Will 2010 Be Another 1994 for the Republican Party?

Believe it or not, there is some significant potential for Republican victories in the liberal northeastern states of New York and Massachusetts.

Polls show that Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick is in serious trouble, and one Democrat has already changed his registration to ‘unenrolled’ to secure a spot on the general election ballot, bypassing a primary. There will, however be a Republican primary.

Next there is New York, with another unpopular governor and dysfuctional Democrat-controlled state government. Right now, polls show Rudy GIuliani either defeating Governor Paterson, or gaining ground with Paterson’s potential primary challenger, Andrew Cuomo.

Recent Marist Polls show that Rudy Giuliani would crush Paterson in a general election match-up, while Republican Rick Lazio is in a dead heat with the governor. Cuomo polls significantly better against both in general election match-ups, beating both Giuliani and Lazio… Though the numbers show Cuomo’s support against Giuliani is slipping. 

I am honesty very excited about the Republican Party’s chances in these bluest of blue states. And, if Republicans can be contenders there, then I see potential for Republicans to do better in 2010 than they did in 1994… if they craft the right message and recruit good candidates. Of course, with the way Obama is screwing up the country, the best spokesman for electing Republicans may be Obama himself.

Thursday Open Thread

Have at it, boys and girls.

Phrase of the Day

What is the government role in curing the Obama Depression?

Not much:

Little else is requisite to carry a state to the highest degree of opulence from the lowest barbarism but peace, easy taxes, and a tolerable administration of justice: all the rest being brought about by the natural course of things. – Adam Smith

A Pro-Life Democrat Eyes Higher Office

And thus starts to become pro-abortion:

File this one under “timing is everything in politics.” A recent Ohio poll showed that 64.2 percent of Ohioans strongly oppose public funding of abortion. Another 5.8 percent somewhat disagreed with that practice.

At the same time this poll was being conducted, Ohio Congressman Tim Ryan, an alleged pro-life Democrat, voted to support a bill to allow public funding of abortion. This is either unlucky timing for Congressman Ryan or a clear illustration of a politician abandoning the base that helped elect him to his current office.

It’s no secret that Congressman Ryan is very politically ambitious and has his eyes set on a statewide office in the near future.

Its an old, sad story of Democrat politics – so strong is the pro-abortion movement’s control that any Democrat who aspires to high office simply must tack towards the pro-abortion position in order to gain the Democrat support necessary for such a run. Additionally, any Democrat who desires to become President must entirely become pro-abortion in views, or its a no-go. Even someone as quixotic in his Presidential ambitions as Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) felt compelled to abandon a life time’s pro-life position in order to mount his foolish campaign for the White House.

And we are the side accused of ideological rigidity. If only! On Wednesday I went over to St. Elizabeth Ann Seton parish in order to spend some time in the chapel devoted to the adoration of the Blessed Sacrament (that would be worshiping Jesus, for those unfamiliar with Catholic practice). Right outside the door to this chapel is a memorial to all those children lost in the holocaust of abortion – and I have to say, it caught my heart, thinking of all those poor children murdered, and the poor mothers victimized by the cruelest and most inhuman practice since the days when children were sacrificed to Moloch. Where do we get this insane determination to keep legal this horrific thing, abortion? Where do we get politicians who would balance defense of life against personal ambition and come down on the side of ambition? Off to the side in that chapel is a statue of Mother Theresa holding a baby in her arms – where are there more like her, and less like the rest of us?

This will end. We will return to our senses – we will, in the fullness of time, come back to joy in life and hope in children.

The Next Democrat Economic Meme

That we’re in recovery, but its a jobless recovery. No, I’m not kidding. No less a slavish-to-Obama outfit that Newsweek has made this discovery:

Still, Achuthan warns that one of the most important indicators—employment—isn’t showing recovery yet. The reason: The combination of deleveraging and the long-term decline of manufacturing is hindering job creation and destroying existing jobs. After the last recession ended in 2001, the service sector created jobs, but payroll employment continued to fall through 2003 because millions of jobs were lost in the manufacturing sector during the expansion. “We may see some echo of that in this recovery.” But while employment is vital, payroll jobs growth alone doesn’t make the difference between recession and expansion…

…The recession is over! Let the jobless recovery begin!

Can you believe this nonsense? I mean, if we GOPers had tried this back in 2003, we’d have been hammered mercilessly…by Newsweek, for instance. Ah, well – they’ve got their man Obama, and they are determined to sustain him. If this means they have to be monumentally stupid, then so be it, as far as they are concerned.

As an aside, the talk of recovery – jobless or otherwise – is just plain and simple stupid. Wishful thinking from financiers who know that one more hit and they’re done for combined with, well, lies from liberals hoping to fool people in to thinking that they shouldn’t toss Democrats out at election time next year.

11% unemployment by Christmas, 15% by the middle of next year; that’s my guess.

GOP Pulls Ahead in Virginia

This one will go down to the wire:

Republican candidate Robert F. McDonnell has rebounded to take a narrow lead over Democrat R. Creigh Deeds in the race for governor in Virginia, highlighting the expected closeness of that contest right up to November.

