Author: Ricky West

Maybe I’m missing something. Wouldn’t be the first time, of course:

Minority Americans have been flocking to the nation’s “swing counties,” hotly contested areas that could play a crucial role in this year’s election.
That’s got to be good news for Barack Obama, bidding to become the first black president.
Blacks and Hispanics are moving to counties that already were racially diverse, such as Osceola in central Florida and Mecklenberg in North Carolina, home to Charlotte. They also are moving to key counties that remain predominantly white, such as Lake in Northeast Ohio, Lehigh in eastern Pennsylvania and Oakland outside Detroit.
If this year’s election is as close as the past two, demographic shifts in these counties could make a big difference.
The racial changes reflect national trends: 93 percent of all counties are less white than they were at the start of the decade, according to new Census estimates. But the changes are even more profound in swing counties of potential battleground states, counties that were decided by razor thin margins in 2000 and 2004 and could decide statewide winners this year.

They finally pinpointed something pertinent in the final sentence, although the entire story still doesn’t make much sense. As Al Gore and John Kerry found out, losing an overwhelming majority of counties (we’ve all seen the red/blue county-by-county map, right?) means, well, nothing electorally. States matter. Electoral votes matter. If Sen. Obama can eek out some states that were red in ’04, then he’ll be our next president. Winning counties? Besides, is anyone out there willing to put money down that Obama will win NC or Florida? The red states have been the ones increasing their electoral tallies and the ones that are really in play are OH and VA. I know I certainly don’t expect McCain to win Michigan. I’m sorry, I don’t see the story or why a paper would devote space to something that is of zero importance.
That is, unless the story is a rebuttal to the county-by-county map that the right has pointed to for over seven years. Again, I admit that I’m probably missing something, but could there be any other logical reason that an editor gave the go-ahead on such a non-story, because Obama winning counties in Florida means jack squat if he wins Florida. Again, ask Citizen Gore.

Posted by Ricky West

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The libertarian in me is horrified by the notion that the government may
mandate that I take part in a federal health care plan.  Instead of droning
on endlessly, the Godfather of radio laid things out perfectly a few months
back:

A friend of mine in a state
on the East Coast sent me a note.  This is yesterday: "I heard a rather
liberal GOP political consultant here in Raleigh say today that health care
is too complicated to be a deciding issue in the elections; it can’t be
summarized in 30 seconds, it’s just too hard."  So we’re not even supposed
to talk about it, don’t even go there.  Liberal Republican consultants,
don’t even talk about health care, it’s a losing issue, just as you are
saying, Tony.  I don’t accept that it’s a losing issue, and I don’t accept
that we have to accept things about it, like it’s a right or it is too
complicated.  

In less than 30 seconds, I can explain health care in a nutshell.  No
employer, no insurance company, no politician or government bureaucrat knows
better than you about your family’s health needs.  You should have the right
to purchase health care and health insurance as you see fit without
governmental restrictions or penalties, and you should not be of the mind
that your neighbors have to buy it for you.  Less than 30 seconds
I’ve just explained the concept of fixing health care.

[]

What we also have in this
country are some people who don’t want to use their own assets to pay for
their own health care.  They want someone else to do it.  And that brings in
a very happy and compliant Democrat Party.  It is a matter of individual
priorities.  Let me say it to you as Mr. Buckley might have said it.  Moral
obligations, should one choose to assume moral obligations, are actually
higher on the list of things than rights.  That’s why we set up systems to
take care of the indigent, because we are a moral people.  It is why we have
Medicare; it is why we have Medicaid; it is why we have S-CHIP.  At least
it’s why we started them.  It’s why good people support them.  We can get
into an argument here of whether these programs are more of the same liberal
drivel to create as many dependents as possible, but I think we are a
compassionate country, and we are a country that understands our moral
obligations to people who can’t provide for themselves because of certain
things, and those people nobody will argue with, being taken care of and
helped.  That is precisely why we set up systems to take care of the
indigent.  It is why we take care of our neighbors.  It is why we have our
churches engage in the various community actions that they do and, not to
mention, there’s all kinds of other community organizations that exist for
the express purpose of bringing things to poor, indigent people that they
don’t have and can’t have on their own.  

