Time for the Parties to Step Up

I just heard some great news this morning. I have to admit my ignorance of something I should have known: the political parties themselves can decide whether their state primaries are binding or not. This one, I have to hand to the Democrats. The DNC is seriously considering downplaying some of the primaries that are being moved up too early. In the race to get in the picture early, some states are even considering binding presidential primaries before New Year's day, or in January. The Democratic party has decided that this is too much. I concur (how often do I get to say "Democratic" and "I concur" in the same paragraph?)

I have suddenly realized that this is not a government nor a federal issue. It is a party issue. How wonderful it would be for a party to suddenly declare that all state primaries are merely "straw polls," and nothing else. What a wonderful idea -- to have the candidates show up for their political conventions and duke it out in late summer, rather than bore us to tears with their monolithic, cookie-cutter political mumbo-jumbo?

As it stands right now, the presidential nomination in both parties may be sewed up before the first robin of spring 2008 lands in my state. That means a long, hot, UGLY summer of one-on-one between two dull candidates, neither of which can excite us the way they used to. If the election were held today, it would be between Rudy Giuliani and Hilary Clinton -- possibly the ugliest election in history. If this happens, I suggest we modify the ballot. I would recommend they give us two choices: not Clinton, or not Giuliani, because that's what the vast majority of people who bother to vote will actually be saying in November of '08.

So now is the time, Demos and Republicans. Tell the candidates that the primaries are non-binding -- merely "suggestions" for the state delegates. Or perhaps, this year, we could start by saying that only half of the delegates in each state will be decided by primary. When I realize that some candidates have already spent in excess of $20 million, and today is supposed to be the opening day of campaign season, I realize how bloated and vulgar the election process has become.

I'm still hoping for a dark horse to emerge some time next summer who will ride a wave into Washington. Someone to be excited about. If both parties would do something to curb early binding primaries, we might get that.

If we continue with the same old same old, we will have the same old cookie cutter politicos with their tired, insincere ideas. And November will be bad news for all of us.

"I Told You So..."

Our country is in a health care crisis. No doubt about it. When the cost of health is more than five times the cost of living, something is wrong. Unfortunately, both Democratic and Republican socialists think that the problem can be solved by Big Government.

As I have stated in earlier commentaries, I think government financing of health care is not one of the cures, but rather, one of the causes of the health care crisis. There is nothing more inefficient, wasteful, and outright corrupt, than government funding of anything. Medicare is one of those disasters right now.

However, I am seeing something happen that I warned about years ago. When Ted Kennedy first proposed subsidized national health care, I told those in the debate that state-supported health insurance would show some of the same tendencies of state-supported education. When something becomes state-supported, something else becomes compulsory. When the state or the federal government funds education, everybody has to go to school -- to their schools -- or be approved by them to go to another.

I told people twenty years ago that if we got national health care, we would be forced to go to the doctor. We would be forced to receive health care that Big Government deemed necessary. Everybody laughed at me. Now, however, we find that John Edwards is proposing just such an idea.

"It requires that everybody be covered. It requires that everybody get preventive care," he told a crowd sitting in lawn chairs in front of the Cedar County Courthouse. "If you are going to be in the system, you can't choose not to go to the doctor for 20 years. You have to go in and be checked and make sure that you are OK." He goes on to say that the government will enforce mammograms, as well as other routine inspections. It's just like I said it would be. But everybody else laughed. It's time to quit laughing. It might be silly not to go to the doctor for a yearly checkup, but it's certainly not the government's business to make sure we do, any more than being their business to see if we've changed the oil in our car or cleaned out the cat's litter box.

Another reason to quit laughing is because that's not all that I predicted. What if the federal government decides you're incapable of raising more than three children, and you're pregnant? After all, they handle your medical expenses, so what say would you really have in whether or not to get an abortion? What about that hopelessly ill grandmother who's just drawing medicare funds but will never get better? Big Government knows best, and they may decide they know better than you do when to pull the plug. How about sterilization? Then again, there are other medical procedures that would make you a better person, and your friendly local government will know what's best for you.

