2008 presidential election

Lessons Learned

After completing Parts One and Two about how Pennsylvania's two major metropolitan areas are shifting politically, there are some lessons we can learn from the past election.

Republicans have precious few areas where they can run up large margins.  One thing I consistently found looking at municipal level data across two divergent metropolitan areas is a lack of high population areas that Republicans dominate.  It is true that Republicans excel in some areas.  But they are either sparsely populated rural areas or exurban developments without significant population yet.  By contrast, Democrats can count on many highly populated places to give them large margins.  Democrats have traditionally been the party of the cities, so it is no surprise that they run up huge vote totals there.  Republicans were traditionally able to counter this by similarly large rural margins, and impressive suburban totals.  These days however, the ability for Republicans to win big votes in the suburbs isn't there.

The Pittsburgh and Philadelphia areas are stand-ins for two types of political regions and how their politics are shifting.  The Philadelphia area represents the swing of the college-educated and non-whites towards Democrats.  The same phenomenon has happened in Northern Virginia, Long Island, suburban Chicago, St. Louis County, and even Orange County.  If you wonder why Republicans are shut out nationally, it is because their candidates are receiving 45 percent of the vote in Nassau County, 40 percent in Fairfax County, and 42 percent in Dallas County.  McCain barely broke 50 percent in Orange County, the living embodiment of Reagan's America!

The Pittsburgh area represents the swing of non-college educated whites towards Republicans.  Western Pennsylvania is an ancillary part of the one section of the country that has moved towards Republicans, the Interior South.  Western Pennsylvania is quite obviously not part of the South, and most of the areas I described in Part Two wouldn't be classified as part of Appalachia (I left those counties out).  But it does share some cultural affinities with the South.  After all, who was Obama talking about when he made his "bitter clinger" speech?  He should have known that even prosperous suburbanites in suburban Pittsburgh go hunting.  This countercyclical direction reminds me of Western Pennsylvania's turn towards national Democrats such as Mondale and Dukakis, even as they were getting slaughtered nationwide.

What is really disquieting for the future is that, at least in 2008, the Republican Party is on the losing side of demographic change.  On paper, you would prefer to have the Philadelphia Metro area swinging your way rather than the Pittsburgh Metro area coming your way.  Part of this preference is based upon the Philadelphia area's greater diversity.  Compare the non-white population in each of these counties in 2000:

Philadelphia Metro:

• Delaware County: 21.2%
• Montgomery County: 15.6%
• Bucks County: 12.5%
• Chester County: 14.5%

Pittsburgh Metro:

• Allegheny County: 16.5%
• Westmoreland County: 3.9%
• Butler County: 2.8%
• Washington County: 5.3%
• Beaver County: 8.2%

Keep in mind that in the interceding nine years, these percentages have only increased in Metro Philadelphia, and have not declined in Metro Pittsburgh.  The era of monolithically white suburbs not only is over, but has been over for some time.  The Republican Party has not adapted to that reality.  It has only been able to keep pace in areas with little diversity.  By some measures, the Pittsburgh area has the lowest percentage of Hispanics of any major metropolitan area in the country.  My high school, right north of the city limits of Pittsburgh, was 95 percent white.  A similar school in suburban Philadelphia would certainly have more minorities.

In the Philadelphia area, the Republican Party does best with those who are middle-class and above.  This is to say that once you reach a certain income level, roughly $50,000 household income in 2000, income cannot predict how you will vote.  There is great fluctuation between different communities, with some municipalities at a certain income level casting 60 percent of their votes for McCain and others giving him 30 percent.  A better way to view the Republican Party in the Philadelphia area is to view it as the The Party of the Periphery, only strong in semi-rural areas outside most suburban development.

In the Pittsburgh area, the Republican Party is strongest with the upper-middle class.  Western Pennsylvania follows a more traditional pattern where the more money you have, generally the more likely you are to be Republican.  It is not quite as steep a divide as it would have been 50 years ago and rich areas like Fox Chapel are immune to this, but Pittsburgh's suburban bourgeoisie is instinctively Republican.  In Allegheny County, McCain earned over 60 percent of the vote in the following municipalities: Pine Township, Sewickley Heights, Richland Township, Marshall Township, Franklin Park, and Bradford Woods.  With the exception of wealthy Sewickley Heights, these areas are all certainly upper-middle class.  They are also all adjoining to each other, part of either the North Allegheny or Pine-Richland School Districts in the North Hills.  Compare them to communities of similar incomes in the Philadelphia area; for instance, the municipalities making up the Council Rock School District.  The five municipalities that comprise Council Rock gave McCain the following percentages: 57 percent, 53 percent, 46 percent, 52 percent, and 43 percent.  While a series of neighboring communities in the Pittsburgh area votes more or less the same, a similar set of communities in suburban Philadelphia show little coherence in their voting patterns.

