Rush Limbaugh Has Faith In The American People To Do The Right Thing. Do You?

Do you have faith in the American people to do the right thing?

If you do, which half would that be, the half which has a last will and testament, or the half which dies intestate?

See Gallup, here.

Al Hunt Blames Christian Anti-Mormon Bigotry For Romney's Troubles

Al Hunt for Bloomberg blames evangelical Christians for Romney's problems in this article:

Mitt Romney has a persisting Mormon problem. Less certain is whether this is limited to the Republican primaries or it’s a general-election worry, too.

“This nomination would be in the bag if it weren’t for the Mormon factor,” says John Geer, a professor of political science at Vanderbilt University who works on the intersection of religion and politics.

The exit polls from a plethora of primaries confirm that. Romney, a deeply devout leader in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, gets clobbered among white evangelicals and those who believe the religious views of a would-be president matter a great deal. This has caused him to lose a few primaries and denied him decisive wins in others.

The trouble with this argument is that it is wrong and ignores the fact that Mormonism is a bigger impediment in a candidate for Democrats than it is for Republicans, who might well realize this and instead want someone without this baggage who can also garner Democrat votes in the general election.

Last June's Gallup poll is a case in point: 27 percent of Democrats are unwilling to vote for a Mormon, compared with 18 or 19 percent for Republicans and Independents.

But there is another reason for Romney's woes, a candidate with far superior organization and much more money than any of the rest: proportional primaries.

Joseph Curl discusses the advent of proportional primaries in the Republican Party here, in the wake of the 2008 candidacy of John McCain:

[T]his is ... the scenario Republicans set up in 2010. Party leaders felt the process was too front-loaded, tilted too far to establishment leaders. So, to extend and open up the nomination, the leaders moved from mostly winner-take-all primaries and caucuses to proportionate distribution of delegates based on popular vote.

“There were a lot of people on the [Republican National Committee] and other places who were not very happy after ‘08,” David Norcross, chairman of the party’s Rules Committee when the changes were made, told the Daily Beast. “We didn’t think it was right that four or five states got to pick the nominee. It was slam, bam, thank you, done - and I think we were not helped by that. In fact, some of us think [Sen. John] McCain was not helped by that because he was not forced to sharpen his candidate skills. It was over and he went on to wait for the Democrats to produce a candidate. Just sitting around waiting.”

The new system established hefty penalties for any state that sought to move up on the calendar, in essence halving the number of delegates a state could award if it were so brash. It didn’t work; Florida moved its primary up anyway, with disastrous results.

But the new system also suggested the stakes be ramped up after April 1. The idea was for states holding primaries and caucuses after that date to be winner-take-all. But many of the late-date states wanted the nomination battle to still be alive when their date came up, so they stuck with the proportional setup.

That is why, almost into April and just halfway through the primary calendar, front-runner Mitt Romney has less than half the 1,144 delegates needed to secure the nomination. And while everyone’s math differs, it looks as if he has to win about half of all delegates from now until the final primary in Utah on June 26.

With 1099 delegates still to be apportioned as of today in the rest of the primary contests, Romney needs 576 more to capture the nomination. Santorum needs 871.

But under a winner-take-all scenario, Romney would possess 625 delegates already and could theoretically clinch the nomination by winning the next thirteen states through May 15th. It would take Santorum through May 29, winning all sixteen of the next contests to add to his would-be current total of  461 under winner-take-all, including such places as Maryland, DC, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Delaware, Oregon and Texas. A dubious proposition.

Presumably the dynamic of the race under those conditions would look far worse for Santorum because of Romney's natural advantages in boots on the ground and money. What is keeping Santorum viable today, however, has little to do with what Christians believe about Mormonism. What keeps Santorum alive is proportional voting.

Santorum needs to capture 79 percent of the still available delegates to win it, which is crazy. And if he thinks he's got a snowball's chance in hell of carving out a role in any future administration after the things he's said this season, he's even crazier than I think.