You think I'm being extreme in this? People did 20 years ago, but if John Edwards gets his way, we will be forced to go to the doctor. Who's going to pay for this? The "government," of course. What does the "government" mean? For some reason, liberals think of it as some vast resource of unlimited money that miraculously replenishes itself, much like the meat does in the grocery store cooler, or the water does in the tap over the sink, or the milk does in those little cartons next to the coffee creamer at Wal-mart.

As someone who has lived in other countries that have nationalized health care, I want to warn you that it doesn't work. It's like the rest of socialism: It works on paper, and really looks great. Then, you try it with actual people, and it completely disintegrates.

We need to do something about the health care situation in the US, but it needs to start somewhere else. Melody Hobson, on ABC's "Good Morning America," recently reported that over 80% of all medical bills are incorrect. If hospitals were anything but hospitals, federal regulators would have closed them down. First, we need to crack down on inefficient, inaccurate -- and even intentionally corrupt -- hospital billing. Then, we need to do something about 5 dollar Tylenol tablets and 5000 dollar a night hospital rooms. Afterward, we could go after private insurance, but we might not have as much to do; if they weren't getting scammed by medical entities, they might not try to pass as much on to policy holders. Is it too much to think that a time could come again when a day's treatment at a hospital would not cost a year's salary?

If we switch to a federally funded insurance, we will go in the opposite direction. Tylenol will be 50 dollars a tablet, and a hospital room for the night will be 25 thousand dollars, and that's just the start. And who will pay for it? Why, all you filthy rich people, that's who. Edwards has a tax plan just for you.

By the way, in the liberal world, "rich" describes anyone who earns money and can pay his own bills. Their goal is that no one do that, except, of course, John Edwards, Ted Kennedy, and those select few who really know how your money should be spent.

"Only the Names Have Been Changed..."

What happened to all the idealists in the “new era?” I remember last November – Nancy Pelosi, shining and triumphant. After all, the big “house-cleaning” had been a mandate of the people. They wanted liberal policies, she supposed: more taxes, bigger government, universal health insurance, liberalized abortion laws, and more rights for gays and lesbians. Isn't that what the party is about? Obviously, that’s what America wanted, because they had thrown out the pro-life, anti-gay, fundamentalist conservatives.

Now, there’s something that most of the media does not want you to know. As dismal as Bush’s approval rating is (and you haven’t heard much about it lately because it’s been going up), he’s got a double-digit lead on congress. Wonder of wonders; even Dick Cheney has a higher approval rating than congress.** Why do you suppose that is? Could it be that the people that put them there are somewhat dissatisfied with their first year of performance? I mean, you can only milk “history” so far. It’s one thing to be the first woman speaker of the House, but finally, you have to do something besides wear a dress to congress and talk about your grandchildren. These people were put into congress last November by two groups: those who were “protest voting” the incumbents, and those who want to see more liberal tax laws, abortion funding, and gay/lesbian rights, including gay marriages. I have no data, but I suppose that the former was a much larger group than the latter.

And what have they done with their “mandate?” Well, they’ve drummed out an Attorney-general, issued several worthless subpoenas that cannot be enforced, and made sure that every Iraqi insurgent wakes up each morning with confidence that American troops will soon be gone. Honestly, can anyone tell me anything else Congress has done since January? They have spent a whole year throwing firecrackers at the White House with totally meaningless non-binding resolutions. At least, most normal people (notice I didn’t say the media) consider them meaningless. If they want us out of Iraq, why don’t they flex some of that newly-acquired political muscle and get us out of Iraq? Don’t get me wrong; I’m not in favor of liberal government, but if I were, I would be bitterly disappointed right now – no concerted effort to overthrow Bush’s tax cuts; no attempt to fund abortions; no efforts to add gay marriage to federal law – nothing.

