Posted on 11/01/2014 6:43:31 AM PDT by massmike
It's become the mother of all political clichés: Every election, we are told, is the most important of our lifetime. If our side doesn't win, it's 40 years of darkness, earthquakes, rivers and seas boiling, human-sacrifice, dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria – or worse.
While it's hard to rank these biennial slug-fests, given the rot that's eating away at the soul of our nation, 2014 is right up there.
Will there be any break on Obama's increasingly despotic reign during his last two years in office, or will Harry Reid and his cohorts continue to provide cover for the presidential putsch?
Most analysts are predicting the 2014 election will give Republicans a slight majority in the Senate next year. The New York Times gives the GOP a 64% chance of taking the Senate.
But nothing is guaranteed. The outcome could depend on last-minute spending, which party has the better ground game, and how much fraud the party of illegal aliens and the graveyard vote can get away with.
Starting with 45 seats, Republicans need to pick up six more to gain a bare majority. Two open seats currently held by Democrats are considered likely pick-ups. The Democratic incumbent in Louisiana will probably lose. Of the nine toss-ups, three are currently Republican seats. If Republicans hold those and take the three they're slated to win, they'll need only one of six toss-ups.
That only sounds easy. In Colorado, Republican Cory Gardner has a one-point lead over incumbent Senator Mark Udall. In Iowa, Republican Joni Ernst leads her opponent by 2.2 points. In Arkansas, the Republican challenger leads the incumbent Democrat by 2 points – all within the margin of error.
With so much at stake this year, the toss-ups could well be squeakers. In the meantime, we're getting lectures from conservatives castigating 2012 stay-at-homes.
"Why did we lose in 2012?" asks the typical e-mail I get at least daily. "Because millions of delusional, self-defeating conservatives, who were disappointed by Romney, were AWOL on Election Day, they helped to re-elect the man who's destroying our Republic.'"
This argument relieves the Republican establishment from all responsibility for nominating a clunk like Romney, and Mitt from practically throwing away the nomination by running an abysmal campaign.
Still, this year at least, voting Republican as the default position makes sense.
Unless the GOP candidate has you running for the toilet bowl (like Charlie Baker, RINO candidate for Massachusetts governor, whose bucket list includes performing a partial-birth abortion while simultaneously presiding over a same-sex wedding), conservatives should vote Republican, even if it hurts. I did in 2008 and 2012, though the experience was excruciating, I can assure you.
Let's start with a hard case – Scott Brown, former Massachusetts Senator now running for the Senate as a Republican in New Hampshire.
During his two years in the Senate, Brown (who won a special election in 2010 with Tea Party support) was a huge disappointment. His rating from the American Conservative Union was 50% – one of the lowest for any Republican Senator.
On the other hand, according to the Congressional Quarterly, his opponent, incumbent Democrat Jeanne Shaheen, voted with the president 98% of the time. She is Obama's Topo Gigio. ("Oh, Barack, I love you!") The latest CNN poll has them in a statistical dead-heat – Shaheen 49%, Brown 47%, with a margin of error plus or minus 4.
The choice isn't between an authentic conservative and a typical Democrat, but a 50% conservative and a 98% hard-core leftist. Representing conservative New Hampshire, Brown would probably have a better voting record than he did as the junior senator from the Bay State.
More importantly, he'll be part of the Republican Senate majority. That means the chairmanship of the Judiciary Committee passes from Patrick Leahy (lifetime ACU rating 6%) to Charles Grassley (lifetime ACU rating 83%).
It also means no more rubber-stamping of Obama's judicial mutants – no more Sonia ("wise Latina woman") Sotomayors. Ruth Bader Ginsberg – 81, ailing and having an unnatural relationship with the Constitution – won't wait to see who's elected president in 2016, but will likely retire next year. Only a Republican Senate will stop Obama from filling the vacancy with a Ginsberg-clone 30 years her junior.
Grassley is eager to launch investigations to compliment House inquiries – including Fast and Furious and the IRS harassment of conservatives.
Conservative hero Jeff Sessions will chair the powerful Budget Committee. Expect renewed attacks on ObamaCare and proposals for a sweeping overhaul of the federal tax system.
Bob Corker (the kindest thing he can say about Obama is that he's an "unreliable ally") gets the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and John McCain will chair Armed Services. Besides a push for new weapons systems, look for hearings on Obama's blunders which helped to foster the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.
