Guest Post

By Ralph Benko – Senior Economic Advisor at the American Principles Project

As I recently wrote in my Forbes.com column, “Presidential elections are about, above all, just two things: our security and our prosperity.” The GOP candidates have been emphatic about our national security, about which more in a bit.

All of them strangely have been pretty quiet about our prosperity. Getting the economy moving again deserves, now, to be the top issue. Ted Cruz has offered the most Reaganesque plan for getting us robust growth. Cruz laid out a solid, credible, prosperity plan. He presented his Flat Tax and, most important, staked out a credible recipe for excellent monetary policy: the gold standard.

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Today’s mailing from the National Republican Senatorial Campaign (NRSC) asked me to join them in sending congratulations for a Victory in the Iowa Caucus.

Were they congratulating the winner, Senator Ted Cruz, who got more votes than any Republican ever in an Iowa Republican caucus and exceeded the polling average expectations by 3.8%?  No!

Were they congratulating Senator Marco Rubio for this third place showing that exceeded expectations by 6.2%?  No.

Were they congratulating Senator Rand Paul for his campaign and showing?  No.

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Today Presidential candidate John Kasich (R-Ohio) gave a town hall at a VFW in Raymond, New Hampshire. It was a small event where Kasich opened up almost immediately for questions although he started the event talking a little about what he has done. One of the things he mentioned was that he works with people.

Working with people is how Kasich says he gets things done. Essentially he was saying that if elected President, he’ll work with people rather than having stalemates in Congress. This is a little ironic considering he bypassed the full Ohio Legislature to pass Obamacare’s Medicaid Expansion, which he admitted when questioned about it.

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Last night at a Milford, New Hampshire rally, Scott Brown (former Massachusetts Senator) endorsed Presidential candidate Donald Trump. Trump claimed that a lot of candidates were seeking Brown’s endorsement but it seems he doesn’t know much about Brown’s history in the Granite State or even Massachusetts for that matter.

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Remember while reading the below that two of the three top finishers are TEA Party associated (emphasis mine):

And the night’s biggest loser wasn’t Donald Trump (though he indeed lost big), but the GOP establishment, what William F. Buckley once referred to in the initial mission statement of National Review as the “Well-fed right whose ignorance and amorality have never been exaggerated for the same reason that one cannot exaggerate infinity.” They suffered a loss so ignominious and dramatic that one needs to step back a bit to reflect on its comprehensiveness. The campaign began with seventeen GOP candidates, of whom eleven had longtime pre-Tea Party era experience in elected office, including several senators and the former Governors of Texas, New York, and Florida. Between pre-caucus drop-outs and election night performances, those eleven candidates took just nine percent of the vote combined. Nine percent. The other ninety-one percent of the vote went to candidates who had neither not held office before 2010 or whom had never held office at all.

In the face of repudiation this total,

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I’ve been saying saying the same thing for years – and remember that it was the Frankfurt School and Gramsci that said for the Socialist / Communists to take over the ramparts of culture.  Now we are seeing that they were successful (emphasis mine):

ANALYSIS: TRUE. OU professor: Youths’ attraction to Sanders shows education failure. “It’s disheartening that an avowed socialist is a viable candidate for president of the United States. Socialism is a dead end. For hundreds of years, it has failed everywhere it’s been adopted. The enthusiasm of our youth for the candidacy of Bernie Sanders is a symptom of our failure to educate them, not only in history, government and economics, but also basic morality.”

And it has been by design.  If you don’t know your own history,

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This is really dismal – if you have to ASK for applause for yourself, what does that say both you and your campaign?

“My pledge to you, I will be a commander in chief that will have the back of the military,” Bush told the crowd. “I won’t trash talk, I won’t be a divider-in-chief or an agitator-in-chief. I won’t be out there blowharding, talking a big game without backing it up.”  “I think the next president needs to be a lot quieter but send a signal that we’re prepared to act in the national security interest of this country,” he added. “To get back in the business of creating a more peaceful world.”

After that line, Bush paused, seemingly waiting for the crowd to applaud and cheer him — but they didn’t.

“Please clap,” Bush had to tell the crowd, sounding defeated.

Oy vay!  That’s pitiful.  I know that politicians have to be able to take rejection almost as much as actors, used car salesman and telemarketers, but that is bad.  But to actually ask for applause to make you feel better about yourself?

UPDATE: video after the jump

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Clinton flunkies in New Hampshire, when confronted with Sanders’ Campaign warnings about vote fraud during the Iowa caucus, called it projection.

Sanders camp thinks Clinton will try to pack caucuses with out of state voters https://t.co/zrz3xlIG4O #votefraud #Iowa #NHpolitics

— Steve Mac Donald (@TheRealNHSteve) February 1, 2016

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