The Sarah Palin Phenomenon Part 4

This is my final post for the time being on Sarah Palin. In the last post I gave my reasons why she should probably not be elected president. In this post, I will give my reasons why I think she has no chance of getting elected president.

1. Unless the economy never turns around, Barack Obama will be re-elected over any Republican candidate. This is the Bill Clinton philosophy: It's the economy, stupid. If the economy turns around in any appreciable way by early 2012, then Obama is a shoo-in. I don't care how fervently the religious right works against him, mainstream voters will vote him back in if they feel their pocketbooks are safe. You don't have to like this, but it's true.

There were a lot of reasons that Ronald Reagan beat Jimmy Carter in 1980, but this is a big one: 21% annualized rate of inflation for the first 3 months of 1980. George H. W. Bush was likewise a single-term president because voters perceived the economy as weak (ironically, it had been turning around in the several months prior to the election, but people catch on slowly).

Obama will not get voted out because he doesn't end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan soon enough. Liberals will be unhappy if troops are still in those countries in 2012, but they won't abandon him. neither will he lose his job over health-care reform. The only thing that could sink him is the economy. Given its cyclical nature, I have trouble believing that it will not be significantly better two years from now.

2. She sounds too conservative for the average voter. Her followers love her positions, but these are not the positions of the majority of voters in this country. Reagan had a way of communicating extremely conservative positions that resonated at a particular time. George W. Bush sounded less conservative than he was. With Palin, anyone who listens at all knows this is a conservative in the Bill O'Reilly/Rush Limbaugh/Alan Keyes mold. And the majority of voters think these guys are nuts. You would be mistaken for confusing the intensity of her followers with numbers of followers.

One of the reasons that John McCain picked her was a belief that she could help him with the so-called "soccer moms." That was a good strategy until she started expressing her extreme conservatism. "Soccer moms" are not raving liberals, but as a whole they are not evangelical Christians either. Unless Palin can find a way to expand her base, her candidacy will be doomed to a landslide defeat.

3. She has little support among the Republican party machinery. If you think this is unimportant, you are not paying attention. John McCain was not the favorite of most of the party bigwigs, but he had built enough support among them in his years in the Senate. Most of the party leaders seem to have taken a wait-and-see attitude with Palin. Although, with her leaving office so soon before 2012, it is hard to see how she is going to use her power of being an elected official to gain support with that group.

I think this makes it hard to see her even get the nomination. She will have some early strong showings in the primaries and will possibly be a force with which to be reckoned, but I seriously doubt that she could gain enough delegate votes.

If she did somehow get nominated, I could see the party leaders give her only token support while they concentrated their efforts on trying to gain or defend congressional seats. This will help her be on the wrong side of the landslide.

4. The fatigue factor. There is a danger in peaking too early. People get tired of you and of hearing about you. Obama was so over-hyped that he suffered a little bit for it in late-summer and early-fall. She is running the risk of being very old news come 2012, and some of the freshness that made her initially appealing will be gone. Will she have enough substance to overcome that? I doubt it.

To sum up, I have very serious doubts that Sarah Palin could come close to gaining the Republican nomination for president in 2012. If I am wrong, I still fail to see her gaining enough votes outside of her present constituency to capture the presidency.

Obfuscating the Real Issues

The silver lining in the whole Joe Wilson debacle is highlighting an important issue. Unfortunately, I think that everybody gets it wrong. When the congressman called out You lie, it was at the point where President Obama asserted that his health plan would not cover illegal immigrants.

Technically, Obama was right and Wilson wrong. However, I do understand Wilson's point. Given the history of court decisions, it is entirely possible that a judge somewhere could decide that it is unconstitutional to exclude illegals from the government health care option. Critics ascertain that Obama is being coy by claiming he is not including them while knowing that eventually they will be.

This is not impossible, but it does go against all of the president's previous rhetoric regarding the rights of illegals. So, while it is possible that they would end up being included by court decree, Obama was not necessarily being cynically untruthful.

Actually this debate misses two points:

1. The anti-immigrant forces continually contend that illegals use government services but don't pay taxes. I haven't seen recent numbers, but I remember a study from the 1980s (when this debate was at one of its cyclical high points) that showed that many illegals overpaid taxes. This was because they had taxes withheld from their checks, but because they didn't file tax returns, they didn't receive refunds to which they might have been entitled. Further, they had Social Security taxes withheld for which they would never receive a benefit. If this still holds true, then even if illegal immigrants became eligible for the government health plan, they might well be paying for it--at least at the same pace others in their economic class would. People may still object on principle, which I respect, but the cost to citizens might not be as significant as one might think.

