According to the National Review, these are the key points to the proposal:

1.  Modernizing the legal immigration system

There will be a shift away from the current family-based system, and more emphasis on giving visas to high-skilled immigrants, particularly those who have Ph.D.s in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) fields. There will be a new visa created for guest workers, called the W visa, which will be a three-year permit given to low-skilled workers.

2.  Securing the border and ending illegal immigration.

If the legislation passes, the Department of Homeland Security will be required to be able to surveil the entire border at all times (using technology, such as drones) and to be successfully catching nine out of ten people trying to cross the border.

Additionally, they will have to implement universal E-Verify, which all employers, including small businesses, will have to use.

3.  Legalization process for current illegal immigrants.

Those who are illegally here will have two options: Return to their native country and be able to apply for a green card in five years, or remain in the U.S. and apply for temporary legalization status. In order to be eligible for the temporary-legalization process, immigrants will have to show that they have been in the country continuously for at least two years, for which documents such as medical records and utility bills will be accepted as proof. They will also need to pass a background check; those with, say, speeding tickets would probably be fine, but a felony conviction would not be permissible.

Those who are given temporary legal status will be required to pay a fine and back taxes.

Those with temporary legal status will be allowed to be unemployed about four to six months; longer than that, they risk losing legal status. Anyone who is no longer able to be self-sufficient and needs federal assistance would lose legal status and be eligible for deportation. While Obamacare’s benefits apply to all who are legally present in the United States, the Gang has agreed that those with legal status through this legislation will be an exception, and will not be able to get the benefits of the health-care law.

Now, the above seems reasonable…but details will matter…as will the politics.

1.  What happens if, after 10 years of Federal incompetence (which is to be expected), the border security measures have failed?  Democrats at that time will certainly whine about the process taking too long, and will blame Republicans for the failure.  Even though Obama will largely be responsible for the implementation of that system, who will get the blame, in reality?

2.  Is it even possible to catch 90% of the illegals crossing the border?  It is a reasonable question, since our best data shows that even in areas where we are doing a good job, we only catch about 50% of illegal immigrants.  And that doesn’t even discuss the reality that as of right now, the Department of Homeland Security admits that its measures for how effective border security is doing is flawed and not accurate.  There is no accurate metric to even measure success and failure.

3.  The law calls for deportation of all illegals who have arrived less than two years before the bill is passed, and any coming in the future.  Do we really trust Barack Obama to deport these people?  Along with their children?  How likely is that?

4.  As a practical, the E-verify system may be the most critical part of this entire puzzle.  The border really will never be secure.  However, you can virtually ensure that no one can work in the country.  But how harsh are the punishments going to be?  They must be very harsh, and strictly enforced, otherwise the incentive to find a way into the country will remain.

5.  Will the plan cause long term assimilation?  This is an issue that is almost never discussed, but is vital.  Every other immigration trend has resulted in the classic melting pot of ethnicity and culture.  Will this do that, or will in cause these groups to splinter into their own enclaves?  This is one reason I still believe English as the national language is an important requirement.

6.  Maybe Republicans should demand the fence be completed?  I know, it has become passe to suggest it, but in a poll out today, 53% of Americans support the proposal.  Link the border security to the building of the fence, and use the penalties paid by illegals to fund the fence construction?

Ultimately, this entire episode should flash warning signs to all Republicans and Conservatives.  I have been a big proponent of some immigration reform plan for years (you can see my proposal from 2009 here), but without a firm guarantee of securing the border for all time, I am very circumspect.

Furthermore, this will be a moment of truth for several Republicans, most notably Sen. Marco Rubio.  I believe he has been honest in his belief that there is a conservative based solution to this.  And in all honesty, I am surprised he has gotten the security promises that are seen in this deal.  The unfortunate part is that going forward, I am not sure that the security portion of this plan is at all achievable, and even worse, there is no definitive way to prove one way or another if it has been achieved.

The same argument that has been made for a decade stands:  border security first.  The repeat of the 1986 immigration failure cannot be allowed again.  And until that is shown to be the case, I remain a skeptic.

This was cross posted at Neoavatara. 

Gov. John Kasich has largely been a conservative success story.  He became the Governor of the great state of Ohio with an $8 billion deficit and lagging economy.  Today, Ohio has a surplus, is adding jobs monthly, and is considering significant across the board tax cuts to stimulate the economy more.

But on health care, John Kasich is so far failing.

Last month, Kasich announced that he would opt in to the Medicaid program in the Affordable Care Act.  Long thought of as the leading edge of federal encroachment under the ACA, the Supreme Court in a 7-2 decision last summer provided states with the choice of opting out without repercussions from the Federal government.  Yet, Kasich, along with several of his GOP gubernatorial brethren like Chris Christie of New Jersey and Rick Scott of Florida, made the calculation that the dangling carrot of addition Federal funding was too good to pass up.

For these states, this is a short term benefit with a long term lagging cost.  The Federal funding for Medicaid expansion is only funded for the next three years, after which funding slows.  The below graph, which is specific to Virginia but similar for all states facing this conundrum, shows that once the funding tapers off, the cost to state taxpayers will skyrocket.

