Independents to Keep Moving Toward GOP?
(They will, if party returns to small government principles)
Glenn linked a post on Politico, Independents begin to edge away from President Obama, that made hopeful for the future of my party. As Obama sticks to his guns and continues to favor big-government solutions to a whole host of problems and pretend problems, independents who drifted away from the GOP during the Bush years because of his own big-government policies, may continue to return to the Republican fold.
Poll after poll indicates that Americans are wary of big government:
But a source of the shift [away from Obama] appears to be independent voters, who seem to be responding to Republican complaints of excessive spending and government control.
“This is a huge sea change that is playing itself out in American politics,” said Democratic pollster Doug Schoen. “Independents who had become effectively operational Democrats in 2006 and 2008 are now up for grabs and are trending Republican.
“They’re saying, ‘Costing too much, no results, see the downside, not sure of the upside,’” he said.
No longer hamstrung by an ostensibly conservative Republican Administration adopting objectively non-conservative fiscal policies, the Republican Party can once again become a vehicle for small government. Or so we hope.
It is now up to the elected Republican leadership to take heed to the latest polling data and the sentimentat the grassroots. If the Republicans stand for freedom and smaller government, they can win back the disaffected independents we lost in recent years.
It’s a question of principle, something, on domestic issues at least, my party lost sight of in recent years.
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It’s an interesting position to be in, really, as the only way for the GOP to re-gain control is to claim, while not having the power to demonstrate, that they have learned their lesson and won’t spend. We’ll have to take them on faith, as it were.
The minority always has a tough row to hoe, as they can only claim they’ll do better than the people in charge. As was pointed out last year, the Dems need to be careful what they wished for, as the Dems being in control of the whole shebang (except SCOTUS) means all credit and/or all blame goes to them. It’s an excellent opportunity for the GOP.
Comment by torrentprime — July 9, 2009 @ 5:35 pm - July 9, 2009
Obama ran against Bush. Now that Bush is no longer there, Obama’s whine that he’s having to undo what Bush did is no longer playing well.
Gays who overwhelmingly supported Obama are angry and feel betrayed. Rightly so. Now is the time to reach out to all gays to share with them their feeling of betrayal.
Every gay dem vote and dollar lost to the dems is good for our country.
In our frustration, most Gays I believe supported Obama. I’m hoping they’ll not support him next time. Now we need to target congressional dems, and we need all the gays we can muster for that.
Comment by Man — July 9, 2009 @ 5:56 pm - July 9, 2009
I hear from a lot of Obama voters who now regret their votes. Have you heard of any Mc Cain voters who regret not voting for the liberal Obama? Obamateleprompter won by 5 million votes. Run any conservative who isn’t 79 years old who supported amnesty for illegals, and poof….
Comment by Gene in Pennsylvania — July 9, 2009 @ 6:10 pm - July 9, 2009
The GOP needs to be the common sense party. Defense, wasteful spending, taxes, de-regulation that harms business creation, reasonable immigration reform, pro-market health care, stronger dollar and maintaining the world’s reference currency, etc. We are witnessing ideology on parade and the best message for voters right now is a non-ideological one. ‘isms’ are seen as just so much bullsh*t.
Comment by Ignatius — July 9, 2009 @ 6:24 pm - July 9, 2009
Unfortunately, I read some gay “leaders” such as Hildebrand (sp?) continue to meet with Obama and to urge patience. It appears they may be pursuing their own personal agendas at the risk of genuine gay equality. My guess is Obama sees his gay support dropping, so he needed to make a deal with these guys. Unfortunately in the 1030s there were gays and Jews who made deals with Hitler for their own reasons and against their communities.
On another vein, I am pleased to note Ted Olson’s comments that gay equality is really a conservative issue. He’s right of course. He has taken a philosophically conservative stand, and I applaud him. I’ve always favored federal action, because only then can we have full equality. As an american citizen, I want to be married in the USA to my french-born partner; and as a veteran I’m hoping that when the day comes, I will be able to be buried in a National Cemetary alongside my french-born partner who would have qualified for citizenship due to our marriage.
Comment by Man — July 9, 2009 @ 6:29 pm - July 9, 2009
Sorry…above should be “de-regulation that helps business creation…”
Comment by Ignatius — July 9, 2009 @ 6:36 pm - July 9, 2009
Too late – unless you are talking a full return to some hard-currency standard. (Which I would love to see.)
