Barack, the Demo-Publican President, and Welcome To Him

Well, I voted Libertarian, as always. The rest of you thought you were voting for Republicans and Democrats and, turns out, you were all voting for Politicians  - or as we Libertarians say, the Politician's Party, or the Government Party.

I knew Barack would push for things like health-care 'reform,' and the irony is, the way things have been going the past two decades, if he had been a Republican he would have passed it. Now we might get lucky and have the evil thing die unborn.

But I at least hoped we'd get some good anti-Republican things from a liberal Democrats, like a reduction in our military presence overseas and our overreaching foreign policy that just has to involve itself in absolutely every single thing in every other country (when we can't do things right in our own). But no: We're still as involved as we were under the hated Republicans. So we've been getting the worst of the Democrats and the worst of the Republicans, just as we have been for years. Lots of government programs at great cost and little benefit, and lots of foreign policy at great cost and no great benefit. 

Terrific. 

Barack needs to take a leaf from Clinton's book and try to become the best Republicans president the Democratics ever had. 

The Coming Republican Crisis: What They Had Better Keep In Mind!

The Independent Institute's email newsletter today, October 27, tells what reforms Republicans must consider in the inevitable backlash that will occur after Barack Obama wins the presidency next week:

Conservatives in Crisis
Barack Obama's recent endorsements from Christopher Buckley and Colin Powell, and strong criticisms of the Republican Party made by fellow travelers such as Kathleen Parker, Peggy Noonan, and David Brooks, suggest that the G.O.P. is headed for a major shake-up after next week's election, according to Independent Institute Senior Fellow Alvaro Vargas Llosa, director of the Independent Institute's Center on Global Prosperity.

Vargas Llosa points to three factors within the Republican Party that have contributed to recent defections and falling popularity with voters: its blurring of a populism that mistrusts political pull and a populism that favors rural culture over urban culture; the clash between the rhetoric of limited government and the reality of growing federal expenditures under the Bush administration and its congressional supporters; and the spread of a neo-Puritanism. Until Republican leaders straighten out the mixed messages they are sending the rank and file, their party's electoral victories are likely to become increasingly elusive.

Vargas Llosa writes: "After the elections, conservatives will have to do some serious soul-searching and ask themselves a few simple questions: How was it that they let their movement and their party be hijacked by people who were hellbent on disfiguring the face of American conservatism? How was it that the self-styled party of individual liberty became, in the eyes of many, the party of big government, intolerance and jingoism?"

"The Conservative Rebellion," by Alvaro Vargas Llosa (10/21/08)
Lessons from the Poor: Triumph of the Entrepreneurial Spirit, edited by Alvaro Vargas Llosa.
Liberty for Latin America: How to Undo Five Hundred Years of State Oppression, by Alvaro Vargas Llosa.