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Showing posts with label Elections. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Elections. Show all posts
Monday, October 1, 2012
Supreme Courtin' It
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Sunday, August 12, 2012
Is California Following Wisconsin's Lead?
The move doesn't match Wisconsin's, but it's a start.
The ship has hit the sand in the formerly Golden State. Employee pensions and benefits for public union employees have already bankrupted three of its cities—Vallejo, Stockton, and San Bernardino. Others are quickly approaching the brink. The whole state can't be far behind. Two major cities have addressed the problem with local ballot measures. San Diego, California's second largest city, passed a measure curbing future increases in the huge city-paid public employee pensions and drastically reducing those benefits for new employees. That is not a huge surprise, since San Diego is California's cleanest and most efficient big city, and leans moderate/Republican.
San Jose, California's third largest city, is a bit more of a surprise. San Jose recently passed a similar ballot measure, and it passed by a whopping 70%. San Jose leans heavily Democratic. Even more surprising is the fact that the Democratic mayor of San Jose, Chuck Reed, led the charge for pension reform and limits on public employee union direct involvement in political matters. It goes without saying that the representatives of the public employees unions immediately filed suit to stay implementation of the reforms. San Jose has temporarily avoided bankruptcy largely because of the huge taxes paid by its industries, including the computer industry and major dot.com companies like Google. But oppressive state taxes are driving major players out of Silicon Valley and into more business-friendly states.
The state initiative measure is less drastic, but moves the debate to the entire population and accomplishes a couple of major goals. It would specifically prohibit unions and corporations from contributing directly to candidates. It wouldn't have any effect on PACs. But as a companion to that, the measure includes the previously-failed “paycheck protection” provisions. Unions collect dues from their members whether they like it or not. And whether the members like it or not, a huge percentage of those dues go not to employee protection, but rather to left wing, Democratic political causes.
Currently, the weak and confusing decision in Beck v Communications Workers has had little effect on the unions' ability to use dues for political causes. If a member does not want to be an active union employee, he or she must file a “Beck statement,” which limits the dues collected to narrowly-defined activities. His or her dues must then be reduced by the percentage the union spends on political causes.
The unions routinely lie, and reduce the dues by 2% to 5%, depending on the weather. But the National Right to Work Foundation has filed multiple suits proving that the political spending is (depending on the union) somewhere between 18% and a stratospheric 48%. The NRTW Foundation has not lost a single case, but because of the arcane rules, it can only file for complaining individuals rather than entire groups. So the unions take a temporary loss, and move on to bigger and better extortion.
Wisely, the organizers of the measure included corporations in their restrictions. It is consistent with the Citizens United case. But it also corrects the problem that caused the paycheck protection plan to fail previously. This measure includes both unions and corporations, where the previous failed measure addressed unions only. Under this measure, no organization can use forced deductions to pay for candidate campaigns. Not from stockholders, employees or union members.
In the past year, public-sector unions and trade unions contributed $2.7 million to political candidates (96% Democratic) in California, while large corporations gave $4.3 million, almost evenly distributed. Under this measure, neither could make any direct contributions to candidate campaigns. The supporters of the measure have very smartly pointed that out, and emphasized instead that “special interests” should be curtailed. But the real distinction is that unlike unions, businesses cannot forcibly take money from their employees to support candidates that many of the employees oppose. This measure would fix that problem for union members and have no effect whatsoever on non-union employees.
In short, the measure prohibits the unions from forcing deductions from the member's paycheck for political candidates, and it equally prohibits the corporations from deducting that money from their union employees' paychecks. Sauce for the goose, sauce for the gander. In the case of public employees particularly, this is a big hit. Not a Wisconsin-style hit, but a hit nonetheless. Paycheck deduction is automatic for public employees (unless they want to fight a Beck case). In the private sector, paycheck deduction is allowed, but not required. Most union employees just go along with it because it relieves them from having to write a check once a month and getting fined and disciplined by the union if they forget to write that check.
The measure levels the playing field a bit, but until Californians are ready to seriously restrict public employee contracts and collective bargaining a la Wisconsin, this is just a band-aid on a cancer. And until the state does so, it is headed the way of Vallejo, Stockton, and San Bernardino. Democratic politicians should pay heed to the efforts of the San Jose mayor and city council.
Thursday, July 19, 2012
Obama v. Welfare Reform: Destroying What Works
For decades, the Republicans pushed the idea of welfare reform. Specifically, they wanted to encourage people to get off welfare and start working. The Democrats, however, flat out refused to allow any attempt to make such a change. Indeed, any time the issue came up, they would whine that the Republicans were looking to throw single mothers and their children out into the streets to starve.
In 1994, the Republicans finally got control over the Congress for the first time since 1952. Along with a Republican Senate and a weakened and unprincipled Bill Clinton in the White House, they set out to change America. One area they targeted was welfare reform. To that end, in 1996, they passed the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996. This fundamentally changed the way welfare works in America by:
● Ending welfare as an entitlement,This bill also gave the states vast discretion in how to achieve these rules. Clinton signed this bill after vetoing the first two attempts. And while liberals hated the reform at the time, it’s now been recognized as a significant success, having cut the number of welfare cases by 53% and reversing an unabated upward trend which began in the 1960. Clinton even claims it as one of his biggest achievements.
● Placing a lifetime limit of five years on benefits paid from federal funds,
● Requiring recipients to begin working after two years of benefits,
● Encouraging two-parent families, and
● Enhancing enforcement of child support.
So guess what Obama wants to do now? Obama has started handing out waivers to states to eliminate the work requirements contained in the bill. Unbelievable. He is attacking a bill which everyone except the extreme left admits worked magnificently. And in a perverse bit of reasoning, Team Obama claims this change is intended to help parents “successfully prepare for, find, and retain employment.” So by eliminating the requirement that people find work, we are helping them prepare to find work. Huh?
Fortunately, the Republicans aren’t sitting still for this. Romney said on Friday:
Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan charged that, “President Obama will make it harder for Americans to escape poverty. He is hurting the very people he claims to help.” Others are calling this “a blatant violation of the law.” Rep. Dave Camp called this move “a brazen and unwarranted unraveling” of the law that “ends welfare reform as we know it.” And Rep. Tim Scott of South Carolina said,“The success of bipartisan welfare reform, passed under President Clinton, has rested on the obligation of work. The president’s action is completely misdirected. Work is a dignified endeavor, and the linkage of work and welfare is essential to prevent welfare from becoming a way of life.”
It’s amazing how Obama keeps trying to refight the battles the left lost in the past and how he doesn’t care that history has proven his side wrong. It’s even more amazing how ready he is to trap a whole new generation on welfare. But keep in mind, there is method here. As we’ve discussed before, almost 50% of Americans now draw their living from government benefits in some form. These people are much more likely to vote Democratic because that is the party who promises to keep the spigot flowing. This weakening of welfare reform is nothing more than an attempt by Obama to add more people to the government dole, much like Obamacare was an attempt to increase the number of people on Medicaid and to hook the middle class on health care subsidies. Obama is trying to snare people into government dependence.“You don’t improve people’s lives with handouts, you improve people’s lives by showing them, as I learned growing up in the inner city in a single parent household, that you can think and work your way out of poverty.”
This needs to end.
Monday, June 18, 2012
It’s Because You’re Stupid
The MSM has finally found a narrative they can all get behind: criticism of Obama by conservatives is racist. Forget that they’ve leveled plenty of their own criticism, because hypocrisy doesn’t matter to them. Any conservative who criticizes Obama is a racist.The line that criticism of Obama is racist goes way back. Jimmy Carter whined in 2009 that the entire birther movement was racist. Then he claimed Republican Joe Wilson shouting “you lie!” during Obama’s campaign speech to Congress showed that there is “an inherent feeling in American that a black man should not be President.” In September 2011, MSNBC claimed that all criticism of Obama was because of “the color of his skin.”
Calling Obama “cool” was declared racist the other day. Before that the words “cocky”, “flippant” and “arrogant” were declared racist “code words.” Last month, Team Obama themselves said that trying to link Obama to Jeremiah Wright was racist and hate-filled.
