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Health Care: What's Next for GOP, Health Care Bill Opponents
By Connie Hair
With House Democrats’ arms in slings and careers in tatters, the House voted to pass Obamacare last night by a vote of 219-212. The only bipartisanship involved was the vote against the bill, with 34 Democrats siding with Republicans.
The Senate-passed health care bill now moves directly to the White House where President Obama will sign it into law. This bill still includes the Cornhusker Kickback, the Louisiana Purchase, Gator Aid, $500 billion in tax hikes and nearly that amount in cuts to Medicare -- all of the elements originally passed by the Senate.
As soon as Obama’s signature is on the dotted line, attorneys general are slated to file lawsuits to challenge the constitutionality of the bill. Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum, a former member of the House and current Republican candidate for governor, is one immediately filing suit.
“As soon as this bill is signed into law, with the form that it’s in now, the State of Florida will file a lawsuit against the federal government, against a number of agencies and the President, to have the U.S. Supreme Court ultimately declare this bill unconstitutional,” McCollum told Fox News’ Neil Cavuto on Sunday afternoon. “There are two grounds for it.”
“One of those is the individual mandate that you’ve talked so much about and heard about where you are taxed or penalized just for living, basically,” McCollum continued. “You are required to buy a health insurance plan, and if you don’t buy it, you’re going to have this penalty. There’s no connection to commerce, there’s no basis under the Constitution that any of our experts can see for the Congress to be able to impose that on an individual.”
“And then there’s a question of the manipulation of our states and our resources by the federal government in unprecedented ways -- ways that violate the sovereignty in our Constitution -- the sovereignty amendment, the 10th Amendment,” McCollum said. “So we will sue, I think we will win this suit ultimately because I think it’s very wrong, it’s unconstitutional and we have a lot of states’ attorney generals who agree with me on this.”
South Carolina Attorney General Henry McMaster, another Republican candidate for governor, is taking up the action jointly with McCollum.
“It’s essentially a direct tax on the people for which there is no authority,” McMaster said. “It’s the national government requiring a citizen to buy something that he may or may not want to buy. There’s no authority in the Constitution that allows the Congress to do that.”
McMaster also stated Friday that Attorneys General Wayne Stenehjem of North Dakota and Lawrence Wasden of Idaho have both expressed interest in joining a Commerce Clause challenge to the individual insurance mandates.
And they won’t be alone. The measure buries state budgets in a sea of unfunded mandates.
The Idaho legislature passed a measure that Gov. C.L. "Butch" Otter signed into law last week requiring Attorney General Wasden to challenge the mandates if they become law. (Over thirty-five other states are considering or in some stage of passing legislation to block the implementation of Obamacare. A substantial Louisiana effort underway described at the link.)
They may also be able challenge the constitutionality of elements such as the infamous “Cornhusker Kickback” and other payoffs that are still in the bill passed by the House last night. McMaster, McCollum and 13 other attorneys general vowed late last year to sue over the offending payoffs to these senators.
Unless the House reconciliation bill passes the Senate unchanged, the reconciliation bill will be sent back to the House for yet another vote. Then the House would be required to pass that bill unchanged, or it goes back to the Senate. It could go on and on.
Regardless, the only thing that becomes law right away is the Senate bill when the President signs it and payoffs such as the Cornhusker Kickback are still in it.
Senate Republicans continue to point out serious problems with the reconciliation bill of “fixes” passed by the House last night. One possible fatal flaw would cause the entire reconciliation bill to be thrown out. Republicans made this public before the House vote, yet Democrat Senators refused to hold a meeting with the Senate parliamentarian on the issue until after the House voted to pass the flawed measure.
The Congressional Budget Act states, “LIMITATION ON CHANGES TO THE SOCIAL SECURITY ACT.—Notwithstanding any other provision of law, it shall not be in order in the Senate or the House of Representatives to consider any reconciliation bill or reconciliation resolution reported pursuant to a concurrent resolution on the budget agreed to under section 301 or 304, or a joint resolution pursuant to section 258C of the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985, or any amendment thereto or conference report thereon, that contains recommendations with respect to the old-age, survivors, and disability insurance program established under title II of the Social Security Act.”
“Republicans have been trying to set up a meeting with Senate Democrats since [Saturday] to discuss this fatal point of order but have been met with nothing but silence,” Don Stewart, spokesman for Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, said yesterday. “We suspect Democrats are slow walking us so as to have the House vote first. Since Senate Democrats refuse to meet with us and the Parliamentarian, we’ve informed our colleagues in the House that we believe the bill they’re now considering violates the clear language of Section 310g of the Congressional Budget Act, and the entire reconciliation bill is subject to a point of order and rejection in the Senate should it pass the House.”
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Connie Hair is a freelance writer, a former speechwriter for Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ) and a former media and coalitions advisor to the Senate Republican Conference.
Massachusetts to Obama: "No, You Can’t!"
By Larry Elder
“Let me be as clear as I can. There is no way in hell we’re going to elect a Republican to Ted Kennedy’s seat. Period.”
So said the man who finished second in the Democratic Massachusetts primary held to fill the seat occupied for 47 years by the late Sen. Ted Kennedy. State Attorney General Martha Coakley won the primary. Republican state Sen. Scott Brown once trailed her by 30 points in the polls.
On Tuesday, Jan. 19, 2010, Brown defeated Coakley by 5 points. This astonishing Republican win in Massachusetts is a flat-out repudiation of President Barack Obama.
This is now strike five. In 2008, Obama carried New Jersey and Virginia. Last year, he unsuccessfully stumped in both states for Democrats in gubernatorial races. Democrats previously held those seats. He twice flew to Copenhagen, once to lobby for the Chicago Olympics and later to get a meaningful international deal on “climate change.” Both times, he came home empty-handed. Now comes Massachusetts. Try to explain that one away.
Massachusetts had not elected a Republican senator since 1972. Its 10-seat House delegation is wall-to-wall Democrats. Obama, in 2008, carried the state by 26 points. Registered Democrats in Massachusetts outnumber registered Republicans by more than 3 to 1.
What happened? One, Obama. Two, the Democratic filibuster-proof Senate supermajority. Three, a party led by like-minded lefties.
But ObamaCare is ground zero. Brown campaigned against it and promised he’d try to stop it. The unpopular legislation would mandate that everyone carry health insurance. It would force insurance companies to accept those with pre-existing illnesses. It would tax — or, if you prefer, fine — employers for not providing health insurance and individuals for not having it. It would exempt union members from a tax on their employer-provided plans but force nonunion members with similar plans to pay it. Nebraska would get its new Medicaid costs exempted in perpetuity. Louisiana would receive $300 million in goodies.
ObamaCare, according to Obama, promises both deficit neutrality and eventual cost savings. Right. And the legislation ignores the fact that most Americans have and like their current health insurance.
The Democrats misread the country’s mood. They misunderstood why they won in ‘08. They thought that Obama’s election and their gains in Congress meant not just receptiveness, but an eagerness to embrace a New Enlightenment. They believed that people really want to tax “the rich,” to redistribute wealth, to punish success.
So Obama set sail to grow government — to use tax dollars to create “green jobs,” to tackle “climate change” with onerous regulations on businesses.
He showed the world his un-Bushness by apologizing for America’s alleged past arrogance and by employing a kinder, gentler approach to what we once called the War on Terror.
He called the passage of the partisan “stimulus” bill necessary to prevent unemployment from reaching 8 percent. It is now 10 percent. The bill promised to “create or save” millions of jobs. Instead, it created embarrassing headlines about money going to nonexistent ZIP codes and about spending hundreds of thousands of dollars per “created or saved” job. Brown called for tax cuts and criticized Obama’s stimulus plan.
The Obamacrats bailed out insurance companies, car companies and banks. Bank bailout recipients rang up huge profits, repaid the government ahead of schedule and then dealt themselves big bonuses. People looked at all the Wall Streeters in and/or advising the administration and wondered, “Why did they need our money in the first place?”
