Leading the Party - How Romney would be a disaster for the GOP

The Black highlights significant dips in the Generic Congressional Vote relative to the democrats, while the red lines and green lines indicate where Romneys vote has rapidly increased (red) or staggered to gradual decline (green). Screenshots from RCP Polling Averages, Fair Use, with a few basic visual annotations. I apologize for the hazy quality - Blogger could not fully handle the image.

The RCP Polling average, at realclearpolitics.com, averages a whole series of generally accepted polls while discluding major outliers to form a scientific estimation of the actual vote. Mitt Romneys slip in the polls in June corresponded with an improvement in the Generic Congressional Vote. Later, when Perry also appeared to have many of the same problems to Conservatives and, given the evidence above, others, the Congressional Vote slipped once again. In short, Romney, though popular himself, as a standard-bearer for the greater Republican Party is a disaster, and the fruits of this disaster would show itself in (at best) stagnation in the congressional races of 2012 should he be the nominee. At worse, the Republicans could end up not only failing to take the Senate, but losing the House, as their generic congressional ballot is often underperforming the Democrats.

Most reasonable Republicans agree that getting rid of the Reidosi dominated congress is as important as getting rid of Obama. Romney looks presidential, talks soberly (though I wouldn't say well, as that requires that you actually say something), has a nice suit and nice hair, and isn't Obama. Because of this, a lot of people are willing to vote for him for President. But a lot of those people will also see him as the representative of the Republican Party, and will conclude that it is every bit as corrupt, unethical, lukewarm and openly fat cat Wall Street elitist as it was in 2008. They'll still vote for Romney, because he's not Obama and looks like a President regardless of what he does, but they won't vote for Republican candidates outside of Romney. It will also prevent the discussion of ideas that leads to congressional majorities, instead having a presidential race focused entirely on personalities and handing the congressional races directly over to California Environmentalists and Wisconsin Public Sector Unions.

And why would it be any different? Most Americans, outside of the most venom-filled, unthinking and partisan branches of the Republican party, know that George W. Bush is just as responsible for our nations current situation as Barrack Obama. Romney represents the Republican party of Bush. Romney represents Republicans with no principles, who will do anything to get elected, will accept bribes like Ted Stevens, know nothing about Main Street or the physical economy (Romney is, after all, the quintessential Wall Street number cruncher who thinks that the economy is a math equation) and have no trouble trampling on the rights of ordinary Americans or casting all good economic sense to the wind (including what he actually knows) simply to be "popular."

Romney represents the kind of thinking that forces Americans to buy a private good and favors a gradual government takeover of the economy - something which he has not only done, but seems rather proud of. Romney, frankly, should move to the countries that follow his way of thinking, putting everything in the hands of corrupt elites, namely the Sudan, Burundi, Zimbabwe, Chad, the Central African Republic or any number of other African Kleptocracies. Maybe then he would realize why an Ivy-Leagueized America is not a good idea and that public-private collusion is not a virtue.

And should we elect him, just what will he do? Will the man who inspired Obamas entire economics agenda really depart from them substantially? Will he kowtow and get along well with the Democrat Congress that he helped elect? Just what will he do?

Update 10/9/11 - As Mr. Presidents approval ratings continue to drop in the RCP average to their lowest point ever this week, now approaching that crucial 40% mark, it seems that more and more the legitimate interest of the Republican Party needs to be selecting a man who can lead the entire party to victory in all 50 states. Winning the electoral college by more votes is not going to help the Conservatives govern. Winning the electoral college, and then winning the Senate and House by more, will.

Politics is Comedy

The Clown Chili Peppers. Attb: Rick Dikeman at the English Language Wikipedia, license c.c.a.s.a. 3.0 unported.

Any frequent reader of this blog will know that there are few more enthusiastic supporters of the Tea Party then me, but I must give one mild criticism.

It has often been said that in many ways the Tea Party needs to learn. Being a new "organization" (more like "tribe") this is undoubtedbly true, but what precise due they need to learn? If one says "learn to tax people and give bailouts," then surely we have already seen the fruits of these decisions, the very standing on which the Tea Party was organized against the establishment of the Republican Party. Indeed liberals, your prayers against the hypocrisy of the Bush Administration have been answered.

