“2010, Sir, is Not 1994”

Throughout the ranks of the engaged American electorate, there is a recognition that November 2nd does not represent the finish line of the effort to restore the America of the founding. We’ve already called for a ten year tea party; others see it as a generational re-education effort that will take 30 years or more; but in any case, nobody believes one election is enough to reverse the 80+ years of damage that has followed the ascendancy of godless intellectualism and elitism in America.

And when we say ‘nobody believes one election is enough’, we mean nobody. Which means the radical left doesn’t believe it either—and, in fact, is counting on this fact in its very deliberate plan to destroy the America of the founding. It’s fairly clear that Obama sees parallels to the 1994 elections and their aftermath, when Newt Gingrich took over leadership of the House with great fanfare and expectation, only to be run into the ground by Bill Clinton’s strategy of leveraging the Pravda media to blame the Republicans for anything that was not going well. Using this strategy, the public is unable to know what conditions would be like if Clinton were solely in charge; the public is also unable to know what conditions would be like if Gingrich were solely in charge. The result is to create a political spinning contest—i.e., ‘if only we had done what I wanted….’—which leftists believe they are always clever enough to win.

Obama is counting on the same phenomena. He’s going to be shocked by his miscalculation.

The indispensable element of Clinton’s success against Gingrich was the inability of the ‘class of 1994’ to stand firm against the withering assault of the Pravda media. “Republicans are mean-spirited…no compassion…government shutdown is unreasonable….”, were the simple themes, and the Republicans caved, nominated their usual uninspired ‘next-guy-in-line’ for President in 1996, and Clinton lived to win another term.

Well, the past is prologue, except when it isn’t. To paraphrase Lloyd Bentsen's classic putdown of Dan Quayle, “I was around in 1994, I knew the conditions of 1994, and 2010, sir, is not 1994.” Let us count the ways.

1. Clinton was a smooth-talking, left-wing liar willing to turn up the heat on the frog a little, but he enjoyed philandering too much to be focused on going for the kill. Obama is a smooth-talking radical left-wing liar who turned the heat to maximum flame to go for the kill. The frog has jumped out of the pan, and is alive and kicking. (The frog, by the way, is the America of the founding, the ‘shining city on a hill’, born of the Judeo-Christian principle of all men created equal by God, entitled to freedom and rights inalienable by government. Clinton is part of the left-wing establishment of godless intellectualism that hates the frog as much as Obama; he just enjoyed the political gamesmanship of it all too much to be as ruthless as Obama).

2. Pravda’s power in 2010 is a tiny fraction of what it was in 1994. Loss of subscribers and viewers in these past 16 years doesn’t begin to tell the story of how their influence has waned. They are exposed as partisan, lying hacks; they are more shrill than ever; but the choices of news and information available to the American people are exponentially larger, and the number of Americans who have made use of these choices to make themselves better informed is much, much larger than in 1994.

3. There was no nationwide tea party movement in 1994; there wasn’t a 9/12 march on Washington with a million people; there was no “Restoring Honor” rally on the Mall in Washington with another million people singing Amazing Grace. “Sea change” is an overused descriptor, but it’s apt in describing the change in thought that has occurred across America in 2010. 1994 was about genuine and widespread public irritation; 2010 is about a second American revolution.

4. The class of 2010 is going to be made of sterner stuff than the class of 1994, and it is going to be backed and held accountable by sterner stuff than the class of 1994. The sleeping giant of “Americans” is going to be behind the class of 2010; that’s a force Clinton and Obama have only read about. They haven’t the slightest clue how powerful it is.

And by the way, Clinton was impeached, and came within a dozen votes in the Senate of being removed from office, during his second term. Obama’s second term is really going to be the second half of his first term, and if he can’t be persuaded by Democratic elders to resign, don’t be surprised if some of the long-missing facts and records of Obama’s past start to surface. When they do, they will be the stained blue dress that captures the basic case of Obama’s fraud on the American people in 2008. The impeachment and removal process will accelerate, and the Senate will have the votes.

Paul Gable

October 1, 2010