I pulled up some of my photos of Democratic candidates and central committee members, and settled on this one up before I realized it was San Francisco's Bay to Breakers marathon. I knew it was wrong when I realized that the participants were running to something, whereas Democrats are running away from something.
In the election campaign of 2008, the Democrats were running toward "hope and change." Now, a good number of their incumbents are running for the exits, and their campaign committees are running away from the results of their pie-in-the-sky Euro-socialist schemes and failed attempts to turn America into Cuba. This is one of the most spectacular turnarounds in American political history. Faced with an enervated Republican party with an ancient and confused candidate who wasn't sure which party he belonged to, the liberal Democrats had a young messiah full of lofty ideals and no discernible program, and a recession they could blame on the other party. The road to a permanent Democratic majority seemed paved with gold, laid over the bodies of downed conservatives.
Just a year later, Republicans and conservatives are challenging for a much beefed-up delegation in the Senate, and the actual (if distant) chance that they might re-take the majority in the House of Representatives. The young messiah attempted to walk on the Potomac, and sank. The economy has worsened, our children and grandchildren have been put deep into hock, scandals involving perverts, tax-dodgers, professed doctrinaire communists, and Chicago-style cronyism have sprung up like cancer on the Democratic body politic, national security is a bad joke, and the messiah is still deciding whether to fight our sworn enemies as a war or a divorce trial.
The Democrats continued the failed "stimulus" program of the Bush administration, but gave it a multi-billion dollar spin into complete meaninglessness, then asked for more. The government became the owner of several banks, insurance companies, and a couple of automobile companies. More money, more money, but none of it for getting back to work the beleaguered unemployed workers whose numbers have increased to 10.2% of the work force by the most conservative of estimates. Apologies, bows and cheap gifts to the rest of the world, but no care for the security and future of the American middle class. "Green" employment programs like the ones Spain tried (and found that for every two jobs created, nine real jobs were lost). The Obamists made a firm determination to shove a national health care bill down our throats with no coherent scheme except for trillions in spending, and rushed its first big test vote so it would occur on Christmas Eve. Now, cap and trade, a nonsensical environmental bill that enriches fat cats like Al Gore and impoverishes everyone else for no discernible gain is looming on the horizon.
All of these programs have turned out to be hugely unpopular and unwanted among the majority of Americans. So now, the Democrats are faced with only two choices. More of the same, and hope nobody notices (fat chance of that). Or reject their entire social welfare and "surrender to the enemy and declare a victory" programs outright (which the left of the party won't allow). No wonder they're running like hell away from the American people.
The approach that seems to be most popular among those Democratic diehards who haven't yet jumped overboard seems to be "we must become more populist, emphasize the economic fears of the nation and blame them on Bush and the Republicans, and point the finger at the old cardboard 'enemies' big corporations and big banks. Single out ultra-rich malfeasors, and imply that they are all greedy Republicans." The plan won't work, and the worst bad guys are largely heavy contributors to the Democratic Party or employed by one of the mega-banks and mega-corporations largely owned by the government.
The jackass leaders also favor a plan of painting the Republicans as nay-sayers rather than can-do people. Anyone who wouldn't say "no" to the Democrat programs needs intense psychotherapy, and if allowed in the Congress or encouraged in the press, Republicans have alternate, market-driven, individual-supporting, freedom-encouraging programs galore. The supermajorities in the Congress combined with the Democrat marriage to the mainstream media have succeeded so far in squelching publication of any of those Republican plans. Instead, as with health care, they scream that the Republicans are in the hip-pocket of the insurance companies when it is their own policies that are enriching insurance companies in the short-term, and killing them in the long-run.
Obama himself has a problem with the Democrat movers and shakers. Many of his supporters and former supporters don't think that Obama has any deep convictions that he will stand by for the good of the party and the nation, and many think he would sacrifice any Democrats, or even all of them, if he could only maintain his lofty position on the mountaintop. Both the administration and the party leaders have singled out the tea party advocates as "tea-baggers" and vilified them as ignorant, knee-jerk right wing radicals and racists. That show of total political stupidity is astounding. How tone deaf can they be? The tea parties cross party lines, incorporate formerly disinterested independents, and exemplify the contempt that the electorate has for socialist schemes.
The job of the Democratic vote organizers was relatively easy in 2008. They simply got naive young people who would subscribe to something as idiotically meaningless as "hope and change you can believe in," added tired party stalwarts who mindlessly repeated "yes we can," added the black population that understandably wanted to see a black man make it to the presidency, and put it all together with a nation in financial distress, and elected a man with no experience, no genuine credentials, and no program. But at least he stood against "business as usual" which had resulted in the worst recession since the Great Depression. And now, they have to deal with the fact that Obama has brought no good change, and is subscribing to many of the policies of his much-maligned predecessor. Same "business as usual," just different crooks in charge.
