Defeating Obama in 2012: What is the Best Strategy?

Charles Krauthammer has a terrific article in National Review on how the Republicans should approach the 2012 campaign against Obama entitled: "Is it Incompetence or Ideology?". He notes that the 2010 midterms were based on ideology:

The Republicans swept November’s midterm election by making it highly ideological, a referendum on two years of hyper-liberalism — of arrogant, overreaching, intrusive government drowning in debt and running deficits of $1.5 trillion annually. It’s not complicated. To govern from the left in a center-right country where four out of five citizens are non-liberal is a prescription for electoral defeat.

Which suggested an obvious Republican strategy for 2012: Recapitulate 2010. Keep it ideological. Choose a presidential nominee who can best make the case.

But, he notes, the situation has changed. The Democrats have driven the Republicans onto defense by demagoging Medicare and refusing to pass a budget so they can focus on attacking Ryan's budget.

But he latest economic numbers are dismal and present the opportunity for the Republicans to attack Obama as incompetent on the number one issue: the economy.

As in 1992, it’s the economy, with everything else a distant second. The economic numbers explain why Obama’s job approval has fallen, why the bin Laden bump disappeared so quickly, and why Mitt Romney is running even with the president. Romney is the candidate least able to carry the ideological attack against Obama — exhibit A of Obama’s hyper-liberalism is Obamacare, and Romney cannot rid himself of the similar plan he gave Massachusetts. But when it comes to being solid on economics, competent in business, and highly experienced in governance, Romney is the prohibitive front-runner.

The changing nature of the campaign is also a boost for Tim Pawlenty, the successful two-term governor of a very liberal state, and possibly for another ex-governor, Jon Huntsman, depending on who he decides to run as.

Nonetheless, despite the changed conditions, I would still prefer to see the Republican challenger make 2012 a decisive choice between two distinct visions of government. We are in the midst of a once-in-a-generation debate about the nature of the welfare state (entitlement versus safety net) and, indeed, of the social contract between citizen and state (e.g., whether Congress can mandate — compel — you to purchase whatever it wills). Let’s finish that debate. Start with Obama’s abysmal stewardship, root it in his out-of-touch social-democratic ideology, and win. That would create the strongest mandate for conservative governance since the Reagan era.

His conclusion is pure genius. Defeat him as incompetent on the economy but link that incompetence to his outdated left-wing ideology. That would give the Republicans the opportunity to roll back the welfare state and make it a safety net rather than a universal entitlement. The result could be a conservative revolution more significant than the one led by Ronald Reagan.

With the talk of Rick Perry getting in the race and the longing of many for Paul Ryan to enter the race, the focus of the discussion of which candidate is best should revolve around two things: (1) who can serve as the clearest alternative to Obama's hapless economic incompetence and (2) who can be relied on to effect fundamental change in a conservative direction once he or she is president?

The Tea Party Goes to Washington to Create a New Center

To hear the Democrats tell it, the Tea Party is "extreme." They even agreed in caucus to all use that word over and over again and no doubt their supporters in the mainstream media were instructed to hammer away at the label continuously too. The goal was to try to separate Independents and Moderates from the Tea Party by painting the Tea Party as extreme - which is what Independents and Moderates don't want to be. Many Independents and Moderates are basically confused about politics and illiterate about economics. They just want jobs and stability and not too many wars, although when there is a war they want to win it decisively and quickly.

So the Democratic strategy is clear: paint the Tea Party as extreme and hope to discredit "wild eyed and extreme" ideas such as balancing the budget by cutting spending and slowing the rate of growth of big government. The problem is clear, however, for the Democrats. Most Americans (upwards of 70%) don't think such ideas are "extreme." In fact, they think they are as American as apple pie and motherhood.

Thus, despite Democrats' (and their media and cultural elites allies') best efforts, we get polls like yesterday's CNN poll, in which 50% of Americans said that the Tea Party's influence is positive. (HT John McCormack at The Weekly Standard)

Let's look a little closer at the Tea Party phenomenon. What is it about? It seems to be centered on a belief in limited government and maximal individual freedom. I don't get the sense that the majority in the Tea Party want to completely dismantle the social safety net, but I definitely get the impression that they want to limit the future growth of the welfare state and roll back some entitlement programs, perhaps by means testing them. They don't want to see handicapped, elderly and sick people go without help, but they don't think that helping those truely in need requires or justifies endless multiplication of government bureaucracy, skyrocketing public debt or a government that costs higher and higher percentages of the GDP.

Now, I don't find any of this particularly extreme. It is a different choice than Europe has made. Clearly, it is the repudiation of the European social democratic welfare state and it is a uniquely American vision of government and society. The Democrats view Europe as "normal" and anything that fails to measure up to that vision as somehow inadequate. But anyone who actually dissents from acknowledging Europe as the obvious end goal is not just inadequate or a dissenter - such a person is "extreme." To be skeptical that we can get there immediately is all right, but to disagree on the destination in principle - especially on the basis of principle - is utterly beyond the pale for Democrats.

Within the Democratic party there is a spectrum that runs from the left - which is ideologically socialist and views European social democracy as too mild - to the center - which views European social democracy as immediately achievable - to the right - which supports moving incrementally and cautiously as far toward European style social democracy as is feasible. This third group comes from red states where their task is to get elected by voters, a majority of whom do not like the ideology of the Democratic Party. These are the so-called "Blue Dogs." For them the recent health care reform was too close to socialism for electoral comfort and many of them paid the electoral price for voting for it.

For the entire 20th century there has been a socialist party in America. It has, like the NDP in Canada, exercised influence far beyond its numbers. At certain points in the century the socialists have been separate from the Democratic Party and at other points they have worked within the Democratic Party. Right now, the socialists form the left wing of the Democratic Party. This is the New Left, which emerged in the 60s after the public acknowledgment of the crimes of Stalin did so much to discredit the Old Left. Having lost at the 1968 Democratic National Convention, the New Left decided to get involved in the party at local and state levels and has wielded huge influence ever since.

Today, the Congressional Progressive Caucus is co-chaired by Reps. Raúl M. Grijalva (AR) and Keith Ellison (MN) and includes one senator (Bernie Sanders of VT) and 74 members of the House of Representatives (out of 193 Democrats - 38%). Although the November election resulted in a net gain of 63 for the Republicans, most of the Progressive Caucus members were returned because they come from the deepest blue states on either coast and in university towns. Thus, the House (and Congress as a whole) is much more conservative, but the Democratic congressional caucus is more tilted toward socialism than before.

The Tea Party is evolving into a party within a party much like the socialist leaning wing of the Democratic Party. The Tea Party Caucus, which began on July 6, 2010 with Rep. Michelle Bachman as chair now has 59 House members and 4 Senate members. A number of high-profile Tea Party favorites, such as Senators Marco Rubio (FL), Pat Toomey (PA) and Ron Johnson (WI), have declined to join the caucus, apparently because they still entertain hopes of taking over the Republican Party as a whole instead of functioning as an interest group within it. Whether they are justified in their goal or not remains to be seen.

I think that the Tea Party movement, unlike the Democratic Socialists of America, is a genuinely grass roots movement that represents the majority of Americans. The main role of the Tea Party caucus will be to balance out the extremes of the New Left in the Democratic Party and force the centrists of both parties to work together to avoid gridlock.

But this will not be easy because of the vast influence the New Left has within the Democratic Party. Like conservative Republicans, who hope to gain control of the entire Republican Party, they are working to make democratic socialism the center of the Democratic Party and to brand all limited government, libertarian, traditional conservative and social conservative ideas as "extreme."