Now we have Neil Munro, a reporter for the Daily Caller, interrupting Obama during his latest campaign speech from the White House where he tried to buy Hispanic votes by proposing amnesty for young illegal aliens. The MSM was immediately outraged, and quickly decided this was racist. Said MSNBC:
“I think it's a very important question because I think this is the first African-American president. We've never had a white president been told by the opposing party to shut up in the middle of a major address to the Congress. We've never had a president like this heckled so disrespectfully. We've never had this otherness afforded to any other president and I think the right wing has some explaining to do because to me it's patently obvious.”Well, actually, that’s not true. Indeed, as the Daily Caller immediately pointed out, Sam Donaldson used to do this to Ronald Reagan all the time, and yet the MSM never accused him of even bad manners.
Naturally, the MSM went to Sam Donaldson and asked him if this was true. Guess what he said? He lied about doing this to Reagan. Indeed, he said, he “never once interrupt[ed] a president in any way while he was making a formal statement, a speech, honoring awardees or in any other way holding the floor.” Of course, that’s a lie, but no MSM reporter can be bothered to go find the dozens of example disproving this.
Then Donaldson said exactly what you would expect from a leftist hack. He charged racism:
“Let’s face it: Many on the political right believe this president ought not to be there – they oppose him not for his polices and political view but for who he is, an African American!”This is pathetic. Do I think Munro should have interrupted Obama? No. It pissed me off when Donaldson and the rest did it to Reagan and I don’t think anyone should be doing it to Obama either. But it pisses me off even more that the MSM is pushing this crap about this being the result of racism.
People criticize President "Downgrade" Obama because he’s incompetent. They criticize him because he’s an arrogant ass. They criticize Obama because he’s ruining the country and trying to destroy large parts of our economy. It doesn’t matter what color he is, the man is a menace to our nation.
Moreover, the real racists are on the left and within the MSM. It’s the leftist media which sees the world through the prism of race, not the rest of us. The rest of us have moved beyond race. We now judge men and women by the content of their characters and the competence and quality of their actions, and in that test people like Obama fail miserably. Race doesn't factor into it for us, that only matters to the race-obsessed MSM.
So in the spirit of providing proof, give us your Top Three Biggest gripes with Obama without mentioning his race?
OT, For those who regularly visit Patti's site, she's talking about my book today and there's a Q&A! Check it out! LINK
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Sunday, June 17, 2012
Same Crap. Different Package.
You will be seeing two important government figures swearing by all that's holy that they will provide all the documents and reveal all the information required "very soon." Both have been asked to explain why they have been secretly performing nefarious acts while denying them publicly despite all the apparent evidence.
The headline picture is US Attorney General Eric Holder. The picture accompanying this paragraph is Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Both Holder and Ahmadinejad have been caught with their hands in the cookie jar, and both have responded with denials, lies, obfuscation, and convenient compliance. But their most useful tool is delay. The script goes as follows: Look wounded when confronted with your failure to do what you were asked, and promise to do better next time.Ahmadinejad has been lying about Iran's nuclear weapons development program for years. He has claimed that all Iranian nuclear development is strictly for peaceful purposes of producing energy. Though the country sits on an ocean of easily-extracted oil, good ol' Mahmoud says Iran needs nuclear energy so their people can have light and HBO (and a few missile silos). Occasionally, the timid international authorities produce evidence that disproves what he is saying. Then, Ahmadinejad quickly appears, makes a statement about how wrong those authorities are, and promises to produce documentation to prove it. This "cooperation" always occurs about the time authorities threaten to tighten the noose around his neck.
Attorney General Holder has exhibited the same behavior pattern. His indignation when accused of selective prosecution is a performance worthy of Sir Laurence Olivier. He denies racism in his dismissal of voter intimidation cases against the New Black Panthers in Philadelphia. He denies political cronyism when discussing the details of the Solyndra failure. He looks terribly wounded when someone accuses him of fake civil rights activity when denying states their right to purge their voter rolls and require photo ID for voting.
But he does come up with sufficient documentation and phony excuses to keep moving the questioning and investigation down the road. Now, the noose has been tightened in Congress in regard to Holder's knowledge of and participation in the organization of Operation Fast and Furious. This is especially noticeable in the hearings being conducted by Republican Darrell Issa of California in the House.
Holder has been adamant that he has provided all the information requested of his department by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. He has also been absolutely stalwart in his contention that he has told the truth from the beginning. He claims he knew nothing about Mexican criminal cartel gunwalking until Congress discovered the deaths resulting from the disastrous operation, including the ambush murder of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry by cartel members using guns purchased during the operation.
Frustrated by the minuscule information provided to his committee by Holder's office and angered by Holder's denial of clear facts produced right in front of him, Issa finally told Holder last week that he would produce the documentation and testify truthfully by this coming Wednesday or face a contempt of Congress citation. This is the first time contempt has been specifically threatened, though it has been bandied about for months.
Like Ahmadinejad, Holder steadfastly denies his involvement in the nefarious activities. In fact, he continues to deny that his department was involved in any significant Fast and Furious activity whatsoever. At least that was what he did at the conclusion of the hearing. Then, like Ahmadinejad he snuck back to his office, and fired off a memo to Rep. Issa. He promised to produce more records and information regarding the operation, claiming that his epiphany came only after the Committee stated categorically that requested information would exclude sensitive law enforcement information.
Rather than admit the noose was tightening and that his political position was in some immediate danger, Holder requested a Monday meeting with Rep. Issa while calling his offer "an extraordinary accommodation of the committee's interest." To trash a song from The Music Man, "Cheat a little, talk a little, cheat a little, talk a little, cheat, cheat, cheat, cheat a lot, cheat a little more." The stall is on, once again. First Holder presents himself as the wounded victim just trying to help, then promises to produce some more useless and irrelevant (and frequently 90% redacted) documentation, then humbly requests a meeting between gentlemen to avoid any further unnecessary acrimony.
It's hard not to think that Holder believes he can stall any further damaging revelations until after the November elections. But now that the corresponding Senate committee is making some of the same sounds, and some Democrats are just now beginning to express doubt about Holder's veracity publicly, the tactic may not work much longer. Rep. Issa doesn't seem the least bit fooled by Holder's snake-charmer eyes, and has already announced that promises will no longer be sufficient. It's a true showdown, with Issa playing the lonely sheriff and Holder the proficient gunslinger.
This coming Wednesday could be the big gunfight, unless something truly significant emerges from Holder's secret vaults. But on Saturday, Rep. Issa said he will consider postponing the contempt hearing if the information provided by Holder is truthful and truly responsive. Holder wins the round, but he hasn't yet won the fight. What's your guess as to how this is going to be resolved?
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Thursday, June 7, 2012
Liberalism Is Sick
Totalitarianism and privilege runs in the blood of liberals. They want to control everyone else, but place themselves above the law. We’ve just had some classic examples of this. Observe the vile petulance of the left. . .● S.W.A.T.ing: For some time now, prominent conservatives (including bloggers like Erick Erickson of RedState) have experienced the joys of finding the SWAT team showing up at their homes. Why? Because some liberal group has learned how to hack into the phone system and call 911 pretending to be the conservative. These calls go something like this: “I am Erick Erickson and I just shot my wife.”
Obviously, this is a crime. It is also despicable. Think about the kind of pathetic, abusive mindset someone would need to send the police screaming to someone’s house on a false murder claim? That’s Nazi-tactics. What happens when the cops show up and shoot someone by mistake? What about the emotional toll on these people’s children? Think of the people who might get killed because the police are distracted? Think of the waste of resources and the effect on the 911 system when police start doubting the veracity of calls.
But this has become the modern liberal mindset. They are abusive little Nazis who seek to instill terror in their enemies and they don’t care about the damage they do in the process. To them, it’s all legitimate -- calling out the cops, death threats by phone, mail or twitter, bomb threats to events they don’t like, property damage, arson. We have reached a point where liberals are becoming a menace to society. And something will need to be done about them. . . perhaps the old liberal favorite of re-education?
● Uncontrollable Rage: Wisconsin once again exposed the twisted emotional wreckage that is liberalism as liberals everywhere devolved into whiny rage about the election results. One guy told a camera he hopes Lt. Kleefisch dies of colon cancer. Another liberal idiot was so incapable of handling rejection that they actually slapped Dem. Candidate Tom Barrett right after he gave his concession speech. Apparently, it was Barrett’s fault the public didn’t hate Walker. . . or this liberal wanted Walker to cling to the “slim” hopes of overturning a 6.9% defeat. So much for losing with grace. Another liberal sobbed “this is the end of democracy.” How idiotic. Just because the public doesn’t agree with your view, somehow that’s the end of democracy? Someone needs a civics class. Then we have the violent Twits. They posted things like this:
KILL SCOTT WALKER KILL SCOTT WALKER KILL SCOTT WALKER KILL SCOTT WALKER KILL SCOTT WALKER KILL SCOTT WALKER! Ole Bitch Ass Pig Ass Nigga!!!!You couldn’t find a less intelligent, less hateful set of morons if you tried. And note the obvious racism. Yet liberals like to think they’re smarter? Ha. These fools can barely speak and certainly can’t think. Heck, if you want to proof of evolution, this is it -- liberals are the missing link. . . not quite human yet.