Furthermore, as it stands, hospitals in Ohio lose more money on Medicaid patients than they lose on patients without any insurance, and under this expansion, that would worsen. Furthermore, studies have shown that as Medicaid coverage expands, what really happens is that the costs are displaced to those with insurance, thus increasing their costs.

Maybe the worst fact in this whole debate is that Medicaid is broken.  Patients covered under Medicaid have worse outcomes than those without insurance at all.  There is an immense amount of data demonstrating this.  And yet, GOP Governors want to expand this failed program?

These issues are just the tip of the iceberg.  But how does Gov. Kasich deal with these facts?  Simply put, he hasn’t.

Kasich and the other GOP Governors have missed a golden opportunity.  In its frantic effort to try to expand Medicaid, the Obama Administration as well as Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sibelius have been willing to bend over backwards to make deals to states.  They have virtually opened up the playbook, allowing for massive experimentation.  The most extreme example is Arkansas, where Democrat Gov. Mike Beebe asked the Federal government to allow Arkansas to use the federal money from the Medicaid expansion to purchase private insurance for those who would otherwise have qualified for Medicaid.  This was virtually unprecedented, but the Department of Health and Human Services gave the go ahead.

With this kind of leverage, you would think the answer to their problem would be simple.  James Capretta of the National Review and Charles Blahous of the Mercatur Center at George Mason University have both suggested similar paths.  The governors of all these states should band together and form a coalition to reform Medicaid.  The White House would be hard pressed to challenge the states of Ohio, Florida, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Michigan, and others if they made demands together.

The Governors should focus on several key tenets:

1.  Federal funding, at a level to be determined, should not be temporary but should be considered permanent until changed by Congress.  Furthermore, they should ask the Federal government for funding based on a per capita calculation (a specific amount for every person eligible) instead of a block grant; such a funding measure would provide a more accurate way of providing services to individuals.

2. All programs now created should not be created under temporary waivers, but permanent Federal grants, with the states having the choice of reforming the systems at a later date.

3.  With this control, then states, and states alone, should be held accountable for the Medicaid services provided.

4.  States then should promote a more free market approach, using a combination of insurers, health savings accounts, and other methods to lower overall cost for consumers.

This is the moment for true conservatives like Gov. Kasich and others to lead on this.  Yes, the path I have illuminated, along with other health experts, will be difficult, will have political costs both to them and the Obama Administration, and ultimately will likely cost the Federal Government more money.

However, in the long run, maintaining the current Medicaid program, which is fundamentally broken, is ill-advised.  If Governors go ahead with this approach, it is unlikely we will see tangible reform for many years.  However, banding together and using the leverage of the moment can provide long term sustainable reform that will provide better results in the long run.

This was cross posted at Neoavatara. 

http://mercatus.org/publication/affordable-care-acts-optional-medicaid-expansion-considerations-facing-state-governments

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/340204/kasichs-misleading-medicaid-expansion-avik-roy

http://www.forbes.com/sites/aroy/2013/02/08/how-ohios-medicaid-expansion-will-increase-health-insurance-premiums-for-everyone-else/

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/341306/twelve-reasons-say-no-avik-roy

http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/ir_8.htm

http://www.finance.senate.gov/newsroom/ranking/release/?id=b9f2e6eb-658a-4014-8a18-5c93d995e60e

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/341853/arkansas-consequential-medicaid-deal-avik-roy

http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2013/02/20/the-future-of-free-market-healthcare/

Let us start by stating a fact:  John McCain is a true American hero.  His military service, and even much of his political career, is to be praised and appreciated. He has given his life to public service, and I truly respect that.

But Mr. McCain has officially jumped the shark.

Sen. McCain along with with comrade-at-arms Sen. Lindsey Graham seem to believe they live in an alternate universe, apart from the rest of America.  Their delusions of grandeur run rampant, as they proceed without any thought or care greater than their foreign policy vision.  And most definitely, separate from the Party they seem to still think they are members of.

Just hours after Sen. Rand Paul finished his much praised, much watched and much talked about 12 hour filibuster to (successfully) force the Obama administration to admit that drone strikes cannot be used on American soil except in situations of imminent threat, both Sens. McCain and Graham, without Democrat support no less, went to the floor of the Senate to attack, not Barack Obama or Eric Holder, but…Rand Paul.

httpv://youtu.be/uzYEaY0dvUI

Now, let us put aside the drone issue.  Clearly, I believe McCain and Graham are on the substance of the issue incorrect.  But that doesn’t even matter to the point at hand.

The point is, Misters McCain and Graham think of themselves as a Party of 2.  They are only Republicans when it serves their own personal interest.  The remainder of the time, they look at themselves as mavericks.  And being a maverick is great, except when it isn’t.

Right now, it isn’t.

No one is saying they had to agree with Sen. Paul.  Disagree all you like.  But even if you disagree, going to the floor of the Senate to basically insult someone who is, theoretically at least, on your own team is insanity.