Let's hope he puts us out of our misery and gets out before Pennsylvania humiliates him on April 24th.

Democrats and College-less Least Likely To Vote For A Mormon

Well, there goes the crossover vote.

Gallup has the data here:

Florida Liberals Help Republicans Select Mitt Romney, A Candidate They Can Beat

Fully 59 percent of Romney voters in FL said campaign ads swayed them.

And no wonder. Romney spent more on ads in Florida's primary alone than John McCain spent in the entire country in the 2008 primaries:

It's estimated that the Romney campaign and its associated bodies spent $15.3 m[illi]on on TV spots in Florida in the past month alone. To put that into context John McCain spent just $11 million on ads during his entire 2008 primary campaign.

There have been a number of academic studies that suggest that while negative campaigning can motivate the base of support it can also alienate other voters, thus reducing voter turnout.

The negative ads motivated Romney's base alright, the liberal base:

females (52 percent of his vote);

people who believe abortion should be legal in all cases (57 percent);

think of themselves as moderate/liberal (59 percent);

are opposed to The Tea Party (57 percent);

favor illegals as temporary workers (51 percent);

make $200,000 or more (60 percent).

And yes, this alienated other voters, namely the conservatives who even in Florida outnumber such liberals nearly two-to-one: just 11 percent of Romney's Florida voters think Romney is a true conservative. Hence the immediate appearance of Ann Romney last night protesting how conservative is her husband.

The fact is 41 percent of Romney voters in Florida self-identified as Independents, not Republicans.

Just 48 percent of Romney voters called themselves Republican in the exit polls.

Considering that Republican turnout was down 16 percent from 2008, it is hard not to conclude that Democrats this year especially queered the vote in the Florida Republican primary. With over 360,000 non-Republicans trying to select the Republican candidate, conservatives arguably had two not entirely satisfactory candidates and lots of negative ads dividing and subduing their turnout. Divide and conquer, and personally destroy, both the strategies of Democrats. In 2008 when Republican turnout was much higher, the number of non-Republicans interfering was only slightly higher at 390,000. Romney's victory in 2012 thus owed much more to them than it would have in 2008.

Florida liberals have just helped select the Republican they know they can beat in the general: Mitt Romney.

Unfortunately Republicans nationally may not realize that the well was tainted before it's too late.

Why Do We March? Why Do We Protest? Why Do We Hate Congress?

Surely the answer is because we believe that our government does not represent us.

And it doesn't. In fact, the current Speaker of the House doesn't even believe that it should, and never has believed it. He went on the record early in the current legislative session saying that the president should set the Congress' agenda, as here:

“While our new majority will serve as your voice in the people’s House, we must remember it is the president who sets the agenda for our government.”

Rep. Boehner is seriously mistaken if he thinks the Tea Party would agree with that. It's the president's agenda which created the Tea Party, and the Tea Party doesn't like the president's agenda one bit.

Whether from the right with the Tea Party or the left with Occupy Wall Street, there is massive discontent in the American people with government.

That is why Gallup can report in December here that Congress has the lowest approval rating ever, since the polling organization began tracking the issue in 1974:

From a broad, long-term perspective, Congress has never been popular. The average annual congressional job approval rating since 1974 is 34%. Still, this year's 17% annual average is by one point the lowest yearly average Gallup has recorded.

The actual number approving of Congress has also reached a record low: 11 percent.

Instead of trying to make the Congress we have more responsive to us, why don't we just get a new one, a bigger and a better one than the one we've got?

Say, with tail fins.

Your congressman and my congressman now represent on average 707,999 people other than you or me. Which is to say, each and every voice he or she hears is next to meaningless. Once elected, your congressman treats you more like a serf than an equal because he doesn't need you to get re-elected. He needs money to do that, big money for television and other forms of advertising to get his name out there. He needs movers and shakers, not you.

If your congressman represented only 30,000 people instead of 708,000, however, do you think that he would need less money to get elected, work harder for your vote, and have an incentive to vote in Congress the way you want him to instead of the way he does? I do. And so did the authors of the constitution.

