The People vs THE PARTY

I only got started paying attention to politics a couple of years ago. Don’t get me wrong-I never missed a vote but I also left the nitty gritty of politics to others. Now that I’m a bit more involved I’ve started to notice that there is a whole lot of gritty going on:

[After Scott's victory] it was time for Republican leaders and insiders to come home to Scott. Scott wasn’t coming to them. Barbour learned that firsthand.

“He called to say congratulations on behalf of the RGA, and probably expected the same platitudes back. Instead, Haley got an earful from Rick,” said one source. “From what I understand, I’m glad I wasn’t Haley on the other end of the line. Haley tried to avoid the topic, like there was no problem. Rick wasn’t having that.”

Scott cut him off at one point, according to sources who remember the following exchange:

“Haley, you shouldn’t have gotten involved,” Scott said.

Barbour: “But….”

Scott: “Haley, you cost me more than $7 million -- $7 million.”

Barbour poured on the Southern charm and tried to steer the conversation to letting bygones be bygones. But sources said Scott wanted to make sure that the RGA felt his pain – after all, it helped underwrite ads calling Scott a “fraud.” Scott also wanted to make sure the RGA would support him and make good on its promise to spend $8 million in Florida.

“Haley, we want the $8 million,” Scott said at one point....

[A]s Barbour plans to run in Florida, a coterie of Republicans in the nation’s most important swing state are like the party’s namesake elephants – they don’t forget, even if they forgive

Until the Rubio/Crist race I was under the silly impression that candidates were chosen by, well, voters.  Naiveté can be a beautiful thing but once the blinders come off things just never look the same.

One thing voters learned in 2010 is that THE PARTY means to control the process and when someone (Angle, O'Donnell, and yes, Rick Scott) throws a monkey wrench in THE PARTY’s plans THE PARTY gets a might huffy. It leaves one to believe that THE PEOPLE fall way down on the THE PARTY’s list of priorities.

It Ain't Over

Seen over at Instapundit:

IT AIN’T OVER ‘TIL IT’S OVER, and the ObamaCare bill is clearly wildly unpopular. But if it does pass, the media message will be that the whole Tea Party movement has been a waste — when, in fact, without it this would have been passed nearly a year ago, and with far less political cost.

And political cost is the key. If this bill passes, there will be a brutal political cost, as spelled out in the sign below: You Vote for ObamaCare, We Vote For Your Opponent.

That’s what the next eight months or so will be about, and I don’t think that many of the folks you’ve seen demonstrating will give up and go home.

 For my part, no, it's not over.  In some ways this is the beginning.  We have learned a real hard lesson about what happens when citizens become disengaged.  In my experience people get somewhat involved in politics for a few months every few years and that it is pretty much it.  As a result, politicians on both sides, figured out that they could act in their own interests, rather than their constituents, because quite frankly, nobody was paying attention.
 
We're paying attention now.  We are watching every move our representatives make.  We are studying policy, educating ourselves and each other, and we expect our representatives to listen to us and act in accordance to our wishes. 
 
We know what is at stake now.  We will not allow ourselves to be taken for granted again.

Not tonight, dear. You're giving me a headache.

Allahpundit:

Funny: Press corps torments Gibbs again with questions about transparency

A palate cleanser courtesy of Media Blog. He’s right that they’ve been over this before and they’re right that he hasn’t given them a satisfactory explanation. With good reason. The only satisfactory answer — “my boss is a brazen liar who’ll promise dopey liberals anything to get elected” — isn’t available. So we end up with the political equivalent of a conversation from a dysfunctional marriage. Why do we have to talk past each other, baby?

If there is anything I know, sadly, it is a dysfunctional marriage.  The analogy is particularly appropriate.  There is something incredibly paternal about this administration.  It appears to be an almost overwhelming need on the part of Gibbs & Co. to show the country just who wears the pants in this relationship.  Unfortunately, (fortunately?) they just aren't macho enough to pull it off.  Gibbs come off buffoonish. 

The one silver lining for Democrats in the very gray ObamaCare cloud? This seems like such a minor issue now relative to the rest of it. They’re gaming cost estimates, they’re bribing senators, they’re ignoring virtually every poll in the country showing massive disapproval. Why not extend the middle finger on transparency too? Are people going to go from enraged to really enraged or something?

