While Republican Jacksonians continue to claim that no health care reform is needed aside from tort reform/HSAs/more tax cuts, while Obama/Pelosi/Reid attempt to replace insurance company bureaucrats with government bureaucrats when it comes to medical decision-making, and while Reformist Republicans and Blue Dog Democrats attempt to figure out how to lower the cost of medical care and insure the uninsured without heading down the road to national bankruptcy or single-payer, there are some folks out there suggesting that we’re all trying to answer the wrong question. Sean Trende over at RCP has a thought-provoking analysis of the health care debate:

I’m not sure I’ve seen this argument in quite this form before, and if so it is likely because I’m completely off base here. But here’s a random thought on healthcare I’ve been toying with.

It seems the problem with the health insurance system is that we don’t really have a health insurance system anymore. Insurance, at least as traditionally understood, is a product you buy hoping you’re not going to use it. And indeed, you’re not likely to use it. In fact, you’re probably better off if you don’t ever use it. As such, you are probably going to lose money in the long run. But you spend the money anyway, because of the absolute calamity that would ensue if you drew the short straw without being covered.

Consider car insurance. I just did some rough calculations, and I’ve spent about $25,000 on car insurance premiums during my driving career. I’ve never caused an accident, so I’ve never really gotten anything out of this. I’ve been hit a couple times, and my insurance kindly paid for my repairs before collecting from the other drivers’ insurance. But the total damage to my car was less than $25,000, so I’d still have been better off not buying car insurance and taking the losses when I got hit. If I was Bill Gates, I would arguably be better off not buying any type of insurance, since I could afford any loss in the unlikely event I suffered a huge loss.

But for an economic mortal like myself, the fact is that if one day I was driving my car and got distracted by my son in the backseat and ran a redlight and hit someone, well, I could be absolutely financially wiped out without insurance. Car insurance protects against the increasing marginal cost that comes with above-normal liability. It spreads the risk through society of catastrophic car accidents, and even though the insurance companies’ actuaries make certain that society as a whole places a losing bet financially, it prevents unlucky individuals from being wiped out, which imposes other costs on society. It’s kind of win-win. But again, the idea is that most people will never, ever have to use their insurance.

I guess health insurance probably used to be like that. For most things there wasn’t much the doctor could do. When Ike had a heart attack, he got prescribed morphine and bedrest. This was the President of the United States, so I’m assuming that’s the finest care we had to offer. Insurance protected against the few catastrophic costs that were associated with health care at the time, and again, for the most part you didn’t use your insurance much unless something really bad happened.

But today, almost everyone will use health insurance at some time in their life; if you’re out of your twenties and have a family you probably use it several times a year. I’ve had a couple of major surgeries and have a major medical procedure yearly, and I’m in my 30s. My 2-year-old son has had two surgeries. All of these are very expensive, including the aftercare.

In other words, we’ve reached the point where we don’t have a system of health insurance anymore. Having health insurance is kind of like having property tax insurance — you’re know you’re going to get a big bill every year, so the idea of purchasing insurance for it is kind of silly when you come down to it. Bill Gates stands a reasonable chance of coming out ahead by purchasing health insurance, which is part of why premiums are so high. So I think the issue isn’t so much an issue of “health insurance for all,” so much as moving to a more rational health care financing scheme. But all the talk of health insurance reform increasingly strikes me a pounding a square peg through a round hole.

I’m not certain if this is right, and I’m not 100% sure what the policy implications are — I can think of plenty for the left and the right that would please their respective sides. But I think this is an interesting frame of the problem, so I thought I’d throw it out there. Thoughts?

I think that Sean is onto something, and both parties would be wise to drop the day-old, 1960s rhetoric over health care and address the issue in the context of the modern world. Republicans love to trumpet a world in which doctors and patients are the only ones involved in medical decisions, but that world doesn’t exist now, nor has it ever. And that’s a big part of the problem. Our employer-based health insurance system inflated the cost of medical care for everyone by violating that age-old principle of conservative economics: it insured (heh) that the average person would never have to actually pay his or her own medical bills. Instead, pools were created that spread risk, that relied on generous contributions from employers, and that allowed medical care to become basically unattainable to anyone without such insurance. That was all good and well until the modern economy stepped in and ended the days of four-decade-long employment with the same company, sending large numbers of Americans searching for individual health insurance or going without any insurance, and thus without most medical care.

This is generally where the moderates on both sides step in and suggest that if everyone is required to buy their own health plan, even if the state has to subsidize this purchase, the problem will be solved. But this solution falls short. It just doesn’t make sense for insurance companies to insure someone who will be a virtually guaranteed net loss to the company, a problem that didn’t exist when the risk could be spread among several dozen (or several hundred) employees. And yet as Sean points out, given that health care is now something individuals require on a pretty regular basis, more and more of us are either unable to be insured in the individual market without paying an unreasonable premium or are denied coverage when it is needed most because the condition is pre-existing. This makes sense from an economics perspective but not from a quality of life perspective — it’s basically the rationing of care by any other name, only it’s done by the private sector and not by the government.

I’m pretty sure that if the Democrats have their way, we’ll basically end up with a system with the same problems that we have now, only the bad guys will be government bureaucrats and not insurance companies. This will continue to be the case until somebody figures out a system that, as Sean points out, finances the care that we all need, and will continue to need, in the most efficient and economically sensible way possible. I’m pretty sure the current health insurance system isn’t it.

It’s too much, too fast, too soon.

We need more of an interest for the cost to the people.

Watch the video, here.

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Kristofer Lorelli can be contacted at lorville@rogers.com, on Facebook and twitter/Kris_Lorelli.

Rasmussen California 2010 Senatorial Survey

• Barbara Boxer 45% (47%)
• Carly Fiorina 41% (38%)
• Other 7% (10%)
• Not sure 7% (5%)

Favorable / Unfavorable [Net]

• Barbara Boxer 50% (50%) / 47% (46%) [+3%]
• Carly Fiorina 30% (39%) / 35% (31%) [-5%]

How would you rate the job Barack Obama has been doing as President?

• Strongly approve 42% (38%)
• Somewhat approve 15% (18%)
• Somewhat disapprove 8% (15%)
• Strongly disapprove 35% (28%)

One proposal to reduce state spending would release 27,000 criminals from prison. Do you favor or oppose this proposal?

