Congratulations to Neoneocon, rising from Conservative Blogress Diva Regent to take on the tiara as Grande Conservative Blogress Diva 2012/13.

Joining her in her court will be Sarah Hoyt, as Conservative Blogress Diva Regent and Bookworm as Conservative Blogress Diva in Waiting.

Through the power of her prose and the wisdom of her words, each woman has demonstrated wit, intelligence, strength and confidence enough to command the respect of conservative men–and is thus a diva, as we define one.

May they continue to serve in loyal opposition to a failed presidency  – and to demonstrate that despite the debacle of last November, certain smart and savvy conservative women remain confident about our vision for the country and committed to articulate ideas for real reform.

As I am vacationing with my family, I don’t expect to have too much time to blog this week, so encourage you all to visit the sites of the various blogress divas and vote in the contest, with the ballot below the jump.

Bear in mind that in addition to bestowing the Ethel, for the Grande Conservative Blogress Diva, we  will also be electing the Conservative Blogress Regent, also known as the Agnes (or Endora) and the Conservative Blogress in Waiting or Lucy, each named for a conservative or Republican diva.

• Amy Alkon
• Ann Althouse
• Bookworm
• Tammy Bruce
• Nice Deb
• Emily
• Sarah Hoyt
• Joy McCann
• Michelle Malkin
• neoneocon
• Sara Noble
• Jennifer Rubin
• Dr. Helen Smith
• Sister Toldjah
• Villainous Company (more…)

You may vote once per day.

With apologies for the failure to get to this until today, I hereby announce the nominees for the 2012/13 Grand Conservative Blogress Diva.  Bear in mind that we consider a diva to be a strong, confident woman who commands the respect of men.

And a conservative blogress diva need not be conservative herself, but must command the respect of conservative men.  And I think you’ll agree that the ladies on this list do just that.  And without further ado, here are the 14 nominees for Grand Conservative Blogress Diva with links to their blogs:

• Amy Alkon
• Ann Althouse
• Bookworm
• Tammy Bruce
• Nice Deb
• Emily
• Sarah Hoyt
• Joy McCann
• Michelle Malkin
• neoneocon
• Sara Noble
• Jennifer Rubin
• Dr. Helen Smith
• Sister Toldjah
• Villainous Company

(more…)

Our committee is now tabulating the submissions for the 2012/13 Grande Conservative Blogress Diva Competition. We have received nominations from across the rightosphere for that strong, confident blogress who, by her style and her substance, commands the respect of men.

As in past years, we will be electing not just the Grande Conservative Blogress Diva, also known as the Ethel in honor of the greatest Republican diva of the Twentieth Century, but also a runner-up, the Conservative Blogress Diva Regent, also known as the Agnes or Endora, in honor of another staunchly Republican diva.  If need be, we may honor also elect the Conservative Diva in Waiting, also known as the Lucy in honor of another great Republican of the last century.

Potential nominees include such divas, er, bloggresses, as:

• Ann Althouse
• Bookworm
• Tammy Bruce
• Nice Deb
• Emily
• Sarah Hoyt
• Joy McCann
• Michelle Malkin
• neonecon
• Sara Noble
• Jennifer Rubin
• Dr. Helen Smith
• Villainous Company

Please feel free to nominate one of the above divas in the comments section or via e-mail.

Due to circumstances beyond our control, we were unable to hold the competition last year for the most coveted honor in the right-o-sphere, the title, Grande Conservative Blogress Diva.  As you know we here at GayPatriot define a diva as “a strong, confident woman who commands the respect of men.”

“A conservative blogress diva”, we noted in 2009, “need not be conservative  per se; all she must do command the respect (or have otherwise earned the admiration) of gay conservatives.”  In 2006, I observed that some nominees are

are libertarian. And others, while more centrist, distinguish themselves by their iconoclasm and the manner in which they take on the silliness of certain leftists — and conservative pretenders, i.e., those who, in the words of one of our nominees, “drive . . . liberals nuts.”

