Canary in the Coal Mine for Obama’s Chances in November? Looks more like cooked goose in Ohio
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Thanks to I’m 41 for these pictures. Great shots of Ohio coal miners emerging from the bowels of the Earth, sooty and tired, to line up for hours to meet Mitt Romney and shake the hand of 1/2 of America’s Comeback Team. Click above to embiggen.
Ohio is my home state but I have not lived there since, really, 2001 or so. I just can’t imagine Ohio going to Obama in 2012 though. A lot would have had to have changed in the state for it to fall to Obama again. From what I can tell in the conversations I have with my friends back home and the ground reports I get from Ohioans, the feeling seems to be very anti-Democrats because of a great many stupid things the Left has done to Ohioans in the last four years.
The dumbest of which is, of course, the bizarre War on Coal that Obama and Biden declared.
Bizarre, however, if you don’t really look hard at what’s holding the Democrat Party together these days. It’s all about pitting interest groups against one another in the hopes that some groups feel like they have no choice but to vote Democrat while other groups feel like they need to vote Democrat to stick it to competing groups they hate. The Democrat Party is held together with hate and conflicting group interests. It only continues to survive because Republicans are largely too stupid to run any interference that would cause the Jenga Tower of identity blocs to collapse upon itself.
In the Ohio example, Democrats nationwide need to appease the academic Leftists who despise coal and worship at the altar of Gaia, the Earth Mother, in the Cult of Environmentalism. These Leftists demand that America’s natural resources be kept underground and unused, so as not to “rape” Gaia. I’m only sort of mocking when I write this, because at some level this is really what these zealots believe. The irony to end all ironies is that the Democrat Party, which makes fun of Republicans for the fundamentalists in their ranks, are actually more controlled by radical zealots on the Left than the GOP has ever been at the mercy of far-right Christians.
The War on Coal was designed to placate the Gaia worshippers…at the expense of alienating the people who depended on coal for their livelihood in places like Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and (surprisingly) some Western states too.
Democrats calculate these identity-bloc appeals in hopes of scoring a net positive where any votes they lose from coal miners would be more than made up for with the increased fundraising and turnout of the academic Leftists and Gaia cultists.
Donna Brazile famously stated in 2008 that the new Democrat Party that emerged under Barack Obama would be comprised exclusively of academic Leftists, blacks, recent college graduates, gays, and Hispanics…more or less. The “bitter clinging Midwesterners” that Obama, and Democrats, railed against were people like the coal miners and blue collar workers that formed the actual majority of the Democrat Party. Brazile, Howard Dean, and others who pushed Obama to the nomination over Hillary Clinton felt the party could win every election in the future with a pared-down coalition that essentially jettisoned all the people who voted for Hillary Clinton in the 2008 primaries.
The fact that Obama won the general election in 2008 solidified this thinking…which leads to things like spurning the coal miners and those like them because Democrats think they can win again by choosing the Cult of Gaia over these kinds of voters.
They’re in for a big surprise, because 2008′s election was anomalous in a great many ways…but the biggest is that the nation was indeed caught up in a once-in-a-generation hysteria of “Hope and Change!” that was similar in my mind to the weird fads that sweep teenage girls like a love for New Kids on the Block or Justin Beiber or whatever. If you’re not a fan of these people yourself, you’ll never fully understand their appeal and can only watch as the infatuation takes bloom, hits epic proportions, then craters like the Dot-Coms of the late-90s. Or Facebook, here in 2012.
More like face-plant, come to think of it.
Or face-palm, like what Democrats will be doing (if they aren’t doing it already) when they finally realize that paying so much homage to the Cult of Gaia will exile the Democrats to political obscurity for a decade or more, just like what happened last time they ceded so much power to the Left under Carter.
Which, come to think of it, was another time the coal miners abandoned Democrats and voters like them came to be known as “Reagan Democrats”, many of whom left the party for good.
© 2012, Kevin DuJan. All rights reserved.
