ED GILLESPIE AND TOM REYNOLDS JOIN RSLC

Heading into a pivotal year for Republicans at all levels of government, Ed Gillespie, former Republican National Committee Chairman and Counselor to the President, has been named Chairman of the Republican State Leadership Committee (RSLC). The RSLC is the nation’s largest caucus of Republican state leaders – focused on electing Republican Attorneys General, Lieutenant Governors, Secretaries of State and state legislators. Gillespie will provide strategic guidance on political and communication activities – with a particular focus on 2010 political redistricting efforts. In addition, former NY Congressman and National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman (NRCC) Tom Reynolds – who also served in the NY State Assembly – will serve as Vice Chairman and lead the redistricting effort.

“There is a great deal of momentum for Republicans this election year, but momentum alone will not guarantee success.  We are looking at every opportunity to increase and obtain legislative majorities – and Ed Gillespie’s record of winning will help our winning cause,” said Republican State Leadership Committee (RSLC) President Scott Ward. “There is a lot at stake this year because state elections will determine who draws state legislative and Congressional district boundaries after completion of the 2010 census.  These elections will help shape the political landscape for the next decade and we are fortunate to have Ed’s steady leadership guiding us through this election year.”

“Having worked with Ed Gillespie for many years, I know his expertise and insight will be invaluable to state leaders across the country in this vital year for our party and our country,” said Mississippi Governor and Republican Governors Association Chairman Haley Barbour.  “Ed understands what it takes to win as we most recently saw with his guidance in Bob McDonnell’s successful candidacy for Governor of Virginia.  The RGA intends to help elect a lot of Republican governors this year, and with Ed’s leading the RSLC, we’ll have a lot more state legislators to help enact their positive agendas.”

“The elections in the states this year are instrumental in shaping the political landscape to restore fiscal responsibility to Washington for years to come,” said Congressman and NRCC Chairman Pete Sessions.  “With Tom Reynolds leading their efforts to affect redistricting, the RSLC will have a major impact on those critical state races.”

“Having worked in federal and state elections, I understand the importance of the state legislative races in the year before redistricting,” Gillespie said.  “I’m thrilled to be part of the RSLC team, and look forward to a big year in state races across the country.”

Congressman Reynolds will chair the redistricting efforts for the RSLC. Mr. Reynolds, a former NRCC Chairman, will bring his expertise having been a leader in NY redistricting since the early ‘90s.

Ed Gillespie is one of the country’s top communications strategists with a long record of success in business, politics and government.  He most recently served as General Chairman of Bob McDonnell’s victorious campaign for Virginia Governor.  A former Chairman of the Republican National Committee, Gillespie in 2004 became the first GOP chairman in 80 years to preside over his party’s winning the White House, House and Senate. One of a small number of Americans to have had offices in the West Wing of the White House and within steps of the Dome of the US Capitol, Gillespie was a long-time aide to former House Majority Leader Dick Armey. As policy and communications director for the House Republican Conference, he was a principal drafter of the Contract withAmerica, the 1994 campaign platform on which Republicans gained control of the House of Representatives for the first time in 40 years.

Tom Reynolds formerly represented the 26th Congressional District in Upstate New York reaching from the Buffalo suburbs and extending to the western suburbs of Rochester. As chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee from 2003-2007, Mr. Reynolds was one of eight elected leaders of the House Republican Majority Conference.  Before his election to the U.S. Congress, Mr. Reynolds served five terms in the New York State Assembly and was elected the Republican leader from 1995 until 1998.

The Republican State Leadership Committee (RSLC) is the only national organization whose mission is electing Republicans to the office of Attorney General, Lieutenant Governor, Secretary of State and State Legislator. In 2009, Republicans swept all three offices in the Commonwealth of Virginia for the second time in state history and increased the Republican majority by six seats.  In addition, over the last year, Republicans have won 35 special elections for the state legislature from New Hampshire to Washington State and every region of country.  During the 2008 elections, the RSLC helped maintain the number of Republican Attorneys General and Lieutenant Governors; and delivered new Republican majorities in the Montana, Oklahoma and Tennessee state senates, as well as an unprecedented majority in the Tennessee House of Representatives.  The RSLC has over 80,000 donors from all 50 states.

