U.S. 2012 Election

[a_majoor]

Not everyone is wishing the TEA party movement success:

http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/the-shadow-party-how-a-washington-based-liberal-activist-is-trying-to-turn-texas-blue-whether-texans-want-it-or-not/?singlepage=true

The Shadow Party: How a Washington-Based Liberal Activist Is Trying to Turn Texas Blue (Whether Texans Want It or Not)
The "Colorado Model" and George Soros' "Shadow Party" have both landed in Texas in the form of a shady activist with a plan: attack the GOP's largest stronghold and destroy its limited-government success story.
September 16, 2010 - by Bryan Preston

Since Republicans took majorities in the Texas legislature and captured all the statewide offices in 2003, Texas has earned a reputation as a solidly Republican state in which no Democrat stands a chance of winning anything worthwhile. Or so it would seem, but the fact is Republicans don’t now and have never held a majority of elected offices across Texas since Reconstruction.  Democrats still hold a narrowing majority of offices statewide, and that’s true even after several dozen local level Democrats switched parties and became Republicans this year. Hundreds of Democrats have switched parties over the past few election cycles, bringing Republicans closer to parity and bringing these officials in line with the state’s conservative majority. The highest profile party switcher of this cycle, state Rep. Chuck Hopson of east Texas, extended the Republicans’ majority in the state House to four seats, 77-73. But even that is a narrow majority at a very high level in a state with such a strong Republican reputation. And thanks in part to an out-of-state political operation, Democrats have actually made gains in Texas over the last couple of election cycles.

Texas’ Republican reputation has coincided directly with its rise to economic dominance, and with good reason. The Republicans have tried to live by three simple rules. They are 1) keep taxes low, 2) keep regulation fair and predictable and 3) don’t set up government as the be-all-end-all for every problem. Democrats loudly disagree with all three.

Texas must be doing something right. About 1,200 Americans pull up stakes and move to Texas each week, and companies as diverse as Facebook and Caterpillar have expanded here at a time when the national economy is still reeling from the recession.  Texas is also rapidly urbanizing along the I-35 corridor that runs down the middle of the state, and has become both the nation’s leading energy exporter and a major high-tech hub. After redistricting next year, Texas could gain as many as four or five new seats in Congress. The Lone Star State’s voice will grow in Washington, and for the already threatened Democrats here and in D.C., Texas has become a prize that’s too big to continue ignore.

It’s against this backdrop that the Democratic capo Matt Angle operates. Angle has built one of the most sophisticated financial and activist operations networks anywhere in the country. Angle’s Tangle was built to pursue a singular goal: turn Texas blue whether the voters here like it or not.

Matt Angle declared his goal in 2005 when he launched his Lone Star Project: Elect a Democratic speaker of the Texas House, and elect a Democrat to statewide office. Notice there’s nothing in there about bringing better government to the state, or representing the people’s wishes, or creating a climate that fosters economic growth. To Angle it’s all about partisanship and power and the looming redistricting, and he has pursued his goals with a ruthlessness that is rarely seen even in Texas politics.  Well, not at least since 2000, when the Democrats who were then a dying majority redistricted themselves into majorities that the state’s voters were no longer giving them. Rather than run on issues — Democrats in Texas lose on those — Angle is on a seek and destroy mission targeting Republicans in the state House on up to the governor’s mansion.

Most Texans would probably be shocked to learn that the man whom Texas Democrat operative Glenn Smith recently described as “the de facto state [Democratic] party right now” isn’t even in Texas most of the time. The media here has certainly done little to explain who Angle is or what he’s up to. But according to an article published in Roll Call in early 2010, Angle runs his Texas operation out of a row house in Washington, D.C. From that Washington lair, Angle directs operations at the Texas Democratic Party by controlling its purse strings via a massive slush fund left him by the late Fred Baron, a Dallas trial lawyer primarily known for asbestos lawsuits and for helping John Edwards cover up his relationship with his then campaign videographer, Rielle Hunter. That fact alone strongly argues against any notion that Baron left his money to Angle for any real good-government purpose, and at the same time lays waste to any idea that Angle even cares about good government. He is a partisan who cares about power. Baron reportedly left Angle as much as $10 million, a cache Angle has used to replicate what has been called the “Colorado Model” and operate the Texas Democratic Trust. That fund is among the Texas Democratic Party’s primary sources of income, as is Lisa Blue Baron — Baron’s widow. Angle uses the Trust to fuel projects like the Lone Star Fund, the Lone Star Project, and the Texas Justice Fund, while he uses his relationships with former Democratic Rep. Martin Frost staffers like Container Store heiress Aimee Boone to keep the Texas Democratic Party and its nominal chairman under his thumb. Roll Call also reported that Angle uses the Baron fortune to keep himself at the center of a web of Democratic intrigue, and to enrich himself.

    For example: According to state and federal campaign records, the Lone Star Fund (Treasurer Matt Angle) pays rent to E St. Properties for use of the Capitol Hill row house (owned by Matt Angle), pays Angle & Associates Inc. for consulting services (about $100,000 between 2004 and 2007) and has donated about $20,000 to the Texas Democratic Trust (Treasurer Matt Angle). The Texas Democratic Trust since 2005 has paid Angle & Associates more than $1.2 million for consulting services, travel reimbursements and rent, and it pays retainers as much as $7,000 a month to a variety of political consultants and researchers who also work for the Texas Democratic Party, the Lone Star Trust or other affiliated organizations.

According to Texas Ethics Commission reports, available online, Angle has personally made over $700,000 from the operation.  And nepotism is part of the program.

    Two of Angle’s organizations, the Lone Star Fund and the Texas Justice Fund, are also listed as clients of a consulting firm run by Angle’s bother, J.D. Angle.


