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ELECTION - 16 days from today

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 17, 2010

WE JUST CAN'T THINK STRAIGHT – AT 8:19 P.M. ET:  At least that's what shrink-in-chief Barack Obama has decided, in his oh-so-deep analysis of the current political situation.  From The Politico:

WEST NEWTON, Mass. - President Barack Obama said Americans' "fear and frustration" is to blame for an intense midterm election cycle that threatens to derail the Democratic agenda.

"Part of the reason that our politics seems so tough right now and facts and science and argument does not seem to be winning the day all the time is because we're hardwired not to always think clearly when we're scared,” Obama said Saturday evening in remarks at a small Democratic fundraiser Saturday evening. “And the country's scared.”

Really?  So, let me get this right:  In the 1930s, during the great Depression, when Americans were far more frightened than they are today, they weren't thinking clearly when they elected FDR, and then again, and then again.  Is that what Sigmund Obama is saying?  Or what about 2008, just weeks after a Wall Street collapse induced the greatest economic crisis since that great Depression?  Americans, according to Obama's logic, didn't think clearly and went right to the polls to elect...him. 

Obama told the several dozen donors that he was offering them his “view from the Oval Office.” He faulted the economic downturn for Americans’ inability to “think clearly” and said the burden is on Democrats “to break through the fear and the frustration people are feeling.”

Oh, this is pathetic.  It's just pathetic.  With Obama, it's always someone else's fault.  Now it's the people's fault.  They're just so inferior that they can't think straight in the midst of a crisis. 

We haven't had a president like this since Jimmah Carter, who lectured Americans on their "inordinate fear of Communism," as thousands of Soviet missiles were aimed right at us.  In a show of supreme modesty, Carter wrote a campaign book about himself called "Why Not the Best?"  I suspect Obama will write one called "Better than the Best."

A president with an out-of-control ego at a time of national crisis.  Just what we need.  Start counting toward 2012.

October 17, 2010      Permalink

WEEKEND POLITICAL ROUNDUP – AT 8:08 P.M. ET:  The Politico, which tilts left despite vigorous denials, is reporting that the Democrats have had another bad weekend:

More bad polls. More bad fundraising numbers. More dreary talk on the Sunday shows.

It added up to a brutal weekend for Democrats, as the consensus among election analysts, already bearish on the party’s prospects, took a turn for the worse over the past 48 hours.

In the eyes of the experts, the House Democratic majority most likely won’t survive Nov. 2, with political handicappers expanding their predictions to envision the possibility of a Democratic wipeout.

Analyst Stu Rothenberg pegs the number of competitive seats at 100. Charlie Cook says it's 97. Virtually all of those seats are held by Democrats.

Rothenberg is predicting a likely Republican gain of 40 to 50 seats, with 60 seats possible. Republicans need a net pickup of 39 seats to take the House.

One House Democrat, reflecting widespread conversations with his colleagues, guessed Sunday that his party will lose 50 seats. Many, he said, are calling with urgent pleas for more contributions.

The Senate may stay in Democratic hands — but only by the narrowest of margins, so slim that it will make a handful of moderates from both parties the only people who will decide whether anything gets done.

COMMENT:  So, GOP control of the House seems in prospect, and moderate control of the Senate.  Not bad.  The Obama administration has worked hard to bring about its rejection by the public, and we're glad to congratulate them on their success.  It's change we can believe in.

But two weeks and two days remain.  Surprises, both ways, are still possible.  This now becomes an hour-by-hour campaign.

October 17, 2010      Permalink

TELL IT, JOHNNY, TELL IT – AT 10:56 A.M. ET:  Ah, it's so nice to see, if only occasionally, the old, fiery John McCain.  Campaigning in California, he told it bluntly about Barbara Boxer.  It's about time someone did.  From the L.A. Times:

Former Republican presidential contender John McCain reunited with his onetime advisor Carly Fiorina on the campaign trail Saturday in San Diego, offering a blistering indictment of Barbara Boxer’s record on military issues and calling her the “most bitterly partisan, most anti-defense senator in the United States Senate today” -- an assessment he said he’d made while having “the unpleasant experience” of serving with her.

I love it, I love it.

