From National Review, a follow-up to my post yesterday about the midterm election projection.
Excerpt:
The Democratic line is that the Republican House does nothing but block and oppose. In fact, it has passed hundreds of bills, only to have them die upon reaching the desk of Senate majority leader Harry Reid. He has rendered the Senate inert by simply ensuring that any bill that might present a politically difficult vote for his Democratic colleagues never comes to the floor.
Winning control of the Senate would allow Republicans to pass a whole range of measures now being held up by Reid, often at the behest of the White House. Make it a major reform agenda. The centerpiece might be tax reform, both corporate and individual. It is needed, popular, and doable. Then go for the low-hanging fruit enjoying wide bipartisan support, such as the Keystone XL pipeline and natural-gas exports, especially to Eastern Europe. One could then add border security, energy deregulation, and health-care reform that repeals the more onerous Obamacare mandates.
If the president signs any of it, good. If he vetoes, it will be clarifying. Who then will be the Party of No? The vetoed legislation would become the framework for a 2016 GOP platform. Let the debate begin.
The risk-averse will say: Why take chances? Why not just run against the Obama legacy in 2016?
The GOP should and will do that. What has happened to economic growth, social cohesion, and America’s standing abroad will be a significant drag on Democrats. But it could very well not be enough.
[…]Memo to the GOP: Win the Senate, then enact an agenda and dare the president to veto it. Show the country what you stand for. Then take it to the nation in 2016.
So, if the GOP takes the House and Senate, they can proceed to pass every single bill that makes sense to the American people and then have Obama veto each one. Then they can run on those vetoed bills in 2016. Obama is a left-wing radical, so this is exactly who we want to represent the Democrat party in such an operation. Republicans can say “We wanted THIS and the Democrat in charge said no”. That’s one way of working around the liberal media. Now is the time to debate all the bills that they will want to pass should the GOP win the Presidency in 2016.
I believe Scott Walker is the best possible candidate for the Republican 2016 election. I have believed this since before I moved to Wisconsin, and living here has solidified that belief.
I understand that Rand Paul is by far the most popular candidate for libertarians. I lived in Kentucky during Rand Paul’s primary fight against McConnell toady Trey Greyson, although I stayed home, as he was dominating in the polls. I did vote for him for Senate. I’m proud of my former Senator (I have since moved to Wisconsin, which has a conservative Tea Partier and a Marxist lesbian in the Senate) and think he’s doing a fine job.
He lists five reasons why he likes Walker.
Here are the first three:
1. Competence matters as much as ideology. I remember when Democrats enthusiastically elected a charismatic, ideological liberal with almost no real experience running anything. He then proceeded to screw up one of the most important left-wing issues so badly that Democrats barely even want to say the word “healthcare” anymore, let alone make you extravagant promises about it. Obama’s self-defeating hubris is the only reason we have a chance in 2016. If Obamacare had been a smartly devised system of creeping bribes like Medicare was, the fight would be over. Ideologically, I like Rand Paul, but I have simply no reason whatsoever to believe he would be a competent executive. He’s a risky unknown, and the Presidency is too important. If he turns out to be incompetent, four years of an incompetent executive ensures the liberty movement will be finished for years as a voice in the Republican Party and in American politics as a whole. Scott Walker’s proven he can establish the kind of record that makes limited government more popular, not less. We’re not talking about Chris Christie’s progressive Republicanism. We’re talking about a guy whose signature accomplishments are cutting off public employee unions and balancing the budget.
2. Institutions matter. If there’s one thing that characterizes Scott Walker’s tenure as governor, it’s disarming, defanging, and throttling institutions that serve as the source and foundation of left-wing power. We don’t just need someone who likes capitalism and freedom in the White House. We need someone who understands how the institution of government has been turned into a tool for destroying the right and creating reliable, government-worshiping, Democrat voters. I know Scott Walker understands this, because he’s made it central to his agenda while governor. And I know he doesn’t just understand it, he knows how to do it.
3. The federal bureaucracy has metastasized. Scott Walker has an army of boring, pudgy, bespectacled guys quietly doing everything they can to undermine and confound the progressive agenda at state bureaucracies. He knows who to get the right people doing the grunt work of reforming government. The greatest enemies a Republican President will face are the permanent employees in executive branch agencies, not Congressional Democrats. The petty functionaries that weaponized the IRS are smart, they are vicious, and they will fight. I know Walker knows they need to be fought, and I know that he knows how to win, because he’s winning his fights here in Wisconsin. I’d have more faith in Rand Paul if he’d been the governor of Kentucky and successfully fought the public school establishment or something, but he hasn’t been, so I don’t have it. Making speeches on the Senate floor is important, but it’s not the same as going through the laborious grind of cleaning out a bureaucracy that’s metastasized and is feeding on the body politic. Paul is probably more ideologically libertarian than Walker, but Walker’s won as many battles against government as you could hope to get out of any governor.
I think that in 2016 we should be looking at candidates who will take the fight to the Democrats. We don’t need another Mitt Romney. I want to see a candidate who sticks his neck out for what he believes in and comes out on top. Real accomplishments, this time. Not rhetoric. Why do we always have to care what our opponents think of us? Why not just beat them up and then be magnanimous in victory? If he runs for President on the platform of zeroing out manufacturing income tax, he will win. Every union worker will vote for him.
During the Christmas vacation, I read governor Walker’s new book, which was a Christmas present from my friend ECM. If you want to learn more about governor Walker, I recommend picking that up. I actually got the audio version, and it’s read by governor Walker himself.
Frankly, there is only one person running in 2016 right now who destroys government, and it’s Walker. I want to see them out of a job, or with their salaries and benefits chopped. No mercy. Walker is the man who can do it, because he’s done it. Over and over and over again.
The Republican National Committee approved today a resolution supporting all federal, state and local legislation to stop abortion after 20 weeks, more than halfway through pregnancy.
[…]Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the national pro-life group the Susan B. Anthony List praised the RNC saying:
“Americans are united in their support for commonsense legislation to stop abortion more than halfway through pregnancy. We thank the Republican committeemen and women for affirming all efforts to end barbaric late abortions nationwide and urge Democrats to do the same. In state legislatures across the county, Democrats are bucking pressure from their national leaders to support this compassionate legislation that is already popular with their constituents.”
This week Senator Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) circulated a letter signed by more than 30 U.S. Senators including Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), urging him to bring the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act for a floor vote.
“A federal law is long overdue,” continued Dannenfelser. “The United States is only one of seven countries to allow abortion on demand at such a late stage of pregnancy. The U.S. Senate should follow the RNC’s lead and go on record on this important issue.”
Author and chief sponsor of the resolution RNC Committeewoman Ellen Barrosse said:
“The Republican Party is proudly pro-life and this resolution shows our support for this straightforward, simple pro-life initiative. Children capable of feeling intense pain, as well as their mothers, should be protected from abortion at such a very late stage of gestation.
Still all political parties are the same? On the pro-life issue, Republicans are united. It’s a good reason for social conservatives to vote for them at election time.
WINTERY KNIGHT 