Elections

Romney

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I was quite concerned today to see this story on Powerline. The country is in serious straits because we have spent and are spending too much on public employees. My first wife went back to teaching a few years ago when she got laid off in a bank merger. She had a lifetime certificate in elementary education and has worked as a mortgage banker after our divorce in 1978. After that, she worked for the FSLIC, closing and liquidating insolvent S&Ls and currently. at the age of 72, she works for the FDIC doing the same thing. Her brief experience as a third grade teacher about 20 years ago, appalled her. She was always a public school advocate. After the divorce, the kids all went to private school. Now she says she would home school them.

Herman Cain won my support when he was asked what role the teacher’s unions played in out current school mess. He said that, as far as he was concerned, teachers’ unions were responsible for the school troubles. Would Romney say that ? He would be dreaming if he concluded that going easy on teacher’s unions would earn him any votes. Ditto for public employee unions.

Why then would he disclaim supports for a budget bill that affects public employee unions?

Why is he such a squish ?

Palin’s Out

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So, Mitt? Rick? Or, maybe, Herman?

I like Herman.

Rick looks better than Mitt, but I don’t love Rick.

But any of them are better than Mr. Obama.

This simplifies matters.

Let’s pick a guy and then beat Mr. Obama.

More important, let’s get the Senate, and a Tea Party Congress.

Not containment. Victory and rollback.

Herman Cain at TeaCon

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I was at TeaCon. I wore my cool 2012 Gadsden shirt. It was a very successful event, jam-packed, lots of good stuff.

Herman Cain was the highlight. His speech at TeaCon tore the roof off.

Mr. Cain had the crowd on their feet and clapping until their hands hurt.

He had everyone smiling, ear to ear, I noticed.

It reminded me of Reagan. Mr. Cain is very much a happy warrior. Voters prefer cheerfulness to anger.

He is a contender.

That means he will now be in everyone’s crosshairs.

If he can survive the gauntlet he could beat Romney, and if he can do that he will be formidable, and could beat Obama.

Not surprisingly, he won the straw poll.

(Michael Barone has a good piece about Mr. Cain.)

UPDATE: Commenter Cynthia has a link to a good piece on Mr. Cain’s background. Worth reading.

So This Is How Democracy Dies

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[youtube GNAHjsAnTd4 How Liberty Dies]

How is this for a headline?

“Key Democrats call for Ending Democracy”

Some people subscribe to the idea that politicians are stupid. They shoot from the hip until reined in by their consultants during election season. There is probably a great deal of truth to that. On the other hand, the use of the “trial balloon” is a well-tested technique for gauging public reaction to an idea.

With that in mind, I submit today’s WSJ’s “Notable and Quotable” into evidence to let the jury decide.

“Most Americans complain that government is unresponsive to their wishes. But not everyone feels that way. In the space of two days, two prominent Democrats have called for less responsive government that ignores public input.
 
One of them, former White House Budget Director Peter Orszag, penned a piece this week in the New Republic arguing, as the title says, “Why we need less democracy.” Orszag wrote that “the country’s political polarization was growing worse—harming Washington’s ability to do the basic, necessary work of governing.” His solution? “[W]e need to minimize the harm from legislative inertia by relying more on automatic policies and depoliticized commissions for certain policy decisions. In other words, radical as it sounds, we need to counter the gridlock of our political institutions by making them a bit less democratic.” . . .
 
[S]imilar comments by Gov. Bev Perdue, D-N.C., are far more troubling. “I think we ought to suspend, perhaps, elections for Congress for two years and just tell them we won’t hold it against them, whatever decisions they make, to just let them help this country recover,” Perdue told a Rotary Club gathering in suburban Raleigh this week. “I really hope that someone can agree with me on that.”

Gaffe or Trial Balloon?

Read more

Two Easy Questions

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1. Would Romney be a better president than Obama?

2. If a third party candidate ran to the right of Romney, if he were nominated, is there any chance of Obama NOT being reelected?

To me the answers to this are too obvious to need to be spoken aloud, but lets do it.

1. Of course Romney would be better than Obama. Does that mean I prefer Romney to any of the other GOP candidates? No. Does that mean I like the idea of Romney being president? No. Does it mean that pretty much any of the current Republican field, including Romney, is better than Obama? Hell yes.

2. It is going to be very, very hard to beat Obama as it is. The solid blue states get him most of the way there in terms of electoral votes. His supporters are united, mobilized, well-funded, and they will have a massive MSM barrage on their side. It is very difficult to unseat a sitting president. Even though the country is in an ongoing economic disaster, and even though Mr. Obama has done a miserable job as president, he is still barely below 50 on Intrade. Most likely he will bottom out long before the election. Odds are, he will win, as it is now. If the opposition is divided, Mr. Obama sails to victory, and we get four more years of this.

If there is any defect in that analysis, please tell me what it is.

(Do not engage in personal insults directed at me or I will delete any such comment. They do not advance the discussion. Save that for your own blog.)