Ronald Reagan

First Read asks: "Would Reagan have passed today’s conservative litmus test?" and goes on to cover the tired lefty Reagan-as-moderate list: raised taxes, increased deficit, picked G.W. Bush as running mate etc.

This is just another lame lefty attempt to try and paint the modern GOP as crazy wingers. The idea that Reagan was some sort of Charlie Christ-moderate is absurd. Watch Reagan's 1964 A Time for Choosing again and follow below for some highlighted quotes that could come out of any Tea Party rally today:

From A Time for Choosing:

No nation in history has ever survived a tax burden that reached a third of its national income. Today, 37 cents out of every dollar earned in this country is the tax collector's share, and yet our government continues to spend 17 million dollars a day more than the government takes in. We haven't balanced our budget 28 out of the last 34 years. We've raised our debt limit three times in the last twelve months, and now our national debt is one and a half times bigger than all the combined debts of all the nations of the world. We have 15 billion dollars in gold in our treasury; we don't own an ounce. Foreign dollar claims are 27.3 billion dollars. And we've just had announced that the dollar of 1939 will now purchase 45 cents in its total value.

In this vote-harvesting time, they use terms like the "Great Society," or as we were told a few days ago by the President, we must accept a greater government activity in the affairs of the people. But they've been a little more explicit in the past and among themselves; and all of the things I now will quote have appeared in print. These are not Republican accusations.

For example, they have voices that say, "The cold war will end through our acceptance of a not undemocratic socialism." Another voice says, "The profit motive has become outmoded. It must be replaced by the incentives of the welfare state." Or, "Our traditional system of individual freedom is incapable of solving the complex problems of the 20th century." Senator Fullbright has said at Stanford University that the Constitution is outmoded. He referred to the President as "our moral teacher and our leader," and he says he is "hobbled in his task by the restrictions of power imposed on him by this antiquated document." He must "be freed," so that he "can do for us" what he knows "is best." And Senator Clark of Pennsylvania, another articulate spokesman, defines liberalism as "meeting the material needs of the masses through the full power of centralized government."

Well, I, for one, resent it when a representative of the people refers to you and me, the free men and women of this country, as "the masses." This is a term we haven't applied to ourselves in America. But beyond that, "the full power of centralized government"—this was the very thing the Founding Fathers sought to minimize.

They knew that governments don't control things. A government can't control the economy without controlling people. And they know when a government sets out to do that, it must use force and coercion to achieve its purpose. They also knew, those Founding Fathers, that outside of its legitimate functions, government does nothing as well or as economically as the private sector of the economy.

For the better part of today, I have been reading reactions among the right to the news of Dede Scozzafava's withdrawl from the NY-23 race.  Probably the most oft repeated commentary I have seen is that the developments of this race once again prove that, "moderate Republicans rarely succeed, and true conservatism wins every time". 

Scozzafava dropping out is indeed a great thing for the conservative movement.  It represents a victory for the grassroots activists on the ground over a disconnected and out of touch Republican establishment.  But the analysis that says this proves "conservatism wins every time" is woefully misplaced, extremely lazy, and not at all grounded in reality.

This notion is an extension of rhetoric that has been used by Rush Limbaugh for years.  It has gained popularity as the "true conservative" (whatever that means) base has grown frustrated with what it sees as "squishy moderates" losing in national elections.  We heard it endlessly following John McCain's defeat in 2008, and had heard it previously when Bob Dole lost to Bill Clinton in 1996.

But the reality is very different.  This increasingly popular notion is simply false, and lets take a look at why.

Since World War II, the Republican Party has run sixteen presidential campaigns.  It has won nine of those campaigns and lost seven:

• 1948 - Moderate Thomas Dewey (Loss)
• 1952 - Moderate Dwight Eisenhower (Win)
• 1956 - Moderate Dwight Eisenhower (Win)
• 1960 - Moderate Richard Nixon (Loss)
• 1964 -True Conservative Barry Goldwater (Loss)
• 1968 - Moderate Richard Nixon (Win)
• 1972 - Moderate Richard Nixon (Win)
• 1976 - Moderate Gerald Ford (Loss)
• 1980 - True Conservative Ronald Reagan (Win)
• 1984 - True Conservative Ronald Reagan (Win)
• 1988 - Moderate George HW Bush (Win)
• 1992 - Moderate George HW Bush (Loss)
• 1996 - Moderate Bob Dole (Loss)
• 2000 - Moderate George W. Bush (Win)
• 2004 - Moderate George W. Bush (Win)
• 2008 - Moderate John McCain (Loss)

Haggle about my definitions if you wish - but lets just say I am pretty comfortable labeling each of these men as I have put forth above.  The only one I even find debatable is George W. Bush - but that is mostly because he talked like a "true conservative" in 2000, but acted completely differently once in office, and the only bit of "true conservatism" in his administration was a large tax cut, and high defense spending.