• Favor 25%
• Oppose 60%

To help solve California’s fiscal problems, should the state legalize and tax marijuana?

• Yes 47%
• No 42%

Are illegal immigrants a significant strain on California’s budget?

• Yes 64%
• No 25%

Do the availability of government money and services draw illegal immigrants to California?

• Yes 65%
• No 22%

Should California cut off welfare payments to the U.S.-born children of illegal immigrants?

• Yes 47%
• No 39%

Suppose that the budget agreement was modified to save some of the services that were cut in the latest budget agreement. If higher taxes were needed to save those programs, would you favor or oppose a tax increase as part of the budget plan?

• Favor 39%
• Oppose 55%

Which is a bigger problem in California —that voters are unwilling to pay enough in taxes or that the politicians are unwilling to control government spending?

• Voters are unwilling to pay enough in taxes 13%
• Politicians are unwilling to control government spending 78%

Generally speaking, does the state government try to do too much, not enough or does it do about the right amount of what the public wants?

• State government tries to do too much 45%
• State government does not do enough 31%
• State government does about the right amount 16%

Survey of 500 likely voters was conducted July 22. The margin of error is +/- 4.5 percentage points. Results from the poll conducted March 9 are in parentheses.

Rasmussen:

Overall, 49% of voters say they at least somewhat approve of the President’s performance. Today marks the first time his overall approval rating has ever fallen below 50% among Likely Voters nationwide. Fifty-one percent (51%) disapprove.

Eighty-three percent (83%) of Democrats continue to approve of the President’s performance while 80% of Republicans disapprove. Among those not affiliated with either major party, 37% offer a positive assessment. The President earns approval from 51% of women and 47% of men.

______________________________________________________________

Benjamin Hodge publishes the Web site KansasProgress.com, based in Johnson County, KS, in the Greater Kansas City area.  Hodge is a delegate to the Kansas GOP, a former state representative, and a former board member at Johnson County Community College.  You can join Hodge’s efforts on Facebook, through his personal Web site, on Twitter, and through his PAC.

Washington Post-ABC News Political Survey (GOP Race42012 Update)

If the 2012 Republican presidential primary or caucus in your state were being held today, for whom would you vote? *

• Mike Huckabee 26%
• Mitt Romney 21%
• Sarah Palin 19%
• Newt Gingrich 10%
• Tim Pawlenty 4%
• Jeb Bush 3%
• Bobby Jindal 2%
• Haley Barbour 1%

Do you have a favorable or unfavorable impression of Sarah Palin?

• Strongly favorable 20%
• Somewhat favorable 20%
• Somewhat unfavorable 19%
• Strongly unfavorable 34%

Please tell me whether the following statement applies to Sarah Palin, or not?

She understands the problems of people like you.

• Yes 47%
• No 47%

She is a strong leader.

• Yes 40%
• No 54%

She is honest and trustworthy.

• Yes 52%
• No 40%

She shares your values.

• Yes 48%
• No 47%

She understands complex issues.

• Yes 37%
• No 57%

Do you approve or disapprove of the way Barack Obama is handling his job as president?

• Strongly Approve 38% (36%)
• Somewhat Approve 22% (29%)
• Somewhat Disapprove 9% (10%)
• Strongly Disapprove 28% (22%)

Do you approve or disapprove of the way Obama is handling the economy?

• Strongly Approve 29% (28%)
• Somewhat Approve 23% (28%)
• Somewhat Disapprove 10% (13%)
• Strongly Disapprove 35% (27%)

Do you approve or disapprove of the way Obama is handling health care?

• Strongly Approve 25% (27%)
• Somewhat Approve 24% (26%)
• Somewhat Disapprove 11% (10%)
• Strongly Disapprove 33% (29%)

Do you approve or disapprove of the way Obama is handling the federal budget deficit?

• Strongly Approve 19% (22%)
• Somewhat Approve 24% (26%)
• Somewhat Disapprove 11% (13%)
• Strongly Disapprove 38% (35%)

(more…)

H/T: Chris Cillizza

From the St. Petersburg Times;

In a sign of turmoil in Marco Rubio’s underdog campaign for U.S. Senate, two of his top campaign staffers are dropping off the campaign. Campaign manager Brian Seitchik will leave the payroll in a week,  while fundraising consultant Ann Herberger will no longer be Rubio’s chief money raiser.

With Republican frontrunner Charlie Crist trouncing Rubio in fundraising and Rubio trying to bat down rumors he’ll drop out to run for attorney general, the staff shakeup is likely to fuel new questions about Rubio’s long-term viability.

The Miami Republican downplayed the staff changes, saying it merely reflected the campaign’s need to run an unconventional, grass roots campaign against Crist. “This is not a purge or anything, quite the contrary,’’ Rubio said, while campaigning Thursday night in Pasco County.

For now at least, Rubio is running a campaign without a day to day campaign manager or professional fundraiser, though he’s also saving Herberger’s $20,000 monthly cost. He said his scheduler will also serve as finance director for the time being, and former Dick Armey adviser Pat Shortridge will serve as a senior advisor to the campaign.

Said the Rubio campaign: “At this point, Speaker Rubio believes it is necessary to click the reset button in certain areas of the campaign. He based his decisions on current realities that weren’t evident when the campaign was organized earlier this year (background: before Crist seemed interested, it seemed like he’d be running against Connie Mack or Vern Buchanan).

“Up until now, we have been guilty of trying to run certain elements of the campaign in a traditional fashion when, in reality, this is a hungry start-up that must start small and steadily grow even in the face of a skeptical pundit class. Ultimately, our path to victory requires us to tap into grassroots discontent with the current leadership in Washington and the governor’s office, and then convert it into a movement for the idea-driven alternative Marco Rubio offers.”

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Kristofer Lorelli can be contacted at lorville@rogers.com, on Facebook and twitter/Kris_Lorelli.

H/T: Soren Dayton

This is a ‘new’ Tim Pawlenty (2012?).  He is better utilizing conservative rhetoric and talking points to win his arguments. 

T-Paw is not a fan of the Mass. health care program.

—

Update: Pls. keep the debate issue-focused, not personal.  

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Kristofer Lorelli can be contacted at lorville@rogers.com, on Facebook and twitter/Kris_Lorelli.

