Democratic Wedge Issues

I said a long time ago that the Democratic Party really isn’t a political party anymore. It’s become a collection of tribes held together by some common interests. The thing is, their common interests are really quite narrow and they glossed over significant disagreements in forming the coalition. Recent events, such as Obama’s embrace of gay marriage against the wishes of blacks and Romney’s discussion of education with Hispanics highlight this more than ever. It’s time for conservatives to start driving wedges into this coalition.

Conservatives need to spot the disagreements that were glossed over and start pointing those out relentlessly. The idea would be to cause enough friction within the Democratic alliance that the party ruptures into ineffective smaller groups. Here are some thoughts on where those disagreements might be and how to attack them.

1. Gays v. Feminists: At one point, gays should have been natural allies of conservatives. Conservatives believe in less government and individual rights, and the problems gays faced until the mid-1980s were sodomy laws, which made gay relationships criminal. But now that those laws have been struck down, the gay agenda has switched to forcing others to accept their lifestyles. That puts gays at odds with conservatism. Feminists similarly are at odds with conservatives because they too favor big government schemes to reshape society. So neither groups is likely winnable for conservatives. But that doesn’t mean we can’t drive a wedge between them.

The big issue for feminists is abortion. And as I mentioned the other day when discussing sex selection (something Planned Parenthood just got caught promoting), abortion means the end of homosexuality once genetics locates the “gay gene.” It would behoove conservatives to keep pushing this idea to the gay community that abortion = gay-genocide, and suggesting they seek to limit abortion.

2. Blacks v. Feminists: Blacks have very much tied themselves to the Democrats by making themselves wards of the state. Through either direct money transfers to poor blacks or race-based preferences in loans, housing, schools and jobs for middle and upper-class blacks, blacks as a group have come to rely on the government. So they are unreachable as a group. But as I pointed out the other day, abortion is killing blacks in massive numbers compared to all other races. Conservatives need to beat this drum that abortion = black-genocide to separate them from feminists. It would also be smart of conservatives to start pointing out that affirmative action has by far benefited upper-to-middle class white women more than it has blacks. This has the potential to set up a bloody fight between feminists and blacks over how to divide the spoils of affirmative action.

3. Blacks v. Gays: Blacks as a group are socially conservative when it comes to gays. Conservatives should push the message to blacks that the Democratic Party, which is dominated by the gay lobby, is looking to force the gay agenda on them and their churches.

4. Hispanics v. Everyone: Hispanics are an odd group to be jammed into the Democratic coalition. They are socially conservative and largely Catholic, yet the Democratic Party hates religion (atheists) and is dominated by the gay lobby (gay marriage) and feminists (contraception). Moreover, they are the second biggest victims of abortion, so they should be uneasy with that too (feminists). Unions have worked hard to keep them out of the country, to keep them from getting jobs, and have kept them out of the well-paying union jobs. Further, as Romney noted, the teachers unions are hurting their kids. They run a large number of small businesses, who find themselves attacked by unions, who are unable to obtain financing from the Democrats’ Wall Street friends, and who are crushed by environmental and labor regulations. Each of these issues should be made clear to them.

5. Bankers v. Socialists: By and large, the Democratic rank and file hate business, hate capitalism, and HATE banks. They despise Wall Street. Yet, most of the money the Democrats get comes from that very same Wall Street. And right now, Wall Street is upset at being vilified by the Democrats. Conservatives should keep pushing the Democrats on this point. They should force elected Democrats to make a choice, support Wall Street or do the bidding of the rank and file, by bringing up legislation which splits this coalition, such as elimination of banking fees. The more the Democrats are made to dance, the greater the chance they will lose one group or the other.

6. Environmentalists v. Farmers/Miners/Workers: Since the days of FDR, the Democrats have done their best to buy farmers, coal miners, and skilled-labor workers with government handouts. But in the past thirty years, as ivory tower intellectuals and white-collar professionals have come to dominate the Democratic Party, they’ve adopted environmentalism as a religion, and with it they’ve put in place insane rules which cripple farmers, miners and workers. It’s time for Republicans to push this issue hard. They need to point out to auto-workers in Detroit and coal miners in West Virginia how much regulation the Democrats have imposed on their fields and what the cost is and why this lets China steal their jobs. Also point out how Democratic friends like GE are shipping their jobs overseas. Similarly, Republicans need to become fluent in the regulatory burden imposed on farmers and they need to go farm by farm explaining to these people how the Democratic agenda is crushing them.

7. The Elderly v. the Poor: The elderly are abandoning the Democrats already, and Republicans need to help push that along. Republicans specifically need to talk about Medicare. Fewer and fewer doctors are willing to take Medicare because it doesn’t pay enough. Despite this, Obama plans to steal another $500 billion from Medicare to pay for Obamacare and its subsidies to the poor. Republicans need to make this clear that the Democrats are stealing from the elderly to hand out the money to other groups.

8. Jews: The Republicans have had little success winning over Jews. There are two reasons for this. First, many Jews are simply scared of the Religious Right starting a second inquisition. I know that specific outreach has begun on this issue and that needs to continue. More importantly, as I mentioned with Hispanics the other day, Republicans have wrongly been treating Jews as a single-issue people, with that issue being Israel. But Israel clearly isn’t that strong of a pull. A better approach would be to talk to them about issues like Medicare (which resonates in Florida), the attacks on Wall Street (which resonate in New York), and this: the Republicans need to establish a counterpart to the Anti-Defamation League to focus exclusively on all the anti-Semitism coming from the left these days. We’ve seen this at Media Matters, at OWS and just generally from the left.


If Republicans do these things right, they can create tremendous friction within the Democratic alliance, perhaps even enough to shatter the party. The way to do this is to relentlessly point out the issues above. Do that through targeted advertisements, in speeches, on webpages/blogs and through media stunts by having our talking heads demand explanations from the Democrats on these wedge issues. Further, the Republicans should start crafting legislative proposals which put the groups above on opposing sides and forces the Democrats to pick sides.

At the same time, as I said the other day, Republicans needs to start reaching out to each of these groups on the issues that we have in common. Even taking away 5% of Democrats would guarantee a permanent Republican super-majority.

Thoughts?

Americans Are Conservative

Every year, Gallup asks Americans to identify their ideology. And every year the answer is roughly the same. This year, as usual, conservatives outnumber liberals by about 2-1. Let’s discuss.

Here are the headline numbers as to how people identify themselves:

● Overall: 41% conservative v. 23% liberal
● On economics: 46% conservative v. 20% liberal
● On social issues: 38% conservative v. 28% liberal

Hmm. So what does this tell us? Well, for one thing it tells us that Americans still can’t stand being labeled as liberals, as only 2 in 10 embrace that label. As an aside, the number of people calling themselves economic liberals has been falling steadily since 2001, when it peaked at 38%. That suggests the Bush/Obama years have discredited liberal economics for a large chunk of Americans.

These numbers also tell us that Americans are much more conservative than you would think. What do I mean? I mean this: because of the herd instinct, which is alive and well within human beings -- with peer pressure advertisements being the most glaring bit of proof -- humans tend toward the center. Our culture actually reinforces this. Indeed, we teach people “moderation in all things” and “extremism” is considered a bad word in almost any endeavor. We tell people to worry about what society thinks, to try to fit in, and to follow the well-chartered path. This is so ingrained that both rich and poor people will identify themselves as “middle class” because they just don’t want to stand too far apart from the crowd. Moreover, on any measurable issue, trait or test, humans form a bell curve in which about 60% fall tightly into the middle with another 20% less tightly in the middle, and the remaining 20% outside on either end. That is the story of humanity.

And that means that if America were “a fair coin” (i.e. randomly distributed) then you would have 60% calling themselves “moderates”, 10% calling themselves “moderate-conservatives” and another 10% calling themselves “moderate liberals”, and 10% calling themselves “conservative” with another 10% calling themselves “liberal.”

But that’s not what we have. Instead, we have 40% calling themselves “conservative.” That means that in America, conservatives are 400% over-represented from what they should be here. Now, it's possible that Americans just drop the “moderate” portion of the “moderate conservative” and “moderate liberal” label, but even if we factor that in, then liberals are exactly what nature predicts -- 20%. But conservatives are still 200% overrepresented. And those extra conservatives have come from the ranks of moderates.

