Elections and Other Stuff...

I don't have much for today, but just a little about my assessment of recent elections. I am not sure that the Liberals really grasp how badly they lost in 2014. Not only did they lose the Senate badly, but, according to National Conference of State Legislatures, "Republicans gained 300-350 seats in state government and control over 4,100 of the nation’s 7,383 legislative seats." The last time this happened was in the 1920's.

That's great, but here is why I think they are even more clueless. Earlier this year, Obama's crackerjack election team went to Israel to help and advise Isaac Herzog on how to defeat Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Herzog and his party lost badly.

David Axelrod, key election adviser to Obama along with our dear New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio traveled to England to advise Ed Millibrand and his Labour Party on how to defeat David Cameron and his Conservative Party. Millibrand and Labour lost badly.

They just don't get that the people are just not buying what they are selling.

Now, here is where it gets really fun. NYC Mayor Bill De Blasio is travelling the US to sell his version of the Liberal "Contract With America" that will be revealed soon. He is convinced that the Democrats can win in 2016 if they can just move sharply left. Now, Bill has never really understood that he won by only 18% of vote of NYC registered voters despite that the fact that he swears he has a "mandate from the people". This is his now-famous quote from his recent Rolling Stone Magazine interview:

"A lot of people outside New York City understand what happened in the first year of New York City better than people in New York City. But I´m convinced something very special happened here."

Yeah, real special - murder is up 20% including three dead cops and we just don't "get" his brilliance. [Full disclosure: I have not read his RS interview because I just don't want to.] Though he has already announced that he will run again in 2017, I predict that he most certainly he will not win. He is that unpopular.

Anyway, let's hope the Dems keep up their present election track record.

Oh, did I forget to tell you that yet another New York State elected official has been indicted for wrong-doing? Remember earlier this year, I told you about long-time Democrat Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver's arrest. This time it is the Republican State Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos who was arrested on federal corruption charges and after much wrangling, he finally stepped down today. I don't know the details and it almost doesn't even matter anymore. But at this rate, we may have to ask for volunteers to fill our state legislature simply because no one will be left who isn't already in jail.

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Democrat versus Democrat

As we near the end of a President’s reign, especially an unpopular one, the members of the President’s party start to go their own way. This can range from simply talking about new issues that had been de-prioritized by the current administration to actively attacking the lame duck President. The Democrats are in the middle of that at the moment, and it’s going to cause them serious problems. Observe...

Here are some big examples of recent attacks by Democrats on Obama:

(1) Sen. Chuck “Chuckles” Schumer came out and basically blasted the Democratic obsession with Obamacare. He noted that this was not what was concerning the public at the time and he suggested that putting their eggs in this basket made the Democrats seem out of touch. He also suggested other problems with the law and he blamed it for destroying the Democrats in the midterm elections. Chuck seems to be setting himself up as a “prominent critic” of Obamacare... the only possibly positive legacy Obama has.

(2) Sen. “Dingy” Harry Reid is apparently on the verge of cutting a deal with Republicans to put in place $400 billion (over 10 years) in tax breaks. The White House has had no input into this and actually rallied liberals to kill the bill... after a veto threat. Think about that: a veto threat aimed at something Harry Reid is trying to pass!

(3) Sen. Robert “Illegal Fundraiser” Menendez has been working with Republicans to shape a new sanctions bill against Iran, despite Obama trying to play the “carrot only” game with Iran... and despite Obama claiming that GOP fears about Iran are paranoia.

(4) Obama wants to enact trade deals with Europe and the Pacific Rim countries to lower trade barriers. The Democrats are freaking out about this and are attacking the proposals as bad for American workers.

(5) Harry Reid’s aide David Krone has publicly blamed Team Obama for their losses in November... and aides never speak publicly without permission.

(6) Mary Landrieu attacked Obama over the Keystone Pipeline and arranged a vote to try to pass it over his objections. She fell only one vote short in the Senate. After her 12 point loss last week, she and others blamed Obama for failing to support her.

(7) Several Democrats, especially talking heads, have been positively freaking out about Obama’s immigration order. Others on the left are angered that he didn’t go any further. No one is happy and no one is staying silent.

(8) Lots of leftists and black race baiters are attacking Obama for not doing/saying more about Ferguson... or New York.

All of this is typical and means the Democrats are engaged in at least a low grade civil war. That’s rarely good. What makes this even worse though, is that this was isn’t about ideas, it’s about finger pointing, i.e. they all want to blame someone else for the party’s recent failures. At least in ideological battles like the GOP just fought, you have the chance to fix the things that went wrong rather than just whine that it was everyone else’s fault. Here the goal is basically just to pass the blame.

That said, there is an ideological component brewing in this fight and it’s one that is potentially highly destructive....

I wrote about the decimation of their princelings recently and in that discussion I noted that the Democrats seem to be making a mistake embracing those people in the first place. Specifically, by elevating a bunch of women, blacks, Hispanics and gays to the leadership positions to replace the boring looking/sounding white males who currently are “the face of the party,” the Democrats appear to be sacrificing their ability to pretend that they still are the party of mostly-conservative white working class males. Right now, with soft-spoken old white guys like Harry Reid (who claims to be a devoutly religious farmer who loves hunting) as the face of the party, the Democrats are able to sell the idea that they are not as urban, not as ethnic, not as anti-traditional values as they really are. But by swapping urban blacks, women, gays and Hispanics for the likes of Harry Reid, they are losing the carefully staged images they need to push this lie. In my opinion, that will cost them in rural America.

Anyways, adding to this, I am now seeing lots of articles being written by leftists who are arguing that the Democrats can no longer claim to have any real support among “working class whites,” and that they should accept this and openly embrace an agenda that better fits their new core, i.e. feminists, race baiters, gays and minorities.

I cannot tell you how much I hope they buy into this advice and change the image of their party. If they do, they will lose another 10% of the white vote, plus they will struggle with Hispanics and Asians (the fastest growing group of immigrants), who very much want the American dream... not the welfare dependency substitute.

It’s going to be fascinating to see how this plays out, particularly as all the old “moderate” Democrats fade away after being destroyed by Pelosi’s banzai charges and then Obamacare, and the face of the party becoming increasingly urban-ideological. If they also embrace a far-left urban agenda, they could well destroy themselves.

Thoughts?

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Lost Generation of Democrats

There have been a lot of articles lately about the Democrats suffering long-term damage from the recent election. I find this interesting, though I don't think things are that simple. I also think this problem actually began back in 2008 because of Obama.

The Democrats expected to do a good deal better in the mid-term elections than they did. In particular, they were shocked to do so poorly in state races for things like governor and attorney general. Even more shocking, these losses occurred in reliably blue and purple states. Even worse, the Democrats saw the people who lost as their rising stars, i.e. their future leaders. These individuals included people like Michelle Nunn in Georgia, the daughter of the respected Sen. Sam Nunn, Alison Grimes in Kentucky, who would be seen as a giant-killer for unseating Mitch McConnell, Mike Michaud in Maine, who would have been the first openly gay governor, Anthony Brown in Maryland, the country's only black governor, etc. But a funny thing happened... each of these candidates lost, as did many more supposed future stars.

As a result of these losses, the Democrats are now fretting about having lost everyone they saw as their future leaders. And the loss of these people is making many Democrats think they are now handicapped in national elections for maybe as much as a decade. Others think these people can run again in 2016, win, and restore the farm-team. But even those people agree that this has hurt the party.

I find this interesting on several levels. First, I agree that this has hurt them. No matter how promising a candidate may be, having a big loss on the resume can be a killer. At the very least, this has delayed these people's careers for another election cycle. Secondly, I note that these people are all minorities -- women, blacks, gays. Up to now, the Democrats have remained competitive by running white males who then pretend to be more conservative than they really are, see e.g. Harry Reid. This group of candidates would represent a real shift in strategy, a shift which may send whites and males to the GOP in even greater numbers as it become harder for the Democrats to pretend to be conservative and to pretend not to be a party in the service of minorities.

Third, I think the real problem actually began with Obama's victory in 2008. It is often true that a president will harm their own party through things like protest votes registered at the mid-terms which wipe out candidates unexpectedly and by pulling strong candidates onto different career paths as federal agencies, where they effectively vanish into the federal black hole. But Obama has been worse. Obama's instincts seem to be to rid himself of potential competitors. Thus, he wiped out any possible challengers he could face by pulling them into the cabinet or ostracizing them. The result has been that the only Democrats who have appeared on the national stage since he took office have been either irrelevant to the future (e.g. Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi), treated like outcasts (e.g. Hillary Clinton), or kept at a distance far away from relevance (e.g. Andrew Cuomo). The most obvious proof of this is the utter lack of alternatives to Hillary Clinton. Are they seriously talking about Joe Biden as a contender? Wow.

