"GREAT ARTICLE!"
Posted on 11/06/2010 1:35:51 PM PDT by Brices Crossroads
To get some idea of the scope of the shellacking delivered to the Democrats in the 2010 midterms, it is worth noting that the new 112th Congress which convenes in January will be unprecedented in the lifetimes of most who are reading this now. No. It is not the first time the GOP has held the Majority. But it is the first time that the Democrats have failed to field a House caucus of over 200 members. Their 63 seat drubbing will leave them with 193, the first time they have fallen below the 200 member threshold since 1946. However, redistricting is going to send at least seven more seats to Red States where GOP governors and legislatures control the redistricting process. That coupled with the control of states like Pennsylvania, Michigan and Ohio (all set to lose seats) by GOP governors who will redraw the district to eliminate as many Democrat friendly districts as possible means that it is highly likely that the Democrat sub 200 status is going to last at least another cycle (perhaps longer), something which has not happened since 1926-28.
In short, the numbers and the enthusiasm clearly favor the GOP. As the New York Times observed back in September:
"For the first time since the 1930s, participation in Republican primaries exceeds participation in Democratic primaries, according to a report by the Center for the Study of the American Electorate at American University.
The study, which looked at elections held through Sept. 1 of this year, found that more than four million more voters cast ballots in Republican primaries than in Democratic primaries."
http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/14/primary-voter-turnout-stays-low-but-more-so-for-democrats/
The numbers, which were 19 million GOP primary voters to 15 million Democrat Primary voters, are directly attributable to the Tea Party and its chief protagonist, Sarah Palin. The upsurge in turnout swept the GOP into its most lopsided Congressional majority in 65 years and set the stage for a domination that could span decades. Without the Tea Party and Palin, no such numbers would have been available.
Yet many kennel fed conservatives in the Establishment who promoted the likes of Charlie Crist over Marco Rubio and Bob Bennett over Mike Lee and Trey Grayson over Rand Paul, and didn't lift a finger for Christine O'Donnell, Joe Miller or Sharron Angle now sniff that that wasn't enough. Palin and the Tea Party lost Delaware, California and Washington State and West Virginia. The GOP only picked up six seats (They won 8 in 1994). In fact, so they say, the Tea Party and Palin actually cost the GOP seats by failing to back "more electable" Establishment candidates.
This is tantamount to claiming that the Union Army actually lost the Battle of Gettysburg. While it is true that the Union army decimated the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, inflicting about 25,000 casualties (nearly a third of its strength and coincidentally about the same percentage as the GOP wave wiped out in the Democrat House last Tuesday), they didn't completely destroy it.
Talk about making the perfect the enemy of the good. Let's take a close look at these supposed GOP losses. The GOP did not lose a single Senate Seat. They won six and there is no guarantee they would have won any more regardless of the identity of the candidates. And the seats they lost were generally in blue states or where they faced entrenched incumbents and their union allies (enemy ground, as it were). In some notable cases like Alaska and Delaware, there was overt GOP establishment sabotage. In spite of these disadvantages, the GOP picked up six seats and thanks in large measure to the Tea Party, five out of the six are solid Demint-style conservatives, not to mention Tea Partier Mike Lee who replaces moderate Bob Bennett in Utah. Because of the Tea Party and Palin , the GOP caucus is not only larger, it is substantially more conservative.
To return to the civil war military analogy, even after Gettysburg, when the war returned to the South's home turf, the Union would suffer disasters in the Wilderness, Spotsylvania and Cold Harbor, as it had the previous two years. Yet it had found a general who, like Lincoln, could do the math. The North had the greater numbers, but up until the advent of Grant, lacked a Commander with the will to use them. Fading the heat of a hostile press, Grant set out in April 1864 and never looked back. His first encounter with Lee at the Wilderness was a disaster that cost his army 17,000 men. Yet Grant knew he had the men and materiel to win. He paid no attention to the naysayers and pressed on, moving relentlessly by the left flank to Spotsylvania, Cold Harbor and Petersburg, sustaining horrific casualties along the way and harping criticism from the McClellans and the Northern press who wanted to compromise and retreat. Meanwhile, his Confederate opponent was dropping back, losing men he couldn't replace.
There is one candidate in the GOP who has the resolve and political skill to take similar political and rhetorical hits, because she understands one thing: We have the numbers. The other side knows what she is doing and they know the threat she poses for them. Her strategy is not complicated. Our side has the numbers, but has heretofore lacked the will to mobilize them. The left and its Establishment allies are going to try to destroy her and to demoralize her supporters. This was exactly the strategy employed by Lee in 1864. But Grant was a bulldog who simply would not be deterred. I think Grant and Palin share a characteristic that is sadly absent in politicians today: Sherman referred to it as "four o'clock in the morning courage" meaning that you could wake Grant up at four o'clock in the morning with the news that the enemy had turned his right flank and he would be cool as a cucumber. The fearless Palin too "doesn't scare worth a damn."
