The long campaign is finally over and the voters have spoken. Barack Obama is the President-elect and Democrats are solidly in control of the U.S. Senate and House.
It could have been worse. Much, much worse.
But first, what happened to the huge turnout we were told was going to happen in this ‘historic’ election? With but a few votes left to count, the vote total is less than in 2004. How could that be? I’ll tell you what I think. I think that although McCain’s choice of Sarah Palin excited many conservatives, many either didn’t vote at all or skipped the box, unmoved by McCain’s support for the $700 billion bailout plan and his plan to buy up mortgages to ‘help’ homeowners. I think that they were turned off by the McCain/Palin campaign ignoring conservative social issues.
So, Obama won. And he won handily.
But gay marriage was soundly defeated by the voters in several states. And that is a victory for all Americans.
The Democrats did not reach the magic number of 60 in the Senate, giving Republicans a shot at blocking the worst of the liberal socialist agenda pushed by Obama, Reid and Pelosi. Sure, a lot of it will pass because, after all, the voters have spoken and Republicans cannot become simple obstructionists. But we can still block a few things. And that will be good for all Americans.
Texas remained a conservative bedrock. An anchor so to speak. That will give our economy a shot in the arm and allow us to continue to lead the nation. To show other states the way. It will be up to them to follow us but at least we are giving them a clear path.
John Cornyn will have more clout in the Republican caucus. Very good for Texas.
The Texas Senate remained in Republican hands. Very good for Texas.
The Texas House remained in Republican hands. Very good for Texas. Sure their lead shrunk to almost nothing and Tom Craddick will probably be replaced. But it could have been worse.
In Harris County, Ed Emmett deserved a full term and the voters agreed. Paul Bettencourt deserved another term and the voters agreed. I couldn’t care less about Pat Lykos being elected DA. Sheriff Tommy Thompson deserved his whuppin’. And we can whine all we want to about judges but truth is, those should be non-partisan races anyway.
In Galveston County, Cheryl Johnson deserved another term and the voters agreed.
On a personal level, my fellow voters in CD-22 sent Nick Lampson back to Beaumont. And in my Senate district, we sent Mike Jackson back to Austin. In my House district, we sent John Davis back to Austin. Very good for Texas. And me!
All in all, I’m feeling pretty good today. It could have been much, much worse!
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I agree BigJ. Also, John McCain took 42% of the vote. Bush won with 38%. McCain ran a bad campaign. My daughter called to tell me we lost because of Sarah Palin. I disagree.
Look people….until we conservatives(not republicans) big difference, become as mean and vicious as the liberals we will never win again. There are no more moderate democrats left in Washington. We need to send the most far right people to Washington as possible. The time for being nice is over! When you are in the middle of the road you get ran over! I believe that George W. Bush is the Millard Fillmore of our time. He will be the last republican President. I see a new conservative party being formed in the next two years and all we need is to win 33.3 % of the vote to get into power. Just because we are Christians doesn’t’ mean we are a doormat!
#2 I respectfully disagree with the assertion we have to be mean to take back the ground. In the first place, real Republicans won. RINOs lost. We need to field real Republicans, not mealy mouthed Republicrats that agree we should tax and spend and wring their hands over crap science like global warming.
In the mean time, I thought we have little to fear from Barack because he has never been effective at any position he has held. There is not a law on the books in either Illinois or the US that has his name on it. On the other hand, from looking at the Drudge Report, it appears the enemy is ecstatic - with Hamas sending over 35 missiles into Israel over night and Iran warning us to stay out of their air space.
I think the third term of Jimmy Carter will be a wake-up call to the country and we will be rid of him within 4 years and of many Democrats in 2, but until then, I hope we do not suffer many costly attacks (remember how many time we got hit under Clinton? USS Cole, WTC bombing and allowing the terrorists to train for the successful WTC attack, bombing of Marines in Lebanon, bombing of embassies in Africa, to name some).
Big, the trend that I see is Texas is moving blue. I think no matter how bad Oprabama is in the next 4 years, he’ll get a pass and another 4 years as a reward.
I agree with stalzd that the Democrats were mean and vicious and we will never win again, but I don’t think a new party is the answer. I think the only chance conservatives have is to infiltrate the Democratic party and push for conservative change from within. Push the far left out and make them form their own party.
I am amazed that some people voted to teach the Republicans a lesson. Do they think that they will get the message? No, they will move further left because they think that is what the American people want.
Personally I am completely disgusted how this election was manipulated.