Here are my thoughts on this:

1. This means that conservatism is strongly attractive to Americans because it has yanked away 20% of the public from intense herd-instinct pressure and gotten them to abandon the “moderate” herd. Liberalism, on the other hand, has zero pull.

More than anything, this tells me that conservatives MUST return to selling conservatism to the public and must abandon being just anti-liberals. This is because liberalism is at its core-level of support and cannot be eroded further. Thus, tearing liberalism apart gets us nothing. Instead, we must convince moderates that they are really conservatives. And doing that requires selling our ideas to them so that they join the 20%+ of moderates who have already swung to the conservative camp.

2. We are very close to shifting the heard instinct. When enough people believe something, the herd follows. If conservatives can get above 50%, the rest of the moderates will follow because they are classic herd-followers.

3. This poll also tells us why conservatives need to keep making economic issues front and center. All conservatives need to win over the moderates to their cause on economic issues is about 1 in 4 moderates, whereas we would need to win 1 in 3 moderates on social issues and we face stronger opposition. Conservatives need not fear social issues, but economic issues are where their strength lies and that should always be the lead issues.

4. Conservatives have not yet done a good enough job winning over the public on social issues. I would suggest finding a new strategy to try to convince people that social conservatism works -- I’ll save that for another post.

Finally, I want to point out something said by Joe Scarborough. I don’t like Scarborough because he’s weak-minded and weak-kneed. He is the kind of Republican who is more comfortable as a Democratic-pet than putting in place his own ideas (assuming he has them). He thinks these numbers are generally overblown and he makes the point that even though the public is more conservative than liberal, he thinks conservatives don’t really mean it about being conservative:

“The obvious irony is that while Americans like to think of themselves as rugged individualists who are perfectly capable of pulling themselves up by their own bootstraps, these same cowboys would tar and feather any leader who tried to curb spending on Medicare, Social Security, farm subsidies, defense contracts, student loans or any other part of America's $4 trillion budget.”

This has become a standard liberal/RINO talking point about conservatives and it really highlights the problem with RINOs. The conservatives I know, and their Tea Party allies, are actively trying to shrink all of these things. They’ve vote for politicians promise to cut these things. They even tried to stop the budget because it funded them. They don’t find any cows sacred. Only the RINOs and their big business friends are fighting to the death to defend these things. And liberals use this as cover to keep spending on their friends. This is where things need to change. Conservatives need to get behind proposals to slash all these areas and take away this bit of false cover. And they need to call out the RINOs who make this claim.

Hispanic Outreach Done Right

Romney is really impressing me. Last week, he gave a speech to The Latino Coalition at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Washington. In this speech, Romney showed that he understands two vital points for the future of conservatism in America: Hispanic outreach and education.

Before I get into what Romney did, let me remind you of a post I did in 2009 (LINK) in which I criticized the Republican Party for its pathetic Hispanic outreach efforts. I pointed out that the problem with the way Republicans do outreach is that they buy into liberal group-identity theory. Republicans think of Hispanics as a monolithic, single-interest bloc, and they go about trying to woo them in the same ways the Democrats do. Specifically, they try to pass the occasional bill aimed at issues the Democrats claim Hispanics care about and then they try to be seen around election time at the occasional political rally with some well-known Hispanic person. This is pathetic.

By buying into the liberal view of Hispanics as a bloc, Republicans end up reinforcing the idea to Hispanics that they are a bloc and should not try to think independently outside their group. This all but guarantees that they will see themselves as inherently liberal. Moreover, being seen once every couple years with a famous Hispanic only reinforces the idea that Republicans see Hispanics as “other people” who must be approached now and then, but who clearly are not welcome otherwise.

A real Hispanic outreach program would treat Hispanics like any other voters. Republicans wouldn’t try to appeal to them on “Hispanic issues” but would instead try to appeal to Hispanics who happened to find particular issues of interest. For example, Republicans would try to attract Hispanic parents by improving the schools their children attend. Or they would try to attract Hispanic businessmen by making conditions better for small businessmen. Etc. The idea is to appeal to different groups of Hispanics on the issues that matter to them as individuals rather than trying to appeal to “Hispanics” as a group.

In light of that, what Romney did last week was very encouraging. Rather than going to the Latino Coalition and talking about immigration, affirmative action, tuition for illegals, or trade with South America, Romney spoke about education reform. Indeed, he never once brought up immigration. Instead, he said this:

“Here we are in the most prosperous nation, but millions of children are getting a Third World education. And America’s minority children suffer the most. This is the civil rights issue of our era. And it’s the great challenge of our time.”

Then he outlined his proposals, which mimic the things done by Republicans governors who have done strong work in reforming schools, such as increasing the availability of charter schools and tying federal funding to students “so that parents can send their child to any public or charter school of their choice.” He also included private schools, though this had to be clarified later.

He also noted that he supports the No Child Left Behind Act, but wants its accountability rules replaced by state rules -- very 10th Amendmenty. About this, he said:

“Parents shouldn’t have to navigate a complicated and cryptic evaluation system to figure out how their kids’ schools are performing. States are going to have to provide a simple-to-read and widely available public report card that evaluates each and every school. These report cards will provide accurate, easy-to-understand information about student and school performance. States will continue to design their own standards and tests, but the report cards will provide information that parents can use to make informed choices.”

Then he blasted teacher’s unions for blocking school reforms, calling them “the clearest example of a group that has lost its way” and he linked them to the Democratic Party:

“The teachers unions are one of the Democrats’ biggest donors — and one of the President’s biggest campaign supporters. So, President Obama has been unable to stand up to union bosses — and unwilling to stand up for kids.”

Finally, he pointed out that these same unions have stood in the way of vouchers, which have proven successful, because “success anywhere in our public schools is a rebuke to failure everywhere else. That’s why the unions oppose even the most common-sense improvements.”

So let’s break this down. First, Romney rejected the liberal idea that Hispanics are a bloc and he instead appealed directly to Hispanic parents on an issue that is dear to them. In fact, Hispanic voters regularly place education among their top issues, even higher than immigration, and they generally support vouchers and stricter school standards. Even Raul Gonzalez of race-hate group National Council of La Raza, said Hispanics consider education a civil rights issue and Romney’s push for vouchers “likely will play well.” This means, Romney stands to peel away Hispanic parents from the Democratic Party, and he is doing it without pandering, i.e. by treating them as Americans rather than Hispanics.

Secondly, notice how he drives a wedge between Hispanics and unions by pointing out that the unions are standing in the way of Hispanic children getting quality education. Given all the fights unions have undertake to keep Hispanics out, this pokes right at a source of antagonism within the Democratic coalition which makes Hispanics ripe to be pulled away. Finally, note that he then tells Hispanic parents that the Democrats and the teachers unions are the same thing, i.e. they won’t help you.

What Romney has done here is brilliant. He has finally started genuine outreach by finding issues which actually matter to a large group of Hispanics and he has addressed those without reinforcing the liberal propaganda that they are a voting bloc. Moreover, he’s told them point blank that if they wish what is best for their children, then voting for the Democrats is a horrible idea. This is how it needs to be done, not showing up at parades and promising to make immigration kindler or gentler. Start winning these people over on issues after issue and by treating them as Americans.

It should also be noted that this is an interesting position politically for several reasons. First, it suggests that Romney is not moving left for the general election as conservatives feared. Attacking teacher’s unions and advocating a national voucher scheme is deeply conservative. Secondly, this tells us that Romney really has a broad reform plan for all of government, not just for budget matters. Indeed, he could have easily ignored education and just stuck with economic matters. The fact he didn’t and is pushing this issue is a great sign. And the fact his plans mimic those of reforming Republican governors is an even better sign.

All of this continues to raise my hopes that Romney may prove to be a special president and that he may leave the country in a much better shape than it’s been in a long, long time.

With Friends Like These. . .

Sometimes, your friends do more harm to you than your enemies. That’s been the case for Obama lately, and I’m not just talking about Biden shoving Obama into the gay marriage debacle. The truth is that Obama’s friends are causing him all kinds of problems.

● Obama Hates the Middle Class: Last week, the Republicans introduced Obama’s budget in the Senate. It lost without a single vote (0-99). More interestingly, it got blasted by the United Auto Workers as an “attack on the middle class and our most vulnerable citizens.” That makes this a double embarrassment for Obama. It also drives a stake through Obama’s middle class champion act.

