An American Opinion

It has been widely reported that in 1992 James Carville, Presidential candidate Bill Clinton’s chief strategist, posted a notice on the wall of the campaign war room a notice that read something like the following:

1. Change vs. more of the same.
2. It’s the economy stupid.
3. Don’t forget health care.

The purpose of this list was to keep the candidate’s message focused throughout the Presidential campaign.  Mr. Carville and his list is credited with helping Clinton win the U.S. Presidency though in fact, Ross Perot did more to put Bill Clinton in the Whitehouse by splintering the conservative vote and giving Clinton a plurality of votes.  A reasonable observation could easily be made that without the conservative Perot candidacy Clinton would have almost certainly lost that election because most Perot voters would have likely voted for Republican George H.W. Bush, who was easily more conservative than Clinton, and given him the victory with well over 50% of the vote. (See election results)

Past performance being the best indicator of future performance, what would happen if the Republican Party were to employ Mr. Carville’s list today?

Here’s my take on it.

“Change vs. more of the same”.
It appears that most Americans are disappointed with the current administration’s performance.  Voters were promised transparency and non-partisanship that has not been delivered.   While the last “State of the Union” address promised that priority would be given to the lack of jobs that beleaguers the American economy , the administration has instead remained focused on its healthcare agenda and largely ignored the economy outside of creating a growing bureaucracy that may ultimately create government jobs that will require higher taxes to fund.   In a nutshell, the current administration promised change, and many Americans see it as change for the worse.

“It’s the economy stupid!”
The American economy has generally gotten worse under the current administration.  They promised jobs, and the jobless rate has climbed in spite of those promises.  It appears that the administration has backed themselves into a financial corner with expensive programs which prevent the use of tax cuts to jump-start the economy, ( a historically proven solution).  Since historically the economy always eventually recovers in spite of political mistakes, it appears that the administration has decided to simply stall and watch it.  When the American people climb out of the downturn under their own power, the Administration will, with the support of admirers in the media, claim victory over the problem.  Indeed it has already begun with the administration claiming success in creating jobs, while the jobless rate continues to rise.  The week before, the administration claimed economic success when General Motors, paid off a government bail-out loan early.  They neglected to disclose the truth that General Motors simply paid off one bail-out loan with yet another government bail-out loan.  The Administration’s economic efforts have thus far failed. It’s like P.T. Barnum said, “You can fool some of the people some of the time, but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time”.  They can’t maintain the pretense of success indefinitely and people are already asking questions.

Don’t forget Healthcare.
Sixty percent of Americans were against passage of the Healthcare Bill and the Democratic party ignored them.  The Democratic Party chose to rule the American people when they were elected to represent them.  When you try to rule a country against the wishes of sixty percent of the people, you’re going to have a problem.  When that country is America, whose people are genetically biased against being ruled and have repeatedly fought for freedom, you have a BIG problem.  Healthcare is probably one thing that the Democratic Party hopes Americans forget before the next election.  Ask yourself this question: “Why would the Democrat authors of the healthcare bill delay its programs taking effect until after the 2010 election cycle when a bill with a positive effect would virtually guarantee electoral victory?”

Conclusion:
I believe that in this scenario, the Republicans would win and would not need to splinter the Democrat vote to do it (though some conservative Democrats may be swayed)  Republicans will however need to embrace important, broadly held conservative values to insure that their vote is not splintered by conservative third-party candidates, for that is the true lesson of the 1992 election.

The only way liberals can win is by splintering the conservative vote, or fomenting sufficient personal hate as they did with George Bush.  Those issues aside, Mr. Carville’s list should serve conservative Republican candidates well in the next two election cycles.  After all, his list is essentially another way to raise the question Ronald Reagan asked in 1980 when he suggested Americans ask themselves: “Are you better off than you were four years ago?”

And should the Republicans succeed in resuming a position power, when that same question is asked regarding their collective turn at the helm, they need to have acted to ensure the electorate’s response is “Yes”.

It definitely wasn’t “Yes” for the Republicans at the last election, but without a miracle, it will not be “Yes” for President Obama and the Democrats this time around.

This blog is almost sure to arouse the ire of a liberal leaning reader, but should it do so, it will be a demonstration of the very condition that I have observed and elected to discuss.  A number of political liberals, the stalwarts who denounce conservatives as being unwilling to embrace diversity, when faced with a point of view that diverges from their own, are not only resistant to that point of view, but become personally outraged, insulting and abusive towards those who have a differing point of view.

Some may believe their violent response is the result of mounting frustration due to an inability to rationally defend their position while others see it as the product of an out of control ego that cannot fathom the idea that someone has the audacity to disagree with them. I don’t know  why  they react so, but it does happen with some regularity and must be the result of some fundamental emotional conflict.

While not all liberals react this way, it has become so predictable a response that you see it fairly regularly on broadcast television.  Commentators who seem to be able to discuss terrorism, brutal murders and moral depravity with emotional detachment, when faced with reporting on a simple protest rally that opposes their political viewpoint increasingly resort to vilifying, insulting and mocking the participants who hold the opposing view.  For example: many mainstream media commentators, when faced with reporting on a gathering of what is known as the “Tea Party Movement” seem incapable of simply and accurately reporting the news of the event without at least some negative personal commentary about the participants.

I find this interesting because the Tea Party Movement for the most part appears focused on protesting: a) runaway government spending,  b) increased government regulation and c) higher taxes.  This being the case, the only logical conclusion to be drawn is that those critical of the movement must be in favor of fiscal irresponsibility, increasing government regulation and higher taxes.  Since this contrasts with the beliefs of most Americans, it isn’t surprising that these media outlets have suffered in the ratings over the past year.  You would think the financial repercussions of falling ratings would influence the producers to assume a more balanced position in an effort to improve ratings.

Another related news phenomena I see regularly is the split screen interview with both a conservative and a liberal.  While on its face it appears that the news agency is being balanced, often the interview is decidedly unbalanced.  What usually happens is that the liberal speaks first and the polite conservative sits quietly until it is their turn to speak.  Then when the conservative respondent begins speaking, the liberal respondent shouts over them for the balance of the segment.  The outcome is that, for practical purposes, the viewer hears only the liberal side of the question and never clearly hears any opposing argument.  Of course, the news agency could kill the liberal respondent’s microphone, but they never do because then an opposing view would be heard.  This practice has been going on for years and is one of the reasons I do not wholeheartedly trust the mainstream media.

In light of these observations, I’d have to say that a number of liberals practice the very intolerance that they accuse conservatives of believing in.  In practice it seems that intolerance, personal attacks and discrimination are generally acceptable with a nod and wink if you are a liberal and totally unacceptable for anyone else, especially conservatives.

There also seems to be a parallel liberal concept of selfishness.  If you are unwilling to freely and enthusiastically give a liberal your earnings to satisfy their wants (especially if they want it for redistribution to their supporters), you epitomize their definition of selfish.  But if you are a liberal, you are not selfish if you coercively confiscate another’s earnings to satisfy your wants or to redistribute those earnings to your supporters to satisfy their wants.

So are American liberals intolerant? …. Many of them are and continue to be so despite the fact that it is fundamentally hypocritical.  The rest simply smile, nod and wink while their leaders continue the charade.  Perhaps it is this fundamental hypocrisy that provides the emotional conflict that elicits the violent personal attacks when the liberal point of view is challenged.