Posted on 09/16/2010 2:30:55 PM PDT by wk4bush2004
In rereading my earlier posts I noticed I may have been a little unclear with my Don’t Trust Polls remark. I don’t trust single stand alone polls. Before I allow myself to put any stock in any kind of ground swell shown in a certain poll, I want to see a basket of them over a period of time. And I do see your point on Mr. Newt, it just irks me when he keeps showing up in these polls, its a bad memory that just wont go away. The man has zero likelihood of being the pick just like Kennedy.
It's "true" for most any definition of "true" that you can come up with. It's just that ... it doesn't mean anything.
One thing you should be aware of is that the early "front runner", no matter how much praises are sung, rarely comes out ahead in a contested primary election. That's history.
The forthcoming election has the potential to change things around greatly. In both directions. If there is a great sea change, and we have every reason to expect that there will be, there will be a flood of change to the House and Senate.
In 1994, the first Republican (Newt Gingrich) won the right to the Speaker's gavel in my lifetime. The Contract With America was a brilliant success and next up was getting rid of Clinton. Then, the ruling elite of the Republican Party decided it was Bob Dole's turn to run for President and Nothing Happened - the Gingrich revolution fizzled.
One of the showcase bills of the new Republican congress happened to be a huge Telecommunications omnibus bill that "we just had to pass". A bill "so important to pass" even though there was an onerous rider attached that permitted unconstitutional censorship of the Internet (thankfully cleared up by the Supremes a few years later). It also, of course, led directly to the WorldCom scandal a few more years later.
Also of note is that in the final lame duck Democratic led congressional session they passed NAFTA and GATT.
The point basically is that there's a long long time until 2012/2013. Many things will happen between now and then. Many things will change. No weight can or should be put on any poll for an election two cycles away.
It sounds like you are desperately seeking reassurance of a future. Fair enough. Me too. I've found great reassurance in this cycle's primaries. We've made greater strides towards expelling entrenched politicians than I've ever seen.
We're at a historic moment. Either we can reign in the punch drunk ruling elites, or we can't. We're pretty much out of time. No nation in human history has ever survived the kind of debt we've accumulated without collapse.
President Reagan was helpless to control spending, every single one of the budgets he presented to Congress was ceremoniously declared Dead On Arrival with great fanfare and the Democrats in Congress proceeded to write their own. Of course, the Reagan tax cuts provided so much economic stimulus that tax receipts shot through the roof.
A decade later, when we regained Congress, the only thing we ended up doing was salvaging the Clinton legacy.
Never mind the 2012 election. That won't start for another year. Do mind this coming election and we must keep the people we vote in honest and not betray us like what happened in 1995.
2012 will take care of itself, for now.
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