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Posts Tagged ‘2010 midterm elections’
October 29th, 2010 at 1:23 pm
Clintons Currying Favor Amid Dejected Democrats

Power abhors a vacuum.  So too do the people seeking it.  From Rhode Island comes another example of the chit-building Bill Clinton is possibly doing while President Barack Obama dithers.

You may recall the now-infamous “shove-it” line to President Obama came from the Democratic nominee for Rhode Island’s governorship.  It was presaged by the president’s refusal to endorse Democrat Frank Caprio in deference to Obama’s friendship with former Republican, current independent candidate Lincoln Chafee.  In his rebuke of the president, Caprio did more than reject Obama’s aura; he embraced Bill Clinton’s.

Courtesy of the Wall Street Journal:

Despite the furor his crude suggestion caused, Mr. Caprio not only is sticking by his “shove it” comment. His campaign has just announced a weekend event with Mr. Clinton, whom it says is much more popular in the state than Mr. Obama. The campaign told Politico.com that Mr. Caprio “aims to be a governor in the mold of President Clinton.” Zing, zing. It also noted a Gallup survey showing that voters of every affiliation would be more likely to vote for a candidate backed by Mr. Clinton than one backed by Mr. Obama.

A new poll by the local NBC affiliate suggests that “shove it” may have unsettled the race, with Mr. Chafee now running at 35% and Mr. Caprio, with 25%, running third behind Republican John Robitaille, who has 28%. How much confidence to put in such polling amid a fluid three-man contest is debatable. In any case, Democrats will be watching closely. An eleventh-hour victory by Mr. Caprio would be fodder for those dreaming of a Clinton-Obama rematch in 2012.

If Caprio wins, don’t expect a make-up session between him and the president.  If he loses, don’t be surprised if he emerges 18 months from now as a top hand in Hillary’s bid to challenge for the 2012 nomination.

October 28th, 2010 at 5:45 pm
DNC Chair is Nuts About His Party’s Situation

Tim Kaine, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, said the following during an interview that will air tonight on Fox News:

“I do think Democrats thinking that they can, you know, hold the Democratic label at arm’s length, I do think that’s nuts,” he said. “You put the label after your name, be proud of it.”

Kaine goes on to list legislation requiring equal pay for women and a taxpayer bailout of the auto industry as accomplishments that will resonate in “the reddest districts in America…”  If that’s the best the man in charge of Democratic fundraising can do to off-set the anger caused by ObamaCare, the Recovery Act and trillions in deficit spending it’s no wonder the politicians who actually have to face voters next Tuesday are throwing the liberal establishment under the bus.

They’d be nuts to do otherwise.

H/T: The Hill

October 28th, 2010 at 2:37 pm
Obama Not Shining in His Spectacle of Me

Which of these sounds like the person currently serving as the leader of his party and nation’s chief executive?  On one side is a man crisscrossing the nation in a mad-dash to raise his members’ hopes, and squeeze out a few more votes and volunteers by Election Day.  He is upbeat, full of self-effacing humor, and mindful of long-term perspective.

The other man is in a television studio in Washington, D.C. defending the results of a campaign that ended almost two years ago.  To a comedian.  And failing.

The first man is former president Bill Clinton.  The latter is his current successor Barack Obama.  While Clinton is preaching a “we’re-all-in-this-together” sermon in battleground states, Obama seems lost in self-absorption, unable to feel anyone’s pain – including the crushing news that one’s political career is over because of votes the president asked you to take.

Sure, politics is a big-boy business with harsh outcomes.  But it is jolting to watch President #44 missing so many lessons from #42 about the importance of running through the finish line instead of stopping several yards out.  Just like winning, sometimes people need to feel like they’re losing for something; in this case the president’s uber-liberal agenda.

The failure to lead and inspire in the face of certain defeat will not be forgotten by those Democrats who survive to fight in 2012.  Chance are, the memories of Clinton helping and Obama not will do much to make Hillary Clinton’s dark horse candidacy all the more appealing.

