Republican Landslide?

This story, discussing Republican redistricting that could harm Democrats in 2012 and beyond, directly contradicts the Democratic talking point of the last few years: that demographics favor Democrats in the long-term.

The 2010 census report coming out Tuesday will include a boatload of good political news for Republicans and grim data for Democrats hoping to re-elect President Barack Obama and rebound from last month's devastating elections.

The population continues to shift from Democratic-leaning Rust Belt states to Republican-leaning Sun Belt states, a trend the Census Bureau will detail in its once-a-decade report to the president. Political clout shifts, too, because the nation must reapportion the 435 House districts to make them roughly equal in population, based on the latest census figures.

The Democratic talking point is that the country is becoming less white, which favors their candidates. But now we're hearing that it's population that predicts dominance?

The Presidency of Barack Obama Is History-Making For Many Reasons...

And encouraging opposition from your base is just the latest.

Modern presidents are never challenged from their base, always by the people who didn't love them going in. You're not supposed to get a serious primary challenge from the people who loved you. But that's the talk of what may happen with Mr. Obama.

I think this is still a lot of political thumb-sucking, personally, and the reason is found farther down in the article:

The Democrats' problem is that most of them know that the person who would emerge, who would challenge Mr. Obama from the left, would never, could never, win the 2012 general election. He'd lose badly and take the party with him. Democratic professionals know the mood of the country. Challenging Mr. Obama from the left would mean definitely losing the presidency, as opposed to probably losing the presidency.

Most of the things I read (from news sites and blogs, mainly) indicate that liberals are unhappy with Barack Obama, but the alternative from the GOP (Sarah Palin is always the boogey man) scares them enough to stay loyal to Obama. Republicans angry with the GOP, wanting to "teach them a lesson," stayed home in 2008. They didn't vote for the opposition. I can't imagine liberals wanting to destroy their party over DADT or tax cuts or the public option.

Voters R Stooopid

That's what liberals always say when voters choose Republicans over Democrats.

At a recent discussion on the Nov. 2 election hosted by the local Society for Professional Journalists, UW-Madison political science professor Charles Franklin was expounding on why Republicans emerged triumphant, in Wisconsin and throughout the land.
In my questions to Franklin, I noted that the public seemed to vote against its own interests and stated desires, for instance by electing candidates who'll drive up the deficit with fiscally reckless giveaways to the rich.
Franklin, perhaps a bit too candidly, conceded the point. "I'm not endorsing the American voter," he answered. "They're pretty damn stupid."

Liberals think that anyone who isn't a millionaire should vote for them so the voter can take the millionaire's money. But voters understand that when Democrats promise to screw over only "the rich," the voter is going to get screwed. Why? Because "the rich" employ a lot of those voters or sell goods to those voters who will end up paying for the screwing.

Liberals mock anyone who votes for candidates based on more than their personal prurient interest (such as the pro-lifer who votes for candidates who don't think babies are fair game until kindergarten). Yet the same liberals argued all through the past election cycle that voters should vote for Democrats because of Obamacare (which wasn't supposed to affect anyone who already had insurance *snicker*), immigration and race issues.

In 2006 and 2008, Democrats lied to voters about what they would do and what would happen if Democrats were voted into office. They promised not to raise taxes, then promised not to raise taxes on anyone making less than $250,000 per year, then about who were the uninsured, whose health insurance would change and whose would not, and how much it would cost (remember when Democrats said you could have healthcare like Congress?). Democrats lied about the stimulus bill and unemployment. They flipped off every American over Obamacare, and now they have the nerve to argue that the voters are stupid for not wanting more Democrat bullshit?

Democrats have insulted voters for years (remember What's the Matter with Kansas?) when voters use their brains to vote out Democrats. Let's hope Democrats will have more opportunities to insult the electorate in 2012.

I Agree with Paul Krugman

Or, at least, his conclusion:

What I expect, instead, if and when the midterms go badly, is that the usual suspects will say that it was because Mr. Obama was too liberal — when his real mistake was doing too little to create jobs.

But, of course, Barack Obama hasn't done anything to create jobs precisely because of his liberalness. Obama has pursued a course that Americans have objected to vociferously, yet it has done nothing to stop the assault on the American economy.

