As we approach President Barack Obama’s first State of the Union address, it is worth taking a look at where Obama stands with the public one year into The One’s presidency.

As previously discussed here, Obama began his term with higher approval ratings that any president since John F. Kennedy, and lower disapproval ratings of any president except George H. W. Bush.  But a year of broken promises, a far-left liberal agenda, and a near neurotic drive to nationalize health care system, the president finds himself in a much different place at the beginning of his second year in office.

Quinnipiac conducted a poll recently on the question of whether Obama has been a success or a failure thus far, and the results were a shocking rebuke of the Administration in general and President Obama in particular.  When viewed through the proper lens, the poll shows that America’s white-hot love affair with Obama has burned out, as such things are wont to do, and the country is looking to come back home to the security of a trusted old flame.

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To varying degrees, every presidential candidate makes promises during the course of the campaign that the realities of governing eventually cause the winner to break.  But never has the US seen a president like Barack Obama, whose broken campaign promises far outnumber his fulfilled ones.

The list is seemingly endless:  no lobbyists in the administration, closing Guantanamo Bay, a tax cut for 95% of Americans, a net reduction in federal spending, no new taxes for anyone making under $250,000, health care negotiations on C-SPAN, on and on.  All broken.  What’s more, each of these was broken in absolute terms, not as a result of any nuanced position or interpretation.

Today comes word of another campaign promise to be added to the ash heap of “history’s unmarked grave of discarded campaign promises,” to paraphrase a prior occupant of the Oval Office.  As a candidate, Barack Obama promised to, “put an end to the abuse of no-bid contracts once and for all.”  So it was only a matter of time before Obama was certain to be discovered awarding no-bid contracts of his own.

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Just a year into the Obama Administration, things look very different than candidate Obama said they would last November.  Both in domestic and international affairs, the first year of Obama’s presidency must by any objective standard be judged a dismal failure.  His victories have largely been small and partisan, while his defeats have been large and bipartisan.  Obama has been ridiculed even in his moments of triumph, and he closes the year with the dubious distinction of becoming the most polarizing president in history, in the shortest amount of time ever.

On January 20, 2009, the new president’s approval rating stood at 68 percent in the Gallup poll.  Obama started his presidency with the highest approval number in the poll of any president since John F. Kennedy in 1961.  Only twelve percent said they disapproved of his job performance, a low bested only by George H.W. Bush in 1989 and one point lower than the 13 percent who disapproved of Ronald Reagan at the start of his first term in 1981.  Obama began on a high.

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A group of conservative Republicans is set to offer a resolution be considered at next month’s Republican National Committee meeting in Hawai’i, calling on party candidates to embrace a majority of a group of ten positions based on core conservative principles to gain and retain RNC endorsements and funding.  I think it’s a brilliant idea that is right for the times.  I acknowledge that there are those who disagree and are concerned that such a resolution may end up bringing about more problems than it will solve.  But I hold that the resolution will help demonstrate to Republican base voters that the party is serious about a return to conservative principles.

Erick spoke for many conservatives in his reasoned and sincere criticism of the pledge resolution.  They are primarily concerned that requiring candidates to take a pledge of this kind will give liberal Republicans cover to proclaim themselves conservative.  They worry the pledge will result in more, not less, fiascoes like the DeDe Scozzafava candidacy in New York’s 23rd congressional district.

But the ten positions are written in a way that is broad enough that any Republican should be able to easily clear the bar of 8 out of 10 that the resolution requires.  Yet, the positions are specific enough to demonstrate both to base voters and disillusioned independents just what Republicanism entails.  And, the positions talk about what we as Republicans stand for, rather than simply what we stand against.

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Over 90,000 Americans were killed in the Pacific during World War II defending the United States and the world from Japanese aggression.  Thank God many of the survivors passed on before they had to witness the President of the United States bowing low to the Emperor of Japan.

To those veterans of the Pacific still living today, I say thank you.  And I apologize on behalf of my generation for producing a president so bent on dishonoring your service and your buddies’ sacrifices.

Mr. Obama, you are an embarrassment.

In the wake of the House vote for President Obama’s government takeover of health care, some conservative commentators are asking what may have been had House Republicans decided to follow Rep. John Shadegg’s (R-AZ) advice to vote present on the Stupak-Pitts amendment.  The amendment prohibits the federal government from spending any funds to provide abortion under the plan’s public option and prohibits anyone receiving a federal subsidy from purchasing a health insurance plan that covers abortion.

