Another Mondale Moment
In 1984, as a nine-year-old Democrat-in-Training, I watched as Walter Mondale stood on a stage and accepted his party's nomination. To the shock of the pundits, he lost the campaign before it even started by promising to raise taxes if elected. Two months later Walter Mondale barely manged to win his own state, while Ronald Reagan won the greatest landslide in the history of presidential politics. I was only nine, but I knew that I didn't like taxes, and my long transition to the Republican rolls began.
On election day in 2006, as I stood outside the polls asking for votes for my state representative campaign, a young man looked at my red sign and yelled, "Troop-killer!" and walked inside, presumably to vote against me. Never mind the fact that I had a brother in Iraq at the time, or that I've always considered the war in Iraq a horrible mistake, or that state representatives have absolutely nothing to do with federal foreign policy. A few minutes later, a man I had spent over an hour talking to about my positions, who had promised me his vote, walked out of the polls, turned to me and said, "I didn't vote for you, because the city Democrats told me that a vote for you was a vote for the war and a vote for George Bush."
On election day in 2006, as I stood outside the polls asking for votes for my state representative campaign, a young man looked at my red sign and yelled, "Troop-killer!" and walked inside, presumably to vote against me. Never mind the fact that I had a brother in Iraq at the time, or that I've always considered the war in Iraq a horrible mistake, or that state representatives have absolutely nothing to do with federal foreign policy. A few minutes later, a man I had spent over an hour talking to about my positions, who had promised me his vote, walked out of the polls, turned to me and said, "I didn't vote for you, because the city Democrats told me that a vote for you was a vote for the war and a vote for George Bush."
Eight hours later, glumly reflecting on my 174-vote margin of defeat and watching the blue tide sweep New Hampshire and most of the nation, I considered the success of the Democrat strategy. They had taken the mis-managed war and used it against Republicans for every imaginable office and of every stripe. They had taken a national issue and applied it to every local and state race. It was a brilliant, devastating move.
And, goes the conventional wisdom, one that is likely to be repeated in 2008. With the Democrats still campaigning against an unpopular war and most of the Republican candidates intent upon sticking it out, the 2008 cycle seems on the surface to be poised for a 2006 redux.
But the conventional wisdom may be wrong.
As I write this, world markets are showing remarkable instability, and the Federal Reserve Board is frantically cutting interest rates to slow the bleeding. Today, Bank of America is reporting record losses, and Yahoo! is laying off hundreds. The economy has surpassed the war as the biggest issue in the minds of the voters. And whereas the Republicans seem to have sacrificed their traditional pro-peace approach to foreign policy, they still have credibility as the party who knows that the solution to a weak economy is to let people keep more of their own money.
The Democrat candidates have, in attempting to pander to their leftist base, spent nearly a year promising all sorts of expensive new programs. Hillary Clinton, in particular, has not been shy about her dreams of new spending. Last year, in a rare moment of honesty, she said, "I have so many ideas, the country can't afford them all." She's promised government-run, taxpayer-funded health care. She's proposed giving each baby money simply for being born. She's promised more bureaucracy, more welfare, and greater central government control over private companies and institutions. And she won't even promise to end the very war her party has campaigned against, but that she supported in the Senate. And when asked how she intends to pay for it, she says that she'll raise taxes.
Most people who go to college are seduced at some point, at some moment of temporary weakness, into experimenting with drugs, or alcohol, or casual physical relationships. They write it off, later, to a coming of age, to a phase, to a learning experience that leads to maturity. Hillary Clinton, the Goldwater girl, went to Yale and was seduced by outright Marxism. And unlike most other college graduates, her seduction seems to be a permanent affliction. Barack Obama and John Edwards, by comparison, may be humming the class warfare words but they're still singing the same song, all the while hoping no one notices that their collective net worth easily exceeds $100 million.
