Except for one point, a short comment below, not much for me to pick on. Just that one incidental question. This is hardly fair. What am I here for, anyway ? Nothing for me to poke a stick at. May as well hang up my keyboard. :-( Etc Well said. Billy ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------- message dated 9/26/2011 [email protected] writes:
For the libertarian Republican, the Republican Establishment's apparent policy of "losing liberty slower" rather than "losing liberty at the speed of light" as found in the Democratic Party is unacceptable. Why? Because we are still LOSING. Compromise is ONLY reached when a Republican surrenders their principles for a bowl of Democratic Porridge. And I hate Porridge anyway. This would also find the "Patriot Act" of George W. Bush as wanting and I want to officially thank Ron Paul for being the only Congressman willing to vote against it at its first appearing and each subsequent renewal. Homeland Security, while an erstwhile nice thing to have, has produced literature under this administration as though Republicans are worse than Al Queda (see attached DHS report from April 7, 2009). Milhous knows this can't be a Muslim problem. With the inception of DHS and the election of BHO, who couldn't see this one coming?? Seig Heil, Obama!!! Republicans gave the Democrats their opening to take the House in 2006 with the likes of the Mark Foley scandal and the peccadilloes of various other Republican beltway idiots who were behaving almost as badly as William Satan Clinton. The "Religious Right" be damned. Don't follow you on this one. What did the Religious Right have to do with Foley ? Seems to me that the people concerned --Dobson, Robertson, etc, didn't like this one bit. At least Clinton was heterosexual about it. The lobbying problem was also in full view. It is still in full view, but now on the Democratic foot and the media doesn't much care. Just like they did not much care in vetting their new Messiah during the Campaign of 2008, but were much more interested in using the "Politics of Personal Destruction" on Sarah Palin. This election solidified my personal ban on virtually all news outlets other than FOX News. As Bernard Goldberg wrote, it was "A Slobbering Love Affair" between the Media and Milhous for the entire campaign. Of course, where Barack Milhous Obama had the vast majorities in the Congress they could be pretty much steamrolled, and they were. The Democrats went against the will of the people and they got kicked to the curb, at least in the House. Now that they hold the House, the Republicans are still involved in losing less quickly, but they are still losing. For years I have said that they need to grow a pair, and they still need to. I don't know what it is about DC that tends to neuter Republicans and enshrine Democrats, but that process needs to end. I actually LIKE the idea of not passing a new debt ceiling, and I am kind of disappointed that it passed. Milhous was against Bush's "massive deficits," but one can see that he just didn't like the WAY Bush had deficits, because Milhous has eclipsed Bush's 8 year deficit number in only 2 years. And we are STILL going to double dip. So much for Keynesian stimulus working. Probably because there reaches a point where the debt is such an anchor on the economy that increasing deficit spending only increases the problems. I think that we are there. The IMF is warning of a "lost decade," Social Security is actually ALREADY taking in less than it is paying out, and Medicare may not make it to my retirement year of 2022 (at age 67). Yet no one wants to do anything about it. Republicans are shown as trying to kill grandma (even when they leave current recipients ALONE), no matter what they do. I guess the Democratic operatives want to create another crisis that they won't let go to waste. JUST WHAT WE NEED. The Republicans were also stupid in allowing a primary debate on MSNBC. They should have said no. Democrats are known to have boycotted FOX, so let Republicans show some spine and stay off of the news channel for the under-medicated left. In fact, I could go on for a while detailing the escapades of the stupid party. Except that Billy already has. The Republicans need to keep after the ATF Gun Running operation, particularly as more US deaths, not to mention Mexican deaths, are being shown through ballistics tests to have originated from guns "sold" in the program. All for the purpose of pushing more Gun Control in this country. The Democratic Party and this administration are incapable of shame. But there are apparently so many questionable deals in this administration that it makes the Republican escapades of 2005-2006 miniscule in comparison. David "Anyone who thinks he has a better idea of what's good for people than people do is a swine."