by Dick Morris
Huckabee also has to demonstrate that he can break out of the evangelical ghetto. In 2008, he won in Iowa largely because of the backing of the born-again Christian vote, and his primary victories came in states with huge evangelical populations—Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Tennessee, West Virginia, Iowa, Kansas, and Louisiana.
Ironically, Huckabee is subject to the same kind of prejudice that afflicts Sarah Palin. As a woman, she draws all kinds of special scrutiny. As a former minister, so does Mike. Never mind that he was a highly successful governor of Arkansas for a decade. Who cares that he upgraded the schools dramatically, held down taxes, and stimulated economic growth? No. The media only wants to know his position on creationism and homosexuality and what duty a wife owes to her husband. His entire record of courageous leadership is totally overlooked by the secular, anticlerical, leftist media.
But, again, we are determined, in 2012, not to swim upstream against the current. We want to win. We don’t want to fight to prove a point. Sarah’s negatives are unfair, as are Mike’s, but we don’t want to lose the election because of them. They both have to prove that they can overcome them!
Newt Gingrich
Newt is Dick’s personal favorite. Eileen likes him a lot, but worries that he may be old hat for the current mood of the electorate.
The former Speaker runs fourth, at 14%, in the realclearpolitics.com average of all polls between October 27 and November 21, 2010.39 But, as with Palin, he has very high national negatives. The November 22, 2010, Quinnipiac Poll showed him with a 30–43 negative rating nationally.40 His unpopularity makes Republican primary voters afraid that his personal baggage will make him unelectable.
Everyone agrees that he would clean Obama’s clock in a debate. He can outthink, outtalk, and outstrategize the president. He’s brilliant.
But will his two failed marriages become a serious issue, especially with women?
Gingrich also emerged from his defeat in the government shutdown of 1995–96 in bad shape. Who can forget the Daily News front-page cartoon of Newt as a crybaby protesting that he had been seated in the back of the plane on an Air Force One trip to the Middle East for Israeli prime minister Rabin’s funeral?41 The Speaker lost the war of words with President Clinton and was beaten down in the government shutdown that followed.
Now, Newt will likely emerge as one of the key Republican spokesmen in the budget battles of 2011 and 2012. It will give him a chance to show that he can handle himself better.
More than either of the Republican Congressional leaders, he has the rhetorical ability to articulate the GOP case, and we can assume that he will be front and center in battling Obama during the fight. If the budget wars are to be Armageddon, Newt is our gladiator.
As he fights for us against Obama’s socialism, voters may come to ignore or forgive his personal problems. You never know, so let’s watch and find out.
On center stage again, you can bet that Newt won’t blow it this time around!
Every time a party nominates a candidate to oppose an incumbent president, it does its best to choose an alternative who is the opposite in every possible respect. Clinton’s detractors saw him as a draft-dodging, immature womanizer, so the Republicans named Bob Dole, an older, morally upright, combat veteran. Democrats thought Bush 41 was too old and oriented to foreign policy, so they chose Clinton, a young governor with no foreign experience.
Right now, Barack Obama is giving inexperience a bad name. He is so clearly out of his depth and doesn’t seem to have a clue about how to manage the executive branch that the Republicans may see Gingrich’s experience and age as a good alternative.
Will Newt even run? He didn’t when there was an open seat in 2008, so why should he when he has to take on an incumbent in 2012? The answer is that Newt loves a challenge and a fight and is a true believer. He may not be able to resist entering the battle.
The Others
With one front-runner unnominatable and the three others possibly not running, the rest of the field is very important. And, with FoxNews’ role in the nominating process, you don’t need a whole lot of money to play. So, some of the second-tier candidates might make it into the semifinals. One of them could be the nominee. Just like Barack Obama.
So far, the potential field includes Governors Chris Christie (NJ), Bob McDonnell (VA), Haley Barbour (MS), Mitch Daniels (IN), Bobby Jindal (LA), Tim Pawlenty (MN), and Rick Perry (TX); Senators Jim DeMint (SC) and John Thune (SD); Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (MN); Congressman Mike Pence (IN); and former senator Rick Santorum (PA).
We have problems with two of them.
In our view, former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty has some explaining to do. In our 2009 book, Catastrophe, we wrote about the international effort to promote Shariah, the Islamic code of law in most Muslim countries. Shariah law is vicious. It authorizes the stoning of women, denies them funds in divorce, authorizes child brides, and encourages terrorism and jihad.
But on August 28, 2008, the Minnesota Housing Finance Agency (MHFA) board started a three-year pilot program that makes it easier for Muslims to buy homes without violating Shariah. The program authorizes the state to borrow money on their behalf and charge them monthly payments. This convoluted process is designed to circumvent their religion’s prohibition against paying interest.
What business does a state have enacting a law that benefits a single religion?
Dan Bartholomay, who led the fight against the housing program, details what happened next.
“In February, 2009, the first Shariah Compliant loan was made and news of the Minnesota State–sponsored Islamic finance program hits the blogs and talk radio.
“From April to October, 2009, ACT! For America volunteers organize; various emails sent to MHFA staff; phone calls made; volunteers sit in on MHFA Board meetings; research is done.
