IMMIGRATION DECISION WILL ERODE OBAMA SUPPORT
When Judge Susan Bolton granted an injunction halting the enforcement of key provisions of the Arizona immigration enforcement law, she ruled in favor of the Justice Department’s position, but against the president’s political interest.
Had the judge sustained this law, it would have made moot Obama’s opposition to the Arizona law. As it is, she has transformed the law into a big campaign issue against Obama. Now the president is standing in the way of a state that wants to enforce the law that he won’t.
LEAKED REPORT HURTS OBAMA
Published on TheHill.com on July 27, 2010
Having already lost all Republicans and almost all independents, Obama is shedding Democrats these days. According to a Fox News poll, his job approval among them has dropped from 84 percent at the end of June to 76 percent in mid-July. A combination of the Afghan War, the oil spill, Guantanamo and his failure to act on immigration reform have all eroded his credibility with his liberal constituents.
EUGENE J. MORRIS 1910-2010
Gene Morris was a force of nature. Strong, dynamic, energetic, and industrious, but also tender, loving, loyal, mentoring, and creative. He died on Saturday, July 24, 2010, but three months shy of his 100th birthday.
My father – I am an only child – was my inspiration and role model throughout my life. He first taught me about politics on our long walks to his office through Manhattan’s Central Park.
He came from a political family. His uncle, Albert Cohn, served as a judge on New York State’s top court and was a close associate of Ed Flynn, FDR’s political advisor. Al’s son and my father’s first cousin was Roy Cohn who went on to fame as chief counsel to the McCarthy Committee investigating communism in the 1950s. My father and Roy were close.
RACIAL POLITICS BLOWS UP IN OBAMA’S FACE
Whenever race is mentioned, it hurts Barack Obama’s presidency. The very basis of his presidency is that he is the post racial president. Now he finds himself knee-deep into racial politics.
Some is of his own doing. In suing Arizona over immigration reform, he takes a step that alienates the three-quarters of Anglo voters who back the law. In refusing to prosecute the Black Panthers for their blatant intimidation of white voters in 2008, he alienates fair thinking people of both races. But in firing Shirley Sherrod, he showed African-Americans that he was caving in to pressure from FOX News and the conservatives. Then, by reversing field and reinstating her, the president and his Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack show whites and Republicans-Independent voters that he is caving in to pressure from the African-American community.
KAGAN PROMOTED SHARIAH
Published on TheHill.com on July 20, 2010
Having worked with Elena Kagan at the Clinton White House, Dick was inclined to see her as a political moderate, worthy of support as the best one could expect from the Obama White House. But no more.
Thanks to the work of the Center for Security Policy Director Frank Gaffney and the writing of Andrew McCarthy of the National Review Institute, there has emerged a compelling reason to vote against Kagan’s confirmation as a Supreme Court justice: her support for Shariah law while she was dean of Harvard Law School.
REFORM STATE PENSIONS NOW
The Greek fiscal crisis is going to come to the United States next year via the vulnerable state governments of (at least) California, Michigan and New York. Look for these states to descend once more on Washington DC with their tin cups seeking additional federal subsidies, disguised as stimulus payments. But…with Republicans in control of both Houses (bet on it) they will meet a frosty reception on Capitol Hill. While Obama will try to pass the subsidies, the GOP will turn them down. The American people – from the other 47 states – will ask why they should reward state irresponsibility with federal dollars.
Faced with a cutoff of additional federal aid, these state legislatures will be unable to balance their budgets and bond buyers will back off their paper. Ratings agencies will downgrade their bonds to junk status and bankruptcy will ensue.
DEMS DESERT OBAMA
Throughout the Obama Administration, the president has been able to count on the solid support of Democrats. Not anymore.
According to the FOX News/Opinion Dynamics poll, Obama’s job approval among Democrats has dropped from 84% two weeks ago (June 29-30) to 76% on July 13-14. At 76%, this level of job approval is below any the Fox News poll has ever recorded.
Why the collapse? Most likely it is due to liberal disappointment with the continuation of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, the continued use of Guantanamo, Obama’s inability to cope with the oil spill, and his refusal to push immigration reform when he could have passed it before he lost his 60 vote majority. Undoubtedly, the renewed sluggishness in the economy is also playing its part.
THE END OF THE POST RACIAL PRESIDENCY
The very basis of Barack Obama’s entire political career has been the assertion that he is one of the first examples of a post-racial politician. He consciously eschewed the notion that his presidency was notable for the triumph of a black politician and focused, instead, on what it said about the irrelevance of race to the political process. When the Clintons sought to inject race into the election by harping on the polarization of black support for Obama and likening his triumph in the South Carolina primary to that of Jesse Jackson, the Obama supporters cried foul and accused the former first couple of injecting race into the contest.
Now, Obama is letting his supporters strip away his image of a post-racial president by their increasingly racial rhetoric and his support for radical black activists.
PROGRESS REPORT: WINNING THE SENATE
Seven months ago, the conventional wisdom was that, while the Republicans would score impressive gains in both houses of Congress in the elections of 2010, the Democrats would keep control. Now, it is that the Republicans may, indeed, capture the House, but never the Senate. Presidential press secretary Robert Gibbs admitted that the loss of the House was a possibility.
The conventional wisdom is still wrong. The Republicans will take the Senate and the House.
Here’s the Senate rundown:
OBAMA DIGS A DEEPER HOLE
Published on TheHill.com on July 13, 2010
Any president facing a recession has a basic conundrum to resolve: If he doesn’t try to make people believe that a recovery is in progress, nobody will. But if he tries to make them believe that all is getting better, he risks being seen as out of touch at best or insensitive at worst.
It was just such a predicament that landed George H.W. Bush in trouble in 1991 when he preached that the economy was emerging from the recession, only to be seen as rich and elitist for his efforts. Things got so bad that this verbally challenged president once blurted out his staff’s strategy memo by saying, “Message: I care.” That was about as well-received as Nixon’s statement that “I am not a crook.”
