The beginning of the end for Obama, and the beginning of a new Reagan Revolution?

I have a dream. I used to think it was more of a fantasy, but now I think it just might be possible. For the first time in my life, I see a realistic chance that blacks who should be Republicans but aren’t (namely those who are employed, hope to someday be employed, have kids who are employed or hope to someday have kids that are employed) will actually become Republicans.

Here’s the scenario. Hillary Clinton rallies to take the Democrat nomination from Barack Obama, thanks in large part to her campaign’s racial attacks and Obama’s racist pastor. Most people start to realize that there is no way the American people as a whole would ever elect a man whose spiritual advisor has been advising him in this manner for 20 years. White Democrats start supporting Hillary in the same percentages as black voters support Obama, causing Clinton landslides in most of the remaining states.

Black Democrats become so outraged that most of them won’t vote for Clinton in the presidential election. John McCain (unfortunately the only Republican in position to benefit from this, but he’ll have to do for now) wins a landslide victory.

Feeling abused by the Democrat party, blacks begin to re-evaluate the situation. They realize that they have been used by Democrats for at least the last 40 years, and some begin to notice that the Dems have done absolutely nothing for them. Some even begin reading up on their brothers who have been saying the same thing for years. Assuming they just get to the ones I have on my bookshelf, they would find the following:

They read J.C. Watts Jr. explain that conservatism is not a color, and that most blacks truly are traditional conservatives.

They learn from Walter Williams that more liberty really does require less government.

Thomas Sowell teaches the fatal flaws of Democrats’ economic policies.

Clarence Thomas inspires with the stories of his struggle and how traditional conservative values made him into the successful man and person that he is today.

And Larry Elder shows how the left controls blacks by limiting the subjects that can safely be discussed in America today. Speaking of Larry Elder, he’s got a very funny column today on how Obama can bring America together: Here.

As a result, many blacks come back to the party of Lincoln, to the party that is in line with their religious beliefs (unless they attend Barack Obama’s church), to the party that tries to be as color-blind as is humanly possible, to the party where anyone can make it if they are willing to work for it, to the party that appoints qualified blacks to real positions of power, to the party that actually supports their hopes and dreams and knows how to make them happen, and to the party of Ronald Reagan, whose policies did more to improve blacks’ upward-mobility than any president in American history. Assuming John McCain does nothing that would alienate the entire black community (like legalizing gay marriage or trying amnesty again), the Republican party would be in a position to dominate for at least the next 40 years and would actually be more conservative than it is today.

By then Hispanics will be the majority in this country and we will have to teach them that they are in the wrong party as well.

Hey, dreaming is free, right?

Do I really have to agree with Geraldine Ferraro?

This is what happens when you’re a Democrat. For the first time in her public life Geraldine Ferraro, the former running-mate of Walter Mondull (who lost to Ronald Reagan in one of the largest landslides in American history), finally voices an opinion that is 100% accurate. Democrats respond with outrage and Ferraro must resign her job on the Clinton campaign. And these people wonder why nobody takes them seriously.

In comments to the Torrance (Cal.) Daily Breeze, Ferraro said,  “If Barack Obama were a white man, would we be talking about this as a potential real problem for — for Hillary?  If he were a woman of any color, would he be in this position that he’s in?  Absolutely not.”

Ferraro is angry that the Obama campaign is accusing her of being racist, as she should be. She was also very upfront about her own candidacy in 1984, saying, “In 1984, if my name were Gerard Ferraro instead of Geraldine Ferraro I would never have been the nominee for vice president.”
   

Is it really controversial to say that a young candidate with no experience, who has never governed in his life, who has no achievements in almost three years in the Senate, who has expressed no specifics on his plan to govern the country, who has the most liberal voting record in the Senate this year, and whose spouse hates America… is it really controversial to say that no woman with that resume would ever sniff getting nominated for President by a major party? Is it even controversial to say that no white person would get nominated with that bio? Seriously, name me one nominated candidate in the last 100 years who was less qualified to be President of the United States. There are none.

Barack Obama is so uniquely un-qualified that he makes Hillary Clinton look experienced in comparison. As my wife pointed out, Obama could easily point out that Hillary would not be in this position if she hadn’t married a president, been cheated on multiple times, moved to New York and become a moderately more active senator than Obama has been.