For your Saturday comedy relief:

Breaking News! The elusive Martha Coakley found lurking in smokey backroom

Scientists Tag Martha Coakley

BOSTON, MA - Boston College scientists have succeeded in attaching a radio transmitter and a small camera to Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley. "This will allow members of the press to safely follow her [Coakley's] movements," said zoologist Gale West, "Coakley travels in a pack surrounded by aggressive males. If anyone approaches too close, especially reporters, the males instinctively react to protect her from embarrassing questions such as her assertion that terrorists have left Afghanistan." West admitted difficulty in affixing the transmitter/camera. "We dropped bundles of cash from Merck and Pifzer in the backroom of an expensive restaurant, but Coakley was wary and stayed just out of reach. Finally we lured her close by dropping a huge bundle from the DSCC. That did the trick."

It is my understanding that the scientists will be studying the "hunting and gathering" habits of Coakley between now and January 19th, when she is expected to enter a prolonged state of hibernation.

Are they at least going to buy us dinner first?

I feel a screw coming:

In their latest effort to pass a health care bill by any means necessary, Democrats have struck a "tentative deal" with their big labor allies to exempt union benefits from a tax on high value health care plans, CongressDaily reports.

The idea itself is nothing new. Back in June, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus floated the idea of shielding union benefits from the new tax, but it was set aside. In September, President Obama declined to take a clear position on this so-called "carve out." But now that the excise tax has become a sticking point in negotiations between the House and Senate -- and one that threatens to cost Democrats union support for the bill -- the exemption idea is evidently back in play.

If this policy is adopted, it would mean that there could be two Americans receiving the exact same benefits, but one American may be taxed and one wouldn't, and the only difference would be one of them being a member of a union. This is unseemly and unfair, even by the standards of Obamacare. It has nothing to do with policy-making. It's simply an outright bribe to a constituency that has contributed handily to Democratic campaigns.

Let's look at the first sentence of the first paragraph on page 54 of the Democratic Party Platform (as adopted in 2008):

We all have to do our part to lift up this country, and that means changing hearts and changing minds, and making sure that every American is treated equally under the law.

Well, I guess we can scratch that, right?   How about page 55:

 Americans of every political stripe are hungry for a new kind of government. We want a government that favors common sense over ideology, honesty over spin, that worries less about losing the next election and more about winning the battles we owe to the next generation.

Except that unions fork over big dollars to get Dems re-elected so screw the next generation and repeat after me-SHOW ME THE MONEY!

In Barack Obama’s Administration, we will open up the doors of democracy. We will use technology to make government more transparent, accountable, and inclusive.
 
I just threw that part in for shits and giggles.  What a bunch of hypocritical tools.

They're gone? Do they know that?

American Power:

They’re Gone? Martha Coakley Clueless on AF-PAK Strategic Theater 

As I've reported many times, the Taliban's active terror cells in the AF-PAK security theater constitute a regional network grouping that knows no national borders. The Waziristan region of the tribal hinterlands is especially ripe with Taliban jihadi activities, with operations being conducted from Kabul to PesHawar.

It's thus extremely troubling to listent Democrat Martha Coakley, who's running against Scott Brown in the Massachusetts special election, to suggest that the Taliban "are gone" from Afghanistan, and thus it's time for the U.S. to come home.

It is troubling but what do you expect from someone who can't even spell the name of the state she wants to represent?

See ya, Charlie. We hardly knew you

RedState:

Charlie Crist Will Drop Out of the Senate Race

The Crist campaign says it is not true, but the writing is on the wall. Again and again the media turns against Crist.

Another blow to the Crist campaign came today as the Republican National Committee’s War Room sent out this unflattering story about the failures of the Crist campaign.

The RNC did that.

But Crist valiantly made a blow stand this evening in Pinellas County. It is his home county. After seeing Marco Rubio win every single straw poll of every single county in Florida that has had them so far, Crist knew that tonight he would win the Pinellas County GOP straw poll. It is, after all, his own freaking county.

