Sunday, October 31, 2010

Predictions On The Coming GOP Wave: House Yes, Senate No.



On Tuesday, November 2nd, to the surprise of no one, 
the Great GOP Wave will wash over Washington D.C.

Frightened Democrats and liberals are making headlines
with scare stories of a 60 to 70 seat Democratic rout in the 
House, and loss of control of the Senate as well. 

To the mainstream media , an epic repeat of the 
Disaster Of 1994 is in the works,  when the 
Democrats lost 53 seats in the House 
and eleven in the Senate to hand total 
control of Congress to an angry and motivated 
GOP.

Is this going to happen again? I think not.

I am, however, predicting that the GOP will 
take control of the House, picking up a total of 
47 seats, with most of the Democratic
losses coming from freshman and sophomore
Representatives in districts that went for McCain
in 2008. A silver lining in all this for the Democrats
is that most of their key leadership is predicted to
return to Congress, which will give them some 
necessary "time in opposition" to impose discipline
and develop an ideologically coherent message.

The Senate, however, is a different story. To win the 
majority, the GOP would have to add ten seats to the
41 they currently control. This looks to be out of reach now.
As of this writing, the GOP will pick up three contested 
seats (Arkansas, Indiana, and North Dakota) and possibly
add another in Wisconsin, where Democratic incumbent
Russ Feingold is running behind newcomer Ron Johnson
(former CEO of S.C. Johnson Co.). That leaves six to go.

And these six states - Pennsylvania, Colorado, Nevada,
Illinois, Delaware, and Washington - have been closely 
watched ever since the primaries. My prediction: The
Republicans will pick up three, the Democrats will
retain three. Here's the breakdown:

1) Pennsylvania. Pat Toomey (R) and Joe Sestak (D)
have been battling neck-and-neck all summer for the
seat being vacated by defeated Sen. Arlen Specter (D,
formerly (R) ). It all depends on turnout in heavily
Democratic Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, 
as the rest of the State leans heavily Republican.
If Sestak's margin in the Philadelphia area is less
than 400,000, Toomey wins. My prediction: Pat Toomey
will be the new Republican Senator.

2) Colorado. Appointed Senator Michael Bennett (D)
and former Weld County D.A. Ken Buck (R) are battling
for the seat vacated by Interior Secretary Ken Salazar.
This race has attracted perhaps the most out-of-state
and 3rd-party money of any save the race in Nevada.
At this moment, the race is rated a toss-up by the media.

My take: Obama won Colorado narrowly in 2008 on the 
strength of Denver and Colorado Springs suburban liberals.
These folks have since been hammered by huge 
white-collar layoffs, and Colorado leads the nation 
in unemployment among educated, white-collar 
professionals. Outside of the Denver and Colorado 
Springs areas, the state is Red and getting redder.
Prediction: Ken Buck takes this seat for the GOP.

3) Nevada. Probably the most watched Senate race in the 
nation, this one pits Senate Majority Leader  Harry Reid
against exciting and outspoken newcomer Sharron Angle.
Early on, Reid was expected to "vaporize" the "extreme"
Ms. Angle and cruise to re-election. It hasn't turned out
that way.

Ms. Angle seized the initiative in their only debate, coming
across as both reasonable and energetic while Reid looked
and sounded every bit the tired, entrenched Washington 
insider. When Reid mumbled on and on about "markups"
and "Senate procedure", Ms. Angle told him to "man up"
and "take responsibility" for the disastrous condition
of both the local and national economy.

At that moment, the momentum switched to Ms. Angle.

Unenviably, Nevada leads the nation in unemployment,
foreclosures, and bankruptcies, and Reid and the 
Democrats have done precious little to turn things 
around.Even the endorsements of the large gaming
and mining interests (which came before Ms. Angle
even won the primary), have probably hurt Sen. Reid
more than they have helped. Ms. Angle has very
effectively painted Harry Reid as the candidate of 
big money interests, while she fights for the little guy.
My prediction: Reid fights Angle to a draw in Clark
County (Las Vegas), and loses resoundingly everywhere
else.  Sharron Angle goes to Washington, in what the
national media will term a huge upset.