    * Key – Lone Star Project – Angle’s online attack vehicle
    * Texas Trial Lawyers Association – Houston trial lawyer and Democratic bankroller Steve Mostyn’s organization, pushes against sensible tort reform on behalf of trial lawyers
    * Texas Freedom Network – anti-Christian organization run by Cecilia Richards
    * Back to Basics PAC – Texas version of MoveOn.org, bankrolled by Houston trial lawyer Steve Mostyn, has launched extreme attack ads on Republican Gov. Rick Perry
    * Texans for Public Justice – nominally nonpartisan watchdog funded by Soros and Heinz-Kerry that attacks Angle’s chosen targets
    * Texas Democratic Trust – Angle’s massive slush fund, left to him by John Edwards’ benefactor
    * Texas Democratic Party – under Angle’s control from Washington
    * Texas Progress Council – left-wing PAC that funds Democratic candidates

Because of his position as the Texas Democratic Party’s shadow chairman, Angle exerts a great deal of influence over several left-wing groups across Texas, some of which pass themselves off as non-partisan. Among those is Texans for Public Justice, a group that claims to be interested in “tracking the influence of money and corporate power in Texas politics.” That interest is decidedly one-way: TPJ never takes on Democrat operatives like Angle, and in media hit after media hit, is always on his side.  This makes sense when you take a look at who funds TPJ: Open Society Institute (George Soros, whose fortune also directly funds candidates even at the local level in Texas) and the Tides Foundation (Teresa Heinz-Kerry, among many others). Scratch the surface of most “nonpartisan watchdogs” in your state and you’ll probably find the same money sources, and perhaps a similar network of activists and groups. They are Soros’ “Shadow Party.” TPJ is a left-wing front masquerading as a nonpartisan watchdog.Somehow the mainstream media in Texas consistently misses the fact that TPJ never takes on Democrats, about anything, ever. Ditto for “non-partisan” groups like the Texas Freedom Network (founded and run by Cecilia Richards, daughter of the late acerbic Democratic Gov. Ann Richards) and the Texas Values in Action Coalition (TEXVAC), both of which have been very active in the 2009-2010 election cycle dredging up and amplifying attacks on Republicans, which then get major interest from the mainstream media.

The Angle operation hunts as a pack. It starts when Angle and his operatives manufacture an ethical charge against a vulnerable Republican. The allied groups, Texans for Public Justice, TEXVAC, and Back to Basics PAC, generate a flurry of press releases decrying the evil Republican. Mainstream media dutifully reports and amplifies the charge, quoting the spokesmen with the furrowed brows at the Angle-allied groups. A Democratic candidate, funded and controlled by an Angle ally, Houston multimillionaire trial lawyer Steve Mostyn, waits in the wings while the Republican crashes and burns.

This model was used to great effect in Colorado a few years back, and Angle has replicated it for deployment in Texas, refined it, and added a new weapon in the form of  Mostyn (more about him in a future article), who by the time we get to November will have funded half a dozen of these groups and a couple dozen Democratic candidates including gubernatorial nominee Bill White, all to the tune of $3 million out of his personal fortune. Don’t worry, though, his hurricane lawsuits have netted him so much that he won’t miss it.

Angle’s immediate targets are Republicans, but ultimately, his target is Texas as a whole. Texas is one of the few large states with an economy that manages to create jobs, and is one of the few states run by leaders who don’t see a tax increase as the solution to every problem. This was hammered home when, in 2002, lame-duck Democrats in the legislature saddled the incoming Republican majority with a $10 billion budget shortfall as a way to force them to institute a state income tax. The Republicans chose to cut spending instead, keeping the state’s tax burden among the lowest in the nation. If Angle’s Tangle were to succeed and return Democrats to power, there’s no reason to expect them to do anything but roll back the Republican success story here, and push Democratic statism on Texans who year after year say with our votes that we don’t want it.

I’ll close with this thought. Angle’s efforts brought the Democrats to within a couple of seats of taking over the Texas House in 2008. Chances are he’ll lose ground this year, but as long as he has the Baron money to spend he isn’t going away. If his model of left-wing activism succeeds in Texas, it will be replicated in other states, if it hasn’t been already. If it succeeds in Texas, one of the most naturally conservative states in the country, it can succeed just about anywhere else. Keep an eye on the “watchdog” groups quoted in the media where you live whenever a Republican is under fire. Research those groups and find out who funds them. Chances are, there’s Soros and other out-of-state money involved, and there may be a Matt Angle spinning webs behind the scenes, too.

Bryan Preston has been a leading conservative blogger and opinionator since founding his first blog in 2001. Bryan is a military veteran, worked for NASA, hails from Hot Air, was producer of the Laura Ingraham Show and, most recently before joining PJM, was Communications Director of the Republican Party of Texas.

 

[Edward Campbell]

It is no secret that I am not a Glenn Beck fan; this article, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions (§29) of the Copyright Act from the Globe and Mail, offers what I think is a fair and balanced assessment of Mr. Beck's appeal:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/konrad-yakabuski/glenn-beck-preacher-politician-entertainer-and-marketer/article1725206/page1/

Glenn Beck: preacher, politician, entertainer and marketer

Konrad Yakabuski

New York— From Saturday's Globe and Mail

The countdown clock ticks ominously outside the Fox News headquarters on Sixth Avenue. The “Largest Tax Hike Ever” is only 100 days, 11 hours and 32 minutes away.

Not that any of us have been watching.

Barack Obama’s proposal to raise taxes on the wealthiest citizens is not what has brought 30 chosen ones, me included, to Studio D at the most-watched (not to mention polemical) cable news network in America.

We instead have been selected to form the audience at a taping of Glenn Beck, the successful weekday afternoon show hosted by perhaps the most charismatic, controversial – and entrepreneurial – figure in the modern American media. And, if his fans had their way, potential candidate for Mr. Obama’s job.

With only one “audience show” a week, tickets are awarded to the luckiest of Mr. Beck’s followers – or, in my case, curious observers. We have each filled out a questionnaire for the privilege. The requirements include expounding on our favourite Founding Father, explaining how what we’ve learned in history textbooks differs from what we take away from the show and providing thoughts on the dangers of mixing government and religion, the theme of this week’s episode.

To his detractors, Mr. Beck is a flake, a fake, a fanatic – or all three rolled up into a hyperactive time bomb. They charge that his alternately hysterical and weepy rants border on invitations to armed uprising. There is no denying, however, that he has captivated a significant subsection of American conservatives with his version of their country’s founding myth.

In his nearly 20-minute opening monologue, delivered with the aid of a teleprompter, he takes on critics who say that he seeks to establish Christianity as America’s official religion.

“People will say I’m trying to get you into religion to control or manipulate you. Nothing could be further from the truth,” begins Mr. Beck, who is taller and less doughy-looking in person than he appears on the tube. “I want you to be self-reliant. If you know your relationship with God, no man can tell you he can create a right for you, because you know who your rights come from.”

Fox News personality Glenn Beck speaks during the "Restoring Honor" rally in front of the Lincoln Memorial at the National Mall on August 28, 2010 in Washington, DC. Beck held the rally on the 47th anniversary of the "I Have a Dream" speech of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to "restore America."— Alex Wong/Getty Images

The real peril, Mr. Beck continues, is Democrats’ use of government to realize Mr. Obama’s social justice agenda. He plays an excerpt from a speech given by House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi, in which she calls on a group of bishops to use the pulpit to push for immigration reform. He attacks Obama spiritual adviser Jim Wallis, who has called the redistribution of wealth “what the Gospel is all about.”

“Jesus didn’t say, ‘Give all your money to Caesar and Caesar will create a program to buy you a pair of pants’,” Mr. Beck counters.

