antidis-establishment-arianism

All you hear in the media these days is about the Republican Establishment and the insurgents.  I happen to be an avid supporter of Ted Cruz, one of the so-called insurgents.  Yet I think all this establishment talk is overblown.  Here’s why.

            I got involved in politics in 2010 helping a state Rep get elected.  He goes to civic clubs and small gatherings constantly and campaigns door to door.  They call that “retail politics” when you talk and listen to real people.  Since that election, I have been privy to dinners and gatherings of some big shots—US Congressman and our state Governor. People like that have districts or states of 760,000 or more people and can’t begin to talk to all of them.  So they use mass media and direct mail to campaign.  That costs big money.  It will cost about $2 million for a Congressional Representative or a state-wide office.  Thus there are some big donors who support these guys, and when you sit at a dinner, you realize how they are trying to buy influence. Some give $10,000 and some exceeed that.  But the heart of Republican donations remains small businessmen who chip in $50 or $250 apiece.  The Cruz campaign says its average donation is $66.  In the year 2000, Bush campaign average donation was $52.  The Dems are actually the ones with just a few very large donors from Hollywood and unions. 

            That the large donors want influence is human nature.  And studies of the ultra-wealthy show that above all they protect their empire.  So they have certain desires. But do they have enough influence to own a Congressman?  Usually, no.  The job of Congressman is to represent most everybody or else they don’t get the votes. And by nature, politicians have an affinity for making others feel satisfied.  You and I don’t have this talent.  If I ran, I’d get 30% of the vote and the rest would be ticked off at my bluntness.  Nonetheless, some legislators become tied to certain interest groups and donors.  (By the way, First Amendment guarantees the right to petition government through lobbyists.) 

            My guy got a 100% Conservative score last year so he’s true blue conservative.  But often legislators compromise their principles when faced with economic circumstances and political complications.  For example, here in Oklahoma, our cities vote Republican, a rarity.  That’s because R’s use the winning issue of school choice, especially for poor families in failing schools.  But otherwise rock-ribbed conservative Reps from rural areas get squeamish over talk of school choice.  Citizens of small towns worry that if a child goes to a special school, the attendance numbers will drop in their regular public school and they’ll be forced to consolidate and the whole town will die if it doesn’t have a school.  So rural Reps often vote against school choice. State Senators are more liberal throughout the USA than House members.  They represent larger districts which require more money for election, which means more compromise with interest groups. 

            So while there is a donor effect that makes “establishment” pols at the national level compromise their conservatism, it stills remains curbed by voters.  If voters are conservative, so will be the politician. 

            The real problem in this election is Obama.  He is an ideological ego-maniac with the attitude of my-way-or-the-highway.  And he has co-dependent facilitators in the US Congress.  Result is that Congressmen can’t even get things up for vote when Harry Reid squelches them.  Usually, opposition party legislators want to get things done, Presidents want things done, but not Obama and the Dems.  They just look for the politics of blaming the R’s.  This has been exacerbated by political leadership of House and Senate who decided that if Obama will veto it, they won’t push for it.  It would have helped if they’d impeached or challenged more.  Then there wouldn’t be this voter rebellion. 

            But there is.  At this point, I pray that the Republican voters won’t be so angry that they blame all the troubles on our Congressional folks rather than the true villains of Democrats and Obama.  I hope we don’t fall for an avenger candidate—an empty suit who just has talent to “tell ‘em” without any consistent conservative sense of how to make things work—like Trump.  We will need substance, perseverance, conservatism, unity and votes.  If who we choose can’t unite, low turnout will doom our Republican House and Senate candidates. Much at stake here.

Super Toosday

Trump had a big night and it will take a big effort on the part of the rest of the GOP to stop him.  However, there are some numerical things that still put that within grasp.  I was on my way home from Colorado listening to ABC and I had to chuckle.  Not one number was ever stated. This harkened back to my days as a physics professor.  We used to say that journalism majors were allergic to math.  Thus they must hire guys like Karl Rove to tell them what the numbers mean. 

