Kenneth G. Davenport

A post mortem (and mea culpa)

noreply@blogger.com (Kenneth Davenport) — Wed, 14 Nov 2012 16:03:00 +0000

Obviously, it has taken me a week to get the egg off my face -- and wake up from my stupor. The results of the election were -- there is no other way to say it -- a disaster for conservatives. But now that I've had a chance to review the exit polls and some of the commentary, here's my post-mortem:

First, it wasn't as bad as it seemed. In fact, the election was actually very close by the standards of the Electoral College. Yes, I know -- Obama won the Electoral College 332-206. But he won the states that Romney needed to get to 270 and victory -- Virginia, Florida, Ohio and New Hampshire -- by a total of 330,000 votes. That's right -- had Romney turned an additional 330,000 voters to the polls to vote for him, we'd be talking today about the Romney transition and not Obama's plan for $1.6 trillion in tax hikes on the "wealthy".

So, what happened? Why did Romney not get those 330k votes? Pretty simple, actually -- white voters who lean conservative stayed home in big numbers. As Byron York points out in the Washington Examiner:

For example, in Ohio -- the most hotly contested state in the entire race -- Republicans are asking why a large group of voters, carefully cultivated through personal contacts and putative supporters of Mitt Romney, just didn't show up at the polls.

In 2008, John McCain got 2,677,820 votes in Ohio. In 2012, according to a still-unofficial tally from the Ohio Secretary of State, Mitt Romney got 2,583,582.

This pattern was repeated throughout the swing states the Romney needed. Voters were turned off by the Obama smear campaign on Romney during the summer months that went unanswered, and simply stayed home. This was a similar pattern to what happened in 2008 -- when conservatives decided that John McCain wasn't conservative enough -- and voted third party or didn't vote at all. As John Last at the Weekly Standard points out:

And the biggest chunk of that missing electorate is made up of white voters. As the invaluable Sean Trende pointed out last week, something like 7 million white voters from 2008 didn't come to the polls this time around. Barack Obama's margin of victory was 3.2 million votes. If you assume, just for the sake of argument, that those white voters break the same as whites in general (60-40 in favor of Romney), then if they had voted President Obama probably still would have won. But his margin of victory in the popular vote would have been a mere 400,000 votes. We're suddenly talking a much closer contest.

Only this time it was worse -- since it now turns out that Mitt Romney will get fewer votes nationally that John McCain. In a year when Barack Obama got over 6 million FEWER votes than in 2008, the GOP literally snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. In fact, had Mitt Romney won the same number of votes that George W Bush won in 2004 he would both be president-elect today and have won the popular vote.

There are now many analysts and pundits trying to rebrand the GOP into something more accessible to hispanics and other voters who should be natural conservatives. It's a good idea -- we need to make it clear that conservatives aren't old white men, but are made up of millions of hard working people who see self determination as key to the American dream.

But in the end it came down to the candidate we chose and the way the campaign was run. I offer these conclusions:

-- Mitt Romney would have made a great president. But he ran a very safe, narrow campaign. Jobs, jobs, jobs. That's all we heard about. What we missed was a discussion about how the nation is slipping into an irreparable debt bog that threatens our freedom and the future of our children, and how only unleashing the free-enterprise system will save us. He didn't talk about the issue of competence, of "Fast and Furious", nor the scandal of Benghazi. He played the last debate on foreign policy as a presumptive winner sitting on a big lead. As I watched that debate -- where he wanted to appear likable to women -- I was furious. President Obama was vulnerable on foreign policy and Romney whiffed it.

-- Sadly, Mitt Romney's wealth was a factor. It shouldn't have been. He's an American success story. But he never was able to parry the "rich vulture capitalist with offshore bank accounts" meme that played in the swing states. It ended up hurting him badly.

-- We got beat on the ground game as well -- pure and simple, the Obama campaign got their people out and we didn't. We employed a novel new digital vote counting and turnout system called "Orca" that turned out to be a Dodo bird -- it crashed and burned on election day, and meant that in Ohio and Florida we were running blind on who had and had not voted yet. It was a disaster. And in a race as close as 330,000 votes, it ended up being fatal.

In the end, conservatives shouldn't despair too much. Barack Obama as NO MANDATE. 330,000 votes is no clarion call for change. True, the next four years are going to be BRUTAL, to be sure -- and I am sad for our country that Obama remains in power. It shouldn't have been. But we have a great bench of young conservatives who can better make the case for our values -- Marco Rubio, Paul Ryan, Bobby Jindhal and others -- and I am confident that we will be in a good place in 2016 after four more years of partisan gridlock, the implementation of Obamacare and the endless scandals that are certain to mark Obama's second term.

Some predictions on the election.

noreply@blogger.com (Kenneth Davenport) — Thu, 01 Nov 2012 03:31:00 +0000

Friends --

As you know, I've not been blogging this political season -- not like I have in the past. In 2008, I burned many hours trying to convince people that Obama was a fraud, a radical statist in moderate packaging. I believed his record as opposed to his rhetoric -- and I watched in dismay as many moderate Republicans and Independents fell for the "Hope and Change" bromides of his campaign.

This year I've been watching the election closely. The president has a record now, and it is one of abject failure. He cannot escape it. And conservatives are blessed with a candidate who is smart and capable -- and who has a record that actually can withstand the blatant biases of the media.

We will win next Tuesday.

A few thoughts:

-- Don't believe the polls that show the race is tied. It is NOT tied. Romney has a lead nationally and in all of the swing states -- despite what the polls say. The state-level polls this year are garbage. They don't take into account the fact that the turnout of the electorate will NOT be a repeat of 2008, where Democrats turned out more than Republicans by a margin of 7%. In 2004 it was even between Democrats and Republicans. Does anyone think honestly that 2012 will be a repeat of 2008, when Obama mobilized young people and minorities to turn out in record numbers? And yet all of the polls that show Obama ahead give the Democrats a huge advantage in turnout -- even greater than the +7 or 2008! It's madness! Every poll that has a turnout model more in line with reality -- between even and +3 for Democrats -- shows Romney in the lead. That's where the race is today.

-- I believe it will not be close. My prediction is 53-46 Romney with more than 300 electoral votes. Romney will win Florida, Virginia, Ohio, Colorado, Wisconsin and Michigan. He will have a mandate for change -- the kind of change we really need.

The following video is brilliant. Watch it and send it to everyone you know.

One final note for those who live in California:

The most important initiative on the ballot is Proposition 32. It will curb the power of the unions in California, and is the most important step in putting control of the state back in the hands of the people. You must vote YES on 32 and please tell everyone you know to do the same!!

Here's more information on it:

Click here: Yes on 32

Thoughts on the Debate

noreply@blogger.com (Kenneth Davenport) — Thu, 04 Oct 2012 17:06:00 +0000

The left is in full spin mode, trying to make sense of the shellacking that Barack Obama took last night at the debate with Mitt Romney in Denver. Here are a few thoughts from my perspective:

Obama is -- to be blunt -- the first "affirmative action" president. Obama has been the beneficiary of affirmative action politics, and thus has been shielded during his career from being truly pushed and tested. My guess is that he resists releasing his college transcripts because they show that his grades were fair to poor, but he went to Columbia and Harvard Law on the basis of his racial status. And of course, the truth is that he became president because he is black -- no way he would have been elected in 2008 over Hillary Clinton as a white guy! Obama hasn't been pushed since Hillary Clinton pressed him a bit in the Democratic primary debates in 2008. But those debates were in an echo chamber -- where the differences between candidates is small -- and he was never pushed on the substance of his ideas. For the past four years as president, he's been coddled by a compliant media, protected by his staff and has not been pushed to defend his agenda. It showed last night.

Romney is a better candidate than his campaign shows. For the first time, the American public saw a full-throated, eloquent defense of conservative principles: individual liberty, limited government and freedom. George Bush couldn't do it. John McCain didn't do it. But Romney did -- and he won last night not because Obama was tired or flat, but because his ideas reflect the values of this nation. Romney's performance proves that he is better than his campaign, and that given a chance, he can promote a real forward-thinking vision for the country.

