PoliForum

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOORING!!!!

2008-09-26T22:11:00.003-04:00

This "Presidential Debate" is absolutely brutal.

Neither one of them are answering any of the damn questions.

Leher specifically asked each candidate what are they going to cut out of thier budgets and programs to help accomodate that probable, supposed $700 billion buy-out, and they spent (no pun intended) more time talking about what they want to do. Be a leader!!! Be a Maverick!!! Bring change!!! SOMEONE...ANYONE

AND THEN LEHER HIT THEM ON IT!!!!

"Neither one of you have said what you would do to make up for this buyout"

"One of you will come into office in January and be staring down one of the biggest and toughest times our country as ever faced."

AND THE BOTH GO BACK TO PARTISAN POLITICS.

"We have to do this..." "I want to do this..." healthcare, education, defense, blah, blah, blah...

And then Lehere says let me ask you the same question a different way to try and get an answer...

The poor guy can't get a straight answer from either one of these chumps, and one of them will be President.....

*sigh*

Hey, did you know that McCain is a Maverick?

Did you know that McCain agreed with Bush 90% of the time?

Did you know that Barack Obama is the most far left voting Senator?

Did you know that John McCain was a war hero?

Did you know McCain was for the war?

Did you know that Barack opposed the war from the beginning?

Do you know what John or Barack are going to do to solve the current crisis?

What are they going to do to maybe balance the budget?

Do we know what actual leadership qualities either of these guys bring to the table?

Why am I still watching this circus show?

State of the presidential race

2008-09-16T17:25:00.001-04:00

I've largely stayed out of the fray of political polls and who's predicted to win what.

Until now.

Real Clear Politics has some excellent analysis that formed the primary basis for my analysis.

If the election were to be held today and all polls were true - even those where the candidates are tied or within one or two percentage points - Obama would win.

This map offers a much more accurate picture of where we currently stand.

Personally, I think the only states that are truly undecided are Colorado, New Mexico, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Virginia.

And if I really had to predict right now how I think the election will play out, here it is.

Here's my analysis of all of the current toss-up states (defined as having an average margin of less than 5% between the candidates in current presidential polls).

Nevada - slightly too conservative for Obama to win, and McCain has a good relationship with the Hispanic population, which doesn't tend to be as kind to black candidates at the polls. Additionally, McCain is from a bordering state and Palin is also from the West.
Colorado - see "Nevada" above. (This is very shaky though.)
New Mexico - many attributes of the two above states apply, but New Mexico has been a much tougher bid for conservatives. It went for Kerry, then for Bush, with both elections decided by less than 1%. I don't think McCain will spend as many resources here and it will swing Obama's way.
Minnesota - sure, it's a 2-point (negligible) lead for Obama now, but are we really kidding ourselves? Minnesota couldn't even vote for Reagan. There's no way our state is voting for McCain-Palin.
Michigan - I think Michigan has a decent chance to swing McCain's way thanks for the large blue collar population. With the problems black Democratic Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick has had lately, there's speculation that there may be a statewide disassociation with the black Democrat on the presidential ticket. However, I don't think it would be enough to upset Obama's slim lead here. Michigan is union country, and we all know which way the unions go...
Ohio - in many ways, Ohio is similar to Michigan. However, it has traditionally been much friendlier to Republicans than Michigan has been, and I think it will trend that way in 2008. McCain has done well here over the last few months, particularly in the blue collar areas of the southeast where many analysts think race may be a sad factor working against Obama.
Pennsylvania - see "Michigan" above. McCain has pulled to within a virtual dead-heat and it's not entirely unheard of for a Republican to win statewide office, but the state has been Democratic for the last few years and I just don't see that changing. There's too much Northeast Liberal influence here. Besides, Joe Biden lives near the border in Delaware and was born in Scranton, PA. Obama will carry it.
Virginia - the only state in an actual tie right now (48-48), it will break McCain's way. It's similar to Ohio in its historic friendliness to Republicans, and while Democrats have made significant gains statewide over the last 2 years, I don't think the state will break Democratic in a national election. It's got too much of the conservative south in it.
New Hampshire - much like Pennsylvania, it's not unheard of for Republicans to win here. Bush carried the state in 2000, Kerry in 2004. But, also like Pennsylvania, it's in the heart of the Northeast and won't be able to resist the urge to go the way of its neighbors.

There you have it. I predict a McCain win. Actually, once I was done doing my state-by-state analysis, I was sure I had predicted an Obama win. I was really surprised to see McCain come out on top in my prediction.

I think the race will really come down to Colorado, which is the only state I predicted would fall differently than it's currently polling (it leans towards Obama by .6%). If Obama is able to get enough of the young evangelical Colorado Springs-type crowd on his side, he wins the state and the election. I don't think it will happen.

But there's a LOT of election to go...

Commando Coalfire Palin

2008-09-15T00:20:00.002-04:00

That would be my name if I were Sarah Palin's kid.

Who would you be?

Convention McCain speech summary

2008-09-05T14:23:00.005-04:00

I was blogging from my phone, which meant my convention posts were actually emails sent to an email address I set up for my other blog. Those emails are then converted into posts. I just realized I could have set up an email address with PoliForum too...sorry guys!

Anyway, I've got a number of posts over at Wide White already, so I won't repeat all of them here. I will cross-post my thoughts on McCain's speech below though, as that was the keynote address of the evening. I simply wrote down my thoughts in real time throughout the speech, so it's not really an entirely cohesive summary. Also, I was pecking this out on my phone, so I tried to keep things as succinct as possible and probably screwed up some of the sentences.

The part of the video with "John McCain is" followed by McCain's mom interjecting "Mama's boy" was great. He loves to use his mother to convince people he isn't as old as he seems, and it was just funny.

WOW!! McCain just walked out and you just can't help but feel like you're part of something big. I suppose that's just the nature of events like this, but it's still pretty cool.

A few protesters have proven very effective at disrupting the speech. The chants of "USA" are obviously intended to drown out the protesters.

I can just see the "We lost their trust" line being used by the Obama campaign in an ad and campaign speeches against McCain. The point is good and needs to be made, but I have a feeling it will be spun against him.

I'm not sure how effective the compare/contrast "I will.../My opponent will..." really is. It just seems a little too political, partisan, and over-simplified for a speech essentially meant to attract the undecided voters.

Choice in education is great, but I'm not sure how it relates to the federal government. It shouldn't relate to the federal government. I don't like this portion of the speech at all. Yes, it all sounds good, but much of what he discussed isn't handled by the federal government and it shouldn't be.

"I have that record and the scars to prove it. Senator Obama does not." It's a well-worn theme, but still one he has to successfully sell.

The schtick about not caring who gets the credit for accomplishments in Washington is a little empty if you ask me. It's a great ideal, but seriously, elections (including this one) are always about who can take credit for what. I don't think I've seen one that didn't involve that.

Ouch! The piece about not running to save his country in its hour of need is an obvious direct hit on Obama. We've heard that line from a few people tonight.

The guy next to me likes to let out a really bad "huzzaahhh!!" when he feels like it's a big moment.

I'm sure everyone at home heard the last few paragraphs of the speech, but the applause was so deafening I couldn't hear a thing. I imagine it's tough to keep talking, knowing that no one in the building can hear you but that everyone at home can and that the effect of the applause while you speak makes it that much more electric for viewers at home. It makes me feel a little bit for Howard Dean's "Dean Scream" in 2004.

The speech has been over for 10 minutes and they're still dumping balloons and clapping and rocking out. It's crazy. And the McCain and Palin families have left.

John Boehner is speaking...I guess he's just introducing the pastor who's giving the benediction. I'm not sure how he's going to be heard above the deafening noise of the balloons popping. He's going to try though. Wow. As soon as he started praying, everyone shut up.

Boehner is wrapping up the formalities and it's a wrap.

All in all, not a bad speech by McCain, but I think any bump in the polls he received will be due more to Palin than to him.

I'm heading home.

Straight from the convention

2008-09-04T15:15:00.001-04:00

As posted here, I have credentials to cover the RNC in St. Paul tonight, live and in person. Any immediate posts will be over at Wide White, but I'll try to cross-post some things once I'm back either late tonight or tomorrow.

Bristol Palin

2008-09-04T13:01:00.003-04:00

I do not have the freedom to offer my opinion very often in this format, but I think the following two cents is pretty safe.

Some things are political and some things are not. The recent attention being paid to Sarah Palin's daughter is ridiculous.

Watching Governor Palin's convention acceptance speech, I was frustrated by the frequency with which the networks kept switching to a shot of Bristol Palin. Bristol Palin's pregnancy is none of our business. Bristol Palin will not be a member of the cabinet, or a policy advisor. This is truly a family affair and to keep bringing it up is an unhealthy, unhelpful conversation.

The media needs to get their nose out of the Palin household. The story has been reported, let's move on and leave the family to deal with something that thousands of American families struggle with all the time. None of these thousands of families would like a big d@mned TV camera poked into their private afairs.

Favre and God

2008-08-26T17:01:00.004-04:00

I know, it's not political, but you've got to see Milwaukee's sign of the week.

3 cheers for the Catholics!!!

2008-08-26T09:25:00.000-04:00

Further proof that the Catholics are getting it more right all the time and why the Evangelicals flounder and spin their wheels under the banner of "conversation."

Truth hurts, truth divides, and truth is love. Truth is not judging. Truth is compassion and not tolerance. Hurt and divide are the ugly results of truth, the difference is that the glory in truth is to far outshine the ugly. Too many times, we focus on the ugly and not the glory.

The Roman Catholic arhcbishop of Denver, Charles Chaput, is someone I'd be a dummy for when it comes to the issue he writes about in this magnificent teaching document. He sets the Speaker of the House - Nancy Pelosi, a self-described "ardent practicing Catholic" straight about what her Church actually teaches and expects its communicants to believe on abortion. Rarely do religious leaders of any church speak so clearly and forcefully about faith and morality in public life. Here's a characteristic passage:

Ardent, practicing Catholics will quickly learn from the historical record that from apostolic times, the Christian tradition overwhelmingly held that abortion was grievously evil. In the absence of modern medical knowledge, some of the Early Fathers held that abortion was homicide; others that it was tantamount to homicide; and various scholars theorized about when and how the unborn child might be animated or "ensouled." But none diminished the unique evil of abortion as an attack on life itself, and the early Church closely associated abortion with infanticide. In short, from the beginning, the believing Christian community held that abortion was always, gravely wrong.

Of course, we now know with biological certainty exactly when human life begins. Thus, today's religious alibis for abortion and a so-called "right to choose" are nothing more than that - alibis that break radically with historic Christian and Catholic belief.

Abortion kills an unborn, developing human life. It is always gravely evil, and so are the evasions employed to justify it. Catholics who make excuses for it - whether they're famous or not - fool only themselves and abuse the fidelity of those Catholics who do sincerely seek to follow the Gospel and live their Catholic faith.

Magnificent. Of course many Catholic Democrats and Christian Democrats will continue to vote and serve the Democratic Party. Earlier he wrote:

But [Catholics who support pro-choice candidates] also need a compelling proportionate reason to justify it. What is a "proportionate" reason when it comes to the abortion issue? It's the kind of reason we will be able to explain, with a clean heart, to the victims of abortion when we meet them face to face in the next life--which we most certainly will. If we're confident that these victims will accept our motives as something more than an alibi, then we can proceed.

And further

Carter lost his bid for re-election, but even with an avowedly prolife Ronald Reagan as president, the belligerence, dishonesty, and inflexibility of the pro-choice lobby has stymied almost every effort to protect unborn human life since.

In the years after the Carter loss, I began to notice that very few of the people, including Catholics, who claimed to be "personally opposed" to abortion really did anything about it. Nor did they intend to. For most, their personal opposition was little more than pious hand-wringing and a convenient excuse--exactly as it is today. In fact, I can't name any pro-choice Catholic politician who has been active, in a sustained public way, in trying to discourage abortion and to protect unborn human life--not one. Some talk about it, and some may mean well, but there's very little action.

"Pious hand-wringing." Exactly so.

Where's the humanity in a "Pro-Choice" stance?

Hope for Change

2008-07-30T08:29:00.002-04:00

Narrator:
On gas prices, John McCain's part of the problem. He and Bush support a drilling plan that won't produce a drop of oil for seven years. McCain will give more tax breaks to big oil. He's voted with Bush 95% of the time. Barack Obama will make energy independence an urgent priority, raise mileage standards, fast-track technology for alternative fuels, a $1,000 tax cut to help families as we break the grip of foreign oil. A royal plan and new energy.

Senator Obama:
I'm Barack Obama and I approved this message.

Wow.I assume all of you can see the multiple problems with this add. I will however, since this is a blog, unpack those that I see; though I'm at a loss on where to start.1)

"'John McCain' and Bush (linked here later in the add) support a drilling plan that won't produce a drop of oil for seven years." Phrased this way, this statement implies that drilling for for new oil is good (by the way, IT IS!) and I also get the feeling the Obama must have a plan that gets us some new oil quicker. If so, I'm on board. Sadly though, in Obama's plan there is no new oil...ever.

I don't think you can critique a plan in this manner when yours does not even address the issue from that angle. How do we know then that seven years is too long, if we can not compare it to the time line of Obama's plan? And I don't know about you but, I still plan on needing oil seven years from now.

2)McCain will give more tax breaks to big oil.Taken from this article:

A 2004 study by the Congressional Budget Office found a full third of Bush's controversial 2001 and 2003 tax cuts went to the top 1 percent of earners. McCain's tax cuts would be more massive than Bush's, and appear to skew even more to the wealthy. President Bush touted his breaks as providing a boost for the economy, but some tax-policy experts credit Bush's tax policy with shifting the tax burden to the middle class, ballooning budget deficits, and contributing to a widening disparity in personal wealth.

There is a skewed view of tax cuts in the media; Notice they go from the Congressional Budget Office findings; then try to link it to the last statement which in realty is from "some tax-policy experts" who could be anyone from a Stanford prof to a Move-On.org hack. I don't know who they are, and how they lend credit to the statement.If you pay a disproportionate amount of tax, when there is a cut, you will get a disproportionate amount of the cut. Congress did get us into this mess, and they keep raising taxes at the pump, but at least we don't live in the Netherlands. $11 for a gallon of petrol, and they are the worlds 5th largest exporter of oil.

An aside: If oil is really that bad, that you need to impose obsurd taxes on it to get poeple to stop using it, why are you exporting it to the rest of the world? You should keep the evil substance in the ground, and not let anyone else use it.None of this really matters because Obama wants to raise taxes across the board anyway; he has to to pay for all the extra programs he wants added.

3) "He's voted with Bush 95% of the time. Yup they're Republican."Obama has voted the party line at the same percentages. He's voted with a congress that is now boasting a 13% approval rating.

4) "Barack Obama will make energy independence an urgent priority," how?! "raise mileage standards, fast-track technology for alternative fuels, a $1000 tax cut to help families as we break the grip of foreign oil."

"Raise mileage standards." I assume that is where the fast-tracking of technology comes in. If that is the case, John McCain is, and has been, behind 'fast-tracking' technology. I hope it's right around the corner, because the alternate fuel we have now is worse than oil for pollution, and isn't any cheaper.I'll take another $1000 from the government; they've got too much of my money anyway, but just like the stimulus package, it's not going to help. And the money has to come from somewhere. Washington isn't going to trim pork anywhere else to pay for it.

5) "A royal plan and new energy." I don't want to degenerate, and start insulting, but this is stupid.

6) The senator has approved this message. For a guy who's slogans are all about change and hope, it seems like politics as usual.

I'm not proposing that you vote for McCain; I won't vote for him. I don't agree with him on many issues. He's polotics as usual. I'm fed up with the Republicans. I'm fed up with Washington. That doesn't mean I over adjust and vote socialist. Obama is not the answer, the messiah, or the chosen one...he's the same ol' choice we've always had.

Corporate Power Elites

2008-06-14T15:23:00.002-04:00

As the old saying goes, "absolute power corrupts absolutly. This is also the case for corporations. On a small scale (the mom and pop store for example), corporations and small businesses seem to operate much as normal human beings. They are, for the most part, moral and beneficial to society in general. LIke humanity, there are exceptions that are criminals and ne'er do wells. However, the larger these corporations get, the less they seem to adhere to moral guidelines. Even their seemingly altruistic acts (like charity) are bound in satiating the growing hunger for more power and more wealth.

Descriptively, elites in a society are inevitable. However, they are not the basis for a society, and their independence is not the job of public officials. Prescriptively, elites should be held in check by grass roots movements of the people. Public officials should always protect the rights of the non-elite populace to hold the elites in check. Such efforts include labor movements, unions, civil rights efforts, watchdog groups, and populist political efforts. Legislation that inhibits popular oversight of elites should be avoided.

