Thomas Sowell: November election "may be the last chance to halt the dismantling of America"

What will it matter if Obama's current approval rating is below 50 percent among the current voting public, if he can ram through new legislation to create millions of new voters by granting citizenship to illegal immigrants? That can be enough to make him a two-term President, who can appoint enough Supreme Court justices to rubber-stamp further extensions of his power.

When all these newly minted citizens are rounded up on election night by ethnic organization activists and labor union supporters of the administration, that may be enough to salvage the Democrats' control of Congress as well.

The last opportunity that current American citizens may have to determine who will control Congress may well be the election in November of this year. Off-year elections don't usually bring out as many voters as Presidential election years. But the 2010 election may be the last chance to halt the dismantling of America. It can be the point of no return.

Winner in 2010 will hold power for a decade

With the governorships evenly divided and almost all of the state legislatures, the party that loses the decadal election stands to lose control over congressional reapportionment. And, therefore, to lose control of the House of Representatives for a decade.

When Obama persists with his unpopular healthcare proposals, he is dooming his party not just to defeat in 2010, but to losses throughout the coming decade.

The reapportionment of 2000 was a kinder, gentler reapportionment. Except in Texas, where former Rep. Tom DeLay (R) took no prisoners, the two parties concluded sweetheart deals to draw lines that favored the incumbents on both sides of the aisle. In California, for example, the lines so protected Democratic and Republican opponents that there is only one vulnerable Democrat (Jerry McNerney) out of 54 congressmen from that state.

Polls show GOP could take control of Senate

The long-shot bid by Republicans to retake control of the Senate is suddenly in play, as the prospect of high-profile Republican candidates entering the fray has pushed the GOP even or ahead in polling for 10 races.

The potential candidacies of former Republican Govs. George E. Pataki in New York and Tommy G. Thompson in Wisconsin are improving the polling fortunes of the party as it pursues seats long in the hands of Democrats, while the anti-government "tea party" movement has provided momentum to Republican challengers in states such as Florida, Arkansas and Pennsylvania.

"If the election were held today, the Republicans could come close to winning back the Senate, if not actually win it," said pollster John Zogby.

Republicans are solidly ahead to take at least five seats now held by Democrats — in North Dakota, Delaware, Nevada, Arkansas and Pennsylvania. Five more are now considered winnable — Colorado, Illinois, Wisconsin, Indiana and even liberal New York. Two other races, in California and Washington, are tightening daily.

As jobless rate soars, Dem prospects in 2010 sour

Congressional Democrats and the Obama White House have plenty to fret about as they eye the 2010 elections: rising deficits, the Afghan war, public fears over expanding government, the fate of the health-care brawl.

But one item may prove key: the national unemployment rate, which hit a 26-year high last month at 9.8%. On that front, economists and political pundits say, the majority party looks increasingly wobbly.

The incumbent Democrats are facing an uphill climb in the 2010 elections. With the jobless rate nearing 10%, President Obama could lose more than 20 seats in the House. WSJ's Neil King explains.

."Unemployment is the leading economic indicator when it comes to politics," said Democratic pollster Peter Hart. "Anytime unemployment hits double digits, it's hard to see the party in control having a good election year."

Economists generally predict that the number of people out of work will continue to inch up next year, even if the economy begins to rebound. Most see the jobless rate peaking at around 10.5% in the summer. Former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan said Sunday that his own hunch was that the economy would turn around over coming months, but that unemployment would "penetrate the 10% barrier and stay there for a while before we start down."

Three-alarm presidency won't bring recovery

The Obama administration ordinarily operates in three-alarm mode. On its to-do list, even the mundane carries the designation "dire emergency."

On matters that bear directly on Obama's agenda of destroying American capitalism, such as cap and trade, the administration has gone to outlandish lengths, forcing the House to take up a bill that no member had read.

Still, there is room for even more alarming alarmism. The stubborn refusal of the economy to get up off the mat, combined with the approach of the 2010 election season, seems likely to put the Obamaites in four-alarm mode.

The preceding post quotes Nouriel Roubini as doubting that the recession will end this year. If the recession does extend into 2010 it is likely to affect the outcome of the 2010 congressional election by depressing contributions to Democrat campaiagns and discouraging some potential Democrat challengers from running.

Obama already is slipping in the polls. Among those with strong opinions, opponents of Obama are running 7 percentage points ahead of supporters in the Rasmussen Poll. The Gallup Poll shows the Democrats' lead in party identification shrinking, but the party still leads Republicans by nine points, 49 percent to 40 percent.

Alleged Republicans who supported Obama, such as Colin Powell, also appear to be having second thoughts. Expressing surprise at the size of Obama's agenda, Powell recently negotiated the first teeny-weeny, unserious climb-down from the Obama train. It wasn't pretty, but everything has to start somewhere.

As the failure of Obama's $787 billion stimulus plan becomes more and more obvious, the credibility of other Republican Obamaites will come into question. Will Warren Buffett ever be regarded as Warren Buffett again? Not likely.

My question is, why did Obama reject the stimlulus option that was most likely to work immediately in favor of one that may not work at all?

An immediate tax cut, perhaps including a timed tax holiday, would have put money in the hands of taxpayers immediately while also giving them reassurance that America was going on as usual despsite the bump in the road.

Instead, the administration chose the pork barrel, which persuaded many Americans that something new was afoot and they'd better hold onto every dime they had. The three-alarm Obamaites, by scaring American consumers, caused the Obama stimulus plan to fail.

How much damage will the four-alarm Obamaites cause? We'll know soon.

Roubini: "green shoots" will turn to brown manure

"The June employment report suggests that the alleged green shoots are mostly yellow weeds that may eventually turn into brown manure. The employment report shows that conditions in the labor market continue to be extremely weak, with job losses in June of over 460,000. With the current rate of job losses, it is very clear that the unemployment rate could reach 10% by later this summer--around August or September--and will be closer to 10.5%, if not 11%, by year-end. I expect the unemployment rate is going to peak at around 11% at some point in 2010, well above historical standards for even severe recessions.

It's clear that even if the recession were to be over anytime soon--and it's not going to be over before the end of the year--job losses are going to continue for at least another year and a half. Historically, during the last two recessions, job losses continued for at least a year and a half after the recession was over. During the 2001 recession, the recession was over in November 2001, and job losses continued through August 2003 for a cumulative loss of jobs of over 5 million; this time we are already seeing more than 6 million job losses and the recession is not over.

The details of the unemployment report are even worse than the headline. Not only are there large job losses right now, but as a way of sharing the pain, firms are inducing workers to reduce hours and hourly wages. Therefore, when we're looking at the effect of the labor market on labor income, we should consider that the total value of labor income is the product of jobs, hours and average hourly wages--and that all three elements are falling right now. So the effect on labor income is much more significant than job losses alone."

http://www.forbes.com/2009/07/08/jobs-report-mortgages-unemployment-recession-opinions-columnists-nouriel-roubini.html