Through all the world there goes one long cry from the heart of the artist: Give me leave to do my utmost.
Isak Dineson
You Read it Here First...
In yesterday's post I wrote:
Let me give a hint: Michael Bloomberg, the Independent Mayor of New York City, would have instant credibility as a 3-term mayor of America's largest city and as a successful businessman. If I was a betting man and saw the Tea Party Express, say, force an ideologically right GOP ticket in 2012, I think Bloomberg takes a shot as a fiscal conservative, socially moderate third way.There's an interesting article in today Los Angeles Times:
In Washington, a nonprofit group called No Labels is forming with the goal of bringing Republicans and Democrats together; echoing tea party rhetoric, it terms itself a "citizens movement" and decries "the tyranny of hyperpartisanship."
Bloomberg began to campaign on behalf of others after tea party activist Christine O'Donnell beat moderate Republican Rep. Michael N. Castle, a Bloomberg favorite, in Delaware's Republican Senate primary this month.James Oliphant notes that Bloomberg is supporting former "RINO" (Republican in Name Only, i.e., moderate) Lincoln Chafee, running an independent bid for governor from Rhode Island, Republican Senate hopeful Mark Kirk (R-IL) and gubernatorial hopeful Meg Whitman (R-CA), and (unfortunately) Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and Colorado appointee Michael Bennett (D-CO). I firmly disagree with the last two choices; I certainly don't see Harry Reid, the father of the Cornhusker Kickback, Gator-Aid, and the Louisiana Purchase during the infamous health care debacle, the man whom repeatedly has refused to allow Republicans more amendments for floor votes, as a moderate. I think it really has more to do with Tea Party-backed Sharron Angle and Ken Buck sniping out more pragmatic, electable mainstream Republicans, Sue Lowden and Jane Norton. I have had mixed feelings about the Tea Party candidates; Marco Rubio and Joe Miller are legitimate political candidates, and Rand Paul has managed to bounce back from an unbelievably stupid gaffe by, of all things, debating political philosophy underlying the 1964 Civil Rights Act. When we are looking at trillion dollar deficits as far as the eye can see, why would Rand Paul want to reopen debate on a nearly 50-year-old law? All it does is feed into Democratic talking points, desperately trying to energize their base after throwing all the best progressive ideas at the Great Recession and coming up with little to show for it....
The media conservatives (especially Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, and Sean Hannity) are ecstatic at the sniping down of their much-despised "RINO's"; they did literally everything in their power to snipe McCain's resurgent candidacy in the winter of 2007-2008. However, distrust of the status quo is not ideologically pure; the Democrats and independents who participated in Tea Party events were not looking for people like Sharron Angle and Christine O'Donnell. The fact that GOP and Democrats both have high negatives in the polls should be a clue; the voters are tired of how parties are ignoring their will (Obama and the Democrats really lost middle America when they went for broke on the health care bill after Scott Brown was elected as the 41st vote last January). They want the parties to come together to resolve serious problems; I'm sure that everyone is willing to pay his fair share of the burden, even if it means modest tax increases, provided that Congress shows it's serious about getting its fiscal house in order. They understand that an even worse bubble than the stock market and housing bubble is the Big Government bubble; the related national debt bubble and insolvency of the twin entitlements become worse each time one Congress punts serious problems to the next.
I'm very troubled by the Tea Party Express, although I think that the GOP leadership will have no choice but to protect the integrity of its nomination processes if fringe candidates like Sharron Angle and Christine O'Donnell lose what were all but guaranteed GOP turnover seats. (The latest polls show Reid beginning to pull away from Angle, and O'Donnell is at least 15 points behind.)
Let's not forget the big prize--which is the GOP Presidential nomination in 2012. The last thing we need is, say, the Tea Party Express trying to take out Mitt Romney as a Massachusetts RINO and force through the nomination of a fringe candidate like Sarah Palin whom has ZERO chance against Obama. (Oh, I've seen the polls showing even Sarah Palin pulling up with Obama as his recent low point in the polls. But these polls are meaningless, only serving as a proxy protest vote against Obama, not for Palin. Don't forget, during the 1981-82 recession following Volcker's 21% interest rate, Reagan's popularity was down, but he recovered in time to win a landslide against Mondale. There is no doubt that Palin has high popularity with the base, although I'm among the 21% or so of conservatives whom unconditionally reject her under any circumstances. Palin's problem has more to do with independents and moderates, and I don't see her overcoming net unfavorable ratings with those groups.)
Sunday Talk Soup
I don't know if Comcast, which is in the process of acquiring NBC from GE, is going to do anything to reverse the liberal mainstream orientation of the news division--wouldn't it be interesting to see a more balanced news perspective? Oh, I'm sure NBC News and Brian Williams are in a state of denial; it often manifests itself in more subtle ways, like on this morning's Meet the Press.
If there is anything else worse than my having to see and hear a progressive Kool-Aid drinking Maryland progressive Democrat in the local media, it's having to see one on national television. Congressman Chris Van Hollen was on this morning. It like watching Robert Gibbs going to the two-minute offense with no timeouts late in the ballgame: how many talking points can you fit in before David Gregory's hair needs to be brushed again? David Gregory sat silently by, no doubt in his mind more interested in formulating another gotcha question for a token GOP appearance by Mike Pence (R-IN), recently winning a straw Presidential poll at a values conference, the patently absurdity of blaming the free enterprise system for the economic tsunami, not the government-sponsored duopoly Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac for buying and repackaging gimmick mortgage notes, not the Federal Reserve, auditors, credit raters, the SEC, state banking regulators, etc. No, it was a conspiracy headed by that wily George W. Bush; never the mind that pesky fact that he backed GSE reform at the beginning of his second term. We need a new consumer protection agency because obviously all these people buying houses with virtually no savings to put down on a house at the top of the housing bubble really thought they were buying big-screen TV's... No, it wasn't the failure (shudder) of Big Government in aiding and abetting an unsustainable housing bubble. In Van Hollen's world view, the failure of the multiple levels of regulators was simply a sign from God to bring more incompetent, irresponsible, unaccountable government bureaucrats into the picture.
