Hillary Clinton: The long goodbye

The Clintons survived the scandals and wars of the ‘90s because in the '90s there was a lot less cable TV and Internet and no Twitter or social media. (AP Photo)

Which Democrat will be the one to play Barry Goldwater to the Richard M. Nixon of Hillary Clinton? Who will step up to tell the self-wounded one-time colossus that the time has arrived to go home?

On August 7, 1974, Goldwater and the Republican leaders of the House and the Senate called on the president and told him he had lost the support of his party in Congress. The next day, Nixon told the country that he would be leaving his office, and the day after that, he resigned.

Coming on top of the pay-to-play scandals surrounding the Clinton Foundation and the embarrassing, extravagant sums she demands for her speeches, the criminal investigation into the scrubbed secret server maintained and surrendered by the former first lady may make her a burden too great for her party to carry. In a recent poll of registered voters, 58 percent say Hillary lied about the emails and 54 percent believe that she weakened the country's security. Since the main task of the president is securing the country, this doesn't bode well.

But worse than the cost of what already happened is the prospect of what still may come. "Until a month ago, one of the arguments I frequently heard ... was that that she'd been vetted like nobody's ever been vetted," wrote Frank Bruni in March. "All the skeletons had been tugged from the Clintons' labyrinthine closets. All the mud had been dug up and flung."

Then came "Clinton Cash" and the conflicts of interest, and when that had sunk in, the unsecured server. Who can swear there's not even more fresh new mud where that came from, ready to start fresh new media frenzies? With the server now in the hands of the government, there's the continuing prospect of fresh new developments from now through November of 2016. News could break during the primaries, after the primaries, during the conventions or shortly before the opening of the polls. Can one run a campaign while under indictment? We may be about to get an answer.

"Dems will put up with a scoundrel, but not a loser," the editors of this paper wrote earlier this year. They cited the undying support of Bill Clinton, who, to be fair, while he was in office never did anything like this. But the problem is that Hillary is becoming a loser because she's a scoundrel, as her lies and the continued exposure of them seem to come more and more to the fore.

Her ratings took a predictable dip in 2013 when she left her old role as diplomat for the tumult of politics. Another dip came in 2014 when her book launch fizzled and she claimed to have been "dead broke" after the White House. But the holes in the hull were punched by the Clinton Foundation and then the emails, which made her approval ratings slide underwater and saw her fall behind many GOP rivals in many important swing states.

The Clintons survived the scandals and wars of the '90s because in the '90s there was a lot less cable TV and Internet and no Twitter or social media. In the '90s, they controlled the White House and party and now they do not. In the '90s, they were in office, not merely seeking it; and Bill was a skilled and adroit politician, which Hillary is not.

For all of these reasons the time may soon come when their party will find that it cannot afford the Clintons. And some solon with indisputable party credentials will take that long walk to their door.

Via: Washington Examiner

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Destroying the GOP: How Immigration Turned California Blue

Republicans won California in every presidential election of the '50s, '60s, '70s, and '80s, except for the '64 Goldwater loss.  Now California has a third-world economy with one-party dominance.

The pro-amnesty Republicans should think clearly about what happened to the Golden State.

Today, California's GOP has withered to a small fraction of the state's registered voters.  Since the state began tracking party affiliation in 1922, Republicans have never had such a low share.  Republicans are now 29 percent of voters; Democrats are 44 percent.

But California did not go quietly.  In 1994, California voters, and governor Pete Wilson, tried to eliminate the incentives for illegal immigration with Proposition 187.  Prop 187 sought to prevent people from receiving social services or public education until they were verified as U.S. citizens.  Law enforcement agencies were to report illegals to state and federal authorities.

The proposition passed by a stunning 59%-to-41% margin in 1994.  However, by 1999, Prop 187 was invalidated by court rulings pushed by liberal organizations.  California is now known as Mexifornia.

How could the state that passed Prop 187 and had been a stalwart for Republican presidents have fallen so far?

As the graphs below show, demography was electoral destiny for California.  The top chart shows California's demographic changes (from 1960 to 2010), compared to the state's Electoral College votes.  The state's Electoral College votes went blue in tandem with the rising Hispanic population.