All in all, the Democrats definitely have a problem. They have no viable alternatives to Hillary Clinton, who is not very popular with their base or the public. They also have few heavy-hitters left who can anoint someone after Obama's "purges" and the debacle of Obamacare leading to mass retirements. And they have no viable set of princelings after the midterms who can step up and replace the likes of Reid, Pelosi and Obama. Moreover, they have lost so many governor's mansions and legislatures that they have no realistic way to show off their ideas to build their brand.

Interesting times.

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The Democrats Won't Win By Losing

One of our readers referred me to an interesting article last week. The article was at Politico and it was titled “Good News, Democrats, You’re Going to Lose!” The gist of the article is that the Democrats will be better off losing the Senate to the Republicans, as appears inevitable. The article makes some interesting points, but ultimately it is just sour grapes and it relies on biased assumptions.

According to the article, the issue is this. The Republicans will win the Senate. Far from being upset by this, the Democrats should be ecstatic because “the Democrats will get to kick back with a large tub of buttery popcorn and watch the Republican soap operate hit peak suds.” Specifically, the author thinks the Tea Party candidates will turn the Senate into a “sit-com” as “grandstanders like Rand Paul and Ted Cruz” go to war with the GOP leadership. This will push the Republicans to the loony fringes and turn the public off. Hence, in 2016, the public will be ready to embrace the Democrats with big sloppy wet kisses.

As proof, the author claims that Mitch McConnell has mapped out a confrontational strategy with Obama, whereby the Republicans will include all kind of fringe things in budget bills and dare Obama to veto them. He also claims that while the Republican leadership has defused the worst landmines in the primaries, they’ve done this by papering over their differences with their fringe. Finally, he notes that the Republicans no longer even talk about the things they normally stand for like cutting taxes.

I would add that, superficially, there is additional support for this in proclamations by fringers like Mike Huckabee who threatened this week to leave the GOP for failing to obsess enough about gays and abortion.

So this all sounds reasonable, right? Well, no.

The problem with this idea is that it fundamentally misunderstands much of what is going on. For starters, when has the opposition not mapped out a confrontational strategy against a president from another party... especially such an unpopular president? This idea means nothing, especially as McConnell is far too savvy to be pulled into anything stupid. In fact, even the author notes that the GOP leadership killed off any more shutdowns. So why should we believe that once McConnell controls the Senate, with few Tea Partiers in the Senate, that McConnell will suddenly let them run wild or embrace their lunacy to keep the peace? Don’t forget, this is the man who just successfully defended himself against the combined weight of every single Tea Party group in the country to win a crushing win in his primary.

Next, the author completely underestimates the importance of what happened in the primaries. The leadership didn’t rid itself of the fringe by “papering over” their disagreements! Ha! They went to war with the fringe -- Ted Cruz even whined about fringers being carpet-bombed by the evil leadership. The result was a party that crushed its fringe and retook control over itself. Not a single Tea Partier won a victory in this primary over an establishment candidate. And the effect has been dramatic. Indeed, since the end of the primaries, notice that you hear almost nothing but whimpers from the likes of FreedomWorks and the nutjobs who lost. Most disappeared back into the woodwork and the rest are busy trying to salvage their fundraising. Even Cruz has barely said a word against the party in months.

So what about calls to break away? Going into the primaries, the fringers genuinely thought they had the backing of the people. But the primaries exposed them as what they are – a fringe, even within the GOP. They know now that forming a separate party would do nothing but make them even less relevant. So now we know that not only can the party afford to lose them, but they can't afford to leave the party. This has become a paper threat.

For these reasons, this author is flat out wrong if he believes the GOP will stage a civil war. Not to mention, the Senate isn’t that kind of place anyways. The Senate is not a democracy and the Senate leader has too much power for a couple of malcontents to cause any real trouble. All they can do is talk, and the GOP leadership has an effective strategy to neuter that now.

As for not talking about tax cuts, the reason is that no one is listening to that issue. The Republicans have failed to sell the benefits of tax cuts for too long and the issue has gone cold. Instead, the public is worried about a lack of job, the cost of healthcare, the damage of Obamacare, the effects of the failure of Obama’s presidency, and protecting our society from intruders and foreign diseases and foreign religious nuts. You don’t talk tax cuts in that atmosphere.

The author also takes a shot at the GOP for failing to implement the recommendations of their post-2012 “autopsy,” but again, that shows a lack of knowledge. All the autopsy really said was that the GOP needs to implement a better technological approach to voter outreach. That has nothing to do with controlling the Senate.

This whole article strikes me as biased sour grapes. This author has a leftist view of the GOP as hopelessly fringey and he just assumes the GOP will act like Huffpo’s worst nightmare says they will. But the GOP is much better controlled and far less fringey than it was in 2012. Moreover, political parties have ways to hold their worst instincts in check when they assume power. Look at the Democrats, who squandered a supermajority in 2008-2010 because they were afraid to pull the trigger on anything. Look at Newt in the 1990s, who could have taken Reagan’s ideas to an extreme as all the think tanks on the right wanted, but who mainly tinkered with House procedures and then passed only a handful of truly significant bills.

I’m not saying things will go well or that talk radio will stop its fratricidal war against the GOP, but I am saying that the GOP is highly unlikely to implode through extremism because (1) it killed its extremists, and (2) the natural instinct of parties in power is to pander to the public to get more power, not go on an ideological revolution... and Mitch McConnell is too old school and savvy not to know that.

Thoughts?

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Seeing Red In Colorado

I’m always wary of speaking too soon, but it seems that a lesson is being taught in Colorado right now, and the result will be a strong showing for the GOP. That lesson? Drop “the culture war.”

For years now, Colorado has been drifting further and further into Democratic ranks. Frankly, it’s become a blue state. The reason for this is a combination of an influx of Californians who are morons and vote for the moron party and the fact the GOP excels at turning off voters. How has the GOP done this? By turning into a cult.

Look, when I grew up out here, Colorado was very conservative in the sense that Reagan was conservative. Coloradans believed in small government, limited regulation and a right to be left alone. But at the same time, they favored strong defense and law and order. In terms of values, they liked traditional values but with a live and let live flavor which meant you didn’t impose them on others. Essentially, we wanted to be left alone so long as we didn’t bother other people or cause problems. We wanted to be safe, but free. We trusted business, but we also trusted a small, focused government to regulate them. And we didn’t want to control our neighbors. This was the atmosphere in Colorado.

In the 1990s, things began to change. For whatever reason, we suddenly got an influx of Religious Right groups, like Focus on the Family who still have headquarters here. These people quickly took over the GOP and changed it. Suddenly, the live and let live attitude was replaced with a paranoia that wanted the government to make sure nothing untoward was happening in the neighbor’s bedroom. Economics vanished from the Colorado GOP agenda. People fled the party in droves. Even in Colorado Springs, which sits in the most conservative county in the country, Democrats suddenly became competitive for city council because people couldn’t stomach the obsession with gays and abortion and forcing prayer on public schools. They were worried instead about little things like roads and taxes.

In addition to this problem, the GOP also managed to pick up some fringers like Tom Tancredo whose only issue was his visceral hatred of Mexicans... and Republicans who disagreed with him.

The result was a GOP that became irrelevant and was becoming less relevant every year.

Suddenly, however, it looks like the GOP will win a Senate seat again as Cory Gardner appears ready to defeat Democratic marshmallow Mark Udall. The Denver Post even endorsed Gardener this last weekend. The GOP looks set to win the governorship too. And it looks like they will hold onto a House seat the Democrats had targeted; the Democrats announced this weekend they are cancelling $1 million in ads to help former state House speaker Mark Romanov try to defeat incumbent Republican Mike Coffman. That is a sure sign they think the race can no longer be won.

So what happened? Well, each of these Republicans has abandoned the whole insane culture war stuff. Both Coffman and Gardner have endorsed allowing over-the-counter sales of birth control, i.e. “the pill.” The reasons for this are twofold. First, as a policy matter, easier access to birth control has demonstrated that it will lead to a lower rate of unwanted pregnancies, which means fewer abortions. So this really can be seen as a way to reduce abortions. Secondly, this immunizes the GOP candidate from attacks that he wants to ban birth control. In fact, the reason the Post endorsed Gardner was that Udall has been blasting him with only one issue: CORY GARDNER WANTS TO BAN BIRTH CONTROL!!, and the Post called this dishonest. And with Gardner not talking about abortion at all, his campaign has resonated.

Similarly, Coffman has embraced the idea of allowing the pill to be sold over the counter (this is a GOP idea which is spreading fast even as it brings out calls of “RINO” as Bobby Jindal discovered when he became the first to try it) and he’s renounced his former support of the “personhood” amendment, which would ban abortion and do some very bad things.

