The day After and What Might Have Been

I learned a couple of things from Tuesday night’s election. We now have another category the GOP loses, the unmarried voter. I also learned the difference between independents and moderates in this present day. The independents are conservatives who have left the Republican Party for some reason and the moderates are Democrats who don’t align themselves with the progressives/ liberals. These labels change meanings from cycle to cycle.

The two major parties interpreted the results of the Tuesday night’s election results differently as we might expect. The GOP is split because some cheered Chris Christie’s landslide victory and others said that New Jersey was not a model to copy for the 2016 presidential election.

The Republican Party doesn’t think they lost the Virginia’s governor’s race because if they would have had a better candidate, poured more money into it, and emphasized the failure of Obamacare at the start, they would have won that contest. It’s another case of “if we would’ve scored more points “ logic.In fact, even though Ken Cuuccinelli admitted he lost, he has yet to call the governor elect Terry McAuliffe to congratulate him. The governor’s race in Virginia was very similar to the congressional race in Alabama where the business establishment ousted the tea party from gaining office. In Virginia, they withheld campaign funds and poured in money into the Alabama congressional race. The establish GOP beat the tea party this time around but not enough to discourage them from running candidates in 2014.

The DNC may be sorry for not putting up of much of a fight in the New Jersey governor’s race but they saw Christi winning since Cory Booker decided not to challenge him. Preliminary polls show Hillary Clinton beating the governor in his own state by six points, so the confidence that he can be beaten is there.

Democrats are like the team that kicks the last-second field goal for the win because they took the governorship of Virginia, but now they have to govern, no time to brag, analyze or declare a mandate. Terry McAuliffe has to find a way to convince the one chamber the GOP controls, to enroll in Obamacare.

Democrats saw new hope in passing minimum wage increase legislation. New Jersey passed a minimum wage hike despite having a Republican governor. The party was also delighted that New York City will get a very liberal mayor who will govern that way.

Republican leaders are trying to say Tuesday’s night’s election was the referendum on Obamacare, but that is very shortsighted. As he usually does, Jon Stewart went through his archives to show the same horror stories existed prior to 2009. Today we’re seeing the horror stories because a lot of lazy reporters are not doing their due diligence. October is usually the month health insurance companies reevaluate their policies with their customers.

As usual, the negativity has drowned out the good news. We just found out yesterday that our economy expanded to 2.8% annual rate during the months of July through September but then the shutdown came. The report stated that exports were rising, businesses were building their inventories in anticipation of sales, home construction was on the rise but then we got struck with another self- inflicted crisis. The naysayers are blaming President Obama and his policies for a stagnant economy but the economic data doesn’t support that.

I keep reading the letters about economic doom, but I don’t see any evidence of that. Yesterday, while I was at therapy, I overheard a conversation about a tamale order. The lady said that she was willing to pay $10.00 a dozen. Look at the cost of ingredients that go into making the delicacy; it wasn’t inflation that cost the price to rise from $7.25 a couple of years ago. I think the restaurants are taking advantage because that there are less people making good tamales these days. That’s just a small example where we can’t always use generally accepted economic reasoning to come to the same conclusion. We were led to believe that you can’t raise the minimum wage without hurting the economy but we know that’s just a myth. We no longer believe that we can’t raise taxes on the rich because it will hurt growth.

I don’t blame people for directing all their bitterness toward President Obama by trying to belittle his credentials, decisions, and policies because that comes with the territory, it’s called “sour grapes” I’ve noticed a pattern with these people; they don’t have an alternative solution. I’ve done my share of criticizing Ron Paul and President George W. Bush, but I submitted the details of why I felt that way.

Those lousy Poll Numbers

Joe Scarborough was so happy with this morning’s poll numbers that I wouldn’t be surprised if he gets a starring role in the next Geico commercial.  He must’ve run those poll numbers about three of four times during the three hours of “Morning Joe.” His co-host, Mika Brzezinski, showed a poll of the Virginias governor’s race where the Democrat was winning by five points, and then out of nowhere, Joe pulled out an email on his iPhone showing Governor Chris Christie having a 40 point lead in his race.

Towards the end of the show, Ezra Klein and Chuck Todd brought Joe Scarborough back down to earth by saying that those numbers are all too common just before another fiscal crisis.  They said that the president’s poll numbers were on a similar trend with those of the current Congress.  One poll showed that the country wants to tie spending cuts to raising the debt limit by 62% but like always, they don’t want to cut programs that they like.  The president will use the bully pulpit to explain his reason for not negotiating a settlement over the debt limit.  He will say that we should not hold the good faith and credit of the United States government hostage.  If the GOP decides to call his bluff, the government will shut down, and they will take the penalty for doing that.

I will continue to say that the GOP is great at campaigning, but they can’t govern.  They have an endless supply of legislators, strategists, and spokesmen for special-interest groups, who won’t turn down an opportunity to get on television to express their views.  It’s rare to see a Democrat on a Sunday talk show and when they do show up, they’re usually outnumbered by 5 to 1.  The GOP is like a prizefighter who continues to throw body punches and at the end of the fight it takes its toll.  Yes, Democrats are winning the issue and elections but the outcomes are closer than they need to be.

