Carly in California debate: Barbara Boxer is for Big Government

Barbara Boxer vs. Carly Fiorina

Last night’s debate. Carly Fiorina jabbed Barbara Boxer on more taxes, more spending, more regulation, bigger government and environmental extremism.

Dino takes the lead in tight WA State race

48% to 46%

From Eric Dondero:

Fresh poll numbers out of Washington State. Dino Rossi is now ahead of ultra-liberal Democrat incumbent Patty Murray.

From Rasmussen:

The latest Rasmussen Reports statewide telephone survey of Likely Voters in the state shows Republican challenger Dino Rossi attracting 48% of the vote while Democratic Senator Patty Murray earns support from 46%. Three percent (3%) prefer a different candidate, and three percent (3%) are undecided.

Earlier this month, Murray had a slight edge. However, the race has been very close all along.

In related news, a group of top Tea Party activists who had been supporting libertarian-leaning Ron Paul/Sarah Palin endorsed Clint Didier, are now solidly behind Rossi.

A letter was sent out recently with an endorsement. Among the signers: Keli Carender “Liberty Belle”, Jeremy Jason YR State Chair, Dave Kasold National Tea Party newsleter editor, Pat Tarzwell of Resist.net, and our own LibertarianRepublican.net contributor and pro-defense hawk libertarian Steve Beren.

Sabato predicts Lieberman and Nelson will be Kingmakers in the Senate

50 - 50

From Eric Dondero:

Noted political scientist Larry Sabato of Virginia has confirmed what this political blog - Clifford Thies and I, have been saying all along: The Senate is likely to stay Democrat, but only barely, with Independent Joe Lieberman and possibly moderate leaning Dem Ben Nelson, being the decisive votes.

From the Political Wire:

“In the Senate, we now believe the GOP will do a bit better than our long-time prediction of +7 seats. Republicans have an outside shot at winning full control (+10), but are more likely to end up with +8 (or maybe +9, at which point it will be interesting to see how senators such as Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, Ben Nelson of Nebraska, and others react). GOP leaders themselves did not believe such a result was truly possible just a few months ago. If the Republican wave on November 2 is as large as some polls are suggesting it may be, then the surprise on election night could be a full GOP takeover.”

Related… Sabato is predicting a 47 seat gain in the House. Continuing:

Republicans have a good chance to win the House by picking up as many as 47 seats, net…

CNN, out of character, credits Palin with Joe Miller victory

From Eric Dondero:

An out of the ordinary stance for the liberal news network; CNN is actually crediting Sarah Palin for Joe Miller’s surprising victory in the Alaska GOP primary.

From CNN Political Ticker, “Tea Party Express & Palin big winners in Alaska” Aug. 31:

Joe Miller’s the upset winner of the Republican Senate primary in Alaska, but the Tea Party Express and Sarah Palin are also victorious… Miller’s victory is also a big win for Palin.

In early June, the former Alaska governor and the 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee, endorsed Miller, putting out statements on her Facebook page and Twitter feed. In backing Miller, Palin said at that time that there was no “feud or bad blood” between herself and Murkoswki, but their differences have been well-documented. Palin captured the governorship in 2006 after defeating then-Gov. Frank Murkowski, Lisa’s father, in that year’s Republican primary.

In the weekend before the primary, a recording of Palin urging Alaskans to vote for Miller was blasted to Republican voters by robocall across the state.

Many statewide candidates that Palin’s endorsed have done quite well in this year’s Republican primaries. Miller was one of three Palin-backed state-wide candidates running in the August 24 primaries who went onto victory.

Libertarian-Conservative Michelle Malkin backs Christine O’Donnell

From MichelleMalkin.com, “Delaware and the GOP need fresh blood: Christine O’Donnell for Senate” Aug. 30:

I’ve said it before and Republican voters need to hear it again:

Entrenched incumbency is not an argument for more entrenched incumbency.

70-year-old, nine-term House cap-and-taxer GOP Rep. Mike Castle has a challenger. She’s Christine O’Donnell — a young, energetic, fresh-faced conservative activist with a real shot… She’s been traveling the state of Delaware non-stop and reaching out to conservatives across the country for support. I met her on Saturday at a grass-roots gathering of Moms 4 America in Washington, D.C. Castle refuses to debate her and has resorted to sneaking in and out of local GOP meetings to avoid her. He has bagged out on four scheduled GOP primary debates…

The stakes are raised — not just for Delaware, but for the nation — because this is a special election for VP Joe Biden’s Senate seat. The next Senator from Delaware will serve the remaining four years of Biden’s term. Which means he or she will be seated immediately after election and will be in place to vote in any lame duck Senate session.

The primary is September 14. While cap-and-tax, duck-and-hide, nine-term Castle hopes to coast to victory, O’Donnell and her campaign are working non-stop to earn votes and support. She deserves yours.

ChristineODonnell.com.

Delaware race turns nasty: State GOP Chair attacks fellow Republican Christine O’Donnell

From Eric Dondero:

During Alaska’s tough fought GOP primary, State Republican Party Chairman Randy Ruedrich stayed neutral. He put the word out, that the Party would fully back whoever won the primary. This, despite the fact that Ruedrich has had an ongoing feud with Sarah Palin stretching back years. Palin practically recruited Joe Miller to run.

But the State Party Chairman in Delaware is taking a different tack. He is actively supporting one Senate primary candidate over another. Moreover, his criticisms of Christine O’Donnell, Tea Party favorite, have been harsh.

