Topic: 2012 election

[tomahawk6]

Ron Paul is more like a John Bircher, at least thats who he invited to speak to "his" convention in Minnesota.

[CANADIAN F0RCES]

I've never heard of him so I'll do some research, but is it a bad thing to compare Dr.Paul to Birch or no not really?

[tomahawk6]

These are the principles of the John Birch Society. Sounds pretty good. A conservative organization. In reality they have morphed into a tin foil hat society much like Ron Paul himself.

To bring about less government, more responsibility, and — with God’s help — a better world by providing leadership, education, and organized volunteer action in accordance with moral and Constitutional principles.

Believes and works to expose a semi-secret international cabal whose members sit in the highest places of influence and power worldwide.

[Thucydides]

Given the impressive way the Democrats in the Congress and Administration have been fumbling, add the "culture of corruption meme" (see the post on "Per Diems", above) and non partisan voter anger (T.E.A. parties shun all politicians) and an interesting situation is brewing. While the article may be right in predicting a big turnaround for the GOP, I suspect it would be a case of voting for the "least worst" choice rather than a heartfelt embrace.

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/GOP-thinks-the-unthinkable-Victory-in-2010-8103193-53174842.html

GOP thinks the unthinkable: Victory in 2010
By: Byron York
Chief Political Correspondent
August 14, 2009   

It's a possibility many Republicans speak of only in whispers and Democrats are just now beginning to face. After passionate and contentious fights over health care, the environment, and taxes, could Democrats lose big -- really big -- in next year's elections?

Ask them about it, and many Democrats will point to the continued personal popularity of Barack Obama. But that's not the story. "I think what's going to happen is Obama's going to be fine, and the Democrats in Congress are going to get their asses kicked in 2010," says one Democratic strategist who prefers not to be named. "This is following a curve like the Clinton years: take on really controversial things early, fail, or succeed partially, ask Democrats to take really tough votes, and then lose. A lot of guys are going to get beat, but the president has time to recover."

Most Republican hope focuses on the House of Representatives, but even there they have a huge job ahead. Democrats control 256 seats, and Republicans 178. Forty seats would have to change hands for Republicans to take charge.

On the other hand, 52 seats turned over when the GOP won the House in 1994. And even if Republicans don't get the 40 they need in 2010, they could dramatically narrow the gap between the parties, giving Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the Democratic leadership less room to operate.

The polls are definitely moving in the GOP's direction. Just look at the Real Clear Politics average of the generic ballot question, which asks whether, if the election were held today, you would vote for your local Democratic or Republican candidate for Congress. It's been dominated by Democrats for the last few years -- until now.

In recent weeks, poll after poll has shown Republicans neck-and-neck, or even ahead, of Democrats. Even a National Public Radio survey found Republicans in the lead. "There's no question that you're seeing a shift across virtually all the polling," says one GOP strategist, "with Democrats losing ground."

Republicans were sensing momentum earlier in the summer, but events of the August recess -- specifically, the town hall meetings in which opponents of the Democratic health care reform plan have turned out in force -- have changed their view. "This month has opened our eyes," says one plugged-in House aide. "We're seeing real people who are fired up who weren't engaged before -- the first time we've had a popular movement that could really benefit us electorally."

For the moment, Republicans aren't worried about press reports portraying protesters as rent-a-mobs or ugly extremists. A new Gallup poll asking whether the demonstrations have made people more or less sympathetic to the protesters' point of view found that 34 percent of respondents said they were more sympathetic, while just 21 percent said less sympathetic. (Thirty-six percent said it made no difference.) For Republicans, that's a net plus.

Rep. Tom Price, the Georgia congressman who heads the House Republican Study Committee, points to what he calls the fatal combination of Democratic overreaching and arrogance. "I think that means huge gains in the House, with a very distinct possibility of returning Republicans to the majority," says Price. "The American people like checks and balances, and right now they don't see any checks and balances in Washington."

And what if the Republicans stage a comeback? Some Obama supporters think it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. "The truth is, Democratic presidents do better when there's a Republican Congress," says the Democratic strategist. "If there were a Republican Congress, there would be things that are non-starters."

Things like a public option in health care reform, a massive cap-and-trade energy scheme, and all sorts of tax increases. In other words, proposals that are popular with the Democratic base but unpopular with the independent voters who hold the president's fate in their hands.

A Republican victory might not be so bad for a president with re-election on his mind. With a GOP House, Obama would be tugging the debate toward the left, appealing to independents and keeping his Democratic supporters happy. With liberals like Pelosi and Henry Waxman running the House, Obama will be increasingly forced to fight his own party by tugging the debate toward the right -- not a formula for Democratic unity.

Not long ago, some Republicans were worried about becoming a permanent minority party. Although they may not win in 2010, they feel like they're back in the game.

