A Republican civil war?

Is a Republican civil war on the horizon? Well, yes, if we get thumped in this election, or even if we just lose it. Duh. We always do that.

Anyway, that's what I wrote about over at FoxPolitics.net today. An excerpt:

After the Slaughter of 2006, we had very little time for mourning our fallen comrades. The barbarians were at the gates, and we had to get the oil boiling.

If 2008 is similar, we’ll have even less time. The walls will have been breached. The tax-crazed liberal hordes streaming into the city, looting whatever they find.

In other words, we’re going to have better things to do than sit around yelling at each other.

Go read the whole thing.

I just voted, and guess what I didn't have to do?

I voted today. Just after lunchtime. It was easy.

Too easy. Gave me ideas. A plan.

I'll come back to that.

Voting early required several very simple steps: go to the clerk's office; fill out a form, requesting an absentee ballot; give them my name and address, and sign both the form and the envelope into which I put my completed ballot.

I thought about just voting straight-ticket, but I didn't. I like filling in the little ovals.

Then I had to seal the envelope, and watch the clerk sign that she'd witnessed me signing.

But I never had to show any I.D. No proof that I was who I said I was. It didn't come up for me, nor for the elderly woman who'd walked in just before me to cast her ballot.

We were already registered, see, so we didn't need I.D. Just fill out the form, sign here and (as Bill Cosby used to say): blammo. We got our ballots.

So. Here's my plan: we request copies of the voter registration lists in our towns. Then we request copies of the voter lists – lists of those who actually voted in the last few elections.

They're public records. It might cost us some money. Could be a lot. On the other hand, in Baraboo, they'll put it all on a CD for you. Last time I checked, it cost ten bucks.

Then we'll compare the two lists. We'll find the names and addresses of people who are registered, but who haven't voted recently. We'll find names and addresses of people who've moved, or who've died. We'll assume that these people aren't going to vote this time around.

Then we'll go to the city clerk's office, claim to be those people, and get absentee ballots. And we'll vote.

And then, on Election Day, we'll drive around to all the different polling places. At each one, we'll say we're this person, or that person. Pick a name from the list. And we'll vote then, too.

Okay, so I won't do that. Not in Baraboo. People know me here – even in a city of 11,000, it's a good bet I'll run into somebody I know: who'll know that I'm not Bob Smith or Jim Jones or Bartholomew McDavidson.

But if I'm getting this going in Baraboo, then one of you can get it going in Ft. Atkinson, or Prairie du Chein, or Onalaska, or Sheboygan. Nobody knows me there. I can be those people, there.

Heck, I'll even be Beatrice Kramer, if that's on the list. Yeah, my name's Betty. My parents had a weird sense of humor, okay? Are…are you making fun of me?

The best part is: nobody can ask us to prove it. We're registered, see. Names are on the list. If we're asked for I.D., we'll politely say we don't have it with us, and why would you even ask?

ARE YOU TRYING TO DISENFRANCHISE ME?

Best part is, it's a win-win. If we don't get caught, we stand a better chance of getting our guys elected. If we do get caught, well, Glenn Reynolds suggested a few days ago: voter fraud by Republicans is probably the only way to get Democrats and the media to take the issue seriously.

Of course, by then it'll be too late. The election will have been well over by the time this all gets hashed out.

Also of course, we could just make one very simple rule change to prevent it. To stop us, before we commit fraud in the first place. We could simply require a photo I.D. – some kind of proof of our identity, no matter where, when, or how we're casting our votes.

We'll bend over backward to make sure everybody has – or can easily get – a photo I.D. As a fiscal conservative, I'm more than willing to spend tax money on that. We'll include some kind of exemption for the extremely small percentage of us whose religion forbids photo I.D., too.

But, c'mon, surely you can see: we've got to be stopped. And the law, as it's written today, won't stop us.

Am I being pessimistic?

I don't feel pessimistic, but everything I write seems pessimistic to me. Take, for example, this colummn over at FoxPolitics.net. I'm just sounding a warning about what will (might?) happen if Democrats gain complete control over the federal and state governments.

I'll skip to the scariest part:

...even that isn’t the worst of it. As the Wall Street Journal put it:

A liberal supermajority would move quickly to impose procedural advantages that could cement Democratic rule for years to come.

They're talking about Congress, but it holds true at the state level, too. With Democrats in complete control, they’ll be able to redistrict – re-draw Wisconsin’s legislative districts – right away.

