Signs of Desperation

It’s all about him

It shouldn’t come as a surprise. Obama is trying everything to get the Democrats to come out and at least mitigate what looks to be a tsunami for the Republicans.

BOWIE, Md. - President Barack Obama’s message to thousands of African Americans who came to see the man they voted for two years ago was simple: Get
out and vote for the Democratic ticket in next month’s mid-term elections, even though he’s not on the ballot.

“DON’T MAKE ME LOOK BAD, NOW,” he quipped.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1010/43296.html#ixzz1237fT3i1

Obama charges Chamber of Commerce with using foreign funds in campaign without any proof.

Obama's lies are particularly reprehensible, given that his 2008
Presidential campaign represents the gold standard for accepting contributions
illegally from foreign sources, with no disclosure whatsoever, as Scott pointed
out . EVERY TIME YOU THINK THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY CAN'T SINK ANY LOWER, IT DOES.

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2010/10/027431.php

The article is updated to point out the WHITE HOUSE IS BACKING OFF THE
CHARGES saying “they had no evidence of foreign money being used by the Chamber for any of its estimated $75 million in ads this cycle.”

On Face the Nation this past Sunday Bob Schieffer basically mocked David
Axelrod when he brought up the Chamber of Commerce. “ Do you-- I guess I
would put it this way. If-- if-- if the only charge, three weeks into the
election that the Democrats can make is that there’s somehow this may or may
not be foreign money coming into the campaign, IS THAT THE BEST YOU CAN DO?”

Desperate times call for desperate measures.

Why Obama Is Losing the Political War

Barack Obama is being politically crushed in a vise. From above, by elite
opinion about his competence. From below, by mass anger and anxiety over
unemployment. And it is too late for him to do anything about this predicament
until after November's elections.

With the exception of core Obama Administration loyalists, most politically engaged elites have reached the same conclusions: THE WHITE HOUSE IS IN OVER ITS HEAD, ISOLATED, INSULAR, ARROGANT AND CLUELESS

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,2024718,00.html#ixzz123B3EC1s

Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

Unprecedented?

What may be coming is certainly unprecedented in modern politics.

Gallup just released its weekly “generic” poll, and for the second
week in a row it is forecasting a colossal wipeout for Democrats — with likely
voters voting Republican by a margin between 12 and 17 points. Rasmussen, widely and unfairly considered biased towards Republicans, has shown a markedly smaller Republican lead, but this week its likely-voter number has Republicans besting Democrats by 8 percent. Meanwhile, statewide and district-wide polls suggest that a minor surge by Democrats at the end of September seems either to have evaporated or was never all that real in the first place.

The potential for a GOP landslide has been much-discussed. One thing
that has been less noted is the extraordinarily DRAMATIC NATURE OF THE VOTER TURNAROUND HERE……

An 8-t0-15 point Republican margin in 2010, which seems
increasingly possible, will represent a partisan and ideological turnaround of
15 to 24 percent. That is without precedent in the modern era. At the
presidential level, Ronald Reagan’s victory over Jimmy Carter in 1980 was a
landslide but still featured a shift away from Carter of 11 points among the
electorate (Carter dropped from 51 percent in 1976 to 40 percent).

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/blogs/index.php/jpodhoretz/371246

Hey, Small Spender

In 1967 the movie, A Guide for the Married Man came out. They had one scene where a man was caught in bed with another woman by his wife. HE SIMPLY DENIED IT EVER HAPPENED and after enough time, the wife began to believe it was a hallucination. It appears Paul Krugman is trying the same technique.

Here’s the narrative you hear everywhere: President Obama has presided over
a huge expansion of government, but unemployment has remained high. And this
proves that government spending can’t create jobs.

Here’s what you need to know: The whole story is a myth. THERE NEVER WAS A BIG EXPANSION OF GOVERNMENT SPENDING. In fact, that has been
the key problem with economic policy in the Obama years: we never had the kind
of fiscal expansion that might have created the millions of jobs we need.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/11/opinion/11krugman.html?_r=2&hp

And speaking of small spenders

Mr. Soros, a champion of liberal causes, has been directing his money to
groups that work on health care and the environment, rather than electoral
politics. Asked if the prospect of Republican control of one or both houses of
Congress concerned him, he said: “It does, because I think they are pushing the
wrong policies, but I’m not in a position to stop it. I DON’T BELIEVE IN STANDING IN THE WAY OF AN AVALANCHE.”

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/11/soros-i-cant-stop-a-republican-avalanche/?hp

More Bad News for the Democrats

Some of your Democrat candidates aren’t rocket scientist and show it by calling for a boycott of your own state. AZ7 is listed by RCP as a “safe” seat for the Democrats.

Add Rep. Raul Grijalva to the growing list of Democratic worries this
election season.

Party operatives say there's increasing concern that the Arizona
Democrat's reelection bid could turn into a "sleeper" race for Republicans after
GRIJALVA — RESPONDING TO ENACTMENT OF A TOUGH NEW IMMIGRATION LAW — CALLED FOR AN ECONOMIC BOYCOTT OF HIS OWN STATE amid a housing crisis and record unemployment.