The war in Iraq is going well, and the economy is hitting the skids. The campaign plan the Democrats used so successfully in 2006 is no longer valid, as the political ground is shifting beneath them. It now appears very likely, though far from inevitable, that the Democrats will nominate the candidate surest to drive Republicans to the polls in droves. Later this summer, then, history may well repeat itself in the form of a Mondale moment: a Democrat will take a stage and either contradict all statements she's made to this point, or be forced to admit she intends to raise taxes. A Republican will promise to cut spending and let taxpayers keep their money. And the voters will respond as they should: in their best interests.
Posted on Wednesday, January 23, 2008 at 09:37AM
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Keith Murphy
in National, Parties, History
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28 Comments
Keith Murphy
in National, Parties, History
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28 Comments
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Reader Comments (28)
-small government AND pro-military
-subsidized social services AND open borders
-tamper proof IDs
-perfect people, the "total package"
-success in Iraq
These are imaginary constructs, the fairy tales of our age, the security blankets that we should let go of.
But, yeah, that economy sure seems real. Higher taxes are something the five senses can interpret. But beware, in times of crisis, leaders are allowed to ask for sacrifice. That's how they get ya. Your own generosity and concern for your fellow man turned against you.
1. I can't believe Americans are selfish and that they consider it more of a priority to keep more cash in their checking accounts than provide for better education, more accessible health care, or invest in more environmental protections. Americans are better than that. And we all know those areas have seen Republican cuts in recent years. Even the 9 year olds among us can't be fooled into believing that's good for America's future.
2. I can't believe that a war where Americans are still being killed almost daily for a purpose that has no end is "going well." Americans in November will go to the polls in droves, to say no more.
1. I can't believe Americans are selfish and that they consider it more of a priority to keep more cash in their checking accounts than provide for better education, more accessible health care, or invest in more environmental protections. Americans are better than that. And we all know those areas have seen Republican cuts in recent years. Even the 9 year olds among us can't be fooled into believing that's good for America's future.
2. I can't believe that a war where Americans are still being killed almost daily for a purpose that has no end is "going well." Americans in November will go to the polls in droves, to say no more.
But, what about the rest of us? What about those millions of kids going to bed hungry tonight? What about the tens of millions with no health care -- because health care all too often goes to the highest bidder in this nation? What about the lack of quality schools in many of our cities and towns, because of our over-reliance on property taxes which if we keep putting them up forces our seniors out of their homes into small apartments, if in fact they can afford those?
What about our obligation -- yes, "obligation" -- to one another as people who share this state, this nation, this planet? What about them? What about us?
I'm in favor of capitalism, and the desire to get ahead and keep most of what we make. But just because some of us have figured out a way to profit from others -- and many in business and stockholders in corporations do exactly that -- doesn't mean we don't have an obligation to pay livable wages (as opposed to minimum or near-minimum), or to provide education for the next generation.
And I'm certainly no socialist, but I believe health care is a right to share, just like we provide fire service or police help when someone is in need. In the end, we provide health care for anyone anyway -- if one goes to the emergency room they're going to be taken care of, at least for their immediate need -- at a very high price with the cost added to the rest of us. But since they don't get followup care, and there is no free preventative or early-detection health care in our country, that emergency care and the costs which all of us pay for is counterproductive. Universal health care would be CHEAPER for all of us, rather than more expensive.
We should all remember we're on this planet for only a certain number of years, months, weeks, days, hours. None of us will live forever. So we have to find ways to be a bit less greedy, a little less selfish, and more caring for our neighbor. I think that's in the Bible, though perhaps not quite in those words.
You certainly are the very definition of a socialist, in that you argue in favor of government-run health care, and that you believe we have not just a moral obligation (which I agree with) but actually a legal obligation (which I disagree with) to support each other through taxation of our labor and trade. I believe we each have basic, inalienable rights, and right up there with the right to free speech and the right to habeas corpus and the right to keep arms is the right to engage in free trade and the right to keep the fruits of our labors. No one has the right to live off of my hard work, and any legislative mandate to the contrary is invalid on its face.
This isn't name-calling on my part, so please don't take offense. It's simply recognition that the definition of socialism is government control over (or ownership of) industries and markets for the benefit of the public. I actually agree with you on several issues, notably modifying the drinking age and reducing the penalties for marijuana use, and I admire your original legislation designed to keep NH's primary first in the nation.
