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Looking at last week’s election results, Charles Krauthammer says 2012 will be a struggle for the forces of – - – truth, justice, and the American Way.
The 2011 off-year elections are a warning to Republicans. The 2010 party is over. 2012 will be a struggle. …
… Tuesday showed that the powerful Republican tailwind of 2010 (I prefer non-culinary metaphors) is now becalmed. Between now and November 2012, things can break either way.
They have already been breaking every which way. In this year’s congressional special elections resulting from the resignation of scandal-embroiled incumbents, New York-26, traditionally conservative, went Democratic; New York-9, forever Democratic, went Republican. Add now the four evenly split gubernatorial races and Ohio’s split decision on its two highly ideological initiatives — and you approach equipoise.
Nothing is written. Contrary to the condescending conventional wisdom, the American electorate is no angry herd, prepared to stampede on the command of today’s most demagogic populist. Mississippi provided an exemplary case of popular sophistication — it defeated a state constitutional amendment declaring that personhood begins at fertilization. Voters were concerned about the measure’s ambiguity (which would grossly empower unelected judges) and its myriad unintended consequences (regarding, for example, infertility treatment and life-threatening ectopic pregnancies). Remarkably, this rejection was carried out by an electorate decidedly pro-life.
And smart. So too across the nation, as we saw Tuesday. This is no disoriented, easily led citizenry. On the contrary. It is thoughtful and discriminating. For Republicans, this means there is no coasting to victory, 9 percent unemployment or not. They need substance. They need an articulate candidate with an agenda and command of the issues who is light on slogans and lighter still on baggage.
But, Kimberley Strassel celebrates GOP wins in Virginia.
… the White House is pouring resources into what Tim Kaine, the state’s former Democratic governor, now pridefully refers to as Democrats’ “New Dominion.” The Obama campaign has held some 1,600 events in the state in the last half-year alone. Only last month Mr. Obama hopped a three-day bus trip through Virginia and North Carolina. Obama officials keep flocking to the state, and Tuesday’s election was to offer the first indication of how these efforts are succeeding.
Let’s just say the New Dominion is looking an awful lot like the Old Dominion. If anything, more so.
Virginia Republicans added seven new seats to their majority in the House of Delegates, giving them two-thirds of that chamber’s votes—the party’s largest margin in history. The GOP also took over the Virginia Senate in results that were especially notable, given that Virginia Democrats this spring crafted an aggressive redistricting plan that had only one aim: providing a firewall against a Republican takeover of that chamber. Even that extreme gerrymander didn’t work.
Every Republican incumbent—52 in the House, 15 in the Senate—won. The state GOP is looking at unified control over government for only the second time since the Civil War. This is after winning all three top statewide offices—including the election of Gov. Bob McDonnell—in 2009, and picking off three U.S. House Democrats in last year’s midterms.
Topline figures aside, what ought to really concern the White House was the nature of the campaign, and the breakout of Tuesday’s election data. Mr. Obama may have big plans for Virginia, but the question is increasingly: him and what army? …
David Harsanyi, in reference to Rick Perry’s faux pas, thinks it’s unlikely anyone is going to abolish federal departments.
… Remember that it is within these agencies that regulatory regimes blossom and economic growth is inhibited, where winners and loser are picked, where subsidies are handed out, where bad policy is implemented, and where nannies concoct their plans. This bureaucratic outbreak hit the nation under FDR and has yet to be put down.
So there is a legitimate argument for reducing the power of these agencies but it’s not going to happen anytime soon. To begin with no president is going to have the power to come in and shut them down – not today. Moreover, none of these Republicans candidates – including Perry – have the skills, the support and the political backbone to do the job. And I don’t believe any of them would even try.
Fortunately, or tragically, there are plenty of pressing and real problems they can tackle. Give us a real plan for reforming entitlements, for cutting spending and for creating a more prosperous atmosphere for the economy. Talk of shutting down departments is a convenient position but it’s also a platitudinous one that makes a candidate look unserious.
Craig Pirrong, the Streetwise Professor wants to make sure we don’t ignore the importance of Bill Daley getting his sails trimmed at the White House.
… Daley was seen by many in corporate America as someone who would serve as a counterweight to Obama’s leftist instincts. That’s obviously not going to happen. And that’s why this story deserves more attention than it has gotten. It is an indication of where Obama is going. (And just to make clear: I am no fan of Daleyesque corporatism.)
I also surmise that there’s another thing going on here, a Chicago game. Although Chicago is a One Party State, that party is rent into factions that barely coexist at the best of times, and battle viciously at others. Obama’s alter ego, Valerie Jarrett, and Daley are from opposing, hostile, factions. Jarrett was not pleased by Daley’s presence. Jarrett is a hardcore progressive. Daley’s goal–as described by Chait–was to soften the progressivism.
Daley’s departure likely marks Jarrett’s victory. It also signals, as Chait suggests, a turn to a more hardcore progressive policy and strategy: if Jarrett has the wheel, there ain’t going to be any right turns. It is a move towards the Occupy types and a move away from the corporatist, Democratic party establishment personified by Daley.
Helluva choice, eh?
But it means that the next 12 months will be even more confrontational and contentious, and the next election will be among the most divisive in recent history. I’m thinking ‘68, or something in the 19th century divisive.
