A New Dean Angle

[SamSpade]

"Reminds me of the late '90s, when many on the right were almost rabid in their hatred of the Clintons. "

I think he just p*ssed me off way too much while he was running for office in '92, and then it was his posturing after the election. He lied frequently on the campaign trail, including the whole Gennifer Flowers deal. I heard the whole tape on the radio where she played back her answering machine tape. He just tells her that if anyone asks, to just deny it; just deny it. In a situation where he thought he was off camera, he just blasted Jesse Jackson, and the next day - denied it all, even though it was there on film. The 'inhale' thing. Paula Jones. The draft-dodge/Vietnam protest in England thing. And the fact that, UNLIKE Howard Dean, who is actually *leading* in the polls, Clinton was the media's favorite, even though he kept losing in primaries and caucuses, and declared a "comeback" when he came in *second* in New Hampshire.

I said out loud back then - "the press loves this guy - one way or another, they're gonna try their best to see him elected".

Right after he gets elected, he begins to blame every problem in the country on "the previous 12 years of Republican administrations". It took a couple *years* to stop hearing that refrain. More than any previous President, he seemed to delight in poking the other side in the eye - in framing the issues as between his side, and those extra chromosome right wing-nuts. Hillary and her Vast Right Wing Conspiracy.

Basically, the Clintons, in my opinion, were responsible for making Washington even more adversarial and partisan than I can ever recall it being.

THAT is why I didn't like him. All the scandal stuff just confirmed what I felt already.

 

[SamSpade]

"On a side note, it was always fun to watch the lefties try to take care of the working man while sticking it to big business... they would try to make it work until they got frustrated and quit, but they rarely ever changed their outlook on life."

I wish I knew where I saw this, but I read somewhere that the left's biggest problem is they just don't understand economics. Maybe it was the thread they were discussing ANWR. Someone there just kept insisting that oil companies should spend their time and money drilling domestically rather than purchasing oil for a fraction of the cost, overseas. You know, go against all business logic and spend 5-10 bucks to get another gallon of domestic oil rather than spend 1 dollar and get it somewhere else. No reason. Just - we should do that. As though profit was some kind of evil that had to be *avoided*. They just don't get that while the pursuit of profit may cause people to do awful things, a business that doesn't make a profit doesn't last (unless it's Amtrak).

Similarly, they don't get - or at least, they're dishonest about - the role of business, and jobs. You can't promise jobs to "the working man" without playing nice with business.

Sometimes, they use different tactics. Right now, the latest is to claim big support for small businesses. I still recall a very unsympathetic Hillary when told her health plan ideas would crush small businesses - "I can't be responsible for every undercapitalized small business in America ".

They just don't get that businesses are out to make money - if you crush business, you kill jobs. So far, their 'winning' response is to blame businesses and Republicans for it, but it's getting really old.

 

[tlatchaw]

Originally posted by ceo_pte
I think that I will start calling him 'Mini Gore.'

 

[Bruzilla]

Yeah... I've been hearing the Dem candidates displaying their ignorance of economics many times. I heard one calling for an International Workers Bill of Rights so that workers overseas will get better pay and benefits. Yeah right! Even if there were some country that would adopt such a policy, what would that do for the American consumer? Suppose Mexico and China adopted such policies... the price of many consume goods would double or triple. Great for Mexicans and Chinese... bad for American consumers and workers who would be put out of work. They also claim to be in favor of barring companies from moving outside of the US. That will either result in companies greatly increasing prices or just selling out and closing their doors.

Another boner I hear often is cutting back defense spending. They fail to realize the impact of closing bases or cutting programs, and the ripple effect it has.

My father-in-law owned a small manufacturing company in Florida. He had a gas pump in the back that we used for our delivery trucks, but he also let employees use it since we bought gas in bulk and it saved them about 40 cents a gallon. Then the EPA came out with new regulations about what he could do with his pump, and we figured it would cost more to adhere to the regs than to start buying gas retail... so the employees lost the benefit. Even though we had low employee turnover, our unemployment insurance rates were based on state-mandated averages, and everytime the insurance premiums went up, we had to lose employees. Same with minimum wages and other mandatory benefits. Then came other BS regs from the EPA, the labor groups, and other folks "looking out for the working man and wanting to stick it to 'The Man' in charge", and before long my father-in-law said to heck with it and sold his business out to a large corporation who assumed the company's name and customers, and laid off everyone who worked there while shifting production to other existing facilities.

In the end, a company that had employed over 100 employees and generated taxes on 5-8 million dollars of sales per year closed down. The employees were laid off and started collecting unemployment; the buildings became an "attractive nuisance" for druggies as they went unsold for a long time; the taxes that were being paid to Florida were now going to Georgia, and another manufacturing company was gone.

My father-in-law pocketed quite a lot of money and is set for life. He had inherited the company from his father, and had worked it for over 30 years, so he was in no hurry to sell it as he wanted to pass it on to his son. But the costs of doing business due to over regulation killed it. Of course, the Democrats claim situations like this result from the greed of the owner and the desire of evil big businesses to take over everything... but in reality it was just the law of unintended consequences doing it's thing.