According to the Hill newspaper,
Most voters think Congress’s ethics have gotten worse in the past two years, according to a new poll in key battleground districts. The finding suggests that people likely to have a big say in who controls the House in the next Congress believe that Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has failed to keep her 2006 promise to “drain the swamp” of congressional corruption. The Hill/ANGA 2010 Midterm Election Poll finds that 57 percent of likely voters in 12 competitive districts believe that the ethical situation on Capitol Hill has deteriorated since President Obama took office. Thirty-two percent of respondents say there has been no change, and only 7 percent claim it has improved.
In key battleground districts, then, roughly eight times as many people believe the ethical situation on Capitol Hill has gotten worse since Obama took office than believe otherwise. Those numbers would be devastating in any case; but they are particularly damaging for a party that made ethics reform central to its identity.
As the Hill reminds us, Nancy Pelosi promised to “drain the swamp” if Democrats were to take control of the House. Indeed, she went even further, promising us the “most open and most ethical Congress in history.” And, of course, “changing Washington ” when it came to partisanship and government corruption was Barack Obama’s claim to appeal when he ran for president.
So many promises by Obama and the Democratic have gone by the wayside in the last 20 months that it’s hard to keep up with them. Individually, each of these broken commitments is a serious problem; taken together, they are politically crippling. It helps explain why we are seeing an extraordinary public uprising against the political class in general and against those who control the executive and legislative branches in particular.
Trust in government is near an all-time low — and those deemed primarily responsible for bringing us to the pass are about to pay a fearsome political price.
I reluctantly conclude its time to start stocking up on canned beans and ammo.
Maybe he could just read this article verbatim — it pretty much sums things up
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122360618747721991.html
McCain has always been a Scylla and Charybdis kind of guy. He may be the wrong man for the time, spectacularly so. But that doesn’t mean that what isn’t appealing to the American people at the moment wouldn’t be better for them in the long run. But we live in a democracy and we get the leaders we deserve.
Great. Bob Dole is running for president again.
Romney would be several points more competitive than McCain now, if not leading. He certainly couldn’t have run a worse campaign, and he’d have easily won all the debates.
Finally Jennifer, honesty!
Hayes is right. McCain is a walking contradiction. He is even more so, given his comments at yesterday’s town hall meeting in Lakeville, Minnesota.
There is no doubt that many conservatives are fearful of Sen. Obama in large part due to the intentional lack of vetting the candidate has had since running for state senator. What details are known come out through various sources and only create more questions and apprehensions.
The more the McCain campaign shines a light on the character issues associated with Obama, the more the MSM and Obama point the finger at conservatives as being rabid, hateful, and, yes racist.
But McCain’s response yesterday in Lakeville was inconceivable and incoherent. McCain retorted to criticisms of Obama by contradicting his whole campaign. He said that Obama is a decent and accomplished man, really?
Is this “decent” and “accomplished” man the same one McCain has run ads on saying that Obama has not come clean about his record and background? Is this “accomplished” man the same one who has precious little to show for his limited time in the Senate?
And is this McCain Senate speak that we have all grown so woeful of over the years going to compel his followers to donate time and energy to his campaign?
Except for Obama, I wouldn’t be voting for McCain in this election for all the reasons Jennifer gives. When McC wins he should, in an extreme act of bi-partisanship, thank the Democrats for handing him the election. And then thank Sarah Palin.
I imagine McCain’s internal polling showed what some here have been saying all along: The overwhelming majority of voters don’t give a flying darn about Ayers, Rezko, Wright et. al and the only people who do are people who weren’t going to vote for Obama to start with,
Negative campaigning hasn’t helped McCain and it may have hurt. The fact McCain’s numbers have nosedived since he started doing it full-force might be coincidence, but I doubt it.
Whether one judges McCain’s about-face late yesterday as a move of honesty and decency or a pure political calculation, the bottom line is still the same: It was the right thing to do.
…and, as for accusing Obama of being Muslim, where is the reportage of Louis Farrakhan referring to Obama as “the messiah?” This was a statement Farrakhan made in Feb. 2008.
I have no facts to support the accusations that Obama is a terrorist, Muslim, etc. But I don’t blame town hall audience members for expressing their fear and apprehension about Obama’s affiliations and believes.