            Here’s a few numeric gleanings I humbly submit. First, Trump significantly underperforms his polls.  He did this in their first 4 “weird” contests and it continued Super Tuesday.  Here are six states whose returns were almost concluded by the time I went to bed compared with the Real Clear Politics polls released over the weekend.

State    RCPpoll    Election result   Trump    Cruz

OK     34%T-18C    34C-28T             -6            +16

TX     35C-32T        42C-28T            -4              +10

VA      40T-22C       34T-29C            -6            +7

AL      42T-16C       44T-21C            +2            +5

GA     39T-15C       39T-23C            0               +8

TN      44T-22C      40T-24C            -4              +10

 

Trump underperforms his polling.  (Indies? Low information voters? Poor GOTV? Crappy polls?) while Cruz definitely overperforms.  Media has been primed all week with the big story about Trump’s tremendous win, but it looks more like just a frontrunner’s margin.  Delegates in most states, as far as I can compare, have a statewide proportional pot and Congressional district pots.  And pots have a threshold of 15% or 20%.  That should divvy up delegates quite a bit.  Cruz “won” (oh, how the media loves that term!) 3 states and clearly is doing a far better campaign at getting  out the vote.  My listening to voters here in Okieland indicates that for every supporter that Trump gets, he gets at least another voter who hates him. This is a winnable campaign for someone else with good GOTV. Trump’s still under 44% everywhere. Ted got 42-43% of Texas. 

            My opinion from the beginning of this campaign (when I researched a white paper on stances and policies of all 17 candidates) is that Trump has no substance behind his bombastic statements, uses character assassination of competitors, and is untruthful.  (what we used to call a flim-flam used car salesman with crazy hair and yellow plaid pants) I long for the day when more voters want substance, debate monitors hold Trump to talk about his strategic plans, and other candidates answer similar questions, thereby looking presidential and full of hope.

            Go Ted!

            Say, why do they call it the SEC primary?  I see TX,OK,CO, WY.  Shouldn’t it be the Big 12 primary or the High Plains Primary. “I tell ya, we don’t get no respect!”

Here I stand

Next year commemorates the Reformation’s 500th.  Reformation was a wide movement that included both Catholics and Protestants, but Luther’s 95 Theses posted in 1517 marks the traditional date. Luther’s Diet of Worms defense, “Here I stand. I cannot recant,” defines unwavering faith of the individual.  God plus one believer makes a majority.

            Today, America is embroiled in political donnybrook, and Justice Scalia, defender of originalism, died leaving the possibility of a changed court for decades to come.  Liberals laugh at conservatives for defending the original meaning of the Constitution from a time when women couldn’t vote and slaves were 3/5.  Maybe we should ask just what do we believe and where did it come from?

            Jesus Christ, the Eternal Word that was present in the beginning, fulfiller of God’s plan to rescue sinners like me originates and checks my belief in anything else. But not all that He taught was instantly realized by men. For well over a thousand years after He walked on this planet, Christians continued to live with statism.  Kings ruled absolutely.  Then in the 1670s an Englishman, John Locke, a man of much personal faith, and the Father of Modern Psychology, wrote  Two Treatises On Government in which he asked what kind of governance the minds of men craved.  What he postulated was something like no government known at the time or in the past.   What humans need most, Locke wrote, is Liberty, that is, the ability to follow inner voice in your head.   Christians call this following the Holy Spirit and the mission God gives you As Paul wrote, “For it is no longer I who live, but Christ Who lives in me, and the life I now live, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me.” (Fear not if you are not Christian, this means no infallible theistic thoughts.  Indeed we are all bumbling sinners, but we trust in a Divine Guide.)  Liberty inherently means limited government. “Render unto Caesar, the things that are Caesar’s and unto God the things that are God’s.”  Sorry, Caesar, some stuff just ain’t yours.  Liberty destroys statism.  The order of things is no longer God over Kings over men, but men under relationship to God and over the government they establish.  “We the people, in order to form a more perfect union…” wrote the Founders. Government doesn’t bequeath our legitimacy.  We bequeath it’s legitimacy.  The principle of the humility of Jesus Christ--who though He was God, let those who disagreed simply walk away—frames Liberty.  Each person has his own walk and dreams.    Liberty thus creates our First Amendment, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

It also follows that if God has established a relationship with each person, He gives Rights that can’t be revoked.   Property (and right to it) is the resource for a personal mission God establishes. “What God has joined together, let not man put asunder.” Free speech follows from The Great Commission and the Shima of Deuteronomy.  The living  God breathed His life into the world when He created it, and gives us new life (salvation).   “I have come that you might have life and have it abundantly.” “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness” are intertwined into God’s Word.

