About the only thing these hippies, hipsters, senior citizens who never grew up, and college trust funders out protesting can agree on is that greed is bad. They want the whole capitalist system pulled up by the root and replaced with something else because of greed.

What they either do not understand or choose to ignore is that greed is not a capitalist invention. Greed exists because people do. Greed exists in capitalist societies, socialist societies, and communist societies.

All men are created equal and all men are born into this world as sinners. One of those sins is greed.

The few people who claim to be without greed are typically greedy for the praise of others or full of pride at not being greedy. Pride is a far worse sin than greed because pride is the root of most every sin.

But of all the varieties of greed out there, what the hippies do not seem to understand is that greed in a capitalist society is far less pernicious than the greed in the systems they advocate, be it socialist or communist.

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In light of that tragedy of a debate last night, I want to reiterate this. We’re open to all of the candidates who participated last night doing this: Bachmann, Cain, Gingrich, Huntsman, Paul, Perry, Romney, and Santorum.

You’ll get a better shot at answering better questions in a one on one format.

Dear Candidates:

This letter is written on behalf of Brent Bozell with For America, Ned Ryun with American Majority, Drew Ryun with American Majority Action, and myself. 

Combined we give voice to millions of conservative activists across the country and know that most conservatives believe we have not had a chance to have a real vetting of candidates in Campaign 2012 because of the lack of substance in most of the debates.

Consequently, we would like to provide a unique opportunity for the candidates.  On the attached page we describe the details of the conversation.

Please note that these would be individual conversations and not all candidates present at the same time.  We will work with each candidate’s schedule to provide an evening for each candidate individually.

The conversation will be before an audience coordinated with conservatives in the metro-Atlanta area and the candidates’ own campaigns.  It would be broadcast live on WSB radio, the largest talk radio station in the country.  It would also be streamed live on the internet with the ability to embed on campaign websites and a television feed would be available without restriction for use by broadcast networks.

Given the desire to do these one on one with the candidates, we will work to accommodate the candidates’ schedules.  You may contact me at the address, phone number, and email address above.  We hope Congresswoman Bachmann would be willing to sit and discuss her vision for the country in a conversation led by conservatives for conservatives.

I have enclosed a more specific page on what we are offering.

Sincerely yours,

Erick-Woods Erickson

Editor, RedState.com

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RedState Morning Briefing
For October 12, 2011

Go to www.RedStateMB.com to get
the Morning Briefing every morning at no charge.

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The Bloomberg-Washington Post debate was necessary in the same way a child dying or a puppy being run over are necessary in the chaotic misery of the orbit around the center of the galaxy we slowly endure. All remind us that life isn’t fair, there are terrible tragedies, and sometimes bad things happen to us.

But we have endured. And if you haven’t thrown up on your television due to the unsteady camera or the tediously horrible questions, you will be no worse for the wear tomorrow.

MItt Romney won the debate. No one knocked him off his game. He really is that good of a debater.

Herman Cain proved himself a bit of an unstable number two. He is starting to get the tough questions on his 999 plan and his responses sound like they were crafted in the land of unicorns and rainbows — the people will just keep 999 from being changed and we’ll magically alter the structure of the constitution to prevent it from being repealed except by a 2/3′s vote. Um . . . okay!?

Rick Perry was largely a no show in the first half. The forgotten man who once dominated, he’s rapidly becoming the Fred Thompson of the campaign season, despite having the money and support to go forward. The Perry camp really and truly believes the debates do not matter. The problem for the Perry camp is that everyone else believes the debates do matter. And when one small side thinks they don’t matter and one large side thinks they do matter and the smaller group gives the larger group nothing to turn their gaze up and distract them or change their mind — well then the debates do matter and Perry’s staggeringly bad performances (though this debate was far better than the Fox one) are going to make it harder and harder for him to come back.

To be fair, Perry had two good answers. One in response to Bachmann’s attack on him as a former Democrat; the other to Tumulty’s biased question (but they were all biased, some ridiculously so) on Obama as a job killer near the end. Both of these seemed unscripted and very real. Is Perry getting over-managed? If the prepped questions seem worse than the non-prepped, it certainly seems so.

