Articulate fiscal hawks like Paul Ryan in the House and Chris Christie as Governor of New Jersey give a glimmer of hope that our deeply listing ship of state might yet be righted. I have blogged on Ryan here. Today, from Plumb Bob Blog, comes a post on Christie's actions to date and his most recent speech to the assembled Mayors of New Jersey. This from Plumb Bob Blog:
Speaking, as I was this morning, of politicians with the stones to make the necessary cuts in spending…
Mike Shedlock (with a hat tip to Michelle Malkin) reported on a remarkable speech by New Jersey’s new governor, Chris Christie to the New Jersey League of Municipalities, that illustrates what Real Men® who hold office will have to be doing for the next several decades.
He minces no words:
• government programs will have to be cut
• government salaries and benefits will have to be cut to the size and scope of comparable private sector salaries and benefits
• government-worker unions will have to cede power
• tax increases are not an option, and
• politicians will have to behave as though the next election does not matter.
In just five, tense weeks of holding office, he already has actions to match his words; budget officers showed him 378 ways to freeze spending to close a $2.3 billion gap in a $6 billion pool of money in the budget, and he signed 375 of them. . . .
Unfortunately, Gov. Christie's speech is not on YouTube yet, but it is on video here. It is well worth the time to listen. Christie shows what leadership looks like. Compare and contrast that with the left's (and some on the right's) treatment of Sen. Bunning for merely having the temerity to suggest that the left, having just paraded in front of the cameras in their new fiscal hawk costumes after passing pay-go, actually pay for yet another extension of unemployment benefits. That is the opposite of leadership. Unfortunately, it appears to be pervasive throughout Congress and the Executive Branch today.
Several prominent Blue Dogs have announced retirement, and one defected to the Republicans yesterday. All of this comes on the heels of severe declines in the poll numbers for the left. Yet Obama, who campaigned as a moderate but is governing as a far left ideologue, pushes on with his unpopular policies and anti-democratic methods. This has many on the left taking starting to sweat at the poll numbers coming in. This from Time Magazine:
. . . But as Obama approaches the first year mark of his presidency, Democratic and Republican strategists are beginning to look more closely at the polls. Here's why:
1. Congress cares about polls.
Obama's success depends upon his ability to get Congress to do his bidding, and as the polls have soured, this has become a much tougher proposition. With the President's approval rating now dipping below 50% in most polls, Democratic pollsters have begun to sound the alarm. In a recent public memo, Celinda Lake, of Lake Research Partners, pointed to a sobering statistic: Presidents with approval ratings below 50% have lost an average of 41 House seats in mid-term elections. (Democrats currently have an 81-seat advantage in the House, so Republicans could gain control of the chamber with a 41-seat pick-up in 2010.) To make matters worse, Republicans now win the generic Congressional ballot by two points, the first time the GOP has outstripped Democrats since January of 2002, according to the George Washington University Battleground Poll.
"To make matters worse?" The authors left wing bent is showing, though in this case I find it more amusing than disquiting.
2. Health-care reform has become a burden.
Something has gone wrong on the long trail to historic health reform. For one thing, Americans no longer support what is going on. The recent Wall Street Journal/NBC poll found that 44% of the country believe it would be better not to pass any plan at all, while 41% said it would be better to pass the plan. As recently as October, the same poll showed those numbers practically reversed. . . .
3. The Obama movement has gone missing.
The 2009 elections in New Jersey and Virginia were initially talked about by Obama allies as a test of the President's organizing power. By the time the votes were counted, however, with Republicans winning two Democratic seats, no one at the White House wanted to claim any responsibility. That's because the remarkable enthusiasm that greeted Obama's victory in 2008, with record turnout among independents, blacks and young people, had gone away, along with the minions of Obama organizers. . . .
