GOP Rout Could Be Historic

Thins are looking worse and worse for the Democrats this cycle. The latest Gallup tracking poll has Republicans leading in the generic congressional ballot among registered voters, 51% to 41%.

It's the GOP's lead is the largest so far this year and is its largest in Gallup's history of tracking the midterm generic ballot for Congress.

And remember this is registered voters. The likely voter model is the one that usually favors the GOP. The number among likely voters could be well into the teens.

Another news item that caught my attention was the fact that Tea Party groups were preparing to bring some serious cash to challenge Mike Castle (R) in the Delaware primary this Sept. I have said before how Castle would be a solid, yet moderate, republican voice in the Senate. I hope in an effort to move the country to the right, we do not end up pushing all moderates out.

One Reason for a Return to New Federalism

Scanning the various news sties today I came across this startling piece:

Here's a wake up call for the White House from Public Policy Polling: Louisianans are feeling more and more that President Bush's leadership in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina was better than President Obama's on the massive gulf oil spill.

Key finding: 54% think Bush did the superior job of helping the state through a crisis to 33% who pick Obama.

While it would be fun to gloat and say that people didn't appreciate Bush while he was in office, or that Obama is just as inept at dealing with fast moving crises I don't think that really gets to the heart of the issue. What this poll shows is why we need a return to a New Federalism.

Early in our country's history a political group emerged calling themselves Federalist. The Federalist Papers, a compilation of 85 essays written by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay, strove to make the case for a strong federal government. They felt, rightly, that only a far stronger national government could address the many, and growing, crises facing the young United States. However, as our nation matured the federal government matured with it, and after the Civil War it increased greatly in size and influence, in terms of its influence on everyday life and its size as compared to the state governments. By the late 20th century many felt it had grown out of control. Enter the Regan Revolution and the idea of New Federalism.

New Federalism was characterized by a gradual return of power to the states through the use of such items as block grants, which allowed states to use the federal grants in whatever manner they saw fit as most beneficial to their citizens. The New Federalists understood that many of the issues facing the U.S. could best be handled by those closest to them. Unfortunately, George W Bush largely abandoned this movement instead moving towards a compassionate (read big) conservatism.

What the above stated poll shows is that in large part it does not matter who sits in the oval office, or what party controls congress when it comes to responding to localized crises. The federal government can not really do the job well.As the GOP strives to find an identity amidst pulls towards libertarianism by the Tea Party and pulls to the left by Big Government conservatives perhaps there is room for a discussion around a responsive and reactive government on the state level as opposed to an all-powerful national government.

Your Stimulus Hard at Work

Sarah Palin & Scott Brown: Why Do We Have To Choose?

Sigh.
I fear that there is a coming GOP implosion. 2010 will by accounts be great  for those on the right, but after that? I don't have the warm and fuzzies. While the Tea Partiers are providing lots of energy they are also shrinking the tent. Fewer and fewer Republicans are going to be good enough. I applaud those would are strict conservatives for standing up for their principles; it is admirable. But what I think some people fail to see is that our nation is not governed by political parties, it is governed by coalitions. In order to have a conservative coalition we need to have moderates as well as strict conservatives. Sarah Palin did not help things yesterday:

Sarah Palin, in an unexpected poke at Senator Scott Brown, said that while Massachusetts may “put up with’’ the GOP lawmaker and “some of the antics,’’ Republicans in states across the nation wouldn’t tolerate his more moderate views and compromising ways.

Palin, whose criticism strikes at the core of discord among top national Republicans over how closely to hew to the Tea Party movement, suggested in comments aired Wednesday on Fox Business Network that Brown is ignoring conservative voters’ wishes.

“But up here in Alaska, and so many places across the US, where we have a pioneering, independent spirit, and we have an expectation that our representatives in D.C. will respect the will of the people and the intelligence of the people, well, up here, we wouldn’t stand for that,’’ she said.

 I have said it before, but it bears repeating- Brown is the type of Republican that MA will elect. They will not elect Jim Demint, Marco Rubio or Sarah Palin. Would Palin rather put up with the antics of Martha Coakley?
 John Kerry? Joe Kennedy? Massachusetts managed to elect a moderate Republican for the first time in generation, but if that isn't good enough I am sure the state's Democratic party would be happy to supply the replacement.

