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Lost in all the punditry about the "impressive" Obama victory is how 2008 compares to other elections where one party had served two consecutive terms.

In 2004 Bush won re-election with about 2.5% of the vote. In 2008 Obama won by somewhere around 7.0%, producing a "swing" of 9.5%.

For comparison:

In 1904 Republican Theodore Roosevelt won by 18.83%. In 1908 Republican Taft won again, but only by 8.53%--a swing of 10 points even though Roosevelt was popular.

(1912 was complicated by a three-way race that hurt the Republicans, so direct comparisons with 1908 are impossible.)

In 1916 Democrat Woodrow Wilson won by 3.12%. In 1920, after an unpopular war and an economic recession (sound familiar?) Republican Harding won by 26.17%. The swing amounted to 29.29%.

(Another third party ticket sabotaged a party in 1924, making comparisons with 1928 impossible.)

In 1936 Roosevelt won re-election by 24.26%. He ran for a thrid term in 1940 and won by 9.95%--a swing of 14.31%.

(1944 was a war year and Harry Truman essentially served that term.)

In 1948 Truman was elected by 4.48%. In 1952 Eisenhower beat Stevenson by 10.85%. The swing was 15.33%.

In 1956 Eisenhower was re-elected by 15.40%. In 1960 Kennedy beat Nixon by 0.16%. The swing was 15.56% even though Eisenhower was popular.

In 1964 Johnson crushed Goldwater by 22.58%. In 1968 Richard Nixon barely won by 0.70% but it amounted to a 23.28% swing.

In 1972 Nixon won by 23.15%. In 1976 Carter beat Frod by 2.06% and the swing was 25.21%.

In 1984 Reagan won re-election by 18.22%. In 1988 Bush won a Republican third term by 7.73% but that still amounted to a 10.49% swing in spite of Reagan's popularity.

In 1992 Bush lost to Clinton by 5.56%, marking another 13.29% swing.

In 1996 Clinton was re-elected by 8.51% and in 2000 Gore won the popular vote by 0.51%. The Swing was 8.0% even though most thought the country was going in the right direction.

Barack Obama's 9.5% swing is thus smaller than the 16.5% average swing. In fact, only in 2000 was the swing less than 9.5%--and then not by much.

If we only average the unpopular administrations (1920, 1952, 1968, 1976, 1992), we get a swing of 21.28% on average.

Once again, the question that should be asked is why we didn't lose by more, not why we lost.

In the last couple weeks we've seen no shortage of sentiment implying that the GOP is in something akin to death throes, provided that it doesn't come to resemble something other than the modern GOP.  This post has been building in me for a while, but the latest piece by Ron Brownstein, titled The Bush GOP's Fatal Contraction, kind of set me off.

Look, I'm not going to say that nothing bad happened to Republicans on November 4.  I don't need to repeat the litany of losses we suffered that day.  If you've forgotten, read Brownstein's piece.  I've seen those numbers myself.

But I don't think its fair to say that "Bush leaves behind a party that looks less like a coalition than a clubhouse."  It is a pretty d*mn big clubhouse.  In the past few years, under a Republican President's watch, we've had two wars go badly, one of which a very large chunk of the country believes was unnecessary and founded on lies, a recession begin, instances of severe corruption, sex scandals, graft, massive deficit spending, and a city go under water, the financial system collapse, and a Republican President argue for a $700 billion bailout.  All that was missing was plagues of locusts, and I'd have signed up for Hal Lindsay's newsletter.  The Democrats nominated not just a political candidate, but a pop culture phenomenon, who raised three quarters of a billion dollars over the course of his campaign, who ran (at least in Virginia) on a platform of ending a foreign adventure, tax cuts for 95% of the American people, a health care plan in the middle of the free market and government-run plan, and good old fashioned mom and apple pie.

The result?  The Democrat got about 53% of the vote, about the same as the first President Bush got against Dukakis, and if 5% higher than Kerry performed.  Lest you think that this can all be chalked up to the racism of those darned West Virginians, Obama only ran about eight-tenths of a point behind Congressional Democrats.

In other words, about 9 in 20 voters voted for Republicans, versus 11 in 20 Democrats.  In similar circumstances like 1952 and 1920, the verdict against the in-party has been much more dramatic.  This is a bad result, but it is not a "chuck the social/fiscal/defense conservatives over the edge" bad result. 

