Nov 07 2012
The Obligatory “You’ll Eat Your Crow And Like It” Post
One of the great things about blogging is when you have an epic face plant moment, you get to post about it the next day – no matter what. /sarcasm
Amazingly, President Obama ran the table of swing states – taking all but North Carolina. Color me sadly stunned. I got none right, outside NC. I am in good company I guess: Rove, Limbaugh, Krauthammer ….
Something is clearly wrong on the GOP side if after four years of this kind of economy the nation is ready to go through four more years of massive debt and deficits with no job creation. And there will be very little job creation coming. Businesses are looking at tax hikes, Obamacare and massive new regulations. Business owners (like us) don’t have the luxury of adding a lot of new people now – unless they are there to fill out government forms. This does not make us money or competitive, it simply drains our revenues that should be going to opening new opportunities and raising salaries. But why would a liberal, community-organizer understand business?
I worry about our kids, and the fact we are not handing them the same nation handed to us by my parents generation (WW II). Instead of the American dream being about making something of yourself and succeeding, it is now who can grab the most government handouts. Or better yet – be the one handing out the goodies to the poor masses. And the debt they have now to pay off is horrific.
If Americans under the age of 18 were required as a group to pay off the entirety of the federal government’s debt in equal shares, each would now need to pay about $218,676.
That is more than the $130,468 average price tag for four years at a private college or the $173,100 median price for an existing one-family home in the United States.
Obama only knows one trick – spending. Hopefully the GOP House will – this time! – hold their ground. But I fear they will fold, like they did in 2011.
It is not morning in America – again. And I can point to a few things that kept GOP out of office – again.
First off in VA: the GOP has to let the voters pick their candidates. ‘Ol George Allen ‘the retread’ was hoisted on the voters without their support (or desire). He was a huge boat anchor for Mitt Romney. You cannot get people excited about a campaign when they are not even allowed to vote (win or lose) on the selection of the candidates. Bob McDonnell is the face of the new VA GOP. The old guard who fear open primaries need to go into retirement – they have done enough damage. There better be change in the Grand Old Party of the Old Dominion. Or else go the way of the Whigs.
Social issues: If the GOP is going to be strapped with idiot white men telling women what it means to be raped they should just give up now and not waste time or money. Aiken and Mourdoch left a stain on the entire GOP’s small-government message of the season. This makes three GOP senate candidates I am so glad did not make it I can’t tell you. Boat anchors, all of them.
Rich White Guy Party? When I hear talking heads say the GOP needs 75% white turn out to win, there is something seriously, seriously wrong. I mean what is the point of a national party that looks like they come from one family? America is diverse and we need to tap into that and explore its potential. Instead we find the GOP being distilled down to a single large voting bloc. Rich White Guys….
This is the new face of the GOP – or should have been.
Mia Love conceded in a hotly contested congressional race against incumbent Rep. Jim Matheson (D) in Utah’s 2nd congressional district.
As was Herman Cain, Sarah Pailin, etc. Yes – I am an old(er) white guy, but not rich and sure as hell not comfortable with an all-white male group as my social circle. I can’t talk sports and cars that long before going comatose. I enjoy the diversity of my Northern Virginia community – including the immigrant working families. I want legal and managed immigration: not rabid, unbending, uncaring anti-immigration. I definitely think women should be equal partners in all endeavors. All of sudden I see the GOP as the lecturing, know-it-all guy you hate to be around. Mitt Romney was a nice exception to the rule.
I am not going to sugar coat this. President Obama AND his party won big after four years of historic economic pain and suffering. That tells you something about how bad the opposition appeared to too many voters. Turnout was astoundingly high, which meant the people spoke. Races were close and down to the wire, which means voters wanted a good option. I cannot help but ponder what a Bob McDonnell would have done in 2012 (like he did in 2009). Or a Chris Christie – though I am a bit cool on the man.
The GOP needs an overhaul, new blood up and down, and a new set of causes built around a moderate libertarian core of limited, non-intrusive, cost-efficient, results-oriented government. That means jettisoning all ideas about using the government to impose a preferred set of morals on We The People. Get over the social engineering, life will teach the lessons needed to survive and thrive.
Finally, pick a small set of priorities like national debt and career/wealth opportunities (which is not the same thing as ‘jobs’) and hammer the hell out of them. Expose the problems and failures of the opposition (see green energy for endless examples of cronyism). Don’t dance around the issue and try and be polite. Stay on target, stay focused and work solutions. If you are off yapping about rape being God’s will you are going to be seen as completely off the tracks and in the ditch. Because you are!