From Fox News “Tea Party Favorite’s Financial Problems Threaten Senate Bid in Delaware” Sept. 1:

There are some people in Delaware who say she talks conservative and lives liberal. I say she talks conservative and lives dysfunctionally,” said Tom Ross, chairman of the Republican Party of Delaware.

Ross said what troubles him most is O’Donnell’s unpaid campaign debt from 2008 and the way she lives off her campaign funds.

Ross said lightning won’t strike in Delaware for the Tea Party Express because O’Donnell’s resume pales in comparison to other successful Tea Party favorites, like Miller, Sharron Angle, who was a state legislator in Nevada, and Rand Paul, who is an ophthalmologist in Kentucky.

“Quite frankly, she has no shot in the primary,” he said. “If she won the primary, it would be an absolute disaster not only for the Republican Party in Delaware but for the Republican Party nationally. You would be giving Joe Biden’s Senate seat to Democrats on a silver platter.”

Libertarian Republican super-journalist Stacy McCain comments The Other McCain:

Yeah, she’s a “long-shot candidate,” just like that Alaska guy I interviewed in early July when he he was still “Joe Who?”

Delaware state GOP chairman Tom Ross is totally sold out for the Castle campaign…

However, it’s estimated Christine would only need 20,000 votes to win the Sept. 14 primary, and I’m betting that there are at least 20,000 Republicans in Delaware who are sick and tired of Tom Ross and his RINO buddy Mke Castle.

Rumor - You didn’t hear this from us: Our friend Stacy McCain may be leaving Anchorage, AK shortly for a quick stop at his Maryland home, kiss the wife, and then hop on an Amtrak for Wilmington.

Business Start-Ups Creating Jobs

A recent report from Tim Kane, a senior fellow at the Kauffman foundation points to business start-ups, which need a confident capital market to really thrive, as the sole source of job creation in this economy. Vivek Wadhwa breaks it down:

Kauffman Senior Fellow Tim Kane analyzed a new data set from the U.S. government, called Business Dynamics Statistics, which provides details about the age and employment of businesses started in the U.S. since 1977.  What this showed was that startups aren’t just an important contributor to job growth: they’re the only thing. Without startups, there would be no net job growth in the U.S. economy. From 1977 to 2005, existing companies were net job destroyers, losing 1 million net jobs per year. In contrast, new businesses in their first year added an average of 3 million jobs annually. [...]

Half of the startups go out of business within five years; but overall they are still the ones that lead the charge in employment creation. Kauffman Foundation analyzed the average employment of all firms as they age from year zero (birth) to year five. When a given cohort of startups reaches age five, its employment level is 80 percent of what it was when it began. In 2000, for example, startups created 3,099,639 jobs. By 2005, the surviving firms had a total employment of 2,412,410, or about 78 percent of the number of jobs that existed when these firms were born.

This should raise some questions about the validity of stimulus job “creation” numbers.

Read Kane’s full report here.

More Environmental “Thumping” This Time Internationally

My colleague Adrian Moore posted a blog entitled “Environmental Activist Groups Get Thumped” based on a Washington Post article on August 30, 2010. 

On the same day, the Washington Times reported that a review of the U.N climate panel called for changes:

 “The U.N.’s embattled climate change panel must make “fundamental changes” to avoid future errors and charges of bias, according to a comprehensive independent review released Monday.

The U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) which has taken the lead in investigating the role of humans in climate change has been under fire since admitting in January that its 2007 report on global warming exaggerated the scope of melting Himalayan glaciers.”

(The IPCC is the panel that shared the Nobel Prize with Al Gore.)

This independent review said; “We found in the summary for policymakers that there were two kinds of errors that came up - one is the kind where they place high confidence in something where there is very little evidence. The other is the kind where you make a statement … with no substantive value, in our judgment.”

On the same day the Washington Times provided an editorial entitled “Global Warming Panel Feels the Heat.”

The editorial opines:
 
“The public already has taken notice of this lack of substance, but don’t expect the IPCC to return its Nobel Peace Prize any time soon. According to a Rasmussen Reports poll released Saturday, more Americans believe natural forces were responsible for “global warming” than buy the story that humans are at fault. This lack of trust is what upset U.N. bureaucrats most. The effort to cook the books has been too obvious. It’s hard to call for new austerity measures, taxes and regulations if nobody believes the headline-grabbing scare stories about melting ice, rising seas and looming disasters.”

Both articles are worth the read.

Sharron Angle on Nevada Unemployment - Who’s the extremist?

NEW AD BY THE SHARRON ANGLE CAMPAIGN

Unemployment skyrocketing in Nevada, now over 14% largely due to big government policies of the Democrats; yet Harry Reid accuses Sharron Angle of being the “extremist”?

OHIO: Two New Polls show John Kasich surging

From Eric Dondero:

Fiscal Hawk John Kasich is pulling comfortably ahead of liberal big union/bureaucrat-friendly incumbent Ted Strickland.

From the liberal-leaning Public Policy Polling:

PPP (D) Ohio Gubernatorial Survey

* John Kasich (R) 50% [43%] (42%)
* Ted Strickland (D) 40% [41%] (37%)

From Rasmussen:

The latest Rasmussen Reports statewide telephone survey of Likely Voters shows Kasich picking up 47% support while Strickland draws the vote from 39%. Seven percent (7%) prefer another candidate in the race while another seven percent (7%) are undecided.