From the Libertarian Party’s official site:

Dr. Richard S. Kerr, M.D., a West Virginia Libertarian Party member and a retired doctor with 36 years experience, asked President Barack Obama Thursday to apologize for comments made in his Wednesday night press conference accusing doctors of conspiring to make children sicker for profits.

“President Obama should be ashamed of himself for trying to scare Americans into supporting his government takeover of medicine by falsely accusing doctors of making children sicker. I have never heard a more disgusting or blatantly phony conspiracy theory. We treat our patients with the respect, care and concern you will never find in Obama’s government-run rationed care bureaucracy,” said Dr. Kerr.

“On behalf of my colleagues, I respectfully ask President Obama to apologize for such a slanderous lie and ask him to stop engaging in sickening conspiracy theories to push his government-run scheme. These cheap scare tactics are beneath the dignity of the office of The President and perfectly illustrate why more and more Americans are losing faith in Barack Obama.”

In his Wednesday night press conference, Obama claimed, “…you come in and you’ve got a bad sore throat, or your child has a bad sore throat or has repeated sore throats, the doctor may look at the reimbursement system and say to himself, you know what, I make a lot more money if I take this kid’s tonsils out.”

“For President Obama’s information, pediatricians do not perform tonsillectomies. If he doesn’t know that, then he has no business centrally planning your family’s health care,” said Dr. Kerr-(all emphasis mine.)

This latest example of an ignorance of the specifics of an issue reminds me of when then Sen. Obama’s comments on taxation while on the campaign trail revealed that he didn’t understand why income and capital gains are taxed at different rates. I will try to find the quote and post it later.

Hat-tip: Kristofer

According to the AP, Harry Reid now is saying that ObamaCare will not come up to a vote before the August recess.

And the Hill is reporting that Pelosi is pulling back, as well.

The Lincoln, Nebraska Journal Star reports that Mitt Romney will be the speaker at the Nebraska Republican Founder’s Day Fund-raising Celebration on October 9, 2009.  They consider it a ‘coup’, and continue:

“At this early stage, Romney probably leads the field of prospects for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination.”

President Obama should have side-stepped the question, but instead has ignited a controversy that may have an impact on race relations in Mass.

Read the entire article and watch the ABC news video.

The Cambridge, Mass., police officer who arrested Harvard University professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. and the officer’s union are slamming President Obama for saying they reacted “stupidly” to the incident at Gates’ house last week.

Obama “was dead wrong to malign this police officer specifically and the department in general,” Alan McDonald, the lawyer for the Cambridge Police Superior Officers Association, told ABC News today.

Sgt. James Crowley, who arrested Gates for disorderly conduct also chimed in today, saying Obama’s characterization was “way off base. … I acted appropriately,” Crowley told WBZ Radio in Boston Thursday.

“Mr. Gates was given plenty of opportunities to stop what he was doing. He didn’t. He acted very irrational. He controlled the outcome of that event,” Crowley told WBZ.

Crowley says Gates called him a racist cop.

“There was a lot of yelling, there was references to my mother,” he added, “something you wouldn’t expect from anybody that should be grateful that you were there investigating a report of a crime in progress, let alone a Harvard University professor.”

____________________________________________________

Kristofer Lorelli can be contacted at lorville@rogers.com, on Facebook and twitter/Kris_Lorelli.

Quinnipiac 2010 Connecticut Senate Poll

• Rob Simmons 48%
• Chris Dodd 39%

From July 16 – 20, Quinnipiac University surveyed 1,499 Connecticut registered voters with a margin of error of +/- 2.5 percentage points. The survey includes 612 Democrats with a margin of error of +/- 4 percentage points and 384 Republicans with a margin of error of +/- 5 percentage points.

Inside the numbers:

“Dodd’s most glaring weakness continues to be that a majority of voters say he is not honest and trustworthy. This is not something that will be easy for Dodd to reverse. Another problem for Dodd is that the bad economy has put voters in a grumpy mood. Consequently, voters have little patience for politician’s missteps,” Schwartz said.

Simmons dominates a Republican primary matchup with 42 percent, while no other Republican tops 5 percent, with 45 percent undecided.

Connecticut voters approve 63 – 32 percent of the job President Barack Obama is doing, down from 71 – 22 percent in April 2 and May 27 Quinnipiac University polls. Obama gets a 93 – 6 percent approval from Democrats and a 61 – 31 percent thumbs up from independent voters. Republicans disapprove 75 – 19 percent, compared to 57 – 33 percent May 27.

Voters approve 57 – 38 percent of the way Obama is handling the economy and 54 percent say his policies will help the economy in the future.

We’ve seen this before: a young, charismatic Democratic president, elected largely due to the screw-ups of a Republican president named Bush, finds himself totally unprepared for the job, ends up having his reformist agenda shelved by his own party’s congressional power-brokers, and allows his White House to become the property of congressional Democrats and left-wing interest groups, who run the president’s policies and approval rating into the ground. By the summer of 1993, President Clinton’s attempt at health care reform had been dealt a serious blow, many of the president’s social policies (Joycelyn Elders for Surgeon General, etc.) were viewed as outside the cultural mainstream by most Americans at that time, and the most significant piece of legislation to be signed into law by the president was a tax bill opposed by large numbers of Americans. As of the summer of 2009, President Obama’s efforts to reform health care seem to be flailing, the president’s Supreme Court nominee enjoys luke-warm support on the part of the American people due to her questionable statements on race, and the most significant piece of legislation to become law remains an economic stimulus bill that is increasingly seen as a giveaway to special interests on the part of a naive fledgling president.

As such, Republicans will probably do well in 2009/10 just as they did in 1993/94. The GOP will likely benefit from the return of the Atlantic-readin’, Tom Friedman totin’, moderate independents to the Republican tent for at least one election cycle in order to prevent Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid from gaining any more power than they already have, as well as from the regional dynamic that characterizes midterm elections. Without a single national leader, Republicans are free to run as the Anybody But Obama party, fielding regionally-appropriate candidates for public office in red, blue, and purple territory. That will mean that 2009/10 will see victories by an ideologically diverse group of Republicans, from Chris Christie to Bob McDonnell, from Rudy Giuliani and Carly Fiorina to John Kasich, from Charlie Crist and Mike Castle to Pat Toomey. And that will be good for the party, because fresh blood means new ideas, and new ideas are sorely needed in a party that, near the end of the Bush years, began to feel like just as much of a tired, old clearinghouse of interest groups as, well, the Democrats.

