Terrible Two 
From Florida, where infectious optimism rises from the fever swamps, comes word of a disturbance in the force.
What happens when two New Reagans® lock in deadly embrace?
Identifying New Reagans® is a perilous course, disappointment a constant danger. The Sunshine State already boasted one New Reagan® in Governor “Orange” Charlie Crist, but now a younger, cuter, New Reagan® threatens his rise to greatness.
Pretty boy former Florida House speaker Marco Rubio is a New Reagan® too! And happily, it’s a life sentence, possibly beyond.
“Rubio, like Reagan, will do wonders for the nation for years to come“
Others aren’t so sure. Florida Senate President Ken Pruitt has worked with both men, and his Crist man-crush is strong.
“He is Franklin Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan all wrapped up in one. I really love this man. His can-do, it’s-always-morning-in-America attitude is an inspiration to every citizen in our great state … Speaker Rubio, I love him, too. He’s a little tougher to love.“
Code Of Silence
An Obama nominee’s shocking mockery of Ronald Reagan may torpedo his nomination. Dennis Hayes is up for deputy secretary of Interior, but soldier of the Reagan Revolution John McCain claims to take great offense at some five year old musings 
somehow tying Reagan to cowboy mythology.
Hayes wrote of the legendary man of the west,
“a rugged, gun-toting individualist who fiercely guards every man’s right to drill, mine, log, or do whatever he damn well pleases on the land…Like Ronald Reagan before him, President Bush has embraced the Western stereotype to the point of adopting some of its affectations—the boots, brush-clearing, and get-the-government-off-our-backs bravado.”
That’s it, end of mockery.
McCain pronounced himself unhappy, as well he should, being a product of the DC suburbs parachuted into the wilds of Arizona with only native guile and his wife’s money to support him.
For christ’s sake, Hayes is a chemical and utility lobbyist.
Because If We Can’t Laugh About Differences Over Torture… 
Light-hearted jibes about torture were in the house Sunday at DC’s Alfalfa Club dinner.
The annual gathering of Washington’s great and good is of course a temple of good natured joshing amongst the elite, the very pinnacle of our treasured bipartisanship. Thus Barack Obama found himself making light of the founding purpose of this entirely white until the 1970s dinner, honoring Robert E. Lee.
The sparkling event was brightened even more by the podium styling of “Jumping” Joe Lieberman, who the Washington Post reports wow’d them with topical laughs.
Lieberman’s rib-tickler sprang from Dick Cheney’s mysterious back-injury-while-moving-offices. “I had no idea waterboards were so heavy,” quipped the Nutmeg State Senator.
Shape Up, Punks! 
Michael Reagan is taking a break from identyfying New Reagans in order to diss the post-catastropy Republican field.
” We are attaching ourselves to certain individuals, and as a result we have become a party of people and not a party of principles. We are Romney-ites, or Huckabee or Giuliani devotees, or McCain-ites, or supporters of Gov. Sarah Palin – when we need to be just plain Republicans…In the Balkans, warfare between factions was the status quo. As Republicans, if we continue to Balkanize and fail to unite, then fighting one another will be our party’s status quo.”
Stirring words from a man who upon his death compared Gerald Ford with Saddam Hussein.
New Math For Tired Arguments 
America’s ceaseless quest for a New Reagan has taken myriad forms, from Charlie Crist, to Sarah Palin, to Barack Obama.
That last one has proven controversial!
Now Reaganauts of the true faith are fighting back, mobilising the armies of infectious optimism to carry John McCain over the last mile.
A hilariously ignorant ad by neverfindout.org shows it’s the economy, stupider:
“MAN 1: Senator McCain, history has shown us your economic plans will work.
WOMAN 1: When Ronald Reagan took office, the economy was far worse than it is today.
MAN 2: You understand that Reagan’s plan worked. Senator Obama does not.”
What were His wonder working ways?
“Ronald Reagan cut spending and reduced the size of the federal government. Senator Obama plans to increase spending by nearly a trillion dollars. So who’s right?”
Gosh, if by “cutting” you mean increase by a quarter, and if by “reduced” you mean added 200,000 federal workers, then they are right on track.
Bill Clinton was actually closer to their mad dream. He cut heads, and shrank the government portion of GDP by twice what Reagan did.
What Reagan did do is jack up unemployment, cut incomes and goose the stock market, and Clinton beat him on that last marker too.
| Average Annual Change |
1960s |
1970s |
1980s |
1990s |
| Real GDP |
4.4% |
3.3% |
3.1% |
3.1% |
| Productivity |
2.9% |
2.0% |
1.4% |
1.9% |
| Employment |
1.9% |
2.4% |
1.7% |
1.3% |
| S&P 500: Real Returns |
6.6% |
Ð0.5% |
12.9% |
15.9% |
| Real Weekly Wages |
1.45% |
Ð0.27% |
Ð0.72% |
0.28% |
| Real Median Family income |
3.21% |
0.76% |
1.01% |
0.95% |
| Average Level of Inflation |
2.3% |
7.1% |
5.6% |
3.0% |
| Average Level of Unemployment |
4.8% |
6.2% |
7.3% |
5.8% |
source: Dollars & Sense
“MAN 5: Senator McCain, we are hopeful.
MAN 4: Because your economic policies are the policies of Ronald Reagan.
MAN 2: As a nation in crisis, we’d be fools not to embrace your ideas.
ANNOUNCER: What happens when we pick the alternative? Please America. Let’s never find out. “
