Morning In America

Cluster48 Comments

I have a sense of optimism this morning that I haven’t felt in a long time, and that optimism is grounded in the belief that Romney will win this election and restore confidence in America. The polls today, and over the last couple of days reflect an unimpeded resurgence by the Romney campaign that electorally, will put him on top in just over two weeks. Gallup has it 52% – 45% Romney, a new poll by Susquehanna Polling and Research has Romney up in Pennsylvania by 4 points, Rasmussen has Romney up by 3 in Virginia and Florida, for the first time ever RCP has Romney ahead in the electoral count 206-201, and maybe most shocking of all is that Romney’s favorability rating now tops Obama’s. However, I will say that as of this morning, Rasmussen does have the candidates tied at 48% and Rasmussen is the poll I trust more than others, but that being said the momentum is clearly behind Romney and at the most crucial time.

So what are the events that led to this turn around? Several in my opinion, chief among them, Libya. Voters are realizing that the misguided foreign policy of Obama is starting to have a very alarming impact on the security of this country and the cover up of the death of Ambassador Chris Stevens is unforgivable, and Romney will crucify Obama on that issue on Monday. Obama’s first debate was abysmal, and Biden’s arrogant debate performance did not set well with women and independents. The continued slow growth of the GDP, the manipulation of unemployment figures (California not reporting), and the lack of any real economic plan going forward from Obama also led to the resurgence of Romney who has put forth a very common sense 5 point plan to get this economy back on track and the experience to get it done. But most importantly is the false caricature of Romney that Axlerod and Obama tried to sell. People are realizing that Romney is a compassionate, knowledgeable, experienced leader, and are realizing that the perceptions of Romney that Axlerod tried to sell, are just wrong. This quote from Obama is coming back to haunt him:

“If you don’t have a record to run on, then you paint your opponent as someone people should run from. You make a big election about small things.”

Obama is running on small things (think: contraception, tax cuts for the rich) and trying to paint Romney as someone to run from. Romney is running on big things (think: tax reform, medicare reform) and giving people a reason to be optimistic and confident, and that will result in a win.

And Romney’s performance last night at the Alfred E. Smith Dinner is a must see! He is not only compassionate, intelligent and a leader, his comedic talents are pretty sharp too.

Economic Growth

Retired Spook29 Comments

This AP article is at the top of my home page this morning, and, after reading it, this little light went on in my head about the main difference between the approach to government by Obama and Romney. Actually, it goes back to a comment I made the other day about the relationship between economic growth and employment. Obama believes government can create jobs, and actually claims his policies have done so. But there can be no meaningful private sector job growth without economic growth. In each of the last 3 years economic growth has been slower than the previous year, and yet, according to the BLS, unemployment has declined from 10.1% to 7.8%. That’s sort of like a college student telling his parents that his grade point average has gone from a 2.5 to a 3.0, but he’s only attended half of his classes. It’s just not believable.

Now are there things that government can do to affect economic growth? You bet, and our lack of economic growth is largely due to uncertainty in the market place caused by things governments have done over the last 4 years. And no amount of stimulus or QE infinity can erase the negative effects of bad fiscal, monetary and regulatory policy.  Government can’t just say to a private company: here’s some money — go hire someone.  The purpose of business is not to provide jobs.  Business exists to make money, and employees are nothing more than a by-product of a successful business.  Progressive Democrats (I know — redundant), by and large, don’t seem to be able to grasp this simple concept.  A President Romney may not be able to do any better, but a growing number of people think he couldn’t do any worse.

I know we have business people who frequent this blog — I’m one myself.  Let’s have a discussion about the circumstances under which you’ve hired people, how government actions, tax policy and regulations affect your business, and what changes a President Romney could make that would have a positive effect on the growth of your business.

 

3 Weeks (And Debate Open Thread!)

Cluster123 Comments

We are 3 weeks out from arguably one of the most important elections of our lifetimes and the polls are tight, but Romney has the momentum, as do the Republicans overall. Nothing could be more indicative of that than in Missouri, where Todd Akin was written off a few months ago, but has come back and as of yesterday, now has the lead. Senate and Congressional races are tightening all over the country as the election day draws near largely due to Romney’s strong first debate performance which will be equaled tonight, as Romney will continue to dispel the caricature of him the Obama campaign hoped voters would believe. Obama wasted an inordinate amount of time during this campaign trying to convince voters that Romney was some evil, uncaring rich man and that Republicans in general were an anti woman, anti gay, anti black, pro rich party and now that voters are starting to pay attention, and actually see Romney first hand as they will again tonight, they are realizing that that caricature the Democrats have put forth, isn’t even close to the truth. So Obama now is left to defend his abysmal economic record, and floundering foreign policy, which is indefensible.

