2006 Mid-Term Elections: The People Have Spoken
So now you have it. The Democratic Party has taken not the 15 seats it needed for control of the House, but at least 26 in the midterm elections of 2006. Technically, the Senate is still up for grabs but the Democrats need only two more seats to win control of the Senate. The last two holdouts are Montana and Virginia with a Democratic win projected for Montana. The race between Senator George Allen (R-VA) and James Webb is terribly tight and could end up in a recount. If so, we won’t know if the Democrats control the Senate until after the recount which will happen November 27. Regardless, I strongly suspect I will be sending my petitions to Senator Webb.
The GOP expected to lose some seats in both Houses of Congress but it did not expect such wholesale rejection. Superficial punditry, such as that expressed in
today’s New York Times editorial page, explains the turnover as “an angry shout of repudiation of the Bush White House and the abysmal way the Republican majority has run Congress. The Republicans,” the editorial rants, “created their defeat by focusing obsessively on the right-wing ‘base,’ ostracizing not only the Democrats but their own party’s more moderate legislators.” The dissatisfaction of many Americans with the Administration’s handling of the war in Iraq and the Congressional handling of high-stakes issues such as illegal immigration, social security and health care was the impetus for the decision of many voters to give the other side a chance. But the ways,or non-ways that the Republican Congress handled these issues is reflective of a deeper problem in the GOP. I believe the GOP got the boot not because of its “obsession with the right-wing base,” but because it disappointed this huge conservative constituency.
The conservative Republican juggernaut that squashed the forty-year Democratic control of Congress back in 1994 succeeded because of its promise to govern on Reagan’s conservative principles. Limited government, tax reduction, deregulation, protection of the unborn, heading off activist judges, family values, property rights and national defense, that led to two landslide victories for President Reagan, are still part of the political psyche of a majority of Americans. But now, twelve years on, the people that the Newt Gingrich crowd tossed out have themselves become those people: straining to hold power for power’s sake, corruption, and frivolous spending. There are too many scandals for the Party of Values. There is too much pork for the Party of Fiscal Responsibility. There has been too much compromising of its own principles in order to hang on to power. It's not that the Republican Party in general has been more corrupt than its Democratic counterpart--it hasn't by far--but there is not much room for error if, having run on a platform against the excesses of past Democratic Congresses and administrations, you screw up. In short, the Republican Party has “lost its Reaganite soul” explained conservative leader Brent Bozell at a news conference that aired on CSPAN this morning.
It's too bad the Republican Party has lost the Congress because it has mainly been the GOP that has stood for conservative prinicples, even if it failed these last few years. I am for conservative governance and for whichever party wants to take it on, but I have no confidence in the party of San Francisco values. And conservatism is becoming a sour taste in the mouths of moderate citizens of all political persuasions because the GOP has strayed so far from the Reagan foundation.
So what are the conservatives to do? First, they should distance themselves from the Republican Party until the Party is willing to get back to the basics. Conservatives need to work with Democrats and Independents who share the same values in order to effect real and lasting change—to achieve a new “morning in America.” This is going to be hard for the next two years but when the voters see the mess the left is going to create for them, they will be eager to come back to the truely repentent Republican fold in 2008, if indeed the GOP has gotton it together by then.
Reagan was the eternal optimist and had all confidence that the American people, when faced with a choice, would always pick the right one. And in a convoluted sense, the American people have made the right choice in this election. If the Republican Party does not change its ways it deserves to fade into the sunset of a bygone era. If the GOP “returns to its Reagan roots, embraces the common sense principles and values” that most of America still believes in, then the party of “San Francisco Values” will be a blip on the radar screen of American governance.
keywords: midterm, mid-term, mid term, elections, Republicans, house, senate, majority
New York Times Breathlessly Reports: The Economy Is Taking A Dive
I’ll keep my thoughts on the "cooling economy" short and sweet since I know you’re anxious to get to the polls armed with this information.
The New York Times: With a theatric wag of the head and a practiced darkened brow, the
New York Times reported the hopeless inevitability of the coming recession: “The latest information about the economy leaves no question that it has slowed down by just about every measure — housing and manufacturing, retail sales and job growth, and others.”
The inconvenient truth: Former Federal Reserve Chairman
Alan Greenspan said today that home sales and prices may continue to slide for some time, but the broader U.S. economy appears poised for a rebound. "It looks as though the worst is behind us" in terms of the effect of the housing slump on economic growth, the retired Fed chief told financial advisers at a conference in Washington organized by a division of Charles Schwab & Co.
The New York Times: "Even the recent increase in compensation is generally believed to be a sign of coming layoffs, not a harbinger of wage inflation," yip yapped the Times.
