[...]
"Could the people ostensibly on our side of things start focusing on Obama rather than trying to find the perfect Republican conservative? I'm telling you: With his numbers eight points below Carter's, with half the country afraid to spend money on Christmas presents, with people out of their homes, no jobs, would somebody please explain to me where it is automatic that the incumbent wins?"
{...}
"We got Newt's problem here. You got a Romney problem over there. You got a Bachmann problem. Could we focus on Obama? Could the people ostensibly on our side of things start focusing on Obama rather than trying to find the perfect Republican conservative, 'cause that person doesn't exist."
Now, I usually agree with Rush, and I understand where he is coming from in this instance as well, but I think he is missing a point here. Rush is trying to get us all united in the face of a common and terrible enemy, and he rightly understands that the media wants to divide the GOP, tear it into warring factions.
Which leads us to another conservative I greatly admire; in a
recent post at Canada Freee Press the ever brilliant Lloyd Marcus had this to say;
"The criteria embraced by the liberal media, Democrats, and some conservatives for selecting the 2012 Republican presidential nominee are quite clear: imperfect conservatives need not apply. Conservative presidential candidates must have been born yesterday, not having lived long enough to break any of the Ten Commandments, make a mistake, or say or do anything stupid.
However, in their short time on the planet, our conservative candidate, along with possessing a "perfect past," must display a masterful expertise of all topics foreign and domestic. Anything less means that our conservative guy or gal is an incompetent idiot."
Now, it is indisputable that the media and liberal power brokers want to choose our candidate for us just as they did in 2008 (unleashing the hapless and toothless geriatric John McCain to storm Washington in his bedroom slippers). And we should not let ourselves be moved by the unfolding of nefarious plans to besmirch our people. That is absolutely a no-brainer. But I fear what is happening is that we are, in our desperation to unseat the current squatter in the Oval Office, willing to accept ANY candidate who has a "chance of winning". Unfortunately, that phrase usually ends up meaning someone who will betray our cause.
What was the message of the midterm elections? That people are fed up with business as usual. There is a disgust on both sides of the great political divide with the professional politician, the leadership of the ruling class. Everyone instinctively knows that things have spiraled out of control, and while the Tea Party and the lice-infested hippies of the 99 Cents crowd aka Occupy fill-in-the-blank have radically different dreams and hopes for the future, they share one thing in common - a rebellion against the rule of the elites. People are tired of playing their parts meekly in the passion play that the wielders of power have pre-written for them. People of all stripes are tired of the games, tired of the wrangling for power for the sake of power, tired of the endless charade that is politics in America. There is a seriousness about reform - real reform, and the public wants new blood, leaders who are actually trying to implement their vision and not simply follow a "big tent" party platform designed to perpetuate political power.
Which is precisely what most of the GOP candidates do not have to offer. Mitt Romney is a warmed-over version of Gerald R. Ford with better hair. One expects to see him don a
WIN button and
fall off the debate stage.
Tea Party instinctively knows Romney will sell them down the river
Actually, the Tea Party instinctively knows Romney will sell them down the river. He created Romneycare in Massachusetts, and will be an unwilling participant in the dissolution of Obamacare. He was pro Cap and Trade, in favor of amnesty for illegal invaders, and has a host of other "moderate" positions that the elites in the GOP love and the liberals can tolerate.
And Romney is pretty much par for the course among GOP candidates. You have Gingrich with his couch-a-thon with Nancy Pelosi and his love affair with "Green Conservatism", his sometimes flakey ideas and inability to stick to a plan (Tom Delay complained bitterly of Gingrich's
inability to drive an agenda, for example, and said that Gingrich could not stay on message). His recent comments on illegal aliens shows he is still in the amnesty camp. In short, Gingrich is an insider.
The same can be said for Rick Perry, who granted in-state tuition to illegal aliens, and who forced the Human Papilloma Virus vaccine on school children.
The list goes on and on. The problem, dear Brutus, is not in ourselves but in our stars. We desperately seek an honest candidate who will actually advance an agenda that we want. Michelle Bachman excepted, there are no good candidates in the current field. It was part of the appeal of Herman Cain; he has his faults but comes across as sincere. The endless attacks on Cain, the accusations of sexual misconduct, took their toll (and the others in the GOP did not back him up), but Cain was never rejected for where he stood. Michelle Bachman and Ron Paul have never really gotten going, but primarily for reasons of electability; Bachman is too green on the national stage (nobody wants a repeat of Barack Obama) and Ron Paul's pacifism does not sit well with conservatives.
