As Predicted Obama Wins Re-Election

November 6, 2012 11 Comments

This is what happens when the Republicans allow the establishment to pick a moderate candidate for President. We lose. Romney lost for several reasons. First and foremost he couldn’t convince anyone other than desperate conservatives that he was actually a conservative. Having flip flopped from his positions as Governor just a few years ago, Romney had a major credibility problem. Why it is the GOP thought that the Governor responsible for Romneycare could beat the author of Obamacare is beyond comprehension. Anyone surprised by Romney’s defeat need only look at that problem because it put doubt in the minds of just about everyone.

Romney ran a dreadful campaign. Yes, he had a good first debate. But then he took the peddle off the gas. He tried to coast to victory on one good debate and that just isn’t good enough. He let Obama off the hook on Benghazi, he gave up discussing the budget, his hands were tied arguing against Obamacare. And yet we Republicans expected him to win? How exactly? The economy was the number one issue but even on that Romney allowed Obama to define his tax plan by not effectively defending it.

Romney picked the wrong Vice Presidential candidate. Paul Ryan is a good Congressman but where has he been the last two months? He hasn’t talked about his budget proposal, he hasn’t talked about much of anything. He’s was nowhere to be found, unless he was peeking out from behind Romney. From the way the electoral map has shaped up it’s pretty clear Romney should have picked Marco Rubio. Sen. Rubio could have secured Florida and he would have appealed to Hispanics in Colorado, Ohio and Iowa. Rubio isn’t perfect but we have to start appealing to more than just northern white guys.

The Republicans have a major problem going forward. They have no pathway to victory in 2016. We’ve lost 4 of the last 6 Presidential races and let’s be perfectly frank, we should have lost 2000 as well. No Republican has won 300 or more electoral votes since 1988. We have failed to expand the map in 24 years. We cannot go into future races pinning all our hopes on Ohio and one or two other states. We have to expand the map because if we don’t expand the map then we’re very seriously looking at losing again in 2016, this time to Hillary Clinton.

So how do we expand the map. First, we don’t listen to the establishment which will tell us that we need to move to the left. We need to start appealing to the fastest growing segment of the country: Hispanics. We don’t need to move to the left to do that, we can remain pro-life and pro-family because most Hispanics are pro-life and pro-family. We could have done so much for our party by nominating Marco Rubio, we could have made lifelong Republicans out of many Hispanics. Rubio or some other Hispanic (Ted Cruz of Texas for example) has to be on our 2016 ticket. We cannot hope to win in the future with two white guys and if we’re going to pick a woman in the future it must be someone more intelligent than Sarah Palin.

So what will the next four years look like? My guess is that after Obama gets his tax increase later this month or next, the next four years will look like the last two. Obama has no mandate, he has no stated agenda. He has to contend with a Republican House which will clash with a Democrat Senate. (Note to the Tea Party, you’ve cost us four Senate seats by nominating morons the last two elections. Please stop.) Obama will do a lot of regulatory damage but he’s going to be a lame duck and after a year or two will become like Bush and Clinton in their second terms. He’ll be in the White House, largely ignored and largely powerless. Benghazi will be a re-occurring theme the next six months.

The GOP has a lot of problems and it’s time for us to start re-thinking how we look at elections. The status quo isn’t working. It’s given us one loss after another. We must start appealing to others, we must stop allowing the Democrats to define us as the party of white people, the party of racism. It is clear, the difference in this race is Romney’s poor campaign and our failure to appeal to Hispanics. Rubio could have delivered this election, instead Romney went with a nerdy white guy from Wisconsin who was hidden most of the campaign. Something has to change.

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Election Day Prediction

November 6, 2012 2 Comments

It’s finally election day. It seems like this election has gone on forever. In some ways it has, the first Republican debate was 18 months ago. Since then we’ve the GOP love everyone in our primary but Romney, our unloved candidate win the nomination and a terrific first debate performance. We’ve discussed polls, wars on women, the economy and a convenience store chain called Wawa. Now we get to go vote and put this madness behind us once and for all. That we’ll be entering a new madness beginning tomorrow, regardless of who wins, matters not today.