Anyway, back to the issue at hand.  Republican moderates have a remarkable habit of winning nationally.  The only times they lost, they tended to have non-ideological reasons for losing. 

In 1948 Truman outlfanked Dewey with his whistlestop tour of America, connecting with the average American.  In 1960, Nixon went up against the transcendent John Kennedy, blew the campaign big time in the televised debate, and still probably won that election, were it not stolen by Kennedy's electoral shennanigans.  In 1976, Ford angered the country by pardoning Nixon.  In 2008, the entire country hated the Republican party, and Abraham Lincoln probably would have lost.

Every single one of those moderate losses - with the exception of McCain, and to some degree Dewey - were in extremely narrow elections that were decided by essentially one state.

Transversely, the only "true conservative" elected to the White House since World War II was Ronald Reagan.  Barry Goldwater got slaughtered, and every other "true conservative" couldn't even make it out of the primary.  Reagan's election is often pointed to as proof of concept on this theory, but was it about ideology?  No - in 1980 it was about economic malaise and American hostages, and in 1984 it was about an economic resurgence under Reagan's leadership.

Could "true" conservative candidates have won in '48, '52, '56, '60, '68, '72, '76, '88, '92, '96, '00, '04 or 08?  It is certainly possible, but if they did, it wouldn't have been because of their ideology.

This same analysis applies to more than just national elections.  Moderate Republicans often win crushing victories, and "true conservative" candidates often go down in flames.  But the opposite is also true - often moderates get absolutely spanked, while conservatives dominate.  Far too often we think elections are about ideology simply because we believe deeply in something, when they very rarely are.

But even if they are, the evidence in the last sixty years shows us that being a moderate does not even come close to dooming one's candidacy, and being a conservative hardly means you "win every time".

The victory of the conservative grassroots in rejecting Scozzafava in favor of Hoffman is a great thing.  I applaud it.  I happen to belong to a wing of the party that is fiscally to the right of Reagan, so I am hardly arguing for us to turn to moderates to solve our electoral problems here.

My problem is cheap, dime store analysis that is devoid of logic or rationality.  We should argue for more conservative candidates where more conservative candidates can win - but going with the superficial and inaccurate echo chamber soundbites like "conservatism wins every time it is tried" as the accepted explanation for an eventual Hoffman victory simply cheapens the conversation.

If we want to win, we need to understand why we win, and why we lose.  Such nonsensical rhetoric does not help us in that regard, so I suggest we stop saying it.  Real political analysis deserves better.

Greetings from the Great City of Austin in the Great State of Texas in the Good Old U S of A on this, our Independence Day.  Just spent three hours under the 105 degree Texas sun (in addition to walking back and forth to the capital...about 2 miles in each direction).  Before I collapse from Heat Stroke, let me share a few observations:

Attendance: Roughly 3000.  Substantially lower than the April tea party @ the Capitol.  Then again, at the April party the temperature was 75.

Crowd: Mostly folks in their 50's and 60's.  Some families with children.  All in all, an older crowd than April.  About 30% Ron Paul types, 50% more traditional GOPer, 20% assorted other.

Signs: Generally quite clever.  Personal favorites: any of the several that referred to Waxman/Markey as "Crap and Trade."

Sleeper GOP Gubernatorial Candidate: Debra Medina.  I might be biased because I met her today (also briefly met Sen. Cornyn and Gov. Perry) AND got to talk to her a bit.  She's a down the line, SERIOUS, conservative.  Like the message, concerned about viability.  I told her I intend to re-elect the incumbent, but that if she could prove herself a viable candidate in BOTH the primary AND general, I'd consider giving her my vote.

Most Embarrassing Moment for a Speaker: Sen. John Cornyn being greeted by a loud chorus of Boos as he took the stage due to his vote on TARP.

Most Embarrassing Moment for the Ron Paul supporters: Continuing to Boo Senator Cornyn after he acknowledged their concerns and moved on to Porkulus/Crap and Trade/Obamacare where he's firmly on our side.

Best Speaker, Runner Up: Wanye Allyn Root.  The 2008 LIbertarian Party Vice Presidential Nominee gave the crowd an inspiring speech on the value of limited government with a whole lotta quotes from Goldwater and Reagan thrown in.  Gets brownie points in my book for his rousing (by libertarian standards) defense of President Bush's overspending and bailouts being several orders of magnitude less bad than President Obama's overspending and bailouts.