Brownstein continues that "[t]he consistent thread linking the 2006 and 2008 elections was the narrowing of the playing field for Republicans even as Democrats extended their reach into places once considered reliably "red."  Pardon my colloquialisms, but "well duh."  The Republican party consistently failed to perform and to produce good results over the past four years, and when it did (in Iraq), it was too late for the 2006 elections, and just in time for the business cycle to swing negative.  When the Republican party was performing well, from about 2001-2003, it looked like reliably blue areas of the country like the upper midwest and the Pacific Northwest were trending their direction, while nothing was going right for Democrats.  When you have power and you govern well, the country swings your way.  When you have power and you don't the country does the opposite.  Very quickly, it turns out.

The results of this election should not have surprised anyone, and if they did it should have only surprised them by how well the Republicans performed given the circumstances.   When you have a President with 25% approval ratings, you don't make advances into blue states, you struggle to hold on to purple states, and you lose some ground in red states.  That's not partisanship talking, that's common sense. 

And Brownstein overlooks the most important fact of all when he writes: 

But to win the GOP nomination, McCain embraced Bush's core economic and foreign policies and then selected, in Sarah Palin, a running mate who waged the culture war with a zeal that made Bush and Karl Rove look squeamish. Both decisions weakened McCain's position with centrist voters; then the financial collapse deepened the hole.

The very important fact that he overlooks is that even with Sarah Palin and McCain's supposed embrace of Bush's economic and foreign policies, McCain was leading Obama before the financial collapse took place (and this was well outside the time of the regular convention bounce).  Obama was reduced to making snarky comments about lipstick on pigs and old dead fish and running commercials about how McCain couldn't send e-mails.   He was getting ready to drop Keating 5 ads.  In other words, up until September 15, this was a very winnable race for Republicans.  It wasn't just at the Presidential level either -- between the RNC and the financial collapse, every generic congressional ballot poll had the Democrats' lead in single digits; we also had the first poll showing Republicans leading in the generic ballot since 2004.  We were headed toward a three or four Senate seat loss, rather than the seven or eight one we're looking at today.  Given the overall condition of the country even pre-AIG/Lehman Brothers, that is astounding.

If McCain had pulled it off, and Obama had received only 49% of the vote and Democrats had made minimal gains in Congress or worse, the conclusion would be either (1) that Americans are racist or (2) that Democrats just can't win the Presidency.  Sorry, but the difference between a permanent Republican majority and a pup tent Republican party isn't 4% of the vote.

Anyway, the point of all of this is to go back to something very, very important that Patrick wrote about a week ago, and which conservatives should ponder carefully before they start excommunicating any branch of the party or otherwise seriously altering their message.  He writes:

American elections are by and large not referendums on ideologies. They are contests of personality, optics, and performance in office. This goes the same for when they win or we win -- whether it's 1980, 1994, or 2006/2008. The Democrats did not have to change their ideology to win; they needed to change the charisma level of their standardbearer and needed an economic crisis and a prolonged unpopular war.

Because ideology doesn't matter in elections, and so much of politics depends on ephemeral characteristics like personality and who was in when the economy cycled south, the parties paradoxically have relatively wide latitude to govern ideologically without fear of public backlash once they get in. This is why cries of "socialism" were so ineffective during the campaign, and likewise why Bush got most of what he wanted in his early Presidency, even before 9/11. If Barack Obama is able to adopt far-left policies and make it look like he's making the trains run on time, the country will enter a new liberal era not by virtue of public opinion, but by acquiesence to what appears to be competent governance. In 1993-94, the Clintons tried to move the country to the left and looked incompetent in the process. It was the latter more than the former that opened a door for conservatives in 1994.

This is spot on.  Republicans didn't lose because they were too conservative, or not conservative enough, or didn't ban abortion, or wanted to ban gay marriage.  They lost because they were given the reigns of power, and they didn't perform.  If you look at the big party changes across recent American elections:  2006/08, 1994, 1982, 1980, 1974, 1966, 1958, they share a common thread:  The in-party screwed up.  It doesn't have much to do with what the out-party was doing.  If the Democrats screw up, all of those glowing internal exit poll numbers about Hispanics and youth and turnout and what-not will turn as depressing for them as they did in 2002 and 2004, when we were crowing about how Republicans had won 97 of the 100 fastest-growing counties.

