In the last several election cycles, three states have been the keys to winning the white house. With their combined total of 80 electoral votes, Pennsylvania, Florida, and Ohio are the most important to both parties.

In 2000, Florida decided the race.

In 2004, the winner had to take 2 of 3 to win, Bush carried Florida and Ohio, and won reelection.

In 2008, Obama took all three and cruised to victory.

All three have been toss up in the last 3 cycles.

In the midst of disappointment over some Senate races, please note the utter devastation visited upon the Democrats in these 3 states. The GOP won a Senate seat, Govenor, GOP assemblies, and every competitive house race in these states. It was a wipeout.

They are going to try and spin the NV and CA wins as critical, but I assure you that what they are really worrying about right now is what happened in these 3 states specifically.

I posted yesterday a quick analysis of the PA Senate race and the supposed tightening of the polls there. The key takeaway was the results of the Morning Call/Muhlenberg daily tracking poll, which I still question because I’m not confident they have their likely voter model correct. But the trend was enlightening:

Sestak 44 – Toomey 41
Sestak 43 – Toomey 43
Sestak 43 – Toomey 43
Sestak 42 – Toomey 45
Sestak 42 – Toomey 47

Well, since it is a daily tracking poll, they released another data point today:

Sestak 40 – Toomey 48

The trend is clear and not good for the Democrat. His low 40 support is eroding, most likely because his base is vacillating on whether to vote or not. I doubt anyone is changing their mind and thinking of voting for Toomey, they are just evaluating whether or not to actually vote.

All the usual caveats, Toomey isn’t over 50 yet, it is only one poll, we still need to GOTV.

But no need to panic, this race is well in hand.

h/t to Geraghty

I got into a bit of a tiff over the weekend for saying to not panic over the polls showing the Toomey/Sestak race is tightening. I didn’t put much stock in the previous polls showing things like a 12 point race, because they were only showing a differential, not the base level of support for the candidates out of the entire electorate.

Now that we are closer to election day, people who were undecided are deciding. Unsurprisingly, a number of Democrats are deciding they will vote for the Democrat. This is bringing Sestak’s number up from the mid 30s to the low 40s. Because the previous lead was being reported as a differential, Toomey’s support really hasn’t changed a great deal, but the undecided Dems are now saying they will vote (we will see if they really do).

Morning Call/Muhlenberg has started offering a daily tracking poll on this race, which I find questionable because of its likely voter model. However, it does offer some useful insight. Let’s look at the last 5 reports on this track:

Sestak 44 – Toomey 41
Sestak 43 – Toomey 43
Sestak 43 – Toomey 43
Sestak 42 – Toomey 45
Sestak 42 – Toomey 47

What can we draw from this trend? Well one thing that people might try to draw is “Toomey is surging! He went from -3 to +5 in 5 days! Whoo Hoo!”. Fine, temper the enthusiasm, he isn’t over 50 and to my knowledge never has been. The important point is that Sestak’s core support is around 43, which is where you would expect a Democrat in a heavily Democrat state to be, if he is losing a large section of the Independents.

Sestak has benefited from his base finally saying things to pass through a likely voter screen, and he is showing a flat level of support as a result. It isn’t growing and you could argue it is eroding a bit (again, I don’t trust this poll to be getting their turn out or likely voter model correct).

Toomey will be fine next Tuesday as long as he executes his final week’s strategy. GOTV, rallies, and final advertising push will net him a 4 to 6 point win, and there really isn’t anything Sestak can do to stop that. So sure, send some extra money and help make phone calls. But don’t panic over these polls.

A low level story from Christian Science Monitor that hasn’t risen above most folk’s radar yet, but arguably much more important than the other things we have been arguing about recently. Since this happens to be my professional area of expertise, I’ve been tracking the appearance of the Stuxnet worm since June. But even I am surprised by this turn of events.

Stuxnet is a 100-percent-directed cyber attack aimed at destroying an industrial process in the physical world,” says Langner, who last week became the first to publicly detail Stuxnet’s destructive purpose and its authors’ malicious intent. “This is not about espionage, as some have said. This is a 100 percent sabotage attack.

But what is the target? Well it appears that it may be Iran’s Bushehr reactor, and that the missile hit its target.

A geographical distribution of computers hit by Stuxnet, which Microsoft produced in July, found Iran to be the apparent epicenter of the Stuxnet infections. That suggests that any enemy of Iran with advanced cyber war capability might be involved, Langner says. The US is acknowledged to have that ability, and Israel is also reported to have a formidable offensive cyber-war-fighting capability.

Could Stuxnet’s target be Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power plant, a facility much of the world condemns as a nuclear weapons threat?

Langner is quick to note that his views on Stuxnet’s target is speculation based on suggestive threads he has seen in the media. Still, he suspects that the Bushehr plant may already have been wrecked by Stuxnet. Bushehr’s expected startup in late August has been delayed, he notes, for unknown reasons. (One Iranian official blamed the delay on hot weather.)

I wish I had to the time to provide a detailed discussion, so I need to leave this where it is. But this is a fascinating story.

If ever there was a perfect metaphor for the coming wave in November, it was at a recent fundraiser that he headlined in New York City. Gail Sheehy at the Daily Beast provides this delicious vision of the “Most Popular Man in the History of Civilization” unable to fill a 650 seat ballroom in the bastion of liberal elitism.

Only after I received four email invitations and two personal calls imploring me to come did I call Speaker Pelosi’s office to check the admission price. “You mean, to be in the room with the President of the United States is now on fire sale for $100?”

Even at the bargain basement price of $100, there were still 200 empty seats.

Not since Icarus flew too close to the sun have we seen such display of arrogance and pride fall so spectacularly toward the earth. This is the man who inspired a half million Germans to listen to his speech in Berlin. Who stood before the Acropolis in Denver to accept the nomination, and promised to personally halt to seas.

Well, the big difference here and in ’94 was you’ve got me.

And in the end, his words are prophetic. The Democrats have Obama to wear like a millstone around their necks. And 2010 will make 1994 look trivial in comparison.

Thank you, Barack. We really appreciate all the help you are giving us. We really do.

As I walked out of my hotel room this morning, I was greeted by the blaring headline in USA Today: “Tea Party’s wins fuel a ‘civil war’ within GOP”. This headline set my blood to boiling more than any of the arguments over Castle vs. O’Donnell in the last week. I’m just your average rube, so my first impression was “what a clueless reporter!” But after a little bit of reflection, I recalled Jim Geraghty’s September 2nd report from his old political mentor, Obi-wan. The key point that he made is that the Democrats will use their control of the Media at every turn to try and change the narrative.

Remember that Politico piece about the daily phone call of Rahm Emanuel, James Carville, Begala, and George Stephanopoulos on the White House line of the day? ABC News has been tracking pretty accurately on the White House various pitches this spring and summer — the Tea partiers are haters or Timothy McVeigh types — then the whole setup for the NAACP convention launched the “they’re all racist” theme, etc. So keep an eye on ABC, especially Stephanopoulos and also First Read and Politico — they’re usually the first-wave transmitters of the White House line. Believe me, they’ve already got a pollster or two who’s ready to bend some numbers and journalists ready to write about the “sudden Democratic surge.” I’d love to know which week they have picked for the “Democrats are back in business” story. They have tried it twice this summer, but neither polls nor events carried the storyline any further. They will badly need the networks’ news departments to come through if there is a real domestic terrorist incident or some ugly display by someone on the right.

The bolding above shows where the narrative predicted fits exactly with the focus of the USA Today article. The Tea Party represents a bunch of extremists who are taking control from the sensible Republican establishment.

*deep breath to keep from breaking out in an uncontrolled stream of obscenities*

We have been here before. In Barry Goldwater’s 1964 acceptance speech of the Republican nomination, he offered this famous line: “I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue!” The first line is what we all remember, but equally important is the second line. Moderation is not a virtue and does not lead to the pursuit and defense of liberty. It only encourages creeping acceptance of the status quo, with no memory of the incremental poor choices that led to the current morass.

I apologize, I can’t recall if I read this here or on Ace in the last few days, but someone had a very good analogy for the Tea Party. Looking back at the rise of the Solidarity movement in Poland, it became an unstoppable political force when the people took to the street and suddenly realized there are more of us than them. This is where the Tea Party is today, it has captured a populist mood that is saying “enough is enough, I have to be fiscally responsible in my personal life and damn it, the Government is going to have to also, or we will replace them”.

The media lapdogs are falling into line, having been given their talking points. The Tea Party is a bunch of extremists, and is bringing Civil War to the Republican Party. Oh noes! Suddenly a bunch of leftists, who 99% of the time would love nothing more than to drink their Starbuck’s lattes which watching the Republican Party self destruct, helpfully rushes to the rescue to save “those hardworking public servants who are being unfairly kicked out for the sin of being moderate”. We are all supposed to shed tears and punish these mean meanies in November.

