This is directed to the upper echelon of the Republican Party:

Well, you did it again, didn’t you? You forced a candidate on the conservative base that we couldn’t vote for in clear conscience. Remember 1996 when you made us hold our nose to vote for Bob Dole? Guess what; you just had a repeat performance. The only thing good that may have come out of this election is Sarah Palin being noticed by a larger segment of the population than she otherwise would have. If the party has any sense it will rally around her and other true conservatives like Bobby Jindal.

Before you force real conservatives to find another place to call home you had better look to cleaning your house of the phony conservatives who call themselves neo-cons. Reagan Republicans will not stand for the continual move toward the center that they have endorsed. Middle of the road is a good place for roadkill, and that is just what happened. You cannot continue to ride the yellow line and expect to come out ahead. Either get back into the right lane or go on to the left and expect that head on collision that is bound to happen.

After the 1994 Republican takeover of congress, conservative Americans expected something other than what happened. The “contract with America” is what convinced us that we were going to get the kind of reform that we have been hoping for. We didn’t count on the neo-cons keeping the contract from being enforced. We expected that with a majority in both houses that we would see smaller government and follow through on some campaign promises. When you still held a majority after 2000, and also the executive branch, there was no reason to expect what happened; an increase in the size and cost of government. What happened to the party that promised to eliminate government waste; to eliminate the Department of Education; to cut off funding to the National Endowment for the Arts; etc?

We began to start calling Republicans who “reached across the aisle” RINOS but instead what they are, is in reality the new Republican Party. Ronald Reagan was quoted to have said that he did not leave the Democratic Party, but that the Democratic Party left him. Guess what Republican Party leadership: you have left us!

We will welcome you back if you change your ways, but if not, we will look for a home elsewhere.

Whichever way this election goes, conservative voters in America need to either rebuild the Republican Party or find a new party they can unite with.

We have two distinct factions now within the conservative movement: Neo-Conservatives and Paleo-Conservatives. Neo’s want more big government and more dependence, Paleo’s want to return to Reagan style of government, where individual performance is rewarded.

Neo-conservatism has more closely aligned the Republican Party with the Democrats, and until and unless that is changed, old style conservatives have nowhere to go.

Fringe parties, such as the Libertarian and Constitution have good ideas, but they only serve to siphon off votes that would go to the Republican candidates. Only the Republicans, of the three, have a chance at this time to win even a congressional seat. A vote for a Constitution or Libertarian candidate is truly a wasted vote, and in fact serves as a vote for the Democrat candidate. A vote for one of these fringe parties could only be justified if the two major candidates have little separating them as far as qualities. John McCain is far the better choice for America, even if he is not the best the Republicans could have come up with.

Conservatives of America have a big chore in front of them in the next four years. Sarah Palin may be the rising star, but if she is not on the winning ticket this year, she may fade out by 2012. It is imperative that we find young energetic Reagan/Ron Paul Republicans or find a way to unite the Libertarian and Constitution Parties into one stronger force that must be reckoned with in the future. (See my column on how to get elected)

Paleo-Conservatives need a home they can call their own. There are still plenty of them around, but there are still plenty of the Neo’s as well, and they seem to be getting most of the Mainstream Media attention. George Will and Peggy Noonan are good examples of the new conservatives, as is Christopher Buckley, (son of the late Bill Buckley), who endorsed Barack Obama. That’s a Neo-Conservative for you. 

Oddly, some of the old style conservatives who strongly oppose Barack Obama happen to be black: Walter Williams, Thomas Sowell, Mychal Massie, Larry Elder, Eric Rush, Ellis Washington, Ward Connerly, and I am sure many, many more. It has been reported that 94% of black Americans are voting for Obama, but there is more and more evidence that he has not been accepted by a large number of blacks. (I refuse to call black Americans “African-Americans” since except for Obama, most of them are not from Africa.)