The Boston Massacre dooms ObamaCare — at the very least its current incarnation. It pulls the country back from the brink of this costly, irreversible leap into collectivism. Oh, sure, Democrats have procedural maneuvers to pull it off. But after this wake-up call, let them try. Gone are “cap and trade” and a second spendthrift ‘’stimulus package,” as well as an attempt at “immigration reform” — even as our borders remain scarily porous. With Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and interest on the federal debt on automatic pilot, ObamaCare was a pillow pressed over the face of the country.
Former Democratic National Chairman Howard Dean, representing the left-left wing of the left-wing party, says Massachusetts means that Democrats should turn further left. Does he know that only 26 percent of Massachusetts voters think RomneyCare, their own version of ObamaCare, is effective?
Dean thinks Democrats wussed out on providing a health insurance “public option” and calls the bill a sop to greedy “special interests.” Dean is obtuse. Other Democrats will trade ideology for self-preservation. They will reflect and redirect or suffer the consequences.
As for the late Sen. Kennedy, his death opened a seat that guarantees the defeat of ObamaCare 1.0. Kennedy’s death, therefore, stopped this wide-ranging health care “reform.”
And America now has a new lease on life.
Racist Liberal Media Attempts to Brand Tea Parties Racist, Fails
By Lloyd Marcus
As a black proud Tea Party patriot, I am extremely offended by MSNBC’ host Dylan Ratigan’s baseless accusation that the Tea Party Movement (my white brother and sister fellow patriots) embraces Nazis and racists. Ratigan’s attack epitomizes the liberal media’s commitment to protect Obama and his radical agenda at all costs. They have a genuine disdain for freedom, capitalism and We The People. No tactic is too low. Ratigan’s rant:
While interviewing (really badgering) Mark Williams of the Tea Party Express, Ratigan outrageously tried to portray the Tea Party Express bus tour as a far right hate group supportive of the killing of blacks and Jews. Well then, what the heck am I doing on the bus? Did I miss the “People We Hate” memo? Or perhaps, the organizers hid that memo from me and other blacks on the tour.
Left wing fanatics such as Ratigan have no shame. Incredibly they will throw the innocent Tea Party patriots under the bus in defense of Obama and his far left radical agenda.
I have traveled across America twice, on Tea Party Express tours one and two. It truly angers me to see the wonderful, hard working, decent and color-blind white patriots whom I have met at the tea parties trashed, called Nazis and racists simply because they oppose the out-of-control Obama administration.
Ironically, the true character of the tea parties is the opposite of the media’s portrayal of them. In Texas, a white cowboy at a tea party approached me pushing a stroller with two black babies he and his wife who is also white recently adopted from Africa. The cowboy said they asked God to give them babies who needed their love the most. The excited dad proudly proclaimed, “Next week they will become U.S. citizens.”I can’t remember the state where the tea party was held, but I was surrounded by an extremely excited white family of two parents and 15 kids (all home schooled). They were fans of my articles and music. We took several pictures and chatted about values. It was a wonderful exchange.
At another tea party at a rodeo arena, again I can not recall the state, a big man well over six feet wearing a big straw hat and a ZZ Top beard gave me a bear hug with his huge, vice-grip arms. Relieved that he liked me, the gentle giant conveyed his gratitude for all I was doing for our country. He pulled up one leg of his bib jeans to reveal his wooden leg. He said, “If Obama care passes, I may have to carve my next new leg.” I really appreciate what you are doing brother.”
During my travels on the Tea Party Express tours, I was showered with affection, given sentimental gifts and homemade brownies from the folks reported as racist by the liberal media. In Nevada, a small business owner offered me free dry cleaning for life. While I appreciated her extremely generous and sincere offer, shipping my laundry from my home in Florida could be a bit expensive.
At a number of tea parties across America, I saw signs which read, “Lloyd Marcus for President!” But how could this be? Jeannine Garafolo said the tea party movement is really about white racists not wanting a black president.
When our tour bus door opened in Memphis, Tenn., we were greeted by a white woman with a huge tray of bar-b-que spare ribs. She also brought baked beans and cornbread which she had prepared especially for us, an interracial team of performers and speakers. Is this the behavior of members of an angry racist mob? By the way, her spare ribs were outstanding. A close second to my mom’s.
The greatest proof the tea parties are not racist is the overwhelmingly positive and enthusiastic response to my signature opening comment. “Hello my fellow patriots. I am not an African-American! I am Lloyd Marcus, AMERICAN!” The crowds go wild with cheers and even some tears. These patriots flock to me expressing great gratitude for my stand not to be hyphenated. Countless times I have heard, “Hyphenating divides us. We wish to be Americans.”
So there you have it Mr. Ratigan. Do these people sound like an angry racist, hate-filled mob supportive of the killing of blacks and Jews? I submit that you know they are not.
You sir are an evil man willing to demean the character of millions of true patriots to prop up your American idol, Barack Hussein Obama. Accusations of the tea parties being racist are absurd. And yet, the liberal media is relentless in their attempts to sell their shameful lie. Liberals like Ratigan could care less about the devastating effect that fueling the flames of racial hatred is having on American race relations.
Folks, I take the liberal media’s accusation of racism against my fellow patriots who are white extremely personal. We patriots share a kinship through our love for our country. We are family. And you don’t allow people to dis your family.
March 27th in Searchlight, Nev., we launch Tea Party Express Tour III. For me, the rallies are family reunions. I can’t wait to see you.
The Rise of the Conservative Woman
By Doug Patton
One of the most revealing things about liberals is their insistence that only they can define a “real” minority or a “real” woman. In the eyes of the left, Clarence Thomas, Ken Blackwell and J.C. Watts will never be “real” black men. Likewise, Michele Bachmann, the smiling firebrand conservative congresswoman from Minnesota, and Sarah Palin, the popular former governor of Alaska, will never be “real” women.
How can they be? After all, these women don’t support abortion. In fact, Palin actually had the audacity to give birth to a baby with Down Syndrome. As one embarrassed liberal wag put it during last year’s presidential campaign, “If abortion isn’t for that, what is it for?”
These female leaders believe that marriage is a sacred bond between one man and one woman and anything else is a counterfeit. In the case of Bachmann and Palin, they have lived out their values by staying married to the same men for decades.
They believe in allowing families to keep as much of their hard-earned income as possible. What a concept: let people keep more of their own money rather than sending it to Washington for Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi to squander on their latest wealth redistribution scheme.
They support true energy independence, and they know that the best way to get there, as Sarah Palin echoed the chants of many last year by saying “Drill, Baby Drill!” At the same time, these conservatives believe in responsible conservation that takes into account the fact that human beings not only have a responsibility to be good stewards of the earth but that they are the key component in the environment, not an afterthought or some kind of unwelcome virus, as liberals would have us believe.
These women have faith in America’s small business owners and believe that they should be free to grow their businesses without excessive government taxation and regulation, and to access the entrepreneurial opportunities this nation affords.
They are adamantly opposed to the Obama-Pelosi-Reid takeover of health care, believing instead that the American people should be given more choices, not fewer, and that government involvement inevitably means government control.
They believe in school choice so that America’s children -- especially minorities -- are not trapped in the war zones that are too often our public schools.
They understand what the Founders knew instinctively -- that the First Amendment is worthless without the Second, and the Second is constantly under attack by those who favor big government. They know what all freedom-loving people know: that tyrants hate guns in the hands of the people. As Jefferson said, “When the people fear the government, there is tyranny; when government fears the people, there is liberty.”
Women like Palin and Bachmann -- attractive, conservative, content in the marriages, devoted to God, family and country -- are as comfortable in politics as they are in their homes, caring for their families. They are a new breed of political woman, and they are a threat to the liberal orthodoxy. They are the true representation of American women, as evidenced by the fact that the last time a Democrat presidential candidate won a majority of white women was 1964.
