The tired hobby horse of health care reform gets another lap on the race track as Reid schedules a vote in the Senate today.  This is one horse that needs to be retired to the glue factory.  But, as you take this bill in context of Pelosi’s and in the context of the ’stimulus’ legislation and the Cap-and-trade bill one get a very clear sense of where this is all going.

One needs to understand, in Chicago, that all the named purpose of any public institution is always the secondary purpose.  The primary purpose for all Chicago public functions and agencies is that of graft, corruption and vote buying.  Chicago, with its machine is the most obvious example of machine politics that plague governance of much of the northeast and, of course, California.

Indeed, over the years, as the cost of such vote buying has grown so has the cost of government.  And, corruption is expensive.  I remember, as a kid, the big debate over the establishment of a state income tax in Illinois.  It was to ‘more equitably’ gather tax dollars to replace such things as property tax revenues.  Well, some 30 year later, Illinois is saddled with an income tax, property taxes that are literally a whole order of magnitude greater than mine in Wyoming and sales taxes just shy of ten percent.

Indeed, the function of governance is an annual exercise in scraping enough revenue to pay-off all co-opted interest groups necessary for that fifty percent plus one to keep the Chicago machine in power.  Moreover, governance to actually benefit its citizen–such as economic growth and jobs–are mere distractions.  Governance becomes an exercise in constant intrusions into the business and the private lives of people, otherwise competent adults.

Once upon a time, Northeast Illinois, the Chicago area, used to be a powerhouse of economic growth.  Steel, the Stockyards, railroads.  Now, what economic activity still remains stems from the fact it can extort rent by virtue of its physical location.  New York state was the same way, truly the Empire State.  Kodak, Westinghouse, IBM, Corning, Xerox and so on.  Most of those industries have moved on.  Factories shuttered, waiting to be turned into tres elegant loft apartment instead of factories generating wealth, jobs, opportunity and wealth.  But, the power class doesn’t care.  So long as there is something to tax and so long as there are enough votes to get to fifty percent plus one, the downward spiral of once great regions continues unabated.

Aside from coming up with new ways to gin up more revenue to tamp down another ‘crisis’ to close yet another multi-billion budgetary gap are a bunch of generally rich, out-of-touch legislators who pursue agendas that saddle the average taxpayer with even more burdens.  While they, by virtue of personal wealth, shielded by trust funds, vote on legislation with intended and unintended consequences that will never touch their priveledged lives. Pelosi married well, she has access to personal wealth to buy her way out of any medical rationing; the lush congressional health plan helps as well.

Governance becomes the personal hobby horse of these same said elites to pursue personal conceits with the power and revenue of government to supercharge their agenda far beyond their wildest dreams when they concocted them in their respective college midnight dorm-room bull sessions.  California, with its imploding fiscal crisis, wants to regulate large screen TV’s.  Never mind that this will be just another business and job killing venture that will have Californians buying those TV’s out of state instead of locally.  Chicago seems to have debates over whether it will allow a Walmart to build within the city limits.  (Jobs?  New tax revenue?  Less on the welfare rolls?  What’s not to like?  Oh!  Pissed off Unions.)  New York City, amid its fiscal floundering, sees the need to regulate trans-fats at restaurants.  Remember the great foie gras ban in Chicago; got anything better to do?  Functions and decisions that otherwise competent adults used to do for themselves are political.

So where do we stand with Chicago-style governance?  The track record since January of this year is tax and spend.  In matters not what the bill’s title said; beneath the title on bills that go on for over a thousand pages on average, have nothing but monies spent for every liberal wish since the last time the Democrats controlled all three branches of government with the majorities they have now in the first two years of Carter’s presidency.

First was the ’stimulus.’  The point was to bolus a large infusion of money into the economy immediately.  And, had Rahm Emmanuel’s need to “never let a crisis go to waste,” that stimulus might have worked.  But, it merely put most of the money into 2010 to buy votes.  And, to set the stage for ‘health care reform.’