Barack Obama tapped into a fundamental desire in this country; people know instinctively that the system is broken, and are looking for a way out. Obama promised "change" without specifics, and people were desperate for some new leadership. Much like a used car salesman Obama waxed glowingly about his "new" agenda which turned out to be a dilapidated old wreck that had been detailed and waxed to look new. His idea of new was to bring back the 1970s. But his failure doesn't mean the public isn't searching for more. People want leadership - and not the same old politics. They want honest men in power. They want people unlike the current crop who hang around year after year like toenail fungus, feeding off the droppings of the ruling class. This explains the popularity of Herman Cain; Cain is clearly not a polished insider politician. His numbers remained strong during the whole "sex misconduct" scandal precisely because of his inept response. He is GENUINE. A career guy would have had a team of lawyers on top of this immediately, with slick sound bytes and canned responses. Cain appears to be an honest man; his inept handling of this bespeaks someone who was completely blindsided. That is what America wants; a guy who reacts rather than plots. The nation is crying for an honest man.
Bear in mind, this did not start with the election of Obama. It started after the Presidency of Ronald Reagan where the GOP fell behind Reagan's veep George Herbert Walker Bush. Bush was the consummate insider, the man the GOP establishment wanted in 1980. He governed like a RINO, with his "kinder, gentler nation" rhetoric and his foolish tax increase. Conservatives held their noses and voted for him, and it started the long slide into perdition. Bush gave us Clinton, which gave us a fresh start with the GOP taking Congress, but they no sooner had the "Republican Revolution" than they began compromising. It was a long, agonizing era; the '90s, where the GOP establishment allowed the Democrats to whittle away at their power through accommodation. Forgotten is the impeachment of Bill Clinton, where the GOP controlled Senate, terrified by Clinton's popularity, refused to conduct a real trial. (I remember the end of the trial where Chief Justice Rehnquist was thanked by Trent Lott; Rehnquist had a look of total disgust on his face, disgust born of presiding over what was obviously a sham.) They also feared an incumbent Al Gore, which was foolish, considering Gore would have taken much of the blame for the Clinton Administration (what was he going to do? He would have pardoned Clinton as surely as Ford pardoned Nixon, and paid the same price). So Lott and the other cowardly establishment types designed the trial so as to end swiftly with an acquittal. Testimony was limited, witnesses were limited, the scope of options limited BY THE GOP SENATE. In the end, President Clinton lied under oath to a federal judge (and had his law license revoked for it by said judge), lied to Congress, obstructed justice, and got away with it because the GOP was frightened.
The conservatives watched as the Democrats leeched power from the GOP in the Senate, as the GOP supported RINOs and eventually offered a "power sharing" arrangement - an arrangement that they had no reason to offer as they still held a plurality. We watched as the GOP played a "duck and cover" strategy that cost them seats in the off-year election of 1998, a strategy that any fool should have understood wouldn't work but which Newt Gingrich confidently championed. We watched as the Republicans who had taken power in '94 broke their promises, promises of term limits, of control of spending, of standing on principle. As a result, they lost the Senate and the House margins shrunk. The Republicans appeared little different from the Democrats.
That was in the 1990's; the 2000's were even worse, as the GOP would not buck its titular leader who would have been happier had he been a Democrat just prior to McGovern. George W. Bush gave us No Child Left Behind, gave us the prescription drug entitlement, gave us the ethanol mandate for our gasoline, windmills, the mandated end to the incandescent light bulb. He tried to give us the largest amnesty for illegal aliens in history. He spent money, money, money! And his parting gift was the enormous bank bailout "we have to suspend free-market capitalism in order to save free-market capitalism". And all through the Bush years we were treated to a political strategy where we endlessly gave half a loaf to those who sought to remake America.
George W. Bush was the ultimate insider. He was supported from the beginning because the alternative was worse, and he could win. Political compromise has destroyed the United States of America.
Compromise so touted by people like Colin Powell and other elitists inside the GOP has been killing us
And the compromise so touted by people like Colin Powell and other elitists inside the GOP has been killing us. Consider the compromise deals by House Speaker John Boehner; they end up being surrenders to the status quo, at best. Despite the rise of the Tea Party we cannot even get Congress to cut spending back to 2008 levels; that is considered somehow radical. Meanwhile the nation moves ever to the Left with each compromise - the Marxist dialectic in action. We want it to stop, not just slow down. We cannot even get those in our own party to do that.
And so we are no longer willing to settle for a mere half loaf. We want our public servants to be just that; servants who obey us, not masters who serve themselves and demand our obedience. This notion we are somehow too demanding to expect an honest servant, one who holds our values dear, is wrong, and a large part of why we have seen the terrible erosion of America over the last few decades. We are compromising ourselves to death.
According to Jeremiah5:5
So I will go to the leaders
and speak to them;
surely they know the way of the Lord,
the requirements of their God.”
But with one accord they too had broken off the yoke
and torn off the bonds.
Therefore a lion from the forest will attack them,
a wolf from the desert will ravage them,
a leopard will lie in wait near their towns
to tear to pieces any who venture out,
for their rebellion is great
and their backslidings many.
Yahweh promised to save Jerusalem for the sake of one upright man. Surely somewhere in America one such man can be found.
