PajamaHadin

Saul Alinsky Takes the White House by  Quin Hillyer is well worth the read.   He gives great insight into how this victory by the Democrats is not like others  in the past and  explains why and what kind of response is required.

Too many conservatives think we’ve seen all this before — in 1964 and 1974 and 1992 — and that we know how to handle it. Fly, meet ointment: We’re not dealing with the same sorts of opponents. These New Alinskyites who are taking over the White House, combined with the most leftist congressional leadership in memory, will not let us play by the same rules under which conservatives recovered from those earlier debacles. They will try to drastically tilt the playing field, seed our side of the field with land mines and, in short, rig the process to make it next to impossible for the political right, or Republicans, to recover. And they are likely to succeed in at least some of these designs.

I have written previously about Saul Alinsky in the context of his influence on Hillary and its importance to understanding the implications of her pursuit of the White House: Rules for Radicals: Hillary and Alinsky. You may want to read that post as a refresher on Alinksy.

LOS ANGELES (AP) - In an election otherwise full of liberal triumphs, the gay rights movement suffered a stunning defeat as California voters approved a ban on same-sex marriages that overrides a recent court decision legalizing them.

The constitutional amendment—widely seen as the most momentous of the nation’s 153 ballot measures—will limit marriage to heterosexual couples, the first time such a vote has taken place in a state where gay unions are legal.

Gay-rights activists had a rough election elsewhere as well. Ban-gay-marriage amendments were approved in Arizona and Florida, and Arkansas voters approved a measure banning unmarried couples from serving as adoptive or foster parents. Supporters made clear that gays and lesbians were their main target.

In California, with 95 percent of precincts reporting Wednesday, the ban had 5,125,752 votes, or 52 percent, while there were 4,725,313 votes, or 48 percent, opposed.

NewsMax Inside Cover:

WASHINGTON — Barack Obama was elected the nation’s first black president Tuesday night in a historic triumph that overcame racial barriers as old as America itself.

The 47-year-old Democratic senator from Illinois sealed his victory by defeating Republican Sen. John McCain in a string of wins in hardfought battleground states — Ohio, Florida, Virginia and Iowa.

A huge crowd thronged Grant Park in Chicago to cheer his improbable triumph and await his first public speech as president-elect.

McCAIN CAMPAIGN MEMO: READING THE EXIT POLLS
BILL McINTURFF, INTERNAL POLLSTER
Mon Nov 03 2008 16:53:14 ET

As we have seen in previous election cycles, the exit poll results do leak early and that ends up influencing the coverage of the race before even the first state polls close at 6:00 PM Eastern.

However, we want to remind the campaign that the media’s own post-election study of the exit polls in 2004 showed that the exit polls overstate the Democratic candidate’s support. Therefore, we would discourage a rush to judgment based on the exit polls and wait until there has been a representative sampling of actual tabulated results from a variety of counties and precincts in a state.

Here are the key points to keep in mind when the exit poll data starts being leaked:

1. Historically, exit polls have tended to overstate the Democratic vote.

2. The exit polls are likely to overstate the Obama vote because Obama voters are more likely to participate in the exit poll.

3. The exit polls have tended to skew most Democratic in years where there is high turnout and high vote interest like in 1992 and 2004.

4. It is not just the national exit poll that skews Democratic, but each of the state exit polls also suffers from the same Democratic leanings.

5. The results of the exit polls are also influenced by the demographics of the voters who conduct the exit polls.
Read the rest of this entry »

Videos submitted from voters all over the country.  Google Maps Interface.
Tracks:

• Early Voting
• Notable Voters
• Voting Perspectives
• Voter Intimidation
• Polling Place Problems
• Voter Registration Problems

http://www.youtube.com/videoyourvote

Mike Carey, president of the Ohio Coal Association (OCA)  today said the following in a statement he issued in response to just-released remarks from Senator Barack Obama about the nation’s coal industry:

“It’s evident that this campaign has been pandering in states like Ohio, Virginia, West Virginia, Indiana and Pennsylvania to attempt to generate votes from coal supporters, while keeping his true agenda hidden from the state’s voters.
“Senator Obama has revealed himself to be nothing more than a short- sighted, inexperienced politician willing to say anything to get a vote. But today, the nation’s coal industry and those who support it have a better understanding of his true mission, to ‘bankrupt’ our industry, put tens of thousands out of work and cause unprecedented increases in electricity prices.

That should be a warning to all of you in Ohio, Virginia, West Virginia, Indiana, Pennsylvania, et al.

