Writing in Politico, Greenfield wrote that Obama’s legacy has left the Democratic Party old and weak. This is true.
In 2008, when Obama swept to power, the Democrats held a massive advantage in the House (257-178), a supermajority in the Senate (62-38), the Presidency, four of nine Supreme Court seats, and most governorships (28-22) and state legislatures (27-14 with 9 mixed) nationwide. Even worse, they held the benefit of the doubt of the voters.
Then came Obama.
The GOP now controls the House (247-188) and is projected to be guaranteed to keep it until 2020 at least. The GOP controls the Senate (54-46). The GOP has a better than 50% chance of winning the White House. Obama lost nine millions voters in his re-election. The GOP still controls 5 of 9 Supreme Court seats even after three Obama appointments.
The GOP now controls 70% of the upper and lower chambers of the state legislatures (30-11-9). They control 31 governorships. In 24 of 50 states, the GOP controls both the governorship and the legislature. There’s little evidence of any of that changing soon. Indeed, the Democrats use words like “decimated” when talking about their state parties.
Speaking of the White House, because the Democrats lost all their princelings, they are essentially short of candidates to run for President. The names that are left are uninspired and they are ancient. As Greenfield notes, Obama is one of the few who is not eligible for social security. Indeed, look at who they have: retread Hillary Clinton age 67... original socialist Bernie Sanders age 73... retard Joe Biden age 72. The rest of their leadership is no better: Pelosi (75), Hoyer (76), Clyburn (75) and Reid (75).
How about their governor of California, which is usually a solid launching point for candidates... Jerry Brown (77). Now name another Democratic governor other than Andrew Cuomo, who is in criminal trouble. See the problem? There simply are no Democrats who have name recognition and can inspire. They have no “bench” and their starting line up is crap.
Then add the political problems I’ve pointed out over and over again and you’ll see why their supporters are demoralized.
(1) The Democrats exposed themselves by voting on nothing when they had the power to actually pass laws.This is Obama’s political legacy. When he took office, George Bush’s failures had turned the Democratic Party into a juggernaut that could never be stopped by conservatives again... until Obama drove it off the cliff with narcissistic indifference, sheer political and policy incompetence, and by throwing every Democrat who could challenge him under every bus he could find.
(2) Obama tried to pass a ton of laws by Executive Order and they were all overturned. His eight years have essentially be rewound to the starting gates by the courts.
(3) Their one “achievement,” Obamacare is a millstone around Democratic necks.
(4) Obama’s reign began with the worst economy since the Great Depression and turned into the Great Recession for most of Obama’s years before becoming the weakest, jobless recovery ever, and now is in serious danger of slipping back into recession because of China and the stock market.
(5) Feminism collapsed under the resistance of regular women and the flogger of Fifty Shades of Grey, plus the exposure of a faked rape crisis. The unions got crushed by state budgets, Scott Walker, Obamacare regulations that killed the only reason people join unions, and the courts wiping out every ruling Obama had ever issued. The black victim industry collapsed when Obama let the Voting Rights Act die and when the public stopped caring about “racism.” Black Lives Matter is now adding “eye-roll” to indifference with the public. The gay lobby got what they wanted and are busy disbanding. Environmentalism died in Copenhagen. College students abandoned the left when Obama became demotivational instead of inspirational. Talk about demoralized.
It’s funny how it took the MSM eight years to recognize that.
Thoughts?
47 comments:
I don't see that the MSM acknowledges that. They seem to continue to cheerlead the Obamanation.
I DO get a kick out of old, 73 year old Slow Joe Biden getting into the fray to take over when Hillary stumbles. He's not a bad debater, but the commercials showing his incompetence will be grist for Trump in particular, who is touting the goofy incompetence of the current regime.
LL, By the MSM, I really just mean Greenfield at this point, who has always struck me as very, very representative of the MSM conventional wisdom.
That said, while I do agree they continue to cheerlead, because he is a leftist, there does seem to be a lot of anger out there at the state of the Democrats and at Obama's miserably pathetic legacy.
On Biden, I can't honestly believe that anyone would think that Biden is a good choice. He's a fool who offends people with almost every sentence. He has no charisma either. If I were a Democrat, he wouldn't even make my list of possible candidates. I would rather vote "random democrat" in the primary than Biden.
Captain America review up.