Our gubernatorial candidate, Bob Beauprez, has run as a moderate while pounding away on Democratic Governor Hickenlooper’s signing of extremist anti-gun rights bills and some anti-capital punishment stuff. Hickenlooper is generally a moderate, but he stuck his neck out on those issues and now he’s paying for it. And Beauprez can capitalize on this because he’s focused on that rather than ridding the state of gays and abortion doctors.

This is an amazing turn around for the moribund Colorado GOP. And the message is clear: the public will support GOP candidates when they come across as normal and not fringey. And fringey doesn’t even mean moderate, it just means not being obsessed and showing priorities that align with those of the public. Indeed, neither Gardner nor Coffman is pro-abortion. They just don’t talk about the issue. And they don’t lump it in with birth control as Rick Santorum does, and they don’t foam at the mouth about how evil it is and they don’t cry about it in debates.

So the moral is that you can have religious conservative values or libertarian conservative values or whatever conservative values, just so long as you don’t foam at the mouth about them and so long as you don’t oppose things the public will never surrender (like a right to birth control). Win the public on the public’s terms and save the fringy stuff for later once you’ve won the public’s trust to see more of your agenda put into place.

That is what has saved Colorado from being a totally blue state this cycle. That can help the GOP fix a lot of its problems nationwide.

Thoughts?

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Good Luck With That!

There are times I shake my head at the Republican Party’s inability to get its act together. But then the Democrats come along and prove that incompetence is a trait both parties share in abundance. What got my attention this weekend was that the Democrats finally put their “strategy” for 2014 on full display, and it’s a laugher. I can't imagine any of it working.

Rather than coming up with a platform that could win over a broad swath of the public, the Democratic plan involves agitating their supporters in the hopes of raising voter turn out among the faithful. That's a legitimate strategy for a low-turnout election like an off-year election. But the Democrats' supporters are demoralized by broken promises and six years of Democratic failure, so they need something rather dramatic to energize them, and this strategy just offers more of the same. Observe:

● Attacking the Koch Brothers: The first part of the Democratic strategy involves attacking the Koch Brothers as invading Huns determined to force something unexplained upon the good people of America. Washington Democrats have been attacking the Kochs for a couple years now and ads have been running for months in places like Colorado. These ads accuse the Koch Brothers of trying to steal democracy but never really say how. Unfortunately for the Democrats, outside of pure wonks, no one knows who the Koch Brothers are. So this won't motivate anyone to turn out who wasn't already coming. What's more, Koch Industries has been fighting back by running some nice ads explaining what they’ve done for the state in terms of jobs and progress. This makes the attacks on the Koch brothers sound like paranoia. Further, the one billionaire whose name does seem to be sitting poorly on the public's lips is Michael Bloomberg, who has openly spent tens of millions to push things the public doesn't like, i.e. gun control. All told, this strategy is a failure.

● War on Women Redux: As with every other recent election, the Democrats are pushing the idea that the Republicans are trying to turn women into sex slaves by banning abortion and contraception. Essentially, they are running ads accusing every Republican of being far-right religious right, with Debbie Wasserman-Schulz leading the charge on this. Sadly for them, the GOP doesn’t seem to have any Todd Akins this time who will lend credence to this idea. To the contrary, most of the candidates were smeared as mushy moderates in the primaries. In fact, the Colorado candidate is even taking the position that birth control pills should be available without a prescription to reduce the chance of unwanted pregnancy. I doubt the Democratic push will motivate many women, even liberal women.

● Race Anger: The Democrats are hoping to push whatever outrage exists about the events in Ferguson to turn out black voters. This is the same strategy they tried with Trayvon Martin in Florida in 2012. Unfortunately for them, Obama’s black vote actually fell in 2012 because the Martin thing didn’t resonate, and Ferguson hasn’t resonated either nor will it be remembered by election time. Moreover, Team Obama and the rest have put more effort into whining about the Washington Redskins name than they have in turning Ferguson into an election issue. I doubt this will motivate blacks to turn out in November.

● Immigration: The Democrats accuse the Republicans of standing in the way of immigration reform and of racism. The problem here is that they have done nothing themselves to push immigration reform. And having Obama say he was going to do something by executive order, and then letting it be known that he would wait another year (after waiting several years already) sure sounds like a politician playing politics rather than carrying out his promises. With the Republicans shutting up about this issue, there is no open racism to agitate Hispanics to turn out either. All in all, I would be surprised if this turned out any Hispanic voters.

● Poor Michael Sam: There doesn’t seem to be a gay strategy this cycle except to talk about Michael Sam. Even the gay marriage stuff seems to have stopped being discussed publicly as the courts have taken over and the advocates have run out of easy states.

● Minimum Wage: The Democrats are still pushing the minimum wage issue, even though it has yet to gain any traction anywhere outside of Seattle. Nader and Biden are pushing this one. The problem here, of course, is that only a million or so people would be helped by a raise in the minimum wage (assuming they keep their jobs), whereas tens of millions of working poor will be hurt when prices at places like McDonalds and WalMart go up.

Interestingly, Obama and Biden are both pushing this using the phrase "take back the country." The problem with this is that (1) they have been in charge for six years, and incumbents can't really complain about the country having lost its way, (2) this is a decent populist phrase, except that there is zero substance behind it except the minimum wage stuff, which hardly defines the state of upset-ed-ness with the state of America, and (3) this sounds like a political slogan without anything else behind it.

● The “Do Nothing” Congress: Finally, the Democrats (Obama himself actually) continue to push the idea that the GOP has run a “do nothing” Congress. The problem here is that (1) the Senate has done even less and that is run by Democrats, (2) there was no shutdown or implosion that can be pointed to as being caused by the Republicans, and (3) the Democrats haven’t enunciated a platform that was stopped by the Republicans. So the do nothing charge rings hollow. And given that Democratic supporters had a long list of demands and expected those to be pushed hard, which the Democrats did not do, it will be hard to motivate their supporters with this claim.

All in all, this election strategy sounds played out to me. They tried all of this before, but none of it had any traction in 2010 or 2012, so I don't see why it would work in 2014... especially with the Republicans being less stupidly confrontational. And ultimately, I just don't see anything exciting or outrageous enough to bring out their base here.

Thoughts?

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Odds Improve For Republicans In Senate

Things are looking up for the Republicans in the Senate at the moment. Indeed, the chances of the Republicans taking over the Senate now appear to be very high. Observe.

To win the Senate, the Republicans need to win a net six seats. This was never an easy task, but the Republicans have been helped by several factors. For one thing, many more Democrats are up for re-election than Republicans. Moreover, many of those Democrats are running in states where Republicans dominate and where Obama imploded. Not to mention that mid-term elections tend to favor the out-of-power party in any event.

Much more importantly, however, the Republicans are finally getting it right while the Democrats are imploding. Specifically, the Republicans have crushed their fringe in fight after fight and they don’t have a single crazy running in any of the key races. That’s a huge deal. Moreover, the Republicans who are running tend to be well-liked incumbents like Lamar Alexander in Tennessee or the well-liked Cory Gardener in Colorado, who managed to avoid an ugly primary fight for the first time in living Colorado Republican memory.

At the same time, the Democrats are imploding with candidates who are awash in scandals, with retirements, and now with a resignation in Montana which has shifted that seat from “most likely Republican” to “all but certainly Republican.” Even beyond that, the Democrats are in the horrible position of needing to defend the debacle that is Obamacare (something the public hates more and more every day), needing to defend the aloof and incompetent Obama, needing to defend the kiddie invasion of the border, needing to defend the jobless economy, needing to defend Obama’s assault on oil and coal (which are vital industries in many of the states at play), and in places like Colorado, needing to defend an ill-advised assault on gun rights. The result is a truly ugly playing field for these people.

So here is the score:

States Republicans Should Win

Montana, South Dakota, West Virginia

States Republicans Are Likely To Win

Arkansas, Louisiana

50/50 Chance of Republican Pick Up

Alaska, Colorado, Iowa, North Carolina, Georgia

Sucker States Where GOP Will Spend Money and Lose

Michigan, New Hampshire, Oregon

Possible Republican Losses

Georgia, Kentucky

That means the Republicans are likely to pick up five, with a good shot at four more. They only need six. Against this, the Republicans may lose Georgia and Kentucky, but I doubt it. In Georgia, the Republicans picked the best of a bunch of weirdoes as their candidate, and he’s not horrible. The problem is the Democrats are running the daughter of the very popular Sam Nunn. Still, Georgia leans strongly to the right. In Kentucky, the problem is that the talk-radio-right has decided to prove to the world that Mitch McConnell “can’t win” by throwing a major tantrum and trying to make him lose. Ultimately, though, Kentucky too leans strongly to the right.

