Blue Grass Red State
Conservative Thought for the Commonwealth

Blue Grass Red State

Lessons from Texas -Campaigning with limited budget

Posted on March 3rd, 2010 by Rick

Texas Governor Rick Perry is the longest sitting governor in their history. If anyone is a target to be dethroned it is surely Perry.  And fund raising has never been a problem for the well loved governor.  So I found that it was interesting that in the Texas primary the governor sought tight budget methods to get the word out.  What did he do? According to FoxNews  “The Perry campaign from the beginning took a big gamble and chose not to use yard signs, recorded phone canvassing, or direct mail, and instead concentrated on social networking on the Web, grassroots community organizing and, of course, TV. The campaign saved millions and got a response they say exceeded their expectations, and has re-written the GOP book on field organizing.”

I love this for many reasons. First, it goes to show that multi-million dollar war chests are not always necessary. Second, it is great to see people using the tools of the time to get their message out. It means that people like me have a chance.  I have talked with the Senate Republican Leader and he shared that his last campaign was $40 million.  Dr. Paul estimated early on that it would take $10 million for him to run a successful campaign.  Wouldn’t it be refreshing if we could elect someone at half the going rate?

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Dr. Rand Paul Extends Lead

Posted on February 24th, 2010 by Rick

As the primaries get closer one candidate is taking a decisive lead, Dr. Rand Paul. This is a tremendously good thing for concerned conservatives across the Commonwealth.  While everyone seems to be waving the “Conservative” banner these days, Dr. Paul has had a committed lifetime of working to help keep taxes down with his Kentucky Taxpayers United.  don’t get me wrong, I am VERY happy that Trey Grayson is now trying to do everything that he can to be identified as a Conservative and hope that he carries this banner into whatever he does next, but Dr. Paul certainly has a little history that Kentuckians are noticing.

Marcus Carey has noted that the latest Magellian Strategies poll gives Paul a lead of 21 points over Grayson. This is substantial with just 83 days until the election. Paul has been growing this lead, but he can afford to lost a couple points a week and still win. Sure there are other candidates out there besides Grayson and Paul, but with leads like this it really doesn’t matter.

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Conservatives Strong in the Commonwealth for Senate Pick

Posted on February 7th, 2010 by Rick

Rasmussen reports some strong numbers in the Commonwealth for the 2010 Senate race to fill the seat of retiring Sen. Jim Bunning. While the race between Grayson and Paul still is rather tight (with Paul showing a growing lead), the fact remains that Republican’s will likely retain the seat. The fact that Dr. Rand Paul leads Secretary of State Trey Grayson says as much about the leanings of our great state more than anything else. While both tout their conservative beliefs, Rand Paul has held that ideology his entire life and voters are starting to take notice. What does this mean for Conway and Mongiardo? Doom.

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/elections2/election_2010/election_2010_senate_elections/kentucky/toplines/toplines_2010_kentucky_senate_race_february_2_2010
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Go Flag Yourself

Posted on August 15th, 2009 by Rick

I am flagging myself.  While this is still a free country and freedom of speech is enjoying its last dying breath, I will continue to speak about those things that I love -my country.

To: Flag@whitehouse.gov
From: Rick Abbott
RE: A fishy article

Dear President Obama,

You have asked the American public to report on their fellow citizens who send emails or post articles that disagree with your plans to socialize health care. While you have not made this a law to help to restrict free speech, you are certainly encouraging it, and therefore are in direct conflict to the very Constitution which you have sworn to defend.

However, I recognize that not everyone will agree to spy on their fellow American’s and you are not going to see all that is written which opposes your plans (how could you, there is so much!). Therefore it is my pleasure to introduce you to BlueGrassRedState.com, specifically the article posted Saturday, August 15th in which I call Congressman Ben Chandler a coward for not facing the constituents of Kentucky’s 6th district to hear their concerns on your plans.