There is not one simple strategy for Republicans to reconnect with Pennsylvania voters.  Some think that the party needs to moderate on social issues, because they are killing GOP prospects in moderate suburbs.  In the case of the Philadelphia suburbs, I think this is true.  But outside of Southeastern Pennsylvania, Republican stands on social issues gain more votes than they lose.  Pennsylvania is a very open state on cultural issues, with any non-radical/reactionary approach being electorally viable.  Similarly, some conservatives advocate a move towards a very populist Republican Party that has no truck for "elites".  It would be a mass movement of "the people", meaning non-educated professionals.  This also wouldn't help, as it would finish off the Republican Party in the Philadelphia area while perhaps reversing the Republican advantage among Pittsburgh suburbanites.  A Republican Party that draws its base more narrow will only create a larger Democratic Party.  A Republican Revival is not a simple matter of ditching issues or eschewing certain constituencies.

What I take out of the past election is that the traditional shape of Pennsylvania politics is gone.  For over a century, Chester County was part of any winning Republican coalition.  The idea that a Republican could lose Chester County and even be remotely competitive would've been fanciful.  Likewise, since the New Deal, Beaver County was part of a Democratic winning coalition.  Only perceived radicals like McGovern could prevent residents from punching their tickets for Democrats.  But traditonal allegiances have been shed.  It seems as though certain groups of people can never be part of the same party in a two-party system (The South and New England have never been together in any party system).  Now, the Republican Party in Pennsylvania has gone from being the party of The Philadelphia Story to the party of The Deerhunter.

The Pittsburgh Metro Area

Allegheny County: Population (2000): 1,281,666, McCain 2008 Percentage: 41.6%

Allegheny County is the most populous county in Western Pennsylvania, containing the City of Pittsburgh and the majority of its suburbs.  Pittsburgh has roughly one-fourth of the county's population and because of it, Allegheny County is almost always Democratic.  McCain did slightly worse than Bush in 2004, but only by about one percentage point.  Pittsburgh has been unthinkingly Democratic since the Great Depression and nothing in the future looks to change that.

The longest developed and most densely populated corridor of the county is the area to the east of the city, and is mostly a Democratic area.  Penn Hills, the second largest municipality in Southwestern Pennsylvania, is nearly 2 to 1 Democratic.  Monroeville is a middle-class suburb that Obama narrowly won.  The most Republican part of this area is Plum Township, a partly rural area that gave McCain 56 percent of the vote.

To the direct south is the Monongahela Valley, perhaps the embodiment of the Rust Belt.  There are river communities that have less than half the residents they had fifty years ago.  The Mon Valley went in two different directions in the past election.  The municipalities with large African-American populations were among the places that moved towards Obama.  Places like Duquesne, McKeesport, Clairton, and Braddock only increased their heavy Democratic tilt.  But other municipalities went the other way.  Some of the greatest Republican increases occured in the Mon Valley.  McCain ran nearly nine points better than Bush did in 2004 in Port Vue and eight points better in Glassport.  There has been a noticable change among some in the Mon Valley.

West of the Mon Valley is the South Hills, Pittsburgh's southern suburbs.  These suburbs are on balance Republican, but with definite variations.  The suburbs adjoining to Pittsburgh, like Mt. Lebanon and Baldwin, are narrowly Democratic.  Mt. Lebanon is a distressing case for Republicans, as it is one of the richest suburbs in the area.  To the south, middle-class Bethel Park gave McCain about 55 percent of the vote.  Upper St. Clair, which is very affluent, is still strongly Republican, but did experience a bit of a decline since last election.  One success story was in Jefferson Hills, a middle-class suburb that experienced a four percent bump for McCain.

Continuing clockwise, the western suburbs are the least developed part of the county, containing solid middle-class suburbs in the shadows of Pittsburgh International Airport.  Like most of Pittsburgh's suburbs, they are marginally Republican.  The story here is how static the vote was in the area.  The largest suburbs, like Moon, Findlay, and North Fayette Townships were within a point of 2004 voting patterns.  McCain did show slight improvement in Robinson Township and had a strong increase in Kennedy Township, a first-tier suburb.

