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Democrat Dependency über Alles
REAL CLEAR POLITICS July 17, 2008 It Should Be a Democratic Year By Susan Estrich Full article Susan Estrich Excerpts: July polls don’t tell you who’s going to win in November. Just ask President Dukakis or President Gore, both of whom were well ahead in July and went on to lose in the fall (although Mr. Gore still doesn’t quite see it that way). Or ask President Clinton, who was running third in some polls after clinching his party’s nomination, and won comfortably in the fall. Polls are, at best, snapshots of the present, not predictors of the future.
So here’s the bottom line. The polls make me nervous. Not desperate, not hopeless, not resigned, but nervous. Barack Obama should be ahead right now. Way ahead. Not even close is how it should look, even though I wouldn’t for a minute tell you that if it were that would seal the deal. But the fact that my old candidate Mike Dukakis was running better 20 years ago against George Bush than Obama is today against John McCain makes me nervous. It should be a sign to some of the whiners on my side, still worried about whether Obama is liberal enough or whether he’s doing enough to help Hillary, that it’s time to stop whining and start working. Otherwise, it will be hello President McCain. THE NEW YORK TIMES Op-Ed Columnist Lurching With Abandon By BOB HERBERT Published: July 8, 2008 Full article Bob Herbert NY TIMES Excerpts: In one of the numbers from “Fiddler on the Roof,” Tevye sings, with a mixture of emotions: “We haven’t got the man ... we had when we began.” Back in January when Barack Obama pulled off his stunning win in the Iowa caucuses, and people were lining up in the cold and snow for hours just to get a glimpse of him, there was a wide and growing belief — encouraged to the max by the candidate — that something new in American politics had arrived. His brilliant, nationally televised victory speech in Des Moines sent a shiver of hope through much of the electorate. “The time has come for a president who will be honest about the choices and the challenges we face,” said Senator Obama, “who will listen to you and learn from you, even when we disagree, who won’t just tell you what you want to hear, but what you need to know.” THE HILL Obama tacks away from his left-wing base By Alexander Bolton Posted: 06/23/08 07:42 PM [ET] Full article Alexander Bolton The Hill Excerpts: Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) is shifting to the center after months of battling Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) for the hearts of the Democratic Party’s liberal base. His recent strategy of political triangulation has already sparked a fight with MoveOn.org, a powerful liberal advocacy group. MoveOn.org has challenged Obama for supporting a compromise on intelligence surveillance legislation that many Democrats oppose. POWER LINE June 19, 2008 Does Obama know what he's talking about? Full article Power Line Excerpts: Speaking in unscripted environments on important issues, Barack Obama betrays a troubling lack of knowledge. He does not appear to know what he's talking about. In his interview with ABC's Jake Tapper earlier this week, for example, Obama advocated an approach to combating terrorism that is supposedly more attuned to legal issues than the Bush administration's: It is my firm belief that we can track terrorists, we can crack down on threats against the United States. But we can do so within the constraints of our Constitution. Let's take the example of Guantanamo. What we know is that in previous terrorist attacks, for example, the first attack against the World Trade Center, we were able to arrest those responsible, put them on trial. They are currently in U.S. prisons, incapacitated. Andrew McCarthy (the lead prosecutor of the perpetrators of the 1993 WTC attack) comments: This is a remarkably ignorant account of the American experience with jihadism. In point of fact, while the government managed to prosecute many people responsible for the 1993 WTC bombing, many also escaped prosecution because of the limits on civilian criminal prosecution. Some who contributed to the attack, like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, continued to operate freely because they were beyond the system’s capacity to apprehend. Abdul Rahman Yasin was released prematurely because there was not sufficient evidence to hold him — he fled to Iraq, where he was harbored for a decade (and has never been apprehended). REAL CLEAR POLITICS May 24, 2008 Rev. Wright Connection Still Haunts Obama By Michael Barone Full article Michael Barone RCP Excerpts: As Barack Obama makes his slow but steady way toward the Democratic nomination, the assumption in the admiring precincts of the press corps is that voters have dismissed as irrelevant his longtime association with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. But that may prove as mistaken as the assumption, back in 1988, that voters would not be impressed by Michael Dukakis's 11-year support of a law granting weekend furloughs to convicts sentenced to life without parole, an issue brought up in the primaries by Al Gore but largely ignored in press coverage at the time. Evidence