Right now Democrats are silent munching on their popcorn and enjoying the civil war between the different factions of the GOP.

Joe Scarborough and former Republican Party chairman, Michael Steele, got into a verbal fight this morning over the strategy of Ted Cruz.  Joe Scarborough seems to think that only the opinions of George Will, Charles Krauthammer, Scott Walker other conservatives like them matter.  Michael Steele tried to explain to him that the grassroots doesn’t really care about their opinions and that set Joe off; causing him to say something like this “don’t come on my show and try to lecture me on what the little people in the streets think.” Senator Ted Cruz appeals to a certain constituency, who are tired of establish Republicans who say they are for small government but continue to spend like there’s no tomorrow, and then keep losing presidential elections.  These constituents say, “if we’re going to lose- let’s do it our way.” It’s a 97 to 98% conservative purity group who will never compromise.  I agree with Michael Steele, we can see evidence of that locally by the comments made on our VA forum. 

We may all make fun of Senator Cruz, but he accomplished what he set out to do; raise money, gain star power, and he drove a stake through the hearts of establish Republicans.  Senator Tom Coburn got a lot of angry phone call from his tea party constituency, even though he has the highest rating of all conservatives in Congress.

The GOP is Having A Civil War but Does Anyone Care?

If not for the scandals of Anthony Wiener, Eliot Spitzer, and San Diego Mayor Bob Filner; Democrats would have been left out of the Sunday talk show discussions. The media is fixated on the 2016 presidential campaign and the infighting among Republicans.

I don't know why I waste so much time watching the Sunday talk shows because it’s not as if they’re newsworthy. It’s just one big gotcha, or a platform for politicians to spout their interrupted talking points. For example, George Stephanopoulos and David Gregory wanted the treasury secretary to admit that there would be a government shutdown in October. Chris Wallace sat there silently as Senator Mike Lee said that the president was not ready to implement a major part of ObamaCare even though the employer mandate is barely 6% of the law.

The old-guard Republicans have put a target on Senator Rand Paul because he is considered a non-interventionist. It’s unusual for the GOP to be having a hawk versus dove battle. It’s one of the reasons Liz Cheney is running for office. Six years ago, House Republicans would have never considered blocking a National-Security Agency’s domestic surveillance program, but they did, and with the help of Democrats, they almost pulled it off. Senator Paul seems to think if he can win the presidential nomination; he can move to the left of hawkish Hillary Clinton and pick up the youth vote. Governor Chris Christie shot the first volley at Senator Paul and the latter weakly responded by saying that he was not going to take the incoming fire lightly. Senator Paul said that the New Jersey governor gobbled up Sandy money leaving no money for defense. Pass the popcorn; it’s going to be a fun three years.

I was wrong when I said the words of Bill O’Reilly would not be repeated because they certainly were. The commentators on CNN and MSNBC have set him up as a poster child for race baiting instead of improving race relations. People like O’Reilly believe that black people deserve all the injustice they get from society because of what he thinks happens in the inner city. O’Reilly will cite lyrics from a Lil Wayne song, fatherless children, and Chicago killings as the reason race relations will always be a one-way street. That’s just a distraction to avoid talking about voter suppression laws, racial profiling, Stop and Frisk and the high unemployment in the black community.

Yesterday, conservative columnist for the Washington Post, George Will said” “You can’t solve the problems[Detroit], because their problems are cultural.”
“You have a city, 139 square miles, you can graze cattle in vast portions of it, and dangerous herds of feral dogs roam in there. You have three percent of fourth graders reading at the national math standards, 47 percent of Detroit residents are functionally illiterate, 79 percent of Detroit children are born to unmarried mothers.”
“They don’t have a fiscal problem, Steve, they have a cultural collapse.” I think that’s pretty much their answer for helping the poor. People like George Will ignore the fact that the brain needs fuel (food) so by cutting off school lunches, food stamps, or other programs designed to help the needy, we will continue to cut the rug out from under them before they can get started. The conservative plan for Detroit is to raid the union pension funds, allow private investors to buy up the public lands and treasures while only paying 10¢ on the dollar.  I did notice that the bond money for building the new sports stadium will be funded 100%, despite Detroit’s problems. Republicans are already submitting amendments to prevent Obama from providing funds to Detroit. We should know by now that nation building should only be done in Iraq and Afghanistan because there’s no room for that nonsense in the United States.

I did learn a couple of things over the weekend. I learned that republican commentators get pretty angry when President Obama or his surrogates call the ongoing investigations, “phony scandals.” It infuriates them.

In yet another wing of the right- wing GOP are forming a group called “Groundswell” which will go after progressives and Karl Rowe. Justice Clarence Thomas’s wife Ginni and Allen West will head up this group. This group put out a memo that read “We are failing the propaganda battle with minorities. Terms like, 'GOP,' 'Tea Party,' 'Conservative' communicate 'racism.” They want to be known as Frederick Douglass Republicans. They also said that their message must be at a 4th grade level. And therein lies the problem, the old GOP never had to rebrand or resort to gimmicks and trickery; it was a plain old fashion conservative party.