2. In essence, most illegal immigrants already receive government health care, directly or indirectly. The vast majority of illegals are working poor. So if they have phony documents, some may qualify for Medicaid. Who pays for that programs? Taxpayers. In this case, the immigrants that some worry about getting government-paid health care are already getting it. So it's really a wash. Not all have the documentation to get Medicaid. But hospitals who accept any government insurance (nearly all of them) cannot turn anyone away from receiving treatment. If they can't pay, then the hospital either eats the cost or (more often) taps into a state fund that pays for indigent patients. Again, where does this money come from? Taxpayers. In short, I don't think that covering illegal immigrants in a government health play would change the amount of money that taxpayers pay for their health care. The difference would only be which account it comes from.

I am not trivializing the debate over immigration. This is a serious subject that needs better resolution than we have now. My point is that it is a distraction to the real debate about if health care should be reformed, if so how, and whether there should be a government-run plan as part of it. To focus on illegal immigrants is to ignore the real issues and is a shame. Next time, I want to talk a little about it.

This is a hero?

Apologies for not posting recently (at least to my one fan, Jeff). My new job left me needing to make a new schedule. Hopefully, I will post more regularly.

You have heard by now about Congressman Joe Wilson's You lie outburst during President Barak Obama's speech to Congress about the Democrat's health care bill. Under normal circumstances, it would be discussed for a couple of days and Wilson would go back to obscurity.

But we don't live in normal times. The Democrats will probably use their power to censure the congressman in some way. And the conservative wing of the Republican party are turning him into a hero.

What Joe Wilson did was rude and completely out of line (in my next post, I will discuss the actual issue). He did apologize, which should end the issue. Censure is probably unwarranted. If I were Nancy Pelosi, I would quietly send out a message to all congressmen reminding them that the US Congress is not like the British Parliament (those guys are nuts) and that any future actions by anyone would result in some clearly defined penalty.

The Republicans, likewise, should just move on. Their guy apologized and they should move the focus to the issues that they have with the president's plan.

Amazingly, though, there are conservatives who are lionizing Wilson for his brave stand against the evil Obama. A guy who once attended our church now lives in DC and works for the congressman. His wife posted on her facebook page how proud she was and other conservative Christians chimed in with their approval.

Are you kidding me? Tell me what would have happened had a Democrat done something similar to President Bush. You know that Rush Limbaugh would have demonized him and Bill O'Reilly would have lamented the decline of respect for the presidency. Tell me I'm wrong.

This, of course, is just the continuation of the hatred of all things Obama. It has nothing to do anymore with what is right or logical. It has only to do with attacking what they view as the enemy of all things right and holy. And it grieves me to see Christians leading the way with torches and pitchforks.

There are important issues to discuss. The health bill may be the worst thing to ever be proposed. But let's discuss the issues, not make a hero out of a hothead who doesn't have the self-control (isn't that what the Bible promotes) to know when to keep his mouth shut. Conservatives need an articulate voice (I heard Wilson Sunday on Fox News--not articulate at all) not a guy who is famous for being rude.

Stop the Insanity

Recently, I blogged about being one of the few in my circles to admit to actually having voted for Barack Obama. Since most of those with whom I attend church or seminary are conservatives of the Bill O'Reiley/Sarah Palin variety, nothing that the president does will ever meet with their approval.

I don't think they are always fair or open-minded, but I can live with that. What amazes me is the lengths to which some people will go to smear Obama. Someone made this video that should sicken you, but will actually fire up some non-thinking Christians.

The contention is that when Jesus said, "I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven," the phrase "lightning from heaven" would have sounded in Aramaic (or Hebrew) like Barack Obama. The anonymous poster's points are these: (1) The Hebrew word for lightning is Barak. (2) The Hebrew word for heaven (or heights) is Bamah. (3) The conjunction waw which unites words is sometimes pronounced "O". Therefore, when Jesus said Satan was like lightning from heaven it sounded like Barack Obama.

First, if this were true, it is simply ludicrous to think that Jesus was leaving us a hint as to the identity of the future anti-Christ. This is like the Bible Code nonsense.