In this environment, the Tea Party is a necessary bulwark against extremism and an authentically American populist movement that stands for continuity and tradition. Contrary to what the spin doctors would have you believe, the long term effect of the Tea Party on American politics will likely be to prevent the moving of the center of American politics to the left and even to nudge it back a bit toward the right. This would place the Socialists, not the Tea Party, outside the mainstream and make the status quo the center, conservatism the right and European-style social democracy the left.

This may not sound dramatic, but it will have huge, global effects if it happens.

1. It will save America from a sovereign debt crisis like the EU is currently experiencing.
2. It will likely prevent the implementation of homosexual marriage.
3. It will likely end the current abortion extremism by ensuring that a conservative Supreme Court throws it back to the States to regulate.
4. It will ensure that American military power does not decline and this will mean peace and stability instead of war and revolution for great swaths of the globe.
5. It will likely mean that Israel will survive instead of being annihilated in war.
6. And, finally, it will likely mean that as Islam overruns Europe, America will stand firmly as a place where Christians experience freedom and the ability to maintain institutions of higher learning and missionary outreach.

The Tea Party drives progressives crazy, not because it is extreme, but because it exposes their own extremism and their fundamental disconnect with mainstream American voters.

Pawlenty-Rubio in 2012: The Strongest Pro-life Ticket in History and One that Can Beat Obama

Tim Pawlenty is looking more and more like the candidate for the Republican nomination who can best unite the Tea Party and more traditional wings of the Republican Party, which will be necessary in order to defeat Barack Obama in 2012.

Pawlenty has good credentials on all three traditional pillars of the conservative coalition: foreign policy, social policy and fiscal policy. He has executive experience as Governor of a mid-West battleground state, he has made no mistakes and, although his name recognition currently is low, he could rectify that in a hurry by winning Iowa. And he has great appeal to Evangelical voters who just happen to be dominant in Iowa. He attends Leith Anderson's church and his wife is a strong Evangelical Christian.

On top of everything else, he quite likely has the strongest actual record of achievement as a pro-life politician. Steve Ertelt at The Corner summarizes his record:

During his first year as governor in 2003, Pawlenty signed into law the Woman’s Right to Know Act, giving women information about abortion risks and alternatives as well as information on fetal development. The law became a model for other states. Minnesota was also the first to give women information on fetal pain — coming well in advance of the new trend of banning abortions based on that scientific concept, which Nebraska started last year. The former governor followed up that bill by signing the Unborn Child Pain Prevention Act in 2005 to give women even more information on the pain their babies feel during an abortion.

Pawlenty didn’t stop there. In 2005 he signed the Positive Alternatives to Abortion Act to make Minnesota one of just a handful of states that send public funds to pregnancy centers providing tangible support for pregnant women and abortion alternatives. Since then, it has helped more than 18,000 pregnant women and their families.

Again proving his commitment to women and his understanding of the myriad medical and mental-health problems women face following an abortion, Governor Pawlenty issued a proclamation in 2010 designating the month of April as “Abortion Recovery Month” and urging agencies in the state to help women who are suffering problems following their abortions. Recognizing the massive national post-abortion movement, which features millions of women who regret their abortions, Pawlenty again led the way by acknowledging this post-abortion pain in a way most other states have not.

Governor Pawlenty’s pro-life record includes everything from promoting perinatal hospices as alternatives to abortion in cases when a baby is diagnosed with a severe medical condition, to declaring pro-life days recognizing the tragedy of Roe v. Wade, to speaking at rallies and events for key pro-life groups like Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life.

But two other aspects of the pro-life debate show Pawlenty is a cut above the average pro-life elected official.

In a time when some pro-life advocates abandoned the pro-life movement on bioethics issues, Pawlenty stood fast. He vetoed a cloning bill that would have legalized human cloning and forced taxpayers to pay for the destruction of human life, saying destroying human embryos crossed “core ethical and moral boundaries.” The governor also signed into law a ban on taxpayer funding of human cloning, because he rightfully acknowledges that adult stem-cell research is not only more ethical but more effective in helping patients. A President Pawlenty would assuredly overturn Pres. Barack Obama’s executive order forcing taxpayers to fund embryonic stem-cell research that destroys human lives and has never helped a single patient.

For pro-life voters, however, the biggest issue in the upcoming presidential election is judges. The current Supreme Court has a teetering 5–4 pro-abortion majority and the next few nominations will likely determine the future of the high court on abortion for decades.

In 2008, Governor Pawlenty appointed a pro-life advocate to lead the Minnesota Supreme Court. Eric Magnuson, who was named chief justice, had written an amicus brief for a pro-life group in a case arguing that taxpayers should not be forced to fund abortions with their tax money.

Governor Pawlenty also felt so strongly about appointing Jamie Anderson to the 4th Judicial District Court that he bypassed the state’s Commission on Judicial Selection to ensure the respected pro-life attorney had a seat.

Pawlenty’s strength on judges also comes by way of his wife Mary, who is a former judge herself. Although pro-life voters appreciated the pro-life actions of presidents Ronald Reagan, George Bush, and George W. Bush, their wives did not share their pro-life perspective. Mary Pawlenty, an evangelical who attended Bethel College, is a heartfelt pro-life advocate who combines a passion for the unborn with an acute political and legal mind.

The Pawlenty pro-life track record has produced proven results: The Minnesota health department indicated last year that abortions have dropped 14 percent and hit a 35-year low.

Wow! Will this play in Iowa or what? Read it all here.

How nice would it be to see the Mexico City policy reversed and pro-life judges appointed to the Supreme Court! I have been watching Tim Pawlenty for a while now and I think he is the one to take on Obama.

I now hope that Palin and Huckabee don't run. They don't need to. Gingrich is in the race to sell books and attack Obama. Good for him; he can't win but he can help the cause. Romney can't shake his record on healthcare legislation in Massachusetts. Can Republicans really trust a man who used to be pro-abortion to appoint pro-life judges and a man who implemented the forerunner of Obamacare to repeal Obamacare? His nomination would split the party. Haley Barbour is not going to have much appeal outside the South. Governors Perry, Christie and Walker probably aren't going to run. Paul Ryan show no signs of jumping in. Michelle Bachman will run to lift up the Tea Party banner.

But the one who can unite them all without losing moderate, establishment Republicans is Tim Pawlenty. I can see Karl Rove and Sarah Palin both endorsing him. The perfect running mate would be Marco Rubio. Rubio is popular in Florida, where the election may well be decided and he is a terrific speaker, a true conservative and has a compelling life story. In many ways he is the anti-Biden and, I predict, will stir as much enthusiasm among the fiscal and social conservative base as Palin did last time.

Pawlenty and Rubio in 2012. Now that is hope and change we can believe in!

How Liberals/Progressives Think

This would be funny if it weren't so sad. (HT to NewsReal Blog)

Conservatives Represent Minorities

Here are some extremely interesting statistics about which major US party actually is more representative of the entire nation including minorities. Just as the Democratic Party cannot speak for women when it is under the thumb of radical, pro-abortion activists, so it cannot speak for minorities when its political philosophy is to the right of many minority Americans.

Josh Kraushaar writes:

Here's a statistic to pore over this Thanksgiving weekend: In 2011, there will be more Republican minorities holding governorships, Senate seats and representing majority-white House districts than Democrats.

There are only 18 elected officials who fit that category -- 10 Republican, eight Democratic. Republicans got a major diversity boost from the midterms, seeing their ranks of minorities expand from one (Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal) to nine, with the elections of Govs.-elect Susana Martinez (R-N.M.), Nikki Haley (R-S.C.), Brian Sandoval (R-Nev.), Sen.-elect Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Reps.-elect Jaime Herrera (R-Wash.), Bill Flores (R-Texas), Raul Labrador (R-Idaho), Allen West (R-Fla.) and Tim Scott (R-S.C.).