Then came ‘tax and cap.’  It was originally intended to be a cash cow of taxes to fund Obama’s socialist remake of America; and at the same time create a never ending source of money to fuel machine style elections for a Democratic machine in Washington D.C.  As if it weren’t already apparent that climate change was a fraud, it is a fraud.  But, that never mattered, it was the ultimate tax since it was geared to tax carbon dioxide and methane (alleged ‘greenhouse gases’).  Carbon dioxide and methane, fancy terms for what you breathe out and what you fart, respectively.  A tax on basic bodily functions.

But, tax and trade, as the bottomless cookie jar, fell short of its promise when the Democrats could figure out how not to tax Democrats.  So, the tax angle, which was the real purpose of this bill became a means to create bureaucracy to distribute largess and government jobs.

And, now the latest, we have two bills, one in the House and one about to be debated in the Senate, that are notable for taxes.  Taxes on Cadillac health plans, surtaxes on the ‘rich,’ elevated Medicare payroll taxes, again on the ‘rich.’  Mandates to buy insurance or pay a fine (or go to jail).  If the coercion isn’t on your wallet, it’s literally on your person.  There is the creation of all sorts of new regulatory agencies (more government jobs) to ‘reform’ health care.

My job as a physician is, ultimately, to sit down with my patient and try to find the best course of action to preserve my patients health and well being.  It’s that simple.  Yet, in this mass of thousand-page bills were is the simple concept of getting a patient and doctor to sit down and decide what is really best for that patient’s well being?  Obviously of no political value.

]]> http://elkhorncreeklodge.wordpress.com/2009/11/22/health-care-reform-chicago-style/feed/ 0 mountainmusings http://elkhorncreeklodge.wordpress.com/2009/10/07/aging-hippies-and-congressional-leadership/ http://elkhorncreeklodge.wordpress.com/2009/10/07/aging-hippies-and-congressional-leadership/#comments Wed, 07 Oct 2009 17:15:55 +0000 mountainmusings http://elkhorncreeklodge.wordpress.com/?p=1330 ]]>

The headlong, damn-the-torpedoes approach to health care “reform” is a function of democratic congressional leadership in the hands of a bunch of aging Woodstock era hippies.  Much of the top leadership hails from the early 1970’s, especially from the class of 1974; Democrats elected at the height of the Watergate scandal.  Many of these were the hippies or fellow travelers who were going to carry the revolution to the establishment by working “in the system” and thereby undermine the “system.”

But, their 30 year journey was greatly frustrated by a misalignment of stars.  The last time the Democrats held the balance of power as they do now was in Jimmy Carter’s first two years (1977-78).  At that time these hippies were much too junior to exert much influence in the House and Senate.  And, so the dream to radicalize America fizzled.

But, now comes the next opportunity.  But, for the leadership, their last opportunity since many of them are in their 70’s and will literally be pushing up daisies  when the next opportunity comes around.  So, we see the most heavy handed legislative pushes on record to move health care “reform,” cap and trade and card check to remake America as some socialist utopia.

True to their boomer roots this leadership will push this agenda forward with out the slightest care about the consequences and damages their children and grandchildren will have to bear.  They care not a whit for unintended consequences since they will live their remaining years on a lush congressional pension and then be dead shortly thereafter.  They have exempted themselves from the maw of rationing that will be unloaded on the rest of America thanks to their socialized medical monstrosity.  And, they will be able to avail themselves of what was once the finest medical system on earth before their “reforms” grind American medicine into the socialized mediocrity that now graces England and Canada.

Reid plans to jam health care reform through on reconciliation or some other obscure parliamentary trick to side it through on 51 votes.  This will in effect kill the filibuster and turn the Senate into a more grandiose version of the House. Frankly, Reid has the votes; it only takes 51 votes to kill the filibuster right now.  But, once that rule is gone, it’ll never come back.  But, what does Reid care that he’ll turn the deliberative functions of the Senate into an over-glorified student senate.  He’ll be departed from the scene; hopefully as soon as November 2010.

