Emerging Democratic Majority?

Michael Barone debates Ruy Teixeira on Capitol Hill, August 18th. My money's on Barone. Teixeira's been forecasting a coming Democrat majority as long as I can remember. Here's this report, shortly after the "Hope & Change" election of 2008: "New Progressive America: Twenty Years of Demographic, Geographic, and Attitudinal Changes Across the Country Herald a New Progressive Majority."

Teixeira's not quite as confident today, "Key Socialist Fears “White Working Class” Could Defeat Obama."

Freakin' commie douchenozzle.

Michele Bachmann Jumps Into 2012 White House Race

Wednesday night's interview with Sean Hannity:

Jerry Brown Profiled at Los Angeles Times

Continuing my coverage of California's elections, today's Times features a glowing profile of Jerry Brown, "Older and Wiser, Brown Proudly Embraces His Father's Legacy":

At times, Jerry Brown seemed to go out of his way to distance himself from his father.

Edmund G. Brown Sr., California's governor from 1959 to 1967, called himself a "big government man." He built aqueducts, universities and freeways. He liked to shake hands with strangers and slap them on the back. A block might take him half an hour to walk because he greeted everyone he passed.

His only son, Edmund G. "Jerry" Brown Jr., could be aloof, even acerbic. He became governor eight years after his father lost a bruising race for a third term. The son preached an "era of limits" and railed against the kind of politics his father practiced.

Now the brash young governor who thought he knew it all marvels at his father's accomplishments, both privately and publicly. He is acutely aware of Pat Brown's admired legacy, and invokes his name with reverence.

Brown says he is wiser now — an admission that he was wanting before — and that he has mastered the nuts and bolts of governance. He even tries to smile more.

"I was looking for new ideas," Brown said of his first two terms as governor. "I wanted to break the stagnation. Right now the ideas are pretty clear. We need management and forging a consensus and a common purpose regardless of party…. The very extreme positions will not hold."

Is he attempting to vindicate himself, eying his father's legacy and finding his own lacking? Or is his candidacy a calculated stroke, fueled by the strong ego and ever restless spirit that has primed his previous reinventions?

For answers, Brown points to the writings of a 4th century philosopher and developer of Christian thought.

St. Augustine wrote about "not going back to what was said before, always creating and finding new things…," Brown said. "Life is a discovery, and you are always learning and formulating anew."

Folks can read the rest.

I'm not finding anything inspiring, and my thoughts are pretty clear on a Brown governorship: Been there, done that. He's an old-fashioned Democrat --- in the pocket of big labor --- who won't do much to improve California. The state needs major structural reforms. Known previously as an independent free-thinker, Brown is all washed up. He's basically riding the pubic gravy train into retirement, hoping to put even larger stamp on his father's big government legacy. Pat Brown took office nearly 40 years ago, ultimately presiding over the gargantuan expansion of state government and popular expectations for more. Jerry Brown could do well to revisit his early motto claiming the "era of limits," except it's the state government that should be limited, not the people of California. Cut taxes and regulations, reform budgeting and pensions, and revitalize the entrepreneurial spirit. The populace will respond. California always leads the nation. We can do it again, for the next era of innovation and growth. We just need good leadership, and I'm underwhelmed by the promise of Governor Moonbeam.

Republicans Up 55 to 41 Over Dems in Latest Gallup Generic Ballot

That margin is for the "low turnout scenario," but still.



See, "Republicans Remain in Control of Race for House."



And from Charlie Cook, "Democratic House Losses Likely to be Enormous, but Senate is Hard to Read."

Enthusiasm Gap Favors GOP in Early-Voter Data

At Politico "The Early Vote: Signs of GOP Passion" (via Memeorandum):

Just over a week before Election Day, signs of widespread Republican enthusiasm are apparent in the early-voter data, including in some places with highly competitive statewide races. Yet at the same time, for Democrats there are promising data in numerous states suggesting that the idea of a devastating turnout gap may be overblown.



