Hewitt Blog

There's a reason why candidates kiss babies:  They are making the moms and the family happy.

Whether you are the president or one the two men who almost certainly will be his opponent in 14 months, you should be directing your campaign team to focus some attention now on the relaltively new and rapidly expanding corner of the web which is home to the "mommyblogs."

Whether the mommyblogger is a newbie to the blogosphere (and motherhood) like NonOmMom or one of the, pardon the phrase, granddaddies of the space like Melinda Roberts, this niche is full of writers and readers who are powerful influencers of products, markets, and of course politics.  Win a mommyblogger, and you win at least the eyes and possibly the allegiance of the extended family and the close circle of friends who are following the lives of the writer and her family.

There's a mommyblog track at BlogWorldExpo for the reason that this is a huge and growing segment, and every statewide candidate and of course all of the presidentia candidates should have a team there to figure out who is who and how this world of voters works and what they care most about as they consider the future of the children they are writing about and for.

Here's a list of top mommyblogs from last year, but this is obviously just a snapshot of an incredibly dynamic segment of the web.

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My new Townhall.com column is on yesterday's interview with Justice Breyer.

The transcript of the interview is here.

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Three very different guests with very different careers will join me on today's show, though each of them will tell you that their faith in Christ is the key to how their lives have unfolded.

Don Brewster with Agape International Mission labors in Cambodia to help the children trapped in the trafficking industry.

Tim Goeglin is currently with Focus on the Family, but spend most of George W. Bush's two terms as a key staffer inside the White House, and his new book The Man in the Middle is a very interesting memoir of those years from the perspective of a man charged with keeping the conservative movement in communication with if not always on the same page as Team Bush.


And while Pat Boone needs no introduction --he has sold 45 million albums after all-- his wonderful memoir Pat Boone's America will give us plenty to talk about, including the Tea Party rally that Pat has helped organize for Sunday at 2:30 PM in the heart of Beverly Hills, between Beverly and Cannon on Santa Monica Blvd.


 

Associate Justice of the Supreme Court Stephen Breyer joins me for a long interview in hours two and three of today's program.  The transcript of our conversation is here.

Justice Breyer's book Making Our Democracy Work: A Judge's View is a detailed defense of the role the Supreme Court has assumed in American history, and an unusually specific defense of many of Justice Breyer's most controversial votes on the Court, both those cast when he was in the majority and those in which he dissented.



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House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan joined me on yesterday's program and discussed the president's demand for Stimulus 2.0 as well as alternative means of stimulating the economy, corporate tax reform, the Supercommittee, and the race he didn't make for the GOP nomination as well as Monday night's debate among those who are running.

The complete transcript is here.

On the president's "plan":

HH: Congressman, the President has proposed a second stimulus, Stimulus 2.0.

PR: Right.

HH: He doesn’t call it that, but that’s what it is. Is that dead on arrival?

PR: Yeah, look, if you want to look at what this is, take the last stimulus package, divide by two, and that’s what this is. It literally is the same components. It’s more bailouts to state governments, it’s more temporary tax rebates, and more spending on jobs, infrastructure, things like that, which have proven to not be so shovel ready. The same economic models that they’re using to justify this sort of booster shot economics, or sugar high economics, have already proven to completely fail. It didn’t create the kind of jobs they promised. And so I just don’t think it’s a good idea to advance ideas that we have recently proven have failed. Look, George Bush tried some of these ideas, too. He did the rebate thing as well, and it didn’t work. So it’s not just President Obama, these have been tried by both parties, and these ideas have failed. And so they’re a poor substitute for just the basics – sound money, sound regulations, low, permanent tax rates, getting the debt and deficit under control. And what this bill does is it’s all this temporary stimulus that have proven to fail, paid for by permanent tax increases, which just injects more uncertainty into businesses, into small businesses. We’re already seeing a big tax increase coming in 2013. This just piles on top of the tax increase that they have coming at them in 16 months, and it sort of, the whole notion of this thing is predicated upon the belief that businesses only look at just what’s happening today, and they don’t look at what’s happening tomorrow. That’s just not true. Ask any business leader, any business owner. They look to the future to make their decisions for the present as to whether they’re going to take a risk, whether they’re going to invest. And what this bill does is it raises the specter of higher interest rates, bigger deficits and higher taxes. And that’s just not good for growth.

