Rasmussen Congressional Favorability Ratings

Favorable / Unfavorable [Net]

• Joe Biden 50% (46%) / 44% (48%) [+6%]
• Mitch McConnell 25% (26%) / 34% (37%) [-9%]
• John Boehner 21% (23%) / 41% (39%) [-20%]
• Harry Reid 27% (25%) / 49% (52%) [-22%]
• Nancy Pelosi 34% (30%) / 57% (64%) [-23%]

Survey of 1,000 Likely Voters was conducted September 12-13. The margin of error is +/- 3 percentage points.

Rasmussen Survey on Health Care Reform Plan

Generally speaking, do you strongly favor, somewhat favor, somewhat oppose or strongly oppose the health care reform plan proposed by President Obama and the congressional Democrats?

• Strongly favor 23% (28%) [23%]
• Somewhat favor 22% (23%) [20%]
• Somewhat oppose 11% (8%) [10%]
• Strongly oppose 41% (38%) [43%]

How likely is it that the health care reform plan proposed by President Obama and the congressional Democrats will become law this year?

• Very likely 18% (19%) [17%]
• Somewhat likely 33% (36%) [32%]
• Not very likely 26% (24%) [32%]
• Not at all likely 11% (9%) [9%]

If the health care reform plan passes, will the quality of health care get better, worse, or stay about the same?

• Better 27% (34%) [23%]
• Worse 46% (46%) [50%]
• Stay about the same 19% (15%) [21%]

If the health care reform plan passes, will the cost of health care go up, go down, or stay about the same?

• Cost of health care will go up 47% (42%) [52%]
• Cost will go down 20% (28%) [17%]
• Stay the same 23% (21%) [21%]

Survey of 1,000 Likely Voters was conducted September 13-14. The margin of error is +/- 3 percentage points. Results from the poll conducted September 12-13 are in parentheses. Results from the poll conducted August 25-26 are in brackets.

Research 2000/Daily Kos Connecticut Senatorial Survey

Republican Senatorial Primary

• Rob Simmons 38%
• Sam Caligiuri 7%
• Tom Foley 6%
• Peter Schiff 1%

Senatorial Election

• Rob Simmons 46%
• Chris Dodd 42%

• Chris Dodd 46%
• Sam Caligiuri 37%

• Chris Dodd 44%
• Tom Foley 40%

• Chris Dodd 47%
• Peter Schiff 35%

Among Independents

• Rob Simmons 55%
• Chris Dodd 32%

• Sam Caligiuri 44%
• Chris Dodd 34%

• Tom Foley 48%
• Chris Dodd 30%

• Peter Schiff 42%
• Chris Dodd 34%

If 2012 election for U.S. Senate were held today for whom would you vote for if the choices were between Ned Lamont the Democrat Jodi Rell the Republican and Joe Lieberman an Independent?

• Jodi Rell 46%
• Joe Lieberman 26%
• Ned Lamont 26%

If 2012 election for U.S. Senate were held today for whom would you vote for if the choices were between Dick Blumenthal the Democrat Jodi Rell the Republican and Joe Lieberman an Independent?

• Jodi Rell 40%
• Dick Blumenthal 32%
• Joe Lieberman 23%

Favorable / Unfavorable (Net)

• Jodi Rell 67% / 25% (+42%)
• Barack Obama 67% / 25% (+42%)
• Dick Blumenthal 55% / 22% (+33%)
• Rob Simmons 43% / 17% (+26%)
• Tom Foley 19% / 6% (+13%)
• Ned Lamont 45% / 38% (+7%)
• Sam Caligiuri 14% / 8% (+6%)
• Peter Schiff 11% / 6% (+5%)
• Joe Lieberman 47% / 50% (-3%)
• Chris Dodd 43% / 47% (-4%)

Do you favor or oppose creating a government-administered health insurance option that anyone can purchase to compete with private insurance plans?

• Favor 68%
• Oppose 21%

Do you believe that Barack Obama was born in the United States of America or not?

• Yes 87%
• No 6%
• Not sure 7%

Among Independents

• Yes 90%
• No 4%
• Not sure 6%

Among Republicans

• Yes 71%
• No 13%
• Not sure 16%

Survey of 600 likely voters was conducted September 8-10. The margin of error is +/- 4 percentage points. Party ID breakdown: 40% (D); 22% (R); 38% (I).

Or, “How the GOP could lose the 2010 and 2012 elections (in 2009)”

Glancing into the crystal ball of politics is always an iffy proposition. 14 months is an eternity in politics. Nobody knows what’s going to happen between now and the 2010 elections, much less the 2012 elections. But here’s my humble stab at it.

I think we conservatives blew it. Here in September, 2009, I’d like to go on record with my prediction that we screwed up the biggest gift we’ve been given in a long time: a flailing Obama administration that was clearly in over their heads.

Because here’s the deal: a huge reason for Obama’s low approval ratings is the economy. And the economy isn’t going to stay bad forever. In fact, as I wrote back February, this economy is going to rebound just in time for the 2010 elections. And here’s where we fumbled on the one yard line when we had the chance to score big:

We oversold the dismal state of that economy. It’s what I’ve warned against for months now, and sat by and watched the GOP and conservatives do it anyway. We’ve trotted out all the Democrats’ favorite lines – the worst economy since the Great Depression; comparisons with other failed economic policies of the past; etc. (proving that once again, all politicians are cut from the same mold and care more about party advancement than advancement of country).

The economy is bad. But it was never going to be as bad as the GOP was selling it. By making the economy seem worse than it was, all we’ve done is make Obama seem like a hero that he isn’t for “rescuing” it. In 2010 when the economic recovery is in full swing, people will credit Obama, the bailout, cash for clunkers, the stimulus, and a myriad of other ridiculous economic policies for that recovery – instead of crediting the inherent resiliency of capitalism. And it will be because of how we sold it to the American people.

We said Obama would destroy the economy. And when that doesn’t happen, the American people will reject us once again as fear-mongering extremists. Only this time, we might almost deserve it.

Don’t get me wrong – long term, I think Obama’s policies are bad. But pinning this bad economy on him was a failed strategy from the beginning, because it pins Obama to something that is largely out of our control. Sure, as the economy goes down, it feels good to watch Obama go down with it. Mission accomplished. But when the economy recovers from this recession, Obama’s numbers will improve with it. And it’s because we, in a (poorly) calculated, purely political move, have forced him to own it.

In 2010, he will be glad to do so.

And when a healthcare plan gets passed and he has a massive celebration to mark the event, complete with another of his well-put-together speeches, the American people will celebrate with him. Because once again, short term, it makes great political sense and people will not see the true costs of the program until years or decades from now – well beyond 2012.

So by 2012, the economy and healthcare will probably both be off the table as issues in the Presidential election, and in fact will be pointed to as two of Obama’s strengths. (As a side note, those happen to be Mitt Romney’s two strongest areas as a candidate and two biggest reasons for running. I imagine he will continue his pragmatic reasoning he is known for and decide against a 2012 run as he realizes this.)

So where is Obama’s potential weakness in all this? Well, as the spotlight shifts off of the economy and healthcare, it has to shift somewhere. And the most obvious place for it to end up is on foreign policy. This is good news for the GOP, as Obama has shown over and over again that he is completely inept when it comes to foreign policy. This is also bad news for the GOP, as our first tier candidates – Romney, Sarah “I can see Russia from here” Palin, and Mike “no foreign policy credentials” Huckabee – and many of our second tier ones as well (Pawlenty, Jindal, etc.) are also sorely lacking in that area. This means the best chance for the GOP in the future, sadly, is an Obama foreign policy failure of large proportions and of dramatic cost. That is the corner we have now painted ourselves in, and it’s a sick, twisted place from which to operate.

