With Poll numbers showing the Democrat led Congress is enjoying the worst approval numbers since I don't know when, the Democrat's strategy to combat this perception in the minds of voters would seem to be - more of the same behavior that earned them abysmal ratings originally.

The widely trumpeted mandate for change the Left claims American voters overwhelmingly handed them in November 2006 was rooted, in part, in Democrat charges the then GOP controlled Congress was out of touch with the American people. Evidence of the GOP's disconnectedness was found in polling numbers that showed Congress with 35%-45% approval numbers leading up to the elections. As the election approached, those numbers began dropping as the the perception Republicans were poorly serving the interests of the nation gained traction. At election time, 2006, approval for the GOP Congress was at 25%-35%.

The nation "threw the bums out" and polls immediately evidenced the optimism Democrats like to point back to with approval numbers rising to the 35%-45% levels earlier enjoyed by the GOP. However, as Democrats failed to keep their promises on the War; wallowing in meaningless non-binding resolutions and neglecting their duties to debate, craft and pass a budget, the worm turned. Gone were the glories of 40%+ approval. By May of 2007, Democrats watched the 30s evaporate and hit bottom, sluggishly floundering in the 20%-25% range with occasional dips into the high teens! The worst was July, 2007 where Reid, Pelosi and company hit record setting lows at 14% and then 11% barely escaping a nightmare plunge into single digits!

You would think such messages would be taken seriously by Democrats. They certainly took notice when they perceived GOP numbers were down and made sure we all noticed, too. But you'd be wrong. After 8 months of what is arguably the worst ever performance for a Congress, Democrats continue to bluster and posture in the same ways that first earned them the disrespect of voters.

Two stories illustrate the inexplicable behavior of the Party that claims to be leading our nation. CQ Today reports Harry Reid is talking tough to get his party's agenda addressed.

Even before the Senate took up its first bill of 2008, Majority Leader Harry Reid was on the floor making a familiar threat.

If lawmakers fail to reach consensus on electronic surveillance legislation (S 2248), warned Reid, D-Nev., “We may have to finish that work this weekend.”

Reid must think the specter of working on Saturday is a useful form of senatorial discipline, because he issued similar warnings at least 15 times last year.

The Senate actually met just once on a Saturday in 2007 — Feb. 17, to be exact — to address the troop “surge” in Iraq (S 574).

Generally, the rank and file stayed in for late nights instead of giving up their weekend plans, and, given his druthers, Reid said he’d like to continue that pattern.

“We’re going to have to spend some long hours here in the Senate,” Reid said. “Hopefully we won’t have to work weekends.”

If all it takes is the threat of a Saturday morning spent legislating instead of being entertained by lobbyists to get the Senate off the dime, there are much bigger problems in Washington than partisanship and gridlock. If this is the best Reid can find to illustrate his leadership it's no mystery how Congress is held in such contempt by the nation. What's next, putting Senators in time-out in the Senate well?

From the House comes this gem, also reported in CQ Today. Speaking of renewed attempts by Democrats to expand SCHIP, Alex Wayne notes

Democrats aren’t about to drop the issue, which they consider a political winner, especially in an election year. And with the economy in trouble, Democrats are trying to depict an expansion of SCHIP as part of an economic stimulus plan aimed at middle- and lower-income families.

“Times have changed since last October, when the president vetoed the compromise SCHIP bill for the second time,” Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Colo., said in a Jan. 18 conference call.

“Now it looks like our economy is heading into a recession. Not only will the 4 million families who would be eligible for health care coverage [under the bill] be without health care coverage . . . but also the economy will be without that stimulus that spending for health care would give us,” DeGette added.

Not only is "times have changed" a bit too dramatic an introduction to an event from just 90 days ago, DeGette further demonstrates her lack of understanding of language with her comment, "Now it looks like our economy is heading into a recession." A recession is generally defined as two consecutive quarters of decline in real GDP. Evidently the Colorado Democrat is unaware that the US Economy has not had even one quarter of decline in the last 25 or so quarters! I'm not sure we've even had a single month of decline within that time frame. Maybe mail delivery is a little slow in the hinterland that is Colorado. How else to explain the misinformed Congressman's erroneous statement?