“When you hear her say that she supports the men and women in the military, my friends, she does not,” said McCain, a former Navy pilot who was held as a prisoner of war in Vietnam for five and half years after his plane was shot down in 1967. “Because she has never supported the mission; she has never supported victory whether it be in Iraq, or Afghanistan, or anywhere else in the world. Barbara Boxer wants to wave the white flag of surrender and endanger this nation’s national security. It’s time she went back to San Francisco with [House Speaker] Nancy Pelosi.”

Appearing before an audience of several hundred veterans and supporters at the Veterans Museum in Balboa Park -- where McCain, his wife Cindy, and Fiorina formed a tableau of red, white and blue on stage -- the Arizona senator praised Fiorina’s business background and sought to reinforce her efforts to portray her rival’s voting record as anti-military.

Boxer has long been a hero of the anti-war movement after getting her start in politics advocating against the Vietnam War. She has called her vote against the Iraq War her proudest moment and vowed to keep the pressure on President Obama to bring troops home from Afghanistan.

COMMENT:  Boxer is right out of the 1960s.  When she turns on the TV, she probably expects to find "Laugh-In."  As we reported earlier in the week, she's something of an ally of Code Pink, the anti-American flake group.

For me, Boxer is the number one target on November 2nd.  She may squeeze by in a photo finish, but I hope not.  Everything John McCain says about her is true.

October 17, 2010      Permalink

RASMUSSEN PREDICTS 55-SEAT GAIN FOR GOP – AT 10:05 A.M. ET:  From Human Events: 

Newport Beach, Calif.—Nationally-recognized pollster Scott Rasmussen last night predicted that Republicans would gain 55 seats in races for the U.S. House of Representatives November 2—much more than the 39 needed for a Republican majority in the House for the first time since 2006.

But the man whose Rasmussen Reports polling is watched carefully by politicians and frequently quoted by the punditocracy said that whether Republicans gain the ten seats they need to take control of the Senate is in question.

“Republicans should have 48 seats [after the elections next month], Democrats 47, and five seats could slide either way,” said Rasmussen in his banquet address at the Western Conservative Political Action Conference. He was referring to seats in five states in which the Senate race this year he considers too close to call: California, Illinois, Washington, West Virginia, and Nevada (or “that mudwrestling contest,” as Rasmussen described the race between Republican Sharron Angle and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid).

COMMENT:  Rasmussen calls it straight, and has a solid track record.  His predictions are in line with a number of other pollsters.  Of course, it's a midterm, and predicting turnout is a bit trickier than in presidential years, but I certainly think Scott Rasmussen is very much in the ball park. 

I'm frustrated by the probability that the GOP will fall short in the Senate, while picking up an impressive number of seats.  The Senate is where Supreme Court nominations go to live or die.  If I had a choice between taking the House or Senate, I'd choose the Senate, for that very supreme reason.  I want to see our side have the needed blocking power to stop some loony Obama choice for the high court.  We'll be getting closer on November 2nd, but not quite there.

October 17, 2010      Permalink

OBAMA VOTERS TAKING A WALK – AT 9:52 A.M. ET:  I guess, to use Sarah's phrase, the hopey changey thing isn't working out for them.  From AP:

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama's winning coalition from 2008 has crumbled and his core backers are dispirited. It's now Republicans who stand to benefit from an electorate that's again craving change.

Nearly two years after putting Obama in the White House, one-quarter of those who voted for the Democrat are defecting to the GOP or considering voting against the party in power this fall. Just half of them say they definitely will show up Nov. 2, according to an Associated Press-Knowledge Networks poll released two weeks before Obama's first midterm elections.

Yet in a reflection of broad dissatisfaction with politics, just as many people who backed Republican presidential nominee John McCain are either supporting Democrats now or still considering how to vote.
Still, McCain voters — to borrow Obama's campaign rallying cry — are far more "fired up, ready to go." Two-thirds say they are certain to vote next month.

It's a wide enthusiasm gap that's buoying Republicans, who are poised for big electoral gains, and worrying Democrats, who are seeking to hang onto majorities in Congress as well among governors.

