When the Democrat Congress passed, and President Obama signed, the $787 Billion “stimulus� plan last year, was the American public really given an accurate idea of how their tax dollars would be spent?

As Michael Barone writes in The Washington Examiner, “One-third of last year’s $787 billion stimulus package was aid to state and local governments — an obvious attempt to bolster public-sector unions. And a successful one: While the private sector has lost 7 million jobs, the number of public-sector jobs has risen. The number of federal government jobs has been increasing by 10,000 a month, and the percentage of federal employees earning over $100,000 has jumped to 19 percent during the recession.â€�

Clearly, political payback was the end result of the first stimulus package.  Those who elected Barack Obama president and Nancy Pelosi speaker are enjoying the rising tides of public-sector union dues.  What remains to be seen is whether the public sector will get a better showing if Congress presses forward with a second stimulus this year?  While government bureaucracies – and their public sector unions – certainly benefited from last year’s “stimulus�, there are 7 million newly unemployed Americans, and their families, who likely no longer support the plan.

Interested readers may CLICK HERE to read Michael Barone’s article in its entirety.

A new Pew Research Center study provides evidence that Republican voters are smarter about current affairs, issues and news:

Republicans, on average, answered one more question correctly than Democrats (5.9 vs. 4.9 correct). These differences are partly a reflection of the demographics of the two groups; Republicans tend to be older, well educated and male, which are characteristics associated with political and economic knowledge. Still, even when these factors are held constant, Republicans do somewhat better than Democrats on the knowledge quiz.

Among the largest gaps comes over knowledge of who leads the U.S. Senate. About half (48%) of Republicans are able to identify Reid as the current majority leader, while only a third of Democrats can name their own party’s Senate leader. More Republicans can name Reid (48%) than Steele (37%), the RNC chairman.

The one question in the survey in which Democrats slightly outperform Republicans is about the number of women now serving on the U.S. Supreme Court. Close to six-in-ten Democrats (58%) know that more than one woman serves on the high court, compared with 50% of Republicans. Though the Democratic Party is made up of more women than men, this finding does not appear driven mostly by gender. Republican men and women are about equally likely to answer this question correctly (about half each), while solid majorities of both Democratic men (60%) and women (57%) get this question right.

Politico has rolled-out an aggregator site that keeps track of the lastest public polls.  I find this to be another great tool, and recommend bookmarking it.

 

Way back in 2002, the citizens of the state of Michigan elected Jennifer Granholm to serve as governor on the promise to change the way Michigan does business. In the 8 years since, the only thing she has changed is the fact that Michigan does business, presiding over an economic decline that pre-date the national recession.

Some quick facts on Granholm’s time as Governor (courtesy of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy):

• Since January 2003, Michigan’s per-capita personal income rank among the states has dropped from 23rd to 37th. Our personal income is now $5,259 (13.1 percent) below the national average.
• A large decline in economic output as measured by state Gross Domestic Product, dropping from 26th at the start of the Granholm administration to 41st through 2008.
• Michigan’s unemployment rate leapt from 6.7 percent in January 2003 to 14.6 percent through December 2009. The state has had the highest unemployment rate in the nation for 46 consecutive months.

It is no surprise then that 70% of Michigan residents rate her job performance negatively and Republicans are poised to capture the governor’s mansion because of it. The lesson here: you can be the biggest cheerleader for change in the world, but if you don’t pursue sound economic policies that produce prosperity you will find yourself in serious political trouble. Are you paying attention President Obama?

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) opened the Senate floor yesterday in a tirade accusing Senate Republicans of “playing games” regarding some of President Obama’s nominations.

Unfortunately for Mr. Reid, his current rhetoric contradicts statements he made during President Bush’s tenure.

July 23, 2008 – Senator Harry Reid, the Senate Majority Leader, told his fellow Senators last week that he “can’t ever remember going home� and hearing voters complain to him about Bush’s blocked judicial nominations or judicial activism.

Here’s what Sen. Reid said: “I’m telling you, Madam President, I can’t ever remember going home and somebody saying, ‘Could you guys (confirm) some more judges? We need to take care of this judges problem.’ ” … “Frankly, judge(s) is not a big issue (compared) to all of the other problems we’re facing in America.â€�

 

 

May 9th, 2005 (Fox News) - “We know the difference between opposing nominees and blocking nominees. We will oppose bad nominees, but we will only block unacceptable nominees,” Reid said.

