Politics, Government & Public Policy: January 2005 Archives
Xrlq vindicates my April, 2003, prediction that John Kerry's election defeat would be hailed as a victory due to "beating the spead".
I believe that 9/11 was the central deciding issue in this race. And the tape – we were rising in the polls up until the last day when the tape appeared. We flat-lined the day the tape appeared and went down on Monday. I think it had an impact. But 9/11, you know, it’s a very difficult hurdle when a country is at war. I applauded the president’s leadership in the days immediately afterwards. I thought he did a good job in that, and he obviously connected to the American people in those immediate days. When a country is at war and in the wake of 9/11, it’s very difficult to shift horses in midstream. I think it’s remarkable we came as close as we did as a campaign. Many Republicans say we beat their models by four or five points as to what they thought we could achieve.
Actually though, he didn't beat the spread I got on Tradesports -- I ended up quadrupling my money by betting against him on election day.
Wretchard has an excellent post on how the Democratic party, even while desperately struggling to regain its footing after a decade of devestating defeats, refuses to consider the unthinkable.
In a memorandum distributed by the New Democractic Network, Rosenberg summarized what he thought to be the salient components of the conservative revolution. The Democratic Party had in its way, suffered a private and political 9/11 -- an asymmetrical assault from the right -- due Rosenberg believed, to four reasons.1. The Republican/conservative alliance has built a superior information-age political machine.
2. As an intellectually-based movement born when the Republicans were a true minority Party, their infrastructure is built on a foundation on the need to persuade.
3. 9/11 gave the Republicans an opening that they have adroitly exploited.
4. Bush’s brand of conservatism has had a particularly big impact in the South.
5. The new Republican momentum with Hispanics is a grave threat.From a superficial point of view, Rosenberg's analysis fits all the facts he cares to acknowledge. But it begs the question of whether conservative ideas have succeeded, at least in part, because they were more consonant with reality than the 'progressive' ideas of the Left. It is not my intention to prove the superiority of one ideology over the other; simply to point out that the very possibility is excluded from Rosenberg's analysis; and by excluding the possibility that Conservative ascendance might be due to a careful selection of 'correct' positions into their portfolio, the NDN is really assuming what must be proved.
The Democrats refuse to acknowledge that they may be faltering simply because their positions do not resonate with reality. The 20th century was dominated by leftist experiments, all of which were miserable failures. If Democrats are crass power-seekers, they'd do well to recognize this sea-change -- and if they genuinely want to help humanity, doubly so.
President Bush ran in 2000 as "a uniter, not a divider" and I think the 2004 election proves that he was successful. If you watch the news you'll see a huge number of people who seem to hate his guts and think he's evil and malignant, but I don't think they refute George W. Bush's ability to unite us as a country.
Sure, we're more polarized than ever, and many Democrats think President Bush is the worst thing since Hitler, but the thing to realize is that President Bush is reducing the number of Democrats. He received nine million more votes in 2004 than he did in 2000, and many of those people were Gore voters who decided to switch sides. Our parties may be more polarized than ever, but because of President Bush more Americans are uniting under the Republican banner than ever before.
Congressional Democrats are clamoring for Bush to pay attention to them and negotiate, but why should he? He doesn't have to be "bipartisan" and unite the parties in order to unite the country. He's uniting the country by enticing people away from the opposition and onto his side. Rather than making peace with his opponents, he's turning opponents into friends. That's what real unity is, and he's being more successful than any president I can think of.
His job is made easier every time a Democrat opens his mouth to say something stupid and mean-spirited. If the Democrats care about their party and want to play it smart they should concentrate on reducing attrition rather than stirring up the faithful. However, any Democrat who really wants to play it smart and influence the next 20 years of American policy should be switching to the Republican party ASAP.
Liberals are fond of catch-phrases and bumper sticker widsom, so DeoDuce proposes a few new liberal bracelet slogans for our leftist compatriots.
Thanks a lot, Barbara Boxer, for wasting my money holding pointless, symbolic debates about non-existent election fraud.
