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ELECTION - 27 days from today

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 6, 2010

HAVE THEY BEEN SPEAKING WITH DICK MORRIS? – AT 8:01 P.M. ET:  The Republicans plan a "go for broke" blitz in the last weeks of the campaign.  This parallels the advice given by Dick Morris, who believes that underconfidence, not overconfidence, is the GOP problem.  Morris figures that as many as 100 seats could be won by the GOP if its campaign machine goes all out.  The Politico reports:

House Republicans have drafted a go-for-broke blueprint for the final weeks of the midterm campaign that will bring them to $45 million in television ad spending, with spots reserved in 62 congressional districts across the nation.

POLITICO has learned that the National Republican Congressional Committee will take a bank loan of at least $6.5 million — but likely more — to expand its ad buys into seven additional districts beyond the 55 where the committee has already reserved time.

According to an NRCC source familiar with the effort, the newly added targets include five Democrats whose districts, until recently, were thought to be out of reach this year: Reps. Tim Walz of Minnesota, Sanford Bishop of Georgia, Phil Hare of Illinois, Zack Space of Ohio and John Salazar of Colorado.

Republican strategists say that the $45 million figure is far more than they expected the committee to have for the fall campaign and represents an effort to take full advantage of the Republican-friendly political environment by investing in as many potentially winnable Democratic districts as possible. The NRCC initially reserved $22 million across 41 districts in August before expanding to $35 million in 55 districts in September.

COMMENT:  Now we're talkin'.  The GOP is not generally known for imagination, and often needs a kick to pull things off with a Reaganesque flair.  But this ad buy is worth it.  Momentum is with the GOP, and they're got to exploit it, even if it means running up some debts.

October 6, 2010      Permalink

THE HILLARY FACTOR – AT 7:32 P.M. ET:  Hillary Clinton today formally rejected any interest in the vice presidential nomination on the Democratic ticket in 2012.  There has been roaring speculation over the last two days, started by Bob Woodward, that Hillary would replace Biden, giving the Democratic ticket a boost. 

Despite denials, I still maintain that Woodward was right, that this is being discussed in important Democratic circles.  Polls taken today show that, across the board, the replacement would be popular.  Democrats, Republicans, and independents all go for it.  Presumably, Biden would then be made secretary of state.

Some pundits argued today that the switch was unlikely for these reasons:  1) It's out of character for Obama, who doesn't much like dramatic gestures; 2) Hillary might actually consider it a demotion, even though it would give her a clear track to the presidential nomination in 2016; 3) Biden, who is gaffe-prone, couldn't handle the secretary of state position, which Hillary has handled with some ability.

Of course, we can escalate the speculation:  What if the economy continues sour and Obama's poll numbers really tank?  Will a committee of wise men visit the White House and suggest that dear leader consider the joys of the private sector?  It could happen, although I doubt if it would take a committee to convince Obama to become a one-term president.  If he felt he couldn't overcome the poll deficit – and such modesty is not like him – he might step aside to avoid the humiliation of defeat.  In that case, Hillary would be the heiress apparent. 

Much speculation today at a luncheon I attended about the Republican 2012 nominee.  I was sitting at a table with some of the leading political analysts in the country, and no one could come up with a name that excited anyone else.  That may, sadly, be the most important political story as we enter the 2012 presidential sweepstakes – the lack of a truly electric figure to carry the GOP banner.  Ronnie, where are you now?

October 6, 2010      Permalink

ONCE MORE, WITH FEELING – AT 9:17 A.M. ET:  We mentioned Reagan Democrats in our first post this morning.  Well, they're baaack!  From AP:

WASHINGTON (AP) - Desperate for jobs and cool toward President Barack Obama, working-class whites are flocking to Republicans, turning a group long wary of Democrats into an even bigger impediment to the party's drive to keep control of Congress.

An Associated Press-GfK poll shows whites without four-year college degrees preferring GOP candidates by twice the margin of the last two elections, when Democrats made significant gains in the House and Senate. The poll, conducted last month, found this group favoring GOP hopefuls 58 percent to 36 percent - a whopping 22 percentage-point gap.

Well, what's the shock here?  When Obama and his troops regularly ridicule working Americans (they "cling to their guns and their religion"), when the president goes around the world apologizing for the country they bled for, when the administration shoves through a health bill and never asks their opinion, what did the Obamans think would happen?

In 2008, when Obama won the presidency, they favored GOP congressional candidates by 11 percentage points, according to exit polls of voters. When Democrats won the House and Senate in 2006, the Republican edge was 9 percentage points.

