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Where Do The Republicans Go From Here?

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Though this post might be a bit early, all of the polls are suggesting that this Tuesday is going to bring big gains for the Democrats in the Congress. Oh, and then there’s that whole Presidential election, where it is likely that Barack Obama will bring the White House back to the Democratic Party. The Democrats are looking at holding a solid majority in the House, Senate, and the White House for the first time since 1992. And it’s looking more and more like the Democrats will wind up with 60 seats in the Senate after the election, giving them a filibuster-proof majority.

Halloween was yesterday, but this is a frightening proposition.

Now settle down my little extremist minded readers. I am not suggesting that this is scary because the majority of our government will be Democrats. Rather it is scary because one party will have complete control of the American government (the Supreme Court ideologies do not count). That’s not right. Of course, the Republicans have had this coming to them for a while now. The Republicans took over the American government and did not bring the change that the people wanted. It’s funny, though, how in the wake of President Bush’s second term the nation forgets about the Democratic scandals of the last two decades. It’s even funnier that this country is dominated by a vicious, disgustingly biased media. But I digress…

What will the Republicans do if they fail as miserably this coming Tuesday? Frankly, it’s time for the GOP to go back to the drawing board. They had their opportunity to make a difference in American government and they failed. I see two paths for the Republicans in the wake of a pending disaster on Election Day.

First, they can choose to take up a truly moderate position on all of the major issues. Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich has a think tank called American Solutions. This group has taken a variety of polls showing how 80% – 90% of Americans agree on certain issues. For example, polls show that 87% of Americans support English as the official language of the United States. Another example – 81% support greater use of domestic energy sources to fuel America’s future. Great.

The Republicans can choose to be the champions of these bipartisan issues and use this stance to win back some of the good graces of the American public.

The second direction the party can go from here is highly unlikely, but still a possibility. In short, the party can break up into various factions. Let’s face it, John McCain is not the same Republican as is George W. Bush; just as Elizabeth Dole is not the same type of Republican as Arnold Schwarzenegger; just as Christine Todd Whitman is certainly a different type of Republican than John Ashcroft. The fact is that there are too many different “types” of Republicans and this is a bad thing. Why is it a bad thing? Look at the current election cycle. There will be Republicans who lose Senate or House seats because there is an “R” after their name on the ballot. Sure, they may disagree with all of the policies of the current administration, but they’re about to get punished anyway.

Why not have a Conservative Republican party? Why not a Constitutional Republican party or a Traditional Republican party? Trust me, I understand why the power structures at the top of the Republican party would never allow this to happen (ca-ching!), but it might be time for the candidates (present and future) to take this party into their own hands. If you’re running as a Republican in San Francisco, guess what? You lose. But what if you ran as a candidate in a Liberal Republican party? What if you could disassociate with the stigmas and stereotypes of a nationwide organization?

With all of this being said, I have to say that I believe if Obama wins the election it will be very hard for him to win re-election. My reasoning is exactly the same as above. If the Democrats win the big majorities in the Congress, then it doesn’t matter who sits in the White House because the Senate Majority leader will rule the legislative agenda of the country. I believe that this country will experience a major shift to the left in the coming years and it might be too big of a swing for many to take. Obama needs to watch out for that if he’s sitting in the White House…but first he has to win the election.

No More Complaints from New Orleans, Idiots

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Sorry, folks, but I don’t want to hear any more complaints coming out of New Orleans. Why? Well, in case you haven’t heard the voters in New Orleans decided to send William Jefferson to a runoff election for his Congressional seat. Why does this take away these people’s entitlement to a voice in the national debate? Ha! The man is a criminal, that’s why! From the article:

But his clout was already on the wane even before his last election two years ago. By then, news had broken that he was under investigation for alleged bribery and that federal agents said they found $90,000 hidden in his freezer. He survived, winning re-election in 2006 easily, but he subsequently was stripped of a seat on the powerful House Ways and Means Committee. Last year, he was indicted on corruption charges by a federal grand jury in Virginia. Other family members also have been caught up in an unrelated scandal. Two siblings face federal corruption charges in New Orleans and a third has pleaded guilty.

And the people in New Orleans sent this man back to Congress?! Are you serious?!! These are likely the same people who heard three days out that there was a massive storm getting ready to hit the city and they should evacuate. Then they heard two days out that the storm was going to be the biggest to hit America in our history and they MUST evacuate. Then they heard the day before that the city was going to flood and if they wanted to survive, they needed to leave immediately. And then they stayed put.

Sorry, but that’s exactly what some people did during Katrina. I HAVE to believe that people who would look the biggest storm in American history in the face and go, “Bah, screw it. I’m staying put,” are the same people who re-elected a criminal to Congress. And those people no longer have room to complain about anything. I’m still a major supporter of reconstruction in Southeast America and I would much prefer that all of our foreign aid be redirected to these types of hurricane recovery efforts (which are now so prevalent in the Southern United States) before we send the dollars overseas. But at this point, I don’t want to hear anyone who voted for Jefferson complaining. You get what you vote for, people, and you voted for a lying, cheating, criminal.

Was the Bailout the Right Move?