Because I am a concerned citizen and it is still my right to express my opinions which oppose your plans, I will continue to make you aware of my posts

______________________________
Rick Abbott
BlueGrassRedState.com

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Ben Chandler is a Coward

Posted on August 15th, 2009 by Rick

When the government of the United States of America is considering thrusting yet another overpriced and unneeded bill upon us, why is it that one of the Commonwealth’s key Democrats is afraid to meet with his constituents over the August break? Simple, he’s a coward.  He will certainly vote in the affirmative to pass this $1.2t bill, just as he has for every bill that has helped plunge out economy into total chaos. I get that he is a liberal and has to side with everything that Nancy/Harry/Barack push upon us, but he needs to at least have a back bone and meet with the members of his district, who overwhelmingly are against this plan.

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American capitalism gone with a whimper

Posted on August 10th, 2009 by Rick

http://neveryetmelted.com/wp-images/ObamaLenin2.jpg
http://english.pravda.ru/img/pravda-logo.gif
It must be said, that like the breaking of a great dam, the American descent into Marxism is happening with breath taking speed, against the back drop of a passive, hapless sheeple, excuse me dear reader, I meant people.

True, the situation has been well prepared on and off for the past century, especially the past twenty years. The initial testing grounds was conducted upon our Holy Russia and a bloody test it was. But we Russians would not just roll over and give up our freedoms and our souls, no matter how much money Wall Street poured into the fists of the Marxists.

Those lessons were taken and used to properly prepare the American populace for the surrender of their freedoms and souls, to the whims of their elites and betters.

First, the population was dumbed down through a politicized and substandard education system based on pop culture, rather then the classics. Americans know more about their favorite TV dramas then the drama in DC that directly affects their lives. They care more for their “right” to choke down a McDonalds burger or a BurgerKing burger than for their constitutional rights. Then they turn around and lecture us about our rights and about our “democracy”. Pride blind the foolish.

Then their faith in God was destroyed, until their churches, all tens of thousands of different “branches and denominations” were for the most part little more then Sunday circuses and their televangelists and top protestant mega preachers were more then happy to sell out their souls and flocks to be on the “winning” side of one pseudo Marxist politician or another. Their flocks may complain, but when explained that they would be on the “winning” side, their flocks were ever so quick to reject Christ in hopes for earthly power. Even our Holy Orthodox churches are scandalously liberalized in America.

The final collapse has come with the election of Barack Obama. His speed in the past three months has been truly impressive. His spending and money printing has been a record setting, not just in America’s short history but in the world. If this keeps up for more then another year, and there is no sign that it will not, America at best will resemble the Wiemar Republic and at worst Zimbabwe.

These past two weeks have been the most breath taking of all. First came the announcement of a planned redesign of the American Byzantine tax system, by the very thieves who used it to bankroll their thefts, loses and swindles of hundreds of billions of dollars. These make our Russian oligarchs look little more then ordinary street thugs, in comparison. Yes, the Americans have beat our own thieves in the shear volumes. Should we congratulate them?

These men, of course, are not an elected panel but made up of appointees picked from the very financial oligarchs and their henchmen who are now gorging themselves on trillions of American dollars, in one bailout after another. They are also usurping the rights, duties and powers of the American congress (parliament). Again, congress has put up little more then a whimper to their masters.

Then came Barack Obama’s command that GM’s (General Motor) president step down from leadership of his company. That is correct, dear reader, in the land of “pure” free markets, the American president now has the power, the self given power, to fire CEOs and we can assume other employees of private companies, at will. Come hither, go dither, the centurion commands his minions.

So it should be no surprise, that the American president has followed this up with a “bold” move of declaring that he and another group of unelected, chosen stooges will now redesign the entire automotive industry and will even be the guarantee of automobile policies. I am sure that if given the chance, they would happily try and redesign it for the whole of the world, too. Prime Minister Putin, less then two months ago, warned Obama and UK’s Blair, not to follow the path to Marxism, it only leads to disaster. Apparently, even though we suffered 70 years of this Western sponsored horror show, we know nothing, as foolish, drunken Russians, so let our “wise” Anglo-Saxon fools find out the folly of their own pride.

Again, the American public has taken this with barely a whimper…but a “freeman” whimper.