I will make one point (because I'm tired of hearing Obama, Van Hollen, name-your-local-Democrat repeating the same talking point ad nauseam: only a small percentage of small business owners will be adversely be affected by the Obama tax hike on job creators): first, it is true not every small business owner pulls in a quarter of a million dollars per year. There are a number of differences in terms of how businesses are structured, but some economists have predicted a disparate impact among small business owners: the increased tax bite could result in an approximate 18% drop in relevant hiring. But it goes beyond this point: how can petty demagogues like Van Hollen have the audacity to demand the 2% whom pay more in taxes than the bottom 50% put together kick in even more than 35 cents out of every dollar they earn (never mind local and state taxes)? I've never been in the top 2% (and seriously doubt I ever will be), but the issue to me is a tax system already fraught with moral hazard that penalizes success and rewards lack of initiative.
Van Hollen also dismissed the GOP's stand on canceling TARP as little more than a gimmick, that it was being sunset anyway. There are some substantive issues on that goal which dealt with control over those funds and the fact that many banks were politically extorted to participate in the program. To most of us conservatives, the federal intervention in the private sector represented by the TARP was intrinsically troubling, at minimum setting a bad precedent. Keep in mind, contrary to Obama and his fellow progressives' attempts to allege otherwise, the Republicans and conservatives never believed in bailing out the banks, AIG, the GSE's or the auto companies taking on catastrophic business risk. The only thing is that we wanted the process, from a federal perspective, to be treated consistently.
The least David Gregory could do is keep liberals honest by asking simple questions like, "Chris, this has been the weakest recovery to a recession on record. What more can the House Democrats do than you've already done, and if you have any ideas, why didn't you do it from the jump in last year's stimulus bill? You guys have been in power for 4 years, have created ever-increasing deficit records and we have little to show for it; why should voters this fall rehire the Democrats?"
No, if you've watched David Gregory enough, he gets this little smirk on his face in anticipation of his gotcha question to name-your-Republican-lawmaker. Remember when he pinned a concession of the libertarian former Fed Reserve chief Greenspan as to whether a tax cut pays for itself (i.e., the economic effect exceeds the arithmetic effect)? Of course, he didn't ask Greenspan whether Greenspan thought it was wise to raise taxes in a weak economy or whether Greenspan thought the three-quarters of the tax cuts going to the middle class pay for themselves...
This time David Gregory had a different line of attack. I note in passing that Van Hollen wasn't really pressed on his party's credibility on spending restraint with consecutive $1.4T deficits under a Democratic President, but David Gregory really wanted to pursue the thesis that Republicans are hypocrites when it comes to spending and in essence dared the steal-candy-from-a-baby, force-grandma-to-eat-cat-food nefarious Republican to come clean with his plans to balance the budget on the backs of teachers, policemen and senior citizens. I thought I was back in grade school, and David Gregory was on the playground telling Mike Pence, "I double dog dare you to name a cut," knowing that if and when the GOP gets more specific before the election, special interest groups with their mouths on a federal teat will screech and vow to bring out the full force of their wrath on election day. Pence knew better than to step in that trap, but he noted that the GOP didn't forward a single earmark this year, and the Republicans are already on the record as a first step of reducing spending to pre-2008 levels.
Maybe some day David Gregory will learn how to ask questions of the progressive majority to at least the same level of scrutiny he gives to 41 GOP senators and under 180 House seats: Where have the Democrats been in terms of fiscal responsibility, cost-cutting and austerity, while even more progressive European legislatures have been forced to confront the same and take action?
Political Humor
"The Republicans announced their Pledge to America, and here's what it is: Less taxes, smaller government and act now and they'll throw in the Dean Martin roast of Frank Sinatra." –David Letterman
[The Democrats announced their platform, and here's what it is: More free lunches, pushing-on-a-string, spread-some-wealth-around, political patronage giveaways, progressive Democratic excuses and finger-pointing, higher taxes for job creators and investors, Stimulus v. 2.0, more government meddling in the private sector and ineffective, job-killing regulations and reporting requirements, fiscal discipline of only trillion dollar deficits going forward, more extensive crony capitalism, and fewer Republicans so they can finish their job of remaking the American economy into the low-growth, high-unemployment European model.
Act now, and they'll throw a 4-DVD set of President Obama's speeches, addresses, PR releases, and stump speeches, along with an index card of his accomplishments, vintage Obama-Biden "hope and change" bumper stickers, and you'll be automatically enrolled as a contributor to the Campaign to Re-elect President Obama. You'll also get free "family filter" software which will block the harmful Internet browsing of conservative blogs and websites. Of course, the filter won't discriminate against gay porn sites.]
An original:
- Chris Coons is irked that Majority Leader Harry Reid is calling him his "pet". But Harry was really referring to his new pet rat. The Christine O'Donnell campaign promptly responded by saying she has renamed her black cat "Chris Coons". The cat's fur is thin on top.
Musical Interlude: The American Songbook Series
Peggy Lee (vocals), "On the Sunny Side of the Street"