Compared with better-educated whites, working-class whites tend to be older and more conservative - groups that traditionally lean Republican and are uneasy with the young president's activist governing. Their wariness is reinforced by a prolonged economic funk that has disproportionately hurt the working class and shown scant signs of improvement under Obama and Congress' majority Democrats.

COMMENT:  The elitist Democrats turned their backs on working-class Americans years ago, considering them "the flyover people," not quite good enough to exist, and certainly not interesting enough for a conversation or an invite to a wine-and-Brie party. 

The working class is striking back.  This isn't only about economics.  It's about values and style. 

October 6, 2010      Permalink

THE END OF BRITAIN? – AT 8:22 A.M. ET:  Well, at least the possible end of Britain as we know it.  The UK is our closest ally, but population trends in that country will probably end or minimize the alliance, and a lot sooner than we expect.  London's Daily Mail reports:

Britain’s fast-growing population will hit 70 million in just 17 years’ time if immigration goes unchecked, official figures revealed yesterday.

The projections mean that numbers are racing towards a point which even Labour politicians believe will mean overcrowding and extra costs.

The breakdown from the Office for National Statistics shows how the population is expected to rise if different rates of immigration are sustained over the next 25 years.

It indicates that numbers will reach 70 million in 2027 if net migration – the number of immigrants arriving in the country minus those who leave – continues at last year’s level.

COMMENT:  The problem is not immigration.  The problem is that many new immigrants don't move to Britain to become British, but to maintain their original culture.  Over time, these people start to vote, and will hold the balance of power in British politics.

And it is happening all over Europe.  It won't be long before Muslims hold the political balance of power in both France and the Netherlands.  Immigration, combined with a "modern, sophisticated" view of child bearing, is essentially dooming our oldest allies in Europe.  It is not bigoted to say that.  It is simply a fact.  Western Europe will eventually become an adjunct to the Middle East. 

The doctrinaire European left will do nothing to stop the trend.  They have no problem with the death of European civilization, as they didn't think much of it in the first place.  And since the ultimate goal of the left is to topple the United States and capitalism, the gradual Islamification of Europe is a good thing.

Not a good thing for us.

October 6, 2010      Permalink 

OH, COME ON, GUYS – AT 8:04 A.M. ET:  The guy who tried to blow up New York's Times Square got a life sentence yesterday.  The Obama White House immediately claimed that this showed the system works.  Really?

The White House touted the life sentence imposed on Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad on Tuesday as evidence that the criminal justice system is capable of meting out swift and severe punishment in terrorism cases, notwithstanding Republican complaints that the military and the CIA are better suited to interrogating alleged terrorists.

“We are pleased that this terrorist has been sentenced to spend the rest of his life in prison, after providing substantial intelligence to our interrogators, and a speedy civilian trial,” White House spokesman Nick Shapiro said.

A little problem, guys.  The only reason this chap wound up in court is because his bomb failed to go off.  If it had ignited, he'd be on the lam and hundreds would be dead. 

The system didn't work.  Luck worked.  Incompetence worked.  But not the system.   The system was supposed to identify this clown before he drove his munition into the heart of New York.

One of these days some group is going to read the instruction manual before lighting the fuse, and the thing will go off.

The problem with the criminal-justice approach to terrorism is that it's too passive, too after-the-fact.  Going on the offensive, taking the war to the enemy, is the only strategy that has a chance of defeating, or even diminishing the terror ranks.

October 6, 2010      Permalink 

BARONE HITS THE JACKPOT – AT 7:29 A.M. ET:  In a superb column that had to be written by a political expert like Michael Barone, Barone lifts the veil and exposes the truth about today's Democratic Party and the real beliefs of its much-heralded "base."  This is required reading.  Barone will be called a McCarthyite – that's the standard line on the left – but what he is saying is what many of us observed firsthand, starting in the late 1960s:

The money quote:

The uncomfortable truth is that many -- not most, but many -- Democratic politicians and Democratic voters saw political benefit in an American defeat in Iraq. Many, including Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle, then boss of Obama's new chief of staff Pete Rouse, thronged to the Washington premiere of Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11." They tried to give every appearance of agreeing with the "Bush-lied-people-died" crowd and with those who charged that high-ranking officials colluded in systematic torture.

It was a lot of fun while it lasted, up to election night 2008 and Inauguration Day 2009. But then Obama had to govern. Knowing little of military affairs, he retained Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who has loyally served presidents of both parties. Understanding even if not admitting the great headway Americans had made in Iraq, Obama declined to throw it all away.

Appreciating that Afghanistan was critical to protecting Americans, he made a commitment to increase troop levels there in May 2009, reconsidered it from August to November, then restated it Dec. 1, with a commitment to begin withdrawals in July 2011.

