Thanks for the Rule Five links to The Other McCain and The Daley Gator!

It’s waaay too early to start handicapping the 2016 Presidential elections, but the 2014 mid-terms are not all that far off – and they don’t bode too well for the party that currently holds the White House and the Senate.  This just in from the Washington Free Beacon:  Shellacking II:  The Sequel.  Excerpt:

Less than a third of the country says America is headed in the right direction. The Democrats maintain the slimmest of leads—0.8 percent—on the congressional generic ballot, but Republicans are known to do better on Election Day ballots than on generic ones. The Real Clear Politics average of polls has Obama’s approval rating at about 44 percent. That’s where it was on Election Day 2010. Disapproval of Obamacare is also about where it was on Election Day 2010. That day saw the best performance by Republicans in a midterm election since 1946, and the best performance by Republicans in state legislative races since 1928.

Let’s be empirical. The Democrats, according to one political science model, have a one percent chance of recapturing the House in 2014. According to other models, the Republicans are either “slight favorites” or just plain favorites to control the Senate next year. (On Thursday, the New York Times forecast a 54 percent chance of a Republican Senate takeover.) The models can change, of course. That’s what models do. And models can be wrong—they often are, in fact. But, for the time being, the same models that our educated classes trumpeted during the 2012 election predict a happy day for Republicans on Nov. 4. And so I, in turn, am happy to base my analysis on them.

Mind you predictions are notoriously hard to make, especially when they’re about the future.  Mid-terms tend to go badly for the party in power, but so far – and only so far – this mid-term looks like it’s shaping up to be a 1994-style debacle for the Democrats.

There’s one big difference, though, between 1994 and 2014.  Bill Clinton was in the White House in 1994, and President Clinton was and is one of the canniest political operators of our time.  He was capable and smart enough to realize that, when his first mid-term went so badly against him, a change of course was in order.  He did change course, tacking back to his left-of-center, southern Democrat roots, and was largely successful for the rest of his two terms.

Not so for Barack Obama.  Never in yr. obdt.’s lifetime has a President been so tone-deaf to the electorate; even after his 2010 shellacking he did not change course, but stayed true to his Hyde Park urban liberal roots – a longs way to the left of mainstream America.

Bill Clinton, whatever his faults, had some idea how Americans really think.  Unlike Barack Obama, Bill Clinton actually lived in that world before moving into the rarefied atmosphere of Oxford.

However, there is hope for the Democrats:  As the Beacon concludes:

Will the clouds still be out for the president on Election Day? After the experience of 2012 I am venturing no predictions. Some unexpected event will have to occur, something bizarre will have to happen, to bring the Democrats good fortune, to brighten the sky for Obama and for his party. Fortunately for him, there is a major, long-lived American institution that specializes in making life easier for liberals.

It’s called the Republican Party.

And boy, ain’t that the truth.

Happy Mittwoch, True Believers!

An interesting bit on the ongoing disintegration of the Golden State from Reason:  Toyota Says Sayonara (Sort Of) to the Golden State.  Excerpt:

Texas Gov. Rick Perry is probably looking a bit smugger than usual, if that’s at all possible. In the latest commerce-war news between Texas and California—a battle which California appears to be losing badly—Toyota has announced it’s moving its headquarters from the Golden State to the Lone Star State.

As a result, 3,000 jobs will be transferred (from) California to Texas. Not everybody will be going, though. According to the Associated Press, 2,300 jobs will remain in California after the move. But before we mock high-tax, high-regulation California for getting another kick in the moneybasket, let’s see how Perry lured Toyota there:

Perry, who made two visits to California to lure employers to his state, said Texas offered Toyota $40 million in incentives from the taxpayer-funded Texas Enterprise Fund. The Republican governor said Toyota is expected to invest $300 million in the new headquarters.

Some folks would call what Governor Perry is doing corporate welfare – Mr. Perry probably calls it canny politics.  Both sides would have a legitimate point.   But what does Toyota think?

Toyota, obviously, thinks there are good reasons for relocating a portion of their American enterprise to Texas.  They aren’t alone.  Texas has a reputation for being as friendly to business as California is hostile.  We have no way of knowing if Toyota may have made the move if Texas hadn’t sweetened the pot, but Texas did, and Toyota did – and there we are.

The fact is, all of the several states engage in similar acts of bribery enticement when major corporations are considering a move.  It’s just that Texas, for a variety of reasons, seems to be more successful than most other states of late.  True Believers everywhere are invited to investigate and contemplate the possible reasons for themselves.

The Midwest’s major city, perched on the shorts of Lake Michigan, is variously known as the Windy City, Chi-Town, the Second City, and the most corrupt city in the United States.

All of these names are well-earned, as pointed out by Michael Walsh in yesterday’s PJMedia article Chicago, the Shame of a Nation.  Excerpt:

It should come as a surprise to just about nobody that Chicago is the most corrupt big city in America, and long has been. The setting for the godfather of all gangster movies – Scarface, the Shame of a Nation, starring Paul Muni as a thinly disguised Al Capone, directed by Howard Hawks — Chicago has flaunted its outlaw status in the country’s face for nearly a century. And continues to do so, now that one of its own occupies the White House.

Consider this news item, which got no play in the national media beyond the Windy City, whose newspapers have long understood the criminal nature of their municipal government — even if, in the grand tradition of Jake Lingle, they occasionally act as incubators for members of the party. It seems that the former city comptroller, Amer Ahmad — a convicted criminal nonetheless hired by mayor Rahm Emanuel to oversee the city’s finances– is now on the lam; hardly a surprise coming from adherents of the criminal organization masquerading as a political party.

A colleague of mine who spent much of his life in Chicago often repeats a truism about Illinois politics, one that posits Illinois Governors serve two terms:  One as Governor, one in prison.  Chicago is the corrupt epicenter of a corrupt state, and it’s hardly recent; the stink of corruption in that city goes back at least to the early Twentieth century.

To be fair, Chicago isn’t alone in corruption.  Generations of corrupt and incompetent government has doomed Detroit, once the cornerstone of American industry.   Philadelphia has seen repeated instances of election fraud, and California – the whole state, it seems – is headed down that same path.

What is it about government that attracts the venal, the corrupt, the liars, conmen and fools among us?