If one says dealing with racism, while there are certainly racists in the Tea Party (and every other party I might add), I challenge you to give any example where a poilcy that could be considered racist was supported simply because it was racist. You will find none, but rather, a plethora of wasteful, ignorant and dangerous policies that undermined American law and order, or laid waste to our federal budget. It seems once again that the "unwashed masses" are more intelligent then our isolated, and steamed in a lost and perverted academia till no nutrition remained, vegetables of elites.

Rather, there is something far more fundamental, far bigger, and far more important at this moment in time that they must learn. If they do not learn it, they will fragment, and unlike a traditional party the Tea Party has no answer for such a fragmentation, all will be lost, and politics as normal will continue.

To understand what and why, let's step back for a minute and look at a great and foolish debate taking place in the tea party today: whether to increase taxes. It's easy enough to see why this debate would happen, and easy to deride the opposition to doing so. As a Texans put it, and what greater pleasure is there in life then hearing Texans speak, "do you honestly think not going to the mall and not using your credit card will pay off your debt?"It's easy enough to dismiss this crowd as toddlers, infants, those who were born yesterday.

Yet they have a very real intuitive fear, and one that is correct. For every dollar saved from the deficit by "Revenue Increases," there is just a little less pressure on congress to end our dangerous habits. Then there is a little more pressure to expand existing government entities and assets to facilitate new ends, possibly even ends with some merit, bringing us to precisely where we are now 4 years later, with less ability to borrow and, thanks to higher tax rates depreciating our economy, less ability to pay off. This is a very valid fear.

Why is it so hard to believe that one thing can be done at one instant and another at another? If you rearranged the lines in a movie, would they neccesarily make any sense? Or would the very point of the film be lost on its viewers?

Sometimes one must hold a gun to the head, must threaten and coerce, especially when one possesses only one house of congress, and has substantial detractors even among its own adopted party in the other. Sometimes one must also rearrange the scene to rearrange the decision. Politics is not a game for straight-talk or fairplay, especially not when dealing with other politicians, and exceptionally stubborn and heartless ones as we've found.

Politics is an art of timing and discretion. If the claim that increasing tax rates is indeed true, there will come a time for it, but that time is not now, especially since government can also raise revenue by selling government assets, such as public land with substantial mineral and oil reserves or quality soil for farming, and that dilapidating spending not only will help balance the deficit, but can alleviate the burden facing businesses with their excess of regulation and paperwork, a burden that currently equals $10,585 per employee for a small business, and close to $8,000 per employee for larger firms. The cost to our federal budget of regulation is $1.75 trillion, or more then the current budget deficit. This is a figure that comes from the Small Business Administration, a entity that the Obama administration has some ability to control and doctor with spinning.

Not only would selling these lands and relieving these costs to business reduce our deficit through spending cuts, but as Senator Marco Rubio recently pointed out, they would also unleash an economic torrent of growth likely far greater then the "10 day reprieve" the tax increases offer. As one can tell, things are not as they once seemed. The "balanced approach" folks really do not have the sense that the mind would conjure for them. We need to cut spending, and any attempt to raise revenue artificially will only slow such a process and damage the economy. Eventually, revenue will be raised - if we do it right, tax increases may not even be neccesary.

Take your turn, wait your time. It may seem hypocritical, but it's a fight we didn't start and we're in it. Know what to say and when, and realize who it empowers and who it humbles. Control your tongue, and let all the chips fall in place, for "there is a season and place for everything under the sun." (King Solomon, translated from book of Ecclesiastes). Don't let haste make waste, rather realize that politics is comedy, and your power is also a grave responsibility.


WORKERS OF THE WORLD, UNITE!