So, should it be any surprise to discover that the Democratically controlled Congress of America is working on passing a new regulation that would give the American Treasury department the power to set “fair” maximum salaries, evaluate performance and control how private companies give out pay raises and bonuses? Senator Barney Franks, a social pervert basking in his homosexuality (of course, amongst the modern, enlightened American societal norm, as well as that of the general West, homosexuality is not only not a looked down upon life choice, but is often praised as a virtue) and his Marxist enlightenment, has led this effort. He stresses that this only affects companies that receive government monies, but it is retroactive and taken to a logical extreme, this would include any company or industry that has ever received a tax break or incentive.

The Russian owners of American companies and industries should look thoughtfully at this and the option of closing their facilities down and fleeing the land of the Red as fast as possible. In other words, divest while there is still value left.
The proud American will go down into his slavery with out a fight, beating his chest and proclaiming to the world, how free he really is. The world will only snicker.

Stanislav Mishin© 1999-2009.. «PRAVDA.Ru». When reproducing our materials in whole or in part, hyperlink to PRAVDA.Ru should be made. The opinions and views of the authors do not always coincide with the point of view of PRAVDA.Ru’s editors.

Source: Pravda.Ru

URL: http://english.pravda.ru/opinion/columnists/107459-american_capitalism-0

Take note that the date this was published in Russia was April, 27, 2009!!!!!

According to Snopes this did come from Pravda.

I have provided the link: http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/pravda.asp

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Its official – Bunning out, but without class.

Posted on July 27th, 2009 by Rick

Today Senator Jim Bunning announced that he was not going to seek reelection for the 2010 Senate seat. Considered to be one of the most vulnerable seat in the Senate, the senator had an uphill battle. But, instead of just saying that it was time to go and enjoying retirement (age 77), the senator blamed his inability to raise campaign funds on other Republicans instead of taking on any of the responsibility himself. So sad. While it is certainly true that the Senate Republican Leader has been quiet vocal on his desire for Bunning to stand down, Senator Bunning is his own man and if he had campaigned strongly to the citizens of Kentucky I am sure that he would have found another term in his future. But instead he had a week campaign that was always shrouded with the announcement if he was going to officially run or not.

The Commonwealth is now set for an exciting fall race. There are several great candidates (okay two) running, and the next week is going to be very revealing.  Let’s hope that as each of these candidates steps aside for the stronger candidate that they can be equally magnanimous when their bid fails. At the end of it, there will only be one. Hopefully it will be a great  conservative to help lead our country right again. Someone who will work with Senator McConnell, not against him.

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Our Country?

Posted on July 18th, 2009 by Rick

Another great post by Marc Carey at BluegrassBulletin.com:

When Is The Truth Too Much?

It’s no secret, I have very clearly advanced the case that the Obama administration is taking America in wrong direction.  But one PAC has now published an ad which makes the case in a completely different way.  Is it just another way of telling the truth, or has this group gone too far?  You watch, and you decide.

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Health Care or Health Insurance?

Posted on July 5th, 2009 by Rick

Have to repost this excellent article from Marcus Carey at BluegrassBulletin.com

Let’s Be Honest About “Health Care”

EDITORIAL

I just saw a TV commercial pushing the message that “It’s Time” for everyone to have “health care”.  It displayed the politically correct assemblage of racial and age diversity as one “ordinary” citizen after another told their tales of woe.

A working class white guy had lost his job, and now his family didn’t have “health care”.  An older woman said that her husband had heart trouble and they couldn’t afford treatment.  A black woman said that the cost of her “health care” had doubled and “who can afford that”.

Let’s be honest, what they are talking about is “health insurance” not “health care”.  The choice of words is important.  Surely those who support the socialist notion of a government run health maintenance organization (G-HMO) have run these terms through a focus group and learned that by inserting the word “care” in place of “insurance” that personal sympathies run more in favor of their game plan.

And second, we need to be honest about why the costs of health insurance have gone up so much.  The answer is very simple, new and improving technologies have emerged to treat and cure human health issues as a result of the open market place incentive to make a profit on these technologies.  Patients want the benefits of these things and as a result doctors and hospitals buy them.

You can get from home to work on horse back and a horse only costs a few hundred dollars.  Or you can drive there and back in a Mercedes which costs a lot more.  If you want the best medical treatment in the world, you must accept the fact that it will cost more.  The best medical treatment in the world is available only in America.

