Why This Conservative Has Taken A Blogging Break

Yeah, it has been a while since I last posted anything.
The reality is that this conservative was driven away from the keyboard because of the prospect of seeing the 2016 election a race with Republican presumptive nominee, Donald J. Trump, and the more than likely Democrat nominee, Hillary Clinton.
I am one of those 60% plus Americans that is not happy with my party, the Republican party, choice for president. I certainly will not vote for Mrs. Clinton.
So I have been mulling where does my vote go this election.
It will not go to Mr. Trump no matter how conservative he tries to sound.
As noted, it will not go to Mrs. Clinton unless she somehow totally changes in almost every way and essentially becomes a Republican.
In the aftermath of Mr. Trump becoming the presumptive GOP nominee, my first thought is that I will write in a past candidate in November. But unless he or she were to make a case for such a candidacy, it will be a wasted vote.
My current position is that if I cast a vote for president at all it will be the newly-minted Libertarian candidate, former New Mexico Republican governor, Gary Johnson.
But I am still mulling over whether or not I will even participate in the presidential aspect of voting. I mean, I will still vote for the GOP for congress, local contests and the like. After all, the local elections are in many ways more important that the presidency. At least in a federal republic that is the United States, that is how it should be.
One thing is that I live in the now deep-Blue state of California. We have a race for senate this year as Sen. Barbara Ma'am Boxer is finally leaving the senate stage.
But California has found a way to possibly have the race to replace Sen. Ma'am Boxer be between Democrats only in both the primary and general election.
You see, the once Golden State now has a system of voting that, other than the presidency, in the primary it is the top two that go on to the general election. No matter what political party. Thus the race seems to be between the current Democrat attorney general, Kamala Harris, and Democrat congressman, Loretta Sanchez. Yes, there are Republicans running. But the fact is the only commercials I see are for Miss Harris and Mrs. Sanchez. I will vote for Republican Tom Del Beccarro in the primary hoping that he makes the general election. If not, and no Republican makes the general, I will be a disenfranchised voter and probably skip the senate race as well as the presidential race.
This is the dilemma for conservatives particularly in a state like California.
We may be skipping both the presidential and senate race in November. Because many of us believe that Mr. Trump is not particularly conservative. And why would we vote for a Democrat in a senate race?
Thus it made me think what is the point about writing about politics?
Then I realized that this blog is not just about politics but what passes for culture and many other current events.
And while I may rarely write about the presidential race, there is so much that is worth writing about.
That is what you will get from here on out.
This conservative is back.

If I Am Against Donald Trump, Who Am I For?

I don't think that it is a secret that I support Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) for the GOP nomination for president in 2016.
But I also strongly oppose the campaign that one Donald J. Trump has been and continues to run for the same GOP nomination.
A thought came to me when I was on a Republican site on Facebook.
A gentleman was making the case that many of us that oppose the Donald seem to beat up on the guy and do not boost the candidate that we support.
The gentleman was and is right.
Thus I took his challenge and explained why I support Sen. Rubio over any other candidate. As it turns out, the gentleman is a Rubio supporter as well.
But his point was spot on.
One of the aspects of Trump supporters is the fact that they are always on defense because of the many wild things the Donald says. In their zeal, they are mocking and demeaning those that oppose their candidate. And we who oppose the Donald end up feeding this and forget we support some other candidate.
If someone that criticises the Donald does not support another candidate at this point in time, then it is nothing but dumping on Trump and I don't support that.
A candidate like the Donald comes around once a generation. Yes, he is tapping into a certain group of people. Not all are a bunch of racists and or bigots. Not all think the United States is in such a state that we need to Make America Great Again. What does animate many is the fact that the promises that the GOP leadership has made over the last five years have fallen far short. That the leadership has ridden the Tea Party and their agenda only to not support it when it counts. Sure, we're not able to win every battle but at least we put the Dear Leader, President Obama, and the Democrats on the record on any given issue. At least most could say that the leadership tried. Maybe there will even be a stronger negotiating point as well. What the Donald does is sound like a Tea Party candidate because he says the GOP establishment sucks. Yet on many an issue, he is not a Tea Party candidate in the least.
That is why I oppose the Doanld's candidacy.
But why I support Sen. Rubio is because of the fact he actually took on the GOP establishment and won. Many seem to forget that. All that some can remember is that Sen. Rubio tried to cut a deal on illegal immigration. Something that I oppose and think that the junior senator from Florida realizes was a huge mistake. I remember that Sen. Rubio took on now Democrat Charlie Crist and defeated him handily in a GOP primary. Had Mr. Crist won that race and the subsequent election in 2010, that would have been a sure vote for so-called comprehensive immigration "reform". As it turned out Crist was such a loyal Republican, he became an Obama Democrat and a loser in running for his old job in 2014.
Sen. Rubio has a solid conservative record in the senate (American Conservative Union lifetime rating 96% as of 2014. A Conservative review lifetime rating of 80%. Both well north of 50%.). And before people scream that he has missed senate votes, his record on that is quite a lot less than that of the last two senators to run for the presidency, Secretary of State John F. Kerry and the Dear Leader, President Obama.
When righteously criticizing the Donald, we must make the case for our candidate as well and that needs to be at all times. Just writing the latest wild comment and dumping on it shows us to be tearing down and being not much better than what we say about the supporters of the Donald.
It's not just about what we are against but what are we for.

Is Donald Trump A Fascist? What Does Trump Believe?

The short answer is no, the Donald is NOT a fascist the way one would understand it.
The long answer is that the Donald really has no clue as to what he believes and says and promotes whatever comes to his mind with little if any thought.
If one looks at this link at Wikipedia, the one thing that the Donald seems firm on is nationalism. Otherwise, I do not see a candidate fitting the fascist label.
The Donald is more like that relative that says what he or she thinks and doesn't really care how or what comes out.
If one really does back to his speech announcing his quest for the GOP nomination, it was all off the cuff. No notes. Hence his comments about Mexico sending all their criminals here to the United States. And it has gone downhill from there.
Here is what really gets my goat.
Many of the Trumpettes love to compare the Donald to the Great Man himself, Ronald Reagan.
There is absolutely no comparison, period.
OK, take it back.
The only comparison is that both did take it to the GOP establishment.
But here is the difference.
Ronald Reagan was an actual thinker, despite what the left says about him. It is known that Mr. Reagan read extensively, talked to many people and came to the conservative idea over a period of time. Mr. Reagan got into elective politics almost by accident. Everyone today knows that Mr. Reagan gave a last-ditch awesome speech for the 1964 GOP presidential nominee, Sen. Barry M. Goldwater (R-Ariz). It is known simply as The Speech. Two years later, a group of conservative businessmen talked the retired actor into running for governor of California. And the rest is history.
But there is an in between history that a lot of people do not know about.
After losing the 1976 GOP presidential nomination to the incumbent president, Gerald R. Ford, Mr. Reagan became a radio commentator and as archives now public show, Mr. Reagan did his own research and wrote out the five-minute commentaries that kept him in the public eye.
My question is what does the Donald actually believe? Whatever seems to be attractive to his core supporters.
And the supporters are not bad people, despite my usage of the phrase Trumpette. Most are people that are frustrated with politics in general and the GOP establishment in particular. Many feel that GOP congressional leadership has acted impotently regarding the Dear Leader, President Obama. I agree with that. But I listen very carefully to the Donald and do not see how he would have any relationship with congress be it a Democrat or Republican one.
The bottom line to me about Donald Trump is that whatever he believes, and it is not fascism, it is certainly not conservative. And that disqualifies him to me.

