An honest perspective of Obama

This piece was written by Anne Wortham and I must say that she encapsulates how I feel about Obama's rise to the Presidency. Obama supporters and the media (CNN simply fawns over Obama--incredible!) seem almost irrational in their deference to Barack Obama:

Please know: I am black; I grew up in the segregated South. I did not vote for Barack Obama; I wrote in Ron Paul's name as my choice for president. Most importantly, I am not race conscious. I do not require a black president to know that I am a person of worth, and that life is worth living. I do not require a black president to love the ideal of America.

I cannot join you in your celebration. I feel no elation. There is no smile on my face. I am not jumping with joy. There are no tears of triumph in my eyes. For such emotions and behavior to come from me, I would have to deny all that I know about the requirements of human flourishing and survival - all that I know about the history of the United States of America, all that I know about American race relations, and all that I know about Barack Obama as a politician. I would have to deny the nature of the "change" that Obama asserts has come to America. Most importantly, I would have to abnegate my certain understanding that you have chosen to sprint down the road to serfdom that we have been on for over a century. I would have to pretend that individual liberty has no value for the success of a human life. I would have to evade your rejection of the slender reed of capitalism on which your success and mine depend. I would have to think it somehow rational that 94 percent of the 12 million blacks in this country voted for a man because he looks like them (that blacks are permitted to play the race card), and that they were joined by self-declared "progressive" whites who voted for him because he doesn't look like them. I would have to be wipe my mind clean of all that I know about the kind of people who have advised and taught Barack Obama and will fill posts in his administration - political intellectuals like my former colleagues at the Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government.

I would have to believe that "fairness" is the equivalent of justice. I would have to believe that man who asks me to "go forward in a new spirit of service, in a new service of sacrifice" is speaking in my interest. I would have to accept the premise of a man that economic prosperity comes from the "bottom up," and who arrogantly believes that he can will it into existence by the use of government force. I would have to admire a man who thinks the standard of living of the masses can be improved by destroying the most productive and the generators of wealth.

Read the rest here.

HT: Don Boudreaux

Camilie Paglia on Obama's election win

No one knows whether Obama will move to the center or veer hard left. Perhaps even he doesn't know. But I have great optimism about his political instincts and deftness. He wants to be president of all the people -- if that is possible in so divided a nation. His natural impulse seems to be toward reconciliation and concord. The big question will be how patient the Democratic left wing is in demanding drastic changes in social policy, particularly dicey with a teetering economy.

In the closing weeks of the election, however, I became increasingly disturbed by the mainstream media's avoidance of forthright dealing with several controversies that had been dogging Obama -- even as every flimsy rumor about Sarah Palin was being trumpeted as if it were engraved in stone on Mount Sinai. For example, I had thought for many months that the flap over Obama's birth certificate was a tempest in a teapot. But simple questions about the certificate were never resolved to my satisfaction. Thanks to their own blathering, fanatical overkill, of course, the right-wing challenges to the birth certificate never gained traction.

...And why has Obama not made his university records or thesis work widely available? The passivity of the press toward Bush administration propaganda about weapons of mass destruction led the nation into the costly blunder of the Iraq war. We don't need another presidency that finds it all too easy to rely on evasion or stonewalling. I deeply admire Obama, but as a voter I don't like feeling gamed or played.

Read the full piece here.

Change you can believe in?

The Economist's Cookbook on the Obama/Biden win.

Around the Horn...

Posts and comments of worth regarding yesterday's election:

Jeff Perren at Shaving Leviathan notes that Obama is a hard left liberal.

The Real World on the beauty of the American election.

Bobo at The Bobo Files weighs in on the election and he is not a happy clown.

From Copious Dissent: Ten Reasons to be happy about this election. Excellent!

And finally a pithy comment from Michael Tanner at the Cato Institute:

Yesterday's massive Democratic landslide cannot be seen as anything but a repudiation of George Bush and the current Republican congressional leadership. But to suggest that in electing Barack Obama and a Democratic congressional majority, voters were choosing big-government over small-government would imply that either the Bush administration, the current Republican congressional leadership, or, for that matter, John McCain actually supported smaller government. In reality, by almost every measure, government grew bigger, more expensive, and more intrusive under President Bush and the Republican Congress.

Exit polls show that Republican losses were heaviest among upscale suburban voters who tend to be economically conservative but socially moderate. These formerly reliable Republican voters did not suddenly decide that they wanted a bigger, more expensive, and more intrusive government. But, faced with the big-government status quo or big-government "change," they opted for change.

Republicans now have two more years in the wilderness to decide whether or not they actually stand for limited government and individual liberty. One wonders, whether they will hear the message.

When the election turned

Gallup Poll Daily tracking through much of 2008 showed a tight race between Barack Obama and John McCain. Obama moved ahead at the height of the economic crisis and never trailed McCain after that, expanding his lead in the final month of the campaign.

Barack H. Obama---44th President of the U.S.A.

Well, it's finally over. Barack H. Obama is now the President-elect and on January 20. 2009, he will be sworn in as the 44th President of the United States. Mr. Obama ran an effective campaign and is a very good and clever orator; John McCain simply could not counter Obama's carefully worded political spin, rhetoric, or the popular tide against Republican rule. Now comes the honeymoon period and I expect it to be quite a celebration. It is a historic moment in American History.

