Their Idealism Was Squandered on a Charlatan
The conventional wisdom is that no one, having made a demonstrably colossal misjudgment, likes to be told, “I told you so.” Considering that millions of usually thoughtful voters cast caution to the winds in 2008 and voted for a presidential candidate about whom they knew nothing, there is now a plenitude of penitents upon whom those of us who had urged caution could righteously invoke that censure. Yes, the normal conventional wisdom should caution against its use, however, my own inability to resist that wisdom in dealing with a member of my own family who had willfully suspended belief and followed the Obama rainbow, left me rather pleasantly surprised.
Not only did I not get a response of righteous indignation and defense of the indefensible, I got a grudging agreement that their moment of political exhilaration was perhaps misguided and the results had proved to be disastrous. Once moved to idealism by Obama’s oratory, they had now been returned to earth cruelly by the very factor of which I had cautioned: the man’s total lack of executive, business or governing experience. Where once that concern had been brushed aside with a glib, “That’s not really a problem if he surrounds himself with experienced people,” my back-then admonition that an inexperienced executive has no skill in selecting qualified subordinates, the stark recognition of that truth has apparently come home to roost, as the Reverend Wright might rail. The ineptitude demonstrated widely and deeply throughout this administration has to be an embarrassment to its most ardent supporters much less those who were the hopeful, impressionable crossover voters in 2008.
So what’s my point here? Simply this: don’t be afraid to say “I told you so,” to those you know who drank the Kool Aid in 2008. Sure, some will respond angrily and defensively, but it’s not you they’re angry at, it’s themselves for being so easily and transparently duped. Worse they’re angry because their temporary foolishness has been so blatantly demonstrated by the absolutely horrible performance of this false Messiah president. After all, their idealism was squandered on a charlatan and the humiliation that harsh truth entails must necessarily inspire emotions that can be used to correct the terrible mistake to which they contributed.
But proceed with caution; don’t be smug or condescending which likely will be met with a blast of defensive Democrat talking points created specifically by the Obama campaign to enable the disillusioned to reinforce and defend their own doubts. Take it slow and allow these doubters to express their own misgivings, which, once voiced, become much more easily accepted as topics for critical discussion. There are enough millions of American voters who fall into this voting demographic to undo the damage they inflicted on America in the last presidential election. Let us go about returning them to a position of rational voting for candidates who can truly lead our country out of the morass into which this false Messiah has so deviously Pied-Pipered us.
Once burned, the easily winnable may be much harder to win. But they were burned by their emotions and idealism. Appeal to the stark realities of where this country and their children and grandchildren are headed if this grossly failed social experiment isn’t removed from office.
Crossposted at American Thinker.
Category: Barack Obama/Joe Biden
“… to undo the damage they inflicted on America in the last presidential election”. Ha! What about undoing the incalculable damage done by the 2004 and 2008 elections? The The Queen Mary doesn’t turn on a dime, and it’s taken four years to even begin to climb out of the hole Bush dug for us. Poetrooper, you have succumbed to the fantasy world that most conservatives inhabit, to you it’s about democratic celebrity worship, to some other neocon it’s the fact that polls have been skewed by sampling too many democrats – any story will suffice if it saves you the pain of recognizing what a totally pathetic candidate Romney is. What you dismiss as celebrity worship is really the people rightly recognizing that electing Romney is the worst possible choice. I hope you are having fun on whatever planet it is you inhabit.
“What about undoing the incalculable damage done by the 2004 and 2008 elections?” 2008? Freudian slip, Joe, or are you showing that you actually are capable of learning?
Should be: “2000 and 2004 elections”
AirCav, Joey just admitted the truth. Blind squirrel, broken clock and all that.
Quit obssessing over my typo. Just another one of those diversionary tactics you guys have gotten so good at since there is not much substance behind your arguments.
Joe: Bush didn’t dig that hole. Congress did. From 2007 to 2009, Democrats controlled both chambers of Congress and spending skyrocketed. From 2009 to 2011, Democrats had large, unassailable majorities in both chambers of Congress – and the spending and raising of taxes skyrocketed. Since January of 2011, the GOP has controlled the House of Representatives. The Senate, controlled by the Democrats, has not passed a budget since 2009 (the actual FY2009 budget – delayed to ensure Bush would receive no credit).
All spending since then has been by Continuing Resolution using the last budget as the baseline. A spending level that was set by Democrats, and had no GOP input.
