Clearing the Browser Tabs – Turning Straw into Gold (Standard) Sunday Edition

Yesterday, the good people of Iowa cast the first (sort of) votes in the 2012 Presidential campaign. If you’ve never heard of the Ames Straw Poll, you can brush up on it thanks to the wonder of Wikipedia. It should be sufficient to know that the whole events exists, so far as I can tell, for two purposes: 1) To give the MSM cover for the campaign narrative it started to build the day candidates began to officially enter the race, and 2) so Iowa can get some attention from at least one political party that it wouldn’t get without the poll.

How did it turn out? Well, about like you’d imagine. Michele Bachmann, who pretty much lives next door, won the day and will use today’s results to build some momentum for the actual primaries. She was followed closely by Ron Paul, whose love for the gold standard and hatred of orbital mind control satellites operated from underground bunkers run by the Gnomes of Zurich has earned him a group of followers so earnest they’d dress up as penguins to vote in the Ross Ice Shelf Straw Poll, finished a close second. Tim Pawlenty came in third and everyone else more or less followed after. There were a couple surprises. Rick Santorum, whose campaign could not have operated with any more anonymity had he shown up in Ames with a paper bag on his head finished a respectable fourth. Michael Barone thinks that’s a loss for the former Senator given how much energy he put into the state over the past month, and I tend to agree. I’m disappointed with Herman Cain’s fifth place finish, just a percentage point behind Santorum. He is clearly the best public speaker of the entire bunch of candidates, Sarah Palin included, and he draws large and enthusiastic crowds. He hasn’t managed to convince anyone, though, that he’s “electable” and I believe that hurts him when it comes time to vote. If we had a system where people could vote for first and second choices, I don’t doubt that Cain would garner enough second-choice votes to win out, but that’s simply not enough. If he’s going to hang around long enough to make a splash, he needs to take a different tack, and soon.

As for Palin, well, she didn’t do so well as a write-in candidate. As I’ve often said, it’d help immensely if she could give the voting public a clue about her intentions. But she hasn’t to this point and I don’t imagine she’ll start tomorrow.

And now, links.

• Ann Althouse decided to film an anti-Scott Walker rally and it didn’t go well. She was not only assaulted by a left-wing Walker-hater but also endured a very misguided and inappropriate lecture from a police officer who also threatened her son with possible arrest. William Jacobsen noted that when the left packed Madison a couple of months ago, the police were very conspicuously absent as well. I guess public sector union members of a feather flock together.
• I’m not at all surprised that the Eric Holder-led Department of Justice, which is up to its ears in trouble with the still-unfolding Operation Fast and Furious scandal, won’t give the family of a murdered officer the status they are due.
• Pity poor President Obama. He’s the most reviled political figure since Martin Luther King. I know…it’s enough to make you cry, or maybe bang your head on your desk a few times until the narcissistic arrogance falls out of your head.
• In a more sane world, some grown adult would walk up to Barack Obama’s buddy Van Jones and punch him square in the mouth for the way he’s exploited children to push his progressive political agenda.
• Let me get this straight. The MSM managed to unearth Rick Perry’s college transcripts days before he even announced his candidacy, but they still haven’t managed to find Barack Obama’s? That’s not journalism, folks. That’s straight-up partisan hackery. Thank goodness that citizen journalists still exist to do the real work that we need reporters to do.
• Chris Muir, whose comic today contains every small business owner’s lament, has one week left in his yearly fundraising drive and he’s very nearly to his goal. It would be very nice if you could not only put him over the top, but give him a little extra pad besides. He’s an immensely-talented artist and as hard a worker as you’ll find anywhere in the artistic community.

Other Posts of Interest:

• Clearing the Browser Tabs – What Palin Should Learn From Breitbart Sunday Edition
• Clearing the Browser Tabs – Pity the MSM Sunday Edition
• Clearing the Browser Tabs – Defending Israel Sunday Edition

Tags: Linky Love

Category: Links