And, this same leadership is fighting to jam this bill through before anyone has a chance to read it.  This may give Reid, Pelosi and company some cheap thrills.  But, it’ll be murder for their party.  Because the Republicans, going into 2010 and 2012 will have over a thousand pages of selective quotes from that unvetted bill to bludgeon the Democrats. Remember, the actual reform doesn’t take place until 2013.  So, the actual vote buying potential of this entitlement will not be around until after the 2010 mid-term elections.  Nor the 2012 presidential election.

To hell with all of you left on the Titanic, suckers, I’ve already got my place on the lifeboat.

]]> http://elkhorncreeklodge.wordpress.com/2009/10/07/aging-hippies-and-congressional-leadership/feed/ 0 mountainmusings http://elkhorncreeklodge.wordpress.com/2009/04/04/the-foreign-president/ http://elkhorncreeklodge.wordpress.com/2009/04/04/the-foreign-president/#comments Sat, 04 Apr 2009 21:22:12 +0000 mountainmusings http://elkhorncreeklodge.wordpress.com/?p=1184 ]]>

There was a reason our founding fathers posited a requirement in the US Constitution that the President of the United States be a  natural born citizen.  And, Obama proves the point.  Only by luck of his American citizen unwed mother getting knocked up  in Hawaii did Obama make the grade.  But, while technically a natural born US citizen, Obama has displayed all of the characteristics of a third-world cabinet minister (and I mean that comparison is a very negative sense); an EU or UN grandee.  Moreover, this is not an affectation, but an ingrained, reflexive characteristic  of a man who simply knows nothing else.

And, like the “bitter” comments, Obama’s bow to the king of Saudi Arabia probably wasn’t planned.  Or, planned in a manner to specifically offend American audiences.  Rather, it was an act that came to Obama naturally; an act of a third world cabinet minister showing the obeisance due to such a potentiate such as the king of Saudi Arabia.  Moreover, it was beyond the incompetence of his staff that failed to brief Obama; probably not even imagining that Obama would be so unschooled in such etiquette that Americans do not bow to anyone.

Tens of thousands of Americans lie dead, having taken up arms to defend that very point.  Starting with the dead that lay upon the Lexington Green in April 1775, we fought for a concept of liberty and equality that recognized that no one before God and before the institutions of our Republic stands above another.  To hold an office of public trust only, temporarily, as the first among peers.  But, never your superior.  For, in reality, the electorate is ultimately your boss.

But, Obama never grew up in that environment.  From the ages of six to ten, those first formative years as an elementary school student, were spent in Indonesia.  A Muslim country, with a Muslim father where the young Obama was listed on governmental records as a Muslim.  This was not the usual issue where the children of, say, military personnel, are schooled in American schools with a sense of America even in that foreign land.  An island of America thousands of miles from home.  Obama even attended a madrass during this period.  I doubt that the young Obama, though technically a natural born US citizen, in those first ten years of life had any sense of  being American.

And, so, this foreigner comes of age in America.  He is attracted to socialism which is a truly foreign concept to America and American exceptionalism.  Socialism arose in Europe in an environment of rigid social stratifications of royalty.  Socialism was the disaffected’s answer, the rabble rouser’s answer to overturn that rigid social stratification.  But, to overturn that rigid stratification with a new one with the once rabble rouser securely now occupying those upper tiers of that new system.  Merely a coup to displace the old power structure with a new equally authoritarian power structure.  One, in an egalitarian veneer, dispenses with such labels as king, duke or count and now replaces is with “minister of” or “president.”

So, our young, impressionable Obama seeks the company of vogue Marxist professors and aging radicals such as Ayers.  He seeks a political system, the Chicago machine, that functions like a third-world banana republic.  He seek religious solace from the like of Reverend Wright; who’s anti-semitism and anti-Americanism is the closest “Christian” theology to Islam.  

But, along the way, Obama missed out on why those thousands of American now lie dead on countless battlefields; Lexington, Concord, Antietim, Gettysburg, Shiloh, Cantigny, Chateau-Thierry, Belleau Wood, Normandy, Bastogne.  Obama missed out on the concept of Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness as being gifts of God (not Allah).  He missed out on the fundamental concept, reinforced by the conceit of an Ivy League education, that government is a servant of the people to create a framework of order and law to allow each individual to achieve his best.  That it is the efforts of millions of individuals that define the state and not the state that defines the individual.