Liberals are angry and unhappy people, and they hate and fear the new breed of female politician represented by Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann. They love liberty, and that puts them at the top of the hit list for every leftist in America. Nancy Pelosi has targeted Michele Bachmann for defeat in next year’s congressional election because Bachmann threatens Pelosi’s extremist agenda.
As for Palin, she is a tough-as-nails mother of five who took on the corruption of her own state party officials, tamed the Alaskan oil industry and rose from city council to governor to vice presidential candidate. Her very existence incenses the left. Not since Phyllis Schlafly infuriated them with her organized opposition to the ERA in the early 1970s has anyone so unnerved the liberal forces of “hope and change.”
When you hear elitists across the political spectrum vilify conservative women like Palin and Bachmann, know that it is because they fear them. Left wing politicians of either gender represent the politics of the past. Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachmann represent the future. That makes them dangerous.
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Mr. Patton is a freelance columnist who has served as a political speechwriter and public policy adviser. His weekly columns are published in newspapers across the country and on selected Internet web sites, including The Conservative Voice and GOPUSA.com, where he is a senior writer and state editor. Readers may e-mail him at dougpatton@cox.net.
Cartoon by Brett Noel.
Conservatives: Beware of McCain Regression Syndrome
By Michelle Malkin
Pay attention: In the afterglow of the Massachusetts Miracle, there are flickers of peril for the right. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but like Paul Revere’s midnight message, consider this warning “a cry of defiance, and not of fear.” Conservatives have worked hard to rebuild after Big Government Republican John McCain’s defeat. But McCain isn’t going gently into that good night.
Red Flag No. One: A reader from Arizona informed me the day after the Bay State Bombshell that he had received a robo-call from Massachusetts GOP Sen.-elect Scott Brown. “He basically wanted me to vote for John McCain in November,” the reader said in his description of the automated campaign call supporting the four-term Sen. McCain’s re-election bid. “No wonder [Brown] said he hadn’t had any sleep. … He was busy recording phone messages!”
Red Flag No. Two: Also in the wake of the Massachusetts special election, the nation’s most popular conservative political figure Sarah Palin announced she would be campaigning for her former running mate in Arizona in March. Palin told Facebook followers that she’s going to “ride the tide with commonsense candidates” and help “heroes and statesmen” like McCain.
Facing mounting conservative opposition in his home state and polls showing him virtually tied with possible GOP challenger and former Rep. J.D. Hayworth, McCain welcomed the boost: “Sarah energized our nation and remains a leading voice in the Republican Party.”
Savor the irony: After a career spent bashing the right flank of the party, McCain is now clinging to its coattails to save his incumbent hide.
And pay attention to the hidden, more troubling irony: While he runs to the right to protect his seat, McCain’s political machine is working across the country to install liberal and establishment Republicans to secure his legacy.
In Florida, McCain’s Country First Political Action Committee is supporting the Senate bid of fellow illegal alien amnesty supporter and global warming alarmist GOP Gov. Charlie Crist, whose crucial 2008 primary endorsement rescued McCain from disaster. Grassroots conservatives support former GOP state House leader Marco Rubio — who is hitting Crist hard for lying to voters about his embrace of President Obama’s pork-laden, fraud-ridden stimulus package.
In Colorado, McCain and his meddlers infuriated the state party by anointing former Lt. Gov. Jane Norton to challenge endangered Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet. She’s a milquetoast public official who has served on a lot of task forces and GOP clubs — and who happens to be the sister-in-law of big Beltway insider Charlie Black. An estimated 40 percent of her coffers are filled with out-of-state money (and much of that is flowing from the Beltway).
The mini-McCain of Colorado claims to oppose “special interests,” but has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars from D.C. lobbyists at McCain’s behest — stifling the candidacies of strong conservative rivals led by grassroots-supported Weld County District Attorney Ken Buck, an amnesty opponent whose aggressive illegal-immigration prosecutions have earned him the rage of the far left and big-business right. A recent Rasmussen poll showed Buck and GOP candidate Tom Wiens beating Bennet — despite the huge cash and crony advantage of frontrunner and blank-slate Norton.
In California, McCain’s PAC supports former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina — a celebrity name with deep pockets of her own, massive media exposure and a checkered business record. Fiorina served as the economic adviser to McCain, who supported the $700 billion TARP bailout, the $25 billion auto bailout, a $300 billion mortgage bailout and the first $85 billion AIG bailout. As GOP rival and grassroots-supported Chuck DeVore’s camp notes, Fiorina has also vacillated publicly over the Obama stimulus. With taxpayer “friends” like this, who needs Democrats?
With all due respect to McCain’s noble war service, it’s time to head to the pasture. As the Supreme Court ruled on Thursday, he was wrong on the constitutionality of the free-speech-stifling McCain-Feingold campaign finance regulations. He was wrong to side with the junk-science global warming activists in pushing onerous carbon caps on America. He was on the wrong side of every Chicken Little-driven bailout. He was wrong in opposing enhanced CIA interrogation methods that have saved countless American lives and averted jihadi plots. And he was spectacularly wrong in teaming with the open-borders lobby to push a dangerous illegal alien amnesty.
Tea Party activists are rightly outraged by Palin’s decision to campaign for McCain, whose entrenched incumbency and progressive views are anathema to the movement. At least she has an excuse: She’s caught between a loyalty rock and a partisan hard place. The conservative base has no such obligations — and it is imperative that they get in the game (as they did in Massachusetts) before it’s too late. The movement to restore limited government in Washington has come too far, against all odds, to succumb to McCain Regression Syndrome now.
Dem Recruits Head For Exits
By Aaron Blake
Democrats have lost yet another touted recruit, this time in Kansas.
State Sen. Laura Kelly (D) just announced her withdrawal from the race to face Rep. Lynn Jenkins (R-Kan.). She becomes the fifth formidable recruit to bow out in recent weeks.
“I have been forced to make a decision between honoring the pledge I made to the people in my Senate district and my firm conviction that the people of the 2nd congressional district deserve a truly independent voice in Congress," Kelly said in a statement.
“This has been a very hard decision, but it is the right one.”
Kelly joins several recent dropouts, including businessman Jack McDonald, a well-funded challenger to Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas) who announced last week that he wouldn't run. The others are Ohio state Rep. Todd Book, who was running against Rep. Jean Schmidt (R-Ohio); former Tennessee Commerce and Insurance Commissioner Paula Flowers, who was running for Rep. Zach Wamp's (R-Tenn.) seat; and Solana Beach City Councilman Dave Roberts, who was running against Rep. Brian Bilbray (R-Calif.).
Both McDonald and Kelly were cited in a late October memo from DCCC Chairman Chris Van Hollen (Md.) that touted the committee's recruiting successes.
On top of that, Democrats have lost four incumbents in vulnerable districts to retirement recently. It has been a distinct shift, taking five seats off the map on offense and adding four on defense.
GOP Poised For Comeback
Republicans could have a big year, but they need to win 40 House and 11 Senate seats to regain control of Congress. That's a tall order.
By Mark Barabak
Reporting from Roswell, N.M. - After losing the White House and nearly 70 congressional seats in the last two elections, Republicans are poised for a strong comeback in 2010, with significant gains likely in the House and a good chance of boosting their numbers in the Senate and statehouses across the country.
The results could hamper President Obama's legislative efforts as he prepares to seek reelection and reshape the political landscape for a decade beyond, as lawmakers redraw congressional and state political boundaries to reflect the next census.
All 435 House seats, 36 in the Senate and the governorships of 37 states will be on the ballot in November. Democrats are favored to retain the Massachusetts seat of the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy in a special election Jan. 19.
Some of the Democrats' most prominent figures, including Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada and Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut, are in serious danger as they seek reelection. Both would probably lose if elections were held today.
"It all adds up to a pretty bad year for the party in power," said Jennifer Duffy, an analyst with the nonpartisan Cook Political Report. "How bad? I'm not sure we know yet."