Byron York, The Examiner's chief political correspondent, can be contacted at byork@washingtonexaminer.com. His column appears on Tuesday and Friday, and his stories and blog posts appears on www.ExaminerPolitics.com ExaminerPolitics.com.

[Thucydides]

More on the rocky shoals that the Obama administration is floundering upon:

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/horseraceblog/2009/08/obama_misreads_his_mandate_1.html

Obama Misread His Mandate

After a rough week for health care reform, Democratic leaders appear to be pulling back on their demand for a public option. It remains to be seen whether liberal Democrats, especially in the House where they are more numerous, will go along with this. But this is still a step in the right direction to get something passed this year.

The public option was an overreach. The White House's erroneous belief that it could get it through the legislature - or at least that it could let four out of five congressional committees push it - was a misinterpretation of last year's election results. It has already made a similar mistake with cap-and-trade, backing a House bill that appears to have no chance of success in the Senate.

Bismarck once commented that politics is the art of the possible. So far, the White House has not exhibited a good understanding of exactly what is possible in this political climate. It has been acting as though the President's election was a major change in the ideological orientation of the country.

A lot of liberals certainly saw it as such. All the strained comparisons of Obama to Franklin Roosevelt were a tipoff that many were talking themselves into the idea that the 2008 election created an opportunity for a substantial, leftward shift in policy. Yet the election of 2008 was not like the 1932 contest. It wasn't like 1952, 1956, 1964, 1972, 1980, 1984, or even 1988, either. Obama's election was narrower than all of these. FDR won 42 of 48 states. Eisenhower won 39, then 41. Johnson won 44 of 50. Nixon won 49. Reagan won 44, then 49. George H.W. Bush won 40. Obama won 28, three fewer than George W. Bush in his narrow 2004 reelection.

This makes a crucial difference when it comes to implementing policy. Our system of government depends not only on how many votes you win, but how broadly distributed those votes are. This prevents one section or faction from railroading another. It is evident in the Electoral College and the House, but above all in the Senate, where 44 senators come from states that voted against Obama last year. That's a consequence of the fact that Obama's election - while historic in many respects, and the largest we have seen in 20 years - was still not as broad-based as many would like to believe. Bully for Obama and the Democrats that they have 60 Senators, but the fact remains that thirteen of them come from McCain states, indicating that the liberals don't get the full run of the show.

For whatever reason, the Obama administration has acted as if those hagiographical comparisons to FDR were apt. It let its liberal allies from the coasts drive the agenda and write the key bills, and it's played straw man semantic games to marginalize the opposition. For all the President's moaning in The Audacity of Hope about how the Bush administration was railroading the minority into accepting far right proposals - he was prepared to let his Northeastern and Pacific Western liberal allies do exactly the same thing: write bills that excite the left, infuriate the right, and scare the center; insist on speedy passage through the Congress; and use budget reconciliation to ram it through in case the expected super majority did not emerge.

This might have flown during FDR's 100 Days. But this is not 1933 and Barack Obama is no Franklin Roosevelt.

Now that his legislative agenda is stalling, we're seeing the predictable critiques about the outdated United States Senate, which is the real source of the bottleneck: the Connecticut Compromise was meant to protect the interests of small states, but not states that are this small. Rhode Island, yes. Wyoming, no! These arguments will be conveniently tabled whenever the Democrats return to minority status, so I won't bother to address their merits. The bigger question is: what did they think was going to happen? It's one thing to bemoan the fundamental unfairness of the Senate; it's another thing to overlook it when you're formulating your legislative program. The map is what it is: that big swath of red that runs through the middle of the country then swings right through the South should have been a tipoff that the stage was not set for coastal governance.

The President should have realized what was possible and what wasn't, and he should have used his substantial influence to push the House toward the kind of centrist compromise the Senate will ultimately require. That's called building a consensus - something he promised he'd do but has not yet made a serious effort at.

[S.M.A.]

Dethroned Miss California Carrie Prejean as the running mate of Sarah Palin if Palin gets the 2012 nomination?

 

http://blogs.abcnews.com/thenote/2009/09/miss-california-wows-conservatives.html

[tomahawk6]

Miss California is not old enough to be Vice President,you have to be at least 40.

[Thucydides]

Actually, you only need to fulfill the following:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President_of_the_United_States#Eligibility

Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 of the Constitution sets the principal qualifications one must meet to be eligible to the office of President. A President must:

    * be a natural born citizen of the United States;[6]
    * be at least thirty-five years old;
    * have been a permanent resident in the United States for at least fourteen years.

