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Monday, May 5, 2008

THE NEW AMERICAN DISENFRANCHISEMENT.

Democratic Elitists And Their Role In Hijacking The Democratic Party!

Our nation?s founding fathers and early leaders set out to create a government for the people and by the people. As educated men who sought to understand the history of the worlds great cultures, they set out not to create a new concept to preserve individual freedom, opportunity, and liberty; but rather to improve upon the previous great democracies.

Our leaders used early Greek and Roman democracies as the basis of our government. However, they equally set forth to establish a system which would protect and preserve the democracy against the failures that led these early societies down a path to demise. Our early leaders realized that a direct democracy could easily be manipulated to allow for the rise of elitist and power-hungry leadership that would strip the democracy of individual rights and liberties. During times of geopolitical, sociopolitical, and economic turmoil, power-hungry leadership could easily emerge through the use of populism, just as Caesar used populist rhetoric to morph the roman democracy into an imperial power. Therefore, our leaders determined that a representative republic in which voter equality and a system of checks and balances would protect against overt populism and the rise of the elite.

Additionally, when our government was created the nation?s demographics were very similar to today?s United States. Pennsylvania, New York, and Massachusetts, accounted for a large percentage of the nations population. Our early leaders realized that another reason for the demise of the Roman Empire, and the rule of the British Empire they broke free from, was that power was retained and centralized within a relatively small geographic region. Political Leaders pandered to the population in London, or previously in Rome, importing a majority of the nation?s wealth and prosperity into these power centers while ignoring the needs and suppressing opportunity and rights within the rest of the empires. Fearing that a single group of elitists could seize power within the US by pandering to the heavily populated cities, our early leaders created the electoral and congressional system that has been upheld for over 200 years. The electoral system is simply designed to equalize the rights of all Americans and prevent the election of extremist politicians through populism based upon cyclical periods of turmoil in the country.

Today, our nation once again faces a period of turmoil in our economy & global and domestic security issues. Americans are fed up, disenchanted and frustrated. During this time of turmoil, and political season we have a chance for genuine change. But change is not always positive, and we all need to recognize the difference between populist pandering and a return to the principles and policies that have made our country great. No politician can solve our individual problems. The best that they can provide is sound policies that protect our and our allies? sovereignty, promote economic capitalism through creating competition, opportunity, consumer protection and prevent the monopolization of industry, and preserve the individual rights, liberties, and the American Dream.

During this period of turmoil, the American public has an obligation to itself to beware of today?s politicians. Politicians that unlike the great leaders of the past century have turned to populist rhetoric, reminding Americans of better times and promising them that THEIR GOVERNMENT can ease the burdens they face. We have a duty to ourselves to remember that our democracy is built upon our freedom, individual rights and liberties. The more that we allow the government to become involved in our individual lives, the more of those individual rights and liberties will be stripped away.

This year?s primary season has led to the nomination of John McCain, a republican with a long history of moderate views and bipartisan cooperation. In the Democratic Party, we are faced with a choice of 2 candidates whom are now entrenched in an undeclared civil war in the Democratic Party. A civil war brought on by Democratic Leadership, and fought with weapons such as voter disenfranchisement.

The media has portrayed this race as a battle between two very good candidates that has now reached a point that could hurt the Democratic Party?s chances in November and damage their voter coalition. However, the reality is that this is a battle between the Wealthy & Elitist Far-Left Leadership & Supporters of the DNC and the Left-Of-Center Clinton Political Machine. This primary turmoil was directly brought on by the far-left of the Democratic Party who have turned to Populism, Voter Disenfranchisement, and taken advantage of states with inequality in how they award pledged delegates.

Let Me Take You Back?.

