I spent 20 years in uniform. In 20 years, I was betrayed. I swore an oath to 'support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic'. While I 'manned the walls', somebody let the enemies under the walls and into the courtyard: fellow countrymen have allowed internal rot to erode the force & effect of the constitution I defended. Outright betrayal.

Still, a point to amplify: betrayal from arrogance 'reaching across the aisle' to the usual liberal suspects.

As a conservative, I have a memory that I'm not afraid to use. I remember the lies & duplicities of liberals & outright admitted socialists, of 'compassionate conservatives', and of would-be conservatives who behave as if having tumbled gyroscopes for their Jiminy Crickets. Being conservative also means I believe in an immutable standard of right versus wrong, that I'm not ashamed to call a lie a lie, and that I insist all should stick to the agreed rules, like the constitution ... or leave us.

No, the 80% change I want is to take the kid gloves off against those who throw mud to see what sticks. I want to lose the politically correct veneer: the politics of personal destruction is NOT in calling a lie a lie, it's in telling the lie in the first place. Those who speak plainly, unashamed to point out the lies, those are the candidates I'm willing to vote for and support. Conservatism does this. Conservatives will send a Packwood packing just as quickly as sending away a Studds, while the liars will join against Packwood, but circle wagons around a Studds. 

Most of America doesn't give a hoot about 'partisan politics' so much as we want integrity we can trust ... integrity that forbids betrayal. ENOUGH with lies and all the rest of Relative Morality's hidden praise of duplicity!

Conservative victory, the phoenix of integrity ... we need it.

Anybody ever notice that Republican success in national elections is directly related to how conservative the Republican is???!!! ('DumbOxBellowed' blog shows details in a featured essay.)

I wish the 2008 ticket was Palin-Anybody, with a cabinet including Thompson, Gingrich, Alexander, Keyes, DeLay, Lott, Santorum, Thune, etc. (I remember how some of them were tarred & feathered, run out of DC on a rail, then exonerated. THAT is the politics of personal destruction.) No human is perfect, but a cabinet like those names would probably keep each other true to politics of service, away from politics of self-embellishing duplicity. 

On 10 Sep 2008, various folks received, from a McCain Campaign source:

          "Even before our national convention, the Obama campaign dispatched what The Wall Street Journal called a "mini-army of 30 lawyers, investigators and opposition researchers" to Alaska to dig up dirt for their personal attacks on Governor Palin and her family. FactCheck.org has called the attacks on Governor Palin, "completely false" and "misleading." However, the Obama Democrats continue to launch these attacks, hoping you'll never find out the truth."

No surprise.  Liars lie.  Seems liberals embrace Relative Morality, in which any individual is legitimate in deciding any bad deed is actually virtuous, if the bad deed advances 'the cause'.  Kind of like what some branches of Christians had decided a few centuries ago:  "the ends justify the means".  Liberals, with Relative Morality, have decided it’s virtuous to tell lies that promote liberal causes.  Seems liberals, as a group, have become habitual liars…  10 Sep 2008 was not new …

  - Most of what's not said about global warming is 'lies by omission', though there’s also plenty of both lies of commission and lies by implication. They show us the full-up Three Ring Lying Circus.  One of the leading liberal climatologists, Stephen Schneider, actually overtly and publicly encouraged lying for the sake of the agenda (and was quoted in Discover Magazine, October 1989):

          "Scientists should consider stretching the truth to get some broad-based support, to capture the public's imagination. That, of course, entails getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up some scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention about any doubts we may have.... Each of us has to decide what is the right balance between being effective and being honest."

 - Remember also the Gore Campaign.  In December 2000, this group of liberals had a very interesting Florida campaign strategy (as reported in Washington Post and New York Times): get Gore votes into the public’s consciousness, loudly & repeatedly, even if you have to quietly take them back later; create the impression of winning.

Intentionally & loudly proclaim the lie, foster a false image. Then quietly just stop talking the lie when it’s found out. Indeed.  Liars won’t stop lying unless forced. 