Best Speaker, Overall: Governor Perry.  No one else even came close.  Whatever his alleged flaws, Governor Perry has done A TON over this past decade to have left us the strongest economy in the country right now.

In many ways, the attitude of people in Texas towards Governor Perry right now reminds me of the attitude in NYC of people towards Rudy in July 2001.  The man's gotten so much right that his citizens now take these things for granted.

All in all, an Afternoon well spent!

I hope this helps.

That is all.

Cahnman out.

If there's one thing that annoys me about the Bush family, it's the myth that George H. Dubya cleaned up George Dubya's messes.  The reality is the exact opposite.  George Dubya cleaned up several of his father's (and America's) messes and he doesn't (at least yet) get credit for it.

Consider the following realities:

1. Afghanistan and 9/11 -- In 1991, when George H. Dubya was president, Ronald Reagan belatedly won the Cold War.  Where Reagan courageously supported the Afghan mujahideen when it was unpopular in this country, George H. Dubya was in charge when the decision was made that the United States no longer had any "interest" in Afghanistan.  George H. Dubya. was the President that allowed Afghanistan to collapse to the degree that the Taliban who hosted Usama came to power.

(And yes, lefty's, I'm placing the primary blame on Usama's rise on a REPUBLICAN President)

While George H. Dubya's Afghanistan decision was understandable given the realities of the time, it doesn't change the fact that the 1991 descent of Afghanistan into chaos was George H. Dubya's fault.

That said, in 2001, George H. Dubya's son George Dubya was confronted with a major decision.  Following the worst attack in our nation's history, George Dubya had to clean up his father's screw up in Afghanistan.  Thank God George Dubya learned from the biggest mistake of his father's presidency.

2. Saddam Hussein -- Removing Saddam from power was, easily, the greatest accomplishment of 43's Presidency.  The fact that we even question 43 over his courageous decision to remove Saddam from power proves how divorced from reality this nation has become.

In 1991, George H. Dubya had the opportunity to remove Saddam Huessein from power.  Instead of accepting the short term pain suggested by his Secretary of Defense, Geoge H. Dubya chose the long term pain advocated by his Secretary of State and Chairman of the Joint Cheifs.  History will note that George H. Dubya had the opportunity to save his son from the toughest decision of the Son's Presidency.

3. Eastern Europe -- In 1991 George H. Dubya made the worst speech of his Presidency.  While Reagan's policies continued to work, George H Dubya seemed content to "manage the situation" rather than driving the final stake through the heart of the evil empire.

Against that Background, it's amazing anyone anyone in Europe trusted the second President Bush after the First.  Considering the opportunities his father missed, the cooperation George Dubya got from Poland, the Czech Republic, the Baltics, Slovakia, and Hungary were diplomatic triumphs from our alleged "diplomacy challenged" 43rd President.

The Presidency isn't a popularity contest, it's a courage contest.

I hope this helps.

Cahnman out.

Chris Mooney, author of The Republican War on Science, has a piece entitled "Hail to the intellectual president" in the May edition of New Scientist.The piece includes the usual mantra of the scientific Left: namely that George W. Bush, Ronald Reagan, Sarah Palin, and so forth, embody the tradition of American anti-intellectualism. By contrast, Barack Obama, who embraces intellectualism, has the potential to usher in a new spirit of intellectual rigor in policy making.

With the coming of Barack Obama to the presidency, the phrase "sea change" is not too strong. Here is a former academic who is deeply familiar with the world of thought. In his inaugural address, Obama pledged to restore science to its "rightful place" in our government; heck, he even extolled the virtue of "curiosity". And for the first time in history, he has appointed a Nobel laureate to the presidential cabinet. The worm has turned in American life - but for how long?

Mooney was a dogged critic of the Bush administration’s energy policy and the former President’s attitudes towards climate change. However his enthusiasm for the promise of President Obama’s approach to both climate and energy can barely be contained.

If Obama pulls off governing as an intellectual president, the dividends could be enormous. Already, he has been more than true to his word when it comes to the support of science. It is too soon to tell, but his soaring language about building a new energy future could be his Apollo programme, and could dramatically improve America's long-term competitiveness.

Strangely missing from the piece is any mention of one of the President Obama’s boldest initial actions on energy policy, the elimination of funds for the Yucca Mountain nuclear storage facility.

As has been documented on this blog, the President, in close coordination with Majority Leader Harry Reid, gutted the Yucca project without giving the slightest consideration to the ramifications for America’s nuclear industry. This action arbitrarily undid decades of planning at the cost of tens of billions of dollars in nuclear rate payer funded studies.

