The president recently told a crowd of supporters that he had kept a majority of the promises he had made in the 2008 campaign:

“We’re through about 60 percent of [the list], which isn’t bad for three years,” Mr. Obama told a crowd at a fundraiser in Denver on Tuesday night. “So we know change is possible. But here’s the thing. There are a lot of people who are still hurting, and there’s still a lot more work to do. And so that other 40 percent that is not done, I’m going to need you because I need five more years. I need five more years to get it done.”

Politifact says that in fact he has kept only 151.  And how, pray tell, with a likely Republican Congress in 2013 (which we, alas, do not, Democratic talking points notwithstanding, enjoy today), will he ever get any of his big-government initiatives through?

Now, what about one promise that candidate Barack Obama himself claimed he’d been talking about “throughout” the 2008 campaign, you know, proposing a “net spending cut”?

He hasn’t put that in any of the budgets he’s proposed; indeed, every proposal he’s authored to “jump start” the economy has a included a net spending increase, oftentimes a pretty substantial such increase.

I had this thought while watching the Gay Pride parade this past Sunday in West Hollywood and catching sight of the first Obama 2012 sticker:  why were so many of our fellow gays so gung-ho about Obama in 2008, even to the point of regularly deriding Hillary despite his absence then of a record on gay issues.  The Democrat had, in his campaign, shared a platform with an anti-gay singer.  And to my knowledge, hadn’t done much of anything for gay people when in the Illinois — or United States — Senate.

The Illinois legislature didn’t pass a “non-discrimination” law until January 2005, the very month Barack Obama began his service in another legislature.  In his eight years in the Illinois Senate did the Democrat work to advance this legislation, legislation near and dear to the hearts of gay activists?  Did he press his colleagues on same-sex civil unions?

Not just that, as I noted on Tuesday, “Mrs. Clinton participated in gay Pride parades in New York.  Obama never participated in such celebrations in Chicago.”  (Thanks to the folks at Hillbuzz for keeping track of this failure to participate.)

Yeah, I realize this in 2011 and I’m asking a question about 2008, but I’m still wondering why so many gay activists preferred Barack Obama to Hillary Clinton that year when they had little (if any) evidence that he was a champion of their causes.

NB:  Added the parenthetical (some) to the title to make my point clearer.  Thanks, readers, for helping me realize that title leant itself to misinterpretation.

A recently unearthed transcript:

BRIT HUME: Juan, columnist George Will says if the election goes as expected, his advice is be afraid, be very afraid. Should we take his advice?

JUAN WILLIAMS, WEEKLY STANDARD: I am already afraid, very afraid. I mean, it’s not like governance has been going great. I think we’ll, I don’t know whether I should be afraid, but there will be gridlock.

HUME: Michael, Will also says that future historians will probably look back at the 2008 election as a catastrophe for America. You are a historian. You agree with that?

MICHAEL BARONE, U.S. NEWS : No, but they might look on it as kind of a joke. There is sort of a circus aspect to it that people, it’s become comic and a kind of a dark way. You know, Will is a professional doomsayer. So, you have to take that with a grain of salt. But obviously the political system’s a mess.

* (more…)

The only reason I bring up the name of the politician who tried to resurrect his long dead political career this year by running against John McCain in the Republican primary for the U.S. Senate seat from Arizona is as a reminder that sometimes the alternative to an imperfect politician is worse than the flawed incumbent.  And on the issue driving American voters this fall, out-of-control federal spending, J.D. Hayworth was a johnny-come-lately if this johnny come at all.

And while Hayworth was wallowing in earmarks, McCain, as the senator told Terry Moran of ABC News’ “Nightline” in a recent interview, is “the one that fought against earmarks since it wasn’t popular to do so“.  And the Arizonan was always solid on national security.

To be sure, he did disappoint conservatives on a number of issues, often grandstanding in front of the cameras when he was at odds with his party.  And I wonder sometimes if he did this in order to curry favor with the media, assuming that he could so win, what no Republican has enjoyed perhaps since Eisenhower (if not before), favorable treatment when he ran for president.

