Bloomberg Wants to be a Kingmaker

New York City's billionaire mayor, Michael Bloomberg, has decided he wants to

be a political kingmaker, using his own deep pockets plus his rich friends. He's unhappy about the remarkable success of the tea partiers in nominating conservative candidates, and he wants to remake the Republican Party under the moderate label.

His first foray into this venture is to host a fundraiser for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. That alone should disqualify him from respectability in the Republican Party.

Other Democrats Bloomberg is endorsing include the candidates for Colorado governor and senator, John Hickenlooper and Michael Bennet. Bloomberg says his idea of how the Senate should function is the 40-year collaboration of the late Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., and Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah.

Bloomberg is famous for getting the New York City Council to allow him to run for a third term as mayor, despite the city's two-term limit. He won with only 51 percent despite spending a ridiculous $185 per vote.

Bloomberg plans to finance candidates who agree with him in supporting abortion, same-sex marriage, suffocating gun control and amnesty for illegal aliens, but keep silent about the social issues in the hope that voters won't notice these candidates' rejection of conservative principles. But the Ronald Reagan model for victory requires a coalition of active fiscal, national defense and social conservatives, and Republicans will be losers if they don't stick to that winning formula and rejoice that, as Time Magazine's cover announces this week, "It's Tea Party Time."

Candidates in 2010 cannot fail to address and answer questions about the social issues decided by judges this year. One major social issue is support of marriage as one man and one woman, which is defined in 31 states by votes of the people, plus the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA).

Supremacist judges have been overriding the will of the people on marriage. Although a majority of Californians passed a citizen initiative outlawing same-sex marriage, on Aug. 4 a federal judge knocked this out, saying Proposition 8 is unconstitutional.

On July 8, another federal judge declared that DOMA's one-man-one-woman definition of marriage is unconstitutional. On July 15, the District of Columbia Court of Appeals approved same-sex marriage, writing that it would somehow violate "human rights" to allow Washington residents to make the final decision through a citizen initiative.

Social issues? You bet.

Immigration is another social issue where decision-making power is being taken away from the people and assumed by supremacist judges. On Sept. 9, a federal appellate court ruled against the Hazleton, Pa., city ordinance that required landlords to rent only to legal residents and employers to hire only legal residents.

On July 28, a federal judge proclaimed that Arizona cannot enforce its new law passed to enforce existing laws about illegal aliens. The judge thus overrode the will of the big majority of Americans who not only support the Arizona law but want their own state to pass a law just like it.

On July 14, a federal judge stopped enforcement of a Nebraska law (passed by the unicameral legislature 44 to five) establishing that abortionists should inform women about health risks (such as breast cancer). Abortion is a very live social issue now that polls show the majority of Americans believe abortion is wrong.

Congress is now debating the military rule called "don't ask, don't tell." But on Sept. 9, a federal judge grabbed the issue away from our elected representatives, calling it unconstitutional.

The fiscal conservatives who argue that only money issues should be part of political debate should face the reality that social issues are the chief purpose of President Obama's big-spending bills. The decline in marriage and the increase in illegitimate births (41 percent last year of all U.S. births) are the principal cause of the growth of the welfare state.

Federal taxpayers are now providing some or all the living expenses for 40 percent of Americans through means-tested handouts, mostly to the unmarried. This is the actuality of Obama's boast to Joe the Plumber to spread the wealth around.

The Obama Democrats know which side their bread is buttered on: 70 percent of unmarried women voted for Obama in 2008, and Obama's strategists want to increase that number. They even put a marriage penalty in Obamacare.

There is no way to cut the current fiscal havoc unless we reduce the handouts of taxpayers' money caused by social issues and cut taxes on small businesses so they can create more jobs. Remember Ronald Reagan's maxim: If you subsidize something, you'll get more of it; if you tax it, you'll get less of it.

Phyllis Schlafly is a lawyer, conservative political analyst and the author of the newly revised and expanded "Supremacists." She can be contacted by e-mail at phyllis@eagleforum.org. To find out more about Phyllis Schlafly and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Website at www.creators.com.

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