The Meaning of Yesterday’s Defeat | Power Line
I wish I had written this. Very much on target. The fact that even though the vast majority of Americans thought Romney would be better on the economy, they went for the "free stuff" tells me that it is over ... we have gone over that cliff where the takers solidly outnumber the makers.
We borrow 40% of the cost of our government and 10% of the people pay for the rest. Why are we surprised that the electorate says; "good"?
What really hurts is that our educational system has convinced our youth that socialism works, when the very recent past provides many proofs that it does not. No matter, most young people believe what their teachers tell them and the primary function of our union controlled school system is to turn out more liberals.
Wednesday, November 07, 2012
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Excellent read Bill, he describes the situation correctly IMO.
ReplyDeleteDepressing stuff. But it's part of the grieving process I suppose. I've read enough of these types of article now and I'm trying to look ahead. On the bright side, unlike four years ago we still control the house of representatives and I'm hoping those SOB's hang tough and don't buy into this so called mandate BS that Harry and Barry are squawking about. Also, they can't keep blaming the economy on Bush anymore. Not even Chris Mathews can keep swallowing that load of crap. But I'm sure he will be able to find a race based reason for it if the economy doesn't improve noticeably in the next four years.
ReplyDeleteI don't believe that we have necessarily lost the battle when it comes to having too many "takers". We lost the battle of turnout it appears. Supposedly we had a more energized base of supporters than the former community organizer. And for a change a big turnout was going to benefit republicans. But when all was said and done our turnout was way down from what was expected, and although the other party's turnout was down from what it had been four years ago it was enough... barely. Every report I saw and heard on election day indicated high turnout.. long lines and higher early voting for republicans leading me to believe we were going to win this going away.
So if republicans didn't turn out the way they were expected to.. what happened? I don't remember where I read or heard this but apparently a lot of republicans didn't turn out to vote because of Romney's religion. I don't ever even recall this hardly being talked about, much less that it would affect turnout of the "likely Romney" voters. Uffda.
And I have yet to hear anyone address the 2010 midterms and how we made massive gains then but fell short this time around. Obviously republicans were getting their message across then and it was well received. Why did it not play as well now when another two years of Obama's "focused like a laser" economic policies still failed to bring any improvement? Well, other than our candidate I can only point to two things.
Romney was leading in the overall popular support and either leading or tied in most of the battleground states a week before the election. And then came hurricane Sandy... and the fat guy from New Joisey.
(Looks like my message is too long, I'll try to do this in two parts)
(part two)
ReplyDeleteSo for a few days Bronco-bamma actually looked presidential. First time for everything I guess. Of course it's almost two weeks later and everything is still all fubar out there but no one notices. But apparently that swayed a lot of people who were still on the fence. (who are those people who still can't really make up their minds until the last minute anyway and should they really even be allowed to vote??) Lordy, a person could pull their hair out just contemplating how people could be so wishy washy. If you don't believe me, just look at Bilber's head...(sorry buddy!)
And then the other thing I have not heard mentioned in this election cycle is WHERE DID THE TEA PARTY GO? I mean, I know they're still around... somewhere. They even have a brand new shiney website (TPNN I think). But where were they as far as a grass roots organization this time around? I never once heard of a tea party rally in my neck of the woods and two years ago they had been a regular occurrence. I didn't even hear about any tea party candidates other than maybe Michelle Bachman. (who by the way was my pick in the hawkeye caucus)
So to sum it up, yes it's a shock to lose this election when the economy was this bad and seemingly it should have been a no brainer to vote for Romney but I'm not sure it was becuase of Obama phones or food stamps. If you failed to get more of your own supporters to vote this go-round than who voted for McCain four years ago it seems like that's where the scrutiny should be focused when trying to analyze this election. I don't think we suddenly need to start doing what the other party is doing to sway them to the right. I STILL believe this country has a majority of the population who believes in mostly conservative principles, we just need to find out what it will take to get them to realize they have to step up when the time comes. That and we need to tell republican candidates to quit saying stupid things about rape. Uffda again, you can't keep shooting yourself in the foot like that!
Anyway, didn't mean for this to turn into a novel. Cheer up. Two years until midterms and after that..another two years until we get to take on .... Joe Biden?
Couple "rational / no black helicopter thoughts".
ReplyDelete- Tea Party was instrumental in getting both the rape whack jobs in vs rational Rs. Two seat loss. Like a lot of things about TP, have given money / went to events. Spirit is great, but their candidate selection has a lot of holes ... NV and DE last time. Yes, their energy really helped in 2010, but they also have baggage.
