Follow-Up To The Election Talk: Answering The Critics, And Making Points
First, Thank You To Hugh Hewitt for the link. He picked up on our answer to the doom-and-gloom being preached in the Bloomberg piece yesterday. The answer to that piece was this post originally put up yesterday afternoon. (A fine tweaking last night when I couldn't sleep had me readjusting the time, and reposting it.)
While we thoroughly appreciate the traffic, the buzz this generated in our comments section, and in e-mails, surprised both of us. And I feel a need to answer a couple of these critics. The first comes from an anonymous poster in our comments section:
Susan Collins retiring? Uh, actually it's Senator Snowe in Maine who's up, and she's a shoe in to get reelected...don't know where you folks are getting your information, but it does make one question your analysis if your basic premises aren't correct.
To wh9om this may concern, yes Susan Collins is retiring. She is a senator calling it quits. My MISTAKE here was not catching when her reelection bid is. That's in 2008, so yes I made one small mistake. Misreading the date hardly qualifies as a serious mistake. People misspeak all the time. I have corrected the record, right here, and do apologize for that mistake. And yes, Olympia Snowe will be reelected, and we have sent contributions to her race despite our differences on some issues.
The point of this election is to support the GOP. To be a "party man," which means you put petty differences aside to maintain the majority. The Bloomberg piece asserts the Democrat talking points that they will dominate the '06 election. I don't see it. I can't see it. Let's see if they can answer some basic questions:
What are your plans for the war, and specifically for Iraq?
What do you intend to do to the economy to keep the boom going?
Are your plans still for obstructing the president's agenda rather than doing what is right for the nation?
What are you going to do when it comes to illegal immigration, a rampant and growing problem for the US?
And I bring up the immigration issue because of this comment left by Damav:
The loss of the House by Republicans will virtually guarantee passage of an Amnesty Bill for illegal aliens.
Only the conservatives in the House currently stand between America and amnesty: The Senate has already passed the bill, Bush certainly supports it.
On yesterday's Hewitt show, he interviewed John Boehner, the current House Majority leaderand here is the exchange between the two of them regarding this topic:
HH: Let's take our last three minutes to talk about immigration, Majority Leader Boehner, because you're in California. I'm sure you're hearing about it at every stop, and it divided the party. The McCain-Kennedy approach did not go over well with Chairman Sensenbrenner, and Chairman Sensenbrenner seems to be winning. What's going to happen, if anything, in September? What's going to happen long term?
JB: We've had series of hearings over the last six weeks, looking at the Senate bill, and some of the more bizarre provisions in the Senate bill, the children of illegal immigrants being able to get in-state tuition, regardless of the state they live in.
HH: Social security benefits for years here illegally.
Seems like Rep. Boehner is on the same page as Rep. Sensenbrenner, and that means the bill's probably going to die. But Damav's point is well taken. IF we lose the House, this bill will go through.
But we have to have faith that America's not as stupid as the Democrats are praying for this year. And somehow we just don't get that feeling. We have been stumping for John Kyl in Arizona, and the politically-savvy here see that while the Republicans are likely to lose a seat or two, it will not be the Democrat landslide being predicted by the pundits out there. It will not be a replay of '94 in reverse. They don't have a solid leader out on the board that can rally the candidates the way Gingrich did. They are seriously lacking anything similar to the "Contract for America" that the GOP drew up then. As a matter of fact, as Marcie and I have both been saying, there is a complete lack of concensus within the Democrat Party as to what their message will be.
Let's take a look at the Senate, just as a barometer for where their party lies. These are the same people calling for yet another vote regarding Iraq, and have browbeat the president from Day One over there on how it's been handled. The Senate is also where much of the cut-and-run rhetoric is coming from. So, based on this, we can see that a part of their platform is bringing the troops home. I spotted that in the post previous to this one.
We have seen that they also stand for more judicial activists. This was evident in both the Roberts and Alito hearings. The questions they were peppered with were not only borderline idiotic, but also called for them to abide by the precedent they liked, such as Roe; a precedent that was amusingly referred to as a "superprecedent." Arlen Specter first used this phrase, and while he is a Republican, his gaffe was seized by the Democrats on the Judiciary Committee, and held onto the phrase. If it's against the Constitution, it's OK. If it's for the Constitution, the Democrats don't like it. We only need to review past cases to see where they celebrated the most. These people do not stand for correcting a near-imperialistic federal bench. They want more of the same, which is also why they have given the president headaches regarding his judicial nominees.