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First of all Kevin, I want to welcome you back to active posting. While your “partners in crime” have done an excellent job during your illness I’ve missed your always interesting point of view on things. Welcome back and I’m glad you’re getting better.
Talking to people I get the same feeling you’re getting that Obama is in real trouble. I’ve been surprised by how many people are talking about how bad things are and the need to get rid of this clown car disaster of a mis-administration.
On my flight back from St. Louis I spent the entire flight talking to a nice older lady who voted for Obozo in ’08. She’s had enough and is simply appalled at the corruption and cronyism of this regime. She even started listening to Rush Limbaugh and says she will never ever again vote for a Democrat. Her passion and anger was quite intense.
Oh, and she;s African American.
What I’ve found to be very indicative of “my hope for change” in November is the number of people who are anxious to vote this November. These are the same people who would rather leave politics out of the discussion. This, to me, is a clear indicator for my hope for change.
Kevin,
Last week you were asking for suggestions on what to put on palm cards, may I suggest this chart
http://www.aei-ideas.org/2012/08/a-big-version-of-the-biggest-chart-in-american-politics/
Team Romney is missing a golden opporotunity, we keep hearing the same point, with the stimulus the unemployment rate was never supposed to go over 8%, with the stimulus, we should now be at 5.6% with the promised stimulus impact. Romney makes the point unemployment as been over 8% for 40 months, well, we are supposed to be at 5.6%, according to POTUS and his economic wizzards….we need to pound Romney’s team to make that point.
God Bless the coal miners, this should also be a factor in PA, IA and other coal states.
I am listening to Mark Levin’s podcast from Friday, he’s highlighted the purposeful delays in imposing regulations until after the elections (he also has Gov. Brewer call in), please read and share:
“The studies the GAO surveyed predicted that between two and 12 percent of American coal-fueled power plant to close “in response to the four regulations rather than installing controls,” the GAO said. “Two of the studies we reviewed reported national estimates of the total costs of actions power companies may take in response to the four key EPA regulations, projecting from $16 billion to $21 billion in additional annual costs.”
Those coal plant losses will concentrate in certain regions of the country…
In Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana, and West Virginia, coal-fueled plants generate over 70 percent of the state’s electricity, according to the GAO. The state of Ohio has the greatest concentration of the largest coal-fueled plants that are likely to close as a result of the rules, a GAO map indicated”
http://washingtonexaminer.com/gao-epa-rules-to-cause-energy-price-increases-in-midwest-compromise-electric-grid/article/2505244
Coal states, please wake up, you should not be in play.
Yes, welcome back Kevin!
Ok, I was born and raised in Ohio, I live in the WV, KY, OH tri-state area.
Earlier this year, we saw our only coke plant shut down due to Obama’s EPA. This plant supplied A-K Steel, now they have to go elsewhere for their supply.
Coal mines are shutting down in all 3 States, due to Obama’s EPA.
Our electric company has told us that if they are forced to convert from coal to natural gas, they will either shut down, or lay off over 600 workers, make the conversion, then pass the costs of that conversion to customers.
If they convert, they told us our rates would increase 35% to 45%, this over the two rate increases they already got in 2009/2010!
WV’s union rep, told the coal miners to not vote this upcoming election.
Their own union told them, don’t vote!!! Rather than vote Republican to rid us of Obama, they are supposed to stay home…cannot go against the Dems, you know?
Strong headed union workers will stay home, I’m just hoping many will refuse to listen to this union rep. and vote!
This is the first time I have been to your website so I think I will weigh in. I did not vote for obama because I didn’t trust him. I had bad vibes about him.
I am appalled, but not surprised obama is going to shut down coal mines. He needs to leave our coal mines and our coalminers ALONE! We need coal and our coalminers need jobs!!
My best to all the coalminers out there. I hope they will not stay home, but get out and vote for Romney. Voting should not be based on what their union bosses say. If obama gets back in, then coalmines will just away. Prayers are with the coalminers.