The Election May Be Over, But...

Cross Posted at No Kool-Aid, Just Goldwater

Many are not happy with the election results. I know I'm not. I do not trust Obama. Rahm Emanuel is hardly a unifying figure. Union officials are already looking for payback. Ahmadinejad can't restrain his glee. It's tough to be a conservative right now, looking at how far my country has been led astray.

But, I can be grateful that I live in a country where the transfer of power is peaceable. I have to love the democratic process even when I don't love the result. And I am especially grateful for the wisdom of our Constitution, and the staggered terms of our Senate.

Emotions ran high this election cycle. Many Republicans took the fall for a subpar President - and not just at the national level. In Nevada, we lost some good people in the state legislature. Many did nothing to lose their election - except running with an R next to their name.

The prospect of Obama with Democratic majorities in Congress is troubling to me. But fortunately, an irrational electorate couldn't throw out all of the Republicans in the Senate. We're in the minority, but retained the filibuster firewall.

If Obama governs as a relative centrist in spite of his radical roots, great. But we need our Senators to fight back if Obama pushes anything too nuttily left.

We need courage. We need commitment to principles. We need our Republican Senators to stand up and not roll over. We need them to fight for America, and not worry if they're called uncooperative or obstructionist. If it needs to be stopped, they need to stop it. They're all we've got. If they forget what is on the line, we need to remind them, with vigor.

Those of us who opposed Obama are over 56 million strong. We are not insignificant. We do not need to buy into a mandate. We still need to fight for what we feel is best for the country.

The election may be over, but the real fight is just beginning.

-Angela

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Brass Knuckling Congressional Policy

Cross posted on Politics and Critical Thinking.

CT

In a stunning display of utter duplicity Madame Screecher and Harry "The Nervous Chihuahua" Reid offer a hand of friendship to Republicans. While reminding them, ever so gently, that there is a pair of political brass knuckles, better known as a "mandate," in the other .

Taken from the Washington Wire, WSJ Online.

"Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada declared that the American electorate gave the Democratic Party a “mandate” as he pledged to aid the middle class and restore fiscal responsibility to “lead this country to a much better place."

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California pledged bipartisanship and civility in Washington, D.C. Obama built much of his campaign around changing the culture of Washington.

“We have a great deal of work to do, and we can do some of it right from the start,” she said. “But the rest of it will take a while. We must take a very deliberate, steady course for America. That’s exactly what Barack Obama is prepared to do.”

Over the past two years, the leadership of Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi has been nothing more than an attempt to bulldog progressive policies through Congress. The only redeeming features was a President who is an ardent partisan himself and had no fear of using his veto. In the end, they were two extremes, which balanced each other out, but also caused political stagnation. But now that is not the case, we have a hyper Liberal President with a Congress being led by a hyper-Liberal caucus. To think that there won’t be a rubber stamp philosophy in Washington is naive.

This situation brings the Lord Acton adage to mind," Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." This has applied to the Republicans as well as the Democrats. Look at the past decade and a half of barren partisanship, neither party has displayed any desire for cooperation with the other. Especially if that party was holding a very comfortable majority.

So, forgive the 56 million of us in the electorate who question their offer of cooperation and if we are rightfully leery about their motives. Most know it is very easy to speak in niceties about your opponent when celebrating your victory. Nevertheless, it’s a whole other ballgame when it comes time to get to work and you have a pair of political brass knuckles in your pocket.

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What if Obama loses, who goes to the gallows?

Pundit,

Cross posted Politics and Critical Thinking.

It's no secret that most Conservatives aren't fans of the MSM. We often hearken for their demise, in a figurative sense of course. That's why when CT posted the article, Slate-to-Slate polling, I thought it would be comical to follow it up with an even more interesting article provided by Slate, If Obama Loses, Who Gets Blamed?


John Dickerson, the author, contemplates what an Obama loss would mean,

CLEVELAND—If Barack Obama wins the election, it will be historic. And if he loses, it will be pretty historic, too: It would mark the biggest collective error in the history of the media and political establishment.

An Obama loss would mean the majority of pundits, reporters and analysts were wrong. Pollsters would have to find a new line of work, since Obama has been ahead in all 159 polls taken in the last six weeks. The massive crowds that have regularly turned out to see Obama would turn out to have meant nothing. This collective failure of elites would provide such a blast of schadenfreude that Republicans like Rush Limbaugh would be struck speechless (another historic first).

