Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Analysis/ Republicans get the best chance to regain the American public's Trust

(Jacob Kornbluh).I may sound over reactive but here is my point why the GOP had its best night in last night's election outcome.

First the Republicans didn't lose any seats, we retained FL, and even Gained Senate seats in Obamaland IL, OH and in PA.

Now, with exit polls showing that either party is viewed favorable and trustworthy in the voters mind, the Election results show that Americans rejected Obama/Pelosi's polices and the direction they have taken us in the past 4 years, and therefore gave the Republicans control in the House of Representatives, as a check and balance in Washington power..so it was a vote against Democrats, so the Republicans have now a chance to show the American Public from a stage of power a new appealing message and a connectible platform for the Future , that Americans will start believing in giving the Republicans once again a Mandate in Leading this Country ,not only by opposing Obama's policies, and saying no to his liberal agenda but by getting executive power too, in imposing the People's reasonable demands.

Harry Reid's victory in Nevada and the Democrats still holding control in the Senate, gives Obama the confidence that he expressed today in his press conference and that is by continuing to push their liberal agenda, with the notion that Americans have yet to understand or see the good out of it, Don't expect Obama to change course or turn into a Bill Clinton '94 or a Bush '01, and therefore in my point of view this sets the stage for the Republicans in 2012 to challenge the Presidency and demand a Mandate of executive power in Washington , not only to get the keys but lead America in to it brightest Future.

Now is the time for the Republican leadership, with their fresh new voices to set the tone in Washington, to put forward the right proposals that will not be ignored or not be covered, and give the American people the confidence that not only do we represent and express their anger and frustration at government, but address them and help them achieve the goal, and reach the American Dream

Monday, November 1, 2010

Special Optimism for America election eve radio show W/ Panel of analysts LIVE 10 PM EST

No comments:

Gov. George Pataki endorses Carl Paladino for Governor of NY

Statement from Governor Pataki

"One-party rule has led New York State to the brink of ruin. The ethical and fiscal morass that Democratic control has wrought upon our state government can only end if we reestablish a vigorous two-party system. The best way to achieve this is through competitive statewide candidates.

While I don't agree with my party’s nominee for Governor on any number of issues, we do agree on three essential Republican – Conservative core beliefs: the need to cut taxes, reduce spending and shrink the size of government. It is with these bedrock beliefs in mind that today I endorse Carl Paladino for Governor."

"I am humbled to be endorsed by the last real Governor of New York State," Paladino said. "And I stand strong with Gov. Pataki to lead this revolution to take back our State."

"After Gov. Pataki, we've had nothing but failure in the Governor's mansion; Spitzer and Paterson made a mockery of this once great state. Now the Albany insiders want to elect another of their own, and the taxpayers won't settle for more of the same in Andrew Cuomo," he said. "The man who slayed the first Cuomo says I am the man to beat Mario Jr.," Paladino said. "I'm proud to carry Gov. Pataki's endorsement and our party's standard to victory at the polls tomorrow."

Sunday, October 31, 2010

Siena poll data: NY Governor race is a Toss up

Siena college released today a poll that shows Cuomo leading over Paladino with 25 points, 58-33, showing Cuomo lose 5% , and Paladino gaining 7% since last weeks poll.

But whats interesting in this poll is, that there are Mixing results in the poll data: 46% of New Yorkers have a unfavorable view on Obama,to 51% that have a favorable opinion of president Obama, 89% of those that view Obama unfavorable say they will vote for Carl Paladino, (that's 41% Of the vote), from those that have a favorable view of Obama 21% intend to vote for Paladino (that's another 10%), adding it up, it shows actually Carl Paladino leading the race with 51% , to 48% for Cuomo.

Care for Israel, vote for Republican Watch dog candidates

Deputy FM Danny Ayalon on Channel 1 Friday night said regarding the US Midterm Elections: The Base of US support of Israel is bipartisan and Israel must not be portrayed as supporting One specific Party, and also added that even if the Republicans win control of Congress,there will be no change of US foreign policy or Mideast approach.

But we as US citizens and my call is to all of US citizens - Jews and non Jews that support Israel's right of Land, Israel's right of self defense, do have a choice in this election, and here is why.

Ed Koch in March 2010 wrote and spoke on National TV:

"I have not heard or read statements criticizing the president by New York Senators Charles Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand or many other supporters of Israel for his blatantly hostile attitude toward Israel and his discourtesy displayed at the White House".


"So I ask again, where are our Senators, Schumer and Gillibrand? And, where are the voices, not only of the 31 members of the House and 14 Senators who are Jewish, but the Christian members of the House and Senate who support the State of Israel? Where are the peoples' voices? Remember the words of Pastor Niemoller, so familiar that I will not recite them, except for the last line, "Then they came for me, and by that time, there was no one left to speak up."


"Supporters of Israel who gave their votes to candidate Obama - 78 percent of the Jewish community did - believing he would provide the same support as John McCain, this is the time to speak out and tell the President of your disappointment in him"


Our Democratic Representatives part of them Jewish, have stood silent time and time when it was most crucial of them to speak out for Israel and attack President Obama's policies and hostile treatment of Israel.


President Obama may not change his stance and approach towards the middle east conflict,But what these past 2 years have showed us is, that the Democratic Representatives in the house have no courage to stand up against their leader when they know he's wrong, as Rep. Peter King said in June that President Obama's weak Mideast policy is forcing House Democrats to make the difficult choice of either supporting Obama or supporting Israel."I hope they put our relationship with Israel above their relationship with Obama", and based on their action we have seen these Jewish representatives Like NY Rep. Jerold Nadler and others stay silent and vote with Obama 100% of the time.

Therefore by voting in this Nov. 2 election for GOP candidates all across the Country, and out seating Incumbents, we send a strong message to Obama and to Israel: We Republicans that control the Congress will safeguard The President, we will be the president's watchdog, we will speak out in Israel's defense and support Israel in these challenging time.

Saturday, October 30, 2010

You may want the Keys, but what have you delivered Mr. President?


"Two years after these rousing speeches, the yes we can chants, the are you fired up shout outs, the change has come to America promise.... have you delivered Mr. President?? hmmm He may want the keys, but where has he driven us to in the the years he was in charge... People are looking for solutions.... they rather have cope over hope.... fix over mix....so on November 2nd you all have a choice.... a once in a two year opportunity... choose for the guy that will drive you in the right direction, that will break when needed...that will close the holes... and unblock the clogged passage... your vote counts... "

Listen to our special "Optimism for America" closing argument election broadcast on Monday night Nov. 1 at 10 PM EST with our panel and experts ...DTF..

Thursday, October 28, 2010

Meek quiting FL race may be last Shot in Obama's Gun - to prevent a rising GOP star

Ben Smith of Politico reports:
Bill Clinton sought to persuade Rep. Kendrick Meek to drop out of the race for Senate during a trip to Florida last week — and nearly succeeded.

Meek agreed — twice — to drop out and endorse Gov. Charlie Crist’s independent bid in a last-ditch effort to stop Marco Rubio, the Republican nominee who stands on the cusp of national stardom.

The former president’s top aide, Doug Band, initially served as the intermediary between Meek and Crist, and Clinton became involved only when Meek signaled that he would seriously consider the option, Clinton spokesman Matt McKenna confirmed to POLITICO.

“The argument was: ‘You can be a hero here. You can stop him, you can change this race in one swoop,’” said another Democrat familiar with the conversations, who said Clinton had bluntly told Meek that he couldn’t win the race.

The Crist, Meek and Clinton camps even set a date for an endorsement rally: the following Tuesday, Oct. 26. Meek was to give Crist his blessing and explain to his disappointed supporters — many of whom deeply distrust the governor, who was elected as a Republican — that their votes could save the Senate for the Democrats and save America from the rise of Rubio, who is viewed both as a hard-line conservative and a potential national figure.

