More troubling for Democrat watchers is Carnahan’s big spending. The FEC reports show Carnahan spent quite a bit more than he actually brought in. He only raised $9,375 yet he spent $12,432. A portion of his expenses went to relocating even more staff to help with his campaign. Carnahan now employs two Capitol Hill politicos as his top staffers Angela Barranco from Whip Crowley’s office and Angela Guyadeen from Marion Berry’s office, not to mention another staffer brought in from Louisiana.
Meanwhile Ed Martin continues to show steady growth and common sense spending as he quickly closes in on Carnahan regarding his campaign’s cash on hand. Ed Martin raised $18,207 yet only spent $6,805.
“Even in fundraising Congressman Carnahan serves as a prime example of the wasteful spending that is currently so rampant in Washington. The people of Missouri’s 3rd district don’t want someone who would throw away money on hiring Washington-insiders to help them do their bidding. They want a representative who uses common sense when it comes to money – someone who will take spending seriously. Carnahan’s spending is on track with the deficit problems plaguing our country and mortgaging our children’s future,’ said congressional candidate Ed Martin.
Ed Martin’s fundraising speaks volumes as to what the people want. In these last days before the primary, candidates are required to report contributions over $1,000 within 48 hours. Ed Martin just received two of these from Missourians who are worried about the future. Carnahan has reported none.
The best strategy for Republicans running for office this November? Get President Obama to campaign for your Democratic opponent. It’s a plan that appears to be working rather splendidly for the GOP so far. In fact, it’s so successful, there should be little doubt that Republicans would be willing to open their wallets and fund Obama’s campaign travel through Nov. 2.
Obama campaigned for Democrat Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, who lost his primary to Rep. Joe Sestak 46 percent to 54. Republican Scott Brown defeated Democrat Martha Coakley 52 percent to 47 in January’s special election, despite Obama’s support for Coakley.
Republican Chris Christie trounced New Jersey’s Democratic incumbent governor, Jon Corzine, even after Obama did his best to pull Corzine to victory last fall. The story repeats itself in Virginia, where Obama didn’t have the clout with voters to help Democrat Creigh Deeds defeat Bob McDonnell for Virginia governor. Numbers don’t lie.
The White House may try to argue that Obama was not on the ballot Tuesday in Pennsylvania, nor in New Jersey and Virginia last year or Massachusetts earlier this year, where, despite the president’s efforts on behalf of the Democrats in each and every one of those races, his candidate lost. And while there is, indeed, a whiff of anti-incumbency in the air, Corzine was the only incumbent on that list where that point can even be debated. (House incumbent Sestak beat Senate incumbent Specter.) Obama himself may be the most vulnerable incumbent, and his “help” could be the kiss of death.
Searching desperately for something resembling a shred of good news from Tuesday’s results, Democrats are celebrating their ability to hold on to a House congressional seat (until November, at least) in Pennsylvania held for 36 years by the late Rep. John Murtha (D) in a district where Democrats outnumber Republicans by a 2-to-1 margin. But Democrats opining that holding Murtha’s seat is an omen for their party’s fortunes come November are more foolish than prescient.
Democrat operatives are loath to admit the hotly contested Pennsylvania primary between Specter and Sestak spurred more Democrats to get out and vote, thus putting Democrat Mark Critz over the finish line in Murtha’s congressional district. Simple turnout levels between Republicans and the more passionate Democratic voters interested in the Senate primary are what most likely kept the seat in the “D” column.
Pennsylvania Democrats came out to vote so they could vote against Obama’s pick for the Senate. Obama had nothing to do with Critz’s win. Putting the full weight of his presidency behind Specter failed, just as it failed in Virginia, New Jersey and Massachusetts.
With Obama’s approval rating below 50 percent (according to the most recent Real Clear Politics poll average) and his approval and disapproval numbers just about even, his astonishingly high self-esteem isn’t likely to save him or his party. Prior to Brown’s stunning win over Coakley, the Democrats’ supposed heir apparent to the late Ted Kennedy’s throne, Obama was queried about Democrats’ trepidation about November. Obama unflinchingly stated, “The difference between here [2010] and ’94 is, now you have me.” Yes. We do. Along with government takeover of our health, banking and auto industries and the saddling of our nation with debt burdens for generations to come.
Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-R.I.) railed against the mainstream media on Wednesday, calling the press corps “despicable” and saying that reporters are “not covering the most significant issue of national importance.”
In a speech on the House floor, an angry Kennedy turned a speech on Afghanistan into a finger-pointing lecture to the Washington press.
“If anybody wants to know where cynicism is … cynicism is that there is one … two press people in this gallery,” Kennedy said, angrily pointing to the press gallery where reporters sit. “We’re talking about Eric Massa 24/7 on the TV. We’re talking about war and peace, $3 billion, 1,000 lives and no press?”
“It’s going to be very difficult to have bipartisan conversations with regard to a 2,700 page health care bill that the Democrat majority in the House and the Democrat majority in the Senate can’t pass,”
When America was winding down from the Superbowl, and Bourbon Alley partied on, Solid Principles asked this question about the Obama Health Care summit with the GOP leaders on this article ‘Malicious Transparency?‘
Let me be the first to speculate, I don’t think he told any of the Republican congressional leaders about this plan. If am I right, then this tactic is not transparency, this is ‘Malicious Transparency’.
How does forcing the agenda upon the Republican Party, picking the setting, and televising it ever got to be considered transparency? It is far closer to a show trial or a court involving a hopping marsupial from Australia. CRAIG EDWARDS
If Boehner was playing chess with Obama, he lost on his first move. By not calling the Obama announcement ‘a stunt’, nor pointing out the multiple flaws of the plan (only dragging his feet after Talk Show pundits screamed it was an ambush), Boehner’s delay in responding means the GOP cannot fight the summit invite. It shows the GOP learnt nothing from the House Republicans retreat in Maryland when Obama scored a victory during the Q&A, which Obama had televised at the last moment with Republican approval.
I will say it again, this is the biggest game changer The White House has undertaken in 2010. Obama has discovered a way to force the Republicans to defend GOP opposition to Obama’s version of Heath Care Reform. The Democrats on the other hand have placed Health Care Reform, or the right to Health Care on their party agenda for decades. This forum will force the Republicans to open their play-book on their version of Health Care reform, a topic that is not in their cannon. And best of all, it will be televised!
If you thought watching Palin speeches was awkward, wait till February 25th rolls round.
UPDATE: MARCH 2010: OK, in retrospect, it was all much do about nothing, there was no trap. I still consider the opening statements made by Boehner as poor openers.
This video absolutely nails it. The way most Americans feel about the continuing betrayal of everything we value by the Obama administration and the morally corrupt Democratic Party.
Please go to YouTube and copy and paste this video on every site you have access to and not just the conservative sites, but to the sites where “middle of the road” voters and Independents will see it as well.
I don’t know who produced this video, but major kudos to the folks behind this one, it couldn’t be more spot on.
Nancy Pelosi is fast becoming a complete joke. Her faux confidence in front of the cameras belies her growing desperation to get the radioactive health care expropriation bill passed before the TEA PARTY people catch up to her.
~~John Cronin~~
House Democrats may finally be taking note of voters’ fears of ObamaCare.
The Dems were planning to pass their bill today, but Speaker Nancy Pelosi & Co. yesterday realized it might fail, and mulled delaying the vote.
Here’s a better idea: Give it up.
There’s no reason, after all, for them to follow the White House like lemmings down a path as dangerous to their party’s electoral future as it is to the country.
Indeed, that their trillion-dollar bill even remains a priority — while unemployment has hit 10.2 percent, highest in 26 years, as was reported yesterday — is a fair measure of their tone-deafness.
It’s no surprise, of course, that Pelosi wants to ram this bill through fast. Tuesday’s election sounded alarms about voters’ wariness of massive new public-spending programs, like ObamaCare.
Voters ousted incumbents in New York, New Jersey and Virginia, the latter two electing Republican governors. Independents voted with the GOP by a 2-1 margin — exactly opposite their electoral behavior in 2006 and ’08.