This situation lends a feeling of unreality to the proceedings as we begin to measure the time until Election Day in hours. It is the elephant on the campaign plane. No one is letting on. Journalists aren't supposed to. Plus, we've been wrong so often, and politics can be so unpredictable, it would be dumb to say that Obama is going to win big.

Of course after all this talk about Obama, Mr. Dickerson felt the Mathews tingle up his leg. Like an excited mutt that just got through peeing on the floor, he proceeded to trash a fairly good article. Showering praises on Obama for his metrosexuality and GQ-ishness. Dickerson for Godsake, stay on topic! As it is, you might be out of a job soon.

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Slate to Slate Polling

CT

Cross posted on Politics and Critical Thinking

Slate has some interesting dynamics it just put out. Seems there has been a shift in state-to-state polling and it is moving in McCain's direction. Coincidentally, Mac is campaigning hard in the NorEast and with the release of Obama's coal video there might be some waves up in the Keystone State shifting it to him. Unlikely, but that is coal country after all.

Here is an excerpt from Slate,

Of 20 new statewide polls, 15 show a shift in McCain's direction. The biggest comes from a SurveyUSA poll in Kansas, where McCain leads 58-37; he led 53-41 in the same poll a week earlier. CNN/Time/Opinion Research Corp. and Quinnipiac polls in Florida showed shifts toward McCain of one and three points, respectively, though both polls still show Obama ahead.

This little surge is expected, especially when national polling, a few days back, was showing McCain closing gaps. To me, this is more important than the national polling data due to the what it represents for the electoral votes. This is what this election has been about for the past three months.

Now the question still remains, does McCain/Palin have the ground game to cover the space needed in time. The next 48 hours or so will answer that question. I wonder if Barack Obama feels like the New England Patriots did at the start of the Super Bowl?

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Election 08' The Final Days

CT

Cross posted at Politics and Critical Thinking

In the final days of the election, the Obama and McCain campaigns are stumping hard in key battleground states as well as areas that were carried by the rival party. According to the Wall Street Journal, Obama has made forays into territory that is either traditionally Republican or voted for Bush in 2004. “Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama will pass through Nevada, Colorado and Missouri Saturday, after appearances in Iowa and Indiana Friday -- all states that voted Republican four years ago. He will be in Ohio Sunday, another Bush state, and Virginia Monday, where a Democrat has not won since 1964.”

Obama has also outspent McCain nearly 3 to 1 in a massive advertising blitz in the last days of the campaign. “From Oct. 21 to Oct. 28, the Obama campaign spent nearly $21.5 million on advertising, compared with $7.5 million by the campaign of his Republican rival, Sen. John McCain, according to the University of Wisconsin Advertising Project.”This advertising bombardment was mainly concentrated in Republican held states that are key to a Presidential victory. “More than 70% of that combined spending was in Republican states.”

McCain is doing some insurgent maneuvering of his own, trying to attack some long-established Democratic strongholds. This taken from the NY Times states, “Senator John McCain, the Republican nominee who is trailing in national polls, was making appearances in two states that voted Democratic in 2004, Pennsylvania and New Hampshire.” Taking one or both of these states will be key for McCain to improve his chances for a victory. For McCain, though, this could be a problem, Obama has a commanding lead in these areas according to pollsters.” Obama leads in every state that Democratic Sen. John F. Kerry won four years ago, which gives him a base of 252 electoral votes of the 270 needed to win.” Victory in these areas is a necessity for McCain to erode Obama’s possible electoral vote count.

Nevertheless, one question remains, why is Obama pushing so hard in key Republican states if his margin of victory is so comfortable? The polls in toss up states and states which voted Republican in 04’ are varying. Washington Post, "He also has leads of varying sizes in five states Bush won: Iowa, New Mexico, Virginia, Colorado and Nevada. Were he to win all of those on Tuesday, he would claim the presidency with 291 electoral votes.” There has been talk of internal polling results from both campaigns that has shown quite a different picture than what is being represented in the media. While this reason is somewhat plausible, the more believable explanation is that the Obama camp is leaving nothing up to chance.

Polling data has been less than efficient, but there is no denying that Obama is in the lead. Where there has been a problem is the determination of how much that lead really is. If McCain is in the 2-4% range, he still has a shot of being within the margin of error, anything past that and he is out of the race. Either way, we are going to be seeing history unfold in front of our eyes.

Picture credit to Wall Street Journal.

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