Perhaps it’s wrong to put too much credence in anything that appears in the Daily Caller but this certainly rings true to me:
[S]kittish rank-and-file members were reassured at a Wednesday night caucus meeting by leadership aides who distributed a National Review editorial praising the “Pledge.” Two high-level Republican sources said that the National Review editorial had been prearranged, however, by Neil Bradley, a top leadership aide* who is close to April Ponnuru, the executive director of the National Review Institute, and Kate O’Beirne, NRI’s president.“It was a political blowjob,” one Republican aide said of the National Review editorial.
Meanwhile Kaplan cuts out the the middle man and has Frank Luntz gush about the “Pledge”.
It doesn’t matter what is actually in the “Pledge”, that is completely irrelevant. You get National Review to praise it, get Kaplan to run a Luntz piece, and bingo, it’s respectable.
asiangrrlMN
Not clicking either link. I just have to say that every time I hear ‘The Pledge’, I think about the virginity pledge–which is about as equally based in reality as is this pledge.
FlipYrWhig
It definitely says something about contemporary conservative/Republican thought that their “rank-and-file” membership cares about having their ideas approved of by their journals of opinion. Rank-and-file Democrats are much more eager to spite and reject the Liberal Media; the New York Times editorial page is the leftmost bound of the opinions they ever care about. (Maybe the blogger conference calls and such suggest that that’s changing.)
Just Some Fuckhead
Pledge makes my wood shine!
burnspbesq
It may not be working, at least here.
Latest LA Times/USC polling results: Brown +5, Boxer +8.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-poll-20100926,0,2807399.story
Steve
It is amusing that Republicans have succeeded over the years in creating a big stigma over earmarks – which really an in consequential issue – and now the base is angry with them because they won’t take a no-earmarks pledge. The reason we get no crossover on bills from Republicans, even the few remaining moderates, is that they’re invariably so successful in demonizing these bills not just as bad policy but as treason and part of a Satanic plot. They totally created this monster.
BR
@burnspbesq:
A large part of that is because of Prop. 19:
http://yeson19.com/
(There’s no enthusiasm gap in CA…now if other states could have similar propositions…)
AhabTRuler
Thank god you read that poorly polished turd, so that I don’t have to.
Because I won’t. Evar.
That being said, what’s the line on Carlson wearing “herpes on his head?” I gotta think he does.
benjoya
“The Daily Caller.” Wasn’t that the predecessor to Friendster or something?
Silver Owl
white conservatives rarely if ever challenge white conservatives. They make excuses and gush for nothing regularly. Been that way for decades now.
Linda Featheringill
So the right-wing publications and their politicians are all part of a circle . . . [what’s the word? I have forgotten it.]
Anyway, they assist each other in the pursuit of happiness.
And Doug is surprised? Such a sweet boy.
Corner Stone
I don’t know about a “political BJ”, but I could..umm…yeah.
eemom
Oh, dear such language. MOST disgusting and pathological. I do hope there are no children present.
I shall forthwith clutch my pearls and repair to the fainting couch.
Yours Disapprovingly,
eemom
eemom
@Corner Stone:
anyone got a magnifying glass?
Violet
Wingnut nepotism is alive and well. April Ponnuru is Ramesh Ponnuru’s wife. Ugh.
Comrade Jake
What does O’Donnell think about this? She’s debating touching herself, isn’t she?
ruemara
Not sure why you’re surprised. Once the initial truthful reaction of mocking is over, inevitably some villager poots out a screed that pretends to have gravitas, it’s picked up by the few powerbrokers in media and suddenly-mockable idea becomes Extremely Serious Brave New Thinking.
LittlePig
When even Gingritch goes “Guys? really?” you know you got nothin’.
They’re gonna One True Scotsman themselves out of any chance.
Yutsano
Did you seriously read that whole Luntz column DougJ? I barely got through half of it before I realized he was using methodology analysis to advance his own agenda. No wonder statisticians don’t get invited to parties.
eemom
ot, but — stick a fork in The Onion. It’s done.
http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/un-to-appoint-earth-contact-for-aliens/story-e6frfku0-1225929498742
DougJ is the business and economics editor for Balloon Juice.
@Yutsano:
I skimmed it for the funny parts, “intellectual heft”, etc.
JPL
Maybe SNL can discuss the Pledge next Saturday. They certainly did a number on O’Donnell.
Mark S.
@DougJ is the business and economics editor for Balloon Juice.:
I don’t know if you still do it, but Frank will be online Monday morning to discuss this piece.
Corner Stone
@eemom:
Why? I didn’t ask anyone to try and find your begotten sense of morality or IQ.
And I wouldn’t let you touch my pen!s with somebody else’s lips on a ten foot pole.
You’re a disgusting example of humanity and a gruntingly obtuse Cape Buffalo of Stupidity(tm).