Two Scary And Accurate Thoughts On Donald Trump

Just in case you did not know it, I am not exactly a big fan of one Donald J. Trump and his merry band of Trumpettes.
Don't get me wrong, at one level, I get the frustration that the Donald represents. The political class doesn't really listen to the voters and does what it wants no matter what. Although the Donald's anger is directed at the ossified, incompetent Republican leadership in and out of congress, there is always Bernie Sanders, the vowed Socialist reminding the left-wing base of the Democrat party how they have been betrayed as well.
Sen. Sanders is the left's and Democrats' problem.
As a conservative and Republican, my concern is about the conservative movement and it's place in the Republican party.
My serious opposition to the Donald is that at the end of the day he is not a conservative, does not care about issues-please note issueS-that are of great importance to conservatives, and will govern with the wind if, God forbid, he should win the GOP nomination and or worse, be elected the 45th president of the United States.
The following two articles, first from Ben Domenich of The Federalist and Peter Weber of The Week do sort of get to the same thing.
Mr. Domenich believes that the Donald is playing a dangerous game of White identity politics with his hyperbole on illegal immigration. I dispute that because Mr. Weber states something that I could tell you. That there are a core of Hispanics that actually are for strong border security. Even for the Donald's plan to ship all the illegals, 11,000,000, back to the nation of origin.
OK, I must digress here.
The numbers of illegal aliens is absolutely unknown. 11,000,000 or 20,000,000 or 30,000,000 is just at best a guesstimate. If we actually knew the numbers, it would actually be easy to round em up and ship em out, right? We are putting a number to at best guess a round number for purposes of trying to figure out a lot of different things.
Back to this post.
Mr. Domenich's thesis dovetails to Mr. Weber's article about a core of Hispanics that are none too thrilled about illegal aliens, especially from south of the border, including and especially from Central America. A lot of the opposition is based on people taking a piece of their pie, so to speak. Many Hispanics that oppose the current wave off illegal immigration are actually victims of it. When it comes to such things as in-state costs for illegal children or the so-called anchor babies means that many of the Hispanic children born here are competing with people who were not born here for their space at public colleges and universities. Especially in regards to student loans, grants and scholarships.
I agree with Mr. Domenich that if the GOP and modern American conservatism throws away the fusionist coalition that has been built by people like Ronald Reagan, Jack Kemp and Newt Gingrich, we will be no better than liberals and the left in playing identity politics. And he is correct.
What drives the Donald and his supporters, quite bluntly, is his bellicose personality. For whatever reason, the hardcore supporters of the the Donald, the Trumpettes, seem perfectly down with the Donald if he should do end arounds the United States constitution to meet his seemingly indecichperable goals. I ask all over Facebook and the internets if those that support the Donald would be down if he did what the current occupant of the White House, the Dear Leader, President Obama, has done in excessive and questionable executive orders so long as it advances supposed conservative goals. Man do those crickets chirp and chirp loudly.
When I say that the Donald is our Obama, people get incensed but it is true and even worse because we do not know anything about what he would do outside of illegal immigration. Even that is questionable. But the Trumpettes are impressed with his personality and seemingly angry, no nonsense approach to our problems.
Which is why, as Mr. Weber points out nicely, the Donald would be a mini-dictator or caudillo a la Francisco Franco of Spain. No, it will not be by a violent civil war that it would happen but by the fact even elements on the conservative sign are perfectly OK with someone who might not be a leader within the context of the rule of law. Which is what has animated, correctly, a large part of conservative opposition to the Dear Leader, President Obama.
It's one thing to tap into righteous anger about a political class that has become more distant from the voters at all levels. City, county, state and federal. It's great to state the obvious. That they do not listen to their constituencies. They promote policies people have said they do not want. Pet projects the purveyors of big government on both sides try to shove down our collective throats. But it is harnessing that anger into something productive that I do not see the Donald doing. He's just spouting off on his bar stool and saying he can do what he says because now he is incorruptible. After telling all in the last GOP presidential debate how very corrupt he has been. And proudly. The Donald is either not well informed on a variety of issues or deflects a question with some kind of BS. Or he will give one answer to one interviewer/reporter and a different one to another interviewer/reporter. That should turn people off, alas it does not. It simply makes Trumpettes even more invested in their dude.
And that leads to people believing that we need a supposed conservative strong man as opposed to one that can clearly express and govern as a conservative.
It is one of the scariest aspects of the Trump candidacy.

Hey College Kids, Don't Major In Economics In College Because You're A Hater Or Something

This is but another reason that it is even impossible to have a semi-reasonable discussion with a socialist liberal on pretty much any issue.
I get that to many college is supposed to be a certain kind of experience. You know, to open one up to a world of possibility. For someone to discover one's self. It can be, for many, a truly life changing experience.
For others, it is part of a career path. And some people will major in economics. And get an undergraduate degree in said subject.
But, according to Professor Lisa Wade, if you are an economics major and worse, understand economics, you are probably "anti-social". Which is probably code for just being a hater.
No, I am sorry to write, this is not a joke. This is based on an article she wrote, "Are Economic Majors Anti-Social?"
I mean, why read the rest of the article when she answers the question in the very first word?! Well, I read it so you don't have to.
Needless to say, Prof. Wade answers her question with a "Yep".
Now what does the esteemed Prof. Wade actually know about economics herself?
I will have to say very little to now knowledge of economics since she is a professor of sociology.
But right after her affirmative answer, Prof. Wade suggests that people who do take economics whether it be classes or as a major were already anti-social to begin with. And that once they are done, they are less likely to be generous (Re: wanting to give up hard-earned money to the government), don't want to share (again, they oppose socialism), specifically less generous to the needy (which seems to be a redundancy of not being generous in the first place) and more likely to lie, cheat and steal. And Prof. Wade links to this site that has studies to buttress her argument.
So Prof. Wade writes about a study by two economists, Yoram Bauman and Elaina Rose that cites how stingy that they are because they offer two examples of what they can donate and or financially support when they register for school. So what do they offer as two examples? Take a look.
WashPIRG (a left-leaning public interest group).
ATN (a non-partisan group that lobbies to reduce tuition rates).
What is missing here?
How about a conservative group? If there was a conservative group, would more econ majors support that or similar groups? Well, I don't know because they did not seem to include that third option.
So, if you are an econ major, because you don't want to financially support a left-wing "public interest group" or a supposed non-partisan group, you are anti-social! But if you are just taking econ classes and not majoring in econ, you're cool!
Awesome!
Choice of where one's money goes makes one anti-social.
What the study and or studies do not bother to do is some follow up. Such as where the econ majors ended up. What did they do beyond their employment such as what organizations they belong to and whether they financial support such organizations.
Nope, based on some flimsy studies at best, they make a harsh assumption that their natural "anti-social" tendencies make them more likely to end up being econ majors. And the further they pursue that degree, the more "anti-social" they become.
As noted in the post by Aurelius, giving money to liberal and or non-partisan groups does not make one a better person. What about giving to one's church, temple or mosque? What about giving time to a cause that is meaning to that person?
But of course sociologists do not have to really worry about the consequences of bad monetary investments. They judge one's proper social behavior as if they support leftist causes. Especially with money. The fact is that an econ major is going to be exposed to more than "neo-classical" economics as cited by Prof. Wade. As such they will be critically thinking of what has worked and what does not work. And that determines their attitude to any given group and what they are promoting.
So what is WashPIRG? Well, it's a typical left-wing group. Among the issues that they are all about include the overuse of anti-biotics at "factory" farms. Closing those pesky corporate tax loopholes. So-called 21st century transportation (that means walking, bikes and massive public transportation). Now yes, a person learning about economics and that includes economic theory is going to have some of their tuition money go to this group.
SMH* until I bleed!
And what about the ATN group?
Well, the acronym stood for Affordable Tuition Now. Wait, what do I mean stood for? This is the closest thing to find this group even existed.
Imagine that.
Econ majors don't want money to go to a group that may or may have not really existed.
Again, SMH until I bleed!
The problem that is not really a problem in that people who have a basic understanding of economics will deal with matters in what economically benefits them. That does not mean that because they do not want to give money to left-wing causes they are anti-social. They are simply employing choice. They are possibly waiting until leaving college and getting a job to find their cause to support. Whether that be financially and or by being a member of any given organization. In fact, who is to say that someone with a degree in economics would not possibly even work for a left-wing group and or promote leftist economics?
Kids, I am here to write to you that despite the propaganda of how terrible you are and even worse wanting to major in economics, it's perfectly fine. Go ahead and seek a degree in economics. And use it well. To your ability. Not the ability of grifting left-wingers.

