{"id":766,"date":"2010-10-25T08:29:50","date_gmt":"2010-10-25T15:29:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/?p=766"},"modified":"2011-08-05T21:13:22","modified_gmt":"2011-08-06T04:13:22","slug":"a-political-transformation-hughhewitt-com-10-25-10","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/2010\/10\/25\/a-political-transformation-hughhewitt-com-10-25-10\/","title":{"rendered":"A Political Transformation | HughHewitt.com | 10.25.10"},"content":{"rendered":"

It is the final week of the campaign, and as the two sides begin to make their closing arguments, CBS\u2019 60 Minutes<\/em> dropped a bombshell last night.<\/p>\n

For a segment on the economy, the television news magazine added to the official unemployment rate of 9.5 percent the number who had quit looking for work or had accepted part-time jobs because they couldn\u2019t find full-time positions.<\/p>\n

What is this true unemployment rate?<\/p>\n

Seventeen percent, 22 percent in California, with one-third out of work more than a full year or more (video at http:\/\/tiny.cc\/h2o6r<\/a> ).<\/p>\n

As the campaign reaches its climax, the president\u2019s narrative is that this catastrophe is the product of what he calls \u201cthe policies that got us into this mess in the first place.\u201d \u00a0To him, that would be policies of lower tax rates and regulatory, spending, and monetary restraint. \u00a0These are the policies that began with Ronald Reagan in 1981 and that inaugurated a quarter century of nearly uninterrupted economic growth, a record unmatched in American and perhaps world history.<\/p>\n

We won\u2019t know for sure until Election Day, but as of today, it looks as though the American people aren\u2019t buying the president\u2019s pass-the-buck story, or the special-interests-are-trying-to-buy-this-election story that accompanies it. Instead they see recent policies \u2013 the president\u2019s policies — as the more plausible source of our continuing and possibly deepening troubles. \u00a0To them, those misguided administration actions include trillions in bailouts for the irresponsible and the inept, additional terrifying trillions in federal spending and deficits, regulations that look like backdoor approaches to taking over entire industries, and the greatest tax increase in American history, scheduled to kick in a month and twenty-eight days after the voting.<\/p>\n

A large part, perhaps a majority of the American people now clearly believes that, while the president and his Democratic allies in Congress inherited a sharp downturn, they have made it worse. \u00a0The Obama-Pelosi-Reid government turned what could have been a short contraction into the deepest, most persistent economic crisis since the Great Depression.<\/p>\n

In the process, these leaders have set us on course to the all-but-impossible: the effective bankrupting of the United States government. \u00a0A recent chart running with a Wall Street Journal<\/em> article by Hoover Institution economists including former Secretary of State George P. Shultz (see http:\/\/tiny.cc\/6ssto)<\/a> tells this story. \u00a0It shows the government on track to annual spending as a percent of gross national product that exceeds the one-year World War II peak of 42 percent. \u00a0Within twenty-five years, the government will be ingesting at least that much of our economy every single year. \u00a0Within forty years, the proportion will rise to 55 percent.<\/p>\n

So today many, perhaps most American voters would change the famous Ross Perot quip of 18 years ago. They would say that the giant sucking sound you hear is the U.S. government vacuuming up our future.<\/p>\n

In recent weeks I have been trying to see how far and fast the developing electoral tide may advance. \u00a0Every time I think I\u2019ve found the outer limit, someone comes along and argues convincingly that it will go further. \u00a0Now there is talk of a hundred House seats in play.<\/p>\n

Democratic pollster Pat Caddell even argues that the polls are still dramatically understating the movement in opinion this year. The screens other pollsters employ to identify likely voters, he says, are totally inadequate to the turbulent moment. \u00a0Large numbers who don\u2019t often vote (and so would be routinely eliminated from samples) will show up.<\/p>\n

Caddell also argues that the GOP needs to be running national ads making a national case. \u00a0While I am inclined to agree, I also feel that this year\u2019s tide is running on its own, and very little campaigning on either side will restrain or accelerate it or alter its course.<\/p>\n

The Tea Party movement, for example, is not a product of campaign strategies. \u00a0It is as spontaneous as any political outpouring in the nation\u2019s history. Political leaders may give it a voice, but there is scant sign that they can direct it.<\/p>\n

So the Republicans\u2019 closing argument is being made on its own. \u00a0In eight days we\u2019ll see the results. \u00a0But with unemployment at unfathomable levels and so much government spending having gone out with nothing to show in return, the dominant narrative of the year is coming, not from the president or his party or even from the Republican Party, but from the people \u2013 and it is about to transform American politics for the rest of our lives.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It is the final week of the campaign, and as the two sides begin to make their closing arguments, CBS\u2019 60 Minutes dropped a bombshell last night. For a segment on the economy, the television news magazine added to the official unemployment rate of 9.5 percent the number who had quit looking for work or […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[12],"class_list":["post-766","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-political-commentary-general","tag-hugh-hewitt"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/766","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=766"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/766\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":768,"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/766\/revisions\/768"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=766"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=766"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=766"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}