Campaign 2018

After the Blue Puddle

Mark Noonan27 Comments

It was lousy to lose the House – but I’ve read a story where the Democrats are seriously considering impeaching Justice Kavanaugh…so, the Democrat majority will likely be short lived. But, we still need to think about the future.

Looking ahead at the Senate maps in 2020 and 2022, there isn’t too much of a risk to the GOP majority – absent a meltdown of epic proportions, the GOP might have a very enduring Senate majority. Like in the 10+ year range. More than long enough to replace both Breyer and RBG, assuming Trump is re-elected in 2020 (a likely event given how simply difficult it is to eject a sitting President). There are some 135 (or more, not sure) open Federal seats in the judiciary and you know that Trump and Cocaine Mitch are going to go into overdrive filling them – fundamentally, the Judiciary is going to be under our control for a generation. Over time, this will become more and more noticeable as more and more cases are decided in favor of the Constitution. A great deal of what Democrats have accomplished these past 40 years has been via the Courts…now that will stop, and a good deal of it might even be reversed.

But we clearly failed in the House…and there are simply too many big population States where we are just doing miserably. California and New York most notably, but also Illinois, Massachusetts and New Jersey. We can’t count on holding the red States all the time and forever. We’re going to lose some in the red States…better to shore up our position with some major blue State wins in both the House and Senate. To do this, we’re going to have to ask what the blue Staters want, and then figure out how to give as much of it to them as we can consistent with the Populist-Conservative stamp of the modern GOP.

It is a tall order, but not impossible. We lost the California governorship by 18 points..but if we just get 1 in 10 CA voters to switch from Democrat to GOP, we win the governorship…and perhaps a Senate seat, as well. And likely a few House seats, into the bargain. And have a shot at winning California’s electoral votes. It is certainly worth the effort. Heck, just forcing the Democrats to defend their California position is worth the effort. Every dollar and minute spent in California is a dollar and minute they aren’t spending invading our territory. We ran less than 400 House candidates this year – and that is just criminal negligence, in my view. No Democrat, anywhere, should ever be without an opponent. I don’t care if it is the most forlorn hope in history, every Democrat should get a challenger – and a challenger who is provided at least enough money to show up. You never know when someone might catch fire and by a combination of pluck and luck, do the impossible. It is also crucial to run in the deep blue areas because it at least gets people everywhere used to the idea of voting GOP – that there is always an alternative. And it can’t be emphasized enough that it is in the battles on enemy territory that you breed the sort of warriors who will eventually bring you victory.

As for what to do to convince them to vote for us – that will be a case by case basis. What works in suburban Los Angeles might not work as well in suburban Chicago. But I’ll suggest a few, broad strokes we could try.

1. Annul defaulted student loan debt and allow the rest of it to be discharged in bankruptcy 5 years after the student leaves school. The stuff in default is mostly money gone for good, anyways, and I don’t see any reason to fatten lawyer pocketbooks by forcing the kids to go through bankruptcy on it. It is also, to me, absurd that student loans are pretty much the only sort of debt that can’t be discharged. Either a person is making enough money to pay, or they aren’t – and if they aren’t, then that should be the end of it. Lots of youngsters get suckered by the schools into thinking that any degree will make them rich. The truth is that only certain degrees are big money makers. Part of this, I think, should be putting part of the liability on the schools…if a kid goes bankrupt on his student loan, some percentage of it should be charged to the school where the loan was used. That’ll force the schools to be more careful, and stop selling degrees as a path to easy money.

2. Always side with the private sector unions in their battles with large corporations. Never, ever, never, no how, no way take the side of the large corporation. If we can’t pick a side, at least shut our traps about it. If we want to have a shot at breaking the Democrat hold on the blue cities, we’re going to have to get working class people to at least consider us. They won’t if they think we are siding with the bosses.

3. Work is what makes a person dignified. We Conservatives know this, but we aren’t doing enough to make sure that work is rewarded. Income tax cuts don’t resonate with working poor people who don’t functionally pay income taxes. Nor do fights over property rights mean much to renters. While keeping taxes low and protecting property, we’ve got to find a way to do something for poor working people who rent. Something has to be done to show working poor people that we give a darn about them…and we’re trying to help. Perhaps some sort of income support for low-income working people? Perhaps allowing them to write off sales taxes on major purchases (autos, home appliances, that sort of thing) on their taxes? Perhaps a low-income per child subsidy? Not sure here, guys: just thinking and spitballing.