Nine months ago Rudy Giuliani appeared to be the Republican front-runner along with Hilary Clinton as the Democratic front-runner. At the time, the general consensus was that the Democrats would likely retake the presidency in 2008, regardless of who their nominee was. However, the now far-left DNC leadership, along with their far-left, wealthy and elitist contributors had concerns. First, of the Democratic candidates, Hillary Clinton, was considered polarizing, with 35% of voters stating that they would vote against Hillary Clinton regardless of whom the republican nominee was. Although this was disconcerting, the elitist leadership of the party was more concerned with the issue of whether or not Clinton would carry through with their radical agenda of massive government expansion and social reform.

The best gauge of a Clinton Presidency is to look at Bill Clinton?s presidential record. Since leaving office, Bill Clinton, has struggled with his legacy, primarily because there was no world changing event on his watch and no single societal changing policy that was instituted under his presidency. Bill Clinton, as president, operated in a reactionary mode, never rocking the boat, nor instituting controversial changes in the American political landscape. Because he never pushed for massive change in the U.S., he was able to maintain high popularity among moderates and independent votes. Additionally, Clinton also crossed party lines instituting legislations such as Welfare Reform, NAFTA, and the Tax Relief Act of 1997 that were highly unpopular with the far-left elite of the Democratic Party. Howard Dean and the Far-Left, Wealthy, Elite of the Democratic Party fear that a second Clinton presidency would also focus on political expediency, reaching out across the isle when necessary, and failing to implement their radical agenda and failing to focus on their attempt to seize total political control.

As a result, the elite of the Democratic Party decided that their best interests would be served by supporting a candidate that would drive forward their agenda and would not depart from the elite party line. The DNC leadership along with the powerful and wealthy far-left elite decided to turn their back on Clinton, just as they previously had turned their back on Joe Lieberman.

So here is the question? How do you overcome the Clinton Political Machine and install your own elitist candidate and take political control of your party? Last fall, Clinton was the quintessential Democratic front-runner. She garnished popular support from nearly every segment of the Democratic Coalition: Low Income and Middle Income Democrats, Democratic Senior Citizens with high voting consistency and turnout, Unionized Democrats, the African-American Community and Hispanic Community.

The Answer? You create your own candidate from a blank slate and opportunistically disenfranchise large segments of the Clinton voter coalition.

The far-left elite of the Democratic Party had found the ideal candidate: A well spoken, inexperienced junior senator from Illinois. Barack Obama was a blank slate: inexperienced (no political skeletons in the closet), a powerful speaker, African-American, and had never crossed party lines or the Democrat Elitist Agenda on any major issue. The wealthy and elite now had their candidate.

Step One: Paint your ideal candidate as a great unifier, able to end the divisiveness in Washington and change the political polarization that Hillary Clinton represented. Although Barack Obama had little experience, he also did not bear the scars of previous political fights or have the political skeletons in his closet. Although Obama has essentially voted directly down party lines and has shown no ability to work with the Republican Party, the DNC, unchallenged, was able to paint the highly liberal Obama as a moderate politician able to transcend party lines.

Step Two: Overcome Obama?s inexperience by utilizing his great speaking skills. Because Obama is a great speaker, he is able to talk about change and focus the election, not on his experience, but on his Judgment of opposing the ?evil? Bush Administration. By pushing a highly populist agenda that a large government can solve our individual problems, and deflecting all of our nation?s problems onto the unpopular Bush Administration, American Voters have been hypnotized into overlooking Obama?s policy positions and elitist views. For instance, Obama's calling for an increase in taxes on people making over $200,000 per year, so that the middle class does not suffer higher taxes. But at the same time, calling for the raising or removal of the tax cap on social security; a policy that would automatically increase taxes by over 6% on every middle class American making $80,000 - $200,000 per year.

Step Three: Break up the Clinton voter Coalition. By choosing Obama, as the elite-left?s choice, Dean and his cohorts automatically removed a major segment of the Clinton Coalition: The African American Vote. As any politically attuned person knows, Democrats traditionally carry 80%-90% of the African-American Vote. In a general election the black vote makes up 15%-20% of the electorate, with an even higher ratio of 20%-40% in the democratic primaries. By removing this block of Clinton Supporters, the DNC was able to drastically change the outlook of this primary.