“Nov 1, 2009–Feb 28, 2010—Twelve installments of The Bostrom Chronicles are sent to Gloria Bostrom, MHFA Board member.
“March 2010—ACT! for America volunteers, St. Paul chapter, send more than 100 letters to MHFA board members and various MN candidates for public office.
“April 15, 2010—MHFA decides to end the NMMP.”42
Add to this tale our own condemnation of the Minnesota program in our book Catastrophe:
“Imagine a program for observant Orthodox Jews where the state would send in workers to turn on lights for them during the Sabbath! Or to drive them around for free so they don’t have to operate a motor vehicle on Saturday. That’s exactly what this Minnesota program amounts to.”
“What business does a state have to jump through such hoops to help members of a specific religion to purchase homes? If anything violates the wall of separation between church and state, this is it!”43
Governor Pawlenty’s aide, Alex Conant, sent us the following e-mail on December 13, 2010, discussing Pawlenty’s role on this issue:
“This program was independently set up by the MN state housing agency and did not make any mention [of] Shariah Law on its face, but was later described by critics as accommodating it. As soon as Gov. Pawlenty became aware of the issue, he personally ordered it shut it down. Does he wish it had been shut-down sooner? Of course. Fortunately, only about three people actually used the program before it was terminated at the Governor’s direction.”
We’re glad to hear that the program is no longer in effect. But there are several problems with the governor’s reply:
The program was in effect for more than a year and a half before it was shut down.
During that time, activists deluged both the media and the MHFA with criticisms of the program. It is hard to understand how the governor could have remained ignorant of the program until he finally acted.
And if, despite all this publicity and attention, Governor Pawlenty did not know about the Shariah-compliant loan program his own state housing agency had launched, what does that say about his management style?
Each of us, as Republican voters in the primary, sh
ould draw our own conclusions from these facts.
Mississippi’s Governor Haley Barbour also wants to run. He’s a good man and was a fine leader of the Republican National Committee, but the last thing we need is for a former lobbyist to run for president.
Here’s how we break down the rest of the field of newcomers—and there are some very good ones.
New Jersey governor Chris Christie has tamed the savage beast. He took a state budget that was far out of kilter and forced a balanced budget through a Democratic legislature with no increase in taxes. It took some doing. He had to slash local school aid, which will probably cause local real estate tax hikes, but he got it done. He also killed the proposal for a new tunnel under the Hudson River connecting New York and New Jersey (there are two already). Had that project gone ahead, it would have bankrupted his state, just as the Boston Central Artery Project (the Big Dig) drained Massachusetts taxpayers for a decade. That took guts.
Virginia’s governor Bob McDonnell did the same, only one better: working with a compliant Republican legislature, he was able to roll spending back to 2006 levels and avoid any tax increase. It was an amazing achievement, and that alone makes him an attractive possible nominee.
Indiana’s governor Mitch Daniels has been working wonders in his state. He is promoting the first truly comprehensive version of school choice, letting parents send their children to the schools they prefer and earmarking the state’s share of education spending to travel with the child to the new school. He wants to reform collective bargaining with the teachers’ unions so that only wages and benefits can be discussed—not work rules or other issues. He has taken bold initiatives to reform health care by implementing a modified health savings account system for state workers (see Part Three).
Bobby Jindal, governor of Louisiana, won high marks for his handling of the BP oil spill, especially after his predecessor screwed up the state response to Katrina. He is reputed to be brilliant and innovative and a real comer. Standard & Poor’s raised Louisiana’s bond rating and credit outlook from stable to positive in 2009 crediting the state’s strong management and “commitment to streamlining its government functions.”44 A big feather in Jindal’s cap!
But Jindal has hit two bumps in the road. His nationally televised Republican reply to Obama’s February 24, 2009, address to Congress was panned. He talked about how poorly the government had performed during Hurricane Katrina, which Republicans said raised an issue that had hurt them politically. He also refused to veto a doubling of state legislative pay despite having opposed it while he was running. A recall petition was filed against him. He saw the light and vetoed the bill. The recall was dropped.
South Carolina senator Jim DeMint earned high marks with us when he sponsored and helped fund Republican primary challenges throughout the country, pitting Tea Party candidates and true conservatives against squishy Republican RINOs (Republican In Name Only). He didn’t always win, but he deserves a lot of credit for risking his popularity by trying. In his recent book, Saving Freedom: We Can Stop America’s Slide into Socialism, he writes eloquently about preserving American sovereignty amid the group of nations known as G-20 that is seemingly intent on making our economic decisions for us.
Indiana congressman Mike Pence, a former talk radio host, is a keen advocate of freedom and has taken the lead against Obama’s efforts to squelch free speech. A solid and outspoken conservative, he may be able to summon the eloquence to match Obama and defeat him in debate. In the early going, he has earned high marks as a spokesman for the conservative cause. Many hail him as a new Reagan.