Turning on the audience members for expressing their fears is misguided. The audience members are not getting the facts about Obama and the MSM and they know it.
The simplest answer if often the right one, and in this case, the simplest answer is this: McCain is not comfortable lying about a smart, decent, patriotic opponent. He’s not comfortable playing to the most ignorant, least evolved portion of his party, elements he has always derided, properly, as lunatics. He is embarrassed by the basest element of the GOP base, those who put their hatred and bigotry above God and country. McCain has sunk pretty low, but no matter how desperate he is, he is not without conscience.
Garrett, I respectfully disagree.
People do want the facts about the background and character of the individuals running to be president. But it goes beyond what any poll says to the basic obligations of candidates running for public office.
Obama’s responses to Ayers, Rezko, Wright, et al have been at best evasive. Consider the permutations surrounding the Rev. Wright so-called disclosure beginning with Obama’s all out endorsement of Rev. Wright to throwing the hateful reverend under the bus. Eventually, he was compelled to give a major speech on the subject just before Rev. Wright’s speech at the National Press Club. The speech Rev. Wright gave was not helpful and included such statements as … that’s what Barack has to say, he’s a politician.
You and I don’t know what the internal polls are saying, but we do know what audiences are telling McCain and Palin at every campaign stop. They are saying take the gloves off, get the facts out, and wage a good fight for president.
Mick, shame on you for calling your fellow Americans ignorant.
I will give you this, these so-called “mostly ignorant” are in one sense ignorant. They are ignorant of the facts about Obama because Obama is incoherent in trying to tell them, what few there are.
These same people you castigate come from the same stock as those who have fought and died for your freedoms. They, their forebearers and their offspring are the first to defend your freedom.
I am sure the audiences at his campaign stops are telling him that that, Captain A. But as I noted, those aren’t the voters (with a possible handful of exceptions) aren’t the ones he has to win over. The undecided independents want to hear his positions of things that are weighing most heavily on their minds.
Ayers, Rezko Wright et. al may be weighing most heavily on the minds of the most ardent McCain (or anti-Obama) voters.
Sarah Palin and Troopergate and the dated Keating Five scandal may be weighing most heavily on the minds of the most ardent Obama (or anti-McCain) voters.
But I don’t think they are more than blips on the radar screen of concern to the average voter.
The Mick life form talking abt “least evolved”? Chutzpah ever gains new horizons.
The reason McCain and Palin are backing off is because these attempts to slime Obama are backfiring. Witness:
Palin’s favorable/unfavorable spread is now -20, according to Research 2000 polling.
Obama is approaching an 80% chance of winning the election on Intrade, with the market predicting a 364-174 electoral college landslide for Obama.
Several national polls show Obama expanding his lead to double digits. Including Newsweek, Gallup and R2K.
GOP Sen. Norm Coleman, who’s in a tough re-election race in MN, said he would not appear at a local fundraiser with McCain. “Today,” he said, “people need hope and a more positive campaign is a start.”
Captain America: “…and, as for accusing Obama of being Muslim, where is the reportage of Louis Farrakhan referring to Obama as “the messiah?” This was a statement Farrakhan made in Feb. 2008.”
Are you saying that because Louis Farrakhan referred to Obama as “the messiah” that it proves Obama is a Muslim? Since when have we started becoming what someone calls us?
“I have no facts to support the accusations that Obama is a terrorist, Muslim, etc. But I don’t blame town hall audience members for expressing their fear and apprehension about Obama’s affiliations and believes.”
You “have no facts to support the accusations that Obama is a terrorist, Muslim, etc.” yet, in your many of your posts you fan the flames anyway.
“Turning on the audience members for expressing their fears is misguided. The audience members are not getting the facts about Obama and the MSM and they know it.”
John McCain did not turn on the audience, he reassured a man who said ‘I’m afraid of an Obama Presidency” by saying “You don’t have to be, Obama is a decent man”.
He also corrected a woman who said she’d heard Obama was an Arab, by telling her he was not.
John McCain did something the Superhero whose name you sully would have done,
what one would expect of any Decent Man, he told the truth!
Garrett,
Everyone wants to get the facts before they vote.