Joe Scarborough in 2012?

This would be interesting.The Morning Joe host is my kind of Republican, fiscally conservative but also practical. From Marc Ambinder:

"Joe Scarborough, former congressman from Florida and co-host of MSNBC's agenda-setting wake-up show Morning Joe, has protested, kindly and loudly (he is kind and loud), when speculation arises about his presidential ambitions. He points out that MSNBC is not the platform a conservative would use to build street credentials among his base. He insists he enjoys his current job, turning down entreaties from Republicans to run for Senate by noting that he has more influence as a broadcaster than as a member of the saucer cooler. Nonetheless, a studio apartment industry has arisen of conservatives who think that Scarborough might just be the type of Republican who can be successful in the future."

"Scarborough describes himself as a conservative with libertarian leanings. He's a fiscal hawk who cares more about the debt because it's a genuine burden than because it's an opportunity to prevent liberals from spending. He is not a denialist. He doesn't traffic in fear-based politics. He doesn't like cant, and has been trained, as an off-the-cuff broadcaster, to speak more like the normal person he is than the politician he once was. "

Greatest...Quote...Ever

I know that here at The Moderate Republican I strive to be fair to both sides and seek common ground when I can. I do not partake in baiting the opposition just for the sake of picking a fight. That said, if we can't laugh at each other once in a while, what's the point?

Miss Me Yet?

Well....maybe not, but this is still pretty interesting:

The advice from Democratic consultants and strategists is almost unanimous: Run away from the president, and fast. A prominent Democratic pollster is circulating a survey that shows George W. Bush is 6 points more popular than President Obama in "Frontline" districts -- seats held by Democrats that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee sees as most vulnerable to Republican takeover. That Bush is more popular than Obama in Democratic-held seats is cause for outright fear.

A Centrist Senate?

Matthew Yglesias had a very interesting post the other day:

It occurred to me today that there’s at least some chance that in January of 2011 the US Senate will have 49 Democrats, Joe Lieberman, Charlie Crist, and 49 Republicans. Which is to say that Lieberman & Crist could form a two-man caucus, hold the balance of power, and drive organization of the Senate. Crist could leapfrog seniority and chair a committee. And if it looked like that might happen, mightn’t it make sense for Northeastern moderate Republicans (Snowe, Collins, Brown, Castle) and Southern moderate Democrats (Landrieu, Pryor, Hagan) to join their rebellion against the two party system? 

If this actually happened imagine the pull that group could have. Unfortunately I doubt whether anyone would have the political courage to do something truly outside the box like this.

Obama Sinks

President Obama's suggested low water point continues to sink. Eleven weeks before the Nov. 2 balloting, in terms of Obama's handling of the economy, only 41 percent of those surveyed by a new AP poll approve, down from 44 percent in April, while 56 percent disapprove. And 61 percent say the economy has gotten worse or stayed the same on Obama's watch.

Quote of the Day

Politicians are in charge of the modern economy in much the same way as a sailor is in charge of a small boat in a storm. The consequences of their losing control completely may be catastrophic (as civil war and hyperinflation in parts of the former Soviet empire have recently reminded us), but even while they keep afloat, their influence over the course of events is tiny in comparison with that of the storm around them. We who are their passengers may focus our hopes and fears upon them, and express profound gratitude toward them if we reach harbor safely, but that is chiefly because it seems pointless to thank the storm. (p. 25) Paul Seabright's The Company of Strangers

Meg Whitman: Money, Power & Politics

Let me say this first and up front. I want Meg Whitman to win the Governorship of California. She is a conservative with some moderate views and I think her voice on the national stage will be beneficial for CA as well as the GOP in general. But this post is not so much about her winning the elcetion, but why she would want to.

There are many tales of candidates who have spent millions of their own dollars to become the next [fill in the blank]. Ross Perot, Steve Forbes and Micheal Bloomberg come immediately to mind in terms of recent political history, and history is replete with others. But those individuals sought seminal seats of power, the mayor of arguably the world's most important city and leader of the free world. Meg Whitman wants to run...California.

