The American Spectator

devan95| 12.12.08 @ 11:13PM

It took no genius to predict McCain's - or any Republican's loss. It simply took a quick look at 2 things: 1. The young people, and many others, bought into the same "I will change Washington" schtick that Jimmy Carter and 2. anyone could have predicted Ohio's switch to blue. In the last election Ohio had thrown out a moderate Republican senator and replaced him with a far left ambulance chaser. And Ohio was all the flip any Dem needed. So stop patting yourself on the back as it is not deserved. Especially if McCain had not freaked out over the bogus financial meltdown. And even with that, Sarah Palin almost pulled it out. The red states that turned blue did so by only 1 or 2 percent margins. Fully within Acorn vote fraud range.

skylights| 12.13.08 @ 12:56AM

"Fully within Acorn vote fraud range. "

Now who's hallucinating? There was no Acorn vote fraud, only low-paid workers trying to meet a quota by filling in registration forms with fake names like Mickey Mouse. Acorn was required by law to submit all forms, even fraudulent ones, but not before separating those into a separate pile. To believe that Acorn stole the vote is to tread deep into tinfoil hat conspiracy nut territory.

ruth| 12.13.08 @ 2:27AM

Nice spin, skylights. ACORN has to be stopped before Republicans can win tight elections races again. We know you cheat.

Bob| 12.13.08 @ 8:17AM

Let's face it -- Romney was the only viable candidate in the primaries and those idiot so-cons refused to help him. He was the only intelligent, knowledgeable, and executive experienced (in a number of roles) candidate. And please get off this shtick that Palin helped. An analysis of the RCP polling trend data and associated event dates proves, beyond any doubt, that she helped kill the ticket with the Gibson and Couric interviews. But I guess all of you anti-intellectual feel goods don't know how to do analysis. Besides, the corroborating exit polling data said that she was the number one reason for not supporting McCain -- second was Bush. You are entitled to your own opinions, but not your own facts. If you believe that ACORN stole the election, then you must also believe in abductions by aliens. The numbers just don't add up to the amount Obama won by. Again, I know you anti-intellectuals are hampered by analytical reality, but you don't have to prove it.

Brian| 12.13.08 @ 11:56AM

Obama won with a commanding lead, with nearly ten million more votes than McCain and nine more states than Bush won in 2004.

To hear devan95 and ruth, they're trying to rewrite history to make Obama win by just one state and a handful of votes, which is the maximum impact ACORN could have had if any at all. At least the left's conspiracy theory about voting machines would take just a handful of computer specialists; the right's conspiracy theories about ACORN would take thousands of election workers (not ACORN workers, the election workers who check Mickey Mouse's ID) all on Obama's payroll.

ruth| 12.13.08 @ 1:07PM

Yes, Brian, ACORN facilitates voter fraud, especially useful during tight races. Just because Obama didn't need it this time (and I submit that in some states ACORN proved the difference for him) doesn't mean it wasn't in place--just in case. The fact that Obama is already embroiled in a scandal before his Inauguration, proves that he wasn't vetted before the election. You can take the man out of the cesspool, but you can't take the cesspool out of the man.

Bob| 12.13.08 @ 1:14PM

Brian,

People like Ruth and the "journalists" that post here value belief over reason. They refuse to do real analysis because that might make them a dreaded "intellectual". There is no objectivity (which is needed for good analysis) in either the extreme right or extreme left. They really believe that the left is corrupt and the right are a group of angels. Those who dare to propose a different view of the party are called names -- especially "libs" even if they believe in secular conservative principles. They seem to value the lack of knowledge and their only use for references are for those who agree with them.

I find the belief that by going more to the right, they will pick up people in the center as illogical as anything I've heard. For that to happen, you need to assume that people in the center are really very religious, anti-abortion, fiscal conservatives who don't want any governmental help but just don't know it. If they only could explain their point of view better, people would jump on the bandwagon. It is far more likely that they will have to bend to the wants and desires of the electorate than vice versa.