*-SMH - Smack My Head

Why Can't Republicans Explain Economics Like Reagan Did?

It is but one of many questions about today's Republican party and how Ronald Reagan did transform basic GOP thinking on issue after issue.
But one thing that eludes those seeking office is what is a fundamental difference between conservative economic policy vs. liberal/left economic policy.
This piece by Henry Olsen at The Corner on National Review Online seeks to remind today's GOP that a big reason why people who might be aligned with conservative economics but find those explaining it not so engaged with the average American, working man and woman.
As Mr. Olsen noted that Mr. Reagan made clear that all of America was involved in the concept of job creation. Essentially, Mr. Reagan made clear that he probably would not dismiss, out of hand, the labor union-backed efforts to get fast-food workers a "living" wage of about $15 an hour. He would use the opportunity to point out how the worker is as important as the entrepreneur.
What I see, and yes have been part of, is that most conservatives see the entrepreneur as the hero and the worker as some kind of lout. After all, the entrepreneur is putting his or her money on the line. The worker should be glad to have the job. Mitt Romney blew his whole campaign by saying the infamous 47% line at a private fund raiser that was videotaped by an intrepid lefty truth-sqauder.
Note to GOP candidates for office. Assume that nothing, not even a private fund raiser is private. Don't say anything that you would not say in any other campaign appearance.
I admit that while Mr. Romney had a correct point, it did kind of sort of play right into the hands of the class warfare warriors. I mean, Mr. Reagan talked about Welfare Queens. Yet with a negative, there was the positive with Mr. Reagan.
What the left has done with success is create the impression that they are always on the side of the worker. Maybe they pay lip service to the small businessman/woman. But when one looks at the modern Democrat party, they are in the hip pocket of the hip, lefty billionaire businessmen/women. Yet the Republican party is to this day seen as the party of the rich. Again, compare Mr. Romney and Mr. Reagan in articulating the basic economic message.
If you don't get that, here is the one time Mr. Reagan even discussed the entrepreneur in a speech in the 1980s as president:

We have every right to dream heroic dreams. Those who say that we’re in a time when there are not heroes, they just don’t know where to look. You can see heroes every day going in and out of factory gates. Others, a handful in number, produce enough food to feed all of us and then the world beyond. You meet heroes across a counter, and they’re on both sides of that counter. There are entrepreneurs with faith in themselves and faith in an idea who create new jobs, new wealth and opportunity. They’re individuals and families whose taxes support the government and whose voluntary gifts support church, charity, culture, art, and education. Their patriotism is quiet, but deep. Their values sustain our national life.
Now, I have used the words “they” and “their” in speaking of these heroes. I could say “you” and “your,” because I’m addressing the heroes of whom I speak — you, the citizens of this blessed land.

There was no 47% reference I read. There was no us vs. them that the left promotes. There was nothing along the lines of class welfare.
What Mr. Reagan was saying is that anyone can be and should aspire to be that entrepreneur. But that the worker is as much of value as the entrepreneur.
Thus, what Republican today does that?
It appears that Sen. Mitch McConnell was sort of trying to do that in a speech at an American Enterprise Institute, AEI, conference last week.
I know, I know.
Why would I quote something from this RINO*? He is not a conservative at all! He is part of the problem.
Well, I think that Sen. McConnell fits the He's been in Washington too long category. But in my theory of the broken clock, which is right twice a day, Sen. McConnell stumbled into some truth.
This is the highlight of what he said. And a warning, he does take a swipe at Ayn Rand. But not really if you open up and read what he said:

And yet, I think it must also be admitted that in our rush to defend the American entrepreneur from the daily depredations of an administration that seems to view any profit-making enterprise with deep suspicion — that we have often lost sight of the fact that our average voter is not John Galt. It’s a good impulse, to be sure. But for most Americans, whose daily concerns revolve around aging parents, long commutes, shrinking budgets, and obscenely high tuition bills, these hymns to entrepreneurialism are, as a practical matter, largely irrelevant. And the audience for them is probably a lot smaller than we think. So I do think we’d do well as a party to get down to the basics. As Mona Charen recently put it, ‘Less talk of job creators and more talk of job-earners would be welcome.’”

