“The Left, labor, Democrats, which planned to embarrass” Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, Mike Allen of Politico on MSNBC this morning (as quoted by Jim Geraghty), ”instead have made him a national figure with a very bright future,”  adding “It was money poured down the drain by Democrats and the Left in a presidential election year.”

Indeed.

Wonder if we’ll ever see a tally of the total amount of money the various and sundry public employee unions poured into the Badger State, first to lobby the legislature and organize rallies against Walker’s reforms, then to launch petition drives to recall the state Senators targeted for replacement in 2011, to do the same this year to recall Walker, his Lieutenant Governor and another batch of state Senators, then to campaign for their chosen candidate in this month’s primary and now to campaign against the governor himself in the actual recall election upcoming.

Money spent in those endeavors is money they won’t be able to spend to help hold the Wisconsin Senate seat for the Democrats or to help in other political contests this year.

Meanwhile, in attempting to demonize and destroy Mr. Walker, the unions have made that reformer a Republican hero.  As Ann Althouse writes:

The recall has put Walker in the position where he must advertise and promote himself, which might have been awkward before — and it was never his thing. TV viewers are getting barraged with Walker ads — and almost nothing for his cash-strapped opponent, and we’re tolerating it because he was forced into having to defend himself. What a nice opportunity for him!

Via Instapundit.

UPDATE:   “The bigger problem for unions”, writes 2010 CPAC Blogger of the Year, Ed Morrissey, ”is the display of impotence“:

They have poured millions of dollars into Wisconsin, pushed people into rallies and protests, and wasted valuable man-hours organizing for recall elections and a special election for the state Supreme Court, only to come up empty thus far.  Until now, people feared the impact of unions in elections, and in special elections such as these even more, as they are more easily mastered by superior organization.  However, Walker supporters cast more ballots in the recall primaries than the combined votes of the top two Democrats, just as they did in the race that pitted Supreme Court Justice David Prosser against Joanne Kloppenburg, and in almost every recall race thus far.

North Carolina voters yesterday overwhelmingly approved Amendment One, so adding a provision to the state’s constitution to ban state recognition of same-sex marriages — and even civil unions.  Winning over 60% of the vote, the measure passed in all but seven of the state’s 100 counties, failing only in the Raleigh-Durham area, Charlotte (Mecklenburg County), Asheville (Buncombe County) and Watauga County:

According to FoxNews, “church leaders urged Sunday congregations to vote for the amendment. The Rev. Billy Graham, who at 93 remains influential even though his last crusade was in 2005, was featured in full-page newspaper ads supporting the amendment.”  The church-going population of the Tarheel State seemed thus instrumental in the amendment’s passage.

At least in North Carolina, Americans still define marriage in traditional terms, as the union of one man and one woman.

Interestingly, “more than 500,000 voters had cast their ballot before Tuesday, which was more than the 2008 primary when Obama and Hillary Clinton were fighting for the Democratic presidential nomination.”  And given that the contest for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination was more hotly contested than than for the Republican, a greater proportion of Democrats may well have showed up at the polls yesterday.

Given the high proportional of evangelicals in the state (North Carolina ranks 7th nationally in church attendance), perhaps opponents had little prayer of defeating the measure.  Opponents did seem to have done a better job of reaching out beyond the traditional Democratic interest groups than did their counterparts in California four years ago (but then I write from California not having witnessed the campaign up close).

Demographics apparently worked against amendment opponents.

National opinion polls notwithstanding, while Americans have become increasingly accepting of homosexuality in our culture, all too many are not yet ready to expand the definition of marriage to include same-sex couples.

FROM THE COMMENTS: Kristie takes issue with my title:

I wouldn’t say North Carolinians “overwhelmingly approved Amendment One” considering the fact that out of the 6,296,759 registered voters in the state of NC 4,132,865 of them did not cast a ballot at all. (more…)

At least since Edmund Burke, whom many consider the forerunner of modern conservatism, conservatives believes we must consider the circumstances of any given situation before developing a law, should the circumstances require one, to remedy it.  Burkean conservatives avoid one-size=fits=all solutions and recognize that some laws should change as times change, while others stay the same.  Some strictures remain as valid today as they were in the ancient world, others outdated, belonging quite literally to another era.

“Circumstances,” Burke wrote, “give in reality to every political principle its distinguishing color and discriminating effect.”

A conservative doesn’t change for change’s sake, but he doesn’t impede a change when circumstances require one.  North Carolina’s Amendment One which is today before the voters of the Tarheel State would prevent the state’s General Assembly, its elected legislature, from crafting laws to reflect the changing circumstances of gays and lesbians in that state.