Comment by ILoveCapitalism — July 9, 2009 @ 6:43 pm - July 9, 2009
I disagree a hard-currency standard is necessary to maintaining the dollar as the world’s reference currency. A surplus rather than a deficit and some confidence that our finanancial policy is consistent with a strong dollar would do it.
Comment by Man — July 9, 2009 @ 6:57 pm - July 9, 2009
Man, I see your point. But to do that, they’d have to cut $1.5 to 2 trillion from the federal budget and, on top of that, pull back enough of the recent M0 creation to send interest rates at least back to the 5-8% level. Do you see Bernanke-Obama-Geithner taking such actions? I don’t. That is the first part of what I meant by “too late”.
The second part is, by the time Republicans could affect policy and implement what I just outlined, it will be 2011 at the earliest – and the new gold-backed Arab Gulf currency will have already been launched; the BRIC countries will already have completed their bilateral currency/trade agreements that remove the dollar as reference currency in trades among themselves; the Chinese and Russians will be that much farther along in diversifying out of the dollar (though they can’t do that overnight); and so forth.
Comment by ILoveCapitalism — July 9, 2009 @ 7:06 pm - July 9, 2009
(i.e., diversifying their central bank reserves)
Comment by ILoveCapitalism — July 9, 2009 @ 7:08 pm - July 9, 2009
So just to complete the thought – AFTER 2011/12/13, when the dollar’s de-throning as reference currency is far advanced, the dollar would have to become a truly superior currency – like something commodity-backed – to make a full return as reference currency.
Comment by ILoveCapitalism — July 9, 2009 @ 7:15 pm - July 9, 2009
In a static environment, I would agree. And certainly much of what has been done by government agencies has hindered the recovery, rather than advanced it. However, despite government, recovery is trying to move forward. A normal market-cycle function. As that happens, a certain reduction of deficit will occur as price-earnings drop (currently around 14}. Additional consumer and corporate spending will reduce a bit more of the deficit.
I’m more concerned by the continued treasury auctions. At some point we must make clear that the government will stop issuing so much debt. We must also make clear we will support the dollar. Unfortunately, both the Bush and Obama administration policies support a weak-dollar, despite their statements.
The last two treasury auctions indicated a surge in foreign government purchases. So in spite of Russia and China saying otherwise they are still buying.
Government policy mistakes could prove disasterous. Especially if Obama has his way with health care.
I will be more inclined to move closer to your thesis IF Republicans can’t make significant gains in Congress.
Here’s hoping!!!!
Comment by Man — July 9, 2009 @ 7:33 pm - July 9, 2009
IF the dollar is replaced, nothing is written in stone that subsequent conservative policies could not restore the dollar to its rightful place.
It’s ironic that the last president presiding over a budget surplus was Mr. Clinton.
Comment by Man — July 9, 2009 @ 7:36 pm - July 9, 2009
The Democrats can’t blame this one on gay-baiting… not that it will stop them. If they had governed as the moderates they had campaigned as… instead of pushing these far left cap and trade, socialized medicine, $2 Trillion deficit agenda of theirs, they wouldn’t be losing the independents.
Comment by V the K — July 9, 2009 @ 7:36 pm - July 9, 2009
It’s ironic that the last president presiding over a budget surplus was Mr. Clinton.
He had a Republican Congress restraining spending. If it hadn’t been for the Y2K scare (which led to $2Trillion in tech spending) and the dot-com bubble… coupled with the failure of HillaryCare … Clinton’s deficits would have been as bead as Bush’s.
Comment by V the K — July 9, 2009 @ 7:38 pm - July 9, 2009
VK, good point!
Comment by Man — July 9, 2009 @ 7:44 pm - July 9, 2009
For the present. The $64 trillion question: How many more years can it last?