I think that Sen. McConnell is correct. The average voter is not John Galt. Sure, they may get a lot of his overall point, but they don't want to get government that completely out of one's life. And many understand that a government that gets so big can take away a lot of what we come to know as rights and or basic forms or norms of everyday life.
I recommend reading Mr. Olsen's article in National Affairs that I have linked as a brief history primer and a good road map to getting the Republican party on track to explain what makes conservative economic policy superior to liberal/left economic policy.
Basic Republican governing philosophy is simple.
Government is necessary. But it should be a little and limited as possible. It should be bottom-up and not top down. Government is best starting at the local level, cities, counties and states. The federal government should be as limited as possible. It should not be concerned with Podunk, Iowa as much as New York City.
Mr. Olsen is onto something here. And another actual politician, former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum, also gets it.
That the GOP must be a party that working class voters and women can and should be a part of.
Hello?!
That is what we call today the Reagan Democrats. Most of those voters are already Republicans today.
But, what does the consultant class that dominates the current GOP think about those voters? Eh, not so much. Thus they push so-called comprehensive immigration "reform". They do not care to really explain how allowing many low-income workers to become Americans will help them. Hint: It won't.
When Mr. Reagan dealt with immigration reform, he at least had the stones to say it was amnesty and it was when the economy was in the middle of a full-steam recovery.
Reagan Democrats are out there for the picking. They will become good Republicans and already have a lot of conservatism already in their bones. They are the ones that sign up to join whatever branch of the armed forces. They are the ones that are traditional in outlook. Many are church-goers and temple-goers and mosque-goers. They do make for the best workers anywhere.
And they go beyond race. Anyone can be and is right now a Reagan Democrat that would love to look at the Republican party. But they don't look at the party because they have rightful misgivings about it. And no, it's not because of their stand on immigration policy.
It is because most of those that want to look at the GOP and are still Democrats and or "independent" still think that the party is the environs of the eeeeevvvvviiiiilllll, filthy, stinking RICH folks.
Of course I can show how untrue that is, but why use that? Because most of those people will not believe it. That at this point, much of corporate America is in the hip pocket of the Democrat party. It does not matter.
One needs to speak to the people in a way that Mr. Reagan did. And one of the reasons is that at one time, Mr. Reagan was a Democrat. He was at a time that Democrats were more like Harry S Truman and John F. Kennedy. That they spoke of a better America for all and not for a fill-in-the-group of the moment.
Of course it would be hard to find a lot of former Democrats that become Republicans and can explain a simple fact the way that Ronald Reagan did. And yes, how the United States is a great nation and that the sky's-the-limit, not a time of restraint and or malaise. And yes, that there are rights and wrongs in the United States.
So it does come down to people like Mr. Santorum to talk to the regular folks and say to them, yes, there is a place for you in the Republican party. Yes, I understand the economic anxiety you feel. Yes, the tax structure is out of touch with how every day people live. Yes, the United States has lost it's moral way. Yes, the United States is the greatest nation in the world and I am not ashamed of it.
It is because people like Mr. Santorum and Mr. Reagan believe those ideas. And yes, even Sen. McConnell finally treaded to that understanding.
Here is the thing.
The Republican party will expand beyond the White middle class when it can articulate that those ideas are not just the purview of Whites but of all Americans. We can not have one of the wealthiest men run for president and essentially write off 47% of the potential voting public as government freeloaders. And on that point, Mr. Romney had it somewhat correct. But it can not be done flippantly or off the cuff.
I don't know if Mr. Santorum is the one to carry the Reagan mantle in 2016. He currently has a great position being out of government for making the conservative case to a wide audience. Some like Sen. Marco Rubio have the opportunity as well.
But if we do not reach out to the next generation of Reagan Democrats effectively and in governing, the conservative cause and the Republican party will truly be on the margins of political life in the United States.

No More Bushes Post #2,143

Ahh, the Republican establishment. Ya gotta love em. No, Bless their hearts.
Once again the drumbeats are pounding that the ONLY way the GOP is going to win the presidential race in 2016 is to. . .wait for it. . .nominate another man named Bush for the presidency.
OK, this is not someone with the first name of George but this one is John. John Ellis Bush. Who is better known as Jeb.
And the Politico is the latest of the Leftywhore media to gladly help pound the drum for Jeb Bush.
May please, please beat this drum?
NO! MORE! BUSHES!
Now in fairness, Jeb Bush is the most conservative of the three Bush men. But there is something that the Politico article notes:

Over cocktails and at dinner tables, Republicans in Washington worry he’d face criticism of dynasty building and attacks from Democrats that his policies will be the same his older brother’s, many of which remain widely unpopular.

Please note the area I highlighted.
Dynasty building.
Really?! Ya think that would be a problem?!
Lets see, 1988-1992, George H. W. Bush. In 2000-2008, George W. Bush. And yet there are those thinking, hey its a great idea to coronate another Bush.
A huge reason we fought a war with Great Britain in the first place was to escape a monarchy. And to keep thinking that one family gets to run a political party, well what better way to say monarchy than that?
Oh, this is not a Republican only problem.
The Democrats are constantly seeing the Clinton family as their monarchical savior as well. Once the end of Obama occurs in 2016, why they are pushing for Hillary Clinton to be their keeper 'o the White House. And if that fails, trust me they will go back into the Obama well.
It ill bodes that this Republic, and the Republican party in particular, does not get that this is not good for democracy at all.
We can't just keep shutting out people without the last name Bush.
Instead of trying to push Jeb Bush to make a run for the presidency, the poo bahs of the Republican party need to do something, well unusual.
Just get the hell out of the way and let the process play out..
For once in a generation, it really looks like there are a slew of young raw talent that can all make great candidates.
Of course, despite the immigration fiasco, there is Florida Sen. Marco Rubio. And two others that are potential candidates is the libertarian-leaning Sen. Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) and a dark horse in Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas). And in the House of Representatives there is former Republican vice-presidential nominee Paul Ryan (R-Wisconsin). Go out to the states and there are some great governors. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, Nikki Haley of South Carolina, and yes even Rick Perry of Texas could be serious contenders.
The point is that we Republicans have to stop anointing the next in line. And the poo bahs want us to believe that Jeb Bush should be that next in line.
And I say this as an admirer of the Bush family.
Sorry conspiracy nuts but the Bush family has made money and been able to be great public servants, led by former President George H. W. Bush. And nothing wrong with that. If truth be told, the objection that I have had is when they do not follow their correct conservative instincts and that gets 'em in trouble.
As I said, Jeb Bush has the most conservative record of H. W. and W. as governor of Florida.
But timing is everything.
And this is not the time.
It is time for the Republican party to move away from the Bushes for a while and look to a new generation to lead the GOP in the 2016 election and beyond.
In other words.  .  .No More Bushes!

Is The GOP FINALLY Getting It?

Well, nothing makes a political party think more than losing a winnable presidential election than, well losing.
Sure, the Republican party did gain ground in governor races in 2012.
And expanded on their majority of state legislatures.
But, as mentioned, they lost the presidential race. They lost winnable senate seats and thus are in the minority. And they did lose eight seats in the House of Representatives.
So this week, the Republican National Committee is meeting and judging by what the leadership of the party is suggesting, it is time not just to come up with a new playbook, but a new way of reaching beyond the reliable Republican voter.
While the party reelected the chair, Reince Priebus (what sick parents would actually name their child REINCE?!), some conservatives will grumble that under his leadership, the party did not take back the White House as many expected in 2012.
I will defend Mr. Priebus in this respect.
Once Mitt Romney won the nomination, he pretty much assimilated his team with the RNC. In reality, Mr. Priebus was but a face and more figurehead while Team Romney ended up on a crash and burn.
Now let us see if he can actually lead the party on his own.
It appears that he is on the right track.
Michael Walsh over at National Review Online highlights this from the RNC chair:

"It’s time to stop looking at elections through the lens of “battleground states.” We have four years till the next presidential election, and being a “blue state” is NOT a permanent diagnosis.
Simple “outreach” a few months before an election will not suffice. In fact, let’s stop talking about “reaching out”—and start working on welcoming in. Political support is cultivated over time—not collected on Election Day."

BANG!
Mr. P is totally spot on!
And Mr. Walsh goes on to state the obvious.
That the RNC basically writes off states and whole regions now before an national election even begins.
The Great Litany of states the Republicans did not even bother with:

California
Oregon
Washington
The three above states make up the Pacific Coast.

Illinois
That is one Midwest state the GOP seems to give a big fat "Meh" to in every election since Reagan.

Connecticut
Massachusetts
Maine
Rhode Island
Vermont
And there is most of New England save for New Hampshire which is becoming hard to figure out.