4. Keynes doesn't play in Peoria.
Obama has followed a traditionally Keynesian economic path in responding to the recession — temporarily increasing government spending to make up for slack in the economy. But voters, who continue to suffer from the downturn, are not so impressed. In a recent focus group with independent voters who voted for Obama, Republican pollster Ed Goeas found significant concern about government spending. "There was a tipping point that occurred," he said. "The biggest thing I have seen beyond the intensity and the independents moving has been this focus, in the middle of a very bad economy, on spending." . . .
5. Washington has not changed.
President Obama continues to get higher ratings for personal likability and trustworthiness than his Republican foes. But there are also signs that Obama is beginning to feel the taint of the long-standing anger against politics and politicians in general. The Wall Street Journal/NBC poll found in December that 61% of the country has only some confidence, or no confidence, in Obama having the right set of goals and priorities to be President. Meanwhile, America's confidence in general remains in the gutter. When asked if they trust that government will do what is right, 32% said almost never and 46% said only some of the time. In the Battleground poll, Democrats, Republicans and Independents all disapprove of the job Congress is doing, though the numbers among swing-voting independents are most concerning for the party in power. A full 77% of this group disapprove of the Congress's job performance. Only 15% approve.
Perhaps there is a chance that Obama's overreaching will result in such a significant backlash that our ship of state can still be righted (pun intentional). Let us hope.
In a post I did a week ago, Republicans Ponder the Abyss, I wrote on the current problems of our congressional Republicans and what they need to do to right the ship in time for November. Conservative Rep. Tom Coburn (R-Ok.) sounds much the same theme and, indeed, uses some of the same imagery in an article in the WSJ today, with the addition of one very important point. When it comes to bedrock conservative issue of fiscal discipline, there is a person who would lead the party. His name is John McCain.
As congressional Republicans contemplate the prospect of an electoral disaster this November, much is being written about the supposed soul-searching in the Republican Party. A more accurate description of our state is paralysis and denial.
Many Republicans are waiting for a consultant or party elder to come down from the mountain and, in Moses-like fashion, deliver an agenda and talking points on stone tablets. But the burning bush, so to speak, is delivering a blindingly simple message: Behave like Republicans.
Unfortunately, too many in our party are not yet ready to return to the path of limited government. Instead, we are being told our message must be deficient because, after all, we should be winning in certain areas just by being Republicans. Yet being a Republican isn't good enough anymore. Voters are tired of buying a GOP package and finding a big-government liberal agenda inside. What we need is not new advertising, but truth in advertising.
Becoming Republicans again will require us to come to grips with what has ailed our party – namely, the triumph of big-government Republicanism and failed experiments like the K Street Project and "compassionate conservatism." If the goal of the K Street Project was to earmark and fund raise our way to a filibuster-proof "governing" majority, the goal of "compassionate conservatism" was to spend our way to a governing majority.
The fruit of these efforts is not the hoped-for Republican governing majority, but the real prospect of a filibuster-proof Democrat majority in 2009. While the K Street Project decimated our brand as the party of reform and limited government, compassionate conservatism convinced the American people to elect the party that was truly skilled at activist government: the Democrats.
Compassionate conservatism's starting point had merit. The essential argument that Republicans should orient policy around how our ideas will affect the poor, the widow, the orphan, the forgotten and the "other" is indisputable – particularly for those who claim, as I do, to submit to an authority higher than government. Yet conservatives are conservatives because our policies promote deliverance from poverty rather than dependence on government. . . .
. . . Regaining our brand as the party of fiscal discipline will require us to rejoin Americans in the real world of budget choices and priorities, and to leave behind the fantasyland of borrowing without limits. Instead of adopting earmarks, each Republican can adopt examples of government waste, largess and fraud, and restart the permanent campaign against big government.
. . . Regaining our brand is not about "messaging." It's about action. It's about courage. It's about priorities. Most of all, it's about being willing to give up our political careers so our grandkids don't have to grow up in a debtor's prison, or a world in which other nations can tell a weakened and bankrupt America where we can and can't defend liberty, pursue terrorists, or show compassion.