In so doing, Obama implicitly confessed that the view of the world held with quasi-religious fervor by the Democratic left was delusional all along. Bush didn't lie, we didn't go into Afghanistan and Iraq without allies and against their wishes, we didn't carry out policies of torture, etc. The effort to cast Iraq as another Vietnam and America under Bush as an oppressive rogue power were perhaps emotionally satisfying but unconnected to reality.

I remember – because I was in that party – when the Democrats were the national defense party.  Jack Kennedy ran to the right of Richard Nixon in 1960 on defense issues.  It was the Democrats, with some enlightened Republican help, who formed the institutions, like NATO, that helped win the Cold War.  Mr. Kennedy spoke of "paying any price" and "bearing any burden" in defense of freedom.  His own party would laugh at him today.

But it changed in the sixties, over Vietnam.  And it changed in part because some elements of the Democratic coalition, like the civil-rights movement and the women's movement, had powerful, if sad, connections to Marxism.  The nomination of George McGovern, a political flake, in 1972, was the symbolic moment when many sane people began to leave the Democratic Party and walk in the wilderness until pulling the lever for Ronald Reagan in 1980.  Thus began the time of the "Reagan Democrats," who played a crucial role in the Reagan Revolution.

Today the Democratic base is angry and disillusioned.  We've been very critical of Mr. Obama here, but the fact is that he has refused to run from Iraq or Afghanistan, and maintains many of President Bush's national-security policies, although perhaps with minimal enthusiasm.  His heart may not be in these policies, but he knows the consequences for the nation of abandoning them. 

There is a fight brewing for the soul of the Democratic Party.  Will the party correct its ways and return as a center-left party, or will it go the route of the George Soros crowd, and become simply an adjunct of the European left? 

The trends are not good.  The Dems who will be defeated next month will come largely from the moderate wing of the party, in swing districts.  The liberals and leftists have safe seats, many of them in minority districts.  Ironically, the party will probably be more leftist after this election because the leftists will be the ones who survive. 

Party of Roosevelt, Truman and Kennedy?  No more.

October 6, 2010     Permalink

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 5, 2010

HARVARD? – AT 11:15 P.M. ET:  Every now and then something happens at an elite American institution that gives us hope.  From the Harvard Crimson:

Some students of Harvard show their appreciation for America by observing (sleeping late on) Columbus Day, others by religiously following Monday Night Football. Residents of Weld Hall, however, express their passion for this country at 9:15 a.m. every Monday with the Pledge of Allegiance.

The practice began last week in Weld 52 with Zachary A. Young ’14 and Thomas J. Gaudett ’14, and expanded to a group of six yesterday. Though Young has only advertised the gathering through the Weld e-mail list, he plans to eventually “start expanding it to other dorms.”

Why stop by Weld to recite an oath that many haven’t heard since middle school? “Why not?” replied Young. “Why is there any reason not to? I’m personally very passionate about my country and I want to reflect that. Why not do it together?”

Though the gatherings haven’t been controversial, Young admitted that he and his suitemates have received “reactions of great indifference.”

If you’d like to take part in the Pledge but can’t make it on Monday mornings, don’t fret. “Hopefully, once we get enough interest,” Young added, “we’ll be able to have it more frequently.”

COMMENT:  I hope these good guys aren't dragged into some dean's office for promoting "hate speech."  Believe me, that can happen.

I hope this story goes national, and these young patriots can get proper publicity for their terrific idea. 

October 5, 2010     Permalink

I SUSPECT SHE'S AVAILABLE – AT 7:18 P.M. ET:  Bob Woodward, whose book, "Obama's Wars," is just out, is saying what a lot of us are thinking...about 2012.  From The Hill:

A 2012 ticket featuring Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as the vice presidential candidate is "on the table," veteran journalist Bob Woodward suggested Tuesday.

Woodward, who just released a book detailing some of the most intimate details of internal White House deliberations over the war in Afghanistan, said that Clinton's advisers think it's possible that she would replace Vice President Biden on President Obama's re-election ticket in two years.

"It's on the table," Woodward said in an interview to air this evening on CNN. "Some of Hillary Clinton's advisers see it as a real possibility in 2012."

In other words, they're telling Joe Biden to get out of the way.

Such a ticket would bring together the two former adversaries for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination in a political union that many Democrats had hoped would come to pass in 2008.

There have been murmurs of a potential replacement for Biden in two years, but the White House has generally dismissed such speculation out of hand.

Clinton would bring the kind of additional foreign policy experience to the table that had initially prompted Obama to choose Biden as a running mate in 2008. She's also one of the few administration officials to actually enjoy an increase in popularity since joining the administration.

