Tuesday, December 29, 2009

The Democrats' 'Recovery'

Can't help but get a little chuckle from Democratic 'sympathist' Steve Rosenthal's prescription for Democratic 'recovery' before their imminent 2010 electoral disaster. Read it here:

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1209/31035.html

My take on his 'suggestions':

  • Stop whining. We agree right off the top. Any political party heard to be in full whine will largely be ignored. We all want to believe our own whines are more important than anyone else's. Thus, if the Democrats whine that we just don't understand all the wonderful things they intend for us with their higher taxes, health-care overhaul, energy-use deterrents, and apparent disdain for our intelligence, understand that we just don't want to hear it! We're too busy trying to make ends meet!
  • Remember how big you won in 2008. Sorry, Steve, there's just no way to make this one play for you. Democrats -- and President Obama, in particular -- won in 2008 by lying to us! You downplayed the left-tilted agenda you had planned, pretended to be moderates, and sold us down the river once you were invested in power. If you think now 'owning' all those intrusive, government mandates is going to provide enough lipstick to cover that pig slop, you just go right ahead and make the 25% of the electorate who are true believers in the Social Democrat experiment your "permanent majority"! You might want to refigure your math, though.
  • Don't be spooked by 2009... Instead, get organized in Congress and on the ground to move the Obama change agenda. What the voters said in the 2009 elections is that it's not about Obama or Congress; it's not about Democrats or Republicans. It is about us: real people with real problems that we want addressed. The frustration voiced by independents and Obama surge voters in 2009 should be of real concern. These voters are still looking for change to happen and will keep voting for change — regardless of party — or not voting at all, until something real happens. In the 2008 election, what mattered most to voters was the candidate's ability to "bring change," and the 34 percent of voters who cited this quality in exit polls nationally voted 89 percent for Obama...Listening to these "change" voters (or as a Republican acquaintance of mine calls them, "fix it" voters), it is clear they are frustrated, stressed and just want things in the country to get back on track. They are not interested in political expediency. Independents, Democratic base voters and the Obama surge voters want action, and they want the change they voted for in 2008. They want to see real leadership, not legislative gridlock. They don't want their elected officials to go back to the days of legislating "small things" (school uniforms come to mind). To win them back — to engage them at all in 2010 — Democrats need to pass real health care reform, then move aggressively on a jobs, jobs, jobs (it cannot be said enough) program with strong workers' rights. Do as candidate Obama said: Put people to work immediately to fix our schools, rebuild our transportation infrastructure and invest in green technology, energy efficiency and create more green jobs. Oh, please, please, PLEASE, do all of this! I quoted this almost in its entirety because it is so evidentiary of all the mis-interpretations Democrats make about their 'mandate'. Going back to my last point about the 25% or so of hard-Left voters who will support Obama and the Democrats in any case because Republicans/Conservatives are evil, ignorant, racist, misogynist, misanthropic cave-dwellers -- well, you're going to tickle them to death if you do all the things (if you can even manage to define them recognizably) recommended above.  But, I find it truly astonishing that leading Democrats apparently don't understand that they will, by doing so, alienate to some degree virtually every one of the remaining 75% of the hunter-gatherer/provider (for families and employees) types residing in their ignorant appreciation of the abundance of the past 200+ years of American self-reliance, capitalism, and personal freedom. To paraphrase a famous insouciance: We don't need no stinkin' mandates!
  • Put Obama on the ballot in 2010 for African-Americans, Hispanics, single women and young voters. The Democratic base is not energized...Which Obama? The inscrutable one a majority of mostly liberal and independent-moderate votes elected a year ago because they thought his actions would echo his promises and words, or the one who has attempted to govern according to his statist sympathies? If it's the former -- well, you just spent several hundred words explaining why this is a non-starter with your 25% base. If you're expecting the latter -- good luck with that! If we have a do-over of the 2008 race, it'll be a LOT harder to fool a majority of voters into believing Obama's Democratic Party is anything but the left-most majority this country has ever elected. I don't think we'd do it again.
  • Build it, and they will come. Organization is critical in midterm elections. The party with the superior infrastructure to persuade and turn out voters will win. Yep. And motivation is the foundation upon which organization is built. You might respect and accept the likes of MoveOn.org, and ACORN, as partners in participation, but the general public has, shall we say, moved on. Those groups have already motivated everyone they're likely to motivate. The rest of us just don't trust them to put anyone but themselves first. Hasn't happened yet, anyway! As for labor, well...it's not for nothin' that the major, national unions have seen growth only in the public sector. Union bosses and organizations have become little more than another level of bureaucracy to most of their subjects -- I mean, workers. Thus the affinity between statist government and union leadership: they represent pretty much the same structure, and pursue pretty much the same goals -- namely, more power for themselves. If you think the Obama Administration's abrogation of long-standing bankruptcy laws in order to invest General Motors and Chrysler went over popularly, you probably don't realize we all understand this was a sop to labor unions. Well, you're wrong, we do -- and few of us like a bully, especially one so fearsome as intimidates with the power of government behind it. Think of our votes as pebbles, and the ballot box as a slingshot, aimed smack at Goliath! If Democrats truly believe this is their moment to remake America, they are unknowingly past their high tide -- because there is nowhere near a solid majority of us who believe in our hearts that we've lived all these years in an America that requires remaking.



An Epic Fail

As relieved as we all are that Friday's Christmas-Day bomber destroyed nothing but his underwear and, perhaps, his reproductive capacity, we all (that includes you, President Obama!) need to realize that Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab's terrorist failings are no consolation for the fact that had he been competent at his chosen craft, nearly 300 passengers -- most of them Americans -- on Flight 253 would be dead at this moment. Irrevocably, permanently dead! As with Richard Reid before him, we got lucky!

But, to make matters worse, Matullab's presence of that flight turns out to be not just the result of neglect and 'lost-in-the-shuffle' bureaucracy, but human failure of operatives who knew about him, had consciousness of his threat, and responsibility to deter it, and STILL failed to act:

http://www.nationalreview.com/onthenews/?q=MjVhZTE3ZWUwOTVkYzFhZWE1NGQzZjZiZDE4OTE0Yjc=

Credit the president with acknowledging the "systemic failure" of the CIA and other intelligence agencies' futility in interdicting this known, would-be assassin before he could directly threaten his chosen targets, Americans. The only acceptable response is the termination of employment of whomever had ultimate responsibility to assure that names, faces, passports and manifests align -- right up to Director of Intelligence Dennis Blair and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano.

Remember when the media and political opposition held President Bush's feet to the fire following his "Brownie, you're doing a heckuva job!" statement to FEMA director Michael Brown's response to Hurricane Katrina? The backlash was so severe President Bush's approval rating never recovered. But that, at least, was a natural disaster, not of the "man-made disaster" ilk named by Secretary "Big Sis".  The current Democratic president and Congress would have us believe there's no problem we can't fix if we just pass the right law or redirect the proper resources. In other words, they promise that any man-made situation can be perfected.

Under those circumstances, they should fully expect a failure to take responsibility for and solve 'man-made disasters' such as this potential one a perfect storm much more consequential than Katrina.