Blogs For Victory

Interesting:

Despite widespread predictions of record turnout in this year’s presidential election, roughly the same portion of eligible voters cast ballots in 2008 as in 2004.

Between 60.7 percent and 61.7 percent of the 208.3 million eligible voters cast ballots this year, compared with 60.6 percent of those eligible in 2004, according to a voting analysis by American University political scientist Curtis Gans, an authority on voter turnout.

He estimated that between 126.5 million and 128.5 million eligible voters cast ballots this year, versus 122.3 million four years ago. Gans said the gross number of ballots cast in 2008 was the highest ever, even though the percentage was not substantially different from 2004, because there were about 6.5 million more people registered to vote this time around…

…In 2004, turnout was 6 percentage points higher than in 2000. But Gans said he believed it did not spike more this year because fewer Republicans went to the polls. While it may be premature to draw conclusions, Gans said, it appeared that Republican voting declined 1.3 points, to 28.7 percent of the electorate, while Democratic turnout rose from 28.7 percent to 31.3 percent of the electorate.

The Democratic increase struck some analysts as modest, considering the party’s immense get-out-the-vote operation, strong anti-Bush sentiment and Obama’s popularity.

“It sort of calls into question some of the vaunted ground game discussion, the whole turnout machine,” said a Democratic strategist who did not want to be quoted by name criticizing Obama’s campaign. “The GOTV effort was redoubled in 2008 compared to 2004, but it did not seem to make that big of a difference.”

Not quite the sweeping victory for liberalism our leftwing friends are claiming. Now the stories about Obama’s paid “volunteers” (who seem to have went at least temporarily unpaid) massing in droves to back his candidacy take on the look of, well, nonsense. Here are some States which had a decrease:

Ohio: 5,379,765 in 2008, 5,722,443 in 2004, 6% decrease.

Indiana: 2,286,760 in 2008, 2,468,002 in 2004, 7% decrease.

Alaska: 223,258 in 2008, 312,598 in 2004, 29% decrease.

The Alaska number is especially amazing given the hotly contested Senate seat plus having the Alaska governor on the ballot. For all the hoopla and hype and election day stories of massive turnout, its clear that it wasn’t like that at all – so why were we getting stories saying such was happening when it wasn’t? Some States (Florida, eg) had a big increase in turnout, but there are not enough actual turnout increases in battleground States to support the election day meme of high turnout. We were also advised that turnout might be as high as 150 million, about 30 million more than actually showed up – where did the high estimate come from?

What shapes up initially is a lack of enthusiasm for John McCain on the part of rank and file GOPers which could not be made up by merely having Palin on the ticket (and for all the lefty attacks on her, the rank and file GOP holds a very high opinion on her) – as in 2006, not so much a resounding endorsement of liberalism but a rejection of the GOP as its been over the past few years. A better GOP should be able to get those voters back to the polls and put a swift end to the Era of The One.

UPDATE: Haven’t been able to secure the complete vote for Illinois, but it appears that turnout in The One’s State only increased about 1% over 2004. Strange, huh? It was up a bit more than 2% in Arizona…which is still a small increase, all things considered, but beats Barry’s.

Just wanted to note that Obama’s response to Iran via his press conference on Friday was a good start – now the President-Elect needs to get his advisors together and work out the exact language necessary to tell Iran, “you be damned”.

The Iran situation is a good chance for Obama to prove us wrong about him – we on the right feel certain that Obama will flub the issue. In an urge to get US troops out of Iraq as soon as possible and cobble together something which can be presented as a nuclear agreement with Iran, our fear is that Obama will give away the store. The lunatics who run Iran also see this – though they are delighted with the prospect.

Obama supporters can say what they will about it, but the plain fact of the matter is that our enemies around the world view the election of Obama as a signal for American withdrawal. They see a weak man who will refrain from using real US power against them. They may be right, but if they aren’t – if, that is, Obama is determined to assert himself as the leader of the most powerful nation in the world – then there is no place better for him to demonstrate it than Iran.