Crist lost. The vote was 106-54 in Marco Rubio’s favor. In Charlie Crist’s home county.

Charlie Crist is going to drop out of the U.S. Senate primary in Florida. The writing is on the wall. It reads “Mene Mene Tekel Parsin“.

Charlie can stay or he can go.  Either way he is going down. 

By the way, losing in Pinellas kind of makes Charlie the McGovern of Florida.

See also:

Babalu  The trouble with Charlie Crist

Of Stimulus and money fairies

Troglopundit is wondering:

I wonder if something similar won’t happen with the construction “stimulus.” If local communities are going ahead with projects they’d have put off, otherwise, because the federal dollars* are here now. Then, when the federal dollars dry up**, so will construction work.

Just wondering.

* Vegan-safe money, I’m sure, which fell from the magical money tree of its own accord and was gathered by simple hill-folk whose peaceful barter economy eliminates any need for money.

** Hey, even the money fairies have their limits.

In Red-Ink Tsunami: Why Old Ideas Can't Fix the New Government Perma-Crisis Stephen Goldsmith made the same point (though without fairies therefore all bonus points go to Trog).  The stimulus simply kicked the country's problems down the road.  Instead of states trimming their bloated budgets they used the stimulus money to plug the holes.  But the federal government, or more accurately the taxpayers, can't feed the states indefinitely.  We are stuck in the middle of national procrastination and sooner or later our politicians are going to have to look us in the eye admit that we are screwed and that there is no easy, painless fix. 

The government needs to quit spending more money than it takes in.  It can do that two ways and neither are pleasant.  We can raise taxes which has a negative effect on employment, productivity and savings.  We can cut programs but every special interest group has a special program that they consider sacrosanct.  Either way, nobody is going to be happy.

I hope that in the election this year we as a country do something that we haven't done in a very long time.  I hope we elect politicians that will make the tough choices that need to be made.  Otherwise, our economy is going to implode and all the fairies in the world won't be able to put it back together again.

Jobs numbers suck? Find a different way to count them.

Via Don Surber:

White House panics on jobs

I got a note from the Pro-Publica publicist pushing a post at its Web site: “Michael Grabell reports that the White House will no longer keep a cumulative tally of jobs created or saved, and instead it will count any person who works on a project funded with stimulus money—even if that person was never in danger of losing his or her job. The OMB added the new guidelines last month to simplify the counting rules, but Grabell notes, ‘the new guidance could significantly change what the public sees’.”

I smell desperation coming from the White House.

Fortunately, as Grabell pointed out, a congressman is calling the White House out on this attempt to rationalize their $787 billion stimulus — which sank the economy.

“But Rep. Darrell Issa of California, the top Republican on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said the Obama administration is making the job numbers even more misleading and is trying to pump them up by counting jobs that weren’t created or retained. He outlined his concerns in a letter Friday to the government’s stimulus watchdog, Earl Devaney,” Grabell reported.

That letter is here

Not only is President Obama running out of political capital, he is wasting his credibility

Working in a financial institution I see the effects of unemployment every day.  I know that the stimulus has failed and so do the people I deal with who are struggling to make ends meet on their unemployment checks.  The White House can use whatever system they like to say that one plus one equals five but those people who are desperate for a job, any job, to feed their family and keep a roof over their head stopped falling for the administration spin months ago.
 
I'm not sure that Obama has any credibility left to waste.

Time to "de-stimulate"

Larry Kudlow:  Time to De-Stimulate:

After the arrival of a disappointing December jobs report, my thought on putting America back to work is simple: de-stimulate.

That's right. Get rid of the Obama stimulus monster, including the government takeover of health care, cap-and-trade and all this nonsensical talk of creating green jobs. Get rid of the increase in marginal personal tax rates and capital-gains tax rates. Get rid of the payroll tax hike from the health care talks. Get rid of the spending that is a counterweight to growth. Get rid of it, every part of it. It's creating so much uncertainty that even profitable businesses are afraid to hire new workers and expand.

It's like business is on hold as it waits for the next Washington shoe to fall.