There is a precedent for the slippery slope on which “big government progressives” have put America, Mr. Beck warns. It’s Nazi Germany.

Preacher, politician, entertainer – and, most notably, master marketer – Mr. Beck is not the right-wing media celebrity with the highest ratings. On radio, that would be Rush Limbaugh; on TV, it’s Bill O’Reilly, who, like every other Fox host, kills the competition in his prime-time slot.

But no one else matches Mr. Beck with his multimedia wallop, creating an all-pervasive presence that spans radio, television, books, cross-country arena tours and the Internet (his latest property is a news site called The Blaze) that has made him the most influential and wealthiest Obama-basher of them all.

Well, maybe not as influential as Sarah Palin. But the $55-million (U.S.), according to Forbes magazine, that Mr. Beck’s Mercury Radio Arts pulled in during the two years to March 1 far surpasses the earnings power Ms. Palin has shown since quitting her day job as governor of Alaska.

No one in line seems to begrudge the 46-year-old Mr. Beck his money. How could they? To be a Beck follower is to celebrate the individual empowerment afforded by American capitalism. In Mr. Beck’s view, America might just be the last place on earth where the Protestant ethic stands a fighting chance, though he warns it is in grave danger of being snuffed out by Mr. Obama and his “big government” policies.

Though he called Mr. Obama a “racist” barely a year ago, he has since reformulated his critique of the President. He now defines Mr. Obama’s belief system as a kind of “liberation theology” aimed at seeking reparation for centuries of black oppression.

“It’s all about victims and victimhood; oppressors and the oppressed; reparations not repentance; collectivism, not individual salvation,” Mr. Beck, who became a Mormon in 1999, said on Fox News last month. “I don’t know what that is, other than it’s not Muslim, it’s not Christian. It’s a perversion of the Gospel of Jesus Christ as most Christians know it.”

The increasingly evangelical tone of his sermonizing – most noticeably during his massive Aug. 28 “Restoring Honor” rally at the Lincoln Memorial – has led to speculation that Mr. Beck is angling to become the leader of the U.S. Christian right – if he isn’t already.

The event held on the 47th anniversary of Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, delivered at the same site, was not overtly political. That is, unless you believe the aim was to mobilize evangelicals, who have been feeling somewhat left out of the current right-wing politics dominated by spending-obsessed Tea Partiers. If the religious right gets energized enough to elect Republicans in the Nov. 2 midterm congressional elections, Mr. Beck’s call to arms will be largely responsible.

“Something that is beyond man is happening,” Mr. Beck told the crowd on the Washington Mall, which numbered anywhere from fewer than 100,000 to one million depending on your politics. “America today begins to turn back to God.”

Ms. Palin, the Republican vice-presidential nominee in 2008, joined Mr. Beck on stage at the August rally. A couple of weeks later, the duo appeared together again before a sold-out crowd at an Anchorage arena.

“We would like to announce that in 2012, that we will both be,” Mr. Beck began before taking a painfully long pause, “voting.”

The prospect of getting this close to Mr. Beck in person has left Elaine, a fifty-something woman from working-class Queens waiting outside the studio, brimming with energy.

“I told them I was retired from the police department and they called back the next day with tickets,” explains the cheery blonde, who is a devoted listener of Mr. Beck’s three-hour weekday syndicated radio show, the third most popular in the country after those of Mr. Limbaugh and Sean Hannity.

Mr. Hannity also hosts a top-rated prime-time Fox News show, drawing nearly twice as many viewers as Rachel Maddow on Fox’s progressive rival, MSNBC, and four times more than the soon-to-leave Larry King on CNN.

Mr. Beck, who has 10 million unique weekly listeners on radio, has recently been drawing about 1.7 million viewers to his Fox show. Though that is significantly less than a year ago, he still crushes the competition, attracting almost three times more fans than his nearest rival. If the conservative media’s audience is any indication of ballot box strength, Republicans should clean up in the midterms.

Elaine’s friend Kathy, a petite Irish New Yorker with a throaty smoker’s voice, is the most avid reader. She has devoured most of the dozens of books Mr. Beck recommends on his show – pushing them up the best-seller lists the way Oprah Winfrey once did. Kathy has just finished Dismantling America, a collection of essays by Thomas Sowell, a black conservative and fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution.

“I read it in less than two days,” notes Kathy, describing the causal relationship between high taxes and unemployment advanced in the book.

Outside the studio, John from Rochester, a vice-president at an energy engineering firm, has monopolized the attention of Elaine and Kathy with his denunciations of Mr. Obama’s health-care reform law and the President’s failed attempt to push climate change legislation through Congress.

“I’m voting for you,” Elaine gushes.

Not quite as much, mind you, as when she sets her eyes on Mr. Beck in the flesh. That a recovering alcoholic and drug abuser, who takes medication for his attention deficit disorder, can summon this kind of devotion is either a testimony to Americans’ hunger for a return to simpler times or Mr. Beck’s persuasiveness.

“It’s not surprising that somebody like Mr. Beck is able to stir up a certain portion of the country,” Mr. Obama acknowledged recently, attributing the Fox News host’s appeal to Americans’ anxiety over their nation’s economy and security.

As with Ms. Palin, Mr. Beck’s true motives are the subject of widespread speculation. Is he merely interested in making money? If he is, he has certainly hit the mother lode, tapping a critical mass of Americans willing to shell out hundreds of dollars to attend one of his arena shows, buy his DVDs or subscribe to his website’s “Insider Extreme” edition.

Yet, his transition from schlock jock radio host and self-described clown and entertainer into a nearly humourless conservative missionary has, if anything, led to a parsing of his audience. Those looking only to be entertained may be disappointed. Mr. Beck, in his current incarnation, seems increasingly to appeal to hard-core believers alone.

Whether this suggests, as Mr. Beck has, that “God dropped a giant sandbag on my head,” calling him to “wake America up” is for a higher power to determine.

As we mingle outside the studio after the show, Mr. Beck exits, bodyguards and wife Tania in tow. Our invitations stipulated that he will not pose for photos or sign autographs, so no one dares ask.

“Thanks guys,” he offers, somewhat smaller than life, as he walks off into the Manhattan night.

Mr. Beck's appeal is easy enough to explain: his message is easy and even, in parts, compelling and, now and again, correct. Thomas Sowell's Dismantling America, is worth a read and some serious consideration. To the degree that Sowell informs Beck then Beck is at least adequately informed. But Beck is playing with fire, too. His now covert appeals to racism and nativism are dangerous; of course I firmly reject any and all religious influence in politics and I instinctively mistrust all those, like the Dalai Lama, for example, who wrap themselves and their politics in religion.