However, for all Republicans stand to gain, the party still has problems. Polls show that many voters, though unhappy with Democrats, are even less enamored of the GOP.
Steve Pearce, a former three-term Republican congressman, criticizes both parties as he campaigns for his old House seat in New Mexico, saying the explosion in spending under President George W. Bush has only gotten worse under Obama. "Both parties tend to get there and forget who they were and begin to talk differently than they do here," Pearce recently told a gathering of the Chaves County Republican Women in Roswell.
One big question is whether the GOP can capitalize on the free-floating hostility embodied by the anti-incumbent "tea party" movement to seize back control of Congress, four years after Democrats won power. Republicans need to win 40 House seats and 11 in the Senate -- which, for now, seems unlikely.
But plenty can change by November. Last spring, Democrats seemed well positioned to add Senate seats. Today, a Republican gain appears more probable, costing Democrats their 60-vote supermajority and ability to stop GOP filibusters -- though that could change again.
Democrats are counting on final passage of sweeping healthcare legislation, which appears on track for early this year, a stronger economy and rising employment to boost the party's prospects. In several Republican primaries -- for Texas governor and Senate races in California, Florida, Utah and other states -- unstinting conservatives are pitted against more moderate candidates who believe the party must hew closer to the center. A similar fight in November cost the GOP a once-solid New York congressional seat.
Obama was elected with the strongest showing by a Democratic presidential candidate in more than 30 years, thanks largely to a plunging economy and unhappiness with Bush. There was talk of a long-term realignment after decades of conservative ascendance. But after battles over healthcare, a climate-change bill and hundreds of billions in spending to spur the economy, it is Democrats who face a backlash and Republicans who are campaigning on a promise of change.
The shift is evident here in southern New Mexico, where freshman Harry Teague -- the first Democrat to represent the region since 1980 -- is trying to fend off Pearce, who ran unsuccessfully for Senate in 2008. The race is expected to be one of the hardest-fought in the country; Republicans targeted Teague the minute he was elected.
Campaigning for the open seat, the Democrat used every chance to link his GOP rival to Bush. Now it is Teague who has to defend the president, his vote for Obama's economic stimulus bill and, especially, his support for legislation to fight global warming, which could have a serious effect on New Mexico's oil and gas industry.
"Now it's not just casting a vote against a politically unpopular president," said Ken Spain, a Republican Party spokesman. "Now you have to take a stand on some things. This is a district where the Obama-Pelosi agenda is vastly unpopular."
That remains to be seen. Las Cruces, with nearly 100,000 residents, is the biggest city in the district and a Democratic stronghold where House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco would feel comfortable.
Teague also boasts of bringing home federal dollars, including stimulus funds to help build an algae-based fuel refinery in the southwest corner of the state. The money, Teague said, will create hundreds of jobs in hard-pressed rural communities.
But many of the challenges facing Democrats nationwide -- including a likely drop in turnout among supporters and frustration within the party base -- are playing out here amid the desert and scrubland sprawling from Texas to Arizona.
"I'd be very surprised if we won any of our congressional races by the same margins we won in 2008," said Carter Bundy, a New Mexico political strategist for the labor union AFSCME. Democrats easily took all three House seats and a Senate race -- Pearce was crushed 61% to 39% -- thanks to Obama's big victory in the state. "No doubt 2010 will be a tougher year," Bundy said.
History suggests as much. Since World War II, the party of a new president has lost an average of 16 House seats in midterm elections, a handful of governorships and more than 200 state legislative seats. The parties have come out close to even in Senate races.
The problem for Democrats is evident in polling, which shows a precipitous slide in Obama's job approval rating, from a high of about 80% before he took office to 48% in the latest aggregation by pollster.com, a political website. The fortunes of the two major parties often rise or fall with their leader in the White House: Bill Clinton, bruised by his failed effort to pass healthcare reform, had a 46% approval rating in 1994 when Republicans took over Congress. Bush, plagued by the unpopular war in Iraq, was at 38% when Democrats won control in 2006.
More worrisome for Democrats is the likelihood that many of their voters will stay home. Turnout always falls in nonpresidential election years, and that is why strategists closely gauge voter interest. Repeated surveys have found Republicans much more animated than Democrats; a Wall Street Journal/NBC poll in mid-December found that 56% of Republicans were "very interested," compared with 46% of Democrats.
That intensity gap was clear in New Mexico's 2nd District. For many Republicans, eager to send a message, November can't come too soon. Several cast half-hearted ballots for John McCain in 2008 and welcomed a chance to vote with conviction for the more reliably conservative Pearce.
"I think Americans made the biggest mistake they ever made when they elected Barack Obama," said Shirley Friend, 58, a Carlsbad schoolteacher who is angry over the skyrocketing debt, proposed Medicare Advantage cuts and what she considers Obama's too-frequent apologies for America overseas. "He's very charismatic and intelligent, but he's not a good president."
Several Democrats, by contrast, said they swallowed hard, their enthusiasm giving way to disillusionment, after Obama escalated the war in Afghanistan and declined to fight for a government-run healthcare plan. They expressed similar disappointment with Teague, whose voting record -- backing the first stimulus bill and climate-control legislation, opposing healthcare overhaul and a new round of stimulus spending -- reflect his challenge representing a district split between the left-leaning west and far more conservative east. (The latter, its air spiked with the sulfur smell of oil and gas, is known as "Little Texas" for its affinity with the Lone Star state.)
Barbara Villa, 40, is a Democrat from Artesia, her dusty black Plymouth still bearing a faded Kerry-Edwards sticker from 2004. She recognizes Teague's political fix. Still, the registered nurse said, "knowing the need for healthcare, it's really hard to cut much slack."
Teague, motoring the long stretch between small towns, said he considered issues on the merits; he opposed the healthcare bill because he doubts it will extend affordability. He supported the "cap-and-trade" bill to fight global warming after winning concessions to help small refiners and electrical co-ops.
"Making everybody happy in a district this big and diverse probably isn't going to happen," Teague said.
He professes not to worry about the shifting tide, but others do: the Democratic congressional campaign arm has placed Teague in its incumbent-protection program, offering him special aid and attention. The party was caught napping by the Republican landslide of 1994.
The rule this time, said spokeswoman Jennifer Crider, "is no surprises."
A specter is haunting America – the specter of a people rising. All across the nation Americans are waking up to the threat of a leftist elite determined to fundamentally change America, push through a socialist agenda, and make every citizen dependent on the state. The Obama machine is spending trillions of tax-payer dollars to finance their takeover of the American workplace and stifle the independence of the American people. But America is resilient nation, built on the principles of private property and individual freedom, and the resistance to their socialist plans has already begun.
In May 2009, just five months into the Obama administration, the people of California launched a tax revolt in the biggest spending state in the nation. So reckless were the leftist Democrats who run California (and have done so for as long as anyone can remember) that its deficit alone was larger than the budgets of most other states in the Union and of many of the nations of the world. Leftwing politicians don’t cut budgets; they propose new taxes. And California’s leftwing legislature did just that. But thanks to a constitutional amendment put in place by the California electorate through the state Initiative process, California legislators can’t raise taxes without a two-thirds referendum of the people. So they were forced to hold a special election in May to appeal to the electorate to pass five new ballot Initiatives to raise taxes.
But when the votes were counted, all five tax-raising Initiatives had been defeated by 60% margins. Even in San Francisco. A sixth Initiative designed by tax opponents to punish legislators who do not balance the budget passed by a more than 70% margin. Even in San Francisco. If one of the most liberal states in the Union is saying no to the soak-the-public philosophy of leftwing legislators, Obama socialism is in big trouble.
