Barack Obama's elitist, upper crust mentality is catching up to him, as John McCain has caught him in the latest polls. McCain has even moved ahead in the polls in key battleground states like Ohio and Florida.
Obama comes across as cold and forbidding, and fumbles almost any verbal message when its not printed out on a teleprompter in front of him. He lacks a sense of humor and ability to relate to the everyday difficulties of the common man. This has proven particularly intractible with white blue collar males, and women over the age of 50--who could swing the election to McCain on their votes alone.
Off-hand cracks like, when asked about food prices, Obama said "have you checked the price of argula at Whole Foods lately," are hardly something average Americans can relate to. Nobody but the yuppie upper crust shops at Whole Foods, and argula is a very expensive vegetable beyond the means of the average family.
Similarly, at a big dollar Hollywood cocktail fundraising party, Obama took a shot at the blue collar workers in Pennsylvania, accusing them of being obssessed with God, beer and guns. There's way more blue collar guys like that, than wealthy Hollywood liberal stars, that will cast votes in November.
This is to say nothing of Obama's brassy, angry wife Michelle, who has caused him no end of grief on the campaign trail, complaining about the cost of student loans and day care, when she was making over $300,000 a year at a Chicago Hospital and Barack has taken in over $4 million from writing and selling his two books.
He won't be helped by shunning veteran Democratic politicians who could help him, like Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland or Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, to favor Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine for his vice presidential running mate.
Kaine has been governor two and one-half years, and was Mayor of Richmond before that. He has an even thinner political resume than Obama has, and neither has any foreign policy or national security or national defense experience. Against McCain's impressive pedigree in these areas, an Obama-Kaine ticket would look weak indeed.
That's why Obama is languishing in the polls and the "Nobama" bumper signs are becoming more prominent.
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Leftist protesstors plague conventions
Denver and Minneapolis, hosts of the Democratic and Republican national political conventions, are both fighting it out with the demonstrators and protestors in court--and we're still a month away from show time.
Recreate '68 and Tent State University are in court in Denver right now, suing the City and FBI over the site of demonstrator parades and protest marches that are out of the sight line of convention delegates. The ACLU is saying this violates the demonstrator's free speech rights, while the city and cops are just trying to keep a lid on things, so violence and bloodshed is kept to a minimum.
The City and Country of Denver has refused to allow the 50,000 Tent State demonstrators to camp over night in City Park, saying they will turn on the sprinklers at 10 p.m. each night to drive the protestors out. There would be a horrible lack of sanitary facilities and emergency vehicle access in City Park if camping was allowed. The public safety would be severely compromised.
Thr real question is why the Democratic Party or the Host Committee has to provide housing for outside protestors at all. The convention delegates will all have hotel rooms, and the lobbyists and others seeking influence will have rented hotels, people's homes, etc. Why should demonstrators be any different?
Minneapolis is going through similar contortions with the GOP coming to town two weeks later.
The conventions are a media circus and charade to start with--any serious races or contests have long since been decided. The confabs are strictly for show and free television coverage. The political parties have got to get a handle on this, or they will run out of cities willing to host their conventions.
Recreate '68 and Tent State University are in court in Denver right now, suing the City and FBI over the site of demonstrator parades and protest marches that are out of the sight line of convention delegates. The ACLU is saying this violates the demonstrator's free speech rights, while the city and cops are just trying to keep a lid on things, so violence and bloodshed is kept to a minimum.
The City and Country of Denver has refused to allow the 50,000 Tent State demonstrators to camp over night in City Park, saying they will turn on the sprinklers at 10 p.m. each night to drive the protestors out. There would be a horrible lack of sanitary facilities and emergency vehicle access in City Park if camping was allowed. The public safety would be severely compromised.
Thr real question is why the Democratic Party or the Host Committee has to provide housing for outside protestors at all. The convention delegates will all have hotel rooms, and the lobbyists and others seeking influence will have rented hotels, people's homes, etc. Why should demonstrators be any different?
Minneapolis is going through similar contortions with the GOP coming to town two weeks later.
The conventions are a media circus and charade to start with--any serious races or contests have long since been decided. The confabs are strictly for show and free television coverage. The political parties have got to get a handle on this, or they will run out of cities willing to host their conventions.
