24thState

A Sole Strategy To A Permanent Republican Majority

I was driving my late model European import into my cushy office in the heart of one of the richest cities in the country, listening to my satellite radio and drinking a $4 coffee, when my phone rang - my, iPhone that is.

It was my model-looks wife on the home, calling from the suburbs, to share me with our plans to go out and spend freely on our American Express credit cards, when something struck me.

I know how to guarantee a permanent Republican majority.

There is a gender gap in politics.  Women tend to vote for the Democratic Party, and Men tend to vote for the Republican party.  There's also an increasing trend for the rich to vote Democratic, usually because they feel guilty (not guilty enough to write a check to the US Treasury - just guilty enough to demand that everyone else do it).  And there's also an urban gap. Cities tend to vote for Democrats, and rural areas vote Republican. 

How can Republicans close these gaps?  Shoes.  That's right shoes.  Women, especially wealthy women who live in cities, love shoes.  The very sight of a pair of shiny black dress heels is enough to push all thoughts of silly things like politics and financial systems out of the heads of the poor dears. 

So what should be the strategy in 2010 and beyond?  The Republicans have to ask for sacrifice from their male voters.  They have to launch, and sustain, a 24/7 campaign to convince men to make a deal with their wives.  The women vote for Republicans in a straight ticket, and half of the savings in taxes can be applied to the purchase of luxury shoes and handbags.

Half seems like a big number, but as I drove my late model European import, it struck me that I'd rather my wife spend money on shoes and handbags then give it to the local, state and federal government.  And I'd save 50% that I could put towards golf clubs and investments in hedge funds.

Single women in the cities make as much or more than the men, and the chance to tap into that demographic has never been easier. Using the tax for shoes strategy, single women should be microtargeted using text messaging to really hammer in the idea that tax cuts equals more money for shoes.  The RNC should build a social media strategy to start a Ning site for coupon codes on Jimmy Choo, Manolo, and Louis Handbags.  I'd give $200 bucks on a pledge drive if I knew it would convert 4 women to permanent Republican voters.

And in a final twist to ensure the single women vote, single men could make a pledge to marry any woman they've been dating longer than two years if and when the marriage penalty on higher incomes is removed. This even gives us a shot at lower income singles, as the marriage penalty for the 15% bracket is scheduled to expire in 2010.

Don't think this is a joke.  Conservatives are asking themselves what they need to do to prevent global catastrophic ruin when the results of the election sink in after Christmas.  The populace will need strong policies to regain hope.

And if you've ever wandered the aisles of Saks or Neiman, you know what I'm talking about.

Beware Sunshine Patriots And Summer Soldiers

It's been remarked by several people that a joy has settled on the nation after the election.  The election of Obama, a lightworker, has led to a transcendent peace moving the nation forward after eight years of darkness.

And I'm only being slightly snarky.

My wife pointed it out first. She said it was the first time that she had ever seen liberals happy.  I took a second to ruminate on that, and found it pretty insightful.  The electoral successes of the Republicans from 1980-2004 were pretty solid, with 1992 being the only real change, and that was ended pretty quickly. 

Reports are coming in of liberals singing the Star Spangled Banner, buying American flags, and being proud of their country again.  Is it a new day?

I'm tempted to take the good news where I can find it.  After 8 years of hearing how horrible everything was, no matter the facts, maybe the country just wanted a breather from the partisanship. And yet, who is responsible for the nasty mood?  Who takes to the street, gets in the face of those they disagree with, and feels comfortable saying the craziest things about the president and his staff without a hint of disbelief?

Who claimed the 2000 and 2004 election were stolen?  Who says we live in a fascist state?  Who claims their liberties are lost, the economy is the worse it's been since Hoover (okay, that last one may be true, but it wasn't true from 2002-2006), and the president is a puppet being run by the evil oil companies who enjoy sending stupid rednecks and poor blacks off to kill innocent brown people?

I'm not looking forward to the Obama conspiracy days.  The Clinton and Bush ones were bad enough, but Obama has a funny name, and doesn't look like those guys on the dollar bills.  Still, to suggest that we should all pull together after years of the nastiest partisan sniping away only makes sense if you think Obama is a centrist who will govern in a manner that is acceptable to conservatives.