In addition, I agree that there is a disproportionate disbursement of political resources in the United States. Government of the people is becoming a sham as major corporate and elitist interests hold more sway that the actual constituency of elected officials. The time is ripe for real campaign finance reform.

Interlocking directorates are a socially incestuous group of unelected people who hold more power over citizens than elected officials. These powerful people exist in a cordoned-off island in the societal stratosphere. To a large extent, they decide who should and should not be our political leaders. They exist beyond the oversight of elected leaders, since those leaders were placed their by the elitists. It is wrong that this select group holds such a vast amount of influence over the political decisions that effect the rest of the population.

As seen in the most recent economic crises in the United States, centralized capital is harmful to the economy. Large banks dominate the leadership of large corporations in the United States. Corporate leadership lacks the diversity necessary to make diverse decisions. With such an overwhelming amount of capital flowing through the hands of so few, a single misstep or misdeed by this small group could lead to total economic collapse.

RIP Tim Russert

2008-06-13T17:30:00.002-04:00

Love him or hate him, every political junkie is very, very familiar with the man.

Tim Russert dies after a heart attack, New York Times reports

Tim Russert, NBC News's Washington bureau chief renowned for his tough questioning of politicians, has died, the New York Times reported. He was 58.

Russert died of a heart attack, the New York Times said on its Web site, citing his family.

Russert hosted the Sunday morning talk show "Meet the Press." He was also a best-selling author whose books included a tribute to his father, "Big Russ and Me."

Joining NBC News in 1984, Russert took over as anchor of "Meet the Press" on Dec. 8, 1991, now the most-watched Sunday morning interview program in the U.S. and the most-quoted news program in the world, according to the network's Web site.

Doin' it Irish Style

2008-06-13T13:29:00.001-04:00

One of the many reasons to be proud of my Irish heritage: LINK

Does it help Jack and Kate?!

2008-06-06T14:26:00.001-04:00

For all you Lost fans....enjoy

Hillary Widmore

Biting the Bullet

2008-05-28T13:21:00.002-04:00

Stark evidence for why disgusted conservatives like me who don't want to vote McCain this fall might have to bite the bullet and do it: Obama's plans for the Supreme Court and the judiciary, which include the second coming of Earl Warren. From today's NYT:

On March 3, Mr. Obama spoke of what he would look for in a Supreme Court justice and held up Earl Warren, a former governor of California and the former chief justice, as an example.

Chief Justice Warren, who led the court in forging its landmark 1954 ruling outlawing school segregation, “had the wisdom to recognize that segregation was wrong less because of precise sociological effects and more so because it was immoral and stigmatized blacks,” Mr. Obama said. “I want people on the bench who have enough empathy, enough feeling, for what ordinary people are going through.”

More from Obama on this point, from his speech last year to the Planned Parenthood convention:

The Constitution can be interpreted in so many ways. And one way is a cramped and narrow way in which the Constitution and the courts essentially become the ruber stamps of the powerful in society. And then there's another vision of the court that says that the courts are the refuge of the powerless. Because often times they may lose in the democratic back and forth. They may be locked out and prevented from fully participating in the democratic process. That's one of the reasons that I opposed Alito, you know, as well as Justice Roberts.

Justice Roberts said he saw himself as just an umpire. But the issues that come before the Court are not sport; they're life and death. And we need somebody who's got the heart, the empathy, to recognize what it's like to be a young teenage mom. The empathy to understand what it's like to be poor, or African-American, or gay, or disabled, or old. And that's the criteria by which I'm going to be selecting my judges.

A jurisprudence of emotivism. An outcome-based jurisprudence. Don't worry what the law says, openly use it to serve politically favored classes.

We have been warned.

Abortion

2008-05-22T09:30:00.000-04:00

Ever heard these kinds of quotes or comments?

"Man, we've had a Pro-Life President and a Pro-Life Congress for XXXX amount of years and abortion is still here! What a bunch of crap!"

Or

"The Republicans are never going to rid us of abortion, how else could they rally the Evangelical base?"

I think every hand in the blogosphere just went up.

Those comments are junk and lame attempts to give someone justice to take abortion off the agenda and actually try and make it a moot point. If nothing is going to change, why make a big deal about it, is the logic here.

Well it is a big deal, because it's murder.

But beyond that, that politcal skepticism strikes me as an odd argument from some highly intelligent people. Especially those attaching their vote to the Obama wagon this year.

Under the current politcal Pro-Life regime we saw the Supreme Court, for the first time since Roe v. Wade, uphold the ban on partial birth abortion, that was passed into law in 2003 by George W. and the Republican controlled Congress.

That's call P-R-O-G-R-E-S-S.

It was allowable because of 2 appointees made by President Bush. Yes, the same President Bush, that the Evangelicals hitching up to the Obama campaign like to lambaste and claim to have used us and abused us. The same President Bush, who had a campaign promise to try and fight abortion, make it illegal, and would appoint Supreme Court justices to do just that. The same President Bush, who when he took office in 2000, saw a much different Supreme Court strike down the attempt by some states to ban partial birth abortions themselves. The same President Bush who, as I mentioned already, signed into law himself the ban on partial birth abortions in 2003, then had it ratified by the Congress. The same President who in 2005 nominated a couple Supreme Court Justices, who in 2007 voted to overturn the partial birth abortion ban.

So, did you catch all that?

Let's give the Cliff Notes version....

It took 7 years just to get the partial birth ban!!

And even then, it only happen, because Bush held up his end of the bargain to nominate "sanctity of life" judges to the Supreme Court. You got to win the small battles and make progress before you see the true fruits of your labor. There's nothing more he could have done to speed up the process. I'd argue, it was a stroke of genius to wait until 2003 to sign the partial birth abortion law into effect. With the way things go, it takes multiple years to get things to the Supreme Court. To try and sign that into effect immediately would have meant the more liberal court would have heard the case and struck it down. Once it became apparent that he was going to be able to change the Court, he went into action. More than genius, it was also gutsy. He was in the middle of the war, and had no guarantees he'd be the President in the next term to appoint the Justices. So he had no guarantee that the law would be passed by the Court. Now, I know Rehnquist passed away and that helped allow 2 appointees. But it was he and O'Connor who a vast majority of political pundits knew were on their way to retirement. So he had a pretty good hunch he'd get one of them, and from an ideological point of view, O'Connor was the ideal one. Rehnquist was already a right-sided judge.

So, I beg you, how has nothing been done by the Republicans to fight abortion?

Does the fact that it took 7 years, and a whole hell of a lot of political movings and manueverings and deaths, and elections, and retirments, and hearings, and appointments and a whole mess of things, just to get a ban on partial birth abortions not give some clue into the fact that to get abortion illegal, if it even happens at all, is going to be a fight for a very long time?

Isn't the fact that the abortion epidemic has gotten better and not worse (as it did under Clinton) a sign that there is work being done to stem the tide?

Political skeptisim does not absolve Christians....

Where's Watchman?

2008-05-22T00:31:00.003-04:00

Haven't been around the ol' PF in a while. There is a reason.

I won't be able to post on here any more, though I plan to keep reading. You see, in my new position, I receive funding from some organizations and individuals that are very concerned about politics.

Usually church and politics mix like oil and water, but not with these folks. They don't necessarily have a particular position Conservative/Liberal, but I don't want to run awry of them either. Unfortunately, that is the reality of church work these days.

I'll check in from time to time.

Obama's wife is fair game

2008-05-19T18:12:00.002-04:00

The Tennessee GOP has used some less than upright tactics against Democrats. Having acknowledged that, when your wife is campaigning for you, it's fair to put her comments under just as much scrutiny as yours.

Obama tells Tenn.'s GOP: 'Lay off my wife'

WASHINGTON - Democrat Barack Obama has a message for Tennessee's Republican Party: "Lay off my wife."

Obama, his party's presidential front-runner, and his wife, Michelle, were asked in an interview aired Monday on ABC's "Good Morning America" about an online video last week by the state's GOP taking her to task for a comment some considered unpatriotic.

"The GOP, should I be the nominee, can say whatever they want to say about me, my track record," Obama said. "If they think that they're going to try to make Michelle an issue in this campaign, they should be careful because that I find unacceptable, the notion that you start attacking my wife or my family."

Are you serious? Unacceptable to make your wife an issue in a campaign when you have your wife stumping for you all over the country? It's ridiculous to think she won't be an issue, just as individuals who've made poor comments introducing John McCain have been lambasted for them.

He called the strategy "low class."

The video, posted on YouTube, centered on remarks Michelle Obama made while campaigning in Wisconsin last February, when she said: "For the first time in my adult life, I am really proud of my country."

I don't disagree about his comments on the Tennessee GOP here (they do need to think about the type of campaign they want to run), but again, it's immature for him to assume his last comment holds any water with anyone.

"Whoever is in charge of the Tennessee GOP needs to think long and hard about the kind of campaign they want to run, and I think that's true for everybody, Democrat or Republican," Obama said in the ABC interview, adding: "These folks should lay off my wife."

I think this only serves to highlight some of Obama's rather immature expectations of people. Send your wife to campaign for you, expect her words and actions to endure criticism.

Fair & Balanced

2008-04-14T15:12:00.001-04:00

Spin Central

2008-04-14T14:00:00.002-04:00

Have you seen the mess about Obama's "bitter" comments? Geesh. Talk about spin! The context of Obama's comments were an answer he gave to a question about racism in the race and why white people continue to look suspiciously on him. His claim was classic conflict political philosophy - furor about racism and social issues is usually secondary to economic concerns. In other words, people say their angry about seeing a black guy in the White House, or angry about gun control, or angry about religious liberty, but theses angers are really just symptomatic of their precarious economic state.

Here's the whole context (click here for the Washington Post article):

Everybody just ascribes it to 'white working-class . . . don't want to vote for the black guy,' " Obama said at the fundraiser.
"Here's how it is: In a lot of these communities in big industrial states like Ohio and Pennsylvania, people have been beaten down so long. They feel so betrayed by government that when they hear a pitch that is premised on not being cynical about government, then a part of them just doesn't buy it. And when it's delivered by -- it's true that when it's delivered by a 46-year-old black man named Barack Obama, then that adds another layer of skepticism."
You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them.
"And they fell through the Clinton administration and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are going to regenerate and they have not," he went on. "And it's not surprising, then, they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."

China gets torched

2008-04-07T14:22:00.000-04:00

It's rare that I'm on the same page as rioting French protesters. Granted, I'm more concerned with China's dismal human rights record overall than I am their position on Tibet. But still, it's good to see the international embarrassment this is bringing China.

Officials put out Olympic torch 3 times

PARIS - Security officials extinguished the Olympic torch three times Monday as protests against China's human rights record turned a relay through Paris into a chaotic series of stops and starts.

Despite massive security, at least two activists got within almost an arm's length of the flame before they were grabbed by police. Officers tackled many protesters and carried off some of them. A protester threw water at the torch but failed to extinguish it and was also taken away.
...
Some 3,000 officers were deployed on motorcycles, in jogging gear and using inline roller skates. Still, police barely stopped the second rush at the torch, and the attempt to extinguish it with water. Other demonstrators scaled the Eiffel Tower and hung a banner depicting the Olympic rings as handcuffs.

The propaganda coming from Chinese authorities is laughable.

"The act of defiance from this small group of people is not popular," said Sun Weide, a spokesman for the Beijing Olympic organizing committee. "It will definitely be criticized by people who love peace and adore the Olympic spirit. Their attempt is doomed to failure."

Doomed to failure? Who says that anymore? And I think it takes more than a "small group of people" to get past 3,000 officers!

The protesters have been effective in canceling torch relays.

Olympic torch relay cancelled amid protests

PARIS (Reuters) - A relay of the Olympic torch through Paris was cancelled on Monday and the flame was put on a bus at the request of Chinese officials after pro-Tibetan protesters repeatedly snarled its progress, police said.

The Chinese authorities organizing the five-hour passage of the torch decided to give up the road relay after human rights demonstrations in front of parliament and opted instead to speed the flame through the streets on a bus.

Shortly before, the Chinese cancelled a planned reception for the torch at Paris city hall at the last minute after a banner supporting human rights was hung from the facade of the building, mayor Bernard Delanoe told reporters.

"The Chinese officials decided they would not stop here because they were put out by Parisian citizens expressing their support for human rights. It is their responsibility," he said.

If the French can do anything, they can protest!

San Francisco seems to have had a protesting bug for a number of years as well. I can't wait to see what happens when the torch lands there...

(Shamelessly cross-posted from Wide White)

I agree with Nancy Pelosi...

2008-04-02T09:42:00.001-04:00

...sort of.

She's calling on Bush to possibly boycott the opening ceremonies of the Chinese Olympics.

Pelosi suggests Bush skip Olympic opener

WASHINGTON - House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Monday that President Bush should consider boycotting the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics following China's crackdown on protesters in Tibet.

"I think boycotting the opening ceremony, which really gives respect to the Chinese government, is something that should be kept on the table," Pelosi, D-Calif., said in an interview taped for airing Tuesday on ABC's "Good Morning America." "I think the president might want to rethink this later, depending on what other heads of state do."

While I don't necessarily think we need to wait on other world leaders before making a decision, as she suggests, I think there is strong reason (and not just because of the Tibetan violence of late) to boycott not only the opening ceremonies, but the entire Olympics.

The White House has said Bush would not boycott the Beijing Olympics, which begin Aug. 8, because of the crackdown, arguing that the games are an event that are supposed to be about the athletes, not politics.
...
"I don't agree with the perception that is out there that the Olympic Games are this great, unifying, human rights-advocating organization. ... It's a sporting event and it should proceed," she [Pelosi] said.

Sorry, but the Olympics are NOT just a sporting event. They're much, much more than that and were intended to be much more than that.

If we're going to look to other world leaders, a few are already stirring.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy was the first European leader to suggest a boycott of the opening ceremony to protest China's handling of the unrest in Tibet. German Chancellor Angela Merkel is skipping the Olympics.

China's iron fist has only been squeezing harder and tighter since they won the Olympics. This is the greatest stage in the last 50 years for publicly opposing their horrendous human rights record. While I don't think it will happen, I hope and pray that President Bush stands up for what's right.

Politics and Culture

2008-03-28T09:36:00.002-04:00

"The central conservative truth is that it is culture, not politics, that determines the success of a society. The central liberal truth is that politics can change a culture and save it from itself." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Culture and politics are intimately related. And the current economic crash we appear to be on is proof of this. The financial recklessness that engulfed Wall Street and Main Street both didn't come from nowhere, and it wasn't imposed on us from on high. No, the politicians that allowed this to happen came out of a culture that enabled it. Politicians aren't created in some lab or basement or factory and come out minted 100% whole; they are human beings who are produced by the culture they serve, and as such reflect the strengths and weaknesses of that culture.

How many politicians of either party could have hoped to have been elected to national office over the past quarter century by preaching thrift, self-discipline and self-sacrifice?

Already we can see our tendency is to blame other people for this confrontation with limits. It's the Chinese and Indians. It's the oil companies. It's Bush/Cheney. It's the Islamofascists. It’s like heavy traffic. Heavy traffic is always other people. When you say 'traffic was terrible' you’re never talking about yourself. Well, folks, the traffic is terrible. But the last thing we should be doing is building more roads.

Here's what I don't get about conservatives (i.e. me). We are able to recognize the danger in Big Government; our understanding of the fallenness of human nature makes us rightly suspicious of the concentration of power in the hands of the state. But what makes us so willing to disbelieve that concentrating so much unchecked power in the hands of financiers will lead us to paradise? Is the financier any less human and more angelic than the government bureaucrat? Is he less susceptible to greed, to envy, and to all the ordinary vices that deform human character and cause us to behave in foolish and reckless ways? Law and culture are two gifts of civilization to help us order our liberty, and put constraints on individual action. Too much constraint, and you stifle life, growth and creativity; too little, and you have shipwreck.

Thai Passport

2008-03-27T14:48:00.003-04:00

Did you see this (click here)?

The Washington Times reported that the GPO had contracted with two European companies to produce computer chips with a wire antenna assembled at a plant in Thailand. The company in Thailand, Smartrac, charged in a court filing in Netherlands last year that its technology was stolen by China.
The outsourcing has raised concerns among investigators over the security of passports. GPO and State Department officials have sought to play down security concerns and have said they conduct regular checks of overseas manufacturers.

Is anyone else bothered by the fact that we are paying Thailand factories to make passports while Americans with graduate degrees are working at Wal Mart?

The Oil Fix

2008-03-26T00:28:00.006-04:00

Our nation is facing a major crises that is problematic on two fronts:

Environmental - First there is the extensive damage to our environment from industrial and transportation emissions. Currently American cities like Houston bustle and hustle beneath a cloud of putrid smog that certainly affects the health of oxygen producing foliage, and the health of the human citizenry. Additionally climate change is becoming more and more of a long term concern.

