Commentary From the Mile High City

 
"Star of the conservative blogosphere" Denver Post

"The Rocky Mountain Alliance offers the best of what the blogosphere has to offer." -David Harsanyi, Denver Post
 
 contact
Joshua Sharf
PDA
 search

 notify list
to receive email when this site is updated, enter your email address:
 archives
 recent posts
 categories
24 (2 entries)
Anglosphere (1 entries)
Biking (1 entries)
Blogging (35 entries)
Business (173 entries)
CFA (3 entries)
China (5 entries)
Climate Change (3 entries)
Colorado (20 entries)
Denver (12 entries)
Design (4 entries)
Economics (39 entries)
Education (6 entries)
Electoral College (1 entries)
Environmentalism (3 entries)
Europe (0 entries)
Flying (2 entries)
Foreign Affairs (1 entries)
General (89 entries)
Gun Control (2 entries)
Health Care (7 entries)
Higher Ed (7 entries)
History (8 entries)
Home Improvement (1 entries)
Illegal Immigration (35 entries)
Internet (4 entries)
Israel (57 entries)
Jewish (49 entries)
Judicial Nominations (12 entries)
Katrina (0 entries)
Literature (1 entries)
Media (37 entries)
Music (3 entries)
Photoblogging (32 entries)
Politics (152 entries)
Porkbusters (5 entries)
Radio (16 entries)
Religion (1 entries)
Reviews (8 entries)
Robed Masters (4 entries)
Science (1 entries)
Sports (9 entries)
Taxes (2 entries)
Transportation (6 entries)
Unions (1 entries)
War on Terror (180 entries)
 links
 blogs
my other blogs
Three-Letter Monte
Blogcritics.org
PoliticsWest.Com
Newsbusters.org

Rocky Mtn. Alliance
Best Destiny
Daily Blogster
Drunkablog
Exvigilare
Geezerville USA
Mount Virtus
Night Twister
Rocky Mountain Right
Slapstick Politics
The New Conservative
Thinking Right
View from a Height

other blogs
Powerline
One Big Swede
American Thinker
Meryl Yourish
Instapundit
NRO Corner
Little Green Footballs
No Left Turns
A Constrained Vision

business blogs
800CEORead
Accidental Verbosity
Assymetrical Information
BusinessPundit
Carnival of the Capitalists
Catallarchy
Cold Springs Shops
Commodity Trader
Coyote Blog
Different River
EconLog
Everyone's Illusion
Fast Company Blog
Financial Rounds
Footnoted
Freakonomics Blog
ShopFloor.org
Lip-Sticking
Management Craft
Trader Mike
Carnival of the Capitalists Submission

business data
Inst. Supply Mgmt.
St. Louis Fed Economic Data
Nat'l Bureau of Economic Research
Economic Calendar
Stock Charts

colorado blogs
Pirate Ballerina
Pagan Capitalist
Boker Tov, Boulder
Colorado Pols
Jeff Sherman

<-?Colorado BlogRing#->

sites, not blogs
Thinking Rock Press
 help israel
Israel Travel Ministry
Friends of the IDF
Volunteers for Israel
Magen David Adom
CAMERA
 1939 World's Fair
1939: The Lost World of the Fair
The New York World's Fair: 1939-1940
The Last Great Fair by Jeffrey Hart
Iconography of Hope (U.Va.)
Images From the '39 Fair
Tour the 1939 New York Fair
Paleo-Future
Powered by
Movable Type 3.2

« Saturday Sports I Missed | Main | Will the Bauhaus Never End? »

Bob Schaffer at the J-GOP

Thursday night, Bob Schaffer addressed the Jewish Republicans, with a version of his stump speech tailored for small audiences. It was a masterly performance, with Schaffer covering almost the full range of national issues, from national security, to energy, to the environment, while mentioning his disappointment with the national party leaderhship in the past, and his willingness to fight within the party for the ideas we all care about.

When the race started, it looked as though Iraq, and the declining Republican brand were going to be the major issues in the fall. Now, with greater success in Iraq, and declining enthusiasm for Democrats, pocketbook issues are more important.

And among pocketbook issues, energy looms the largest. Schaffer made the point that our current energy prices are a combination of increased worldwide demand, and a deliberate policy by liberals, environmentalists, and socialists (er, is there a difference there?) to limit domestic energy production on the basis of aesthetics rather than economics.

So let's see: we turn our food into energy, which is an inefficient use of everything involved in the process: corn, fertilizer, natural gas (which is what you make fertilizer from), energy itself. We prevent drilling in Alaska, offshore, in-state. (Cuba apparently is less environmentally sensitive.) We streamline the nuclear plant licensing process at just the time when materials and design costs are double plant costs. We limit our exposure to the world natural gas market by preventing LNG terminals.

And then we're surprised when the cost of energy, relative to everything else, rises.

As for budget issues, he struck at the silliness of pay-as-you-go rules, which are a mask for preventing tax cuts. He made a pitch for dynamic scoring, which takes into account expected growth spurred by cuts. It indicates a solid grasp of how Washington works, but also a solid grasp of how economics works, something sorely lacking in most elected officials.

In foreign policy, Schaffer clearly is on top of threatening developments in our relationship with China. He mentioned their eyes on a blue-water navy, their ASAT capability, their neo-colonialism in Africa, their missile bases opposite Taiwan, and their computer virus library, a precursor to technological warfare in the event of a crisis.

I particularly liked his comment that in the Cold War, "I like to think they won, too." Meaning not the communist dictators, of course, but the people of eastern Europe. One much say the same about the Axis powers in WWII, and the people of every country whose overlords we have decisively defeated in conflict.

His encapsulation of Israel's relationship to the US is common-sense and clear-headed: the US's interest are best defended when Israel has the political and military ability to defend itself. One might add that this is also to Israel's advantage. After all, it's not much of an ally who's a constant liability. And it's a much stronger formulation than President Bush's echo of the Serbian-Russian alliance: We and the Americans, 307 million strong.

The good news is that Bob's out-raising Udall in in-state funds, The bad news is that very few Senate races are decided by in-state funds any more, and Udall's getting the DC PAC, DSCC, and union money. So when you get a chance, help Bob out. This is one of the few races where the Republicans actually have a chance to improve the brand this fall.

Post a comment

(If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.)




  booklist

Power, Faith, and Fantasy


Six Days of War


An Army of Davids


Learning to Read Midrash


Size Matters


Deals From Hell


A War Like No Other


Winning


A Civil War


Supreme Command


The (Mis)Behavior of Markets


The Wisdom of Crowds


Inventing Money


When Genius Failed


Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking


Back in Action : An American Soldier's Story of Courage, Faith and Fortitude


How Would You Move Mt. Fuji?


Good to Great


Built to Last


Financial Fine Print


The Day the Universe Changed


Blog


The Multiple Identities of the Middle-East


The Case for Democracy


A Better War: The Unexamined Victories and Final Tragedy of America's Last Years in Vietnam


The Italians


Zakhor: Jewish History and Jewish Memory


Beyond the Verse: Talmudic Readings and Lectures


Reading Levinas/Reading Talmud