On Friday, job losses for January came in at 598,000, which was worse than the forecasts of most experts. Still, it fell far short a Nancy Pelosi’s Wednesday prediction of 500,000,000. Pelosi had stated that each month the stimulus package was not passed 500 million Americans lose their jobs. Scare tactics aside, Americans were left to wonder how it would be possible for the equivalent of every working American to lose their job every week. I pondered this could actually mean full employment because everyone would have to be hired the following week in order to lose their job that week. In Washington, Pelosi suffers just like others in this disconnected Congress where thousands, millions, billions, and trillions just get really confusing. I thought maybe Pelosi really believes the stimulus bill is $800 million, not billion.
    Barack Obama became frustrated several times during the week over the stimulus bill. One day he had to escape the White House, having been held prisoner there for two weeks and went to second grade. On Thursday the democrats went down to Williamsburg and told the president he could take Air Force One to come and see them. This was just a little fuel efficient test run of 150 miles, but Obama was like a kid with a new toy.
    Still, later, his frustrations boiled over. Pass the bill or we have a catastrophe he claimed. After all he needed three Republicans to pass the bill in the senate. Obama was resorting to his community organizing skills. But he’s President now. This was requiring overtime. The president explained that he was tired. His staff was exhausted. And that was just from going over the tax returns of his cabinet appointments. Fatigue had set in after sixteen days on the job. It’s possible this guy’s going to look older than Jimmy Carter after one term in office. No, I mean Carter today, not when he left office in 1981.
    What happened to the Mr. Unflappable, according to his image-makers? Not to worry. By late Friday one of those typical Republican moderates, Susan Collins had bailed out Obama and the pathetic, mumbling Harry Reid. Collins said something to the effect that we can’t let partisanship keep us from passing this bill. Why not, the democrats never left partisanship at the “waters edge” during the last seven years.
    Sadly, less than 35 Americans truly know what is in this bill. Collins and other moderates found the great moderate courage to get the bill back to the amount it was roughly when it came from the House. The time is now to rush this through, a bill that has never even had committee hearings in either House. You have to believe that when the details of this $820 billion monstrosity emerge after passage we’ll find 500 million reasons it should never have happened.

Today I received an email titled “Avoiding IRS fines and penalties”. I didn’t bother to open it because I already had the answer. No seminar and no fees. All I need to do is have President Obama nominate me to a cabinet position.

Tom Daschle is the newest tax cheat revelation in Obama’s “Change You Can Believe In Ethically Pure” administration. But Daschle’s $128,000 in back taxes must have Tim Geithner, the new tax cheat Treasury Secretary, celebrating. These guys can certainly put their accountants on speed dial when nominations come around. These Obama appointments are the best thing to happen to the accounting profession since Sarbanes-Oxly.

            As a former democrat senate majority leader, Daschle was great at the most opportune times to say the rich were not paying their fair share in taxes. And now we know why. Daschle thought everyone else was evading taxes like he was. That is, everyone rich enough, to hide that much income.

            President Obama wasn’t worried, saying he expected Daschle to be confirmed. And why not? Harry Reid is sure to turn his two blind eyes to tax evasion once again and usher his predecessor on through. In this old boys club of the senate a democrat could be indicted for blackmail and espionage and still get 51 democrat votes –at least.

            No, Obama was more upset with those Wall Street firms paying $18 billion in bonuses. He actually said now is not the time to make profits. Joe Biden wants to “throw them in the brig”. Who? Neither of these guys in their indignation bothered to cite who paid the bonuses and who received them. It’s just Wall Street and they stink.

            But those bonuses don’t fund the government. Taxes do. And we know who did not pay their taxes on time. You’d think there would be some indignation about that from our president. But right now funding the government does not seem to be a big concern. The priority is spending the government’s (our) money on every pet liberal constituency group, from wherever that money can be borrowed. Now that, my friends, is a shameful bonus (almost one trillion dollars) paid to the producers of the last election cycle victories.