COMMENT:  What is remarkable is that the disillusionment with Obama hasn't changed at all during the campaign.  That's because he hasn't changed.  It's the arrogance of the man.  He seems to sing himself to sleep every night singing "My Way," and doesn't even apologize to Sinatra. 

Read the numbers in the poll, reported later in the story.  They're pretty devastating to the president who appeared almost as a religious figure in 2008.

October 17, 2010     Permalink

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 16, 2010

EVEN IN CHILE, EVEN IN CHILE – AT 10:14 P.M. ET:  You really can't make this up.  It's not very important, but I think it's so typical of our time.

A spokesman for the miners rescued in Chile this week says that the group will give no details of its captivity 2,000 feet blow the surface of the Earth in order to protect the value of the book they expect to do.  I am no kidding.  Even in Chile the miners understand the value of literary rights.  In fact, it was revealed that one miner kept detailed notes – for the book and movie, no doubt – and sealed the notes shut before emerging from the mine, so no one could read them.

I recall a Wall Street Journal cartoon showing a criminal appearing before a judge, with the judge saying, "If you do not have a literary agent, the court will appoint one for you."  I'm afraid things have gotten even worse. 

I hope the miners hold out for a major film deal.  But remember, miners, get a percentage of the gross, not a percentage of the profits.  They can lie about the profits.  Also, shoot for script approval.  Rarely granted, but, hey, you're the Chilean miners. 

And remember, as we constantly have to remind newly minted Olympic medalists, your story has a shelf life of about three weeks.  Get yourselves a good lawyer and strike now.  In mid-November, Hollywood breaks for the holiday season, which ends next March.  Then, when someone brings up the Chile miners, some young "executive" will ask, "When did they start mining for chili?"

It happens.  I've been there.

October 16, 2010      Permalink

AH, THE BRITS – AT 7:55 P.M. ET:  We've said it before:  Some of the best writing about American politics is coming out of Britain.  Now, Toby Harnden of London's Telegraph observes Bubba in action, and understands what he's about:

Speculation about Hillary Clinton's continued presidential ambitions is rife. Husband Bill is back on the campaign trail, offering thanks to those who backed her in 2008 – and laying the foundations for another try in 2016.

Fear and loathing in the American body politic is not confined to the anti-tax Tea Party. Across the spectrum of the Democratic party, every hue is feeling it too.

With a fortnight to go to the midterms, moderate "Blue Dog" Democrats are in big trouble. The party's left-wing "Yellow Dogs" are up in arms about being taken for granted by the White House "hippy bashers". Even black bloggers are warning President Barack Obama they won't be "pimped" for him.

In this febrile climate within the party, there is one Democratic figure whose soothing tones can help calm things down – the Big Dog himself, former President Bill Clinton. I caught up with him in Española, New Mexico, site of the first European colony in America, last week and he was on vintage form.

Gone was the red-faced, finger-wagging Bill who I saw in South Carolina in early 2008, when he exploded with anger at being accused of racism by Obama allies as the Democratic nomination slipped from his wife Hillary's grasp. Instead, Española saw Chilled Bill, a man vindicated by events and who knows he was right to warn of Obama's shortcomings.

COMMENT:  Does anyone have any doubt about Hillary's intentions?  Why, we understand that Bill already gave her 2016 wall calendars.

But why wait 'til 2016?  While Clinton could never run a primary campaign against Barack Obama – the black community would never forgive her – she could be found camping out on the White House lawn if the chief executive decides that a 33% approval rating forces him to look for other work when his term expires.

My guess, however, is that Obama will not withdraw, that Clinton will resign after one term and become a university president or somethin', and will run in 2016 as "the most experienced candidate in history." 

It never gets dull.

By the way, in 2016 Monica Lewinsky will be 43.

October 16, 2010      Permalink

OH DEAR, OH DEAR, OH DEAR – AT 9:48 A.M. ET:  Well, I guess the Democrats have rejected the label, party of imagination.  Just read this, from The Politico, and try to restrain the laughter:

Nervous Democrats are grasping for a new message on their party’s health care reform bill: Give us another shot, and we’ll get it right this time.

I have to tell you – this reminds me of Hollywood, where, no matter how many failures you've had, they pay you more the next time because you've had "experience."