Bottom has fallen out of Coakley’s polls; Democrats prepare to explain defeat in Massachusetts

From: The Washington Examiner

Sometimes candidates and campaigns just catch fire, and sometimes candidates and campaigns become toxic.  It looks like the good people of Massachusetts may be preparing to fire a shot over the bow of the Obama administration and the Democratic Machine that has ruled that state with an iron fist.

You can help Scott Brown by calling anyone you know in Mass and making sure they go vote on January 19.

-DCVaquero

Massachusetts: ‘Bottom has fallen out’ of Coakley’s polls; Dems prepare to explain defeat, protect Obama

By: Byron York Chief Political Correspondent 01/15/10 7:10 AM EST

Here in Massachusetts, as well as in Washington, a growing sense of gloom is setting in among Democrats about the fortunes of Democratic Senate candidate Martha Coakley. “I have heard that in the last two days the bottom has fallen out of her poll numbers,” says one well-connected Democratic strategist. In her own polling, Coakley is said to be around five points behind Republican Scott Brown. “If she’s not six or eight ahead going into the election, all the intensity is on the other side in terms of turnout,” the Democrat says. “So right now, she is destined to lose.”

Intensifying the gloom, the Democrat says, is the fact that the same polls showing Coakley falling behind also show President Obama with a healthy approval rating in the state. “With Obama at 60 percent in Massachusetts, this shouldn’t be happening, but it is,” the Democrat says.

Given those numbers, some Democrats, eager to distance Obama from any electoral failure, are beginning to compare Coakley to Creigh Deeds, the losing Democratic candidate in the Virginia governor’s race last year. Deeds ran such a lackluster campaign, Democrats say, that his defeat could be solely attributed to his own shortcomings, and should not be seen as a referendum on President Obama’s policies or those of the national Democratic party.

The same sort of thinking is emerging in Massachusetts. “This is a Creigh Deeds situation,” the Democrat says. “I don’t think it says that the Obama agenda is a problem. I think it says, 1) that she’s a terrible candidate, 2) that she ran a terrible campaign, 3) that the climate is difficult but she should have been able to overcome it, and 4) that Democrats beware — you better run good campaigns, or you’re going to lose.”

With the election still four days away, Democrats are still hoping that “something could happen” to change the dynamics of the race. But until that thing happens, the situation as it exists today explains Barack Obama’s decision not to travel to Massachusetts to campaign for Coakley. “If the White House thinks she can win, Obama will be there,” the Democrat says. “If they don’t think she can win, he won’t be there.” For national Democrats, the task is now to insulate Obama against any suggestion that a Coakley defeat would be a judgment on the president’s agenda and performance in office.

The private talk among Democrats is also reflected in some public polling on the race. Late Thursday, we learned the results of a Suffolk University poll showing Brown in the lead by four points, 50 percent to 46 percent. That poll showed Obama with a 55 percent approval rating. Also on Thursday, two of Washington’s leading political analysts, Stuart Rothenberg and Charlie Cook, each changed their assessment of the Brown/Coakley race from a narrow advantage for Coakley to a toss-up.

 

Go give a few bucks to Scott Brown for Senate

Go give money to Scott Brown for U.S. Senate in Massachusetts now.  He is carrying the debate for all of us over the next 6 days and the simple fact that his campaign is viable at all is a huge win for the movement.

hurry.

contribute to Scott Brown for Senate link

-DCVaquero

Christmas Blizzard 2009 Rages On.

And we are all stuck inside, I hear some folks are running low on the necessities, we have plenty to last us but aren’t going anywhere for a while.

Shoveling out:

Forecast:

And this great pic from my friend Anne’s Facebook:

We have been watching movies, playing poker and drinking some great local wine from Belle Joli Winery and Vineyards from Belle Fourche, SD

Stay Warm,

-DCVaquero

The Holiday Travel Blues

A lot of folks have been forced to take interesting routes home for the holidays due to winter storms on the east coast and midwest,  L. Camp has an interesting write-up on her trip over at Anchored which includes a footnote about yours truly and the interesting route that took me home.