Usually, that only happens in years ending in a zero. But if Democrats gain complete control, there’s little doubt: they won’t wait. They’ll move right away: re-draw the state’s legislative districts to cement their majorities, no matter how ridiculous their lines have to be.

They’ll do whatever they can, whatever they have to, to hang onto their power. That’ll be dirty. It’ll be cheap. It’ll be no fair. But it will be legal, or they’ll make it legal.

We can live through an Obama presidency - even an Obama presidency with both houses of congress on his side. We can live through two more years (at least) of Governor Doyle and/or Governor Lawton and a liberal majority in Wisconsin's Senate.

But an Obama presidency with a filibuster-proof Senate? A Wisconsin government with the Assembly, Senate, and Governor all controlled by Democrats - and liberal Democrats, at that? They'll enact things we won't ever be rid of.

Democrats Rising: Time to "Go John Galt?"

First things first: let’s not be whiny little liberals.

You know who I'm talking about: those Hollywood lefties who so righteously claimed they’d move to Canada, should that Son of a Bush win a first, then a second term.

He did, they didn’t. Because that would be stupid. Still, they promised. You won’t have us to kick around anymore! And we’ll hold our breath, too!

Yeah. Let's not be them.

Anyway, this year, the tables are turned. The deal isn’t done yet – we do still have to count the votes – but conservatives are beginning to consider life under President Obama. Not just President Obama, but President Obama with a filibuster-proof Senate.

Scary. Scary enough to make us look for the nearest safe haven, except…there isn’t one. Once the U.S. goes socialist, what's left?

Thus, the latest question, posed by blogger Dr. Helen Smith: when is it time to “go John Galt?”

John Galt, the central figure of Ayn Rand’s classic “Atlas Shrugged,” was a brilliant inventor who, along with other high-producing entrepreneurs like him, dropped out of society. Galt created “Galt’s Gulch,” a hidden place where he and other “strikers” began their own capitalist society. "Stopped the motor of the world," to starve out those who lived off their achievements.

Smith writes:

Perhaps the partisan politics we are dealing with now is really just a struggle between those of us who believe in productivity, personal responsibility, and keeping government interference to a minimum, and those who believe in the socialistic policies of taking from others, using the government as a watchdog, and rewarding those who overspend, underwork, or are just plain unproductive.

… Perhaps it is time for those of us who make the money and pay the taxes to take it easy, live on less and let the looters of the world find their own way.

It’s Tom Sowell’s “Grasshopper and the Ants” fable. You know: the grasshopper is lazy, and goes hungry in the winter, while the industrious ants work and prepare and are ready?

In Sowell’s version, the “progressive” ants take the grasshopper in, give him food and shelter despite his own shortcomings. Needless to say, the grasshopper never changes his ways, but the ants – seeing his easy lifestyle – do start changing theirs.

So who’s going to prepare for winter, then? And how long until they start saying "enough!"

There ought to be a point, somewhere, at which we get to say: no. This is mine. I earned it, and you can’t have it. Yes, we want to help those in need. Those who have fallen on hard times. We want to be generous, and charitable, and to share what we have.

But you shouldn’t be able to force us. Not to this extent, and certainly not further. And if you try, we’re outta here.

Yeah, but: we just quit trying? Quit saving, quit investing, quit making things grow?

No. There’s a certain juvenile satisfaction in taking one’s ball and going home, but the kind of people we're talking about are hard-charging high achievers. They're self-starters who won't be happy sitting around hoping Social Security will cover a weekly trip to the diner.

I wouldn't be happy. They certainly won't.

My solution: the Free State Project – the movement to move enough libertarian-minded voters to New Hampshire, so they can effectively (and legally) take over and enact a libertarian-minded government.

True, we wouldn't be able to hide from federal mandates. Obamanation would hold the biggest cards. But we could make our Free State better, relative to the states around us. If the Feds try to smoke us out, well, one in five Americans think states should have the right to secede. So we've got that going for us.

Of course, in that case, I think we'd want more coastline. So let's take over the Pacific Northwest, instead of New Hampshire. More oil over there, and since western Canada tends to be more conservative than eastern Canada, unification with Alaska becomes possible.

Then expand eastward. Get the Dakotas, because we want Mount Rushmore and the Sturgis Bike Rally, and from there take in Wisconsin.

Minnesota we'll leave. We can go around to the north.

Crazy? Maybe. Or maybe genius. Regardless: as our country moves farther and farther along the socialist trail, fewer and fewer of us will be willing to do the work.

