Amazing
The bipartisan Senate plan for immigration reform is brave and smart. The amazing part is it might even become law.
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Tags: Democrats, immigration, Obama, Republicans, Washington
Good news plagues Republicans
Sure Obama played fast and loose with some facts, but the overall improving state of the union was too positive for Republican comfort.
GOOD NEWS PLAGUING REPUBLICANS
Tags: Democrats, Obama, Republicans
Immigration plan ignores the American worker
The proposed immigration reform nicely balances several interests but ignores one: the interests of the American worker. A giant guest-worker program helped kill the 2007 “grand bargain.” It could kill the new one. And should.
NOT ALL SMILES ON IMMIGRATION REFORM
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Tags: Democrats, economy, immigration, labor, Latinos, Mexico, Obama, Republicans, Washington
A fair and balanced laugh
Thanks, Ross Douthat, for lightening up this gray morning with your musings on the upcoming Obama address.
Your right jab:
I’m going to keep this brief, because we’re all cold and there’s always a chance that the House Republicans might start imitating the Donner Party if we stay out here too long.
Your left jab:
I always knew my fellow liberal elites were self-involved, self-dramatizing and out of touch: I was in academia, remember? But the kind of mood swings I’ve had to put up with have been absolutely ridiculous.
Can’t agree with Douthat’s conclusion that Obama governs as any wild-eyed lefty, but the laughs are most appreciated.
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Tags: culture, Democrats, liberals, Obama, Republicans, right wing, Ross Douthat, State of the Union
More drug war insanity
Getting arrested for smoking pot behind the bleachers could stop you from joining the Navy, but admitting to smoking pot doesn’t prevent you from serving as commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces.
CRASHING FEDERAL HYPOCRISY ON POT
And a tip of the hat to Colorado and Washington voters for legalizing recreational use of marijuana.
Tags: Colorado, Democrats, Obama, politics, Republicans, War on Drugs, Washington state
Peggy Noonan hits a triple
Gen. George Patton
Her suggestion that Europeans loved American military leaders in World War II because, like General Eisenhauer, they weren’t egomaniacs covering themselves in medals (unlike the flawed General Petraeus) may have been overly simple. Consider General George Patton.
Nevertheless, Noonan perfectly describes the flashy, showy, braggy Facebook/YouTube/Twitter world of Petraeus’s consort, Paula Broadwell.
Noonan often gets to third base making a fine social observation, but then reaches for a non sequitur with which to whack a Democrat or two. And so in the last few paragraphs she turns to Obama saying, “He talks about the fiscal cliff but not in a way that shows a real eagerness for compromise.”
You mean that Obama’s vow to look for serious savings in Medicare, holy ground for Democrats, isn’t showing eagerness for compromise? Peggy!
Anyhow, great read. I look forward to Noonan writing something this perceptive but free from forced partisan play. When she does, over the fence it will go.
Tags: culture, Democrats, media, Obama, Peggy Noonan, Petraeus, politics, Republicans
What is a fiscal crisis without the tea party? Less scary.
The tea party may have led us to the fiscal cliff, but they can’t make us jump.
THEY LED US TO THE CLIFF BUT CAN’T MAKE US JUMP
Tags: Democrats, economy, Obama, Republicans, Tea Party, Washington
Cracked politics from the left
Let me start out by noting that I am an independent who usually votes for Democrats, but not always. So I come to you as one with no automatic loyalty to the Democratic Party.
In this election, I see Obama as a social liberal, fiscal conservative and Romney as nothing. Romney seems to regard government mainly as an instrument for further enriching the 1%, of which he is a leading member I don’t see him having fixed views on (or interest in) other issues.
And so I can’t fathom how a high-profile lefty, Ann Althouse, would find Obama so insufficiently liberal that she would pen a blog entry that right-of-center RealClearPolitics would run and title, “This Is How the Democratic Party Lost Me” — and right before a close election. It was a big hit over at RCP, as you can imagine.
Also for the record, RCP subscribes to my column. The latest, “Thank Obama for the Auto Rescue,” is featured today. I respect and like RCP, in large part because they’re honest.
And I respect realistic conservatives more than I respect flaky liberals. There is a choice on Nov. 6, and Althouse’s dimwitted view that Obama isn’t different enough from Romney to warrant her support reminds me of the lefties who threw the 2000 election to George W. Bush. My full rant can on that be found here.
Tags: conservatives, Democrats, liberals, Obama, Romney
Generational warfare, Romney style
When it comes to generational warfare, Romney is playing both the over-55 side of the aisle and the under-55 side. If he’s elected president, one is going to lose.
WEIRD POLITICAL WAR BETWEEN THE GENERATIONS
Tags: Democrats, health care, Obama, Republicans, Romney, taxes
Why post-first-debate polls exaggerated Romney’s gains
Microsoft Research economist David Rothschild argued convincingly that post-debate polls are flawed.
In an interview with PBS’s Paul Solman, Rothschild explained why the polls taken right after the Romney/Obama debate exaggerated Romney’s gains. Imagine you’re a Democrat, Rothschild says:
A pollster calls you, you don’t want anything to do with it. You’re just — you’re upset. You hang up that phone.
They call another guy, exact same demographics as you, because they’re trying to fill some sort of demographic hole or whatnot. He’s a Republican. He’s stoked. He wants to yell for how excited he is for Romney.
The same person on paper looks like he switched to Republican, but what happened really is, is that the Republicans want to talk that day vs. a Democrat who is like, I’m not even answering the phone.
For more details, go here.
What happens is that the candidate’s falling numbers further feed the despair, that is, until good news reverses the process. Biden’s debate performance was undoubtedly that good news.