But, for all of his life, Obama lived outside that experience.  And, instead of an American, an equal, with the authority of the Declaration of Independence, the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights behind him, prime minister Obama subordinated the greatness that is America.  Subordinated the blood of thousands of Americans who made our founding documents more than just parchment and prostrated himself to a king.

To those who cared to look beyond the MSM smokescreen of the last election, this comes as no surprise.  But, the evidence is all in that Barry’s nothing but a tax and spend liberal.  We’ve got a budget outline that approached four trillion dollars.  And, after congress gets through it will be four trillion since Barry on set a floor on his budget proposal and has a tacit understanding with Reid and Pelosi, to run the tab up even more since he’s going to sign anything.

Then, we have proposals for more than a trillion dollars in tax increases.  The combined wet dreams of FDR, LBJ, Carter and Clinton, combined could not imagine such a number.  Well, maybe Clinton.

And, then we have the other boiler plate to the standard liberal.  The slow pre-emptive surrender to Islamic imperialism.  In Iraq, all our enemies have to do is run the clock until August 2010.  How’s that for telegraphing your attentions.

And gun control.  It seems that his lacky at justice, Holder, is making noises about re-instating the so-called “assault-weapons” ban in part because assault weapons are flowing from the north into Mexico, supplying the drug lords in their civil war against the government.  Never mind that Mexico is just this side of being a failed state.  Of course, this stuff never came out of Obama himself.  But, he like Pelosi, Reid and Schumer are just waiting…

Bait and switch.  The true intentions covered up by a compliant press.

But, it is worse.  If only we could have the day’s of Jimmy Carter.  What we really have is not a president but the UN secretary general occupying the Oval Office.  This man is a natural born citizen by virtue of the technicality of being born over US soil.  But, he spent his first ten years of life abroad.  Not at a military brat, who lived with a sense that he was a part of America.  But, as a Muslim in Indonesia, including attendance to a madrass.  So, not only did he live physically away from America, his upbringing was in a Muslim world-view; an antithesis of individual liberty which is the root of Western Civilization.

And, though he didn’t wind up practicing Islam.  His choice of “Christianity” was the virulent anti-American, anti-semitic variant of the “Reverend” Wright.

So, to add to the cheap vote-buying ethics of a Chicago ward-heeler.  So, to add to the fact that this man’s enitre adult life was living off other peoples’ money, extorting other people’s money.  So, to add to the fact that this man never ran a business, hired employees or met a payroll.  This man is now engaging in a third-world mentality of reducing his fellow citizens to the status of serf and subject.  

Obama’s spending and tax proposals make a mockery of the notion of private property.  These are whole sale expropriations of property that place him squarely in the company of Evo Morales and Hugo Chavez.  No, the comparison isn’t meant as a compliment.

Obama discussed a 700 billion dollar economic stimulus package.  But, intimated that he would be okay with even more.  Congress obliged by rolling Obama with a 850 billion spending spree.  Here’s some of the details from Power Line.  If such a package were going to build infrastructure, we’d at least have something to show for this spending blow-out.  But, this money will line the pockets of favored groups and friends.  And, will leave precious little to show in terms of actual accomplishments.  

Or, should I say that 850 billion dollars will be pissed away and we will have only the inflation that will rack our economy, in about a year, as the only residual for this spending.  

But, Obama has lots of experience in spending other people’s money and making sure that there is nothing to show. Or, at least nothing to show in upsetting the status quo.  That experience was his co-chairing the Annenberg Challenge with his buddy Bill Ayers.  He managed to oversee the disbursement of 100 million dollars without affecting the quality of public education in Chicago one whit.  What he really did, the good Chicago machine foot soldier he was, was to spread 100 million dollars of graft to the friends of the Chicago machine.

So, what we have is a replay of the same graft distribution; just several orders of magnitude greater.  There will be no leadership on Obama’s part.  Just the distribution of graft and largess.  Obama’s well practiced in that art.