 Lincoln said, “a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.” Equality was a principle. As scriptures say, “there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, but all are one in Christ Jesus.”

Locke thought Separation of Powers was a vital part of government.  After all, Isaiah wrote, “For the Lord is our judge; the Lord is our lawgiver; the Lord is our king.”  Three functions, 3 branches make sense, the Founders reasoned.  Actions are thus checked by separation of powers.  One makes the law (congress), one arrests the lawbreaker (police), one judges guilt (court).

Tolerance—“Let us not pass judgment on one another…never to put a stumbling block or hindrance in the way of a brother.” When one’s future is secure, one is free to tolerate.  “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, angels nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come can separate us from the love of Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Natural Law “To assume among the Powers of the earth, the separate and equal Station to which the laws of Nature and Nature’s God entitle them.” Is how the Declaration puts it  God says, “For when Gentiles, who do not have the Law, by nature do what the Law requires, they are a law unto themselves.”

Liberty, Rights, Limited Government, Separation of Powers, Tolerance, Natural Law, and Equality—all in our Constitution—come via a Higher Power with principles found in scripture. The Constitution, our mutual contract for a federal government, “either means what it says in context of those who wrote it, or it means what you imagine you want it to say” --Antonin Scalia.   Some of us still believe in the self-evident truth.

 Others may think it’s all a big yawn and should be voided, updated by court whims, twisted in interpretation. But among all social contracts, this one is by far the best to have sprung up.  It has not just stood the test of time, but has allowed mankind to thrive more than any other system.  There is a reason our Presidents and our foot soldiers take an oath “to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” We’ll fight for it. “Here I stand. I cannot recant.”

Government of the media, by the media, for the media

Stand back and tell me what you hear.  What I hear is the media saying it is all wrapped up for Trump.  He won 32.5% to Rubio’s 22.5 and Cruz’s 22.1.  That 10-pointer SC win was 8 points lower than the Real Clear Politics average of polls 36-18-17% respectively. There are a lot of people telling polls that they will vote for Trump who don’t bother to show up or change their mind in the last seconds.  That 8 point underperformance was true in Iowa and it was a 7 point underperformance in NH. But of couse, no one ever takes the pollsters to task as having idiot results.

And with a lot of race to come, it could go any way including a brokered convention.  Not for the media who are telling us how we must accept Trump the Inevitable. 

Then consider these early primaries.  Iowa allows you to register that day and has 10-20% turnout decide the thing.  NH has better turnout but is the most open primary in the country.  You can get a motel room and ask for any party ballot if you only claim you are thinking of moving there. (You gotta admit Feb. in NH—really a commitment!)  One tiny hamlet near the Canadian border has 200 people and over 300 votes each primary season.  Sordid Carolina is also ‘open’, but they ask what party you belong to when you choose a ballot.  From this we know that 24% of Republican ballots were given to Dems. 

From this circus, the media claims extraordinary powers of prognostication and chooses our finalists or even the winner forevermore. And all in context of their polls.  Polling is extremely hard today with no land lines in most houses, hence no way to identify voters as voting often or age or even party, the most important information to scale the results.  Thus Trump led in one NH poll 41 to nearest rival at 13. 

And this year I am hearing this ‘establishment’ label but no one defines it precisely.  I think what the media means is that group of incumbent pols in Washington or is it the state party leaders, or donors or even all activists.  Well, I can tell you who most of the activists are in this county and most are not Trumpsters.  So then if he wins, will they work for his campaign?  I have my doubts that 183 people calling on 9000 households will happen like it did in 2010, an off year. Maybe a little literature gets thrown on a few porches.  Trump better bring in some people or maybe keep yelling profanities and strange anti-Republican stances that his supporters love to hear. 

