The "Write" Wing

Great news about Kim Jong-il or, as Rush Limbaugh says, Kim Jong Dead (He may not have been the first one to come up with that; that’s just where I heard it first). I’ve been reading some of the comments from online news stories about his death, and a significant number of people out there seem to think the people are being held at gunpoint to mourn like this and that the American media isn’t telling the full story of how evil a dictator Kim Jong Il was. Don’t get me wrong; I’m not a big fan of the mainstream American media. And I wouldn’t put it past the North Korean government to hold people at gunpoint to do anything (Win the World Cup and every sport in the Olympics or else, for example). At the same time, however, I think it’s important to remember how brainwashed most if not all these people are.

Nobody the rest of the free world over doubts what a brutal dictator this man was. They know he did anything he could to hang on to his power, even when that meant letting his people starve to death. But his power lust also made him brainwash his people. He kept his hermit kingdom so apart from the rest of the world and told his people so many lies that many North Koreans didn’t and still don’t know how crappy their lot in life was. It seems very plausible to me that at some point a captor like him doesn’t need to hold a gun to his victims’ heads to make them weep and wail and gush out tears. If people have been held back from the truth their entire lives and all they know is a lie, they will react accordingly. In March of 2003, fourteen year-old Elizabeth Smart was miraculously found in Sandy, Utah, after being held in captivity for nine months. She still remembered her own name, but also appeared genuinely concerned for her captors, Brian David Mitchell and Wanda Barzee. If she can be brainwashed enough to believe these two people love her, imagine what an entire regime is capable of.

I personally believe the North Korean people can be unbrainwashed, just as Elizabeth Smart was, even though it won’t be easy. I wish there was an easy answer. It’s hard for South Korea to aggressively deal with the North when, among other factors, China and North Korea have such a cozy relationship and when the South Koreans themselves do so much business with China. I hope that the communist regime will buckle under its own weight. I hope we as a country have the resolve to help this regime fall, just as Reagan did to and for the Soviet Union.

I had the amazing opportunity to live in South Korea for two years while serving a religious mission for my church. I even got the chance to tour the DMZ while I was there. The South Korean people are forever grateful to American and allied forces for freeing them from the grasp of the communist North back in the 1950’s. I only wish their family members in the North enjoyed those same blessings of capitalism and democracy. My heart goes out to the North Korean people who have never known real freedom; many of them likely do not even know they have family members in the South. I pray that with stronger international resolve, a financial debt paid off to China (a debt that never should have existed in the first place), and an American president that on the international stage projects strength rather than weakness, that day of liberty for the North Korean people isn’t far off.

I just finished a great book called The Tragedy of American Compassion by Marvin Olasky. Very good read. Olasky goes into how the thinking and policies regarding welfare have really gone down throughout history, ever since the turn of the twentieth century. The book was very eye-opening. Back in the day, churches and charities used to make a strong distinction between the deserving poor and the undeserving poor. The societies would show tough love in requiring people to perform work tests by chopping wood or sewing before volunteers would give applicants any food or clothing; if necessary, aid societies would require applicants to change their behavior, to stop drinking or living promiscuously for example. There was more shame and stigma attached to receiving welfare. Even under FDR’s New Deal, people still had to apply for welfare. Somewhere during the 1960’s, like a lot of other aspects of American culture, the country took a wrong turn. Advocates began pushing for and the citizenry started accepting the idea that welfare was a right. There is so much welfare fraud and abuse in this country; it’s absolutely shameless. It’s gotten so bad that people are skeptical of almost any efforts to help the homeless, whether those efforts are legitimate or not.

While in Washington, I also finished a book by Mona Charen; it was called Do Gooders: How Liberals Hurt Those They Claim to Help and the Rest of Us. It touched on a lot of the same ideas as The Tragedy of American Compassion. Both these books, as well as my own observation, tell me one very huge contradiction that liberals don’t want to accept. They repeatedly reject the notion of personal responsibility. It’s societies fault if a criminal steals or shoots up a shopping mall. They want to look at “outside reasons” for why someone committed a crime. I, for one, think maybe the Left needs a taste of their own medicine. Next time I hear a more left-leaning person (maybe a college professor who still hangs onto all the stupid baloney from the 60’s) suggest we should evaluate the societal reasons somebody might commit a horrendous crime, I’d like to say, “I agree. Why don’t we start by looking at all the idiotic ideas you and your hippy friends pushed during the 60’s—ideas that have undermined the family unit, and increased poverty, crime, hunger, and dependency on government, ideas that hurt people’s sense of personal responsibility, as well as their pride and self-respect?”

Too many people, even well-meaning Christian Conservatives think that extending mercy and compassion means giving money without any strings attached. However, our human nature is such that the compassionate welfare policy is to attach some strings. People are motivated by incentives, and there’s nothing wrong with that as long as they use those incentives to do good. It’s naïve and uncompassionate to let people drift into idleness and dependency, and thereby lose their self-respect, by not expecting that welfare recipients give something, no matter how small, for what they receive.