 Most of the national polls are near ties, even the ones with ridiculous D+11 samples such as the CNN poll released yesterday. But of course we don’t elect a President based on the popular vote, we elect him based on elections in 50 individual states. In those polls Obama is up in nearly all of the swing states. He’s up in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Colorado, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire and Minnesota. He’s even up in Virginia. The only swing states Romney has a lead in are Florida and North Carolina.

There are two ways to look at the polls. The pollsters believe that the electorate is more likely to look like 2008 than Republicans would like. Nationally the 2008 campaign was 38% Democrat and 31% Republican or D+7. The 2010 election was even at 35% for each party. Each state had its own split between Democrats and Republicans in each election. For example in 2008 Ohio was D+8 while in 2010 it was R+1. Most of the swing state polls have been closer to the 2008 electorate than the 2010 electorate. Admittedly some of the media polls have been wildly more pro-Democrat this year than the wave election of 2008. So there is some reason to question the accuracy of some of the polls.

The Republicans allegedly have their own set of polling which shows them ahead in nearly all the swing states. Presumably that polling either has a sample that is even or perhaps R+1 or R+2. In order to get there the GOP pollsters are assuming that enthusiasm will drive more Republicans to the election and that the electorate is more likely to look like 2010. There are others who think the GOP could win a tsunami election, where our voters simply aren’t getting polled and the result tonight will be surprisingly Republican.

Michael Barrone believes Romney will win 323 electoral votes. Glenn Beck agrees and thinks the nation is entering the Third Great Awakening, which would be odd considering Romney is a Mormon cultist. In order to get to 323 electoral votes for Romney you have to assume that not as many Democrats will show up to vote and more Republicans will show. The latter is likely true. Republicans hated John McCain and many didn’t vote for him including yours truly. This time around Romney may not be loved but most Republicans who refused to vote for McCain will begrudgingly vote for Romney.

But we also have to assume the Democrats don’t show up in force like they did in 2008. While there is some anecdotal evidence that they aren’t as enthused with Obama anymore, to ever question the Democrats get out the vote efforts is fatal in a campaign. Obama will get his people to the polls, there’s no question about it. The question is whether Republicans can get more of their people out and whether independents can make up the difference in the final tally.

Unfortunately for Romney and the Republicans there aren’t enough of us to beat Obama. It will be closer than 2008. Romney will win Indiana, North Carolina, Virginia and Florida, all Obama states in 2008. He will pull out a win in Colorado. That brings his electoral vote count to 257. Unfortunately Romney isn’t going to win Ohio, Obama’s ground game is to strong there. Pennsylvania is a pipe dream for the Republicans, it’s a sign of desperation that Romney is campaigning there. Wisconsin will be won by Obama, though it will be much closer than 2008. Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada will all go Obama.

Obama is going to win today 281-257. The GOP rank and file will have to ask ourselves whether we should ever trust an establishment moderate with our nomination. In fact, we should ask ourselves if the GOP should even remain as a party if it can’t beat a President as bad and ineffective as Obama. I hope I’m wrong in my prediction, for the sake of the country I hope I’m wrong. But all of the polls will have to be wrong to the point of being wrong to a fault. They’re so consistent, even when we discount the wildly inaccurate D+11 polls in Ohio there’s a D+4 (which is reasonable there) showing Obama winning. We’ll now have to deal with a second Obama administration.

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Obama Urges Revenge Against Republicans

November 5, 2012 2 Comments

President Obama told supporters to get “revenge” by voting for him on election day. This isn’t the first time the President has jumped head first into this sort of language. In 2010 he told Hispanics to vote against their “enemies.” Republicans it seems are enemies that one might want to get revenge against by voting for Obama and Democrats. Talk about divisive politics. The Democrats are forever accusing the GOP of being divisive but when the President runs around talking about revenge and enemies it’s hard to take any of that seriously. Obama really does believe in an us versus them America, his language is that of a far left socialist.

Romney to his credit told supporters to vote for their love of America, not for revenge. If the mainstream press actually covered this issue it would be helpful for Romney. Obama appears strident and partisan, Romney appears friendly and loving. Unfortunately the mainstream press is completely on board with Obama’s re-election and thus this side issue doesn’t get any airplay outside of Fox News, talk radio and other conservative echo chambers. This is rather unfortunate because we see in Obama’s revenge statement and Romney’s response everything we need to know about the two candidates and their personalities. Obama sees two nations divided by class, Romney sees one America that loves its nation.

