Sunday, October 24, 2010

The US mid term election

During my ongoing break I must confess that for once I have left Venezuela very far, even though I am constantly harassed by people that want to know what is going on and how long will Chavez keep spreading misery. Still, in now two weeks I have opened the pages of Tal Cual and El Universal only once, and visited my colleague's blogs barely more often. Let's call it a detox program based on wine and cheese among other things.

Still, I follow the news from elsewhere (I opened El Universal to read about Brazil, by the way, not Venezuela). One of the items I read was how the Democrats are bout to lose the House in Congress, while they are struggling to retain the Senate. Now some of you do not like my take on US politics, as limited as they are, and as Liberal as I may be. However last January I wrote the following:

I do not see how Democrats can lose the Senate but I can see Nancy out of a job.

Well, it seems that I was quite on cue almost a year back, no?  The amazing thing here is not that I was already pondering that possibility, the amazing thing is that 10 months went by and the Democrats have been absolutely unable to dig themselves out of the hole that was already dug last January when they lost Kennedy's seat.  But before you Obama haters rejoice I should remind you that Clinton went on to lose his first midterm, House AND Senate, and still went on for 6 more years at the White House.  And furthermore, for those who equate irresponsibly Obama and Chavez, may this serve of a lesson that the US system still works well and that such comparisons are silly and, well,  inappropriate.

OK, now back to hitting bottles while I cover from the flack.

16 comments:

  1. The difference lies in the strength of the institutions of democracy. The U.S. could elect Josef Stalin as president, and still survive long enough with the institutions of democracy intact to vote him out of office the next time around.

    Daniel is correct, comparing Obama to Chavez is silly.

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  2. Anonymous4:34 PM

    Daniel, the problem with Obama is that he is a statist. That is in stark contrast to the principals of the founding. Conservatism believes in the principals of the founding. Here are a couple of youtube videos explaining what conservatism believe:

    What We Believe, Part 1: Small Government and Free Enterprise: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLD6VChcWCE

    What We Believe, Part 2: The Problem with Elitism: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0MESB6VZM4

    What We Believe, Part 3: Wealth Creation: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkXI-MNSb8Q

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  3. Anonymous6:08 PM

    Given free rein, Obama, would in a heart beat, turn the USA into a Cuban style communist paradise.

    Obama is a Marxist maniac. One can't be a Marxist without being a maniac.

    I am sure that Chavez and Obama would get along just fine together.

    Why wouldn't they? They have almost everything in common.

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  4. Anonymous6:31 PM

    The reason Clinton lost House and Senate and Obama will lose the House is that US voters a long time ago realized that the two parties are either borderline evil (Republicans) or borderline retarded (Democrats) and allowing either to have the Presidency, House, and Senate at the same time is borderline suicidal.

    The problem with modern politics in general and US politics in particular is that everyone acts as if solving all problems is merely a matter of using one particular magic formula, in much the same way Snake Oil salesmen pretended to cure all ills with a single medicine. So allowing a single party to control everything, thus allowing them to push their particular brand of Snake Oil would invariably be disastrous BECAUSE THE F**KING SNAKE OIL DOESN'T WORK.

    The only time anyone accomplishes anything useful in a government is when no one has a total majority so they are forced to seek actual solutions to the problems that are so logical and reasonable EVERYONE agrees with them, instead of trying to push their particular brand of Snake Oil.

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  5. Anonymous7:35 PM

    I think it is reversed. The Democrats are borderline evil and Republicans borderline retarded. The snake oil is the statism Obama is trying to shove down the throats of the American people.

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  6. anonymous before last

    your comment is the perfect example of idiotic things i was referring to in my post.

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  7. Anonymous8:29 PM

    It isn't Clinton that you should be comparing to Obama, It is Carter. The number of people that will ask themselves if they are better now, or before this president, are only comparable to the other "worst President ever".
    At the end of the day, it's the economy. And right now, the economy of the USA is so screwed that there's nothing, nothing that Obama can do to improve matters that will be of his doing. Any improvement to the US economy will only come because of a Republican House putting the brakes to the massive spending bills the Democrats have enacted.
    and keep in mind, the massive tax increases coming to the USA in January...
    before making a prediction for the next Presidency.

    Keep in mind, the US has had a Democrat President, a Democrat "super-majority" in the House, and 1 vote short of that same Democrat "super-majority" in the Senate.
    They could have done anything, and this shit-show of failure is theirs.