New York
New Jersey
Delaware
Maryland
The mid-Atlantic region. The GOP only plays for Pennsylvania and Virginia is not totally Blue just yet.

And my friends, the Republican party starts off a presidential election about 204 electoral seats that they simply give to the Democrats because they have decided most of these states are lost for the foreseeable future.
Why?
Mr. Walsh blames the permanent consultant class that many in the GOP think are Gods. And his big bugaboo is one Karl Rove.
And I do think that he is on to something there.
Yes, there are some states that maybe the GOP can't win now. But if the party stays at least competitive and builds up from the areas of a said state kind of out of the GOP orbit. Really, there is no reason for the Republican party to not be more competitive in California. Look at the map from the just concluded 2012 presidential death march, er election. There is a lot of Red in there. Imagine if the Cali GOP had the money and or resources to compete in San Bernardino county? San Diego county? And yes, even in my dreaded county, Los Angeles? Maybe Mr. Romney would have racked up better numbers here in Los Angeles county. Maybe he could have got as much as 40%. And maybe he would have won San Bernardino and San Diego counties. Had larger margins in Orange and Riverside counties.
It is doable.
But, here is a reality.
We know that the only time Republicans come to California, they leave with a boatload of cash and that is all. And many, many Republicans that I know personally shrug their shoulders and say that their vote does not matter because the Democrat will win. It is a self-suppression of voting. And I am certain that is how Republicans feel in many of the aforementioned states above.
That has to stop.
That is why we must hold Mr. P accountable that he is going to go balls-to-the-wall to fight in every single state, every single possible race and fight using the same successful tools that the Democrats used to win. And even the liberal daily Holy Bible, The New York Times, is noticing what the GOP is about to embark on.
And Ace over at the Ace Of Spades explains it right here. That yes, there are Republicans behind enemy lines. It is just that they have to be courted and looong before presidential election day if there is to be any chance of building up and getting said voters motivated and voting.
And this does dove tail nicely to this very interesting and worthwhile article by Aaron Renn for New Geography. Mr. Renn makes a good case why Republicans need to begin to look at, and yes, retake the cities. I think there are some good ideas, but Mr. Renn is setting up the conversation, not saying it is his way or the highway.
Remember that it was not a lifetime ago but the mid 1990s when Republicans mayors were leading in Los Angeles (Richard Riordan) and New York City (Rudy Giuliani). Now they are as Mr Renn wrote, Democrat cesspools with no end to the corruption in sight.
And the best is for last as Louisiana governor, Bobby Jindal, makes the case that it is time to stop worrying so much about Washington D. C., political cesspool central, and worry about getting the conservative, Republican message to the masses.
Here are some remarks from Gov. Jindal made to the RNC meeting in Charlotte, North Carolina:

“We do not need to change what we believe as conservatives – our principles are timeless. But we do need to re-orient our focus to the place where conservatism thrives: in the real world beyond the Washington Beltway.
“Today’s conservatism is completely wrapped up in solving the hideous mess that is the federal budget, the burgeoning deficits, the mammoth federal debt, the shortfall in our entitlement programs. We seem to have an obsession with government bookkeeping. This is a rigged game, and it is the wrong game for us to play."
“The Republican Party must become the party of growth, the party of a prosperous future that is based in our economic growth and opportunity that is based in every community in this great country and that is not based in Washington, D.C.."

I could not agree more with Gov. Jindal.
It will be up to people like Gov. Jindal, Gov. Nikki Haley of South Carolina, the new governor of North Carolina, Pat McCrory, people like that to take common sense conservatism to the people. They have to go over the heads of the Obamawhore media. They have to show Blue America why common sense conservatism works.
I think that finally, the Republican party is waking up and realizing that shrinking the field is not a way to win elections and thus not a way to govern this nation.
Hope is on the way.

I don't Understand Conservative Love For Richard Nixon

This year marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of the 37th president of the United States, Richard Milhous Nixon, a man that for better or worse had a huge impact on mid-20th century America and the world.
Mr. Nixon began his political life in his native California by running for congress in 1948 from his hometown of Whittier, California. In that election, Mr. Nixon ran as a strong, anti-communist Republican.
By the time Mr. Nixon left the presidency in disgrace in 1974, he began a policy known as detente and that essentially acceded to the ascendancy of the then communist Soviet Union and to live with them and not defeat them.
With political stops in the aforementioned House of Representatives, the senate, the vice-presidency and eventually the presidency, Mr. Nixon was always hard-nosed and perceived to be some sinister, right-winger when in fact and indeed, Mr. Nixon was nothing of a sort.
As John Fund over at National Review put it in this article, Mr. Nixon was a liberal. A liberal, not a conservative Republican at all.
Mr. Nixon did nothing to roll back the excesses of the so-called Great Society programs of Democrat President Lyndon B. Johnson. In fact as Mr. Fund notes Mr. Nixon added to these programs.
Here are just three government agencies that Mr. Nixon implemented in his five plus years as president:
The EPA (Environmental Protection Agency), the Council on Environmental Quality, and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
And trust me, all three are behemoths that will never, ever go away. And between the three agencies, there are nearly 20,000 employees that are setting forth national environmental policy. Never mind that this probably is best left to the states, but it is the inclination of Mr. Nixon to put the federal government involved.
And, sadly, it did not stop there.
Again, let Mr. Fund explain one horrible day in 1971 for context of just how liberal, domestically, Mr. Nixon was:

In a single day in 1971, Nixon famously imposed wage and price controls in a naïve attempt to curb inflation, ended the U.S.’s last ties to the gold standard, effectively devalued the dollar, and imposed a 10 percent import surcharge.

Good lord, FDR, Harry Truman, JFK and Lyndon Johnson must have been stunned to see the turn of events in which a supposed conservative Republican, Nixon, implemented policies that they just could fantasize about.
Now Mr. Nixon did conceded that he did set bad precedents that successive presidents tried to follow.
Thanks a lot Tricky Dick!
And even on foreign policy, Mr. Nixon went from strident cold warrior to one that made a fateful decision in implementing detente with the Soviet Union.
As I noted, it meant that the United States, and thus the West, accepted the Soviet Union and its communist form of government.
There was no more talk of defeating the expansionist communist regime but accommodation.
And of course there is Mr. Nixon opening the door to beginning relations with Red China. Eventually, the United States ended formal recognition of the Republic of China on Taiwan. We recognized that there is only one China and we sided with the communists.
So again, my fellow conservatives, what is it exactly do you like and think Mr. Nixon was a good conservative president?
To be fair, also at National Review, James Rosen does give this counter balance here.
But I find Mr. Rosen's defense of Nixon the conservative to be very weak at best.
Where Mr. Rosen bases much of his praise of the conservative Nixon, it is almost strictly on so-called social issues. Here is a telling aside sentence in building the case for the conservative Nixon:

After all, they championed law and order, and stood against amnesty, abortion, and acid, as well as media bias, when it was least fashionable to do so — the age of Radical Chic — and carried 49 states.