Monday, July 28, 2008
Public Barack-lash due to fawning press
Early indications are that the fawning, over-the-top press coverage of Barack Obama's world tour has backfired with the public. Treating him like a rock star and conquering hero, when actually his speeches were very mundane, his non-scripted comments bordering on the inane and his lack of knowledge appalling--even the uninitiated have seen through the media puffery.
There is still a certain level of decorum, propriety and class Americans expect of their leaders, and over-reaching to look like a president when you aren't even nominated yet, does not go over well. His big trip was historic all right--and crass.
Perhaps Obama can be given the benefit of the doubt, that he was quietly, humbly trying to get educated on foreign affairs. The big media spoiled it, and he is blameless. But this explanation stretches credulity.
Obama is in trouble to start with, due to his thin resume and lack of accomplishments in his two public positions: as a state senator in the Illinois legislature and four years as a U.S. Senator. His time was spent politicking for the next job, rather than digging in to the mundate and difficult task of legislating.
The balloon is bound to burst at some point, whether it's over this staged media circus trip, or some other rookie mistake yet to come.
There is still a certain level of decorum, propriety and class Americans expect of their leaders, and over-reaching to look like a president when you aren't even nominated yet, does not go over well. His big trip was historic all right--and crass.
Perhaps Obama can be given the benefit of the doubt, that he was quietly, humbly trying to get educated on foreign affairs. The big media spoiled it, and he is blameless. But this explanation stretches credulity.
Obama is in trouble to start with, due to his thin resume and lack of accomplishments in his two public positions: as a state senator in the Illinois legislature and four years as a U.S. Senator. His time was spent politicking for the next job, rather than digging in to the mundate and difficult task of legislating.
The balloon is bound to burst at some point, whether it's over this staged media circus trip, or some other rookie mistake yet to come.
Sunday, July 27, 2008
Ludicrously expensive political conventions
We here in Denver know first hand how badly out of control the costs of national political conventions have become. We are hosting the Democratic national confab in a few weeks, and the costs keep escalating.
Denver was supposed to raise some $40 million to underwrite the confab, and at last tally, was about $11 million short. But that doesn't mean the expenses don't continue to shoot out of control. The latest hit was the decision by probable nominee Barack Obama to give his acceptance speech at Denver's 80,000 seat Mile High Stadium, instead of the indoor Pepsi Center, where the rest of the convention is.
It will cost an estimated $4 million extra to outfit Mile High with the security, stage, media plugins, etc. for this hour and a half extravaganza. Obama just had to give the word, and somebody in Denver has to snap their fingers and spend another $4 million.
Congress appropriated $50 million to each host city for the Democratic and GOP conventions, but that is quickly spent up just in police salaries and overtime, riot gear and other security equipment. The $40 million is in addition to this, and must be begged, borrowed and stolen off private businesses seeking favors from the parties. It is a fundraising outrage, that McCain-Finegold outlawed for candidates but still allows for political conventions. It is ripe for all kinds of mischief.
The inconvenience of closed streets, congested highways and sold-out hotels and restaurants is bad enough for the host cities, but the cost is beyond the pale. It is time for someone to reign in these mass media orgies called political conventions--which are cut-and-dried, and decided in advance, anyway.
Denver was supposed to raise some $40 million to underwrite the confab, and at last tally, was about $11 million short. But that doesn't mean the expenses don't continue to shoot out of control. The latest hit was the decision by probable nominee Barack Obama to give his acceptance speech at Denver's 80,000 seat Mile High Stadium, instead of the indoor Pepsi Center, where the rest of the convention is.
It will cost an estimated $4 million extra to outfit Mile High with the security, stage, media plugins, etc. for this hour and a half extravaganza. Obama just had to give the word, and somebody in Denver has to snap their fingers and spend another $4 million.
Congress appropriated $50 million to each host city for the Democratic and GOP conventions, but that is quickly spent up just in police salaries and overtime, riot gear and other security equipment. The $40 million is in addition to this, and must be begged, borrowed and stolen off private businesses seeking favors from the parties. It is a fundraising outrage, that McCain-Finegold outlawed for candidates but still allows for political conventions. It is ripe for all kinds of mischief.
