Last week I declared that Mitt Romney would win the GOP nomination. Nothing has changed my mind since last Saturday. Romney hasn’t sealed the deal yet, but Gingrich is crashing and the former governor should win Florida on Tuesday. At this stage it would take something incredible to keep us from an Obama versus Romney match-up.
Much will be written about head to head polls between Romney and Obama, but I’m here to tell you that they don’t matter. Ronald Reagan trailed Jimmy Carter by over 30 points six months before the election. President Obama trailed John McCain two months before the election. President Obama will be judged on his record and on the economy. Say what you want about Mitt Romney, but trying to brand him as an extremist will not work.
Mitt Romney is boring. He’s not quite as robotic and uncharismatic as John Kerry, Al Gore, or Bob Dole, but it’s not a stretch to compare him to those gentlemen. Romney is the steady hand. He’s the guy you call when everything else has failed. In other words, he’s the guy who will beat Obama if the economy doesn’t improve before November.
President Obama’s problem is that people have tuned out. Obama has no plan to make the economy better. He’s out of ideas. After all the adulation and all the grand speeches, what is Obama’s core conviction? Sure, the liberals still love him, but they loved Clinton. Democrats are a loyal bunch. It’s a collection of voter blocs. Give us your subsidies, affirmative action, unions, trial lawyers, hand-out recipients and those who’ve been brainwashed into believing that abortion is the ultimate civil liberty. The Democrats love to pat themselves on the back for their diversity, but no one is immune from the pandering hand outs. That is why the Democrats are fundamentally opposed to reducing the size of goverment.
If you reduce the size of goverment the Democrats would suddenly have issues with their voting base. Can any argue otherwise? How many people on food stamps vote for Democrats? Wouldn’t it bad for Democrats if any of the people dependent on the goverment could take care of themselves? So President Obama is out of ideas. If he allows pipelines, invests in real energy, or really reduces the size of the goverment he would be hurting his political party.
In the grand scheme of things far too many people are dependent on the goverment. It will be nearly impossible to roll back the tide. However, there aren’t enough dependents to keep Obama from losing. If gas prices go up over the summer Obama could lose in a landslide. The Republicans could have a super majority in the Senate. That would be the true test of our goverment. Would the Republicans have the guts to starve the beast? It will be very unpopular. Look how the union thugs in Wisconsin have behaved. Liberals and conservatives have very different ideas about the role of goverment. The reckoning is here.
I had hope that Obama would be a president that transformed the debate in the United States. Instead, he made things worse. He loves to talk about himself except when he’s blaming others. I don’t dislike the President. He seems like a nice guy. Most Americans like the 44th president, but that doesn’t mean they think he should continue.
Will Mitt Romney be any better? I doubt it, but could he be any worse?
After three long years President Obama has finally found some part of goverment he wants to cut. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure it out. Democrats will only ever cut one part of government, and that’s defense. The President has outlined a plan to reduce the number of military personnel by 490,000.
I’m sure Republicans will be up in arms because they never ever want to cut defense. The entire budget needs to be cut and defense is one of those areas. But let’s be real: this President is a pandering coward with no real intention of reforming our nation’s budget. The fact is that we could eliminate our entire defense department and still be on the road to bankruptcy. Cutting defense is the only move a Democrat will make because it won’t hurt them with their voting bloc.
What is Obama’s plan to fix our fiscal nightmare? Raise taxes, subsidize companies going bankrupt and eliminate defense. That’s the reality. President Obama’s poll numbers aren’t great right now, but they’re not as bad as they should be. He could still get reelected. Obama has done nothing to address our fiscal crisis. He’s just stepping on the accelerator.
For over a decade I’ve marveled at liberals’ paranoia about people without health care and about climate change. It’s shocking because the biggest problem facing mankind isn’t health care or the weather. If the United States goes bankrupt the world with fall into a type of chaos that hasn’t been seen since the 1930s. Enjoy it while it lasts, America. The freeloading is almost over and you’re living on borrowed time, both figuratively and literally.