Second, several of his contentions are just wrong. (1) The Hebrew consonants for lightning is BRQ. The president's name is derived from the Arabic BRK, which means the same in Arabic, Hebrew and Aramaic: to bless. (2) In the other 105 uses of BMH in the OT, it never refers to heaven. In Isa 14:14, BMH does not mean heaven either; rather, Satan declares he will ascend above the BMH of the clouds to get to heaven (Shamayim). (3) The conjunction waw when added to a word beginning with "B" will become a "U" sound. Despite his claims, no one who understands Hebrew pronounces it "O". Regardless, why would there be a conjunction here? That would make the translation "like lightning and heaven." It would never mean "from heaven." For that we would need the proposition "min".

The Aramaic (which Jesus probably spoke) words are pretty much the same as in Hebrew. To say "lightning from heaven" would be something like baraq min shamaya or baraq meshamaya. Since "lightning" is almost always plural in Hebrew and Aramaic, it would probably be more like baraqin meshamaya (Aramaic) or baraqim meheshamayim (Hebrew).

Don't you agree that it's a long way from baraqin meshamaya to Barak Obama?

Not Again

The American League beat the National League in baseball's All Star Game last night. Again. That makes 13 in a row. This game was close and could have easily gone either way, but the same cannot be said of every year and a 13 game winning streak is more than coincidence.

President Obama visited the broadcast booth after throwing out the first pitch and asked the announcers about this disparity between the leagues.

(By the way, I felt sorry for the Prez. His position gets him into the locker rooms before the game, on the mound to throw the first pitch, and into the broadcast booth. But he doesn't get to do what he wants. Joe Buck asked if he could stay for another half-inning, and Obama had to check with someone off camera who said it was time to go. I'll bet he would have liked nothing more than to chat with the announcers and then go down to the locker room after the game to talk baseball and drink a beer. But when you're leader of the free world, someone else makes your schedule.)

Joe Buck rightly answered that the American League is better than the National League right now and cited the best evidence--the consistently superior record of AL teams over NL teams in inter-league play. As to why the AL is better, Tim McCarver chimed in with, "It's because of the designated hitter," and then went on with an illogical and incomprehensible reason why it makes a difference.

Tim McCarver is normally an idiot. He either throws out stuff like this or else belabors a point that even a third-grader can understand. (The pitcher has to be careful here with a 3-2 count on the batter. If he throws another ball, he'll walk him and because the bases are loaded a run will score and since we're in the bottom of the ninth in a tie game, the other tema will win. I exagerate only slightly.)

The designated hitter came into the American League in 1973. From 1960 to 1985 the National League beat them 26 out of 29 times. The DH sure didn't seem to help then.

His argument that the DH means better hitters in the AL (who don't have to play thge field) misses the point that there are designated-hitter type players in the NL as well. However, the teams just play them in the field and hold their breaths. Though his defense has improved, if Prince Fielder came up in the AL, he wouldn't even own a glove. The same for Ryan Braun, Adam Dunn, Ryan Howard, etc.

The presence of the DH will not in itself account for the difference in talent level between the leagues. There must be something else and I will explain tomorrow what I think it is.

Evangelical Christians and Barack Obama

I am the only American Evangelical that I personally know who admits to voting for Barack Obama for president. While most of my friends use every opportunity to rip his administration, I remain cautiously optimistic that he will turn out to do some good for our country. Before you log off, at least listen to why I voted for him.

1. I have believed from the day that it started that the war in Iraq was a mistake. It does not meet what I understand to be the standard of a "just war." It was sold to Congress and the American people with lies. It has resulted in the deaths of thousands of our soldiers as well as multiple times that of Iraqi civilians. If we are ever able to establish a lasting government in Iraq (a big if), it is still questionable as to whether it was worth the cost. Therefore, I voted for Obama because I believed he would end the war long before John McCain would.

2. I believe that George Bush failed in so many ways as a leader. I don't doubt for a minute his dedication to Christ, but it takes more than that to run a country. While I believe that McCain would lead better than Bush, I thought that too many of their policies (tax cuts for the rich; shoot first, negotiate later) were similar.

3. I think it is time for Christians to stop being single-issue voters. That issue, of course, is abortion. Make no mistake, I take a back seat to no one in my opposition to this heinous practice. However, 30+ years of history has clearly demonstrated that the number of abortions is not going to be increased or decreased because of the occupant of the White House. (This is a discussion that deserves its own post one day.)

Does this mean I am unconcerned? By no means. The amount of money that the Obama administration is throwing at the economic crisis is frightening (of course, Bush was doing the same thing). I sincerely hope that Republicans can take control of at least one house of Congress in 2010 to provide some balance to the Democrat's agenda.

Rather than just bashing our president and his policies, I think we would do better to be supportive of that which we can support and gain listening ears in Washington.