Sixty-four Democrats voted with Republicans in passing Stupak.  The argument says that had Republicans voted “present” or “no” on the amendment, it would have failed.  The theory is that those sixty-four Democrats would have abandoned the final bill without the prohibition included, effectively killing the overall effort to socialize the nation’s health care system.

But that thinking represents the triumph of hope over experience.  It supposes that Nancy Pelosi, who has shown herself to be nothing if not a cold-blooded and ruthless political operative, would not take any other necessary steps to find the votes necessary to pass the bill.  The only reason Stupak was allowed to come to a vote in the first place was because Pelosi was willing to shiv two-thirds of her caucus to get the bill passed.  Pelosi, and Obama, would have moved any obstacle, made any promise, and broken any number of arms to get the White House a “victory” on health care, however hollow that victory may ultimately turn out to be.

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With news that RINO DeDe Scozzafava has dropped out of the race in NY-23, and with Republican Bob McDonnell seemingly cruising to victory in the Virginia governor’s race, all eyes are turning to New Jersey.  Republican Christopher Christie is slightly ahead in the polls, with the trend going his way.  A victory for Republicans in deep blue New Jersey would send shock waves through the country that would be felt right up to the doors of the White House.

And New Jersey is winnable.  Independent candidate Chris Daggett appears to be fading, as voters who were considering him begin to get cold feet.  The majority of Daggett’s voters say Christie is their second choice, and he stands to gain three to five percent in the polls just from Daggett’s support.

Enthusiasm for incumbent Governor Jon Corzine remains non-existent, no matter how many times President Barack Obama visits the Garden State on his behalf.  New Jerseyans are not happy with Corzine’s performance as governor, and they know that Obama is not on the ballot.  None but the most die-hard Democrat is coming out to vote for Corzine.  Christie is winning among independents by double-digits.

With victory so close, it’s time for conservatives nationwide to step in and help push Christie over the top. 

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Suffolk University’s Political Research Center released its latest survey in the New Jersey Governor’s race today, showing Governor Jon Corzine holding a commanding 9-point lead over Republican challenger Christopher Christie, 42-33 percent. Independent Chris Daggett received 7 percent in the poll.

The result caused a minor stir on the Internet. A very minor stir, as even a cursory examination of the internals of this poll shows that it is deeply flawed, internally contradictory, and not at all reflective of the state of the race in the Garden State.

All polls produce outliers, and polling outfits occasionally get a bad sample. But a result this bad this late should never have been released, if Suffolk University wanted to maintain any semblance of credibility. The fact that it was released leads one to believe that the purpose of the survey was not to predict the outcome in the governor’s race, but to influence it.

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Republican Christopher Christie has been hammering Governor Jon Corzine on the issue of taxes in the New Jersey governor’s race of late.  But the New York and Philadelphia media which has deigned to cover the race has wanted to talk about mammograms, traffic tickets, and Christie’s weight.  Chritsie has been relentless in driving the message of lower taxes and slashing state spending as medicine to get New Jersey’s worst-in-the-region economy moving again.

There was another recent candidate for governor in the Garden State who rode the message of lower taxes to victory in November:  Jon Corzine.  Back in 2005, Corzine promised property tax relief for New Jersey’s over-burdened citizens.  Things have not exactly worked out according to plan.

With a little help from the Wayback Machine, Jon Corzine’s 2005 tax promises have been recovered.  And his betrayal of New Jersey taxpayers exposed.

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MSNBC’s First Read reported last night that the Obama Administration is now saying that illegal immigrants will be specifically prevented from obtaining coverage under the president’s health care proposal.  The chage comes on the heels of Rep. Joe Wilson’s (R-SC) “You lie!” outburst during Obama’s health care address to a joint session of Congress on Wednesday.  Although the president denied from the rostrum of the House chamber that illegals would be covered by the plan, the Administration thought it necessary to make changes to the existing proposal in order to clarify the issue.

But the bigger story the MSNBC missed with its focus on the Wilson flap is found in the second bullet point sent out by the White House last night.  The Obama Administration inadvertently confirmed that the president’s plan will begin a slow take over of the health care system by the federal government.  How else could this be interpreted?

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

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

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

Mark it down.  President Obama’s “make or break” speech, as the media is portraying it, will be widely viewed as a success among the chattering class.  It will be groundbreaking, visionary, full of clarity, and a “game changer,” as CNN has already labeled it.

