Pollster Scott Rasmussen Reviews Carl Paladino As N.Y. Gubernatorial Candidate

The following is part of an  article by pollster Scott Rasmussen  written in the New York Daily News:

“The Tea Party movement, which propelled (Carl) Paladino’s primary victory, is real and vastly underrated as an electoral force. That’s just as true in New York as it is around the country. And the Tea Party effort that won Paladino the nomination was much less about him than it was a rejection of the status quo.

It’s true that the Empire State is deep blue politically, and that only 16% of New York voters consider themselves members of the Tea Party movement.

But there are millions of disaffected Republicans, independents and Democrats in this state. And New York voters are evenly divided as to whether the Tea Party is good or bad for America.

Two-thirds (68%) of the state’s voters say that it would be better for the state to have most incumbent state legislators voted out of office; that means we can expect some surprises in November.

Roughly half (52%) of New York voters say that neither the Democratic nor the Republican party leaders have a good understanding of what is needed today.

Just 27% say their own representative in Congress is the best possible person for the job. And only 28% of voters in the Empire State feel that most members of Congress care what their constituents think.

An overwhelming 70% of New York voters believe that the primary purpose of Town Hall meetings is for members of Congress to listen rather than speak.

These figures make it clear why Paladino’s overwhelming victory in the primary against former Congressman Rick Lazio should not be considered too much of a surprise.

It’s the same “Mad as Hell” response we’ve seen all across the country. (Yes, that’s a plug for my new book about the Tea Party movement, penned with Doug Schoen). While the political elites have dismissed the movement, several Tea Party candidates are poised to enter the U.S. Senate next year.

Paladino has fashioned his campaign around the movement’s core themes of anger, reform and anti-incumbency. He rails against government excess and literally says he is “mad as hell.”

Those themes will tap into a well of anger and frustration that is built on, but goes well beyond, what the Tea Party stands for.

Another potential plus for Paladino is that prominent members of the New York political establishment from both parties, such as Ed Koch, Carl McCall and Alphonse D’Amato, have come together to call him unfit and unqualified for office. They wrote an open letter claiming that “anger overcame reason and enabled a fringe element to choose the Republican nominee. The end result was the selection of Mr. Paladino, a divisive figure simply not fit to lead this great state.”

Yet, the political establishment in New York – Democrat and Republican alike – as an institution has been sufficiently discredited that such efforts to denounce Paladino from all sides could very well help enhance his appeal to an already angry and frustrated electorate.

Wake up and smell the tea. The fact that he is not tied to current policies and politicians is one of Paladino’s greatest assets. The very things that have made Paladino radioactive with the political class – his attacks on political elites like Sheldon Silver, Pataki and D’Amato, and his impolitic statements on a wide range of subjects – could well be appealing to voters at large, demonstrating his willingness to say what he believes no matter what the political consequence is.

Moreover, there is a broad-based desire in New York to elect candidates who are fiscally prudent and not tied to current policies.

If Americans are broadly concerned about taxes, spending and borrowing, New Yorkers — who have one of the highest state and local tax burdens, and who send far more to Washington than they get back — have reason to be especially concerned.

And if Americans are widely frustrated with what they see as government’s unresponsiveness to their problems, New York — with a famously dysfunctional and out-of-touch legislature — is in some ways the poster child for this problem.

So rather than being surprised that the Tea Party is reaching into the Northeast, we might wonder why it has taken so long to get here in force.

Paladino’s call to cut taxes by 10% in the first six months of his administration and to cut spending and the size of government by 20% in his first year sound extreme to the elites. The reality of imposing such cuts is uncertain. But one thing’s for sure: The desire for them is consistent with the mood of many voters.

This is not to say that Paladino will win the election. The odds are heavily against that and the candidate brings some of his own baggage to the table. But his self-funded campaign is almost certain to provide some awkward moments for Cuomo. After all, Cuomo is a quintessential political insider in a year when political experience of any type is more of a negative than a positive. The awkward moments will be a reflection of the widespread political mood rather than an expression of support for Paladino.

And, even if he falls short in November, the forces that helped Paladino win the Republican nomination could produce some other surprises across the state, and around the country, on Nov. 2. Stay tuned.”

Comment:  I have seen a few video clips of Mr. Paladino.  I don’t think anyone needs to worry about the man’s intentions and beliefs…….or having anything but a very stern and serious mode  when presenting them.  