● Obama Hates Capitalism: Newark Mayor Cory Booker, a prominent Democrat and Obama supporter, blasted Obama’s main attack on Romney this weekend when he went on Meet the Press. Obama is hoping that people will hate Romney because he founded Bain Capital. To do that, he’s been demonizing Bain. In fact, he just released a new ad doing exactly that. Said Booker:

“If you look at the totality of Bain Capital's record they've done a lot to support businesses, to grow businesses. And this, to me, I'm very uncomfortable with. This kind of stuff is nauseating to me on both sides. It's nauseating to the American public. Enough is enough. Stop attacking private equity. Stop attacking Jeremiah Wright. This stuff has got to stop, because what it does is it undermines, to me, what this country should be focused on.”

Booker has since walked these comments back, but the damage was done and it presented Obama with another headache and another distraction. Indeed, he’s spent the week attacking Booker and trying to explain why his anti-Bain attacks are justified.

● Not As Brave As Jimmy Carter: For weeks, Obama has been pushing the idea that he’s some tough guy hero, unlike Mitt Romney, because he ordered the killing of Osama bin Laden. Romney rightly blasted Obama for politicizing military action in an effort to make himself look good. Well, The Economist decided to come to Obama’s defense because they now say there’s absolutely nothing wrong with a President trying to impress us with their military achievement (they said the opposite when Bush was President). Clearly Americans disagree as recent polls show upwards of 65% of people thinking that Obama was wrongly trying to politicize this military action.

In any event, here’s the great part. In defending Obama, they were particularly upset that Romney compared Obama to Carter when he said, “even Jimmy Carter would have given that order.” They are upset because they view this as unfair, because while the raid Carter authorized was a failure, it was not cowardly. In fact, they note it took more courage for Carter to order that raid than it took for Obama to order the killing of Osama bin Laden. Yep, they said that. To defend Obama, they took his sole positive achievement in office and told us it was less brave than what Jimmy Carter did. That is truly sad.

● Stop Condescending, Mr. Obama: We’ve discussed the supposed war on women extensively. And just when you think it’s finally dead and buried, along comes MSM personality Campbell Brown to lecture Obama about his behavior. Indeed, she just wrote an editorial in the New York Times in which she took Obama to task for his efforts to “relate to women” by saying that his campaign has been “maddeningly off point.” She says he has “failed to connect with tens of millions of Americans, many of them women, who feel economic opportunity is gone and are losing hope.” Then she says,

“In an effort to win them back, Mr. Obama is trying too hard. He’s employing a tone that can come across as grating and even condescending. . . Most women don’t want to be patted on the head or treated as wards of the state. They simply want to be given a chance to succeed based on their talent and skills.”

Julia anyone? So much for pushing the war on women.

● Give An Inch: When Obama decided to endorse (and not do anything about) gay marriage, he assumed this would shore up his gay supporters. Actually, it just increased their list of demands. Gay groups are now running around demanding that Obama come through on other promises. Indeed, they’ve got a list of 52 demands, including repealing the Defense of Marriage Act, extending Social Security benefits to gay partners, changing immigration rules to prevent the deportation of same-sex partners, adding gays to the Violence Against Women Act, preventing workplace discrimination, etc. Rather than making them happy, he has just stirred the nest.

● Show Me The Money: Romney’s super PAC not only blew Obama away in terms of raising cash in April, but they had a lot more cash on hand to begin with, even despite having to fight a long and nasty primary. The MSM once claimed Obama would get a billion dollars and now they are fretting that he can’t even keep up with Mitt Romney. Moreover, Tea Party groups have many-times more money on hand than both. So much for all of Obama’s rich friends.

All in all, Obama’s bad year continues. His campaign can’t get traction and he’s found no way to attack Romney. The things he’s tried, like the war on women and the attacks on Bain Capital, have all blown up on him and now even his allies are criticizing him. His donors aren’t giving him any money, his supporters are getting pushy, and even his defenders can’t defend him without making him look like a fool. Ha ha.


Don't forget, it's Star Trek Tuesday at the film site!

So Is Abortion A Right Or Not?

We’re told abortion is a right. It’s no big deal. You’re just removing a collection of cells. . . a tumor. And to force a woman to have a child she doesn’t want is an outrage! It’s a violation of her human rights! Right? Then why do liberals want to restrict abortion now in certain cases?

The liberal position on abortion has been that abortion is a right. Indeed, they’ve argued since the 1960s that abortion is both a fundamental human right and an absolute right guaranteed under the Constitution. And when something is a right, that means you can exercise it without permission because if you needed the government’s permission to exercise a right, then it wouldn’t be a right, it would be a privilege which could be revoked at any time.

So riddle me this. How do we square the liberal position that abortion is a right with the newly-developing liberal position that women must be stopped from aborting fetuses for sex-selection reasons? Here’s the deal:

When people are given the chance to abort their babies, they do so for a variety of reasons. Those reasons include prejudices, like the preference for boys. This has been going on in China and India and other parts of Asia for decades now and has resulted in millions of missing girls. In China alone, 40 million women are missing from the current generation. That means there are 40 million men who will never find wives because they simply don’t exist because they were aborted. (LINK)

Well, now it’s happening in Canada and probably the United States. Indeed, many of these dirty foreigners who have come to these enlightened lands of abortion have apparently not given up their evil ways. Thus, a recent study in Canada found that while the ratio of first born children in Canada’s immigrant population was similar to what nature creates, the second child skewed significantly toward males and third children skew overwhelmingly toward males. In response, Canada made it illegal to obtain an abortion if the reason is sex selection -- otherwise there are no limits on abortion in Canada. The Economist and many liberal groups are now urging a similar law in the United States to prevent those dirty Canadians from sneaking across our borders to have illegal abortions. Oh the irony.

Think about this. If abortion is a right and you can have it for any reason, then how can the government decide that you can’t have one if you are trying to off a girl? Does this make sense to you? Either abortion is a right or it is not, and if the government is going to tell you that you can have an abortion for any reason whatsoever except reasons they don’t like, then it’s not really a right anymore, is it? And if forcing a woman to have an unwanted child is akin to slavery, as many liberals have argued, how is it any less slavery just because you don't want them to get rid of girls? Is there really "good slavery"?

The reality is that liberals don’t see abortion as a right, they see it as a tool for social engineering to help women economically. And when that goal clashes with other liberal social engineering goals, abortion must give way to the cause. Maybe, it’s time we called them on this and demanded that they clarify how this can be a right if they can restrict it when they don’t like how it gets used?

Moreover, perhaps it’s time to point out other problems with abortion to our liberal friends to split their coalition. For example, as I told you a long time ago, once science locates the gay gene, that will be the end of gays because the combination of abortion plus being able to identify gay children will mean parents will eradicate gay children. Other traits will probably follow as well as we learn to identify unwanted traits. Perhaps we should ask gays how they feel about this?

Similarly, I suspect that blacks will soon catch on that they are the biggest victims of abortion. There have been 50 million abortions in the US since 1973. And while 60% of those have been whites, blacks are disproportionately more likely to have an abortion. In 2004, for example, there were 50 abortions per 1,000 black women, 28 abortions per 1,000 Hispanic women, and 11 abortions per 1,000 white women. So blacks were five times more likely than whites to be aborted. At some point, blacks will realize what this means and they will call this “genocide.” At that point, it would be easy to see calls to ban abortion for certain ethnic groups, wouldn’t it?

Perhaps the time has come to ask liberals to explain themselves on this issue?

Thoughts?

The Obama Game: Winning the Election

All right, let’s play a game, shall we? This game is called “Win the Election” (I would have called it “Win The Future,” but no one would be stupid enough to use that acronym). The goal of this game is to influence various segments of the population. Here’s how we’re going to play.

Step One: I’m going to name various segments of the population.

Step Two: For each group, tell me something Obama has done which you would use to try to sell Obama to that group.

Step Three: Then, for each group, tell me something Obama has done which you would use to try to get them to vote against Obama.

Here are the groups and some suggestions:

1. Women. Nothing good comes to mind. But. . . He insulted women, especially mothers. He didn’t help them on the jobs front. He endangered their healthcare with Obamacare.

