Four More Years!!

 

No, this is not a chant for repeal of Amendment XXII and reelecting President Obama nor is it a call for election of President Bill Clinton. We advise it to be the rallying call of conservatives who also plan on finding some way of coming to terms with this year’s election choices. Instead they need to choose one or the other of the current choices or find some workable alternative and not some pie in the sky on a wing and a prayer choice and dedicate themselves over the next four years to finally get organized and intelligent in their approach to the election of a President. With the current problems surfacing faster than one can track, let alone counter intelligently, we felt this article was seeing new life as it was not posted during the Republican primary season when first composed. That will also explain any idiosyncrasies.

 

Republican Candidates into South Carolina

 

Finally choose one and only one true and acceptable conservative candidate and not run seven conservatives against one interloper and then complain. Yes, there are a compliment of conservative candidates who all have sufficient qualifications making them promising as potential candidates for President and challenging Trump’s reelection bid or against Hillary Clinton’s reelection bid and any one of them would probably be an improvement. These are each best in one or two categories and they overlap each with the other in one or another of the categories and none are across the board head and shoulders above the rest but them all contending for the nomination results in exactly what we have seen for the past; it will be twenty years come next election cycle. When are the conservative public going to wise up and demand that the conservatives find one candidate to run and the rest please have a seat and support the selective choice as otherwise ten conservative running and one moderate, or worse, one left leaning candidate cleans up winning merely twenty-five to thirty percent and the conservatives all in single digits splitting the remaining votes between them. By the time sufficient of the conservative candidates are whittled out of the mix and a single individual representing the then conservative consensus is so far behind and the momentum of the least conservative or worse candidate makes them uncatchable and soon becomes the presumptive Republican candidate and that’s the end of that election season. We have watched at best moderate candidates lose while true conservatives who would have had the total support of the Republican base no questions asked sitting with their campaigns broken and in pieces as they had torn and ripped at each other’s support base until it was diluted and each fell one after the other and if even two are left the more liberal candidate walks off with the nomination.

 

The conservative base, the Tea Party, the NRA Second Amendment supporters, the pro-life supporters, the free-trade pro-business financial conservatives, the social conservatives and all the other identity conservatives need to swallow their pride and work as a team and not as a series of independent groups vying for complete control and superiority pushing their own candidate all other concerns aside. That is an equation for disaster and simply trying the same old comfortable paths to ruin one more time because this time it will be different and they will persevere and win the nomination. Instead, perhaps a conservative convention need be held where the different groups can all be represented and work and find a candidate which they all can agree upon. This candidate will not be the most desirable to a majority of groups as they will not come from amongst their ranks but then they will be more favorable to their cause than allowing a complete loss with no conservative candidate running for President and another four years of standing on the sidelines complaining about the primaries and how the entire system is broken. The system works just fine; it is the pride of too many individuals that is breaking the system as far as selecting the strongest conservative candidate. Stop trying the same thing expecting different outcomes which, according to Albert Einstein, is the definition of insanity. Work together instead of directly competing and dividing the votes of the base fracturing any possibility of fielding a candidate in the election. Is that too much to ask of groups of people who claim to be pragmatic, logical, organized, practical, realistic, reasoned and operating in the real world? This should have been obvious but somehow your demand on perfection and complete control leads conservatives to demand purity in the candidate and refuse compromise. Stop and stop now before the country swerves so far left that there is no path to return to the middle, let alone to a more conservative and reasoned legislating. Perhaps when working together there may be a candidate who, though not necessarily being chosen by any of the numerous groups and not possessing the purity of essence to any of the varied position still is supportive over the broadest spectrum of the desired causes. The conservatives need to understand something the left learned a long time back, the we will scratch your back and you all will scratch ours and together we will be stronger.

 

Four more years is the deadline for conservatives to find a way to communicate and relate such that a consensus candidate can be found to be the acceptable if not preferred candidate such that the majority of the different convictions, principles, values, philosophies and doctrines while also possessing the ethical, moral and principled beliefs and deeds with levels of accomplishments and achievements making them acceptable to the widest sets of viewpoints as possible. Not being capable of compromise the conservative interests may as well pound their chests as they wither and decline off into history as the center continues to drift further and further into the distant furthest left point on the political spectrum. The two presumptive candidates who survived with the most support despite often not being the majority vote getter are the perfect example of what a divided conservative base produces. Perhaps the theme song refrain should be (as sung in Where Have All the Flowers Gone) “When will they ever learn, when will they ever learn?” (Song below)

 

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Santorum, a Different Kind of Candidate

The one item I read and heard the most about from the Arizona Republican Debate was Rick Santorum making the worst possible mistake any candidate could make, admission of fallibility. Personally, I thought Rick Santorum admitting that his vote for George W. Bush’s signature legislation, No Child Left Behind, due to the reasoning that party loyalty sometimes forces one to make poor choices. Rick Santorum admitted that given his own views he would have voted against the No Child Left Behind legislation but when your own party’s President requests you support what he regards as one of the pillars of his Presidency, you vote with the President and bite the bullet this one time. But almost all those who decide right and wrong, also known as the mainstream press, claimed Mr. Santorum had made a cardinal mistake. These are the same wonderful deciders of political fates who have time and again stated how if some politician had just come out and admitted to making an error, a misjudgment, a poor choice and simply apologized, then they could have avoided recriminations galore before finally admitting their wrongdoing. Now, when a candidate finally does exactly this, they claim he has made the worst case scenario in judgment possible and may have ruined any hope he had of winning. I really wish they would make up their mind and have a consistent opinion and not simply take the opposing side of every choice simply to appear all-knowing and wise.