Tony| 12.13.08 @ 1:29PM

Bob, people who blog on this site value honesty, unlike you. You attack personally and use insults to make your point. You should go back to your Huff/Post and end your pretense. You offer nothing of value here; you are just an embittered, old white man who likes to fight, you are pathetic. I feel sorry for you: So I want to wish you a very Merry Christmas, and I hope you find peace through Jesus Christ or your god, gaia, or whatever floats your boat.

Bob| 12.13.08 @ 3:53PM

Tony, what is honesty? I am totally honest, that's what you don't like about me. If you were honest, you'd know that libertarian Republicans like me are attacked all of the time for just telling the truth. UAW workers make $73 per hour? Lie. Palin was a positive for the ticket? Lie. You and your ilk don't call Obama/liberal Republicans socialists, marxists, commie libs, godless, sexists, etc. Please, give me a break. You lie because you don't believe in analysis and doing your homework. There is no pretense on my side. I've been a Republican my entire life and I don't like where the so-cons have taken the party. I am angry about it because I believe that fiscal conservatives like myself lose either way they vote. I am also angry about so-called "conservatives" not embracing quality education and success thereto -- especially when I want my children to go to school, get advanced degrees, and perform well. You guys are NOT good examples.

I agree with Dems that the state and church should be separated -- but then again, I'm in good company with Republican "elites".

YOU are unwilling to accept my types as conservatives. You will never win elections that way. Even Reagan understood that with the coalition at that time. It is impossible for intolerants like you to compromise. I can vote for a so-con if they are intelligent, knowledgeable, educated, and fiscal conservatives. However, you can't vote for a pro-choice candidate even if they are good in all other respects. The sheer mention of McCain on this site brings up comments of "lib", "turncoat", "Juan", etc.

No, intolerants found here do not value honesty -- they value fairy tales only heard on Fox News and Rush.

So yes, I'm angry at my party and I hope it shows. I'm in peace -- it feels good to be this honest. Have a nice evening.

Tony| 12.13.08 @ 4:43PM

Dude, you need a little anger-management help. I know where you can get it. God.

ruth| 12.13.08 @ 6:56PM

Bob, you say the SoCons don't value education. Where did you get that load of BS? The public schools have been run into the ground by liberals, not conservatives. You make stuff up and then you're outraged by your own stupid lies. You're seriously going over the edge. Hate kills, Bob.

David| 12.13.08 @ 8:37PM

Bob writes: "UAW workers make $73 per hour? Lie."

While it is true that the pure hourly rate for Detroit workers is closer to $30.00/hour, when you add in the extra costs related to benefits and the Job Bank - it translates into the much higher number. Non-union auto manufacturing companies have roughly half the per hour related expenses - and this is the real issue - manage to make cars the American public prefer buying.

I say no bail out.

David| 12.13.08 @ 8:41PM

As far as "so-cons" and "fiscal cons", I also would prefer that the social issues were not part of the political dialog. I believe that the true conservative position is more liberty less government intrusion into your private life, so if a person wishes to make the bad choice (in a series of bad choices) and have an abortion - I don't like it, I would not counsel it - but I sure don't want the government to have the power to prohibit it.

ruth| 12.13.08 @ 8:53PM

Dave, what if I make a real bad choice and kill my husband in the bedroom? Should the government have the power to prohibit it? If not, why not?

Bob| 12.13.08 @ 9:46PM

Let me respond:

Ruth: "Bob, you say the SoCons don't value education. Where did you get that load of BS?"

You vote for people who have limited educations, did not do well in school, and hate Ivy League schools. Great examples -- all.