Economic - Even if you have your head in the sand and don't believe in the environmental affects of emissions, you still must face the fact that we are running out of oil. Fossil fuels are limited and the more limited they become the higher the price rises. Such price hikes will certainly mean major economic problems in the future.

Here's what we do to fix the problem:

Raise MPG Standards (done): this has already been done in a rare cooperation between Congress and White House - Bravo.
Invest in Alternative Energy Solutions - I saw one estimate that stated we could produce 25% of our electricity from wind turbines if we had the infrastructure to do so. However, infrastructure takes investment. A greener economy is a newer economy which means new jobs. However, if we are to become a greener economy, we are going to need extra investment.
Nuclear Needs - Over zealous environmental groups have successfully scared the American electorate into opposing any Nuclear expansion. Nuclear is a clean and efficient energy source. Various European countries are running their entire nations on Nuclear energy.
Expanded Refining - Part of the problem with exorbitant oil prices is the refinery bottleneck. There are not enough refineries to refine the oil available.
More Oil -If we are to keep our economy from complete meltdown, we need more oil supply injected into the market. This may require more drilling and exploration in the short term. Isn't there some oil in Iraq?

Shell Leader Calls For Emissions Cap

2008-03-26T00:12:00.004-04:00

John Hofmeister, President of Shell Oil is calling for fair caps on emissions for oil producers and consumers. Click here for an article from Oil & Gas Journal. Here is a snippet.

HOUSTON, Feb. 1 -- Shell has implemented voluntary reductions on emissions from its refineries, said Shell Oil Co. Pres. John Hofmeister who called for governments to set mandatory limits on greenhouse gas emissions.
Speaking at a Rice University forum on carbon dioxide Jan. 31, Hofmeister said governments must take the lead in establishing regulatory frameworks on which companies can compete equally.

"And we don't have that yet today in the United States of America and in many countries around the world," he said. "Government leadership is necessary to establish what those standards should be. This is one reason why Shell is publicly nationally calling for a United States cap on all sorts of emissions, but primarily CO₂, so that companies have to work in harmony to achieve that."

Additionally, Hofmeister said

"America runs on energy and the amount of energy necessary to run America is not decreasing," Hofmeister said. The US relieves heavily on hydrocarbons. "In producing that gasoline or in producing that coal, there are very difficult consequences for the environment, which requires leadership to manage, corporate leadership, government leadership, academic leadership," he said.

As far as I can tell, this guy isn't an environmental wacko. So, what is he talking about? What possible reason would this guy have to cut his own profits? He gets a massive pay check from fossil fuels, so why is he saying this?

Moral integrity? I doubt it. He is a corporate monster. So, what is it?

Answer: fear. On the Charlie Rose Show (click here) he expressed fear of civil unrest due to sky rocketing gas prices. He blames much on environmentalists refusing to allow drilling in the US, and protesting alternative energy solutions like Nuclear. He warns of very bad energy days ahead.

What do you think?

Barack hypocrisy?

2008-03-22T16:34:00.003-04:00

I just came across an interesting story that I think is worth posting. Barack's years of support for his pastor are very concerning to me and are only contributing to my opinion that he is more beatable than Hillary. I absolutely don't believe that he had no knowledge of his pastor's teachings and his church's positions. When you consider someone to be part of your family, you know them inside and out.

Obama demanded Lott resignation

WASHINGTON – While Sen. Barack Obama said he couldn't throw over his friend and pastor of 20 years for racially charged and divisive hate speech, he had no trouble calling for the head of Sen. Trent Lott, the Republican Senate majority leader, for embracing a colleague with a segregationist past on his 100th birthday.

On Dec. 12, 2002, Obama, then serving as an Illinois state senator and filling in as host of the Cliff Kelley radio show on WVON, challenged the Republican Party to demand Lott's resignation.

"It seems to be that we can forgive a 100-year-old senator for some of the indiscretion of his youth, but, what is more difficult to forgive is the current president of the U.S. Senate (Lott) suggesting we had been better off if we had followed a segregationist path in this country after all of the battles and fights for civil rights and all the work that we still have to do," said Obama.

He added: "The Republican Party itself has to drive out Trent Lott. If they have to stand for something, they have to stand up and say this is not the person we want representing our party."

Eight days later, Lott of Mississippi stepped down as majority leader – not president of the Senate.

Sorry Corey, I know you love the guy, but I just can't see what it is about him that would make him a good president. I'll keep trying, but I've gone from rather passively opposing him for his political views to more strongly opposing him for his character.

Is Obama Really a Uniter?

2008-03-22T09:03:00.002-04:00

Maybe George W. is too blame.

My #1 question with Obama, what is Obama's history of compromising or creating win-win solutions out of divisiveness based on conflicting ideologies and principles? Because if there's nothing in his past to show that, he'll just be a repeat of Bush's empty promise to be "a uniter, not a divider," only from the other side of the spectrum (at least Bush did have something of a bipartisan track record as governor).

I was really impressed with his speech on the whole Pastor Wright situation. Matter of fact, the guy can just flat orate. When he starts to talk. even I stop and listen. But I wonder, what did Obama do in 20 years at the church to help change attitudes from the pastor and others that he now claims offended him so?

One of the basic elements of "running for office" is saying you'll do X and change Y (making promises) and then voters finding a way to gauge just how you'll keep your word. The first thing most voters do is look at what you've done before. Obama has placed his experience at Trinity as a smal instance of a national plague. And has now used that problem as a dedication to his possible Presidency. So, what did he do at Trinity? It's very reasonable to ask -- as an empowered high profile, long standing parishioner -- what he did to change the viewpoint of Wright and Trinity and were those efforts successful.

This is particularly important with a candidate like Obama, who doesn't have much governing experience upon which to base his appeal, so has created a candidacy around his character, and the vague sentiment that he will bring hope, unity and positive change to a country in need of same. Well, Trinity UCC offered him a chance to do something about an issue that he says today was a serious one that really disturbed him. What'd he do?

Many parishioners in many churches would do something if their pastors or priests went astray on an important issue. Many more would expect a future president to do something.

The Bush years ought to have taught us to be wary of someone who speaks the language of therapeutic uplift . Based on evidence, Obama is a decent analyst and a first-rate orator, but in terms of doing things to bring people together to create positive change, well, he's a decent analyst and a first-rate orator

Barack's pastor

2008-03-20T00:30:00.003-04:00

Much is being made lately of Barack Obama's longtime pastor, friend and advisor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright. My question is, do you think it will significantly impact the primary or potentially the general election, and if so, should it?

Health Care/Nightmare

2008-03-13T08:07:00.002-04:00

We've all heard these stories second hand.
Here it is first hand: LinK

Scares me. For the most part, we're already just a number in the medical field. If we change to a 'free' healthcare system, that is only going to get worse.
Very scary stuff.

Blatant Reuters bias

2008-03-12T15:58:00.001-04:00

My dad emailed me earlier today to say how interesting he thought it was that the media never mentions that fallen NY Gov. Eliot Spitzer is a Democrat, while they couldn't get enough of the fact that Idaho Sen. Larry Craig is a Republican.

I decided to put his theory to the test and went to Reuters (I didn't want to pay for the AP's archives and Reuters' archives are free). I randomly searched for 5 Larry Craig articles related directly to his scandal and 5 Eliot Spitzer articles related directly to his scandal.

Here's what I found.

Larry Craig

Article 1 - "Republican" is the first word
Article 2 - "Republican" in the second sentence
Article 3 - "Republican" is the first word
Article 4 - "Republican" in the second sentence
Article 5 - "Republican" is the first word

Eliot Spitzer

Article 1 - "Democrat" in the 3rd sentence
Article 2 - "Democrat" is not in the story
Article 3 - "Democrat" is not in the story
Article 4 - "Democrat" is in the 8th sentence
Article 5 - "Democrat" is not in the story

Obviously my search is not exhaustive. However, it's also not very far off. I scanned through a number of other articles on Spitzer and couldn't find ONE article with "Democrat" any earlier than the second sentence. However, I don't think I found one article on Larry Craig that failed to mention he's a Republican.

If you have a good argument for why this is okay and that this doesn't help prove media bias, I'm all ears.

Prognosticating

2008-03-11T11:34:00.003-04:00

I actually forgot about this because I had to have Corey post it for me when blogspot was banned at work for being a haven of pornography.

Maybe I am smart?

So the race will move on to New Hampshire. Mitt Romney is now grievously wounded. Romney represents what’s left of Republicanism 1.0. Huckabee and McCain represent half-formed iterations of Republicanism 2.0. My guess is Republicans will now swing behind McCain in order to stop Mike.

Huckabee probably won’t be the nominee, but starting last night in Iowa, an evangelical began the Republican Reformation.

Phone Questions 2....

2008-03-11T11:18:00.002-04:00

Harvard sociologist Orlando Patterson, who is black interprets Hillary Clinton's 3am as as -- you knew this was coming (didn't you?!) -- racist:

I have spent my life studying the pictures and symbols of racism and slavery, and when I saw the Clinton ad’s central image — innocent sleeping children and a mother in the middle of the night at risk of mortal danger — it brought to my mind scenes from the past. I couldn’t help but think of D. W. Griffith’s “Birth of a Nation,” the racist movie epic that helped revive the Ku Klux Klan, with its portrayal of black men lurking in the bushes around white society. The danger implicit in the phone ad — as I see it — is that the person answering the phone might be a black man, someone who could not be trusted to protect us from this threat.

The ad could easily have removed its racist sub-message by including images of a black child, mother or father — or by stating that the danger was external terrorism. Instead, the child on whom the camera first focuses is blond. Two other sleeping children, presumably in another bed, are not blond, but they are dimly lighted, leaving them ambiguous. Still it is obvious that they are not black — both, in fact, seem vaguely Latino.

I'm sorry, but this is paranoid crackpottery. I hadn't even noticed the race of these children ("Ah, but that only goes to show the subliminal evil of the ad!"). Is Hillary Clinton allowed to raise any questions about Barack Obama's fitness for office, or anything else, without standing accused of racism?

I used to think that the one unambiguously good thing about having a President Obama would be that it would be good for racial healing. Now I'm starting to think just the opposite, that any criticism of him, which is to be expected, will be interpreted by no small number of his backers as open or cloaked racism. And if he should fail in office, it will be because racists set him up, and we'll never, ever hear the end of it. "Race doesn't matter!" the Obama crowds in South Carolina chanted, but in fact, race is about to matter more than ever, whether candidate Obama wants it to or not.

Depressing.

Phone Questions

2008-03-05T18:38:00.002-05:00

Senator Clinton is scaring people into thinking her opponent isn't experienced enough to take late emergency phone calls. She implies that she is ready, because she has experience. What experience? senators don't have late night phone calls. They have late night cocktail parties. So, apparently we are led to believe that her duty as first late was national security emergency management.

Okay. Even if you believe that she handled all the National Security situations in the Clinton administration (yeah, right), then we are still faced with what did happen during the Clinton Administration. Does Senator Clinton wish to take credit for these situations:

Somalia
Waco
Yugoslavia
Ruby Ridge
Rwanda

The fact of the matter, Bill wasn't all that hot at the national security stuff. So, where is her experience at?

Win or Tie

2008-03-05T16:58:00.002-05:00

It looks like Hillary is going to accomplish a net gain of 4 delegates from last night. How much of a win is that? So what if you win the state? The race is fought in congressional districts. There were 370 delegates at stake last night, and she won four more than her opponent. That has to be a hollow victory at best.

Bummer

2008-03-05T12:53:00.003-05:00

If the revival (again) of HRC was big bullet point number one last night, this was smaller bullet point number two....

Mike Huckabee formally withdrew from the Republican race and endorsed John McCain. Good for him. He got blown out in Texas last night -- exit polling showed that more Texas Evangelicals voted for McCain than for Huck. I didn't want it to end this way, of course, but it has, and Huckabee's withdrawal was graceful and honorable. "I'd rather lose an election than lose the principles that got me into politics in the first place," he said. I loved his paying tribute to the little men and women who sacrificed for his campaign, "a voice for the hard-working people who lift heavy things every day." It was heartfelt, and his marvelous exit speech reminded me why I fell for Huck in the first place -- and why I hope this isn't the last we see of him.

By any measure, Huckabee accomplished so very, very much, and on little more than his ability to give a great speech, and to convince people of his authenticity. He outlasted the mighty, multimillion-dollar Mitt Romney campaign, and in fact was critically important in derailing it. Had he remained after tonight, he would have come off as a crank and a dead-ender. By going out on a high note, and pledging to do everything he can for the GOP this fall, he's done a lot to ensure his continuing influence in the party.

I'd like to ask Huck backers (and anyone really) what should our man do now? He'll be a formidable campaigner for the GOP this fall, that's for sure. But assuming he doesn't get the vice presidential nomination, what about after the election?

Rumor has it he may try and run in the Senate race in Arkansas (deadline to file is Monday). Some have suggested he could succeed James Dobson as the voice of Evangelicals. Maybe McCain picks him as a member of the Cabinet? Maybe he goes back to church, starts preaching again and we never hear from him again.

Uh-Oh

2008-03-05T09:01:00.002-05:00

Maybe HRC is right.

The results of last night and this past week has revealed some pretty significant weaknesses for Barack Obama. If he manages to get the Democratic nomination, as I believe he will, he's going to have to toughen his backside before the general election.

On the Tony Rezko trial in Chicago, there may be no substantive stink rubbing off on Obama. But his involvement with the sleazy fixer tarnishes his Mr. Clean image. And then there's the NAFTA thing, in which an Obama policy adviser appears to have told the Canadians sub rosa not to pay attention to Obama's huffing and puffing against NAFTA, he's just politicking. Aside from making Obama look cynical, it shows that he'll talk a good game against NAFTA for the sake of appealing to key Democratic constituencies, but deep down, he's as sold out to corporatist interests as anybody else.

When confronted by these stories, Obama choked in the response. As Jim Geraghty on NRO pointed out, Obama answered a grand total of eight questions about this flap before walking away from reporters; McCain, when hit with the NY Times story about his alleged affair with a lobbyist, stood there and answered 36.

And then there's Hillary's "3 a.m." ad, which speaks to concerns that Obama is untested in a crisis. And then, looming in the future, is the Jeremiah Wright stuff.

Look, I think Obama has it within him to deal with all this, but he didn't show in the past week much more than a glass jaw. The news of the past week, and his reaction to it, went a long way toward vindicating Hillary's critique of Obama: that he's an unknown quantity who is not experienced enough for the rigors of campaigning against the Republicans, or of the White House.

If I were laying money on the eventual outcome of the Democratic contest, I'd give it to Obama. But I'm a lot less certain of that than I was at this time last week. I think the Clinton campaign has finally found an Obama weakness it can exploit.

More Randomness

2008-02-29T13:44:00.002-05:00

If no one else has anything to say, I'll keep rambling on.......

With a little bit to maybe make everyone mad.

Sometimes it looks as if the Democrats are out to win at all costs, while the Republicans are out to compromise at all costs.

Too many people in positions of responsibility act as if these are just positions of opportunity — for themselves. The ones who simply steal money probably do less harm than teachers who propagandize their students, media who slant the news or politicians who sell out their country's interests in order to get re-elected.

Sometimes it seems as if everybody is trying to rip off his own little piece of America, until we are all torn apart.

Ever notice how liberals hold us individually responsible for nothing but collectively responsible for everything?

Have you ever noticed that opinion polls ask the opinions of people who have no expertise in the subject on which they are being polled and publish these opinions as if they were gospel truth instead of group ignorance?

"Global warming" seems to be joining "diversity," "gun control," "open space" and a growing list of other subjects where rational discussion has become impossible — and where you are considered a bad person even for wanting to discuss it rationally.

A recent poll was taken in California, asking if people thought illegal immigration was a serious problem. The results showed that 29 percent said, "Yes, there is a serious problem." But 71 percent said, "No es una problema seriosa."

Civil rights used to be about treating everyone the same. But today some people are so used to special treatment that equal treatment is considered to be discrimination.

It is hard to think of any word that has confused more issues than the word "rights." Nowadays, almost anything that anybody wants is called a "right" -- a magic word that does away with the need for evidence, logic or even common sense.

Some people seem to think that we live in more "liberated" times, when all that has happened is that one set of taboos has been replaced by another and more intolerantly enforced set of taboos.

The next time somebody says that the government is forced to intervene in the economy to protect the poor, ask why the government is forcing taxpayers to subsidize municipal golf courses, the ballet, opera and -- the biggest subsidy of all -- surrounding affluent communities with vast amounts of expensive "open space."

It is amazing how many people who want us to get out of Iraq want us to go into Darfur.

We can only hope that the rumor that Israel is going to take out Iran's nuclear weapons facilities is true. If they do, Israel will be widely condemned by governments that are breathing a sigh of relief that they did.

One of the painful signs of years of dumbed-down education is how many people are unable to make a coherent argument. They can vent their emotions, question other people's motives, make bold assertions, repeat slogans— anything except reason.

