Non-RNC Member Endorsement Watch
National Right to Life has declined to endorse a particular candidate in the race, but has publicly released a glowing letter in praise of Maria Cino… the closest to an endorsement the group will most likely make.
Marc Racicot, Governor of Montana and former RNC Chairman himself, has endorsed Ann Wagner, praising her for her leadership, work ethic, and commitment to “grassroots politics.”
Michael Reagan has endorsed Reince Priebus in the race. Additionally, Priebus has scored two more RNC member endorsements, bringing his frontrunner total to 36.
For whatever it’s worth, conservative bloggers Erick Erickson and Dan Riehl have both endorsed Saul Anuzis in the race, and both named Ann Wagner as their second choice.

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Read it all = a good summary of the state of the RNC race

I cannot support Saul Anuzis because of the National Popular Vote position.

Let’s not indulge in any equivocation: Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s 2008 presidential campaign was a flop. Though he was an early front-runner in national surveys of potential Republican primary voters, Mr. Giuliani placed a distant sixth in the Iowa caucus, fourth in the New Hampshire primary, sixth again in both Michigan and South Carolina and then, finally, a distant third in Florida, a state where he had allocated much of his resources. Mr. Giuliani then dropped out of the race and endorsed John McCain.

Mr. Giuliani may try his luck again, according to the New York Post, which thinks he might be interested in the 2012 race — although Mr. Giuliani himself has worked to tamp down such speculation.

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Rudy will not run but will likely be an Attorney General for whomever beats Obama in 2012.

Now to Tucson, Arizona, where six people are dead and Democrat congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords is seriously injured following another gun rampage. Attacker Jared Lee Loughner has thus far offered no clue at all about why he did it. Apparently the fellow is a drug-using gamer whom one former classmate recalls as “left wing”, a “political radical”, “reclusive”, a “pot head” and “quite liberal”. He’d met Giffords four years ago and thought her “stupid & unintelligent”. Besides that background and Loughner’s MySpace and YouTube rantings, that’s all we have. There’s no “Allahu Akbar” here. Yet – incredibly – many clearly heard a cry of “Allahu Palin”.

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Read it all and why, of course Sarah Palin is easy to demonize

How sick do you have to be to start making political capital out of the killing of six people including a nine-year old girl, long before anyone has the remotest clue what the murderer’s motives were, or his political affiliations, or his state of mind?

Not sick at all, to judge by the response of so many US Tweeters in the immediate aftermath of the Arizona shootings. When you’re a liberal, it seems, cloying sanctimoniousness, grotesque moral posturing, double standards, hypocrisy and cynical, malevolent smearing all come as naturally and healthily as breathing.

As Toby Harnden reports, barely were the bodies cold when the liberal fascists started pointing the finger of blame: it was Sarah Palin’s fault, of course; Sarah Palin’s and Glenn Beck’s and, of course, the Tea Party’s. Definitely not a crazed killing spree by a deeply confused young man, no, sirree. After all, as Rahm Emmanuel would say, you must “never let a crisis go to waste.”

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Read it all

But I also can’t help detecting a desire to make Saturday’s shooting something that it doesn’t seem to be – a chance to say, "See, we told you" to Palin and the Tea Party crowd. Or, as Rep. Raul Grijalva, who represents the district next to Giffords’ in Arizona, put it in an interview with the Nation: "Ms. Palin needs to look at her own behavior." He is far from alone in expressing this sentiment.

This seems unfair. At best, the connection between Palin’s behavior and Saturday’s tragedy is abstract. If anything, the shooting reinforces a point that James Fallows has made: The motives of political assassins rarely have anything to do with mainstream political debate and rhetoric. For now, at least, this seems to be the case with Loughner.

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The Left's hands are not clean.

Remember the rhetoric and President Bush?