Somebody need to Abe Lincoln Scott Walker cave frog lookin ass.
I wanna kill scott walker so fucking baddd!!!!! & the racist dumb assholes that voted for him #nbs
Please somebody kill Scott Walker.
Again, frankly, it’s getting to the point that liberals need to be medicated or locked up for everyone’s good. They prove time and again that they are violent, racist creatures of hate who seek to instill terror when they don’t get their own ways. That’s called psychosis, and psychotics should be locked up for everyone’s protection.
● Heil Moochelle: Madame O has jumped on the food Nazi bandwagon once again and is expressing support for the idiotic idea of banning large drinks in New York City. This is laughable nonsense. For one thing, as with all other liberal ideas, this is unworkable. How, pray tell, do you stop someone from buying two 16 oz. drinks? Whoops, I just found the hole in the security net.
This is more evidence that liberals really are Nazis. They want to control every aspect of your life right down to how much cola you can put into a single container at a time. Think how petty that is! In fact, calling them Nazis is a bit unfair to the Nazis because they weren’t nearly the control freaks liberals are. And why am I not surprised that the people with the least grip on reality (see above) are the people most inclined to tell everyone else how to live? Pathetic.
● I Am Above The Law: Amanda Bynes (who?) is pathetic. She’s apparently an actress, though you wouldn’t know it by me, and she’s a drunk, a fool, a liar and a fascist. Two days ago she got caught DUI. Did she quietly pay her ticket like everyone else who gets caught? Heck no, she’s a liberal celebrity! Laws aren’t meant for people like her!! So first she refused to blow into the breathalyzer (which is a stupid move, especially for someone who claims they weren’t drunk). Then she took to Twitter, where all morons go to display their moronism, and she tweeted this:
“Hey @BarackObama, I don’t drink. Please fire the cop who arrested me.”Well, honey, that’s not how the world works even for you. For one thing, your lord and master has ZERO power to fire a local police officer. You would know that if you weren’t liberal and stupid (but that is redundant). Secondly, they don’t fire people for doing their jobs just because some celebrity turd doesn’t like how they do it. But this is how liberals think: laws are meant for the little people and if you dare to apply the same law to them, well, then you need to be fired because you failed to recognize the superiority of the person you so ruthlessly treated like everyone else. What a vile little creature she is, I hope the cop sues her for something. By the way, appealing to the President to save your butt from a DUI is pretty much the definition of narcissism, another standard liberal trait.
● Who Cares About Human Life?: Patti Smith, a singer, just made a fascinating statement. For decades, liberals have whined about how any death is a tragedy and how we should go to any extent (including wrapping kids in bubblewrap) to prevent any death. But we know their willingness to take any step is selective and depends on who gets hurt and by whom. Enter Patti Smith, who is upset with Obama for continuing the war on terrorism. Why? I’ll let the callous dipsh*t explain it herself:
“[Terrorism is] not the most important issue in the world. When you think about how many people the terrorists have killed, its nothing. It’s not as many as die on a bicycle in America probably in a year or something.”In other words, who cares, it’s only a couple people. And to make her point clear, she added this:
“I’ve said this over and over, but I’ll say it a million more times — I’m concerned more about the death of a bee than I am about terrorism. Because we’re losing hives and bees by the millions because of such strong pesticides. We can live with terrorism. We can’t live without the bee.”Nice huh? Not only does she write off the deaths from terrorism (cost of business, I guess), but she’s more concerned about bees than the people who died. Wanna bet she believes products which might kill someone should be banned?
● Misplaced Tolerance: Finally, we have this little bit of intense hypocrisy. Janice Roberts, a 63-year old Masshole “anti-war” activist, has refused to rent an apartment to Sgt. Joel Morgan because he’s a veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan. So much for tolerance and so much for the lie that “we’re against war, not soldiers.”
What’s more, at the same time, over in New Mexico, the state’s Court of Appeals has ruled that a private photo studio cannot refuse service to people based on sexual orientation. The studio owner had argued that this violated his religious and moral beliefs but the court didn’t really care. This is so typical of liberal tolerance. Tolerate those whose causes you like and use the force of law to crush those whose causes you don’t.
Is it just me or does liberalism seem increasingly sick to you?
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Tuesday, June 5, 2012
My Advice To Social Conservatives
I said last week that social conservatives have not done a great job winning over the public on social issues. There are some minor advances here and there, but for every advance there is full retreat in some other area. I think a change of strategy is called for on all fronts.Let me start with three broad principles:
● Principle One: It’s time to get rational about the goals social conservatives want to achieve and how to achieve them. This means putting an end to pie-in-the-sky ideas like constitutional amendments to force change. Not only is that easily lampooned in light of the conservative claim to states’ rights, but it’s pointless because there is simply no way to get any constitutional amendment through the Congress and then passed by enough states. It is impossible, and talking about it wastes time and diverts resources from better causes. Moreover, talking about changing the constitution, scares the public, who will automatically see this as extreme and dangerous. So drop the idea of trying to solve everything with one shot and learn the art of incrementalism, i.e. achieving your goal little by little. This isn’t sexy, but it’s the only effective way to achieve controversial goals under our system.
● Principle Two: Drop the harsh rhetoric. The fiery pulpit speeches may work well in church, but the public sees them differently. To the public, they are evidence that social conservatives are hateful people who can’t deal with the modern world and who want to judge everyone else. This is a self-inflicted wound.
● Principle Three: You can’t win with religion-based arguments. Those simply don’t work with the modern public because the vast majority of the public doesn’t see the Bible as the thing which runs their day-to-day lives. Indeed, while 90% of the public claims to believe in God, only 40% claim to go to church “regularly” (there is reason to believe the real number is closer to 20%). And even of those who go, there is a disconnect between what the churches teach and how people live their lives -- the classic example of this are Catholics, who love the Pope, but ignore his rules. And even then, different denominations and different religions have different views about what their religion tells them, e.g. some accept gay marriage, some don’t. So premising arguments on religion is a bad start because you lose most of your audience. Moreover, in making these arguments, social conservatives end up bypassing the stronger arguments they should be making.
Ok, now let’s look at specific policies.
● Abortion: Abortion is an area where social conservatives are largely doing it right because they’ve adopted incrementalism. In the 1980s and early 1990s, abortion opponents kept looking for the home run, and it never came. It wasn’t until they learned to take the issue step by step that they began to make progress. The goal right now should be to entirely eliminate public funding, which is what keeps the abortion lobby alive, and to impose restrictions which the public will find reasonable.
One thing that needs to be dropped is this ridiculous idea of extending 14th Amendment rights to fetuses. Not only does this scare people, and thus is counterproductive, but it cannot pass, and it is almost the classic example of unintended consequences. Give fetuses rights and they can sue pregnant women if they don’t stop smoking or drinking or otherwise fail to follow doctor’s orders. This is a Pandora’s box of legal insanity which liberal interest groups will gleefully use to invade families. Think twice people.
● Gays: The gay marriage battle is lost. Yes, it won’t gain any more support in conservative states for the moment, but this issue is inevitable because the younger public really doesn’t see gays as a threat. Indeed, gays have pretty much proven there is nothing to fear from gay marriage. So so-cons better find proof fast to refute this.
A better strategy would be to switch over to a religious freedom argument. Right now, social conservatives have let themselves by placed on the wrong side of the gay marriage debate because gays have argued they are the ones seeking “freedom.” The reality is they have freedom and they are really seeking to use government power to impose their beliefs on others. But so-cons aren’t arguing that. Instead, they talk about “morality,” which is a loser. What they need to do is argue the religious freedom aspect, i.e. that gays are seeking to take away freedom by forcing others to accept them. Americans always vote for whoever is offering the greater freedom, so-cons need to learn to explain this better.
I also recommend giving serious thought to getting the government out of the marriage business entirely, as I discussed HERE.
