Interesting Items 11/10 - by Alex Gimarc
Howdy all, a few Interesting Items for your information. Enjoy - In this issue: 1. National 2. What To Do Next? 3. Alaska 4. Backstabbing 5. Halcro 6. Torpedoes 1. National. Well, The One won a resounding victory Tuesday, with a win of over 7% larger than John McCain. The One, or Not My President (NMP) as described by Jack Wheeler, ended up with about 3.4 million more votes than Bush 43 got in 2004. There were only about a million more votes cast this year than in 2004. McCain got 4.6 million fewer votes than Bush 43 got in 2004. Post election statistics were interesting. NMP won the under 30 vote by more than 2:1. He took 20% of self-described conservatives. McCain and the Republican establishment's vaunted moderates and independents also broke for The One at about a 60-40% split. The base numbers were relatively unchanged from 2004, with 22% of the voters self identifying as liberals; and 34% of voters self-identifying as conservative. 80% of conservatives voted for McCain. 89% of Republicans voted for McCain, while over 90% of democrats and 95% of blacks voted for NMP. Daffydd in Big Lizards ran some numbers and determined that if conservatives had voted for McCain at the same rate as liberals voted for Obama, McCain would have been elected in a very close election. Republicans lost 20 seats in the House and as of this writing, six senate seats, with three still in play. As of this time, democrats are busily committing voting fraud in the Minnesota recount, having manufactured out of thin air over 100 votes, closing the gap between Norm Coleman (R, MN) and Al Franken (D, SNL) to just over 200 votes. Inquiring minds might ask what happened. What happened is that Republicans ran a candidate that neither believed in conservatism nor the free market, capitalist economic system and was not p art icularly interested nor coherent in explaining whatever it was he did believe in. This was an election about the economy and Obama. The signature event of the campaign was the financial collapse and bailout legislation a month ago. McCain's response was to grandstand, go to DC and work for a bailout bill that was opposed by over 70% of all Americans. At that point, his 3% lead turned into a 6% deficit, which remained for the rest of the campaign. Had McCain chosen to wrap the entire mess around the scrawny, corrupt necks of the democrat congress critters who pushed Fannie and Freddy to deal in mortgages for people who could not pay for them, he very well could have won. He chose otherwise. He shut down the NC Republican P art y after they ran an ad tying Obama with Reverend Wright. As a result, he lost NC and Liddy Dole's senate seat. Among conservatives, McCain probably was already lost when Limbaugh st art ed referring to him as Yosemite Sam following the second debate. This was a well earned and richly deserved reference. McCain and his campaign after a wonderful beginning, wandered off into Nana Land , and ran a terrible campaign for the bulk of the last three months. On the other hand, Obama managed to set up a very entrepreneurial internet presence, with a mobile and quick responding web of supporters that he will use for the next four years to push his agenda. By the end of the campaign, more people thought that he was going to lower taxes than thought McCain would. The investor class, who are fixing to get everything in their portfolios turned into oatmeal, ended up breaking for Obama by a small margin. Obama essentially ran as a conservative for the last three weeks of the campaign. I think there will be many, many people surprised by what comes out of his administration and congress in the not so distant future. Wall Street celebrated his election with the largest post-election drop in history, no vote of approval, that. Gun owners are celebrating by buying everything possible before January 20. We are in for a very, very hard time. If Obama is successful, he will engineer the largest leftward move in this nation since FDR. If he is not, he will be the second Jim my C art er. Either way, things are going to be very, very difficult for a few years economically. On the other hand, Americans have historically had a very short half life of support and adoration for self-appointed Messiahs – especially when it st art s hitting them in their pocketbooks, and Obama has already enjoyed his 6 months of fame. 2. What To Do Next? A review of what happened is instructive here, as the backbiting and finger pointing has already begun in earnest. Here are a few not so random thoughts: Compassionate conservatism doesn't work. We've tried it twice over the course of the last 20 years and gave control of the entire government back to the leftists along with similar majorities in both Houses of congress twice (1992 and 2008). We have the youth vote. The under-30's voted for Obama and democrats in congress by almost 2:1 split. They don't remember the C art er years and we as conservatives have done a terrible job passing those hard-earned lessons along. Education of the young must be an integral p art of whatever we conservatives do in the future. We have a structural problem nationally. There are around 47 million of our neighbors that don't pay any income taxes. The vast majority of these people vote for candidates that will give them money, meaning that we conservatives fight for a mere 16 million or so votes (the difference between the 63 million Obama got and the 47 million freeloaders). Every single American ought to be paying an income tax so they will have skin in the game and that tax cuts or tax increases will reach out and touch them also. Otherwise, we will quickly reach a point in time – and perhaps we are there already – where our neighbors can elect people that will steal from our pockets and put that money in their pockets. The Republican P art y must reform their primary elections on a state by state basis so that people who are not Republicans are no longer able to choose their nominee. McCain got his kick st art in a number of early primaries via crossover democrats and independents – most of which then went on and voted for Obama in the general election. The Republican P art y must once again become competitive in the Northeast and on the West (Left) Coast. It is incredibly difficult to win if you write off half of the electoral votes available by refusing to compete. Expect congress and the Obama administration to do everything possible to shut down both talk radio and the conservative online presence. Expect them to make every attempt to make it illegal to do what we do in political opposition. This will be done under the banner of fairness, censoring hate speech, and bip art isan moderation. Expect it. Plan for it. Prepare to oppose and destroy the effort. They can't survive in power if we continue doing what we have been doing. They have been waiting 40 years for this opportunity. Don't think for a minute that they won't do everything they possibly can to permanently keep the political power they just grabbed. Finally, we need a real live, honest to God message and we need to hammer it every single day of the week from now until doomsday. Here is a suggestion: It's your money. They are your kids. It's your property. And none of it belongs to any government at any level. 