The White House, Democrats said, had knowledge of the plans and viewed them as a path to capturing the Senate seat, but did not initiate the talks.
Don't be surprised folks, if in the last moment of this campaign, as the Democrats see thier chances of keeping the Senate grow very slim, Obama will shoot the last bullet in his gun, and force Meek to quit the Race, to prevent the rise of the most dominate rising star in the Republican party, a threat to Obama's reelection and to the Change theme of his 2008 campaign.

Our only hope is that the Floridains, and so on the American voters in the Country don't take these races for granted, and go out to vote, to chnage Washington, to bring back the Train to our Future on the right track.

RJC: Time for US Jews to change Course, Get out and VOTE For Republican's

(Matthew Brooks, RJC Executive Director).Recent polls have shown a higher-than-usual amount of interest in this mid-term election, with large early-voting turnouts and strong opinions among likely voters about issues like the economy, health care, and Israel. There is a deep sense that this election matters.

It certainly does to the Jewish community. Of course Israel, Iran, and other foreign policy issues are important to our community in particular, but the Jewish community shares the same worries and concerns of all Americans this year, about our struggling economy, our high unemployment, and the ballooning national debt that threatens our children’s and grandchildren’s economic security.

Americans who were looking for hope and change two years ago have watched the Democrats in Washington push for a wholesale transformation of our country, while digging the economic hole we’re in deeper and deeper. And the majority of Americans don’t like it. Polls show strong public disapproval for many of the Democrats’ top policy goals. Among the most drastic and controversial are: the nationalization of healthcare; the billions of dollars in wasteful, inefficient “stimulus” spending (which stimulated the public sector and did almost nothing for the job-creating engine of our economy, the private sector); and the government takeover of companies (such as General Motors) and even whole industries (such as the student loan system).

These policies are not only hurting working Americans, they are dramatically re-shaping the role of government and its relationship with citizens. The election of Scott Brown in Massachusetts and Republican wins for governor in Virginia and New Jersey were a wake up call for Washington that voters don’t want higher taxes and don’t want government mandates to replace their independent, personal choices about health care, education, and the economic activities through which they support their families.

This election is important because, with Democrats in the majority, the Bush tax cuts will be allowed to expire and most Americans ¬– not just “the rich”– will feel the sharp bite of higher taxes. It’s important because no economy can continue indefinitely to run the kind of deficits we do. Greece has shown us one troubling scenario.

Looking outward, voters also have many reasons for worry. President Obama’s foreign policy – from his apology tour and the mishandling of our relations with Russia to the disastrous all-carrot-no-stick approach to Iran – have seriously weakened the United States in the eyes of both of our allies and our enemies. It has also brought the possibility of a nuclear Iran closer than ever. A nuclear Iran is not only an existential threat to Israel, it increases the danger that the U.S. and other Western countries will face terrorist attacks from nuclear-armed clients of Iran. Time is running out on the most serious foreign policy challenge we currently face.

The vast majority of Americans support the State of Israel, consider it a vitally important ally, and want the U.S.-Israel alliance to be strong. Sadly, American policy makers do not always seem inclined the same way. Israel has been berated by the Obama administration for building in Jerusalem. The traditional American support for Israel in the United Nations has been diluted. Because President Obama put pressure on Israel to make unilateral concessions (the building freeze), his much-touted peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians ended almost before they began. Fifty-four Democrats in Congress urged President Obama to pressure Israel to reduce its defensive measures at the Gaza border.

With all of this in mind, the Republican Jewish Coalition has run a powerful issue advocacy effort, We want to educate the Jewish community about these issues and encourage the community to question the status quo, to examine the issues thoughtfully, and to make informed decisions. American Jews have the privilege and obligation to be active participants in our democratic process, and they should be knowledgeable participants as well.

Republicans, independents and disappointed Democrats alike are energized for this election. Grassroots activism is high, voter turnout will be high, and Republican candidates appear poised to win in some unlikely places, on both the national and state levels. The motivation for this energy across the country is the same: the overreaching, unrepresentative, extreme agenda of the Democrats in power.

This election is too important to sit out. We encourage the Jewish community to get informed, get active, and get out and vote.

"Optimism for America" Election discussion W/ Noah Silverman - RJC, Orthodox Columnist Yossi Gestetner



As the Midterm elections are around the corner, President Obama losing his base, losing the Jewish Vote, the donors and the motivation,The Republicans are about to regain Power in the Congress and are on the tip of making major gains in the Senate -

we discussed W/ Yossi Gestetner (http://www.yossigestetner.com)a Columnist and PR Consultant Within the Orthodox Jewish/Hasidic Communities in NY - The power of the Jewish vote, how the Orthodox Jews swayed away from the Democrats to the GOP, and what impact will a GOP Congress have on Obama's Mideast policies.

Our Guest on the discussion board is Noah Silverman the RJC Congressional Affairs Director discussing the importance of this Election, analyzing the races in PA, IL and NY, Obama's approach towards Israel and the GOP support of Israel.

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Mr. President, You have a plan for the campaign trail , but NO plan for the Economy

(Jacob Kornbluh).Watching the British Parliament on Wednesday's at the PMQ where the PM and the Opposition leader debate on the issues and is always fun to watch.. but this week watching PM David Cameron debate with Newly elected Opposition leader Labour chairman David Miliband, i came through a very good phrase used by the PM, citing from a memo giving advice to Opposition leader how to confront the Prime Minister and score points that the media can report on, he had this to say the the Opposition leader the Labour party that led Britain in the last 13 years:
"Mr. Speaker...He has got a plan for the PMQ, but has got no plan for the Economy, No plan for the debt, No plan for the mess they made..absolutely nothing of worth while to say.."
The President likes to energize his base and urge the Democrats to get out and Vote by using these rousing speeches, pointing fingers and shouting right into the Microphone..in which he blames the republicans that go us into the Mess...and that the Democrats go us out of the ditch.. therefore we cannot give them back the keys...etc etc....

In a Poll conducted by the Hill in 10 competitive house races, Almost two years after Obama declared on election night that “change has come to America,” only 26 percent believe he’s delivered on his promise to end business-as-usual in the capital. Strikingly, 63 percent of voters under the age of 34 said the president either has not changed Washington or has made it worse.

So my rebuttal to President Obama is: Mr. president You may have a plan for the Campaign trail..for the GOTV... but you have no plan whatsoever for the Economy, the wasteful spending, for reducing the unemployment.. for creating Jobs.. This is all what this election is about.. it is not a referendum on political bickering and finger pointing..it is a choice of who can deliver ..who can fix the economy..who can bring this Country back... You had your time given and you have failed... don't give us the keys back Mr. President.. but we ask the Americans to give us the brake pedal... the steering wheel..the Power to get this Country back on track, reduce the reckless spending and create a better and hopeful future for all Americans.

Israeli PM Netanyahu teaches us how the Economy can be fixed - Yes we can too , clue? Vote 'R'



President Obama is trying to scare voters by saying how the republican plan will only draw us into the ditch as he has done for the past 2 years, and the Democrats in the Congress for 4 years, now he claims that Change is difficult, Yes we can... but it's not going to happen overnight,” .... Well in one country, maybe in one of the only countries that survived this recession and its economy is reporting over 45 of Growth, it happened not long ago, in 2003 Netanyahu as Finance Minister did the unpredictable, and here is how he did it, and how by following these reforms we can do it too:

Below is a excerpt of The remarks Netanyahu gave this week at the OECD event in Jerusalem:

"I had the opportunity to help lead some of these reforms first as Prime Minister in the 1990’s and then as Finance Minister from 2003 to 2005 and again as Prime Minister today.....Until 12 years ago, Israel was a fourth world country...."

"So the first reform was freeing up our currency. We adopted a new fiscal policy that strictly controls spending and dramatically cut taxes. We actually had a law that was in place as long as I was Finance Minister that actually reduced government spending per capita for three years. we did this including the overhauling of our welfare system; we privatized government monopolies; we reformed our capital markets and our pension system – we raised our retirement age for men from 65 to 67 and for women from 60 to 64."