4) Illinois. The race between State Treasurer Alex 
Giannoulias (D) and former Rep. Mark Kirk (R) for
President Obama's old seat has been watched for over 
a year. And this one is turning out to be a classic, with
The Chicago Democratic Machine  pitted against
conservative, downstate Republicans. Early scandals
involving Giannoulias with his family's failed bank
and disgraced ex-Gov. Rod Blagojevich and convicted
"fixer" Tony Rezko haven't been reflected in the polls,
which show the Democrat with a slight lead.

My take: Kirk wins downstate, but the  Chicago machine,
now strengthened with the help of former White House
Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel, does its usual "fixing".
Alex Giannoulias becomes the new Democratic Senator
from Illinois.

5) Delaware. This is the one state where the Tea Party
over-reached, nominating the unelectable Christine
O'Donnell over the pragmatic GOP moderate Mike
Castle in a very low-turnout primary.

All the national Democrats had to do was replay 
endless bits from Bill Maher's Politically Incorrect,
where Ms. O'Donnell was a frequent guest talking 
about  witchcraft and Satanism. Result? Game Over.
Chris Coons (D), the Yale-educated lawyer and former
New Castle County Executive, goes to the Senate.

6) Washington State. Sen. Patty Murray (D) has been
locked in a tight battle against newcomer Dino Rossi.
While Murray has not been exactly the most effective 
of Senators, she has been instrumental in keeping
Boeing (Washington's largest employer) from 
outsourcing more jobs either overseas or to lower-cost
Kansas or South Carolina, saving thousands of
high-skill, high-wage jobs.

Add to this the fact that Washington (like 
Oregon and California) has a large edge in 
Democratic voter registration and this race 
will go as predicted, with Murray winning re-election 
by a 53% -47% margin.

Bottom Line: The GOP will make significant gains,
but the gains in my opinion could have been
larger had the GOP campaigned more on policy  
and less on blanket opposition to all things Obama.

The reason they didn't campaign on policy 
is that the mainstream GOP is hugely beholden 
to Wall Street and Corporate America, and 
mainstream GOP policy calls for more outsourcing, 
more job exportation to the Third World, shredding
what remains of the the social safety net, and vast
reductions in the standards of living for everyone
except the very richest 1%.

And the Democrats?  Rather than preach Class Warfare
and the interests of ordinary Americans, they became 
the Party of Government and Business As Usual,
becoming the party of  favor-granting, ear-marking,
bailouts, spending and pork.
With the economy in tatters and poverty and desperation
increasing everywhere, The Tea Party, unruly and 
disorganized though it may be, has become the last best
hope for millions of disfranchised Americans abandoned
by both their government and their financial elites.

And this may be the last chance the "system" gets. Two
more years like the last two and there won't be "elections"
in 2012.

There will be a Revolution - led by a Nationalist
Strongman, probably from the military.

Move over, Argentina - here comes the U.S.A. !

Sunday, October 10, 2010

Endorsement: Sharron Angle For U.S. Senate



November 2nd  is shaping up to be perhaps the most 
crucial Mid -Term election in modern American history.


Facing what is unarguably the darkest  economic climate 
since the Great Depression, the choices facing Americans 
could not be more clear.


Either we continue on the same path we are on now - 
more debt, more spending, more government regulation,
or we use this crisis as an opportunity to make a clean
break with the past and begin anew.


And to begin anew, it is going to take more than just
new policies. It is going to take new people in the House
and Senate; new people untainted by the failed policies
and platitudes of BOTH parties which have placed us 
in the predicament we are in now.


And, here in Nevada, we have an opportunity to start
the national renewal process  that is so badly needed.


We can begin by sending Sharron Angle to represent us 
in Washington.

And why are we opposed to Harry Reid?  Because 
in 24 years in the Senate, good ol' Harry has gone
from representing Nevada in Washington to representing
Washington to Nevada.