Since 1929 America has not had a Congress of the size required under Article 1, Section 1. The Congress voted to fix the size by law at the 435 level, by-passing the constitutional requirement to expand the size of the House as population grows. The consequences for the American people have been negative ever since.

This was a neat little trick designed for the benefit of only one group, the Congress. As a consequence money, influence and power have been concentrated in their few hands instead of distributed and divided broadly in order to contain it as the founders intended.

It is no wonder that Congress has become the rich, corrupt, arrogant and vile body it is today.

The best way to repair this situation, however, is not to "throw all the bums out," or work to hand control to a different political party than the one that has it now, or throw out the electoral college, or amend the constitution in some way.

No, the best way is simply to follow it. What we need to do is dilute the power the Congress presently has as the constitution requires: with a population of 308 million Americans, we should have 10,267 members in the US House, not 435.

If you want to give business as usual the boot, just hand Nancy Pelosi or John Boehner the task of trying to herd 10,000 cats for a vote on the debt ceiling, or the Patriot Act, or any other measure.

Just the thought of it should appall them.

And make no mistake about it: this sounds like a revolutionary act, but it's anything but. The real revolution occurred when Congress voted to usurp your right to the founders' vision of adequate representation.

To restore matters to the status quo ante is only counter-revolutionary.

Congressional Approval Remains in the Tank!

Gallup has congressional job approval stuck at 13 and under 20 since May.

Representation without representation.

Meredith Whitney's Caricature of Tea Party is Sexist and Liberal: Video and Transcript

She expressed her opinion on CNBC this morning (here is the video), saying the Tea Party is at bottom a phenomenon of unemployment, but composed mostly of freaked-out white men who've lost their jobs and their identities. She's obviously worried about it enough to offer advice to Machiavellian Democrats to defuse this supposed bomb before it's too late.

I guess she never examined the Gallup poll on the subject (here), which found that 45 percent of the Tea Party is female, is barely 5 percent more non-Hispanic white than the general population, and that the unemployment rate in the movement was lower than in the general population. Gallup concluded the Tea Party is fairly representative of the general population, unlike Whitney.

Sexist remarks start at 5:55 into the interview.

Translation: I'm a Machiavellian Democrat

Rasmussen Poll, Like Gallup, Shows Low Support For New Taxes at 34 Percent

Again, as part of a debt limit increase measure. While Gallup has 50 percent wanting spending cuts as the primary feature of the legislation, Rasmussen shows that at 55 percent.

The poll results are here.

Obama Says 80 Percent Want Balanced Approach, Gallup Says 32 Percent

Only 11 percent want a predominantly tax approach, while 50 percent want a predominantly spending cuts approach.

See Gallup here, and Obama here.

7 in 10 Democrats Sympathize with Communism

According to the latest Gallup Poll, here:

Seven in 10 Democrats believe the government should levy taxes on the rich to redistribute wealth, while an equal proportion of Republicans believe it should not. The slight majority of independents oppose this policy.

Recall Ebenezer Elliot (1781-1849):

What is a communist? One who has yearnings

For equal division of unequal earnings.

Idler, or bungler, or both, he is willing

To fork over his penny and pocket your shilling.

Our Enemy, David Stockman, Wants Higher Taxes on the Middle Class

We already know David Stockman wants to turn home owners into renters.

Now his first words out of the box for The New York Times, here, call for raising taxes on the middle class, as if the middle class had any money:

IT is obvious that the nation’s desperate fiscal condition requires higher taxes on the middle class, not just the richest 2 percent.

Mr. Stockman affects displeasure with class warfare in others while himself engaging in it, on behalf of the speculators who enriched themselves for years at the expense of Americans' primary store of wealth: their homes.

But our world is not shaped by the top 2 percent of earners, and everyone else below them "the middle class." This sort of nonsense plays as well at a White House prayer breakfast as it does at the country club, where everyone is middle class for purposes of public discussion, which is why The Times is happy to put up a former (was he ever one?) conservative to say what it doesn't have the courage to say openly.