● Drugs: Social conservatives are losing the drug war, particularly marijuana, because they’ve adopted the wrong argument. They’re arguing that drugs are bad for you/society. But that’s a nanny state argument. And indeed, the pro-pot people have merely had to argue that pot isn’t that bad to slowly win over a near-majority. The better argument involves civil freedoms. If we allow people to take drugs, then we either need to change negligence laws dramatically (in ways people really won’t like), or we will end up imposing huge costs on employers, employees and the economy because of the need for widespread drug testing. Why? Because any company that makes any product or provides any service which can injury someone (i.e. any company) will need to take steps to ensure that their workers are not high when they are working. That means widespread drug testing of everyone with a job. Right now the argument is “should the government be allowed to stop Person X from smoking pot at home.” But the argument should be, “are YOU willing to undergo constant drug testing to protect your employer from lawsuits just because the government decides to legalize drugs for the few who want it?” That’s a very different matter. I’ve discussed this HERE.
● Religious Freedom: This one’s a can of worms. A lot of social conservatives are going down a very dangerous path with the idea of religious freedom laws. Specifically, they are pushing bills which prohibit employers from stopping employees from engaging in religious practices or wearing religious items, e.g. crucifixes. This should send up huge red flags for conservatives. For one thing, conservatives have opposed employment-discrimination-based lawsuits almost across the board when it comes to gays, blacks, women and disability. Why make an exception for religion? Shouldn’t a private employer be entitled to impose whatever restrictions they want on the people they pay to be their employees? Can’t the employees just go elsewhere if they don’t like it?
Further, there is an obvious flaw here which social conservatives are overlooking because they tend to equate the word “religion” with their brand of Christianity: our Constitution doesn’t allow discrimination amongst religions. Thus, if you give people absolute power to act out their religious beliefs at work, that would include things like the wearing of the Islamic veil or separation of men and women, the handling of snakes, the smoking of peyote and whatever other crazy ideas these fringe religions can dream up.
This also applies to things like prayer in schools. If you seek legislation to allow that nice Protestant Principal to say a prayer each morning, except that your kids may also find themselves forced to sit through an Islamic prayer or Buddhist ritual or even an atheist’s speech. Unless you want other religions forced upon you and your children, it is best to always keep in mind that any new power you give yourself can be used by others as well.
Frankly, the best bet here is to vote with your feet and your wallets. Don’t support businesses which are hostile to your religious beliefs. Do support friendly ones. Stop seeing movies, watching television shows, or buy videogames with bad messages in them. Use the power of boycott. Send your kids to religious schools and volunteer to make sure those schools are the best (a shining example). In this regard, support legislation which lets federal money follow the students to whatever schools they choose -- trust people to make the right choices rather than trying to use the government to force the right choices upon them. Remember, you have to win people over, you can’t force them to believe what you want them to believe.
The big takeaway here is that social conservatives need to learn to speak to people who don’t share their religious beliefs -- framing things in religious terms simply will not work for anyone who doesn’t agree with your religious beliefs. They need to learn that a thousand small victories are better than the false hopes of complete victory in fell swoop. And they need to think more about the unintended consequences of the policies they propose and they need to realize that others will get to use the same powers they create in the law.
Thoughts?
P.S. Don't forget, it's Star Trek Tuesday at the film site.
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Wednesday, May 16, 2012
The Obama Game: Winning the Election
All right, let’s play a game, shall we? This game is called “Win the Election” (I would have called it “Win The Future,” but no one would be stupid enough to use that acronym). The goal of this game is to influence various segments of the population. Here’s how we’re going to play.Step One: I’m going to name various segments of the population.Here are the groups and some suggestions:
Step Two: For each group, tell me something Obama has done which you would use to try to sell Obama to that group.
Step Three: Then, for each group, tell me something Obama has done which you would use to try to get them to vote against Obama.
1. Women. Nothing good comes to mind. But. . . He insulted women, especially mothers. He didn’t help them on the jobs front. He endangered their healthcare with Obamacare.
2. Gays. Ended don’t ask don’t tell. But. . . Did not extend government benefits to gay partners. Copped out on gay marriage.
3. Blacks. Nothing positive comes to mind, except Holder suing various states over civil rights issues to help black-racist groups. But. . . Black unemployment is at a record high.
4. Hispanics. Nothing positive comes to mind except he sued Arizona. But. . . He continued a record number of deportations. He also used the DREAM Act and promises of immigration reform as a political football.
5. Environmentalists. He regulated carbon. But. . . He failed to pass a global warming bill like cap and trade. At Copenhagen he surrendered to China. His carbon regulations can be undone by Romney on day one.
6. Union workers. Most of the stimulus money went to unions. The auto bailout. Giving GM to the UAW. Tried to impose a union on Boeing. But. . . On the downside, he failed to save state employees from a mass wave of layoffs and the Boeing decision and card-check fell through.
7. Small business. Nothing good. But. . . Tax hikes, failed to free up credit for small businesses, added excessive regulation, and created unaffordable Obamacare requirements.
8. Big business. Opened the Treasury to his friends, passed toothless regulations of banks, allowed big business to write regulations to stymie small business, and did the bidding of big business on China, on healthcare costs, and on stimulus spending. Can’t really think of any negatives.
9. Religious believers. Nothing good. But. . . Obama has waged a war on religion for quite some time now, trying to force religions to accept positions that run contrary to their beliefs.
10. The Military. Not much good here. But. . . He showed he cared more about an Islamic terrorist than American soldiers. He didn’t end the wars, nor did he win them. He picked a pointless war with Libya. He’s been taking credit for killing bin Laden, which the military did.
11. Senior Citizens. Nothing good. But. . . Obama robbed Medicare of $500 billion.
12. Homeowners. Nothing good. Obama spoke of several ideas to fix the housing market and get homeowners out from under upside-down loans, but ultimately did nothing. On the plus side, he didn’t do anything stupid. :)
Anything I missed? Do tell.
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Tuesday, April 24, 2012
Media Finally Spots Flaw In Democrat's Hispanic Strategy. . . Sort Of
We at Commentarama like to keep you ahead of the curve. So while others are worrying about things that will never happen or missing both forest and trees, we’re busy trying to let you know exactly what is going on and what the world will look like in the near future. And that brings me to the issue of immigration. It turns out, the Mexican invasion is over. And while you knew this already two years ago (Link), the public is only now getting hints of this. Perhaps it’s time for the Democrats to panic?The idea that Hispanics (particularly Mexicans) will take over the United States has become an article of faith on the left. Indeed, the Democrats are counting on it. Their electoral strategy involves pandering to minorities and trying to get overwhelming support among them to offset their near-total collapse of support among whites. To achieve that level of support, they are working hard to scare these groups with claims of racism and to enslave them with poor education and by ingraining hobbling ideas like group rights.
But this whole idea relies on a faulty premise. Indeed, it depends on immigration from Mexico remaining at the same levels it was during its peak period in the 1980s/1990s. In 1980, there were 30 million Hispanics in the US. By 2000, there were 45 million. If you draw a straight line between those points and extend it to the future, there will be 104 million in 2040 and they will be the new majority group shortly after.
Sounds simple, but here’s the problem. That growth has nothing to do with births of Hispanics in the United States. Indeed, 12 million of the 15 million growth in the last twenty years was purely illegal immigration. And the vast majority of that comes from Mexico. Ergo, if immigration from Mexico slows, then the minority take over of America is over.
And guess what? Immigration from Mexico has all but stopped. Starting in 2007 (before the recession), immigration from Mexico began dropping. Within the last few years, it’s actually reversed itself, as the number of Mexicans returning to Mexico has exceeded the number of Mexicans who have come to the United States. How much? Well, according to Pew and the Census Bureau, the number of illegal immigrants in the US fell by one million in the last five years while the number of legal immigrants rose only by 200,000.
Why is this happening? Partially it is the sad state of our economy. But even more importantly, it’s because Mexico is running out of Mexicans. Mexico’s birthrate is in free fall. In the past decade alone, it has fallen 20% (from 24 births per 1,000 persons to 19), and it keeps right on falling. Mexico’s birth rate is now just over 2 children per mother, almost identical to the birth rate in the United States, and it’s still falling -- it will soon be at European levels (around 1.4). Because of this, Mexico’s population is estimated to peak in 2043, though I suspect that will happen much sooner, as it has in other countries. And that means Mexico, like Europe, is starting to suffer from a birth shortage and, consequently, a worker shortage. That means there won’t be waves of millions of Mexicans sneaking across the border in each of the next 3-4 decades because they can find the jobs they want at home. So instead of having 104 million Hispanics in 2040 as expected, the US is more likely to have 60 million -- which won’t be anywhere near a majority in a country of 350 million people.