LINK
I thought the Republicans were the party of the old white people!
In other bad news for the Democratic Party:
PA State AG Kathleen Kane (D), 49,* will be in court Monday morning for a prelim on charges of perjury, obstruction, and conspiracy. Last year, she was accused of leaking confidential grand jury info to a reporter in 2009. (Allegedly, it was to get back at a rival Republican prosecutor.) Add to that, she's accused of lying to a grand jury probe about the matter last year. FULL STORY
And all this after she filed for divorce last December.
*-Hey, what's a court of failed princelings without a failed princess?
In other news...Governor Wolf (D) is trying to wipe out charter schools and put them all under union jackboots so that educators will "think of the children."
I'm seriously desiring a new state right now. Any suggestions?
Kit, Isn't it funny? When you look at the Democratic leadership, apart from a couple very aging Civil Rights types, you find ancient white people.
And their bench really is empty. There is just no one between 30 and 60 with any gravitas or following. This is exactly the problem I was talking about with their princelings all losing their elections in 2012/2014. And don't forget, it takes years (usually a decade or two) to groom a candidate to get them ready for the national stage... and it takes winning a lot of states to find people to groom. So this isn't just a problem for 2016, this is a problem for years to come.
Rustbelt, I saw that, that she was under indictment. So much for the first woman to hold the AG job in PA, and so much for yet another potential Democrat. They are dropping like flies everywhere.
Sorry to hear about the Democratic War on Education, but that's typical for them.
Move South and West, those are your best bets to find a thriving, sane state.
Thanks for the tip, Andrew. I've heard the weather there is far more bearable, too.
Rustbelt, The West really has everything you could be looking for. I would absolutely recommend it.
RE: Party of Old White People -- the Democrats' contortions on that subject are pretty amusing to anyone who follows such things. For one, the word "old" has been dropped when slighting the GOP. So now it's just the Party of White People. Then, I see a Salon article a couple months ago calling the GOP just that with--I kid you not--photos of Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz under the headline. (There was an actual white guy, too--Paul Ryan I think--but the point was already made.)
Tyranmax,
Be wary of Salon, it has been scientifically proven that reading it can kill brain cells.
" For one, the word "old" has been dropped when slighting the GOP."
Hehehe.
Amid stock market plummet today is your article and "How Obama Transformed America" on the WSJ.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/how-obama-transformed-america-1440367410
Although they are few, there are a few younger democrats who don't have a criminal record such as Hickenlooper, Gov. Bullock of MT, Sen. Bennet. They actually seem to be less insane but they also seem to have no interest in chasing the big chair. That also seems to be the difference.
The young somewhat brash republicans have ideas and aspirations. They also tend to project a more optimistic outlook: this country is great and I want to make it better by removing the Obama albatrosses.
This stock market drop in insane. This reeks of being even worse than 2008 at this point. This will revise the theory that we are mimicking the Great Depression because they did that too -- huge crash, big recovery, even bigger crash.
I have a hard time imagining very many people getting excited for a man whose name sounds like "chicken pooper."
Hillary Clinton Update: Today I read at Hotair that on MSNBC's Morning Joe Michael Mukasey, Attorney General from 2007 to 2009, said Hillary Clinton may have disqualified herself from holding any office.
Emphasis HotAir's.
"Whoever, having the custody of any such record, proceeding, map, book, document, paper, or other thing, willfully and unlawfully conceals, removes, mutilates, obliterates, falsifies, or destroys the same, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both; and shall forfeit his office and be disqualified from holding any office under the United States. As used in this subsection, the term “office” does not include the office held by any person as a retired officer of the Armed Forces of the United States."
Oops.
Source: LINK
Koshcat, For whatever reason, Hickelooper and Bullock are not considered national prospects by the Democrats, and Bennet is listed as the most vulnerable Democrat for 2016. One thing is for sure though, they're going to need somebody young very soon. Right now, I have no idea who that would be.
It reminds me a bit of the early 1990s when the GOP was running people like Bob Dole after George Bush Sr. and our congressional leaders were people like Strom Thermond (117) and Jesse Helms (116) and we were getting wiped out in the Northeast and the West Coast. It took a few years for us to finally get some younger candidates and they were all governors.
