Posted on 10/06/2010 8:03:55 PM PDT by neverdem
Had the Obamites been sober and circumspect after the 2008 election they would have realized that Obama had pulled off what McGovern, Mondale, Dukakis, and Kerry had not, due to a once-in-a-century perfect storm of about six events:
1) The September 15, 2008 financial meltdown that destroyed John McCain’s small, but steady lead.
2) The fascination with a possible landmark election of an African American candidate.
3) The inept McCain campaign that at times seemed more to wish to lose nobly than to win in a messy fashion.
4) The adroit Obama campaign that stressed centrist, “across the aisle” issues and style.
5) The “tingle in the leg” biased media coverage.
6) The first election without an incumbent or vice president since 1952 in which both candidates ran against the status quo Republican record.
Instead, Obama — egged on by obsequious advisers, an out-of-touch, hard-left base, and a toady media — decided that he had done what other Northern liberals had not, either because (a) the country was at last ready for European-style socialism, or (b) his singular charisma and talents could convince it that it was even when it was clearly not.
The result was that our Oedipus/Pentheus rushed headlong into socialized medicine, mega-deficits, needlessly polarizing appointments of the Van Jones type, and various federal takeovers, coupled with quite unnecessary editorializing about largely local matters — from the Skip Gates mess to the Arizona immigration law and Ground Zero mosque.
In each case, the supposed uniter deliberately weighed in on these controversies to quite unfairly demonize his opponents — “stupidly” acting police, Arizona xenophobes picking up children on the way to buy ice cream, Islamophobes wanting to deny religious liberty, etc. A thousand other nicks, from Eric Holder’s “nation of cowards” to Obama’s musings that at some point one needs no more income, ensured continual bleeding as his poll numbers fell by nearly 30 points in just 20 months.
The result was that the president soon lost the moral capital to push through an unpopular agenda — to such a degree that his out-of-the-mainstream views and his polarizing style of governance might well destroy Democratic congressional majorities for a decade.
As in all Greek tragedies, we the audience can see what might have happened had Obama avoided hubris and its attendant nemesis: If, from the get-go, he had focused on jobs; avoided talking about tax hikes; postponed health care; controlled spending; worried about rising deficits; avoided the “them vs. us” rhetoric; and stayed Olympian and aloof when polarizing local controversies grabbed the cable TV headlines.
And now? After November, Obama can only hope that he can outsource the messy work of cuts and budget balancing to the congressional Republicans. Chances are he will demagogue them as heartless while taking credit for an economic rebound once investors, businesses, and corporations see an end to Obamism and its gratuitous slurs against the wealthy, and thus start using their stockpiled trillions to rehire and buy equipment in 2011.
In the meantime, an entire generation of Democratic House members and senators are going to pay a heavy price for falling for a clearly inexperienced, untried, and often petulant candidate amid the exuberance of the 2008 hope and change wave.
I think the number one catalyst (besides the rampant ACORN/SEIU vote fraud) was the rats appealing to the anti-war sentiment. Now these rat voters realize that the Islamic threat wasn’t just a figment of GW’s imagination.
“A representative GOP should send good legislation up over and over, and force BO to veto.”
To do that, they would need a senate majority big enough to overcome the inevitable defections by Collins, Graham, Snowe, and McCain. Then they would have to overcome a filibuster.
So most of the contentious issues will be argued as between the house and the senate.
If the R’s in the house have stones, they will focus on two issues:
(1) Prohibit spending any money on implementing the Health Care plan. But that will never get past a Senate filibuster, without a gvt shutdown showdown (see below).
(2) reduce spending across the board to 2006 or 2008 levels and repeal the entire stimulus package. Again, that would be a Senate/house fight.
If the house doesn’t cave on either of these, it would be a gvt shutdown sceneario because, although the house starts appropriations bills, no appropriations bill could be passed out of both houses because we don’t have the votes in the Senate. Similar to Newt Gingrich and Bill Clinton, and we all know how that came out. I think the political stars are aligned differently; and we may win that one. But the media will be screaming about how R’s shut down the gvt. and that’s hard to overcome.
That is what worries me deeply, Steely Tom.
If, that is to say IF the Democrats are routed in the house races, well and truly crushed, the defections will come from the Democrat side.
Enough of them will want to keep their jobs that they will defy a tattered and discredited leadership. My fear is that the Republicans will be as idle and vapid as when they did hold a commanding majority.
I TOTALLY agree on the two points of emphasis you raise - defunding HealthControl and ‘stimulus’.