The revolt in California quickly spread to the entire nation through the efforts of the Tea Parties movement, the most innovative, exciting and powerful grassroots force in the history of American conservatism. It is vital to the health of this country that the Tea Parties movement grow. More to the point: it is essential to American survival that the Tea Parties movement succeed. On the eve of the 2008 presidential election, Barack Obama said “We are five days away from fundamentally transforming America.” The Tea Parties movement is the American people saying no to Obama’s plans for revolution.
A movement without an effective strategy for defeating its opponents cannot succeed. Therefore it is important to reacquaint ourselves with the art of political war.
While Democrats are morally bankrupt and clueless about policy – about what makes things work — they still win elections because they understand a simple fact: American politics is driven by the romance of the underdog, the story of the little guy who goes up against the system and triumphs in the end. It is a story about opportunity and fairness. To win the hearts and minds of the American voter, you have to tap the emotions the romance of the underdog evokes. Whoever does so has a winning edge.
America’s heroes are all cut to this common mold. Whether it is George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Davy Crockett, Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Amelia Earhart, Jackie Robinson, Ronald Reagan or Colin Powell, the theme is always the same: The common man who rises against the odds. America’s political romance is “Mr. Smith Goes To Washington” to make things right. It is “Meet John Doe” who speaks for the voiceless. It is Luke Skywalker who saves the planet by using the good side of the Force to defeat the Empire. It is the odyssey of individuals who challenge power, overcome adversity and rise to the top. Everyone in America thinks of themselves as an underdog and aspires to be a hero.
The cause of the underdog wins American hearts because it resonates with our deepest religious and moral convictions of doing good and helping others. And because it is America’s own story. We began as a small nation, standing up to the world’s most powerful empire. We dedicated ourselves to the idea that all men are created equal. We are a nation of immigrants and a generous people who arrived with nothing and made fortunes in a new world. This is the American Dream.
It’s a story that will get you every time. But at election time, it’s the political left and the Democratic Party who know how to wield it as a political weapon, and Republicans and conservatives generally who don’t. Of course the Tea Parties have changed all that. And that is another sign that we are in an extraordinary political moment. The Tea Parties draw on the heritage of America’s own revolution as an underdog nation and are the voice of the people, oppressed now by their own government which is out of control and determined to crush them.
In positioning themselves as champions of the under-represented, neglected and oppressed, leftists employ a version of America’s story that they have manufactured through their grip on the media and the academic culture. They have transformed America’s story from an epic of freedom into a tale of racism, exploitation and domination. In their telling, American history is no longer a narrative of expanding opportunity, of men and women succeeding against the odds. Instead, it is a Marxist Morality Play about the powerful and their victims.
In staging their political dramas, progressives invariably claim to speak in the name of America’s alleged “victims.” Every policy of the Democratic Party is presented as a program to help these “victims”—women, children, minorities and the poor. Simultaneously, Democrats describe Republican policies as programs that will injure the weak, ignore the vulnerable, and keep the powerless down.
Republicans play right into the Democrats’ trap because they approach politics as a problem of management. To Republicans, every issue is a management issue—the utility of a tax cut, the efficiency of a program, the optimal method for running an enterprise. Republicans talk like businessmen who want a chance to manage the country so that it will turn a profit.
There is nothing wrong with instituting good policies and running things efficiently or turning a profit. But while Republicans are performing these Gold Star activities, Democrats are engaged in a different kind of drama. They are busy attacking Republicans as servants of the rich, oppressors of the weak and defenders of the strong. And enemies of “the people.”
Listen to Mario Cuomo describing Republicans to the Democrats’ 1996 National Convention:
"We need to work as we have never done before between now and November 5th to take the Congress back from Newt Gingrich and the Republicans, because ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, the Republicans are the real threat. They are the real threat to our women. They are the real threat to our children. They are the real threat to clean water, clean air and the rich landscape of America."
Mario Cuomo knows the language of political war.
Democrats connect emotionally with people’s fears and concerns. The appeal to help the underdog and defend the victim resonates with all Americans. This is because Americans are a fair-minded people. Most successful Americans came from humble origins themselves. They want to help others. They want everyone to have the chance to succeed.
So do Republicans and conservatives. But they rarely connect their policies and principles to this political romance.
There’s a good reason for this. Conservatives are busy defending the real America against the left’s attacks and the anti-American caricature they have constructed. Conservatives know that America is still a land of opportunity and freedom, and that nobody in America is really “oppressed.” (Otherwise, why would poor, black, Hispanic and Asian minorities be desperately seeking to come here? Why wouldn’t they be leaving instead?)
But politics isn’t just about reality. If it were, good principles and good policies would win every time. It’s about images and symbols, and the emotions they evoke. This is a battle that conservatives generally lose.
In the romance of the victim, as progressives stage it, Republicans and conservatives are always on the side of the bad guys—the powerful, the male, the white and the wealthy. It’s easy to see how patriotism plays into this trap. Defending America is readily mis-represented as an attitude that says: “I’m all right Jack, so you should be too.” The left relishes the opportunity to smear patriots as members of the selfish party instead of as defenders of individual freedom.
Ann Coulter has described the motto of the left as this: “Speak loudly and carry a small victim.” For the Democrats, the romance of the victim stirs the souls of their supporters and energizes their base. Equally important, it provides the nuclear warhead of their political attack. Conservatives are targeted victimizers, and leftists as the champions of the oppressed. Learning how to turn this around will turn around the political war as well.
Going On The Attack
Fortunately, conservatives can use the left-wing attack against them. Contrary to the left’s view, America is not a land of victims. It is a highly mobile society, with a citizenry that aspires upwards through the system, not against it.
Conservatives can also turn the left’s oppression myth around, and aim its guns at them. In fact, using the romance of the underdog against the left is the best way to neutralize their attack.
The way to do it is to recognize that the most powerful forces obstructing opportunity for poor and minority Americans, the most powerful forces oppressing them, are progressives, the Democratic Party, and their political creation—the welfare state.
There is really nothing new in this idea. Conservatives already oppose the programs of the left as obstacles to the production of wealth and barriers to opportunity for all Americans. What is new is the idea of connecting this analysis to a political strategy that will give conservatives a decisive edge in battle—that will neutralize the class, race and gender warfare attacks of the political left.
The Principles
Here are the principles of political war that the left understands but conservatives do not:
1. Politics is war conducted by other means
2. Politics is a war of position
3. In political wars the aggressor usually prevails
4. Position is defined by fear and hope
5. The weapons of politics are symbols evoking fear and hope
6. Victory lies on the side of the people
Here are the principles explained:
Politics is war conducted by other means.
In political warfare you do not fight just to prevail in an argument, but to destroy the enemy’s fighting ability. Conservatives often seem to regard political combats as they would a debate before the Oxford Political Union, as though winning depends on rational arguments and carefully articulated principles. But the audience of politics is not made up of Oxford dons, and the rules are entirely different.
For starters, you have only 30 seconds to make your point. Even if you had time to develop an argument, the audience you need to reach (the undecided and those in the middle who are not paying much attention) wouldn’t get it. Your words would go over some of their heads and the rest would not even hear them (or be quickly forgotten) amidst the bustle and pressure of daily life.
Worse, while you’ve been making your argument the other side has already painted you as a mean-spirited, border-line racist controlled by religious zealots, securely in the pockets of the rich. Nobody who sees you this way is going to listen to you in any case. You’re politically dead.
Politics is war. Don’t forget it.
Politics is a war of position.
In war there are two sides: friends and enemies. Your task is to define yourself as the friend of as large a constituency compatible with your principles as possible, while defining your opponent as their enemy wherever and whenever you can. The act of defining combatants is analogous to the military concept of choosing the terrain of battle.
Choose the terrain that makes the fight as loaded in your favor as possible. But be careful. American politics takes place in a pluralistic framework, where constituencies are diverse and often in conflict. “Fairness” and “tolerance” are the formal rules of democratic engagement. If you appear mean-spirited, nasty, or too judgmental, it will make the task easier for your opponent to define you as a threat, and therefore as “the enemy.” (See principle 4)
In political warfare, the aggressor usually prevails.
