SELFISH POLITICAL MACHINE(S)



Here is what we are seeing these days:

A Political Machine which is:

1) Ruthless is gaining - and keeping power;

2) Uses that power for selfish - personal - self-promotional purposes;

3) Happy to crush-slime-defame-lie about anyone who gets in their way - even members of their own party;

4) Happy to ‘milk’ their own political party for selfish reasons;

5) Not the least bit shameful about the fact that - once before - this same Political Machine had power and, when it left office, had left its party in shambles;

6) Has conned the so-called Mainstream Media into pulling back from criticisms and probes by threatening “loss of access” if any real scrutiny was pursued;

7) Has totally co-opted the party’s fund raising apparatus for its own sake - which often has left other candidates short on cash;

8) Is based on a total fraud - that the Head of this Political Machine is some sort of political savior or political genius; in fact, the Head of the Machine is a power-mad user of people. Period.

9) Curiously, this Political Machine has recently cozied up to its main rival and competitor. This new ‘friendship’ is another cynical step to solidify political power - and freeze out any other potential competitors;

10) This Machine - and its main rival - have virtually ruined this country. They have corrupted everything - and everyone - in their path(s). Yes, when out of office they profit by earning millions on the book and public speaking market. But - in their wake - they have left a shambles. Ruined aides, indicted friends, bankrupted former staffers.



Who - or What - is this Political Machine?

The Clinton Machine.

And.

The Bush Machine.

They are virtually inter-changeable!

One - the Clintons - basically owns the Democratic Party.

And the other - the Bushes - owns the Republican Party.

They each, in their own way, have ripped off and raped their own party for their own selfish purposes - and the party machinery has allowed it! (Remember that sorry spectacle of Republicans traipsing down to Austin in 1999 to ‘beg’ George W. Bush to run for President?)

The GOP is now paying a severe price for it: losing the House, Senate, many governorships and state houses; in 1994-2000, the Democrats paid for Bill and Hillary’s political and personal excesses by losing the House, Senate, many governorships and state houses - and finally the White House.

But these two Machines continue on.

Their parties suffer - but the Bushes and Clintons couldn’t care less. They are rolling in dough, laughing all the way to the bank - and just waiting to return to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.



Our country is in grave trouble. And some of this is due to our government and our politicians.

The Clintons and the Bushes have rotted out our political system.

Until they are displaced and defeated - by a principled leader - not another greedy opportunist like a Giuliani in the GOP or an Edwards in the Democrat Party - we will not be able to repair our broken political system.

IOWA AND ROVE FALL-OUT



Let’s analyze all the latest GOP news:

1) Mitt Romney’s victory in the Iowa Straw Ballot was to be expected. Hell, he spent almost $482 per vote! But, to his credit, he had a game plan and he stuck to it. And he is now the odds-on winner in the January Iowa Caucuses. Plus, he is/was already ahead in New Hampshire - (where he has a home and was the governor of the neighboring state with the biggest media market) - and winning those first two contests will give him that elusive Big Mo everyone wants.

What Iowa really tells us is how weak the GOP field is and how dispirited the GOP voters are. The turnout was much lower than in 1999 - the last time one of these was held. The Enthusiasm Factor was way, way down; most straw ballot voters had left hours before the results were announced.

This mirrors the number of GOP donors this year. That number is also way, way down - as the number of Democratic donors is appreciably higher. This may be evidence of an Enthusiam Gap: GOP voters are ‘down’ while Democrats are Super-Enthused over their chances to re-capture the White House next year.

What else we learned from Iowa: the so-called ‘top tier’ candidates refused to participate - and there really are no stars in the field.

Yes, former Governor Mike Huckabee - a jovial and nice fellow - did very well with his second-place finish. And he earned himself new scrutiny as a possible ‘top tier’ candidate; he also is a strong Veep candidate. A Southern Christian conservative would fit well with a northerner like Romney or Rudy.

