Rand Paul article tops 1,500 reads

This week, my Nolan Chart article on Rand Paul's Senate campaign in Kentucky, "Paul Surges to Lead in Senate Race," passed the 1,500-read mark for January. (It currently has 1,550.) That's the first time in more than a year that an article of mine has attracted that many readers in a month.

I'd like to thank the kind folks at Liberty Forest and The Daily Paul for helping the article find its readership.

Paul Surges to Lead in Senate Race
http://www.nolanchart.com/article7234.html

Medina's star rises in Texas

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Associated Press reported on Jan. 20: "After months of being largely dismissed in a race dominated by the state's two Republican heavyweights, Debra Medina is making her presence felt with an anti-establishment message that has evidently struck a chord among a segment of Republican voters.

"Buoyed by her performance against Gov. Rick Perry and U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison in last week's televised debate, the conservative activist has climbed to 12 percent in the latest Rasmussen Reports poll, up from 4 percent in November, a showing that prompted organizers to include her in a second debate Jan. 29."

Source:
(AP) Dave Montgomery, "Medina's star is rising in Texas GOP gubernatorial race", Politics AP, The Miami Herald, Jan. 20, 2010.
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics/AP/story/1435082.html

I am currently working on an article about the Medina campaign, and will blog the link when it is completed.
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Massachusetts election: Where was the left?

by George J. Dance

In the wake of Republican Scott Brown's upset election victory in Massachusetts for Ted Kennedy's former Senate seat, Toronto Star columnist and blogger David Olive asked a pertinent question: Where were the progressives? Tea Party activists were all over the state (from reports I've read), providing the cadre -- the "boots on the ground" -- instrumental in Brown's win. Where were their counterparts in Coakley's campaign?

Olive points out that the Obama's progressive troops have been "AWOL" for some time: 

Vander Heuvel ... should be admonishing fellow progressives. Where were they during the Tea Party mania of August, when the tide of public opinion began to turn decisively against change. Progressives embraced Obama, or change, or both. Yet when a gaggle of liberatarians [sic] with posters depicting their champion - yes, there [sic] one best chance in a generation for significant progressive change - showed up on the Mall or at the local rec centre, where was the army of progressives with their own signs, slogans and expressions of popular will? AWOL is where.

Just hours later, at the Huffington Post, Frank Schaeffer cranked up the rhetoric a notch, blaming the entire loss on "Lefty Obama-Haters."

It is probably unfair to blame loss of liberal or progressive support for the Democrats' Masschusetts defeat – others have been arguing that what hurt them most was loss of support among white working males and seniors – but it is fair to wonder what has been happening to the President's support on the left.

Here's a Nolan Chart article I recently published on the subject:

The Left abandons Obama
http://www.nolanchart.com/article7277.html

Grayson won't recuse himself

Trey Grayson is the Secretary of State for the state of Kentucky. Which means that he oversees Kentucky elections, and certifies the winners. Which means that he is overseeing his own election campaign for the U.S. Senate, currently against Bill Johnson, Gurley Martin, Brian Oerther, Rand Paul, and Jon J. Scribner in the Republican primary.

Associated Press reported on January 21 that: "In a letter sent to Grayson's Capitol office, Paul asked Grayson to recuse himself from overseeing the Senate election" due to the obvious conflict of interest.

In reply, "Grayson spokesman Les Fugate called the request absurd and blatantly self-serving. Fugate said Grayson won't recuse."

Source: "Paul Doesn’t Want GOP Opponent To Oversee Election" (AP), WKRG, Jan. 21, 2010.
http://wkrg.com/662167

For other coverage of the Grayson-Paul race, please read my articles:

Paul Surges to Lead in Senate Race
http://www.nolanchart.com/article7234.html

Steve Forbes endorses Rand Paul
http://www.nolanchart.com/article7236.html

GD's Top 50 of 2009

In my last column, I talked of using TPA as a venue for posting either (1) links to my columns published on Nolan Chart or  (2) the text of rejected columns. This article is a good way to do both. It's a chart of my Top 50 articles of 2009, as judged by page impressions ('hits') by unique readers. All articles are live-linked, so that any one can be read with one click of the mouse.

"GD's Top 50" was submitted and rejected on New Year's Day. I'd had a similar chart for 2008 published the previous New Year's (see #48); however, the 2009 edition was rejected as 'self-promotion.'

2008 was an extremely prolific year for me on the Chart: I wrote and published over 100 articles, and received 92,000 hits. In contrast, last year I published only 10 articles, and the number of hits fell to 38,000. So most of the top 50 listed here are from 2008. It's interesting, to me at least, to note that some of those were more popular, attracting more hits, in the following year; an indication of which parts of the corpus are likely to stand the test of time. I look forward to running similar charts here on future New Year's Days.

What follows, including the prefatory note in italics, is the full text of the article submitted to NC. 

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Here are my top 50 Nolan Chart articles of the year, ranked by number of reads. I compiled only a top 50 this year (vs. last year’s Top 100) as I took a break from politics in this non-campaign year. I published only 10 new articles. However, several of my 2008 articles continued to be popular, some attracting more readers last year than when originally published.  I hope this look back introduces more readers to my work. (To view all of my articles, please click the "More articles" link at the end.)

