixon through George W. Bush and in 2009 elected a Republican governor by 59% to 41%…the entrance of ‘supposed’ Libertarian candidate Robert Sarvis into the race spoiled the election for Cuccinelli, who would have won as most of Sarvis’ 6.6% of the vote would have been added to his total (145,762 in actual numbers).

McAuliffe was able to win basically because he ran a highly financed negative campaign (outspending Cuccinelli by over 15+million dollars). By saying over and over ad-nauseum that Cuccinelli was a social conservative who was anti-woman because he vehemently opposed abortion, McAuiffe was able to garner the women’s vote by a 51-42 margin. And by also constantly repeating that Cucchinelli refused to admit that it was the Republicans who were to blame for the recent government shutdown, McAufliffe was able to play to the heavily populated Northern Virginia area, where many work for the government or for government contractors.

But truth be told it was both ‘anything but Libertarian’ Robert Sarvis and a lack of support… including the all important and much needed financial support…by his own Republican Party that cost Cuchinelli the election. Using tactics more Democratic than Libertarian, Sarvis, kept demeaning Cuccinelli’s social issue positions instead of focusing on the Libertarian agenda of small government and individual liberties, leading many to rightfully believe he was ‘planted’ in the race by the Democrats who knew the election was NOT a sure deal after the ObamaCare website and insurance policy cancellation fiascoes.
In fact, software billionaire Joe Liemandt, a Democratic Party benefactor and Obama campaign bundler, helped pay professional petition circulators to get Robert Sarvis on the ballot as the Libertarian candidate for NO other purpose than to split and syphon off the Republican vote…split and cause friction between the old guard Republican establishment base and the new true conservative Republican grassroots movement...AKA TEA Party Republicans.

And after proving just how successful base splitting was in Virginia with the insertion of unknown Sarvis into the governor’s race, come 2014 and 2016 this base splitting might be the ultimate Democratic strategy they will use anytime a race seems a bit too close for comfort so listen up people…NO third party candidate must be allowed to split the vote ever again…they simply cannot win so voting for a third party candidate is an actual wasted vote or worse yet…a vote for the Democratic opponent. ...

So like I said in the beginning we win some…we lose some…but if we are to take our country back we must start winning more than we lose…and we must do it by supporting TEA Party Republicans over old guard establishment Republicans who are more RINO than true conservatives…and we must turn our backs on all third party candidates, period…and I do mean…period.

Read the whole thing. What Diane had said is so true. Third Party Candidates only serve to divide the vote and cause panic and mayhem. In fact, I had even railed on the third party in my own editorial during the post-election edition of my talk show Red, Right, and Blue right after the 2012 Presidential Election.

Now, as far as who to blame for Romney's loss Tuesday which evidently led to the death of America, I think we ought to lay the blame on the three groups that deserve it. (WARNING: graphic language ahead)

1.) The Occupy movement: Yes I know they are not around in as full of a force as they were this time last year, but they were the major lynchpin in the downfall of America.
2.) The third party HACKS: If it were not for the third party candidates like Virgil Goode, Roseanne Barr, Jill Stein and more importantly Gary FUCKING Johnson I think Mitt Romney would have won the election. Here in Florida, Romney is losing (as the count is still going on) by 64,185 votes. Had the third party candidates (who combined had 68,576 votes with Gary Johnson grabbing 44,418 votes) voted for Romney, then he would have won Florida outright. Hell, I think it would have been the same in the other states as well.

3.) The voting electorate as a whole. In 2009 a video had first been floated about where people who had voted for Obama (who ranged in ages from 18 - 80) were asked simple, basic questions about who was in charge of our nation, who Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid were, and other questions about politics that a 5th fucking grader should know, and they had no motherfucking clue on ANY of them! Take a look at this video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3ZLJj_q4xI is the link to the 10 minute video) and you will see what I mean.

I know there are others who deserve it as well, but these three groups I mentioned deserve the brunt of it and should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. When I say this, I do not mean prosecuted in an actual court but rather in the court of public opinion, where it rightfully belongs.

Read the entire editorial. It would do us good to remember that when it comes down to the GENERAL election to choose ONLY one of the two who actually matter. Why? Because as is so expertly mentioned in a song by Greg X. Volz, there is no room in the middle.

I always bring this up, and I know many are sick of hearing it, but it bears repeating over and over again. As Andrew Breitbart had said at CPAC back in February of 2012, “If you’re not in that bunker because you’re not satisfied with that candidate (in this case Romney), more than shame on you. You’re on the other side.”

Andrew Breitbart telling it like it is #WAR

As the last clip shows, are you with us Patriots and REAL AMERICANS or are you on the other side?