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Jennifer Rubin at Commentary Compares Republicans and Democrats As Losers

And what she reports here  is so very true!!

“Some liberal commentators assure us they mean “no disrespect.” Others don’t even bother. They tell us Americans are confused or crazy, racist or irrational. Maybe all of these. The left punditocracy is in full meltdown, irate at the voters and annoyed at Obama. The contrast to the aftermath of the 2008 election is instructive.

After the across-the-board defeats in 2008, conservative pundits didn’t rail at the voters. You didn’t see the right blogosphere go after the voters as irrational (How could they elect someone so unqualified? They’ve gone bonkers!) with the venom that the left now displays. Instead, there was a healthy debate — what was wrong with the Republican Party and with the conservative movement more generally? We had a somewhat artificial debate between traditionalists and reformers. If anything, the anger was directly (unfairly, in my mind) against George W. Bush (whose tax cuts even many Democrats now want to extend, and whose strategy in Iraq allowed Obama to withdrawal troops in victory), and to the hapless McCain campaign (which spent the final days of the campaign ragging on its VP nominee).

This is yet another confirmation that the right and left look at America – and Americans – quite differently. The leftists view their countrymen as in dire need of supervision — by elites like them, of course. Americans are not competent to make decisions on their own, and left to their own devices,  will run amok. Wall Streeters are greedy, New Yorkers are xenophobes, and the rest of us are Bible- and gun-huggers. And here we go again — acting out and acting up. Obama, the poor dear, just can’t talk sense to us.

When things go wrong for the left, it blames the people; when things go wrong for the right, it blames the governing elites. It is not in the nature of conservatives to demean and attack fellow citizens. To the contrary, conservatives’ vision is grounded in the belief that Americans are competent, decent, and hardworking, and it is the heavy hand of government that threatens to squelch American virtues.

As a practical matter, this enables conservatives to deal more constructively with political adversity. After the mandatory circular firing squad, they generally get down to the business of rethinking and remodeling their agenda and looking for better leaders. (And occasionally, they get lucky with a Carter or Obama to open the door for a conservative resurgence). It’s neither appropriate nor productive to blame the voters. The left had better get out of its funk quickly, or the 2012 temper tantrum will make today’s bellyaching look mild.”

The Importance of Reading A Flake, Nicholas D. Kristof of the New York Times

One of the best  known flakes writing opinion for the New York Times, is long time flake, Nicholas D. Kristof, author of the piece I have included below……..the piece that bares witness to the truth of this statement just written.  Otherwise, dear reader, you might think I am acting like a lefty….. name calling.                   

                  PLEASE READ THIS NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF PIECE TO THE VERY END!!

It’s title:  “Message to Muslims.  I’m Sorry.”  It was printed in the New York Times.

“Many Americans have suggested that more moderate Muslims should stand up to extremists, speak out for tolerance, and apologize for sins committed by their brethen.

That’s reasonable advice, and as a moderate myself, I’m going to take it. (Throat clearing.) I hereby apologize to Muslims for the wave of bigotry and simple nuttiness that has lately been directed at you. The venom on the airwaves, equating Muslims with terrorists, should embarrass us more than you. Muslims are one of the last minorities in the United States that it is still possible to demean openly, and I apologize for the slurs. I’m inspired by another journalistic apology. The Portland Press Herald in Maine published an innocuous front-page article and photo a week ago about 3,000 local Muslims praying together to mark the end of Ramadan. Readers were upset, because publication coincided with the ninth anniversary of 9/11, and they deluged the paper with protests.

 So the newspaper published a groveling front-page apology for being too respectful of Muslims. “We sincerely apologize,” wrote the editor and publisher, Richard Connor, and he added: “we erred by at least not offering balance to the story and its prominent position on the front page.” As a blog by James Poniewozik of Time paraphrased it: “Sorry for Portraying Muslims as Human.”

 I called Mr. Connor, and he seems like a nice guy. Surely his front page isn’t reserved for stories about Bad Muslims, with articles about Good Muslims going inside. Must coverage of law-abiding Muslims be “balanced” by a discussion of Muslim terrorists?

 Ah, balance — who can be against that? But should reporting of Pope Benedict’s trip to Britain be “balanced” by a discussion of Catholic terrorists in Ireland? And what about journalism itself?

 I interrupt this discussion of peaceful journalism in Maine to provide some “balance.” Journalists can also be terrorists, murderers and rapists. For example, radio journalists in Rwanda promoted genocide.

