A Majority of Americans Say That Obama is No Better Than Bush

I can't deny I've been waiting for this day for over three years and I can't deny that I feel just a little bit of vindication. (I'm restraining myself. Gloating is not good.) Three years ago, when the whole world was swooning over "The One" and "Hope and Change" and breathlessly waiting for the oceans to stop rising on Inauguration Day, I was pointing out that Obama is the most left-wing Democratic nominee for president in history and a man who is so owned by the abortion industry that he supports child murder in the form of partial birth abortion. I hoped he would fail because he does not represent the views of the majority of the American people, but for a time he looked invincible.

But now, according to the New York Post, a USA Today/Gallop Poll just released shows that, for the first time, less than half the American population thinks that Obama is a better president than George W. Bush. The article says:

More than half of those surveyed in a new poll - 56% - say that President Obama has been worse in the White House, or just about the same, as George W. Bush.

A result, from a USA Today/Gallup poll out Friday, could not have gone over well with Obama's political strategists.

"The fact that less than half of Americans say Obama has been a better president than Bush, given the low regard Americans have for the Bush presidency, poses a clear challenge for Obama," Gallup's website declared in a breakdown of the poll, which surveyed 1,004 Americans, living in all 50 states, from Sept. 15-18.

Ouch - that has got to hurt! In media and elite circles, George W. Bush has the reputation that Mahmoud Ahmadinegad actually deserves. And yet most Americans now think Obama is either worse or no better.

Obviously, the "bitter clingers" have a lot of friends who are coming round to their way of thinking. Support for Obama among Independents is eroding quickly. Every time an Obama supporter tries to demonize the Tea Party, more voters move away from the Democrats because demonizing the views of the majority is a sure path to electoral defeat.

Obama's approval ratings have tanked over the summer and got no bounce whatsoever from his campaign speech on jobs delivered to a joint session of Congress. The Real Clear Politics average of approval ratings poll today is 43.3% approval and 51.1% disapproval (a negative 7.8%).

According to another recent poll, 52% of Americans expect Obama to lose the 2012 election and already 49% say they will definitely vote against him - an unusually high number. Only 36% say they definitely plan to vote for him.

It will still be a long and difficult campaign. Obama will have a billion dollars from public sector unions and his high-rolling Hollywood and Wall Street friends and a lot of it will be spent on vicious attack ads, ad hominum attacks on the Republican candidate and the distortion of the truth. And the liberal media bias in the US is probably worth another billion to the Obama campaign. There will be union thugs trying to intimidate voters, constant class warfare and the desperate playing of the race card over and over.

By November 2012 America will be exhausted, discouraged and depressed. The economy will be no better and the most divisive president in US history will have just finished waging the most divisive campaign in US history. The nation will be bruised and battered, but, I predict, not browbeaten by fear and negativity into re-electing Barack Obama. America, I believe, is not quite ready to go quietly into that dark night just yet. There is hope in change.

This is Very Telling

Rick Perry has surged to the lead in the Republican race for the presidential nomination. Polls have not just moved; they have absolutely turned upside down in just two weeks. Romney always was a very weak frontrunner and to see him slipping is no great surprise. But still, the speed by which Perry has moved to the top is startling.

Obama's numbers, on the other hand, are in free fall. His campaign team must be about ready to panic. Recent polls in Pennsylvania and Florida and the success of the Republicans in Wisconson bode well for the Republicans in 2012. The decision of Russ Feingold not to run for Senate or Governor in 2012 is a sign of Democrats with common sense hunkering down and waiting out the Obama disaster.

David Brooks, who used to be a conservative but now is a progressive, is enamored with Obama and would like nothing better than to see him re-elected. Failing that, he would like to see the least conservative Republican possible nominated. Since Huntsman is going nowhere, that means Romney. So what is his advice to Romney on how to beat Perry? Notice both the advice itself and Brooks' assessment of the situation, as summarized by Jeff Poor of the Daily Caller:

In an appearance on Friday’s “NewsHour” on PBS, New York Times columnist David Brooks explained that Romney will have to “do something aggressive” to remain formidable.

“He has only been in the race a couple of weeks but the polls moved to a degree that is almost unprecedented. He has catapulted and catapulted along all wings of the party. He is the guy they were waiting for — somebody who has a harder edge. Somebody who has very strong conservative credentials but who has been elected, run a major state, and I think Mitt Romney has to be thinking ‘I’m an outsider now. I’m behind and I have to do something aggressive to try to get back.’”