Oblivious as these two are, they have no understanding for the optics of the situation.  While Sen. Paul was on the floor of the Senate, these two men were having dinner with…President Obama.  Then, less than a day later, they are on the floor of the Senate, attacking one of their own.  They could have held their fire, for one day.  They could have written an editorial over the weekend in the New York Times.  They could have made their opinions known in a respectable way.  They decided on another, less dignified path.

This was a pivotal moment for the GOP, a moment where they stood for what was right, in a bipartisan manner no less…and these guys didn’t like it.  Not one bit.  Even establishment Republicans like Saxby Chambliss joined.  Minority Leader Mitch McConnell promised to hold the vote until Rand Paul was satisfied with the administration’s legal answer on the drone attacks.  The GOP sent out instant messages, rallying the troops, asking other Senators to join the filibuster, and raising money on the issue.  The Republican party, for once, was unified.

Except for the party of 2.

In fact, this was probably the strongest bipartisan issue opposing Obama since he became President.  Liberals, progressives, libertarians and conservatives, to one degree or another, joined Sen. Paul in his cry for civil liberties.  Sen. Patrick Leahy (D) promised to subpoena the Department of Justice to get the legal arguments for the drone strikes.  Sen. Ron Wyden (D) went so far to go to the Senate floor to applaud him.  People believed in the cause.

Except, of course, for the dynamic duo.

Both of these men have forgotten Reagan’s famous 11th commandment:  Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican.

I have often used this argument with my conservative brethren when it comes to talking about moderates in our party.  The likes of McCain and Graham have been the source of many fights on my end.  I defend them, saying that I don’t agree with them, but they are part of the team.  They are a member of the GOP.  Let Democrats do the attacking, we don’t need to be a circular firing squad.

At some point, when your allies keep stabbing you in the back, you have to shake your head, and walk away.  This may be that moment for me.

For John McCain, this has been a sad, slow descent into utter irrelevancy.  He and Graham are in a tiny and ever growing smaller caucus that believes in more power for the unitary Executive, more intervention overseas, and a bolder American foreign policy.  The third member of their three amigos, Joe Lieberman, has already been put out to pasture.

For reasons unknown to me, Barack Obama and other Democrats have followed these two down the primrose path, to one extent or another.  We have seen this in Libya, in Syria, and to some extent in places like Mali.  We have certainly seen it in issues like drones and the Patriot Act.  And if Sen. McCain and Sen Graham want to follow that path, more power to them.

But sooner rather than later, they are likely to notice there is no Party standing behind them.

This was cross posted at the Spitcracker Picayune. 

O.K., we took a beating.  Hell, we got pummeled.  Obama and his colleagues took every bit of conservative conventional wisdom (and even some liberal conventional wisdom), turned it on its head, and smacked us silly with it.  In one night, we lost the White House, lost seats in the Senate; we did take some governorships, and yes, held the House of Representatives, but lost Allen West and Mia Love, among others.

Welcome to the woodshed.

O.K., now that the self-flagellation is done (for the time being), get up and walk it off.

We lost.  It happens.

As a sports fan, I take these losses in stride.  Take University of Michigan football.  In 2008, we were horrendous.  The worst in a generation or two. (The same year, Obama won the presidency.  Double gut punch.)  It took a few years for Michigan to get back on its feet. We have lost three games this season, may lose a couple more…but most fans feel we are on the way back.  We went through a lot of strife, but we are on the right trajectory.

During the bad years, when others asked why we were confident everything would be o.k. in the long run, there was a simple meme: Simple:  WE ARE MICHIGAN.

This is the same as the conservative movement today.  Yes, we lost.  Yes, Barack Obama has found a weakness in our defenses, exploited it, and gone on to victory twice.  Congratulations to him.

But if time has told us anything, it is this:  we are conservatives.  We look to the long haul.  We believe more in the long term trends than short term pandering and payoffs.  We understand the fight for our nation is perpetual, from generation to generation, from grandmother to mother to child.

I congratulate Democrats today.  They fought hard, and beat us.  Simple as that.

But the fight for the heart and soul of this nation goes on.  One election, even two, doesn’t change that.  Did the four terms of Franklin Delano Roosevelt end the opposition?  Did the country falter after two horrible terms of Richard Nixon?  Did two terms of Bill Clinton end the conservative movement?  No…and neither will two terms of Barack Obama.   No one man, even one President, can destroy this nation.  I hope Obama gets smarter, and starts to realize the damage he is doing.  If not, then we will fix it in the future.  It may be painful, but that is what this country does; it learns, progresses, corrects, and moves on.

So lift your chins a little higher today.  We fought the good fight.  We lost; life is that way sometimes.  There is nothing to be ashamed of, nothing to force you to hang your heads in shame.  We fought for love of country, not revenge, and that is what we should do today and in the days forward.  Learn from what we did right, and what we did wrong.  We get up on our feet, dust ourselves off, and live to fight for another day.