Many are calling CA the next Greece. An economy burdened by billions of dollars of debt, increasing taxes and a future so mortgaged that their great-great-grand kids will still be digging out from under it all. The state that once ranked as one of the largest economies in the world could very well go bankrupt. Add to this the fact that, from a Republican's point of view, the state is chock-full of vocal citizens somewhere to the left of Castro ready to jump to the airwaves and pick a fight with any conservative, anytime, anywhere. Why would anyone want this job? Look what happened to the most recent Governors. Gray Davis, the Democrat was recalled from office with an approval rating in the twenties. Arnold Schwarzenegger, his Republican successor, after two miserable terms putting up a valiant effort in a losing battle has a matching approval rating. I think the only reason he hasn't been recalled as well is that the state can't afford it!

So Whitman wants to jump into this fire. She wants it so bad that as of today she has spent $104 million of her own dollars to win it. Of course she is worth about $1.4 billion, but $100 million is a sizable sum no matter how you look at it. You have to wonder, when someone has had the level of success that Whitman has had, are you impelled to seek political power simply through inertia? Or perhaps does business success delude people into thinking they can translate that into governing success?  History has shown us again and again that governments do not function like businesses- they has legislators, a much rowdier and directionless bunch.

This general idea has national implications as well. The current GOP front runner is also a self-financed ultra successful business person. Is the drive to keep climbing the ladder of power, or  the impulse to prove you can manage any situation, no matter how complex ,a  good qualification for a political leader? We have certainly had good leaders who fit this mold, Rockefeller and Bloomberg in New York, and FDR and Eisenhower in the White House. Or is the better leader the one who is motivated by an inner cause, such as Regan , Teddy Roosevelt and (possibly) Obama?

Thoughts?

Early 2012 Polling

I kmow, I know, polls this far out are completely meaningless, but I can't resist- its a slow day. A new CNN hasMitt Romney leading the major potential 2012 Republican presidential candidates at 21%, followed by Sarah Palin at 18%, Newt Gingrich at 15%, Mike Huckabee at 14% and Ron Paul at 10%.

Of course Guliani was way out in front at this point in the 2008 cycle and he didn't even win a single delegate.

Can a Regional Party Have a Future?

I have written in the past why the GOP needs centrists as a part of its coalition. A short excerpt:

Let's take New England as a case study. There used to be a vibrant Republican base and community there. However over the past half century the Republican message has narrowed to the point where the traditionally moderate branch of the party that had thrived there is all but gone. In the vacuum left by the conservatives, liberals were more than happy to step in. In its place Democrats have been allowed to virtually indoctrinate citizens of the North East in liberal philosophy. So much so that now instead of a moderate Republican like Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., Massachusetts is represented by the ultra-left Teddy Kennedy. Over the years voters have gotten comfortable with the Democratic party, to the point where a Republican has a hard time getting airtime each election cycle.

Today New England is left with only Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins to represent the Republicans. I know there are plenty of conservatives who consider these two women to be Republicans in name only (RINOS). However, if they were to be defeated, who would be most likely to take their place? A Glenn Beck or an Al Franken? After 50 years of liberal indoctrination New England isn't going to turn into Sean Hannity's key demographic over night. However, the North East is an area that tends to be sympathetic to fiscally conservative candidates (Mitt Romney, Bill Weld) even though it is socially liberal. There is some common ground with the overall conservative movement there- if the GOP is willing to have a bigger tent.  

Now come a new poll that is troubling for those of us who want an inclusive party.  NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll: "The GOP has a HUGE generic-ballot edge in the South (52%-31%), but it doesn't lead anywhere else. In the Northeast, Dems have a 55%-30% edge; in the Midwest, they lead 49%-38%; and in the West, it's 44%-43%."

Is Team Obama Becoming Defeated?

Perusing the newspapers, magazines and web over the past week I found a preponderance of articles that pushed the idea that team Obama was at best weary of the job of leader of the free world, and at worst, in over his head. 