I don’t profess to speak for the undecided independents nor attempt to understand entirely what it is that they want at this late date.
But I cannot imagine any voter (except for the extremes on both sides) who don’t want to know about the character of each candidate.
We live in very uncertain times, in some respects uncharted waters. Voters want to know who they can trust to best lead them during these times. McCain, rightly or wrongly, as been an open book. But can anyone seriously state that Obama’s character and background have been fully vetted? How can you possibly vote (and trust) someone who has never been fully vetted? How can you establish trust for someone who was essentially handed the state senate and US senate positions?
McCain has stuck it to conservatives for a long time. This year many decided to forget the past and just look towards the future. We have taken a giant step, the least McCain can do is try to win. If he loses, he’s John Kerry, just another pathetic blowhard Senator and he chance of being President are gone forever. Sarah Palin is a rising star with a very bright future and really it probably helps her if McCain doesn’t win. But she’s really giving it her all while McCain acts more like a democrat surrogate on some cable show.
If McCain continues to stumble then I can look forward to the end of the Mainstreet Republican garbage. And can we all take a pledge that NEVER AGAIN will we nominate a washington insider.
Abe said: “Palin’s favorable/unfavorable spread is now -20, according to Research 2000 polling”
The DailyKos/Research 2000 polling is a joke. Recent polling by CBS, NBC, and others show Palin with favorables equal or higher than Biden’s (and up 8 points since the VP debate).
Mitt,
No. I have previously stated that I have no basis in fact for calling Obama either a terrorist or a Muslim.
But I do think it is important to report that firebrand Louis Farrakhan made such a statement. I also think it is important to point out that Obama surrogates have held meetings with Hamas and Hezbollah supporters (one of who was eventually fired), and that it is important to point out Obama has endorsements from some pretty unsavory characters (Momar Quadaffi is one).
Are all these bread crumbs conclusive: No. Are they in total troubling: For me, yes.
My simple proposition: Let’s get all the facts out on the table and let the American people decide this election.
I am the least bit surprised that the Democrat partisans on this board are crowing and basically celebrating. I am further not surprised that they claim that McCain’s “tough” ads and “tough” rhetoric are hurting him.
Let’s be real, folks. This race, with McCain’s horrible campaigning, his stilted delivery and wild policy gyrations, his frosty demeanor, all resulted in basically a tied race in early September. It is the horrible economic conditions that have made it impossible to win.
Look back, Dems, and again, be honest. If McCain had run a perfect campaign, if Palin were a seasoned pol, if McCain was loved by the conservative base, etc., he would still be down about the same. Your candidate has run an exceptionally good and seasoned and disciplined race, and he has been helped immensely and single-handedly by the economy. No shame in admitting it. I admit that if the economy was good in 1980, Reagan would not have unseated Carter.
With regards to my fellow conservatives, yesterday’s McCain antics of schizophrenia when it comes to Ayers, Dohrn, and other radicals on Obama’s “team” is not some shocking development. It is the John McCain we have come to know and despise. It is the same old McCain trying to look good for the national media, to do the most favorite thing for him in the world. That is, be invited to a Sunday Morning Show and bash his fellow Republicans.
He lacks fire in his belly for the needed partisanship, and he lacks any sense of focused campaigning needed to win the presidency.
Let us forget this mess, and this man, and now go into the wilderness. We could use the time off, regroup, find the next generation of leaders (and it probably won’t be Palin), and re-develop our ideas and repackage them for the new millenium.
Remember, this isn’t 1980 anymore. We are the ones on the way out, and we are the ones who need to regroup and to fight another day.
I know this may seem premature on October 11th, but I see no reason to delay until November 5th for post-mortems on an already dying campaign.
Folks, I got a poll to support any argument. Stop with the polls!
Also stop with the inevitability of a President Obama. Sure his chances in the aggregate look quite favorable, but the election hasn’t taken place yet.
It is customary for the vice president candidate’s negatives to go up. The vice presidential candidate is the attack dog of the campaign. Gov. Palin was a virtual unknown two months ago and the media (including SNL) have portrayed her in a less than favorable light.
The simple fact is that McCain has made his mark for being a Maverick. He likes straddling the fence and staking his own position on matters of importance. In so doing, he wins new short-term admirers (because it may take a contrarian position next time) and loses traditionalists.