    The Democrats own this failure. They are unable to dig themselves out of this hole, because it is their spending that has gotten them into it. And what is their solution to the problem? MORE SPENDING!!!
    Why did Bill Clinton win? the right had the Presidential vote split twice, losing 18% in the first Clinton election, and 8% in the second Clinton election to Ross Perot, and he didn't control the spending cuts, the Republican houses did.

    It's the economy.

    and... there are many recent examples of voter fraud raising its ugly head in the past few weeks... and it's not the Tea Party.

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  8. There is just one politician in the world I consider fully honest, and he is american. The dude is Ron Paul.

    Both Dems and Reps are two different sides of the same coin, none has the balls to challenge the Fed and all the manipulation.

    Obama lives on the illusion that supporting "cool green" projects will make things better, even if they don't make sense economically.

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  9. Anonymous11:15 PM

    The republicans are experts at winning over fear. Comparing Obama with Chavez is a way to spread that fear. Communism, religion and taxes are the main issues that republicans exploit way too often.

    Jose in San Antonio, TX

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  10. Anonymous1:38 AM

    Oh, like the Democrats don't win by fear either, huh? All Democrats do is use class warfare to attack the "evil" "rich." Forget the fact that to them their definition of rich changes per election and, who knows, you may be considered rich too by their standards. Or how the Republicans will take away the social security checks from grandma. Or how Republicans want little school children to starve. Or how Republicans are against education. Or how Republicans are "evil racists" that hate Black people, blah, blah, blah. Forget the fact that the biggest racists against blacks have been Democrats. I recommend a great book on conservatism called Liberty and Tyranny: A Conservative Manifesto by Mark Levin. This book clearly states what conservatives believe and why. He also has his own talk show and each show is archived here: http://www.marklevinshow.com/sectional.asp?id=32930

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  11. "detox program based on wine and cheese"

    Do I have to take up blogging to get into one of these programs? Sounds nice - enjoy!

    P.S. I like the essence of the "snake oil" comment above. I've always been a big fan of having the President from a different party than the majority of at least one house of Congress - I really don't care which party is which, for the most part. (If I did have my choice, it would be a Republican Congress and a Democratic President, if you must know.) It forces things to the middle of the road.

    If they're all the same party, it becomes like a parliamentary system, but with a key difference - a Prime Minister could face a vote of no confidence and be out on short notice, whereas a President (absent an impeachment - yeah, right) will be there for two full years, guaranteed.

    There really is something to separation of powers.

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  12. Anonymous12:43 AM

    From de Clermont: I realise I am adding this late. While Daniel is in Europe, I have been in Caracas. Great city by the way. As a non-US native residing in Miami it seems to me the problem for Democrats is 3-fold: a) Obama is NOT a leader and he is woefully unprepared for the presidency, b) in the previous presidential election the conservatives slept because their candidate was boring. They are now awake and asking themselves, what the heck did we do by abstaining, 3) the economy is baaaad after 3 decades of run & gun growth - the folks don't like that. Additionally, the Democrats at the state level, e.g. California,. when they realised there was a huge deficit, their answer was to raise taxes when unemployment was already rising. OUCH!

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  13. The ex-president to compare with Obama is Herbert Hoover. Both inherited a horrible mess from the previous administration, and neither could wave a magic wand and make it go away.

    In Hoover's case it was the Depression of the '30s. Hoover actually did initiate relief and work programs, but was opposed from all sides. In the '30s in the USA, this was godless communism. After 4 years of poverty, a little socialism didn't sound so bad, and Franklin Roosevelt was able to usurp it as his New Deal and replace Hoover.

    Few people from those days are still alive, so the rest of us don't have first-hand memory. All we know is that Hoover ended up a loser, without all the complicated details. And Grings don't always remember things; the average attention span sorrelates to the interval between TV commercials.

    So, absent a miracle, I'm afraid history is going to cheat Obama as it did Hoover.

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  14. BW

    Your immature comment was not substantiated by your superfluous comment about our attention spans.How exactly did you measure this in comparison to whom? The Venezuelans, the Chinese, the Europeans?Do they have wonderful political results because of their superior attention spans?

    Your opinion is just another opinion, not a fact.There is no way your opinion can be proven, or disproved, so better to just state it as so.

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  15. Anonymous6:49 PM

    This blogger is uninformed enough that he takes everything as being equal in American politics. For instance, he does not even recognize that Clinton had both terms given to him by Ross Perot splitting the conservative/Republican vote. If you would combine the con/Rep vote totals Clinton would have been resigned to chasing females around his office in Little Rock.

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  16. and this anonymous is an ass that does not know this blog nor the author.

    ReplyDelete

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