The Democrats and President Obama came in to power mistakenly believing that they had a mandate that would allow them to completely restructure the economy but they have failed.  The country has been plunged deeply in to debt and most would be hard pressed to name a single Obama initiative that has yielded positive results in any lasting or meaningful way.

Consider this comment I received on an earlier post:

Obviously, with regard to health care, you must have never left the country to see that other countries have a wonderful standard of living, all while getting much of government support. Taxes are higher, everyone pays them, and people do not have to worry about sending their kids to college, health care, maternity leave...all is well in these countries...just go there.(emphasis added)

The commenter, typical of many on the Left, wants to relegate their welfare to the state but that is not the mindset that built this country.  In this country, we succeed when government gets the hell out of the way.  If we have learned anything from the Stimulus it is that government intervention makes everything worse.

The housing bubble was in no small way caused by government intervention in the housing market.  It was due to pressure put on lenders by politicians who claim that owning a home is a basic "right" and who then exacerbated the problem by shifting much of the risk to Freddie and Fannie. 

Not learning from their mistakes in the housing market, the government is now interfering in both the health care and energy markets.  Rather than opening up competition in health care by allowing insurance companies to operate across state lines and concentrating on tort reform the government is giving us a system that will increase costs and lower care.  In the energy sector Cap & Trade will increase costs for every American household without providing any offsetting benefits.

If the Obama administration wants to improve our floundering economy they would do well to remember that less is more.  They need to concentrate on keeping the country safe and let the markets take care of themselves.

Throwing good money after bad

The Daley Gator:

New Obama ‘Green Jobs’ To Cost $135,295 Each – Washington Examiner

President Obama’s announcement earlier today of an additional $2.3 billion in federal tax credits for creating approximately 17,000 subsidized temporary jobs in the green energy industry is drawing a less than enthusiastic response from Thomas J. Pyle, president of the Institute for Energy Research:

“Show me one other industry that requests and receives a nearly 30 percent taxpayer subsidy. That’s what the wind and solar industries require – at a minimum – to exist. All the president did today is throw more money at an unproven technology that is not economically viable in the marketplace. Unfortunately, the only winners in this latest taxpayer giveaway will be Wall Street money managers and corporate interests in the wind and solar industry.

“If the president really wants to create an environment that will foster economic growth and job creation, he need not look any further than the domestic oil, gas and coal industries. These three industries and energy sources built this nation. For the administration to continue to ignore this fact and to keep the vast resources that taxpayers own under lock and key at the Department of Interior is irresponsible and a disservice to the American people.

One imagines that there must be a money tree growing somewhere in the Rose Garden.  After all, why would the President favor spending $2.3 billion dollars to create a mere 17,000 temporary jobs unless he has an endless supply of money that none of us are aware of?

If President Obama were in the least bit interested in expanding employment he would back off health care reform that has caused uncertainty among the nation's employers, cut taxes for the country's businesses, both small and large alike, and do away with regulations that impede expansion by the country's industries.  Unfortunately, the President would rather push an agenda than deal with the problems that now rest squarely on his shoulders.

President Obama's butt-kissing of special interest groups, in the case the "green" lobby, is digging us further and further down in an economic hole.   The President's policies do little to encourage risk taking or innovation, both the hallmarks of a vibrant economy, but instead, he is using his position to reward his political backers.

"To the victor goes the spoils" may be a viable political ploy in Chicago (though apparently not) but it stinks as a model for leadership. 

When Democrats say what they really think

From the New York Times:

Reid Apologizes for Remarks on Obama’s Color and ‘Dialect’

 Senator Harry Reid, the Democratic majority leader, apologized on Saturday for once predicting that Barack Obama could become the country’s first black president because he was “light-skinned” and had “no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one.”

When Trent Lott made racist remarks he was forced to step down, as well he should have.  But when Harry Reid states that Obama is acceptable because he's light-skinned and only speaks with a Negro dialect when he wants to, eh, no biggie.
 
How long will blacks (and women and Hispanics, etc.) be willing to be used by a political party that hasn't done one thing in return for their loyalty?  Blacks are pawns of the Democratic party and nothing more. 
 