With the presidential campaign, McCain is in an uncomfortable position personal position. He has to garner and maintain his base, which has never been conclusively behind him and will always be somewhat suspicious of him, while reaching out the the undecided independents.
Obama is in a similar position. He was much more leftist in his rhetoric during the primary season and has become much more centralist during the general election campaign. The Code Pink adherents are dismayed that he won’t pull the troops out yesterday.
The poll JR recently reported showed nearly a third of voters would be “less likely” to vote for Obama because of Ayers. That can only mean that it resonates with undecideds.At least two thirds of voters are already committed to one candidate or the other. Nothing can make them “less likely” to vote for someone they are either firmly in the tank for or were probably never going to consider supporting in the first place. Allowing for some fudged responses, the poll implies that Ayers et al. will influence current fence-sitters. By how much remains to be seen. Conceivably it’s up to FOX NEWS, CNN and blogs like this one.
The much graver problem — and here I have to cut McCain some moral slack — is that the more he paints Obama as a radical, or a crook, or a dangerous incompetent, the more any attempt at post-election rapprochement would be a bridge to nowhere. For how can you build a bride to someone who is by logical implication a genuine threat to the republic? (It would be as if the Democrats in 1972 already knew everything there was to know about Watergate and pretended to make friends with Richard Nixon.) Impossible: Absent a credible act of contrition Obama’s legitimacy would be substantially forfeit so real cooperation was logically out of the question. In short, a pre-impeachment scenario at best, paralyzing the government and conjuring up prospects of political breakdown should the Congress abdicate its constitutional responsibilities and the media be asleep or complicit. We haven’t had such a breakdown since … 1861? McCain may be struggling with this nightmare prospect. I know I am. Maybe Obama will come clean and let us all off the hook, but so far I’m not holding my breath.
Captain America: “I also think it is important to point out that Obama surrogates have held meetings with Hamas and Hezbollah supporters (one of who was eventually fired), and that it is important to point out Obama has endorsements from some pretty unsavory characters (Momar Quadaffi is one).”
Your statement is misleading. While it is true that Mazen Asbahi, Obama’s previous Muslim outreach advisor,stepped down in August following reports he was linked to a radical imam, it is not true that he or Minha Husaini, the current Muslim outreach advisor, arranged meetings specifically with Hamas and Hezbollah supporters.
Minha Husaini is currently under fire for attending a meeting meeting with Islamic groups with extremist views. The Obama campaign has issued a statement saying the campaign would not have sent a representative to the meeting had it known the list of participants.
Some supporters will accept the Obama campaign’s explaination, others and Obama’s opponents will not. But, on November 4, 2008, and here’s where we agree, the American people will decide.
tex: “If McCain had run a perfect campaign, if Palin were a seasoned pol, if McCain was loved by the conservative base, etc., he would still be down about the same.”
IF a frog had wings…
“bridge”, not “bride”!
Speaking of “problematic” associations, when is Palin going to come clean about her connection to the Alaskan Independence Party? This woman’s presence on the ticket disgraces McCain and insults America.
There are two distinct issues here that are being intentionally obscured. (1) Obama is not fit to be president. (2) We in parlous times economically.
The Democrats would have us believe that we can only talk about one of these issues. Furthermore, they resort constantly to telling everyone they can buttonhole what the American doesn’t care about. Consider how often we have heard it asserted, here and elsewhere, that Americans don’t care about Rev. Wright, don’t care about William Ayres, don’t care about Tony Rezko, don’t care that Obama has changed positions more often than a prostitute in a bordello on a busy Satrurday night.
Simple comon sense infoms us that a citizen may be deeply concerned about his economic wll-being and simultaneously consider the bona fides of someone “claiming” tio change all that.
At the present moment, in October, 2008, and after 18 months of mind-numbing obfuscation and tergiversation, the solitary surviving “change” that Barack Obama presents to voters is that he is a Democrat. From campaign finance to FISA to oil drilling to the Surge to 2d Amendment rights, Obama has backed out of or contradicted every position he has ever held.
HE knows that very well, which is why his campaign admantly adheres to the “Third Term for Bush” refrain. It is his entire strategy, and it is nakedly partisan in spirit.
