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The Associated Press is reporting that Mitt Romney will announce his running mate on Saturday morning in Virginia.

Some, as Jim Antle mentions, are thinking Romney might try to make a “splash” with his pick. I disagree, and think that he will pick someone with executive experience, i.e. Tim Pawlenty rather than a legistator, with the clear possible exception of Rob Portman, who while currently a senator has previously been the US Trade Representative and head of the White House Office of Management and Budget.

My first guess is Portman, second Pawlenty. I would be quite surprised with Rubio, Ryan, Christie. I suppose my third guess would be Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell.

At the time I’m writing this, Paul Ryan is trading over 90% to be the choice, as if political bettors think they know the answer. Perhaps the reason is a National Review report that Romney’s plane is in Ryan’s home town in Wisconsin. And perhaps it’s an NBC report with other facts (or rumors) which suggest Ryan.

Here’s why that would surprise me, and I say all of this as a huge fan of Ryan’s:

• No substantial private sector experience
• No executive experience
• Would make the election debate all about Medi(s)care and entitlements, unnecessarily scaring the senior citizen voters whom Romney absolutely must get to win
• Would take away the most effective voice for economic rationality in Congress, a voice which a President Romney would need to get a solid budget passed
• It’s not for nothing that Democrats hope that Romney picks Ryan

The other side of my argument, as well-made by the Wall Street Journal, is that selectiing Ryan would force this election to be about “big issues.”

That is certainly true, but it is also a very big gamble if Mr. Romney believes he can win the election by running on the current set of issues, primarily on jobs, rather than making the election about a bigger discussion of cutting government, one which Democrats will use to scare independent women to death about voting Republican.

To be sure, I won’t be disappointed if Romney chooses Ryan. But I think that his situation does not require such a bold move, that his personality does not gravitate toward such a bold move, and that he knows that Ryan would be an important ally in the House.

I’m selling Ryan at these very high odds, willing to lose a little if I’m wrong in order to make a lot if Ryan is not the pick. If I lose the bet, I’ll still be quite happy because it will show Mitt Romney to be more interested in principles of liberty and limited government, and to have a more aggressive personality, than I currently assume of him. Furthermore, Paul Ryan would be a stunningly good influence on a Romney administration, and being VP gives him a clear line to run for president himself down the road. If the AP is right, I’ll know the answer in less than 12 hours…

For those of you who want to give me a listen, I’ll be guest-hosting for the one-and-only Peter Boyles on Friday, August 10 from 5 AM to 9 AM Mountain Time (7 AM to 11 AM Eastern) on Denver’s 630 KHOW.

You can listen online with the link on KHOW’s web page.

Topics will include (unless breaking news changes the line-up):

5 AM Hour: How much lying can Democrats get away with? In the past week, they’ve accused Mitt Romney of not paying taxes, of wanting to raise taxes on the middle class, on wanting to take women back to the policies of the 1950s, and essentially of murder. Truly reprehensible even by the low standards of modern politics.

6 AM and 7 AM Hours: Starting off with Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) live on the air, we’re going to discuss the Marketplace Fairness Act, which has the support of quite a few Republican politicians – but not Senator DeMint – which aims to force the collection of sales tax on online purchases. Lots of questions to ask you about this!

8 AM: We’ll begin by interviewing Catherine Engelbrecht of TrueTheVote.org, discussing voter fraud and efforts to minimize it right here in Colorado. TrueTheVote will have a “state summit” including a tremendous panel of Ms. Engelbrecht, John Fund (formerly of the WSJ, currently of National Review, I believe), the riveting J. Christian Adams, and our own Secretary of State, Scott Gessler. More info about the event which is on Saturday, August 18th HERE.

In an interview with Denver’s Channel 9 News, the two candidates running to replace the term-limited Carol Chambers as the District Attorney for Colorado’s 18th Judicial District, which includes Arapahoe, Douglas, Elbert & Lincoln Counties, answered questions in what was more a pair of parallel interviews than a debate – which I understand during these difficult days, as that is the office which is prosecuting the Aurora movie theater murderer.

For any of you who get to vote in this race, I recommend spending the time to listen to the questions and answers:

http://www.9news.com/rss/story.aspx?storyid=280486

Republican George Brauchler and Democrat Ethan Feldman each did a good job, and neither had anything to be ashamed of in their answers following the questions.

