From Brian:
Majority, Here We Come
Sunday, August 30, 2009Sorry for the light posting, I’ve been working some insane hours lately. Which, ironically, brings me to this post.
I work in Ottumwa, Iowa, which is a heavily Democrat area, and has been since before I was born. It’s rare that the people here vote Republican for anything, basically.
Anyway, I deal with the public quite a bit and I get to chit-chat with them now and then and what I’ve begun to see is an actual backlash against the Democrats. People who are, self-admittedly, hard-boiled Democrats are getting fed up. They don’t like the spending, they don’t like this health care business, and they don’t like where Obama and his cohorts are leading us.
These aren’t a handful of people I’ve talked to, either. We’re not talking about a couple of people here and a few people there, we’re talking hundreds of them over the past few weeks. Almost every single one of them are upset and disgruntled. And they aren’t pulling any punches, either.
I’ve heard a few of them say they should have backed Hillary, but then they state that she probably wouldn’t have been any better (probably?!?). I’ve had more than a few say they should have backed McCain. In other words, “buyer’s remorse” has set in here in the heartland of America.
If the Democrats in Washington (and in Des Moines) are losing support of these guys, then I think we’re going to see one hell of an upset come next November, because the way these people are talking, there’s no way they’re voting for them again.
We’ve got a special election coming up on Sept. 1 here in this part of Iowa, and it should be a good litmus test of what’s going to happen in about a year. If this guy wins, Chet Culver and the rest of the Democrats in the State House are going to be running for cover. And so will the politicians in Washington.
I remember 1994. A whole lot of people supported Bill Clinton in 1992, and supported the ideaso much more efficient ring true to the American people, to whom the idea of government making anything more efficient seems like an oxymoron.
There’s still a long time yet before the 2010 elections, but if the Democrats continue to see decreasing popularity for Obamacare, they’ll start to bail out soon enough.
I think this is similar to my Are You Satisfied Parts 1 & 2. Looks like Iowa is saying NO!
That would be nice. America deserves another four years of Republican rule. Probably eight.
Dana: “There’s still a long time yet before the 2010 elections, but if the Democrats continue to see decreasing popularity for Obamacare, they’ll start to bail out soon enough.”
What you fail to recognize, Dana, is that although Obama’s approval ratings have dropped to around 50%, the trust rating remains around 70%. I will be very surprised if the American people would lose that trust so easily.
People well understand that the Repubs have messed up so badly, and continue to do so with all their lies and distortions. I can see the campaign commercials of the Dems, rerunning all this stuff as a demo of the true Repub attitude. I also think the general perception is that Obama has a lot on his plate, and is trying hard to deal with all the key stuff.
Should the economy not progress, should the war in Afghanistan get worse, then all bets are off for 2010 and 2012, in my view.
Didn’t they know what they were getting when they voted for Obama? His record was quite clear – and quite left – though granted the fawning press did their best to play this part down.
Eric wrote:
I thought you knew: they were voting for Hope and Change. We tried to tell them that that meant they’d hope they had some change left once the Obama Administration was through with them, but they didn’t believe us.
Then around the end of October BO said we were just a few days from Fundamentally Changing America.
No sympathy here for the poor, uninformed, disillusioned, Lemmings of the Left. They’re getting exactly what they voted for. Problem for the rest of us who saw this coming is having to be dragged through the garbage pit along with them. If they think this is fun, wait till 2011 when they release the remaining 80 percent of the Monopoly money printed up for the Porkulus Package and we get to re-experience Carter-style double-digit inflation. Boy! Don’t know about the rest of you, but I really miss those days!
Shorter Joe: Despite the signs of recovery, Obama’s complete and utter failure to clean up eight years of Republican messes in eight months proves how much America needs the Republicans running things again.
Phoenician in a time of Romans:
Shorter Joe: Despite the signs of recovery, Obama’s complete and utter failure to clean up eight years of Republican messes in eight months proves how much America needs the Republicans running things again.