Finally, there is the large swath of land north of the Allegheny and Ohio Rivers.  There is a northwest quadrant composed of river towns and the millionaire colony in Sewickley Heights.  Sewickley Heights gave McCain 66 percent of the vote, a great total until you realize that Bush received 71 percent four years ago.  The river towns are now swing territory, which is a Republican accomplishment in itself.  They showed no real trend as compared to 2004.  A similar northeast quadrant is based around the baronial estates of Fox Chapel and other smaller communities.  Fox Chapel, the wealthiest community in Pennsylvania west of the Main Line, was home to the biggest Republican decline over the past four years.  There was a near eight point drop-off in four years.  This is in line with the general Republican decline with the wealthy.

Most of the population north of the rivers is part of the North Hills.  The first-tier suburbs of Ross and Shaler are slightly Republican and showed no change over four years.  The farther out, upper-middle class suburbs are more Republican.  For example, Pine and Marshall Townships are over 60 percent Republican, but were about three percent less Republican than 2004.  Here, we do see some slippage among the affluent like everywhere else in the country, but not as dramatic as the Philadelphia area.

The Philadelphia Metro Area

For over a century, the Philadelphia area was one of the strongholds of the Republican Party.  In the time period between the Civil War and the New Deal, Southeastern Pennsylvania produced margins that made Pennsylvania an overwhelmingly Republican state.  After the New Deal, Philadelphia's Republican machine switched to a Democratic machine, but the collar counties surrounding Philadelphia remained Republican all the way through the Reagan era.

Over the last twenty years, suburban Philadelphia has shifted from being predominately Republican to increasingly Democratic.  While I have my explanations for what accounts for this change, for now I am focusing on the data, not policy recommendations.  What I aim to do is to perform a detailed electoral analysis of each of the four counties outside Philadelphia.

Delaware County: Population (2000): 550,864, Bush 1988 Percentage: 59.9%, McCain 2008 Percentage: 38.8%

Delaware County is one of the smallest counties in Pennsylvania, adjoining to South and West Philadelphia.  The core components of the county are a) small, first-tier boroughs near the City line, b) depressed Chester and surrounding municipalities, c) upper-middle class suburban townships, and d) wealthy Main Line communities like Radnor and Haverford Townships.

John McCain only won lighter populated townships in the western part of the county, and by small margins.  McCain's best municipality in the county only gave him 56.3 percent of the vote.  He defeated Barack Obama in only 9 of the county's 49 municipalities.  What is worse is McCain's performance in the Delaware County portion of the Main Line.  Radnor and Haverford are two of the four largest municipalities in the county and were the definition of the Republican Party for over one hundred years.  No more.  McCain could earn no more than 40 percent of the vote in these communities.  McCain also lost slightly less prosperous suburban townships like Ridley and Nether Providence.

Not all Republicans fared as bad as McCain did.  Tom Corbett, the Attorney General, ran about 10 points ahead of McCain in the Philadelphia area.  I am using Corbett's performance as a comparison to show what a minimum winning Republican coalition looks like in the collar counties.  Corbett was able to win the Main Line and the rest of the suburbs outside of Chester and the boroughs immediately outside Philadelphia.  Corbett was able to win 30 of the 49 municipalities, including every major township except for first-tier Upper Darby Township.

Montgomery County: Population (2000): 750,097, Bush 1988 Percentage: 60.2%, McCain 2008 Percentage: 39.2%

Montgomery County is the largest of the suburban Philadelphia counties.  Montgomery County features long established inner suburbs like Abington and Cheltenham Townships.  The south and west axis of the county is the Schuylkill River, which runs through county seat Norristown before forming the border between Montgomery County and Chester County.  A portion of the Main Line exists in Lower Merion and Narbeth.  The northeastern corner of the county is exurban, developing within the past two decades.

Republicans have been pushed to the periphery in recent years: only Upper Montgomery away from the Schuylkill River is reliably Republican anymore.  McCain won only 11 of 62 municipalities in Montgomery County.  He lost the 23 most populated municipalities in the county, failing to win a municipality with more than 13,000 people.  This was a disaster for the McCain campaign.

As with Delaware County, McCain had an abysmal performance on the Main Line.  Lower Merion Township is the richest and largest municipality in the county, and McCain won a measly 29 percent of the vote there.  Even Corbett could only get 39 percent of the vote, showing how far away they have drifted from the Republican Party.  This produces a vote deficit so large that almost no Republican can overcome it.  Even upper-middle class suburbia found in such entities as the North Penn School District are now lost to Republicans.  Corbett was able to roughly split this crucial grouping of communities; McCain averaged only about 40 percent.

Bucks County: Population (2000): 597,635, Bush 1988 Percentage: 60.0%, McCain 2008 Percentage: 45.2%

Bucks County was the least traditionally Republican of these counties, possessing a strong Democratic Party post-WWII due to the presence of a Levittown in Lower Bucks.  But now, Bucks County is the most Republican of the collar counties.  In the past three elections, the Republican presidential candidate earned between 45-46 percent of the vote.