Overall, I think Brauchler’s strongest argument, and perhaps the reason he won the GOP primary over Leslie Hansen, the Chief Deputy District Attorney in that very office, is that he’s an “outsider” and not part of whatever “club” might be running the show over there. I don’t know if this is an office that is in real need of reform, but to the extent that Brauchler believes it is – and can explain why – his outsider status could be a reasonably powerful argument for him in what could be a substantially anti-incumbent election season.

Speaking in Roanoke, Virginia, on July 13, President Barack Obama famously uttered the words that may come to define him and the 2012 presidential campaign: “If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.”

The truth is the opposite: It is government that is utterly dependent on the private sector, in fact on a small highly-productive subset of the private sector, for its ability to do anything.

Obama says entrepreneurs should be fawningly grateful to government (and implicitly to him) for teachers, roads, bridges, and the Internet. But who paid for that teacher, that infrastructure, and that scientific research?

The answer is not “taxpayers” and certainly not “all of us” but rather “a very small percentage of Americans.”

Please read the entirety of my article for the American Spectator here:
http://spectator.org/archives/2012/08/03/no-you-didnt-build-that

Thomas Perez, Assistant Attorney General of the United States, is one of the most destructive forces against the rule of law in our nation, including being the man responsible for the DoJ dropping charges against the New Black Panthers for voter intimidation in Philadelphia during the last presidential election. (If you want to understand more about just how bad this man is, read “Injustice” by Christian Adams.)

Perez appeared before the House of Representatives Subcommittee on the Constitution (glad to know we have one of those!) which is a subcommittee of the Judiciary Committee. Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ) chairs that committee, and the congressman posted a clip of the questioning to his YouTube page with the following introduction:

In a Constitution Subcommittee hearing yesterday, Congressman Trent Franks (AZ-02) questioned Assistant Attorney General, Thomas Perez, over the Administration’s commitment to 1st Amendment rights. Franks’ questions were prompted by a Daily Caller article from late last year in which Perez was quoted as warmly embracing the proposals of Islamist advocates in a meeting at George Washington University, among them a request for “a legal declaration that U.S. citizens’ criticism of Islam constitutes racial discrimination.”

Perez’s refusal to answer Franks’ question suggests a further dangerous inroad by Islamists into the policy-making of this administration (by which I do not mean that Perez is a Muslim, but rather that he is sympathetic to any force, such as Islam, which runs counter to the rule of law in this country.)

One has to wonder whether the rational questions by Rep. Michele Bachmann and others – despite the weak-kneed response of Republican “leaders” like John McCain – about the infiltration of Islamists into the Obama administration (and to be sure the reprehensible smiling photos of prior presidents with some terrible characters) will become a campaign issue. 

Frank Gaffney has put together an online course about “The Muslim Brotherhood in America” which contains more than its fair share of eye-opening information (and rather dramatic music), though I have no easy way to validate what is true and what isn’t…particularly when it comes to the ongoing fued between Mr. Gaffney and Grover Norqust, president of Americans for Tax Reform, known best to Americans as a champion for low taxes. Chapter 8 in particular relates to Islamists and the Obama administration.

Discussion of Huma Abedin, the key advisor to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton who has become such a big part of the Bachmann-initiated discussion in DC, begins at 6:55 of Chapter 8. To be sure, essentially all of the questions about Ms. Abedin relate to her family ties to radical Islam. While there is little evidence about Huma Abedin directly, it is nevertheless reasonable to wonder whether a child is likely to be very different from her parents and other family members when it comes to political views. It is also reasonable to wonder whether a hard-core Islamists, as some are suggesting Huma Abedin might be based on her family and other associations, would marry a Jew as Ms. Abedin did…though her particular choice of husband (former Congressman Anthony Weiner) might add to questions of her judgment.

Following the mass murder in a Colorado movie theater last Thursday night, I had the “opportunity,” a word I choose carefully, to host 12 hours of talk radio over three consecutive mornings, from Saturday (when I had a co-host) through Monday, on Denver’s NewsRadio 850 KOA.

I went into the first show with some sense of dread. After all, what does one say – and what does one expect to hear from callers – about the death of a dozen innocents, a dozen members of our community who were people’s sons and daughters, sisters and brothers, fathers and mothers, friends and lovers?

And about the injuries, some of them critical, to fifty more, including 25-year old Ashley Moser who was shot three times, including a bullet to the neck which has left her paralyzed and who, more importantly, learned about 48 hours after the shooting that her six year old daughter, Veronica, had been killed in the theater. The main reason the pregnant Ashley Moser clings to her will to live is the miracle that her unborn child has survived Ashley’s having also been shot in the abdomen.

