Is Hillary Clinton The Big Winner Of 2014?

Andrew Romano of Yahoo News believes Hillary Clinton was the big winner of last nights election. Liberals are obviously desperate to latch onto something positive from last night, even if they have to make it up. Last night’s Republican wave wasn’t so much about the Republicans making great arguments and winning the country over. It was a repudiation of the Democrats, President Obama in particular. Because we have only two major parties, the Republicans benefited from the repudiation of the Democrats by default. The left is hoping that the repudiation was limited to Obama and not the entire party. If the country simply dislikes Obama, Hillary Clinton will be in prime position to win the White House in 2016.

The problem though is that Hillary had her own string of defeats in 2014. Kentucky Democrat Alison Grimes did everything she could to distance herself from Obama while she embraced Hillary. Grimes lost by 15. She campaigned for Sen. Bruce Braley in Iowa. Braley lost by 8.5. Both Bill and Hillary Clinton campaigned for Mark Pryor in their old Arkansas stomping grounds. Pryor lost by 17 points. In other words in these key battleground Senate races Hillary did absolutely nothing to help the Democrat candidate. If one were to believe the polls over the last month, all of them were potentially winnable by the Democrats. Yet despite Hillary’s campaigning, none of the Democrats came close to winning. This includes Arkansas, a state in which the Clinton’s have been almost invincible for four decades.

Hillary is going to have a hard time separating herself from Obama. This is going to be a problem for any Democrat but it’s particularly a problem for Hillary. She served as his Secretary of State for four years, she was part of his perceived inner circle. While Hillary was infinitely better as Secretary of State than John Kerry has been, she’s going to carry Obama’s international baggage with her. Benghazi is the biggest international problem that can be attached to Hillary. All of the international issues that have cropped up over the last two years have ties to Hillary. ISIS didn’t just come about over night, they’ve been around for years. Hillary is going to have a hard time distancing herself from Obama’s foreign policy, especially so if things get progressively worse in the international world.

Even domestically Hillary is going to have a hard time distancing herself from Obama. At the end of the day, it was Hillary who argued for Obamacare in the 2008 Democrat primaries. Obama wanted single payer, Hillary wanted what was to become Obamacare. Her best argument is that she can manage it better than Obama, which is a tough argument to make in a country that opposes Obamacare by a 60% majority. She had her own “you didn’t build that” moment a few weeks ago when she declared that businesses don’t create jobs. In a country that rates the economy and jobs as the most important issues and with Obama’s policies clearly not working and/or not supported by the public, Hillary’s going to have a tough time distancing herself from Obama’s core economic philosophy.

Romano of course assumes that Hillary will not only run for President but become the Democrats nominee. Everyone assumed as such after the 2006 midterms and look how that turned out. The Republicans obviously have their own problems, not the least of which is a battle between the Tea Party and the establishment. However anyone who looks at last nights election and walks away thinking Hillary is the big winner is dreaming. Democrats are in trouble. Their leader is unpopular, they didn’t just lost the Senate last night. They lost 4 Governors races flip, including blue states such as Maryland, Massachusetts and Illinois. The Republicans held onto blue or purple state Governor mansions in Florida, Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin. Several state legislatures turned Republican, including the New York Senate. The Democrats were beaten soundly last night across the board. This doesn’t bode well for Hillary or any other Democrat. The 2016 electorate will not be the 2012 or 2008 electorate. It will be a lot more Republican because after eight years of a Democrat in office, the country is ready for a change.

Surfing On A Republican Wave

Last night was nothing short of a wave victory for the Republican Party. As of this moment they have officially picked up seven Senate seats, twelve House seats and three Governors offices. They’ve likely picked up a couple hundred state and local offices as well. By the end of today, the GOP is likely to walk away with nine Senate seats. They’re leading in both Alaska and Virginia, though neither have been officially called for the Republicans. Come December, Louisiana is likely to make it +10 for the Republicans when Mary Landrieu is voted out in a run off. In the House, there are a number of west coast seats that haven’t been decided yet. They could still pick up another seat or two.

No one expected Virginia to be in play last night yet it appears that the Republicans have flipped the seat. Let’s face it, when the early returns showed the Republicans up in Virginia we knew it was going to be a big night. The other state that suggested a big night for Republicans was Kentucky. Mitch McConnell isn’t great but there was concern a few weeks ago that he might lose his race. Even last week polls showed him up by only 5-7 points. He won by 15. Yes, Kentucky is a deep red state. However, the Democrats targeted McConnell and for all the money they spent they didn’t come away with even a remotely competitive race. This signaled a Republican wave, which is of course exactly what we got.

