The Candidate Who Promises This Will Likely Get My Vote

The government needs de-lousing.

The IRS scandal is either the first example of it, or the tip of the iceberg; the first glimpse of a massive amount under the surface. But at least part of the government has been weaponized for the benefit of one party. Given what we have seen before, where much of Foggy Bottom has worked against the foreign policy of Republican Presidents, it is likely that the IRS is not the only part. And you have strange things like the Obama administration pulling in-house the Census Bureau.

I want a candidate who will promise, and then follow through on the promise, to de-louse all of the departments under the Executive branch.

I want every canbinet head to either be, or promise to hire as a deputy, an accomplished prosecutor. We need those skills to dig into what's been going on.I want Trey Gowdy for Attorney General. I want a Trey Gowdy at or near the top of every single department.

I want every department to have, as one of its top priorities, a complete investigation into if there have been any employees engaging in using their position for partisan purposes. Any coordination with outside groups. Any selective leaking. And payoffs or preferential treatment to donors to a particular political party.

I want all of the dirty laundry aired.

I want prosecution of any where there is evidence to merit prosecution.

I want everyone found to have abused power, but not to the level of prosecution, gone. If they cannot be fired, I want a branch office opened in Nome, Alaska with them transferred immediately.

I want no phone or internet service at said office.

Central heating, no. Space heaters, yes.

I want the Census Bureau moved back to where it was.

I want hiring decisions to have, as a key point, intellectual diversity. If a division has employees who have donated exclusively to one party, I want preferential hiring for those who have not donated to that party.

I want the nonsense that has been going on, where one party has tried (and mostly succeeded) at taking over the federal government inside-out for their own purposes, to be corrected.

I want all email and data archival policies reviewed. I want those who weakened them, in Nome. I want 20 year contracts with archival contractors that contractually cannot be canceled for a partial refund.

And I want it immediately, once Obama is out of office.

Which candidate will step up and earn my vote?

In Regards to Erick Erickson on MS and Consequences

Erick, I share so many of your sentiments in your piece. That said... you said, “There must be some consequence. I am just not sure what it should be.”

Must there be? Let’s look at the specifics with Cochran. Undoubtedly, his campaign turned to things detrimental to Republicans and to Republican principles, and he won. He won using the perqs of incumbency. He won with pork both delivered and promised. He won with a boatload of campaign cash. He won by smearing a large section of his party’s voters with lies.

But he barely won. He needed all of that, plus a military background he used to better effect than before, to barely win. He needed all of that, against an opponent who had serious flaws as a candidate, to barely win.

And he is old.

The type of Republicanism he exhibited or represents is on its deathbed in Mississippi. Take away the incumbency, the influence of delivered pork, the campaign cash connections developed over decades, and a candidate-just-like-Cochran loses that primary. Take it all away- because time is going to, relatively quickly. In other words, the battle was lost in Mississippi, but the war there is already won. We will get Senators there more in tune with the voters. All we lost was some time, but time is on our side.

The consolation prize is that we will get a Senator who will help us dislodge Harry Reid. That is not a small thing.

Instead of searching for immediate consequences, why not search for immediate opportunities? While the methods used to bringing black voters into the primary electorate were odious, it does not follow therefore that we must attack them for turning the primary.

My career is now in retail, and the hardest sale to make to a person is always the first one.

The new voters may have believed some lies, but at the same time they pulled the trigger for him knowing he is a Republican and knowing his voting record. Say what you will about Cochran, but he votes with the GOP an overwhelming majority of the time. That shows that the majority of the GOP agenda is not seen as show-stopping to these crossover voters. They weren't voting to help the Democrat win, they were voting to help Cochran-- a Republican-- win. We have first time customers here. Instead of focusing on consequences for those who treated us like crap, let’s focus on converting first time customers into long-term customers.

I follow quite a number of black Republicans and black conservatives, not of the celebrity type. It does not take much talk to realize that they see incredible tone-deafness on the right with regards to how to engage black voters. Bemoaning the crossover voters, who apparently mainly were black, is unlikely to change their perception.

We’ve been handed an opportunity here. Let’s expose the lies that have been told about who we are and for what we stand. Let’s convert some of these new voters. It will not be easy. In fact, the only sale harder to make than the second, is the first. But regardless that it was done at our expense, the first sale was made. Set the record straight, and make the sale. Always be selling. Always be closing.

We will convert only a percentage, but the message that will be sent is a powerful one: we are going to win, and we are going to transcend the lies.

MS: Democrat "Statistically Tied" With McDaniel

From this Politico article:

Within the past two weeks, private Democratic polling has shown that the party’s nominee, former Rep. Travis Childers, would start a general election statistically tied with McDaniel. A race against Cochran, who is well-liked by independents and many Democrats, would be difficult to the point of futility.

A few comments:

• It is generally a mistake to ignore polling data.
• The above is not polling data.

We have no idea of the context of the above. For example:

• When (who?) says they were "statistically tied," what is the margin of error? Were the results at the edge of that range, or towards the center?
• What is meant by "within the past two weeks?" Does that mean one poll in that time showed that, or many? How many polls were conducted that show this statistical tie? Were there others conducted that did not show that?

That is not to say that the race, should McDaniel win the runoff, is not closer now than conventional wisdom suggests. However, when I see reference to private poll data without the poll data being released, I cannot help but wonder if there is a reason that the full results were not being released, even if just the topline data. I don't discard the possibility that what is being leaked is accurate, but I also do not take it at face value.

As is often the case with regards to publicly released poll information, more data is needed to help us truly evaluate where things lay.

Some thoughts on Bergdahl

• It is good that Bergdahl is no longer with the Taliban. He belongs to us.
• Since the administration claims that they needed to move quickly due to Bergdahl's "deteriorating condition," a full, unredacted medical report must be issued, preferably to the public, but at a minimum to Congress.
• If the administration lied about his medical condition and simply ignored the law for whatever purpose, then it clearly has less respect for the law than any previous Presidential administration-- including Nixon's. Not just for this matter, but for this on top of all of the other times they have treated the law as malleable or irrelevant.
• A full military investigation needs to happen expeditiously.
• If Bergdahl deserted, he needs to be subject to a court martial and punished as severely as allowed within the code, especially since men died searching for him.
• If it is found that Bergdahl collaborated with the enemy, he should be executed. Honorable men died for him.

Edited to add:

So, if terrorists we're fighting make it a "war" w "POWs" why is Obama regime still insisting on prosecuting al-Qaeda in civilian court?

— Tammy Bruce (@HeyTammyBruce) June 3, 2014

She's right.