Team Obama sounds nothing so much as overmatched and overwhelmed, unable to understand what has gone wrong, and increasingly bitter toward the nation’s capital and the pace and nature of politics.

What we are seeing, I think, is a group of supremely arrogant people humbled by events. They are turning out to be a good deal more incompetent than they (and many Americans) ever imagined. They see impending political doom in the form of the midterm elections. Yet this is not leading them toward any apparent serious self-reflection; rather, they are engaging in an extraordinary degree of whining, finger-pointing, and self-indulgence. - Commentary Magazine

Larry Summers, who served as Clinton’s Treasury secretary for the last 18 months of his term, says, “It used to be there was a kind of rhythm to the day” with the tempo picking up after the markets closed and as newspaper deadlines approached, between four and seven P.M. “That’s gone.” And, according to Rahm Emanuel, C.I.A. director Leon Panetta thinks “it’s a huge problem” that Washington runs at such “a highly caffeinated speed.”

Emanuel calls it “F***nutsville,” and Valerie Jarrett says she looks back wistfully to a time when credible people could put a stamp of reliability on information and opinion: “Walter Cronkite would get on and say the truth, and people believed the media,” she says.- Vanity Fair

I may be looking on the past with rose colored glasses but I don't remember past administrations getting "whiny" about the job. Even George W. Bush never seemed to show this level of frustration. The other thing I noticed were that Obama's poll numbers appear to be sinking even further. Some had insisted that early July may be a low water mark for the administration, but the numbers are not leveling out.

One month ago on July 12, Obama’s approval and disapproval both stood at 47 percent in the Real Clear Politics poll average. On Tuesday, the president’s approval had fallen to 44.4 percent. Disapproval had jumped to 50.4 percent. The graph illustrating the movement is stark. After muddling through the past year in parallel lines, the black line for approval has taken a nose dive and the red line for disapproval has shot up. -The Daily Caller

“Malaise and stagnation are the best case and a second collapse is the worst case. You can’t take a second collapse off the table,” said market and financial analyst Jim Rickards, of Omnis.

“Those numbers are going to get worse for Obama because the economy is going to get worse,” Rickards said. “This is a depression. It’s a depression that began in 2007, and it will probably run until at least 2012, maybe 2013.”

While the president can not help but be tied to the economy, which probably needs to runs its course at this point, he can control his teams response to difficulty. All of this makes me wonder whether President Obama can last a second term.

How to Win Freinds & Influence People....

...or not.

The creator of the leftist blog The Daily Kos, Markos Moulitsas, has come out with a new book, American Taliban: How War, Sex, Sin, and Power Bind Jihadists and the Radical Right. From the Amazon description: "Moulitsas pulls no punches as he compares how the Republican Party and Islamic radicals maintain similar worldviews and tactics. Moutlitsas also challenges the media, fellow progressives, and our elected officials to call the radical right on their jihadist tactics more forcefully for the good of our nation and safety of all citizens."

 

As much as I can base an opinion on a product description, Moulitsas is wrong in his basic assumption. The radical right - of which I am not a member and actually disagree with quite often- is nothing like Islamic radicals, who believe in killing innocents. To even make the comparison seems disingenuous. I can only hope that this is hyperbole to sell some books and not a real opinion of those on the left. 

While here at The Moderate Republican we seek to bridge the gap between parties, the Daily Kos seems to want to push us even further apart. That is not useful, not ethical and to be frank, disappointing.

McCain, Coburn and Wasteful Stimulus Money

I was on vacation for the last two weeks, hence the scarcity of posts. while I was on my temporary hiatus I somehow missed Sens. McCain and Coburn's report, “Summertime Blues: 100 Stimulus Projects that Give Taxpayers the Blues." Here are some highlights:

- $762,372 to create “Dance Draw” interactive dance software

- $1.9 million for international ant research

- $1.8 million for a road project that is threatening a pastor’s home

- $308 million for a joint clean energy venture with…BP

- $89,298 to replace a new sidewalk that leads to a ditch in Boynton, OK

- $200,000 to help Siberian communities lobby Russian policy makers

- $760,000 to Georgia Tech to study improvised music

- $700,000 to study why monkeys respond negatively to inequity

- $193,956 to study voter perceptions of the economic stimulus

- $363,760 to help NIH promote the positive impacts of stimulus projects

- $456,663 to study the circulation of Neptune’s atmosphere

I know it is easy to scan a trillion dollars worth of funding and find some real blunders, but some times the low hanging fruit is worth picking.