Obama's lack of real-world experience hurts him. In fact, Obama is like a lot of academics I've known -- well educated, well read -- but lacking real life smarts. Obama is a professor -- he can talk at the 30,000 foot level about ideas that come off sounding like talking points. But he can't dive deep into the details effectively -- he lacks a real-world perspective that makes them tangible to regular people. Romney was super effective last night in talking about details in a way which showed his mastery of the facts -- something Obama can't do.

Obama's a celebrity -- not a leader. That's been clear to me since 2007, but the public has been slow to catch on. He's not interested in details. He likes the aura of the job, loves to rub elbows with celebrities, and likes to be put on a pedestal. But he doesn't like the "sausage making" of politics. That's why he ceded ObamaCare and Dodd Frank and all other major initiatives to Congress to figure out. It's why he didn't embrace Simpson-Bowles, or lead on any of the hard, messy issues of the last four years. He loves the title and the perks, but not the work. It really showed last night.

My guess is that last night permanently changed the dynamics of the race. I've been saying for the past 4 months that I think Romney will win by 4 or 5 points. I stand by that prediction. I don't think that any serious independent can look at the debate and NOT vote for Mitt Romney.

noreply@blogger.com (Kenneth Davenport) — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 02:46:00 +0000

Does the left know how to tell the truth? Or are they all pathological liars?

Here's Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (the least attractive person in politics and unfortunately a fellow Jew) being put to the test by Wolf Blitzer of CNN. Now, we all know that CNN is a liberal news outlet, and that Blitzer is a card-carrying member of the Democratic media establishment. But even he can't let the Chair of the Democrat National Committee to get away with her pathological distortion of Paul Ryan's Medicare plan. Here -- it's worth seeing her sweat:

She just can't bring herself to deal with the facts -- that Paul Ryan's plan doesn't end "Medicare" but rather puts it on sustainable footing so that it doesn't bankrupt itself (and the nation) along with it. She's just making cr*p up out of whole cloth. Like most Democrats, she thinks that facts are fungible things that can be made up as they see fit. It's laughable -- except this woman runs the Democrat Party apparatus.

But the left's tactic is Mediscare -- and every moment of the day will be taken up by their desire to convince seniors that their benefits will be taken away just before they are pushed off Niagara Falls in their wheelchairs. Yuval Levin at National Review has a great piece up entitled "Grasping the Medicare Distortion. It's great:

It is simply a fact that the United States government is now on track for an unprecedented fiscal disaster — with debt quickly surpassing the size of our GDP and reaching twice that size in the coming decades, crushing any chance for robust growth. It is also a fact that the rising cost of Medicare is at the very heart of that disaster. The program has been growing far faster than the rest of the federal budget for decades, and the trend is only set to accelerate.

According to the Congressional Budget Office, Medicare spending as a share of the economy is five times what it was in 1970, while all other federal spending combined (excluding interest) is 1.1 times what it was. By 2035, CBO expects Medicare costs to be nearly twice what they are today as a share of the economy, while all other federal spending combined will actually decline somewhat as a share of the economy. The debt problem is a Medicare problem. There is no way to avert fiscal disaster without significantly reining in the growth of that program. Even President Obama has acknowledged that no other solution, and certainly not his symbolic class-warfare tax proposals, could be sufficient, saying last July that “if you look at the numbers, then Medicare in particular will run out of money and we will not be able to sustain that program no matter how much taxes go up.”

And yet, even though he acknowledges this fact, the president has chosen to do nothing, and indeed to stand firmly in the way of doing anything meaningful to solve the problem. Obamacare’s Medicare cuts and its board of price controllers aren’t a solution — the CBO debt and Medicare growth numbers cited above already include them, and the agency (along with Medicare’s actuary, who works for the president) has said they are very unlikely to work. What is needed is a structural reform of the program, to enable it to deliver coverage to seniors far more efficiently by driving more efficient delivery of care. But seniors who are now in the program don’t want to hear that it’s going bankrupt, and don’t want to think about changes to it, so the politics of Medicare argue strongly against any kind of solution. The president and his party have chosen to make the most of that political reality, quietly raiding Medicare to fund Obamacare but otherwise leaving the program to its sorry fate. They have denied the need for reform. It would take real political courage to do otherwise.

Read the whole thing. The President has taken over $700 Billion out of Medicare to fund ObamaCare -- and this only will hasten the demise of Medicare. But again, it hardly matters. The President and his party will say anything -- and I do mean ANYTHING -- to distract us from the reality that Barack Obama has added $5,000,000,000,000 in debt over the past three years and has enacted a $2 Trillion deficit-busting healthcare reform bill that will make matters even worse for everyone.

The President is an abject Disaster. Hope. Change. Fail.

Why Paul Ryan was the Right Choice for Romney

noreply@blogger.com (Kenneth Davenport) — Mon, 13 Aug 2012 05:53:00 +0000

I'm a huge fan of Paul Ryan. He was my first choice to be Romney's running mate. Why? Because he is a courageous man. Washington DC is full of posers, charlatans and egomaniacs who sell their votes to special interests and see their incumbency as an end to justify any and all means. Feeding at the public trough is their primary goal. You see it everywhere. Careerists who think they are better than the people they serve, who deign to tell us how to live our lives because they know best. It's a shameful spectacle.

But Ryan is different. He actually cares more about the country than his career. How do I know? Because he's willing to actually put a plan together to save this great nation from becoming Greece. His budget is the ONLY serious attempt to keep us from going headlong over a cliff. He didn't have to put forward a plan. He could have followed Barack Obama, our esteemed president, who has decided to kick the can down the road. Ryan's a Congressman. Congressmen don't generally put forward a plan to fix America's finances.

Unless you are Paul Ryan. He's brilliant. He's erudite. He's genuine. He's an adult. And best of all, he's a Republican. Let's pray he becomes the next Vice President of the United States!

Here's Romney and Ryan tonight on 60 Minutes:

Mitt Romney, John Houseman is calling

noreply@blogger.com (Kenneth Davenport) — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 15:31:00 +0000

Mitt Romney's rich. He's got bank. He's putting an elevator in his La Jolla home and building a basement (rare in California and exceedingly costly). He has homes in multiple states, flies in a private jet and knows the guys who own the Nascar racers that much of America watch on Sunday.

And I say: That's great!

Romney has been repeatedly on the defensive for his money. He's been pilloried as "out of touch", as remote from the "common man". As unable to understand what it's like to be middle class (much less poor) in America. He likely doesn't scan his own groceries at the check-out stand, and probably hasn't been on a public bus in decades.

Which is all, again, something to celebrate. Romney has earned his way into a life of comfort -- the kind of life most of us lay in bed at night and dream of. Romney doesn't need to take the bus, or go to Pic-and-Save to shop, and for that we all should be grateful. Those who would be president shouldn't be like the average Joe who lives down every American street. We expect our presidents to be special, to have achieved grand success in their careers. To be the best of the best.

And Romney has been the best of the best at his chosen field. He started with nothing, remember -- his last name is not Rockefeller or DuPont or Vanderbilt. Romney's father was a Governor of Michigan, not the CEO of General Motors during it's hey day. Romney became rich by being aggressive, taking risks, innovating and creating. And he created wealth not just for himself but for millions of employees and shareholders of the businesses he saved.

Like old John Houseman said in those old commercials for Smith-Barney: "Romney made his money the old fashioned way. He earned it."

In America, this is something to be celebrated. Rather than being on the defensive, Romney should be saying this:

Yes, I've done well. I've been fortunate to live in America. And my goal is to ensure that every American has the chance to do as well as I have.

And who wouldn't love that answer? Most American's want to be successful. It's in our DNA.

And what a great contrast with our current president. The guy who has never had a real job, who is part of the academic establishment. Who wouldn't know a start-up from a lawnmower. Seriously.

This is a contrast for us to CELEBRATE.

