To summarize baseball legend Reggie Jackson: nobody boos a nobody. That is definitely true in the case of Governor Sarah Palin. I don’t think I am going out on a limb here when I speculate that individuals who repeatedly attack her anonymously view her as a threat. And that includes members of the media hell-bent tearing down young Republican up-and-comers as well as some in Governor Palin’s own party — a party desperately in need of redefining — who are motivated, for whatever reason, to try and crush their rivals.

The most recent and grossly unfair attack came from Vanity Fair magazine. The writer clearly had an unshakable point of view from the start and talked only to those who would criticize. For example, he personally asked me at event preceding the White House Correspondents Dinner if I would talk to him about Governor Palin. I agreed. He didn’t call. He didn’t email. He never once tried to get my take. I also know he never contacted campaign manager Rick Davis, or John McCain.

I have known many political leaders over four decades including all Republican presidents and VPs. I have come to know Sarah Palin over the past year and can state unequivocally that she is smart, curious, hard working, charming, and effective. She also has something her detractors clearly lack – a sense of honor and loyalty.

I know this is petty, but it reminds me of the 2004 presidential election where it was commonplace and accepted in much of the mainstream media to call President Bush stupid and Senator Kerry smart and insightful. At the end of the day, when Senator Kerry finally released his college transcripts, wouldn’t you know: he did quite a bit worse than President Bush.

I have seen Sarah up close with leading heavyweights, and have seen her hold her own and then some. At the dinner at my home referenced in the article, she engaged comfortably and deeply with people ranging from Alan Greenspan to Madeleine Albright to Mitch McConnell. She asked for a foreign policy discussion on her June 7 trip to Washington, and I saw her engage in an informed and spirited manner with Frank Carlucci.

Governor Palin has many admirers and defenders out there who will not allow her to be branded by jealous rivals with their own agenda and the elitists in the national media. I am not sure who the unnamed Vanity Fair sources are, but without question they lack chivalry and have acted in a craven manner. They also lack the facts. I am ashamed of my former campaign colleagues, whoever they are.

The Business section of the Washington Post has a great article today about my son, his service in the Navy and what it has taught him about business. Much as I would like to think so, even I didn’t teach him everything. Here’s a bit of it:

We will get to his business, but first I wanted to know from Malek whether his Navy years built skills that help him manage a $38 million business with 150 employees.

“You have to learn what works and what doesn’t work,” he said. “What works is you have to earn people’s respect and loyalty through example and how you treat them. What doesn’t work is assuming they are loyal automatically.”

He told me about being on a troop ship in the Pacific bound for Iraq and Desert Storm. His team was training for combat on four-hour shifts where half would sleep while the rest prepared. After several visits from a white-gloved senior officer inspecting the quarters for cleanliness, Malek blew up.
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“I told him that my people needed their rest and they needed their sleep and this has got to stop,” Malek recalled.

Rebuffing the officer might have gotten him in trouble, but it bonded his men to him for the rest of the mission.

“I learned then that it is all about focusing on the mission and giving your team the best chance of succeeding,” he said.

As a Virginian and a member of the Republican Governor’s Association, I’m glad that the Democratic primary is settled and now the campaign for Virginia governor can begin. State Senator Creigh Deeds won the primary last night, after trailing by double digits less than three weeks ago.

The stakes in this year’s Virginia gubernatorial race are the highest ever. Even more than New Jersey, the other major off-year contest, the gubernatorial elections in my backyard are predictive of trends that will play out further into the cycle. I know that many felt our best chance would be against Clinton’s money man, Terry McAuliffe, but this Virginia Republican is not concerned. This race is not going to be about who our opponent is. We will win because of what the Republican Party is, and who and what we represent.

I believe our nominee, Bob McDonnell, is a major rising star in this party, and this race will prove it. For one thing, Bob brings a number of qualities to the race that previous GOP candidates in Virginia did not have. Better still, he carries none of their flaws.

