john ensign

                                           It is quite difficult to say who is or isn’t running for the Republican Presidential nomination in 2010. I suspect that Mitt Romney is. By all historic measures he is next in line and current levels of activity make it likely that he is running.  I also suspect that Mississippi’s Governor, Haley Barbour is seriously looking at the nomination. John Ensign of Nevada was running. That is until an extramarital affair of his could no longer be hidden and the secret attempts by his mommy and daddy to pay off his mistress all came to light and put an end to that ridiculous notion. 

Some sectors were already campaigning for South Carolina’s Governor Mark Sanford. With “Draft Sanford” web site’s and rampant prognostications, Sanford was riding a wave of public enthusiasm for a run at the Republican nomination. Then he disappeared from sight for more than 5 days, leaving everyone to wonder what happened to Governor Sanford and where in the world is Mark? The answer to that quickly brought down those “Draft Sanford for President” sites. He was in Argentina with his “soul mate”, a pretty young thing he met some years ago and fell  more in love with her than he was with his wife.

But still riding high as potential candidates in 2010 are Mitt Romney, who trailed McCain in the delegate count in 2008, and Sarah Palin, who McCain chose for Vice President.

Such speculation about Romney can be made out of the level and type of activity that he is wading into.

With his political action committee, Free and Strong America PAC, he is actively involved in critical races throughout the nation, including this years gubernatorial races in New Jersey and Virginia and gaining the favor of future elected officials who will be crucial supporters in the future.

He has also become a part of the National Council for a New America, a group of leaders that include Republicans such as former Florida Governor Jeb, Bush, Congressman Eric Cantor and Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal. This group intends to have a serious national discussion about the challenges facing America, small businesses and working families and they are taking the discussion on the road all across the nation.

Additionally, Romney is bringing in the mother’s milk of political campaigning…….money. His fundraising is constant, consistent and high.

So all are indications that in 2012, Romney will be running for the nomination that he was denied by the Republican establishment in 2008.

As for Sarah Palin, she confused pundits with her surprise resignation as Governor of Alaska and confounded the status quo. Opponents of Palin do not take the reasons she gave for resigning at face value. Instead they claim she is a quitter or that she can’t take the heat. What they neglect to realize is that Sarah Palin is not your average politician. They can’t seem to comprehend that Sarah Palin is genuine. She is a real person with personal beliefs and convictions that are not affected by political ambition, opinion polls or inside the beltway political games. They also fail to realize that Sarah Palin does not live for politics or allow  politics to change her life or principles. To the contrary she stands for her life changing politics.

As such, Sarah Palin made it clear that as a national target of liberal antics geared at attacking her, her agenda for Alaska was being hampered by frivolous legal challenges against every breathe she took, word she muttered and garment she wore. Therefore Sarah Palin decided to circumvent these tactics. Confident that her Lieutenant Governor was dedicated to the agenda that she has taken to this point, she took away the target that hampered its further expeditious advancement . Herself.

Now, no longer an available official government target for the hate-based liberal establishment, Sarah Palin is free and what the left does not realize is that freedom is much more powerful than any government office or liberal government program. With the power of freedom now in her hands, Sarah Palin just might be more of a threat to the left than she ever was and as she uses that freedom, she just might take them on by starting a run for the Republican presidential nomination.

Former Vice Presidents and Vice Presidential nominees don’t always have the best shot at being elected President or at getting their parties presidential nomination.

Al Gore got the nomination in 2000 but lost the election. Lieberman was his VP nominee but failed to get the presidential nomination in 2004.

John Edwards got the VP slot in 2004 but failed to get his parties presidential nomination in ’08.

Before them George H.W. Bush and Richard Nixon before him, where the only contemporary Vice President’s to eventually move on and win their parties nomination for President, in their own right, and then the presidency itself.

In 1984 Jimmy Carter’s vice president, Walter Mondale won the Democrat’s nomination in ‘84 but lost and Bush 41’s vice president, Dan Quayle, fell off the radar before the Iowa Caucuses took place during his brief attempt to win the Republican nomination in 2000.

So vice presidents and vice presidential nominees don’t necessarily have the inside track to their party’s nomination for President and as we look toward 2012, Sarah Palin will not be on the fast track for it either. If she seeks the nomination, she will still be the target of liberal hypocrisy and their fear driven propaganda and attacks and she will have to fight hard and truly earn the nomination amidst a field that will have a number of formidable choices. Only now the left will not be able to bog her down with frivolous and unwarranted government ethics charges and lawsuits.

Now that Palin has just officially resigned as Governor, she could easily enjoin that race and begin to lace up her running shoes for a long marathon to the White House.

It is hard to tell though.

Sarah could be so pissed at those who have tried to destroy her and her family and who have tried to impede progress in Alaska, that she is either fed up and leaving politics for a more civil path for the promotion of her beliefs or she may simply be reloading her ideological guns as she prepares to take aim at the liberal philosophy and its purveyors who have run amuck and now control government.

So far, there are no concrete indications that make it clear either way. At least there are no indications of the likes that we see with Mitt Romney.

But there is one little clue that could be telling.