The biggest danger, I think, is that Beck represents a dangerous trend in infotainment. He has become a long infomercial masquerading as news and opinion. Do we really want politics à la Ron Popeil? That's what we're getting when the chair of a US Congressional sub-committee, frustrated because the media was ignoring her sub-committee's important, indeed vital hearing on immigration – in favour of e.g. Lindsay Lohan's court appearance, invited a comedien to address her group. She didn't think Mr. Colbert had anything useful to say but she judged, correctly, that the media would follow an entertainer and might, coincidentally, manage to inform Americans about a key issue.

The problem isn't Glenn Beck or Stephen Colbert or even Lindsay Lohan. Walt Kelly was right:

Edit: format

 

[a_majoor]

Perhaps we need people like Glen Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Governor Palin etc. to get people off their collective butts. Complacency allowed this to happen; citizen activists are fighting it (perhaps because of movements like the TEA party to provide inspiration):

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/local-tea-party-group-may-have-uncovered-massive-vote-fraud-in-texas-103823128.html

Local Tea Party group may have uncovered massive vote fraud in Texas
By: Mark Hemingway
Commentary Staff Writer
09/26/10 3:35 PM EDT

The Examiner’s Mark Tapscott wrote about this story over a week ago, but now Fox News is reporting on Tea Party activists in Texas uncovering vote fraud:

    When Catherine Engelbrecht and her friends sat down and started talking politics several years ago, they soon agreed that talking wasn’t enough. They wanted to do more. So when the 2008 election came around, “about 50” of her friends volunteered to work at Houston’s polling places.

    “What we saw shocked us,” she said. “There was no one checking IDs, judges would vote for people that asked for help. It was fraud, and we watched like deer in the headlights.”

    Their shared experience, she says, created “True the Vote,” a citizen-based grassroots organization that began collecting publicly available voting data to prove that what they saw in their day at the polls was, indeed, happening — and that it was happening everywhere.

    “It was a true Tea Party moment,” she remembers.

True the Vote appears to have made some pretty significant discoveries, including one blockbuster revelation possibly connecting the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) to vote fraud in Houston:

    Their work paid off. Two weeks ago the Harris County voter registrar took their work and the findings of his own investigation and handed them over to both the Texas secretary of state’s office and the Harris County district attorney.

  Most of the findings focused on a group called Houston Votes, a voter registration group headed by Steve Caddle, who also works for the Service Employees International Union. Among the findings were that only 1,793 of the 25,000 registrations the group submitted appeared to be valid. The other registrations included one of a woman who registered six times in the same day; registrations of non-citizens; so many applications from one Houston Voters collector in one day that it was deemed to be beyond human capability; and 1,597 registrations that named the same person multiple times, often with different signatures.

    Caddle told local newspapers that there “had been mistakes made,” and he said he had fired 30 workers for filing defective voter registration applications. He could not be reached for this article.

There’s a lot more to the story at the link. It’s an inspiring example grassroots activism.


Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/local-tea-party-group-may-have-uncovered-massive-vote-fraud-in-texas-103823128.html#ixzz10kP0VVIN

 

[Rifleman62]

Talk about voter fraud in Afghanistan!

I believe , in Texas , that Photo ID does not need to be presented in any election, at any level. A retired teacher at the  San Antonio church I attend, told me during the Obama election they were not allowed to ask for any ID.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/7053382.html
Voter ID fight appears certain in Texas Legislature

By GARY SCHARRER
AUSTIN BUREAU
June 14, 2010

Both major political parties signaled Monday that neither side is ready to give an inch on the politically divisive voter ID issue expected to come before Texas legislators again when they reconvene in January.

Republicans want to make elections more secure. Democrats, citing the lack of any large-scale fake voter problem, contend the GOP simply wants to make voting harder for Texans most likely to support Democrats - low-income folks, minorities and the elderly.

Eleven states have some sort of photo ID system for voting. Several of them, including Republican-dominated Idaho, allow voters without ID to sign an affidavit attesting to their identity. An affidavit creates a paper trail for prosecution if ineligible voters commit perjury.

But Texas Republicans won't go for that, House Elections Chairman Todd Smith, R-Euless, said Monday after his committee received reports about voter fraud in Texas.

Texas lawmakers will have to deal with a multibillion-dollar state budget shortfall, contentious redistricting and growing problems with school funding next year - and a strict voter ID bill will again poison the atmosphere, Democrats warned.

Priority for Republicans
Republican state senators changed Senate rules last year to get around Democratic opposition and approve a voter ID bill. House Democrats responded late in the session by stalling legislation to kill it.

Texas Republican Party delegates again marked voter ID as a legislative priority in the platform they adopted Saturday.

Of 267 alleged election code violations referred to the attorney general's office during the past eight years, 35 have been resolved with guilty pleas or dismissals and 12 remain active, special assistant attorney general Jay Dyer told Smith's committee. About half of those cases involved mail-in ballots - not voter impersonation that a photo ID would try to address.

20 million votes, 24 cases
Texas and 26 other states require some form of voter identification, Texas elections director Ann McGeehan told the panel. Her office has referred 24 election code cases for possible prosecution over the past two years. Two involved voter impersonation allegations, she said.

More than 20 million votes have been cast in Texas general elections since 2002, she said.

Republican opposition to an affidavit system rather than a voter ID requirement "speaks to their intention," said Rep. Rafael Anchia, D-Dallas, a member of the House Elections Committee. "It's hard for me to believe that there's a willingness to do anything but have less people vote."

Anchia warned that if Republicans "try to cram it down like last session at the expense of Texas voting rights, we will have to oppose that with everything that we've got."

The Dallas Democrat said any effort to enhance ballot security "should be coupled with a commensurate effort at increasing turnout and strengthening democracy."

Also: http://www.dallasblog.com/201009021007019/dallas-blog/suspicious-timing-of-texas-voting-machines-fire.html

Suspicious Timing of Texas Voting Machines’ Fire       

by Tom McGregor    Thu, Sep 2, 2010

On August 28, a fire destroyed almost all of Harris County’s (Houston-area) electronic voting machines. Yet, the timing appears suspicious since the Lone Star Report, a well-respected newsletter on state politics in Texas, posted an article a day earlier (Aug. 27), that, “voter irregularities abound in Harris County.”

 

[Rifleman62]

Old News, but speaking of the Glen Beck August event, the following was sent to me by a retired USAF senior officer:

Glenn Beck had been trying for weeks to get a military fly-over with fighter jets to start the event, but the White House blocked it saying it was "restricted airspace". The rally started at 10:00 am, but at precisely 9:59am, God gave us His fly-over that could not have been better:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2-QQoehT8c

Canadian fly - over!