He assumed media folk were honorable men and women, operating as do most decent individuals.

He just didn’t account for the depth of their partisanship  – and their natural antipathy to a Republican nominee (as opposed to a Republican attacking another Republican).

When McCain saw how they treated him in the presidential campaign, when he saw how they treated his running mate behind whom he still stands*, he realized his attempts to secure favorable media treatment were futile (at best).  This guy’s not go to bend left as he did in the best.  He knows that it just won’t redound to his benefit.

* (more…)

Un-effin-believeable.  THIS is the “most educated” President evah?

Some may say it was an accident that he left out “Creator”.  But… and this is important, people… by ignoring that our unalienable rights come from Our Creator, he completely misses the mark on what makes America great!  Before 1776, rights were seen to have been granted by Man (Kings, Queens, etc.)  Our Founding Fathers’ brilliance was that they put a new stake in the ground of mankind. 

Obama, our President, is a complete dope.  I guess they forgot to teach the Declaration of Independence to him in his prep schools in Indonesia and at Harvard.

Let’s help him out a bit. 

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

Good heavens.  Can’t everyone but the utmost Bush-haters now see what a complete buffoon America has in the Oval Office? 

So is he just stupid, or is he removing God from the DofI because his political philosophy is that rights come from the State, not the Creator?  If we had a responsible media — we’d have known the answer to that question…. in 2007.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

Well, he is running in San Francisco. Against Nancy Pelosi.

On June 3, 2008, when then-candidate Barack Obama declared victory in the campaign for the Democratic nomination, he declared that “the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal“.

Well, looks like the rise of the ocean has stopped: “Scientists have been forced to withdraw a study on projected sea level rise due to global warming after finding mistakes that undermined the findings.”

This email, written by a ”Millenial” is making the rounds.  I think you will enjoy it as much as I did.  Thanks to GP Reader Dan in NY for sending this to me!

American liberals, leftists, social progressives, socialists, Marxists and Obama supporters, et al:
 
We have stuck together since the late 1950′s, but the whole of this latest election process has made me realize that I want a divorce. I know we tolerated each other for many years for the sake of future generations, but sadly, this relationship has run its course.
 
Our two ideological sides of America cannot and will not ever agree on what is right so let’s just end it on friendly terms. We can smile and chalk it up to irreconcilable differences and go our own way.
 
Here is a model separation agreement: 

Our two groups can equitably divide up the country by landmass each taking a portion. That will be the difficult part, but I am sure  our two sides can come to a friendly agreement. After that, it should be relatively easy! Our respective representatives can effortlessly divide other assets since both sides have such distinct and disparate tastes.
 
We don’t like redistributive taxes so you can keep them. You are welcome to the liberal judges and the ACLU. Since you hate guns  and war, we’ll take our firearms, the cops, the NRA and the military.
 
You can keep Oprah, Michael Moore and Rosie O’Donnell (You are, however, responsible for finding a bio-diesel vehicle big enough to move all three of them).
 
We’ll keep the capitalism, greedy corporations, pharmaceutical companies,Wal-Mart and Wall Street. You can have your beloved homeboys and illegal aliens. We’ll keep the hot Alaskan hockey moms, greedy CEO’s and rednecks. We’ll keep the Bibles and give you NBC and  Hollywood  .. 

You can make nice with  Iran  and Palestine and we’ll retain the right to invade and hammer places that threaten us. You can have the peaceniks and war protesters. When our allies or our way of life are under assault, we’ll help provide them security. 

We’ll keep our Judeo-Christian values.. You are welcome to Islam, Scientology, Humanism and Shirley McClain. You can also have the U.N.. but we will no longer be paying the bill. 

We’ll keep the SUVs, pickup trucks and oversized luxury cars. You can take every Subaru station wagon you can find. 

You can give everyone healthcare if you can find any practicing doctors. We’ll continue to believe healthcare is a luxury and not a right. We’ll keep The Battle Hymn of the Republic and the National Anthem. I’m sure you’ll be happy to substitute Imagine, I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing, Kum Ba Ya, or We Are the World. 