Her popularity tends to increase when she's out of the public eye.

A Gallup poll suggested that Obama still has the upper hand on Clinton, though, if she were to attempt to reprise the 2008 contest with a primary challenge to the president in 2012.

52 percent of Democrats said they'd choose Obama in a Democratic primary against Clinton, compared to 37 percent who'd vote for the secretary of State.

I suspect that figure is accurate, and is driven partly by the lopsided African-American vote in the Democratic Party. 

Look, Clinton can't run against Obama for the nomination in 2012.  It would split the party, and she'd lose critical black support.  But she could join the ticket, with an eye toward becoming the presidential nominee in 2016.  Even if Obama lost in 2012, a distinct possibility if his poll numbers don't rise, she would probably be untouched.

The key question, of course, is whether Obama wants Hillary on the ticket.   She'd have more star power than the president, which is usually not the way the system works.  And she'd be running her own little presidency, even if the job eluded her in "real life."  In addition, Obama would have to put up with the constant presence of Bill Clinton.

I suspect he'd only name her if he absolutely needs her.

October 5, 2010      Permalink

NEW FOX POLL CONFIRMS GOP STRENGTH IN KEY STATES – AT 11:10 A.M. ET:  The election four weeks from today will be fought state by state, district by district.  The GOP is poised to do very well in key states, if the current trends continue, as measured by Fox:

Deep resistance to Obama's agenda has put a West Virginia Senate seat once thought to be safe territory for Democrats in serious jeopardy.

A new Fox News battleground state poll on the race for the seat held by the late Sen. Robert Byrd for 51 years shows Republican businessman John Raese with a 5-point lead over Democratic Gov. Joe Manchin among likely voters -- 48 percent to 43 percent.

And...

Republican Sharron Angle seems to be solidifying her support in her bid to unseat Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in Nevada.

In the latest Fox News battleground state poll of likely voters, Angle drew 49 percent to Reid’s 46 percent. As voters make up their mind with four weeks to go until Election Day, Angle seems to have the edge.

And...

Missouri voters see a strong connection between President Obama and Democratic Senate nominee Robin Carnahan, and that’s not helping Carnahan.

A new Fox News battleground state poll in Missouri shows Carnahan trailing Republican candidate Roy Blunt by 8 points among likely voters. Blunt, a seven-term congressman from the central part of the state, won the support of 50 percent compared to 42 percent for Carnahan, the second-term secretary of state.

And...

Republicans are still gaining ground in bellwether Ohio, a bad sign for Democrats trying to assess their party’s chances in the heartland this year.

Republican Senate candidate Rob Portman leads Democrat Lee Fisher by 16 points in the latest Fox News battleground state poll -- Portman’s widest lead yet.

Portman, the former Cincinnati-area congressman and Bush administration budget boss, got 53 percent of the likely voters surveyed, compared to 37 percent for Fisher.

Republican gubernatorial challenger John Kasich also saw his numbers rise against Democratic incumbent Gov. Ted Strickland. Kasich was the choice of 49 percent of respondents compared to 43 percent for Strickland. The 6-point lead is the largest in the four weeks of Fox battleground polling on the race.

Only in Connecticut, among the key states polled, is the Democrat, Richard Blumenthal, clearly ahead of the Republican, Linda McMahon, for the Senate seat being vacated by Chris Dodd.  Blumenthal is ten points ahead. 

COMMENT:  Overall, that's good news.  I'm particularly pleased to see the lead being built by Sharron Angle in her face against Harry Reid in Nevada.  Angle is a flawed candidate, and it will still be a struggle.  But she may just pull it out.

October 5, 2010      Permalink

TERROR UPDATE – AT 9:06 A.M. ET:  Although the terror plots that have made the news in the last three of four days aren't, to the best of our knowledge, aimed at the American homeland, serious precautions are being taken.  From ABC News:

U.S. authorities plan a law enforcement surge this week along Amtrak routes, an exercise called RailSafe, and the heads of the country's biggest mass transit systems were briefed today on the possible terror threat, all part of what is being called an abundance of caution.

Amtrak is holding a high-security exercise Friday in which uniformed officers will be a visible presence on national transit routes. RailSafe will include all the local police agencies along the Amtrak routes involved in the exercise.

"If al Qaeda is planning simultaneous attacks in Europe," said Richard Clarke, former White House national security official and now an ABC News consultant, "there's nothing to say they could not also include the US on that list of simultaneous attacks."