I told you about this in May 2000 and again last year. The LA Times first hinted at this yesterday. Neither the Times nor others on the left have yet fully grasped the meaning of this, but it will come as they realize what this means for the Democratic strategy.
And falling numbers aren’t the only problem. Look at the concentration of Hispanics in the United States. That is not a map which affords Hispanics political power. As California has learned, anything above 50%+1 is a waste in our system. So piling millions upon millions of Hispanics into the same 3-4 states means their influence will always been small compared to their numbers.Further, there is this point I mentioned last year. According to the Census, 53% of Hispanics now identify themselves as “white,” while 37% identify themselves as “some other race” (the choice on the form) with the rest selecting other races such as black. And American- born children of Hispanics are even more likely to identify themselves as “white.” This means Hispanics are doing what every other ethnic group except blacks has done -- they are joining the melting pot.
The Democratic dream of an angry racist Hispanic majority which supports their socialist ways is over. This wave of Hispanics is not coming, they are not going to the right states, and those that are here are leaving the race-reservation. The LA Times has finally put its finger on this, but hasn’t grasps the full implications yet. But that will come as the Times article is now getting widespread publication. Any guesses what the Democrats will do about their mistake. . . or if they'll put this together?
And don't forget, it's Star Trek Tuesday at the film site!
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Wednesday, April 18, 2012
A Whiff of Scandal
● GSAgate: The GSA scandal just keeps getting worse. First, you had a video of several GSA employees playing around rather than working. Then you had reports of $800k used to party in Vegas, and $900k used on expensive gifts for employees. Then more videos came out of GSA employees playing around. Over the weekend, we heard that criminal charges have been recommended by the Inspector General for many of these same party-goers, along with allegations of bribery and kickbacks. The head of the department has resigned, as have several other senior individuals. Some have pled the Fifth before Congress! Now we hear of a senior GSA employee who took his wife to Hawaii, Guam and the Mariana Islands on the taxpayer’s dime as a birthday gift. . . even after the Vegas scandal hit the news. And we’ve learned that GSA employees routinely invented fake awards so they could get the government to pay for food at meetings. Those are criminal acts.
This is the death of a thousand small scandals. Moreover, these are the types of scandals which catch people’s attention because it’s easy to understand -- unlike something like Fast and Furious. What’s worse, the Democrats are responding poorly by trying to allege this IG investigation is nothing more than a GOP smear or a "war on Vegas." That’s never worked. And Obama stepped in it by trying to claim this was Bush’s fault. That laid this firmly on Obama doorstep because his responding confirmed that this is something which sits at the presidential level of accountability.
● Air Farce One: Anyone remember Pelosi’s plane? Well, Leon Panetta is now answering questions about why the taxpayers had to pay to fly him home on weekends to California at a cost of $860,000 so far. He’s apologizing to anyone who will listen, which means he knows this too is the sort of thing taxpayers remember, especially in an administration known for taxpayer-funded vacations and golf.
● Boogie Down Secret Agent Man: The Secret Service is in the middle of a growing scandal as we learn that between 11-20 of their agents decided to party with a group of hookers in Cartagena, Columbia. I doubt the public wouldn’t attribute this to Obama, except for two things. First, when scandal is in the air, all scandals touching an administration get sucked in and become a pattern of misbehavior or mismanagement. Secondly, Obama put his foot in his mouth saying he would be “angry” if this proved to be true. This makes Obama sound like a chump because this goes back to his not knowing “whose ass to kick” in the Gulf of Mexico. It also makes it sound like these men were directly under his authority. He should have said he trusted the Secret Service to determine the facts and sort this out.
● Crony Industrial Policy: As we discussed yesterday and several times in the past, Obama’s fascist-inspired industrial policy has fallen apart in record time, and many of these are finally hitting the airwaves. This is why even the MSM is beginning to question why companies like Solyndra, Enerl, Beacon Power, Solar Trust for America, and others could possibly have gone bankrupt so quickly, sucking down so much government money. . . after making sizeable donations to Team Donkey.
● Bad Touch: Finally, there is a state-level sexual harassment scandal unfolding in North Carolina, where the NC Democratic Party executive director resigned Sunday after it was revealed he had paid a former staffer to keep quiet about sexual harassment allegations. Normally, this would be no big deal nationally, except for a couple facts: (1) this blew up in the middle of the whiff of scandal moment (and a slow news cycle), (2) it happened right after Hilary Rosen’s broadside against motherhood, which happened right as the Democrats charged the GOP with waging a war against women, and (3) the governor made it so much worse. Indeed, Governor Bev Perdue told reporters to “get over it” when she was asked about the scandal, despite the fact she had just declared April to be “Sexual Assault Awareness Month.” She finally joined calls for the resignation, but the damage was done. Between this and Rosen, the Democratic propaganda about a war on women has exploded in a huge ball of hypocritical fire.
This is all bad news for Obama and the Democrats. It’s not that any one of these scandals is truly bad by itself, it’s that they are getting noticed by the MSM. This suggests the MSM knows Obama is doomed and they’ve decided to gain some credibility on his back by taking down all kinds of peripheral players. This will allow them to pretend they are unbiased when they start hunting for (and manufacturing) scandals under the Romney administration. I’ve seen this every time a Democrat is in trouble.
The one thing that may save them, however, is this fact: according to data compiled by the IRS, only 85 million people actually paid Federal tax last year. That’s only 27% of the population. Yes, you read that correctly. Only 1 in 4 Americans paid federal tax. That means 3 in 4 Americans are getting a free ride on the Federal government. By comparison, 49% of Americans, 147 million people, live in a household where someone received benefits from the government. This means a tremendous class of people is being created who will keep voting for more government, and that means Democrats.
That makes this election extremely important. The Republicans must cut these people off. They must break this cycle of dependence before it takes hold and they need to make more people pay taxes. This is vital the future. They should also mercilessly mock these scandals.
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Monday, March 5, 2012
Are We Too Stupid For Democracy?
Dunning claims democracy can't work because “incompetent people are inherently unable to judge the competence of other people.” Translation: when a person does not know how to do something (i.e. they are incompetent), they are also incapable of determining whether other people are competent or not. In other words, if you don’t know how to fix a car then you are also incapable of distinguishing between good mechanics and mechanics who don’t know what they are doing. Since politics requires problem solving in many fields in which few people are competent, the public is incapable of picking quality leaders. Ergo, we end up with “mediocre leaders and policies.”
Let’s blow this puppy away. . .
For starters, Dunning is no expert on logic. Indeed, he makes two fatal mistakes right out of the gate. First, his entire theory is a tautology (circular reasoning): he assumes people are incompetent at picking leaders and thus concludes they pick incompetently. That’s circular and it’s logical nonsense.
Moreover, he provides no support for his assertion that we pick incompetent leaders except his further assertion that we get mediocre leaders -- another tautology. Nor does he quantify how we should conclude that our leaders are mediocre. . . nor does he show that the alternatives offered were better. . . nor does he explain some of the primo talent of the past 30 years like Reagan, Thatcher, Clinton, Paul Ryan, Helmut Kohl, Tony Blair, etc.
Secondly, he assumes that people must be incompetent at picking a leader because they can’t possibly know everything there is to know about tax policy and economics and social issues and environmental law, etc. In other words, since no person can be an expert in everything, we must be incompetent at picking leaders to handle everything. But here’s the flaw in that. We aren’t picking leaders who handle everything. Instead, we are picking leaders who will find the right people to handle the various issues. Hence, the only competence we need in picking leaders is competence in picking someone whose judgment we trust to find the right experts.
So Dunning’s premise and argument is simply wrong.
But I’m going to run with it anyway because there’s a bigger point here. Let’s assume for the sake of argument that his assumptions are right. Should we then get rid of democracy? Well no, because the alternatives are worse.
If people are by definition unable to pick someone to lead in an area about which they know nothing, then how would socialism work better than democracy? Guys like Dunning pretend that “panels of experts” would make decisions, but how do we determine who is an expert? The only difference between democracy and socialism in that regard is that a smaller pool of people (not a smarter pool of people) pick the leader. So even if his argument is true, it does not argue against democracy. . . it argues against trusting the government.
Moreover, my experience with expert panels is very much what Ayn Rand predicted. You end up with a committee of blowhards with little actual knowledge or ability, who are appointed because they speak the nomenclature and they have insider contacts. These people then spend their time trying to stop the genuine experts from plying their craft because the genuine experts represent a threat to the panel: in effect, the experts become a cabal that seeks to keep out anyone with the skill to expose the panel’s defects.