Because we are conservatives…that is what we do.

Cross posted at Neoavatara. 

There are few ideas that would scare any Republican more than saying that Mitt Romney is turning into John Kerry…but there is at least some evidence that may be showing just that.  This is not a new idea, as even some of his Republican opponents in the primary suggested the comparison.  But is the comparison valid?

I think in many ways Romney is a superior candidate to Kerry of 2004, and that Obama is a weaker incumbent than Bush was at the same time 8 years ago.  And there are systemic advantages that I discuss below that make this a significantly different race.  But that doesn’t mean that Romney is not making some of the same false assumptions and mistakes that the Kerry campaign did.

What is interesting is to take a moment of time snap shot of the portrayal of the race from the New York Times from September 12, 2004:

It wasn’t supposed to be like this.

Everything seemed to be in place for a powerful run bySenator John Kerry in Ohio in the stretch drive after Labor Day. Al Gore lost the state by 175,000 votes in 2000, despite having pulled all his advertising early in October. Ohio has shed 250,000 jobs since George W. Bush became president. Rocked by scandals and an unpopular tax increase, the statehouse Republicans, from Gov. Bob Taft down the line, have been in unaccustomed disarray for weeks.

Ahead by six percentage points in a CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll in mid-July, Mr. Kerry trailed by nine points in a similar survey taken Sept. 3 through Sept. 7, immediately after the Republican convention. Kerry aides said the second poll had been taken too soon after the convention to be meaningful, but its results mirrored the impression of many savvy Ohio political figures.

Sound familiar?  It does to me.

Many made similar assumptions about Romney’s chances this time around: the economy was weak; Obama had lost jobs in the state; and key economic sectors had been damaged by this administration (namely, coal).  And Obama leads the state of Ohio by an average of 4.4 points as of today. Kerry trailed by 9 points at the same point in 2004.

Move forward 7 weeks.  Then note the New York Times from November 1, 2004…24 hours before the election.  At that point, John Kerry trailed George W. Bush by 1.5 points nationally:

The poll shows that Mr. Bush and his opponent, Senator John Kerry, remain locked in a statistical tie as they head into the final 48 hours of the race. But the poll registered an increase in Mr. Bush’s job approval rating, as well as an increase in the number of Americans who said the nation was heading in the right direction. Republicans described this as evidence that Mr. Bush was picking up speed in these closing days of the campaign, but Democrats dismissed the numbers, saying that both figures remain dangerously low for an incumbent.

Fittingly enough, this final pre-election Times/CBS News poll shows that the race is not much different at the end than it was in March, when Mr. Kerry emerged as his party’s presumptive nominee. The president has 49 percent, compared with 46 percent for Mr. Kerry.

This is virtually the same race we seem to be running today.

Obama is rerunning Karl Rove’s playbook from 2004.  This should fool no one, since the Obama campaign, especially David Axelrod, has hinted as much.  The plan was to drive the opponents negatives up in the summer, consolidate the base, and ride the convention to the election victory.  And so far, it is working.

The similarities to 2004 are important, but there are some key differences as well.

First, in 2004 the key issue was foreign policy, as the wars weighed heavily on every issue.  Bush had some strength in that area however, especially after capturing Saddam Hussein and in his response to 9/11, and Kerry was never able to overcome that.  The second most important issue in 2012 was moral issues, and Bush crushed Kerry on that topic, 80%-12%.  Simply put, on the issues that mattered, Kerry never won a majority of America.

In 2012, the issue is still the economy.  The media portrayal of a ‘recovering’ economy is a facade that cannot be hidden by the unemployment numbers and other data, which shows an economy that at best is stagnating, and at worst is faltering.

Second difference that is apparent is about party excitement.  In 2004, Democrats had the energy  behind them, as they ran a campaign to oust Bush.  However, Bush was able to counter this successfully; on election day, Republicans achieved parity with Democrats in voter turnout, something that had never happened.  This year, the excitement is also with the challenger.  The question is, can Obama use demographic advantages like Bush did to narrow that margin?  We do not know that yet.

So, all is lost!  Right?  Not so fast, my friends.  The real question for conservatives, and especially the Romney campaign, is simple:  how do they change the dynamic?  What can Mitt Romney do that John Kerry did not or could not?

First and foremost, Romney must win on the core issue of this election: the economy.  In 2004, the core issue of the election was not the economy, but the wars and Bush’s foreign policy.  On those issues, Bush and his allies largely neutralized Kerry’s early advantage, and made the public largely uneasy with a potential Kerry Presidency.  Romney must avoid this at all costs.  He must portray Obama’s economic record as unfit to earn the President re-election.  Right now, Obama is even with Romney on most economic issues, but that has only been true since the Convention.  Romney must focus on these kitchen table issues and drive up negatives for Obama on the issue of jobs and the economy.