"the ability to give individuals the right to pursue their own thoughts, to record their dreams, to communicate with one another, without the feeling that they’re being encroached on, that somebody is prying into their private lives, I think is one of the great challenges of the 21st Century and it’s something that will guarantee the 22nd as well".

Obama's '08 advocate Ed Koch Predicts a Political Tsunami - a Republican Victory in House and Senate

(Op-Ed By Ed Koch in YWN: The Coming Political Tsunami).For the last six months in various public forums, I have said that Republicans will take both the House and Senate. Most political observers, citing statistics from various states, continue to say that, while it appears certain that the House will go Republican, there are too few Senate seats in play for a Republican takeover. Further, many pundits state that Democrats will preserve their control of the Senate because the Republican Party has undermined itself by fielding whacko and semi-whacko candidates from the “tea party” wing or otherwise offering inferior candidates, e.g., Christine O’Donnell in Delaware, Rand Paul in Kentucky, Sharron Angle in Nevada, Linda McMahon in Connecticut and Carly Fiorina in California.

Without being able to cite statistics that support my view, I nevertheless predict the Republicans will also take the Senate.
Imagine what the Republicans could have done if they had really good and visionary leadership. But they don’t.

New York State notwithstanding, I predict that mounting anger around the country will carry Republicans to victory in both Houses of Congress.

Why would intelligent voters leave the Democratic Party that they endorsed so heavily two years ago in the 2008 presidential election? The reason is obvious – deep, deep disappointment in the record of President Obama. The President has wasted many opportunities in his term to date, and has lost by his own admission almost every battle for the hearts and minds of the electorate in pushing through Congress monumental legislation that he signed into law.

Why did the President and Congress insist on reinventing the wheel when it came to health care coverage? Weren’t there prototypes in Europe and elsewhere developed and used for more than 50 years with proven track records that could have been used as models? Did the President and Congress have to terrify people who had insurance coverage in order to provide coverage for the additional 32 million Americans covered under the new law? Couldn’t those without insurance have been attached in some way to the Medicaid rolls? Why did the President and Congress sell out to the prescription drug companies and strip Medicare of the right to negotiate volume discount purchases that could have saved U.S. taxpayers more than a trillion dollars over ten years? What rankles most for many, including me, is why have there been so few criminal prosecutions of those who are responsible for having brought the U.S. economy to its knees, destroyed the nation’s prosperity and caused millions of Americans to lose their homes, their jobs and a substantial portion of their retirement savings? Why when looking at Obama’s cabinet and advisers, do we see the faces of those who many hold responsible for the economic debacle?

It is for these reasons, I believe, the coming November tsunami will roll across America and give the Republicans, who are undeserving of the honor, control of both Houses. The American public is enraged and wants to punish those who have been in charge of the country. They know those who will replace incumbents may be as bad or worse, but they also believe they can’t do any greater damage. They are willing to put up with them until the next election to teach our elected representatives a monumental lesson — that public service is an honorable profession and must be performed competently and honestly.

We are an optimistic, generous people, who believe in fairness and justice. And we will be heard.

Looking Ahead - Vote 'R' to reverse from the dangerous 'D'rive on wrong track

(Jacob Kornbluh-NY).President Obama has been using the D for Democrats putting things in Drive and the R for Republicans putting things in Reverse metaphor during recent speeches - liking the example of the car and the ditch he recently said "You want to go forward, you put it into D. You want to go backwards, you put it into R."

Here is my answer to President Obama: that example is good when you are on the right road, the right lane or right track, but if you accidentally or by purpose take the risk and enter a 1 way street the wrong way, and a Truck is approaching you in full speed, you have a second to make the choice, continue on D (Drive) You crash and die, reverse on R you escape and survive.

This is what the election is all about... we are not looking for HOPE, but Cope, how to survive in these difficult times, and to be rescued from the dangerous Journey Obama is taking us all, You vote for a Democrat candidate, you take the risk of being crushed under the wheels of that big truck, You make the right choice and reverse, you vote and elect a GOP candidate ,you have the chance to get back in the right direction.. and start from beginning the journey to your future...Yes Mr. Obama this is nothing about the past, nobody wants to relive the past..but we want a safe and bright Future, and the Way you took us in the past 2 years is just taking us to hell.

Monday, August 2, 2010

Its Your Economy, Stupid! 48% Americans Blame Obama for Bad Economy

(Rasmussenreports).For the first since President Obama took office, voters see his policies as equally to blame with those of President George W. Bush for the country’s current economic problems.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 48% of Likely U.S. Voters now think Obama’s policies are to blame for the continuing bad economy, up three points from last month. Forty-seven percent (47%) say the recession that began under Bush is at fault.

Fifty-five percent (55%) of men blame Obama’s policies for the current economic problems, while 52% of women think Bush is the cause.

Among voters not affiliated with either major party, Obama is now chiefly to blame by a 52% to 44% margin.

Sixty-two percent (62%) trust their own judgment more than Obama’s when it comes to the economic issues facing the nation. Twenty-seven percent (27%) trust the president’s judgment more. These findings have changed very little for months.
Republicans and unaffiliated voters strongly trust themselves more than the president when it comes to the economy. A plurality (48%) of Democrats place more faith in Obama.

Seventy-six percent (76%) of Mainstream voters trust their own economic judgment more than the president’s. Sixty-two percent (62%) of the Political Class trust the president more.

Thirty-seven percent (37%) of voters currently rate the president’s handling of economic issues as good or excellent. Forty-seven percent (47%) view his handling of these issues as poor. These findings, too, have held relatively steady since last November.

Sunday, February 28, 2010

Zogby predicts the Republicans to win the mideterm elections

(Newsmax).President Barack Obama and both major political parties face an uphill fight going into this fall’s midterm elections, pollster John Zogby, president and CEO of Zogby International, told Newsmax.TV.

Republicans and Democrats have solid control over their respective bases, but Zogby told Newsmax.TV’s Kathleen Walter that neither party has any credibility with independent voters.

“Both parties are in trouble because neither party have a message for the middle, but they do have a message for their base,” Zogby said.

He said this polarization can be seen in Obama’s poll numbers, which have been hovering around 50 percent due to support from his base. Zogby’s most recent poll had Obama with a 49 percent approval rating.

The president enjoys firm support from Democrats, including 88 percent of blacks, which has kept his poll numbers from collapsing further.

“[This] means that he’s wounded, he’s not fatally wounded by any stretch of the imagination, but he is wounded,” Zogby said. “That means he’s not able to translate that into a governing majority, and he just rolled the dice by getting back to a campaign promise, which was to solve problems to build consensus.

“He’s not building the consensus part, but at least he’s trying to do something with the jobs bill, with the healthcare bill, and it remains to be seen whether the American people favor stagnation and inaction or whether they favor a risk taker.”

Zogby says it remains to be seen if Obama’s gamble of sticking with the Democrats’ unpopular healthcare bill will pay off for him politically in the long run because people want something done about healthcare, and he will be able to tell voters he tried doing something.

Obama also faces an uphill fight when it comes to jobs because his efforts to stimulate the economy.

“Whatever is spent on stimulating the market may just very well stem the tide without growing the economy,” Zogby said. “We’re in for a tough job market for a while.”

But he said Americans think the private sector should create jobs rather than the government.

It’s too soon to discount Obama’s re-election chances, Zogby said, because similar efforts against Ronald Reagan in 1982 and Bill Clinton in 1995 proved premature.

But Zogby believes Republicans will benefit from the Democrats’ missteps and pick up 25 seats in the House and 10 seats in the Senate.

He predicts Illinois Republican Rep. Mark Kirk will pickup Obama’s former Senate seat and that Sen. Arlen Specter, D-Pa., is vulnerable against former Rep. Pat Toomey in Pennsylvania, but he does not know how much damage Specter’s primary challenger, Rep. Joe Sestak, will inflict.

At the same time, he believes Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., will successfully fend off his primary challenge from conservative former Rep. J.D. Hayworth.

