Can Republicans Increase Their Share Of The Hispanic Vote?

“When a portion of wealth is transferred from the person who owns it—without his consent and without compensation, and whether by force or by fraud—to anyone who does not own it, then I say that property is violated; that an act of plunder is committed.” — Frederic Bastiat (The Law)

Yesterday I quoted extensively from a Column by Charles Krauthammer in the Washington Post. In his column Mr. Krauthammer wrote referring to the future of the Republican Party:

“They lose and immediately the chorus begins. Republicans must change or die. A rump party of white America, it must adapt to evolving demographics or forever be the minority.

The only part of this that is even partially true regards Hispanics. They should be a natural Republican constituency: striving immigrant community, religious, Catholic, family-oriented and socially conservative (on abortion, for example). The principal reason they go Democratic is the issue of illegal immigrants. In securing the Republican nomination, Mitt Romney made the strategic error of (unnecessarily) going to the right of Rick Perry. Romney could never successfully tack back.

For the party in general, however, the problem is hardly structural. It requires but a single policy change: Border fence plus amnesty. Yes, amnesty. Use the word. Shock and awe — full legal normalization (just short of citizenship) in return for full border enforcement.”

While this may or may not be a strategy for winning elections by increasing the Hispanic vote conservatives must take a very cautious approach to this issue. It was Ronald Reagan who followed a similar course, but was sabotaged by Congress when they failed to secure the border allowing millions illegals to cross over our southern border.

Hispanic amnesty activists are expanding their goals beyond the so-called “DREAM Act” youth amnesty, towards a national amnesty for roughly 11 million Hispanic illegals.

President Barack Obama and Congress “need to come together to deliver change on immigration policy, and by that we mean a roadmap to citizenship for our parents and communities,” said Cristina Jimenez, director of an advocacy group, United We Dream.

According to an article in the Daily Caller Jimenez was born in Ecuador and arrived in this country as an illegal immigrant.

“Deporting members of our community is irresponsible and unacceptable,” added Lorella Praeli, the group’s policy director.

Their demand is an opening salvo in a post-election campaign to persuade the House GOP to provide “a path to citizenship” for roughly 11 million illegal immigrants, most of whom are low-skill laborers who compete for jobs against low-skill Americans.

The amnesty goal is supported by many progressive groups, in part, because most Hispanics prefer generous welfare policies, and so usually vote for Democratic candidates.

In contrast, many Republican advocates and legislators favor high-skill immigration, partly because high-skilled workers spur the economy and lower unemployment.

But the issue has been gridlocked because most GOP leaders prefer high-skill immigration, while most progressives believe that continued arrival of low-skill immigrants boosts their political power.

For example, the board of Jimenez’s group includes Josh Bernstein, the “immigration director” for the Service Employees International Union. That union’s membership has been boosted by the recruitment of many foreigners working without legal permission in the United States.

Polls show some support for amnesty, but other polls of working-class Americans in swing states show opposition.

Gov. Mitt Romney lost the 2012 election, in part, because of low turnout by blue-collar workers in Ohio and other states.

The renewed advocacy for an national amnesty comes as the formal unemployment rate among Americans ticked up to 7.9 percent.

Roughly 23 million Americans are unemployed or underemployed. Many additional low-skill workers Americans are paid low wages because employers have many potential job-applicants.

In June, Obama announced a temporary amnesty for roughly 800,000 younger illegal-immigrants.

That move greatly boosted Obama’s political support among Latinos prior to the Nov. 6 election.

Under this so-called “Deferred Action” measure, up to 1.76 million illegal immigrants could get work permits, according to an estimate by the Migration Policy Institute.

Only 6 percent of the eligible illegals have college educations, the MPI estimated.

However, Obama’s June decision isn’t enough, said Sonia Martinez, another young illegal immigrant working with the United We Dream group.

“I’m undocumented [and Deferred Action] is really important for me and my daughter. But we believe that Deferred Action is not enough for us,” she said.

“We’ll be fighting to keep families together,” instead of winning amnesty for younger illegal immigrants, she said.

The call for Republicans to discard their opposition to immigration amnesty will grow deafening in the wake of President Obama’s victory. Hispanics supported Obama by a margin of nearly 75 percent to 25 percent, and may have provided important margins in some swing states. If only Republicans relented on their Neanderthal views regarding the immigration rule of law, the message will run, they would release the inner Republican waiting to emerge in the Hispanic population.

If Republicans want to change their stance on immigration, they should do so on the merits, not out of a belief that only immigration policy stands between them and a Republican Hispanic majority. It is not immigration policy that creates the strong bond between Hispanics and the Democratic party, but the core Democratic principles of a more generous safety net, strong government intervention in the economy, and progressive taxation. Hispanics will prove to be even more decisive in the victory of Governor Jerry Brown’s Proposition 30, which raised upper-income taxes and the sales tax, than in the Obama election.

And California is the wave of the future. A March 2011 poll by Moore Information found that Republican economic policies were a stronger turn-off for Hispanic voters in California than Republican positions on illegal immigration. Twenty-nine percent of Hispanic voters were suspicious of the Republican Party on class-warfare grounds — “it favors only the rich”; “Republicans are selfish and out for themselves”; “Republicans don’t represent the average person”– compared with 7 percent who objected to Republican immigration stances.

It is estimated that each illegal immigrant costs the people of the State of California $22,000 per year. That’s equivalent to the cost of a very good new car each year or a year’s worth of payments on a $200.000 home mortgage. The County of Los Angeles is going broke with the burden imposed by the welfare and health care costs of illegal immigrants, people who have broken our laws by coming here illegally.

To me I cannot understand how giving illegals amnesty will help Republicans as according to the law a person cannot vote in a presidential election unless they are a citizen. This is an issue the Democrats have advanced on a purely emotional level in attempt to get the votes of citizens of Hispanic heritage. It is an issue the Republicans have not adequately explained to Hispanics or the American People on the whole.

According to Heather Mac Donald of the Manhattan Institute writing in National Review On “Line Why Hispanics Don’t Vote for Republicans:”

“I spoke last year with John Echeveste, founder of the oldest Latino marketing firm in southern California, about Hispanic politics. “What Republicans mean by ‘family values’ and what Hispanics mean are two completely different things,” he said. “We are a very compassionate people, we care about other people and understand that government has a role to play in helping people.”

And a strong reason for that support for big government is that so many Hispanics use government programs. U.S.-born Hispanic households in California use welfare programs at twice the rate of native-born non-Hispanic households. And that is because nearly one-quarter of all Hispanics are poor in California, compared to a little over one-tenth of non-Hispanics. Nearly seven in ten poor children in the state are Hispanic, and one in three Hispanic children is poor, compared to less than one in six non-Hispanic children. One can see that disparity in classrooms across the state, which are chock full of social workers and teachers’ aides trying to boost Hispanic educational performance.

The idea of the “social issues” Hispanic voter is also a mirage. A majority of Hispanics now support gay marriage, a Pew Research Center poll from last month found. The Hispanic out-of-wedlock birth rate is 53 percent, about twice that of whites.

The demographic changes set into motion by official and de facto immigration policy favoring low-skilled over high-skilled immigrants mean that a Republican party that purports to stand for small government and free markets faces an uncertain future.”

On election night, as the camera panned the audience waiting to hear Barack Obama give his victory speech, what struck me was that the audience was primarily young people and minorities. My thought was, "These are the very people who will suffer the most under a second Obama administration. Don't they know they are voting against their own best interest?"

And then I thought about it and came to the conclusion: "No, they don't." They don't because they are, by and large, uneducated. Oh, some of them may have college degrees or even graduate degrees, but they are still substantially uneducated. I would bet that very few of them know the difference between Keynesian economics and Austrian School economics. I am sure that most of them have never heard of the Laffer Curve. I would guess that most of them aren't familiar with the first principles behind the origin of our country. I doubt that many of them know what evil lies in Socialism or Communism, or unbridled leftism. Or are even aware that Barack Obama is a man of the left, and what that means. They, for the most part, have no idea what the concept of individual liberty is, nor how a big, powerful central government reduces that liberty. I also am pretty sure that they feel that Barack Obama is someone who cares about the poor, women, minorities, and the "middle class," and that Republicans don't. I would stake my substance on the fact that they don't know what is meant by a limited government, or what the Tenth Amendment says. I am certain that most of them don't know anything about Benghazi. Substantially uneducated!