We’ll practice trickle down economics and you can give trickle up poverty your best shot. Since it often so offends you, we’ll keep our history, our name and our flag. 

Anyone know a good divorce attorney??

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

In the fall of 2008, as polls showed her chances for reelection diminishing with each passing day, then-Senator Elizabeth Dole (R-Inside the Beltway) decided to jump the shark, er, pull the “Godless Atheist” card. She started running ads across the Tarheel State (which she supposedly represented, but rarely visited) pointing out (quite accurately) that a leader of the Godless Americans held a “secret” fundraiser for her opponent Kay Hagan. That Democrat attended said fundraiser.

Now, while Mrs. Dole’s ads had more basis in fact than some of the stuff put out by the Coakley campaign in recent days, they betrayed a whiff of desperation. With those ads, she destroyed whatever chance the native North Carolinian had of reviving her candidacy.

Now, if the Massachusetts media were as harsh on Coakley’s negative ads as the Carolina media were on Dole’s, then the Massachusetts Democratic Party’s mailer alleging “that Scott Brown wants rape victims turned away from hospitals” could have a similar effect on Coakley’s candidacy.  A Brown spokeswoman called the ad “patently false“.  When a candidate is down (or declining in the polls) in the last lap of an electoral contest, such negative ads rarely have the intended effect.  Instead of scaring people away from the savaged candidate, they make them disgusted with the candidate firing the broadsides.

Of course, it would be the Bay State Democrats sponsoring the attack.  They want to deflect as much blame as they can away from the Coakley campaign itself

Whether or not this ad alone will prevent a Democrat from winning in this Democratic state is still far from clear.  It is just one of many areas were the Coakley campaign (and it allies) have blundered in recent days.  (I mean, heck, the late Senator Kennedy’s son kept calling the woman vying for the seat once held by his father, Daniel Webster and Charles Sumner Marcia.*)

* (more…)

Every time I review the 2008 presidential campaign, I remain amazed at how well John McCain did, given the political headwinds against which he and his party were sailing last fall.  To be sure, with the selection of Sarah Palin and the successful convention, he had built up a good head of steam heading out of St. Paul.  Problem was, his team hadn’t developed a strategy for confronting unexpected obstacles, nor for dealing with a hostile media.  Not just that, he never found a way to articulate a coherent economic message which become particularly important in the wake of the financial meltdown of mid-September (one of those aforementioned unexpected obstacles).

That meltdown and McCain’s showing came to mind again last night as I was reviewing various polls for posts I was working on at the time.  According to the NBC/Wall Street Journal survey, the percentage of Americans believing the country was “off on the wrong track” hit a high of 78 just two weeks before the election, with only one in eight voters thinking we were headed in the right direction.

Just look at this pollster.com average of polls to see how the gap between those thinking the country was on the wrong track and those who thought we were headed in the right direction expanded in the run-up to last fall’s balloting:

It just wasn’t a good place for the candidate of the incumbent party to find himself in an electoral contest where the candidate of the opposing party is outspending him while the media fawns all over said opposition candidate and trashes the Vice Presidential nominee of the incumbent party.

Just to serve as a reminder about the nature of Obama’s “mandate.”  It wasn’t so much the agenda of his party voters were rejecting, but that of the then-incumbent party that voters were rejecting.  Given where we were last fall–and the kind of campaign McCain ran–it’s simply amazing that he broke 40% of the vote, much less the nearly 46% he actually won.

With yet another poll showing Obama’s approval rating plummeting (with the Democrat enjoying even worse numbers on health care), it’s clear that whatever coalition his campaign built in last fall’s campaign is crumbling.  As blogger JSF put it:

The coalition that President Obama built was on the backs of anti-war activists, Moderate Republicans (or in the words of RS McCain, “The Republicans Who matter”), Conservative Democrats, Liberal Democrats, Independents, Gay voters and Women activist voters.

Within one year, that is broken.

