Obama Agenda Rejected in Early Polls

Obama Agenda Rejected in Early Polls

by Mark Luedtke

Starting in earnest last summer, when Democrats first tried to force Obamacare down our throats, the American people overwhelmingly rejected President Obama's agenda. They made it clear at rallies and townhalls, through Congress's email and phone systems, and with letters to the editor that they didn't want any more bailouts. They used every opportunity to communicate they didn't want government to seize more control over their health care, they didn't want new, oppressive taxes in any form including cap and trade, and they wanted fiscal sanity from our government. In response, Obama poked a stick in the people's eye, dramatically increasing spending and doubling the national debt in just one year. Democrats passed cap and trade in the House, introduced it in the Senate, and forced Obamacare on us using parliamentary tricks. Obama empaneled a bipartisan debt commission that's a stalking horse for a European-style value-added tax that, if passed, will put the final nail in America's coffin.

Better late than never, the American people are livid, and they're taking their revenge at the polls every chance they get. First, they elected Republican Chris Christie as governor to make dramatic spending cuts in Democrat dominated New Jersey, and Republican Bob McDonnell easily won the governor's office in Virginia. Next, the people of ultra-liberal Massachusetts elected Republican Scott Brown to replace Edward Kennedy in the Senate. Obama campaigned for the Democrat in all three of these races and lost.

This anger isn't limited to conservatives. Fourteen term Democrat Congressman Alan Mollohan was defeated in his West Virginia primary. The Obama agenda is so despised that liberals are firing incumbent Democrats in primaries.

A prominent scientist and global warming skeptic won the Republican primary in liberal Oregon. Small-government conservative Rand Paul, son of libertarian champion Ron Paul, won a landslide victory against the Republican establishment candidate for senator in Kentucky despite the endorsements of Senate Minority Leader and fellow Kentuckian Mitch McConnell, and Dick Cheney, Rudy Giuliani and Rick Santorum. Pennsylvania Democrats had tried to defeat Arlen Specter for 30 years. Showing how out of touch he was with the people after 30 years partying in Rome, Specter served them his own head on a silver platter by switching parties and seemed surprised when they fired him. Having campaigned for Specter, Obama is now 0 for 4. He's the kiss of death. In the one race Democrats point to as a success, a Democrat barely won a western Pennsylvania congressional special election in a district with twice as many Democrats as Republicans by running against Obamacare and cap and trade while supporting gun rights and lower taxes.

Voters in Utah sent the most encouraging signal in decades when they ousted Republican incumbent Senator Robert Bennett. Jonah Goldberg calls Bennett "reliably conservative" which means he reliably votes for bigger budgets, more welfare, more warfare and more debt year after year. With supposed friends like this, who needs enemies? He voted for TARP and supported a Republican version of Obamacare. This earned him the respect of his fellow Washington aristocrats of both parties and liberals in general. Thank goodness the people of Utah saw it differently, but only after 18 years of damage. They finally realized that like nearly all Republicans, Bennett was a just a Democrat-lite.

Democrats stand for something. They stand for ever-increasing government power. To Democrats, every problem requires government to seize more power to solve that problem. The inevitable result is more and bigger problems and a steady march toward communism and collapse. Republicans don't stand for anything. Republicans position themselves to be slightly less bad than Democrats. If Democrats propose a $3 trillion budget, Republicans will propose $2.9 trillion. If Democrats propose a $4 trillion budget, Republicans will propose $3.9 trillion. If Democrats propose a 40 percent income tax rate, Republicans will propose 37 percent. If Democrats propose a 50 percent tax rate, Republicans will propose 47 percent. When Democrats proposed Obamacare, Republicans countered with Obamacare-lite. The differences between the two parties are only a small matter of degree. Republicans only pretend to support smaller government when they're in the minority and it's politically convenient. When they gain power, they expand the size and scope of government just like Democrats.  As Democrats drag America towards communism, Republicans push with them. We're on the cusp of suffering that endgame. The firing of Bennett shows that the conservatives of Utah demand we change direction toward freedom.

Democrats and the leftists that dominate the media and academia understand this, and that's why they're terrified of the tea parties. The tea parties are ousting their big-government Republican partners and replacing them with small government candidates. This threatens to reverse America's century-long march towards communism right when they are so close to realizing their dream. Because Rand Paul is the tea party favorite and he's running for senator, Democrats immediately attacked him after his victory. Trying to paint him and the tea party as racist, Rachel Maddow pressed Paul on whether or not he supported the Civil Rights Act. Instead of answering with principle that since portions of the Civil Rights Act unconstitutionally institutionalized bigotry, interfered with private property rights, and dictated to the states, he would not have supported it as written, he stumbled, looked embarrassed and eventually said he would have supported it. The system is already corrupting him because he's not principled like his father, and he's not even in office yet.

Which is why this small government push is too little, too late. No matter how badly Obama's policies drag down our economy, voters will return well over 400 incumbents to power. The same Republican and Democrat power brokers will be in charge. Small-government freshmen will be corrupted or washed out of the system. At best we'll see a temporary slowdown in the growth of government, but that won't save us. We have to dramatically reduce the size and scope of government if American as we know it is to survive.