October 17, 2007
Oct 17 01:07 Patrick's Right: Change/Reform Message Is Appealing Oct 17 09:07 Armenian Genocide Resolution Dead In Water? Oct 17 09:59 Mitt Gets Nailed Again Oct 17 10:42 Pelosi In Trouble With Her Base Oct 17 16:40 Drew, Here's My Answer Oct 17 22:01 Reconciliation Moving Forward Sans Maliki
Prior Months: Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep
Prior Years: 2006
Patrick's Right: Change/Reform Message Is Appealing
Patrick Ruffini has always been one of my favorite political analysts on the Right Blogosphere. Following Jim Ogonowski's loss to Niki Tsongas, Patrick's analysis is spot on :
This was always an uphill battle. MA-5 voted by 17 points for John Kerry in 2004. After 2006, I'm not sure there's a district anywhere in America that Democratic that's represented by a Republican.Simply put, we desperately need reform-minded recruits. We don't need to recruit polished lifetime politicians. Their high name recognition isn't an automatic asset in this type of race. We need advocates who'll actually listen to their constituents. We need people who don't talk down to their constituents.
But there is a clear way forward for the Republican Party out of tonight. It's one that we didn't have last night. Or last month. Or a year ago.
It's simple: the change message works. America is anti-Washington, anti-Congress, and anti-corruption. When that's where Republicans are, they win. Jim Ogonowski showed us that. Maybe not in an overwhelmingly Democratic district like MA-5. But what about in a 7 Democrat district? Or in purple seats?
Nor do we need the usual suspects to deliver this message. You don't need to recruit a risk-averse State Senator who talks to his consultants and waits for "his time" to run. All you need is a plain-spoken veteran with an extraordinary life story. We need more citizen-candidates like Jim Ogonowski. We need them to pick off Democrats in blue and purple seats. We need them as primary challengers to corrupt incumbents. In "safe" Democrat-held districts, we need to run people who can get 45% of the vote, and then be in a position to finish the job in 2010. In 2006, the average second-time Democratic challenger who won received 43% of the vote their last time out.
Simply put, it's all about the message. Negative campaigning won't win in 2008. Candidates that ran that type of campaign failed miserably in 2006. 2008 won't be any different.
The reason why is because people are yearning for candidates who can explain why they believe what they believe. They're looking for people whose minds are set by what their favorite lobbyists tell them. They're tired of Washington telling them that they don't matter.
The immigration debate was the perfect example of what happens when politicians don't listen. A small group of politicians tried telling us what we'd accept. We told them that we cared and we weren't going to take it anymore. When we fried their switchboard, we told them that We The People said what we meant and that we meant what we said.
One thing that's undeniable is that Democrats badly misread the message voters sent in 2006. Democrats keep saying that the voters said "Get us out of Iraq ASAP." That isn't what they said at all. What's clear now is that they said "Stop spending our money recklessly." They also said they wouldn't tolerate corruption anymore.
That's why the DFL here in Minnesota is in worse shape than they realize. They campaigned as fiscal moderates, then governed like the most radical liberals in the history of the state. I've talked with lots of voters this year, whether it was at the county fair, the supermarket or with my neighbors. The thing that kept getting repeated was how much the DFL wanted to spend.
Voters will remember that next November. The GOP's job will be relatively easy. All we have to do is remind people that we're the party that stood for fiscal sanity. If the DFL tries making the case that they were the fiscally sane party, they'll get beaten like a drum.
Consider something else, too. If Hillary runs as a fiscal conservative, will anyone take her seriously? Or will she lose all credibility? If Fred Thompson says that he's fiscally conservative, will people believe him? I'd bet he'd gain credibility because he'll be able to remind people he was a senator that helped balance the budget. Rudy can credibly claim the mantle of fiscal conservative, too. He'll be able to point to his record of governing the city once considered to be ungovernable.
Thanks to Jim Ogonowski, Republicans have reason to be optimistic. They now have an appealing pattern to follow. Now's the time to make that adaptation. If we seize the moment, we will be rewarded. Better yet, the ideologues will be thwarted and confused.
Posted Wednesday, October 17, 2007 1:08 AM
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Armenian Genocide Resolution Dead In Water?