John McCain, for all his faults, is the one Republican candidate who can lead us through our wilderness. Mr. McCain is not running on a messianic platform or as a great healer of dysfunctional Republicans who refuse to help themselves. His humility is one of his great strengths. In his heart, he's a soldier who sees one more hill to charge, one more mission to complete.
Almost a week ago, I wrote the post Republicans Ponder The Abyss, stating that there was a simple and viable strategy for November: embrace fiscal discipline, run on the price of oil and how Democrats sit at the root of it for not allowing development of our resources, run on national security, and get a much more proactive communications strategy. I see that almost precisely the same conclusions have been reached over at GatewayPundit. This is not brain surgery. The only question is whether any of our elected Republican representatives are listening.
. . . All our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more: it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
MacBeth, Act 5 Scene 5
One could well imagine our Republican Congressmen quoting MacBeth as they ponder the fates and stare into the abyss that draws ever closer as November approaches. It is a fate that they have brought upon themselves by their choices over a period of years, straying ever farther from conservative values. The solutions are simple, their delusions phenomenal, and the leadership nonexistent. There is indeed every reason to be as pessimistic as MacBeth. __________________________________________________
About a week ago, on the eve of the third special election in a safe Republican district, House Republicans huddled to ponder their fate. We do not know what was said in the meeting but Rep. Tom Davis, coming out of the meeting, blamed Republican troubles on Bush and things such as his opposition to SCHIP – the Democratic plan to spend billions to create nationalized health care for children. And in that one event, all was summed up.
Congressional Republicans are both deaf to their constituents and delusional about the causes of their problems. If there is a single Republican who thinks emulating the left and embracing SCHIP or some other huge new socialist program is the way forward for the Republican party, they are insane. What in God’s name is wrong with these people? Bush certainly has to take a major share of responsibility for all of the above problems, but let there be no doubt that our Congressional Republicans and the RNC all shoulder an equal share of the blame.
That said, November does not have to be the rout it portends. Victor Davis Hanson took the time to remind our misguided elected leaders about the key issues of a conservative plank. Suffice it to say, there were no surprises. But it really is even simpler than that. Republicans have two key national issues they can run on and win. The first, the pocket book issue, is the price at the pump. The second is national security. But they will only win on those issues if they accomplish two prerequisites. One, they need to embrace fiscal responsibility like it was just written on stone tablets by fingers of flame emanating out of a burning bush. Two, they need to adopt an effective communications strategy.
The engine of our economy and our modern lives is energy, whether it come from oil or some other form. The prices of everything we buy are effected by it. If it now costs three times more to get an orange from California to a market in Baltimore, that cost gets passed on to the consumer. The people hurt the most by high oil and gas prices are those who can afford it the least.
The cost of oil is determined by supply and demand, not the oil companies, not Opec (other than OPEC regulates how much oil they supply - still, OPEC has not really pinched the supply since the '70's.) It should not be hard to explain the basic concepts of supply and demand to the American people. Nor should it be hard to explain that every attempt to drill for oil in the U.S. and off our coastline has been stopped by Democrats. We have China taking oil from the sea floor 70 miles off our coast line, yet we cannot get that oil and use it to reduce our prices compliments of Democratic obstructionism. Indeed, that should be the concluding sentence to every speech given by a Republican between now and November, much like in days long past Cato ended every speech calling for the destruction of Carthage. And when Democrats such as Speaker Pelosi say all Republican's want to do is "veto and drill," there should be a line of Republicans heading towards microphones to announce that they just heard Nancy Pelosi make the first honest and accurate remark she has made during her tenure as speaker.
Over the past 30 years, Democrats have blocked drilling off the coast of Florida, drilling off of the east coast, west coast, the Alaskan coast and ANWR. Within the past month, the Democrats have voted against even allowing exploration of oil-shale formations in Colorado and Utah. Democrats are wedded to radical environmentalists who could care less about this nation’s economic development, nor for that matter, the effect of oil prices on Joe Sixpack. Indeed, the cleanest, greenest and cheapest form of energy is nuclear, yet there our Democrats have also placed roadblocks that prevent any new nuclear plants being built.