Two questions remain about this election. The first is what exactly are the Republicans going to do with control of the Senate? Mitt Romney, trying his best to depress Republican votes, claimed amnesty was going to be passed by a Republican Senate. If the establishment wants a party civil war, that issue will be first on the agenda. Will the Republicans send an Obamacare repeal bill to the President, forcing a veto out of him? One thing the GOP should do is end the practice of sending the President one giant omnibus spending bill. Instead they should send him two dozen smaller spending bills funding each agency. Doing this would allow the GOP to play games with the budget without the threat of the President shutting down the whole government. What the Republican agenda is going to be remains largely a mystery.

The other question is what Obama’s response will be today. No doubt he’ll begin his speech in soaring platitudes about bipartisanship. Odds are the speech will descend into threats of unilateral action if Congress remains “gridlocked” or otherwise refuses his agenda. Obama has a tendency towards a lack of graciousness or perhaps better put he tends towards backhanded graciousness. Obama is going to attempt to do things unilaterally. It’s up to the Congress to refuse to fund Obama’s unilateral actions. Congress controls the purse, not the President. An issue like unilateral amnesty is a serious threat to Constitutional government. Even pro-amnesty Republicans need to actively oppose Obama’s unilateral actions as a threat to our Constitutional government. If Obama’s going to go that far, and he has on other issues, the GOP Senate needs to be prepared to fight him.

The fun of beating the Democrats is over. Now the Republicans have to start governing. The 2016 Presidential race begins in earnest today. If the Republicans cannot offer to the country any plan for governing, they aren’t going to win the White House. Their best shot is to pass meaningful bills on the economy and health care. If the President vetoes them, then it’s on him not Congress. A modest tax cut, modest spending cuts, a repeal of Obamacare or a complete gutting of Obamacare, these are all bills that the Republicans must get through Congress in the next six months. No doubt the House will pass these bills, they’ve passed dozens that have died in Harry Reid’s Senate. Now it’s up to the Republicans in the Senate to send these bills to Obama.

2014 Election Enters Silly Season

The 2014 election campaign is officially in silly season. Rep. Charlie Rangel insists that some Republicans think slavery still exists. Whenever a Democrat says something nuts like this they never cite anyone. Apparently we’re supposed to nod in knowing approval while fearfully voting Democrat. A desperate Sen. Mary Landrieu is blaming southern racism and sexism for her and Obama’s poor poll numbers. Blaming sexism is comical, Landrieu was elected to the Senate twice. Blaming racism is simply absurd. The problem for Democrats in the south isn’t that Obama is black, it’s that he’s a Democrat. Considering that the Republican Governor of Louisiana isn’t white, Landrieu’s racism comments are simply ridiculous.

The Democrats are playing the race and sex card. In Colorado Democrats are running ads suggesting that the Republican candidate for Senate will ban condoms. Never mind that he supports birth control. The Democrats appear to be afraid of the results on Tuesday. If they were confident in their chances of winning they wouldn’t bother trying to scare minorities and women into going to the polls. In the case of Colorado, Sen. Udall has run nothing but war on women ads. His poll numbers have dropped as a result. Women don’t take a monolithic view of abortion, in fact there are more pro-life women than pro-life men. Running an entire campaign based on war on women issues not only turns off a significant portion of women, it actually fires them to support the Republicans.

Silly season isn’t limited to candidates, it includes the media as well. After largely ignoring the midterm elections the mainstream press is finally getting around to covering them. Suddenly the press is concerned that the Democrats might lose. The media has several reasons for suddenly reporting on the election. They’re partially trying to save face in case the Republicans win big. They’ll be able to point to stories a few days before the election and declare they were on top of it. In reality they’re trying to scare Democrat voters into showing up on Tuesday while prematurely beginning the blame game.

The fact is if the Democrats lose blame falls squarely on President Obama. Big chunks of the Democrats voter base are disillusioned with Obama. Blacks in particular are fed up with the President. Young blacks view Obama as a deadbeat. That doesn’t mean they’re going to vote Republican but it likely means they’ll stay home Tuesday. Young people are shifting towards the Republicans according to polls. While a majority of young people favor Democrats, the Republicans have gained significant ground among the young. Polls also indicate women are shifting from the Democrats. Odds are all the silly nonsense coming from the Democrats in the last few days before the election won’t change the results.

