It is despicable that the President of the Untied States is not at the 20th anniversary celebration of the fall of the Berlin Wall. It was after all President Reagan who stood at the wall some 22 year ago and told Mikhail Gorbachev to "tear down this wall." President Reagan saw America as exceptional and a leader. These of course run contrary to the view Obama has of America, one that is just another county and should be bow down to the United Nations. Even the late democratic president John F. Kennedy who flew to Berlin in 1963 denounced the wall as "an affront to history." Kennedy like Reagan saw the Cold War as the defining battle between freedom and totalitarianism. A war both men believed that the West, with America had the helm, had to win.
The White House is taking heat over their decision not to send the president and they should. The fall of the wall showed that democracy can triumph and he has chosen to ignore it. Instead, he has chosen to attend some 26 fundraisers, play multiple rounds of golf, make an impromptu visit to Copenhagen to try and win the Olympics for Chicago and will travel to Oslo in December to accept the Nobel Peach Prize which he doesn’t serve.
Basically, Obama told German President Angela Merkel that he was too busy to attend the celebration but yet other world leaders past and present managed to rearrange their schedule and attend. It’s just plan pathetic.
This president sees the Cold War as an irrelevant historical artifact, a time when Americans felt the way to resolve a conflict was with fear instead of warm/fuzzy speeches. It seems as long as this president sits in the Oval office, America is no longer a champion of freedom. This will make the next 3 years very dangers for those of us who live here.
Monday, November 9, 2009
Saturday, November 7, 2009
What the 2009 election tells us about 2010
Let me quote the lyrics of a 1980s Dead or Alive song – "You spin me right round, baby right round like a record." The Democratic Party is trying so hard to spin the results of the 2009 election that it’s enough to make you dizzy.
The losses of two governorships are big, especially New Jersey, the bluest of blue states. In VA, there was a 26 point swing in favor of the GOP candidate over Obama’s win by 8 points (the GOP candidate won by 18). In New Jersey, there was a 19point swing over Obama’s win by 15 points (the GOP candidate won by 4).
Here are some numbers that should make Obama and the Democratic Party worry. In Virginia, Governor-elect Bob McDonnell carried the affluent and immigrant heavy Fairfax County by 21 percent (a county carried by Obama in 2008). Mr. McDonnell also carried nine out of Virginia’s eleven congressional districts, including three districts that went democrat in 2008 with votes of 62 percent, 61 percent, and 55 percent respectively. Exit polls showed that 46 percent of voters in Virginia said the economy was the main concern while only 25 percent said it was health care.
Over in New Jersey, Governor-elect Chris Christie, who was out spent by his opponent, managed to cut outgoing Governor Corzine’s margin in heavily democratic Bergen Country from 16 percent (which Corzine carried in 2005) down to 1 percent in 2009. He also took 7 counties that voted for Obama in 2008 turned them red in 2009.
Obama won’t be able to focus solely on one state in the 2010 elections as he’ll be criss-crossing the country trying to save blue politicians in red states. Blue politicians in red states must now think twice before voting for cap-and-trade and healthcare. In the House alone, there are 84 democrats that come from districts won by either President Bush in 2004 or John McCain in 2008. Election year 2008 was a snippet in time, a one-shot deal never to be repeated.
What the White House can’t overlook is the growing discontent that Americans have for they way they have governed. Americans have begun to pay attention to a government that doesn’t care about trillion dollar deficits, combined 50 percent tax rates in most states, sky rocketing unemployment which is now at 10.2 percent or a radical agenda that if passed will kill jobs.
If anything, the election of a Republican governor in NJ has given hope to Republicans in other blue states like Massachusetts, New York, or New Hampshire whose governors are up for re-election. Last Tuesday’s win lets the Republican Party live to conquer another day. It was just last year the pundits wrote off the GOP for the next election cycle, maybe even the next generation.
The president needs to face the realization that his left of center agenda doesn’t sit will with a right of center nation. By allowing the left coasts of the U.S. to write important legislation, he is exciting the left, enraging the right, and frightening the center. Come 2010, Obama may be the “right” answer to the GOP’s problems.
The White House will tell you that the election was not a referendum on the president and democratic loses had nothing to do with Obama. It now appears that the voters in at least these two states want nothing to do with him.
The losses of two governorships are big, especially New Jersey, the bluest of blue states. In VA, there was a 26 point swing in favor of the GOP candidate over Obama’s win by 8 points (the GOP candidate won by 18). In New Jersey, there was a 19point swing over Obama’s win by 15 points (the GOP candidate won by 4).
Here are some numbers that should make Obama and the Democratic Party worry. In Virginia, Governor-elect Bob McDonnell carried the affluent and immigrant heavy Fairfax County by 21 percent (a county carried by Obama in 2008). Mr. McDonnell also carried nine out of Virginia’s eleven congressional districts, including three districts that went democrat in 2008 with votes of 62 percent, 61 percent, and 55 percent respectively. Exit polls showed that 46 percent of voters in Virginia said the economy was the main concern while only 25 percent said it was health care.
Over in New Jersey, Governor-elect Chris Christie, who was out spent by his opponent, managed to cut outgoing Governor Corzine’s margin in heavily democratic Bergen Country from 16 percent (which Corzine carried in 2005) down to 1 percent in 2009. He also took 7 counties that voted for Obama in 2008 turned them red in 2009.
Obama won’t be able to focus solely on one state in the 2010 elections as he’ll be criss-crossing the country trying to save blue politicians in red states. Blue politicians in red states must now think twice before voting for cap-and-trade and healthcare. In the House alone, there are 84 democrats that come from districts won by either President Bush in 2004 or John McCain in 2008. Election year 2008 was a snippet in time, a one-shot deal never to be repeated.
What the White House can’t overlook is the growing discontent that Americans have for they way they have governed. Americans have begun to pay attention to a government that doesn’t care about trillion dollar deficits, combined 50 percent tax rates in most states, sky rocketing unemployment which is now at 10.2 percent or a radical agenda that if passed will kill jobs.
If anything, the election of a Republican governor in NJ has given hope to Republicans in other blue states like Massachusetts, New York, or New Hampshire whose governors are up for re-election. Last Tuesday’s win lets the Republican Party live to conquer another day. It was just last year the pundits wrote off the GOP for the next election cycle, maybe even the next generation.
The president needs to face the realization that his left of center agenda doesn’t sit will with a right of center nation. By allowing the left coasts of the U.S. to write important legislation, he is exciting the left, enraging the right, and frightening the center. Come 2010, Obama may be the “right” answer to the GOP’s problems.
The White House will tell you that the election was not a referendum on the president and democratic loses had nothing to do with Obama. It now appears that the voters in at least these two states want nothing to do with him.
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