I'll personally judge him on his actions.  He is the president, and it's important he get things right, for all of our sakes.  But his election, as the Democratic nominee, doesn't change my love of this country.  Win or lose, a candidate should not be the cause for joy in an electorate.

So while I applaud the newfound patriotism on the Left, my hope is these feelings mature into a genuine love of country, and not the shallow validation of one's worldview that passes for hope these days.

"These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph."

Every generation must learn the lessons of freedom on their own.  My hope and prayer for this adminstration is that the election of Obama reminds all Americans that our system, though imperfect in granting us our every wish, is self-correcting.  Democrats can attempt to correct what they perceive is wrong with the country in the next 4 years.  Should they win or lose in 2012, one would hope the love of country they express today stays in their heart.   

Government Bailouts

We were told in September that if we didn't pass the Paulson plan, the world would end.  A modified plan passed (with the Republicans once again providing cover and taking the blame), and now we find out that the original plan did nothing.  Paulson just wanted $700 billion (a made up number) to handle the crisis.

Wait, what?  We bailed out the banks to save the economy, and now we're told that Detroit needs a bailout too.  Detroit, whose city is billions in the red, and whose automakers supposedly form the backbone of our economy.  If the Big 3 go under, we're told, they're taking the economy with it, as manufacturing and finance depend on selling cars to survive.

There's just one problem.  The Big 3 Automakers stink.  Not their cars, their management.  Read this, which Tigerhawk excerpts from the WSJ online:

Over the past decade, the capital destruction by GM has been breathtaking, on a greater scale than documented by Mr. Jensen for the 1980s. GM has invested $310 billion in its business between 1998 and 2007. The total depreciation of GM's physical plant during this period was $128 billion, meaning that a net $182 billion of society's capital has been pumped into GM over the past decade -- a waste of about $1.5 billion per month of national savings. The story at Ford has not been as adverse but is still disheartening, as Ford has invested $155 billion and consumed $8 billion net of depreciation since 1998.

As a society, we have very little to show for this $465 billion. At the end of 1998, GM's market capitalization was $46 billion and Ford's was $71 billion. Today both firms have negligible value, with share prices in the low single digits. Both are facing imminent bankruptcy and delisting from the major stock exchanges. Along with management, the companies' unions and even their regulators in Washington may have their own culpability, a topic that merits its own separate discussion. Yet one can only imagine how the $465 billion could have been used better -- for instance, GM and Ford could have closed their own facilities and acquired all of the shares of Honda, Toyota, Nissan and Volkswagen.

Let me repeat that for the slow.  GM and Ford would have been better off shutting down, and spending all of their money buying Honda, Nissan, Toyota, and Volkswagen.  And we want to give these people money?

"Give us a lot of money, or the world ends." We've heard this before, and I imagine that just because it's a small bailout instead of a huge one, it's harder to say no. Next in line?  The states who increased spending as the market grew, and now realize that their income base is entirely focused on rich people who just lost a lot of money.  No rich people, no massive entitlements, pensions, and guaranteed growth in government programs.  I'm talking to you California and New York.  Your NIMBY voters, your liberal spending increases, and your ridiculous land use policies caused this bubble. You got fat on property taxes and income taxes, and now that the bubble burst, you're afraid to go to your own voters and demand money.  You'd rather the federal government do it.

Missouri has a surplus, or at least it does until Nixon actually gets into office and starts spending.  Other states, like Kansas, don't.  Are we, the Missouri taxpayer, supposed to pay for the political success of Sebelius?  She's the 12th most popular governor in the country, and yet she's a billion dollars in the red.  Matt Blunt was the least popular governor, and yet he had a surplus.

Is that what the country has come to?  If politicians spend our money, they get to be popular. If they are fiscal stewards, they get the shaft.  Now there's more to popularity than spending, but at some point, the country has to take responsibility for these jokers we put into office.  At some point, this will all catch up to us, and the result will be the destruction of our financial system, and with it, our political experiment.