Several years ago I got misidentified as a member of the press at a Reince Prebus speech.  When the journalists all stood up to yell questions at the end of his speech, I quietly retreated to a corner and found myself next to a prominent Republican official.  Not wanting to waste this moment, I started a casual conversation about how the primary season ticks us Oklahomans off.  The same dingbat states come first and let any gonzo vote.  The media divination priests then look at the entralls and tell us who we get to vote for.  Shouldn’t some activists, the real worker bees, the people who care, get some sort of say somewhere? She was entirely in agreement and said she kept mentioning this to the RNC.  The trouble, she leveled with me, is that those states make enormous profits off the circus—hotel rooms, restaurants, plane flights, political tourism.  They essentially bribe both parties into keeping them first with donations of various things.  And then the media wouldn’t much attend if you made, say, Alaska the first Republican primary and left out Democrats.  So what I suggested was that we could have January caucuses and about 200 superdelegates apportioned to the 5 states that are most loyal Republican with the biggest percentages.  The caucus would be open to anybody who had helped with a campaign or who had attended a county meeting during the previous year. We keep records of this. In other words, let the people who care about it really decide.  She raised an eyebrow and said this really was a fair idea, though it means that WY, OK, UT and a couple other very conservative states would get this first balloting.  The moderates would hate it.  The media would hate trying to cover and poll 5 states at once.  The other early states would scream betrayal.

That’s exactly why we should do it.

Who's electable, who's not

The issue of electability is yakked about in media, but here’s a bigger picture you might consider.

It’s been said that people often elect a Prez as the guy they are comfortable with, the person you’d like to have over for dinner.  For this reason, Gallup began doing like/dislike polling of candidates.  Once you get into a primary season, those numbers don’t change much and have a lot to do with electability.  For instance, all the R’s who ran for President and lost in the last 40 years had unfavorabilities in the 45-50% range.  What we want is someone in the 30s.  You always have the 30% core Democrats who don’t like any R, so don’t look for numbers less than that.

Rubio is 36% unfavorable; Cruz, 39%; Bush, 46%. Cruz and Rubio are most liked. Bush is problematic.

Donald Trump has 60% dislike—highest in Gallup history.  His dislike among Republicans alone is 46%. He’s going to be almost impossible to elect, despite all the pundits arguing that he is centrist or how he reaches out to Reagan Democrats. But don’t feel too sad.  Hillary is at 52%.

So what about the argument between camps about reaching out to independents vs. getting more core voters?  Both are correct in a sense. In 2012, Obama got 4 million fewer votes than 2008, but Romney got only slightly more votes than McCain and still lost.  Problem was that 3 million fewer R’s showed up to vote.  Romney got 60% of Indies.  So didn’t his Independent support make up for the lost R-base?  No, the answer is that Indies vote half as often as partisans.  If 20% of the electorate is I, they only account for 10% on election day.  60% of 10% is just six points, vs. 40% of 10% is 4 points.  Romney’s was just a two point gained difference from I-vote vs. the 5 points lost from the base. 

But then look at Obama’s statistics.  He got 97% of Af-Amer. who had been ordinarily voting 85% Democrat.  They are 11% of population but comprised 14% of the 2012 vote—they turned out!  He got 73% of Hispanics vs. the ordinarily 60% D.  The next Democrat, unless they can really fire up their base, will probably lose 3 points of Af-Amer. support and another point of Hispanics. If Republicans can just get fired up about a candidate, they will win. Oh, and have you noticed no one ever talks gender gap?  R’s are less than 5 points behind with women.  Dems seem to have lost most married women these days.

So let’s look at the issue of reaching out.  Independents come in 5 almost equal-sized varieties. 24% are deliberaters that the media pretends comprise all I’s.  Others are hidden partisans (always vote D or R, but registered I to fool their dad or husband or friends), weird issue folks (as long as you support cock fighting, I’ll vote for you), anarchists (I hate all politicians!  Vote ‘em all out!), and misfits (socially liberal and fiscally conservative or vice versa). You can see how they vote half as often. You can see how hard it is to swing many votes at a time from this diverse group.