We have been imposed on so often that it is understandable how some would think that we had reached the point where we would stand for anything. After all, parents have come to accept the idea that schools have taken over the task of introducing their children to sex — at whatever age and in whatever way, often crude, might be fashionable in education circles.

I can't get as fiercely involved as some other people do in controversies about the origins of human life on earth. I wasn't there.

One of the great logical fallacies of some is that, if the free market doesn't work perfectly, then it doesn't work at all— and the government should step in.

By the way, the "poll" taken in California was a total joke.....it's one of the best ones I had heard in awhile.

Everything else, not a joke.

Random Musings.....

2008-02-25T13:18:00.002-05:00

Feel compelled to post something....nothing working at MP lately, so we'll keep it going here.

Does McCain need Huckabee to stay in the race to keep generating news? Without Huckabee, it'll be tougher to compete for newspaper space and air time against the Clinton-Obama headline making machine.

This is something I want to touch on as it was discussed on a local radio show last weekend (17th) here in Detroit on WWJ (AM 950)......Oh wait, the hatchet toting editors of a major US newspaper have done that for him.....

Bill Keller, executive editor of the New York Times, must be one of the dumber journalists in the business. He says he is surprised at the overwhelmingly negative reaction to the Time's sleazy piece on John McCain.

Well it's like this, Bill. When you raise the idea that a presidential candidate had a an affair with a perky blonde, you're obligated to prove it.

It's a standard that just about every other newsroom in the country abides by.

And one more complaint: McCain's response to the story was played the following day on Page 20 -- as opposed to putting the hatchet job in Page One.

Hillary talks about her candidacy breaking the glass ceiling. Well, the ceiling faced by a white millionaire running for office is not quite the same ceiling faced by a black man from the south side of Chicago. Also, after getting trounced in Wisconsin Tuesday, Hillary feebly talked about her toughness in the bitter liberal-conservative clashes of the past.

She doesn't get it. Voters are tired of the bitter liberal-conservative clashes of the past.

Ralph Nader running again for prez. Score another news coup for Tim Russert and "Meet the Press." But Ralphie has pretty much lost his punch. Democrats are onto his potential spoiler role and are still ticked about Nader's role in the 2000 dispute in Florida.

This Nader run is purely a vanity move.

Count me in as one of the many with a "hushed worry" about Obama's safety should he garner the DNC nomination. It was 40 years ago this spring that the nation was rocked by the assissination of 2 of it's greatest political figures...The Dr. and RFK.

I think if this were to happen, it'd be worse than 9/11.

Third Party

2008-02-21T21:42:00.002-05:00

I thought this would be a fun conversation.

Conservatives are blowing their tops over McCain's nomination. Many of them are emptily threatening to vote third party. Since, this blog is frequented by maniacally conservative McCain haters, who are you going to vote for?

For everyone else, if you absolutely had to vote for a third party which would it be?

Lessons from Nebraska

2008-02-21T21:23:00.003-05:00

I have a question for the learned contributors of this blog. Why do states maintain a bicameral system. I completely understand the need for a federal bicameral legislature. It gives better representation to small states. But, state senators are appointed proportional to population just like representatives. So what is the use? Isn't a bicameral system on the state level redundant?

The State of Nebraska maintains a Unicameral legislature and it seems to do well (click here). Another interesting aspect of the Nebraska legislature is that it is non-partisan. Members line up on issues or based on geography.

A couple of years ago, there was an effort here in Michigan to change to a unicameral system, but it tanked (click here).

So, two questions -

On the state level, why not switch to a Unicameral legislature?
what do you think of non-partisan governance?

John McCain's empty past too

2008-02-21T07:30:00.003-05:00

With conservatism that is.....

On many of the great issues, McCain has sided with the "Left" (and Big Media) as he has with the "Right."

Where Bush has been at his best, cutting taxes and nominating conservative judges, McCain has been his nemesis. Not only did he vote twice against the Bush tax cuts, McCain colluded to sell out the most conservative of Bush’s judges.

In 1993, McCain voted to confirm the pro-abortion liberal Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

And if you tie in the whole Gang of 14 thing, which nearly crippled the return to constitutionalism set up by Bush, you have to wonder would McCain actually nominate and fight for a fifth judge who would vote to overturn Roe v. Wade?

There's the obvious campaign-finance reform (which has led to the prominent rise of these "527s").

He's sided more and more with the extreme sham side of the global warming debate (he's become a little to chummy with Gore) and McCain sided with the liberals in the drilling for oil in ANWAR (Alaska).

In an interview with the Detroit News he's quoted as saying, "When you study history, everytime we've adopted protectionism, we've paid a heavy price ." So you can look for NAFTA and the sham that is "Free-Trade" to continue to be a very loud sucking sound of the already 3,000,000 manufacturing jobs the US has lost as a result.

And we're still not done with McCain......

He hooked up with Ted Kennedy (yes that Ted Kennedy) to take a shot at an amnesty bill that was never voted on in the Senate because of the national uprising over it.

He led the GOP delegation against Prop 200 in his own home state. The jist - it required proof of citizenship before an individual could vote or receive welfare benefits.

And let's not forget, he vows to stay the course in Iraq, bring in more neo-cons to the White House, and is already talking tough on Iran. He also wants to kick Russia out of the G-8 and expand NATO to include.....Georgia and Ukraine....are you serious?

Do we see a pattern developing here?

On the two issues where Bush has been at his best, taxes and judges, McCain has sided against him. On the three issues that have ravaged the Bush presidency—the misbegotten war in Iraq, the failure to secure America’s borders, and the trade policy that has destroyed the dollar, de-industrialized the country, and left foreigners with $5 trillion to buy up America—McCain has sided with Bush.

Now McCain is running on a platform that says your jobs are not coming back, the illegals are not going home, but we are going to have more wars.

If you don’t like it.........

Barack Obama's empty past

2008-02-20T13:12:00.002-05:00

I don't like Chris Mathews' style, as I think he comes across a bit arrogant, but still, he does make the point (or is the state senator the one making the point?) that Barack Obama has accomplished little to nothing legislatively.

I think this will be a huge problem for him against McCain, who has nothing but a long string of legislative action.

(cross-posted at Wide White)

NOTE: I should add that I understand that not everyone cares about experience, given the fact that many with experience have accomplished little. I also understand that when you're looking for change, experience takes a backseat to future proposals. Having said that, I think Obama's problems will come with those who want someone with experience to fall back on, regardless of whether they're looking for change and what that change might be.

This is Compassionate Conservatism!!

2008-02-12T15:06:00.000-05:00

Cal Thomas (and kind of David Frum, but I got to read the book first) have become maybe my new favorite people. I have been trying like hell to explain "Compassionate Conservatism" to a lot of people and all to no avail. Reason is that most people define Compassionate Conservatism as government hand-outs and the nanny state and government solves it all. Which is not Conservatism. They also can't get over the war in Iraq and always like to ask "Is that Compassionate Conservatism?" As a cop-out question/answer to someone like me when they have nothing else to defend themselves and they themselves cannot define it and so they want to rip George W. again and somehow that proves their point.

So along has come Cal Thomas:

This just in: Ronald Regean is dead and he's not coming back. Now, can conservative's please move on?

...Reagan always spoke about the future and its possibilities. Today's conservatives, however, can't seem to break with the past and the nostalgia for the Reagan years.

...David Frum's new book, "Comeback: Conservatism That Can Win Again." proposes an agenda that uses conservative principles to actually solve, rather than just talk about, serious problems.

He goes on to mention health insurance, global warming, taxes, immigration, family, prison reform, armed forces, even obesity!!!

He also touches on getting the Republican party under ethical control, as well as touching on poverty while TAKING OUT THE GOVERNMENT PROGRAMS.

But the best part is this:

It is not enough for conservatives to advocate for lower taxes and smaller government if the purpose is for Americans to acquire more money and material goods Americans already have so much they are renting storage units in which to place the overflow. Imagine the economic — even spiritual — revival that might occur if conservatives "adopted" one person or family and made it their goal to help them improve their lives.

Idealistic? Yes

But so what.

"You might say I'm a dreamer" a famous Beattle once quoted.

Delaying the Inevitable?

2008-02-11T13:33:00.001-05:00

Will the Real "Candidate of Change" Please Stand Up, Please Stand Up

2008-02-11T13:28:00.000-05:00

Mitt Out!

2008-02-07T14:58:00.000-05:00

Mitt Romney drops out of the GOP race. Not Good. I think he was choice #2. However, can we stop for a moment and think about how extremely unlikely it was six months ago that the last two candidates left standing would be John McCain and Mike Huckabee? Ya never know.

So what does Huckabee do now?

There is a chance, I suppose, that anti-McCain conservatives could flock to him to stop McCain. I don't think that's likely to happen, and if Huck ran as the anti-McCain, he probably wouldn't win, and he'd ruin any chance he has of being the No. 2 on the ticket.

Here's what I think: Huck should wait till McCain finishes talking to CPAC, then meet with him. He proposes a deal: McCain names Huck now as his running mate on a Republican unity ticket. That brings Evangelicals and social conservatives on board, and it gives McCain and Huck time to rest, raise money and reunite while the Democrats continue to bleed each other. The Limbaugh wing of the party will freak out, of course, but Huckabee's in a far stronger position to bargain with McCain than a bunch of talk radio hosts and their followers. In a perfect world (from a strategic point of view), Huckabee would have dropped out by now, and McCain would be free to ask Fred Thompson to be his running mate. That's not the world we live in.

After securing the deal, Pastor Huckabee needs to start asking the good Lord to deliver the Democratic nomination to Hillary Clinton.

Foul Language - The Tipping Point

2008-02-06T11:05:00.000-05:00

[UPDATE] - Wow, Corey and I hit this page at nearly the same time with the same story. Sorry to steal some thunder Corey.

Dr. James Dobson says if it's McCain, then he's out and not voting AT ALL. Here's his statement.

"I'm deeply disappointed the Republican Party seems poised to select a nominee who did not support a Constitutional amendment to protect the institution of marriage, who voted for embryonic stem cell research to kill nascent human beings, who opposed tax cuts that ended the marriage penalty, and who has little regard for freedom of speech, who organized the Gang of 14 to preserve filibusters, and has a legendary temper and often uses foul and obscene language.

"I am convinced Sen. McCain is not a conservative, and in fact, has gone out of his way to stick his thumb in the eyes of those who are. He has at times sounded more like a member of the other party. McCain actually considered leaving the GOP in 2001, and approached John Kerry about being Kerry's running mate in 2004. McCain also said publicly that Hillary Clinton would make a good president. Given these and many other concerns, a spoonful of sugar does not make the medicine go down. I cannot, and I will not vote for Sen. John McCain, as a matter of conscience.

"But what a sad and melancholy decision this is for me and many other conservatives. Should John McCain capture the nomination as many assume, I believe this general election will offer the worst choices for president in my lifetime. I certainly can't vote for Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama based on their virulently anti-family policy positions. If these are the nominees in November, I simply will not cast a ballot for president for the first time in my life. These decisions are my personal views and do not represent the organization with which I'm affiliated. They do reflect, however, my deeply held convictions about the institution of the family, about moral and spiritual beliefs, and about the welfare of our country."

McCain has gone way too far with the potty mouth of his!!!!!! WAY TOO FAR!!!!!

Why the hell (oops, sorry Jim, my bad) did he wait until Super Tuesday to endorse, or undorse, when had he come out for Romney or Huckabee a lot earlier, the GOP might not be in this position today?

Speaking as an unaplogetic theocon, we need a better quality of theocon leadership in this country. I'm just sayin'.

Oh, Brother

2008-02-06T09:54:00.000-05:00

Poor Dr. Dobson. He's whining, again. After giving Romney a back door, subtle endorsement (click here), Dobson is feeling left out. As usual, he is a very sore loser. In a letter to Focus on the Family's CitizenLink subscribers (click here), Dobson refused to ever vote for John McCain. Why? Dobson listed several of the usual "moral" issues like Campaign Finance Reform, Tax Cuts, and judicial nominees. Oh, wait - those aren't "moral" issues at all! But, it gets worse! He also said that he could not vote for a person who "has a legendary temper and often uses foul and obscene language." What the hell is that supposed to mean?

Whoops. I guess Dobson won't vote for me. That's okay. He is a Phariseeical, judgmental schill.

Dobson is probably my brother in faith. But, I am glad he is not my friend or co-worker. He is unable to separate policy statements from personal statements, nor can he distinguish politics from his own religious perspective.

Yet even this is hypocritical. Governor Romney is just as conservative as Rudy Giuliani - he isn't! And he has enough morality to say anything to get elected. Why isn't he supporting Huckabee? Gov. Huckabee is a consistent, conservative Christian candidate who speaks like he actually reads Focus on the Family's CitizenLink.

Huckabee has been unable to garner the support of Social Conservative leaders. Pat Robertson endorsed Giuliani and invited Romney to give the commencement address at Regent University. National Right to Life endorsed Fred Thompson while he was still on Law & Order.

I'm worried that these "moral leaders" are giving their support to whoever offers them the most influence, instead of who represents their values.
_________________________________
Here is a list of pretty good presidents with bad tempers and bad mouths:

John Adams (temper)
Andrew Jackson (temper & mouth)
Teddy Roosevelt (temper)
Harry Truman (temper)
Dwight Eisenhower (temper & mouth)

Boy Was I Wrong!!!!

2008-02-06T08:02:00.000-05:00

You'd of thunk I'd follow my own advice and not start making prognostications!!!!

What a showing by Huckabee last night! We have a long way to go still, but according to McCain he says he is the front runner. Is he? Did he speak too soon? Will there be a big back lash? Rush, Coulter, Dobson et. al. are going to be going nuts fanning the flames of "true conservatism." And news articles like this won't help matters.

The rest of the primary season doesn't help McCain much either. Many of them are "Republican only" thus reducing the Independent vote for him (Kansas, Louisiana, Maryland, Virginia, and DC). Wisconsin and Washington are open to Independent's but they award proportionate delegates. There's also Texas (expect to see Huckabee go hard after Texas) and then Vermont and Rhode Island (big-time pro-Mitt's). Louisiana and Kansas look to be strongholds for Huck, maybe.

And that is the point...who even knows what to expect?

On a personal level, I take solace in the fact that Huck appears to be a force to be reckoned with. Whatever happens in November, he's going to be around for quite awhile. Social and religious conservatives now have a powerful voice in the party of the future. And with McCain's poor showing in the "Deep Red" South, he may need to make a move to shore up that general electorate ...McCain/Huckabee 08'?

Prophecy Ended Long Ago

2008-02-05T09:15:00.000-05:00

I am increasingly amazed at the way in which this primary season has taken place so far. And I do not mean the unpredictability of it all, that's been kind of fun. What I am amazed at is the gross negelct of common sense. The inability to "learn from your mistakes."

Many, perhaps even most, Democrats and Republicans are conflicted as to whom to vote for in the primaries.

Among Democrats, Barack Obama has enormous appeal -- even to most erstwhile Hillary Clinton supporters. He seems to evoke the John F. Kennedy enthusiasm that Democrats have been seeking for over a generation. He is young, vibrant, charismatic and very smart. And he is on the Left, where most Democratic Party activists are; the National Journal rated him the most liberal Democrat in the U.S. Senate. But he wears his leftism lightly, and by basing his campaign on "unity" and "change," he has alienated few Democrats, while apparently appealing to many independents.

On the other hand, Hillary Clinton has been popular with Democrats for years, and she is especially appealing to a core constituency of the Democratic Party -- women, especially single women.

So, many Democrats are genuinely torn. They admire Hillary Clinton, whom they have long known and supported, but they love Obama, whom they hardly know. Which is a huge difference between JFK and Obama. JFK was a war hero, Pulitzer prize winner, and had been in the Congree for over 10 years when he decided to run for President. What has Obama done?

Among Republicans, the internal debate is quite different. Whereas most Democrats admire both their candidates and many love at least one of them, few Republicans love either John McCain or Mitt Romney. It is only a slight exaggeration to state that while Democrats wonder which of the two they love more, Republicans wonder which of the two they dislike, or, if you prefer, distrust, more.

Most Democrats go to the voting booth thrilled with one or both of their candidates; most Republicans are thrilled with neither of their two leading candidates.

In that way, the thinking of most Democrats and most Republicans could not be more different on this Super Tuesday. Ironically, however, many Republicans and Democrats are using the same reasoning in deciding whom to vote for: They are voting for the candidate they think has the best chance of winning in November. That is what amazes me. And all anyone has to do is go back to the Kerry 2004 nomination. The guy was a joke, but he got the push and momentum because he looked to be the most "electable." Edwards and even the crazy-eyed howling like a wolf Dean had a better chance to unseat the dynastic George W. The Republicans (Karl Rove) jumped on this and pushed W as the candidate of strength and conviction and may not be "electable" but would be a much more capable PRESIDENT and LEADER than this version of JFK. And thankfully it worked as Bush kind of boot-stomped Kerry.