With no definitive solution to the waste issue, America’s nuclear power industry may be unwilling to make the enormous investments necessary to build new nuclear power generating facilities.

Given that nuclear power is responsible for 20% of our power supply and 70% of our CO2 free energy, Mooney and others who profess grave concern about global warming should be deeply disturbed by this development.

What should be even more disconcerting to Mooney personally is the Obama administration’s disregard for complying with the scientific protocol proscribed for the Yucca facility. As was reported in the New York Times:

The site’s suitability is supposed to be established in hearings by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which must decide whether to license the repository. Now, the Obama administration is proposing to provide only enough money that project officials can answer questions from the hearings.

While this blatant politicization of energy science has failed to register on Mooney’s radar screen, it has not escaped the attention of others in the media.

Toledo Blade Editorial: NIMBY Rules

Yucca Mountain has been the sole site under consideration since 1987 and the time and treasure spent on it have been immense. America is left with a government that encourages nuclear power with one hand, takes away its waste options with the other, avoids its legal obligations with eyes wide open, talks up the importance of global warming, but can't put its policies where its mouth is.

The Free Lance Star Editorial: Captain Atom he ain't

A bipartisan group in Congress, consulting with nuclear scientists, geologists, and others, pegged Nevada's Yucca Mountain to receive the nation's nuclear waste. Department of Energy studies confirmed that Yucca was one of the safest possible repositories. But after 22 years and $13.5 billion of preparation--and no scientific evidence to refute its selection--Mr. Obama has defunded Yucca Mountain……Preening about "restoring scientific integrity" on stem cells while ignoring research on Yucca Mountain and nuclear energy is disingenuous hypocritical pick your word. In the pursuit of alternative energy sources, nuclear must be in the mix. And Yucca Mountain should be back on the map.

USA Today Editorial: Obama’s budget puts politics above science, leaves waste issue unsolved

When Obama lifted the ban on stem cell research last week, his press secretary said the president made it clear that "politics should not drive science." Unfortunately, that's exactly what happened here.

Given Mooney’s past vilification of Republicans for supposedly letting politics instead of science drive their policy decisions, it would be expected that he and others similarly opinioned would express deep dissatisfaction with the President’s actions.To date, that criticism has yet to appear.It could be that the scientific Left is still basking in the return of "intellectualism" to the White House. Their exuberance must be blinding them to the fact that the era of "post-political science" has yet to be ushered in.

Crossposted at Conservatives for Science

by  Rose Pedenko and Tanya Simon

The words “subversive” and “subversion” once were used only to describe enemy combatants at the time of military conflict.  Today those same words have been labeled inflammatory – not behind an iron curtain but right here in the United States of America.

In the third month of the year 2009 A.D., the time has finally come to call a spade a spade.  For those on the left who inflame discourse by automatically reading malevolent racist meanings into that phrase, STOP NOW!  America-loving Americans have finally been pushed over the edge, and frankly no longer care anymore what you – the ultra-liberals and the two-timing RINOs amongst you -- consider is bigoted.  Are you listening, Eric Holder?

You have pushed us over the edge … by political correctness (which, in and of itself, is an insult to the American free spirit), by taxation and more taxation to come, and by our Constitutional rights and freedoms being mangled and distorted in order to fit the liberal agenda.

The “Sleeping Giant” awoke when Pearl Harbor was bombed -- and again after our country was attacked on September 11, 2001.  The same giant, this time in the form of conservatives and clear-thinking Democrats, is rising up to confront and revolt against the subversions of our federal government.

For clarification, when we say “clear-thinking Democrats” we do not include the ultra-liberal waterbearers who soaked Barack Hussein Obama with unadulterated praise and elected him on their tidal wave of adulation.  We’re talking about American citizens who joined the Democratic Party believing it would make a difference in creating a better, safer, stronger U.S.A., but discovered they’ve been shanghaied to pre-Stalinist Russia.

Book after best-selling book (albeit by conservative authors) have been clarifying with facts and figures (Kryptonite to the left) what has been unraveling in this country.  We have the Right (the “Good”) stripping away the camouflage of the Left (the “Bad”), and endeavoring to educate the “Stupid” – a feat now thankfully hampered by the self-inflicted collapse of the once great metropolitan dailies, and the sinking ratings of liberal cable news networks.

And in case you weren’t listening, fiscal conservatives were not happy with President Bush either.  He lost his base of support because of his unchecked Democratic-like spending.  We did indeed need change, but not in the present form of throwing good money after bad. One need only look to the engagement of the Cloward-Piven Strategy (manufactured by the left), to clearly understand what has occurred in the United States over the last 43 years:  Leftist academics have dealt irreparable societal damage.

