A note of caution for conservative voters

Still a big tent or just a bunch of smaller ones?

Perhaps I am getting ahead of myself with this, given that the 2016 election is a long way away. But I think the logic and reason behind this post also applies to the 2014 mid-term elections. Some Tea Party candidates beat incumbents, some didn't. The notion of supporting the better choice, albeit a less than ideal choice in many cases, has merit.

The Big Tent that Ronald Reagan claimed the GOP possessed or should possess, is something conservative voters need to keep in mind. While I'm quite happy to dismiss the MSM meme that there is a civil war within the Republican Party - Establishment vs. Tea Party vs. Libertarians (many of whom do not support the GOP) - there is a cautionary note housed within it.

Should Ted Cruz win the GOP nomination, it would benefit moderate and establishment Republicans to support him over Hillary Clinton or Elizabeth Warren. The same can be said of non-supporters of Rand Paul. But the same is also likely true if Mitt Romney were the candidate. Many die hard libertarians and conservatives could not hold their noses and vote for Mitt Romney, even though he would be a far better choice than Hillary Clinton would be.

Withholding your vote isn't akin to a civil war within the conservative movement, but it does seem short-sighted. Holding out for the perfect candidate is folly, because no such candidate exists, and never has. Allowing socialism to prevail over weak conservatism or libertarianism or Tea Party conservatism, or moderation even, is a poison pill.

Mark 3:25 -- "And if a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand".

Or in this case, a big tent.  Just saying.

Friday Musical Interlude - Flashdance (but not the one you think)

Today's Friday Musical Interlude comes from Deep Dish circa 2006, the song is Flashdance. But it's not a song from the movie of the same name, it's a catchy dance song by Deep Dish.

Enjoy.

Evidence Obamacare will slowly eat you alive

This recent video from the Fraser Institute in Canada shows what Canadians are paying in taxes and have been paying since 1961. What the video does not show you, but it is something that is highly relevant to Obamacare in the United States, is that 1961 is the year the Canadian federal government started paying for socialized health care across all provinces:

Support of public health services was significantly extended through the introduction of a universal hospital insurance program proclaimed in 1959. By 1961, agreements had been signed between the federal government and all provincial governments.

 

Be forewarned this WILL happen in the United States as Obamacare devours the economy. Obamacare will indeed eat you alive.

Thursday Hillary Bash - The Weight of Her Words

John Podhoretz sums up the implications of Hillary Clinton hitting Obama, and hitting hard. Secretaries of State, sitting or gone, do not hit their president like she has. The weight of her words are actually pretty stark:

"Hillary Clinton is the most popular politician in America now...And she has decided, for all intents and purposes, to go into opposition.

That was the meaning of the extraordinary interview she granted Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic over the weekend. It was the annunciation of her separation from you and your legacy...

The key sentence is this: “Great nations need organizing principles,” Hillary told Goldberg, “and ‘Don’t do stupid stuff’ is not an organizing principle.”

She distances herself from the bad decisions or Syria and Israel pretty forcefully in the interview. She is going on offense against Obama because his job approval in the area of foreign policy has become abysmal. She sees this as an opportunity to hammer a lame duck, with no possibility of any serious blowback. She sees it as an opportunity to elevate her own foreign policy credibility. She sees it as an opportunity to subtly provide an I-told-you-so to 2008 voters about her 3 a.m. call message in the primaries. She is elevating herself at the expense of president Obama at a time when he is down. There is blood in the water and make no mistake, she is a shark. This is an opportunity for her, and not an opportunity to stir up controversy and sell more books (though that may happen to some modest degree), it is an opportunity only because she fully intends to run for the presidency in 2016. If she weren't she would demur on the tough questions. While she might not praise the president for areas in which they disagree, she would at least have the decency to avoid criticism and ride off into the sunset as a not bitter woman.

Nope. Podhoretz theorizes, and rightly I believe:

Last year, when it looked like Obama might maintain his popularity, Hillary was ready to run as his confidant, adviser and friend.

Now, as the world comes crashing down upon him, along with his poll numbers and the increasingly disastrous prospects for his party in the November midterms, Mrs. Clinton has laid a bet.