Communists are dancing in the streets around the world, grateful that "capitalism is dead."  But capitalism didn't die.  It was hijacked by demagogues who bribe the people with their own money.  And the failure, is entirely our own.

RNC Blogger Conference Calls

Saul Anuzi and Michael Steele two announced candidates running for RNC chairman, both hosted conference calls for bloggers today.

Saul Anuzi is from Michigan, and runs the blog, That's Saul (though it could use some work).  He only had a short time as his plan was taking off, but he sounded smart and had a good sense of what could be done.  I like the general outlines of his plans, but would want to see a solid commitment to a 50 state internet strategy.

What we need on the right is community managers responsible for communicating with bloggers, nurturing them, and communicating up the chain the best ideas to the candidates and the candidate staffs.  To be done right, the community managers have to be able to let the bloggers run free, and not have repercussions for not toeing the party line.

Hmmm - I liked Saul - hard to say how many people were on the line - but he is a strong choice in terms of laying out a vision for the party. 

Michael Steele:

He's running because he's sicked and tired of Republicans whining, and running as Democrat-lite.  Cites, Lincoln, Roosevelt, and Reagan.  Speaks of the value of life, hard work, and security, enterprise and entrepreneurship.  I think he's probably closer to the vision, with Saul being more of an organizer.

Says the election was a failure of the Republican message.  Makes very clear that we had no message in 2006 and 2008.  Michael has a lot more fire in his belly than Saul did.  He's storming the gates, and making no bones about it.

Questions:  1) He covers the question of race (was asked if his skin color would allow him to critique Obama better than other Republicans:  Steele says being an African-American doesn't mean anything, it's that as an American he can critique his president, based on character and issues.

25 minutes or so more of questions.  Gateway Pundit asked about a messaging strategy, which was going to be my question, because I keep hearing these guys talk about the wonders of the Internet, but I want to see a lot more actual meat to those strategies before I get excited about it.

The Democrats were good about taking advantage of existing networks, and creating an reverb chamber for information both true and false.  The right has these numbers, but we don't have the equivalent of community managers.  Every Republican national organization, or at least one, should have an internet team whose job it is to manage regions of the country, working to build lists of bloggers in separate states they can communicate with.

Communicate doesn't mean emails stating the talking points of the day, but rather assistance in marshalling arguments, evidence, links, and attention to local bloggers. It's the internet version of the 50 state strategy, and it's virtue is the resource can be used by all of the national Republican organizations.  And I'd be willing to bet it could be self-financed with internet donations.

Which candidate is best prepared to use the Internet to move forward?  I think we'll find out from the campaign between the 2.

Did The CRA Cause The SubPrime Crisis

Democrats like to point to the bogeyman of deregulation as the cause of the financial crisis.  Some Republican politicians are pointing to the Community Reinvestment Act.

Here's a real short rundown on what happened.

Relaxed lending standards from the Clinton era changes to CRA led to the erosion of all lending standards.  Prior to this, the lending practices for a bank were built on safety.  As banks lowered standards to get more subprime borrowers into homes, the lending practices were corrupted, as you can't have one set of rules for some people and not for others. If the government said it was okay to do no money down, low interest ARM's for one group, how can the bank not give them to all groups?

Speculators jumped all over these subprime loans, and with Fannie/Freddie buying up the loans from places like Countrywide (who gave sweetheart mortgage deals to Democratic Senators like Chris Dodd and Democratic Congressman like Rahm Emmanuel) as they reaped in profits and diversity awards, the states with restrictive land zoning saw huge spikes in prices.  Basically, if anyone can buy a house, places where land is at a premium will see a price spike.  This explains why my cousin's ghetto house in Anaheim was 175,000 in 2000, 275,000 in 2002, and 500,000 in 2004. 

So to say that CRA loans caused the problem is untrue.  Poor people are not responsible for the crisis. It is correct, however, to say that CRA lending practices urged by the government and backed with the full faith and credit of the US Treasury are responsible in large part for this mess. 

Banks then worked on securitizing these mortgages - banks like Wells Fargo, BofA, US Bank, Citibank (and others that were located in St Louis trading desks) - which makes sense.  Take good loans with bad loads and combine them together, and if some bad ones fail, the good ones will still be worth something.

