As everyone knows, Michigan’s economy is in ruins. There are several people already running for governor on the Republican side who say they have what it takes to get Michigan back on its feet. Many of them you’ve probably heard of: Mike Cox, the current Attorney General and Pete Hoekstra, the US Congressman from Michigan’s Second Congressional District. But there’s another guy you may not know who has thrown his hat into the ring. He ran an ad introducing himself during the Super Bowl that aired only in Michigan. I have been receiving email updates from his campaign simply because I’m impressed with his background. Take a look at the ad:

I love it. You can learn more about Rick or donate to his campaign here.

Hat tip: Jim Geraghty at the Campaign Spot.

So, now Obama is 0-4. First in Virginia, he endorsed and campaigned for Democrat Creigh Deeds for governor, who was destroyed by Republican Bob McDonnell. Next in New Jersey, he endorsed and campaigned for Democrat Jon Corzine for governor and he was defeated by Republican Chris Christie. Then in Massachusetts he endorsed and campaigned for Democrat Martha Coakley who was handily defeated by Republican Scott Brown in a total upset. Last night, he gave the Colts the kiss of death when he predicted they would defeat the Saints in the Super Bowl.

President Barack Obama says the Indianapolis Colts “have to be favored” in the Super Bowl, even though he has a “soft spot” for the New Orleans Saints.

Obama’s Super Bowl prediction was based on his opinion that the Colts have “perhaps the best quarterback in history.”

“Peyton Manning is unbelievable,” the president told CBS’ Katie Couric during a live pre-game interview.

The result?

Peyton Manning essentially collapsed, the Colts’s defense didn’t show up for the second, third, or fourth quarters, and the Saints routed the Colts, 31 – 17.

The Blog Prof quips:

So how nervous is Harry Reid right now that Obama is promised to stump for him in Nevada???

Democrats who are running for office in November should sweat bullets at the prospect of Obama campaigning for them.

Here’s the original ad that garnered all the attention. It’s a cute ad with Tim tackling his mom as she talks about his being her miracle baby whom she still worries about.

As I said in the post below, the pro-abortion groups should be feeling pretty stupid about now after all their screaming that a pro-life ad had no place in the Super Bowl.

But as Ed Morrissey notes, the radical feminists are still finding reasons to criticize it.

This is the first of two Super Bowl ads that Tim Tebow and his mother Pam filmed for Focus on the Family. This one is running during the pre-game shows. As you will see it’s completely innocuous and doesn’t even mention the word abortion. Instead Pam talks about her miracle baby, Tim, and then the ad directs viewers to the Focus on the Family website to learn more about the Tim Tebow birth story.

The second and more controversial one that pro-abortion groups like Planned Parenthood and the National Organization of (Pro-Abortion) Women got all hot and bothered about will run during the game itself. I’m guessing the second ad will be pretty much like this first one, but we’ll find out very soon. And to think pro-abortion groups lost their minds over this.

Hat tip: Ed Morrissey at Hot Air

Update: I just saw the second ad, which followed a hilarious ad for Snickers featuring Betty White and Abe Vigoda (you had to see it). This second Tebow ad was much like the first, as I expected, but with Tim “tackling” his mom. It was a truly innocent ad, and the pro-abortion groups should feel really stupid about now.

Sarah Palin speaks at the Tea Party convention tonight at 9:00pm. All the cable networks as well as CSPAN will be broadcasting it. Unfortunately, I’ll have to watch it on CNN because our Canadian hotel does not have FNC. Boo! Anyway, even some Canadian newspapers have been covering the Tea Party convention. Even yesterday morning’s Globe and Mail, which my husband and I read over breakfast, had at least one report on it.  If you’re looking for live coverage and discussion on line, check out Hot Air, Tammy Bruce, Pajamas Media, and C-SPAN.

Today is Ronald Reagan’s 99th birthday.  He was one of this country’s greatest leaders because he understood what made America great. But we have to keep in mind that we would have never had Reagan as president without Carter’s disastrous presidency. And now because of Obama’s Carteresque policies, we are seeing a resurgence of a Reaganesque conservatism, represented in the Tea Party movement.

Here’s the video of his speech from his first Inauguration. Thanks to Dave at Ace of Spades.

Charles Krauthammer is again brilliant in his analysis of American liberals:

A year later, after stunning Democratic setbacks in Virginia, New Jersey and Massachusetts, Mr. Obama gave a stay-the-course State of the Union address (a) pledging not to walk away from health care reform, (b) seeking to turn college education increasingly into a federal entitlement, and (c) asking again for cap-and-trade energy legislation. Plus, of course, another stimulus package, this time renamed a “jobs bill.”