I hate to be the naysayer or the prophet of doom while everyone else is celebrating Obama’s and Congress’ low approval numbers, but glancing into my crystal ball I see a future marred by the missteps of an overeager GOP and overeager conservative faction. Can we win in 2010 and 2012? Anything is possible in politics. But at this point, I wouldn’t count on it.

Quinnipiac University 2010 Ohio Governor Poll

• Ted Strickland 46% (43%) [51%]
• John Kasich 36% (38%) [32%]

Favorable / Unfavorable {Net}

• John Kasich: 22% (26%) /10% (7%) {+12%}
• Ted Strickland: 43% (42%) /34% (37%) {+9%}

Job Approval / Disapproval

• Gov. Strickland: 48%/42%
• Sen. Voinovich: 52%/34%
• Sen. Brown: 48%/33%

Survey conducted between 9/10-13/09 among 1,074 registered voters and has a 3% margin of error. Results from the poll conducted June 26 – July 1 are in parentheses. Results from the poll conducted April 28 – May 4 are in brackets.

Growing up in northern New Hampshire, the ongoing debates emanating from the Civil Rights movement were an intellectual exercise for classroom discussion or debate over coffee. “The Great White Hope” was Larry Bird. Race-based police brutality and false cries of police brutality were something read about only in a newspaper. As such, my opinion on race relations and the like are often dismissed as naive, uneducated or illegitimate. To help correct this, I borrowed the book “Police Brutality” from a friend. The book, a symposium of letters, opinions, articles and other written works gathered over many years, emphasizes the negative impact police brutality has had on the black and minority populations in the United States

For the first time, I have something of an empathetic understanding as to why Professor Gates reacted the way he did to Officer Crowley’s entrance into his home, as well as why the friendly fire killing by a white police officer of a black off-duty police officer in Harlem this past spring elicited such a negative reaction. While I do believe Gates was wrong, and the police shooting truly was a misunderstanding, I am beginning to understand the other point of view. Unfortunately, too many public and private figures do not seem aware of the negative impact of improper application of race relations

Two easy examples of race-baiting occurred just this past Wednesday. On the one side we have Drudge Report linking to a Breitbart article. The link was entitled, “President tries to build mo’ for health push.” While Drudge does a lot for conservatives, this is not one of his more admirable attempts. On the other side we have Daily Kos with this classy commentary on its main page, stating that what Glenn Beck means when he targets ‘”socialist” and “communist” radicals’ is the racial separation of the pre-Civil Rights movement.

The fact is that we have questionable race policies on both sides. Republicans, for example, have used the Southern Strategy for a couple of generations now, taking advantage of racial strife to win elections. Democrats have convinced poor minorities that welfare policies, affirmative action and public schools are the best route to getting out of the rat race of the poverty common in the inner city, despite evidence to the contrary (such as the DC voucher system or the 1996 Welfare Reform Bill). Both parties are guilty of it, though I tend to think Republican policy is less so- at least we strive for racial blindness in policy if not always in rhetoric.

When it comes down to it, however, to accuse Democrats of racism is generally misleading. Many believe in affirmative action for good and honorable reasons, for example, including concerns that whites have had nine generations in America to succeed and blacks have had two difficult ones. (Others, like Governor Paterson of New York, some leaders in Atlanta, GA and Al Sharpton, are honest-to-goodness race-baiters.)

Similarly, Democrats who accuse Republicans of racism are, by and large, manipulating the truth. This is the same party that brought in Michael Steele to be the head of the RNC, Colin Powell for Secretary of State (some even wanted him to run for president) and Condoleeza Rice for Secretary of State. Yes, we have our racists, too— certainly some of the tea party activists have made racist comments and held up racist signs (though the number is unknown, since LaRouche supporters have also held up the same signs), The New York Post’s gorilla editorial was horribly offensive, and the now-infamous Tennessee state senator staffer who sent out a racist picture of American presidents doesn’t help matters.

In the short run, race-baiting makes for good times for anonymous posters, high ratings for media personnel and positive election results for politicians. In the long run, however, can we all please grow up? Life’s tough enough without bringing us back 40, 50 or even 100 years. Most Americans want to ignore race in their politics, and do, but it’s difficult with both parties and their pundits creating vitriol with little thought of  its consequences. Both parties have work to do. Let’s start with Democrats using logical arguments instead of emotion and fear to create policy, and with Republicans remembering that there is a line between respect and political correctness that we too often step over.

Anthony Gregory, of the Independent Institute, thinks so, as he argues in this op-ed:

Many liberals lambasted the Bush administration on detention policy and warrantless surveillance, often arguing that they violated the Constitution. Now the Obama administration is pushing ahead with plans to require every American to purchase health insurance.

Doesn’t that also violate the Constitution?

The Constitution created a federal government limited to its enumerated powers. Everything Congress is allowed to do is spelled out in Article I. The 10th Amendment makes it explicit: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

Nothing in the Constitution authorizes any federal involvement in healthcare – yet Congress may soon require everyone in America to buy insurance.

Admittedly, the Supreme Court has ruled that the language empowering Congress to “regulate Commerce … among the several States” applies to an ever-broadening range of activity. The “commerce” clause was originally intended to prohibit interstate tariffs, a supposed problem under the Articles of Confederation.

Ironically, consumers today cannot freely buy health insurance from across state lines. If there’s any legitimate application of the “commerce” clause, it would be to overturn such restrictions. But the framers never gave Congress the general power to regulate industry.

…Then there is the privacy issue. In Griswold v. Connecticut (1965), Roe v. Wade (1973), and Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992) the court found reproductive freedom to be guaranteed as an implicit right to privacy. In Casey, the court reasoned that abortion entailed “the most intimate and personal choices a person may make in a lifetime, choices central to personal dignity and autonomy,” and that such choices are “central to the liberty protected by the 14th Amendment.”

Why wouldn’t this apply to the right to decide whether to buy health insurance?

Other constitutional concerns emerge. The mass collection of medical data likely to occur under proposed reforms threatens the Fourth Amendment’s “right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects.” Making it a crime not to buy insurance, and then forcing people to show they have not bought it, arguably clashes with the Fifth Amendment’s protection against self-incrimination.

The Ninth Amendment reserves to individuals all rights not expressly denied by the Constitution. Nothing in the document curtails our right not to purchase health insurance. And being forced to fill out forms to apply for insurance is in tension with the 13th Amendment’s prohibition of “involuntary servitude.”

The quality we could expect from government care may also raise constitutional questions. In early August, a federal panel ordered California to release 40,000 inmates because the health services were so strained, causing one unnecessary prisoner death per week, so as to render the treatment “unconstitutional.” If we all become captive consumers under federal mandate, could we not similarly argue that any shoddiness in our mandated health services is an unconstitutional burden?

Gregory makes some interesting points. Unfortunately, I have not heard Obamacare opponents bring up many Constitution-related arguments against H.R. 3200. Hopefully, we will see more in the future.