Second, Romney must somehow get Obama on the defensive.  The most apparent way I can think of is on foreign affairs, which up to this point has been an Obama strength.  Kerry was only able to put Bush on the defensive seriously on one occasion all through 2004; in the first Presidential debate.  Romney must score points on foreign affairs, which should be made all the easier with Obama recent bumbling on Libya, and his complete lack of vision in the Middle East.

Third, and most importantly, Romney’s campaign must set the agenda and control the news cycle.  This was something Kerry was never able to do, and frankly, Romney has largely been unable to do as well.  If I were in the Romney campaign, I would pick four topics to focus on, each for a week or so, until November.  Have ads ready to pound the Obama campaign on, and never let them distract you from the message.  Keep Obama defending his policies, which prevents him from scoring points on Romney.  Romney has been able to do that on at least two occasions this year:  1, when Obama had his ‘You didn’t build that’ gaffe, and after picking Paul Ryan as VP, where Romney and Ryan pounded the Democrats on Medicare for a week  or so.  But since that time, through the convention to now, the discussion has either been driven by the Democrats or outside events. Romney must regain control of the messaging war, and do it soon.

One last point, that has more to do with the state of the race as it stands today.  Kerry, before the debates and other than after his post-convention bounce, never came closer than 6 points to Bush.  The debates gave Kerry a boost that brought him within 2 points, but he never was able to make the closing sale after that.  If Romney can get a similar boost as Kerry did from the debates…this race is truly tied, and then it becomes a turnout election where enthusiasm matters…and I still believe Republicans on election day are going to be more excited.  Romney must score points at the debates, because that may be the last true game changer he has left.

Additionally, Romney right now trails by less than 4 points, assuming the polls are accurate.  Compare that to 2004, however.  At that time, there were a grand total of ZERO polls that showed Kerry with a lead any time in September and October.  However, Romney has led, at various times, in the Rasmussen poll, and has been largely even with Obama in the Gallup poll.  That is a polling situation Kerry could only have dreamed about.  Simply put:  the 2012 election is much closer at this point than the 2004 election; an election that Kerry lost by 120,000 votes in Ohio.

Romney has systemic advantages that Kerry had no opportunity to take advantage of.  So the openings are there.  The question is how soon and how hard Romney will use those to his benefit.

This was cross posted on Neoavatara.

On Friday, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney actually made the argument that the protests had nothing to do with American Foreign Policy, but were completely and wholly about the Youtube video insulting Mohammed.

“This is a fairly volatile situation, and it is in response not to United States policy, obviously not to the administration, not to the American people. It is in response to a video, a film, that we have judged to be reprehensible and disgusting — that in no way justifies any violent reaction to it.”

On the Sunday morning news shows, UN Ambassador Susan Rice reiterated the view:

“We’re not impotent,were not even less popular to challenge that assessment” said Rice. ” What happened this week in Cairo, in Benghazi and many other parts of the region was a result, a direct result, of a heinous and offensive video that was widely disseminated, that the U.S. government had nothing to do with, which we have made clear is reprehensible and disgusting.”

This is a skewed view of the Muslim world that holds no basis in reality whatsoever.

Let us stipulate a few things that everyone should basically agree with.  The Muslim World’s hate for the west has existed for decades at least, if not longer, and predates Barack Obama. Second, their anger at us primarily results from our support of Israel, though it has dramatically expanded since 9/11 and George W. Bush’s foreign policy. Third, extremists jihadists in the form of Al Qaeda, the Muslim Brotherhood and others are alive and well through out the Middle East, and if anything, are growing in power in countries that have unstable governments.

Understanding the above, to believe that this video, which likely has been seen by less than 1/100th of 1% of the Muslim world, is the cause of this uproar belies logic and sanity. There is a basic premise here: there are Islamists through out the Middle East that hate America and the west, and what we stand for.  And the Obama Administration view of events on the ground simply dismisses this reality. The video is, quite simply, not the reason for this hate at all.  It is an excuse to focus their hate and anger on the west.

Furthermore, Obama may be reading too much of his own press.  He believes he is the Barack Obama of 2009, who gave speeches in Mexico City and Cairo to great applause, talking about building relationships out of respect.  This is not reality.  Reality is that we now have President Barack Obama of 2012.  That man is a man that is less respected and liked in the Middle East than George W. Bush.  This has been shown in several polls over the last few years.  I know liberals believe that this is not the case even though it is true, but would you not expect better from professionals in the White House?  I guess not.

This happens historically. The Bush Administration, for one, kept fooling itself that things in Iraq were going to get better between 2005-2006.  They were deluding themselves, in a manner that was detrimental to U.S. interests.  Not until the deluge at the 2006 midterms did President Bush wake up, and change course with the surge, which likely saved the entire endeavor.

The bubble of the Oval Office sometimes prevents reality from seeping in and effecting policy, and more and more that appears to be the case with this White House.  They somehow believe that repeating the case that this video, largely by itself, started us on the road to the killing of our diplomats and the current uproar in the Middle East will make their case true. They believe they can try to convince the world that these were spontaneous attacks, when Libyan and Egyptian government officials, from the Prime Minister on down, disagree; and while intelligence services in Israel, Libya, Egypt, and through out Europe say otherwise.