For three years the press and the left have spent considerable time telling anyone who would listen that the Tea Party movement was a racist fringe group full of extremists. When Jared Loughner opened fire in Tucson the left blamed the Tea Party. When the truth finally came out it turned out that Loughner was simply insane with no coherent political philosophy, either left or right. The Tea Party had nothing to do with it.
Now we have a group of anarchists camped out all over the country. They’re not huge in number. They’re not winning the hearts of minds of the average American, but they have the sympathy of the left and the White House. It’s not surprising. Obama is friends with people who used to be in the Weather Underground and have an appetite for a New Left revival. The President went to a church for 25 years with pastor who blamed the United States for 9/11. The mainstream press that combed each Tea Party for nut jobs has remained silent at the violence and depravity of the Occupiers all over the country.
Isn’t it news that a protester pushed a police officer in front of a moving bus? The whole world is watching? Really? Where is the outrage at the sexual crimes at Occupy Wall Street? The politicians that are allowing this lawless anarchy to continue are cowards. This isn’t a peaceful group. If they are going to behave like animals it shouldn’t be allowed to continue. It would be in Democrats’ best interest to kill off this movement now. If this drags into next year it’s going to be an albatross around the party’s neck; 99 percent of Americans are sick and tired of OWS.
“But what is government itself but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary… The great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.”
-James Madison, Federalist No. 51
Occupy Wall Street and its spinoffs are 99 percent hipster dufus; naive, economically illiterate babies who believe that storks bring them their iPhones, clothing, transportation and coffee beans.
I continue to puzzle over the notion that people turn into angels when they’re elected to public office or become part of the machinery of government. It’s not my notion, but it seems to be a dearly held belief by those who are politically left of center. Why else would one vote for a Democrat, particularly now?
There are those on the left who claim to be skeptical of government. They’ll say things like, “Well, they’re all corrupt,” or, “We should throw them all out of office,” and so forth. But then they’ll turn around and vote Democrat, the party dedicated to making government larger and more intrusive.
I sometimes agree with the sentiment that it would be nice to throw all the bums out of office, but barring that I vote Republican simply because a Republican will at least grow government more slowly. Even Republicans, supposedly dedicated to limiting government, can’t help themselves and the relentless march away from limited government and toward limitless government continues.
I suppose a limitless government would be fine, “if men were angels,” but they’re not, regardless of whether they work in the private or public sector. Again, “if men were angels,” there would be no need for government in the first place.
Every human being has a self-centered profit motive. There are exceptions to this rule, but those exceptions do not reside in Washington, D.C., Madison, Sacramento, Denver, Austin, or any other seat of power. Self interest is a powerful motivating factor and the consistently aberrant behavior of our representatives is a constant reminder of this fact.
Duke Cunningham, the former Republican California congressman, used his office to enrich himself as much as possible. He resigned after pleading guilty to accepting bribes in the neighborhood of $2 million. Cunningham was also the Navy’s only flying ace in the Vietnam War. He served his country well and honorably, but once given the power that comes with public office he succumbed to the temptations.
I use Cunningham as an example because there’s no need to get into a tug-of-war debate about which party is more corrupt. Corruption crosses party lines and can grasp those who were once honorable and ethical. That’s because the seed of corruption is in each of us.
Therefore, it seems quite logical to me that, as Madison warned, government is under an obligation to control itself. Government is not controlling itself when it spends a gazillion dollars on “jobs” bills and whatnot. Who in their right mind believes that money is being well spent? These bills are thinly disguised as legislation, but are designed to launder tax dollars through connected political interests in order to find their way back into campaign coffers.
Meanwhile, economically illiterate hipster dufuses protest because corporations have a profit motive. People who run corporations and those who work for them have the same propensity toward corruption as anyone in government. The difference is that I’m not forced to buy a corporation’s product. I am forced to buy the government’s product, whatever it may be and however much it may inconvenience me.