For the past 40 or so years most of our K-12 (and college) educators have been teaching a progressive agenda and class warfare to their students. From kindergarten up they use text books that focus on social issues and downplay our heritage. In many of the urban school districts classes are taught in Spanish so as to provide this progressive agenda without the need for learning English. They are providing these students a crutch, a crutch that will keep them in low paying jobs and poverty so they will be dependent on government for their existence. Also this lack of learning to common language of the United States along with the lack of exposure to our founding principles and heritage tends to keep these immigrants (legal and illegal) in ghettos where politicians can exploit them for their support and votes and they become easy prey for unions like SEIU.

If you live in Germany, France or Italy you need to learn the language to exist. Unlike the United States in these countries official documents are in the native language. You cannot get a license to drive a vehicle unless you take a test in the native language and all ballots are only printed in the native language. The Bundestag or French Parliament does not have a black caucus or Hispanic caucus. Their legislatures are concerned with all of the people not just certain racial or ethnic special interest victim groups. You are either German, French or Italian or you are not.

If you talk with a student in Germany, which I have, they will tell you, in detail, about their history, legal system, culture, and politics. Upper grade students will also tell you a great deal about the American system of government — much more than the average urban black or Hispanic students can.

To summarize — the children in our K-12 urban public school system, for the most part, believe the following:

a) Republicans care about only the rich — the top 1% — and don't care about anyone else.

b) Republicans hate people of color and especially Latinos.

c) Republicans hate gays.

d) Republicans are racist. Many do not know that it was the Republicans under the leadership or Abraham Lincoln who emancipated the slaves and Republicans who advanced the civil rights legislation of the 1960s while the Democrat party led by Al Gore senior, Richard Byrd, and J. William Fulbright who attempted to block it.

e) It is the government that provides jobs. When asked that question many times in classrooms or assemblies — "who is it that creates jobs in America?" The answer is invariably, without hesitation, "the government." This is what they learn from their teachers and parents.

f) Corporations are bad, and profits are very bad. Business shouldn't make profits; they should give any excess money they make to their employees.

g) Taxes are good; they provide the money for the government to take care of people.

h) Government should expand and take care of everyone in the country.

i) America, rather than being a force for good in the world, has been a force for evil.

j) Government has an unlimited source of funds. (When asked "where is the government going to get the money to do all these things you want it to do?," the answer is "taxes.")

These children will soon be voters. How is it, in America, that we are raising children to believe that bigger government is better, that government is the engine that provides jobs, that profits are bad, that Republicans care about only the rich, that we are racist, and that we hate minorities and gays.

This is not something to be ignored. Our country is being changed forever by children who have had this type of indoctrination. We must figure out how to stop it. We need to create a love of country in our children as we once did. We need to have our children say the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag every morning or the Preamble to the Constitution (in English), as we once did. We need to teach our children that America has been a force for good in the world. We need to teach them that it is not the role of government to "take care" of people. We need to teach civics once again, and the Constitution. And above all we must stop this culture destroying policy of bi-lingual education. English should not be a second language, but the language of this Republic.

Until this problem is dealt with, and it needs to be soon, we will be raising generations of children who believe in an ever-larger government and who will permanently change America into Greece. There will be no Republican Party or conservative candidates who will win elections as more and more of the population is indoctrinated with leftist thinking. Goodbye to the Home of the Brave and the Land of the Free if we don't act on this issue.

If you look at the county by county map of how this nation voted in this last presidential election you will see how the Democrats dominated the urban population centers while the rest of the nation voted Republican. (You can click on the map for a larger view). You can also see a more interactive detailed view of the California vote for President and Jerry Brown’s enormous tax raising Proposition 30 by clicking the links shown.

In State after State and district after district, Democrats won by promising that government would do something for the people hearing their message. Subsidize their healthcare, pay for their prescriptions, finance their schooling, guarantee their retirement… the list goes on and on. It’s the 21st century version of promising a chicken in every pot.

And, folks, let’s face it. It worked. What happens when a majority of voters are told they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury, if they’ll only put the “right people” in charge?

We saw the answer Tuesday. They’ll stand in line for hours to vote to keep the goodies coming.

It’s going to be awfully hard to outwork, outspend and outvote them. The silent majority is being replaced by a “gimme” society. What’s going to prevent them from dragging this country over a fiscal cliff — and us along with them?

I don’t know. Do you?

Sorry to sound so pessimistic, but I’m stunned and saddened over the results of Tuesday’s elections. I thought it was one of the clearest choices between two different directions for this country I’ve ever seen. And I’m scared to death of the decision a majority of voters just made.

Ah, well, there is one positive thing I can say about the outcome. It will give this humble scribe — and the other conservative and libertarian writers — plenty to write about for the next few years.

What Is The Future Of The Republican Party?

"But how is this legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply. See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime." — Frédéric Bastiat (The Law)

Conservatives need to take a collective breath and look closer at the numbers before they buy into the idea that GOP nominee Mitt Romney's defeat was due to some kind of national demographic shift that now makes Democrat presidential candidates' armor impenetrable. Before you give in to the hysteria, here are a few things to keep in mind.

First, Barack Obama's re-election showing was actually pretty unimpressive for a guy whose philosophies voters have supposedly adopted. As of this writing on Wednesday, Obama's vote total stood at an unimpressive 60,119,958. That's about what John Kerry got in 2004 (59,028,444). President George W. Bush actually did far better than Obama in his 2004 reelection quest, posting a vote total that was about 2 million higher (62,040,610) than what Obama got on Tuesday. That's hardly a remarkable finish in a country with a population that has increased. In fact, it's a decline of 9 million votes from Obama's 2008 total.

Had Romney (57,425,441) done as well as McCain did in 2008 (59,934,814), he and Obama would have run neck and neck, virtually matching each other's vote totals. That's hardly the stuff of demographic ruin.

The question Republicans and conservatives need to ask is not why voters showed up for Obama, whose turnout wasn't exactly extraordinary, but why millions of their own voters, people who had pulled the lever for Bush and McCain, didn't do the same for Romney or simply stayed home.

Why did Romney get a full 2 million fewer votes than McCain did? Why did those voters pull the lever for McCain, but not for Romney?  Who were they, and where did they go? That is what Republican and conservative strategists need to find out.

Is it possible that Republicans and conservative-leaning independents just weren't that wild about the guy?

Romney, you'll remember, was not exactly popular with the GOP base through two primaries — the first of which he lost outright, and the second of which he won because, quite frankly, all the other candidates were largely unpresentable on the national stage. Remember, Romney won just 52 percent of the votes cast in the primary — hardly a resounding send-off from his own party. Worse yet, Romney carried just 3 out of 43 states with 70-plus percent of the vote, compared to an average of more than 15 states by previous presumptive GOP nominees.

Evangelicals have always been suspicious of Romney's Mormonism. In fact, just days before the election, Paul Ryan had a phone teleconference with Evangelical leaders to rally them. And the exasperation with Romney's flip-flopping habit originated on the right, not on the left, and was well-known. What's more, the GOP's anti-abortion wing has never been entirely comfortable with him the way they were with George W. Bush. And some of the party's base has wandered into the Tea Party and Ron Paul camps, where Romney was never fully welcomed, if embraced at all.

The pundits claim that “Mitt Romney was only the nominee because of a thin primary field." Nonsense, he was the nominee because the entire GOP establishment threw everything it had at all the other candidates, in order to guarantee that it would get the candidate most likely to succumb to their advice and direction. As of September 2012, Romney was the only candidate left in the primary field whom no one had ever described as a conservative, let alone a constitutionalist. That, in short, is why he was the nominee.

