Michael Barone On President Obama's Populism

Lots of this going around lately (populism, that is).

Why has the politics of economic redistribution had such limited success in America? One reason is that Americans, unlike Western Europeans, tend to believe that there is a connection between effort and reward and that people can work their way up economically. If people do something to earn their benefits, like paying Social Security taxes, that's fine. But giving money to those who have not in some way earned it is a no-no. Moreover, like Andrew Jackson, most Americans suspect that some of the income that is redistributed will end up in the hands not of the worthy but of the well-connected.

Last year Mr. Obama and his policy strategists seem to have assumed that the financial crisis and deep recession would make Americans look more favorably on big government programs. But it turns out that economic distress did not make us Western Europeans.

(h/t Scott L.)

If you have tips, questions, comments or suggestions, email me at lybberty@gmail.com.

Programming Note: Everybody Needs A Vacation

Folks, apologies for my absence. As some of you know, I've recently returned to American and have been busy celebrating national holidays, waterskiing, watching M's games, entertaining guests, etc. Forgive my writing absence. I'll bet back to it in the next day or so.

In the meantime, here's a couple of good reads to tide you over.

• At Rasmussen, Michael Barone holds forth on the "accomplishments" of the Obama administration thus far.

• Matt Welch & Nick Gillespie do something similar in the Washington Post. Taken together, these two columns are a devastating critique of President Obama.

• Finally, in the City Journal, Ed Glaeser, an economist at Harvard, writes about human capital in New York City. Get a rope. (h/t Matt L.)

If you have tips, questions, comments or suggestions, email me at lybberty@gmail.com.

CPAC Day 1

6:04pm: Just got done with a lengthy panel about 'building a conservative Hispanic coalition. This is a tough one--lots of ad hom attacks going on on both sides. Generally, we need secure borders, but everyone who wants to come here, live & abide by the law, ought to be able to come. I think part of the solution here is coming up with an easier legal way to immigrate.

And honestly, we're not going to deport or force people to deport themselves. Even if it were possible (which I doubt) we would lose a valuable ally--especially on moral & family issues--life, marriage, etc.

2:44pm: Word is that CPAC attendance is up 40% over last year--9000 vs. 7000. This affirms my earlier, superficial observation that people seemed to have recovered from the bad news of November 2008.

And they love Huck. From where I'm seated on blogger row, I can see the line stretched around the exhibition hall of people waiting, book in hand, to get it signed by the honorable former governor of Arkansas.

It will be interesting to see what sort of reception Mitt gets. IIRC, he won the straw poll here last year.

2:36pm EST: Just got done listening to Mike Huckabee & Mike Pence. Gotta get all the Mikes out of the way.

Huck knows how to work a crowd. He made a pretty compelling argument against those who have argued that fiscal, social, & foreign policy--what he called, "fiscal, family, & freedom conservatives"--can and should remain together because collectively, they hold great appeal to a majority of Americans--that it was enough for a governing majority.

Pointed out that even in states Obama won, affirmation of marriage carried the day--Florida & California being the obvious ones.

After a bit of a late start, I'm on the ground at CPAC. This place is packed with conservatives of all ages. It seems as though most people have gotten over the 2008 Presidential election hangover as enthusiasm is high. I know I say this all the time, but we are happy warriors, after all. Sorry, Barry, conservatives have always been the party of optimism.

The first speaker I had a chance to hear was Michael Barone. Like everyone else, he thinks there's a good chance Republicans pick up some seats in 2010. He also believes that Republicans have a chance a knocking off New Jersey Governor, Jon Corzine, in 2009.

Matt arrives late tonight. I'm going to see if I can get him to add his own updates tomorrow & Saturday.

Per my RNC model, check back for regular updates throughout the day.


If you have tips, questions, comments or suggestions, email me at lybberty@gmail.com.

Obama & Independent Thought

Having spent a fair deal of time walking the halls of various institutions of higher education, from the US to the UK, I can, with a fair deal of experience, hold forth on what a liberal utopia might look like. One of its key features, addressed by this blog previously, are speech codes.

These codes seek to lay out, with a ridiculous degree of specificity, which words and types of words are and are not acceptable in "progressive" discourse. They typically emanate from sociology and anthropology departments, though english and psych departments like to contribute too.

These types of 1st Amendment limiting codes, along with chilling, peer-pressure oriented, group-think (read in this election contest: Obama hipsters), will be the word of the day in an Obama presidency. Disagree with progressive liberals over the prevailing, conventional wisdom about, well, anything, and you can just Shut[...]Up.

Michael Barone's latest article highlights examples of this at work already in the Obama campaign and how it would carry over to his presidency. Think I'm a fearmonger? Read about the already existent examples and judge for yourselves. If this is what they're willing to do during an election, imagine how it will be once they're ensconced in the Presidency.

"I need you to go out and talk to your friends and talk to your neighbors," Barack Obama told a crowd in Elko, Nev. "I want you to talk to them whether they are independent or whether they are Republican. I want you to argue with them and get in their face." Actually, Obama supporters are doing a lot more than getting into people's faces. They seem determined to shut people up.

That's what Obama supporters, alerted by campaign emails, did when conservative Stanley Kurtz appeared on Milt Rosenberg's WGN radio program in Chicago. Kurtz had been researching Obama's relationship with unrepentant Weather Underground terrorist William Ayers in Chicago Annenberg Challenge papers in the Richard J. Daley Library in Chicago -- papers that were closed off to him for some days, apparently at the behest of Obama supporters.