This election reminds me of 1 Samuel 8 - the people wanted a king and a king they were given. If any good can come from this, it will be that people realize that they need to place their hope in Jesus and not in a man who promises hope.
Good morning all. A muggly 65 at 6 and plenty of condensation dripping. A front is on the way. Orion is steadfast above in the early morning sky.
Pete Olson won handily despite the Dem focus on maintaining their “trophy” district 22. The trophy is home where it belongs. As BJ remarked above, it could have been much worse. The lesson is driven home–those who stick to their core conservative principles rather than a wishy-washy sashay across the aisle will win. Those with eyes to see, let them see. Those with ears to hear, let them hear.
Now to solidify the conservative message statewide and in our national reps. A renewed RINO hunt is a must. The minority leadership in Congress needs to change. In the House it cratered with Tom DeLay’s departure. BTW, when will he have his day in court, Ronnie Earle? Planning more appeals, are you? Raspberries to you.
It was John McCain’s race to lose, and he did. The campaign was almost as inept as Bob Dole’s in ‘96, except for Sarah Palin’s welcome arrival on the national scene. You go, girl.
What happened yesterday was a necessary purging of neo-conservatives and neo-conservative values from the national scene. McCain’s brain-dead “national greatness” nonsense got shot in the foot, as did his cabal of fellow travelers running his campaign. He needed to lose, he should have lost. The Republican party needs to get back to its roots of true small government, non-interventionist foreign policy, adherence to the Constitution, and most of all, liberty.
McCain was a disaster in every respect, from his sponsorship of the bailout to his “take on all comers” war policy to his socialistic giveaway of the treasury in the name of “national health care” - whatever that means. He was no alternative, and possibly even worse. True lovers of freedom can now celebrate a bit that the neo-con economic plan of “tax cuts without corresponding spending cuts” is dead, at least on the Republican side, and we can now realize with the coming inflation that deficits do matter, and must be curbed, at our peril. The Repubs must now unite to stop the undercover socialists in the House, with their massive deficit spending plans, and dismantle the security state they so unwisely supported now that it can be turned against them. Pray for them.
As far as Cornyn, his stupid vote in favor of the bailout cost him his vote from me. He unraveled years of goodwill with that. He’ll need to earn it back.
#4 - I’ve had 1 Samuel 8 on my mind for several days now…
#3, Jimmah Carter served only one term, booted out by Ronald Reagan in 1980.
The only thing good about this election is that in a year (maybe less), I WILL get to say “I told you so” to those who voted for someone who hates The Constitution. When taxes start going up and the economy starts going down, I will ask them “Now how can that happen with your ‘Saviors’ ideas, IF his ideas are right for America. Shouldn’t America be BOOMING from his ideas?”
I hope those Republicans we have left block EVERYTHING in the Senate, EVERYTHING.
Why, you ask? Because I was alive for Carter, and even though I was younger, I KNOW how tough my parents had it, the LONG gas lines, the NOT being about to go to the mall or movies or friends, because they had to save the gas in the car for the day we were “allowed” to go fill up.
I was also thinking last night. How many good men and women are we going to lose protecting this country because - 1) they don’t even sign up for the military, or 2) they finish up their term and get out? (Not to mention any lives that are lost from enemy/terrorist action.)
dd37,
No question that the state is moving to the left. The question is, how far? I’m generally pleased with the outcome, as I think most Texans should be. The urban areas will continue that drift unless we, as conservatives, face the fact that urban areas are different. Sounds plain enough, doesn’t it? But the truth is, Republicans haven’t really focused on the differences. What sense does it make to ride on a horse in the middle of downtown Dallas or Houston?
As well, what are we going to do with immigration? Continue to push a border fence? A costly boondoggle if ever there was one.
And why can’t we reach urban blacks? Is it because our principles are wrong for them? Or is it in the way that we present them?
Fortunately, we have time to figure this out. That is why I’m not as down today. It could have been much, much worse.
The biggest change in Harris County that I will enjoy is the replacement of our Sheriff.
“Sheriff Tommy Thompson deserved his whuppin’” doesn’t say it near hard enough.
Lets hope that Garcia brings a change and higher morale to the Harris County Sheriff’s Department. One of the Democrats I voted for.
Next up: Joan Huffman vs. Chris Bell in the special election runoff to succeed Kyle Janek in SD 17. If we beat Bell this time, he’ll never be taken seriously as a candidate again. Not like I take him seriously anyway, but this would put the mark of “perennial loser” on him but good.
“My daughter called to tell me we lost because of Sarah Palin.”