The GOP establishment no claims that “Republicans need a candidate who can appeal to moderates". Appealing to moderates means apologizing to voters for not being quite as forward-looking as Barack Obama. It is to set oneself up as the inferior choice. It is to presume that the moderates are with the Democrat candidate by default, and must be peeled off by stealth.

This election was the last chance to spare America the final degradation of ceasing to be a constitutional republic altogether. That battle has now been lost. The things most needed now are clarity and forthrightness. AS Margaret Thatcher said; “first you win the argument, then you win the election.” The danger most imminent now is that, having forsaken the principles of liberty, the nation will simply forget that those principles ever existed. Therefore, from now on, to whatever extent possible, every candidate running against the Democrats in any election must be the most unapologetic, relentless constitutional conservative available. He or she must call out the Democrat as a leftist, a socialist, an authoritarian, and every other simply accurate designation appropriate to the situation. And he or she must be intellectually prepared to prove that case against the Democrat, and to make the moral, constitutional case for individual freedom.

Will this kind of blunt, hard truth lead to victory? Not likely, or not in the short run. The danger, however, is that if the true identity of modern American leftism is swept under the rug in the name of the big lie of "electability" (a word I hope I never hear again), the popular optics will forever belong to the Democrats, who, after all, have actively created a society in their own image and will therefore always appear as the most natural position to their monstrous offspring.

The name of conservatism, and more importantly its proud truths, must never be allowed to slip from the public consciousness. They will do exactly that if the non-Democrat in future campaigns hides from this name and from these truths. Eventually, it will be impossible — realistically, if not legally — to run as a genuine conservative. (I do not use the word "legally" facetiously; the more entrenched authoritarian socialism becomes, the more an advocate of liberty becomes a perceived threat to the nation's basic principles.)

Sarah Palin said in an article in Newsmax that election was not a Rebuke of Conservatism:

“Hang in there, America. Fight for what is right. Don’t look to government or any politician to solve your problems. Government can’t make you happy, healthy, wealthy, or wise. Obama is a master at reading the right ‘soaring’ words fed into his teleprompter, but actions speak louder than words.”

It may very well be possible that McCain got 2 million more votes than Romney because of Sarah Palin. While she invoked passion and hatred from the left and the media she also brought out passion among conservatives — a passion neither McCain nor Romney could do.

The real alternative to leftist authoritarianism (to be labeled as such at every opportunity) must be presented often and with vigor. Politely asking to be forgiven for not being as exciting as one's leftist opponent is the surest path to permanent serfdom. The only way out of this morass is to stand firm on principle and speak proudly of the superiority of one's position. Over time, a new generation may rise up that will find this clear light more appealing than the dull gray of socialism.

Yes, it may take a generation, or more. But it is the only way to victory — not merely electoral victory, which is meaningless without defining principles according to which one can govern, but victory in the name of liberty, of the American Founders, and of civilization.

Michele Bachmann came within an inch of losing her congressional seat. She almost lost in part because she has had the courage to speak out about a host of constitutional issues, from the debt to the Muslim Brotherhood infiltration of the government, and her supposed compatriots in the GOP quietly refused to support her campaign in the hope that she would disappear, and take her embarrassing hard truths with her.

It should be noted that Mike Lee, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Rand Paul, and Deb Fisher, all Tea Party backed candidates were elected to the Senate.

Charles Krauthammer makes a few good points in his latest column in the Washington Post:

“They lose and immediately the chorus begins. Republicans must change or die. A rump party of white America, it must adapt to evolving demographics or forever be the minority.

The only part of this that is even partially true regards Hispanics. They should be a natural Republican constituency: striving immigrant community, religious, Catholic, family-oriented and socially conservative (on abortion, for example).

The principal reason they go Democratic is the issue of illegal immigrants. In securing the Republican nomination, Mitt Romney made the strategic error of (unnecessarily) going to the right of Rick Perry. Romney could never successfully tack back.

For the party in general, however, the problem is hardly structural. It requires but a single policy change: Border fence plus amnesty. Yes, amnesty. Use the word. Shock and awe — full legal normalization (just short of citizenship) in return for full border enforcement.

I’ve always been of the “enforcement first” school, with the subsequent promise of legalization. I still think it’s the better policy. But many Hispanics fear that there will be nothing beyond enforcement. So, promise amnesty right up front. Secure the border with guaranteed legalization to follow on the day the four border-state governors affirm that illegal immigration has slowed to a trickle.

Imagine Marco Rubio advancing such a policy on the road to 2016. It would transform the landscape. He’d win the Hispanic vote. Yes, win it. A problem fixable with a single policy initiative is not structural. It is solvable.

The other part of the current lament is that the Republican Party consistently trails among blacks, young people and (unmarried) women. (Republicans are plus-7 among married women.) But this is not for reasons of culture, identity or even affinity. It is because these constituencies tend to be more politically liberal — and Republicans are the conservative party.

The country doesn’t need two liberal parties. Yes, Republicans need to weed out candidates who talk like morons about rape. But this doesn’t mean the country needs two pro-choice parties either. In fact, more women are pro-life than are pro-choice. The problem here for Republicans is not policy but delicacy — speaking about culturally sensitive and philosophically complex issues with reflection and prudence.

Additionally, warn the doomsayers, Republicans must change not just ethnically but ideologically. Back to the center. Moderation above all!

More nonsense. Tuesday’s exit polls showed that by an eight-point margin (51-43), Americans believe that government does too much. And Republicans are the party of smaller government. Moreover, onrushing economic exigencies — crushing debt, unsustainable entitlements — will make the argument for smaller government increasingly unassailable.

So, why give it up? Republicans lost the election not because they advanced a bad argument but because they advanced a good argument not well enough. Romney ran a solid campaign, but he is by nature a Northeastern moderate. He sincerely adopted the new conservatism but still spoke it as a second language.

More Ford ’76 than Reagan ’80, Romney is a transitional figure, both generationally and ideologically. Behind him, the party has an extraordinarily strong bench. In Congress — Paul Ryan, Marco Rubio, Kelly Ayotte, (the incoming) Ted Cruz and others. And the governors — Bobby Jindal, Scott Walker, Nikki Haley, plus former governor Jeb Bush and the soon-retiring Mitch Daniels. (Chris Christie is currently in rehab.)

They were all either a little too young or just not personally prepared to run in 2012. No longer. There may not be a Reagan among them, but this generation of rising leaders is philosophically rooted and politically fluent in the new constitutional conservatism.

Ignore the trimmers. There’s no need for radical change. The other party thinks it owns the demographic future — counter that in one stroke by fixing the Latino problem. Do not, however, abandon the party’s philosophical anchor. In a world where European social democracy is imploding before our eyes, the party of smaller, more modernized government owns the ideological future.

…

The answer to Romney’s failure is not retreat, not aping the Democrats’ patchwork pandering. It is to make the case for restrained, rationalized and reformed government in stark contradistinction to Obama’s increasingly unsustainable big-spending, big-government paternalism.

Republicans: No whimpering. No whining. No reinvention when none is needed. Do conservatism but do it better. There’s a whole generation of leaders ready to do just that.”

No more apologies. No more embarrassment. No more veiled language when on the big stage. The left won the day by making the most radical, anti-human irrationalism of this epoch seem safe and normal, while portraying freedom and individualism as the dangerous, radical path.

The electoral battle between leftism and liberty is lost, and perhaps will now remain so for a good long time, regardless of the name of the winning party in any given election.

The moral war, however, is still in its early stages. It is an educational war, which means a war of ideas, which means a civilizational war. It is going to get ugly, and we are going to lose more battles than we win. As you know, however, the ultimate victor is the side that wins the last battle.