October 27th, 2010 at 12:25 pm
Nevada’s Reid Machine Not Strong Enough to Save Son’s Fading Gubernatorial Bid

Pity Rory Reid.  The son of U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), Rory is the luckless family scion getting blown out in his race for Nevada governor.  The newest Rasmussen Reports poll finds the younger Reid down 20 points to former federal judge Brian Sandoval.

Maybe Rory should have built up more chips with organized labor like his dear old dad.  According to multiple reports, the elder Reid is enjoying all kinds of “thanks-for-the-memories” tributes such as gift cards and free food for pro-Reid votes.  If Senator Reid hangs onto his seat, his son should remember that liberal success comes from union largesse.

October 26th, 2010 at 7:29 pm
Poll Numbers Continue to Show Massive Pick-Up for GOP

Jay Cost at The Weekly Standard makes a compelling case that one of the reasons a Republican victory next Tuesday may seem ho-hum is that its arrival has been trumpeted for so long.  After months of voter resentment over ObamaCare, the Recovery Act, and spiraling unemployment the notion that the GOP might surpass 1994’s gains can seem pedestrian.

Cost reminds us it isn’t.  In fact, the intensity and location of voter resentment towards the liberal status quo could portend a possible realignment in states President Barack Obama won in 2008 to the GOP column.

The circumstantial evidence in favor of this? As Jim Geraghty’s Obi Wan noted yesterday, it’s all around us.  We simply have gotten used to it. Ohio is all but gone for the Democrats, including the swingiest of swing districts in Columbus.  Michigan is a lost cause. So is liberal icon Russ Feingold in Wisconsin.  Pennsylvania looks like it will go maybe +4-6 for Toomey and Corbett. All of these places voted for Obama, and all of them are basically gone. Weak Republican candidates in Colorado and Nevada keep those races tight, but otherwise the toss-ups are: California, Illinois, West Virginia, and Washington. The last Republican presidential candidate to win all four of these? Ronald Reagan in 1984.

Whoever earns the GOP presidential nomination for 2012 will have the wind at their back and a groundswell of proven precinct walkers at the ready.  We’ll see if the candidate can figure out how to use them.

October 25th, 2010 at 10:04 am
If Tea Partiers Are Racist, Why Are They Supporting Juan Williams?
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The political left, as illustrated by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), continues its Captain Ahab-like obsession to portray Tea Partiers as irredeemably and inherently “racist.”

So here’s a puzzle for them as they, in the words of The Wall Street Journal’s Jason Riley, “monitor Sarah Palin rallies for Confederate flags”:  If Tea Partiers are so innately racist, why have they so swiftly come to the defense of Juan Williams, who is both African-American and politically liberal to boot?  Such leading Tea Party figures as Senator Jim DeMint (R – SC), Sarah Palin and Congressman Eric Cantor (R – VA) immediately voiced support for Williams, and attacked National Public Radio (NPR) for summarily terminating him.   How to explain this inconvenient turn of events?

Perhaps the NAACP or the hysterical anchors over at MSNBC will reply that the Tea Party’s defense of Williams is all part of its sinister scheme to deceive the American electorate just one week before the November 2 elections.  Of course, that would undermine their other meme that Tea Partiers are simply a horde of ignorant yahoos.  Decisions, decisions…

October 22nd, 2010 at 1:19 pm
Do You Suffer From Obama Underappreciation Syndrome?

Pundit and board certified psychiatrist Charles Krauthammer identifies a new strain of derangement infecting the body politic:

Here Obama has spent two years bestowing upon the peasantry the “New Foundation” of a more regulated and socially engineered, and therefore more humane, society, and they repay him with recalcitrance and outright opposition. Here he gave them Obamacare, the stimulus, financial regulation, and a shot at cap-and-trade — and the electorate remains not just unmoved but ungrateful.

