Barbara Boxer isn’t the only California politician with a sense of entitlement.  While she may think she deserves her Senate seat because of all her (self-professed) hard work, another Golden State Democrat thinks she deserves her seat on account of her ethnicity and political affiliation.

Don’t believe me?  Take a look at this video:

So, an election should be decided not based on one’s qualifications to serve and her record in office, but on the fact that she’s a Latina Democrat?!?! Now, there are many fine Latinas in America today, indeed, I’m rooting for one to be the next Governor of the Land of Enchantment, but it’s not her ethnicity which qualifies Susana Martinez to serve.

This video leads John Hinderaker to wonder:

It will be interesting to see whether a single prominent Democrat will denounce, or even distance himself from, Sanchez’s racism. My guess is that the number of Democrats who do so will be zero. If that is the case, what can we conclude about the Democratic Party, historically the party of slavery and Jim Crow?

Meanwhile, Allahpundit asks, “Does she talk this way in front of English-speaking audiences too, counting on her Absolute Moral Authority as a Democrat to shield her from criticism“?

Just as there are many fine Latino candidates, like the next Senator from the Sunshine State, so too are there many fine Vietnamese candidates.  California’s Van Tran (Sanchez’s replacement) appears to be one of them.  You can support his campaign here.

This can’t be good news for the Democrats:

In an Associated Press-GfK Poll this month, 58 percent of independents and 60 percent of Republicans said politics is making them angry, compared with 31 percent of Democrats who said so. About 7 in 10 independents and Republicans were disgusted, compared with 4 in 10 Democrats, and independents and Republicans were likelier than Democrats to be disappointed, depressed and frustrated.

Wonder if this has anything to do with the flurry of legislative activity these past 20 months — with Democrats moving forward on initiatives that most Americans oppose, especially as we’re learning that one such initiative, Obamacare, “is even worse than critics thought“:

Half a year removed from the unprecedented legislative chicanery and backroom dealing that characterized the bill’s passage, we know much more about the bill than we did then. A few of the revelations:

» Obamacare won’t decrease health care costs for the government. According to Medicare’s actuary, it will increase costs. The same is likely to happen for privately funded health care.

Check out the rest at the Washington Examiner.

My gal Carly’s up with her first ad — and she doesn’t pull any punches:

You can donate to Carly’s campaign here.

Having scanned the GOP’s “Pledge to America”” (“House Republicans’ legislative agenda for the next Congress [which] they will formally unveil Thursday morning at a Virginia hardware store“), I am largely satisfied with the direction of the document.  It puts forward a conservative agenda, consistent with the free-market principles the Gipper championed.  (That said, having a lot on my plate this week, I have not had the chance to read it its entirety, merely scanned it.)

Taking the pledge, National Review editors called this document “bolder” than the compact which helped Republican win congressional majorities in 1994:

The Contract with America merely promised to hold votes on popular bills that had been bottled up during decades of Democratic control of the House. The pledge commits Republicans to working toward a broad conservative agenda that, if implemented, would make the federal government significantly smaller, Congress more accountable, and America more prosperous.

Government smaller?  I’m liking it!  I am particularly please that Republicans pledge to “repeal and replace” Obamacare.  (The NR editorial is the best short summary I’ve read so far.)

And like a leftie blogress (who, despite her views, is a great gal), I also took note of one interesting juxtaposition:

We pledge to advance policies that promote greater liberty, wider opportunity, a robust defense, and national economic prosperity.

We pledge to honor families, traditional marriage, life, and the private and faith-based organizations that form the core of our American values.

I like the first line, love it, in fact.  Love the focus on liberty. And while I wish Republican leaders had left marriage out of their “pledge”*, the language of the second line is particularly anodyne, as if they had spent hours hashing over it so they could throw a bone to social conservatives and say something which most people agree with.

Note, the operative verb here is “honor.”  And who doesn’t want to honor traditional marriages?  (A gay marriage advocate, if he really valued the institution he seeks to promote, would honor traditional marriages.  Note what the document doesn’t say, it doesn’t say let’s dishonor nontraditional ones nor (unless I missed it) nor does it say anything about same-sex marriage, though that will be implied to said social conservatives — and even said aforementioned swell leftie blogress who has a much different take on the document than I.)

As if on cue, the Administration responded with their standard means of addressing Republican ideas, “claiming the 21-page ‘Pledge to America’ plan will ‘take America back to the same failed economic policies that caused this recession.’”

Guess, they just couldn’t “resist the temptation to fall back on the same partisanship and pettiness and immaturity that has poisoned our politics for so long.“**

NB:  I will try and print this out today (I am traveling this week) and peruse it at my leisure (if I have any); I’d like to offer a more thoughtful and in-depth analysis.  (Also tweaked the post since its initial publication.)

* (more…)

After spending a day flying across the country, I return to an e-mail box full of political good news. Seems, as I have long forecast, the unhappy Barney Frank is slipping in the polls.  He’s below 50, a danger sign for an incumbent, particularly one who’s been in office for the thirty years.

No wonder he had to call in Bill Clinton.

Ed Morrissey informs us: 

The Sean Bielat campaign has declared themselves within reach of unseating Barney Frank in Massachusetts’ 4th CD, one of the presumed safest districts for Democrats in the nation.  The poll, conducted for the campaign by OnMessage, shows Frank falling below the 50% mark despite the D+14 composition of his constituency.  Bielat comes within nine points, even though the poll shows that he still badly trails in name recognition.

Seems Bielat is getting a lot of support from people who don’t have a clue who he is, save that he’s the person running against Barney.  Morrissey, the CPAC blogger of the year has some good analysis of the race, so read the whole thing.

You can donate to Bielat’s campaign here.

(Morrissey article via Instapundit.)

UPDATE:  Commenting on these numbers, Jimmy LaSalvia, Executive Director of GOProud which has backed Bielat, commented:

We believe strongly that the best thing we can do to protect the jobs of gay workers isn’t to pass new federal laws, but instead to fire one of the men responsible for the financial meltdown that cost millions of Americans their jobs.  GOProud is strongly committed to doing whatever is necessary to help fire Barney Frank!

UP-UPDATE: Brian O’Connor reminds us that Barney’s “last Republican challenger did not even garner 24% of the general election vote.” He breaks down the numbers and contends the Bielat could win this one, particularly given that he’s over 50% with unaffiliated voters, leading the big-spending 15-term Congressman 51-34 among this normally bellwether demographic.

UP-UP-UPDATE:  Heh:  ”HELP ME BILL CLINTON, YOU’RE OUR ONLY HOPE: Barney Frank just blinked, and everyone in Massachusetts knows it.”