White House Radicals

Those of us that went through universities can easily remember the wild-eyed radicals that we encountered. They believed in Marx more than the Soviet Politibureau did. If they weren't Marxists, they were often completely irrational anarchists or black nationalists. I spent many an afternoon at the University of Iowa "Soap Box Sound-off" arguing with them. These goofballs seemed real on campus, but as we grew up and went on to other things in life, their crackpot pronouncements seemed more and more remote from our lives and the reality that we lived in.

Barrack Obama never left those days. His autobiography opens describes his infatuation with leftist radicalism. His "community organizing" days were simply the campus radical let loose on the guilible folks willing to blame everyone else for their problems. His rise to big city politics was steeped in the university and black nationalist communities. He sought out Rev. Wright where he, his wife and young children got the same black nationalist, anti-American rants. Obama studied those sermons when he left for law school. When he entered politics, he did so by first having a meeting in an unrepentant domestic terrorist's home. More on Ayres here and here. [Citations only used for underlying facts asserted or linked in the sources. Facts which have not been debunked or refuted].

No one should be surprised that President Obama thought that hiring a black nationalist, former Marxist, 9-11 conspiracy nut was anything unusual. Obama's pastor had preached for years that AIDs was invented by white people to kill blacks. Obama took his young daughters to that church and when he was away in Washington in his short US Senate term, his wife boasted that she and the girls did not miss a Sunday. Barrack Obama never left the naive and unbalanced world of university radicals.

Honestly, a white politician with half of that type of history would never have been elected to any state-wide office. Because of his race, we cannot talk about his own politicization of race. Because he happens to be black, he has been given a pass on anything in his history that does not fit the liberal "narrative" so successfully spun in the campaign.

However, in governing the truth is inching its way out. From the Skip Gates' incident to Van Jones, Obama is gradually having seem for what he is..... an inexperienced glib self-promoter that cannot take criticism well, whose default position is right back there with the old campus radicals. Obama and his advisors know that they cannot or at least should avoid openly describing their views. They know it is important to stick to the narrative. It's even Alinsky's book on radical organizing, i.e. use the other side's terms and frame of reference to keep people confused.

How many times in private conversations within the Obama circle do you think someone said something like Van Jones or Rev. Wright to be met with a smile and a reassuring "yes, we know, but you cannot say that publicly now."

No one, but God, can look into a man's soul, so we will never know how much of this radicalism Barrack Obama truly believes or how much he tolerates where it helps him politically with his base. But any serious politician above the city ward level would have long ago joined the rest of us in leaving the univeristy goofball radicals behind us.

Waterloo: Massive Democratic casualties predicted

The classic military blunder often revolves around underestimating the enemy's strength and then refusing to adjust the plan, committing troops and assets to a losing proposition. It always starts with a commander convincing himself that the battle is too important to avoid and that fighting another day in better circumstances is somehow not possible. Think about Martin Sheen's portrayal of Robert E. Lee in Gettysburg (1993) as Longstreet (Tom Berringer) tries to convince him to forgo the frontal assault.

Graphic: Hougoumont portion of Battle of Waterloo. Source: timegun.org


Just about everyone, including me, predicted that Obama's reaction to the growing resistance to Democrats' health care legislation would be to try to tough it out. This appears to be happening, perhaps even more stridently than expected. As Victor Davis Hanson notes: "Because of his inexperience and unfamiliarity with political hostility, I think Obama will press ahead on the present course, heightening partisan tensions, dividing the country, and ultimately diminishing his presidency further still." The military analogy is to A Bridge Too Far when ranking British intelligence officers brashly dismiss new intelligence that two German Panzer Divisions are in Arnhem....much like dismissing the town hall protests as "AstroTurf" or "evil-mongers."




An attempt to use parliamentary procedures on budget reconciliation to avoid a filibuster would be the political equivalent to becoming a suicide bomber detonating his load two blocks from the target among his fellow jihadists. Yet Obama and Congressional Democrat leaders seem unable to find a solution to keep even their own party on the same page. Intra-party disputes and disorganization seem to be growing not subsiding. So besides charging uphill against an resilient enemy that is pouring in reinforcements faster than his own troops, the Obama forces are seeing growing fratricide.

The "Waterloo" analogy seems more and more apt. Not because of any right-wing conspiracy, but because of vain and inexperienced decisions by the least experienced man to ever hold the office of President. Fortunately, because of the awakening of the American public this summer, the only casualties that this inept commander will inflict will be on his own troops.

