*purrs*
It warms the cockles of my heart. Thank God for Barry, Harry, and the other bitch.

Dear Mr. Vanderleun: I don't know. The second post, the 11:53 one, made me wonder. This self-described long time union member, part of many other union members, sounds false here. How many long time union members that you know would denounce Krugman and Matthew Yug-Soggoth this vigorously? Note, too, the absence of any mention about "card check," in my opinion the most likely horror measured to be jammed through in the mad lame duck session after November. It could be that this commenter has been unemployed for some time and has spent time cruising the Internet, not realizing it was a road to Damascus.

I don't want to turn away any converts. The Right needs every vote in can muster in 210 and 2012. But the tone of the second post makes me wonder about this commenter's real identity. To be sure, said commenter would take a huge amount of grief from former associates if the real name was used.

I could be wrong. I'd like to hear form others if they find this second post's tone off-key.

Sincerely yours,
Gregory Koster

Gregory Koster TROLL?

Converts to the Constitution come in all flavors. Instead of worrying about the authenticity of some particular one, let's take the words as they are; for those words represent the thinking of a large and ever-growing segment of union folks. True, lots of them don't know all the specifics. But they are learning that entitlement thinking and the Democratic Party are the real enemies. We MUST treasure the progress these brave souls have made, encourage them and guide them along the way. Our Republic is at stake.

While traveling around the Oregon coast this summer, I happened to see a Republican Party headquarters office in one small town that had a big sign over the front door that said:

ALL ARE WELCOME

People are starting to get it. Long live the Happy Warriors.

I hope the converts hold strong; that ballots suffice this time. For next time I fear it's bullets.

If we were living with a Republican administration SYoung would have to implore people to go check out what is happening around the country, the media would be broadcasting the misery 24/7.

As a fellow Michigan resident, I could buy the commentor's union bona fides. It sounds like he is pinning hopes on Rick Snyder, the Republican candidate that won the primary and ran on his credentials as a CEO. I know Democrats came out for him (he made appeals to Democrats and Independents in the primary to cross over), and many will vote for him in the general. I don't think I am as excited or hopeful as the commenter. CEO's don't seem to have good track records of governing, especially moderate/liberal types in liberal states. We also still have a couple years of Obama left at the minimum.

Dear Koster, I know what you mean and I did do some back checking in case we were looking at a "sock-puppet." It's always hard to know. There were other traces of the handle floating around the net that were previous to these comments, but not many.

That's nothing one way or the other. And at any rate it's the content and the tone that interest me.

Also, as I noted, I did clean the comments up by correcting spelling, punctuation, and paragraphing in order to make the comments easier to assimilate.

Here's another comment by syoung with no corrections, just as it was typed in:

" Comment on: Throwing money at education at 8/6/2010 12:07 PM EDT
It is reading articles such as these that infuriate me. I am an auto worker from Michigan, I install car seats, or at least i did until I was laid off last year. Not only was I laid off, but a large swath of my family was also laid as well,including my father. I was forced to temporarily relocate to the south and used up my savings in the process to follow a much lower paying job.This last spring, I was also laid off from that job. I am a union member, I have always voted democratic,always showed up for rallies when bodies were needed,volunteered for campaigns, and even rounded up and brought other's to polls to vote.Those days are long over. My family, including all of my brothers, my sister,her husband, uncles,cousins,my parents,in laws and everyone got together over the fourth of July and made a pact that unless we are all employed by Nov. 2nd, we will ALL be voting Republican for the first time. I am tired of being patted on the head by my own party and told to be patient, I am tired of receiving emails from Trumka asking for my money, my time, and my vote. I will not attend any more rallies either. You cannot walk down the streets of Michigan's cities without seeing the worried faces, the boarded up shops, the empty parking lots, entire neighborhoods deserted and abandoned. I talked yesterday on a blog with some who told me basically that was too bad,nothing can be done and then they questioned my loyalty and whether I was lying. These were democrats. Our voices are not being heard,instead at the least second dems try to buy us off with money to teacher's unions. It is too late, we will be registering protest votes this Nov for the opposite party. I am willing to give them a try after the disatrous last two years and I really couldn't care less about point a finger in blame if someone can fix the problem."