First Van Jones gets the boot, now ACORN.  Glen Beck – 2  Color of Change – 0

WASHINGTON (AP) – The Senate voted Monday to block the Housing and Urban Development Department from giving grants to ACORN, a community organization under fire in several voter-registration fraud cases.The 83-7 vote would deny housing and community grant funding to ACORN, which stands for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now.

The action came as the group is suffering from bad publicity after a duo of conservative activists posing as a prostitute and her pimp released hidden-camera videos in which ACORN employees in Baltimore gave advice on house-buying and how to account on tax forms for the woman’s income. Two other videos, aired frequently on media outlets such as the Fox News Channel, depict similar situations in ACORN offices in Brooklyn and Washington, D.C.

The Senate’s move would mean that ACORN would not be able to win HUD grants for programs such as counseling low-income people on how to get mortgages and for fair housing education and outreach.

Sen. Mike Johanns, R-Neb., said that ACORN has received $53 million in taxpayer funds since 1994 and that the group was eligible for a wider set of funding in the pending legislation, which funds housing and transportation programs.

Follow Max Twain on Twitter.

MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann regularly tells us who the “Worst Person” in the world is.  MSNBC considers it a mainstream-type thing to advertise on Olbermann’s front page where one can find his Daily Kos diary.

But fewer people than ever consider the media to be a credible source for what is good and bad.

According to The Pew Research Center, “Just 29% of Americans say that news organizations generally get the facts straight, while 63% say that news stories are often inaccurate.”  That 29% number was at 55% as recently as 1985.

I’m going to take this opportunity to also question the accuracy of Pew.  The main headline from Pew headline reads, “Press Accuracy Rating Hits Two Decade Low,” and the sub-headline reads, “Public Evaluations of the News Media: 1985-2009.”  We don’t learn definitively until the second paragraph that Pew has only been asking this question since 1985.  How long does the poll need to continue before Pew feels comfortable stating, “Lowest approval ever“?

The people most critical of the mainstream media are those whose “main source of news” is Fox News (21% of whom say media “get the facts straight”).  What should be very troubling to the left is the reality that the people who are SECOND most critical are those whose “main source of news” is the Internet (28% of whom say media “get the facts straight”).  The following graph shows how greatly and how rapidly the Internet has grown in terms of being the main source of news for many Americans:

I’ve included select graphs from the Pew story after the fold.

For $22, one can go here to purchase a Keith Olbermann bobblehead from NBC Universal.

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So I finished Rick Perlstein’s Before the Storm a few days ago and I finally got around to typing up my final thoughts (Part 1 and Part 2).  Enjoy.

1.  The “moderates” in the party, particularly Rockefeller and Scranton, were jerks.  Barry Goldwater spent most of the late 50′s and early 60′s giving speeches on the need for party unity.  On more than one occasion Goldwater- in trying to help Rocky’s nascent 64′ effort- actually interceded to calm down prominent conservatives who wanted nothing to do with the Manhattan liberal.  He started meeting with Rocky frequently in the early 60′s, to try to figure out how to satisfy conservatives.  And when Nixon bowed to Rockefeller’s pressure in 60′, and moved the platform decidedly to the left, Goldwater uttered not a peep.  Yet, when 64′ came around, not only did Rockefeller personally and politically savage Goldwater in the primary, but he de facto sat out the general.  Scranton, who’d been Governor for less time than Sarah Palin when he announced, was pretty jokerly himself.  Goldwater admired Scranton and had thought seriously about adding him to the ticket.  By the end of the convention, Scranton had succeeded in earning his hatred.  He too effectively sat the general election out.  George Romney was scarcely any better- he actually refused to endorse Goldwater- but at least he seemed relatively civil about it.  Would Goldwater have behaved this way?  Absolutely not; it wasn’t in his DNA.  So it’s hard to feel remotely sorry for these establishment Republicans who soon lost control of their party forever.

2.  The behind the curtains moderates come off worse, if anything.  In 64′, Nixon had been part of the “moderate” stop Goldwater faction, and was mentioned in the same breath as Romney, Rocky, and Scranton as possible moderate alternatives.  By 68′, these same moderates had decided that even Nixon wasn’t moderate enough for them because he’d- gasp- decided to actively campaign for Goldwater and not write off the entire right-wing.  So in 68′ (though the book doesn’t go into this) they fumbled again insensibly to find a “moderate alternative” to stop that “lunatic conservative” they’d of been all too happy to support 4 years earlier.  You get a sense of a group coming apart at the seams, incapable of adjusting to emerging realities, and too convinced of their now waning power to accept anything less than perfection.  Is this an analogue for the modern conservative movement?  Maybe.  But, oddly enough given their reduction in size, modern Republican moderates are behaving exactly this way again.  They managed to push through the most moderate- relatively speaking- Republican nominee in decades and they still weren’t satisfied and left in record numbers.  Or if they didn’t leave, they whined morosely from the sidegrounds.  It was, they insisted, all the fault of that gauche, moose-hunting- bible thumping (though she seemingly brought up religion less often than Barack Obama) cretin Sarah Palin.  This was, of course, an excuse for them to do what they always wanted to do- bolt, complain, trumpet their own superiority.  When you look at your history, it’s pretty obvious that right-leaning moderates aren’t especially sensible in “big elections”.

3.  Nixon was still learning in 64′, but by the end of the year he might have filled up his toolset.  Early on, like most moderates, he missed and dismissed the conservative rise.  More bizarrely- and I can’t recall knowing this before I read the book- he mounted a stealth campaign for the nomination which was poorly organized and utterly transparent.  One week he’d assure Goldwater he was against the stop Goldwater faction, and the next he’d insist that maybe he could be one of the voices for moderation to stop the “extremists”.  It was a mess and not very well thought through.  Yet, he ultimately figured it out.  Unlike Romney, Scranton, or Rockefeller he gladly campaigned for Goldwater and for any local candidate (conservative, moderate, or liberal) who requested his services.  After the election, he alone suggested that, despite the Goldwater loss, conservatives should have a voice in future election cycles.  And he started to quietly court them.  It’s hard for me to imagine any other candidate beating Humphrey in 68′.  Romney couldn’t have negotiated the Vietnam issue well enough to give “down with LBJ” liberals hope, while simultaneously satisfying the more aggressively pro-war Republican base.  Reagan couldn’t have brought the moderates aboard at that early hour in his career.  Rockefeller was just pathetic; one of the worst historical candidates for the Presidency in recent memory.

4.  The whole “Sarah Palin doesn’t have enough experience” trope now seems doubly odd.  In 64′, both William Scranton and George Romney offered themselves up for nomination.  Neither had been a governor for two years yet.  And they were applying for the top spot.  In 68′, Reagan mounted a run for the nomination, with less than two years gubernatorial experience under his belt.  So why is it, in the thousands of pages I’ve read on these two election cycles, I’ve heard nary a peep about their “inexperience”?  Scranton was hailed as the Republican Kennedy for goodness sake, and he didn’t even have Romney’s business experience or Reagan’s decades long political activism.  Nor is it particularly credible to insist Palin’s inexperience wasn’t the problem, per se, but rather her lack of knowledge.  The inexperience meme started and stuck, in some circles on the right, even before the Couric interview; in some cases, immediately after her dazzling convention speech.  So either folks expected a lot less out of politicians back then, or something else was at work.  I won’t name it, but I will note, once again, that no one worried about Charlie Crist’s equivalent experience when he was being brought up in VP talks.