He offers an interesting theory the demise of that coalition which merits your consideration. And now let me offer my own, paraphrasing James Carville (and borrowing the title of one an earlier post), it’s the government spending, Stupid.  Obama constructed his fall coalition by pasting together two discordant groups, his left-wing base which wanted bigger government together with Independent voters and disgruntled Republicans, upset at Bush’s spending spree.

That was not a match made in heaven.

When Obama promised a “net spending cut” and to match a funding increase for one program with a cut in another, Americans tired of Republican rule believed him.  We here in the good ol’ USA tend to lend credence to the new guy.   And last fall, Barack Obama was the new guy, with a winning smile, a reassuring manner and a public unfamiliar with his (liberal) record.  No wonder he had to rush to run for the White House before people saw through his “new kind of politics” shtick he developed in the wake of his 2004 speech to the Democratic National Convention.

Recall that he fought the election of 2008 not on the battlefield of ideas, but in the marketplace of images.  His calm demeanor stood in stark contrast to his Republican rival’s erratic behavior.  His promise of change offered hope to a public upset at stories about Republican corruption and cronyism. (more…)

Ok, now to address the point I had meant to address in my previous post.  Many on the left can’t let go of their hatred of the immediate past president of the United States because trashing him has been their ticket to electoral success in the two most recent national elections (2006 and 2008).

To be sure, there’s more to it than that, but that gets at the nub of their obsession; trashing W is fare easier than having to defend their own ideas or addressing the arguments of those opposed to them.

In commenting on a Gallup poll showing the Democratic advantage in party affiliation shrinking rapidly, Jim Geraghty finds a “Strange Resurgence of the Bush-Free GOP“:

What happened? Well, the utopia of hope and change did not take hold immediately, and hopes for a moderate course have been dashed. But also worth noting is how dramatically the political landscape has changed since George W. Bush rode off into the sunset. Perhaps while he was front and center, and the dominant voice of the GOP, many Americans tired of Iraq, tired of his Texas twang, tired of everything they had seen and heard for the past eight years; they would hear nothing else from the GOP, and could overlook a multitude of flaws in the Democratic-party option.

With W out of office, people are paying attention to the policies of the one-time opposition, that is, the current governing party.  

And there’s another reason for the Republican resurgence that Gergahty left out. In  the post I was looking for while crafting my last post, written the day after last fall’s election, I pointed out that with Bush gone, the party of small government was no longer defined by incumbent Republican presidents pushing big government:

It had been tough to be conservative during the first (and only) term of the first President Bush as it has during the second term of the second.  Each man was the titular head of the supposedly conservative party, but neither governed, at least on domestic issues, as a conservative.

Neither held the line on domestic spending.  Both increased the size and scope of the federal government.

Democrats need W in order to demonize the opposition.  Note, how often they bring up his spending record whenever we criticize Obama’s.  They don’t want the GOP to be seen as the party of small government.

For, as recent polls indicate, that Reaganite idea continues to resonate.

UPDATE:  Byron York confirms my thesis:   “But Gallup also points out that the Democratic rise of 2008-2009 had much more to do with George W. Bush than with anything the Democrats themselves were doing.”

In a Democratic state in a Democratic year where the Democratic presidential nominee vastly outspent the Republican and had a far superior grassroots campaign which benefited down-ticket Democrats across the nation, the Democratic candidate for Senate ran 12 points behind the Democratic nominee for President in Minnesota, yet thanks to a third party candidate won election to the U.S. Senate, barely outpolling the Republican who has just conceded.

Had it not been for Democratic sample ballots in the Gopher State, the party’s Senate nominee may well have won fewer than 40% of the vote.  Many likely voted for him, knowing little about it save that he was running on the same ticket as their beloved Barack Obama.  Minnesotans really don’t like the guy, but will have to suffer with him representing their state in the Senate for another five-and-one-half years.

Al Franken should be right at home in a institution presided by a gaffe-prone fomer Delaware Senator and including the likes of Barbara Boxer, Tom Harkin, Chuck Schumer and Harry Reid whose political involvement seems rooted not in advancement of ideas, but in antipathy to Republicans and in earning the accolades of left-wing interest groups.