Adding insult to injury is the fact these academics continue to poison the knowledge wells from which we drink – and they’re being paid to do it, courtesy of the American taxpayer.

Explaining how we got here (even with hard facts and indisputable figures) is never enough for the left.  They don’t get the truth from the prolific liars in the mainstream media and refuse to entertain exceptions to their point of view.  Those that actually take the time to read conservative articles do so by inhabiting right-wing blogs like resident cockroaches, commenting with wild abandon from sheer ignorance.  Put simply, those who can, write – and those who can’t, rant.

There have been the decades of liberal out-on-the-street and in-your-face protests, which are as common and tiresome as illegal immigrants banging on our cars demanding work when we drive onto a Home Depot parking lot.  The reason you don’t see loud and obnoxious conservative activists in melees with police or who are being thrown out of congressional meetings is they don’t exist.  Okay, okay, we concede there are a few, like the wing-nut extremists who protest in front of abortion clinics.  Shameful! How dare anyone fight for the life of an unborn human being!

Republicans and conservative-minded Democrats are busy working at our jobs, providing for our families and our communities.  We’re building companies that employ people, and we pay the bulk of this country’s taxes and we mind our own business. But those days may be over, because revolution is in the air, and don’t you just love the smell of “rebellion” in the morning?

We are being forced to rebel because Obama has fogged up his followers’ senses – with endless campaign rhetoric, and it has now seeped into the fabric of this country like radioactive waste leeching into our drinking wells.  The White House and the U.S. Congress have become hangouts for the ham-fisted and the desperate, where they’re all banging into each other like billiard balls on an uneven surface. And this administration’s pathological hunger for absolute power only serves to repudiate Obama’s hollow promises of hope and change.

Neither Obama nor the Democrat-controlled Congress has even once mentioned the phrases “family unity” or “American honor.”  By ignoring the nucleus conventions on which our country was built, they have proven that none of them possesses any sense of responsibility for the offices they hold.

Obama thinks he has things under control (the way Neville Chamberlain thought he had Hitler under control).  He gave back to England the bust of Winston Churchill (which had been given to the White House as a gesture of solidarity after 9/11) and in so doing, revealed an arrogance that threatens to cut all ties with one of our most trusted allies in favor of dialogue with the enemy.

Americans of every stripe are saying “Enough is enough,” and we will rise up, including all of you who voted that Democrat to the presidency.  It will happen, and it will be launched on the words of Patrick Henry’s American Revolution fervor of “Give me liberty or give me death.”

patriotpost.us/reference/videos/reagan-v-obama.php

With the fifth column support of three Republicans, the U.S. Senate just passed President Obama's eight hundred billion dollar liberal spending package.  Next step, House and Senate negotiators will attempt to reconcile the bills (and quite possibly add more to the price tag in the process).

This spending plan is little more than a major redistribution bill financed by the national credit card.  As a coblogger at another site where I write wrote:

Obama, Pelosi, and the other Democrats selling this plan are focusing only on the gains certain parties will see.  No one is talking about where the wealth to fund this package will come from.  Notice I said wealth, not money.  While it is easy for the government to conjure money out of thin air, it cannot do so with wealth. 

So, where will the wealth for this come from?  It will come from you, me, and anyone else who holds US dollars.  All our wealth stored in dollars will be diminished via the inflation tax.  Those who have saved, invested, and otherwise sought to provide for themselves in the future will be punished.  These are the people who have provided economic stability and prosperity for the nation for two centuries.

In addition, the productive workers of the future will also be punished, as they will be the ones paying back the interest on the wealth redistributed.  The current generation of people under 35 will spend their entire working lives paying the price for the excesses of the Obama stimulus plan.

This plan is a declaration of war on those who produce wealth and live responsibly, now and into the future.  Who must suffer so others may profit?  We do.

Matt Drudge seems to agree with the distinction between wealth and money, as he posted Monopoly money on the top of his website yesterday.

It's quite fitting that the cover story for Newsweek makes this bold declaration: "We Are All Socialists Now."

There may be times, on relatively minor issues, where some level of compromise is a reasonable political and legislative solution.  Where that line should have been drawn in the past is no longer relevant; it's time for Americans to take as strong a stand against domestic socialism as we took again the Soviet Bloc during the Cold War.

"Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction," said Ronald Reagan in 1961. "We didn’t pass it on to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children what it was once like in the United States when men were free."

The eventual direction the right will choose is still up in the air.  Will they continue to compromise core values for the sake of winning the next election or will they band together to fight the much tougher battle so we don't have to explain to our children what freedom means?

