Republicans scored a major victory last night and that is very good news.\u00a0 Although Democrats managed to keep the Senate, it was only by the skin of their teeth.\u00a0 There are 21 Democrats up for re-election in 2012 and only 10 Republicans.\u00a0 I expect a lot of conservative Democratic Senators from red states to start to quickly distance themselves from Obama and the left wing of the Democratic party.\u00a0 The only Democratic Senators who survived were hard core left wing liberals from states with major Democratic machines.\u00a0<\/p>\n
This election literally tilted both parties.\u00a0 The Democrats tilted significantly to the left and the Republicans tilted to the right.\u00a0 Because all of them were on the ballot last night, conservative Democrats in the House tended to slide right out of office.\u00a0 Those 21 Democratic Senators, particularly the ones from red states,\u00a0up for re-election in 2012 can see the handwriting on the wall.\u00a0 The only reason Democrats did not lose control of the Senate last night is because only 18 of them were up for re-election.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Obviously, my analysis of Delaware was way off.\u00a0 I should have known better, because Christine O\u2019Donnell was a train wreck of a candidate.\u00a0 But, I was basing this on a single poll and it is now obvious that the poll was nonsense.\u00a0 She lost by 17 and that was with better than expected Republican turnout.\u00a0 This is one case where the Tea Party did us no favors, because they simply did not vet her as a candidate.\u00a0 The only recent major candidate with a worse resume was Barack Obama and he at least did graduate from Harvard.\u00a0 We also weren\u2019t well served by running a WWE Diva on a family values platform in Connecticut.\u00a0 There were similar problems with Joe Miller in Alaska.\u00a0 Fortunately, Lisa Murkowski appears to have saved that seat for the Republicans.<\/p>\n
But, Marco Rubio and Rand Paul are major victories for the tea party and more importantly, for the conservative wing of the Republican Party.\u00a0 They proved that major elections can be won by people who run on solid conservative values.<\/p>\n
Contrast that with California where neither Carly Fiorina nor Meg Whitman did that.\u00a0 Meg Whitman spent over $140 million trying to get elected by repeating over and over again that she is not Jerry Brown.\u00a0 She never mentioned cutting taxes or cutting spending or a return to core conservative values.\u00a0 Ultimately, a lot of people saw very little difference between the two.\u00a0 Carly Fiorina ran a similar race, where once again her main argument was that she wasn\u2019t Barbara Boxer. \u00a0Then she had absolutely no response to the attack ads saying she had shipped 30,000 jobs overseas as CEO of HP.\u00a0 She also did not talk very much about cutting taxes and reducing spending.\u00a0 She never mentioned that she would stop Obama, she just wanted to replace Boxer.<\/p>\n
Frankly, Republicans should have won both races, but until the Republican Party learns to unite behind a Candidate with something resembling a personality and the ability to explain the conservative agenda, we are going to continue losing every election.<\/p>\n
Did anyone notice that Democrats dominated a 30 mile strip along the entire length of the California coast.\u00a0 The rest of California has turned deep red.<\/p>\n
The election for the country was great, for California it was a disaster.\u00a0 Republicans only won one statewide office, Attorney General, and that was only because it was patently obvious that Pamela Harris was embarrassingly incompetent.\u00a0 To make it worse, voters passed Prop 25, which now allows Democrats to pass a budget with only a simple majority vote.\u00a0 The only thing that has kept California from taxing and spending itself into oblivion has been the ability of the Republican minority to block irresponsible budgets.\u00a0 There is no longer any guardrail protecting California from going over the cliff.<\/p>\n
Since no California Democrat currently in office, other than Bill Lockyear, has demonstrated a shred of common sense, it is always difficult to predict what they will do.\u00a0 It is clear that they desperately need new tax revenue, because the unions who bought the election for them are not going to let them cut many more public sector jobs.\u00a0 So the real question is what Democrats will do to raise money.<\/p>\n
They will try to raise taxes, but taxes are so high now and the economy is so bad that this may not be possible.\u00a0 So, they will still raise taxes, but they will call it something else.\u00a0 I fully expect them to legalize marijuana, because then they can tax it.\u00a0 Democrats view marijuana solely as a very attractive source of desperately needed new revenue so they can continue spending.\u00a0 The fact that Proposition 19 was voted down is just an inconvenience, kind of like Proposition 8 and gay marriage.\u00a0<\/p>\n
They will raise energy taxes, inspired by the California Green energy goals.\u00a0 In some cases they will be disguised as fees, but they will really be a tax.\u00a0 They will also increase car license fees, because they don\u2019t like cars anyway.\u00a0 They probably will come up with other new and exciting ways to raise taxes, but they will definitely raise taxes and small business owners will be hit the hardest.<\/p>\n
Barbara Boxer said that her solution to California\u2019s financial problems was to tax all the money made by California based companies from foreign operations.\u00a0 In other words any company currently domiciled in California that makes profits anywhere else in the world, is going to be taxed by California.\u00a0 Any CEO of a California based company who heard this brilliant idea or who learned about it later is probably developing plans to leave the state.\u00a0 This is utter nonsense.<\/p>\n
But perhaps the most dangerous result was the election of Dave Jones as Insurance Commissioner.\u00a0 He is a hard core left wing political activist who thinks all problems can be solved by increased regulation of the insurance industry.\u00a0 He has already proposed legislation allowing him as Insurance Commissioner to require prior approval of health insurance rates.\u00a0 If you think the health insurance industry in California is bad now, just wait six months.\u00a0 Many insurance carriers are already skittish about California in general because of the long history of the Democratic controlled legislature passing ridiculous regulations that make it impossible for insurance companies to make a profit.\u00a0 At one point nearly all workers\u2019 compensation insurance in California was underwritten by the State Compensation Insurance Fund, because private companies had withdrawn completely from the state.\u00a0 I can remember many conversations I had personally with top executives who told me flat out that they would never again write business in California because they did not trust the California State Legislature. \u00a0That changed when Arnold Schwarzenegger was elected, but my hunch is that many of them are already developing an early exit strategy.\u00a0 I can\u2019t blame them because California just turned over the insane asylum to the inmates.<\/p>\n
So, one must ask, how do you create jobs in an environment that is so hostile to business owners?\u00a0 One answer, already proposed by Democrats, is to create great new jobs with government money.\u00a0 For example, California could build that coveted high speed rail line between San Francisco and Bakerfield.\u00a0 In addition, they will require all engines and passengers cars to be built in\u2026.California.\u00a0 This is progressive utopia.\u00a0 High speed mass transit, massive spending and all those delicious union jobs.\u00a0 Of course the fact that we have no money to fund this, that this has no chance of ever turning a profit and that the coveted federal funds are non-existent will not slow them down.\u00a0 I predict they will issue bonds so that lots of people can help fund this marvelous idea.\u00a0 This is very similar to how the French financed the Panama Canal.\u00a0 That worked out really well.<\/p>\n
Hurray, for the U.S.A., but for California, too bad, so sad!<\/p>\n
TDM<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Republicans scored a major victory last night and that is very good news.\u00a0 Although Democrats managed to keep the Senate, it was only by the skin of their teeth.\u00a0 There are 21 Democrats up for re-election in 2012 and only … Continue reading