Update:

Rick Perlstein has corrected me on Goldwater’s reaction to the 60′ platform change.  Goldwater did come out against the change, as Perlstein points out, even comparing the incident to Munich.  My mistake; I’d read that part a week earlier and was working from memory.  But, I think my point still stands.  Goldwater opposed the change on ideological grounds but, afterwards, worked towards Nixon’s election like a loyal soldier.  Goldwater was always a loyal soldier, when the rubber met the road- after the temporary ideological struggles had passed-while one senses that the moderates had a far more tenuous loyalty to the Republican Party as an institution.  They were willing to burn it down either to satisfy their ego and ambition (Rockefeller) or to uphold principles (Scranton and Romney) which couldn’t be advanced without a diverse coalition.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________

Matthew E. Miller can be contacted at Obilisk18@yahoo.com

Rasmussen Survey on Health Care Reform Plan

Generally speaking, do you strongly favor, somewhat favor, somewhat oppose or strongly oppose the health care reform plan proposed by President Obama and the congressional Democrats?

• Strongly favor 28% [23%]
• Somewhat favor 23% [20%]
• Somewhat oppose 8% [10%]
• Strongly oppose 38% [43%]

How likely is it that the health care reform plan proposed by President Obama and the congressional Democrats will become law this year?

• Very likely 19% [17%]
• Somewhat likely 36% [32%]
• Not very likely 24% [32%]
• Not at all likely 9% [9%]

If the health care reform plan passes, will the quality of health care get better, worse, or stay about the same?

• Better 34% [23%]
• Worse 46% [50%]
• Stay about the same 15% [21%]

If the health care reform plan passes, will the cost of health care go up, go down, or stay about the same?

• Cost of health care will go up 42% [52%]
• Cost will go down 28% [17%]
• Stay the same 21% [21%]

Survey of 1,000 Likely Voters was conducted September 12-13. The margin of error is +/- 3 percentage points. Results from the poll conducted August 25-26 are in brackets.

Inside the numbers:

Initially, the increases in support were restricted to Democrats. However, today’s update is the first to register modest gains among both Republicans and unaffiliated voters. Forty-seven percent (47%) of unaffiliated voters now favor the plan while 50% are opposed. Those figures include 19% who Strongly Favor the plan and 38% who are Strongly Opposed.

Washington Post/ABC News Survey on Health Care Reform

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

• Approve 54% (57%) [59%]
• Disapprove 43% (40%) [37%]

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

• Approve 51% (52%) [52%]
• Disapprove 46% (46%) [46%]

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

• Approve 48% (46%) [49%]
• Disapprove 48% (50%) [44%]

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

• Approve 39% (41%) [43%]
• Disapprove 55% (53%) [49%]

Overall, which party, the Democrats or the Republicans, do you trust to do a better job in coping with the main problems the nation faces over the next few years?

• Democrats 48%
• Republicans 28%

Who do you trust to do a better job handling the economy – Obama or the Republicans in Congress?

• Obama 48% [56%] {55%}
• Republicans 37% [33%] {31%}

Who do you trust to do a better job handling health care reform – Obama or the Republicans in Congress?

• Obama 48% [54%] {55%}
• Republicans 36% [34%] {27%}

Who do you trust to do a better job handling the federal budget deficit – Obama or the Republicans in Congress?

• Obama 50% [54%] {56%}
• Republicans 36% [35%] {30%}

Would you say Obama is doing a better job as president than you expected, a worse job, or what?

• Better 42%
• Worse 31%
• As expected 25%

Overall, do you have a favorable or unfavorable impression of Barack Obama?

• Favorable 63%
• Unfavorable 35%

Do you think Obama’s views on most issues are too liberal for you, too conservative for you, or just about right?

• Too liberal 39%
• Too conservative 5%
• About right 53%

Overall, given what you know about them, would you say you support or oppose the proposed changes to the health care system being developed by Congress and the Obama administration?

• Strongly support 30% (27%)
• Somewhat support 16% (18%)
• Somewhat oppose 12% (10%)
• Strongly oppose 36% (40%)

Which of these comes closest to your own view?

• The more I hear about the health care plan, the more I like it. 41%
• The more I hear about the health care plan, the less I like it. 54%

If the health care system is changed, do you think the quality of your health care will get better, get worse, or remain about the same?

• Better 16% (19%) {16%}
• Worse 32% (33%) {31%}
• Same 50% (47%) {50%}

If the health care system is changed, do you think the quality of health care for most people will get better, get worse, or remain about the same?

• Better 35% (37%)
• Worse 38% (38%)
• Same 24% (23%)

And if the health care system is changed do you think your health insurance coverage will get better, get worse, or remain about the same?

• Better 11% (14%)
• Worse 37% (40%)
• Same 49% (43%)

And if the health care system is changed do you think your health care costs will get better, get worse, or remain about the same?

• Better 20% (19%)
• Worse 40% (41%)
• Same 38% (37%)

(more…)

A friend of mine described the event as follows;

There were scores of people there. Everyone is in a GREAT mood – laughing, smiling, talking. The Washington Post said “Angry crowd on the Capitol lawn” – no one was angry. I wonder why they always have to call all political rallies “angry”???? doesn’t make sense to me!  Anyway, it was wonderful to attend!

It certainly was a great day for conservatism and libertarianism.

The truth will out. Despite mainstream media attempts to characterize turnout as in the thousands, a spokesman for the National Park Service, Dan Bana, is quoted as saying “It is a record…. We believe it is the largest event held in Washington, D.C., ever.”

Democrats and their media acolytes may wish this weren’t so, and they may even employ the Ostrich Strategy, burying their collective heads in the sand, pretending that a major important political movement isn’t happening. But they only hasten their own demise in doing so.

_________________________________________________________

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

I’ve wanted to start this discussion for a while, so I figured it would make sense to do so on a weekend night.

As the title says, what does everyone have for computer preferences? Mac or PC, and for what reasons? For me, I use a PC (Lenovo) because I need it for business applications. For the Mac users, how do the Apple computers assist in activities like web surfing, email and instant messaging? I’d love to get input from as many people as possible! Have at it!

Hint; it is not Carville, Begala, Williams or Dowd.

• Some of the Republican opposition has been hysterical or buffoonish or in some cases manipulative and deceptive.
• There are two Romneys: the pragmatic, results-oriented candidate who got himself elected Republican governor of Massachusetts — and the phoney hyper-ideological ex-candidate who addressed the Republican convention in St. Paul in 2008:
• College-educated Americans have come to believe that their money is safe with Democrats – but that their values are under threat from Republicans.
• (Huckabee) is downright absurd
• Think of Joe the Plumber and you see the core of the Republican party.  but thanks to him the Republicans kept a dwindling hold on Congress in 1996, 1998, and 2000.
• And many fear, as I do…that she (Palin) represents a future that leads the party both to political defeat and then to ineffectiveness in government.
• McCain’s only hope of winning the presidency in 2008 was to carry Pennsylvania, and yet Pennsylvania’s most successful Republican vote winner, former governor Tom Ridge, was barred from the ticket because he’s pro-choice.
• The coverage of illegal immigrants is a side issue and red herring in the healthcare debate.
• Now it might seem ambitious to try to defeat an (Obama) administration nominee on the grounds that he is not cruel enough to animals.

Answer:

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

Prince Turki Al-Faisal has penned an interesting op-ed in Foreign Policy magazine.  The Saudi Prince uses strong language to describe Barack Obama’s energy policy and the energy buzzwords used in US political campaigns.