But R’s need to reach out to minorities.  Asians are voting increasingly Dem.  Key is to stress how America can get things done together.  Rubio does this well.  Hispanics must have an impassioned candidate who sympathizes with their situations.  Cruz does this best with personal stories and passionate Latin style.  Rubio does well.  Note, the issue of immigration reform divides Hispanics almost down the middle.  The key to winning Hispanics is not immigration reform but family values, help from society, and jobs.  Af-Ams realize that their problems are single mother homes and gangs, the education gap of the poor, and low work rates of poor males.  But they associate the Handout D’s as their saviors.  65% say D’s favor the middle class and poor, while 15% say R’s do.  A Republican outreach needs to be, look, we favor school choice for bad urban schools, tax & regulation cuts to favor hiring, and faith partnerships with government to heal family situations.  Dems favor alternate lifestyles and redefining marriage, abortion and the nanny state—all of which perpetuate poverty.  Dems have taken you for granted!  Or as Ben Carson says it well, “Half of all black 12^th graders function on a 6^th grade level.  Half of all murderers and murdered people are black.  Could it be that a large number of them grow up without a father figure to teach them how to relate to authority and the meaning of personal responsibility?”

The only outreach issue that I think needs to be re-visited is George W’s faith-state partnerships.  Government has shown dismal ability to heal lives.  Faith groups are tremendous at this.  And clearly, the R’s need to talk more to minorities like Rand Paul.

My opinion is that Rubio and Cruz are very electable with Cruz best because he will bring out the base and reach Hispanics.  Trump is highly disliked. Bush is dispassionate and disliked somewhat.  Carson is liked but a no-show on issues and no passion. Kasich--I don’t have much data  but I do have his stump speech memorized from the debates.  He started with an $8B deficit and now has a $2B surplus and created 400,000 new jobs.  Just come to Ohio and see what great things he has done.   

Bern, Hill, and Donald show

Rats! The sun rose on Feb. 2.  Donald saw his shadow and now we are going to have another six weeks of bombastic profanity.  For the life of me, I don’t understand how Republicans like a guy who swears, loves Planned Parenthood, and hates George W. Bush’s foreign policy that virtually had a war won when Obama snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. 

Or maybe it’s not really the R’s who love the Donald.  He gets 35% in polls but the polls are from IA, NH, and SC which are all open primaries, where Dems vote the Republican ballot. Maybe that 35 points is actually about 20 who are R’s and the rest are Dems and Indies.  Meantime I console myself with jokes.  Did you hear the one about 2 Corinthians who went into a bar?

The Bern and Hill debate was on PBS.  Is that what they call “Antiques Road Show?” The college kids love watching it and they have a new game.  Buy a case of beer and every time someone says the word “free” you take a swig.  Hillary says if Ted Cruz is elected, she is moving to Leavenworth. I am told that on the night before Christmas  in the year 2000, Hillary was lying in bed and suddenly the ghost of George Washington appeared to her.  “What can I do to serve the public better?” she asked him.  Washington said, “Always tell the truth.”  Hillary gulped.  Then an hour later the ghost of Thomas Jefferson appeared.  “What can I do to serve the public better?” she asked.  Jefferson said, “Listen to the people.”  And Hillary gulped again.  Then an hour later, the ghost of Abraham Lincoln appeared.  .  “What can I do to serve the public better?” she asked.  Lincoln said, “Just enjoy yourself and go to the theatre.”

Seriously, I think Bernie has a chance, so I have been studying his ideas. Bernie promises free college.  We could do that.  It happens in Europe and most of the world.  You just close the private colleges and have only government ones.  And of course, the government can’t afford everyone so they give a big test at the end of high school to decide who gets placement.  Those who don’t make the cut, and that includes just about everyone, get to be bowling alley and store clerks.  Moral:  When government promises more free stuff, it means less free choice.  Now if you look closely at Bern’s plan for free college, it is actually free tuition only. And it is about half funded by a 5% tax on financial transactions in savings transactions.  So every time you trade stocks or bonds or CD’s Uncle Sugar takes 5%.  It will turn your 401K into a 201K in no time at all. 