The Democrats have yet to propose a plan that will add one drop of oil to American pumps. Not one. This is utterly insane. Indeed, Democrats propose the opposite. Oil company profits get ploughed back into exploration as well as R&D. Yet the Democrats have proposed a plan to strip oil companies of their profits and to sue OPEC, two moves that could not be more suicidal. The energy argument should be a supremely easy one for conservatives to win – if they communicate it effectively.
All of this speaks of a complete lack of any understanding of the nature of Iran’s theocracy, its violent and virulent history since its inception, its refusal to moderate, the amount of blood on the theocrat's hands, and the theocracy's role in insuring that there is no peace in the Middle East. It ignores the the extensive diplomatic efforts made by the U.S. and the EU over the past decades to establish relations with Iran and convince it to moderate its course - all of which have been for naught. It is also is suicidally delusional about the danger Iran pose's while they are enriching uranium and creating other by-products of the fuel cycle that can be used in terrorist acts.
And it seems Obama does not care that Iran is in the midst of a proxy war against both the U.S. and the Iraqi government. I have outlined the threat posed by Iran on several occasions, including here and here. Add to this that Obama wants to pull defeat from the jaws of victory in Iraq – a move that really would strengthen Iran – and that he believes both Hamas and Hezbollah, both proxies of Iran, have "legitimate grievances." What you have is a Presidential candidate who is so fundamentally flawed and weak on national security as to be dangerous.
Those two issues, more than any other, are winners for the Republican Party on the national level. That said, it all matters for naught unless Republicans in Congress embrace fiscal discipline – including renunciation of earmarks and out of control spending. That requires both leadership and discipline which our Congressional Republicans do not have. Mitch McConnell has done all he could to scuttle earmark reform, and John Boehner in the House has not led on this issue at all. And just a few days ago, Republicans joined with Democrats to pass a bloated, veto-proof Farm Bill that is an utter atrocity. Fiscal discipline is one of the three long poles in the conservative tent – which means it's non-negotiable with the base. Republicans lost in 2006 because of their lack of any fiscal discipline. And it is doubtful that the base will listen to any arguments until this gets fixed on a national level.
And then there is the final issue, lack of an effective communications strategy. The silence from our elected Republicans on every issue is deafening. Democrats under Clinton perfected the art of immediately responding to any and every Republican attack with multiple speakers responding through multiple outlets. And it’s a practice they have continued through this day. A shining example is the President’s speech the other day in Irsrael, wherein he spoke of the dangers of appeasement. Within hours of that speech, you had Obama and at least six other Democrats in the news responding to the President. Some of their responses were outrageous. Obama himself relied wholly on nothing but rhetorical devices to preclude any debate. Rahm Emanuel, for his part, attacked the President by saying that "politics stops at the water’s edge." The hypocrisy of that statement was jarring, given the historical roots of that phrase. Yet with only one exception, not a single elected Republican pointed out either the hypocrisy or the artifice of the Democrats, nor discussed whether Obama's proposed meeting with Iran was suicidally naive. Indeed, over the past several days, the only Republican in the news responding to this tsunami from the left is McCain.
This is one incident out of thousands over the past decade where Democrats have won the battle of communications by issuing unanswered attacks which they then repeat ad infinitum. They have, by sheer repetition regularly managed to turn non-sequiters into accepted fact. For instance, how many people now believe Bush lied about WMD in Iraq or that he twisted intelligence in his "sixteen words" speech. Neither of these claims have substance, but they have been repeated so often and so loudly by the left, and with so little response and no outrage on the right, that they have become accepted as fact by many, if not the majority of Americans.
I realize the MSM is in the left’s pocket, but to concede the echo chamber is simply ludicrous. Indeed, Republicans need to be responding with twice the energy and number precisely because of the incredible MSM bias. Moreover, to allow the Democrats to repeat untruths or half truths without responding with cold outrage shows a party that lacks any leadership - let alone confidence in their message. Indeed, I firmly believe that if the RNC or the Republican leadership in Congress took a much more proactive stance in responding in at least equal number to each and every attack, the party would not be fighting a rearguard action for its very existence today.