So: what hole that was dug by Bush? The POTUS, as the premiere politician in America, can politik for the funding of his or her projects/programs. But s/he has zero Constitutional power to effect the outcome of a budget.
When it comes to spending – it is ALWAYS and ONLY Congress that is responsible.
Target ID, Joe. Even AQIM gets it right.
DaveO: mostly agree with you. Bush shares some of the blame, but the serious economic problems (and deficit explosion) started in 2007. And the Congress in power at the time – led by Pelosi and Reid, as I recall – deserve much more of the blame than they typically get for the late-2008 meltdown and continuing economic troubles. As does Clinton and the late 1990s Congress, for setting in motion the unsustainable growth of the real-estate “bubble” which popped at about the same time.
Joe: see comment 46 above; it applies to you equally.
Oh, and 2-17 Air Cav nailed it – almost. If you’d written “2006 and 2008” elections, I’d agree with him 100%. I personally think we did OK in 2004.
And more good news, a number of conservatives have stated that for demographic reasons, this is the last time the “old white guy” strategy (kind of describes this websites audience) has even a ghost of a chance of working. Better come up with a new strategy, and an entirely new platform, guys.
Joe, Do you own stock in Kool Aid?
No Twist, you guys bought it all up.
I don’t believe that you just waved the race card at us, Joe. Geez.
@62 While Joe’s intent might be to imply the GOP is racist, the reality is that the demographic projections are a real issue in terms of future party identification. Rubio is a star not only because of his charisma and intelligence, but also because he is a minority in a party where that’s rare — and, as such, can hopefully draw more in.
Put another way, if the 2016 or 2020 elections happen with the same D/R split amongst whites, blacks, and other ‘minorities’ (latinos, asians, etc.), the GOP is in real trouble. Party leadership knows this, but hasn’t been terribly effective at courting voters in the current cycle. And I put ‘minorities’ in quotes because, not too far from now, ‘white’ Americans will become a minority.
So, race card? Stupid. Thinking about party identification and demographics? Critical for future viability.
And, on a humorous note, Iran’s FNA news agency just published an Onion (parody website) article as ‘news’, with the title:
Gallup Poll: Rural Whites Prefer Ahmadinejad to Obama
Link: http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.php?nn=9106242628
Well, Pinto, you may be the exception. I don’t know how old you are, I presume you are not a guy (?), and I don’t know your ethnicity. But for the others, I’ve seen a lot of their photos (they seem to be caucasian), I can infer their age by references to the time they were in the military (Iraq I, Viet Nam, even Korea), and they are definitely guys. Race card? Call it what you will….
@63 I was jibing Joe for his swipe at TAH, not arguing with his “old white guy” remark. Romney is a pretty good example that the Republican party is a dinosaur when it comes to having any grasp of this country’s current demographics.
Interesting aside: I read the other day that whites ARE now the minority in the country.
@65 Female, fat, 50, and white.
Do they have a “middle-aged, rubenesque, white, female” strategy?
I’ll “call it what (I) will”, Joe: blatant prejudice. On your part.
You’re judging others here you do not know and have never met based on preconceived notions and what you’ve heard about them. You’ve just admitted above that you’re basing your opinion largely on skin color. You’re using stereotypes vice facts; those stereotypes may or may not be valid. And you’re making no effort to find out whether your preconceived notions about those you denigrate are accurate.
That, fella, pretty much fits the definition of prejudice to a T. The Klan – or the NBPP – would be proud of such conduct.
Ignorance is curable. But when someone won’t even make the attempt to cure their own ignorance, well, that’s when they deserve the label “fool”.
Hey Hondo, I wasn’t the one that coined the term “old white guy strategy”, probably some cynical GOP lobbyist or a candid democratic staffer.
@68 Bake sales. I think. 🙂
If the Democrats inherited any deficit, it was the 2007 deficit, the last of the Republican budgets. That deficit was the lowest in five years, and the fourth straight decline in deficit spending. After that, Democrats in Congress took control of spending, and that includes Barack Obama, who voted for the budgets.
How is it all Bush’s fault again?
Oddly enough Joe, as an old white guy myself, to me one of the most promising Republicans in my mind is Lt. Col. Allen West. It’s interesting to me also that the best play you can make is to denigrate an entire group of people based on an assumption. You have determined because many of the veterans here are white, conservative ex-military they must be racists.