Yet, now both sides are at again...

Many Democrats who want Hillary Clinton to be the next president wonder whether she will always be too polarizing to win a national election. And many Democrats who adore Barack Obama wonder whether he can win given his inexperience, his youth, the fact that he is unknown -- and who knows what will yet be revealed about him?

Therefore, many Democrats are choosing whom to vote for not on the basis of who they believe will make the better president so much as who they think has the best chance of being elected president.

On the Republican side, the exact same thing is happening. Given the distrust -- deserved or not -- of both candidates among many Republicans, many are not even asking which candidate would make the better president, but which one has the better chance of winning the presidential election.

So, though they come from opposite views of their respective candidates -- Democrats from great enthusiasm and Republicans from little enthusiasm -- many primary voters in each party are choosing whom to vote for on the same basis.

I humbly but strongly suggest we all vote on the basis of who we think will make the better president, the better leader.

Many Americans have become so politically savvy that they are in danger of outsmarting themselves. Republicans and Democrats who vote on the basis of who will win rather than who they think would make the better president may well be making a big error. Between now and November is far too long a period of time to make any predictions.

The general election is eight months from now. Consider how much has changed in both parties in just the last 90 days: Hillary Clinton was virtually assured the Democratic nomination and Rudy Giuliani was way ahead in all Republican polls.

If there is any major terrorist attack in a Western country, not to mention in the United States, everything can change.

If the economy tanks or prospers, everything can change.

If the war in Iraq continues to improve and/or al-Qaida seems to be weakening, many more Americans may come to view the war in Iraq as having been worth the sacrifices Americans paid.

If one of the candidates stumbles, everything can change. Perhaps Barack Obama may have to confront revelations about his personal life, or about his church, or maybe some aide will get into trouble, or he may say something he regrets; Hillary Clinton may not recover from her negatives, or Bill Clinton may turn off more voters; John McCain may tire and look old or alienate much of the Republican conservative base; Mitt Romney may never connect with voters or recover from charges of flip-flopping.

So, Democrats, if you think Barack Obama would make a better president of the United States, vote for him. If you think Hillary Clinton would, vote for her. Don't vote for either because you are sure that he or she would do better in November. And, Republicans, if you think John McCain would make a better president, vote for him for that reason, not because you think he'll do better in November. And if you think Mitt Romney would be a better president than John McCain, vote for him. Don't deprive him of your vote because you don't think he'll win. Prophecy ended a long time ago.

And yes, I purposely left out Huckabee...time to get real about this.

Who would destroy America?

2008-02-01T18:13:00.001-05:00

We've been low on posts lately, so I thought I'd try to initiate something.

Okay, so it's an overbearing title on this post and at the end of the day, I don't think any of the candidates from either party would outright destroy America. But I'd be interested in knowing:

Of all of the candidates on both sides, who do you think would be the worst for America and why?

The Republican Primary: who to vote for (and why)

2008-01-27T20:06:00.000-05:00

Heading into Super Tuesday, Minnesotans (and members of 20 other states) will attempt to clarify the Republican presidential nominee. With this post, I'll attempt to help clarify your choice on February 5th.

(NOTE: None of the candidates has 100% of my support. The best candidate is okay, maybe good at best, but I wouldn't say any of them are great. Candidates are listed in order of my preference for them, beginning with my least favorite.)

Mitt Romney

Simply put, I can't stand him. I've expressed my disdain for him here and here and continue to follow that train of thought. As I said here, I doubt he would raise taxes and there's a good chance he'll stick with the pro-life position he is currently holding. But regardless of those positions, he's changed positions so many times on so many issues (including these two issues) that I can't trust him on anything. He's slick and seems to be willing to do whatever it takes to get to the White House. If he garners the Republican nomination, I don't think I could vote for him. If I do, I'll be holding my nose.

Rudy Giuliani

At least Giuliani still holds most of the positions he did 5 years ago. The problem is, he's still on the wrong side of the issues. He's pro-abortion, which is an immediate turn-off for me. I hesitantly considered supporting him here, but by the time I got to here, had definitively cut off the possibility of voting for him. He's only turned me off in debates with his pandering to voters both on the left and right. As I've stated before, "I can't support a candidate who runs kittywampus around the issues and fails to communicate clearly and directly."

Ron Paul

I've expressed both concern and support for Ron Paul here and here. I like his government ~~reform~~ annihilation platform. However, as much as I don't like the travesty in Iraq, I also don't think immediate pullout is the answer, as Paul does. Additionally, the congressman's quirkiness often leaves him looking very silly and un-presidential. Oh, and never mind that he's the only Republican without a legitimate chance of winning the primary at this point.

Mike Huckabee

If I don't vote for Huckabee, he'll have barely lost my vote. My biggest problem with him is economic. He doesn't have a great track record from Arkansas, having been known as a fiscal moderate who was willing to raise certain taxes and - more importantly for me - spending throughout is governorship, but he checks out with me on nearly every other issue and his personality is dynamite. I've indicated support for him here and here and that support remains intact. However, the economy is quickly becoming the dominant issue and I think it's a huge liability for him. He also reminds me of Bush in many ways and we desperately need someone who cuts spending and/or cuts through the partisan mess in Washington. I'm not convinced Huckabee can do either. Combine those things with his failure to build on his momentum from Iowa and I'm seriously questioning his viability as a candidate.

John McCain

Until recently, I don't think I've ever shown any support for John McCain. My impression of him has always been that he's a liberal Republican. I didn't know why or what issues he was liberal on, just that he was liberal. (Never mind that he was the second most conservative Republican in the last congressional period, the 1o9th Congress.) I noted my concerns in a few posts, including here and here. However, he impressed me in a debate that I watched and I decided to take a second look. So, why did I decide I could support him? First, he's pro-life, so an issue that's a major obstacle for me with Giuliani and even Romney was not an issue. Second, the reason he opposed Bush's tax cuts - a serious problem I had with him - was Bush didn't provide reduced spending along with it. McCain realizes you can't cut taxes without cutting spending when you've got a budget deficit. (He's now in favor of extending those tax cuts because, as he says, lifting the cuts would be the equivalent of a tax increase, which he opposes.) Third, McCain is right on the war, but more importantly, he was in favor of increasing the number of troops over there at a time when most Americans (admittedly, including me) were ready to pull out. On top of that, I trust him; I believe what he says. He's also the only candidate who I'm confident can beat any Democrat.

I've had concerns with McCain over immigration, but those concerns are no less with Huckabee, whose position isn't much different. Both are in favor of a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants in our country. I understand their point though and it's not a make-or-break issue for me.

Does McCain have holes? Yes, absolutely. But I'm leaning towards him over Huckabee because of two major reasons: 1.) I trust him and don't believe he'll change his position, confidence I'm not quite sure I have in Huckabee given his smooth personality (which is a huge advantage and likability factor for him) and spending concerns. 2.) While Huckabee has slowly slid from contention, McCain has established himself as the more viable candidate.

At this point, the race is probably down to McCain, Romney, and possibly Giuliani. Between the three of them, there's no question who I support. I like the grisly Vietnam veteran and former POW.

The things I could buy...

2008-01-25T13:16:00.000-05:00

If and when we get our rebate check, we're likely buying furniture. I'm torn between that and paying down debt, but we just had our offer accepted on a new home with a close date of February 29th and I'm not sure the college-turned-apartment living room furniture will do the job.

Either way, and regardless of whether this plan is the best thing that could have been passed and despite the fact that it's coming later than it probably should have, I think it's a big step in the right direction economically.

Spending Your Rebate

2008-01-25T08:23:00.000-05:00

Most of us are going to checks from the government to encourage us to spend money to keep the economy from going into recession:

Under the plan, as many as 117 million people would get rebate checks. Individual income tax filers would receive up to $600, working couples would get up to $1,200, and those with children would get an additional $300 per child.

How are you going to spend your rebate?

Stay away from whether you think this is the right move or not, it's happened and we are getting the checks, and while we are all people with very heavy convictions, I doubt any of us are going to throw the check away or not cash it if we disagree with this move.

Save it?

Spend it?

Pay off debt?

Buy a car?

Paint the house?

Use the money as a down payment on a house?

Buy a PS3?

Or maybe you will throw it away.......good for you, you're an idiot but good for you.

The Campaign Trail - Religion and Politics - Same Ole, same ole?

2008-01-21T13:19:00.001-05:00

Once again, You Know Who is injecting religion into presidential politics on the stump:

The Scripture tells us that when Joshua and the Israelites arrived at the gates of Jericho, they could not enter. The walls of the city were too steep for any one person to climb; too strong to be taken down with brute force. And so they sat for days, unable to pass through.
But God had a plan for his people. He told them to stand together and march together around the city, and on the seventh day he told them that when they heard the sound of the ram's horn, they should speak with one voice. And at the chosen hour, when the horn sounded and a chorus of voices cried out together, the mighty walls of Jericho came tumbling down.
There are many lessons to take from this passage...

Actually, this wasn't a Mike Huckabee speech, but the opening of Barack Obama's address at Ebenezer Baptist Church Sunday morning. It was a powerful speech (read full text). I've got no problem at all with Obama using Biblical rhetoric here. It was appropriate. But I await those who freak out over Mike Huckabee talking God stuff on the campaign trail to honor their principles and let Barack Obama have it too. Surely they won't tolerate a double standard, right?

The quicker and sooner everyone realizes that religion and politics will never go away in America (and when it does, buckle up your seat belt) and what the true meaning of "Church and State" is, the better off everyone will be. The better off our country will be too.

Healthcare

2008-01-20T09:07:00.001-05:00

Here is a word for word post from over at My Perception about my thoughts on Healthcare. These appeared back in October when the whole SCHIP fiasco was going on.

**************************************

Michael Moore loves government.

OK, he doesn't love a government headed by George W. Bush, but he believes that once the Democrats are in charge, government will do a better job providing health care.

In his new movie, "Sicko," he praises government-controlled health care systems in Canada and Europe. He suggests that Americans pay more for health care but have a shorter life expectancy than people in other countries because our health care is driven "by profit."

He is wrong in so many ways.

First, life expectancy is no measure of a country's medical system. Lifestyle and culture matter more, and Americans are different.

In a recent interview shown on ABC's News Magazine show 20/20, Moore was taken to task on this issue by John Stossel. Stossel said, "In America we kill each other more often. We shoot each other. We have more car accidents. Forgive me, more of us look like ... you."

Moore smiled at that, but still argued that that people live longer in Canada "because they never have to worry about paying to go see the doctor. That means at the first sign of being sick they go right away to the doctor cause they're not worrying about whether or not they can afford it."

Are you serious!!

Freedom brings anxiety, but its other rewards are so superior to passive care from a smothering government.

America's medical system has problems, but profit is the least of it. Government mandates, overregulation and a tax code that pushes employer-paid health insurance prevent the free market from performing its efficient miracles. Six out of seven health-care dollars are spent by third parties. That kills the market. Patients rarely shop around, and doctors rarely compete on price or service.

But his ignorance doesn't end there. He would go on to say, "Government can do things right. ... My dad gets his Social Security check every month. Comes not only every month, it comes on the same day through the so-called 'dilapidated' U.S. mail. ... [A]sk your grandparents what they think of Medicare. Although it has its flaws, although it may be underfunded, it's a much better program than the HMO that somebody has."

Underfunded? Medicare has a 75-year $34 trillion unfunded liability! Its costs are growing faster than inflation. Social Security has a 75-year $5 trillion unfunded liability. These are schemes that will be bankrupt before Moore reaches retirement age. The U.S. mail manages to deliver his dad's checks, but compare its performance to FedEx or UPS. The Post Office said it wasn't possible to deliver packages overnight.

I want "FedEx" health care: innovation, new cancer treatments, hip replacements and pain relief. We get that from private-sector competition, not government lethargy.

Moore said, "You don't introduce profit into your city water department."

Stossel took that time to tell a story from one of his books "Give Me a Break", Basically it goes like this -- Jersey City, New Jersey's water tasted foul and failed safety tests. City workers said there wasn't much they could do. In fact, water prices would have to be raised ... just to maintain the lousy service they had.

So Jersey City turned its water system over to a for-profit company. Within months it had fixed the pipes government workers said couldn't be fixed, and for the first time in years, Jersey City's water met the highest cleanliness standard. And the kicker...

Taxpayers saved $35 million!!!!

The private company could do it better and cheaper because their skills were honed by constant competition.

Private competitors innovate or die. Government workers do what they did last year. That's why I want the private sector to provide my health care. Pursuit of profit will give us our best medicines and medical devices. I'll pay you $1,000 if you can name one thing government does more efficiently than the private sector.

Sometimes it's puzzling.

The same people who crucify government for Katrina and for bridge collapses want the same government to run health care. Remember Walter Reed?

Jer-ry! Jer-ry! Jer-ry!

2008-01-19T12:20:00.000-05:00

"Monica's ex-boyfriend's wife for President!!!!"

YEAH!!!!!!

PoliStats

2008-01-19T10:30:00.000-05:00

Here are some facts and statistics that are inarguable:

Historically, men have made the best presidents. Seriously; look it up. Washington, Jefferson, Jackson, Lincoln, Roosevelt - they were all men. Sorry Hillary.

Senators

There are a lot of Senators running for the presidency. There have been fifteen senators elected to the White House, but only two have moved directly from the Senate to the White House. They both died in office: Harding and Kennedy.

Business Men

Romney is saying that we need a business dude in the White House. Business Men make bad presidents. The last person in the White House who was known especially for his business prowess was Herbert Hoover. Can you say "Great Depression?"

After the White House

Just days after he was sworn in, Teddy Roosevelt muttered to a friend about how young he would be when he left office. He had reached the pinnacle of political power and all he could think of was "What will I do in eight years?" What is our current President going to do? One of the other worst presidents had an idea. Leaving the White House, Franklin Pierce declared "there's nothing left to do but get drunk."

Almost Done

There are 364 days left in the current administration. Even so, come quickly.

Health care: keep it private

2008-01-17T12:00:00.000-05:00

I've said much of what I was going to say in comments already, but thought I'd try to crystalize my thoughts in a quick post.

I believe in the free market. I think taxes should be lower and the government's influence in my life should be less. Having said that, some things do fall on our government to provide. I do not believe health care is one of them. Just because a number of other wealthy countries are doing it doesn't mean it will work. No one has been doing it for more than two generations. We have no idea whether or not their systems will work in the long haul. We've seen programs like Social Security in our own country work for a generation or two before running into serious problems (for reasons that would require another post).

However, assuming that health care remain private, what is the government's role in providing funding for health services? I believe the government should provide support for those who need it. How this would work I haven't quite hashed out. Does it work like welfare checks, except with a medical account? Or do those who cannot afford care simply go to the doctor and bill it to a government program? I would tend to lean towards the first option, but this would only work for basic health care. It would not work for major medical; I think we need a separate system to capture major medical costs.

Regardless of those details though (and they are major details...I admittedly haven't studied the best way all of this could work and I don't know if anyone really does know the best way it could work), public assistance should be limited. Just as unemployment checks run out after a certain amount of time, this assistance should not be indefinite. The exception I would make is for those working full time and making less than a certain salary. I think I could support a program to cover these people.

Obviously I don't have the smartest, most well-thought-out arguments and I'm posting this at work, so I can't go into any detail or really attempt to construct this. As a society we should help those with less. However, our government (our population, really) has to be able to financially support that.

I could lay out other concerns I have with full-blown public health care, but I've commented enough on Corey's last post, so I'll leave that alone. Sorry I don't have time to re-read this and edit it. It is what it is and feel free to eat me up for the problems that are no doubt laden in what I've written.

Health Care: Free Market Solutions

2008-01-16T10:44:00.000-05:00

Our health care system currently helps the poor and the rich. But what about the working poor? What about small business owners like my dad whose tax returns show a large net worth, but in all actuality they are broke. My dad is a garbage man.

Yet instead of looking at very real concerns, and very real situations, our leaders have started howling about socialism. Look to the market, they tell us, the market will solve these problems in time.

Since when have insurance companies and pharmaceuticals been known for their compassion and morality? Did I miss something?

I see two problems with looking to the private sector for healthcare salvation:

Free market solutions are only legitimate in competitive settings. If my leg is falling off, I don't hunt around for the best deals. If my doctor tells me to buy the green florescent pills, I can't wait for the price to go down.
The market is asking for government intervention. Don't believe me? Click here. Automakers are asking for national coverage so they can remain competitive with companies based in places where government coverage is offered. Currently, American auto makers spend more in health care than on steel. In a global market, private health care is an excessive burden on American corporations.

