Monday, October 29, 2012

Romney will be the 45th United States President


Why I Think Obama Is Toast 
--Dan McLaughlin
...Two things stand out:

One, Mitt Romney has a consistent, significant lead among independent voters, which increasingly looks like a double-digit lead. This is especially clear in national polls, but can also be seen in the key swing state polls. It’s been a hard enough number for the past few weeks now, even as the last of the debates gets baked into the polls, that there’s little chance that Obama can turn it around in the [8] days remaining in this race. In fact, Obama has been underwater with independents almost continuously since the middle of 2009.

Two, to overcome losing independents by more than a few points, Obama needs to have a decisive advantage in Democratic turnout, roughly on the order of – or in some places exceeding – the advantage he enjoyed in 2008, when Democrats nationally had a 7-point advantage (39-32). Yet nearly every indicator we have of turnout suggests that, relative to Republicans, the Democrats are behind where they were in 2008. Surveys by the two largest professional pollsters, Rasmussen and Gallup, actually suggest that Republicans will have a turnout advantage, which has happened only once (in the 2002 midterms) in the history of exit polling and probably hasn’t happened in a presidential election year since the 1920s.

Those two facts alone caused me to conclude at the end of last week that Obama will lose – perhaps lose a very close race, but lose just the same. That conclusion is only underscored by the fact that, historically, there is little reason to believe that the remaining undecided voters will break for an incumbent in tough economic times. He will lose the national popular vote, and the fact that he has remained competitive to the end in the two key swing states he needs to win (Ohio and Wisconsin) will not save him.

There is much more analysis-- including beaucoups of charts -- at this opinions' link; there's simply too much of it to post here. As to whether or not McLaughlin is right, only November 7th knows for certain. But I'm content to wait.



The Obama Ground Game Myth 
--Jonathan S. Tobin
In the last week, there have been two consistent themes being sounded by the Democrats. One is the assertion that Mitt Romney’s momentum has been halted and even reversed. The other is that their ground game is so good that the president is bound to win the election no matter what the polls say. These two talking points are closely related, since the polls that liberal analysts cite in order to assert that the president is edging back into the lead are based on assumptions about the composition of the electorate that are only possible if the Democrats match or even exceed the massive turnout they achieved in 2008.

Why pollsters would assume that a correct sample for the 2012 election would mirror the 2008 results when Obama rode a wave of disgust for the Bush administration and belief in his promise of hope and change is a mystery that demands an explanation that has yet to be forthcoming. Yet Democrats say the question is irrelevant since their ability to generate turnout is so expert and so superior to that of the Republicans they believe there is little doubt that once again the number of their voters will outnumber those of the GOP.

I see little to no evidence of democratic voter enthusiasm. I believe Democratic pollsters are touting Obama's inevitability because they have no choice (just as their Republican's had no choice last election) unless they seed fear into their party's rank and file.

But again, only November 7th knows for certain how this is all going to pan out.



Election 2012: Ohio President 
Ohio: Romney 50%, Obama 48%
The race for Ohio’s Electoral College votes remains very close, but now Mitt Romney now has a two-point advantage.

The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Likely Ohio Voters shows Romney with 50% support to President Obama’s 48%. One percent (1%) likes some other candidate, while another one percent (1%) remains undecided. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

Ohio remains a Toss-Up in the Rasmussen Reports Electoral College Projections.  Based on the current projections, Romney would have to win Wisconsin if he loses Ohio in order to move into the White House.

The most accurate pollster in 2008 has Romney up by 2. Not much, really, to crow about, but it does put to lie (or "wishful thinking" status) the Democratic line that the Mittmentum is over, that the Obama camp has halted the surge toward and for Mitt Romney.

I'll be up all night next Tuesday, or until one or the other candidates makes his concession speech. Personally, I believe that candidate will be out going President Barack H. Obama.



Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Atlas Shrugged: Best quote from Part II



"If you saw Atlas, the giant who holds the world on his shoulders, if you saw that he stood, blood running down his chest, his knees buckling, his arms trembling but still trying to hold the world aloft with the last of his strength, and the greater the effort the heavier the world bore down upon his shoulders--what would you tell him to do?"

"I … don't know. What … could he do? What would you tell him?"

"To shrug."

Simply beautiful. I hope they are able to hang on to their present cast for the last film. Somehow, I have to find time to drag the book out again for a reread.

Monday, October 22, 2012

The kind of Conservative thinking that makes good policy sense...

 ...and the kind of thought that, for the most part, seems outside the Liberal ken.


Fight for your freedom to fail

by Ben Kinchlow


When I was growing up, we had chickens. They were called game birds, wild and independent birds, which, given the chance, would simply “fly the coop.” So, my dad would go out and clip one of their wings so they couldn’t fly.