But sit tight, that’s just for a while.  Patrick Rufini had it right on Twitter last night.

Tmrw’s speech will be widely praised for resetting the debate on #hcr. And then everything will go back to exactly how it was within 96 hrs

Exactly.  What Patrick realizes, that the MSM does not, is that short term gain is all the president’s speech is intended to do.  If the speech was to be anything like what the media is previewing, the White House would not be making it known that Obama does not plan to offer any real specifics, and plans to be “non-committal” on the central question of the whole debate, the so-called “public option.”

No, the speech is nothing more than an “operational pause,” to borrow a military term of art.  The aftermath is meant to be the calm before the storm.  Next week, the real advance begins.

So as you read the headlines tomorrow, and watch the tingling commentators tonight, remember that it’s all just part of the plan.  And steel yourself for the coming fight.

Two new polls in the New Jersey governor’s race show Republican challenger Christopher Christie maintaining his lead over incumbent Governor Jon Corzine (D). The Quinnipiac poll shows Christie holding a ten point lead over Corzine, 47-37 percent; while the Fairleigh Dickinson-PublicMind shows a closer race, 47-42 percent in Christie’s favor.

Both margins are essentially unchanged from previous surveys by the respective polls, but there have been minor shifts in the numbers. In the July Quinnipiac poll, Christie garnered 53 percent of respondents, six points better than his showing in today’s poll. Similarly, Corzine found his support shrinking by four points from the last Quinnipiac survey. In the Fairleigh Dickinson poll, both candidates increased their share of respondents over June’s result.

Christie’s negatives have been driven up by Corzine’s slashing attacks against Christie’s ethics and smears of his service as U.S. Attorney for Newark. For most of the past month, Christie has been beset by attacks on everything from phone calls with the White House, to his personal finances, to a four-year old traffic ticket.  But while Corzine’s relentless attacks have raised doubts about Christie, they have not managed to convince many more voters that Corzine deserves a second term.

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Facing growing public skepticism and falling approval ratings as a result of his push for nationalized health care, President Obama told a group in Virginia last week that he didn’t want, “the folks who had created the [health care] mess to do a lot of talking, I want them to get out of the way so we can clean up the mess.”  It was a remark meant to rally the base to Obama’s side, and shore up his flagging poll numbers on the issue.  Obama may have thought he was chiding Republicans in making the comment.  But even a cursory look at the “mess” in the American health care system shows that on the issue of who is responsible, the president’s remark is as wrong as it was arrogant.

Health care experts across the spectrum can agree that there are three main problems with the health insurance industry in America today:  community rating, which forbids insurance companies from charging premiums based on an individual consumer’s health status; the practice of defensive medicine, under which doctors order numerous costly and often unnecessary tests to cover themselves against the possibility of malpractice lawsuits; and employer-based coverage.  Each of these problems, which together contribute most to the “mess” in health care delivery, were all either brought into existence, or are perpetuated by Democrats.

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Gov. Jon Corzine’s (D) campaign is launching a new attack on Republican Christopher Christie’s ethics, heralding news that Christie spoke with former White House political strategist Karl Rove about a possible governor’s race while he was the U.S. Attorney for Newark.

Asked about Christie during a July 7 appearance before the committee, Rove said he never spoke with Christie about his investigations or other actions as the state’s top federal prosecutor. They did discuss the possibility Christie might run for governor, Rove testified.

“I talked to him twice in the last couple of years, perhaps one time while I was at the White House and once or twice since I left the White House, but not regarding his duties as U.S. Attorney, but regarding his interest in running for governor, and he asked me questions about who — who were good people that knew about running for Governor that he could talk to,” Rove said in the testimony.

In an act that stinks of political desperation, the Corzine campaign is attempting to use Rove’s testimony as a basis for calling Christie’s entire extremely successful seven-year stint as U.S. Attorney for Newark into question.

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The White House’s actions in the health care debate have made clear the fundamental change from the Bush administration’s way of doing things that President Obama has brought to the White House.

The Bush administration treated America’s enemies as dangerous threats bent on destroying the country and used every resource at its disposal to defeat them while respecting American citizens’ right to disagree with its policies.

The Obama Administration tries to appease America’s enemies and uses every possible opportunity to cower to them while treating American citizens that disagree with its policies as dangerous threats bent on destroying the country, using every thuggish tactic at its disposal to silence them.