Brooks seems to think that Perry is not just a Tea Party conservative like Bachmann and that he is gaining support from throughout the party. This makes him dangerous. The last real conservative to do that was Reagan.

So how is Romney going to win?

And times have changed, Brooks says. Had this been the 2008 cycle, a candidate like Romney might stand a chance with an electorate that nominated a moderate like Sen. John McCain.

“But, if this was 2008 with the 2008 electorate, Romney would win because there are a fair number of moderates who voted — about 40 percent of the people in the Republican primary were moderates in 2008. But the 2012 electorate is not the same as 2008. It is much more conservative, it’s much angrier. Rick Perry sort of fits the mold. So I think he’s real. I think he has to be considered the frontrunner.”

However, later in the segment, Brooks explained it would take a different strategy for Romney to beat Perry at this point in the game.

“Yeah, I — we’ll see,” Brooks said. “It’s very tough to do. But I more or less agree with Mark [Shields],” he said. “I would give Perry a couple debates to implode. Give him a chance, couple weeks. There are three debates next month. If he doesn’t implode then then you have to go after him. But you can’t try to pretend you are as conservative as he is. If Mitt Romney does that — it’s disastrous. It’s artificial. It won’t work. You can’t really attack him for being conservative the way [Jon] Huntsman has tried to do because that is where the party is.”

What would that take? Brooks said it would take something scandalous involving Perry’s campaign funds — which Brooks said wasn’t necessarily a far-fetched possibility.

“That is where the party is, so you don’t want to offend them,” he continued. “Somehow you have to shift things. And I think the most fruitful lines of attack are to say, ‘This guy is Tom Delay,’ which is to say he uses campaign money in funny ways to – not for principled reasons but for political reasons, to feather his own nest and his buddies. And I do think he’s vulnerable on that. And the second thing is you have to remind people what are we fighting about here? We’re fight being America’s role in the world. It’s not Washington we have to fundamentally worry about. It’s competition there China and India and the new global economy. He’s got more credibility talking about how to create an innovation economy than Perry does. He has less credibility in fighting Washington.”

So the essence of the strategy to stop Perry is to ignore the issues and to ignore the will of the party and to try to make Perry seem corrupt.

This is very telling because it means that Brooks has analyzed the situation and concluded that Perry is the candidate the party really wants and one who can win in 2012. Since Brooks (like progressives in general) want something the Republican Party and voters in general don't want, the only way to get what they want is to frustrate the democratic process by creating a false impression about Perry's honesty thus eliminating him as a viable candidate.

This is a long way from an honest election in which the issues are on the table, the candidates take positions and the electorate chooses based on the issues. Brooks does not say that Perry is any different from any other politician. Goodness knows Obama has been handing out goodies to his base ever since he got elected. Unions and Wall Street never had it so good. But what Brooks is suggesting is that the cultural elites who supposedly know better than ordinary Americans what is best for them should essentially manipulate the election so as to cause the result they want against the will of the people.

As the 2012 campaign progresses, it would be good to keep in mind this unwitting confession from a moderate progressive of what is really going on. Amidst the fog of (electoral) war it is difficult to separate truth from fiction. Conservatives should be prepared for a lot of manipulation and not expect a fair fight. Something tells me that Rick Perry just might be the exact kind of candidate conservatives need at this point in history. At least, David Brooks is doing a good job of convincing me that that is, indeed, the case.

Do You "Believe" in Science?

Well, I don't. I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth. I believe in God the Son. I believe in the Holy Ghost. I believe in the holy catholic Church.

But science? Heck, no - asking someone to believe in science is like asking someone to believe in the existence of the United States. It is a fact, an empirically observable fact. Believe in it? Heck, I've been there! No need to believe in it; it just is a scientific fact. To demand "belief" in science is a category mistake.

So why do some people go around in pairs knocking on doors handing out "Believe in science or be doomed forever" tracts? Beats me, but it happened the other day in New Hampshire to Rick Perry. Here he was minding his own business campaigning for president of the United States when one of these secularist fanatics ambushed him using her child as a prop. (See video from ABC News here.)

Eric Kleefeld summarizes what happened:

Rick Perry is sure about a lot of things. But the theory of evolution, or even how old the planet Earth is, are not on that list.

A woman who will probably not be supporting the Texas governor brought her young son along to a campaign event in New Hampshire on Thursday, and had the boy ask Perry his views about science. "How old do you think the earth is?" the boy asked. This was an apparent allusion to how fundamentalist Christians often insist that Earth -- and indeed, the whole universe -- is about 6,000 years old.