So, Mitt, don't be shy. Celebrate your success. Promote yourself as a beacon of real hope and change for an America that longs for self-sufficiency. Don't hide. Channel your inner-John Houseman.

You've earned it!

The Keystone Proof

noreply@blogger.com (Kenneth Davenport) — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 01:13:00 +0000

President Obama's decision to not allow the Keystone Pipeline project to move forward is the final proof that our national energy policy -- and our national security -- are firmly in the hands of left-wing wackos.

Seriously.

The Keystone Pipeline would have created 20,000 new jobs immediately and many more than that over the history of it's lifespan. It would have brought substantial oil to the United States from a reliable ally on our northern border, and would have been a significant step toward reducing our energy dependence on the Arab world.

Obama claimed today that he rejected the pipeline because the Republican House's 60 day deadline for approval didn't give the president enough time to adequately review the proposal. Really? The pipeline has undergone 40 months of hearing and review, and an exhaustive State Department study which deemed it was not a threat to the environment. The claim that it wasn't reviewed extensively enough is pure poppycock -- the average pipeline application and review process is 20-24 months. Half the time of the Keystone proposal.

The reality here is that this is pure progressive ideology at work.

The left hates oil. It hates refineries that process it into gas, and it hates the cars that run on gas.

It doesn't matter to the left whether or not 20 jobs or 200,000 jobs are linked to a pipeline that brings oil into the United States, or whether it means that gas prices will go up. Never mind that it is poor people who must use their cars to get to work are the one's who get hurt the most by high prices at the pump.

The poor, huddled masses are expendable in the cause of environmental purity.

The left wants us in electric cars on a grid powered by solar and wind power. And killing Keystone is one way to force this clean energy utopia upon us.

In the end, the GOP must tell the American people the truth: that the president caved to his progressive base by rejecting a proposal which has already gotten regulatory approval, and which would have immediately put thousands of Americans back to work. This represents a big opportunity for conservatives to show that despite his rhetoric, Barack Obama is a committed left-wing ideologue.

And Keystone is the proof.

Newt's Night

noreply@blogger.com (Kenneth Davenport) — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 00:39:00 +0000

I really enjoyed watching Newt last night in the South Carolina debate. He just killed it. His back and forth with Juan Williams on minority (un)employment showed that when Newt is on, he really can nail the left on its abject lack of common sense. When Williams asked Newt whether suggesting that having poor kids work as janitors is somehow "racially insensitive" and demeaning to minorities, Newt simply said, "no". He went on to say:

I believe every American of every background has been endowed by their Creator with the right to pursue happiness, and if that makes liberals unhappy, I'm going to continue to find ways to help poor people learn how to get a job, learn how to get a better job, and learn someday to own the job.

Only on the left is having a job as a janitor worse than no job at all. Of course, being a lowly janitor is no job for a poor person, right? After all, it's much better economically to stay home and collect welfare, food stamps and all sorts of other federal and state programs.

All of which is to state the obvious about leftism -- it's more concerned with equality than with opportunity. In this view of the world, the person who started in the mail room and grew up to be the CEO of the company is a (literal) impossibility. Work where? In the mail room? And risk a paper cut? (wait, do they even have mail rooms any more? Nevermind -- you get the idea).

On the left, work that isn't well paid with cradle-to-grave benefits is somehow demeaning and not worth having. The left misses an essential point that conservatives seem to understand clearly: work is, in itself, an essential element of a healthy life. Work generates self-esteem, independence and the ability to make independent decisions. It's affirming. Whether it's being a janitor or a bus driver or a construction worker, earning a pay check is a good thing.

So the crowd last night at the South Carolina debate stood and cheered Newt when he pointed out the shear lunacy of Williams' question, and responded with a credo that any conservative can support: we affirm the right for any American -- of any background or race -- to get a job and make something of themselves. It's the American dream.

Had Enough?

noreply@blogger.com (Kenneth Davenport) — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 23:04:00 +0000

Now, about that debt crisis...

The Obama Administration just lost $500 million in tax payer funds on an ill-advised bet on Solyndra, and now the Department of Energy has issued another $1 Billion in loan guarantees to two additional solar companies. Yes, that's $1 Billion with a "B". Given the debacle of Solyndra, wouldn't it make sense to press that "pause" button (at a minimum) on the DOE's solar energy industrial policy?

It would, unless you are too busy making political pay-offs in the process. Now it comes out that the largest of the two solar grants given out today -- $737 MILLION -- goes to a firm called "Solar Reserve". As the Weekly Standard points out, Solar Reserve as some very well-connected investors:

SolarReserve LLC, a closely held renewable energy developer, received a $737 million U.S. Energy Department loan guarantee to build a solar-thermal project in Nevada.

The 110-megawatt Crescent Dunes project, near Tonopah, Nevada, will use the sun’s heat to create steam that drives a turbine, the agency said today in a e-mailed statement. SolarReserve is based in Santa Monica, California.

On SolarReserve's website is a list of "investment partners," including the "PCG Clean Energy & Technology Fund (East) LLC." As blogger American Glob quickly discovered, PCG's number two is none other than "Ronald Pelosi, a San Francisco political insider and financial industry polymath who happens to be the brother-in-law of Nancy Pelosi, the Minority Leader of the United States House of Representatives."

That's right! Nancy Pelosi's brother-in-law is one of the investment partners in the very company that just pocked over $700 million in taxpayer funds. Coinkydink? I think not!

And, as the WS also points out, there's more:

One of Solar Reserve other investment partners is Argonaut Private Equity: Steve Mitchell and Argonaut Private Equity might have a chance to recoup some of their losses in the Solyndra debacle now that the Department of Energy has given a $737 million dollar loan guarantee to a company backed by Argonaut that also lists Mitchell among its board of directors.

Mitchell served on the Solyndra LLC Board of Directors. He also serves as Managing Director for Argonaut Private Equity, a company that invested in Solyndra through the LLCs parent company. After Solyndra declared bankruptcy, two Democratic members of the U.S. House asked that Mitchell testify about Solyndra. Though he has not appeared before Congress, he has "been asked to provide documents to Congress" pertaining to Solyndra.

This is all part and parcel to the insidious relationship between the Democratic Party and the green lobby. Like the unionistas, the greens are in bed with the Democrats in Congress and they will shovel out as many dollars to their patrons as they can -- never mind whether the projects ever work or not. We all know that solar energy will always be 2x or 3x the price of energy derived from carbon, and those economics are not going to change. But it really doesn't matter in the end. The important thing is that Democrats pay their dues to those who fill their campaign coffers, and so they bow obediently at the alter of climate change, giving away OUR money in the process.

Had enough? I have. This MUST end!

Heroism, defined

noreply@blogger.com (Kenneth Davenport) — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 15:37:00 +0000

President Obama today will award the third Medal of Honor today to a living American veteran of the "war on terror". U.S. Marine Corporal Dakota Meyer earned the highest medal for valor in Afghanistan in 2009. Today in the WSJ, Bing West has a riveting account of Meyer's selfless heroism that day:

The setting was the remote Afghan village of Ganjigal, on the Pakistan border, where elders had requested aid in repairing a mosque. Hoping to win hearts and minds, a U.S.-trained Afghan battalion agreed to help. At dawn, about 100 Afghan soldiers and a dozen U.S. Marine advisers entered the valley where Ganjigal is found, picking their way up a narrow, rocky wash toward the stone houses dug into the far end.

It was a setup. Hidden inside the houses and along the wash were 60 jihadists from Pakistan. The ambushers opened fire with machine guns, mortars and rockets. Immediately the foot patrol was pinned down and taking casualties.

Back at the valley's entrance, 21-year-old Cpl. Meyer listened to radio calls for artillery fire that were refused by officers at higher headquarters due to concern for endangering villagers. Cpl. Meyer hopped into the gun turret of a Humvee and persuaded a fellow adviser, Sgt. Juan Rodriguez-Chavez, to drive him straight into the battle.