Bernie wants free health care for all which is rather like VA hospitals for everyone. The cost is way more than even his stiff tax rates can raise.  Nonpartisan Tax Policy Center estimates his spending will be $2.8T more each year (about double) and his tax increases raise only $1T. The max income tax bracket will go to 58%.  The capital gains will be taxed like regular income.  What Cap Gains at 58% means is that nobody in business sells out.  Instead of bright young people taking over old businesses and making their fortune, it means businesses will simply be boarded up on Mainstreet.  After all, who would give the state and federal government 2/3? This would bring economic growth to a dead stop.  Then think about all the S Corp small businessmen paying 58%.  You think they will hire new people or hide their income?

You think Hillary is better?  Well, she is.  She wants 45% income and cap gains taxes.

This is just too serious and I said it wouldn't be.  So did you hear that Obama is going to travel to Cuba?  Quick! Re-jigger the visa system so he can't come back!  He won't attend Scalia's funeral.  He's trying to look up Karl Marx for a SCOTUS nominee.

So how did Africa become black?

Black history month.  So, kids, if you want to stump your public school teachers ask , “How did Africa get to be black?”

            Black is a stupid label since you never see anyone the color of india ink.  Nor do you see anyone the color of snow yet we talk ‘white’ nonsense too.  All humans are some shade of brown.  If you look at a map of Africa you find Hamitic peoples north of Sahara who are Caucasians. It is believed all human races came originally from Africa (DNA and language group tracing). You find a mélange south of N. Africa which has previously been labeled Negroid. But consider, there are the dominant Bantus with dark brown skin and wide,flat noses throughout Africa, but there are also enclaves of pygmies who are reddish brown, rather like Native Americans, but only 4 feet tall.  There are Watusis who are well over six feet tall in South Africa.  Clearly these are not the same race.  There are San-Khoi (Hottentots and Bushmen) in SW Africa who have tightly coiled hair, small noses and yellowish-brown skin whose women tend to very large buttocks.  That’s clearly another race. Nilo-Saharans are an interesting dark brown skin but with facial features much like Europeans—Swedes with dark-skinned cousins in Sudan of strikingly similar DNA. Madagascar Island has natives closely related to Indonesians.  Each race has a distinct language group as well.  For example, the North Africans belong to the same language group as Semitics who wrote the Bible and practically invented commerce in the Tigris-Euphrates Valley.

            But the Bantus dominate.  Most Afro-Americans came from a small area of West Africa which kept many slaves and traded them to Europeans who had just about eliminated slavery by the end of the Middle Ages.  Slavery had a re-emergence in the Americas. And the people traded were almost entirely Bantus.  So why did Bantus come to dominate Africa and lend their ‘blackness’ to the continent.  The answer is agriculture.

            The Sahel region of sparse grass and rivers is just south of Sahara.  Here, we know that the natives learned to do agriculture.  In order for a hunter-gatherer to start doing agriculture, they have to see an advantage to raising things and staying in one place, rather than hunting and gathering.  Hunter-gatherers can only support a sparse population, never more than 4 to a square mile. The Sahel farmers found they could raise African sorghum, watermelon, cow peas, pearl millet, cattle, and guinea fowl. It beats the heck out of running around trying to spear dangerous water buffalos. The husbandry of birds like chickens and guineas breeds diseases that spread to humans.  Agriculture allows denser poplations and specialized skills, like warriors and weapon-makers.  In short, the Bantus spread their agriculture south through the rest of Africa, killing off many of the other races by war or by diseases they brought.  The same thing happened when Western Europeans met the natives of the Americas, or when the Chinese spread into SE Asia and Indonesia.

            Thus Africa was overrun by Bantu “black” leaving the other races as small enclaves of race and language in certain remote, desert or jungle or highland places. And this happened about 2000 years ago, rather recently historically, and is strongly marked by language and culture.  Ironic, given our politics of today: a Superior Black Race took over Africa, killed off and subjugated the others.  The best lesson to be learned is that these kinds of racial genocides have happened throughout human history.  Indeed until the American Experiment and British Enlightenment gradually changed people to be of a more accepting heart for others, this supplanting was completely common. Thank Christianity for the change.

            Ask your school teacher if they knew this.