POLITICO surveyed early voting through Saturday in 20 states, and in 14 of the 15 that have voter registration by party, the GOP's early turnout percentage is running ahead of the party's share of statewide voter registration — whether measured against 2006 or 2008, when President Barack Obama's campaign led to a surge in Democratic voter registration. As a result, Republicans say they're turning the tables on the Democratic dominance of early voting that paved the way for Obama's victory in 2008 — and that independents' lean toward the GOP this year will do the rest.

And here's this:

California provides an illustrative example of the complexities of interpreting early returns. According to data gathered by the Atlas Project, a private Democratic consulting firm, 43 percent of California early voters have been Democrats, while 39 percent have been Republicans. Considering the Democrats' current 44-31 registration advantage in the state, the GOP appears to be outpacing its share of the electorate, while Democrats appear to be staying home. Then again, in the 2006 early vote — a great year for Democratic candidates — each party drew 41 percent, a performance that was below Democratic registration and well above the Republican share.

Like all recent articles on early voting, the Politico report cites Michael McDonald, an expert on the topic at Brookings. See, "Web Chat: Voter Enthusiasm, Early Voting and the Midterm Elections." He suggests there that neither party necessarily enjoys a clear advantage in early voting, and that other factors come into play. Dems historically do better with GOTV, athough in California I'm seeing an extremely motivated conservative grassroots, so let's hope the numbers cited above in Politico hold up for election day.



RELATED: "New Los Angeles Times Poll is Outlier: Democrats Oversampled in Survey From Left-Leaning Greenberg Quinlan Rosner."



CARTOON CREDIT: Reaganite Republican.

New Los Angeles Times Poll is Outlier: Democrats Oversampled in Survey From Left-Leaning Greenberg Quinlan Rosner

The headlines for the new Los Angeles Times poll are falsely indicating a November blowout for the Democrats in California. My hardcopy newspaper headline reads: "Brown's Lead Doubles in One Month." And at LAT's homepage, "Brown's lead over Whitman widens to 52%-39%; Fiorina not gaining ground." And the killer is the New York Times' blog post, "Brown and Boxer Have Significant Leads, New Poll Shows."

Note first that other recent surveys find the governor's race no better than "lean Democrat" (see Rasmussen's survey out yesterday, with Brown holding a four-point edge with a +/-4 percentage point margin of error). And Survey USA, which routinely tilts left, has a poll out this week with Brown at 47% and Whitman 40%. That same survey throws some particularly interesting light on the CA Senate race. The survey is leaning Democrat in all the statewide races, but is a toss-up for Boxer-Fiorina, Boxer 46%, Fiorina 44%. (This needs more investigation, but there's some interesting speculation that support for marijuana decriminalization among highly-motivated voters is lifting Boxer's numbers. I'm predicting a defeat of Prop. 19 at the polls, so perhaps Survey USA's numbers hold even worse implications for Boxer's chances.) And Rasmussen's poll out yesterday had "Boxer picking up 48% of the vote, while Fiorina draws support from 46%."

I don't want to overstate the point, since it's always uphill for Republicans in California. But there's something suspicious with the methodology at the Times, as indicated at Greenberg Quinlan Rosner, who conducted the poll:

These findings are based on a random sample survey of 1,501 registered voters in the state of California conducted from October 13-20, 2010. These findings are also based on 922 likely 2010 voters. Likely voters are defined as registered voters that meet certain conditions based on previous vote history as determined from a voter file, likelihood of voting in 2010, and enthusiasm in the election. This includes respondents who have already voted, voted in both the previous two general elections who indicate they are “almost certain” or “probably” will vote in 2010 and those who have registered since the 2008 election due to ineligibility who are “almost certain,” all of whom must respond as a 5 or higher on a 0-10 enthusiasm scale.

