National Democrats blow it…

It is official; the House Democrats and Senate Democrats completely and utterly failed to govern in the last four years.  They repeatedly violated their campaign promises and angered a great many Americans.  Back in 2007 and 2008 they blamed their failure to govern on a Republican President.  They constantly whined and claimed that if there was just a Democratic President they would be able to govern.

For the last two years the Democrats have had strong majorities in the House, Senate, and of course a very liberal Democratic President.

In the last two years the Democrats were able to pass a bill that will make massive changes to the health care system in the US if these items are not repealed.  This was a heavy lift and they spend almost all of their energy on this one item. 

There are several items that the Democrats should be embarrassed about:

  1.  
    1. They broke their promise to be more transparent.
    2. They broke their promise to “drain the swamp” and root out corruption in DC.
    3. They broke their promise to start bringing a significant number of our troops home from the Middle East.
    4. They broke their promise to protect Social Security; they kept spending the excess Social Security funds on unrelated items and kept dropping IOU’s in the fund.
    5. They broke their promise to allow taxes to increase on the wealthy.
    6. They broke their promise to lower our annual budget deficits.
    7. As of today they have failed to pass any of the 12 Federal Budgets that took effect on October 1st, 2010.

I used to think the Democrats were smarter politically than the Republicans.  Over the past twenty years I have felt that the Democrats have often out maneuvered the Republicans.  That has NOT been the case in the last two years.  The Democrats have been completely inept and were badly outmaneuvered themselves.

Nancy Pelosi and the House passed a lot of legislation in the last two years that was progressive.  This legislation then died in the Democratic Senate.  Harry Reid is a joke and it is hard to believe that he is still in charge of the Senate because he is utterly incompetent!

The lame duck session has been a joke to date as well.  They are getting nothing accomplished and it is unbelievable that the Democrats purposefully waited until the lame duck session to deal with so many issues.

Mike

The upcoming race for Fort Wayne Mayor

The upcoming race for Fort Wayne Mayor is starting to clear up, at least a little bit.  I have no idea who I will support; the field is no where near determined at this point and I do not know enough about the candidates.

I want to start with the Democratic side.  Pretty much everyone assumes that Tom Henry will run for another term; however, I am not so sure of that.  I truly do not think Tom Henry really wanted to be Mayor in the first place; I think he agreed to run and has been “filling the office.”  If our current Mayor decides to run he will easily win any primary and will be the nominee.

On the Republican side it looks like there will be two relatively strong candidates; more could follow.  AWB is reporting that John Crawford will be running for City Council at Large; there is no doubt that at one time he was considering running for Mayor.

The first Republican candidate is Paula Hughes.  I will have to research her much further; however, at first blush she is not a candidate that I can get excited about; the Maplecrest Extension Boondoggle was a horrible decision that our County officials made.  

The second potential Republican candidate is businessman Eric Doden.  I really know little about him; however, what I do know sounds somewhat promising.  It looks like the house has has lived in for the last couple of years is a couple miles outside the City limits.  Apparently he has purchased a Condo inside the City limits.  As long as he and his family live in this Condo a majority of the time and based on what LITTLE I know about the three current three potential candidates listed in this post there is a decent chance that he may be the candidate I end up supporting.

That being said, I truly have no idea who is running so I have no idea who I will support.  We are too early in the process to make any decisions.

Who will you support?

Earmarks and corruption

Earmarks are a hot topic.  They have been discussed in detail over the last few years.  I 100% oppose earmarks and I was very disappointed when President Obama failed to reform earmarks like he promised to on the campaign trail.

That being said, I truly believe President Obama did want to reform the earmark process; I feel he wanted to minimize them and make the process more transparent.  The truth of the matter is Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid refused to reform the earmark process and kept along with business as usual.

Luckily Nancy Pelosi will not be Speaker of the House come January of 2011.  The leadership of the House Republicans are almost assuredly going to ban earmarks for the next two years.  I will look at this vote carefully and I hope a large number of Democrats wake up and vote for this ban.  This two year ban is a step in the right direction; what should really be done is they should be permanently banned.  That way it would take another vote in the House to overturn the ban.

President Obama once again brought up earmark reform in his Saturday radio address.  He came out in favor of major earmark reform.  He is actually siding with the House Republicans which is a good thing.

The problem is going to be the US Senate.  Mitch McConnell is the embarrassing leader of the Republicans in the Senate.  This idiot voted in favor of TARP, stimulus, and bailing out GM.  He is a typical “establishment, big-government Republican” who needs to be “primaried.” 