Most accurate pollster in 2004 election shows: Obama 44.8%, McCain 43.7%, Not Sure 11.6%…

About IBD/TIPP: An analysis of Final Certified Results for the 2004 election showed IBD’s polling partner, TIPP, was the most accurate pollster of the campaign season.

He might want to keep in mind that most Americans are not in favor of that economic philosophy. Although the main thing on his mind is probably hoping that the true nature of his economic approach is not on the minds of voters.

When given a choice about how government should address the numerous economic difficulties facing today’s consumer, Americans overwhelmingly — by 84% to 13% — prefer that the government focus on improving overall economic conditions and the jobs situation in the United States as opposed to taking steps to distribute wealth more evenly among Americans.

. . .

Americans’ lack of support for redistributing wealth to fix the economy spans political parties: Republicans (by 90% to 9%) prefer that the government focus on improving the economy, as do independents (by 85% to 13%) and Democrats (by 77% to 19%). This sentiment also extends across income groups: upper-income Americans prefer that the government focus on improving the economy and jobs by 88% to 10%, concurring with middle-income (83% to 16%) and lower-income (78% to 17%) Americans.

Gallup, June 2008

Americans, then, prefer McCain’s approach to economics over Obama’s approach. Obama, of course, knows this and that is why he cannot afford to let the reaction to his “spread the wealth” answer to Joe Wurzelbacher spread very far.

This is why McCain’s opponents need to attack and attempt to discredit “Joe the Plumber”. The problem is that the most important thing in the exchange between Obama and Wurzelbacher is not Joe himself, but rather Obama’s response that reveals the true nature of his economic agenda - wealth redistribution. Any attempts to discredit Joe, like trying to discredit a witness in the eyes of a jury, amount to nothing more than childish name calling and misdirection out of desperation.

Such ad hominem attacks amount to nothing more than that because it is not Joe who is on trial here, but rather the impact and implications of Obama’s economic policies. Such desperate subterfuge amounts to nothing more than that because Joe is not the only witness. The whole nation is a witness to the true crime - to continue the analogy - Obama’s socialist economic agenda.

See this for what it is America! See through the subterfuge! Look past the ad hominem attacks!

Many Americans have been lulled to sleep by the constant drone of inane, propagandistic, so-called reporting from multiple sources in the media. Don’t suffer the fate of Argus! (Hermes lulled Argus to sleep by telling him stories and then cut off his head.)

Awake from your dogmatic slumber! You are about to be sold into slavery and it will be paid for with your own money!

Stand up and block the road to serfdom!

In the third presidential debate, McCain referred to Obama as Senator Government, an obvious slip of the tongue, but nevertheless somewhat appropriate as a characterization of his policies and underlying ideology.

Joe, “the Plumber”, Wurzelbacher was referred to and even directly addressed quite frequently during the debate by both candidates.

The initial exchange between Senator Obama and Joe Wurzelbacher is now common knowledge:

Wurzelbacher said he planned to become the owner of a small plumbing business that will take in more than the $250,000 amount at which Obama plans to begin raising tax rates.

“Your new tax plan is going to tax me more, isn’t it?” the blue-collar worker asked.

After Obama responded that it would, Wurzelbacher continued: “I’ve worked hard . . . I work 10 to 12 hours a day and I’m buying this company and I’m going to continue working that way. I’m getting taxed more and more while fulfilling the American Dream.”

“It’s not that I want to punish your success,” Obama told him. “I want to make sure that everybody who is behind you, that they’ve got a chance for success, too.

Then, Obama explained his trickle-up theory of economics.

“My attitude is that if the economy’s good for folks from the bottom up, it’s gonna be good for everybody. I think when you SPREAD THE WEALTH AROUND, it’s good for everybody.“

“Senator Government vs. Joe The Plumber” highlights the choice in front of Americans in this election. It is a choice between an ideology undergirded by Capitalism and an ideology undergirded by Socialism.

Capitalism

an economic system in which investment in and ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange of wealth is made and maintained chiefly by private individuals or corporations, esp. as contrasted to cooperatively or state-owned means of wealth.

Socialism

1. a theory or system of social organization that advocates the vesting of the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, of capital, land, etc., in the community as a whole.
2. procedure or practice in accordance with this theory.
3. (in Marxist theory) the stage following capitalism in the transition of a society to communism, characterized by the imperfect implementation of collectivist principles.

