Capitalism, unregulated, has led to Robber Barons and concurrent treatment of workers as merely another cost of production. The point: greed led to dehumanization of fellow men (& women & children also in sweatshops even if not in the mines too). Caveat: is such dehumanization inevitable? Have all cases of relatively unregulated capitalism led to such excesses?

We often hear capitalism works on a recognition of greed’s power. 

 - Greed can be seen as an inherent evil. Greed has perennially been one of the 7 Deadly Sins (pride, greed, lust, anger, gluttony, envy, sloth).

 - What is greed? Greed is the drive to improve one’s lot in life, taken to extreme. Definition: “an overwhelming desire to acquire or have, as wealth or power, in excess of what one requires or deserves” (Webster’s New Riverside University Dictionary).  Therefore, a simple desire to improve one’s lot in life is NOT Greed, any more than eating for health & nourishment, is a desire to be a glutton.

 - Effects. Greed, unchecked, led to Robber Barons at least in the USA and in Britain. Some capitalists, like some of any group, will become fanatics. Are robber barons capitalism’s fanatics, or at least one brand thereof? We may not know the answer, but we do know that far from all capitalists become robber barons.  Probably, for every robber barron (or, today, 'golden parachute executive), we can find at least one noted philanthropist to match.  Philanthropists are but one example of the opposite of a robber baron.  But even more basically, greed is not the all-consuming factor in capitalism.  Capitalism’s essence, seen in all the  is that it allows each person to use natural talents to better his lot in life – and the lot of those he cares about or does honest business with. Just as eating tends to gluttony in many, capitalists often tend to greed of robber barons.  

 - Analogy time. Greed is much like an amazingly attractive force. A tool one can use: capitalists can simply avoid the excesses of greed. But there are possibilities still, when one finds himself already far down the path to greed, and greed becomes overwhelmingly powerful. He can make the moral decision to shear away from greed’s sucking force. That decision can be codified into law, just as is codified the morality to not steal or kill in any other ways. 

    Other examples abound, such as

      - the highly-publicized myths that the Founding Fathers were Secularists, not the Christians they themselves claimed to be.

      - the now receding myth that the Treaty of Tripoli was somehow a proof that religion must be banned from the American Experiment, when it was merely a clause trying to explain to Muslim countries that the USA, unlike all other countries of the day, had no officially supported state religion.

    “Exception becoming the rule” isn’t just for history.  Historical examples are simpler due to Americans’ lack of history education.  Modern-day examples are possible due to Americans’ lack of education in mathematics, rhetoric, & logic.  Relative Morality is truly evil, since it makes a lie or a murder (or any other evil) into a moral virtue whenever the lie/murder/etc can be arguably seen to advance an agenda.

      - NBC planting explosives in a Ford to show how nearly all Fords explode on impact (1978).  (So, a rigged-to-explode pickup is a valid expose on sparks igniting gas tanks ... how?)

      - 60 Minutes rigging visuals to show how jeeps ‘always’ roll over even at very low speeds.  (Note how the powerful visual over-emphasizes a very low statistic merely quietly mentioned in the background narrative?)

      - Diane Sawyer’s recent ‘expose’ on how being armed in a classroom (or any public venue) would get you killed, but cell phones would save lives.  (How does the following filmed play-acting prove anything?  The play-acting paintballing perpetrator enters the classroom, shoots the instructor, then somehow zeroes in on the only armed individual.  Meanwhile, the armed individual is fumbling to grip an unfamiliar paintball weapon in an unfamiliar location -- while wearing bulky gloves?  How does telling the perpetrator 'there is one armed individual' represent reality that there would probably be zero armed individuals in the room?)

Liars lie. Stupid to state the obvious? 

What about …

 - when Liars drown out the obvious in a cacophony of lies?

 - when a culture commonly questions established thoughts not on the basis of weighing competing evidence, but merely because it’s fashionable to question anything already established merely because it’s ‘established’?

1. The problem:

Lies reap often & deeply from ‘the law of unintended consequences’. 

In ‘objective reality’, lies are the true ‘gift that keeps on giving’. Lies spread suspicion, hurt, and resentment -- in ever widening circles. The spread is especially true among cultures around the world that adhere to, as the best available form of justice, versions of any/all of the following:

 - ‘an eye for an eye’

 - ‘might makes right’

 - ‘rule by self-appointed elites’ (Gnosticism, whether secular or theocratic)

 - ‘the ends justify the means’

Politics, nature, and all other forces in the world are as they are, not as Liars would wish them to be. 