Lower Bucks is predominately Democratic, though not overwhelmingly so.  Places like Bensalem, Bristol, and Falls Townships, which are essentially North Northeast Philadelphia, are the most Democratic areas.  Middle Bucks is centered on Doylestown and the surrounding suburban townships.  This is the swing area of the county and Obama's victory was earned here.  Corbett was able to earn about 58 percent in the area made up of the sprawling Central Bucks School District.  Upper Bucks is now the most reliably Republican area in Metro Philadelphia.  McCain was able to win nearly all of the townships there, but the margins aren't enough to offset gains in the middle of the county.

There is more hope for Republicans in Bucks County than in any other of the counties mentioned here.  The drop-off in the Bush years was insignificant, even as other collar counties turned away from Republican candidates in droves.  One advantage with Bucks is that there is nowhere in the county that is really poor.  The major town, Doylestown, is mostly middle-class, making it much more affluent than, say, Chester or Norristown.  Also, not much of the county is dead set against Republicans.  Only Lower Bucks (and only certain parts) provide Democrats with big margins.  First-tier suburbs here are more amenable than in other counties.  Middle Bucks requires a swing of a few percentage points and Upper Bucks, even in a miserable 2008, voted Republican, though the margins need to be improved.

Chester County: Population (2000): 433,501, Bush 1988 Percentage: 67.0%, McCain 2008 Percentage: 45.0%

Chester County is the most exurban part of the metro area.  There are a few mid-sized towns such as West Chester, Coatesville, Downingtown, and Phoenixville.  But most of the county is composed of residential suburbs.  This is among the fastest growing areas in Pennsylvania and is the richest county in the state.

It was once one of the most Republican counties in the state.  It gave Nixon 64, 57, and 68 percent of the vote in 1960, 1968, and 1972 respectively; 61 and 70 percent to Reagan; and 67 percent to the elder Bush.  Those large margins are gone, though it was the only one of these counties to vote for George W. Bush in 2000 and 2004.  2008 was a historic reversal, as McCain ran 7 points behind Bush's 2004 performance, becoming the first Republican presidential candidate to lose in Chester County since 1964.

In the case of Chester County, it appears there are more genuine temporary Republican defections than in other parts of the metro area, where more permanent ideological changes have occured.  If any part of suburban Philadelphia was affected by the housing market crash, it was a fast growing county like Chester.  Corbett was able to win the county by a near reverse of the presidential margin.  McCain won only 25 of the 73 municipalities in the county.  However, in another 24 municipalities McCain earned between 45 to 49.3 percent of the vote.  Surely all of these municipalities were Republican in the past, and should not be too difficult to have them return to the fold.

McCain only won western townships in school districts like Octorara and Twin Valley.  These are still mostly rural areas which are closer to Lancaster than Philadelphia.  The most populated suburban areas were won by Obama.  The Chester County component of the Main Line (Tredyffrin Twp., Easttown Twp., Willistown Twp., and Malvern) was won by Obama, though by slight margins.  Obama ran up strong margins in the towns and was able to win over most of the important townships outside of West Chester, Downingtown, and Phoenixville.

The poor showing of John McCain and the national Republican Party in the Philadelphia suburbs is the top reason why Pennsylvania has increasingly become a Democratic state.  In the next part however, we can see there is a different story to tell in the Pittsburgh area.

The Five Stages of Electoral Grief

Denial: Monday October 27th
There is no way this country is going to elect such an extreme leftist as Obama. Of course the country is fed up with Bush, but in the end they’ll see that McCain is no Bush. All the undecideds are starting to show movement and they clearly will go towards McCain. If they have not been lured in by Obama’s siren song of hope by now they should be safely in the republican column by the weekend. It’s going to be close but we should be able to pull it out in the end.

Anger: Friday October 31st
This is a Halloween nightmare. How can the polls still be breaking to Obama? Has the country paid no attention whatsoever to William Ayers? Rev. Wright? The “bitter” comments?  How can women even be considering him? Don’t they remember what he did to Hillary? I can’t believe this; he is going to tax us right into a second great depression! Why the hell didn’t McCain pick Romney!

Bargaining: Saturday November 1st
I can see the popular vote isn’t going to go our way, but that’s OK. We just need to take Pennsylvania and Ohio and we should be able to squeak through in the Electoral College. It won’t be popular and McCain will be somewhat handicapped in his ability to govern, but it will ensure conservative control of at least one branch of the government. Come on Joe the Plumber- bring me PA.

Depression: Monday November 3rd
That’s it. The final round of Mason-Dixon battleground state polls have come in and they don’t look good. Chris Mathews is already starting to gloat. Fox News can’t even put a positive spin on this one. It’s over.

