It seems that a number of conservative pundits are losing their
grip on this presidential campaign. Reading normally sane
publications such as the Wall Street Journal and the
Weekly Standard, and even Broadway types like Joe
Scarborough and Peggy Noonan, you would think that this race wasn’t
winnable. Did they think that knocking off a sitting president was
going to be easy?
It is time to suck it up. Governor Romney can win this thing.
Compared to Ronald Reagan in 1980, the race is very
competitive if you believe Gallup (tied) or Rasmussen (Obama
+1). I understand that Democrats argue Bush 2004 as a
counter-factual, but the point is that the future is not written in
the stars or the entrails of pigeons. You have to play the
game.
Dick Morris has posted
an analysis of polling results and argues that most polls
underestimate Romney’s strength because they are over-weighting the
samples of Democratic constituencies based on 2008 voter turnout.
Rasmussen, on the other hand, is using a blend of 2004 and 2008 to
reflect historic and likely turnout levels.
Fortunately, the rank and file did not get the memo of despair.
Here in Virginia volunteers are pounding the pavement hard for the
GOP’s candidates, up and down the ticket, supported by a solid
organization. The face of this effort is Barbara Comstock, a
Republican state legislator, who is also a veteran political
consultant and activist. From what I can tell, she doesn’t sleep
much.
In less than a week after Romney’s naming of Paul Ryan as his
vice presidential running mate, the Romney and Virginia
organizations pulled off a highly successful fundraiser in
Arlington.
Another thing that is completely off the radar of Beltway and
some conservative media types is the complete and unrelenting
mobilization of social conservatives of all stripes dedicated to
retiring Barack Obama. The Wall Street Journal, for
instance, is certainly not against social conservatives, but its
focus is primarily on economic libertarianism, tax reform, and
neoconservative foreign policy. Thus, its editors tend to overlook
elements of the Republican coalition that are not exclusively
economic- or defense-minded. Unlike Grover Norquist, say, whose
lifetime vocation is fighting tax increases, they do not understand
coalition politics.
Pro-lifers, Evangelicals, Catholics, frosted over the violation
of their First Amendment rights, Mormons of course, and pro-family
advocates are in full mobilization. These elements of the base,
along with defenders of the Second Amendment, anti-tax advocates,
and the many and varied groups making up the Tea Party are highly
motivated. They tend to talk less and work more than most pundits.
Laborare est orare.
While the Catholic hierarchy usually does not name names in
terms of whom to vote for, at least explicitly, President Obama’s
anti-Catholic policies will continue to be the subject of much
preaching and teaching through the balance of the election season.
Moreover, there are now several grassroots organizations of popish
persuasion who are working the Internet very hard, if my own inbox
is any indication.
Campaigns follow a rhythm of their own with ups and downs but
generally reaching a crescendo when all the elements of strategy
and advocacy come to a peak in the final weeks before the November
election. Call it the moment of truth when voters will finally cast
their lot with whichever candidate matches the sum total of their
hopes, dreams, and fears.
By the middle of October, I think a number of simple but
disturbing truths will penetrate the collective consciousness of
the electorate. And, yes, these will primarily be economic truths
that will tip a majority of voters toward Mitt Romney. This is in
no way antithetical to the activism of social conservatives who are
often given a bad rap. Simply put, most social conservatives are in
fact economic conservatives. Not all, but most.
Back to home truths, the economic ones. These were conveniently
outlined by several heavy hitters on the Opinion page of the
Wall Street Journal (“The Magnitude of the Mess We’re In,”
September 17, 2012). Co-authored by George Shultz (serial Cabinet
member), Michael Boskin, John F. Cogan, Allan H. Meltzer, and John
B. Taylor, all solid conservative economists, the article posed a
series of rhetorical questions to drive home our current
predicament at the hands of the Obama administration.
“Did you know that annual spending by the federal government
exceeds the 2007 level by about $1 trillion?” resulting in “an
unprecedented string of federal budget deficits, $1.4 trillion in
2009, $1.3 trillion in 2010, $1.3 trillion in 2011, and another
$1.2 trillion on the way this year.”
Shultz and company note that the four-year increase in borrowing
amounts to $55,000 per U.S. household.
“While it might be tempting to conclude that we can just tax
upper-income people, did you know that the U.S. income tax system
is already very progressive?” Indeed, the top 1 percent pay 37
percent of all income taxes and 50 percent pay none.
Regarding the Fed, the authors enquire, “Did you know that,
during the last fiscal year, around three-quarters of the deficit
was financed by the Federal Reserve?” Foreign governments take care
of most of the rest. The Fed now owns one in six dollars of the
national debt, the largest in history including the Second World
War. Most of this goes to, i.e., is given, to the banks,
“effectively circumventing the appropriations process.”
You get the idea. The bottom line is that “President Obama’s
budget will raise the federal debt-to-GDP ratio to 80.4% in two
years, about double its level at the end of 2008 to the beginning
of this year.” In ten years, the President will expand our debt to
$18.8 trillion from $10.8 trillion. “The interest costs alone will
reach $743 billion a year, more than we are currently spending on
Social Security, Medicare or national defense, even under the
benign assumption of no inflationary increase or adverse
bond-market reaction.”
As we dive into the crucible of October, these daunting
statistics will be driven home by Governor Romney in the debates
and the GOP party apparatus across the nation, supported by a wave
of activists, a diverse yet coherent coalition of social, economic
and defense conservatives representing the majority of American
voters.
