Re: The End is Near

Hey, Chase!  Your thesis that Obama drops in the polls whenever he gets out in front of the public was echoed by Mickey Kause on March 13 here.  Interestingly, Kause cites an article by Sean Trende that supports your theory, with statistics.

Great minds think alike, but it is to be noted that you published more than 4 hours before Mickey did.  So I guess that makes your mind greater (something we all knew anyway).

The End is Near

Prognostication is a dicey business at any time. During heated election seasons, it is doubly so.  But at this point it is undeniable that our President's Presidential prospects this fall are bleak. Herewith one of his major problems.

Over the course of the last three years, we poll watchers have seen a curious, well-nigh unprecedented, phenomena. The President's poll numbers markedly deteriorate every time he gets out in front of the public, and correspondingly improve to the extent he stays out of the public lime-light.

The last few months provide an example. As the Republican primaries turned into a dog-eat-dog spectacle and dominated the headlines and punditocracy, the President's public profile diminished and his approval numbers inched up towards the magical 50% mark. This positive trend was mostly ascribed to the barest hint of economic recovery, but as most of us on the ground knew, the "recovery" was nothing more than the triumph of Democrat hope over the evidence. As the Shaman knows, the entrails must always say what the ruler needs them to say, or else the Shaman will be out of a job. And the Democrats need to see a recovery; oh, how they need it, and so they see it everywhere.

Then came February, and our Narcissist-in-Chief just could not stand being on the sidelines. So he inexplicably forced on the American public an absurd debate on contraception, as if the Republicans opposed universal access thereto, and as if the total ubiquity of low cost contraceptive options did not exist. Leon Panetta, Obama's own insider of insiders, was aghast when he learned of his President's plans on this issue, but not less aghast than the American public which understandably considers, for instance, heart disease, diabetes, cancer, and high blood pressure as being more important health care priorities than a fantastically non-existent contraception-access problem.  

But that wasn't all.

Continue.....

Andrew Breitbart RIP

Andrew Breitbart died last night, from natural (and unspecified) causes.

What a loss for the conservative movement.  It is no accident that his first and most influential website was 'Big Hollywood,' as he was one of the few who understood that conservatism was a cultural war as much as it was political, and battle needed to be drawn on all fronts, not just in Washington. 

Does he have able successors to carry on his groundbreaking work, to push his 'Big' websites (Big Hollywood, Big Peace, Big Journalism, Big Government) to the next level in the national debate?  And if so, can they do so with the same zest and infectious enthusiasm that Breitbart brought to the task?

I don't know.  But I do know that Breitbart did his part, and much more besides. 

Rest in peace, Andrew.