March 15, 2005 (Bloomberg) - Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid threatened to bring the Senate to a halt if Republicans try to change the chamber’s rules to prevent the minority party from blocking President George W. Bush’s judicial nominees.

September 16, 2007 (Reuters) - But Reid appeared to slam the door on him, vowing to do all he could as majority leader to prevent (Theodore) Olson’s confirmation

November 16, 2007 (RollCall) - Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has decided to keep the chamber in session over the Thanksgiving break to block President Bush from making any unsavory recess appointments while Senators are out of town.

April 5, 2005 - In the November 2004 election, Republicans increased their Senate majority to 55 seats, and President Bush has re-nominated seven of the 10 blocked nominees (the others did not desire re-nomination). But the new Democratic leader, Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nv.) said that the Democrats will again block them by filibuster.

Who playing politics now Harry

Washington, DC is a town famous for double-speak, hidden agendas and, sadly, broken promises.

Once in a blue moon, however, even the most seasoned politico lets slip with what can most accurately be described as, simply, the “truth”.  In this case, coming from the third-ranking Democrat in the US House of Representatives, it doesn’t bode well.  Neither for Democrats in the upcoming elections, nor for taxpayers’ pocketbooks in the meantime.

Quoted by Michael O’Brien in THE HILL’s Blog Briefing Room yesterday, House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-SC) outlined in an appearance on FOX News the Democrat plan to combat the ongoing recession.  “We’re not going to save our way out of this recession.  We’ve got to spend our way out of this recession and I think most economists know that.”

These remarks followed Monday’s unveiling of President Obama’s $3.8 Trillion budget for FY2010, which includes nearly $1.3 Trillion in new debt.  Despite calling American business the “engine” of growth in his State of the Union message, it appears from Mr. Clyburn’s remarks and from the president’s proposed budget that with Washington back to work as usual, the focus for growth has once again centered around government.

DALLAS, Jan. 25, 2010 – Americans say they are loosening their purse strings on entertainment and other household expenses but not on charitable giving, according to the annual Dunham+Company New Year’s Philanthropy Survey conducted by Wilson Research Strategies.

Compared to the 2009 study, this year’s survey shows a surprising 56 percent jump in the number of households indicating they have not reduced their household budget as a result of the economy. 

In addition, there are 15 percent fewer households reporting a reduction in their spending on monthly bills and 9 percent fewer reporting a reduction in entertainment spending, one of the areas hardest hit according to the 2009 study. Click here to download full study. 

Yet when it comes to charitable giving, 37 percent of respondents indicate they continue to reduce their charitable donations and nearly 1 in 4 say they have eliminated donations altogether – statistically the same rates as last year.  

There are some exceptions, however, said Rick Dunham, president and CEO of Dunham+Company, which helps Christian ministries with their fundraising, marketing and media strategies.

“When you dig into the data, you find that more of those who frequent religious services indicate that in spite of the economy, they are continuing or increasing their support of charity in 2010 compared to 2009,� he said. “Fewer of these households have reduced or stopped their giving. This is especially impressive as there is actually a 10 percent increase in the number of non-religious households who say they have stopped their giving as we enter 2010.�

The survey also indicates that households earning $35,000 or less are much more likely to have reduced or stopped giving (33 percent more than the national average), whereas households earning $100,000 or more are less likely to have reduced or stopped their charitable giving (38 percent less than the national average).

In anticipating charitable support in 2010, the indicators remain virtually unchanged from 2009.  However, about one in six frequent church attenders do intend to give more, which is 33 percent greater than those who do not attend church.

In this economic climate, many fundraisers have expressed concern about the administration’s proposal to help fund health care and other government programs by raising taxes on households making $250,000 or more.  Respondents clearly rejected this idea as 63 percent of those surveyed failed to support such a policy. 

“The data related to giving basically remains unchanged from 2009,� Dunham said. “Most charities should expect contributions to remain relatively flat this year, which is not good news for the many non-profits that are struggling.  But religious charities should fare better than most as there are a greater number of these households indicating they are supporting charities as we begin this year compared to last year.�

There is one bright spot, however, for all charities.  The findings do indicate that there should be a resurgence in giving by households making $75,000 or more a year. Among those making $75,000 but less than $100,000, this year’s survey showed an 80 percent jump in those who intend to increase their support of charity in 2010 (18 percent in 2010 compared to 10 percent in 2009) and for households making $100,000 or more there was a 31% jump compared to one year ago (21 percent in 2010 compared to 16 percent in 2009).