The Need

2008-01-16T10:35:00.000-05:00

Currently 46.6 million Americans have no health care coverage. Most of these people are working class folks living from paycheck to paycheck supporting young children. Many in this vast group of people have stories that go like this -

Dad works two jobs to support four kids and pay for a house to live in. Mom feels sick one day and they avoid going to the doctor for the simple fact that they can’t afford a solitary appointment. So, they wait for the sickness to pass until one day she collapses and ends up in the E.R. They’ve caught the cancer in time, but several expensive surgeries later, the family has re-mortgaged their house and are still several thousand dollars short of paying their medical bills. In the midst of all this peril, mom relapses and the cycle is repeated in all its tragic horror.

Some may object, “but this is an extreme case, such things don’t really happen.” If this an extreme example, then these extremes seem to plague my youth group. Since, coming to Bethel, two students have lost parents to cancer and one of our middle-schooler’s mothers was just diagnosed with cancer. In addition look at these statistics from the R.W. Johnson foundation:

Nationally, 41 percent of uninsured adults report being unable to see a doctor when needed in the past 12 months, due to cost, compared to just nine percent of adults who have health care coverage.
Adults who are uninsured are much more likely to report being in poor or fair health than are adults who are insured. Nationally, one in five uninsured adults (20 percent) say their health is fair or poor, compared with nearly one in nine adults with health coverage (12 percent).

Most tragic of all, 9 million children currently have no access to health care in the U.S.

In the midst of all this, I argue, is it not better to turn to a more Universal Health Care system? Did you know that 27% of health care costs are already paid for by the government? Also, isn’t it a more godly way to provide health care for those in need? Even conservative voices are echoing this call. I almost fell out of my chair when I read this opinion piece from the Southern Baptist Convention’s political arm (ERLC):

The Bible tells us to do unto others as we would have others do unto us. If I were uninsured, I would want others to come to my aid and demand solutions. I believe access to a basic standard of health care is a human right that is essential to the pursuit of happiness. People need to talk to their neighbors, church members, friends, family, business leaders, and government leaders and say that it is important that all Americans have this basic right. With this country’s economic prosperity, we can and should find ways to provide health care for everyone.
- Richard Land, Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, SBC

Bravo, Mr. Land. I was so encouraged to see this piece I almost clapped my hands in glee. Christians using their political influence to help those in need - imagine that! What do you think? Should Christians support universal health care coverage? If our country is rich enough to do it, should we?

Michigan Primary: Uncommited

2008-01-16T10:31:00.000-05:00

Michigan's primary was last night. Here are the big stories:

Everyone's a Winner - with Romney's win, that gives the Republican race three or four "frontrunners" and further convolutes an already messy field.
Commitment Issues - Almost a quarter million Dems decided to vote "uncommitted" instead of voting for Hillary. Wow. In fact there were two counties where "uncommitted" actually beat Hillary - Emmet and Washtenaw. Finally, Hillary only narrowly won Wayne County. WAYNE COUNTY! Hillary is not electable. If she can't win Detroit....
Delegate Count - Romney has now jumped to a big lead in delegates. He has 42, Huckabee has 32, and McCain only holds 13. Click here for more info on the delegate count.

'Free' Healthcare for All...no you can't refuse it!

2008-01-16T09:47:00.000-05:00

I found this article on Yahoo recently and was amazed at the following:
As health care generates debate in this year's presidential campaign, about 68 percent of Americans say individuals should be required to have medical insurance, with government help for those who cannot afford it, a survey released on Tuesday found. (emphasis added)

What?! You should be required to have health care. Required?! Maybe I'm reading that part wrong.

Also from the article:

About 47 million people in the United States do not have health insurance.

A sad statistic. I looked around for the number, but can’t find it, so we’ll just say, a large percentage of that number have health care coverage available to them, but choose not to have it. Why? Well you have to pitch in at work to get it. These people are young, usually unmarried and don’t have kids, so rather than have the $50-$100 a month taken out of their checks, they spend it on, well, whatever kids are buying these days. I think it is kind of stupid, but I was young and stupid once (who am I kidding; I still am.)

So either the government is going to require you pay the deductible and get it through work, or we’re heading for a socialist health care system, and the government will require you to take their health care. Insidious. The more the government supplies for your every want and need, the more power they gain. We loose a little more of our freedom, and slowly we slide further down the slope of socialism.

Something I did find interesting, because I thought the opposite would be true was this:
"In some ways, the Republican proposals seek bigger changes to the way most people currently obtain coverage," said Collins. "Most of their plans propose a diminishing role for employers, whereas the leading Democrats favor keeping employers in the game."

I don’t think people realize what will happen when the government gets total control of this. Washington shouldn’t be in charge of managing anything. A government really isn’t set up to do that on a national level, not efficiently; to say nothing of the fact that we, as a country, can’t afford it. We can’t afford the programs we have now. How long can you raise taxes on the ‘rich’? And on top of that, raising taxes doesn’t increase revenue.

I totally agree that health care is an issue…a huge one. The pharmaceutical industry is corrupt and greedy, malpractice insurance is inflated by negligent lawyers, hospitals are loosing their ‘compassion’, treating people as numbers instead of people, and millions who need coverage don’t have it. As with just about any problem in this country though, the solutions is NOT turning it over to the government. The only one of those problems that ‘goes away’ will be the uninsured; everything else gets worse. Then everyone is subject to a watered down, ineffective, government sponsored (ha! Where do they get their money?) nightmare.

When did our solution, as Americans, to any problem become ‘Let the government do it for me!’?

Topic: Health Care

2008-01-14T09:33:00.000-05:00

This week let's discuss health care. This is an issue that is playing a big role in this election season. Every top-tier Democrat candidate has a plan for Universal Health Care, while every top tier Republican has proposed free market reforms. So, what do we do about health care?

Religion, Politics, and I'm all in - Sort Of

2008-01-11T17:54:00.000-05:00

Religion and Politics

1. Mormons aren't Christians. I think that point has been hammered home enough.

2. But politically, so what? Mormons vote like Southern Baptists and come down on the same side of most issues of public morality like conservative Christians do. If you're a socially conservative lawmaker, wouldn't you rather have a Mormon in your legislative foxhole than a Kennedy-style cafeteria Catholic or progressive mainline Protestant? I'm no Romney fan, but is there really no meaningful political difference between Good-Mormon Mitt and Bad-Catholic Rudy, to say nothing of Liberal-Protestant Hillary?

3. There are plenty of good reasons for conservative Christians not to vote for Mr. Romney, but his religious beliefs are not among them. Do Christians want to be in the position of rejecting a candidate whose political views and moral values they agree with, solely because they don't like his religion? On what grounds would they condemn secularists for rejecting Christian candidates?

4. "If Mitt Romney believes what Mormonism teaches, no telling what he'll believe," Oh? Really. Non-Christians have to overlook the fact thatChristian candidates profess to believe that God became man, was murdered and rose from the dead. They have to ignore the fact that some Christians believe that same God-man mysteriously appears as bread and wine under certain circumstances, and others believe that the universe was created in seven literal days. The content of a religion's doctrinal teaching is not a reliable guide to the overall judgment of one of its adherents.

5. Which isn't to say that doctrine doesn't matter at all. Take Islam, for instance. It would be dangerously naive to assume, as American civil religion does, that all religions are pretty much the same. It's true that most religions share core ethical teachings, but orthodox Islam also teaches clearly that there is to be no separation of religion and state and that non-Muslims are to live subservient under law to Muslims. To the extent that a Muslim wishes to preside over our pluralist liberal democracy, he will have had to break radically from his faith's fundamentals.

6. Does freedom require religion, as Mr. Romney asserts? We shouldn't be so quick to dismiss John Adams' observation that the U.S. Constitution is made"only for a moral and religious people" and will not work for any other.His point was that maintaining political liberty requires a people capable of governing themselves and restraining their passions for the greater good. He might have said "moral" people, and left it at that, because in his day and in ours, one can find morally upright men and women who have no religious faith and believers who are morally corrupt.

7. But the crooked timber of humanity is frail indeed. If God doesn't exist, then by what standard do we decide right from wrong? If a society recognizes no independent, transcendent guardian of the moral order, will it not, over time, lose its self-discipline and decline into barbarism?

8. Mr. Romney, as a Mormon, may not be a Christian, but his values are deeply rooted in the Judeo-Christian tradition. Christians who judge a candidate's fitness for the presidency based on his particular profession of faith should reflect on the quality of governance our devoutly evangelical president has provided over the last seven years. Martin Luther is supposed to have said that he would rather be governed by a wise Muslim than a foolish Christian.

Smart man, that Luther. For a heretic.

But here in lies the rub, I am sick to death of this crop of Republicans,and annoyed and peeved with how gullible I’d allowed myself to be abou tGeorge W. Bush, so I’m reluctant to get too excited about any candidate. I actually considered not even bothering to vote. Call it Republican fatigue, but no matter, I can never see myself voting for a Democrat(except for maybe an Obama-Giuliani race).

When I say conservatism, I imply that culture should always precede politics, and we’ve placed way too much hope in politics as a way to move the culture. None of the current crop of candidates fits this mold.Instead of pointing to all the why’s of why I say that, I’ll just say I think there is only one candidate out there who can understand what motivates conservatives like us.

Mike Huckabee

But, being honest with myself, all I am really saying is that I think all we are guaranteed is that he’d be better than any other Republican we can chose from. Does that mean he’d make a good President?

Look, no one who gets to that level of politics is going to be uncompromised, or will be perfect. I worry about Huckabee's lack of experience in foreign affairs, but no more than I do any other GOP candidate except John McCain. And I think there is legitimate concern he may really be “George Bush – Lite”

But I keep coming back to Mike, almost in spite of my misgivings (is that good or bad?). He's right on key social issues, which are the most important issues to me. I think his basic orientation toward the economy and families is where I'd like to see my president be (that is, I think somebody could show him material about Sam's Club Republicans and the work of Wendell Berry, and he'd get it). He's got that sensibility. After the past 15 years or so of intense partisanship, I really like his bit about being conservative, but not angry about it (this is something I like about Obama too, on the other side). I mean, we're always going to have partisanship, but I'm tired of both sides orienting themselves around hating the political Other. The tone change Huck would bring to our politics would be most welcome. A vote for Huck is in part a vote to shift the conservative movement in a more traditionalist direction, opening up the conversation on the Right to ideas that haven't really been part of our discussion for a long, long time. And that's pretty great.

And what of Ron Paul. Well....this

New Hampshire Counts....Sort Of.

2008-01-09T18:15:00.000-05:00

The Democratic Nomination is still a 2 horse race. HRC and Obama. Except it could have been a one and a half horse race if Obama had carried New Hampshire as was predicted.

But he didn't. And I don't think it was because he and McCain split the Independent vote. McCain won by exactly the same amount of % points as we was suppose to. If McCain truly took Independent votes away from Obama that swung everything by at least 12% (minimum 10 point lead, HRC won by 2) then McCain would have stomped Romney.

I buy the fact that women showed up in force and I buy the black candidate effect. Not that the split independent vote.

On the Repubican side...anyone care to guess?

The winner in all this could be Rudy, in my limited opinion. HRC is back and large and in charge. Rudy is seen as the only GOP candidate to seriously challenge HRC on the national level. Is that true though?

Rudy won't fare very well in Michigan and since HRC is the only Dem on the ballot, what if she beats out "uncommitted" and Romney or Huckabee carry Michigan?

What if McCain wins Michigan? Are Romney and Huckabee dead then? Maybe not Huck since he could carry South Carolina.

What if Romney carries Michigan?

What if.....

What if.....

What if.....

This is why primary seasons when there is no incumbent is so awesome.

There are a lot of scenarios that can be played out here in good ole Michigan. The worst of which is going to be the next week of every major news outlet telling all of America how much Michigan sucks, how bad it is here and showing all the major players stumping on the economy, job loss, and Immigration (you haven't had a "colorful" conversation until you talk Immigration with a UAWer).

If there is one thing that last night taught us - the pundits and early polls and exit polls aren't always correct. But I thought we learned that already...circe 2000.

New Hampshire surprise...what now?

2008-01-09T14:17:00.000-05:00

John McCain was dead in the water just a few months ago. I remember seeing him on Leno and wondering why he was still running and how much of a deadbeat he had become. I couldn't figure out why he was still in the race. He was broke. He's old. He's [fill in a reason he shouldn't have been running].

Winning New Hampshire doesn't give him the nomination and I still think he'll have trouble making it that far. But it does say that he's a serious contender, and that's a surprise to many.

Hillary Clinton was equally dead as of Sunday. Losing by double digits in the polls and having been soundly defeated in Iowa, the air seemed to be coming out of her balloon.

However, some politicking from her husband (there are arguments over whether that was really a good thing) and a tear from Hillary herself (there are arguments over whether that was real or feigned emotion) combined with independents presumably voting for McCain, probably due in part to the fact that Obama was thought to be a shoe-in, and Clinton pulled it off.

So what do we think now? It's wide open, right?

Well, 24 states vote on February 5th. So yeah, I'd say it's wide open. The next few states are Michigan (primary Jan. 15), Nevada (caucuses Jan. 19), South Carolina (primary for Republicans Jan. 19, primary for Democrats Jan. 26), and Florida (primary Jan. 29). Maine Republicans will caucus on Jan. 3 and from there, it's on to Super Tuesday. Michigan and Florida's roles are unknown since they're being penalized for voting early. While I doubt anyone who loses all of these races will have a chance on February 5th, I do think there are six people (McCain, Huckabee, Romney, Clinton, Obama, and Edwards) who still have a chance. Heck, Giuliani could rise from the ashes and pull off Florida, which is something he's been counting on.

February 5th looks like this:

Alabama primaries
Alaska caucuses
Arizona primaries
Arkansas primaries
California primaries
Colorado caucuses
Connecticut primaries
Delaware primaries
Georgia primaries
Idaho caucuses
Illinois primaries
Kansas caucuses
Massachusetts primaries
Minnesota primaries
Missouri primaries
Montana caucuses
New Jersey primaries
New Mexico primary
New York primaries
North Dakota caucuses
Oklahoma primaries
Tennessee primaries
Utah primaries
West Virginia convention

(This list comes from CNN, though they have "Minnesota primaries" listed and we actually have a caucus, but beyond that it looks accurate.)

With delegate-rich New York and California up for grabs, this may finally be the year that the tiny, all-white rural (for what that fact is worth) states that go first don't decide who our next president is.

Isn't this fun?

NH: Who cares?

2008-01-09T12:04:00.000-05:00

New Hampshire has nominated McCain before.

I wonder how relevant the state is at this point. First of all, the state offers so few delegates that the delegate race is relatively unchanged. Huckabee and Romney still lead the Republicans in delegates, and Barack Obama still leads the Democrat delegate count.

Another reason New Hampshire may be irrelevant is the odd people the state has nominated before. For example McCain won in 2000, but lost the nomination. The state has also put forth candidates like Gary Hart, Paul Tsongas, and Pat Buchanan.

I'm not taking this too seriously. It's just New Hampshire.

NH: What Happened?

2008-01-09T11:51:00.000-05:00

Barack Obama lost New Hampshire for three reasons:

John McCain - Both Obama and McCain draw a lot of independent voters. McCain was a non factor in Iowa. In NH, despite the fact that Obama claimed more independents, McCain drew just enough to swing the election.
Fickle Women - Obama claimed more women than Hillary did in Iowa. Not in NH. What was the difference? She cried.
The Bradley Effect - This is very interesting. There is a tendency (read about it here) for voters to tell pollsters that they will vote for the non-white candidate because they feel that is what they should say. However, in the privacy of the voting booth they vote for the white candidate.

It's Not Huck's Faith

2008-01-09T11:45:00.000-05:00

This comes to us from Brian, who remains in blog exile:

I came across this blog entry by Rod Dreher (the author of Crunchy Cons....which is a book I highly recommend and I think you would enjoy immensely) Click here

A snippet:

as more and more people are catching on to, Huckabee's rise is not because of some zombie Jesus cult. He's scoring with folks for much the same reason Obama is: because he's an exceptionally good orator whose style is in tune with the mood of the country right now. Plus, his Joe Lunchbucket economic populism is striking a resonant chord with many Republican voters.
You could see as far back as the Pew political typology in 2005 that the Republican vote was moving more toward economic populism, without leaving behind social conservatism. Somebody was bound to find that sweet spot sooner or later. If Huck doesn't make it this year, he's not going away, and besides, there will be more Huckabee-style Republicans emerging in years to come.

Change Candidates

2008-01-08T12:13:00.000-05:00

Jim Wallis wrote a blog post that I thought I would share with you. He compares and contrasts Barack Obama and Mike Huckabee. You can read the entire post by clicking here, but a brief porting is below:

Both say they care about the poor. And both attack the special interests of wealth and power which stack the political deck against poor people and working class families. Barack Obama started his career as a community organizer in the streets of Chicago and peppers his political sermons with references to the biblical prophets' demands for social justice and Jesus' admonition to test our policies by their impact on "the least of these." Mike Huckabee easily blends his social conservatism with a biblical-sounding economic populism that appeals directly to middle and working-class families. And he did enough for the poor as governor of Arkansas that one conservative commentator has accused him of being a "Christian socialist."