There's more ... lots more, unfortunately. But it seems clear the Democrat's strategy for governing is rudderless. It remains to be seen if the GOP will be able to steer the country into realizing that by November, 2008.

Wondering what one does with a horse, or a donkey, for that matter, you lead to water who doesn't even know he's dying of thirst ...

Blue Collar Muse

A recent post at Conservablogs.com concerned a regular Conservablogs contributor, Nuke Gingrich, and a friend of his who was so distraught with Nuke's support of Mike Huckabee he ended their friendship.  He took down his link to Nuke's blog and it appears he'll have nothing to do with Nuke any longer.  Nuke quotes his friend

“We’ve known each other for some time now, and frankly I just can’t understand your support for the huckster. He’s a RINO who, if nominated, will totally destroy the Republican party. Populism is not conservatism, and this is the candidate you expect to unite the party and face the DemocRats in November???!!!”

Nuke adds

"He went on to tell me that he couldn’t in good conscience link back to my blog anymore, and that anyone who was willing to abandon the principles of conservatism did not deserve a spot on his blogroll.”

There are two goals people work for in a Primary.  The first is to nominate someone who best represents them, their values and their ideology.  The second is nominating someone to stop the opposition candidate who is presumed to have values and ideologies antithetical to theirs.  Common sense ought to tell us the candidate able to do one thing may not be the candidate able to do the other.

The situation for candidates to avoid is being so polarizing during the Primary you alienate those with differing views in the General election.  Whoever wins the Primary must be able to bring supporters of his Primary opponents together and unite them behind him.  

This “lead a horse to water” factor, so agonizingly demonstrated for us by Nuke's friend, is critical as the Primary process not only has two goals, it assumes two things.  The first is that candidates defeated in the Primary will graciously support the nominee.  The second is that supporters of candidates defeated in the Primary will do likewise.  At the end of the day, what does a voter do if his candidate isn't nominated?  What happens if voters won't honor the agreement implicit in the process and rally behind the nominee even if, and especially if, he's not their choice?

There's really only one option left to voters who won't – stay home.  The impracticality of encouraging and enabling an entire nation of disappointed and discouraged voters to write in their candidate makes that merely a low percentage option as opposed to any sort of realistic probability.  Opting out of the process is the only serious option available.  It also violates the second goal and the second assumption of the Primary process.

Truthfully, I've always been both skeptical of and a wee bit disgusted with the Primary process.  It's a scheme whereby one candidate spends months savaging the others.  He sincerely declares, across the country and in the media, what a disaster it would be if his opponents were elected.  Later, when one emerges victorious from the pack, the nominee is proclaimed as the savior of the country by the very  people who a week earlier seriously argued the nominee's policies would destroy us all.  It makes us look ridiculous.  

Gone is the passion directed against his Primary opponent.  He was just mistaken before.  It's not his good friend's policies that are dangerous, it's the other party's nominee that is the devil incarnate and whose policies are disastrous.  His final act is to beseech his supporters to give the same level of support and devotion to the new guy.  It makes one wonder what, if anything, we truly believe?  Perhaps the passion of Nuke's friend is a better position to take.  It's surely a prime necessity to win the fight for the nomination of someone who best represents us as an individual.

But it also reveals the ultimate danger we face in the Primary process – allowing it to divide us. Beyond the search for someone to represent us as an individual, the Primary also determines which candidate we unite behind as a group.  As hard as it is to say and hear, that group is called a party.   And it's a party Primary more than it is an individual Primary.  