Acceptance: Tuesday Night November 4th
The nation spoke with a clear voice, and that voice was a rejection of the Bush administration and general republican rule. Well, we deserved it. We went against our core principles of small government and strong national defense. This was a good cleansing fire. We will return from the ashes like the phoenix reborn in 2012. We will be stronger, more focused. Look what happened to the democrats when they were ousted from power. They found their own messianic figure in Obama. There is a conservative Obama out there and he will rise to prominence over the next four years. The Republican Party will once again be the party of big ideas, not big government. In the long run this has been good for conservatives; we just need to keep our eyes on the big picture. The national is still essentially split…

I need to go watch O’ Riley now.
 

Jack Murtha, along with many pundits and Obama supporters have suggested that, should Barack Obama lose the presidential election, it will be because racist whites—who would vote for a white candidate with Obama’s record and policy stances—won’t support a black man.  However, the truth of the matter that Obama is the nominee, in part, because he is black, and should he be the next president, his race would be an asset.

To be sure, there are some voters who will never vote for a black candidate—but the election will hardly hinge on these voters. Ryan Shafik effectively debunked the idea that Pennsylvania "racist white conservatives" will offer a big election swing he noted that Lynn Swann (a black Republican challenger) outperformed Rick Santorum (a white Republican incumbent) in the supposedly redneck, cracker parts of the state. 

Rather, the question is whether Obama can attract enough voters (including new voters) to support him because of his race, in spite of his record, rather than vice versa. During the primary election season, exits polls indicate that while splitting the white vote with Hillary Clinton, Obama captured 90% or more of the Black vote in key states like Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin and over 75% in South Carolina (when John Edwards, from neighboring NC, was still running), California, and Georgia. Political analysts would be hard pressed to point to the policy differences with Sen. Clinton that made Obama more appealing to black voters. 

His fundraising team includes 38 members of law firms that were paid $138 million last year to lobby the federal government, records show.

Those lawyers, including 10 former federal lobbyists, have pledged to raise at least $3.5 million for the Illinois senator's presidential race. Employees of their firms have given Obama's campaign $2.26 million. 

America, the land of the free as we used to know it,  is at risk of becoming just a memory should Obama win big and carry his liberal Democrat friends with him into office.

National Journal rated Obama the most liberal Senator in 2007. Obama in his state Senate years was careful, via cowardly 'present' votes, to hide his
liberalism, but he still has a stark record of extreme positions - so extreme on abortion, he voted against a bill to protect born-alive victims of botched abortions; so extreme
on gun control, he supported the DC gun ban that was ruled Unconstitutional (of course, Obama's favorite Justice Ginsburg voted against the 2nd amendment in that case).
Voting against death penalty for gangland murderers. Obama's record is liberal:
http://travismonitor.blogspot.com/2008/10/obamas-ratings-and-record.html
Proabortion extremist: Planned Parenthood - 100% Support, National Right To Life - 0% Support,  NARAL - 100% Support
Population Connection - 100% Support (These are the ‘Zero Growth’ freaks)
Anti-taxpayer tax-and-spend liberal: Americans for Tax Reform - 0% Support, Citizens Against Government Waste - 13% Support
Very Liberal: ACLU - 83% Support ,
Anti-gun-owner:  Gun Owners of America - 0% Support, NRA - “F” Rating
Pro-amnesty open-borders extremist: Federation for American Immigration Reform - 0% Support US Border Patrol - 8% Support
Supports Big Unions: Unions - 82% - 100% Support, NEA - 100% Support

The Democrats are the STATUS QUO party in Congress. Since liberal Democrat Nancy Pelosi became speaker after 2006 elections, the price of oil rose, the stock market fell,
unemployment rose, the economy sputtered. The Democrats' threats of tax increases and their attacks on businesses and markets and energy producers have had a toll on the economy.
The Democrats tried and failed to lose the war in Iraq, but they have managed instead to break promises to cut earmarks (they made it worse), and have spent over $1 trillion
and counting on bailouts this year alone. They want more - money from the taxpayer to new govt welfare cases, with a slice for their special interests on the side;
Like the 'alternative energy bill' that somehow included $50 billion in new taxes yet had a hidden $1 billion gift to trial lawyers.

The Democrats' earlier support for the creation of CRA (Community Reinvestment Act), sowed the seeds for subprime lending. Barack Obama, did legal work on behalf
of ACORN to sue banks to force them to engage in subprime lending. that subprime lending ballooned, and the leaders in it, like Countrywide, gave sponsors like Sen Chris
Dodd, sweetheart deals as thank yous; when Republicans warned about Fannie Mae supporting these risky schemes in 2005, the Democrats stopped them. The chicken's have
come home to roost on the flawed idea of giving homes and mortgages to people who cannot really afford them. Democrats instigated this financial crisis as much as anyone
else.