Restoring Constitutional Government

“Democracy extends the sphere of individual freedom, socialism restricts it. Democracy attaches all possible value to each man; socialism makes each man a mere agent, a mere number. Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word: equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude.” ― Alexis de Tocqueville

The election is over and the Constitution lost. 100 years of progressivism culminated in the reelection of Barack Obama to four more years as our chief executive officer. He was not elected on due to his management of our economy or adherence to the principles of our Declaration or Constitution — a Constitution he distains for its lack of so called “positive rights.”

We have become a nation of those who make and those who take, or as Bastiat said;” "The mission of law is not to oppress persons and plunder them of their property, even though the law may be acting in a philanthropic spirit. Its mission is to protect property."

In the City of Man the ruling class (defined as the complex of government, the mainstream media, most of the academy, much of our senior military class and industrial and public sector unions that are tied to government power) are the experts and masterminds that want to control the resources between the haves and have-nots and as John Dewey stated provide the mental equipment (education) that will bring the citizens into the progressive fold and away from our founding principle, which he called “negative freedoms.”

Today’s Progressives have two basic core beliefs — the collective (group rights and a victim class) and corporatism. They believe in a system of government that is powerful and has the power of science behind it. It was born in the academy among leading academics and what they say is that experts have to decide expert things and that most things are like that including health care, environmental regulations, who you may associate with, and how you should raise your family and educate your children. To accomplish this you must have government with a multitude of complex rules.

On the other hand those who want to adhere to the principles of the Declaration and Constitution believe it is incumbent on our government to render itself into simplicity so that one can understand it. The rule of law requires that we are able to read the laws. This requires a citizenry educated in the principles of our Founders.

Today we live in an administrative state where Congress’ primary function is constituent services. Our representatives pass broad conceptual laws and then leave the interpretation and enforcement to the experts and masterminds of the administrative state. These bureaucratic experts outlive Congresses and Presidents and are the real power in the United States.

The father of today’s progressivism, Woodrow Wilson, while a fan of Thomas Jefferson, did not believe that the United States could survive in the new industrial world by adhering to the outdated model of the Constitution. He believed we needed a new system of leadership where the executive was the political leader of the nation and we needed a cadre of experts to run his new administrative state. This was to be the model for the progressive liberalism’s transformation of America’s political institutions from Madison’s constitutional republic, where laws were made by the legislature, to an administrative state where laws and regulations came down from the executive branch through the hands of commissions of experts and masterminds.

In Federalist 49 James Madison wrote:

“The executive power might be in the hands of a peculiar favorite of the people. In such a posture of things, the public decision might be less swayed by prepossessions in favor of the legislative party. But still it could never be expected to turn on the true merits of the question. It would inevitably be connected with the spirit of pre-existing parties, or of parties springing out of the question itself. It would be connected with persons of distinguished character and extensive influence in the community. It would be pronounced by the very men who had been agents in, or opponents of, the measures to which the decision would relate. The PASSIONS, therefore, not the REASON, of the public would sit in judgment. But it is the reason, alone, of the public, that ought to control and regulate the government. The passions ought to be controlled and regulated by the government”

On November 6, 2012 the majority of the voters of the United States exercised their passions and voted for the most progressive liberal politician in our history when they voted for Barack Obama, the ultimate mastermind who in his election night victory speech proclaimed; “Thank you so much. Tonight, more than 200 years after a former colony won the right to determine its own destiny to perfect our union moves forward."

The preamble of our Constitution states:

“We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

To our Founders the words “more perfect union” did not mean a perfection of the people or laws regulating the path to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It meant bringing the states together from a loose confederation into a federalist system of government where the federal government would have certain powers and all powers not enumerated in the Constitution would belong to the states and the people.

To Barack Obama and his progressive cohorts “perfect” means more positive rights, social justice, and allegiance to the collective comprised of group rights, the victim class, a the redistribution of resources. This is what 52% of the voters wanted on November 6, 2012.

The Past Century has witnessed a transformation in the understanding of the purposes of American government. The political, academic, and media consensus today upholds the necessity and legitimacy of the Progressive project, making a return to the principles of the Founders appear difficult, if not impossible. However, the resonance among voters of appeals made to the principles of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution by Calvin Coolidge and Ronald Reagan highlights the enduring character of those self-evident truths upon which the Founders built the American political order.

From the time of Woodrow Wilson’s presidency to that of Barack Obama, Progressives have systematically derided the principles of the American Founding as inapplicable to the complexities of contemporary politics. The strength and vigor with which the administrative state today is promoted and defended seems to mirror the support which limited government principles received in the century following the American Revolution. However, neither bureaucratic nor limited government is inevitable: each is the product of human choice shaped by a particular education and expressed through the voting process.

Two presidents have responded to the Progressive claims for the administrative state—Calvin Coolidge and Ronald Reagan. Coolidge used the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence to reaffirm that the American political order was founded on truths rooted in “Nature and Nature’s God.” These truths still applied, despite technological and economic changes. He argued that the Progressive claim that individuals are shaped by their economic conditions and material circumstances is a denial of the innate freedom of the human person. The Founders championed this freedom and protected it with their system of limited government by consent.

On July 5, 1926 President Coolidge delivered his speech, “The Inspiration of the Declaration” on the 150th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. Rejecting Progressivism root and branch, he defended America’s founding principles when he stated:

“About the Declaration there is a finality that is exceedingly restful. It is often asserted that the world has made a great deal of progress since 1776, that we have had new thoughts and new experiences which have given us a great advance over the people of that day, and that we may therefore very well discard their conclusions for something more modern. But that reasoning cannot be applied to this great charter. If all men are created equal, that is final. If they are endowed with inalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, that is final. No advance, no progress can be made beyond these propositions. If anyone wishes to deny their truth or their soundness, the only direction in which he can proceed historically is not forward, but backward toward the time when there was no equality, no rights of the individual, no rule of the people. Those who wish to proceed in that direction cannot lay claim to progress. They are reactionary. Their ideas are not more modern, but more ancient, than those of the Revolutionary fathers

In the development of its institutions America can fairly claim that it has remained true to the principles which were declared 150 years ago. In all the essentials we have achieved an equality which was never possessed by any other people. Even in the less important matter of material possessions we have secured a wider and wider distribution of wealth. The rights of the individual are held sacred and protected by constitutional guarantees, which even the Government itself, is bound not to violate. If there is any one thing among us that is established beyond question, it is self-government—the right of the people to rule. If there is any failure in respect to any of these principles, it is because there is a failure on the part of individuals to observe them. We hold that the duly authorized expression of the will of the people has a divine sanction. But even in that we come back to the theory of John Wise that “Democracy is Christ’s government.” The ultimate sanction of law rests on the righteous authority of the Almighty.”

Ronald Reagan also captured the essential differences between the Progressive view and that of the Founders, which he stated clearly in his First Inaugural Address when he stated:

“From time to time, we have been tempted to believe that society has become too complex to be managed by self-rule, that government by an elite group is superior to government for, by, and of the people. But if no one among us is capable of governing himself, then who among us has the capacity to govern someone else? All of us together, in and out of government, must bear the burden. The solutions we seek must be equitable, with no one group singled out to pay a higher price.

We hear much of special interest groups. Our concern must be for a special interest group that has been too long neglected. It knows no sectional boundaries or ethnic and racial divisions, and it crosses political party lines. It is made up of men and women who raise our food, patrol our streets, man our mines and our factories, teach our children, keep our homes, and heal us when we are sick—professionals, industrialists, shopkeepers, clerks, cabbies, and truck drivers. They are, in short, "We the people," this breed called Americans.

Well, this administration’s objective will be a healthy, vigorous, growing economy that provides equal opportunity for all Americans, with no barriers born of bigotry or discrimination. Putting America back to work means putting all Americans back to work. Ending inflation means freeing all Americans from the terror of runaway living costs. All must share in the productive work of this "new beginning" and all must share in the bounty of a revived economy. With the idealism and fair play which are the core of our system and our strength, we can have a strong and prosperous America at peace with itself and the world.