Please indicate those blogresses, whom you feel, meet the criteria for Grande Conservative Blogress Diva.

All nominees are, by their very nomination, blogress divas, but only one can wear the coveted tiara belonging to the Ethel, as we call the winner, honoring of the greatest Republican diva of all time.

We will honor the runner-up or runners-up, as the case may be, as Conservative Blogress Diva Regent, also known as the Agnes or Endora in honor of another staunchly Republican diva.

Potential nominees include such divas, er, bloggresses, as:

• Ann Althouse
• Bookworm
• Sarah Hoyt
• Joy McCann
• Michelle Malkin
• neonecon
• Sara Noble
• Jennifer Rubin
• Dr. Helen Smith

Please feel free to nominate one of the above divas in the comments section or via e-mail.  The committee will meet sometime in the next week and present a list of official nominees sometime after our Meatless Mondays steak dinner next Monday.

“Is your soul weary of all these polls?” asks Ann Althouse in a blog post this afternoon, “Do you somehow know something in your subjective, intuitive guts that is never measured in Mr. Silver’s algorithm?”  She seems to be among a small, but perhaps growing consensus of bloggers and pundits to wonder if their “gut hunch” may be a more reliable predictor of tomorrow’s outcome than the polls.

She quotes G.K. Chesteron to suggest that by emphasizing “‘objective’ political facts”, we strain “the soul and significance of politics.”

And perhaps that’s one reason I’m such a fan of Peggy Noonan.  That Athena of pundtiry.  This morning, she asked questions in a similar vein to those Althouse asked:

Who knows what to make of the weighting of the polls and the assumptions as to who will vote? Who knows the depth and breadth of each party’s turnout efforts? Among the wisest words spoken this cycle were by John Dickerson of CBS News and Slate, who said, in a conversation the night before the last presidential debate, that he thought maybe the American people were quietly cooking something up, something we don’t know about.

(Just read the whole thing.)  Peggy took account of things not as clear cut as polling data, of yard signs and enthusiasm. She talked about how confident Romney looks on the campaign trail — and about the crowds he draws.  And how his supporters react to his appearance.

By contrast, she finds that Obama seems “ tired and wan, showing up through sheer self discipline.”

Other observers have offered similar reactions.

As the candidates hit the campaign’s home stretch, Romney does seem more upbeat, more optimistic than Obama.  And that could make all the difference.

Having voted for George W. Bush in 2004 and Barack Obama in 2008, Ann Althouse often serves as a kind of a barometer of the well-educated, high information swing voters are leaning.  Yesterday, she blogged that she had come for Mitt Romney.

This morning, she weighed in on the contrast between Barack Obama asking us to vote for “revenge” and Mitt Romney asking us to vote for love of country, saying it

neatly embodies a reason why I believe Romney will win. He feels like optimism, and Obama — who once owned the word “hope” — seems petulant, divisive, and ungrateful.

Read the whole thing.  (It’s short.)

UPDATE:  Observing Romney’s rally in West Chester, Ohio, Byron York concludes that the Republican “sounds like a winner.“

Conservative Blogress Diva Regent neoneocon finds it significant that fellow blogress diva Ann Althouse has come out for Mitt Romney:

Well, for one thing, Althouse lives in Wisconsin, a swing state. For another, although she is her own very unique self, she also probably represents a political trajectory shared by others who voted for Obama in 2008 and are not doing so in 2012. If so, that’s a good thing—I’d like to see a lot more changers, all around the country but especially in swing states.

Like neoneoocon, I have also been aware that Althouse has been “very hard on Obama for most of his administration.”  And while the Wisconsinite offer hints, as I saw it, that she was moving in Romney’s direction, she did not, until today, commit to Mitt Romney.  Simply put, Obama “lost” her:

Mitt Romney got the nomination, which is what I had been hoping for (after Mitch Daniels decided not to run). It was time to pay attention again to Obama The Candidate, and his campaign centered on vilifying Mitt Romney in the most inane Occupy-Wall-Street style that was completely alienating to me. Romney seamlessly transitioned from being my choice in the primaries to being my presumptive choice for President. I remained open to Obama. Obama could have won me.