The Republicans of course can still blow this election. Silly season includes silly mistakes that can shift results by 1-2 points. In a close race, it can be the difference between winning and losing. In 2000 George W. Bush almost lost to Al Gore as a result of his DUI conviction becoming public. It shifted the national race by 4 points, he was 500 votes from losing Florida and the electoral college. Had Bush been up front about his youthful DUI in the primaries, it would have been an old issue by the end of October. Each individual race could potentially shift based on last minute smears and new information. In that regard there are a number of close races the GOP could blow at the last minute. Having said that, it’s at least looking like the GOP has a decent shot at winning. If they didn’t have a decent shot the Democrats wouldn’t be freaking out.

Media Bias In Midterm Election Reporting

According to the Media Research Center, on the big three network evening news shows there have only been 25 stories on the midterm elections. The time period in question is from September 1st to October 20th. If you watch ABC News, you might not even know there is a midterm election coming up. They haven’t run a single story on the midterms. Compare this to 2006 when, during the same period, the big three networks ran 159 stories. Those who claim there isn’t a left-wing media bias will have a hard time explaining why the networks ran so many stories on the 2006 midterms during what was certainly going to be a down year for Republicans but so few stories in 2014 in what appears to be a down year for Democrats.

In 2006 the media was gleeful at the prospect of the Democrats taking over Congress. Today the big three networks can barely be bothered to run stories on the midterms. It’s understandable why liberals might not be very excited about the upcoming elections. Even the New York Times acknowledges the Democrats are panicking. Perhaps the manner in which the tv networks are panicking is to simply ignore the fact that Democrats are poised to lose the Senate. For a group of people who claim to be unbiased, their bias is showing in how they report stories like midterm elections. They spent a considerable amount of time when Republicans appeared to be losing, gleefully reporting polls favorable to Democrats in close races. There’s none of that this time around, in fact at ABC there’s nothing at all.

In 2006 if a Republican candidate for Senate refused to acknowledge he voted for George W. Bush in 2000 and 2004 it would have been huge news plastered all over the networks. We have had at least two Democrat candidates for Senate this year who refused to acknowledge voting for Obama. The networks are silent, apparently it isn’t news when Democrats try to dance around voting for Obama. Of course over at ABC the midterms aren’t news at all this year, much less Democrats panicking or fleeing Obama. If there’s one common theme in battleground states, it’s Democrats abandoning Obama. They criticize Obamacare, they’re critical of Obama’s energy policy and they needle him over the economy. When Republicans abandon a Republican President, like they did in 2006 it’s news. When Democrats do the same thing, it goes unreported.

Left-wing media bias is hardly new. The media is isolated from the rest of the country, stuck in liberal Manhattan and the Beltway. No doubt folks in the Big three newsrooms aren’t much interested in the midterm election. When your side appears to be losing, it’s not uncommon to lose interest. The problem is that these journalists are completely disconnected from the rest of the country. While the public may be generally sick of elections, the midterms are tilting towards Republicans for a reason. There’s a news story there, just like there was in 2006 when the Republicans were losing. Not reporting in these midterms in a substantially similar manner is clear evidence of bias. There is bias to be seen not just in the actual reporting of news stories but in the choosing of which stories make it to air.

Should Republican fortunes begin to sink in the next 12 days, the media will likely jump all over the story. At this point it would take a significant event to derail what appears to be a Republican victory. An October surprise isn’t out of the question, though it’s hard to imagine how such a thing could derail an entire party. It’s one thing to pull an October surprise on a single candidate, it’s another thing to do it against an entire party. At this point Republicans hold leads in almost all of the battleground races. According to Real Clear Politics, the Republicans will pick up 8 seats in the Senate if the polls are correct. No wonder liberals don’t want to talk about the midterms.

What Would A Republican Congress Do?

There are six months to go before the mid-term elections. Things are looking relatively good for the GOP. Obama’s poll numbers continue in the low 40’s. Generic ballots are moving in the Republicans direction. Obamacare continues to be unpopular and a major problem for Democrats. Even a supposedly good jobs report with a 6.3% unemployment rate has been offset by the government removing 800,000 people from the workforce and first quarter growth rate of 0.1%. All the polling for Obama and the Democrats indicate they are in a worse position heading into the 2014 midterms than they were heading into the 2010 midterms. Nate Silver gives the GOP a 60% chance to capture the Senate. The House is untouchable.

Looking at individual Senate races the odds that the GOP wins six additional Senate seats look pretty good. Even here in Michigan, GOP Senate candidate Terri Lynn Land is polling ahead of her Democrat rival. (longtime Democrat Senator Carl Levin is retiring) If the Republicans win the Michigan Senate seat, they’ll win the Senate. The question then becomes what do the Republicans do with full control of the Congress. Obstruction of the President’s agenda is obvious. However there surely must be more a Republican Congress can do besides refuse to vote on Obama appointees and fire off Obamacare repeal legislation for the President’s veto.

