Articles by Gary Hoitsma
The Third Debate – A Window on “Message Discipline”
First Trump brought up the bombshell revelation – contained in a just-released undercover video – that Clinton-affiliated operatives actually paid and trained people (including homeless and mentally ill people) to attend the Trump rallies for the express purpose of provoking and inciting the very violence needed to create – out of whole cloth – the Clinton media-messaging narrative. Here was near-smoking-gun evidence that it happened, and that this dirty-trick tactic had been used to unfairly smear Trump and his supporters. Continue reading
The Second Debate: Trump Escapes High-Tech Execution
But Clinton’s trump-card (so to speak) in the overall election, illustrated by the exquisite timing of the embarrassing tape story, is the Clinton campaign’s ruthless ability to exploit opposition research to distract media attention for maximum effect in the proverbial “October Surprise.” In this instance, Trump fought back with an unprecedented pre-debate press conference featuring several of the Bill Clinton scandal-women of yesteryear, to at least show that two can play that game. Continue reading
Digesting the Pence-Kaine VP Debate
Kaine was clearly not playing to win for himself. He was playing to damage Mr. Trump by spitting out as many of Clinton’s talking points as he could regardless of the responses and, in that, he was arguably somewhat successful. … Continue reading
The First Trump-Clinton Debate: A Brief Analysis
There were just a few moments of the debate that frame the more unconventional wisdom that Trump may have done better with many voters than some of the media smart people might suspect. Continue reading
Understanding Reagan’s Teflon Touch
He was a popular GOP candidate, leader, and president – often curiously at odds with the nation’s governing elites, including even the vast Republican Party establishment which eventually adopted him, though never quite completely. Yet, he developed a remarkable bond … Continue reading
Ted Cruz: The “Right” Man to Watch
In these early stages of the fight for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, it appears that the outsider anti-establishment candidates are striking a chord with rank-and-file GOP voters. But will one of them have the strength to prevail in the … Continue reading
Remembering Reagan’s Battle with the Radical Environmentalists
“With each passing day, year, and decade, Americans learn how fortunate our country was to have him as our president at such an important time.” -William Perry Pendley It has been famously said that Ronald Reagan “won the Cold War … Continue reading
Why the “Reagan Democrats” Stayed Home on Election Day 2012
As potential candidates for the Republican presidential nomination contemplate the political landscape for 2016, they all might benefit from some of the down-to-earth insights offered by the GOP candidate who actually won the Iowa caucuses in the last go-around.
Stardust & Fantasyland: The Obama Administration Flim-Flams Taxpayers on the Highway Trust Fund
The administration’s transportation bill essentially proposes to destroy the Highway Trust Fund as we know it – a mechanism based primarily on gas tax and related user fee revenues to pay for two accounts (Highways and Transit) on a quasi … Continue reading
Boehner’s Ploy to End Saturday Postal Delivery to Bailout the Highway Trust Fund
In a memo to the House Republican caucus, Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R–VA), and Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) fully endorsed the idea of ending Saturday postal delivery to bail out the Highway Trust Fund and … Continue reading