His supporters know it, too. If a gun were held to the heads of their children they could not tell you in a simple declarative way what is different about Barack Obama from McCain/Bush other than that Obama is a Democrat andMcCain is a Republican.
They have never shown a whit of conviction for or even simple interest in Obama’s actual policy proposals. Go back and read their posts here. Obama is scarcely a real presence to them except that he is currently leading in the polls, which more often than not is framed as McCain, aka Bush, is trailing. What motivates and preocupies them above all else is that Obama is not George Bush, not a Republican.
Independent voters by definition care not for party label. They, along with everyone else, care about economic well being, but they can also be expected to care about who a candidate is and has been and what he stands for apart from self-interest.
So yes, the attack on Obama and his character must continue unabated and at whatever intensity is required to remind voters that they are not, as the liberal posters here and elsewhere fervently pray (to a God they disbelieve in, mind you), mere troglodytes hiding in a cave, as from a storm, whose impoverished concern is their next dollar of income and nothing more.
So of course they don’t care about Ayres’ et al. Were Obama revealed tomorrow to be a card-carrying Al Qaeda associate, they would not care. Issues don’t matter. Party does.
tex,
You’re right. I’m voting for McCain because he is the best of the two flawed candidates.
I’m not as dismissive of Gov. Palin as you imply you are. Should she opt to do so, she could very well be president one day. She connects in a manner similar to Ronald Reagan and she espouses many of the believes that he did. The fact that the camera likes her (similar to Obama) won’t hurt her chances either.
The contrast between Gov. Palin and the longstanding senators (Biden and McCain) couldn’t be much more apparent. She is and speaks to middle America; whereas, Biden and McCain spout Senate speak. Obama speaks from a background as a legislator too.
What disturbs me most about Obama is that he is so much the community activist to this day. For him (and Michelle) it is about how America is so wrong about everything. His Robin Hood approach to taxes, his bureaucratic approach to war (out in 16 months irrespective of conditions on the ground) are just two examples.
Is it too much to ask to elect someone who values American exceptionalism and wants it to continue rather than someone who is a “citizen of the world”?
Mitt,
Whether you find it misleading or not, the fact remains the same. Obama’s surrogates were involved in meetings with Hamas supporters. This, amongst the other points you don’t contend, should give anyone pause. That is, unless hanging with Hamas supporters can be construed as a good thing.
This in combination with Louis Farakhan’s “the messiah” and Momar Qudoffi’s endorsement is indeed troubling.
Again, it’s the aggregation of bread crumbs in the absence of knowing this candidate with vetting is cause for alarm.
Puzzle?
Why does McCain insist on running town hall meetings?
Imagine the audience comments had Obama been running town hall meetings.
————
Look, I know McCain is more comfortable with town hall meetings but what if it doesn’t suit his campaign during this contentious (on both sides) election season.
Captain America: “What disturbs me most about Obama is that he is so much the community activist to this day. For him (and Michelle) it is about how America is so wrong about everything. His Robin Hood approach to taxes, his bureaucratic approach to war (out in 16 months irrespective of conditions on the ground) are just two examples.”
This statement and the gist of your post 30 adequately, and accurately IMHO reflect what voting in America should be about…the genuine differences of opinion we have about a candidate; as opposed to the demonization of a candidate because of those differences.
Irrespective of the pressing issues at hand, this campaign is about culture.
On position after position, Obama is a ‘citizen of the world.” He and Michelle espouse a believe that America needs to be a more favorable country in the eyes of the world, that we have not brandished our image in the eyes of the world. John Kerry shared a similar belief, one that he has held since his Vietnam protest days.
But how would a President Obama propose changing US policies in order to raise our favorably ratings on the world survey? Does that mean nominating “world” favorable justices on the Supreme Court? Does that mean defaulting to the International Court for adjudicating heretofore sovereign matters? Does that mean paying a UN proposed “world tax”? Does that mean adopting climate change restrictions on US commerce that more heavy polluters (China and India) will not sign on to but for who we compete with?
One thing for certain. Under a President Obama, the US Constitution and the traditional believes that we hold dear will be challenged.
Captain America, the United States, as you well know, is probably one of the most diverse countries in the world. The President of the United States is the president of all of its people.