And:

An oversample of 400 Latino registered voters were interviewed by telephone. All interviews from the Latino sample were carried out by bilingual Latino interviewers, and conducted in the preferred language of the survey respondent, English or Spanish. Overall, 41 percent of interviews with the Latino sample were conducted in Spanish and 59 percent in English. The technique of using fully bilingual interviewers is greatly preferred because it does not terminate calls with Spanish-language households and require a callback, which can be difficult to schedule with language barriers ... Upon completion of all interviewing, the results were weighted to bring the Latino oversample population into line with the racial and ethnic composition of registered voters in California. The data were weighted to reflect the total population of registered voters throughout the state, balancing on regional and demographic characteristics for gender, age, race and education according to known census estimates and voter file projections.

Folks can check other analysts (Nate Silver, for example), but given the huge Democrat advantage in California registration (see 2008 totals here at Page 4), and the tremendous Democrat enthusiasm in previous elections, it's pretty clear that the Times survey has oversampled Democrats. Likely voters are tilting toward the Dems at the Times, and Latinos are supporting Democrats this year by a roughly 2-to-1 factor: "Boxer has opened up a whopping 64% to 28% lead among Latinos."

The Los Angeles Times is pressing its fingers on the scales to favor the Democrat Party. There's widedly varied results across polls (the Field Poll had the governor's race tied at 41% last month), and Whitman may indeed be washed up, but I'd hardly count out Fiorina. Additional influences include the ground game over the next week, GOTV efforts on election day, and any last minute bombshell surprises.

ADDED: The Other McCain links: "Disinformation is the new objectivity."

Obama Zombies Losing Hope

And it's not just Shepard Fairey, either.



See James Taranto, "Now He's Lost Margaret Carlson":

By now it should be clear that the only new idea Obama introduced into American politics was the idea of Obama: Obama the voice of a new generation, Obama the brilliant technocrat, Obama the postracial leader.

The reality of Obama has been quite the opposite. The fresh-faced young leader has governed according to stale old ideas. The dazzling intellect has proved inadequate to basic managerial challenges. We haven't even been able to enjoy the achievement of having elected a black president, because so many of Obama's supporters (though not Obama himself, to his credit) won't shut up about how every criticism of the president and his policies is "racist."

Yet in America's current predicament, there is ample reason for optimism. We'd like to think that the failure of Obama's policies will discredit the bad economic ideas on which they're based, that his incompetence will discredit the notion that the cognitive elite should run the lives of everyone else, and that the phony charges of racism will discredit the long-outdated assumption of white guilt, at last bringing America close to the ideal of a colorblind society.

This is not to deny that the Obama presidency has been ruinous. But sometimes the costliest mistakes are those from which we learn the most.

Fewer Young Voters See Themselves as Democrats

I mean, seriously, if this is some kind of sign of the times we might be in the midst of the most important de-realignment in the post-1964 party era. I'll have more on this later, but check NYT:

FORT COLLINS, Colo. — The college vote is up for grabs this year — to an extent that would have seemed unlikely two years ago, when a generation of young people seemed to swoon over Barack Obama.

Though many students are liberals on social issues, the economic reality of a weak job market has taken a toll on their loyalties: far fewer 18- to 29-year-olds now identify themselves as Democrats compared with 2008.

“Is the recession, which is hitting young people very hard, doing lasting or permanent damage to what looked like a good Democratic advantage with this age group?” asked Scott Keeter, the director of survey research at the Pew Research Center, a nonpartisan group. “The jury is still out.”

How and whether millions of college students vote will help determine if Republicans win enough seats to retake the House or Senate, overturning the balance of power on Capitol Hill, and with it, Mr. Obama’s agenda. If students tune out and stay home it will also carry a profound message for American society about a generation that seemed so ready, so recently, to grab national politics by the lapels and shake.

All those questions are in play here in Larimer County, about an hour north of Denver, for the more than 25,000 students at Colorado State University.

Larimer, like much of Colorado, was once solidly Republican but went Democratic in the last few elections and is now contested by both sides. It is seen as a signal beacon for an increasingly unpredictable state.

Kristin Johnson, 23, like many other students interviewed here in recent days, said that a vote for Democrats in 2008, however passionate it was, did not a Democrat make. But she bristles just as much at the idea of being called a Republican.