Some of my friends argue that Obama seeks to ruin our economy and replace it with socialism, communism, or some form of dictatorship, but I'm not that conspiratorial. I do believe BO thinks his policies are best for solving the country's problems, but his answers are all wrong. While Krugman complains that the stimulus package was simply too small to turn around our economic woes, most of us recognize that personal bad economic times don't get better by continuing to rack up giant credit card bills. It gets better by (a) cutting spending and (b) increasing income. In the case of our country, this would mean holding the line on discretionary spending (no increases) and giving businesses incentives for hiring and producing. This could be accomplished in a variety of ways, including assuring businesses that you weren't going to add a bunch of new regulations that are going to cost them billions to implement (such as Obamacare).

Instead, what we have are Democrats behaving like Democrats, then shrugging when Americans reject it. For them, the problem isn't their arrogance and terrible policies; the problem is America.

The Saddest Truth

Charles Krauthammer writes that Barack Obama's presidency is a play in two acts and he's already gotten everything he could have wanted in the first act (his first four years).

But Obama's most far-reaching accomplishment is his structural alteration of the U.S. budget. The stimulus, the vast expansion of domestic spending, the creation of ruinous deficits as far as the eye can see are not easily reversed.

These are not mere temporary countercyclical measures. They are structural deficits because, as everyone from Obama on down admits, the real money is in entitlements, most specifically Medicare and Medicaid. But Obamacare freezes these out as a source of debt reduction. Obamacare's $500 billion in Medicare cuts and $600 billion in tax increases are siphoned away for a new entitlement -- and no longer available for deficit reduction.

The result? There just isn't enough to cut elsewhere to prevent national insolvency. That will require massive tax increases -- most likely a European-style value-added tax. Just as President Ronald Reagan cut taxes to starve the federal government and prevent massive growth in spending, Obama's wild spending -- and quarantining health-care costs from providing possible relief -- will necessitate huge tax increases.

The net effect of 18 months of Obamaism will be to undo much of Reaganism. Both presidencies were highly ideological, grandly ambitious and often underappreciated by their own side. In his early years, Reagan was bitterly attacked from his right. (Typical Washington Post headline: "For Reagan and the New Right, the Honeymoon Is Over" -- and that was six months into his presidency!) Obama is attacked from his left for insufficient zeal on gay rights, immigration reform, closing Guantanamo -- the list is long. The critics don't understand the big picture. Obama's transformational agenda is a play in two acts.

Act One is over. The stimulus, Obamacare, financial reform have exhausted his first-term mandate. It will bear no more heavy lifting. And the Democrats will pay the price for ideological overreaching by losing one or both houses, whether de facto or de jure. The rest of the first term will be spent consolidating these gains (writing the regulations, for example) and preparing for Act Two.

I've been stunned when I've read the grumbling from leftwingers about how centrist Obama is. They aren't happy with spending $1 trillion we don't have; they insist we spend much, much more. They don't like Obamacare because it isn't socialist enough to have a public option. They complain that financial reform doesn't go far enough because some people will still be able to make a profit.

And yet, all that Obama has done to us is precisely why so many people want to kick the Democrats out. It's bizarre to me that so many people blindly voted for this man because they wanted to make history or they wanted to believe, like small children that they can eat their cake and still have it.

Krauthammer goes on to say that the second act of Obama's show will come after 2012. If Republicans win in 2010, it's far more likely Obama will be re-elected. If the consequences weren't so dire, it would almost be worth having the Democrats in charge until then.

Why You Should Vote for Democrats

Don't forget in November what Democrats actually think of you.

Obama Administration to Challenge Popular Arizona Law

And why not? It's not like this administration cares what Americans actually think about issues like immigration.

Ed Morrissey points out that the White House announced this decision to people in Ecuador before Americans. Well, that's becoming par for the course. When you have such absolute contempt for what your fellow Americans think about a variety of issues (health care, the economy, jobs, national debt, the gulf oil crisis), should it be any wonder this guy discusses domestic policy with foreigners first?

Governor Jan Brewer blasted Obama and his administration for their handling of this policy direction. I agree, but perhaps she can take comfort in it. After all, an administration this inept is unlikely to successfully walk and chew gum at the same time, let alone challenge the validity of their new immigration-enforcement law. Meanwhile, Obama will continue to pursue a policy that is even less popular than his ObamaCare bill, just in time for the midterm referendum on his first two years in office.

I can't decide if the White House is honestly this ignorant or arrogant, but then voters are still evenly split about whether Obama deserves re-election or not. My guess is that Obama is going to continue to stick his finger in the eye of the public since he expects to lose control of Congress in November. After that, he'll try governing on charisma or something. In any case, this is more government by the elites for your own good, not for what you want.