Its defeat would not lead directly to state recognition of same-sex marriage in North Carolina nor even to state recognition of same-sex civil unions, but merely leave both options — and others as well — open to future legislatures.  And bear in mind that every member of those legislatures will be subject to popular election.  All a vote against Amendment One does is keep the issue of same-sex unions open to the elected representatives of North Carolina’s citizens.  Its defeat will not require churches to perform gay weddings.

I urge North Carolina conservatives to hold true to long-standing conservative principles and to vote today against Amendment One.

If I lived in North Carolina, I’d be preparing to vote, “No,” tomorrow on Amendment One. The ballot proposition would not just enshrine the traditional definition of marriage into the Tar Heel State’s constitution, it also “would ban any other type of ‘domestic legal union’ such as civil unions and domestic partnerships.”  Draconian though the amendment is, it does leave some wiggle room to same-sex couples with this language:

This section does not prohibit a private party from entering into contracts with another private party; nor does this section prohibit courts from adjudicating the rights of private parties pursuant to such contracts.

That said, I believe voters should defeat this amendment. It prevents the state’s elected legislature from responding to changing social conditions.

Defeat of the amendment would not lead to state recognition of same-sex marriages — or even same-sex civil unions.  North Carolina would continue to recognize as marriages only unions between one man and one woman.  That definition would just not be part of its constitution; future legislatures (and even the current one) would simply remain free to consider means to provide benefits to same-sex couples.

From what I have read, largely through Pam Spaulding‘s Facebook links, it seems that opponents of Amendment One, have done a far better job than those opposing California’s Prop 8 of enlisting business groups in the campaign against the ballot measure. The Chapel Hill-Carrboro Chamber of Commerce, for example, released this statement last month:

North Carolina’s proposed Amendment 1 is bad for business. It will interfere with employer’s ability to recruit talent and their right to provide competitive benefits to their employees. It also signals to employers and employees that North Carolina is not welcoming to the diverse, creative workforce that we need to compete in the global economy. We should not do anything that diminishes any corporation’s interest in locating or remaining in North Carolina.

Exactly.  A Bank of America executive (B of A is based in Charlotte) feared the amendment, if passed, would have a “disastrous effect“: (more…)

Liz Mair reminded us yesterday of something significant about the New Hampshire House’s rejections of “a bill that would have made their state legislature the first one to repeal” the state’s decision to recognize same-same unions as marriage: the legislature that rejected repeal was overwhelmingly Republican.

Now, to be sure, the GOP leadership did push repeal, but the rank and file did not entirely fall into line. This is pretty significant considering how small the districts are in the Granite State; most representatives know their constituents. They’ll have to deal with them directly when the legislature is not in session (and even when it is). Thus this vote is considerably more significant than a vote in a larger state where legislators contact with their constituents is often filtered through their staff and special interests.

In Liz’s view,

New Hampshire Republicans who voted against repealing gay marriage made the right call. Gay marriage doesn’t represent a threat to any individual liberties so long as robust conscience protections are in place, whereas the repeal of it would undermine a prior expansion of individual liberties (even if civil unions were permitted).

In a post this morning on the bold policy initiatives the governor of New Jersey has been putting forward, Jennifer Rubin looks at how he is handling the contentious issue of state recognition of same-sex marriage:

Take [Chris Christie's] decision to send the issue of gay marriage to the voters. He can read the polls like anyone else. They show in the blue state strong support for gay marriage, so if that’s what the people want, what are state Republicans going to complain about? And, since he is personally opposed to gay marriage (and would lose street cred with elements of the GOP base), he satisfied Republicans by vetoing the legislation, giving conservatives the chance to make their case with the people of New Jersey.

As he said in a CNN interview, “And if the people in New Jersey, as some of the same-sex marriage advocates suggest the polls indicate, are in favor of it, then my position would not be the winning position, but I’m willing to take that risk because I trust the people of the state.” (more…)

Yesterday, in a piece manifesting a misunderstanding of conservatives prevalent on the gay left, Peter Casseis discussed the dilemma facing conservatives in the Sheriff Babeu hullabaloo, given that the story falls at the intersection of “the twin hatreds of gay men and immigrants.”  He then calls the tough-talking conservative “ne of a long line of anti-gay conservative government figures forced out of the closet”.

Seems that for some on the left, a strong advocate for conservative principles must necessarily be (to borrow an inaccurate depiction of another outspoken conservative) “a racist, sexist, homophobe.”