Four more years of incompetent leadership will lead to only one thing – another shot at a bruised and beaten electorate in 2016. But in those four years, the GOP better be a completely different animal.
Now, back to life for a while. I have an economic storm to prepare for, and it won’t be easy going to weather this one.
Update: By the way, the esteemed Ed Morrissey has an interesting post out this morning – noting we had a D+9 turnout again. Can you say “centrists”?
Update: Curious about that economic storm coming? Here is one bleak outlook worth reading.
GOP still pays the Bush era debt.
By electing Mitt a good guy othrrwise, repubics gave demsheviks the most potent weapon: envy.
Instead of Rubio, Mitt chose Ryan, thus giving demsheviks the 2nd potent weapon: entitlements. And so the country is going to hell. Time to become a survivalist.
Erik Erickson said it all followed by others adding their arguments.
The GOP needs to change. It needs to start getting vicious but professional. They need to separate itself from establishment by representing conservative values and principles.
Somebody said that Obama now inherited his own problems and can no longer blame his economic woes on Bush. We will not see economic recovery in his term. (Could Romney have done better…I doubt it). This country will become more “Dependency Country”. The federal government does not have to worry about running out of money because all they have to do is more QEs. The US dollar is so devalued that the US economy may no longer run on the US dollar.
Many people are going galt. Many do not want to participate in political discussions anymore.
Gee Uh,
Last time I checked no-one in the GOP is keeping Blacks, Latino’s…etc. out of the party. It has not been a “LOOK LIKE US” party for a long time. It’s been a big tent for a long time. We have some, the ones that “THINK LIKE US”.
The problem is that there are so few qualified Black and Latino persons willing to stand up and run on the ideas of a Constitutional, Limited government, personal responsibility… this is routed in the fact that those folks are “taught” to think in ways that contradict Conservative thinking, (and) the ones that do face enormous pressure from persons within their own race to conform to the leftist ideal. Case in point, Herman Cain was a threat, he had to be eliminated.
So how can we attract minorities or “former” minorities. I’m not sure. You cannot make people like you or think like you. I work with these folks every day in a Public service facility. They are “schooled” in dependency, helplessness and discontent. More time is spent in finding clever ways to skirt the rules and cheat than applied to finding a job and making a self sufficient living. To win with these folks you have to promise them more “stuff” than the other guys. What we offer, self sufficiency and independance does not , will not, sell.
The problem is not the GOP, or AJ’s favorite whipping post the “social conservatives”, (notice how many non-social conservative GOP candidates got iced last night) the problem is that the nation is now populated by folks whose thinking is alien to the Republic, or what was our Republic.
This morning I feel like what’s the use, its over. Perhaps I will feel more hopeful in a few days or weeks. I know there will be a rush for the GOP to abandon its positions in favor of a more leftist stance. Look at the UK and European politics and you will see the future of America.
Mia Love and Allen West both defeated, what’s up with that! The IDEAS must sell themselves.
Like I mentioned in an earlier post, turn-out was the factor. Obama had it, even with reduced enthusiasm. Romney, for all the talk of energized supporters, didn’t have it. D+9? And that is with a voter turn-out that may be less than 2004 in a lot of states!!! It all hinged on turn-out, and Romney/Ryan simply couldn’t generate it.
http://www.kypost.com/dpps/news/national/turnout-shaping-up-to-be-lower-than-2008_7991483
The Democrats have ramped up GOTV efforts since 2000. The GOP was unprepared yet again to match Obama’s GOTV numbers.
This election was lost due to the lack of GOP intensity on the ground in swing states.
I was involved in the Romney/Ryan Project ORCA voter count yesterday. The mobile based web page to enter the voter information from each polling location was overloaded and unusable all day. The backup method was calling in the voter information and entering each Voter ID by touch tone phone. The call in hotline was also overloaded and unusable until later in the evening when the information obtained was useless.
The Project ORCA disaster didn’t lose the election for Romney/Ryan but it highlighted just how far behind the GOP is compared to the Democrats.
My previous post dealt with the tactical reasons we lost (in my view).
However, from a strategic standpoint, we lost the country.
The poisoned fruits of the 1965 “immigration reform”, 1991 “immigration reform”, of all administrations, especially GW Bush’s, neglect of illegal immigration, have shown their results, their initiators INTENDED.
The country is changed FOREVER, for the worst.