That’s three ‘big campaign’ snapshots going back two decades. There’s more; it's what they get good at, whether by omission, commission, or implication.  But these three examples are big enough to suffice for a short essay. 

Lying can become an addiction.  Psychology tells us, confirming common sense and a few thousand years of theology, that some liars get so used to lying that they develop an inability to distinguish reality from fantasy. We hope, however, that only the most partisan Relative Morality Liberals have developed a difficulty distinguishing lie from reality. We have a greater hope that ‘inability to distinguish’ doesn’t (yet?) afflict most Americans generally. 

Since most Americans tend to be conservative, when given the chance to assess multiple views of an issue, we have a high level of trust in both hopes.

1. Yes, finally, an election of ‘change’: 

 - a liberal democrat riding a wave of discontent against D.C. Politics As Usual

 - a moderate republican emphasizing his ability to change things by reaching across the aisle. 

Yes, a year of ‘change in the wind’ for the record books that chronicle major shifts in American politics:

 - Obama v. McCain, 2008. 

 - But also

     -- Clinton v. Dole, 1996, and

     -- Clinton v. Bush Sr., 1992

2. Yes, quite an election year. And Republicans ignorant of history are likely to repeat the 1992 Clinton defeat of Bush Sr ... or repeat the 1972 victory that led inevitably to the 1973-5 quagmire that led to Carter's malaise ...

   a.  “All politics is local” …  Republicans adopted this phrase after the 2004 elections, to their demise in 2006

     - but it’s the liberals who think small & local, and expect the same from their elected politicians

     - conservatives tend to think about the nation ahead of pork, and expect the same from their elected politicians

   b.  “Those ignorant of the past are condemned to repeat it” … which begs a scrutiny …

     - “Watergate” was a watershed political moment. Pays to review the record since that watershed birthed modern political trends.  The record shows that Reagan was the most conservative Republican, and won overwhelmingly.  The rest were less conservative, and won (barely) or lost to the degree they shied from conservative principles.  (See blow-by-blow in my post "Republicans Win When Conservative")

4. Republicans: be conservatives for once.  We sure can't get it from Democrats, and (so far) no other party has a chance.  Republicans can be conservative, or go into political dustbin of history.  Republicans, be conservative for your electoral good, and the good of the country!

 - Don’t waffle. Be somebody we can trust. 

 - Uphold truth, eschew lies.

 - Insist on justice triumphing over relative morality; laws of the land trumping elitist agenda. 

I offer five questions. Logically answering them should prove a basis for waking up to environmentalism’s smoke’n’mirrors:

1.  If man caused global warming, then why did the globe start to warm BEFORE the industrial revolution began?

2.  If man is exacerbating global warming, then why do finally-corrected NASA global temperatures show 1998 was the warmest year, when the decade since '98 has seen more pollution than ever -- and from East Asian industrializing, which is essentially immune to Global Warmist “solutions”?

3.  If the USA has such a huge environmental disaster, then why was it only in Korea, immediately downwind from China, that I couldn’t see the sun, nor even a brighter-than-the-rest spot in the sky, on a clear day?

4. Since the 1960s-technology Trans-Alaska Pipeline (and Prudhoe Bay wells) has been such an environmentally-friendly project for all these decades, what possible legitimate objection can exist, to drilling ANWAR with 1990s+ technology?

And I have the BIG question.  It reacts to actions by General Electric, airlines, and most other major corporations, ‘going green’ in the wake of President Bush removing their last political protection against environazis: 

5. What will it take to get President Bush to return to his sensible resistance to the global warmist fanatics?

Those five questions illustrate how President Bush has snatched defeat in 2006-8, from his 2004 victory over Al Gore.  Do we have Son of ‘No New Taxes’ ?

Dear Presidential Hopefuls:

A President Obama scares me. I spent twenty years in uniform to fight socialists – violent revolutionaries bent on government control & power in the name of Worker’s Paradise. That was two decades of my life to fight these enemies, whether foreign or domestic. 

