Tag Archives: election

The Election is Over; Time to Govern If We Only Could

BY MICHAEL S. JOHNSON | DEC 22, 2020

“Our mess of an election has finally, officially, irrefutably been resolved. We owe this to the brilliance of our Founders, but we deserve credit too for our continued fidelity to their vision.”
Peggy Noonan, Wall Street Journal 12/17/20

Hallelujah, Sister Peggy. Can we have an amen?

It is indeed over. The Electoral College voted 306-232 on December 14, ratifying the November results and completing a critical formal step in the American tradition of a peaceful transfer of power from one presidency to another.

It’s the Electoral College that calls the election officially.

It seems to be a common presumption in this country that the Constitution authorizes the national media to call our elections based on their keen political intuition, careful analysis of voting precincts, and exit polls. We then are expected to fall in line as though their declarations are formal, official, and final.

I looked again at Article II and the 12th Amendment of the Constitution and found no such instructions. Nor do I believe there are any written into any law other than the law of the political jungle. Good thing. The media of late have not been too swift at calling elections correctly as Thomas Dewey, Al Gore, and Hillary Clinton all discovered.

Continue reading →

Special Election Victory a B.F.D.

BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

So the lobbyist beat the Obamacare supporter in the special election in Florida?

And the race wasn’t even that close.

David Jolly, a former lobbyist and former Staff Member to Congressman Bill Young, beat Alex Sink, a pretty well-known and well-funded Democrat who seemingly and improbably embraced Obamacare during the Continue reading →

Random Thoughts

BY MICHAEL S. JOHNSON

AUGUST RECESS HYPOCRISY
I would guess that most current and former Hill employees get really rankled every August when well-tanned and rested television anchors like Bill Hemmer of Fox News (it is really hard to take that guy seriously), get indignant over Congress leaving Washington for August recess. Hemmer is not alone, of course. August recess wisecracking is a popular sport.

Fox, however, has lowered the bar even more. It just spent a lot of money conducting survey research, which Hemmer reported on August 8. Breaking news, breaking news, stop the presses: “A new Fox news national poll has found that 82 percent of voters think Congress hasn’t worked hard enough to go on vacation for five weeks.”

Hemmer looks like he’s 12, but I wonder why he acts like it? Continue reading →

Resetting the Middle East

BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com

President Barack Obama left last night for Israel in an attempt to “reset” the Israeli-US relationship. There are those who will say that if either side has to reset the relationship, it is the Israelis. I understand that; I don’t agree with it, but I understand it.

A couple of weeks ago shiny new Secretary of State John Kerry effectively presented a check to the Egyptian government – which is now in the throes of an electoral breakdown – for $250 million. Continue reading →

Game Change or More of the Same?

BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

It was a status quo election. Or was it?

The players all seem exactly the same. Barack Obama. John Boehner. Harry Reid. Mitch McConnell. Nancy Pelosi. The only change in any top leadership position was John Cornyn taking over from Jon Kyl as the Republican Whip.

Power in Washington is a game of perception. Who has it? Who doesn’t? Who can keep his troops in line and who can’t?

Power slowly recedes from a second term President. Second terms are never pretty. Continue reading →

Electoral Collage

BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com

The United States Constitution provides for an indirect election of the President. That is, you didn’t vote for Barack Obama or Mitt Romney last week; you voted for electors pledged to vote for one or the other.

The 12th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (which superseded a large section of Article II, Section 1) suggests says that the ballots of the electors in the several states having marked their ballots for President and Vice President shall “transmit sealed to the seat of the government of the United

Continue reading →

Romney Will Win

BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com

As we have discussed before, someone – and I tried to find the source of the quote, but couldn’t – said that “four years ago Barack Obama was on a crusade; this year he’s in a campaign.”

Obama won the crusade, but Mitt Romney will win this campaign.

I know…I know. The polls are close. The national polls are tied; the state polls tilt toward Barack Obama. Continue reading →

Franken-Storm

BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

Contrary to media reports, Franken-Storm has nothing to do with Al Franken still being in the Senate.

Just kidding. There are no media reports about Al Franken still being in the Senate. He’s a comedian, and now he is in the Senate. Enough said about that.

I wonder if it was Al Franken who coined the phrase Franken-Storm. I assume that whoever named Franken-Storm came from Washington D.C. I don’t know why I assume that, but I do. Continue reading →

Another Election

BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com

From Dnipropetrovsk, Ukraine

I’ve been here for two days preparing for, and actually observing, the Ukrainian parliamentary elections. I was part of the International Observer Mission in that effort.

SIDEBAR

The day before I hopped on an airplane from Kiev to come down here, we were briefed by various government and political leaders. One person in our group asked whether international observers could remain in a precinct to watch the counting process. Continue reading →

Romney Hits Middle East Failures

BY MICHAEL S. JOHNSON

Gov. Mitt Romney introduced the crises in the Middle East to the campaign conversation this week with some tough talk about the tragedy in Benghazi, Libya on September 11, and the wave of protests that took place on that day in nearly a dozen other countries.

Romney is the wrong messenger, but he’s right about the issue. This is not about the campaign. This is about foreign policy.