Meanwhile the Democrat Party strategists and the professional whiners over at the Huffington Post, rub their hands together hoping that the GOP will self destruct through internecine warfare. They hope for a GOP version of the Battle of Antietam.

At a crucial moment, Confederate Maj. Gen. A.P. Hill’s division arrived from Harpers Ferry and launched a surprise counterattack, driving back Burnside and ending the battle. Although outnumbered two-to-one, Lee committed his entire force, while McClellan sent in less than three-quarters of his army, enabling Lee to fight the Federals to a standstill. During the night, both armies consolidated their lines. In spite of crippling casualties, Lee continued to skirmish with McClellan throughout September 18, while removing his battered army south of the river.

They hope that we will fight among ourselves, fight to a standstill, allowing the Democrats to minimize their losses in November and retain control of Congress.

Well, I offer an alternate view of the Civil War that they will experience, Sherman’s March to the Sea.

Sherman’s March to the Sea is the name commonly given to the Savannah Campaign conducted across Georgia during November-December 1864 by Maj. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman of the Union Army in the American Civil War. The campaign began with Sherman’s troops leaving the captured city of Atlanta, Georgia on November 15 and ended with the capture of the port of Savannah on December 21. It inflicted significant damage, particularly to industry and infrastructure (as per the doctrine of total war), and also to civilian property. A military historian wrote that Sherman “defied military principles by operating deep within enemy territory and without lines of supply or communication. He destroyed much of the South’s potential and psychology to wage war.

This is not bravado or swagger. This is the true reading of the mood of the electorate and the forces that led to the defeat of establishment candidates.

The USA Today article tries to justify its assertion by going to some of the usual suspects.

It’s official: There is now a civil war within the Republican Party,” said Mark McKinnon, a former adviser to the presidential campaigns of George W. Bush and John McCain. “The good news for Republicans is the Tea Party is capturing the anti-establishment energy in America. The bad news is that includes the Republican establishment.

Well now there is an astute piece of analysis from a former advisor to both Bush AND McCain! But wait, what was the context for our last discussion of Mark McKinnon? Oh, yes it was here.

I would simply be uncomfortable being in a campaign that would be inevitably attacking Barack Obama,” said McCain adviser Mark McKinnon in an interview with NPR’s “All Things Considered.” “I think it would be uncomfortable for me, and I think it would be bad for the McCain campaign.

How did that bit of advice turn out for us?

*another deep breath to keep from breaking out in an uncontrolled stream of obscenities*

There have been several good post mortems written after the Delaware primary. One of my favorite “balanced” analyses is from Sean Trende at Real Clear Politics.

4. No, this doesn’t mark the end of the GOP … Republicans are currently positioned to win the most House seats that they’ve won in an election since 1946. Republican candidates for the House are running away with races in evenly-matched swing districts. They are competitive in House districts in Maine that are typically 3-8 points more Democratic than the country, and in a Central Valley district that is five points more Democratic than the country. And if Republicans are competitive in CA-20, what does the polling look like in the 116 districts Democrats occupy that are as or more conservative than that district? There is also a chance for the GOP to win the most Governorships in 130 years – numbers that don’t support the view of a party in decline.

I think this is a very important point. Let’s not lose sight of the fact that the same energy and Tea Party activism that has brought us Mike Lee, Ken Buck, Marco Rubio, and Joe Miller has also brought us O’Donnell. Sweeping political forces are not going to moderate (there is that word again) themselves for the benefit of one race where a better tactical choice might have been made. It is the classic discussion of strategy versus tactics. Political consultants are focused on the tactics of the immediate, trying to squeeze every last victory available for the party that hires them. The Tea Party is focused on a long range strategic imperative, trying to permanently change the culture of Washington, even if it means forgoing a Senate majority this year. They view it as perfectly acceptable to wait another election cycle if it means increased fidelity to the Constitution and smaller government in the future.

I think that John Podhoretz captured the essence of the Tea Party influence over the GOP pretty well the other day.

The presumption among delighted people on the left-liberal side is that all this roiling on the right suggests a party in disarray and a movement intent on cannibalizing itself. That’s one way to look at it. The other is that the GOP is actually expanding and seizing the populist mood that seems to be the national direction — even though the GOP leadership, especially in the Senate, is finding the whole business unnerving and destructive.

I invite the Left to enjoy their momentary euphoria. They fundamentally do not understand the Tea party. Heck, even the GOP leadership is having a hard time understanding, it would be insane to expect the Statists to get it. Meanwhile, November 2nd inches closer, when the Left will find themselves in the cross hairs of a political tsunami that has been practicing their political power, fund raising ability, and ground game on their political allies. What do you think they are going to do to their political enemies?

P.S. One of the most fascinating facts regarding Sherman’s March for me is, “Sherman’s personal escort on the march was the 1st Alabama Cavalry Regiment, a unit made up entirely of Southerners who remained loyal to the Union.”

Reuters/IPSOS just released their latest Florida poll, and it is touted as more good news for Marco Rubio. However buried WAY WAY down in the article is this interesting little nugget…

The race to replace Crist as governor is close, with Republican Rick Scott and Democrat Alex Sink statistically tied, Scott with 47 percent and Sink with 45 percent, the poll found.

Now to be fair, this poll contradicts the latest polls from Fox and PPP, which show Sink with an 8 and 7 point lead respectively. However, the PPP poll is now 2 weeks stale. The Fox poll uses the Rasmussen methodology, but isn’t actually Rasmussen. It was conducted over the same period as the Ipsos poll with a larger sample size.

Take this with a grain of salt, but it is a nice little pick-me-up before the weekend.

From the outset, and especially over the last few weeks, I didn’t expect Rick Scott to win the primary. I wasn’t a vocal supporter of him, like I have been for Rubio. However, I did make up my mind pretty early and was glad to be able to vote for him. Here is a little timeline of the campaign from an “inside Florida” perspective.

The Early Campaign

Rick Scott’s campaign has focused almost exclusively on TV advertising. This is somewhat unusual, making the entire battle occur through TV advertising. News reports, web sites, flyers, and yard signs had almost no influence on the election.

Early on, Scott went on the air with a series of very good commercials. They were positive and uncompromising in their appeal to conservative principles. I remember looking at them and saying “Wow, those are good messages, too bad this guy doesn’t have a chance”. He also early on started taking on Obama and the healthcare legislation. Since he a spent a lot of money to star in the CFR commercials against Obamacare, he had a lot of credibility in this area.

Medicare Fraud

Despite McCollum’s claims to the contrary, he went negative first. The first negative ads were attacking Scott for running the Columbia Hospital chain that settled the largest Medicare fraud settlement in history. While these commercials were not tied to the McCollum campaign, everyone who has experience with the Republican Party of Florida knows that the 527s are in an incestuous relationship with them and protect their own.

It was Rick Scott’s commercial responding to the attacks that pulled me off the fence and made me say, “Damn it, I’m going to vote for him anyway”. He went up with what I felt was a brave commercial where he accepted responsibility for mistakes made under his leadership, and talked about how he learned from them. It certainly worked with me. At that point, any negative advertisement about Medicare fraud fell on deaf ears. I had decided that it didn’t matter and was a political stunt anyway.

The 777 Plan

Throughout the campaign, Rick Scott was the only one who was able to articulate what he will do as Governor. McCollum was a little like Crist in that way. He couldn’t say why he wanted to be Governor, other than it was his turn. But Scott ran ads to tout his 777 plan, 7 ideas to bring 700,000 jobs to Florida in 7 years. Most of these ideas are core conservative principles, and they served to remind us that despite Republican control of the House and Senate, they are governing like tax and spend liberals (Sun rail, anyone?). Did we really want someone cut from the same cloth in Tallahassee, or did we want someone who would work in our interest. It helped that Chris Christie started kicking ass and taking names in New Jersey at the same time.

McCollum steps in it over Immigration

The final nail in Bill McCollum’s coffin occurred when Arizona passed their immigration law. McCollum did what politicians do, he made a political calculation. He looked at the size of the Hispanic population in Florida and took a position against the law. Worse, he stupidly commented about it on tape, giving Scott the fodder for another commercial. Scott immediately praised the law and vowed to bring similar legislation to Florida.

It wasn’t too long after this that McCollum realized his mistake and flip flopped his position. He didn’t realize how popular the Arizona law would be in Florida. But instead of using the strategy that Scott did with the Medicare charge, he tried to pretend that Scott was making a baseless attack and that he supports the Arizona law. This is while the ads with his voice saying “We don’t need that law in Florida, that isn’t going to happen here” are still running. It was a huge cognitive disconnect, and didn’t help McCollum at all. He could have come out and said that his initial reaction was wrong and upon reflection he had changed his mind. But without resolving the conflict between his word and his ads, it ended up insulting the intelligence of the voters.