I’ll admit it. I’m in the tank for corporations because they serve my interests. The irony of free market capitalism is that in serving its own interests, a corporation must serve mine. Just a quick glance around the room tells me they’re doing a damn fine job of it, too.
Let’s see, computer equipment from Dell, HP and Cisco, landline courtesy of AT&T, cell phone courtesy of Verizon, semi-electric guitar and amplifier by Fender (thanks Henshaw!), re-writable DVDs from Memorex, stapler from Swingline, furniture by some corporation somewhere, camera from Canon, and on and on and on it goes.
You can’t get away from the evil corporations! That’s how evil they are! They made me buy all this stuff to make my life more convenient! Wait a minute… I chose to buy that stuff, and I hope each and every corporation I mentioned is making a huge profit.
Where do these hipster dufus protesters think all of their modern conveniences come from? Do they think that if government planned and ran our economy that products would be self innovating and appear magically at our doorsteps? It’s religious to believe all will be well when government takes over and the evil corporations are punished for making things easy for us. Big government is suddenly Jesus feeding the multitudes from five loaves and two fishes.
Let’s say one of the corporations from which I buy products makes a really bad investment in a solar energy company. In order to recoup the half billion they wasted they then raise the prices of their products. Chances are I’ll find a competitive corporation from which to buy those products. I love what they make, but I don’t love it that much.
Then let’s say the federal government makes a really bad investment in the same solar energy company. They raise my taxes, so I move to Honduras? That’s my only choice, because government makes me pay dearly for its mistakes and throws me in jail if I don’t pay for its mistakes.
Let’s further postulate that the product I love is actually manufactured in China. I think it’s supposed to bother me that it’s made elsewhere, but I get a great price and have more disposable income. Our government’s product, which I suppose is the growing number of overpaid bureaucrats, are made and paid in the USA. Yeah! Only… they’re overpaid because their union negotiated with the government to ensure not only a fantastic paycheck, but one helluva benefits and pension package.
The same people who negotiated with the union and come up with new bureaucracies to employ even more public employees get kickbacks in the form of campaign contributions to help ensure the cycle continues. Oh well, at least my money stays in the USA, except for the foreign aid that’s likely remodeling some penny ante dictator’s personal castle.
I leave you with Milton Friedman and Phil Donahue discussing greed and capitalism back in the day, a day that was apparently more civil than ours…
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWsx1X8PV_A
Election season is fast approaching. Knowing what happened in 2008 is the key to recognizing what will happen in 2012. Many progressive still haven’t realized how Obama got elected. There wasn’t a groundswell of first-time voters. There wasn’t a huge turnout, and the same amount of young voters participated in the process. Barack Obama defeated the unpopular incumbent party represented by John McCain. There wasn’t a change in the electorate.
Americans were fed up with out-of-control spending, massive debt, and big government. Barack Obama’s campaign was a nebulous cloud of hope and change. It was a campaign about nothing. Thanks to the media’s adoration of Obama he was allowed to campaign on nothing. No GOP nominee for president will ever receive the press coverage that Obama received. I’m not sure any candidate from any party will ever be the beneficiary of the same hands-off coverage Obama received. If you’re still not convinced, just read this from November 2008:
The 12-question, multiple-choice survey found questions regarding statements linked to Republican presidential candidate John McCain and his vice-presidential running-mate Sarah Palin were far more likely to be answered correctly by Obama voters than questions about statements associated with Obama and Vice-President-Elect Joe Biden.
Most Obama voters are still unaware of what happened, but many of them know they’ve been had. The reality of the Obama administration is that he isn’t a forward thinker. Obama’s solution for every problem is the same solution Democrats/Republicans have been using since the New Deal.
After 9/11 the nation faced an issue where our vast government bureaucracies in the CIA and the FBI were not in communication with each other. What was the solution by President Bush? He helped create the Department of Homeland Security. Now we have three vast government bureaucracies that will not communicate with each other. Bush was no conservative. His idea of a solution was a New Deal type of solution; that government can do just about everything. This philosophy is the exact opposite of America’s founding philosophy.