 

[a_majoor]

Daily Kos advocates manipulating search engines to affect the next election (and by implication every election to come). I can see this sort of thing happening in Canadian elections as well, as the "Progressives" seek to counter the growing influence of the Blogosphere:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/10/8/1202/96710

A different way to make a big difference in 2010

by Chris Bowers
Fri Oct 08, 2010 at 09:00:04 AM PDT

As the election approaches, the buzz in Democratic activist circles is the need for GOTV. If we can turn out the vote, and get the composition of the electorate back to what it was in 2008, then Democrats will win.

GOTV is an extremely important form of activism, and you should take part in it if you can. There are any number of great organizations working on it, such as Organizing for America, so please hook up with them to get involved.

Here at Daily Kos, we are going to engage in very different, but still very important, form of election activism. It’s a type of activism no one else is working on, and it is well-suited to our medium as a blog. It’s a grassroots-based search engine optimization campaign, which I call Grassroots SEO for short.

Full explanation below the fold.

    * ::
*

Campaign Goal and Theory
The goal of Grassroots SEO is to get as many undecided voters as possible to read the most damaging news article about the Republican candidate for Congress in their district. It is based on two simple premises:

  1. One of the most common political activities people take online is to use search engines, mainly Google, to find information on candidates. (For more information, see the Pew Internet and American Life Project’s report on 2008 online political engagement.)

  2. These results of these searches are always in flux based upon hyperlinks anyone posts anywhere on the Internet, including message board comments and social networking sites (but not email).

As a result of this, not only is it possible for us to use our hyperlinks to impact what people find when they search for information on candidates, but we would be foolish not to do so in a way that benefited our preferred candidates. We are already impacting search engine rankings whenever we post any hyperlink anywhere, so we need to make sure the way we use hyperlinks helps result in our preferred political outcomes.

When we did a Grassroots SEO campaign in 2006, we reached over 700,000 voters in 50 key congressional campaigns in the final two weeks of that midterm election. With the rise of social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook, not only can we can have even more of an impact in 2010, but it is easier than ever for you to get involved.

Steps to take action
Before we start engaging in the actual search engine optimization, there are two things we need to do.

First, you need to sign up with Daily Kos campaigns to receive action alerts on how, when, and where you can maximize the way you are using hyperlinks online. Please do so right here.

Second, as a group, we need to find and choose the damaging articles on Republican candidates that we want undecided voters to read. It is only after finding the articles that we can push them up search engine rankings. As such, finding those articles is the main purpose of this diary.

If you click here, you can find a list of the 98 most competitive House campaigns, along with the name of the Republican candidate in those campaigns. All 98 of these campaigns are rated as "lean" or closer by at least one of the following five House election forecasts: Swing State Project, FiveThirtyEight, Cook Political Report, Rothenberg Political Report, and Sabato’s Crystal Ball. The consensus of experts says that these are the 98 most competitive campaigns, and we are going to target them all.

(We are targeting House campaigns since Senate campaigns are so much more difficult to influence, due to their extensive media coverage. Also, Alabama’s 2nd congressional district was rated as "lean" or closer by more than one of these forecasters, but since Democratic Congressman Bobby Bright has said he won’t vote for Pelosi to be Speaker, who really cares if he wins or not.)

So, go over the candidate target list, get your Google on, let’s start looking for the best 98 articles to use. Search for articles on any campaign you wish, and on as many campaigns as you wish. Here are some tips on what makes a good article:

  1. Title damaging in and of itself. Not many people who see the article will actually click through and read it. So, it is critically important that the title itself is damaging to the Republican candidate in some way.

  2. Name of candidate in title. In addition to a catchy title, it is key that the name of the candidate appear in the title itself. This will both help the SEO effort, and lead to more people clicking through to the article.

  3. From a well-known, non-partisan news source. Time and time again, people have sent me links to progressive blog articles to use in these SEO campaigns. Don’t do that. Just don’t. Find negative articles from as high profile a news organization as possible. When high profile can’t be found, then local news outlets will do just fine. Whatever you find, make sure said new organization at least ostensibly claims to be non-partisan.

  4. Already has a high Google ranking. Increasing the visibility of the article will be a lot easier if the article already has a decent Google ranking. For our purposes, top 100 is OK, and top 50 is good. Something already in the top 20, or even the top 10, would be awesome. (Note: make sure you sign out of Google before conducting keyword searches on the candidate’s full name to test the Google ranking of the article).

  5. Name of candidate in URL. The SEO effort will be greatly enhanced if the name of the candidate appears in the URL of the article.

  6. Keep it short. Try to find shorter articles with the negative hit on the candidate near the top. We don’t want to make people struggle to find the info.

  7. Keep it recent. This is the least important criteria, and may actually damage SEO efforts on search engines like Bing. But, Google seems to favor more recent articles, and people looking for candidate information probably do, too. So, try to find as recent an article as possible, given the other criteria.

****

When you find an article, post its headline and URL either in the comments or send it over email to SEO@dailykos.com. Make sure the name of both the district and the GOP candidate is in the headline or the comment, or the subject line of the email. For example, if you found an article about the Republican candidate in Florida’s 25th congressional district, the comment title or subject line would be "FL-25, David Rivera."

That’s it. Once we get the articles we can start working to push them up search engine rankings. We need to launch the campaign early next week, so let’s gather these articles as quickly as we can.

Sign up, and start Googling. Let's do this!

Quick tip: Articles about Palin endorsing GOP candidates work just fine.

Update 2: There is a lot of email coming in. If I don't respond quickly, please don't take offense. Gonna be a while before I sift through it all.

 

[The_Falcon]

Looks like The Donald may be interested in taking a swing in 2012 for the Republicans, (WAY to many articles out there about this, to post them all, but it is definately garnering ALOT of attentions.

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/international-business/China-is-ripping-America-Donald-Trump/articleshow/6707117.cms
http://blogs.forbes.com/clareoconnor/2010/10/07/is-mike-bloomberg-behind-the-new-hampshire-trump-for-president-poll/
http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/people/donald-trump-admits-he-could-run-for-us-president-20101006-166m4.html?autostart=1
http://news.google.com/news/more?q=Donald+Trump&um=1&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&ncl=dRmdVt-v06b4RmM9zxmANAo2k6bWM&ei=T2CwTOWzA4f9nAfxhpmMBg&sa=X&oi=news_result&ct=more-results&cd=1&resnum=4&ved=0CFQQqgIoADAD

 

[a_majoor]

Interesting piece about Governor Palin. If she intends to run in 2012, she should consider point five very carefully, and find a positive way to frame the message:

Five myths about Sarah Palin

By Matthew Continetti
Sunday, October 17, 2010

Think you know Sarah Palin? The former Alaska governor has been in the spotlight ever since John McCain named her as his running mate on Aug. 29, 2008. Yet, while practically everybody has an opinion about Palin, not all of those opinions are grounded in reality. Many of them are based more on a "Saturday Night Live" caricature than on the living, breathing, 46-year-old mother of five. The real Sarah Palin is a complex woman who has risen in no time from obscurity to the stratosphere of American politics, fusing celebrity and populism in novel ways. Now that she's laying the foundation for a possible presidential run in 2012, it's worth taking a moment to separate the facts about Palin from the fables.