This is a liberal fantasy: affirmative action in a presidential election. How long have they fought in favor of race-based (racist) policies that ensure that unqualified people get the opportunities they “deserve”? Now we have it on a large scale.

It’s not like it’s a big deal, just the presidency of our country.

   
   

Democrat voters: sexists, racists or both?

Thanks in part to Rush Limbaugh and his loyal listeners, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are still battling as liberals search their souls over the question of whether they are more racist than they are sexist, or vice versa. So far the racists have the nod.

Now I would never vote for either Clinton or Obama, but it has nothing to do with gender or race. I just don’t tend to vote for brain-dead liberals who are barely qualified to run for a local school board seat. But give me Condi Rice and I’d vote for her in a heartbeat over any of the three candidates we have to “choose” from.

Yesterday’s results in Mississippi mirrored results in most of the other states we’ve seen recently, which are downright frightening. 40 % of blacks said race was a key factor in their decision, compared to 23% of whites. 90% of blacks voted for Obama, 74% of whites for Clinton. Obama won 60/40 among people who said race was a factor. Nationally, Obama is winning 80% of the black vote, while Hillary is winning just 53% of the white vote.

Also, you have to factor in the 8% of Democratic primary voters who are registered Republicans. Rush Limbaugh’s chaos strategy, termed “Rush the Vote” by some in the media, has certainly resulted in more white voters voting for Hillary than would otherwise be the case. So we see that blacks are more likely than whites (even in the deep South) to base their votes on race. Or as we would call it in less PC days, liberal blacks are bigger racists than liberal whites.

On to gender. Nationally, Clinton beats Obama 50-45 among women, while Obama  wins 53-40 among men. So it appears as if liberal men are slightly more sexist than liberal women, until you figure in the fact than Obama receives over 80% of the black woman vote. Accounting for that, I’d guess the men and women are pretty equally sexist.

Back to Limbaugh, his strategy of encouraging listeners to vote for Clinton in order to keep the Democrat race going was pure genious. Clinton and Obama are destroying each other, and spending loads of money that the eventually winner would have had to spend against McCain.   

Dealmaking at the “State of the Union”

Thanks to Mark and Doug for brightening my day with this photo of The Swimmer.

Hillary and Obama and McCain, oh my!

Every election year, Democrats can count on winning the majority of votes from certain key demographic groups: criminals, defense attorneys, dead people, illegal immigrants and people who aren’t smart enough to figure out how to correctly fill out a ballot. Hillary or Obama will dominate all those categories this year.

Meanwhile, John McCain is all but assured to win the votes of at least one group: people who mistakenly registered as Republicans. So at least he’s got that going for him, which is nice.

For conservatives, the decision will require more thought.

Today was a big day at CPAC. Mitt Romney dropped out of the race, while McCain tried to make the case that he really is a conservative. In a better world, McCain would have dropped out of the race while Romney tried to convince us that he really is a conservative.

Bill Bennett and some guy that I’ve never heard of before made the best case I’ve seen yet for why we should support McCain over the eventual Democrat nominee.

Meanwhile, Ann Coulter made the case for sitting this one out:

If Hillary is elected president, we’ll have a four-year disaster, with Republicans ferociously opposing her, followed by Republicans zooming back into power, as we did in 1980 and 1994, and 2000. (I also predict more Oval Office incidents with female interns.)If McCain is elected president, we’ll have a four-year disaster, with the Republicans in Congress co-opted by “our” president, followed by 30 years of Democratic rule.There’s your choice, America.

I’m actually starting to salivate at the thought of four years ripping apart Hillary’s “ideas.” The problem with this plan of action is what to do if Obama wins. Obama has major momentum, the media and the left is absolutely crazy for him, and no amount of destructive ideas (and believe me, he has plenty) would prevent him from winning a second term if he manages to win a first, in my opinion. So the Coulter Plan is only viable if Hillary wins the Dem nomination.