I agree about the young Republicans being more optimistic. I think that makes a huge difference and that is what we need to do to win people over. You can win sometimes by scaring people, but they'll never truly support you except on that issue.
tryanmax, I think the problem with Hickenlooper (aside from the name) is that he's just not an exciting person. He doesn't have any charisma that I can tell and he strikes me as kind of random when it comes to policy.
Kit, That's a long way off though... need a conviction first. She would plead to something else long before that.
HotAir.com acknowledged that a prosecution was needed.
But this little bit doesn't help her any.
And we have those gun-control jackasses on the run....
As fun as it is watching Kane and Wolf's debilitating exploits, seriously pains me to see the homeland in such disarray. Too bad Congressman Kelly probably had no desire to be Governor.
I was wondering when they Dems were going to realize that they have become the party of Old White Men. They should have noticed when their anointed candidates were Sandra Fluke and Wendy Davis went down in flames. I think that maybe they so believed that Hillary Clinton was "The Next One" that they just didn't bother to have a "Plan B". And frankly the Dems and Clinton Camp were really betting heavily on just substituting "Racist" for "Sexist" in their campaign strategy, that they missed the really big picture...she is completely unlikeable.
I actually think that Andrew Cuomo may have had a shot at running, but he screwed the pooch with the whole ethics investigation debacle that may land him in jail. But again, the Dems thought she had so sewn up, that no one wanted to even try. I think Bernie jumped in because he is old and it is his last chance to spread his Socialist propaganda on a national scale...otherwise the only people who are listening to him are the 93% white population in Vermont.
I have a feeling that Bernie is like the Grateful Dead, he has some hard core adherents who follow him everywhere...some show up out of curiosity and the rest just needed something to do on a Tuesday night.
Bev, I see Bernie and Ron Paul and he jumped in to push an ideology that no one believed in except on the far left fringe and then suddenly found that he was running against a paper tiger. I'll bet he's more shocked than anyone that anyone is listening to him!
In terms of Hillary, I think you're right. The left thought that Obama had ensured they would keep blacks and now Hillary was going to solidify the women's vote. They never realized that outside of their own ranks, people just don't like her.
Kit, In election after election, each side finds some reason why the cops are going to take away the other guy and then they will have victory. It's never true. Life doesn't work that way.
Critch, True! I forgot about the gun control nuts, they've become so irrelevant!
Bev, At one point, I thought Cuomo could have stepped in and crushed Hillary, but he didn't. Instead, he went to war with other politicians in New York and imploded. How stupid!
Eric, It is sad to me because the Democrats have become the part of division to try to maintain what they have in elections. Without them spreading hate, I would bet that issues like race and class would be much closer to healed.
Bev, Hillary really got goosed by the HRC Super Volunteers when they decided to take the lead in ferreting out "coded sexism" embedded in such gender-biased language as "polarizing," "secretive," and "out-of-touch." They basically inadvertently (they do seem to be genuine Hillary supporters) ripped the sheets off of the whole grievance game by declaring all negative descriptors to be sexist when applied to Hillary.
tryanmax, I would add two things. First, people HATE being told that what they can and cannot say. That grates on Americans. So when her people did that, they added yet another annoyance factor to the existing Clinton fatigue that most people felt for her. Secondly, by pointing out those words, they inadvertently made people associate them with her.
It's like telling someone, "Person X is not stupid." Suddenly, people will suspect that they must be stupid if they have to deny it and they start looking for evidence of it.
I wouldn't get too dizzy with delight at this stage. Power has seesawed between both parties increasingly quickly in modern times around in no small part because power has proven to be a poison chalice for both of them.
Each time they win power, the winners tell themselves 'this time it will be different' but it never is because a lack of power is the only excuse they give their activist wings for not implementing policy X and they all succumb to pressure from one wing or the other to do something that repels voters.
That being said, Obama is worse for the Dems than Bush was for the Republicans because unlike Bush Obama never cared much for the party, he just saw it as a tool to carry out his agenda, not an independent thing to be nurtured for its and his own long term good.
Hickenlooper - his name is more interesting than he is
Bullock - a castrated male bovine; seems perfect for a male democrat
While the GOP is stronger in other places it is still weak in Colorado. Any idea that Bennet's seat is vulnerable I would consider a fantasy. That can change if the right person runs but at this point I'm not optimistic.
It could be worse, they could have Polis run.
Speaking of the collapse of the Democratic coalition, I ran across two interesting things today related to gays.