After the financial crisis the nation faced an economy with a crisis of confidence. What was President Obama’s solution? An $800 billion dollar stimulus bill filled with pork that hasn’t accomplished anything. This wasn’t change. It wasn’t a new idea. This is buyer’s remorse. President Obama is so brainwashed into the status quo that he’s out of ideas. Reduce the size of government? Reduce regulations? Tort reform? There are the ideas of the extremists. It’s the great irony of the modern Progressive that bitterly clings to thoroughly archaic programs and ideas.
When the GOP nominee is finally declared the President Obama and the Democratic party will call the person extreme. They’ve been doing it for over 50 years. It’s not just the Democratic party. An editor of a major newspaper has told Douglas Mackinnon off the record that “we plan to declare war on Rick Perry and do all in our power to crush him.” Why wouldn’t anyone believe that statement? Here’s a President Carter campaign ad from 1980.
The Tea Party movement isn’t the racist result of having an African-American in the White House. It’s the result of decades of government spending, regulation, massive debt, and taxation. It’s the result of Americans getting fed up with two parties that promise to change, but stay the same. Democrats tried to tell the nation that Ronald Reagan was too risky to be president. How much really changed because of the extreme President Reagan? Maybe it’s time we quit worrying about extreme change. At this point the nation is in desperate need of real change that empowers the individual, not government.
Michael Tomasky is at it again. Last week he was ripping Rick Perry. Now he’s praising Jon Huntsman. Huntsman is every liberal’s favorite GOP nominee because he’s a loser. Liberals love losers. That’s precisely the reason the Democrats have had one two-term president since FDR. That president was, of course, William Jefferson Clinton. Clinton managed a good economy throughout his last term, but his party still lost in 2000. That’s what makes Tomasky’s prediction so bold:
The more likely long-term scenario is that Huntsman will have negligible impact on his party. Unless the GOP does something truly self-immolating next year, like nominating a Bachmann who goes on to win 120 electoral votes, the current trajectory will likely continue for the foreseeable future. I think the Republicans, a stubborn bunch, will have to endure eight years of Obama and then eight years of some other Democrat (Hillary?) before they finally acknowledge certain realities, and even that seems iffy. So that’s 2024 at the earliest. Huntsman will be 64 then. But Sarah Palin will be just 60.
That’s the more likely scenario? President Obama was the first Democrat to get over 50 percent of the vote in national election since 1976 and now the Democratic party is ready for 12 more years of executive branch success? It’s much more likely that Obama loses in a landslide next year than Tomasky’s fantasy scenario.
Liberals have always seemed to suffer from the “GOP is too extreme” delusion. Here’s an article from Time Magazine from March, 1980 about Ronald Reagan’s election chances.
G.O.P. Front Runner Ronald Reagan relies upon a base of support that is on the far right wing of the Republican Party, some experts have long declared that if he wins the nomination, the G.O.P. would simply be repeating the suicidal Goldwater campaign. Ex-President Gerald Ford left no doubt about his views when he warned last month: “A very conservative Republican cannot win in a national election.”
Eventually the financial reckoning will come and our leaders could have prevented it.
The current debt ceiling debate is one of the most depressing episodes I can remember. Well, ObamaCare comes to mind. Democrats are suddenly consumed with the fear of default. Consider me unimpressed. Democrats didn’t care about the debt when they passed an $800 billion stimulus. The economy wasn’t improved, but the Democrats got their pork. They didn’t care when they shoved ObamaCare down the nation’s throat with every sleazy legislative maneuver they could muster.
CNN has published two op-ed pieces by John Avlon in the past week where he blames the GOP for the current problem. Why is it that Democrats are never responsible for any partisanship? I don’t think Avlon has thought about it very much. A few weeks ago the GOP passed a debt ceiling bill and the Senate, led by Democratic Senator Harry Reid, tabled it. In other words, they killed it. Reid never offered a bill of his own. Now the GOP is attempting to pass a compromised version of the bill and Senator Reid is threatening to kill it and Obama is threatening to veto it.