For his part, McCain took a step towards reconciling with conservative voters. This was a highly unusual move for the ornery, prideful senator from Arizona. Here are some highlights of his speech today:

I know I have a responsibility.. to unite the party and prepare for the great contest in November… I am acutely aware that I cannot succeed in that endeavor, nor can our party prevail over the challenge we will face from either Senator Clinton or Senator Obama, without the support of dedicated conservatives, whose convictions, creativity and energy have been indispensible to the success our party has had over the last quarter century. Many of you have disagreed strongly with some positions I have taken in recent years. I understand that. I might not agree with it, but I respect it for the principled position it is. And it is my sincere hope that even if you believe I have occasionally erred in my reasoning as a fellow conservative, you will still allow that I have, in many ways important to all of us, maintained the record of a conservative. Further, I hope you will grant that I have defended many positions we share just as ardently as I have made my case for positions that have provoked your opposition. 

Surprisingly contrite and accurate all around. Keep it coming.

I am proud to be a conservative, and I make that claim because I share with you that most basic of conservative principles: that liberty is a right conferred by our Creator, not by governments, and that the proper object of justice and the rule of law in our country is not to aggregate power to the state but to protect the liberty and property of its citizens.

Okay, so we know he at least has a copy of the Reagan playbook. Now tell us why you keep losing it at the worst possible times.

While I have long worked to help grow a public majority of support for Republican candidates and principles, I have also always believed, like you, in the wisdom of Ronald Reagan, who warned in an address to this conference in 1975, that “a political party cannot be all things to all people. It must represent certain fundamental beliefs which must not be compromised to political expediency or simply to swell its numbers.”

Way to turn those words inside out. Rush Limbaugh quoted this the other day in an attack on McCain for too often trying to be all things to all people. At least we know McCain is listening to Rush now. Maybe he’ll learn something.

I attended my first CPAC conference as the invited guest of Ronald Reagan, not long after I had returned from overseas, when I heard him deliver his “shining city upon a hill” speech. I was still a naval officer then, but his words inspired and helped form my own political views, just as Ronald Reagan’s defense of America’s cause in Vietnam and his evident concern for American prisoners of war in that conflict inspired and were a great comfort to those of us who, in my friend Jerry Denton’s words, had the honor of serving “our country under difficult circumstances.” I am proud, very proud, to have come to public office as a foot soldier in the Reagan Revolution. And if a few of my positions have raised your concern that I have forgotten my political heritage, I want to assure you that I have not, and I am as proud of that association today as I was then. My record in public office taken as a whole is the record of a mainstream conservative. I believe today, as I believed twenty-five years ago, in small government; fiscal discipline; low taxes; a strong defense, judges who enforce, and not make, our laws; the social values that are the true source of our strength; and, generally, the steadfast defense of our rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, which I have defended my entire career as God-given to the born and unborn.

A few people have asked me why the focus on Reagan. This speech should clear that up for anyone. Ronald Reagan’s ideas are so powerful that no Republican can hope to become President without convincing us that he is a rightly heir to the Reagan legacy. The words “mainstream conservative” concern me, because for anything to be mainstream it must be watered down, less effective than it would be if it were just “correct.” But hey, it seems to be working so far.

Most of the rest of his speech concerned certain issues that have annoyed mainstream conservatives. He did make a strong finish, however:

Often elections in this country are fought within the margins of small differences. This one will not be. We are arguing about hugely consequential things. Whomever the Democrats nominate, they would govern this country in a way that will, in my opinion, take this country backward to the days when government felt empowered to take from us our freedom to decide for ourselves the course and quality of our lives; to substitute the muddled judgment of large and expanding federal bureaucracies for the common sense and values of the American people; to the timidity and wishful thinking of a time when we averted our eyes from terrible threats to our security that were so plainly gathering strength abroad. It is shameful and dangerous that Senate Democrats are blocking an extension of surveillance powers that enable our intelligence and law enforcement to defend our country against radical Islamic extremists. This election is going to be about big things, not small things. And I intend to fight as hard as I can to ensure that our principles prevail over theirs.

Senator Clinton and Senator Obama want to increase the size of the federal government.

I intend to reduce it. I will not sign a bill with earmarks in it, any earmarks in it. I will fight for the line item veto, and I will not permit any expansion whatsoever of the entitlement programs that are bankrupting us. On the contrary, I intend to reform those programs so that government is no longer in that habit of making promises to Americans it does not have the means to keep.