           

             

            Somewhere someone is trying to understand that poem that was read at the inauguration. Otherwise, it is pretty well understood universally that we had a tech bubble that burst in 2000 and a housing bubble that burst in 2008. Now it’s possible that we have an expectations bubble for Barack Obama?

            It seemed quite appropriate that apparently dozens of people had to be treated for hypothermia in that crowd in Washington. Word was that due to the great numbers suffering from the cold, the treatment procedures required people to actually be unconscious to be admitted to the emergency medical units. How ironic! Because the Obama campaign was highlighted last spring and summer by women passing out during his speeches or maybe even at the very sight of “the one”.

            I for one am reluctant to call the Obama expectations a bubble. I believe a balloon is a better analogy. The Obama phenomenon has been a giant party balloon filled with hype, growing bigger and bigger for almost two years. Bubbles burst, but usually balloons just slowly deflate. I would submit that the “O’balloon” began deflating just a little with that speech on Tuesday that will never be chiseled in granite anywhere significant. The highest grade I heard was a “B”. “B” is for balloon. And this one was not soaring.

            After the inaugural balls it was time to govern, something new for “the one”. The O’balloon will not deflate quickly. The Corrupt Mainstream Media will make sure of that. A couple years down the road, if we are attacked, after it’s too late to blame Bush, that would be the closest, we come to a “burst” of the balloon. But by the end of this year as questions are asked about all this spending and unemployment inches higher, those expectations will have leaked out of the O’balloon and something new will have to be breathed into it. Ah ye suckers!

    Please help me. I can’t stand all this transparency. The only thing Obama has not said to distance himself from old governor Blagojevich is “I never knew the man”. A reporter mentioned that Obama met with Blago on November 5, the day after the big blowout in Grant Park election night. Did they only discuss who was picking up the remainder of the tab, or cleanup details?
    Spare me the accolades for articulateness that are showered on Obama. He bumbled his way through the last news conference on this scandal. His designated chief of staff is up to his neck in this and won’t answer any questions. Rauhm Emanuel apparently is on tape with Blago in at least one or more meetings or calls after Election Day. Only the most devoted Obama fans would believe the President-elect had NO conversations with Blago on his successor. Oh wait, I forgot. That includes about everyone in the corrupt mainstream media (CMM). We’re now in a 72 hour plus news blackout by the Obama camp called an internal review. This can also be called cover-up, cover our tracks, or any other kind of story that would make Eddie Haskel proud.
    If the President-elect was a Republican, members of congress would already have called for a special prosecutor. The CMM would be previewing inauguration day impeachment hearings. However, it is somewhat fun to see Illinois democrats trying to figure out the PR for their state.
    Perhaps nothing can temper Obamamania, but his handling of this fiasco does not inspire objective confidence. Transparency would be admitting conversations about the senate seat. But this would require answering uncomfortable follow-up questions. Those answers should have been easy for Obama, unless there is something to hide.

      Governor Tim Pawlenty has no future in presidential politics. Not that Pawlenty is not a bright governor with some accomplishments in his administration. Not because John McCain considered and rejected him for vice-president. That could be a plus. No, Pawlenty is from Minnesota which should now disqualify anyone for national politics.

       It will be a stigma for a long time to be from Minnesota. The state has been vying for the award of dumbest state for years but wins it convincingly this year. This is due to the fact that Al Franken, one of the unfunniest comedians in the world, is a corrupt recount away from becoming a U.S. senator from Minnesota. Minnesotans had the opportunity to vote for unqualified people for the top two positions on their ballot, and voila, it looks like they have. They voted for Obama, a half term senator, and to fill the void that creates in the senate, the people of Minnesota are on the verge of putting a nut- case on the left side of the senate aisle. Come to think of it, there is no void of humorless, radicals on that side of the senate. He may be joining some of the other celebrities who are in the senate only because of their name and riches.