He is a young polished lawyer and an Army veteran who grew up in liberal (though much less liberal back in the day) Northern Virginia and lives with his family in conservative Virginia Beach, so he can connect with young suburban families in a way that Jerry Kilgore had trouble doing in 2005. McDonnell is a great example of the kind of candidate who doesn’t have to “choose” between sticking to his values and appealing to moderate voters.

That gives him a real advantage over Creigh Deeds, whose economic platform is more of a populist shtick targeted to the United Mine Workers than a sensible roads and schools plan for I-95 commuters. McDonnell cares about the issues Virginians care about, like transportation funding, college tuition costs, energy policy, taxes, and, of course, job creation. So Northern Virginia will be something it hasn’t been in recent elections: A battleground leaning Republican.

And Republicans will be more excited about McDonnell than the Democrats are about Deeds. It’s clear where he stands on the issues that are important to the Republicans Party, including taxes, religion and honoring our troops. Deeds, on the other hand, is going to have to activate his base and crank up the turn out better than he did last time around. In doing so, he is going have to walk the line between Prius drivers in Arlington and NASCAR fans in Bristol. He’s not an anti-gun zealot, which won’t please pastors in Hampton, and wants to soak the entrepreneurs and businesses on taxes, which won’t impress technology executives in Reston. And there should be no forgetting that Virginia is the new battle ground in big labor’s battle to expand its power. In a state that appreciates the right to work and still tilts conservative, the advantage goes to Bob.

McDonnell has also won respect on both sides of the aisle for his hard work. He’s been an energetic and eager candidate, with a great resume of accomplishment that he can actually run on. As I said on Hardball this week, governors are our best candidates and that’s a bench we must develop.

This won’t be the first time that McDonnell and Deeds have squared off in a statewide election. I still remember their 2005 race for Attorney General, where McDonnell beat Deeds by 323 votes. As someone who has been around politics and Virginia a long time, I believe McDonnell has what it takes to beat Deeds again.

In the months ahead, voters will come to see how he has been an experienced and steady hand in Richmond, and that he is the best bet to put this great Commonwealth back on the path of hard work and reform.

The national media will be watching, and the rest of the Republican Party should too.

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The subject of the environment is a difficult one for conservatives. The Left has owned the discussion for years, always pitching the issue in the direst terms, decade after decade. When we have tried to point out reasonable objections to this extremist rhetoric, such as that there is less than a scientific consensus about climate change, we have been called “deniers” or worse.

This is doubly unfair because there are few things more conservative than conservation. There can be no doubt that being good stewards of our natural resources is necessary for human sustainability and survival. Unfortunately, in the public’s mind the Left has a monopoly on setting wise environmental policy. What we understand, as the Left seems unwilling to acknowledge, is that environmental and economic policies are often very closely associated. There are always tradeoffs for any change in policy.

Right now congressional Democrats, led by Henry Waxman and Ed Markey, are trying to use that conventional wisdom to pass a bill that could be destructive on both fronts. As even some on the left have pointed out, the bill may not actually establish binding caps on emissions, and may in fact actually contribute to worldwide pollution. This kind of up-is-down outcome is no surprise to those of us who understand how government is often less efficient at coming up with solutions than it is generating unintended consequences.

But then there is the looming economic impact of the bill, and there is no doubt it would be a negative one. Last month the Heritage Foundation produced a report analzying the bill in economic terms. According to the study, Waxman-markey would:

• Reduce aggregate gross domestic product (GDP) by $7.4 trillion,
• Destroy 844,000 jobs on average, with peak years seeing unemployment rise by over 1,900,000 jobs,
• Raise electricity rates 90 percent after adjusting for inflation,
• Raise inflation-adjusted gasoline prices by 74 percent,
• Raise residential natural gas prices by 55 percent,
• Raise an average family’s annual energy bill by $1,500, and
• Increase inflation-adjusted federal debt by 29 percent, or $33,400 additional federal debt per person, again after adjusting for inflation.

There seems little question the bill, if it became law, would lead to an increase in prices for consumers. And that only begins with gas and oil prices, because of the price of gas and oil is built into the price of everything.