You really have no clue what is going on here right now. You just read stuff and parrot it back. You can actually read this post and blow it off as Right Wing Propaganda.
You can actually read this post and blow it off as Right Wing Propaganda.
Which part of the word ‘Joe” do you have problems understanding?
Yorkshire, I have a clue what is going on here, and Phoenician is exactly right. The problem is, you on the Right, like Joe Shallenberger and yourself, are in denial (publicly, for partisan reasons) about the state of the union which Obama inherited. Shall I spell it out for you again?
Perry:
Yorkshire, I have a clue what is going on here, and Phoenician is exactly right. The problem is, you on the Right, like Joe Shallenberger and yourself, are in denial (publicly, for partisan reasons) about the state of the union which Obama inherited. Shall I spell it out for you again?
Right, and when Bush was handed the tech bursted bubble and a recession, you told us everything was OK. And when terrorism was neglected for eight years, you said but Bush had the memo. Yeah, yeah, yeah, but you haven’t a clue as to the mood of the nation, and it’s not pretty.
Perry, the last 8 years this country was headed by a liberal Repubulican with whom you disagreed on every issue because he was Republican. It is now run by a leftist Democrat whith whom you seem to agree on every issuse simply because he’s a Democrat. The agenda of Bush was the same as Obamas. Obama has changed NOTHING. We are still in recession, in Afganistan, Iraq, at GITMO, etc. He only continued the crap that Bush started including bailouts and stimuli only this ass has done it in spades (no pun intended). He’s the game guy as Bush, only bolder and with a “D” after his name. You partisans on both sides better wake up to what is going on in this country. Now they want to take over health care, obtain “emergency” powers over the internet, control the speech on the air waves, establish a domestic force “as well funded as our military”, and control who has access to town hall meetings. The so called capitalists of big business are and always have been in bed with the government. The only difference is one wants money, the other power. The working guys and small business guys in the middle end uf getting screwed out of their earnings by one side and loosing their freedom to the other. No one obeys the constitution any more and it’s the leftists who keep “interpreting” it’s plain English to make it what they want. We have freekin Marxist czars, unelected and unanswerable to anyone but the President. Where the hell is that in the Constitution?
Special elections may well give the people the opportunity to show their disdain for ObamaSoc.
Will the Democrats who are running be able to avoid linkage with an administration that is showing totalitarian urges?
The radical policies of academic hacks Sunstein and Lloyd should send a wakeup call to America.
There have been two special elections in the home state of VP Biden since the election and both have been won by Republicans. There is a third one coming up on September 12th. The results should be interesting.
If you want to talk about the state of the union someone inherited, let’s talk about the state of the union Reagan inherited from Carter. From a “can you top this” standpoint, I win.
Perry, the last 8 years this country was headed by a liberal Repubulican with whom you disagreed on every issue because he was Republican. It is now run by a leftist Democrat whith whom you seem to agree on every issuse simply because he’s a Democrat. The agenda of Bush was the same as Obamas. Obama has changed NOTHING. We are still in recession, in Afganistan, Iraq, at GITMO, etc. He only continued the crap that Bush started including bailouts and stimuli only this ass has done it in spades (no pun intended). He’s the game guy as Bush, only bolder and with a “D” after his name. You partisans on both sides better wake up to what is going on in this country. Now they want to take over health care, obtain “emergency” powers over the internet, control the speech on the air waves, establish a domestic force “as well funded as our military”, and control who has access to town hall meetings. The so called capitalists of big business are and always have been in bed with the government. The only difference is one wants money, the other power. The working guys and small business guys in the middle end uf getting screwed out of their earnings by one side and loosing their freedom to the other. No one obeys the constitution any more and it’s the leftists who keep “interpreting” it’s plain English to make it what they want. We have freekin Marxist czars, unelected and unanswerable to anyone but the President. Where the hell is that in the Constitution?