Blagojevich and Chu.  An unlikely pair, but the bookends that will define the Obama presidency.  For a while, I was impressed with some of Obama’s appointments.  Though unwilling, I was actually impressed that Obama may actually rule from the standpoint of a center-left coalition; that governing stance being forced by circumstances.  I very much believe, had the Democrats managed to rack up 60 senators, that Obama would have gone wild with his fondest left-left wet dreams.  

But, Obama’s real affiliations, proclivities and associations keep coming back; like Banquo’s ghost.  And, so we have the two sides of the true Obama represented in Blagojevich and Chu.  In the former, we have Obama, the loyal Chicago machine hack.  And, in the latter, we have the utterly disconnected academic; governance by midnight dorm room bull session. 

Blagojevich will define the seamy and corrupt side of Obama.  Obama isn’t clean; just cleaner than the average Chicago politician.  He has been a faithful foot soldier; and has been rewarded for that faithfulness.  He started as a ward heeler; er, community organizer.  His big test was the distribution of tens of millions of graft as a co-chair (the other was Bill Ayers) of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge.  And, spread graft he did with not an iota of academic improvement.  Perfect for Chicago.  Get money to your friends but don’t solve a problem that might risk having dependent constituencies actually having the means to improve themselves.

He then moved to the Illinois State House.  And, courtesy king making from the president of the Illinois State Senate, Emil Jones, Obama was elevated to the US Senate.  All along, Obama has toed the line.  Toed the line in supporting Blagojevich for election in 2002, then again in 2006.  And, when corruption shook the Cook County Board, a word from Obama might have been instrumental in electing a reform candidate to Cook County President.  But, Obama held firm in supporting machine candidate, Todd Stroger.

And, so, like Paul Henreid, Obama is shocked, shocked to discover his Senate seat up for sale to the highest bidder.  But, don’t be shocked, scocked to see scandal after scandal rising up from his past in the fevered swamps of Chicago politics.

Now we get to the other bookend.  Dr. Chu just appointed as the Secretary of Energy.  (And, by the way, just why do we have a department of pumping gas?  Can’t the Department of the Interior handle that?  All you have to do is hand out drilling leases.  There, problem solved and it didn’t even require me to fly to Stockholm to get a gold medal.) He’s got accomplishments, smart, a real multi-cultural Camelot best-and-brightest.  

But.  But, what does he know about our aging nuclear arsenal.  What’s he willing to do to maintain it, upgrade it and test it to see if it remains functional?  What’s he going to do to maintain our disappearing nuclear weapon infrastructure?  Freedom in the world rests on the America’s military and the cornerstone of our military is our nuclear arsenal.  This  is a guy who’s going to lecture us on preferring to spend $1000 on a granite kitchen counter top than on improving our home’s energy efficiency.  This is a guy who protested global warming by  climbing up a tree at the University of California at Berkeley for Vanity Fair Magazine .   Iran can give up it’s nuclear program because ours is going to rust away into complete non-functionality.

While this guy is brilliant in the laboratory, what experience does he have in taking these lab findings off the lab bench and out into the world.  Because, if he’s so set on freeing us from burning hydrocarbons, he going to have to do more than pose in a tree for a magazine.  

Because, making policy and issuing “environmentally friendly” diktats from Washington are going to run head long into the real world of economics and thermodynamics.  Realities that solar panels and wind power will not begin to address energy needs that hydrocarbons and nuclear power now handle so well.  Realities like $4 gasoline really matters to a lot of people who don’t have a six-figure sinecure in the California University system.  Realities that global warming is simply a humbug.  

Realities that we’ve had steam cars and electric cars from the day the horseless carriage came forth.  Railroad locomotives, for the last half century are powered by a diesel engine powering an electrical generator that then powers motors that make the locomotive move–a diesel Prius without batteries that runs on tracks.  There’s nothing new under the sun; it just a lot of engineers just as smart as Chu have already worked through all of these ideas.  Burning a cheap, plentiful commodity, oil, is the best way to get around.  