I suspect that both states’ natural strong conservative leanings will lead to Republican victories despite the hurdles. But even if that isn’t the case, right now it appears the Republicans will win just enough other seats to take the Senate even if they lost both of those... especially if the focus remains on the Democrats and their stupidity. It’s hard to defend stupid.

And in that regard, we seem to have hit a lucky wave. For one thing, the Tea Party groups now appear to be turning on each other for “not supporting” each other, and there don’t seem to be any issues right now where the talk-radio-right has the chance to make things about themselves. Obama too seems to be in lash-out mode, which won’t help him or the Democrats. Plus, as we near the election, talk of Obamacare and re-enrollment (and fines) will grow. I also suspect that come November, the fringe-left will be in psychotic mode over Iraq, unless that somehow solves itself suddenly, which is unlikely. So that will dog the Democrats too. So all told, the stars may be aligning for this one.

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And The Idiots Implode

Just a couple of quick points tonight... telling points about the future.

● RIP The Tea Party: The Tea Party continues its march toward political oblivion. For some time now, I’ve told you that the GOP has learned to fight back and now intends to shut out the Tea Party crazies. The Tea Party recognized this and whined and whined and whined, especially about loyalty... hypocrites. Ted Cruz actually whined about the GOP leadership “carpet-bombing” the Tea Party.

Anyways, when the GOP first started fighting back, the Tea Party decide to put all of their eggs in one basket as a determined show of force. If they could execute Mitch McConnell, then the GOP would learn not to resist them. That was the plan.

Thus, Sarah Palin, Ted Cruz, every other Tea Party luminary, the Senate Conservative Fund and every other Tea Party group endorsed and donated to McConnell’s opponent Bevins. For months, Rush and Hannity and the other Talk Radio nut jobs smeared McConnell with any lie and distortion they could think of. They made it very plain: You could not be a reel ‘merikan and not see McConnell as worse that Pelosi.

I told you, however, that McConnell would win easily because the GOP had learned to beat the crazies. And that is exactly what has happened. McConnell crushed Bevins by a mile on Tuesday.

Naturally, the Tea Party is now trying to back away from this. This has taken several phases. First, they started saying about two months ago that winning wasn’t their intent. Instead, they claimed it was enough to raise awareness. That’s called “managing expectations” and that’s horseship. Secondly, many are now disclaiming Bevins as a real Tea Party candidate because (1) he lied about supporting the bailout, (2) he lied about his education, (3) he suggested that gay marriage would allow parents to marry their children, and (4) he gave a campaign speech at a cockfighting rally. In reality, however, he’s no different than the other crazies they’ve been backing all over the place. The only reason they want to disavow him now is because his was the race they couldn’t win... so they want to pretend they weren’t involved in the race. Drudge actually described Bevins as McConnell’s “ ‘Tea Party’ Challenger,” in quotes, to suggest that he wasn’t really Tea Party. Presumably, the establishment falsely labeled Bevins as Tea Party.

One article tonight laughingly claimed that the true Tea Party victory in this election cycle was in Nebraska, where the winner (Sasse) is an insider if ever there was one, is a friend of Mitch McConnell, and was originally framed by the Tea Party as the evil establishment guy until they switched sides and turned on the Tea Party candidate, re-framing him as the evil establishment guy. Apparently, this “victory” shows that the Tea Party is still strong.

In the end, the Tea Party isn’t going away anymore than Sarah Palin is going away, but they are finished. Tonight was the last nail the coffin needed. The money and the voters have jumped ship back to the GOP. It’s over.

● RIP The Democrats: This does my heart good. The Democrats are freaking out about the midterms. They are freaking out because they have no message as their push to raise the minimum wage (their only idea) hasn’t caught on with the middle class, and no one likes the things they’ve done. Heck, despite its faked success, Obamacare remains about as popular as herpes, as does Obama himself. Anyway, check out this quote about the Democrats’ feelings about Obama from Politico

Anxious Democrats point to Obama’s low-40s approval ratings as the kind of anchor-round-the-neck numbers that could cost the party real ground in the House, and enough Senate races to lose the majority. His failure so far to present a broad, compelling message on the economy — beyond an emphasis on raising the minimum wage that’s fallen flat with middle-class voters — has, according to internal Democratic polling and focus groups, left that group without a clear sense of what he or the party stands for beyond helping the poor.

Aww. I feel so bad for them! LOL! Actually, no I don’t. This is a party who has been relying on the GOP imploding going into the election. The GOP ended that danger by executing its turds. Now the Democrats have nothing they can run on and so much they need to run away from... Obamacare, record unemployment, falling incomes, 10 million under-water home loans, still too big(ger) to fail, not a promise kept, international humiliations, insults and injuries galore. Good luck with that. Couldn’t happen to nicer people.

● RIP Inevitability: Finally, Hillary’s campaign is suddenly in serious trouble. Ha ha. It all started when Karl Rove noted that Hillary’s medical record might be relevant because it sure looked to him like she had suffered head trauma when she fell.

BANG!! Faster than a speeding bullet, things blew up on Hillary. Experts appeared who commented on her appearance, the medical glasses she wore, and everything else that indicated she’s just too old and perhaps too concussed. The media tried to defend her, but once this genie got out, it spread. Soon even Democrats like Obama-clone Deval Patrick were saying that “inevitability” (the word associated with Hillary) is an ugly thing. There is now a very real chance that Hillary will ultimately fail before she even reaches the starting point in the primary race. If that happens, then the Democrats have no one with a name they can run... the cupboard is bare.

Interesting times.

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Democratic Agenda

Last week, the Senate Democrats unveiled their agenda for the 2014 Elections. No one really cared. Even the media pushed it aside and kept pounding them with questions about Obamcare. That's a really bad sign for them. Even worse, right after they disclosed this, projections started coming out about them losing the Senate, so their agenda vanished into oblivion. In any event, I have a couple thoughts on their agenda. Let’s discuss.

● The Agenda: Here is the agenda they are pimping:

● Minimum wage hike to $10.10 “to fight income inequality.”
● Equal pay for men and women.
● Protecting Medicare benefits.
● Raising the Earned Income Tax Credit.
● Lowering interest rates on student loans.
● Boost infrastructure spending.
● Worker training.
● Raise taxes on millionaires.
● End tax breaks for companies that ship overseas.
● Drug sentencing reform.
● Energy efficiency.

● All Phony: My first thought is that this agenda is totally phony. Most of these things are show votes only. Things like the equal pay bill are things the Democrats only trot out when they know the Republicans can stop them. Things like “energy efficiency” are simply catch-all phrases that promise nothing in particular and end up as graft-laden giveaways. The only concrete proposal is the minimum wage issue and notice that they are way below the $15 the progressives want. Oh, and anyone who thinks a couple dollar increase in the minimum wage will affect “income inequality” is a moron.

● Played Out: This agenda tell us that the Democrats are played out. This is the same garbage they’ve been peddling since the 1970’s. Pathetic. In fact, observe...

● A Better America?: If you look at this agenda from an economic perspective and you ask what the Democrats want from America, the answer is obvious... nothing really. There is no plan here to make the country better. There is no plan to create jobs, cause innovation, improve the quality of life in America, or makes people’s lives better or more secure. This is an agenda for people who think the goal of America should be maintaining what we have rather than improving it while trying to get everyone in the country another $22.37 a year off the backs of the rich.

● A Pretty Good “Political” Agenda: Despite all the above, this is actually a decent political agenda. Why? Because it will attract all their normal interest groups. Look at the agenda again:

● Minimum wage: poor, young, minorities, unions.
● Equal pay for men and women: women.
● Protecting Medicare benefits: seniors.
● Raising the Earned Income Tax Credit: poor.
● Lowering interest rates on student loans: students, young professionals.
● Boost infrastructure spending: unions, Hispanics, low-class white males.
● Worker training: low-class white males
● Raise taxes on millionaires: leftists.
● End tax breaks for companies that ship overseas: populists.
● Drug sentencing reform: blacks.
● Energy efficiency: environmentalists.

Even though this platform is entirely false, it will sell well with their various groups because it LOOKS like each is being offered something they want. It also sets the Republicans up because any objection can be framed as being anti-poor/woman/etc.

Even more interestingly, notice that the public at large will find this to be an acceptable agenda because (1) there are no details to scare them, e.g. “Oh, infrastructure spending, that sounds good,” as compared to, “They want to spend a trillion dollars to build gay bathhouses in Montana? WTF?” and (2) they don’t mention any of the flash point issues: abortion, gays, immigration. You know their position on these things, but they don’t mention them, so they don’t come across like obsessed whackos. Compare that to the GOP whose platform stops and starts at abortion, gays and Mexicans.

Interesting, isn’t it?

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Sending Messages News Round-Up

I was going to write something brilliant tonight, but let’s do a bit of a news roundup instead. There have been quite a few interesting little tidbits of late. Today’s theme is sending a message.

