No Runny Eggs

The repository of one hard-boiled egg from the south suburbs of Milwaukee, Wisconsin (and the occassional guest-blogger). The ramblings within may or may not offend, shock and awe you, but they are what I (or my guest-bloggers) think.

Archive for November 10th, 2008

Going “Old Testament” On You

by @ 5:59. Filed under Politics - National.

There’s an old saying that says “If you don’t learn history, you’re destined to repeat it.” That saying perfectly states my final thoughts on the 2008 Presidential election.

First, I want to clearly state that while I am an Evangelical Christian, I am not like Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell where I believe you can discern God’s will or see God’s hand in every event that occurs.

Ok, going Old Testament.

After the Israelites escaped from Egypt, the were lead by Moses and then Joshua. After Joshua, a series of “Judges” ruled/lead the nation, or parts of Israel.

During the time of the Judges we find that Israel’s relationship with God had become distant. As generations passed, the new generations didn’t have the benefit of first hand knowledge of God’s works in their lives as the generation of the Exodus had had.   As a result, many of the Israelite tribes took to worshiping Baal during this period.

It’s clear throughout the book of Judges that God no longer paved the way for the Israelites as a result of their distance. “If it feels good, do it,” was the guiding principle for the Israelites during this time. In fact, the last line in Judges is:

Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.

As things continued to deteriorate for Israel and a civil war took place, the people of Israel desired change from what they were experiencing.   Rather than looking back to see what had worked previously, they looked around themselves to other nations and said “we should be more like them!”   The result was a request to God via Samuel, to request a king to lead them.

God understood that the reason the Israelites were having challenges had nothing to do with the type of leadership they had.   He knew that the issue was one of self importance, arrogance and disobeying of God’s word.  

In  1 Samuel 8, God attempted to warn the Israelites that there would be consequences of their  desire:      

17He will take the tenth of your flocks, and you shall be his slaves. 18And in that day you will cry out because of your king, whom you have chosen for yourselves,(M) but the LORD will not answer you in that day.”The LORD Grants Israel’s Request

Unfortunately, the Israelites didn’t heed God’s advice and demanded a king:

      19But the people refused to obey the voice of Samuel. And they said, “No! But there shall be a king over us, 20(N) that we also may be like all the nations, and that our king may judge us and go out before us and fight our battles.” 21And when Samuel had heard all the words of the people, he repeated them in the ears of the LORD. 22And the LORD said to Samuel,(O) “Obey their voice and make them a king.”

So, God gave them a king in 1 Samuel 9, Saul, and he turned out to be as bad as God had warned and worse.

It didn’t take long for the Israelites to realize they had made a mistake.   Only a couple of chapters in the Bible, 1 Samuel 19,  and according to some scholars, probably a couple of years in real life, the Israelites were asking for forgiveness for their demand of God for change:

19And all the people said to Samuel,(AM) “Pray for your servants to the LORD your God, that we may not die, for we have added to all our sins this evil, to ask for ourselves a king.”

So why the history lesson?

Even without tying in issues of faith, the parallels between the Israelites and the US are stark.   Like the Israelites, the US has moved from a period of steady prosperity into a time of trouble and uncertainty.   Also like the Israelites, rather than looking back and taking responsibility for the actions that have gotten us here, we’ve assumed that the right answer for our troubles is “change” and “to look more like other nations.”   Finally, like the Israelites, we have concluded, even though every sign tells us otherwise, that wholesale change of our method of governance is the answer.

The Israelites went through some tough times after they got Saul as their king.   While Saul had an early successes, he quickly turned from God and lost His favor.   God then instructed Samuel to anoint David as king but it would be years before David finally took the throne.

While I expect us to go through some difficult times as a result of our recent political decisions, I remain hopeful.   Like the Israelites, I expect the citizens of the US to eventually see the errors of their selections.   Also, unlike Israel, we won’t have to wait an unknown time frame until the death of a king to make a change.   We’ll be able to make a change in two or four years.

Saul’s pride and jealousy created a schism within Israel at the end of his reign.   Rather than a peaceful transition to David, the king who God anointed, there was fighting between the families and followers of David and Saul.   Eventually, David won but not until there was great bloodshed within Israel.

Like Saul, it’s apparent that Barack Obama has enormous pride.   I’m not going to suggest that should  Obama or the Dems lose an election, that we would not have a peaceful transition.   I am going to suggest that the pride and ego I see in Obama, Reid and Pelosi leaves me concerned that they will attempt to impact how future elections occur.   Oh, I don’t mean not having elections.   Re instituting the “Fairness Act” and implementing the union card check program are two ways to tilt future elections in the Dem’s favor.

I certainly don’t have a crystal ball to see the future.   I do however, believe we are seeing a similar human behavior pattern (and just maybe a pattern of God) that is similar to the Israelites of old.   I guess the way to handle this for the near term is the same way that Samuel dealt with the situation with Saul.   When the Israelites recognized that Saul was a mistake, they confessed their sin to Samuel and asked him to pray for them.   In 1 Samuel 12, Samuel replied:

23Moreover, as for me, far be it from me that I should sin against the LORD by ceasing(AT) to pray for you.

