Here's a great analysis of why Romney will win by Sean Trende at Real Clear Politics. (The day before he did an analysis of why Obama will win, but this one is far more persuasive and cheered me up.)

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2012/09/20/state_of_the_race_part_2_why_romney_wins_115513.html

And here's a really interesting analysis by a polling blogger on the GOP voter ID surge this year and how it's not in current polling samples. (Rush even referenced it.) This one really cheered me up.

http://datechguyblog.com/2012/09/17/demoralized-as-hell-the-poll-the-media-isnt-talking-about-edition/

And be relieved that you're busy at work. Beyond the fact that you're working -- of course -- it keeps you from checking on polls every five minutes like I've been doing. Election season is like heroin! (Probably as unhealthy and as time-consuming.)

We're going to win; we're going to win with a mandate to change course away from a fiscal cliff; we're going to win as the party of grown-ups.

Romney certainly wasn't my first choice, but he's bringing me around.

But to be superficial and with female swing voters in mind: Romney/Ryan 2012: Too Good Looking?

I'm with Lady Bertrum on "The Unbearable Lightness of Being": a mesmerizing book that was so much more compelling and interesting than the conventional fiction that seems to receive all the acclaim. The opening of the book grabs you with its unorthodox approach.  And it was extremely refreshing to read an author who doesn't mince words about the human degradation that accompanies Communism.

My two favorite lines from the book:

"In the sunset of dissolution, everything is illuminated by the aura of nostalgia..."

And

"Anyone whose goal is 'something higher' must expect someday to suffer vertigo."

A great read. You won't be disappointed.

Thanks to the language of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and the myriad "shall be determined by the Secretary" contained in its text, the woman in this video is the most powerful person in America after the president. Watch and ask yourself if that's a good thing.

She is engaging in a ruthless power grab with no constitutional foundation, and when asked about the legal reasoning she went through to arrive at said power grab, she stammers and says, "I'm not a lawyer." For crying out loud, she doesn't even have a memo to support her complete neglect of the first amendment! A federal government that chokes business with EPA regulations, SEC filings, and Sarbanes Oxley requirements tells us they bypassed the 1st amendment with only gauzy "discussions" as their basis.

Congressman Gowdy gives a text-book example of how to respectfully and surgically cripple an opponent with logical questions. Just a joy to behold. He's my new favorite congressman -- after Paul Ryan of course.

Beasley,

Seriously, you would really rather have the current president in charge of the most powerful nation on the planet (until his mistakes let China pass us) for another four years than have Romney? You would rather have this president as commander-in-chief for four more years than Romney? The guy who gave us Sotomayor and Kagan gets to replace Scalia rather than Romney?

Again, these discussions occur every primary season, but in November, 2012, if you're in a purple state you'd really just say, "No. Leave Obama in there. I'd rather have him than President Romney." Come on. McCain was my LAST choice in 2008, but I knew he was a far superior choice to Obama. I did what was necessary when it came time to vote.

I will be polite, but I really don't care for the "I want candidate X to be the nominee or I won't vote Republican" stance that inevitably arises during the primary season. 

Romney is far from my first choice, but I'll support him fiercely if my party chooses him as the nominee. It's an aphorism for a reason: "Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good." Someone that sits out the 2012 election to let Obama continue down this path for an extra four years is severely misguided in my opinion.

One can luxuriate in ideological purity while Obama adds another $5 Trillion to the debt, the 'national exchange' turns into nationalized health care, and Justice Scalia is replaced by a leftist Harvard professor, or one can swallow some misgivings and vote for Romney because he agrees with 85% of what you believe. I'll be the latter, and so will nearly all of us. The base ended up rallying to McCain for crying out loud.

As has been said, there won't be anything left saving in January, 2017 if we have another Obama term. We're on the precipice.

R.J.,

Thank you so much for your behind-the-scenes diplomacy to get Adam on The Dennis Prager Show. Just to let you know, your work has contributed to Ace's revenue stream. I wasn't really familiar with him but avoided him because of his MTV connection. (It's a rule that normally works for me.) Then I heard him on Prager and then caught audio of his Andrew Breitbart interview linked from a conservative blog. I was completely hooked. Bought his book (absolutely hysterical), bought the video feed of his podcast (also hysterical), and do my purchases on Amazon through his link. One of the most nimble-brained people I've ever heard -- can make any anecdote or news story hilarious and informative. Must be his improv background.