She was the best part of the ticket and salvation of the nation if McCain croaked & she assumed top spot. Hopefully Mac will fade away into the sunset, never to appear again. Good riddance, ‘My Friends’.
Good summary, Big. The only thing I disagree with you on is - yes, we can be simple obstructionists. I can only hope our remaining Repubs would find the backbone to block our rapid slide into socialism. (A thin hope at that.)
#2/#3 - We have to be willing to be what the left will try to characterize as “mean”. Of course, we’re not going to be mean. We need to clearly articulate conservative values and stick to them consistently. We’ve had too many gutless moderates who are more worried about how they might be mischaracterized than they are about living up to their own promises.
Lesson: Don’t ever let the stinking RINOs force another squishy moderate down our throats. McCain was probably the only potential Repub nominee who could have lost to a dangerous Marxist radical.
Adee: Bang on!
x-posted in OC
Can we stop with the open primaries now? If someone is running as a Republican, why would we allow Democrats and people who can’t even decide what party they want to support choose our candidate?
For all of the Republicans that stayed home or skipped the box to teach the Republican leadership a lesson; You will now get all that comes with that lesson.
It will be decades to fix what Obama will mess up and some will be recovered.
As of right now Obama has 63 million votes and McCain is at 55.7 million. What happened to the 135 million votes this election was supposed to produce?
#17 houdem
Libertarians fighting the oppression of the two-party duopoly?
Bill Bennett interviews Byron York - excellent analysis.
[King Arthur has just cut the Black Knight's last leg off]
Black Knight: Okay, we’ll call it a draw.
King Arthur: [Preparing to leave] Come, Patsy.
[King Arthur and Patsy ride off]
Black Knight: [calling after King Arthur] Oh! Had enough, eh? Come back and take what’s coming to you, you yellow bastards! Come back here and take what’s coming to you! I’ll bite your legs off!
Big Jolly advocates elimination of Rodeo Parade?
Good grief.
:>)
McCain ran a bad campaign and was not a good debater. Palin was still a great choice, in my view. There was just no way to overcome the 18-to-1 bias of ABC/NBC/CBS.
I’m sickened that some of my Christian friends knew so little about Obama. They didn’t know how pro-abortion he was! The salt in the wound is when they accuse me of just digesting conservative media. That is untrue, as I read the Chronicle, Reuters (on my Yahoo page), etc. The real danger is the people who only get news from the MSM. I could go on for months on the things the bad things they ignored about Obama and the good they ignored about Palin.
I’ve worked with and gotten to know personally many of those judges who lost yesterday. It is a damn shame. Especially as we now have 22 judges in Harris County who don’t know how to be judges, all coming in at the same time. If something goes wrong with your business and your case gets filed in one of these new guys’ courts, you’re not only talking about a long wait to get your case on the docket, you’re talking about the chances of a positive disposition for your side being substantially lessened.
Oh well, end of the world party at my house!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2eMkth8FWno
My daughter the newly graduated said, Mom, Of course people want universal health care, affordable college, and change. These yunguns don’t know the cost of what they want. Maturity and experience will teach them.
11 Dov, I agree about Thompson.
#22 homerj
Glenn Beck just said on his show that Palin gave McCain a 13-point boost. Just think how bad it would have been had he chosen a pro-abortion running mate.
Many, many people who voted for him (and many who did not) are about to be completely dismayed by what TOWBWF will be doing (no matter what he does). He got through this election cycle by being the blank canvas onto which people projected their desires, who then heard him say what they wanted him to say (no matter what he actually said).
Further proof that Beck doesn’t have a clue. Unbelievable. Did he really say that?
I totally agree conservatives did NOT vote and that the bailout is where I too place the blame. I’ve been disappointed with Palin agreing on a path to citizenship and the bailout being necessary. i had really high hopes for her. I’m also convinced she personally does not believe in either one of those issues as she purported her support for them. I’m no longer hopeful she will carry future possibility as President. I’m looking more for a Romney / Jindal / Hunter type of candidates.
Our time will come.
And, yes, we should count our blessings of avoiding a Democrat super majority aswell as Texas remaining a conservative state. I’m convinced that when the walls do come tumbling down, Texas will hold out as one of the last states to reflect our great Republic’s founding principles.
#17;
More proof people don’t read the post.
You only need two words to explain why McCain lost: George Bush
All things considered, it’s miraculous that John managed as well as he did. His effort is a testament to his character and integrity.
On another subject, I just hope Franken doesn’t steal the election in Minnesota.
#27 bigj
yep.
He said it was the results of some polling, but didn’t say where from.
