The Battle of Texas

On August 18, 2011, in Politics, by Henshaw

I haven’t made up my mind about Rick Perry. The Daily Plunge has written a lot about the Texas governor over the past six weeks, but that’s because he’s the most compelling political development in the GOP race at the moment. Also, there’s a very good chance that he could become the next president. Another interesting thing about Perry is that Team Bush is firmly opposed to his nomination. Since Reagan left office no other family has dominated a political party like the Bush family. The Bush family has had a stranglehold on the GOP establishment.

In 1980, it was George H. W. Bush who coined the term “voodoo economics.” When Reagan picked Bush as his VP it was like picking the ultimate company man. Bush had been the head of the CIA and the head of the GOP. Every GOP nominee for president since 1980 has had a testy relationship with the Bush family. Bob Dole had a long history of disagreements with George H. W. Bush. John McCain’s problems with George W. Bush are well documented. Let’s not forget about Texan Ross Perot. Perot’s 1992 campaign was the greatest anti-Bush crusade ever, aside from MoveOn.org and the legions of leftists who lost their marbles during the W presidency.

How has the Bush family managed to get away with this for so long? I can’t say, but the rise of Perry could threaten the Bush “kinder gentler, compassionate conservative” garbage that conservatives have had to endure since 1988. George W. Bush escaped the wrath of conservatives because of his Texas accent and 9/11. The party rallied around the President after that terrible day and he piled on big government while conservatives turned a blind eye.

Matt Latimer has a great article in The Daily Beast about the rift between Team Bush and Team Perry. Team Bush is already well underway trying to derail the Perry campaign.

While in the White House, Bush 2 and his aides regularly scoffed at Perry for reasons that were never fully clear, making fun of his syntax and intellectual prowess without any sense of irony. In 2010 the Bush family, along with Rove and Karen Hughes, undertook an unprecedented effort to kick him out of the governor’s chair, handing a crowbar to Texas Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, whom they judged more “electable.” Perry walloped her in the GOP primary, then went on to win a historic third term in the general election by a double-digit margin.  So much for electability.

But Rove is nothing if not persistent. Now he and his operatives seem to have something close to a war room against Perry, scrutinizing his every statement in an attempt to cut his young candidacy short. After Rove called Perry “unpresidential,” former Bush press secretary Tony “Ralph Malph” Fratto joined in—calling Perry, you guessed it, “unpresidential.” This was followed in quick succession by similar sentiments from a former Rove aide, Pete “Potsie” Wehner. Meanwhile, two “unnamed” Bush aides (wonder who they could be?) issued the following warning to The New York Times: “If you’re really trying to be the nominee and want to go the distance, you just don’t want the former president of the United States and his people working against you.” (Then again, that’s what the Bushes told Kay Bailey Hutchison.)

Latimer gives Rove too much credit. This has been the Bush modus operandi for decades. Karl Rove is to George W. Bush as Lee Atwater was to George H. W. Bush. Atwater and Rove were both great political minds at the disposal of their boss. The story here is of Texas. Texas is a big state and I’m sure there are plenty of natives who remember the state before it became synonymous with Team Bush. John Connolly, John Nance Garner or Sam Houston anyone?

In hindsight, the problem with George W. Bush wasn’t that he was from Texas. The problem with Bush was that he was the son of the established Big Government GOP and Ivy League to boot. There’s no other family in America that represents the GOP aristocracy better than the Bush family. That doesn’t mean they’re evil, but controlling the GOP is not something that the family wants to give up. The next GOP president who isn’t named Bush will loosen their stranglehold on the party. If the next GOP president is from Texas they might lose their hold on the Lone Star state and Texans of all stripes will breathe a huge sigh of relief.

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Obama: Stuck in the Delusion Bubble

On October 12, 2010, in Politics, by Henshaw

Finger-pointing has become the hallmark symbol of this administration

As the mid-term elections close in, the behavior of the White House is becoming erratic and puzzling. What is going on with our President? Baseless attacks on Karl Rove and the Chamber of Commerce? This type of stuff is beneath the dignity of the office. It doesn’t seem like President Obama is taking advice. It’s difficult to fathom that anyone with a lick of politic savvy would advise the President of the United States to pick on Karl Rove. Political junkies may know who Rove is, but most Americans don’t know Karl Rove.

President Bush has plenty of targets he could have lashed out against in his second term, but he never called them by name. Obama’s behavior reeks of paranoid delusion. Perhaps the President is suffering from the challenge of charisma.

Charisma becomes the undoing of leaders. It makes them inflexible, convinced of their own infallibility, unable to change.
– Peter Drucker

The irony of the Obama administration is that after running on a campaign of change the President is unable to change. Obama is convinced that he’s right and the problem is everyone else. This type of paranoia may work in Rolling Stone or MSNBC, but those outlets are out of touch with mainstream Americans.

It seems like there’s no end to the list of White House scapegoats. Press Secretary Gibbs is willing and ready with a shovel to throw dirt on the GOP, the Tea Party, Karl Rove, the Chamber of Commerce and even the Supreme Court. This is despite the fact the Democrats have had the most power in D.C. in a generation. Sure the Republicans have been the organized resistance, but the GOP has failed to do anything extraordinary.

President Obama’s rhetoric is neither hopeful nor uniting. It’s finger pointing at the highest level. On the campaign trail Obama has told supporters not to make him look bad at the polls in November. Is that really the biggest problem facing the nation and the White House? Obama might look bad? Sometimes it’s difficult for charismatic people to get or accept good advice. It appears that President Obama is living in a delusion bubble that cannot be popped.