Ron Paul - the hottest online candidate - did quite poorly at only 9%.

Tom Tancredo came in 4th - and will keep running.

Tommy Thompson is dropping out.

McCain and Giuliani both did terribly. Yes, they didn’t participate - but they actually tried to pull a fast one. While staying out officially, they still campaigned all over Iowa in hopes of doing surprisingly well. It didn’t work at all. They both got creamed - and thus are already in Big Trouble for the January Caucuses.

Lesson: if you disrespect Iowa voters, they will not forget.

2) Rove’s Resignation: what does it mean? Well, the Bush Presidency is a dead volcano - and Bush’s Brain has run out of ideas. They were treading water anyway.

Rove is also entangled in several quiet federal investigations; this sudden resignation may be a result of those legal inquiries.

Do not believe this “spend more time with my family” baloney; that line is total hogwash.

There is more here than we know.

We will learn more in the next few days and weeks.

Politically, Rove will not advise any of the 2008 campaigns. They may ask, but he will stay away. Plus, he - and Bush - are almost radioactive these days and the 2008 GOP nominee will want to run as far away from Team Bush as possible. (Not that the Democrats will let him! The GOP nominee will be in tons of TV ads with old pix of him and Bush and in ads showing him ‘morphing’ into another George W. Bush.)

3) Fred Thompson to tour Iowa. Strange, really. Iowa was all the focus the last few weeks in the run-up to the Straw Ballot. Now everyone in the media either has left Iowa or gone on a much-needed August vacation - and here comes the ‘odd’ Fred Thompson campaign tour of Iowa.

The timing of this - and everything Thompson does and does not do - are indeed strange.

He is fading - and fast.

Conclusion: GOP primary voters - all across the country - continue to scratch their heads and ask, “Isn’t there somebody better out there?”

Indeed, there is a huge yearning for a new candidate - someone not even on the scene yet - someone to “ride to the rescue.”

There is still time - but it is running out - for another candidate.

Unless and until there is, the GOP will remain down and full of despair.

MORE 2008 DEVELOPMENTS



It’s August. It’s hot - very hot! It’s supposed to be a quiet time in politics.

But this year - because of the ridiculously advanced and compressed primary and caucus schedule next winter - the campaign season is already upon us - even in August.

Some recent developments:


1) This Saturday’s Iowa Straw Ballot: Rudy and McCain long ago dropped out of the event. Romney has spent millions to win it - including months of statewide TV ads. He is leading in the polls in Iowa - and should also win this event, which is a small test of organizational skill. The key? Buying thousands of tickets to this all-day affair and then busing in thousands of supporters to use the tickets thus becoming eligible to vote Saturday evening in the Straw Ballot.

What’s the point?

To earn a large national - Sunday AM - news headline: Romney Wins in Iowa.

That - and a leg up for the real vote next January 14th - is why these candidates are knocking themselves out for this Saturday’s event.

Rudy made a huge mistake in deciding to blow this off. This decision will hurt him Big Time all the way from now through January. He is now behind the eight-ball in Iowa and won’t catch up; he is ceding Iowa to others. Let’s just say Romney wins both the Straw Ballot and then in the real Caucuses in January. Then - a week later - Romney wins his neighboring New Hampshire Primary. That’s two huge wins in the first two contests. Can you imagine the Big Mo he will have?

And Rudy - who has been ahead in these national name ID polls for a year - suddenly has lost the only two contests we have. How does he look then? Does he look like a winner? Or do voters scramble over to Romney?

Or does the race just deteriorate into various winners in different states on the Mega Super Tuesday - February 5th.

Rudy has planned all along that Florida’s January 31 primary will be the beginning of his string of victories ( he has polled well there - perhaps due to the influx of retirees from the northeast - but his numbers have declined lately). But by then he will have lost several states.

In the end, he may regret not competing in Iowa all the way - including this Saturday.