Obama’s approach to curing our economic ills requires more government control and wealth redistribution which history shows will produce policies at odds with individualism, freedom, and the free market system. Ironically, it is exactly this kind of approach that lead to the economic difficulties we now experience as liberal Democrats in Congress exerted control over the Mortgage industry to offer sub-prime loans.

This is what happens when the federal government has too much control over certain facets of our economy. This was not a problem caused by the free market system. It was a problem caused by interference in the free market system by liberal Democrats in Congress.
F. A. Hayek in The Road to Serfdom says the following regarding Socialism:

THERE CAN BE no doubt that most of those in the democracies who demand a central direction of all economic activity still believe that socialism and individual freedom can be combined. Yet socialism was early recognized by many thinkers as the gravest threat to freedom.

It is rarely remembered now that socialism in its beginnings was frankly authoritarian. It began quite openly as a reaction against the liberalism of the French Revolution. The French writers who laid its foundation had no doubt that their ideas could be put into practice only by a strong dictatorial government. The first of modern planners, Saint-Simon, predicted that those who did not obey his proposed planning boards would be “treated as cattle.”

Nobody saw more clearly than the great political thinker de Tocqueville that democracy stands in an irreconcilable conflict with socialism: “Democracy extends the sphere of individual freedom,” he said. “Democracy attaches all possible value to each man,” he said in 1848, “while socialism makes each man a mere agent, a mere number. Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word: equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude.”

Most of Hayek’s work from the 1920s through the 1930s was in the Austrian theory of business cycles, capital theory, and monetary theory. Hayek saw a connection among all three. The major problem for any economy, he argued, is how people’s actions are coordinated. He noticed, as Adam Smith had, that the price system—free markets—did a remarkable job of coordinating people’s actions, even though that coordination was not part of anyone’s intent.

Obama had significant involvement with socialists during his time in the Illinois State Senate. Even if he did not have that history, his policies and economic theory are clearly indicative of a socialist ideology.

We have a choice between an approach to government grounded on liberty, the free market, and less government control and interference and an approach to government that will lead to restraint of liberty, more government control and interference and servitude. More liberty or More servitude.

A vote for Obama is a vote for the road to serfdom - bigger government leading to socialism. A vote for McCain is a vote for the road to preserving those liberties that enable individuals to strive for their American dream. Since these are the only two tickets that can win, a vote for anyone else is a decision not to block the road to serfdom.

Senator Government OR Joe The Plumber

Socialism OR Capitalism

The choice is yours.

I have thought for a while, that Obama’s greatest liability is his association with ACORN.

There are many who believe that much should be made out of Obama’s connection with Bill Ayers. I think that the most that could be gained from that is an attribution of bad judgment on Obama’s part. But there is very little that can be demonstrably and presently tied to Obama’s campaign, ideology, or planned policies related to Ayers.

ACORN is a different story.

As noted by Dick Morris and Eileen McGann in a recent article, “ACORN could cause Obama’s fall”:

What makes ACORN particularly embarrassing for Obama is that he used to be one of them. He served as general counsel for ACORN in Illinois, channeled millions to the organization from the Chicago Annenberg Challenge (whose funds he distributed) and has lately spent $800,000 of his campaign money to subsidize the group’s activities.

I have been keeping up on ACORN related news for the reason that I think if any association is the focal point in criticisms against Obama, it should be ACORN.

I have commented elsewhere on important demonstrable facts about ACORN:

• ACORN is caught up in litigation and charges of voter registration fraud
• ACORN has a significant role in the mortgage crisis which contributed greatly to the overall economic crisis
• Obama co-sponsored legislation that would shield ACORN against prosecution
• Obama has tried to hide the depth of his association with ACORN
• Obama has also said that groups like ACORN would help shape his Presidential agenda (YouTube video)

The first two facts, are directly related to THE top 2 concerns on the minds of voters:

• The Economic Crisis
• Concerns over Voter Fraud

If anything in the news at all distracts folks from specifics about the candidates between now and the election, it is bound to be one or both of these issues. Any criticisms against Obama related to his association with Bill Ayers, Rev. Wright, and the like can easily be overshadowed by those issues in the news.

One of the advantages an incumbent President has in an election is the ability to influence the news cycle. If you don’t have that advantage, one that is just as good is when what’s already in the news relates directly to and reinforces the focal point(s) of your criticisms against your opponent.

At the same time, McCain can highlight any solutions he has to the economic crisis, especially when you can document that the majority of job creators favor your economic plan. McCain could also highlight his intentions to preserve democracy by cracking down on organizations involved in voter registration fraud and voter fraud and name ACORN as an example.

ACORN is Obama’s greatest liability.