Only days after Nancy Pelosi insisted she'd bring the Armenian genocide resolution to a vote, it appears as though Democratic support for the resolution is all but officially dead:
Worried about antagonizing Turkish leaders, House members from both parties have begun to withdraw their support from a resolution supported by the Democratic leadership that would condemn as genocide the mass killings of Armenians nearly a century ago.Let's hope this is Ms. Pelosi's last attempt to play Secretary of State. She's been a disaster at it thus far. Remember her trip to Syria where she told Bashar Assad that Israel "was ready to engage in peace talks" with Syria ? That wound up spreading lots of egg on her face:
Almost a dozen lawmakers had shifted against the measure in a 24-hour period ending Tuesday night, accelerating a sudden exodus that has cast doubt over the measure's prospects. Some made clear that they were heeding warnings from the White House, which has called the measure dangerously provocative, and from the Turkish government, which has said that House passage would prompt Turkey to reconsider its ties to the United States, including logistical support for the Iraq war.
Until Tuesday, the measure appeared on a path to House passage, with strong support from Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D.-Calif.
Only one problem: The Israeli prime minister entrusted Ms. Pelosi with no such message. "What was communicated to the U.S. House Speaker does not contain any change in the policies of Israel," said a statement quickly issued by the prime minister's office. In fact, Mr. Olmert told Ms. Pelosi that "a number of Senate and House members who recently visited Damascus received the impression that despite the declarations of Bashar Assad, there is no change in the position of his country regarding a possible peace process with Israel." In other words, Ms. Pelosi not only misrepresented Israel's position but was virtually alone in failing to discern that Mr. Assad's words were mere propaganda.It doesn't appear as though Ms. Pelosi's worldview is based on doing what's best for America. It appears to be based more on trying to upstage President Bush while upsetting our allies.
This is more proof that Democrats are foreign policy and national security disasters. Ms. Pelosi denied Jane Harman the Intel Committee chairmanship out of personal spite. When she tried installing impeached judge Alcee Hastings as the chairman, people balked, forcing her to try Plan B, which was naming Sylvestre Reyes to chair the committee. The bad news was that Reyes didn't even know if al-Qa'ida was a Sunni or Shia Muslim group.
In other words, Ms. Pelosi is vastly underqualified to be in a position of serious leadership. She shouldn't even chair a committee yet she's two heartbeats away from the presidency.
Scary, huh???
Posted Wednesday, October 17, 2007 9:09 AM
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Mitt Gets Nailed Again
Mitt Romney's presidential aspirations were slipping before today. After this Jennifer Rubin article , though, it's looking more like they're almost dead.
In interacting with voters, he often appears to be at a shareholders' meeting, impatiently waiting out an obstreperous protestor so he can resume his prepared remarks.Mitt Romney doesn't have the gift that President Bush has, which is to connect with people. That's a must in today's campaigns. It's essentially what got Bill Clinton re-elected. It's definitely helped President Bush. For better or worse, presidential candidates are expected to empathize with voters, especially when confronted with people like the waitress in the diner.
In New Hampshire's Red Arrow Diner earlier this year, he seemed unmoved as a waitress described her family's medical difficulties, robotically informing her of his Massachusetts medical plan's low deductibles.
And when he has been forced to think on his feet, he has displayed a remarkable tone-deafness. His "let the lawyers sort it out" answer to a question at a New Hampshire debate about the need to consult Congress about stopping Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, a perfectly corporate approach to a nettlesome problem, was a perfectly awful answer. As all three of his major rivals piled on, he stubbornly insisted for days that his answer was just fine until forced to write an explanatory letter to The Wall Street Journal.
His statement about "letting the lawyers sort it out" was a disaster. That isn't the only serious misstep he's made either. Remember this blunder ?