The study was part of Wilson Research Strategies January Omnibus Study of 1,000 adults nationwide.  All respondents were contacted via Random Digit Dialing methodology. Interviews were conducted via live telephone interviewer Jan. 8-11, 2010.  A sample of 1,000 has a margin of error of +/-3.1 percent at the 95 percent confidence level.

With his approval ratings continuing to decline, President Obama directed his speech last night at the independent voters that were crucial to his and democratic victories across the country in 2008.

Remember, Obama won independent voters 52%-44% in 2008. Now those same independent voters disapprove of the job he is doing as president 49%-41%, a drop of 21 points in job approval in less than a year.

More troubling for Obama is that independents are generally displeased with what he has done in his first year. Only 35% are pleased with the progress Obama has made, 25% are disappointed in the progress he has made and 35% think he is taking the country in the wrong direction. In short, as the campaign promises of “hope and change” become increasingly hollow, independents have soured on Obama.

 

Last night President Obama took a page out of the old Bill Clinton playbook and tried to make it all about “the economy, stupid” and tried to “feel voters pain.” Will it work? Only time will tell. The President is known for his ability to make a good speech and according to a CNN survey of those who watched the speech 78% had a positive reaction to it. However, this is down from the 92% who had a positive reaction to his first address to Congress. Compared to other State of the Unions, Obama underperformed Bush’s speeches in 2001(92% positive), 2002(94% positive), 2003(84% positive), 2005(86% positive), and Bill Clinton’s speeches in 1998(84% positive), and 1999 (83% positive).

National Democrats continue to lose sitting Members of Congress and top-tier recruits.  Rep. Marion Berry’s (D-Ark.) retirement and Beau Biden’s (D) decision not to pursue the US Senate came after Democrats said they expected the opposite. And now the Democrat party, which has said it doesn’t expect lots of retirements, is facing the possibility of several more.

And in a short time span, Republicans have taken a slight lead over Democrats on the “generic ballot” question of which party one would support in their vote for Congress. 

Let’s take a quick look at the Republican-scenario for taking back the House of Representatives.  Currently, the House stands at 257 Democrats and 178 Republicans; thus Republicans would need a net gain of 40 seats to obtain a 1-seat majority. 

As of today, various election analysts have the Democrats pegged at 174 safe seats.  Another 35 districts are considered “likely Democrat,” while 25 lean their way.  That gives them an advantage in 234 seats; a clear majority, but 23 under their current number.  Due to Republican recruitment efforts and Democrats retirements, the “likely” and “lean” categories continue to dwindle and it isn’t because they are moving into the “safe” category.

Republicans are safe or likely winners in 163 districts.  Another 16 seats lean their way for a total of 179 - 1 seat MORE than they control today.

22 districts are considered in the “toss-up” category, in which no party has a clear advantage to date.  But the “toss-up” number also continues to grow in a way where “lean Democrat” seats continue to move into this category.  The Republicans will virtually have to convert all of these toss-up districts to have any chance at winning the majority and then go onto beat 17 Democratic incumbents.

House Republicans needs to segment their gain objectives into three categories.  First, they must realistically break the 200 mark needed to regain relevance in the body’s legislative process.  This would require a net gain of 23 seats and, considering the way the 2010 turnout model appears to be unfolding, such a goal is realistic.  Second, is to exceed the 210 barrier, thus almost attaining parity with the majority party.  Such a move would require a net gain of 33 seats; the more retirements occur, the more possible this scenario is.  Finally, winning a bare majority as we mentioned previously, would require a gain of 40 seats, but the Republicans would need to exceed even this number in order to have a working legislative majority.  Therefore, the party must realistically look beyond 43 seats.  With re-elect rates for incumbent Congressmen exceeding 93% even in tumultuous years (the incumbent re-elect rates in 2006 and 2008, for example, were 95.1% and 94%, respectively), the degree of difficulty for the GOP to reclaim the majority in this one upcoming election remains high, but not impossible.

Currently, Republicans feel a momentum switch because they sense a general negative reaction to the Democrats’ new policy direction.  The elections for the House of Representatives may give us the best read of the people’s mood, since all voters will have the chance to express themselves in their local congressional elections.  In fact, this is the precisely the reason the founding fathers gave Representatives two-year terms — to keep them closely aligned with the people they serve, and allow the electorate to quickly signal a response to new legislation.