So, as we begin, let us take inventory. We are a nation that has a government—not the other way around. And this makes us special among the nations of the Earth. Our Government has no power except that granted it by the people. It is time to check and reverse the growth of government which shows signs of having grown beyond the consent of the governed.”

Reagan established a link between the principles and actions of Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln, and those of the soldiers in Arlington National Cemetery and of his fellow citizens. He argued that the limited government of the Constitution depends on, and enables, the self-government of each citizen. The principles and institutions of government established by the Founders are thus the best guarantee for the equal protection of the lives and liberties of all American citizens.

One of the greatest political speeches of our time was made by Ronald Reagan in 1964. In this nationally televised speech, entitled “A Time for Choosing”, in support of Barry Goldwater, the 1964 Republican Party presidential candidate, Reagan challenges the Progressive principles behind President Johnson’s Great Society. The speech propelled Reagan to national prominence. In his speech Reagan stated with the clarity and eloquence that only he could deliver:

“In this vote-harvesting time, they use terms like the "Great Society," or as we were told a few days ago by the President, we must accept a "greater government activity in the affairs of the people." But they have been a little more explicit in the past and among themselves—and all of the things that I now will quote have appeared in print. These are not Republican accusations. For example, they have voices that say "the cold war will end through acceptance of a not undemocratic socialism." Another voice says that the profit motive has become outmoded, it must be replaced by the incentives of the welfare state; or our traditional system of individual freedom is incapable of solving the complex problems of the 20th century. Senator Fullbright has said at Stanford University that the Constitution is outmoded. He referred to the president as our moral teacher and our leader, and he said he is hobbled in his task by the restrictions in power imposed on him by this antiquated document. He must be freed so that he can do for us what he knows is best. And Senator Clark of Pennsylvania, another articulate spokesman, defines liberalism as "meeting the material needs of the masses through the full power of centralized government." Well, I for one resent it when a representative of the people refers to you and me—the free man and woman of this country—as "the masses." This is a term we haven't applied to ourselves in America. But beyond that, "the full power of centralized government"—this was the very thing the Founding Fathers sought to minimize. They knew that governments don't control things. A government can't control the economy without controlling people. And they know when a government sets out to do that, it must use force and coercion to achieve its purpose. They also knew, those Founding Fathers, that outside of its legitimate functions, government does nothing as well or as economically as the private sector of the economy.”

In reading and listening to Reagan’s speech you can see what Mitt Romney should have said the American People instead of his pabulum-laced quasi-progressive, play it safe dribble he advocated. Perhaps had he been as Bill O’Reilly said be “bold and fresh” Romney chose to be more of an economic technocrat than a leader conversant with the conservative principles of our founders. Progressivism is based, as Calvin Coolidge stated, on materialism while conservatism is based on our founding principles of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. This is why today’s Progressives are so entrenched in buy votes by offering the people more free stuff.

James Madison wrote in his Essay on Property:

“In the former sense, a man's land, or merchandize, or money is called his property. In the latter sense, a man has property in his opinions and the free communication of them. He has a property of peculiar value in his religious opinions, and in the profession and practice dictated by them.

He has a property very dear to him in the safety and liberty of his person. He has an equal property in the free use of his faculties and free choice of the objects on which to employ them.

In a word, as a man is said to have a right to his property, he may be equally said to have a property in his rights. Where an excess of power prevails, property of no sort is duly respected. No man is safe in his opinions, his person, his faculties, or his possessions. Where there is an excess of liberty, the effect is the same, tho' from an opposite cause.

Government is instituted to protect property of every sort; as well that which lies in various rights of individuals, as that which the term particularly expresses. This being the end of government, that alone is a just government, which impartially secures to every man, whatever is his.”

Why Romney did not take the course of one of the successful politicians of the twentieth century is beyond me. His timid approach the protecting our liberty and our constitutional rights brought him close to winning, but close only counts in the game of horseshoes.

Wayne Allyn Root for wrote for Personal Liberty an article that I totally agree with. While a Libertarian and former Vice-Presidential candidate for the Libertarian Party Root’s comments ring true to my ears:

“What a stunning and miserable day. Ronald Reagan gave us “Morning in America” — as in a new sunny morning. I feel like I just woke up in “Mourning in America” — as in mourning for the loss of this great country. And it’s all because, in politics, “nice” doesn’t work. Mitt Romney is a nice guy, a gentleman. But in politics, nice guys often finish last.

To win the election, and beat a sitting President, Romney needed to do more than nicely debate Barack Obama.

He needed to indict Obama.

Here is the speech that Romney should have given. Had he given this speech, we’d all be waking up to “Morning in America” — as in a bright, sunny day filled with opportunity:

“Let me start by stressing that President Obama may be a nice man. He may be a good husband and father. He may love this country. He may think he is doing what is right. But the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Nice or not, Barack Obama believes government has the answer to every problem. He believes in punishment of the successful. He believes in income redistribution. He believes in massive spending and debt. He believes in so many rules, regulations and mandates that no one can open a lemonade stand anymore without permission from government.

Those beliefs destroy economies and kill jobs everywhere they’ve ever been tried. The U.S. economy under Obama is in crisis and free fall. You don’t need to look far to prove Obama’s policies are dangerous and deadly. Europe has been following Obama’s plan for decades: big government, big unions, big spending, big taxes, big entitlements, big pensions, free healthcare, too many government employees and unlimited spending on green energy and high speed rail. The result? Economic disaster on a grand scale. Greece, Italy and Spain are enduring a tragedy few can comprehend. France is next. Someday, we will read about this in history books.

America, under Barack Obama, is following the exact same path.

This is the state of the U.S. economy under Obama. Judge for yourselves:

As of Election Day, unemployment is officially listed at 7.9 percent, the highest for any incumbent since FDR.

More importantly, the real unemployment rate (including the under-employed and those who have given up looking) is in the range of 15 percent — higher than in most years of the Great Depression.

Unemployment in the black community is 14.3 percent.

Unemployment and under-employment for college graduates is a staggering 53 percent.

The Labor Force Participation Rate among men is the lowest since 1948.

Food stamp growth is 75 percent greater than job growth under Obama. Forty-six million Americans are now on food stamps.

The record 11 million Americans on disability is larger than the population of a majority of U.S. States.

Over 100 million Americans get entitlement checks.

One-sixth of all personal income in the United States is now provided by government.

The housing collapse is now deeper than at the peak of the Great Depression.

The net worth of the average American is down 40 percent.

New business startups are at the lowest level in 30 years.

The U.S. credit rating has been downgraded for first time in history.

We are experiencing unimaginable economic wreckage, crisis and collapse from coast to coast.

None of this is a coincidence.

With 60,000 new rules, regulations and mandates in only three years, Obama has turned the entire U.S. economy into a “hostile work environment”:

With Obama demonizing the wealthy and taunting entrepreneurs and financial risk-takers with “You didn’t build that.”

With the Environmental Protection Agency attempting to put the coal industry completely out of business and end oil drilling.

With thousands of new Internal Revenue Service agents hired to harass and intimidate business owners.

With massive new tax increases looming.

With 3,000 pages of ObamaCare, containing 23 new taxes.

With 2,000 pages of Dodd-Frank, making it much harder for banks to lend or for businessmen to raise money.

With $115 trillion in debt and unfunded liabilities at the Federal level.

With States, counties and cities even more broke and insolvent than the Federal government. The debt in Cook County, Illinois (Obama’s Chicago), is now an unimaginable $108 billion.

You have to question if this is incompetence or a purposeful plan to overwhelm the system with debt and entitlements, to collapse the U.S. economy and weaken faith in capitalism, to turn America into a European social state.

Obama tells us that he “saved” the auto industry. It’s his one and only accomplishment, so he repeats it 100 times a day. The reality is that he merely stole $25 billion from you and me (the taxpayers) to protect the pensions of auto union members who contributed tens of millions of dollars to his election. Now your children owe that $25 billion, plus interest – and you don’t even get a car! But Obama allowed private sector autoworkers to lose their pensions (because they didn’t contribute to him), while closing only auto dealerships owned by Republican contributors. This is all immoral, if not criminal.