The Hurricane Sandy relief effort has been nothing short of a disaster. We can see the left-wing bias in the press by how they’ve handled this hurricane and Katrina. Katrina was Bush’s fault, the local government officials were largely let off the hook by the mainstream press despite their culpability. (Nagin in particular) Today we have poor, mostly black New Yorkers who live in slums without food, water, electricity and gas. FEMA is nowhere to be found. Obama is off campaigning, making strident us versus them remarks while poor New Yorkers defecate in the hallways of their apartments because they have no running water.

Yet the media doesn’t talk about how FEMA hasn’t been to Staten Island. The media hasn’t mentioned the blunders by the Federal government in this hurricane relief effort. They don’t talk about the lack of preparation or coordination. Obama isn’t being blamed at all, instead the media is pointing fingers at Nanny Bloomberg and Chris Christie, if they’re pointing fingers at all. This is interesting because when FEMA was ill prepared after Katrina that was Bush’s fault, evidence of his racism. Obama’s FEMA isn’t any better prepared and he’s let off the hook. Mayor Nagin should have been blamed for failing to order an evacuation of New Orleans, he was let off the hook by the media while Bloomberg and Christie are attacked for Sandy.

The lack of blame being handed out by the media is going to help Obama get re-elected on Tuesday. We’re about to re-elect a man who really believes in an us versus them America. He has no interest in serving as President for all of us. If he wanted to be everyone’s President he wouldn’t call Republicans “the enemy” and he wouldn’t encourage acts of revenge against Republicans. This country isn’t being told the truth by the media and as a result the national polls are tied and the swing state polls favor Obama heavily. We deserve the fundamental transformation of our nation, which will be complete by the end of Obama’s second term. We’ve allowed ourselves to be duped by the media, we’ve been taken by a charlatan and are foolish enough to fall for it twice.

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Hurricane Sandy Absurdly Tips Election To Obama

November 3, 2012 9 Comments

This country is lost. The government school system, which is a liberal nightmare, cannot adequately teach kids to read but it does a wonderful job of turning kids into emotionally driven nit wits. Next week Obama is going to be re-elected. That’s only half the problem. The real problem is what we’re seeing in the polls this week. Romney had a 3-4 point lead in the Rasmussen poll heading into the week. On Friday the poll was tied. What caused the change? Nothing more than Hurricane Sandy and the photo ops Obama had with crying women and a fat turncoat Governor of New Jersey. We’ve reached the point where voters switch sides on photo ops over reason.

Let’s talk about Chris Christie for a moment. This fat slob could single-handedly be responsible for Obama’s re-election. By heaping praises on Obama for doing nothing more than releasing money to New Jersey, Christie made Obama look bipartisan and reasonable. Christie didn’t have to heap praises on Obama, he could have done what he does best: Talk about himself. Instead he went out of his way to talk about how wonderful Obama is. Christie could have told Obama to stay away because his appearance would hamper relief efforts. Nanny Bloomberg did that in New York City. Instead Christie invited Obama, appeared with him and heaped praises on him. Now the polls are swinging towards Obama, Chris Christie the turncoat RINO of New Jersey is to thank.

We who follow politics are scratching our heads wondering who exactly these voters are who are swayed by nonsense like hurricane photo ops. They’re clearly people driven by emotions rather than logic. After all, Obama didn’t do much of anything. In fact, the Federal coordination of the relief effort has been downright dreadful. If Obama were a Republican the fact that FEMA still hasn’t been to Staten Island would be all over the news. But since Obama is a Democrat the media only shows him hugging a sobbing woman, we hear nothing about the people defecating in hallways of their waterless highrise slums.

People who vote based on emotional photo ops are why Barack Obama was elected in the first place. People were emotionally driven to vote for him based on his soaring, meaningless rhetoric. The country is now poised to re-elect this man based on the same emotions, this time over hurricane photo ops. Obama has offered us not a single plan for his second term. The first term has been an economic and international disaster. But he hugged a sobbing woman so why not re-elect him? It’s absolutely insane and we as a nation will get the judgment we richly deserve for re-electing this man for such flimsy, meaningless reasons.