The last strategic thinker in the GOP, Pat Buchannan, was completely sidelined, by the repubic establishment.
I particularly fault the Bush FAMILY, for squandering the Reagan revolution and bringing the country to this point.
GW Bush completely destroyed the GOP brand, by showing complete financial irresponsibility and by starting an unnecessary war, that proved a strategic disaster for the USA, and the Middle East, by strengthening the shia faction (read Iran) against the sunny faction.
I always said Bush gave us Obama, and I stand by it.
What to do from here?
I don’t know.
I am afraid there is not much to do.
The country will grow more and more fractured along ethnic, racial, religious and class lines.
In other words, we have become a third world country, with third world country problems.
And that was precisely the intention of those who hijacked the democrat party and pushed for marxism for 100 years.
I kind of see it how Victor Davis Hanson does. Wish I could be more positive.
Three Ways of Explaining Defeat
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/332932/three-ways-explaining-defeat-victor-davis-hanson#more
And, keep this in mind about Hispanics. It wasn’t immigration that turned them off to Republicans….it was their anti social entitlement stance. How do appeal to Hispanics as conservatives knowing that?
Why Hispanics Don’t Vote for Republicans
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/332916/why-hispanics-dont-vote-republicans-heather-mac-donald
That matches the polling data I’ve seen also. Immigration was not their top priority….it was down quite a ways on their list. Their top priority was the economic issues.
I did not say immigration per se, caused this, albeit it had a significant neg. effect.
The problem is who came into the country.
When you bring people illiterate in THEIR OWN language to the USA and expect them to vote for freedom instead of freebies, you get Obama.
You can not tell them about the Constitution, because they have no relationship with our culture, including Magna Carta…
Borders, language culture are no empty words.
They destroyed our borders, they are working overtime to turn us into a tower of Babel (in SF the ballot is in 17 languages, if I am not mistaken-by the way, aren’t citizens supposed to know English?) and our culture has been debased by the marxist “elites”.
The result can be seen now clearly.
Boehner opens door to ‘new revenue,’ to halt debt
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/boehner-opens-door-to-new-revenue-to-halt-debt/2012/11/07/2912c5ce-2919-11e2-b4e0-346287b7e56c_story.html
Isn’t that the same deal that was offered before the sequestration deal, that was turned down by the Dems because they are dead set on increasing the tax rate???? In fact, isn’t Boehner iactually offering part of the GOP plan that Romney was running on?
Does anyone think Reid or Obama are gonna accept that now that Obama has won re-election?
My prediction is that Obama blamed Bush for the bad economy for the first four years and he is going to blame the obstructionist Republican House for the bad economy for the next four years when they don’t give him 100% of what he wants. Repubs are in a pickle.
Its not difficult at all folks. The Alynski method worked to perfection after George Bush told the country and they accepted that free or cheap prescription drugs were a right for all!
It was a short hop to free healthcare for all.
Obama for four years played to his base, lavishing the current earnings of working Americans on his do nothing base and spending our children and grandchildren into debt to buy the votes of the professional breathers. He had a huge turnout because the non workers and non payers are now a near majority as Romney said 47%. With 50 billion in food stamps, endless disability claims so pervasive they are barely even investigated for qualification anymore and ending the work for welfare requirement Obama told his base I’m your sugar daddy, elect me and they did. The Repunks had better find some guts and fight the coming money grab or go extinct. The Robber Barrons are stealing our saving right before our eyes without a gun! With no way to profit from interest our bank accounts are being drained monthly by the progressives and given to their professional baby makers who do not even have enough of a conscience to volunteer in their churchs or schools or neighborhoods in a show of gratitude.
The Entitled class now own us who work! We have become their slaves!
The next four years will tell us if the country has any hope of surviving as a freedom loving, limited Government Republic. Personally, I doubt it. I theorize that the only way out of this stupor would be an external event on the scale of WWII. Internal forces cannot overcome the Federal beast. This election proved it. The majority of the people WANT Leviathan. They have been convinced that it is right and good. They lack the ability to comprehend that anything in large enough doses can kill you. They don’t want to know that capital simply disappears when those with it cannot use it to their own advantage. They can’t or won’t accept that progressive taxation is unjust because they have concluded that it is fair. They’re convinced that more rules makes the world a less unruly place. They believe as truth that paper money actually does have inherent value. They allow one war monger to be replaced by another – who even said he wasn’t. They think jobs last forever. They think retirement is the natural condition of humanity. Everyone should be and in fact IS equal in worth to every other. All of the fundamental truths of the human existence have been replaced with new truth for more than 50% of the US population. Only the absolute depraved conditions that occur in an utterly failed Nation can correct the mass faulty thinking now. But it is the day after a lost election, so perhaps I exaggerate.
