World Affairs Brief, February 15, 2008. Commentary and Insights on a Troubled World.

Copyright Joel Skousen. Partial quotations with attribution permitted. Cite source as Joel Skousen’s World Affairs Brief

US KINGMAKERS GET THEIR WAY NO MATTER WHICH PARTY WINS

While Mike Huckabee and Ron Paul fight on in the race for the Republican nomination, media manipulation has done its job in behalf of John McCain, and it’s McCain who will be the Republican standard bearer. In my opinion, forcing John McCain upon the Republicans greatly diminishes the chance of a Republican victory in November. On the Democratic side, Barak Obama continues to rack up victory after victory over Hillary Clinton-to the relief of millions of Americans who dislike Clinton. However, despite this appearance of victory for Obama, the Democratic race is very much unsettled. Even if Obama wins all the remaining primaries, he still ends up only barely ahead of Hillary in delegate counts–owing to the proportional allocation system. Obama is “winning” delegates in each primary, but so is Hillary. That is why the ultimate decision will be in the hands of the Democratic Party “heavies” –those state and national party leaders that control some 400 “super-delegate” votes. A large portion of these leaders are very much part of the insider control system that manipulates each election. This week I’ll discuss the potential consequences of a McCain-Obama contest as opposed to a McCain-Clinton race.

John McCain has a big problem. He is very much distrusted by Republican conservatives. Recent polls at the CPAC conference, where Romney made his speech announcing the suspension of his campaign, indicated that Romney supporters were very frustrated about where to cast their votes. Very few were willing to concede to McCain. Many wanted to vote for Ron Paul but felt he couldn’t win. About half were willing to cross over to Huckabee, but that still left many still looking for “someone other than McCain.”

While the media insists on telling the nation that McCain is winning the “moderate” Republican vote, conservatives know that these “moderates” are really liberal Republicans. In the end, Republican insiders are making sure that Republicans who dislike McCain have nowhere else to go. They are counting on the fact that conservatives are used to supporting the lesser of two evils and will “get over” their dislike of McCain.

Even Mitt Romney has apparently succumbed to pressure to support the party hierarchy by endorsing McCain. If he thinks it will make him any more acceptable to the Republican establishment, he is very much mistaken. All he does by endorsing McCain is corrupt his own constituency. It won’t provide him a VP slot either unless he has totally sold out to the other side.

All of this will figure strongly in the controversy over who the Powers That Be will choose for McCain’s running mate. Mike Huckabee wants the VP slot and would be a good choice for securing the evangelical Christian support, which otherwise would not be enthusiastic about McCain. Huckabee will convince them that McCain is a true conservative “just like me.” That’s not very reassuring given Huckabee’s liberal track record as Arkansas governor. Huck’s real purpose was to act as a spoiler of the Romney candidacy. Huckabee then stayed in the race to make sure that the anti-McCain votes didn’t go to Ron Paul. However, other powerful insiders connected to the Bush/Cheney center of power would like to use the VP slot to promote Jeb Bush, the president’s younger brother, into a national spotlight. Other’s are very much against another Bush on the ticket, insisting that the Bush legacy is so unpopular that it would create a negative backlash among potential crossover votes from independents.

Here’s how this might play out in the presidential election. While at least 70% of Americans really don’t like the war in Iraq, only about 50% of Americans feels strongly enough to let their anti-war feelings determine who they will vote for in November. That’s a sizable number. McCain is a lopsided candidate on the war issue, and is often and derisively referred to as “Bush on Steroids” due to his remarks about not minding another “100-years” in Iraq.

If we see a McCain-Obama contest for the presidency, virtually all the anti-war vote is going to Obama who has campaigned strongly against the war, and who has a somewhat fresh image not tainted by years in the Washington establishment. The image of or promise of change is usually enough to fool millions of voters who naively think that the Democratic Party will really change things. They should have already seen the foolishness of that position from the absolute failure by Democrats to deliver on any of their anti-war claims after gaining majority control.

While making vigorous verbal protests, Democrats have refused to stop the war, refused to stop the CIA from secret detention and torture, and refused to stop warrantless spying. They have refused to force Bush to seek Congressional authorization to attack Iran, refused to stop deficit spending, collaborated in the continued surveillance of Americans, and granted immunity to telecoms for spying.

Believe me, nothing will change even if Obama wanted them to–which I doubt. The PTB have more ways of creating military crises that will force his hand than the public can imagine. Obama’s new found wealth came from a series of insider financial tips–the same kind of deals that benefitted the Clintons in their early rise to power. Technically, these deals are illegal since they involve insider knowledge, and are only available to people who sign on to the “benevolent” control system which manages this nation.

Last week I expressed the opinion that the PTB are giving huge amounts of money and media coverage to Obama in order to weaken Clinton, even though they intend for Hillary to win the nomination in the end. Making Hillary look vulnerable in the primary increases the perception that Hillary isn’t a shoe in for the general election. They are counting on the hate-Hillary factor to ensure another Republican win. This is still a probable scenario.

On the other hand, it will be difficult for the Democratic PTB to hand the nomination to Hillary if Obama continues to win big in Democratic Primaries and has the lead in electoral votes going into the convention. They are certainly capable of doing so, using their control of super-delegates, but such a scenario would certainly boost the rage of anti-war democrats who are supporting Obama. I suspect these could easily defect to an independent candidacy if it came along. They won’t vote for McCain under any circumstances.

If they let Obama win the Demo’s nomination, I don’t think McCain can beat him in the general election unless there are some damaging media revelations that reveal some serious skeletons in Obama’s closet. They could open up his insider financial dealings, but that might expose a system they want to retain. They could reveal his youthful anti-American hostility that he shared with the radical Pastor of his current Church of Christ congregation. There may be other things as well.

But short of that, or a war with Iran (which would instantly cause a surge in unthinking American patriotism), Obama would win the presidency given the current hostility toward the Republican interventionist agenda. If Obama wins, it would be accompanied by the election of many more Democrats in both the House and Senate, giving them even larger majorities to back their social agenda. In the next four years, I strongly suspect we would see the passage of many bad Democratic laws taking us back to the days of pro-union labor laws, higher taxes, higher regulation, and expensive health and welfare proposals.

In reaction to this, American conservatives would finally start to fight against government for once, instead of going along with it when led by Republicans. The PTB can give the Demos four years to do their damage and in the end engender enough backlash to finally get the Republicans back into the presidency in 2012. Of course the damage done by the Democratic regime won’t be undone by the next Republican. It never is, unless there is an ulterior globalist motive for pushing “free market” reforms (at least for big corporations). If the George Bush presidency was any example, the globalist Republicans will never overturn bad law nor bad presidential directives once they get back into power.

In short, the PTB can get to their globalist world war either way, no matter who wins. If they run Hillary against McCain, the Republican could win and stay in office right through the next war. If Obama runs, he wins for only four years and the PTB get more socialist legislation than even the globalist Republicans could get away with (although we’ve yet to see what Bush can’t get away with in that regard.)