But some banks, primarily the investment ones in New York, got real greedy. They payed billions in bonuses  (as opposed to the mere hundreds of millions in bonuses given out by Fannie and Freddie), and then got caught as the housing market begin to falter.  Banks that were overleveraged failed, and either went under or were bailed out.  The diversified banks that survived did so because of the deregulation in banking championed by Phil Gramm (JP Morgan, BofA, Wells Fargo).

As for the CDS market - it's so incredibly complex, and still sitting out there at $52 Trillion (we guess), that if it explodes, so does all of global banking.  No one really knew how to regulate it - which is why Greenspan said it was a good thing, as only the smartest people with the best software would be running such a risky gambit.  The good news?  It hasn't happened yet, and there's a point where you realize that $52 Trillion in CDS isn't like $52 Trillion in cash, goods, or even stocks. It's an interlocking system of checks and balances, which is why it dropped over $10 Trillion in the space of a month with no ill effects.

It may still explode, but it's a separate crisis from subprime mortgages, as much as anything can be separate in this day and age.

But deregulation?  That's a political talking point used to great effect in an election where up to half of the $600 million the Obama campaign raked in was unregulated. There's a debate talking point McCain missed.

Senator Obama, you keep saying that deregulation is the cause of our problems, and yet when it comes to the money you've accepted in this campaign, almost half of it is unregulated.  If you hadn't broked your promise to me and to the campaign to accept public financing, you wouldn't be able to run all those fancy commercial with ill-gotten deregulated campaign funds.

Watching Vote Counting Fraud Occur

In 2004, in the state of Washington, Republican Dino Rossi won the race as governor with 261 votes. An automatic recount was triggered by the small margin, and the second recount, led to a smaller victory of 42 votes. A second recount was triggered, and in the end, Christine Gregoire won by 129 votes.

I followed that recount through SoundPolitics, and was surprised at the callous way that election officials treated the electoral process. It was clear to every observer that the election process was tainted. Large numbers of votes were "found" throughout the recounts, and once Gregoire took the lead, the legal process simply wasn't up to restoring Rossi's lead. Vote fraud is very hard to prove, and judges err on the side of caution, even when a number of voters registered in empty buildings, or the social security office, or other shady areas cast doubt over their validity.

The truth is that unless someone comes forward and admits it, it's very difficult, bordering on impossible, to win a legal judgement and overturn an election. Which means that whoever counts the votes, for all intents and purposes, determines the winner, who immediately begins to act as if they've won. And the loser, looks like a loser for complaining, ruining their chances at running again.

Democrats like to claim that there's no such thing as vote fraud because the courts can't legally prove it. Prosecutors don't chase it, because it's not sexy, and is very bad for your career, as the press and the Democrats love to claim that vote fraud investigations are veiled attempts at voter intimidation. But soon, we may have another example of how the Democrat's Secretary of State project is yielding ill-gotten gains.

Minnesota Senator Norm Coleman finished in tight race with Al Franken, ahead 721 votes. A recount is scheduled, but the race is not certified. In typical fashion, new votes have started coming in. Over 500 voters have appeared, some from "miscounts," others from ballots that were never counted because they were left in a car, and a series of statistically improbable events always seem to benefit the Franken, at the expense of Coleman. We've seen this before, and it underscores the need for non-partisan, truly effective leadership from the Minnesota Secretary of State.

Of course, no vote fraud story would be complete without an ACORN angle, and so we find the MN SoS, Mark Ritchie is, a former ACORN community organizer. We don't know if the Democrats will be able to beg, borrow, and steal enough votes to put Franken into office. We do know that if Republicans specifically, and the public in general, needs to pay closer attention to whose in charge of the ballots. 8 years of conspiracy theories about the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections have poisoned our political process and shaken our trust in free and fair elections. Democrats joke about their dogs voting, or voting twice, but the truth is that partisans in this election were caught in voter fraud, specifically those Ohio Obama campaign workers who "withdrew" their ballot rather than face prosecution. It's very likely that throughout the country, fraudulent votes were cast and counted by local Democrats who sought "payback" for alleged vote rigging by Republicans. Luckily, Obama's victory was large enough that claims that he stole the election would be ludicrous. Sadly, in Minnesota, we might not be able to say the same thing.