       Minnesota had to scorn incumbent Norm Coleman for this to happen. Coleman is one of the
most decent people in the senate with some real accomplishments. He had the courage to rip the U.N. and expose some of the oil for food scandal. He is a former mayor of Minneapolis, but that doesn’t matter to voters in this state. They rejected Coleman previously when he ran for governor. Who won that race? Jesse Ventura. Yes, you do not win the dumbest state award without a good resume of stupidity.

       Minnesota has not gone with the GOP for president since 1972. Yes, they voted for the Nixon landslide, showing they can’t even pick a good Republican. So their favorites over the years include these stalwarts, Carter, Mondale, Dukakis, Gore, and Kerry. Of course, they voted against Reagan twice.

       To insure the election of a democrat in any important close race, the people of Minnesota selected a secretary of state promoted by move-on.org. You really can’t make this stuff up. He’s promised to be impartial when ballots are found in cars of election officials. Before you know it, we’ll have a president who used to work with ACORN. Wait, right again. The date is January 20, 2009.

      

 

           Barack Obama has finally articulated the kind of change he is going to bring about when he is president. This week he stated that you build an economy from “the bottom up”. Liberals like Obama deride tax cuts for the rich and trickle down economics. This is what has been going on the last eight years and has resulted in employing almost 95% or more of the available workforce most of that time.

            But now that we are down to 96% employment, the misery is so high that America may bet on Obamanomics, where we will apparently take more money from the top, stop the trickling down, and invest in the bottom of the economy. I have to conclude that the bottom is the homeless population. Who is below them on the economic ladder? The homeless now have a vested stake in this election and I can now understand why ACORN has been going to extraordinary efforts to get them to the polls.

            There are some inconsistencies here. Obama says there will be a work requirement for people who do not pay income taxes to get his $1,000 tax credit. I guess it all depends on the meaning of “work”. Obama has been a community organizer and apparently has seen the work ethic of the homeless. Assuming the government can get the $1,000 per year to the homeless, then we will see Obamanomics in action.

            The first action Obama would be assuming is that the homeless stop panhandling which will put more money into the pockets of people above them on the economic scale. These people in turn will put their extra money into the economy. This will generate more demand and activity in the economy. How can it fail?

            Well, it’s an extreme scenario to make a point. The bottom of the economy does not create wealth. In Obamanomics, the people who do create new jobs and expand the economy have money taken away from them and cease to provide new jobs, in fact, probably laying off employees. It takes more than $1,000 to make up for a lost job, even a minimum wage one. But with that, I’m going to shut up, before step 2 becomes part of Obamanomics. Step 2 results in a $10,000 tax credit for non-income tax payers and a return to Jimmy Carter’s top tax rate of 70%. Too many people today do not remember Carternomics and the real misery index.

   

            I thought this was John McCain’s election to lose. And it’s looking more and more like that. McCain can’t win. Why? Because John McCain will not run against this democrat Congress. It’s not in him to rip the democrats on a sustained basis, which is what he must do. I laid this out a few weeks ago (see McCain’s Mission…) as a three broad issue attack - energy, earmarks, and the surge.

But now, even more history is on the side of the GOP with documentation that McCain and Bush were both trying to reign in Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae going back to 2002. Talk radio is playing sound bites of Barney Frank fending off regulators of those institutions back in 2005 and 2006, and saying there were no problems, whatsoever. Is the McCain campaign unable to get these recordings? Can they put it all together in some ads? I think a sophomore in high school could.

No, McCain wants to fire Chris Cox. He always finds it easier to rip Bush and other Republicans. If he wants to get rid of the bilge of Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi, John McCain must blame the democrats for everything. What does he think Obama is doing? Have you heard Obama criticize a democrat other than Hillary Clinton? McCain must take off the gloves! Gas prices have been over $4.00 because of 30 years of democrats against drilling, not just from 2008. They were wrong, wrong, wrong on the surge. Play those sound bites including Obama. Convict them with their own words.