The Iranian government is in quite a fix right now. The economy was a basket case when oil was $140 a barrel and is just more so now at $65 a barrel. The cash from oil is the only thing the Iranian government has to pay for their military build up (including their nuclear program), support their surrogates Hamas and Hezbollah and provide just enough to the Iranian people to prevent revolution. Right now, Iran is the softest of soft targets and just a bit of firmness on the part of Obama will bring them genuinely to the negotiating table.

The best course of action remains what I’ve figured all along – a blockade against Iranian gasoline imports (Iran imports the majority of its gasoline) to be emplaced until the Iranians agree to a verifiable dismantling of Iran’s nuclear program. Working with Obama Administration policy, our withdrawal from Iraq can be made conditional upon Iran’s surrender of its nuclear option. Do this – or something similar to it – and Obama will prove he’s got guts, weaken Iran’s strategic position and reassure nervous allies in the region that our withdrawal from Iraq does not mean an abandonment of our friends.

Obama has a host of troubles to deal with, but he also has plenty of grand opportunities to cement the advantages we have gained through much effort and great cost. President Bush has left victory in Iraq and the larger War on Terrorism for Obama – it will be up to Obama to use this victory wisely.

From the consequences of their insane labor contracts with Big Auto:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid sent to send a letter to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson urging him to assist the Big Three auto makers by considering broadening the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program to help the troubled industry.

The two top Democratic leaders in Congress are likely to make the request in a letter to the White House, which could be forwarded as soon as Saturday afternoon, said individuals familiar with the matter. President-elect Barack Obama is generally supportive of the appeal, but at the moment is moving on his own track to assist the industry, these individuals said.

Mr. Obama is scheduled to meet with President George W. Bush at the White House Monday.

The White House has been reluctant to broaden use of the $700 billion program, which was created by Congress just ahead of the election to deal improve credit flows and calm turmoil in financial markets incited by the downturn in the housing economy.

“It was not set up for anything else,” said Bush spokesman Tony Fratto, noting the only assistance authorized by Congress for the auto industry is a $25 billion loan package meant to help the industry retool to meet higher fuel economy standards.

Democrats are worried that if the auto industry is forced to deal with economic reality it will result in fewer union members and thus less union swag for Democratic political campaigns – so, they want to bail out Big Auto and thus prevent any change to the way auto manufacturers do business. Now, don’t get me wrong here – Big Auto, at least its American component, appears to be the usual mush of corporate pinheads who, even with 12 million unit sales expected this year, have managed to run their cash machine up on the rocks. It isn’t hard to sell a car in America, ya know? Its not like they don’t have people knocking on their doors asking for their product, even if its a relatively crappy product which is over-priced and not fuel-efficient (I do like my Malibu Max, and thus I understand that GM is discontinuing the model…). Don’t anyone get the idea that I have any sympathy for the faceless blob corporations of the United States – devices to hide incompetence, that’s all they are…smaller is better, and if we can figure out a way to break up these big corporations without adversely effecting the free market, then I’m all for it.

Anyways – this is what we can expect from our Democrats; using taxpayer dollars to protect their electoral base. It doesn’t matter that the UAW and the corporations have made it almost impossible for our auto companies to swiftly react to changing market conditions, the only thing that matters to Democrats is the next election, and they want a lot of donations and no major union job losses, regardless of cost to the taxpayer and larger economy. This is what “hopenchange” really means, liberals – more corporate greed, union corruption and Democratic backscratching…

In the finest tradition of Democrat politics:

100 votes suddenly discovered. Every one for Franken and Obama. Every one.

Hey, I’ve got 1000 votes for Coleman in my rumpus room. Sorry, I forgot to deliver them previously. Where shall I bring them?

The Minnesota GOP can probably use some money for lawyers.

Click on this link to donate to the Minnesota GOP – it might be too late to save the seat, but we must try to prevent the Democrats from stealing another election as they did in Washington State in 2004. Without our help, the Democrats will just keep manufacturing votes until they get the number they need to put Franken over the top.

If you click on the “every one” link above, you’ll see that what is happening is the impossible appearance and disappearance of ballots, always in favor of Franken. The MSM, naturally, doesn’t care – one more Donk Senator is always fine with the lapdog Dinosaur Media. The problem is that Minnesota has a very clean election reputation – when I noted the final tally, I figured the recount might have some small differences, but that Coleman was certainly re-elected because when you have efficient and clean elections, the variance between “count” and “recount” are very small. All of a sudden we’ve got all sorts of Chicago-style things going on.