I’m honestly stunned that Republicans and conservatives have embraced an anti-immigration stance so prominently. It’s like handing votes to Democrats - their position can be easily spun by Dems to turn out the Hispanic vote. It’s not a winning issue - conservatives would be wiser to attack the welfare state in general (i.e. where the true costs of illegal immigration lie) rather than personalize/racialize the issue. It’s just brain-dead politically and the Dan Patricks of the world need to realize this before they bury us.
#32 don
We’re anti ILLEGAL immigration.
Wonder how people will react when a bunch of terrorists sneak in with a bomb or worse because we’re not securing our borders?
Many will be questioning illegal immigration more when unemployment is higher and the illegals are taking jobs Americans need.
Thanks for the ‘bone’ BIg Jol.
We need to get to work and if necessary be obstructionist.
We also need to get states to pass laws restricting chances for voter fraud ASAP. Please read my post on the MLK article.
#33 - Then why aren’t you advocating for more LEGAL immigration, then? All you talk about is building walls, paying more cops to run around and roust people, harrass and punish small business owners, etc. It’s a loser issue, and you are paying the price for it. Did you not feel the gut punch that the voters just delivered to you? So then, why aren’t conservatives attacking the welfare state in general? That’s the real issue, not rounding up Mexicans like cattle. Until you realize that, you will continue to lose. This nonsense is killing conservatives outside of our base.
I am advocating for more legal immigration, where it is appropriate. There are many businesses that abuse that system for various reasons, often to simply produce downward pressure on salaries.
Walls are appropriate in some settings (El Paso/Juarez; San Diego/Tijuana; etc.), but are not the end-all. We do need to patrol the borders to keep the truly bad guys out.
Any business that knowingly hires illegals deserves to be severely fined. If they do not mend their ways, they should be forced out of business. I have never said we should be “rounding up Mexicans like cattle”.
If our laws were uniformly enforced, virtually all of the illegals would self-deport out of necessity. The remainder would be the ones that should be thrown in jail anyway as they would typically be the “harder” criminals.
Illegals are called that for one and only one reason: they are breaking the law by being here. They also break a myriad of other laws: identity theft, misuse of social security numbers, failure to pay taxes, failure to carry required liability insurance when driving, driving without a valid driver’s license, etc. Why do they get off scot-free for breaking these laws when I would be punished severely? If you think it’s a losing position to follow the law, then change it; don’t ignore it.
BJ - I agree on Thomas. Regrettable as it may be, he made his own bed in this one and now we’re stuck with a horrible alternative.
For the other county races…
Mike Stafford. It’s difficult to argue that Stafford truly deserved to lose, regardless of what Wayne Dolcefino says. Stafford got a bum rap from the Ibarra brothers case but really couldn’t have done much to escape it because he is required BY LAW to represent the rest of the county government even when they screw up royally. The parties at fault in the Ibarra case were Thomas and Rosenthal, and both have paid for it. Unfortunately they took down Stafford as collateral.
Theresa Chang. First off, Chang did absolutely nothing to merit her ousting to an unknown Democrat who didn’t really run on anything other than the Democrat tide. Second, this was a race that NEVER should have happened to begin with. The District Clerk is a 4 year term and it is only on the ballot in gubernatorial years. We just elected a Republican District Clerk 2 years ago and the seat should have been ours until 2010. The only reason it wasn’t is because the incumbent, Charles Bacarisse, vacated the seat for no other reason than to run a loser campaign for County Judge against Ed Emmett in the primary. Emmett had not done anything wrong back then to merit a primary challenger, and he still hasn’t done anything wrong to merit a Democrat. In fact, Emmett is far and away the best performing Republican officeholder we have in the county right now. Nobody else even comes close. And the voters have recognized that both times. But Bacarisse’s little publicity stunt last Spring opened his office to a Democrat takeover. And Theresa Chang is unfortunately the collateral damage.
