Quote of the Day
Any person capable of angering you becomes your master; he can anger you only when you permit yourself to be disturbed by him.
Epictetus
Presidential Polls and the 2012 Election:
Some Comments
On paper, Obama should be politically dead. Just over 14 months from the Presidential election, 9.1% unemployment, anemic GDP growth and the worst jobless recovery we've seen in decades with some 20 million workers unemployed or underemployed, and still underwater in terms of jobs over the past 2.5 years, we have added over $4T to reach the size of our GDP--in essence we're running up against our credit limit.
Yet what are we seeing in the polls? Gallup has Obama beating most of his competitors, even with a job approval rating at below 40%. One of the most liberal senators in Congress, Sherrod Brown, in a state (Ohio) which had a near sweep of GOP candidates, is beating his opposition in the polls by 15 points.The Republicans lost a second "safe GOP" Congressional seat in New York (the Craigslist scandal) based on a simplistic strategy of bashing Medicare reform. In a more remarkable vote, a recent Gallup poll showed a high single-digit preference for the Dems to regain control of Congress. We also see the defending US Senator in Michigan, which also saw some strong GOP results last fall, with a decisive lead, beating the opposition. More telling: of the Wisconsin state senator recalls, the Democrats lost 0 of 3 races while the GOP lost 2 of 6. Yes, I'm aware of the money and resources that highly-motivated labor unions are putting into the races, and to an extent, we can expect what I personally think is a dead cat bounce from the 2010 elections.
What the GOP is failing to adequately address is that the Democrats realize that the general public has unrealistic expectations of what the GOP can deliver after the election, controlling only a third of the political landscape: two-thirds of the Senate was not up for grabs, and Obama's name was not on the ballot. Second, the general public does not get uncertainty at the business level, but they get the fact that federal budget cuts introduce uncertainty at the government services level. Most people think in very local terms: yes, the government is spending too much money--on other districts, states, etc.; yes, other liberal politicians are bad, but not my liberal Congressman. That's why Democrats run deliberately misleading campaigns and, like Obama, deliberately lie that the Republicans are trying to eliminate core government activities, particularly operational activities like, say, food inspection, clean water and air safety. The GOP has a tougher job explaining indirect costs like regulation, redundant operations, government personnel and other costs out of step with those in the private sector, and top-heavy bureaucracies.
The GOP has done a very poor job explaining to the American people how unsustainable Democratic policies have been and how the Democrats are stonewalling deficit reduction every step of the way, unless they see partisan benefit (e.g., the 20% of the budget that goes to national defense). They somehow have allowed the Democrats to define them as ideological protectors of the super-wealthy and have managed to allow the preposterous notion to go unchallenged that the Tea Party has disproportionate sway in the House where ideological Congressmen like Ron Paul and Michele Bachmann are the exceptions, not the rule. Somehow the GOP has not changed the conversation from the Democrats' standard bag of tricks to defer pain into the future, not the present--kick the can down the road is the norm, not the exception. The GOP fails to refute that 50% of workers whom don't pay a penny towards government operations (but disproportionately receive the benefits of government programs) and underpay the real costs towards future entitlements have the moral authority to have other people pay their own share of the bills.
In my view, the GOP needs to simplify its message: we all have to pay our fair share; the government has to have, now, not later, an across-the-board 8% spending cut; we need to simplify our tax revenue system (including eliminating itemized deductions), and we need to balance our revenue system to eliminate the bias against savings and investment; we need globally competitive tax rates; we need for the national conversation to go beyond balancing deficits and pay down the national debt.
The conservatives note that a few candidates in recent polls are polling within 3 points or so. They don't seem to recall last year when many GOP candidates--even Palin--were running competitively with Obama.
Let's talk facts of life. If you are not now competitive Obama at a 38% approval rating, you need to get out of the way. In cleaning house: Bachmann, Palin (who hasn't formerly run yet but whose PAC is running campaign-style videos), Gingrich, Santorum, and Cain are running redundant campaigns, not unlike the original overcrowded Democratic field in 2008. I think that the GOP should focus on 3 principal alternatives.
Mitt Romney brings business and government administrative experience to the table; unlike Obama, his eyes don't glaze over when delving into detailed financial reports. Like Obama, Romney has a Harvard law degree; unlike Obama who lacks substantive business experience and has the most anti-business administration in recent American history, Romney as the head of Bain Capital dealt with a portfolio of businesses in differing industries, dealing with start-ups and turnarounds (in fact, he turned around the parent company, Bain, itself). Romney, unlike Obama, knows how to deal in good faith with divided government, having served as governor of perhaps the bluest state, Massachusetts, with a Democratic legislature.