I’ll pray for this country’s citizens and its leadership.

So You Want To Run A Moderate?

by @ 5:22. Filed under Miscellaneous.

After a quick look at the ’08 and ’04 exit polls, I wrote that one of the things we learned from the ’08 election was:

Working from your base to the middle works better than working from the middle towards your base – Obama received support from 89% of self ascribed "liberals", compared to Kerry getting 85% of the same group.   McCain only received 78% of the "conservative" vote while Bush received 84% of the same group.   Of course those who are moderates broke for Obama 60% to 39%.   It’s clear from this that while Obama held his base, McCain never fully recovered from his early pokes in the conservative eyes.

After looking over some past exit polls, I don’t think that statement quite covers it.

In this election we had arguably, the most liberal candidate ever fielded by the Democrats run against one of, if not the, most moderate Republican (OK, we can argue about Ford, maybe even GHW Bush.)   Additionally, while the moderate tried to cloak himself with conservatism, the liberal made no such attempt and ran a campaign that was unashamedly left.

The notion of running a Moderate for the Republican candidate was cobbled from a series of theories.  

First, the Republican brand had been decimated through the combination of President Bush’s disappearing approval ratings and the electorates mistaken notion that the Democrats didn’t have a hand in the existing economic mess.  

Second, the Republican leadership is at best, moderate.   They believe they reflect their party and the broader electorate.   Remember the guffawing from Peggy Noonan and Mike Murphy  when, caught via a “hot mike”  were heard ridiculing the choice of Sarah Palin because her choice by McCain was “cynical.”   Their point was that no one in the Republican party (read that leadership) believes what Palin believes.   Party Leaders, moderate and believing to be reflective of the electorate, they wanted one of their own.

Finally, there was a belief that a moderate would be able to gain votes from a broader electorate spectrum.   After all, where else could the conservatives go, the liberals were obviously going for the Dems so the fight was going to be for moderates.   The candidate who gained a bigger share of support from the moderates would surely win this election.

So with all that rationale for running a moderate, how did it work out?

Not well!

Yes, McCain loss but that’s not the take away from this election.   How he lost is the lesson.

I took a look at the exit polls for the last 32 years.   They started with Jimmy Carter beating Gerald Ford and went through the most recent election. I noticed a few things that debunks the “we win with moderates” thinking.

 

First, there are some who believe that we have become an electorate that is at least more moderate if not sliding to the liberal side. While there is some movement from year to year, you’ll notice that for the most part, the electorate, at least as they describe themselves, looks pretty much today as it did in 1976. In 1976, the electorate was 20%, 48% and 31% Liberal, Moderate and Conservative respectively. In 2008 the same split was 22%, 44% and 34%. If anything, the moderates have become slightly smaller as the electorate becomes a bit more polarized.

Second, note that with the exception of Reagan’s first term against Carter, no Republican has won without getting at least 80% of the Conservative vote. Reagan’s shortage of Conservative support can be attributed to some being split off to Anderson along with the fact that the election of that year had the smallest percentage of the electorate describing themselves as Conservative.   At any rate, it seems pretty clear that if a Republican doesn’t hold 80% of thieir base, they have little if any chance to win the election.   Interestingly, the same parallel does not hold for Democrats.   Democrats can win with less than 80% of the liberal vote, note Carter and Clinton’s first runs.   Only in Clinton’s second run, and now Barack Obama, have liberals supported the Democrat candidate with greater than 80%.

Finally, let’s look at those moderates.   Note that since 1976, Only Reagan’s landslide victory of 1984 garnered greater than 50% of the moderate support for Republicans.   Of course, Reagan also achieved a modern high of 29% amongst liberals.   Other than that instance, no Republican has gained greater than 50% of the moderate’s support.   More typical has been the Bush victories where mid 40% of the moderates supported the Republican.

OK, so some moderate support is required to win.   Was McCain’s strategy of courting moderates successful?   Obviously based on the end results, no.   However, I believe more than “No” we can say “Hell, no!”   Note that Obama has been the only candidate in modern times to gain 60% of the moderate support…and as I mentioned early in this post, he ran as an unashamed liberal!   It’s obvious that for his efforts, McCain made no inroads of import to the moderate electorate.

It’s clear that McCain’s desire to court the moderates failed.   In fact, his focus on the moderates cost him his base and doomed his election

Hope and Change for 2010?

by @ 5:09. Filed under Politics - National.

Gingrich: I’m Ready to Serve as GOP Chairman

 

I’d have to check the archives but the only position, and I’m not even sure that it was that, that I disagree with him on was his commercials for global warming.

Newt has a solid finger on the pulse of the American public and the conservative core. While there may be others, Newt is the only person I know for certain who can take conservative principles and explain their benefit and purpose to the general public.

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