For more on the Minnesota siutation, follow PowerlineBlog.com and MinnesotaDemocratsExposed.

Time To Govern

Obama pretty clearly has won, but not in a landslide, and not with 60 Senate Votes.

I guess now we find out if he's a new breed of Democratic politician or a fraud.

At this point, it's important to remember that we live in a nation that peacefully hands over power. It's no small thing. Be grateful you live in the greatest nation on earth.

And if you're a conservative-chins up. The Democrats get all the blame from here on out. The media will start reporting good news on the economy. And when 2010 rolls around, the voters who went for Obama this time may never vote for a Democrat again.

Also, Nixon won. Prepare to spend the Missouri surplus.

Missouri Absentee Ballots Problems

My wife's absentee ballot hasn't arrived.  We sent it in a month ago, and if it doesn't arrive this afternoon, it's pretty clear that we won't be voting absentee.

Several things could have happened.

1) It might not have arrived in the mail to the election office.
2) They lost it when it got there
3) They're overwhelmed
4) Someone stole the ballot
5) Someone stole the ballot and sent it in without her signature.

We'll assume it's 1-3, and at this point, I'll have to rearrange our schedule so she can indeed go out an vote. I know a second person who hasn't received a ballot, but he's in Florida, and won't be able to make it back by Tuesday.  There's at least one disenfranchised vote.

Why is this important?  First, there is of course the issue of voters being able to vote.  We hear about disenfranchisement all the time, but it seems to be more important for those who are homeless, poor, or mentally deficient than for those who hold down jobs, own homes, and pay taxes.

And of course, it's a deliberate strategy by the Left, who uses groups like ProVote, ACORN, and SEIU to register large number of people as voters (living, dead, and imaginary) in order to overwhelm the voter rolls.  In addition to creating a gaping hole in our election system that can be easily manipulated for vote fraud, voter registration fraud also gums up the works for legitimate voters.

I wonder how many people at the St Louis County Board of Elections are involved in working with voter registration, and if they pulled people from absentee ballots to deal with the overflow? 

All the more reason to make it illegal for anyone to "register" voters except the voters themselves.  Making it easy to register is making the system more difficult to control, and the result is many voters lose their opportunity to cast their ballots because the administration of voting is faulty.  State officials like Robin Carnahan say the system is fine - that counties where registrations outnumber the populace are not problems.  Plus, it's not her fault, as she doesn't have the legal right to cleanse the rolls.

She does have a platform, and a bully pulpit, and has had the last four years to put out guidelines, work with state legislators, and pressure the governor to come up with money so local election boards could clean their rolls. She doesn't of course. It's more important to run fake press conferences with local union members complaining about Voter ID than it is to actually run a clean system.

Missouri isn't the only state with this problem.  Ohio's voting irregularities are horrendous.  Obama campaign workers from out of state have been caught voting illegally (their job was to register people, so they added themselves), dead people vote in Cleveland, and of course, there was the court case where Jennifer Brunner says she also can't clean the rolls because it's too hard.

It's clear the Democrats now see the SecState office as key to controlling the vote.  How very Stalinesque of them. Just ask Politico, which details how rich California liberals are giving money to capture SoS offices across the country. 

With a Democrat now in charge of the offices, which oversee and administer their state’s elections, the party is better positioned than in the previous elections to advance traditional Democratic interests —such as increasing voter registration and boosting turnout — rather than Republican priorities such as stamping out voter fraud.

Get that?  Vote fraud isn't an issue.

The effort began in 2006 when a group of liberal California activists created an independent 527 group designed to elect secretaries of state.

The Secretary of State Project ran independent ads of its own and ensured that donors — many of whom were affiliated with Democracy Alliance, a network of wealthy fundraisers that channels money to liberal causes across the country — knew which candidates deserved donations.

So - is it fair now to say that Robin Carnahan is funded by wealthy out-of-state interests?   

Sure it is.