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77th Rant: Get In The Fight

There are certain posts from The Other McCain which do not really stand out to me to merit their own blog post. And then there are rare gems like this one from Robert Stacy McCain:

From the perspective of the neurasthenic weaklings who now run Republican politics, anyone who wants to stand up and fight for principles is considered a troublemaker. Ted Cruz? Mike Lee? Rand Paul? No, the GOP leadership doesn’t want to elect people like that. They want smooth-talking sellouts like Lindsey Graham and good ol’ boys like Mitch McConnell who understand that the job of Republicans is to “compromise” by giving Democrats everything they want.

Well, who in their right mind would fight on behalf of a such a party? Who would risk their reputation, their comfort, perhaps even their livelihood, to defend the Republican Party, when the party itself is run by wimps who only care about their own re-election?

Think about this: When Lady Liberty and Sister Toldjah came under fire by North Carolina Democrats, did anybody in the North Carolina GOP apparatus stand up for them? Hell, no.

You cannot win in political combat by continually retreating. If you ever hope to win, you must first determine to fight. And once you’re in the fight, you must never stop fighting until you win.

Please read the whole thing. Now for those of you who have been following me, whether through my writings or my online talk show Red, Right, and Blue, you will know that I had brought up something like this when I first said that I would go through the Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Revolutionaries that Andrew Breitbart had talked about in his wonderful book Righteous Indignation: Excuse Me While I Save The World. Andrew’s very first rule in the Primer was “Don't be afraid to go into enemy territory” and it is wise words to live by in order to win the war. This is one quote from the Primer that Andrew mentioned:

The army of the emboldened and gleefully ill-informed is growing. Groupthink happens, and we have to take it head-on. We can't win the political war until we win the cultural war. The Frankfurt School knew that - that's why they won the cultural war and then, on it's back, the political war. We can do the same, but we have to be willing to enter the arena. By neglecting The View or, worse, by ignoring Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Maher, and David Letterman - we allow them to distort and demean us as they romanticize and elevate themselves. It's harder to attack people to their faces than behind their backs. and we have to confront them face-to-face. Young people suckle at the teat of pop culture - but by refusing to fight for their attention, we lose by default.

Our most articulate voices, likable faces, and best idea-makers need to go into hostile territory and plant the seeds of doubt in our ideological enemy and the apolitical masses who simply go with the media flow. Our babysitter has an Obama bumper sticker on her car, but admits she knows nothing about politics. How did that happen? It's what the complex tells her to do to be cool. We have to use their media control against them by walking into the lion's den, heads held high, proud of who we are and what we stand for.

The reason the Progressive Socialist Left has their collective claws in our society is because they had infiltrated the culture (talk shows, music, TV, media, movies) and dictated how America should think from there. Then after they won the cultural war (or the war for the hearts and minds of people) then they won the political war. We need to do the same. Andrew was right. By refusing to fight for the attention of young people who suckle at the teat of pop culture, we lose the cultural and then the political war by default.

When I gave my own editorialization of Andrew’s Pragmatic Primer, I said something which we ALL need to take to heart:

Back in 1994 or so I had read a book by InterVarsity Press (a part of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship) entitled Out of the Saltshaker & into the World by Rebecca Manley Pippert. The book deals with evangelism. However, after reading Andrew’s Pragmatic Primer Rule 1, I also thought of this because just as Get out of the Saltshaker dealt with getting out of the church and into the world, what Andrew is saying is our best and brightest conservative minds need to get off of Fox News and conservative talk shows and go on shows like Piers Morgan, Hardball, Meet the Press with David Gregory, The Daily Show with John Stewart, Real Time with Bill Maher, The View, and others to get our word out there. While most of us are not of the caliber to go on those shows, there is one way we can do it. We need to actually go and engage the culture in the malls, the parks, anywhere we can.

When I was involved in InterVarsity Christian Fellowship back in 1993 and 1994, one person would always point to the door before he left the meeting and say “The mission field is right out that door there.” His basis for that was from the Bible where in Isaiah 6:8 God asked “Whom will I send, and who will go for us?” and Isaiah said “Here am I. Send me.” I am here to say that the battlefield for the hearts and minds of Americans, nay, the WORLD, is the Internet as well as right in our own backyards. The question is will you stand on the sidelines and retreat to the safety of Fox News and conservative talk shows, or will you get out there and join in the fight?

Read my entire editorial here. The same question I asked at the end of my editorial in March is just as applicable in October.  Will you stand on the sidelines and retreat to the safety of Fox News and conservative talk shows, or will you get out there and join in the fight?

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