“Energy independence” has become a byword on the American political scene, and invoking it is now as essential as baby-kissing. All the recent U.S. presidential candidates employed it, and to this day, the White House Web site lists as a guiding principle the need to “curb our dependence on fossil fuels and make America energy independent.” Expect a whole new round of such rhetoric when the global economic recovery begins, and with it, higher oil prices return.

But this “energy independence” motto is political posturing at its worst — a concept that is unrealistic, misguided, and ultimately harmful to energy-producing and -consuming countries alike. And it is often deployed as little more than code for arguing that the United States has a dangerous reliance on my country of Saudi Arabia, which gets blamed for everything from global terrorism to high gasoline prices.

Saudi Arabia holds about 25 percent of the world’s proven oil reserves, is by far the largest exporter of oil, and maintains the largest spare production capacity in the world. U.S. oil production started to decline in 1970, while U.S. energy needs have skyrocketed since that time, and the United States is now the world’s largest oil consumer. There is no technology on the horizon that can completely replace oil as the fuel for the United States’ massive manufacturing, transportation, and military needs; any future, no matter how wishful, will include a mix of renewable and nonrenewable fuels.

Considering this, efforts spent proselytizing about energy independence should instead focus on acknowledging energy interdependence. Like it or not, the fates of the United States and Saudi Arabia are connected and will remain so for decades to come. This realization need not strike fear into the hearts and pocketbooks of Americans. Saudi Arabia has a long record of specific actions that prove its strong commitment to providing the world with stable energy supplies. We have consistently pushed for lower prices than any other OPEC members have, and we sharply increased supplies after the Iranian Revolution, during the first Gulf War to replace the loss of Iraqi production, and immediately after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks – all in order to calm jittery global markets.

Read the entire piece, here.

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

I don’t use the word “cute” very often, but….

Sara Warmack – the conservative choice in 2048!

Monmouth University/Gannett New Jersey Gubernatorial Survey

• Chris Christie 47% (50%) [45%]
• Jon Corzine 39% (36%) [37%]
• Chris Daggett 5% (4%) [4%]

Among Independents

• Chris Christie 45% (48%)
• Jon Corzine 30% (28%)
• Chris Daggett 5% (7%)

(Asked of Corzine and Christie supporters) Are you very sure about voting for that candidate; or might you change your mind before Election Day?

• Sure Christie 34% (31%) [29%]
• Sure Corzine 26% (24%) [25%]

• Weak Christie 10% (11%) [8%]
• Weak Corzine 10% (7%) [8%]

• Undecided/Lean Christie 3% (8%) [8%]
• Undecided/Lean Corzine 3% (5%) [4%]

Favorable / Unfavorable {Net}

• Chris Christie: 48% (49%) [50%] / 30% (33%) [26%] {+18%}
• Chris Daggett 11% (11%) / 6% (9%) {+5%}
• Jon Corzine: 37% (37%) [41%] / 53% (53%) [50%] {-16%}

Do you approve or disapprove of the job Jon Corzine is doing as governor?

• Approve 34% (35%)
• Disapprove 58% (58%)

In your opinion, what are the most important one or two issues that the candidates for governor should talk about? [Note: Results add to more than 100% because multiple responses were accepted]

• Property taxes 50% (47%)
• The economy/downturn in general 21% (22%)
• Education/schools 19% (9%)
• Health care/prescription drug costs 16% (14%)
• Jobs 15% (16%)
• State Budget/Govt spending 11% (14%)
• Corruption/government ethics 9% (17%)
• Income tax 8% (7%)
• Other tax 8% (7%)
• Sales tax 3% (4%)
• Environment 2% (2%)
• Crime, safety, police 2% (3%)
• Roads/traffic/congestion 2% (1%)
• Abortion 1% (1%)

Regardless of who you may support for governor… Who would do a better job on ___________________ ?

Property taxes

• Chris Christie 49% (50%)
• Jon Corzine 25% (28%)

The economy and jobs

• Chris Christie 46% (47%)
• Jon Corzine 35% (33%)

Education

• Jon Corzine 43% (39%)
• Chris Christie 38% (39%)

Health care

• Chris Christie 36% (39%)
• Jon Corzine 34% (36%)

State budget

• Chris Christie 48% (50%)
• Jon Corzine 32% (30%)

Reducing corruption

• Chris Christie 46% (52%)
• Jon Corzine 24% (26%)

Improving our cities

• Chris Christie 41% (42%)
• Jon Corzine 34% (35%)

The environment

• Jon Corzine 41% (37%)
• Chris Christie 30% (34%)

So far, would you characterize the governor’s race as being generally positive or negative?

• Positive 30%
• Negative 62%

Who has been more negative – Corzine or Christie, or both equally?

• Corzine 35%
• Christie 12%
• Both equally 52%

Survey of 531 likely voters was conducted September 8-10. The margin of error is +/- 4.3 percentage points. Results from the poll conducted July 29 – August 2 are in parentheses. Results from the poll conducted July 9-14 are in brackets. Party ID breakdown: 36% (42%) Independent; 35% (33%) Democrat; 29% (25%) Republican.

Inside the numbers:

Among Registered voters: Corzine 41% (39%), Christie 40% (43%), Daggett 6% (4%).

Reuters reminds us – in both the headline and in the article’s opening sentence — that columnist William Kristol is “conservative.”

To McClatchy, Maureen Dowd is a “commentator.”  A mainstream one.

There is a tremendous disconnect between America’s elite culture and its citizens.  Fortunately, in the news industry, capitalism is assisting in sorting out which voices remain, and which do not.

On Saturday, New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd effectively tells us that to believe that Obama is being dishonest is a racist sentiment.  What absurdity.

– Joe Wilson yelled “You lie!” at a president who didn’t. But, fair or not, what I heard was an unspoken word in the air: You lie, boy!

– I’ve been loath to admit that the shrieking lunacy of the summer … had much to do with race.

– Some people just can’t believe a black man is president and will never accept it.

– For two centuries, the South has feared a takeover by blacks or the feds. In Obama, they have both.

– “A good many people in South Carolina really reject the notion that we’re part of the union,” said Don Fowler, the former Democratic Party chief who teaches politics at the University of South Carolina.

Even President Obama rejects this idea.  But Dowd reminds us that this theme is considered mainstream within the media; by quoting Don Fowler, Dowd reminds us that this theme is mainstream within both the Democratic party and within government education.

The reaction of Americans?

• Home-schooling has doubled in the last decade.
• The New York Times will regularly update us on its own financial and circulation problems.
• November 2010 will provide an opportunity for Americans to comment on the competency of the Democratic control of Washington.

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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 and a former state lawmaker.  You can join Hodge’s efforts on Facebook, through his personal Web site, on Twitter, and through his PAC.

Mark Impomeni of RedState has done an excellent job highlighting a little-covered statement from the Obama administration – one that could have revealed the administration’s true plans for health care:

The Obama Administration inadvertently confirmed that the president’s plan will begin a slow take over of the health care system by the federal government. How else could this be interpreted?

“Undocumented immigrants would be able to buy insurance in the non-exchange private market, just as they do today. That market will shrink as the exchange takes hold, but it will still exist and will be subject to reforms such as the bans on pre-existing conditions and caps.”

In other words, as the federal exchange takes hold, plans not complying with the federal government’s standards will start to disappear. Eventually, it won’t make any sense for any company to offer health insurance as the federal requirements will make the business of providing health insurance far too expensive, and the premiums far too expensive for the insured.