"How old do I think the earth is? You know what, I don't have any idea," Perry responded. "I know it's pretty old. So it goes back a long, long ways. I'm not sure -- I'm not sure anybody actually knows completely and absolutely hold the earth is.

Perry then steered the conversation to some questions the boy's mother had been asking him, about evolution.

. . .

"Here your mom was asking about evolution. And you know, it's a theory that is out there -- it's got some gaps in it. In Texas we teach both creationism and evolution in our public schools. Because I figure--"

The mother cut back in: "Ask him why he doesn't believe in science."

Perry continued: "Because I figure you're smart enough to figure out which one is right."

Rick Perry, open-minded skeptic, meets "True Believer."

As Ben Smith at Politico points out, this was a trap. She hoped to get a quote out of Perry to make him look ridiculous to New England secular materialists. She is probably a Democratic Party supporter.

As Kevin Williamson points out, the questioner is not at all interested in science; the question is blatantly political and rooted in the issue of worldview.

The broader question, however, is: Why would anybody ask a politician about his views on a scientific question? Nobody ever asks what Sarah Palin thinks about dark matter, or what John Boehner thinks about quantum entanglement. (For that matter, I’ve never heard Keith Ellison pressed for his views on evolution.) There are lots of good reasons not to wonder what Rick Perry thinks about scientific questions, foremost amongst them that there are probably fewer than 10,000 people in the United States whose views on disputed questions regarding evolution are worth consulting, and they are not politicians; they are scientists. In reality, of course, the progressive types who want to know politicians’ views on evolution are not asking a scientific question; they are asking a religious and political question, demanding a profession of faith in a particular materialist-secularist worldview.

This is exactly right. The issue has to do with a materialist-secular worldview that claims to be based on science, but actually is not. It could not be based on science because science is limited to empirical questions of fact and cannot tell us answers to metaphysical or religious questions. The materialist-secular worldview gives answers to such questions, which is why it is something other than science.

There is a particular kind of voter (probably no more than 20% of the American electorate) for whom adherence to the materialist-secular worldview is all-important. These people have worked hard for a century to establish this new (actually as old as Epicureanism) religion as the de facto "State Religion" of America. In Europe their co-religionists have succeeded beyond their wildest dreams in establishing the materialist-secular religion as the official religion of Europe instead of Christianity. But America is proving to be a tougher nut to crack.

This kind of question is not about science and people who accept the validity of natural selection as an efficient cause of evolutionary diversity can be on both sides of the worldview question. What divides Christians from materialist-secularists is the question of whether the universe is fundamentally personal and intelligently designed by a God or not. For the materialist-secular worldview, the denial of a Creator is essential to its project of human liberation from natural law, morality, traditional marriage and the sanctity of human life, with its limitations on the freedom of individuals to do anything they want up to and including aborting their babies and euthanizing their parents.

If God exists, then evolution or no evolution, the materialist-secular worldview is a dangerous delusion. Since evolution is denied by many Christians, the secularists think that by demanding that everyone accept evolution as "scientific" they can bludgeon believers into giving up faith in God. Of course, they are making numerous logical mistakes here. Evolution could be an accurate scientific theory and could be guided by Divine Providence in such a way as to maintain the sovereignty of God. Or, alternatively, evolution could be a mistake and simply the only conclusion one can come to if one begins by rejecting the existence of God.

But the real issue is which religion, going forward, will influence public policy decision on abortion, the sexual revolution, same-sex marriage, euthanasia, capital punishment, just war, religious freedom etc.

Clearly, the secular-materialist establishment is spooked by Rick Perry. He represents a challenge to their hegemony and they hate him. It is going to be a long, hate-filled, dirty campaign precisely because there are two different worldviews on offer here. Unlike the recent UK elections where the choice was between secular socialist and even more secular socialist, this election is a choice between the Judeo-Christian religion that built Western civilization and the materialist-secular worldview that is tearing it apart.

As the materialist-secular experiment in Europe continues to implode, it behooves Americans to be extremely skeptical about the wild-eyed fanatics who want to misuse science as a crutch for their irrational, immoral, anti-humanistic political agenda. They want us to "believe in science" but I think I'll stick with believing in God the Father Almighty.

Will the Republicans Fall for This Old Trick Again?

Every presidential election cycle the same talking points are repeated by the Democratic propaganda machine, also known as the liberal media. Candidate X (the current Republican candidate) is so scary, stupid, radical and far right, unlike the moderate, reasonable, sensible, intellectual President Y (the last Republican president). Honestly, do they think everybody was born yesterday?