Best get it over with, before opposition solidifies, Pelosi surely figures.
But the deadline’s repeated slippages point up the resistance within the Democrat’s own caucus. “Blue Dog” Dems are contemplating their own re-election prospects a year from now — and are keenly aware of the voters’ wrath.
So maybe they’ll do themselves a favor and convince their leaders to slow down — or, better yet, drop the bill altogether.
If so, they’d be doing the nation a favor, as well.
Senior Congressional Democrats say reform before end of year is highly unlikely.
Senior Congressional Democrats told ABC News today it is highly unlikely that a health care reform bill will be completed this year, just a week after President Barack Obama declared he was “absolutely confident” he’ll be able to sign one by then.
“Getting this done by the by the end of the year is a no-go,” a senior Democratic leadership aide told ABC News. Two other key Congressional Democrats also told ABC News the same thing.
This may come as an unwelcome surprise for the White House, where officials from the president on down have repeatedly said the health care bill would be signed into law by the end of the year.
“I am absolutely confident that we are going to get health care done by the end of this year, and Nancy Pelosi is just as confident,” Obama said Oct. 27 at a fundraiser for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi may still be confident — and her spokesman Brendan Daly said today, “We are going to get our part done” — but the reason for the delay can be found in the Senate.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has yet to release the bill he eventually plans to bring to the Senate floor. Reid is still waiting for the Congressional Budget Office to come up with an estimated cost of several possible variations of his bill before deciding which one to introduce in the Senate.
That cost estimate, Democrats tell ABC News, is not expected until next week.
Asked directly by ABC News, “Will you pass health care reform this year?” Reid pointedly did not answer “yes.”
Instead, he replied, “We are not going to be bound by any timetables,” adding, “We are going to do this as quickly as we can.”
The delay is causing some frustration among Reid’s fellow Democrats, but Reid said of his colleagues, “They want us to do this the right way, not the fast way.”
Grassroots conservatives in New York’s 23rd CD have just schooled the Republican Party brass on the newly installed protocol for nominating and backing Republican candidates.
To wit: In a conservative district, you will promote a conservative candidate, or we will find and elect our own.
~~John Cronin~~
By ALEX ISENSTADT & JOSH KRAUSHAAR
The House Republican leadership is prepared to welcome Doug Hoffman into its ranks, National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Pete Sessions (R-Texas) said Thursday, a sign that the GOP establishment is recalibrating its approach toward the contentious New York special election and the Conservative Party nominee whose candidacy has divided the party.
“He would be very welcome, with open arms,” Sessions told POLITICO in an interview off the House floor.
Sessions’s comments came as polls showed Hoffman surging in the Nov. 3 special election against Republican nominee DedeScozzafava, a moderate who supports abortion rights and gay marriage, and Democratic attorney Bill Owens. Nearly a dozen rank-and-file Republican members announced their endorsements of Hoffman Thursday.
While the NRCC–along with House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) and House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.)—have all thrown their backing to Scozzafava, grassroots conservatives have revolted against the GOP nominee, asserting that she is too liberal for them to support. Some have even called for conservatives to withhold donations from the NRCC in protest.
On Thursday afternoon, Sessions appeared to tacitly acknowledge that Hoffman may represent the GOP’s best chance to keep the Republican-held seat from being picked up by a Democrat.
“I think it’s pretty clear that a person who would vote for John Boehner, support tax cuts, support growing our economy, and defeat Nancy Pelosi’s tax and spend agenda will be really welcome in our conference, and I think having a person who can win that district off that message would be really good for the Republican Party,” Sessions said.
I have been beating the drums for increasing the Republican presence in Congress for the past year and a half. Although this party has it’s share of big spending, big government loving politicos, for the most part, if either national party is going to be fiscally responsible, it will most likely be the Republicans.
If the citizens of this country are going to apply the brakes to the runaway freight train that is the Obama administration, history tells us that they will be well advised to elect many more members of the loyal opposition, rather than, like Don Quixote, to tilt at windmills by wasting their votes in support of a third party.
