Blogs For Victory

I am sure that privately Democrats are worried about the possibility.

Democrats reject any comparisons between Daschle’s electoral demise and Reid’s tough re-election challenge. But pollsters and political experts say Reid is in a tough fight to avoid being the second Democratic Senate leader in six years to be defeated.

In some ways, Reid faces a more formidable re-election challenge than Daschle did. Nevada’s economy has been hit harder than most, with a 13.3% unemployment rate second only to Michigan. Reid trailed two possible Republican challengers in polls taken earlier this fall. His favorability rating of 38% in one poll, a fatal political level in many circumstances, was more than 20 points below Daschle’s in 2003.

Republicans are pulling out the argument they used to oust Daschle and applying it to Reid: that the demands of leading Senate Democrats have pulled the senator leftward and away from his state’s interests.

Reid has responded with new ads highlighting the jobs, money and clout he says he has brought to Nevada.

Lots of signs point to good news for Republicans, and as the national political landscapes shifts in our favor, Reid and other Democrats with find their jobs at risk. According to Donald Lambro of the Washington Times, “the latest Rothenberg Political Report on the 2010 Senate races is an eye-opener.”

“With the landscape changing noticeably over the summer, Democrats can no longer assume that they will have a net gain of seats in next year’s midterm elections,” veteran elections handicapper Stuart Rothenberg told his newsletter subscribers this week.

“Of the 13 Senate seats now regarded as seriously ‘in play,’ seven of them are currently held by Democrats,” Mr. Rothenberg said.

Just three months ago, Mr. Rothenberg wrote that Democratic Senate gains “in the order of 2-4 seats certainly seem reasonable.” Now he says that “gains of that magnitude are still possible, of course, but the most likely outcome is somewhere between a Republican gain of two seats and a Democratic gain of two seats.”

Clearly, there has been a significant and surprisingly rapid change in the country’s political climate, led by a truly grass-roots rebellion against the Democrats’ big spending, big government, high tax policies that threaten to add trillions of dollars to the nation’s ballooning national debt.

Potential Republican pickups in the U.S. Senate include Delaware (Biden’s open seat), Nevada (Harry Reid’s seat), Colorado, Louisiana (Blanche Linoln’s seat), Connecticut (Chris Dodd’s seat), Pennsylvania (Specter’s seat), and Illinois (Obama’s former seat now occupied by Roland Burris).

Yeah. The Democrats are in trouble. Their pursuit of a dangerous left-wing agenda is killing their chances to remain in power.

Harry Reid’s vulnerability is just the tip of the iceberg.

If you were to ask a pro-abortion rights Democrat during an election year what their position on the controversial issue was, they’d probably say “I believe in a woman’s right to choose, but I think the number of abortions should be reduced,” or some variation of that. That little caveat at the end is meant to hide their true, radical abortion views.

The problem is, they do everything in their power to increase the numbers of abortions by making abortions easier to get (even for minors) and easier to pay for.

I’m always reminded of the pro-abortion rights slogan “Keep your laws off my body,” “Keep the government out of my bedroom,” or something stupid like that. So, it amuses me to no end that these pseudo-libertarian baby killers have no problem with the government’s involvement with abortion when it comes to paying for them.

Health care reform should not be used as an opportunity to use federal funds to pay for elective abortions. Health reform should be an opportunity to protect human life – not end it.

Unfortunately, Speaker Pelosi’s 2,032-page government takeover of health care does just that.  On line 17, p. 110, section 222 under “Abortions for which Public Funding is Allowed” the Health and Human Services Secretary is given the authority to determine when abortion is allowed under the government-run plan.  The Speaker’s plan also requires that at least one insurance plan offered in the Exchange covers abortions.

What is even more alarming is that a monthly abortion premium will be charged of all enrollees in the government-run plan.  It’s right there on line 16, page 96, section 213, under “Insurance Rating Rules.”  The premium will be paid into a U.S. Treasury account – and these federal funds will be used to pay for the abortion services.

So, not only does the House version of Obamacare include taxpayer-funded abortions, the government has the power to determine “when abortion is allowed.” So, you’ve got the government back in the bedroom, and you got the laws “controlling” your body, etc. etc.

I think even the most ardent pro-abortion rights individual ought to be able to see that the government (read: taxpayers) should not be funding abortions. All it does is put the government in control of the very things the pro-abortion crowd claims to be against.