Back in the cold snows of Iowa, Obama commiserated over the cost of arugula at Whole Foods.  Now, we have a whole cabinet socked full the arugula-at-Whole-Foods crowd.  And, some of them, especially from Chicago, fund their arugula cravings by selling Senate seats.

Mr. Katz of Urgent Agenda notes that Obama’s picks for his incoming administration are causes of worry, but also relief. There is, at least, a certain seriousness to these picks that reflects that Obama is playing in an entirely new league. Perhaps the biggest criticism beyond some of the personal baggage, Holder comes to mind, that we have an administration that is being stacked with that slice America that got double 800’s on their SAT’s.  Or, the inverse of the late Buckley, with rule by the Harvard faculty rather than the first hundred names out of the Cambridge phone directory.

One can only hope, for all of the stellar academic credentials, that these advisers will have the humility to realize that they can never craft policy that will anticipate the needs of 300 million Americans. Or, that this isn’t the purpose or business of government. One hopes that they will remember enough of Econ 101 to realize that economic growth is the only solution to this economic melt down. Meaning that the Joe-the-plumbers will need to be protected and supported from crushing taxes and regulation. That creating, not spreading, wealth is what lies between a brief recession and a depression.

As McCain’s father said, history is made by poker players and not analysts. We’ll see what these people will do in time of crisis where you will have to take a lifetime of experience and react; and hope that reaction is a reflection of carefully thought out positions that you will not, in that moment of crisis, have the time to think through in a linear fashion. A crisis moment that will force you to act from the gut because you will not have to time to analyze. 

More interestingly, Obama almost seems like the young prince Hal who now casts off Falstaff as he assumes the mantle of power as Henry V. Did Obama, in his 20 or so years in the Chicago machine, “know you all” and for a while “upheld the unyoked humor of their idleness.” Of Ayers, Wright, Rezko. Is he, therefore, a radical or truly a centrist? Are his centrist tendencies, of late, of choice or circumstance? A thin resume and now we know even less. 

All very cynical, of course. But, there’s that adage that fulfilling your friendship needs in Washington can only be done reliably  with a dog.

I also suspect that Obama realizes that his legacy is not getting elected but getting elected and performing as president to his getting re-elected. To be the first black president means he can’t go out as a failure like Hoover or Carter; to go out as the first black president who screwed up. No longer does he have the comfort of spouting out pronouncement that have little impact in a safe district controlled by the Chicago political machine. I rather suspect, particularly in handoff briefings on security, that he came into contact with intelligence that would instantly age anyone ten years in ten minutes. 

And, that Falstaff comes with multiple faces; principally Reid and Pelosi. But, the biggest hurdle to succeeding as president will be his putative allies in Congress. Already, they are lining up an agenda that will drive the country over the cliff. He needs, above all, an economy that can pull it self out of a recession. 

The meltdown and recession that got Obama elected, is a mixed blessing because it is like a wounded animal that can turn on you in a minute. This is already Obama’s economy and his recession. This is no longer the crisis that can be used to push other agendas. This is a stand-alone crisis that will ultimately drag Obama down; and must be addressed regardless of the rest of his campaign wish list.

But, the solons of Congress, who control its committees have a very different idea. They, from safe seats and with very parochial agendas will use this crisis to pursue other agendas. The biggest warning sign is the ouster of Dingell by Waxman. Waxman, too marinated in the money and celebrity of Beverly Hills, is about to wave a magic wand and decree that we will all live a life of perfection by junking the burning of fossil fuels and embrace our inner windmill. In the insular world of Beverly Hills, far removed the concerns of Americans that actually live paycheck to paycheck, is a world that doesn’t think about how food, energy, transportation all come to their doorsteps. These are things brought in by the “help.” In a world of Rodeo-Drive-chinchilla-bedspreads it matters not that the “help” actually shops at Wal-mart to squeeze value out of every last penny of their paychecks.

Yet, here is Waxman, ready to push cap and trade. The costs and economic distortions of this program alone is sufficient to tank this economy into a depression.

And, we have Frank who can’t wait to get started on cutting our defense budget by 25 percent. And, we all breathe a sigh of relief that, on the Senate side, Bingaman has just announced that a new gas tax will be deferred. 