Faced with this truly puzzling conundrum, Dr. Obama diagnoses a heretofore undiscovered psychological derangement: anxiety-induced Obama Underappreciation Syndrome, wherein an entire population is so addled by its economic anxieties as to be neurologically incapable of appreciating the “facts and science” undergirding Obamacare and the other blessings their president has bestowed upon them from on high.

But don’t just take Dr. Krauthammer’s word for it.  Check out this clip of President Barack Obama blaming his downward spiral in popularity on a lack of effective advertising.

Feel better now?

October 22nd, 2010 at 7:51 am
So Which Group Actually Spends the Most on the 2010 Election? Public Employee Union AFSCME
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Barack Obama has consistently failed to gain political traction with unseemly attacks against everyone from former President Bush to Fox News to John Boehner’s tan.  So Obama redirected his aim using illogical and baseless attacks against business groups whom he accuses of attempting to “sway elections” through sinister election spending.”  David Axelrod, Obama’s top political guru, has labeled election spending a “threat to our democracy,” and when pressed to identify a shred of evidence supporting Obama’s allegation of illegal foreign campaign spending benefiting Republican candidates could only reply, “do you have any evidence that it’s not?”

So which group has actually spent the most to influence this year’s Congressional elections?  The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), a 1.6 million member union of public employees.  According to The Wall Street Journal, AFSCME has now spent $87.5 million, which outdistances the demonized Chamber of Commerce by a cool $12.5 million.  Of the top five spenders, in fact, three of them are big labor unions (the other two being the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and National Education Association (NEA)).

One would hope for more ethical behavior from a President who based his entire 2008 campaign on bringing “change” to our toxic political discourse.  What will be his campaign theme in 2012?  Instead of “hope and change,” he’s building a legacy of “hypocrisy and impropriety.”

October 19th, 2010 at 3:29 pm
Gallup Poll: Republicans Do Something They’ve Never Done Before
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We’re now exactly two weeks from the long-awaited 2010 Congressional midterm election and report card for President Obama.  By now, the question is simply how high the expletive decibel level will ascend on election night inside the White House.

On that front, a Gallup poll brings news every bit as chilly and cloudy for Democrats as today’s Washington, D.C. weather.  In fact, the poll shows a high for Republicans that even 1994 didn’t bring.  According to polling completed this past weekend, Republicans now possess a 5-point lead in voter preference, 48% to 43%.  And here’s the really bad news for Democrats:  that’s not among likely voters, but among registered voters.  (Among likely voters, the GOP lead expands to 11% or 17%, depending on whether the “high turnout” or “low turnout” polling model is applied.)

Let’s put that historic lead in perspective.  In 2002, the party holding the White House hadn’t added both House and Senate seats in its first mid-term since 1934, but the supposedly failed President Bush broke almost 70 years of precedent by adding 8 House and 2 Senate seats.  Even that year, however, Democrats held a 9-point polling lead in mid-October among registered voters.  And during the famous 1994 election season that rejected two years of Clintonian rule alongside a Democratic House and Senate, Republicans only held a 3-point lead on October 18-19, which switched back to a 3-point Democrat lead by October 22-25.  If this is any indication, Democrats aren’t going to need seat belts this year, they’re going to need airbags.

October 15th, 2010 at 11:14 am
Video: Liberals Running Scared from the Conservative Comeback
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In this week’s Freedom Minute, CFIF’s Renee Giachino comments on the desperation tactics and outright lies of President Obama and his liberal allies against their political and ideological opponents. 

 

October 5th, 2010 at 12:45 pm
Voter Anger Up, Campaign Contributions Down

In a revealing analysis the researchers at Rasmussen Reports found that although voter anger at the political class is at record highs, campaign contributions from individuals are drying up.  Why would people fed up with the political system not be pouring money into contested races?  Probably because the memory of Republican free-spending is still so fresh in the public’s mind.

The Rasmussen telephone survey found that while most of the respondents thought campaign contributions are important to winning, they think a candidate’s political positions is the ultimate deciding factor.