In 2010, the electorate sees a nation that has not only not been improved, but has been further impoverished and humiliated. Blacks still support Obama by huge margins, but they are not truly energized in any way that will get them to the polls as they did in the presidential election. The change didn't come, the hope is failing fast, and young people are known for their short attention span anyway. Small to medium business owners and employees, the backbone of the nation, are watching their businesses and jobs being destroyed by huge tax burdens, green initiatives, and government meddling in the market in a way nobody could have imagined just a year ago. Independents, who have no deep party loyalties, switched to the Democrats in hopes that something better would result. Without that party loyalty, they are switching to the Republican side in massive numbers and without hesitation.
Barring a miraculous and sudden turnaround in the economy and employment, or a gigantic victory in the war against Islamofascism, this is going to be a very, very bad year for Democrats. I don't envy the party leaders their task, but I'm enjoying the hell out of watching them squirm and twist in the wind.
Still, I offer a few words of caution. The Democrats' huge and undeserved victories made them overconfident and sure of perpetual re-election. In addition, the big majorities in Congress made them feel invincible and worthy of their mandate, regardless of "mere" public opinion and input. This has resulted in failure of most of their most beloved programs in Congress, and even those that succeed in winning approval will haunt them at the polls in November. Republicans must capitalize on the weakness of the Democrats and their policies and the "throw the bums out (again)" attitude of the general public. But their current tactics had better reflect a future overall strategy of winning, keeping their promises, favoring open and honest government subservient to the electorate, and listening at all times to the voice of the American people, or they will be facing another swing back to the left in very short order.
Monday, January 11, 2010
Democrat Strategy--Run For Your Lives
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18 comments:
You've summed up the Obama/Pelosi/Reid adminstration quite nicely. If we're lucky, they've disgraced liberalism for the next fifty years.
Andrew: Let's hope the exodus continues! They're going to have a very difficult time spinning the disasters of the past year into later liberal myth as a good thing.
Today Pat Cadell was on Beck, he worked for McGovern and Carter so you could say his liberal credentials are intact. He is in a kind of shock about what he’s witnessing in Washington, to paraphrase, “the people are coming to get you in 2010,” referring to all incumbents most especially in the Democratic party. In his view there will be a political slaughter in November the likes of which no one has ever seen or heard of at any point in American history. He came close to calling for the possibility of a potential rebellion referring to “The Stamp Act” of 1755 where riots broke out throughout the colonies, and the direct harbinger of what was to come in 1776. This country is pissed! …and the liberals are playing with fire. Run away may be their only option.
StanH: They can run, but they can't hide. I don't really foresee much in the form of open rebellion in the offing, largely because I truly believe that electoral defeat is going to be so devastating to everything the left stands for that open rebellion won't be necessary. George Washington proved that the peaceful transition of power could and would occur under our unique form of government, and that has kept us relatively peaceful for most of our history (as long as you don't count that unpleasantness known as the Civil War). Rebellion and revolution are necessary only if the people speak and the government refuses to get out of the way. The Democrats aren't brave enough to try holding onto power they've clearly lost. Sneaky parliamentary maneuvers are one thing, refusal to turn power over to the newly-elected representatives is a whole different animal.
In AZ, Dems Mitchell and Giffords (and perhaps even Kirkpatrick) are rumored to be possible flip-flops on the healthcare monstrosity. I'm curious what you and Andrew think on healthcare. Is it truly on a life support as some of the headlines on Drudge said today?
Isn't it amazing that the hope and change that Obama promised will ultimately result in a return to conservative principles? Talk about not seeing that coming!
WriterX: It's really very hard to sift fact from rumor right now, but I've been personally involved in some of that Democratic infighting, and I can tell you that the doctrinaire leftists are the ones most likely to blow the whole thing up. If they continue to insist on bringing back in the worst portions of the bill (abortion, government "insurance") rather than accept a compromise cobbled together by the bosses, the bill may end up losing the support of both the left and the blue dogs. I'm guessing that the vote will be down to as little as one vote, one way or the other, but I wouldn't put money on which it will be. Too many variables, too many egotistical personalities to expect a rational conclusion.
Lawhawk--How suicidal are these people? The vast majority of Americans in multiple polls have said they don't want abortion in the bill in any form, direct or indirect, and they don't want the government insuring anyone. Yet the left keeps pushing to get them in, and the "moderates" keep trying to find ways to leave those doors open. What part of "no" do they not understand?
HamiltonsGhost: The "n" and the "o." LOL
It's all sounding very good; excellent post Hawk. You have captured the essence of all our discontent. Still, anything can happen in politics and Democrats seem to have no shame when it comes to pulling out every dirty trick in the book to steal elections. Perhaps it comes from being a lifelong Philadelphia sports fan, but I'll always have a bit of the skeptic in me, so I'll continue to be only cautiously optimistic.