If party choices revealed in the Primary process are offensive, the only option with integrity is to leave the party entirely and avoid the conflict altogether.  If you stay in the party, however, you implicitly buy into the process as it exists.  Primaries are not either/or situations where we either support this candidate or we fracture and separate.  They are a both/and dynamic where we both commit to fight for all we are worth for our candidate and commit to support whoever comes out on top – even if it's not our guy.  For all his valuable and desirable passion, Nuke's friend misses that point.  Badly.  

Thinking he also misses the truth of the maxim “The enemy of my enemy is my friend” ...

Blue Collar Muse

On a recent Chicago business trip, I saw a sign in a retail shop window proudly proclaiming “We Accept Competitor's Coupons!” As it does each time I see this sign, my heart fell as another Capitalist wannabe fails the test. There are few things worse, in my opinion, than failing to bring to market a product that speaks for itself by attracting consumers based on quality and then compensating for that failure by parasitically attaching oneself to the efforts of another, better man to succeed where you have failed.

A companion strategy involves criticizing and savaging your competition as a form of self promotion. If you lack personal strengths and values, you disguise that disadvantage, not by developing some, but rather by disparaging your opponent's strengths and values. The attacks need not be true or accurate, they just need to be implemented. Any old savaging will do.

While this practice is in evidence on both sides of the aisle, and is distasteful wherever it is found, the political Left in our country has honed it into something of a profession. Unable to develop and bring to market viable and vibrant policies of their own addressing the issues of the day, they choose the option of trying to destroy what they cannot defeat. Should they happen upon a good idea and promote it, if their opponents agree and implement it, then it, too, must be savaged. Think I'm making this stuff up? Two words – The Surge!

Digg.com is one of the net's most popular sites for grassroots promotion of online material. If a person likes a story or video he sees somewhere; if he digs it as they said in the 60s, then he can “Digg” it at Digg. That means he can vote for it showing his appreciation of the material. With enough Diggs a story makes it to the front page of Digg where it garners a lot of traffic, exposure and promotion. There's also a feature at Digg to weed out duplicate stories which dilutes the efforts to promote the original submission. That feature is called “Bury”.

Anyone can Digg a story they like and anyone can Bury a story that is a duplicate. Unfortunately, the Left has swarmed over Digg, abusing the system, and groups, known as Bury Brigades, vote down stories. Not for the legitimate reasons posted at Digg but based on the content of the story. Liberal material gets Digged – Conservative material gets Buried. It's a straight one to one ratio so one Bury cancels out one Digg.

While it's odd to those of us with jobs and lives that a group of people would have nothing better to do than patrol a website looking for stuff they don't like and then getting all their friends to join in disparaging the object of their displeasure, that is exactly what is happening. It's successful, too. So successful that the practice has spread to similar sites such as Reddit and Newsvine. All it takes is a couple of complaints for a post or a video to be suppressed. The offended party can complain about his unfair and harsh treatment at the hands of the community and the site. Nothing will be done about those complaints.

Similar tactics involve complaints against or the incorrect classification of material being posted which results in the restriction of or outright banning of a site or forum from being available on the internet at all. For a host of examples of this in the area of the War on Terror, visit 1389blog.com/stop-blog-censorship. Destructive efforts in this area include coercion of website hosts to take down sites entirely and the decision of WiFi providers to popular internet locations such as Panera Bread and others to block access to some sites, classifying them as “Hate Sites” among other things.

Not content to have their intimidation limited to cyberspace, such thugs are making their presence known and felt in the real world as well. Death threats and intimidating visits by opponents of a particular view to homes and businesses are becoming increasingly common. The news cycles have picked up the story of Jay Grodner, an anti-war Chicago attorney, charged with keying a BMW sporting a USMC decal and doing $2400 worth of damage and then stretching out the legal process until after the offended Marine is gone on his second tour of duty in Iraq.  Across the pond, there is actually a warrant out for the arrest of a blogger known as Lionheart upon his return to the UK for the charge of 'Stirring up Racial Hatred by Displaying Written Material'. His crime? Exposing and highlighting dangerous elements in the UK's Muslim community. Check out his blog and decide for yourself if the charges are justified.