But we clearly disagree here: it is not selfish to wish to keep the money you earn through the sweat of your brow, with which to feed your own family or pay for their medical care or save for their college education. It is not selfish to believe that the government is a poor vehicle for achieving social change. It is not selfish to believe that I am better qualified to disburse my earnings to good causes than any legislature at city hall, in Concord, or in Washington DC. It is not selfish to believe that the answers to our problems as a nation are not to be found in the halls of Concord or the chambers of the Capitol building, but are instead are to be found over our kitchen tables, in our workplaces, and in our civic institutions.
It comes down to the age-old debate: are you your brother's keeper? You say yes. I say no, for I have no wish to keep anyone, nor do I wish to be kept. One cannot be kept without oppressing someone else, and I happen to believe that oppression is inherently wrong.
I'm not defending the war, I'm saying that with the drop in US deaths due to the surge, the economy has taken center-stage in the minds of the voters. I think that's an accurate statement.
You must be very ware about pity. When you pity another human being, you do not respect them, and then when they recognise your pity they do not respect you.
Have you ever gone out of your way to HELP someone only to find that you pitied them? Then they used that pity against you to ask for more and then more still. Next, you were really trying not to hate them.
Go to the hospitals. Find out who the nurses hate. Watch it suck the joy out of their lives and make their daily jobs miserable.
We don't need a Universal Pity System. We need a Universal Respect System.
NH has been trending Blue for 16 years. With any luck for our citizens, 2006 was the tipping point, and 2008 will see the death of the extreme radical element in the Republican Party.
I liked your conflation of John Edwards and Barack Obama having a "collective net worth [that] easily exceeds $100 million.
This is a double deception. It is untrue in the same sense that "Mark Hounsel and Bill Gates collectively are multi-billionaires" is a falsehood.
It is also a untrue because Obama's net worth is between $500,000 and $3 million, and Edwards is under $30,000,000.
I'm not sure that it's accurate to say NH is trending blue. I think it is entirely accurate to say that it's trending independent; i.e. more and more people are fed up with what they see as the hypocrisy of the two major parties. Heck, I know what they mean: I get angry when I read about Mitch McConnell arguing against a moratorium on earmarks, because in doing so he is compromising on a basic Republican principle: fiscal responsibility. He isn't doing my stripe of Republicanism any favors when he argues for spending like Democrats. In any case, NH's undeclared voters went very R in 2002, and very blue (along with most of the country) in 2006. They will probably switch back at some point, especially if people like me can pressure the R leadership to get back to basic principles: individual liberty and personal responsibility, with a focus on leaner, more local governments.
I've written favorably about Barack Obama in the past, going so far as to say that I would vote for him if I were still a D. There's no way in hell Hillary would get my vote. I believe her to be the worst candidate of either party in literally generations, though I welcome her nomination from a strategic viewpoint.
I realize my grammar was incorrect, in that I meant to include Hillary's wealth in that statement in addition to that of Edwards and Obama. With the Clinton's wealth included, it is right at the $100 million mark. Agreed, Obama is the least wealthy of the group, though he is still far from middle class, and my point is that millionaires appear very hypocritical when they run around singing the class warfare song. Ironically, Edwards is the loudest at it, and he's the richest of the three.
Respectfully,
Keith
It is hypocritical, in my opinion, when a wealthy person says that the wealthy should be taxed less than a working person. Yet that is what we have today.
Your last post is a common mis-perception. The tax system hits the rich for a larger share of the tax burden now than it did throughout the 1980s.
-- The top 1 percent of income earners pay more than one in every three dollars the IRS collects in taxes. From 1986 to 2004, the total share of the income tax burden paid by the top 1 percent of earners grew from 25.8 percent to 36.9 percent, while the total share of the tax burden paid by the bottom half of earners fell from 6.5 percent to only 3.3 percent.
-- During the same period, the percentage of income the top 1 percent of tax filers paid in federal income taxes rose from 18.3 percent to 19.6 percent. By contrast, the percentage of income the bottom fifth of tax filers paid in federal income taxes dropped from 0.4 percent to zero.
