Arizona Power Cutoff to Boycotting Californians? No
Gary Pierce, one of 5 Arizona Corporation Commissioners, pointedly wrote a letter to the Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, one of those progressive city leaders (in addition to the usual liberal meccas like student-dominated Boulder, CO and Austin, TX) whom have joined in an economic boycott of Arizona in response to the Arizona immigration law, noting that Los Angeles, which does not generate enough of its own energy, has to import a significant percentage of its own power from Arizona stations. Pierce sarcastically suggested that if Los Angeles doesn't think that Arizona is a good place to visit or do business with, why should they continue to rely on Arizona for their power needs? Pierce would be more than happy to help Villaraigosa find a way out of their power agreements with Arizona suppliers.
Of course, Arizona power plants include Californian ownership interests, and Pierce has no real authority to threaten a power cutoff to Los Angeles. But it's not like Los Angeles, which has all but run into the ground by liberal free-spenders, has a lot of money to throw away on junkets to Arizona in the first place. If I was mayor of a large city that to a significant degree depends on tourism, the last thing I would be doing is starting a tourism fight with a neighboring state.
No, Arizona shouldn't try to reciprocate the boorish, morally self-superior, unconscionable actions of petty politicians trying to exploit a state's attempt to deal with instability on its border and a dysfunctional national administration which finds all sorts of ways to spend the money of future generations except in defending its own national borders. If demagogues like the progressives in Los Angeles, Austin and elsewhere were truly consistent, they should be protesting ICE, which has the ability to demand paperwork with or without any reason, including morally unacceptable ones, like racial profiling, versus Arizona's, which is far more constrained and explicitly rejects racial profiling.
Supplying Los Angeles with power provides a number of well-paying Arizona jobs and handsome returns for investors. How is it a quid pro quo to cut off one's nose to spite one's face? The moral upper hand belongs to the state government of Arizona putting the safety of its citizens above ugly progressive threats.
Political Potpourri
The one big change here is the aftermath of the Vietnam service revelation of Attorney General Richard Blumenthal (D-CN), heir apparent to the retiring Chris Dodd Senate seat. Just a few weeks ago, Blumenthal held huge leads of up to 30 points or more over his likely GOP opponents. Linda McMahon, former CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment who won a critical GOP endorsement this weekend, almost overnight shot to within 3 points of Blumenthal, possibly within the statistical margin of error. Blumenthal, in a strongly Democratic state, probably has a strong floor of support and maybe bounces back a bit from here; the revelation could have been fatal if the McMahon campaign had released it a few days before the election. Blumenthal best response would have been an unconditional admission and apology. His self-serving rationalization simply dug him into a deeper hole. To a certain extent, a Blumenthal v. McMahon campaign is predictable; Blumenthal will try to paint McMahon as someone trying to buy a Senate seat; McMahon will argue unlike Blumenthal, she is not a career politician in a change election looking for new leadership, with a strong emphasis on business growth policies and fiscal discipline.
Democrat Critz beat Burns with a wider-than-expected margin of victory for the late Murtha's old seat. I was watching FNC, with many commentators clearly expecting Burns to take the seat after the recent GOP sweep through Scott Brown's victory in Massachusetts. Critz probably benefited by a large turnout for the high profile Specter-Sestak nomination fight and had a huge advantage in the high proportion of registered Democrats. Critz ran as a conservative Democrat (pro-life, pro-gun, against ObamaCare), all but running against Pelosi and Obama's policies. There will be a rematch in this fall's election, so Burns has 6 months to devise an alternative strategy. Burns tried to make the election a referendum on Pelosi. That was probably a mistake because Critz could simply argue he's a different type of Democrat. I would have probably focused more on the change election theme, with Critz having little influence over the progressives in charge of the Congress and the White House, and painted Critz as the equivalent of an incumbent as Murtha's top staffer. I think Burns should have stressed his pro-job growth credentials as a businessman, his independence from business as usual in DC, and Democrats' indulgent legislative priorities and ineffectual hyper-spending. I cannot stress enough: independents and moderates are not attracted to red meat partisan politics.
I've seen one recent poll with Sestak taking a small lead over his GOP opponent, Toomey. Boxer and Brown in California have regained small leads in California, and Democrats have narrowed their deficiency in the generic Congressional ballot. Perhaps modest job gains have stabilized the the Democrats' drop, but the national debt is not dropping within the near future, and job recovery to date is trivial relative to the millions shed on the Democrats' watch.
Lisa Benson symbolizes how two contemptible two national leaders, looking desperately for ways to bolster their approval ratings at home, are disingenuously smearing the reputations of honest, hard-working law enforcement officers in Arizona, with a proven track record of following the law in exercising authority and making arrests. Recent statements of DHS indicate that they may choose to catch and release unauthorized residents if they don't agree with the laws or methods under which the residents were arrested, regardless of the facts of the resident's status. Obama has so transparently exploited this issue to motivate his Latino voter base that it almost makes a strongly pro-immigration conservative like myself want to switch sides. I logically separate temporary worker and immigration issues.
Quote of the Day
Travel only with thy equals or thy betters; if there are none, travel alone.
The Dhammapada
Musical Interlude: The AFI Music Top 100 (continued)
#25. "High Noon"
#26. "The Trolley Song"
#27. "Unchained Melody"
#28. "Some Enchanted Evening"