Your post prompts a question about the differences between our respective nations’ constitutions. Here in Canada, all financial matters must be initiated in the House of Commons, which is our equivalent to your House of Representatives. Our Senate must ratify, but cannot initiate, any legislation involving revenue or spending, which is the tradition under English Common Law. Has this been retained in the US? The reason I’m asking is that it is quite likely that after the next election the GOP will control the House but the Democrats may still have control of the Senate.
This economy is so structurally sick compared to 1978-1982 when the US was healthy enough to handle Dr. Volcker's strong medicine that cured the Jimmy Carter stagflation. Can you imagine what using Dr. Volcker's medicine today would do?
When they did hold a commanding majority? You need 60 votes in the Senate to end debate in order to get anything new and significant done.
In the US, all financial matters must be generated in the House of Representatives, as you described Canada’s system.
A dem Senate gives us...gridlock! Not always a bad thing.
Amen!
Without 2/3’s of both houses to override the veto, we’re stuck with Obamaism.
Larry Kudlow, a self confessed optimist, says business does have about 2 trillion in the bank that could be used for investment.
Nice post, at any rate.
I would really be surprised if the Rats don’t steal the election. REALLY surprised.
You said it. I love VDH, but we haven’t won anything yet.
Yup, although more people than in the past would be relieved at a govt. shutdown.
You are correct. Consider the possibility that (a) most or all of the blacks and Hispanics will vote for Obama and his minions, (b) the labor unions, thugs, socialists and communists will be out voting Dem and, most of all, (c) the majority of 52 percenters may still not be hurting enough to take medicine and vote against Obama. Throw in the possibility of a crisis and you may have to sit through enough election cycle before folks wake up to the reality that their country is being slowly destroyed.
If Boehner and the old-line RiNO crew are in charge, that's what they'll do.
Their racket is to collect "rain" (contributions) from grateful industry groups and deep-pocketed vested interests for holding off destructive/expensive 'Rat legislation, not for doing anything positive. Oh, and I guess they get credit for stuff like the Fair Tax, pushing their tax liabilities off on individual payors so their clients' bottom lines can explode.
Stuff like that.
Otherwise ..... inert, just like they were under Hastert.
The new Republicans and Tea Party people need to lead a revolt against, and overthrow, the legacy RiNO/Yacht Club leadership.
“Their racket is to collect “rain” (contributions) from grateful industry groups and deep-pocketed vested interests for holding off destructive/expensive ‘Rat legislation, not for doing anything positive. Oh, and I guess they get credit for stuff like the Fair Tax, pushing their tax liabilities off on individual payors so their clients’ bottom lines can explode.”
By God, you’re a cynical man!
But truthful.
Thanks.
No, I’m not John Bachelor, and I don’t listen to his show. I just study the issues like a compulsive and have been studying the Austrian school of economists for a couple of years now.
I’d like to see the evidence of those 2 trillions that Kudlow mentions.
According to the Dow, people have made back a lot of what they lost from its tanking of a couple of years ago. That’s all on paper, though, and does not really exist unless people cash it out. The same is true of those 2 trillion Kudlow refers to.
Everyone thought China was a stable, booming economy. Now we find out that it is mostly a scam, all the way up to and including building skyscrapers then tearing them down and rebuilding them, just to keep people working and to draw down on resources.
I believe when financial Armageddon finally hits, the world is going to be stunned at how much “prosperity” was a delusion. The powers-that-be, however, will maintain and add to their wealth and power, though. They always do. That’s what the central bank and collusion with them is all about.
Thanks.
No, I’m not John Bachelor, and I don’t listen to his show. I just study the issues like a compulsive and have been studying the Austrian school of economists for a couple of years now.
I’d like to see the evidence of those 2 trillions that Kudlow mentions.
According to the Dow, people have made back a lot of what they lost from its tanking of a couple of years ago. That’s all on paper, though, and does not really exist unless people cash it out. The same is true of those 2 trillion Kudlow refers to.
Everyone thought China was a stable, booming economy. Now we find out that it is mostly a scam, all the way up to and including building skyscrapers then tearing them down and rebuilding them, just to keep people working and to draw down on resources.
I believe when financial Armageddon finally hits, the world is going to be stunned at how much “prosperity” was a delusion. The powers-that-be, however, will maintain and add to their wealth and power, though. They always do. That’s what the central bank and collusion with them is all about.
A snake oil salesman, once he gets a crowd, doesn’t start pushing real medicine.
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