2. Gays. Ended don’t ask don’t tell. But. . . Did not extend government benefits to gay partners. Copped out on gay marriage.

3. Blacks. Nothing positive comes to mind, except Holder suing various states over civil rights issues to help black-racist groups. But. . . Black unemployment is at a record high.

4. Hispanics. Nothing positive comes to mind except he sued Arizona. But. . . He continued a record number of deportations. He also used the DREAM Act and promises of immigration reform as a political football.

5. Environmentalists. He regulated carbon. But. . . He failed to pass a global warming bill like cap and trade. At Copenhagen he surrendered to China. His carbon regulations can be undone by Romney on day one.

6. Union workers. Most of the stimulus money went to unions. The auto bailout. Giving GM to the UAW. Tried to impose a union on Boeing. But. . . On the downside, he failed to save state employees from a mass wave of layoffs and the Boeing decision and card-check fell through.

7. Small business. Nothing good. But. . . Tax hikes, failed to free up credit for small businesses, added excessive regulation, and created unaffordable Obamacare requirements.

8. Big business. Opened the Treasury to his friends, passed toothless regulations of banks, allowed big business to write regulations to stymie small business, and did the bidding of big business on China, on healthcare costs, and on stimulus spending. Can’t really think of any negatives.

9. Religious believers. Nothing good. But. . . Obama has waged a war on religion for quite some time now, trying to force religions to accept positions that run contrary to their beliefs.

10. The Military. Not much good here. But. . . He showed he cared more about an Islamic terrorist than American soldiers. He didn’t end the wars, nor did he win them. He picked a pointless war with Libya. He’s been taking credit for killing bin Laden, which the military did.

11. Senior Citizens. Nothing good. But. . . Obama robbed Medicare of $500 billion.

12. Homeowners. Nothing good. Obama spoke of several ideas to fix the housing market and get homeowners out from under upside-down loans, but ultimately did nothing. On the plus side, he didn’t do anything stupid. :)

Anything I missed? Do tell.

News From The Front: The War on Women

It’s true that the GOP has a problem with women. I’d estimate it’s about a 5-7% gender gap at normal times -- though this isn’t uniform among all women. And the Democrats have tried very, very, very hard to exploit that gap with their “Republican war on women” meme because they need to win women overwhelming to win the election. But now that the primary is over, the Democrats are in for shocker.

What kind of shocker you ask? How about this: a leftist CBS/NYT poll released yesterday finds that Romney is LEADING among women by 46-44%. Fascinating. This is an 8% swing even from April, when Obama’s lead among women was already beginning to vanish. Let’s discuss.

For starters, there are reasons the Democrats do better with women, and it’s best to understand those:

● For one thing, many more black women vote than black males, and black voters skew nearly 100% toward the Democrats. With blacks representing 11% of all voters, this could account for as much as 2% of that 5% difference. Interestingly, McCain actually won white women by 54% to 46% (compared to white males voting for McCain 59% to 41%) -- he lost blacks by 96%.

● Secondly, single professional women are loyal to the Democrats because the Democrats promise affirmative action. Believe it or not, the biggest beneficiaries of affirmative action have not been blacks, they have been white professional women.

● Single women are also much more likely to depend on government benefits (everything from welfare to student loans), which again makes them likely Democratic voters.

● Finally, women work disproportionately for the government, which again makes them Democratic voters.

The only thing offsetting these factors and keeping the gender gap as low as 5% is that once you start talking about older married women, a significant pro-Republican gap appears similar to that of males.

So how do we explain the disappearance of this gap and Romney actually pulling ahead? How about this:

1. Romney No Scary. That’s right, Romney doesn’t scare women. He looks dull. He doesn’t pound the table about impure women trying to sneak out of the home. He’s not rabid about abortion and he doesn’t run around claiming women should “submit” to the husbands. More importantly, it’s pretty clear to everyone that Ann Romney is no shrinking violet. Does anyone doubt that she’s a forceful presence in the Romney household? And if Romney is married to someone like that, then it’s pretty hard to paint him as secretly looking to subjugate women.

2. Obama No Nice. Yep, Obama’s an ass. Let’s be frank about it. When Obama came on the scene, all you heard was him calmly reading inspiring words from a teleprompter in a soaring, hopeful voice. But since that time, all we’ve seen is a snippy, angry jerk you wouldn’t want to spend time with. He pushed off responsibility (i.e. blame) on everyone around him, he plays passive-aggressive with people he’s dealing with, and then he says really asshole things when everything falls apart. He can’t even deliver a self-effacing joke without tearing down others, and his favorite target over the years has been Hillary Clinton. When we started this blog, I speculated that Obama might be a misogynist. I think that’s been proven. Name a woman he hasn’t disrespected? Not to mention, there have been constant and persistent claims of sexism from highly placed women in the Obama administration (like the latest issue about an 18% pay gender-gap). Do you really think women don’t notice these things?

3. You Talkin’ To Me? There’s also the debacle of the Democratic “War on Women” meme. It became very clear very quickly that the Democrats were using women as a political punching bag and were just trying to score points rather than actually help them. At a time when women are getting laid off in record numbers, when there are no jobs, and when women are losing their health insurance at work because of Obama, the Democrats have taken to the ramparts to define women as whiny, rich, spoiled, law school sluts who don’t want to pay for their own condoms. Nice. If you were a single mother struggling to find a job, would this give you confidence that they care about you?

Then there’s the Julia website, where Obama and the Democrats want you to believe that women are incapable of succeeding at ANYTHING in their entire lives without uncle Obama holding their hands the whole way. Trust me on this, women hate being condescended to. And think about all the ultra-sexist smears of conservative women by liberal Hollywood types right in the middle of the supposed war on women and how the Democrats tried to claim, “oh, that’s different.”

All of this must have independent women wondering just what the Democrats really think of them and just how the Democrats are planning to make their lives better?

So what you have here is a Republican candidate who not only doesn’t scare women, he seems to be offering the very thing they want: jobs and economic security. On the other side, you have Democrats acting like jackals, substituting theater for substance, and defining women in stunningly unflattering ways. Add in a President who appears to be a misogynist and who can’t stop taking shots at the women around him and you’ve got a real turn off for women voters. That has translated into a collapse of the gender-gap.

I can’t say that this trend will stay, but if it does, forget everything I said about this election being close. . . it’s going to be a blowout.

Primer: Gay Marriage 2012

I didn’t want to talk about gay marriage because, frankly, I don’t care. But the issue is having some fascinating ramifications, especially with Newsweek calling Obama our first gay president. Here are some things you may or may not realize yet.

● My Position: Before we begin, allow me to remind you of my positions on gay marriage: I am opposed to it on Libertarian grounds. To allow gay marriage would be to force people to accept something to which they are philosophically and morally opposed. Whether they are right or not, the government should not do that (LINK). And no, I don’t believe for a minute that an exception can be made to exempt people with philosophical or religious objections because those exceptions get undermined, as is happening in Britain (LINK). That said, I do believe this issue is lost (LINK), especially as this is a generational issue. However, we’re not there yet and, interestingly, Obama’s recent decision to (fake)embrace gay marriage is causing significant blowback. Observe. . .

● Whoops: Obama’s stance is not going doing well with his own troops or with independents. Five Senators facing re-election in conservative or battleground states have refused to back Obama’s mealy position: Sens. Jon Tester (Mont.), Claire McCaskill (Mo.), Joe Machin (W. byGod Va.), Bob Casey (Pa.) and Bill Nelson (Fla.). Imagine that! These people are so scared of the issue that they won’t even take Obama’s toothless copout of feigning support for the issue in the abstract while wringing their hands that there is nothing they can do about it.

What this tells us is that gay marriage is highly unpopular in these states. And that means Obama’s stance has hurt him in Pennsylvania and Florida, both of which could be key states depending on how things go. And if Pennsylvania goes against Obama, so will Ohio. . . and Wisconsin. Heck, even in unionized Michigan, Obama only leads by 5% -- 45% to 40%.

More evidence for this self-inflicted harm comes from a recent Gallup poll, which found that 23% of independents say Obama’s gay-marriage stance will make them less likely to vote for him, while only 13% say it will make them more likely to vote for him. That’s a 2-1 split, which mimics all the other polls which show that independents are breaking against Obama by a wide margin. This was a mistake.