In an amazing role reversal, the Democrats and Republicans are pretending to be – get this – each other! Republicans want to protect the poor, honor alternative lifestyles, and distance themselves from pro-lifers as much as possible. They want to court the gay vote, and while they don’t want to tax us further (at least publicly), they want to escalate spending. Meanwhile, the Democrats are quoting scripture, preaching in pulpits – sometimes even in white churches, and talking about God and government.

Never have I wanted a third party as much as I do now. I’ve looked into some of the others, but most just don’t have the heart – or the leader – to inspire enough Americans to abandon their own useless parties and “cross over.” It can happen, though. In the late 1970’s the Republican party was not a major contender. It had most of the characteristics of a third party, and then it had a leader. Ronald Reagan could inspire people to “take the plunge.” Even after he was out of office and suffering from Alzheimer’s, his momentum was still rolling. In 1995, I heard an East Texas farmer tell me, “I had never voted for a Republican in my life, but this past election, I voted a straight Republican ticket.”

Is there anybody out there with more charisma than I have, who could form a new party that inspired and actually had some convictions that did not change every hundred miles down the road? I have an idea for a name for your new party: call it the “Reaganite” party. However, one caution: look past anyone – even the obscure candidates – who are running right now. Find someone else with the spine that Reagan had. Even if I don’t agree with him on all issues, I’ll vote for his backbone (that’s the way RR did it).

In 2008, there may be a Democratic president elected, provided they can continue to keep everyone disillusioned about Iraq. If they win, they will manage to hang on to congress as well. But in 2010, it will swing back, and when it does, we will have a whole new slate of politicians to keep on doing the same things that have been done since 94 – nothing important. Or, we can vote for someone else. What if we woke up on a January day in 2011, and found that congress’ majority was made up of Independents? It could happen, couldn’t it? Or am I being too idealistic?

**Update, 9/19/07 -- both the President and congress have plunged to new lows, though Bush maintains his double-digit lead over congress. Check the story at:http://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSN1844140220070919?feedType=RSS&feedName=politicsNews&rpc=22&sp=true

Talk About Out of Touch!

I didn't see the most recent Republican debate. I won't have to. They answered all my questions just by being there. Now I have to confess. I'm one of those "fundamentalists," which of course, according to the news media, means I go to church on days that are not Christmas, Easter, or funerals. I guess that makes me part of the "religious right."

But I digress. This is not about the ongoing befuddlement the media has with the fact that most Americans actually believe in a God that closely resembles the one depicted in the Bible. This post is about how far the once-mighty Republican party has fallen.

I have tried to watch all these straw people climbing over each other, and it's hard to get excited about any of them. With the possible exception of Rudy Giuliani, who ought not to even be a Republican anyway, they all claim to want to win the evangelical Christian base that Ronald Reagan reached in the 1980's.

I have a hint to any future Republican candidate: that base is out there, and still reachable, but any idiot should know this one: You're not going to reach any of them debating on a Sunday morning!

If any one of these mentally numbing stuffed shirts had thought about it, he would have realized that he could have won the debate hands down by making a simple statement: "I will not be at the debate on Sunday morning; I will be in church."

Such a statement would have left all the others scrambling for damage control. I especially am perplexed that former Reverend Huckabee did not understand this -- he was once a Southern Baptist pastor.

Don't get me wrong -- I'm not commenting on their church going habits. I'm talking about campaign strategy. Did none of them have even one person on their staff that could venture, "Uh, sir, a Sunday morning debate will not cement any support from the largest voting bloc you're trying to court right now."

Not only are these candidates completely out of touch with the electorate; they don't have any intelligent advisers either. Do I really want another president like Bush -- a decent, moral, upstanding type of guy who has absolutely nobody with any integrity (outside of his own wife) to guide him? I know when I voted for Bush, I did not vote for Karl Rove, and I really wished I could split my ticket and not vote for Cheney either, but he came with the package, kind of like MTV comes with my "family" package on cable TV. The only difference between Bush and these guys, though, is that, whatever you think of Bush, he towers over this anemic list of candidates. And none of them remember that over 50 million Americans go to church every Sunday morning. Fifty million votes would elect anyone president.