Just as Jews in America support various factions in the Israeli Government, Muslims in America support various factions in the Palestinian Authority, Lebanon, and other Muslim led Governments around the world. There is no getting around that.
“This in combination with Louis Farakhan’s “the messiah” and Momar Qudoffi’s endorsement is indeed troubling.”
What politician can control who endorses them or what anyone says?
Not long ago I read a news story about a woman, who, I think the story reported was a stripper, that loved eating at Olive Garden restaurants, and she was very vocal about it. Olive Garden didn’t like her endorsement, they didn’t ask for it, and they didn’t want it. But, what could they do about it? Nothing!
Captain America: “One thing for certain. Under a President Obama, the US Constitution and the traditional believes that we hold dear will be challenged.”
Three words: The…Patriot…Act! OK I’ll add an acronym FISA, which, is one of the areas where I vehemently disagree with Barrack Obama!
It’s a nice day where I am, and I plan to enjoy a bit of it. So, I’ll give you the last word.
Mitt, “. . . voting in America should be about . . . the genuine differences of opinion we have about a candidate; as opposed to the demonization of a candidate because of those differences.”
What is demonizing about any of the criticisms leveled, here at least, at your candidate?
If Obama has, not merely associated with, but embraced Jeremiah Wright, William Ayres, and Tony Rezko, which embrace is demonstraable fact and not supposition, how is it demonization to point that out and even to dwell on it. What I find remarkable, as remarkable as it is alarming, that you seem to harbor no qualms about those facts.
Is it because Ayres’ (and his murderous wife’s) crimes occurred 40 years ago that you, with seeming insouciance, dismiss the significance of the Obama-Ayres’ relationship? Does the fact that Ayres’ has never demonstrated any remorse not weigh on your conscience at all? It certainly doesn’t seem to burden Sen. Obama unduly. Is it “demonizing” the Senator to ask why not? Or is it scurrilous to point out that, in all honesty, the time for the Senator to reject Ayres in any meaningful way passed some time ago, the time when it mattered, the time when Sen. Obama could freely associate with this terrorist or not and when, as it happened, he chose association and even praise for Ayres? Or do you place more significance on Obama’s repudiation of William Ayres during a politcial campaign? And if so, why would you connive in so opportunistic anj act of self-exoneration? In other words, what Sen. Obama DID when it mattered is of no importance to you. When it doesn’t matter what he SAYS, you are understanding personified.
Let me suggest to you that blowing people up with bombs is never ancient history.
Is it “demonization” to wonder at the meager accomplishments of Sen. Obama after 15 years in various offices or vociferously to point that out? Do you not, at least occasionally, wonder that this soi disant icon of bipartisanship has never once crossed party lines on any issue that matters?
Does an economic crisis lead inexorably to the desperate conclusion “Any port in a storm”? Don’t Obama remarks like “95% of taxpayers will receive a tax cut” when 37% of taxpayers pay no taxes at all never, ever lead you to suspect that you are dealing less with JKF than with Huey Long?
Senator McCain’s problem is that he never really liked Conservatives. He threw Palin at us because he needed us. I do think he liked Palin too, though.
Yesterday, I listened to Peter Robinson’s interview with Christopher Buckely who said that his father thought that Conservatism needed “repristination.” I couldn’t care less who CB supports in this election. But it was hard to look at him and listen to his cadence and not think of Vidal and his “lumpen proletariat” comment. Everything about his tone and argument seemed so enfeebled to me.
What Palin represents, I think, is akin to what the Firefighters who went into the collapsing buildings on 9/11 represent: swift and salvific action.
We can debate whether we should have ever gone into Iraq, to be sure. But we cannot debate winning or victory there. Its importance cannot be overstated.
In Gibbon’s first Volume of Decline and Fall, he writes:
I can’t help but see the United States clearly in this introduction.
Don’t know how many might remember the UN talks following 9-11, but the Polish delegate (can’t remember his title) said that during the occupation of the USSR, the notion aphoristically advanced was that the way to acquire freedom was to attack the United States and force an occupation. That tells you so much about who we really are.
Conservatism is always on the defense because its job is to defend thought and action that has been hale for man since the beginning of time.
