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 particularly 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 Freddie 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 Party 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 started 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 Jimmy Carter. 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
starts 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
Carter years and we as conservatives have done a terrible job passing
those hard-earned lessons along. Education of the young must be an
integral part 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 Party 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 start 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 Party 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 bipartisan 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 complete. 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 particular
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 back in 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 own 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
start 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 fund raising 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 bipartisan (love that word!) presidential commission to
review the candidates' fund raising 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 Martin's The Vanguard site is also a long-time supporter of this
column: http://www.thevanguard.org/