4. Make firm and public enemies of the super rich. Most of them are liberals, and the few that aren’t are open borders hucksters who want to move their factories to China. They don’t care about us, and they don’t care about America.

5. Make firm enemies of all large corporations. No one likes them. At all. Pick fights with them. Break them up. Rake them over the coals for their idiocy. Show regular folks that the corporations which they dislike are also disliked by us.

Just a few ideas to show where I’m going here. We’ve got to expand the map, and we won’t expand it by the old Chamber of Commerce, GOPe tactics. Something new is needed. Maybe others will come up with better ideas than mine and that’s great. But we can’t assume we’ll keep winning with what we’ve got. Trump has shown us that if we start talking about issues people care about (in his case, immigration and trade), people respond. Lets find out what else they’ll respond to.

UPDATE: Mueller writing his final report.

2018 Mid-Terms

Mark Noonan18 Comments

Just a reminder – if we do get blown out tonight, after the President’s party suffered stinging rebukes in the ’82, ’94 and ’10 mid-terms, the President went on to be comfortably re-elected two years later. Also, if we lose tonight, we still have the White House, the Senate (almost certainly, unless there is an unexpected Blue Tsunami) with an increased majority and a solid, 5-4 majority on the Court. We’re still ahead of the game. Though, don’t kid yourself: losing will be bad in the sense that it will embolden the Democrats…though that, long term, could work to our advantage. They are crazy, after all, and two years of them being nuts as a House majority might work to our advantage in 2020.

Rumors have been flying all day, as is natural during Election Day. I can’t make out any pattern…some rumors are good for the GOP, others for the Democrats. I guess we’ll have to wait. But not much longer.

UPDATE: 8pm Eastern…not looking good for the GOP tonight.

UPDATE II: 8:41 Eastern…looking a lot better.

UPDATE III: GOP wins IN Senate race (thanks, Spook)

Pre-Midterm-ageddon Open Thread

Mark Noonan6 Comments

No one actually knows what will happen tomorrow – thing about the future is you can never tell exactly what it will be like.

That said: it does appear that the Blue Wave isn’t coming. There’s still a chance that Democrats surge to the polls and are joined by gigantic numbers of Trump-hating Republicans, but it is in the realm of a 1% chance, now. Even the most liberal pundits have pretty much conceded this – though, of course, anything but a Red Wave will be touted as “the people rejected Trump”.

The worst case scenario that I can see is a net gain of 3 for the GOP in the Senate and a narrow loss of the House (with the Democrats, at most, getting to 223 members). This would be irritating in a lot of ways – first off, no more legislation. The House simply wouldn’t pass anything that the Senate or Trump would agree to. So, reform-wise, we’d only have Trump’s ability to change regulations. The budget would just become a series of continuing resolutions carrying the FY 2019 budget through to the end of FY 2021. If the GOP holds the Senate – as just about everyone says they will – then at least Trump has no trouble staffing his Administration and appointing judges…easier, as if there winds up being 54 GOPers, makes it harder for a squish or two to wreck the program.

Best case scenario is the GOP gains 10 Senate seats and either gains or loses just two or three House seats. This is probably not going to happen…but I rate it as a 5% chance against the 1% chance of a Blue Wave.

If you haven’t voted, don’t forget to vote tomorrow!

Thinking About Rules and Politics Open Thread

Mark Noonan38 Comments

When you break the big laws, you do not get liberty; you do not even get anarchy. You get the small laws. – G K Chesterton, 1905

That’s why I like Chesterton – he was mostly writing a hundred or more years ago, but almost everything he wrote is applicable today; especially as prophecy.

We have so many rules these days – Hulu got hit massively yesterday because they Tweeted out their desire that no one “culturally appropriate” in their Halloween costumes. The pushback was good (and hardly anyone defended Hulu: a possible indicator that very few are still afraid of violating PC demands), but the real problem is that Hulu felt it had to say something like that. To follow PC demands on costumes we’d probably need a thick book of rules which lays out which costumes are acceptable and which not, and who can wear which acceptable costumes: and given the vagaries of race and gender these days, we’d need really granular detail on that. Or, we can just stick to the old Big Law of “don’t be vulgar”. True, in that old Big Law there was a lot of subjectivity and someone could show up at the costume party looking like a fool, but it was certainly a lot more convenient than worrying if the use of a sombrero is racist.