If the U.S. is going to continue with multi-trillion deficits – think Stimulus II, national health care, Medicare and Social Security under-funding coming due, and so forth – while avoiding a total crash of the mortgage market, then the Fed will have to quietly continue its monetization / balance sheet expansion. Our foreign creditor-countries (China, Japan, Russia, Arabs) face a prisoner’s dilemma. An acceptable outcome for all of them would be for them all to continue propping up the dollar near current levels, maintaining the theoretical value (or fictional purchasing power) of their vast dollar assets. But a better outcome for one or two of them would be to “be the first” in cutting the dollar loose, diversifying out of the dollar aggressively while prices / rates of exchange are still somewhat favorable. The process would destroy the dollar (or make prices / rates of exchange unfavorable for everyone else), but yield great rewards to the “first mover”. All of them right now are slowly figuring it out: making statements about how they love the dollar, while taking background actions to quietly diversify away from it. (The Chinese in particular have been slowly shifting their average Treasury holding into shorter maturities, expanding their gold holdings, negotiating bilateral / non-dollar trade agreements with other countries, etc.) All of that speaks to the dollar’s fundamental weakness unless U.S. policy is reversed drastically – this year.
Nice to have a literate conversation with someone about this, btw
Comment by ILoveCapitalism — July 9, 2009 @ 7:55 pm - July 9, 2009
ILC, your points are taken and agreed to. We are already seeing this to a small extent. Until only a short time ago, creditor nations (China, Japan, etc.,) needed the stability of US issues. However this last economic downturn with its very sophisticated instruments worked against developed countries and favored developing countries, since they hadn’t participated to a large degree in these instruments. So they found their dollar assets could be better employed by investing in their own countries, as well as in other developing counries. China has invested enormous sums into Brasil and to a lesser extent into Argentina. Those investments, while very good for the countries into which they are invested, represent less available capital in the USA. So I believe we are seeing a secular change in international economics, with developing nations having a greater say in international economics.
Nevertheless, I continue to be optimistic about US economic future IF we can right the ship.
You may enjoy further reading on this. See “When Markets Collide”, M. El-Erian, McGraw Hill pub.
Comment by Man — July 9, 2009 @ 8:11 pm - July 9, 2009
Note that all of this is occurring with every news network but Fox serving as balls-to-the-wall cheerleaders for the Obamacrats. Imagine what the numbers would be if the press honestly reported the news?
Comment by V the K — July 9, 2009 @ 8:44 pm - July 9, 2009
ILC, you might check into some of Larry Kudlow’s writings. He’s a big believer in ‘King Dollar’
Comment by The_Livewire — July 9, 2009 @ 8:48 pm - July 9, 2009
How is the leader of their party going to react to:
Democrat Blago’s chief of staff now admits trying to sell Democrat Obama’s Senate seat for Blago. Turns states evidence. Will Democrat Rahm Emmanual be implicated? What is the President’s take on this?
Democrat Jefferson seen on tape accepting luggage full of cash from a sting operation. Democrat Rep Conyers wife pleads guilty to bribery charges. Will do time in prison.
Does anyone know where the lefitsts bob, Kevin, NJL, snerd gronk, buckeyenutlover, or any of the lower case guys who use to mix it up in here are? There’s a lot of explaining to do when it comes to the Democrat administration. I wonder if some of the lefties are part of the crowd defecting from Obama. Any chance?
Comment by Gene in Pennsylvania — July 9, 2009 @ 8:59 pm - July 9, 2009
Does anyone know where the lefitsts bob, Kevin, NJL, snerd gronk, buckeyenutlover, or any of the lower case guys who use to mix it up in here are?
Waiting for some Democrat blog to give them their talking points.
Comment by V the K — July 9, 2009 @ 9:30 pm - July 9, 2009
TL, the case in favor of the dollar usually boils down in the end to “It’s too big to fail.” But nothing is too big to fail. Or I should say, only in Democrat fantasy-land are people, companies, countries or currencies “too big to fail.” Rome was too big to fail… and it failed. The medieval Catholic Church was too big to fail… etc.
Something that people often don’t understand is the degree to which the dollar, given its awful technical fundamentals, is dependent on the U.S. being militarily strong – and willing to defend itself. I have a liberal friend who is an economist and ought to know better, but… he suggests solving the deficit by drastically cutting the military budget. But why did people flee to the dollar during this last financial crisis? Perceived *safety*. What safety? Where does ***safety*** come from, when we’re talking about entire countries and currencies? So, that’s another thing the dollar has going against it, these next few years: the likelihood that Obama is just a new Jimmy Carter who is going to make the U.S. look like a paper tiger… not the ultimate in safety.