This being a democracy, don’t the Democrats see that clinging to this agenda will march them over a cliff? Don’t they understand Massachusetts?

Well, they understand it through a prism of two cherished axioms: (1) The people are stupid and (2) Republicans are bad. Result? The dim, led by the malicious, vote incorrectly.

Liberal expressions of disdain for the intelligence and emotional maturity of the electorate have been, post-Massachusetts, remarkably unguarded. New York Times columnist Charles Blow chided Mr. Obama for not understanding the necessity of speaking “in the plain words of plain folks,” because the people are “suspicious of complexity.” Counseled Mr. Blow: “The next time he gives a speech, someone should tap him on the ankle and say, ‘Mr. President, we’re down here.’ ”

A Time magazine blogger was even more blunt about the ankle-dwelling mob, explaining that we are “a nation of dodos” that is “too dumb to thrive.”

Elitist, intellectual liberals are reverting to their playbooks from 1994 and are insulting and deriding the intelligence of the American voting public now that they have decided that electing an elitist, intellectual president was a bad idea.  As Charles later notes in his article, President Obama has reverted to insulting the American people by saying he didn’t explain the health care plan well enough for the American people to understand it as it was so complex, he says. Only poor craftsmen blame their tools.

Gerard Alexander also has an article that nails the liberals’ condescension perfectly:

Every political community includes some members who insist that their side has all the answers and that their adversaries are idiots. But American liberals, to a degree far surpassing conservatives, appear committed to the proposition that their views are correct, self-evident, and based on fact and reason, while conservative positions are not just wrong but illegitimate, ideological and unworthy of serious consideration. Indeed, all the appeals to bipartisanship notwithstanding, President Obama and other leading liberal voices have joined in a chorus of intellectual condescension.

It’s an odd time for liberals to feel smug. But even with Democratic fortunes on the wane, leading liberals insist that they have almost nothing to learn from conservatives. Many Democrats describe their troubles simply as a PR challenge, a combination of conservative misinformation — as when Obama charges that critics of health-care reform are peddling fake fears of a “Bolshevik plot” — and the country’s failure to grasp great liberal accomplishments. “We were so busy just getting stuff done . . . that I think we lost some of that sense of speaking directly to the American people about what their core values are,” the president told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos in a recent interview. The benighted public is either uncomprehending or deliberately misinformed (by conservatives).

I am looking forward to watching the political liberal elites tie themselves into knots as they proclaim that it isn’t their “over-reaching, womb to the tomb, let big nanny government take care of you for the rest of your life” policies that are at issue, but the intelligence of the American public for not understanding how these policies are what the American people really need. What the American people want is to be left to live their lives without the government front and center telling them how to live it.  But the liberal elites simply refuse to understand this and want to put themselves into the position of being the nannies who magnanimously take care of the ignorant and unintelligent peasants. Over and over again, they will ask in frustration, “why do the American people vote against their own self-interest?”

For a great example of what Charles and Gerard are talking about, check out Jacob Weisberg’s article in which he announces that he knows why ObamaCare really failed: “the biggest culprit in our current predicament: the childishness, ignorance, and growing incoherence of the public at large.”  Hey, Jacob, you want a little cheese with that whine?

Planned Parenthood has issued a reaction to the yet-to-be-seen Super Bowl ad Tim Tebow and his mom have made. This a pretty lame response, too. Even though this ad uses well known athletes in an attempt to compete with the image of Tim Tebow, it falls flat because Planned Parenthood does not understand that it isn’t just the messenger that is driving the interest in the ad; it’s the message itself that captures the imagination because it’s about an unwavering commitment to life, love, family, and God in the face of great obstacles. No matter how much Planned Parenthood tries to dress up their messengers, its message, abortion, is still monstrous:

I have to say that my friend Anchoress offered the best and most accurate analysis on the pro-abortion philosophy in an email earlier today:

You don’t understand, she is only “exercising her choice” when she is killing the baby.

If she keeps the baby, that is nothing remarkable or noble. Any savage can do that. Only enlightened monsters like our generation can “choose” whether to let a baby live or not.

It’s the same backward thinking that informs these women’s notions on women and work. If a woman sacrifices everything to have a career, or if she juggles both haphazardly, she is their ideal. If a woman decides, instead, to sacrifice the career and the money in order to raise a child, she’s just doing what “anyone” can do, so it’s not remarkable, not noble. In fact, in both cases -having the baby or choosing to raise the baby- the woman is “subconsciously surrendering to outmoded archetypes which have been ingrained upon her through cultural and societal oppression from the patriarchy.”