● The Iranians Are Coming!: The Iranian Navy is actually sending a ship to our shores. Yes, they are. According to their Admiral Afshin Rezayee Haddad, they are doing this to “send a message.” Seriously. What possible message could the Iranians be sending – “We are pathetic!”? These guys are dumbships. They don’t seem to realize that the message their little show of farce shows is just how overmatched they are. This is the sort of thing that not only exposes them as hopelessly incapable of competing with us, but also as too stupid to understand why that is. Frankly, I’m hoping they sink on the way... or get captured by pirates. That would be fitting.

● Run Joe, Run!: Slow Joe Biden got a message the other day when the latest polls showed him 61% behind Hillary. This sends an interesting double message. The message tells us that the Democrats are unified behind Hillary (though Cuomo wasn’t in the poll). At the same time, her topping out at 73% suggests that the Democratic fringe will be restless.

As an aside, the Republicans were a little closer. Paul Ryan led Jeb Bush 20% to 18% with Christie third at 13%. There is a message here too: the non-reel ‘merikan candidates total 88%. This is further proof of what I’ll talk about later this week, which is that the fringe is failing.

● Russia is Great!: Russia is trying to send a message with the Olympics. They have done their best to copy what China did with the Olympics to create a spectacle which is supposed to tell the world that Russia is a modern, powerful country... rather than a backwards land of strongmen and corruption.

Yep.

Too bad they (1) didn’t finish the hotels, (2) don't have water you can use, (3) started threatening journalists and falsely accusing them of lies when those reporters exposed problems, and (4) have been playing political games with opponents. All this does is reinforce that Russia is a sh*thole kelptocracy.

● Silence Sends A Message Too: It’s been almost two weeks since Obama’s pathetic state of the union in which he promised to make himself a dictator by Executive Order. His silence has been deafening. Once again, Obama has promised to charge out there and somethingsomething only to pretty much blow it off. We have a lazy, lazy president, folks.

Interestingly, this weekend (notice the weekend announcement to downplay it), Eric Holder announced that they will try to maximize the federal benefits given to gay couples. Wow. Let’s put this into perspective. The law already requires that from Holder. So what he just promised is to do what he was already required to do. I wonder if Obama’s followers are going to figure this one out?

● Foul Language: Obama’s new top diplomat for Europe, Victoria Nuland, was forced to apologize to the EU after being caught on tape saying “F*ck the EU” over their attempts to intervene in the Ukrainian crisis. Nice. This is after a string of embarrassment with Obama appointed-ambassadors. Obama is causing himself problems everywhere. What's the message? "I'm a danger to myself and others."

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“It couldn’t get any worse.”

As you read this, the Democrats are preparing to meet with President Obama at the White House. They are upset. It seems that they’ve been unable to forge any sort of relationship with their little Mussolini and the result has been a series of disasters.

Obama has been in office now for five years. You would think that in that time he would have built some solid relationships with the rest of the Democratic party, seeing as how he needs them to get his agenda through and they campaign together.

Apparently not.

According to various sources, the Democrats are “frustrated” by Obama, whom they see as too insular and too distant and too arrogant. Said one senior Democratic aide of the past few years, “The communication was terrible, and the overall strategy wasn’t much better ... let’s put it this way, it couldn’t get any worse.”

In fact, Capitol Hill Democrats have some very unflattering things to say:

● Some say he has no attention span: “He hasn’t really ever wanted to have long conversations with my boss. It always seems like he’s watching the clock.”

● Another said, “He’s almost a nonentity almost.”

● Joe Manchin complained last year that Obama waits until “it’s almost to a crisis stage” before he engages Congress.

Interestingly, they seem to think that the only reason Obama is willing to talk to them now is because he’s been crushed by Obamacare, by various scandals that have eaten into his reputation, and by his failure to do anything concrete about Syria. This is also why they think Obama has shaken-up his staff.

Is it working? Said one aide, “There’s definitely smoother coordination and they seem more open to hearing what we think.”

LOL! Think about that. This suggests that for the past five years, Obama and his crew didn’t want to hear from the Democrats on the Hill and didn’t care what they thought. This is amazing. For a president to ignore his own party is about as stupid as a general ignoring his commanders or a CEO ignoring his advisors. This really highlights why Obama has been such an utter failure. And for those who don’t think he has been a failure, keep this in mind:

● His popularity is at historic lows and 9 million fewer people (15%) voted for him in 2012 than did in 2008.

● His only piece of signature legislation is failing miserably and the public wants it repealed.

● His economic record is the worst since the Great Depression.

● He has zero foreign policy achievements.

● Most of the actions he’s taken by Executive fiat have been reversed by the courts, and every single action he’s taken at the agency level can be undone by the next President on day one.

This is not a record any President would envy.

What’s funny is that the Democrats actually think he's changing. Obama is back from his vacation in Hawaii (the one the celebrity press is now claiming shows that he and Madame O are on the verge of a divorce) and he claims he feels all energized to make a big push to get his second term started... a year late.

It won’t work. Not only do people like Obama not change, but the word “lame duck” is being tossed around liberally (though I wonder if they meant to swap out an 'i' for the 'u'), and as long as the Republicans keep the House, Obama will be a lame duck until the end of his term. The best he can do is issue Executive Orders which can’t give his people what they want and which can’t form the basis of a legacy. These are not happy days for Team Obama.

Well, this is what you get when you hire a man whose track record is aloofness and unearned advancement. And people used to worry that this guy was an evil genius? Good grief.

** This was written before Obama started whining about racism, which is a pretty strong momentum killer.

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Moar Friday Hits

Back by popular demand (and because I need to shift a more substantive article to next week), here are a few quick hits to round up the week's stories in post-partum depression and liberal failures, but mainly liberal failures.

Just A Reminder: Universal Health Care Is Terrible And Will Probably Murder You In Your Sleep

Okay, maybe that's a bit strong. But in the ObamaCare debate, we were always reminded by liberals how awesome socialized medicine is overseas, so turnabout's fair play, I think. Anyway, the link is to an article from the Daily Telegraph, which found that under Britain's NHS, over 1,100 nursing home residents have died since 2003, not because of their illnesses or old age but because of severe dehydration--despite the homes having adequate numbers of staff and (of course) good ratings from the government review boards, the patients weren't getting enough water. As if that wasn't bad enough, nearly three times as many died over the same period from malnutrition or bed sores. Yikes.

It's been noted before that the Brits remain stubbornly positive about their health care system, partly because it does work under certain circumstances but partly because they just don't want to admit defeat. One wonders how many stories like this they have to hear for that to change. (Just to show Britain's not the one bad apple, here's a story from Canada about how the wait times to see a doctor have become so long, the Great White North's considering re-privatizing some of its health care. Good times, good times.)

Rule Of Thumb: Always Fact-Check A #HATECRIME!!!!!! Story

This seems to be a running theme lately--messages bashing an ethnicity or gender or sexual orientation get reported, community crackdown on anything slightly offensive ensues, everyone gets lectured by higher-ups on the need to be respectful and accepting of others....and then it turns out the victim and the perpetrator are one and the same. Of course. No sooner did New York's Vassar College start a witch hunt, I mean launch a task force to find out who was writing messages like "F--k N-----s" and "Hey Tranny, Know Your Place," then it turned out the transsexual student who filed the hate speech report was the one who wrote them in the first place...and was also a vice-president of student government, and a member of the investigating task force. Ohhhh.

I could go into detail on other stories, like the Boston-area high school which ended its football season early (but not the requisite candlelight vigils) when racist graffiti was scrawled on one of the players' houses, then found out his mom did it to get attention; but I'll let you read through that one on your own.

GOP Hypocrisy? Eh, Not So Much

Among the things liberals (especially those in the media) just LOVE doing, calling out the Republicans for hypocrisy, or at least betraying their constituents' own interests, stands near the top of the list. Take this Time article noting that congressional Republicans have voted to scale back the food stamp program (not that much, mind you), despite the fact that, on average, a GOP lawmaker is likely to have a higher proportion of his constituents on food stamps than is a Democrat. The implication is clear enough: Republicans care more about their ideology than they do about helping real people, and also Democratic voters are usually more successful and probably smarter, too. Except, not only is a sizable chunk of the data on which the article based this claim missing, that which is present shows the results are really all over the map, with red states such as Idaho, Nebraska and even West by God Virginia (!!!) relying on food stamps than, say, "progressive" Oregon. Oops.

Though, even if the evidence had borne out Time's claims, I'm not sure what that would prove. Given that the Left relies on some watered-down quasi-Marxist rhetoric about class conflict to make many of its claims, wouldn't such proof show that rich people are not mean jerks who want to screw over the poor?

Paging Descartes....