Comment by ILoveCapitalism — July 9, 2009 @ 9:56 pm - July 9, 2009
(and the perceived safety of the Japanese yen is not a counter-example: Japan lives very much under the U.S. military aegis, reinforcing my point. Japan is also the world’s largest creditor nation, giving the yen better fundamentals. Likewise, the Swiss franc rests on the perception of Switzerland’s safety, including its relative (for Europe) military safety.)
Comment by ILoveCapitalism — July 9, 2009 @ 10:04 pm - July 9, 2009
Geez, now they can’t spell.
http://briefingroom.thehill.com/2009/07/09/more-spelling-errors-plague-obama-releases/
At some point the Obamateleprompter administration should stop digging the hole. Just stop. Get back to basics, get some spelling correct before trying to fix global warming and free health care. Get some folks with a non public education.
Morons, boobs and crooks.
Comment by Gene in Pennsylvania — July 9, 2009 @ 10:19 pm - July 9, 2009
Democrats Are Beginning To Squirm…
Polls have to have the White House and Democrats in Washington nervous . . . Gosh, wasn’t it just a couple months ago that Democrats were full of hubris and self-confidence. Strutting around telling us how they had won and we need to get over it. How m…
Trackback by NebraskaPatriot — July 9, 2009 @ 10:33 pm - July 9, 2009
As I said elsewhere, the same a-holes who can’t spell the Chairman’s name, predicted 8% tops unemployment are telling us that Crap & Tax is not gonna cost individual households thousands of dollars?
Comment by ThatGayConservative — July 10, 2009 @ 1:56 am - July 10, 2009
*nods* I agree. Kudlow’s writings (as I take them) are for, if not returning to a gold or commodies standard, to raise interest rates, suck up the pain and make the dollar a good investment again.
Comment by The Livewire — July 10, 2009 @ 7:35 am - July 10, 2009
At some point the Obamateleprompter administration should stop digging the hole. Just stop.
That’s the best part… they can’t! They’re surrounded by a sycophantic media that won’t give them any criticism and keeps them in a bubble. Obama could squat on the Oval Office rug and take a dump and Katie Couric would go on the Evening News talking about what great color and consistency it was.
Comment by V the K — July 10, 2009 @ 9:21 am - July 10, 2009
#25: “Get back to basics, get some spelling correct before trying to fix global warming and free health care.”
Oh don’t worry, Gene. Next up on President Obama’s domestic agenda: the creation of another massive government bureaucracy called the Federal Department of Rudimentary Spelling (…For The Children). Expect the 2347-page bill to be ram-rodded through Congress sometime tonight between 11:32 and 11:38 p.m. EST. I just hope all of the candidates on Obama’s short-list for Spelling Czar have got their taxes in order.
Comment by Sean A — July 10, 2009 @ 11:05 am - July 10, 2009
V the K….
even when Obama is caught checking out some boody, the American press can’t call it what it is…
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2009/07/when-in-rome.html
ABC making excuses for the perfect one.
When was the last time Obama looked before he stepped?
He prances into a room all cocky, and struts around all assuredly. But when the gal with the most obvious bumm strolls by, Obama is glancing at the steps? Check out Sarkozy, I guess according to ABC he is just pleased with his overall day!
Comment by Gene in Pennsylvania — July 10, 2009 @ 11:38 am - July 10, 2009
It wasn’t only Pres. Bush, but the reckless policies of Speaker Hastert and Tom DeLay that caused the disaffection. However, the public has now gotten to see that the worst of the Republican financial policies was still head and shoulders above the best democrap’s financial/spending policies. So maybe Barack’s election was a salutary event.
Comment by eaglewingz08 — July 10, 2009 @ 11:50 am - July 10, 2009
Friday post — consumer confidence is down today, despite economic technicals indicating recovery.
I believe many people polled have lost faith in Obama economics, and now may be facing reality.
I believe this is an opportunity for conservative and center-right people to put as much pressure on all elected officials, Republican and Democratic. Let them know how disaffected we are with the present situation.
I have no confidence the Dems will take the right actions, but for the sake of our nation, we need to keep as much pressure on them.
Comment by Man — July 10, 2009 @ 1:10 pm - July 10, 2009
Democrats spend $3.5 Billion in taxpayer’s money to buy one Cap-n-Tax vote. Wow… just wow.