Four Democratic sources from different parts of the country said
that there is new attention to a race that was long considered in the bag.

And a recent poll, obtained by POLITICO, found that Grijalva and
REPUBLICAN CHALLENGER RUTH MCCLUNG, A REAL-LIFE ROCKET SCIENTIST, were in a dead heat, even though Washington prognosticators have declared the deep-blue seat safely Democratic.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1010/43362.html#ixzz123FbqjXw

Gov. Rendell at rally: 'Vote like your life depends on it ... because it just might'

Another example of PANIC ON THE LEFT.

Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell (D) characterized the midterm elections as a life-and-death struggle in a speech Sunday afternoon. "The choice is clear, you've got to go to the polls," Rendell said during a warm-up address at a large rally in Philadelphia ahead of appearances by President Obama and Vice President Biden.

"What's the best way to prevent [Republicans] from tearing down the president? It's a four-letter word," the governor said. "Vote like your life depends on it -- because, you know, it just might."

http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/senate-races/123555-gov-rendell-vote-like-your-life-depends-on-it-

Desperate times call for desperate measures.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) is pulling out
all the stops to try and maintain the party’s majority, including what may be
one of the most brutal campaign ads of the 2010 election cycle.

In a campaign attack ad aimed at Jeff Perry, the GOP candidate
hoping to fill Democratic Rep. Bill Delahunt‘s seat in Massachusetts’ 10th
Congressional District, the DCCC links Perry to a fellow former police officer
who conducted illegal strip searches of female teenage suspects in the
mid-1990s. Perry was the supervising officer on Wareham police force when a
subordinate officer committed the crime.

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/ruthless-dem-campaign-attack-ad-links-opponent-to-child-molestation/

Shutting Up Business

Democrats unleash the IRS and Justice on donors to their political opponents.

If at first you don't succeed, get some friends in high places to shut
your opponents up. That's the latest Washington power play, as Democrats and
liberals attack the Chamber of Commerce and independent spending groups in an
attempt to stop businesses from participating in politics.
Since the Supreme Court's January decision in Citizens United v. FEC, Democrats in Congress have been

TRYING TO PASS LEGISLATION TO REPEAL THE FIRST AMENDMENT FOR BUSINESS, though not for unions. Having failed on that score, they're now turning to legal and political threats. Funny how all of this outrage never surfaced when the likes of Peter Lewis of Progressive insurance and George Soros helped to make Democrats financially dominant in 2006 and 2008.

Chairman Max Baucus of the powerful Senate Finance Committee got
the threats going last month when he asked Internal Revenue Service Commissioner Douglas Shulman to investigate if certain tax exempt 501(c) groups had violated the law by engaging in too much political campaign activity. Lest there be any confusion about his targets, the Montana Democrat flagged articles focused on GOP-leaning groups, including Americans for Job Security and American Crossroads.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703735804575536370151720874.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_sections_opinion

32 Days to go

Obama and Education

This would have been a great opportunity for Matt Lauer to ask about the 216. Who are the 216? Like each of the families in Waiting for
Superman, thousands of parents in Washington, D.C., are dying to get their children out of violent and non-functioning local public schools and into alternatives like the Sidwell School that President Obama chooses to send his kids too.

One-thousand-seven-hundred low-income D.C. school children have
attended private schools with the help of the $7,500 scholarships awarded
through this D.C. Opportunity Scholarship program.

In the fall of 2008, 216 new low-income students were notified by
the Department of Education that they had been selected to receive scholarships.
These kids had their winning lottery tickets in hand. Then President Barack
Obama was elected with the help of the National Education Association and the
American Federation of Teachers. At the behest of Obama’s union allies,
Secretary of Education Arne Duncan sent letters to the 216 families informing
them that he was taking back the $7500 in scholarship money that the D.C.
Opportunity Scholarship program had previously awarded them. In
other words, President Barack Obama tore up their winning lottery tickets.

The article goes on to point out how much better the kids on the scholarship did than the rest of the students in the DC district. It appears for all his rhetoric, Obama really doesn’t believe in giving the poor a fair shot or at least the same shot he wants his children to have.

http://blog.heritage.org/2010/09/28/will-anyone-at-nbc-ask-about-the-216/

Class racism

Is class hatred equivalent of racism? Seems to be a good case for it using class elimination like genocide. The left loves to call the right racists even while they urge on class envy.

Naimark, author of the controversial new book Stalin’s Genocides,
argues that we need a much broader definition of genocide, one that includes
nations killing social classes and political groups. His case in point:
Stalin.

The book’s title is plural for a reason: He argues that the Soviet
elimination of a social class, the kulaks (who were higher-income farmers), and
the subsequent killer famine among all Ukrainian peasants – as well as the
notorious 1937 order No. 00447 that called for the mass execution and exile of
“socially harmful elements” as “enemies of the people” – were, in fact,
genocide.

Is murdering a class somehow better than murdering a race? Is
fomenting class-hatred somehow better than fomenting race-hatred?

http://news.stanford.edu/news/2010/september/naimark-stalin-genocide-092310.html

What happened to fifties Catholicism?

