And Now There Are Three

“If we move in mass, be it ever so circuitously, we shall attain our object; but if we break into squads, everyone pursuing the path he thinks most direct, we become an easy conquest to those who can now barely hold us in check." — Thomas Jefferson

With the withdrawal of Rick Santorum from the GOP contest for the nomination we are left with three candidates; Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, and Ron Paul. Of these three the most likely and potential winner will be Romney. He has 50% of the delegates in hand to receive the nomination. This is the reality whether we like it or not.

Gingrich is still bouncing about the nation spreading is “big thought” solutions, but has no money. He stands at less than 10% in the polls with GOP voters. Ron Paul with his consistent 7% still spreads his Libertarian message to passionate and sometimes fanatical supports — a message that rings true in many cases especially on government and the economy.

It is time to call the game. According to a new survey from Pew, almost half of all Republicans think the ongoing primaries are hurting the party, while a far larger percentage believe that Mitt Romney has become the inevitable nominee:

“Following primary victories in Wisconsin, Maryland and the District of Columbia last Tuesday, Mitt Romney is clearly seen as the inevitable GOP nominee, and Republicans now see continued primaries as bad for the party.

In the latest national survey by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, conducted April 5-8, 2012, roughly three-quarters (74%) of Republican and Republican-leaning voters say that Romney will definitely be the Republican Party’s nominee this fall. Only 21% believe a candidate other than Romney still has a chance to become the party’s nominee.

And Republicans’ appetite for the ongoing primary campaign has soured. By a 47% to 36% margin, more say it is a bad for the party, not good, that the nomination race has not yet been decided and is still going on. Just a month ago, Republicans were split on this question, and as recently as February a majority thought it was a good thing for the party that the nomination had not yet been finalized.”

Romney will no doubt pick up the support of the Santorum and Gingrich supporters, but is the followers of Ron Paul that trouble me. They are young, idealistic, and in many cases support Paul for his non-interventionist stance. They are not true Constitutional Conservatives and lean towards Libertarian on the issues of government, taxes and debt. They do not like existing government programs and would take an axe to them without thought of the arm it would do many people. In a sense they are selfish.

I am not advocating an expansion or continuation of programs like Social Security or Medicare, but I believe we must reform them step by step, something akin to what Paul Ryan is proposing.

In a recent conversation with a person who claims to be a Libertarian he expressed great cynicism over the current GOP field of candidates with, of course, Ron Paul. He said there was no difference between Mitt Romney and Barack Obama. He said he would not vote for Romney and sit on the sidelines and watch the passing parade. This is what troubles me with the Paul supporters.

Sitting on the sidelines and watching your country go down the drain to a committed Marxist socialist who has no love for this Republic or its Constitution and is advocate class warfare is like a child saying will take his ball and go home if he cannot play a starring role. This is also the case with some many so-called independents.

Before I continue I would like to quote a line by James Madison from Federalist Paper No. 55:

“But what is government itself but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself. A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions.”

Neither Obama, Romney nor Paul are angels. The trick is to decide which non-angel can best serve the principles of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution and get elected. Like all things in life sometimes your first choice is not possible. If you are buying a house and love with model A, but have only funds for model B you do not go homeless because you cannot get model A. You take model B and build equity until you can afford model A. This is called reality in the marketplace.

Our Founders face this very same problem with slavery when framing the Constitution. Even though the Declaration stated that all men are created equal the framers had to put that lofty principle aside in order to form a more perfect union. Eventually the issue of slavery was resolved though the Civil War, the issuance of Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, and the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution. We will able to finally buy model A.

The reality in the marketplace today is that we have two political parties that will govern this Republic. One believes in class warfare, wealth redistribution, big, coercive government, and buying votes from factious groups. The other believes less in these tenants, but does believe in the liberty and entrepreneurship of the American people. Neither party is comprised of angles — this is the way politics works today. Right now Model A is not available to us as we do not have the wherewithal to obtain it. We must first begin the steps of reversing over 100 years of progressivism.

This is done best at the local level. The first step is to associate one’s self with a political party and work to change the completion of that party. Sitting on the sidelines and whining that you have no choice is not an option. If you have conservative principles as I do you pick the Republican Party and begin by supporting conservative candidates for school board, city council, county supervisor, state assemblymen and women, state senators, congress persons and U.S. senators. You do this with money, campaigning, and your labor in getting them elected. If you cannot fine one you can always run for office yourself. The Tea Party showed us the way in 2010.