● Whoops II: Interestingly, the one person to really benefit from Obama’s gay marriage stance has been Romney. By simply repeating his opposition to gay marriage, Romney has given evangelicals an opportunity to jump on his bandwagon and they’ve done so with gusto. A recent poll showed that evangelicals support him by 67% to 22% over Obama. And that actually understates the support because that includes black evangelicals, who support Obama 94% to 6%. When they are factored out, Romney’s popularity among white evangelicals rises to 82% (up from 40% in October). So much for evangelicals sitting this one out.

● Whoops III: Now comes an interesting question. I wonder if Obama hasn’t killed gay marriage with his announcement? Here’s the thing. Gay marriage has always been a tricky issue for the Democrats. It’s pretty clear that gay marriage will win over the public in the near future. But until that time, offering support for gay marriage is career suicide outside of the big liberal states. So Democrats have needed to walk a fine line of offering enough support to make gays think they support them, without offering enough support to anger the public.

This has resulted in the strategy of getting gay marriage passed in the liberal states and then using that as a wedge to get the Federal government to impose gay marriage on the conservative states. That way, the Democrats in the conservative states can claim they had no hand in it. So far, that’s worked really well for them since the only alternative position was the one espoused by conservatives of total opposition to gay marriage.

But Obama just created a third alternative. He said that you could support gay marriage in principal, yet believe the issues must be decided by the states.

Think about this. What’s he done is create an out (no pun intended). Democrats all over the heartland can now proudly proclaim their 100% support for gay marriage while simultaneously claiming that their love and respect for the voters of their state, who don’t want it, prevents them from supporting it locally. This is the perfect evasion. And on a hot-button issue, politicians seek evasions.

I think Obama’s stance has set the gay marriage movement back for decades to come as Democrats will now abandon the all-or-nothing game and will latch onto, “yes, but not for us” position. This means gay marriage is unlikely to spread much beyond the handful of states which already allow it (currently, 12 states prohibit same-sex marriage by statute and 30 prohibit it in their constitution).

If I’m right, Obama won’t be remembered as the first gay President as Newsweek just declared, he will go down in history as the man who nearly killed the gay marriage movement. Interesting.

● Predictionmania!!: Finally, Rand Paul will be president one day. You heard it here first. Here’s my thinking. Ron Paul is leaving politics after decades of jousting at windmills. But believe it or not, he’s had some stunning success in the past 5-8 years in reshaping the economics of the Republican Party and he’s left a huge movement looking for an heir. Rand Paul is well suited to claim that mantle. But that movement has never been able to deliver Paul the nomination because Ron Paul’s Libertarianism scares the hell out of Social Conservatives, so why would this help Rand Paul? Because Rand Paul is different. Unlike Ron Paul, Rand has been staking out social conservative positions. On the gay marriage issue, for example, he came out solidly opposed to gay marriage and he did so by mentioning the Bible and saying we should not “give up our traditions. We’ve got 6,000 years of tradition.” Then he spoke of the need for “traditionalists” to save the Republic by defending the family. Said Paul:

“We’ve introduced the Life at Conception Act, the Pro-Life Act, the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act, the Child Interstate Abortion Notification Act, I’m also co-sponsor of the Human Life Amendment. I’ve also been trying to defund Planned Parenthood. Anybody here for that?”

What Paul is doing is claiming Ron Paul’s economic mantle while simultaneously flirting with social conservatives. This is a truly winning strategy if he can pull it off, and I suspect he can. Unless Paul makes a mistake by going off a deep end somewhere, I would say he’s someone to watch as a Presidential candidate in 2020 or 2024.

Sexy Currency

Let’s talk about sex. Whoo hoo! Yep, sex, sex, sex. It turns out Obama’s gay marriage stance isn’t going down too well. It’s now ok to look at kiddie porn in New York, so long as you don’t own it. And Canada is about to issue a pornographic $20 bill. Oh, yeah.

Issue One: Gay Rage. Yesterday, Obama came out of the closet on behalf of something he’s always believed in deeply but previously refused to support for no reason whatsoever except that he wasn’t evolved enough to act on his beliefs until Joe Biden evolved him: gay marriage. Yep. Now gay marriage will be the law of the land. Oh, wait. . . there’s some fine print here. Hmm. Has Obama lied again?

Indeed he has. Right after Obama decided to declare his support for gay marriage, people with brains (i.e. conservative) began to snicker that Obama was trying to mislead his supporters. By last night, his supporters had caught on. In a rather nasty article, Gawker noted that Obama’s promise was all smoke and mirrors. Observe:

“It seems fairly clear from the network's coverage that his announcement amounts to much less than meets the eye. He now believes that gay couples should be able to marry. He doesn't believe they have a right to do so. This is like saying that black children and white children ought to attend the same schools, but if the people of Alabama reject that notion—what are you gonna do?”

Oh, the irony of accusing Obama of supporting modern segregation. I love it when liberals get all self-righteous on each other. Perhaps they can now call him an Uncle Tom like they do to Clarence Thomas?

In any event, the tone of the article is downright rude, like when they called Obama’s state’s rights evasion: “a half-assed, cowardly cop-out.” And I suspect the tone will only get worse over the coming weeks because one thing the gay lobby is not is civil. The fun is just beginning and it couldn’t have happened at a worse time with his campaign struggling to find its footing.

Issue Two: I Own What? In 2009, Professor James D. Kent of Marist College in New York was convicted of promoting a sexual performance of a child and possession of child pornography, i.e. kiddie porn. But part of his conviction was just overturned. Why? Because the evidence was found in his web browser’s cache, which stores everything you’ve looked at, and he argued that he was not even aware his browser had a cache, so he can’t possibly have knowingly possessed the porn.

New York’s appellate level court agreed that images found in a cache are not proof of possession. Kent’s conviction still stands for the 13,000 images of 8-9 year old girls in lingerie which he had on his harddrive, but apparently those in the browser don’t count as him having “dominion and control over the images.” Now, on the one hand, I can understand that a browser may capture an inadvertent image. I’ve been re-directed to all kinds of places I never wanted to be and those images get into the cache, and it shouldn’t be a crime to have a couple such images stumble their way onto your computer. But give me a break, there is no doubt he was out there looking for this stuff and was just too stupid to clean out his cache. What this ruling does is essentially make is legal to look at kiddie porn in New York so long as you don’t save it to your harddrive. That’s like saying it should be illegal to possess heroin, but it’s not illegal to shoot up on it so long as you use somebody else’s stash.

Issue Three: Porno Dollars. Finally, Canada, i.e. Northern Maine, will be issuing a new $20 dollar bill in November, and it isn’t going over too well. That’s largely because they picked a stupid design. Apparently, a focus group which looked at the bill thought it was “too pornographic” because it contains three naked women clinging to the 9/11 Twin Towers (in America). Here’s the bill, eh:

Interestingly, the structure is not the 9/11 Twin Towers, it is a memorial called the Vimy Memorial, a wartime memorial honoring thousands of Canadian servicemen and which symbolizes the unity between France and Canada. And the topless chicks are known as the Chorus, and they represent Justice and Peace, Truth and Knowledge, Hope, Charity, Honor and Faith. Here is a photo of the memorial.

Personally, I think the bill is uglier than a sewer of Pelosi. Plus, I’m wondering why no one was offended by the swamp monster wearing the tee-shirt with the old lady on it? But I won’t laugh too hard at our neighbors from the Moose Realm because I’m sure our next dollar won’t be much better. In fact, here’s a sneak peek. . .

At least it’s not a damn coin.

Political Philosophy

Let’s do a grab-bag of news issues and a philosophical question. . . oooohm. What is the sound of no hands clapping for Obama? Would it sound like panic? Are they really rights if nobody uses them? Can something that never died come back to life? What is gray? All this and not a word more. . .

1. It’s (Still) Alive!!: Dick Lugar went down in flames last night in the Indiana Republican Primary. For 36 years, this moderate Republican has been a pillar of the Republican Party in Washington and in Indiana. Last night, Tea Party upstart Indiana State Treasurer Richard Mourdock took him down. That has the MSM wondering if the Tea Party has come back to life, especially with Tea Party-backed Senate candidates Jeff Flake (AZ), Josh Mandel (Ohio), and Ted Cruz (TX) likely to join him. But how can something which never died come back to life?