Next, the elite-left leadership put together a strategy for Obama to campaign directly to the middle-upper class of the Democratic Party and take advantage of Obama?s youth and idealistic inexperience to attract the youth vote from the University systems. Although a relative non-factor in past elections, a motivated youth vote could offset the Clinton stronghold on the senior votes.

Step Four: Use A Rove Strategy. During the primary season, candidates have typically relied upon only a handful of key states that vote early in determining the outcome of their candidacy. Most candidates dump a majority of the resources into these key states. Using a Karl Rove type strategy, the elite-left leadership encouraged the Obama Campaign to focus not on states such as New York, California and Massachusetts, where Clinton would likely pick up large numbers of delegates; but rather focus resources on smaller Midwestern caucus states in which voter turnout was typically low (meaning that an influx of younger voters and African-American voters could easily swing the outcome), and Obama could piecemeal enough small victories to offset the delegate counts from the larger states.

The strategy would give Obama an opportunity to make this race tight, but it would also require that he win early and build a lead. Here is where the DNC took full advantage of voters. With 20 states, such as Illinois, moving up there primaries to have a greater influence; states such as Florida and Michigan, which have traditionally been key states in general elections looked to maintain their importance by assuring that their primaries played a more influential role. The problem for the elite-left was that these states were Clinton strongholds, and they knew that the traditionally the candidate who became the front-runner after the early primaries, would also become the benefactor of momentum and massive endorsements as the party unified behind them. In order for the elite-left to maintain any opportunity to seize total control of the party, they made the decision not to penalize Florida and Michigan, but rather to completely strip these states of their delegates; disenfranchising millions over Democratic voters residing in key general election states. Prior to the DNC delegate stripping plan, most pendants expected the DNC to penalize candidates who campaigned in these states with up to half of the delegates from the states. Thereby, allowing Florida and Michigan voters to have a strong influence in the election, but also penalize the states by removing the campaign attention they received. The stripping of Florida and Michigan?s delegates is not only important because these were well-known Clinton strongholds, but more importantly, the early momentum Clinton would have gained from these contests would have carried over into Super Tuesday.

Dean and the rest of the far-left elite knew first hand the importance of the earliest primaries. Dean?s ailing campaign experienced a boom of momentum and funds after his early victory in the 2004 primaries, quickly becoming a front-runner who self-destructed as quickly as he had risen. With Florida and Michigan?s 350+ delegates removed (roughly 8%-9% of the total available delegates) the elite focused on the Iowa caucuses. Knowing that Clinton & Edwards would split the working class vote, Obama?s campaign was able to take the state. With Iowa came momentum, a wholesale shift in African-American Support, and a steady flow of elite democratic endorsements.

The wealthy and elite far-left of the party however still had to overcome the other large states where Clinton garnished support. They needed to take advantage of the ways delegates were awarded in order to suppress a potential comeback by Clinton. On Super Tuesday and afterwards, the Obama campaign and far left have focused on caucus states with lower turnout and more easily manipulated by the influx of first time African-American and youth vote turnout. Building a small lead on Super Tuesday, the elite left began rolling out endorsement after endorsement for Obama, and worked diligently to create the fa?ade that Obama?s delegate lead could not be overcome. In previous primaries, these endorsements and calls to unity worked, and Dean and the Elite-Left assumed that the unprepared Clinton campaign would fade quietly into the night, therefore solidifying their power-grab.

Despite the fact that I DO NOT support Hillary Clinton, I have actually gained a new respect for her. The Clinton?s fight-on not only to preserve their families? political influence, but I believe that because both Clinton?s genuinely care about the United States and our proud of this nation. Although Hillary Clinton continues to campaign on a populist platform, which I believe is not what has made this country great, she does maintain a genuine concern and appreciation of the public. Unlike Obama, Clinton does not view this nation as a second-class society that needs to have their hands held by those few enlightened individuals who look down upon America and speak to Americans as if we are misguided children.