Think I’m being over the top? Dick Morris, who has been predicting 350 electoral votes for Romney for the last two months, is sending out panic stricken emails concerning internal polling he’s doing. He’s very concerned about the Rasmussen poll and alleges that in his Pennsylvania internal poll Romney has lost 2 points in the last day. Go over to RCP, Obama has increased his lead on Friday in New Hampshire, Colorado, Michigan and Ohio. Romney pulled closer or further ahead in not a single state. Hurricane Sandy is winning this election for Obama, as absurd as that is. The left has won, we’re voting on emotion rather than logic and reason.

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We Enter The Final Days Of The Campaign

November 2, 2012 Leave a comment

Romney is headed to Pennsylvania on Sunday. The Romney camp must think he has a shot in there, otherwise they wouldn’t be sending the big guy out to Philadelphia. Paul Ryan is going to be campaigning in Minnesota as well. They must think Romney has a shot at Minnesota, just not as big a shot as Pennsylvania. Frankly, all of it is hard to believe. Pennsylvania hasn’t gone Republican since 1988 and Minnesota hasn’t since 1972. We’re supposed to believe that Romney is the guy who can break through the great blue barrier. With Ohio increasingly moving towards Obama, perhaps team Romney really has no other choice.

President Obama failed to convene the counterterrorism task force during the Benghazi attack. We have a siege of a consulate that went on for nine hours, two hours in the White House had information that al Qaeda associated groups were involved and the counterterrorism task force isn’t convened. We could have had air support from Italy in Benghazi within an hour, it was never ordered. We had drones overhead taking pictures that could have fired on the terrorists and it was never ordered. We had a CIA house up the street that could have attacked, they were told to stand down.

We’re told there was confusion between the State Department and CIA during the attack. The Obama administration has had four years to work out dealings between various departments. Surely someone would have planned for a potential attack on an embassy or consulate. Such attacks aren’t out of the realm of possibility. Yet it’s clear that neither the State Department or the CIA knew who was in control of the situation. You can through the military in there as well, they had no idea what they were supposed to do. All three departments are waiting for orders from the President and they never came. This man is going to be re-elected next week, it should make people very nervous.

The unemployment rate ticked up to 7.9% in October. Around 171,000 jobs were added though the BLS had to remove around 250,000 part time jobs from September which weren’t actually in existence in the first place. The number of people unemployed stayed largely the same, as did the U-6 figure which includes unemployed and underemployed workers. The jobs report isn’t exactly terrific. It barely makes up for population growth during the month. We need many months of 300,000-500,000 jobs added just to make up for population growth and the number of jobs lost during the recession. We’re looking at 1.3% economic growth, a real recovery would have 5% or higher growth.

Obama’s economic policies have failed. They haven’t led us out of the recession and they haven’t resulted in substantial job creation. When we have 12 million who are counted as unemployed, who want jobs and we only create 171,000 in a month, that barely makes a dent in the unemployment figures. We have 23 million who are either unemployed, underemployed or simply not counted because they’ve given up looking for a job because they can’t find one. Suddenly creating only 171,000 jobs doesn’t really look so great.

Despite the dire economic situation our nation faces and the disgraceful handling of Benghazi, Obama is a near lock for re-election. We Republicans can sit around grousing about poll bias, yours truly may even dabble in it now and then. But the fact is that Romney is down in every poll but one in Ohio and he’s never had a lead in Pennsylvania, Michigan or Minnesota. At best he’s tied in Wisconsin where Romney doesn’t have a tenth of the enthusiasm as Scott Walker had. We need to come to grips with the fact that the only thing standing between us and an out of control lame duck Obama is a GOP House. We can only pray they stand firm.