Is it just me? Was this possibly the stupidest move in the history of the Republican party? Well, it's there with Watergate, Teapot Dome, and all of 2006, to be sure. When I hear Hilary Clinton put on a southern drawl and start talkin' 'bout Jeee-sus in a Mississippi pulpit, I realize that she's only perfecting what her husband was an expert at: lying. When Barak Obama talks about his "faith," I know he's just looking for some of those undecided "church people" votes. Now, when a Republican candidate postures his own religious piety, I can answer him as well, in the ancient words of Saint James, "Faith without works is dead."

A Big Step in the Wrong Direction

The news is, "Earlier is Better," in the world of politics. As the epidemic of early primaries continues to infect more and more states, we get further and further from ever again having a president that can be the leader we need for the time we need. New Hampshire, of course, wants to continue to be the first, and from articles today, we find that the NH primary may end up being this year. Florida has tried to upstage South Carolina by scheduling its primary for the same date, and SC is responding by considering moving its date as well, perhaps also putting its primary in 2007. I haven't heard from the Iowa Caucus people yet, but can they be far behind?

What does this mean to us? I've already written extensively about the damage that the primary system has done to our ability to elect a good president, and invite you to read those earlier entries. Said simply, primaries raise the cost of running for the presidency, they take the candidate away from real life and put him/her on a "road show," and by moving from state to state as the press follows the crusade. The result is a general growth in vagueness of the candidate's platform, prompted by the desire to please each voter in each state of each primary. In trying to be "all things to all people," the candidate compromises himself/herself and backs away from issues of conscience and integrity. Consequently, we can hear Hilary acting like Rosie O'Donnell in New York, and then hear her quoting scripture and using a southern drawl in Alabama. Who is the real Hilary? Will we ever see her? Probably not.

In the classic concept of the political convention, some candidates would have "risen to the top" by campaigning in some -- not all -- primaries, non-binding, by the way. The delegates then would have a general idea of "who's hot and who's not," but no one would have a lock. It is in the heat and smoke of a hot August convention that a candidacy is forged, and real presidential material emerges. Sometimes, the winning candidate is a dark horse who has never won a primary. That's the way it's supposed to be.

So, it's bad enough that primaries have become binding and obligatory. It's bad enough that conventions are now coronations where the candidate with the biggest organization, the most money, and the best press has wiggled to the top. What could be worse? Moving them to earlier dates! What little struggle for excellence was left -- a hot summer full of personal contacts and campaigning -- is gone. What we have left is fund-raising, photo ops, and continual posturing. When it's over (and, for all practical purposes, it will be over before February is, and we will be left with over eight months of campaigning. The candidates of the major parties will be obvious. Instead of the desperate August-November run (usually about nine weeks), we have about 35 weeks to fill with mud-slinging, accusations, and general dirt. If the candidates are governors, senators, or representatives, some states will be left with absentee representation. Let's be honest there are only so many things you can do in a presidential campaign, and none of those things are very productive or conducive to strengthening our republic. In all honesty, a political campaign is a depressing period of negativism and pessimism, only occasionally broken up by an orchestrated "rally" where we can sing "Happy Days Are Here Again," but not really mean it.

Now I'm hearing that at least one party is considering moving the national convention to an earlier date. This will mean that even the cookie-cutter platforms will be in place earlier, depriving candidates of even more issues that should be in a campaign. There will be less individuality; instead, major candidates will be singing the party line.

Simply put, 2008 looks to be a boring, disgusting, useless election year. By January 1, the mud will already be flying; when we're supposed to be enjoying bowl games (which, curiously, are also moving in the wrong direction, timewise), we are hearing campaigning. An activity that was made for hot summer days, band boxes, corn on the cob, and fireworks, will instead be indoors in heated buildings as blizzards rage outside.