Well, as everyone else seems to have an opinion, I do also. I think the Republicans did not nominate a winning person. I thought so at the time he was nominated, but he may have been the best running. But, his problems, as I see them and they are not all bad to me, but just talking about what I think others didn’t want to vote for. 1. Mormon vs Muslim. many saw both as not a good option. 2. Romney was lib to moderate conservative. To a Republican not a lot of difference from Obama, no enthusiasm. 3. Romney a rich guy, some resent that, no enthusiasm. Obama was not white, much enthusiasm on his side for that, none on Repub side. They aren’t racists so didn’t go out in ‘droves’ to defeat the black guy.
Until the Republicans nominate a well liked person, as some of the Tea Party people were 2 years ago, there won’t be any enthusiasm. I’ve already heard: Jindall, Rubio, those won’t do it. Too many see them as not eligible because they aren’t natural born citizens, so no enthusiasm. Got to get the right people on the ballot.
IMO, Romney was the best of the lot running in the R primaries. Some people were not able to check all the boxes of what was wanted in a candidate. But, Romney fundamentally had the skill set, connections, verve and tenacity to attempt a second and final run at the office.
After his Oct. 3 performance, he was on a slow but upward climb in the polls and with growing crowds at his rallies. Then Sandy arrived, along with the Christie photo op that was exploited by Obama and his ever-duplicitous media fan club. That totally corrupted his momentum and IMO turned the tide enough to give Obama the edge in those important swing states.
Exit polls showed that over 40% of the people said that Obama’s performance in Sandy effected their vote — 15%, alone, said Sandy was the major consideration as to where their vote went. These stats are complimented by the fact that a sizable number of ‘undecideds,’ instead of going for the challenger, as they normally do, cast their vote for Obama instead.
These ‘surprises’ are variables which candidates have little time to prepare for, nor have much control over. It’s highly possible had there been no storm that last week that Romney would be the presidential nominee today.
All of the above is probably my summation as to why I believe outside circumstances played a large part in tweeking the election towards Obama, rather than blaming Romney for this or that.
The one general takeaway, though, is that the US is no longer the country it once was, including the people who reside within it’s borders. Along with stats gleaned from exits were the fact that conservatives make up 35% of the populace, liberals 25%, while independents are now up to 40%. These numbers obviously can fluctuate, and go up or down. But the current bottom line is that conservatives can not win an election all by themselves. There has to be some kind of overlapping appeal to other demographics. Just something to seriously think about in the coming 4 long years ahead of us.
Romney, the Corporate Statist, had nothing to say to the rugged, stout American individual. Obama, the Corporate Statist, had nothing to say to the rugged, stout American individual. Obama was there already. Why throw him out for the same carbon copy?
jan, I agree with you. As I said earlier, while Romney was the best of the candidates, he was lacking in critical areas. The Repubs will have to get a candidate that the indies will support. and that is a lot of the Tea Partiers. I know a lot of them and they were not ‘excited’ by Romney (they were against Obama). We have to get someone that we can get excited about.
patrioticduo , pardon, but it was far from a ‘carbon copy’. Romney had his ideas, but it is not the destruction of the US, as is Obama’s. Obama actually has a mission to ‘fundamentally change America’. That’s a big objective for a non-American.
“non-American” – groan! Marxist – fine. Sorry but Romney is just a poor copy of the usual corporate crony Statist. I have lost faith in the current system. Just shy of 50% of the people have allowed envy to determine their politics. It’s not at all difficult to poison a well. With 47% voting for freebies, what hope can there be anymore?
I think AJ was right in a sense. There was a silent swell of dis-affected voters on the right that refused to answer poll takers questions, and in the end they did not show up at the voting polls as well!!!!
I have to agree with the above. Romney was the best of what was offered however, he was a rich white northeastern liberal neo conservative who was Mormon. A nice clean guy, but with enough negative facets to stall success.
As I stated on a previous post. The Tea Party failed its mission. Aside of the ill prepared Herman Cain, it footed not viable Presidential offering. It failed to show up in support of Romney. The passion died after the 2010’s.
I want to fight but feel in a way it’s a moot point. Obamacare is here to stay, and will continue on a path to single payer healthcare. The Supreme Court is lost to the left, a legacy that will contiune on for years to come.