Friday, February 26, 2010

Gergen On CNN: Dems Didn't Get "Breakthrough" They Wanted; GOP "Had Their Best Day In Years"


The Election is over, Hell Yeah! The Mistaken summit of Obama



The Democrats’ Mistake [Jay Nordlinger] - NRO: Let me try something out on you: This health-care summit was a bad idea for the Democrats for this reason: They have long benefited from a perception — a perception greatly abetted by the media: The Republicans don’t care about health care, they don’t know about health care, they are the Party of No. All the ideas and caring are on the Democratic side.


It is not so, and it has never been so. And now everybody knows it.


Yuval Levin: Things could surely change this afternoon, but so far it is hard to see how the Democrats are doing themselves anything but harm with the health-care summit.

Beyond particular observations about individual exchanges or moments I would say the morning’s session suggests three broad points. First, the Democrats appear to have no particular purpose in mind for this event. They’re not driving anywhere, or making a clear individual case, while Republicans clearly want to get across the point that we should scrap the current bills and start over in pursuit of a few incremental steps. The Democrats may have thought that simply putting the spotlight on Republicans when the subject is health care would make the GOP look bad. But Republicans so far seem prepared enough and focused enough to avoid that, and to make the Democrats look rather aimless by comparison.

Second, the Democrats are going to great lengths to argue that their bill incorporates some Republican ideas—by which they mean that it includes insurance exchanges and the like—suggesting that this means they are moving in the direction of Republicans and toward some middle ground. They fail to see (or to acknowledge) that while some similar mechanisms may be proposed by wonks on both sides, Republicans and Democrats in fact want to move in nearly opposite directions from our current health-care arrangements: Republicans toward a genuine individual market and Democrats toward a greater socialization of costs. That makes a great deal of what Obama and the Democrats said this morning basically meaningless. (This is a point I tried to argue more fully in this space a while back.)

Third, an important part of the Democrats’ problem is that Obama himself is their only star, and this format is not working for him. He certainly seems engaged and well informed (even given a few misstatements of fact, at least one of which John Kyl made very clear.) But he doesn’t seem like the President of the United States—more like a slightly cranky committee chairman or a patronizing professor who thinks that saying something is “a legitimate argument” is a way to avoid having an argument. He is diminished by the circumstances, he’s cranky and prickly when challenged, and he’s got no one to help him. The other Democrats around the table have been worse than unimpressive. The Republicans seem genuinely well-prepared, seem to have thought through the question of who should speak about what rather carefully, and several of them have done quite a good job making their case against the Democrats’ approach. If we were to judge by debating points, Republicans certainly won the morning handily.



Romney's path to nomination: Stay competitive among conservatives, holding a large lead with moderates

(PPP Poll).Mitt Romney is the early preference, by a small margin, among Republican voters in both Texas and New Mexico to be their 2012 nominee for President.

In Texas he gets 32% with Mike Huckabee right behind at 29%, and Sarah Palin further back at 23%. In New Mexico he receives 33% to 32% for Palin and 18% for Huckabee.

The internals of these polls suggests a path to the nomination for Romney: stay competitive among conservative voters while holding a large lead with moderates. In Texas the three are bunched up among conservatives with Huckabee leading at 32% to 30% for Romney and 27% for Palin. But Romney's blowing the other two out of the water with moderates, getting 40% to 22% for Huckabee and 13% for Palin.

It's a similar story in New Mexico. Palin leads Romney 34-31 with conservatives, but Romney has the overall advantage thanks to a 37-29 advantage with moderates.

In each state Romney is particularly strong with senior citizens, who tend to comprise a large portion of the Republican primary electorate. He has an 11 point lead over Huckabee with them in Texas and 13 point lead over Palin with them in New Mexico.

Obviously it's incredibly early and things will change a lot between now and 2012, but it's a good sign for Romney to have even this small early advantage in a couple of states that are a long way from home.

George Bush endorses Dick Cheney role defending past policies

POLITICO 44: For the first time, former President George W. Bush has said publicly that he approves of former Vice President Dick Cheney’s high-profile role in defending the past administration’s national security policies.

“I’m glad Cheney is out there,” Bush said Friday morning at a reunion breakfast that was the inaugural event for the Bush-Cheney Alumni Association.

The reception, held at a downtown Washington hotel, was closed to the press. Attendees supplied this account of the remarks.

Cheney originally had been scheduled to appear with Bush but did not come because he is recovering from a heart scare. Bush visited his former vice president in McLean on Thursday and said Cheney “is feeling well” and has “a fierce constitution.”

The former president started with a funny patter that several attendees related to stand-up. In announcing his book, he joshed: “This is going to come as quite a shock to people up here that I can write a book, much less read one.”

Turning serious, Bush said: “I don't want to be involved in politics, but I do in policy.” He talked about his own record, saying of his signature education reform: “No Child Left Behind was the most advanced civil rights legislation since the Voting Rights Act.”

Giving advice, he urged humility. “Don’t swagger. Sometimes I got carried away rallying the country," he said. "I think the swagger criticism was fair. A lot of others weren't. I hope I conveyed a sense that I was a lowly sinner who found redemption. I'm not better than anyone else. What makes me different from others is that I realized I needed help.”

“I’m religious — I confess,” he continued. “One of the challenges in life is: Maintaining religious piety is harder when the pressure is off than when it is on. But now there is still a dependency in a greater grace.”

Bush made it clear he plans to continue to keep a low profile: “I have no desire to see myself on television. I don't want to be a panel of formers instructing the currents on what to do. I'm trying to regain a sense of anonymity. I didn't like it when a certain former president — and it wasn't 41 or 42 — made my life miserable.”

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Tim Pawlenty: “President Obama will be a one term President"

Marco Rubio - The Republican Obama

(John B. Judis-TNR).Politicians who hold or aspire to high office have learned the hard way (e.g Trent Lott speaking at Strom Thurmond’s birthday party) that when you speak to a select group of loyalists in these viral times, you are also addressing a national audience, including people who would like nothing better than to latch onto some gaffe or fringe conviction. So when Marco Rubio—the former Speaker of the Florida House of Representatives who is running for Senate against Governor Charlie Crist (and leading in the polls)—spoke to the annual Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington last Thursday, he had no easy task ahead of him.

This year’s CPAC reminded me of the Christian Coalition meetings of the early 1990s. It was carefully staged; the rhetoric was generally inflammatory; the participants, who numbered 10,000 or so, were passionate in their beliefs; and their beliefs oftentimes veered into the realm of the preposterous. A good many thought the best way to get out of the current economic slump was to drastically cut government spending, abolish the income tax and the Federal Reserve, and go back on the gold standard. Some wanted to close the borders, get rid of the United Nations, and impeach Obama.

In the booths on the main floor, where many of the CPAC visitors mingled, one of the largest and most popular displays was from the John Birch Society, which had been banished from the conservative mainstream by William F. Buckley Jr. three decades ago, for the insistence of its founder, Robert Welch, that Dwight Eisenhower was a Communist. In its booth, the Birch Society was selling CDs of Welch’s speeches. How was someone with dreams of becoming a U.S. senator in a state larded with independents and moderates supposed to cope with this assemblage?

Well, precisely as Rubio did. His speech to the group was a masterpiece of political positioning. He assiduously avoided endorsing any of the notions of the crackpot right. Nothing about abolishing the Fed. He was against “cap-and-trade,” but did not brand global warming a hoax. He also didn’t criticize Obama himself. In fact, he didn’t mention Obama’s name. Yet, he had the audience on its feet, and for the remainder of the three-day event, it cheered lustily whenever a speaker mentioned his name.

His trick consisted partly of echoing the great themes of conservative America: opposition to big government, support for free enterprise, a determination to defeat “radical Islam and the threat it poses through terror.” But he breathed life into these weather-beaten notions by infusing them with his own life story, which proved their worthiness and their applicability. Unlike many a prominent Republican, Rubio could not be said to have been born with a silver or even stainless steel spoon. The son of Cuban exiles—his father worked as a bartender and mother as a maid—Rubio first attended college on a football scholarship. His is the classic story of the American dream fulfilled.