The result will be that everyone will wind up with no other “choice” than the so-called public option, just as the Administration has planned all along. It took Wilson “calling out” the president’s “misinformation” and “lies” to finally get the Administration to admit it.

We should try to spread this story as much as possible, as public knowledge of the detrimental implications of the public option on private insurance could prevent Blue Dogs and other Dems skeptical of H.R. 3200 from voting in favor of the bill.

Cenk Uygur thinks he’s stumbled upon a devastating point. He asks, “rhetorically,” saying that the answer is objective and empirical: “Who kept us safer during their first eight months in office?” — George W. Bush or Barack Obama?

Who has done a better job of keeping the country safer – George Bush or Barack Obama? Well, as soon as it we make it past the morning of 9/11, then Obama will have officially kept us safer longer than George Bush did. It’s empirical. You can’t argue with it.

Then he continues:

But that leads us to the second point about 9/11. Republicans would love to take credit for the safety we are enjoying under Obama, but do you think that they would say the same thing if the shoe was on the other foot? If we were attacked right now, do you think a single one of them would say it’s because Bush didn’t do enough to keep us safe on his watch? Not one, right? Do you think a single one of them would say that it wasn’t Obama’s fault because it’s too early in his administration? Not one, right?

It’s been long enough into his term that Obama should begin to receive criticism or credit for whether we’re being hit or not (respectively!). Surely it is so that Bush’s policies are helping to keep us safe, but they are not and cannot be foolproof. Any fair-minded observer cannot say, though, that Obama is launching some kind of assault on homeland security. But I am simply not aware of any conservative who believes so. Uygur’s knocking down straw men here, quite frankly.

In fact, so far they have done nothing but the exact opposite. They have blamed every single thing on Obama. The economy, the deficit, unemployment and even the Afghanistan War. It’s all Obama’s fault in less than nine months.

The Afghanistan War? In case he’s not aware, a cadre of leading hawks, headed by William Kristol and Robert Kagan, just signed a letter praising Obama’s commitment to the War in Afghanistan. The other counts aren’t unfair to Obama: the deficit has already been increased substantially, and the stimulus is failing utterly. This is not something you can argue with, as Uyger might like to put it: it’s an objective fact. But as compared to George W. Bush? I am not aware of any conservative defending Bush’s outrageous spending policies.

Do you remember what they said when we got hit by the worst terrorist strike in US history on this same date in Bush’s first term? Bush could not be blamed at all! It was far too early in his administration! It was considered nearly unpatriotic to suggest such a thing. No one could blame him for anything that happened before 9/11 in his first term.

I don’t think that anyone is under the impression that the Bush Administration did some kind of fabulous job early on concerning homeland security, but there wasn’t exactly a lot of political capital — or institutional support — to revamp it, or to go after al-Qaeda. I wonder whether a dove like Uygur would have actually supported some wicked bombing of Taliban camps (his types know them as “civilians”) in Afghanistan or the breaking down of barriers between the FBI and CIA? I think we know our answer.

Now, do you think they’ve used that same standard for Obama? No one in their right mind could think that. Perhaps the media should keep that in mind as they evaluate what Obama has done so far and what Bush failed to do at this point in his administration. We could call that the 9/11 standard.

And perhaps these things don’t exist in a vacuum and should be judged in the context of the political atmosphere of the time. Would Obama have prevented 9/11? No. Bush didn’t, and Obama wouldn’t have: it was one of those events that we had to suffer to understand the gravity of. Experience, after all, is a harsh teacher, as Vernon Sanders Law said: she gives the test first and then explains the lesson.

So while Uygur thinks that his AOL poll about who kept us safer is unbelievable (George W. Bush is winning), it’s simply a reflection of how people know how incredibly unfair the question is. Instead of whining about people’s responses, maybe he should examine the premise of the question he’s asking.

What better way to spend a lazy Sunday than to take a gander into DaveG’s crystal ball to determine the state of all things political…

Q: It’s been awhile since you’ve used this format.
A: It seemed fitting.

Q: Huh. So what do you think of President Obama? Is he on the verge of becoming the liberal Reagan or Jimmy Carter, Part Deux?
A: Neither. The best historical analogy is probably Woodrow Wilson.

Q: How so?
A: Like Obama, Wilson was, at heart, a liberal intellectual who was elected during a conservative period in the nation’s history due largely to a split in the majoritarian center-right electoral coalition that existed in the country both in the early 20th Century and in the early 21st Century. Both were prevented from governing as liberal transformative presidents due to the political realities of their times. Woodrow Wilson was likely far less philosophically conservative than Grover Cleveland, just as Obama is no Bill Clinton. But neither Wilson nor Obama were able to be the FDR/LBJ-style president that they truly wanted to be, because the electorate just wouldn’t allow it.

Q: Whoa, whoa, whoa! But what about the race for 2008? A liberal Democrat was elected with 53 percent of the vote! He won Indiana! Indiana! If that’s not a liberal realignment, I don’t know what is.
A: The problem, my good questioner, is that many pundits, myself included, initially read 2008 the wrong way. The lack of a third-party protest candidate screwed things up for armchair politicos throughout the nation who observed millions of 2004 Bush voters casting ballots for Obama and who assumed that these voters had somehow changed their lifelong political philosophy overnight. Now, it’s true that there are plenty of people who voted Republican earlier this decade who are now wondering whether the GOP is obsolete. But few if any of these voters have changed their beliefs in order to match those of the 48 percent of the nation that voted for Al Gore and John Kerry. Think about it this way: just because a 2004 Bush voter was disgusted with the GOP over war/spending/corruption/incompetence/general busybodiness doesn’t mean that said voter wanted a pork-laden stimulus bill or government-run health care. Yet many of those voters did in fact cast ballots for Obama and other Democrats in 2006 and 2008.

Q: So Indiana and friends voted for Obama even though they disagreed with everything he stood for?
A: Well yes and no. Remember the last 90 days of the race for 2008? During that period, which was prime time for swing voter attention, Obama successfully transformed into a non-ideological problem-solving uber-wonk who sounded more like Bill Clinton than Nancy Pelosi. It’s also important to remember that center-right majority doesn’t mean movement conservative majority. Many of Obama’s stated goals, such as major health insurance reform, are shared by large majorities of Americans. 73 percent of Americans believe that insurance companies should be required to cover anyone who wants to buy a policy regardless of pre-existing conditions. Assuming that everyone who voted for Gore and Kerry agree with that policy, that means about half of the folks who voted for George W. Bush also agree. That’s why conservatives in particular are prone to misinterpreting the 2008 election results — because conservatives tend to think that those Americans who self-identify as conservative/Republican/whatever are more conservative than they actually are. If three-quarters of Americans want more mandates on insurance companies and 35-40 percent of Americans self-identify as conservatives, that means that a fair chunk of conservatives don’t mind a little more government regulation here and there, even if 90 percent of blogosphere conservatives would have you believe differently.

Q: Where are you going with this?
A: What I’m saying is that Obama’s landslide in 2008 was more like a 1912 than a 1980. The Obama Republicans weren’t new liberals, they were voters who were either voting against the GOP or for a reasonable-sounding centrist Democrat. And that makes a lot more sense when you take into account the disparity between the Burke and Rand-toting online conservatives and the views of actual conservatives and GOP voters on the ground who tend to be far more pragmatic and less ideologically rigid than the true believers who man the blogosphere.