The thing about Rules is that only enforcers really like them – which is why most of us prefer a few clear, simple rules that everyone knows and understands. God has Ten Commandments – and Jesus really boiled that down to two. The Constitution of the United States is amazing for its brevity. “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion nor prohibiting the free exercise thereof”: that covers religion. On the other hand, Title IX rambles on for quite a bit, and that’s before you get into the mountain of words in the regulatory and judicial aspects of it. In the end, you don’t really know what Title IX means – it doesn’t even really define what “discrimination” means. This sort of thing is, in my view, deliberate. Make a long, rambling law that no one can fully understand and, presto!, you’ve got your mechanism for doing whatever it is you want as long as you have the power to enforce it. Of course, it should be noted, that only tyrants like this sort of thing.

A CNBC poll, of all things, discounts the possibility of a Blue Wave. OTOH, I’ve seen some worrying for the GOP polling data out of Pennsylvania. On the Other, Other Hand, the Democrats are sending $3 million to New Jersey (!) in an attempt to save Menendez. My guess: no one really knows what will happen on the 6th. Both sides are fired up and donating. I’m pretty sure we’ll see a very high mid-term turnout. I’ve noticed that the Democrat ads out here in closely-fought Nevada are turning away from attacking Trump and getting more general, as well as dragging out the time-worn “The GOP will take away your social security” accusation. Not sure if this means the Dems feel they’ve locked down their base and are now stretching for older voters who tend GOP, or if they have lost part of their base and are now trying to get it back. Guess we’ll find out soon enough. One thing you can rely on: if it is reported in the MSM, it is almost certain to be a lie in one fashion or another…the MSM, at the orders of the Democrats, will try to suppress GOP voter enthusiasm and boost Democrat voter enthusiasm. All political stories (with possible rare exceptions) will be pitched with this in mind.

Meanwhile, the weirdness of having a Democrat represent North Dakota in the Senate since 1960 might be coming to an end.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan21 Comments

Let’s talk a minute about race.

It’s meaningless.

Warren’s idiocy on the Native American thing merely highlights how stupid the whole issue has become. Why did she take her 1/1024th Native Blood and emphasize it? Because we’ve created a racial spoils system where you can parlay any bit of non-white blood into victim status, and thus reap unearned rewards. The really sick and twisted thing about it is that our liberal race-mongers are essentially agreeing with National Socialist ideology: that your ethnic heritage determines your worth and some ethnic groups are superior to others. That Hitler made out that the Germans were best is irrelevant: the concept remains the same. All Hitler was doing was saying that his ethnic group was best – which is what every race-baiting grifter says.

The pragmatic facts of life are that human beings, as such, are monotonously the same. Take a fit, young man and women from different ends of the Earth – entirely different ethnic backgrounds – and put them in a room together, throw on some Barry White and leave a bottle of wine and what you’ll get 9 months later is just another human baby. A grand thing, but genetics, outside possible defects, will have nothing to do with the ultimate adult you get out of it. What sort of person anyone winds up being depends not in the genes of their parents, but on what they learn as they grow. Recently a prince was born in London and, rely on it, right around the same time a peasant was born in Nigeria. Take the kids and switch them and what you’ll get 20 years later is a black Prince and a white Nigerian. What mom and dad provided won’t matter – what the parents who actually raise the kid provide will be crucial.

We create an issue about race – and we always create the issue because we’re trying to run a con. Back in the past, the con was that non-white people couldn’t compete and so had to be kept down as drawers of water and hewers of wood. Right after we ditched that drivel, someone came up with the idea that non-white people are inherently superior and that the only reason that any white person is on top is due to an unfair advantage. The earlier myth allowed some people to exploit cheap labor; the current myth allows some people to exploit affirmative action (writ large). I am sick to death of it. Racism, as a concept that non-white people are inferior, is just about dead as a door nail. Maybe a few score thousand people in all of the United States believe it. But the New Racism is alive and well and has a vastly larger constituency than the old racism ever had. I’m glad that Warren is being roasted over her absurdity: I hope it leads to the whole racial con we got going being ditched. We are people; we are what we learn and do…not what genetics we are.

Stormy Daniels’ lawsuit against President Trump was dismissed – and in such a way that the buckets of liberal money she got via Gofundme may end up being transferred to Trump. I like that. It has been noted that this may be the first time a prostitute paid a politician.