The Dark Arts of Politics has an undeserved bad rap.  To begin, let's quote the classic master:

My view is that it is desireable to be both loved and feared; but it is difficult to achieve both and, if one of them has to be lacking, it is much safer to be feared than loved.

Next, let's quote the modern master: 

People react to fear, not love --they don't teach that in Sunday School, but it's true.  

While it doesn't hurt to give voters a positive reason to vote for you (and it frequently helps) the most important thing to do in any election is the make the voters hate the other guy more.  The Dark Arts are an absolutely essential component of any successful politcal campaign/movement. A brief history of successful recent Republican Presidential campaigns shows this to be so.

In 1968, the Presidential election occured against the failure of Lyndon Johnson's Great Society.  Johnson's welfare policies, aided and abetted by local politicians like New York's John Lindsay, gutted economic activity in America's cities.  Various Supreme Court Decisions, also abetted by local politicians like Lindsay, gutted the ability of local police forces to fight crime.  Taxes, Crime, and Welfare were all up; the result was urban riots across America.  When citizens objected to this state of affairs, politicans like Lindsay called them racist.  In addition, the cultural excesses of the hippie generation horrified many more traditional Americans.  People legitmately resented what was happening around them.

Against this background, Richard Nixon realized that most Americans were ordinary people trying to raise their family and live a good life.  Americans deserved respect and would vote for a politician who gave it to them; that was the origin of Nixon's 'Silent Majority.'  Nixon was able to channel the frustrations listed above to form a new political coalition as blue collar Democrats abandonded their ancestral party in droves.

The contrast between the respective parties' conventions that year is telling.  In a (reasonably) orderly manner, Republicans nominated Nixon and adopted a party platform promising 'law and order' and 'peace with honor [in Vietnam].'  Democrats, by contrast, were barely able to nominate a candidate and had a riot outside their convention.  When one party has an orderly convention and the other has a riot, why shouldn't the non-riot party campaign on law and order?

In 1972, Democrats handed Nixon a gift by nominating the candidate of Acid, Amnesty, and Abortion on a platform of "Come Home America."  Republicans countered by pointing out that the Democrat Party "has been seized by a radical clique which scorns our nation's past and would blight her future."  Nixon won a 49 state landslide.  Need I say more?!?

Reagan's use of the Dark Arts are particularly fascinating.  In the context of the Machiavelli quote listed above, Reagan was one of the few leaders who genuinely made himself BOTH Loved AND Feared.  Reagan's sunny optimism and the fact that he was ultimately a successful President cause us to forget that he was also willing to play political hardball when he had to.

In 1980, shortly after the Republican Convention, Reagan appeared in Philadelphia Mississippi and gave a speech that has been taken out of context by liberals ever since.  In this speech, Reagan made the pedestrian statement that:

I believe in states’ rights. I believe in people doing as much as they can for themselves at the community level and at the private level. And I believe that we’ve distorted the balance of our government today by giving powers that were never intended in the Constitution to that federal establishment.

Taken in context, it's obvious this was a simple statement about the role of the Federal govt. in economic policy.  While the content of Reagan's statement shows no racial meaning, he had to know it would antagonize the left.  This statement led liberals to characterize Reagan supporters (and working class soft Carter supporters) as racist.  This, in turn, fed on the same resentments Nixon did in a much more subtle way.  On top of that, Reagan did it with a smile on his face.  Simply brilliant!

Reagan's re-election campaign actually used the dark arts far more liberally than his first race.  At the convention, in Dallas, Reagan's U.N. Ambassador assailed the moral equvalence of San Francisco Democrats: 

They said that saving Grenada from terror and totalitarianism was the wrong thing to do - they didn't blame Cuba or the communists for threatening American students and murdering Grenadians - they blamed the United States instead.But then, somehow, they always blame America first.When our Marines, sent to Lebanon on a multinational peacekeeping mission with the consent of the United States Congress, were murdered in their sleep, the "blame America first crowd" didn't blame the terrorists who murdered the Marines, they blamed the United States.But then, they always blame America first.When the Soviet Union walked out of arms control negotiations, and refused even to discuss the issues, the San Francisco Democrats didn't blame Soviet intransigence. They blamed the United States.But then, they always blame America first.When Marxist dictators shoot their way to power in Central America, the San Francisco Democrats don't blame the guerrillas and their Soviet allies, they blame United States policies of 100 years ago.But then, they always blame America first.