In his speech, he related how his grandfather, who had grown up in rural Cuba, had told him “that because of where he was born and who he was born to, there was only so much he was able to accomplish. But he wanted me to know that I would not have those limits, that there was no dreams, no ambitions, no aspirations unavailable to me. And he was right. … I have never once felt that there was something I couldn't do because of who my parents were or weren't.”

That was because, of course, Rubio was born in the United States, not Cuba. In America, he said, “you can be anything you are willing to work hard to be. The result is the only economy in the world where poor people with a better idea and a strong work ethic can compete and succeed against rich people in the marketplace and competition. And the result is the most reliable defender of freedom in the history of the world.”

Rubio never talked about Republicans and Democrats. His speech hovered above partisanship. Instead, he talked about “those who haven't seen it this way. … They think that we need a guardian class in American government to protect us from ourselves. They think that the free-enterprise system is unfair, that a few people make a lot of money, and the rest of us get left behind. They believe that the only way business can make its money is by exploiting its workers and its customers. And they think that America's enemies exist because of something America did to earn their enmity.”

These other politicians were trying to “redefine our government, our economy, and our country,” he warned. “The leaders with this worldview … have used a severe economic downturn, a severe recession as an excuse to implement the statist policies that they have longed for all this time.”

Rubio isn’t the first politician to use this kind of appeal: Barack Obama and Bill Clinton blended biography and political vision in their successful presidential campaigns. But Rubio has taken their method and used it to promote a very conservative rather than a liberal or progressive agenda. And he has done it in such a way that never really spells out what the specific agenda is. Does he think global warming is a hoax? Does he think the stimulus cost jobs rather than created them? He never said one way or the other, but his conservative audience was somehow led to believe that, like them, he held these views.

Rubio also didn’t brand his political opponents socialists. He didn’t describe the White House as followers, as one daffy speaker put it, of Marx, Engels, Che Guevara, Hugo Chavez, and Saul Alinsky. But using his own life story, he framed the choice facing Americans in a way that evoked the contrast between his Horatio Alger capitalism and Obama’s or Nancy Pelosi’s socialism. America, he said, “is the only country in the world where today’s employee is tomorrow’s employer. And yet, there are still people in American politics who, for some reason, cling to this belief that America is better off adopting the economic policies of nations whose people immigrate here from there.”

Rubio wasn’t referring to immigrants from the capitalist Philippines or Costa Rica, but those, like his own family, who came from socialist Cuba. “Do I want my children to grow up in the country that I grew up in or do I want them to grow up in a country like the one my parents grew up in?” he asked. The audience knew immediately what he was saying—and the choice he was posing—but his incendiary message was implicit and softened by the insertion of his biography.

Other speakers at the CPAC convention who had similar or even greater political aspirations—such as Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich—also tried to stoke the audience’s passions without endorsing their specific policies or prejudices, but none did so as eloquently or credibly as Rubio. The 39-year-old Cuban-American who has the looks of a matinee idol and speaks with wit and vigor is a force to be reckoned with.

Friday, February 19, 2010

Dick Cheney at CPAC : Barack Obama's 'a one-term president'

Former Vice President Dick Cheney made a surprise appearance this afternoon at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference gathering in Washington after a speech by his daughter, Liz Cheney. And a surprise proclamation.

He was greeted by cheers and chants of "Run, Cheney, Run!"

To which Cheney responded: "A welcome like that almost makes me want to run for office -- but I am not going to do it."Former Republican vice president Dick Cheney greets the crowd briefly at CPAC meeting Washington 2-18-10

The former representative, White House chief of staff, secretary of Defense and VP then stopped by the hall to chat with an old friend of his and The Ticket's, Scott Hennen, probably the Heartland's most prominent conservative talk-show radio host.

Cheney talked about his continuing concerns over the Obama administration's treatment of the man accused in the alleged Christmas Day bomb plot as a criminal case, not as part of a larger war on terror.

Cheney questioned the integrity of the Justice Department under the Democratic administration, especially its pursuit of investigations against CIA officials and attorneys from the previous administration.

Cheney repeated his support for the military strategy in Afghanistan outlined by Obama, who was off in Colorado today fundraising for embattled Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet.

And the Wyoming Republican even slipped in a plug for his daughter's website, KeepAmericaSafe.com. (Which has just posted a video of her CPAC speech, btw.)

Of special interest to politics fans awaiting the former VP's 2011 memoirs were Cheney's particularly outspoken responses to Hennen's questions about the nation's political situation in 2010.

This is the first midterm election year since Obama took office, historically a time when a new president's party suffers some membership losses on Capitol Hill.

Here are two Dick Cheney excerpts:

I think it is a combination of things. I think he totally misread the results of the last election.

He really believed he had some kind of a mandate to take the country in a radical direction...healthcare policy, cap and trade, economic policies, size of the government, the counter terrorism policy, and I think he’s been proven wrong on virtually every point.

We’re beginning to see the ramification of that now, and things like the Massachusetts election where Republicans captured that seat for the first time in 50 years, or what happened in Virginia and New Jersey. I think the year of 2010 is going to be a great year in congressional races, and I think President Obama is going to be a one-term president.

Another Dick Cheney excerpt:

I think 2010 is going to be a great year for Republicans. I was struck by the fact that Sen. Brown (who talked on election night in Massachusetts about his special election), that terrorism was on the top of the list of issues that he felt had been responsible for his victory in Massachusetts.

I think things are going to be very good this year, and for those of us in conservative causes, we need to get out there and do everything we can -- work hard. Lot of great candidates; we’ve got a lot of Democrats that I think are deciding not to run, like Sen. Bayh in Indiana.

Romney trails Obama by only 2 points 43-45, Romney leads among Independents 43-38

After trailing in one of the hypothetical match ups on our monthly 2012 poll for the first timein January, Obama is back ahead of all the potential 2012 hopefuls. He's up 45-43 on Mitt Romney, 46-43 on Mike Huckabee, 50-43 on Sarah Palin, and 46-28 on John Thune.

For Romney this is his first time flying solo as the closest Republican to Obama. In the previous ten polls Huckabee was the closest nine times and the tenth was a tie between Huckabee and Romney. The former Massachusetts Governor fares the best of the GOP contenders among independents, leading Obama 43-38.

Huckabee falls back behind Obama after leading by a point a month ago. He's the most well liked (maybe least disliked is a better term) of the Republican field among Democrats at a 16/40 spread.

Palin continues to be the weakest of the leading trio of Republicans. Where Romney and Huckabee hold small leads with independents she trails by 10 points. She also loses 14% of the Republican vote to Obama compared to only 10% for Romney and 11% for Huckabee.

Mr. Fix-it "Rebuild the Party" CPAC address - Mitt Romney's Best energized speech





Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Not again! CNN poll: 52% say Obama doesn't deserve reelection in 2012

(The Hill).52 percent of Americans said President Barack Obama doesn't deserve reelection in 2012, according to a new poll.

44 percent of all Americans said they would vote to reelect the president in two and a half years, less than the slight majority who said they would prefer to elect someone else.

Obama faces a 44-52 deficit among both all Americans and registered voters, according to a CNN/Opinion Research poll released Tuesday. Four percent had no opinion.

The reelection numbers are slightly more sour than Obama's approval ratings, which are basically tied. 49 percent of people told CNN that they approve of the way Obama is handling his job, while 50 percent disapprove.

Still, the 2012 election is still a long way's away, with this fall's midterm elections looming large. Republicans are hoping to make inroads into Congress, while Democrats are hoping to hold onto gains won in the 2006 and 2008 cycles.

Respondents to CNN were split at 46 percent as to whether they preferred a generic Republican or Democratic candidate in this fall's elections.

Sunday, February 14, 2010

The VP debate on Fire! Biden: Cheney is rewriting History; Cheney: Obama projects weakness to terrorists



(Politico).Former Vice President Cheney will appear on ABC's "This Week" today, and it's a safe bet what he will say: President Barack Obama projects weakness to terrorists and puts American lives at risk.