The liberty of those birds was completely restricted by clipping that one wing, so we kept those chickens penned, and my job was to feed them every day. Those birds never had to worry about storms, foxes, dogs or any other risks that wild birds face. They had all the food and shelter they wanted – but they were not free.

As sovereign beings, made in the image and likeness of God, we have the freedom to succeed, and this freedom to succeed always carries with it the freedom to fail. If one is not free to fail, one cannot truly succeed.

A historian named Alexander Tyler is reputed to have predicted that the American way of life could not endure because people do not want to take responsibility for their own choices. In a democratic society, he said, “people will invariably hand over their sovereign responsibility and freedom to that government which promises the most benefits.” He further observed “a democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover they can vote themselves largess from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority only votes for candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by dictatorship.” Tyler made this chilling statement more than 200 years ago.

Recorded history seems to indicate that civilizations rise and fall in 200-year cycles. America is almost 40 years past that point and apparently ready for collapse and dictatorship, because the signs of dependency and imminent bondage are all around us.

This dependency (leading to bondage) is encouraged today by politicians, bureaucrats, social workers and think-tank elitists who pontificate, “We don’t want anyone to fail, so we’re going to make sure everyone has a safety net. It doesn’t matter whether you work hard, sacrifice and struggle, or if you just sit on your blessed assurance and take it easy. We want everyone to share equally. We want everyone to have everything they want. The government will take care of you. If you don’t want to struggle and sacrifice to succeed, that’s OK; and just to make sure the success of other people don’t make you feel bad, we will punish the achievers. We will take from those who have and give to those who have not. The government will take care of you cradle-to-grave. That way nobody fails. What could be more fair?” Didn’t I hear one of the candidates say “the rich must pay their fair share”?

That kind of thinking produces socialism, communism and runaway welfare states. The irony is these so-called safety nets don’t actually keep anyone from failing; in fact, they guarantee mass failure by removing the incentive to work hard, take risks and succeed. Safety nets eliminate the rewards of the Judeo-Christian virtues of hard work, sacrifice, personal responsibility and thrift.

When no one excels, everyone fails.

Eventually the people begin to say, “What’s the use? I get the same result whether I work or not. I might as well lie back in my hammock and join the non-achievers.”

Social engineers eliminate competition and traditional letter grades from the education system and then wonder why students are no longer motivated. They provide welfare and food stamps and call it “a right” or “an entitlement.” They make these programs better and more inclusive, and then they wonder why we can’t get anyone to take entry-level jobs anymore. Socialism has invariably failed. Yet the bureaucrats, pseudo intellectuals and social engineers keep trying to make it work in America.

They keep expanding the social bureaucracy and pouring money into a failed welfare system. According to Heritage Senior Research Fellow Robert Rector, the cost of all military wars in U.S. history, from the Revolutionary War to the current war in Afghanistan, has been $6.98 trillion. Rector further states that since Johnson launched the War on Poverty in the 1960s, the government has spent $19.8 trillion (in inflation-adjusted 2011 dollars). In other words, the War on Poverty has cost almost three times as much as all other wars combined, and we are further than ever from winning that war.

You don’t encourage people to achieve and become productive by taking away their incentives and sovereign responsibility and eliminating the freedom to fail. However well-intentioned, this elitist, socialist approach to solving the problem of poverty actually makes the situation worse. It is a horrible, malignant and degrading thing to take away a person’s right to fail. It is an active enslavement and an insult against a person’s sovereignty.

Yes, we pledge our allegiance and our fair share of taxes to our government, but not our sovereignty, not our “decisionability” (the power to make our own choices). Once we surrender our sovereignty to the government, government becomes our master and we deserve just what we get – or don’t get.

However, when we all take responsibility for our own lives, our own success or failure, then “We the People” become the sovereign masters, not the government.

Thursday, October 18, 2012

At Best a Fleeting Tie for Obama. 
The Reality is a Cancer on His Campaign

 --Erick Erickson,


An undecided voter who voted for Obama in 2008, asked Barack Obama why he should vote for Barack Obama now. Stunningly, Obama offered no new plans, no new proposals, and no new ideas. The voter clearly said he wasn’t impressed with the past four years, but that’s all Obama had to offer. Then Romney countered. It was a magical moment of fact telling, just hitting the low notes of Barack Obama’s record. Obama clearly wanted to respond, but he could not. There was no time.

One last point — Obama seemed very angry last night throughout the debate. “Stern,” one friend called his expressions. Several times, on the stage, Mitt Romney commanded and the President followed. Romney led the President and I think it showed to undecided voters. Romney, at one point, commanded the President shut up and sit down and the President did so like a dog told to sit. It was masterful.