And finally, just to reassure you that you really may be smarter than a big chunk of the population, check out this article from the so-called Scientific American which basically says that, because scientists are a bit vague on the boundaries between life and non-life and because you can sorta think of organisms as just really complex machines, "life" doesn't actually exist at all. I briefly toyed with the idea of laying out an objection to this, but you know, on that rare occasion when you find an article so patently dumb you don't have to waste breath refuting it, it's best to take advantage of it. Just go into the weekend with the knowledge that you know more about the world than some "scientists" do.

If you've got other good stories, mention them in the comments, by all means. Otherwise, enjoy.

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No Hypocrisy Left Behind

Okay, I figure some people might be getting tired of all the recent ObamaCare posts, which I get--on the other hand, it's such a day-to-day train wreck you almost don't want the coverage to end, you want to make another bowl of popcorn. Besides, there's a specific point I want to harp on here.

A lot of the fun we're having with this clusterf**k comes from the fact that the Democrats' earlier words can be so easily used against them. Case in point: "If you like your plan, you can keep your plan"--words I suspect Obama now deeply regrets ever uttering. (Can't be sure, though. He might be so dense he really believes he spoke the truth.) But I'm actually thinking of a different lie--or rather, a different manipulation.

As you know, the overwhelming majority of Americans had health insurance, of one form or another, long before Obama took office. I had it, my family had it, practically everyone I knew in my hick town had it, and so on. And as Andrew helpfully explained during the passing of 404Care, the people who didn't have it, in most cases didn't have it for very good reasons. All good reasons for a reality check, or at least for some perspective. After all, you shouldn't risk screwing over the 80 or 90 percent of people with health care, just for the 10 or 20 percent without it.

But no. Obama and his buddies pounded, from day one, on the fact that millions of people were without health insurance, and that this was a great injustice that must not be. From obamacarefacts.com: "About 15% of Americans are uninsured, which is a little less than 50 million men, women and children." (Of course, right below that, they mention that the mandate and the health care marketplace will only affect uninsured people, but still, let's assume they're right about the 15 percent thing.) Back in June 2009, the White House's Council of Economic Advisers included in a report the breathless soundbite "Perhaps the most visible sign of the need for health care reform is the 46 million Americans currently without health insurance," and a month after that, Obama himself doubled down by saying "This is not just about the 47 million Americans who have no health insurance...," blah blah blah.

So, you get it. Despite making up 15% of the population or less, these uninsured Americans are such a huge problem there needed to be a major overhaul of the health care system, etc. We've heard all this before. So ACA was passed, its provisions have started kicking in, and, well...hell, handbasket, some assembly required.

And if you've followed closely, among all the stories of sites crashing and enrollment taking longer than the Big Dig, you've started hearing about all the people who have gotten royally screwed by the reform plan itself. People who had quite affordable and quite functional health-care plans already, but now don't. Like these guys. Or these. Or these. Now, by their own admission, many of these people voted for Obama--some twice--so I for one am having a little bit of lowbrow "Serves you right, idiots!" glee from their misfortune. But I'm immature and vindictive and all that; surely the empathetic liberals who want to take care of everybody will be upset by this failure, right?

Okay, of course not. Apparently the people whose plans are getting canceled don't matter. Last week, when Jay Poindexter Carney was pressed about them, he complained that reporters were acting like these made up a majority of Americans, when it's really only "5 percent of the population." Well, in a country as big as ours, "5 percent" is still a lot of people. Some conservative pundits have had good fun with this; an NRO columnist pointed out that "5 percent of the population is 15 million people — or the collective population of Alaska, Delaware, Montana, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Maine, Hawaii, Idaho, West Virginia, Nebraska, New Mexico, and both the Dakotas."

15 million is, of course, less than 46/47/50 million; I'll give the White House that. And I don't expect Obama to up and cancel the whole reform plan. But for 15 million people? I would expect him to be holding round-the-clock powwows, have people working on the problems 24/7, or at least calling Sebelius and others on the carpet for their incompetence. Instead, we get his spokesman wondering why people are making mountains out of molehills, while TOTUS himself goes around thumping his chest about how awesome his achievement is.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised. And given the overall incompetence we've seen from the White House, I'm not nearly as surprised as I might be. But you would think that if liberals really believed what they say they believe in, they would be truly bothered by all the people losing their health care and be trying to fix it. Apparently no double standard is too shameless, as long as it helps them stay in power.

To close, here's Brad Paisley and Carrie Underwood singing about ObamaCare at the CMA Awards Wednesday night. Enjoy.

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Why I Don't Like Chris Christie

I’ve made the point repeatedly that conservatism is headed in the wrong direction. No agenda, anger, obsession with purity... none of these things help. So, should we turn to someone who doesn’t go in for any of this: Chris Christie? NO! He’s an even bigger problem.

Here’s the thing, when I talk about the problems of conservatism, I’m doing so for a purpose. Conservatism is losing elections regularly. It is starting to lose them by greater and greater margins. It has lost whole races, genders and generations of people. What I am trying to point out is why this is happening and why we need to change our ways. I am also doing my best to point out policies we can implement, policies which align with conservative principles, which will win these people back.

In other words, my goal is to wake people up to the self-inflicted wound that conservatism is causing itself and provide ways to fix it that don’t conflict with our fundamental beliefs. That should not be confused with endorsing "moderates," however. All I’m suggesting is a return to actual conservatism away from the radicalism talk radio is preaching.

That’s not Chris Christie though. He wants to claim the mantle of moderate, and that’s where the problem begins.

There is nothing moderate about Christie. Chris Christie is Glenn Beck, only he uses fake-moderatism whereas Beck uses fake-conservatism. He yells, he screams, he demonizes, and he lives on platitudes rather than ideas. I can’t name a single idea Christie has ever advanced. To the contrary, his “ideas” are to attack both parties for lacking ideas... the pot calling the kettles black with self-righteous indignation. Essentially, he uses the two parties as strawmen that he can attack to make himself sound moderate and practical without actually being either.

From what I’ve been able to piece together of his record in New Jersey, he basically points fingers at everyone and accuses them all of being rotten. Then he spits out a few diversionary platitudes to make it sound like he's offering some "common sense" idea, even though everything he's saying is meaningless: "By God, it's time we worked hard to make things better! Harrumph. And we need to stop those who want to make it worse!" Then he signs whatever law makes it across his desk while he continues to rail against evil partisanship. It's nonsense.

Now he’s picking fights with national candidates, like Rand Paul, because he wants to join the national stage, but he's doing the exact same thing. He's offering nothing in the way of ideas except that we should adopt his nonpartisan ideas... whatever they are. And to prove that he's nonpartisan, he's attacking conservatives by calling them vague insults like "dangerous" without any justification or explanation and without offering a single solution. If he ordered pizza he would blast them for demanding a specific order, tell them to send him "what works," take whatever they give him and then rail against the deliver boy for being partisan about his order. I say again, it's nonsense.

Christie is not the answer. Essentially, he’s an angry fraud whose behavior cannot be predicted and whose words are as harmful to conservatism as are the idiots screaming for purity. He's Glenn Beck in a fat(ter) suit.

We do not need Christie. We do need an agenda. We need to start thinking about how conservatism can appeal to the American people again. Therein lies the answer, not in attacking... well, anyone. Get positive, stay positive. Coke doesn’t sell itself by attacking Pepsi, it sells itself by telling you why you need to drink it. Sell conservatism, don't try to unsell liberalism. And don't fall for the idiots who offer nothing, be they self-described "genuine conservatives" or self-described "moderates."

Rediscover conservatism.

** By the way, I still need reviews on my book! I want to send this book out to certain politicians, but it needs a lot more reviews first. I’m going to make it free today and tomorrow for those who haven’t gotten it yet. Please get the book and leave a review. (LINK)

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It Could Be Worse...

As we’ve said numerous times, the Republicans are a mess. No agenda. A fractured base. Lunatics pulling the strings of the cowards who run the show. And dirty corporate money somehow manages to get its way no matter what the base wants. Blech. Believe it or not though, the Democrats are even worse off.

Republican problems can be fixed. There are many Republicans coming up with an agenda now. Bit by bit, Marco Rubio, Rand Paul, Paul Ryan, Bobby Jindal, John McCain and a couple more are starting to toss out ideas that do appeal to the public. With only a couple notable exceptions, Senate Republicans are getting behind these ideas and tossing off the cranks. In the House, the leadership wants to follow suit and may yet, they just need to see the Wizard and get some ccccourage. Keep in mind too that in 2016, the Republicans get another chance to select a leader who can basically reshape the party and impose an agenda. Not to mention, at the state level, there are several Republicans who are getting solid reputations for education and economic reform.

Things aren’t as bleak as they seem. Our biggest problem is tossing off the cranks, as we discussed yesterday.

Now consider the Democrats. Their problems can’t be fixed because they’re structural.