When the Humvee lurched into the wash, Cpl. Meyer saw the bodies of roughly a dozen Afghan soldiers strewn across the terrain, some dead and others crying. With bullets striking his truck, he leaped out, stuffed five wounded Afghans inside, and then hopped back up behind the machine gun and hammered away as the pulverized vehicle crawled out of the wash.

Leaving the wounded in the rear, Cpl. Meyer and Sgt. Rodriguez-Chavez swapped Humvees. This time the enemy was waiting in a dry streambed. Rocket-propelled grenades and machine-gun bullets followed Cpl. Meyer as he repeatedly left his armored turret to load the truck with wounded Afghan soldiers. At one point, he shot a tall man with a black beard. When another leapt forward under the barrel of his machine gun, Cpl. Meyer grabbed his M4 rifle and shot him in the head.

"You'll have to kill me," he shouted in the rage of battle (he had expected to be killed, he told me a few days later at his outpost in Afghanistan), "because that's the only way you'll stop me."

When Cpl. Meyer and Sgt. Rodriguez-Chavez again dropped off the wounded in the rear, they bumped into a backup American platoon in armored vehicles. The platoon refused to join them, so they went back in for a third time with no backup, driving into a torrent of automatic-weapons fire so a group of trapped American advisers could escape. Cpl. Meyer watched women and children darting among the houses, carrying ammunition to the jihadists.

Cpl. Meyer, a qualified sniper, was hit in the right elbow but continued to shoot left-handed until the feeling returned to his right hand. Over the radio, he listened to Capt. Will Swenson, an Army adviser who remained in the valley to fight, calling repeatedly for artillery fire, only to be rebuffed by headquarters.

Pulling back out, Cpl. Meyer took count. Four advisers were still missing. So he gathered those still willing to risk death. In addition to Sgt. Rodriguez-Chavez and Capt. Swenson, an Afghan interpreter and Lt. Ademola Fabayo, another adviser, climbed into the truck with Cpl. Meyer. An Army pilot in a tiny Kiowa helicopter, flying 10 feet above the ground, protected the Humvee from the rear. They drove back into the cauldron a fourth time. After seven hours of fighting, Cpl. Meyer found his four missing comrades, dead. At about the same time, the jihadists had collected their casualties and were trekking back into Pakistan.

Read the whole thing here.

It is hard for civilians to understand the loyalty and dedication that soldiers and marines have for one another in the field, and in those moments life comes down to a few very basic elements -- the main one being character. Are you going to leave your teammates behind? Will you take cover while those who depend on you "having their back" take fire?

For Marines like Dakota Meyer, the answer is a resounding "no". He put his life on the line to save both Afghans and Americans. For those who see the U.S. military as a dark force or look at us as "occupiers", this kind of action should be a wake-up call. Our men and women in harm's way are there to do good. And to protect and defend each other, whatever the cost.

Semper Fi, Corporal Meyer.

Don't know much about business...

noreply@blogger.com (Kenneth Davenport) — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 16:40:00 +0000

At the WSJ today, another devastating Op-Ed on the anti-business agenda of the Obama Administration:

The White House's economic logic seems to be that its new spending and temporary tax cuts will so fire up investment and hiring in the next 16 months that the economy will be growing much faster in 2013 and could thus absorb a leap off the tax cliff. But this requires its own leap of faith.

All of this assumes that American business owners aren't smart enough to look beyond the next few months. They can surely see the new burdens they'll face in 2013, and they aren't about to load up on new employees or take new large risks if they aren't sure what their costs will be in 16 months. They can also reasonably wonder whether Mr. Obama's tax hike will hurt the overall economy in 2013—another reason to be cautious now.

All of which is further proof that nobody -- and that includes our esteemed Boy Wonder president -- knows the first thing about how business runs. As someone who has run a professional service business -- where by definition your employees are your product -- hiring is a very risky and costly decision under the best of circumstances. People are expensive. When my firm looked at bringing on new employees we had to very carefully assess the coming business climate -- knowing that if we hired someone on and couldn't keep them busy, we'd end up losing money in the end. It's a tricky business. Of course, its even harder when you don't know what regulations and rules are coming down the pike, or what your future tax burden is going to look like.

The notion that small firms like mine would suddenly go out and hire based on a set of incentives with a 16 month time frame is ludicrous, and that goes double when you know that at the end of that short period you will be blasted by massive new taxes and regulations.

Barack Obama doesn't know much (or anything) about business. That should be no surprise, of course, because he's existed his entire adult life in the public sector, and has never run anything of substance other than his 2008 campaign for president. He's economically illiterate. And he's so beholden to his union patrons that he continues to spend the public purse in pursuit of jobs for them.

Of course, I'm giving the president a lot of credit here. I'm assuming he actually really does want to put people back to work but just doesn't know how. The alternative explanation -- that he secretly wants high unemployment and big debt to fuel his statist ambitions of a dependent society -- is one that is held by many conservatives.

And this view may be correct. But it is hard to see how Obama gets reelected in 2012 with 10% unemployment, and as the WSJ posits, it is likely he wants to juice the economy just enough to remain president in a second term, where he can really put the screws to the productive class. So, I'm betting it may be a bit of both. In the long-run he wants business to fail. In the short-run he wants hiring to improve to give him political cover. He's splitting the baby on this one. And likely nobody will be happy in the end.

9/11 on the USS Midway

noreply@blogger.com (Kenneth Davenport) — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 05:01:00 +0000

September 11 has always been a very personal day for me. I've written about it every year since I started blogging in 2006, and each year I try and do something to memorialize the victims who died in this act of terror. Last year I missed it, and then shortly thereafter stopped blogging regularly. Call it blogging fatigue and just the normal ebb and flow of life, but I needed some time off.

Well, I'm back. Today, on the 10th anniversary of 9/11/01, I reconnected with my passion for America and for my belief that we are in an epic struggle for the future. It isn't just the battle against Islamic Jihad -- though that is a serious and enduring threat. It is also about the insidious threat to our core values from progressivism -- from the liberal elite who guide the media, from the unions that teach our children and from the petty politicians who see government as a vehicle of social justice. Our way of life -- the America of individual liberty, of self-determination and of God-given rights -- is under attack from without AND within.

I spent today on the USS Midway in San Diego harbor with my wife and son. It's a museum now, but prior to its retirement from service in 1992, the Midway spent 47 years patrolling the world's oceans in defense of our nation. Its a truly amazing place and well worth a trip to San Diego. Today the museum opened its doors to the Retired NY Firefighters of San Diego, which since 9/11/2002 has held an annual remembrance of those first-responders who gave their lives on 9/11. What started out as a small memorial service is now an annual event with more than 2500 people in attendance. Among those were firefighters from all over the country, as well as decorated US Marines and Navy personnel. The highlight of the day was a "missing man" formation flyover by four US Navy F-18 Hornets, after which a bell on the ships bow was rung for each of the 343 NYC firefighters, 37 NY Port Authority policeman and 23 NYC policeman killed in the collapse of the Twin Towers. The tolling of the bell so many times -- representing only 15% of those killed on 9/11 -- really gives you some perspective on the scale of the human loss of that day.

US Marine Corps Color Guard

My Son in the cockpit of a jet on the Midway

San Diego Firefighter Tribute to First Responders

I had the pleasure of introducing my son to a young US Marine Lance Corporal who was at the Midway with his family. He was in his dress blues, his chest adorned with medals rather than the customary ribbons. The first medal in the row was the Purple Heart, awarded to those who have been wounded in combat. I offered my hand and thanked him for his service, and my son managed a shy smile and a muted "thanks" while clinging to my leg. It was a nice moment for me to meet a 22 year old "kid" who represents the future of this country and who has voluntarily gone into harm's way for us. Newsflash to those who promote the culture of dependence: The next generation isn't all hanging out at the mall, or standing in line waiting for a handout. Some of them are putting on combat boots and helmets and getting wounded in the process.

Thank goodness the America isn't the place that Maxine Waters, Barney Frank or Paul Krugman seem to think it is.