With full control of Congress the Republicans can push substantial budget cuts. The first place they can start is by refusing to vote on massive omnibus spending bills, opting for dozens of smaller bills funding each individual agency or department. Small cuts can be made to any number of programs. The GOP Congress could make substantial cuts to programs like food stamps without the President threatening to shut down the entire government. By passing smaller department specific legislation, Obama’s power to shut down the government would be neutered.

A Republican Congress could work on and pass privacy legislation. If there’s one thing that many people in both parties agree on it’s that they don’t like Federal surveillance of phone calls and emails. There must be a bipartisan coalition that could create legislation limiting the power of the Federal government to collect data on ordinary Americans. President Obama talks about doing this himself, let’s see whether he’s serious about it or not. If he signs such legislation then a Republican Congress will have achieved something substantial to protect the public. If Obama vetoes the bill, he’ll hurt himself and Democrats.

There are smaller things a Republican Congress could do. They could pass legislation authorizing the Keystone XL pipeline. They could pass legislation forcing the Federal government to give back Federal lands to the states in a time specific manner. A Republican Congress could place limits on medical malpractice claims. The GOP isn’t going to get everything they want of course, not so long as Obama is President. However there may be deals to be worked out between a Republican Congress and the President.

Obviously it takes two to tango. One wonders if Obama would be content spending his last two years doing nothing other than fighting small battles with Republicans. With time running out for Obama, if he’s content fighting losing political battles with Republicans it would say more about him than the GOP. If he’s willing to negotiate, he might find that he can get something if he gives something. If the GOP wins the Senate, no doubt the media line will be that the Republicans are obstructionists who refuse to compromise. In reality, for the last four years it’s largely been Obama who has refused to compromise. Polling indicates the public wants a GOP Congress as a check on Obama. Perhaps what the public wants is someone to obstruct an unpopular Obama and Democrat agenda.

Obama To Address Congress About His Unilateral Powers

Are you excited about tomorrow’s State of the Union address? Probably not. These absurd spectacles with their throw away applause lines and forced adoration of the executive branch are nauseating. Yours truly stopped watching during the first Bush administration. Really I stopped watching during the second Clinton administration. I had better things to do in college, like watch hockey games, than listen to Clinton drone on from applause line to applause line. Bush had one or two Congressional speeches worth listening to right after 9-11 and before the wars. Otherwise, his speeches were as dull, irrelevant and pompous as Clinton, Obama and the rest of them.

Obama is apparently fed up with a “do-nothing” Congress. He’s also certain that his poll numbers took a hit last year because his leadership wasn’t bold enough. As such he’s going to tell Congress he’s going to have a unilateral agenda that doesn’t require them. As Obama takes us ever closer to an imperial presidency, you have to wonder how the administration views his poll numbers. He must really believe that 2013 represented his lack of boldness in dealing with Congress. In reality, his poll numbers dropped because he wasn’t bold enough in leading his government through the roll out of Obamacare. To say nothing of his incompetence in Syria and a slew of internal scandals.

Herein lies the problem with Obama going unilateral. If the administration thinks they’re going to increase his poll numbers based on unilateral executive actions they’re sadly mistaken. The President isn’t trusted anymore, in part because of his lies and incompetence concerning Obamacare. If you like your policy you can keep it will haunt Obama the next three years. The website still isn’t up and running properly. Obamacare has been a disaster and it has nothing to do with this Congress. Obama is to blame. So does he really think his poll numbers are going to increase via bold unilateral action?

What unilateral action signals is that the Democrats are worried about losing their base. Obama is more worried about the November elections than anything else at this point. He must be concerned that his base sees him as not engaging Congress and not doing anything generally. Thus his threats of unilateral action, coupled with the obligatory attacks on Fox News and Rush Limbaugh he’s made recently, are really messages to his base. In short, the administration is in political desperation mode. Obama is losing his base and if he loses them he loses the Senate and any chance of remaining relevant during his last two years.

The fact though is that very little of what Obama says he’s going to do tomorrow night will happen. He got very little of his 2013 speech accomplished last year. He can try blaming Congress but when did he make a hard push for a minimum wage increase last year? When did he engage Congress on immigration? His speech will be big talk and cheap applause lines delivered to a Congress that half adores him and half detests him. It will be delivered to a nation that has largely tuned out State of the Union speeches and specifically tuned out this President. Obama hopes his base will tune in tomorrow. If they don’t Obama risks losing the Senate. He knows it, his advisers know it and so do the Republicans.