For the Democratic Party that is, in the November midterms? Looking at it from my perspective, of course, the question is, how good will it be? How many seats will the Republican Party pick up in the House? 25? 40? 60? 80? While any of those numbers are possible the trend has been unbroken towards the GOP for pretty much a year now. A year ago many of us would have been satisfied with the 39 seats it will take to take control of the chamber. Now, I think 39 would be a huge disappointment because it would pretty much signal an end to the popular revolt against spending that's currently sweeping the country. Democrats would be able to argue that the Republican gains were not much larger than the normal losses an in-party suffers in an off-year election and reason, perhaps correctly, that the public doesn't trust them.
So what's the over-under, the number of seats which will constitute satisfaction vs. disappontment? For me right now it's 70. Over 70 and I'll be happy. Under, and I'll still be worried that the public doesn't understand the true extent of the economic crisis we're in. I have not blogged specifically about it before but let me state that I think we are set up for a meltdown the proportion of which we haven't seen since the 1930's. The debt crisis is going to kill us if something drastic isn't done about spending, and soon. We've already seen the housing bond market crash and from what I hear other various bond markets are tinkering on the edge. So we need numbers, big ones. Not just so we have control. We need numbers in order to give a slap in the face to the incumbents who do survive, to let them know that everything has changed. Business as usual is over. And if you want to survive you better get on-board. I think 70 is the minimum number for that to happen.
It's still not out of the realm of possibility the GOP could get more. Dick Morris has talked about numbers as high as 90 or 100. That seems a bridge too far to me but the man has run winning political campaigns in the past so his views shouldn't be discounted. Even more left-leaning politicos pretty much concede that the House is gone. Larry Sabato is currently predicting 47, with the caveat that there are a lot more seats on top of that which may switch.
How about the Senate? Again, Morris has been the only one (to my knowledge) to consistently predict the Senate could fall to the Republicans - they need 10 seats to gain a majority - but over the past few weeks just about everyone is saying it's in play. Sabato has it at 8-9 seats but that's without California (where Carly Fiorina is ahead of the despicable Barbara Boxer in many polls), Wisconsin (where Russ Feingold, one of the most liberal men in Congress, is neck and neck with newcomer Ron Johnson) or Washington (where Dino Rossi appears to be pulling ahead of Patty Murray). Say all three of those go to the Republicans. We could be looking at a pickup of more than 10 seats. Morris is predicting 12 and says we may see even more surprises beyond that.
I think we need the 10 Senate seats on top of the 70 House seats, for reasons stated above. If we are to have any chance of saving the country from economic ruin things need to change in Washington, drastically, and soon. That's why I'm such a big supporter of the Tea Party movement, and even Glenn Beck, who often gives me the willies. These are the people, along with Sarah Palin, who understand we are in crisis, who are getting out the message, and who are doing something to fight back against the gross irresponsibilities and unchecked appetites of the Washington elites.
But getting the 10 and 70 are just the first step. What needs to happen afterwards? That will be the subject of my next post.
Saturday, September 4, 2010
Excerpt
"When this president next week begins proposing expensive new measures to save us from a crisis he has just told us we are emerging from, he is going to compound the growing sense that he has no idea what he is doing or where to go to fix the mess. And he is going to convince many more people that the mess in which we are now mired is of a different order from the mess he inherited, and that it belongs to him and his party, and that somebody else is going to have to clean it up."
- John Podhoretz, in a post at Commentary's Contentions blog.
- John Podhoretz, in a post at Commentary's Contentions blog.
Friday, September 3, 2010
Amateur Hour
Mark Steyn is back after taking the summer off and thank goodness for that. He had a column on his blog the other day and he rejoined the Ricochet podcast this week. We'll need him in the run up to the election. He's the rock star of the conservative movement. The only other conservative out there who garners the same respect is Krauthammer.
I'm only twenty minutes into the podcast but Steyn just picked up on something that I also noticed during Barack Obama's speech the other night. There were a lot of things to object to in the speech but what struck me most was how amateurish the speechwriting was. "Do these people really think that this kind of rhetoric will be effective with the American people?" I wasn't even talking about the content, objectionable as that was. The phony platitudes and the insincerity of it all was hard to miss. I called them, for the thousandth time,"amateurs," and I told my wife that he was being ill-served by his speechwriting team, though I admitted that Obama was so bad at delivering a speech Cicero could write one for him and it would still fall flat. The speech was a disaster and it was a team effort.
And Steyn just agreed with me, correcting Peter Robinson's (who may have just been being kind because that's the kind of guy he is) assertion that these were smart people doing the writing. "You said these are all smart people, the people who put together the speech. I don't think so. I think the speech was put together by amateurs who are idiots to let him go out in public with that speech....I don't understand how your minders can go out and let you do that in public."