Thus, whereas democracy MAY result in the wrong leaders being picked, any system other than democracy will INVARIABLY result in the wrong leaders being picked. So it’s 50/50 under democracy or guaranteed 0% under the other systems. That’s where you get all-stars like Hitler, Mao, Lenin, Stalin, Mubarak, the Ayatollah, Mugabe, Castro, Amin, Chavez, etc.
Further, politics suffers from an adverse selection problem. Adverse selection means the worst people will gravitate toward the positions where they can do the most harm. That’s why the unhealthy want insurance, but the healthy don’t. That’s why child molesters gravitate toward being priests or Scout Leaders. And that’s why the very people who should never be trusted with power go into politics -- because they crave power, and they end up satisfying their own desires to dominate rather than making decisions for the greater good.
Making this worse is the ego/arrogance aspect of this. In a democracy, politicians know their power is on loan. In other systems, where people are appointed because of connections or because they believe they are “experts,” the power is considered a divine right as a result of being superior to the public in some way, i.e. “I’m better than you because I’m an expert.” When you combine the adverse selection problem with a sense of divine right, you will end up with megalomania.
Finally, under democracy, politicians remain answerable to voters who can toss them out if they become abusive. No such check exists under the other systems.
So we may be too stupid for democracy, but we’re certainly too stupid for anything else.
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Tuesday, February 7, 2012
Republicans Vote Again
Today Colorado, Missouri and Minnesota go to the primary polls. T-Rav's Sockpuppets are taking a well-deserved day off, so we're going to make this an open thread for comments on these elections and any input you feel appropriate from the prior elections. Missouri has a non-binding primary ("beauty contest"), while the other two states have caucuses. Much may be decided today, or nothing. You can tell us what you think.I'm predicting a Romney win in Colorado, by a fairly large margin. In Missouri, I'm predicting a Santorum victory, and Gingrich isn't on the ballot. In Minnesota, I'm calling it "too close" with either Romney or Santorum winning, but Paul and Gingrich close behind. Please feel free to agree with me or tell me I'm nuts. It's all just in good fun, isn't it? On the other hand, the fun may stop very quickly if Gingrich loses two and gets no votes at all in the third.
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Friday, February 3, 2012
Newt Opens A Can Of Worms
Mitt Romney won the Florida primary by a healthy margin, and walked away with all the Florida delegates under the winner-take-all system. Or did he? Contender Newt Gingrich says "not so fast." The Republican National Committee (RNC), in an attempt to keep primaries from being held too long before the general election, imposed Rule 15(b)(2) in 2008. That rule provided that with named exceptions, delegates chosen before March 1 must be allocated proportionately.Rule 16 provides that any state that does not conform with the "early primary" rules must lose half its delegates at the nominating convention. But neither Rule 15 nor 16 provides for an immediate enforcement mechanism regarding proportional allocation of delegates. What Rule 16 does is leave the issue open, unless and until a "proper contest is brought." In that case, the Committee on Contests of the RNC may hear the contest, then decide on the proper course of action. Well, Newt Gingrich has launched a "proper contest."
The RNC enforcement provisions did not stop Florida from moving its primary to a date before March 1, and it seems unlikely that it will be any more successful in telling the states what to do by attempting to proportionalize the results of the recent primary. Case law favors a state's right to choose its own rules for picking delegates. As recently as California Democratic Party v. Jones (530 US 567, 2000) the US Supreme Court held that a state political party has the inherent right to choose its own method of electing and apportioning delegates. The Court specifically said that in matters of state political party organization, "any outside attempt to preempt the right of a [state] party to choose its own leaders is functionally both severe and unnecessary."
The Court followed a long line of precedent establishing that the First Amendment right of freedom of association protects the integrity of state political procedures. Gingrich will be fighting an uphill battle, even if the RNC should hear the contest and decide that Florida must affirm its convention delegation proportionately. Florida is highly unlikely to give up its winner-take-all system because of a nebulous and muddy RNC rule with wide-open enforcement provisions.
The issue seems to come down to that old philosophical question: Just because you can do a thing, does that mean you ought to do that thing? Gingrich has every right to launch his contest of the winner-take-all primary. But should he? My personal opinion is that he should not. Not only does it further divide a party which can only win in November with strong unity, but it slaps a major swing state in the face. It seems like just another chapter in Gingrich's peckishness and increasingly personal vendetta against Mitt Romney. Ron Paul, Rick Santorum and Gingrich himself would benefit somewhat from a proportioned delegation, but the cost seems far too high.
Not only does the contest potentially cause problems in a swing state which has already lost half its delegates to the convention, but it would also likely cause dissension and disarray within the RNC as well. The likelihood that the contest will benefit Gingrich in the long run is also in doubt. Republicans don't like sore losers, and at a time when the Party is attempting to resolve its conservative/moderate dichotomy, this action just muddies the waters even more. This will just be another sideshow in an already-contentious candidate selection process.
Thoughts?
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Thursday, January 26, 2012
Should All Nominees Be Supported?
This exception arises when (1) the nominee’s views are well outside the range of common interests which hold the party together, and (2) there is a legitimate belief that supporting this nominee will harm the long term goals of the party.
On the first point, Reagan famously said that he could support anyone with whom he agreed on 80% of the issues. Reagan was making the point that it is foolish and counterproductive to require 100% agreement with a nominee before you can support them. Indeed, 100% agreement is probably impossible. Hence, this is the reason moderates should support conservatives and conservatives should support moderates and libertarians should support social conservatives and vice versa.
But Reagan’s point also contains the implicit understanding that at some point (possibly below 80% using Reagan’s formula) there is no obligation to support the nominee. Why would this be? For that, we need to look at the question of harm.
Companies spend hundreds of millions of dollars each year to ensure their products remain consistent. They want to make sure you find the exact same amount in each cereal box, that every batch of Mac and Cheese tastes the same, that every sock has the same number of stitches, and that every Acura uses only Acura parts. Why? Because having a consistent level of quality affects how people perceive their brands. People want to know exactly what they are getting when they make a purchase and branding achieves that -- whereas failing to maintain that consistency damages the brand because people will no longer know what to expect from their purchase.
Whether we like the idea or not, a political party is nothing more than a company, and its product or brand is an ideological range. Choosing a nominee from outside that range blurs the identity of the party and damages its brand.
How? For one thing, this will alienate supporters. Supporters expect nominees to be within the ideological range. When they aren’t, the party has violated the contract under which it claims a right to the individual’s support. It is the equivalent of McDonalds selling you a Big Mac container but including a ham sandwich rather than a burger. This is a violation of trust.
Moreover, this confuses voters. When a person represents a party or ideology, their views become associated with that party or ideology and their successes/failures taint the ideology. In other words, the nominee redefines how the public views conservatism or liberalism, and their meanings change. Hence, conservatism and Republicanism came to be associated with Nixon’s views in 1968, Reagan’s views in 1980, and Bush Jr.’s views in 2000 -- I exclude Bush Sr. because he claimed to be a moderate. Liberalism, by comparison, came to be associated with FDR, LBJ, Carter, and now Obama. Clinton called himself a moderate.
Prior to LBJ, the majority political view of the nation was FDR-liberalism. This could have continued indefinitely, except LBJ disgraced liberalism. His errors in Vietnam and his monstrous Great Society wiped out the Democratic party in the South and set the stage for a conservative resurgence. Jimmy Carter finished liberalism off by proving that Democrats are reckless spenders, incompetent managers of the economy, and militarily inept and cowardly. This set the stage for Reagan.
Reagan’s success revived conservatism while also redefining it back to its roots -- away from the big-government conservatism of the Nixon years. By the time Reagan left office, conservatism had become the natural ideology of the country and 60% of the public believed it.
This could have lasted for generations, except along came George Bush Jr. He wrapped himself in the conservative label and set about running a big government, civil-liberties-crushing, crony-capitalism, foreign-adventuring administration which so thoroughly discredited conservatism that in 2008, the voters were more radically liberal and more willing to accept liberalism than they had been at any time since LBJ. The ONLY THING THAT SAVED CONSERVATISM was the election of Barack Obama. If Obama hadn’t proven to be such a disaster, conservatism would be dead today. But Obama was a disaster and he caused a massive backlash which took the form of the Tea Party.
The lesson here is simple.