Immigration? the party to raise the biggest stink about what we're doing when it comes to enforcement and reform are the Democrats. They're on the record for opposing the first step in reforming immigration, which is enforcement. We have to send the message to our neighbors that they're not allowed to break the law. For too long we have allowed this practice, and it's biting us in the backside in one of the most important realms in America. Workers that can work for cheaper wages are getting the jobs over Americans, and employers have slid by in this respect, as well. If we make it tougher for them to get here, and hold employers responsible for who they hire, these people will slow their entry into the nation. Back that up with a patrolled border fence, and you have slowed the immigration ot a trickle. The Democrats are doing everything they can to demonize our side on this issue, and it's not working. The most important places to campaign on this issue are the border states alongside Mexico, and the people aren't buying the Democrats' feeble line on this that we should be open and tolerant. I think not, and our side firmly believes in this. The president's view is nice, but it's amnesty-lite, and will be a disaster for the nation.
They have opposed the missile defense system. They stand opposed to the NSA surveillance program. They were against the Patriot Act's renewal. They have been against the president's tax cuts, and many House Democrats have opposed Rep. Boehner & Co's earmark reform, and spending reform in the House.
This is what the Democrats stand for. If this is their platform, they're dead in the water. Carville will be wearing the trash can on CNN on election night. And there will be a lot of shocked Democrats on election night when their prayers aren't answered. Come November 8th, the GOP will still control the White House, and both Houses of Congress. They may not have the majorities that they did, but they will have the majority. I stand by my prediction from the previous post:
Seven to ten seats in the House
No more than two in the Senate. (And the Senate I doubt with some of the races out there.)
There's nothing to prevent the GOP from shooting itself in the foot between now and Election Day, but the same holds true for the Democrats. And the Democrats are more apt to do just that. (Anyone who has heard the leaders of the party pipe up lately can attest to this.) But we've got faith that the GOP will win in the end. You have to. If you let the predominant rhetoric win the day, that means you've already resigned yourself to a future that's not even written yet. Don't buy it. Few I know of are worried. Even less buy the line.
Publius II
First, Thank You To Hugh Hewitt for the link. He picked up on our answer to the doom-and-gloom being preached in the Bloomberg piece yesterday. The answer to that piece was this post originally put up yesterday afternoon. (A fine tweaking last night when I couldn't sleep had me readjusting the time, and reposting it.)
While we thoroughly appreciate the traffic, the buzz this generated in our comments section, and in e-mails, surprised both of us. And I feel a need to answer a couple of these critics. The first comes from an anonymous poster in our comments section:
Susan Collins retiring? Uh, actually it's Senator Snowe in Maine who's up, and she's a shoe in to get reelected...don't know where you folks are getting your information, but it does make one question your analysis if your basic premises aren't correct.
To wh9om this may concern, yes Susan Collins is retiring. She is a senator calling it quits. My MISTAKE here was not catching when her reelection bid is. That's in 2008, so yes I made one small mistake. Misreading the date hardly qualifies as a serious mistake. People misspeak all the time. I have corrected the record, right here, and do apologize for that mistake. And yes, Olympia Snowe will be reelected, and we have sent contributions to her race despite our differences on some issues.
The point of this election is to support the GOP. To be a "party man," which means you put petty differences aside to maintain the majority. The Bloomberg piece asserts the Democrat talking points that they will dominate the '06 election. I don't see it. I can't see it. Let's see if they can answer some basic questions:
What are your plans for the war, and specifically for Iraq?
What do you intend to do to the economy to keep the boom going?
Are your plans still for obstructing the president's agenda rather than doing what is right for the nation?
What are you going to do when it comes to illegal immigration, a rampant and growing problem for the US?
And I bring up the immigration issue because of this comment left by Damav:
The loss of the House by Republicans will virtually guarantee passage of an Amnesty Bill for illegal aliens.
Only the conservatives in the House currently stand between America and amnesty: The Senate has already passed the bill, Bush certainly supports it.
On yesterday's Hewitt show, he interviewed John Boehner, the current House Majority leaderand here is the exchange between the two of them regarding this topic:
HH: Let's take our last three minutes to talk about immigration, Majority Leader Boehner, because you're in California. I'm sure you're hearing about it at every stop, and it divided the party. The McCain-Kennedy approach did not go over well with Chairman Sensenbrenner, and Chairman Sensenbrenner seems to be winning. What's going to happen, if anything, in September? What's going to happen long term?
