November 5, 2008
Well, that didn't quite turn out as well as I had hoped
Congratulations to President-Elect Obama. He ran a superb campaign and won fair and square. Next January, he will certainly be "my President." He has surrounded himself with some pretty smart people and I hope that most of his campaign promises get thrown in the overheated rhetoric pile. A Treasury Secretary Summers and OMB chief Goolsbee would likely temper his "redistributionist" instincts.
AlexC might be right. The GOP might make Governor Palin the sacrificial lamb but I certainly hope they don't. Every GOP blowhard of the last three decades will now claim "if they had only listened to me..."
In truth, I think we (Republicans, kimosabe) are reaping what we sowed in the 108th-109th Congresses and enabled by the second Bush term. If you want corrupt, inefficient and bloated government, turn to the pros. The GOP should make a convincing case that less government is better. But they can't do that with Tom Delay, Dennis Hastert, Ted Stevens, Don Young and Jerry Lewis lining their pockets with largess. It's a cliche that "the brand is damaged" but you have to admit it has verisimilitude.
My predictions sucked and my hope was misplaced but I am claiming vindication on my discounting of the Libertarian Party and my suggestion that those who crave liberty find a more efficacious forum for their ideas. The "Star Trek Convention of Politics" recruited a well known candidate and benefitted from both a disgruntled and disillusioned GOP and residual interest from the Ron Paul campaign. With these head-starts, they made new, unprecedented surges into irrelevance. Turn out the lights when you're done boys.
We'll be okay. Rest up folks and remember that you love your country more than your party. Maybe, if we become France, we'll get some of that good cheese and chocolate. Not sure how it works, but that subsidized, protected stuff is really good.
It wasn't enough to promise everything to a majority that would vote for him. It wasn't enough for him to lie about things like clean coal (supporting it in Ohio but opposing it in San Francisco). He still needed massive voter fraud via ACORN and "grassroots" help.
"Fair and square," all right...in the finest Chicago tradition.
Posted by: Perry Eidelbus at November 5, 2008 11:23 AMOh, and if we do have to become France, remember that it comes at the price of 15,000 elderly dying in a heat wave, Muslims torching cars in the major cities because one goddamn raghead was stupid enough to get himself electrocuted, and winemakers attacking government offices with dynamite.
French chocolate is overrated, anyway. Swiss is the best.
French wine is also overrated, except for first growths. Below that, go for Australian reds and New Zealand whites.
Posted by: Perry Eidelbus at November 5, 2008 11:26 AMNo doubt there was fraud, but I think it is in the noise range of a six point popular vote and 2-1 electoral vote win.
Posted by: jk at November 5, 2008 11:26 AMI'm not saying it was the sole reason, but as I'll say to latte sipper below, he still needed it to carry him over in battleground states. Michelle Malkin has been all over the ACORN racket, which should be prosecuted under RICO laws while there's still time. An Obama Justice Department will turn a blind eye to it all.
Oh and of course, American blacks' racism to vote for him just because he shares their skin tone.
Posted by: Perry Eidelbus at November 5, 2008 11:29 AMI'd love a RICO suit against ACORN and I do not mean to dismiss the problem of voter fraud. The engineer in me thinks there is a good technical solution but my inner political hack realizes that the beneficiaries, currently in power, will be hard pressed to enact any meaningful reform.
I had a French programmer working for me several years ago. He brought me a piece of French chocolate that I have ne'er forgot, I'm not a chocolate guy, but this was to chocolate what the finest espresso is to diner coffee. I'll confess that French wine doesn't grab me unless I am drinking the stuff that I can't afford. I'm a South African Shiraz guy.
Posted by: jk at November 5, 2008 12:03 PMJK: I have enormous amount of respect for McCain for the gracious concession speech he delivered yesterday. AND I respect you for your gracious comments.
I expect that a President Obama will indeed move more to the center. He has to keep the house majority in 2 years afterall.
Posted by: The Heretic at November 5, 2008 12:06 PMI forgot the but:
But you cannot claim that voter fraud (or black racism) delivered this election to Obama. I'll stand by my "fair and square" phrase. He picked and exploited his opportunities. I'll grumble for years about "Bush == McCain" and how easy the media went on both Obama and Biden.
But they played their hand to victory and I will not say "elections matter" when my guy is living at 1600 Penn, and "they stole it" when their guy is.
Posted by: jk at November 5, 2008 12:12 PMMore votes in this election were "stolen" by the media establishment than by ACORN, the Daly machine and the Black Panthers combined.
The blatant favoritism, revisionism and absence of objectivity in "news" coverage of Senator Obama's entire career is too shameful to describe in a few sentences. That entire industry requires reform as much or more than does our two-party political system.
Posted by: johngalt at November 5, 2008 1:15 PMOnce more, I'm not saying voter fraud is the sole reason, but it's an undeniable factor. ACORN wouldn't have pushed so hard if they felt Obama could win via the Santa Claus platform.
And the fraud was facilitated by the MSM turning a blind eye to it, or "dismissing" it as a few rogue operatives among otherwise law-abiding ACORN operatives. We'll never know, just like we'll never know the full extent of Chicago voter fraud helping tilt the 1960 election to Kennedy. Were they the decisive factor? Can't say. To repeat my comment in the other thread, that's the sinister beauty of it.
Posted by: Perry Eidelbus at November 5, 2008 5:00 PMHeretic,
I hope to heck you are right about a President Obama moving to the, "center." BUT, with Democrats in control of all of congress, that seems VERY unlikely to me. They believe, with a religious fervor, and despite all the evidence of history, that socialism is the solution to the country's problems. I think they will push it as far as they can go, all with the best of intentions. I'd like to be wrong.
Posted by: dagny at November 6, 2008 9:46 AMdagny, we're going to see very soon that the "conservative Democrat," the so-called Blue Dog, is a mythical creature. Mythical like, say, the "chupacabra." Except that Democrats by definition ARE real-life bloodsuckers.
"Conservative Democrats" only pretended to be so, in order to win more conservative districts/states. Now they won't have to camouflage their true colors. Their party has the White House with solid control of Congress, a strong position they haven't seen since 1976. On top of that, the American people have been softened up over the last 16 years to the idea that government should and can take of them. We're going to see an attempt to expand the welfare state that's greater than GWB, Nixon and LBJ ever did.
Posted by: Perry Eidelbus at November 6, 2008 12:00 PM | What do you think? [11]