Now don’t go jumping to the wrong conclusion and equate my analogy with the argument that good medical treatment should only be available to those who can afford it.  That’s not the point, because that’s not the case.  The point is that the more sophisticated and technologically advanced methods of solving a problem will necessarily cost more.  In fact, the high cost of “health insurance” is directly related to the fact that the best medical treatment in the world is available for free to every American.

The government mandates that hospitals cannot turn away a patient who cannot pay.  In other cases the poorest among us already get free medical treatment through medicare, medicaid, medical cards and similar government programs.  Government employees, retirees and military personnel get free medical treatment through government programs too.  And it is precisely because of the way those government mandated or supported programs are run that the cost of health insurance is so high for everybody else.

When a hospital makes available the most technologically advanced medical treatment in the world and is required to give it away free of charge to those who cannot pay for it, guess who ends up paying for those people?  The rest of us.

When the government tells a doctor or a hospital that even though the price of providing a service in the open market is $300 but they will only pay $100 for those covered under a public program, guess who ends up paying the rest?

When the poorest in the country get thousands of dollars a month in medical care absolutely free, guess who is picking up that bill?

The real problem is that the government has decided that through one program after another that millions of Americans must receive free or reduced cost medical treatment in an environment where the open market place has inspired the development of the best medical technologies in the world.  The whole issue then is not “medical care” it’s “medical costs” to everybody who has been suffering higher prices for insurance due to the current forms of government “meddling”.

Talk of “free government health insurance” for everybody is simply a lie.  You can’t really believe that anything is really free can you?  You know somebody will always have to pay for it.  The question is who?  Should those who work pay for those who don’t?  We went through a period just a few years ago where we witnessed the success of welfare reform. Government run HMO’s would be the largest expansion of welfare in our history.

Take Kentucky for example. The availability of affordable health insurance in Kentucky nearly disappeared a few years ago when a democratic administration insisted upon requiring all health insurance companies to provide coverage to anyone who applied despite pre-existing conditions.  Suddenly, for the payment of a few months premiums, people with long standing diseases were in a position to make these companies pay out millions upon millions of dollars for treating pre-existing illnesses.  This drove many companies out of the Commonwealth, and drove up the price of insurance for the rest of us with the ones that remained.

The cost to the government of insuring everyone will be staggering.  To bring down the cost to the rest of us, it would be much cheaper to re-think the scope of the program.  Here are a few suggestions.

If the Government would just increase the amount of it’s reimbursements now being paid under government programs medical providers would not have to pass along the difference to the rest of us, and the government would not have to insure everybody.

Instead of giving hospitals an unfunded mandate to provide free care to those who cannot afford it, the government could jump in and pay for the free care mandated for those who have no insurance and who do not participate under a government sponsored program.  This too is a much smaller group than insuring “everyone”.

If the federal government gave every American a dollar for dollar tax credit for any money paid for medical insurance and out of pocket medical payments at the very least they would save the administrative costs of collecting the tax dollars first and then doing the same thing with them.

And finally the federal government could increase the tax breaks given to employers who provide medical insurance to employees free of charge and increase the tax benefits given to insurance companies for the amounts they pay in claims.  This would immediately put more earned income into circulation, help the economy, avoid creating another bloated federal bureacracy and speed the payment of claims thus reducing costs to medical providers in the area of claims processing and collections.

The heartfelt commercials crying that people need free “medical care” are emotional appeals packed with lies.  It’s time to be honest about the matter.

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Beshear: Learning From His Master

Posted on June 11th, 2009 by Rick

beshear1

The Governor of Kentucky is calling a special session to settle the issues of our budget, or so he says. But all of the focus isn’t on our budget issues as much as it is on his passion to increase gambling in Kentucky. Sure, we aren’t going to have the Bellagio built in downtown Lexington, but he is pushing to have slots at race tracks, and that is just the first step down this slope.

But what gets my ire this day is not his asinine solution to our budget, its the cavalier way that he is spending the Commonwealth’s money throwing a lavish party at the Governor’s Mansion after the first day of the special session and we get to pay for it. It is like his master who speaks in the afternoon of our economic doom and then takes Air Force One to New York for a date with his wife, all at the tax payer’s expense. When will all this madness end?

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