What can we do? I don't know, but I'm looking for an answer. We need to diminish the power of primaries, and keep the suspense of which candidate will emerge for the conventions. Put the conventions in the Dog Days of August, and turn the air conditioning up to 80 degrees. Just following these simple suggestions would give us a seedbed to spawn a candidacy that would make our hearts beat with excitement again. Wouldn't it be nice to vote for someone, instead of voting against the "other guy," like we've been doing for nearly 20 years now?

Oh, one more thing. Stop letting the IRS send 3 dollars per person to an "election fund." Make the candidates do something else. Do you really want the government funding presidential campaigns? That may be one reason why they're in the sad state they're in right now.

Time's Sudden Surge of Honesty

I want to be the first to commend Time Magazine for coming clean on this issue. While most current publications and networks continue their wimpy sniveling, claiming to be "moderate" in their views, Time showed its true colors in the "Top 100 Most Influential People" feature today.

You will find people of real influence. There's Justin Timberlake. Ask most people about this bastion of American Excellence, and you will get an answer that includes the phrase "wardrobe malfunction" and a reference to The Super Bowl and Janet Jackson. And then, of course, there's Rosie O'Donnell. My, how my life has been influenced by her. So much so, that I won't even watch "The Flintstones" anymore -- in any form -- because she once played Betty Rubble.

Talk about influence. Every night, before I go to bed, I pray that Angelina Jolie will make the right decisions that determine my own national security, the price of gasoline, and the availability of health care in my local community.

Let's not forget Al Gore. He made the list under the heading "Scientists and Thinkers." No doubt the man is an accomplished scientist; after all, he invented the Internet. But thinker? He still thinks he won the 2000 presidential election, and he didn't even win his home state. Not many candidates can say that.

Now, let's see who did not qualify. How about George W. Bush? That's right. The President of the United States did not make the top 100. Never mind that he can, with the stroke of a pen, veto something by Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Barak Obama, or Hilary Clinton (they are all on the list), or send Osama Bin Ladin into hiding in a cave somewhere (OBL is on the list, too), I guess he just doesn't have any clout. Maybe it's because the office of president is merely ceremonial, just a figurehead, and the more important issues are handled by congress. No, wait a minute, that can't be it. Queen Elizabeth made the list, and that's all she is. Maybe it's because his Dad was president before him, and Time doesn't feel that relatives of national leaders should qualify. Oops, forget that as well. Raúl Castro is on the list.

Maybe it's because they left off the purveyors of inflammatory party rhetoric. Nope. George Soros made the list. Maybe the people of the U.S. didn't want Bush on the list. That can't be it, either. In Time's listing of popular vote, we see George Bush comfortably in the top 100, but then again, maybe Time, thinking about poor Al the Thinker, wanted to let George see how it feels to win the popular vote and still not "get in."

Seriously, the list is a sad one. Oh, there are some people who deserve to be there, all right. Love her or hate her, Nancy Pelosi deserves to be on the list, since she will be in history books as the first female Speaker of the House. Condoleeza Rice is there, as well. But the list is sadly overbalanced with entertainers, athletes (is soccer really a sport?), actors and pretenders (George Clooney is there), and rock stars. It sends a message to the world: America is by far the biggest consumer in the world. We expect and think we deserve to be fed, filled, and entertained. If one of those fields is lacking, we expect to be subsidized. Do you know why nothing you buy at Wal Mart is "Made in America" anymore (that buzzing sound is Sam Walton spinning in his grave)? Because the rest of the world is kept busy making things for us to consume and throw away. We import everything. It takes the other 6 billion people in the world, working in manufacturing, just to keep up with the Black Hole that is America.