In the end

This is an unusual year, and the voters are willing to give someone new a chance if they have a compelling message. McCollum seemed like more of the same, a career politician, supported by the RPOF machine, with lazy political instincts. Scott’s outsider credentials were helped by the campaign McCollum ran. The political stunt McCollum pulled having Scott served during the press conference was cheap theater and transparent.

At the end of the day, I was tired of the traditional BS and filled in the circle next to Scott’s name. Apparently, I wasn’t alone.

I just returned from the trip of a lifetime. It was a rare one month vacation, where I was able to tour most of the major cities of Northern Europe, including Berlin and St. Petersburg. I’m not going to rub it in by saying what an incredible experience it was, but there were a few truly moving moments on the trip I would like to share, especially for someone who grew up during the height of the Cold War.

My trip into Berlin was especially enlightening. Not just for the sights I saw, but also for some of the social commentary that I overheard. Our ship docked in Warnemunde, Germany, which is just on the edge of Rostock. During the Cold War, Rostock was one of the main seaports for the East German and Soviet fleets. It is now a nice harbor with lots of pleasure craft that hosts a huge boating party every week during the summer.

From the coast we took a train into Berlin. It didn’t even register to me until later that the entire trip was through the countryside of the former East Germany. We arrived in a nice train station and walked outside to see our first stop on the tour, the remains of the Berlin Wall.

This is when it first hit me. I had taken a train through East Germany, I debarked in the main East Berlin train station, and was now looking at the Wall from the East German side. I admit, I got a little teary eyed when I realized that if someone had told me 30 years ago that I would be standing where I was standing, I would have thought they were crazy.

The rest of the day was amazing seeing Check Point Charlie, the Brandenburg Gate, and the Reichschadt. After a long trip back, we reboarded our ship and sailed out of the harbor, accompanied by party boats sailing next to us with hundreds of people waving at us, and a final fireworks display in the harbor as we left port.

But that isn’t why I’m writing this.

What I am writing about is the pernicious lure of Socialism toward the weak minded. During our tour, our guide was very open and honest about the history of Communism in East Germany. She pointed out that in Germany they prefer to call the East Germans Socialist instead of Communists. However, she was blunt and direct in her description of the horrible economic and social conditions living under East German “Socialism” and the depredations of the East German Secret Police, the Stazi.

We could see the remnants of the gray apartment buildings and the tiny hovels that the farmers still live in (though they all have satellite dishes now). It is clear that the Germans, especially those in Berlin, are very familiar with the end results of Nazism and Communism on their society, culture, and economic fortunes.

Yet, even with such a recent and obvious example of the direct connection between Socialism and societal ruin, I heard a disturbing conversation on the return train. A woman, clearly wealthy, liberal, and very naïve, engaged in a political conversation with one of our young male hosts. It started with a discussion of Angela Merkle (who my countrywoman had never heard of). After a discussion of the German Prime Minister’s politics, he offered that he didn’t really like her, and sympathizes instead with the politics of the Socialist Party. This triggered an excited healthcare debate where my countrywoman and our host extolled the virtues of socialized medicine, and the superiority of the European model. Of course she was completely ignorant of the economic issues regarding the drain on the German economy and offered that only “Doctors in the US oppose health care reform, because they want to be able to charge what they want”.

After awhile, I put on headphones to stop having to listen to the nonstop ignorance. I was left with the conclusion that Karl Marx was wrong. Religion isn’t the Opiate of the Masses, Socialism is. All you have to do is follow your emotions, and you can ignore facts and rationality. And you can do it while looking directly into the face of its ultimate rewards, without being bothered by the evil it spawns in the least.

What bothers me is the ease with which we, as human beings, are able to slide into socialism and ultimately totalitarianism. This woman is taking a very expensive vacation, paid for by the hard work of her husband. She has an easy life, never really having had to struggle to make ends meet. She is the product of the success of her family and her parents. In her world, she sees the plenty that she enjoys and thinks, “why should others struggle? Why should young people have to worry about health care, instead of allowing them to pursue their dreams?” It is a world view that is divorced from reality, and understanding of the basic economic ties between work and reward. Someone in her present and past has performed significant work to generate the capital needed for her to take a very nice vacation, yet she is blind to that connection and is willing to give away her freedom to excel to a faceless government that is empowered to confiscate wealth and capital and give it to “the less fortunate”. In her world it is easier, because she doesn’t have to make a personal choice to forgo a $300 trip into Berlin and personally give it to the homeless. No, she gets to keep her trip, pass financial responsibly to a nameless group of “others” and continue to live her lifestyle. Her guilt is assuaged without having to personally do without to help another. But when faced with a stark vision of the results of giving up freedom to a faceless and soulless government, the lesson is lost.

I am reminded of a line from the “Phantom Tollbooth”, “Some people can swim all day in the Sea of Knowledge, without getting wet”.

I saw many examples of this kind of thinking. “Fair trade” signs in the Starbucks that allow you to enjoy your latte without having to think about the plight of the Colombian farmers that grow the coffee. Car ads that cite the carbon emissions /km of the vehicle that allow you to rationalize your lifestyle isn’t impacting the environment. It has become the modern version of Catholic Dispensations, where a small inconsequential choice allows you to feel good about yourself, and allows you to live on an emotional level, without actually thinking about cause, effect and reality. And it was ultimately depressing to see.

But the fireworks were very cool.

Hat tip to WeaselZippers for mentioning this one.

NASA’s plans to return astronauts to the moon are dead. So are the rockets being designed to take them there — that is, if President Barack Obama gets his way.

When the White House releases his budget proposal Monday, there will be no money for the Constellation program that was supposed to return humans to the moon by 2020. The troubled and expensive Ares I rocket that was to replace the space shuttle to ferry humans to space will be gone, along with money for its bigger brother, the Ares V cargo rocket that was to launch the fuel and supplies needed to take humans back to the moon.

There will be no lunar landers, no moon bases, no Constellation program at all.

In their place, according to White House insiders, agency officials, industry executives and congressional sources familiar with Obama’s long-awaited plans for the space agency, NASA will look at developing a new “heavy-lift” rocket that one day will take humans and robots to explore beyond low Earth orbit. But that day will be years — possibly even a decade or more — away.

In the meantime, the White House will direct NASA to concentrate on Earth-science projects — principally, researching and monitoring climate change

Kosmas, along with my representative Bill Posey (R, FL-15), represent all the the residents of the Florida Space Coast.  The vast majority of Kosmas’ district is dependent on NASA’s space flight operations for their livelihood, either directly or indirectly.  During the 2008 campaign, Obama gave Kosmas and Bill Nelson explicit assurances that NASA would be funded, and that the job layoffs due to the ending of the Shuttle Program would be temporary.

Well not so much.

FL-15 will not be affected as much, since the southern portion of the district includes several large business that are not connected to the space program.  But FL-24 is not so lucky.  Cancellation of the Constellation program is going to be a disaster for her district of epic proportions.

I now eagerly await who is going to declare, and run against her.

I go back and forth between Conan O’Brian being a freaking genius, or just lame.

I have my answer … Genius

I just hope to never be in the position where I have to be the corporate shill who has to fire him. On the other hand, we now have a new standard for raising the middle digit toward people who have screwed us over. Can this week get any better?

Link, because I can’t get an iframe to embed, I hate being HTML challenged

Back in August, I wrote an essay explaining why Obama’s effort to pass Healthcare Socialization was doomed.  As it turned out, he got a lot closer to succeeding than I thought he would.  I did not account for how dumb he and his team are, and the willingness of Democrats to commit political suicide.  Perhaps the last part is inaccurate.  The Democrats instead self deluded themselves into believing that all of their metrics of public opinion were wrong.  In August I relied on a chess analogy:

When playing chess, there often comes a time toward the end of the game when the outcome is preordained, even though the final moves have yet to be made.  The positions of the pieces, and the relative strengths between the two sides are such that no combination of moves can prevent one of the players from winning the game.  When both of the players are very experienced, the player in the winning position will often say “Mate in X moves”.  This is a signal to the losing player to examine the board and see that the other player does indeed have a path to checkmate that cannot be blocked.  Usually, the losing player will then “tip the King” to surrender the game, saving everyone time.

When players are of unequal experience, this often becomes a teaching exercise.  The more experienced player will declare that checkmate is imminent, but the losing player doesn’t see how that is possible.  The game then continues, with the loser learning a valuable lesson about end game strategies.

Obama’s Healthcare bill in Congress reached a point yesterday where the outcome is preordained, however as an inexperienced player, he is continuing to play the game, not yet realizing that he cannot win.

The flaw in my analysis was I did not consider two of Obama’s significant flaws, his inexperience and his ego.  In every contest of skill, we will sometimes run into people who have a very large ego, coupled with lack of experience to understand how poorly they actually play.  Most of the time, you see these types of people in Karaoke bars making fools of themselves.  But even in an intellectual game like chess, you will run into players that beat all of their friends, and have little respect for the skill differential between themselves and experience tournament players.  It takes a few truly humiliating losses to an experienced player before they realize they need to break out chess books to improve their game.