Perhaps you need to elect a strong man who will cut through all the democratic nonsense, bring law and order to the country, wield American power effectively overseas, and unleash the power of US corporations by cracking down on the unions and so-called “workers rights”.
And make the trains run on time, too.
The German Democratic Republic set up a system to legally kill-on-sight any of their citizens who were trying to escape their country. The People’s Democratic Republic of Korea has a system in place to forceably re-educate their people. That system works wonderfully. And those countries are so much more advanced and so much more wealthy than the constitutional republic known as the United States of America. We really need to become The People’s Democratic Republic of North America. We are so backward and underprivileged.
The word “Democratic” has been rather abused by totalitarians in recent years as Mr. Hitchcock pointed out.
Such abuse is being seen in Washington and a lot of ‘Weak Sister’ (nominal) Republicans seem to have been aiding and abetting the crimes.
There should be some primary challenges to time servers who offer incumbency as their only asset.
I disagree, Art. The word “democratic” in these cases is perfectly well used. It means rule of the majority. To the detriment of the minority. Sometime the majority is the most votes. Often it is rigged voting or Black Panthers at the polls with clubs stopping voters. Either way in a republic with a constitution the majority leads, not rules. We are supposidly a nation of laws not majorities. Perhaps this is what Franlin meant when he said: “…A Republic, if you can keep it”. And in any republic there is not one party rule.
a lot of ‘Weak Sister’ (nominal) Republicans seem to have been aiding and abetting the crimes.
This would be which crimes?
Often it is rigged voting or Black Panthers at the polls with clubs stopping voters.
And these would be where now?
God, you people are insane.
Oh, right – more parroting of Your Master’s Voice…
I believe I’ve made clear through my posts my collective disatisfaction with both Republicans and Democrats. Together, we’ve all watched during the last decades how they run business in D.C. and the deficit is proof of that. But Obama’s solution of bigger goverment, historical spending and tax increases, expansive takeovers, appointments of 30 plus czars to bypass Congress amounts to exactly the wrong prescription. Statism simply does not work. If you have $100k in credit card debt the solution should not be to run it up another $200k. It’s simple math that sooner than later we’re all going to have deal with. This alone is my primary beef with Obama. The fact the folks who swallowed is B.S. hook, line, and sinker, that rushedto punch his ticket last November, are now ‘Jonesing’ about who he’s turning out to be doesn’t surprise me. You think things are FUBAR now, wait until he’s through wrecking the country for another three years with his Chicago thug, Black Militant, level-the-playing field, community organizing, anti-Constitution, redistribution, class warfare policies.
If you have $100k in credit card debt the solution should not be to run it up another $200k. It’s simple math that sooner than later we’re all going to have deal with.
This is true, but you are not a government. They have to deal with macroeconomics as well as budgets. Whether or not the stimulus will succeed is a gamble, and it will burden the government for years to come, but the failure to do so would have had massive consequences for the country.
Contrast this with the budgets run up under Reagan and Bush, which achieved nothing. If you had had the Clinton economic policy running for teh last eight years, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.
Contrast this with the budgets run up under Reagan and Bush, which achieved nothing. If you had had the Clinton economic policy running for teh last eight years, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.
Clinton had to deal with what the Republicans stood for at one time for 1994 to 2000. Bush got the Potomac Fever Republicans from 2000 to 2006. Then Bush got the pent up to spend Dems in 06 to 08, and Obama inherited a free for all. Discipline held to 9/11/01, then everything became an emergency even where it didn’t exist.
Here we go:
I think they’re whistling in the dark a bit; the problems with the US (and global) economy are structural, and the excess money sloshing around is still there – watch for another bubble somewhere. But I’m no expert.
Other than winning the Cold War, of course.
I think they’re whistling in the dark a bit; the problems with the US (and global) economy are structural, and the excess money sloshing around is still there – watch for another bubble somewhere. But I’m no expert.