Yes, that maybe true.
However, if one cannot govern as a fiscal and small government conservative, then what is the point of the above? It has to be taken in its totality. And in reality, because of the paranoia that was one Richard Nixon, Watergate did occur and while I find it a minor tale in the grand scheme of things, it was the cover-up and sustaining that what drove Mr. Nixon to resign office.
For all the tough-talk that was Mr. Nixon, he did not fight when in fact today a Democrat would do so with gusto.
Mr. Fund makes the righteous case that the Watergate affair did some very serious damage to the Republican party in general and conservatism in particular. Mr. Rosen pretty much dismisses that.
Again, I am with Mr. Fund.
I have long believed that the Watergate affair has ushered in an age of corruption that has afflicted both political parties.
But Republicans are almost always more hurt by corruption because they run against it. And when a said Republican is caught, it continues the sorry precedent of one Richard Milhous Nixon.
Now Mr. Nixon did not do all wrong.
Mr. Nixon ended the armed services draft and that has been a great thing for the United States. The all-volunteer armed forces has done a spectacular job in all military actions that have been taken since the end of the Vietnam war.
Speaking of which, Mr. Nixon did end the war that he was inherited with by Democrat President Johnson.
Mr,. Nixon did support the armed forces and always wanted to maintain higher spending than many believed he should.
And yes, many believe that today Mr. Nixon's law and order stand considering his own dalliances on the borders of legality was kind of a fraud. But it was not. Mr. Nixon believed in an imperial presidency, no doubt about that. But he saw the overall breakdown of society that the 1960s hath wrought as a direct result of the breakdown of law and order.
At best, Mr. Nixon was a conflicted politician.
He sought approval from the very people he ran against, the Establishment. Yet as Mr. Rosen notes, he wanted to set the stage for a conservative counterweight against the Establishment and their liberal allies.
Mr. Nixon went from anti-communist hawk to defender of the status-quo in regards to Soviet communist expansion.
Mr. Nixon went from anti-New Deal conservative to without a doubt a pretty damned liberal president.
In short, I do not get the conservative love for Richard Milhous Nixon.

It Is Not How The Left Reacted To The Breitbart Death, But Some On The Right That Is Annoying

It was a surreal Thursday morning as I was going around the internets and saw the red headline on the Drudge Report that Andrew Breitbart had died. Yeah, I thought that it was a really sick joke. Then Fox News Channel broke in with a patented "Fox News Alert" and confirmed the report.
Let be very clear about Mr. Breitbart.
He loved the fight. But more than that he really loved people. No matter where they were on the issues. He was a conservative true believer that said it was OK to actually fight back when the left made outrageous claims about conservatives. And that conservatives needed to also be on offense.
It was that offense that made Mr. Breitbart famous among conservatives and infamous among liberals.
After all, would Anthony Weiner still be in congress had it not been for the work of Mr. Breitbart? Or would ACORN still be a force on the left had Mr. Breitbart not brought the work of James O'Keefe to the surface?
But even someone like Mr. Breitbart could get it wrong every once in a while. In the case of former Agriculture department official Shirley Sherrod. He received a badly edited videtape that made it look that Miss Sherrod was a racist. Again, bad editing and not the best follow through made all look bad. Miss Sherrod lost her job and Mr. Breitbart had to do a lot of mea culpas.
But that one bad doe not take away from all that he did in the name of pursuing conservatism.
Except to one of the biggest douchebrains claiming to be a "conservative". And that would be the insufferable bore, David Frum.
It is no secret to many readers of this blog the contempt that has developed towards Mr. Frum.
But this piece by Mr. Frum in the equally insufferable The Daily Beast shows why his criticisms are much more annoying and tasteless than what the left can and a few did upon the news of Mr. Breitbart's death.
In this piece, it is obvious that Mr. Frum has no real knowledge of Mr. Breitbart by this:

The good was there. Breitbart was by all accounts generous with time and advice, a loving husband and father, and a loyal friend.

Seriously, when one starts off with something like that, two things come to mind. One, Mr. Frum never actually met or encountered Mr. Breitbart. And two, he really did not get what Mr. Breitbart was trying to do with the conservative movement and the Republican party.
Mr. Frum goes on to insult Mr. Breitbart, which he would not take as an insult, by saying he was fighting a new kind of culture war. And what Mr. Frum means by that is that he was, well doing what the left has done for, oh at least my 47 years on God's green earth. Mr. Breitbart was getting in their face. He was as I noted going on offense.
In other words, Mr. Breitbart was not being a good little boy like, well Mr. Frum. He was not tearing down conservatives and their ideas but giving them the platform to get that beyond the leftywhore media complex.
The laugh that Mr. Frum tries to elucidate is that Mr. Breitbart was not interested in the truth.
Really?
The whole point of Big Government, Big Hollywood, Big Peace was to get the truth about things out there that the leftywhore media covers-up, ignores or distorts.
Too bad that Mr. Frum has a bit o' shady history on the truth.
Let me remind you that it was Mr. Frum that coined the phrase "Axis of evil" in the speech then President George W. Bush gave to the nation in the 2002 State of the Union speech. It was the prelude to seeking congressional approval to seek to expand the War Against Islamofacist Terror in a new theatre. And that would be Iraq.
For the record, I believe that we did the right thing in expanding the theatre and changing regimes in Iraq. However, many and some conservatives always had qualms about that. And at the end, I totally believe that this is why Mr. Frum has decided to be a conservative basher. For he seeks not to promote conservatism but David Frum.
Within two paragraphs of this "obituary", Mr. Frum all but calls Mr. Breitbart a racist for his piece on Miss Sherrod. And "racially coded" rhetoric. And in the very next paragraph, maybe Mr. Frum felt he went too far, he said that nothing racial should really be read into some of the pieces that Mr. Breitbart had done.
Whiskey? Tango? Foxtrot? Really, Mr. Frum? You are kidding, right? You all but call the dude a racist and then pull an Emily Litella and say "Never mind!"
Again, what a douchebrain.
And while we all know that there were some tasteless comments about Mr. Breitbart's passing from the left, when someone that claims to speak for and about conservatism blasts the man as the body is not even cold shows what kind of man Mr. Frum is.
A man that I sure would not want to be in a foxhole with me. A sellout.
And BTW, what ever happened to the New Majority or then renamed Frum Forum? They have gone off in the night. And Andrew Breitbart's sites? They are alive and stronger than ever.
That is the real testament to a man. A good man like Andrew Breitbart. David Frum is alive, sort of, as the House "conservative" at a decidedly liberal website.
Enough said.

You Know Who Was A Crazy Social Conservative? How About Ronald Reagan?!