In August I assessed the relative strengths of the two sides of the healthcare debate:

As I wrote last week, Obama has a bad hand to play here (my apologies for mixing metaphors).  He expended his political capital on the stimulus, but did not use it when he had it to pass healthcare.  Instead he waited until the political fallout from the stimulus began to erode his public support, and has been trying to hurry through a bill before it eroded further.  This has resulted in a legislative game where the quality of the bill is irrelevant, only the speed at which something must pass matters.   The irony is that with a 72 seat majority in the House and a 20 seat majority in the Senate, he still can’t get a piece of legislation that will pass in Congress.

On Tuesday, the outcome was still in doubt.  Both Pelosi and Reid were willing to give Obama a chance to sway public opinion in favor of the bill.  They were waiting for his press conference to see if he could use his personal charm to turn public opinion in the direction of trusting him with their health.  On Wednesday night, Obama turned in arguably the worst public performance of his career, even drawing criticism from usually sympathetic journalistic outlets such as the Associated Press, the New York Times and MSNBC.  As Howard Fineman said:

“His prime time press conference was worse than a waste of time. He spent an hour (with the aide of a soporific White House press corps) pouring sand (one grain at a time) into the already-slowing gears of the machinery of health-care reform.”

Without public support, the members of Congress returned to their districts and were met by an outpouring of anger.  They were told in no uncertain terms that if they pass this bill, they will be punished at the ballot box.  In normal circumstances, this kind of backlash is enough to halt terrible legislation like this.  Bush suffered from this exact same problem on both Social Security and Immigration reform.

But something curious happened this time.  Some politically stupid people are running the show, and they convinced (or bullied) enough of their caucus into believing that the constituent anger they were experiencing was not real.  It had been ginned up by right wing conservative blogs, and tea-bagging kooks.  That the phone calls they were receiving were from political operatives and “Rush’s mind numbed robots”, not from their constituents.

Yesterday, Martha Coakley issued a memo, trying to absolve herself of blame in the Massachusetts election.  Of course the Washington Democrat machine tried to counter it, and blame her for the loss.  But in the end, Martha is right.  In Massachusetts, a Democrat party hack, with no experience, running a bad campaign, should win by at least 5 points.  This is a state that has elected John Kerry a number of times.  Be honest, could a politician as poor as John Kerry win some place competitive, like Florida?  We would laugh him out of the state.  He ain’t no Bob Graham.

But instead she lost.  Scott Brown was the perfect candidate to run against her.  He is a tireless campaigner, who would stand out on a street corner, shaking hands and handing out fliers.  No person or group is beneath his notice, or willingness to greet.  When Brown would get into trouble, he would get in the truck and go find some voters.  Coakley would run to Washington and beg for support from the establishment.  But he also has the right positions and policies for Massachusetts at this point in time.  Even so, Coakley was well ahead in December, but the Christmas Eve vote on healthcare was the last straw that nationalized this election and doomed her chances.

A few months ago I said that we are likely to find that the one sin that the voters will not forgive is breaking the promise to be post-partisan.  The independents in Massachusetts punished Obama yesterday for breaking this promise.

In August, I also made some predictions on the future of healthcare legislation.  On the details, I was pretty much correct, but I was wrong on the results:

So what is going to happen between now and the end of the August recess?  Well Obama purposely withheld the July budget report, delaying it into August.  The most likely reason is that it will show the deficit growing faster than expected, with significantly reduced revenues.  Additionally, we have a July and August jobs report that will hit between now and when Congress reconvenes.  There is a strong possibility that unemployment is going to pass the psychological barrier of 10%, which will create a great deal of political emphasis on the economy and stimulus, making Healthcare much less important.  Additionally, Obama is going to try and pressure recalcitrant Democrats to vote for his bill during the recess.  Juan Williams talked to White House contacts yesterday, and found that the plan is to remind Democrats how important it is for them to support a Democrat President, and that it will affect their fund raising efforts if they continue to resist.

In other words, Obama does not plan to try and build public support for his plan.  His efforts will focus solely on political pressure on other Democrats.

This is a tactic that will not work for him.

Democrat members of the House and Senate are looking at polls and their need for votes from their constituents.  They see the strong recruiting efforts of the Republicans.  They will need to decide which they need more, MoveOn.org’s money or votes.  They are going to choose votes.

Obama also hopes to use grassroots efforts to “get them onboard”, hoping that with a strong local push, they will change their minds.  But how many Acorn grassroots efforts are going to be successful in the critical districts, compared to the people that are already showing up for these townhall meetings?  We haven’t even begun to mobilize tea-party efforts.  The result will be a strong push against Obama’s legislative efforts within the districts due to dissatisfaction with the bill, crumbling popularity of Obama, rising economic concerns, and fear of losing reelection.

The game is over.  Obama is just too inexperienced a player to realize it is time to tip his King.

However, I didn’t count on the monumental level of Obama’s narcissism, arrogance and inexperience.  Instead of resigning from this game, and starting a new one, he prepared to finish this game and do everything he could to win it.  He was willing to sacrifice all of his bishops, rooks, and knights in a futile effort to snatch victory out of a losing position.  In the process, he managed to lose safe Democrat seats in North Dakota, Nebraska, Arkansas, and amazingly Massachusetts.  He also put New Jersey and Virginia back into play for Republicans.

But now the game is truly over.  In his arrogance, he will try to play on and try to come up with a miracle that will pass this legislation.  But he isn’t going to be allowed to.  His Democrat colleagues are going to take the board and pieces away from him.

I posted a ridiculously long essay just before Christmas that tried to cover way too much ground.  I was going to just leave it be, but Mark Steyn posted something over in the Corner that I thought was worth revisiting, given the Christmas Day terrorism attempt.

In his post, he revists the concept of incremental surrender to Islamists:

If it were just terrorists bombing buildings and public transit, it would be easier; even the feeblest Eurowimp jurisdiction is obliged to act when the street is piled with corpses. But there’s an old technique well understood by the smarter bullies. If you want to break a man, don’t attack him head on, don’t brutalize him; pain and torture can awaken a stubborn resistance in all but the weakest. But just make him slightly uncomfortable, disrupt his life at the margin, and he’ll look for the easiest path to re-normalization. There are fellows rampaging through the streets because of some cartoons? Why, surely the most painless solution would be if we all agreed not to publish such cartoons.

We Eurabia types aren’t predicting a Muslim conquest on a set date in 2025 but a remorseless, incremental surrender. And, actually, we’re not predicting it, because it’s already well under way.

This is a theme that Mark Steyn has been discussing for awhile, that he covered extensively in his book, “America Alone”.  The major western countries, including the EU and Japan all have birthrates below the replacement rate.  In my essay last month, I wrote the following:

Socialism is at its heart a ponzi scheme dependant on the confiscation of wages of the young to provide services to the old and unproductive. Without a growing pool of young workers the social constructs cannot be sustained.  In the EU, their solution is to prop up their entitlement infrastructure through the importation of workers, mostly Muslims.  This plays directly into the hands of the Islamists, who use their immigrant population and higher than replacement rate growth rates to exert political power.  The establishment of Sharia in Britain, the EU human rights commission overturning the Swiss minaret ban, and the persecution of Geert Wilder are examples of this growing political power.  Brussels, the home of NATO, has a population of over 50% Muslim.  Within 50 years, the EU will be a majority Muslim state, and Islamists will be in control of the governments.

 

At least the EU will survive.  Japan has a cultural bias against the importation of foreign workers.  Since Japanese women are giving birth at half the replacement rate, soon government entitlements providing services to the elderly will cause the destruction of their system.  At a minimum, they will need to move toward heavy use of robotics for production, and switch to corporate taxation in order to pay for their socialized healthcare system.  But the real problem for Japan will be the loss of human capital.  Robotics are great for maintaining a manufacturing base, without people.  But robots can’t provide innovation.  Without people, Japan has no one to conceive of the next Nissan GTR, Playstation, or graphic novel.  The nexus of innovation will move to China and India, where human capital remains at peak levels.

 

Also, consider the former superpowers; the United States and Russia.  The US is breeding above the replacement rate, much to the chagrin of the pro-death abortionists.  However, the fastest breeding segment of our country is among Hispanics.  This, of course, delights the Democrats, since they view the Hispanic community as their next natural captured political base, like the Black community is now.  This helps to explain the views of George Bush and Karl Rove.  They see a growing demographic that will become a significant part of the political process.  They want to see them voting Republican, not Democrat.  Of course, their method of achieving this, through mass amnesty for illegals and entitlement expansions only furthers the goals of the Statists, not Individual Liberty.  They correctly recognize the problem, but their solutions only help a political party, not a guiding political philosophy.  Russia on the other hand is dying a demographic death.  They are breeding well below the replacement rate, and will begin to collapse into a demographic death within the next 30 years, without sufficient population to maintain their social structure.  What becomes of their military structure, nuclear arsenal, and gas production resources at that point is anyone’s guess.