Unfortunately, I do not believe the current Republican leadership cable of meeting the prerequisites of either embracing fiscal discipline or challenging in the communications battle. To the contrary, for this iteration of Republicans, I think the words of MacBeth to be right on target. "All our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death." We are in for a long ride on the right, compliments of electing fiscally irresponsible and incompetent Republicans over the past decade.
Update: One hundred and three Republicans House members just joined with Democrats to pass an "energy bill" that gives no energy but attacks oil companies and asks the Justice Dept. to sue OPEC. Both the bill and Republicans voting for it are utterly suicidal. Those Republicans voting for this bill are trying to emulate the left to save their skins. They are cowards and fools moving in precisely the wrong direction. Let the massacre commence.
George Will has long been a staunch opponent of John McCain. With respect to that, it is ironic that Will, in his column today, posits that lack of fiscal discipline, and particularly earmarks, cost Republican's the '06 election and will be the single most significant reason why Republican's remain the minority party.
Coconut Road near Fort Myers looks like any other concrete ribbon near housing developments, golf courses and shopping malls in this state's booming southwest. But like another fragrant slab of recent pork, the $223 million "Bridge to Nowhere" in Alaska, Coconut Road leads to somewhere darkly fascinating. It runs straight into Washington's earmark culture of waste, corruption and anti-constitutional deviousness.
Today the road ends at a chain-link fence, beyond which flows the river of traffic on Interstate 75. The earmark that would have built an interchange to connect Coconut Road to I-75 was, like the bridge, smudged with the fingerprints of Alaska's Republican Rep. Don Young, who was chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee in 2005. But this story involves more than one political vulgarian's wretched excesses. It also illustrates how Republicans earned their most recent and coming drubbings.
On July 29, 2005, the House and Senate passed legislation granting Lee County's request for $10 million for "widening and improvements for I-75" to facilitate evacuations during hurricanes. But on Feb. 19, 2005, Young had been in Bonita Springs near Fort Myers, collecting $40,000 in campaign funds. The contributors included developer Daniel Aronoff, a prolific supporter of Republicans and owner of about 4,000 acres along Coconut Road. The value of that land would be enhanced if Coconut Road were connected to I-75 by an interchange that would be adjacent to 1,200 of Aronoff's acres.
When the legislation reached the president on Aug. 10, 2005, the language about widening I-75 had been mysteriously deleted and replaced by "Coconut Rd. interchange I-75/Lee County." So $10 million was to be spent for a project that neither the House nor the Senate voted for, that Lee County did not want, and that someone unknown wrote into the legislation. But the Constitution says: "Every bill . . . shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate" before it becomes law.
Young at first said that the local House member, Connie Mack, asked for the change. Mack denied that. In January 2006, Young, who subsequently changed his tune, warned Lee County that it could not spend the $10 million for the widening project it requested. Young says that local residents requested the interchange project instead. But many residents, not including the developers who are Young's benefactors, oppose it for environmental and traffic reasons.
. . . [Senator Tom] Coburn demands "a select committee, comprised of members of both the House and Senate," because "secret, improper and unauthorized changes to congressionally passed legislation call into question the integrity of our entire constitutional and legislative process."
. . . In his State of the Union address, President Bush vowed to veto any appropriation bill "that does not cut the number and cost of earmarks in half." Coburn tartly notes that although Congress hardly needs 5,500 earmarks -- half of last year's total -- the president's goal would be met if Republicans themselves quit earmarking. That fact goes far to explain the Republicans' current and future minority status.
Read the entire article. The irony here, of course, is that while Will has been a vociferous opponent of McCain, it has been only McCain who has vowed to impose fiscal discipline on government and to veto any bill containing earmarks. In many ways, McCain Derangement Syndrome is a mysterious illness indeed, apparently making the otherwise rational person unable to come to grips with reality.
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