It's the kind of brutal charge — nuance-free and politically explosive — that has become a Cheney specialty since he left office 13 months ago.

Cheney's broadsides on Afghanistan policy, detention and surveillance policies and Obama's general philosophy about the U.S. role in a dangerous world inevitably dominate the news. No other figure in Republican politics has equal ability to drive debate on national security, rally Obama critics and force the administration to respond. Vice President Joe Biden will be countering Cheney today on NBC's "Meet the Press" and CBS's "Face the Nation."

The former vice president's success in driving the Obama debate has prompted a secondary debate of its own: Why does Cheney do it?

Cheney associates say he abandoned plans for a sedate post-Bush administration retirement of fly-fishing and memoir writing because he is genuinely concerned that Obama is a weak leader who is responding to political pressures in modifying war and terrorism policies that Cheney himself was instrumental in crafting.

Cheney believes his own words apply opposite pressures that can either force Obama to think twice or hold him accountable if he doesn't.

"You've seen the national security debate shift, both because of the facts and the specifics that he has been able to marshal and speak about, but also because he's given strength and support to others who are speaking out," said a source close to Cheney who declined to be named.

Saturday, February 13, 2010

The New and improved Romney - Mr. Fix-it! Optimism for America's future

(The Boston Phoenix)...His new book — No Apology: The Case for American Greatness — comes out in two weeks, and he'll be promoting it with a tour blitz that starts on The View and quickly heads to the crucial first-voting state of Iowa. This weekend, he's scheduled to speak at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington, DC, which will conduct a 2012 presidential straw poll. And he is already busy traveling the country, raising money for himself and other Republicans, to maintain and grow his national network.

From the looks of it, the 2012 version of Romney will be somewhat different than the one that lost in 2008. In that campaign, Romney tacked hard to the right — where Romney and his strategists perceived an opening as the conservative alternative to front-runners John McCain and Rudy Giuliani.

In retrospect, Team Romney believes their strategy was in error, according to some who are familiar with the campaign's post-election brainstorming. Although exit polls showed that he did well among the most ideological conservatives — particularly those most adamantly opposed to McCain's immigration-reform stance — he was not able to win over religious Christian conservatives. That left him unable to make up for sacrificing the votes of relatively moderate primary-goers.

In a nutshell, he made himself too conservative for blue-state Republicans, who opted for McCain, but wasn't conservative enough for red-state conservatives, who opted for Mike Huckabee.

"He was a Massachusetts moderate who tried to be a hard-right conservative," says one Republican strategist. "It turned out he probably would have been better off sticking with what he was — Mr. Fix-It."

"He got himself caught up in the social-issues debate," says Bill Achtmayer, chairman of business-strategy consultants the Parthenon Group and a supporter of Romney, his former colleague at Bain Consulting. "It diverted people's attention from what he does bring to the table."

As a result, the new Romney is now de-emphasizing social issues like abortion, same-sex marriage, and illegal immigration. He has made no public comment, for instance, about last week's announcement that top military leaders intend to end the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, has scrupulously avoided association with the Tea Party movement, and has refrained from backing conservatives that other presidential hopefuls have endorsed, such as Doug Hoffman in New York or Marco Rubio in Florida.

No Apology, and a series of planned speeches Romney will give during his book tour, will drive home that shift in emphasis. Advance word on the book, plus an audio excerpt released on the Web, make clear that it avoids those topics, and focuses on Romney's vision of maintaining America's fiscal and military superiority.

Much has changed since Romney decided to chase hard-core conservative votes four years ago. At that time, Romney was nationally unknown and needed a way to distinguish himself from a group of second-tier potential candidates.

Today, Republican insiders and political analysts say that Romney is already the de facto front-runner, regardless of whether he says he's running or not, thanks to his name recognition, his proven fundraising ability, and his established national operation

"Mitt Romney is 'next'," says Mike Dennehy, a political consultant in New Hampshire and senior policy advisor to McCain's 2008 campaign.

Plus, at least for the moment, pressing economic and foreign-policy concerns seem to have sent to the back burner the social issues that dogged Romney in '08. "It looks like the environment is shaping up to be favorable to him," says Dennehy. "Mitt Romney is the guy to beat. He's positioned himself real well since the 2008 election."

To win the Republican nomination without the South, Romney needs a blue-state strategy. By sweeping winner-take-all delegate primaries in the Northeast, the West Coast, and the industrial North, he could capture the GOP ticket.

To work, political analysts say, Romney will need the primary schedule to remain similar to the one in place in 2008. That year, only four states were authorized to hold contests before the official "window" opened on February 5 — after which it was open season. Unsurprisingly, states eager for attention raced to the front of that window (and several, including Michigan and Florida, defied the rules by going even earlier). Just a month after the first caucus, candidates were forced to compete coast-to-coast, in 21 states — including huge prizes like New York, California, Illinois, Massachusetts, and New Jersey — on what became known as "Super-Duper Tuesday." By the end of that day, more than half the convention delegates had been assigned.

Romney, with his name recognition, vast money supplies, and held-over national operation, can obviously play on such a vast scale in such a short time frame; his competitors are likely to be at a severe disadvantage.

But, as Giuliani demonstrated, even a well-known, well-funded candidate needs some momentum heading into that big day. That means Romney — unlike Giuliani — must win at least one of the four "pre-window" contests.

Those will be caucuses in Iowa and Nevada, and primaries in New Hampshire and South Carolina. Nevada, a low-turnout caucus in a heavily Mormon state, will likely be conceded to Romney, as it was in 2008 — which means he'll get no credit or attention for winning it.

If Romney couldn't win over Iowa's Christian conservatives in '08 — when he spent millions there, and McCain and Giuliani skipped the state — it's hard to see how he can do so in '12. Especially when a number of conservatives with strong religious credentials from nearby states are likely to be competing, including Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota, Mike Pence of Indiana, and John Thune of South Dakota.

If South Carolina is out of reach — and bear in mind that Romney finished fourth there in '08 after devoting three years and millions upon millions of dollars — that means Romney must win New Hampshire, particularly in that it's in his back yard.

"He needs to win one before Super Tuesday," says Dennehy. "And I would agree that he needs to win New Hampshire."

Friday, February 12, 2010

Its Obama, Stupid! CBS poll: Economy Brings Down Obama's Job Approval Rating to 46%

(CBS).As the lagging economy continues to weigh on people's minds, the American public is more disapproving than ever of President Obama's job performance, the latest CBS News/New York Times poll finds.

Mr. Obama's job approval rating stands at 46 percent, matching his previous low from early January. As many as 45 percent of Americans disapprove of the job he is doing – his highest disapproval rating to date. More than anything, Americans are critical of how Mr. Obama is handling domestic issues like the economy.

More Americans approve than disapprove of the job Mr. Obama is doing handling terrorism (55 percent) and foreign policy (47 percent), but the president scores poorly on domestic issues. More than half of Americans disapprove of how he is handling the economy, health care reform and the federal budget deficit.

And in terms of changing the way things are done in Washington -– a promise Mr. Obama campaigned on -– half think he has not made much progress, including one in five who say he has not made any progress at all.

While Americans are split on whether they approve of how the president is doing his job, slightly more people still have a favorable opinion of him, at 39 percent to 34 percent.

The president has clearly slipped in public estimation in the last few months when it comes to economic issues – which Americans name as the most important problem facing the country. Fifty-two percent of Americans disapprove of the president's handling of the economy. Additionally, 58 percent disapprove of Mr. Obama's handling of the budget deficit, up 15 points from July.

Most Americans do not think the president has a clear plan for creating jobs. While 39 percent say he does, 56 percent say he does not.

Thursday, February 11, 2010

Obama's best decision! House GOP document: We won showdown with President Obama

(The Hill).House Republicans won their televised debate with President Barack Obama last month, according to a GOP document distributed to lawmakers on Thursday.

The document, obtained by The Hill, notes that Obama’s job approval ratings have dipped since the Jan. 29 meeting while Republican numbers have soared.

