Category Archives: Political Commentary

Big-Government Conservative

Here’s why it’s hard to work up much enthusiasm for Rick Santorum. He’d be another George Bush.

From a small-government perspective, we’re doomed to have a dud in the White House regardless of the outcome (barring a brokered convention). So it’s important to try to get as many true classical liberals into the Congress as possible to check the nanny compulsions emanating from the White House.

[Update a while later]

More from David Boaz.

[Late morning update]

Santorum doesn’t think much of the Second Amendment, either.

Obama’s Support

…is faltering in Iowa:

Bobby Burns has had a dramatic change of heart.

Burns, 23, was one of those young people swept up in Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign. Three years and one college degree later, he cannot imagine a scenario in which he would consider voting for the president’s re-election.

“I guess you could say I have seen the light,” he said.

On Tuesday he will caucus in a precinct right down the road from where he grew up. His vote will go for Mitt Romney.

It’s not just Iowa. And this is the president’s problem. There are a lot of people who feel this way. On the other hand, I think you’d be pretty hard put to find anyone who voted for McCain who’s going to vote for him in November.

Obama, Trapped In Carter Country

Some thoughts from Ed Driscoll on parallels between the two presidents. I found this part interesting:

Obama doesn’t like people. He likes himself.

He appears to have a long-standing pattern of disconnection from others. Where are the voices of those who grew up with him, went to school with him, worked with him? It is eerily quiet.

Naturally, there are those who disagree with the notion that our president is aloof.

Despite the narrative in Washington of Mr. Obama as a loner, his friends and aides say he likes people just fine. He looked positively ebullient when he worked the crowd at a hangar last Wednesday at Fort Bragg, N.C., reaching out to nearly every one of 3,000 troops returning from Iraq.

No surprises there. Obama knows how to work a crowd. Apparently, he is downright ebullient when doing so. But that is not the same thing as liking other human beings and connecting with them. Working the crowd is about his ego. And a photo op.

Obama holds himself apart.

Something about him is off kilter.

And lots of people know it.

Republicans and Democrats, alike.

It reminds me of the classic line by Linus from Peanuts: “I love mankind, it’s people I can’t stand.”