By JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS,
Associated Press Writer Julie Hirschfeld Davis, Associated Press Writer
Thu May 13, 3:55 pm ET

WASHINGTON – Republican Sen. Scott Brown says Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan has persuaded him that she supports the military, despite her decision as dean of Harvard Law School to ban its recruiters from campus.

The first-termer from Massachusetts says he asked Kagan about the recruitment flap, and her answer made it clear that she backs the military. He says he doesn’t feel her judicial philosophy would hurt those who serve in the armed forces.

Kagan barred recruiters from campus because she disagreed with the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy on gay soldiers. The move has drawn fire from many Republicans.

Kagan met privately with Brown as she prepared to wrap up a day of Capitol Hill meetings.

By Gary Gross, Let Freedom Ring
April 15, 2010

It certainly could break that way according to Jim Geraghty’s post about the Quinnipiac University Poll. First, here’s what Mr. Geraghty said:

I had been expecting Crist to withdraw, but as time goes by, I wonder if he’ll pull the full Specter or full Lieberman. I know Crist has said he won’t do this, but Specter was insisting he would remain a Republican weeks before flipping parties.

Comparing anyone to Snarlin’ Arlen Specter isn’t fair because he’s totally unprincipled. Crist has been straightforward. Wrong but straightforward. Still, there aren’t many politicians seeking higher office that wouldn’t jump at the chance to further their political careers.

Here’s the information that has Geraghty thinking Crist might run as an independent:

Marco Rubio has opened up an elephant-sized 56-33 percent lead over Gov. Charlie Crist in Florida’s U.S. Senate Republican primary, but in a three-way general election with Rubio on the GOP line, Crist as an independent and Democratic U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek, Crist has a razor-thin edge, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today.

Gov. Crist leads Meek 48-34 percent in a general election matchup, while Rubio’s margin over the Democrat is just 42-38 percent, the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University survey finds.

If Crist were to file as an independent for the general election, he would get 32 percent of the vote, compared to Rubio’s 30 percent and Meek’s 24 percent.

Those numbers seemed way too close so I checked the polling method. Just as I suspected, they polled registered voters. Meek couldn’t come within 10 points of any Republican in this race unless that Republican was Kathleen Harris.

While Quinnipiac reports that Gov. Crist is holding a 2-point lead in a 3-man race, that figure is a mirage. Though I haven’t polled it, I suspect that Rubio would jump out to a lead of almost double digits the minute you changed it to likely voters.

The moral of the story for Gov. Crist is that he’s better off waiting to run against Bill Nelson and not burn bridges this time because he’d lose AND burn some important bridges.

Whether he decides to listen to the voice of reason or not remains to be seen. After all, career politicians aren’t good at saying no.

By Michael Katch
April 10, 2010

The US census questionnaire has arrived  at my home; I am not quite sure how I should fill it out.  I always thought of  myself as a whole person in the past, but since I live in Minneapolis and have been  participating in the Republican Party, I discovered at our Hennepin County  Endorsing Convention that my wife and I together make up one whole person.  Each  of the delegates from our BPOU, Senate District 58, was allocated one half of  one vote in the endorsement process.  Even more importantly, my neighbors in  Plymouth and Minnetonka are each one and one half people;  how will they fill out the census  form?

Now, I was raised with the belief  that one man or woman has the equivalent of one whole vote.  This may not have  been true during the era of Jim Crow, but I thought that we had advanced beyond  that age of injustice.  To be fair, we were told that we were less than a person  because our neighbors did not vote for John McCain in large enough numbers.

To those that believe that we in  the city are less because our neighbors vote DFL and we have a hard time  motivating new members to our cause, please understand: with the treatment that  we received at the Hennepin County Convention our suburban neighbors are making  our difficult job even closer to impossible.  New members easily become  apathetic and lose interest in politics. Those who agree with us refuse to even  vote in non-presidential years, and often will not help candidates at all, for  fear of reprisals.

We Minneapolis  Republicans should be given  greater respect within our party than those members safely ensconced in their  suburban hamlets.  Our lawn signs are constantly stolen, our homes are  vandalized, we suffer from graffiti, and we are treated as if we have the plague  by our neighbors for our conservative views.  Since we are manning the battle  lines, we should be given greater standing than those living in majority  republican areas.

Conventions are held in order to  build our party so that we may go forth and change the existing paradigm.  How  can we City Republicans attract and hold new active members when we are treated  as if we are second class citizens?  When our suburban neighbors complain that  our DFL city representation is destroying our great state, they have only  themselves to blame.  We in the City cannot rebuild our party in isolation, and  after redistricting, our suburban friends will have only themselves to blame  when we are in an uncontestable minority.

If our suburban Republicans want  an example of what’s at stake, we need only to look to Illinois, a state where  the Republican Party has lost its influence, cannot compete in Cook County where  the largest population exists, and is looking at a 30% state income tax  increase.  When the same happens here in God’s country, our suburban Republicans  will need only to look in the mirror to see who will be to blame to the total  loss of our state. Having participated in other parties’ conventions in  Minnesota in  the past, I can emphatically state that I have never seen participants treated  with such institutional disrespect.  Members of the DFL can only be laughing at  us.   The Suburban Republicans should be ashamed.