Conservatives often pursue a strategy of waiting for the other side to attack. In football this is known as a “prevent defense.” In politics it is the strategy of losers.
Aggression is advantageous because politics is a war of position. Position is defined by images that stick. By striking first you can define the issues and your adversary. Defining the opposition is the decisive move in all political war. Other things being equal, whoever is put on the defensive generally winds up on the losing side.
In attacking your opponent, take care to do it right. Going negative increases the risk of being defined as an enemy. Therefore, it can be counter-productive. Ruling out the negative, however, can incur an even greater risk.
Position is defined by fear and hope.
The twin emotions of politics are fear and hope. Those who provide people with hope become their friends; those who inspire fear become enemies. Of the two, hope is the better choice. By offering people hope and yourself as its provider, you show your better side and maximize your potential support.
But fear is a powerful and indispensable weapon. If your opponent defines you negatively enough, he will diminish your ability to offer hope. This is why Democrats are so determined to portray conservatives as mean-spirited, and hostile to minorities, the middle class and the poor.
It is important to work away from the negative images your opponent wants to pin on you. If you know you are going to be attacked as intolerant and bigoted it’s a good idea to lead with a position that is inclusive and fair-minded. If you are going to be framed as mean-spirited and ungenerous, it’s a good idea to put on a smile and lead with symbols that project generosity and charity.
The weapons of politics are symbols evoking fear and hope.
Conservatives lose a lot of political battles because they come across as hard-edged, scolding, scowling and sanctimonious. A good rule of thumb says be just the opposite. You have to convince people you care about them before they’ll care about what you have to say.
When you do get to speak, don’t forget that a sound-bite is all you have. Whatever you have to say, make sure to say it loud and clear. Keep it simple and keep it short. (A slogan is always better).
Repeat it often. Get it on television. Radio is good, but with few exceptions, only television reaches a public that is electorally significant. In politics, television is reality.
Of course, you have a base of supporters who will listen for hours to what you have to say if that’s what you want. In the battles facing you, they will play an important role. Therefore, what you say to them is also important. But it is not going to decide elections. The audiences that will determine your fate are audiences that you will first have to persuade. You will have to find a way to reach them and get them to listen. And get them to support you. With these audiences, you will never have time for real arguments or proper analyses. Images—symbols and sound-bites—will always prevail.
Therefore it is absolutely essential to focus your message and repeat it over and over again. Lack of focus will derail your message. If you make too many points, your message will be diffused and nothing will get through. The result will be the same as if you had made no point at all.
Leftists have a party line. When they are fighting an issue they focus their agenda. During legislative battles, every time a Democrat steps in front of the cameras there is at least one line in his speech that is shared with his colleagues. “Tax breaks for the wealthy at the expense of the poor,” is one example. Repetition insures that the message will get through.
When Republicans speak during legislative battles, they all march to a different drummer. There are many messages instead of one. One message is a sound-bite. Many messages are an indecipherable noise. The result of many messages is that there is no message.
Symbols and sound-bites determine the vote. These are what hit people in the gut before they have time to think. And these are what people remember. Symbols are the impressions that last, and what ultimately defines you.
Carefully chosen words and phrases are more important than paragraphs, speeches, party platforms and manifestos. What you project through images is what you are.
Victory lies on the side of the people.
This is the bottom line for each of the principles and for all of the principles. You must define yourself in ways that people understand. You must give people hope in your victory, and make them fear the victory of your opponent. You can accomplish both by identifying yourself and your issues with the underdog and the victim, with minorities and the disadvantaged, with the ordinary Janes and Joes.
This is what leftists do best, and conservatives often neglect to do at all. Every political statement by a leftist is an effort to say: “We care about women, children, minorities, working Americans and the poor.” And: “Conservatives are mean-spirited, serve the rich and don’t care about you.” This is the left’s strategy of political war. If conservatives are to win the political war we have to turn these images around.
We also have to make our campaigns a cause. During the Cold War, conservatives had a cause. They were saving the country from Communism. It was a cause that resonated at every level with the American people. The poorest citizen understood that their freedom was at stake in making sure that conservatives were elected to conduct the nation’s defense.
In a democracy, the cause that fires up passions is the cause of the people. That is why politicians like to run “against Washington” and against anything that represents the “powers that be.” As the left has shown, the idea of justice is a powerful motivator. It will energize the troops and fuel the campaigns that are necessary to win the political war. Conservatives believe in economic opportunity and individual freedom. The core of our ideas is freedom and justice for all. If we can make this intelligible to the American electorate, we will become the majority again and stop the socialist juggernaut that threatens our American future.
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David Horowitz was one of the founders of the New Left in the 1960s and an editor of its largest magazine,Ramparts. He is the author, with Peter Collier, of three best selling dynastic biographies: The Rockefellers: An American Dynasty (1976); The Kennedys: An American Dream (1984); and The Fords: An American Epic (1987). Looking back in anger at their days in the New Left, he and Collier wrote Destructive Generation (1989), a chronicle of their second thoughts about the 60s that has been compared to Whittaker Chambers’ Witness and other classic works documenting a break from totalitarianism. Horowitz examined this subject more closely in Radical Son (1996), a memoir tracing his odyssey from “red-diaper baby” to conservative activist that George Gilder described as “the first great autobiography of his generation.”
Just a year away from midterm elections, anti-incumbent sentiment is at nearly the highest level in two decades. Photo: AP
Poll: Anti-Incumbent Sentiment Surges
By Kendra Marr
One year out from midterm elections, anti-incumbent sentiment is approaching its highest level in two decades, according to a poll released Wednesday by Pew Research Center for the People & the Press.
The survey found that 53 percent of Americans said most members of Congress should not be reelected, compared with just 34 percent who said most members should be reelected.
Fifty-two percent would like to see their own representatives reelected in 2010, while 29 percent want them out of office, according the Pew poll.
The last time voter sentiment was this negative was during the 2006 and 1994 election cycles — years in which the party in power suffered huge losses in midterm elections. In June 2006, 57 percent did not want to see most representatives reelected, while 29 percent wanted to see them stay in office. In October 1994, 56 percent of voters said they would not like to see most members of Congress reelected, while 28 percent would.
“When you have this anti-incumbent sentiment, it doesn’t typically reverse,” said Carroll Doherty, the associate director of the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press.
While President Obama’s 51 percent job approval rating has remained relatively static, fluctuating between 51 percent and 55 percent since July, Doherty noted that, “the public’s overall attitude about Congress has grown sharply more negative over the year.”
That anti-incumbent sentiment was prevalent among independents. Only 42 percent of independent voters wanted to see their own representative reelected, while 41 percent did not. And 67 percent do not want to see most members of Congress keep their seats, compared with 25 percent who said they would like most members reelected. Both measures are close to all-time lows in two decades of Pew surveys.
Looking at the overall picture of Congress, Doherty said, independents’ view is comparable to Republicans, the party out of power. Among Republicans, 70 percent did not want to see most members of Congress keep their seats.
“Independents have taken a much more negative view of Congress than they did earlier this year,” said Doherty.
Despite that trendline, overall voter preferences haven’t changed much since the summer. Today, 47 percent of voters said they would vote for a Democratic candidate or lean Democratic in 2010, and 42 percent said they would vote for a Republican or lean toward a GOP candidate. In August, 45 percent favored a Democrat, while 44 percent favored a Republican.
Republicans, however, appear to be far more energized to vote than Democrats. Fifty-eight percent of those planning to vote for a Republican next year say they are “very enthusiastic” about voting, compared with 42 percent of those planning to vote for a Democrat.
Of independents who support a Republican candidate in their congressional district, 56 percent are very enthusiastic about voting. But only 32 percent of Independents supporting a Democrat express that level of enthusiasm.