We are being governed by amateurs folks. And thank goodness for that. If they were competent leftists they'd be even more dangerous.
I'm only twenty minutes into the podcast but Steyn just picked up on something that I also noticed during Barack Obama's speech the other night. There were a lot of things to object to in the speech but what struck me most was how amateurish the speechwriting was. "Do these people really think that this kind of rhetoric will be effective with the American people?" I wasn't even talking about the content, objectionable as that was. The phony platitudes and the insincerity of it all was hard to miss. I called them, for the thousandth time,"amateurs," and I told my wife that he was being ill-served by his speechwriting team, though I admitted that Obama was so bad at delivering a speech Cicero could write one for him and it would still fall flat. The speech was a disaster and it was a team effort.
And Steyn just agreed with me, correcting Peter Robinson's (who may have just been being kind because that's the kind of guy he is) assertion that these were smart people doing the writing. "You said these are all smart people, the people who put together the speech. I don't think so. I think the speech was put together by amateurs who are idiots to let him go out in public with that speech....I don't understand how your minders can go out and let you do that in public."
We are being governed by amateurs folks. And thank goodness for that. If they were competent leftists they'd be even more dangerous.
Love Fades
I've been waiting for this since last summer. Over at The Corner, Katrina Trinko links to a New York Times article showing fading support among the young for Barack Obama. It's no surprise. Back during the campaign when he was all about hope-and-change and all that other garbage you could understand that the young and inexperienced would fall for his nonsense - nearly 70% voted for him - but it's dawning on them now what Obama is really all about. I've been telling my buddy Mike for a year that this would happen as soon as young people realize that his programs are bankrupting their futures and will be supported overwhelmingly by their tax dollars. If anyone should be outraged by this president and his policies it's the young. It's taken them longer than the rest of us because they are less politically aware and more inclined to wishful thinking and gauzy feelings than us old folks. But they are catching on as they graduate from college saddled with a boatload of debt and no hope of finding a decent job. The opportunity to convert this generation to lifelong conservatism has never been better though I expect the Republican Party will find a way to screw it up.
My Girl Sarah
I don't mind admitting when I'm wrong, perhaps because I'm wrong so often I can't avoid it. So here we go again. I was wrong back in July, 2o09 when I fumed that Sarah Palin's political career was over after her abrupt resignation as governor of Alaska. Even before her resignation she'd become a political joke to many due to the mainstream media's egregiously unfair attacks on her. Resigning her elected post and thereby letting down so many supporters (financial and otherwise) was, I thought, an unforced error that could never be made right. I couldn't possibly imagine how she could have a political future. I wasn't alone.
But it's pretty clear now that she saw things that I and others were not in a position to see. What she saw was opportunity and she grasped it. Not personal financial opportunity, which is what I suspected she was after at the time. No, she saw the opportunity to become the leader of a movement, a grass roots revolution against the ruling elites. The Tea Party movement was already a force last July but it had no leader. Many argued that such a movement was better off without a leader, which would give the opposition a single figure to target and discredit. For the already (in the eyes of many) discredited Palin to assume the position would give the left a big old bullseye to aim at, an easy mark.
But she played it beautifully. She has become the de facto leader of the Tea Party movement without ever announcing it or aspiring to it. She did it by simply showing up, assuring the faithful that she was with them, using her personal charm and magnetism to woo them, showing by her words and actions that she was not above them but one of them. The America people, especially those who make up the Tea Party, are not in the mood to have someone above them. In their opinion that is what has caused many of the problems the country is currently facing in the first place, those elected elites in Washington who believe they are above the rest of us, who have served themselves in government rather than the people who elected them. Sarah Palin is so utterly middle-class American, so normal, so in tune with those who regard the Washington elites as abhorrent, that it was easy to become the leader of a leaderless movement. As I said, all she had to do was show up. No one has announced it or campaigned for it but make no mistake, she is the leader of this great movement to restore American honor.
She may also be the most influential political figure in America today. Who else is more influencial? You could argue Obama due to his position but his party is running away from him right now. Who in their right mind would have predicted eighteen months ago that an endorsement from Palin would be way more important than an endorsement from Barack Obama? Look at how many of the candidates she's endorsed that have won Republican primaries, many of them former unknowns running against incumbents. I don't think I've ever seen anything like it. The turnaround in her fortunes has been remarkable. She has political instincts that occur only in the very few and her ability to connect is a meaningful way with the average man in the street is a huge asset, especially right now when the public is as restless as any time in my adult memory.
