Random Thoughts on the 2008 Election Results

Obama's supporters can now change their slogan from "Yes, we can!" to "Yes, we DID!": Winning by the biggest Democratic margin since the mid-60s, and taking many states and counties that had been staunchly red for years if not decades, Barack Hussein Obama is now the President-Elect of the United States of America.

I wish to extend my sincere congratulations to the African-American community on this occasion for this monumental achievement which, as NPR political commentator Juan Williams put it, was inconceivable for many African-Americans, including himself, even as recently as a year ago.

With Obama holding distinct margins in many significant voter segments - young, women, whites, blacks, Hispanics, new/first-time voters, undecideds - and with the post-racial, let's-bring-the-country-together approach he has used toward the general voting public, it is clear that this country as a whole has indeed begun to move beyond race and is starting to become a post-racial society. Thus rendering race warlords like Jesse Jackson completely obsolete. (As Booker T. Washington wrote: "There is a class of colored people who make a business of keeping the troubles, the wrongs, and the hardships of the Negro race before the public. Some of these people do not want the Negro to lose his grievances, because they do not want to lose their jobs. There is a certain class of race-problem solvers who don't want the patient to get well.") Jackson has known for some time that the end was near - hence his muttered comment this summer that he wanted to "cut [Obama's] nuts off," unaware that the lapel microphone he was wearing was still very much on.

Now, it will be very interesting to see exactly what kind of President Obama will be - what stuff he is truly made of. While I would agree that he is definitely untested, he is not unknowable, an unknown quantity as pundits on both the left and right have argued. His background and history have been there for all to see, from the reminiscences he shares in his books about the Marxist, Communist, Socialist and Radical mentors he had and friendships he cultivated during his teenage, college and law school years, to his voting record, which has been the most liberal in U.S. Senate history - even left of Bernie Sanders (S-VT), a Socialist. We all know exactly what we're getting there, or at least we should. But if, as the chief executive of a country that is largely moderate/centrist to center right, he insists on imposing his hard-left ideologies upon it, he's just going to alienate a whole lotta people: that large minority of people who voted for McCain and who could easily vote Repubs back into Congress in droves in two years if he screws up. And he knows it. He'll have to refrain from over-reaching, no matter how loudly the firebrands who support him on the far left in Congress and elsewhere scream at him to do this or that. Because even though the Repubs got their clocks cleaned, there are still enough of 'em in the Senate to block any legislation that is over-the-top. If they ever absorb the lessons learned, find their brains and balls again and decide to return to the basic principles they abandoned when they started acting like the Democrats in abandonment of all fiscal and governmental restraints, that is.

But whether Obama actually WILL move to the center, like Clinton wisely did during his 8-year administration, or, at the left's behest, ram through onerous and ill-conceived policies that nobody would agree with continuing once their ruinous effects are felt, remains to be seen.

As concerned as I am about what the Obama Administration will do domestically, there are at least some saving graces there, like the ones I listed above, that will hopefully soften the blows. I am even more concerned about what the Obama Administration will do (or fail to do) abroad, because there's no safety net there. His artless, naïve comments about invading Pakistan and meeting dictators "without preconditions," the fact that he has OVER THREE HUNDRED foreign policy advisers, etc. the fact that our enemies - our enemies! - are endorsing him, should have been enough to give anyone pause. But with the economic meltdown, it's all about the economy now. The American people are no longer thinking about how the Chief Executive-Elect will be handling (or not) the War on Terror, Islamic radicalism, or any of the other issues raging around the world right now. Their fear over what will become of their wallets has drowned out all other concerns, so that they no longer care about what's going on in the world beyond their borders, except, perhaps, what foreign countries "think" of us. But these issues are still there, and must be addressed; and whether our new President will be coming at them from the left, right, or center, they must be addressed in a consistent, coherent, decisive fashion to promote national and world security, prevent further chaos, and strengthen our partnerships among our trusted allies. How will someone with OVER THREE HUNDRED foreign policy advisers come up with the strong, consistent, coherent, decisive foreign policy that the United States needs??

Don't know? Me neither. I certainly hope Obama will be able to enlighten us and show us how it can be done.

Anyway ... we will see.

Obama Claus

A great article by ABC News Senior National Correspondent Jake Tapper.

"Once you get past the soaring oratory, to experience a speech by Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., is to be hit with an astoundingly lengthy list of promises.

"I don't know how any reasonable person" could think he'd really be able to accomplish everything he's pledging to do, said the mother-in-law of a colleague, a Missouri woman who intends to vote for Obama.

Just today in Sarasota, Fla., the Democratic presidential nominee said that he'd: ..." Click here to read more.

Below Tapper's article was a compelling argument posted by a reader, Dr_Applebreath, that got my attention:

"How Reason Works

What if Obama had the strongest record of bipartisanship in the Senate, with major bills to his credit like the 2002 McCain-Feingold campaign reform, the 2003 McCain-Lieberman climate stewardship and the 2007 McCain-Kennedy immigration reform acts.
What if McCain had the most extreme partisan voting record in the Senate?

What if Obama offered a broad, sensible energy policy that embraced both emerging and current resources, including building the greenest power plants possible with nukes?

