Posted on 10/26/2014 8:51:37 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
BROOKHAVEN, W.Va - If you don't look in the weeds, sometimes you miss the signs.
Late this summer, along the edges of this Mountain State town, a homemade sign jutted from the edge of a country road. It read, simply: “Change is coming.”
A few miles west, toward Coopers Rock State Forest, another sign almost hidden by a cornfield read, “Change is in the air.”
West Virginians always have had a distinct disdain for big government, yet poverty has kept them dependent on the one political party that provided just enough free stuff to lock them into voting for it.
A new generation willing to free itself from that tradition, along with new opportunities in energy, has put change in motion, however. Congresswoman Shelley Moore Capito, a Republican, is poised to crush Secretary of State Natalie Tennant, a Democrat, in the race to replace retiring U.S. Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D).
West Virginia is not the only state sending signals to the political class in Washington that the Senate majority is tilting Republican, much more significantly than they understood.
Republican Scott Brown, the single-term Massachusetts senator who moved across the street to New Hampshire, has relentlessly kept up his populist message of hard work, not hard ideology; he is heading toward an upset in the Granite State's Senate race that could put the conventional-wisdom pundits on their heels.
Most political watchers in Washington are tethered to polls that shift 2 points in either direction and think they've understood this cycle. But they haven't understood the signs just below the horizon, literally.
Competency, political disconnect, lack of shared values and work ethic, all have pushed voters away from the Democrats — and not just Republican voters; many Democrats and independents have had enough of how today's Senate majority squandered so much potential....
(Excerpt) Read more at realclearpolitics.com ...
So? Doesn’t matter. This should have been a slam dunk. It isn’t. The long game looks terrible for us. We don’t hold the WH and if we take the Senate it will be with the same old cast of buffoons.
This article is too positive for the Eeyores on Free Republic.
Then why are you even here?
I’ve seen RIghtwardHo get asked that question more times than I can count.
No more smirking from Harry Reid who is going to make a great Minority Leader.
I tire of all the negativity, not just by that poster but by countless others. Then there’s “where’s the barf alert?” all the time. If the title of a thread doesn’t normally clue you in to the contents, maybe you should return to school.
No, I think it's just that most political watchers in Washington know that the Democrat party will stop at nothing to secure victories wherever they must. NOTHING. We've seen this act over and over and each season they get more brazen and the limp, weak, cowardly GOP sticks their tails between their legs and backs down. So all concervatives can do (yet again) is to support your candidate, cast your vote and hope for the best... and yes, plan for the worst.
+1
And yet they still elect democrats!!!
It totally is all about Obama and his failures. Look at how he has not been campaigning for democrats this year.
I’m tired of the negativity and I’m also tired of the “if my candidate loses I would just as soon see a democrat”!!
You said...
“GOP will not win the Senate”
Yes they will. And I’m not even being optimistic. This close to the election, that’s how it’s shaping up. The question is by how much
The notion that Republicans will gain Senate control is being spread just like the notion was spread two years ago that Romney could win.
I had a sense he could win from all the positive spin being promoted by the GOPe here on Free Republic.
The GOPe may win but it will be in spite of them and because Obama’s supporters are rightly disillusioned by Obama’s failure to make things better for them or address their concerns.
A lot of D supporters are not motivated but so are a lot of grassroots conservatives. We will see the real true elections results instead of the spin on November 4th.
If the GOP takes the Senate the ballgame changes, completely.
Despite all the pessimism, the GOP will be able to tailor legislation so that it becomes extremely awkward for Obama to veto it, and even more awkward for the Democrats to support a veto.
Something as simple as taking the position to drive the price of electricity and gasoline back to lower levels would almost certainly be vetoed by Obama, but supporting that veto would make many Dem Congressmen very uncomfortable, and yet bills could easily be crafted to do so. Expand drilling, build the Keystone pipeline (and more), rein in the EPA (by defunding them, for example), cut the support for green alternatives that are driving up electricity prices nationwide (most people think global warming is a crock nowadays anyway). Make the position clear, do it, and watch the veto be overridden and energy prices fall.
Next, tackle the ridiculous Federal Reserve policy of zero short term interest rates. Change the mandate of the Fed to one of just managing the money supply at a stable level with the express goal of doing away with zero interest rates on CD’s, etc., and watch the senior vote swing even more toward the GOP as rates return to some semblance of normalcy finally, or alternatively, watch the Dems squirm as they try to run on a zero interest rate policy in 2016.
Get out of the abortion business and the contraceptives business by making it clear that those are state prerogatives, not federal. Then point out that the Dems didn’t do that even when they had an across the board lock on the majority. Poof! There goes the war on women. (Unless Obama’s veto isn’t overridden, in which case it becomes the Dem’s war on women.)
The point is that things can clearly be made to function better in this country because the current administration has demonstrated how easy it is to make them function worse, far worse in many instances. Reverse policies and the economy will roll again. It doesn’t take lower taxes, necessarily, just massive changes in onerous regulations.
Once favorable change is underway, and some trust has been earned (even the trust of many in here, by the way), use the accrued political capital to do less-well-received, but equally important, things like cutting the corporate tax rate, and simplifying the tax structure altogether. Bundle the two together, let Obama veto, and see if the Dems want to run on keeping the current tax system in 2016, or not.
We are way, way, underestimating how much is going to change if the GOP takes the Senate, and people’s impression of Boehner and McConnell is going to change accordingly, in my opinion.
How anybody in coal rich West Virginia can ever vote for a democrat is beyond me.
The republicans have done a good job of running against Obama. they have done a poor job articulating what they believe. If the Republicans regain the senate majority I will be surprises.
Most people know repubs are for lower taxes, fossil fuels, more privatized healthcare, and strong national defense. Also they are pretty clear on traditional family and pro life issues. Do you not know this?
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