A sad day for civil discourse.  This is not the first time when mean-spirited rhetoric fueled the advancement of a Democratic politician.  The Senate will soon include a left-wing Thedore Bilbo.

UPDATE:  Mean-Spirited Minnesotan Steals a Senate Seat.

My only response:  I TOLD YOU SO.

AMERICAblog reports:

Obama joked about gay protesters asking him to keep promises: “I don’t know which promise he was talking about.”

So, Mr. Obama doesn’t know which promise the protester was talking about? Did he even know what was going on in California? About the Prop. 8 decision? Does he know who Lt. Choi is? Who briefs Obama on LGBT issues? Anyone? Because, it was well known that the LGBT community would be protesting. And, as for promises, there were several. To remind him, we could say check the White House website for a list of the promises Obama made to the LGBT community during the campaign. But, that wouldn’t probably wouldn’t do any good.

HAHAHA.

Obama, The First Gay President?  Hardly.  The ADVOCATE is reporting today that the White House will not move on Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.

Here’s a wise commenter from the ADVOCATE story:

I read all these comments slamming Obama, but we all know he will still get your votes when he runs again, regardless of his stance on “don’t ask, don’t tell” and the Defense of Marriage Act.  How do I know this?  Because he has a D after his name, and when it comes to discrimination, being a Democrat means never having to say your sorry.

Here’s another news item that should set the Gay Left’s panties on fire this weekend:

Washington Blade: Gay rights bills remain stalled in Congress

So let me get this right.   When the Democrats held the Congress for nearly 40 years (until 1995), there was no significant gay-rights legislation passed.  And now, after all of the promises and money given by The Gays — no progress after the Democrats have held Congress for two more years and now the White House.

Hey, Gays Who Support Democrats:  You are suckers.  Hopeandchange, hopeandchange!

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

Let’s see, April turns out to be the deadliest month for US troops since November 2008.

The U.S. death toll for April rose to 18, the military said Friday, making it the deadliest in seven months for American forces in Iraq. The sharp increase from the previous month came as a series of bombings also pushed Iraqi deaths to their highest level this year.

In the latest violence, a suicide bomber blew himself up at a restaurant on the reservoir of Iraq’s largest dam near the northern city of Mosul. At least five people were killed and 10 wounded, according to U.S. and Iraqi officials.

The spike in attacks has raised concerns that insurgents are stepping up their efforts to re-ignite sectarian bloodshed as well as questions about the readiness of the Iraqis to take over responsibility for their own security as U.S. troops begin to withdraw.

Something different has happened in the past seven months.  I can’t quite put my finger on it….. I know it will come to me.  *tapping foot*  What…is…it….that…happened…in November 2008?

Hmmm, maybe my intelligent readers will be able to help me remember what may have changed in the past seven months to make things more dangerous in Iraq?

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

Given that Bruce and I (as well as John and Nick) have been faulting Republicans, including former President George W. Bush, for not holding the line on federal spending for almost as long as we’ve been blogging, I find it most amusing to read snarky comments from liberal readers who ask why didn’t we protest the then-President’s bloated budgets.  Well, we didn’t take to the streets as we did on Wednesday.  And maybe we should have organized such protests.  But, we did take Republicans to task for losing sight of their conservative fiscal principles.

So, I thought I’d offer a few posts with their dates of publication to show that we’ve been doing just that–even when our party was in power.

2008 Elections: The Republicans’ DUI (November 17, 2008)

DeLay’s 1994 Election as House GOP Whip: Harbinger of GOP’s 2006 Defeat (November 14, 2006)

2006 Elections — Ronald Reagan’s Vindication (November 10, 2006)

GOP’s Failure to Hold True to Conservative Principles Cost Party Its Majorities
(November 8, 2006)

Conservatism Still Ascendant even if Democrats Prevail (October 30, 2006)

2006; An Election, not a Realignment (October 23, 2006)

Wall Street Journal Blasts GOP (October 2, 2006)

Reagan on My Mind (August 3, 2006)

George W. Bush: Moderate (May 15, 2006)

Grading the President on Reagan’s Legacy (March 20, 2006)

*Partial listing.