Obama fans jammed WGN's phone lines and sent in hundreds of protest emails. The message was clear to anyone who would follow Rosenberg's example. We will make trouble for you if you let anyone make the case against The One.

Other Obama supporters have threatened critics with criminal prosecution. In September, St. Louis County Circuit Attorney Bob McCulloch and St. Louis City Circuit Attorney Jennifer Joyce warned citizens that they would bring criminal libel prosecutions against anyone who made statements against Obama that were "false." I had been under the impression that the Alien and Sedition Acts had gone out of existence in 1801-02. Not so, apparently, in metropolitan St. Louis. Similarly, the Obama campaign called for a criminal investigation of the American Issues Project when it ran ads highlighting Obama's ties to Ayers.

These attempts to shut down political speech have become routine for liberals. Congressional Democrats sought to reimpose the "fairness doctrine" on broadcasters, which until it was repealed in the 1980s required equal time for different points of view. The motive was plain: to shut down the one conservative-leaning communications medium, talk radio. Liberal talk-show hosts have mostly failed to draw audiences, and many liberals can't abide having citizens hear contrary views.

If you really believe in freedom of speech and independent thought, you won't vote for Barack Obama.


If you have tips, questions, comments or suggestions, email me at lybberty@gmail.com.

Sunday Night Links

Image link

(from Drudge: we'd be cool with a VP Rice.)
(ps. at least then the Dems couldn't call us racists.)
(pps. they definitely couldn't call us racist: we like Condi AND we're a member of the NAACP.)

***

Tomorrow, sometime, America's Future Foundation will announce the winner of their inaugural college blogger contest. Our gut feeling is not good.

While we all wait, here are a few links to a few good articles:

- Robert Paarlberg in The New York Post on the charity efforts to feed Africans.

- In the Wall Street Journal, and discussing another issue affecting families--our theme of the week--is Donna Freitas. She talks about the "hook-up" culture that dominates college campuses across the country and the damage it inflicts. (hat tip: S. Lybbert)

- Your weekly dose of Mark Steyn.

- Michael Barone provides electoral analysis of the Democrat civil war. So far the bloodletting in this dust-up has been limited to resignations or, in some cases (gasp), forced resignations. If someone actually dies we'll capitalize "civil war."

- Over at Pendulum Politics, RD surveys national news, buruboi takes a look at religion in election years, and also the limits of rationality.

- Finally, the article of the week which also contains the quote of the week. Drum roll, please..... This week's winner, George Will with "McCain's Housing Restraint." And from that article, this gem on liberal Democrats and the "housing crisis:"

The market, which bewilders and annoys liberals by correcting excesses without the supervision of liberals, is doing that as housing prices fall far enough to stimulate demand.

Cross your fingers and toes, everybody. Thanks a bunch for your comments and support.


If you have tips, questions, comments, suggestions, or requests for subscription only articles, email us at lybberty@gmail.com.

How Does It Feel To Have A "Kool" Candidate?

Cartoon link

*UPDATE 1:57pm MST: Schadenfreude Watch: Remember our post last week about the coming Clinton-Obama storm? Drudge has a taste of things to come: War Over Words: Clinton Team Accuses Obama of 'Plagiarism''

**UPDATE 2:45pm MST: Like us, Mark Steyn doesn't like Che Guevara. Jeff Jacoby doesn't either. You Say You Want A Revolution by Mark Steyn (worth reading in its entirety):

Do Obama’s volunteers even know who Che is? Apart from being a really cool guy on posters and T-shirts, like James Dean or Bart Simpson, I doubt it. They’re pseudo-revolutionaries. Very few people in America want a real revolution: Life is great, this is a terrific country, with unparalleled economic opportunities. To be sure, it’s a tougher break if you have the misfortune to be the victim of one of Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society programs or a decrepit inner-city grade school with a higher per-student budget than the wealthiest parts of Switzerland. But even so, to be born a U.S. citizen is, as Cecil Rhodes once said of England, to win first prize in the lottery of life. Not even Obama supporters want real revolution: They’re messy, your cities get torched, the economy collapses, much of your talent flees. Ask the many peoples around the world for whom revolution means not a lame-o Sixties poster above your desk but the carnage and horror of the day before yesterday.

Ah, but revolutionaries are so romantic.

***UPDATE 4:14pm MST: Michael Barone on the electoral implications of upcoming Democratic primaries and caucuses. Interesting stuff, this:

The Democrats, in contrast, have been split on demographic lines, between blacks and Latinos, old and young, upscale and downscale. The delegate selection rules, based on their notion of fairness, are heading the party not to a clear outcome but to a conflict in which the losing side is likely to feel profoundly aggrieved.

Where/how will it end? Regarding Michigan and Florida, should the rules change now the vote is done? Voters in those states knew the election rules--they'd been well-publicized. Wouldn't it have changed the outcome if they knew their votes would count (remember, Obama's name wasn't even on the ballot in Michigan)? It isn't as cut and dry (Spikers) as simple disenfranchisement of the Michigan and Florida voters (count 'em!); there's a lot more to it. Do you want the courts to resolve this?

****UPDATE 5:14pm MST: This blog--obamamessiah.blogspot.com--does a better job of tracking the religious nature of Obama's campaign than we do.


If you have tips, questions, comments, suggestions, or requests for subscription only articles, email us at lybberty@gmail.com.