She is betting she has two years to set herself up not as Obama’s natural successor but as his sadder-but-wiser replacement — the one who saw it go wrong, the one who watched as the mistakes were being made, the one who sought to mitigate or reverse those blunders to no effect, the one best able to take inspiration from a more successful, more centrist Democratic presidency.

The only thing wrong with that is that she's not really a centrist. But hey, what the voters think, is far more important than the truth. That's Clinton 101.

Thursday Hillary Bash - Math

Hillary Clinton is calculating her votes. You can see it in her odd triangulation efforts on the situation in Israel and her criticisms of president Obama, and how that contrasts with her other positions. The Washington Post draws three conclusions (which it treats as observations) from Hillary's latest pronouncements:

"Great nations need organizing principles -- and 'Don't do stupid stuff' is not an organizing principle," Clinton told the Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg in a line that surely launched a thousand grimaces (or worse) in the White House. She went on to explain that she doesn't actually believe that statement sums up Obama's entire foreign policy. “I think that that’s a political message. It’s not his worldview," she said. “… I think [Obama] was trying to communicate to the American people that he’s not going to do something crazy."

But Clinton, of course, knew what she was doing -- picking a prominent foreign policy writer to make a pointed critique of the current Administration's policies at the very moment when President Obama's ratings are at -- or damn close to -- their lowest ebb of his time in office. So, why did she do it -- and what does her willingness to so publicly break with the Obama Administration tell us about how she's positioning herself for 2016?

The WaPo claims she's not at all worried about the primary. For Hillary opponents that's good news in my opinion. However, the point that she is thinking about the general election seems valid - she's not worried about Warren and the likes of Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden are not serious political threats. She's aiming for more centrist voters, Jewish voters (see below~) and military hawk voters. She doesn't need to win all of any of those voting blocks but she needs to take away the misgivings of enough of them to be competitive and to add to her voter totals in 2016. To do so she has to prove she's tough. That goes directly to the WaPo's second and third points, that she wants people to believe she'll be ready from Day 1 and that she doesn't always agree with the floundering president Obama.

The timing couldn't be better for her to add her two cents. It's more evidence that Hillary Clinton will indeed be running for president in 2106. It's more evidence she's thinking end game instead of next step (primaries) which was her weakness in 2008. Expecting a coronation is the best way to ensure you don't get one.

Via Huffington Post*:

NEW YORK –- Hillary Clinton on Sunday offered a “vociferous defense” of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu following four weeks of war in Gaza that have left more than 1,900 Palestinians dead.

In an interview with The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg, Clinton also echoed Netanyahu's recent claims that journalists didn't tell the full story while reporting in Gaza, an allegation that numerous journalists have disputed.

On Wednesday, Netanyahu said reporters withheld information because of “restrictions and intimidation” from Hamas, the militant faction that controls Gaza and has fired thousands of rockets into Israel. On Thursday, Netanyahu told Fox News’ Sean Hannity that he hoped journalists who have left Gaza can now “report the truth.”

Looks like she's looking at the Jewish voting block to get behind her as well, as they slip away from a comfort level with president Obama. 

Wednesdy Warren Warning - Iraq Pronouncement

Some bonus footage as it were on the Wednesday Warren Warning.  Is this nuance or just another example of pretzel logic? Elizabeth Warren stands behind president Obama's decision to conduct air strikes in Iraq but believes a solution to the problem must be a negotiated settlement and not a military solution. Worse, she wants the U.S. to negotiate with terrorists but not be seen to be doing so.

She believes ISIS is a terrorist organization. Warren also believes that the negotiations are necessary but that the U.S. should not negotiate with terrorists. It seems though, that it's perfectly alright to have the Iraqi government negotiate with terrorists, whom she sees the U.S. having their positions in the matter managed by*;

“The point is there has to be a negotiated solution in Iraq, but we don’t negotiate with terrorists,” Warren said. She said, “This is partially a question of whether the U.S. government negotiates or whether we have the Iraqi government doing these negotiations, and how we help support them as they try to maintain an integrated country, and a country that better represents all of the people who live there.”

The distinction between negotiating with terrorists and not doing so but helping Iraq while they do so is pretty much non-existent. But who cares? Warren gets to say all the right things to all the right constituencies and that's what really matters to voters isn't it?