Turns out, however, as Casseis, to his credit, begins to acknowledge (in the second page of his article), that anti-gay sentiment really isn’t a defining issue for many, if not most, conservatives and Tea Party supporters.  Over at Big Journalism, Brandon Darby reports something which comes as little surprise to gay conservatives:  most grassroots activists couldn’t care less about his sexual orientation:

The state’s tea party grassroots continued to see Sheriff Paul Babeu for what he is; namely, a man who has done a good job in the many positions of service he’s held throughout his life and career.

An Associated Press article from February 26^th says it best: Tea Partiers Stick with Outed Gay Sheriff. In the article, members of rural Arizona’s Yavapai Tea Party spoke out on their support for the Sheriff the Left needed to stop. The AP writer quotes 64-year-old Air Force pilot and Tea Party leader Bill Halpin as saying: “I care less. I just care less. Don’t preach it on me. Don’t push it on me and, by golly, I respect your rights.”

Read the whole thing.

Now, this is interesting:

Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich declined Friday to outright reject a new law legalizing same-sex marriage in Washington state, saying if it is approved by voters it will at least be enacted “the right way.”

The former House speaker’s comments came on a visit to the state Capitol where he also met privately with Republican legislators. Washington’s Democratic governor signed the gay marriage bill last week and it will take effect in June unless opponents can gather enough signatures to force a fall referendum.

Gingrich cited the possibility of a public vote in appraising the hot-button issue, noting that judges have authorized same-sex marriage in other places.

“I think at least they’re doing it the right way, which is going through voters, giving them a chance to vote and not having a handful of judges arbitrarily impose their will,” Gingrich said.

Well, actually, Washington State has already done it the “right way”; the elected legislature debated the legislation, voted on it and the elected governor signed the bill into law.

Blog reader and corespondent sonicfrog e-mailed me this story which helps elucidate what it means to be free.  Blogress diva Ann Althouse had linked a report that a gay hair stylist had droped New Mexico governor as client because she opposes same-sex marriage”:

Martinez was recently dropped by her hair stylist, Antonio Darden, who is gay.

Darden told a local news station that he cut the governor’s hair three times, but won’t do it again as long as she continues to oppose gay marriage.

“The governor’s aides called not too long ago, wanting another appointment to come in,” he told KOB-TV. “Because of her stances and her views on this, I told her aides no. They called the next day, asking if I’d changed my mind about taking the governor in and I said no.”

This man has every right to select his own clientele. Too bad he is depriving himself of the opportunity to engage the good governor in a conversation about marriage. Perhaps, while he cut her hair, he could persuade of the merits of state recognition of same-sex unions.

It’s his salon.  They are his services.  He may lose a buck or two.  But that’s his choice.

Yesterday, the Washington State House passed a bill to recognize same-sex marriages, following the action last week of the state Senate.  Governor Christine Gregoire “is expected to sign the measure into law next week.”

This is exactly how states should go about recognizing same-sex relationships, with elected legislators deciding the matter.

Charles Lane penned a great column on the Gipper’s birthday about a reformist in the traditional of Ronald Reagan.  The former editor of the center-left New Republic observed that “The threat to such progressive goals as majority rule, transparent government, a vibrant public sector and equality comes from public-sector unionism“:

Of course, collective bargaining in the public sector is inherently contrary to majority rule. It transfers basic public-policy decisions — namely, the pay and working conditions that taxpayers will offer those who work for them — out of the public square and behind closed doors. Progressive Wisconsin has a robust “open meetings” law covering a wide range of government gatherings except — you guessed it — collective bargaining with municipal or state employees. So much for transparency.

Even worse, to the extent that unions bankroll the campaigns of the officials with whom they will be negotiating — and they often do — they sit on both sides of the table.

Indeed.  And the left-of-center pundit commends Wisconsin’s Republican governor for taking on such unions.  Read the whole thing!

Whenever Republican governors and legislators push right-to-work laws in their various jurisdictions, unions and their Democratic allies become almost apoplectic.  Despite doing their darnedest, Democrats in the Hoosier State couldn’t prevent the elected legislature from making Indiana

. . . the 23rd state to pass anti-union [sic] “right-to-work” legislation on Wednesday and the first in the nation’s manufacturing heartland, dealing a blow to organized labor by allowing workers to opt out of paying union dues.

Indiana’s Republican governor Mitch Daniels signed the legislation into law immediately after it was given final approval in the state Senate, making Indiana the first state to adopt such a measure since Oklahoma did so a decade ago.

Opponents of the legislation may call it “union-busting,” but all the legislation does is give employees to opt out of union representation:

Republican state Senator Carlin Yoder, the bill’s main sponsor, said it would not prevent anyone from joining a union.