After the back slapping and accolades end, it will be back to business and it will be interesting to see how Obama attempts to deliver all his grandiose campaign promises. I doubt that he will and I hope that I am wrong but I have a strong feeling that the government will continue to grow by leaps and bounds at an even faster clip than under George W. Bush. All in all, I do hope that Obama turns out to be a good President for the sake of the country; I hope that he surprises me and doesn't make a hard(er) turn to the left (Jeff Perren comments that he's already there). Otherwise, all the celebrating will be forgotten rather quickly to harder times.

Dixville Notch has spoken: It's Obama in a landslide

The first results are in. The little hamlet of Dixville Notch has decided:

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama emerged victorious in the first election returns of the 2008 presidential race, winning 15 of 21 votes cast in Dixville Notch, New Hampshire. People in the isolated village in New Hampshire's northeast corner voted just after midnight Tuesday.

It was the first time since 1968 that the village leaned Democratic in an election.

Obama's rival, Republican John McCain, won 6 votes.

A full 100 percent of registered voters in the village cast ballots. And the votes didn't take long to tally.

The town, home to around 75 residents, has opened its polls shortly after midnight each election day since 1960, drawing national media attention for being the first place in the country to make its presidential preferences known.

Waiting for Godot

We have been hearing a lot about how the youth vote will make a difference in this coming election. The graph above (from pollster.com and politicalarithmetik.blogspot.com) trumps the pundits who believe that the youngsters are a voting force to be reckoned with. It's possible but not likely. As usual it's always the older folks that turn out in large numbers. Now how they will vote, Obama or McCain, remains to be seen.

Some people should NOT vote

John Stossel on how some voters are simply melon heads.

Some of the best posts I’ve read on the “Wall Street Bailout.”

From The Bobo Files:

There is an overwhelmingly clear majority in both the House and the Senate in Congress. If the Dems really wanted to pass a bill, they could do it on their own. I don’t buy their bullshit that they want to pass a partisan bill. They could care less about anything else, so why this? Could it be the fact that they are trying to siphon off 20% from the $700 Billion + to go to ACORN (the organization that Obama worked with) and other housing organizations? That 20% which is supposed to be going to pay down debt - they want to put it back in to the same kind of freakin’ organizations that caused this problem in the first place. They want to bail out stupid and/or unqualified homeowners on our dollar. They want to give money to an organization that is currently under investigation for voter fraud. Is it any wonder the Republicans won’t sign off on it?

From Shaving Leviathan:

Thanks to the creation and favored treatment of Fannie and Freddie, the CRA, the Tax Act Reform of 1986, and a host of other legislation, the mortgage lending market was severely distorted. Self-limiting free-market mechanisms that constrain bad investment decisions was thus removed. The Fed greased the wheels, and put the whole train on a roller coaster, through a years-long policy of artificial manipulation of interest rates.

(This is not to mention the ample funds Obama himself received from Fannie and Freddie. However, even at #2 on the list of recipients, $135,000 over three years isn't enough to make the case that he was bought, as is common currency on conservative blogs. It's chump change and a tiny percentage of the $150 million those two paid to politicians over the years.)

Craig Ferguson on Voting

Best post I’ve read about the issue of experience in this presidential campaign...

From Tertium Quids

This is true. If we wish to compare political resumes, Sen. Obama's is Chester A. Arthur-thin (though Arthur turned out to be a dedicated reformer who turned against his political patrons). And the attacks on Palin could very quickly put the Democrats in the double standard trap, not to mention opening them to charges of sexism.

Personally, I tend to look upon those with life-long political resumes with suspicion. Have they done nothing else with their lives besides eat rubber chicken and kiss babies (and chase earmarks)? If anything, political experience is often the last characteristic we should look for in a president. Some of the best had very little at all -- Lincoln had but a single House term under his belt yet managed to navigate the nation through its greatest crisis. It was Jefferson Davis who had the long political career.

I love Sarah Palin!

McCain chooses Sarah Palin as Veep.

Becky over at Just a girl in shorts wrote about this potential pick many times.

While I don't agree with all of her views, I think she is a great pick; more on this later.

The tide of Liberalism and America

The Democratic Convention in Denver is underway and the Democrats seem to feel very confident about their chances in November, not just for the executive branch of government, but also the legislative branch. While I have often criticized Republican leadership and its turn away from conservative governance, the current crop of Liberal Democrats controlling congress are also to be looked upon with great suspicion: The federal government is poised to obtain more power and more control over our lives than ever before. It will be done very gradually and with seemingly the best of intentions. But before we know it, our choices will have been greatly diminished while our ability to manage our national finances may further become untenable.

So, as you watch the DNC party in Denver, pay close attention to what they say and how they seduce America when it comes to government having a greater role in our lives. You may remember those words many years from now and not in a good way.

The average American Joe speaks

In an election season full of acrimony, The Bobo Files has an interesting bipartisan video.

Who would win if the election was today?

Currents odds: Obama 59.7% and McCain 36.3%

From Intrade: the prediction market.