Yep, that is correct my friends.
Ronald Wilson Reagan.
Ronaldus Maximus as Rush Limbaugh refers to the man that was our 40th president.
Ahh, but you would not know that Mr. Reagan was indeed a social conservative. I mean, he was the full-spectrum conservative before the term was cool.
Ronald Reagan was a fiscal conservative, national defense/foreign policy conservative and yes, a social conservative.
Today, many of the same members of the leftywhore media establishment that spent eight years trying desperately to bring down the Great Man are yearning for the Reagan Years.
And they are revising the history to make their case.
One of the charges is that Mr. Reagan did not do enough to advance the social conservative cause.
Maybe on the surface that is true. I suppose in hindsight Mr. Reagan could have done more.
Yet just discussing issues that no one else would was a start that in many ways continues with the actuality of changing people minds on given issues.
Take abortion.
When Ronald Reagan was elected president in 1980, the dreaded Roe v. Wade decision that took abortion laws away from the states and uniformally made allowing unfettered access to abortion the law of the land was seven years old. By all accounts, the people of the United States did not seem to think that it was a bad thing. After all, it is not that abortions were not done before the decision. But in most states it was illegal or so heavily regulated that it was hard for a woman to attain one.
Yet in the 1980 Republican party platform, it began an unended streak that the GOP is the party committed to ending abortion on demand. That the party would seek a constitutional amendment to overturn Roe v. Wade. And who wanted that part of the party manifesto?
That crazy so con, RWR, that's who.
And so funny how because of that, Mr. Reagan lost the election.
NO, hold the phone!
I'm sorry, despite that as the official policy of the GOP, Mr. Reagan won a 44-state landslide.
Another thing that the crazy so con, Reagan did would baffle most today.
In 1983, the economy barely showing signs of life, unemployment still high and the tax cuts that Mr. Reagan won in 1981 in jeopardy, Mr. Reagan submitted this essay on abortion that appeared in the Human Life Review. This amazing essay was written entirely by Mr. Reagan.
But please, rest assured that it was all lip-service according to leftywhore media clowns that covered Mr. Reagan back in the day.
In this article by Penny Starr she cites such luminaries as Walter Shapiro saying such things as this:

RAZ: "[Reagan] wasn't really a culture warrior, was he?"

SHAPIRO: "I mean, he -- it is telling that every year he addressed the National Right to Life anti-abortion march in Washington by telephone, even though they were half-a-mile from the White House, because he didn't want the visuals of being perceived as that much of a cultural warrior. And abortion was as legal when Ronald Reagan left office as it was when he came into office."

Yeah see, Mr. Reagan should have been front and center at the March For Life. Yessir.
No. Because Mr. Reagan did not want the issue to be about him but the focus of what people were there for. To end the abomination known as Roe v Wade.
That, my friends, is the sign of a smart, savvy politician.
And here is by just speaking on the issue the nation is moving in a direction that the majority of Americans want to see Roe v. Wade overturned.
Somewhere in the high 70 to low 80% of Americans in any given poll were for the Roe v. Wade decision during Mr. Reagan's two terms in office. Yes, it was still the law of the land before, during and when Mr. Reagan left Washington, D. C. in 1989.
Yet today support has dropped in poll after poll to the low to mid 50% range. Some polls have actually shown a majority want to see Roe v. Wade overturned entirely. And now many states are passing laws that do restrict unfettered access to abortion. One other aspect that has helped is technology. That technology kind of sort of makes it hard to say that a baby is just a blob. A fetus.
But that change would not have started if it were not for that crazy so con, Ronald Reagan.
Another aspect of the left infiltrating the GOP and trying to pass the Equal Rights Amendment to the United States constitution met its end thanks to Mr. Reagan. Once the amendment failed to be ratified by two-thirds of the state legislatures by 1984, the GOP never mentioned support for the odeious amendment again. The Republican party as always been the party of women, yet with the help of the ever compliant leftywhore media, one would never know it.
Or how about this gem again from the 1980 GOP platform on families:

The family is the foundation of our social order. It is the school of democracy. Its daily lessons—cooperation, tolerance, mutual concern, responsibility, industry—are fundamental to the order and progress of our Republic. But the Democrats have shunted the family aside. They have given its power to the bureaucracy, its jurisdiction to the courts, and its resources to government grantors. For the first time in our history, there is real concern that the family may not survive.

Government may be strong enough to destroy families, but it can never replace them.

Unlike the Democrats, we do not advocate new federal bureaucracies with ominous power to shape a national family order. Rather, we insist that all that all domestic policies, from child care and schooling to Social Security and the tax code, must be formulated with the family in mind.

No "It Takes A Village" there!
And to further the point about families is this from the same document:

In view of the continuing efforts of the present (Carter) Administration to define and influence the family through such federally funded conferences as the White House Conference on Families, we express our support for legislation protecting and defending the traditional American family against the ongoing erosion of its base in our society.

Today, a Republican candidate for President, Rick Santorum, addresses many of these same issues and he is totally demonized. And told to keep quiet and get with it. All your traditional values talk is so old-fashioned.
Yet it did not stop one Ronald Reagan from speaking about these issues. And all he did was win the presidency in two landslide elections. And change the face of American politics long after he left the White House.
And one way Mr. Reagan changed things was the willingness to talk about some very uncomfortable social issues.
Ronald Reagan was the original crazy social conservative. Crazy like a fox!

Say, That Newt Gingrich Fellow Kind Of Reminds Me Of Someone Named Nixon

It has been a long thought for me to write this overall assessment of one Newton LeRoy Gingrich. That in fact he is not necessarily the strong conservative that he makes himself out to be.
There was another American president that tried that shtick.
His name.
Richard Milhous Nixon.
Any regular reader of this blog knows that I believe that while he destroyed his own presidency, he almost single-handily destroyed the Republican party as well. Of course we all know that it took one Ronald Reagan to reform and renew the party.
But what Mr. Nixon did was talk a conservative game. Yet it was Mr. Nixon that believed in socialist medicine. Oh, he would argue that it was not, but in the end it would have created the bureaucracy that all of Europe sees.
Mr. Nixon never actually did anything to scale back the so-called Great Society of his predecessor, Democrat Lyndon B. Johnson. In fact, to fight inflation, Mr. Nixon not once but twice imposed wage and price controls.
In other words, Mr. Nixon essentially conceded domestic policy to the other team.
And Mr. Nixon was always a brooding figure. Seemingly not all that much of a happy man. Yet, he always had a fighter's view of politics.
And that is Mr. Gingrich.
A fighter. In last night's CNN Republican debate, Mr. Gingrich got conservatives excited because he slammed CNN's moderator, John King, for bringing up ABC's interview with the former Mrs. Gingrich number two, Marianne.
Well, sorry but this is relevant.
This is Mr. Gingrich's third marriage. And he left his previous two wives while cavorting with the future wife. Wife number three, Calista, was who he wanted to share with wife number two.
Get all of that?
And Mr. Gingrich was carrying on that affair while pushing to impeach then President Bill Clinton.
An aside.
The impeachment was not about sex.
It was about the president of the United States lying under oath in a civil case. And he was caught. The fact that the lie was about a short-term affair is not what is important. What he lied about on that was in regards to a sexual-harassment suit brought against him by Paula Jones.
But knowing that Mr. Gingrich was shtooping Calista at the same time, what did that do the proceedings?
And if that does not bother you, how about this devastating piece in The American Spectator by Quin Hillyer? And Rick Santorum pointed out the grandiosity of Mr. Gingrich that Mr. Hillyer does in the piece. But this is the critical line of the piece:

Gingrich was great at rabble rousing. He was awful at actually managing things

I would alter it this way:

Gingrich is great at rabble rousing. He is awful at actually managing things.