Ladies and gentleman, we have to change direction:

Before we have no country left to defend.

Before we have no economy left to rebuild.

Before unions strangle the life out of the private sector.

Before taxpayers are sucked dry to pay for a food stamp and unemployment benefits economy.

Before “free” healthcare adds trillions of dollars in debt to our children’s burden.

Before Obama’s extreme views on energy leave us all dependent on nations that hate America and support terrorism.

Before Obama uses executive orders to render Congress and the Constitution meaningless.

Before every terrorist attack is given a politically correct name.

Before more victims are blamed when Islamic radicals slaughter them over a cartoon, book or film.

Before every Bible is permanently removed from our military bases and hospitals.

Before all religious celebrations, except Ramadan, are permanently removed from our White House.

Or before 6 million Israelis are wiped out in a second holocaust due to a foreign policy of apology, appeasement and indifference.

This is our last stand. For capitalism. For small business. For the American Dream. For our Judeo-Christian values. For our small businesses. For our children and grandchildren’s future. For the survival of the American Dream. And yes, for our guns and Bibles.

When you walk into that polling place to vote, remember that Osama bin Laden is dead. And so is a U.S. border agent who died in the Fast and Furious scandal. And so is our Ambassador and three heroes abandoned and left to die at our Libyan embassy. And so is the U.S. economy.

Remember that even at this moment, as broke as America is, Obama is giving $450 million of your taxpayer money to the radical Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt.

Remember Obama denigrates those who cling to old-fashioned ideas: God, country, faith, family, capitalism and our American exceptionalism.

Remember Obama presided over a Democratic convention that booed God three times.

Forgive, but never forget. Now, let’s go out and reclaim our country. God Bless America.”

That was the speech Romney should have given. The American people needed to hear the raw, unvarnished truth without sugar-coating.

The key to Romney’s election as President wasn’t to debate Obama. It was to indict Obama. Being “nice” and refusing to offend anyone just re-elected Obama. It may lead to the end of America as we know it.

Well, I’m not Romney. I’m not waving any white flags. I’m a Tea Party conservative. I’m going to fight hard and aggressively. And I’m going to help take back our country. This battle has only just begun.

There is no permanence in politics. All is fleeting. All is cyclical. We find comfort in our cycle and distress when others rise to the top.

Right now, conservatives are bitterly disappointed. Some choose to check out mentally. Some have decided to throw in the towel. A few blame the American People. Many think the gig is up, the show is over, and destiny is undone.

Demography is not destiny and neither is the ever growing leviathan of the federal government. Many think so now, but they forget the ebbs and flows of the tide of history. Conservatism is not done. The message of freedom and opportunity is not done.

No immigrant comes to the United States wanting to be on welfare. They come for a better life of hard work and success. What conservatives forget is that people forget.

And conservatives have done a terrible job reminding people.

Since Ronald Reagan rose from the ashes of the Goldwater movement, Republicans have articulated a message of freedom and opportunity — a rugged individualism that says if you work hard you can be what you want and do what you want. But people forget.

In the last decade or so, Republicans began to assume everyone just naturally agreed. They stopped explaining. They stopped being evangelists for the conservative principles of our Founders. Worse, conservatism morphed into Republicanism and instead of being about ideas, both became about the acquisition of power for the sake of power. Republicans no longer articulated a core set of principles through policy, but policies designed solely to keep them in power. The party leaders and many of its candidates began to do the same — freedom became a platitude, not a policy. Was Abraham Lincoln, the father of the Republican Party more concerned over being elected than ridding the nation from the scourge of slavery and keeping the Union together — I think not.

During Barack Obama’s tenure, Republicans tried to blur every line, make every compromise, and often surrendered before a weapon was even pointed at them. They did not articulate a positive conservative vision, but a defensive position that Obama was bad and they were good with little to show for it. They cut deals that sold out their core to preserve their power. They do so even today.

Republicans assumed Americans got it. They assumed Americans and Republicans were still speaking the same language. But they weren’t.

Politics is cyclical and Americans are forgetful. Republicans forgot that. They failed to keep advancing. They failed to keep explaining. They relied on on the tried and true that became the tired and stale.

Moving forward, the conservative movement from within the GOP needs to advance new ideas, not just dust off and repackage old ideas. The principles remain the same. The principles are fixed. But the ideas that advance those principles must fit into the twenty-first century.

The GOP should start with education reform. They should tackle tax reform. They should work the break up big banks by forcing big banks to capitalize further. They should not shy away from tackling social security and Medicare reform — ideas that did not hurt them with senior citizens and will ultimately help them with younger voters. They should still fight to repeal ObamaCare and explain to the American people why it is sucking the life out of the economy.

But more importantly, conservatives must be able to show Americans in this age of a stagnant economy that conservatism has ideas not just to make one prosperous, but also to help the poor and needy. There are those who do depend on and deserve a helping hand. If the GOP cannot show how small government lifts people up and provides for those who cannot, the GOP will fail.

Republicans should not be afraid to be obstructionist, but must be willing to explain that the obstruction prevents the passage of ideas that history once discarded before we all forgot.

These are exciting times for the conservative movement. But the conservative movement must get up and lead now — lead with conservative ideas for the GOP, not a Republican agenda packaged as conservative. We must begin again anew talking conservatism as evangelists, not fellow travelers. We must remember we are not in a permanent decline, but a cycle of politics that is only permanent if we let it be.

Our think tanks must stop producing white papers designed to woo donors and must produce ideas designed to persuade voters to limited government.

I like being free. I love it. I love that I can point out that the leader of the country is a profligate liar without being shot, beaten or sent to the gulag for it. I love that I can discuss the crimes he has committed and will commit in his insatiable quest for power without black helicopters descending on my house. I even enjoy the fact that Democratic sock puppets can party themselves into an even deeper stupor than usual after their icon’s victory, despite the fact that they’ve sold their country into slavery in doing so. And if I have to pay for creature comforts with my own cash, then so be it. It sure beats living in one of those sad, gray little dictatorships like North Korea.

And I’m not fleeing the country. I’m not one of those uber-wealthy Hollywood clowns who promises emigration to the nearest convenient tax shelter in the Caribbean every time my guy takes one on the chin. Even if I end up being the last man standing in a country overrun by liberal filth and their idiot minions, I’ll be damned if they’re going to run me off. I survived eight years of Bill Clinton’s dough-faced dishonesty; I can survive eight years of Obama’s mealy-mouthed mendacity.

Clinton was a liar and a reprobate, but at least he was fun about it. I never got the sense from Clinton that he hated me (though I did from his wife). Obama hates me. He also hates most of you. Close to 50 percent of the Nation voted NO to Obama and his policies, and he despises them for it. He despises their God and their guns. He reviles their refusal to knuckle under to socialist nightmares like ObamaCare. Clinton may have been a screwball, but at least you knew he could hold his liquor and might be fun to party with. Obama is a living, breathing archetype of the effete elite mastermind that has turned the Democratic Party into the national disgrace it has become. Democrats aren’t better than we are, but they think they are and they act accordingly. Witness Obama’s casual mendacity on Benghazi, Libya, and Operation Fast and Furious. Furthermore, witness his comfort in skirting the law with “executive orders.” He rules by fiat — like some kind of sideshow emperor.

Obama’s re-election is bad news for America. But we’ve received bad news before, and we will again. As the returns rolled toward Obama last night, I comforted a pal by suggesting that while Obama’s re-election may be a hurricane of horror for liberty, the storm surge might help to wash the shore clean for 2014’s House and Senate elections. We made it to 2012; we can survive to 2016. If you believe I am attempting to put lipstick on the proverbial pig I offered another outcome:

It’s 2012. If the Mayans were right, then none of this matters much.