San Diego is a long way from NYC and Washington DC. But with the big military presence here, the last 10 years of war against Islamic terror has been front and center. You can't hide from 9/11 here. And that is a good thing -- because as a people we should never, ever forget what happened that day.

A Humble Hero: SSgt. Sal Giunta

noreply@blogger.com (Kenneth Davenport) — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 23:02:00 +0000

I imagine that most of you will have heard of Staff Sgt. Sal Giunta by now. Sgt. Giunta was awarded the Medal of Honor yesterday at a ceremony at the White House. He is the first living recipient of the nation's highest award for heroism since the Vietnam War. Seven other MOH ceremonies have been held since the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq began in 2001. All of them have been conducted without the recipient being present, the award having been given posthumously. If you want to see what heroism looks like, check out the very thorough summary of these recent awards that the U.S. military puts together by clicking here.

I can't tell you how moved I was learning about Sgt Giunta's story and watching the award ceremony. I am going to link to several related stories here that I encourage all of you to click on. This kid is absolutely what is right with America -- a young Iowan who risked his life to save his teammates after a brutal ambush in the Korengal Valley -- the so-called "Valley of Death" -- in Afghanistan. Incidentally, when I heard of Giunta's award a month ago I remembered immediately the firefight he was involved in, as it was prominently described in a book that I read earlier this year -- Sebastian Junger's "War." Junger was embedded for extended periods of time with the Army's 503rd Infantry Regiment of 2nd Battalion (airborne), and he and a filmmaker made a riveting movie of the experience entitled Restrepo. I encourage you to read the book and/or see the movie -- it will give you a true taste of the life of the infantry and Marines in Afghanistan.

In any event, Giunta's story is particularly moving, and one that ever American should know. At a time when so few are making such a huge sacrifice for our security, the heroism and selflessness of our troops often goes unnoticed. This is a shame -- and the next time you see a man or woman in uniform give them a tip of the hat or a shake of the hand and say "thank you".

Here's the full video of the ceremony -- it's long but well worth viewing:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

As Allahpundit summarizes, the ceremony was moving and bittersweet:

“Watching him (Giunta) smile sheepishly as the room applauds is thus hopelessly bittersweet, gratifying in that he got to enjoy the recognition he deserves but painful as a reminder that most others didn’t. A precious moment. Don’t miss it.”

I actually thought that Barack Obama did a reasonably good job with this ceremony. He seemed sincere in his admiration for Giunta. One discordant note for me -- echoed by the Weekly Standard's Bill Kristol today -- was Obama "going off script" to tell the audience that he "genuinely likes this guy" (Giunta). The President was honoring Giunta on behalf of the nation, and not as a personal gesture of affection. Who cares whether Obama likes Giunta or not? Does that matter? Of course, Obama thinks that everything is about him, so it is typical of the narcissus-in-chief to bring his feelings into this. I didn't like it. But I do understand why Obama would like this guy. He seems like just the kind of humble warrior the U.S. military is full of. A true hero.

Here are a few other links to view:

Here's the Army's very personal tribute to Giunta.

Here's the 60 Minutes profile of Giunta.

Get used to this name: Marco Rubio

noreply@blogger.com (Kenneth Davenport) — Mon, 08 Nov 2010 02:46:00 +0000

Marco Rubio is a rising conservative star. He won a landslide victory on Tuesday against incumbent governor (and consummate politician -- and I don't mean that as a compliment) Charlie Crist. It was a huge victory and cements Rubio as a young, dynamic up-and-comer in the GOP. He's 39 years old, has an inspiring personal story and believes in American exceptionalism not as a concept, but as a example of his own life. This guy is the real deal.

Here's Rubio's "closing" commercial in the 2010 campaign:

And for more on the Rubio story, Stephen Hayes at the Weekly Standard has a great extended piece in this week's edition:

Marco Rubio has gotten as much positive national media attention as any Senate candidate since, well, Barack Obama. There is a natural inclination to think that he has been overhyped. That’s certainly the assumption I took with me to Florida in late September for the first of two five-day stints with his campaign.

It was wrong.

If anything, Rubio is underrated. Some Democrats seem to understand this. That fact, probably more than anything else, explains why the White House encouraged Bill Clinton as early as last spring to use his influence to get Meek out of the race and clear the way for Charlie Crist to run as a Democrat.

No Republican in the country offers a more compelling defense of American exceptionalism and a more powerful indictment of the Obama administration than Marco Rubio. He has had lots of practice. He ran against Obama more than he ran against either of his two opponents. On the first full day I spent with him, Rubio never once mentioned Meek, and he spoke about Charlie Crist only when responding to a question—this in a day that included a lunchtime speech at a fundraiser with Mitt Romney, a lengthy debate prep session, and two additional speeches in Plant City that evening.

Read the whole thing at the link.

Hasta la vista, Baby!

noreply@blogger.com (Kenneth Davenport) — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 01:53:00 +0000

Well, Wednesday morning I woke up at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Los Angeles and peeled the egg off my face. Carly lost big. Meg lost bigger. And Republicans in California were officially put on the endangered species list.

As it happened, I was in LA to attend the Meg Whitman "party" (or wake, actually) and I must say it was a bash befitting a billionaire. Clearly, some of the $160 million Meg spent on the campaign was saved for election night, and I enjoyed the canapes and other tidbits at her expense. The highlight of the night was chatting with former Governor Pete Wilson, who remains a true gentleman -- even though I blame him in part for the current state of the California GOP, in particular the party's very poor relationship with Hispanics. Prop 187 -- the 1994 proposition which banned illegal immigrants from using essential public services -- may have been right on the merits, but it was horrible politics -- and Republicans are still trying to recover.

It will be a long road. The GOP is virtually dead in the erstwhile Golden State -- out of all statewide races on Tuesday, only Steve Cooley has a chance of winning for Attorney General, and that race remains un-called pending the absentee ballot count. He will likely win -- but that is the extent of the Republican "good news". The GOP celebration across the nation skipped the left coast completely. All other races went to extremely liberal Democrats -- including a trial lawyer for Insurance Commissioner who is going to enforce ObamaCare at all costs and drive health insurers out of the state and Gavin Newsom -- yes, THAT Gavin Newsom of San Francisco and gay marriage fame -- as Lt. Governor.

Can you spell d-i-s-a-s-t-e-r?

The state has become bright blue -- principally because Hispanics have turned away from the GOP in droves. As the LA Times outlined today:

Driving much of the success — and distancing the state from the national GOP tide, according to exit polls — was a surge in Latino voters. They made up 22% of the California voter pool, a record tally that mortally wounded many Republicans.

Latinos were more likely than other voters to say it was the governor's race that impelled them to vote, and they sided more than 2 to 1 with Democrat Jerry Brown over Meg Whitman, the Republican whose campaign had been embroiled in a controversy over illegal immigration. Once at the polls, they voted for other Democrats as well.

Nationally, non-whites made up only 22% of the Tuesday electorate; in California they made up 38%. Latinos nationally represented 8% of the national electorate, just shy of a third of their power in California. The California and national exit polls were conducted by Edison Research for a consortium of news organizations, including television news networks and the Associated Press.

Tellingly, Latinos in California had a far more negative view of the GOP than other voters — almost 3 in 4 had an unfavorable impression, to 22% favorable. Among all California voters the view of Republicans was negative, but at a closer 61% negative and 32% positive. Latinos had a strongly positive view of Democrats, 58% to 37%, whereas all voters were closely split, 49% to 45%.

So, Hispanics in California seem to really dislike Republicans -- despite the fact that on social issues, conservatives would seemingly be a better fit. But the "amnesty" crowd on the left and the social welfare benefits seem to have an inexorable pull to Hispanics and, though Whitman's illegal housekeeper problem didn't help, it wouldn't have changed the underlying results.

So, California missed the GOP wave completely. The passage of the redistricting commission will help over time -- ensuring more competitive seats in the state legislature and in Congress that are currently in the grip of the Democrat Party. But it will help only on the margins as long as GOP registration in the state hovers in the 20% range.