JB: We've had series of hearings over the last six weeks, looking at the Senate bill, and some of the more bizarre provisions in the Senate bill, the children of illegal immigrants being able to get in-state tuition, regardless of the state they live in.
HH: Social security benefits for years here illegally.
Seems like Rep. Boehner is on the same page as Rep. Sensenbrenner, and that means the bill's probably going to die. But Damav's point is well taken. IF we lose the House, this bill will go through.
But we have to have faith that America's not as stupid as the Democrats are praying for this year. And somehow we just don't get that feeling. We have been stumping for John Kyl in Arizona, and the politically-savvy here see that while the Republicans are likely to lose a seat or two, it will not be the Democrat landslide being predicted by the pundits out there. It will not be a replay of '94 in reverse. They don't have a solid leader out on the board that can rally the candidates the way Gingrich did. They are seriously lacking anything similar to the "Contract for America" that the GOP drew up then. As a matter of fact, as Marcie and I have both been saying, there is a complete lack of concensus within the Democrat Party as to what their message will be.
Let's take a look at the Senate, just as a barometer for where their party lies. These are the same people calling for yet another vote regarding Iraq, and have browbeat the president from Day One over there on how it's been handled. The Senate is also where much of the cut-and-run rhetoric is coming from. So, based on this, we can see that a part of their platform is bringing the troops home. I spotted that in the post previous to this one.
We have seen that they also stand for more judicial activists. This was evident in both the Roberts and Alito hearings. The questions they were peppered with were not only borderline idiotic, but also called for them to abide by the precedent they liked, such as Roe; a precedent that was amusingly referred to as a "superprecedent." Arlen Specter first used this phrase, and while he is a Republican, his gaffe was seized by the Democrats on the Judiciary Committee, and held onto the phrase. If it's against the Constitution, it's OK. If it's for the Constitution, the Democrats don't like it. We only need to review past cases to see where they celebrated the most. These people do not stand for correcting a near-imperialistic federal bench. They want more of the same, which is also why they have given the president headaches regarding his judicial nominees.
Immigration? the party to raise the biggest stink about what we're doing when it comes to enforcement and reform are the Democrats. They're on the record for opposing the first step in reforming immigration, which is enforcement. We have to send the message to our neighbors that they're not allowed to break the law. For too long we have allowed this practice, and it's biting us in the backside in one of the most important realms in America. Workers that can work for cheaper wages are getting the jobs over Americans, and employers have slid by in this respect, as well. If we make it tougher for them to get here, and hold employers responsible for who they hire, these people will slow their entry into the nation. Back that up with a patrolled border fence, and you have slowed the immigration ot a trickle. The Democrats are doing everything they can to demonize our side on this issue, and it's not working. The most important places to campaign on this issue are the border states alongside Mexico, and the people aren't buying the Democrats' feeble line on this that we should be open and tolerant. I think not, and our side firmly believes in this. The president's view is nice, but it's amnesty-lite, and will be a disaster for the nation.
They have opposed the missile defense system. They stand opposed to the NSA surveillance program. They were against the Patriot Act's renewal. They have been against the president's tax cuts, and many House Democrats have opposed Rep. Boehner & Co's earmark reform, and spending reform in the House.
This is what the Democrats stand for. If this is their platform, they're dead in the water. Carville will be wearing the trash can on CNN on election night. And there will be a lot of shocked Democrats on election night when their prayers aren't answered. Come November 8th, the GOP will still control the White House, and both Houses of Congress. They may not have the majorities that they did, but they will have the majority. I stand by my prediction from the previous post:
Seven to ten seats in the House
No more than two in the Senate. (And the Senate I doubt with some of the races out there.)
There's nothing to prevent the GOP from shooting itself in the foot between now and Election Day, but the same holds true for the Democrats. And the Democrats are more apt to do just that. (Anyone who has heard the leaders of the party pipe up lately can attest to this.) But we've got faith that the GOP will win in the end. You have to. If you let the predominant rhetoric win the day, that means you've already resigned yourself to a future that's not even written yet. Don't buy it. Few I know of are worried. Even less buy the line.
Publius II
posted by Syd And Vaughn | 5:16 PM
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