2010 Elections: The Surge

If Republicans stick to the principles of Reagan and add the intensity of the Tea Party movement and town hall crusaders, the 2010 election will be another 1994.

I predicted this a little while back, relying on the increasingly clear exposure of the Obama post-partisan campaign message as the Big Lie. Polls now show even more shifts in the public seeing Obama as a committed liberal, tax-and-spend big government advocate. Morevoer, it is also more clear that he and his Deocrat leftist colleagues on the Hill have little patience for debate, discussion or facts in pursuit of their quest for bigger and more intrusive government. Pundits that said the Reagan message was outdarted, just five or six months ago, hould be hiding under their desks or writing mea cupas en masse.

Besides movement on the generic ballot, something like twenty percent in six months, polls now show voters in all groups believe that Obama will not keep his pledge to avoid new taxes on the middle class. Voters also prefer the GOP to Democrats on eight out of ten issues.

How far will it go? Well,pundits frequently noted, as I did, that if Obama tacked to the center and re-grouped on health care and reduced the stimulus spending, he could co-opt a lot of the new energy among conservatives and independents. This Clintonesque move, however, still seems outside his psychological profile. A true Narcissist cannot admit error and fault and Obama remains us everyday that this may indeed be his unalterable nature. Rather than readjust, the Emperor is throwing more of his troops into the slaughter on the front-lines. Like the general than is out-of-touch with the tactical conditions on the field, Obama continues to issue orders that cannot be carried out without making the situation worse and rolling up th casualties on his side.

Result: likely takeover of the House by the GOP in 2010. The first pollsters to suggest this have been those on the left!

This result will only occur if the Republican party keeps its head in the right place and remembers how it has won every election since Nixon left..... by being the party of smaller government, fiscal responsiblity, limited regulation, and personal freedom. We can harness the energy of the populist revolt on big government only if we stick to the principles of Ronald Reagan and maintain our tradition of being the rallying point for citizens committed to these principles and policies.

Issues: (1) repeal the stimulus bill; (2) use half the money to lower the deficit and half for tax relief to people who create jobs (not a crazy ear-marked cut, but a general business cut); (3) put a timeline of the government's holding of private assets, including not just those recently acquired, but TVA and other things that the Federal Government has no business being involved with, (4) finds ways to increase transparency in the legislative and executive branch, no more midnight proposals voted on the next morning, unless it is a war; (5) take simple, immediate steops with no budget impact to improve health care - (a) allow interstate policies and (b) cap malpractice awards to lower costs; (6) aggressively enforce election and civil rights laws to protect voters and penalize union thugs, black Panthers, and "community" scammers from illegally affecting voting and registration.

Become the unquestioned pro-democracy and pro-free market party again.

Randy Mott

The Mulah Solution: The Wrong Answer

The majority of almost every demographic now oppose the main tenets of the amorphous Obama health care debacle. While it would be expected that those with jobs and those with insurance would be less than enamored with plans to increase their costs and reduce their coverage, opposition has now extended to senior citizens, who decisively oppose the plans.

From Carol's Closet: read her Tampa report!

The crowds in and recently outside Congressional town hall meetings, reflect a broad consensus among the public, especially the likely voting public, that the Obama grand scheme is a mistake or far worse.Like the polls, Congressional mail is running five or ten to one against the proposals. It is no surprise that angry constituents, especially those of members of Congress that run on fiscal responsiblity, feel angry and betrayed. The classic bait-and-switch" has to be Barrack Obama's campaign promise of "returning to fiscal responsibility." The atmospherics of this duplicity are accentuated by the Administration new heavy-handed reactions.

The Democrats reaction to plummeting polls numbers (they are down on the generic Congressional ballot by 5 points today) has been vitriolic. They have attempted to paint the most vocal opposition as a bunch of paid stooges. They have attempted to intimidate dissent by the beginnings of an "enemies list." Now they are locking the public out of "public" town hall meetings to allow their union recruited crowds to create a good photo op for Democrats under fire for support of these unpopular policies. The next step may as well be to use the union thugs to physically assault the protesters, following the lead of the Administration's favorite "elected" leader in Iran.

Of course, none of these Democratic responses will work. They are simply increasing the zeal of the dissenters and, more in point, raise the public awareness of the unpopularity of the Democratic proposals. The Tampa lock-out and St. Louis lock-out this week may represent a turning point. When union thugs man the door to block the public from a public meeting, shielding elected officials from the adverse public reaction to positions they have taken, the very legitimacy of government can start to be questioned. Hope, change, transparency? The image is anything but and the very fact that the Democrats have elected to attempt this public intimidation will grievously injure their political future.