There is a silver lining to the passage of Prop 25 -- which removed the 2/3 majority required to pass a budget. Now the Democrats will own the budget lock, stock and barrel -- and won't be able to blame recalcitrant Republicans for their decisions. If they are -- as one suspects they will be -- irresponsible with this new power, the public will eventually rebel. With the state's terrible financial situation and out-of-control deficits, it simply cannot go on forever.

One of the real problems is that the GOP has no real "bench" in the state. Who will take the mantel of running in 2012 for Diane Feinstein's Senate seat? Who will take on a 76-year-old Jerry Brown in 2014? Making the rounds of the Party faithful on Tuesday it was pretty hard to see who can take the leadership role in California. There just isn't anyone.

And that's the biggest problem of all.

Some Final Election Thoughts

noreply@blogger.com (Kenneth Davenport) — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 15:56:00 +0000

I will admit that I've been trying not to talk too much about a Republican landslide tomorrow -- the kind that sweeps out the career Democrat pols in Congress and replaces them with those who are not stained by the insidious corruption of the Beltway. Not that Republicans are perfect, or haven't gotten tainted by the same dirty water. They have. But the class of new Republicans in this election is different, and offer more principle than pure politics. Lord knows how long they will be able to hang on to their principles once they get exposed to the lobbyists, unions and other bearers of kryptonite that skulk the halls of Congress. But at least we know that we start from a base which overwhelmingly believes in small government and the power of the individual. That's huge in my book.

In any event, I'm not going to make but a few general predictions here. But I will provide an interesting analysis so you can draw more of your own conclusion:

Jay Cost, writing at The Weekly Standard, predicts a huge landslide. His rationale is similar to the post I did earlier on the bias of polls. He argues that if you look at the Democrat oversampling of polls since the 1994 election and look at the actual result, only Gallup has gotten close to being accurate. And very accurate, indeed -- within a point. Thus, Cost sees Gallup as the true poll for this election. Though Gallup doesn't poll individual races, their general Final Likely Voter Projection provides some clear evidence of the extent of Republican gains tomorrow night:

According to Cost, this is HUGE:

A victory of 15 points suggests Republican gains well in excess of my previous estimate of 61 seats. The Abramowitz model suggests a pickup of about 76 seats, but I wouldn’t take that at face value. After all, there is a great deal of uncertainty because we are dealing with unprecedented results, which Gallup is quick to acknowledge. A Republican vote margin of 15 points would more than double the party’s 1994 victory and it is about double its 1946 victory. In fact, you have to go all the way back to 1928 to find an election where the popular vote margin resembled anything close to what Gallup is predicting.

So, if Gallup is correct you can expect a big Republican tidal wave tomorrow. In excess of 60 seats and possibly as many as 90. Tsunami-like.

We'll see how it goes -- we can only hope that in this wave some of the corrupt barrons -- Barney Frank, for example -- get swept under. But even not, you can take solace that Nancy Pelosi, Henry Waxman, John Conyers and Barney Frank will take their chair gavels and go back to their seats in the minority. And not a moment too soon!

In the Senate I think the Republicans come up short of a majority, but again, if Gallup is correct it could happen. I predict they win at least eight seats currently held by Democrats -- and if they are able to take Washington with Dino Rossi and California (which I have already predicted they will) then 10 seats will be in reach. It will be harder if Demorcat Joe Manchin wins in West Virginia and the "Bearded Marxist" Chris Coons beats O'Donnell in Delaware. But even at a 51-49 Democrat edge in the Senate, the Republicans will have a chance to ensure gridlock over the next two years. And in many cases, they will pick up Independent Joe Lieberman and Democrat Ben Nelson and be able get some legislation passed. If Obama vetoes it, fine: at least it's on the record.

For an interesting voter guide tomorrow you can use to track key races across the country check out David Freddoso at the Washington Times here.

And get out and VOTE! It's critical -- this is THE most important mid-term election in a generation and it is so important to get this socialist train off the tracks!

California shoots itself (again)

noreply@blogger.com (Kenneth Davenport) — Sat, 30 Oct 2010 16:15:00 +0000

Have you seen the appalling ad on TV in California against Prop 23 -- the initiative that would suspend the pernicious climate change law (AB-32) in California until unemployment dropped to 5.5% -- put on by public health advocates? The gist is that somehow Prop 23 will protect your health. In fact, go to YouTube and you will find an endless stream of propaganda on this topic...

In any event, it's all bunk. Prop 23 will not protect your health. And even if you believe in man-made climate change, it will do NOTHING to help. California cannot single-handedly alter the climate change graph. It won't make a bit of difference.

What it will do, however, is kill jobs. Lots and lots of jobs. It puts an onerous burden on business and will lead to more unemployment. The California Small Business Roundtable estimates it will cost a MILLION jobs once it is implemented. And it will simply be another nail in the coffin of the once competitive California economy. If you don't believe me, read the WSJ Op-Ed by Cypress Semiconductor CEO TJ Rogers:

Most importantly, Californians have an opportunity to vote for Proposition 23, which will prevent implementation of the California law known as AB32. AB32 is yet another tax, this one on carbon dioxide, the substance that we exhale about 50,000 times per day, that comes from our cars when we drive to work, and from our Silicon Valley plants as we use power for our computers and air-conditioning. Pushed by dogmatic green politicians, the tax would put another burden on California companies that our Chinese and Korean competitors will not have to bear.
The basic premise of AB32 fails a grade-school math test. The latest EPA figures show that total U.S. carbon dioxide emissions in 2007 were 5.98 gigatons, of which California contributed 0.40 gigatons. If California had held its carbon dioxide emissions to its 1990 level of 0.36 gigatons, as AB32 mandates by 2020, the 2007 U.S. carbon dioxide emission figure would have been 5.94 gigatons, rather than 5.98 gigatons. For this our state government has chosen to terminate the jobs of 1.1 million Californians (the impact estimated by the California Small Business Roundtable) on top of existing unemployment.

It is another example of how the left puts "feelings" in front of fact: it makes the kooky academics and Hollywood elite feel better about themselves in their hybrids, but it does nothing but destroy our economy and will do nothing to help the situation.

Finally, here's a letter to the Coloradoan newspaper by noted climate scientist by Bill Gray -- who presumably knows more about this subject than James Cameron or Arnold Schwarzenegger:

I have been appalled in recent years at how the Democratic Party has thrust politics into the purely scientific question of the extent to which humans are influencing climate. The Democratic Party has badly misled the American public on the danger of CO2 increase. CO2 increase is not the threat to society that the Democrats and the media have (for the past 20 years) portrayed it to be. Cutting CO2 will do very little to improve our environment. The numerical models on which the global warming scenarios are based are badly flawed

I have studied meteorology-climatology for many years. I and many of my more experienced colleagues who have actually made real-time weather-climate forecasts do not believe that the climate alarmists are correct in their wild future global warming projections. It is unwise for Colorado to have both of its senators (Mark Udall and Michael Bennet?) able to rubber-stamp the Obama administration's plan to force much more expensive renewable energy (costing roughly three to five times more than fossil fuel energy) upon our country. For our future economic benefit, Ken Buck and Cory Gardner would be the better choices.

Bill Gray,

professor emeritus,

Colorado State University,

Department of Atmospheric Science

California really is going to fall into the sea!

Vote YES on 23!

Just Vote NO!

noreply@blogger.com (Kenneth Davenport) — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 04:27:00 +0000

If you are in California, you must vote NO on Props 24 and 25. Here's why (courtesy of the Wall Street Journal):

The Tax Foundation announced this week that California has the second worst business tax climate of the 50 states, with only New York more hostile to employers. Congratulations, but it gets worse. If a pair of ballot measures pass next week, the Golden State could soon take the tax lead and make even Albany look like Hong Kong.

Proposition 24 would raise $1.3 billion of new taxes on businesses, while Proposition 25 would allow the state legislature to pass budgets and tax increases with a simple majority vote, instead of the current mandated two-thirds supermajority.