Up until the new Senators are seated the Republicans have two very conservative Senators who are heroes of mine, DeMint and Coburn.  Both are leading the fight to ban earmarks for two years.  It looks like most if not all of the new Republican Senators will side with DeMint and Coburn…

The Senate Republican caucus is going to have a SECRET vote on whether to ban earmarks for two years this coming Tuesday.  What cowards.  This vote should not be secret so that we can primary any idiot Republicans who support retaining earmarks.

Mike

Winning national elections

It amazes me how many of the Republican and Democratic strategists completely fail to understand how to win (or lose) national elections.  This post is not about winning one race; it is about winning on a national level.

For some insane reason the majority of professional Republican and Democratic strategists are obsessed with catering the the independents/moderates.

In my opinion there are really only three overall factors that determine the results of national elections:

  1. How energized and active you political base is.
  2. How active and energized your opponents political base is.
  3. How well you do convincing the moderates/independents to vote for your candidates.

I think this is best show with recent examples.  The Democrats get demolished in the 1994 mid term elections.  President Bill Clinton ran to the political “middle” and governed from the “middle” for his last six years in office.  By governing from the middle Bill Clinton actually ensured that neither party’s political base was particularly energized or depressed; however, Bill Clinton did everything in his power to appeal to the “middle.”  He actually analyzed public opinion and specifically “triangulated” on the “middle.”  This allowed Bill Clinton to stay in office. 

2008 was entirely different.  In 2008:  The Democratic base was excited; young and minority voters turned out in mass to support President Obama and by default other Democrats.  The Republican base was neutral if not disappointed.  They did not like John McCain and were disappointed in the Republican President and Congress.  The “middle” was relatively split.  Hence the Democrats won…

2010 was a completely different scenario.  The Democratic Base was no longer excited.  I am not sure it is fair to say they were depressed; however, there is no doubt they were not excited.  Young and minority voters did not turn out in 2010 like they did in 2008.  The Republican base was angry and went to vote in huge numbers.  The “middle” was relatively split.  Hence the Republicans won big.  They won big because the Republcian base was energized and actually expanded by the Tea Party.

I doubt that either Party really grasps the concepts in the post.  I feel the key to winning elections is to appeal to your base.  The “middle” will always split between the two Parties. 

Mike

2010 Election Results

There is no doubt that the Republicans won in a very big way earlier this week.  They took a huge number of Congressional House Seats, likely six Senate seats, a large number of state legislative bodies, and a lot of Governorships.  It was a large drubbing.  In the past there have been other elections with similar landslide victories during the mid terms.  The 2010 election is as big as any of the past victories.  It is fair to say that the 2010 election results are as big as any drubbing in the last 70 years.  It is possible that itis the biggest of those past drubbings; however, there are a couple of other past elections (including 1994) where there were similar sized gains.

There are several important items to take from this election:

1.  The Democrats are NOT “dead” and anyone who thinks they are is a fool.  Back in 2008 there were many Democrats who said the Republican Party would be in the minority for decades.  American politics goes in cycles.  This is just part of the normal cycle. 

2.  I think there are several reasons the Republicans won big this week: 

  A.  The Republicans turned out their base in 2010 (like the Democrats did in 2008).

  B.   The majority Party does poorly in most mid term elections.

  C.  The economy is crap and is expected to continue being crap.

  D.  The Tea Party brought a lot of excitement to the GOP and turned out the base.  In fact the Tea Party

        brought a lot of people back to the GOP who had left it.

3.  The Democrats got annihilated in Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, and Pennsylvania.  This is likely due to the poor economy in those places.

4.  The Democrats failed to convince Americans that their legislative priority was jobs and the economy.  I think most Americans feel that the number one priority on the Democratic Party in the last two years was health care reform; that was a big mistake.

What do you think?

Mike Sylvester

Tomorrow will be a good day for America if…

I am excited about tomorrow’s election.  I truly hope that the “Tea Party” helps elect a large number of Americans who believe in smaller and more responsible government.  Here is what I am hoping for tomorrow:

1.  I truly hope the Republicans gain a majority in the US House of Representatives.  The last four years under a Democratic majority in the House under Nancy Pelosi has been a disaster.  The Democrats added five trillion dollars to the National Debt in four years; this is astounding and future generations will have to pay for this forever.  The older I get the more I realize that “gridlock” is good.

