Here in Michigan, the senate race isn't as close as one might hope. It's Democrat Debbie Stabenow vs. Republican Mike Bouchard. Bouchard claims that Stabenow has been cynically avoiding any sort of televised debates . But I have not seen any real evidence of this. Right now, she's got a 9 point lead over Bouchard. As a business owner, I tend to vote for candidates who favor policies that help businesses. For instance, when my taxes are lowered, I have more capital to hire more people wh...
It is Day 4 of the Rush Limbaugh railings against frustrated conservatives who might sit out this election. And once again, Rush has tried to assign motive and intent to me and people like me (given that it was this article supporting Instapundit's premortem that helped set off this discussion). My motive? Apparently it's about power. I want to wreck things for the Republicans so that if the Republicans lose in November I can say "See, look at my POOOWEERR!" If Rush b...
In 1992, George Bush lost largely because many in his base either stayed at home or voted for Perot in protest of Bush's tax hike that went against his campaign promise. This week, Rush complained that I was ignoring history -- that when conservatives stay home, the kooks take over and the result we saw in 1992. But that's not the way I remember it. I don't remember the world coming to an end. Even with the Democrats controlling the house, the senate, and the executive, we didn...
Rush Limbaugh is unhappy with me. Or at least, people like me. Since Rush Limbaugh referred to my article (and kindly linked to it on his site) I feel I should respond to some of his points. I am not at war with conservative bloggers. I quote countless posts from many blogs on this program. I use them as resources. I'm referring to one blog post, and I don't even know who it is. I use a handle on-line. Draginol. I probably should just use my real name -- it's Brad War...
Given how often I get bashed for being a "right wing nut", being called a "liberal" dozens of times this week has made me conclude that I can safely say that my views are no where near the outter fringe of the political spectrum. Some of the comments, let alone email I've received, to the recent blogs I've writetn regarding Rush Limbaugh vs. Instapundit have been astounding. I guess I'm simply not used to seeing conservatives behaving so much like left-wing fringe advocates. When one is in...
So what exactly could the Republicans do to help win back the support of its base on a wide scale? Here are a few things: #1 Promose to bring fiscal responsibility back. Over at Instapundit , you can see Glenn Reynolds Pork busting. A lot of the pork is being done by Republicans. The infamous "bridge to nowhere" is but one example. When I hear things like "The deficit has been cut in half" it makes my skin crawl. Yea, because corporate taxes were up due to companies like ours payin...
In an episode of The Simpsons, Marge asks Homer "If I died, would you be sad?" and Homer responds "I dunno, woudn't be happy." That's pretty much how I feel about the Republicans. If the Republicans lose congress, I won't be happy about it. Not at all. I think that the Democrats plan for America is a bad plan. Democrats tend to worry more about intentions rather than results. What I am saying is that: 1) IF Democrats do win, it won't be the end of the world. Ou...
Today on Rush Limbaugh's show, Rush referred indirectly to yesterday's article about the Instapundit vs. Rush fallout. From listening to the show, Rush clearly seems to think that conservatives, such as myself, are being naive or as he put it, should "expand their horizons" on what the repercussions of a Democratic victory in November would be. Considerable time was spent on the premise that votes shouldn't be used to "teach a lesson". Or more to the point, that a vote really can't...
Recently Glenn Reynolds, webmaster of Instapundit.com, the world's most popular blog site and a conservative made the argument that if Republicans lose, it's because they deserved it. Rush Limbaugh today struck back with the charge of "Do we deserve to have our taxes raised? Do we deserve a cut and run policy in Iraq? Do we deserve to have endless congressional investigations?" The argument is strong but I think overlooks one thing -- we do have a Republican President right? Our taxes ar...
A couple of years ago when I started really getting into blogging I reached a fork in the road. My blog writings were starting to really get out there and bring a lot of traffic to my blog (back then Joeuser.com was just my site). The Alexa rankings help speak to that: So at its height, JoeUser.com which was just my site was nearing the top 10,000 blog sites total. I got a lot of traffic because I was blogging every day on political issues of all kind. That is the key to b...
With the 2008 election starting to loom (unfortunately) the Republican line up for President is not looking very promising. It looks a lot like 1996. Let's look at the likely leading candidates: Rudy Giuliani. Unelectedable. A social liberal Republican cannot get the electoral votes to win. John McCain. Probably not electable. Right wing turn out won't be sufficient if there's a strong Democratic candidate. Newt Gingrich. Low charisma. He would probably be an excellent President but bein...
As part of my regular polling research for The Political Machine 2008, I have come to the conclusion that the Republicans are going to lose control of the House of Representatives in November and barely hold on to the Senate. And you know what I think of that? HAH! Serves them right. The congressional Republicans don't represent the values or principles of their constituents as far as I'm concerned. Worse, they haven't even managed to accomplish anything in the past 2 years. Go ah...
George W. Bush is on the brink of having his presidency remembered as a failure. His poll numbers are very low -- less than 40%. That's worse that Reagan's at the height of Iran-Contra and Clinton's during impeachment. How did it come to this? Simply put, Bush's character flaws and poor judgment finally passed an unspoken threshold in which people, even those inclined to support his policies, have concluded that Bush is a lost cause. The straw that broke the camel's back ...
In my Christmas letter I talked about liberal Democrats fleeing to Canada to escape "Jesus Land". I've talked to some family members and friends who weren't familiar with this reference. So for those of them that visit my blog, here's what I was referring to: Shortly after the election a bunch of far left wing bloggers and journalists started claiming that the only reason why Bush won is because the "Jesus Freaks" came out in force to vote for Bush. And so in their view we ha...
I'm a conservative. I make no bones about it. I have plenty of liberal friends. Most of my "good" political discussions are with my friends who are liberal. I have a friend in New York who I talk to a few times a week and I respect his opinions immensely. He's also very liberal. There is a basic problem in our country right now, however. I look at the positions my liberal friends take, listen to them, and ultimately decide I don't agree with them. But I respect their right to an opinion.&nbs...