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 alternativethe unimpeded march toward the abyss of hope and change.
That is one of two situations across the country where a protest is appropriate - and McConnell is the other. If I were in Miss, I may not vote. If I were in Kentucky, I'd do it with significant nausea.
I’d be very happy to vote and get 70% - but it doesn’t work that way with RINOs
Alright, how will the GOPe reward Conservatives who give them the majority...
so so so true - and there's more to this than just some visceral pleasure. The liberal Democrat complex imploding will be a great teachable moment for everyone to see. At least some lo info's have been awakened in the past six years. This takes a confluence of events. This will be another one of those illustrative events if the results are bloody.
Fewer must be ignorant of the rise of UKIP, which has scared the poo out of Britain’s Tories. Conservatives simply stopped voting for Tories. It’s a blueprint for ousting our RINOs.
Yep.
And in two years we'll still have Obamacare, open borders, runaway EPA, an oppressive DOJ and HHS, law-by-decree, and we'll be told to vote for Jeb to save what remains of our nation from the Hildebeast.
Irrelevant non sequitur of a question: The GOPe will not "reward" conservatives - that's not how this works. May I suggest you quit personalizing everything. It is not about them being punished or you being rewarded. This is about the other team in this particular election.
If the margins are thin, the only reward will be the smack down of Harry Reid and an insult to Obama. But those are GOOD things! If the margins are big, then that means more conservatives will become part of the GOP caucus. Under Reagan, the party conservatives finally got enough clout to run the agenda.
No, I can’t think of my vote that way.
“I’ve been disappointed too often by the GOP to expect much from a Republican Congress.”
And, Mr. Feder, you will continue to be disappointed with a RINO Congress AND a RINO Senate, should that come to pass.
Right on, Knarf!
The US is not a parliamentary system. Our two party system is not conducive to incremental change. Unless the majority of Republicans revolt, we are stuck plodding along toward Gomorrah. Given the numbers of those people even on FR who will vote straight R, the likelihood of change is next to nothing.
Two years until the end game. Keep your eye on the ball, Charlie. Party uber alles!
This is a hilarious, but true article. Probably the only person I could not vote for (or as author puts it, has me running for the toilet bowl) is Thad Cochran.
My brother-in-law claims he is is pro-life, pro-2nd amendment,
very homo and islama phobic, is a fiscal conservative, hates Obama and what is happening to this country, blah, blah.......... but because he is a strong union member (actually a steward), he votes straight dem ticket.
We will meet here after the election and discuss the results..but this time will be dif...the Rs will win the Senate but conservatives need to voice their outrage and disgust with the GOPe in a loud clear voice.
Apparently you forgot about retroactive rule changes in certain primaries to ensure Romney was the [s]elected candidate.
I certainly wouldn't call that control of the nominating process.
A. Pick up his shovel and fill the bags he has.
B. Demonstrate his indignation over his less-than optimal number of sandbags by staying home.
I know what I would do.
I’ve got neighbors just like that. They sent all four of their kids to Catholic school,she was a lector at our parish,he goes to daily Mass,but because he was a union sheet metal worker,they vote democrat straight down the line...insisting that things are always better with the democrats in charge. She actually insists that democrats best represent what the Founders stood for! I’m sure Washington,Adams,Jefferson and Franklin would be shocked to know they stood for abortion and men “marrying” men.....
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