Still a lot of fight left to be done, so pay heed:

They say the world has become too complex for simple answers. They are wrong. There are no easy answers, but there are simple answers. We must have the courage to do what we know is morally right. Winston Churchill said that “the destiny of man is not measured by material computation. When great forces are on the move in the world, we learn we are spirits–not animals.” And he said, “There is something going on in time and space, and beyond time and space, which, whether we like it or not, spells duty.”

You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we will sentence them to take the first step into a thousand years of darkness. If we fail, at least let our children and our children’s children say of us we justified our brief moment here. We did all that could be done. – Ronald Reagan

Leave no stone unturned. Shirk no task. Do what the duty of the day requires. We shall have them – and we will restore our Nation.

And with CIT out, this just might be the harbinger of worse to come:

Business bankruptcy filings jumped in October, reversing two consecutive months of declining commercial filings and indicating that bankruptcies could continue to rise as the economy struggles to stabilize.

Last month, 7,771 businesses filed for bankruptcy protection, compared to 7,271 that sought shelter from creditors in September, according to data from Automated Access to Court Electronic Records, a private firm that tracks bankruptcy filings.

After two months of decline, the 7% rise in commercial filings shows that businesses are still struggling to access financing and are facing weak demand for their products.

With CIT’s bankruptcy, businesses will find it even harder to obtain financing and that will start a cruel cycle.

There would have been a role for government here if Obama hadn’t already shot his bolt with TARP and the Spendulus boondoggles. You see, the government can, at times (and only for short times) provide some much needed liquidity to small and medium sized business who have solid products, but are having trouble staying afloat or getting launched in an economic downturn. The key here is to understand that if someone isn’t making, mining or growing something, then there’s no point getting involved, at all, in such times. Obama shoveled all the money at entities which just shovel money around…it made their books look good for a quarter, but it didn’t produce any wealth. And as the money was borrowed against the future, Obama’s programs actually made us worse off.

But for those companies that do something useful (grow food, make tools, mine for copper, etc, etc, etc) then its in our best interest to help out as much as we can. This is because wealth isn’t money – money is just a convenience…easier to carry around a $20 to buy your lunch than provide your skills or goods at the local fast food joint, you see? Money can come in handy, but only if its to be used to allow people to exercise their skills to create wealth. Don’t bail out a bank (which only got in to trouble because the people running it got greedy and stupid), but you can send a few bucks to the landscaper who needs to purchase a new truck but can’t get financing in a tight market.

Even so, of course, such interventions are not ideal – and should be given sparingly and terminated as swiftly as possible – but they can play a role in economic stablization and as they result in things being made, mined or grown, we actually have more wealth…wealth which can, of course, be used to pay back the money provided to get things rolling. Right now, the economic wizards are stirring a pot of toxic assets and hoping that recovery emerges from the stew. Ain’t gonna happen. In fact, with all of Obama’s borrowing, we’re just being buried deeper…and more firms won’t get financing (because Obama borrowed it all, you see?) and thus will go under or not get started and this will, in turn, cause more firms to lose financing, etc.

Interesting:

Illinois Rep. Mark Kirk penned a memo to Republican poobah Fred Malek hoping to secure an endorsement from former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin for his Senate candidacy, according to a copy of the memo obtained by the Fix.

After noting that Palin will be in Chicago later this month to appear on “Oprah”, Kirk writes that “the Chicago media will focus on one key issue: Does Gov[ernor] Palin oppose Congressman Mark Kirk’s bid to take the Obama Senate seat for the Republicans?”

Kirk goes on to write that he is hoping for something “quick and decisive” from Palin about the race, perhaps to the effect of: “Voters in Illinois have a key opportunity to take Barack Obama’s Senate seat. Congressman Kirk is the lead candidate to do that.”

Malek confirmed the authenticity of the memo in an e-mail exchange with the Fix.

Kirk’s memo is tangible evidence of the power of Palin’s endorsement in a Republican primary. Kirk, a moderate by voting record in the House, is clearly very concerned about the negative impact a Palin endorsement of one of his primary opponents could have on his chances at being the party’s nominee for the seat being vacated by appointed Sen. Roland Burris (D).

Just the first instance of this, boys and girls – without TEA Party (and Sarah Palin is a TEA Party hero) support, any moderate to RINO GOPer out there might have a lot of trouble both getting nominated, and then winning in the Fall. Combinations and calculations are adjusting out there.