If you want to figure out what a politician is up to, pay attention to what he accuses his opponents of doing.  Chances are, the accuser is probably doing it himself.

It is with that thought in mind that we take a look at President Barack Obama’s now infamous determination from afar that the police in Cambridge, Massachusetts, “acted stupidly,” in arresting Harvard Professor, and Obama friend, Henry Louis Gates.  The president has since re-calibrated that remark, offering in his pre-eminent law enforcement opinion that Gates should not have been arrested for verbally assaulting Sgt. James Crowley and causing a public scene in front of his home in protest of the police coming to protect him and his property from potential vandals.

But the “acting stupidly” comment still hangs over the incident and over the White House like a dark cloud.  Obama put it there with his inability to restrain himself from commenting on the Gates affair at last week’s White House press conference.  And in so eagerly labeling the Cambridge Police, Obama has unwittingly provided the lens through which to view his first six months as president.  For the Obama Administration has been acting stupidly almost since the very first day of his presidency.

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There’s a revealing quote buried inside Politico’s account of a revolt by liberal members of the House Democratic caucus over the deal between Rep. Henry Waxmam (D-CA) and four members of the Blue Dog Caucus. Liberals are upset that the deal effectively guts the public option in President Obama’s healthcare takeover. And as is usually the case, when liberals get upset, the truth about the contempt that they harbor for their core constituencies begins to show. How else can this comment by Rep. Carolyn Kilpatrick be explained?

At one point, Carolyn Kilpatrick (D-Mich.), a former Congressional Black Caucus chairwoman, expressed outrage that conservatives would insist on significant cuts and a weakening of the public option, arguing that many of the Blue Dogs were letting down their black constituents, who make up 25 percent to 40 percent of their voters, in some instances.”

Yeah, that’s right. Opposing the public options on cost grounds betrays blacks. Because, you know, all blacks are destined to be on the public dole, right Congresswoman?

It’s only July, but time is fast running out on Governor Jon Corzine (D) in the New Jersey governor’s race.  Corzine trails Republican Christopher Christie by as much as 15 points in recent polling, and has only polled within ten points of the challenger twice in the last two months.  Even a visit from President Barack Obama has been unable to buoy the Corzine campaign back into making the race competitive.  Corzine needed to do something to change the dynamic of the race, and his best opportunity should have been his selection of a lieutenant governor running mate.

But rather than make a bold choice that would have signaled a new direction for the campaign, Corzine went with the safe choice, selecting veteran State Senator Loretta Weinberg.  Weinberg is qualified, but at 74 years old she hardly brings energy to the ticket.  And her 17 years in elected state government brings “Trenton insider” baggage to the campaign, exactly the image that is dogging Corzine.  The Christie campaign wasted no time in driving home these points, releasing a mock Corzine-Weinberg movie trailer titled, “You can’t change Trenton from the inside.”

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Republican gubernatorial candidate Christopher Christie wasted little time in seeking to turn the corruption arrests of several local and state officials to his advantage in the governor’s race.  Christie, who as the U.S. Attorney for New Jersey under President George W. Bush started the investigation that led to yesterday’s arrests, released a campaign commercial today highlighting his tenure as a anti-corruption crusading federal prosecutor.

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What worse for a struggling incumbent governor than trailing by 15 points in the polls?  Scores of Democratic Party officials – including a member of your administration – arrested and implicated in a widespread official corruption scheme in an investigation begun by your challenger.

A two-year corruption and international money-laundering investigation stretching from the Jersey Shore to Brooklyn to Israel and Switzerland culminated in charges against 44 people on Thursday, including three New Jersey mayors, two state assemblymen and five rabbis, the authorities said. [...]

Weysan Dun, the special agent in charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Newark office…emphasized that the case was motivated by neither religion nor politics — an important point given that the New Jersey governor’s race pits a former United States attorney, Christopher J. Christie, under whom the investigation began, against the Democratic incumbent, Jon S. Corzine, whose administration was not spared in the arrests Thursday.

Agents also raided the home of Joseph V. Doria Jr., commissioner of the state’s Department of Community Affairs and a former mayor of Bayonne.

Corzine called a hasty press conference to denounce the corruption.  “Any corruption is unacceptable — anywhere, anytime, by anybody,” he said.  But if Corzine was hoping to insulate himself from and fallout from the arrests, it may already be too late.

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