Ideologies get defined by their leaders and they get punished for the sins of their leaders. If a nominee calls himself conservative but acts like a liberal, the public doesn’t blame liberalism for his crimes and failures, it blames conservatism even if that person never once acted like a true conservative. Thus, Bush and Nixon, neither of whom could be called conservatives, discredited conservatism. LBJ/Carter/Obama, each of who were progressives and not liberals, discredited liberalism. And in each case, the only thing to save conservatism/liberalism was pure luck that someone worse came along to discredit the other side. If Moderate Joe Democrat had come along after George Bush Jr., we could well be looking at an America that views liberalism as the natural order of things and sees conservatism as meaning reckless spending, bad economic management, and cronyism.
Moreover, the nominee need not even be as disastrous as a Bush/Obama to harm the ideology. The goal of politics is to effect long term change in the country. That is simply not possible when the person representing your ideology holds views that are inconsistent with the ideology. This muddies the ideological waters and confuses the differences between the parties. In other words, when the Republicans and the Democrats both push the same solutions to the same issues, voters will come to believe there is no difference, and they will either stop voting or they will pick the party that promises them the most loot -- advantage Democrats.
This is what happens when you pick someone who is far outside the acceptable ideological range for the party or who happens to be insane. I’ll leave it up to you to decide if Newt or Santorum or Romney or Paul are so far outside the bounds that you should not support them, but ask yourself: “how bad would it be for the party, for my beliefs, and for the country if conservatism came to be defined in the way ____ sees it?”
Winning elections is important, but you don’t want to sacrifice the future to win a single election.
By the way, there's an interesting poll out which shows that 33% of Republicans want a new candidate to jump into the race. This is down from 68% only two months ago. I think the field is set.
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Monday, November 7, 2011
Can Obama Turn The Tide?
Yesterday was exactly one year from the upcoming 2012 presidential election. With history and the polls running against him, Barack Obama will have to pull off a surprise of epic proportions to save his presidency. Republicans should not let their guard down, however, because even with the odds against him, the beleaguered president could still pull it off.The majority of polls show Obama’s approval ratings in the low 40s. The Democrat-leaning Gallup poll puts him at 43%. Ironically, the only president since the Second World War to hold onto the presidency with favorable ratings that low was Richard Nixon. Nixon was at 49% until the Democrats nominated Jellyfish George McGovern and handed Nixon a landslide victory. At this point in their presidencies, Jimmy Carter had a favorable rating of 32% and Lyndon Johnson was at 42%. Carter went on to lose to Ronald Reagan, and Johnson withdrew from contention as his poll numbers continued to plummet.
On the other hand, at this point in his presidency, Republican George H. W. Bush (Bush the Elder) had a 59% approval rating, and still lost to Democrat Bill Clinton in a three-way race. However unlikely the entrance of a third party candidate may be at this point, anything is possible, and H. Ross Perot proved it could tilt an election. Clinton was a minority president, garnering only 43% of the total votes, but winning in the Electoral College. Woodrow Wilson and Abraham Lincoln were both minority presidents, but won their reelections thanks to third party candidacies.
Obama is in the low 40s, but the old rule of thumb of needing 50% or more was disproved with George W. Bush (Bush the Lesser) in his reelection bid. Bush was at 48% just prior to the election, but still squeaked out a victory.
Enthusiasm for the out-of-power party candidate also plays a role. As low as Obama’s approval ratings are, no Republican currently in the field has generated enough enthusiasm to clearly overcome the advantages of incumbency. Reagan generated considerable excitement among conservatives, moderate Republicans and the “Reagan Democrats.” No current Republican demonstrates that kind of energy. In the case of “generic” Republican candidates, the Republicans tend to match or slightly exceed Obama’s numbers.
But when it comes to actual Republican candidates already vying for the nomination, Obama generally comes out on top, albeit within the margin of error. In state matchups, battleground states are essentially even matches with no clear victor. Ohio and Florida may determine the final election results, and there is no strong leader in Ohio. In Florida polls, only Mitt Romney tied Obama with all the others behind (but some still within the margin of error).
The economy is likely to be the most important factor in the election. And it will come down largely to unemployment numbers and whom the public trusts to bring those numbers down. Economists can play their intellectual games of declaring the recession over by using figures showing a quarter of improvement, which would seemingly help the incumbent. But economists don’t win elections. Voters do, and right now the unemployment rate still hovers officially at 9% or above. On the subject of trust, Obama takes a big hit for having promised much lower figures at this point..
Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Great Depression aside, no Twentieth Century president has won reelection with an unemployment rate above 7.2%. Both Roosevelt and Reagan were charismatic leaders who were able to overcome high unemployment numbers. Reagan entered his second presidential campaign with a 7.2% unemployment figure, but convinced the American people that if they stayed the course, those numbers would improve (as they did, dramatically in his second term). There’s serious doubt that Obama’s fading charisma will be enough to pull off the same thing.
Obama’s Treasury Secretary faces the reality of a long-term unemployment rate of 9% plus, but says “[Obama] could still be reelected with that because he has got a better strategy for helping heal the wounds of this country.” Better than whose? This is another Obama-style dance around the real issue. Obama promised that by the end of his first term, the unemployment rate would be at 6% or lower. Even if there is a downtick in unemployment, it would take more than Obama can deliver to reach those levels.
To go with the empty suit, Obama has made empty promises, and then stood aloof from the fray. Only now has he begun to enter the battle personally. But his newfound executive efforts are not playing well with the general public. He demands that the Congress pass his latest big government jobs bill “right away.” And Congress yawns. Meanwhile, Republicans have offered no less than 27 different plans for creating jobs in the private sector, and have been rebuffed by the Democrats and their president at every turn.
It does not look good for Obama, but counting him out would be a fatal error. One thing that will be absolutely essential to beat him is that once the primaries are over and a candidate has been chosen, Republicans rally enthusiastically around the candidate. Obama still has the ability to raise huge chunks of money (as much as an estimate of a billion dollars). He already has a fifty state election network in place, which has been in campaign mode since the day after his inauguration. No Republican yet has such a sophisticated network. He has an e-mail list of more than nine million supporters. No Republican candidate thus far has shown the ability to maneuver social networks and the internet the way Obama has.
So before you put your feet up on the coffee table and relax, remember that Obama is counting on Republican lethargy and cocksureness about his “inevitable defeat.” It ain’t over ‘til it’s over. With overconfidence, continued in-fighting, and jabs at “RINOs” and moderates, we could all wake up the day after the election and find that grinning community organizer still sitting behind the desk in the Oval Office.
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Thursday, October 27, 2011
Big Trouble In Little Obamatown
Barack Obama made another campaign fundraising trip to San Francisco on Tuesday. But it bore little resemblance to his past royal progresses. He usually has an excited crowd inside his favorite gathering spot--the W Hotel--with seats costing between $2500 and $35,000. He got a few of those people, but many of his regulars were in an angry crowd outside the hotel.Bear with me. I have to comment on Obama's choice of hotels. San Francisco has some of the most beautiful and historic hotels in America. The Fairmont. The Mark Hopkins. The Clift. The Palace. The St. Francis. The Drake. But the nouveau riche Obama and his staff prefer the W. It's South of Market Street (nicknamed SOMA by the wannabe hip crowd), where we old-time San Franciscans still picture skid row and broken-down warehouses. It's in SOMA near MOMA (the Museum of Modern Art). It has a certain ring to it. Millions spent on redevelopment haven't changed our minds, but the yuppies love it.
The hotel advertises itself as "green, hip, stylish, upscale, and forward-looking." It's pure kitsch as far as I'm concerned. The yuppies, who know the price of everything and the value of nothing, simply can't tell the difference between fad and fashion. Much like Obama himself. They can order a $200 steak, but they still put their elbows on the table, hold their utensils like weapons, and talk with their mouths full, sometimes in mangled French. The dining room sounds more like Madison Square Garden during a heavyweight boxing match than an elegant place to dine. And who names a hotel "W?" Is it located between the V and X hotels?
I won't even comment on the three-story tall "pneumatic" sculpture of a reclining lodger which looms over the Disneyland-like entrance. I feel better now, so I'll go on with the actual topic. The cause du jour that turned the usually Obama-friendly crowd hostile is the Keystone XL pipeline. Susie Tompkins Buell, co-founder of Esprit de Corps clothes, stood outside with the crowd and railed against the 1700 mile pipeline from Canada to Texas refineries. It will end the world as we know it. It will destroy the migration and mating habits of the caribou and kill off the remaining polar bear population. Oh, wait. Wrong pipeline. That was the Alaska pipeline.
