MOVIE REVIEW: "The Hope and the Change" by Citizen United Productions

This review is proof of God's all powerful sense of humor.  I've been in touch with the P.R. department at Citizens United for the past week to get my copy of "Occupy Unmasked."  For all that effort, last night I saw Citizens United's other new release, "the Hope and the Change."

This documentary is devastating to Barack Obama.  It chronicles the disillusionment and travails of a dozen or so 2008 Obama voters who will not vote for him a second time.  These are the voters who, in 2008, pulled Barack Obama across the finish line.

My biggest takeaway from the movie is the day-to-day struggle that life under Barack Obama has been for a substantial chunk of Obama's own voters.  While life has been (very) challenging for us all, for these 2008 Obama voters Obama's economic devastation is acute and unrelenting.  Comments like "I have never been more broke in my life," "I'm sick of only having ten dollars in my bank account," and "I am not seeing one ounce of benefit for all this debt" illustrate the economic calamity these 2008 Obama voters face.

For these 2008 Obama voters, Barack Obama's policies have been inexplicable and infuriating.  It started with the bailouts.  For these 2008 Obama voters, "bailing out car companies and banks surprised a lot of people."  Alongside the bailouts, "the stimulus was a shocker as well" because "I don't know where all this money is going," when, in reality, "we just printed more money."  Making matters worse, "I got really scared when I saw the Health Care package" since "the more I understood, the more I became concerned" when "there were better solutions" than this "tax on the middle class."  Obama's policies are divorced from these 2008 Obama voters' lives, but they understand they're getting stuck with the bill; "it's a complete hustle and we're the butt of the joke."  The anger is palpable.

For conservatives, it's important to understand that persuadable 2008 Obama voters aren't the morons or Jon Stewart's audience.  These are the folks Andrew Breitbart famously referred to as "Democrats by Osmosis."  Their family or social circle were Democrat, and they went along without thinking.  Most important, their underlying values are conservative.  Barack Obama has alienated the voters who pulled him across the finish line in 2008: "I work hard for what I have and I resent being told I have to give it to someone else."  In 2012, as Scott Rasmussen explained at RightOnline, we need to hammer results and record.  Over the longer term, however, we need to educate them to think ideologically.

On a personal note, I was struck by the section on National Security issues.  As regular readers know, I've been freaking out about National Security for the past couple months.  Persuadable 2008 Obama voters agree: "the United States is not respected the way it used to be" because Obama "has shown more weakness than strength."  For the record, all these interviews were conducted after the bin Laden raid but before our embassies were attacked.  For conservatives, this is a very encouraging sign.

For those of us who want to destroy the institutional left, "the Hope and the Change" is a priceless guide to the rest of this cycle and what comes next.  A substantial chunk of Barack Obama's 2008 voters do not share Obama's satanic values.  Persuadable Obama 2008 voters have conservative values, they just vote Democrat by default.  Between now and election day, hammer results; after election day, however, these folks need ideological education.  The good news is that these folks are very open to what we have to say, and "the Hope and the Change" is a fantastic guide for their concerns.

Author's note: Quotes are transcribed by hand; while a word or two might be off, the spirit is accurate.

Why the RealClearPolitics Average Is Not Reliable

For those of you unaware, Real Clear Politics is a website that tracks polling data and aggregates news.  It's claim to fame is a feature, known as the RCP Average, that taken the mean of all public pollingf over the past 2-3 weeks.  Unfortunately, the RCP average is very easy for corrupt polling outlets to manipulate.

As Rush has pointed out for years, a lot of polling is designed to shape public opinion, not reflect it.  This longstanding problem has gotten much worse in the 2012 cycle.  As long as 1-2 crap polls come out per month, it throws the RCP average off.

For example, the current RCP average has Obama up by 2.7.  That average, however, includes this garbage poll from NBC News/Wall St. Journal and this craptacular specimen from Pew; Breitbart News demolishes the first poll here and the second one here.  Once those two polls are removed, Obama's lead plummets to 1.2%.

This means that, out of the past 9 public polls, 2 crap polls are responsible for 55% of Obama's lead in the RCP Average; this phenomenon has been going on for years.

So, what should you do?!?

Personally, I stick with Rasmussen.  They were the most accurate pollster in 2004, 2006, 2008, and (most importantly) 2010.  Scott Rasmussen was the first pollster to recognize how the Tea Party has altered the American Electorate for the foreseeable future.  Wisconsin is the first place we've seen these results.  As Scott Rasmussen explained at RightOnline, we should expect similar results as long as the interrelated issues of unemployment and debt drive the conversation.

This is not a personal attack on RCP.  RCP isn't corrupt.  RCP's methodology, however, leaves them vulnerable to the corruption of others.