Both Barack Obama and Mike Huckabee talk about moving beyond the political categories of left and right, liberal and conservative. Both call for real solutions instead of more blame, and pledge to work in a bi-partisan way to end the bitter political divisions and gridlock of Washington, D.C.

Both Barack Obama and Mike Huckabee believe that American foreign policy, over the last several years, has needlessly alienated the rest of the world and caused us to lose our moral standing among the nations. Obama continues to remind voters that he opposed the war in Iraq before it started. Both have criticized what Huckabee recently called the "arrogant bunker mentality" of U.S. foreign policy. And both believe the best way to change that is not through merely demonstrating the U.S.'s power, but rather by really talking to other nations - even our enemies - and by leading with more with generosity and compassion than with just military might.

Together, these two candidates—one Democrat and one Republican—are shaking up the presidential election contest of 2008. It remains to be seen if either of them will win their respective nominations, but they have already shaped and even defined the themes of this critical election year. Now, virtually all the candidates are using the language of "change" - now "change" defines the political paradigm of this election year.

Change is definitely the theme for this election year, and I think these two candidates have done the best job sounding that theme. What do you think?

Iranian Maneuvers

2008-01-07T13:40:00.001-05:00

Check out this article from Reuters. Here's tidbit:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Five Iranian boats made aggressive maneuvers and showed hostile intent towards three U.S. Navy ships at the weekend in the Strait of Hormuz, a major oil shipping route in the Gulf, the Pentagon said on Monday.

The Pentagon said the incident was serious. It described the Iranian actions as "careless, reckless and potentially hostile" and said Tehran should provide an explanation.

In Tehran, the Iranian foreign ministry described the incident as ordinary. [...]

The incident was the latest sign of tension between Washington and Tehran, at odds over a range of issues from Iran's nuclear program to U.S. allegations of Iranian support for terrorism.

Incidents like this make us scratch our head and wonder, "what are the Iranians thinking?"

Okay, we could look at this incident a few ways. First, we could just assume the Iranians are nut jobs. Two, we could assume the Iranians are so filled with hatred for the US that they cannot help but act with hostility. Or three, continues to purposefully attempt to provoke hostility from Americans. If the truth is one or two, we probably need to take action at some point. However, I think the third is closer to the truth. But, why? Why does Iran want confrontation.

Here are a few facts about Iran.

Iran is broke. The Islamic revolution has resulted in a deep recession that puts a heavy burden on common Iranian people. Inflation is sky rocketing, unemployment is at 11%, In fact Iran has had several occasions where the government encouraged family planning and birth control.
The current regime is unpopular. People are so burdened economically that Ahmadinejad does not hold as much sway as one would think. In fact, the only time he gains support is when he faces down the Americans. However, the real leader of Iran, Ayatollah Khamenei, is said to be displeased with the current regime.

We seem to forget that Ahmadinejad was a moderate when he first came to power. The realities of economic circumstances forced him to start picking fights to distract his people from their plight. The Islamic upper and middle classes would prefer less involvement in International affairs. However, Ahmadinejad power base is the vast lower class of Iran. He gains poularity by picking fights with the US.

Here's the point - the US only adds to Ahmadinejad's power by giving in to his provocations. We only make the situation worse when we fan the flames. The White House responded with warnings and insinuations of future danger. this doesn't help. Ahmadinejad will just return to his press corps and say, "The United States cannot direct our military operations," and he looks like an Iranian hero again.

From time to time, diplomatic language can help. the White House should call this an unfortunate incident, and just move on. Iran doesn't want a war, they only want an enemy.

Topic: International Policy

2008-01-07T13:40:00.000-05:00

In this time of politics and rhetoric, much attention is being payed to international issues. So, let's talk about various issues that the US is involved in around the globe. Would you care to post about any of the following:

Iraq
Iran
Terrorism
United Nations
Korea
Africa
Huminitarianism
etc

NH Primary: Bold Predictions

2008-01-07T12:53:00.000-05:00

If you will recall, in this previous post I predicted the Iowa Democrat Caucus on the money, but was way off on the Republican side. Here are my bold predictions for tomorrow's New Hampshire primary:

Democrat

Obama (by at least 12 percentage points)
Clinton
Edwards
Richardson

Republican

McCain
Romney
Giuliani
Huckabee

Further bold predictions:

McCain will spank Romney;
Giuliani and Huckabee will basically be tied;
Ron Paul will be no more than two percent behind Giuliani and Romney and he will beat out Fred Thompson
Romney will be in Macomb County, Michigan like a bat out of Hell;
More independents will vote for Obama than McCain

How 'bout it? Any other bold predictions out there?

NH Debates - Donkeys

2008-01-05T21:10:00.000-05:00

Moments of Brilliance

Edwards: "If I knew where Osama Bin Laden was, I'd take him out."
After Hillary spent some time ripping Obama, John Edwards said, "Every time somebody speaks out for change, the forces of status quo attack." Referring, of course to Hillary.
When asked about his response to Republican critiques of him, Obama said he was watching football back stage, and announced that the Redskins lost. In other words, who cares what the Republicans say?

Idiot Moments

The subject was Pakistan. Gov. Richardson said that he would ask Musharraf to step aside. Well, I guess that is one plan. Perhaps we should ask GW Bush to step aside.
Hillary fired off a lot of pot shots at Obama. One of them was that he has a lobbyist running hus New Hapshire campaign. Actually, Ned Helms runs the University of New Hampshire's Institute for Health Policy.
Richardson claimed that a president needed executive experience. Then, he said that his hero is JFK. Um, JFk was forty two when he became president and he had no executive experience.
Charlie Gibson, the moderator, claimed a tax for people earning over $200,000 would affect a professor at St. Anselm College, the debate's host. Many in the audience started laughing, presumably professors at St. Anselm.

Winner - Edwards
Edwards is a bull dog. Where was this guy four years ago? (I'd say Obama won, but that would be biased)

Loser - Redskins
Final score: 35-14, Seahawks

NH Debates - Elephants

2008-01-05T20:06:00.000-05:00

Moments of Brilliance

There was about ten minutes of Mitt Romney and John McCain calling each other names. Giuliani and Thompson tried as hard as they could to get into the fray. Huckabee tried like crazy to stay out. The whole time, Mike Huckabee sat back. listened and enjoyed the mayhem. In Huckabee's position, the less he says, the better.
Ron Paul explained that the price of oil has increased 350% in terms of the American dollar. However, according to the gold standard, the price of oil has risen 0.0%. Fix inflation, fix the oil problem.
ABC getting all of the candidates from both parties on the stage at once. Such a thing is refreshing considering how much effort the two eventual nominees will spend painting eachother negatively.

Idiot Moments

Mitt Romney speaking of health care, said part of the problem in health care is the 47 million uninsured people free loading on the current system. In other words, the uninsured jack up everybody else's prices. Apparently, the governor never considered the fact that those of us who do not have insurance can not afford it.
Fred Thompson scoffing at Ron Paul's assertion that the War in Iraq drives us into debt and raises inflation. Thompson apparently could not understand it.
Huckabee proposed offering a billion dollars to anybody who developed a car that provided 100 miles per gallon.

Winners- Giuliani and Huckabee
Giuliani kept trying to take charge of everybody else and bring everybody back to Sept 11th. Huckabee stayed out of it.

Losers - Romney and McCain
Romney got picked on more than a middle school fat kid. McCain spent a lot of time defending his policy. However, he spent more time calling Romney negative. Not good.

I Might Have to Vote Republican... Again

2008-01-05T12:10:00.000-05:00

I've been a Republican all my life. I've even worked on several campaigns. In the 2000 election, I volunteered for George W. Bush's campaign. I called around my home town and said all kinds of nasty stuff about John McCain during the primary. By the way, McCain won the Michigan primary, anyway.

President Bush has done so much politically to open my eyes. I still call myself a Republican, but I can't imagine supporting a Republican in November.

Unfortunately, I have a dilemma. The Democratic leaders here in Michigan ran awry of the DNC and have totally screwed up Michigan's Primary. Mostly, the Democrat primary is symbolic. So, I have a couple of options. Help me choose:

Option One - vote Democrat, but vote "uncommitted"
Option Two - vote in the Republican primary
Option Three - skip the primary this year

Here's the ironic thing. If I voted in the Republican Primary, I would probably vote for McCain, despite all those nasty things I said about him eight years ago.

So, what should I do?

Iowa: Winners and Losers

2008-01-05T12:06:00.000-05:00

I have a few more questions about Iowa before we move on to NH.

Did Edwards win or lose? He speaks as if he won second place. The pundits have all but given up on him.
Did Ron Paul win or lose? He achieved ten percent, which isn't bad considering this was a caucus and that he maintains such fringe stances. Is ten percent good or bad?
Which party won the caucuses?

A New Reformation (But Will it Work?)

2008-01-04T10:32:00.000-05:00

by Brian

“People are looking for a Presidential Candidate who reminds them more of the guy they work with rather than the guy who just laid them off.” – Mike Huckabee on the Jay leno show Wednesday night.

Be not afraid. Some people are going to tell you that Mike Huckabee’s victory last night in Iowa represents a triumph for the creationist crusaders. Wrong.

Huckabee won because he tapped into realities that other Republicans have been slow to recognize. First, evangelicals have changed. Huckabee is the first ironic evangelical on the national stage. He’s funny, campy (see his Chuck Norris fixation) and he’s not at war (bold the word war) with modern culture.

Second, Huckabee understands much better than Mitt Romney that we have a crisis of authority in this country. People have lost faith in their leaders’ ability to respond to problems. While Romney embodies the leadership class, Huckabee went after it. He criticized Wall Street and K Street. Most importantly, he sensed that conservatives do not believe their own movement is well led. He took on Rush Limbaugh, the Club for Growth and even President Bush. The old guard threw everything they had at him, and their diminished power is now exposed.

Third, Huckabee understands how middle-class anxiety is really lived. Democrats talk about wages. But real middle-class families have more to fear economically from divorce than from a free trade pact. A person’s lifetime prospects will be threatened more by single parenting than by outsourcing. Huckabee understands that economic well-being is fused with social and moral well-being, and he talks about the inter-relationship in a way no other candidate has.

In that sense, Huckabee’s victory is not a step into the past. It opens up the way for a new coalition.

Don’t get me wrong, Evangelicals won Iowa for Huckabee. They still feel culture is the problem. The thing really pushing his supporters, is that they believe that what ails America and threatens its continued existence is not economic collapse or jihad, it is our culture.

They have been bruised and offended by the rigid, almost militant secularism and multiculturalism of the public schools; they reject those schools' squalor, in all senses of the word. They believe in God and family and America. They are populist: They don't admire billionaire CEOs, they admire husbands with two jobs who hold the family together for the sake of the kids; they don't need to see the triumph of supply-side thinking, they want to see that suffering woman down the street get the help she needs.

They believe that Mr. Huckabee, the minister who speaks their language, shares, down to the bone, their anxieties, concerns and beliefs. They fear that the other Republican candidates are caught up in a million smaller issues--taxing, spending, the global economy, Sunnis and Shia--and missing the central issue: again, our culture. They are populists who vote Republican.

A conservatism that recognizes stable families as the foundation of economic growth is not hard to imagine. A conservatism that loves capitalism but distrusts capitalists is not hard to imagine either. Adam Smith felt this way. A conservatism that pays attention to people making less than $50,000 a year is the only conservatism worth defending.

Will Huckabee move on and lead this new conservatism? Highly doubtful. The past few weeks have exposed his serious flaws as a presidential candidate. His foreign policy knowledge is minimal. His lapses into amateurishness simply won’t fly in a national campaign. The presidency, as an office, can actually make real changes in the areas of economic and foreign policy, the federal government has a limited ability to change the culture of America

So the race will move on to New Hampshire. Mitt Romney is now grievously wounded. Romney represents what’s left of Republicanism 1.0. Huckabee and McCain represent half-formed iterations of Republicanism 2.0. My guess is Republicans will now swing behind McCain in order to stop Mike.

Huckabee probably won’t be the nominee, but starting last night in Iowa, an evangelical began the Republican Reformation.

Note: Due to technical problems (that are pretty funny), Brian is unable to post. So, he emailed the previous post to me and asked me to post it for him - Corey

Campaign/Washington Reform

2008-01-04T08:46:00.000-05:00

Campaign Finance Reform is, I think, an unsolvable problem by itself. You could put a tight cap on the donations from individuals and corporations thereby insuring only the wealthy can afford to run. Not only that but the government is open to litigation involving free speech infringement, and rightly so. On the other side you can open the flood gates and let the money and corruption flow into the war chests. Then we turn complete control over to lobbyists and special interest groups.

The only ‘real’ solution I can come see is also my solution for about half the problems that plague the feds: Nerf the federal government. I know it sounds idealistic, and has no real chance of happening, but if we give the power back to the states, counties, and towns (where it was always meant to be) we would have a much easier time cleaning up the corruption in campaigns.

No one in Washington represents me. Even in Lansing though, with a good rep, you can get someone that will listen and act for the district he or she represents. I know that both Obama and Paul have run campaigns funded largely from individuals but, wow, are they exceptions to the national scene. On the state level, that is not only possible, but happens all the time. If your state rep/senator had equal or greater power than their equivalent in Washington…what could we do then?

Another added benefit of having more local power, is that the people running for office on a national level would, I think, become less and less career politicians.

As long as the federal government continues to grow, spend, and ignore nothing good is going to get done.

Iowa Results

2008-01-03T21:57:00.000-05:00

The winners in Iowa are Barack Obama for the Dems and Mike Huckabee for the Republicans. Click here for the numbers.
To me there are three big stories coming out of Iowa:

Hillary: Third - wasn't she the inevitable winner? In the end, she lost even to Edwards.
No money, No problem - Huckabee won without spending much money. Romney out spent, out advertised, and out campaigned Huckabee, and he still lost. Is Romney toast?
Defiant Statistics - Obama won in a rural, conservative, Caucasian state. In addition, 44% of the Republicans that voted in the Democrat caucus, voted for Obama. The biggest surprise, however, is that Obama beat out Hillary among women voters.

Finally, when asked who could bring about the change that the country needs, Obama was the number one choice among Democrat voters.

What is your take? What are the headlines?

Campaign Finance Reform

2008-01-03T09:27:00.000-05:00

The Fix

I think two reforms would go a long ways in changing our political system.

Time - Part of the reason money plays such a huge role in our election cycle is because candidates start their campaigns 4 years before the election. This is nothing new. I've been reading a book that dates such maneuvering back to the late 19th century. So, I propose that a person cannot declare their candidacy or raise money until six months before the first primary. With less time, the candidates will use their time wisely. And, that means shaking hands with voters more than rubbing shoulders with fat cats.
Money - Many donors have complained that limiting their donation is limiting their free speech. To a certain extent, I believe that is true for private individuals, but not for giant corporations. So, let's limit corporate giving severely. However, we cannot return to the time when a few rich individuals determined the fate of the nation via their check book. So, limit private donations to a reasonable amount. A figure like $10,000 seems like a good ceiling, which is actually much higher than the level it is at right now. Then, eliminate soft money, PACs, and the rest of the hyenas in Washington. For proof of the ability to have a viable campaign with such restrictions, I would point to people like Obama and Ron Paul. Both men have raised vast amounts of money from private donors (many of them small).

What are your thoughts?

Iowa Predictions

2008-01-03T09:08:00.000-05:00

Is anybody else such a junky about this stuff that they're actually going to stay up and watch the returns? I am and I will.

Here are my bold predictions for the Iowa Caucuses:

DEMOCRATS

Obama
Edwards
Clinton
Richardson

REPUBLICANS

Romney
Huckabee
John McCain
Ron Paul/Fred Thompson tie

Topic: Campaign Finance Reform

2008-01-02T11:11:00.000-05:00

This week, let's discuss campaign finance. What do you think is the best way to regulate election donations? Is contributing to a campaign a form of free speech? Should a pool of money be evenly distributed among candidates?

Spiritual People In A Secular Nation

2007-12-26T13:33:00.000-05:00

America is a secular nation filled with spiritual people. Our government should reflect that.

C.S. Lewis wrote very little about politics; he was generally disinterested. However, he once wrote an essaythat is very applicable to our conversation. In "A Reply to Professor Haldane," Lewis wrote:

[...]Theocracy is the worst of all governments. If we must have a tyrant a robber barron is far better than an inquisitor. The baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity at some point may be sated; and since he dimly knows he is doing wrong he may possibly repent. But the inquisitor who mistakes his own cruelty and lust of power and fear for the voice of Heaven will torment us infinitely more because he torments us with the approval of his own conscience and his better impulses appear to him as temptations. And since Theocracy is the worst, the nearer any government approaches to Theocracy the worse it will be.

