Posted on 10/09/2008 2:33:32 PM PDT by steve-b
Let me say at the outset:
I'll be voting for John McCain on November 4.
I'll be voting for the man who was right about the surge, who holds clear-eyed views about terrorism and America's enemies, who has fought for leaner government over 20 years, who maneuvered the Roberts and Alito nominations through the Senate, who was right about Vladimir Putin....
Bona fides established? OK, now for the sermon.
American voters are staggering under the worst financial crisis since at least 1982. Asset values are tumbling, consumer spending is contracting, and a recession is visibly on the way. This crisis follows upon seven years in which middle-class incomes have stagnated and Republican economic management has been badly tarnished. Anybody who imagines that an election can be won under these circumstances by banging on about William Ayers and Jeremiah Wright is... to put it mildly... severely under-estimating the electoral importance of pocketbook issues....
Those who press this Ayers line of attack are whipping Republicans and conservatives into a fury that is going to be very hard to calm after November. Is it really wise to send conservatives into opposition in a mood of disdain and fury for a man who may well be the next president of the United States, incidentally the first African-American president? Anger is a very bad political adviser. It can isolate us and push us to the extremes at exactly the moment when we ought to be rebuilding, rethinking, regrouping and recruiting.
I'm not suggesting that we remit our opposition to a hypothetical President Obama. Only that an outgunned party will need to stay cool. A big part of Obama's appeal is his self-command. It's a genuinely impressive quality. Let's emulate it. We'll be needing it.
(Excerpt) Read more at frum.nationalreview.com ...
What you’re NOT hearing from the MSM P.R. Department for Obama.
Obama is losing chunks of his base, he is not coming close to the numbers enjoyed by Gore and Kerry who both lost. If McCain was losing the same percentage of his base it would be headline news EVERY DAY.
We have a historically significant candidate for VP in Sarah Palin, do you see ANY stories of her impact in the female vote?? If Hillary was the VP candidate we would see constant updates of how many more women are going to vote for the Dem ticket because there is a WOMAN on the ticket. I can only conclude that Sarah Palin is scuttling the female vote or we would have seen many stories about “Palin has NO IMPACT” on the female vote.
If there were large chunks of Republicans voting for Obama like the “PUMA” movement, (dems for McCain) you would see constant fawning media coverage and the leaders of the movement would be household names by now.
Yes.
Why not? They do it to every one of our presidents. It's time we get on the field. Politics is now a 365-day a year campaign. The Dems were in full campaign mode against Bush the DAY AFTER THE ELECTION, and it paid off.
Add Citibank.
Here’s an idea: Gather up all the acorns falling from the trees and leave them in piles in front of the MSM outlets and Barak Headquarters.
Exactly. I'm tired of Republicans being spineless. McCain should keep attacking. There's plenty of stuff to attack Obama concerning the economy. McCain must put ACORN, Obama, Fannie/Freddie and the rest of the Democrats out in front as the reason for this economic mess.
Politics in America goes through cycles and changes. In the 1950s, because the Republicans were in a permanent minority (much like in the 1900-1930 period with the Dems in a minority), there was a tendency to "rest" after the election and actually work together for a while.
But we are back to the 1830s, the Jacksonian/Boss Tweed bare-knuckle blood sport, and the Republicans still haven't caught on. Lee Atwater was the last one we had who knew how to fight this way: even Rove, for all his genius at winning elections, tried to be too nice.
So if Obama is the president, conservatives should vow a scorched earth, immediate campaign a la Florida 2000 where he is immediately portrayed as illegitimate.
AND Obama and his buddies were making out like bandits at the Fannie & Freddie troughs and were NOT about to take any advice from Republicans who saw this coming and tried to get the Democrats to vote to correct Fannie & Freddie in 2006. - Think about it. When Pelosi and Crew took over two years ago, things were pretty decent in this country. The Republicans would have dealt with F&F when it was still fixable.
Yup. We can do both, harp on Obama’s Marxist, terrorist friends, his angry, invisible for some reason, wife and her attitude of hatred for America AND hang this albatross of a back-door reparations bailout around Obama & Friends necks where it belongs.
The stock market appears to be reacting to the news-making polls that show Obomba leading. If I were a capitalist and I had invested in the stock market and I thought it was a sure thing that a communist was going to be the next Pres. of the US, I would go to cash, gold or something else that wasn’t in so much jeopardy. So, I therefore think there should be a voluntary moratorium by the media reporting polls that show the Obomba with any kind of lead!