The Judges. Yes, we got a whoopin’ here. And the sad thing is that the judges who lost did not deserve it, at least as a group. Perhaps there were 1 or 2 bad apples who got caught in the sweep, but not by any malfeasance of their own. We can argue about whether judges should be partisan, whether they should be elected, or whatever, but the simple fact is that they are. And furthermore, that’s probably not going to change. Despite what some of the liberal “courtroom reform” groups in Austin say, many states besides Texas have partisan elected judges and it’s been that way for centuries - particularly in the south. You can go all the way back to the 1700’s and find judges running on the Federalist and Jeffersonian tickets - two parties that don’t even exist anymore! It’s the system we’ve got, and unfortunately our judges got screwed by other forces at play:
1. Our judges were screwed by Democrat straight ticket voting from the Obama surge. Let’s face it - the MAJORITY of voters are stupid, lazy, barely literate, uneducated yokels who cast uninformed ballots based on party affiliation and nothing else (and that description is especially true of Democrat voters). If you want to fix that problem, don’t eliminate partisanship in judicial races. Eliminate the straight ticket option from the ballot! Several bills have been proposed in the past to do this, and at one time not too long ago the Republican Party of Texas supported it. There’s no reason why we can’t make this change in the law while we still control the legislature. The benefits of it are multiple: you reduce the number of uneducated and uninformed votes in judicial races, because voters who take the time to know those candidates are more likely to vote down ballot while those who don’t are naturally lazy and will click Obama, a couple other Dems, and go home. Eliminating straight ticket voting also takes away the single biggest tool for voter fraud. There are Democrat election officials and ACORN types all over this state who illegally instruct people to vote straight ticket Dem from inside the voting booth. I’ve witnessed it first hand many times, and it happens every election. I’ll even go so far as to wager that upwards of 95% of the ballots are cast this way in a couple of the predominantly black precincts of the 3rd and 5th wards. If you take away the straight ticket tool, you take away fraud and you force voters to make an individual choice of judges on a case by case basis.
2. Our judges were screwed by the scandals of the non-judicial officeholders in Harris County. Those parties tainted the Republican brand name beyond repair in this election cycle, and it stuck to our judges whether they deserved it or not. Some of the guilty parties - i.e. Chuck Rosenthal - got what was coming to them. Others - i.e. Jerry Eversole - weren’t even on the ballot. But our judges were the collateral damage of their scandals.
3. Our judges were screwed by Austen Furse. Yes - Austen Furse, the Republican running for State Senate who some of you probably even supported. Furse went extremely negative in his campaign, but not against the Democrats. He went negative against a fellow Republican opponent, Joan Huffman. And he went negative in a very sleazy way that included radio and tv ads that got broadcast countywide even though he was only running in District 17. We all saw and heard them. They portrayed Huffman, a recently retired District Judge, as “soft on crime” by describing violent rapes and murders that went through her courtroom in graphic detail, and claiming she was too lenient on the perps. Another of Furse’s ads outright lied about Huffman and incorrectly claimed she took several months “vacation” from the bench, when in fact she had brought in a visiting judge for her minor case docket while she presided over a major capital murder case. Furse’s unscrupulous smears had the effect of portraying the Harris County judiciary as lazy and lenient on criminals. Voters who don’t know anything about individual judges up for reelection nonetheless heard a month’s worth of ads smearing a particular judge who was running in another race. The word “judge” sticks though, as do graphic descriptions of rape on a radio ad. And that is enough to cast a seed of doubt for many voters. So our judges were also the collateral of Austen Furse’s political ambitions.
4. Our judges were screwed by the Harris County Republican Party. The joint judicial campaign put together by Jared Woodfill was simply inept. It relied upon a soapy generic “vote for all Republicans” message in a year when the Republican brand was already tarnished by the aforementioned scandals. Our judges lost because of straight ticket voting by the Dems and lack of interest by voters who did not straight ticket punch (in other words, the people who voted for McCain, Ted Poe, and maybe Emmett then went home). Woodfill needed a campaign that made the INDIVIDUAL case for specific judges - a campaign that made certain stars of the Harris County judiciary into household names, with the idea being that it will trickle around to float the rest. This is the strategy we used back in the 80’s and early 90’s when we wrested the courts from the Dems. We didn’t campaign on “vote for all Republicans” - we picked specific judges who had a strong compelling story on the bench like Ted Poe, then we picked off the Dems with it one by one. Woodfill should have followed that tried and true model. Instead he threw a bunch of money into generic crap. And we lost as a result.
Sorry for the length, but that’s a summary of just about everything that happened in Harris County yesterday. Take from it what you will, but I assure you that it is an assessment that merits attention if we want to reverse course in 2010.
I know that ammo and guns sales will go up due to the threat of losing the second amendment.
#9 Dave #16 trl - I couldn’t agree with both of you more. We now have to do what we can to stop ANY of Obama and crew’s ideas.
27 - IMO Palin was, at best, a wash. She energized the conservatives slightly and that kept a faltering campaign alive. But she also had the unintended effect of removing Obama’s most visible weakness - lack of experience - from the table, and through no fault of her own.