2. Waive It Goodbye: Zimmerman waived his speedy trial rights yesterday in the Trayvon Martin shooting. Some have asked if this is normal. The answer is yes, almost everyone waives their speedy trial rights because nobody wants to rush into a trial because it’s too risky. So are they really rights if no one gets to use them?

3. The Sound of Panic: I mentioned the other day that Obama is having a hard time. Even the MSM is taking note. Jeff Greenfield just wrote an interesting column in which he laments “Obama’s bad week.” He notes, with a good deal of panic, that the empty stadium business has been a disaster for Obama because it has dominated the news. And that’s true. Even Politico just wrote an article whining about how unfair it was for everyone to keep harping on it. Greenfield also adds that the bigger worry should be that this is proof that college kids have abandoned Obama. He then pointed out that Saturday Night Live pulling a skit about Obama politicizing the bin Laden killing was proof that Obama did politicize the killing and that the left is really worried about it. He also mentioned that Obama’s political ads have been underwhelming.

James Carville likewise is panicking. He yelled at his stupid Democratic-voter friends to “wake the f**k up!” Heck, we’ve been telling them that for years, but for a different reason. His reason is that Obama is in danger of losing and yet the Democrats are showing no signs of enthusiasm or urgency. That’ll happen when your administration is a walking advertisement for “FAIL by Obama.”

Obama also is imploding all over the place on the gay marriage thing. Not only did North Carolina toss a lot of cold water on the dream that gay marriage would spread beyond the liberal enclaves (they banned gay marriage AND civil unions 69% to 31% last night), but Obama is being called a hypocrite on the issue by the left. Indeed, after Biden said this weekend that he’s totally thrilled with gay marriage and would have one himself if he could find the right woman, Obama continued to try to be for it and against it at the same time. This has the MSM fuming:

● CNN’s Jessica Yellin asked if Obama was trying to “have it both ways before an election” and whether he should “stop dancing around the issue.”

● ABC’s Jake Tapper: “It seems cynical to hide this prior to the election” and then attack Obama’s people for hiding behind talking points.

● NBC’s Chuck Todd: “So help me out here. He opposes bans on gay marriage, but he doesn’t yet support gay marriage?”

Sounds like they want to out Mr. Obama, doesn’t it? So what is the sound of sycophancy fading?

4. Let’s Get Philosophical: Finally, I want to bring up something we discussed yesterday in the Politics of Trek comments. For as far back as I can remember, conservatives have been accused by liberals of “seeing everything in black and white” and being unable to see shades of gray. But in my experience, the opposite is actually true. Conservatives tend to be very good at grasping how much gray there is in the world and accepting it as gray. It’s liberals who are incapable of accepting gray. Indeed, they seem to have a nearly obsessive need to define everything as black or white and to demand that all the blacks be banned or prohibited while everyone be forced to partake in all the whites, i.e. no grays will be tolerated.

The reason liberals attack conservatives as being incapable of seeing “shades of gray” is because liberals lack consistency and conservatives don’t. In other words, liberals define everything as black or white, but these extreme positions can change at a moment’s notice. Thus, liberals are simultaneously extremists, because everything must be a black or white, and unprincipled, because black and white can change at any time. However, they wrongly see their ability to flop around as a positive, which they define as being able to see shades of gray, i.e. having nuanced minds, even though they really aren’t seeing any gray at all -- just lots of blacks and whites flopping around. It would be like loving or hating everyone on the planet but then claiming you are actually indifferent about people because you can move people from the love to the hate column and vice versa.

And since conservatives rarely tend to change their minds about what they consider black and white, liberals wrongly accuse conservatives of not being able to see gray even though it isn’t really gray the liberals are talking about. . . it’s really “lack” of inconsistency which liberals are calling “incapable of seeing gray.”

Thoughts?

Fairness My Rear End...

I am sick of hearing Democrats and other leftists the planet over talk about wanting “a more fair society.” They don’t want a fair society. Far from it, they want a deeply unfair society. And their policies are crushing the very middle class they claim they want to treat so fairly.

Whenever leftists want to get their spite on against the rich, they talk about “fairness.” They act as if somehow the rich have intercepted a gift meant for us all, and now the left wants to spread it around fairly. . . to redistribute it. But wealth is not gift. It does not fall from the sky, it must be created through hard labor or risk taking. So tell me what exactly is “fair” about taking away the value of someone’s labor or the benefits they have earned from taking risks? That’s called slavery, even if you don’t take 100%. In fact, I doubt very much the left would suddenly decide Southern slaveholders were morally justified if they’d only taken 75% of what the slave made.

In a truly fair world, everyone would have an equal opportunity to achieve their dreams. But that is not what leftists want. They care so little about equality of opportunity that (1) they stand in the way of school reform to keep kids from being educated, (2) they stand in the way of starter jobs through labor requirements and minimum wages, which keeps kids form learning the important skills they need, (3) they tax the heck out of success, which keeps all but the greatest risk takers from trying to achieve their dreams, and (4) they encourage a system that lets the powerful and connected run roughshod over the “have nots” using the government as a weapon. It’s no wonder they want equality of result with these policies, because there won’t be any opportunity. The fact is, they hate success and they want to cap how successful you can be. And in some instances, they want to stop you from even trying to achieve your dreams in the first place. How fair is that?

And how has all of this worked out? The middle class has been crushed. Check this out.

Using official inflation figures, a dollar today is only worth 32 cents of what it was worth in 1979. That means inflation has eaten 68% of the value of the dollar in 33 years. In that time, the Middle Class has seen their median income rise only 40%. That means they’ve taken a 28% pay cut over those 33 years -- almost a percent a year. The poorest 20% of Americans have taken a 50% pay cut.

Oh, but wait! This is all the fault of Republicans slashing government spending, right? No. Government spending increased 714% in that same period. That’s right, federal spending increased more than seven times in the same period where real people took a 28-50% pay cut. Are you starting to see the problem?

If you want to know how bad this is, consider this: in 2012, Americans will pay $4 trillion in taxes. That is $152 billion MORE than they will spend on housing, food and clothing combined. That’s right, Uncle Sam is now a bigger expense in our lives than the costs of food, housing and clothing combined. So when Obama talks about tax rates being low compared to what they used to be, laugh in his lying face. Sure, rates are lower, but rates don’t tell the whole story. Rates don’t cover tariffs, fees, excise, use and sale taxes, they don’t account for disappearing and fading deductions, they ignore the alternative minimum tax, and they don’t account for a million other hidden taxes and the cost of regulations. Remember this article (LINK) which showed how the number of “economically significant” regulations being issued has been souring. An “economically significant” regulation, according to the government, is a regulation that imposes at least $100 million in annual costs on the economy. Clinton issued an average of 56 per year. “Conservative” George W. Bush issued on average 62 per year. And now his downgrade-ness is issuing on average 84 per year. Here’s a handy chart:

This represents hundreds of billions of dollars in lost freedom. Combine that with the lost income and the excessive tax burden discussed above and is it any wonder that the Middle Class is getting crushed?

As a result of this, the economy stinks. The labor participation rate, i.e. the percentage of people working, is at its lowest level since 1981, with 30 million people unemployed. According to Paul Krugman, we are in a depression. And he’s probably right. . . for a change. If you look at how the Great Depression went from 1929 to 1940, you will see a series of crashes with each followed by a sucker rally. Basically, the economy would crash 70-80% in a year, then would appear to rally for a couple years recapturing almost exactly half of what it lost, only to give it all up again and more. We seem to be in the same pattern now unless something changes.

What needs to change? How about the elimination of these regulations strangling our economy or the taxes crushing our people? No one will hire or start a new business when they know Uncle Sam is lurking out there waiting to pounce.

But hey, at least it’s fair. . . we’ll all go down together.


Don't forget, it's Star Trek Tuesday at the film site! (Politics of Trek)

Early-On-Set Romney Derangement Syndrome

It’s fascinating watching how this election is shaping up. Romney’s on fire. Obama is flailing. The left is demoralized. And the only people helping Obama are right-wing talk radio and one Barbarian RINO. These are interesting times.