That's the worst thing about this election for Republicans -- our fate is not really in our hands.  But in the meantime, we shouldn't act like the results from November 4 are a 1964/1984 "will we ever govern again" result, because they weren't.  What we're doing on this site is important, and the party does need to examine how it interacts with its online communities, how it presents its message, and how it attacks the incoming administration.  But that's ultimately for what happens when we are handed the reins of power.  At what point in time we're handed the reins depends as much on the results the incoming Administration is perceived as supplying as it does anything we do in the background, but in the meantime, we've got a pretty darned good bedrock to build upon.

DailyKos and DemocraticUndergroud types are starting to get a bit miffed at their messiah. So far, no one from their ranks has been given the nod to take a spot on Obama's staff or to fill his cabinet openings. The "progressives" are noticing, too, that far from bringing a "new" wave of politics to Washington, so far Obama is bringing back the age of Clinton. Instead of Washington becoming Obamopolis, it is a re-birthed Clintonville that is rising like a phoenix from the ashes.

It is certainly too early to claim that Barack Obama is going to be a centrist president like the far lefties fear. After all, he hasn't even taken office yet. But, one thing that can be said, when evaluating his pick of staffers and cabinet positions thus far, he sure ain't the candidate of "change" he claimed to be when he was a candidate. Obama has picked no one "new," no one "different," and no one "forward looking." So far, every choice he's made has either been an old Clintonite or another of those old politicos from the 90s that have been on the outside looking in since the year 2000.

The Progressive magazine, for one, is wondering just what the heck is going on?

When is Obama going to appoint someone who reflects the progressive base that brought him to the White House?

Not that I want him to do so, because I most certainly do not, but it is a good question. Was the candidate of hope-n-change just stringing the wild-eyed left along just so he could win?

The Progressive asks why Hillary Clinton is being considered for Secretary of State, as well. The question shows how far Hillary fell from the left's grace as she angled for the middle during the four years running up to the 2008 election. They really do despise her. Not even their love for Bill Clinton is holding up well, apparently.

The funniest suggestion the Progressive made was in saying that the famous UFO spotter from Ohio, Dennis Kucinich, would have made the better choice for Secretary of State. That suggestion in and of itself really proves how one just cannot take the folks at The Progressive magazine seriously.

Still, it is amusing to see Obama wholly snub the extreme left as he gears up to start his administration.

And it isn't just The Progressive magazine starting to get suspicious.

On DailyKos, the Kossacks are beginning to wonder if they've been hornswaggled? Of the latest Obama picks, a recent KosKid carped:

So that's 2 DC lifers, 1 billionaire & 1 more Clinton vet. 50% of hires are Clintonites. Lobbyists abound...What's changing?

Another good question.

A poster on the DemocraticUnderground was just as wary of Obama's choices.

Obama's cabinet is at this point filled with DLC people, very centrist, anti populist, and big business among other things. We heard "change and clean up Washington" before from the last President and we got a redux on Nixon's and Reagan's people. Now we are getting a redux of the 90's Clinton people, that doesn't spell change to me...

Even the Associated Press is starting to wonder...

President-elect Barack Obama promised the voters change but has started his Cabinet selection process by naming several Washington insiders to top posts.

The L.A. Times also chimes in with a piece headlined "Antiwar groups fear Barack Obama may create hawkish Cabinet." So, amusingly enough, the far left's eyebrows are being raised everywhere.

I won't pretend to say what Obama's picks "mean" at this point. But, for now let me revel in the fact that many on the far left are beginning to feel like they've been sold a bill of goods. That they've emptied their pocketbooks on snake oil. That they've been took!

To quote Captain Kirk: "I'm LAUGHING at the 'superior intellect.'"

Be sure and Visit my Home blog Publius' Forum. It's what's happening NOW!

We have gone through the first round of internal recriminations with the recent excoriation of Governor Palin by those “unnamed” McCain staffers. But, as we all know, Gov. Palin was the subject of heated debate even among Republicans long before the election. One common complaint was that she was the "worst" VP candidate pick "ever." But, was she really?

A look at recent history can only serve to deflate that ridiculous claim. There have been far worse picks than Gov. Palin and only the extremely emotional state of mind that this past election ginned up could obscure the historical record. Two of those picks in particular make Palin's choice rather inspired by comparison.

In the first case George Wallace's pick of general Curtis LeMay for his vice presidential pick in 1968 was a disaster and in the second George McGovern's pick of Thomas Eagleton for his in 1972 was even worse -- both were far more disastrous than Palin's. There was some speculation in the media that Palin would suffer Eagleton's fate, but the situations of the two just don't bear any resemblance at all.