The point I’m trying to make is that the “War on Terror” is a much larger war, and in many respects is a war on Islamism, as much as people want to avoid such a politically incorrect assessment.  Our concept of Western Civilization, including the Socialist EU, is threatened in a number of ways by Islamism as a political and social construct, not just by terrorists.  We often rail against the moderate Muslims, asking “why don’t you denounce the violent radicals within your ranks?”  They don’t, because they are just as much a part of the radicalization as the terrorists, just with different methods.  They exploit our cultural desire for tolerance, by pushing just a bit and winning concessions.  We grumble about it, and ultimately give in because at least this particular sub-group isn’t trying to kill us.

And this will only get worse.  The cultural desire to not be seen as bigoted, almost killed 300 Delta passengers on Christmas Day.  No one would stop long enough to question an obvious suspicious individual, because they are afraid of being branded as politically incorrect.   The fact that we are allowing such ignorant apologists to run and defend our country, shows how suicidal a culture we have developed.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the current state of our affairs in self government, and the state of our nationwide experiment in being a Constitutional Republic.  I’ve wanted to write this essay for several weeks now; however it has taken much contemplation to pull the different threads together into pattern that can be understood.  I am still unsure if I can do this justice.

There is a saying that has been around for a long time, “Focus on the solution, not the problem”.  I’ve tried to find the originator of this saying (not that I did exhaustive research) and it appears to be a modification from something Henry Ford said, “Don’t find fault, find a remedy”.  In my opinion, both of these sayings highlight our current dilemma regarding the healthcare debate.  We are ALL focused on the immediate problem in front of us, trying to figure out a set of tactics that will defeat this legislation.  Even when Erick points out the culpability of the GOP Senate leadership’s refusal to fight for their constituents, it is still a focus on the political “here and now”.  It doesn’t look at the root causes leading to the incremental rising tide in state control of our lives, and the slow creeping destruction of Individual Liberty.  More troubling, we aren’t focused on the solution.  We are talking in terms of “taking back the House and Senate”, when we raise our heads above the fight to stop a specific piece of legislation.  While those are important short term goals, they don’t solve the problem.  Regaining control of the legislative branch will only be a stop gap against the incremental drive toward Statism.  Every time we lose one of these fights, we lose a little more ground, never to regain it.

As Moe is fond of saying, “Elections have consequences”.  But this is only a view of the current political environment.  It is the problem, not the solution.  If we do not fight EFFECTIVELY for our belief in a Constitutional Republic wielding limited federal powers, based on a strong capitalistic economic model, and guided by moral and ethical behavior; then we will eventually lose.  If we win the next election, and there are not corresponding “consequences” for our political enemies, then victory will be meaningless.  In short, it isn’t enough to FIGHT.  We have to know what we a fighting for, in order to WIN.

An imagined discussion between Erick and Ace

As do many here at RedState, I also read Ace of Spades.  While the tone between the two sites is vastly different, the guiding philosophies are similar.  On December 10th and 11th, they individually posted pieces that addressed core philosophic issues regarding first principles and how to fight for them.  (Noun vs. Adjective and Palin vs. Gore)  While these posts aren’t really related, they touch on similar topics and I was curious how their beliefs would match against each other in a real discussion.

Erick: Here’s the thing, Ace, “Lately, we have collectively been saying a lot of people are conservatives, the noun, when we should be saying they are conservative, the adjective.”  For example, “George W. Bush is not a conservative. He is conservative, but not a conservative. While Christianity has certainly always defined who George Bush is, conservatism has not. Put another way in which I think we can all agree, George W. Bush’s gut instinct is a conservative one, but the fiber of his being is not that of a conservative.”

Ace: I see what you mean Erick, I mean look at Sarah Palin’s fight against the global warming statists. “I don’t know if Sarah Palin really believes in AGW to the extent she says. She seems to say she does believe man’s activities may be affecting the environment, but then shoots down Copenhagen on cost/benefit principles. Does she really believe in it as much as she says?”

Ace: “See, it doesn’t matter. I kind of think she doesn’t believe in it much at all and is just saying she does. Which is the right thing to do. Belief in man-made global warming may be at an all-time low in the US, but it’s still at 49%. Forty-nine percent. Even with all this stuff being revealed, it’s at 49%. And the opposition is only at something like 27%. “Not sure” makes up the rest.”

Ace: “People beat up on conservative politicians for paying lip-service to this abject nonsense. Partisans get angry when politicians do not stake out ground closer to a true leadership position, out in front of the issue, making the points the partisans wish them to make. But that’s unrealistic and unwise. As I’ve said, politicians lead from the middle. If they’re smart, they do. When they are on the losing side of an issue — and yes, at this point, the skeptics are still on the losing side — you can’t really be out in front and swinging away as you can when you’re on the winning, popular side.”

Erick: That’s all well and good, Ace, but without a core set of values, what’s the point of winning?  “We have a lot of people out there who call themselves conservatives who are not defined by their conservatism. Many Republicans who have conservative instincts, still put their party first. And that is where the relevance is — those more defined by their party put their party first and those more defined by their principles put their principles first. Compare and contrast say Jeb Hensarling with John Boehner or Jim DeMint with Mitch McConnell. Hensarling and DeMint are conservatives first and Republicans second. Boehner and McConnell are Republicans first and conservatives second. Hensarling and DeMint are more likely to fight for the principle and Boehner and McConnell are more likely to fight for an improved position for the party. That’s not to disparage Boehner and McConnell. Conservatism describes one aspect of them and if they can reconcile a conservative principle with improving their party’s position, they will not hesitate to do so.”

Ace: But, Erick, are they putting party first, or trying to find a way to win a larger fight? Going back to my global warming example, “Don’t focus endlessly on the “on one hand, on the other hand” nods in the direction of global-warming alarmism they might make. They are playing to the “not sures.”

Ace: “Separate rhetoric from concrete policy statements. And in the end, where philosophy meets the real world in the form of policy, they say something like, “This is such a cataclysmic risk to the Earth that we should immediately spend $3 billion to study it for five years and come up with recommendations about how to mitigate it,” don’t get mad that they just proposed wasting three billion dollars.  Take satisfaction in the fact that what they are really saying is that it is worth three billion dollars of wasted money to appease the “not sures” and convince them we’re really doing something about this — hey, we’re “studying” it with an eye to “recommendations” — in order to halt the true cataclysmic threat to earth, the takeover of the world economy by UN kleptocrats and the massive destruction of wealth necessary to, basically, cut industry in half. (And never you mind about agriculture…).  Just sayin’: There are fights you can win and fights you can delay, until maybe you can win them. The military thinks in these terms when it contemplates multifront wars: Some are true “Fights,” others will have to merely be “Holds.”

Erick: Well Ace, still “I think we conservatives need to do a better job of finding people to run for office who are defined as conservatives, not as party men. It is no secret in Washington and something I myself have experienced that the people who show the most contempt for pro-life activists are not leftists, but Republican establishment leaders who think that, like children, pro-lifers need to be seen and not heard. The establishment thinks life issues do not help advance the GOP. Conservative leaders, however, embrace pro-lifers. I want to beat the Republican Establishment. Charlie Crist is the perfect embodiment of the Establishment. One year he is anti-life. The next year he is pro-life. One day he is pro-stimulus. The next day he is anti-stimulus. But it is not just Crist. Across the nation, the Republican Establishment is support people who are not conservatives, but just have a conservative instinct (at least some of them do). Those instincts can change. It is much more difficult to change a total person than to change one attribute of that person. I want to beat these establishment guys with real conservatives.  You cannot tell me that freedom does not sell in New England. Conservatives fight for freedom. Republicans fight for Republicanism, but I have no freaking clue what that actually means anymore.”

Ace: Well that is a nice sentiment, Erick, but at the end of the day, winning elections is what matters.  “I think while other people are discussing la-di-dah philosophy and crap that wins elections on, perhaps, Planet Venus, Where the Dinosaurs Are, I’m talking about how to win right here right now in reality, on earth. If you think that saying what you mean and meaning what you say is always the way to win elections, that’s fine, and I appreciate that you have a sort of… well, I would call it a sort of quixotic belief in the fundamental fairness of the world and the power of honesty and plain talk. I don’t. I think people are faddish and shallow and largely uninformed and apathetic and too soft to make hard decisions and like parroting a pile of nonsense they hear from Oprah and other swell celebrity types.  The polls tell me the stupid “not sures” want a candidate who says she too is “not sure” about global warming, and would like reassurance that she is “taking it seriously, with an open mind,” but would also like a candidate who ultimately says “but I don’t want to destroy the economy over it.”.  No, I don’t want to sell us out, I just think some are a bit overly fond of the conceit that good behavior and honesty are rewarded in politics.”

Who are we fighting in this “long war”?

