In general, there has been a misallocation of resources by the people who write the checks and hold the purse-strings in Republican politics. Nothing illustrates the disconnect between money and brains in the GOP than a fact highlighted by Jimmie Bise: Charlie Crist raised $4.3 million in a single three-month period of 2009.
The more I think about that, the angrier I get. Who were these more-money-than-brains people who wrote those checks for Crist? Did they just take the word of John Cornyn and Jim Greer that Crist was the man to beat in the Florida GOP Senate primary?
A fool and his money are soon parted, and there are times when the Republican Party resembles nothing so much as a scam for separating rich fools from their money.
For $4.3 million, you could have paid 86 bloggers $50,000 a year.
Related: “Five Bloggers I’d Like To See On FOX News”
In the Related point, I agree with the choices. Catherine Herridge is incisive, fearless and thorough. As far as those guests or contributors I’d like to see gone from Fox, I agree with all of them except for Tamara Holder (curiosity factor….she’s a blurting personal gut-spill waiting to happen. I think Sean Hannity gets Democratic Party insider information from her. (Just a hunch:)
Why would any conservative or libertarian hand ANY money over to Charlie Crist, who always goes against conservative stands on issues?
Blog owners do indeed do the investigative work that ‘professional’ journalists won’t do. For example, Kate has been right on the bit re. the Climate Change scam.
I’d rather have objective minds on my news casts, not bloggers or other partisans pining for different sides.
They’re not talking about reporters, Tim. Some of their punditry class are getting pretty stale.
Speaking of “Not Showing Up to a Riot”.
Why isn’t there entertaining right wing media also? So much money and too much boredom.
tim, there are few TRUE reporters on networks and in print anymore.
The latest from the punditry is that Obama is still in campaign mode re: his campaigning about the “fiscal cliff”. Instead of whining like little bitches they should be out there counter campaigning , running attack ads etc. You know the stuff they didn’t do much of during the election. Instead we get Boehner the orange colored surrender monkey.
Of the five conservative bloggers, four are lawyers or law professors.
I find this kind of cool, but I’m a lawyer. YMMV.
[i]Five Bloggers I’d Like To See On FOX News[/i]
Ann Althouse? Obama voter in 2008, and “persuadable” to vote for Obama in 2012?
Whatever Ann Althouse is, it isn’t a “conservative”.
I can’t disagree with his curbside list. I find the need to have a token “liberal “/ statist annoying and the robotic-response distractions, interruptions and noise takes precious time away from people who have something to say.
The Five is, in my opinion, un-watchable thanks to the chill cast over the atmosphere from the arrogant, bigoted, blowhard, Bob Beckel. At least, they could try using a “liberal” with manners.
Fox’s contrived efforts at “fair and balanced” should be discarded in exchange for simple honesty. Compromise of conservative or libertarian principles with statism in the name of balance is no different than adding dog shit to a milkshake and expecting it to continue to taste like a milkshake.
O’Rielly’s authoritarianism is a major turn-off. The way he treats Stossel is criminal. I pretty much prefer any guest host to Bill.
Shep is pretty much a male bimbo and Cavuto is another annoying interviewer who takes it upon himself to interupt interviewees in the rudest manner so that Neill can do a poor and contrived job of taking the “liberal” position thus shortening the time for more valuable comment. Much of Cavuto’s show time, I spend watching Maria Barturomo on CNBC’s Closing Bell. Not only is she hot, she is a much better interviewer.
John Chittick, O’Reilly keeps adding comedians to his show to maintain his ratings. He talks over EVERYBODY, even Adam Corolla. My current favourite show host is Judge Jeanine; she gets the truth from her guests. Shep is a male bimbo? I’ve always considered him not of this world, as in, alien; thus, I can relate to him.
Speaking of fools, Phil. You apparently MISS or ignore a lot if you think bloggers are *uncritical* cheerleaders. (Read much?)
This highlights yet another way in which Canada is superior to the US, with individual contributions to political parties capped at $1200.00 per annum.
Thanks to Jean Chretien.
This highlights yet another way in which Canada is superior to the US, with individual contributions to political parties capped at $1200.00 per annum.
Less freedom of speech =/= ‘superior’
I would only note, chutzpahticular, that Jeb! hand-picked Charlie Crist for his successor as governor of Florida. And now good ol’ Jeb! is insisting that he is conservative, not centrist. Wouldn’t be the least bit surprised to see the GOP run another Shrub in 2016, if we make it that far. By the way, Jeb! also hand-picked Rubio, which tells me a helluva a lot about him as well…
LAS: It is said that the right to swing your arm stops at the tip of my nose. The beauty of Chretien’s ‘screw you Liberal Party turncoats’ donation cap is that it helps everyone’s voice be heard not just the rich and powerful. In other words the right to speak loudly is limited by the other person’s right to speak just as loudly. I know fair play is a foreign concept to you but then only dummies are libertarians.