for this comes in the exit polls from the West Virginia and Kentucky primaries on May 13 and 20. In both, about half the voters -- and these are voters in the Democratic primary -- said that they believe Obama shares Wright's views either somewhat or a lot. And slightly under 50 percent of these voters said that Obama is honest and trustworthy. To be sure, these were primaries in which Obama was beaten, and beaten badly, by Hillary Clinton -- 67 percent to 26 percent in West Virginia, 66 percent to 30 percent in Kentucky. So they would be inclined, one might believe, to think ill of Obama. Yet it is not universally the case that voters who choose one candidate in a hotly contested election doubt whether the other candidate is honest. You can oppose someone who you believe to be trustworthy. Only 38 percent of Americans voted for Barry Goldwater in 1964 and George McGovern in 1972. But probably a higher percentage believed that they were basically honest. THE WASHINGTON TIMES Democrats again whistling Dixie By Sean Lengell and Donald Lambro May 18, 2008 Full article By Sean Lengell and Donald Lambro The Washington Times Excerpts: Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama won a string of Southern primaries but carrying the South in the general election is considered a long shot. Democratic leaders, emboldened by recent special House election victories in long-standing Republican districts, are gaining confidence they can retake the Deep South and other former political strongholds ceded decades ago to the GOP. While even the most optimistic Democrats aren't predicting a return to the Dixiecrat era, when Southerners would rather vote for a "yellow dog" than a Republican, the party is having more success in recruiting politically attractive candidates who reflect the political culture of their districts. Read the article below from the CLUB FOR GROWTH. To visit that site go to Democrat Dependency To Club For Growth An Ugly Regulatory Bill Andrew Roth We sent the following letter to all members of the U.S. House today. If you are a House staffer, please note the BOLD text at the bottom of the letter. Dear Representative, Club for Growth strongly opposes HR 5546, the misnamed "Credit Card Fair Fee Act of 2008." The legislation proposes price controls that would harm consumers, hurt economic growth, and stifle innovation. The bill's innocuous sounding title hides an ugly reality -- establishment of a new all-powerful bureaucracy inside the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice. These bureaucrats would set prices for the credit card business, and they would publish their rate determinations in the Federal Register. This is a horrible idea and if it becomes law it will hurt consumers and stifle innovation in a market that has produced incredible efficiency gains. It also threatens economic growth as it would raise the specter that Congress would impose additional government price controls on other industries. We can understand the frustration of retailers who feel that credit card fees are too high. Yet the answer is not to run to Congress and ask that it set up a new government apparatus to set prices. The answer should instead be more competition and to identify and eliminate laws that might inhibit such competition. This bill takes one step in that direction -- allowing retailers to band together without fear of violating antitrust laws. If the bill had stopped there, then we would not oppose it. Instead the bill moves in a more sinister direction, giving defacto control on innovation and prices to "Electronic Payment System Judges" in the Justice Department. The standard for their price setting would be cost plus a "normal rate of return in such a hypothetical perfectly competitive marketplace." This, of course, is absurd. Businesses do not run on a hypothetical, they are run in the real world. One fact that proponents don't mention is that this bill would likely raise prices for many consumers. The fact is many credit card holders get discounts for using their credit cards in the form of rebates, coupons, airline tickets or hotel stays. By accepting such credit cards, retailers are often offering an on the spot discount. For others who can't afford to pay in cash on the spot, a card allows retailers to get paid promptly while leaving the debt collection duties and headaches to the credit card companies. If retailers don't like the prices they have to pay for processing credit cards, they have other choices. To name just two: they can offer cash discounts, which are 100% legal; or they can offer their own credit cards. Finally, a new competitor is on the scene, the RevolutionCard, which according to its website's pitch to retailers "works just like the traditional credit cards you're used to. With one big difference: No interchange fees. Which means you keep more of your profits with every sale." We strongly urge you to oppose this legislation and let the marketplace continue to foster innovation and more consumer choices. If this bill goes to the House floor for consideration, the Club for Growth will key-vote a "NO" on its 2008 congressional scorecard. Sincerely, Pat Toomey President Democrat Dependency
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