Perhaps the most intriguing of the possible candidates is Minnesota congresswoman Michele Bachmann. The leader of the Tea Party caucus in the House, she is never at a loss for words, most of them imaginative and pithy, as she responds to Democratic attacks on conservative positions. Her rejoinder to MSNBC host Chris Matthews on election night in 2010 was especially saucy. Alluding to Bachmann’s ill-advised accusation two years ago that some Democrats were “un-American,” Matthews asked her if she would be investigating them since she now was in the majority in the House. Bachmann refused to be baited and stuck to her talking points about how dramatic the GOP victory was. Then Chris asked: “Are you under hypnosis? Has somebody put you into a trance? Because every time I ask you about this you keep coming back with the same response.”45
Michele shot right back that she was just expressing her feelings and asked Matthews “how’s that tickly feeling up your leg tonight?” Michele was, of course, alluding to Matthews’ comment during the 2008 election that hearing Obama speak sent a “tingling feeling” up his leg.46
Like Palin, Bachmann is often accused of saying flaky things, but her originality might make her an intriguing candidate.
Not on anybody’s radar screen is non-governor, non-senator, and non-congressman Herman Cain, a charismatic orator and talk radio host. An African-American Republican conservative, Cain campaigned tirelessly for Tea Party candidates in 2010. He bought Godfather’s Pizza from Pillsbury in 1988 and served as CEO and chairman for a decade. He was chairman and a member of the board of directors for the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City. Articulate, able, and lyrical, he could be an interesting counterpoint to Obama.
It’s way too early to sort through the candidates. Enough to know that there are some very able people out there. And, undoubtedly, a bunch more will follow.
Obama has so damaged our economy that it is likely to be in the tank through much of the next two years. Republicans must focus on how the president’s policies have kept us down and obliterated any prospect of recovery. And they need to use their control of the House of Representatives to undo the damage and show how low tax, free market solutions are the ones that work best.
PART TWO
HOW OBAMA HAS SCREWED UP OUR ECONOMY
The prime mission for the Republican House, of course, is to undo the vast damage the Obama administration and a rubber-stamp Democratic Congress have inflicted on the American economy.
In September 2010, the National Bureau of Economic Research, the body charged with chronicling the beginning and end of national recessions, announced—to the consternation of all—that the recession was over. According to them, it had begun in December 2007 and ended in June 2009.1 The unemployed were irate; entrepreneurs with idle factories were puzzled; consumers who weren’t spending were skeptical. The announcement became a form of grim humor in the gaunt and ravaged economic landscape left in the wake of Obama’s economic policies.
But the economists had it right. The cyclical recession, part of the normal fluctuation of ups and downs of the business cycle, had indeed run its course. The usual downturn in economic activity associated with recessions was over. Things were normal again—the new normal.
And that is the most scary part! The almost 10% nominal unemployment rate and almost 20% actual rate, the negligible wage and income growth, the relative stagnation of the gross domestic product were no longer the result of a cyclical recession. They are the new permanent state of our economy!
It took a fifty-something African-American CFO of the nonprofit veterans’ group AMVETS named Velma Hart to bring it all into perspective for us. Velma, who had voted for Obama, confronted the president at a town hall meeting in September 2010 that was, ironically, staged by the Democrats. Remembering the days when she and her husband had to settle for franks and beans for dinner, she challenged Obama: “My husband and I have joked for years that we thought we were well beyond the hot dogs and beans era of our lives, but quite frankly, it’s starting to knock on our door and ring true that that might be where we’re headed again.” Then Hart asked the question on all of our minds: “Mr. President, I need you to answer this honestly, is this my new reality?”2 she asked with a tinge of panic in her voice. It is the question we are all asking. It starts in our nightmares, then invades our quiet moments of waking anxiety, and finally, makes its way to our lips. “Is this my future?”
Why hasn�
��t the economy recovered? Why does the malaise linger? When will confidence return? How long must the For Sale signs desecrate the lawns of our neighborhoods, tombstones marking the graves of our former prosperity, the words on the sign an epitaph to our past plenty? When can we resume our journeys up the economic ladder? Is this just the start of a new period akin to the 1930s our grandparents told us about? How long must we hold our breath and stay underwater? When can we dream again?
Beneath these urgent questions lie others, tinged with anger. What happened to the prophesies of our leaders? Where is the promised effect of the widely heralded stimulus package of new government spending? Did we accumulate all that debt and load our children with so heavy a burden for nothing? What about the change so many voted for? Why hasn’t it all worked? What went wrong?
The answer is disgustingly simple. The recession that seems to follow all economic booms has, indeed, passed. Now we confront a man-made depression created by the misguided social engineering, bitter class antagonism, and animosity to prosperity of one man—President Barack Obama. In our book Catastrophe, we said he was waging a “war on prosperity.” Now it is clear. He is winning.
Aided and abetted by a compliant Congress, he has blighted our future and is ruining our country. The fertilizer of his government spending and borrowing is rapidly overgrowing the garden of our economy with noxious weeds that are strangling the real job-creating engines. Businesses cannot borrow, capitalists can’t invest, workers can’t move up because government policies, taxes, borrowing, and regulation are holding them down.
The whole world entered the recession of 2007 together. But other countries did not suffer nearly the job losses that bedeviled America, and both Europe and Asia have come out of the recession much faster than we have. Why? Because we are the only country blessed with a president like Obama.