1. Palin cost McCain the 2008 election.

She didn't. CNN's 2008 national exit poll, for example, asked voters whether Palin was a factor when they stepped into the voting booth. Those who said yes broke for McCain 56 percent to 43 percent.

Before Palin's selection, remember, McCain suffered from an enthusiasm gap. Republicans were reluctant to vote for the senator from Arizona because of his reputation as a maverick who'd countered his party on taxes, immigration, drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and "cap and trade" climate legislation. But Palin's conservative record in Alaska and antiabortion advocacy changed the Republican mood. With her by his side, McCain's fundraising and support from conservatives improved. It wasn't enough to beat Barack Obama -- but McCain probably would have lost the presidency by a greater margin if he had, say, selected independent Sen. Joe Lieberman as his running mate, further alienating the GOP base.

Yes, it's possible that Palin's conservatism and uneven performance on the campaign trail shifted some voters to Obama's column. But even if Obama picked up some anti-Palin votes, he surely didn't need them: The economy was in recession, Wall Street was in meltdown, and the incumbent Republican president was incredibly unpopular. In the end, it's impossible to know how McCain would have performed if he hadn't selected Palin -- politics does not allow for control experiments.

2. Resigning as governor was rash.

No one expected Palin's resignation on July 3, 2009, just 2 1/2 years into her term. Her hastily composed and clumsily delivered farewell address left many observers confused about her motives. Some of her critics were only too eager to fill in the gaps with conjecture and hearsay (She's being investigated by the FBI! Sarah and Todd must be headed for divorce!). If there was one thing everybody knew for sure, it was that Palin's career in politics was over.

But none of the rumored scandals ever broke. The Palins remain married. And as for Sarah Palin's career, it's taken off. She plays a far greater role in American public life than she did before she left office.

When Palin returned to Alaska after the 2008 campaign, she confronted three problems. The political coalition on which she had based her governorship -- a combination of Democrats and renegade "Palinista" Republicans -- had collapsed. Her critics were using Alaska's tough ethics laws to launch investigations into her behavior, sapping her finances and her energy. Finally, every time she traveled to the Lower 48, Alaskans criticized her for putting her political interests above the state's.

Palin's solution was to resign. Her agenda stood a better chance of passing if then-Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell, who shared Palin's goals, succeeded her as governor. As a private citizen, meanwhile, Palin could make enough money to pay her legal bills. And she would no longer be accused of neglecting her official duties.

Some might say that Palin's resignation was shortsighted and showed that she was not ready for the demands of executive office. But if Palin had remained governor, she would have been denied opportunities to rally the tea party and fight in the battle over the Obama agenda. She would have been stuck on a regional stage. Instead, she's back on the national one.

3. Palin and the tea party are destroying the GOP.

You've heard the spiel: The Republican Party is in the midst of a civil war between moderate incumbents and far-right challengers backed by Palin and the tea party. Driving Charlie Crist from the GOP and defeating establishment figures such as Robert Bennett, Lisa Murkowski and Mike Castle spells electoral doom for the party. The only chance Republicans have for long-term success is to move to the center in a bid to win over millennials and Latinos.

But demographics aren't destiny, and no one knows what the future holds. The reality, right now, is that Palin and the tea party are saving the GOP by dragging it back to its roots and mobilizing conservative voters.

Remember, by the time Palin arrived on the national scene, the Republican Party was depleted, exhausted and held in disrepute. An unpopular war in Iraq, an economy in recession and GOP corruption had driven away independents. Meanwhile, massive government spending and a liberal immigration policy had dispirited conservatives.

This is where Palin came in. In the wake of Obama's historic victory, she and countless other grass-roots activists could have abandoned the GOP and turned the tea party into a conservative third party. They didn't. They decided instead to refashion the Republican Party from the ground up, pressuring it to live up to its limited-government ideals. Now, two years after Obama's win, Republicans are poised to reap major gains in the midterm elections. Palin and the tea party haven't hurt the GOP one bit.

4. Palin is extreme.

On many of the most important issues of the day, Palin holds positions that are squarely in the center-right of American political discourse. And many of those positions, not incidentally, are held by a large segment or even a majority of the public. For instance, neither the public nor Palin believes the stimulus worked. And while most Americans may not share Palin's views regarding "death panels," many join her in opposing Obama's health-care overhaul.

Over the past two years, Pew and Gallup surveys have tracked the public as it has moved to the right -- not on just one or two issues but on a whole constellation of them. Even on the controversial topics of abortion, guns and same-sex marriage, Palin is not as far away from the center as some suppose. A May 2009 Gallup poll, for example, found that a majority of Americans identified as "pro-life" rather than "pro-choice." In October 2009, Gallup measured record-low support for gun control. The public is divided on same-sex marriage, with about half the country joining Palin's (and Obama's) opposition.

5. Palin is unelectable.

Without question, a Palin 2012 campaign would be an uphill battle. Palin is unpopular -- massively so among Democrats, decisively so among independents. Even many Republicans don't believe she's ready to be president.

But opinions can change. Look at the political resuscitations of Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and Hillary Rodham Clinton. If Palin works hard and runs an impressive campaign, wavering Republicans and skeptical independents may give her a second look.

To earn that second look, she may need to find a big idea. It's hard to become president without one. Reagan had supply-side economics and the end of detente with the Soviets. Bill Clinton had the third way. George W. Bush had compassionate conservatism and the freedom agenda. Obama had national unity and hope and change.

At the moment, however, Palin still expresses her agenda mainly in negative terms, focusing on her opposition to Obama and the Washington establishment. She hasn't defined her "common-sense conservatism" in positive language. And she hasn't found a unifying, exhilarating theme.

Then again, she just might get along without one. After all, a presidential contest is a choice. The public might not love Palin. But by 2012, Americans might absolutely despise Obama. Two more years of a bad economy and an unpopular Afghan war, and anything is possible. Yes, there's a ceiling to Palin's support. But in 2012, there also will be a ceiling to Obama's.

Whose will be higher?

Matthew Continetti is opinion editor of the Weekly Standard and the author of "The Persecution of Sarah Palin: How the Elite Media Tried to Bring Down a Rising Star." He will be online Monday, Oct. 18, at 1 p.m. ET to chat. Submit your questions or comments before or during the discussion.