On the other hand if McCain was reported to be annililating the communist thug candidate, it should be shouted from the rooftops! Stock would assume the correct position in that case.
If, I say if, McCain should lose, we will have new leadership in the country. That leadership-people like Sarah Palin, Bobby Jindal, Mike Pence, and Condi Rice after she gets done with her book, will have an obligation to lead a responsible, substance-filled opposition. The Democrats, like it or not, are on track to control all three branches of executive and legislative power-Presidency, House, and Senate.
We cannot afford to be in opposition the way the Democrats have been towards Bush, angry and unhinged. That is not the way back to power. Democrats have been given a gift of apparent economic chaos, and they will make the most of it while they have a window of opportunity so to do. Screaming that Obama is a Muslim will have very little impact on an electorate that it concerned about hard times.
If we are marked to be in Opposition, so be it. But it must be of the kind that characterized our Party after the catastrophe of 1964: idea-filled and brimming with confidence for the future of the Party. We have the leaders; let's just go to it.
Best,
Chris
“Those who press this Ayers line of attack are whipping Republicans and conservatives into a fury that is going to be very hard to calm after November. Is it really wise to send conservatives into opposition in a mood of disdain and fury for a man who may well be the next president of the United States, incidentally the first African-American president? Anger is a very bad political adviser. It can isolate us and push us to the extremes at exactly the moment when we ought to be rebuilding, rethinking, regrouping and recruiting.”
Spoken like a Canadian.
Eisenhower. Nixon. Ford. Reagan. Bush. Bush II.
Frum must have missed the disdain and fury coming from liberals aimed at all of the above. Every Republican is a moron and/or a corrupt incompetent, according to liberals.
If McCain doesn’t pull this out, conservatives need to give Obama EXACTLY what liberals have handed Bush for the past 8 years.
And hopefully, given McCain’s obvious disdain for Obama, he’ll put his talent for being a PITA to good use.
Uh, lessee, that's 16 YEARS before we held the White House and 30 years before we held the House. Sorry, quiet, meek, Bib Michel-type "principled" opposition doesn't work in the House of Commons and it doesn't work here.
And Newt's problem wasn't that he "overreached." It was that after he overreached once, he didn't get off the mat and attack again.
Funny how that never seems to apply to the Dems. No, the only way to stop the Dems in control of all three branches is to go on offense, all the time.
And it does NOT mean "screaming Obama is a Muslim." It means screaming that he's STEALING MONEY OFF YOUR TABLE!
Remember how things turned out with Bill Clinton? Obama is worse, if possible.
He's a Communist, er,... excuse me,... Marxist (polite company, and all that)... and it should be screamed from the rooftops and the tender sensibilities of the talking heads be damned! He and his handlers are tyrants-in-waiting. The American People need to understand that - loud and clear!
This election is really not about who has the most wonderful health care program and a pleasing sonorous voice. It should be about deadly serious things, like who is Obama and how he is a Marxist likely to destroy this country and our Constitution.
The rest is all just fluff and feathers.
IMO, From should be taken VERY seriously. if it’s Obama is elected, he may be entering office in the toughest economic situation of any president since Roosevelt, and a majority of voters voters - at least initially - are going to cut him a lot of slack as long as he appears to be competent.
And if there’s anything this election cycle should’ve taught observers of Obama style’s, it’s that while he may not project rhetorical fire he does have the ability to reflect composed, unflappable confidence r irrespective of whether things are going well or badly at the moment; you have to give him this for example: when he was down in the polls after the Republican convention he personally gave no impression of panic or even much concern, he just stayed on message and on plan with no surprises and little obvious evidence of even tactical adjustment to his campaign effort. And that kind of self-confidence is going to be extremely attractive to voters if things are still unraveling between now and the election, and even more so if they continue on to unravel between the election and inauguration.
We also need to keep in mind - and this is gooing to be tough for conservatives to accept - that Obama is going to have the opportunity to do some things that are going to be very popular: for example he will almost certainly press for and probably obtain a guarantee of health insurance for all children, and will also press - perhaps with less success - for a similar provision for unemployed adults.