Q: So what happens now?
A: Now Obama will probably continue to move to the center, largely because he has to in order to get anything done, and in so doing will both rehabilitate his image with the voters but will also ultimately be a rather ineffective president.

Q: Will he sign into law universal health care?
A: Yes.

Q: What will the bill look like?
A: It will probably be similar to the Baucus legislation that is currently seducing Olympia Snowe, which is to say that it will essentially be national RomneyCare. It will include mandates on individuals to purchase insurance, tax credits for those who can’t afford to do so, mandates on insurance companies to cover everyone, and will probably expand Medicaid a bit and pay for it all via taxes on employer-based health insurance.

Q: Will there be a public option?
A: No.

Q: What will the political ramifications be?
A: Obama will benefit from signing a centrist-sounding bill into law, and one that gives voters more security during an economically insecure time without fundamentally changing the shape of American health care. Republicans will also benefit because Americans intuit that if Nancy Pelosi and company had their way, we would have ended up with the worst of the Democratic proposals that Americans rejected this summer, and it will be Democrats who pay for those proposals in 2010.

Q: Will Republicans win the 2010 elections?
A: Yes. They will make gains in both houses of Congress but probably retake neither.

Q: Will Obama be re-elected?
A: Too soon to tell.

Q: Who will be the GOP nominee?
A: Mitt Romney.

Q: Really?
A: I’m not saying he’s my choice, but I do think he’ll be the nominee. He’s got too much going for him. He’s the guy who came in second last time, and that makes him the crown prince. Even John McCain, despite a hapless primary campaign and despite being the most despised Republican candidate in the field among Republicans, was able to secure the nomination last time around due to his crown prince status. Add this status to the Romney organizational and fundraising machine and it’s difficult to see how he doesn’t win the nomination.

Q: What about Huckabee?
A: Huckabee seems to be lagging in fundraising. He won’t win New Hampshire, where Romney is ahead by several miles, and even if he wins South Carolina, it’s difficult to imagine Huck winning pluralities in the delegate-rich blue states given his performance outside the South last time around. His popularity is rebounding now but he is extraordinarly gaffe-prone. Don’t bet on him.

Q: And Sarah Palin?
A: It may not be fair, but she’s becoming the candidate of the Glenn Beck right, and that’s not a good place to be when you’re trying to win the California or New York primary against Mitt Romney. I’m not saying that Sarah brought this on herself. It just sort of happened. The MSM thinks that the Beck/tea-party crowd consists of a bunch of rubes, the MSM also thinks Sarah is a rube, hence, the folks that embrace her are the same people who probably can’t win the nomination without help from other wings of the GOP and which is also abrasive enough to turn off those other wings.

Q: But couldn’t Pawlenty win both the Iowas of the primary contest as well as the Californias and Floridas?
A: Probably. And Pawlenty would make a strong general election candidate, no question about that. But I just keep thinking about the race for 2008, and how all Romney’s money and all Romney’s men couldn’t take down McCain simply because he was next in line. Imagine Pawlenty going up against the fully operational Romney machine. It just doesn’t seem doable. But Pawlenty could certainly win Iowa, come in second in New Hampshire, and assert himself as the guy who comes in second THIS time for future races.

Q: So who wins an Obama/Romney race in 2012?
A: That’s a real nailbiter. Remember the Woodrow Wilson analogy? Wilson’s second election was much, much closer than his first. Wilson barely squeaked by in 1916 despite a landslide in 1912. That’s because most of the TR voters from 1912 came home to the GOP. Romney’s inoffensive enough and malleable enough that he should be palatable to most of the Bush ’04/Obama ’08 swing voters. Also remember that 2012 will be a referendum on Obama, and Romney just has to be an acceptable alternative. Ambinder has Obama’s average job approval at 50 percent. That means that Obama is pretty much down to the same half of the country that voted for Gore and Kerry. Romney’s job is to get the other half.

Q: So Indiana will be red again in 2012?
A: I suspect that against Romney, Obama will win all of the Kerry states (New Hampshire being a tossup) and Romney will win most of the Bush states (though Iowa and New Mexico may be goners). I think the election will hinge on Colorado, Virginia, and maybe Nevada and Ohio. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if the election is decided at 3am on the day after Election Day by a few thousand votes in Colorado and Virginia. Those states are filled with the sorts of transformative New Economy voters who want health care but not government-run health care, who want better schools but not larger deficits, who want green policies but not at the expense of the economy, etc. Those voters will decide whether President Obama should be awarded a second term, and I suspect they could go either way right now.

Last Hurrah for the Old Media?

Pres. Obama made free traders’ fears come true last night, by slapping import tariffs on tires produced in China:

In one of his first major decisions on trade policy, President Obama opted Friday to impose a tariff on tires from China, a move that fulfills his campaign promise to “crack down” on imports that unfairly undermine American workers but risks angering the nation’s second-largest trading partner.

The decision is intended to bolster the ailing U.S. tire industry, in which more than 5,000 jobs have been lost over the past five years as the volume of Chinese tires in the market has tripled.

It comes at a sensitive time, however. Leaders from the world’s largest economies are preparing to gather in Pittsburgh in less than two weeks to discuss more cooperation amid tensions over trade.

The tire tariff will amount to 35 percent the first year, 30 percent the second and 25 percent the third.

Although a federal trade panel had recommended higher levies — of 55, 45 and 35 percent, respectively — the decision is considered a victory for the United Steelworkers union, which filed the trade complaint.

As expected, China strongly rejected Obama’s decision:

China decried a U.S. decision to impose added duty on Chinese-made tires, saying the move sent a dangerous protectionist signal before a G20 summit and could stoke reactions impeding global recovery.

…China’s minister of commerce, Chen Deming, indicated he took this latest trade dispute with Washington especially seriously.

“This is a grave act of trade protectionism,” Chen said in a statement put on his ministry’s website (www.mofcom.gov.cn) on Saturday.

“Not only does it violate WTO rules, it contravenes commitments the United States government made at the G20 financial summit, and is an abuse of special safeguard provisions that sends the wrong signal to the world.”

The tire duty was the first time Washington has applied special “safeguard” provisions Beijing agreed to before joining the World Trade Organization in 2001.

…The Chinese Ministry of Commerce spokesman, Yao Jian, said the U.S. move could spark a “chain reaction of trade protectionist measures that could slow the current pace of revival in the world economy”, according to the ministry website.

…Fan Rende, the president of the China Rubber Industry Association, said his group will appeal against the U.S. decision and “propose the government needs to adopt mandatory retaliatory measures against U.S. agricultural products and motor vehicles,” the China News Service reported.

The President has opted to risk igniting a trade war and driving China to levy tariffs on vital American exports in the midst of arguably the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. I won’t equate the tire tariff with the infamous Smoot-Hawley Tariff, but it disheartens me to see how little our elected officials learn from history.

Daniel Ikenson of the Cato Institute offers some analysis:

Well, we at Cato and elsewhere have warned repeatedly of the dangerous consequences of this outcome (June 18, July 24, August 13, September 9, September 11). Former Cato colleague and coauthor Scott Lincicome has an excellent analysis on the ramifications right here.

The good news is that we now have clarity about where the president stands on trade. The bad news is that his stance reflects his isolationist primary election campaign rhetoric and not the post-election messages of avoiding protectionism and repairing the damage done to America’s international credibility by unilateralist Bush administration policies. Short of armed hostilities or political subversion, no state action is more provocative than banning another’s products from entering your market. I guess this paper was too audaciously hopeful. We’re chastened.