While the McCain campaign is running against a democrat Congress with a 14% approval rating and tying Obama to them, the conservative 527’s need to be running a massive anti-Obama campaign disconnected from McCain. The 527 ads will drill into American brains the Obama connection with Bill Ayers, the anarchist. They will play Reverend Wright and his beliefs over and over. They will raise his connections with Tony Resco (Hillary did). They will show Obama’s close relationship with ACORN and document well the criminal activities of that organization. They will tell uninterested Americans about the ACORN tie in with Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae and how Obama has gotten more donations from them in the last four years than anyone else.

But you know I’m hallucinating. John McCain is out there talking about being bi-partisan. It will be too late when and if he realizes that Barack Obama, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, and Barney Frank do not have a bi-partisan bone in their bodies.

John McCain is running for the third Bush term so it goes, blah, blah, blah. The clear democrat strategy is to run AGAINST Bush who is not even on the ballot. They are trying to ram this down our throats until Election Day. In fact, there appears to be little else they are running on. But there is someone on the ballot this fall who is more unpopular than Bush - Congress. Congress’ approval rating is lower than half of Bush’s. And it should be. This Congress is in contention to compete for worst of all time.

Republicans went on offense at the convention and it was great to see. And it was seen by a greater audience than any other convention in history. Eat your heart out, Obama! McCain and Palin must not just ride that momentum but use it and move onto the next target. And just as Harry Truman ran against Congress in 1948, John McCain can take that strategy to victory sixty years later.

Why is it critical? For one thing, it would be nice to once again stand conventional wisdom on its head. Even most conservative commentators are saying the “Republican brand is damaged”. I am so sick of hearing this. Is it because Iraq has turned around, or because the media keeps hyping a recession that just hasn’t resulted in even one quarter of negative growth, let alone the two quarters that are required.

Republicans are of no help and sit there quaking in their boots and panicking about the lost seats they see coming in November. Whether they are in the majority or minority the Republicans always seem to be on defense, instead of offense. John McCain doesn’t help by criticizing Bush more than Congress. McCain has been consistently trying to distance himself from Bush. But McCain was not in the Bush administration. He is in Congress. He better start thinking about putting distance between himself and those delinquents!

So here is how McCain must attack the democrat Congress. He must relentlessly and ruthlessly do it on three big topics in this order – energy, the Surge, and earmarks. The economy has been jolted by the over-lending crisis as I like to call it and housing deflation. But utmost in all Americans every day worries are energy prices. Still, the democrats stubbornly refuse to lift drilling bans and endorse nuclear energy. They must finally pay a political price. McCain must use factual history and voting records to show that the democrats’ actions on this are not just recent, but go back three decades, illustrating the effect on trade deficits from oil imports, as well as the hundreds of thousands of jobs that have NOT been created because the energy industry in this country was handcuffed by the liberals.

 The democrats wasted literally hundreds of days of this Congress trying to de-fund the war and surrender in Iraq. There are dozens of sound bites that can be effectively used in their own words saying as late as June 2007 that the surge would not work. In fact many of these were blistering attacks on the strategy that McCain supported. I’ve heard them on talk radio. McCain must use them in TV and radio ads. The democrats undermining of this war must be documented and used against them.

The democrats promised to clean up earmarks when they took over. Instead, it got much worse. McCain has a clean record on earmarks. This issue provides a third leg, but a distant one. Sad as it is, it’s hard to get voters excited about overspending. That’s why I do not believe the GOP lost in 2006 because of that issue. Yes, there was some corruption uncovered, but it was true of the democrats, also. The war in 2006 was a drag on the party, but the GOP never did go on offense against the democrats and support our president. And don’t forget the amnesty for illegal aliens that some in the GOP supported playing a huge role, even back in 2006 of infuriating and disillusioning the base.

Nancy Pelosi just made a fool of herself on the Catholic Church stand on abortion a few weeks back. She’s also displaying fascist practices in her House rules conduct. Harry Reid made a speech at the democrat convention as mean-spirited and dull as ever. This dynamic duo is ripe for the taking. Never more unpopular. I’m not sure John McCain has it in him to really attack his own institution. But he must for two big reasons.