David: "While it is true that the pure hourly rate for Detroit workers is closer to $30.00/hour, when you add in the extra costs related to benefits and the Job Bank - it translates into the much higher number. Non-union auto manufacturing companies have roughly half the per hour related expenses - and this is the real issue"

The real numbers are between $30-$39 for UAW and non UAW. Fringes are about $10-12/hr for UAW and about $7/hr for non-UAW. The $73/hr was calculated by taking the total wages including retired workers and dividing by the number of current workers -- including management. The starting UAW salaries have been lowered to $16/hr. The big difference is not the current workers which are at about parity, buy the retired workers and their healthcare. Rush, McConnell and others know that their minions won't check this out. So if current salaries are at parity, do you make them lower? This is not the fault of the current workers, but older management and older UAW decisions. When you build a new plant in the U.S., you don't have these legacy costs. And your statement about half the per hour related expenses is erroneous.

That said, I don't like the bailout either because of the dealer contracts which prevents reducing the number of brands and dealers. Bankruptcy would void these contracts. If they could void the contracts without declaring bankruptcy, that would work as well.

Ruth: "Dave, what if I make a real bad choice and kill my husband in the bedroom? Should the government have the power to prohibit it? If not, why not?"

Ruth, if you need someone better in the bedroom, I'm sure there's someone available somewhere -- but they still might be sexist. Before I answer your question, is your husband fully formed or just a group of cells...

dcdenizen| 12.14.08 @ 1:01AM

1. When was the last time one candidate won all three debates?

Oh I don't know -- 2004?
Sep 16, 2008 American Pospect;
... The consensus at the time was that Kerry won all three debates ...
That's how I remember it. "Winning is scored by manipulating some early spin and few Luntz type focus groups, polling "independent " or "unecided" voters, pundits opining, instapolls, etc. In my experience the Democrat always wins the debate.

2. Obama won because he outspent McCain by 7 to 1. Romney might have had more money but I don't think it would have mattered enough.

Jon| 12.14.08 @ 1:33AM

Please, please keep worry about ACORN vote fraud. I really think that's where Republicans can best spend their time and effort.

Bob| 12.14.08 @ 9:46AM

The anti-intellectuals strike again:

dcdenizen: "Obama won because he outspent McCain by 7 to 1"

Learn how to use Google even if you don't believe in education. Obama spent $712mm and McCain $326mm. Add in the DNC and RNC and the totals rise to $961mm and $619mm respectively. That's not "7 to 1", it is 1.55 to 1 (or as oddsmakers would say - 3 to 2).

http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/index.php

http://www.opensecrets.org/parties/index.php

dcdenizen| 12.14.08 @ 3:08PM

Bob:
"Learn how to use Google even if you don't believe in education. Obama spent $712mm and McCain $326mm. Add in the DNC and RNC and the totals rise to $961mm and $619mm respectively. That's not "7 to 1", it is 1.55 to 1 (or as oddsmakers would say - 3 to 2). "

Well, Bob, it's true that I don't equate being literate or educated with the ability to execute a keystroke, as you seem to do.

You'll be limited, then, to online dictionaries in your quest to learn the respective definitions of "spend" and "raise".

Now, once you get the meaning of thse words clear, check back to my post. I used the word "spend".

You however, in your response, give the repective amounts "raised" by McCain and Obama. You also don't differentiate between the amounts "raised" by Obama and McCain in the whole election campaign -- primaries as well as the general.

Now, let's look at your contention:

Obama spent $712mm and McCain $326mm.

Now, that would not be accurate, would it Bob?

Obama ""raised" $745 mil and mcCain $326 mil respectively (I use Politicalpunch numbers, ymmv, but we're agreed on the general proportions). So your use of "spend" on these numbers is wrong.

Please correct your statement and include an admission of error.

As to actual spending by these candidates during the general campaign (ie after the conventions), it's impossible to have any certitude, which is why I used proportions rather than numbers.

The reason for this is that while we know what MCain spent in the general election, we have no idea how much of his money Obama spent in the general vs the primary.