I’m beginning to think, through his choices of advisors, that Obama realizes that he’s on his own. Ayers might be good company for an all-night dorm room bull session. But, he’s got his legacy on the line and that’s already being seriously threatened.

As a conservative, I’m sure that a lot of what Obama does is going to give me a lot of heartburn. But, he’s our President. And, for the sake of our country, he needs to succeed by making the right choices. It is good, therefore, that he’s bringing in serious people. Leftist in orientation, but, hopefully, with a degree of education to bring objectivity that such an education should engender.

The Democratic overreaching begins. It looks like Waxman is going to oust Dingell as chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee. What we have is the hard left of the Democratic party driving policy; in this case energy policy with complete obeisance to the environmentalists. Translation, global warming with cap and trade.

So, just when the economy is tanking, we’re going to be faced with artificially high energy prices to “encourage” us to switch to “alternate, green” energy. This encouragement will be in the form of the return of four-dollar plus gasoline. If this represents a pattern we’ll see more killer tax and spending policies coming out of other parts of Pelosi’s Congressional Empire.  

Obama’s, like pirate Jack Sparrow, has just been tossed up on a desert isle with a pistol and one bullet. He’s all alone. What Obama will have to realize is that his getting into subsidized housing on 1600 Pennsylvania is all and the entire bone that the Democratic leadership is willing to give to its black constituency. As far as they’re concerned, the legacy of Obama is getting elected. Whether he’s successful in his own right is not their problem.

From Pelosi’s and Reid’s point-of-view, picking off enough Republican Senate and Congressional seats and putting Obama in the White House was to give them the running room to pass their agenda. And, in particular, before any backlash in the 2010 mid-term elections, jam as much stuff through this two-year window of opportunity. For Pelosi in particular, and her power barons in the House leadership, being almost immune to any voter backlash, they will have their agenda and to hell with the other rats, Democratic and Republican, on the sinking ship. Obama’s going to have to realize he’s one of those rats that Pelosi could give a rat’s ass about.

Obama’s no longer from a safe seat. His legacy, if he wants a positive one, will require more that being a first in the form of high melanin content. He will need a track record of accomplishment to secure a real place in the history books. A record of accomplishment that will secure him a second term. A record of accomplishment that will allow him to retain running room with regards to working with congress. A record of accomplishment that will allow him to pull a country out of a recession and not degenerate into a depression; and not have his one-term presidency tarred as Hoover II (or Carter II).

In short, Obama will need to realize that he no longer lives in the bubble of pre-ordained elections of the Chicago Democratic machine. He needs to truly in the center and start playing football between the 40 yard lines. Frankly, he need Senator McConnell, his GOP caucus and enough blue-dog Democrats to form a governing coalition. Reid, Pelosi, Dodd, Schumer, Frank, Rangell are not his friends. 

It’s been remarked elsewhere that the winning coalition of Obama’s presidential victory was a bottom/top coalition.  That is, a coalition of the top and bottom of the economic ladder.

The interesting thing about this coalitions is that both are relatively immune to the economic vissicitudes that affect everyone else in the middle. 

For, the bottom, we have people on various welfare and governmental aid programs. They are net consumers of other people’s taxes. Not much more to be said except that Bush’s “compassionate conservatism” did little to reduce the number of these individuals. These folks represent a permanent constituency of the party of big government. Maybe, the next time, the GOP really needs to give the taxpayer a real break by seriously culling out the government-handout class.

The high end is more interesting. The super rich, and even the moderately rich, derive income streams from other than wages. So, things like Social Security and Medicare taxes don’t matter. If a trust or other compensation agreement is so arranged, a lot of expenses can be had on pre-tax dollars. So, raising income taxes has the perverse effect of enhancing those benefits. I be willing to bet that Al Gore’s giant carbon-footprint private jet isn’t coming out of post-tax dollars.

What is interesting is how country club Republicans became country club Democrats. The first reason is tribute. The need to own the candidate to protect their fortunes and station. Short of a reign of terror mass beheading, these folks don’t really have to worry about much of Obama’s tax plans since the cost will be a small price to pay for the security of their position and station in society. It also helps, that Obama is now, with his house and book deals, very much part of the ancien reigime. Robespierre? 