One of the financial reporters from a local brokerage in the Baltimore area who discusses these things on WBAL Radio said yesterday (Tuesday) morning that with investors there is $4 Trillion in cash sitting on the side doing basically nothing until this all gets sorted out. Me? I just reallocated my 401k to park money in a safe place for right now.
One of the financial reporters from a local brokerage in the Baltimore area who discusses these things on WBAL Radio said yesterday (Tuesday) morning that with investors there is $4 Trillion in cash sitting on the side doing basically nothing until this all gets sorted out.
There you go.
I need to get hold of that Niall Ferguson book.
Other than winning the Cold War, of course.
You’re an idiot. The Soviet Union lost in 1956, and it had little to do with the military. Everything else was just the end-game.
Gee, the Berlin Wall fell in ’56! Funny, it was still there when I visited in the 1970′s ….
Phoenician in a time of Romans:
One of the financial reporters from a local brokerage in the Baltimore area who discusses these things on WBAL Radio said yesterday (Tuesday) morning that with investors there is $4 Trillion in cash sitting on the side doing basically nothing until this all gets sorted out.
There you go.
I’ve seen this before, but a lot of the side chatter is talking of a double dip recession. I think we’re far from being out of the woods, and we have an administration talking higher taxes and higher spending and driving up the costs of basics. Hardly a cure to get people to invest at this time, or start a business.
Eric, I doubt that you know what happened in 1956, do you?
By the time of the Reagan first term, the Soviet Union was disintegrating internally. Ever here of perestroika and glasnost? To his credit, Reagan gave the process a shove to get it over-with.
So Phoenician is correct, the Berlin wall was the end of the end-game, one that was significant, one that will be long remembered as the ultimate turning point in the Cold War and a graphic symbol for it.
Yorkshire, were you in the market for the 50% ride up since March?
Who do you credit for that. Now hold tight with your knuckles turned white, and tell the truth! Just askin’.
Perry:
Yorkshire, were you in the market for the 50% ride up since March?
Who do you credit for that. Now hold tight with your knuckles turned white, and tell the truth! Just askin’.
I stayed half on the sideline. With all the Bills flying around that had market spoilers in them, and the gross printing of money, the stimulus that showed nothing really, healthcare reform swirling around, outside the market was turmoil, inside the market, it was looking oversold. There is no guarantee the market will keep going up. The last few days have shown a slight downturn and the market has stood still for a few weeks now.
Congress is back next week with the Dems promising to say the hell with what the people want, we’re going to do what we want, and my fear is consumer confidence will collapse on a country in a foul mood. C4C is over and the car market is where it was three weeks ago. Summer vacations were down. Sales are going on driving down prices. Retailers are looking for a bleak Christmas. Big store orders are down and it will affect China. China’s market may go pop, and has slightly. So, I look at the 50% run-up as striking a vein of pyrite, otherwise known as fool’s gold. And when hyperinflation hits with the money presses running triple overtime, well, it’s not encouraging to say the least.
Perry:
Eric, I doubt that you know what happened in 1956, do you?
Sure, the Hungarians had had enough of the Soviets who were on the decline and decided to revolt and break away from the Soviet influence. The very weakened Soviets sent the tanks into Buda-Pest and squashed this revolt like you squash a bug under your heal. The weakened Soviets held their grip for another 30 years because of their weakness.
By the time of the Reagan first term, the Soviet Union was disintegrating internally. Ever here of perestroika and glasnost? To his credit, Reagan gave the process a shove to get it over-with.
*grin* Not what I was thinking at all. Clue: Alvin Toffler.
York covered it nicely, I believe. Those “disintegrating” Soviets completely crushed an internal rebellion in the Eastern Bloc, and we were powerless to do anything about it.
I agree with the last part. It’s hard to know how long the USSR could have lasted without pressure from Reagan and others, but let’s not forget that both Cuba and North Korea have managed to survive, so presumably the USSR could have as well.
It’s hard to know how long the USSR could have lasted without pressure from Reagan and others
Missed it entirely.