Terry Everett Brown's Weblog

Obama = Embarrassing
If I were a democrat I'd be demanding he resign and let Hilary run. But since I'm not, I'm hoping that doesn't happen, because she'd probably put up a very competitive campaign against anyone in 2012.

http://campaign2012.washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/obamas-thing-gruel-osawatomie/247271

Ive been crunching some numbers...

If you look closely at the following aggregate of recent polls, there are a few interesting stories to keep in mind as we move into the heat of the GOP Primary season:
1. If you add up the support of all the candidates, it totals 82.6%, which means 17.4% are either undecided or abstaining. Who will win these votes in Iowa, NH, SC and FL ?
2. If you assume the top three will remain in the race, along with Ron Paul who just seems determined to overplay his hand on principle, there are 15.2% of votes currently with Huntsman, Santorum, Bachman and Perry. Who will win those votes as they disengage?

If you divide the undecided votes up on a weighted average based on current support,

Cain gains 4 points to 27%
Romney gains 3.9 points to 26.3%
Gingrich gains 2.3 points to 15.5%
Paul gains1.4 points to 9%

And if you multiply the 15.2% of otherwise committed votes by the same weighted average:

Cain gains 3.5 points to 30.5%
Romney gains 3.4 points to 29.7%
Gingrich gains 2 points to 17.5%
Paul gains 1.2 points to 10.2%

However, if we dig down one layer deeper, we can expect a slightly different result. We can assume that most of the people who currently support the bottom half of the field, Perry, Bachman Santorum and Hunstman are likely to select a similarly conservative candidate (with the exception of Huntsman supporters who are likley to select the more moderate option). If you allocate these votes based on a wieghted avererage of current support,

Cain gains 4.7 points to 31.7
Romney gains 1 point to 27.3
Gingrich gains 4.7 points to 20.2
Paul gains 4.7 points to 13.7

Then what?
Well, moving toward Super Tuesday all four of the contenders would have enough support to play kingmaker if they so chose. It is hard to imagine Ron Paul throwing his support behind anyone, and more likely he'd switch to run himself as a 3rd party candidate, but if he did ally himself, it is likely he'd pick Gingrich or Cain over Romney. Likewise with Gingrich or Cain. Both would be more likely to support one another before Romney, so we can project along these lines that

Cain could gain 20.2 from Gingrich to 51.9%
Romney could remain at 27.3%
Gingrich could gain 31.7 points from Cain to 51.9%
Paul could remain (or peel off to 3rd party) with 13.7%

The obvious disclaimers apply:
This is based on current numbers, which will change every day. Endorsements won't carry 100% of support from one candidate to the next. Many voters will not adhere strictly to the relative ideology of the candidates as they transfer support.

However, if we look at trend lines and project outward, we can see how it will be harder for Romney than for Cain or Gingrich to gain support as the bottom half of the field fades and as the undecided join in. What is currently a split field liability for Gingrich and Cain will most likely become a windfall for whichever one of them emerges to challenge Romney.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2012/president/us/republican_presidential_nomination-1452.html

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2012/president/us/republican_presidential_nomination-1452.html

Obama the Grinch...

http://blog.heritage.org/2011/11/08/obama-couldnt-wait-his-new-christmas-tree-tax/

This is the epitome of absurd government waste at the hands of corrupt bureaucrats who think the government should control everything at the expense of the taxpayers! Here's a newsflash, Mr. President: People need jobs, not a government-funded Christmas tree promotion plan!

The US is showing striking ignorance again-- ignoring/denying the biggest problem in the world...similarities to the Roman Empire???

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/iaea-says-foreign-expertise-has-brought-iran-to-threshold-of-nuclear-capability/2011/11/05/gIQAc6hjtM_story.html?hpid=z1

AMEN TO THIS!!

Obama's Politics of Societal Wreckage

In the absence of a definitive opponent, I don't think we should be surprised that Obama is 'going negative' on the 50+% of the electorate that doesn't support him or his policies. What is surprising, however, is if he is willing to punish job-creators in effort to create jobs, then why isn't he willing to sell-out the extreme fringe of his base in effort to court independents who would likely reelect him if he even as much as temporarily pretended to acknowledge the failure of his Keynsian policies.

A run-on sentence like the previous one is more than enough of a reminder as to why I defer to Krauthammer yet again to better explain the psycholitics of Obammunism...

FYI- I looked up 'Manichaean'. It means radically dualistic, as in pitting forces against each other in extremely stark contrast, like good vs. evil or light vs. dark.

Enjoy...

Charles Krauthammer
Opinion Writer
The scapegoat strategy

By Charles Krauthammer, Published: October 13

What do you do if you can’t run on your record — on 9 percent unemployment, stagnant growth and ruinous deficits as far as the eye can see? How to run when you are asked whether Americans are better off than they were four years ago and you are compelled to answer no?

Play the outsider. Declare yourself the underdog. Denounce Washington as if the electorate hasn’t noticed that you’ve been in charge of it for nearly three years.

But above all: Find villains.