Mike Castle and how to win as a Republican in a rural Yankee state

Downtown Dover, Delaware, Photo by Tim Keiser, under license c.c.a.s.a 2.0 generic

His list of priorities, as listed on his website, are as follows: "Fighting for Delaware", "Jobs", "Energy Independence", "Good Governance", "Education", "Supporting Our Troops", and "Healthcare", in that order and stated in that fashion with bullet points, and lengthy, folksy, passionate discourses below. His opponents are not listed in any particular order, but instead can be selected from a drop down menu, and include "Economy", "Education", "Energy", "Environment", "Financial Reform", "Health Care", "National Security," and finally, "Offshore Oil Drilling", which last time I checked is not a major revenue source for the state of Delaware - stated profesionally, technically, scholastically, transactionally, and without any reference to the state he seeks to represent.

Now, to be fair, this is not displayed on a separate page, but directly on a menu on home, and if you click the "issues" button up top instead of viewing the drop down menu (which you will see first), it goes to a page with little boxes surrounding each issue and stereotypical pictures of what people would think of when they consider that issue, but in no picture is Delaware clearly seen, and your eyes go all over the page, and every time that the words "Delaware" or "Delawarean" are used, they are in small print, below the more important "Energy", "Economy" and "Education"s that are many times their size. The picture of Coons, gazing seriously with the eyes of a hawk, could just as easily be used in a newspaper advertisement for a law firm.

For some time now, Harry Reid has been asking local Democrat senators, such as Mary Landrieu (D-LA), Chris Dodd (D-CT) and Ben Nelson (D-NE), to forsake whatever their constituencies might want for the sake of passing progressive national legislation. When they ask about their own voters, he offers earmarks, and money, to essentially bribe whatever constituency he feels needs to be pulled along. [Source] He points to the use of Republican filibusters as a common enemy, and whips all of them together to march lock step lock step in favor of the agenda that the party as a whole has advanced. Coons mentions Delaware only as a part of the larger whole, like: "Delawareans, as well as the entire country, have felt the effects of the current economic climate." Ad libs off of that phrase could capture the entirety of both Coons', Reids and Pelosis platform.

Like Andrew Jackson before him with his decision to evict a peaceful and economically successful native people, the Cherokees, from the state of Georgia without Georgias consent, Coon sees not 50 individual states, but a larger agenda that he (hopefully) sees Delaware benefiting from, but never the main focus of. Castle has not once taken his eyes off of Delaware, and you can see his very website swelling with state pride.

A full profile of the election from the NY Times seems to show very little optimism on the part of democrats in Delaware, with the appointed replacement to Biden not seeking a full term, nor Bidens relatively popular Attorney General of a son, and RCP shows Castle ahead of Coons by double digits. Castle has been Delawares sole house member for 17 years, and is a moderate Republican used to routinely working with Democrats. More importantly, I suspect, is that he is a true Delawarean, while Coons is the executive of Delawares largest, northernmost and urbane county, essentially an extension of Philadelphia, with nothing in common with the remainder of the state, and no real care for it. The democrats, like Pelosi and like Coons, have lost themselves in the dream, and this will hurt them among rural northeastern townspeople, who clearly believe in representatives representing.

Ahn Cao (R - New Orleans)

Image Courtesy of the Office of Congressmen Ed Royce, public domain

There was exactly one Republican congressmen who voted in favor of Obama's healthcare bill. Ahn "Joseph" Cao of Downtown New Orleans, a district more liberal, on average, then Seattle, Washington - populated almost entirely by African Americans and hyper-urbanites who live in 500-square-foot lofts and go to parties all the time. The devil-may-care attitude of his hometown has led at once to a brilliant and sophisticated culture, utter extravagance and excess, and monstrous levels of poverty, crime, general sleaziness, and finally, corruption. He was elected as a pro-business, moderate, no-nonsense, relatively innocent and squeaky clean Vietnamese immigrant Republican against a Democrat who had been caught with 85 grand in his freezer.

His district probably has a lot of people without medical insurance. We know his district is generally very economically liberal, and so his conservative votes on the Stimulus and Cap-and-Trade likely had serious repercussions for him back home. His election was entirely the product of a two-party system and the lack of competition it creates. In short, something had to give.

I know a lot of conservatives are very angry at Mr. Cao, but they should realize that if he does not occasionally throw his constituents a bone - especially one that, from the special interests viewpoint alone, would be so delicious to them - he WILL lose this seat. If he keeps this seat, the GOP may have the opportunity to expand its presence not only in New Orleans, but in Inner City America in general, the kind of frontier expansion that Republicans have not really engaged in for a long, long time. May I remind you that we are not in the majority right now.