And somebody has to. Winter does come.

So easy to be fraudulent

My latest column at FoxPolitics.net is about how you should and should not attempt to register to vote in Wisconsin, especially if you're filling out fraudulent registration forms.

An excerpt:

I downloaded a voter registration form today. Went to the official website, clicked a link, opened a new window, and hit “print.”

A word to the wise: choose the “unshaded” option. It uses less ink.

So I’m all ready now, to register through the mail. Just fill this sucker out and get it to the mailman, postmarked by tomorrow. Wednesday, October 15. That’s the deadline.

I repeat: tomorrow is the deadline, if you want to register through the mail.

And what difference does that make, you ask? Why register through the mail, when you can just register at the polls on Election Day?

Good question. Answer: because if you register at the polls, you have to prove who you are. Register through the mail, and you don’t.

You'll just have to click over and read it yourself to get all the hot tips.

With the campaign slipping away, McCain should tell his story

Twenty-seven days to Election Day, and things are looking down.

National polls have Obama up over John McCain. State-by-state polls – and with them, the Electoral College – are shifting Obamaward.

Opinion on Tuesday’s debate… well, there is some disagreement in the Right-leaning punditsphere, but whether McCain won it by a lot, or a little, or just on points… so what?

McCain doesn’t need to win a debate. He needs to change the storyline. The atmosphere surrounding this campaign. He has to pull out of Dole-like doldrums and increase his appeal, somehow, among those 20% of voters who might still change their minds.

He didn’t do it.

Word around the Rightysphere is: take the gloves off! Talk up Ayers! Talk up Rezko! Talk up Jeremiah Wright!

Talk more about the foreign campaign contributions, and Obama’s relationship with Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. He flew up the ranks in Chicago, for crying out loud! Chicago! How can it be possible that he’s not dirty somehow?

But hang on. You know, we’ve been talking about that already. Talking, and talking, and talking, and…

…if it hasn’t taken root yet, what makes us think it will?

More and more, this election is feeling like 1996. Then, Republicans and conservatives simply couldn't believe that the American public might vote for Bill Clinton, what with all the slimy, unethical, and quite possibly illegal things he did or was involved in and which were constantly being pointed out by Republican and conservative outlets.

But they did. American voters yawned. Near-complete glovelessness on our part didn’t do the trick.

I'm getting the same vibe now. I feel the American public yawning, stretching, and slipping slowly away.

A month ago, I thought things would be different. After McCain’s convention speech, I thought his campaign would be different.

Here’s what I wrote then:

…then McCain began telling us his story. His four-star grandfather, his father who left to fight WWII when McCain was 5; his time as a prisoner of war and the way that experience turned him from a callow young man into someone who understands that there’s something bigger than him…

It occurred to me then: they’re going to run this race on McCain’s story. They don’t want him to sling around a bunch of zingy one-liners. They want everyone to know his story.

As several speakers here have said over the last few days, being a prisoner of war doesn’t qualify you for the Presidency. But, man, surviving that says something about you. Something that garners respect.

The North Vietnamese knew McCain was the son of an Admiral, so they offered to let him go early. He refused.

Are you kidding me? He refused? He chose sleeping on concrete, horrible food, long interrogations that made use of actual torture?

That, instead of heading home to a soft bed, a cold drink, and football on TV?

Yes. Because the prisoners had a "first in, first out" rule. Because McCain knew his captors would use it against his fellow prisoners. He was offered freedom, and he said no.

It’s a powerful story. An inspiring story, and if the McCain campaign needs something right now, it’s inspiration.

“Country First.” It’s not just a slogan. To some, “service” is just a word. Not to John McCain. In tough times, we need a leader who’s stared down even tougher times…and won.

Let's hear those lines. Let’s see those commercials. Let's hear that story, and let’s hear it during every televised football game, baseball game, NASCAR race and primetime show between now and the election.

That's not to say the campaign shouldn't take the gloves off. They most certainly should. Obama shouldn’t get a free pass. But they can point out Obama's shortcomings and tell everybody: this is a guy with honor, who's been through the wringer and come out a stronger man.

Hey, maybe that won’t work. Maybe the election’s too far gone.

But it’ll draw a contrast between the two candidates that no amount of spin can erase.

Shut up and hand over your wallet!

New column at FoxPolitics today: at least one liberal pundit is responding to BadgerCare Plus being $25 million overbudget by...not caring.

An excerpt:

Dave Zweifel makes me wish I was a salesman. Or an auto mechanic, maybe.

