Hope 'n' Change 2010

Brown: "The age of Obama is over. The time of the Tea Party has come.

Fear. Washington is rank with it. Move into the city. Kill all in your path."

* My apologies for being such a lame cut-and-paster.

Watch This Election

Teddy Kennedy died in August, '09.  This was as the national debate over the Democrats' National Health Care Plan kicked into high gear and Republican resolve against it began to harden.  Democrats realized they were going to need every single vote they had to push the thing forward, and Obama as well as Teddy Kennedy himself shortly before he died, pressured Mass Gov. Deval Patrick to bend Massachusetts' own rules and fill the spot with an interim senator until elections could be held.   A Democrat named Paul Kirk was appointed.  He is not important as he is ineligible to run as the successor.  He was only there to rubber stamp anything Dems wanted him to rubber stamp until the election for Kennedy's replacement could be completed.

Since then, the only mystery has been which Democrat would be nominated to succeed Kennedy.  After all, this heavily blue state voted for Obama 62%-36%.  Massachusetts hasn't had a Republican senator since 1979.  The Special Election being held this month to fill Ted Kennedy's seat ought to be a gimme for Democrats; and that's been the thinking for most of this six month campaign season.  But, with the great rise in anger over Democrats' determined efforts to push America farther into Socialism, the standard thinking may be about to be turned on its head: Republican State Senator Scott Brown has been under the radar most of the campaign season, as Republicans always are in Massachusetts, but, in the first poll for this race, Rasmussen showed him trailing the Democrat Martha Coakley by only 9%.  Sounds like a lot, but not for a Republican in Massachusetts.  Since that poll, it appears that the race has been tightening.  Check out Ace for an analysis.

OK, I'm getting repetitive with my superlatives, but the implications of a Brown victory on Jan 19th (I think) would be huge: A Republican taking 'The Liberal Lion's' place in deepest blue Massachusetts, who would be the 41st filibustering vote on any new version of the Health bill sent to the Senate, enabling the blockage of the bill Harry Reid named "the Kennedy Health Bill", would confirm that a tidal shift to the Right far bigger than the shift to the Left that occurred in '08 is about to happen, or actually is in-process. 

Conversely, even a close Brown loss (by less than 10%) would show that the electorate is turning, but just not as extremely fast as a victory would indicate.

Pray for Change RTPrs!

The Revolution of the Right(eous) Part 1

(picture from the guardian, armbands of the anti-immigration (and Roma) Jabbik party in Hungary) 

So there's a good deal of doom and gloom on the RTP and rightfully so!  From Chavez to Правда the world seems to believe that the US is falling into the deep precipice of Socialism!  Conservatives are arming themselves in record numbers (even some here?) driving up ammunition prices to record highs, and even as we speak/type, we are all shareholders in GM.  In this world where our values seem to be  unraveling at the seams I offer this shimmering star of hope that shines undaunted amidst all the dark arts and foes that the all seeing big-gov't eye has amassed against us:

Europe.  

This might have flown underneath the radar for many, but there was a round of local municipal elections throughout England today that heralds the continued triumphant march for British Conservatives. Much of it, likely, has come about by the awesome stories covering the expense account scandal that's rocking Parliament but this has been a part of an on going local trend in England for the last few years (and this).  In fact, Labor hasn't had a good showing since the last election in 2005  so while they may clutch on to power till the next elections (June next year) it's a strong indicator that the round of European Parliamentary elections (going on this weekend continent wide) in England will have the conservatives drum labor and bring more European Members of Parliament that want to take down Euro-socialism.

Moving beyond England, there seems to be a continent wide resurgent tide of conservative parties that are poised to do well in the elections.  As the article notes, there are very few political issues that are tied with the vote, thus, most of those voters that will likely turn out for the elections will be those that are negatively motivated, i.e., they are voting against the EU (thus voting for the conservatives), or they're protesting the parties in charge.  Either way, we're likely to see a good turnout for conservative parties continent wide.  

What does this mean continent wide?  

In my humble opinion, I think this is going to lead to a more rancorous EP that will make the European Commission less likely to delegate more power to Parliament (which has been done in the past in order to account for the EU's "democratic deficit") in any future revision of the Euro-Constitution.  When such a document turns out, which will most likely occur if the Irish vote down the Lisbon treaty again, it will give the conservatives extra momentum to keep the current tide going.  Secondly,  Muslim countries won't be allowed entry (sorry Ottomans).   Thirdly, we'll see more autonomy/diversity in European foreign policy (which, unfortunately, could be a boon for the Soviets as well as for u.s.).  

Within the domestic affairs of Europe, this wave of resurgent conservatism has brought about a wave of anti-immigration and calls for protection of traditional conservative values (go to the end of the article where the conservatives list their grievances with the UN) and also in the increasing conservative victories in Austria, Hungary, and the Netherlands (READ THIS) . 

There's hope on the horizon folks.  Even in countries where native European populations are about to be outbred into minority status within the decade (Netherlands), even the most leftist, liberal, socialist voters will react to an assault on their culture.  But this all begs the question:  Many of these folks are cultural conservatives which don't necessarily believe in such things as free markets and what not.  Many are flocking to cultural conservative banners, but we also see some people going to the more independent hard-core socialist banners (see the Guardian article about the East German Socialist Party's rise and anti-EU stance).  Which indicates that many voters are not only voting out of fear of the lose of their cultural heritage but out of rejection of the current state of affairs.  If conservatives come to power in domestic elections later in the future (not to be confused with this weekend's EU Parliamentary elections) and the world economy not improve, then we may see conservatives resort to their more classical nature (the one that Adam Smith fought against), that is, protectionist platforms and fear of globalization as a threat to cultural traditions.  I'll let the reader determine the consequence of this.  Obviously, this isn't a real worry as the right way out of this is less government spending and less taxes, but it's trend we should observe with a small degree of caution nonetheless.  

In summation, President Hussein might be able to make a few Muslim hearts swoon but the world is marching to a different tune.  Maybe RTP will pull a 180 and start to bitch about "how much better it is in Europe" where public signposts are in one language and you can buy a house without 45% of it's value assessed in a VAT........ 

(insert Matrix/Neo "whoa" here)