To Nevada Republicans, especially, but to all Republicans who are crowing loud today – Don’t get too confident.

Discuss last night’s GOP triumph; GOP prospects for 2010; how depressed liberals must be…anything that comes to mind.

UPDATE: For you Dems out there trying to spin the Owens win as some sort of counterbalance to NJ/VA:

You should pay attention to the fact that the Democrats weren’t just beaten in VA, but crushed…this was a blowout of historic proportions.

For you Dems out there trying to spin the Hoffman loss as a repudiation of Palin:

She locked down TEA Party support; mission accomplished.

UPDATE II: Pelosi thinks Democrats won. We’ll try to give her more such victories.

Russian saber rattling:

The timing here is beautiful. The exercises reportedly transpired during the 70th anniversary of the Russian invasion of Poland… also the same day that President Obama killed plans for Polish based missile defense.

The [Russian] armed forces are said to have carried out “war games” in which nuclear missiles were fired and troops practised an amphibious landing on the country’s coast. Documents obtained by Wprost, one of Poland’s leading news magazines, said the exercise was carried out in conjunction with soldiers from Belarus.

Russian general says Poland a nuclear ‘target’ The manoeuvres are thought to have been held in September and involved about 13,000 Russian and Belarusian troops.

Poland, which has strained relations with both countries, was cast as the “potential aggressor”.

Poland is scared, and for good reason. After decades of repressive Soviet occupation, the Poles invested everything in tightened defensive ties with NATO and the United States. Now the Russian Bear is once again pounding down their door, and — after Poland loyally committed whole battalions to both Afghanistan and Iraq — America is nowhere to be seen.

This is how Putin operates. He messages with force. These exercises could have been held anywhere in Russia’s yawing territorial expanse. Poland was chosen with reason, as it serves as a bulwark of freedom and Western values in an area Russia still considers its own.

Will Russia fight? Only if we make it 100% clear that we won’t stop them – right now, Russia is barely kept afloat by relatively high oil prices. Other than that, Russia’s got nothing going for it…and tyrannical regimes with not much going for them do often cast about for a foreign enemy to distract and unify the people. Now Obama’s craven abandonment of Poland is exposed.

Poland has been a bulwark of the West for a thousand years – an outpost of our civilization. To abandon Poland, as the West did in the past, is to abandon the lynch pin in that area of the world. Obama, ignorant of the most basic facts of history, doesn’t understand this – and thus he’s thrown Poland to the Russian bear in hopes that the bear will make nice with him.

Thank you, Obama and co:

Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner is directly to blame for taxpayers’ loss of $2.3 billion in the CIT bailout, says professor William Black of the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law and a former federal bank regulator.

“We put ourselves on the hook in a completely inept way where we lose first. We lose entirely as the taxpayers.”

Black specifically faults Geithner for negotiating an arrangement in which CIT can repay its senior creditors 70 cents on the dollar in bankruptcy, but taxpayers are completely left out in the cold for their investment.

When Geithner pumped taxpayers’ money into CIT this summer, “it’s like he burned billions of dollars again in government money, our money, gratuitously,” Black said.

What I’ve heard on the effect of CIT bankruptcy: a lot of small and medium sized firms might be forced in to bankruptcy because they’ve lost the lines of credit they need to operate on a day to day basis.

This is very ugly – and all that is wrong with politics and business in America.

Have at it folks… Feel free to posts your thoughts, predictions, insights, and results here.

UPDATE: You’ll see updates on the 2009 Election via Twitter in the ticker at the bottom of screen. The ticker is following the #ny23 #njgov #vagov and #election09 hashtags.

UPDATE, by Mark Noonan: NRO’s Final Countdown has early MSM pre-spin about how today’s voting is no reflection on Obama. You Democrats just go on believing that.

UPDATE II, by Mark Noonan: Now Larry Sabato seems to be expecting a Democrat meltdown in VA tonight.

UPDATE III: How come I’m hearing talk of the contest in CA-10: that should be a sure thing for the Donks. Its Bay Area and 47% Democrat registration. Someone out there know something?

UPDATE: Republican Bob McDonnell wins VA GOV race.

UPDATE: Live Results of the NJ GOV race.

UPDATE VI, by Mark Noonan: In a small but sweet victory, GOP wins mayor race in Stamford CT first time since 1991.

UPDATE: Republican Chris Christie wins NJ GOV race.

UPDATE: Bottom line … Obama got bitch-slapped tonight.