It’s true that the November elections brought prominent winners in both parties, but the contrast between Democratic and Republican victors is highly revealing.
The biggest Democratic success stories involved re-elected Sens. Barbara Boxer and Harry Reid, and new California governor Jerry Brown – all age 70 or above! The GOP, meanwhile, hailed breakthrough victories for 39-year-old Sen. Marco Rubio in Florida, 43-year old Governor Scott Walker in Wisconsin, 38-year old Governor Nikki Haley in South Carolina, 42-year- old Sen. Kelly Ayotte in New Hampshire, 47-year-old Sen. Rand Paul in Kentucky, and many other youthful candidates bringing fresh, conservative perspectives to high office. Moreover, with Hillary Clinton ruling out a future presidential race, Joe Biden reaching age 74 by 2016, and John Edwards utterly unthinkable, what younger generation Democratic star could plausibly succeed Obama?
The Democrats, in other words, have become a party of shop-worn retreads while the GOP bench is full of next-generation leaders of potential national stature, including Governors Chris Christie of New Jersey, Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota, Rick Perry of Texas, Mitch Daniels of Indiana, Senators John Thune of South Dakota, Scott Brown of Massachusetts, and many more.
Looking toward the future, the rising stars of the GOP not only look more vibrant and dynamic than the Pelosi/Reid Democrats, they also count as increasingly diverse.
After the recent elections, skeptics can no longer deride the GOP as an all-white party of grumpy old men. Marco Rubio, 39, became the new Senator from Florida while fellow Latino Republicans Bryan Sandoval in Nevada and Susana Martinez in New Mexico became the nation’s only two Hispanic Governors. Jaime Herrera, age 31, captured a Democratic Congressional seat in Washington State, while Raul Labrador did the same in Idaho. Two more Hispanic Republicans– Bill Flores and Quico Canseco—knocked out incumbent Democrats in Texas. In South Carolina, Indian-American Nikki Haley won for Governor while black conservative Tim Scott beat Strom Thurmond’s son (among others) for a Congressional seat. Alan West, an African-American Iraq War hero, trounced an incumbent white Florida Democrat.
In the new Republican House of Representatives, eight members of the GOP majority will proudly qualify for a potential “Republican Hispanic Caucus.” Geraldo Rivera may dismiss such victories as “window dressing,” (as he did recently on Fox News) but they have changed both image and substance of the GOP.
You know, honestly when I realized that Chuck Schumer would likely be the next Majority Leader, it hurt less to see that Harry would still be in the Senate. And at first, I was disappointed about losing in the Senate until I was educated that it would be better for Conservatives in ’12 if we didn’t have both houses right now. And Pelosi is out!
Half a loaf is better than none.
I was very happy with a lot of the wins. Kirk in Ill, for one, was a great win! Toomey in PA, Marco Rubio and in Ohio, John Kasich for governor are great wins, too.
Of course, CA is a lost cause. A state that keeps Boxer, Waxman and elects Jerry Brown AGAIN, is past hope. Leave those people to their own destruction. If they really believe that Jerry Brown will save them, even a little bit, they are delusional. CA politics matter a lot to me because those folks leave in waves for Nevada and Arizona and when they do, they change the demographics of the state. Since 1989 when I first moved to Nevada, it’s become more blue and more democrat leaning due strictly to the CA exodus. I see that same thing in the southern part of AZ, too.
As for my state: All the ballot initiatives that I voted for, except for legalizing medical marijuana, passed. We will not have card check. We voted against the national health care and won. And affirmative action went down. The marijuana issue was a minor point for me compared to the other ballot questions so I’m not real disappointed.
Governor Brewer won handily. My Congressman, Trent Franks was re-elected just as easily. Both wins are good news. McCain is still standing, which is better than having his democrat opponent in place.
Fifty-eight percent (58%) of these voters say the average Democrat in Congress is more liberal than they are. Only 10% say that member of Congress is more conservative, while 27% see his or her views as about the same as theirs.
Fifty-five percent (55%) say it’s more accurate to describe the political views of most Democrats in Congress as extreme rather than mainstream.
Congress has to make the effort to repeal health care and hold back any more ridiculous spending.
And now we go to work firing Obama in ’12. I’m very optimistic about the next 2 years.
By Burt Prelutsky (Archive) · Monday, April 12, 2010
During the presidential campaign, a lot of people insisted that Obama was really a Muslim pretending to be a Christian. I wasn’t one of them. I did figure, though, that if my name was Barack Hussein Obama and I was going to run for president a mere seven years after 9/11, I wouldn’t admit I was a Muslim, either. On the other hand, I, personally, would have sooner trusted a Muslim who’d been attending a mosque in Dearborn for 20 years than a Christian who’d been attending a racist, anti-American church in Chicago for all that time.