 - Liars ignore ‘objective reality’ to their own peril, even if gaining power in the short term. Prestige, wealth, and the other trappings of power, are never secure; they are less so when built on lies. Power built on lies also afflict the Liar with an interior unease, which breeds (among other things) paranoia. In addition to the overt hurts directly from lies, the varying levels of suspicion (even short of paranoia) also lead Liars to spread unease.

 - Lies also afflict the innocent who Liars subjugate. 

 - Lies also afflict the innocent who Liars merely interact with. 

Liars actually often aim to self-aggrandizement via intentionally hurting the innocent. At best, Liars are merely uncaring if their lies hurt the innocent. Even at ‘best’, Liars are incompatible with Inalienable Rights, more-less the Right of Free Will that underpins the specific Inalienable Rights.

2. Current examples:

 - Defense & Deficits. Liars use economic crises, real or invented, to further denude national defense. Liars conveniently ignore that social spending amounts to *more than three times* the spending on national defense, and that social spending has about doubled in the last couple decades, while defense spending declined 40%, then has remained steady or declined until slight increase in 2008. 

 - Pot & Kettle. The liar often has the nerve to compound the lies’ original dissonance, by hypocritically accusing their opposition of ‘politics of personal destruction’ when the opposition dares to point out lies. This is not new. Recall the no longer taught moral tale, about the thief running from the scene of the crime, who shouts “Stop! Thief!” while pointing further ahead, just long enough to make an escape in the lie-generated confusion.

 - Debate. Liars take half-baked science to enact involuntary worldwide wealth redistribution (even economic collapse), and push for U.N. mandates to tax & make binding laws, disguised thinly in the name of an invented human effect on global climate. Then they invent more ‘evidence’ to smear all who would say otherwise, especially including tenuous (and outright invented) ad-hominem attacks (aka “politics of personal destruction”) that don’t actually address the evidence.

 - Free Speech. Liars insist on asserting their world view of morality, in the public square. Hypocritically, they attempt to silence differing moral viewpoints. Liars poison the discussion with doublespeak, not least by asserting a constitutional ‘freedom of speech’ is instead an imposition of morality.

 - Majority Protection. Liars trump up charges, no matter how minor, to ruin their opponents’ reputations. Meanwhile, they ‘circle the wagons’ around their own who are actually guilty of similar and far worse offenses. Compare treatments to Packwood v. Studds, Hillary v. Newt, DeLay v. B. Clinton, among others.

 - History. It’s been fashionable to overturn centuries of knowing Matthew wrote the first gospel. Liars use embedded lies in this one. The only evidence is a presupposition in a “Q” (aka “source”) document. Not only does “Q” not exist today, but all of history fails to mention any “Q” ever existing. One relies on imagined evidence to overturn evidence-based assessments?

 - Guns. Liars claim inanimate objects must be banned, so they don’t kill people.

3. The solution:

It is not the person who calls a lie a lie, who is the dissonant troublemaker. Rather, it is the liar who causes the troubling ‘politics of hate’.  We have forgotten this.

A truth must be lifted again from subduction within rampant cacophony of lies, including lies that question human knowledge merely for the specious sake of engaging in questioning everything: lies keep on giving pain, over & over again; lies must be exposed & snuffed out. This truth is long overdue, and must again be made obvious.

Do we really want arsonists assuming leadership roles in our supposed fight against the fire ???

How long will we remain popularly duped ???

The article (located beneath “Article Begins”) may not be legit; it came in an e-mail with no further attribution than what’s shown below.  It also may not be honestly titled; it wanders among both military and financial issues, despite the title.

Regardless of attribution & focus,the ‘article’ hits all the pertinent hilites but four.

1. Reagan increased military spending. Deficits soared. Why? He was unable to secure “line item veto” he had campaigned for. Shocking increases in social spending was the price Tip O’Neal’s Democrats extracted for Reagan’s military buildup. Reagan’s buildup won the Cold War, and we continue to life off that buildup with a military starting to make Carter’s ‘hollow force’ pleasant by comparison.