The inconvenience of closed streets, congested highways and sold-out hotels and restaurants is bad enough for the host cities, but the cost is beyond the pale. It is time for someone to reign in these mass media orgies called political conventions--which are cut-and-dried, and decided in advance, anyway.
Saturday, July 26, 2008
It's gas prices, stupid
While Congress has passed a massive, deficit-busting housing bail-out bill for the 6% of home mortgages that are in default (That's right, 94% of home mortgages are current), the public has turned their attention away from the mortgage crisis and the war in Iraq, to seeth each time they pay $4 a gallon to fill their car tank with gas.
Congress thinks they've bought themselves political cover for re-election this fall, with the housing bill and reauthorization of spending for the war in Iraq, but have done nothing about gas prices. President Bush showed what will work, when he lifted the executive order on offshore drilling.
Just the prospect of greater supplies has driven oil prices down some $27 a barrel in two weeks. This isn't reflectd yet in retail gas prices, although they're down a few cents a gallon, below $4 slightly, in most places.
Even greater oil price drops would come quickly, if Congress passed legislation allowing offshore drilling, arctic drilling and ANWR drilling. Just let the Arab shieks get wind of the U.S. buying one to two-thirds less oil from them, and then watch prices drop. We probably wouldn't even have to go through with any actual drilling.
But no, the environmentalists and Big Government do-gooders have House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in their back pockets, and they wouldn't allow any such bills to come to a vote in Congress. They know too many Democrats recognize the public's ire over gas prices, and they'd join enough Republicans to open up drilling.
I believe the voters will make them pay for their short-sightedness this fall. Gas prices trump the mortgage crisis and Iraq in voter's minds, and Reid and Pelosi are missing the boat.
Congress thinks they've bought themselves political cover for re-election this fall, with the housing bill and reauthorization of spending for the war in Iraq, but have done nothing about gas prices. President Bush showed what will work, when he lifted the executive order on offshore drilling.
Just the prospect of greater supplies has driven oil prices down some $27 a barrel in two weeks. This isn't reflectd yet in retail gas prices, although they're down a few cents a gallon, below $4 slightly, in most places.
Even greater oil price drops would come quickly, if Congress passed legislation allowing offshore drilling, arctic drilling and ANWR drilling. Just let the Arab shieks get wind of the U.S. buying one to two-thirds less oil from them, and then watch prices drop. We probably wouldn't even have to go through with any actual drilling.
But no, the environmentalists and Big Government do-gooders have House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in their back pockets, and they wouldn't allow any such bills to come to a vote in Congress. They know too many Democrats recognize the public's ire over gas prices, and they'd join enough Republicans to open up drilling.
I believe the voters will make them pay for their short-sightedness this fall. Gas prices trump the mortgage crisis and Iraq in voter's minds, and Reid and Pelosi are missing the boat.
Friday, July 25, 2008
Obama world tour leads to McCain gains
Overkill. Like eating a bowl of frosting or nursing a bad hangover the morning after, there is such at thing as too much of a good thing. Barack Obama seems to have discovered that.
His much ballyhooed world tour, with the U.S. press fawning all over him in rapt adoration, seems to have bombed with John Q. Public. Rather than a humble listening tour, as billed, Obama has thrust himself out in front, like a rock star. For many Americans, it is unseemly to see a pretender doing what only the actual U.S. President should do.
Obama isn't president yet, and may have presumed too much. A funny thing happened on the way to the White House . . .
The newest polls show that Americans are most concerned about gas prices at the pump. They view the surge as having worked, and Iraq as no longer America's biggest problem. Obama has joined his fellow leftist-fringe Democrats in being on the wrong side of the oil drilling question. John McCain is having a mini=surge in the latest polls.
As President Bush showed by lifting the presidential executive order to ban offshore oil drilling in U.S. waters, it is the prospect of increased supplies, not the actual oil online, that lower prices. Oil is down some $27 a barrel from its spring high, since Bush's order.
Obama and the Democrats oppose all drilling and supply enhancement. They only support so-called "alternative energy" and are no-so-secretly glad oil prices are high to cut consumption. This is not what the public wants to hear.
The Demorcratic leadership in Congress will not allow bills to allow offshore or arctic oil drilling to come to the floor. They know they'd lose enough Democratic votes to pass them. Today Republicans stalled the Demo's phony "speculator" bill in the Senate, so now Democrats have to fish or cut bait.