In the entire world, the only government that believes this was spontaneous and unplanned is the United States of America.

This self delusion would not matter so much, except it goes to the heart of what is the matter with the entire Obama foreign policy.  Obama is under delusions of gradeur.  He believe his own greatness, his own ability to persuade and convince others, can change the world. This is a fool’s view of reality.  The reality is Obama is applauded when he placates the Muslim World, but when he speaks truths he is roundly castigated.  This is no different than every Western leader of my lifetime.

Moreover, let us look at results on the ground.  Where in the Middle East have American interests improved over the past four years?  I would be hard pressed to pick any nation where that is the case.  Possibly Libya, and we see how much progress that has truly created with the events of the last week.

Both Barack Obama and Mitt Romney must speak clearly on their position in regards to the Middle East.  The American people deserve a robust dialogue of their world vision, and how that pertains to our interests in that troubled region.  Any honest observer would be hard pressed to explain either man’s policy in the region.  And that, more than anything, tells us why America is failing to win over the hearts and minds of the world.

This was cross posted on Neoavatara.

But as always, actions have repercussions.

This week’s events in Libya and Egypt, along with more recent protests in Tunisia and Yemen, show exactly where the process of ‘reform’ in the Middle East stands.

Reform for the West means more democratic principles, more ability to have fair representation in government, and more overall economic and religious freedom.

For the Middle East, reforms primarily mean the ability to expand the power of Islam.  In every country we are discussing the current leaders are largely Islamists who, in one manner or another, have much closer ties to extremists groups than their predecessors, and as predicted, have policies that follow that extremist past.  Groups like the Muslim Brotherhood and other Al Qaeda factions have gained support, as American power and influence has waned.

Why is it any surprise that their populations follow those beliefs?  That is the predictable progression of events we are now seeing.  In two short years, the Arab street, with the assistance and support of the Obama administration, has transitioned from a region which was governed by totalitarians largely at peace with the U.S., to a situation where most of these countries are openly antagonistic to our interests, and frankly have little interest in placating waning American power.

Furthermore, let us not fool ourselves.  Without the involvement of this administration, these changes would not have happened.  President Obama has, on several occasions, taken some credit for the coming of the Arab Spring, and rightfully so.  Qaddafi would be in power today without U.S. intervention.  Mubarak or his successors would control Egypt in some fashion, although there may be a lot of violence in protest of the government.  Yemeni revolutionaries would have been crushed by their military.  Tunisia may be the one exception, where U.S. involvement had little to do with the overthrow of the previous government.  So this is a situation largely of our choice and making.

Was it the right thing to unleash the Arab Spring?  This is one of those historical arguments, much like ‘was it right to go into Iraq and Afghanistan?’ that cannot be answered in the short term.  What can be answered is this:  has American interests benefited in the short term?

The answer in the short term is clearly ‘No’.

We are certainly in a weaker position in regards to the Middle East today.  Obama yesterday proclaimed that Egypt was ‘no longer an ally’.  That is speaking about a country that is our largest recipient of foreign aid outside of Israel, a country that has largely been helpful of U.S. interests for more than three decades.

In Yemen, our position gets weaker by the day.  And every drone strike we perform there likely is deleterious to long term efforts to increase American support.  We have this year killed more civilians in Yemen than terrorists; that is not a helpful ratio.

In Libya, there is no central government, and with our supply of arms, we now have an uncontrolled military market that can have untold repercussions; the death of our diplomats in Benghazi was simply the first of those repercussions that effected us.

The current administration has been blind to the realities on the ground in the Middle East, and this is long before you consider the Israeli/Iranian conflict.  If that explodes, as many predict, the events of the past few days will look like a campfire in comparison.  And this administration appears less and less capable of dealing with those realities.

This was cross posted on Neoavatara.

1. Massachusetts

The race between Sen. Scott Brown and Harvard Professor Elizabeth Warren has been heated and likely will be the most expensive Senate race this year.  A PPP poll released today shows Brown with the largest lead of the race yet, leading 49-44.  The only news of note was that Warren asked Brown for his tax records for all the years he worked in government, not realizing she herself had not met that challenge.  Warren also received a coveted spot at the Democratic National Convention.  Brown will be speaking at the Republican Convention.

PREDICTION:  Scott Brown by a nose.  But really a tossup.  Right now, Republican hold.  Confidence Level:  Low, but increasing.   NO CHANGE.

2.  Virginia

Nothing has changed…and the polls are tied.

PREDICTION:  Allen, by a few thousand votes; a virtual toss-up.  Republican pickup.  Confidence Level:  Low.   NO CHANGE.

3.  Nevada

Nevada is another battleground state which, like Virginia, is going to be a party proxy.  Heller leads Berkeley by a tiny margin in the polls, but any news could shift this race.  An internal Democrat poll showed Berkeley with a small lead, but we know the reliability of internal polls.

PREDICTION:  Heller.  Republican hold.  Confidence Level:  Moderate.  NO CHANGE.

