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The Winning Issues

Nov. 7, 2012 3:36pm
Matt Kibbe is the President and CEO of FreedomWorks. An economist by training, Kibbe is a well-respected national public policy expert, bestselling author and  […]
Matt Kibbe is the President and CEO of FreedomWorks. An economist by training, Kibbe is a well-respected national public policy expert, bestselling author and political commentator. Kibbe serves as Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Austrian Economic Center in Vienna, Austria, and is coauthor, with Dick Armey, of the New York Times bestseller "Give Us Liberty: A Tea Party Manifesto."
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Mattbkibbe@freedomWorks.org
Author's Website

Liberals will take great delight in the Democrats victories on Tuesday, but they have yet to process the damage their campaign strategy has done to “progressive” principles. It is constitutional conservatives who should be inspired by the Democrats’ wins, not because Democrats deserved to win, but because they had to run as conservatives to secure victory.

The mantra of the conservative grassroots movement since 2007 has been “lower taxes, less government, more freedom.” Committed conservatives, small-l libertarians and the Tea Party repopulated the Republican Party and the Congress in 2010, but it was the Democrats who successfully applied the lessons of 2010 to the 2012 campaign. That lesson: run on fiscal responsibility.

There are certain fiscal priorities most Americans can agree on: ending corporate welfare and crony capitalism; reducing the deficit and paying down the astronomical debt; eliminating wasteful spending. The demand for these policies is the direct result of how grassroots citizens have changed the conversation over the last 4 years. The insiders were perfectly comfortable spending your money with reckless abandon until the American shareholder finally showed up to hold management to account.

That the American people have woken up to Washington’s failures is not surprising. The shocking result is that it was the Democrats, not the Republicans, who won on fiscal conservatism in 2012.

Bill Nelson, incumbent Democratic senator of Florida, managed to win reelection with a campaign based on “fighting” for “lower taxes” and against “special interests [that] bend the rules and walk away from their responsibilities.” Democratic U.S. Rep. Joe Donnelly of Indiana certainly benefited from a well-timed gaffe by his opponent. But make no mistake; Donnelly won because he ran as a fiscal conservative, even bragging about his support for the extension of the Bush tax cuts, which Democrats have spend years demonizing as the source of all that is evil in the world.

Even Democrats running in rather safe races have taken a hard turn right. Joe Manchin, the former Democratic governor of West Virginia and incumbent senator, suddenly claimed to support a balanced budget amendment. Claire McCaskill, once the most vulnerable Democrat in the Senate, suddenly discovered the virtues of capping federal spending and banning earmarks. (She was, of course, also the underserving beneficiary of an aggressive bout of foot-in-mouth disease contracted by her Republican opponent Todd Akin).

The list goes on, with Kirsten Gillibrand, Tim Kaine, Heidi Heitkamp, and Jon Tester all defining their campaigns around commitment to fiscally conservative principles. Meanwhile, Obama ran against a Republican challenger who effectively took many of the policy failures of the incumbent’s administration off the table.  Could Mitt Romney have ever run against Obamacare, having been one of its primary architects?  Not likely.

The race for president ultimately became a personality contest, and too many voters could not see a positive alternative to the status quo.  So that’s essentially what we got. They are still shopping for a government that is transparent, accountable and fiscally responsible. The party that can credibly offer American shareholders that will win the future.

 

Matt Kibbe is president of FreedomWorks and Author of the book “Hostile Takeover: Resisting Centralized Government’s Stranglehold On America.”

Comments (7)

  • Hayward
    Posted on November 11, 2012 at 7:38am

    “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it” George Santayana,

    1981 on taking office, Reagan complains of $80 billion c.2.5% GDP. “runaway deficits”
    1983 Reagan succeeds in enlarging deficit to $200 billion,6% GDP.

    1993 Bush1 deficit down to $150 billion, but double that under Carter. National Debt from$995 billion, when Reagan took office, to $4 trillion.
    Reaganomics applied by 3 Republican Administrations, has ND up from 26% to 42%. GDP.

    1993 Clinton manages to hold/wind back both, a budget surplus c. $280 billion & ND 35% GDP.

    2001 onward Bush2 manages to outdo “The Gipper” and his Dad.

    2007 Wall Street Tsunami when so much money sloshes around, including the socialist style buying of bank shares that deficit and ND blew out again.

    Helped of course by the Iraq Three Trillion Dollar War, the only conflict since War of Independence to be fought on credit.