Speaker Boehner’s new bill offers $22 billion in savings this year, and $917 billion over 10 years. Please note that those are billions, not trillions, which is the actual term used to describe how far in debt we are. Is it surprising that the new members of Congress are reluctant to get on board? The freshmen members of Congress were elected to right the ship, not to ignore the iceberg. The Democrats are refusing to adopt a bill that barely covers the stimulus money we spent two years ago. The nation has $114 trillion in unfunded liabilities. Saving just shy of a trillion dollars over a decade is chump change.
Political posturing is nothing new. It happens every year. It happens around every election. What kills me about this issue is that we’re supposed to be believe the GOP’s plan is “extreme.” It doesn’t actually cut anything. No one in Washington is talking about real cuts. These are reductions in the rate of growth. How am I supposed to believe liberals are serious about fiscal restraint when they characterize the opposition’s ”non-cuts” as extreme? What would Democrats call me? I believe the entire federal government should be reduced by 20% across the board.
So many Americans are fed up with politicians of every kind. They complain about lobbyists, corporate money, corruption, and the lack of term limits. Americans like to feel like they have no power because it absolves them of guilt. Americans are to blame for this mess. Americans continue to elect corrupt politicians. Americans continue to remain ignorant about economics. Americans are addicted to unsustainable government handouts. We the People are the problem.
The GOP members of the House are being raked over the coals for endorsing a plan that doesn’t cut anything. How are we ever going to cut anything if this is the status quo?
Earlier today I wrote about the ludicrous lawsuit being filed against Rick Perry by concerned atheists (aka Christianphobes). Larry Sabato at The Crystal Ball makes a good point on Twitter. This is something I totally overlooked:
There does seem to be something lucky about Rick Perry. There’s even a New York Times article today that focuses on Rick Perry’s days as a Democrat in Texas back in the 1980s. Perry’s defense for being a Democrat is that he came to his senses. No matter, the real meat of the story is this bit:
Mr. Perry’s timing, now legendary, could not have been better. He was one of only two Republicans elected to nonjudicial statewide office in 1990. Eight years later, Republicans swept every one of them.
“Perry has been a risk taker,” said Mr. Hance, the party switcher who became the chancellor of Texas Tech University. “And if you look at Perry’s timing in every race, he’s been the golden guy.”
It looks like lady luck is on his side yet again. The GOP field is in disarray. The frontrunner is Mitt Romney, a deeply flawed candidate that no one is enthusiastic about. Michele Bachmann is all the rage right now, but she’s no more qualified to be president than Obama (and look where that got us). Perceptually (that’s all that matters in politics), Perry is positioned as the Washington outsider from a big state who also has plenty of executive experience. Plus, Texas is one of the few states that’s creating jobs.
Yes, Perry’s record is far from perfect, but no candidate is perfect. There’s no other GOP candidate who can unite the GOP, Tea Party, and beat Obama. However, a lot can change before now and November 2012.
What is there left to say about President Obama? When it comes to economics, he’s just inept. Facing the worst economy in 30 years he’s increased spending, created new entitlements, and hasn’t done one thing to address the nation’s fiscal problems. His aloof nature toward the economy is shocking. If he was a Republican he’d be the the object of jokes and ridicule… Here’s Obama’s latest oddball comment.
“Of course, there’s been a real debate about where to invest and where to cut, and I’m committed to working with members of both parties to cut our deficits and debt,” Obama said in his weekly radio address. “But we can’t simply cut our way to prosperity,” he added.
Huh? Well, spending isn’t working either. Raising taxes isn’t going to work. The Democrats are philosophically opposed to cutting anything. It’s not in their DNA.
We’re all about equal time here at The Daily Plunge, but even I can hardly motivate myself to write about former Utah governor and ambassador to China Jon Huntsman. Any time I read “Democrats fear” a candidate you can rest assured they want to run against said candidate. Even Harry Reid likes the guy.
Huntsman should challenge Obama for the Democratic nomination if they like him so much. Can anyone give a reason why he’s in the race?
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