Comment by V the K — July 10, 2009 @ 2:32 pm - July 10, 2009
#31: “even when Obama is caught checking out some boody, the American press can’t call it what it is…
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2009/07/when-in-rome.html
ABC making excuses for the perfect one.”
Gene, it’s perfectly reasonable to assume that this “news story” is just part of ABC’s usual round-the-clock, credibility-evaporating, scrotum-licking sycophantery for Obama that the network irrevocably chained itself to when it decided to produce the Obamacare infomercial “Prescription for America,” starring Obama spokesholes, Charlie Gibson and Diane Sawyer. However, I’d like to think that even ABC would not have bothered with this issue if the support for Obama’s Administration (and key items on his agenda) weren’t currently declining.
Isn’t it possible that all of the new, grim polling data (just six months into Obama’s Presidency) really does have the liberals in a panic? If they are already worried about the 2010 mid-term elections (and perhaps even Obama’s reelection in 2012), I could see them jumping all over this because the last thing they need is for the American public to start suspecting that Obama might be a womanizer. Think about it—2010/2012 elections aside, even the most ardent Obama suck-ups have to admit that at a minimum, the momentum Obama had coming into office that allowed him to royally fu*k things up within a few months is completely GONE. Now, he just has to be the President. His own Democrat-controlled Congress is giving him grief on cap and trade and healthcare. He’s completely pissed off the gays and the really whacko leftist moonbats who thought he was going to repeal DADT, immediately pull out of Iraq, etc., and he’s unequivocally broken dozens of well-documented campaign promises without a hint of remorse. Obama is facing uphill battles on everything, even with majorities in the House and Senate. Can you imagine what would happen if on top of all of this, it turned out Obama was a womanizer/philanderer too? Even with the MSM in their pocket I think it would be catastrophic for the Democrats if it turned out that they had put ANOTHER horndog into the White House. Sure, the liberals went to the mat to save Bill Clinton and they got branded as the adultery party in the process, but they certainly weren’t happy about having to do it. I think even the KosKids would tell Obama to go fu*k himself if he had to call on them to fight a protracted character battle for yet another scumbag leader of theirs on an issue having nothing to do with policy. I’m not saying they care about the ethics involved—I just think their attitude would be: how many times are we going to have to do this? Every time we get a candidate elected to the Presidency?
Of course, even assuming he was checking out that woman’s ass, it certainly doesn’t make him a philanderer and I am certainly not suggesting he is. Fiercely monogamous married men look at attractive women because they are heterosexual men. There’s nothing wrong with it (assuming it doesn’t involve leering and drooling). And despite the fact that Obama has two unmistakable characteristics associated with philanderers (acute narcissism and a cavalier disregard for the truth), I actually have no suspicions that he is a cheater. I can’t really say why, I just don’t see it in him and if it ever came out that he was unfaithful to his wife, I would be truly surprised. I just don’t see Obama feeding his own raging narcissism with other women. I think the political adoration he gets from his supporters feeds that void for him.
My point is that ABC may have jumped all over this non-story because Americans (even ones that voted for him) are starting to ask questions about this man that they neglected to ask before the election. The last thing the liberals need is for Americans to start asking questions about his marital fidelity too.
Comment by Sean A — July 10, 2009 @ 5:24 pm - July 10, 2009
Agreed #35,
Obama is many things, but I believe that he truly adores his wife and children. He’s also too aware of the cameras to be so clumsily caught. I’m sure that sweeping glance he made as he helped the lady down off the step took everything in, but he wasn’t batently “Ooo la la” as Sarkozy.
Comment by Luipaard — July 11, 2009 @ 2:29 am - July 11, 2009
Sean A — I notice the media is hyping another “Bush spied” on people story even though it reveals nothing we didn’t already know. They’re pretty desperate to get the public to forget about Obama’s failures and get back focused on hating Bush, because that’s pretty much all they got.
Comment by V the K — July 11, 2009 @ 11:00 am - July 11, 2009
I can`t believe that obammas voters are still with him after all his campain lies. That has to be proof enough that you swallowed the koolaid and are to embarassed to admit it.My god, what a bunch of idots. He has suckerd you so bad. I bet if he told you that you had to kill your families in order to get change in this country ,that you would do it. freaking unbelievable. its a no wonder that the democratic party can never last.I feel sorry for idiots like you.
Comment by gaetano — August 13, 2009 @ 9:04 am - August 13, 2009