Why? Because Zweifel, editor of the Capital Times, doesn’t mind when things cost a lot more than promised.

We all know the story: you buy something – an airline ticket, maybe – expecting it to cost X. But then, as it turns out, it costs more. Added fees, maybe, or taxes, or a bait-and-switch. Whatever. The mechanic says it’ll cost this much to fix your car, but when the time comes, the bill says it’s THIS MUCH.

Hey, there was more to fix than we thought. It took longer. That’s just how it is.

Most of us get mad about stuff like that. Not Zweifel. If it costs more, it costs more, and we should just shut up and pay.

Read the whole thing.

When in doubt, write about football.

The news is full of all kinds of important stuff these days. The presidential election, and the vice presidential debate last night. The housing bubble that turned into a banking bubble that turned into a $700 billion government bailout, the failure-then-passage of which has the stock market swinging more wildly than my kids on a playground after a double-scoop Culver's waffle cone.

Those two things – the election and the bailout – have sucked all the air out of the room these days. Hurricane Ike is so last month, even though they're still cleaning up. Even Iraq and Afghanistan have taken a back seat.

Oh, and there's the Brewers. I don't mean to say baseball is more important than hurricanes and war, of course – it just seems like those topics have been swept (um, I mean shoved) out of the nation's attention span. In Wisconsin, baseball is part of the reason.

Question: if a team just barely makes the playoffs after a 26-year drought and then gets swept right back out of the playoffs, does it really count as having made the playoffs?

Especially when everybody assumes they're losing their two best pitchers next year?

But that's pessimistic, so let's not go there. They're only down two games to none, and coming back to Milwaukee now.

And hey, did you hear? Brett Favre threw six touchdown passes last week against Arizona. Six. He'd never done that before.

Six interceptions in a game. That we've seen. But six touchdowns? No.

Football, if I may be so blasphemous to say, is my refuge. My strength during troubled times. The world can spin and whirl and work itself into a frenzy over a seven-figure pork project snuck onto page 408 (section 243, subsection D.IV.4.viii) of the bailout bill, if the world so desires, without me for a while. Gotta re-juice the tanks, and I don't mean Mandarich-style.

Onward.

Favre's performance brought renewed vitality to the tiresome Rodgers-Favre comparisons – a.k.a. Is-Rodgers-Living-Up-to-the-Favre-Legend Debate – on the Sunday talking head shows. Previously, Rodgers' performance in Games 1 and 2 had placed him well ahead of Favre, at least in statistics.

Following game 4, in which Favre gave thousands of fantasy football players 42 reasons to smile but Rodgers threw 3 interceptions, Favre was regaining his demigod status. He's up to 12 touchdown passes on the season, now. His career high is 39. He's well on his way to breaking that.

Oh, also, his career high in sacks is 40 – set, oddly, in the same year as those 39 touchdowns. He's on pace to tie that record.

Let's not forget: he is playing for the Jets.

Don’t get me wrong: my rooting for Favre in his new shade of green is second only to my rooting for the Packers. I want him to succeed. I want him to throw lots of TD passes. I want him to push, pull, force the Jets into the playoffs through his own sheer will, and I want him to lead a playoff upset over New England, or Indianapolis, or…

…no, wait, I mean Buffalo or Tennessee.

Favre will always be linked with Green Bay. Sure, he's playing in New York right now, probably for reasons related more to his marketability than anything else.

But he'll always be a Packer. When people think of him, they'll think of Green Bay first.

Who did Joe Montana play for? Kansas City, of course. Ken Stabler? Houston. Joe Namath? The L.A. Rams.

Right? Well, yes, at the ends of their careers. But when we think of them, we think San Francisco, Oakland, and New York. That's where they got famous. It'll be the same for Favre.

Thus, his legend belongs to us. And any furtherance of said legend will also belong to us.

Any squandering of his legend due to an ill-advised move to a mediocre team resulting in two years of losing records will…well, it won't ruin his legend. But it won't further it, either.

The legend must be furthered. I have spoken.

The next president will be part of history, while the election's loser will fall into the memory hole. In twenty-five years, the bubbles and the bailout will be remembered, but no better understood. Ike will be forgotten except by those who lived through it. Iraq, Afghanistan, and probably Iran will have become addendums to Max Boot's book "The Savage Wars of Peace."

But Favre will have taken his place alongside Starr, Yount, Montana, Stabler, and Namath. Even non-football fans will know him. And know he's ours.