The common threads here are not truth, evidence, dialogue, review and consensus and a reasoned, rational response accompanied by explanations to arrive at a legitimate conclusion. On the contrary. The common elements here are unilateral actions to perceived insults that are undertaken anonymously and which are intended to have a chilling, emotional effect on the people and communities so treated with the desired end that fear and mistrust are produced and that the views and opinions, the rights and liberties of those they oppose are trampled , suspended and revoked. It's the Politics of Terror and it's the playground of the Left.

Wondering what sort of surge will be needed to oppose this terror threat ...

Blue Collar Muse

It is impossible anymore to go anywhere without being followed by the Global Warming gremlin.  It's on the Radio and TV.  It's in the papers and the magazines.  The folks on the Left are agonizing over the destruction being visited upon our planet by the heartless, soulless minions of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy driving from rubber chicken fund-raiser to rubber chicken fund-raiser to support the US occupation of Iraq in their SUVs.  The glaciers are shrinking; the oceans are rising, tempers are flaring and those who got in on the ground floor of carbon offsets are smiling.

They savage Capitalists and Corporate CEOs who care only about the bottom line and ignore their responsibilities as citizens of the world.  They bemoan the expenditure of money for dividends, stock splits, IPOs and the other vagaries of the sordid realm of filthy luchre.  They yearn for Captains of Industry with feelings in their portfolios and who have banned animal testing along with freon from their bag of tricks.

They ask penetrating questions like "But why can't businesses and governments pledge a percentage of their obscene profits, squeezed from the toil and sweat and sacrifice of the noble laborer, to better the lives of the masses?  Wouldn't it be good for them to make better consumers out of the people that work for them? Why must corporations always take and take and take?  Why can't they give back every now and then?

Here's why!


Praise - but no pesos!

Here's a man who should be the darling of the Environmentalists.  He should be feted globally!  His picture should be on more t-shirts than Che's and there should be some little factory, or dozens of them around the world pumping out his little inventions.  He's a man of passion, wealth, vision and social and environmental responsibility.  He has sacrificed everything for the cause.  Further, the thing works!!  Think of the millions of man hours annually spent doing something other than looking for firewood to cook with.  Think of the health benefits to be had by the poor not having to breath a hut full of woodsmoke.  Think of the giga-tons of carbon saved with a stove that is so efficient!  Think of all the air to be scrubbed clean and the bounce in all our global steps from all the extra oxygen in the air from all the trees that will be saved.

But the very people who ought to be lionizing this man are doing nothing.  As the article says, "Environmental groups have offered praise but little financial backing."  I guess they're too busy flying from California to DC to testify about the hazards of air traffic and SUVing across town to one of their rubber tofu-that-tastes-just-like-chicken dinners in support of reducing pollution standards in cars in the US.  In fact, they may even wonder what all the ruckus is all about.  Wasn't it great fun when Daddy or GrandPapa took us camping and we got to cook over a wood fire?  Don't these people realize how lucky they are to be able to cook with wood all the time?

It's time for GreenPeace, ELF, Earth First, The Green Cross International and the rest of the Environmentalists to put up or shut up.  Stop destroying other businesses and villifying other businessmen and get behind a guy that is making a difference in the manner you've been championing for years.  For crying out loud, the guy is perfect  for you.  While he is male, he's not white and he's not European! The article I quoted is from the Seattle Times and the author has an LA Times byline.  Your side has to know about this man.  Why have you allowed him to languish and his idea to starve?

Perhaps if you stop running your mouth for a few minutes about how evil the rest of us are for not doing what you demand, you'd be able to stuff it full of dollars for someone who has answered your call.  I'll be back in a year to see how you've done.

Guessing this is what will be cooking in a year - the investor's finances will be burned up, he'll be burned out and the Left will still be burning up the airwaves telling the world that it's people like me that are the problem...

Blue Collar Muse