Friday, March 31, 2006

Hail to the Chief or Hail to the King? (strong, principled leadership = king in Feingold's playbook)

The Judiciary committee hearings on Feingold's censure motion against Bush begin.

From the New York Times:

Under Mr. Bush's theory of government, Mr. Feingold said, "we no longer have a constitutional system consisting of three co-equal branches of government. We have a monarchy."

This is unbelievable. Good ole' Russ Feingold basically says GWB is a tyrant for using his wartime powers to spy on Islamic fanatics who want to destroy our way of life. Whether or not you agree with the legality of the acts, Bush did inform congress beforehand and many presidents have also exercised similar powers (George Washington intercepted and opened British mail going in and out of the United States). To call President Bush a monarch for this, when it is really the Supreme Court that has overstepped its constitutional bounds of power, and is the real threat to the division of powers/three branch system of government, is not only laughable, but ignorant and insanely out of line of reasonable discourse and dialogue. Russ, you just don't know how much you're helping the Republicans. Keep going down that path (for our sake) :)

Thursday, March 30, 2006

Faith, values, and compassion in action can unify GOP says the Man from Kansas


Last night, I was privilged to accompany my boss and his closest aide to George Washington Univ. for a speech that he was giving to the College Republicans. I left with them straight from the office and had the privilege to get some insight as to how the senator discusses strategy, his thoughts on the legislative agenda for that day (hot item: immigration) and his preparation for his speech. Who would have thought that a quiet, humble humanitarian farm boy-turned-senator from Kansas could receive so much recognition and applause from D.C. college kids! Sam talked about faith, values and compassion as the unifying and winning themes for the GOP in this election year. AIDS, helping the victims of genocide in Sudan, prison programs, poverty awareness...all of these have been priorities of Sam Brownback's and may be key examples of outreach to all Americans to help stretch out our big tent into a stadium-sized, GOP majority coalition. Sam still has a lot of work to do to get his name out across the country, but this event, like so many others, showed how Sam's humble demeanor and quiet sense of duty gain are slowly but surely gaining him a following heading into the 2008 Iowa caucuses.

Saturday, March 04, 2006

Hangin' with the governors

This past Monday I had the opportunity to volunteer at the Republican Governors Association, the big event that all the GOP governors across the nation attend and major donors. Over $9.6 million was raised at this $1000 a plate dinner for the campaigns of the governors up for re-election later this year. For us volunteers, free food, free alcoholic drinks, and getting up close to President Bush as he gave the keynote address made this night all worth it. Being able to converse with many governors, from Ehrlich of Maryland to Romney of Massachusetts was also a plus (sidenote--I chatted with Gov. Hoeven of North Dakota for 15 minutes before I even knew who he was--he's such a humble, inconspicuous guy! Gov. Mike Huckabee of Ark. also talked to us volunteers for a long time--prez in 2008 anyone?)

This happened to be only the 2nd time in 40 years my home state of Kansas happens to have a Dem. governor in office, but I met and had my pic taken with Matt Blunt of Missouri, the next best thing. And I was recruited to come and work on Jim Talent's re-election campaign this summer. That's going to be fun. God knows that the Republicans are going to need all the help they can get this time around...