So there you have it.  For candidates running this year it sounds like voters are expecting ideological purity to trump fundraising prowess.  Hopefully, they’re right.

October 4th, 2010 at 1:15 pm
Dem Senator Announces Lame Duck Agenda Item

Who says Congressional Democrats don’t have a death wish for their party’s future?  Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ) is openly stating his intent to pass an amnesty bill during the lame duck session between the November 2010 midterm elections and swearing in the new Congress in January.

And get this for his rationale:

“A lot of senators are retiring and might be willing to look at the issue,” Menendez said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “We need something to jump off from if we’re going to go into it in the early part of the next Congress.”

What Menendez should have said is that a lot of senators will be nursing grudges during their four eight weeks notice of being fired, and might be willing to stick it to voters on a controversial issue.

If the liberals running the Democrat Party go through with threats like this to ram through unpopular agenda items during a lame duck session they will ensure minority status for their party for several election cycles to come.

H/T: Politico

September 24th, 2010 at 12:29 pm
For Feingold, Being a Maverick Means Never Having to Say, “Aye”

The difference between a ‘moderate’ politician and a political ‘maverick’ is that the latter takes more joy out of angering his party’s base.  For Republican mavericks like Senators John McCain (R-AZ) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) that usually means signing onto to Progressive-themed legislation on climate change, amnesty, etc.  They get in trouble for what they’re for.

Not so with maverick Democratic Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI), whom The Nation profiles thusly:

Feingold opposed Bill Clinton’s North American Free Trade Agreement and normalization of trade with China; he opposed George W. Bush’s Central American Free Trade Agreement; now he is challenging attempts by the Obama administration to advance trade policies that do too much for multinational corporations and too little for workers and farmers here and abroad. Feingold was the leading Senate critic of Clinton’s failure to abide by the War Powers Act; he opposed Bush’s rush to war in Iraq and was the first senator to call for a timeline to bring the troops home; now he complains that the Obama administration is not moving fast enough to wind that war down. Feingold noisily challenged constitutional abuses during the Clinton and Obama years, and as chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Constitution subcommittee, he is pressing the Obama administration to get serious about civil liberties. Feingold opposed Clinton’s proposal to loosen bank rules, arguing that doing so could threaten financial stability; he opposed Bush’s bank bailout; and he was the sole Democrat to object that the reforms Obama backed did not go far enough because they did not do away with “too big to fail” banks and did not adequately protect consumers or taxpayers.

While there’s something about Feingold’s proclivity to vote ‘No’ that a limited government conservative can (sort of) appreciate, it’s a testament to his lack of legislative accomplishment (other than his free speech-destroying efforts at ‘campaign finance reform’) that Wisconsin voters are thinking seriously about firing him after three terms.

For all his opposition over the years, Feingold loses every battle he fights.  Ideas are great.  Ideas with results are better.

September 23rd, 2010 at 7:18 pm
What is the Liberals’ Constructive Alternative to GOP’s ‘Pledge to America’?

Conservatives can be forgiven for thinking that every member of the liberal establishment has read and memorized Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals.  The subject of Hillary Clinton’s college senior thesis and the inspiration for a young Barack Obama’s zeal for community organizing, the Rules stand alongside Chairman Mao’s little red book in the Leftist’s canon.  But time and again, the liberals running the Democratic Party into the ground seem to be as clueless about the rules as they are about the laws of economic gravity.

Consider Rule #12: The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative.  On some level, liberals knew this when they spent the better part of a year castigating Republicans as ‘The Party of No’.  They knew that the public wouldn’t accept the GOP as a credible governing party until it produced a constructive alternative.  (Though worthy of support, Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) Roadmap for America’s Future has yet to gain widespread acceptance in the GOP caucus.)  With this week’s ‘Pledge to America’ the GOP is now a party with a constructive alternative.

The field is open, liberals.  And time is dwindling.