Gov. Deval Patrick (D-Mass.) heads the Democratic list of minority elected officials winning white voters, along with Sens. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), Daniel Akaka (D-Hawaii), Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) -- and Reps. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.), Andre Carson (D-Ind.) and David Wu (D-Ore.).

Overall, the clear majority of minorities in Congress are Democrats. But the numbers above reflect an inconvenient reality that, even with their much more diverse caucus, Democrats face similar challenges as Republicans in recruiting, nominating and electing minority candidates to statewide office and in suburban and rural districts that are majority-white. The vast majority of Congressional Black Caucus and Congressional Hispanic Caucus members hail from urban districts where it doesn't require a crossover vote to win, or represent gerrymandered seats designed to elect a minority member of Congress. They are markedly more liberal than the average Democrat, no less the average voter, making it more difficult for them to successfully mount a statewide campaign.

Conservatism is often embraced to a greater degree by immigrants to the US because the whole reason they came was the American Dream and American Exceptionalism. (See for example Marco Rubio). For leftists to claim to speak for such people is ridiculous. It is time for identity politics to be tossed in the dustbin of history where it belongs.

Evangelicals and the Republican Party: Finally Some Light and Not Just Heat

I am grateful to Andrew Walker at Mere Orthodoxy for pointing out this fine article by John Mark Reynolds of the Torrey Honors Institute at Biola University. I appreciate his refreshing candor and straight-forward recognition of the imperfections and shortcomings of his party coupled with his firm and reasonable contention that it is the least bad option.

Here is a snippet in which he argues that the GOP is the natural home of Evangelicals:

Nobody needs feel shame to be a Republican, because when it came time to confront the original sin of the nation—slavery—the Republican Party was on the Lord's side. In the great battle of my time, the war against communist tyranny, the Republican Party led in the defense of free markets and freedom of thought.

The Republican Party has always been the party of Evangelicals. Lincoln was elected by appealing to our beliefs and this has not changed in one hundred and fifty years. The party base of Northern Evangelicals abides in states like Iowa and Ohio, though it has faded in secularized New England. When many Southern Evangelicals saw the light in the late twentieth-century, they were coming to their natural home.

And here is one in which he states his priorities clearly:

No Christian puts his trust in princes. We remember that no earthly party is God's party, because He is never a Republican or Democrat, being a committed monarchist. No Christian votes simply for party, but is open to good men and women where ever they may be found. We are, at all times, first subjects of Christendom and only secondarily citizens of this Republic.

On poverty, he offers this bit of wisdom:

We would give all our money in taxes if we thought it would end poverty, but have seen that it only enriches the state at the cost of liberty. We create statist masters and the poor are with us always.

On liberty, he writes:

Politics before the coming of Jesus is a balance between law and liberty. Christians utterly reject the idea that the measure of man is his ability to contribute to the economy. We believe every human, whatever their condition, has a right to life, liberty, and a rich human life. We know that if a person cannot benefit from labor, that such a person is not free.

Children must be cared for, but Christians refuse to make infants of any adult. God Himself gave mankind the ability to defy Him in the garden, so we are hesitant to make any person do good by the force of law.

There is a lot of wisdom in this brief article. Read it all here.

US Midterm Elections Predictions

The US midterm elections are one month from today, so it is time for a few predictions.

What are the Mid-term Elections?
But first, for my Canadian readers, we need a quick primer on what the mid-term elections are all about. The president is elected ever four years and is limited to serving two terms. Halfway through the term, elections are held for all 435 seats in the House of Representatives and approximately one-third of the 100 US Senate seats. Senators serve 6 year terms and House of Representatives members serve two year terms. The two bodies together are known as "Congress." All legislation must be approved by both and spending and tax legislation must originate in the House. In addition, approximately 35 of the 50 Governors and many of the members of the state legislatures are elected every two years.

The mid-term elections are usually seen as a referendum on the president's performance and the party of the president usually (though not always) loses some seats. President Obama's approval rating has fallen sharply during the past year and is somewhere in the mid 40s depending on the poll. Real Clear Politics averages the various polls and currently shows Obama as having a 45.3 approval and a 49.7 disapproval rating for a -4.4 rating overall. as an average of polls conducted last week by Newsweek, Fox, Rasmussen, Gallup, CNN and others.

So this means that 37 Senate seats and 435 House seats are up for election next month. The Democrats hold a majority of 255 seats in the House and a majority of 59 seats in the Senate. They had a 60 seat "super majority" until January, when Massachusetts Republican Senator Scott Brown was elected in a special election to replace the deceased Ted Kennedy. A super majority is important because any 41 senators can vote together to prevent a bill from coming to a vote in the Senate.

House of Representatives
With all 435 seats up for re-election, this is in effect a national election. The Democrats currently hold 255 seats and the Republicans hold 178. 218 are needed for a majority, so the Republicans would need to gain 39 in order to take control of the House.

Real Clear Politics ranks 190 seats as either safe Democrat, likely Democrat or leaning Democrat and 207 seats as safe Republican, likely Republican or leaning Republican. 38 seats are toss-ups.

The Charlie Cook Report, a highly respected and neutral polling company, sees 50 seats as toss-ups and forecasts a net Republican gain of at least 40 seats.

The Senate
The Democrats currently hold 59 seats (counting the 2 Independents in with them) and the Republicans hold 41. But 18 of the 41 Republican seats (almost half) are up for election this year and only 19 of 59 Democratic seats (only a third) are up for election. So the Republicans must take away 10 out of 19 Democratic seats without losing any of their own in order to win control of the Senate. Each Senator is elected in a state-wide popular vote and each state has two senators. Only of of each state's senate seats is up for election in a given year. This explains why most analysts don't think that the Republicans will win the Senate this year despite a general lead in the polls for the Republicans.

Real Clear Politics ranks 48 seats as likely Democrat or leans Democrat and 47 seats as likely Republican or leans Republican with 4 seats being considered toss-ups. This represents a gain of 6 seats for the Republicans plus however many of the toss-ups they gain. Real Clear forecasts a 51-49 Democratic majority with the Republicans having gained 8 seats and lost none.

Rasmussen Polls ranks 7 seats as solid Democratic and 2 as likely Democratic for a total of 9. They rank 17 as solid Republican and 7 as likely Republican for a total of 24. Four seats are considered toss-ups. No Republican seat is in the Democratic or toss-up column, but 3 Democratic seats are ranked as solid Republican, 3 as likely Republican and 4 as toss-ups. So the Republicans need to defend all their own seats, win the Democratic seats that are in the solid and likely Republican columns and then sweep the 4 toss-ups.

The Charlie Cook Report predicts a gain of 7-9 senate seats for the Republicans.

Conclusions:
It appears that the Republicans are heading for big gains next month and control of the House is virtually assured. Even if the Democrats manage to hold on to their Senate majority (which is probably a fifty-fifty proposition right now), the conservative Republicans in the Senate will have the votes (40) to prevent bills from being voted on. If the Republicans have 48 or 49 seats and the Democrats manage to peel off 6 or 7 Republicans to vote for a given bill, the remaining Republicans will still be able to block it. If this had been the case last year, the health care legislation would not have passed.

With 58% of Americans favoring repeal of the bill, this is an expression of the democratic majority. What we are seeing here is an example of the self-correcting mechanism in the American political system. The Democrats have governed from the left and have alienated the vast middle of American politics - the basically conservative Independents who are favoring the Republicans 2-1 this year after electing what they thought was a centrist Barack Obama in 2008.

Personally, I believe that conservative voters are extremely enthusiastic about voting and the liberal base of the Democratic Party is shocked by the negative public reaction to their extreme leftist agenda. This kind of "enthusiasm gap" is hard to measure in polls. So I predict that Republicans will win control of the Senate and gain about 55-60 seats in the House. This will effectively end Barack Obama's ability to further implement his leftist agenda and will lead to gridlock between Congress and the President. This will set the stage for a possible primary challenge to Obama and the Republicans winning the presidency in 2012.