If you were a little uncomfortable reading the words of Erick and Ace played off against each other, then good.  It is high time we recognize that this is a real war we are engaged in that has been underway for decades if not centuries.  And we are losing.  Both Erick and Ace are correct.  It is important to realize what we are fighting for, but if we lose, we still lose.  And the way the cards are being dealt to us, guarantees we will lose.

There are four ideological forces at work in the world today that are attempting to become the dominant philosophy and shape the course of mankind.  They are Statism, Islamism, the Chinese Hegemony, and Individual Liberty.  Conservatives represent the cause of Individual Liberty, and we are currently in 4th place.  If it wasn’t for the fact that Kleptocracy is by definition a selfish expression of individual state governance, we would be trailing that, if counting the numbers of people for which it is a daily fact of life.

Statism – One of our largest mistakes was, in 1989, thinking that the fall of the Berlin Wall equated to the fall of communism.  While the Russian experiment in Marxism failed, Statism had already established a firm hold.  The original intent of the European Union was to define a single economic free trade zone that would allow greater efficiencies in conducting business between the member states.  When was the last time you heard news from the EU regarding free trade?  It quickly morphed (by accident of design) into a political engine driving Statist principles throughout all members.  The EU now dictates what you can eat, who you can see if you are sick, what you can drive, and what you can think.  It is the return of the East German Stasi, without the threat of prison.  It is the model that is advocated by the UN as they establish and operate the Non Governmental Organizations.  The NGOs operate as extra-national entities reportable to no one.  They embody the philosophy of “elitism” where a small number of self determined elites decide what is best for the citizenry.  It is nothing more than modern-day feudalism, where the defense the “Lord” provides for the peasants is no longer against the actual threat of armed invaders, but imagined threats of Climate Disasters.  The ultimate goal is the establish a global governance structure that is post-national, run by self appointed elites, and funded by those of us in productive regions in the name of helping those in less productive regions.

Islamism – Unlike Statism, this force attempting to dominate the globe is founded on a religion.  While the goals are similar, the methods are different.  Proselytisism and Jihad are the tools of conversion to their religious ideal.  If they succeed, their vision of the world isn’t much different from the Statists.  Elites determined through national power struggles, and religious leaders will establish the rules by which we peasants will live.  However, you really don’t want to be female or a homosexual if this becomes the global operating philosophy.

The Chinese Hegemony – I’ll be honest.  I don’t understand the Chinese and what they are trying to accomplish.  I think that their ultimate aim is to supplant the US and Japan as the industrial, technical, and economic global leaders.  Given that 1/5th of the world population lives in China, and their success to date in growing their economy, while remaining a totalitarian state, then betting against them would seem unwise.  We as a nation appear to be unwilling to challenge the Chinese ambitions, and are self delusional.  For example, we talked our self out for the F-22 fighter on the excuse that the Chinese 5th generation fighter was at least 10 years away.  The Chinese then announced that it will enter flight trials next year.  To a lesser degree, India shares the Chinese goals, at least in their attempt to become a global economic giant.

Individual Liberty – This philosophy views the power of individual humans, conducting their lives and affairs freely, to be the best way to conduct human affairs.  Under this model, individuals will determine for themselves how best to conduct their lives, and will, as a byproduct, engage in commerce, invention, art, and leisure that will provide for the common good.  It is best nurtured by a light touch of government that protects against the baser human instincts to acquire what is desired through the exploitation of others.  But to succeed this light governance must be conducted ethically and with humility.  To encourage this, founding documents are established that outline the specific limitations on government, leaving the rest of human affairs to the free expression of individual industry.  While Individual Liberty sounds noble on paper, in practice it is chaotic.  This chaos is anathema to the basic human desire to provide order to a chaotic world.  After all, we build square houses and roads using straight lines, while the dominant form in nature is the curve.  In my opinion, this desire to bring order from chaos is the major human impetus that drives the success of Statism and Islamism.  There are a lot of people in the world who desire order more than progress in the human condition.

The challenges we face

After the electoral victory in 2004, I was encouraged that we could continue forward to address some of the lingering problems our nation faces.  Bush was right that the looming disaster of Social Security insolvency needs to be addressed.  I thought that with 55 in the Senate, we would be able to craft a solution that addresses the problem.  We would probably need to compromise with the Democrats, but some solution would be achieved.  What I didn’t expect, which looks foolish in retrospect, was that the Democrat hatred for George Bush would trump their responsibility to the country.  They were perfectly happy to obstruct the effort, then blame Bush in their quest for power, two years later.

This illustrates one of several structural challenges that we must overcome if we wish to advance Individual Liberty, rather than just win elections.  In my view, the five major obstacles that must be overcome are human nature, incrementalism, fascism, government entrenchment, and demographics.

Human nature – There are inherent elements of the human psyche that discourage the practice of Individual Liberty as a governing principle, and also act as corrupting influences in our constitutional republic.  I already mentioned one of these factors above, discussing the human desire to bring order from chaos, but there are others. Greed, expressed as a desire for wealth, sex, or power, is a naturally occurring facet of the human condition, and we should not be surprised to find that political leaders display these traits.  Last night, while talking to my wife, I pointed out that my salary is pretty close to that of a Member of the House of Representatives.  Yet in 20 years, I am unlikely to be worth millions, while those in office always are.  Regardless of our rhetoric and desire for honesty and ethical behavior, the reality is that our leaders will always be tempted by greed, and a number of them will succumb to that temptation.  Our success will hinge on mechanisms that limit the opportunities and impact of this natural impulse.

Another facet of human nature is religious imperative.  Michael Crichton wrote an excellent piece a few years ago that compared the Environmental movement to a religion.  It notes that anthropologists have found that certain common religious themes are found in all religious expression, and that the environmentalists express these exact themes. As with environmentalism, Statism also displays many of the same constructs.  In fact, much of the rational for Statism today is wrapped in the dogma of the Church of Global Warming.  Obviously, Islamism is also driven by the human religious imperative, and has the advantage of being well established and having existing political structure to better affect human behavior.

 The final point of human nature I want to mention is guilt.  I’ve struggled for years to understand why otherwise rational people become liberals, despite the obvious evidence that liberal policies are devastating in their effects.  My wife is Jewish.  When we first started dating, we talked a lot about the American Jewish community.  As a lifelong Republican, I have always struggled to understand why Jews overwhelmingly vote for Democrats, despite the fact that the most staunch supporters of Israel are Republicans.  What she explained is that the Jewish culture is defined by guilt.  Part of this is due to historic economic success of the Jewish community, and part is survivor’s guilt related to the Holocaust.  Regardless of the source, when Jews see social needs, they feel guilty about their own success and wish to address the need.  Often this takes the form of philanthropy, but, despite the stereotype, most Jews are not wealthy.  They naturally gravitate toward the entity that they view as being able to address the problem, the Government.  Since the Democrat party is the natural home for comprehensive social programs, a vote for Democrats is a mechanism to assuage guilt.  Keep in mind that Jews in Israel also display this trait.  Other than the need for immediate self defense, the Israeli political environment is very socialistic.  Guilt is one of the driving forces that explains why very wealthy people in New York and Hollywood donate and support the Democrat party, despite the resultant increase in taxation.  Political donations are modern day indulgences.  Coupled with a lack of awareness of the actual results of Democrat policies, support for expressed Democrat causes and political donations is an easy way to ease the guilt they feel about their own success. Intellectual discussion regarding policies is generally ineffective, since these activities are motivated through emotion.  The emotional equation is “there is a problem that makes me feel bad” + “we must do something to assuage my guilt” + “Democrats are offering something” = “We must do what Democrats suggest”.  The effectiveness of the plan, or whether or not in the larger context is makes sense to do anything, is not part of the equation.

Incrementalism – The danger of the current Healthcare legislation was expressed pretty well by Mark Steyn.  “If “health care” were about health care, the devil would be in the details. But it’s not about health or costs or coverage; it’s about getting over the river and burning the bridge. It doesn’t matter what form of governmentalized health care gets passed as long as it passes. Once it’s in place, it will be “reformed”, endlessly, but it will never be undone.” This is the inherent danger of political power in the hands of the Statists.  The inevitable erosion of Individual Liberty is never undone.  The Departments of Education, Energy, Homeland Security, and the EPA are not part of the enumerated powers of the federal government.  They all intrude upon the traditional roles that were envisioned by the founders to be performed by the states or through private enterprise.  However, despite GOP rhetoric, they are still here, and wield enormous power over the conduct of our affairs.  What is taught to our children, our choices in energy use and modes of transportation, the products that we buy, and even our freedom to travel are all controlled by these governmental entities.  To the Statists, it doesn’t matter if they lose the next election.  They know that eventually another 2006 and 2008 will come around, and they will build on the foundation they have established.  Once they establish that it is the federal government’s role to regulate and control 1/6th of our economy, they know that it will not be undone, even if they must wait 20 years for their next opportunity.  The seeds for this takeover were established in the 60s with the establishment of Medicare and Medicaid.  This is just the next incremental step, and it will be followed by another and another and another, until they have reached their goal of the single payer model.  The fact that the model is economically unsustainable due to demographics is irrelevant.  This is driven by the emotional need to deal with the social problem of people not receiving medical treatment.  The future doesn’t matter when you are satisfying the emotional wants of today.