Beyond this, it may indeed have been a vote of conscience. Follow this link to see for yourselves. In particular, he used his bargaining power to arrange for an amendment, Stupak-Pitts, that will prevent federally funded plans from covering elective abortion, producing an effective abortion tax. Consider also that this fellow is VERY Vietnamese, and as such probably has a more collectivist view of life then is normal here in America. To him, denying some people medical freedom to protect the vitality of the whole probably (though I will emphasize probably, as I cannot see in to the mans head) does not seem quite so bad, and if he can get an anti-abortion amendment doing it, well that's just twice as good now isn't it?

So no, I do not believe Ahn Cao is a "traitor." Reagan himself said "you only have to vote with your party 80% of the time." I continue to follow his career with special and keen interest and to recognize the unique constraints on his power as a legislator as a result of his district. Like it or not, America is a democracy. Ahn Cao continues to provide a more clear and business friendly and hardwork oriented path for the people of New Orleans and to promote Conservative interests across America through his cooperation from a group of people (the inner-cities) that so far no other Republican has really reached out to. He voted with us on the Stimulus and the Cap-and-Trade, and this is a vote (Downtown New Orleans) we normally wouldn't have.

What is a conservative?

Note: We are working exclusively with the Anglo-American and Sino-Korean conservatives (they are nearly identical) and not the European or Islamic kinds, which may be very different. Likewise, we are working with Anglo-American liberals.

People tend to look at liberal and conservative as simple bullet points of policy. This makes no sense. It makes no sense because that is not the way people view the world. It takes the extremely cynical (and extremely wrong) view that people find a random set of issues to vote a certain way on and follow through with them, or that each group just watches the same news channels, but people look for the news channel that agrees with them.

Kathleen parker nailed it when she wrote this article: "Mars and Venus Collide." Liberals also nail it when they call themselves "progressives," Conservatives when they call themselves "strict constructionists." These are not lies, there is more truth to them then nearly anyone can know.

The difference between a liberal and a conservative is the difference between ideals and opposing goods. A liberal believes that there is a goal, a hope, a specific place that we should shift our entire society and everyone in it towards, while a conservative believes in a natural balance created by our competing desires, motivations, and intellects, opposing opposites, and leaves ideals for individuals. Your right-winger believes that if everything in society (including government) is in the proper place in which it fits, and those in power essentially keep their hands off, we will find tranquility, prosperity, and enlightenment (scientific progress) on a higher level then the liberals foolhardy extreme, and then the individuals can step forward with their own ideals, and shift themselves among the boxes as they please and their abillity allows them. Conservatives may still believe in ideals, but they are individual ideals, and NOT goals for society.

Now keep in mind that not everyone who is a Republican is a conservative, and that Democrat and liberal are not interchageable either, for the political parties truly are just policy points (as they would be, since they need to win elections and stay in a pack for power) and you would find in the Republican tent many libertarians, populists, moderates, Christian theocrats (who may be a different kind of liberal), et cetera. In the Democrat tent you would find labor unionists (who may be a different kind of conservative), anarchists, moderates, and environmentalists who may or may not be liberal.

Nough' Complaining, let's make a plan

I myself on this blog have been guilty often of complaining about what the liberals have proposed economically and not suggesting my own alternative. This is common, human, and an easy reaction to being in the minority, but if I want to be out of the minority we (that's means you) have to bring something to the table. And so, here it goes:

1. Advance Nuclear Energy - energy is critical to the functioning of any industrial economy. With Nuclear Power, we can build a cheap, carbon-free, easy to maintain energy grid that will not run out, if accompanied with reprocessing or breeder reactors, for hundreds of years. Best of all, we can get rid of our coal power while lowering the cost of energy. Critics will say that it is still nonrenewable. This is mostly true (although nuclear recycling by both methods has been achieved up to 90%), but it is also true that no power plant built in the US will last forever, and this power source is guaranteed to outlive the power plants that are built for it. Which is more long-term, a nuclear plant that will remain in service for 100 years or a wind/solar plant that must be rebuilt every 20? Yes, thinking is involved.