Either the Perry camp must understand the debates do matter and fix the candidate’s problems or they must convince us they are right. So far they’ve done neither and a hell of a lot of Perry supporters are emailing me in abject panic. My goodness, at least get Jindal to help.

The Bachmann glory days are now over. All you need to know is Mitt Romney asked Bachmann a softball question to keep her legitimate and in the game to prevent consolidation of the anti-Romney camp from happening. Bachmann, in turn, asked Perry a question who then asked Romney a question.

The surprise? No, not that Huntsman still has a sorry excuse for a sense of humor. Mormon joke? Really? It’s that Newt Gingrich continues to score solid points and, just as Herman Cain polled well after a solid debate, Newt may get some new life.

But there is one caveat. Hardly anyone saw this debate. So Perry probably has one more shot with the CNN debate. Gingrich won’t get as much a bump as he could have gotten. And Romney holds onto his lead. Cain also buys more time to come up with stronger answers on 999 and also, lucky for him, few people saw he and Romney defending their support of TARP.

But Bloomberg-Washington Post? I’m strongly pro-abortion when it comes to the idea of these clowns EVER hosting another debate.

Poor little Lee Fang. He felt the need to respond to the I Am the 53 stuff and, as he does with pretty much everything he writes, he gets a lot wrong.

The three jobs Erickson wants you to believe he scraps by on include occasional paid opinion blogging at RedState.com, a lucrative television contract with CNN, and a radio gig that paid the previous host $165,183 a year (Herman Cain’s financial disclosures show he was paid this amount before Erickson took over his spot). The house Erickson can’t sell? Bibb County, Georgia records reveal that Erickson just bought a new $374,900 house in February of this year, and owns another that, according to an estimate by the website Zillow, might be worth slightly less than the amount he paid for it in 2001. And its likely that Erickson’s CNN job alone provides him with a personal driver and covered travel expenses when he needs to appear on the show.

Let’s take this piece by piece:

The three jobs Erickson wants you to believe he scraps by on include occasional paid opinion blogging at RedState.com

Actually, it is a full time job, not an occasional paid thing. That’s why they call me “Editor.” By the way, it is “scrapes” not “scraps.” I “scrape by” or “scrape my knee”. Little Lee Fang “gets the scraps from George Soros’s table.”

a lucrative television contract with CNN

Depends on what you would consider lucrative, though I sure as hell hope it will become very lucrative one day.

a radio gig that paid the previous host $165,183 a year (Herman Cain’s financial disclosures show he was paid this amount before Erickson took over his spot).

Holy cow Herman made that much!?!?! Well, he was Herman Cain, had been there a while, and was a rather prominent guy. I’m just the night time guy and definitely don’t make near that.

Now look at what Little Lee does:

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Feel free to join in either in the window or in the comments!

The Occupy various streets in the nation crowd are downright insulted over the “I Am The 53%” tag Kevin Eder started and that Mike Wilson, Josh Trevino, and I ran with. I mean they are livid over it.

We’re going to get into that tonight on the radio and we’re going to get into Mitt Romney and Mormonism — is it somehow religious bigotry to say Mormons are not Christians and are people awful for wanting to vote for or against someone because of their religion? Yeah, I’m going there.

And a debate preview.

It’s an action packed few hours tonight not he radio from 7pm ET to 10pm ET. You can listen to it all on the largest talk radio station in the nation — and recently named the best talk radio station in America — AM 750 WSB.

You can also call in at 1-800-WSB-TALK.

Consider this an open thread.

Earlier today, Chris Christie endorsed Mitt Romney for president, describing him as “a real hero in Republican circles.”  During his announcement, he disparaged conservatives who oppose Romneycare, by suggesting that any attempt to compare it to Obamacare is “completely intellectually dishonest.”  Governor Christie might want to look in the mirror or step down as a prominent spokesman for the Republican Party.

Any attempt to suggest that the two healthcare plans are fundamentally different is completely intellectually dishonest.