The Obama Administration needs to come clean about what happened on that day and what has occurred since. And more needs to be said about our lame policies toward Iran, the growing militancy all across the Middle East (so much for the touted tilt toward the West of the Arab Spring) and the increased tension between Israel and her neighbors, the incomprehensible death and destruction in Syria, the eruption of more violence in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the volatile antics of Iran’s Ahmedinijad. Continue reading →

Obama Performance: Excuses Keep Coming

BY WILLIAM I. GREENER III

The first presidential debate Wednesday, Oct. 3 confounded the narrative of the mainstream media that Mitt Romney was a dead man walking and that President Obama was on his way to a significant victory. It rendered that view obsolete, at best.

Never mind that the most recent surveys already had indicated the race had tightened back to something pretty close to a dead heat. In the world where the media and the liberal chattering class reside, only a nitwit could pretend that Mitt Romney stood a chance to prevail. Continue reading →

The Big Debate: REE-Act

BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com

The pundiferous universe was acting as if the laws of political physics had been repealed as it tried to make sense of Barack Obama’s abysmal performance in his debate with Mitt Romney Wednesday night.

Why didn’t Obama respond? Why didn’t Obama mention the 47 percent? Or Bain Capital. Or that dog-on-the-roof-of-the-car thing?

Why, at a minimum, didn’t Obama challenge Romney on the facts? Continue reading →

Presidential Debates and Other Matters

BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted by Mullings.com

With most of official Washington on nitroglycerin tablets awaiting tonight’s D*E*B*A*T*E between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney in Denver, there are other things going on.

To start with, those pesky polls are beginning to tighten up again. Remember just about 10 minutes ago how the worldwide cadre of official political pundits, reporters, hangers-on, and operatives said this race was over and Obama could just take a knee for the next five week? Continue reading →

Independent Voters

BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

In the 2008 election, the independent voter was the king.

Remember how everybody was talking about independents being the true swing voter? Remember how Barack Obama killed John McCain with independent voters, and that is how he easily won the election?

In 2008, independent voters voted for 51 to 43 percent for the Democrats and President Obama.

By contrast, in the 2010 election, Republicans trounced the Democrats among independent voters, 55 percent to 39 percent. That was the big reason that the GOP had the biggest midterm election night since 1938. Continue reading →

Barack Obama’s Charmed Life

BY MICHAEL S. JOHNSON

President Barack Obama has had a charmed political life.

He has been a first class passenger on a supersonic rise in politics from community activist, state legislator and part-time U.S. Senator to President of the United States. And now he is running for a second term, wrapped in coats of Teflon slapped on so thick the negatives just don’t stick.

President Obama is rising in the polls and enjoying high personal popularity at a time when so much seems to be crumbling around him. Continue reading →

Romney, Obama, Comparing Candidates

BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from The Hill

You never really get a chance to size up two candidates for office until they stand shoulder to shoulder on the stage.

Mitt Romney is about an inch taller than Barack Obama. Usually, the taller candidate wins elections in American politics. They are a study in contrasts, Obama and Romney, but united in a singular purpose: They want to run the country.

Obama is aloof in person and warm onstage. Romney is warm in person and stiff onstage. Continue reading →

Ken Beatrice, Mitt Romney, Reason for Losing

BY WILLIAM F. GAVIN

As I read the harsh criticisms of Mitt Romney’s campaign (none more harsh than those made by Republicans), I recall the radio sports program hosted by Ken Beatrice back in the 70’s and 80’s.

It was a great show, informative, entertaining, and often provocative, although always civil. Beatrice was infinitely knowledgeable about sports, especially about football. As I recall, he was not only the host of the show, but had a football scouting organization, and he seemed to know everything about every football player in the country, from the Pop Warner league to the NFL. When a listener would call in, it went something like this: Continue reading →

Middle East Violence Spontaneous?

BY MICHAEL S. JOHNSON

“I’ve come here to seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world; one based upon mutal interest and mutal respect and one based upon the truth that America and Islam are not exclusive and need not be in competition.” — President Barak Obama in Cairo, Egypt, June 4, 2009

In the last two weeks, three years after that speech, militant Islamists have been engaging in violent, lethal protests against the United States in Libya, Egypt, Sudan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Turkey, Tunisia, Indonesia, and Guinea. In Afghanistan, the U.S. is also facing violence from within, from Afghan police we have trained and work alongside.

Ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, distanced her boss from the protests in a whirlwind weekend tour of Sunday talk shows. Continue reading →

Obama Is Not Working

BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

All hell is breaking out in the Middle East and in North Africa. Israel is preparing to go to war with Iran. China and Japan are at the brink of war. Unemployment is above 8 percent. The Federal Reserve is forced to buy forty billion dollars of mortgage-backed securities a month because the Chairman is very worried that the economy will backslide into a deep recession. The debt numbers are only getting worse as the government grapples with adding a new entitlement to an already over-subscribed entitlement system.

The Obama Administration is failing on both the international and domestic stage.

And Mitt Romney is on the defensive!

How the hell does that happen? Continue reading →

Gaming Poll Data: Biden a Bust

BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com

USA Today invested good money surveying people who are not going to vote in this year’s elections. Why? So they could find out how Barack Obama would do in November if everyone did vote.

According to this survey among the people who will not be voting, Obama beats Mitt Romney 43% to 14%. Yes, I know. There is a certain Alice-in-Wonderland aspect to all this, but let’s keep going.

The 800 person sample was not exactly an exact cross section of America.

For instance the sample contained 351 people who were registered to vote, and registered with one of the two major parties, but said there was no more than a 50/50 chance that they would participate. Of those 351 people, 242 (30%) said they were registered Democrats. 109 (14%) said they were Republicans. Continue reading →