Reid's words were racist and insulting and should be labeled as such.  Outrage shouldn't be based on the political party of the speaker but on the words themselves.  Blacks (and women and Hispanics, etc.) will never achieve equality so long as they fail to demand respect from all people.

Detroit bomber was singing like a canary before being lawyered up

The Telegraph:

Detroit bomber 'singing like a canary' before arrest

The chance to secure crucial information about al-Qaeda operations in Yemen was lost because the Obama administration decided to charge and prosecute Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab as an ordinary criminal, critics say. He is said to have reduced his co-operation with FBI interrogators on the advice of his government-appointed defence counsel.

The potential significance became chillingly clear this weekend when it was reported that shortly after his detention, he boasted that 20 more young Muslim men were being prepared for similar murderous missions in the Yemen.

The lawyer for the 23-year-old Nigerian entered a formal not guilty plea on Friday to charges that he tried to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner on December 25 – even though he reportedly admitted earlier that he was trained and supplied with the explosives sewn into his underwear by al-Qaeda in the Arab state.

"He was singing like a canary, then we charged him in civilian proceedings, he got a lawyer and shut up," Slade Gorton, a member of the 9/11 Commission that investigated the Sept 2001 terror attacks on the US, told The Sunday Telegraph.

"I find it incomprehensible that this administration is treating terrorism as a law enforcement issue. The president has finally said that we are at war with al-Qaeda. Well, if this is a war, then Abdulmutallab should be treated as a combatant not a criminal."

Not only did our government throw away its chance to gather valuable intelligence from Abdulmutallab but worse, Abdulmutallab presented us with the opportunity to gather a particular type of intelligence that is now lost to us. 

Contrary to the stereotype being put forth by the White House that terrorism is born of poverty, Abdulmutallab represents the growing threat from upper income, educated young men who were raised or at least educated in the West.  We need to know why these young men are turning to terrorism, how they are being recruited and vetted, and how they are being trained. 

In any case, it is mind boggling that if Abdulmutallab was willing, in fact eager, to give us badly needed information about the threat that faces us that the government would do the one thing that blocks us from gathering that intelligence.  We need to be smarter about how we obtain intelligence.  We could start by not throwing opportunities out the window.

Don't tax me bro!

Unions Rally to Oppose a Tax on Health Insurance

When millions of blue-collar workers were leaning toward John McCain during the 2008 campaign, labor unions moved many of them into Barack Obama’s column by repeatedly hammering one theme: Mr. McCain wanted to tax their health benefits.

An A.F.L.-C.I.O. ad warned union members that it believed voting for Senator John McCain in 2008 would be a mistake.

But now labor leaders are fuming that President Obama has endorsed a tax on high-priced, employer-sponsored health insurance policies as a way to help cover the cost of health care reform. And as Senate and House leaders seek to negotiate a final health care bill, unions are pushing mightily to have that tax dropped from the legislation. Or at the very least, they want the price threshold raised so that the tax would affect fewer workers.

In other words, the union leaders are all for shifting the cost off health care to tax payers, just not their tax payers.  Well common sense alone is enough to know that we cannot extend health care to 20, 30, 40 (whatever number we are currently up or down to) million people and that only the "rich" will bear the burden of paying for it.  There simply aren't that many rich people around. 

Unions are among the biggest pushers of ObamaCare.  If they want it they should be willing to pay for it.

Whatever happened to "the will of the people"?

Reacting to the Boston Globes's Scott Brown swearing-in would be stalled to pass health care reform Cold Fury wrote this: 

I probably ought to say that none of this should be taken to mean I don’t think it’s worth working to get Brown elected; it most certainly is. But it ought to be clear enough by now to even the thickest-skulled Pollyanna out there that the health-care takeover fight is over, and we lost. The Democrat Socialists have shown they’ll stick at absolutely nothing whatsoever — fair, foul, or outright illegal — to get this thing rammed through, and rammed through NOW. They’ve been fighting to open this big-government Pandora’s box for decades; they want it more than they’ve ever wanted anything. And they have no scruples, no honor, no integrity, and no regard for the American Constitution to slow them down one iota in their rush to get it.

