Day: April 24, 2010

The Saga Of Florida Governor Charlie Crist: Independent Candidacy For The Senate?

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The Republican Party is at a crossroads nationally, as it is in process of “eating” its moderates, in the mad dash to please the Tea Party Movement.

The likely victims are Florida Governor Charlie Crist, if he stays in the party and continues his “lost cause” campaign for the GOP nomination for the Senate; Arizona Senator John McCain, desperately trying to hold off former Congressman J. D. Hayworth for the Senate nomination; and Utah Senator Bob Bennett, who is being challenged by Tea Party people who think he is insufficiently conservative. Other “victims” may yet arise in future years, including Maine Senators Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins and South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham.

This attempt to eliminate more moderate voices (by comparison), is really a suicidal move by the GOP establishment, and it is most evident in the case of Charlie Crist, who looks ready to “throw in the towel” as a Republican candidate for the Senate, due to the total abandonment by all of the leading Republicans, including John McCain, who is forgetting the concept of loyalty, as without Crist’s support, it is likely that he would not have been the Republican Presidential nominee in 2008!

The question is whether Crist will “fall on his own sword”, or decide to run as an Independent. The odds seem heavy that he will leave the party battle, and declare as an Independent by the end of April, the deadline to take that move in Florida.

The odds seem difficult, but doable that he could win in a three way race, as Joe Lieberman did in Connecticut in 2008, after losing the Democratic nomination for another term, but the difference is that the Democrats welcomed him when he won the seat back in November, 2008.

Were Crist to win, one wonders whether he would feel comfortable in a party which rejected him BEFORE the primary, and even whether they would be so “pure” that they would not welcome him in their party caucus. So the thought is that, were he to win, he just might join the Democratic caucus, which would really be “justice” after the shabby treatment the Republicans have given him.

Expect, in all likelihood, that Charlie Crist will announce an Independent candidacy in the middle of next week, which will make the Senate race in Florida one of the most interesting and most watched races of 2010!

A Different View Of Barack Obama: A Pragmatic Moderate!

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In the midst of so much progaganda that terms Barack Obama a “socialist”, the very intelligent and perceptive Norman Ornstein, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, published an article last week in the Washington Post, in which he declares that, based on the 15 months so far of the Obama Presidency, it is clear to him that the President is a “pragmatic moderate”!

Hooray to Norman Ornstein, who is absolutely correct in his assessment! He dismisses the attacks of Newt Gingrich, Liz Cheney, Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage and numerous others who regularly assault the President as not only “socialist”, but also “radical”, “totalitarian”, and willing to promote “retreat” and “surrender” in foreign policy.

Ornstein points out that the new Health Care reform is not radical at all, and that most of it was backed by moderate Republicans in the time of the failed Bill Clinton health care plans, and that Mitt Romney had made that moderate Republican plan the basis of the Massachusetts health care system in 2006. Now the former Massachusetts governor is trying to separate himself from what Obama has done, even though it is very similar to what was enacted in the Bay State!

The economic stimulus was not radical, according to Ornstein, and could have done much more on public works programs, but has thankfully started to have an effect on the economy in a positive way as shown by recent economic statistics. And most of the funds loaned to banks, insurance companies and auto companies are being paid back already!

The nuclear treaty with Russia was supported by Senator Richard Lugar, the leading Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and pushed also by Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who served also in that capacity under George W. Bush.

On the subject of terrorism, Obama has had successes, and is following the similar strategy of Bush. His energy policies, while opposed by many, includes some off shore oil drilling and nuclear power development. He is also trying, with some criticism, to promote accountability in education reform.

Ornstein’s conclusion is that Obama is mainstream, pragmatic and moderate, operating in the center of American politics, with a tip to the left. Ornstein calls it “center-left”, but not left of center!

What Ornstein states is precisely the view of the author, and the extremist language from Talk Radio, Fox News Channel, and many Republican and conservative spokesmen, is really starting to wear thin!

Barack Obama is in the tradition of earlier Democratic Presidents–Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry Truman, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson–and in some respects Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and Republican President Richard Nixon in his better moments–moderate, pragmatic centrist!

The Tea Party: Analysis Of What Makes Them Tick! Not A Pretty Picture! :(

Ronald 2 Comments

A New York Times/ CBS News poll last week examined the issue of what makes the Tea Party backers tick, what motivates them, and who they really are. It is all very revealing!

The poll shows that the Tea Party has 18 percent of the people behind them. It depicts them as more likely to be wealthier and well educated than the general public, and are very likely to be white, male, married and Republican. They are also older and define themselves as very conservative, and see Barack Obama as very liberal.

More than half feel Obama is more concerned about the poor than about them when it comes to policy making, and one out of four think that the administration favors blacks over whites.

The Tea Party people resent the Health Care overhaul and increased government spending, and think by overwhelming numbers that Obama is a Socialist, and do not like the President on a personal level. Many believe, wrongly, that he has increased taxes for most Americans.

And more than half hold a favorable opinion of President George W. Bush, and blame Congress for what has happened in the past two years.

They have the view that programs should be cut, by getting rid of “waste”, meaning those who are poor and deprived being supported by various social programs. But don’t dare cut Social Security and Medicare, while cutting spending and lowering taxes!

When one analyzes this poll date, it is obvious who the Tea Party people are. They are angry, white, upper middle and upper class people, who don’t like the fact that the country is changing so rapidly with growing minority groups, and they don’t want taxes to go up, but also don’t want their programs that benefit them to go down.

They are conservative and Republican in orientation, who have troubles dealing with a Democratic administration, which is led by an African American President, an African American Attorney General (Eric Holder), and has a Latina Supreme Court Justice (Sonia Sotomayor). They would be the first to applaud the new Arizona immigration law, failing to see it as what it is–a racist, discriminatory law, not all that different than African Americans faced in the South for more than a century until the Civil Rights laws were finally passed and enforced in the 1960s.

The Tea Party people want an America which is no longer that of their youth, and have trouble adjusting to rapid change. And they are certainly self centered and selfish, only concerned about “ME” rather than “WE”, the good of the nation at large! They would claim they are patriotic, but they are far from it, as they see the advancement of the nation only in the sense as to how they avoid taxation and have the least responsibility to their fellow men and women! And yet, many would claim to be “religious”–a mockery of the true meaning of having faith! 🙁

Truth Vs. Conservative Propaganda: Taxes Lowest In 60 Years!

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If one listens to Talk Radio, watches Fox News Channel, or believes Tea Party activists, one would think that our taxes have skyrocketed under President Barack Obama.

The truth is just the opposite: Taxes are the lowest in 60 years, as stated by the Tax Policy Center at the Brookings Institution!

And when one recognizes that taxes were at their highest percentage during the Eisenhower Administration (1953-1961), at a 92 percent rate for the wealthy, it makes one wonder how so many Americans (34 percent according to a recent poll) can believe the propaganda that is out there complaining about the basic responsibility of all Americans to support their government, particularly when all Americans expect their government to provide services!

Does anyone really believe that we can get services from government, as we all do, and somehow, NOT have to pay our fair share of taxes?

Is the country becoming that self centered that it thinks only everyone else should pay taxes, but not oneself? This is the result of thirty years of conservative propaganda, which has only been aimed at making middle class Americans pay taxes, while the wealthy are supposed to be able to avoid their fair share of responsibility to pay taxes.

And remember, the highest level of federal taxes took place under a Republican President, not a Democrat, and this during the so called “conservative” 1950s! 🙂