The inconvenient truth: The
Labor Department reported that wages have increased at quadruple the rate of worker productivity. Labor productivity increased at 1.6% while wages jumped 4.9% second quarter 2006. Far from being a sign of coming layoffs, these numbers reveal quite a tight labor market. To wit: the
Bureau of Labor Statistics reported in October that 92,000 new jobs were added and the unemployment rate declined to 4.4%. This is the lowest rate since 2001 and even lower than the comparable period of the 1990’s expansion when the rate dropped to 4.6%. But wait! 92,000 is not the 125,000 new jobs predicted by Wall Street, shrieked the Democrats. Yet, the same Democrats failed to even whisper that the totals for the two previous months were revised upward by 139,000.
The New York Times: "As for the recent improvement in the unemployment rate, sorry to say, it’s an aberration. The job market won’t turn up in any meaningful way when the overall direction of the economy is down," insists the Times despite all facts to the contrary.
The inconvenient...OK you get the point: The slowdown in new housing construction and auto sales reduced jobs in manufacturing and construction, but gains in the service sector have taken up the slack. Non-farm payrolls have increased by 470,000 in the last three months and by 1.9 million this past year. Far from an economic contraction, the increase in wages over productivity brings inflationary pressure. Inflation means more money chasing the existing goods, hence forcing prices higher. Low levels of inflation such as we have now, are indicative of a strong, growing economy, not a threatened one.
The New York Times: “Most Americans are ill prepared for an economic deceleration, even if it ends in a soft landing. When economic basics like income and insurance coverage are taken into account, most working families are no better off now than they were when the economic expansion began in late 2001. They have been held back, primarily, by lousy pay. In 26 of the past 30 months, wages for most of the work force have failed to outpace inflation, even as corporate profits have hit historical highs.”
It’s a weirdly inconsistent editorial position for the Times to admit to an economic expansion in 2001 since that was the start of the Bush tax cuts. I guess the economy expanded as much as the Times needed to "prove" that working families, and who isn’t working except the limousine liberals at the Times, are no better off five years later, especially with the key mid-term elections. Getting back to the point, the tight labor market in the U.S. has historically yielded rising wages and incomes. And, according to labor statistics as reported by the
Wall Street Journal, average hourly earnings have been rising at a 4% annual rate for the past six months. With the price of oil and gasoline falling, real purchasing power will probably increase. Real wages have climbed by 2.4% over the last 12 months, outpacing inflation. So even with the recent decline in new home sales that reduced the GDP by 1% in the third quarter, the strong job and wage growth strongly suggests that the economy is continuing to grow. And even the New York Times might not want to be so quick to condemn, even if only by implication, corporate profits. After all, its corporate profits that motivate corporations to expand and create new jobs.
Being John Kerry's Apology
On being John Kerry's apology:
“As a combat veteran,
(three long months of medal mongering and all I got was this lousy hole in my a--)I want to make it clear to anyone in uniform
(you losers) and to their loved ones:
(dregs of society, vote for me!)my poorly stated joke
(puhlease stop, don’t tawk, go home, wind-surf, blow-dry your hair, anything just stop, stop it right now—GET OUT OF MY HEAD, IMUS!)at a rally was not about, and never intended to refer to any
(stupe) troop.”
I sincerely regret
(do you doubt my word, Klingon?) that my words were misinterpreted
(what a bunch of stupids—we have a place in Iraq for them and for…...YOU)
(vote for me!)to wrongly imply anything negative about those in uniform,
(Winter Soldier? I don’t know no steenkin' winter soldier) and I personally apologize
(over the internet because the cameras just can’t catch my ‘sincere’ side)to any service member, family member, or American
(Islamo-fascist jihadists rejoice) who was offended.
(Sheez, thick enough for ya, Murtha? Now lets get down to the real reason I’m here)It is clear the Republican Party would rather talk about anything
(like the price of oil dropping a whole bunch, inflation being under control, unemployment at 4.8%, the stock market breaking the all time record high that happened under Clinton, long term bonds rallying, the housing market still going strong, GDP continuing to grow thanks to the tax cuts)but their failed security policy.
(David Limbaugh, Rush Limbaugh, Anne Coulter, Rick Santorum, David Horowitz, Rich Lowry, Sean Hannity, Lisa Mount and all the rest of you right-wing-nut jobs keep your doughy lips from flapping about how there have been no new terrorist attacks on our soil during the Bush administration. Oh, and for crying out loud, stop reminding everybody about Clinton’s policy of paying protection money to Kim Jung Il) I don’t want my verbal
(Freudian) slip to be a diversion from the real issues.
(like George Allen using a made up word to describe a pest on Jimmy Webb's staff. Profuse, humble and sincere apologizing is just a diversion from the real issues, like all you people being stupid. Oooohhh I botched it!) I will continue to fight for a change
(I learned to fight in Vietnam, but I’m not here to talk about Vietnam, I won three purple hearts, a silver this and a bronze that in Vietnam, I jumped up and down to heave 'em over a fence. Vietnam, Vietnam, Vietnam)to provide real security for our country
(like crowning the UN king over America)and a winning strategy for our troops."
