With Obamacare dragging behind them and only 97 days until
the November election, Democrats have descended into a state of
near panic. Their congressional leaders have, temporarily,
abandoned Obama’s agenda, preferring to spend what is planned to
be the longest recess in congressional history trying to explain
to voters why the biggest spendthrifts in American history should
be left in charge of the national checkbook.
In the White House, it’s much worse. All the way back in
February 2009 our first black Attorney General said that
“Though this nation has proudly thought of itself as
an ethnic melting pot, in things racial we have always been and I
believe continue to be, in too many ways, essentially a nation of
cowards.” Cowards, history teaches us, react rashly and fearfully
to real or perceived threats. Which is precisely what the Obama
administration did in unceremoniously firing Shirley
Sherrod — an Agriculture Department employee — over a
two-decade old video clip which showed her apparently celebrating
discrimination against a white farmer.
The White House denied having anything to do with Sherrod’s
firing despite the lady’s statements to reporters that there were
three calls to her saying the White House wanted her out and
demanding her resignation. And when the full story came out —
Sherrod was reportedly explaining her epiphany against reverse
discrimination — the president called to apologize as did Ag
Secretary Tom Vilsack who offered to create a job for her. (So
much for the skeptics who don’t believe Obama is creating
jobs.)
Sunday’s Rasmussen Reports Daily Presidential Tracking poll
showed that 25% of American voters strongly approved of Obama’s
job performance while 45% strongly disapproved. The primary key
to that weakness is the economy: according to the Bureau of Labor
Statistics’ June report, employers took 1,647 mass layoff actions
that month affecting 145,538 workers. Unemployment continues to
hover around 9.5% and new unemployment claims surged to about
454,000 last week alone.
And now Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner has said it’s time
to kill the Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthy. It’s enough to
make Republicans rejoice. Congress is theirs for the taking. Or
is it?
Not quite. The Tea Partiers are a lot more relevant and
effective than the National Association for the Advancement of
(Democratic) Colored People, which has devolved to be a shill for
the libs. But Repubs still lack the two things they need to sweep
November: a theme and a leader.
Barry is a redistributionist Robespierre minus the
funny hat, and Americans don’t want to be bankrupt personally or
nationally. The war in Afghanistan is not going well, and even
though Obama is essentially continuing Bush’s nation-building
plan (adding his timetable for withdrawal) Republicans are
beginning to come to their senses on it.
It shouldn’t be hard for Republicans to turn those facts
into a winning theme, but there are too many who want to be the
doctor, not the pharmacist. House Majority Leader John Boehner’s
team will soon announce something on the model of Newt Gingrich’s
1994 “Contract with America.” But at the same time, three
Republican “Young Guns” — Boehner’s Whip, Eric Cantor, Paul Ryan
of the Budget committee, and California’s Kevin McCarthy — are
coming out with a campaign theme book in September which they
will be promoting on television and radio at the same time
Boehner’s plan is gasping for media air.
Republican leader wannabes — Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich,
and Mitt Romney among others — are media teasers, sucking all
the air out of the media balloon. The media — even the
conservative media, as few as we are — pay more attention to
them now than they deserve, reducing the opportunity for a leader
to arise this year and carry on this year’s campaign to take back
Congress.
Which brings us to the central problem: in order to qualify
as a leader, you have to have followers. Which none of the
congressional Republicans have. They are competing in an Inside
the Beltway wrestling match no one is watching. The Tea Partiers
— God bless ‘em — are independent. They, and millions of other
frustrated, angry voters, are looking for someone to rise above
the madding (and maddening) crowd of pols.
The theme this year can be described by three rules:
First, we need to slash government spending, not just slow
its growth. Repeal Obamacare and whatever part of the stimulus is
unspent, sell of Chrysler and GM to whoever is dumb enough to buy
them, and end government programs and agencies — everything from
the Corporation for Government Broadcasting to the National
Endowment of the Arts — which the government shouldn’t be
doing.
The Phone Book Rule: If it’s being done by something
already listed in the phone book, the government shouldn’t be
doing it.
Second, we have to protect this nation from t he invasion
of illegal immigrants. As a senior member of the intelligence
community told me last week, there are a lot of “OTM”s — “other
than Mexicans” — coming across. He said these people are from
Somalia, Yemen, Pakistan and other fun places. We know Hizballah
terrorists are in Mexico. There’s no reason they can’t come in
any time they’d like. This senior person told me that the Obama
administration has chosen to leave the eastern half of the
Arizona border open.
The Border Rule: Close the border to illegal alien
traffic. Period. No amnesty for illegals already
here.
Third, and my apologies, dear reader, for saying it yet
again: win the war. Withdraw from Afghanistan and Iraq and
conduct whatever overt and covert military operations may be
necessary to end state sponsorship of terrorism.
The War Rule: Fight the enemy, not his proxies and do
so in a manner calculated to win quickly and
decisively.
None of the people who ran in 2008 have the skill or
strength of character to take these three rules outside the
Beltway to reach the American people. Whoever chooses to can help
the entire Republican slate this year, and set himself up for
2012. If no one does, 2010 will be the warm-up for Obama’s
reelection in 2012.