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More Polls Skewed Towards Democrats

November 1, 2012 1 Comment

The polls are beginning to shift towards Obama. Or are they? The RCP national average has gone from Romney up by around 1 point to a tie. This is on the back of a bunch of D+ 5 or worse polls. Even the Fox News poll, which currently shows a tie, is D+5 with the D at 42% of the poll. In 2008 only 37% of the electorate was Democrat so the Fox poll assumes even more Democrats show up. The poll also grossly underestimates the number of independents, less than 20% of the poll is independent. Romney of course leads independents in almost all the polls, so under sampling them and over sampling Democrats produces a tie or slight Obama lead.

Ohio remains the big state and the only poll showing Romney up is the Rasmussen poll. Granted, there are some Dem skewed polls out there that border on the ridiculous. Take the CBS/NY Times poll which shows Obama up 5 on a D+8 sample. Most of the other polls show Obama up 1-3 points on D+5 polling. A D+5 poll is likely more accurate than a D+8 poll as it is highly unlikely Democrats will show up to the polls at 8 points more than Republicans this time around. Even if these D+5 polls over state D’s by 1 or 2 points, they’re likely on target showing a close Obama victory. The only way Romney wins Ohio is if this is a D+2 election or less.

Speaking of the CBS/NY Times Poll, they show Obama up 1 in Florida in a D+7 model and in Virginia Obama is up 2 in a D+8 model. In all three states CBS/NY Times polled, Romney led independents by a healthy margin. Obama wins because the poll is skewed towards the Democrats. Florida has never been D+7, in 2008 it was only D+3. Virginia was D+6 in 2008, does anyone believe Democrats will come to the polls even more in 2012? Take away the Democrats padding in Virginia and Florida and Romney is up.

It’s clear that some of these media polls are being skewed to help the President. You would think that closer to the election the pollsters would want to at least have the appearance of credibility by weighting their polls closer to what the electorate will actually be. It’s one thing to predict that this election will be a repeat of 2008, it’s another thing to predict that even more Democrats will show up. 2008 was a Democrat wave election, Obama isn’t popular enough to produce a second wave. He’s going to lose several states that he won in 2008, if re-elected he’ll be the first President since Wilson to win a second term with less electoral votes.

Ohio Governor John Kasich was on Hannity last night and frankly he sounded like Romney was going to lose. He desprately tried to spin things in Romney’s direction before declaring that the race is “even closer” than the Rasmussen poll, which only shows Romney up 2. Kasich looked like someone who knew something and I suspect that something is that Romney is down in the internal polls in Ohio. It might explain why they’re trying to branch out into Wisconsin, Minnesota and Pennsylvania this week. They’re trying to come up with a replacement for Ohio because they don’t think they’re going to win.

Ohio really should trouble Republicans. These polls might be weighted against us but on the other hand D+5 isn’t out of the question. It’s going to be very hard to predict the turnout on election day. Both sides suggest they’re winning the early voting battle in Ohio. Obama is clearly ahead in that department but to listen to the Romney camp it’s not by as much as 2008. Apparently early voting in Democrat counties is down, while it’s up in GOP counties. What that means for the final tally is anyone’s guess. If Ohio is D+5 Romney is toast, if it’s D+2 or less Obama is toast. I would never underestimate the ability of Democrats, alive and dead, to show up to vote in Cuyahoga County. Odds are Romney loses Ohio and loses the election.

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Michigan Ballot Proposal Endorsements

October 31, 2012 6 Comments

A long time reader and friend has asked me to write about the six ballot proposals here in Michigan. So we’ll be doing that in this post. Also for the record I’m endorsing Markman, O’Brian and Zarah for for the Michigan Supreme Court.

Proposal 1 would allow the state to appoint an emergency manager in cities that are a complete and total financial mess. It’s mainly directed at Detroit, though one would imagine that cities like Flint or Benton Harbor might also qualify for an emergency manager. Generally I believe cities should govern themselves. But when cities like Detroit annually show up in Lansing begging for more money to fix their budget problems and when they cannot function without corruption, it seems necessary for the state to step in and take over. Keep in mind here in Michigan cities are created by the Legislature and their power derives from the state. Detroit is such a mess, an emergency manager can’t be anything but good for them. Vote YES on Proposal 1.

