Red Dirt Talk - Part 1, the Setup

So it looks like Hillary and Bill, kinda, are going to be good Democrats and try to lead the Unity Donkey down the garden path. A lot of folks will sigh "Oh well, we tried." and trudge back into line because they been told (and so they believe) that Obama is the lesser of two evils, that a McCain presidency would be such a catastrophic event that it is simply unthinkable... some of us won't buy that for any price. We're hearing hysterical wailings about the dreadfulness of McCain and blue sky predictions about the coming Obamatopia. Not so fast...

Most of the time, in business, in life and in politics, people throw around “blue sky” predictions. A lot of us do it for the sake of optimism, salesmen and politicians do it for a living. This is not a bad thing, per se, and we learn to counter the ‘blue sky’ talk with a healthy dose of skepticism: “Oh, come on,” we’ll say, “don’t tell me that Mustang GT was only driven on Sundays by a little old lady who never went over twenty miles per hour – I just don’t believe you.” It tends to work out and if it doesn’t, well, experience is a very fine teacher.

Sometimes, however, in life and business… and in politics, we need to get down from the blue sky to what I call the “Red Dirt Talk”. What are the numbers? Who’s on the hook? Who gets what and when do they get it? And the bedrock question: What’s it going to cost me?

I think we’ve reached a Red Dirt Talk point now – there can be as many Red Dirt Talk points as needed –we need to sit down, stare at the wall and really think about where we are, how we got here and what we really want to do next. It’s important, critical in fact, because history will be changed by what we do in the next several months – even if we do nothing at all, the world will change, just a bit, go there when it might have gone here… and a different future unfolds.

Let's review the facts, then look at the options and see if we can form a plan.

Fact: Hillary blew the campaign - why? I don't know, maybe Patti Solis Doyle was a fifth columnist but they should not have lost all those caucuses, especially after they did it right in Nevada. I don't like it but it's true.

Fact: the Democratic Party nomination has been taken from the obviously stronger, better qualified candidate and bestowed upon the weaker and less qualified candidate. There are numerous theories about who did what to whom, all the way from the massive collusion plot in which the Bushies have manipulated this in order to stage a coup before the election to the David Axelrod channeling Karl Rove with the complicity of the radical leftie-Bolsheviks to take over the Democratic Party for nefarious purposes (I actually kinda like that one myself). For the purposes of the Red Dirt Talk, it doesn't really matter. It has happened, barring a major reversal of fortune, BHO will be the Democratic Party candidate this fall.

"A newly released CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll found that if Obama does not select Clinton as his running mate, 22 percent of her supporters would stay home this fall (almost 4 million voters) -- and another 17 percent (a little over 3 million) would vote for McCain." --CNN (parentheses are mine). So, if we use 2004 as the baseline - GWB won with 62 million voters vs Kerry's 59 million. then take away 4 million Democratic votes, that leaves BHO with 55 million. Now take away another 3 million from that (Clinton supporters who will not stay home but will vote for McCain) and add 3 million to the Republican side. You end up with 65 million for McCain to 52 million for BHO. There is a word for this: landslide.

Fact: the Democratic Party won the 2006 congressional elections and now has a majority in both houses (233 v 202 in the House and 51 v 49 in the Senate) - granted the Senate majority rests on two independents and Lieberman is a Republican in all but name. This is certainly not veto-proof territory but it is also certainly enough to stop inimical legislation and prevent more damage by the GWB crowd... you would think. Curiously enough, there has been no action to counter GWBs excesses and people in leadership roles have averred that any health care reform is DOA. Impeachment is, famously, off the table sez Ms Pelosi (in one of the greatest acts of political stupidity in the history of American politics). Our several wars go merrily on their way, dispensing billions in government contracts (the cost of the Iraq war is now $5,000 per second) to titular American companies who have shifted their HQs to Dubai to avoid paying American taxes. GWBs tax cuts for the rich go on and on with no end in sight.

Remind me: what is it that makes Democrats so different from Republicans?

Estimates are that Democrats will pick up 15 more House seats in the Fall and as many as 6 more Senate seats. That would give an incoming Democratic president a 248 to 187 advantage in the house an 57 to 43 in the Senate well within arm-twisting range of a filibuster-proof majority (AKA rubber stamp Congress).

In the technology world there's a thing called "FUD", it stands for Fear, Uncertainty and Dismay. It's a propaganda strategy that Microsoft used effectively for years to destroy its rivals. Keep overhyping your (usually mediocre) accomplishments, trumpeting the crushing inevitability of your overwhelming (potential) victory, demeaning the quality and value of your competition with innuendo and implications of questionable moral lapses. Your target audience may not like you very much but they become afraid to stand against you... and your success is assured. If this feels familiar it is because the Obamabot/bolsheviks are waging a FUD campaign against you right now. To recognize this is to resist it, be aware.

I cite specifics of BHO's programs from his website but they seem to change depending on the audience he's speaking to at the moment. I've also included John McCain's positions on the same subjects. We can all run around with our hair on fire screaming and yelling about our issues and concerns but, at some point, we need to put on our critical thinking caps and look at the choices we have to make.