Hammering this Congress on these three issues will fire up the GOP base even more on top of the celebration they have had with Sarah Palin. Secondly, if done in concert with the Congressional GOP election strategy it will minimize losses for the GOP in Congress easing McCain’s job in working with Congress in 2009. McCain does have some traits that remind me of Harry Truman. Let the comparisons be made. The strategy works. Let the fun begin. The facts are on our side.

            All of the sudden, democrats want to talk about the importance of experience. Sarah Palin has no experience they say and that takes experience “off the table”. What they now want to point out is that Palin has no foreign policy experience and less than two years as governor. The funny thing is governors, as a rule, don’t get involved in foreign policy. In 1992, Bill Clinton had no foreign policy experience. Ditto for George W. Bush in 2000, and Ronald Reagan in 1980. That’s right! Our last three two-term presidents had no foreign policy experience in elected office before they were elected president.

            Why is it that we seem to elect governors or vice-presidents? This will be the first time in 48 years we have elected a sitting senator, and only the second time in history (Harding and Kennedy). Mike Huckabee seemed to say it well on Friday. He offered that he made more decisions as a governor in one month’s time, than a senator will make in two years. If that’s close to accurate, Sarah Palin is 40 years ahead of Barack Obama in experience. (Obama has not really shown up for the last two years out of four he’s been in the Senate).

            Governors are actually responsible for the executive branch of an entire state. This entails similar duties to what a president has and offers a record of success or otherwise. Governors oversee law enforcement, propose and balance budgets working with the legislature, and have to take the blame when things go wrong like any CEO. Governor Palin’s approval rating is around 80%.

            Legislators like Obama look forward to lobbyists and recesses. I’m not sure why we’re comparing Obama and Palin. Did we compare John Edwards to George Bush in 2004? Oh that John Edwards brought a wealth of gravitas with his one term in the U.S. Senate. In fact, the three major contenders on the democrat side for 2008, Edwards, Clinton and Obama brought a total of  approximately 16 years in the U.S. Senate when they started campaigning, and not one day of executive experience for any of them.

            Obama can claim experience over Palin in only one area – campaigning nationally. He has been through a long campaign to this point. He gives a great speech. But his acceptance speech was very telling. In the midst of all the “I will’s” that we heard on Thursday night (and I stopped counting at over two dozen), there were few “I did’s”. Obama has no compelling story of actual accomplishments.

Less than 14 hours later Governor Sarah Palin was telling her story, a remarkable truth of how a hockey mom came from nowhere to take on the corrupt establishment in her own state and her own party to clean up government in Alaska. On second thought, let’s go ahead and make that comparison between Palin and Obama, regardless of how irrelevant it is.

            Many Americans like me, I’m sure, were puzzled recently over a statement made by that tower of eloquence, Barrack Obama. A seven-year old asked a pretty basic question of Barack –“Why do you want to be President?” As Obama stumbled through an answer that was seeking a sentence he proclaimed “America is not what it once was, uh, what it could be..” He then implicated his daughters in saying he doesn’t want them to grow up in a country like, well I guess like it is today.

            So it might be useful to figure out what era Obama was talking about that he would choose for his daughters, and by the way, the rest of us. Let’s look at Obama’s proposals and see what they would bring and what period of our history would best compare. Obama wants to retreat from Iraq without winning or assuring stability, and he has made it very clear that his response to high energy prices is a windfall tax on oil companies amongst other spending proposals. These are major and very well documented pieces of his movement for “change”.

            As I look back on history, the period of time which had the same characteristics Obama’s proposals would bring on was the Jimmy Carter seventies. Jimmy Carter endorsed and signed a windfall profits tax on the oil companies. Gas prices did not go down and our energy crisis prevailed until the Reagan deregulation. Among the features of the Carter policy were long lines at gas stations and even a little rationing. Carter oversaw the period after the Vietnam withdrawal and debacle, and the projected weakness in our slashed military budget resulted in communist expansion around the world, as well as allowing the Iran regime change and the introduction of Islamo-Fascism terrorism worldwide.