It had to do with me driving this sweet ride through 2 blizzards:

I got my bag back yesterday and I am back at the Ranch so I can’t complain too much.

Also my new membership in Delta Sky Clubs was clutch to surviving my 10 hour airport delay.

Merry Christmas

-DCVaquero

South Dakota Attorney General Marty Jackley launches 2010 campaign website

South Dakota Attorney General Marty Jackley launches 2010 campaign website:

Newly minted SD AG Marty Jackley has launched an interactive 2010 campaign web presence, the new website contains information about Marty, the campaign, latest news articles, media tools and the ability to connect with the campaign via social networking sites like Facebook.

The Jackley campaign looks to be in a strong position heading in to 2010 with no major opposition announced from either party.  If the environment continues to improve for Republicans  and Jackley continues to strongly position his 2010 campaign he may be able to scare off many potential challengers.

www.martyjackley.com

Washington High Student Faces Expulsion For Having Gun In Car = Stupid

The Vaquero is not happy about this.  Feel good law gone bad, no harm here, move along people.

Sioux Falls Police Officer Sam Clemens sounds really bad here though.  How exactly would another student have “found it” and “had other plans” with it when the shotgun was UNLOADED and LOCKED IN THE TRUNK OF A CAR.

-DCVaqero

KELOLAND.COM – WHS Student Faces Expulsion For Having Gun In Car.

11/20/2009 11:51 AM

WHS Student Faces Expulsion For Having Gun In Car

A Sioux Falls student has been arrested and suspended from school for having a firearm on school property.

Sioux Falls Police were called to Washington High School over the noon-hour after the school’s resource officer discovered a 16-gauge shotgun in the trunk of a student’s car. The 17-year-old student said he had gone pheasant-hunting on opening weekend and forgot he had the gun in his car.

“It’s unfortunate that he forgot he had it with him, but you have to remember the law is there for a reason. It’s there to protect people and he might not of had any intent on using it, but if somebody else found it, they might have some other plans for the weapon” Sioux Falls Police Officer Sam Clemens said.

The shotgun was not loaded, and there was no ammunition in the car. The student was arrested for having a firearm on school property, which calls for a mandatory 12-month expulsion from school.

Bill Smith with the School Falls School District tells KELOLAND News that there is a provision in the law that allows the superintendent to either extend or shorten that 12-month sentence depending on the circumstances.

Jon Wilson
© 2009 KELOLAND TV. All Rights Reserved.

Epic Fail of the day

see more Epic Fails

 

John Thune is Mr. November 2009

My favorite public servant and former employer Senator John Thune (R-SD) seems to be everywhere in the media this week with profile pieces in the New York Times and on CNN.

The common theme through both pieces seems to be that “Thune is what a Republican should be”

I could not agree more.

Best Line from Senator Thune: “How ya like my Buffalo?”

-DCVaquero

November 13, 2009

Op-Ed Columnist

Meet John Thune

By DAVID BROOKS

Some days the Republican Party seems to be going crazy. Its public image is often shaped by people who appear to have gone into government because they saw it as a steppingstone to talk radio.

But deep in the bowels of the G.O.P., there are serious people having quiet conversations. The people holding these conversations created and admired Bob McDonnell’s perfectly executed Virginia gubernatorial campaign. And now as they look to the future of their party, and who might lead it in 2012, the name John Thune keeps popping up.

As you may or may not know, Thune is the junior senator from South Dakota, the man who beat Tom Daschle in an epic campaign five years ago. The first thing everybody knows about him is that he is tall (6 feet 4 inches), tanned (in a prairie, sun-chapped sort of way) and handsome (John McCain jokes that if he had Thune’s face he’d be president right now). If you wanted a Republican with the same general body type and athletic grace as Barack Obama, you’d pick Thune.

The second thing people say about him is that he is unfailingly genial, modest and nice. He grew up in Murdo, S.D., population 612. His father was a Naval aviator in World War II and a genuine war hero. He was called back home after the war to work in the family hardware store and went on to become an educator, as did his wife.

John was a high school basketball star and possesses idyllic small-town manners, like the perfect boy in a Thornton Wilder play. He appears to be untouched by cynicism. In speeches and interviews, he is straightforward, intelligent and earnest. He sometimes seems to have emerged straight into the 21st century from a more wholesome time.