Having screwed us out of our housing wealth, they're next target is our declining American paycheck.

And unless the Fed wants to ruin the value of the dollar . . . Mr. Stockman tellingly opines later in the piece, revealing how miserable is his grasp of the utter failure of The Federal Reserve since its inception. What do you mean, "unless?" The 1913 dollar is today worth about 4 cents. I'm sure Americans will be happy to surrender 100 percent of their paychecks to the government when the dollar goes to zero.

No, the middle income quintile in America is just 35 million tax returns strong, with a paltry $1.7 trillion in adjusted gross income. To eliminate our annual budget deficits under the big spending liberals like Obama, Pelosi and Reid, Mr. Stockman would have to confiscate 100 percent of this middle class money. Comrade David Stalin might as well starve us all to death, or line us up against the wall and shoot us.

Is there enough money below them?

Where the two lowest income quintiles dwell there are 70 million tax returns with even less money: $1.1 trillion in AGI.

At the top in America are 35 million tax returns with $5.6 trillion in AGI resting on these 105 million with $2.8 trillion in AGI. The 105 million are getting crushed.

The very top 14 million carry the most weight, with $3.8 trillion in AGI.

Even if we imagined raising taxes on the middle class meant we increased taxes on the 21 million tax returns in the upper middle and lower upper class, the pile of money available there for Mr. Stockman's extraction efforts barely beats that available in the real middle class at $1.8 trillion in AGI.

The big money is concentrated at the top, for a multitude of reasons, despite the on-going lies from The Wall Street Journal, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and now David Stockman. That's why President Obama's rhetoric about increasing taxes on the wealthy plays so well with the American people. It's the secret of his success.

By overwhelming numbers Americans support increasing taxes on "the rich." Despite all the success of the Tea Party in the US House, the American people obviously still haven't made the connection between the president and the Democrats and the massive revenue shortfalls. The shortfalls exist not because taxes aren't high enough. They exist because of massive new overspending.

That Mr. Stockman attempts to exploit the failed connection, perceiving that an opening yet remains, to confuse, obfuscate and lie, tells you all you need to know about him. Like the rest of our elites, he hates the Tea Party.

Right back atcha, David.

  

Congress Was Last This Unpopular During Watergate

36 years ago. Story here:

Americans' assessment of Congress has hit a new low, with 13% saying they approve of the way Congress is handling its job. The 83% disapproval rating is also the worst Gallup has measured in more than 30 years of tracking congressional job performance.

New Republican Record in Gallup Weekly Tracking Poll

Gallup reports that registered voters prefer Republicans to Democrats by 11 points, besting the 1994 5-point record, which preceded the ascendancy of Newt Gingrich and the Contract With America while Bill Clinton was president.

The poll dates to 1942.

Go here for the whole thing.

51% of Americans Favor New Arizona Immigration Law

The latest Gallup poll shows widespread support for Arizona's new immigration legislation, despite a barrage of negative stories in the media in the wake of its passage:

More than three-quarters of Americans have heard about the state of Arizona's new immigration law, and of these, 51% say they favor it and 39% oppose it.

MediaMatters.org is not happy:

Gallup polled adults nationally about a law that only applies to one state and that, at the time of the survey, had only really been in the national news for a few days, and assumed people who had "heard" of the new law knew what the law was about?

Clearly the left has a lot more work to do to convince people to change their opinion on this subject. The pesky center-right character of the American people just keeps getting in the way.

Obama as Stalinist: The People Must Be In Error About Healthcare

It's all there if you really think about it, paler because it lacks a military face, but discernible nonetheless:

Obama's stated goal to transform the country rapidly;

the cult of personality which he has done nothing to discourage;

his enthusiasm for interfering with common liberties from fishing to private communications;

state-capitalism in the form of government ownership of industry;

enrichment of the unionized federal workforce at the expense of the unemployment-ravaged private sector;

and the co-opting of the radicals who supported him in the interest of promoting his own personal power.