Assuming Romney wins the Straw Ballot, the second and third place finishers will also get a boost. Who will they be?

Will Ron Paul’s incredible on-line success translate to real votes on paper?

Can one of the other second-tier group do something to separate themselves from the pack?

2) In the midst of this event come more and more signs of ambivalence from the Fred Thompson Camp. Stories abound about his wife’s role inside the campaign. It seems as if she wants him to run more than he wants to run.

He has already peaked; his decline has begun - and all before he even has announced his candidacy.

3) One other GOP note: the more the Republican candidates flounder, the more likely it is that Newt Gingrich will flirt with entering the race.

Newt is provocative; he is entertaining. He makes news. But he is unelectable because he is undisciplined and overly egotistical - and he already blew it once when he took the 1994 Republican Revolution and morphed it into the Gingrich Revolution.

He is great at throwing a hundred ideas up on the wall to see which ones work and which don’t.

But he is not a leader who can unite the party and, more importantly, the nation, which craves someone who can indeed “bring us together.”

The Democrats:

1) Hillary as the front-runner is a nightmare for many people - both Democrats and Republicans. Why? Because she might be the one Democrat who so scares a dispirited, divided GOP into pulling itself together behind its ticket just to keep her - and Bill - out of the White House.

It is said that many social conservatives will just stay home rather than vote for a pro-choice candidate like Rudy Giuliani. That may be true. But the specter of the Clintons back in the White House may also energize the GOP Base like nothing we have ever seen.

2) A Hillary/Obama Ticket: this is all-the-talk these days. Many are predicting it.

Let’s analyze: what does Obama bring to Hillary’s ticket that she wouldn’t have anyway?

Illinois?

Nope. She, too, grew up there and it is solidly democrat anyway.

The African American vote? Nope. She will get 89-92% of that vote anyway in a general election. In fact, any Democrat will get that percentage in a general.

A wave of young and disenchanted ‘new’ voters who will help swamp the GOP in the general election? Maybe. Maybe there is a ‘hidden wave’ of super-angry-at-the-GOP/Bush voters who are dying to come out in November of 2008 and stick it to the GOP. But will these voters only do it if Obama is on the ticket? That remains to be seen.

It seems more likely if Hillary is the nominee - and we still have a long way to go before that is certain - that she needs some sort of balance on her ticket - either geographical or ideological.

She needs to ‘get’ something through her Veep candidate that she wouldn’t get otherwise.

Florida? Can she win it on her own? If not, if she took Senator Bill Nelson as her running mate would that give her a good shot at winning this crucial state?

What about Bill Richardson - an Hispanic governor of a southwestern state? He may help bring not only New Mexico but also Nevada, Arizona and perhaps even Colorado - all usually GOP states in Presidential elections.

By the way, this same thinking applies to the GOP. Some opine that Rudy would pick Romney as his running mate. Why? What does Romney give the ticket? He can’t and won’t even win his home state of Massachusetts.

Others mention a Rudy/McCain ticket. Oh really? McCain so turns off the GOP base that these two together are just inviting a third candidate - a Perot-type - to run in the general just to spite the GOP. Plus McCain brings nothing to the ticket. His once-vaunted ‘independence’ has been frittered away on Iraq and amnesty for illegals; he is now seen as an out-of-control war hawk who, combined with Rudy, would make this ticket seem out of the American mainstream on Iraq.


Conclusion: The GOP race is much less ‘developed’ than the democrat race. The fact that an un-announced candidate - Fred Thompson - could have risen in the polls without ever even announcing is proof of the yearning inside the GOP for a new candidate who is a mainstream conservative without all this marital and personal baggage. Unfortunately, we haven’t yet found that candidate - and Thompson is clearly disappointing most people by his odd non-campaigning.

The Democratic race is clearly a Hillary-Obama race, with John Edwards needing desperately to win Iowa (where he has been doing very well for three years) to get back into the mix.