Proposal 2 is a massive power grab by public employee unions. It’s being billed as a protection for collective bargaining rights but the reality is that in Michigan collective bargaining rights are already protected. Our fake Republican Governor Rick Snyder has not yet proposed or signed into law a Scott Walker style restriction on collective bargaining. Proposal 2 would grant powers to unions making it nearly impossible to fire an employee. One example out there is that this proposal would allow a school district to give a unionized teacher 5 opportunities to show up to work drunk before being fired. It would also eliminate background checks for school employees. This proposal is a big mess, vote NO on Proposal 2.

Proposal 3 would require the states energy companies to produce 25% of their electricity through renewable methods by 2025. It will cost around $12 billion which of course will be passed onto consumers of electricity meaning everyone. Renewable energy isn’t cost effective, it costs more to produce without any environmental benefits. We live in a state that has had a decade plus recession. We’ve lost a  lot of residents, we’ve lost thousands of jobs and we’ve lost thousands per family in real income. We cannot afford to pay more for electricity than we already pay. Before Obama got elected he pushed for this sort of green nonsense saying that electricity prices would “necessarily have to rise.” They don’t if we vote NO on Proposal 3.

Proposal 4 would reverse the Legislature’s repeal of a law that unionized home healthcare workers. Most of these home healthcare workers are husbands or wives taking care of their spouse. Here in Michigan no-fault auto insurance has aided the home healthcare industry by allowing a spouse to provide attendant care services for someone injured in an auto accident. Former Governor Jennifer Granholm and the Democrats passed an SEIU power grab which unionized these “workers.” The Republicans repealed this law, now it’s a ballot proposal. A wife taking care of her husband, being paid by his no-fault auto insurance (or any other means) should not be required to join and pay for a union. Vote NO on Proposal 4.

Proposal 5 would require a 2/3 majority in the Legislature for any tax increase. Amazingly there are people in the Tea Party opposing this proposal, imagining that it would prevent further tinkering with business taxes. Such is foolishness. Rick Snyder, our fake Republican Governor, wants to rise gas taxes by $1 billion next year. No doubt the Democrats will win an election some time in the relatively near future, they’ll want to raise taxes. We should not pass up the opportunity to limit their ability to raise taxes. Vote YES on Proposal 5.

Proposal 6 would put a stop to fake Republican Governor Rick Snyder’s plan to add a second bridge from Detroit to Canada. Snyder claims that the Canadians will be footing the bill for the bridge, in reality Michigan will be paying for a portion of the bridge after Snyder leaves office. Apparently we’re supposed to vote against this because the owner of the Ambassador Bridge Matty Moroun is a generally disliked figure who opposes the new bridge. Snyder doesn’t like Moroun, for reasons one can only begin to imagine. It seems to me that the government shouldn’t be in the business of competing with private businesses. Government also shouldn’t pretend that bridges are free. Vote YES on Proposal 6.

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A Tiresome Campaign Now Enters Blue States

October 31, 2012 4 Comments

While the campaigns technically took yesterday off, they were in reality still campaigning. Obama played President yesterday, releasing pictures of him “leading” the hurricane disaster relief from the White House. Interestingly the White House didn’t release pictures of Obama leading the counterattack in Benghazi. Romney spent yesterday campaigning in Ohio under the guise of preparing food and other supplies to be sent to the hurricane zone. Will this matter on election day. My guess is that people aren’t terribly interested in what either of these guys are doing today. Those in the hurricane zone are more interested in protecting themselves and their property. Those outside the zone are more interested in watching the destruction.

Have you seen the new Moveon.org ad? It features a group of foul mouthed socialist seniors warning the country about the Republicans “stealing” the election. We can already see where the Soros groups are going to go if Romney pulls off the upset. It couldn’t be that the nation is rejecting Obama and his failed policies, it’s that the dastardly Republicans stole the election. This is the latest ad in a long line of disturbing ads coming from the left. If it isn’t cursing seniors, it’s manipulative kids singing about sick people dying if Republicans win. This is what happens when a party has watched its policies fail and they’re truly scared of losing the election.