Sitting on the sideline and waiting for an angel is a cynical option — this also pertains to so called independents. Don’t forget that the signers of the Declaration of Independence pledged their lives, fortunes and sacred honor to the principles expressed in that document — and many lost their fortunes and some their lives in the ensuing years in the Revolutionary War.

George Washington said in his 1786 letter to John Jay:

“We have errors to correct. We have probably had too good an opinion of human nature in forming our confederation. Experience has taught us, that men will not adopt and carry into execution, measures the best calculated for their own good without the intervention of a coercive power. I do not conceive we can exist long as a nation, without having lodged somewhere a power which will pervade the whole Union in as energetic a manner, as the authority of the different state governments extends over the several States. To be fearful of vesting Congress, constituted as that body is, with ample authorities for national purposes, appears to me the very climax of popular absurdity and madness. Could Congress exert them for the detriment of the public without injuring themselves in an equal or greater proportion? Are not their interests inseparably connected with those of their constituents? By the rotation of appointment must they not mingle frequently with the mass of citizens? Is it not rather to be apprehended, if they were possessed of the power before described, that the individual members would be induced to use them, on many occasions, very timidly and inefficaciously for fear of losing their popularity and future election? We must take human nature as we find it. Perfection falls not to the share of mortals.”

Ever since I was in high school I heard the phrase “they should do something about that.” The “they” referred to almost always meant government and not the speaker of the phrase. Over the ensuing years there have been way too many “they” and not enough “me or us.” Just think of those men who pledged the lives, fortunes and sacred honor had sat around waiting for a “they” to come to the rescue.

The reality of today is we will have two candidates for the office of President or the United States and many candidates for legislative offices. Very few, if any will be angles, but you must support the one who most closely reflects your view of government and vision for this Republic. To cynically watch the passing political parade and say a pox on both their houses will only allow those passionate progressives, statists, and socialists to continue to buy the votes of the factious groups who want more and more government to look after them and Obama will be reelected. If that’s acceptable to you than sit as you may — I will not.

Karl Marx said history repeats itself, "first as tragedy, then as farce." Barack Obama has reversed that. His first term was certainly farce; his second will be tragedy.

Obama has Forrest Gumped his way through his presidency, except without the success, charm, and endearing sweetness of the original. He has given America three and a half years of farce, even if no one is laughing.

He is an adumbrated president, desperate about his re-election prospects. Sold as a bipartisan moderate, a post-racial healer, a transformative leader — we were told he would not just solve our problems, but heal the earth and save humanity.

The president has governed as a hyper-partisan, race-baiting, barely present tyrant with absolutely no leadership skills and little regard for the constitution. His daily ululations paint anyone who dares to disagree as evil and un-American. People are either pro-Barack or an enemy of the nation — there is no in-between.

It is the intangible aspects of the presidency where Barack Obama is most adept: entertaining, vacationing, and golf. The parties are legendary and extravagant. Bringing the NBA to the White House, or the NFL or Motown or Broadway — when he feels like it, the party comes to him. The vacations are even more extravagant, and the golf...everyone knows about the golf. He may not be good, but at least he puts in the time.

America has to pay for it all, but this is an opportunity to see the true Barack Obama, surrounded by minions and sycophants constantly telling him how great he is. Is it any surprise he wants four more years of this?

Obama hagiographer (study of saints) Davis Guggenheim has said, "I mean, the negative for me was there were too many accomplishments." Barack wholeheartedly agrees; after all didn't he recently say, "My entire career has been a testimony to American exceptionalism"?

Popeil's Pocket President, brought to you by Ronco, or Rahm Emanuel — one of those. At least the Pocket Fisherman worked. Barack doesn't work; it's all parties, vacations, and golf – in between, he practices verbal assassination of anyone who disagrees. Chin up, he turns away and looks off in the distance, à la Mussolini, as the applause and adulation reverberate from the rafters.

"No, please," he pleads, "I do this for you."

In less than four years, he has reduced America to the laughingstock of the world. We are threatened by Iran with nuclear Armageddon, while he lines up a putt and tells us what his imaginary son would look like.

He talks of "flexibility," while he plots both unilateral disarmament and the scrapping of missile defense. With no deterrent and no defensive capability, the nation will be defenseless and impotent.

Unemployment has ravaged America; economic stagnation has destroyed families and futures. Good people have been demonized simply for being successful; business has been terrified by threats of confiscatory taxation and the relentless assault of regulatory fiat. Obama's trillion-dollar stimulus stimulated nothing, except the wallets of political backers and crony capitalist pals like Solyndra. It actually made the economy worse by diverting money from productive business investment into the Obama for President slush fund, which is really all the stimulus ever was.

