TIPPING POINT
“Push past the historic candidacy, however, and one sees something even larger at stake in this [presidential] vote. One sees what Joe (The Plumber) Wurzelbacher saw. The real ’change’ being put to a vote for the American people in 2008 is not simply a break from the economic policies of ’the past eight years’ but with the American economic philosophy of the past 200 years. This election is about a long-term change in America’s idea of itself,” Wall Street Journal columnist Daniel Henninger writes.
“I don’t agree with the argument that an Obama-Pelosi-Reid government is a one-off, that good old nonideological American pragmatism will temper their ambitions. Not true. With this election, the U.S. is at a philosophical tipping point.
“The goal of Sen. Obama and the modern, ’progressive’ Democratic Party is to move the U.S. in the direction of Western Europe, the so-called German model and its ’social market economy.’ Under this notion, business is highly regulated, as it would be in the next Congress under Democratic House committee chairmen Markey, Frank and Waxman. Business is allowed to create ’wealth’ so long as its utility is not primarily to create new jobs or economic growth but to support a deep welfare system.
“The political planets are aligned to make this achievable. In the aftermath of the financial crisis, prominent Democrats, European leaders in France and Germany and more U.S. newspaper articles than one can count have said that the crisis proves the need to permanently tame the American ’free-market’ model. POW Alan Greenspan is broadcasting confessions.
“The question is: Are the American people of a mind to throw in the towel on the system that got them here?
THE REAL THREAT
“Joe Biden was right. If elected, Barack Obama’s mettle will be tested. Not by al Qaeda or other enemies of the United States — that possibility is actually much less likely with a President Obama — but by the Democratic Congress,” Bob Kerrey, a Democrat and former senator from Nebraska, writes in the New York Daily News.
“This election is not over. But it’s not too soon to envision the dangers and opportunities should Obama win,” Mr. Kerrey said.
“My worry is not with increased threats from abroad. I am convinced those threats will be reduced with Obama’s election and the beginning of a much more sensible and trustworthy American foreign policy.
“By my lights, the primary threat to the success of a President Obama will come from some Democrats who, emboldened by the size of their congressional majority, may try to kill trade agreements, raise taxes in ways that will destroy jobs, repeal the Patriot Act, and spend and regulate to high heaven.
“This is where Obama’s persona is invaluable. He can withstand the arguments and pressure of the liberal wing in the Democratic caucus if, once elected, he is guided by the best instincts he has displayed on the campaign trail.”
JUST THE BEGINNING?
“A Federal Communications Commission investigation of on-air military analysts is providing a glimpse of what Democrats and an Obama administration will do to critics once they capture Washington,” Rowan Scarborough writes at www.humanevents.com.
“The FCC has sent letters to some of the nation’s most prominent military analysts — some of them pro-President Bush and pro-war — suggesting they may have broken the law when they appeared on television stations to comment on and explain the war on terrorism,” Mr. Scarborough said.
“The FCC investigation raises the question of whether a Democrat-controlled Congress and White House next year will investigate — and perhaps criminalize — all sorts of actions taken by the Bush administration. … The FCC letters came at the behest of two House Democrats, who say the analysts parroted on air the private briefings they received at the Pentagon. This may have broken the law, the lawmakers said.
“The probe is sending chills through the ranks of military commentators, some of them decorated war heroes who share their expertise with millions of lay viewers. They see it as one in a series of moves the Left is making to intimidate and shut up its critics.
“’We are seeing the dawn of a new era of the current Democratic leadership trying to muzzle free speech and the First Amendment,’ retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Tom McInerney, a Fox News analyst, told Human Events. ’It may be the most invasive intrusion that we have seen in our history. There will be more of these tactics to follow.’”
WAIT AND SEE
“The last national poll that showed [Sen. John] McCain ahead came out Sept. 25 and the 232 polls since then have all shown [Sen. Barack] Obama leading,” Karl Rove writes in the Wall Street Journal.
“Only one time in the past 14 presidential elections has a candidate won the popular vote and the Electoral College after trailing in the Gallup Poll the week before the election: Ronald Reagan in 1980,” Mr. Rove said.
“But the question that matters is the margin. If Mr. McCain is down by 3 percent, his task is doable, if difficult. If he’s down by 9 percent, his task is essentially impossible. In truth, however, no one knows for sure what kind of polling deficit is insurmountable or even which poll is correct. All of us should act with the proper understanding that nothing is yet decided.”
OOPS
Sen. Barack Obama twice flubbed the name of former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner, a Democrat seeking to win the Senate seat now held by retiring Sen. John W. Warner, a Republican.
Mr. Obama, who regularly campaigns in Virginia with Mark Warner and has not gotten his name wrong before, told a crowd in Virginia Beach that the state’s leaders understand the need for change and a strong economy.
“Tim Kaine knows this, Jim Webb knows this, John Warner knows this,” he said. He didn’t catch his mistake.
A few minutes later, he again said it but fixed the goof: “Like John Warner — uh — Mark Warner and Tim Kaine did.”
It’s not the first time the men have been confused. When the Democrat ran against the senior Republican senator in 1996, bumper stickers read “Mark not John” and the reverse. Mark Warner came close that year, and some Democrats have said that’s because many voters may have been confused.
At Mr. Kaine’s inauguration in 2006, The Washington Times talked to a voter who thought, incorrectly, that the two Warners were related.
Mark Warner is favored to win the race for the Senate seat on Tuesday against Republican former Gov. James S. Gilmore III.
• Greg Pierce can be reached at 202/636-3285 or gpierce@washingtontimes.com.
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