We can begin with ObamaCare - the "healthcare reform"
that wasn't. The president had started with a good 
premise - that health care in the United States was both 
too expensive and inaccessible for the vast majority of 
Americans. The Bush years had seen an explosion in 
premium costs, vast reductions in coverage, and huge 
oligopoly profits for the health insurance industry. 
The system was irretrievably broken, and crying out 
for drastic reform.


Yet, when the "public option" was on the table, 
together with necessary cost controls on pharmaceuticals 
and the insurance industry, it was Harry Reid, more 
than anyone else, who bluntly told the president that 
anything that restricted the profits of the health insurance 
industry and Big Pharma was off the table.


Not only would true reform never pass the Senate, 
Harry said, but also that he personally could not support 
any bill that did not keep control of health care delivery
with the for-profit private sector.


And now we know where that has led us. Health care
premiums are rising at 25-30% rates, millions are facing
the loss of all of their health coverage through employer
plans, and costs are escalating through the roof.


If your employer is dropping your health coverage or
doubling or tripling your premiums or deductibles, you 
can thank Harry Reid for that.


And, as the Las Vegas Review-Journal points out, in 
its Oct. 3 endorsement of  Ms. Angle:


" As he has climbed higher and higher in the Democratic
hierarchy, he has veered further and further to the left,
becoming politically disconnected from Nevada and its
residents "


Truer word was never spoken. And on the other failed
policies of the past two years, on bailouts for Wall Street
and the auto companies, on the pork-laden "stimulus",
on "cap-and-trade" that threatens to sink the nation into 
permanent uncompetitiveness, Harry Reid has led the 
charge for it all.


Indeed, it can plausibly be argued that rather than"hitching
his wagon" to the Obama agenda, it was Harry Reid who
convinced the President that in order to succeed he needed 
to conform his program to  the Harry Reid-Nancy Pelosi 
agenda of  high taxes, intrusive regulation,and crony 
capitalism for Wall Street and the Fortune 500.

Finally, there's the issue of who supports who in 
this contest. Not only has Harry Reid obtained the 
support of the usual Democrat suspects (including 
the public employee unions), but he has also obtained 
the support of almost every private interest needing a 
government-granted "favor" in either 
Washington or Carson City.


Both the U.S. and Nevada Chambers of Commerce 
are supporting Reid. The gambling and mining 
interests  have loaded up his campaign coffers 
with most of the $25 million Reid is banking for this 
election. Even long-time Carson City GOP "fixers" 
and  "insiders" Sig Rogich and Bill Raggio
have signed on to the Reid bandwagon.


Against all this, Sharron Angle has only the people. 
And in this state, the people are, to put it mildly, 
fed up. Unenviably, Nevada leads the nation in 
foreclosures, bankruptcies, and unemployment rate.


And how has Harry Reid responded? If Harry Reid 
were any kind of Democrat Majority Leader, say on
the order of the late Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia, 
Nevada should be awash in federal projects, federal 
employment,  and federal dollars, and riding out the 
recession if not comfortably, at least  satisfactorily.


Instead, Nevada ranks 49th out of 50 states in overall 
federal dollars returned to the state. Fiftieth in federal aid 
to highways. A dismal 49th in federal aid to K-12 and higher 
education. Indeed, Harry has been so busy handing out 
special favors to everyone else he has completely forgotten
the home folks. For a Democrat, that's inexcusable.


Against all this, Sharron Angle represents a 
complete break from the failed policies of the past. 
A principled and unwavering voice for low taxes, 
less regulation, competition and free enterprise,
Sharron Angle will be a key player in making 
sure that a more conservative and more Republican 
House and Senate stay in line and on message.


And that message is NO to more spending, more
regulation, more debt, and more special favors 
and breaks to those corrupt private  interests who 
have done so much to bring this country to its 
knees.


And if that's a message you agree with, then the choice is clear.

Vote for Sharron Angle on November 2nd.