“stimulus,” omnibus spending, bailouts, ObamaCare, Dodd-Frank financial regulation, and suffocating Environmental Protection Agency and National Labor Relations Board regulations were no longer the dynamic new policies of the hip new president but the destructive policies of a president bent on deconstructing America. Despite his assurances that his policies would produce glowing economic results, they instead wreaked a tornadic path of economic terror.
Within a few months of their takeover, the Democratic casualties began to pile up. There were more dead carcasses on the ground than in the final scene of Reservoir Dogs . In November 2009, voters in deep blue New Jersey and purple Virginia elected Republican governors, Chris Christie and Robert McDonnell, respectively. In January 2010, voters in deep blue Massachusetts elected a Republican senator, Scott Brown, to replace Edward Kennedy. In November 2010, voters across the country swept Republicans into control of the House and closer control of the Senate, while the GOP took eleven governorships from Democrats in states such as Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Iowa, as well as one governorship previously held by an independent in Florida. In September 2011, two Republicans won special congressional elections in Nevada and in a New York district that had been represented by such left-wing icons as Geraldine Ferraro, Chuck Schumer, and Anthony Weiner. There were a few Democratic wins during this time in special elections in upstate New York and California, but the overall trend was overwhelmingly Republican. Being a Democrat was like being a leper, as they watched their precious limbs rot away and fall off, one after another.
And yet Obama shrugged off these losses as transactional costs in the “fundamental transformation of America.” In perhaps the most telling example of Obama’s Alinskyite view that the radical ends justified even steep political losses, one of the last remaining Democratic moderates in the Senate, Arkansas senator Blanche Lincoln, begged Obama to abandon kookdom. Increasingly nervous about how Obama’s radicalism would affect her reelection chances in 2010, Lincoln tried to get Obama to repudiate “extreme” liberals such as then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and move toward the center. During a February 3, 2010, meeting Obama held with Senate Democrats about Obama-Care, Lincoln pleaded with him to moderate his far-left agenda because, she said, it was sowing job-destroying “uncertainty” in the business community. She asked him point-blank: “Are we willing as Democrats to push back on our own party?”
Obama’s reply? Sorry, Blanche: you’re crud out of luck.
“If the price of certainty,” he shot back, “is essentially for us to adopt the exact same proposals that were in place for eight years leading up to the biggest economic crisis since the Great Depression—we don’t tinker with health care, let the insurance companies do what they want, we don’t put in place any insurance reforms, we don’t mess with the banks, let them keep on doing what they’re doing now because we don’t want to stir up Wall Street—the result is going to be the same.” Obama’s words made clear that he had no intention of “moderating” his agenda or “triangulating” Bill Clinton–style. His own personal political survival—as well as the political careers of his fellow Democrats—placed a distant second to the implementation of the kook agenda. In fact, Obama occasionally indicated that his fate may be a single term as president. In January 2010, he told ABC News that he would “rather be a really good one-term president than a mediocre two-term president.” And in June 2011, he told NBC News, “I’m sure there are days where I say one term is enough.”
To Obama, if he could slam the entire redistributionist agenda into one term, he’d gladly check out after four years, even if that meant a reelection loss. “My work here is
Within a few months of their takeover, the Democratic casualties began to pile up. There were more dead carcasses on the ground than in the final scene of Reservoir Dogs . In November 2009, voters in deep blue New Jersey and purple Virginia elected Republican governors, Chris Christie and Robert McDonnell, respectively. In January 2010, voters in deep blue Massachusetts elected a Republican senator, Scott Brown, to replace Edward Kennedy. In November 2010, voters across the country swept Republicans into control of the House and closer control of the Senate, while the GOP took eleven governorships from Democrats in states such as Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Iowa, as well as one governorship previously held by an independent in Florida. In September 2011, two Republicans won special congressional elections in Nevada and in a New York district that had been represented by such left-wing icons as Geraldine Ferraro, Chuck Schumer, and Anthony Weiner. There were a few Democratic wins during this time in special elections in upstate New York and California, but the overall trend was overwhelmingly Republican. Being a Democrat was like being a leper, as they watched their precious limbs rot away and fall off, one after another.
And yet Obama shrugged off these losses as transactional costs in the “fundamental transformation of America.” In perhaps the most telling example of Obama’s Alinskyite view that the radical ends justified even steep political losses, one of the last remaining Democratic moderates in the Senate, Arkansas senator Blanche Lincoln, begged Obama to abandon kookdom. Increasingly nervous about how Obama’s radicalism would affect her reelection chances in 2010, Lincoln tried to get Obama to repudiate “extreme” liberals such as then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and move toward the center. During a February 3, 2010, meeting Obama held with Senate Democrats about Obama-Care, Lincoln pleaded with him to moderate his far-left agenda because, she said, it was sowing job-destroying “uncertainty” in the business community. She asked him point-blank: “Are we willing as Democrats to push back on our own party?”
Obama’s reply? Sorry, Blanche: you’re crud out of luck.
“If the price of certainty,” he shot back, “is essentially for us to adopt the exact same proposals that were in place for eight years leading up to the biggest economic crisis since the Great Depression—we don’t tinker with health care, let the insurance companies do what they want, we don’t put in place any insurance reforms, we don’t mess with the banks, let them keep on doing what they’re doing now because we don’t want to stir up Wall Street—the result is going to be the same.” Obama’s words made clear that he had no intention of “moderating” his agenda or “triangulating” Bill Clinton–style. His own personal political survival—as well as the political careers of his fellow Democrats—placed a distant second to the implementation of the kook agenda. In fact, Obama occasionally indicated that his fate may be a single term as president. In January 2010, he told ABC News that he would “rather be a really good one-term president than a mediocre two-term president.” And in June 2011, he told NBC News, “I’m sure there are days where I say one term is enough.”
To Obama, if he could slam the entire redistributionist agenda into one term, he’d gladly check out after four years, even if that meant a reelection loss. “My work here is
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