Technically, the Chinese are not legally entitled to retaliate because the United States has legal recourse to restrictions under this so-called “China safeguard” law until 2013. But plenty of American exporting interests have been worried enough to write numerous letters to Obama urging restraint–but to no avail.

Restrictions have never been imposed under this law because in all previous cases — all during the previous administration — President Bush exercised his discretion to reject the recommended duties because of the likely cost of those restrictions on the broader economy. Thus, the Chinese know the decision is a matter of presidential discretion, unlike the antidumping and countervailing duty laws, which are on statutory autopilot and don’t require the president’s attention. Accordingly, the tire restrictions are the edict of the American president, and thus carries more profound meaning for the Chinese.

I fear the future implications of this disastrous action taken by Obama. Mr. President, you now risk turning this recession into something more devastating and frightening. Thank you for showcasing your courage to stand up to the “special interests” and “do what works”.

“Are you with ACORN?”

Two questions into my interview with a woman from Georgia, those words cross her lips. The anti-Obama pin I had conspicuously placed onto my shirt apparently wasn’t doing the trick.

“No, ma’am, I’m a writer with NewMajority.com. We’re a center-right website. We oppose Obama!”

“Well, alright, then. I want Congress to hear this: No TARP, no bailout, no cap-and-trade, no socialist health care, no health care paying for abortions, no czars!”

Another woman: “We want less government. Get out of our lives! Get rid of the czars that are Communist. No health care, the — the cap-and-trade, no stimulus! There’s no transparency!”

And then: “Balance the checkbook, give Medicare to those who need it, and get government out of my health care!”

Hmm…

*

Sarah Palin was without a doubt the unsaid queen of the 9/12 March. Of the many people I interviewed, about a dozen expressed solid support for a Palin candidacy, with all of the others at least open to supporting her.

Many were caught up in the fervor of Joe Wilson’s recent outburst. At moments, it seemed as if every other person was holding a “You Lie” sign. Joe Wilson, indeed, was a name I heard with much greater frequency than Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee (whose name crossed no one’s lips), and Tim Pawlenty. Floated names did include, however, Michele Bachmann, Mitt Romney, Sean Hannity, and Glenn Beck. But these were not serious propositions.

“All eyes are on Sarah Palin,” a man said. “Without her, McCain would have lost in a landslide.”

“Palin is from outside the Beltway. They hate her down here in D.C., and that’s why we need her,” one woman said to me.

“Quitting as governor was so smart,” another man said. “She got her leg out of a political beartrap. They were trying to sink her up in Alaska.”

Palin for President pins, shirts, and even signs were constant. Truly, she is their woman. And it’s hard to see that changing. Among those with whom I spoke who were committed to a candidate, she was the only name.who came up. Her anti-Washington credibility overwhelmed them.

“She has ethics and moral values, she’s pro-life, she knows what she stands for and she speaks with integrity.” She’s one of them.

(more…)

The912Project

Some estimates have placed the crowd in upwards of 2 million attendees at the tea party in DC this afternoon.  This appears to be the largest rally on record in Washington.  To place it in context, MLK’s ‘I have a Dream’ speech attracted a crowd of 250,000.

America remains a conservative nation.

Vid. Highlights (MSM filter free):

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

Yesterday, I went to a local tea-party in Toms River, NJ.  The folks there were planning to attend- in buses- the DC march on the capital rally today, and I wanted to see what all the fuss was about.  I left before the actual rally started so I have just a few observations:

1.  There were a lot of folks there.  The venue could have housed probably no more than 500 people; at least 400 showed up.  So even in Blue Jersey the tea party movement has some strength.

2.  The people seemed overwhelmingly focused on health care.  You’d occasionally see an odd “impeach Obama” sign (though none more extreme than that, I think, but they were a definite exception.  And they looked like mostly home-made signs as well (though, I saw a few groups that explicitly identified themselves.

3.  The crowd skewed heavily old.  I’d say the average age was around 50.  Indeed, I don’t think I saw more than 3 or 4 people in Obama’s 18-29 demographic.  Some of the people were probably in their 80′s.  This doesn’t seem to bode well for Democrats; even with AARP behind the plan, it’s pretty clear that they’ve totally failed to sell the elderly community.  And, as a million political operatives can tell you, the elderly vote.
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Matthew E. Miller can be contacted at Obilisk18@yahoo.com

Rasmussen Survey on Health Care Reform Plan (Post-Obama Speech Edition)

Generally speaking, do you strongly favor, somewhat favor, somewhat oppose or strongly oppose the health care reform plan proposed by President Obama and the congressional Democrats?

• Strongly favor 31% (27%) [23%] {26%}
• Somewhat favor 16% (17%) [20%] {16%}
• Somewhat oppose 10% (12%) [10%] {9%}
• Strongly oppose 39% (41%) [43%] {44%}

How likely is it that the health care reform plan proposed by President Obama and the congressional Democrats will become law this year?

• Very likely 19% (13%) [17%] {18%}
• Somewhat likely 33% (34%) [32%] {33%}
• Not very likely 30% (27%) [32%] {29%}
• Not at all likely 11% (13%) [9%] {10%}

If the health care reform plan passes, will the quality of health care get better, worse, or stay about the same?

• Better 28% (29%) [23%] {26%}
• Worse 46% (48%) [50%] {51%}
• Stay about the same 20% (15%) [21%] {17%}

If the health care reform plan passes, will the cost of health care go up, go down, or stay about the same?

• Cost of health care will go up 47% (46%) [52%] {51%}
• Cost will go down 23% (22%) [17%] {19%}
• Stay the same 22% (23%) [21%] {21%}

Survey of 1,000 Likely Voters was conducted September 10-11. The margin of error is +/- 3 percentage points. Results from the poll conducted September 8-9 are in parentheses. Results from the poll conducted August 23-26 are in square brackets. Results from the poll conducted August 9-10 are in curly brackets.

Inside the numbers:

The gain in overall support for the plan comes entirely from Democrats. Eighty-four percent (84%) of those in the President’s party now support the health care plan, up from 72% earlier in the week. Support among Republicans is unchanged while support among those not affiliated with either major party has fallen.

The DNC has released a new ad titled Tim Pawlenty: In the Extreme:

Love it.  Maybe I haven’t been following closely enough, but isn’t it a little remarkable for the DNC to release an attack AD on an unknown Governor, who’s not running for anything yet, this far from the Presidential cycle?  It’s comforting to know that I’m not the only one, apparently, who sees Pawlenty as a real threat to Obama. 

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Matthew E. Miller can be contacted at Obilisk18@yahoo.com

In the aftermath of 9/11, a unity of purpose was achieved by the vast majority of citizens in our dealings with other nations.  “Never again,” many of us said, and “We will never forget!”  A mere eight years later, and with no further tragedies occurring on US soil, we are bitterly divided and indecisive in how to protect this country.  If debate were civil and measured, it would be one thing.  It isn’t, however, and such dischord will show us as the paper tiger Osama believes us to be.  For all sides of this debate, remember that we are all Americans here, and we need the world to know that such cowardice as the 9/11 attacks will never be tolerated, and that they cannot afford the price they will pay for it.  I will NEVER apologize for being an American, and I will NEVER apologize for wanting to be safe from the forces of evil in the world.