What if McCain declared that the nuclear waste technology we've invested hundreds of billions in over the last three decades is unacceptable, and refused to build nukes until we invent something better than Yucca Mountain?

What if Obama offered sensible tax policies that have historically led to healthy business growth and financial freedom for more Americans?

What if McCain promised to cut taxes for 95% of us while proposing almost a trillion dollars in new spending?

What if Obama had called for reform and oversight of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in 2006 that could have prevented the current financial collapse, only to have his efforts squashed by the opposition party?

What if McCain was the second highest recipient of political donations from Fannie and Freddie in his short Senate career, and had the former head of Freddie heading up his VP-vetting team, and the WaPo published the fact that the disgraced former head of Fannie was a financial advisor to his campaign?

What if Obama had been the leading supporter of the surge strategy that has won the war in Iraq?

What if McCain's primary claim to fame was his leading the charge to lose the war by withdrawing all our forces in Iraq where Al Qaeda declared their new caliphate?

What if Michelle Obama devoted her time and wealth to charitable organizations over the last couple of decades, and she adopted a Bangladeshi girl with a cleft palate on a visit to one of Mother Teresa's orphanages?

What if Cindy McCain got a $200,000 raise in her job as a Community Relations Director in a hospital when her husband became a Senator, and once in the Senate her husband put in a $1M earmark for her employer U of Chi Hospital, and she declared that when her husband won the nomination for Presidency was the first time she was really proud of her country?

What if Joe Biden had a proven record of opposing his own party and winning, and confronting Big Oil and winning, and sharing the revenues he levied on Big Oil with the citizens of his state?

What if Sarah Palin imagined we and the French "kicked Hezbollah out of Lebanon" and said President Roosevelt "went on TV in 1929" (before TV existed) to talk to Americans about the Depression (before FDR became President in 1933)?

Well, hell, I'd vote for Obama. There's nothing racist about it."

Heh, heh. Things are getting even more interesting than I thought!

Presidential Character in the 2008 Race

A very thought-provoking article by Mark Alexander, the editor of PatriotPost, a conservative journal. Forward it to every Obama supporter and undecided voter you know.

"In his Inaugural Address on 20 January, 1961, President John F. Kennedy closed his remarks with these famous words: 'And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.'

"With those words, JFK, considered by many to be the most exemplary leader of the Democrat Party in the 20th Century, asked Americans to put country first, a bedrock principle of the Party until the last few decades.

"However, today, the current slate of Democrats have turned Jack Kennedy's national challenge on end, essentially proclaiming, 'ask what your country can do for you, not what you can do for your country.' "

Click here to read the full article

New York Post and WSJ: The Truth About Obama's Tax Plan

New York Post: "OBAMA TELLS THE TAX TRUTH"

"An unscripted moment with an Ohio plumber produced a startling confession from Barack Obama Sunday: The Democrat's 'middle-class tax cut' is in fact a scheme to 'spread the wealth around.' Obama dropped the mask long enough to tell the truth to Toledo plumber Joe Wurzelbacher - who had asked the Democratic nominee why he wanted to jack up his taxes just for 'fulfilling the American dream.' 'I'm getting ready to buy a company that makes $250,000 to $280,000 a year,'
Wurzelbacher had told Obama. 'Your new tax plan is going to tax me more, isn't it?' 'It's not that I want to punish your success,' Obama replied. 'I just want to make sure that everybody who is behind you, that they've got a chance for success, too . . . When you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody.' At last! The truth is out!"

Click here to read the New York Post article

New York Post: "Lessons from the Plumber"

Who was the winner in last night's Presidential debate? Joe Wurzelbacher, a/k/a "Joe the Plumber," that's who.

Click here to read the New York Post article

Wall Street Journal: "Obama's 95% Illusion"

Obama's 'tax cut' for 95% of Americans? Depends on what the meaning of 'tax cut' is.

Click here to read the WSJ article

Questions about Obama's Citizenship

From an article by Thomas Lifson, editor and publisher of American Thinker, a conservative Web site:

"A lifelong Democrat who has held political office and been a Pennsylvania state committeeman, Philip Berg, has brought suit over the real questions raised by the absence of a valid Obama birth certificate. His narrative of the various questions Obama has refused to answer is devastating. Graphics and sound are well-deployed to avoid tedium as data is conveyed in a way that allows viewers to absorb it. ... he contrasts Obama's behavior when challenged (use perfectly valid legal technicalities to delay) with John McCain's full disclosure of all documentary evidence under a similar challenge (remember the flap over his birth in the Panama Canal Zone? -- who raised those questions, anyway?) ...

"The only way Obama can satisfactorily respond is to release his supposed Hawaiian birth certificate. If he has it, why hasn't he released it? If he does release it, game over. So why drag this out on technical grounds? It doesn't make sense."

Although Obama has vehemently dismissed the citizenship flap on his Web site, he has yet to provide the court with documentation proving his U.S. citizenship.

Could this video, which interviews Berg and presents the arguments of his Federal lawsuit, be the 2008 Presidential race's "October surprise"?

I for one find it extremely interesting that Berg is a lifelong Democrat, yet has quite vociferously taken the DNC to task for not properly vetting its candidate.