But these policy errors and bad actions are just the preview. Here is what the Obama/Democrat majority will deliver:

• Regulation overdrive that will kill jobs
• Special interest giveaways to groups like ACORN
• Government takeover of health-care, shifting as many a 50 million more people into a Government run plan (See below, Obama ultimately wants single payer aka 100% Socialized medicine!)
• pork barrel-overspending, like the $200 billion farm bill the Pelosi Congress passed, and the $1+ TRILLION in bailouts this year; Pelosi wants another bailout for $300 billion, on top of the $700 billion for wall street, $300 billion housing bailout and $100 billion govt check giveaway - when will it end?
• Pro-abortion extremism, including taxpayer funded abortions and 'Freedom of Choice' Act, which will override state desires to protect unborn life
• Amnesty for illegal aliens, and drivers licenses for illegal aliens, which Obama supports
• No drilling in ANWR or offshore, and an anti-energy policy that won't allow full exploration offshore; it means higher energy prices
• Trade policies that are the worst since Herbert Hoover (who created a depression out of similar policies)
• Higher taxes that will kill jobs; Obama in the past year proposed higher payroll taxes, higher income taxes, and raising the capital gains taxes from 15% to 25%. Now in the general election, Obama has flipflopped on it, but he will surely flipflop back in order to make taxpayers pay for his $800 billion in spending promises that he can't keep without higher taxes.
• Job-killing 'cap-and-trade' CO2 regulations
• Attacks on free speech, with "fairness doctrine" attacks on talk radio, and political correctness attacks on free speech( Missouri DAs investigating people who say bad things about Obama)
• Attacks on the ballot box,  by ending the secret ballot for union elections, and by opposing voter ID laws
•  Gay marriage:  Obama opposes Cali prop 8, in effect signalling that he supports gay marriage, andObama and the Democrat platform calls for the repeal of DOMA to take gay marriage nationwide;  they will enforce ENDA, gay rights in the workplace and a tort lawyers dream and HR dept nightmare, and the result will be attacks on religious organizations and groups that dare to take an opposing moral position; gays openly in the military
• Appointment of liberal activist Judges, who will be handpicked to overrule the people and legislate liberal social policy from the bench.
•  

Here's what the WSJournal says is in store with that Obama/Democrat majority, with more details on :

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122420205889842989.html?mod=rss_opinion_main

- Medicare for all.  ... A strongly Democratic Congress is now likely to lay the final flagstones on the path to government-run health insurance from cradle to grave.

Mr. Obama wants to build a public insurance program, modeled after Medicare and open to everyone of any income. According to the Lewin Group, the gold standard of health policy analysis, the Obama plan would shift between 32 million and 52 million from private coverage to the huge new entitlement. Like Medicare or the Canadian system, this would never be repealed.

The commitments would start slow, so as not to cause immediate alarm. But as U.S. health-care spending flowed into the default government options, taxes would have to rise or services would be rationed, or both. Single payer is the inevitable next step, as Mr. Obama has already said is his ultimate ideal.

- The business climate. "We have some harsh decisions to make," Speaker Nancy Pelosi warned recently, speaking about retribution for the financial panic. Look for a replay of the Pecora hearings of the 1930s, with Henry Waxman, John Conyers and Ed Markey sponsoring ritual hangings to further their agenda to control more of the private economy. The financial industry will get an overhaul in any case, but telecom, biotech and drug makers, among many others, can expect to be investigated and face new, more onerous rules. See the "Issues and Legislation" tab on Mr. Waxman's Web site for a not-so-brief target list.

The danger is that Democrats could cause the economic downturn to last longer than it otherwise will by enacting regulatory overkill like Sarbanes-Oxley. Something more punitive is likely as well, for instance a windfall profits tax on oil, and maybe other industries.

- Union supremacy. One program certain to be given right of way is "card check." Unions have been in decline for decades, now claiming only 7.4% of the private-sector work force, so Big Labor wants to trash the secret-ballot elections that have been in place since the 1930s. The "Employee Free Choice Act" would convert workplaces into union shops merely by gathering signatures from a majority of employees, which means organizers could strongarm those who opposed such a petition.

The bill also imposes a compulsory arbitration regime that results in an automatic two-year union "contract" after 130 days of failed negotiation. The point is to force businesses to recognize a union whether the workers support it or not. This would be the biggest pro-union shift in the balance of labor-management power since the Wagner Act of 1935.