Bottom line: McCain’s inept handlers never recovered from the Obamamedia’s decision to cast Palin as a backwater small town mayor in the week after her announcement.
They could have easily done so by pointing to the 500 pound gorilla in the corner named Barack Hussein Obama, community organizer extraordinaire. In fact, Palin tried to do so. But McCain didn’t. Instead, he went on the defensive about his “vetting process” and the media portrayal of Palin stuck.
I cannot tell you how many fence-sitting voters I talked to over the last month who liked McCain but were horrified that Palin was so “inexperienced” because the media told them so. In each and every case I responded “wait a minute, isn’t everything you’re saying about Palin also true about Obama?” Then they’d pause and think about it and admit that I was right. It’s just that it never donned on them because NOBODY other than Palin herself ever communicated that fact to them. And Palin alone isn’t enough to refute the charge, because she is inherently defending herself when she does it.
36 - Again, you fail to explain why this issue is relevant to voters in simple terms - the odious burden of the welfare state. The costs to educate and care for people who don’t pay taxes, who don’t share the burden, and who manipulate the system to their benefit. Why can’t you just say this? Voters are smarter than you think. Instead, you fixate on dramatic imagery like “throwing people in jail” and “forcing people out of business”. Why the scare tactics? Can’t you see how this is spun by our opponents into fear-mongering?
The greatest failing of the Bush-ites is their constant use of fear tactics to win arguments. Conservatism should be a voice for positivity and opportunity, not fear. Fear only lasts so long. And fear lost big time in this election.
Don Mynack: Your comments on immigration are right on. We need to face the fact that our failure to attract Latino voters is going to doom us in all of the urban areas in the state. Anyone who looks at the analysis of the Proposition 8 vote in California will see that the common ground for Republicans and minorities is the social issues. Yet, we are throwing away that potential advantage by the tone of the immigration debate, such as referring to immigration as an “invasion.” You’re right that our focus should be on policies that will alter the incentives for illegal immigration, such as ending no-questions-asked welfare programs, that a majority of people agree on.
Fundamentally, the immigration debate is about conservative principles that we all ought to hold dear. First, an employer ought to be able to hire whomever s/he deems best for the job. Second, a worker ought to be able to seek the labor market in which s/he can obtain the highest wages for his/her talents, skills, and willingness to work. Third, America has always been and should always be a haven for people who want to have the greatest degree of control over their own lives possible and who aspire to economic independence.
Finally, I truly believe that we allowed the Left to use immigration as a wedge issue to separate conservatives from President Bush in 2006. All of that “Bush is a traitor”, “Bush is a RINO”, “Bush is secretly plotting to create a North American Union” rhetoric cost us our greatest political asset, a president who has been spectacularly successful at keeping this country safe for seven years.
The professional office seeker. Run for any office you can and let the taxpayers pay your salary.
Got Another office
Lykos
Arrrgggghhhhh
I agree.
The voters are not as smart as you think. We can yammer on forever about how the illegals are crippling our healthcare and educational systems and most voters will react to that in the same manner as you think they will react when we decide to enforce the laws we have on the books. You will be portrayed as being heartless to the poor immigrants who have no resources by denying them and their babies a doctor when they need one. Denying them healthcare and education when they are already here does nobody any good.
The solution to the immigrant problem is to eliminate the incentives for them being here in the first place. They don’t come here for free healthcare or for the education; they come here for a job. If the job goes away, they will too. If they leave, the problems they cause with healthcare & education will too.
As I said earlier, if you want to expand legal immigration, fine. Get the legislation passed. Businesses here will still hire illegals because they are cheaper. Fines on hiring illegals will reduce the disparity between hiring illegals and legals (citizens or otherwise). If you have a law on the books, enforce/follow it or get rid of it.
Phil_M,
Yes, we can argue about partisan races for judgeships but the truth is, those ‘good’ judges got there the same way the ‘bad’ Dems just won - they were swept up in a tide of Republican straight ticket voting. And I don’t think that the quality of judges is going to suffer much, if at all.
And no, I don’t think that we should rid ourselves of straight ticket voting. If anything, I think more people should participate in it.
Morons or not, no one (or at best a very few) has the time to research every single candidate on a ballot. But they do have time to compare two party platforms and determine which best fits their needs.
The problem is that the candidates do not follow the platform - for that, we have primaries. We need to seriously purge candidates that get elected and then do not follow the platform.
The RINO’s need to get away from that “it’s his turn” mentality. Thats why Dole lost and that’s why McCain lost. The choice of Palin was the only thing that saved it from being a landslide. The Dimwits proved all you need is young smooth talker and you can win any election. Character didn’t matter, the truth didn’t matter, all you need is to be a smooth talker that can promise anything and everything.