The Pew poll came on the same day that Gallup reported Republicans now lead Democrats by 48 percent to 44 percent on a "generic" congressional ballot for the 2010 House elections. Republicans trailed Democrats by 6 points in July and 2 points last month.
The poll interviewed 2,000 registered voters from Oct. 28 to Nov. 8.
New Polls Show Weak Dems
By Connie Hair
Next year is shaping up to be a disastrous election year for Democrats. More new polling data released just yesterday suggests an electorate fed up with corrupt politicians, the government takeover of health care, double-digit unemployment and the imposition of hope and change with a radical left bent.
A new round of Quinnipiac University polling data was released yesterday on races in Connecticut and Ohio. The news is grim for incumbent Democrats up for re-election in these states that Obama won handily in the Presidential election just one year ago.
Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), Chairman of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, is in serious trouble. The corruption scandals involving sweetheart loans from former Countrywide CEO Angelo Mozilo have taken a serious toll on Dodd’s re-election chances.
Connecticut voters disapprove of the job Dodd is doing as Senator by a margin of 54-40 percent. His disapproval rating among independent voters is 60 percent.
Former Connecticut Congressman Rob Simmons has an early 11-point lead in the five-person Republican primary field. Simmons also bests Dodd in a projected general election matchup by a whopping 49-38 percent with 11 percent undecided. The race looks at this point like an “anybody but Dodd” race as political newbies with very little name recognition are ahead or tied with the incumbent Senator in the poll.
Not a good position for any incumbent.
Portman Moves Ahead in Senate Race
In the crucial swing state of Ohio, Republican Rob Portman has moved ahead of both Democrat challengers for the very first time in the U.S. Senate race. Portman, a former Ohio Congressman, leads Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner 38-34 percent and Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher 39-36 percent.
Brunner gained national fame in the 2008 presidential election when, in her capacity as Secretary of State, she refused to allow computer cross matching of thousands of ACORN new voter registrations with Ohio DMV rolls, creating a computer wall of separation between voter registration information and other computer public data verifications systems. Brunner was also on the receiving end of several restraining orders until courts could sort out and monitor her same day registration and absentee ballot voting scheme.
Also for the first time, half of Ohio voters now disapprove of the job Obama is doing as President (a margin of 50-45 percent.) And in yet another first, voters are tied 40-40 percent on whether the President or Congressional Republicans are doing a better job on health care.
Ohio voters disapprove 53-42 percent of the way the President is handling the economy and disapprove 57-36 percent of the way he is handling health care.
“The Democratic wave that swept through Ohio in 2006 and 2008 may be cresting,” said Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute. “The Democratic lead in the Governor's and Senate races has evaporated and for the first time President Barack Obama is under water in the most important swing state in the country.”
Independent voters break the close races in Ohio and they disapprove 49-45 percent of the overall job Obama is doing, disapprove 54-39 percent of his handling of the economy and disapprove 62-34 percent, almost 2-1, of his handling of health care.
This news is on the heels of another Ohio Quinnipiac poll released Wednesday that found Ohio Democrat Gov. Ted Strickland’s lead over likely Republican challenger John Kasich in the 2010 race for reelection has evaporated, with the race dropping into a 40-40 percent tie. Kasich is a former Congressman and Fox News Channel program host.
Strickland held a 46-36 percent lead in mid-September.
Cook’s Competitive House Race Analysis
The Cook Political Report yesterday released its Competitive House Race analysis chart that should again give Democrats reason to pause and re-think following Obama’s radical left leadership like lemmings over the political cliff.
Competitive House races in the analysis are broken into three categories...
Likely: These seats are not considered competitive at this point but have the potential to become engaged.
Lean: These are considered competitive races but one party has an advantage.
Toss-Up: These are the most competitive; either party has a good chance of winning.
Democrats have 81 seats listed as competitive, 45 Likely Democrat, 24 Lean Democrat (one open seat currently held by a Republican with a majority registered Democrats in the district), 12 Tossup Democrat.
Republicans have only 27 seats listed in the competitive analysis with 15 in the Likely Republican, 9 Lean Republican (one open seat currently held by a Democrat) and only 3 Tossup Republican seats. One of the tossup seats is Rep. Joseph Cao (R-La.) who voted in favor of Pelosicare and represents a New Orleans district where registered Democrats outnumber Republicans by 25 percent. Cao won the seat in a post-Katrina race when former Democrat Congressman William Jefferson was convicted on 11 of 16 federal corruption charges including bribery.
And if all of that weren’t bad enough news for Democrats, Republican candidates have now stretched their lead over Democrats to six points in Rasmussen’s Generic Congressional Ballot.
The national telephone survey of likely voters revealed that 43 percent would vote for a Republican congressional candidate while 37 percent would opt for the Democrat. Republicans have now held the lead in the generic ballot for over four months.
Likely voters not affiliated with either party favor Republicans 43-20 percent.
And the Reid/Pelosi/Obama answer is to ram through the unpopular health care bill. As much political damage as this will and is already doing to Democrats, I’d rather the government rationing of breast cancer medication and pacemakers in America remain forever a pipe dream of useful idiots on the left.
See government-run, priority H1N1 vaccine distribution if you still have any doubts about what government rationed health care looks like. Hard working, American taxpayers need not apply for a priority vaccine for their high-risk children or pregnant mothers. The government decides who gets the vaccine, and you don’t rate as high as select prison inmates, Wall Street high-dollar political supporters or a Gitmo terrorist.
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Connie Hair is a freelance writer, a former speechwriter for Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ) and a former media and coalitions advisor to the Senate Republican Conference.
Republican Party Identity Politics: A Lesson from the Failed Scozzafava Campaign
The GOP should know by now that conservatives aren't interested in pandering.
By Melissa Clouthier
I’m certainly happy to be a modern woman. The possibilities are numerous — career choices, children, freedom. Life is good.
American women have all these things, yet there is a notable lack of women, both Democrat and Republican, in national political office. Why? Well, the job is demanding as hell and requires extended periods of separation, for one. Another reason: I’ll call it Sarah Palin Syndrome. Women, especially conservative women, are chewed up by the media. (This also happens to women bloggers. Related thoughts here.)
Leftist feminists feel that conservative women disparage the very things feminists work for while enjoying the benefits of that work. Equality in the workplace, more equitable task distribution at home (still haven’t figured out how to outsource breastfeeding, but I digress), and more respect for women generally — all triumphs of the women’s movement — have benefited all Western women. It should be noted that many cultures do not enjoy this equitable dynamic.
And then, the piece de resistance of the feminist movement, abortion, comes to the fore. One prominent blogger and leftist progressive feminist said to me, as the second statement out of her mouth: “You know, abortion is my thing, right?” I replied, “Oh, I know.”
Every conservative woman knows how abortion defines most modern feminists. The conservative women I know, though, don’t define being a modern woman by abortion. They also don’t believe that they deserve special treatment as a woman. These two facts grate on feminists. Don’t conservative women see how reproductive control puts a woman in the driver seat? Don’t conservative women feel oppressed? The conservative woman answers that abortion infringes a helpless victim’s civil rights. As a woman whose equal rights are relatively recent, it’s hypocritical to take them away from another being. There are times of inconvenience and any abuse will be fought and overcome. Stop whining, feminists, it plays to stereotypes.
The reaction from feminist women when told to quit whining? Foot stomping, personal and often — ironically enough — sexualized attacks, and more whining. See Maureen Dowd.
This animus causes conservative women all sorts of grief with other women. If they’re pro-life, they lose a lot of women voters. If they’re pro-abortion, they lose social conservatives. That was a bit of a digression, but salient. Conservative women fight bigotry from all sides. It makes it difficult to get elected. That’s why the number of conservative elected women is abysmal.
So, how to rectify this sad situation?