Top 50 of 2009

[Article, date published, number of reads/hits]

1. The Ron Paul Terrorist Report.  Mar. 29, 2009. 1,669.
2. Government or Anarchy?  Jun. 29, 2008. 1,139.
3. FBI: No hard evidence linking Bin Laden to 9/11.  Apr. 10, 2008. 802.
4. George W. Bush, American poet? Jan. 18, 2009. 790.
5. Ron Paul endorses Amit Singh for Congress.  May 5, 2008. 658.
6. Bob Barr and the Gun Ban (I).  Aug. 24, 2008. 644.
7. Ron Paul's Delegate Wars (I).  Apr. 13, 2008. 600.
8. Ron Paul and his rEVOLution.  Mar. 28, 2008. 597.
9. Libertarian politics in Ontario, Canada.  Nov. 10, 2008. 595.
10. Monds wins a million votes in Georgia.  Nov. 7, 2008. 559.
11. Health Care vs. Pizza.  Jul. 6, 2008. 549.
12. Childs's argument for anarchism. Jun. 12, 2009. 537.
13. Ron Paul on Bob Barr: "We're allies."  Jun. 3, 2008. 535.
14. Paul: Pelosi spiked Iran bill.  Jun. 17, 2008. 531.
15. Ron Paul supporter Chuck Baldwin runs for President.  Apr. 25, 2008. 526.
16. "Government or Anarchy?" revisited. Jul. 1, 2009. 518.
17. Bob Barr's Gun Record.  Aug. 6, 2008. 506.
18. Ron Paul's former aide reveals: "We needed" Barr to vote for the PATRIOT Act. May 24, 2008. 500.
19. Baldwin will free Ramos and Compean.  Sep. 15, 2008. 497.
20. Smokin'. June 10, 2008. 495.
21. Bob Barr and the Gun Ban (II).  Aug. 24, 2008. 492.
22. Paul supporters Lawson and Jones win NC primaries.  May 8, 2008. 487.
23. Talking Trash. Jun. 24, 2009. 486.
24. Bob Barr's Real Record (I). May 22, 2008. 472.
25. Libertarian kittens. Jul. 7, 2008. 471.
26. Barr vs. McCain (II): The Wasted Vote. Nov. 3, 2008. 462.
27. Ron Paul's Delegate Wars (II).  Apr. 20, 2008. 456.
28. Ron Paul helps launch Young Americans for Liberty. Dec. 7, 2008. 455.
29. Bob Barr's Real Record (II). May 22, 2008. 450.
30. Ron Paul's Delegate Wars (V). May 11, 2008. 447.
31. Third-party debate in early October.  Sep. 27, 2008. 421.
32. Injustice at Nolan Chart! Nov. 23, 2008. 419.
33. Sarah Palin and "Troopergate."  Aug. 30, 2008. 413.
34. Ron Paul's Delegate Wars (IV). May 4, 2008. 413.
35. Barr vs. McCain (III): Socialism. Nov. 3, 2008. 408.
36. Third-partying the rEVOLution in Louisiana. Oct. 31, 2008. 399.
37. Ron Paul's Delegate Wars (III). Apr. 27, 2008. 399.
38. A sonnet on the Iraq War. May 18, 2009. 399.
39. ACLU sues Transportation Security Administration over Ron Paul staffer's detention. Jul. 19, 2009. 391.
40. Boston Tea Party nominee smears Barr. Jul. 13, 2008. 390.
41. Obama warned not to take peace vote for granted. Jul. 26, 2008. 389.
42. Trouble in Boston Tea Paradise. Oct. 24, 2008. 382.
43. Rare Ron Paul footage in new Barr video. Jul. 27, 2008. 381.
44. Ron Paul's No-Third-Party Deals. Nov. 14, 2008. 377.
45. Bob Barr on the Bailouts. Sep. 21, 2008. 374.
46. Third-Party Debate Fiasco: Oct. 19 debate(s) cancelled. Oct. 18, 2008. 370.
47. Trans-Texas Corridor changes direction. Jun. 27, 2008. 358.
48. GD's Top 100 of 2008. Jan. 1, 2009. 357. 
49. Barr - Paul Alliance Buzz Builds. Jul. 5, 2008. 354.
50. Vince Miller RIP. Jun. 29, 2008. 349.

Introducing The Political Animal

I suppose that, if I wish to make a proper introduction, I should begin by introducing myself.

George Dance is my real name. I'm 56 years old, and live in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, with my family.

I am a long-time member of both the Libertarian Party of Canada and the Ontario Libertarian Party. I was the Leader of both parties for brief periods, and the Chairman of the provincial party for 12 years. You can read the details of my political biography here.

For all of that period I wrote for, and for some time edited, both parties' newsletters. Those newsletters were my zines in those days. (The blog's title is a hommage not only to Aristotle, but also to one of my 1980's-era columns.)

In 1996 I discovered mailing lists, and began posting on a few.

In 2000 I became interested in political philosophy and aware of the internet, and began writing on usenet. Ten years later, I am still writing on usenet and Google Groups.

Inspired by Ron Paul's carpe diem Presidential campaign, in early 2008 I began writing a Nolan Chart political column, in particular on the U.S. election, in particular on the Paul and Libertarian campaigns. That column continues, with an eye on the 2012 election.

I've been considering writing a political blog for some time, but hesitated because I didn't want it to conflict with my NC column. However, I've come to realize that, not only will the two activities not necessarily conflict, but that the blog can actually help the column. In particular I can use the blog to publish:

- links to my new articles, and the best of my old, that are published on NC.
- the text of any articles that NC rejects. (Yes, there have been a few)
- reprints of my other political writing scattered about on the net. (NC has a policy -- actually a google ads policy -- against reprinting material.)
- short takes on political events, and ideas, that wouldn't by themselves constitute an article, or that could become the genesis of an article.

I hope that's sufficient information to introduce you to the blog. The only thing I can think of to add is: Welcome.