The former Massachusetts governor, trying to regain his footing, went on the offensive Friday in Sparks, Nev., saying: "Conservatives that have heard me time and again recognize that I do speak for the Republican wing of the Republican Party," Romney said.After making that statement, Sen. McCain questioned him:
McCain uncharacteristically dumped on Romney by packing many of Romney's vulnerabilities into one brutal paragraph: "When Governor Romney donated money to a Democratic candidate in New Hampshire, I don't think he was speaking for Republicans. When he voted for a Democratic candidate for president, Paul Tsongas, I don't think he was speaking for Republicans. When he refused to endorse the Contract with America, I don't think he was speaking for Republicans."Worse, Rep. Chuck Douglas lambasted him, too:
" Mitt Romney actively worked to defeat the Republican candidate trying to reclaim my old congressional seat. Therefore, I'm amazed that Romney would claim to represent the Republican wing of the Republican Party, because when Romney had a chance to contribute to a New Hampshire Republican, he chose to fund a liberal New Hampshire Democrat instead."Reagan's critics said that he was made of teflon. They were right. Mitt Romneys critics won't make that statement about him. Criticisms stick to him like flies to flypaper.
Mr. Romney has also made a fetish of checking the policy boxes for social conservatives and rolling out a slew of policy papers with accompanying PowerPoint presentations. Voters soon sense that he has many ideas but little gravitas. He has lots of pitches-the "three-legged stool" of conservative values, "change" and "private sector experience" --but no overarching theme or core. If Mr. Giuliani is tough and Mr. Thompson is soothing, what is he?I wonder if Ms. Rubin is reading this blog because I said that Romney was a typical northeastern moderate who lacked in gravitas:
Couple that with his gravitas deficit and you can pretty much stick a fork in Hewitt's candidate. Mitt was never anything more than a moderate pretending to be a conservative. It was time for that masqerade to end so we can get down to the serious business of electing the next Republican president.I certainly don't think that he's the social conservative he's touting himself to be. In fact, it's my opinion that he's actually pro-choice.
I think it's almost time to get out the butter because Romney's almost toast.
Posted Wednesday, October 17, 2007 10:01 AM
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Pelosi In Trouble With Her Base
While it's impossible for me to think that Nancy Pelosi won't get re-elected in 2008, it's quite possible for me to think that she's ruining her party's chances of keeping the majority in the House. Check out this post at the Village Voice :
I've been waiting and waiting for her to do the right thing and end the Iraq War. I'm talking about House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA). She has made one lame excuse after another why she "can't do," what she and the other Democrats promised the American people prior to the Nov. 7, 2006 election, they "would do," if they gained control of the U.S. Congress--end the war. "We don't have the votes," is one of Pelosi's dubious replies. The truth is, the Democrats DO HAVE THE VOTES! In fact, if they do nothing, don't vote for another supplemental funding bill, the Bush-Cheney Gang will have to begin to end the occupation of Iraq. There is, also, as Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich (D-OH) said, more than enough money in the current budget to bring the troops home, safely. (1) Consequently, I feel I must give Speaker Pelosi a "F" grade for failing her duty on Iraq and on other national issues as well.William Hughes is undoubtedly a card-carrying member of the Nutroots/MoveOn.org crowd. It's obvious that his dissatisfaction is real and deep. His frustration should send shivers down what little is left of the Left's spine. I'm not foolish enough to think that such committed liberals won't vote, though I think it's quite likely that they won't work as hard at winning new voters to their side.
Mr. Hughes is mad as hell and he isn't going to take Ms. Pelosi's excuses much longer. He wants the war to end. PERIOD. Hughes has lots of company on the Left. The truth is that the Nutroots/MoveOn.org crowd misread last November's elections results. Here's what I said last night :
One thing that's undeniable is that Democrats badly misread the message voters sent in 2006. Democrats keep saying that the voters said "Get us out of Iraq ASAP." That isn't what they said at all. What's clear now is that they said "Stop spending our money recklessly." They also said they wouldn't tolerate corruption anymore.Therefore, I'm perfectly willing to watch while Mr. Hughes and the rest of the Nutroots gang make the mistakes they're currently making.
Now, to compound the damnable lies of the Bush-Cheney Gang, we have Democrats, like Speaker Pelosi, who have chosen to betray the trust of the people by going back on their word. The voters gave the Democrats a mandate in the Nov. 7, 2006 election, to end the war. Instead of bringing the conflict to a quick conclusion, Speaker Pelosi, and her hawkish cronies, have allowed it to go on and on, with no end in sight. And, to make matter even worse, her mousey leadership as House Speaker, has been taken as a "green light" by the amoral Bush-Cheney Gang, to plan a preemptive attack on Iran. (4) Rep. Kucinich has it right: Speaker Pelosi has failed to "stand up" to the Bush-Cheney Gang. (1)It's a great time for conservatives to just step back and watch the destruction that's about to unfold. There'll be lots of bloodshed, which means that it'll be lots of fun to watch. Seriously, though, this is likely to have a negative effect on the Left's GOTV efforts. They were pumped last year and it showed. They're getting demoralized and abandoned now. I can't imagine it not having a negative effect.