My 2010 campaign ad would be the Black Panther intimidating voters and showing the Obama Justice Department political guys dropping the case, coupled with some big union thug closing the door to a public Congressional town hall. Both of these images remind us of Obama's Chicago political machine background. They illustrate anything but "hope and change": more likely a throw-back to the days of big city political bosses and rigged elections.

The ads to date for the GOP have been very tame compared to the amunition that the Democrats are giving us.

George W. Bush was regularly accused of having a political tin ear [famous Pelosi faux pas here]. The fact is that Barrack Obama and the liberal Democrats seem to have managed to get everything wrong and apparently lack the political astuteness to figure a way out. I mentioned early on the blog, that this only becomes Obama's Waterloo if he allows to it. Apparently, the White House and its Congressional colleagues think that causing massive desertion from their ranks and huge casualties in their troops will somehow still carry the day, so it appears to be Waterloo.

Randy Mott

Obama's Test

As the new RNC ad "The Experiment" notes, in just 200 days Obama has dropped to earth from the clouds, losing his halo and his wings. The state legislator (yes, it was just four years ago) propelled into the limelight by his gift for using a teleprompter and a well-conceived, albeit ambigous message, has run aground. Absolutely nothing in his man's background should have trigger any other expectation.
Photo from LewWaters

Having never orchestrated a single major piece of legislation in the state capitol or in Washington, why would anyone be prized at his ineptitude in handling cap-and-trade and healthcare? Why would anyone be surprised that Obama lies and misrepresents about the healthcare bill, when he cannot even tell a straight story about his personal history? It is increasingly obvious that this guy is in "way over his head."

Maybe the best test of his character and ability will be how he handles the specter of defeat. Bill Clinton, a truly masterful politician, rushed to the center of the ideological spectrum, embracing welfare reform and a balanced budget, both often listed by Democrats as his great accomplishments, yet he resisted both until they were pushed on him by a resurgent Republican Congress. Yet Barrack Obama shows little signs of adaptation and improvisation. His famous "glass jaw" clearly shown in one campaign press conference, for example, See Doc Weasel for comment and video. The famous quote, "You are going to destroy my Presidency," reveals a lot about how tightly and fragilely wired this inexperienced radical self-promoter really is.... See JammieWearingFool. The glass jaw really starts showing in how the Obama perpetual campaign organization is dealing with the criticism on healthcare legislation. The response to the Naked Emperor videos exposing his goal of nationalize healthcare is pathetically inept and defensive.

There are few signs that Obama will adapt to the reality that he has lost the heathcare debate as well as the ability to use taxpayers money and federal government IOUs to buy more votes with new programs. Healthcare will only become his Waterloo if he elects to throw his army and resources into trying to take a position that could not be taken.* This appears to be happening and should not be surprising given the man's history, the Chicago machine culture around him, and his simultaneous inflated and fragile ego. The number of fatal mistakes in the world's history made by leaders who came to believe that their own destiny was bigger than all the forces around them has filled many textbooks and treatises.

Rent a movie this week about Hilter's last months and his issuing of delusional orders to military units that virtually did not exist any longer and his criticism of the generals who were telling him the unpleasant realities. I certainly reminds me of the White House reaction to the townhall meetings and Tea Parties. The most salient point to me is that I think Obama and the Left may actually believe that these are "mobs" organized by a tiny minority, rather than evidence of an emerging overwhelming majority that oppose their policies. They have clearly been in denial over the basic conservatism of the electorate, despite their efforts to obsfuscate and confuse the public over what they truly intend to do. The "get tough" advice that Obama got was exactly what he wanted to hear, as he preparing his troops for a hopeless and bloody assault uphill and into a well-prepared and dug-in enemy. His Waterloo.

Randy Mott



* I have war-gamed Waterloo using multiple different systems and believe that it was impossible for Napolean to have won the battle. Attacking left, right or "up-the-gut" all would have lead to a defeat IMO.

Great statement on grass-roots conservatism

From the Hot Air blog, a truly well-stated summary of "who we are" from Dr. Zero:

"We don’t like having to fight desperate battles to save our freedom and future from socialist politicians every ten or twenty years. We don’t like having our time wasted with trillion-dollar statist fantasies, when our government is already trillions of dollars in the red. We’re tired of checking the papers each day, to see which group of us has been targeted as enemies of the State. We’re growing impatient waiting for the Democrats to come up with ideas that don’t require their supporters to hate someone. We’ve had our fill of “progressives” who act as if we’re living in 1909, and none of their diseased policies have ever been tried before.