Oh by the way, how does Illinois and Delware replace those two losers that left to screw the country??
#39 Phil_M,
I think that Palin was a definite plus but certainly not 13 points! Beck is an entertainer and should stick to entertaining.
I think she was good for 3-5 points overall. Without the enthusiasm shown for her pick after the convention, McCain would not have been able to lead Obama in the polls briefly.
Harder to say is what she brought in terms of electoral votes. In that, she very well could have been an overall negative but might be the reason GA and MO went McCain. There will be a lot of analyzing about that.
BigJolly - what I want to see is a live press conference where the Republican Party (State or National) KICK OUT one or three RINO’S.
Yes - KICK OUT.
THAT will get the voters back behind them.
Mostly true. However, your solution is to intervene in the job market by putting small businesses out of business.Good luck selling that message.
You could also say that reducing or eliminating the minimum wage will enable legal workers to compete with illegals on a level playing ground. That is the debate we should be having - that government intervention in the job market hurts the poor more than it helps. The advantage of hiring illegals exists because the government has created it.
I don’t think we are that far apart on this. I just disagree that emphasis on security measures is a winning message.
#47 dave
They’d prolly kick out the wrong ones. Look to our own local party dude, Mr. Woodfill, as someone who would be doing the kicking. He should be among the first up against the wall.
No, no, no. I am not intervening in the job market; I am asking that laws be enforced. It is now illegal to hire illegal aliens. Why do you not want to enforce that? If a subset of small businesses routinely and intentionally do not pay all their taxes, should we not call them to task for that or is that intervening where we should not?
That is a non-starter. It will never happen. In addition to the obvious reasons why, many union pay scales use the minimum wage as a benchmark they can use to calculate wages for various jobs.
It exists because many businesses exploit the illegals because they have little recourse in law through which to address wrongs committed against them. It has very little to do with the minimum wage; most illegals make more than the minimum wage now. The rent-a-guy for a day illegals hanging out in front of a Stop-n-Rob in the Heights may not, but most do.
btw - I’m not arguing for security measures to stop illegal alien workers; I’m arguing for security to stop the terrorists and hard criminals. Taking care of the jobs issues will take care of the “garden variety” illegals without having to go through neighborhoods rounding people up.
You are proposing to find the subset by subjecting ALL businesses to additional hardship - meaning time and money to screen ALL of their employees. The logical solution for a small business is to simply 1099 each employee as an independent contractor and let the gov’t chase them for taxes.
They have the obvious recourse of leaving for another job. See how many workers you retain if you exploit them mercilessly. I am willing to bet that more illegals are hired to get around minimum wages laws than are hired for the purpose of exploitation and lack of legal recourse. If you want to pay higher wages, why bother with illegals?
What terrorists? How is this about terrorists? Back to the fear argument again?
Letting wages fall will accomplish much of the same.
More silver lining from all the carnage yesterday - more conservatives in the House:
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=29360
Is it a surprise to anyone that of the 20 new Republicans elected to the House, 17 are strong conservatives? More proof that this nonsense about moving to the center is indeed nonsense. We just need conservatives that are really conservatives.
Virtually all honest businesses already do. The last three jobs I’ve had not only did the minimal I-9 (or whatever it is) form that documents your authorization to work in the US, but also conducted a full background check. These are not that onerous to do. I’d be willing to give a company a break if they can show good-faith efforts in trying to document their workforce. The government still needs to provide reasonable mechanisms to validate workers. (This would also be useful to validate people on voter rolls, btw, but that’s a topic for another time)
Where they will be treated like crap because they can be. Why do you seem to think it is alright to exploit people who are at a disadvantage?
You would likely lose that bet. How is getting around minimum wage laws not exploiting the workers? Illegals are hired because they work for less. This has the side effect of depressing wages in that area for those jobs that illegals are hired to do.
This is about securing the borders and providing for the common defense. You know, actual Constitutional obligations of the Federal government. Why do we ask for passports at airports? Is it not intended to track those entering and leaving the country? Why should we not do the same at our actual borders? We do, if people cross at an actual port of entry, but people who have something to hide don’t cross at the ports of entry unless they’re hiding in a box or something.
Illegals already depress wages. Getting rid of them will have the effect of increasing wages for those who should be here. This should help the inner city poor who have seen the illegals displace them.
Illegals don’t do jobs Americans won’t do; they do jobs Americans won’t do at the wages the illegals get paid to do them.
