End of Day -11/02/09
 

Monday, November 2, 2009

To: Friends & Supporters

From: Gary L. Bauer

 

Election Countdown – Looking Good For Conservatives

Off year election results are notoriously hard to predict, but we are feeling optimistic about potential gains in tomorrow’s races.

In Virginia, the GOP ticket appears to have a solid 10-point lead. A victory that large would be a stunning turnaround from one year ago when Barack Obama won the state by six points. Last November, minority voters turned out in record numbers and Independents swung to Obama. This year, the minority vote seems turned off and Independent voters have swung back to the GOP. (Campaign for Working Families has been active in Virginia for months and we are taking nothing for granted. We’ll be sending Get-Out-The-Vote messages today and tomorrow.)

In New Jersey, the race for governor is neck and neck in the usually liberal state. The liberal Democrat, Governor Jon Corzine, is deeply unpopular, but he has spent tens of millions of dollars smearing his Republican opponent, Chris Christie. The White House, worried about an embarrassing series of defeats, has committed Obama’s political capital to saving Corzine. The president held a big rally over the weekend and the Obama grassroots operation is targeting every liberal voter it can find. The polls show a toss-up with the Republican narrowly ahead. However, in a close election corrupt New Jersey Democrats are quite capable of stealing “victory.”

The third battleground is the 23rd Congressional District in New York, where I made an early endorsement and considerable financial commitment for Doug Hoffman running on the Conservative Party ticket. Initially, Hoffman was running against two liberals – Democrat Bill Owens and fake Republican Dede Scozzafava. As the campaign progressed, Scozzafava collapsed and on Saturday she suspended her efforts. Sunday, she endorsed the liberal Democrat, proving in my view that she was never a loyal Republican to begin with, which her voting record made perfectly clear.

At this point, the race is a toss-up, but several polls show Hoffman leading. I believe the Conservative Hoffman has a great chance to win.

Finally, on opposite coasts -- in Maine and Washington State -- there are voter-initiated referenda on marriage. In Maine, grassroots activists are trying to restore the normal definition of marriage, while in Washington voters are being asked to approve an expanded definition of marriage to include same-sex domestic partners. In both states, polling has been close.

In short, my friends, there is a chance for a great election night. If those with our values show up and vote tomorrow in Maine, New Jersey, New York and Virginia (Washington’s election is being conducted by mail), and if they bring others to the polls with them, we could sweep these elections, strike a blow against Obama’s socialism and send a signal to Big Media that conservatives are back!


Learning From Past Mistakes

I have a reading assignment for Barack Obama. In Saturday’s Wall Street Journal, historian Warren Kozak wrote a story titled “The Missiles of October,” which discussed the Cuban missile crisis in-depth. There are many parallels that can be drawn between then and now, the most glaring being that the president of the United States during the crisis, John F. Kennedy, was young, inexperienced and naïve, especially when dealing with foreign policy. Sound familiar?

Kozak explains how, at the time, U.S. intelligence had no idea that the Soviets were secretly transferring short-range missiles to Cuba. Khruschev had deceived Kennedy earlier that year by telling Kennedy that he would not place any Soviet weaponry outside of their territory. In fact, he was covertly sending an “army” of Soviet technicians, numbering 40,000, to Cuba to help setup 60 missiles.

Kennedy had no idea what was going on. John McCone, director of the CIA at the time, was a conservative industrialist appointed by Kennedy after the Bay of Pigs disaster. McCone implored President Kennedy to fly U-2 spy planes over Cuba because he believed the Soviets were up to something. A National Intelligence Estimate released in September 1962 completely rejected McCone’s concerns, but he continued to pressure Kennedy on the necessity of a U-2 fly-over.

Thankfully, Kennedy heeded McCone’s advice. Four weeks after the NIE was released declaring that everything in Cuba was under control, a U-2 conducted a 12-minute flight taking pictures of the island nation showing the missiles in place. Kennedy was furious with himself. As many of you know, the next 13 days were some of the most stressful in our nation’s history. World war was avoided, and the Soviets ended up removing the missiles from Cuba.

Kennedy and Khruschev were enemies, but they were both rational individuals who knew the costs that another world war would have on their countries. The enemies of the United States today, most notably Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the mullahs in Iran, are anything but rational. A very real and serious threat to our security would be Iranian missiles strategically placed in Venezuela. The two nations are cooperating already.

Barack Obama should heed Kozak’s conclusion. “Perhaps it’s that the most catastrophic consequences come when we talk ourselves into believing what we want to believe.” Kozak’s absolutely right. Obama has talked himself into believing that Iran’s leaders want a nuclear deal when what they really want is the destruction of the U.S. and Israel.


Obama’s Credibility Problem

You know the administration is on weak footing when even the liberal media start mocking its claims. That’s exactly what happened when President Obama tried to take credit for “creating and saving” 640,329 jobs with the first $160 billion paid out so far from the $800 billion stimulus program. Not even the liberal media was buying it.

Thursday night, CBS reporter Chip Reid said, “If the administration’s first effort at counting stimulus jobs is any guide, tomorrow’s numbers could be hard to believe.” And they were hard to believe. During Friday’s press conference administration officials couldn’t say how many jobs were created and how many jobs were “saved.”

Worse yet, the Associated Press disputes the 640,000 claim, writing, “…the new data appeared to include at least dozens of entries in which contractors listed the same number of jobs as created or saved on different projects, which suggested double- or triple-counting of the same workers used on all projects.” Undaunted by the facts, White House economic adviser Jared Bernstein said the stimulus has saved or created more than 1 million jobs.

According to the administration’s analysis, half of the 640,000 jobs – 325,000 – were educational jobs, good news if you’re a teacher. But the data suggests that much of the money was used to prop up government spending at the state and local level, rather than creating new jobs. The bureaucracy was spared, while the private sector got the shaft.

Reacting to all this, ABC’s Jake Tapper ran the numbers: “So, let’s see. Assuming their number is right – 160 billion divided by 1 million. Does that mean the stimulus costs taxpayers $160,000 per job?” And of all the educational jobs “saved or created,” Tapper notes that back in January President Obama promised that “90 percent of the stimulus jobs would be in the private sector.”


Bauer & Barack?!

Some of you may be startled today if you are reading reports of the White House visitors list. The White House has finally succumbed to pressure to honor its promise of increased transparency by publicizing the list of folks who have had access to the president and key White House staff. No one was surprised that the head of the SIEU, which is intimately connected with ACORN, was the most frequent visitor at the presidential mansion. Nor was anyone shocked to see George Soros on the guest list.

But quite a few reporters did a double take to see yours truly – Gary Bauer – listed. After running through a Hollywood A-list of celebrity visitors, MSNBC’s “investigative reporter” notes, “Conservative religious leader Gary Bauer visited, as did liberal civil rights leaders Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson.” There’s just one problem – it wasn’t me. Similar name (Gary W. Bauer), different person. So much for MSNBC’s investigative journalism.
 

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