“It’s like picking a team when you really don’t want to root for either team,” said Ms. Johnson, a communication studies major, who said she was undecided about parties and politics going into the general election campaign.

She is not the only one. Because the university draws about 80 percent of its enrollment from within Colorado — mostly from Denver and its suburbs — it is also a sort of mirror within a mirror for Colorado’s political culture. Moderate and conservative views are common; a campus monoculture of liberalism is not.

Leah Rosen, a history major from Denver, still vividly remembers witnessing a fistfight outside her dormitory room on election night in 2008 between Obama supporters and McCain supporters. National exit polls back then gave Mr. Obama a 66 percent edge among young people, to 32 percent for Senator John McCain, the Republican presidential nominee.

Larimer is the focal point for a nationally watched House race in Colorado’s Fourth District, where Betsy Markey, a Democrat, is fighting for a second term in a traditionally Republican seat, against a Republican challenger, Cory Gardner.

Senator Michael Bennet, a Democrat appointed last year to fill a vacant seat, is also in a toss-up contest against a Republican candidate, Ken Buck, who has local connections as the Weld County district attorney in Greeley, 20 miles southeast of Fort Collins.

Many students here, especially seniors nearing graduation, said that worries about the economy, and about getting a job after graduation, had filtered through the campus, dampening enthusiasm for Democrats in Congress and Mr. Obama.

But they have ObamaCare, right?

Well, maybe not.

Explosive Allegations in Black Panther Voter Intimidation Case

Part II coming on a little later this morning, with Megyn Kelly:

See also, "Former Justice Department Lawyer Accuses Holder of Dropping New Black Panther Case for Racial Reasons."

Also, at Pajamas Media, "PJM Exclusive: Unequal Law Enforcement Reigns at Obama’s DOJ."

A New Generation Must Stand for Truth ...

A couple of weeks back, Rob at Say Anything suggested the potential 2012 GOP presidential candidate Mitch Daniels' call for a "truce" on social issues was a "breath of fresh air."

I can understand the sentiment, but I'm certain that the other side won't observe a truce. The radical left's degradation and decay has made long inroads in society. There's never a breather in the battle for right and goodness. And in thinking about this I'm reminded of the most powerful political ad from campaign '08, and perhaps of all time. "Life, faith, and family ... now more than any other time in history ... a new generation must stand for truth ...

Scott Brown's Daughters

I think last night really demonstrated the immediacy and power of Twitter. When Scott Brown announced that his daughters were "available," Kathleen McKinley sent this tweet in real time:

I saw a few more tweets from women bloggers who were similarly shocked. It wasn't the high point of Brown's speech, but he's easily forgiven considering the emotional high of the moment.

It turns out that Glenn Beck's not cutting Brown any slack:

I wish Beck would have laid off this bit, especially since he's ostensibly on Brown's side, but what can you do.? The show must go on. Dan Riehl has more:

Oh, I know. It's just comedy. But it won't be in two years when liberals supporting Brown's opponent troll it up to initiate a discussion around Scott Brown's victory speech - without the context of the whole thing. Nah, they'll just be citing a former CPAC speaker to engage in smear tactics against Brown because Beck is being given political credibility by the Right.

Most won't appreciate that, now. But Beck's radio show which, truthfully, relatively few people listen to compared to the other national hosts, will provide the Left with a treasure trove of remarks taken out of context to hurt the Right at the polls. But, why should Beck care? He's getting paid for it, after all.

Pennsylvania Conservative Council in 2010

My good friend Skye (pictured), who blogs at Midnight Blue Says, commented at my Facebook page yesterday, saying her PACC meeting was "inspirational." Skye's talking about the Pennsylvania Conservative Council, a citizens' activist group located in West Chester, PA . The website is here. As Skye wrote a year ago upon founding the group:

After months of planning, We have crafted a mission statement, composed our by-laws, elected a steering committee and put together the framwork that is PACC. We have focused our activities towards letter writing campaigns, seating Republican committee members and running for elected office. No small task, indeed, with guidance from the local GOP and a state legislator we have made significant inroads towards our stated goals. Together we can build a better Republican party.