 

Now, let us look a little deeper and into rick Santorum’s past and see if this is a fatal flaw of his, this telling the truth. As it turns out, it actually is a chink in his armor (am I allowed to use this phrase still?). One of the other shortcomings listed in the mainstream press critique on Santorum is the fact that after serving two terms as a Senator for Pennsylvania he lost his bid for reelection. What they refuse to inform us about is why and how he lost. Oh, they give you the wide percentage and refer to it as if it was the worst loss in political history, they must have forgotten a few Presidential races like McGovern, Dole and others, but never bother to say why he lost a seat he had won easily before. It was very simple; he refused to compromise on his principles and stuck to his guns even knowing it made his winning reelection highly difficult if not impossible. And what were these principles he refused to sacrifice, or at least lie about and deceive the public? Rick Santorum stuck to his support of President Bush’s efforts in Iraq and called for the United States to do more to prevent either North Korea or Iran from becoming nuclear armed nations. He was adamant that stopping Iran from attaining nuclear weapon status should be paramount and at the top of the agenda for the United States. I wonder why they refuse to inform the public that these were the issues that Rick Santorum once before stood by when doing so was difficult and ended up costing him an election. The reason the press hides this is simple; the word is integrity, something Rick Santorum has an abundance of.

 

There is another issue that has been utilized to club Rick Santorum ceaselessly, and that is pork. Let’s get the one defender against pork spending out of the way right up front. Everybody will jump up and claim that Ron Paul is virtually a saint who crusades against pork barrel spending in shining armor astride of a white stallion. Well, here is the dirty little secret; despite voting against even pork for his own district, how do you think such spending got into some of the most popular and necessary legislation for Ron Paul to vote against pork even for his own district? Yep, Ron Paul attaches riders to legislation he is assured will pass sending pork spending to his district and records show he is among the most guilty of this practice. Then, after inserting the pork spending he votes against the bill and proudly proclaims that despite this legislation being so wonderful and having pork spending for his own district, Ron Paul, the ever-on-the-job watchdog of the Constitution, destroyer of pork, defender of the tax payers has once again valiantly, but unsuccessfully, attempted with his Nay vote to slay the pork monster.

 

But the most disingenuous part of the debate was Mitt Romney taking the high road and accusing Rick Santorum of pork barrel spending. What Mitt Romney would like us all to believe is that he only requested pork spending for the Olympics and for his state of Massachusetts while Governor was because it was his noble duty to request Federal funding for the most pure of reasons while any pork spending procured for Pennsylvania by Rick Santorum, being merely a Senator and not a holy state’s Governor, was mucking in the mire of stealing funding for his home state from the Federal coffers. So, in the world according to Mitt, a Governor pushing for and receiving Federal monies for his state is a noble pursuit and part of the job description and to be lauded while a Senator representing his State and pushing for the same exact funding for his state is the lowest of actions and discredits the holder of political power to abuse that power thusly. Governors are allowed to represent their State and procure funding for same while Senators representing their State and procuring the same funding are scurrilous. Sorry Mr. Romney, but that is the same act and is actually considered part of the job for both Senators and Governors as both positions are representatives of their State and are to pursue the best favors they are able to win for their State. The only real difference between a Senator and a Governor is States have one Governor and two Senators and the Governor goes to Washington solely to win pork while the Senator also accomplishes other work while in Washington. Rick Santorum was doing the exact same as Romney when it came to finding favorable funding for their home States and either both were accomplishing their tasks which are vital to their work and function in their respective offices or both were scoundrels, but there is no difference when either received funding for projects within their home States.

 

Finally, I want to add the reason I support Rick Santorum and had told friends back when he lost the Senate in 2006 that I still held out hope he would one day become President of the United States. In Rick Santorum we have a rare breed of human, one that has honor and holds the truth paramount, even when holding to the truth is painful and counterproductive. Rick Santorum is that rare man who as a politician will actually state that he does not know the answer to every problem and that on some things he will need to look into them and gain knowledge rather than just blow smoke and hope to hide behind a barrage of words. I find it noble and so very refreshing to have a man of character and integrity who I can trust means what he says and says what he means. So often in politics you hear people bemoaning the fact that they are all scoundrels and that you cannot trust a single one of them. Not Rick Santorum, he actually holds the truth above his pursuit of position. Rick Santorum will follow through on that which he promises and will treat the Presidency of the United States with honor and dignity. Wouldn’t that be a refreshing change? If I had to pick a fault with Rick Santorum it would be that despite his efforts to live and act humbly, you can tell he is a proud man who worries more about his reputation and honor than his position. To be honest, I supported Rick Santorum for the position of President since when I first took a look at him after the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon and heard his response and saw a man who would not back away from defending the United States or her people. I saw a man of deep convictions who was also reliable and somebody I would be honored to have as a friend. Who knows, maybe someday I will meet him and that could become a reality, though it is doubtful. I fully support and pray that Rick Santorum will win the nomination and then the Presidency as America needs a man of his character in these perilous and needful times.

 

My disclaimer: I am not a member of Rick Santorum’s campaign and seriously doubt such will ever be the case. My one run for office was enough of a view into the guts and slime of what passes for political electioneering in the United States. It actually amazes me that anybody would enter into such a viscous and demeaning environment as is our election process once they have seen it from the inside. Any man or woman willing to put themselves through such a wringer and retain their humanity and integrity is indeed a rare person to be praised. It is my honest contention that Rick Santorum is one such person. I just want to repeat, though I will continue to appear to campaign for Mr. Santorum, I hold no position nor plan to volunteer to work officially for his campaign despite doing what I am able to assist his efforts to win the Presidency of the United States independent of his campaign. Thank you for reading my thoughts on this subject.

 

Beyond the Cusp