In addition to Kanye, the Sex Pistols’ Johnny Rotten has gotten on the MAGA bandwagon. Has everyone started to notice that Trump and his people are starting to have lots and lots of fun? This is important. The side that’s having fun is the side that is winning.

Kyrsten Sinema, Democrat running for Senate in Arizona, has had a bad couple weeks. Things keep coming out about how much she, apparently, hates Arizona, hates America…but now she’s gone full weird: seems she called on witches for aid once upon a time. Its been said that the best thing about the Trump Era is the way he’s forced the left to take off the mask. It isn’t actually surprising that a Democrat – Party of Science, yo! – is ok with witchcraft. Lots and lots of Democrats believe that stuff, even if they call it some other name to not look obviously like idiots. But they are also relentlessly anti-American and hold their own people in contempt. The more the mask slips, the better for us.

We’re supposed to care deeply about the Khashoggi murder. I’m still trying to figure out why. I mean, sorry it happened, and all…but I don’t get why the big heartache about it.

Generic ballot in the battlegrounds is R+1. Don’t get cocky. Get out and vote.

More from Salena Zito about the upcoming mid-terms. She was the reporter who was right about 2016, all along.

Some Thoughts on Kavanaugh

Mark Noonan50 Comments

I watched Ford’s statement and then the questioning (well, a good portion of it, anyways; did have some work around the yard to get done today). Her statement added nothing to what we know. She contradicted earlier statements. It was let slide by everyone, but she says she gave a friendly hello to Judge (you know: one of her attackers) 6-8 weeks after the alleged attack. She was clearly working from a script, repeatedly had to refer to her notes to answer basic questions about recent events and gave (to me, at least) a cringe-worthy attempt at coming off as an outraged victim. I ended up being nauseated by it all.

And then Kavanaugh happened: Democrats immediately (on social media) went ballistic about it, but that is an indicator of how effective it was. He was genuinely outraged. The contrast between his real, raw emotions on display with Ford was astonishing. On the questioning, Kavanaugh did well, but had a few weak moments (the answer to “why don’t you ask for an FBI investigation?” is “because there’s no point: it’d just give you guys time to dredge up some more ridiculous accusations”) – until Graham came on. Wow! He’s a Conservative hero, now. And the thing is, it is people like Graham whom the Democrats had to convince…but all they did was anger him. And that is what is key about this: the Democrats have made everyone non-Democrat very, very mad.

Short term, this may very well cost the Democrats a lot in November. But, long term, is foreshadows a worsening political situation in the United States. We’re very nearly at each other’s throats. And the Left won’t dial is back and we on the Right can’t back down. The next few years may end up getting very rough.

With Kavanaugh, We’ve Reached the Crisis

Mark Noonan52 Comments

So, the Michael Avenatti, the day after claiming (in a legally deniable way) that Kavanaugh was a vile beast, has taken his Twitter account private. He claims it was because of Trump trolls…but, he’s been dealing with that for a year. I’ll leave everyone to judge for themselves the matter.

That was just a small thing in the overall Kavanaugh story, of course: more important is the fact that the accusations keep getting worse while also getting more flimsy. And the shrieking SJW left is shrieking ever louder. They are convinced that Kavanaugh is a drunken, serial rapist (I’m not kidding: I’ve read their comments). Meanwhile, Cocaine Mitch and The Donald are standing firm…and word is that even the GOP squishes (with the possible exception of Flake) are getting outraged over this mess. I sure know that I am. Yeah, I’m a veteran…but I’m not a tough guy. In fact, I’m just about un-tough. I’m a pretty calm and relaxed person who is broadly tolerant of all human frailties, because I am fully aware of my own failures. But, man oh man, am I fit to be tied, now. I’ve never been so angry. A howling mob of SJW fascists chased Ted Cruz and his wife out of restaurant last night…Cruz, given his position, could do no other than flee.

I will never flee.

Lost in the shuffle is that reality isn’t matching up to DNC/MSM Narratives. It isn’t just things like the Gallup poll which shows the GOP more popular than the Democrats (you know how I feel about polls): but it’s also things like CNN being low-rated; Michael Moore’s anti-Trump hit job “documentary” failing at the box office; the RNC being flush with cash while the DNC is effectively bankrupt. I’m suspecting that part of the reason the Democrats turned it up to 11 on Kavanaugh (and it was the Democrat leadership, not the base, leading the way here) is because their own estimates of their November chances are looking bad…and they are firing up the base to get them to vote. A party on the cusp of winning takes a calm, middle-of-the-road line to pull in all wavering voters…a party afraid of being blown out acts like the world is coming to an end.