Toby Harnden writes in The Daily Telegraph:

In the past few days, Karl Rove, President George W. Bush’s long-time consigliere and an erstwhile hate figure on the Left, has been welcomed back into polite society. Democrats who previously thought the only place Rove should be was in jail have been murmuring approvingly about his wisdom and moderation.

At the same time, Left-wingers whose only debate about Bush over the past decade has been whether he was stupid, evil or a lethal combination of both, are suddenly recalling the former president’s “compassionate conservatism”. The Huffington Post’s Howard Finemann noted that he was better read and more thoughtful than previously given credit for and now seemed “like Pericles”.

The change of heart has been prompted by the appearance on the national scene of Governor Rick Perry.

Pericles?! Better read?! Come on now Finemann, you sound like you have been hitting the bottle rather hard. Karl Rove is moderate? Who says so? Progressives? Really? Who knew?

I find it amazing to see how utterly shameless these liberal media types are in contradicting themselves for the sake of whatever short term tactical advantage they think they can gain. It really is off-putting and has utterly destroyed whatever credibility they may have had left.

The moral of this story is: "Take how conservative a given candidate is (i.e. far-right, extreme, blah, blah, blah) and discount it by about 150% to get some idea of how conservative a Bachmann or a Perry actually is."

Goldwater was demonized. Reagan was demonized. Bush was demonized. None of them were especially "far-right" or "extreme." All had mainstream, if not majority support within the American political spectrum. It is fine to say that you hate moderately right-wing conservatism and prefer Jacobism or Communism or Social Democracy or Progressivism or Maoism or whatever your poison is. But it is laughable to breathlessly claim that people like Reagan are outside the boundaries of what is acceptable in American political discourse. (It is also laughable - no, pathetic - to see Barack Obama trying to insinuate that he is Reaganesque. Just imagine Reagan dealing with the Iranian fanatics over nuking Israel!)

My advice to Independents and Moderates is to look at whoever the Progressives seem to hate the most and assume that person is the one they fear the most in a general election. They don't fear Bachmann because they think they can "Palinize" her and they don't fear Romney because they think they can discredit him with the Republican base. They are talking right now about how badly Perry would fare well in a general election and it is not because they are trying to be helpful to the Republican Party.

This is the year that the extremism of the Democratic Party and the attempted lurch to the left under Obama, Reid and Pelosi opens the door for the Republican Party to nominate a winning candidate who is a much more consistent and principled conservative than at any time since Reagan. The Republican Party can win 2012 with a more conservative candidate than is usually the case. They could nominate somebody who might actually cut federal spending, not just the rate of spending growth. This is their chance. The Democrats' over-reach has opened to door to Republicans possibly beginning the historic task of beginning to roll back the welfare state.

They should not fall for this old trick this time. The conservative base is big enough and the progressive base is dispirited enough for the Republicans to elect a real conservative this time around. If they miss this opportunity, they will live to regret it.

What is needed is not a cautious, flip-flopping Mitt Romney. What is needed is a principled conservative, a brilliant intellect, a sharp debater and the true leader of movement conservatism in America today: Paul Ryan.

Failing that, Rick Perry would do. But here is hoping that Paul Ryan runs.

Ed Shultz Deliberately Twists Perry's Words to Make Him Appear Racist

If you want to see how dirty the upcoming US presidential election is going to be, just watch Ed Shultz brazenly edit a clip of a Rick Perry speech to make it appear that Perry said something he never said. Watch it here.

MSNBC, or as it is better known, the communications department of the perpetual Obama election campaign, is not only slanted and biased. It is downright deceptive and evil. This sort of accusation - racism - is effective because conservatives are fundamentally decent people who despise racism and take accusations of racism very seriously. This makes us susceptible to the big lie when it comes out of the Obama propaganda machine.

From now on we should assume, as our default position, that liberal attacks on conservatives as "racist" are mere projection from the other side. They actually are the ones preoccupied with racial issues. It was Biden who said that a negro who is clean and articulate is a 'dream.' It was Chris Matthews who said that when listening to Obama he forgot he was black. It is liberals who favor reverse discrimination (affirmative action) and who stand for racial quotas on everything.

No one should believe them and no one should be intimidated by their shrill, crude, amateurish attempt to push the "Big Lie."

I am disgusted by Ed Shultz. If Obama does not denounce him and disassociate himself from this kind of twisting of the truth, but simply chooses to profit from it and keep quiet, then Obama is nearly as bad as Shultz himself.