Senator Clinton and Senator Obama will raise your taxes.

I intend to cut them. I will start by making the Bush tax cuts permanent. I will cut corporate tax rates from 35 to 25% to keep industries and jobs in this country. I will end the Alternate Minimum Tax. And I won’t let a Democratic Congress raise your taxes and choke the growth of our economy.

They will offer a big government solution to health care insurance coverage.

I intend to address the problem with free market solutions and with respect for the freedom of individuals to make important choices for themselves.

Great stuff there. McCain has always been solid on taxes and spending. I will get into his war position in part one of my analysis of Reagan’s “A Time for Choosing” speech. We have a few months to decide if this sort of lukewarm conservatism is acceptable, if we’re willing to allow McCain to move the party to left in order to avoid a worse fate, or if we can afford to take a four-year step back in order to bring about a better solution in the future.
 

Black Tuesday Aftermath : The Fight For the Republican Party

When Connie Chung asked Bobby Knight how he dealt with stress, the recently-retired coaching legend famously replied, “I think that if rape is inevitable, relax and enjoy it.”

Hillary (or Obama, same thing) versus McCain now looks inevitable, but there will be no relaxing or enjoying going on here. Not when we’re talking about my country. I will continue to confront the disastrous ideas of American liberalism, whether they come from Clinton, Obama, McCain or anyone else. No way will I stand by as the American taxpayer is asked to bend over for increased government largesse or redistributive policies designed to take from those who achieve and give to those who do little to add to America’s prosperity. 

It looks like we’ve lost the battle; now it’s time for war, a war of ideas. Over the next four years, we must do everything possible to make sure that the good people of this country never again face the “choice” between a liberal Democrat and a liberal Republican.

I wish I could just wash my hands of the whole process and sit this election out. Unfortunately, I decided a few years back that I would do everything in my power to make sure Hillary Clinton never becomes President. Since Hillary won her Senate seat, I’ve had this recurring nightmare that she would become President and her husband would become head of the United Nations, cementing the Clinton’s secret plan of world domination.

But John McCain? The same John McCain who will speak before CPAC (the conservative political action committee) tomorrow and attempt to show them that he really is a conservative? You’ve served in Congress for 25 years, McCain. If you were one of us, we would know it by now. 

Jed Babbin wrote a decent article today. In it he writes:

One source told me last night that McCain is planning an all-out push at CPAC.  At 3 pm tomorrow, McCain is scheduled to address the crowd expected to number over 6,000 activists… McCain has prepared a video featuring President Ronald Reagan to make the introduction. If McCain uses this video, it is very likely to backfire badly.  This is the group before which Ronald Reagan said in 1975 that, “A political party cannot be all things to all people. It must represent certain fundamental beliefs which must not be compromised to political expediency or simply to swell its numbers.”   

Very few of the 2008 CPAC crowd will see McCain as the successor to Reagan and Reagan’s principles.  McCain has sacrificed conservatives’ fundamental beliefs throughout his Senate career.  If McCain uses this introduction, the boos will be very loud.

Meanwhile, Fred Barnes wants conservatives to “grow up.” I respect Barnes, but the only thing McCain and the great Goldwater have in common is their home state of Arizona. Barnes writes:

McCain, probably alone among Republicans, can win this fall, but not without the full-blown support of conservatives. If he continues to reach out to them while running as a conservative, they need to heed Barry Goldwater’s advice in 1960. “Let’s grow up, conservatives,” he said. “If we want to take this party back, and I think we can, let’s get to work.”

That is weak, Barnes. John McCain has spent most of his career preventing conservatives from taking the party back. You know this to be true, yet you tell those of us who stand for principles before party to grow up. I say “grow a pair, Fred.”

I will probably decide to plug my nose and check John McCain’s name this fall, even though a very large part of me agreed with Rush Limbaugh yesterday when he asked, “If you think that the election of Obama, Hillary, or McCain is going to result in very bad things happening to the country, who would you rather get the blame for it?” I’m sure I’ll be breaking that decision down more as the election gets closer, but the important thing is what else we will do to make sure things are different four years from now.