Anybody, after all, can claim to be a Christian. The proof, in the words of that fabulous effing wordsmith, Joe Biden, is in the pudding, and when I learned that among Obama’s friends and mentors were such notorious anti-Semites as Rev. Wright, Louis Farrakhan, Rashid Khalidi and Father Pfleger, it certainly kick-started my suspicions about his religious convictions. Still, as I saw it, when in Chicago, you do as Chicagoans do. And, that being the case, I figured that in such swampland, even if a saint were to wade into Chicago politics, he would eventually be knee-deep in snakes and alligators named Tony Rezko, Richard Daley and Bill Ayers.
Does Glenn truly believe there is no difference between a Tom Coburn, for example, and a Harry Reid or a Charles Schumer or a Barbara Boxer? Between a Paul Ryan or Michele Bachmann and a Nancy Pelosi or Barney Frank?
…
A year ago, we were told the Republican party and the conservative movement were moribund. Today they are ascendant, and it is the left and the Democratic party that are on defense — even while they are in control. That’s quite an amazing achievement. But anyone who knows the history of this country and its political movements should not be surprised. America has a long tradition of antibodies that kick in. From Carter we got Reagan. And from Ted Kennedy and Barack Obama we took back a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, with midterm elections on the horizon that Republicans and conservatives are actually excited about, not afraid of.
To say the GOP and the Democrats are no different, to say the GOP needs to hit a recovery-program-type bottom and hang its head in remorse, is to delay our own country’s recovery from the problems the Democratic left is inflicting. The stakes are too important to go through that kind of exercise, which will ultimately go nowhere anyway — because it’s already happened.
To begin with, I like Glenn Beck and I watch him as often as I can.
But Glenn is constantly haranguing his viewers about the sameness of both parties and he did it again, in a big way as the keynote speaker at CPAC. This is my beef with Beck: the democrats are nothing like republicans and if you knew me and my brother, you ‘d see how extreme the difference is. Have many politicians in the republican party forgotten their way? Yes. Did they forget their roots during the Bush administration? Yes. But the republican party will respond to the people or those politicians who don’t will be finding different work come November.
And they know it.
A third party is not the answer and if Beck is supporting that, then he will be leading many down a garden path to the dumpster. The only winners in November will be democrats. How much history do we need to repeat before we finally get it? Third parties do nothing but elect democrats.
The republican party is coming home. The American people are demanding that they return to basic principles and the original intent of the Constitution. Beck is responsible for a great deal of that. But at the same time, Beck wants to sit on the fence and say that he is an equal opportunity political offender: that he gives the republicans as hard a time as he gives the democrats by saying they are one in the same.
That is just patently false.
If he wants to give the republicans a hard time for leaving their principles at the door and allowing way too much spending during the Bush administration, I’d agree with him. It’s time that he address the real failings of the republicans and not try to cover his ass by trying to appear fair. Lumping both parties as the same evil is not fair, it’s just simply wrong.
This is the kind of crap you get when you have Henry “porky pig face” Waxman in charge of stuff.
We are facing serious problems – deficit spending that is beyond astronomical, a war that is slipping away from us in Afghanistan, a health care debate and debacle – and these guys are looking for ways to put MORE small businesses out of business and more people out of work!
You know, I have to ask myself how did we (baby boomers) make it to adulthood without a consumer protection do-gooder council of goofballs to protect us? Our cribs were painted with lead based paints and how many of us, as toddlers, cut our teeth on the sides of our cribs and play pens? We played in pedal cars that were painted with this lethal paint. Our blocks and tinker toys… oooooooooooh, *shaking my head* this could go on forever.
It’s been bad enough that they have recalled formula and toothpaste made in China, toys in incredible numbers but now they are requiring special labeling and tagging on new items so that they can be tracked, if and when necessary. And these are toys made in America, by American businesses who employ Americans!
These do-gooders are harming the consumer they brag on being advocates for, as well. IF these businesses can afford to comply with these new, ridiculous regulations, they will pass the added cost on to the consumer. The employees, who are likely union and therefore the protected class by this administration and this congress, will end up losing out, too. We know the domino effect of a business who is not making money or losing money: no new hires, more lay-offs, no raises or bonuses, no business expansion.
It just gets more amazing all the time how stupid these people are that we have elected… or to be more precise, that California has elected. Waxman, Boxer, Pelosi, all Californians and all as dumb as duck shit.
“Brace yourselves, because the war with Muslims has just begun,” 31-year-old Faisal Shahzad told a federal judge. “Consider me the first droplet of the blood that will follow.”
Stop Sharia in America
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Obamas Wisdom and Terror in the Street
"We can absorb a terrorist attack. We'll do everything we can to prevent it, but even a 9/11, even the biggest attack ever...we absorbed it and we are stronger."
Diary of a Mad Conservative 