All in all, an un-democratic man indeed, who flies under the cover of race.

And Jay Cost hopes "moderates" in the Democrat party can stop him? After what Obama did to a centrist like Representative Eric Massa (NY-29)? Moderation is hardly what is called for in a situation like this.

March 09, 2010

It's Time for Moderate House Democrats to Stand Up to Obama

Jay Cost

According to Gallup, Barack Obama entered the presidency with a net approval rating (i.e. percent approve minus percent disapprove) of 56%. This past weekend, he was at just +1%. No newly elected President has fallen so far so fast since polling began. Only Bill Clinton - in his difficult first year in office - came close.

Some pundits have an overly-reductionist take on Obama's fast-declining numbers, arguing that the precipitous drop is entirely due to the stagnant economy. They like to draw a comparison to Ronald Reagan, whose numbers fell quickly as he dealt with a recession early in his term. No doubt some of Obama's decline is related to the recession, but the 44th President - unlike the 40th - was elected when the economy was already contracting. This gives Obama political cover that Reagan did not have. Just 7% of Americans, according to a recent CBS News/New York Times poll, blame Obama for the recession.

If it's more than the economy, what else is it? Health care is a strong contender. Between Memorial Day and Labor Day of last year, Obama's net job approval rating in the RCP average declined by 63%. This was the period when House Democrats were beginning to divide openly over their reform proposals, and when the town hall protests started. As the debate has dragged on, his net approval has inched closer and closer to zero. Today, the country is essentially split in half over his tenure.

That split is not random. It breaks down along the typical cleavages. Obama is strong in the East; weak in the South. Young people like him; seniors do not. Democrats stand with him; Republicans and Independents don't. Blacks approve; whites do not. Single people support him; married people don't.

Yet the Democratic Party controls Congress today because in the last two election cycles it healed these divisions, at least partially. In 2008, House Democrats split the South. They won voters young and old. They won Independents. They held their own with whites. They split married voters. This is why they have a majority in the 110th House of Representatives.

If the current trends in public opinion continue, they will lose that majority because of President Obama's divisiveness. We have seen hints of things to come with GOP victories in Virginia, New Jersey, and most recently Massachusetts - as the difference-making voters for the Democrats in 2006 and 2008 turned to the Grand Old Party.

Either Mr. Obama and his advisors are blind to this, or they don't care, or both. I think it's both; call it willful blindness, a self-serving belief that 2008 was indeed a liberal realignment, and that the numbers will eventually reflect it. Regardless, House Democrats should know that the voters who have made them a majority party in recent cycles strongly oppose this health care bill; they have turned against President Obama; and they will eventually turn against them if they go along with the President. Moderates from the South and Midwest will be the first to go down to defeat as the party shrinks from a majority to a minority.

Yet such crassly selfish political considerations are not at the core of the debate moderate Democrats should be having. The real question is this: what is the Democratic Party all about? As I have argued before, the substance of this bill - with a mandate enforced by the Internal Revenue Service that all citizens buy a product from a private company as part of the terms of public citizenship - is antithetical to the historical spirit of the party.

But it's not just the substance. It's the process. The ever-obliging mainstream media have helpfully reduced the appropriateness of reconciliation to a merely legislative question, thus obscuring the bigger political reality: the Democrats must use reconciliation to pass health care because they no longer have a filibuster-proof majority; they no longer have a filibuster-proof majority in part because of health care. Their chosen strategy may pass muster with the Senate parliamentarian, but it suggests a blatant disregard for public opinion.

This is par for the course for the 44th President, who has made pretty clear his belief that, when he and the people disagree, the people must be in error. Democratic primary voters in small town Pennsylvania opposed him not because he was inexperienced, you see, but because their bitterness made them provincial. Now, Americans who don't support this bill simply don't understand it. They'll see things better after the Congress passes it.