"We believe government should be punished for failing to live up to the expectations of its citizens, not the other way around. We don’t think people who destroy thousands of jobs and billions of dollars in market value should get a pass because they meant well. We’ve had enough of dodging a massive State that wants to organize, subsidize, penalize, and divide us. We refuse to pay tithe to a religion we don’t support, including the official State religion of global warming. We demand honesty, humility, and transparency from our public servants, no matter how many elections they’ve won. We won’t settle for making the only important decisions about our futures in the voting booth, once every couple of years.

"We don’t blame people for showing up to grab their share of a government handout. We blame the people who stole the money from the rest of us, and put it on the table for them."

Take a moment to read the whole piece, it is not that long. I only wish that Dr. Zero had a more substantive-sounding moniker!

Randy Mott

2010 Election: Early Predictions? UPDATED

It is a long way to November 2010. However, the trends lines are starting to get pretty well-defined. Here are some facts that should cheer up Republicans:

1. In mid-year elections, the White House incumbent party almost always loses seats in Congress;

2. Polling in elections where the candidates have been identified for 2009-2010 show Republicans leading in places that traditionally have been held by Democrats (New Jersey and Connecticut() or battlegrounds (Virginia);

3. The generic ballot (what party will you vote for in Congress) has shifted dramatically in favor of Republicans: Rasmussen reports 42% GOP to 39% Dem on July 28, 2009. This is a 3 point GOP lead and has shifted from a seven point GOP deficit in January 2009;

4. The generic ballot always has overstated the Democratic side in recent years. This may be the registered voters vs. likely voters effect, but it should scare Democrats. In 1994, when the GOP retook Congress in a dramatic election landslide, the generic ballot was a mixed bag in preelection polling:

ABC: — 47-46 in favor of the Dems (a 6-point swing in the last week toward the Dems)
Gallup: — 51-44 for the GOP (a 4 point swing in the last week toward the Dems)
NBC: — 46-35 for the GOP (a 2 point swing in the two weeks toward the Dems)
Times Mirror: — 48-43 for the GOP (a 7 point swing in the last month toward the Dems)
Source: National Journal.

5. If the trend continues, it is not inconceivable that Republicans could retake the House of Representatives. Nearly 50 Congressmen/women are up for reelection in Districts carried by McCain last year. The motivation to vote seems to strongly favor those who disapprove of the Democrats 2009 performance to date.

6. Look for the Democrats to bury the votes for the stimulus boon-doggle, cap-and-trade and early health care committee bills. All of these items are unpopular and will grow more so. Their strategy will likely be to create some opportunities for more popular votes on less controversial measures. This will mean that the Obama agenda will get buried as soon as Hill Demopcrats can find a semi-graceful way to hold its head underwater.

7. Unemployment is likely to still be high or even on a downward trend in the summer of 2010. It will lag six months or more behind other indicators, which are themselves still not into positive territory. The stimulus bill, cap-and-trade, and health care proposals will all depress investment and hurt the pace of recovery. The longer that they are on the plate, the longer that they will work negatively on the recovery. Major new investment has to occur mobnths before any positive effects will be felt by the public. That investment is staying home right now.

8. The rage in 2010 will not be RINOs (Republicans in name only) but DINOs (Democrats in name only). Many moderate Democrats may go the route of conservative Democrats, which is to say that only the fossils will remain. Every vote for the Obama agenda will hurt these guys in this election cycle. Continued opposition is likely to encourage either primary challengers (crazy Maxine Waters is already making noises) or result in less financial support from the Democratic campaign committees. Another focus will be why do you want to vote for someone who will vote for Pelosi and Reid to run Congress.

Source: The Flintstones, ABC.

9. The most intelligent political route (moving toward the center and obscuring ideological differences, which worked in the 2008 campaign) will likely not be taken by the key folks on the Left. Obama has a very limited understanding of Washington and very poor instincts when threatened. Putting the Leftist agenda on hold will also infuriate the Democratic party base in many places, which is far left of the general voting public. If this supprtessed turnout by a few points, it would translate into significant losses at the polls.

10. Demographics are still helping the GOP in many ways. The blue states are losing populations, House seats(next cycle in 2012), and have the worst problem in economic recovery efforts. Tax and spend Democrats in these jurisdictions are seeing bigger state deficits, higher taxes, and reduction of the "free lunches" that they used to buy votes for years.

Finally, very few people voted for this extreme agenda in 2008, which was hidden under code words like "hope," "change" and "progressive." The underlying strength of conservatives in the US has been the subject of several other posts here. The GOP needs to tap into these mainstream sentiments, get good candidates, and keep on a message of lower deficits, less government, more competition, more investment and economic growth.