4. North Dakota

I still believe as election day comes, barring any shocking news, Berg will pull away late.

PREDICTION:  Berg.  Republican pickup.  Confidence Level:  Moderate/high.  NO CHANGE.

5.  Montana

There has been no significant polling in Montana in months, so no news to report.

PREDICTION.  Rehberg.  Republican pickup.  Confidence Level:  Moderate.  NO CHANGE.

6.  Wisconsin

Former Gov. Tommy Thompson won a heated primary, but was clearly the strongest and best known of the Republican challengers.  He is well ahead in every poll versus Democrat Tammy Baldwin.  The most recent Rasmussen poll shows his lead in double digits, which I am starting to believe.  Baldwin is maybe the most liberal candidate to run for Senate in that state ever, which is quite an accomplishment.  With Paul Ryan as the Veep pick, Republicans are as energized as can be.

PREDICTION:  Thompson.  Republican pickup.  Confidence Level:  High.   CHANGE:  WIDENING REPUBLICAN LEAD.

7.  Florida

The polls in Florida still show Nelson with a solid lead.  But I am hearing that insiders on both sides think this race is neck and neck.  I am not making any changes yet though.

PREDICTION:  Nelson.  Democrat hold.  Confidence Level:  Low.  NO CHANGE, THOUGH RACE IS NARROWING.

8.  Missouri

I have a lot of curse words I can put in here.  Todd Akin, after choosing himself over party and country, stays in the race after his ridiculous and inexcusable gaffe this past weekend.  He will have no national support, no outside groups spending on the race, and Claire McCaskill will go skipping toward another useless term as senator.  The easiest pick up for Senate Republicans is now lost, unless Akin somehow gets out of the race, but at this point that prospect is difficult and unlikely.

Prediction:  Democrat pickup.  Confidence Level:  High.   Dear God in Heaven, WHY?!?!?!?!

9.  New Mexico

New Mexico continues to trend blue.

Prediction:  Democrat hold.  Confidence Level:  Moderate.   NO CHANGE.

10.  Maine

Olympia Snowe stunned Republicans with her retirement.  Former Independent Governor Angus King is going to walk away with this election, and will caucus with Democrats.

Prediction:  Independent win; virtual Democrat gain.  Confidence Level:  High.  NO CHANGE.

11.  Ohio

I didn’t consider Ohio a real battleground last time around.  Now, I am starting to believe.  Mandel has clearly narrowed the margin with Brown, and has significant money to spend in a state that is getting pummeled with political ads from all side.  A PPP poll showed Brown up by 10, but a Rasmussen poll showed it tied.  I believe that it is somewhere in the middle, but that means that it is definitely in the tossup category.

Prediction:  Democrat hold.  Confidence Level:  Low.  CHANGE FROM SOLID DEMOCRAT TO LEANS DEMOCRAT.

The above still does not include other races like Hawaii, Michigan, Arizona, and Connecticut, states in which should the incumbent party should hold their respective seats, or Nebraska which is an obvious Republican pickup.

If you take all this into account, there is a net gain of 1 for Democrats from July predictions, and that would mean the Democrats gain one Republican seat (Maine), while Republicans gain only 5 seats.  That would give Republicans a net gain of 4 seats, a 51-47-2 advantage in the Senate, and the majority, making Mitch McConnell the Senate Majority leader.

We have already seen the trend lines though.  North Dakota, Ohio, Wisconsin, and Florida are all slightly trending red, although no change has been made yet.  None of these races, not one, appears to be trending more blue in the last month.  Clearly Democrats in Florida, New Mexico, and Ohio still have to feel pretty good, but elsewhere, their chances at holding the Senate appear more, not less, bleak as the Summer has progressed.  Missouri is a heart breaker though…the prospects of a Republican Senate is greatly diminished by the Akin controversy, and hopefully my predictions hold so that stupidity will not effect the greater cause.

CROSSPOST

Somehow Rep. Akin found a new one.

Rep. Todd Akin, the Republican nominee for Senate in Missouri who is running against Sen. Claire McCaskill, justified his opposition to abortion rights even in case of rape with a claim that victims of “legitimate rape” have unnamed biological defenses that prevent pregnancy.

“First of all, from what I understand from doctors [pregnancy from rape] is really rare,” Akin told KTVI-TV in an interview posted Sunday. “If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.”

This is abhorrent, ignorant, idiotic, foolish, blindingly stupid…I would use a few other choice words, but I have promised never to curse on this site.

Akin must go…now.  I am willing to give leeway to candidates saying dumb things once in a while, things that are a slip of the tongue, or a simple misunderstanding.  This is none of those. The video of this is worse than the quote.  It shows a man that is clueless beyond all measure, and shouldn’t be voted in as a local dog catcher, let along as a U.S. Senator.

It is time for the GOP and the conservatives of America to stand up and replace this man, because he is not fit to be a member of the U.S. Senate.