Here’s an interesting read that may lead you to buy a new book. If you are a Catholic, a former Catholic or just someone interested in religious history this seems fascinating.

In Hull’s thesis, the Sixties revolution in Roman Catholic practice was
in large measure a result of the Counter-Reformation and Vatican I
centralization of power in the papacy: In the traditional understanding, the
pope was the “custodian” of tradition — but the response to the Protestant
Reformation and the French Revolution made Catholicism expand that role
significantly, from “custodian” to “arbiter” (the quoted words are Hull’s). The
need for a strong defense against outside attacks on the Church made Catholics
rally around the pope, in the name of orthodoxy, little intending that that same
power could eventually be deployed in the interest of heterodoxy. (They might in
this sense have benefited from an understanding of O’Sullivan’s First Law:
“All organizations that are not actually right-wing will over time become
left-wing.” In this ecclesial case, of course, the contrast would
not be the political one between right-wing and left-wing, but rather one
between tradition and experimentation.)

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/248138/what-happened-fifties-catholicism-mike-potemra

Senate blocks recess appointments with deal between Dems, GOP

Senate Democrats agreed Wednesday night to a Republican demand to block
President Obama from making recess appointments while Congress is out of town
campaigning for the midterm elections.Democratic leaders have agreed to schedule pro-forma sessions of the Senate every week over the next six weeks, a move that will prevent Obama from making emergency appointments, according to Senate sources briefed on the talks.

http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/121775-senate-blocks-recess-appointments

Every administration uses recess appointments to some extent, but Obama has raised the use of it beyond people stuck in committee to those who have never had any had any Senatorial scrutiny.

Without a defendable record, Democrats try pounding the table

It is a lawyers' adage: If you have the law on your side, argue the
law; if you have the facts, argue the facts; if you have neither, pound the
table. Forgive the Democrats for their current table-pounding.

They cannot run on their record, which has
two pillars. One is the stimulus that did not stimulate as they said it would
(or else unemployment would not be above 8 percent). The report that the
recession ended in June 2009 means the feeble recovery began before stimulus
spending really started.

The second pillar is the health-care legislation. This may not be
(as suggested by Michael Barone, author of the Almanac of American Politics) the
most unpopular major legislation since the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854. But it
remains as unpopular as it was when the administration told Americans to pipe
down and eat their broccoli.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/29/AR2010092905608.html?hpid=opinionsbox1

I agree with Will but want to add one thing. It appears the recovery is getting weaker and this coincides with the gearing up and spending of the stimulus.

Why Dems Are Going Down in November

Unless something totally unforeseen occurs, Democrats are poised to take a
real beating in November. Their response to the impending disaster has run the
gamut. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is in denial: "One thing I know for
sure is that Democrats will retain their majority in the House of
Representatives." Massachusetts Senator John Kerry is condescending: "We have an electorate that doesn't always pay that much attention to what's going on, so
people are influenced by a simple slogan rather than the facts or the truth or
what's happening." President Obama is angry: "It is inexcusable for any Democrat
or progressive right now to stand on the sidelines in this midterm election."
Why is the electorate ready to kick Democrats to the curb? Here's why:

http://jewishworldreview.com/0910/ahlert.php3

An excellent summary of the problems, arrogance, and stupidity that is bringing an end to the Democrats 40 years in power 38 years early.

The Arrogance of the Left

When America votes for a liberal candidate, it is redeemed by the left
as intelligent -- and derided as dense when it does not. We were told not to
worry that Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner did not pay all his income taxes
since we were lucky to have someone so well educated and experienced in high
finance.

Note that few Democratic candidates are running on the health-care
bill they passed, promising at the time that it would be appreciated by a
suspicious American public. More federal borrowing and amnesty are still pushed
under the euphemisms "stimulus" and "comprehensive immigration reform." House
Speaker Nancy Pelosi claimed that the tea party movement was merely a synthetic Astroturf movement. Professors and preachers may like such sermonizing, but for politicians it's a lousy way to get elected. Again, compare the relative fates of the patronizing Adlai Stevenson and the plain-speaking Harry
Truman.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/09/30/democrats_cling_to_arrogance.html

I do believe the Democrats are in phase two of the five stages of grief—anger.

The Middle Has Swung Against Dems

By David Broder

WASHINGTON -- Sometimes the most important clues are hiding in plain view.
That was the case in late June, when the Gallup Organization reported that the
share of voters who describe themselves as conservative had increased from 37
percent to 42 percent in the past two years.That does not sound like a big
change. But given the long-term stability of these basic philosophical
alignments, the reaction it measured to the economic troubles and the
performance of the new Democratic administration is very significant....

This is an excellent article and concludes with the paragraph below.

But if Gallup is right, and I believe its methodology is solid, there simply
are fewer liberal votes to be won this time. And, as the Third Way memo says, "While the middle has always played a pivotal role in American electoral
politics, where they swing this fall will certainly decide the fate of the
Democratic majority."

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/09/30/the_middle_has_swung_against_dems.html