Regardless of the outcome, America is in real trouble; riots if Obama loses (or wins) and a weakening of the country if he wins. McCain may not be Ronald Reagan, but he sure as hell is a true American 

Here’s a guy, Joe the Plumber, outside of his home playing catch with his kid, when up comes Senator Barack Obama, who is running for president of Joe’s country. Joe stops throwing the ball when Obama approaches him to shake hands with him. “Hi, I’m
Barack Obama and I would like your vote this November”, or something like that.

Joe, who was just happily playing catch with his son, then asked the Senator if his tax plan would affect him if he bought the company he worked for and it was earning more than the $250,000 that he said would be taxed higher.

The question was innocent enough, Joe just wanted to hear Obama’s reply, which was something along the line of we are going to take from you and give to those earning much less. From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.

Since the Senator’s reply didn’t set too well with most of America, Joe was investigated by Ohio officials who support “The One”, and dirt was dug up on him to discredit a man who just asked a simple question. The surprising thing is how easy it was to find information on Joe the Plumber. It seems that none of the records on him were “sealed”.

Senator Obama, however, is a whole different subject. Joe the Plumber (whose real name is not Joe but Sam and who owes the IRS some back taxes, and is not really a licensed plumber, and may not be planning to buy the business he works for, etc.) is not running for an office of trust in this nation. Joe is just an average citizen who just wants to be able to make a decent living and is hoping to achieve the American dream of owning his own business. He is definitely not running for the highest office in this land. Obama, who we should be able to know as much as possible about, is a closed book.

His records from Occidental College in California are sealed; his records from Columbia University are sealed; his records from Harvard University are sealed; his birth records which are in question are sealed in Hawaii.

Why is it that records on Joe the average guy can be acquired and made public when he has no bearing on how our nation is governed, but the man seeking the highest office in the land has a record that is being kept under wraps?

America, (that is, you and me), is hiring a man to be chief executive of our company. Shouldn’t we be allowed to see all of his pertinent records before making the decision to hire him? If you were applying for a job as a janitor, let’s say, wouldn’t you expect your future employer to want to know enough about you to be able to make a hiring decision? Truth is you wouldn’t have a chance at mopping those floors and cleaning those toilets without showing your qualifications first. Shouldn’t the future president be held to at least as high a set of standards?

You don’t have a right to know certain things about one of the presidential candidates. Ask and you might be investigated. Publish what you know and you might get the Homeland Security Department after you.

We have been denied the viewing of legitimate documentation on Obama’s birth. His college records, which may show him registered as a “foreign student”, and now it seems that when someone in the government, no one knows who, makes public that Obama’s aunt is in this country illegally, a certain black Democrat congressman is calling for an investigation.

Since when is it a violation of the law to want to know all of the pertinent information about the people we are asked to elect to represent us? Why has there been such secrecy about the man who we are told is leading in all of the polling data and who is likely to be the 44^th president of this great nation? Why are we not allowed to ask questions about such things as his birth records or whether he was registered in college as a foreign student? If his aunt is in this country illegally, why have we no right to know that? True, her status in this country has no bearing on who he is, but what about the things that go unanswered? Why hasn’t Barack Hussein Obama produced his legitimate birth records? Why have his college admission records been sealed from public view? If there is nothing that would harm Obama in these documents, why haven’t they been made public? These are questions that all voters should be asking before making a commitment to vote for a man who would re-write our constitution and make America a socialist nation.

Most Americans know that it is imperative that we find an alternate source of energy to petroleum. Most Americans also know that while we are searching for that alternate source that we must still use petroleum based fuel, and must explore whatever source there is to attain it.

That makes sense to rational minded people; it’s only irrational people who deny that we must continue using oil as our main source of energy while we look for an alternative.

Now on another subject, government, why is our thinking so different?

Most rational thinkers don’t like the system of government we now have, and agree that we need an alternate to the two party domination. Some have advocated for voting for third party candidates to show our discontent, even though no rational minded person believes that any of those third party candidates will win.

Like the energy problem, we need to seek a new solution to our governmental problems, but while we are seeking that solution, we must continue to use the governmental fuel we have available. While one party promises change, the other promises reform, but neither offers a clear solution. We are forced to select the one best suited to our needs, while not meeting our desires.