Our friends at the Prosper Group posted a great piece about their online strategy for Scott Brown.  We’ve re-posted it here with their permission:

Truck owner, Wrentham resident, and State Senator Scott Brown is now the giant-slaying US Senator representing the dark blue state of Massachusetts.  Much of that was accomplished because of a smart online campaign that helped fund his efforts, generate volunteers, and engage supporters.  As a quick overview, here’s what the Brown campaign did right online- from the start.

They understood that big “Mo� doesn’t come automatically.

The curse of Obama’s 2008 campaign (for online strategists) has come in the form of candidates and campaigns who think that a sharp website and a Facebook page should somehow automatically generate online momentum. In contrast, just as it did for Obama, it took Brown months of tireless campaigning with little result (both on and offline) to create the inertia needed to generate $12 million in donations, over 100,000 Facebook supporters, over 10,000 people enrolled in our “Call from Home� program, over 215,000 email subscribers and 7,529 text message subscribers.

The Brown campaign invested early by immediately putting someone in charge of new media. Serious time and money was invested in online efforts even when results seemed few and far between.  Many campaigns would have cut out this expense when it didn’t show immediate results.  The Brown campaign knew better and the rest is history. Consider, on December 1^st, 2.5 months after the campaign started, the campaign website had just 700 visitors.  But by the first of January, that number had begun to grow to over 3,000 and would eventually reach nearly 180,000 unique visitors on Election Day. Massachusetts residents were by far the most likely to visit the website- over 261,000 unique visitors were from Brown’s home state.

They respected the “web guyâ€� and didn’t stick him in the basement.

From the beginning Rob Willington, the campaign’s new media director, was put in a position of leadership.  He wasn’t relegated to a stuffy office in the corner of the campaign headquarters.  Instead, he was consulted on key campaign decisions and allowed to lead campaign initiatives online.

They understood that social media is called SOCIAL media for a reason.

While the campaign of Attorney General Martha Coakley used Twitter (and actually posted more Tweets), they were far less likely to be interactive.  Instead, Twitter was used to promote press releases and media hits.  Brown, on the other hand, used replies and other tools to actually engage voters online. It led to far more Twitter followers and far more voters who felt they were being engaged in conversation vs. being talked at.  The campaign’s Twitter following was also key to spreading the buzz of the campaign nationally.

Content is King, and they created a lot of it.

In order to keep people engaged, the Brown campaign created regular content- specifically making good use of online video.  Over 59 videos were used to supplement the messaging of the campaign.  They were often issued quickly after an event or an embarrassing comment by Coakley, including one where AG Coakley said that the extent of her foreign policy experience was that “she had a sister who lives overseas.�

They understood their audience.

Many candidates want to use up a lot of real estate on their website to explain issue positions or show off press releases.  The Brown campaign, however, understood that a campaign’s website is primarily visited by supporters and other friendly individuals.  This principle was only magnified due to it being a Special Election with a shortened timeline.  Therefore, the website design focused on interaction, highlighting web video front and center and dedicating the bottom half of the home page to a Twitter stream, links to social networking, and a plug to join the Brown Brigade, the campaign’s Ning network. As the campaign progressed, so did the website design. The Brown campaign added a tell-a-friend feature to educate supporters on how to vote absentee, encouraged contributions, created a call from home program, provided information about local Brown offices for phone banking, and even initiated a first-ever Voter Bomb.

Although many factors contributed to the election of Scott Brown, the importance of online strategy and social media cannot be ignored. We are proud to have been a part of the team as both a web and phone vendor, and a part of such a historic election.

One of the things I love about political campaigns is how fast they move. In the case of Scott Brown’s US Senate campaign, things could not have moved faster- or come together so unexpectedly (and so well).

The Prosper Group had been hired to develop the website for Scott Brown in September- back when the campaign was not flush with cash and needed something together quickly. We worked furiously over a single weekend and launched a website for Scott.

We first started recognizing an uptick in both traffic and fundraising soon after Christmas- perhaps connected with the Christmas Eve vote on health care. Online fundraising began to pick up dramatically and crested after we collected about $375,000 the day Scott first appeared on Fox News with Sean Hannity (January 8th).