For more Outlook coverage on Sarah Palin and the tea party movement, see David Weigel's "Five myths about the tea party" and Steven Hayward's "Would Reagan vote for Sarah Palin?"

Want to challenge everything you think you know? Visit the "Five Myths" archive.

 

[tomahawk6]

The November election and the one in 2012 is a reaction to the extreme policies of the democrat party. Ultimately this election is pitting two groups of people those that hate America vs those who love America. Two years ago the media and the unions got Obama elected. Can they save Obama and the democrats ? Can the union bosses control their members ? I dont think they can.

 

[Rifleman62]

It makes me wonder who is really running the USA. Now that Mr. Obama is the President, are decision briefs so "brief", are matters of state so few, etc, that the President can spend almost every day visiting some place, on TV?
I realize that some work of state must be conducted on Air Force One after preparation of political speeches.
The crews of the Air Force One Sqn, Secret Service must be exhausted.

 

[tomahawk6]

Obama has alot of free time because he isnt interested in fixing the problems he has created, he is content to let the economy fester.

 

[a_majoor]

Check out this ad:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTSQozWP-rM&feature=player_embedded

 

[tomahawk6]

The Tea Party movement is all about purging RINO's from office and replacing them with conservative candidates. It will take several election cycles to accomplsih this aim. At the sametime conservatives are intent turning out democrats who seem to be in lock step with Obama's marxist agenda.

 

[Kirkhill]

You really do have to check out this chart.  It makes the Afghanistan chart look like Kindergarten stuff.

It is all explained here.

It is also a clear demonstration of why there is no hope of government EVER being able to control outcomes.  Long Live Hayek eh? (Him. Not Her).

PS - Tomahawk 6:  IIRC 2 years ago you were predicting that the GOP would flip a hundred seats in the House this year.  Put any money on that one recently?

 

[tomahawk6]

;D

No money and 100 seats may be too much but the GOP will run the House and quite possibly the Senate as well. Obama will try to avoid going to Congress as much as possible. But with the power of the purse the GOP could defund much of Obama's agenda. The democrats ignored the will of the people on Health Care,stimulus spending,the takeover of the car companies and other private sector companies.Now its time to pay the piper. The GOP ignored their principles in 2006 and they lost their majorities in 06 and 08,culminating with Obama's election.

 

[a_majoor]

And if the TEA party should fail, some musical consolation:

Strong and peaceful, wise and brave,
Fighting the fight for the whole world to save,
We the people will ceaselessly strive
To keep our great revolution alive!
Unfurl the banners! Look at the screen!
Never before has such glory been seen!

Oceania! Oceania! Oceania, 'tis for thee!
Every deed, every thought, 'tis for thee!
Every deed, every thought, 'tis for thee!
Every deed, every thought, 'tis for thee!

 

[a_majoor]

I can remember reading about a "permanent Republican majority" in 2000 and 2004; but as one of the commentator posts, it is all about the performance of the Congress. The Republican majority became corrupt and unresponsive, and paid for it. Now it is the turn of the Democrat party. It remains to be seen if the newly aroused American public will remain engaged and prevent the new crop of politicians from drifting into this mode, or it the TEA party movement will make good on their promise to use the electoral process to capture school boards, civic governments, State legislatures and the entire spectrum of government to capture control of the mechanisms of the State:

http://pajamasmedia.com/ronradosh/2010/10/29/the-disappearance-of-the-the-emerging-democratic-majority-the-failure-of-a-thesis/

The Disappearance of the The Emerging Democratic Majority: The Failure of a Thesis

Posted By Ron Radosh On October 29, 2010 @ 4:37 pm In Uncategorized | 34 Comments

In 2004, John B. Judis and Ruy Teixeira wrote an acclaimed and seemingly prescient book [1], The Emerging Democratic Majority. Their thesis was based on a demographic analysis, which led them to predict the end of any future Republican ascendancy. As Judis summed up [2] their thesis after the Obama landslide of 2008, Obama’s “election is the culmination of a Democratic realignment that began in the 1990s, was delayed by September 11, and resumed with the 2006 election. This realignment is predicated on a change in political demography and geography. Groups that had been disproportionately Republican have become disproportionately Democratic, and red states like Virginia have turned blue. Underlying these changes has been a shift in the nation’s ‘fundamentals’–in the structure of society and industry, and in the way Americans think of their families, jobs, and government. The country is no longer ‘America the conservative.’  And, if Obama acts shrewdly to consolidate this new majority, we may soon be ‘America the liberal.’”  Therefore, those commentators who argued that the United States was still a center/right nation were dead wrong.

The realignment, according to the two authors, took place reflecting  “the shift that began decades ago toward a post-industrial economy centered in large urban-suburban metropolitan areas devoted primarily to the production of ideas and services rather than material goods.” And living in these areas were the three main groups that composed the new Democratic majority: professionals, minorities, and women. With Obama’s victory, Judis predicted, a national crisis would produce “popular willingness to entertain dramatic initiatives.” And, moreover, President Obama would not “face the same formidable adversaries” that had faced Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton in previous Democratic administrations.

As for Judis’ advice to the new president, he argued Obama should not move slowly and opt for incremental reforms but move forcefully to a full-fledged commitment to the kind of fundamental transformation of America he promised his left-wing base.

Skip ahead to the present — a scant two years later. The reality today is precisely the opposite of what John B. Judis predicted. His permanent Democratic majority has turned out to be illusory. As a front-page story [3] in The New York Times explained, the coalition that gave Obama his electoral majority in 2008 is fraying apart at the seams. As the story noted, “Republicans have wiped out the advantage held by Democrats in recent election cycles among women, Roman Catholics, less affluent Americans and independents. All of those groups broke for Mr. Obama in 2008 and for Congressional Democrats when they grabbed both chambers from the Republicans four years ago, according to exit polls.”

Moreover, 57 percent of voters surveyed preferred to vote for inexperienced and untested candidates rather than cast their ballot for any Democrat. The shift was also reflected geographically. “Among poll respondents from the Western United States, more said they expected to vote for Republicans this year than said they expected to vote for Democrats; majorities of voters from that region voted for Mr. Obama in 2008 and for Congressional Democrats in 2006, according to the exit polls taken in those elections.” So, contrary to Judis and Teixeira, geography is evidently not always destiny.

In an accompanying story [4] in the same day’s Times, a reporter for the paper found that even in the UAW stronghold of Defiance, Ohio, many of its union residents were drifting over to Republican ranks. This was occurring despite the stimulus and the extension of unemployment benefits that were welcomed by a town where 13 percent of its populace had lost their jobs.