- Source

Human beings will inevitably be tempted to mistake their political ideologies for religious belief, and such a mixture is dangerous. You may be able to convince a person that their political beliefs are mistaken, their scientific stances are incorrect, or that their reading of history is erroneous. But, the deeply personal convictions that we hold in our faiths are almost impossible to dislodge. Look at the suicide bombers, and vicious zealots that plague our world today.

I am, therefore, suspicious of politicians who utilize the lingo of faith to justify their candidacy, or the politicians who paint policy issues with only black and white brushes. Politics is the art of compromise, and uncompromising stances is bound to lead to failure.

On the other hand, America has always been filled with people of faith. We have always been people who value our traditions, our worship, and our spirituality. We were founded not by one religious sect, but by many diverse people of faith Puritans, Quakers, Unitarians, Catholics, Baptists, and Deists. Yet, our Constitution and history has never reflected a dominance by any of those faiths. Instead, we have a nation of diverse spirituality where all are able to pursue their faith(s) without fear of government interference.

Let's embrace spiritual diversity, and resist theocratic systems. In addition, may our secular nation be forever spiritual.

What did the founders mean?

2007-12-26T12:59:00.001-05:00

The church/state debate often gets ridiculous. I thought Jay Leno summed it up well a few years ago when he pointed out the irony of the city of St. Paul, MN, taking down Easter decorations in an attempt to appease people of all faiths (or lack thereof) while the city itself was named SAINT Paul.

The separation of church and state wasn't intended to remove the acknowledgment of God from the government. It was intended to remove state funding of churches. In colonial days, taxes supported the Puritan church. However, as the Great Awakening of the 1730s came about and there were an increasing number of denominations, it was realized that there was no way for the government to decide which religious sect was right or who should receive money and how much they should receive. The term "separation of church and state" is not found in the constitution and it has been blown way out of proportion.

It's entirely appropriate for the government and government employees to use the term "Christmas". We have no problem with them talking about Hanukkah or Native American religious celebrations. We have no problem with them endorsing those things either. So there's no reason Christmas should be of concern.

But I think most people recognize the foolishness of the debate over the word "Christmas". The bigger question that should be answered is, "Does the separation between Church and state mean that all aspects of American government should be a completely secular?"

No, the government shouldn't be completely secular. At least not by my definition. It should be secular in its funding. I see no reason a Christian, Jewish, Mormon, etc. prison organization, for example, shouldn't receive federal funding if it has proven to provide results any more than a secular psychological organization should receive funding to achieve the same results. The government should be more concerned with the results than with the means to getting those results. Normally I wouldn't say that, but let's be serious. This is the government we're talking about. When it comes to federal funding, the results are what's important.

I also don't have a problem with a government official praying or endorsing something religious. Do I like the idea of school prayer? No, I don't. There are too many differences in my estimation between people of different faiths to have much of a public prayer. But just because I think that doesn't mean I should enforce that belief on a school that has decided they want to pray before a football game. It's one thing for me to not like that, but outlaw it? Come on...

I guess my biggest problem is with all of the laws that have been created to control what people in public positions can and can't say or do. It's absurd. If 90% of people want a prayer before school, why appease me and the other 10% that aren't nuts about it? We shouldn't be a society catering to the 10% just because they decided to whine.

Anyway, I could keep going, but I won't. As far as "should America be a through-going Christian country?", the answer is most definitely no (if you mean what I think you mean). We should not be a nation that says, "Our government is Christian." We can have a government of people who are Christians (though I doubt that's possible, but theoretically) and they can be people who make decisions that often are a product of their faith, but the constitution on which they are governing should be secular.

I could expound on that, but I've said enough already. Time for others to join the conversation.

Topic: Church & State

2007-12-24T11:24:00.000-05:00

Fear of an ACLU lawsuit has led many civic institutions to resist the term Christmas, and instead use the term holiday. Is this, right? Does the separation between Church and state mean that all aspects of American government should be a completely secular? Or, on the other side, should America be a thorough-going Christian country?

Christmas Ads

2007-12-21T14:47:00.000-05:00

Let's put the conspiracies to rest, I came across this YouTube clip from an employee, not because I watch the O'Reilly Factor. He emailed it to me and a couple other of us who have an interest in politics.

It starts with a video of Hillary's, Huckabee's, Edward's, Rudy's, and Obama's Christmas Ads.

Most of you will probably be offended at about the :27 mark just so you know.

Where's Romney?

After the Christmas Ads it's a discussion between Dick Morris and O'Reilly. Listen if you want to, you're not going to learn much (CONSPIRACY ALERT except the crack back on Hillary is funny CONSPIRACY ALERT OVER).

Primary Politics: Christmas

2007-12-20T23:03:00.000-05:00

Mike Huckabee's recent Christmas ad is stirring up a lot of controversy. Check out a video of it here, and then come back and let me know what you think of it.

Here's what Ron Paul had to say about the Huckabee ad:

"...When fascism comes to this country it will be wrapped in the flag, carrying a cross. And I don’t know if that’s a fair assessment or not. But you wonder about using a cross like he’s the only Christian or implying that subtly. So I don’t think I would ever use anything like that."

BTW, the first part of that quote was actually a quote from Sinclair Lewis, in all fairness to Rep. Paul.

Does it go too far? Is it a blatant appeal to evangelical voters? Or is it a kind, warm alternative to politics as usual?

Who Knows?

2007-12-20T12:32:00.000-05:00

Because I don't......

No surprise to many of you here, but I'm not a very subjective individual. Some things are very clear to me. Black and white if you will. And one of these situations is abortion. No matter what the political (domestic or foreign policy) or even religious beliefs of a candidate are, if they are pro-choice, they have no chance with me. This automatically throws out the Dems....all of them for this year. So to goes Giuliani.

Naive? Short-sighted? Stupid? Ignorant? Not at all.

As a Christian, as it is for all Christians, we have an obligation to always follow our conscience or the Spirit of God within us. This isn't just held to whether or not I choose to drink, dance, or get a tattoo. This holds true to who you vote for. I am compelled to vote my conscience. Voting for a pro-Choice candidate goes against my conscience.

That being said, which Pro-Life candidate do I vote for?

No clue.

I've shown allegiances to Ron Paul and Mike Huckabee on my blog (shameless plug 1 and 2). Doesn't really mean anything. I do disagree with the other contributors here that say Huckabee to them is Bush-Lite (gross). I'm not and never was a true Bush fan. McCain got my vote in the 2000 primary. But once it came down to Bush and Gore - conscience dictated. As it did in 2004. John Kerry....are you kidding me? I've since become empathetic to Bush even though I feel betrayed slightly as an Evangelical. But his Supreme Court nominations are exactly as he said they would be. And if a court case on abortion could ever make it there, I do wonder what would happen to Roe v. Wade. So to say he "used" us isn't true. We may still have abortion on the books but it's not gotten any worse. And I support the war in Iraq. Is it time for a change in that fiasco? No. Why? Because right now the plan is working? Proof can be found in the fact that Iraq has fell down on the list of voter priorities. Was the plan faulty from the beginning? Yes. But it has been fixed. But Huckabee doesn't come with the pedigree Bush did (his dad was a sort of flip-flopper himself) and doesn't have the scent of snake oil on him. It's just the Evangelical pessism sneaking in that all Evangelicals suffer from. (shamelss plug 3)

But this is a very odd election year. The uncertainty, felt by some who've endorsed a candidate, stems from many factors. The primary elections come earlier and thicker than ever this year, intruding on the holidays and the holiday spirit especially of the vanguard voters in Iowa and New Hampshire, but disquieting any American who would like to deliberate about this fateful choice a little longer. There are a lot of Republican contenders to chose from, too, and most are plausible as president.

Which is why, after the abortion issue is figured out, my next criteria is conservatism. Small, limited federal government. Liberalism is about the use of tyranny to make people behave better. It is the very thing the founders of our nation had a problem with. Giving power to the federal government to make choices for us. Universal healthcare, public education, and the current religious fervor of climate control are current examples of this. Which is where my love for Ron Paul comes into play.

But the guy is crazy. He is a radical and probably exactly what Washington needs to shake things up. But he's the candidate that I feel would accomplish less than all others because of his isolation.

Huckabee has his own blend of faith-based social nostrums and ambitious economic reforms. In fact, he combines the two in a Hail-Mary proposal to replace the income and payroll taxes with a national sales tax. He has less to say about foreign policy or small government. Indeed, he suggests, somewhat in the manner of a European Christian Democrat, that government should apply Christian charity in its programs as a way of correcting excesses of capitalism and individualism.

Mitt Romney aspires, with some success to be a conservative for all seasons. But his emphasis on his achievements as a businessman and consultant so ill-fits our wartime situation that I doubt his seriousness on moral and foreign policy.

McCain, is still my boy. No doubt of his seriousness but his is noble disdain of self-interested actions (whether campaign contributions or waterboarding) go to far in the other direction.

Fred Thompson, for all his virtues, is seeking to play Regan redux. But the challenges facing the Right occur in a new context and require fresh thinking; and in any event, the sequel is rarely as compelling as the original.

One could go on. The problem is that Republicans voters don't recognize any of these trial versions of conservatism as the real deal, a distillation of American principles for our time; and they're right. In the meantime, however, there is a president to nominate and elect.

If I had to vote in the primary today? It's Huckabee.

If I had to vote for President between Giuliani and any Dem? It's Ron Paul.

For now.

Hope: Barack Obama

2007-12-19T11:35:00.000-05:00

You can count on me, Oprah!

I'm supporting Barack Obama in the Democrat primary. To me, Obama represents the solution to three salient needs.

1. Health Care - While I am in favor of universal health care, and I would support the Conyers Bill to expand Medicare to all Americans, we are politically not there, yet. Obama's plan represents a real step in the right direction. Unfortunately, the plan still allows insurance companies and pharmaceuticals to pilfer American citizens, but it at least gets everybody covered. In our country, healthcare costs are the number one reason for Bankruptcy, family homelessness, and foreclosure. Literally millions of children are uninsured in the richest country in the world. It is time to change.

2. Iraq - Obama has consistently been right on the Iraq War. He publicly questioned the intelligence that was used as a justification for preemption, and has a rational plan to get us out. An Obama presidency would also insure that the culture of warmongering paranoia and fear would cease, and a new culture that balances diplomacy and security would begin.

3. Un-Free Trade - NAFTA, WTO, and other free trade agreements are gutting the middle class. Today, unions and other middle class power structures are largely irrelevant and ignored. Job after job leaves the United States middle class and ends up in some other country. Meanwhile, multinationals get richer and more powerful by the day. It is time for somebody to stand up to multinational fat cats. We need free trade, I believe that. However, we should not be the only ones paying for free trade. There isn't a stronger labor candidate than Obama.

I heart Huckabee

2007-12-18T20:17:00.000-05:00

Well, not entirely, but I couldn't help titling the post after the movie. It was too good of a cheesy segue.

I'll post my thoughts on the Republican primary since I tend to swing Republican, though over the last year I've ceased to label myself as a Republican for a number of reasons that will require another post. In the interest of labeling myself on a few issues, I like lower taxes, minimal federal spending, and for what it's worth, yes, I believe abortion is wrong. I think Republican leadership has been a sham overall in these departments but I still hold to the belief that the Democrats wouldn't do any better and that Libertarians aren't unified enough in their message to offer an alternative, nor is any other party or person.

In any event, I've been watching Mike Huckabee for a while and am leaning towards supporting him. I think he's honest and I like his wit and much of his policy. I like that he has executive leadership experience as a governor, which nearly always leads to a better president. His track record in Arkansas has shown that he can effectively lead a bipartisan assembly, which is what we currently have in the bitterly divided House and Senate.

I have some brief thoughts on the other candidates. I don't see a guy like Fred Thompson, who on paper holds many of the same beliefs as Huckabee but differs enormously in style (he seems more "my way or the highway"), being able to strike any kind of a bipartisan chord as president. Duncan Hunter and Tom Tancredo have some good ideas, but at this point, they have nothing than good ideas and the fact that they've filed for the presidential election. I thought Hunter's response to a gay soldier in the Republican debate was pitiful and I don't know much more about Tancredo than the fact that he hates illegal immigration. I don't trust Mitt Romney because of his inability to take a stand when questioned on...well, anything. Rudy Giuliani has way too much baggage and I have no faith that he would do anything to reduce the size of the federal government. I'm not convinced that John McCain's position that we stay the course in Iraq is the best, and he doesn't talk about a lot more than that.

Ron Paul is a guy I really want to support. I love the fact that he's so ardent in his fight for smaller government. It's a fundamental belief of economic conservatives that the Republican Party has long lost. I don't know if I completely agree with his Iraq War strategy (I'm not in favor of the war, but I'm not yet convinced that an overnight pullout will effectively clean up the mess either), but he's so right on so many other issues that it's hard not to like him. The problem with Paul is that he's so isolated that he'll never successfully bridge the partisan divide in Washington and accomplish any of his goals. On top of that, with nothing more than Congressional experience, he lacks any executive leadership that is necessary for the office of President. I don't see him handling foreign policy well and...well, he's sort of owly. Okay, that was unfair. But it's true. In any event, I'd love to take most of Ron Paul's policies and combine them with Huckabee's charisma and persona and I'd probably have my ideal candidate.

My biggest concern with Huckabee is that he'll go the route of Bush. I don't want a guy who campaigns heavily to evangelicals with a moral politics message but does nothing to reduce the size of the federal government, much less advance that moral agenda he was so high on during the campaign season. I appreciate that unlike Romney, Huckabee hasn't apologized for decisions he made as governor that have upset conservatives.

Now, can Huckabee (or any Republican) win the general election? At this point, I think his only shot is for a Hillary Clinton victory in the Democratic nomination, which would result in a Democratic nominee who is hated by as many people as love her.

But still, at this point, Huckabee's frankness, humor, experience and policies reflect a genuine, moderately conservative leader who is willing to break with either party over his convictions, and that gives him my vote. I wouldn't lay my life down for the guy. I wouldn't even put a bumper sticker on my car for him. But I'd vote for him.

I know this post is a bit scattered, but since leaving my job in politics, I haven't made nearly the effort to follow political happenings like I should, so I apologize if my post suffers from that.

Regardless, let the criticism begin...

UPDATE:

I don't have much time, but just noticed that it was requested that we include arguments for our candidates' strength on foreign and domestic policy. Again, there are more educated views out there than mine, but here are my quick thoughts.

On domestic policy, Huckabee's experience as governor of Arkansas demonstrated his ability to lead at home. He effectively managed the state for 10.5 years. He has taken flack from some groups who have accused him of increasing state spending, which concerns me, but he has also signed onto the Fair Tax, which I tend to support (though the flat tax is probably a more realistic alternative) and has signed a pledge not to raise taxes. (Not that that does much if you still raise spending, but I don't 100% trust anyone but Ron Paul not to raise spending.) His position on immigration is probably the most viable. He advocates for plugging up the leaks, but doesn't advocate for rounding up the 10-20 million people here illegally, considering the fact that these are real lives with real families, not cattle. And again, I appreciate his bipartisan appeal in his home state and I'm optimistic it could help change the tone in Washington.

On foreign policy, it's hard to say how good Huckabee would be. His support for foreign aid in the fight against AIDS, TB, and malaria should help him, and he certainly hasn't done anything to isolate the United States. Additionally, he doesn't take the hard-line stance on immigration that others like Tancredo have, which should help give him more respect internationally and certainly with Mexico.

I certainly disagree with him on a number of things and the more I've read about him, the more concerned I am that he'll be another Bush. But, I don't like saying "I don't know" when asked who I'd vote for, so here's your answer.

Just know that it could very well change to "Ron Paul."

UPDATE II:

The more I think about this, the more I realize that I like Paul's ideas better, I just think Huckabee would make a better executive leader and would bring more unity to Washington. I don't know if that even makes sense. I'm still standing by my post. But I'm also probably just as confused as the people who've read it.

Hopefully the comments help.

Topic: Primary Race

2007-12-18T09:09:00.000-05:00

This weeks topic examines the upcoming primaries and caucuses. Who are you pulling for in the primaries, and why? Argue for your candidate on the basis of domestic, and foreign policy.

Contributors Needed

2007-12-17T11:14:00.000-05:00

Posting in earnest will begin when enough contributors are recruited.

Interested in being a contributor to this conversation? Email Corey at watchman146@gmail.com .

PoliForum

2007-12-17T01:58:00.000-05:00

Welcome to PoliForum.

Here's the rundown. I will introduce the subject matter for the week every Monday and contributers will be encouraged to post on that subject throughout the week. IN addition, contributors are also encouraged to post on whatever is on their mind, or any current event that needs mentioning.

That's it! Hopefully, we can converse in a cordial, respectful matter about things we are all passionate about.

With that said, let the conversation begin!