2.  I hope that Harry Reid (D) is no longer the Senator from Nevada.  He has been a horrible majority leader and has served too long. 

3.  I hope that Rand Paul (R) is the next Senator of Kentucky.  The liberal media has developed a pathological hatred of the man and thrown everything at him that they can. 

4.  I hope that a large number of small Government conservatives are elected as Republicans.  I then hope that they are not co-opted by the Republican establishment. 

5.  I hope that turnout tomorrow is higher than it was in 2006.  More Americans need to learn what is going on in this country and they need to vote.  Both Parties are running up the National Debt and this needs to stop.

6.  I hope that far fewer people vote for a Party ticket.  Voting for all of the members of one Party is just stupid and I truly wish people would stop doing it.  It is absurd to think that all of the members of one Party are better than all of their opponents across the board. 

7.  Updated on Election Day at 1:28 PM.  I hope that Lisa Murkowski is no longer the Senator from Alaska.  Her antics affter her loss in the Republican Primary are deplorable and show that she is too attched to her position as US Senator.

Mike

My ballot for tomorrow

As is my custom; the day before the election I post my voting plans for tomorrow…

US Senator, Rebecca Sink Burris (L). (I cannot vote for Coats, he is a carpetbagger from the East Coast).

Sec of State, Mike Wherry (L). This race is the ballot access rate for the Libertarian Party. I want to keep the Libertarian Party on the ballot because our two Party system is destructive.

State Auditor, Tim Berry (R).

Treasurer, Richard Mourdock (R).

US Representative, Scott Wise (L). This was the toughest race on the ballot for me…

State Senator District 15, Jack Morris (D). His opponent is long time incumbent Tom Wyss (R). Tom Wyss is a nanny state big government Republican who keeps enacting new seat belt laws. He has been in office too long and needs to be replaced.

State Representative 85, Paul Leslie (L). Phyllis Pond (R) has been in office way too long and needs to be replaced.

Judge, Superior Court, Wendy Davis. This was hard for me as well; I had a hard time choosing between Griffin and Davis. There is no way I was going to vote for the incumbent Scheibenberger.

County Auditor, Tera Klutz (R).

Sheriff, Ken Fries (R).

County Commissioner District #3, Therese Brown (R).

I will vote against putting the proposed property tax caps into the Indiana Constitution.

Mike Sylvester

Ryan Road Map

Republican Paul Ryan has create a fiscal road map that some House Republicans are embracing.  You can and should look at his plan because I feel that some parts of this plan will be considered and likely passed by the House of Representatives.

Paul Ryan should be commended for trying to come up with a comprehensive plan for fixing the fiscal mess this Country is in due to horrible choices made by Congress over the last 50 years. 

This post is going to look at his tax plan.  There are parts of it that are good and parts of it that are bad; overall it is good.

The Democrats are attacking his plan; however, they have absolutely no plan of their own except to keep kicking the can down the road and making our kids, grand kids, great grand kids, and so forth pay for our poor choices.

First off his plan limits Federal revenues to to this tax to 19% of GDP.  This seems fairly reasonable; I wish it could be lower; however, it cannot. 

For individuals:

For business he wants to repeal the corporate income tax; this is an absolute must.  We need to do this because of globalization; our companies operate at a serious disadvantage against foreign companies.

He wants to use a business consumption tax with the following tenets:

Mike

Why the Democrats should (and will lose) the election next week

There are truly a large number of reasons why the Democrats are going to lose the elections next week; however, in this post I am just going to discuss some of the major ones.  I truly think they are going to get trounced in the national elections.  I currently think the Republicans will gain about 45 seats in the House and 7 seats in the Senate.  

The major reasons are below; I hope some of the Democrats reading this blog will respond to this post.   

1.  The first reason is because this is a mid-term election.  The minority party historically tends to do well in the midterm elections.

2.  The second reason is because the US economy is crap and everyone knows it.  The Republicans are expending a lot of energy and money trying to convince the voters that it is the Democrats fault the economy is poor.  The Democrats are doing just the opposite.  As we have discussed on this blog before; there is no doubt in my mind that our current economic problems are AT LEAST 40% attributable to BOTH political parties.  Neither was innocent.  The problem the Democrats have to deal with is many of the voters do not care whose fault it is; they will take our their frustrations on whoever is in office.  The Democrats are in power so the voters will take it out on them.  Since the economy is crap the Democrats will be punished for it at the polls.