The Tea Parties: the New Mainstream

Further to my last post on the Tea Party phenomenon, this editorial from the Washington Examiner entitled: "Tea Partiers are getting the last laugh" has some interesting facts in it:

And the movement is anything but racially segregated. Thirty-five percent of black likely voters identify with the Tea Party, including 17 percent who strongly identify with it, according to Vic Rubenfeld, director of polling for Pajamas Media TV. As for the liberal Democrats who have attacked it, the latest CNN/Opinion Research poll finds "likely voters say they are considerably more likely to vote for a candidate the president opposes than one he supports. On the other hand, 50 percent of voters said they would be more likely to vote for a Tea Party-backed candidate while a third of Americans said Tea Party support would dissuade their vote for a candidate." [my bolding]

Read it all here.

At some point, probably right after the November elections, we are going to see a sea change in the way the Tea Party is perceived. It is going to become the new mainstream of conservative political philosophy in the US and the true opposition to a Democratic Party, which is now firmly in the hands of Leftists. For better or worse, American politics is in the process of polarizing as socialism becomes stronger and provokes a more determined opposition.

The Struggle for the Soul of the Republican Party

David Frum has an article in today's National Post in which he does his best to confuse the serious issues of political philosophy being debated today in the United States. He begins by asking: "Is Obama a socialist?" and he says that no, he is not, even though he simultaneously admits that a lot of current US federal government policy looks socialist. So why not call Obama a socialist?

Frum says we should not call Obama a socialist because many of the entitlement programs and much of the national debt is the responsibility of George W. Bush and how can we call Republicans socialists? The problem here is that "socialist" is used in the US as a smear; it is such an unpopular view that to label successfully your opponent as "socialist" is to discredit him or her in the minds of the majority of voters. We can call this the "connotative meaning" as opposed to the "descriptive meaning" of the word. In the UK, where socialism is vastly more advanced and more popular, politicians who advance Obama-like policies are content to be known as socialist; it is just a description of what they stand for.

But why does Frum shrink from describing Obama's big government, high taxation, expansion of the welfare state as moving toward socialism or as socialism in stages? He is afraid that the label will be turned back on him and the big government wing of the Republican Party of which he is a part.

The Republican Party has been cautiously progressive, that is, committed to the New Deal for over half a century. The party establishment beat back the Goldwater challenge in the 60s but found itself unable to prevent Reagan from becoming president in 1980. But it fought a quiet rearguard action against the small government wing of the party represented by Reagan in order to prevent the dismantling of the welfare state or even the shrinking of the size of government during the Reagan years. All Reagan was able to do was to slow the rate of growth of the federal government.

So the Republican Party is divided into a big government wing and a small government wing and the uneasy compromise achieved during the Bush years was an agreement to lower taxes without cutting the federal budget. This, of course, is not a viable long-term strategy. It is a temporary truce which allows the Republican Party to avoid a division into two parties that would ensure a permanent majority for the Democratic Party.

Why does David Frum criticize Sarah Palin so much? It is because she comes from the small government wing of the Republican Party. Why does he fear and seek to discredit the Tea Party? Same reason. Why does he not label Obama a socialist? It is because he is just as much a socialist as Obama and he is allowing the progressives to shape the narrative.

The progressive narrative sees the big government, ever-expanding welfare state as America's inevitable destiny. So the political spectrum has to be defined as those who want to proceed full steam ahead toward European-style social democracy (liberal) versus those who want to go more slowly and carefully and bring more of the undecided voters along (conservative), which is how the spectrum is defined in Europe. This debate was at the heart of Democratic debates over health care (i. e. single-payer now or eventually?). In this narrative, then, big government Republicans are "good little Republicans" - essentially just like "conservative Democrats." They get invited to swanky cocktail parties with celebrities and the NYT employs them as columnists. They play a useful function for the goal of the progressives is to control both parties and thus block out any serious challenge to their power.

The Tea Party, however, is a threat because it seeks to take over the Republican Party and marginalize the big government Republicans like Lindsay Graham and John McCain. At stake is the definition of what it means to be conservative. If the Reagan, small-government wing of the Republican Party prevails, then conservative will mean their stance rather than the Bush, big government wing's stance. Frum is not just concerned about the reputation of his former boss, he is concerned about the big government Republican wing losing control of the party.

He distorts the motives of the small government wing of the party badly in the following passage:

In 2009, the US health economy reached a symbolic tipping point: for the first time, more than 50% of the dollars spent on health were spent by some agency of federal or state government. Sounds like socialism, right? But this tipping point was not driven by President Obama. It was driven by the growth of Medicare – and last I heard, it was President Obama who was proposing slowdowns in Medicare spending, and it was Sarah Palin and the Tea Party activists who were denouncing reductions in Medicare as tantamount to “death panels.”

Where to begin in untangling this mess. First, there are two ways to reduce Medicare spending. One is the Democratic way of death panels. Essentially, what they propose is to reduce spending on seniors during the expensive last couple of years of life and ration resources. This will have the effect of letting people die a little earlier than otherwise, but the potential for savings is huge. The other way to reduce the unsustainable growth in Medicare spending is the one proposed by Paul Ryan's "Roadmap." He proposes that Medicare become a means-tested social safety net instead of a middle class entitlement. Basically, he wants middle class Americans who can afford it to pay for their own health care and use government programs only for those in need. But this is anathema to Democrats because it reduces the size and control of government.

Frum does not distinguish between those who want the status quo and those who want to reform the welfare state to preserve a safety net for the poor and needy while simultaneously reducing taxes and growing the private sector. Why? Because this distinction does not fit the progressive narrative. They want you to believe that there are only two choices: bankruptcy or higher taxes. And any other choice involves being heartless, cruel and having no social conscience. This is a self-serving piece of propaganda whether it is spouted by the Democrats or by the Republicans.

Robert Higgs on Codevilla's Call to Revolution

Robert Higgs comments on Angelo M. Codevilla's essay "America's Ruling Class - and the Perils of Revolution" that was published last month in the American Spectator. I commented on this essay here, but I thought that Higgs' summary is excellent and well worth reflecting on:

Codevilla cuts immediately to the core: the United States today is divided into (a) a ruling class, which dominates the government at every level, the schools and universities, the mainstream media, Hollywood, and a great deal else, and (b) all of the rest of us, a heterogeneous agglomeration that Codevilla dubs the country class. The ruling class holds the lion’s share of the institutional power, but the country class encompasses perhaps two-thirds of the people.

Members of the two classes do not like one another. In particular, the ruling class views the rest of the population as composed of ignoramuses who are vicious, violent, racist, religious, irrational, unscientific, backward, generally ill-behaved, and incapable of living well without constant, detailed direction by our betters; and it views itself as perfectly qualified and entitled to pound us into better shape by the generous application of laws, taxes, subsidies, regulations, and unceasing declarations of its dedication to bringing the country—and indeed the entire world—out of its present darkness and into the light of the Brave New World it is busily engineering.

This class divide has little to do with rich versus poor or Democrat versus Republican. At its core, it has to do with the division between, on the one hand, those whose attitudes are attuned to the views endorsed by the ruling class (especially “political correctness”) and whose fortunes are linked directly or indirectly with government programs and, on the other hand, those whose outlooks and interests derive from and focus on private affairs, especially the traditional family, religion, and genuine private enterprise. Above all, as Codevilla makes plain, “for our ruling class, identity always trumps.” These people know they are superior in every way, and they are not shy about letting us know that they are. Arrogance might as well be their middle name.

The ruling class, not surprisingly, is also the statist party:

[O]ur ruling class’s standard approach to any and all matters, its solution to any and all problems, is to increase the power of the government – meaning of those who run it, meaning themselves, to profit those who pay with political support for privileged jobs, contracts, etc.