We won’t undo six decades of statist creep with one election, and we won’t turn back the socialized-medicine juggernaut with the election of one Senator from one of our most liberal states. Might as well put your faith in Obama to stem the rise of the oceans, end war and poverty, and all that other tommyrot while you’re at it.

Of course I hope that Scott Brown is elected.  I have been following the news of the election via Legal Insurrection where Prof. Jacobson has been informing and updating daily.  But has Cold Fury points out, this one election will not change what has been in the making for decades:  the discounting of the will of the people. 

I would love to blame our loss of voice on the Democratic party but Republicans are equally guilty, as are the voting public that has allowed our country reach a crisis point before having a "hey, wait a minute" epiphany.  Our elected officials have ignored the citizenry and have enacted their will contrary to the wishes of the people.  Should Massachusetts not seat Brown until after the health care vote, it would simply be par for the course.

This is a prime example of why the Tea Party movement is so important.  We need to put the people back in charge of the process and return to the small government principals that made this country great.  The Tea Party represents the growing number of citizens who want a return to the time when government answered to "the little guy" not Big Business, Big Labor, Big Environment and whoever dropped a couple of coins in their pockets.

Conservatives need to get over the idea that victory consists getting people elected who have a (R) after their name.  Victory is electing people who vote according to the will of the people.

What is the difference between a "tax accident" and a "tax cheat"?

Last year I received a letter from the IRS.  In June of 2007, I broke my leg.  It was your run of the mill break and I spent five months in a wheelchair.  I wasn't able to live in my own home and my expenses shot up overnight.  I had a small stock fund that I cashed in to help shore up my finances.  According to the IRS, I underpaid my taxes on that fund by $213 and with interest and penalties I owed $269.  I mailed them a check.  But I steamed about it.  Am I a tax cheat?  Is Glenn Beck?  Politico:

What if it's Beck with a tax 'accident'?

No one has been less forgiving than Glenn Beck when it comes to Democrats with tax problems. Not just the well-known ones like Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner but also less serious ones such as Labor Secretary Hilda Solis, whose husband only recently paid off $6,400 in tax liens on his auto repair business, and Nancy Killefer, who withdrew her nomination to be White House chief performance officer, citing a $946.69 tax lien on her Washington home.

Their tax issues are just one indicator of “a culture of corruption among some of the left,” Beck declared just last month in a segment on his hugely popular Fox News television show, in which he branded Geithner, Killefer, Solis and a handful of other Obama nominees “tax cheats,” whom he wouldn’t trust “with my children, let alone my children's future.”

Mocking the excuses offered by the nominees, Beck sarcastically intoned: “Oh, the tax thing, it was an accident. It was my husband's fault. I didn't do it, he did it. I didn't mean to do it. I was just working hard for the people.”

So what to make, then, of the fact that Beck has had his own minor tax problems over the past few years?

Well, here's what I make of it.  If you scroll to the second page of the Politico article you'll find that upon being notified by the IRS that monies were owed, Beck, or more accurately, Beck's company paid the taxes.  The shortages were due to the differences between tax codes in different states and Beck's company had moved to a different state mid tax year.  I understand that a mistake could happen and I appreciate that once the mistake was discovered it was immediately rectified.

Geither, Daschle and company didn't make a mistake.  They cheated and they didn't pay up until it affected their political careers.  It is a cheap shot for Politico to lump Beck, and myself, in the same category as people who take citizen's money to pay for their socialist programs but fail to put out their own money until it is convenient.  They didn't have accidents, they cheated and they are hypocrites to boot.

In fairness to Politico, it is pointed out in the article that our tax code is far too complicated.  Maybe Timothy Geithner will fix that.  Yeah, right.

Do you know what tomorrow is?

Tomorrow is the one anniversary of the report issued by Obama's Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, Christine Romer, that said that unemployment would not go over eight percent if the Stimulus Package was passed.  As they say, that was then, this is now:

On the December Jobs Numbers
Posted by Christina Romer

Today’s employment report, though a setback from November, is consistent with the gradual labor market stabilization we have been seeing over the last several months.