Still, there remains one main distinction between the present political environment and that of 1993/94, and that is the inability of today’s Republican Party to regain the trust and recapture the imagination of a majority of Americans. Take a look at the polls posted by Benjamin Hodge earlier today. The Democratic Party’s favorables in 1994 were very similar to their favorables as of 2009. The GOP, however, was viewed favorably by 63 percent of Americans in 1994 and by only 36 percent of Americans in 2009. That’s huge. That means that even if Americans are just as tired of the Democrats this time around as they were in 1994, the Republicans are a far less acceptable alternative to Americans than they were in the 1990s and thus will not enjoy the sweeping electoral victories that many of us fondly remember from a decade and a half ago.

The problem with today’s GOP is that it is sorely lacking in both a message that resonates with the majority of Americans as well as messengers that can effectively explain that message to those Americans. In 1993/94, the GOP had both of those things. Contrast the sleek, efficient, techno-libertarian message of Newt Gingrich and the Contract with America with today’s congressional Republican frat house being run by Boehner and Cantor. In Newt, Republicans had an idea man, a leader who harnessed the concerns of Clinton Republicans and Perot voters who in 1992 had decided that Reagan/Bush was a dirty word due to a sputtering economy and mounting debt. Gingrich basically co-opted the reformist agenda of Clinton ’92 as well as the Perotista angst of the era and crafted a Republican agenda that addressed the looming threat of entitlement growth, debt, and economic stagnation.

And then there was the messenger. In his prime, Rush Limbaugh was the perfect mouthpiece for the GOP agenda given his ability to culturally connect with the average middle aged, middle class, middle American male of the era, who, whether he was driving home from the board room or the shop floor, agreed with Rush that government shouldn’t gain any more control over his life, and that Hillary reminded him of his ex-wife. The cigar-chomping Limbaugh did an excellent job of translating the GOP message into terms that folks who grew up during the ’60s culture wars, but who never understood what all the fuss was about, could appreciate. Like Rush, the average 45-year old American voter in 1994 probably remembered the moralistic tut-tutting of Boomer Leftists like Bill and Hillary from their college days and also remembered how silly these folks seemed.

Today, however, Republicans have no such message or messenger. Newt and Rush are dated, and cannot be remodeled for the modern world as much as some Republicans would like them to be. Moreover, they’ve been displaced, and not with upgrades. Today’s right-wing populist commentators, far from harnessing the energies of the disgruntled middle class, are little more than mouthpieces for the Jacksonians, that sliver of Americans on the right who seem to believe that the country and the world are beyond redemption and who prefer to take their ball and go home rather than engage with the modern world. The rants and tirades of Glenn Beck exemplify this dynamic. While presidential contenders such as Huckabee and Romney deliver sane, forward-looking messages on things like health care reform (I especially liked Huckabee’s recent suggestion that health care reform should involve bringing the uninsured on board a system that works for most Americans instead of dismantling that system for everyone), the GOP’s Jacksonian base finds its voice in anger and a sentiment that is almost, well, secessionist, at least culturally. And therein lies the problem. Because a Republican Party that wants to gather its firearms, its canned food, and wait out Armageddon in a remote location in Montana is never going to be the party that wins the trust of over 60 percent of Americans the way it did in 1994, meaning that even if Democrats go into 2010 with their current 1994-style numbers, Republicans won’t be able to take back the country.

Why can’t voters have the Republican Party that they deserve: one that is aware that we are no longer living nor working in the 1950s and that responds not with apocalyptic rhetoric but with futuristic, techno-libertarian solutions that preserve our freedom while still recognizing that moving forward is a good thing? If Gingrich ’94 was about anything, it was about all that was new: technology, the new economy, etc. No Republican Party that looks backward is going to be able to move the country forward. On health care, Huckabee through his words and Romney through his actions as governor earlier this decade both seem to believe that something must be done to bring more people into the existing health insurance system. That’s because both recognize that this ain’t 1959 anymore, and that the average person no longer spends forty years working for a single employer, with the same group health plan for the entirety of his or her career. Many employers have to choose between offering a health plan to their employees or laying off workers. Many workers now move from job to job. This forces Americans to look for individual plans, which often excludes pre-existing conditions or decides that individuals are too unhealthy a risk. That brings the ill to the emergency room, and the bill is passed onto you. It’s wrong for Obama to try and replace insurance company bureaucrats with government bureaucrats when it comes to medical decisions. But it’s also wrong and politically damaging for Republicans to pretend that there isn’t a problem.

So ultimately, 2010 probably will not be 1994, but Democrats are busily sowing the seeds of their own demise and it will be up to the new Republican officeholders in 2011, such as Gov. Giuliani, Sen. Fiorina, Gov. Christie, etc., to come up with a modern Republican agenda that fits the times in which we live. And should President Obama fail to move back to the center after 2010 the way President Clinton did after 1994, Republicans will have a real opportunity to take back the White House in 2012, which makes the reformist messages of Gov. Romney and Gov. Huckabee all the more important and which provides an opening for a fiscally conservative, high-tech, socially inclusive Republican presidential contender should one make his or her way onto the political stage. The real question right now, though, is whether all of this good news for the GOP will be trampled by the party’s Jacksonian base, which may yet snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

Chris Brown the Woman Beater’s scripted apology video, in which he displays a very dapper little outfit:

Compare to Olympia Snowe:

She’s got more bling than Chris! Throw on that gold necklace and you can’t tell ‘em apart, though!

In my studies of SarahPAC and Free and Strong America (Romney) PAC, I could not help but notice that Huck PAC had not issued a single quarterly report yet this year. Why is this significant?

Last year HuckPAC filed reports every quarter. While it is true PACs can file monthly or semi-annually (twice a year), you are allowed to change your filing frequency once a year. All you have to do is file a notice with the FEC telling them what you intend on doing. So if HuckPAC had decided that they were going to start filing semi-annual reports in 2009, they needed to file a notice of frequency change. The FEC would acknowledge it, and everyone would be happy. But they haven’t.