In '68, Curtis LeMay seemed a natural choice to become a politician after he left the Air Force. LeMay had a distinguished WWII war record, had served in many high profile positions during the Cold War and later made news as a dissenter from the policies of Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, LeMay advocated for dropping bombs on the Soviet missile sites in Cuba but McNamara and President Kennedy shot down his request. LeMay also thought that, even after the crisis passed, the US should invade and hold Cuba anyway. As the actions in Vietnam grew LeMy advocated immediate carpet-bombing of North Vietnamese positions as well as Chinese and Soviet supply ships and was similarly rebuffed by the Johnson administration with Johnson afraid such bombing might start WWIII. From all these ideas of bombing, LeMay garnered the nickname "bombs away LeMay."

In 1968, LeMay was chosen for the Wallace ticket of the American Independent Party for his anti-communist stance and his military experience. At first he demurred, but LeMay eventually accepted because he had become afraid that Nixon was ready to back down to the Soviets and give away the strategic edge the US had in air and missile power.

Then came the fatal gaff; LeMay's "Stone Age" comments. In his autobiography LeMay was quoted as saying that he would have told the North Vietnamese that the USA could "bomb them back into the Stone Age" if they did not do as told. The media, dogging him everywhere he went, seized upon this comment. The comment was used to highlight his extremism making him look like a warmonger.

Ultimately, LeMay’s choice was hardly one that would deflect the perception that the ticket was a team of extremists. LeMay's "bombs away" reputation coupled with Wallace's reputation for racism gave the appearance of a reactionary ticket instead of one of statesmanship. As a result, LeMay was never anything more than a drag and distraction on Wallace's campaign.

McGovern's mess by picking Thomas Eagleton was even worse because it was so badly handled by McGovern himself. Thomas Eagleton was a Senator from Missouri and the last of half a dozen picks that McGovern made for the second spot on the 1972 Democratic ticket, the others having turned the offer down flat. The McGovern team did an inadequate vetting job on Eagleton and missed the fact that Eagleton had been self-admitted to a psychiatric hospital for treatment. Once that came out, the press had a field day.

It also later came out that Eagleton tried to hide his medical record from McGovern and never told the Democratic candidate that he was on the powerful anti-psychotic drug Thorazine.

At first, McGovern exclaimed that he'd back Eagleton "1000 percent," but behind the scenes Eagleton was threatening McGoven that if he dropped him from the ticket Eagleton would cause a nasty fight to stay as the VP pick. Eventually, Eagleton left the ticket on his own and McGovern ended up finally settling on Kennedy in-law Sargent Shriver as the Democratic Party vice presidential choice. But the damage to McGovern had been done and his dithering gave the GOP the perfect platform to question McGovern's judgment.

Now, comparing these disastrous picks with Sarah Palin's shows that Palin's pick is in no way as bad.

It is true that the candidacy of Palin highlighted the split in the Republican Party that has been there since Reagan forged a new GOP majority to support his bid for the White House in 1980. Palin does not appeal to what used to be called the country club Republicans but she appeals very much to the family values voters that Reagan brought into the Party. In fact, she doesn't just appeal to them, she excites them. It is clear that Governor Palin excited many hundreds of thousands of Republicans that initially had little interest in the election.

Unlike Palin, neither LeMay nor Eagleton turned out the hundreds of thousands of voters at rallies sporting signs celebrating their appearances on the campaign trail. Palin has no such problematic mental history as Eagleton and neither did she make the sort of defining verbal gaff that LeMay made with his "Stone Age" comment, despite the media's attempt to create one.

Palin was a minor star on the campaign trail, as she became a spokesman for many hundreds of thousands of American voters. Also unlike either LeMay or Eagleton, if the party does not take advantage of Palin's appeal post election it risks losing a large, energetic mass of voters that it will need to rely on in the coming years. Neither LeMay nor Eagleton ever had such a constituency.

In the end, the attacks on Governor Palin are sure to cleave the GOP in half if they continue. Palin should be given a leading role in the GOP in the future so that this large constituency can be served and kept under the GOP wing. If Mark Sanford is smart, he’ll find the best way to push Palin out in front as he gears up to lead the Republican Governor’s association into the Obama era.

Be sure and Visit my Home blog Publius' Forum. It's what's happening NOW!