Kirkpatrick's truthful declaration was not the only instance of the Dark Arts in Dallas that year.  At a prayer breakfast on the morning of his acceptance speech, Reagan told 17,000 Texans about the absurdity of how, thanks to liberal judges

we passed a special law in the Congress just a few weeks ago to allow student prayer groups the same access to schoolrooms after classes that a young Marxist society, for example, would already enjoy with no opposition.

Finally, in an election that also saw the greatest postive ad of all time, Reagan's Bear in the Woods ad was one of the greatest examples of electoral fearmongering I've ever seen.

Moving along to 1988, it's worth noting that most of the hits on Dukakis were self inflicted.  No one told Dukakis to call himself a card carrying member of the ACLU, not care about his wife getting raped and killed, or ride around looking like a doofus in that tank.  That said, it's time to discuss Willie Horton.

One of the great myths of modern politics is that the Willie Horton ad was somehow racist.  It wasn't racist, it was about crime and Dukakis' record on that topic.  It's true that Horton was a convicted murderer.  It's true that Dukakis furloughed him 10 times.  It's true that Horton assaulted two innocent people.  It's also true that that ad would have been just as effective had Willie Horton looked like this guy.  How was this not fair game?

In 2000, John McCain already had a long running fued with the Religious Right over Campaign Finance Reform.  McCain was the one who threatened to shut them down if they got in his way.  They had every right to hit back.

George W. Bush successful re-election campaign was notable to students of the Dark Arts for two reasons.  First, the swift boat veterans played an essential role in getting out the truth about John Kerry.  While some of the claims of what happened in Vietnam were disputed (and never setteled), no one can deny John Kerry's activities when he returned from Vietnam.  Given that the man lied about what American troops did in Vietnam to the U.S. Congress, isn't this something the American people have a right to know?

Finally, 2004 is notable because, more than any time since 1864, Americans had a genuine reason to feel afraid.  While Democrats like to whine about this fact, the simple fact is that who will keep you safe was a legitimate topic for a devestating ad.

So what does this all mean?

1) Opportunities for the Dark Arts arise from genuine problems.  That's why we shouldn't feel bad about using them.  To use some examples from the past 40 years:

- Why shouldn't people be afraid of rising crime?

- Why shouldn't people resent welfare recipents living off their taxes while they struggle to get by?

- If some liberal judge wants to make them get their kids up an hour early so they can get bused to some far off school, why should they accept it?

- If a sitting Governor gives some convicted felon a weekend furlough, why shouldn't said Governor be held accountable?  Why is that racist?

- If a sitting senator votes against a critical homeland security measure, shouldn't he get called on it?

2) The left is the aggressor in the culture wars.  They're the ones who want to take God out of the public square.  They're the ones who want six year olds to attend gay weddings.  They're the ones proposing taxpayer subsidized abortion.  Why should we feel bad about fighting back?  The tactics the left hates so much basically involves us calling them out on who they really are and telling the public what they really want to do.  What's wrong with that?

3) George W. Bush's Anti-Terrorist policies have worked.  In the next year, Obama will face politically difficult decisions regarding Patriot Act renewal, Guantanamo Bay, and surging in Afghanistan.  If Obama continues Bush's policies, we should quietly work with him to give him the votes he needs in Congress while letting him take the heat from his base.  On the other hand, if he chooses to discontinue any of these vital policies, we should come at him with everything we've got.  If this happens, there should be no hesitation to point out that "Barack Obama does not care about Americans' safety.  It's too soon to tell how this will play out, but we should be prepared for either possibility.

4) We really do love America more than they do.  I know it's not politically correct to say, but after 9/11 conservatives did this while liberals did this.  A couple weeks ago Joel Stein (of all people) penned this amazingly perceptive and surprisingly honest column.  Stein admits:

Conservatives feel personally blessed to have been born in the only country worth living in. I, on the other hand, just feel lucky to have grown up in a wealthy democracy. If it had been Australia, Britain, Ireland, Canada, Italy, Spain, France, Luxembourg, Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Japan, Israel or one of those Scandinavian countries with more relaxed attitudes toward sex, that would have been fine with me too.

While his statement about sex was particularly pompus and obnoxious, this entire paragraph (and column) is revealing.  Liberals don't wear articles of clothing with American Flags; Conservatives do.

On a similar note, I would never have had my kids baptized by this guy.  I would never work with this guy on education.  That's why Michelle Bachman is my hero.

Ok, I've said a mouthful.  Comments on this one should be interesting.

Thoughts/Suggestions???