Skye and PACC did fabulous work in last November's election, campaigning and organizing for conservative candidates in the West Chester Area School Board elections. Sky's got a couple of posts on their success electing their slate. See, "We Did It - CONGRATULATIONS TO THE NEW MEMBERS OF THE WEST CHESTER AREA SCHOOL BOARD!," and "WCASB Race in Detail."

Skye's also been busy completing some of her studies. She just earned her professional certificate in infection control. And on top of that, she's been super involved with photography and charity work.

As a professor of political science, and a tea party patriot, I'm really inspired by Skye's commitment to conservative values and her work putting them into action. I look forward to learning more about PACC and Pennsylvania's grassroots conservatives in 2010.

FreshJive Calls Out Obama: 'A Devastating Take on the Iconic Obama Poster'

Mediaite's got the story, "'Hope Is Fading Fast': A Devastating Take on The Iconic Obama Poster." But Rachel Sklar, the author, gives FreshJive short shrift (via Memeorandum):

This shirt will probably cause a more conflicted reaction as Democrats debate whether it’s fair or unfair, and Republicans will probably love it. What makes this image significant, of course, is that it comes from the left ...

Well, yeah, sort of.

Actually, those on the right have seen way more clever posters, signs, and t-shirts all year -- at the tea parties and town halls. This one's cute, but not so orginal as to knock anybody's socks off.

It is important on the left, but also inaccurate. The reaction on the hard left is not conflicted. Radical blogs like Firedoglake have been hammering the "corporate" Democrats for some time now. (Frankly, Jane Hamsher's a commie tin-pot dictator-in-waiting.) And Josh Marshall's pissed that the party can't overcome GOP parliamentary procedures slowing down the ObamaCare monstrosity. Folks like this want radical change, "structual change," in response to the perceived "political polarization" that's causing a breakdown of "informal rules." Ezra Klein's also called for an end to the filibuster, and Scottie Lemieux also repudiates long-standing congressional rules protecting minority rights in favor of giving Dems power to ram down their unpopular policies -- and thus implement tyranny of the majority (isn't that just what radical leftists really want?).

What's good about this is that, yeah, for all of his own radical proposals, on some issues President Obama is trying to hold onto the political center (look at his Afghanistan decision to back McChrystal's troop surge), lest his "fading hope" turns out to be a political avalanche of dissatisfaction among moderates. So, as the radicals pull Obama leftward, back over to his own communist ideological inclinations, we'll seen even more of a rightward acceleration among independent moderates, who're already bailing on "hopenchange," as they say screw that with socialist extemism.

In short, the Democratic-left is fubar. Everyone's tired of Obama's s***.

Mission Accomplished: Racial Guilt Healed, Now Let's Put Conservative Back in Charge

From Gary Andres, at the Weekly Standard, "Mission Accomplished: Why Democrats Lost Ground in 2009":

Pundits and analysts are scratching their heads to explain Democratic defeats in Virginia and New Jersey last week, particularly examining what caused massive shifts toward the GOP among independent voters in those two states.

Explanations include brilliant Republican campaigns, bumbling Democratic efforts, tea-party conservatives surging, or dispirited liberals just staying home. Some even argue the issue matrix flipped again--last year voters wanted more government intervention; now suddenly they want less.

All of these explanations are plausible. And some even include a few kernels of truth. But there's one you may not have heard. Call it the "mission accomplished" thesis. It goes like this:

Barack Obama's victory was more about a cause than a campaign. It transcended issues such as health care reform, climate change, or embracing a new progressive agenda. It was in part about repudiating eight years of George W. Bush, especially his efforts in Iraq. But it was also about achieving a moral imperative--helping elect the first African-American president who promised to change the language of politics in this country ....

And then Obama won--a victory these voters savored.