The most pernicious is Proposition 25, which is being sold as a good government measure to end the state's annual fiscal follies and pass a budget on time. But what matters more than how a budget passes is what's in it. And the two-thirds rule that has prevailed since the passage of Proposition 13 in 1978 has been the lone restraint on the government unions and their political valets who have spent California to the brink of insolvency.

Only last year, voters were spared another huge tax increase when Democrats who control the legislature agreed with Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger on a budget deal. Using their leverage from the two-thirds rule, a GOP minority demanded a referendum, and the voters rejected the deal. The annual budget squabbles may be messy, but they draw much-needed public attention to what the spending interests would prefer to keep secret in Sacramento.

Proposition 25 is deceptive because its "intent" language that purports to explain its meaning to voters claims that the law "retains a two-thirds vote requirement for taxes." But "intent" sections aren't included in the state Constitution. Instead, the proposition clears the way for a straight majority vote for budgets and the more amorphous category of bills "related to the budget." That's an exception wide enough to drive a tax increase through, and nearly every state taxpayer group and their legal experts are convinced that this is an attempt to end-run Proposition 13.

Proposition 24 is also deceptive, starting with its title, "The Tax Fairness Act." It is opposed by just about every iconic employer left in the state ...

We'd prefer no such tax carve outs and a flatter tax code ... but in California they're the only break from the state's preposterously high tax rates. California imposes the fourth highest personal income tax rate on small business income (10.55%), the third highest state-local sales tax (9%), and the 13th highest corporate tax rate (8.84%).

The main sponsor and funder of these tax initiatives is — you'll never guess — the California teachers union. Need we say more?

The unions are desperate for more taxpayer cash lest they have to adjust their health-care benefits and pensions as workers in the private economy have had to do. They seem to believe they have no stake in the state's economic growth so they can pile on taxes even with a 12.4% state jobless rate.

A horrific 21.9% of the state's residents are either unemployed, can't find a full time job, or have become so discouraged they are only marginally attached to the labor force. But public employees, protected by the political class, live in an alternative universe ...

H/T: Donald Douglas

More on Polls...

noreply@blogger.com (Kenneth Davenport) — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 16:10:00 +0000

As a follow up to my post last night, Jeffrey Anderson at The Weekly Standard has a post up this morning echoing what I wrote last night:

A close look at the Senate polls suggests that they are likely understating the probability of Republican victories. Most seem to be under-sampling either Republicans, independents, or both. As a result, in 10 of 12 key Senate races, the Republican candidate’s likelihood of winning appears to be greater than what the polls are registering...

Meanwhile, among the four polls listed by Real Clear Politics from the past week that show their projected party breakdowns for California, the average projected turnout advantage for the Democrats is 11 points—almost identical to the 12-point advantage that the Democrats enjoyed in 2008, the best Democratic election in recent memory. And on average these polls project that just 22 percent of the California turnout will be made up of independents — well below the 2008 figure of 29 percent and even the 2004 figure of 27 percent.

The expectation that Democrats will come anywhere close to matching their 2008 turnout, while independent turnout will suffer, is not rooted in reality. In truth, turnout should look very much like it did in 2004, except that independents will make up a higher percentage of the voters.

On the whole — using every poll from the past ten days that breaks down support by party (and in Washington, Florida, Delaware, and Wisconsin, where such polls are more scarce, going back a bit further) — here are the tallies that these polls would yield if they were to use the turnout projections outlined herein (with the actual RCP averages for each state listed alongside

—California: Boxer (D) by 1 (RCP average: Boxer by 6)
—Colorado: Buck (R) by 8 (RCP: Buck by 2)
—Connecticut: Blumenthal (D) by 12.5 (RCP: Blumenthal by 12.5)
—Delaware: Coons (D) by 16 (RCP: Coons by 17)
—Florida: Rubio (R) by 10, over Crist) (RCP: Rubio by 12, over Crist)
—Kentucky: Paul (R) by 12 (RCP: Paul by 8)
—Illinois: Kirk (R) by 4 (RCP: Kirk by 3)
—Nevada: Angle (R) by 3.5 (RCP: Angle by 2)
—Pennsylvania: Toomey (R) by 5 (RCP: Toomey by 3)
—Washington: Rossi (R) by 1 (RCP: Murray (D) by 2)
—West Virginia: Manchin (D) by 1.5 (RCP: Manchin by 5)
—Wisconsin: Johnson (R) by 10 (RCP: Johnson by 6)

In all but Florida and Connecticut, the polls appear to be inflating the Democratic candidates’ prospects by inflating Democratic turnout.

In all likelihood, however, Republican candidates have a shot of doing slightly better on the whole than even the above tallies suggest, for the turnout projections that inform these tallies really only take into account party identification, not party enthusiasm. And party enthusiasm certainly seems to favor the GOP. In this year’s primaries, according to American University researcher Curtis Gans, Republican turnout outnumbered Democratic turnout for the first time in 80 years.

On the whole, Republicans look like they have a reasonably good chance to maintain their advantage in the races where they’re leading by at least three or four points in the tallies above, which means they would need to take two out of three among West Virginia, Washington, and California — all nearly toss-ups — to become the majority party in the Senate.

As a result, Anderson sees Boxer up by 1 point over Carly instead of the 6 at Real Clear Politics. He also sees Ken Buck in Colorado actually up by 8 over Michael Bennet. And he sees Angle beating Reid handily.

Read the whole thing here.

Is Boxer really beating Carly?

noreply@blogger.com (Kenneth Davenport) — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 01:51:00 +0000

The polls look to be working against Carly Fiorina and Meg Whitman these days. According to the Real Clear Politics average, Boxer is up an average of 6 points on Carly. Whitman is down almost 9 points. Sounds like the Republican wave won't be crashing on the California coast, right?

Not so fast. I don't buy any of the polls. Why? Because most pollsters are oversampling Democrats in their sample turnout models. Polling is complex, but basically the ratio of Democrats to Republicans to Independents who will actually turn out to vote is a critical factor in how the poll results are weighted. If you assume, for example, that 2010 turnout will be the same as that in 2008 -- when Democrats came out in droves and Republicans stayed home -- you will get a poll result that looks much better for the Democrat than the Republican. Many of the Democrat-leaning polling outfits (PPP, CNN) are using a model that is based on 2008. That's obviously ridiculous. Most analysts expect the turnout this year to at minimum be more like 2004 or 2006. Noone knows until it happens, of course -- but based on early voting returns so far, Republicans are energized and there is NO WAY that 2010 is going to look like 2008.

Gallup's latest poll is a good example of the right turnout assumptions this year:

PRINCETON, NJ -- Gallup's latest figures on the composition of the 2010 electorate suggest that, consistent with an earlier Gallup report, those voting in this year's congressional elections across the country will be similar in gender, age, and education to 2006 voters. At the same time, they will be substantially more Republican in their party orientation, and more conservative than has been the case in the past several midterms.

Specifically, 55% of likely voters in Gallup's Oct. 14-24, 2010, polling are Republicans and independents who lean Republican. This is higher than the Republican showing in the past four midterm elections, although not too dissimilar to the 51% found in 2002. The corollary of this is that the 40% of likely voters now identifying as Democratic is the lowest such percentage of the past several midterms.

So what this means is that if Gallup's did race-by-race polls they would be more accurate based on the above assumption. Other polling organizations -- like Public Policy Polling -- are using turnout models that are 49% Democratic and 36% Republican, meaning it will make their polls look much better for the Democrat candidate than is really the case.

Thus I make the case that the recent polls on the Boxer-Fiorina race are wrong and that if you use 2006 turnout numbers, the race is essentially tied. If -- and I think this is very likely this year -- the turnout model does better than 2006, Fiorina is ahead.

My prediction: Fiorina wins by 3, 51-48.

On the Meg front, the same logic holds true, except for the fact that Brown is not as unlikable as Boxer. Yes, many who are voting next week don't remember our first go-around with Moonbeam Brown, and he has been able to re-cast himself as an older, more likable figure than his younger self. Added to that is Whitman's general coldness, and her poorly run campaign, and you have the makings of a "Brown, redux" here. I hope not -- but I wouldn't bet against him at this point.