But a President McCain doesn’t inspire me, and hardly even reassures me. Frankly, a political history like his is one of appeasing liberals on their pet issues, while not even achieving quid-pro-quo from them.  His ilk have not been political champions in the fight against socialist revolution, especially not against their political usurpations within our own borders. Even in this 2008 election, Sen McCain's ilk have proved wimps when disavowing state-level political ads that dared to tell the unvarnished truth about opponents; they were concentrating on cream-puff ads. We will see if recent changes in Sen McCain's ad styles remain, and we will see how he heals with damage caused by prior disavowals & distancings.

Yes, I want “change”.  But I want change the opposite direction from which Republicans & Democrats alike have been going in the last five years. I like a stand against earmarks. But that doesn't go far enough. I want change of the kind that boldly proclaims, and ACTS, to get the Federal government smaller overall. I want change that refocuses the Federal government from wealth-redistribution to governmental chores that equally benefit all citizens: national defense (including military, border, and strategic materials), internal infrastructure (interstate roads, rails, bridges), space exploration (with environment favorable not just to NASA), international trade agreements (especially to account for foreign governmental subsidies and slave-labor), parental freedom to raise & educate their own children, the constitutional right of ALL men to live from conception to natural death (unless one proves to be an uncontrollable menace to others’ right to live), and a judicial system that actually punishes offenders (so they never want to come back to jail/prison).

In 2008, as always, the highly sought ‘moderate vote’ won’t matter much.

1. The three voting blocks: liberals, moderates, conservatives

 - Democrat base (liberals)

                -- Obama will win the liberal vote. He’s one of them. Sure, other liberal margin candidates will take some of the liberal vote, but Obama has all the credentials to secure that liberal vote pretty solidly. The Democrat’s liberal base is very active, measured by percentage of voters who actually vote.  They’re going to break for the most liberal candidate that can plausibly win, whether Green Party or Democrat party.  They won’t vote McCain.

                -- McCain won’t win the Democrat base, no matter how much he fancies himself a unifier or any similar stupid buzz phrase.  Liberals, the Democrat base, will like McCain only as far as they can use him, and only when a liberal Democrat is unavailable.  We face no shortage of liberal Democrat politicians.  Writing’s on the wall.  McCain won’t get the liberal Democrat vote no matter how many times he facilitates liberal agendas with his crossing over.  The base is too liberal; McCain cannot possibly be liberal enough to outshine established & credentialed liberal candidates.

- Undeclared voters (moderates)

                -- Moderates, indeed, probably form the majority of American citizens.  But it matters not.  ‘Voters who vote’ is what matters. Seldom has a national election even achieved energizing 60% of eligible voters.  In most all USA elections, only half or less  of eligible voters actually find the desire to vote. 

                -- It’s a truism that most undeclared voters don’t declare because they also don’t care enough to vote.  Mostly, moderates are not declared for any party, nor even as ‘independent’. 

                --  Let’s discuss ‘independents’. Independents are generally either liberal or conservative, to some degree, but disaffected from their nominal party of similar thinkers. Independents, though, when energized by a strong candidate, tend to vote their nominal party affiliation, when push comes to shove, no matter their official ‘independent’ status. Otherwise, Independents show their disaffection by simply not voting. 

                -- Winning the moderates is a dead-end that only leads to de-energizing one’s base, and losing the election.   It really doesn’t matter, to win the ‘moderates’.  This is merely a Potempkin Village, no matter that Republicans have been seeking it since Bush Sr foolishly abandoned the coalition electing his predecessor. 

- Republican base (conservatives)

-- McCain must strike enough conservatism to be a standard-bearer for the Republican base. The problem:  McCain is stuck on ‘reaching across the aisle’, no matter how foolish it makes him look to all but him.  His foolishness is, in part, an ability to consistently pick the wrong fights during which to cross the aisle.  Beyond that, conservatives have marked the liberals’ tendency to work with conservatives who decide to partner with them on liberal issues, without any reciprocal partnering on conservative issues.