Under the Twenty-second Amendment, no eligible person can be elected President more than twice. The Twenty-second Amendment also specifies that if any eligible person who serves as President or Acting President for more than two years of a term for which some other eligible person was elected President, then the former can only be elected President once. Scholars disagree whether anyone no longer eligible to be elected President could be elected Vice President, pursuant to the qualifications set out under the Twelfth Amendment.[7]

The Constitution also disqualifies other eligible persons from the Presidency. Under Article I, Section 3, Clause 7, the Senate has the option, upon conviction, of disqualifying convicted individuals from holding other federal offices, including the Presidency.[8] Also, Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment prohibits any eligible person who, having sworn an oath to support the U.S. Constitution, and later rebelled against the United States, from becoming President, unless each house of the Congress has removed the disqualification by a two-thirds vote.

[S.M.A.]

Such a short trip probably meant she didn't have time to shop at Causeway Bay. 

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/09/22/palin.hongkong/index.html?eref=ib_topstories

Palin speech to Hong Kong investors divides opinions
Story Highlights
Sarah Palin to speak before about 1,000 investors at conference in Hong Kong

Speech by ex-GOP vice president candidate is billed as first outside North America

Palin expected to touch on governance, economics and current events

Bill Clinton, Al Gore have been previous speakers at investors' conference

By Miranda Leitsinger
CNN
HONG KONG, China (CNN) -- Former U.S. Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin will be in Hong Kong this week to address about 1,000 investors from around the globe in what is billed as her first speech outside North America.
Palin, who recently stepped down as Alaska's governor, will make the keynote speech on Wednesday to the 16th CLSA Investors' Forum. She will cover governance, economics and current events in the United States and Asia, said Simone Wheeler, head of communications for CLSA.

"What we look to do is invite our keynote speakers who we feel are opinion makers, who are newsworthy and who we feel our clients -- a very broad international client base -- would be interested in hearing from," Wheeler said Monday, noting that CLSA is a politically neutral, independent brokerage.

"We certainly believe that Sarah Palin will be -- she has been in the news -- we believe that she will continue to be a newsmaker in the future and therefore someone we feel that is definitely of interest to fund managers."
Past keynote speakers include former U.S. President Bill Clinton, former Vice President Al Gore, rocker and activist Bob Geldof, South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu and former U.S. Federal Reserve chief Alan Greenspan, Wheeler added. Would you pay to see Sarah Palin give speech? Soundoff below

The selection of Palin has received a lot of support, but there also are critics, Wheeler said.

"She is a controversial figure, so she attracts polarizing opinions. And we have received feedback from people that question our decision. But I would have to frame that by saying most of that feedback has come from people in the U.S. who are not our clients."

CLSA decided to close the session to reporters, Wheeler said. She also said CLSA does not disclose whether or how much it pays speakers.

Wheeler said Palin would be in Hong Kong only for the speech, adding that it was a short trip.

Palin's political ambitions are unclear, though she has recently attacked U.S. President Barack Obama's health care initiative. During the 2008 presidential campaign, she was lampooned by critics and comedians for suggesting that she had foreign policy experience because she was then governor of Alaska and "you can actually see Russia" from part of the state.

Chinese-language media did not give much coverage to her appearance, and some local residents and visitors were surprised to learn she was in town.
Olivia Chung, a 29-year-old woman who works in a shop that sells dried seafood, said she did not know Palin was in Hong Kong.

"I think most most people know who she is," she said. "I don't think she will have some advice for Hong Kong people ... I think they (people) don't care what she will talk about."

But retired investor, Pauline Rooney of Adelaide, Australia, said she knew Palin would be in Hong Kong while Rooney was vacationing here.

"I thought, 'wow, we might able to see or hear her,' to see if she has got any better sense from her experience," she said, later adding. "I don't know what platform she would be coming from that would have any relevance to anyone in investing."

[E.R. Campbell]

Such a short trip probably meant she didn't have time to shop at Causeway Bay. 

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/09/22/palin.hongkong/index.html?eref=ib_topstories

A bit about the organization that invited her, here.

My guess: she needs money; CLSA pay their "keynote speakers;" she's a celebrity; celebrities "sell" more tickets than do smart people.

[Thucydides]

A look at some possible election memes:

http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/the-2012-presidential-race-on-your-mark-get-set-go/

The 2012 Presidential Race: On Your Mark, Get Set, Go!

Posted By Jennifer Rubin On September 27, 2009 @ 12:02 am In Opinion, Politics, US News | 118 Comments

The Republican 2012 contenders are keeping their powder dry — sort of. The public doesn’t seem anxious to endure another presidential campaign stretching over multiple years. And we learned that spending millions and jumping out to a lead in polls a year or more before the first primary vote is no guarantee of success. Still, there is a fair amount of political throat-clearing and jostling as the contenders vie to stay in the public view and establish their standing as credible challengers to the president.