First, HBO's John Oliver (who wants to be the new John Stewart) is whining that the gay fight isn't over... which is further proof that it is.
Secondly, a you.gov poll is being reported on which claims that 29% of Americans are "some degree of bisexual," which is an idiotic phrase because you either are or are not bisexual, you aren't partially bisexual. Anyways, it turns out that yougov.com hides their methodology for good reason. They use an "invited group of interviewees" who answer the relevant question and then they claim to normalize their group to the larger population. In other words, they hand pick their sample group.
Interestingly, even Kinsey, who was a total fraud, found only 10% of the public falling into the gay/bisexual category and his research was faked by focusing on prisons, mental institutions and people who sought treatment for being gay. By comparison, 20 years worth of Census data from several countries consistently finds 2-3%. The reason I mention this is that this another clear sign of desperation if what is left of the gay lobby is trying to jack up their numbers 1000% in the hopes of staying relevant even as their troops all go back to the clubs.
I think you are spot on, Anthony. Obama's narcissism is killing both the country and his party.
Here is my prediction: GOP will win the presidency and control the senate and the house. They will pass some good bills such as tax reform and peel back some of the regulations in Obamacare and Frank-Dodd. Then they will go all crazy and start a war with the Maldives cost $17 Trillion or they will try to make abortions a capital offense and then the dems will slow take over both houses.
Koshcat, Bennet is considered weak because he's unpopular. But he is still given an advantage by the political organizations because the GOP struggles to find quality candidates here. I too would suspect that he will win until and unless I see a decent GOP candidate emerge... which I view as unlikely.
Apparently, he's been voting with the Republicans lately too to try to inoculate himself to the "crazy Democrat" charge.
Also, let me be clear that while I do think the Democrats are in a world of hurt, the GOP is hardly healthy. Our flaws keep the Democrats in the game right now.
Anthony, I agree completely. I think Obama has been an utter disaster for the Democrats for those very reasons. Not only did he misinterpret his victory and he pushed too far left, but he did so with utter disdain for his own party. His re-election in 2012 was highly destructive to the rest of his party because of the negative and selfish way he ran. And his indifference to help them has cost them dearly as well. I would also add that he seemed to spend a lot of time eliminating competition within his own party. So he really does deserve the (credit) blame for blowing them apart.
That said, I'm not really jumping for joy because the GOP is only marginally better. We have better candidates, but our ideology is confused and focused entirely on the poisonous parts. A Ronald Reagan type (generally conservative, but pragmatic with a desire to address the concerns of the public over those of the activists and a sunny disposition) could win the day for either party for a generation right now... but neither party has such a person.
Yes, let's all learn the lesson from those heady days in early 2009 right after the 1st Obama inauguration when all the talking heads were just squealing with delight at how the Republicans had been defeated for the next 40 years...Heck, James Carville even wrote a book about it. Of course that was in May of 2009...then came November 2010 (less than 40 months later) when the Republicans took back the House and closed the majority in the Senate. The Dems were shocked and didn't see it coming AT ALL! But it was like standing in the middle of highway with two giant semis careening toward you...but whatevs.
We know the pendulum swings back and forth and right now the pendulum is swinging in the toward the conservative side. If and when we do win, it won't last long...8 years maybe.
Yup. Once I realized they were the party of the perpetually aggrieved (circa 1998), made putting them in the rearview really easy.
"They say every man has a homosexual fantasy. So I'm sittin' around the house, goin' over my fantasies 'cause if there's one in there, I WANT IT OUT!!!"
From the Gospel According to Kinison
I also enjoy the irony the Tea Party movement Mach 21st century came courtesy CNBC's Rick Santelli.
Sorry ladies and gentleman, no post for tonight. But hey, what about that stock market crash, eh?
I got it covered, Bev. :)
Eric, That is so true. They are the party of the perpetually aggrieved. That makes them hostile to everything this country stands for and it should make them unpalatable to the public. We just need to stop keeping them afloat with our own mistakes.
I laughed how the Tea Party movement came about. Santelli is fun to watch, but he had NO idea he would inspire people in that moment.
Bev, I firmly believe that if Obama had been (1) a moderate and (2) not such an unlikable ass, he could have made the Democrats into the dominant party in this country. But he did just about everything wrong and he saved conservatism.
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