Saturday, April 20, 2024
Miles from the Mainstream
D. R. ZUKERMAN, proprietor
Democrats Get Your Gavels Ready

JANUARY 1, 2006 --

The Dow Jones stock market average ended 2005 at 10717.50, down 65.51 from the Dow Jones 2004 close -- 10,783.01.

Republicans would be advised to take stock market analyses as seriously as criticism from Democrats.

LPR is simply confounded by analysts
who one day will explain a fall in the Dow Jones to higher oil prices, and, on another occasion, point to lower oil prices as the reason the market was down.

Stocks this writer no longer holds went up in 2005 and stocks retained declined. Is there a highly-paid financial analyst who will declare that the market will perform better if only I sell whatever I have left?

The Wall Street Journal can be expected to run articles claiming that the economy is doing well -- see "Pouting Pundits of Pessimism," by Brian S. Wesbury, an "investment strategist, in the Journal,
December 2, 2005, p.A10.

But if our economy is flourishes, as Mr. Westbury writes, why is the Dow Jones down from last year, why Is GM in trouble?

Media liberals (mainstream only on their own waterway) can be expected to cheerlead for Democrats and chide
Republicans.

See, for example, Fred Hiatt's "Chinks in the Republican Armor," in The Washington Post, December 12, 2005, p. A25, clearly assuring Democrats they can become the Congressional majority, after next election day.

It is nearly 12 years since the GOP won majority status in the House and Senate and the GOP, in this writer's view, has yet to learn how to deal with the partisan left -- elected officials and their media allies.

"New York Stock Exchange" dimly perceived (what else is new?)
The GOP has natural allies in the grass roots media, including radio and the internet, but LPR is not confident that it has any idea how to establish bonds
with the grass roots, so preoccupied -- and possibly fearful -- is the GOP of its political adversaries.

There is a difference between representing the people and ruling them. This, LPR believes, is the populist message in Federalist 57 -- a document the GOP apparently has yet to read.

Not only do Republicans seem to prefer power to constitutional principle, their shrill replies to liberal attacks suggest desperation, not confidence.

Why vote for shrill Republicans desperate to hold political power, when the party that created this political mold is also on the ballot?