And don’t kid yourself, at a time of economic stress this is going to be enormously popular with working and middle-class voters who feel that this is a rug that could be pulled out from under them in a moment; even a lot of people would have thought of themselves as “conservatives” are going to sleep a lot better knowing that if they lose their insurance for children lease will be covered - ideologically, this may be anathema to most conservatives, but electorally and practically it’s going to be embraced by awful lot of people who feel they are getting the short end of the stick at the same time that the government is dealing out the fat cats. And complaints about affordability are not going to be well-received by the electorate - in practice it’s really not expensive to provide healthcare to children - and as long as their parents still have a wide choice of healthcare providers, 10 or 12 billion a year spent for this is going to pale in comparison to the size of the ongoing bailouts likely to be required in the first few years of either Obama or McCain presidency.
Now, if this happens , the tendency is going to be to fight Obama every step of the way on every issue.
But that’s likely to be running counter to public sentiment and practical political reality for the first few years at least.
And if as seems likely the Democrat party in short of 60 votes in the Senate, and the Republicans use this in a way that’s perceived as obstructionist, it seems to me the likely thing that the voters will do in 2010 is remove the obstruction.
This was the Democrats’ mistake in their response to Reagan in the Contract with America: dig in their heels, go into opposition, and let the ideological wing of the party practice ideologically attractive folly such as identity politics and the like until it ran the Democrat franchise right into the ground.
And that I think is where Frum’s warning about here: as is an inevitable case in American politics after 30 years of ascendancy the conservative swing of the pendulum was already slowing by 2004, the problem now to avoid the Democrats mistake and not to drive “conservativism” into the ditch of anger and ideological purity for a generation or more.
“””And if there’s anything this election cycle should’ve taught observers of Obama style’s, it’s that while he may not project rhetorical fire he does have the ability to reflect composed, unflappable confidence r irrespective of whether things are going well or badly at the moment; you have to give him this for example: when he was down in the polls after the Republican convention he personally gave no impression of panic or even much concern, he just stayed on message and on plan with no surprises and little obvious evidence of even tactical adjustment to his campaign effort. And that kind of self-confidence is going to be extremely attractive to voters if things are still unraveling between now and the election, and even more so if they continue on to unravel between the election and inauguration.”””
actually Obama was unhinged after the convention...he was attacking Palin.... lipstick on a pig ring a bell? I told my friends at the time that Obama’s campaign was crazy for attacking Palin..he needs to be talking about the economy (even before the meltdown)and pounding McCain everyday...He did just that the next week and then all hell broke loose a week or two after that
Does National Review need a ‘purge’?
About time the republicans started shoving some truth back at them.
Bravo LS.
Should Obama become President (sick), we need to fight hard and not despair. The dems are going to mess this country up. I am confident that Pelosi and Reid will continue to live up to their reputation as the worst Congress ever. I think the anger at Bush will be redirected to the Dems, who could well be in charge of everything.
This is the question my 85 year-old father -- who has subscribed to NR since the beginning -- and me, who has subscribed for 25 years, have been asking ever since the Republicans lost the House in 2006. David Frum, Kathleen Parker, these people are supposed to conservatives? Oy vey! At least there's still Steyn.
To quote William F. Buckley Junior exactly in a different context: "What absolute C-R-A-P."
To see how pathetically silly Frum's "perspective" is, everything he says about Barack 0bama could just as easily be said about John McCain. The electoral situation is volatile, and we have no way of knowing how it will turn out and could just as easily find John McCain, and perhaps shortly thereafter, Sarah Palin, in the White House.
Question: Are movement Progressives in the least bit interested in comity with the man who very well may be the next President of the United States?
Answer: No.
Question: Is the criticism of Governor Palin even sane -- forget about moderated -- in any way, shape, manner or form?
Answer: No.
Question: Over the past two years have Progressives paid any price for their shrill assaults on George W. Bush?
Answer: No.
Question: Despite the fact that the Democrats have slid further and further left and have become more and more ridiculous in their criticism of the President, the Republicans, or conservatives, have they paid any price for doing this?
Answer: No.
Note to Northeastern conservatives (I am one): Being "thoughtful" is not, by definition, a process of saying nice things about the opposition. That is nothing more than dissembling at best, surrender at worst. Being thoughtful consists of actually thinking, um, thoughts. This is something David Frum might want to actually try before setting his pen to paper in the future.
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