Payroll employment declined 85,000 in December. To put this number in perspective, employment declined 139,000 in September and 127,000 in October. So, in a broad sense the trend toward moderating job loss is continuing. This trend is particularly obvious in the quarterly pattern: average monthly job loss was 691,000 in the first quarter of 2009, 428,000 in the second quarter, 199,000 in the third quarter, and 69,000 in the fourth quarter. (emphasis added)

Translating Romer's statement using my Administration Spin to Plain English dictionary, the gist is:  unemployment sucks and is getting suckier but even though it is far above the eight percent we promised it doesn't suck as bad as it could so therefore, we're doing a real bang up job of only somewhat really sucking.

Of course that is easy for Romer to say, she still has a job.

The Republican Party doesn't need to re-invent, it needs to get back to basics

In What the GOP Can Learn from a Pizza Chain Jonah Goldberg makes the case that the Republican Party would do well to look to Dominos Pizza as an example of how to win back loyalty:

...But if I were giving my two cents — and whaddya know? I am! — I’d tell the GOP to look not to Reagan in 1980 or Gingrich in 1994, as so many pundits suggest.

I’d look to Domino’s in 2010.

You may have seen the commercials or the YouTube video touting the iconic pizza-delivery chain’s reinvention. But if you haven’t, Domino’s new campaign can be summed up easily enough: “We blew it.”

Focus groups and consumer surveys revealed something pretty much everyone outside of Domino’s has known for years: Their pizza stinks. It tastes as if aliens tried to copy real pizza but just couldn’t capture its essence.

In their four-minute video (search YouTube for “the Pizza Turnaround”), executives, employees, and chefs at the company confront their harshest reviews head-on. They talk about how much it hurts to hear that their product “tastes like cardboard” and is worse than microwave pizza. But they admit the truth and commit themselves to starting over with more flavor, better crusts, and cheese that doesn’t taste like discount weather caulking. Domino’s says that the American palate has improved, and they want to update their recipe to take account of that fact.

The appeal of the campaign should be obvious: honesty. Domino’s admits they lost their way, and they want a second chance. They’re confronting the criticism head-on rather than denying it.

Obviously, the analogy to the GOP isn’t perfect. For example, last I checked, Domino’s didn’t get bogged down in an unpopular war.

But the GOP’s troubles over the last decade have a lot to do with the fact that Americans didn’t stop liking what the Republican party is supposed to deliver. They stopped liking what the GOP actually delivered.

Exactly.  Once upon a time the words "republican" and "conservative" were interchangeable.  Anymore, it seems that the (R) after many congressman's name could be just as easily read (D) and vice versa.  When presented with a homogeneous product the voters have either chosen the candidate with the flashiest advertising campaign or decided "why bother?".  For better or worse, and it has turned out to be worse, Obama distinguished himself in 2008 and McCain did not.

As a conservative who cares more about policies than partisan success, I would hate to see the GOP abandon conservative policies in order to be more popular. That would be like Domino’s listening to critics and then deciding to get into the Chinese-food business. Indeed, by my lights, that’s what George W. Bush tried to do with his “compassionate conservatism.” He surrendered to liberal arguments about the role, size, and scope of government on too many fronts. In effect, he said you can have your pizza and Kung Pao chicken all in the same dish. That’s not a good meal, it’s a bad mess.

Moreover, abandoning conservatism would be silly. According to Gallup, Americans identify themselves as conservative over liberal by a margin of 2–1, the same proportion as just after 9/11.

So what would a GOP-turnaround recipe look like? That’s a subject for any number of other columns. But for starters, I’d look to young political chefs like Rep. Paul Ryan (R., Wisc.). He’s been the leader in attacking “crony capitalism” — the corrupt merger of big business and big government, a hallmark of the Obama administration. For too long Republicans confused supporting big business with supporting free markets, when big business is often the biggest impediment to fair competition. Other fresh new ingredients would almost surely include pro-family tax policies and the de-linking of legal and illegal immigration as interchangeable terms.

If the Republican Party were to follow Goldberg's advice I could easily see myself getting back on board.  Unfortunately, the "big tent" Republicans such as NRSC chairman Sen. Cornyn appears disinclined to get back to basics and instead supports RINO candidates over conservatives.  Sen. Lindsay Graham has thrown in with John Kerry and is thumbing his nose at party members who are clearly appalled by Cap & Trade.  The examples are nearly endless. 