As reporter Erik Eckholm wrote, “bonds to the Democratic Party [5] seem to be loosening here in northwest Ohio, after two years of hardship and a growing sense that many children will be financially worse off than their parents. Skepticism about big government has hardened, especially among the small-business owners who are an increasingly dominant civic voice.”  A woman who ran an insurance agency and supported Obama protested that “he rammed health care down our throats,” and she was furious at the bail-outs of AIG and the big banks. The town’s mayor, who worked at GM back when it hired many of the town’s residents, put it this way: “I don’t hear a lot of support for Obama in this area.”

And then there is the response of the kind of urban professional Judis and Teixeira claimed were the mainstay of a new Democratic majority. One of these men, Will Parker, age 24, told reporter Eckholm that it was almost impossible to find the kind of job he was prepared for. He “finished college in 2009 with a degree in marketing and communications. In six months of looking, he found no work here in his hometown and had to take a Web-page job in Columbus, 115 miles to the southeast, that he feels is a dead end. Mr. Parker voted for Mr. Obama and said he now felt ‘voter’s remorse’ because ‘it feels like we’re creating a welfare state.’”

One small businessman, Karl Kissner, a local restaurant owner, explained it this way: “The health care bill caused a breach with the public.”  The president’s stimulus plan, claimed Kissner, “created a false bottom” to the recession, making it hard to plan and invest.  Mr. Kissner said he was “up in the air” about his vote for governor. But for the Senate this year, he will definitely vote for Rob Portman [6], the Republican.

No wonder John B. Judis today spends his time blasting [7] the Tea Party movement, which has helped destroy the Democratic majority he thought had arrived permanently only two years ago. While he is smart enough to acknowledge that it is not “fascist,” as many left-wing bloggers claim, he argues instead that it is simply politically backwards. Nor is it racist; it is instead an amalgam of a “middle class cri de coeur,” in which disgruntled economic groups now shift to the populist right rather than the populist left, as had occurred in the 1930s. And many of the Tea Party members, rather than being funded by big Republican money, are actually responding to specific and just grievances.

Judis’ final argument echoes that of Thomas Frank, whose now famous book (and phrase) What’s the Matter with Kansas? revealed a lot about the author’s belief that if residents of a state like Kansas vote Republican rather than Democrat, it reflects their shortsightedness and stupidity. Judis and other liberal and left-wing writers believe that the people just might fail them once again — a position it seems Barack Obama adheres to also.

Judis no doubt hopes that the Democratic majority will emerge from the ashes, but he has neglected to take into account the actual policies advocated by liberals — policies that average people see through, but which liberal and socialist journalists cannot understand why the people reject. As Judis writes, “those most likely to benefit from right-wing middle class insurgencies are not the embattled middle classes, but the business interests and the wealthy associated with the Republican Party.”

Judis seems to have no awareness of all those studies which show that major corporate money has been flowing for years to the Democrats, and that regular people, whose interests he believes he and other liberal journalists understand  better than they do, are rather fed up with the bail-outs and handouts to the banks and the brokerage houses.

It is his hope, as his column makes clear, that after the Republican triumph the people will return to their senses and turn back in favor of social-democracy, and in so doing, rescue his moribund thesis about the emerging Democratic majority.  Somehow, I suspect he will be waiting a long, long time. Perhaps the title of his next book will be What’s Wrong With America?

Article printed from Ron Radosh: http://pajamasmedia.com/ronradosh

URL to article: http://pajamasmedia.com/ronradosh/2010/10/29/the-disappearance-of-the-the-emerging-democratic-majority-the-failure-of-a-thesis/

URLs in this post:

[1] book: http://www.amazon.com/Emerging-Democratic-Majority-John-Judis/dp/0743254783/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1288384568&sr=1-1

[2] summed up: http://www.tnr.com/article/america-the-liberal

[3] story: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/28/us/politics/28poll.html?ref=todayspaper

[4] story: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/28/us/politics/28ohio.html?ref=todayspaper

[5] Democratic Party: http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/d/democratic_party/index.html?inline=nyt-org

[6] Rob Portman: http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/p/rob_portman/index.html?inline=nyt-per

[7] blasting: http://www.tnr.com/article/politics/78718/four-myths-about-the-tea-party

 

[a_majoor]

Attack ads today are really wimpy....try these

 

[Kirkhill]

".....but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil...." Thomas Paine, Common Sense, 1776 (Penguin 2004)

•Is divided government what works – and what Americans want? Many recall the 1990s, with a Democrat in the White House and Republicans running Congress, with some nostalgia, as the two parties prevented either from undertaking massive initiatives, and the private economy grew. We saw welfare reform, a capital-gains tax reduction, free trade initiatives and a budget surplus.
One scholar observed in a recent editorial board that when government is divided, the free market is a little more free, to the benefit of all. Divided government may neutralize the worst impulses of each party – Republicans are less apt to enact a pro-business agenda of subsidies and incentives, and Democrats are less likely to overregulate and micromanage.

Orange County Register Editorial, Oct 29

Gridlock - the rational response to government

It prevents progressives from progressing and elites of all stripes (business, media, academic, religious, union....) from acting.

In a democratic society all that is necessary to achieve minimalist government is for people to keep voting in new checks and balances.  As soon as other folks figure out how to "game the system" and establish themselves as "elites" and start "acting" all that is required of fans of minimalist government (Paine, Burke, Jefferson, Jackson, Thoreau, Prudhon, Rand, Thucydides...) is that they "lock them up" by ensuring that the government is held in balance and checked by an equally weighted opposition.

And when people figure out how to square the circle and control both government and the opposition then the solution is to start swinging. 

As parties no longer represent any cohesive philosophy it doesn't matter which party you vote for.  It only matters that you vote for somebody who hasn't been in office, father and son, for 77 years  Representative George Dingell according to George Will.

Why are Democrats and Republicans so frustrated? ....having such a hard time determining what the message should be and who would make the ideal leader?  Because that silent, apathetic, non-voting, mushy Thoreauvian  middle, that just wants to be left alone to drink beer by a pond, has finally found a reason to vote.  And what are they voting for?  "Nothing".  "It just doesn't matter" what the message of the parties is, so long as they are not allowed to do anything.

With any luck at all Britain and Europe with come to the same conclusions and just start "swinging away".

 

[Kirkhill]

I see Margaret Wente heading along the same line of thought (But she's better at it).

The rest of the quote from Thomas Paine:

"...in its (government's) worst state an intolerable one (evil); for when we suffer, or are exposed to the same miseries by a governent, which we might expect in a country without government, our calamities are heightened by reflecting the we furnish the means by which we suffer."

Or put succinctly:" This lot are worse than nothing and we're paying them for the privilege of doing it to us."


Rational response? Buh Bye.....