Sources: WSJ, 270towin.com

Via: American Thinker

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SO WHEN DID THE CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS BECOME KENNEDY’S ‘VICTORY’?

That Khrushchev swept the floor with Kennedy during the Cuban Missile Crisis was mainstream conservative conclusion throughout much of the Cold War. Richard Nixon and Barry Goldwater, for instance, represented opposite poles of the Republican establishment of their time.

“We locked Castro’s communism into Latin America and threw away the key to its removal,” growled Barry Goldwater about the JFK’s Missile Crisis “solution.”

“Kennedy pulled defeat out of the jaws of victory,” complained Richard Nixon. “Then gave the Soviets squatters rights in our backyard.”

Generals Curtis Le May and Maxwell Taylor represented opposite poles of the military establishment.

“The biggest defeat in our nation’s history!” bellowed Air Force chief Curtis Lemay while whacking his fist on his desk upon learning the details of the deal.

“We missed the big boat,” complained Gen. Maxwell Taylor after learning the same.

“We’ve been had!” yelled then Navy chief George Anderson upon hearing on October 28, 1962, how JFK “solved” the missile crisis. Adm. Anderson was the man in charge of the very “blockade” against Cuba.

“It’s a public relations fable that Khrushchev quailed before Kennedy,” wrote Alexander Haig. “The legend of the eyeball to eyeball confrontation invented by Kennedy’s men paid a handsome political dividend. But the Kennedy-Khrushchev deal was a deplorable error resulting in political havoc and human suffering through the America’s.”That Khrushchev swept the floor with Kennedy during the Cuban Missile Crisis was mainstream conservative conclusion throughout much of the Cold War. Richard Nixon and Barry Goldwater, for instance, represented opposite poles of the Republican establishment of their time.

“We locked Castro’s communism into Latin America and threw away the key to its removal,” growled Barry Goldwater about the JFK’s Missile Crisis “solution.”

“Kennedy pulled defeat out of the jaws of victory,” complained Richard Nixon. “Then gave the Soviets squatters rights in our backyard.”

Generals Curtis Le May and Maxwell Taylor represented opposite poles of the military establishment.

“The biggest defeat in our nation’s history!” bellowed Air Force chief Curtis Lemay while whacking his fist on his desk upon learning the details of the deal.

“We missed the big boat,” complained Gen. Maxwell Taylor after learning the same.

“We’ve been had!” yelled then Navy chief George Anderson upon hearing on October 28, 1962, how JFK “solved” the missile crisis. Adm. Anderson was the man in charge of the very “blockade” against Cuba.

“It’s a public relations fable that Khrushchev quailed before Kennedy,” wrote Alexander Haig. “The legend of the eyeball to eyeball confrontation invented by Kennedy’s men paid a handsome political dividend. But the Kennedy-Khrushchev deal was a deplorable error resulting in political havoc and human suffering through the America’s.”That Khrushchev swept the floor with Kennedy during the Cuban Missile Crisis was mainstream conservative conclusion throughout much of the Cold War. Richard Nixon and Barry Goldwater, for instance, represented opposite poles of the Republican establishment of their time.

“We locked Castro’s communism into Latin America and threw away the key to its removal,” growled Barry Goldwater about the JFK’s Missile Crisis “solution.”

Via: Human Events

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James Madison Would Know Who Today's Extremists Are, And They're Not The Tea Party

In the aftermath of the government shutdown, widely regarded as a self-inflicted political disaster for Republicans, two conspicuous themes deserve attention.  The first is the view that the Tea Party faction of the Republican Party is too extreme, and leading the party into the political wilderness.  Much of the Republican establishment—if such a thing can be said still to exist—holds this view.

While there is plenty of room to criticize the strategy and tactics of the Tea Party, one wonders whether it is correct to categorically deplore the fact that Republicans in Washington may finally be shedding their long-time Stockholm Syndrome of collaborating with the expansion of government.  Almost fifty years after Barry Goldwater famously declared that “Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice,” it looks like a critical mass of Republicans are finally catching on.  It is inconceivable, for example, that today’s House Republicans could be goaded into passing an unfunded entitlement like Medicare Part D as they improvidently did in 2003.