Tompkins Buell attended the last Obama fundraiser inside the W, at $7500 per plate. But she's out with the folks on the street this time. In 2010, fellow protester David des Jardins, an IT consultant, gave Obama and the Democrats $60,000. This time, he joined hands with Tompkins Buell outside and said "The concern of the donor community is that he really doesn't get the picture of how important this is." They missed the point that importing oil from Canada is a green Obama initiative so we don't destroy the world by drilling for oil ourselves. Brazil was too far, and at least we have a border with Canada.
But they weren't alone in the roiling crowd. The antiwar protesters were there as well. Republicans are giving Obama grudging credit for knocking off a few of the leaders of terror organizations in the Middle East. But this crowd is having none of it. Many were highly-indignant about the lengthy detention of US soldier and alleged traitor Bradley Manning (accused of giving classified documents to WikiLeaks). The Occupy SF gang also took time out from demonstrating in the financial district to come down and take a few shots (metaphorical, of course) at Obama. There was also a CAIR contingent, furious about Obama's perfidious attacks on Muslims.
But the biggest and richest contingent was the anti-Keystone contingent. There was Michael Kieschnick, CEO of CREDO Mobile and Working Assets. That company and its executives have given Obama and progressive, green causes over $60 million. This time he refused to pay the freight for a seat inside at the luncheon, and stood on the street with the rest of the gang. Standing next to him was usual luncheon/dinner attendee Heidi Hess, who contributed $4,600 to Obama's 2008 campaign, but says she doubts she'll contribute this time: "It depends on what kind of president he is. I've been disappointed on a lot of issues." If she doesn't know what kind of president he is now, she never will.
Last, but not least, is the gay/medical marijuana crowd. Led by state Assemblything Tom Ammiano, former SF Supervisor and apostle of Harvey Milk (and former stand-up comic), their portion of the crowd held up protest signs, inhaled, got well, and ate carloads of Doritos. Said Ammiano: "I am part of the loyal opposition to Obama. I want him to rein in the Department of Justice. The Department of Justice and federal prosecutors are acting like thugs by threatening medical marijuana dispensaries." Sweet Jesus!
This is a strong indication that there's trouble in paradise. Obama has been trying to appeal to his base by issuing executive orders for left wing causes, thereby avoiding that pesky Congress and Constitution stuff. Apparently, his efforts have not been entirely successful. These people will never vote for a Republican, but if they sit on their hands on election day, the hardcore votes of the left may be lost to him. Besides, San Francisco has candidates galore from fringe groups like the Peace and Freedom Party and the Green Party. Maybe they'll vote for Cindy Sheehan.
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Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Republican Debate Round Up
In light of last night’s debate, let’s push the Rick Perry 2012 Contender article off until tomorrow morning. The debate is part of the bigger picture of choosing the right candidate and there were several interesting things last night that are absolutely worth pointing out. Observe:● Winner: The Republican Brand. The first thing to leap out about the debate was just how civil the whole debate was and how unified the contenders were. There were no attacks, no finger pointing and no cheap shots, no matter how much CNN’s moderator John King tried to bait them. Instead, all the attacking was directed at Obama and even that was kept on a professional level, i.e. not personal. At several points the candidates even noted how close they all were on the issues, and they agreed that anyone on the stage would make a better president than Obama. And that's actually how they came across -- as a group of serious, smart, hands-on professionals who are more interested in fixing Obama's mess than personal ambition. The party should be much happier with their choices after last night, and frankly, this group blows away the 2008 group.
● Winner: Romney/Pawlenty. If you knew nothing about their policies, I would rate the winner as Romney with Pawlenty as a close second. Romney had a flawless and very strong performance. He came across as smooth, likeable and knowledgeable. He said all the right things and he made me want to vote for him. . . except that I doubt him based on his record.
Pawlenty was not as flawless as Romney and seemed a little less comfortable. However, he came across as having a stronger record than Romney or anyone else, and he seemed to have a better plan for what he wants to achieve. Despite not being as smooth as Romney, he too came across as professional and likeable and made me want to vote for him. Interestingly, the people I watched the debate with really were impressed with Pawlenty and saw him as the winner, though I’m sure Romney will get the headlines.
● Winners: Santorum. Santorum won mainly by not losing. He came across as serious, thoughtful and credible.
● Winners/Loser: Gingrich Newt came across as serious, thoughtful and credible. He also sounded like he was full of ideas -- though in truth, his ideas were just well-disguised slogans. Then he re-opened the Ryan wound by suggesting that "if you can't convince the public it's a good idea, then maybe it's not a good idea." Go home Newt.
● Draw: Michelle Bachmann. Bachmann proved that she belongs on the stage and would make a credible President. I would rate her as a winner for that except for three points:
First, she was the only candidate to stumble over her words, something she did quite a lot. This stuck out by comparison.
Secondly, one of the concerns I’ve had with Bachmann is that I don’t know how much of a coherent political philosophy she has compared to simply answering issues as they come up. This was on display again in her response to the gay marriage issue. When asked if she would try to change gay marriage laws in New Hampshire, she said that she would not interfere in state decisions because she believes in the Tenth Amendment. But then the question was asked differently, i.e. whether she would push for a Constitutional amendment defining marriage as between a man and a woman, and she said yes. These two positions are inconsistent and that continues to leave me wondering if she has an intellectual framework or if she just answers the question of the moment without regard to conflicting prior answers?
Third, she engaged in the most scripted speaking, and it generally didn’t work, especially since much of it felt like self-promotion.
● Loser: Herman Cain. I like Herman Cain and I want to support him. But he has yet to catch any sort of fire. For being a talk radio host, he seems to lack cleverness and a quick wit. He also hurts himself with his honesty because he keeps answering questions about which he lacks sufficient information by promising to look into the issue (as any businessman would). Thus for example, on Afghanistan, he said he needs to meet with the generals first before he can formulate a strategy. This is the most truthful answer anyone gave. But perversely, this comes across as him not being ready for the job because everyone else gave their opinions. I don’t know that audiences will grasp this and won’t punish him for his honesty.
● Loser: Obama. Obama was not only the subject of a couple zingers -- especially one from Ron Paul when he said he couldn’t think of anything Obama had done right. But even more so, this group came across as unified in their criticisms of Obama, right down to the specifics of what he’s done wrong. Their unified responses gave this message a seriousness and believability. And their no-hostility tones will make this a hard group to demonize.
● Ron Paul: Ron Paul did his usual. He gave some absolutely brilliant answers, but he mixed them with some paranoid/conspiratorial stuff. He also came across as a bit strange as his suit didn't fit and he kept getting frantic in his tone. This made him seem somewhat insane. But he is Rasputin-like in his appeal and I kid you not when I say that if Paul were 20% smoother, he would be President in a heartbeat.
● Some Issues: On economics, they all agreed that we need smaller government, lower taxes, and less regulation. Jobs was the number one word all night and free markets was how jobs would be created. The format did not allow for much more depth beyond that, as CNN’s John King started interrupting all answers about 20 seconds in.
The candidates differ on gay marriage. Romney, Santorum, Pawlenty and probably Bachmann want to ban gay marriage. Newt thought this was a state’s rights issue. Paul thought the federal government should get out of the marriage business entirely.
On foreign policy, there was a general sense that it’s time to reduce America’s commitments overseas and to start bringing the troops home, though most said they would confer with the generals. The two exceptions were Paul and Romney. Paul said that he would tell the generals what to do and that is to bring everybody home. Romney went the other way entirely saying he would consider bringing troops home at some point, but so long as anyone wants to kill Americans, he was going to stop them.
Several of them grasped the importance of appointing judges.
● The Question No One Answered: The one question which frustrated me because none of them could answer it came from a “traditional” Republican who asked the candidates to prove that there was still room for him in the party despite the Tea Party influence. They all missed the obvious answer: the Republican Party is a big tent of different groups who share about 80% of their views. Getting that 80% would change the world, and that should be our goal. Anything after that is a matter for each group to convince the rest, i.e. build a consensus. No one group can force its will on the rest. Thus, the idea that there is no room for non-Tea Partiers is just wrong on all counts.
Those are my impressions. The field came across as a lot stronger than they seemed a month ago. Some people come across much better than their records would indicate and some disappointed -- though only slightly. They weren’t exciting, but it gave me hope watching them that this group of people is capable of saving our country from the damage wrought by Obama.
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