Romney on Romneycare

“Let me tell you this about our system in Massachusetts: 92 percent of our people were insured before we put our plan in place. Nothing’s changed for them. The system is the same. They have private market-based insurance.  We had 8 percent of our people that weren’t insured. And so what we did is we said let’s find a way to get them insurance, again, market-based private insurance. We didn’t come up with some new government insurance plan.” (FoxNews-Google Debate, Sept. 22)

Reality

Like every egregious government intervention in the private sector, MassCare drove up total health insurance costs in Massachusetts by $4.311 billion.  Massachusetts individual health premiums are now the highest in the nation.   The other 92% are being forced to pay higher premiums for what is no longer “market-based insurance.”  The 8% that are “uninsured” were put on government programs, primarily Medicaid.  That’s exactly what Obama seeks to do with Obamacare.  The costs will be even higher once the federal government stops subsidizing Romneycare through extra Medicaid grants.

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Energy productivity isn’t the only thing that is hampered by laws governing so-called endangered species.  For decades, the Departments of Interior and Agriculture have encumbered border security operations with layers of environmental restrictions and regulations.  Additionally, the US Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) has been forced to pay millions in taxpayer dollars, known as mitigation funds, to offset the “environmental effects” of their roads, fences, and surveillance towers in or near national parks and other federally owned lands.  Now, Rep. Rob Bishop is seeking to exempt the border patrol agents from these laws, so they can focus on their real job – protecting the border.

Bishop’s bill (H.R. 1505) prohibits the secretaries of Agriculture and Interior from impeding border security operations that are currently stymied by three dozen environmental regulations, including the Wilderness Act, National Environmental Policy Act, Clean Water Act, and the 1965 law known as the Solid Waste Disposal Act.  This bill allows CPB to construct roads and fences, use patrol vehicles, and set up monitoring equipment within on all federal lands within 100 miles of both the northern and southern borders.

The bill passed the Natural Resources Committee on a party line vote.  Now Republican leaders must schedule a floor vote on this vital legislation.

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I’m going to diverge a bit from our RedState Echo Chamber® and come out in support of the Occupy Wall Street protests. I’m struggling to find a downside to this bit of theater for conservatives or the GOP. I don’t really see an upside to it for the Administration and the Democrats.

Personally, I can’t think of anything more amusing than several heavily blue cities being overrun by unwashed hipster trash protesting the excesses… or existence… of the industry group that has given Obama truckloads of money. If heads are broken, it will be under the direction of Democrat mayors. If people are inconvenienced they are by and large Democrat voters.

The media will eat it up as they vicariously relive their recollections of what Woodstock would have been like if only they had been conceived or out of diapers at the time. Night after night the nation will be reminded of exactly who is in the White House.

The administration fantasizes that it will create some sort of counter Tea Party but misses the obvious disconnect. The Tea Party was for something rather than merely an inchoate protest for the sake of protest. More to the point, where the Tea Party found a natural, if somewhat strained, alliance with the GOP, it is hard to see how these protesters find alliance with the political party that came to, and remains in, power by monetary contributions from Wall Street.

What they forget is that the street demonstrations of the mid-1960s did not help the Democrat party. To the contrary the protests of 1967 and 1968 led directly to the decision of LBJ to decline to seek a second term and to the election of Richard Nixon.

I think the conservatives should get behind this movement. We should make sure these people are able to stay in downtown Boston and New York City and Atlanta and wherever. We should send aid convoys from Red States to the #OWS protests to show that we, too, have been victimized by Barack Obama’s donor base. And we should make sure they get free bus tickets to the Democrat Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina.

With a new debate coming, now’s a great time to check the latest national polling. Of course, individual states matter, but this early the national polling is critical for gauging how well the candidates will be able to stay in the race.

To summarize, we’ve seen no changes since Herman Cain surged just ahead of Rick Perry. Mitt Romney still leads.

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I’m not too surprised when I see Herman Cain doing better than Rick Perry in recent polling, but I was surprised to see Ron Paul beating Rick Perry in NBC’s new poll of Iowa. So, I started getting ready to post… and found out there’s more than meets the eye here.

Caucuses are apparently hard to poll.

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