            We have challenges in our country today, but we are not “what we once were” in 1979. But, I too, know that is what we “could be” if Obama is elected, and I pray common sense will not let that come to pass.

            Now that congressional democrats have rejected the laws of supply and demand it’s openly apparent they want higher fuel prices. “We can’t drill our way out of this” is their battle cry. But at $5.00 a gallon in some parts of the country, American might want to consider who to drill, not where to drill. The democrats’ solution is to drill Big Oil with windfall taxes. That’s because the “Big Left” never passes up any possibility for a new tax or tax increase. Will that make Americans happy with lower gas prices? We’ve been here before under Jimmy Carter. Wasn’t that a wonderful experience? Windfall taxes did not work then, and they won’t now. But that doesn’t stop The Big Left.

            The dirty little secret is The Big Left wants high oil prices worse than Big Oil. The Big Left despises oil as the engine of our economy. The disciples of Al Gore still believe the gas combustion engine to be the greatest threat to mankind (global warming and all that rot). They do not care what high prices do to the economy. A faltering economy under Bush or even a democrat gives the Big Left the green light to come in with all sorts of “fixes”.

            The Big Left may have overplayed their hand this time. A current poll says Americans want to drill and explore for oil in our country by 65% to 18% against. It makes you realize what a minority the enviro-nuts really are. What do they propose? Oh yes, they are big proponents of solar and wind energy. We just haven’t figured out how to make cars run with those methods. Solar and wind are environmentally-friendly but just cannot seem to get traction in producing more than 1% of our electricity.

            Barrack Obama has rested his case on the side of the Big Left. He buys into the Bill Clinton philosophy of “It won’t do anything for ten years”. Yep, Clinton vetoed exploration in Alaska ten years ago. That’s th e kind of long-term thinking we love in our political leaders who seldom think beyond the next fundraising dinner. And ten years from now Obama can proudly survey the wreckage of U.S. economy at the beginning of the decade and blame Big Oil for not funding alternative fuels. Wait, John McCain said that, too. At least McCain has a plan to spur nuclear power plants. Conventional power plants are part of the global warming blame game. Nuclear plants produce clean, green energy. The enviro-nut driven Big Left wants no part of any of it. No carbon footprint. No energy. No we can’t. What happened to “Yes we can!”. 

            Democrat politicians are ecstatic over the Supreme Court decision giving unlawful enemy combatants rights that illegal aliens don’t even have. It makes sense. Democrats in Washington have undermined our war efforts at every turn and this helps that effort. Now that our surge has subdued terrorists in Iraq, Nancy Pelosi has given credit to the Iranians for their “goodwill.” The other fabulous liberal leader, Harry Reid can say the war is lost, be contradicted by subsequent events over the last year, and go merrily on his way to his next treasonous statement without consequence.

            If democrats were true to themselves, their campaign theme this year and every year would not be “Yes we can” or other such inanities, it would be “See you in court” or “Let the courts decide”. Therein lies the hope for all leftist causes. Same sex marriage? Only the courts will favor that. Let illegals in? Take it to court. Obama was quite happy with the giving the terrorists American citizen rights. When he is president he will return us to the law enforcement mentality of the Clinton administration against terrorists that encouraged ongoing attacks. Is that “change”? Or is it going back to the “old failed policies?

Five black robes overturned 220 years of precedence. This includes a 1950 unanimous decision by FDR appointees on this very question of enemy combatants’ rights. Hey, whatever happened to “stare decisis?” Remember how the democrats were so exercised over their precious abortion sacrament that they questioned Roberts and Alito endlessly on upholding precedence in Roe v Wade, as we were educated in legal terms as “stare decisis”. Well Roberts and Alito followed it here. But the dirty little secret is leftists on courts never follow it unless it suits them. Not in Massachussetts. Not in California. Not when it comes to eminent domain. They make it up as they go and usurp power in every possible way. This case and the illegal immigrant case also decided wrongly this week should never been heard by the court. The court has no standing to interfere as the coherent dissents rightly opined.