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american health care

On September 3, 2009, in Politics, by Henshaw

I’m a middle class guy. I was the first person in my family to graduate college. I paid my way through college by working. I’m still paying my student loans. What I’m trying to say is that I’m by no means rich. Well, compared to most people in the rest of the world I’m rich, but by American standards I’m not special. On September 9th, President Obama is going to give a speech before a joint session of Congress to talk about health care. I will not be able to see the President’s speech that night. My wife will be having brain surgery at Duke that same day. While the President laments about American health care my wife will have access to the same doctors that treated Senator Kennedy.
There are a lot of things that could be done to make health care better and more affordable, but the left is dedicated to the march toward universal health coverage. When someone like John Mackey proposes real reform the left attacks his business and his character, but not his ideas. This is a commitment to an ideology, not a rational attempt to make things better. Karl Rove has a great op-ed in the Wall Street Journal about this whole debate.

Mr. Obama is trying to overhaul health care without being able to tap into widespread public unhappiness. Nearly nine out of 10 Americans say they have coverage–and large majorities of them are happy with it. Of the 46 million uninsured, 9.7 million are not U.S. citizens; 17.6 million have annual incomes of more than $50,000; and 14 million already qualify for Medicaid or other programs. That leaves less than five million people truly uncovered out of a population of 307 million. Americans don’t believe this problem–serious but correctable–justifies the radical shift Mr. Obama offers.

The left has done a great job exaggerating the problem. The current system needs work, but let’s not forgot how great it can be. Americans are scared of change because the government has a long track record of making things worse. The rich will always be able to afford quality health coverage. It’s important to make sure “well intentioned” politicians don’t wreck the system for the rest of us.

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polls: a polarizing beginning

On April 13, 2009, in Politics, by Henshaw

President Obama promised change but his presidency is the most divisive at this stage than any administration on record. It could be the economy, it could be a whole list of things, but one thing is for certain you’ll only hear about it from Karl Rove.

The Pew Research Center reported last week that President Barack Obama “has the most polarized early job approval of any president” since surveys began tracking this 40 years ago. The gap between Mr. Obama’s approval rating among Democrats (88%) and Republicans (27%) is 61 points. This “approval gap” is 10 points bigger than George W. Bush’s at this point in his presidency, despite Mr. Bush winning a bitterly contested election.

This isn’t exactly Obama’s fault. Washington has been a fairly divided place for decades now. Plus, Obama has never been one to reach across the aisle. Despite all those stupid speeches about “one America” over the course of the campaign, Obama’s record was clear. He voted in a strict partisan partly line basis. Obama’s America is blue and if you don’t agree prepare to be smeared and labeled a Rush Limbaugh wacko. It is really surprising then that his agenda has been less than inclusive? It can actually be argued that Bush reached out to Democrats in a more bipartisan way to start his administration than Obama.
The real question is this, does it really matter that the nation is polarized? Obama’s approval rating continues to slide (55% approval today), but no one thinks his presidency is in danger. In fact, if Obama keeps this kind of level of support going for the next few years his reelection will be a shoe in, especially if the economy starts improving. What then is Obama’s motivation to reach out to republicans if he doesn’t need them? I’m not sure Obama needs to do anything to appease the right. His party is firmly entrenched in power. They’re plunging the nation into even more debt. The president’s budget is a fiscal catastrophe and Democrats are still competivie in the generic ballot (although much closer than anyone reports). The never ending march towards bankruptcy is only getting quicker. Just think, there are Americans who despite all the contrary evidence, and the fact we’re going bankrupt still want universal health coverage. If people are that stupid the economic calamity is inevitable.

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winging it?

On February 23, 2009, in Politics, by Henshaw

Every new administration has bumps along the way but there’s a growing consensus on the right that Team Obama is winging it. The evil genius Karl Rove wrote an article on the subject last week. Karl listed several examples ranging from all the botched appointments and the stimulus itself.

Team Obama was winging it when it declared the stimulus would “save or create” 2.5 million, then three million, then 3.7 million, and then four million new jobs. These were arbitrary and erratic numbers, and they knew there’s no way to count “saved” jobs. Americans, being commonsensical, will focus on Mr. Obama’s promise to “create” jobs. It’s highly unlikely that more than 180,000 jobs will be created each month by the end of next year. The precise, state-by-state job numbers the administration used to sell the stimulus are likely to come back to haunt them as well.

This isn’t the end of the world, but with a crisis on Wall Street the perception of competence is vital. If Bush would have had a string of appointment disasters like Obama has experience the perception would have been “well, Bush is stupid.” So what’s the excuse for Obama? Why are so many in the press giving the president a free ride when the only legislative accomplishment so far is a stimulus bill no one likes? Johah Goldberg touches on this phenomena.

Two weeks ago — half of Obama’s presidency so far — there was a lot of talk of Obama as a “chess master.” Bob Herbert: “Mr. Obama is like a championship chess player, always several moves ahead of friend and foe alike.” Few can hold a candle to Mr. Herbert’s facility with clichés. But I think this is a real dynamic. No, I don’t mean that Obama is a chess master, but that some of his fans cannot tolerate the conflict between their opinion of the man and his obvious mistakes and short comings. This is the flipside to political paranoia; the belief that “your guy” can do no wrong.

While the press may try to isolate the president from criticism the American people will only be fooled for so long. Obama’s approval rating over at Rasmussen(the poll that nailed the election) has dropped to 58%. That’s only a few points higher than Bush when he was reelected in 2004. Every day that passes the economy becomes a referendum on Obama. The president cannot declare war on Wall Street and hope to revive the economy. If investors decide to hold on to their money and wait for a friendlier administration things could get even worse. I don’t think that will happen, but what if Obama truly is in over his head?

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