3.  The 3rd reason is the “right” is energized.  The Tea Party movement has brought a lot of discouraged conservatives back to the Republican Party.  Mid-term elections are about ”bringing out” your base and the Republicans are going to turn out their base.  Many Americans are absolutely furious (and they should be furious) about “Obamacare” and these people are going to vote.

4.  The 4threason is the “left” is no longer energized.  The “left” was energized in the 2006 election and they were really energized during the 2008 election and they carried President Obama to a big victory along with a lot of other Democrats.  The “left” is disappointed in the Democrats and do not feel that they have held to their campaign promises nor do they feel that they have passed an agenda that is “liberal” enough.  Examples of broken Democratic promises include:

a.  To draw down troop levels in the middle east and to cut military spending.  Neither has happened, in fact, our troops levels remain the same as when Republicans were in charge and military spending has significantly increased since Republicans were in charge.

b.  To “drain the swamp” in Washington and restore ethical behavior.  The truth of the matter is that power corrupts.  I do not believe that one political party is inherently more corrupt than the other; however, I do believe whichever party is in power is more likelyto behave in a manner that is not ethical.  The Democrats have been hammered with ethical violations and there is no doubt that most Americans realize that the Democrats have not “drained the swamp,” they have just continued the ethical violations of those they replaced.  Two Democratic House members will face trials that were purposefully delayed until after the elections.  This is the first time in decades that two members have been under investigation at the same time; this is the 3rd or 4th time Charlie Rangel (Democrat, New York) has been investigated.  

c.  To be more open and transparent.  The Obama Administration has been horribly opaque and refuses to be transparent.  What they have done is released more pages of documents; however, they do a lot more redacting. 

d.  The Democrats have been promising to restore fiscal discipline in Washington DC.  Nancy Pelosi specifically promised that there would be no more deficit spending when she became the House Speaker in January of 2007.  Since that time she has added 5 trillion dollars to the national debt. 

I could go on and on; however, that would not serve a real purpose.

Mike Sylvester

Gays in the military, Post 2

Earlier this week I posted about this issue and I wanted to update that post.

In my earlier post I was very irritated that an “activist judge” over-turned a law that had been in place for seventeen years.  Worse yet the judge denied a request from the President of the United States to delay the ruling for a period of time so the military could adjust to the new policy.  Soon thereafter the appeals Court stayed the order for an unknown period of time.

This process illustrates why it was a bad idea for one judge to overturn the law and then insist on immediate repeal even though she knew it was going to be appealed.  In one weeks time the military has had to change its rules multiple times and this serves no one. 

In my original post I was against a lone judge overturning a law like this.  After thinking about it and talking to a couple of people about it I am convinced I was wrong in part of my first post.  A lone Federal judge SHOULD be able to over-turn a law; this is how the judicial process works and how issues like this get to the US Supreme Court where they belong.

Where the judge went wrong was when they refused to stay the order.  This has caused a large disruption in our military and is unwarranted.

In my earlier post there were several good comments.  As I said in my earlier post I am now OK with gays openly serving in the military.  I did not used to be OK with it…  This is a stance that has slowly changed as I have gotten older.  It has taken me a long time to get to this point of view; however, I think it is time to change the culture of our military.

A couple of people commenting on the prior post said that gays openly serving in the military will cause a lot of disruptions and be a problem with unit cohesion.  I agree with that initially.  Initially there is going to be a lot of disruption and change is never easy.  Back when African Americans were integrated with white soldiers there was a lot of disruption as well; however, it was the right thing to do.

Bill specifically referred to his experience in the United States Navy.  Bill is a friend of mine and we both served in the nuclear power plants of US warships; he on a surface ship and me on a submarine.

Having an openly gay person on a submarine is going to be very disruptive in the beginning.  It is going to cause a lot of problems until the military culture adjusts and it is going to be a painful transition. 

When I served there were two instances where a crew member was found to be gay.  Both times they were immediately taken off of the submarine for their own safety.  There is no doubt in my mind that when I served (1989 - 1995) there is a decent chance that some of the crew members might have been inclined to physically assault another crew member who was gay.  I in no way support “gay bashing” or violence against gays.  In fact people who commit violence against someone just because of their sexual orientation is a person I will not associate with.   That being said; I am pretty sure it would have happened.

This transition is going to be very hard for the military; especially in certain branches (those with a lot of alpha males like the marine corps) and locations where the people are isolated (like on a submarine).

Mike

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