The Democrats have chosen symbolism over substance. Nancy Pelosi, one of the least effective negotiators and a woman who alienates her own, delegitimitized herself at her swearing-in by surrounding herself with her grandkids — emphasizing her womanhood over her accomplishment. That is, her ascension was attributed to her gender rather than her achievement. This is not unlike the “wise Latina” comment by Sonia Sotomayor. She drew attention to her gender and ethnicity rather than her substance. Meanwhile, Bill Clinton abused women and Barack Obama is currently taking heat for his hypocritical lack of diversity while in office.
Maybe it will take another generation for the novelty of women in power to wear off so that women can be looked at for the content of their character and their achievement. Women are more than their reproductive organs.
The Republican Party should help this process along by supporting and promoting deserving candidates with solid accomplishments and sound ideology. These candidates can be of any stripe. If the candidate is black and male and fills this bill (Michael Williams), great. If the candidate is Hispanic and male and fills this bill (Marco Rubio), great. If the candidate is white and female (Liz Cheney), great. If the candidate is white and male (Doug Hoffman), great.
The Republican Party has decided that the party needs more women. A woman, any woman, will do. Enter Dede Scozzafava. She seems to have all the credentials the Republican Party is looking for: female reproductive organs. She supports abortion, big government, ACORN, and unions. In most places, hell, even in New York, that makes her a Democrat. Dan Riehl has a shocking behind-the-scenes post detailing the thought process:
The very same GOP old hands opted for insider Jim Tedisco over Betty Little in that race and Tedisco got beaten, hindsight suggested Little would have won hands down. And, interesting enough, up pops Tom Reynolds to comment, again. It’s argued that instead of any genuine insight into politics on the ground these days, they didn’t want to repeat the Tedisco mistake, judged it based upon purely out-dated male/female lines, and were going to go with a female no matter what.
Why is the Republican Party, the party that champions merit over name, going Democrat and choosing identity over ideology? Riehl’s piece also emphasizes cronyism and national control rather than local Republican and grassroots cooperation in candidate selection. And in fact, it seems that cronyism and money trump gender and racial identity, even still. A good conservative Hispanic candidate, Marco Rubio, is being dismissed in favor of the uber-liberal Charlie Crist in Florida.
And look at how bad the decision to choose identity over ideology turns out to be. DeDe Scozzafava has dropped out of the NY-23 race. Erick Erickson says of this turn of events:
Relationships between the Republican establishment in Washington and the conservative movement are in rubble. Thanks to Pete Sessions NOT Doug Hoffman, there is new inspiration for a third party movement to challenge the GOP — a movement that will only help the Democrats.
Good men in the GOP are now going to be challenged in primaries because of the ill-will the NRCC has generated in New York’s 23rd Congressional District.
At this writing, RNC Chairman Michael Steele and Newt Gingrich have endorsed Doug Hoffman in NY-23. This is a hopeful turn of events. Erick Erickson is correct. The Republican establishment grossly misunderstood and underestimated the mood of the conservative base. The American people do not need more symbolism. They do not need a woman at all costs. They need a politician who will vote against taxes, vote against bigger government programs, and vote against invasive regulation.
The Republican Party will win on conservative ideas, not on skin color or gender. Let the Democrats tie themselves up with their identity politics. The Republican Party can do better.
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Dr. Melissa Clouthier is a chiropractor who blogs at MelissaClouthier.com and Right Wing News.
More Conservatives, But No Republicans
The Republican Party needs to redefine itself as conservative.
By B. Daniel Blatt
If every American self-described as conservative identified with the Republican Party, nearly half of all Americans would support the GOP — while barely one-quarter would back the Democrats. Yet while our political parties increasingly divide themselves along ideological lines, those line are not always straight. Indeed, according to the latest Gallup poll, more than one in five (22 percent) Democrats describe themselves as conservative.
This poll, which found that conservatives remain the largest ideological group in America, is welcome news to those of us who believe America is a center-right nation, but sobering to those of us who identify with the GOP. According to Gallup:
Forty percent of Americans describe their political views as conservative, 36 percent as moderate, and 20 percent as liberal. This marks a shift from 2005 through 2008, when moderates were tied with conservatives as the most prevalent group.
And this shift to the right has accelerated since the election of Barack Obama — ranked by National Journal in 2007 as the most liberal member of the United State Senate — along with increased, and more liberal, Democratic majorities in Congress. The poll shows clearly that their election has not succeeded in moving Americans leftward.
These numbers may show growing opposition to the president’s big-spending initiatives, but Gallup’s polling has also shown a public still wary of the GOP. According to its September poll on party identification, only 27 percent of Americans identify as Republicans, 35 percent as Democrats. Including those who lean toward one party or another, Gallup found that 42 percent of Americans favor the GOP and 48 percent favor the president’s party. Given that 27 percent of Republicans describe themselves as “moderate” or “liberal,” and assuming that percentage applies to the “leaners” as well as the identifiers, this suggests that as many as one in five conservatives neither support nor lean to the GOP.
Simply put, if Republicans wish to recapture their majorities, they need to figure out why so many conservatives continue to remain wary of the party considered the more conservative of the two. Indeed, Gallup found “the main reason the percentage of conservatives has increased nationally over the past year” has been the number of independents moving right:
The 35 percent of independents describing their views as conservative in 2009 is up from 29 percent in 2008. By contrast, among Republicans and Democrats, the percentage who are “conservative” has increased by one point each.
They’re moving right, but not moving (in any significant number) to the GOP. After eight years of a Republican president who did not hold the line on federal domestic spending, many Americans still don’t see the GOP as a fiscally conservative party. And it’s not just President George W. Bush. At least three successive Republican Congresses lost sight of the principles which helped the party, after a 40-year hiatus, regain its congressional majorities in 1994. That year, Republicans campaigned on their “Contract with America,” which included a pledge “to restore fiscal responsibility to an out-of-control Congress, requiring them to live under the same budget constraints as families and businesses.”
Gallup found increasing numbers of independents sharing a similar view, with 50 percent now believing government regulates too much, compared to 38 percent last year. (Among Republicans, the increase was similarly significant, to 70 percent from 56 percent.) And this isn’t the only issue where independents have moved to the right; they have become “more conservative on a number of specific policy issues.” They have shifted right on government and union power, the role of government relative to promoting values, gun laws, immigration, global warming, and abortion. Republicans, most of whom considered themselves ideologically conservative in 2008, have also grown more conservative on several of these issues this year, while less change is seen among Democrats.
These numbers accord with a poll Gallup conducted last month which found “a sharp increase” in the number of Americans believing “that government is taking on too much responsibility for solving the nation’s problems and is over-regulating business.” Their data showed that 57 percent of Americans say the government is trying to do too many things that should be left to businesses and individuals and 45 percent say there is too much government regulation of business. Both reflect the highest such readings in more than a decade.
The issues which animated the GOP during Reagan’s heyday and in the mid-1990s remain as relevant today as they were in the elections of 1980, 1984, 1988, and 1994. Indeed, the Democratic presidential nominee tapped into one such issue in his successful bid for the White House last fall, reminding voters in the third debate that “throughout this campaign” he had proposed “a net spending cut.”
His record in office tells a different story.
The GOP has not been nearly as successful this year in tapping into that idea as Obama was last fall or Republicans were for the better part of the last two decades of the twentieth century.
If the Gallup poll is to serve as anything more than an ideological portrait of the American electorate, Republican leaders in Washington — and across the nation — need to ask why independents are moving decidedly to the right but not moving in any significant numbers to the GOP. That said, these numbers do provide a glimmer of hope to those of us on the right who believe that a reaffirmation of the principles which animated the GOP under Ronald Reagan and in the 104th and 105th Congresses, as well as a recommitment to policies in line with those ideals, will restore the party to power.
To do that, Republicans should ignore the advice of pundits who say they should move left to survive. This latest Gallup poll shows instead that the party needs to move to the right. It won’t be enough, however, for Republicans to say they’ve learned the lesson from past electoral losses. They’re going to have to show how much they’ve learned. Adopting a new “Contract with America” would be a good start.
