Principle -- particularly moral principle -- can never be a weathervane, spinning around this way and that with the shifting winds of expediency. Moral principle is a compass forever fixed and forever true.
Edward R. Lyman
Conservatives Bent On Losing in 2012?
Some miscellaneous observations:
- The Key Criteria to Challenging Obama in 2012 Will Be: (1) Electability; (2) Business/Economic Knowledge and Experience; (3) Leadership; (4) Track Record. Many other conservatives might agree with this, but what am I not listing here? Policy. We have had an interesting wave of policy wonk ideas, i.e., Cain's 9-9-9, Perry's flat tax, and Gingrich's 21st century contract with America (including a 12.5% corporate tax, no capital gains, immediate expensing of capital equipment purchasing). Only one problem: whatever policy the new President has, he will, among other things, face almost certainly more than 41 Democratic senators. (I do expect that control of the Senate will flip and in theory we could get a filibuster-proof majority, but to give example, incumbent Democrat senators in at least 3 states which Obama may not be able to hold onto (Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Florida) so far appear to be in a strong competitive position. Here's the point: the progressive Democrats badly wanted a public option built into ObamaCare, and Obama initially opposed a national health insurance mandate. But there were just enough Dems in purple or red states to make a difference. I realize a lot of my fellow conservatives loathe Romney's health care reform measure, but he crafted his approach explicitly wanting to head off a HillaryCare program and transformed a free care hospital reimbursement program to a subsidized market-driven approach; his approach even got the support of liberal lion Ted Kennedy. It's going to take a very creative executive able to work across the aisle to avoid the kind of hyper-political, ideological stalemate we have today. Of the last 6 matchups between Obama and Romney in RCP-tracked polls, Romney has narrowly won 2 and tied 2. In contrast, Cain has lost all of his recent RCP-tracked polls by an average of 7 points. Perry loses by an average of 9 points. Gingrich loses by 14 points. Now if we assume that the whole point of the GOP race is to produce a candidate to beat Obama, who has been the most consistent, proven debater to face Obama in the general election campaign next fall? Who has won a statewide election in a blue or purple state, when we know the race will come down to whom wins the battleground states? Who is the only candidate from either party whom has a track record in management in both the private sector and public sector?
- The Strange Campaign of Herman Cain. If someone had asked me when these sexual harassment allegations came forward with Cain, what was the LAST thing in the world I wanted him to do--it would have been to bring up the memory of Anita Hill, a former Thomas subordinate, and the Clarence Thomas SCOTUS hearings. I lived in Illinois for most of the 1990's, and moderate Democrat Alan Dixon lost his renomination battle to Carol Moseley Braun primarily due to his pro-Thomas confirmation vote. I have mentioned in this blog how the mistreatment of Robert Bork was the final straw that led me to permanently break with the Democratic Party (I first migrated from a liberal pro-life Democrat with a strong streak of fiscal conservatism to a conservative Democrat as I started work on my MBA, not due to any political influence of courses or faculty members. In fact, I felt that most of the same pervasive liberal groupthink also extended to business schools; I mentioned several months back that when I was on the MBA Admissions committee at UWM, the business school dean had already granted a scholarship to a minority applicant whom didn't come close to the benchmarks for either key criterion (GPA and GMAT); the committee chair argued it would politically embarrass the dean to have granted a scholarship to someone whom didn't qualify for admission and two hypocritical female junior faculty joined with him (meaning that we had regularly refused to admit students with better credentials). (We typically got oddball cases to review, like this PhD from the University of British Columbia whom was apparently so insulted the school demanded him to take the GMAT, he just went through the motions and got one of the lowest scores I've ever seen on the exam.) In any event, I don't know what Cain campaign advisers are thinking--it seemed like they were afraid it would look like he was trying to hide something about the sexual harassment cases, so they wanted the other party to talk. And now raising the Clarence Thomas thing: just by associating himself with Clarence Thomas seems to suggest that Cain has some Anita Hill in his background. Whether or not the Hill allegations were true, the fact is that GOP candidates have underperformed when it comes to a majority of women voters, and Barack Obama couldn't have written a better script for Herman Cain to read. And the number of gaffes he's performing (e.g., questioning the nuclear capabilities of China)... [I can already hear Sean Hannity reciting Obama's 57 states, etc.] But this stuff of talking off the cuff and joking about not knowing or caring who is the president of uzbeka-beka-beka-stan is just telegraphing to the rest of the world he doesn't take foreign policy seriously. This reminds me a lot about the candidacy of Sarah Palin, whom as a gubernatorial candidate made a virtue of not taking a position on a number of key Alaskan legislative proposals, having National Guard troops at her disposal and a military base on Alaskan soil proved her defense credentials and during her interviews argued the dormant Russian-Alaskan trade missions and being next to Canada gave her foreign policy experience. It's one thing to make a joke when you have demonstrated expertise and experience on a matter.
- Obama Has Failed His Core Constituencies. It's a familiar talking point on Fox News and from the major GOP candidates (certainly it's a favorite talking point of Sean Hannity): talking about how much worse off the plight of the poor under Obama. The Democrats, of course, are going to respond to the Republicans by ridiculing "trickle down economics" and will pull the same demagoguery as usual, arguing that the GOP's answer is to balance the budget on the backs of the poor, etc. I would argue that the Republicans would be better off arguing about the ineffectual, inefficient, top-heavy programs that haven't worked on schools, poverty, etc. I would talk about scaling back resources from above the poverty line to focus on the core constituency, reducing bureaucracy and strengthening and empowering operational personnel, decentralizing or delegating federal programs (and reallocating costs) to the states and municipalities (and/or non-profits) and helping fund the propagation of innovative state and local solutions, offering incentives for creative destruction in social programs and policies, making federal programs more iterative in nature with shortened review cycles, focusing on baseline results and objective criteria of program success, etc.
- It's the Economy, Stupid! CALL A TRUCE ON DIVISIVE LITMUS TEST ISSUES! We have a personhood/pro-life initiative in Mississippi, we have collective bargaining issues showing up (e.g., Ohio),etc. There's a reason that Obama is at about 42% approval, even after the demises of UBL and Qaddafi, and it has to do with sputtering economic growth and very high unemployment (the recent dip back to 9% really reflected from people dropping out of the labor force because of their frustration trying to find jobs). The Republicans have got to stop shooting themselves in the foot by attacking immigration and by taking hardline stances on social conservative issues (gay rights, abortion, etc.) or science issues (creationism vs. evolution, global warming). Keep in mind the agenda of liberal media pundits like David Gregory. Do you think David Gregory ever seriously questioned Obama over stonewalling the born alive infant protection act in Illinois? We are talking about letting little babies die after birth within 45 minutes or so in hospitals with the technology available to sustain their lives. I just heard Gregory trying to pin Haley Barbour down on when life begins (re: personhood initiative for the preborn in Mississippi). The problem is: Latinos and blacks know that the President has been grossly ineffective in expanding job opportunities. They are looking for more than the typical half-hearted rhetoric from Republicans. The #1 issue is the economy; now is not the time to give wavering independents and moderates reasons to reelect the worst President in our lifetimes. There will be time after the election to look at the other issues. There's not a lot a President can do about abortion, gay marriage, gun rights, etc. But if we give Obama another 4 years to veto spending cuts, permanently damage the country's health care system with ObamaCare and pass the buck on entitlements, all these other issues won't matter, because America's future is at stake.
Foreigner, "Head Games"
Polls