Tonight Romney will have a chance to interact with everyday people in the Townhall forum and we will again see someone of incredible compassion and intelligence, who is in command of the facts, who does understand the plight that so many Americans are enduring, and someone who will put forth common sense plans to turn this economy around. On the other hand, Obama will try and convince everyone that he just needs more time.  Regardless of how the debate turns out however, you can expect the liberal media to crown Obama as the winner as they have too much invested in Obama and they know that another poor performance on Obama’s part will seal his defeat.

On another note, in past elections I had seldom voted a straight party ticket having always found a local Democrat or two that I found preferable over the Republican candidate, and this year is no different as the Democrat candidate for the Senate in my state is not a bad choice over the Republican candidate, however this election cycle is much different in that a vote for any Congressional and Senate Democratic candidates, is a vote for Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi and that is completely unacceptable. So I will vote a straight party ticket this coming election day and I encourage everyone to do the same.

George McGovern in Hospice

Mark Noonan3 Comments

1972 Democrat Presidential candidate George McGovern is in hospice – from NRO:

I see that George McGovern has been moved to a hospice, presumably because the 90-year-old former B-24 pilot, winner of the Distinguished Flying Cross, senator, and presidential candidate is coming to the end of his life…

McGovern is, of course, the pinko’s pinko.  He was so far to the left of the American mainstream that Nixon – of all people – buried him under one of the largest landslides in American history in 1972.  I remember my dad with his “Democrats for Nixon” sign…and that must have been hard to swallow, but McGovern was just too far out there for any rational Democrat to vote for.

My, how times have changed – and in 2008 we gave 53% of our votes to someone even more left than McGovern!  We also gave our votes to someone who couldn’t hold a candle to the courage and honor of George McGovern.  Leftist he is, but also an American patriot…no chance that Mrs. McGovern only became proud of the United States when her husband was nominated for President.

My prayers for George McGovern as he passes from this life to the life of the world to come – if patriotism, bravery, gentleness and generosity count for anything, then I am confident of where George McGovern is heading.  This does not mean, of course, that I’m not looking forward to a repeat of 1972 on November 6th, even if the margin isn’t quite as wide.

 

Our New eBook: The Audacity of Harry Reid (Bumped)

Mark Noonan18 Comments

Matt and I decided that since Harry Reid was using the Senate of the United States of America to issue slanderous attacks on Mitt Romney that it is appropriate to bring up the Harry Reid we came to know as we wrote Caucus of Corruption.  This new eBook, The Audacity of Harry Reid, is available on Amazon for your Kindle, or Kindle app on your smartphone, and it not only covers some of the issues we wrote about in 2007 but brings the story of Harry Reid right up to the 2012 campaign.

Here is the link to the book.   The price is a mere $2.99.  This is a quick read but shows the depths of Reid’s hypocrisy when he attacks anyone over their finances.

Global Warming Hoax Update

Mark Noonan45 Comments

From the Daily Mail:

The world stopped getting warmer almost 16 years ago, according to new data released last week.

The figures, which have triggered debate among climate scientists, reveal that from the beginning of 1997 until August 2012, there was no discernible rise in aggregate global temperatures.

This means that the ‘plateau’ or ‘pause’ in global warming has now lasted for about the same time as the previous period when temperatures rose, 1980 to 1996. Before that, temperatures had been stable or declining for about 40 years…

Just to re-state my views:

1.  It is not certain that average global temperatures have been rising.  They may be, but we lack sufficient exact data over a long enough period of time to make an absolute assertion one way or the other.

2.  If average global temperatures are rising we do not have sufficient data to know if they are rising towards some historic norm or rising higher than a historic norm.

3.  If average global temperatures are rising above an historic norm then we do not have sufficient data to determine if this will be a net negative or positive for the species inhabiting the planet.

4.  If global temperatures are rising we do not have sufficient data to determine what would be the primary cause of this increase.

5.  It seems to me that the tiny fraction of a fraction of CO2 in the atmosphere which is caused by human activity is unlikely to be the culprit if, indeed, average global temperatures are rising.

6.  Given all we don’t know, any plans to deal with an alleged increase in average global temperatures are not based upon hard science but upon the merest guesswork.