The domain names sarahpalinforpresident.com and sarahpalin2012 have recently been claimed and registered.

Normally that could simply be the doing of some dreamy eyed, entrepreneurial, get rich quick minded person who figures on selling those domains to Sarah Palin for big bucks if she does make it official.

However a closer look reveals that these two domain names were registered by Jay Griffin of Anchorage Alaska. Where he is from is not half as important as the fact that he is a close confidant of Sarah Palin and that, along with Palin, he is a member of the Alaska Republican Party Central Committee.

Could Griffin be hoping to make some money off of his friend Sarah Palin if she does run for President? Or, is he and his new domain names just the start of a long campaign to evict Barack Obama from the White House and to take back America from the Pelosi/Reid liberal mentality that is currently infecting our government in flu-like fashion?

Odds are that an exploratory committee for that possibility are in the works.

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What is the relationship between these two stories from the Hill? Ted Stevens getting convicted of all counts for, in essence, corruption:

Ted Stevens, the longest-serving Senate Republican in history and patriarch of Alaska politics, was found guilty of all seven felony charges for making false statements.

John Ensign trying to blame John McCain for a disastrous Senate Republican showing:

Nevada Sen. John Ensign, the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, on Monday said John McCain’s presidential run is making Senate races “more difficult” for the GOP.

They reflect a delusionally out-of-touch Senate establishment. On the same day that Ensign's colleague starts the march off to prison, he is blaming the guy who tried to clean up his own party. Could this be more out of touch?

By the way.  What is the job of the NRSC? Torecruit candidates and raise money. We are mostly playing defense. John Kennedy was a good recruit, but we don't have anyone in Arkansas. But how did they do on fundraising? Not so hot: "DSCC doubles NRSC funddraisng ... Again." Or "DSCC crushes NRSC in fundraising."

How about the fact that Congressional Republicans just aren't that popular ... because we haven't changed our ways? The numbers demonstrate abject failure. After all, we have 27% approval, while the Dems have 34%. Oh yeah. And Bush is in the single digits, along with right-track/wrong-track. And we've had 9 straight months of job loss.

Maybe the problem is us. The lesson of this election for Republicans cannot be about John McCain, although he has his faults. It has to be about the establishment and us. Our leaders have lead us astray. It is probably time to find new leaders. Rank and file Republicans get that. That's why the last two guys standing were the farthest from the establishment: John McCain and Mike Huckabee.

Until the establishment in Congress and party accept that they are part of the problem, we are just going to continue to lose more seats and continue to destroy our party and our movement. McCain isn't doing that.

Note: in the first version, I said "indicted" not "convicted" because I desperately need an editor.

John Ensign said a lot yesterday in a very small number of words:

The Senate Republicans' top fundraiser Thursday said he is telling colleagues this is a bad year for members of his party to be up for election.

"I'm telling them if you have an 'R' in front of your name, you better run scared," said Sen. John Ensign of Nevada, chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC). [...]

Mr. Ensign dismissed reports that contributions to the Republicans by disgruntled small donors are down this year. He maintained the party's contributor base is intact. The Republican Party long has boasted that it is the party of small donors while the Democratic Party has had to rely far more on wealthy contributors to finance election campaigns.

He said the Republican Party never suffered a loss in small donors, only a shrinkage in the net amount of money raised - a decline that he said was not the result of small donors being disgusted with excessive Republican spending in Congress but of the party having been mailing "bad" lists that had driven up fundraising costs. That problem has been eliminated, he said.

Well I for one am resting a lot easier now.

Ensign's strange remarks (quoted in the Washington Times above) speak volumes about what's wrong with the right. Ironically, it is not that we are behind technologically but rather that we've become obsessed with it.

That may seem a little off-kilter so let me explain.

In the world of conservative non-profits and Republican campaigns the wrong type of thinking has caught hold, a type of thought that says with enough voter demographic databases and precisely targeted email lists, we can do anything. This school of thought has a close relative which argues that if we just build blogs, create videos, and sync our Twitter and Facebook accounts enough, we'll win the public back to our side.

Unfortunately, politics doesn't work that way. Keeping up with the technological Joneses is actually the bare minimum of what the right should be doing. It takes little strategic vision to insist upon high-technology web sites, well-produced video, or precise mailing lists. All of these things are good things. What we desperately need more of is a return to the public square on the part of the right.

Instead of continually trying to refine Reagan-era political strategy, we ought instead to be creating post-Reagan conservatism, one that rejects the small-bore politics of photo-ops, earmarks (pro and con), and cowering before the press in favor of a 21st century conservatism that realizes politics is done less in the halls of Congress and more in the television and computer screens of the home. A conservatism that isn't silent on technology, the environment, and the global economy.

And how about a conservatism that actually tries to explain itself in language that makes sense to the average person?

That last point is especially critical. Most people don't really care at all about policy. Nor should they. What they do want is to hear today's issues addressed in a reasonable manner by someone who loves the country and its people. With that in place, victory follows. Even with a "bad" mailing list.

Matthew Sheffield is the creator of NewsBusters and executive producer of the fake news show "NewsBusted."