STEP FIVE: DO NOT TREAT ALL VOTES EQUALLY. Our forefathers had the insight to abandon a pure democratic society and implement policies that would equalize & protect American voters from politicians that would pander on focus on only densely populated areas, unequally distributing rights and wealth into these areas, in an attempt to secure and maintain political power. They understood that the lifeblood of our vast and diverse nation existed in every American, not just in the big cities. It is ironic that today, the very fear of our founding fathers is coming to fruition before our very eyes. The elite-left understood that with their proportional delegation system, that if Obama could piecemeal together enough delegates through the caucus states, and states with a large African-American turnout, then his home state of Illinois would give him enough delegates to prevent Clinton from overcoming his narrow lead. The Elite-Left focused on imbalanced delagatory policies that existed within Clinton Strongholds.

Texas: Clinton wins a majority vote with a 4 point lead. Clinton also wins in over 80% of all counties in Texas and 18 of the 31 congressional districts. Yet, after the Texas caucuses in which less than 10% of Texas democrats participated, Obama walks away 99 Delegates to Clinton?s 93, essentially disenfranchising the 1.45 million Texans that gave Clinton a Primary Victory.

Ohio: Clinton Wins Ohio by 10 points (54%-44%), a landslide by political standards. Obama only wins in 5 of the over 70 counties in the state, and Clinton also achieves victories in 14 of the 18 congressional districts. Yet, because of delegates being disproportionately awarded to districts in densely populated areas, Obama walks away with nearly 47% of the delegates.

Pennsylvania: Clinton wins by 9 points, again a landslide by political standards.
Clinton wins in over 90% of counties and 14 of 19 congressional districts. Yet, like Ohio, Obama walks away with nearly 47% of the delegates.

In reality, as of May 2nd, Obama only led Clinton by 159 pledged delegates, less than 5% of the total available Democratic Delegates. Obama also leads the popular vote, not including the disenfranchised Florida and Michigan by around 500,000 votes. In Illinois, Obama won by more than 600,000 votes. Yet these numbers don?t include the millions of votes disenfranchised in Florida and Michigan; and the inconsistent and imbalanced method of awarding delegates in states such as Pennsylvania, who clearly demonstrate that a vote in Pittsburgh doesn?t quite equal a vote in Pennsylvania.

Howard Dean and his far-left, wealthy, and elitist backers, expected the Clinton Campaign to fold after Super Tuesday. Supported by elitist endorsements, media friendly coverage of Obama, and the disenfranchisement of millions of Democratic voters nationwide, the elitist far-left has clearly shown that this election is not about working class America but rather about power.

I commend the Clinton campaign for continuing to fight for what they believe is best for this nation. Democratic Elite have blamed the Clintons for causing chaos in the Democratic Primaries and possibly damaging the party in November. However, let?s remember that until January, Clinton was the front-runner and presumably would be anointed the Democratic nominee. Most political analysts agreed that unless she stumbled and fell, or self-destructed, she could not lose the nomination. The fact is that Hillary Clinton did not stumble or fall, her campaign did not self-destruct. So I ask: What Changed????

Many political pundits want to compare this primary season to the political civil wars that happened in 1912 and 1968. However, unlike those previous party breakups whereas moderates battled for control against the far-right or far-left; the civil war occurring now in the Democratic party is being fought by the far-left elitist faction and the left-of-center Clinton machine, with moderate Democrats dumbfounded sitting on the sidelines. Now is the time for moderate Democrats to stand up to the rich, elitist, far-left leadership of their party and end the polarization caused by these elitists who will suppress any voice of opposition and end the madness.

Sidenote: How is it that John Kerry, Ted Kennedy, and the Governor of Massachusetts, all super delegates, support a candidate that lost by 15 points among their constituents? Perhaps, just perhaps, power is more important than the voters.

J Brown
05/05/2008