The MSM just isn't listening
When Barack Obama was elected president last November, the liberal media hailed a national lurch to the Left. Supposedly we were now a Center Left, rather than a Center Right, nation (as if there were anything truly centrist about Obama). Sometimes it even went further. "We Are All Socialists Now," Newsweek even crowed in the weeks between the election and the inauguration. TIME featured a cover portraying the new president as an African-American FDR.
And yet, according to Gallup, four in ten Americans (39%) say that their views have actually gotten more conservative in recent years. Only 18% say that they have gotten more liberal- and 42% of the electorate say that they haven't changed much.
Ideologically, this is still the country that elected George W. Bush- twice (and before anybody even says it, there is no reasonable doubt that, had the networks not suppressed Bush's national vote by untold millions on election night in 2000 by continuing to insist that Al Gore had won Florida and- by implication- the presidency for the entire prime-time period, hours after it became clear that their projections were based on very faulty numbers and while the polls remained very much open throughout the largely Republican West, Bush would have won the popular vote twice, as well as the electoral vote).
The present economic crisis, which Mr. Obama himself is mishandling so badly, combines with the unpopular (but apparently successful- and in the long term arguably beneficial) war in Iraq to account for the fall-off in Republican popularity in recent years. Then, too, there's the corruption that often comes when a single party has too strong a hold on both Congress and the presidency for too long, and Mr. Obama's undoubted charisma.
But combined with recent poll results showing that more Americans think the Democratic party is too liberal than think that the Republican party is too conservative, and one cannot conclude that both the demise of the former and the permanent ascendency of the latter is an illusion. Ideologically, this is a nation far closer to Bush than to Obama- and if the present administration continues to mishandle both the economy and American foreign policy as badly as it has so far, for the Republicans to return to at least a share of power in the next election cycle seems more likely than not.
Nor- the wishful thinking of the Leftist media to the contrary- is Mr. Obama anything like assured of winning a second term.
Whether or not one chooses to regard the president under whom General Motors became the property of the United States government and the prospect of some sort of nationalized healthcare more and more is becoming an administration priority as a socialist, there can be no question that ideologically both Mr. Obama and his party are far to the Left of the American people.
HT: Real Clear Politics
And yet, according to Gallup, four in ten Americans (39%) say that their views have actually gotten more conservative in recent years. Only 18% say that they have gotten more liberal- and 42% of the electorate say that they haven't changed much.
Ideologically, this is still the country that elected George W. Bush- twice (and before anybody even says it, there is no reasonable doubt that, had the networks not suppressed Bush's national vote by untold millions on election night in 2000 by continuing to insist that Al Gore had won Florida and- by implication- the presidency for the entire prime-time period, hours after it became clear that their projections were based on very faulty numbers and while the polls remained very much open throughout the largely Republican West, Bush would have won the popular vote twice, as well as the electoral vote).
The present economic crisis, which Mr. Obama himself is mishandling so badly, combines with the unpopular (but apparently successful- and in the long term arguably beneficial) war in Iraq to account for the fall-off in Republican popularity in recent years. Then, too, there's the corruption that often comes when a single party has too strong a hold on both Congress and the presidency for too long, and Mr. Obama's undoubted charisma.
But combined with recent poll results showing that more Americans think the Democratic party is too liberal than think that the Republican party is too conservative, and one cannot conclude that both the demise of the former and the permanent ascendency of the latter is an illusion. Ideologically, this is a nation far closer to Bush than to Obama- and if the present administration continues to mishandle both the economy and American foreign policy as badly as it has so far, for the Republicans to return to at least a share of power in the next election cycle seems more likely than not.
Nor- the wishful thinking of the Leftist media to the contrary- is Mr. Obama anything like assured of winning a second term.
Whether or not one chooses to regard the president under whom General Motors became the property of the United States government and the prospect of some sort of nationalized healthcare more and more is becoming an administration priority as a socialist, there can be no question that ideologically both Mr. Obama and his party are far to the Left of the American people.
HT: Real Clear Politics
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