Here’s hoping that anyone tempted to go third party in 2012 will realize that there is NOTHING in U.S. electoral history to suggest that they will be anymore successful in 2012 than thay have been in the past 236 years.
~~John Cronin~~
Solid Principles Co-Founder
By: Michael Medved
Townhall.com
For those Americans who want to fight back against the menacing expansion of government and the insanely irresponsible spending of the Obama administration, there is only one way to succeed: electing more Republicans to high office.
If the public fails to elect GOP candidates for the Senate, the House, governorships, state legislatures and, ultimately, the presidency there is simply no way to derail the leftist agenda that menaces liberty and prosperity.
Many sincere patriots will object to this formulation, insisting that we must elect more conservatives, not just more Republicans.
The question then becomes, if the needed conservative candidates arent running as Republicans, what party would they represent? If theyre conservative Democrats (a designation that increasingly seems like a contradiction in terms) their election to the House and Senate would return Pelosi and Reid to power along with their ultra-liberal, Democratic committee chairs like Rangel, Conyers, Frank, Dodd, Leahy, Kerry, Waxman, and so forth. President Obama’s ability to bully Blue Dog Democrats to do his bidding shows that empowering even those Democrats who describe themselves as independent minded only serves to strengthen the hand of the reigning leftists in the nations capital. Does the fact that Democratic Senator David Casey of Pennsylvania happens to be pro-life make him any less a reliable cog in the Obama machine as it lurches through record deficits and the relentless growth of government?
Of course, some purists insist that true conservatives will never identify as either Republicans or Democrats and will instead win office as independents or representatives of fringe parties (say the Libertarians, or the Constitution Party). This supposition ignores the consistent record of failure for third and fourth and fifth party candidates at every level for more than 200 years of American history. Occasionally, quirky free spirits will win governorships as independents (like Angus King of Maine, or Lowell Weicker of Connecticut, or the notorious Jesse Ventura of Minnesota) but these exceedingly rare victories never bring political realignment or the emergence of a new party infrastructure (Maine, Connecticut and Minnesota have long-ago returned to Democratic or Republican rule, demonstrating that their third-party flirtations represented flukes, not breakthroughs). In Congress and the Senate, the only independents in recent decades have been representatives from New England (Bernie Sanders of Vermont, Joe Lieberman of Connecticut) who end up caucusing with the Democrats in any event.
Even if some miracle occurred and some new party elected five, ten or even twenty members of the House and Senate (a virtual impossibility), what difference would it make if the Democrats maintain their majorities? Any independent or minor party candidates who beat the odds and win election to the House or Senate will face the choice of caucusing with one of the major parties, or else making themselves isolated and irrelevant as Congress goes about its business.
Bill Clinton “doesn’t expect a repeat of the 1994 Republican takeover in next year’s midterm elections.”
He didn’t expect it in 1994 either, but he and his party got their clocks cleaned anyway.
The Dems didn’t expect the Tea Parties, didn’t expect the reception they got at the Townhall meetings, didn’t expect 2 million people to show up in Washington, didn’t expect ACORN to be exposed, didn’t expect Van Jones to be booted out of government and didn’t expect Cap & Trade and Health Care to be on life support at this late date.
With that record of prognostication, wouldn’t Clinton and the rest of the Dems be the last people that you would walk up to at a cocktail party and say: “Hey, what do you like it the market?”
~~John Cronin~~
By JOHN BRESNAHAN
Former President Bill Clinton said Sunday that Republican attacks have hurt President Barack Obama and the congressional Democrats, but he doesn’t expect a repeat of the 1994 Republican takeover in next year’s midterm elections.
During an appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Clinton said, “There’s no way they can make it that bad.”
“No. 1, the country is more diverse and more interested in positive action,” Clinton said. “No. 2, they’ve [the American public] seen this movie before, because they had eight years under President [George W.] Bush when the Republicans finally had the whole government, and they know the results were bad. And— No. 3 —the Democrats haven’t taken on the gun lobby like I did, and they took 15 of our members out. So I don’t think — it’ll be, whatever happens, it’ll be manageable for the president.”
