SuperPACs

Retreat Of Right Wing Tea Party Types: A Good Month For Progressives And Democrats!

Ronald Leave a comment

One month since the Presidential Election of 2012, and we see the following:

Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina, leader of the Tea Party Caucus in the Senate, resigns and goes to the right wing think tank, the Heritage Foundation.

Grover Norquist, head of the Americans For Tax Reform, witnesses Republican members of Congress repudiating their tax pledge to him, and say they are willing to support tax increases.

Dick Armey, former House Majority Whip, leaves Tea Party backed organization Freedom Works over disagreements on policy and strategy.

Karl Rove, the “brains” of the George W. Bush election victories, flops badly with his superPAC, Crossroads GPS, and loses all credibility with his behavior on Fox News Channel.

Mitt Romney repudiates all involvement in the Republican and American future, preferring to stay in isolation and make yet more money.

Republican officeholders fall over each other trying to stand out as standing for different values than the losing Romney campaign promoted, on women, immigrants, gays and lesbians, and young people, the groups that will determine the political future of America.

YES, this has been a good month for progressives, liberals, Democrats, and forward looking people, as the Republican Party and conservative movement “purges” itself!

The Misleading Public Opinion Polls: The Electoral College Will Decide The Election, Not A Public Opinion Poll!

Ronald 5 Comments

The public opinion poll industry is, sadly, misinforming the American people, when they try to tell us that the Presidential Election of 2012 is going to be a tight race, some even say, similar to 2000!

The facts are that Barack Obama has to deal with certain factors, including:

Massive HATRED by many people who simply will not accept that we have an African American President and will do whatever is required to defeat him.

The fact that the Citizens United case allows corporations SuperPACS, and billionaires to spend inordinate amounts of money to attempt to poison the atmosphere, and defeat Obama simply by the power of money.

The fact that the Republican Party is trying to disenfranchise millions in 24 states, by refusing to accept alternative forms of identification, such as college student IDs, but, as in Texas, for example, accepting gun permits as an acceptable ID. So we are having poor people, college students, the elderly, and minorities being told they cannot vote, unless they spend large amounts of money, time and travel to acquire what is required under various discriminatory state laws, that violate the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and are veiled poll taxes, outlawed under the 24th Amendment to the Constitution in 1964!

But Attorney General Eric Holder, despite being cited for contempt of Congress for flimsy reasons, is determined to do what is necessary to stop these violations of the right to vote!

In any case, only by race hatred, corrupt fund raising, and violations of the Constitution, amendments and civil rights laws, can the Republicans win, and that is NOT going to happen!

Remember the following, which this author has emphasized again and again!

The election will be won in the “swing states”, the “battleground states”, but there are enough BLUE states already to give Barack Obama a total of 242 electoral votes, 28 short of what is needed, a total of 270 electoral votes, to win the Presidency on November 6!

As stated many times before, these states are: Maine, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, the District of Columbia, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Illinois, Washington State, Oregon, California, and Hawaii–18 states and Washington, DC.

The “Swing States” or “Battleground States” are as follows: New Hampshire, Virginia, North Carolina, Florida, Ohio, Indiana, Iowa, Missouri, Colorado, New Mexico, and Nevada–eleven states with a total of 129 electoral votes, and all of these states, except Missouri won by Barack Obama in 2008, with Missouri lost by just a few thousand votes to John McCain.

So IF Barack Obama wins Florida, he wins the Presidency!

If he wins Ohio and Virginia, he wins the Presidency!

If he wins Virginia and North Carolina, he wins the Presidency!

If he wins North Carolina and Ohio, he wins the Presidency!

If he wins Ohio and Missouri, he wins the Presidency!

If he wins Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada and Virginia, he wins the Presidency!

Obama is likely to win Virginia, Ohio, Iowa, Colorado, New Mexico, and Nevada right now, while having more trouble in North Carolina, Florida, Indiana, Missouri, and New Hampshire.

But he COULD win them all, adding Missouri to the other states he won last time! And he has a shot at winning Arizona, Montana and Georgia, as well, with the growing Hispanic and Latino vote in those states! So he COULD win a total of 32 states and Washington DC in this upcoming election!

So Obama COULD win MORE electoral votes than last time, which has been the case for EVERY two term President since Woodrow Wilson failed to do that in 1916, after winning his first term a century ago in 1912.!

Just for the record, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush are the Presidents who won a bigger second term electoral vote than their first term!

So, readers, stop obsessing and worrying, if you are a supporter of Barack Obama, and to those who are Mitt Romney supporters, stop being delusional and believing that your candidate will be the 45th President, because the 44th President of the United States is coming back: FOUR MORE YEARS FOR 44!

Two Likelihoods Of 2012 Presidential Election Results

Ronald Leave a comment

When the Presidential Election of 2012 goes into the record books, two points will be noted that will be unique.