I’d hate to meet the intensely dense and desperate individual mythically known as “eedad”, because that must be one pathetic motherfucker to agree to sexual congress with a sad sack such as yourself.
JR
If only there were any good videos online of Phil Silvers singing “It’s Legitimate”…
eemom
@Corner Stone:
hmmm……seems I hit a nerve there.
don’t worry Cornie. Everybody knows size doesn’t……um…….
mwhhhaaaahhaaahaaaa
licensed to kill time
On Fox News Sunday, Boehner says “The Pledge is just to lay out the size of the problem; Americans aren’t ready for solutions”.
Nice to know you got none, Boehner. Since we aren’t ready and all.
Yutsano
@licensed to kill time: Maybe he’s trying to weasel his way out of becoming Speaker now that it’s hitting him he might just end up as Speaker and he knows he doesn’t have the huevos for it. Ah who am I kidding he has the self-awareness of a hickory stump.
licensed to kill time
@Yutsano:
Easier to be an oddly colored gadfly than to govern, it’s true.
Linda Featheringill
A bit OT:
From the National Republican Congressional Campaign site:
What is with this? I haven’t heard anything like this.
?Force health insurance companies to modify their plans that currently cover a whole bunch of people?
What?
Or is it fabricated out of thin air?
Yutsano
@Linda Featheringill: It’s misleading. HCR will knock some of the very small health insurers out of the market totally, which makes sense cause you need financial resources in order to offer a wider net of coverage. And the government is only offering so much money in a subsidy plus dictating how much you can spend on administration. Add all that up and it’s easy to see how the small fish will just give up.
eemom
@Yutsano:
how many small fish can there be, though? I thought most of the health insurance market was dominated by whales such as Aetna, BCBS, Unicare, etc.
Anyway I have no doubt they are just twisting some numbers into some grotesque distortion of reality. It’s what they do.
FlipYrWhig
@Linda Featheringill: IMHO it sounds like they’re playing game with the word “lose” so that if your plan gets modified into something else you have “lost” your “current” plan (and also gained a new, better one in the process, but the Republicans don’t want to talk about that).
ETA: Also, as anyone who has ever seen a commercial for a discount store knows well, if you say “up to” you have a license to make up all kinds of things. Save up to 100% on famous-name furniture! You’ll actually save $0 on most items, but 0% is lower than 100%, so it’s technically true!
Sly
@Linda Featheringill:
Most private health plans will have to be revised to reflect the new requirements of the ACA.
The old plans will essentially be “lost,” though not in any way that is meaningful to the policy holders. They won’t have to renegotiate or reapply for anything. I bet that the number of plans that would have to be modified, even in the most trivial manner, cover 117 million people. It’s lying, but not the kind of lying where you just make shit up.
FlipYrWhig
@Sly: Wow, I called it.
Thoroughly Pizzled
@eemom: I think we give The Onion far too little credit. They’re not going to give up so easily.
Linda Featheringill
From The Votemaster, on electoral-vote dot com:
It will be interesting to see how this works out.
I tend to think that votes are local, no matter what the national politics are like. But then, that’s how Democrats think. Maybe we’ll get to see how well the Republican strategy works.
Steve
@Linda Featheringill: Politics remains local. Even in 2006, a huge Democratic wave year, the victorious Democrats concentrated largely on local issues and the specific flaws of their opposition candidates. Campaigns which focused exclusively on the national theme of the “GOP culture of corruption,” like the netroots-supported Francine Busby campaign, didn’t tend to turn out so well.
Even during this cycle, with Democratic unpopularity growing, nationalizing races has worked very poorly for the GOP. The Doug Hoffman candidacy in NY-23 was a perfect example: the guy was perfect at parroting the conservative party line, but he didn’t seem to know anything about the district or the local issues, and even in a traditionally GOP district people didn’t warm to him.
Regardless of how bad Pelosi’s poll numbers look, Republican candidates won’t be able to capitalize on the wave if they can’t offer local voters anything beyond, “My opponent will vote for Pelooooooosi.”
DougJ is the business and economics editor for Balloon Juice.
@Mark S.:
That’s while I teach, but I’ll do what I can.
eemom
@Thoroughly Pizzled:
oh, I meant no disrespect to the dear Onion. I just couldn’t believe that Aussie piece was for real, but it is.
FlipYrWhig
@Steve: The “nationalizing” strategy is kind of interesting to me, because it seems to be based on the idea that you should vote for Local Republican in every individual district even if you think that Republicans in every other district but yours are crazy and awful. It’s as though every local vote has a national significance as a protest vote, but you’re not really supposed to think of your guy as similar to the crazy people in the neighboring district. It’s like the reverse of the usual thinking about how everyone hates Congress as a group but still votes for their local incumbent.
John Bird
What’s in the pledge is the exact same policy they backed in 2008, which is the same policy they backed in 2006, which is the same as 2004, 2002, 2000, etc.
They announced this during the roll-out. I don’t think they meant to, but they did.