After high school, he attended Biola University, a small Christian college outside of Los Angeles. He then got an M.B.A. from the University of South Dakota and has spent his adult life ascending — as a Congressional staffer, South Dakota Republican Party chairman, the state railroad director, a member of the U.S. House, and now the Senate.

His positions on the issues are unremarkable. He is down-the-line conservative on social, economic and foreign policy matters. What’s notable is the way he talks about the issues and jumps off from them.

He is a gracious and ecumenical legislator, not a combative one. When you ask him to mention authors he likes, he mentions C.S. Lewis and Jeff Shaara, not political polemicists. The first person who told me I had to write a column about Thune was a liberal Democratic senator who really likes the guy.

Thune also possesses the favored Republican profile du jour: conservative at the roots but pragmatic at the surface. Like McDonnell, nobody can question Thune’s conservative bona fides. As a result, he doesn’t have to talk about them. Instead, he prefers to talk about what he calls the “economic cluster” of issues: job creation, balanced budgets and small-business-led growth.

He doesn’t have radical plans to cut the federal leviathan. He just wants to restrain the growth of government to bring deficits down. He doesn’t have ambitions to restructure the tax code. He just wants to lift burdens on small business.

He says his prairie background has given him a preference for small companies and local government. When he criticizes the Democrats, it is for mixing big government with big business: the bailouts of Wall Street, the subsidies to the big auto and energy corporations. His populism is not angry. He doesn’t rail against the malefactors of wealth. But it’s there, a celebration of the small and local over the big and urban.

Republican pros are attracted to Thune because he could rally the hard-core conservatives without scaring away the suburbanites. His weakness is that he’s never really worked outside of government, and he’s almost never shown a maverick side.

At the moment, Republicans are riding an emotional wave. Karl Rove had a piece in Thursday’s Wall Street Journal that captures the mood: Obama is being defined as a liberal. Independents are fleeing. The political tide is shifting.

That overstates things. Obama remains the most talented political figure of the age. After health care passes, he will pivot and pick some fights with his own party over spending. He’ll solidify his standing with independents, and if the economy recovers, he could go into his re-election with as much momentum as Ronald Reagan enjoyed in 1984.

Republicans are still going to have to do root-and-branch renovation if they hope to provide compelling answers to issues like middle-class economic anxiety. But in the meantime, people like Thune offer Republicans a way to connect fiscal discipline with traditional small-town values, a way to tap into rising populism in a manner that is optimistic, uplifting and nice.

Are Carole Pratt and Matt Mansell to blame for Virginia Democratic Delegate Losses?

From On High a blog that I used to watch very closely when I lived in SWVA has an interesting take on the 6th district race and it’s implications.  It has been interesting to watch the debate about Matt Mansell and his last minute decision to pump 90 grand into his mothers failed campaign for Delegate (where she got CRUSHED by 30%) cost the caucus even more seats.

Re-posting below but be sure to visit: From On High

-DCVaquero

Is Carole Pratt responsible for House Democratic losses?

Word on the street is that many members and soon to be former members of the House Democratic Caucus are mad at recently defeated 6th District challenger Carole Pratt and her son, Matt Mansell, who happens to be the campaign director of the House Democratic Caucus.  Apparently they are upset that Matt pumped $90k into his mother’s race, a race in which she got crushed by 30% when there were four Democratic incumbents who lost by 317 votes or less. Obviously they feel that if the money had been spent on the incumbents, the losses may have not been as bad.

Below are the numbers for those losing incumbents.

The question to ask: Who is more responsible for the massive Democratic losses: Creigh Deeds or Carole Pratt?

House 21
R- Ron Villanueva- 7,670 – 49.94%
D- Bobby Mathieson- 7654- 49.84%

House 23
R- Scott Garrett- 10,810- 50.47%
D- Shannon Valentine- 10,600- 49.49%

House 34
R- Barbara Comstock- 11,437- 50.64%
D- Margie Vanderhye- 11,120- 49.24%

House 51
R- Richard Anderson- 7,864- 50.56%
D- Paul Nichols- 7664- 49.27%