Crosspost

Presidents who are successful in winning a second term often center their campaigns on a grand vision.  Reagan had the ‘city on the hill’ in 1984. FDR continued his grand progressive vision of the New Deal, cementing Democrats as the majority party for a generation.  Even Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, neither known for the ‘vision thing’, largely had a clear, enunciated plan to move the nation forward.

Dare I ask:  What is Barack Obama’s vision?

Left to his own devices, Obama would love to run a campaign on ‘Hope and Change 2.0′.  But a little thing called reality stepped in the way.  The economy, which many have suspected was languishing in a period of stagnation we have not seen in four decades, has truly been struggling, as today’s July jobs report is sure to continue to show.

There is no change.  And there is certainly no hope.

President Obama has laid out very few specifics on what he would do with a second term.  The grand irony is the Obama campaign as well as the mainstream media criticize Romney for the lack of specifics, after providing far more than Obama ever has.  Obama’s stump speeches today are largely the same old message as he rolled out in 2010 and 2011:  more spending, more infrastructure, and magically…more jobs.

The truth is Obama’s economic plan is a house of cards.  The public, by large margins, is against another large stimulus. The evidence is clear that although infrastructure spending may have a positive economic impact in the ‘out years’ (meaning a duration of decades), it does not have much economic impact in the short term.  Obama himself now accepts that ‘shovel ready jobs’ never existed.  Those jobs were always an illusion created in a liberal think tank, not on the roads and byways of America.

So all that is left of the liberal solutions to our economic doldrums is to throw money blindly at the problem, and hope for the best:  The Krugmanian solution, as it were.  But we all know where that ends up, don’t we?

Actually, we are living that reality, here today, in 2012.

We don’t need to imagine what a future under a second term of Barack Obama would look like, because we are experiencing it in real time.  Obama as President. The House in GOP hands.  Sure, the Senate could switch to the GOP or not, but would that really make all that much difference? Basically, re-electing Barack Obama is a vote for the status quo.  There really is no reason to believe that any of the major players will change if Obama is re-elected.

And what is that status quo?

As of the last jobs report, the unemployment rate is 8.2%, while the Obama Administration predicted it would be 5.6% when the stimulus was passed.  Since the recession ended in June of 2009, less than half the jobs lost in the recession have been recovered. About 7.6 million people were working before the recession than are working now.  4.2 million of those jobs were lost from the time Obama took office to February of 2010, just as a point of clarification.

The Obama Administration arbitrarily picks a date 27 months ago as the starting point for their recovery.  Even using their own hand picked starting point, Obama’s recovery created 4.3 million jobs.  When you take that total and divide it by the intervening 27 months, we arrive at an average of about 159,000 jobs over that stretch.  That, my friends, is the economic equivalent of treading water, when you consider that as a nation we need approximately 150,000 jobs a month just to meet our overall population growth.

The closest analogue we have historically for this recession is the 1980-1982 recession.   At this point during that recovery, which is said to have begun in July 1981 and ended in November 1982, the economy had produced an 8.9 percent increase in civilian employment — almost 9 million jobs. Real GDP growth averaged over 5 percent in the first three years of the Reagan recovery, compared to an average of 2.4 percent three years into the Obama recovery.

Obama supporters will argue that this is a deeper recession with more profound structural difficulties.  Maybe so.  But traditionally, even going back to the Great Depression which certainly had far greater long term structural challenges, the economic rule has been clear:  the sharper the recession, the faster the recovery.  The opposite has held true under Obama.  Even if you can’t compare this recession to Reagan’s, you cannot make a valid argument to explain away the doldrums that we now suffer through.

What makes this doubly bad is that Obama really has no new vision to change the country’s course.  Ironically, his mantra has become ‘Stay the course’.   His stump speeches are the same, tired rhetoric about jobs and infrastructure we have heard from 2008 onward.  Intellectually, Obama’s well has run dry.  What you see is what you get.  And what we are seeing right now isn’t good.

Every presidental re-election campaign ultimately boils down to a simple binary choice:  does the President deserve four more years?  It has always been a referendum, no matter how the President in power wants to spin it.  1980 was a clear referendum on Jimmy Carter’s abject failure both in foreign affairs and domestic policy.  Reagan’s landslide in 1984 was driven by the appearance of a real recovery, with an average of half a million jobs being created a month late into that year.  1992 was fascinating, as the economy was clearly recovering (GDP grew by approximately 4% in the final quarter of that year), but the public didn’t feel the recovery, pushing George H.W. Bush to defeat.  Bill Clinton and George W. Bush both had good economic records while running for re-election, although they had secondary issues that were dragging them down politically.  But even in those cases, it didn’t matter, as the public gave both of them a second chance.

There is no historical analogue for Barack H. Obama to create a path to re-election. There is no real example of the economy languishing and the public giving the President a pass.  Maybe, as liberals keep hoping, this time will be different, unique, unexpected.  And Obama’s supporters hope that he will come up with some miracle to help the economy recover in his second term.  However, one thing is clear:  you don’t need to imagine what a second Obama term would look like.

We are already living it today.