RightOnline 2012: The Biggest Takeaway

I attended the RightOnline 2012 Conference this past weekend.  It was awesome.  We're winning and we just need to keep going.

I sat down to write a review of the conference, but there were 25 separate items I wanted to discuss.  A detailed review isn't feasible, especially with Biblical Prophecies coming true in today's headlines.  Instead, I wanted to share a strategic observation on the broad trends we're facing.

The big takeaway is that we're winning.  The most important action we can take is to continue doing exactly what we're doing.  This process is a long-haul, but as long as we maintain consistent, persistent, pressure, we'll win.

In terms of substance, Scott Rasmussen was the most important person I had a chance to speak with.  His point was simple: the public outrage is real, it began with TARP and was solidified by Obamacare, and it has transformed the electorate.  Even when they don't follow politics closely, the public instinctively understands the size of the problem, and they're open to big solutions.  The Wisconsin recall results confirmed something I've suspected for awhile.  Scott Rasmussen's analysis, in both public remarks and our personal conversations,  was further proof.  Update:  Rasmussen Speech Here

One modest caveat is that, in the realm of public opinion, results are more important than theory.  As Scott Rasmussen said "people don't care about limited government, they care about the type of society limited government will create."  Although the public in Wisconsin supported Scott Walker in the Abstract, it wasn't until their property taxes went down that Scott Walker won the election.

Thank you to Eliza Vielma, the new media person at AFP-Texas, who is the main reason I was able to go.  Thank you also to Peggy Venable, AFP-Texas State Director, for much the same reason.  Thank you to AFP National, and Stephanie Fontenot in particular, for the work you did to pull this off.  Thank you also to Cindy Malette, formerly of AFP-Texas, for pestering me to blog for two years before the message sunk in.  Finally, of course, thank you to God, because without him, the rest of this is irrelevant.

Finally, I want to close by mentioning Andrew Breitbart.  For obvious reasons, Andrew was a major topic of conversation this weekend.  Andrew's #1 objective in this world was to empower the rest of us to take on Hollywood and the corrupt media.  Just today, Chris Cilizza of Washington Post came up with this whiny crybaby piece, that Rush brilliantly destroyed.  That Cilizza piece proves how much trouble the left is in.  The best way to honor Andrew Breitbart is to continue doing exactly what we're doing.  We're winning, and as long as we stay in the fight, we're gonna kick their ass.

Update: Tom Tillison has more.

The American Electorate has Changed; Scott Walker is Proof!!!

The American Electorate has changed over the past five years.  The 2010 Tea Party Landslide was the first revelation of this fact.  Gov. Scott Walker's easy win Tuesday proves the depth of this shift.

The American People are indignant that the people who created this mess are asking for more power to continue the scam.  The American people understand that we've been sold a bill of goods over the past 100 years and that the game can no longer continue.  Prior to 1913, Federal Spending never exceeded 5% of GDP (except for the middle of the Civil War) and we need to return to those levels.  The individual bogeymen vary, from Federal housing policy, to The Federal Reserve, to Public Sector Unions, but their shared root cause is big government aggrandizing and enriching itself at the expense of decent people.  The American people understand the cause of this mess.

The American people have never been fans of gauzy, go-along to get-along centrism.  The Perot movement, which emerged in 1992, was a reaction to the Bush 41 administration's aggrandizement of Washington D.C. at the expense of Americans.  As Doug Schoen and Scott Rasmussen detail in their book Mad as Hell: How the Tea Party Movement is Fundamentally Remaking our Two-Party System:

Perot-era populism -- sparked by President George H.W. Bush's broken promise of 'no-new taxes' -- has never really left our politics....The resurgence of populism we are experiencing today is a continuation of the populist uprising of 1992 in the same way that World War II was a continuation of World War I, with a period in between that appeared quieter than it really was.  Also, just like the World Wars, the second act of the Perot-era is likely to provoke far more turbulence and far bigger changes on the political battlefields of 21st-century America. (47)

TARP followed by Obamacare forced decent people to stop complaining and become active.  Now that we're active, it's becoming increasingly easier to draw the widest possible contrast between decent people and the Left.

Madison is the New Democratic Core, which means that the Democrats are down to hippies and Union Thugs.  As Michael Barone has documented, decent people have grown to despise Democrat client groups. This shift is why historical modeling is inadequate to understand what's coming in November.  The lies of the past 100 years have been exposed, and the American people are awake.  This election isn't just about replacing Barack Obama, it isn't even just about repealing the excesses of the past decade; this election is about dismantling the lies of the past 100 years and restoring who we really are.

Think big people.  As Rush has explained for years, "Conservatism Wins, Every Time It's Tried."  Wisconsin is proof.