“The power under the constitution will always be in the people. It is entrusted for certain defined purposes, and for a certain limited period, to representatives of their own choosing; and whenever it is executed contrary to their interest, or not agreeable to their wishes, their servants can and undoubtedly will, be recalled.”

~ George Washington (1787)

Thursday, November 8, 2012

Post-Election Thoughts

Here are links to, and partial quotes from, conservative writers that I often read.  In the days following Obama's victory, and the maintaining of the status quo in Washington, DC, there are some lessons to be learned.  It's time to think a different way, and these may help:

AFTER WORDS
Tim Blair, Daily Telegraph
......I’m not so pessimistic as many fellow conservatives, despite being among few on the right who expected an Obama win. Democrat vote-harvesting machinery – here’s one example – and the authority of incumbency were always going to be hard to beat, especially by generally mushy Mitt, the second below-standard Republican to run against Obama.

The next four years will likely be extremely damaging for the US, but they needn’t bring doom. As the New York Times reports:

In 2008, Barack Obama drew increased support from nearly every demographic category, and most of the nation shifted to the left.

Most of the nation shifted to the right in Tuesday’s vote, but not far enough to secure a win for Mitt Romney.
It isn’t much, but it’s something to build upon for 2016. By then, the cost of Big Government, entitlements, micro-regulation and Obamacare may be clear even to the government-dependent.......

Erick Erickson, Red State
Like when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object, we now know what happens when a candidate so weak anybody can beat him meets a candidate so weak he cannot beat anybody. Americans vote for the status quo. $6 billion later, Americans voted for the status quo. Karl Rove, call your donors.

Republicans will keep the House. Democrats will keep the Senate. Obama will keep the White House.

It is what it is. The next two years are going to be some of the most fun and exciting years within the modern American conservative movement.

We know in American politics that nothing is permanent. The question we are going to have to assess is whether Barack Obama’s coalition is a Democratic coalition or a Barack Obama coalition. My personal opinion is that Barack Obama built a winning coalition for Barack Obama and it may not translate to a long term Democratic coalition. Just ask Minority Leader Pelosi and that now endangered creature known as the Democratic Governor.

As the jockeying for 2016 begins soon (and it will begin very soon) we will find out.
 The  rest is here.