#52 raider
Do you have info on what the breakdown is among the Reps who lost is? Were the more “squishy” ones the ones that tended to get fired?
…and stay conservative.
Btw, congrats on the win last saturday!
#54 Wagon - I haven’t been able to find anything that shows the leanings of those that lost. There are also others that didn’t lose that are part of this blood-letting, because some guys ‘got retired’ and chose not to run rather than get their aces kicked out of office. I did find a list of those who left, or died by state:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,326869,00.html
#55 Thanks hamous! It was an awesome game, and hopefully the winning continues against the Oklahoma teams. Either way, it’s already paying off in verbal commitments from recruits. (Sorry - back on topic now)
#57 raider
The Mighty Sooner Juggernaut will have something to say about that.
Jonah Goldberg wrote a pretty funny piece of satire for the NY Post.
OBAMA 2012: FOUR YEARS LATER
Awesome. I ripped this link from a Hot Air post. United States Representative Thaddeus G. McCotter:
http://www.spectator.org/archives/2008/11/05/now-seize-freedom/print
And #58 - the Mighty Longhorn Juggernaut can show you their battle scars
Big Jolly;
If you read this post I’m curious about what you mean about Glenn Beck not having a clue (assumably about most things things) as well as him saying S. Palin gave McCain a 13 point boost according to some polling as “further proof”. What’s your knowledge as to how much Palin helped McCain.
I just listend to the 3 hours of his show today; and even if he was mistaken about that point, I’d say the rest of his show was dead-on right.
I’m curious to your take.
Darren10,
It is my take on the whole Beck shtick. He should stick to entertaining, which he is apparently pretty good at given his success.
This always happens when entertainers step over the line and take themselves seriously as political operatives, which he clearly is not. Anyone that seriously suggests that any VP pick contributed 13 points is off their rocker. I was being generous with my 3-5 point guesstimate, Phil_M may be entirely accurate about her choice being a wash. As I also said, it doesn’t look like she helped at all in the electoral college, with the possible exception of MO or GA.
Big jolly;
Thanks for the reply. I highly respect your opinions and what you do online.
I agree that saying Palin gave McCain a 13 point lead without citing the source is uproductive. Likewise i really like how contributors here frequently cite their sources. I find that methodology re-enforcing their arguments and there is much to admire in the mere fact of working to dig up info. to back one’s claims.
One point of confusion, and this may be mute as it may just be an opinion which everyone is entitled to regardless of reason, is renouncing the whole shtik Glenn offers. He said that Palin gave McCain a 13 point lead in a quicjk passing monent. Everything else he said about Palin is that she’s awesome when she’s Sarah and sucks when she’s boxed in and controled as she was in the McCain campaign.
I think both you and I agree that when Sarah is Sarah, she rocks. She’s on target, speaks to and with people, stops the campaign bus to buy diapers, hates the political establishment, equally hates political machinary, makes peolpe laugh, and creates a link between herself and what common, everyday people resonate with. we didn’t see that in the Couric interview. But we DID see that in ther Joe Biden debate. Glenn was pointing out that during the Couric interview, Palin was stuck second-guessing herself due to McCaign campaign “experts” bogged her with what to say and what not to say. Remember the GOP ralley during at the end of the primaries? Her speech made me, well, speechless it was so good. and later we found 1/4 was off prompt as the prompt was off key. She spoke from the heart. Sarah spoke as Sarah. I can totally relate, I’m left dumbfounded and physically impotent (dont take that the wrong way) when I feel people are watching me and dictated to me what I can and can’t do, especially when I insinctively know better. Instinct can be a great benefit. “Experts” pleaded w/ Reagan not to tell Grobechev to “tear down” the Berlin wall. Yet he did. And I still hear testimonials of East Germans feeling a surge of inspiration when they heard him say that.
And everything else Glenn went on during the same night was totally on key. Believe in others that they will make the right choice. DON’T sacrifice your values. Support President Obama (future tense as he’s currently President-elect) without sacrificing your values. Republicans must stand on principle, not hateful or angrily, but show themselves to be principled. That this country is awesome that within fourty years it moved from discrimination against blacks to electing one as its President. And from one who was impoverished.
Again, this may all be mute, but when I hear someone that rings soundingly ture to me, I tend to jump up and defend that person when I hear another portray that said person as someone who is wrong. That’s my shtik I guess.
Thank you for your time and attention Big Jolly. Carry on the good work here.
One question
Who are the Bush haters/blamers going to hate/blame now that he will not be the whipping boy for all this is wrong in the world?