Posted Wednesday, October 17, 2007 10:43 AM
Comment 1 by Anne Onymous` at 18-Oct-07 01:18 PM
Which is why the Democratic candidates are raking in campaign dollars to elect "more and better Democrats," while Republican senators and congresscritters are retiring en masse, sometimes without even finishing their terms?
Sounds like the right is bummed and demoralized, not the left.
Project much?
Drew, Here's My Answer
Drew Emmer posted something last week that I've meant to comment on. Here's what Drew wrote that caught my attention:
I was just asked a question that has me spinning. The question was "How much time do you think we have to reform America before the bureaucrat-special interest-unionists make it impossible for us to make a difference ever again?"Whoever asked that of Drew has a defeatist attitude and then some. I'd further say that this person must not be paying attention to what's happened the last 6 months.
Remember the ' Grand Bargain ' amnesty legislation? When it was unveiled, the elitists in Washington told us that there wasn't a need to amend it, that the bill needed to be passed immediately. Big business was cheering for the bill's passage. It died. TWICE. It crashed twice because people who cared passionately about not granting amnesty to illegal immigrants called in such massive numbers that we melted the Senate switchboard down.
The elites heard our collective voice and shuddered. After hearing our voice, spineless politicians joined with principled Republicans to vote against cloture. That wouldn't have happened a decade ago. That bill would've sailed through the House & Senate, followed by a big signing ceremony in the Rose Garden.
Remember John Murtha declaring before the entire nation that the Haditha Marines had "killed innocent civilians in cold blood"? Remember him claiming that the cover-up "went up the chain of command"? That story broke on May 17, 2006. Seventeen months later, Lt. Gen. James Mattis has dropped the charges against Justin Sharratt, Randy Stone, Sanick de la Cruz & Lucas McConnell. Lt. Col. Paul Ware has recommended that the charges be dropped against Stephen Tatum, too.
A decade ago, the Haditha Marines would've been railroaded by the NCIS and the JAG corps. Now they're being exonerated because a group of determined former Marines started digging into the Haditha Marines. Thanks to Al Gore's internet and these gentlemen's determination, they uncovered facts that the Agenda Media would've kept buried a decade ago.
Remember Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi declaring that the surge had failed? A decade ago, that would've been accepted as Gospel fact by the media. We The People didn't have a way of disproving that back then. Now we're reading Bill Roggio, Michael Yon and Ralph Peters. They're telling us that Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi don't know what they're talking about.
It's important that we take a step back and notice the impact that we've already had. It's more important that we realize that our ability to change policies is growing at a clip unimaginable a decade ago. It's happening because we're able to access more information than at any point in history.
That's what has the elites worried. They don't control the storyline anymore. The NY Times, NBC and the Washington Post can't protect them like they once did. It's important to keep this in mind: Elitists are control freaks. They can't stand the thought of 'commoners' like us changing their preferred storylines. They don't like the fact that blogs can be used to remember things they said. They don't like the fact that citizen journalists are holding their feet to the fire by injecting detailed facts into stories.
Remember that they're used to a lapdog press that didn't question them. They're used to getting away with the most outlandish spin. They're used to essentially telling us to shove it.
Look at how David Obey overreacted when Tina Richards confronted him on ending the war. Look at how John Murtha reacted when Jason Mattera of the Young America Foundation pushed Murtha about the Haditha Marines .
The lesson to be learned from this is to keep pushing. When we drive these elitists outside their comfort zone, they say really stupid things that'll eventually get them in trouble at the ballot box.
It's also critically important that we push these elitists for the right reasons. Pushing them simply for the sake of getting them upset isn't wise. Pushing them for the right reasons is imperative. Otherwise, we become like the MoveOn.org types that we berate.
We shouldn't start pushing until we've done the research and we're the authority on that specific subject. Doing the research puts us in the strongest possible position to carry an intelligent conversation with our legislators. Doing that research for the right reasons puts us on the side of the angels, which eliminates the possibility of our getting ripped as partisans, too. Another benefit of being the authority on a subject is that it tells the politician that he can't spin us. Having that type of control of a situation is an important factor in winning people over to our side.