This is because McCain accepte d public fianacing and Obama didn't. (Although this is a key fact in the "spending" variation vis a vis Obama and McCain, you appear to be unaware of it)

We can say that McCain spent $84 million because that's what the PF law allows him to spend. For Obama, it's likely that he spent some of the money he raised before the primaries ended on the general (using the approximate date of July 1 to separate the two parts of the campaign). Anyway the money raised in July-Oct and carried over from before July might be as much as 60% of the total (which has been estimated at from 712-770 mil) or as much as 500 mil. That would make the proportion "spent" (as opposed to 'raised") more like 6 to 1 or 5 to 1.

My bad.

The 7:1 was a figure extrapolating from various media buys in various markets, which are actual numbers. It's certainly open to question as to whether this extrapolation can be made with any confidence, so that's a point worth making.

The ad hominem attacks add nothing to your argument, Bob, and should be eschewed in favor of facts, logic and persuasion.

JSmith| 12.14.08 @ 6:24PM

It is clear that Obama lost the VPD (Vote pe Dollar) by a margen of 10:1 or more. The McCain/Palin victory is astounding in this regard and the fact that Obama got less that 1/5 of the people in the country to vote for him as opposed to the much greater portion who was against him.

1. Obama had the support of the American Psychiatric Assoc.
2. Psychiatry is a fake science practiced by evil, money-obsessed no-gooders at the root of a secret, global conspiracy. Part of this conspiracy was to prevent the actual winner of the election from being revieled.

None the less it is all over. Obama will resign before Dec 15th.
Larry Sinclar has annouced that he has a seaman sample!

If Obama tries to lie about this he will be empeached like Clinton. So he will now be forced to resign before inagreration.

Obama will be forced to produce a seaman sample by that time or to resign in disgrace.

See:
http://larrysinclair-0926.blogspot.com/

David| 12.15.08 @ 10:04AM

Ruth writes, "Dave, what if I make a real bad choice and kill my husband in the bedroom? Should the government have the power to prohibit it?"

Questions about when life begins are theological/philosophical and I believe transcend the political dialog since reasonable people with disagree and there is no absolute standard which will establish the answer.

Having said that, there is no question that your husband is a living human being, so killing him would constitute murder, or manslaughter or even self-defense depending upon the set of facts and the State has an interest in establishing laws that help create an orderly and safe society.

Whether a fetus is a human being is not at all clear, and different religious traditions answer that question differently. The rights of the individual mother and father to decide when they will have a child according to their own religious principles trump the abstract argument the "pro-life" folks make, and to attempt to use the power of the State against individuals in order to enforce one set of religious beliefs is not only not a Conservative idea, but probably unconstitutional as well.

I think the effort is better spent to change the culture through other means than legislative/litigation process, and the goal to my way of thinking is lowering the number of abortions, changing attitudes so that less irresponsible behavior occurs and educating people to accept the consequences of their choices.

The Liberal agenda undermines all of these priorities by encouraging a mindset of entitlement and victimhood and looking to the State as the Big Daddy that will solve all our problems, big and small.

In my opinion, a rational Conservative position is against abortion as bad public policy (maybe among the 48 million aborted fetuses there might have been someone who would have cured cancer ...) but also against government being the institution that intrudes to issues of personal lifestyle (such as procreation, end of life issues and sexual orientation).

Liberty and preserving individual independence against the power of the State are constitutive Conservative principles, not parochial religious belief about when life begins.

David| 12.15.08 @ 11:00AM

Bob,

This from Larry Kudlow, "Average compensation for the Detroit little three is $72.31. Toyota’s average wage is $47.60, Honda’s is $42.05, and Nissan’s is $41.97, for an average of $44.20. So Corker’s idea was to bring that $72 a lot closer to that $44. (Corker notably knocked out Korean carmaker Kia, which has super-low wages.)"

http://tinyurl.com/5v7ogs

UAW refused to even commit to a date when they would be ready to make concessions on the compensation - they insist on waiting until 2011 when their contract is up for renegotiation. But if the Big 3 need bailing out in the next two weeks or go broke, then the UAW's position is peculiar.