-- The income share of the top 1 percent rose 7.7 percentage points, from 11.3 percent to 19 percent, while their income tax burden rose even more, by 11 percentage points, from 26 percent to 37 percent.
The final measure compares the inequality of income to the inequality of taxes paid over time among all income groups. This measure is the "progressivity index," and is a numerical representation between 0 and 1. The closer the index value is to 1, the more progressive the tax system. For example:
-- From 1990 to 2000, the progressivity index increased from 0.476 to 0.617, during a period where marginal tax rates increased but capital gains tax rates fell.
-- From 2001 to 2004, under George W. Bushs tax reforms, the tax progressivity index continued to rise from 0.608 to 0.664.
From:http://news.yahoo.com/s/usnw/20080121/pl_usnw/did_the_bush_tax_cuts_favor_the_wealthy
I believe that we are all over-taxed and over-regulated, from the working class to the middle class to the upper class, and that the sooner we stop pushing the socialist-style eat-the-rich mentality and begin to work together to get government off our backs, the sooner we can begin to see real improvement in everyone's quality of life.
Where we can join forces - even people as opposed philosophically as you and I - is to agree that it is wrong when big businesses uses big government as a tool to accomplish their own ends. For example, giving tax breaks to attract superstores, to the detriment of other area stores and residents that are tapped to make up the tax difference, is wrong because it is so unfair. Everyone should operate under the same rules.
Taxes and regulations hinder the growth of the economy, they impede job growth, and they make it difficult to start new businesses. As a small business owner, I can testify to this fact. I am far from wealthy - several of my employees make more than I do - and the tax and regulatory burden which my business carries is currently stopping me from expanding my business and creating about ten new jobs. I hope to get over that hump in the near future.
I argue against taxes for everyone, from the working and middle classes that are most affected by them, to the wealthy for whom they are little more than petty annoyances, because I believe that taxing labor or trade is inherently wrong and immoral, and in fact is a violation of the natural rights guaranteed by our state constitution, even if the cause the money is being used for is well-intended.
I find it remarkable that you should mention Craig Benson. How long is he going to be the whipping boy for the state democratic party? Are Republicans the only people in this state with money? I happen to know some very wealthy democrats who send their kids to private schools and pay for those outrageous plastic surgery's we all would like to have, but cannot afford.
What about the palatial palace John Lynch is building? Does that count? Or does he get a pass because he is a popular democrat? Why not have the government force him to live in a smaller house, or better yet, share it with some of the millions of folks you talk about being victims of corporate greed. Is he building green? I have a friend whose cousin worked on this house and the only thing green about it is the shrubbery surrounding the house.
In regards to health care, please show me, either in the State or Federal constitutions, where it says health care is a right. We, as a state and as a country, should continue to strive to provide affordable health care for all who want it. That means having competition between companies, giving consumers a real choice in the type of policy they wish to have. Can you tell me why we only have one health care company in NH? I believe the answer lies with Jeanne Shaheen. I do remember the Republicans trying to change that a few years ago, but there were problems with the legislation. So, we went back to the "Shaheen" definition. We will only have a true,affordable health care system when the consumer has choices and States stop the insurance mandates that keep driving up the costs.
In regards to education, the reason this country's education system is failing is extremely complex. It is not just about the money. People place lip service on the importance of an education, but value the athlete/actor making more money than 1,000 people will see in one lifetime. We do need to change how we educate this nation's children, but changing this system will be near to impossible, not because children do not want or need an education, but the educrats who are so heavily invested in the "system" rather than the student.
Please try another go at a run for political office. I don't think the state is as blue as the democrats want you to think.
Craig Benson will be discussion point for New Hampshire Democrats for another 11,345.5 days. He deserves it.
Many people made their money not the old-fashioned way of "earning" it, but rather finding ways to get people to work for less than they deserve, by "merging" companies and paying off the stockholders and offering golden parachutes to the CEOs and other upper management, and the firing (downsizing) others, and gambling on the stock market -- not "producing" a product but instead "investing" in the work of others. I have little interest in giving them much credit for their "business success."