 I apologize to Muslims for another reason. This isn’t about them, but about us. I want to defend Muslims from intolerance, but I also want to defend America against extremists engineering a spasm of religious hatred.

 Granted, the reason for the nastiness isn’t hard to understand. Extremist Muslims have led to fear and repugnance toward Islam as a whole. Threats by Muslim crazies just in the last few days forced a Seattle cartoonist, Molly Norris, to go into hiding after she drew a cartoon about Muhammad that went viral.

 And then there’s 9/11. When I recently compared today’s prejudice toward Muslims to the historical bigotry toward Catholics, Mormons, Jews and Asian-Americans, many readers protested that it was a false parallel. As one, Carla, put it on my blog: “Catholics and Jews did not come here and kill thousands of people.”

 That’s true, but Japanese did attack Pearl Harbor and in the end killed far more Americans than Al Qaeda ever did. Consumed by our fears, we lumped together anyone of Japanese ancestry and rounded them up in internment camps. The threat was real, but so were the hysteria and the overreaction.

 Radicals tend to empower radicals, creating a gulf of mutual misunderstanding and anger. Many Americans believe that Osama bin Laden is representative of Muslims, and many Afghans believe that the Rev. Terry Jones (who talked about burning Korans) is representative of Christians.

 Many Americans honestly believe that Muslims are prone to violence, but humans are too complicated and diverse to lump into groups that we form invidious conclusions about. We’ve mostly learned that about blacks, Jews and other groups that suffered historic discrimination, but it’s still O.K. to make sweeping statements about “Muslims” as an undifferentiated mass.

 In my travels, I’ve seen some of the worst of Islam: theocratic mullahs oppressing people in Iran; girls kept out of school in Afghanistan in the name of religion; girls subjected to genital mutilation in Africa in the name of Islam; warlords in Yemen and Sudan who wield AK-47s and claim to be doing God’s bidding.

 But I’ve also seen the exact opposite: Muslim aid workers in Afghanistan who risk their lives to educate girls; a Pakistani imam who shelters rape victims; Muslim leaders who campaign against female genital mutilation and note that it is not really an Islamic practice; Pakistani Muslims who stand up for oppressed Christians and Hindus; and above all, the innumerable Muslim aid workers in Congo, Darfur, Bangladesh and so many other parts of the world who are inspired by the Koran to risk their lives to help others. Those Muslims have helped keep me alive, and they set a standard of compassion, peacefulness and altruism that we should all emulate.

 I’m sickened when I hear such gentle souls lumped in with Qaeda terrorists, and when I hear the faith they hold sacred excoriated and mocked. To them and to others smeared, I apologize.”

Comment:  I shall write little here except the following:  Such drivel needs to be recorded.  I have done so here at the Minnesota Prager blog.  It will remain here to help you better understand how confused some of the American Leftist  excuse makers for Muslim plotters and terrorists really are. 

It is likely Mr. Kristof means well. 

However, he does not  think well on this Muslim matter. 

He has some problems with moral  equivalents.  He has some problems with truth and exaggeration.   He has some problems with simple understandings……of history…..of cultural realities which are general throughout much of the Muslim world, including some basic tenets inherent  from this very flawed text written by the Arab warrior, Mohammed in the 7th Century. 

He has forgotten to mention that the vast majority of victims of Muslim terrorism thus far have been innocent Muslims.

I wonder if Mr. Kristof were around the New York Times as an opinion reporter in August, 1939, if he would he have written an apology to the German Third Reich for all the criticism made by all those anti-German bigots in press and politics,  even being led by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt himself?   Many excoriated the beliefs of the Nazis, too. 

Most Germans weren’t terrorists at all…..and certainly weren’t Nazis.    Some were  nurses and aid workers who helped people.  Nazi  officials  invested in organizing German Bunds in the United States, so Americans would get to know and like Germans better.

Like so many Muslims, Nazis didn’t like Jews either.  Mr. Kristof is mum on this point.

In truth…….

….the leftist Nicholas Kristofs of that day would indeed have written such  opinion pieces a little later in 1939,  when Hitler and Stalin agreed to sign a peace pact, dividing up spheres of influence in eastern Europe. 

 His and all other leftist drives would continue to inspire him to apologize for ugly words said against Hitler’s Germany until the Wehrmacht invaded the Soviet Union in June, 1941.

Lefties have a tendency to stick together.  They may change positions on important issues very quickly.    Many are easily sickened.   It is important to recognize  flakes.