Watching the Republicans attack has been refreshing. For decades, the Republicans played the game of trying to be the nice guy. . . the Charlie Brown of politics. It never worked. This time is different. Indeed, Romney has been savaging Obama every single day on every issue that comes up. He’s pounded away on the economy, on the lack of jobs, on Obama politicizing the killing of bin Laden, etc.

He called Obama’s mishandling of the protection of Chinese activist Chen Guangcheng “a dark day for freedom” and “a day of shame.” He blasted Obama’s attempt to find good news in April’s disastrous employment report (which shows both 8.1% unemployment and a record number of workers giving up trying to find jobs) and said “President Obama is out of ideas, he's out of excuses.”

He’s been verbally clever too, like when he flipped Obama’s claim Romney would not have killed bin Laden by both blasting the claim as politicizing military action and by implying that Obama doesn’t seem to realize he’s bragging about something truly anyone would have done: “Of course [I would have given that order]. Even Jimmy Carter would have given that order.” This makes Obama sound like quite a fool.

Moreover, he’s attacked the little things through surrogates, like how his people accused Obama of eating dog and how they’ve blasted his laughable new campaign slogan “Forward” because of its socialist roots. These attacks have dominated the new cycle sometimes for days and can’t be linked back to Romney by the general public.

At the same time, a bevy of Republicans in battleground states (and more) are blasting Obama on behalf of Romney: Marco Rubio, Chris Christie, Paul Ryan, Kelly Ayotte, Bobby Jindal, Bob McConnell and more are all constantly attacking Obama. Rubio called Obama “divisive” and “cynical” and said he pits Americans against each other. “All the things that made him different and special four years ago are gone. And now all he does is run, dividing Americans against each other, obviously because he can't run on his record.” Then he added about Obama’s foreign policy, “there’s this propensity that this administration seems to have of an unwillingness to forcefully assert America's values.”

Kelly Ayotte blasted Obama’s Iran policy and accused him of remaining silent as the people of Iran sought free elections. She even suggested he could have solved the nuclear problem if he’d acted then. And she said she is more qualified to be President than Obama was in 2008.

Obama’s Julia ad brought dismissive attacks across the board from the right (a new tactic for conservatives). National Review called it “creepy” and “the perfect example of [Obama’s] cradle-to-grave welfare mentality.” Others called it sexist and pointed out the irony or portraying Julia as “a strong, independent woman” and then showing her life depending on Obama’s paternalism. Human Events called it “offensively patronizing.” Paul Ryan called the Julia website “creepy and demeaning.” He added this: “It suggests that this woman can’t go anywhere in life without Barack Obama’s government-centered society. It’s kind of demeaning to her. She must have him and his big government to depend on to go anywhere in life. It doesn’t say much about his faith in Julia.”

And many of these attacks have gotten under Obama’s skin. A good example was Romney parking his campaign bus across from where Obama planned to start his campaign. The news cycle spent more time mentioning this sleight than it did what Obama said. Fox has even noticed that Obama is suffering from early-on-set Romney Derangement Syndrome, which is causing him to take inappropriate personal shots at Romney and sink to defending things Presidents normally ignore.

Obama, by the way, can’t find a message. Nor has he found a way to counterattack. He tried the “out-of-touch rich, white guy” bit and that didn’t work. “Dangerous extremist” didn’t work either. The war on women imploded, so did the Trayvon Martin race war. Now he’s reduced (I kid you not) to “don’t take a chance on Romney.” That’s what Sarkozy tried. . . and Gordon Brown. . . and George Bush Sr.

Meanwhile, places like Politico are adrift. Obama has given them nothing, and all they can do is try to explain away the bad news. Obama kicked off his campaign to empty stadiums, so they ran Axelrod’s claim that it was the intensity which matters. Sure. They had Axelrod explain why Obama wasn’t really spiking the ball (again and again) by trying to claim credit for the killing of bin Laden. They whined that the Keystone Pipeline guys are overselling how many jobs Obama killed, and the attacks on the Julia website aren’t entirely fair. Robert DeNiro likes Obama again, did you know that? Oh, and Hispanics might be critical in the election. . . maybe. Hey, Romney had a gay staffer? That should bother you religious nuts, right? Ann Romney spends a lot on clothes! Come on people! //sigh

In fact, right now the best friends Obama has are uberRINOs like Arnold Schwarzenegger, who fears people with principles and spent the weekend attacking the GOP as “too narrow and too rigid,” and people like talk radio. Indeed, talk radio and websites like HotAir are spending their time cherry-picking words out of the quotes of unnamed Romney staffers so they can prove his move to the center. . . he’s the real Alinsky Trojan Horse people!!! Fortunately, their idiotic bleating will only make Romney more acceptable to independents. . . assuming anyone is listening.

In any event, I shall leave you with this. I said the other day that this race really comes down to Ohio and Florida, and that still seems to be true. But the way things are going, I’m starting to wonder if that might not be too pessimistic? And before you say, “but the polls,” consider this. . . when the polls are normed to reflect the population, they use turn-out figures from the 2008 election, which was disproportionately Democratic. Think that will happen again?

Deciding Who Lives And Dies

Liberals love to control everyone around them. From demanding seatbelts to banning salts and transfats to banning soda in schools, liberals just can’t stop telling you how to live your life. But how far would they really go? Would they deny you medical care if you don’t conform to the way they think you should live? Take a wild guess.

Today’s story comes from Britain, which is often a trendsetter for our left. This story specifically involves a poll conducted by the UK of 1,096 doctors in the National Heath Service. They were asked if the NHS, i.e. the government agency which controls all healthcare in Britain, should have the right to deny non-emergency treatments to smokers and to people who are overweight. Fifty-four percent (54%) answered “YES”.

Think about that for a moment. A slight majority of British doctors (“do no harm” types) felt that the British government should have the right to deny Britons medical care if they were smokers or fat. And don’t forget, in Britain, there really is no other choice for medical care, so this is effectively a ban, not simply a demand that they fund it themselves.

The ostensible reason for this is a shift in attitudes resulting from the need for medical cut backs. In other words, because money is scarce, they want to decide who they consider worthy of receiving treatment and ban everyone else from getting it. But when is money ever not scarce?

And don’t think this is theoretical either. A prior investigation has already found that 25 of 91 Primary Care Trusts in England (think “Obama Insurance Exchange”) have imposed treatment bans since April 2011 in an attempt to save ₤20 billion by 2015. Indeed, in parts of England, smokers and obese people are being rejected for hip and knee replacements so these trusts can allocate their resources to people whose lifestyles they deem more justified of receiving treatment. And you can bet that once it’s acceptable to deny “non-emergency” care to undesirables, emergency care will be next. . . like in euthanasia countries, where doctors now decide if your life is worth saving or if the state wouldn’t be better off letting you shuffle your now-worthless ass off this mortal coil.

So once again, liberals are dividing the world into those they like and those they don’t and they are trying to use the power of government to punish those they don’t. The NHS is a system from which Britons cannot escape. . . just like a single payer plan would be here. They make you pay massive taxes for that system your entire life, i.e. they turn you into a slave, with the promise that you will be taken care of. Then they deny medical care to those they dislike. So much for medical care being a basic human right.

This is the problem with liberal “do-gooder-ism.” It quickly becomes fascism of the worst kind. From banning things you eat to taking your children if you teach them the wrong lessons to imprisoning you for having the wrong thoughts to letting you die if they don’t like you. Don’t ever believe a liberal when they start whining about human rights or dignity because they don’t really mean it. . . they always omit the critical words they are really thinking: “for some.”

Are We About To Bomb Iran? Yep.

I mentioned the other day that Obama seems to be getting ready to bomb Iran before the election. Not only do I stand by that, but I think the evidence for it is growing. If I’m reading the signs right, look for three weeks of bombing at the end of August.

Before we hit the evidence, let me dispel a few conservative myths. Contrary to what people with Obama Derangement Syndrome will tell you, Obama’s foreign policy is remarkably similar to Bush’s foreign policy. His rhetoric is weaker, but his actual policies are the same. Indeed, he’s almost been trigger-happy by comparison. He’s authorized thousands of drone strikes in countries like Pakistan, Yemen and throughout Africa (things Bush was afraid to do), he’s authorized the bombing of Libya, and he’s sent US troops into a half-dozen conflicts. He’s authorized the killing of American citizens who are suspected terrorists, he hasn’t renounced “enhanced interrogation,” and he even tried to erase the legal existence of the people they are holding at Gitmo. All in all, he’s been more than willing to fight.