September 17th, 2010 at 3:39 pm
Washington, D.C. Gets Three Times National Average in “Stimulus” Dollars
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Last month, we highlighted the obscene self-serving nature of big government’s growth.  In “Why We’re Boiling Over:  Federal Salaries Now Twice That of Private Sector,” we detailed how federal workers earn double their private sector counterparts, and how incomes fell throughout America last year except in cities with higher concentrations of federal jobs.

Now, a Wall Street Journal study entitled “Washington Firms Soak Up Stimulus” reports that President Obama’s failed $814 billion “stimulus” package has awarded nearly $2,000 dollars per every Washington, D.C. resident.  That’s three times the national average of $695.95 per person across the rest of the country.  It’s not by coincidence, then, that D.C.’s unemployment rate of 6.3% is over three percentage points lower than the nation’s overall 9.6% rate.

Why is the nation’s fed-up electorate boiling over?  The federal “stimulus” trough provides yet another reason.

September 17th, 2010 at 9:05 am
“It’s the Spending, Stupid”: WSJ’s Daniel Henninger Should Like CFIF’s “One More Vote” Initiative
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In his weekly Wonder Land column entitled “It’s the Spending, Stupid,” The Wall Street Journal’s Daniel Henninger describes how “concern” over out-of-control federal spending has reached the boiling point:

They, the voters, are not ‘concerned’ about Uncle Sam’s spending floating toward the moon.  They are enraged, furious, crazed and desperate.”

Heninger rightfully points out that it won’t be enough for voters to simply return Republicans to House and Senate majorities this November.  Rather, something more lasting, tangible, and assuring is needed:

If voters give control of the House to the GOP, the party desperately needs to establish credibility on spending.  Absent that, little else is possible.  Independent voters now know that the national Democratic Party, hopelessly joined to the public-sector unions, will never stabilize public outlays.  In a sense, the GOP’s impending victory is meaningless, a win by default.  If the Republican rookies entering Congress next year don’t do something identifiably real to stop the federal spending balloon, voters two years from now will start throwing the GOP under the bus.”

Enter CFIF’s new “One More Vote” citizen activist campaign.  “One More Vote” refers to the fact that Congress fell just one vote short in the 1990s of passing a constitutional amendment requiring a balanced budget, and sending it to the states for ratification.  Echoing Daniel Henninger’s commentary this week, the “One More Vote” homepage states that, “Currently, there are several worthy ideas proposed in Congress.  But we need more than ideas.  We need a solution.”  Accordingly, “One More Vote” proposes a Constitutional amendment requiring (1) a federal balanced budget annually, (2) a 60% majority of both houses of Congress to raise the debt ceiling, and (3) a 60% vote of both houses of Congress to increase or create new taxes.

It’s precisely the type of real, lasting and tangible change that enraged American voters described by Henninger demand.  Click on “One More Vote” now, and join the movement.  This time, let’s make sure the change is real.

September 7th, 2010 at 2:47 pm
The Coming Teacher Union Crackup

Hugh Hewitt is out today with a sobering call for young public school teachers to buck their union bosses and vote for education reform.  Consider this bizarro-world scenario facing the newest generation of classroom teachers:

The Obama-Pelosi-Reid Democrats and their state counterparts have been dining on the seed corn, running up bills that can only be paid by the taxes of people under 40 working until they are 80 and then retiring on 50 percent of what their older colleagues receive now, if that.

Indeed, that kind of generation theft what is being offered to every twentysomething public employee these days.  Younger workers already get that Social Security won’t be around to help them in retirement.  If the message sinks in that their lavish pensions are also a mirage, we could be in for a major shift in public policy after the November midterm elections.

September 3rd, 2010 at 7:22 pm
Tough Primary Fights For Democrats Too

Fresh off home state protests against Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) who, as head of the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC), continues to back losing candidates against Tea Party opposition comes a similar bit of news from Florida.  The minority leader of the Sunshine State’s state senate, Al Lawson, just endorsed Governor Charlie Crist (I-FL) for U.S. Senator.  As an African-American and Democratic leader in the Florida Senate, Lawson’s support is a blow to Rep. Kendrick Meek (D-FL), the Democrats’ African-American Senate candidates.