(note to self: learn how to play "Settlers of Katan")
And the Braying Donkey Award Goes to: John Kerry
There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven—including braying like a jackass. It seems that the Senator John Kerry never misses an opportunity to disappoint his terrestrial purpose. He has, once again, blatted his way to incredibility:
"Education," Mr. Kerry told a rally at Pasadena City College October 30th for Phil Angelides , the Democratic candidate for governor of California, "if you make the most of it, if you study hard and you do your homework, and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. If you don't, you get stuck in Iraq." Nice.
Jonah Goldberg of the National Review Online thinks it’s obvious that Mr. Kerry’s idiot comment was indeed just “a botched joke about the president and the president’s people,” his innocent intention only to malign the intelligence and diligence of the President and his administration.
Mr. Kerry, your Freudian slip is showing.
Kerry was addressing students at the Pasadena City College rally, so who else could he have been talking about but members of the military who are stuck in Iraq because they must be junior high school dropouts? How could a man who is a veteran himself, we've heard many a time, say such irresponsible and dangerous things about his younger band of brothers (and sisters)?
This bad-mouthing is nothing new for the Senator. Let’s take a look at some of the barbarous comments he has made about his fellow American soldiers in his own past. Going back to April 22, 1971 Kerry, in his highly controversial Winter Soldier
testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said that US servicemen in Vietnam were sent "to die for the biggest nothing in history," alleged that the military had "created a monster" of mindlessly violent American soldiers that “raped, cut off ears, cut off [the] heads" of Vietnamese citizens, and inflicted terror across Vietnam "razing villages in fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan." Fast forward to December 6, 2005 and we find the same John Kerry accusing, without proof, American troops “of going into the homes of Iraqis in the dead of night, terrorizing kids and children, you know, women…” said in a
CBS "Face the Nation" discussion with host Bob Schieffer.But just for grins, let’s say Kerry’s laughable attempt at plausible deniability really is a “botched joke.” In this case, he has effectively said that he is smarter and better educated than the President. But let’s take a look at some inconvenient truths. First, both Bush and Kerry went to Yale. Bush got better grades than Kerry. Bush went on to Harvard for his MBA. During the Vietnam War, both Naval officer Kerry and Air National Guardsman Bush took I.Q. tests which measured Bush's I.Q. a few points higher than Kerry's, according to
NewsMax.com. If Mr. Kerry is saying that Bush got us stuck in Iraq because he failed to do his homework, Kerry might want to stop telling everyone that he voted for the invasion (until he "voted against it" whenever that was).
But don't listen to me. Listen to his fellow veteran Senator John McCain, who spent a much longer and more terrible time in Vietnam than Kerry did. Senator McCain has demanded that Mr. Kerry apologize to our troops for such a prejudicial—and wrong—assessment. The
Washington Times, referencing a Heritage Foundation study, reported that U.S. recruits are better educated than the average American of the same age. 98 percent of U.S. military recruits have a high-school education or G.E.D while 75 percent of civilian Americans in the same age group do. The addition-and-subtraction-challenged Yale-educated Senator can do the math.
To White House Press Secretary Tony Snow and everyone else who dared to characterize Kerry's clumsy comment for what it is--a knee-jerk addition to a long string of "negative comments" about the military--Kerry delivered this thoughtful response: “I’m not going to be lectured by a stuffed-suit White House mouthpiece standing behind a podium. ... It disgusts me that these Republican hacks, who have never worn the uniform of our country, lie and distort so blatantly and carelessly about those who have. ... Bottom line, these Republicans want to debate straw men because they’re afraid to debate real men.” That ought to learn ya! Well, at least "these Republicans" are smart enough to know that America has the best-trained, most professional and most well-educated military in the world.
Mr. Kerry yip yaps that its unfair to be called to account for his misfired "joke." To him, Republican harpies are taking advantage of the donkey fodder because they are unable and unwilling to talk about "real issues." But this is a real issue. Kerry's comments betray a deeply entrenched contempt for our military. This contempt rendered aid and comfort to our Viet Cong enemies, and will render aid and comfort to our terrorist enemies. What better way to weaken our military than to undermine the morale and motivation of our troops, since the war itself isn't? Maybe this is Kerry's grand plan to get us out of Iraq. Beware, the bad guys are hearing it too.
The Democrats want the Congress in 2006. John Kerry wants to be Commander-in-Chief in 2008. Can America trust its national security to such a man and his party? America did not think so in 2004. And now, two years on, the Democrats have demonstrated a weak-minded “cut-and-run” mentality that remains unworthy of America’s confidence in 2006 and 2008.