And he has the Nixonian view of any disagreement as being an enemy.
We lived that before and it was a traumatic era in the United States.
This is the most critical election in my life. And to blow it because we like when Mr. Gingrich goes gonzo on the Leftywhore media. Or when he slams Mitt Romney for. . .making money. For once being a strong believer in Globaloney Warming to weaseling worse than anyone on stage. For once backing the individual mandate in national health care and now weaseling on that.
And yet Mitt Romney is called a flip-flopper.
And while it is not something that is good, optics and attitude matter.
A thrice-married, kind of short, a little chubby, white-haired White guy next to the youngish, handsome mixed-race success story with a very nice family. The first mentioned guy pretty mercurial a lot of the time. The latter guy with a smile.
Like it or not, people vote for someone who exudes a positive quality. Look at Mr. Reagan, both Mr. Bush's, Mr. Clinton.
At the end of the day, a vote for Newt Gingrich is a vote for Richard Nixon from the grave. And that is not a good vote for the United States.

The Duke On Liberals

Whilst going around the internets, I found this over at The Other McCain.
It is comments made by the late, great John Wayne.
We do not know when this was done, but it is worth the under five minutes of your time.
The Duke speaks plainly about what liberalism hath wrought on the United States.
Warning.
It is defiantly not politically correct.
The Duke refers to Native Americans as, Indians.
The language is blunt, if not colorful.
The frightening aspect about this is that not much has changed. It may be that it has only gotten worse. And yet, if one speaks openly about this, one can now be rightfully worried about being tarred as anti-fill-in-the-blank lefty cause.
We need more plain speakers like John Wayne, not less. Enjoy watching the link.

HT: The Other McCain

A Rocker's View Of Conservatives Needs A Conservative Primer

I start this post pointing out that your humble blogger loves rock music. Hard rock, metal, alternative, whatever it is called now a days. From such seminal bands as Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin, to the 1980s and Iron Maiden, Metallica, to the 90s and Nirvana, and alt bands to the 2000s and bands like Rage Against The Machine, Rise Against I have followed the music with great love and interest.
So, I recently saw the Foo Fighters in concert at the once Fabulous Forum in Inglewood, California. There is a post on why it is the once Fabulous Forum.
But in today's Left Angeles Times was The Red Bulletin, the magazine put out by Red Bull.
On the front cover was my man, the front-man of the Foos, Dave Grohl. And the accompanying article about him and music.
In the article, definitely worth the read, Mr. Grohl is asked about the Dear Leader, President Obama. And I knew that I would not be happy with the answer. And he was asked if he would support the Dear Leader, President Obama's reelection. And I was even less happy with the Q and A:

If he asks, will you support him in his 2012 re-election bid?
Absolutely. He’s got the toughest job on earth. I would hate to hand the administration over to another party that is just focused on corporation, greed and money. You know, I’m a fun, peace-loving guy, but sometimes the right wing gets a little too selfish.

Well, he is not downright insulting to conservatives and in a way just rather around the edges of grasping legitimate policy differences between conservatives and modern liberals.
I don't take my politics from celebrity whether they be on the left or the right. Many do and that is tragic.
So, in reading that part of the interview with Mr. Grohl, I find it is time for what I will call a conservative primer. It is what basically conservatives believe. And it is more personally what I believe as a conservative. Again, this is what I understand makes a conservative person.
First, a conservative believes in personal responsibility.
We all have to take an inventory of ourselves from time to time. Whether we are doing the right things in life or not. It is not just from a religious but a moral point of view. We believe that when one does wrong in life, there are consequences. But that there is also an understanding of the wrong and a way to change. Thus I, for one, believe in the ability of people to change based on an acceptance of personal responsibility. It also extends to our relationship with one another. It means not being a jerk to someone else. It means to be treated the way we or I would want to be treated.
Conservatives believe in thrift.
What that means is that we do not believe in living beyond one's means. What we have been told seemingly throughout my lifetime is that we can live beyond our means and that we should not want but demand the best in life. Thus I try to shop at the market with coupons. Look for the bargains. Don't go to Nordstrom's, but will go to Nordstrom Rack. Look for things on sale. Put a lot of money down on a home as we did and be able to prepare for the rainy day. We are not always good at that, which leads me back to accepting responsibility when we do not.
Conservatives do believe in taking care of one another. But not at government expense. We believe in the power of charities and faith-based institutions to provide for those less fortunate. We also believe in personal involvement to that end. It is not just about writing a check and then doing nothing more. Many of us do volunteer our time. Two years ago, Mrs. RVFTLC and I volunteered to serve Thanksgiving to those less fortunate in El Monte, California at our church's outreach. And we serve on the board of our Transitional Housing program at our church. It for those addicts who are trying to get back into society. In other words, we put our money where our mouths are.
In terms of government, we conservatives do believe in small, limited government at all levels. And we believe in bottom-up government. We believe that government at the most local of level can meet the needs of the people best. That the more government is centralized, whether in Washington, D. C. or state capitals, it is more removed from the very people it is to serve. Small, limited government is not as susceptible to the corruption and excess that big, unregulated government is.
We conservatives value tradition. But not just for the sake of tradition. And we are open to necessary change. Not change for the sake of it. Or to create some social experimentation.
Thus we look to history as our guide. Why we accept and respect how our Great Land came to be is because we study the history. From the first settlers. Those who landed on Plymouth Rock. Those that wrote the Mayflower Compact. Those that began the eventual United States of America. Those that wrote the most amazing document, the Declaration of Independence. The Articles of Confederation. The Constitution.
The constitution is an amazing document for it sets a delineation of power between three co-equal branches of government. The legislative, executive and judicial branches. All are to respect one another.
And the constitution is always amendable. But not made easy to do so. It is intentionally made hard to not have bad amendments adopted willy nilly. Thus it places a great deal of burden on the legislative and executive branches. The judicial, at its best, simply interprets the constitution and sometimes acts as a referee.
Conservatism is not perfect. We have made mistakes and have to reflect on those errors.
One that I can think of his how most people that identified themselves as conservatives opposed entering World War II. Even after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor December 7, 1941. Many conservatives did not want to engage in a foreign war. Many thought that World War I was one we did not have to be in.
But when we were attacked that Sunday morning in December, it changed everything. Thoughtful conservatives changed their mind and recognized that the Axis powers needed to be defeated. What separated conservatives from many liberals was the recognition that there was another evil that needed to be defeated. That other evil was communism.
And the Cold War was born.
Conservatives did not have a solid voice in the defeat of the communists really until Ronald Reagan became president. He laid it all our there for the world to see. He said bluntly that communism was an evil empire. And that it would be defeated. And for the most part, it has been. Even in Red China, what passes for communism would have Chairman Mao rolling in his grave. The few outposts of the brutality that is communism are on their last legs. Hopefully in our lifetimes.
What I have written is really a short primer on what it is that conservatives believe. It is to respond to people that have a negative, not necessarily informed view of what it means to be a conservative.
And it is true. On the sidebar of this blog, I believe that to be a conservative is to be a real rebel. Especially on the college campuses throughout the United States. To many of one's friends and relatives. it is saying the the prevailing liberal world view is what is wrong. It is taking on what has really become the establishment.
I do not expect Dave Grohl or any other rocker to get it. I think that he knows a little about politics like many people. And unlike some on the left, I do not believe that he is trying to intentionally offend a possibly large part of the fan base.
But in reading his otherwise excellent interview, it was this I feel the need to speak up for and about conservatism. Albeit very briefly.
So, I owe a big thanks to Mr. Grohl. And while we strongly disagree about politics, I still love the Foo Fighters and the great rock 'n roll you put out there.