Isn't it time that we realized just how powerful a force we are? Isn't it time that we stopped believing the Strib when they say that something is inevitable? It isn't like they've got a great track record on predicting this stuff lately.
Technonrati: Haditha , John Murtha , Grand Bargain , David Obey , Tina Richards , Iraq War , Internet , Bill Roggio , Ralph Peters , Spin
Cross-posted at California Conservative
Posted Wednesday, October 17, 2007 4:56 PM
Comment 1 by Drew Emmer at 17-Oct-07 08:58 PM
Glad to see someone took the negativist bait and wasn't about to let the darkness prevail.
The underlying question could be framed: "If everyone worked for the state would there be any resistence to raising taxes?" Perhaps that's too simplistic.
The point I am trying to make is that governmnet has never had the proportion of our population on its payroll that it does today.
Philosophers tend to become less altruistic when their paycheck is on the line. A saying I like to remember is "It's not necessarily that they were for you or against you, they were simply looking out for themselves".
Is there a pool of government/special interest/union employees that indeed threaten to effect the impact the average citizen has on outcomes at the polls? I think so.
You raise another point altogether as to the ultimate effect of the blogosphere. No one reads my blog so I'll take your word on the effect.
While I agree it certainly helps to have new media actually covering the news the agendedia ignores, the verdict is still out as to how effectively we can compete with the major noose outlets. Ironically, if they were doing an objective job we would have nothing to talk about in the blogosphere.
The collision of ideas is crucial to te survival of our way of living. More debate is better. Dissent must be welcomed and thoroughly understood. Ideas win in the end.
So I guess my hypothesis remains. Does the exponential growth of the public sector diminish or enhance civic activism? I'm wary of the idea that human nature looks out for #1 first and foremost. It is plausible that lest we act to pare the growth of government the day will come when the majority of citizens work for governmnet or government subsidized entities.
An effect will surely be realized.
Reconciliation Moving Forward Sans Maliki
The news from Iraq keeps providing more optimism that Iraq can be stabilized. You know conditions are improving when the Strib is reporting things like this:
In a move toward reconciliation, a leader from Iraq's largest Shiite party paid a rare visit Sunday to Sunni-controlled Anbar Province, delivering a message of unity to tribal sheiks who have staged a revolt against Al-Qaida militants. Ammar al-Hakim's visit was the latest sign that key Iraqi politicians may be working toward reconciliation independently of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government.The Strib isn't the only left-leaning media organization that's noticing what's happening:
The helicopter trip was brief. But the journey also crossed something huge and ugly: Iraq's bloody sectarian divisions.Western media outlets have said that reconciliation isn't happening. I suspect that that's because they expect reconciliation to take the form of a treaty or something similar. Why should we expect reconciliation to take that form when it's possible that it'll take a different, more informal form?
Aboard the 70-mile flight from Baghdad to Ramadi was a top Pentagon envoy and a leader of Iraq's biggest Shiite political party. They were paying a visit to Sunni sheiks who have joined the U.S. battle against extremists.
The meeting Sunday was part of budding contacts between Iraq's rival Muslim groups that has shown promise where the nation's political leadership has stalled: trying to find common ground among Shiites and Sunnis.
The exchanges, which have bypassed the stumbling government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, are supported by Washington as part its evolving strategies to tap the influence of religious authorities and tribal chiefs.
Whichever way it happens, it's looking likely that some form of reconciliation will happen. when that happens, it'll cause political problems for Democratic presidential candidates because reconciliation would be vindication for President Bush's policies. Hillary's invested so much vitriol in saying President Bush's policies were failures that to have him get it right would be a defeat for her.
I'm not prepared to say that Iraq wil turn into a political victory for Republicans. I'm perfectly confortable saying that I doubt that it'll be a big negative for them, though.
If reconciliation happens, one thing that will be undeniable is that the Surge improved securiity and created the conditions to make reconciliation possible. If and when that happens, people will owe Gen. Petraeus an apology for doubting the wisdom of his plan and his integrity.
Posted Wednesday, October 17, 2007 10:03 PM
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