2. Bush Sr, after the Kremlin gave up the Cold War, severely slashed (aprox 40%) military spending. Clinton deepened the cuts. Both presidents (Bush Sr and Clinton) dramatically increased social spending, so deficits continued apace. Clinton increased the deficits, until Gingrich came along with his Contract With America.

3.  Democrats and RINOs stopped Bush Jr from heading off the mortgage mess, particularly circa 2005. Democrats ran the last conservative leadership (hilited by Gingrich, DeLay, Lott) out of town, with help from RINOs, and without Bush Jr lifting a finger. The coup was 1998-2002. Deficits continued to soar, and military spending continued to shrink, only at times ‘staying even’ after 9/11, until slight increase in 2008. Social spending increased 40%, now comprising well more than 60% of the federal budget.

4. The ‘article’ focuses on young, idealistic presidents, ignoring the sager heads of their party within Congress. (Congress makes law, including budgets. President can heavily influence, but in the end merely enforces law.)

Yet, as the bottom line says: somehow Democrats have avoided the blame!  

 - The Liberals generally, and Democrats specifically, shifted the blame onto RINOs, calling them conservatives. It’s a fascinating pair of lies, starting to look like Pinocchio’s nose: commit the crime, blame co-criminals and passers-by; venomously assign labels, harkening to previously proffered false threats from the opposition party/ideology ...

 - Conservatives are also afflicted with the blame, falsely in their case. Liberals & RINOs joined to kick the conservative leaders out of office -- the deeply immoral political price for fighting this mess! What a fascinating triple lie: Liberals did it, but claim others did; Liberals blame conservatives, who actually fought it; Liberals invented scandals to remove conservative leadership faster than legal processes could exonerate the accused, so that Liberals could push the agenda that now has us all in hot water.

Jimmy Carter became our 39th president at the young age of 52. He was a one-term governor from Plains, GA, where he managed the family peanut farm and taught Sunday school. He was also a graduate of the Naval Academy and served seven years in the Navy, leaving as a lieutenant.

       He came to power in the aftermath of the Vietnam War and the resignation of President Nixon. The public wanted change and someone new, and Carter was an ambitious, hands-on politician who promised better days. As good as his intentions were, however, the things he tried were not successful. In fact, he created far more serious problems than he ever solved.

       The centerpiece of Carter's foreign policy was human rights, and he did achieve one noble success - a peace treaty between Egypt's Anwar Sadat and Israel's Menachem Begin. Unfortunately, that later led to Sadat's assassination at the hands of Muslim radicals.

       Many people felt Carter was a good man who worked hard and meant well. But he was naive and incompetent in handling the enormous burdens and complex challenges of being president. He wrongly believed Americans had an "inordinate fear of communism," so he lifted travel bans to Cuba, North Vietnam and Cambodia and pardoned draft evaders. He also stopped B-1 bomber production and gave away our strategically located Panama Canal.

       His most damaging miscalculation was the withdrawal of U.S. support for the Shah of Iran, a strong and longtime military ally. Carter objected to the Shah's alleged mistreatment of imprisoned Soviet spies who were working to overthrow Iran's government. He thought the exiled Ayatollah Khomeini, being a religious man, would make a fairer leader.  

       Having lost U.S. support, the Shah was overthrown, the Ayatollah returned, Iran was declared an Islamic nation and Palestinian hit men were hired to eliminate opposition.  

       The Ayatollah then introduced the idea of suicide bombers to the Palestine Liberation Organization, paying $35,000 to PLO families whose young people were brainwashed to kill as many Israelis as possible by blowing themselves up in crowded shopping areas.  

       Next, the Ayatollah used Iran's oil wealth to create, train and finance a new terrorist organization, Hezbollah, which later would attack Israel in 2006.

       In November 1979, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and other Iranians stormed the U.S. embassy in Tehran and took 52 Americans hostage for 444 days. Not until six months into the ordeal did Carter attempt a rescue. But the mission, using just six Navy helicopters, was poorly executed. Three of the copters were disabled or lost in sandstorms. (Pilots weren't allowed to meet with weather forecasters because someone in authority worried about security.)  Five airmen and three Marines lost their lives.
        So, due to overconfidence, inexperience and poor judgment, Carter undermined and lost a strong ally, Iran, that today aggressively threatens the U.S., Israel and the rest of the world with nuclear weapons.
 