Our Constitution cannot be restored unless it is the wish of the American People and that wish must be a sustained wish. This will require more than statesmanship — it requires education and learning. It is not about winning elections— it’s about saving the Republic.

The “I Want My Stuff Crowd” Wins Another Round

“Society will develop a new kind of servitude which covers the surface of society with a network of complicated rules, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate. It does not tyrannize but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd.” ― Alexis de Tocqueville

On Tuesday night we suffered the culmination of 100 years of progressivism. It was a night when Americans lost the battle between those who want free stuff and those who want freedom. Yes, I know Obama won with 303 Electoral Votes (probably 332 when the final count from Florida comes in), but he only beat Romney by 2,805,978 votes or 2.3%. More importantly Obama won the so called battleground states of Florida, Virginia, and Ohio by 0.6%, 3.0%, and 1.9% respectively (Florida-47,016, Virginia-112,884, and Ohio-100,142) In the case of Ohio a large portion, if not all of Obama’s victory came from Cuyahoga County where he attained a plurality of 236,478 votes (68.8%). In Virginia Obama’s victory was advanced by a 127,627 vote plurality from Fairfax, Loudoun, and Prince William Counties — counties populated by government workers. Florida was even closer where Obama received a plurality of 552,715 votes from Palm Beach, Broward, and Miami-Dade Counties for an average of 62.5% of the votes cast in those counties. (Hat tip to the Huffington Post for their very informative Electoral Maps)

By now you should be tiered with numbers so I will add only one more statistic. According to reports 11% of women voted for Obama and Hispanics broke 2:1 for him. Single women from 20 to 31 broke 31% for Obama. The big issue for single women was abortion and birth control, Issues that were never debated by either candidate. It appears that these women will sacrifice their country for a free condom.

In watching the election returns on Tuesday night three things struck me. The first was John Boehner’s impromptu speech before the election was called for Obama. To me this seemed to be Boehner’s way of calling a Romney defeat and posing himself as the new leader of the GOP. His actions were unprecedented. I have just learned that he wants to propose an economic plan to Obama. That is insanity on his part. It is Obama’s responsibility to propose a plan and the House’s responsibility to accept or reject it. The ball is in Obama’s court where he must stand on his plan and explain it to the American People. Boehner is playing into Obama’s hands.

The second was the way the “experts” on Fox News kept telling us what the GOP needed to do to win the presidency. They talked about reaching out to women and Hispanics. They talked about moving to the “center” and not appearing to be right-wing conservatives. To most of them this election was about winning, not about principles. Neither the Democrat nor the Republican spinners talked about principles and what each party stood for.

What does the Republican Party stand for today? If you listened to Mitt Romney it stood for lower taxes, job creation and the economy. That’s not enough. The party was founded on the principle of anti-slavery, but today I think, in many cases, it stands for getting elected and to do that they have to be more like the Democrats. If that’s the case than elections are mere popularity contests. During the debates there was no discussion of the Constitution, securing the borders, or our founding principles. Romney believed if he stuck to the economy and did not fight back against the scurrilous attacks by the Obama machine and the press he would win. He was wrong. Romney seemed more like a economic technocrat than a politician willing to fight for liberty.

The third thing was Obama’s victory speech. Once the networks called the election for him he came out before the cameras and started his speech with these 31 words:

"Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. Tonight, more than 200 years after a former colony won the right to determine its own destiny to perfect our union moves forward."

Grammar, you see, is how we clarify meaning. The Obama Code rests on vagueness, on multiple meanings that can be read into a statement. For the literati, the meaning can be clear, while the rest of us respond to what we guess is meant, based on the pleasant connotations of many of the words chosen. Nice words like "perfect."

The second element of the Obama Code is the wink to the hard left buried in his word choices. You see, he told us that our "destiny" is "to perfect our union." The wisdom of our Constitution, a "flawed document" in Obama's eyes, is that it does not promise perfection, but rather checks and balances. It consists of "negative rights" and doesn't obligate government to guarantee largesse ("positive rights," like health care) to its citizens.

That must change. That is the agenda. President Obama has shown a willingness to ignore the Constitution whenever it suits him, overriding creditors' rights, ignoring the Constitutional cabinet officers in favor of czars not subject to the inconvenience of a confirmation process, assassinating American citizens with no judicial involvement, and issuing frightening executive orders.

The code message dispensed with, the rest of the speech continued to appall. Andrew Malcolm of Investor's Business Daily, in a mordantly hilarious column, drew a contrast:

"Romney in 703 words graciously admitted his loss. He said the word "America" five times, the word "pray" three times and the words "Thank you" 21 times.

The Real Good Talker, who's never seen anything he couldn't throw a speech at, took 2,163 words to claim victory in what is traditionally a moment to call for unity and healing after a divisive campaign.

The victorious Chicagoan, who promised before the last election to end Washington's partisan bitterness, strangely uttered the word "fight" five times and "thank you" but seven times. He spoke the word "unify" zero times, "unity" zero times, "heal" zero times and "pray" zero times.

He did, however, manage to mention himself 27 times.”

We had best gird our loins. When it comes to ruthless leftism, we ain't seen nothin' yet.”

Now for a few words on the media and how they helped Obama get reelected. Reviewing the 2012 presidential campaign, here are five ways the media elite tipped the public relations scales in favor of the liberal Obama and against the conservative challenger Mitt Romney. According to Rich Noyes of Fox News here are the five major ways media bias helped Obama:

“1. The Media’s Biased Gaffe Patrol Hammered Romney: The media unfairly jumped on inconsequential mistakes — or even invented controversies — from Romney and hyped them in to multi-day media “earthquakes.” Case in point: the GOP candidate’s trip to Europe and Israel in late July. A Media Research Center analysis of all 21 ABC, CBS and NBC evening news stories about Romney’s trip found that virtually all of them (18, or 86%) emphasized “diplomatic blunders,” “gaffes” or “missteps.”

Conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer blasted the news coverage in an August 2 column, calling the trip “a major substantive success” that was wrapped “in a media narrative of surpassing triviality.”

Similarly, when the left-wing Mother Jones magazine in September put out a secretly-recorded video of Romney talking to donors about the 47% of Americans who don’t pay income taxes, the networks hyped it like a sensational sex scandal. Over three days, the broadcast network morning and evening shows churned out 42 stories on the tape, nearly 90 minutes of coverage. The tone was hyperbolic; ABC’s "Good Morning America" called it a “bombshell rocking the Mitt Romney campaign,” while ABC "World News" anchor Diane Sawyer declared it a “political earthquake.”

None of Obama’s gaffes garnered that level of coverage. After the president in a June 8 press conference declared that “the private sector is doing fine,” the ABC, CBS and NBC evening newscasts gave it just one night’s coverage, then basically dropped the story — nothing further on ABC’s "World News" or the "CBS Evening News" in the weeks that followed, and just two passing references on the "NBC Nightly News."

And, when Obama infamously declared, “You didn’t build that,” ABC, CBS, NBC didn’t report the politically damaging remark for four days — and then only after Romney made it the centerpiece of a campaign speech.

2. Pounding Romney With Partisan Fact Checking: There’s nothing wrong with holding politicians accountable for the honesty of their TV ads and stump speeches, but this year the self-appointed media fact-checkers attacked Republicans as liars for statements that were accurate.

For example, a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporter writing for PolitiFact branded VP candidate Paul Ryan’s convention speech anecdote about the closing of the General Motors plant in his hometown as “false,” even though Ryan was correct in all of his details. The slanted review became TV reporters’ talking points; the next day on NBC, correspondent Chuck Todd grumped that while what Ryan said “was technically factual, by what he left out, [he] actually distorted the actual truth.” Matt Lauer greeted Ryan the following week in an interview on Today: “There are some people who are claiming that you played a little fast and loose with the truth....”

The same thing happened when Mitt Romney talked about Obama’s “apology tour” during the final presidential debate. While in 2009 Obama had, in fact, criticized the United States as “arrogant,” “derisive” and having “too often... set [our] principles aside,” the networks said to call it an “apology tour” was “false” because, as CNN’s John Berman tenuously insisted, “even if he was critical of past U.S. foreign policy, he issued no apologies.”