Thomas| 12.15.08 @ 11:17AM

I wasn't going to wade in here, but I see that we are back to the argument that abortion is legal because of the debate over when life begins. Some not so startling facts for your consumption.

25 states have laws on the books defining the fetus as a person under laws pertaining to homicide, manslaughter, et al. 10 states have similar laws covering the fetus from the age of 12 weeks to "viability". Even the US has a a law [Unborn Victims of Violence Act] recognizing a fetus as being a member of the species homo sapiens from the time of conception and treats the injury or death of that fetus accordingly.

You see the problem here? 36 of 51 legislative bodies have acknowledged that a fetus is alive for all or part of its in utero existence. In fact their have been people convicted of homicide of a fetus as young as seven weeks. Yet, it is still legal in most states and the U.S. to abort a fetus as old as 24 weeks. Do you see the legal paradox here? A mother may do something to a fetus [child if you will] that is a capital offense for someone else.

I won't bother getting into the philosophical debate on this issue, as it would serve no purpose. But, it might be interesting to here arguments why a mother should be exempted from laws concerning the welfare of her child that the rest of society has to follow.

David| 12.15.08 @ 11:52AM

States that have fetal murder laws are recognizing the rights of the adult person(s), the mother and father, over control of their procreative choice. In other words, a pregnant woman who is murdered lost not only her life but the life growing within her through no choice of her own, and the father lost both his wife and his baby to be. These people wanted to have a baby and were denied that right by a murderer - not a abortionist.

The question is one of whose rights predominate? The person already in existence or the potential person, who if all goes well, will emerge healthy and alive months hence, and whose individual rights will not completely vest until 18 years down the road.

I admit no inconsistency in being opposed to the criminalization of abortion but seeing the rationale for fetal murder laws (although as you demonstrate they muddy the water), since in both cases the rights being protected are those of the adult person(s).

Thomas| 12.15.08 @ 3:54PM

"States that have fetal murder laws are recognizing the rights of the adult person(s), the mother and father, over control of their procreative choice. In other words, a pregnant woman who is murdered lost not only her life but the life growing within her through no choice of her own, and the father lost both his wife and his baby to be. These people wanted to have a baby and were denied that right by a murderer - not a abortionist."

Read the statutes again,please. The rights of the parents are not at issue in these laws, only the rights of the fetus. There have been more than one case where the mother survived and the fetus did not in which the perpetrator was convicted of homicide. If a man cuts off a woman's nose and ruins her career as a super model, it is hardly a capital crime. This is not the case with the death of the fetus. In fact, the Unborn Victims of Violence Act specifically recognizes a fetus as being a member of the species homo sapiens from the time of conception. This is pretty clearcut language. As it is universally a violation of law, across the U.S., to kill a human being other than in self-defense or under legal execution, I would say that this sets up a serious legal paradox with respect to the rights of a mother to abort a fetus. And, though a human being under the age of 18 yoa has limited rights, it has the right against being killed, even by its mother, after 24 weeks of pregnancy in most states.

As for the rights of a mother and father over their procreative choice, what in the heck are you talking about? The father has NO control over whether the mother gets an abortion or not. The only one who has any "rights" in this area is the woman. This has been upheld in virtually every court in the land.

Think this through again. Someday, someone will utilize a small amount of logic and note that homicide is like being pregnant. It either is or it isn't. It can't be both. Under the criteria now followed in law, in states with fetal murder laws, you would have to categorize abortion as justifiable homicide. Just like self defense and legal execution.

ruth| 12.15.08 @ 8:00PM

Dave, the difference between you and me is that I believe the benefit of the doubt regarding life should be given to the baby. Your decision results in the child's death. Why should you be allowed to decide ANYONE'S fate? Regardless, I don't give a damn if you'd prefer not to discuss social issues--because we do and we will. Go to another blog if you don't like the subject. Who made you hall monitor?

ruth| 12.15.08 @ 8:02PM

Thomas, excellent point! You're never just 'a little bit pregnant', you either are or aren't.