What’s more, everybody knows that the real source of carbon emissions in the near future is not the United States. Like Western Europe, our economy is developed already and we have the technologies to run cleaner factories and plants. Everybody knows the real source in coming decades will be China, India and Russia. In fact, just last year China surpassed us to become the country responsible for more CO2 than any other. This trend will continue.

And it does not take a masters in economics to realize that these countries are not about to follow our lead. The United States has a little bit less than one car per person (1.3 to be exact) while China is not even close. It has one car for every 100 people. Why would they make it more expensive for them to close the gap with us? They’re no fools. They won’t. That’s why President Obama and the Democrats in Congress would be just as foolish to make it more expensive for us to maintain and extend our lead.

Today we have the most dynamic market, but President Obama seems determined to sacrifice our competitive advantage for the sake of a campaign pledge to his base on the anti-business Left. Ironically, the most likely destination for the jobs would be none other than China and India.

Reducing carbon emissions can be a worthy goal, but it must be considered along with other objectives, especially the most important — ensuring that the United States remains the world’s strongest economy. The Waxman-Markey bill that President Obama is so eager to sign does not even come close to doing that.

There has been a lot of talk about President Obama’s first 100 days in office. Both online and off, there’s also been much analysis about the so-called Obama “FAIL” movement. I don’t hope for President Obama’s failure. I’d like for him to succeed in making our country safer, stronger and much more prosperous. I hope and pray that he does so both for America’s success as well as capitalism’s future. However, his policies are unlikely to achieve desired results.

Given that we the taxpayers are now significant shareholders in a heck of a lot of companies due to the bailout, it is important to remember, that whether you are running just a company or our entire country, in order to achieve success you need to measure success qualitatively and quantitatively along the way.

So with that in mind, here are my grades for President Obama’s first report card.

Foreign Policy: He’s had the good judgment to rely on our distinguished generals and not to withdraw prematurely from Iraq. The build-up in Afghanistan is badly needed, but probably not enough. Talking to the likes of Hugo Chavez and trying to talk with Iran is unlikely to bring results, but there is no great harm in trying a new approach. Policy towards Cuba for almost 50 years can’t be judged a success, so some new thinking has merit. Grade: B+

National Security: In spite of good foreign policy, the recent release of interrogation files and photos will weaken our intelligence-gathering capabilities that are instrumental in preventing attacks against America. President Obama made a mistake in playing too far left and to the politically correct crowd. Grade: C-

Economy: Clearly his worst subject. He’s making a grave mistake by executing on a plan with an over-reliance on government spending and control vs. incentives for private sector initiatives. Never in history has this approach successfully led a democracy out of recession. Further, rather than placing all their focus on digging out of the recession, the Obama Administration is diverting by trying to nationalize the health care system, strengthen power of unions, and increase taxes, especially on investment. Huge deficits will result in more debt than accumulated by past administrations from George Washington to George W. Bush combined. This will inevitably lead to an unhappy ending, and it’s called inflation. Grade: D

Energy and Environment: While President Obama deserves some credit for addressing climate change, especially focusing on carbon emissions, his cap and trade proposal is destructive. It will increase taxes on American businesses, and ultimately this diminishes our competitive advantage and leads to displacement of employment from the United States to other countries. Further, the new employment and production will be in countries like China and India, which have little or no constraints on carbon emissions. Thus, the end result will be fewer jobs in the U.S. and greater world wide pollution. Further, the limitations and/or bans on off shore drilling inhibit our energy production and further increase our dependence on countries, some of whom want nothing more than to destroy our way of life. Grade: C

Overall Grade: C

President Obama’s first 100 days could have been a lot better, but, scarily, could have been worse. Let’s hope the President gets some serious tutoring on the economy and Capitalism 101. I will be anxious and hopeful to see improvements and real results next semester.

Fred

I have known and been friends with Arlen over 36 years and have always supported his important role as a moderate in our party.

He will continue to be a friend.

But leaving the party because you’re facing a tough electoral challenge doesn’t seem consistent with his record of courage and principle.

I have given to every one of Arlen’s statewide campaigns. While the passion with which I supported him may have been magnified by our friendship, the fact of my support was a consequence of our shared political values of limited government and strong national defense. In our country, parties are necessarily big, to accommodate a range of views and geographies. I have always viewed the GOP as a Big Tent Party, and appreciate the inclusion of moderates like Arlen.