In the meantime, the campaign had been promoting a microsite (aptly named www.redinvadesblue.com) talking about a “moneybomb� to take place on January 11^th. Originally, the hope was to raise perhaps $80,000 or so to help buy some additional radio advertising in the final days of the campaign. For a few weeks, individuals could visit the site and pledge certain amounts to contribute on that day. On the 8^th, we had just under 1,000 pledges that totaled around $79,000.

But now, with the campaign already raising over $300,000 in one day, we thought we could do better than $80,000. However, it was our contention at The Prosper Group that we couldn’t accomplish that without setting a public goal, which had been left out of the Red Invades Blue campaign to that point. We needed contributors to be able to join in on the excitement of reaching that goal together. The campaign leadership, however, had long felt that by alerting the Democrats to our online fundraising success, we might “wake them up� and encourage a barrage of negative attacks on Scott (which, of course, they eventually did with reckless abandon). This below the radar strategy had served the campaign very well.

On Sunday, January 10^th we had new ammunition to take to the campaign leadership- a Public Policy Polling survey that had Scott Brown up 1 point. Our case was that in essence “the cat was out of the bag� and nothing was going to stop the Coakley campaign from waking up now. Rob Willington, the campaign’s new media director, agreed. The proposal was to set the goal at $500,000, something we felt confident we could reach, but we thought $1,000,000 was within reach. Despite some hesitation from some other advisors, the campaign’s leadership agreed to let us set an audacious public goal and see if Brown’s online supporters would help us meet it.

We worked feverishly the night of the 10^th to build a splash page with a graphic of Massachusetts that donors would turn from blue to red by helping us reach our goal (see website). In addition, a video of Scott talking about the moneybomb was added.

We went live at midnight and started recording contributions at 12:01am on the 11^th. Just after 4:00pm we had already blown past $500,000 and had reset our goal to $750,000. By dinner time we had pushed past $750,000 and were trying to decide if we wanted to upgrade the goal to $1,000,000. Our decision was to see if our online supporters would call for it first. After all, this was their movement and we wanted it to be their goal as well. Several influential Twitter followers called on the campaign to move the goal post, so we announced the decision on Twitter at 6:30pm and reset our graphic for $1,000,000.

From the @scottbrownma Twitter feed:

I see a lot of people are pushing for $1M… I agree, let’s roll!#masen #41stVote #Victory6:29 PM Jan 11th from web

WOW, I see we hit our goal of $750K!!! #masen #41stVote6:27 PM Jan 11th from web

Brigadiers, We Are Going To $750K, let’s roll! http://bit.ly/4ScpOw#masen #tcot #41stVote4:00 PM Jan 11th from web

Senior Citizens are calling our office b/c they heard about “the bomb” but are not online & want their checks to count #masen3:43 PM Jan 11th from web

It appears Cape Cod is next on our map, let’s get to $500,000 before midnight! http://bit.ly/4ScpOw #masen #41stVote #tcot2:35 PM Jan 11th from web

I was just informed that we have raised $403,429.12 TODAY! You are incredible http://bit.ly/4ScpOw #masen #tcot #41stVote2:33 PM Jan 11th from web

Today we are trying to raise $500,000 to finish strong and win#masen please help us reach our goal http://bit.ly/4ScpOw #tcot9:35 AM Jan 11th from web

TODAY: our moneybomb to raise $500,000 today, will you help?http://bit.ly/6bY7bT #masen #41stVote #tcot (please RT&Blog)12:44 AM Jan 11th from web

By 7:00pm we started to see individuals giving multiple times to help reach the goal.  The excitement among our supporters was off the charts, and they were determined to succeed.  Incredibly, just a short three hours after we announced the new goal, the website showed a red Massachusetts once again.  The grassroots had spoken.

But, honestly, that wasn’t the best news to come out of the moneybomb. Due to the success of the moneybomb, the contributions kept coming and put us on par with the millions being dropped into the state by the DSCC and the SEIU. We raised another $1.3 million on the 12^th and had a day at $1.7 million in the same week.

In retrospect it appears to me that the moneybomb could not have come together any better. Any earlier and it may have been less successful or had the negative effect the campaign was worried about. Any later and it would have been too late to spend the money raised. I’m also fully convinced that without the public goal we set, the campaign may have raised just a few hundred thousand dollars and been unable to raise the money we needed in the final days to win. Setting a goal (and surpassing it) opened the floodgates to more support online as the moneybomb went viral.  The campaign’s motivated supporters spread the word and insisted we could win.  This was definitely “the people’s moneybomb.”