ObamaCare, so named because he does care, is more unpopular with every passing day, while the Supreme Court seems likely to overturn the entire abominable mess. Using procedural trickery, our transformational tyrant and his minions, Nancy and Harry, rammed it down America's throat, eking out a victory without a single Republican vote. It's farcical that he would claim that it passed with a "strong majority of a democratically elected Congress."

As part of this comedy of errors, standing with the president of Mexico and the Canadian PM last week, Barack Obama couldn't help but channel his inner Chevy Chase in The Three Amigos. Our president, once a “professor” of constitutional law, made statements showing how ignorant he is about the Constitution, judicial review, checks and balances, and the separation of powers. He's tried to walk those comments back, but it's hard to walk back idiocy.

People have died from his policies, although hundreds of white Hispanics in Mexico who perished as a result of his administration's Fast and Furious program apparently don't count. Ever faster and much more furiously, the administration is done talking about gun-walking.

Our president, who believes himself the living embodiment of American exceptionalism, veers wildly between bragging about how successful he is and puling loudly about how unfairly he is being treated. Every lament from the man is laced with an unsaid but implied "you people don't appreciate me, even after all I've done for you."

He boasts of his accomplishments, which amount to nothing more than brazenly redefining abject failure as success, or taking credit for things he had nothing to do with. Is there anything funnier than hearing the most anti-oil president in the history of the nation take credit for oil production?  He stands in front of some pipes and makes a speech, and suddenly, he is the "Energy President." Could he look more desperate?

To hear Barack tell it, no other president has done more for the fossil fuel industry, cut taxes for the middle class, been more supportive of business, cut regulation, or done more to increase employment and help the economy recover. Did you hear that Osama bin Laden is still dead?

Most laughable is his assertion that no president has ever done more to control spending, despite the $5 trillion in debt he has added in less than four years. With a second term, he is on track to add more debt in eight years than all the presidents who came before him combined. His budgets are a joke, with last year's failing in the Senate 97-0, and this year's losing in the House 414-0. Even Democrats won't vote for them.

It is Obama's version of the "big lie," a lie told so often that it is accepted as truth. The Obama variation entails many lies, big and small, told over and over again in honeyed tone, with aggressive confidence and a joking manner that implies that anyone who doesn't believe all he says is an idiot.

To him, Americans are morons, so intimidated by his brilliance that they will buy into his bull, become backers of Barack, and recommit on hope and change this November. The secret to his success is that he is able to convince people that if they believe him and not what they see with their own eyes, they are geniuses, just like him.

As a rule — with everything Barack tells us about what he has done and what he will do — the truth is always the exact opposite. On Seinfeld, it was called "bizarro world." We live in Barack's backwards bizarro world.

Unemployment, at over 8%, is at the highest protracted level since the Great Depression. The economy is moribund, with the worst recovery from a recession, also since the Depression. Government spending, as a percentage of GDP, is the highest since WWII. The percentage of people employed is at its lowest level in 30 years; gasoline prices are the highest ever. America, internationally, is at its greatest risk since the fall of the USSR. Yet Barack constantly talks about how wonderful things are and how great he has been. Sadly, many people believe him, and these people will vote to give him an opportunity to try again. Scary, isn't it?

America is circling the drain, and despite the farce that has been Obama's first term, he has his hand on the handle. and with re-election, he is going to flush.

Mark Twain said that truth is always stranger than fiction because fiction has to make sense. Watching Barack Obama campaign for re-election should be funny, but it's hard to laugh when realizing how tragic four more years of this president will be for America.

As I stated above Mitt Romney is no angel, but he is a step in the opposite direction from Barack Obama. If provided with a sympathetic Congress and the people who voted for him holding his and Congress’ feet to the fire we may begin to right our ship of state and save our Republic. This is not a time to side on the side lines and carp about your lack of choice and point out the flaws of the GOP. This is a time to become engaged and as in the words of Reinhold Niebuhr “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, Courage to change the things I can, And wisdom to know the difference.”

Our Republic will not be saved by one election, but we can take a step in the right direction if we can put our preference for model A aside for a while and realize the realities of the political marketplace and begin building equity for the eventual attainment of the model we desire.

As Thomas Jefferson said; “If we move in mass, be it ever so circuitously, we shall attain our object; but if we break into squads, everyone pursuing the path he thinks most direct, we become an easy conquest to those who can now barely hold us in check."