Writing in the New York Times August 31, correspondent Jackie Calmes scolded that “the number of falsehoods and misleading statements from the Romney campaign coming in for independent criticism has reached a level not typically seen.” That’s not true, either; Romney’s team was, at worst, guilty of highlighting those facts that best illustrated their points (something done by all politicians), and the Obama campaign certainly put out their share of tawdry TV ads and dubious campaign claims.

But with “truth cops” who mainly policed just the GOP side of the street, the media used “fact-checking” as another club to tilt the playing field in favor of the Democrats.

3. Those Biased Debate Moderators: Upset liberals scorned PBS’s Jim Lehrer for taking a hands-off approach in the first debate on October 3, with MSNBC analyst Howard Fineman slamming him as “practically useless” for not jumping into the debate on behalf of President Obama.

Such criticism may have encouraged the activist approach taken by ABC’s Martha Raddatz in the vice presidential debate October 11, and by CNN’s Candy Crowley in the October 16 town hall debate, as both of those journalists repeatedly interrupted the Republican candidate and larded the discussion with a predominantly liberal agenda.

Crowley earns extra demerits for taking the media’s penchant for faulty fact-checking to new heights when she jumped into the October 16 town hall-style debate to validate President Obama’s claim that he called the attack in Benghazi, Libya, “an act of terror” the very next morning. Crowley endorsed Obama’s story, telling Romney: “He did, in fact, sir, call it an act of terror.”

Not according to the transcript, which had Obama only speaking generically about how “no acts of terror will ever shake the resolve of this nation,” not assigning that label to the violence in Benghazi.

Wrong though she was, Crowley became a heroine to many in the liberal media; ABC's Matt Dowd, for example, cheered: “What Candy Crowley did, I actually thought, was laudable. I hope we get to do more of that in this discourse.”

Moderators are supposed to ensure both sides get a fair hearing, not pick sides. By leaping into the fray, Candy Crowley epitomized the media’s itch to tilt the scales this year — again, in Obama’s favor.

4. The Benghazi Blackout: Right after the September 11 attack in Libya, the networks proclaimed that the events would bolster President Obama — “reminding voters of his power as commander-in-chief,” as NBC’s Peter Alexander stated on the September 14 edition of "Today." But as a cascade of leaked information erased the portrait of Obama as a heroic commander, the broadcast networks shunted the Benghazi story to the sidelines.

News broke online in late September, for example, that Team Obama knew within 24 hours that the attack was likely the result of terrorism. That starkly contradicted claims from White House press secretary Jay Carney, U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice, and President Obama himself that the attack was a “spontaneous” reaction to an anti-Muslim video posted on YouTube. Yet, ABC took nearly two days to bring this story to viewers, while CBS and NBC held off for three days.

This was, shamefully, the broadcast networks’ pattern in October: New developments exposing the administration’s failure to provide adequate security, or contradictions in their public statements, were either given stingy coverage or buried completely. The puzzle pieces revealed a disturbing failure of Obama’s national security apparatus, but the networks flitted in and out of the story, never giving it any traction.

Instead of an “October Surprise,” the networks engineered an “October Suppression” — keeping a lid on the boiling Benghazi story until Election Day. Who knows how voters might have reacted if the media had covered this story as tenaciously as they did Romney’s “47% gaffe”?

5. Burying the Bad Economy: Pundits agreed that Obama’s weakness was the failure of the US economy to revive after his expensive stimulus and four years of $1 trillion deficits. But the major networks failed to offer the sustained, aggressive coverage of the economy that incumbent Republican President George H.W. Bush faced in 1992, or even that George W. Bush faced in 2004 — both years when the national economy was in better shape than it is now.

According to a study conducted that year by the Center for Media and Public Affairs, from January through September of 1992, the networks ran a whopping 1,289 stories on the economy, 88% of which painted it in a dismal, negative light. That fall, the unemployment rate was 7.6%, lower than today’s 7.9%, and economic growth in the third quarter was 2.7%, better than today’s 2.0%. Yet the media coverage hammered the idea of a terrible economy, and Bush lost re-election.

In 2004, the economy under George W. Bush was far better than it is today — higher growth, lower unemployment, smaller deficits and cheaper gasoline — yet network coverage that year was twice as hostile to Bush than it was towards Obama this year, according to a study by the Media Research Center’s Business and Media Institute.

When Republican presidents have faced reelection, network reporters made sure to spotlight economic “victims” — the homeless man, the woman without health insurance, the unemployed worker, the senior citizen who had to choose between medicine and food. But this year, with an economy as bad as any since the Great Depression, those sympathetic anecdotes have vanished from the airwaves — a huge favor to Obama and the Democrats.

Given Obama’s record, the Romney campaign could have overcome much of this media favoritism and still prevailed — indeed, they almost did. But taken together, these five trends took the media’s historical bias to new levels this year, and saved Obama’s presidency in the process.”

While the media played its part for the Democrat Party as they have done for many years it must be pointed out that Ronald Reagan not only had a hostile media, but a hostile Republican Party to deal with and he won big two times. Why? My answer is that he had a message that resonated with the American people. He had charisma and the ability to connect with all voters, be they Black, union, Democrats or Conservatives. This is the type of candidate the Republicans need, not some retread RHNO who will attempt to move towards the Democrats and lose again.

On a more positive note the Republicans now control 30 governorships. This should be a good pool to draw the next presidential candidate from.

"At times like these, after a bitter and hard-fought election, it's customary to talk about burying the hatchet, reaching across the aisle — pick your metaphor. It dawns on politicians that the public is sick of division and wants them to work together for the good of the country. This time is different, at least from my vantage point. Had Mitt Romney won the election, he would be reaching out to the other side already, without being told to. But Barack Obama is not that kind of politician or man. He thrives on division and reflexively demonizes his opponents.

The American people, by a slim majority, have chosen to go through four more years of a presidency that doesn't seem to have a clue about bipartisanship. What's worse this time is that America has lost four precious years to work out the tax and entitlement reforms it needs to ward off fiscal disaster. Another four years of gridlock brings national bankruptcy that much closer. Then there's the dead weight of ObamaCare, which will soon hit the economy with full force. The next four years would be challenging even for a popular and politically masterful president. Obama is neither, and his nasty campaign has only made his job harder.

The election left the House firmly in Republican hands. Until that changes, the GOP can block the advance of Obama's progressive agenda (at least that part of the agenda requiring laws rather than executive orders).

Obama will have other reasons to drive the GOP from its last beachhead. He owes his base some favors for its work in dragging him across the finish line. Unions will want another try at card check. Environmentalists will push for cap-and-trade and a tighter clampdown on coal. The left wing of his party will want to gut defense and ramp up social spending; he'll be happy to go along, if he can.

The Republican Party must be willing to compromise when it is truly in the national interest to do so, but it also should be ready to fight for the Constitution, free enterprise and individual liberty.

In 1777, at a very dark moment amid defeats in the first quest for Liberty -- and just before the fall of Philadelphia and the brutal winter at Valley Forge, Washington wrote one of his generals: "We should never despair, our Situation before has been unpromising and has changed for the better, so I trust, it will again. If new difficulties arise, we must only put forth new Exertions and proportion our Efforts to the exigency of the times."

I am reminded of the words of Thomas Paine from his Revolutionary pamphlet, The American Crisis: "These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman."

When Samuel Adams signed the Declaration, he said, "We have this day restored the Sovereign to whom all men ought to be obedient. He reigns in heaven and from the rising to the setting of the sun, let His kingdom come."

Indeed, God is Sovereign in the affairs of men.

As for the challenges we face, hold fast to this wisdom from James 1:2-4: "Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything."

We have lost a battle, not the war. Hold your head high and redouble your courage and resolve. Remain steadfast in your devotion to Liberty and hold the line.