The United States can now boast a permanent underclass without the indomitable spirit and moral compass of the traditional European peasant class.
What made the European peasant class a block of solid humanity was that, for the most part, they were peasants because of circumstances beyond their control. And when those circumstances were removed, they flourished.
According to Ralph Peters, our progression from the economic world that my parents became part of and that which we’re a part of today has been a leap from acquiring info or knowledge, to now possessing such a surfeit that our task has gone from acquiring to managing, and in the ensuing displacement, positioning the “blue collar” worker at a greater disadvantage than in past leaps of advancement and progress.
When I hear Palin speak of “Joe six-pack” I’m not all that impressed or enthused. “Joe six-pack” can easily be a member of that permanent underclass that is being coddled and which seems to have acquired a sense of entitlement and a penchant for being easily fatigued.
I think that an upcoming defeat will cause a Conservative realignment. Brooks, Buckley, Will, Frum, Krauthammer don’t seem to really want anything to do with Palin and her kind. Is it a class thing? I’m not sure. Brooks’ comment on being dazzled by Obama’s quoting Niebuhr represents repetition and not much in the way of what I think of as real thought or ideas.
From a Brooks piece of last year:
Compelling idea? It’s been around for thousands of years.
I don’t want the kind of Conservatism that Brooks, et al represent because I think it‘s an empty thing and not really Conservatism at all. I don’t want McCain and Palin’s kind of Conservatism either. I don’t want to have to choose between an enfeebling triangulation, and a contracted and non-expansive understanding of what it means to preserve that which is Holy and Good. These choices are about power more than they are about anything else.
Totally unrelated or maybe not, this is a good read:
http://www.utj.org/Torah/mfriedfertig/RoshHashana5761b.html
Mary, people like David Brooks are the cheapest of cheap dates. A two-dollar platitude is all thats required for them to drop therir drawers and feel mighty pleased with themselves at the same time.
Your remarks on the “European peasantry” are well aimed, but you neglect to mention that a considerable number of European peasant departed Europe for America at the first opportunity. The fundamental divisions we see in the Western world today, I’d argue, stem from the differences in the amount of hope and resignation motivating those peasants who stayed in Europe and those who left and did not look back.
Thank you for quoting Edward Gibbons. The finest prose stylist in English who ever lived.
Joe, the peasants who emigrated to the States (like me) are exactly who I had in mind but did not make that clear at all. So thanks for letting me do that.
Jennifer Rubin’s post makes for a startling contrast with the flamboyant and over-the-top boosting of McCain she was doing during the primaries. Her present criticism of McCain echoes what some of us were warning about him back then – in short, that, apart from the Iraq War issue, he’s intellectually empty and entirely lacking in any instinct for the jugular in a fight against Democrats and the left.
Of course, I’m not suggesting that any of the candidates I preferred to McCain (Thompson, Romney, Giuliani) would have done any better than McCain is doing.
I think those who believe the Republicans need a period in exile to revive themselves have a point. But the exile will last much longer than one, or even two, election cycles. What has to happen for the GOP to come back is for the public to become as delusioned with the Democrats as they now are with the Republicans. This will take quite a while. Meanwhile, there is always the risk that the decades-long leftist brainwashing of the public (and particularly young people) by the education system and the media, along with the registration of millions of new immigrant voters, will put national power permanently out of the reach of the GOP, even if many of those who vote Democrat this year quickly become disillusioned.
This may be outrageously obvious, but: you want a president who LIKES the USofA. He should be proud of being the leader of your country.
The trouble with all of those questionable associations enjoyed by Obama is that THOSE PEOPLE HATE THE USofA. That is why “Ayers” is important.
Obama sounds like Pierre Elliott Trudeau did in Canada: AFTER THE MAKEOVER, he will approve of the USofA.
Now, what would Obama’s makeover look like? In Trudeau’s case it was a huge increase in Federal Bureaucratic power. In Obama’s case? Well, does anyone know? Has Obama described any other ideas more specific than Hope and Change? What does Change mean to Obama? He will be the next president, and appoint his people to the important positions of the Executive bureaucracy; the Congress will be overwhelmingly Democratic, and the financial meltdown will have to be dealt with; not to speak of Iran, etc….