PPP: Obama Still Wins Against GOP Candidates

It's pathetic to see polling like this, which indicate that even with Barack Obama's incompetence and corruption, he still wins in 2012 against any likely GOP candidate. IMO, this means voters would want someone new, not a retread from '08, if Republicans have any hope of unseating Teh One in 2012. The window is closing, and such a candidate needs to be found soon. It would be a tragedy for BO to win reelection because of Republican incompetence.

Obama "Amused" by Tea Parties

I love when the President of All of Us takes a hyperpartisan stance versus part of All of Us. How uncouth is this president, anyway? Has he no shame whatsoever?

Remember in November. Vote out Obama's sycophants.

More here.

Remember, Obama promised not to raise any taxes, not just income taxes.

Dan Quayle: Don't Go Perot on Us

I've actually had to deal with the temptation of Tea Party activists going all Perot on us and ensuring another four years of the disasterous Barack Obama. Dan Quayle argues that going third party over the Democrats' outrageous behavior would just ensure we get even more of it:

The emergence of official tea party candidates would be very welcome news in the Obama White House. All at once, a powerful and energetic counterweight to the Democratic establishment would become a splinter group, destroying the unified opposition it has helped to create. A potential electoral majority on the threshold of victory would become two minority factions almost certain to share in defeat, and a movement inspired to stop the big-government agenda would suddenly become its tool.

As I've often explained to third party advocates, our system does not support anything other than two strong political parties, unlike the parliamentary system which allows for all sorts of coalitions of tiny groups. Love it or hate it, our form of democracy, our system of elections, supports voting between two ideologies, usually well-defined. Without exception, any time a third party has reared its head in American elections, it has resulted in the triumph of an also-ran who was less popular. It happened when Teddy Roosevelt ran in 1912, giving us the disasterous Woodrow Wilson. It happened in 1992 when Ross Perot's in-again-out-again campaign gave us Bill Clinton. And it would most assuredly give us Barack Obama in 2012 (why does this always benefit Democrats?). Tea Party supporters would do better to help elect a Republican rather than sink him (or her).

Peeling Off the Moderate Mask

When talking to their own, leftwingers are more honest than when they speak to the country as a whole (or to conservatives, specifically). That's why this post is interesting in what it says and what it admits.

First, the author admits Barack Obama is a liberal (he calls it "progressive," but we know that's just window dressing to avoid being called a liberal).

Yet, there is nothing in Obama's personal history nor in his voting record to suggest that he is anything but a committed pragmatic progressive.

Of course, this is not the description of Obama we get from the MSM, who constantly call our abortion-loving, tax-and-spending, freedom-squashing, ally-snubbing, citizen-ignoring, hell-bent-on-passing-what-he-wants POTUS "centrist." There's nothing centrist about Obama or his approach to governing. And regardless of what the author and his sycophants commenters think, there was no outreach to Republicans, unless you call "I won" outreach.

But more importantly, the author discusses Organizing for America, aka Obama for America, the outfit Barack Obama used during the campaign to disseminate his ideas on the internet. The author notes that the big push for Obamacare that came from progressives was run by OFA (contrast that to the grassroots efforts of the 57% of Americans who opposed Obamacare).

In just the final ten days of the legislative fight, OFA aides said they drove over 500,000 calls to Congress. The group also executed over 1,200 events during that period, about 100 per day, and mobilized a novel program for over 120,000 supporters to call other Obama fans in key districts to fan local enthusiasm for the bill -- a first for either national party.

I'm sure those Congressmen didn't sic the police on these guys when they tried to contact their reps.

The key to take out of that is that Obama's minions and liberals in general have a distinct advantage when it comes to organizing and communication, particularly over the internet. Remember, this is the organization which gins up liberal callers to conservative radio shows, giving them talking points and even a handy-dandy form to fill out detailing the results of the call.

In his book Obama Zombies, Jason Mattera discusses how effectively Barack Obama used New Media in energizing young adults and encouraging them to support him--even if they had no idea what policies he supported. Obama used blogs, video games, YouTube and Facebook to effectively indoctrinate the young and herd them to the polls in November 2008. The results were that while John McCain either led or was close in every other age category, Obama got three to four times as many 18- to 29-year-olds, and that made the difference in the election.

Republicans can look forward to doing quite well in the mid-terms, and that may be part of the reason Dems are scrambling to pass more poisonous legislation (like cap and trade). Obama's recess appointments give us a look at what the President of All of Us expects to do once he doesn't have a lapdog Congress anymore. Yet it is increasingly clear that Republicans must discover new and better ways to harness New Media and attrack younger voters if we want BO to be a one-term president.