For the next two years, Sarah Palin is going to relentlessly press Democrats and GOP in the Congress toward Conservative Constitutional governance. They are going to be dropping back, losing ground at every turn. And when they diverge from that path (and they will) they are going to feel the sting of her rhetorical, as well as her political, whip. She will be moving on Washington by the Right Flank. Relentlessly.
Governor Palin realizes that the job cannot be completed without the Presidency in 2012. She realizes as well that this is going to be a hard slog, not a walk in the park. I don't think she is enamored of fame for its own sake and if there were someone else to do the job, she would be happy to yield the stage. But she knows as well that the current crop of McClellans in the GOP either will not, or cannot, restrain the federal leviathan and unleash the productive capacity of the American people. They are either too invested in the current system or too weakwilled or too politically ungifted to achieve it (and in some cases all three). She is the only politician on the scene with the political capacity, the understanding and the will to complete the reorientation of American political system from its current statist spiral toward proper constitutional interpretation and governance.
The Great Civil War Historian Shelby Foote said, referring to Grant and Lee: "Lee always understood the Union Generals. It is not that he didn't understand Grant. It was that Grant knew how to whip him. And he did."
The left understands Palin better than many conservatives do. They know what she is up to, which is one reason why they devote so much negative attention to her. But Palin, for her part, has shown that she knows how to whip them. And she will.
Great analysis, BC. Thanks for sharing.
I’ve noticed Sarah & DeMint have been exchanging mutual “atta boys” and positive reinforcement of each other.
Hmmmmm....see my tagline I’ve had for almost the last year.
“Palin/DeMint 2012”
Works for me
Sarah Palin may be our Grant, but she will at some point face her first Presidential decision.
Who will be her Billy Sherman?
She will need a capable sidekick, one who can take over the “Army of the Patomac” in a moments notice and make the Obama Leftists “howl”.
Best,
Chris
If you meant that modifier to apply to your later following sentence saying “first time”, you probably need to work on your writing skills a bit.
Your sentence about being unprecedented is fine; but the words “it is the first time” does not convey the restriction of “lifetime” you seem to have meant to apply to the sentence.
It is sad that the republicans haven’t been able to get as large a majority as democrats have been able to pull off.
Very well written and spot on. Sarah knows what the consequences of failure would mean for our republic and she is 100% about making sure that we do not fail.
FU
Karl Rove
Yet many kennel fed conservatives in the Establishment who promoted the likes of Charlie Crist over Marco Rubio and Bob Bennett over Mike Lee and Trey Grayson over Rand Paul, and didn't lift a finger for Christine O'Donnell, Joe Miller or Sharron Angle now sniff that that wasn't enough...
Kennel fed conservatives...ROFL.
I like your thinking and your analysis.
Sarah Palin is the complete Washington outsider and that alone puts her ahead of all the rest.
NO ties to D.C. In fact, she is hostile to the way our business is conducted and also to the fossil incumbents that promote and “reach across the aisle”.
NO MORE. It’s OUR way or the highway.
Sarah Palin all the way to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C. YOU BETCHA!
The time for this battle has come. Palin is the perfect general.
Don’t forget my Sec of State in my tagline!
...and you need to work on your people skills a whole lot. I suspect that any grammatical shortcomings BC has will be easily corrected...but being something other than an @ss will be a challenge beyond your reach.
...and for those who didn't follow, I just told the pretentious @sshole to KMA.
Go back and read the article for context. He was talking about “for most of the people reading this article”.
THAT'S TEARS IT! The South ain't votin for no Lady Yankee Grant! =)
Other than that, nice post!
That’s all you’ve got?
Sarah is ‘planning’ now.... and the world waits with abated breadth.
And Grant was a determined fighter who advanced and took on the enemy at every turn, unlike McClellan who (like the cowardly RINO) was afraid to stand and fight the good fight. And McClellan thought he was so much smarter than Lincoln. But after he was defeated in his RINOlike backstabbing presidential bid, he tucked tail and ran off to Europe.
Go, Sarah, GO!!
The democrats have shown how they “govern” when they have the WH and the majority in congress. They take no prisoners. It’s merciless dictatorial scorched earth national socialist Marxism without so much as even a bone thrown to we the people.
We need to give it back to them in spades! Ask no quarter, give none. Slash and burn every democrat/socialist program and district in the land!!
It’s Sarah’s time to march from sea to shining sea!!
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