For several reasons, I made a decision – and lived by it – not to mention the killer’s name on the air. I also refused to take calls about, or have discussions about, gun laws, the Second Amendment, Republicans or Democrats, Obama or Romney, or anything not primarily related to celebrating the lives of the victims, honoring heroes, and supporting our community in any way I could.

The thing was, I really doubted that there was any way I could.

Please read the entirety of my article for the American Spectator:
http://spectator.org/archives/2012/07/27/difficult-days-in-denver

One of the most valuable experiences of my life was going through the Leadership Program of the Rockies (about eight years ago.) It’s not just what you learn that’s so important, but also who you meet. Some of my closest friends and political allies in Colorado are fellow LPR classmates and graduates. LPR grads hold more than two dozen elected offices around the state, but the program isn’t only for people who want to run for office.

If you live in Colorado and have an interest in being a leader in promoting the values of liberty and capitalism, I urge you to consider applying. Or you know someone who fits that description, I urge you to encourage him or her to apply. The deadline to apply to the next LPR class is August 31, 2011.

For a one-page description of “What is LPR", click HERE.

(For a PDF of the above image, click HERE.)

If you go to http://leadershipprogram.org, you can find all the information you need about the program and how to apply.

For what it’s worth, I have made a (for me) substantial donation to LPR every year since graduating. I don’t think of it as charity as much as an investment in the future of our state and nation.

It was one of the earliest defining moments of this presidential campaign. It left the White House accusing the early field of Republicans of being out of touch and, typical of Democrats’ now-tired rhetoric, beholden to “millionaires and billionaires” and the Tea Party. And it left the New York Times Editorial Board apoplectic – the first clue that the GOP candidates were on to something good.

The event was the Republican debate in Ames, Iowa, on August 11, 2011, when Fox News anchor Bret Baier asked the eight candidates which of them would “walk away from a ten-to-one (ratio of spending cuts to tax increases) deal.” All eight hands went up.

It was the fiscal policy equivalent of Nancy Reagan’s “Just Say No!” campaign against drug use, except that it is arguably an even more important goal, particularly for politicians.

As Democrats play Thelma and Louise politics with the coming “fiscal cliff,” hoping that Republicans will be so afraid of being blamed for not agreeing to a “balanced” solution, the GOP should call their bluff.

Please read the rest of my article for the American Spectator here:
http://spectator.org/archives/2012/07/20/just-say-no

Things didn’t end all that well for Thelma and Louise, in the eponymous 1991 Ridley Scott film, as they drove off a cliff in a desperate effort to evade legal and moral responsibility for having transformed themselves from non-descript mediocrities into common criminals. An alarmingly similar political saga, starring Democrats in Washington, D.C., is playing out today – although, unlike Thelma and Louise’s crimes, plundering citizens is, unfortunately, only illegal if you were not elected to do so.

Given President Obama’s deep love for Hollywood (or at least the money of its residents), one would think that he would be aware of the impact, if you will pardon the obvious pun, of driving off a cliff.

Yet Barack “Louise” Obama along with Senator Patty “Thelma” Murray (D-WA) seem hell-bent on taking the economic version of that same road trip, as if they’ve never seen the end of the movie and aren’t smart enough to figure it out.

Please read the entirety of my article for the American Spectator here:
http://spectator.org/archives/2012/07/18/thelma-and-louise-economics

Liberals really are a single-minded lot: In their view, the only possible explanation for a person hoping that Barack Obama loses his next election is racism. All things political are analyzed through a filter of skin color, putting today’s left directly at odds with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream that his children “will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.”

Conservatives might argue that leftists are hypocritical on this score, that they are judging Obama by his skin color and judging his critics by what they perceive to be the content of our characters – based on nothing but our opposition to a far-left president who happens to be black.

But what they are demonstrating is not hypocrisy, it is projection. Liberals assume that since race is so important to them, it must be equally important to the rest of us, that it must, if you’ll pardon the pun, color our every political thought. This is of course particularly true of the liberal elite who suffer deeply from what Hayek termed the “fatal conceit,” a symptom of which is believing that all intelligent people must think as “Progressives” do – and that all people not intelligent enough to think as they do are suited to be ruled by them.

Please read the entirety of my article for the American Spectator at:
http://spectator.org/archives/2012/07/09/the-color-of-your-character