Yet his 2008 win also contained another conclusion: Mission Accomplished. They could move on.

More at the link.

Andres mentions this theme as the central metaphor in HBO's documentary, By the People: The Election of Barack Obama.

McCain Continues to Prove Himself the Enemy of the Grassroots

My latest essay at Pajamas Media is up today, "McCain Continues to Prove Himself the Enemy of the Grassroots":

The timing was impeccable. On the day after HarperCollins released the cover photo for Going Rogue — Sarah Palin’s highly anticipated autobiography — Steve Schmidt, John McCain’s former chief campaign advisor, predicted that if Palin were to win the 2012 GOP nomination, “we would have a catastrophic election result.” It was Schmidt, a veteran Republican strategist, who first advised Senator McCain to select Palin as his running mate in 2008. And it was Schmidt who first criticized Governor Palin within the McCain camp as “going rogue.” Asked how Palin’s book might describe their relationship during the election, Schmidt suggested that perhaps he was the “anti-rogue in the running of the campaign.”

Schmidt’s comments provide a nice backdrop to a recent report at Politico (”McCain’s Mission: A GOP Makeover.”) It turns out that the Arizona senator has been positioning himself as a major power broker within the Republican Party hierarchy. He is identified in the article as the party’s titular head; and the erstwhile presidential nominee has been raising money for moderate GOP candidates and hitting the campaign trail for pragmatic allies. As noted in the article:

“I think he’s endorsed people with center-right politics because he has an understanding that the party is in trouble with certain demographics and wants to have a tone that would allow us to grow,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham, the South Carolina Republican who is McCain’s closest friend and ally in the Senate.

“At a time when our party is struggling and has a lot of shrill voices and aggressive voices, he’s one that can expand our party,” said John Weaver, a longtime McCain friend and strategist.

This meme of McCain’s reemergence as the GOP’s elder statesman and centrist savior is not likely to go down well among grassroots conservatives.

Read the whole thing at the link.

Mark Levin on Glenn Beck: 'Mindless', 'Incoherent' (AUDIO)

Not the most attactive YouTube, but it's worth a listen. Mark Levin's actually combining his own attack on John McCain with a condemnation of Glenn Beck's endorsement of "The One" over "The Maverick." Robert Stacy McCain's got a long but interesting analysis, plus more at Memeorandum:

See also, Right Wing Nut House, "IS GLENN BECK 'THE ENEMY'?"

Republicans and the Social Media Revolution

Back in February, interestingly, I thought Meghan McCain had a good point when she argued that "Republicans don't get the Internet."

Not any more.

With Americans witnessing the dramatic impact of Andrew Breitbart's Big Government, which along with Fox News has been the main outlet breaking the ACORN prostitution scandal, we're really seeing the power of conservative online politics hitting home. The Washington Times featured an item yesterday describing Breitbart as a "conservative rebel with a cause." And because the leftist press is irked at their comeuppance at the hands of a couple of brilliant young conservatives, they're now sliming James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles like only true dirtbags know how.

That's why I find this piece at the Los Angeles Examiner puzzling, "GOP Fails to Recognize Power of the Internet." The author, Jim Kouri, argues that "Say what you will about the left-wing bloggers and left-leaning Internet web sites, they are a power to be reckoned with, according to a growing number of conservatives." Yet Kouri provides no quotes from conservatives to support the statement.

No matter.

This is something I've been thinking about this last couple of weeks amid the Big Government ACORN rollout. I recall earlier arguments that the party out of power will be most adept at deploying new social media for political action. Daily Kos, once the granddaddy of radical left wing blogs, is now a shadow of its former self. Daily Kos' traffic numbers in 2009 are down substantially. Jon Henke wrote a dramatic post in April comparing Kos' numbers to Michelle Malkin's Hot Air (a difference of 15 million visitors in Hot Air's favor over the March-April timeline). As Henke added then, "I suspect we'll be rediscovering something we had previously learned in the 90's and 00's: the Internet is good for insurgencies and opposition."