    Estimated 2009 budget deficit $482 billion hence moving from black to red c.US$750 billion from the end of Clinton’s term.

    After WST, GFC, the Global Financial Chicken coming home to roost with a fulsome, noisome pile of economic, financial and fiscal ordure that no incoming Administration could hope to cope with in the short term.

    1978-2005
    Democratic Presidents, Federal Spending up 9.9%. Federal Debt 4.2%, GDP 12.6%.
    Republican Presidents Federal Spending up 12.1%, Federal Debt 36.4% , GDP 10.7%

    1995-2006 Republicans control Congress
    2001-2009 Repub

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    Hayward  
  • Go-rin-no-sho
    Posted on November 9, 2012 at 8:03am

    As a Paultard I say Kibbe is in the right direction. The only thing I’d add is that the electorate has shrunk drastically.

    Obama was elected on less than 1/6 of the population, meaning 2/3 of the country had nothing to do with this presidential election. That’s a LOT of uninvolved people. If I remember correctly I read that’s lower than it has been in at least 20 years.

    Neither candidate truly excited their base, no it was quite the opposite; they caused division and disenfranchisement both ways.

    Hopefully our fellow americans ultimately believe in freedom and just want the government to leave them alone, because the most likely outcome in that case is tax revolt and the government will just slough off like much dead flesh.

    Report this comment

    Go-rin-no-sho  
  • TAXEVERYONE
    Posted on November 7, 2012 at 8:58pm

    Kibbe, you look like a clown and your strategy for the tea party was a failure.

    The Tea Party will be stronger without you!

    Report this comment

    TAXEVERYONE  
  • IOUQuidProQuo
    Posted on November 7, 2012 at 8:31pm

    The DEMs were very good at distancing themselves from POTUS BH Obama. The DEMs that were reseated in Congress were successful in messaging to their constituents by doing the “hokey-pokey and turned themselves around” moving to the center from their liberal left-wing perch.

    It did boil down to a personality contest, and the TIRED OLD “GOP/RINOs” which do not represent the Conservative Party fell on their sword and failed on the messaging. The MSMedia bias was also very disgusting. I plan to BOYCOTT the MSM stations and their sponsors in my own way of NOT buying their $tuff.

    The obvious point is that really losing the election is a mixed blessing. Maybe now, if the Conservatives CLEAN HOUSE again in 2014, we have a chance to have a viable candidate for the RNC ticket. Romney, a man of honor and integrity, was still a RINO. And, personally, reminding myself, each day, that a lesser of the two evils was more desirable than pure EVIL (BHO.)

    The fiscal pain we are facing, may just be the anchor needed to send the DNC into the dark ages again. Maybe it will be another 50 years before we elect another DINO as POTUS.

    Romney failed to “Touch the Hearts and Minds” of the Youth. My biggest concerns of the 2012 Election was Voter Fraud and LOW turnout in battleground States. #VoterTurnOut LT 30% + #VoterFraud+ SCYTL > Spain Software Co totaled #ElectoralCollegeVotes = #FRAUD

    http://www.westernjournalism.com/spanish-company-will-count-american-votes-over

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    IOUQuidProQuo  
    • IOUQuidProQuo
      Posted on November 7, 2012 at 8:42pm

      http://www.westernjournalism.com/spanish-company-will-count-american-votes-overseas-in-november/

      When the Spanish online voting company SCYTL bought the largest vote processing corporation in the United States, it also acquired the means of manufacturing the outcome of the 2012 election. For SOE, the Tampa based corporation purchased by SCYTL in January, supplies the election software which records, counts, and reports the votes of Americans in 26 states–900 total jurisdictions–across the nation.

      FUNDING via George Soros. George Soros also helped fund every State’s Secretary of State Office, which handles voter registration, etc. Every state is dipping into the $oro$ money pit.

      Election 2014 will help USA refocus on State and Local elections. And, I pray that Election 2016 will allow us to redeem the time we have fiddled away while USA burned.

      Report this comment

      IOUQuidProQuo  
  • butterfly77
    Posted on November 7, 2012 at 5:31pm

    You are misreading the majority of the electorate and assuming being an American means what it meant roughly 6 to 8 years ago. Americans are now people of dependence who prefer a hand out to a hand up, prefer to make excuses rather than take responsibility. We need to pray for the Third Great Awakening to catch fire. The specter haunting America is about to be a mere specter no longer; its grand manifesto will gradually, yet soon, become known; not so subtly, but will be given voice. We need to be aware and ready.

    Report this comment

    butterfly77  

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