Like our need to continue to depend on petroleum for energy, we must continue, unfortunately, to depend on one of the two major parties to continue to lead us until we better define a party with whom we can identify. Remember, in 1860 the Republican Party was the new kid on the block. It can be done, but until it is, we must still support “the lesser of two evils”, in this case John McCain and the Republican Party.

Unfortunately today we have exploration for a new political source of energy running off in different directions, wildcatting in their various fields. There is the newly emerged Constitution Party, the old standby Libertarian Party, the new American Independent Party, the America First Party, the seemingly defunct Reform Party, as well as, on the left, the Green Party. There seems to be little if any effort to unite these parties to become a force that could affect a national or even a local election.

Unless and until these like minded parties are willing to swallow their individual egos and unite, we are doomed to continue to run our country on the less than desirable fuel of the two party system.

Recent stories about vote switching by electronic voting machines, voter registration fraud by the likes of ACORN, and other horror stories have me wondering why we don’t go back to the good old days of paper ballots and hand counting of same. I know we have many more voters today than when the system was first put in place, but so what?

I have heard people complain about having to wait in long lines to vote, even here in Oregon where we have mail in voting. Last minute voters wait in line at post offices or at ballot drop off locations instead of voting a day or so earlier. I can’t think of anything that can happen in the last several days before an election that would change a rational voter’s mind.

To eliminate long lines, more polling places could be used and the counting of the paper ballots could and should be witnessed by all who wanted to take part. If a small precinct, say a neighborhood precinct, knew that their count was being witnessed by those who voted, chances are pretty good that the vote would be accurate.

When I first voted at age 21, which was the legal age at the time, the precinct was next door to my house in a neighbor’s garage. There were about four voting booths set up with lever pull voting machines, which were the state of the art in those days (Jack Kennedy’s election). The levers were clearly marked and once you finished voting and opened the curtain to the booth by the use of a lever, your voting levers were returned to the starting position for the next voter. The results were positive and were tabulated by hand at the end of the day and held for collection by the main precinct, or hand delivered to that precinct.

This was in San Francisco, a major metropolitan area, and we never had to wait in long lines.

Why aren’t we doing that today instead of making fewer voting places for the electorate and forcing long lines that, according to Democrats, disenfranchise minority voters? I would think that all voters are “disenfranchised” if they have to wait in long lines which discourage them from voting.

How many of you out there have a job? Most all of you I would guess would answer, “I do”. Now, how many of you are employed by someone who is in your same tax bracket? I would guess that the answer is damn few if any.

Anybody who has worked his butt off to build a business, not only profits himself, but also along the way manages to employ some number of people who are less inclined to take the gamble that his or her employer took. Many, if not most, small businesses fail on their first attempt, but persevering entrepreneurs try and try again to reach their dream of being independent and self-supporting. The side effect of helping others make a living is just icing on the cake.

Now enter Barack Obama, who wants to increase the taxes on the five percent of the people in this country who are those employers, and cut the taxes of those who are on the bottom most rung of the ladder, who in fact, now pay no taxes at all. Cutting taxes for someone who pays no taxes amounts to redistribution of wealth; money taken from those who do earn and given to those who do not earn it.

America has historically been the most generous nation in the world; giving needed funding to all who truly needed it. Most of this help has been of the voluntary variety; Americans give more to charity than any other nation. It has always been the individual who has taken care of his neighbor in need, not the government. Government’s only source of income is its citizens. Unless governments take from the people they have no other source of income. Unlike the top five percent of taxpayers who manufacture products or provide services, government does nothing to provide benefit to their constituents, without first taking from them. Even then, the benefits are questionable.

With the economy about to go into the tank, I may soon find myself in the position of having to look for a job, being currently retired and living on a fixed income that has a shaky future. When and if I enter into the job market, I will most likely be seeking employment from somebody who is in that top five percent bracket, or at least from one of the corporations that are. I can only hope that if the tax rate on these businesses is increased, that at least some of them will remain in this country, and that I might be fortunate enough to be among their employees.