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Mark Steyn tries out for AttackWorld.  Complete transcript here.

He didn't spare the GOP either, which might get him time off for good behavior from the wardens of AttackWorld, or not:

MS:  I don’t expect, I’m not looking for perfection in these candidates, and I expect to disagree with them on key issues, and to a certain extent, for these to be 70% alliances. But what I found bothersome about Rick Perry on the immigration issue, for example, when he was asked about in-state tuition for illegal immigrants, and he had some line about how he didn’t think whether you were entitled to state funds should depend on how your name is pronounced. And I thought that was a cheap line. That’s like when Obama kept going on about what an unusual name he had, and the implication being that if you question Rick Perry’s decision on this, you’re some kind of racist, white supremacist with some WASPy surname who can’t handle the fact that those fellows called Jose wandering around in the country these days. And so you can have honorable differences of opinion on these issues. But that kind of cheap, tacky demonization, if you want a glib line, I mean, his glib lines died. His glib line on, you know, that you can’t buy him for $5,000 bucks died. And the glib line about people with funny sounding surnames died.

HH: Sure.

MS: He needs some better lines.

HH: 30 seconds, Mark, let’s even it up. What left you wanting in Romney?

MS: Well again, I feel Romney miscalculated in essentially playing the granny card on Social Security. My bedrock, when we talk about the 70% thing, I can support a 70% candidate. But in that 70%, the thing I’m looking for, the think my book is all about, is the urgency. It’s not mid-century problems that America has got. It’s mid-decade problems.

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Congresswoman Michele Bachmann joined me on the program today. Her campaign website is here.  She took the opportunity to blast the report that Iranian President Ahmadinejad will be returning to Columbia University on his U.N. visit later this month.  The transcript follows.

HH: Pleased right now to welcome back to the Hugh Hewitt Show Congresswoman Michele Bachmann. Congresswoman, it’s great to have you back. 

MB: Hugh Hewitt, it is always a delight to be on your show, and I loved being in studio with you. I’ll be in California tomorrow. I can’t wait to get back in your studio with you.

HH: Well, I’m glad we’re out of the penalty box, but let’s focus on the future first. Big question, have you got the finances you need to stay in this race through Iowa and New Hampshire? And how to people help you if they want to help you?

MB: Well, I’d love to have your listeners go to www.michelebachmann.com. We have an area there where people can donate, and we need your help to keep going, obviously. It’s a very expensive proposition to run for president of the United States, but it’s worth it. We have to take the country back in 2012, and I believe that 2012 is it. We can’t just have another politician or anyone in there as the Republican nominee. We have to have someone very different, very bold, a Constitutional conservative. And I am dedicated to making sure that repeal Obamacare, because that will be our one and only opportunity. If we’re ever going to get rid of it, we’ve got to get rid of it then, and the same with Dodd-Frank. And I’m committed to both of them. But I do have a background in the economy. I’m a former federal tax litigation attorney. My husband and I have started a successful company. I get the economy, and the problem of how to turn it around, and I also get job creation. I also want to open up and legalize America’s energy supply. And we have such a great story to tell, I just can’t wait to get in and do it, because we can turn the economy around, and national security, I mean, there are so many issues I’d like to talk about. But it’s really also about this tiny window of opportunity we have in 2012, and why we have to have a completely different kind of candidate running. It just can’t be business as usual.

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The SEC should be looking into this pitch for a reckless scheme asap.

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My friends in Minnesocold have been telling me for years that when the Boundary Waters caught fire again it would dwarf the blazes in California.

A big one has begun, but hopefully a turn in the weather will contain it.


 

This is exactly the sort of new media that the GOP needs to be doing on every key issue.  If Chairmen Upton and Issa do the same for Solyndra and "Fast and Furious" and Jeb Hensarling uses this approach to update the Supercommittee's work, the news dynamic on these stories will change completely and for the better.

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