3. Alaska . Voter turnout in Alaska was lower than in 2004, as it appears that independents stayed home after the presidential winner was announced. There were a number of surprises in the election. The largest was that Don Young (R) won his House seat by a comfortable margin of over 7%. In all statewide polling, he was trailing by 7-8%. While he has regained his congressional seat, he is also expected to get indicted as fallout from a number of ongoing investigations. Should that happen and he is removed from office, expect Governor Palin to appoint someone who will be able to run for election 60 days after the appointment. As of today, Senator Ted Stevens (R) sits with about a 3,500 vote lead to retain his retain his seat. There are nearly 50,000 absentee ballots left to count, with Republicans believing that they have 10,000 more of these than the democrats do. Mark Begich is making noises about the race not being over until the recount is compete. I hope to God that he will continue down this road, attempting to destroy the election process here in Alaska to secure his seat in the US Senate, as he will be remembered fondly for the six years before he is summarily tossed from office. To date, we have yet to see the DSCC / DNC election thievery lawyers in town, but given the 57 democrat majority in the US Senate, they are expected to show up in droves Real Soon Now. The legislature was mostly a push, with Republicans losing a seat in both the state senate, which is now down to a 10-10 split, and the state house. Late last week, the majority organized with all 10 democrats and three Republicans setting up a governing majority caucus. House Republicans hold a governing majority in the state house and have set up their governing majority. 4. Backstabbing. McCain campaign aides / workers, fresh off running the most inept Republican presidential campaign since Bob Dole's in 1996, celebrated their crushing defeat by leaking a series of lies about Governor Palin. Fox News and Newsweek were the vehicles for these fraudulent personal attacks. So far, nobody from the McCain campaign – including McCain himself – were man enough or honorable enough to own up to spreading the lies or to tell his people to knock it off. It may be a good thing that McCain lost, for this is the sort of stuff that would have been coming out of the McCain WH on a daily basis against both Governor Palin and any single conservative that dared stick their head above the firing line and say something in opposition. Suggestion to all future Republican campaigns: don't hire a single bozo connected to the McCain presidential campaign, as this is what passes for honor, honesty and integrity among that p art icular pack of thieves, miscreants, and losers. 5. Halcro. We have a former state legislator, a RINO named Andrew Halcro who ran for governor against Sarah Palin and was defeated along with former democrat governor Tony Knowles in 2006. Since then, Halcro has converted himself into an anti-Palin gadfly, spending most of his time going after Palin on all manner of issues. He spent some time during the recent presidential campaign season opining about Palin on CBS. Well, he is backing town and has a talk show, three hours on weekday afternoons. Last week, he went after Joe The Plumber, discussing in excruciating detail why he couldn't won a business as his personal finances were hosed up. Nobody asked – at least while I was listening – how he came to get that sort of access to that personal financial data of a private citizen. Note that it was Ohio government officials, all of which were Obama supporters, who misused State of Ohio databases and their official positions of public employment to dig up dirt on a private citizen and leak it to the media in an attempt to destroy his reputation, livelihood, and financial strength. Nice to see this wannabee playing along with the Bad Guys. 6. Torpedoes. Glen Reynolds' InstaPundit cross posted an interesting little think piece Saturday about a few gifts that the outgoing administration ought to be giving the incoming Obama Imperium. Should you feel so inclined, this might be a good list to send to your local congress critter and demand immediate and comprehensive investigations st art before inauguration day. After Obama gets into office, there will be nothing done about his abuse of the law during his campaign assuming that he will fire all the federal prosecutors. Here's the entry from Saturday's InstaPundit: ADVICE TO THE REPUBLICANS: Do what Rahm Emanuel would do in your position! "Put as many long-range torpedoes into the water aimed at Senator Obama's ship of state before Republicans lose control of the Executive Branch as possible." Some examples: *Appoint U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois Patrick Fitzpatrick as a special prosecutor so he can pursue his investigation of Tony Rezko and his corrupt dealings with Illinois 's governor and other creatures and spoilsmen of the Daley Machine. This will make it politically difficult for a President Obama to pardon Mr. Rezko and impossible for him to terminate Mr. Fitzpatrick as a federal officer come January 21 as a way of de-railing this investigation. * Appoint a special prosecutor to investigate ACORN's voter registration methods and its dealings with the Obama campaign. * Appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the Obama campaign's on-line fundraising operation, including its disabling of the credit card security software on its on-line donations system. File a complaint with the Federal Election Commission regarding same. * Appoint a bip art isan (love that word!) presidential commission to review the candidates' fundraising in this election cycle and to recommend changes in federal election laws. File ethics complaints against Sen. Chris Dodd and Congressman Barney Frank for their relationship with Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Countrywide Mortgage. Be it noted that, in his day, this is probably what Newt Gingrich would have done, too. It was then-Congressman Gingrich's persistent filing of ethics complaints against then-House Speaker Jim Wright, D Texas, which eventually brought Speaker Wright down and made possible the Republicans' re-taking of Congress in 1994 on the platform of the Contract with America. Who needs a honeymoon anyway? Not Rahm Emanuel. This probably is what Emanuel would do if the positions were reversed. But are these suggestions realistic? More later - - AG "If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen." - Samuel Adams, speech at the Philadelphia State House, August 1, 1776. Note: Interesting Items can be found at the following locations: MatSu Valley News http://www.matsuvalleynews.com ; District 28 http://www.dist28.com/ , subscriber and supporter Elbert Collins at http://thatselbert.wordpress.com/ and the home page: http://home.gci.net/~agimarc Rod M art in's The Vanguard site is also a long-time supporter of this column: http://www.thevanguard.org/