Franken is a hard left fanatic and someone who has proven himself rather hate-filled in his statements as well as someone not entirely devoted to truth and justice. The Democrats under Obama’s Chicago leadership can be, if anything, even less trusted than before to be honest about the election tactics. It will be a terrible tragedy if the Democrats are able to corrupt Minnesota, and a plain and simple crime if the Democrats of Minnesota allow it to happen just to get one more Democratic Senator.

UPDATE: Very strange thing – 223258 and 312598. The first number is the number of votes cast in Alaska in 2008, the latter number is those cast in 2004. How come in a hotly contested election year, with the 80% approval-rating Alaska governor and a hotly contested Senate race is there about 89,000 less votes in 2008 than 2004?

From CBS:

How Obama Can Win Over The Media

Next headline: How Obama can win support from African-Americans….

Taking a look at the Indiana Secretary of State’s website, I note that the vote totals for Obama and McCain are 1,080,584 and 1,180,102, respectively. Unless someone at the office as made a huge mistake, I call that a 100,000 vote victory for McCain. Now, the page shows last update on 11/7/08 at 5:29pm, noting that not all counties have fully reported. Meanwhile, over at CNN’s website, they have the vote total of 1,367,503 for Obama and 1,341,667, for a 26,000-odd vote Obama win. This last updated, “100% precincts reporting – 2:05 p.m. EST, Nov 6 ’08”. Rather strange, huh? Where does CNN get the extra 500,000 votes which Indiana hasn’t counted yet?

Anyone out there got a reason for the discrepancy? I mean, if Indiana, itself, has not counted 18.5% if the vote – but CNN managed to do so – three days after the election, that would be a rather strange set of circumstances. Wouldn’t it?

As Matt received his NRA membership, a friend of mine purchased new ammunition for his weapon and I, for the first time, am considering purchasing a firearm…so this is not as surprising as it once would have been:

When 10-year-old Austin Smith heard Barack Obama had been elected president, he had one question: Does this mean I won’t get a new gun for Christmas?

That brought his mother, the camouflage-clad Rachel Smith, to Bob Moates Sports Shop on Thursday, where she was picking out that special 20-gauge shotgun — one of at least five weapons she plans to buy before Obama takes office in January.

Like Smith, gun enthusiasts nationwide are stocking up on firearms out of fears that the combination of an Obama administration and a Democrat-dominated Congress will result in tough new gun laws.

“I think they’re going to really try to crack down on guns and make it harder for people to try to purchase them,” said Smith, 32, who taught all five of her children — ages 4 to 10 — to shoot because the family relies on game for food.

Last month, as an Obama win looked increasingly inevitable, there were more than 108,000 more background checks for gun purchases than in October 2007, a 15 percent increase. And they were up about 8 percent for the year as of Oct. 26, according to the FBI.

No data was available for gun purchases this week, but gun shops from suburban Virginia to the Rockies report record sales since Tuesday’s election.

An armed population is a free population – just in case anyone of the Bill Ayers philosophy was thinking that the election of Obama is a license to Bolshevize the United States. It just seems a universal – we see a socialist elected President and we take out an extra insurance policy on our liberties.

It is fortunate that the Supreme Court recently ruled – quite properly – that the right to bear arms is an individual right. It will be hard for the Democrats to impose heavy restrictions on gun ownership, but we can expect them to try as much as possible to do so. And all of those commercials we heard in the battleground States that Obama was in favor of the 2nd Amendment? Just so much leftist smokescreen. Obama’s record is that of a gun-banner, not of a believer in the right of Americans to defend themselves.

In the end, this will do nothing but provide a good quarterly profit for our firearms manufacturers – and, of course, provide another reason for tyrants to fear the people of the United States of America.

The news story:

Benedict XVI is encouraging the president-elect of the United States to “build a world of peace, solidarity and justice.”

The Pope said this in a telegram to Barack Obama, who won Tuesday’s presidential election. The papal telegram was sent through the U.S. ambassador to the Holy See, Mary Ann Glendon.