- Bachman BARELY squeaked in, it looks like West did not. The "balls to the wall right wing" seems to not be doing well. I'd like it to, it just isn't.
-- Immigration, Gay Marriage, "fairness", "caring" ... Republicans need better stories on all. Can we save MARRIAGE for 1 man one woman and get civil unions in WO losing all the Christian right?? Can we have some version of "you are here, you are employed, you broke the law ... the "fine" (tax??) is xxx$$$$ + you are lucky, the border is now CLOSED ... on spending / taxes, I think it is mostly better stories. How bad do you care if somebody other than an entertainmentr/sports figure/politician becomes a zillionaire?? Do you hate business bad enough that you would rather they gave your job to somebody in China so you could avoid seeing the guy get rich doing something other than entertaining you or lying to you professionally (politics/law ) ???
I guess I think we need to think a bit harder than "cheer up, it will all be OK in 2 or 4 years politically.
I had a reply that for some reason disappeared into cyber oblivion. Not going to try to reconstruct it now, there's a football game on. But my point of looking ahead to two years and four years is pretty much all we have to look forward to right now. It does no good to blame it all on fraud or, as I've heard on so many blogs and talk shows that we need to change our message and become more like "them".
ReplyDeleteI just don't believe that. I don't think we've gone over the cliff yet. We had two million fewer turn out than we had four years ago and that's the problem. Where are those people and why didn't they show up on election day?
If you are right, super, we are not over the cliff yet, and things may right themselves in 2 to 4 years.
ReplyDeleteMy version of "reality based" means that nearly everything has to be considered. I'm only too aware that I will still fall short, may well completely miss the real reasons, focus in on the paranoid reasons (like fraud), and maybe just be wasting my time because as you say, nothing is really wrong, it was just one election and it will right itself.
My gut tells me that isn't true. I don't WANT to believe in fraud for example, but there is a good deal of evidence of extremet turnout num bers and extreme lopsided percentages. There is FAR more evidence than anything in 2K or in any of the "DieBold years" and MSM / Dems made DieBold evils of electronic voting a major meme for their people ... then they went back to winning in '06 and it just went away. Maybe it was ONLY a way to energize there base ... but even then, given that our base didn't turn out, it seems like it bears some thought.
I look at our (and Europe's) situation relative to entitlement/debt as akin to someone sliding into alcoholism. Weight control would be a good analogy too, but that is just TOO close to home!!
Just like the alcoholic, functioning can seem to go on "OK" ... work, events, etc, but all the while alcohol is consuming more and more of the life and the person is closing on a tipping point. Some pull back ... from even extreme drinking every day and large quantities, but many do not and at some point they "tip over" figuratively and literally.
Being able to identify tipping points on a slippery slope is difficult. I'd argue debt > GDP was HUGE. I'd argue that 25-30% of budget was HUGE. We could go along at "10%" for a LONG time ... std deficits of 200-400B, BAD, but not "killing". Even the occasional "binge" of 20-25% were bad signs, but survivable, sort of like a long term heavy drinker. Certainly dangerous, hurting them, BUT, they MIGHT get away with it!
My view is that BO effectively killed us 3xing from the worst being $500B all the way to $1.6T and structural deficits as far as the eye could see over $1T /40% of spendiing. If we had been able to get huge spending cuts after the R congress was elected, of if Romney had been elected and was willing to reign in the spending, MAYBE the "liver transplant" could have been staved off with just being very sick for awhile, but I think we are now beyond hope of returning to anything like the vitality we had prior to 1900, or even the 50's or 80's. We started drinking the "progressive hootch" in both parties, and now we are a stumbling dead drunk behemoth with a dead liver that knows nothing else than screaming for more booze (tax revenue, debt).
The problem is SPENDING!! (the booze), giving the drunk more booze (money, tax increases) will just kill him (us) quicker ... but when the people seem to demand EIGHT DAYS OF REVENUE (the expiration of the W tax cuts on the "rich") I'm over on the "give it to them"n side. We need a shock to get us to detox FAST!!
R's need to work MUCH harder on a clear and crisp message ... we are going to "compromise", but we want everyone to understand that this will not work. THE issue is SPENDING. The 40% borrowing, 90% of revenue provided by 10% of people needs to be SEARED in every brain!!!
I'd demand that Obama declare his agreement with those numbers to the American people before they sign on! We MUST get the message out!!!