In the 2000s, the progressive left spent a ton of money and manpower to take over the Democratic Party. Their goal was to permanently shift the party, which had flirted with conservatism under Clinton, to the far left permanently. They did and they won election because of the intense unpopularity of Bush. Things looked bright.

That’s when things started to go wrong.

First, the Democrats had the power for two years under Obama-Pelosi-Reid to grant their own wildest wishes. Each of their various supporters expected big things. They got jack. For two years, the Democrats did nothing. They gave nothing to any member of their base. Instead, they focused on healthcare, the one thing that none of their base was agitating for. Even worse, when they focused on that, they came up with a plan that could have come straight from the Heritage Foundation circa 1992 or the insurance lobby today. Good grief. And this act alone was too much for the public and they suffered the worst defeat since the 1930s because the public simply won't accept liberal policy. Heck, the only way their Senators keep getting elected is to run against the things they believe.

So here are the lessons: (1) the party won’t give its members what they want, because it can’t. (2) Even trying to do something moderately liberal will result in a massive backlash. In essence, the Democratic base learned that the party can have power, it just can’t use it... talk about a tease! And talk about disheartening.

Then you had the big gun control push, which resulted in nothing. The stimulus push which resulted in the Great (And Continuing) Recession. The collapse of affirmative action. The collapse of the Voting Rights Act. The non-granting of gay marriage. The refusal of Obama to regulate carbon despite the courts saying he could. OWS wanted to see everyone on Wall Street go to jail, but Obama not only didn’t do that, he gave Wall Street more power. The unions wanted Obama to put his boot up China’s rear end, but Democratic spending made that impossible. Now he’s probably killed them with Obamacare. The peaceniks are beside themselves with non-violent rage that they need to keep their mouths shut on drones, landmines, Obama bombing the crap out of multiple Middle Eastern countries, and NSA surveillance. College students wanted their loans forgiven, as did homeowners, and none of that happened.

But it gets worse because the party is a collection of tribes with interests that actually conflict, meaning they cannot all get what they want. Blacks and women compete for the same jobs, as do blacks and Hispanics. Blacks and Hispanics are anti-gay, yet the party is pro-gay. Hispanics are anti-abortion, yet feminists want abortion on demand. The party is dominated by atheists, yet it’s now flirting with spiritualism. The party is the home of Jews, but strangely is becoming anti-Semitic. The party is dominated by unions, and they get the only spoils the party gives, but unions are dying.

There are no heirs in the Democratic Party either. Look at who will run in 2016. You’ve got Hillary, who looks like Exhausty the Muppet. You’ve got Cuomo, who comes from the land of the sex scandal. Then the well runs dry. The only star they have right now, apart from Obama and his 40% approval, is Elizabeth Warren and she’s barely known.

And keep in mind, the Democrats didn’t win the 2012 election, they simply didn’t lose as badly as the Republicans. Nine million fewer people voted for them in 2012 than voted for them in 2008. If the Republicans hadn’t lost more than that, the Democrats would have been blown away. They are bleeding voters just as fast as the Republicans. And nothing they are proposing will turn that around. They have no plan to help the middle class. They have no plan to make life better for anyone. They just have a couple grudge issues their base wants... grudge issues they can’t actually pass or else their base no longer has a reason to stick around at the party.

Be thankful you’re not a Democrat. Our problems stink, but our problems can be fixed. The Democrats... they’re fundamentally flawed. They are a party without a purpose. They are an ideology without ideas. They are a cult of personality without charisma. They are a collection of angry, conflicted trolls who are all competing to take the same piece of pie.

Be thankful you’re not one of them.

Hug a Democrat. They need it.

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Obamacare Update No. 437

It’s time for another Obamacare update. This thing truly is a gift to bloggers. Today’s theme in the slow motion train wreck of Obamacare is “That’s not fair!”

● The First 49,000: When Obama pimped his plan to destroy our healthcare system, he promised over and over: “If you like your healthcare, you can keep it.” That was a lie, as people are now learning. Aetna announced Saturday that they will stop selling individual insurance in California because of the new regulations imposed under Obamacare (they will still sell business policies). They will cancel around 49,000 policies. No comment from California.

● That’s Not Fair!! I: It turns out that Obamacare has a problem. It’s not affordable for low income people. To make the insurance “affordable,” the amount an employer can pass on to employees is capped at 9.5% of their income. Well, it turns out that this is way too high for most people. Take the case of a restaurant worker who makes $21,000 a year. That 9.5% works out to $1,995 or $166.25 per month – and that’s before the $3,000+ deductible they will need to pay before the insurance kicks in. For someone who most likely lives paycheck to paycheck, that is not something they can afford. Indeed, we are suddenly awash in articles pointing out all the people in the restaurant, retail, hotel and service industries who can’t afford the insurance. The service employee unions are furious.

Even worse, they are now discovering that employers can get around Obamacare by offering expensive plans that require the full 9.5%. This keeps them from being fined because they actually comply with the law by offering the insurance, but they don’t end up paying for it because none of the employees will sign up. (As an aside, no one has recognized this yet, but this will destroy the Obamacare funding mechanism.) Even more hilariously, those employees then cannot get subsidies because their jobs technically offer plans. Ha ha. Nice work donks! Way to punish your supporters.

● That’s Not Fair!! II: Reuters just discovered something dastardly which no one could have seen coming... except Obamacare critics. Employers are finding ways to avoid providing insurance:

● A survey of 52 Wal-Mart stores found that 27 were only hiring temps, 5 weren’t hiring, and 20 were hiring a combination. And it turns out there is a company directive to hire as many people as possible as temps.... because they don’t qualify for insurance. They are also planning to cut back hours on others so they don’t qualify. Liberals are shocked and called this “creepy” (noting specifically that Wal-Mart lobbied for this, so they don’t understand why Wal-Mart would do this), and they claim it will backfire in some non-specific way. This is going on all across the country right now.

● Obamacare requires that insurers cover people’s kids until they turn 26... but it says nothing about spouses. The result is that policies are springing up everywhere that exclude the employee’s spouse – an alternate form allows the spouse on the policy, but only if they are primarily covered by insurance at their own workplace. The idea is to get employees to shift onto their spouse’s policy so the employer doesn’t need to cover them.

● Employers are instituting requirements in policies that allow the employer to force the employee to seek a second opinion before they can do anything expensive. There are actually firms that specialize in “finding savings” by talking employees into less expensive options. Sounds like the mob: “Be a real shame if something happened to your colon...”

● That’s Not Fair!! II: “This is simply not fair,” whined Democrat John Larson (Conn). What was he talking about? Chuck Grassley slipped a provision into Obamacare which requires Congressional staffers to suffer with the rest of us by seeking insurance through an exchange rather than getting the gold-plated government plan they get now. Apparently, this has deeply upset the poor dears and they are headed for the exists. This has led to fears of a “brain drain” on Capitol Hill... which isn’t possible as no one on Capitol Hill has a functioning brain. Trust me, zombies would never attack Congress.

Anyway, the Democrats are demanding a fix. After all, they shouldn’t be forced to endure the things they force upon us! That “is simply not fair!” The initial reports were that Boehner was onboard with fixing this as there is bipartisan upsettedness over this. But Boehner shot that one down. Said his spokesmonkey:

“The speaker would like to see resolution of this problem, along with the other nightmares created by Washington Democrats’ health law, which is why he supports full repeal. In the meantime, it is Democrats’ problem to solve. He will not sneak any language into bills to solve it for them — and the Democratic leadership knows that.”

Excellent Mr. Boehner! In light of this, Harry Reid has grumbled that there will be no legislative fix... “And cancel Christmas!” He is, however, hoping that OPM will rule that the Feds can contribute to these plans on behalf of those staffers – something which isn’t clear yet.

This has been a fascinating discussion to watch because the Democrats are claiming how this is actually anti-reform to force the staffers onto Obamacare because the government program they were in is the better model of reform. Huh? Then why didn’t you make that law instead of Obamacare, you turds? In any event, this truly shows the elitist mentality and why no one would shed any tears if zombies did eat the Congress.

● Setting The Goal High: Most people typically set their goals higher than they can achieve to motivate themselves. Not Obamacare. Gary Cohen, who is involved in implementing the federal exchanges, says “As we move closer to October, my hopes are the range of things that could go wrong gets narrower and narrower.” In other words, he’s expecting problems and hoping they can be fixed as they go. How bad could these problems be? Fellow implementeer Henry Chao, put it this way: “Let’s just make sure it’s not a third-world experience.” Aim high, el Hefe.

● Rate Shock Continues: Finally, rate shock continues. In a private briefing of insurers, the big players conceded that rates are going to shock people. Said Aetna’s CEO:

“In some markets, insurance premiums could increase as high as 100 percent. And we’ve done all that math. We’ve shared it with all the regulators. We’ve shared it with all the people in Washington that need to see it. And I think it’s a big concern.”