In a drama that was historic if not suspenseful, Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones (news, bio, voting record), D-Ohio, and Sen. Barbara Boxer (news, bio, voting record), D-Calif., formally protested that the Ohio votes "were not, under all known circumstances, regularly given." That, by law, required the House and Senate to convene separately and debate the Ohio irregularities.Boxer, Tubbs Jones and several other Democrats, including many black lawmakers, hoped the showdown would underscore the problems such as missing voting machines and unusually long lines that plagued some Ohio districts, many in minority neighborhoods, on Nov. 2.
Blah blah blah. Is it any wonder that most people think politics is a joke? Vote or die! They're big on nonsense symbolism, and small on useful action.
Democratic leaders distanced themselves from the effort, which many in the party worried would make them look like sore losers. Bush won Ohio by 118,000 votes and carried the national contest by 3.3 million votes, and Kerry himself — meeting with troops in the Middle East — did not support the challenge.
So it was pointless because the results weren't going to be overturned by a majority Republican Congress, and it was even more pointless because the symbolism was anorexic.
Supporters of the challenge repeatedly said they had no desire to overturn the election. Many who spoke in favor of the protest even voted against it in hopes of clarifying what they said was the real issue — the need to make the country's voting systems fairer and to prevent fraud.
Meanwhile, how's the national debt doing? How's Social Security reform going? How's the debate on the President's judicial nominees? How's the investigation of the UN? Isn't there anything substantial that our legislators can spend their time doing, rather than forcing debates on issues that even proponents won't vote for?
Lianne Hart writes about the proposed Trans-Texas Corridor, and it sounds pretty awesome.
HOUSTON — Do not mistake the Trans-Texas Corridor for a mere superhighway.• Latimes.com home page
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As imagined by Texas Gov. Rick Perry, the $175-billion project will be a transportation behemoth of mind-boggling proportions: 4,000 miles of mostly toll lanes perhaps a quarter-mile wide, capable of carrying cars, trucks, and high-speed freight and commuter trains.
There would be room underground for oil, water, electric and gas pipelines, and the whole works would be built largely with private money.
I've got concerns about the state using eminent domain to buy private land on the cheap to then lease to commercial interests along the corridor. Since everything is being built with private money -- in theory -- why not let the private corporations buy land at the going rate? Still though, as long as the prices paid are better than fair, I don't have a real problem with the proposal as it's described.
One of the key ideas appears to be that the corridors will bypass major urban areas, and allow city-bound traffic to use existing intersecting highways to reach their destinations. I can envision a whole network of corridors spanning the country, even the hemisphere, and it's great to see Texas advancing this type of super project.
Of course the environmentalists won't like it because they want us all to ride trains and bicycles, but whatever. Building all that new infrastructure could provide a good excuse for introducing hydrogen refueling stations and vast expanses of solar cells.
John Fund has a fascinating profile of outgoing Illinois Senator Peter Fitzgerald, who he hails as a "brave crusade[r] against political cronyism".
The U.S. Senate would not function with 100 members such as Peter Fitzgerald, who is both self-righteous and a political loner. But it needs some members like him and Wisconsin Democrat Russ Feingold, another senator who sometimes bucks conventional political wisdom.Mr. Fitzgerald came to Washington determined to do what he could to clean up what the Chicago Tribune calls "the chronic corruption that stains [Illinois] with the image of a Louisiana, a New Jersey." His chief nemesis was fellow Republican George Ryan, a 64-year-old career pol who was elected governor in 1998, the same year Mr. Fitzgerald defeated Sen. Carol Moseley Braun, an ethically challenged Democrat. Mr. Fitzgerald said during his campaign that the "great divide" in our government is not partisan but "between those political insiders who use high taxes to support their lifestyles and the rest of us."
Asked who the insiders were, he bluntly replied: "They're the Republicrats--the power brokers in both parties who through clout, connections and consulting contracts manipulate our system for personal gain. They have no ideology, yet they are the ruling elites of our time. They are fleecing you, the taxpayer."
He sounds like a good guy, and this should serve as an encouragement to those of us who often fear that our government consists entirely of social vampires.