Rick Perry has a compelling story as the longest-serving governor in Texas history; he has worked to create a business-friendly environment by pushing necessary legal reforms (medical malpractice tort reform, frivolous lawsuit reform, etc.), all without a state income tax, attracting corporate and worker migrations resulting in four new Congressional seats in the recent census and the best job growth over all states during his decade-plus as governor; Perry has also proven credentials in dealing with budgets as a fiscal conservative. The fact that Democrats are already resorting to snarky political attacks over past controversial references to secession and trying to damn with faint praise his job growth record (as against Obama's record of millions in the hole, not to mention not a single whatsoever over the past 3 years to accommodate "real" labor force growth) points out the Democrats' concern about Perry's chances. Not to mention the fact that Perry, like me, is a former Democrat and can point out the vacuousness that is today's Democratic Party.
Finally, we have the prickly but philosophically consistent Ron Paul, whom embodies the fulfillment of the Tea Party in principle. He's going to argue that there's only a nuanced difference between Democratic and GOP establishment in terms of Big Government. He's dead wrong there; there never would have been trillion dollar deficits, ObamaCare, Dodd N. Frankenstein or an anti-business regime under a McCain Administration. I think the biggest issue for Romney or Perry is getting a strong hand to deal with issues, which means the American people electing the Anti-111th Congress, which can steamroll the unsustainable disastrous policies of this reckless Obama Administration, gambling with the very future of the United States. As long as we have gullible American citizens voting for anachronisms like Barbara Boxer, Harry Reid, Maxine Waters, Nancy Pelosi, John Kerry, Barack Obama and the other Big Government whores, we have to work with the hand we've been dealt. But we need to deal with these intellectually vacuous, pretentious, pandering demagogues on OUR terms, not allow them to define us.
Authentic Americans, faithful to the Founding Fathers' principles, must not fail to understand the lessons of how delusional Nevada residents reelected Harry Reid, in a state with 14% unemployment. Is it any wonder that political hacks like David Axelrod, Bill Burton, and Robert Gibbs will sell out future American generations to reelect the worst President in American history--why they actually think a grossly incompetent, overrated motivational speaker, who still doesn't understand the meaning of the word 'leader' after looking it up in the dictionary, can be reelected President despite one of the lowest labor participation rates in decades? I mean, if you put lipstick on a government pig like Harry Reid, why can't you do the same with Barack Obama? This is not the time for authentic Americans to believe fringe candidates like Michele Bachmann or Ron Paul actually stand a change against a billion-dollar campaign fund and a campaign that will resort to any desperate tactic to reelect Obama. Keep in mind been there, done that: we've seen this just over the past decade--Democrats Gray Davis (CA) and Rod Blagojevich (IL) were ultimately turned out of office in heavily Democratic states after running well-financed, highly negative campaigns against more competent, worthy GOP challengers.
We can't afford to indulge in another Sharron Angle, Christine O'Donnell. Ron Paul doesn't have executive experience and he hasn't been able to build a coalition in support of his libertarian principles, other than a highly-visible, laudable attempt to audit the Fed.
We know next year's election will be negative and personal against next year's GOP nominee; we can anticipate the Obama reelection. The very first thing the GOP can do is to demonstrate the hypocrisy and broken promises of Obama USING HIS OWN WORDS. One good start in this direction was when he talked about Bush running up the national debt on a Chinese credit card, while the cumulative Obama incremental debt alone is more than three times what we owe China. But DO NOT RUN another Bill Ayers/Rev. Wright campaign again. Remember, voters turned out GHW Bush in large part because of his broken promise on taxes. If you use that political mold, you want to undermine the trustworthiness of Obama--the fact that he'll do or say anything to get elected, but we already know his anemic results, and we see no hope of any improvements his doing doing the same old same old we've seen these past 3 years.
I will simply point out that the GOP cannot afford to counter a charismatic, speech-making, thin-resume incumbent like Obama with a charismatic, speech-making, thin-resume challenger like Sarah Palin or Michele Bachman. You have to have a good story of administrative competence, accomplishments and experience, and I submit--and this is what other conservative commentators like Michelle Malkin, Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, and others will not point out--we need overall a Reaganesque-style (NOTE: not a Reagan-imitation) positive campaign: more of what I like to say "it can be morning once again in America". We don't need to hard-sell the American people on Obama's ineffectiveness in dealing with job #1, the economy, the main reason he was elected. He's thrown every progressive economist he can at the problem and nothing sticks and all he does is whine that the vastly outnumbered GOP kept him doing his job. As if he'll do any better with a more evenly matched GOP! Get a clue, America!
Musical Interlude: My Favorite Groups
Bread, "Diary"