William Buckley is famous for his definition of Conservatism, “standing athwart history yelling ‘Stop!’”. I’ve always been troubled by this quote, since it defines a purely defensive posture, which will inevitably fail.  Without action to actively reverse the trend toward Statism, Individual Liberty will fail.  Either as Statism continues to incrementally gain ground and governmental control, or after Islamism takes over the reins of the Statist apparatuses, or after the Chinese Hegemony rises to prominence and makes us all serfs to the debt we have accumulated.  Victory in 2010 will be hollow if it doesn’t lead to actual reduction in government size and control.

Fascism – Many of the folks here at Redstate have been reading Jonah Goldberg’s book Liberal Fascism.  I was fortunate a year ago to have a chance to have drinks with Jonah and Mark Steyn and listen to them discuss some of the historical figures in the Socialist and Fascist movements.  It is a testimony to their intelligence and sense of history, that they were discussing individuals who I have never heard of.  But they have a keen grasp on their philosophies and contributions to political discourse of these individuals. Jonah’s definition of Fascism is quite accurate: the application of socialist doctrine within a single state, instead of globally.  One of the hallmarks of Mussolini’s Italian Fascism was the nationalization of industries, so that they worked toward the benefit of the state, rather than the benefit of the owners and stockholders.  In the 1930s, Mussolini was greatly admired in the United States, “He has made the trains run on time”.  This admiration is understandable, since it is an expression of the human desire to bring order out of chaos.

What we are experiencing in the United States is a slow march toward the reestablishment of Fascist industrial policy in the United States.  In the 1930s through 1950s, the FDR era was marked by governmental control over significant portions of our industrial base.  Coupled with the natural alliance between the Democrats and the labor movement, the ultimate result was the elimination of the US steel and shipbuilding industries.  Competition drove this work overseas to locations where production is cheaper.  The only vestige of the large shipbuilding industry in the US is for military production.  During the late 1970s (begun by Carter, ironically) and 1980s there was a move toward deregulation, which spurred competition, consumer choices, lower prices, and US global competitiveness in the airline, banking, and telecommunications industries.  The computer and eventually Internet industries had the benefit of coming into being during this period of low regulation, allowing them to flourish.  However, the last year has brought about the return of the FDR era industrial policies, with the (re)establishment of government control over the automotive, energy and financial sectors.  Soon the healthcare industry will also be pulled underneath the fascist umbrella.  There are also attempts underway to exert the same control over the Internet and Media.  When the government controls industry, then they control our choices as consumers.

Government Entrenchment – The rise of Statism and the corresponding growth of the federal government leads to a burgeoning bureaucracy, which becomes self sustaining.  Where private industry will grow and contract with the business cycles, government only knows how to grow.  In Washington this week, everyone is elated that the healthcare bill is going to pass.  Not because they are all altruistic in their desire to serve the needs of the sick.  It is because it increases their job prospects.  New agencies mean new Senior Executive Service slots will open up.  More people will be promoted, leaving GS-14 and GS-15 billets open for them to move into.  The vast majority of the federal workforce work for the executive branch, and they are delighted by the growth of government.  It provides them with an expanded career path, without having to contemplate the risk of leaving government into private industry where performance, rather than seniority, is rewarded.  I personally left the Federal Government as a GS-15, step 10.  Given the current environment, I do wonder why I left.  The collocation of the federal bureaucracy, industry lobbyists, and the legislative branch make for an insidious inter-dependency and community fabric which makes reduction of the bureaucracy difficult if not impossible.

Demographics – Mark Steyn’s book, America Alone, is a frightening look at the demographic disaster awaiting western civilization in the next 40 to 50 years.  The major western countries, including the EU and Japan all have birthrates below the replacement rate.  Socialism is at its heart a ponzi scheme dependant on the confiscation of wages of the young to provide services to the old and unproductive. Without a growing pool of young workers the social constructs cannot be sustained.  In the EU, their solution is to prop up their entitlement infrastructure through the importation of workers, mostly Muslims.  This plays directly into the hands of the Islamists, who use their immigrant population and higher than replacement rate growth rates to exert political power.  The establishment of Sharia in Britain, the EU human rights commission overturning the Swiss minaret ban, and the persecution of Geert Wilder are examples of this growing political power.  Brussels, the home of NATO, has a population of over 50% Muslim.  Within 50 years, the EU will be a majority Muslim state, and Islamists will be in control of the governments.

At least the EU will survive.  Japan has a cultural bias against the importation of foreign workers.  Since Japanese women are giving birth at half the replacement rate, soon government entitlements providing services to the elderly will cause the destruction of their system.  At a minimum, they will need to move toward heavy use of robotics for production, and switch to corporate taxation in order to pay for their socialized healthcare system.  But the real problem for Japan will be the loss of human capital.  Robotics are great for maintaining a manufacturing base, without people.  But robots can’t provide innovation.  Without people, Japan has no one to conceive of the next Nissan GTR, Playstation, or graphic novel.  The nexus of innovation will move to China and India, where human capital remains at peak levels.

Finally, consider the former superpowers; the United States and Russia.  The US is breeding above the replacement rate, much to the chagrin of the pro-death abortionists.  However, the fastest breeding segment of our country is among Hispanics.  This, of course, delights the Democrats, since they view the Hispanic community as their next natural captured political base, like the Black community is now.  This helps to explain the views of George Bush and Karl Rove.  They see a growing demographic that will become a significant part of the political process.  They want to see them voting Republican, not Democrat.  Of course, their method of achieving this, through mass amnesty for illegals and entitlement expansions only furthers the goals of the Statists, not Individual Liberty.  They correctly recognize the problem, but their solutions only help a political party, not a guiding political philosophy.  Russia on the other hand is dying a demographic death.  They are breeding well below the replacement rate, and will begin to collapse into a demographic death within the next 30 years, without sufficient population to maintain their social structure.  What becomes of their military structure, nuclear arsenal, and gas production resources at that point is anyone’s guess.

How to Fight

The problem with legislative victory in 2010 is that it will only delay the inevitable.  Either Statists, Islamists, or the Chinese will inherit the Earth.  It sure won’t be the meek or those advocating for Individual Liberty.  Not unless we fight and find ways to win against our structural disadvantages.

The Academy – One of the advantages that social conservatives have is they tend to breed.  Children are considered a joy and a blessing, rather than a burden upon society that will emit Gaia destroying CO2.  But, with the exception of the home schoolers, we quickly give up our demographic advantage by turning our children over to the government for education, including a significant dose of indoctrination.  It is no coincidence that the lesson plans and textbooks paint glowing reviews of FDR, ignore Reagan, and teach Global Warming as established scientific fact.  We have lost control of the education agenda to the liberal teachers unions, and the Statists within the Department of Education.  This only gets worse once they move on to college, where the Liberal agenda is the core operational value system.  I’ve personally witnessed the effects of this.  When visiting my daughter at high school for lunch one day, I overheard a group of teenage girls brutally teasing one boy, accusing him of being a Republican.  This is in the reddest of red counties in Florida, where our entire state and congressional delegation is Republican.

We can’t wait for our children to get out of college and into the working world, before discovering Conservative political values.  The high number of well paid Democrat voters in the financial sector should be a warning that political choices made early in life do not necessarily change.  This is an area, especially at the secondary education level, where the Statists can be beat at their own game.  Both state legislative and voter initiatives are often used to dictate the operation of the public schools.  Many of the budget problems here in Florida are directly attributable to the class size amendment passed several years ago.  There is nothing that stops us from enacting specific education initiatives that guarantee that legitimate political theory, actual historical fact, and non-politicized science be taught in our classrooms.

At the college level, again the Statist levers of control can be turned against them.  The threat of withholding federal funds from the Universities has been used many times to encourage specific behavior.  With legislative control, we need to enact specific education standards that eliminate the indoctrination of our youth.  Additionally, we need to find ways to reach beyond the traditional teaching methods. We need initiatives like using YouTube to teach the values of capitalism, and the foundational principles of limited government.

Media – Brent Bozell argues that the traditional media of newspapers and network news are dying, while the new media is rising in prominence.  While I can’t argue with this economic point, the MSM still wields enormous influence, especially when it comes to what they decide to NOT cover.  The problem is that as long as there is a Liberal mouthpiece, which has no desire to report both sides of the story, then it gives the Liberals the forum and secondary citations to advance their cause in a disingenuous manner.  They don’t have to argue the issues, they can just cite each other using the same talking points issued by the Democrat party.