The Wall Street Journal reports that in a meeting with business leaders, Obama's chief of staff Rahm Emmanuel refused to reassert the Obama administration's determination to pursue "card check."

He was asked his views on the push by labor unions to allow workplaces to be organized with the signing of cards attesting to union support rather than a secret ballot. Mr. Emanuel declined to say whether the White House would support the legislation, but he said the unions are addressing the concerns of a middle class that has seen U.S. median income slide over the past eight years, while health care, energy and education costs have soared.

This is not to say that Obama is necessarily distancing himself from "card check" or from the Employee Free Choice Act, but Emmanuel's reticence to bring up the issue and reassert the administration's dedication to the plan is a sign that, if we are lucky, they realize that it isn't a good move... at least for now.

At the least we've got a breather from this jobs killing, union propping law. Let's hope it is a sign of dropping it but now is not the time to assume.

Be sure and Visit my Home blog Publius' Forum. It's what's happening NOW!

Crossposted at Right Minds

Does anyone know precisely what caused the economic crisis? That question can’t be answered, at least right now—the matter is far too complex and multifaceted for anyone to fully understand its causes. The sheer number of players involved (banks, mortgage lenders, Fannie and Freddie, and Congress, just to name a few) and the inherent difficulties of economics make comprehending all the causes and reasons for the worldwide credit crunch immensely difficult for even for experts, and virtually impossible for laypeople.

Unless you happen to be a liberal. Then, all the reasons for the crisis can be summed up in one word—deregulation. If a liberal wants to expand on the root causes of the recession, he might mention George Bush, or maybe Wall Street greed. On the Left, there is no doubt that it was laissez-faire economics and deregulation that brought down Wall Street. Barack Obama said that the recession was a “final verdict” on the policies of the Bush Administration.

Deregulation (or perhaps more accurately, poor regulation) undoubtedly played a part in Wall Street’s collapse. But to saddle deregulation with all the blame in to grossly oversimplify the reasons for the current economic situation. 

In reality, government is as much responsible as big business for the mess we’re in. At the root of the problem are former mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac—and both were originally created by the federal government. Eventually, both became hybrid corporations—owned by both private individuals and the federal government. So the federal government had a great deal of control over Fannie and Freddie.

Congressmen like homeowners—homeowners tend to be content, and contented voters mean reelection. Fannie and Freddie were in the business of buying mortgages, which meant that the number of mortgages sold was closely connected to the number they would buy. So Congress pressured Fannie and Freddie to accept risky subprime mortgages, thus allowing more Americans to realize the American Dream of owning a house. And Fannie and Freddie did as Congress wanted—both unveiled programs to ensure that low-income buyers could get mortgages, and spent billions on risky subprime mortgages.

Fannie and Freddie both bought and sold mortgages. They didn’t actually sell mortgages to future homeowners, but rather bought them from mortgage lenders. They then kept some, and sold the rest to third-party investors. Fannie and Freddie were seen as safe, reliable investments.

So on one end, Fannie and Freddie determined (in large part) the habits of mortgage companies (and so the housing market), on the other, they sold billions of dollars worth of mortgages, including many to banks and large corporations. Given their size and reach, these institutions were cornerstones of our economy.

Congress thought so too—when billions in subprime loans started worrying banks and other financial institutions, Congress stepped in to help—by pressuring Fannie Mae to buy tens of billions worth of bad debts. That kind of risk (and given the subprime market, this was a disastrous investment) is a horrible way to run a company, and contributed to Fannie Mae’s collapse. But it was a result of government intervention, not regulation run amuck.

 But deregulation was to blame for the fact that no one saw the collapse coming, right? Not so much. Early in 2008, Henry Paulson noticed Fannie’s and Freddie’s instability, so he sent Robert K. Steel to deal with the problem. Steel failed miserably—he was unable to get either company to raise any meaningful amount of money to cover bad loans. Had the federal government (or the leadership of Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac, for that matter) done something then, perhaps much of the resulting crisis might have been forestalled.

Finally, in July, Paulson asked Congress for authority to take over Fannie and Freddie should the situation require it. He thought the prospect of a takeover alone should stabilize the situation—he compared the takeover authority to a bazooka—“ff you’ve got a bazooka and people know you’ve got it, you may not have to take it out”—but the idea of a takeover did nothing to stabilize the situation.