7.  I refuse to massively change the way we live based upon mere guesswork.

The reason I call it a hoax is because it is always Number 7 which is the real bone of contention – with all we don’t know, the global warming alarmists yet insist upon massive tax and regulatory changes to society (all of them tending towards an increasingly undemocratic form of government).  As this works out to a massive power and wealth grab by a self-selected group of global elites, it has in my mind the mark of a hoax – a scam, if you will.  The day I see jet-setting global warming enthusiasts move in to a mud hut after leaving one last warning for me, then I’ll sit up and take notice.

 

Obama, Hillary, Benghazi and an Electoral Collapse?

Mark Noonan69 Comments

From Allahpundit discussing the rumor that Hillary is to be thrown underbus by Obama over at Hot Air:

My guess is no, they wouldn’t dare, but the Daily Caller and Tom Maguire make a fair point. In the span of about 18 hours, we’ve had Biden and Carney each insist that blame for Benghazi’s security failures lies outside the White House. It’s State that’s responsible for protecting U.S. diplomats in the field, which means if the buck doesn’t stop with Obama here, then it must stop with you-know-who. Normally that wouldn’t be a problem, as cabinet members are expected to take the heat for the president when something goes badly wrong. But in this case you-know-who has her eye on running in 2016 — possibly against (heh) Biden himself — and surely doesn’t want Benghazi staining the foreign policy credentials she’s worked hard to build.

Throw Bill Clinton, official Obama campaign surrogate, into the mix and we’ve got the makings of a nuclear clusterfark of ego, ass-covering, presidential ambition, and Clintonian drama…

For us on the right this is a “pass the popcorn” moment – but we’ll likely not get it until after November 6th – if Obama loses then Obama-bots will try to lay some of the blame on Hillary (others will seek to blame Biden) while Team Clinton will be desperate to build an impervious narrative that Obama was a failure from start to finish while Hillary heroically tried to keep him up on the rails for four years.  And even if Obama wins, given that Hillary has said she won’t accept re-appointment as SecState, there will be an effort to blame all that is wrong foreign policy-wise on Hillary, with the Clintons of course trying to burnish Hillary’s record and denigrating Obama’s.

Have I mentioned to anyone here yet my view that if Obama does lose in 2012, he’ll try again in 2016?  If I haven’t, then there it is – my view is that Obama will be more infuriated than anything else by an electoral rejection and so will try a come back in 2016.  It has happened before – Grover Cleveland after being defeated for re-election came back four years later to win a second term.  And here’s another prediction:  if Obama were to seek a second term after being defeated in 2012, the Democrats will nominate him.  Why?  Because the party bosses dare not do otherwise – to choose someone else over Obama would be a catastrophic blow against large sections of the Democrat base and so they would simply not turn out for the general election.  But, we’ll see about all that.

Meanwhile:  as Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton bears a great deal of responsibility for whatever failures happened in Benghazi.  Ultimately, of course, it is the President who bears final responsibility.  In their dream world, both Hillary and Obama want blame assigned somewhere else and that, in my view, is why both State and the White House so eagerly leaped on the twaddle about a video causing a spontaneous riot which got out of hand:  had that story been true, then it would have mostly excused the White House and State (not entirely, of course, given the pre-attack calls for greater security).  I don’t know if it was a lie created out of whole cloth by State and/or White House or if it was something that someone just happened to remember at an opportune moment, but where ever the nonsense came from, Obama and Hillary were pleased to peddle it – for the self-serving reason that it got them off the hook.

Coupled with Obama’s disastrous debate performance, I think that Benghazi is causing a severe meltdown in support for Obama (and perhaps down-ballot Democrats, as well).  Keeping in mind that I always saw this race as “advantage Romney” and that if Romney were to win it would be by a substantial margin, I still view these two events as a catalyst for an Obama collapse – not just Romney winning, but winning very big.  As things stand right now, only about 10 States can be considered locked down by Obama.   As they include California and New York (with a total of 84 electoral votes between them) this keeps Obama definitely in the hunt for 270 – but this is a gigantic shift from as little as two weeks ago.

There is still a lot of time to go.  Two more Presidential debates are on tap.  Obama and his Democrats have a bucket of money to spend.  But the race has clearly shifted – Obama is behind and has to do something to change the dynamic if he wants to win.