Now we are facing a spectacle. Terrorists will have to be presumed innocent. Then they will plead not guilty by reason of insanity. Perfectly plausible. Here was the first mistake. We allowed attorneys into Club Gitmo. They belong there about as much as they belong in professional sports.

            Just when we think the democrat presidential race is in a quagmire, both candidates doing the job for Republicans of outing each others weaknesses, John McCain comes to the rescue. In one day of stupidity, McCain reversed all the momentum that was with the Republicans and left observers asking, who wants the presidency least among the three major crummy candidates?

            McCain attacked the North Carolina GOP for prepping an ad targeting N.C. democrat governor candidates who had endorsed Senator Obama. Their sin? They ran footage of Obama’s pastor trashing America. But according to McCain this is racist, as he buys into the liberal slant on this issue. Yes, McCain must be asked why the ad is racist. Obama continues to run away from his associations and won’t even hold a press conference. Yet, McCain looks to bail him out by putting an end to any exposure of these people. Friday, talk radio, the true voice of the people, was filled with phone calls from furious and outraged North Carolina Republicans venting about McCain. North Carolina has not gone blue since 1976. McCain appears to be trying his best to put it into play.

            Why should we be surprised? McCain seems to hold back his best shots for Republicans, not democrats. The same day he trashed the Bush administration for the Katrina relief problems. He has called Obama “absolutely qualified” to be president. How? Can we leave that to some doubt and let the voters decide?

            When the GOP race was still contended, more than 60% of Republicans voted against John McCain. There is a deep conservative mistrust of the man. When we seem to be recovering from the disastrous GOP primary, McCain comes out swinging – against Republicans. McCain is about to be savaged by liberal 527 ads in the coming months that he helped to create with the McCain-Feinmess law. If he keeps this up against Republicans where will he look for allies -- that Senate which never went over the “precipice”? He may end up a tragic figure no Greek tragedy could top.

           While conservatives have been longing for another Reagan, there has been a countervailing force, the Corrupt Mainstream Media (CMM) egging on mushy moderates to proclaim the Reagan Era gone. And with it that old Reagan coalition is extinct. Yes, it has vanished. The debate is over. That solid coalition that guided our 40^th president to two landslide victories has splintered into herds roaming the landscape looking for that  pool of drinking water in the desert of the Bush years and the 2008 primaries. Well, at least Tom Brokaw used similar wording to this in the last week.

            We know the left has been trying to rewrite the history of the eighties since Reagan handed the presidency to Bush 41. The country club republicans never really enjoyed that era of being in the spotlight, associated with those pro-lifers that lifted the party to majorities not realized in decades. As the GOP fields a deep field of qualified candidates, three with strong executive experience, this propagandizing mix of elites and liberals are gleeful that none of the candidates quite measure up to the expectations of the conservative base of the GOP.

            It’s been said we’ll never have another Reagan. Indeed, he came at a unique time, in unique circumstances, and with a unique background. People can long for the good old days and get bogged down. But we should not let the enemy tell us that our ideology no longer applies to the current time or a different set of problems.

            Let me put this in the bluntest terms. Why should true conservatives concede the Reagan era is over, the coalition gone, when liberals will not let go of the MCGOVERN era (error)? Be honest, this democrat field in the primaries and the leadership in Congress are McGovernites through and through. In the finest tradition of George McGovern they scream “America Come Home” and leave our allies on their own to be slaughtered. Pull the funding, full speed ahead to social program spending. There’s the unrelenting class warfare in the liberals’ finest tradition. Clinton, Gore and Kerry are the icons of this era. They graduated in the sixties but never grew up.