Nicely done, it’s good to see hypocrisy in action. Everyone here has served alongside minorities without issue for the duration of their service and were discharged honorably for doing so, many of these people carry commendations for their service. Just because folks here don’t care for Obama as a majority doesn’t mean they dislike his color, they just can’t stand his politics. Even if he was an old white guy like Biden, they’d still hate his politics.
When the issues you bring up fail to to convince folks of your sincerity, determining it’s because they hate blacks rather than disagree with your conclusions is the weakest play you can make to convince people that you’re argument ever had merit. You believe the current administration works, that is clearly your right and I respect that you have a divergent opinion. I believe the current administration failed to deliver on any level the promises made in 2008, not because I object to a black man in office but because I object to failure from my duly elected leaders. Best of luck attempting to convert folks to your view point, I hope you approach that attempt with a little more aplomb and a lot less narrow minded conclusion as you move forward.
No, Joe, you didn’t coin the term. You merely used the term pejoratively, and in an inappropriate context, without justification and without knowing whether it applied. You applied a stereotype to an entire group without knowledge of (1) whether or not it was applicable, (2) whether or not it was valid, and (3) apparently without caring whether or not it was valid.
In short, you did exactly what racist bigots did towards people of color for years.
As VOV above said: hypocrisy in action. Look in the mirror to see the source.
I fall into the category of people who voted for President Obama in 2008. I have always been and more than likely will remain a Democrat. Where I live, it is more related to local and state politics than it is the national party platform, but I hold up as ideological/political heroes men like Robert Casey, Sr. and RFK, or Joe Lieberman (go figure, right?).
But it felt like within mere hours of the inauguration, the “Cairo Speech” completely disabused me of any fantasies of his leadership capability…wash that down with the “Beer Summit,” and I felt like I voted for amateur hour.
I never find myself wishing that I had voted for McCain, but I do wish I had spent my primary vote on Clinton.
I welcome “I told you so” from others, as I feel it’s fair, unless they were citing Jerome Corsi to me in so doing. I don’t think it’s a radical agenda I ended up voting for, but rather an inept, listless agenda. I don’t know which troubles me more.
I’ve ever been a moderate Democrat, which ever since 1992, has been less and less welcome within the folds. President Bush wasn’t my favorite president, for sure, but then, to paraphrase the late Molly Ivins, only a Republican could confuse him for a conservative. Now there was a real centrist!
Joe – where does this have to do with old white guy strategy? Hondo hit you better than I would on this matter. The GOP is as “colorful” as the Democrats are at this point; they just respectfully eschew it as a selling point (except for Latinos). Some of these axiomatic understandings about race and party affiliation need to die. It really comes at the expense of useful debate, because people have to set aside talking meaningfully about policy and tell you why you’re an idiot.
I resent being referred to as an old white guy. I may be old but I am certainly not a guy. 🙂
@75 If you don’t mind me asking, will you be voting for Romney this time? If so, what are your reasons? Just genuinely curious.
And while we’re on the topic of stereotypes, I’ll say that “Racist!” from Democrats to Republicans is about as accurate as “Socialist!” from Republicans to Democrats.
@78 – I’m only sure I’m not voting for Obama. I’m not one to “vote against” in the absence of someone worth voting for. I caught Romney’s current campaign adviser on foreign policy, and thus far from his campaign, the only one I heard saying anything intelligent on recent Middle Eastern matters, but I’ve not heard Romney in his own voice articulate a position that has me particularly excited. Gary Johnson seems interesting enough, and Jill Stein I’m sure is a wonderful lady. I may vote for a random 3rd party candidate, if they appear on the ballot in my state.
Oh and Joe The republicans elected the first Hispanic female as Governor of New Mexico. They elected the FIRST woman Governor of S Carolina of Indian decent. They elected the FIRST American of Cuban decent to the US Senate in Florida. They elected a black military retiree in Florida, Alan West. They elected the FIRST woman to the Congress from S Dakota.
Doesn’t sound very old white guy to me.
And Condi Rice and General Powell come to mind as well.
Republicans have the very best track record on racial issues, if we go back to Reconstruction and forward. I hate the present narrative. Go back fifty years and the biggest bigots had names like George Wallace and were Southern Democrats. Intellectual dishonesty really burns my buttons. Democrats presently sun themselves on rocks that better men than they warmed for them when it comes to racial matters.
The republicans have the best track record on showcasing token minorities in their ranks, but to say, as #76 did, the the GOP is as colorful as the demorats, well that’s just ludicrious.
Whatever you want to call Mitt’s strategy, it’s a flop. Back to the drawing board.