With both houses in Republican hands, Obama will get writer's cramp using his veto pen. If contested programs are riders on appropriations bills, the president will have to explain why he risked shutting down the government over the Keystone Pipeline – because it's crucial to maintain our dependence on Middle East oil?
Here's how the Deadites view the prospect of a Republican Senate.
In an opinion column in the October 21 Washington Post ("The Catastrophe that a GOP-controlled Congress would bring") Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor of The Nation, sputters:
"What happens when they (the Republican majority in Congress) send him a bill to prevent a default on our debt at the 11th. hour, attached to a bill that ravages (reforms) Social Security? The Republican Party will gain the power to force the president to choose between impossible options."
Even though self-styled progressives think Obama hasn't moved far enough toward a Soviet America, Vanden Heuvel writes: "It is madness to suggest that little will change if Republicans take the Senate. A lot will change, and the change will be the worse for women, immigrants, workers and the environment" (feminists, illegal aliens and global-warming cultists). "A Republican Senate, working with a Republican House, will be a wrecking crew."
If only.
Still, the alternative to a GOP victory in this year's Senate elections is more judicial nominations from Hell, the continued implementation of ObamaCare (millions more losing their private insurance), a sweeping amnesty (with crime, disease, unemployment and terrorism for all), taking a civil-liberties approach to containing Ebola, and accelerating attacks on Israel by the Grand Mufti of D.C.
It will also mean that Democrats will have won three of the last four elections – sending the GOP into 2016 dispirited and disorganized.
Winston Churchill said of England's victories over the Nazis in 1942: "Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning."
I've been disappointed too often by the GOP to expect much from a Republican Congress. But the end of the beginning is better than the alternative—the unimpeded march toward the abyss of hope and change.
How about putting as starters players that have vowed to crush you?
That doesn't seem conducive to winning to me.
I voted a straight R ticket (manually) just to metaphorically punch the democrat machine in the nose.
Except there seems now to be nothing which differentiates (R) from (D) — or can you give me a concrete example of three major issues that the Republicans have stood up to unwaveringly during the past 6 years?
Let them know that liberalism/communism/Alinskyism is dying.
It seems to me that the Republican party is rife with liberalism, socialism, and statism. That e.g. Ted Cruz is so much of an outsider WRT the rest of the party is some proof of how the Republican Party means none of their stated platform planks.
And I don’t see how voting for Republicans, who have become Democrats in all but name, states your hatred either.
A lot of folks here seem like they’d support John Kerry and Hillary Clinton if they temporarily put a “R” next to their name.
We've also seen plenty of issues transcending the liberal/conservative divide where the GOP did nothing at all — a prime example would be the NSA's domestic espionage. Do you really think that the majority of Americans think this is right? Do you really think that acting against such obviously contraconstitutional policies would be politically damaging to them? Absurd! They could have proven that they are more than talk when it comes to upholding the Constitution garnering some measure of support from those otherwise disinclined to support them and they threw it all away! Why!?
The only explanation that makes sense is that the GOP approves of, and condones, such practices.
What a great metaphor!
What do you do when the Coach hamstrings the best players? We've seen the GOPe “throw games” to keep Conservatives from winning. How should we (the owners)respond?
You seem to want to renew the backstabbers contracts!
I think the reasons the Republicans have gone over to the Dark Side are twofold:
(1) Republican politicians are afraid of the Left because they think that's where most of the power is and--among their other fears--they fear for their jobs, careers, and financial assets, andOf course these people should be kicked out of office forthwith.(2) Some of them have been influenced by the Left and are stupid enough to believe some or all of its assertions.
I say elect the bastards and do everything to empower the Tea Party and other manifestations of clarity in order to bring pressure on them, help inform the electorate, and ultimately replace them with more competent and intelligent people.
The alternative is to elect out-and-out Democrats, who will never respond to such pressure and are less likely to be eradicable.
I say elect the less--or perhaps the weaker--of the two evils and then concentrate on scrubbing them into political oblivion.
No, and the accusation that you think they would is ridiculous, frankly. Go try to convince somebody who hasn’t voted already. I did.
You aren’t in Georgia. I remember Talmadge and the self-described defense expert Nunn. I remember Governor Jimmy Carter. I remember Max Cleland. I remember them all.
