Chavez Time

ON BUSINESS IN VENEZUELA

I'm sitting in the backseat of a non-descript car at a traffic light in Caracas-on the way to a client meeting -I'm in a suit.  Some guy comes up to my window off the street and starts banging on the window and then throws some unknown liquid substance all over the window-then runs away.

"What was that about?" I ask my colleague.  "You are the enemy," he responds.  I guess the guy noticed I was in a suit and then decided to attack me - which is strange because the windows were slightly tinted.  

We are in the middle of a government stoked violent socialist movement here that is destroying what the country needs most - intellectual and monetary capital.  

All of the money has been moved out that can.  All of the intellectuals (the producers) in the economy have been targeted.  Businesses have been seized.  People have been killed.

Haven't we heard all of this before?  The Soviet Union, North Korea, Cuba, come to mind.

Socialism and populist anger doesn't work.  Freedom and the pursuit of happiness, protection of private property does work.

My colleauge, who is a Venezuelan citizen, had to renew his ID card recently.  He had to wear a red shirt for his picture to show he supported the revolution.  Enough said.

Rockefeller Republicans

It used to be that Northeast Republicans had a reputation - they didn't like large government - they hated spending - they wanted a strong defense. They called them Rockefeller Republicans. I am making a prediction here that this wing of the party is making a comeback! Of course I am bias and hopefully this is a self fulfilling prophecy; however, I think I am on to something here.

What most of the media and the political establishment don't understand is that although the Democrats have made huge gains here and there are actually no Republican congressmen from the region, the margin of victory is very thin. Consider my distrinct - 5th in CT - only 30,000 votes separated the winner from the loser. About three years ago - this was a red district.

I went to a tea party today in New Haven, CT. The final numbers were 1500-2000. This is a very liberal area - Yale, etc. There were rallies in multiple other cities - Hartford, Norwich, Greenwich, etc. People were blowing their horns in support as they drove down I-95.

We are hopeful we can move the region back to its roots - DON'T TREAD ON ME!

Please spread the word and help in this effort.

LEFTY REACTION MISSING THE POINT ON TEDISCO

I have to admit I was on an emotional rollarcoster last night as the results from NY20 came in; Murphy ends up winning by 65 votes. I went to bed somewhat depressed. However, in the morning, I saw an email from Tedisco's campaign saying that there were at least 6000 absentee votes to be counted and the majority of those were Republican voters; I felt alot better. I think Tedisco will be victorious in the long run.

The mainstream media and the lefty bloggers were touting this as a victory even if Murphy doesn't emerge victorious. Their point is that this is a Republican leaning district and Tedisco should have done alot better. I have to agree with them. (Tedisco lost his lead listening to the RNC and finally started running his own campaign to regain momentum) However, that is not the point. We all know that one vote in the House is not going to make a difference and we know that we really can't say that Obama's agenda is dead or damaged from the election.

What we can say though is that Democratic members of the House and Senate were definitely watching this race. What they took from the results is that notion that, "If the people are so behind Obama and his policies, then why didn't Murphy win easily? - in fact he probably lost." This will make them think twice about voting for the Obama agenda; especially in Republican leaning districts. We also will soon have one more Republican in the House in my opinion.

For someone who is attempting to help rebuild the Republican Party in the Northeast, this makes me very happy.