Obama is buying ads in Detroit. I find this curious on a number of levels. Obama must be concerned about losing Michigan otherwise he wouldn’t waste his money buying ads in Detroit. Living in West Michigan, I find it hard to believe that Obama would lose this state. That said, Romney was born and raises in Michigan and no, I can’t even come up with a reason why Obama would be spending money here. There’s no way Michigan is in play, it’s not possible. Michigan hasn’t gone Republican in a Presidential race since 1988. It isn’t going to happen this time around. Still, Ann Romney toured the state yesterday and Obama’s buying ad time in Detroit.

Speaking of states that haven’t gone Republican in a long time, Minnesota hasn’t since 1972. Yet Romney is buying ads in Minnesota. There are a number of theories as to why he might be. Apparently parts of northwestern Wisconsin watch networks based in Minnesota, so Romney is likely targeting those people. But there is a poll out there that shows Obama only up 3 in the land of 10,000 lakes. Interestingly Obama is sending Clinton up to Minnesota to campaign. Why would he send Clinton up to Minnesota, a perennially Democrat state if they weren’t afraid of losing it?

The only way Romney belongs campaigning in Democrat states is if he has Ohio wrapped up. Obviously Ohio is still very much a tossup, if it doesn’t lean Obama. What’s interesting is that in some of these states Obama is playing defense. One wonders what their internal polls suggest. If they thought Michigan and Minnesota were all wrapped up, they would let Romney waste his time and money. The internal polls for both campaigns must suggest a closer race in some of these Democrat states. What qualifies as close I don’t know but close must mean spending money and sending surrogates.

Thankfully the madness ends in less than a week. Words cannot describe how tiresome this campaign has become. Whether it’s the ridiculous ads coming out of the Obama campaign and leftist organizations or the endless polls, the campaign is nauseating. Unfortunately we’ve become a nation of endless campaigning with very little governing in between. Obama spent the last four years campaigning for re-election, he’s done very little governing the past four years, particularly the last two. Members of Congress are no better, neither are state or local officials. Having said that, no matter who wins we can at least look forward to at least a few months without a ridiculous political ad.

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Do We Need A Federal Hurricane Response?

October 30, 2012 8 Comments

According to the New York Times a big storm such as Hurricane Sandy requires a big government. The Times takes their argument a step further, not only does this story require a big government but Mitt Romney wants to eliminate Federal response to big storms. To believe the Times on their second argument is to believe in unicorns. Romney has never gone on record opposing a Federal response to hurricanes and other natural disasters. The Times is taking its opportunity to baselessly attack Romney hoping it will convince people to vote for Obama. It’s shameless and typically left-wing.

FEMA didn’t exist until the Carter administration. Amazingly we survived until the late 70′s without a coordinated Federal response to hurricanes and other disasters. Since the creation of FEMA can we say that hurricane response has been very good? Sure the Feds are coordinating efforts but they haven’t exactly done a good job. FEMA consistently wastes money. Their response during Katrina was a disaster, aided by incompetent local officials in New Orleans. The FEMA response to the Gulf oil spill a few years ago was inconsistent and largely wasteful. We can go back over the years and see the same during just about every major natural disaster.

We really don’t need a coordinated Federal response during natural or other disasters. State and local governments are closest to the people who are affected by these disasters. They know and understand their needs, they know and understand the threats around them. Not only do state and local governments understand these things, private citizens and private local charities understand them as well. The Feds offer an outsiders one size fits all approach. Their approach rarely works and usually results in waste. It is state and local government that knows how to do things for their people the best, in addition to private citizens and charities.

Not only does FEMA generally do a rotten job they create a false sense of security for people. People just expect the Federal government to take care of things because they’re the biggest and perceived to be the best and/or in control. As such you have people in New Orleans who end up trapped on their roofs during a hurricane and flood. But it’s even worse than this, a giant Federal government makes citizens lazy and unwilling to help themselves. After all, government will just take care of it. By telling everyone government will take care of things, people take less responsibility to help others and to take responsibility for themselves.

Before FEMA there were a multitude of disasters in this country. The Galveston hurricane, the San Francisco earthquake, the great Chicago fire and so on. There wasn’t a Federal response to any of these disasters, in fact many in Congress (Rep. Davy Crockett for example) actively argued against Federal charity. Somehow without a Federal response people made it through the aftermath of these disasters. Local governments aided people but mostly money and other items poured in via private charities. What exactly would FEMA have done in these situations besides get in the way and waste tax money?