While Clinton came into office with a Democratic majority in 1992, Republicans romped to huge political victories in ’94, winning a majority in the House for the first time in 40 years. Throughout the rest of his years in office, Clinton faced a Republican congressional leadership that mistrusted and disliked him, helping to lead to his 1998 impeachment for the Monica Lewinsky scandal.
Reports comimg in from around the country tell the story of constituents who are ready to explode because their tin-eared Congressional delegations either won’t or can’t figure out that the folks back home are demanding their heads in peach baskets.
I can’t wait to see the YouTube videos from around the country after the people who dreamt up “cash for clunkers,” socialized healthcare and $trillion budget over runs get within shouting distance of their voters.
~~John Cronin~~
Screaming constituents, protesters dragged out by the cops, congressmen fearful for their safety — welcome to the new town-hall-style meeting, the once-staid forum that is rapidly turning into a house of horrors for members of Congress.
On the eve of the August recess, members are reporting meetings that have gone terribly awry, marked by angry, sign-carrying mobs and disruptive behavior. In at least one case, a congressman has stopped holding town hall events because the situation has spiraled so far out of control.
“I had felt they would be pointless,” Rep. Tim Bishop (D-N.Y.) told POLITICO, referring to his recent decision to temporarily suspend the events in his Long Island district. “There is no point in meeting with my constituents and [to] listen to them and have them listen to you if what is basically an unruly mob prevents you from having an intelligent conversation.”
In Bishop’s case, his decision came on the heels of a June 22 event he held in Setauket, N.Y., in which protesters dominated the meeting by shouting criticisms at the congressman for his positions on energy policy, health care and the bailout of the auto industry.
Within an hour of the disruption, police were called in to escort the 59-year-old Democrat — who has held more than 100 town hall meetings since he was elected in 2002 — to his car safely.
“I have no problem with someone disagreeing with positions I hold,” Bishop said, noting that, for the time being, he was using other platforms to communicate with his constituents. “But I also believe no one is served if you can’t talk through differences.”
Here is a jaw dropping audio segment on a YouTube video as then newly elected Sen. Obama commiserates with hard left talker Randi Rhoades about the Bush administration RUSHING LEGISLATION THROUGH CONGRESS. The nerve of that guy!…..After all the bill was 14 inches high. Who could possibly read a bill that long, much less understand it?
Who indeed, President Obama. Certainly not the voters who don’t have the time or the resources to follow your Trojan horse bills that are attempting to introduce a veritable laundry list of confiscatory taxes and hateful practices that the American people would reject out of hand if you would dare to let them know what you are proposing and what the Kool Aid drinkers in Congress are voting for.
Bill Kristol, a key architect of the defeat of Bill Clinton’s health care reform efforts, smells blood and advocates a similarly uncompromising strategy toward Obama’s:
“With Obamacare on the ropes, there will be a temptation for opponents to let up on their criticism, and to try to appear constructive, or at least responsible. There will be a tendency to want to let the Democrats’ plans sink of their own weight, to emphasize that the critics have been pushing sound reform ideas all along and suggest it’s not too late for a bipartisan compromise over the next couple of weeks or months.
My advice, for what it’s worth: Resist the temptation. This is no time to pull punches. Go for the kill.”
The last five seconds of this video of Obama urging Congress to pass Medicus Maximus bears silent testimony to what Craig Edwards and I were talking about Friday night as we recorded our soon to be released podcast on what we believe is the attempt by Obama and Press Secretary Gibbs to dodge and manipulate the press.
At the end of his remarks, Obama puts his script into the pocket of his jacket, turns to leave and ignores the questions from the press as he beats a hasty retreat to avoid answering any questions. The new transparency in Washington is sure refreshing, isn’t it?
The House of Representives approved the debate on the Climate Change (Waxman/Markey) Bill voting 217 – 205, 30 Democrats voted against. Rep. Eric Cantor R-Virginia Minority Whip (pictured left) made this comment on the floor which we have streamed below. Expect more on this.
UPDATE: Final vote 219-212 read the whole saga at Politico
Listen to our interview with Ed Martin on Episode 26 of the Solid Principles Podcast