--P. J. O’Rourke On 9/25/2011 12:09 PM, [email protected]_ (mailto:[email protected]) wrote: Excellent analysis / self-critique of Democratic Party by a Democrat ... What is equally needed is a top quality analysis / self -critique of the Republican Party by a Republican. BR ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Published on The New Republic (_http://www.tnr.com_ (http://www.tnr.com/) ) ____________________________________ Left Behind: How Democrats Are Losing the Political Center * William Galston * September 24, 2011 If you don’t think ideological perceptions matter in American politics, you need read no further. If you do and you’re a Democrat, there’s something to worry about. Even as the terms of the political debate in Washington, in the eyes of many Democrats, have moved steadily to the right, the electorate is increasingly likely to see itself as ideologically closer to the Republican Party than to Democrats. Unless Obama and Democrats can find a solution to this riddle—and find one fast—they will be contesting the 2012 election on forbidding terrain. In mid-2005, as disaffection with the Bush administration and the Republican Party was gathering momentum, the Pew Research Center asked American to place themselves and the political parties on a standard left-right ideological continuum. At that time, average voters saw themselves as just right of center and equidistant from the two political parties. Independents considered themselves twice as far away from the Republican Party as from the Democrats, presaging their sharp shift toward the Democrats in the 2006 mid-term election. In August of this year, Pew posed a very similar question (note to survey wonks: Pew used a five-point scale, versus six in 2005), but the results were very different. Although average voters continue to see themselves as just right of center, they now place themselves twice as far away from the Democratic Party as from the Republicans. In addition, Independents now see themselves as significantly closer to the Republican Party, reversing their perceptions of six years ago. There’s another difference as well. In 2005, Republicans’ and Democrats’ views of their own parties dovetailed with the perceptions of the electorate as a whole. Today, while voters as a whole agree with Republicans’ evaluation of their party as conservative, they disagree with Democrats, who on average see their party as moderate rather than liberal. So when Independents, who see themselves as modestly right of center, say that Democrats are too liberal, average Democrats can’t imagine what they’re talking about. Compounding the problem, the American people are gradually polarizing. According to Gallup, twenty years ago, as Bill Clinton began his presidential campaign, self-described moderates formed the plurality of the electorate— 43 percent; conservatives were 36 percent, liberals 17 percent. By the summer of 2011, the conservative share had risen to 41 percent and liberals to 21 percent, while moderates declined to 36 percent, surrendering their plurality status to conservatives. Because nearly all conservatives now vote for Republicans and liberals for Democrats, the share of the shrinking pool of moderates that Democrats need to build a majority is now larger than ever. Another Gallup finding that should alert Democrats is the ongoing collapse of public confidence in government. A survey released earlier this week found that Americans now believe that the federal government wastes 51 cents of every dollar it spends, the highest estimate ever recorded. Twenty-five years ago, that figure stood at only 38 cents. While estimates of waste at the state and local level remain lower than for the federal level, they have also risen by double digits in recent decades. Overall, it’s hard to avoid concluding that the ideological playing-field heading into 2012 is tilted against Democrats. This reality only deepens the strategic dilemma the White House now confronts. The conventional strategy for an incumbent is to secure the base before the general public gets fully engaged and then reach out to the swing voters whose decisions spell the difference between victory and defeat. By contrast, the Obama team spent most of 2011 in what turned out to be a failed effort to win over the Independent voters who deserted Democrats in droves last November, in the process alienating substantial portions of the base. To rekindle the allegiance and enthusiasm of core supporters, the president now finds himself having to draw sharp ideological lines, risking further erosion among Independents and even moderate Democrats. Tellingly, a number of at-risk Democratic senators up for reelection in 2012 have already refused to go along with key elements of the president’s recent proposals. Granted, ideology isn’t everything. Political scientists have long observed that Americans are more liberal on particulars than they are in general— ideologically conservative but operationally liberal. (Surveys have shown majority support for most individual elements of the president’s jobs and budget packages.) And the Republicans could undermine their chances by nominating a presidential candidate who is simply too hard-edged conservative for moderates and Independents to stomach. In the face of widespread skepticism and disillusion, it will be an uphill battle for Democrats to persuade key voting blocks that government can really make their lives better. But if they fail, the public will continue to equate public spending with waste, the anti-government message will continue to resonate, and Democrats will be in dire straits when heading into what is shaping up as a pivotal election. William Galston is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a contributing editor for The New Republic. -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org
