Sunday, November 19, 2006

Preparing for the '08 Senate Race

This summer I wrote a guide that I think would have been helpful in '06 (see http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1688222/posts). It's long and drawn out but it needed to cover all of the points that it did. It can and should be used now to help the GOP but winning in '08 is somewhat simpler. A strong national message will definitely help but there are simple things we can do on a race by race level.

For starters, winning the Senate in '08 (or keeping it if the Dems manage to turn off Lieberman or even Tester) seems more than doable. Off hand, it seems that we actually have an advantage. Don't be fazed by the number of seats facing reelection (21R - 12D). There are only 3 or 4 GOP that need protection (NH, MN, CO and maybe OR) and the Dems are extremely vulnerable in cases where you'd least expect it.

Here are the top potentials for the GOP in the Senate and who to run in each.

LA - Suzie Terrell, Bobby Jindal

MT - Marc Racicot - He refused before when asked only once (after the candidate withdrew late in the race) but give him a 2 year start and enough funding (and prodding) and let's see if he bites.

AR - Gov. Huckabee - UPDATED - I'm amazed to see how well Gov. Huckabee handles himself on the national level. Far more important, he's the ideal candidate on many issues. Conservatives need to rally behind a single presidential candidate quickly and Huckabee is a great candidate, as is Duncan Hunter. While I thought that the candidates who've been running for some time now would have unfortunately drowned Huckabee out, I'm pleased to see that this is not the case. Huckabee for President (and for Senate if the GOP does not nominate him). We have two good conservative candidates who come across very well, Gov. Huckabee and Rep. Hunter. Of the two, Huckabee has a much larger organization and considering the way his support base has kept growing, if it continues he may have a realistic shot at the nomination.

SD - Mike Rounds

NJ - Lautenberg may not run again. Even if he does, he's weak compared to Christine Todd Whitman. Sure, she may be the next coming of Lincoln Chafee but I think she'd be more of an Olympia Snowe, her book notwithstanding and that's a chance we'd have to take.

MA - John Kerry is seriously damaged goods. So is any Republican running for Senate in MA. But enter former Governor Celucci and the Dems have a race where they least expect it. Yes, they'll try to brand him as they do with all Republicans, but that doesn't always work and Kerry has more than his fair share of problems. If Celucci reminds people of the reasons for his popularity in MA we'll have a race on our hands.

Other races potentially up for grabs include IL (Turban Durbin), IA (radically left Harkin) and even DE if Biden retires from the Senate and a suitable GOP candidate is found). In CO, if Sen. Allard retires, the GOP would be well advised to look at retiring Gov. Owens. He is still seen as an excellent Governor and is a popular choice. Rockefeller in WV can also be exposed for the ultra-liberal that he is and the danger to national security that he is. Hagel in Nebraska needs to be given every incentive not to retire and some pundits are even looking at a return of Chafee in RI against weaker and less known Dem. Jack Reed (not that this thrills anyone but you've got to take what you can get and Chafee is better than Reed - if he runs as a Republican).

Some of these candidates won't readily wish to run and that's an understatement. Recruitment therefore needs to start now. It took a lot of coaxing to get many of our best candidates to run in '02 and it's fair to expect that this time they will need to be offered many incentives. Appointments can be given to them now and other incentives need to be looked at as well. The GOP can't accept their refusals and needs to pursue them vigorously.

Sunday, November 05, 2006

Democrats Would Raise Taxes on the Lowest Income Earners by 50%

It's true. Not that you'll be hearing it in the media, which by the way, makes it even more true. The party that feigns compassion while maligning real progress would raise taxes on the lowest income earners by 50%. Average income earners would also pay thousands of additional dollars in taxes every year. Am I making this up? No. The Democrats want to do away with all of the Bush tax cuts and after years of labeling them "tax cuts for the rich" they believe that the public can't differentiate between truth and fiction. But the fact is that those "tax cuts for the rich" were first implemented for the poor and middle classes, who now pay a far smaller share of the overall tax burden as a result. And it's these tax cuts that Democrats, so eager to get rid of anything "Bush" (for fear the truth will come out and expose them as the party that stands in the way of economic betterment for all and that hasn't had a coherent idea for the advancement of society in numerous decades), that the Democrats want to stamp out and they've convinced their following that doing so would just be getting rid of "tax cuts for the rich." But what they won't tell you is that doing so also involves raising taxes on the poor by 50%, from Bush' 10% to Clinton's 15%. The middle class would also be affected, with thousands of dollars in higher taxes per household. The GOP has long ceased to be the "party of the rich" but what they won't tell you is that Democrats have just as long ago become the party of no one.

This needs to be the GOP's message going into the final days of the election. Just state the simple fact: Democrats want to raise taxes on the lowest income earners by 50%. The party of compassion? No. The party of JFK? Hardly, that party morphed into the GOP years ago. The party of 60s radicals trying to relive their "glory" days, days which by now they should be embarrassed of, who will stop at nothing, including Goebbels-like distortions of their opponents record, in an effort to fool themselves and others into thinking that they actually stand for anything at all. That's, unfortunately, them in a nutshell. Yet we've failed to respond and now only plain, pure unadulterated and easily explained facts seem to be the only effective weapon against the madness. So why aren't we hearing this message?: Democrats want to raise taxes on the lowest income earners by 50%.

It's true that their foreign policy is so foolish that would that the terrorists could they'd be hanging campaign signs for Democrat candidates in the front yards of their enclaves. A lot of other things are true about them and their cohorts in the media's deception of numerous events. But we failed to respond to idiotic smear after idiotic smear until those smears took hold. We've dealt with these topics before on Myth Debunker and such discussion and exposing of facts needs to continue but that's for another thread. It's too late to change public perception of major events, no matter how skewed and out of touch with any facts such perceptions may be, in just a few short days. So let's get this easy to understand, true and very telling message out instead: Democrats want to raise taxes on the lowest income earners by 50%.

We really do need to give ourselves a shake and ask why no effective refutation was provided to the nonsense the Democrats and their pseudo-intellectual cohorts in the media, possibly the most disingenuous and intellectually vacant group of journalists ever. But that's stuff we should have done long ago and what we need to do in the future. One thing we can say is "lesson learned." We must never stop teaching the reasons for our positions. Doing so allows vicious idiots, devoid of any coherent policies and jealous of ours to mischaracterize our policies and our motives. But there are few minds that will be changed on the major issues from now until Tues. To change anyone's mind holdovers need to hear the facts and just the facts. Democrats are the party of compassion no more. Democrats want to raise taxes on the lowest income earners by 50%. Who said there wasn't truth in politics?