Last week, Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney appeared at the Foreign Policy Initiative conference [1] to lay out their case against the president’s approach to foreign policy and align themselves with a forward-leaning, free-trading, and American values-based foreign policy vision. Tim Pawlenty [2] has been throwing some shots at Romney over his Massachusetts health care plan (Romney hasn’t bothered to respond) and Mike Huckabee is everywhere — in Israel and on Fox News most visibly. Sarah Palin pushed “death panels” into the public debate, both horrifying her opponents and cementing the attachment of her fans. And in Hong Kong she too talked foreign policy [3] last week, taking issue with the president’s defense cuts and emphasizing the importance of free trade and human rights as part of America’s international agenda.

It is far from clear who will actually jump into the 2012 race, but we are getting a sense of the opening lines of the campaign. There are four of them already in circulation.

First: “It turns out experience matters.” Obama ran with inexperience as a badge of honor and “change” as his message. The result is a mound of debt, a confused and erratic foreign policy, and a campaign-obsessed and governance-challenged president. Maybe it is time, the contenders will argue, for someone who has done something, built something, or run something before getting to the White House. Competency matters and executive leadership skills which go beyond speechifying make all the difference between failure and success.

Second: “The American people were had.” Conservatives early on sniffed out Obama as an ultra-liberal with a big government agenda, but it took an entire campaign and the better part of a year in office for most Americans to figure it out. It may not be an effective ploy to run through the list of broken campaign pledges — candidates are expected by many cynical voters to lie about what they will do. But they aren’t expected to lie about their political identity and overarching vision for governance. Obama isn’t moderate, doesn’t like the free market, and isn’t interested in waging a robust war on Islamic fundamentalists. The 2012 contenders will no doubt argue that he is not simply a far-left liberal, but was a dishonest one.

Third: “It’s Barack Obama’s economy — and debt.” By 2012, if we haven’t hit the second dip in a double-dip recession, we are likely to be seeing some positive GDP. But job growth remains another story. Some estimate we aren’t going to see meaningful reduction in unemployment until 2014 [4]. That’s a problem, as John Judis of the New Republic [5] recently argued by looking at the historic relationship between unemployment and election results:

For both Roosevelt and Reagan, what mattered was not the actual state of the economy, but whether things were getting better or worse. The unemployment rate was still incredibly high when FDR won reelection in 1936, and Reagan didn’t actually lower unemployment between the time he took office and the time he was reelected–he only managed to get it back to where it had been at the start of his term. But, in both 1936 and 1984, the trajectory of unemployment was downward, and that was the key.Moreover, history suggests that it is not enough for the economy to be headed in the right direction; it has to be headed in the right direction in tangible ways that voters can see. Economists pronounced the recession of the early 1990s over in March 1991. But, when unemployment continued to rise through 1991 and most of 1992 and real wages stagnated, the public perceived the economy to still be declining — and it punished George H.W. Bush accordingly.

Meanwhile, the projected deficit is headed to $9 trillion [6] over the next decade according to the Office of Management and Budget and the Congressional Budget Office. If Republican John McCain carried the burden of the Bush economic record in the 2008 campaign, Republicans will certainly try to make sure Obama gets full “credit” for unemployment and the mounds of debt he will have accumulated.

Fourth: “No bleeping way is America in decline.” That’s actually not an invented line — it’s a paraphrase of a real one uttered by Romney at the FPI confab which got him his biggest laugh and round of applause. It’s a sentiment others will certainly pick up on. As Romney explained, Obama and his foreign policy clique seem to be enamored of the idea that America’s day has passed and it can no longer assert its military, economic, and moral might in a “multipolar” world — or something like that. None of the Republican contenders buy into that and each in his or her own way will sound Reagan-esque themes as Palin did in her Hong Kong speech [3]: restore America’s defense budget (which Obama is determined to take down to 3% of GDP), go forward with full funding for missile defense, counter Russian aggression, and defend human rights and democracy against despots. Obama thinks American exceptionalism is cringe-inducing chauvinism; Republicans know it to be the foundation of a successful foreign policy.

Don’t expect any candidate to announce for 2012 until well after the 2010 congressional races are over. But if you listen carefully you can already hear the campaign underway. The lines and the themes really all boil down to a simple idea: it wasn’t the “change” we had in mind. It seems with each passing day more Americans may be susceptible to that message.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Article printed from Pajamas Media: http://pajamasmedia.com

URL to article: http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/the-2012-presidential-race-on-your-mark-get-set-go/

URLs in this post:

[1] Foreign Policy Initiative conference: http://www.foreignpolicyi.org/node/93

[2] Tim Pawlenty: http://voices.washingtonpost.com/thefix/eye-on-2012/pawlenty-vs-romney-on-health-c.html

[3] foreign policy: http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZDQzYjFlYTEwODRlMGNmNWE2ZmMzYWQ0OTk3NzcwM2U=

[4] 2014: http://www.commentarymagazine.com/blogs/index.php/rubin/87951

[5] New Republic: http://www.tnr.com/article/job-one?page=0,1

[6] $9 trillion: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125119686015756517.html

[ModlrMike]

Competency matters and executive leadership skills which go beyond speechifying make all the difference between failure and success.