UPDATE:  I want to quote from Mark Steyn’s article about Benghazi because it perfectly captures just what a disastrous failure this was:

…the State Department outsourced security for the Benghazi consulate to Blue Mountain, a Welsh firm that hires ex-British and Commonwealth Special Forces, among the toughest hombres on the planet. The company’s very name comes from the poem “The Golden Journey To Samarkand,” whose words famously adorn the regimental headquarters of Britain’s Special Air Service in Hereford. Unfortunately, the one-year contract for consulate security was only $387,413 – or less than the cost of deploying a single U.S. soldier overseas. On that budget, you can’t really afford to fly in a lot of crack SAS killing machines, and have to make do with the neighborhood talent pool. So who’s available? Blue Mountain hired five members of the Benghazi branch of the February 17th Martyrs’ Brigade and equipped them with handcuffs and batons. A baton is very useful when someone is firing an RPG at you, at least if you play a little baseball. There were supposed to be four men heavily armed with handcuffs on duty that night, but, the date of Sept. 11 having no particular significance in the Muslim world, only two guards were actually on shift…

VP Debate – Open Thread

Cluster78 Comments

This ought to be a fun night. Ryan is a smart, young politician who represents the future of conservatism. Biden is old, not so bright politician who represents the past of failed liberal policies. The Democrats must be cringing tonight knowing that their hopes of a rebound in the polls rests on Biden’s shoulders.

Voter Fraud

Mark Noonan57 Comments

The reason for the Democrat campaign against “voter suppression”?  Well, if you are stuffing ballot boxes with fraudulent votes then any effort to stop it will “suppress” votes.  Illegal votes, but votes none the less.

A full scale and detailed investigation should be launched in 2013 if Romney wins – the full force of federal law must be brought against anyone who votes fraudulently, organizes fraudulent votes or in any way, shape or form encourages fraudulent votes.

Out and About on a Tuesday Afternoon

Mark Noonan89 Comments

Just wanted to bring up some things I saw – so how about an open thread?

The San Francisco TEA Party (yes, there is such a thing – and its larger and more visible than you’d think) protested Obama’s recent fund raiser.  The most telling thing about it?  The gathered Obama-bots made a mess – strewing trash all over the place – and it was the TEA Party activists who cleaned it up.  One does wonder – do liberals know what “citizenship” means?

There is a report that there is joint US-Israeli planning for a strike at Iran’s nuclear program.  There are two things, in my view, which this can be:

1.  Eye wash to the Israelis to keep them thinking we’ll do something until after the election – then if Obama is re-elected, Israel will be left in the lurch.

2.  A desperate ploy by Team Obama to have a rally ’round the flag moment late in the game – we bomb Iran, Americans feel better about Obama, Obama wins re-election (it won’t work – but I don’t put making such an attempt past the Obama people).

No, there is no chance that clear eyed  national security reasons would motivate anyone in the Obama Administration about this.

You know you’ve won the gun control debate when the argument is whether or not the cops have a right to assume that your concealed weapon is un-licensed.  They don’t, in my view, but I do see the point:  95% of firearms are not licensed for concealed carry but, on the other hand, the chances of someone carrying a concealed weapon who is un-licensed to do so is also very small.  Long way from demands that all handguns be banned or that the 2nd amendment only secured the right to bear arms to police and military personnel.

Iowahawk strikes again:  White House scientists fight outbreak of the dread disease scrutonium.

Yes, there are bags of polls showing Romney surging.  I won’t bother linking them – you can find them everywhere right now.  My prediction of a Romney win was never based on polling, so I’m not about to start citing polls.  It is the fundamental dynamics of the race asserting themselves – so much so that now, even with a lot of polls heavily over-sampling Democrats (some have stopped doing so in such an egregious manner), Romney is coming out in the lead.  Remember:  Obama never has had much chance of winning.  He’s not this super-genious who felled our best in 2008 and whom we could only beat by a string of massive good luck.  He’s a lousy President (meaning, on an executive, decision-making level) who’s policies have failed and who is running for re-election as America is on the cusp of renewed recession.  If we can’t beat Obama in 2012 then it might be time to fold up the tents and go home – not since 1980 has a political party been handed to many advantages when trying to take out an incumbent.  Obama can still win; it ain’t over until its over…but it was always an uphill climb for Obama, not for the GOP (I just wish we had had more guts and had worked out better plans to challenge Obama and the Democrats even in the bluest States).

Its been mostly out of the news lately, but Europe continues to melt down.  I’m astounded they’ve managed to keep it together this long.  I don’t know how much longer they’ll be able to keep it up.  Once it goes, though, the world will go through a very sharp financial crisis.