From my point of view, public schools are NOT failing. They can be better, but they are an amazing success story. Sure, some are better than others, some need a lot of work, and not all teachers are as great as others. Welcome to the world. But public schools provide an inportant service, and do well. Most who criticize public schools haven't been in one for years.
And health care is indeed, in my opinion, a basic right -- a social right, just as we would not in good conscience let someone freeze outside in front of our front door, though that sometimes happens. It doesn't have to be in the Constitution for us to realize that we should be helping one another in this adventure called "life." The rich need not become richer at the expense of the poor. Having health care should not go just to the highest bidder.
All of us, of course, want the people who need health care to have it, just as we all want the people who need heat to have it. Republicans, despite what some say, are not cruel people who steal candy from babies and kick dogs in the street. We want the same things Democrats do. The only difference is that we place our trust not in government bureaucracy and red tape but instead in each other as individuals and in our civic institutions.
Again, I point out the difference between an action being desirable from a moral standpoint, versus required from a legal standpoint. Of course we both agree that it is wrong to let someone freeze outside our front door, and anyone who would do such a thing has committed a morally reprehensible act. However, does it logically follow that the federal or state government should send around vans full of armed agents looking for freezing people to take to the nearest front door, and the homeowner thereof required to take them in or face a jail sentence, a stiff fine, or even the loss of his home?
I say it does not. Just as we should not legislate common sense, we should not legislate all moral principles. Some things are immoral - at least in my judgment - but should not be illegal. When we as a people start doing that, the morality of 51% of the people becomes the law, and that's a very dangerous way to run a government. (warning, Mr. Emm -- if you disagree with this point, you've just defended a series of laws we both disagree with, from bans on interracial marriage to anti-homosexual sodomy laws to restrictions on physician-assisted suicide.)
No one can say that failing schools are caused solely by a lack of money. Schools systems are bathed in money. The problem is that it is wasted by a top-heavy administrative system, starting in DC and trickling down to the local level in the form of politically correct mandates that take money out of the classroom budget. Even my Boston Teachers Union relatives will admit that the bureaucracy is digustingly wasteful but no one can touch it because of the union's power. Blaming this situation on Republicans is an easy target but is dishonest.
The notion of children going to bed hungry at night is an emotional winner with liberals but there are numerous programs, both public and private that will provide assistance. The key is getting it too the kids. If Mom is out trying to score more Oxy she probably isn't interested in feeding the kids. The big problem with programs like SCHIP is that many who are eligible don't sign up. Expanding it way into the middle class doesn't help them. Blaming this problem on Republicans is a cheapshot as well.
Yes, Republicans can be accused of "IGMFU" (i got mine, f you) but many are tired of being the ones who pay for government (see the tax info above) yet are demonized for the social ills of the world as well.
Mr. Splaine: I appreciate that you are a generous individual, but please be generous using your own wallet rather than others'.
One point I kind of disagree with you on is the idea that democrats may ride the war as an issue again in 2008. They've blown their chance on that one. They took control of both senate and congress saying they would end the war and many democrats, including one of their two top choices right now, are taking stance not far off from republicans. Hillary has argued that we can't pull troops out right away and they would most likely be in Iraq for years. And yet democrats flock to her. It is that level of hypocrisy that Americans will remember when heading to vote later in the year.
And on a side note to Mr Splaine, Andy Silvia had gone back and forth once with me off line about the idea that "Republicans are selfish", this is something that is PROVEN false while on the other hand Democrats are. There is a book written by Arthur C. Brooks (a democrat mind you) in which he did a study and found that Republicans on every single level he studied were more generous by multiple of 10 or more then democrats. Republicans give blood more, the volunteer their time more and they give more money and donate their personal belongings more then democrats do.
So the idea that Republicans are greedy is FALSE... they just object to the idea of forcing others to give to ideals they believe in!
Here are a couple FACTS from the book:
http://www.arthurbrooks.net/statistics.html
If liberals gave blood like conservatives do, the blood supply in the U.S. would jump by about 45%.
Conservative households in America donate 30% more money to charity each year than liberal households.
A religious person is 57% more likely than a secularist to help a homeless person.