Out of it all, the country wants to find someone who makes at least an effort to re-unite us all as Americans first and partisans second.

Hillary cannot do this - and will never be able to. The very minute she takes office 45-50% will oppose her. And that will never change. She is a polarizing figure - just the way G.W. Bush has become polarizing.

Can a nation of 300 million people only elect presidents now from two families?

Are the two main political parties the wholly-owned subsidiaries of the Bushes and the Clintons?

Until this changes, we - as a nation - are in for more years of division and disgust.

POLITICAL NOTES



Let’s take the beginning of August to step back and examine some political developments:

1) Fred Thompson - before he has even announced his candidacy - is beset with difficulties:

He did not raise the amount of money his backers expected for his Exploratory Committee - and this should be easy because the first money a candidate raises is from his closest supporters, past donors and associates; the fact that he couldn’t even meet his own internal goal of $5 million (he raised about $3.5 million) shows Big Trouble for Thompson.

He has already had a major staff shake-up - further evidence of a troubled campaign - and he hasn’t even announced his candidacy yet!

Many already speculate that Thompson will announce in September and “drop out of the race by November.”

He may already have peaked this summer - and already be on the decline.

Plus, the more voters see him, the less impressed they will be.


2) The GOP race: with Thompson’s desultory performance and a reduced sense of enthusiasm for his candidacy, where does that leave things today?

McCain is a goner. Period. Gone. Finished. Kaput. Yeah, the MSM still gives him more credence than he deserves, but inside the GOP we know it is over for him.

That leaves Romney and Rudy Giuliani as of today.

Romney’s second quarter fund raising was way, way down - a worrisome indicator that people are cooling on him. The Mormon question and the flip-flopping are hurting him. He is doing very well in Iowa and his neighboring New Hampshire (he actually lives in New Hampshire) - because he has spent heavily already on TV advertising there. But there is not much enthusiasm for him, either.

Rudy has basically abandoned Iowa; he blew off the upcoming Iowa Straw Ballot. He is trailing in New Hampshire. He seems to be gambling on the Florida Primary to give him the momentum into Mega-Super Tuesday.

Rudy is strange...he has some strengths...but is fraught with trouble, too. He doesn’t fit the GOP at all...but there is such a vacuum on the Right that anything can happen.

Romney and Rudy.

Can the GOP really be this desperate?

Or can another candidate emerge who can excite a moribund, dispirited GOP?

No doubt Ron Paul excites libertarians and will surprise at the Iowa Straw Ballot. But he isn’t The One. He is a good guy, a bit old, no TV pizzazz, which is a must these days, and isn’t going to win the GOP nomination.

Newt - undisciplined and unelectable - keeps trolling to see if there is interest in him yet. He is provocative and entertaining and makes news. But he isn’t the answer either.

No wonder the party - and the conservative movement - are down in the dumps. Bush wooed everyone and then sold our principles down the river.

We need someone exciting - who through his or her presence - turns the GOP on and makes us proud again.

Yeah, if Hillary is the Democratic nominee we’ll all band together to vote against her. But wouldn’t it also be wonderful to have someone to vote for?

We need a new start - and soon.

3) The Democrats: don’t buy into this “Hillary is inevitable” nonsense. Yes, she does well today in these name-ID national polls. But in individual states she is in trouble. She trails in Iowa and South Carolina and is tied with Obama in New Hampshire.

As the presumptive front-runner, to lose in these early states will doom her candidacy. When a front-runner stumbles, it is magnified. And she may be in for a stumble.

Obama has finally started to take the gloves off - while John Edwards is so prissy he has his wife attack Hillary for him.

Meanwhile Hillary has Bill Clinton answer Obama for her.

What kind of candidates are these?

Can’t they do their own campaigning?

Why do their spouses have to do it for them?

It’s pretty weak - and the Republicans can use it against them later on. For example, when Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says something awful is our next President’s husband or wife going to do the responding?

How weak and pathetic.