HuckPAC, as you can see here has neither filed a quarterly report (due last April) nor a notice of frequency change this year. Now assuming that they have changed their filing frequency to semi-annually, and somebody dropped the ball and didn’t notify the FEC of the change, the filing deadline for semi-Annual filing in July is the 30th.

HuckPAC has 8 days to file. If they don’t, they will be in serious trouble with the FEC.

Then this article appeared today in the Arkansas Business Journal. It tells of personnel changes, mounting debts, and other turmoil at HuckPAC. Things do not look good.

With SarahPAC taking off, and Romney’s PAC bringing in seven figures, Huckabee can ill afford problems with his PAC. If he doesn’t file by the 30th, something will be seriously wrong.

On June 10, News Channel 13 in my hometown of Colorado Springs reported that, “More potentially harmful health effects have been discovered for the chemical bisphenol A…” To be sure, the language was all couched with qualifiers such as “potential,” but the point was clear: We are very afraid of bisphenol A (BPA).

This was merely the latest in a long string of shoddy stories alleging BPA does serious harm. Never mind the fact that the FDA says BPA is fine, the chicken littles in the media love to scare people, so the story was repeated ad nauseum until no one even remembered where the heck it came from.

Just five days after this news story surfaced, however, a California board of seven physicians and Ph.D.s voted unanimously that the chemical posed no serious danger. As the AP reported,

“The panel, comprised of seven physicians, unanimously decided that the chemical known as BPA should not be covered under Proposition 65, a voter-approved measure used by regulators to identify substances that can cause birth defects, developmental or reproductive harm.”

Conservatives are notoriously slow to defend products and companies who have come under attack by radical environmentalists, but several conservative bloggers have picked up on this story, and what they have found has been very interesting.

Most interesting to me, was blogger Rob Port, who recently noted that all the attacks trace back to Fenton Communications, a liberal PR firm that was also behind the ‘General Betray Us’ ads:

“Putting aside the fact that the claims were entirely bogus, the fear campaign against BPA was a brilliant business move for Fenton-and a win/win/win for liberals. David Fenton, of course, is a liberal activist. He represents many radical environmental groups like the San Francisco-based Tides Foundation, who could benefit from creating a bogey man. And he also represents trial lawyers, who could make millions by bringing about class action lawsuits against the manufacturers of plastics. Lastly, trial lawyers are major donors to Democratic politicians, so getting them on board was easy. And plastics competitors who didn’t use BPA could now charge absurd prices for their products at upscale stores like Whole Foods, based on the fact that their product (though more expensive) was ostensibly “safer.”

The blogosphere is a wonderful place, but it’s still sad that the primary purpose for conservative bloggers is merely to set the record straight – and to correct the mistakes made by the MSM. The “dangers” of BPA are about as real as the Easter Bunny, and I’m amazed that more is not being done to point out this pathetic scare tactic.

Senator Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) commented the other day that if Obama’s health reform fails it would be Obama’s Waterloo. I think not.

When Napoleon was defeated at Waterloo, he surrendered power a month later. He was then exiled to St. Helena where he never returned.  Never again did he wield the least bit power.

That hardly describes the situation for Obama if ObamaCare is defeated.  Obama will certainly not become powerless.  He will remain President for three more years. True, his aura of invincibility will be gone, he will be considered fully mortal, but as President, he will still continue to wield a great deal of power and influence.  So, no, ObamaCare, even if it dies a horrible death, will be no Waterloo.

But it could very well be his Moscow.

In 1812 Napoleon was master of Continental Europe. Every nation of any importance was either under his direct command, or bound by treaties favoring France. Nobody dared to move against him.

One of the policies that Napoleon forced upon the nations of Europe was the economic system known as “The Continental System”. It essentially gave France massive control over the economies of Europe. Russia refused to play ball with him. That was key reason Napoleon went after Russia, to bend their economy to his will

Napoleon invaded Russia with what he called his “Grand Army”. It was more than a half a million strong.   The further he plunged into Russia, the further his lines of supply grew. Mistreatment of the locals turned them into vicious partisans. These played havoc upon the ever-growing ever-tenuous supply lines. Throw in an extremely harsh 1812 Winter and the scorched earth policies of the retreating Russian Army, and you have a disaster of epic proportions.

When the campaign was finally over, Napoleon’s Grand Army of 500,000+ men was reduced to a mere 40,000.  A half a million men were lost.

Napoleon was not completely defeated by his 1812 campaign, but the nations of Europe smelled blood.  They rose up against him.  Napoleon raised another army nearly as large as the Grand Army that very year and went on to win several victories with it. However, his reserves were gone. There was nothing left. And what is more, his aura of invincibility was gone. Once that new army of 400,000 was spent, so was Napoleon.  He was exiled to the Isle of Elba.  He would later escape and was finally defeated at Waterloo.

What defeated him at Waterloo?  He still had a fair sized army.  He still had his brains for military campaigns.  But the spirit of his troops were gone.  There was nothing left.  One defeat was enough to finish him.  That was the legacy of his retreat from Moscow.

So Napoleon attempted to force everyone to obey his new economic rules. He over extended himself trying to do too much without adequate preparation and deliberations. He mistreated the locals, causing them to turn on him.  When it was all over, he lived to fight another day, but he was never as effective as before.

So, no, the defeat of ObamaCare will not be another Waterloo for Obama.  Instead, it will be more like another Moscow.

I don’t have immediate access to all of the relevant data that I would like to have, and I will not tell you that the following data (while relevant) proves my concern.  My feelings and concerns are these:

• Yes, independent voters are moving toward the Republican party, but this reality has more to do with an “anti-Democratic party” mood than a “pro-Republican” mood.
• My personal opinion: the majority of DC Republicans either oppose or refuse to embrace a conservative message (conservative = the role of government).  The GOP has become a pro-life, pro-drilling Democratic party.
• Independent voters are seeking a conservative-libertarian message and a conservative political party.  Appropriately, they do not view the Republican party as the carrier of a conservative message.
• While the mainstream media is dead and has sold out to socialism, Republicans are not effectively maximizing their ability to communicate through the media.
• The current Republican leaders are not effectively communicating a conservative message (again, some of them either oppose or refuse to embrace this message).  Either they need to change their game, or else step aside.  Simultaneously, elected conservatives within the GOP Congress need to make the intentional decision to demonstrate leadership, even if it means going against the grain and frustrating or replacing “the establishment.”