Is it bad to say that I’m enjoying watching Planned Parenthood lose its collective mind because a “celebrate life” message is going to be broadcast all over the world on Sunday? I guess the folks over at PP don’t realize that their overblown reactions are actually guaranteeing a larger audience for the ad because now many more people will tune in just out of curiosity.  Tim, his mom, Focus on the Family, and CBS have got to be thrilled.

Update: Bookworm has a great post about Tim Tebow. In it  she writes that she would love it if her daughter dated a man like him someday because of his character and integrity.  Here’s a portion:

Here you have a young man who is handsome, charismatic, and an extraordinary athlete — and he’s also proud about saving himself for marriage.  Despite the manifest temptations that being a star athlete must present, he’s open about his virginity.  The jaded press may giggle in shock and embarrassment but I, as a mom, am deeply impressed…

What’s so important about Tebow is that people cannot claim that he’s a virgin simply because he’s too pathetic to get a girl.  Instead, this moral dynamo is a virgin because he’s taken a principled stand that is inextricably intertwined with respect for himself, for the women he dates (and I assume he does date), and for the woman he will eventually marry.  I can’t think of a better lesson for young people.  And that’s why I want my daughter to date a man like Tebow:  someone who has principles every mother can love, and who, in a culture obsessed with sex, is proud of those principles.

Incidentally, despite the fact that 99% of the families in my ultra liberal community would draw back in revulsion at the thought of their child dating an evangelical Christian, I can guarantee you that 100% of them would be dancing on air if they knew that their daughter’s date, because of a deep commitment to and reverence for women and the sanctity of marriage, wasn’t trying to get his hands in their daughter’s pants.

As an aside, I’m sure ultra liberals would love it if their daughters dated non-Christian men who have values like Tim Tebow’s. But I have to ask, where do they think a guy in the year 2010 would learn the principles and values that would cause him to have  ”a deep commitment to and reverence for women and the sanctity of marriage” if not in the evangelical Christian church? Values such as Tim Tebow’s don’t exist in a vacuum.

This comes as a nice compliment to my post below. Here’s Zo and the Zolettes (with a surprise appearance by Pat Boone) singing their song dedicated to President Obama:

Hat tip: Gateway Pundit

Well, President Obama is in hot water again for making backhanded comments about Las Vegas. In case you don’t remember, last year he said that banks that received bailout money should not be going on trips to Vegas.  Unfortunately, that statement had a broad affect on a city already struggling to survive in this difficult economy. But now, President Obama hit Sin City once again. This is what President Obama said just yesterday:

“When times are tough, you tighten your belts,” he said.

“You don’t go buying a boat when you can barely pay your mortgage,” a lesson lost on untold Las Vegans last decade. “You don’t blow a bunch of cash on Vegas when you’re trying to save for college. You prioritize. You make tough choices. And it’s time your government did the same.”

Two things: first, that president Obama thinks his $3.8 billion budget is some how tightening the governmental belt is laughable. Second, Las Vegas’s economy is totally dependent on tourists spending money, and comments like the one above, as much as I appreciate his larger point of being responsible with your money, can equal layoffs, and those layoffs equal more people becoming dependent on government for unemployment and food stamps.

Then again, knowing how much Obama is in love with a larger government presence in everyone’s life, perhaps, this wasn’t an accident.  Either way, Las Vegas’s mayor, Oscar Goodman, is responsible for his city’s economy and he is not a happy camper today.  He didn’t pull any punches when he reacted to President Obama’s comments:

I can understand the mayor’s concern about Obama’s continued use of Vegas as an example of what not to do with your money. Vegas may not be the president’s preference as a vacation destination, but that does not mean he should discourage others from traveling there and spending their hard earned money, particularly when they’re stressed and could use a little R&R.

I also understand that Obama qualified his statement with the comment that you shouldn’t blow a bunch of money on Vegas when you’re saving for college. Well, parents with small kids are always saving for college, so based upon Obama’s comments, they’d never get to Vegas until their kids were out of college.

Besides, he’s go two young daughters, so he must be saving for their college tuition as well, right?  (That is, unless Harvard, Yale, Princeton, or some other Ivy League school is planning on giving the Obama girls a free ride so the college can boast that they attend that school.) So what was he doing last year spending what was by one account $1 million on a date night in New York?  The next time the president wants to comment about how people should and should not spend their own money, he would be better served if he practiced what he preached.