Then came Benghazi, and a door closed.

(No wonder the legacy media are giving only limited coverage to this story. (more…)

A few times recently when I was having trouble writing, I scanned Ann Althouse’s blog, both because I enjoy her snark and in order to find some trenchant morsel to cut and paste into a post, linking her and providing fresh material for you.  That diva does have a way with words.

Yesterday, she offered this catchy title to a post, ”Americans Have No Idea How Few Gay People There Are” which included only this tidbit, “Surveys show a shockingly high fraction think a quarter of the country is gay or lesbian, when the reality is that it’s probably less than 2 percent.” Turns out that the words aren’t Althouse’s, but those of Garance Franke-Ruta, a senior editor at The Atlantic:

One in ten. It’s the name of the group that puts on the Reel Affirmations gay and lesbian film festival in Washington, D.C., each year. It’s the percent popularized by the Kinsey Report as the size of the gay male population. And it’s among the most common figures pointed to in popular culture as an estimate of how many people are gay or lesbian.

But what percentage of the population is actually gay or lesbian? With the debate over same-sex marriage again an emerging fault line in American political life, the answer comes as a surprise: A lower number than you might think — and a much, much, much lower one than most Americans believe.

“Such a misunderstanding of the basic demographics of sexual behavior and identity in America”, she adds, “has potentially profound implications for the acceptance of the gay-rights agenda.”  Toward the end of the article, she offers that “gays aren’t the only minority population that has an outsized place in the public imagination.”

Glenn, in linking the article quipped, “That’s because there are so many on TV.” (more…)

Ann Althouse explains why she didn’t read a Jeffrey Rosen, er, Jeffrey Toobin piece in the New Yorker:

I have an interestingness standard, not an it-was-in-The-New-Yorker standard.

Diva.

Ann Althouse linked this earlier today:

Thinking outside the box may solve problems in the real world. But in the political realm, creative noodling will get you cast into the outer darkness. No matter which way you lean, The Machinery requires cogs, not cognizance.

She was talking about Democrats taking Cory Booker, but it relates well to a post on gay marriage/civil unions that I intend to write in the near future.

As usual you can count on blogress diva Ann Althouse for insightful commentary on events of the day.  And she does so again today with her thoughts on gay marriage and the 2012 election.

She agrees with us that Republicans should resist using the same-sex marriage issue against Obama:

The issues in this election should have to do with economics, foreign policy, and the things that fall squarely within a President’s responsibility. Obama has a record here, and he should have to defend it, not distract us with a “social” issue. His actual political policy on same-sex marriage isn’t even different from Romney’s: Leave it to the states. Leave it to the states is a fine — truly excellent — way to package the issue and set it to the side. I would encourage Republicans to do exactly that . . .

Emphasis added.  Just read the whole thing (via Instapundit).

I quibble slightly with Althouse’s spin, and would replace the word “actual” in the highlighted passage above with “effective.”  Romney does favor a constitutional amendment defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman, thus precluding state recognition of same-sex unions.

The reason, however, I would use the word “effective” is that there is no way such an amendment could muster the necessary two-thirds majority in both houses of Congress in order to be sent to the states for ratification — and you need three-quarters of the states to agree to a constitutional amendment.  Ain’t gonna happen.

The only difference between Obama’s policy on gay marriage and Romney’s is rhetorical.  Just words.

So claims Bill Whittle in this insightful video:

First watched it yesterday when reviewing the Watchers’ Council submissions.  Bookworm, a blogress I had read on occasion before being invited to join the Council, submitted the link as her non-Council submission.  If she have a moment, check out her blog.   Since joining the Council, I have read her stuff more frequently and come to appreciate her unique insight into politics.