She could have been talking about Ignatieff here as well!

[Thucydides]

More memes that will dhape the 2010 and 2012 elections:

http://pajamasmedia.com/victordavishanson/change-and-hope/

Change and Hope

Posted By Victor Davis Hanson On October 2, 2009 @ 6:54 pm In Uncategorized | 143 Comments

The Olympic Fiasco

I think most Americans were rooting for Chicago. As I wrote on NRO’s corner, I know I was. But Rio had a really convincing hope and change/ multicultural/new guy on the block case. And consider: given the recent bad windy city publicity (You Tube beatings, state and city corruption, Blagoism, Daley ward mobsterism, rumors of pre-Olympic wheeling and dealing on land angles, administration Chicago hard-ball Rahm Emanuel/David Axelrod politics, etc.), Chicago, Illinois ,was seen abroad as less competitive, far less competitive, than the other cities. I think almost any fair-minded neutral judge could grasp how those realities were going to play out. (Do not forget that Euros love to be gratuitously fickle and so in the first round trashed the reset-button, fawning American who wants to wow them through obsequiousness. And the more I watched Barack/Michelle do the “I grew up in the neighborhood” thing, the more I noticed the Euro-audience wincing (not smart bragging about your childhood Chicago “right hook” to an audience that has just watched horrific fighting in the streets of Chicago).

But even without the self-centered story-telling it was a hard sell anyway.  How can a post-national, I’m sorry Obama, trapped in a sort of we are the world paradox, be seen in nationalistic and near tribal fashion stumping for his own home town?  Again, it did not help that he appeared in campaign mode, tossing out the usual personal, somewhat hokey (and all but narcissistic) stories about himself and his family, that I know don’t resonate, much less make effective arguments, in the less therapeutic world of hardball politics abroad. In short, the community organizer was out organized by the multicultural ascendant Rio.

Almost all of Michelle’s statements were heartfelt and well meant. But they too proved in a global context counterproductive—and almost embarrassing in their now accustomed egocentricity. So the mystery remains, why did Obama think he should risk presidential and national capital in such ambiguous circumstances? Ego? Sloppy prep work? Payback to pals? Hubris?—e.g., I can fly in, do the hope and change cadence, fly out, and leave them hypnotized.

Sarkozy Drew Blood

Sarkozy really hurt Obama internationally, since his sarcastic ‘beam back down Barack’-like statement cut to the bone on the issue of such fluffy talk versus little substance: utopianism sermonizing on non-proliferation is great, but what about the spinning centrifuges? What does the Left do when the French are now to our Right? How can a weaker power sound braver than the stronger? And more principled? Europe is becoming worried, in the “be careful what you wish for” fashion about the Obama era, since the old bad cop/good cop game is up. It is now Europe good cop/US nicer cop. Much irony in this again…

The Challenge Ahead

Here is the problem for our President: the Iranian negotiation is an IED that will blow up in our faces. The theocrats want, need a bomb for a variety of reasons (why would a country that burns natural gas off at the oil well head need “peaceful” nuclear power?). Bombs have been a win/win situation for both Pakistan and North Korea. If Iran wins, we are off to the races—Saudi Arabia next, Egypt? Syria? Venezuela?

I hope the President is up to encouraging madcap drilling in the Alaska, Gulf, California, and the Dakotas to get these new finds into production, since if or when the Israelis strike, all hell is going to let loose in the Gulf. Cannot someone tell Obama that the moral, the peaceful, the only realistic thing now is to get tough with Iran through ostracism, sanctions, boycotts, even, heaven forbid, a blockade if need be, to prevent the far more terrible scenarios that lie ahead?

So What’s Ahead for Us?

Health care reform is stalled. Our Afghan generals are exasperated with the administration’s politicking of the war.  Cap-and-trade as written is unworkable and will implode. Most think we wasted the stimulus, not need more of it. Higher taxes haven’t hit, but they are going to sting his elite supporters. Promises will be broken as all sorts of additional taxes will fall on the middle class to stop the $2 trillion deficits before the Big Inflation comes, and it is coming. Immigration reform will be a disaster since it will be framed as quasi-open borders in political concessions to La Raza identity groups. Yet these are all unpopular issues that would require a President with 60% approval ratings to push them through. But when health care reform crashes, and it will as envisioned, then the rest of the agenda will line up as falling dominoes.

Where is Dick Morris?