After Fannie’s and Freddie’s stock became worthless, banks realized that any mortgages they had bought to shore up their portfolios were now virtually worthless. Fannie Mae’s and Freddie Mac’s collapse sent ripples throughout the economy.

Would better regulation have, possibly, prevented the economic meltdown? Maybe.
But had the federal government not mishandled Fannie and Freddie so terribly, perhaps the economy could have avoided recession, or at least the horribly lengthy and expensive sort we’re in. (Either way, a lot of blame still attaches itself to the Bush Administration—it both pushed deregulation and pressured Fannie and Freddie to accept risky mortgages). Deregulation was certainly not solely, and probably not even primarily, responsible for the economy’s failure.
 

 Crossposted at http://rockefellerconservative.blogspot.com/

What was the Conservative nightmare on the morning after Election ’08? It was that a green and radically leftist President Obama would be guided by the ultra left wing of the Democratic Party, lead by the likes of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. That they would do everything from make us a weak world power cow-towing to foreign bodies like the UN, to overtaxing us into a depression to pay for pie-in-the-sky social programs. Well, we are only a couple weeks into President-elect Obama’s transition, but this conservative has reason for some cautious optimism.

First there is the overall make-up of Obama’s cabinet to be. First take a look at the following excerpt from Mathew Rothschild’s editorial in The Progressive:

When is Obama going to appoint someone who reflects the progressive base that brought him to the White House?
He won the crucial Iowa caucuses on the strength of his anti-Iraq War stance, and many progressive peace and justice activists worked hard for him against John McCain.
So why in the world is he choosing Hillary Clinton to be Secretary of State when she was one of the loudest hawks on Iraq and threatened to obliterate 75 million Iranians?
And it’s not just Hillary.… heading Obama’s transition team on intelligence matters are two former deputies to George Tenet, of all people.

When people on the left are this upset, conservatives should be breathing a sign of relief. It seems as though Obama is surrounding himself with people whose stance on foreign affairs is much more hawkish than his own was on the campaign trail. While Obama repeatedly beat up first Mrs. Clinton, and later, Senator McCain on their approval of the Iraq war, he picked war supporter Joe Biden for VP and now looks to be lining his staff with other centrists on international affairs.

Millions of new voters and extreme leftist voted for Obama being lured to the polls by the siren song of change- real change we can believe in. Laura Meckler and Jonathan Weisman write in The Wall Street Journal:

President-elect Barack Obama campaigned on the slogan of "change." But his early appointees, including two top choices that emerged Wednesday, show that experience is one of his main criteria.
His choice for secretary of Health and Human Services, officials said, is former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, who has a long Washington résumé. Jacob Lew, one of President Bill Clinton's budget directors, is favored to direct the National Economic Council.
Sen. Hillary Clinton is one of several potential nominees being bandied about for the Obama administration cabinet.
The latest transition news highlighted the three personnel pools supplying Mr. Obama with his picks. Most prominent are Clinton administration veterans -- including, possibly, former first lady Hillary Clinton for secretary of state. Some high-profile appointments are also long-serving members and staff from Capitol Hill.

It seems Obama learned from President Clinton’s early mistakes in staffing a White House with neophytes. Ironically he has decided to line his staff with former Clintonites who presumable have already learned the hard way what will work in Washington and what won’t.

Perhaps most comforting to conservatives is the choice of Rahm Emanuel and Tom Daschle. While at first blush these individuals seem to be incredibly partisan Democrats, and they are. But what is important is that they are also tough enough to stand up to Pelosi and Reid. They have done so in the past and certainly will again. The Republican fear of a radically leftist agenda would appear to be off the table at least for the start of the Obama administration.

Not too worry, I am sure there will be plenty to complain about and fight against in the coming months, but for right now, I am cautiously optimistic.

Found graphic here.  Another graphic here.

Why should we tax workers averaging around $30/hr. in wages and benefits in order to bailout a company who can't keep labor costs under $70/hr.?  The unions have made the Big 3 inflexible and over-burdened with unfunded pension and health insurance costs. The businesses were hurting so bad, the credit crunch just sped up the inevitable day of reckoning.

I write more about this subject on my blog.

Before I get started, I wanted to respond to a commenter who said I would force readers to go through all 27 chapters of Huckabee's book.

That's impossible as:

1) The book has 12 chapters (which actually seems to be a Standard for Huckabee book as "From Hope to Higher Ground" and his weight loss book also had 12 chapters.)