However, in leaving the Republican Party, Arlen has abandoned people who have been his allies for another team. He has thrown in with people who have a fundamentally different vision for America, and one that I profoundly disagree with.

Why did he do this? It seems as if Arlen took the path of least resistance. He knew that his primary fight would be difficult. Arlen has never stepped down from a fight, but he did this time. Undoubtedly his Democratic primary campaign will be safe. Ed Rendell, Arlen’s former boss at the Philadelphia District Attorney’s office, will get his former Deputy Mayor out of the race now. So after a career of fighting for what he believed in, Arlen took the easy way out to keep his job.

So that’s why I will be supporting Pat Toomey for US Senate against my friend Arlen Specter. Right now, Barack Obama and the Democratic Party are taking America in the wrong direction. And we need a strong voice in the Senate fighting for our party’s perspective against them.

My last chapter in the campaign ended with our successful convention in St. Paul, MN. Both John McCain and Sarah Palin excited people across the country, and we came roaring into the general elections. Due to the enthusiastic crowds that Sarah was attracting, John and Sarah did a lot of campaigning together as a team. It was working, and John’s message and character, as well as the team’s maverick image, resulted in a real boost to the ticket. By September 12, we were three points ahead on average in the national polls and were well positioned and gaining in the key electoral states.

Then came the economic tsunami, and it all changed. On September 13, Lehman Brothers failed, and an economic crisis gained steam. The public placed a fair amount of blame on the party in power – the Republicans, and the Obama campaign skillfully exploited this disaffection. While candidate Obama and his team offered no real solutions and had no experience in dealing with the economy, they weren’t us and thus reaped the benefit. With an unpopular war, an incumbent president sinking in the polls, and now the most vexing economic crisis of our generation, John McCain went from a three point lead to an eight point deficit in the polls in ten days.  We weren’t helped by John’s decision to suspend the campaign, threaten to cancel the first debate, and return to Washington to address the problem and find a bipartisan approach to a salvage package. Unfortunately, he wasn’t able to accomplish this and his standing on the economy was diminished.

Although John performed admirably in the three debates, and Sarah did a great job in her debate with then Senator Biden, we could not achieve parity in the polls on who would best handle the economy or in presidential preference.

On the fund raising side, we knew John would have time for only four fundraisers. We mapped out where we though we would have the best possible return with John’s time and decided to hold events in Chicago, Miami, Los Angeles, and New York.

Immediately after the Convention, John headed to Chicago for his first major fundraiser in the General Election. We had been told repeatedly that we would never raise more then $2 million in Chicago. No Republican had ever raised more than that and most observers felt would be increasingly difficult in Obama’s home town. We knew there was a silent Republican base in Chicago who wanted to support John and would be willing to contribute if given the opportunity. Our team in Illinois, led by Pat Kinsey, ended the night with $4 million for John with great leadership from Bill Strong, Jack Sandner, Bill Smithburg, and others.

Subsequent events in Miami and Los Angeles were successful, culminating in our October 14 final event in New York City. Woody Johnson, who was a tower of strength throughout the campaign, again performed admirably. Our consulting team of Tamara Hallisey and Rachel McGregor had been a strong team of fundraisers in New York and Connecticut throughout the campaign. They were determined once again to break the record as the largest event for John, which they had previously set in May at $7 million. This was also to be the only joint fundraising event with both John and Sarah Palin.  As we approached this event, the economic turmoil that we are now experiencing began to break, and we were all nervous about how this would affect the bottom line. In the end, our New York Finance Committee rallied together, raising over $10 million – the largest fundraising event for a candidate in the city’s history. 

Sarah Palin also traveled the country attending political events and fundraisers. It was absolutely incredible to see the grassroots support, both politically and financially, that she generated. Her fundraisers were extremely successful, out performing all the goals set.

As mentioned at the onset, I am proud that total fundraising for McCain-Palin 2008 resulted in the most successful finance efforts for a Republican presidential campaign in history.