“It is simply allowing those individuals to decide for themselves if they want to pay union dues or not,” Yoder said during the floor debate on Wednesday.

What’s wrong with giving workers the choice?  Maybe the Democrats are concerned about filling their campaign coffers.

Via Powerline

Kudos, Governor:

Gov. Chris Christie today nominated an openly gay African-American Republican mayor and an assistant state attorney general to the state’s highest court.

Christie nominated Phil Kwon, who worked under Christie when he was U.S. attorney, and Bruce Harris, who was elected mayor of Chatham Borough in November. Kwon, of Bergen County, would be the first Asian-American to sit on the state Supreme Court.

. . . .

Harris graduated magna cum laude from Amherst College, and with honors from Boston University Graduate School of Management. He earned a law degree from Yale. In addition to serving as mayor of Chatham, he most recently worked at the law firm of Greenberg Traurig and previously at Riker, Danzi, Scherer, Hyland and Perretti.

Impressive that Harris overcame the obstacles of an inferior undergraduate education to achieve what he has.

Earlier today, Dan asked “What’s the Matter With Kansas“?  The answer is, of course: NOTHING.

The same question & answer go for the booming state of North Dakota.  In that case it is ENERGY that is fueling the state’s employment. 

When it comes to creating jobs, North Dakota has found the right formula. The state has the largest percentage increase in employment over the past year and was the fastest of all 50 to recover from the recession.

The reason is simple: energy production.

“North Dakota has been the poster child for what can happen when we unleash free enterprise and allow states to develop and commercialize their resources,” Heritage’s Nick Loris wrote recently on The Foundry. “North Dakota is drilling at record pace.”

The state’s unemployment rate is 3.4 percent, the lowest in the country. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported this week that North Dakota added 17,300 new jobs over the past year, which represented a 4.5 percent increase — the largest in the United States.

Showing them all up: Texas.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

According to Jim Geraghty, the stste’s “unemployment rate is 6.5 percent, more than two percentage points lower than the national average. For what it’s worth, the rate is down two-tenths of a percentage point from last month. Kansas’s unemployment rate has been consistently below the national average, peaking at 7.6 percent in the summer of 2009.”

Guess it must be that conservative “populist movement that has done irreversible harm to the material interests of the common people it professes to love so tenderly“.

Maybe we should ask Thomas Frank what’s the matter with California where unemployment is currently three percentage points higher than the national average.  Democrats have run both houses of the California legislature for the past 14 15 years.  Can’t recall the last time they ran either in the Sunflower State.

Yesterday and today, the conservatives blogosphere has been abuzz about an op-ed a successful former governor of a large swing state penned in the Wall Street Journal.  In the Washington Examiner, noting Republican “unhappiness” with presidential field, Byron York wrote that “there is new speculation focusing on [Jeb] Bush after the former Florida governor turned heads [with his] a campaign-like economic manifesto headlined ‘Capitalism and the Right to Rise.’”

Rush Limbaugh, York reports, loved the piece, quipping that he could have written it himself.

Although Jeb Bush e-mailed Karl Rove saying that he’s not running, Jim Geraghty writes that “among those who thought it was too late for anybody to jump in, but . . . boy, what made Jeb Bush decide to write an op-ed like that for the Journal? He has to know that lots of people will interpret that as a trial balloon for a presidential bid . . .”

Rush is right to praise the editorial.  It’s a nice succinct case for capitalism.  Jeb understands rights.  He understands freedom:

We talk about the right to free speech, the right to bear arms, the right to assembly. The right to rise doesn’t seem like something we should have to protect.

But we do. We have to make it easier for people to do the things that allow them to rise. We have to let them compete. We need to let people fight for business. We need to let people take risks. We need to let people fail. We need to let people suffer the consequences of bad decisions. And we need to let people enjoy the fruits of good decisions, even good luck.

That is what economic freedom looks like. Freedom to succeed as well as to fail, freedom to do something or nothing. People understand this. Freedom of speech, for example, means that we put up with a lot of verbal and visual garbage in order to make sure that individuals have the right to say what needs to be said, even when it is inconvenient or unpopular. We forgive the sacrifices of free speech because we value its blessings.

But when it comes to economic freedom, we are less forgiving of the cycles of growth and loss, of trial and error, and of failure and success that are part of the realities of the marketplace and life itself. (more…)

As she closes out her first year in office, Susana Martinez, the first female governor of the Land of Enchantment enjoys sky-high approval ratings, earning “a 65 percent job approval rating from the people of” her state, up from an initial rating just nine months ago.