President Obama first tried finding excuses, blaming America’s dismal condition on Japanese supply-chain interruptions, the Arab Spring, European debt and various acts of God.

Didn’t work. Sounds plaintive, defensive. Lacks fight, which is what Obama’s base lusts for above all.

Hence Obama’s new strategy: Don’t whine, blame. Attack. Indict. Accuse. Who? The rich — and their Republican protectors — for wrecking America.

In Obama’s telling, it’s the refusal of the rich to “pay their fair share” that jeopardizes Medicare. If millionaires don’t pony up, schools will crumble. Oil-drilling tax breaks are costing teachers their jobs. Corporate loopholes will gut medical research.

It’s crude. It’s Manichaean. And the left loves it. As a matter of math and logic, however, it’s ridiculous. Obama’s most coveted tax hike — an extra 3 to 4.6 percent for millionaires and billionaires (weirdly defined as individuals making more than $200,000) — would have reduced last year’s deficit (at the very most) from $1.29 trillion to $1.21 trillion. Nearly a rounding error. The oil-drilling breaks cover less than half a day’s federal spending. You could collect Obama’s favorite tax loophole — depreciation for corporate jets — for 100 years and it wouldn’t cover one month of Medicare, whose insolvency is a function of increased longevity, expensive new technology and wasteful defensive medicine caused by an insane malpractice system.

After three years, Obama’s self-proclaimed transformative social policies have yielded a desperately weak economy. What to do? Take the low road: Plutocrats are bleeding the country, and I shall rescue you from them.

Problem is, this kind of populist demagoguery is more than intellectually dishonest. It’s dangerous. Obama is opening a Pandora’s box. Popular resentment, easily stoked, is less easily controlled, especially when the basest of instincts are granted legitimacy by the nation’s leader.

Exhibit A. On Tuesday, the Democratic-controlled Senate passed punitive legislation over China’s currency. If not stopped by House Speaker John Boehner, it might have led to a trade war — a 21st-century Smoot-Hawley. Obama knows this. He has shown no appetite for a reckless tariff war. But he set the tone. Once you start hunting for villains, they can be found anywhere, particularly if they are conveniently foreign.

Exhibit B. Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin rails against Bank of America for announcing a $5-a-month debit card fee. Obama echoes the opprobrium with fine denunciations of banks and their hidden fees — except that this $5 fee is not hidden. It’s perfectly transparent.

Yet here is a leading Democratic senator advocating a run on a major (and troubled) bank — after two presidents and two Congresses sunk billions of taxpayer dollars to save failing banks. Not because they were deserving or virtuous but because they are necessary. Without banks, there is no lending. Without lending, there is no business. Without business, there are no jobs.

Exhibit C. To the villainy-of-the-rich theme emanating from Washington, a child is born: Occupy Wall Street. Starbucks-sipping, Levi’s-clad, iPhone-clutching protesters denounce corporate America even as they weep for Steve Jobs, corporate titan, billionaire eight times over.

These indignant indolents saddled with their $50,000 student loans and English degrees have decided that their lack of gainful employment is rooted in the malice of the millionaires on whose homes they are now marching — to the applause of Democrats suffering acute Tea Party envy and now salivating at the energy these big-government anarchists will presumably give their cause.

Except that the real Tea Party actually had a program — less government, less regulation, less taxation, less debt. What’s the Occupy Wall Street program? Eat the rich.

And then what? Haven’t gotten that far.

No postprandial plans. But no matter. After all, this is not about programs or policies. This is about scapegoating, a failed administration trying to save itself by blaming our troubles — and its failures — on class enemies, turning general discontent into rage against a malign few.

From the Senate to the streets, it’s working. Obama is too intelligent not to know what he started. But so long as it gives him a shot at reelection, he shows no sign of caring.

Forget the Rhetoric. Solve the Problem.

I've been thinking about the ponzi scheme that is Social Security for years now, as it is a prime example of why I believe the government is a sham that needs to be massively downsized and radically refocused. If I proposed to most of my liberal friends that they pay into an investment fund today that will generate no profits but rather would repay them later an increased amount, based on the contributions of future investors, they'd very likely be wary. But then when I informed them that the pool of future investors was diminishing at the same rate that contributors to social security is, while the number of investors expecting payouts was increasing at the same rate that the number of people expecting to collect social security is, then every one of them would either laugh (or spit) in my face. And rightly so, who wants to be invited into a scam like that?
Worse yet, who wants to be FORCED into scam like that, perpetrated by the very government we pay to protect and to serve us?!

I would suggest that nobody would want to be forced into this racket if they clearly understood the facts. However, we live in a society where we elect our government officials, and they are less likely to fix something like social security if their constituents are lead to believe that they are trying to take it away from them rather than to save it from inevitable self destruction. So years go by and we get closer and closer to a bankrupt system. The few who try to reform or save it are accused of ridiculous motives.

And then along comes a presidential candidate who comes right out and says what most people already know but are afraid to say in public: its a ponzi scheme. And so ignites a debate about whether or not that is an accurate characterization of the broken system. How frustrating. The point is entirely missed. The debate should not be about whether or not it is a ponzi scheme, but how to reform or save the failing enterprise, which all can agree is built on outdated demographics that do not apply at all to the system's current constituency.