            But think about who their hero is - a guy who carried one state in 1972, sixteen years before the end of the second Reagan term. McGovern garnered less than 39% of the popular vote. Can you say mandate, NOT? He was running against Richard Nixon, still involved in an unpopular war, and an economy that was sick by today’s standards. And by the way, two years after that landslide, Nixon was driven from office under the threat of impeachment.

            Does the CMM question why the liberals want to hang on to the era of McGovern and those sacred principles? Maybe someone in the GOP will articulate this and show them for what they are in 2008. Or maybe we’ll have to wait for someone with the vision of a Ronald Reagan.

Now the GOP voter is faced with the possible nomination of the guy whose turn it is --- again. It worked real well with Bob Dole in 1996. Dole thought it was his turn in 1988, but he wasn’t vice-president. Dole also had to wait for eight more years when there was a mixed field. But it was his turn and no one had the right to interfere. When he lost one of the early primaries to Steve Forbes he bitterly retorted to reporters, “He’s trying to buy the nomination.” Sounds a little like a recent debate when John McCain snorted to Mitt Romney, “My friend, you can spend your entire fortune on attack ads…” By the way, when McCain says “my friend(s)” watch out, you’re not getting “straight talk”. John McCain is no friend of Mitt Romney.

            McCain is no friend of conservatives, either. Making the case for him, his GOP friends always start out, “Well, you have to concede he’s been great on the war.” After we concede that, there isn’t much else. The great Thomas Sowell wrote last week about the betrayal factor that has happened with GOP presidents. Both Bushes went back on conservative ideals or pledges (“No new taxes” and too much spending). With McCain there is a long track record. Not a track record of being a “maverick”. It is a track record of siding with democrats on major idiotic legislation. First there was the assault on the first amendment with McCain-Feinmess, which in part was a not so cleverly disguised incumbent protection measure.  This from the guy who wants to change Washington. Yes, he wants to change Washington so much he conspired with democrats to attempt to ram through the shamnesty immigration bill last summer without the normal committee hearings or public debate. This in order to whitewash the look-the-other-way illegal immigration travesty that had been encouraged by the business lobby over several decades with willing democrats not objecting in hopes of getting more illegal voters into elections.

            Where would President McCain let down conservatives? First off, he is just not a tax cutter. Supporters say he has not voted for tax increases. He has not voted for tax cuts and that is a non-starter for a Republican president. But I think the biggest surprise would be poor judicial choices because McCain has no guiding core conservative principles. He’s voted pro-life, but has never been an outspoken supporter on the life issue, including embryonic stem cells. Judges are about law and order and McCain’s dubious immigration posture raises questions about this area. Lastly, you conservatives, if you liked Brent Scowcroft, you’ll love President McCain. McCain loves Scowcroft.

            We’re here because the conservative vote has been split and Rudy Giuliani deferred his efforts until Florida. The two strongest conservatives, Romney and Thompson stumbled with flawed strategies. Romney wasted millions on advertising family values themes. Great message. Wrong time. Wrong office. And the Corrupt Mainstream Media bogged him down early with incessant questioning on his religion.

What else could differentiate Romney from the rest of these guys? He isn’t a career politician! He’s held one elective office, governor. Even with that, he could say he’s the real outsider with all the business experience of a Ross Perot, and more. There is no one more inside the beltway than John McCain. Instead, Romney got into silly attacks on the other major governor candidate, Mike Huckabee. Records of governors, especially on taxes, are always tricky, because all have to balance their budgets. Those squabbles settled nothing for the early voters.

Thompson simply let tremendous excitement in the spring for his potential announcement slip away by waiting, not until early summer, and not until July 4, but September to start his campaign. He looked indecisive and allowed other candidates to take over the debate.

Let’s hope it’s not too late. McCain will court the democrat crossovers and independents and let them guide the nomination for the GOP unless a clear choice conservative breaks out. The virtual four way polling tie in Florida is amazing. The race could make history. What would be an awful outcome would be déjà vu 1996 – old Republican against a Clinton. We can do better.