President-elect Barack Obama has laid out a plan to “create or save” three million jobs during his first two years in office. His plan is to increase government spending, deficit be damned, by at least $775 billion dollars over that same period. While the projects he plans to invest in are things that we Americans can all use, the stimulus plan will be a flop. Here’s how I got here:

Let’s start with the money. Obama plans to increase government spending without any increases in taxes, so that negates his use of PAYGO budgeting. At the same time, the total amount of money per job that he creates or saves will come out to more than $258,333 per job. There are business executives who don’t even make this money for their job, yet Obama, who has never held a private sector job in his lifetime figures the cost of a job to “create or save” at more than one quarter of a million dollars.

Any reasonable businessperson, like myself, will tell you that if it cost that much money to save a job, we would rather sooner terminate the job immediately. The problem here is that Obama and the other people in government have no real concept of what it costs to run a business, generally speaking. The purpose of a business is not to make customers happy or to employ as many people as possible. The end goal of a business is maximizing their profits and making their shareholders money. Those who do not live by that mantra of making money for the company and stockholders quickly go out of business.

The two things that the average person on the street does not realize are how much one billion is and how much one trillion is.  For the concept of one billion dollars, imagine that on the day of the birth of Jesus Christ you were given one billion dollars and had to spend $1,000 each day onward while gaining no interest, you would be still be spending money for at least the next 700 years.  By comparison, one trillion dollars is one thousand times one billion.

Second, according to the CIA Factbook, the current Gross Domestic Product (GDP, or the total value of all goods and services produced inside the borders of the United States) currently sits at $14.334 trillion. In other words the stimulus is only 5.4 percent of GDP. From here, that percentage goes down fast.

In the Highway Spending Bill that Congress recently passed, less than 26 percent of that money was spent within the first fiscal year. If this holds true, it then means that a value of less than one-and-a-half percent of the nation’s GDP will be infused in to the economy within the first fiscal year of the stimulus bill’s existence. For an economy that will be going in to a deep recession throughout 2009, this does not bode well for Obama.

The end result is an increase in inflation thanks to the increase of the deficit to a level that will approach or exceed two trillion dollars this fiscal year and a slow-to-respond stimulus bill that will actually, when implemented, cause the death of many jobs.

However, that is only half the story about Obama’s economic plans for America. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi wants to get Obama to sign the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) which is Orwellian by name, but will cause considerable damage when implemented and enforced. Barring a miraculous filibuster by the Republicans in the Senate, America’s workforce will become unionized and small businesses will close their doors.

What’s more is that the unions will get the ultimate payback from the Democrats they helped get elected. Their membership and union dues received will increase which will give the unions considerable influence in American politics and with their membership. Also, the union bosses will be able to oversee how each of its members votes in a union election, bringing to an end the secret ballot. If the Senate Republicans cannot stop this bill, small businesses in the United States will either have to shell out more of their money to meet the demands of the unions or they will close their doors, or both.

If this comes in to play, the projections for an unemployment rate of nine percent will look good to Americans because the unemployment rate in the USA will be higher than at any time since Ronald Reagan’s first term following the horrific economic policies of Jimmy Carter. The only difference is that Reagan was able to lower the unemployment rate from its peak in December 1982 of 10.8 percent to 8.3 percent in December 1983 and ultimately to 7.2 percent the very month he won a 49-state landslide win against Walter Mondale. By contrast, Obama won his election with an inflation rate of 1.07 percent and an unemployment rate of 6.7 percent in November 2008.

Finally, research from economists at UCLA determined that the Great Depression lasted seven years longer because of the New Deal. Obama wants to implement the New New Deal almost from the moment he takes office. Considering that the double-digit unemployment rates did not end until 1943, this means that had the New Deal not been implemented by President Franklin Roosevelt, the Great Depression would have ended in 1936 leading to an easy reelection.

The reality is that Obama doesn’t have the luxuries that FDR had when he was President, yet he wants to take us back to the past with an economic policy that exacerbated and extended this long economic slump. If this plan flops (and it will), just like FDR, Obama will come back with a sequel of New New Deal II which will be used as a means to “save” his job during a time of economic distress.

If the Republicans are able to do anything, it will be to vote against the stimulus package and to attempt to block the EFCA. Should this happen, they will have the ability to say that these things are prolonging the economic crisis and that they fought it all the way. If not, they will be on the same side of the line as Obama and the Democrats in 2010 and again in 2012 which could pave the way for two terms of economic agony.

It’s almost crunch time and the Republicans need to fight the expansion of big government early and often, then turn around and use it as a means to defeat Obama and Obamaism when given the opportunities to do so in 2010 and 2012. If not, they will become a permanent minority party with previous successful Presidents like Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, and Ronald Reagan as distant memories of what was once great about America, but never will be again.

It’s time for the GOP to be ready to fight Barack Obama when he’s wrong (like on these matters) and Obamaism.