The linchpin of Gov. Jerry Brown's budget plan is a June special election in which voters would be asked to extend temporary tax increases on income, purchases and vehicles that are set to expire this year. Placing such a measure on the ballot would require a two-thirds vote of the Legislature, meaning Republican votes are needed.

Assembly GOP leader Connie Conway of Tulare says her caucus won't provide any. "Assembly Republicans stand united as the last line of defense for California taxpayers," she said in a statement. "There are not votes in the Assembly Republican Caucus to place the same tax increases that voters overwhelmingly rejected less than two years ago back on the ballot."

If Conway is right, things just got trickier for Brown.

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If Brown end arounds the Legislature, might he be recalled for malfeasance?

1) Latinos did not constitute 22% of the electorate as reported by the Edison Research exit poll and blabbed along by those who would make the Latino vote look more important than it is (for the record, our two posted references to the 22 % factor, one from a guest columnist, the other a suggestion, are here and here). Latinos accounted for 16% of the vote, just as the better pollsters had predicted (and just 1-point lower than the LA Times/USC poll found after the fact).

2) “Independents” did not account for 27% of the voters, as reported by the exit poll and some pollsters (we name no names) who rely on party identification – a practice Calbuzz can’t fathom when party registration is available. Actual independents, that is, decline-to-state voters, accounted for 17% of the electorate.

These facts, part of the data pulled from the final voter file by Bob Proctor of Statewide Information Systems of Sacramento, are important

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But, Latinos did overwhelmingly vote for J. brown

It is usually several weeks before doctors can fully evaluate cognitive function in a patient who has suffered a gunshot wound to the brain, and the body has a significant capacity to compensate for serious injuries.

Although Ms. Giffords’s ability to follow commands is encouraging, her doctors said that it would take several weeks to know what her recovery would be. That is a caveat that Dr. Flamm well understands. “I can understand the impatience of wanting to know it now,” he said. “But even if I wanted to know and examined her myself, I wouldn’t be able to answer that question at this stage.”

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Read it all

The Tuscon massacre ghouls who are now trying to criminalize conservatism have forced our hand.

They need to be reminded. You need to be reminded.

Confront them. Don’t be cowed into silence.

And don’t let the media whitewash the sins of the hypocritical Left in their naked attempt to suppress the law-abiding, constitutionally-protected, peaceful, vigorous political speech of the Right.

They want to play tu quo que in the middle of a national tragedy? They asked for it. They got it.

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The progressive climate of hate: A comprehensive illustrated primer in 8 parts:

I. PALIN HATE
II. BUSH HATE
III. MISC. TEA PARTY/GOP/ANTI-TRADITIONAL MARRIAGE HATE
IV. ANTI-CONSERVATIVE FEMALE HATE
V. LEFT-WING MOB HATE — campus, anti-war radicals, ACORN, eco-extremists, & unions
VI. OPEN-BORDERS HATE
VII. ANTI-MILITARY HATE
VIII. HATE: CRIMES — the ever-growing Unhinged Mugshot Collection

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Read it all

At 2:00 a.m. on Saturday—about eight hours before he allegedly killed six people and wounded 14, including Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.), in Tucson—Jared Lee Loughner phoned an old and close friend with whom he had gone to high school and college. The friend, Bryce Tierney, was up late watching TV, but he didn't answer the call. When he later checked his voice mail, he heard a simple message from Loughner: "Hey man, it's Jared. Me and you had good times. Peace out. Later."

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Read it all = riveting interview

The budget proposals Gov. Jerry Brown is expected to unveil Monday have had those of us in local government in California holding our breath. Why? Because a key component in his plan to solve the state's structural deficit will rely on a strategy known as "realignment," in which state and local governments swap various funding streams and service responsibilities. The stated aim is to restore local administrative control and stabilize unpredictable revenues.

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Read it all.

Even the Democrat controlled County Board of Supervisors are leary because THEY will have to cut services or raise taxes shifting the blame form the Governor and California Legislature.

More symbolism over substance from Jerry Brown.