Obama needs a Morris to mentor him in the arts of triangulating: distancing himself from Reid and Pelosi (rather than outsourcing to them the 1000 page health care bill); talking tough about deficits; balancing budgets; pro-American themes abroad; symbolic personal responsibility issues; the whole nine yards of Clinton reinvention. But I assume he will go instead the Carter cardigan sweater, pound the table  in “you are not up to my moral standards” sanctimonious mode.

So I’m Worried

I am not a fan of the Obama agenda. But I am don’t want an impotent Commander in Chief abroad for three very dangerous years to come. So I am worried that the U.S. will be crippled with a weak, unpopular executive, as happened to Bush (35% approvals) in 2007-8. Our currency is tanking. Our debts are climbing. Our energy needs are breaking us. Our borrowing is out of control. The country is divided in a 1859/1968 mode. And the world is smiling as Obama, now hesitant and without the old messianic confidence, presides over our accepted inevitable decline. The country needs to buck up and meet these challenges head on, since the world smells blood, whether in Iran, Russia, the Mideast, North Korea, or South America, and in a mere 9 months of the reset button.

We Should Vote for Anyone . . .

Who offers a coherent systematic agenda of reform. What do most want? Not necessarily a Republican or Democrat, or at this 11th hour to be mired in messy issues like gay marriage (I’m opposed to it), but rather fundamental matters of finance, investment, and defense. Here are ten random suggestions; dozens more could be adduced.

1)   Fiscal sanity that leads to federal spending freezes and a balanced budget that in turn soon allows a paying down of the debt.

2)   An oil/nuclear/coal/natural gas rapid development effort (again, to exploit especially new fields in Alaska, California, the Gulf, and North Dakota) to tide us over until alternate energy and new conservation lessen dependence. The alternative is to dream on about “green jobs” while we go broke trying to pay for scarcer imported oil, and lose our autonomy in the next price hike or Mideast crisis, even as we suffer amoral rants from oil-rich unhinged thugs like Ahmadinejad, Chavez, Gaddafi, and Putin.

3)   A new national consensus on security to decide that when and if we go to war, to see the effort through, on the principle that whatever the mistakes we commit in battle are far outweighed by the cost of defeat.

4)   A bad/worse choice gut check reform on entitlements, especially concerning those unsustainable like Social Security and Medicare, that calibrates payouts in terms of incoming capital—whether by raising age eligibilities or curbing automatic cost of living hikes.

5)   Clear, demarcated, and enforced national borders, and an end to illegal immigration through greater enforcement, employer sanction, border fortification, and a change in national attitudes about unlawful entry.

6)   Zero tolerance on government corruption. There is no reason why someone like a Charles Rangel is still the Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee.

7)   Tort reform, including limits on personal injury settlements and loser-pays law suit reform.

   A renewed commitment to national and regional missile defense, on the expectation that the next two decades are going to be terribly dangerous, as lunatic regimes may well threaten to hold an American city or ally as nuclear hostage.

9)   Federal investment in hard infrastructure projects, not redistributive entitlements or Murtha-like earmarks, such as freeways, dams, water projects, electrical grids, ports, rail, etc., with regional needs adjudicated by national bipartisan boards.

10)       A move to lower taxes, preferably by alternatives to the present income tax system, whether by a consumption tax or flat taxes, calibrated to commensurate spending cuts.

Article printed from Works and Days: http://pajamasmedia.com/victordavishanson

URL to article: http://pajamasmedia.com/victordavishanson/change-and-hope/

[S.M.A.]

I wonder what T6 thinks of this?

"Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- A new Rasmussen poll released today is a departure from previous polls showing a close three-way race for the Republican nomination to challenge pro-abortion President Barack Obama in 2012. The survey shows pro-life former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee with a clear lead."

http://www.lifenews.com/nat5573.html

[GAP]

Mike Huckabee is way out there.....I wouldn't put too much credibility to him becoming president....

[tomahawk6]

Romney wont be a very attractive candidate because Romneycare is an expensive flop,a small version of what awaits the nation when Obamacare is enacted. National healthcare is a disaster,the only good thing is that the taxes kick in immediately but the healthcare wont start until 2013,so if the republicans or some third party can win both houses of Congress and the presidency then Obamacare can be killed.

Huckaby would be the candidate of choice for the democrats as they could pound him for being a religious nutcase. After this radical administration I think the public will want a conservative. The republican party is stuck on moderation which is socialism lite IMO. The conservatives will have to do a thorough house cleaning to gain control.

Palin definitely can get people out to a rally but I am not sure that she can win. I like Texas Governor Rick Perry,but 2012 is a long way off. I will say that if the republicans want to elect their own candidate they need to close their primary to everyone but republicans.Otherwise you will have democrats and independents voting which isnt the purpose of the primary.

