There I said it. For years, I’ve been wondering what it was that was ‘off’ about Ron Paul.It got crystallized in tonight’s debate in South Carolina. Oddly, though, despite Ron Paul basically fibbing and blundering through several answers, his online minions have him ‘winning’ tonight’s debate, a debate where Newt Gingrich, Rick Perry, Rick Santorum especially articulated multiple excellent conservative points moreso than Ron Paul. | Read More »
No Republican candidate in the era of primary politics has won without winning Iowa or New Hampshire. Now that Romney has won both, he is the prohibitive favorite to win the nomination. The talk of Romney being a weak frontrunner is meaningless when the real weakness and questions surround the rest of the field. Romney is the prohibitive favorite because there is no credible and | Read More »
I’ve found myself defending Santorum from the claims that Santorum is some phony conservative – a ‘neo-con’ and a ‘big Government conservative’ – and in the process of researching found that, not only is Rick Santorum the conservative I believed he was, but that he has fiscal and economic bona fides that should make small-Government conservatives quite willing to support him. Part of the attacks | Read More »
Conservatives are seeing a bit of the same GOP primary train wreck that we have seen before: Conservative base voters flit between a number of non-viable candidates, judging harshly any deviance from conservative orthodoxy enough to sideline effective candidates, while the establishmentarians pick a non-conservative “next in line” guy, fund him, and get to work getting him nominated. If GOP history is any guide, the | Read More »
Texas Governor Rick Perry chances for winning the Republican nomination are looking more imperiled now than ever, with poll numbers showing Herman Cain as the rising star, taking much of the conservative and Tea Party support that was briefly his. Beset by stories about rocks, religion, in-state tuition, and changes of heart about what he said in debates, Perry has been out of his groove | Read More »
It’s useful to compare this year Republican primary with the one 4 years ago as a template, because in all GOP primaries, there are key groups and constituencies. 4 years ago, there never emerged a consensus conservative candidate, and as a result, we got a ‘maverick’. What about 2012? Mitt Romney is this year’s McCain, the ‘establishment’ candidate. The moderates and establishment are always flocking | Read More »
The Republicans need a vigorous, clear, strong response to Obama’s Job Bill. Accepting Obama’s failed big spending stimulus rehash as-is would be a huge step backwards for fiscal responsibility. Congressional Republicans have adopted a cautious approach, and Republican House leaders sent this message: “We share your desire for bipartisan cooperation, and assume that your ideas were not presented as an all-or-nothing proposition, but rather in | Read More »
The Social Security exchange between Romney and Perry in the debate tonight crystallizes the fault line in the Republican party: the play-it-safe establishment versus the conservative populist tell-it-like-it-is wings. It reminded me of when in a 1987 debate, George HW Bush decided to call Pete DuPont’s idea of social security choice “a nutty idea”. “That’s a nutty idea Pierre” George said of DuPont’s plan to | Read More »
Pundits are noticing the eerie parallels between Obama’s Jobs Speech and President Carter’s Malaise speech – almost three years into his first and only term, Carter gave the infamous ‘malaise’ speech to reboot his Presidency, dogged by both domestic economic challenges and foreign policy setbacks. The dour speech did more to gell the mood of the country than fix it. We figured out then that | Read More »
If we are to fix our economic problems here in the US, we are going to have to answer one basic question: How do we create economic value in the United States in the 21st century? How we create economic value is more important than our deficit, our debt, or even the question of jobs. It is the fundamental question, but the one question that | Read More »
It wasn’t that long ago that what I now predict as inevitable would have been unthinkable. A few months back, Gov Perry was wrestling with a Texas-sized budget shortfall, Trump was at the top of the primary polls, and when asked, Perry responded that he lacked an interest in running for President. At this time, what America desperately needs is an economic policy that works | Read More »
This deal saves Harry Reid’s hide and guts the Ryan/House FY2012 budget in one fell swoop: At one point in the negotiations, the 2012 budget was to be slashed by $36 billion. The final number of cuts: just $7 billion. And just to ensure we don’t have another bruising government shutdown fight over cuts in September, the deal deems and passes the 2012 budget. Yes, | Read More »
Both Boehner and Reid have plans now, and the good news that they both have the formula of ‘some amount of cuts for some amount of debt ceiling increase’. The GOP won; the Democrats blinked. Are we done? Nope. We need to get good cuts. I have a proposal, a path to Compromise that will give us (at least some) good cuts and a quick | Read More »
“Cut, Cap, and Balance failed in the United States Senate with four votes shy of 50. The vote was 51-46 to table.” What this news means: Majority of the members of both Houses of Congress supports Cut, Cap and Balance. It got 46 of 100 Senators and 234 of 435 House members to support it – 52% of the members of Congress. It’s the only | Read More »
You know you are close to the target when the FUD and the flak starts flying thick and fast. Democrats are wheeling out their old sturdy workhorse campaign gambit – “They are killing Medicare”. See Senator Conrad in action. Well. It’s time for us to respond to this political gamesmanship with a few key points: The Senate has not produced a budget in 2 years. | Read More »
In the weekend talking head shows, Charles Krauthammer and Senator Marco Rubio point out a curious missing feature in Obama’s ‘proposals’: Real numbers. Details. Specifics. Substance. CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: [The President] talks a good game. “Oh, I’m prepared to do entitlements, I’m ready to do entitlements.” Not once has he ever enunciated in public – other than all these leaks which I don’t trust for half | Read More »
It’s the Arrogance, Stupid! It is sad and unfortunate that the Liberal Establishment is so disdainful of the “Tea Party” Republicans, that they don’t bother listening to what they are saying. And what are they saying? The #1 threat to America is not the current (perhaps phony) debt ceiling increase, but the fundamental threat to America’s financial future due to a Government that is spending | Read More »
Why are things so off the rails, with this awful no-good, bad-deal-worse-than-no-deal McConnell punt-and-pass-the-buck ‘offer’ apparently the best idea our leaders can come up with, haplessly up against a lying bad-faith negotiator in President Obama? The problems: 1. Fearing a shutdown. The biggest mistake made from the get-go is Speaker Boehner’s incorrect interpretation of how the 1995 government shutdown went down, and his fear of | Read More »
OPINION: A Return to Regular Order to Handle the Debt By Congressman John Carter The hopes of the country were high – unjustifiably high – following November’s landslide election of a new House of Representatives committed to balancing the federal budget and avoiding a Greek-style calamity. We can say “unjustifiably” from the reality that Republicans won only one of the two houses of Congress and | Read More »
Failures in politics often have to do with lack of imagination. On the debt crisis front we have two apparently irreconcilalble positions: 1. We must raise the debt ceiling or the U.S. will suffer grave consequences (default). 2. We cannot afford to continue to borrow and spend, or the U.S. will face bankruptcy eventually. The obvious solution to this dilemma has been put forward by | Read More »
![[RS]](/t/img/logo-footer.jpg){kind=logo}