But that's not all. After Carter met for the first time with Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev, the USSR promptly invaded Afghanistan. Carter, ever the naive appeaser, was shocked. "I can't believe the Russians lied to me," he said.

       The invasion attracted a 23-year-old Saudi named Osama bin Laden to Afghanistan to recruit Muslim fighters and raise money for an anti-Soviet jihad. Part of that group eventually became al-Qaida, a terrorist organization that would declare war on America several times between 1996 and 1998 before attacking us on 9/11, killing more Americans than the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
 
On Carter's watch, the Soviet Union went on an unrestrained rampage in which it took over not only Afghanistan, but also Ethiopia, South Yemen, Angola, Cambodia, Mozambique, Grenada and Nicaragua.

       In spite of this, Carter's last defense budget proposed spending 45% below pre-Vietnam levels for fighter aircraft, 75% for ships, 83% for attack submarines and 90% for helicopters.

Years later, as a civilian, Carter negotiated a peace agreement with North Korea to keep that communist country from developing nuclear weapons. He also convinced President Clinton and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright to go along with it. But the signed piece of paper proved worthless. The North Koreans deceived Carter and instead used our money, incentives and technical equipment to build nuclear weapons and pose the threat we face today.
  
Thus did Carter unwittingly become our Neville Chamberlain, creating with his well-intended but inept, unrealistic and gullible actions the very conditions that led to the three most dangerous security threats we face today: Iran, al-Qaida and North Korea.

 
On the domestic side, Carter gave us

       inflation of 15%, the highest in 34 years;

       interest rates of 21%, the highest in 115 years; and

       a severe energy crisis with lines around the block at gas stations nationwide.
 
In 1977, Carter, along with a Democrat Congress, created a worthy project with noble intentions -- the Community Reinvestment Act. Over strong industry objections, it mandated that all banks meet the credit needs of their entire communities.

       In 1995, President Clinton imposed even stronger regulations and performance tests that coerced banks to substantially increase loans to low-income, poverty-area borrowers or face fines or possible restrictions on expansion. These revisions allowed for securitization of CRA loans containing sub prime mortgages.

       By 1997, good loans were bundled with poor ones and sold as prime packages to institutions here and abroad. That shifted risk from the loan originators, freeing banks to begin pyramiding and make more of these profitable sub prime products.
 
Under two young, well-intended presidents, therefore, big-government plans and mandates played a significant role in the current sub-prime mortgage mess and its catastrophic consequences for the U.S. and international economies.
 
Hardest-hit by the mortgage foreclosures have been the citizens that Democrats always claim to help most -- inner-city residents who fell victim to low or no down payment schemes, unexpected adjustable rates, deceptive loan applications and commission-hungry salespeople.
 
Now we're having to bail out at huge cost Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the very agencies that were supposed to stabilize the system. In time, this should improve the situation. But the party of Carter and Clinton that midwifed our mortgage mess now wants to be trusted to take over and have the government run our entire system of health care!

       And everyone is blaming Bush for our current problems.

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. 

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. 

Nationally, Republicans win when conservative. The more conservative, the bigger the margin:

A.  “Watergate” was a watershed political moment. Pays to review the record since that watershed birthed modern political trends.

1976. Ford, blue-blood, only moderately conservative, unable to overcome liberal domestic policies and Nixon’s Watergate shadows: lost

1980. Reagan, staunch “no pale pastels” conservative: won (overwhelmingly).

1984. Reagan, again sticking to principles, beating off venomous liberal attacks: won (overwhelmingly).

1988. Bush Sr, riding Reagan’s conservative coattails: won (solidly).

1992. Bush Sr, re-electing on own less-than-conservative record (i.e.: “no new taxes” aftermath of “compromise” with liberals): lost (miserably).

1996. Dole, with only transparent lip-service to conservative principles: lost (soundly).

2000. Bush Jr, emphasizing ‘conservative’ in liberal-leaning ‘compassionate conservative’: won (barely).

2004. Bush Jr, riding conservative record on stem cells, euthanasia, & Terrorism War credentials, when promises of controlling spending & even winning the war were still believable (despite lack of evidence): won (solidly).

B.  Seems that Republicans win the presidency when they stick to conservative principles. Coincidence, or Causality?  Who knows.  Doesn't matter; the relationship exists! 

Republicans:  re-starting in 2008, be conservative!

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