Moreover, his latest chest thumping about killing Osama bin Laden, tells us that he thinks it will be vital to his re-election to appear tough. What this means is that Obama is willing and able to strike and most likely sees it as being in his interests to strike before the election.

But how do we know he will strike Iran? Well, for starters, he’s been laying the groundwork for some time. For two years, Obama spoke incessantly about sanctions while promising carrot after carrot if Iran would just play nice. They didn’t. And he can now tell his supporters he tried. Then last year, things began to change. The IAEA issued a stinging report saying that not only was Iran cheating, but that they would soon have a bomb. Meanwhile, Obama’s people created this bizarre story of Iran working with Mexican narco-gangs to assassinate people in the US. That story didn’t wash (except Rick Santorum believed it) but it signified a rhetorical shift toward getting the public ready for a possible attack. And with each of the Republican candidates buying into the need for an attack (except Ron Paul), Obama now has a green light to act.

At the same time, Obama apparently authorized the assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists and authorized the use of sophisticated computer virus attacks against Iran’s nuclear capabilities. These are acts you take before an attack, not when you are just passing time.

Now we’re suddenly getting a slew of clues that something is imminent:

● A few weeks ago, Obama moved a second aircraft carrier into the region. American attacks in the modern era always use two carriers. And they are rarely together otherwise.

● The troops in Iraq, who would have been a major target for Iranian counter-attacks, have been removed to safer Arab countries.

● A few months ago, Obama approved the sale of a sophisticated anti-missile system to the United Arab Emirates for $3.6 billion. Why would something like that be needed? To make them less nervous about hosting US troops should hostilities break out and to protect US troops in the country.

● Then last week, we learned that the Air Force positioned F-22 Raptors (the latest generation stealth fighter/penetrator) in those very same UAE. The F-22 is the perfect plane to get through Iran’s defensive grid. The Air Force claims this is all just a normal deployment, except that’s not true. The Air Force does not send F-22 Raptors to just anywhere.

● Yesterday, Obama signed an Executive Order allowing the US to boycott anyone who still does business with Iran. Notice the lack of fanfare. That’s key here because when countries aren’t ready to fight, they bang the table and make threats. When they are preparing to fight, they go silent and don’t trumpet their actions. And my guess is this Order will allow the seizure of assets at a critical time.

● Also yesterday, Prime Minister Netanyahu for the first time mentioned moving elections up from November to August. Why? Because you can’t start an attack if you’re going to go before the voters right after it begins. This suggests the timeline is a late-August attack.

● And then this came out last night. The Pentagon has leaked that it is revising its defense strategy in accordance with current threats. Mentioned in the assessment is that U.S. Central Command is conducting “war planning” for Iran, with the belief that we can destroy Iran’s conventional armed forces in about three weeks “using air and sea strikes.” Further, the Pentagon is “now conducting a step-by-step surge of forces in the Gulf.” Specifically mentioned were “maintaining two aircraft carriers in the region and increasing the number of mine-detection ships and helicopters” as well as the deployment of the F-22. In other words, everything I mentioned above.

All this tells me that the Pentagon is getting ready to strike. It’s building the military capability and it has already assured the neighbors, who no doubt already gave a green light or we would be hearing screaming. Politically, Obama has clearly coordinated with Israel and is factoring this attack into his election plan. He’s also set the Treasury up to seize Iranian assets once the shooting starts.

Based on Israel and how unlikely it is that the Air Force would leave the F-22’s sitting over there too long or the Navy would leave two carriers floating in the gulf longer than necessary, I would expect an attack no later than the end of August, with the current plan being three weeks of bombing.

So the next question is will this help Obama's re-election chances? I doubt it. Weak- appearing leaders tend to get hurt when they start wars because people see it as a desperate attempt to look tough. Libya gave Obama his standard three point bounce which faded almost before it was recorded. I would expect this will give him a 10% bounce, which will fade in week two of the bombing and go negative if bombing goes on beyond three weeks. . . which it will. Plus, as he's shown with his Afghanistan garbage, he will quickly try to politicize it, and that will truly anger average Americans.

Thoughts?

Mayday Mayday!

Comrades! As you read this, no doubt the dirty capitalist pigs have their backs against the wall and our glorious OWS shock troops are shooting them with non-polluting goodwill projectiles. The world is ours. Now we need a list of demands. Oops, sorry, wrong speech.

For those who haven’t heard, OWS is making a desperate attempt today to seem relevant. Specifically, they’re leaving the safety of their college dorms and their rich parents’ basements, and putting aside their raping and their racism and their whining, so they can march out (probably by cab) to block bridges and banks and other instruments of capitalism.

And nobody’s going to care.

It’s amazing how badly OWS has exposed the left. Despite controlling liberal arts colleges all over the country. . . despite being backed by the money of billionaires like George Soros. . . despite being backed by the “labor” of unions. . . despite being fellated by the MSM and Hollywood. . . OWS has been a complete and utter failure. Indeed, in the end, all they’ve done is annoy liberals in big liberal cities as they drained the budgets of those cities: “Sorry, no homeless shelter for you, we spent the money cleaning up the poop the OWSers left in the park.”

In any event, here’s why they failed. The left has become an intellectual basket case. In the days of Lenin and Marx, the left stood for the idea of restructuring the relationship between labor and those with capital. It wanted to remake the world. But socialism failed miserably everywhere it was tried. It bankrupted country after country, it broke the work ethics of the people it ensnared, and it murdered hundreds of millions of people. Only kooks still believe in it.

But the hardcore left won’t quit because it was never about economic for them, it was about control. So they regrouped and sought new allies: man-hating feminists, white-hating blacks, religion-hating atheists, gays, eco-nuts, animal worshippers, anti-Semites, and militants of every stripe. Then they enlisted welfare lifestylists, perpetual college attendees, and the spiteful as ground troops. And the result is a hodgepodge of hatreds, spite and envy, without intellectual rigor or even a common platform. Indeed, they ceased to be an ideology and instead became a (bowel) movement of hate.

OWS encapsulated this perfectly. Not only could they not come up with a coherent list of demands, the demands they did make were nonsense. They were a list of tantrums seeking the impossible, and even if we wanted to meet their demands, we couldn’t. . . not that any sane person would want to try.

Nevertheless, it shocked them that they were ignored. Here’s why. The OWSers are the result of two fascinating trends coming together. The first trend is liberalism’s inability to grasp that others do not share their views. Liberals truly believe that everyone thinks like they do. We’ve seen this time and again, and I think it’s getting worse because of the groupthink out of Hollywood and the MSM. And in this case, that resulted in the OWSers truly believing that the moment they stormed the parks, millions or ordinary Americans would rush to join them. It never occurred to them that might not happen.

The second trend is more subtle by much more damaging. Liberals have been dumbing down achievement for a long time now. This is what is behind the self-esteem movement: to teach morons that feeling good about themselves is as good as actually doing something. Ironically, the result of this has been to cause the utter collapse of liberalism as a functioning force. By teaching liberals for generations now that trying is as good as doing, they’ve bred a generation incapable of setting goals and worked hard to achieve them. Instead, they only aim to “raise awareness” now as if that would magically get someone in charge to implement their desires. This is exactly what OWS did: they sought to raise awareness, as they’ve been taught, and then they waited for the magical whatever to change the world. . . it’s Underwear-Gnome-grade stupidity.

Compare them to the Tea Party, who never bought into the self-esteem crap. They didn’t set out to raise awareness, they set up a network of people who have been slowly taking over the Republican Party with the intent of changing the party and then the government, i.e. they set goals and worked to implement them. OWS just walked into a park and declared, “you are all aware now, so somebody do whatever is supposed to happen next.”

OWS failed because they lacked an agenda, they didn’t understand that the rest of the country wasn’t going to rush to join them, and they lacked an understanding that just whining about something doesn’t lead to change. And causing problems today will not change any of that. Indeed, even if they are somehow wildly successful today, the problem remains -- all they will have achieved is whining again that “somebody should do something.” Good luck with that, fools.


Don't forget, today is Trek Tuesday at the film site! Today I'm criticizing Jim Kirk of all people!