So claims blogress diva Ann Althouse in her post on one of the Democrat’s many criticisms of Republicans for their Ryan budget:

Obama mocked Romney this way: “He said that he’s ‘very supportive’ of this new budget, and he even called it ‘marvelous’ — which is a word you don’t often hear when it comes to describing a budget.” Comic pause. “It’s a word you don’t often hear generally.”

. . . .

My first association, on hearing one man mock another for saying “marvelous,” was: Gay. It’s an I’m-more-manly move. I heard a smidgeon of homophobia. Perhaps I heard it because, a few days ago, on winning the Wisconsin primary, Romney introduced Ryan, saying: “Congressman Ryan, he’s a great leader, wonderful speaker, but he’s not gonna take Ann’s place.” (Ann being, of course, Mitt’s wife.) At the time, I quipped: “Combatting the ‘bromance’ rumors!”

. . . .

But Romney uttered “marvelous,” the adjective. He was talking about Paul Ryan’s budget, and Obama snickered. Am I wrong to hear a tone of homophobia? (more…)

Seems it’s Happy Friday at diva Ann Althouse’s blog.  She led off this morning at 8:20 AM related Robert Louis Stevenson’s thoughts about the underrated duty of being happy, then 19 minutes later quoted La Rochefoucauld’s quip about happy people rarely correcting their faults (guess that means Bill Maher is one happy fella. Dan, he said, “rarely,” not “never.” –Ed.).

Just six minutes after that, she asked, if there were a “happiness mantra or motto that you’ve found very helpful” and answered with a link of her own.  Later, she referenced a happiness bank before quoting my friend David Boaz to answer the question whether Rick Santorum hates freedom and happiness.  Her next piece led with the quotation, ”I think he showed me a cover of a magazine that said ‘Happiness Is a Warm Gun.’”  She then proceeded to contrast, “Romney’s Religion of Happiness” to “Gingrich’s Religion of Grievance.”

And soon would lament ”The Paradox of Declining Female Happiness.”  As compensation perhaps, she cited a Gallup poll finding “that by almost any measure, people get happier as they get older…”  “Happiness,” she offered in a subsequent post, “is more like knowledge than like belief.”  And listed, “5 Things You Think Will Make You Happy (But Won’t).”

She would soon furnish a clever quip, ”I have told myself a hundred times that I would be happy if I were as stupid as my neighbor, and yet I would want no part of that kind of happiness.”  Finally, she found “the secret of happiness and virtue — liking what you’ve got to do.”

It was most serendipitous that I would linger on Ann’s blog today.  Perhaps the happiness drew me in.   You see, I’ve been re-reading the Odyssey and today revisited Odysseus’s misery on the island of Ogygia, by conventional wisdom a straight man’s paradise, beautiful beaches, distant from the outside world, his wife far away, an eternally youthful and nubile nymph eager to bed him.  And yet when first we see the hero, he suffers terribly amidst all these sensual pleasures, “his sweet life flowing away/with the tears he wept for his foiled journey home”. (more…)

In the wake of slut-gate, David Axelrod has has to put off an appearance on Bill Maher’s HBO show and “comedian Louis CK recently pulled out as entertainer at the Radio-TV Correspondents Dinner.”  In short, the standard some of the left set up to destroy Rush has backfired.

Some might say that Rush himself laid the trap, but Ann Althouse disagrees:

Rush Limbaugh is a media genius, but I don’t think he’s enough of a genius to have laid this trap. It has worked as a trap. By going too far, on one well-chosen occasion — picking on a young woman about sex — he got an immense reaction from Rush haters, who smelled blood and imagined that they could use this incident to drive Rush off the air. In making their strong argument, Rush’s opponents articulated a rule demonizing those who use offensive language to describe a woman.

Pretty much sums it up.  Read the whole thing.

Those who sought to drive Rush off the air were not yet accustomed to the power of a fully armed and operational right-wing blogosphere, able to track down and publicize. left-wing name-calling with just a few keystrokes and compare it to Rush’s language (for which the talker has since apologized) that had caused fainting fits in news rooms and Democratic offices.