UnitedHealth, WellPoint, Humana and Cigna have all said the same thing. They blame (1) the “community rating” which jacks up the costs on the young to pay for the old, (2) forcing higher “minimum actuarial values,” (3) forcing insurers to take anyone who applies, (4) HHS forcing them to include new benefits people wouldn’t normally pay for, and (5) a tax on premium insurance.

In an article this week, Forbes outlined these things and explained how the Republicans could win votes by fixing some of these problems. To put this kindly, that is F**KING WRONG!!! NO!! DO NOT TRY TO FIX THESE THINGS!!!

This is the problem with the Republicans historically. The Democrats pass some disaster of a bill and act all smug about it. The Republicans try to minimize the negative effects of the bill. In the process, they make it tolerable because they redirect the harm it does so that most people don’t get hurt. That takes away the pain. No pain, no learning. No learning, no desire to repeal. Meanwhile, the Democrats smear them for trying to undo the “noble thing” the Democrats passed even as they are thankful the Republicans are saving their butts. This needs to stop. The Democrats created a bill that will mock poor people by offering them insurance they cannot afford and then fining them for not taking it, that will allow big business like Wal-Mart to dump their healthcare, that will turn everyone into part-timers, that will force millions of people off the insurance they currently like, that will eat into the budgets of hundreds of millions of people, and which will eventually bankrupt states and insurers.

LET IT HAPPEN.

Do NOT let the Democrats off the hook. Make them face the wrath of the public for what they have done. Do not alleviate that wrath by sparing the public from the full brunt of the Democrat’s stupidity.

Fortunately, Boehner’s words give me hope that the Republicans are on to this: ”It is Democrats’ problem to solve.” Exactly.

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Be Thankful You're Not A Liberal :)

This article serves a couple purposes. First, some of you still think Obama is a hardcore ideologue with dreams of turning the US into a socialist paradise. Let’s disprove that. The other purpose is a pick-you up. As bad as you've been told things are for our side, just be thankful you’re not a liberal. Seriously.

Imagine it’s 2008 and you have a bright young ideological president and total control over Congress. You expect big things... big liberal things! But that's not what you got:

(1) Make Liberalism Cool: As we noted the other day, the biggest thing liberals wanted from Obama was to make liberalism cool and to make people come to love government instead of see it as the enemy. Yet, polls show Americans favor smaller government now over bigger government in larger numbers than when Obama was first elected. This will now be made worse by all the abuse of power scandals rattling his administration. FAIL

(2) Close Gitmo: Obama was supposed to close Gitmo. That was the one thing they all knew would happen and that would restore America’s image. Obama had the power to do this by Executive Order. He didn’t. Not only is Gitmo still open, but liberals have noted that Bush did more to close it than Obama. FAIL

As an aside, recent polls show that the US’s standing in the world is exactly where it was when Bush was in office. Our standing in the Muslim world is the same. And now Obama has added talk about the dollar losing it’s reserve currency status and we lost our credit rating. FAIL

(3) Grant Gay Marriage: Obama was supposed to finally give gays what they wanted – gay marriage, repeal of DOMA, ending DODT and equality of benefits. He did end DODT. He has yet to grant gay federal employee the same benefits as heterosexual couples even though he could do this by Executive Order. He never signed a gay marriage law, nor did he repeal DOMA... despite having the power to do so when the Democrats had a supermajority in Congress. He also never endorsed gay marriage. Basically he just talked around it... supporting it without actually supporting it. He hasn’t even barred discrimination by federal contractors, even though he could do that right now. Now gays are upset because their concerns have been tossed aside in the Rubio bill and they are actually withholding money from the Democrats because of it. FAIL

(4) Environmentalism: Obama was going to regulate carbon, impose taxes to stop industry, and fix the environment in any number of ways. He did none of that. Under a Supreme Court ruling, the EPA even has the power to regulate carbon and yet Obama not only hasn’t done this, the EPA confirms that it’s not even working on the regulations. Instead, Obama points to stimulus spending on cronies and the auto industry agreeing to raise CAFE standards as showing Obama’s actions have been “historic.” Laughable is more like it. Remember the agreement to agree from Copenhagen and how Obama got backhanded by the BRICS? Obama was supposed to kill offshore drilling and fracking, but both are in high gear and the US is producing more oil than ever. He never punished BP. Wind and solar remain a pipe dream. He was supposed to stop coal, but coal continues on its merry way. Now they’re sure he’s also going to approve the Keystone pipeline. He hasn’t stopped GM food or overfishing and he sides with industry every time. The greens are livid. FAIL

(5) Socialized Medicine: Obamacare was supposed to be socialized medicine. Then it was going to be a single-payer plan that would wipe out insurers. Instead, it’s become a massive giveaway to insurers both in terms of forcing people to buy from them and providing direct subsidies. Not only that, but insurers have jacked up rates in the last three years and the number of uninsured has risen from 43 million to 49 million. FAIL

(6) Assault Weapon’s Ban: The left wanted Obama to ban assault weapons and institute a new round of gun control measures. Instead, the Supreme Court finally declared gun ownership a right and it struck down a lot of laws. Obama gave a half-hearted attempt to counter this and couldn’t even get background checks on insane people. FAIL

(7) Equal Pay Laws: Feminists wanted Obama to pass a law requiring equal pay for “comparable” work. Not only has Obama not even endorsed the idea, but he’s had massive pay disparities in the White House. He also fought to keep the abortion pill from being given to minors and actually tried to keep it behind the counter. He has otherwise done nothing except talk about a war on women. FAIL

(8) Unionize the World: Obama was going to use the NLRB to force unions into right-to-work states. That didn’t happen. All his attempts have been struck down by the courts and unions continue their death spiral. In fact, under his watch, Wisconsin broke its own public sector unions! Nor has there been a successful strike under Obama. To the contrary, “lockouts” and bankruptcies have shattered the unions that are left. FAIL

(9) Race Baiting: Obama talked about moving the country beyond race, which liberals claim to want. Instead, he polarized it. Meanwhile, blacks are enduring massive unemployment in black ranks. Blacks lost more assets under Obama than any other group. He’s appointed almost no blacks to anywhere in his administration or on his courts and the charge of racism has been neutered under his watch. FAIL

(10) Unconditional Amnesty: Hispanic groups have been screaming for unconditional amnesty. Obama did nothing. In fact, all he’s really done is stand in the way of the only bill that will lead to legalization. If (when) they do get legal status, it will be because of Republicans and it won’t be unconditional or immediate. Conservative misinformation aside, this will be a difficult process which requires 13 years and which cuts these people off from benefits before they can get their “amnesty.” That’s not what Obama’s Hispanic supporters wanted, and it’s not coming from him. FAIL

(11) A Leftist Court: Obama could still get this, but so far he hasn’t managed it. TBA

(12) Punish the Rich: His supporters wanted him to punish the rich. They wanted Wall Street banks humbled and taxes jacked up to French levels on the Warren Buffetts. Instead, they got a 3% hike on the upper income bracket (less than hit the middle class) and a regulatory bill that reads like a giveaway to the biggest and baddest of Wall Street. Federal money props them up to this day. Liberals used to claim Wall Street bankers should be sent to jail, but no one has. As I’ll point out tomorrow, income inequality has grown more under Obama’s first three years than it did under the last 12 years of Bush and Clinton. FAIL

(13) Restoring the Middle Class: Obama was supposed to give us all good jobs building high speed trains and internet porn delivery devices. Throughout his entire administration, unemployment has remained 50% above the worst it ever got under Bush. FAIL

(14) Kill No Child Left Behind: Obama was supposed to end the testing requirements of the NCLB Act and save schools from accountability. Under his watch, every single state has finally adopted testing requirements. FAIL

I could go on and on: Obama failed to save the failing newspapers, he hasn’t eliminated supposed racial disparity in prison sentencing, he hasn’t stopped drones, he hasn’t undone the wire-tapping aspects of the Patriot Act, he has tried to squelch internet freedom twice (until the backlash turned him against SOPA), he hasn’t repaired our bridges or our roads... he hasn’t even tried.

That’s the point here: Obama could have done all of this either when the Democrats held a supermajority in the Senate or through Executive Order, but he never tried. He’s no ideologue, he’s a cleptrocrat who sees government as a way to reward his friends with largess, not laws. And if I were a liberal, I’d be beyond depressed at the above. Of the agenda they thought they would get with him and with a Democratic Congress, they got maybe 1%. And the few things they have passed – like Obamacare and financial reform – have been a sick joke, doing the exact opposite of what Obama and the Donks promised they would.

The guy’s a dud. So the next time you think things are bad on our side, just be thankful you’re not a liberal.

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