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No! Talk about making the wrong move. Not only is the American government taking an historic step in bailing out some of the greediest people in the history of the planet, they’re doing so with YOUR tax dollars! Better yet, one news agency is reporting that Americans, by a 90-to-1 margin, wanted nothing to do with the bailout bill. From the CBS News website, courtesy of Bob Schieffer:

Yet when Congress first confronted the issue early in the week and decided to do nothing, the vote told us that beyond Washington many Americans just didn’t see it that way.

The president, Democratic leaders, the two presidential candidates all called for immediate action. Yet some members of Congress told me their phone calls and e-mails were running 90-to-1 against the rescue plan.

Get it? Americans did NOT WANT this bailout plan! Everyday Americans did NOT NEED this bailout plan! People working for greedy organizations on Wall Street wanted the bailout and because money talks while (apparently) everyday Americans walk, they got what they wanted. It’s bull.

Americans need to take action on this disgusting bailout immediately.

This means that you, as a taxpaying citizen, need to demand the best from your legislators. They just took $700 billion of YOUR dollars to give to gigantic, multibillion dollar banks. Hold them accountable. If you’re so disgusted with the bailout bill then vote against anyone in your district who voted for it. Send a message. If you don’t want to go that route, then stay in touch with your elected leaders and make sure that they are exerting the proper amount of oversight and that they overseeing the funds in a way that YOU want them overseen.

Americans need to become re-engaged with their government. This is definitely the election year to do so. This bailout bill was unnecessary – greedy people had what they had coming to them and the government bailed them out. Where’s the bailout for student loans? Where’s the bailout for the Americans who CAN make their mortgage payments, but just barely? Why would ANYONE continue to make mortgage payments now that they know the government is there to pick up their slack?

Disgusting.

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The Howard Stern Vacation Schedule

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Sometimes I really wish that I was told that Howard Stern and his crew of miscreants would be taking off most of the summer before I purchased my Sirius Satellite Radio and subscription. The Stern crew just took off the last week…and I’m not sure why. They took off the first full week of August and the last full week. And I’m sure that they’ll be off next week, too (because why would you take off Monday for Labor Day and then only work a 3-day work week?).

Bear in mind they also took off the first two weeks of July. Ummm…that’s four full weeks off in the summer months. I know that Howard’s brainwashed fans will say that he’s earned the break, but there are many millions more of us who are just fans of the show and feel like they’ve been sold a bill of goods with the Howard Stern gang. We were told about commercial-free radio before he made the jump – we now get frequent 15-minute, non-live content breaks in the middle of his shows.

We were told that the show would be in the studio on the occasional Friday to surprise the audience. Bullshit on that! He spent a few Fridays in the studio when he started Sirius – more than two and a half years ago now.

Then we were told about all of the great content that we’d get after Sirius XM and Stern bought back his tapes from CBS Radio/Viacom. What do they give us? A completely randomized selection of shows from all over Howard’s history with no rhyme or reason as to why they were playing certain shows. This crappy “Master Tape Theater” was so poorly received that the Stern folks were forced to move it into some weird Sunday afternoon time slot when no one is listening anyway.

Before he made the jump, Stern sold us on something like 33 cents per day or 45 cents per day to hear him on Sirius. Okay – then let me pay just the 45 cents on each day that he’s in the building. In August, I would have paid $3.60 to hear Howard and his crew.

I can’t tell you how happy I am that the merger went through. I really do like satellite radio and I really do enjoy listening to the Howard Stern Show. But paying the $14 that I pay each month (tax included) is not worth what I’m getting in terms of service. I hear that with the merger there will be an option to get 50 channels of your choice and pay $6.99 per month. Let’s get that figured out and in motion already!

Are Republicans Lacking Excitement in 2008?

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Right now? Yes! One of my favorite blogs to visit, Riehl World View, put a post up this morning that said the following:

Funny, everyone will say Romney is done for coming in second, but Hillary is fine with third? I’ll make this short, because Iowa only proved one thing – the Republicans are in big trouble.

The energy and participation is off the charts on the Dem side. It went up on the Republican side due to the Evangelical vote. That’s great, but it isn’t enough to win a general election.

The fact is, as things stand, the Republicans don’t have a candidate that can win nationally in 2008.

This is dead on target. Obama is going to turn a lot of the established Democratic heads with the amount of younger support and independent excitement that he brings to the table in this Presidential race. And as a guy who generally does not vote for the Democrats, I’m even excited about something new coming from Barack Obama – though I’m not quite sure what his exact policies are and how they would have a direct effect (if any) on me.

It seems that the Riehl World View post is correct and that Republicans are lacking both excitement and new participation. There really is no, “Oh my God, I have to go vote for this person,” candidate on the Republican side. The only one that comes close is Ron Paul and he’s more of an old school, late 1800’s/early 1900’s conservative (we call them Libertarians today) than he is a modern-day Republican.

While on this topic, I also want to comment that if you’re paying attention and watching the Republican race you can see that the voters WANT someone to be excited about and someone to be jumping up and down over. The majority of voters were disenfranchised with Rudy Giuliani going into the race and then they discovered Mitt Romney and you saw some excitement. Then the voters learned more about Romney and how he’s more of a return to politics as usual and you saw the excitement transfer to Mike Huckabee. Now you’re seeing some of that excitement transfer to John McCain in New Hampshire, but the fact still remains that Obama is bringing new and younger voters out to voice their opinions. No one else is doing that in either party, period.