And we only have three exports: Politics, Sports, and Entertainment. I remember a few years back, living on the coast of South America. They had no Dr. Pepper or Dial soap, no USA Today or Snickers Bars. But they all knew who Michael Jordan was. I could walk the streets and hear Madonna singing "Daddy, Don't Preach" to uncomprehending ears (except mine). When the President of Peru decided to clean up congress and threw out the whole corrupt bunch (he was a good president, even though he himself had been made in Japan), the US thought it necessary to denounce the infringement of democracy in Peru. Anyone who has lived in Latin America knows that when God made automobiles and democracies, He did not have Latin Americans in mind. We go around the world trying to impose our narrow political viewpoint on countries who have neither the cultural nor the spiritual background that is a necessary seedbed for the processes of government that we have in our own country.

But back to Time. No hem-hawing on their part. They showed just how liberal and left-leaning they are. I am not a fan of Bill Clinton, but when he was president, in spite of his many flaws, I would never have been stupid enough to say that he did not deserve to be in the Top 100 Most Influential people in the world. He was President of the United States! Come on!

To the people at Time: we know you hate Bush. But your snub was childish and ill-advised. You don't have to like him to recognize his influence. Your idiocy was showing when you omitted him. If the blogged responses to your list are any indication, you obviously are tired of publishing a magazine, and hoping it will silently go away. But you have your pride. We know of your left leanings, of your sympathy for extreme causes. And you weren't afraid to admit it. I hope that major networks and other major publications will come clean as you did, and quit pretending to be "objective." You have helped us all.

So it Was All a Joke...

Sheryl Crow came clean yesterday. Painted into a corner by her ridiculous comments, she cut a hole in the wall and got out, and the press gave her a free ride. She was just kidding about the toilet paper, after all.

That's the difference between a liberal environmentalist and a normal human being. When most of us tell a joke, we don't have to wait 24 hours to make sure that everybody "got it."

Liberalism, in case you haven't noticed, is possibly the most "un-funny" thing there is. They don't know how to tell or take a joke, so I find it interesting that they now have to tell all the rest of us when they have told one.

Did you ever hear the following joke?

Q. "How many feminists does it take to change a light bulb?"

A. "THAT'S NOT FUNNY!"

Liberals are unable to poke fun at themselves. They don't understand how George Bush can stand before the correspondents' dinner in Washington every year and joke about himself in front of a less-than-congenial crowd. He must have an angle; after all, they would.

To the liberal mind, humor is just another way to get what you want, when you want it. The thought of actually entertaining someone serves no purpose. Liberal "humor" must fall into one of three categories: sarcastic, insulting, or dirty. I spoke of "Rosie's rant" in the last post, and have since seen her performance before a women's achievement group. Fortunately, we were spared the R-rated four letter words, but there were enough PG-13 ones left to let us know one thing for sure. She doesn't know how to be funny.

Most Americans understand the therapeutic value of a belly-laugh. Liberals don't. Whether it's John McCain (a liberal wannabe himself, but he's too funny) singing "Bomb, Bomb, Iran" to a Beach Boys' tune, or the famous Reagan mike test, liberals take things seriously. I've never met one that saw the humor of life in general. Take, for instance, the time they were trying to shut down ALL logging in the Pacific Northwest. Why? Why, the spotted owl, of course. Poor little endangered creature was very delicate. Not only did she nest in only one type of tree; the forest had to be full of them. Even the thinning of trees in a commercial forest would eradicate this poor little creature from the ecosystem. Then they found a spotted owl nest in a Wal-Mart sign. Now that was funny! At least most Americans would think so.

So thanks, Sheryl, for letting us know you told a joke. We know how hard it is to do that, but you were very noble. You stayed within the ethos of your own philosophical group. You explained the rationale behind telling the rare joke: "We're just so happy that people are talking about global warming, even if it's brought on by a joke," she said. It also gave her a chance to insult Karl Rove, one of the easier slow moving targets of the left -- somewhat easier than Dick Cheney, but a little harder to hit than Adolph Hitler, but this is just for point total, after all.

All I ask, Ms. Crow, is that the next time someone to the right of you politically, socially, or morally, decides that humor is apt for the moment, that you give him or her some leeway to tell a joke as well. I know you won't understand, totally, but realize that they might actually just be trying to entertain the ignorant multitudes like myself and other normal Americans.