I will encourage conservatives and libertarians, both voters and those elected, to continue to fight as they see necessary for seats at the GOP table.

Most of the following data is from PollingReport.com.  I consider all of the following polls to be “accurate,” with the understanding that different polls produce different results (different samples, questions, etc).  I’ll do my best to show “apples and apples” in terms of the trends with same poll, methodology, etc.

The 1992 and 1994 data is from Pew.

To summarize my take on the data:

• John Boehner’s numbers aren’t good enough.
• Nancy Pelosi’s numbers are too good.
• Independents are always going to have warmer feelings, in general, for the Democratic party, compared to the GOP.  But that’s not an excuse for Republicans to be pleased with the current, cold favorability numbers.
• Consider me neutral-undecided on whether we need Newt Gingrich right now.  But, we somebody (better, several people) to fill the role that he played in the 1990s.  We need a Newt Gingrich.

More after the fold: (more…)

Strategic Vision (R) New Jersey Gubernatorial Survey

• Chris Christie 53% (51%)
• Jon Corzine 38% (39%)
• Christopher Daggett 5%
• Undecided 4% (8%)

Do you approve or disapprove of Governor Jon Corzine’s overall job performance?

• Approve 35% (34%)
• Disapprove 55% (54%)

Do you think New Jersey is headed in the right direction or wrong direction?

• Right 24% (28%)
• Wrong 62% (59%)

Do you approve or disapprove of President Barack Obama’s overall job performance?

• Approve 50% (56%)
• Disapprove 40% (38%)

Do you approve or disapprove of President Obama’s handling of the economy?

• Approve 47% (54%)
• Disapprove 45% (41%)

(more…)

I have just been informed that Facebook has shut down the most successful conservative group in its sphere- Positively Republican!.

Positively Republican!‘s Facebook page has over 120,000 fans. Its founder, Chris Widener, has worked tirelessly and invested a tremendous amount of energy and resources into building what has become the largest conservative group on the world’s biggest social networking utility.

No explanation has been given–and apparently none is forthcoming. Some officers of Positively Republican! are at a loss as to the sudden move on the part of Facebook as they have been conducting the group in the same manner for months on end.

So this question remains: why did Facebook shut down Positively Republican!? Might it have something to do with their politics? Is Facebook becoming a utility for liberals only?

I will have more on this story as it develops.

This just arrived in my inbox. I believe this is a distillation of an article over at Americans for Tax Reform—M.D.
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A draft of the House Democrat health care bill is out, and it’s been leaked to ATR staff. There are several major tax increases in here, most of which violate the Taxpayer Protection Pledge. They include:

a tax on individuals failing to sign up for health care equal to the lesser of 2.5% of adjusted gross income (AGI) or the average individual premium amount

a tax on employers for not providing a health care plan equal to 8% of payroll. This becomes 0, 4, or 6 percent of payroll as payday totals dip below $400,000 annually

a new and undetermined excise tax on health insurance plans

codification of the “economic substance doctrine,” whereby businesses would not be able to engage in legal tax avoidance techniques without demonstrating a bona fide business purpose

delay of worldwide interest allocation, a baby step toward the full double-taxation of corporate profits earned overseas

the big one–a new “surtax” on the AGI of small businesses and other high income earners.

Here’s the details:

1% on AGI of $350,000 to $500,000

1.5% on AGI of $500,000 to $1,000,000

5.4% on AGI of over $1,000,000

Those brackets are 50% if you’re Married Filing Separately and 80% if you’re Single or Head of Household.

This will result in a top rate of 45%, and a capital gains rate of over 25%. It’s more than that when you factor in that this surtax is not on taxable income, but on adjusted gross income. Factoring that plus state income tax in means that the top rate will exceed 50%, and the capital gains rate will exceed 30%.

The falling popularity of President Obama and the promising 2010 mid-term election numbers for Republicans, should be a lesson for all conservative reformers.  To defeat Democrats, make it about the issues! 

Voters want government to change, not for government to change their way of life.

Governor Jindal penned an impressive op-ed in the WSJ on making health care reform work for all Americans.  Jindal not only outlines a path to reform, but evokes seven principles that the reform should be based from;

1) Consumer choice guided by transparency
2) Aligned consumer interests
3) Medical lawsuit reform
4) Insurance reform
5) Pooling for small businesses
6) Pay for performance, not activity
7) Refundable tax credits

–

In Washington, it seems history always repeats itself. That’s what’s happening now with health-care reform. This is an unfortunate turn of events for Americans who are legitimately concerned about the skyrocketing cost of a basic human need.

In 1993 and 1994, Hillary Clinton’s health-care reform proposal failed because it was concocted in secret without the guiding hand of public consensus-building, and because it was a philosophical over-reach. Today President Barack Obama is repeating these mistakes.

The reason is plain: The left in Washington has concluded that honesty will not yield its desired policy result. So it resorts to a fundamentally dishonest approach to reform. I say this because the marketing of the Democrats’ plans as presented in the House of Representatives and endorsed heartily by President Obama rests on three falsehoods.

First, Mr. Obama doggedly promises that if you like your (private) health-care coverage now, you can keep it. That promise is hollow, because the Democrats’ reforms are designed to push an ever-increasing number of Americans into a government-run health-care plan.

If a so-called public option is part of health-care reform, the Lewin Group study estimates over 100 million Americans may leave private plans for government-run health care. Any government plan will benefit from taxpayer subsidies and be able to operate at a financial loss—competing unfairly in the marketplace until private plans are driven out of business. The government plan will become so large that it will set, rather than negotiate, prices. This will inevitably lead to monopoly, with a resulting threat to the quality of our health care.

Click here to read the entire op-ed.

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Kristofer Lorelli can be contacted at lorville@rogers.com, on Facebook and twitter/Kris_Lorelli.

