The Conservative Reader

In the week leading up to the South Carolina Primary the headline became—and then there were four.   Following the results of Saturday’s vote, it is becoming increasingly clear that the headline going forward will be—and then there were two.

At the heart of the wild ride that this nominating process has been is a reality that Newt Gingrich referenced in his victory speech Saturday night.  The four candidates left are all from different backgrounds and each is giving voice to unique portions of the Republican ideology.  Like most Republicans this cycle, how this cast of characters interplays with my specific political stances has made for a very difficult decision in where to place my support and who to root for.  Here is …

This year was my fourth caucus.  The first time was probably 16 or 20 years ago.  The second time was four years ago, and I got involved in serious party work as a result.  Two years ago I chaired our precinct caucus (after being heavily involved in the planning for the entire county), and had 5 people total attend from our precinct.  This year I assisted John Bloom (former Polk County Republican Chair, and whom I met four years ago at the caucus, and who also writes for The Conservative Reader).  I arrived at 5:30, and helped with setup (including a table for my wife who was representing the Iowa Energy Forum).  I worked with another volunteer manning the Registration table (where people who …

On the whole, politically involved Iowans take their First-In-The-Nation moniker seriously.  But even the most engaged activists have to join with the rest of the state in saying “Thank goodness that’s over!”.

And truly only because being first comes with a significant price.  Christmas/New Year’s with family just gets a little annoying with the phone calls (my dear wife kept score of how many calls we got from each campaign), and the constant, substantively negative, ads on the radio and television.  All of that on top of the fact that many Iowans actually don’t need all of the extra whoop-de-doo because they are already meeting candidates, researching them, talking to their neighbors, weighing their choices.  And many found the assessment particularly difficult, perhaps not deciding …

If a map of Iowa does not appear below, please click here.

Map and data provided courtesy of Google and the Republican Party of Iowa.…

We will have results of tonight’s caucus available here at The Conservative Reader as soon as the information is available from the Republican Party of Iowa.  We will have a Google map setup showing the results in near-real time as results are tabulated starting at 6:00 PM.  Be sure to attend your caucus, then check in with TCR for caucus results tonight and analysis on Wednesday.…

The following comes from the ESPN college football website:

“Florida defensive coordinator Dan Quinn knew the Gators’ locker room wouldn’t be the same as an NFL locker room, because the roster is twice as big — too many people for the same kind of togetherness seen in the NFL. But he wasn’t expecting so much division. ‘The amount of selfishness and separation between different classes was startling. It seemed like we had a fractured bunch at times, for whatever reason,’ said Quinn, who had spent the past 10 years as an assistant coach with four NFL teams. ‘Not a close-knit team.’”

The Florida Gators had another poor season on the college gridiron in 2011. This exceptionally proud football program finished with a six win/six loss …

Caucus Locator Service

First of all, if you live in Iowa and don’t know for sure where your caucus site is located, you’ll want to click this link to find it.  If you still can’t figure it out (don’t be ashamed… it can be challenging) we want to help.  Please email us at caucus2012@theconservativereader.com.  Please include your name, email address and home address (I promise we will not keep this information for any reason).  We will reply as quickly as possible with your caucus location.

Candidates for President

If you haven’t yet taken a look at the candidates, there any number of resources available to do so.  I think it is a good idea, more than anything, to look at the candidates’ web …

It has been difficult to follow the Republican Presidential Campaign this year to the depth that I would like to, partly because of my own time constraints and partly because there is just so much happening all the time.  It seems like every week there is a new bomb-shell to analyze, a new complaint by one campaign about either another campaign or the press, stumbling by candidates on the debate stage or in an interview or just in general campaign failures such as the Virginia debacle.  And the mud contains so much manure that I’m glad I have iTunes to purchase much of my television programming from so I don’t even have to fast-forward past the political ads.  And don’t get me started about the …

That Robert Reich, the esteemed Chancellors Professor of Public Policy at Cal Berkeley, who consistently represents the thinking of the Liberal Left should make comments that are beyond the boundaries of even the most basic notions of established reality is not a surprise. The “causality problem” of Liberal Lefties (the inability to intellectually link – even remotely – any observable effect with its actual root cause) was on special display, however, by Professor Reich in a recent San Francisco Chronicle editorial.  Out of a very large and condensed pile of blundering lunacies embedded in his article, the three that are examined below are representative of some of the most choice.

Reich Comment #1) “For most of the last century, the basic bargain at the heart …