This is a good social science topic, by the way. Facebook and Twitter have been driving conservative mobilization all year, and while much of the activism is explicitly non-partisan (protesters are mad at both parties more often than not), events will clearly benefit the GOP when next year's elections roll around. Conservatives not wanting to waste a vote will rally to the Republican banner in the years ahead. And if the GOP doesn't learn the lessons of 2008, when small-government conservatives got pushed aside by the nomination of John McCain, the party may as well sit on the sidelines of power for a couple of more cycles.

An interesting related essay: "The Obama Roadblock: Why He's Sagging Online" (via Memeorandum).

The GOP and the 2010 Midterms

Track-a-'Crat gets the video hat tip, but check out Frank Donatelli, "2010 Will Be a GOP Year":

Since the beginning of the 20th century, the party not in control of the White House has gained seats in every off-year election after a president's first election except for two times (1934 and 2002). Off-year dynamics are different and by the time they roll around many of the themes dominant in the presidential election have faded. Most importantly, new presidents and their administrations almost always overreach. And Barack Obama and his Democratic Party are overreaching in a big way.

A great essay, at the link.

Related: Chris Cillizza, "The Most Important Number in Politics Today." ("45 - That's the percentage of voters who believe that President Obama lacks a 'clear plan for solving this country's problems' in a new CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll.")

McCain Was Right on Fiscal Fundmentals!

Via Memeorandum, "On Spending and the Deficit, McCain Was Right":

Barack Obama used to get very upset about federal budget deficits. Denouncing an "orgy of spending and enormous deficits," he turned to John McCain during their presidential debates last fall and said, "We have had, over the last eight years, the biggest increases in deficit spending and national debt in our history … Now we have a half-trillion deficit annually…and Sen. McCain voted for four out of five of those George Bush budgets."

That was then. Now, President Obama is asking lawmakers to vote for a budget with a deficit three times the size of the one that so disturbed candidate Obama just a few months ago. And Obama foresees, for years to come, deficits that dwarf those he felt so passionately about way, way back in 2008.

Everywhere you go on Capitol Hill, you hear echoes of the last campaign's spending debate. So on Thursday morning, as the budget fight raged, I asked McCain about the president's seemingly forgotten concern about deficits. McCain doesn't like to rehash the campaign - "The one thing Americans don't like is a sore loser," he told me - but when I read him Obama's quote from the debate, he said, "Well, there are a number of statements that were made by then-candidate Obama which have not translated into his policies."

That's an understatement. The deficit issue could be one of the most, if not the most, consequential of Obama's unkept campaign promises. Just how consequential was made clear last week in a little-noticed conference call featuring Budget Director Peter Orszag. Orszag was trying to explain to reporters how the Obama administration calculated its rather rosy forecasts for economic growth. Near the end of the call, he was asked whether deficits along the lines of those predicted by the Congressional Budget Office are sustainable."

There's more at the link.

Cartoon Hat Tip: Political Pistachio.

House Democrats Pass $819 Billion "Porkulus" Bill

In one of the most amazingly corrupt feats of political gamesmanship ever, the Democratic House majority rammed through an $819 billion economic recovery plan yesterday without a single Republican vote, COMBINED with the defection of 11 Democratic representatives. A bipartisan opposition! Now that's what I'm talking about!

Robert Stacy McCain quips:

Man, if all it took to get Republicans to vote conservative was to elect a Democratic president, this is a change I can believe in.

And don't miss Rush Limbaugh at the Wall Street Journal:

There's a serious debate in this country as to how best to end the recession. The average recession will last five to 11 months; the average recovery will last six years. Recessions will end on their own if they're left alone. What can make the recession worse is the wrong kind of government intervention.

I believe the wrong kind is precisely what President Barack Obama has proposed. I don't believe his is a "stimulus plan" at all - I don't think it stimulates anything but the Democratic Party. This "porkulus" bill is designed to repair the Democratic Party's power losses from the 1990s forward, and to cement the party's majority power for decades.