I take encouragement from Jim Bennett’s great comment:
The Ghost Shirt Democrats are doing their dance, but the vast herds of union-member Democrat-voting buffalo will never return to the plains, and [the] magic ghost shirts will not turn the ballots of angry voters into water [in] 2010 and 2012. Of course, the Republicans could still blow it, but even if they do, the Democrats have shown in a few short weeks that they have no idea how to govern the country, just to loot it. They will be replaced, if not by Republicans, then by somebody else.
and also from Jim Miller (writing about Michael Barone, and recent polls that show recent Republican gains in opinion polls):
Barone is surprised by this result, but he shouldn’t be. Almost all of Rasmussen’s generic numbers since the election are better for Republicans than the generic numbers in the months before the election.
That pattern makes it unlikely that this result is an outlier, one of those bad results that every pollster gets from time to time.
Jim Miller points out that he predicted months ago that the Democrats, if they gained power, would eventually discredit themselves and lose support, but says he did not expect it to happen as fast as it now appears to be happening. I think the Internet is doing it, not that that’s any surprise. We haven’t had a Democratic President as weak as Obama or a Democratic Congress as reckless as today’s since the hazy past of Jimmy Carter and the anti-Republican reaction after Vietnam and Watergate (and after the recession caused by our govt’s ill-conceived economic policies of the late-’60s and early-’70s, let’s not forget). Now that we are there again, the difficulty for the Democrats in running their creaky old sausage factory under modern, ‘Net-enabled, 24/7 electronic hyper-scrutiny is obvious and may prove fatal. Popular opposition to the recent spending bill might have taken months to coalesce in the past but came together this time in a few days. Congressmen can no longer hide their Washington debauches from the folks back home.
If the voters turn out the looters and socialists sooner than we expect, that would be a good outcome. But if President Obama sees what is coming and realizes that he is on course to be a one-term failure, will he change direction by campaigning for tax-rate cuts and blocking extravagant Congressional spending? That would be an acceptable outcome too, but who knows if he has the wit or the balls to do it. It would certainly be out of character for him. But he also has a history of changing direction when his political survival depends on it, so maybe he will do that here too. Time will tell.
This makes sense, but it’s too early to say.
“if President Obama sees what is coming and realizes that he is on course to be a one-term failure, will he change direction by campaigning for tax-rate cuts and blocking extravagant Congressional spending?”
It would require exceptional leadership capabilities. He has never demonstrated them before. Further he has a;ways been a go along get along guy, which is why the Machine never treated him like they usually treat a schmuck from Hyde Park. It’s is hard to believe that he would kick-@$$ and take names in Congress like he would have to in order to get the situation under control.
Short answer — Don’t hold your breath.
This policy was tried by Japan in the 90s and failed-we’re in for stagflation,most likely and I don’t think that will be appreciated.Most voters are fairly stupid,but not infinitely so. He’s in way over his head,but this is a man who has never run anything more than his mouth ’til now.
Yeah, I am genuinely surprised. I expected Obama to be a more personally disciplined version of Clinton, and to use the substantial political capital he gained in this election to govern cleverly, make use of those demographic trends that are in their favor, and try to lock in an electoral advantage for the next iteration of the Democratic Party. But he really is more like Carter — the former made use of his novelty as a liberal-yet-modderate evangelical southern Christian to get elected, but had truly no idea of how to run the country at home or abroad. Obama is making use of his personal charisma and novel story to get elected, but seems to have no better idea of how to govern. If he were serious, he would be manouvering right now to replace Pelosi and Reid, and to gain control of his congressioonal party. He shows no sign of that. But it’s early yet.
The real question is, are the Republican stupid enough to blow this? I fear the answer.
I don’t think O will change course for the simple reason that he’s just a front man for the people who put him there, Soros with his money, Ayers with his ideology plus his other mentors and handlers. This is why he isn’t doing anything now, just delegating decisions, like when he asked the military brass what the end game is for Afghanistan, he should be deciding that and he doesn’t even know that’s his job never mind know what to do.
I think Obama is an utter fake and a con, and buyer’s remorse may actually be real and possibly already starting. Given than he has not been in office a full month, this is astonishing. I don’t see any more bleating about a 100 day honeymoon – I think that flew the coop the first week. The Dumb and Dumber duo of Reid and Pelosi, followed by one corrupt and scandalous Democrat congresscritter after another, is the real answer to what is wrong. But we have put a poorly educated, unaccomplished, unprincipled con man at the top of our government and we wonder why things are already going down the rathole and whether people will exercise revenge. Huh.
While I agree with many of the commenters on the lack of capacity to either govern or learn, and I am more than open to the “puppet” theorem; the tone, tenor, and words of Hussein Pasha, along with the collection of miscreants, maladroits, and as yet unindicted co-conspirators that is his administration indicate possibly something else.
I am not the only one who has noticed it, but does it not seem to anyone else here that the Democrats are acting as if they will never have to face any reckoning at all for their actions? That they not only do not fear an accounting, that they do not really expect to face a verdict from voters in the future?
That attitude has implications for the existence or conduct of any elections in 2010 or beyond. Their attitude may be one of the most grievous electoral miscalculations in history. Or it may be based on inside knowledge of future intent.
Subotai Bahadur
Subotai, I agree with you. The control of the 2010 Census and the implementation of the Fairness Doctrine, as well as hidden clauses in the Stimulus bill (million$ of not billion$ to ACORN for mass scale voter fraud) is part of a grand plan to subvert all future elections in the Democrats’ favor. I keep telling myself this is still a free country and people are free to vote as they choose, but we know who thrives on voter fraud and manipulation. The fact that every single elected Democrat is either a corrupt fraud or a mendacious fiend or both just confirms all our suspicions. Right now they have their schemes and plans and a fully complicit media, and all they need is to supress all righty speech (radio and internet) to put the blindfold on all the voters, then steal the next elections.
I haven’t given up hope that the forces of liberty can beat this evil, but I’m worried.