If a story on conservatives or Republicans appears in the New York Times, you must first verify it with a more reliable source before you can determine its accuracy.  No wonder a blogress who voted for Obama in 2008 had a bit of fun with a Times article about centrist women’s supposed disenchantment with the GOP.

The old gray lady quoted some woman claiming to have voted for McCain the year Ann Althouse voted for Obama who was so offended by how busy Republicans were telling us how we should act in our bedrooms, that it appears writer Susan Saulny had to whip out the smelling salts to prevent her from fainting.  This supposed McCain supporter getting her news about the GOP not from the candidates themselves, but from the candidates as filtered through such sources as the Times or CNN.

As Althouse reminds us, it’s not the Republicans who started the “ridiculous talk” about contraception:

Of course, Democrats started the conversation, but it was a good conversation to start if the goal was to get some Republicans to say some things that could be used against them. Fortunately, Mitt Romney, the Republican candidate who is going to be the nominee, had the sense not to say much. He was “tepid.” Good! We don’t want the government in our bedroom, so we don’t need a passionate President. Let him stay in his office and coolly and calmly do his job, which shouldn’t have anything to do with sex. He’s not our boyfriend.

Exactly.  Read the whole thing.  Althouse sounds skeptical (about the political affiliation of the women quoted).  And she’s right to be; the Times article does little more than repeat a Democratic talking point.

(If “some” of these women were, as Miss Saulny claimed, “critical of Mr. Romney’s tepid response,” wonder how they feel about Mr. Obama’s non-response to the misogynistic language used by a man who gave $1 million to his Super PAC.)

OH, AND, ONE MORE THING:   (more…)

Last night, after toasting Andrew Breitbart, I enjoyed a number of good conversations with a great variety of right-of-center bloggers, blogresses and blog readers, chief among them, the ever-insightful Joy McCann, AKA Little Miss Attila.  Among the issues we considered were the contraception kerfuffle, the rising price of groceries and the apparent insecurity in the Obama camp.

I speculated that the Democrat’s internal poll show that his support is very soft, that he has a hard core base, perhaps as high as 40% who definitely plan on voting for him eight months hence.  And in the surveys showing him leading his Republican challengers, many of those currently backing the incumbent indicate that they could change their mind.  Listening to Joy,* I began to wonder if the president’s polls have been showing soft support among women, hence the Democrats’ attempt to peddle the dishonest notion of a “Republican War on Women.”

Joy wonders how effective that strategy will be, quoting one of the good “Prof. Reynolds’ readers” who once put it this way, “a Democrat who frightens women cannot win anything. Period.”  In a post today, the good professor expanded on that point, “This is why the Obama Administration is trying so hard to silence its critics. They know they’re going to have problems enough between now and November. They’d rather talk about birth control.”

Among those problems is this sign of an economic slowdown.

* (more…)

Due to an unusually busy December, I have not yet had the chance to finalize the ballot for the most coveted crown in the blogosphere, the diamond tiara bestowed upon that distinguished blogress who commands the respect of gay conservatives, the Grande Conservative Blogress Diva.

Last year, Robin of Berkeley won the coveted tiara with her American Thinker colleague Clarice Feldman joining Neo-neocon in the high-heeled slippers that mark the Regent.

Nominees in that contest included:

• Fausta
• Pam Meister
• Jill of Pundit & Pundette (also at Potluck)
• No Sheeples Here
• Elizabeth Scalia (AKA The Anchoress)
• Ann Althouse
• Sister Toldjah
• Dr. Helen (AKA the Instawife)
• Michelle Malkin
• Tammy Bruce
• Cassy Fiano
• Mary Katherine Ham
• Melissa Clouthier

MeredithAncret nominated http://www.dirtysexandpolitics.com/ but methink she might qualify as a diva herself.  Please feel free to second the above nominees or submit your own either in the comments or in an e-mail.