Despite the rulers’ chronic complaints about people’s exercising “discrimination” of one kind or another, they have no intention of treating everybody equally. Hence, “[l]aws and regulations nowadays are longer than ever because length is needed to specify how people will be treated unequally.” As the recent health-care and financial-reform statutes illustrate perfectly, however, much of the inequality is achieved not directly, but by the statutes’ delegation of authority to countless regulatory and administrative bodies, which will use their ample discretion to do the desired dirty work.

But what I really want to call attention to is Higgs' stirring conclusion:

I heartily recommend this magnificent essay, which is one of the most intelligent, forthright discussions of America’s current socio-political condition I have ever read. If we serfs are ever to escape the grip of our overbearing, self-appointed nobility, the first requirements will be to recognize correctly our current condition, to denounce openly its injustice and idiocy, and to deride every claim of legitimacy or entitlement our rulers have the temerity to make or presume.

Every revolution begins with the oppressed refusing to recognize the legitimacy of their self-appointed, self-aggrandizing overlords. To recognize and reject the legitimacy of the Ruling Class - as if operated under some sort of Divine Mandate - is where the road to justice, equality and freedom starts.

The Evangelical Left has spent the past few years deriding conservative Evangelicals for supporting the Republican Party only to become, themselves, slavish supporters of the left wing of the Democratic Party. It should be pointed out that the Ruling Class has dominated major sections of the Republican Party and that the goal of true conservatives is not to support the Republican Party establishment; it is to take over the party and make it the vehicle for a conservative revolution in much the same way that the New Left seized control of the Democratic Party at the beginning of the 1970s and have triumphed completely through the Obama wing of the party.

The Ruling Class would have its own left and right factions define the political just as in Europe, the "Conservative Parties" have come to mean roughly "conservative socialist parties" as opposed to more consistently socialist parties. Everybody agrees with socialism; the only disagreement permitted is on how fast we should move in that direction. The Communists want it immediately by revolution; the democratic socialists think it should be done gradually by votes, and the conservatives just want to slow the process down a bit. Real conservatives are labeled extremists and dismissed. This is what the Ruling Class wants for America. But the conservative revolt going on in the Republican Party right now aims at moving the political center several degrees rightward and defining the whole Ruling Class as "The Left."

Social conservatives have sensed a radical, left-ward drift for some time but now the economic conservatives (classical liberals) have been radicalized by the hard left economic agenda of the Obama administration and the dangerous and unsustainable debt being run up by the Democrats in the midst of a recession. When the social and fiscal conservatives both become convinced that a revolution is necessary to save the country from socialism, it will happen.

Will America Go the Way of Greece?

This story in the New York Times about the state of railroads in Greece is like a scene right out of Atlas Shrugged. Having recently read that novel and now reading today's New York Times is an unsettling experience.

Losses at Hellenic Railways, however, continue to mount — at the rate of 3 million euros ($3.8 million) a day. Its total debt has increased to $13 billion, or about 5 percent of Greece’s gross domestic product.

In spite of about $3.2 billion of investment since 1997, outside of the main route between Athens and Thessaloniki, the network seems in many respects patchwork and at times chaotic.

Earlier this month, for example, a trip from Athens to Diakopto, a seaside town on the northern coast of the Peloponnese, took more than four hours. The journey required train passengers to complete a second leg by transferring to an overcrowded bus that was delayed for an hour. The result was a near riot as enraged passengers hurled abuse at overwhelmed train officials.

The same trip by car would take less than two hours.

So the railway is a sinkhole for public money, but it is also disgracefully inefficient. Does the union care?

“It is crazy,” said Nikolaos Kioutsoukis, the union chief for the railway. “It’s not surprising that people prefer to go by car.”

Even he accepts that train travel in Greece is not financially viable on many routes. He blames low prices, misguided investment and political meddling for the railway’s poor condition, and says the government should make new investments to modernize the network. He opposes privatization and says that if jobs and benefits are threatened, the union will strike.

He admits the problem but threatens to undermine any attempt to fix the problem. This is unbelievable. He apparently thinks the EU owes him and his membership a living and he does not care that the system is on the brink of collapse. This is the socialist mentality on display for all to see.

Haris Tsiokas, the general secretary for the Greek Transport Ministry, contends that the government’s plan to close at least 35 loss-making routes and cut 2,500 jobs (1,000 via mandatory retirement, with the rest being moved to other government jobs) will make Hellenic Railways attractive to foreign investors. But he concedes that the pressure is building for the railway, which, for now at least, does not have access to debt markets.

Now, as a condition of Greece’s financial rescue, the International Monetary Fund is demanding that a solution be found. The fund and the European Union, which also chipped in to provide the bailout, are requiring that the debt of Hellenic Railways, as well as the off-balance-sheet obligations of other state-owned enterprises, be counted toward Greece’s official debt — which Greece has agreed to do.

Analysts estimate the total to be around $33.6 billion, a sum that would add another 11 percentage points to Greece’s current debt level of about 120 percent of gross domestic product. It would also surely raise questions for many investors about the government’s ability to repay ever-increasing amounts as the overall economy contracts.

The problem here is that the government is not running a railroad. It is running a ponzi scheme that is on the verge of collapse.

Until now, Greece has been able to use its rail system as a means to support employment while not adding to its official debt number.

“This was an accounting trick, another good way for the government to hide its debt,” said John C. Mourmouris, a former chief executive of the railway who is now an economics professor here. “But a company with 100 million euros in revenue can no longer borrow 1 billion euros a year.”

Read it all here. If the NYT says it is this bad, the reality is likely worse.

Greece is just the worst case in Europe (so far as we know now), but it is by no means atypical of the European social democratic welfare state and there are several other countries close behind Greece such as Portugal, Spain and Italy.

When you consider that Obama and the leftists of the Democratic Party are trying their level best to transform America into a European-style, social democracy, it is a wonder that the American public is not more up in arms that it is. The Tea Party movement is a sign that America is rejecting the leftist agenda, but it is a tribute to how powerful the Marxists true believers are in America that any Democrat at all is projected to hang on to his or her seat in November.

However, Rasmussen Polls is now saying that the Republicans are projected to have 44 seats in the Senate after the November elections with the Democrats projected to have 49 with 7 more as toss ups. If the Republicans run the table on the toss-ups, they could have control of the Senate after November. This is still a long-shot but much less of a long-shot than it was 3 months ago. The House, where more Democratic seats are in play, is likely going to go Republican and the Senate is on the edge. If the slide of America into Greek-style socialism is to be halted, the November elections are absolutely crucial.

Conservative But Not Republican: A Growing Trend

The polling numbers give the lie to two wrong impressions that are widely shared among many conservatives and many Christians today, as far as US politics is concerned. And these misconceptions affect the way many Canadian Evangelicals position themselves with regard to conservatism.

Myth #1: Conservative Christians have sold their souls to the Republican Party and are just voting robots who never question party orthodoxy.

This myth is widely promulgated by left-wing Evangelicals who wish to portray conservative Christians as uneducated, unthinking, and easily led. It serves as a backdrop to the argument that moving left is just what anyone must do who wishes to have any kind of influence in the world today. So the myth justifies the left-ward turn of certain Evangelicals in search of political "relevance."

The main problem with the myth is that it is not true. What is true is that sometimes Evangelicals have chosen to be part of a mainline party with a serious shot at wininng even though much of what that party stands for is alien to true conservative and Christian concerns. This is a strategic decision, which everyone in pratical politics has to wrestle with at times, and it demonstrates political maturity rather than immaturity.