Well, thank God for Charles Krauthammer for saying what I have been thinking, yet unable to say for years now: forget the rhetoric and solve the problem. The math is not that complicated and the solutions are just waiting to be implemented. If our government can't fix this leaky sink, then we've got problems more serious than a broken social security system, we've got a broken government system.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/a-ponzi-scheme-that-should-be-fixed/2011/09/15/gIQAn6EfVK_story.html

Its hard to understand how common sense solutions to real problems are so difficult to implement in our government today. This is partially the case because it is so difficult to get a clear message accross in the fragmented and partisan media market in which we consume our information. Contemporary Conservatives are doing our part today by posting this common sense approach to tax reform by Rep. Paul Ryan.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2011/09/14/rep_ryan_three_steps_to_pro-growth_tax_reform.html

Dangerously Effective or Maniacally Incompetent ?

$5 Trillion dollars in deficit spending in only 2 years is something Obama and the left are proud of. In fact, he is already campaigning on his successful transformation of the health care system and the American economy. Contemporary conservatives are flummoxed at how anyone can see this 'successful'redistribution of wealth and skyrocketing health care costs resulting from the ironically named 'Health Affordability Act' as something to brag about, but therein lies the chasm of ideological difference between the liberal left and contemporary conservatives.

Contemporary conservatives have wondered aloud for years whether the liberal left is recklessly naive or calculatingly cruel because of its insistence upon the expanded role of government in all aspects of life. At times like these our instinct to assume best intent has been challenged. We have traditionally differed from our fellow conservatives to the far right who have argued that the left advocates redistribution of wealth because it KNOWS it will cripple capitalism and subjugate a larger voting population to dependence on government programs. Yes, we realize that the very people who promote these policies stand to benefit directly from an increased voting population of dependents, but we contemporary conservatives have been reluctant to believe purveyors of dependency politics are engaged in intentionally weakening the economy for their own political gain. We contemporary conservatives tend to believe those on the left are operating out of emotion rather than logic, and are either unable or unwilling to connect the dots and realize the counter-intuitive realities of economics and free market capitalism. It is not, after all, simple to understand the tenets of Adam Smith and Milton Friedman without having the luxury of an education in economics.

The current foreign policy crises in the middle east, however, are creating a major shift in thinking amongst contemporary conservatives with regard to the intentions and acumen of Obama. While we are likely to accept his effectiveness at deconstructing market capitalism in our economy as dangerously effective, we struggle to refute the more cynical perspective of traditional conservatives on the right who see the leftist foreign policy as beyond incompetent and in fact actively self-serving at the cost of those it portends to help. The following analysis of the administration's approach to Syria and Iran suggests the President and his administration are calculatedly cruel in thinking it is appropriate to undermine popular rebellions against tyrannical dictators because those rebellions might jeopardize the President's opportunity to achieve reforms through his own ability to charm dictators into reforming.

The impression of Obama amongst contemporary conservatives is lurching from a fear that he is dangerously effective to one that he is maniacally incompetent.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/syrias-reformer/2011/03/31/AFy4JFCC_story.html

Obama is Out To Lunch in a Time of Real Crises

Obama is out to lunch, literally, committing a slow, painful-to-watch suicide ironically similar the slow-motion meltdown happening in Japan.
His abdication of leadership in Libya and the wider Middle East crisis, the domestic budget showdown and most importantly, the natural disasters followed by nuclear meltdown in Japan are shocking by any standard.

Yes, we acknowledge there are limits to American foreign policy and the crisis in Japan has nothing to do with Obama's policies. Perhaps his failure to participate in the budget process is a calculated risk, given the disastrous effects of his first two years' relatively proactive approach to policy legislation. But it is hard to imagine why he would go on-air at ESPN to offer in-depth analysis of North Carolina's NCAA tournament prospects in face of the Mideast crisis, while the world is very actively awaiting even the slightest sense of direction from the President of United States. And playing golf is not automatic political suicide, but given Obama's well-known penchant for the time-consuming and self-indulgent past time, (he's played 63 rounds during 2 years in the oval office, more than his 2 predecessors did in 4 years) it appears downright insane in the face of a nuclear meltdown. In fact, the White House broadcast a pre-recorded radio addresses during the Japanese nuclear emergency- about women's rights in the workplace.

Obviously, his ability to help in Japan is limited, but you might think he would at least have taken to the airwaves by now to reassure his own citizens that he is working closely with the Japanese and the US military to do whatever possible, and also to address the concerns of people in Hawaii, Alaska and the west coast who are about to come under a nuclear cloud of uncertain risks. That is his job. Not to unilaterally undo earthquakes, quell global unrest and solve a 14 trillion dollar debt crisis, but to engage on these issues, both privately and publicly with experts and with the public at large, to demonstrate leadership and instill confidence at home and abroad. His failure to do so may instill confidence in those who fear that everything he touches becomes an even greater government problem, but for most Americans of all political stripes, the President's abdication of leadership on all fronts is unsettling at best.