The second issue is the conceit of 30 years of prosperity thanks to Reagan. Many of these individuals did very well in a variety of business endeavors thanks to Reagan’s policies of economic growth. Now, financially secure, they can dally in the idiocies of global warming and whatever other vogue causes that strike their fancies; the idle mind is indeed the devil’s workshop.

Then, there’s the issue of slamming the door behind to keep others from horning in on their positions of power and influence. Most of these well-to-do Obama supporters are very well aware of the radicalness of capitalism; since their successes (or those of their immediate ancestors) came from business successes that in some way overturned the established order. Bill Gates, for example, is very wealthy because of his upsetting the cozy world of IBM. So, these people turn to the ideology of societal ossification; socialism.

In many ways, Obama’s hometown of Chicago, represents the very top/bottom economic structure that gave him the presidency. On the bottom are the governmental dependents; patronage workers and welfare. And, ward heelers, er, community organizers, to make sure they vote the right way for the Chicago political machine.

On the top are the wealthy. Nominally Republican, except when doing business in Chicago. They contribute and they pose with the machine politicians; as pillars of the community. But, there are understandings. Understanding like Obama’s sweetheart mortgage deal from the Northern Trust. Of course, you’ll never see ACORN raising a ruckus in Northern Trust’s lobby; that reserved for some mom-and-pop Savings and Loan back in the neighborhood struggling to survive without any hope for bailout bucks. Of course, the elite will never be seen in the Chicago public schools; they have their own private schools or, just over the Chicago border, their elite public schools. As you move up in the machine, you’re rewarded richly but expected to “understand” there are just some things you just don’t touch. Obama’s been a good and loyal foot soldier and has been richly rewarded for this service; nice house in Hyde Park and a nicer one now on the East Coast.

Here’s how thick it gets. Obama’s pal Bill Ayers was no radical who worked his way up from the mean streets, he’s the son of Thomas Ayers, former CEO of Commonwealth Edison, now Exelon. 

The whole notion of campaign finance reform is utterly laughable. The reason being that the captain-of-the-ship doctrine does not apply. Oh sure, various and sundry small fry get arrested; some actually get convicted and go to jail. But, where has there ever been an election where the candidate himself was denied the office strictly on the basis of violating election laws.

For instance, how much did Obama raise illegally. We have good reason to believe that many of the fraud screening provisions for his credit card operations were turned off. What did that cash buy? What was its role in swaying voters? Did it provide the margin for victory?

But, Obama will get away with it. What really counts is he, regardless of any wrong doing found, will occupy the Oval Office on January 20. What does it matter that some low level campaign operative may be found guilty of violating campaign law? The real prize and goal of this chicanery is winning the presidency. If that goes to Obama, then the law-breaking was worth it.

The only lesson to be taken from Obama’s campaign practices is that they work. Future campaigns will forever shun public financing. Future campaigns will amplify on Obama’s fund raising tactics. The real lesson, that crime doesn’t pay, would only come if the election was denied to Obama on the basis of campaign law violations.

Now, we have the Senatorial race in Minnesota. (here and here) On election night, Coleman was up by a narrow 700 or so votes. But, mysteriously that total, before the recount, has been cut by some 500 votes with ballots mysteriously showing up from all over the place. I’ll pass over Minnesota’s secretary of state being a ACORN flunkie. 

Then, we have a situation in Hennepin County (Minneapolis and suburbs) were, because of a electronic breakdown, votes were not electronically from the precincts on election night. Rather, the results were transported by car to City Hall. In other words, we have a break in the chain of custody. And, every vote, thus handled, become suspect and tainted.

Now, if we really wanted to uphold up election laws to maintain ballot integrity, I would submit that these votes need to be thrown out. If thrown out, you would finally put teeth into election laws because you would actually have the ability to deny the likely beneficiary of elective office. You would finally have a real deterrent to campaign and vote violations. You may even have legislative incentive to actually create a clear and transparent system of vote accountability.