Rasmussen Reports polls show that the majority of conservatives in the US do not call themselves Republicans (56%). This means that some conservatives vote for conservative Democratic candidates and that many others are independents. In fact, most Independents in the US are not poised half-way between conservative and liberal positions; they are actually mostly conservatives. Some conservatives typically vote Republican but do not call themselves Republican because they perceive the Republican Party as not conservative enough or not the right kind of conservative.

Myth #2: The Republican Party must "broaden" itself (meaning become less conservative) in order to reach out to moderates and have any chance of winning elections in the future.

This is probably exactly the opposite of what it needs to do in order to win. Rasumssen Reports shows that only about 20% of American self-identify as Republicans, with just under 40% self-identifying as Democrat and 30% as Independents. Yet, many polls show conservatives making up a majority of the voting population in the US. Obama won by convincing many of the Independents that he was not an extreme liberal and the swift drop in his approval ratings (from 67% in February to 46% now) are what one would expect to see once the extremity of his liberal policies - especially with regard to the economy - become clear. Obama's election was also helped by the number of conservatives who stayed home, rather than vote for a Republican party that had revealed itself to be too liberal for their tastes, especially on fiscal matters.

Rasmussen Polls also show that 73% of Republicans think that the party leaders have lost touch with their base. It would appear that the party leadership needs to re-think the question of whether or not it wishes to be the vehicle for conservatives to make their voice heard in Washington or if it does not. If not, it will lose conservative support and become unelectable. The Tea Party movement is targeting liberals from both parties and willing to support conservatives of any party. The Republican leadership should be worried about this kind of grass roots activism, which is more interested in the substance of policy issues than party labels or the careers of party hacks. All the talk from the likes of Rod Dreher and David Frum about moving to the middle is political suicide. What the Republican Party needs to do is re-define the middle further rightward in order to be in touch with the electorate.

Sarah Palin undoubtedly saved John McCain from being utterly humiliated in the 2008 election. If McCain had picked Romney or Gulianni as his running mate he might have lost by the biggest margin in history because the conservative base was fed up with the Republicans acting like a Democratic-lite party. The respectability of the margin was due to Palin's energizing of the conservative base at the last minute and what the Republican Party has to come to grips with is that to alienate this base again is to hand the next election cycle to the Democrats.

If they won't stand for principle, (which they should), they should at least act in their own enlightened self-interest to avoid political oblivion. There simply is no room in American poltics for a Republican Party that is neither conservative nor liberal. The lesson to be learned from Doug Hoffman's success in New York 23 is that the choices confronting the Republican Party are: (1) tack back to the right and shore up a base that may give it a chance to win or (2) tack to the left and witness the rise of a conservative third party that will split the conservative vote until the Republican Party itself sinks beneath the waves forever. There are no other choices.

The conservative movement in America has entered a phase of maturity with regard to intellectual and political matters that make it impossible for old-line, big-business, Northeastern, Republican Party bosses to manipulate it. Pundits who talk irresponsibly about the "death of conservatism" are out of touch with reality. America is not going to become Europe any time soon. I would be willing to bet that Europe is more likely to shift rightward in the next decade than America is to shift left-ward.

Obama is making the country more conservative the more he actually implements his big-government, tax and spend policies. The Value Added Tax he will need to introduce to prevent the deficit from destroying the economy will be the last straw and he will be gone in 2012. America cannot afford to be a military superpower and a welfare state like European countries. Canada, Europe and America all have similar levels of taxation; the difference is that what goes for welfare programs in Canada and Europe goes to military expenditures in America. I can't see Obama daring to gut America's military in the short term (although he clearly would like to do so in the long run), so the huge increase in Federal spending must be balanced with significantly higher taxation. What that will do to the economy is not pleasant to contemplate.

If you think that Obama can ramp up the welfare state to European levels, maintain US military dominance and keep taxes at current levels all at the same time, you are simply dreaming. In order for America to implement the liberal goals of the Obama administration, America would have to accept a policy of isolation, accept being held hostage by OPEC, accept the disappearance of Israel as a Jewish state, accept more than a few steps toward world government through the UN and accept the long, slow, decline of the American economy. I think America is a long way from being the kind of country that would accept all that. I think it is a lot more likely that Obama will be a second Jimmy Carter.

Revolt of the Masses: Dede Scozzafava Quits in Race for Congress in NY 23

Well, well . . . it is official now that Dede Scozzafava has ceded in the race for the NY 23 Congressional District after the most recent polls show her support sinking like a stone and likely to lead to a decisive 3rd place finish.

Let's review. Dede Scozzafava is a so-called "moderate" Republican. She is pro-high taxes, pro-choice, pro-same sex "marriage" and has worked with ACORN in the past. She is a recipient of an award named for Margaret Sanger from Planned Parenthood. The Republican National Committee and the party establishment backed her candidacy even though it would amount to electing a liberal Democrat under the Republican Party banner. There was even speculation that she would pull a "Spector" and change parties once elected. She would definitely have been a reliable vote for the Pelosi radical liberal agenda.

So Doug Hoffman, an accountant and conservative, jumped into the race under the Conservative Party banner as a third candidate. The Party Establishment, dominated by big business Northeasterners and the liberal media gave him no chance. But his campaign caught fire and got a key early endorsement from Sarah Palin, which proved to be a game changer. The Tea Party grass roots movement was energized and numerous pro-life and pro-family groups jumped in. The poll numbers began to move. All of a sudden, Hoffman went from being a spoiler (which would have been signficant enough) to being a threat to win. Then he started getting endorsements from the likes of Rick Santorum, Rick Perry, Jim DeMint, Tim Pawlentey and others.

In the view of the Washington Post and the New York Times, the grassroots of the party (plus conservatives who are not registered Republicans) rebelled against the establishment. And today, whatever happens on Tuesday, the establishment was humbled. The party establishment, having been humbled, is now going to work to get out the vote for Hoffman on election day.

The significance of this race goes far beyond the borders of the 23rd congressional district of New York State. What is unfolding here is the awaking of the sleeping giant of American conservatism. Barack Obama campaigned as a Clinton moderate, but he has filled his administration with leftist radicals and seems to be unable to control the left-wingers like Pelosi and Reid who are leading the party off the cliff. Probably he agrees with their agenda and wouldn't stop them if he could. Yet one senses his utter helplessness.

For the Newt Gingrich's of the world, who are pre-occupied with partisan politics, whatever is good for the Republican Party is good for America. Real conservatives disagreee. They are committed to principle, governance and policy, not party colors or being the gophers for the big business establishment. It is essential that the Republican Party not be able to take for granted the social conservative and traditional conservative vote, just as it is essential that the Democratic Party not be able to take for granted the Roman Catholic vote.

The Tea Party movement originates from outside Washington and in not under the control of the party establishment. If it targets both liberal Republicans and tacitly endorses conservative Democrats, it can remake congress without the permission of, and without winning control of, either major party. If it can do this, it will certainly determine the Republican nominee in 2012 and may even encourage a pro-Clinton revolt in the Democratic Party. The Obama brand will be dead by 2010.

Remember, the American electorate is made of of a majority of conservatives. Actual adherents of leftist ideology number no more than 20%. Party affiliation is no guide to conservative beliefs. The country has shifted right-ward in the past year; we may be witnessing the birth of a conservative revolution even greater than the Reagan revolution.

UPDATE:
Less than 24 hours after dropping out of the race, Scozzafava announced she is supporting the Democratic candidate, Bill Owens. She is no longer a Rhino (Republican in name only); she is a Democratic Party supporter. She likely would have been a reliable vote for Pelosi's reckless agenda had she been elected and the will of the electorate would have been frustrated. The way this whole race has gone is heartening for anyone who believes in democracy and shows that conservative America is down but not out.

