Inside the Beltway: Gung-ho Republicans

NEWS AND OPINION:

Forget that steady, annoying drone from the liberal press that Republicans have given up on the election. Members of the Grand Old Party “express increasingly positive opinions about the presidential campaign and are now about as likely as Democrats to view the campaign as interesting and informative,” says a new survey of 1,005 adults conducted Oct. 18 to 21 by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press. It finds that 63 percent of Americans overall deem the campaign is “interesting.” The GOP, however, has an even warmer review.

“Seventy three percent of Republicans say the campaign is interesting, up 23 points since early September and by far the highest percentage of the year,” the research says. The percentage of Democrats who agree remains unchanged since September at 66 percent.

Compared with a month ago, far more Republicans also view the campaign informative — 69 percent now, 49 percent then. “Substantially fewer say the campaign is ’too long’ than did so in September, 42 percent now, 62 percent then,” Pew says.

TRUMPALICIOUS

Donald Trump has half the planet awaiting his “big news” about President Obama; the billionaire says he’ll reveal election-changing revelations on Wednesday, prompting voters to hope that, well, Mr. Trump actually has election-changing revelations. But what could they be? Paddy Power, Europe’s largest betting company, is offering the following odds about the content of Mr. Trump’s announcement:

2-5 that Mr. Obama is not an American, 4-1 that Mr. Trump plans to “fire” an Obama impersonator, 8-1 that Mr. Trump will endorse the president, 50-1 that Mr. Obama will appear on NBC’s “Celebrity Apprentice,” 75-1 that Mr. Trump will award Mr. Obama an honorary golf membership at the Trump International Golf Club, 250-1 that Mr. Obama thinks the 1969 moon landing was staged and 250-1 that Mr. Obama is actually an alien from outer space.

“It’s no secret that there’s little love lost between these two. It will be interesting to see whether or not the Donald’s trump card on President Obama will have an impact on the presidential race,” observes Feilim MacAniomaire, spokesman for the Ireland-based betting house.

DONE WITH THE DEBATE

In case anyone is curious, 53.9 million people tuned in to the third presidential debate Monday night — down from the 67 million and 66 million who tuned in, respectively, for the first two bouts between President Obama and Mitt Romney. Well, what with baseball, football and dancing celebrities, the final debate had plenty of competition. Who won the ratings derby? That would be NBC among the broadcast networks with 12.4 million viewers, and Fox News among the cable contenders with 11.5 million.

OBAMA AS KING (OPINION)

“He looked like Louis XIV masquerading as president of the United States.”

(Fox News contributor Karl Rove’s review of President Obama’s performance in the debate on Monday night).

OBAMA AS KING (FACTS)

“There is no excuse for this continuous disregard of legislative authority and the constitutionally required separation of powers. In some instances, President Obama attempted to garner legislative authority, failed and then acted unilaterally in defiance. In other instances, the president never even sought to find consensus and instead ignored Congress and its authority from the outset,” declares House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, who has released “The Imperial Presidency,” a report revealing Mr. Obama’s “disregard for the legislative process.” The analysis cites 40 examples of same.

“This is no way to govern. The president has set a precedent that even his supporters should find troubling. After all, what would now prevent a subsequent president, with opposite policy predilections, from bypassing the checks on his own authority and enacting his own policies in this same manner? The Founding Fathers wisely gave the president many powers, but making law was not one of them,” the Virginia Republican points out.

Find Mr. Cantor’s report here: https://majorityleader.gov/TheImperialPresidency/

CAMPAIGN COOLING

“It is very surprising to see three presidential debates and one vice presidential debate pass without a single mention of climate change. This is the first time this has happened since climate change hit the national stage in 1988,” observes Marc Morano, founder of Climate Depot, a dogged watchdog of alarmist trends.

Climate change activists are outraged, he says, particularly since it was publicly announced that yes, climate change would be a key campaign issue. What happened?

“The answer is clear. The man-made climate change fear movement never overcame having a partisan figure like Al Gore being its public face and suffered from having the scandal ridden and distrusted U.N. IPCC as the source of its science,” Mr. Morano says.

“Perhaps the most important factor in the climate silence in the 2012 presidential race was a result of the forced vote in the House to pass a cap-and-trade bill in 2009 which helped fuel the rise of the tea party movement in the U.S. No longer could a politician regurgitate the standard climate change claims of consensus and the need to ’act’ without facing laughter and derision from angry crowds,” he adds.

TAKING IT TO CHICAGO

Former Polish President Lech Walesa, Andrew Napolitano, Rep. Joe Walsh, Illinois Republican; “Atlas Shrugged” producer Harmon Kaslow, American Spectator senior editor John Fund, Illinois Policy Institute President John Tillman, Reason Foundation polling director Emily Ekins.

(Among those joining FreedomWorks president Matt Kibbe for “massive grass-roots activist training” on Friday for fiscal conservatives and limited-government fans in the greater Chicago area.)

POLL DU JOUR

• 1.9 billion: Number of emails sent and received by 40 primary U.S. government agencies every day.

• 79 percent of the federal agencies say cybersecurity is a top IT priority; 25 percent rate their email security with an “A.”

• 48 percent say “unauthorized data” leaves the agency via standard work email.

• 40 percent cite USB flash drives, 38 percent cite personal email, 23 percent Web-based work email.

• 47 percent of the agencies say they need better email security policies, 45 percent say employees don’t follow existing policies.

Source: A MeriTalk survey of 203 federal information security and email managers conducted June 1 to July 31 and released Tuesday.

• Judgment calls and cacophony to jharper@washingtontimes.com.