Day: October 19, 2010

The Failure To Communicate: Americans Don’t Realize They Received A Tax Cut In the Past Two Years! :(

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President Obama’s administration promoted a tax cut in the past two years, averaging $400 a year for individuals and $800 a year for couples, but less than ten percent of Americans in a NY Times/CBS News Poll know it!

At the same time, half thought their taxes had remained the same, and one third thought their taxes had gone up! 🙁

The tax cut had been done by changing withholding rates, while when George W. Bush lowered taxes, he did it by sending a rebate check to taxpayers!

Apparently, the way taxes were lowered went by with taxpayers totally unaware, so the communication of the message was inadequate, and has not benefited the Democrats, who are still being accused of raising taxes by the Republican opposition!

A rebate had more political effect, but Obama felt that doing that would cause the money to be saved, rather than spent, when it came at about $65 a month in paychecks! The purpose was to stimulate the economy, as more important than thinking about the politics of a check in the mail!

So, unfortunately, the Democrats have been unable to benefit from their tax cut to stimulate the economy, which would be much worse if the tax cut through withholding had not been done! 🙁

In Difficult Electoral Climate For Democrats, Some Have No Problem!

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While the Democrats face possible election losses in two weeks, there are eight Democrats who are facing no problem at all when it comes to election or re-election!

In Senate races, the following Democrats have no serious challenges:

Daniel Inouye of Hawaii
Barbara Mikulski of Maryland
Chuck Schumer of New York
Kirsten Gillibrand of New York
Ron Wyden of Oregon
Patrick Leahy of Vermont

Two gubernatorial races also seem guaranteed for the Democrats:

Andrew Cuomo of New York
John Hickenlooper of Colorado

These eight Democrats are a very privileged group, but otherwise Democrats are running for election or re-election, knowing clearly that the trend seems to be against them, with losses expected, but the extent of the losses hard to predict as the races reach their final two weeks of what has become a marathon!

Christine O’Donnell Makes Sharron Angle And Sarah Palin Look Brilliant, Which They Certainly Are Not!

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We are in the age of Republican women politicians who come across as ill informed, ignorant, and unqualified for public office!

First, we had Sarah Palin, who has a great following, but has not yet demonstrated any knowledge or talents to be considering the Presidency, and yet flirts with it, the fault of Senator John McCain, who had the temerity to pick such an unqualified woman to run for Vice President! She is the gift that keeps on giving, and she is a nightmare to the future of the GOP, which she is now threatening will implode if they don’t follow the Tea Party Movement! 🙁

Then, we have Senate nominee Sharron Angle in Nevada, who has been absolutely outrageous in her statements and viewpoints, and manages to put her foot in her mouth every time she speaks!

But then we have Delaware Senate nominee Christine O’Donnell, who actually manages to make Palin and Angle look like comparative geniuses, with her constant evidence of pure stupidity and moronic statements!

Today, in a debate with her opponent, Democrat Chris Coons, before law professors and law students, O’Donnell seemed surprised to hear that separation of church and state was part of the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights!

She also expressed the idea that we needed to close American borders completely to deal with the illegal immigration problem, an extremely radical solution that just about no one else has suggested, and would put us in a position similar to the old East Germany, which sealed its border in 1961, with the building of the Berlin Wall, an approach also suggested in the past day by Alaska Senate nominee Joe Miller–another truly disastrous nominee!

It will not be soon enough for Christine O’Donnell, a three time candidate for the Senate, who has proved to be the absolutely dumbest nominee this year, to leave the news front pages with a sound defeat of her candidacy on Election Day two weeks from now! 🙁

The Role Of Independents In Key Races!

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Three former Republicans, running as Independents, could tip the balance in a Senatorial race in Florida, and gubernatorial races in Rhode Island and Colorado!

In Florida, Governor Charlie Crist is running against Democrat Kendrick Meek and Republican Marco Rubio, and at the moment, is running well behind Rubio and only a point or two ahead of Meek in most polls!

In Rhode Island, former Senator Lincoln Chafee is running ahead in some polls past Democratic nominee Frank Caprio, with Republican John Robitaille in third place!

In Colorado, former Congressman and presidential candidate Tom Tancredo is running ahead of Republican Dan Maes, who is Tea Party supported, but clearly behind Democratic nominee and Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper!

At this point, it seems as if Lincoln Chafee has the best chance to win, while Crist is faltering, and Tancredo’s only accomplishment is possibly to make the Republican Party a minor party in Colorado, if its nominee ends up with less than 20 percent of the vote, which now seems likely, a true electoral disaster for the GOP in Colorado!

Sarah Palin Throws Down The Gauntlet To The GOP! :(

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Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, in Nevada yesterday to campaign for GOP and Tea Party favorite Sharron Angle against Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, did something unusual for her: she answered questions from CNN, while all along she has avoided any media other than Fox News Channel, who she works for!

She made it clear that she is a believer in the Tea Party Movement, and she warned the Republican Party leadership that if they did not listen to the people and incorporate the Tea Party Movement, they were “finished”!

That certainly sounds like a threat to the senior Republican leadership, and seems to many to be a hint that Palin is going to upset the party balance by challenging the establishment and running for President, although she did not specifically say that!

It is obvious, however, that if the Tea Party Movement has major successes in November, that Sarah Palin will exploit that success, and that the battle for the future of the Republican Party will begin in earnest, as to whether it will be a moderate centrist party with a future, or be an extreme right wing conservative party with limited appeal to the general electorate for the Presidential Election of 2012!

As predicted earlier, a civil war looks in the offing in the party of Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt and Eisenhower and Reagan for the soul of the party! It is not going to be a pretty picture! 🙁