2. Proposed TARP III Requirement - "any bank that accepts TARP III money must lend it's offices, facillities and other resources to corporations with large cash reserves that wish to do their own banking..." so Microsoft and other cash-rich businesses can invest their huge cash holdings in growth industries without the capital overhead of a bank. Basically, we're giving AIG and Citigroup to Bill Gates, and could you find a better steward?

3. Place Limitations on Zoning - Large swaths of strategic lands were placed off limits to non-residential development to protect land-values. Although I can understand protecting natural lands for all to visit, I cannot understand using the destruction of industry to profit small numbers of residential home-owners. This kind of behavior is part of what spurred our subprime crisis, as we were effectively subsidizing the real estate industry, and as the real estate industry grew unnaturally in size, it also grew in influence, eventually conquering the state of California's jobs market, and it used that influence for evil. Always be suspicious of an industry that doesn't make anything. (Of course, that's not all it did; it also drove up the land costs of factories to the point where many industries, like metallurgical industries, that are capital intensive and thus natural for America to have, were instead driven to Taiwan, which doesn't have cheap labor but does have many of the same intellectual property, consumer market, and infrastructure advantages as America.)

4. Consumer protections - Institute more rigorous antiusury laws that cap interest rates and remove loopholes. Also institute laws protecting American goods against mercury content and other such fun stuff; won't help the stock market, but what good is prosperity if what you're buying is crap. I have no problem with banks and other corporations making scandalously large profits provided no one gets ripped off.

5. Transportation & Water - If any more stimuli are drafted, make sure they focus on transportation (both road and rail) and water. Investments in such will both increase demands for goods and increase future forecasts through their "stage two" benefits to the supply-side. Also rush construction, so that the money is spent now. Instead, we've taken a philosophy, publicly, of mindless, unneccesary, and heavilly corrupt (cough cough General Motors) spending = good, thus proving that the people who drafted our economic policy are either horrifyingly cruel sadists or have the same mental age as a toddler. I'll guess the first.

With this economic plan, I believe our present situtation, and future, can be addressed. Comments are welcome.

Good Redneck Parents Movie List

You know, whether it's my own post on "Redneck America" or the country classic "What the World needs now is a few more rednecks," or any other piece protesting the deredneckification of America, I've come to realize, it's really very silly. See, we just sit around complaining about something that is happening around us, maybe earning a little coin on the side, and we aren't doing anything about it. So, enough talk, let's talk about how you raise em' right.

This list of motion pictures, complete with accessory of popcorn, is perfect for redneckifying your little ones (these films being quality, the moonshine is strictly optional):

- "Second Hand Lions" (McCanlies, 2003)
- "Serenity" (Whedon, 2005)
- "The Lady Vanishes" (Hitchcock, 1938)
- "The Quiet Man" (Ford, 1952)
- "The Longest Day" (Annakin, 1962)
- "Gettysburg" (Maxwell, 1993)
- "Gods and Generals" (Maxwell, 2003, Prequel to Gettysburg)
- "How the West was Won" (Ford et al., 1962)
- "Sweet Home Alabama" (Tennant, 2002)
- "High Noon" (Zinneman, 1952)
- "Death to Smoochy" (DeVito, 2002)
- "Deliverance" (Boorman, 1972)
- "Tora! Tora! Tora!" (Masuda, Fukasaku, Fleischer, 1970)
- "Troop Beverly Hills" (Kanew, 1989)
- "October Sky" (Johnston, 1999)
- "We are Marshall" (McG, 2006)
- "Smoke Signals" (Eyre, 1998)

These you may wish to show when they're a little older:

- "Rocky Horror Picture Show" (Sharman, 1975)
- "The Patriot" (Emmerich, 2000)
- "The Birds" (Hitchcock, 1963)
- "Brokeback Mountain" (Lee, 2005)
- "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" (Forman, 1975)
- "A Clockwork Orange" (Kubrick, 1971)
- "Dr. Strangelove" (Kubrick, 1964)

If anyone else has any suggestions, say them.