Obama traveled to Baltimore to attend the House Republican retreat and engaged in testy exchanges with several members. Many political observers said Obama came away victorious.

But Republican leaders are disputing that conventional wisdom, citing recent polls that indicate that they won the battle.

In a Thursday afternoon conference call with rank-and-file House GOP lawmakers, leaders shared a list of survey data taken before and after the retreat.

In the document titled “Recent Public Surveys, Fielded Post Baltimore Retreat,” Republican leaders focused on Obama’s job approval, generic ballot matchups, party brand image and issue handling.

Republicans numbers in all these areas have improved over the last couple of weeks.

“Since the Baltimore retreat there have been several public surveys released. Four surveys had President Obama’s job approval getting worse” the document states.

Polls taken by the Washington Post/ABC News, Fox News, Marist and Democracy Corps show Obama’s approval rating slip from two to four percentage points.

Three of the surveys asked questions about generic ballot match-ups. Before the showdown in Baltimore, the Washington Post/ABC News comparison showed Republicans losing 39 percent to 51 percent and 46-46 this month.

“In the Washington Post/ABC News survey, among adults Republicans were even with Democrats. The last time that occurred in this survey was in November 2002. Among registered voters in the Post/ABC survey Republicans led by a 3 point margin 48-45,” the document states.

A Sneak peek at Mitt Romney reading a chapter of his book "No apology-The case for American greatness"



FoxNewsnow.com: Mitt Romney is shown reading in studio for his new book: “No Apology: The Case for American Greatness.” FOX 13 has obtained a peek to the first chapter of the book provided by the publisher, Macmillan. Hinkley Institute director, Kirk Jowers says that the writings take a “fresh look” at America’s rising debt and global image regarding foreign diplomacy. The book will be available March 2.

Frmr Secretary of State Eagleburger: US Will Be Blamed for Iran's use of Nukes

Nate Silver/ Romney's best chances to wrap up GOP '12 Nomination

Nate Silver takes an interesting peak at the 2012 Republican primary calendar and handicaps the chances for each of the prospective candidates, on Fivethirtyeight:

Mitt Romney's paths might look something like this, and are probably somewhat more straightforward than Palin's.

Romney Plan A. Win Iowa. Win New Hampshire. Game over.

Romney Plan B-1. (If Palin is knocked out) Lose Iowa. Win New Hampshire. Win Nevada. Sweep orange states on the basis of organizational strength. Veer slightly to the left, emphasizing electability and cleaning up in delegate-rich states like California and New York. You probably outlast a Southern opponent like Huckabee, perhaps even fairly easily. A Midwesterner that could win states like Ohio, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania might be more challenging.

Romney Plan B-2. (If Palin survives) Lose Iowa. Win New Hampshire. Win Nevada. Split orange states with Palin on the basis of organizational strength. Hope that gold or purple states came up next, in which case you should build up a substantial delegate lead. If so, the party infrastructure may start to close ranks around you. If green states come up instead, Palin is tougher and you're in for a war of attrition with flagging momentum.

Gallup: Mitt Romney leads GOP '12 , trails Obama 42-44, Independents prefer GOP candidate over Obama 45 - 31

Registered voters are about equally divided as to whether they would more likely vote to re-elect Barack Obama in the 2012 presidential election, or vote for the Republican candidate.

If Barack Obama Runs for Re-Election in 2012, in General, Are You More Likely to Vote for Obama or for the Republican Party's Candidate for President?

These results are based on a Feb. 1-3 Gallup poll. 44% of U.S. registered voters say they are more likely to vote for Obama, 42% for the Republican candidate, and the remaining 14% are undecided or would vote for another candidate.

A year into his first term as president, Obama's approval ratings are hovering around 50%. The 50% approval figure has been a strong predictor of an incumbent president's re-election: presidents who averaged 50% or better from January of an election year through Election Day have all been re-elected. This includes George W. Bush, who averaged 51% in 2004, though his approval rating was 48% in Gallup's final pre-election poll.

Independents currently show a greater preference for the Republican candidate than for Obama, by 45% to 31%.

The poll asked Republicans and Republican-leaning independents to name, without prompting, whom they would most like to see as the party's 2012 presidential candidate. It is clear at this early date that most Republicans have not developed a preference, with 42% not having an opinion or volunteering that they do not prefer any candidate.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin are most frequently mentioned, by 14% and 11%, respectively. Seven percent mention Arizona Sen. John McCain, the 2008 nominee. Newly elected Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown, former Arkansas Gov. and 2008 candidate Mike Huckabee, and former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich are each mentioned by at least 3% of Republicans.

Just Off the Top of Your Head, Which Republican Would You Most Like to See as the Party's Candidate for President in the 2012 Election? Among Republicans and Republican-Leaning Independents

Whereas conservative (15%) and moderate or liberal (14%) Republicans are about equally likely to mention Romney as their preferred nominee, Palin is much more likely to be mentioned by conservatives (14%) than by moderates and liberals (3%). Conservatives generally outnumber moderates and liberals by about 2 to 1 within the Republican Party.

Obama's re-election chances partly hinge on whom the Republicans nominate, because it is not clear whether a "generic" Republican (as measured in the current data) would perform better or worse than a specific candidate. At this point, Romney and Palin can be considered the early front-runners for the GOP nomination, a position that has proven advantageous in most past Republican nomination campaigns.

Friday, February 5, 2010

Franken blasts Obama’s lack of leadership in meeting of Senate Democrats

Politico reports that an angry confrontation ensued when David Axelrod met with Senate Democrats in private this week. While Obama’s meeting with Congressional Democrats was so managed as to be boring, Axelrod took the brunt of anger from the caucus, especially Al Franken, not exactly known for his sunny disposition. However, Franken was not alone in complaining about the lack of leadership from the White House:

Sen. Al Franken ripped into White House senior adviser David Axelrod this week during a tense, closed-door session with Senate Democrats.

Five sources who were in the room tell POLITICO that Franken criticized Axelrod for the administration’s failure to provide clarity or direction on health care and the other big bills it wants Congress to enact.

The sources said Franken was the most outspoken senator in the meeting, which followed President Barack Obama’s question-and-answer session with Senate Democrats at the Newseum on Wednesday. But they also said the Minnesotan wasn’t the only angry Democrat in the room.

“There was a lot of frustration in there,” said a Democratic senator who declined to be identified.

“People were hot,” another Democratic senator said.

Monday, February 1, 2010

Yo si puedo! Florida GOP Senate: Rubio 49%, Crist 37%

(rasmussen).Former state House Speaker Marco Rubio has now jumped to a 12-point lead over Governor Charlie Crist in Florida’s Republican Primary race for the U.S. Senate.

A new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of likely GOP Primary voters in the state finds Rubio leading Crist 49% to 37%. Three percent (3%) prefer another candidate, and 11% are undecided.

The new numbers mark a stunning turnaround. Crist was the strong favorite when he first announced for the Senate seat, and Rubio was viewed as a long-shot challenger.

But Crist’s support fell from 53% in August to 49% in October. By December, the two men were tied at 43% apiece.

Rubio leads Crist by 17 points among men and by seven among women. He also carries 52% of the conservative GOP vote, while moderates prefer Crist.

Crist’s fortunes appear to be tied in part to national unhappiness over President Obama and his policies. Many conservatives began rebelling against Crist when he became one of the few Republican governors to embrace Obama’s $787-billion economic stimulus plan last year. The national Republican party establishment endorsed Crist early on, but a number of prominent national party conservatives have since announced their support for Rubio. Nationally, the GOP’s Florida Senate race is being watched as a test of the new “Tea Party” mood among many conservative and traditionally Republican voters.

Sunday, January 31, 2010

Hagai Segal/Ynet: Obama - America’s false messiah, ability to get elected with ability to lead are unconnected

(Hagai Segal-Ynet).A year into Barack Obama’s term in office, he has joined a long list of false messiahs. Jewish history features several such messiahs, and now it’s America’s turn to have one.