I don’t know how the rest of this week is going to go – I’m highly doubtful that Ford will testify on Thursday. Unless she can come up with someone or something to verify her story, she’d look a complete idiot testifying in front of the Senate on national TV. And if she’s not telling the truth – and I don’t think she is – she’ll open herself up to legal jeopardy. But, we’ll see: maybe she does play her hand out to the end? Stranger things have happened. I was getting doubtful about Kavanaugh’s chances a couple days ago, but not I’m starting to have confidence return. But, in the end, even if a few GOPers knife us in the back over this, I think that more and more people are coming to realize that the Democrats must be kept out of power…they are completely irresponsible and will wreck the nation to spite Trump, if given the chance.

It is very, very sad what we’re seeing – the Democrats, by inviting the SJW left into politics, have injected a poison into the body politic we’ll be a long time getting rid of. Our job, as patriots, is to stand firm…and vote like your life depended on it. Because it does.

Looking at the Political Field

Mark Noonan14 Comments

Our Democrat and Never Trump friends are giving out squeals of joy over the results from Virginia – it is the harbinger of Trump Doom. Forget it. It’s over. Trump is toast. Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Schumer, here we come…and if Trump doesn’t get impeached after that, then President Kamala Harris will fix all he’s done.

I don’t know. To be sure, the GOP took a shellacking in Virginia – the Democrats seem to have worked out a killer plan to flip State legislative seats where they voted Hillary in 2016, the Democrat candidate for governor benefited greatly from that. OTOH, there are still some seats out there held by Democrats but Trump won the district in 2016…so, the GOP can play the same game. Not as effectively, of course, because given how well the GOP did at the State level the previous 8 years, there’s not a lot left for them to grab. And that is where my mind is going – this is just part of an expected snap-back. A good election cycle doesn’t mean a party is going anywhere. The GOP picked up 81 House seats in the ’38 midterms and it meant absolutely nothing…just a blip in the Democrats 60 year stranglehold on American politics.

What I can’t see is people being so disappointed in Trump that they’d return to power people like Pelosi and Schumer…or anyone like them. It could happen, of course, but I just don’t think it will. As I wrote last year, given that this will be Trump’s first midterm, the cards are stacked against the GOP…only the vast number of Democrats up for re-election makes the Senate pretty secure, while the House actually should be reachable by the Democrats. The Democrats need a net gain of 24 in the House to take a bare majority. There are 23 House seats won by GOPers but which voted Hillary in 2016; there are 12 House seats won by Democrats but which voted Trump in 2016. Only in 3 or 4 of each batch, however, was the Presidential margin a lot larger than the Congressional margin. Outside of a wave election for the Democrats, I think it comes out a wash…with maybe the Democrats netting 4 or 5 House seats.

Without a doubt, the 2018 midterms will be nationalized – the usual caveat that all politics is local will be highly attenuated next year. The United States is deeply divided on partisan lines. The GOP base – especially the Trumpster part of it – is deeply disappointed in the Congressional GOP. But I think that will manifest itself in more primary challenges…and more RINOs deciding to retire. When push comes to shove, the GOP base – and especially the Trumpster part of it – knows that it is political suicide to flip a lot of seats over to the Democrats. Not only will Trump’s agenda grind to a complete halt, but the whole purpose of the Democrat majority would be to go on scandal hunts to try and bring Trump down. The Democrat base is also very much fired up – they hate Trump with a white-hot passion. But my thinking is that the Democrat base is now, for the first time since the 1920’s, smaller than the GOP base. This follows a trend which has been going on for more than 30 years as everyone who isn’t a flat-out Progressive grows increasingly dismayed with the Democrat party. There was no way the old line GOP was ever going to get these people with any sort of consistency…but Trump, I think, can and will.

And that, in the end, is why I think 2018 will be good for the GOP…and good for America. The election will be nationalized, courtesy of the Democrats, and Trump will be able to hit the hustings proclaiming himself besieged by people who want to stop Making America Great Again. With the lower overall turnout always found in midterm years, I think the now-larger GOP base, fired up by Trump, will prevail. I could be wrong, of course; we’ll see. But I look to the future with calm confidence.