I wondered about Althouse too. Her main claim to fame is being linked by Instapundit every day.
4.3 million, bloggers, etc…
I think whether this is a horde of bloggers or whatever, that the overriding point is that the GOP and their donors, do a piss poor job of nurturing the kind of small-time conservative culture types who eventually form, and grow, a culture.
There are constantly looking for the next “heavy hitters”, when they should be funding – not the farm teams – but the 2 bit junior leagues.
They don’t have to spend much money to to to this: sprinkling 1,000 , 5,000 , even 10,000 _grants_ to conservative and libertarian bloggers to cover expenses, for running blog, paying their way to conferences, defraying the costs of some good investigative reporting, what have you, would HUGELY help a lot of the small time guys: like bloggers.
Heck even if 90% of the money was just pissed away on beer fests, it only takes a couple of “perfect” photos, one or two scandals followed with bull-dog like ferocity exposing the opposition’s dirty little secrets, scholarly and philosophical articles on “stuff” that helps other conservatives properly frame their arguments in public for the investment to be a fantastic return on investment.
Much better than blowing millions on some idiot GOP contender du jour.
Frankly, I blame the donors. Instead of blindly giving money to the GOP to piss away, I’d LOVE to see one set up a conservative foundation or such like, perhaps staffed 5-6 small committees of volunteer bloggers whose job it is to give seed grants like this to funny/biting conservative cartoons, other bloggers, etc…
While we’re at it how about starting up a “conservative YouTube” so that as soon as lefty morons complain about some video or whatever for specious reasons, it DOESN’T get taken down.
How about funding a conservative slanted legal defense fund, so when guys like Patterico and Stacy McCain get SWATed, or the like, that the legal cavalry and some investigative beagles can cry havoc and, you know, help a little.
Or a legal defense fund that actively goes after stupid “speech codes” at universities…
“Speaking of fools, Phil. You apparently MISS or ignore a lot if you think bloggers are *uncritical* cheerleaders. (Read much?)
Posted by: chutzpahticular at December 9, 2012 7:47 PM
Oh it reads,chutzpahticulr. It’s the little extra part called “comprehension he never aspired to. After all,ya shr don’t need much of it for OWS.
An amusing comment, coming from a monotone leftist scold.
I guess I missed the part where it was either Republicans or conservatives that gave money to the Crist campaign. Anyone got the list of donors and done the background research to see who they were?
The answer is probably NO.
As much as certain pundits are trying to blame the GOP for being stupid … just take a look at all of the chattering braintrust who are spending all day every day arguing that instead of actually being responsible … the SMART thing would be to be exactly like the enemy.
The choice that needs to be made is whether elected officials are paid to WORK or paid to PLAY at politics.
We all know where liberals stand on that matter.
In other words the right to speak loudly is limited by the other person’s right to speak just as loudly.
No it’s not. You don’t have a right to be ‘heard’, only to speak.
Mark Matis, what is wrong with Rubio?
I agree with LAS here.
nv53: I’m glad you agree with LAS because it simply shows you are both wrong. Here is a prime example. Darrel Katz financed the PC election here in Alberta. He donated almost 1/2 a million dollars to get Redfraud elected. Redfraud now owes Mr Katz a favour. What does Mr Katz want? Oh how about a 1/2 a BILLION dollar hockey arena for his NHL team!
If we dig a little farther we can see that the reason the Liberals remained in power for all those years was because Power Corp financed it to such an extent that the LPC became a wholly owned subsidiary of Power Corp. PM Harper is the first PM in decades not to have direct ties to Power Corp.
Now maybe you and LAS love living in an ‘liberal’ elitist oligarchy where only the monied voices count. I don’t.
There is no correlation between money spent and the ability to win elections. Campaign finance regulations just make it harder for insurgents to get into the system. Your beloved rules would have made life harder for Reform and the WRA.
Of course there is no correlation LAS. It is pure coincidence that the election after donating limits kicked in the Conservatives began winning. Truth be told you, being Liberal, prefer to have only the voice of the rich and famous be heard. After all can’t have the riff raff speak. It is embarrassing to hear them explain the facts of life when it is so much nicer to live in a figment of your own imagining.