Americans are already showing a growing tendency to be ashamed of the praise they lavished at him in January of last year. Obama is a good guy, an excellent orator, and a brilliant campaigner; however, he is not America’s redeemer or humanity’s savior. In fact, he is not even a successful president.

If we ignore for a moment some cosmetic improvements that occurred during his term in office here and there, we can see that the United States at this time is facing an almost identical situation to the one left by President George W. Bush.

The economy is facing a very grim state of affairs, thousands of soldiers are being dispatched to battlefield overseas, America has failed to bring peace to the Middle East, Iran blatantly ignores it, and Osama bin Laden still maintains a recording studio somewhere in the heart of Asia.

In short, all the things that used to be there are still there, and things are possibly even worse.

In a recent television interview, the president candidly spoke about the possibility that he will not be elected to another term in office. Sarah Palin, imagine that, is suddenly emerging as a candidate that could replace him three years from now; and it’s not because of her as much as it is because of him.

In retrospect, it is already clear that what we saw here during the presidential campaign was deceptive. The Bush-hating community created the Obama legend out of nothing. It took a young and articulate senator with zero experience and presented him as a quick fix to all the nation’s problems.

When he took his place at the starting line to the White House race, he could not boast of even one proven leadership achievement, yet nonetheless he was presented to the public as a surefire success story. America’s citizens fell too easily into the trap laid by his public relations staff.

Americans jumped at the rare opportunity to elect a black president, but forgot that they are facing a few more urgent problems aside from the racial issue.

At this time we need to pray that the price of this adventure will not be too high. We also need to learn the lesson: Presidential elections are not a beauty contest. People who look great and can speak wonderfully well do not necessarily also know how to manage.

Hence, the next time an articulate candidate declares “yes, we can,” we need to find out whether he is talking about his ability to get elected or about his ability to lead a government. The Obama case proves that these two talents are largely unconnected.

Scott Brown tells ABC's Barbara Walters president talk "silly," "humbling"

'Professor' Obama? President's SOTU Address Notches 4th Lowest Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level Score Since FDR

(smartpolitics).Text of Obama's Address has a readability score for an average 8th grader - two grades lower than George W. Bush's Addresses and the historical average for modern presidents

Barack Obama's ability as a public speaker since his 2008 presidential campaign has been alternately viewed, often depending on whether or not one is an Obama supporter, along various dyads: being inspirational versus being aloof, intellectualizing versus lecturing etc.

Along those lines, in her first month as a commentator for FOX News, Sarah Palin criticized Obama's first State of the Union Address on Wednesday night as "lecturing" the American public.

Unlike the criticisms hurled at his predecessor, however, few have ever charged that the President, a former senior lecturer in Constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School, has written or spoken too simplistically or catered his words to the lowest common denominator.

However, a Smart Politics analysis of nearly 70 oral State of the Union Addresses since the mid-1930s finds the text of Obama's speech on Wednesday evening to have one of the lowest scores on the Flesch-Kincaid readability test ever recorded by a U.S. President.

The Flesch-Kincaid test is designed to assess the readability level of written text, with a formula that translates the score to a U.S. grade level. Longer sentences and sentences utilizing words with more syllables produce higher scores. Shorter sentences and sentences incorporating more monosyllabic words yield lower scores.

Smart Politics ran the Flesch-Kincaid test on each of the last 68 State of the Union Addresses that were delivered orally by presidents before a Joint Session of Congress since Franklin Roosevelt. Excluded from analysis were five written addresses (Truman in 1946 and 1953, Eisenhower in 1961, Nixon in 1973, and Carter in 1981) and two addresses that were delivered orally, but not by the President himself (Roosevelt in 1945, Eisenhower in 1956). Prior to FDR, most, but not all, such Addresses were delivered in writing.

Obama's Flesch-Kincaid grade level score of 8.8 for his first State of the Union Address was the fourth lowest score since FDR's first Address in 1934.

What this means is that Obama wrote and delivered a speech that incorporated shorter sentences, with those sentences containing shorter words, than nearly every such Presidential Address in the modern era.

Across the more than 75 years of speeches under analysis, the average sentence in State of the Union Addresses is 20.6 words in length.

But the average length of sentences comprising Obama's 2010 address was just 16.6 words in length - or 19.4 percent shorter than average. This also marks the fourth lowest average words per sentence used in State of the Union Addresses during the period under study.

President Obama's comparative brevity in his sentence structure and his frequent use of monosyllabic words can be seen in the following excerpts from his Address:

"Again, we are tested. And again, we must answer history's call."

"Now, let me repeat: We cut taxes. We cut taxes for 95 percent of working families. We cut taxes for small businesses. We cut taxes for first-time homebuyers. We cut taxes for parents trying to care for their children. We cut taxes for 8 million Americans paying for college."

"We have finished a difficult year. We have come through a difficult decade. But a new year has come. A new decade stretches before us. We don't quit. I don't quit."

As such, the speech by 'the professor' stands in contrast to his predecessor, 'the cowboy,' George W. Bush, who was frequently skewered by the left and late-night talk show hosts for his public speaking abilities, his intelligence, and his misuse of the English language.

Bush averaged a Flesch-Kincaid score of 10.4 across his seven State of the Union Addresses - or nearly two full grades higher than Obama's speech. Bush's speeches also averaged 2.4 more words per sentence than Obama, at 19.0.

In other words, the text of George W. Bush's speeches are expected to be understandable (in written form) by an average sophomore in high school, whereas Obama's speech should be understandable by a junior high school student.

Interestingly, George W. Bush's 10.4 Flesch-Kincaid score was also higher than several of his predecessors, including Ronald Reagan (10.3), Bill Clinton (9.5), and his father George H.W. Bush (8.6).

Overall, the Flesch-Kincaid grade level of presidential State of the Union Addresses has decreased in recent decades - with the last five presidents notching the five lowest scores.

John F. Kennedy's Addresses averaged a Flesch-Kincaid grade level of 12.0 - with these speeches averaging 23.8 words per sentence. Dwight Eisenhower was close behind with a Flesch-Kincaid score of 11.9, with Nixon at 11.5, FDR at 11.4 and Gerald Ford at 11.2.

Saturday, January 30, 2010

Obama Takes Questions at GOP House Issues Conference


Obama's SOTU rally speech achieved its goal as 15% Dems returned home approving him

(Rasmussen).Looking only at interviews conducted on the two nights following the speech, it is clear that the President enjoyed a bounce in the polls and that the bounce came from members of his own party. On the morning of the speech, 50% of Democrats Strongly Approved of the President’s performance. On the two nights following the speech, that number jumped to 65%. There was essentially no change among Republican and unaffiliated voters.

This could suggest that the President’s “pivot” following the Republican upset in Massachusetts is a pivot towards energizing his party base more than reaching out for support from unaffiliated voters. In Massachusetts and the two Governor’s races last fall, a lack of enthusiasm from Democrats contributed to the party’s defeats.

Polling conducted after the speech also found that most voters do not believe the President’s assertions about tax cuts, economic growth, or job creation. Democrats tend to give him the benefit of the doubt. Republicans and unaffiliated voters do not.

Krauthammer: Romney best candidate in 2012

Friday, January 29, 2010

Mitt Romney on Your World with Cavuto


Brown on Romney: 'He's changed'

(from his wide-ranging interview,with the Globe):

He's changed, he's changed. You know, he's actually -- before he was an outsider coming in and he was, you know, kind of, you know, stiff. But he's actually, like, funny, he's like -- when he was at my events he was cracking jokes, when we were on the bus -- I was like, who is this guy? He's really kind of, I think, settled into his role kind of being the elder statesman of the party and everything he went through as president. It's kind of, and once again it's my opinion but he's really a different guy than I knew when he was here, and I certainly appreciate everything he did for me. And it wasn't a lot, he was just there as the initial -- you know, 'here's a check, go get em!' And that says a lot, you know, when I signed my contract with the team, you know -- I worried about, how am I gonna pay for this? And he was one of the first guys that helped me towards that obligation. And I remember those people who took a chance.
"A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty" (Churchill)