But Lawson’s endorsement of Crist is apparently motivated by the Democratic establishment’s successful moves to defeat his recent primary challenge to Rep. Alan Boyd (D-FL).  That includes strong-arm tactics by President Barack Obama’s Organizing for America campaign operation.

Unlike Tea Party insurgents Joe Miller in Alaska, Rand Paul in Kentucky and Sharron Angle in Nevada, Lawson couldn’t overcome his party’s establishment.  Cornyn’s saving grace is that he still has time to make up with the grassroots voters before November.  Unless Obama & Co. can find a way to unify their base in the next two months, chances are people like Al Lawson will stay home on Election Day; making GOP control of both houses of Congress that much more likely.

September 3rd, 2010 at 12:42 am
Could the GOP Pick Up 60-90 Seats in the House?

Sean Trende at RealClearPolitics delivers some intriguing analysis about the possible net gain of Republican House seats this November:

In reality, barring some major and dramatic turnaround in the political landscape, the 50 seat GOP wave has now in many ways moved closer to the floor for Democratic losses. With the economy continuing to flounder and with fewer than 60 days until Election Day, the potential for a once-in-a-century type of wave that would lead to GOP gains in the 60-90 seat range is increasing.

In a delightful twist of irony, Trende analogizes the perfect storm facing Democrats as strikingly similar to the one that sent Herbert Hoover era Republicans into a two decade electoral wilderness:

Right now, the idea of gains in excess of 60 seats for the GOP is unthinkable to many. Gains of that magnitude haven’t happened in over 80 years. But unthinkability is not evidence. What actual evidence we have reminds us that no political party has hit the trifecta of a lousy economy, an opposition at its nadir (in terms of seat loss), and an overly ambitious Presidential agenda in over 80 years. All these macro factors are pointing to a massive GOP blowout, and they will not be changing between now and November. The Democrats need to hope that the micro factors save them from a once-in-a-century storm.

To put this in perspective, the 1994 Newt Gingrich-led takeover netted 52 seats for Republicans.  Flipping the House by almost double that number in the same year ObamaCare – the Democrats’ signature legislative achievement passed – could signal a generational rebuke.  That is, if Republicans have a credible alternative to Progressivism once in office.

August 31st, 2010 at 11:35 am
Marco Rubio Is In a Class By Himself

Three Freedom Works-backed U.S. Senate candidates sent videotaped messages to the 1,000+ gathering of grassroots activists last Friday night.  The differences in quality and presentation were noticeable.

Dino Rossi (R-WA) stands in front of a campaign banner dressed in slacks and an open collar, long-sleeved shirt.  He thanks Freedom Works and the crowd for its hard work, and gives an earnest, seemingly impromptu riff on the problems facing Washington State and America.  Good, but not great.

Next was Rand Paul (R-KY).  Seated in an office environment surrounded by book shelves, Paul also sports an open collar shirt.  Like Rossi’s video, Paul’s looks and feels like a candidate taking a few moments out of a busy day to look directly into a camera held by a campaign operative, and doing his best to stay on message.

Then Marco Rubio’s video begins.  After the fade-in, Rubio (R-FL) appears leaning forward on a stool with one foot on the ground as if ready to walk forward and greet the viewer.  He’s dressed in a crisp dark suit and power tie.  His mannerisms give the subtle impression he’s studied how to interact with a camera.  His delivery is smooth and unhurried.  Unlike Rossi and Paul, Rubio doesn’t just talk to the audience members; he connects with them.  His video is certainly shot in a studio, and his communications team took pains to mold his stump speech to fit this grassroots crowd.

Judging by the audience’s reaction after each candidate’s video, Rubio won the straw poll. No wonder the Freedom Works organizers chose to end with his submission.