Much is being made of the spat that Harry Alford, the head of the National Black Chamber of Commerce, got into with Barbara Boxer the other day. In a rebuke to Mr. Alford’s opposition to the cap-and-trade legislation making the rounds in Congress, Ms. Boxer — sorry, Senator Boxer — put a resolution passed by the NAACP in favor of the bill in the Congressional record. Alford, outraged, accused Boxer of pigeonholing him as a black man, wondering why she would choose the NAACP to rebuke him. On the O’Reilly Factor the other night, Alford said that Boxer “loves poor black folks in their place.”

While it seems indisputable that liberals need blacks to remain in poverty in order to hold onto political power, Alford seems to have forgotten that he heads a racial organization — and was there to testify on behalf of blacks. Tweedle Dum, meet Tweedle Dumber.

Alford indignantly asked Boxer why she wouldn’t put a resolution from, say, an Asian organization into the record. Boxer fumbled around aimlessly, but the answer is rather obvious.

If Alford didn’t want Boxer to “play racial politics,” then he shouldn’t have agreed to testify on behalf of a race-based organization in the first place.

Sadly, he missed a fantastic opportunity to tell Boxer what she really needed to hear: that he did not take marching orders from the NAACP merely because he happens to be black, that facts matter more than identity, and that it’s a shame that a group like his even has to exist to counteract the leftist politics of the NAACP. But in his outrage, which, in a vacuum, is correct, he forgot the role that he agreed to play. And that’s truly a shame.

Alex Knepper can be contacted at apkkib@aol.com

H/T: Tommy Boy

Obama’s Keynesian approach to ‘fixing’ the economic recession is failing, as are his poll numbers and stature with the American public.  His signature issue from late 2008 is now threatening to destroy the Democratic majority in both Houses and stain his Presidential legacy.  If President Obama does not adopt pro-growth policies and remove the hands of the Federal government from our economy, his popularity and our domestic economic output will continue to go down.  

Obama approval (June numbers in parentheses) [May in brackets]

52/44 (57/41) [61/32]

Inside the numbers:

Expectations for a rapid economic recovery have dropped with Obama’s overall job approval rating. 44% of Americans say the national economy will be better a year from now, down from 51% in June.

Click here to review the entire analysis.

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Kristofer Lorelli can be contacted at lorville@rogers.com, on Facebook and twitter/Kris_Lorelli.

Question: The United States’ unemployment rate is now higher than which of the following countries?

Answer:

A. Argentina
B. Vietnam
C. Ukraine
D. All of the above

Quinnipiac 2010 Pennsylvania Senate Poll

• Arlen Specter 45%
• Pat Toomey 44%

• Pat Toomey 39%
• Joe Sestak 35%

Democratic Primary

• Arlen Specter 55%
• Joe Sestak 23%

Looking ahead to the 2010 election for United States Senator, do you feel that Arlen Specter deserves to be reelected, or do you feel that he does not deserve to be reelected?

• Yes/Deserves 40%
• No/Does Not 49

From July 14 – 19, Quinnipiac University surveyed 1,173 Pennsylvania voters with a margin of error of +/- 2.9 percentage points. The survey includes 511 Republicans with a margin of error of +/- 4.3 percentage points and 512 Democrats with a margin of error of +/- 4.3 percentage points.

Inside the numbers:

A new poll shows former Rep. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) has closed a 20-point gap on Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Pa.) in a matter of just two and a half months, and that the two are virtually tied.

The Quinnipiac poll, released Wednesday, shows Specter leading Toomey 45-44 in a virtual tie. In early May, shortly after Specter’s party switch, he led Toomey 53-33.

Nearly half – 49 percent – of voters say Specter doesn’t deserve reelection, while 40 percent say he does. Independent voters have shifted to Toomey’s side by a 46-42 margin.

The switch hasn’t been completely smooth for Specter, beginning with some curious comments that still reflected some allegiance with Republicans and, more recently, some grumbling about his tough tone with Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor.

The poll showed Specter still performs well in the Democratic primary against Rep. Joe Sestak (D-Pa.), leading him 55-23. But Sestak remains unknown to much of the state.

Between the closing poll numbers and Toomey’s strong $1.6 million fundraising quarter, it might be time to start looking at this race as competitive. The race fell off the radar a bit when former Gov. Tom Ridge (R) opted not to run following Specter’s party switch.

The National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) gave Toomey a vote of confidence with their endorsement recently, so perhaps it has started to see an opening here.

Huckabee’s commentary on Health Care is well worth the watch and as a bonus, we get the Joe Biden Comedy hour included.

The eighteenth chapter of the biblical book of Exodus tells the story of a visit Moses’s father-in-law, Jethro, paid to the camp of Israel. What he saw disturbed him. Moses, it seems, was attempting to micromanage the entire camp, a camp which numbered in the tens of thousands of people.

Jethro told him, “The thing that thou doest is not good. Thou wilt surely wear away, both thou, and this people that is with thee: for this thing is too heavy for thee; thou art not able to perform it thyself alone.” (verse 18) He then told Moses to teach the people correct principles and then to, “…provide out of all the people able men … and place such over them, to be rulers of thousands, and rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens: And let them judge the people at all seasons: and it shall be, that every great matter they shall bring unto thee, but every small matter they shall judge: so shall it be easier for thyself, and they shall bear the burden with thee.” (verses 21,22)

This is a great example of the importance of delegation. It is the basis of all effective government.

The problem for the man on top, however, is that all the easy questions will have been answered before they get to him. Only the hardest and the most difficult questions arrive at his desk. So it is with the President of the United States.

What sorts of questions arrive there? Simple — only the ones nobody else can answer. If they were easy, they wouldn’t be at his desk.

Presidents must often choose between two or more equally plausible “right” answers. Which should he choose? There are few to no guidebooks to consult. He can seldom count on ideology for answers. Questions such as, “What would a ‘true’ *fill-in-the-blank* do?”, are of little help.  If it were that simple, some other ‘true’ *fill-in-the-blank* official further down the ladder would have handled the problem.  Those are the sorts of questions that land on the President’s desk.

On June 5, 1944, General Eisenhower met with his staff and advisers. They all gave their reports. Once they were through, he lowered his head and thought for awhile (Some people say 30 minutes, others say 30 seconds). Then he raised his head and announced his decision.  D-Day was on for June 6.  He remarked to an assistant later that day, “I hope to God I know what I’m doing.”  That evening he scribbled down the message that if the landings failed, “any blame or fault … is mine alone.”
Such is the loneliness of command. On the leader’s head alone rests the success or failure of his policies. He cannot escape.