Opposing the Republican Party for the Right Reason

A farily large number of Evangelicals have become disillusioned with the Republican Party in the US over the past number of years. They have come to oppose the policies of George W. Bush, and especially the ill-fated decision to invade Iraq in 2003. But sometimes one gets the impression that they really oppose Bush and the Republicans because they are welfare-state building, economic liberals who find the war to be a handy stick with which to beat their political opponents and build support for the Democratic Party.

They are opposed to the Religious Right, not so much because of its stand on abortion or marriage, but because of the support of the Religious Right on issues such as limited government, the rule of law and fiscal conservatism - all of which stand in the way of the high-tax, big government solutions to all the problems of the world agenda about which they really care. Continuous expansion of the nanny state with fighting poverty as the excuse is their real preoccupation. To the extent their opposition to the war in Iraq is genuine, the most important reason for opposing it is that it funnels resources away from welfare state entitlement programs. Jim Wallis, Tony Campolo and Brian McLaren are examples of such Evangelicals.

A different group of Evangelicals has become disillusioned by the Republican Party for very different reasons. They are true conservatives and they view the George W. Bush Republicans as sell-outs for not governing as real conservatives. Bush has increased the debt, created new unfunded entitlement programs, allowed the size of the federal government to spiral out of control and failed to veto pork barrell spending earmarks on bills.

Richard Viguerie's book Conservatives Betrayed: How George W. Bush and Other Big Government Republicans Hijacked the Conservative Cause was published in 2006 so I'm a bit behind the curve in calling attention to it now. But it is fascinating to read this book in 2009 and see how its thesis is being vindicated by events. He argues that the problem with the Republican Party is not that it is too conservative, but that it is not conservative enough. This is the second way to oppose the Republican Party and it is the route most Evangelicals will take, as opposed to the contention of Wallis and co. that the problem is that the Republican Party is too conservative.

Viguerie contends that conservativism is a movement separate from the Republican Party and has never been co-extensive with the GOP. He says that at best, it has temporarily seized control of the party, but the big business establishment of the party, which has historically controlled the Republican Party, has always looked down its nose at the social conservatives and traditional conservatives who are simultaneously embarassing and necessary to the party establishment. Viguerie calls for the conservative movement to think of itself as a movement first and as Republican only strategically. He wants conservatism to be a third force, not a third party, and to exert influence on the Democratic Party as well as the Republican Party.

Viguerie is a traditional conservative, not a neo-conservative or a libertarian. He identifies with the social conservatives and the populist conservative movement, not the imperialistic hawks or big business wing of the Republican Party. He is against judicial activism and a strict constructionist in legal theory. He is prolife and a fiscal conservative. He believes in the Tenth Ammendment and opposes the bloated federal government and its excessive taxation. Naturally, he is a big fan of Ronald Reagan and is looking for another leader like him - a true conservative instead of the blue blood conservative imposters like the Bush clan.

Viguerie takes some positions that might surprise those who believe that all conservatives think alike or march in lockstep behind some demagogue. He supports the Afghanistan war as a proper response to 9/11, but he is opposed to the Iraq War. He also opposes capital punishment in his chapter on "Building a Culture of Life." He was personally responsible for the direct mail revolution that allowed an appeal to the grass roots over the heads of the party bosses and professional politicians.

Viguerie is steamed about the fact that Bush has simultaneously betrayed conservatism by governing like a liberal and at the same time embarrassed conservatism by his stupid policies in Iraq. Conservatives are thus blamed for the policies of a man who is not even a real conservative.

Now, just a word about how the book is prescient.

First, he notes that the election of Jimmy Carter in 1976 paved the way for the election of a true conservative in 1980 and the similarities between then and now are errie. Obama is discrediting liberalism in the eyes of independents and seniors - two categories of voters who often determine the outcome of elections - and this will pave the way for the election of someone who is as unlike Obama as possible.

Second, he notes that the growth of big government has never stopped throughout the 20th century, but it has been slowed considerably under the conditions of divided government. The 2010 mid-term elections may deliver one or both branches of congress to the Republicans and may well set the stage for the derailing of the radical agenda so fervently promoted by the Democratic Left.

Third, the rise of the Tea Party movement, which appears to have no central, Republican Party approved leadership, is an example of exactly the kind of third force, conservative, grass-roots movement Viguerie's book called for. If you look at the current election in the 23rd Congressional district of New York, called to replace John McHugh, who was appointed to the Obama adminsitration as Army Secretary, the Republican Party establishment has nominated an ACORN-friendly, big labor backing, tax and spend radical named Dede Scozzafava. She is a recipient of the Margaret Sanger award and an ardent pro-choicer. Now, Doug Hoffman, a Conservative Party candidate has entered the race and for the first time the Democrat candidate has pulled into the lead in a tight three-way race. Hoffman may actually have an outside shot at winning, but if he does not he almost certainly will cause Scozzafava to be defeated. If the Republican Party continues to ignore conservative it will do so at its peril. Think of this as a preview of November 2010.

Viguerie's book is encouraging and well-worth reading. He opposes the Republican Party for the right reason: because it is not conservative enough.

Don't Like Obama? Blame George Bush

Obama's popularity with the American electorate is in free-fall. Rasumssen Reports website, which does daily polling, reports:

"The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Tuesday shows that 29% of the nation's voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Forty percent (40%) Strongly Disapprove giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -11. Today is the President’s fourth straight day with an Approval Index rating in negative double digits (see trends). . . . Overall, 49% of voters say they at least somewhat approve of the President's performance. Fifty-one percent (51%) now disapprove."

There is little mystery why the president is suddenly so unpopular with voters. 40% of voters say that cutting the deficit is the highest priority, while reforming health care is a distant second at only 21%. Yet 71% of voters think Obama's policies are driving up the deficit. Voters are pessimistic about Obama getting it right. 67% think deficit reduction is the least likely goal to be achieved, while only 7% think it is the most likely goal to be achieved.

Can we say buyer's remorse? All that hype about Obama being a centrist and a moderate doesn't look so plausible now, does it? Many Republicans and a clear majority of moderate voters, who were justifiably angry at the Republicans for starting an unnecessary war in Iraq, letting spending get out of control and exhibiting disgusting personal ethics, voted the Republicans out thinking they were getting a moderate Democratic president who would not attempt to make fundamental changes to the American economy in the midst of a recession. They thought it was safe to send the Republicans a message. Instead, they got the most hard-line, ideological leftist in congress as president.

This was clearly a tragic situation and the blame for the current mess rests more than any other on one man: George W. Bush. He should have known better than let the imperialistic hawks convince him to do something that discredited conservatism at a crucial moment. If George Bush had governed like a true conservative - emphasizing fiscal restraint, avoiding overreach in international affairs and pursuing an incrementalist policy in social conservativism as he did very effectively - then he would have been a success and Obama would now be a junior senator on the extreme left of a party without power.

The problem is not that George Bush was too conservative; the problem is that he was not conservative enough. Fiscal restraint, geopolitical restraint and gradual, organic change in social policy are characteristics of true conservatism, whereas free spending and reckless interventionism are marks of a kind of nationalistic, utopianism that cries: "we can spread democracy to every country of the world with our army."

Now it appears that the Republican Party will be given another chance. The last thing the GOP needs to do is move toward the center in terms of policy or do anything to alienate the social conservatives, who are essential to any future election victory. It needs to nourish its base, find a leader who does not scare moderates and purge itself of playboys and lobbyists, at least at the highest levels. It is the majority party and will get another chance at power. But it must learn from the hubris of the Bush administration and not take for granted the good will of the electorate.