First, it now seems likely that Barack Obama will win re-election, and if that occurs, he will likely win with fewer electoral votes, even if he wins all of the states he won in 2008, since eight of those states lost electoral votes due to reapportionment, including New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, Michigan, and Iowa, a total loss of 10 electoral votes, with only Washington State, Nevada, and Florida gaining together 4 more electoral votes.

So IF Obama won every state he won in 2008, he would have 359 electoral votes, instead of 365, if he won one electoral vote in Nebraska, as last time, and if not, it would be a total of 358 electoral votes.

The fact that Obama would win re-election with fewer electoral votes would be the second time in history of such an event, with only Woodrow Wilson winning fewer electoral votes in 1916 than in 1912.

The other likelihood is that President Obama will have an opposition that raises more money than his campaign, the first time such an event has ever occurred, as the Republicans SuperPACS will likely raise a billion dollars or more, even higher than Obama hopes to gain in campaign funds, primarily from smaller contributors.

So 2012 will see two likelihoods that will set records, adding to the trivia of history!

Gloomy Future For Bi Partisanship In Congress

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The best Congresses of the past were those that promoted bi partisan reforms and change, but that has become a casualty of recent times, and there is no sign that it will be returning anytime soon.

With the Citizens United Case of the Supreme Court two years ago encouraging SuperPacs that award those on the extreme left and extreme right with unlimited campaign funds, any mainstream moderate is likely to decide to quit Congress (as for instance Olympia Snowe and Ben Nelson), or to face a challenge for re-election as not extreme enough (as for instance Orrin Hatch and Richard Lugar).

The latest possible casualty is Senator Lugar of Indiana, a mainstream conservative, but not extreme enough for Tea Party types. Lugar has served longer than any sitting Senator, and is now 80, and there is an argument that it is time to retire, but Lugar, with his expertise and wisdom on foreign policy, could be argued to be a national treasure who should stay on in the Senate for another term.

Lugar’s experience and knowledge would be valued in any other profession, no matter what his age, and yet the argument is that it is time for a change. It will, of course, be up to Indiana Republicans next week as to whether Lugar stays on, with Lugar having the endorsement of Governor Mitch Daniels and Arizona Senator John McCain.

The irony for the Republicans is that if they defeat Lugar, the likelihood of a Democrat winning the Senate seat vastly improves, so in many respects, they are committing suicide if they defeat a man regarded as one of the very best they have had in office in the past four decades.

But then, statesmanship is not in vogue these days, sadly!

Seven Factors Which Could Defeat Barack Obama In 2012

Ronald 1 Comment

Despite all of the evidence that Barack Obama has a great advantage for re-election in 2012, there certainly are factors which could lead to his defeat.

These include:

If the economy has another backslide of notable proportions, and gasoline prices continue to rise.

If a war breaks out in the Middle East or elsewhere, and the President is seen as handling the foreign crisis poorly.

If the Republican attempt in many states to limit the vote by discriminatory voter registration legislation succeeds in cutting voter registration and participation down dramatically.

If the enthusiasm of voters for Barack Obama is toned down, because of disillusionment that he has not been able to solve all of the problems he faced upon taking office.

If the effects of the growth of SuperPACS, encouraged by the Citizens United Case of the Supreme Court in 2010, are able to propagandize enough with less informed voters who react to negative commercials.

If a major political scandal erupts that undermines faith in the President’s leadership, with the opposition already starting to blame Obama for the Secret Service scandal.

And finally, the issue of race, as electing the first African American President is a path breaker and milestone, but re-electing would be an even more path breaking milestone, with the constant reference to race by right wing extremists, conservatives, and a majority of Republican officeholders, all designed to instill fear, panic, and conspiracy theories into the heads of white working class voters in Pennsylvania and the Midwest.

So there is no guarantee, and six months is an eternity in American politics!

Barack Obama Accepts The SuperPAC He Wanted To Avoid: Only Way To Compete!

Ronald Leave a comment

President Obama’s campaign term has decided, reluctantly, that they will have to accept a SuperPAC to raise money for their re-election campaign, or lose the edge for the election.

Proud of the fact that 98 percent of their campaign funds raised have been by small contributors, including this author, with an average per contribution of $55, the reality still exists that the competition of the Koch Brothers and Karl Rove and others forming massive SuperPacs, plus the SuperPacs of Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich, represent a threat to the survival of the Obama Presidency, because there simply is not enough money being raised to compete with the plans for hundreds of millions of dollars of concerted attacks on everything that the Obama Administration believed in, has accomplished, and hopes to achieve.

It is simply reality that, despite the justified criticism of the Citizens United Case of the Supreme Court in 2010, which allowed this campaign monstrosity to develop, that the temporary situation requires that both sides play the same game, with the hope that after the election, there can be found some way that the Citizens United Case can be overcome in future political campaigns.

If one stands on ceremony, plays a puritanical game, the result will be a tragedy for the nation as the right wing seizes power and destroys everything that has been accomplished since the New Deal of FDR and the Great Society of Lyndon B. Johnson, which, if that happened, would set us back an entire century!