[GAP]

Unless there is something sublimely in the background the Republicans are not going to do diddly in 2012...Palin or any others are not going to be enough to overcome Obama for a second term....he's a lot of things, stupid is not one of them.

[tomahawk6]

2010 will be an indication of the trouble Obama will be in. Already the democrats are looking to lose 2 special elections, the governorships of Virginia and New Jersey. Healthcrae is a huge hot button issue and the democrats are going to push it through despite what the public wants. There are stiff taxes tied to this measure and the kicker is that healthcare coverage wont start for 4 years after passage. This is just the beginning. If cap and trade kick in energy costs for the end user will increase.Throw in a VAT to make up for the loss in revenue from income tax [people not working] and a jobless recovery [or depression] and you will have alot of voter discontent.The voters vote their pocketbooks and its not looking good for the democrats. Nor has the trillions in spending done anything positive for the economy. The dollar is decreasing in value just look at gold prices [buy gold its the best hedge right now]. Inflation has to kick in with all the money thats being printed and that acts like another tax. Better take off those rose tinted glasses Gap.

[GAP]

2010 will be an indication of the trouble Obama will be in. Already the democrats are looking to lose 2 special elections, the governorships of Virginia and New Jersey. Healthcrae is a huge hot button issue and the democrats are going to push it through despite what the public wants. There are stiff taxes tied to this measure and the kicker is that healthcare coverage wont start for 4 years after passage. This is just the beginning. If cap and trade kick in energy costs for the end user will increase.Throw in a VAT to make up for the loss in revenue from income tax [people not working] and a jobless recovery [or depression] and you will have alot of voter discontent.The voters vote their pocketbooks and its not looking good for the democrats. Nor has the trillions in spending done anything positive for the economy. The dollar is decreasing in value just look at gold prices [buy gold its the best hedge right now]. Inflation has to kick in with all the money thats being printed and that acts like another tax. Better take off those rose tinted glasses Gap.

Actually I'm in perfect agreement with your points, I just can't for the life of me see any credible Republican accomplishing much in 2012 to overcome Obamamania (and contrary to talking points, it's alive and well). The Republicans are going to need a personality that can divert the voters' attention....right now there's nobody...

[Kirkhill]

Is Obamamaia really alive and well?  Or is the disconnect between the antipathy to his policies and the apparent lack of antipathy to the man due to the reluctance of "liberal-minded" individuals to admit to pollsters that they don't really like the man for fear of being thought racist?

I wouldn't want to be betting the farm on Obama polls these days.

A Fox poll (cue the chuckling) asked if people would vote for Obama again if they had a do-over on last year's elections.  43% would vote for Obama again.

[GAP]

People voted for their dream....they won't let go easily...

[Kirkhill]

People voted for their dream....they won't let go easily...

That's an absolute truth....and a source of worry.  If Obama's core support ends up lacking enough moderate support to take the next election, what will be their reaction?

As you say, they voted their dream and they won't let go easily....but the key to a successful democracy is a population that accepts the peaceful transition from "us" to "them".

On the other hand, I do agree with you regarding the Republicans.  There's nobody jumping out of the woodwork yet and the "Republicans" themselves are still having difficulty figuring out what their message should be.  Huckabee, Romney and Palin would all be bad choices.

For my money I think they might do well with someone that DOESN"T have a personality, DOESN'T have a plan, but just promises Good Governance.... but maybe that's the Canadian in me.

[S.M.A.]

"A collection of essays about former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, titled Going Rouge, will be released the same day as Palin's own much-awaited book, Going Rogue.

The essays, collected by The Nation senior editors Richard Kim and Betsy Reed and written by Max Blumenthal, Katha Pollitt, Matt Taibbi and several others, will examine "the nightmarish prospect of her continuing to dominate the nation's political scene." "

Imagine the confusion when her fans buy the wrong book. 

[tomahawk6]

I enjoy reading Sowell's articles as they are well thought out and thought provoking.

Dismantling America
By Thomas Sowell

Just one year ago, would you have believed that an unelected government official, not even a Cabinet member confirmed by the Senate but simply one of the many "czars" appointed by the President, could arbitrarily cut the pay of executives in private businesses by 50 percent or 90 percent?

Did you think that another "czar" would be talking about restricting talk radio? That there would be plans afloat to subsidize newspapers-- that is, to create a situation where some newspapers' survival would depend on the government liking what they publish?

Did you imagine that anyone would even be talking about having a panel of so-called "experts" deciding who could and could not get life-saving medical treatments?

Scary as that is from a medical standpoint, it is also chilling from the standpoint of freedom. If you have a mother who needs a heart operation or a child with some dire medical condition, how free would you feel to speak out against an administration that has the power to make life and death decisions about your loved ones?

Does any of this sound like America?

How about a federal agency giving school children material to enlist them on the side of the president? Merely being assigned to sing his praises in class is apparently not enough.