This according to a Public Opinion Strategies poll which had Martinez leading Diane Denish 50% to 42% justt before the November 2010 election — within one point of the final result. Independents approve of this free-market loving woman by an over 2-to-1 margin (62/39).

She’s even above water among Democrats 49/44. Oh yea, Governor Martinez is a Republican.

UPDATE:   Forget to mention that the Democratic Whip in the state’s House of Representatives called this proud American woman “the Mexican.“

Even though I voted against Proposition 8 in 2008 and believe that voters should overturn it, I think the state Supreme Court got this one right:

The sponsors of ballot propositions can step in to defend their initiatives from legal challenges if the governor and attorney general refuse to do so, California’s highest court said Thursday in a precedent-setting ruling that could prove pivotal to the future of the state’s same-sex marriage ban and its notoriously vigorous citizens’ initiative process.

Responding to a question from a federal appeals court that is considering the constitutionality of the state’s voter-approved gay marriage ban, the California Supreme Court said the lawmaking power granted to citizens under the state constitution doesn’t end once propositions have been approved or rejected by voters.

. . . .

In the 61-page opinion, the seven justices said denying ballot proposition backers a seat at the table would effectively grant the governor and attorney general veto power over initiatives with which they disagreed, a situation the justices said would undermine the law-making powers California gave voters in 1911.

Emphasis added.  Look, I think the California initiative process has been way overused over the years, but the law is on the books.  And a governor’s refusal to defend a law should not prevent supporters of a popular initiative from defending it on constitutional grounds.  This notion also holds for a domestic partnership law passed by the Wisconsin legislature.

“Although” Maura Dolan reports in the LA Times, “the 9th Circuit is not bound by Thursday’s ruling, the decision makes it less likely that the appeals court would decide Proposition 8’s future on narrow, standing grounds.”

More on this anon (as time allows–other things I want to blog on and working on a non-blog related tedious time-consuming project.

It’s not often we get the chance to endorse one of our own, an openly gay Republican running for legislative office who opposes government solutions to all problems social and economic and supports policies which make it easier for small businesses to flourish, keeping our communities vibrant and creating jobs for our fellow citizens.  Not just that, like my co-blogger, he’s a graduate of Syracuse University, having received his J.D. from its law school.

Alas that this fine man is not running in California, a state which could really use more candidates like him.  Patrick Forrest is running in Virginia which holds its biennial legislative elections one week from today.

A graduate of the Virginia Military Institute and an officer in the Coast Guard, Forrest served until March 2011 in the U.S Department of Homeland Security, working as lead counsel for the federal employment verification program, E-Verify and as Associate Chief at the Office of Legislative Affairs at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. He has also been active in civic affairs, securing appointments to the Fairfax County Public School Board, Business & Community Advisory Council as well as the county’s Textbook Selection Committee.

Concerned about growing congestion in his Northern Virginia district, Forrest wants to conduct “economic impact studies” to determine how best to implement “public-private partnerships“, focusing not just on roads, but also on alternative transportation.  He wants to “encourage and promote innovation and demand absolute transparency from our transportation spending.”

In terms of retaining businesses in the commonwealth, Forrest wants to create “a competitive low tax and smart regulatory system that promotes the entrepreneurial spirit . . . in Northern Virginia“.   (more…)

It’s always fascinating to see how liberals perceive conservatives.  They tend to define us not by our ideas or our most accomplished or eloquent leaders, but by the fringe extremists who cling onto our movement hoping to mean some meaning there.

Yesterday on his eponymous CNN show, Piers Morgan suggested that Tea Party folk harbor some pretty extreme views:

When you see tea party candidates and they are against evolution, climate change, and resolutely so, they think gay marriage is a sin and so on and so on . . . .

Huh? I thought they were primarily concerned about the size of government. If Tea Party critics paid more attention to this phenomenon as it is and not as they imagine it to be, they might realize how diverse are members of the dynamic grassroots movement.

One tea party favorite, U.S. Rep. Renee Ellmers (R-N.C.), announced “this weekend that she opposes a proposed constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage in the state“:

Ellmers said that while she opposes same-sex marriages, she believes the proposed amendment goes too far because it would also ban civil unions.

“Congresswoman Ellmers has always believed that marriage is a sacred institution and is defined as the union between one man and one woman,” Ellmers spokesman Tom Doheny wrote in an email to the Raleigh News & Observer. “That is why she has and will continue to protect and defend marriage at the federal level.

“When asked about civil unions, which are different than marriage, she said that she finds nothing wrong with people being granted them, but at the same time, it is currently a state issue and up to the voters to decide,” Doheny said. (more…)