Obama has been out of the country, and missed the shift of public sentiment from Iraq to oil prices. He could be in trouble.
His much ballyhooed world tour, with the U.S. press fawning all over him in rapt adoration, seems to have bombed with John Q. Public. Rather than a humble listening tour, as billed, Obama has thrust himself out in front, like a rock star. For many Americans, it is unseemly to see a pretender doing what only the actual U.S. President should do.
Obama isn't president yet, and may have presumed too much. A funny thing happened on the way to the White House . . .
The newest polls show that Americans are most concerned about gas prices at the pump. They view the surge as having worked, and Iraq as no longer America's biggest problem. Obama has joined his fellow leftist-fringe Democrats in being on the wrong side of the oil drilling question. John McCain is having a mini=surge in the latest polls.
As President Bush showed by lifting the presidential executive order to ban offshore oil drilling in U.S. waters, it is the prospect of increased supplies, not the actual oil online, that lower prices. Oil is down some $27 a barrel from its spring high, since Bush's order.
Obama and the Democrats oppose all drilling and supply enhancement. They only support so-called "alternative energy" and are no-so-secretly glad oil prices are high to cut consumption. This is not what the public wants to hear.
The Demorcratic leadership in Congress will not allow bills to allow offshore or arctic oil drilling to come to the floor. They know they'd lose enough Democratic votes to pass them. Today Republicans stalled the Demo's phony "speculator" bill in the Senate, so now Democrats have to fish or cut bait.
Obama has been out of the country, and missed the shift of public sentiment from Iraq to oil prices. He could be in trouble.
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Rush draws blood on Sen. Ken Salazar
Colorado's self-proclaimed "moderate" Democratic Sen. Ken Salazar, screams like a wounded elk whenever anyone questions his moderate credentials. Conservative nationally syndicated talk show host Rush Limbaugh, in his morning commentary yesterday, fingered Salazar for keeping oil shale lands from being leased in western Colorado, despite their 800 billion barrels of oil--badly needed in the current energy crisis.
Salazar shot back that the technology isn't developed yet to exploit them, and reverted to the liberal Democratic mantra of attacking the oil companies. The voters are getting wise to Salazar and the other liberals, however.
Having seen that President Bush's lifting of his ban on off-shore oil drilling has peeled $27 a barrel off oil prices in two weeks, they can see that it is the threat of new supplies, not actual oil, that scares the Middle East sultans of the oil trade. Full-speed-ahead development of all possible sources of oil, not the actual oil itself, brings down the price of energy.
The latest presidential preference polls in Colorado have John McCain pulling out ahead of Barack Obama for the first time, largely because he has advocated drilling and exploration as the answer to high gas prices, while liberal Democrats like Obama and Salazar dither about the environment, oil company profits, ad nauseum--with no answers.
The voters are up in arms about $4 gas and $5 diesel. Democrats are thrilled to see it, to cut consumption. Voters see what the answer is, as they are strapped to meet the high fuel prices, and are moving to vote that way.
I wonder if Obama and they boys will wake up and smell the coffee, before its too late.
Salazar shot back that the technology isn't developed yet to exploit them, and reverted to the liberal Democratic mantra of attacking the oil companies. The voters are getting wise to Salazar and the other liberals, however.
Having seen that President Bush's lifting of his ban on off-shore oil drilling has peeled $27 a barrel off oil prices in two weeks, they can see that it is the threat of new supplies, not actual oil, that scares the Middle East sultans of the oil trade. Full-speed-ahead development of all possible sources of oil, not the actual oil itself, brings down the price of energy.
The latest presidential preference polls in Colorado have John McCain pulling out ahead of Barack Obama for the first time, largely because he has advocated drilling and exploration as the answer to high gas prices, while liberal Democrats like Obama and Salazar dither about the environment, oil company profits, ad nauseum--with no answers.
The voters are up in arms about $4 gas and $5 diesel. Democrats are thrilled to see it, to cut consumption. Voters see what the answer is, as they are strapped to meet the high fuel prices, and are moving to vote that way.
I wonder if Obama and they boys will wake up and smell the coffee, before its too late.
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