Republicans have the opportunity to capitalize on Obama's disastrous first year but they won't do it by smugly claiming that they deserve the public's confidence simply because they represent a different party than is currently in power. 

If the party is to regain the trust that it betrayed they need to make big changes and make them soon.

Aw shucks, Nelson never meant that special deal to be for Nebraska only

and I have some primo swampland ocean front property for sale. 

Nelson in "serious discussions" to extend deal:

Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) has begun negotiations with Senate Democratic leaders to expand his special Medicaid funding deal to all states or to allow states to opt out of the Medicaid expansion in 2017, his spokesman told POLITICO Thursday.


“There are serious discussions,” Nelson spokesman Jake Thompson said.

The negotiations follow weeks of scathing Republican criticism of the deal, which critics have termed the “Cornhusker Kickback,” arranged by Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) in order to help secure Nelson’s support for the health care reform bill.

Senate Democrats have also begun to blast the deal, saying it should be removed before the final legislation is passed. Sens. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.), Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) and Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), and Rep. Joe Sestak (D-Pa.) have been critical of the deal.

Thompson said Nelson had always intended to push for other states to receive the same arrangement, which involved the federal government forever picking up Nebraska's share of the Medicaid expansion. Senate leaders were unable to meet his demand during the December negotiations because they did not have a cost estimate from the Congressional Budget Office, Thompson said.

Uh huh.  The CBO may not be able to come up with an estimate of the cost of a Medicaid expansion but I can:  a butt load.  The question is, who is going to pay that butt load.  Whether the burden falls on the states or it falls on federal government the result is the same.  The taxpayer will foot the bill.

Look, Nelson mistakenly believed that the voters in his state would be thrilled with the special deal he got and that they would reward him accordingly.  But we are not (yet) a welfare country where the citizens want to "get theirs" off the backs of others. 

Nelson screwed up.  He is compounding his screw up by making ridiculous statements. 

More at:

RedState  Nelson: Everyone Will get the Cornhusker Kickback

Michelle Malkin   Cornhuckster Sen. Ben Nelson: We shoulda waited on Demcare

Robert Gibbs does the puppet dance

Washington Examiner:

On Tuesday, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs declined to answer questions about the president's campaign commitment to hold health-care negotiations on C-Span. Gibbs said he had not seen a letter from C-Span's Brian Lamb to congressional leaders requesting the coverage and thus could not comment on it.

On Wednesday, Gibbs was asked again about the C-Span commitment. The story had gotten pretty big in the intervening time, and presumably Gibbs had had a chance to familiarize himself with it. So reporters tried for a second day to get him to comment on the president's commitment to holding televised health-care talks. Gibbs' answer? "We covered this yesterday." Gibbs referred reporters to the transcript of Tuesday's briefing and said, "The answer I would give today is similar."

If Robert Gibbs is going to do a song and dance I would kindly suggest that he don a top hat and tails and class it up a bit. 

Let's face it, politicians say all manner of crap when they are out on the campaign trail.  Nobody believed Obama when he said during the campaign that he had never heard the good Rev. Wright's anti-American rants, why for pity sakes did anyone take him serious when he said (repeatedly) that the health care debate would be covered on C-Span?  He was lying.  Instead of hectoring Obama's personal Pinocchio Robert Gibbs the press should jst go with the following lead:  In the absence of any explanation, plausible or otherwise, for why President Obama refuses to keep his campaign promise and allow C-Span to cover the health care debate, we have concluded that President Obama is a liar.  See how simple that was?

On the other hand if Democrats in the House and Senate bought the president's shtick that they would be worse off with the voters if they didn't pass health care, then shame on them.  To have dips like Lincoln and whores like Nelson singing the blues now is just pathetic.  Had they listened to their constituents instead of a president who is all about being "historic" they wouldn't be in this mess.  (Hint:  the sinking of the Titanic was historic; the massacre at Little Big Horn was historic)

What a sorry bunch of self serving, delusional wastrels we have in Washington.  We'll be much better off once they all decide that now is a good time to retire.