The American Election: Silver Linings

The election of a hard-edged, liberal ideologue who stands firmly against the culture of life as the leader of a country in Europe is now so common as to be expected, but for it to happen in the United States of America is a shocking event. More pro-abortion even than Bill Clinton or any other Democratic nominee for president, Barack Obama is by no means a centrist politican as defined by American politics. But does this mean that the center has shifted left in the US, as it has over the past 40 years in Canada? Was this election "transformational?" Should the pro-euthanasia activists, the re-definition of marriage activists and those advocating such things as cloning humans for spare parts all now stand shoulder to shoulder shouting "Yes we can"?

It has taken me four days to write this post because I wanted to put the election of Obama in the perspective of the election results as a whole. There is a lot of silver in the linings of this election, more in fact than one would expect after the American people had elected a man who stands for legalized private killing after a campaign in which the mainstream media actively campaigned for him to the point of comparing him to Lincoln.

There is no doubt that, in principle, it is a wonderful thing that the first African-American president has been elected. But the real story is that it is not that astonishing that a black man can be elected president. I really don't know how someone can be all that surprised. It speaks well of America that his policies, his abilities and his timing were all more important than his race - and it must be admitted that his race was actually a greater asset than liability in many quarters of America. And I'm not just talking about black America, but about white, liberal America where the eagerness to vote for a black president was extremely high. (I actually heard comments from white voters who were so excited to be able to vote for a black candidate that they were going to do so even though they disagreed with his policies!)

So what can we take from this election as positives for those who are neither Republicans or Democrats, but who are concerned to build a culture of life?

1. Obama Only Managed 52% of the Popular Vote:
In this election we had a Republican president with a 31% approval rating who had led the country into an unpopular war, run up a gigantic deficit, attacked civil liberties and squandered much of the good will in the world in which America has basked after 9/11. The big question the mainstream media will never ask, but which begs to be asked is "Why was the margin of victory so narrow?"

The answer is that the US was and remains a conservative-leaning (center-right) country. The abortion issue dragged Obama down and prevented a run-away win. McCain was nominated as a centrist Republican with a reputation for being a mavrick because the Republicans were trying to distance themselves from George Bush. Therefore, he did not excite the social conservatives within the Republican coalition and it took the choice of Sarah Palin to convince many social conservatives to vote this time. That decision, which was out of character for McCain, demonstrated that the Republican Party ignores the social conservatives at its peril because they represent a large part of the voting public. If McCain had chose Lieberman it likely would have been a blow-out for Obama.

2. Voters in California, Florida and Arizona Reject Same-sex "Marriage:"
Secondly, it is heartening that 30 states now have now enshrined the traditional definition of marriage in their constitutions. Activist federal judges be warned: America will not tolerate a repeat of the abortion scenario where 9 unelected citizens impose their morality (or lack thereof) on the nation.

The vote in California against same sex "marriage" happened despite the Obama landslide. In one of the most liberal states in the union in an election in which a Democrat opposing Proposition 8 is overwhelmingly elected, Proposition 8 should have been toast. Obama himself ran 13% higher than the campaign to support same sex "marriage," which strongly suggests that he was not elected with a moral revisionist mandate.

3. The Democrats Fall Short of the Super-Majority in the Senate:
This was close. If the Democrats (or the pro-abortionists of both parties) had gained 60 seats in the Senate, then the filibuster could have been over-ridden at a signal from Biden and Ried. But it looks right now that the Democrats have fallen just short of this threshold. This means the Republicans have at least one weapon to use to provide an effective opposition.

This development has huge implications for two crucial matters. First, it may mean that the Freedom of Choice Act will not be able to be passed. Or at the least, it may have to be watered down. This will be a major fight during the next 12 months. Second, it may put a little tiny brake on Obama's nominees for the Supreme Court. The good news is that the four anti-Roe votes on the court will likely survive the next four years, just as Ginsberg and Stevens have hung on to the end of the Bush years. Obama will only (we pray) have the opportunity to replace two liberal judges and no conservative ones. And without the Senate super-majority there will actually be a fight. Obama's nominees likely will be as far the left as Robert Bork was to the right and if the outcome is only that a slightly less liberal judge is appointed, that will be good for the country.

4. Obama did not win the Evangelical or Church-Going Catholic Vote:
Obama, for all that he had going for him, did not win the vote among those who actually practice Chrisitanity. He won among nominal Catholics and liberal Protestants, which is to be expected since he stands for what many of them believe in. But he did not win among those who read the Bible, attend worship, pray and try to live a Christian life. Over 70% of white Evangelicals, for example, voted for McCain even though many required a clothespin on their noses in order to do it. As one British newspaper opined recently, Obama is the first secular president.

It would have simplified things if two elections could have been held: one in which everyone could vote for or against George Bush and then another in which everyone could vote on who should lead the country in the future. Many people did not vote for Obama but against Bush. Many Catholics and Evangelicals were as unhappy as the rest of the country with Bush's out of control spending, tax cuts for the rich and his ruinous war. But they couldn't see how electing the most liberal member of the senate was going to fix those problems. And the life and marriage issues were just too fundamental to ignore.

If the Democratic Party had moved to the center on moral issues by upholding traditional marriage and advocating strict limits on abortion, it could have won a thundrous majority. But my sense is that it would rather maintain its extreme left ideology and win 52% of the vote - enough to give it power but not enough to limit its ideology.

5. The Republican Party is Now Out of Power:
This in itself is a very good thing. The party is the only available vehicle for the pro-life and pro-family social conservative coalition to utilize at this stage of American politics and it is badly in need of being overhauled. Opposition is where it needs to be at this moment because it needs to rethink conservatism.

Conservatism does not mean invading countries on wild adventures like Napoleon spreading the ideals of liberty, equality and faternity at the point of a sword. The neo-cons hawks like Rumsfeld, Cheney, Bolton and Wolfowitz should walk the plank. They are most responsible for the loss of power and they should be pariahs in the forseeable future.

Conservatism does not mean out of control pork-barrel spending while doling out tax cuts to those who don't need them. I know that many conservatives believe in cutting taxes in order to prevent overall government spending on entitlements to rise forever. But to use this as an excuse not to balance the budget is just reprehensible.

Conservatism does not mean extreme libertarianism. There is no future for the Republican Party if it repudiates its social conservative base in order to pander to a kind of libertarianism that joins forces with the cultural left on moral issues. Instead, Republicans need to give attention to how to strengthen families, appeal to the working class and be a balance to extreme, coastal, left-wing elites.

Being out of power is a good time to rethink these things.

6. Conservative Democrats May Constitute the Real Opposition to Obama:
One last silver lining is that many of the Democrats elected to the House in particular in 2006 and 2008 are well to the right of Obama. They won in parts of the countries that would never vote for the kind of liberal Obama is and yet they are Democrats. We will see how many of them will feel a need to oppose the most extreme aspects of the leftist social agenda that Obama and his inner circle will undoubtedly try to advance over the first two years of his mandate. (The first sign of how radical and determined Obama agenda will be is his choice for chief of staff.) These conservative Democrats in the House and Senate will need to keep an eye on their re-election prospects and they may prove to be something less than automatic votes for the Democratic leadership.

UPDATE: I have just learned that, in fact, 31 pro-life Democrats were elected to the House this time, 5 new ones and 26 re-elected. It was only the second time in 30 years that the number of pro-life Democrats in the House increased. This confirms my suspicion that if the Democratic Party wants to increase its majority it needs to come to terms with the reality that most of America is pro-life. And it confirms the suspicion that the most effective future opposition to the Democratic Party leadership may be the grassroots of the party itself. Such a development is probably a necessary step in the long-term fight against legalized private killing.

Conclusion:
As usual in politics it is never as good or as bad as it seems. We pray now for the health and strength of the church in the United States, which is a more important factor than any parties, politicans or platforms. It is the church that constitutes a bulwark against social disintegration into hedonism, individualism and materialism. As weak and imperfect as it is, nevertheless it is the church that is the real vehicle for God's work in history. As the church goes, so goes the country.