One word: re-election. I know it sounds ridiculous and unbelievable to some, but President Obama does not want the Democrats to retain the House or Senate this November. It all comes down to his bid for re-election in 2012. Quite simply: Obama wants to run against a Republican Congress in 2012. He needs to be able to point at someone else and blame them for his shortcomings as a leader. Right now, he can’t do that. If he points across the street to Capitol Hill he’s pointing directly at his Democratic brethren in the House and Senate. Think about Bill Clinton in 1996, he had Republican Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich to demonize. Obama needs an enemy–although he’s still trying…
Archive for the ‘American Politics’ Category
Steele’s Failed Critique Highlights Division Among Conservatives on War Strategy
In 2006, I was really pulling for Michael Steele in his battle to win a U.S. Senate seat in Maryland. Unfortunately, Ben Cardin won and Steele wound up running the Republican National Committee. Steele’s odd remarks about the war in Afghanistan have led to a growing number of calls for his resignation among prominent conservatives. The war in Afghanistan was definitely not a war of President Barack Obama’s choosing, as Steele suggested in his remarks at a Connecticut fundraiser. This factual inaccuracy made the rest of Steele’s comments seem off-the-wall, but it appears as though he was trying to challenge the president’s strategy for prosecuting the war. He just failed miserably:
Well if he’s such a…
Focus Group with Frank Luntz in Old Town Alexandria
I’ve seen Frank Luntz on TV a bunch of times and I’ve always found him to be a pretty interesting guy. He’s definitely passionate about what he does. Last week, I participated in a focus group with Frank at his office in Old Town Alexandria. I was one of about 30 participants who showed up for the 3-hour session. The subject of the evening was Israel. It was a pretty interesting experience. Before we started, they gave us sandwiches from Panera. I had the smoked turkey, which was pretty solid. Then we filled out a pretty lengthy questionnaire, watched a series of informational videos, news clips, and speeches. We got to use those cool dials, or “Perception Analyzers,” Frank uses on TV…
National Review Institute (NRI) Washington Fellows
Recently, I found out that I was accepted into the National Review Institute’s Washington Fellows Program–a year-long program dedicated to the study of the history of the modern conservative movement. It is truly humbling to be affiliated with the Institute that William F. Buckley, Jr. founded in 1991 to advance conservatism in the United States. For a conservative such as myself, it’s tantamount to being knighted (or at least that’s how I view it). There are a total of 25 Fellows in the 2010 class and it’s an honor to be listed among such a talented and distinguished group of conservative thinkers. You can learn about the 2010 Washington Fellows here.
National Energy Tax Bill
From Politico:
Senate authors of a controversial climate change bill heralded EPA modeling results unveiled Tuesday as proof that their plan would have a limited pinch on Americans’ pocketbooks.
Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) found many reasons to gloat after getting the 74-page study that showed the overall costs from their legislation’s major global warming provisions would cost an average household between $80 to $150 per year.
“There’ll be some people who will want to demagogue that politically, but that’s less than $1 a day,” Lieberman told reporters. “Is the American household willing to pay less than $1 so we don’t have to buy oil from foreign countries, so we can create millions of new jobs, so we…