This is a country of high moral obligation, and we meet those moral
obligations at all times.  That is why, because we have such a moral
obligation, and because we are such a compassionate people, and because we
are such a generous people, this is why we try to lower costs and increase
competition so that more people can be taken care of well, so that people
are not left to fall through the cracks.  Now, this doesn’t mean that any of
this is a right.  It is our moral obligation as a society that has us take
care of people who otherwise could not afford this.  But what has
happened is that people who very well could afford it, just as they could
afford a plasma TV or a car or what have you, can afford health care and
choose not to, they choose in fact for others, their neighbors, fellow
citizens, to pay for it, precisely because they have been led to believe
that it is their right to have health care.  And I would submit to you that
the whole notion of having your neighbor pay for what your responsibilities
are can be very addictive, once it starts. 

Emphasis mine.

Posted by Ricky West

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Four years ago today:

To some up, it is very credible that Kerry was in or near Cambodia during Christmas 1968 AND it is clear that the operation involved substantial incursions into Cambodia.

Ah, good times. Back when military service was crucial during a campaign.
“Reporting for duty”, indeed.

Posted by Ricky West

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Going to the wayback machine.  I posted a similar item on my site
back in 2003, but the html was screwed up & it's not legible at this time,
so why not an update? 

A lot has been said about the inability of national/federal Democrats to win elections in the south.  Much
of what I’ve seen has disproportionately been little more than excuses disguised as rationale, such as the “Nixon southern strategy”, “God,
gays and guns”, or the ever present “confederate culture” (read:
racists).  This sort of rhetoric is usually revisited every two years, as
elections need to be won & villains need to be found.  However, is this actually the case?  Are southerners
actually hostile to
Democrats?

Well, I did some research on just what the political makeup of the
region was as recently as 1996.  I chose the “big” four
offices for each state, Governor, Lt. Governor, Secretary of State and Attorney
General, along with the respective chambers of their legislatures.  Each
state will have different avenues of choosing their officers so I won’t go
that deep in the analysis but thought that a quick reminder would shed some
much-needed light on the scenario.  Democratic margins are in bold while
Republican margins are in italics.  Here is how things stood in
mid-1996 in the south, and by that I mean the “south” where Maryland,
Missouri or Oklahoma are fine states but not of the southern brand:

 (source: World Almanac and Book of Facts)

Totals:

Republicans hold 7 of 12 Governor seats.

Democrats hold 90% of the Lt. Governor seats.

Democrats hold 2/3 of the Secretary of State offices.

Democrats hold 3/4 of the Attorney General offices.

Democrats control 21 of 24 chambers (senate or house), some with staggering majorities:

The total state house representation within the south: Democrats, 912; Republicans, 500; Independent, 7

The total state senate representation within the south: Democrats, 298; Republicans, 127

 

Conclusions:

Wow, look at those legislative majorities. 

Take
a look at that table again.  Remind yourself that it’s not
representative of 1946 but 1996.  So, instead of the celebrated
excuses listed at the beginning, couldn’t a more prudent conclusion
could be the conventional wisdom that has been put forth from so many:
the south is more conservative than the national Democratic party?

As the Obama campaign moves forward after the convention & some poll numbers come out which shows conservative regions less willing to accept the Messiah's platform that the various forms of the media have been bombarding us with of late (in case you hadn't heard, he transcends politics and is post racial.  What?  You don't agree?  Well, you're a racist) keep in mind that this has always been the case for the last generation, at least.  Democrats have long ruled the south.

Liberals, or their newfound attempt at branding, 'progressives'?  Not so much.

 

[note:
Why did I choose 1996?  Because I was clearing a bookshelf and the
1997 Almanac was there and I started reading it and thought the data
was interesting.]

 

 

Posted by Ricky West

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This campaign season is definitely not a good one for Republicans. It’s shaping up to be not so welcoming to liberals:

There’s an old saying in politics that elections are won or lost one vote at a time.
On Friday, DFL-endorsed U.S. Senate candidate Al Franken demonstrated how true that saying can be, when a roundtable on veterans issues at Brigitte’s Cafe his campaign scheduled drew only one participant.
Josh John, a St. Cloud resident who said he served in the Navy from 2000-04, had Franken to himself for an hour as he described difficulties he faced returning from his tour of duty and the help he received from his Veterans Services Office and the St. Cloud VA Medical Center.

Note I typed “liberals”, not “Democrats”. Watching Obama run as far from his ultra-liberal past reaffirms what many have known all along: while the country may not be Reaganesque in its conservatism, it most definitely is not a left-of-center country. And, apparently, many Dems know it.
But not Al Franken.
–
H/T to DrewM.