In response to Rubio Rakes in $100k+ for the Sip Heard 'Round the Beltway:

Marco Rubio has managed "WaterGate" very skillfully indeed. What the left-wing media tried to turn into an inexcusable  "career-killing" gaffe, Rubio parlayed into a political triumph, and he did it by embracing the cultural conversation, not by running away from it.

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President Obama wants to expand the union base in America.

In the SOTU he outlined an expanded Pre-K program. He sends his kids to private school - along with Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel.

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In response to Rubio Rakes in $100k+ for the Sip Heard 'Round the Beltway:

This is a  good lesson in why campaigns and organizations need to have good social media infrastructure and practices in place for when their moment hits.  Another recent example is the tweet from the Oreo account during the Super Bowl black-out.  For organizations and politicians, this means having social media accounts that are maintained by competent staff (not interns), having an option to make secure online donations, and having some type of e-commerce account, like Cafe Press or Zazzle, that allows you to quickly put a logo or slogan on merchandise. 

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Marco Rubio's PAC, Reclaim America, has sold more than $100K in water bottles since he paused to quench his parched throat during his SOTU reponse. 

In one week, the PAC has sold more than 4,000 water bottles, each bottle will cost you a $25 donation. 

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Republicans aren't going to filibuster the confirmation of Chuck Hagel as Secretary of Defense. They're just going to make Democrats put 60 votes on the board to close debate. Is there a difference? Well, sort of.

A filibuster, as Rachel Weiner of the Washington Post points out, depends on a credible threat. Republicans don't have one, since several Hagel opponents--McCain, Collins, and others--don't want to filibuster a Cabinet nominee on principle (Democrats will accuse them of going along with a filibuster on Hagel regardless).

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In response to Obama: Preschool for Everyone!:

So: 

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It's a simple trick: describe something strange and radical as if it is traditional and familiar.

Obama is no longer into "transforming" America; he's into "restoring" it. From the State of the Union:

It is our unfinished task to restore the basic bargain that built this country – the idea that if you work hard and meet your responsibilities, you can get ahead, no matter where you come from, what you look like, or who you love.

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In my State of the Union preview, I listed 10 questions to which Americans had the right to demand answers. Obama only touched on one of them, briefly--namely, the rising cost of health care. He correctly pointed out that the rate of growth in health care costs has slowed, though the recession is arguably the major factor there. I'll be generous, and give him 1/10. A failing grade. But hey--Marco Rubio might need media training. So there.

In the aftermath of the speech, the very friendly, largely white- and middle-aged crowd of Democrats at the Organizing for America gathering to watch Obama's State of the Union is gathered eagerly around a laptop computer in a pub, awaiting a national conference call from President Barack Obama to his activists.

The sound is turned down on the television, where Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) is responding to the President. One of the organizers is running through a list of future events and political campaigns for people to join.

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This is how the left manufactures an education crisis:

"Study after study shows that the sooner a child begins learning, the better he or she does down the road. But today, fewer than 3 in 10 four year-olds are enrolled in a high-quality preschool program," Obama lamented in his State of the Union address.

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