A new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Virginia voters finds McDonnell leading Deeds 44% to 41%. Three percent (3%) prefer some other candidate, and 12% are undecided.

A month ago, just after Deeds beat two other gubernatorial candidates in the state Democratic Primary, he posted a six-point lead over McDonnell, 47% to 41%.

Both parties will, I’ll bet, end up pouring vast resources in to this race, considered a bell weather for what will happen in the 2010 mid-terms. In the end, I expect the continuing drag of the economy coupled with the increasing toxicity of the Democrat “brand” to boost McDonnell over the top in this State which so famously switched from Red to Blue in 2008. But it will be a hard fight and McDonnell had better take nothing for granted.

Meanwhile, if you live in that State, perhaps you’d like to help out?

Has the Collapse in Housing Prices Ended?

I don’t think so – and neither does Mike Shedlock. Click the link and see an interesting graph which shows how our housing boom and bust tracks well with the Japanese land boom and bust. Ominous to consider that we haven’t hit bottom, yet – but its what I expect. Its why the temptation to use my VA-backed loan has recently faded as I consider the prospect that I could get a house next year for half the price of today.

Resolved: If Sotomayor Weren't Obama's First SC Pick

She’d already have been forced to withdraw.

Eva Rodriguez in the Washington Post:

I’m surprised and disturbed by how many times today Sonia Sotomayor has backed off of or provided less-than-convincing explanations for some of her more controversial speeches about the role of gender and ethnicity in judicial decision-making.

Sotomayor’s most quoted comment is, “I would hope that a wise Latina woman, with the richness of her experiences, would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male.” Under often very effective questioning by Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, she essentially disavowed her statement. She explained that she was trying to play off of former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor’s assertion that a wise old man and a wise old woman should be able to reach the same conclusion in a case. “My play…fell flat,” Sotomayor said in response to Session’s question. “It was bad, because it left an impression that I believed that life experiences commanded a result in a case, but that’s clearly not what I do as a judge.”

A fair reading of Sotomayor’s record on the federal trial and appellate courts clearly shows that that is not what she’s done thus far. But Sessions’ questions were aimed at understanding how she would implement this judicial philosophy if she’s confirmed to the Supreme Court, where she would be far less restrained by precedent. I found it hard to believe that Sotomayor has now come to the realization that her words left a wrong impression. After all, she delivered similar lines in roughly half a dozen speeches throughout the years. Her explanation came across as dodgy at best and disingenuous at worst.

Discuss.

Tax the Rich!

But not the real rich, like George Soros:

…Panels led by his Democratic Party have stepped up activity on legislation that would meet Obama’s goal of guaranteeing all Americans health care coverage, but they remain far from resolving the thorniest issue — how to come up with about $1 trillion over 10 years in new taxes or savings to pay for it…

…Senators were cool to one of the most controversial parts of the House Democrats’ bill, the so-called millionaires’ tax on the wealthiest Americans to pay for the expanded coverage. The tax starts at 1 percent on income of $350,000 a year and hits 5.4 percent for millionaires.

Once again – they are not taxing “the rich” they are taxing “high income earners”. The rich, when we think of “the rich” are people like the aforementioned Soros…or Buffet, or Gates, or Rockefeller…people who are fabulously wealthy and who don’t have to work for a living. “Tax the rich” schemes do not effect these very wealthy people for the simple reason that they have little or no taxable income – its not like Soros pays himself a million dollars a year so that Pelosi can take 5.4% of it to pay for health care. No, nothing like that at all – Soros has various tax dodges (all agreed to by the very same liberal Democrats who say they want to “tax the rich”) which allow him to spend whatever he wants on whatever he likes, but pay only minimal amounts of income tax, if any at all.

So, why do it? Because the rubes who make up the base of the Democrat party simply don’t think things through and thus don’t understand they are being conned. Additionally, it allows the Democrats to act like they are paying for this trillion dollar health care boondoggle when they know very well they’re not…but that isn’t the point. The point, boys and girls, is simply to get it enacted in to law, allow vast numbers of Americans to become dependent on it, and then sock the middle class with the taxes which will actually be necessary to pay for it.

Cruel. Cynical. Stupid. Ie, liberal.

What Minnesota Voted For

One would think Al Franken would attempt to be more serious an a Senator.. especially when so many people worked hard to steal the election for him… but, apparently he thinks this is all just an SNL skit.

Sen. Al Franken is attempting to refute someone’s argument that relates to the word “abortion” not appearing in the Constitution.

Al Franken: “Are the words ‘birth control’ in the Constitution? Are you sure?”* Is his tone as off-putting to everyone else as it is to me?

The newest senator began by saying that he was surprised Sotomayor wanted to become a prosecutor from watching Perry Mason, since the prosecutor, Berger, lost every week except one. He concluded, “What was the one case in Perry Mason that Berger won?” After saying that she couldn’t remember the name of the episode or the case, Franken asked Sotomayor, “Didn’t the White House prepare you for these hearings?”

A little on the silly side for a guy who needs to show the rest of the country that Minnesota still takes its representation in Washington seriously.

He may be even more an embarrassment than Barack Obama.