“I want to reform it and fix it and make sure that it works for small businesses and their families,” Alexi Giannoulias, the Democrat seeking President Barack Obama’s old Senate seat, said on “Meet the Press” on Sunday.

Now wait, isn't this the guy with the sleazy bank that had to be closed?  Yeah, that's him.  I sure want him fixing my relationship with my doctor.  Ideal man to do it. 

“If you can fix it — Democrats and Republicans agree on six or seven items — that’s a pretty darn good start,” West Virginia Gov. and Democratic Senate candidate Joe Manchin told Fox News on Monday.

A start?  A START?  How many months did they work on this?  How long was the Obamacare bill?  Wasn't it 2,000 pages?  And they want to start again?

“I’d like to fix health care,” Democratic Kentucky Senate candidate Jack Conway said in a debate last week with Republican contender Rand Paul. “He wants to repeal it. And I think that’s a stark difference.”

Wait, wait, wait.  How do you repeal health care?  We've always had health care.  I guess he means repealing the Obamacare bill.  But this is the Dems' scare tactic.  Watch it at work in the final two weeks of the campaign:  The Republicans will take away your "health care."  They'll take away your Social Security.  They'll even take you remote control and remove the batteries.

Obamacare has barely gone into effect and it's already a loser.  And the people behind it want a second chance.

Yeah, it's Hollywood.  "Hey, I learned from the flop.  I'm a better producer now.  You gotta pay me for my experience."  I've heard it a million times.

Would you trust that Democratic crowd with your children's health?

October 16, 2010      Permalink

THE FORGOTTEN WAR – AT 9:44 A.M. ET:  The men and women fighting in Afghanistan won't like this story, but it confirms what they probably already know – their effort is being forgotten by the American people.  From The New York Times:

It has been going on there for nine years and counting. Nearly 100,000 American troops are currently deployed there. More than 1,300 American service members have lost their lives there. The United States has spent over $300 billion on the effort so far. Yet polling suggests that the war in Afghanistan is barely a blip on voters’ radars as the midterm elections approach.

Given the condition of the economy and the high unemployment rate, the fact that most Americans largely cite those problems as the nation’s top issues is not surprising. What is surprising is that hardly any Americans cite the war in Afghanistan at all.

In a nationwide New York Times/CBS News poll conducted last month, 60 percent of Americans said that the economy or jobs were the most important problems facing the country. A mere 3 percent mentioned Afghanistan or the war.

It's so sad, because the war in Afghanistan is so important.  But voter reaction is typical of the American experience.  Fox Conner, the Army general who was Dwight Eisenhower's intellectual mentor, gave Eisenhower three rules of war for Americans:  1) Never fight unless you have to; 2) Never fight alone; and 3) Never fight for long.

Americans are an impatient people, and our history shows that we do not accept long wars.  Americans turned against Vietnam in large measure because it dragged on.  (Another factor was monumentally incompetent press reporting that failed to pick up our victories and the enemy's desperation.) 

Although our action in Afghanistan was a direct response to the 9-11 attacks, those attacks took place nine years ago.  It's too long, and public support and interest have waned.  I'm afraid it will take another shock to bring us back to reality and urgency.

October 16, 2010      Permalink

RAZOR THIN IN THE GOLDEN STATE – AT 9:42 A.M. ET:  According to the latest poll taken, Carly Fiorina has pulled to within one point of the terminally obnoxious Barbara Boxer for the California Senate seat that Boxer now holds.

The Reuters/Ipsos poll pegs Boxer at 46%, Fiorina at 45%.

I have to believe that the Republican enthusiasm machine can overcome that small lead. 

I heard Victor Davis Hanson speak yesterday, and he pointed out that one reason it is so hard for a Republican to now be elected statewide in California is the fact that hundreds of thousands of Californians are dependent on the state for their jobs.  It's a built-in support system for liberal incumbents.  One of the dreams of the left is to have the citizenry dependent on the government for basic needs.  Then they can be counted on to vote for the government.

Most polls, by the way, have former Governor Jerry Brown – he's so old he actually ran against Reagan for governor – about four to six points ahead of Republican Meg Whitman.   Again, the enthusiasm factor may narrow that number.

I'd fight hard in both those races.  Not lost by a long shot.

October 16, 2010     Permalink