 

WikiLeaks,War and a Weary Nation

I just read an article in The New Yorker by Amy Davidson which gives a nice summary of the WikiLeaks controversial release of thousands of documents on the Afghan war. She also details the U.S. and Afghan response to the leak and openly wonders why the story has not created a larger outcry from the public. I won't go into the details of the report here- read her article for that, it is well worth it- suffice to say when you don't know enemy from friend and the civilians don't want you there success is very far off, if at all attainable.

What really interests me is how little real press the whole situation is getting. Theoretically,with the advent of the internet, and  24-hour news, we are the most well-informed citizenry in history. Yet, with all this information at our fingertips we chose to do nothing. Makes you wonder. After ten years of constant war, have the American people come to accept this as how things are now? There was once another civilization that fought constant wars far from home, for reasons that were often cloudy. Eventually that civilization over extended itself to the point of collapse. Is history repeating itself?

Coleman Pushes for Constitutional Amendment

I just wrote about Coleman the other day and his chance at taking over the GOP after Michael Steele's term mercifully ends. Well, Norm is making news again, this time asking the "poeple"to rise up and demand a balanced budget amendment. Might not be a bad idea.

It’s time to take back our government. It’s time to take back America. And it’s time to give the American people true, honest and guaranteed political power.

We need a balanced-budget amendment to our Constitution. We need laws that require a two-thirds supermajority to raise taxes, so that Congress and the president don’t use a balanced-budget amendment as an excuse to raise taxes.

Washington won’t solve the debt problem. We, the people, can and must.

We need the American people, through state legislatures across our nation, to demand that Congress pass a balanced-budget amendment — or get out of the way and allow 34 states to compel Congress to do what it won’t do on its own.

Health Care: A Picture is Worth...

Texas congressman Kevin Brady, the top Republican on the Joint Economic Committee, had his staff do a study of the law, including a flow chart that illustrates how the major provisions will work.Here are the results:

In addition to capturing the massive expansion of government and the overwhelming complexity of new regulations and taxes, the chart portrays:

• 
  
  $569 billion in higher taxes;
• 
  
  $529 billion in cuts to Medicare;
• 
  
  swelling of the ranks of Medicaid by 16 million;
• 
  
  17 major insurance mandates; and
• 
  
  the creation of two new bureaucracies with powers to impose future rationing: the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute and the Independent Payments Advisory Board.

Brady admits committee analysts could not fit the entire health care bill on one chart. "This portrays only about one-third of the complexity of the final bill. It’s actually worse than this."

Why We Need Sane Political Discourse

Over at Rod Dreher's new blog he was commenting on the apparent demise of ScienceBlogs. He claims that the haughty, aristocratic way they sneered at any non-science viewpoint poisoned the hope for any rational discourse at the site. As I read this I thought on many of the political blogs on the right. While it is easy and sometimes justifiable for us to get angry and vent online,in the end it does nothing to further our points, or more importantly convert any in the middle to our side. Here is the money quote from Rod's piece:

What is it with science-oriented advocates who consider contempt a virtue? Who, exactly, do they think they are going to persuade? (You could say the same thing about sneering political bloggers, sneering religious bloggers, and, well, sneerers in all forms of public discourse, inasmuch as sneering seems to be a popular pose these days.) Most of us are tempted to sneer every now and then (I certainly am guilty of this), but some of these people adopt sneering as a basic intellectual stance to the world. It works for drag queens and comedians, who have it down to an art, but for the rest of us, it's just ugly and, ultimately, boring.  In the case I mention, the self-righteousness the pro-science folks could barely contain actually undermined their authority and effectiveness before a sympathetic audience. Nobody likes jerks, except other jerks.

 As we bloggers on the right continue to further the cause for smaller government I think it would be helpful to keep this in mind.