While I understand the argument that they are becoming irrelevant, allow me to offer a personal story.  I fly on Delta Airlines a great deal.  I doubt that their management structure is specifically partisan, given their need to stay in business after their recent bankruptcy.  However, every TV screen in Atlanta (the world’s busiest airport) is tuned to CNN.  The satellite TV they offer on their flights allows you to watch two news cable channels, CNN and MSNBC.  While they have a captured audience during the day you are flying with them, your only news source is shaped through Liberal opinion journalism.  Their in-flight magazine is also hopelessly Liberal, featuring articles on green living, and a recent profile of Jimmy Carter.

I believe that in order to succeed, the proponents of Individual Liberty must fight for, and take control of the media, changing their editorial positions to ones of neutrality.  Buying CNN or the New York Times, followed by demonstrated economic success of the new editorial model, will naturally erode the Statist positions.  It will allow the failures of the Statist positions to be reported to the electorate, instead of just the promises and aspirations designed to appeal to emotional guilt.  Just having Fox and the Wall Street Journal, both owned by Rupert Murdoch, makes it too easy to dismiss their commercial success and balanced reporting as “mouth pieces of the Republican Party”.

The DC Establishment – The concentration of political power in Washington DC is self fulfilling.  Having the seat of government, the lobbyists representing business interests, and the federal bureaucracy all located in a single 100 square mile area does not encourage smaller government.  If we want smaller government, we must break the power wielded by this insular community and force it to deal with the reality of the rest of the country.  In this, I have a simple suggestion, once we regain control of Congress.  Geographic dispersal has been effective for the US military.  The center for space procurements is in Los Angeles, USTRANCOM is located in Dayton, Ohio, and our central Asian military operations are run out of Tampa Florida.  Moving the federal departments out of DC and into the rest of the country will break the insular nature of the DC culture, while giving Congress an excuse to claim they are bringing “jobs to their communities”.  Move the Energy to Tennessee, the FAA to Atlanta, NASA to Houston, and HUD to Detroit.  Force them to live their lives in direct contact with the people whose lives they affect.  In the process, reduce the influence and importance of the city of Washington, D.C.

Another tactic to use is to push toward privatization.  While this is a half measure, since it ends up eliminating government jobs and replacing them with government regulated jobs, it moves us in the right direction.  I’ve been flying out of Rochester, NY a lot recently and just noticed the other day that the security screeners are not TSA employees.  They are a private company, using TSA guidelines.  The experience going through security was the same as at an airport being serviced by TSA.  This can be our own version of Mark Steyn’s “burn the bridges”.  Once a function is being effectively performed by the private sector, it becomes difficult to make it a government function again.  This is why the DoD no longer tries to write it’s own software.  They use Defense Contractors.  They no longer have the in-house capability to do systems development.

The Unions – I don’t want to even pretend to know how to break the power of the unions over our political process.  I’d love to hear from Art what he thinks, since he understands Unions better than anyone else here.  I suspect though, that we need a legislative overhaul of labor law in order to remove their ability to advocate for a single party through use of member dues, without the explicit permission of their members.  While the argument is that they have the same right as a trade association or corporation to donate to a political party, the difference, especially with a union like SEIU, is that they are directly influencing the people who pay their salaries.  In the private sector, that would be considered bribery.

Ethical Government and Transparency – At the beginning of this essay, I mentioned “a Constitutional Republic wielding limited federal powers, based on a strong capitalistic economic model, and guided by moral and ethical behavior”.  Because of the inherent failings of human nature, we need to establish rules of behavior, especially in Congress, that encourages ethical behavior.  In this area, I actually think that Obama promised a useful model during the campaign.  Congressional legislative actions should be, by rule, conducted in the open.  Earmarks should be specifically identified by the requesting member, and they should be required to publicly explain the rationale and benefit derived from the earmark.  Appropriator terms should be limited.  Proposed legislation should be posted online long enough for the voters to read and comment.  Mechanisms to force members to listen to their constituents, such as public comment periods, should be employed.  Many of these rules can be adopted simply by regaining the majority.  However, if the Republicans simply fall back to using the same tactics the Democrats currently use on them, then the opportunity to change the rules of the game into our favor, will be lost.

This is an area where I believe the social conservatives need to lead the way.  We need to find ways to act as the moral compass in defining the standards for ethical behavior and ethical legislation.  No one on our side better understands the human need to show compassion and alleviate guilt.  Rolling back the Statist agenda requires legislative alternatives that promote Individual Liberty while still addressing the emotional issues driving desire to act.  At the same time, we must temper our own desires to legislate morality.  I asked Pat Toomey once if a Conservative can win in Pennsylvania.  He assured me that they can.  I then asked why Santorum lost.  He said that in Pennsylvania, the voters don’t like people to tell them how they should act.  They will vote conservative, but once you start preaching to them, they will turn on you.

If you have stuck with my ramblings to the end, thank you.  Mostly, I wrote this to help organize my own thoughts and help me understand better what I believe in.  I don’t pretend that I have THE ANSWER.  However, I worry that our call to FIGHT, will result in short term victory, which will have little effect in advancing our cause.  We need a better strategy.  We need to WIN.

Nikki Haley is running a video contest to tell “Why do you support Nikki?”

Now to be honest, I do have a head start, given I’m sitting on so much footage of her.  So I took a whirl at it, and came up with this.

Why Nikki? from David Thompson on Vimeo.

Promoted from diaries. – Moe Lane

Something special for you tonight.

This film short is a compilation of material from Marco Rubio’s speeches and other media sources. I’ve tried to provide a visual expression of the strong convictions he expresses in words.

Content Warning: This film includes a scene of an execution during the Cuban Revolution. I debated including it, and finally decided that it was important to the story. Viewer discretion is advised.

I wish to acknowledge Bill Mick for his excellent interview with Marco Rubio on WMMB-AM in Melbourne, Florida. Much of the audio for this film is from that interview.

Marco’ Story from David Thompson on Vimeo.

This guy is the real deal.

He got up at 3AM, drove up here, did a radio interview at 8AM, a fund raiser at noon, a TV interview in the afternoon, then a speech to the BREC at 7PM before driving back to Miami.

The speech to the BREC was amazing.  Having now heard him speak 3 time in the last 10 days, I was expecting it to be somewhat repetitious at this point.   But it wasn’t, he had different examples to give, and covered different topics.  My take away is that he really does hold these convictions as core beliefs.

One telling point tonight when he was taking questions and got into a discussion about our Cuban Asylum policy.  The gentleman asking the question began to argue his personal belief and the Chairman tried to cut him off.  Marco turned around and told the Chairman that he wanted to finish the discussion “because he is raising a valid point and deserves an answer”.

Marco received several standing ovations, and I overheard many people say, “This is the guy we need.”

I’m just amazed at what a good candidate he is.  I think EPU is going to be calling me a Marcohead soon.

If your county is like ours, the key to success in a conservative campaign is the local talk radio station that carries Rush.  In our case, it is WMMB-AM that has a local guy named Bill Mick in the morning.  The rest of the day is then Glenn, Rush, Sean, Mark Levin, and Dennis Miller at night.  Bill does a really good job covering a mix of national issues and also local politics.  When we are talking about the local school board budget, then Bill’s show is the happening place to discuss it.

This means that if you want to reach conservatives and libertarians in Brevard County, Florida, Bill’s show is the one to do.

Today, Marco Rubio is in Brevard County for a fund raiser, then meeting with the GOP executive council this evening.  In Atlanta I told Marco’s communications director that Bill Mick was the guy to work with to get his message out.  Well it all worked out great.  Bill thought he was having a telephone interview with Marco today, and was surprised when Marco walked into the studio.  Bill interviewed him for the full hour between 8 and 9AM, and even squeezed in a few phone calls.

As we saw in Atlanta, Marco just hit it out of the park.  He was a great speaker, but was able to offer concrete answers to the questions, not just platitudes.  Two answers in particular stuck for me.  One was the reason that the Cuban community is so passionate about politics is that they aren’t just immigrants, they are exiles.  That distinction is a significant driver in their understanding of how important the political process is.  The second was talking about his legacy as speaker of the Florida House was not just what was passed, but also what was stopped.  He mentioned their successful efforts at blocking Charlie Crist’s attempt to impose the California environmental policies on Florida.

During the poll, Bill Mick had a web poll running for his listeners on who they would vote for in the primary, if it was held today.  Marco got 79%, Crist 2%.

I ponied up a pretty good donation for Marco today (biggest donations I’ve ever made).  I’m encouraging everyone else to find some spare change to support him also.  He makes a strong case that if he can raise enough to get his message out, then he will win the primary.  He will win, because he is the only one running that doesn’t have to convince people to have amnesia regarding his record.

You can donate here.

This is a short film I put together as a tribute to the Redstate Gathering. We truly had an amazing time. Thank you to everyone who made it happen.

The Redstate Gathering from David Thompson on Vimeo.

Moe did take a break from banning trolls to give us some advice about online activism. Keep your eyes on the goal, and ignore the distractions thrown at your by the left.

Moe Lane from David Thompson on Vimeo.