Today saw another indication of Obama’s choice. He has delayed consideration of the Keystone Pipeline from Canada to the US. This represents another genuflection to Obama’s environmentalist, leftist base. …
Yuval Levin has more.
… The move certainly suggests a continuing difficulty to manage the tension between the president’s two almost equally delusional self images—the pragmatic centrist reaching out to Republicans and the populist progressive fighting for the people against the powerful. These two approaches would require two quite different kinds of political strategies, and each would be well served by a different kind of chief of staff. Of course, President Obama is not actually a pragmatic centrist (witness everything he did in his first two years, his attitude and substantive proposals in every confrontation with this congress, and his assertions that Republicans want dirty air and water and would love to give mercury poisoning to children, for instance), and is not actually a populist progressive (witness his deep ties to and reliance on Wall Street and his overall regulatory agenda which basically amounts to institutionalized crony capitalism, for instance). Rather, he is an elitist liberal technocrat whose definition of pragmatism is agreement with him and whose idea of populism is resentment of people who disagree with him. It’s hard to fathom what the appropriate political strategy (and the appropriate chief of staff) for that sort of president should look like, so it’s not hard to see why he hasn’t found one.
Even so, and even if the president has concluded that Bill Daley is not the right chief for him at this moment, which is certainly his prerogative, just purely as a matter of managing his administration this kind of demotion is peculiar. President Obama came into office with no experience as an executive, and his style of management suggests that nearly three years in office may have given him only the wrong kind of experience. This latest move seems like one he will soon regret.
Of course, Andrew Malcolm has a more humorous take on the Daley demotion.
William Daley, President Obama’s chief of staff-in-name-only-now-because-we-don’t-want-a-mess-of-media-stories-about-bureaucratic-infighting-on-the-sinking-White-House-ship, is still employed today because he’s from Chicago and his family has been very good to Barack Obama and those around him for a long time.
That’s the way Daley’s father ran the Cook County machine all those years. And the same for Daley’s brother, who just retired as mayor last spring, leaving the job for Obama’s former chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, who was hired more than two decades ago by the White House Daley to help the Chicago Daley.
That was before the Chicago Daley hired Michelle Robinson to help his chief of staff Valerie Jarrett, which was before Ms. Robinson became Mrs. Obama, which was before President Obama hired Ms. Jarrett as a key Oval Office aide.
Perhaps you get a sense of how professionally incestuous is the Chicago Democratic machine, now with a branch office at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
Machine ties can be broken only by betrayal or federal indictment …
We go to the Daily Beast to see the move in the eyes of card-carrying creepy liberals like Eleanor Clift.
Washington loves a good story about White House intrigue, who’s up and who’s down, and so the news that Chief of Staff Bill Daley would be giving up a portion of his duties had everyone speculating about the real reason for the mini-shakeup. Not surprisingly, Press Secretary Jay Carney cautioned reporters not to make too much of what he minimized as merely a move to make the White House run more efficiently. He said it was Daley’s idea to shed some of his responsibilities, and to have another of the president’s men, Pete Rouse, a seasoned congressional hand, take on more of the day-to-day management of the White House.
But wait, this is Washington, and nobody gives up power willingly, so here’s what happened, according to people who know the players. Daley was always miscast. He’s a Chicago businessman, accustomed to being in charge and impatient with Congress. He got much of the blame for the debt-ceiling debacle last summer that brought the government to the brink of default. While that took its toll, it was not fatal, says a Daley friend. “What was fatal: the accumulated weight of not moving the needle.”
In other words, with President Obama’s approval rating stuck in the low 40s, and nothing seeming to move the numbers, the shift to the center that Daley symbolized when he was brought into the White House in January was scrapped for a populist bid to reclaim the Democratic base. The result: Daley was not happy.
According to a veteran lobbyist, word got back to the White House that the chief of staff was up on Capitol Hill distancing himself from the president, saying, “They’re not listening to me.” That’s a cardinal sin for a White House adviser, and in a city where the buildings have ears, it’s not one that stays hidden for long.
Scott Adams, the creator of Dilbert, posted on his blog the possible reasons why Herman Cain continues to poll well.
… Consider all of the employee lawsuits and out of court settlements of which you have personal knowledge. Your list can include sexual harassment claims plus all other types of employee claims, including cases involving injuries and unfair practices. Include only situations in which you were personally involved or you know the people who were. My question is this: What percentage of these employee claims do you know for sure to be bullshit?
I’ll go first. I owned two restaurants for years, and you can imagine how many claims I saw. Before that, I worked at the local phone company, and before that for a large bank. I’ve had personal knowledge of perhaps twenty employee claims against employers. To the best of my knowledge, 100% of them were bullshit. I could be wrong, but that’s my impression. And impressions matter. (None were sexual harassment cases.)
I’m using the term bullshit instead of “true” because there’s a slight difference. In some cases the employees took advantage of obscure labor laws and found ways to force settlements without ever experiencing any damages.
Now consider the average Republican mindset. We’re talking about a pro-employer group of voters. For many of these voters, Cain’s situation will remind them of all the dishonest employee claims they’ve seen. For many people, especially men, Cain will look like a typical employer getting sued every five minutes by employees looking for cash settlements. Voting for Cain will feel like a vote against fraudulent employee claims, even if that is the opposite of reality. It will FEEL like a referendum against fraudulent claims.
The other factor working in Cain’s favor is his absurd level of confidence and optimism. …