- Taxes. Taxes will rise substantially, the only question being how high. Mr. Obama would raise the top income, dividend and capital-gains rates for "the rich," substantially increasing the cost of new investment in the U.S. More radically, he wants to lift or eliminate the cap on income subject to payroll taxes that fund Medicare and Social Security. This would convert what was meant to be a pension insurance program into an overt income redistribution program. It would also impose a probably unrepealable increase in marginal tax rates, and a permanent shift upward in the federal tax share of GDP.

- The green revolution. A tax-and-regulation scheme in the name of climate change is a top left-wing priority. Cap and trade would hand Congress trillions of dollars in new spending from the auction of carbon credits, which it would use to pick winners and losers in the energy business and across the economy. Huge chunks of GDP and millions of jobs would be at the mercy of Congress and a vast new global-warming bureaucracy. ...

- Free speech and voting rights. A liberal supermajority would move quickly to impose procedural advantages that could cement Democratic rule for years to come. One early effort would be national, election-day voter registration. This is a long-time goal of Acorn and others on the "community organizer" left and would make it far easier to stack the voter rolls. The District of Columbia would also get votes in Congress -- Democratic, naturally.

Felons may also get the right to vote nationwide, while the Fairness Doctrine is likely to be reimposed either by Congress or the Obama FCC. A major goal of the supermajority left would be to shut down talk radio and other voices of political opposition.

- Special-interest potpourri. Look for the watering down of No Child Left Behind testing standards, as a favor to the National Education Association. The tort bar's ship would also come in, including limits on arbitration to settle disputes and watering down the 1995 law limiting strike suits. New causes of legal action would be sprinkled throughout most legislation. ...

The unflappable demeanor of Senator Obama makes it seem like he is a 'nice guy'. But Obama is lying about himself. Obama is raised and trained on Alinsky leftism; Obama had a Communist mentor Frank Davis Marshall; Obama showe an extreme racial consciousness bordering on animosity in his memiors; Obama was the colleague of radical Bill Ayers (and the point is not that Ayers was a terrorist bomber in the 1960s, the point is that Ayers is as radical
today in his views as he was back then, toasting socialist despots Huge Chavez just last year); Obama for 20 years sat in a Black Liberation Theology church who pastor preaches a political worldview based on the radical Black Panthers. The real Barack Obama has been steeped in the most radical and extreme left ideology of any person to have a chance at the White House.

Any voter who doesn't know the real history of Obama has let the Obama campaign and media bamboozle him or her. Obama's campaign is a $500 million hollywood production, a fiction designed to bamboozle foolish uninformed voters, and the liberal media is complicit in
keeping people as uninformed as possible of the real Barack Obama. As part of that fiction, Obama's left-liberal positions and views have been airbrushed aside, and he's
running on focus-group-tested pablum.

Normally, political realities will restrain such an extremist, but the liberal Democrats think they have the kind of majority coming that will reshape things further. Only twice before has a President on the Democrat side won with overwhelming majorities. In the 1930s and 1960s. Both times we got the most signification shifts towards big Government in our history - The New Deal and the Great Society. Our problems will not be solved by more Government - we need LESS Government. Our only chance to stop this radical and dangerous shift is to vote against every Democrat and for Republicans in the coming election.

If you want to save America ... you have one duty -  spread the word and warn others: Maybe it is too late to stop the manifestly unqualified and extreme Barack Obama from becoming President.  But in that event, we don't have to give Obama a liberal Congress to go with it!  The change we need is to defeat the Democrats in Congress. Defeat Nancy Pelosi and her earmark, pork-barrel, corrupt trial-lawyer leftwing-special interest ACORN-supporting buddies in Congress.

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Books about Barack Obama are in vogue this month, topping the New York Times and Amazon.com best seller. The most talked about of these books has been Obama Nation. Unfortunately, it appears Obama Nation includes every case of hearsay, internet rumor, and urban legend about Obama—many of those unsubstantiated and some even disproven. Works like these give conservatives a bad name, giving the impression we would do (or say) anything to win an election (indeed, this is true of many Republicans). 

On the other hand, The Case against Barack Obama by David Freddoso, which I am currently reading, is well-researched, and heavily documented using reputable sources. Freddoso quickly dismissed some of the more absurd claims about Obama (e.g. "he won't salute the flag", "he was sworn in on the Koran"), which he properly notes were circulated by Obama's Democratic opponents, and it hurt rather than helped them. 

Freddoso does a fine job of chronicling how Obama won his first election to the state senate in 1996 by getting his opponents thrown off the ballot, his connections to the Chicago political machine, his votes against reform in the US Senate, his support of ethanol special interests, and his stances on abortion. 