So whom do I support for President?  Someone who has a proven record of executive leadership.  Someone used to having the buck stop at their desk.  Someone with a broad enough base of interest and deep enough knowledge and strong enough native intelligence to able to work out competent answers to whatever nasty unanswerable questions life throws at him.  Someone who would not use the awesome power of the Presidency for petty selfish things.  That is the person I will support to be President.

Note that the ablility to give a rousing speech that stirs the troops is not on the list.  While it is certainly a great trait for a President to have, after the last echo has died away, the last balloon has been popped, the last bit of confetti swept up, the last of the crowd has gone home, the last of the lights have been switched off, and the last of the cameras have been packed away; the President still remains the Chief Executive of the United States. The awsome burden of that responsibility still rests upon his shoulders and his shoulders alone.  The buck does not moved on.

H/T: Illinoisguy

The Newsweek blog (The Gaggle) has an interesting Q&A with Governor Romney, specifically on the issue of Health Care reform.  Governor Romney defends MassCare and takes a few well-deserved shots at the Obama plan.  

What do you think needs to happen over the next couple of weeks if President Obama’s deadline for healthcare reform is to be met?

I think the President ought to hit the reset button. I think it is critical that he have the participation, involvement, and support of people on both sides of the aisle, as well as people in various sectors of the health economy. If we are going to have a dramatic shift in the nature of so large a part of our economy  then it needs to be something that has been thoroughly vetted and has received great support. Out of a desire to move very quickly, while his support is highest, he has skipped the critical steps of educating, involving, and evolving his own plans to meet the perspectives of the great majority of our citizens.

It sounds like you are encouraging the President to slow down. Aren’t there risks in delaying?

He’s in a very difficult position. We faced a very similar question [in Massachusetts] as we began our process. We spent over two years putting together a health care plan and then building support for it on both sides of the aisle – working with hospitals, providers, doctors, business groups, labor groups, advocates for the poor. We involved all of these parties, and it took a long time, but what we ended up with was a bill that passed the legislature – if you combine the House and the Senate – 198 to 2.

What lessons can be gleaned from your experience in Massachusetts?

After we crafted the architecture of our plan, the first person I went to was Ted Kennedy. He and I met numerous times and what we fashioned was not perfect in either one of our eyes, but we worked together, because only together could we know that we would have the support of all the parties necessary to make it work.

The states are laboratories of democracy. Well, our state passed a bill. It’s been in place now for several years. Have they studied it? Have they spoken with the Republicans and Democrats in Masssachusetts? Have they spoken with hospitals? Doctors? Have they sent the GAO there to take it apart to see what is working well and what is not? Nobody has given me a call, except Republicans. I’ve received no calls from Democrats saying what do you think about it? What would you do differently if you were to do it today? There’s a whole series of things I’d do differently. And yet, there seems to be such a rush to act. I understand that President Obama wants to get this done in his first term, but more important than getting it done in the first year is getting it done right, before he is out of office. There is time here to get it done right.

In terms of the reform proposals before Congress, what do see that you like and dislike so far?

I’m not happy that the President wants to provide a so-called public option. There is no need for the government to become an insurance company. I’m convinced, as many before me have said, that this is a step towards a single payer system; that it will result in billions, if not hundreds of billions, of subsidies down the road and a new entitlement, which is one of the last things America needs right now. On the other hand I am happy that he is actually working to reform healthcare. It’s important for us to get everyone insured. It’s important that there be an effort made to reduce the excessive inflation in the healthcare sector.

How well do the current proposals deal with reducing costs?

The legislation has almost nothing to do with cost reduction. Nothing I have seen in the bills that are being discussed by the Democratic leadership suggests that there will be a significant change in health inflation.

This is an extraordinarily important topic and one for which there is a great deal of information around the world. Normally, if this were private enterprise, you would spend a great deal of time with brilliant analysts, looking at alternatives, evaluating lessons from foreign places, and perhaps even experimenting with some alternatives before unleashing them on the entire US economy. Healthcare reform is a matter that should be focused on allowing our citizens to have better health at more reasonable cost, as opposed to being thought of as a political success or failure. We really can’t afford a lot of trillion dollar mistakes.

What do you think the President’s message to the American people should be when he speaks on Wednesday night?

I don’t presume to give the President advice. I can say that the campaign promise that President Obama made to work on a bipartisan basis and to change the atmosphere in Washington is something which I think America is still hoping to see, particularly in health care. It is just not consistent with his original vision to anticipate jamming through a piece of legislation which has numerous flaws, and which can only receive the support of his own party if members of that party have had their arms twisted into knots. That is not going to be the right kind of answer to America’s health care needs.

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Kristofer Lorelli can be contacted at lorville@rogers.com, on Facebook and twitter/Kris_Lorelli.

An ‘independent’ investigator hired by the State of Alaska to determine whether Governor Palin violated ethics laws by accepting private donations to pay her legal debts has recommended that the matter be resolved without a formal hearing before the Alaska Personnel Board.

www.newsminer.com/news/2009/jul/21/palin-implicated-ethics-probe/

“The practical effect of the ruling on Palin will be more financial than anything else. The report recommends that Palin refuse to accept payment from the defense fund, and that the complaint be resolved without a formal hearing before the Alaska Personnel Board.”

Governor Palin made it clear that the independent investigator did not issue a final ruling on the ethics complaint.

twitter.com/AKGovSarahPalin/status/2765870783

“Re inaccurate story floating re:ethics violation/Legal Defense Fund;matter is still pending;new info was just requested even;no final report.”

Update:  From Hot Air,

I’ve been informed on Twitter that it constitutes “Palin Derangement Syndrome” to so much as post on this, so apologies for not ignoring/suppressing the story and sparing you the “derangement.”

Update #2: From Palin’s lawyer.

“The resolution of the Trust Fund is not final. I have been working with the investigator regarding supplemental information. The matter is still pending. Whatever you have seen was released in violation of law. There has been no Board finding of an ethics violation and there is a detailed legal process to follow before there is a final resolution.”

Thomas Van Flein
Private Attorney for Sarah Palin

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Kristofer Lorelli can be contacted at lorville@rogers.com, on Facebook and twitter/Kris_Lorelli.