It’s one thing for the Feds to offer loans or subsidies to local governments after a disaster. It’s another thing for them to push everyone out of the way and control things from on high. FEMA has a long track record of waste and abuse. So for the NY Times to suggest we need big government for big storms, the facts suggest we don’t really need it. Furthermore, there is nothing that Romney has said that would suggest he favors eliminating FEMA. That is unless you’re the NY Times and take random phrases Romney has said and piece them together into such as way so that he can be attacked without mercy. We need to ask ourselves whether we really need government to do those things that private citizens should do themselves.

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Media Protects Obama, October Surprise Coming

October 29, 2012 12 Comments

Obama is likely to win the election next week. He’ll have spent hundreds of millions on television ads. In fact odds are Obama will have more ads on television than Romney despite spending less. This is largely because of the Romney campaign’s foolish handling of ad buys. But all that money spent isn’t what will win him the election. Obama will win the election in part because the GOP picked the wrong candidate. He’ll also win because the mainstream press protected him from the Libya disaster and because as President he has the ability to produce an October surprise.

For all the press has done to protect Obama on Libya you would think he at least owes them a fruit basket. The media has covered this story up for the President from day one. CBS for example did a 60 minutes interview with Obama the day after the Benghazi attack in which the President said the attack was a terrorist attack. CBS just happened to edit that statement out because the White House narrative had become the video. Now that the administration has changed its mind, CBS aired the unedited portion of the 60 minutes interview. Now Obama can run around saying that he said it was terrorism all along and that Romney is a real liar.

Brian Williams did an interview with Obama last week and never got around to discussing any details about Libya. This is typical of the mainstream press. They bought the video story from day one, when the video story changed the press didn’t question Obama’s change in story. During the first week after the Benghazi attack the press spent more time attack Romney’s response than questioning what Obama was doing. All of this has greatly benefitted Obama. You can bet of course that if John McCain were President and this had happened in Libya the press would have ripped him to shreds. It would have been the new Watergate. With Obama, the press ignores the story.

There is likely to be an October surprise this week. It will come from the Obama camp. The administration tried to lay the groundwork for a surprise earlier this month when reports surfaced that the US would have direct talks with Iran. However that plan was foiled when Israel stamped their feet and various Republicans went on the attack. Obama was forced to say the report was inaccurate, even though it likely came out of his White House.

Obama can go a number of ways with an October surprise. He could manipulate the unemployment figures which are due out on Friday. There is widespread speculation that the September figures were inaccurate and manipulated, there wouldn’t be anything stopping Obama from doing it again. Isn’t it interesting that Obama never brought up the 7.8% unemployment number in a debate? Isn’t it interesting that he isn’t talking about it on the campaign trail? Granted 7.8% isn’t great but it broke the psychological 8% barrier. Why isn’t he talking about it?

Let’s say the unemployment figures go up this month to above 8%. There is a simple way for Obama to get that discussion out of the media. He could bomb a terrorist target in Libya. Whether it’s a real terrorist target won’t matter four days before the election. Americans love to rally around the President when he’s bombing bad guys, real or otherwise. Bill Clinton bombed an aspirin factory in Sudan during a low point in his administration. Obama in 2010 announced four days before the midterm elections that bombs being sent via UPS had been discovered despite the fact that the intelligence community wanted that information kept confidential so they could track down the terrorists. The President, in fact any President, has the ability to sway an election via use of military force or an announcement of some seemingly important arrest or discovery.

What Obama will do this week is anyone’s guess. He could spend the week in the White House ‘monitoring’ hurricane Sandy and look presidential in doing so. He could of course leak some horrible piece of information about Romney, though that seems unlikely given Romney’s lifestyle and apparent honesty. Obama is more likely to try to sway people via the power he has as President. I would expect an arrest in Libya, a bombing in Libya, an announcement of some sort of deal or agreement to negotiate with a rogue nation somewhere in the world or a pouring out of Federal money (real or imagined) for the states affected by hurricane Sandy. There will be an October surprise, we have to wait for it to happen and hope the Romney camp has an adequate response.

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