Will she challenge for the Republican nomination in 2012? I'm not sure that's the wise move. She is still an incredibly divisive figure (though if elected I think that would change in a hurry except among the crackpot left, who will always hate her. She is very easy to like on a personal level and she is getting comfortable again, like she was before her vice-presidential nomination and the onslaught of criticism that made her gun-shy her and caused her to often have a deer-in-the-headlights look. She's also better than she was at talking policy.) I'm hoping for Mitch Daniels to run, or Haley Barbour, or Chris Christie. They all have different strengths but each seem to me someone that could easily earn the support of the Tea Party while still keeping the middle comfortable.
But let's not digress. This post is about my girl Sarah. I'm thinking now her best move would be continuing to do what she has been doing: travelling the country; showing up at events, appearing on television; reiterating values; raising money; endorsing the right kind of candidate. If we're going to have a political revolution that hands the government back to the people, she'll be on the short list of people to thank. And I think I'll have to reserve judgement on whatever moves she makes in the future. She sees farther out than I can.
But it's pretty clear now that she saw things that I and others were not in a position to see. What she saw was opportunity and she grasped it. Not personal financial opportunity, which is what I suspected she was after at the time. No, she saw the opportunity to become the leader of a movement, a grass roots revolution against the ruling elites. The Tea Party movement was already a force last July but it had no leader. Many argued that such a movement was better off without a leader, which would give the opposition a single figure to target and discredit. For the already (in the eyes of many) discredited Palin to assume the position would give the left a big old bullseye to aim at, an easy mark.
But she played it beautifully. She has become the de facto leader of the Tea Party movement without ever announcing it or aspiring to it. She did it by simply showing up, assuring the faithful that she was with them, using her personal charm and magnetism to woo them, showing by her words and actions that she was not above them but one of them. The America people, especially those who make up the Tea Party, are not in the mood to have someone above them. In their opinion that is what has caused many of the problems the country is currently facing in the first place, those elected elites in Washington who believe they are above the rest of us, who have served themselves in government rather than the people who elected them. Sarah Palin is so utterly middle-class American, so normal, so in tune with those who regard the Washington elites as abhorrent, that it was easy to become the leader of a leaderless movement. As I said, all she had to do was show up. No one has announced it or campaigned for it but make no mistake, she is the leader of this great movement to restore American honor.
She may also be the most influential political figure in America today. Who else is more influencial? You could argue Obama due to his position but his party is running away from him right now. Who in their right mind would have predicted eighteen months ago that an endorsement from Palin would be way more important than an endorsement from Barack Obama? Look at how many of the candidates she's endorsed that have won Republican primaries, many of them former unknowns running against incumbents. I don't think I've ever seen anything like it. The turnaround in her fortunes has been remarkable. She has political instincts that occur only in the very few and her ability to connect is a meaningful way with the average man in the street is a huge asset, especially right now when the public is as restless as any time in my adult memory.
Will she challenge for the Republican nomination in 2012? I'm not sure that's the wise move. She is still an incredibly divisive figure (though if elected I think that would change in a hurry except among the crackpot left, who will always hate her. She is very easy to like on a personal level and she is getting comfortable again, like she was before her vice-presidential nomination and the onslaught of criticism that made her gun-shy her and caused her to often have a deer-in-the-headlights look. She's also better than she was at talking policy.) I'm hoping for Mitch Daniels to run, or Haley Barbour, or Chris Christie. They all have different strengths but each seem to me someone that could easily earn the support of the Tea Party while still keeping the middle comfortable.
But let's not digress. This post is about my girl Sarah. I'm thinking now her best move would be continuing to do what she has been doing: travelling the country; showing up at events, appearing on television; reiterating values; raising money; endorsing the right kind of candidate. If we're going to have a political revolution that hands the government back to the people, she'll be on the short list of people to thank. And I think I'll have to reserve judgement on whatever moves she makes in the future. She sees farther out than I can.
Thursday, September 2, 2010
Interlude
My baby is leaving me to spend a few days with her sister down in Florida. Which leads to the question, what happens to me after she's gone? Perhaps I can listen to Jack Teagarden's beautiful rendition of "After You've Gone" over and over until she get's back:
[audio:AfterYou'veGone.mp3]
[audio:AfterYou'veGone.mp3]
Excerpt
“Democrats used to be the voice of the common man in America, not his dictator, Now, with Wall Street, their mantra is, ‘We’ll take your money, but we won’t kiss.’ The people who own the party — George Soros, the Center for American Progress, the public-employee union bosses, rich folks flying private jets to ‘ideas festivals’ in Aspen — they’re Obama’s base.”
- Pat Caddell, Democrat and liberal (though the old-fashioned kind), today at NRO.
- Pat Caddell, Democrat and liberal (though the old-fashioned kind), today at NRO.
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