One of the leading conservatives in Congress is Jim DeMint. He led the charge against last summer's amnesty bill, and has done a great job of keeping the ranks of conservative politicians on course. He has come out in support of Mitt Romney:
"We really need someone from the outside who knows how to manage and run something," he says -- "[someone] who can take something apart and put it back together and has a resume of doing that. Mitt Romney did that as a businessman, he did it with the Olympics, [and] he did it in Massachusetts."
While he does not agree with Romney's theology, DeMint reminds voters they are not electing a pastor -- they are electing a president. DeMint also believes Romney would fight to protect the rights of Christians to worship as they please.
This endorsement should be a big one for conservatives.
Speaking of conservatism, just how conservative is John McCain? I didn't know it until today, but there's an organization that answers that question with statistics. The American Conservative Union rates politicians on their voting records, comparing their votes with conservative principles. McCain trumpets his 82.3% lifetime rating as proof of his conservatism, but a closer look at the numbers doesn't really help him.
As we could expect, McCain is most conservative on defense and spending issues, and more liberal on taxes, campaign finance reform, the environment and, most recently, immigration. If you look at his record over the long haul, you can see some trends (data from the last year available was 2006):
- an 82.3% rating only puts him at 39th out of 100 senators
- McCain has gotten more liberal in recent years
- he seems to oppose conservative principles more often in tight votes (when it really counts)
If you look at the ratings since 1998, McCain's position puts him squarely on the liberal side of the aisle. Only four other Republican senators have been more liberal in that time. What's really striking is that Arizona is a fairly conservative state, so his liberalism isn't coming as a result of his constituency (the other AZ senator, Kyl, has a 96.9% rating).
From his own voting record, especially in the past decade, McCain is most definitely NOT a conservative.
Incidentally, Senator Clinton (D-NY) has a lifetime ACU rating of 9 (83rd place) and Senator Obama (D-IL) has a rating of 8 (86th place).
Next up: did you know that Europe wants to vote in American elections? Apparently, they think we're not doing a good job of electing a correct and proper President. Get a load of this from several European publications:
"American presidential elections are not 'home affairs'. American decisions have repercussions all over the globe.... Hence, the world should be given the right to vote."
"Many Britons will feel it would be rather nice to have a vote, too. Well, maybe not a whole vote: I would settle for one worth 50 per cent of those cast by American citizens. After all, since we are a strategic colony of the US, it would be nice to have even a marginal say in how the empire chooses to dispose our goodwill and our blood and treasure."
If there were any lingering questions about the value of an American's right to vote, this should dispel them! It seems that the EU press is falling all over themselves in favor of Obama. Here's one example:
"Obama is the candidate of the idealists.... Obama also happens to be the candidate of choice for the foreign press.... Many in Europe would like nothing more than a 'European' America."
Reality is crashing down, though, as they are starting to realize that Obama may not win. On top of that, they're already leery of another Clinton presidency, not only because the U.S. would likely demand support for the Iraq war and other terrorist actions. If Obama does pull it out, that could still be bad news, because that means Americans aren't the back-woods, uncultured, racist swine that they typically think we are. Still...
In an 800-word rant titled 'American Primary System Fails to Impress Europeans', Deutsche Welle implies that if Germans cannot help Americans vote Obama into office, then the US political system itself must be flawed.
Talk about presumption...! It's no wonder that while Europe sits around looking down their collective socialist noses at the rest of the world, it's America that rolls up its sleeves and actually gets things done.
I saw an interesting article on Obama's rhetoric versus his record. Basically, the article can be summed up by saying that while Obama appears to be a class act and very smooth, he hasn't really accomplished a lot. At the same time, he has made some rookie mistakes while campaigning that indicate he's not ready for the Oval Office yet. Nothing we didn't already know, but still good information to share with you.
Now, back to the home front. Over 80 lawyers who represent Guantanamo Bay detainees have officially thrown their support to Barack Obama. Think about this. These lawyers want Obama to become President because they feel he's the one most likely to grant terrorists the rights of American citizens and close down Gitmo. They're ignoring, of course, the question of what to do with these terrorists once they get released. Their home countries don't want them, so that leaves either putting them into American prisons (on American soil) or just setting them free (and there are already instances of released prisoners carrying out additional attacks on U.S. personnel and assets. But that won't be their problem, now will it? Just yours and mine, and our military's.
Christopher Hitchens writes that no one should be the least bit surprised that the Clintons are playing the race card - it's standard operating procedure for them. It started while Bill was behind in the polls in 1992. He was accused of having the affair with Gennifer Flowers; Bill's response was to fly to Arkansas to sign the death warrant for convicted murderer Ricky Ray Rector, who was a black man that tried to kill himself with a gunshot to the head but ended up retarding himself. Clinton went out of his way to execute a black, mentally impaired prisoner. There have been any number of other racial incidents with the Clintons since then. Do you recall why Bill is considered the 'first black President'? Toni Morrison described Clinton as "black" on the basis of his promiscuity and dysfunction and uncertainty about his parentage. Is that really why African Americans want to claim him as 'their' first President? The Clintons have a long and unglorious history of playing the race game to achieve their goals of power. What they're doing to Obama is nothing new.
Speaking of the Clintons, did you know that Hillary is trying to change election rules after the votes are counted? Because Michigan and Florida moved their Democrat primaries earlier in the year, the DNC took away their delegates, which means those states get no say in the nomination process. All of the Democrat candidates agreed to skip those states in their campaigning. When it came down to it, however, Hillary left her name on the ballot in Michigan (and 'won') and is still campaigning in Florida. You can bet that if she feels she needs to votes, she'll start whining about needing to 'count every vote' even if that means changing the rules after the fact. Many other Democrats are really, really ticked off at her for this blatant flipping of the bird.
So why is Clinton burning bridges, especially with the African American community? Because she's relying on the Hispanic vote as a firewall to major losses. This is a dangerous game that she's playing, especially against an African American who could very easily draw the disenfranchised black vote to himself. Regardless, the vicious split in the Democrat party could give the Republican nominee a load of ammunition in the general election. Not only would Clinton or Obama have to spend time mending fences to secure their own base (rather than attacking the Rep nominee), but the same attacks the Republican nominee would likely use would have already been put out into the public's consciousness. We all know that if you say something often enough and loud enough, people start to think it's true, and this could come back to haunt the Democrats.
There's my two cents.
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