Obviously anyone can pretend to be anything on the Web but, again, it is what is being said and how it is being said that is important here.

Whether, he's a union guy or not thank God for the sentiments. The mockery of the propagandists is long overdue in blue states. Went to Detroit last summer and it is Third World. God help us to turn out these venal crap weasels in November or it probably is over for the USA.

Thanks Gerard and Syoung809132001, I needed that.

Reagan Democrats Redux.

What made them go back to the Dems in the first place?

I realize that this is likely a follow-on generation to the previous Reagan Democrats, but still, the Republicans lost them rather than the Democrats winning them back. The first fool Republican to lose them was Bush the Elder, who strangled Reaganism in its crib with his "Kinder and Gentler" fraud. Idiot. Country Club Republican doofus. "A Thousand Points of Light" my ass.

Don Rodrigo:
Followed by Bush 43 and his "compassionate conservatism", which led to Medicare Part D (a massive expansion of federal entitlements), No Child Left Behind (a cooperative effort with Ted Kennedy), along with "The Religion of Peace". Gag.

Party A screws up. Party B gets elected. The election goes to their heads - "The voters must love the most radical parts of our agenda. Let us implement it."

Party B is now the screw up. And so it goes.

The conservatives think we want theocracy and the liberals think we want socialism. And so we go from train wreck to train wreck.

Considering that the poster of this response needs to input an email address to post it, it is certainly within the capabilities of the Washington Post to assign a reporter to contact this individual to find out about his conversion. If the poster does not respond to repeated attempts to contact him directly, I think it would be entirely reasonable for the Post to view this person as a sock-puppet. However, if the background of this person checks out and can verify many of the claims made (of newly awakened conservative voters), then this would actually be a real story that an operation like the Post would really want to be, y'know, on top of because they really are a NEWS organization rather than a bunch of hacks.

So, what is it going to be, WAPO? You have a major story just itching to be told? Is it astroturf, or is it real?

Let me tell M. Simon what frosts my shorts. It’s assholes who tell me that because I’m a Christian and my faith is important to me that I’m the leading wedge of a theocracy. You and all the other jerks think that because you drove crèches from the public park and made it a crime for graduating students to mention Christ in their valedictory speeches you have actually struck a blow for freedom. Let me know what party you belong to so I can vote for the opposition.

And that bit about both sides implementing a “radical agenda.” Yeah, that George Bush 1 sure was a radical as he veered as far and as fast as he could away from the policies of Ronald Reagan (kindler, gentler anyone?) and agreed to the Democrats tax increases. And Bush 2 was hands across the aisle all the way with big new entitlement programs for the Democrats (see rickl), plus pushing for amnesty, another one on the Democrat wish list. In fact the only thing he did not cave on was the war on terror. If 9/11 had not happened, Bush 2 would be a RepubloCrat hero.

So, no, radical agendas are not the province of Republicans. And here’s a news flash for you, the Soviet Union really was an evil empire. Take your moral equivalency and shove it.

On my blog, I have commented many times on the damage big unions have done to business and the public sector of our country. Knowing that many of the the individual members may not be in sync with their militant leadership, they still were responsible for their election. Now the liberals, supported by the unions, have almost bankrupted our nation through support of Fannie and Freddie and sub-prime mortgages and now the bailouts of union pension plans and vast increases in government employment.

It is good to see that some of the union workers are finally realizing that, for there to be jobs, there has to be a vigorous business climate. A climate that can only be achieved when business has the confidence that it can profit from its investment of time, money and effort.

The Republicans have made many mistakes, but none that can be compared to those of the past two years. All you have to do is look at the deficit charts elsewhere on the American Digest and you will see that the problems started when the Democrats took over both houses of Congress. The problem was that President Bush did not "just say no". He did not stop the sub-prime lending that began in the Clinton years, and fell for the crises that the so called "ruling class" created in "08".

I don't miss Bush, but I do miss Reagan, a man who loved America, who won through strength, who understood the private sector as being the source of jobs, and who stood by his word.