The Holy Father promises Obama his prayers so that God assists him in his “weighty responsibilities at the service of the nation and the international community.”

The Italian-language message expresses the Pontiff’s wish that the abundant blessings of the Lord “support you and the people of the United States in your efforts, together with all men and women of good will, to build a world of peace, solidarity and justice.”

The Pope’s secretary of state, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, also sent a telegram to the future president, announced Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, director of the Vatican press office.

Father Lombardi also commented that “the task of the president of the United States is an immense task with very great responsibility, not only for his country, but for the entire world, given the weight of the United States in every field on the international scene.”

For the good of the world and the United States, we really do have to pray for the success of the Obama Administration. Of course, we don’t want it to be so successful that we’re shut out forever, but as I noted earlier, I don’t want us to come roaring back on a wave of discontent. I’d rather win on our much superior ideas. So, I hope it works – I hope Obama can finish Iraq and Afghanistan with victory, tame Iran’s mullahs, cage the Russian bear, right our economy and keep us safe from terrorist attacks. The track record of liberalism in these areas is one of universal failure, but there’s a first time for everything, right?

From NRO’s The Corner:

I must say I thought this guy’s sign was pretty funny:

Daniel Ginnes carried a banner declaring: “No More Mr Nice Gay.”

But some of these other post-Prop 8 ructions are surreal:

Unfortunately the “blame the blacks” meme is being commonly accepted by some so-called “progressive” gay activists. A number of Rod 2.0 and Jasmyne Cannick readers report being subjected to taunts, threats and racist abuse… Geoffrey was called the n-word at least twice.

It was like being at a klan rally except the klansmen were wearing Abercrombie polos and Birkenstocks. YOU N*****, one man shouted at me. If your people want to call me a F*****, I will call you a n*****… A young WeHo clone said after last night the n*****s better not come to West Hollywood if they knew what was BEST for them.

The media were warning that if the election went the wrong way there’d be riots, but I didn’t realize they meant Klansmen in Abercrombie polos roaming West Hollywood itching for a rumble.

All is not well in liberal-land…but it is no surprise at all that there would be these fissures as the liberal coalition is inherently incompatible and only glued together by a common defense of abortion and support – at this time – for Barack Obama. I mean, quite honestly, what do West Hollywood gay activists have in common with working class blacks in Compton? Other than both having a distaste for Republicans and an adoration of Obama, not a thing.

The lesson here is the ability of we GOPers to work our way in between these cracks – there are black Americans who will come to our side over social issues; there are gay Americans who will come to our side over the concept of judicial restraint…we can put together a real coalition based on common ideals, but containing within it the freedom to dissent from this or that aspect of the over-arching program. We need to set to work with a will to expand our coalition at the expense of liberalism and especially those hard left parts of it.

The Orwellian nature of the Obama regime becomes clearer:

Obama will call on citizens of all ages to serve America, by developing a plan to require 50 hours of community service in middle school and high school and 100 hours of community service in college every year.

There once was a nation where the government called upon people to work for free on government projects – and reports are that throughout the USSR people did just that…amazing what you can accomplish when you are a socialist who leads a great nation. However, I believe that the President-Elect might want to pay heed to a rather dusty, old document:

Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction. (emphasis added)

If you are requiring a kid to do community service as part of his “free and compulsory” primary education, then I think that fits right into the definition of “involuntary servitude”. The shocking thing is that our liberal friends – starting with Barack Obama – simply will not recognize this as a threat to freedom. For our liberal friends, “freedom” seems to mean merely the freedom to get laid, smoke dope, dress like a freak and not have anyone know what porno sites they visit – in the liberal mind, there is no incompatibility between liberty and requiring someone to do government work.

Its going to be a long four years of fighting for freedom, fellow conservatives – get ready for it!

UPDATE: It appears that from this point forward I will have to save a screen shot each time I quote an Obama website – what I have quoted is a “copy and paste” from what I found on Obama’s website, and I wasn’t the only person who quoted that. It has been changed now – naturally, the Obamaniacs are saying that I’m lying…as if I didn’t think anyone would click the link I provided to prove what I was saying.