While I didn't need any convincing that Obama wasn't my kind of candidate, I know enough people who do believe Obama (if not a messiah) is at least a different type of candidate, and a true reformer who will clean up Washington. The Case against Barack Obama refutes any idea that Obama will "change" America, and exposes him as a typical politician guilty of the same dirty tricks and old-school politics. I will be sharing this book – and the website with more updates – with my more naïve friends and colleagues.

In recent weeks, much has been made of the increasing perception that Barack Obama is an egomaniac.  From a spat of columns to the wonderful The One ad released by the McCain campaign, the right is getting out the message that Obama is incredibly full of himself.

By now, any good conservative is extensively familiar with the litany of delirious quotes either said by Obama about himself or that his supporters have spread.  The most famous example of his megalomania was his now famous quote, "We are the ones we have been waiting for".  This was a bit shocking for a guy who was previously viewed as at least more humble than Hillary Clinton.  But after Obama's sojourn to Germany last week, it is clear that the above quote was no fluke.  Between having all three network news anchors breathlessly cover his every step and the throngs of Germans on hand to listen to his profound platitudes, it is clear that at some point in the campaign Obama began believing his own hype.

A recent article in the Boston Globe picked up on the emerging Republican theme of Obama's arrogance.  Mentioned in the article is a poll conducted by CNN / Opinion Research Corp. that asked questions based on this particular trend.  When asked if either candidate is arrogant, 37 percent of respondents believed that Obama was arrogant while 34 percent believed that McCain was arrogant.  Another question asked if either candidate was "acting as if he had already won the election".  This one elicited a more lopsided response, as 44 percent said so of Obama compared to just 19 percent for McCain.  What I take from this is that most people think all politicians are arrogant (I agree full heartedly) and that they don't see either candidate as of yet as being more so than usual.  But I do think that a lot of people have thought to themselves "Wow, Obama is already acting like he's the President".  The goal for the right is to lead these voters from that thought to the belief that Obama has a raging ego.

On a positive note, the RNC has picked up on this trend.  They recently launched a mini-website entitled "Barack Obama Audacity Watch".  Since the site is new, it is a bit primitive, containing a bare bones design layout and minimal video (though it is priceless watching Jon Stewart exhorting his liberal audience to laugh at Obama).  But I am sure that with time it will become more substantive.  And no matter its design, it is an excellent repository of examples where Obama's head swelled too much.

The McCain campaign, the RNC, and the conservative movement need to keep this narrative going.  I am convinced that the reason that John Kerry is not the president right now is due to his statement at a town hall meeting in Wheeling, West Virginia where he delivered the immortal line “I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it.”  This quote, soon to be repeated in an effective Republican ad, established Kerry as a flip flopper.  Once this label began to be kicked around, a lot of undecided voters looked at Kerry and said "You know what, he does act like that commercial a lot".  Many voters felt like they couldn't trust him and he lost the election by a small margin.  What I believe is that this year's version of flip flopper can be arrogance.

Of course, there will be the predictable liberal detractors who will declare this criticism "out of bounds".  And since Obama is the first black candidate with a serious shot at the White House, any denunciation of Republican campaign tactics will inevitably contain a racial aspect.  Take for instance the ridiculous column written by John Ridley in the Huffington Post (link provided if you can bear it).  To him, the use of the word "arrogance" can only mean a evil, old white guy trying to keep down anyone who is not an old white guy.  To be sure, in the past upwardly mobile minorities were indeed called arrogant by old white guys.  But that is not the point.  Ridley totally misfires in his belief that non old white guys are immune from arrogance.  The truth is that arrogance is part of the human condition, which cuts across all ages, races, genders, and backgrounds.  My advice to the left is to keep going with this line of criticism.  Nothing will alienate moderate white voters quicker than repeatedly being called racist for any criticism of Obama.

Finally, I can think of two good outlines for an ad McCain can use to spread this message.  The first would be based off the classic fable "The Tortoise and the Hare".  It would be a retelling of this fable, only with Obama recast as the Hare and McCain filling in for the Tortoise.  McCain being the tortoise might reinforce his age and lack of excitement, but casting Obama as the Hare would strike a chord with many.  My other idea would be an ad based around football.  It would feature a runner who is breaking away from the line and is about to score a touchdown.  It would be interspersed with examples of Obama acting like he already won the election.  Then it would show the ball carrier stopping at the 10 yard line and spiking the ball.  The ball carrier would then break into a celebration dance while a defender recovers the fumble and takes it the other way.  I would definitely try to air this during ESPN's Monday Night Football telecasts, as it would resonate with the intended audience rather well.