How much of America would be left if the federal government continued on this path? President Obama has already floated the idea of a national police force, something we have done without for more than two centuries.

We already have local police forces all across the country and military forces for national defense, as well as the FBI for federal crimes and the National Guard for local emergencies. What would be the role of a national police force created by Barack Obama, with all its leaders appointed by him? It would seem more like the brown shirts of dictators than like anything American.

How far the President will go depends of course on how much resistance he meets. But the direction in which he is trying to go tells us more than all his rhetoric or media spin.

Barack Obama has not only said that he is out to "change the United States of America," the people he has been associated with for years have expressed in words and deeds their hostility to the values, the principles and the people of this country.

Jeremiah Wright said it with words: "God damn America!" Bill Ayers said it with bombs that he planted. Community activist goons have said it with their contempt for the rights of other people.

Among the people appointed as czars by President Obama have been people who have praised enemy dictators like Mao, who have seen the public schools as places to promote sexual practices contrary to the values of most Americans, to a captive audience of children.

Those who say that the Obama administration should have investigated those people more thoroughly before appointing them are missing the point completely. Why should we assume that Barack Obama didn't know what such people were like, when he has been associating with precisely these kinds of people for decades before he reached the White House?

Nothing is more consistent with his lifelong patterns than putting such people in government-- people who reject American values, resent Americans in general and successful Americans in particular, as well as resenting America's influence in the world.

Any miscalculation on his part would be in not thinking that others would discover what these stealth appointees were like. Had it not been for the Fox News Channel, these stealth appointees might have remained unexposed for what they are. Fox News is now high on the administration's enemies list.

Nothing so epitomizes President Obama's own contempt for American values and traditions like trying to ram two bills through Congress in his first year-- each bill more than a thousand pages long-- too fast for either of them to be read, much less discussed. That he succeeded only the first time says that some people are starting to wake up. Whether enough people will wake up in time to keep America from being dismantled, piece by piece, is another question-- and the biggest question for this generation.

[Thucydides]

The Democrats will have to sweep all 57 states to overcome this movement!

http://www.nowhampshire.com/2009/11/20/bosse-enters-race-for-gop-nod-in-new-hampshire%E2%80%99s-satirical-00th-district/

Bosse enters race for GOP nod in New Hampshire’s satirical 00th district

November 20, 2009 by Patrick 
Filed under News & Politics

23 Comments

Republican activist and free market think-tanker Grant Bosse formally declared his candidacy today in New Hampshire’s 00th Congressional District after news that the Obama administration has attributed a majority of the state’s stimulus jobs to that non-existent district.

New Hampshire has only two congressional districts, neither of which are numbered “00.”

“Even a fake district needs real leadership,” said Bosse while appearing on WGIR’s Charlie Sherman show on Friday morning.

“The people overseeing the stimulus actually found more fake congressional districts than there are real congressional districts. So if we run in all 440 phantom congressional seats we can take over Congress,” Bosse said as the radio host chuckled along.

“I can’t do this alone,” Bosse said at his press conference. “This needs to be a nationwide effort. We need to find candidates as fantastic and unbelievable as the stimulus numbers the Obama administration has given us.”

Bosse really was a candidate for Congress during the 2008 Republican primary in the real district of NH-02, which covers the Western part of the state. He lost to Jennifer Horn, who sources tell NowHampshire.com will endorsed Bosse’s fake candidacy today.

Former New Hampshire Attorney General and Republican U.S. Senate hopeful Kelly Ayotte endosed Bosse’s fake candidacy.

“The massive spending in Washington that Paul Hodes continues to support with the 787 billion dollar ’stimulus’ and now the trillion dollar government takeover of health care clearly needs to be reined in by someone who understands the importance of fiscal prudence. There is currently an absurd lack of transparency and accountability for Granite Staters’ hard earned tax dollars,” said Brooks Kochvar, campaign manager for former Attorney General Kelly Ayotte, in the campaign’s endorsement announcement.

“If Paul Hodes and the professional politicians in Washington would read the legislation before they vote for it, both the federal budget and New Hampshire’s families’ budgets would be better off.”

Bossee will talk about his fake candidacy on Fox News Channel with Neal Cavuto on Friday afternoon.

Bosse’s fake candidacy to win a fake congressional district is a protest of sorts. This week several news reports pointed out that President Barack Obama’s Recovery.gov, the site developed by the White House to provide “transparent” information about the stimulus, is riddled with errors, including 700 congressional districts that don’t actually exist.

Many conservatives are furious that the federal government has apparently lost track of where a significant portion of the $787 billion stimulus money has gone.

While serious in intent, I think he has found the fatal weakness of the O-Bots, Dems and Progressives in general: they have no sense of humor and have no defense against people laughing at them.....