Via: Forbes
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Saving California: Interview with Greg Raths (R-CAND CA-45)

Here at RedState we believe strong conservative candidates deserve our support, especially in deep blue states like California.  On June 3rd, in California’s 45th Congressional District, retired Marine Colonel Greg Raths will face off in a primary against State Sen. Mimi Walters and Pat Maciariello to replace U.S. Rep. John Campbell, who is retiring.  Not only does Col. Raths stand for traditional conservative values, such as small government and fiscal responsibility, but he has also been endorsed by the organization Combat Veterans for Congress.

Col. Raths was at the California Republican Party Convention with conservative icon and former Congressman Barry Goldwater, Jr., who is a Director for Combat Veterans for Congress.  Former Congressman Goldwater spoke enthusiastically about Col. Raths and the fact that his combat experience gives him an advantage over the competition.  I spoke with Col. Raths about the top issues facing our country and what he plans to bring to the table.

Col Raths, the biggest issues facing the country right now are ones that we all know has plagued California for some time: Budgets and debt.  How do you suggest America move towards a balanced budget and reducing her debt?

RATHS: This goes back to leadership.  First of all, Americans like you and me are starved for leadership in Washington.  People just want someone to lead in the current crisis that’s going on today.  There’s one man who’s in charge and that’s President Obama.  His job is not just to be leader of the Democrats, he’s supposed to be the leader of the whole country.  He needed to get these people together, meaning the Majority Leader of the House and Senate and other leadership a long time ago to stop this from happening.  He knew, if he had any sense, what was going to happen on October 17th and October 1st.  So how to get the debt reduced?  We need conservative candidates to run for Congress and we need conservatives in state government and local government.  The only way we can reduce the deficit is to have a majority in both houses and hopefully the presidency; right now we don’t, so we have to work with what we have.  I feel that it’s the President’s job and his responsibility as a leader to ensure that we don’t spend more money than we bring in.  This year alone, the American taxpayers have sent to Washington more money than they ever have in any specific year.  And they are still seven or eight hundred thousand short.  So, it has to come from the top, it has to come from the leader, and I tell my constituents where I’m running that in order to get these goals passed, we need the leadership in Washington that will do it; currently I don’t think we have it.  So we have to look at 2014 to see what we can do to bring in some good conservative candidates into Congress.

Via: Red State

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Kidnapping Goldwater and Reagan

A favorite meme in the attack of moderate Republicans and the liberal media against conservatives is that we have gone so overboard on ideological litmus tests that neither  Barry Goldwater or Ronald Reagan could be nominated in today’s Republican Party. Our opponents are attempting to kidnap these two Lions of the right to use as cudgels against their spiritual heirs.

Goldwater’s geriatric jeremiads against the religious right and Reagan’s loosening of abortion restrictions as Governor and tax increase as President are most often cited by the left as proof that “even” those two Godfathers of modern conservatism would “compromise” and “bend” – making them unacceptable to conservatives today

In the words of my candor mentor, Colonel Sherman T. Potter of the 4077th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital,” horse hockey”.

The Gipper’s seeming apostasy is easily dealt with.  He realized about a nano-second after both of those actions that they were mistakes, and spent the rest of his career describing them as the biggest mistakes of his political life. To those of us who actually knew and worked for Ronald Reagan the idea that he was a closet moderate or that he would not be a leader of or cheerleader for today’s Tea Party is laughable.

Barry Goldwater’s late-in-life statements need to be balanced against his actual votes which were almost uniformly conservative, and  need to be considered in light of the influence of his decades-younger second wife Susan. She apparently was a good companion to Barry, reportedly made his twilight years easy and happy, and that is all good. She also was an unabashed liberal and her influence on his politics is obvious, and that was all bad.

That said, the later-day Barry Goldwater is irrelevant to this discussion. He didn’t matter then and he doesn’t matter now.  Who matters is the man who changed America – the Barry Goldwater of the late 50s and early-to-mid 60s who inspired millions and launched the modern conservative movement.  It was the Barry Goldwater of Conscience of a Conservative  and the 1964 campaign who activated hundreds of thousands of previously inactive citizens, many of whom (including yours truly) are still at it today.

Via: California Political Review

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