My prediction (and I dearly hope I am wrong): Brown by 2, 51-49.

Wild Card/Caveat: Prop 19. This may throw off the logic of my turnout argument above in California, since the pro-pot amendment will likely drive a higher percentage of Democrats (pot-heads) to the polls than normal. That may lead to a voter model turnout not seen elsewhere in the country, and the stoned voters who normally wouldn't vote manage to find the "Boxer" name on the ballot in their haze. Nate Silver thinks Meg is toast, and that Prop 19 and California's general political environment favors it resisting the Republican-heavy turnout elsewhere in the country.

We'll see. I'm not convinced it will be enough to save Boxer, however.

Bye bye Babs!!

Obama-the-divider

noreply@blogger.com (Kenneth Davenport) — Tue, 26 Oct 2010 05:15:00 +0000

This is really obscene -- even for Barack Obama.

So much for our post-partisan "uniter" in the White House. What happened to all that feel-good stuff he said at his acceptance speech after winning the presidency? That he will be the president of ALL Americans?

But those who oppose him are not Americans. They are ENEMIES. Now Obama is reaching out to the Hispanic community by imploring them to punish "Republicans":

In a radio interview that aired on Univision on Monday, Mr. Obama sought to assure Hispanics that he would push an immigration overhaul after the midterm elections, despite fierce Republican opposition.

“If Latinos sit out the election instead of saying, ‘We’re gonna punish our enemies and we’re gonna reward our friends who stand with us on issues that are important to us,’ if they don’t see that kind of upsurge in voting in this election, then I think it’s gonna be harder and that’s why I think it’s so important that people focus on voting on November 2.”

Referring specifically to Republicans such as Senator John McCain, who are stressing border security and supporting strict immigration laws like Arizona’s anti-illegal immigration measure, Mr. Obama said, “Those aren’t the kinds of folks who represent our core American values.”

So, John McCain and others who think that American LAW should be enforced don't represent CORE AMERICAN VALUES.

I guess CORE AMERICAN VALUES means providing unlimited health care, education and social services to as many Mexicans who can cross the border illegally. Sounds like a winning idea!

Barack Obama will say ANYTHING to get elected. He is a disgrace to the office.

Call me Senator!

noreply@blogger.com (Kenneth Davenport) — Sun, 24 Oct 2010 04:32:00 +0000

This is a funny video on Babs Boxer's need to be validated with the title she has worked so long and hard to earn...

Call Me Senator from RightChange on Vimeo.

Go Carly, Go!

Jerry Brown slurs Meg Whitman -- Earns NOW's Endorsement

noreply@blogger.com (Kenneth Davenport) — Sun, 10 Oct 2010 14:41:00 +0000

The timing couldn't be more profound: just one day after California gubernatorial candidate Jerry Brown is caught on tape as a campaign aide calls Meg Whitman a "whore", the National Organization for Women announces -- you guessed it -- that it is supporting Jerry Brown for Governor. Proving that liberal orthodoxy trumps gender every time, NOW not only is endorsing a man over a woman in California, but it is apparently not concerned with Brown's acceptance of sexist, demeaning language being used against his opponent. In NOW's view, Whitman -- who is pro-life -- apparently doesn't warrant the kind of protection from mysogynist attacks that the group's charter is supposed to provide all women. But as it has proven time and time again, female conservatives are the wrong kind of women.

Not that NOW can't be enraged by a politician's words -- just not those of Democrat politicians. Posted prominently on the NOW website, the group is vehemently denouncing Senator Jim DeMint's "dangerous comments" on gays and sexually active single women "being unfit to teach". According to NOW, DeMint's comments to a "conservative church group" make him a "sexist bigot" who is "ignorant, homophobic" and unfit to serve in the U.S. Congress. DeMint actually made these comments six years ago, and was only recently reflecting on the impact they had in the media in a speech he gave last week to the Greater Freedom Rally in Spartanburg, South Carolina. And he actually said that "gays and unmarried pregnant women" should not be public school teachers -- a statement that NOW extrapolated to mean "sexually active single women" -- as if every sexually active single woman gets pregnant. Leaving aside the wisdom of DeMint's views on these issues, is putting forward a value statement on public education really worse than calling a woman a "whore"?

For NOW -- which has never met a conservative woman it can support, a man who uses a sexist slur is still better than a self-made woman who embodies the very feminist values of hard work and female mobility that the group is supposed to stand for.

Shameful.

Obama and the attack of the Water Bugs

noreply@blogger.com (Kenneth Davenport) — Sat, 09 Oct 2010 01:27:00 +0000

I recently wrote a piece for the November edition of the Liberty Ink Journal that focuses on some of the revelations in Bob Woodward's new book "Obama's Wars". My piece, which I will link to when it comes out, compares Obama's handling of Afghanistan to Lyndon Johnson's Vietnam escalation decision in 1965. The similarities -- putting domestic politics ahead of strategic considerations -- is striking, and tremendously disappointing -- even if it is something we now should come to expect from an administration which plays politics with virtually every issue, and is willing to employ any means to reach their hardball political ends.

Dick Nixon and H.R. Haldeman got nothing on Obama and his band of White House henchman.

An interesting casualty of the Woodward book now appears to be General Jim Jones, Obama's National Security Advisor who has recently been forced to resign. Jones, a 40 year military veteran and former Marine Commandant, was always a poor fit for this White House. Obama, Rahm Emanuel, David Axelrod -- all share a disdain and contempt for the uniformed military. Many saw Jones as someone who likely wouldn't last long in his job, given a blunt manner and a deep understanding (and appreciation) for the military. Though he apparently was going to serve only two years from the beginning, the Woodward book hastened Jones' departure. It was a sad end to a 40 year career.

And what was Jones' faux pas? According to Ed Henry at Time:

The tension stems from the fact Woodward reported that Jones called some of his colleagues in the White House -- he clearly seemed to be aiming at top insiders like then-Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, senior adviser David Axelrod, and press secretary Robert Gibbs -- the "water bugs," the "Politburo," and the "Mafia" who were out to get him from day one of the administration.

In the Obama White House, such talk is not to be tolerated. Like General Stanley McChrystal, whose 30-plus year military career came to a crashing end after giving an unfortunate interview to the Rolling Stone Magazine, a few ill-placed words can truly wreck a lifetime of service. Such is the easy-come, easy-go attitude of the Obama White House, where military service is anathema to self-interested, self-aggrandizing staff. The White House wants to show Obama as a decisive young leader who is surrounded by tough advisors who can give as well as they take. It's the meme they desire, much as they want the nagging questions about Obama's lack of management, foreign policy and executive experience to go away. But Woodward's book shows the cracks, and General Jones was unfortunate enough to step in the chasm between the White House script and the reality.

"This is the final indignity from the Obama White House heaped on this distinguished public servant who devoted 40 years of active duty to his country in uniform," one close Jones friend told me. "He comes out of retirement at Obama's request. And from day one the sniping from the peanut gallery was incessant and the president and his senior staff did nothing to put a stop to it."

So, if Woodward's account is accurate enough to put General Jones out to pasture, what of the other revelations in the book? Unfortunately for Obama, the White House can't have it both ways: either Woodward is credible or he isn't. Thus, Woodward's comments that Robert Gates sees Jone's successor, Tom Donilon, as a "disaster" and someone who has never been to Afghanistan, doesn't know anything about the military and is nothing more than a glorified office manager/facilitator would seem to be pretty alarming.

So, let's see...we've gone from a four-star Marine general to a paper-pusher in the top White House post in charge of America's National Security. And why? Because of a few untoward comments?

It this president really THAT thin skinned?

You betcha.

Our guy. Their guy. This is Classic!

noreply@blogger.com (Kenneth Davenport) — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 17:59:00 +0000

I thought this was pretty funny:

Our Guy.

Their Guy.

Classic!