COMMENT:  US. authorities have been playing down the threat to the United States, but the fact is that neither we nor the Europeans know where a strike is planned...because we don't know where the terrorist squads are located.

What strikes me is the sheer level of seriousness about this latest Al Qaeda threat.  Of course, the president has yet to address it publicly.  Look, maybe he can says some things about not being judgmental if terrorists try to blow up the Golden Gate.  It's legitimate grievance, that's all.

October 5, 2010      Permalink

SNIPPET OF THE DAY – AT 8:51 A.M. ET:

After the record heat wave this summer, Russia's weather seems to have acquired a taste for the extreme.

Forecasters say this winter could be the coldest Europe has seen in the last 1,000 years.

The change is reportedly connected with the speed of the Gulf Stream, which has shrunk in half in just the last couple of years. Polish scientists say that it means the stream will not be able to compensate for the cold from the Arctic winds. According to them, when the stream is completely stopped, a new Ice Age will begin in Europe.

We present this to you so you can dress appropriately.  Be sure to wear, under your heavy coat, your "Fight Global Warming" T-shirt.

October 5, 2010      Permalink

THE WISE MAN SPEAKS – AT 8:29 A.M. ET:  George Shultz has always been one of my favorite secretaries of state.  He served under President Reagan and actually had the radical view that the State Department should work on behalf of the United States. 

One of the best stories about Shultz concerns his meetings with new U.S. ambassadors.  He'd take one of them to a map and ask, "Which is your country?"  Almost inevitably, the appointee would point to the country where he was being posted.  "No," Shultz would reply.  He then pointed to the United States.  "This is your country."  Just a friendly reminder to avoid the "citizen of the world" syndrome that occasionally takes hold at State.

Now Shultz has expressed himself, in his usual blunt manner, about Obama's Afghanistan strategy.  The Washington Times reports:

Reagan-era Secretary of State George Shultz blasted President Obama Monday night for his scheduled July 2011 date to begin withdrawing U.S. forces from Afghanistan.

Mr. Shultz, 89, made the unusually blunt remarks at a packed dinner for the International Republican Institute -- the GOP-aligned counterpart to the National Democratic Institute -- where he was receiving the organization's 2010 Freedom Award.

"You're out of your mind," he said at a question-and-answer forum, when asked his opinion of the president's drawdown date. "How can you say that 'if I haven't won by six or nine months from now, I'm leaving?' "

COMMENT:  Indeed.  How can you say it?  But Obama is beholden to his leftist base, and the base wants nothing to do with Afghanistan, even though it went along with the Democratic hoax during the 2008 campaign that Afghanistan was the "good" war and Iraq the "bad war," engineered by BUSH (!!).

The enemy simply has to wait us out.  They detect, we can be sure, President Obama's lack of enthusiasm for the Afghan mission. 

Imagine if, after Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt told the American people that we'd fight until 1943, and then start returning soldiers to civilian life?  He could easily have been impeached.  But times have changed.

July, 2011, isn't very far away. 

October 5, 2010      Permalink

SIGN OF THE TIMES – AT 8:11 A.M. ET:  Democrat?  You think I'm a Democrat?  I'm insulted!

That pretty much sums up the approach of some Democratic candidates running for Congress this year.   It's understable in places like the Midwest, where job loss has resulted in real anger at the Dems.  But denying the Democratic heritage is now occurring in places like New York.  We haven't heard the word "heretic" yet, but don't be shocked to see some Dems burnt at the stake for their blasphemy.  From The New York Times:

One New York Democrat proclaims that he proudly opposed the federal government’s health care overhaul plan. Another one pledges, in the finest Tea Party spirit, to oppose any future financial bailouts. Still another has rolled out three Republicans in three separate commercials, all vouching for his credentials.

But there is one word you will not hear mentioned in any of these campaign advertisements: Democrat.

With the Democratic Party bracing for a dismal showing in the elections next month, many candidates are doing everything possible to convince voters that they are not tied at the hip to President Obama or Nancy Pelosi, the House speaker. A vulnerable Democratic incumbent in North Dakota, Representative Earl Pomeroy, praises former President George W. Bush in one of his commercials. But even Democrats in and near New York State are running away from their party.

“In a year of insurgency and anti-incumbency, being a Republican in New York State is, for the first time in a long time, not a bad thing, because being a Democrat implies you’re an incumbent,” Hank Sheinkopf, a veteran Democratic consultant, said.

COMMENT:  Dropping the Dem label, at least in polite speech, is also an attempt by some Democrats to de-nationalize the election and make it local.  Democrats just don't want to be associated with the unpopular Barack Obama.  They do better when they run as the local boy or girl who made good.

October 5, 2010     Permalink