Such arrogance makes for bad politics because it's un-democratic. Yet it's also un-Democratic. It's not unreasonable to expect the party of the people to respect the judgment of the people, especially on an issue that is so important and that has attracted so much attention. The public is as well informed about the health care debate as they ever are about anything. One would hope that the Democratic Party would acknowledge and respect this fact.

Progressives at liberal opinion journals and in the D.C. press corps have had trouble with this idea - and have ironically taken to employing fallacies of composition to suggest that public opposition is irrational. The people like the various elements of the bill, so the fact that they dislike the whole thing is a sign that they're not thinking clearly. If this argument was valid - if the whole was merely the sum of its parts - the Washington Redskins, an organization that likes to lure the best players from other teams rather than build from the ground up, would stand at the top of the National Football League.

The Democratic Party is broader than its progressive intellectuals and media cheerleaders. It has the majority not just because of San Francisco, California - but also Murfreesboro, Tennessee and Zanesville, Ohio. Those places voted Democratic in the 2008 House elections. Some progressives, especially in the blogosphere, see that as a problem - the "ConservaDems" they elect hold up true progress. But it's historically the greatest strength of the Democratic Party, whose appeal has long been much broader than the GOP's.

House Democrats should bear this in mind as they consider the current reforms. This bill would signal not just a major change in health care, but also in the Democratic Party itself. The end result will be a smaller, more narrowly liberal party that is less trusted by the mass public to respect its collective judgment. The party will keep San Francisco and The New Republic, but sooner or later they'll lose Murfreesboro and Zanesville.

Mr. Obama has indicated that he is all right with this. But in our system of separated powers, his opinion is insufficient. Ultimately, the decision rests with Southern and Midwestern House Democrats. They must make the final choice. They can vote with the President on a bill whose substance and process reflect little of the grandest traditions of the Democratic Party. Or they can stand up to him, and tell him that they have had enough of his condescending attitude and strong-arm tactics.

What moderate House Democrats should not do is assume that, if they vote with him on this one, President Obama will stop here. This President talked during the campaign about building a broad consensus for change. Yet when push comes to shove, he cares much more about change than consensus. He plans to tackle immigration reform, and there's no doubt he's still eyeing cap-and-trade. He has promised the Congressional Progressive Caucus that they can revisit health care later. If their constituents ultimately disapprove, moderate House Democrats shouldn't expect Barack Obama to give a damn. That's not his style. He likes to give lip service to consensus - but when you read the fine print, he inevitably defines any divergent viewpoints as out-of-bounds. He did it on the stimulus. He's doing it on health care. If moderate House Democrats don't stand up to him now, he'll do it on cap-and-trade, immigration reform, and who knows what else. Sooner or later, their constituents will elect representatives who will stand up to the President.

And those new representatives will probably be Republicans.

The Color of Debt is BLUE, Not Red

But you already knew that.

You can see it in pictures at the original here, with lots of useful links, in Neil Weinberg's "Political Litmus Test: Bluest States Spilling The Most Red Ink," where he asks

Want to know which states are in the worst financial condition? One telling indicator that might not immediately come to mind is whether most of its citizens identify themselves as Democrats.

The five states in the worst financial condition--Illinois, New York, Connecticut, California and New Jersey--are all among the bluest of blue states. The five most fiscally fit states are more of a mix. Three--Utah, Nebraska and Texas--boast Republican majorities and two--New Hampshire and Virginia--skew Democratic. ...

Why do Democratic states appear to be struggling more than Republican ones? It comes down to stronger unions and a larger appetite for public programs, according to Kent Redfield, professor emeritus of political studies and public affairs at the University of Illinois' Center for State Policy and Leadership. ...

Of the 10 states in the worst financial condition, eight are among a total of 23 defined by Gallup as "solidly Democratic," meaning the Democrats enjoy an advantage of 10 percentage points or greater in party affiliation. These states include the ones listed above as making up the bottom five, plus Massachusetts, Ohio and Wisconsin.

There's much more at the link.