Oh, agreed I was just giving you the flavor of a political insider on the Democratic side. I definitely do not believe rebellion should be a goal. His point however, he was implying (Pat Cadell) if the ballot box quits working and Washington keeps shoving things down our throats that the American public do not want, that’s as dumb as it is dangerous. It is imperative for the American electorate to stay involved through several election cycles to remedy this Obamanation, and the progressive agenda. It was eleven years between The Stamp Act and rebellion. I pray Washington listens, we’ll see.
Note: He paid attention to the mass of Americans on 9/12, and believes that the Tea Party movement is real, and not to be ignored.
Writer X, I've said all along that I think it may be impossible to pass this healthcare bill -- there are just too many problems that they've never solved, they just pushed them off.
And as every day passes, it's going to get harder as people like Nelson almost break down in tears at the anger he's run into, as 2010 looms closer and closer and all those "moderate" Democrats start to wonder if they are being sacrificed by Pelosi, and as public support continues to sink even as they've begun spending millions of dollars in ads to pump up support.
Also, the unravelling of the Nelson deal may finally kill this bill -- it's too expensive to extend the deal to every state, and it's impossible to just favor a couple, and Nelson can't give up the money he got for Nebraska without being burned in effigy.
Moreover, I think the anger on the left may undo this bill as well, because it's being sold to the Dems as necessary to "motivate the left" -- but their anger shows that it won't motivate them. So if it won't bring out the left in 2010 and it will turn the center and right against them, I see the Democrats starting to wonder if this is the right thing to do.
If I had to put odds on it, I'd say 70/30 against passage.
Tennessee: I think that's a wise stance. The Democrats not only play dirty pool, but they have infested many of the state courts (can you say "Al Franken?"). The best way to win is to win big, and we have plenty of work to do to get there. Relying on national dissatisfaction is a dangerous thing to do. We don't want the majority against Democrats, we want them for us.
And I know exactly what you mean. Anybody who thinks something in politics is too ridiculous to be possible has never been to San Francisco.
StanH: I didn't think for a minute that you were advocating rebellion, and the observations were valid. Besides, I'm not above a little street theater now and then myself. Those of us who have been insiders in the left wing of the Democratic Party do have a tendency to see things in a much more polarized way than our present fellow conservatives. Our slogan in the Sixties was "come the revolution." We just called it social welfare for the people. Then we'd flash a peace sign, which meant "get out of our way or we'll destroy you."
Andrew: You're more optimistic than I am, but you still may be right. A lot depends on how many more mistakes they can make in getting the bill rushed through. The longer it takes, the better the odds that the bill will go down to defeat by substantial margins. If they don't succeed in ramming through a bill before the State of the Union address, then I think your prediction becomes much closer to reality than mine.
We've been asking all along for time for the American people to see and understand the bill, because we know they aren't in any hurry to buy this pig. The star chamber meetings among the partisan Democratic leadership are becoming part of their recipe for defeat, and each day more Americans are asking "what the hell are they up to with these secret meetings, political deals, and mad rush to pass?"
Almost more than anyone else, Nelson was the candidate for stupid crook of the year. First he accepts a bribe in the form of special, permanent exemption on Medicaid state payments for Nebraska, then when he was called out for it, he said it was OK, but it would be better if those exemptions were for every state, not just Nebraska. Rhetorical question: Isn't that exactly the nationalized program he claimed to be against in the first place?
Hawk - I almost always enjoy Johah Goldberg's weekly column. His current column happens to address the same subject as your post. His suggestion for the G.O.P. was to take the same tact as Domino's Pizza. That is, admit they blew before and vow to learn from that past mistake. I think he may have a pretty good idea
Tennessee: I saw that Jonah Goldberg article on an edition of National Review Online. His ideas are always clever, often funny, and generally realistic. Although my emphasis was on the Democrats in this article, it wouldn't hurt for the Republicans to take a good look at their own past indiscretions. Big government conservatism is a classic oxymoron, and the Republican party did indeed blow it. Following Domino's open recognition of its mistakes is not a half-bad model.
Guys,
Before we get too excited, the electorate still is not that informed. I have yet to hear things at work about the upcoming year. The silence is deafening.
I work as a janitor now in a hospital. None of this is getting through to these people. When I mention anything remotely about Congress, I get blank stares. Not much for or against.
My wife is a nurse and she doesn't talk about the disaster about to befall us.
Joel: Let's hope the Republicans can do a good job of reaching those people who aren't yet aware of the problems we face. The Democrats take them for granted. Republicans and conservatives can't afford to allow this to continue.
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