Thanks again!

What a terrific op-ed Mr. Groseclose. The ridiculousness of the 'pro-choice' wording has long been documented, but your mobster and Jefferson Davis retorts were fresh and devastating.

I'm pro-life (or 'anti-abortion' or 'anti-choice' -- if I were to use their phrasing) because I'm pro-science. It's insulting to say that a fetus becomes human only in that magical instant when he or she is removed from the woman but was nothing but tissue before that.

But yeah. Conservatives are 'anti-science'.

Jonah Goldberg had a brilliant analysis of the Left's selective anti-science charge:

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/275903/re-anti-science-smear-jonah-goldberg

'Thirsty Artist',

Thanks for the link. I had forgotten about the famous 'Clinton at McDonalds' skit. What a tour de force for Hartman. I can't imagine how difficult that was to pull off in one take during a live performance. (The 'warlords intercepting food aid' part is priceless.)

That clip then had a link to yet another forgotten gem: "The Sinatra Group", a product of one of those brilliantly incongruous comedic flashes that a great writer like Rob knows well: What if we had Frank Sinatra lead an opinion show like "The McLaughlin Group"?

It truly was a golden age for SNL.

Thanks for posting this Rob. What a wonderfully inspirational message to brighten my day, while causing heart sickness when remembering the brilliance that was prematurely taken from us.

Phil Hartman has always been my favorite SNL alum. I remember when he first burst on the scene and wondering, "Who is this guy?" He wasn't an over-the-top performer, but was, as his letter said, a craftsman. Every skit he was in was far better because of his presence. But he could also steal the show when required: see my all-time favorite skit where he plays Ronald Reagan as a sweet and slow 'amiable dunce' in public but in private is revealed to be a cut-throat, Machiavellian genius. It's still hysterical decades later.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skQuhoG7fFM

I've lived on the LA Westside (four blocks off the 405) for twelve years and have learned many hard lessons. One of them is that the Los Angeles traffic system is like a 90 year old smoker’s circulatory system – it's in an extremely precarious state and even mild jostling could destroy homeostasis – or freewayeostasis. CalTrans is actually going to shut down THE major thoroughfare for an entire weekend. It's like a doctor telling the hacking emphasemic that he'll be fine without his carotid artery for a few days. What could go wrong?

I'm expecting the resulting chaos to be far worse than any dystopian vision constructed by the most demented sci-fi writer (i.e. roving bands of refugees, who days before had innocently set out to catch a cheap weekend red-eye to Milwaukee, now reduced to scavenging for food and water in the barren hellscape that is Westwood Village). My panic room is stocked and secure, and I'm assuming anyone at my door is a traffic zombie infected by the highly contagious gridlock virus – shoot first and ask questions later.

May God have mercy on the City of Angels.

High-profile conversions to conservatism can be a big deal. (I think Dennis Miller really helps the cause by getting a lot of cynical or apolitical types to give the Right a closer look.) I think Mamet is an extremely important 'get', and possibly even a 'Road to Damascus' level conversion. (No, I'm not comparing a foul-mouthed playwright to Saint Paul; I'm being dramatic.)

He is highly regarded as a thinker on the Left. His switching teams may get curious Lefties or herd thinkers (as Mamet calls them) to start browsing a Krauthammer article or give Dennis Prager a listen. And then they'll be ours

I have to say that Canuckski eloquently distilled these movements down to their essence when he said they were

Just so! I always regarded the "green" movement as such. Just slap something about "sustainability" on a product label, and it provides what Dietrich Bonhoeffer called "cheap grace" to the consumer.

I can be an extremely junky political junky, but the first thing I said when Jon Huntsman was touted as a possible GOP candidate in 2012 was, "Um, who is this Jon Huntsman guy they're talking about?" When none my friends knew, I quit being lazy and did some research. I read the bios in non-conservative media lauding him as a 'moderate technocrat' and immediately knew he was the Democrats favorite type of Republican: the type that loses presidential elections...badly.

He was pro-Stimulus and is pro-cap-and trade. Could you think of a worst candidate to run as counter programming in an entirely winnable election that will be a referendum on Obama? (Okay, maybe Trump.)