2) Readers can read an entry or not. Their choice. But, if we're going to talk about the book, let's talk about it, not just rumor and innuendo about it.

Chapter 1 of Do the Right Thing is called, "Dude, Where's My Candidate?" and focuses on a base that wasn't enthused with either of Rudy McRomney (my word, not Huck's) Trilemna. Huckabee lays out a set of signature issues.

Huckabee makes a succinct case for staying a socially conservative course in the GOP, writing, " Having lost our reptation as a competent managers and fiscal conservatives, we can't afford to lose our credibility as social conservatives. If we do, they will point to us and say, 'The Emperor has no clothes," and deservedly so."

Huckabee's book gets a bit awkward grammatically. As he pretty much put the book to bed in June, the question of who would win the Presidency was an open issue and his books reflects it with warnings of why 2008 is a bad year to elect a Democrat. By the time that issue was decided, it would have already happened or not.

Huckabee lists five reasons a Democratic would be bad: Health Care, Taxes, Protectionism (instead of education reform), and that "Democrats still don't understand how viscerally, obsessively, and fanatically, the Islamo-fascists hate us, and how determined they are to kill us and destroy our Judeo-Christian culture and civilization."

Huckabee then lays out the reasons that prompted his campaign. He laid out a sensible foreign policy, his belief in energy independence, his pro-second Amendment stance, support for the sanctity of life, and support for traditional marriage as issues that  prompted his run.

This section on core issues strengthens my belief that if Palin runs, she will probably not have Mike Huckabee as an opponent. Excepting the Fair Tax, on the core issues that made Huckabee's core platform, he and Palin are in agreement.

Huckabee also uses this section to explain the difference between him and the-then big three. Contrary to news reports, Huckabee talks about all of the three. As I stated in my previous piece, I think this is book is geared towards people who may not have followed the nominating process with rapt attention.

He's generally quite short with comments on McCain, "I consistently supported President Bush's tax cuts, John McCain voted against them in the Senate and then changed his mind to support them as he prepared to run for President."

Giuliani elicited some longer responses, "Rudy Giuliani said that his gun-control policies didn't affect hunting.  I'm an avid hunter, but I know and you know the Second Amendment isn't about hunting: it's about tyranny. The Founding Fathers weren't worried about being able to bag a duck or a deer; they were worried about us being able to keep our fundamental freedoms..." and went on another two paragraphs.

Romney was hit hardest in this section on flip flops, the whole flap about whether Romney owned a firearm. Asks Huckabee, " Any of you there not sure if you own a gun? I didn't think so." Huckabee concludes Romney offered a flip flop too many.

"He said he never really thought about when life begins until he was in his late fifties. I would be more inclined to accept his change as genuine rather than politically expedient if he hadn't changed on so many issues at once--abortion, homosexual rights, gun control, the Bush Tax Cuts, campaign finance reform, and his appreciation for President Reagan's legacy, which he ran from in 1994 and clung to in 2007. He spent more time on the road to Damascus than a Syrian camel driver."  

Given the overall tone of the chapter, introducing the central conflict with Romney and explaining the key issue conservatives had with Romney really wasn't out of sorts.

As a post-script, a lot of folks seem to feel that Huckabee shouldn't be releasing this book now because it's time for the party to close and ranks and unify.

May I ask behind whom and for what? We have no effective national leadership and no agenda. Huckabee timed the release of his book so that it was after the Presidential elections and well before the next Congressional Session. I'd argue that this is the time to go ahead and have our fights. Other than helping out in Georgia, there's really not much to do.

For crying out loud, there seem to be some Republicans who believe the best time to discuss differences and issues is-well, never. Yes, the perfect model for political parties: dysfunctional famillies.

Jose Antonio Vargas breaks down some monumental numbers.

13 million e-mail addresses. 

$500 million raised online.

6.5 million donations from 3 million donors with an average donation of $80.

3.2 million Facebook friends (to John McCain's 600,000).

2 million My.BarackObama.com profiles created.

One million participants in Obama's cell phone text messaging program -- this is less than the 6-8 million rumored but still massive.

400,000 volunteer blog posts written. 200,000 volunteer events created. 35,000 local and affinity groups created by supporters.

Three million volunteer phone calls made in the last four days of the election through the website without supporters having to step into a campaign headquarters.

The campaign had a full time chief technology officer in addition to a new media director. They had a full time analytics team whose job was to do nothing else but monitor site data.