You think not voting is a panacea against RINOs when it is a prescription for more of the above. Yeah, Isakson and Chambliss grew to be a pair of highly stinking RINOs. But disgust, bitch slapping and hollering pulled them back from acquiescence on Bush/McCain’s first Amnesty proposal, didn’t it? (you probably don’t know, but it did).
Likewise, growing distaste and constant constituent flak is what convinced that bastard Chambliss to retire. It is what will keep Isakson in tow, or it will make him retire, too. And the same damn thing goes for Perdue. Just because I voted for him against some mouse of a daughter of Nunn’s isn’t a pass by an measure.
I’m taking care of things here in Georgia the best way I know how; I suggest you do the same in New Mexico before you castigate me.
No, and the accusation that you think they would is ridiculous, frankly
Really?
Remember Arlen Specter? George W endorsed him. He ran on the GOPs dime. A lot of people said don’t support him but “he had to win for the greater good!”
As soon as he took office he switched parties. Anyone with any sense already knew he was a liberal democrat. But hey, he had that “R” so republicans had to vote for him!
Is that the best you can come up with? Really? In Pennsylvania? Even “go along get along Hannity” ended up regretting what he’d done for Specter. I’m in GEORGIA dealing with the here and now and all you can come up with is some peckerwood from PA?
Give me a break.
In the current environment, what do you propose they do?
Example?
Yes, we need to promote Conservative values. We also need to eliminate the traitors. You don’t do that by reelecting them.
Traitors? Because they reflect the middle views of the electorate that voted for them rather than us?
If you choose to reelect them you are rewarding the behavior and you WILL NOT “pressure them” or “scare them.”
And I guess allowing the Democrats to control everything promote Conservative values.
And you didn't comment on any of the actions I suggested. Why?
“Sucking less than democrats” is at least one small step in the right direction. And perhaps next time, Republicans may be emboldened to suck even less.
It’s pure fantasy to think that withholding your vote is going to make the party more conservative.
It’s easy for me. I don’t have to play all these political bookie games. The minimum criteria to earn my vote is very simple:
Can I honestly believe that they will keep their oath of office?
It’s not too much to ask.
Sadly, few now even understand what the obligations of the oath entail.
Nor do they care.
Until we depose Harry Reid, we have zero chance of advancing our agenda.
They control the House of Representatives, so they could strip the NSA of funding.
Also, they could actually investigate and push for prosecution of the wrongdoers [essentially the whole agency, plus contractors] — would that be a mess
or open a can of worms
? Quite possibly. However, it would also show that the Republican party isn't just all talk, and that it's willing to get into uncomfortable places to get rid of corruption — but they didn't, which shows that they accept the NSA's lawlessness, and approve of it.
Seriously, if they made a honest, vigorous push against it even if they were stymied by the Democrats (though I think the topic is so toxic even the Democrats wouldn't be able to stand against an honest opposition) they would garner support from the general population. It was seriously a no lose proposition for them (or even the Democrats, had they capitalized on the opportunity) — the non-action and de facto defense of the NSA shows [to me] exactly that these elites are unified in their statist ideology.
You're right — the last time I was there was in Basic Training.
I remember Talmadge and the self-described defense expert Nunn. I remember Governor Jimmy Carter. I remember Max Cleland. I remember them all.
You think not voting is a panacea against RINOs when it is a prescription for more of the above.
Actually no — I have never, on this thread, said that one shouldn't vote.
All I have said is that your vote is a vote for someone, and the ideologies they represent.
Yeah, Isakson and Chambliss grew to be a pair of highly stinking RINOs. But disgust, bitch slapping and hollering pulled them back from acquiescence on Bush/McCain’s first Amnesty proposal, didn’t it? (you probably don’t know, but it did).
I vaguely remember that — but do you think that any of that would work on the crop we have now?
Remember that they [Republicans] refuse to work against even highly unpopular things like [e.g.] the NSA's domestic espionage; things like this are virtual no lose issues and they refuse to capitalize on them. Why?
I’m taking care of things here in Georgia the best way I know how; I suggest you do the same in New Mexico before you castigate me.
I'm not saying you aren't; I'm just warning you that your vote will be read by those in power as a this candidate is acceptable
, which as far as they're concerned [which is only as far as your vote], is exactly the case. So, there is no incentive for them to offer anyone better than what they have as they can count on you to hold your nose
and pull for their lesser of two evils
guy.
Afterwards it`s: 'Now shut up, you conservative twit, and go sit in the corner till we need you again.'
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