Joe,
How is having minorities in real positions of power and leadership tokenism, by your lights?
@83 It comes from the perception that there are very few of those people in real positions of power. And, given this sparsity, it’s considered largely irrelevant.
Somewhat akin to how finding specks of gold in a prospecting camp, left there by some clever owner who seeded the place with gold buckshot, doesn’t mean you’re ‘struck gold’.
And I’m not defending this, just explaining it as I see it. I think race in this country is more complicated than, “You’re racist!”, “No way, YOU’RE racist!”.
BK: you might want to reconsider that voting methodology. In a two-person race (which in the American two-party system, describes virtually every race out there), not voting or casting a protest vote is virtually the same as casting 1/2 for the candidate you like least of all. That is because it reduces the total number of votes the candidate you like least of all needs to win by one. Voting for the other candidate raises the total number of votes needed to win by the candidate you like least by two.
If you can identify a candidate you definitely don’t want to see in office, then don’t ever stay home or cast a protest vote. Cast a vote for their opponent. Otherwise, you’re inadvertently giving them unintentional support by reducing the number of votes they need to win.
@83, Joe and Anon see Alan West as a token, but not Emanuel Cleaver. Rubio is a token but not Raul Grijalva. They don’t see the great Socialist, Maxine Waters as a dunce.
Now, if ever there were someone “seeding” something, it’s the dems and the folks I listed, along with the CBC.
Those would be the same dems who continue to say that the term “welfare queen” is racist, right?
Hey, obama sucks. Just thought I’d try to refocus the thread.
@ 83 Joe … You say …
“The republicans have the best track record on showcasing token minorities in their ranks, but to say, as #76 did, the the GOP is as colorful as the demorats, well that’s just ludicrious”.
MCPO says,
“Wrong … Republican’s elect, hire and appoint qualified minorities. Whereas, the Democrat party floods their ranks with unqualified operatives and political hacks. Just look at the disproportionate number minority political appointees, SES, and career federal employees who have been promoted in this administration. It is off the charts disproportionate … historic highs. The number is so high GAO and other government watch dog agencies are closely looking at it. It is no wonder why the government is NOT working, those in charge have no idea what they are doing.”
BTW … we in federal govermnet have not had a budget for 4 years nows. The current administration does not know how to do a baisc budget. But they sure do know how to print money.
@86 You’re unnecessarily defensive – I was pointing out why someone from the left sees those people as ‘token’, not claiming they ARE token examples.
If you’d prefer to simply believe anyone with even an ounce of liberal ideology is batshit crazy and has zero logical foundations for their thinking, hey, that’s your choice. I don’t see how it helps at all, but you’re more than welcome to believe what you will.
Wow, thanks, Anon, I appreciate you giving me permission to believe what I believe. Those on the left that see “those people” as tokens are the racists, pal, not me. And, really? “Those people”? How very liberal of you. And, you’re unnecessarily condescending.
And, AirCav is right, Obama sucks, big time.
Gotta love Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s comment that “You can’t just trot out a brown face or a Spanish surname and expect people are going to vote for your party or your candidate.”
You can’t win. GOP is accused as party of white males, but when minorities join the ranks, Republicans are suddenly pandering or being condescending. Really, who is being small minded here? The Mayor ought to be celebrating the success of hispanic pols like Marco Rubio, Susana Martinez, and Luis Fortuno – instead they are painted as not quite authentic or trying to be white for daring to break from the herd.
Antonio Villaraigosa is such a dingleberry – how this retard became the Mayor of Los Angeles is mind boggling. With the sorry state LA and California as a whole is in – why they keep reelecting Dems over and over is incomprehensible. People rich, middle, and poor are fleeing the high taxes, strangling regulations, awful unemployment, terrible schools, pervasive union controls and other monstrosities of the not so golden state. Oh, don’t forget businesses are pulling up stakes and moving to friendlier environments. The left coast desperately needs a strong dose of Republican conservatism – maybe even brown faced ones.
Devtun, it’s unimaginable but a fact. As a resident of Arizona I know it’s a fact that the People’s Republik of Kalirornia is crumbling. How many cities and counties are now bankrupt? Every day there are more Califorians coming to Az. My view on this? As with illegal aliens, go back to where you came from!!! I’m Mexican so I can say that!!!:)
I thought the Billy Madison quote was quite appropriate. I guess I could use something from the Waterboy next time…how about this time.
My name’s insipid and I got a wooden spoon…der…