-- McCain can, perhaps, strike enough conservatism to be a standard-bearer for Democrats who finally see their party is far more liberal than ever. McCain can ‘convert’ Democrats who are upstanding citizens, who believe in the civic responsibility to be politically active, who uphold traditional American values. He must show them they are too conservative for the party they’ve traditionally given allegiance to. But people who have habits will change those habits only when the incongruence is pointed out, and an alternative shown to them. This requires plain speaking, and details.

-- McCain may have time to pick fights more carefully, more prudently; there may still be time with which to capitalize on his ability to put trust in adversaries.

2. Different federal offices

 - Presidency. 

                -- As things stand now, McCain can win.  Can.  Not ‘will’.  He must sling truth hard, loudly, and with as much certainty as his opponent (and co-travelers) slings the mud of half-truths, vague platitudes, and other lies.  No need for lies nor dirty tricks, no matter how tempting, just paint his socialist opponent precisely as socialist as he is. 

-- If McCain can at least stand up enough to be willing to call a lie a lie, and to allow publicists to point them out, then he can possibly generate sufficient conservative enthusiasm.  Thus is a method of a true conservative.   This is the method for a Republican to win.

 - Coat tails. 

                -- Incumbency will be strong, our system has become one in which the elected powers attempt to secure their power. Incumbents have demonstrated amazing ability to cling to office regardless of opinion polls showing approval ratings in single digits. With Republicans still trending to the policies that lost them the 2006 elections, liberals are gaining seats in purple districts/states, maybe even in a bunch of red ones (like the special elections show).   

                -- Coat tails probably exist only for the Democrat, but remain McCain’s to win too. McCain is not a slogan any conservative can use for re-election. But McCain is not a slogan any moderate Republican can use either, due to realities among the three voting blocks.

3. Conclusion: 

 - Givens.

                -- There are lots of liberal voters who vote. 

                -- There are lots of conservative voters who vote. 

                -- There are fewer moderate voters who vote. 

                -- Seeking the moderates is as foolish as seeking the fringe extreme on either the liberal or conservative sides; it tends to alienate the mainstream liberal and the mainstream conservative voters, wherein lies the bulk of votes available.

 - A method to McCain & Republican victory, even with their (plural) vote-de-energizing problem:  

                -- McCain should point out a new realization that reaching across the aisle is far easier when from a position of strength. He must illustrate -- long & loud -- how he, Candidate McCain as Senator McCain, has demonstrated solid conservative principles by doing A, B, and C, even while learning hard lessons -- after the fact -- about power positions when eschewing conservative principles while doing D and E.  It’s gotta be loud and unrelenting, since Senator McCain specifically, and congress generally, are seen to be just as the book new mentions:  ‘wimps to the right’.   

                -- McCain, and Republican Party generally, have a large order to fill, trying to demonstrate conservatism after so many liberal Republican maneuvers in the last several years.  Trite as it sounds, and as likely as liberals will rail against it:  “truth, justice, and the American way!”, and “this is no time for pale pastels, paint with bold colors.” Though Napoleon stood for many principles antithetical to American values, he was nevertheless one of history’s best motivators of populations. How? Well, Napoleon is reputed to have said, “A man does not have himself killed for a half-pence a day, nor for a petty distinction. You must speak to the soul, in order to electrify him.” 

                -- Republicans tend to win in direct proportion to how conservative they make themselves. Capture the USA’s increasing numbers of conservatives in 3 groups (Republican Party, of recent departure from Republican Party, Reagan Democrats).  McCain must electrify all who are conservative, even those who don’t yet realize they are or how liberal their current political party has become. That’s the only way. 

 - Winning the conservatives’ energy is how a Republican wins. Seeking the ‘moderate vote’ is a Potempkin Village.

 - Duck Archer