Last week, I linked Jay Cost’s Weekly Standard piece where he urged “Republicans to use their principles creatively—to generate new and compelling solutions to public problems.”

Today, Glenn Reynolds identifies the reason my party has failed in recent years, “THE PROBLEM ISN’T REPUBLICAN PRINCIPLES — it’s unprincipled Republicans. ‘Because Republicans didn’t stick, we got stuck.’”

UPDATE:  In an excellent post showing how recent polling numbers show that while Democrats are doing worse, Republicans aren’t doing much better, Michael Barone offers what the GOP must do to take advantage of this potential reversal of political fortune:

That instability worked to Democrats’ advantage in 2006, 2007, and 2008. Now it seems to be working against them—I was going to write to Republicans’ advantage, but I think what we are seeing is more disillusionment toward Democrats than any positive feeling toward Republicans. In the short run, Republicans can benefit from this. In the longer run, they need to offer voters a better vision for the future, or they risk losing once again if there is a revival of enthusiasm among Democrats and warm feeling toward them among independents.

Read the whole thing.

Not quite sure what to make of this, but it goes to show that money alone does not a good campaign make.  Just read that opponents of Proposition 8 outspent supporters of the ballot measure by over $3.5 million dollars:

More than $83 million was donated to support or oppose the ballot initiative that abolished same-sex marriage in California, according to campaign filings released Monday.

The new filings cover the weeks immediately before and after the Nov. 4 election. They show that elected officials, businesses, churches and individuals poured more than $28 million into the campaigns during the contest’s closing days.

The final tallies show that opponents of Proposition 8 raised $43.3 million in 2008 and had a little more than $730,000 left on hand at year’s end. The measure’s sponsors raised $39.9 million and had $983,000 left over.

Of course those totals don’t include the “value” of the efforts by volunteers on both sides of the initiative.

At Disneyland, only one person, a woman working one of the rides, took note of my Ronald Reagan t-shirt.  (Well, at least she was the only one who acknowledged to me that she had taken note of it.)  She made an approving comment about the great man I chose to honor on this day.

I asked if she had backed the guy who lost the chance to take office today.  No, “we needed a change,” she said, but shared my warm feelings for the Gipper.

I found it hard to believe that someone who supported a man who faced a financial crisis by holding the line on federal spending could back a candidate who favors a vast increase in such spending, but there it was.

Yet, another sign that in a relatively ideology-free election, our new president had the right campaign slogan. People wanted change.  Let’s hope he delivers the right kind of change.

For the past few days, I have been contemplating a few posts offering a kind of retrospective on the Administration of George W. Bush.   The more I think about this project, the more I realize how complicated it is.  The incumbent is hardly the caricature his opponents paint, yet he has blundered badly on a number of issues, particularly on domestic issues in his second term.

On the issue which will (likely) most define his term, particularly in the years immediately after he leaves office, he exhibited characteristics which reveal his greatest weaknesses and greatest strengths.  He stubbornly adhered to a failing strategy from 2004 through the end of 2006, then against widespread opposition from the political class (and even the military brass), shifted course, showing incredibly resolve in adopting a new –and ultimately successful–strategy.

And while I commend the president from learning from his father’s mistake and refusing to raise taxes, that’s all he learned from his father’s domestic record.  He didn’t fully understand that Ronald Reagan’s Vice President betrayed his predecessor’s legacy not merely by increasing taxes, but also by not holding the line of domestic spending.

It seems George Bushes don’t value fiscal discipline; domestic spending increased at a rapid clip during each man’s tenure in the White House.

And with a Republican Congress under Tom DeLay committed more to preserving political power than to promoting conservative policies, the party departed from the fiscal principles which led the GOP to electoral success in the 1980s on the presidential level and in the 1990s on the legislative level.  Our political fortunes would surely have improved had the principled Bob Walker defeated the opportunistic Tom DeLay in the 1994 election for House Majority Whip.

(more…)