UPDATE: Rasmussen now [August 6] has the GOP up by 5 points on the generic ballot. This is making 2010 look more like a potential 1994!

Obama's Invitation to Consider His Views on Race

Inexplicably the media and the GOP in the 2008 election eventually gave Barrack Obama a pass on his personal history of association with radicals, including race-baiter Reverend Wright. The GOP candidate urged Republicans not to run the videos and use the quotes. All of this despite that fact that this racist Wright character was Obama's minister for 20 years, married the Obamas, that Michelle stated she and the daughters never missed a Sunday service, and that Obama wrote in his book that he took tapes of Wright's sermons to college to study them. Obama even described Wright as his "spiritual advisor" and had him on the campaign in an official capacity before someone figured out who he was.

Now after his apparently premeditated support for Professor Henry Lewis Gates, President Obama has opened up the issue again in my opinion. All of the evidence now slowly emerging indicates that Professor Gates was an arrogant jerk who himself made racist remarks about the police trying to protect his home. Less we get too excited about his Harvard-Cambridge credentials, let's remember his "your mama" epithet.

We know less about Obama than any man elected to the Presidency in modern times (maybe ever). These little windows into who he is and where he is coming from offer more significance than they might otherwise. While his personal history of leftist radicalism, association with domestic terrorists from the Left and black racists, and other extremists were deemed forbidden topics by political correctness during the campaign amidst the hype about "hope and change," this veneer of protection is now gone.

Pragmatically, anyone raising fundamental issues about Obama's background and personal choices of mentors and associates was viewed as sour grapes over the last twelve months. How could a conscientious person inject this nasty stuff into a celebration of "hope and change"? Doesn't the white man's guilt require that we use a separate standard for evaluating black politicians that excuses their indulgence in anti-American and extremist ideologies? Can't we use affirmative action in election campaigns as well as hiring?

Well, the chickens have come home to roost. Obama has opened the door to an examination of his views on black racism. How much of his "redistribution of the wealth" (in his words "spreading it around") schemes are anchored in this radical personal history?The "new car smell" is gone from the continuous, relentless and sophisticated Obama campaign... a campaign that has never stopped. Had we looked harder at the candidate Obama, the public and media would have seen a guy who was the extreme "tax and spend liberal" at the least. Maybe they would have seen a guy whose closest colleagues had an agenda fundamentally different from 90% of the country. Maybe they would have asked why Rev. Wright was so important to Obama when he needed political acceptance in the black Chicago community and was so expendable when he sought national office?

Well, now we can ask. "Hope and change" have proven to be poor measures of governance. Using broad, fuzzy-headed legislative objectives, while giving the detail work to be to the Democratic standard bearers on the Hill, has been an abysmal failure (the stimulus bill, the cap-and-trade bill, and the heath care bill). 24/7 public relations in a campaign mode has not got the job done from anyone's perspective. Approval ratings have flipped. It is a Democratic "brand" that, in only six months, is now a liability. There is no new paradigm that makes old "labels" irrelevant and the old political framework may be more appropriate than ever for viewing the current controversies.

Lead by locally-organized "Tea Parties," the public is resisting the irresponsible growth of government, debt and regulation. While Americans are finally seeing Barrack Obama as another "tax and spend" liberal at best and maybe a real extremist.

Into this setting, the Professor Gates controversy may emerge as one of the defining moments of the Obama presidency. Fate is funny that way. Gates is infinitely more sophisticated and mainstream than Wright. But the common element shared is that both have a black racist slant to their views of reality. Black separatism is a fundament premsie of Henry Gates' view of culture. Can anyone imagine an expert on Caucasian literature? How about the Congressional White Caucus? The majority of Americans have accepted these reverse racism notions out of white guilt. They have nothing in common with Martin Luther King's color-blind dream.

The collective culture that endorses reverse racism has a firm tenet that society owes them. That government should be in the position of picking winners and losers. That government must correct the things that society has wrought. This is the very core of Barrack Obama's personal history and political context.

The Gates controversy is a very small matter. It got "legs" because intuitively folks saw it as a window into a room that they had been locked out of. At minimum, it opens the door to the review of Obama's personal history and the choices that he has made, including Rev. Wright. In a deeper sense, it illustrates how his view of the role of government is fundamentally at odds with the sense of most Americans. With plummeting poll numbers, even the media is now asking more questions of "The One." When we finally start evaluating Obama with the same crieria that we use for white politicians, we will have achieved no small victory.