The GOP presidential debate sure is heating up. There are only two and a half weeks to go before the Iowa Caucuses. Last night was the last GOP Presidential Debate before the voting begins. It’s been an interesting primary season thus far. Those of us not ready to accept Romney as the “chosen” nominee have been going through the other candidates until their campaigns either run out of steam or are derailed altogether. First it was Michelle Bachman, then Rick Perry, Herman Cain, and now Newt Gingrich. Of everyone that’s already had a turn, only Michelle Bachman (in my mind) has any shot at possibly returning. And that’s not just because out of a rotation cycyle it would be her “turn” again. I like Michelle Bachman; she’s a very committed conservative. I get frustrated trying to defend something stupid she says sometimes. But she really is smart (you kindof’ have to be to be a tax attorney); her gaffes have never been major policy ones in my mind. One of the main reasons her campaign died was because Rick Perry entered the race. Mom and Dad are still holding out for her. Maybe I am too. Apparently she did really well in the debate last night (I would have watched if we had Cable). Practically speaking though, I don’t know if she has a chance now. Bachman has been putting all her energy and resources into Iowa, and the Des Moines Register just endorsed Romney tonight.

Nikki Haley, governor of South Carolina (a crucial early voting state) endorsed Romney yesterday. I like Nikki Haley, I think she’s a committed conservative, and I don’t really blame her for endorsing Romney, especially since he helped her campaign for governor. Out of Romney and Gingrich, I’m definitely leaning towards Romney. Gingrich is a very smart man, and it would be fun to watch him in an intellectual smack-down with Obama; out of all the candidates, he’s the best at explaining conservatism. At the same time, though, he has suffered from political ADHD, supporting liberal causes on occasion. He’s done a lot of good for the country, but he can also be kindof’ a hothead at times. Romney, even for his imperfections, is a good man and seems to be a more stable person and candidate. He has had a successful career in the private sector, turning lemons into lemonade. I definitely don’t want to be like some of my conservative friends who avoid the thought of Romney at all cost. As much as we conservatives would all love to resurrect Ronald Reagan from his California grave, it’s simply not possible. He’s not running this time. We have to work with what we have. Mitt Romney has become kindof’ a polarizing political figure, especially on the Right. Sometimes I feel like I don’t fit into either camp of Romney-lovers or Romney-haters. And as much as I, like many conservatives, like Ron Paul’s economic views, he is dangerously naïve on foreign policy.

On the local level, Jim Matheson just announced he’ll run in the new “donut hole” 4th district that was recently created. It’s the only district that doesn’t border another state, and it’s now our district here in Kearns. They split up his more Democratic and left-leaning support base here in Utah. I don’t know why he’s running here. According to the Salt Lake Tribune, Matheson has five percent less support in this district than he does in the new 2nd District. Carl Wimmer, running in the 4th District, accused Matheson of carpet bagging. He has to be careful, especially considering that Jason Chaffetz on our side doesn’t live in his (3rd) district either. We’ll see what happens here in Utah. Hopefully we can get rid of Matheson and gain two more Conservative Republican seats. I think it’s time for Hatch to go too. He’s only conservative when it’s convenient for him.

Going off my last post, here’s some more food for thought: For as much as care and compassion for the individual are what drive some people to enthusiastically support the progressive ideology, it’s shocking to realize how much liberalism doesn’t suggest the importance of government having faith in people. Let me explain:

As is generally the norm in academia, the vast majority of my teachers and professors growing up were fairly liberal in their political opinions. Whenever it came time to learn about the nineteenth century and the Industrial Revolution in both Victorian Era-Britian and the post-Civil War United States, my teachers and professors have suggested that the assembly lines and horrible working conditions they feel defined that era are still a major problem today, that capitalism has “done this to people.” In short, they believe the industrial world and capitalism in general have alienated people from their work and turned them into robots. They believe the lower classes were and still are enslaved by capitalism.

Maybe there’s some truth to what they have to say about that era. Honestly, even as conservative as I am, I can’t watch movies like “Newsies” or Elizabeth Gaskill’s “North and South” without feeling some compassion for the working classes of Industrial nations during this period. Maybe there’s something to be said for the horrible working conditions and for the incredibly large gap between the lifestyles of the oil, banking, and railroad tycoons of that era. Maybe, my political opinions would have been different had I lived then. Maybe things like minimum wage laws and FDR’s New Deal, which were intended to fill in the “holes of capitalism” and were once a necessity, have simply been taken too far and the pendulum has swung the other way.

Even if history is as horrible as they report it to be, however, I at least have to conclude that history (at least in this context) is a pendulum that has swung the other way. Why? Because believing that people today need to be empowered as individuals does not hold water with contemporary liberal rhetoric, which suggests people cannot be trusted as individuals. I can think of three policy-areas that support this:

1) Gun Control—When I discuss my support for the Second Amendment with my left-leaning friends, they can’t seem to fathom the idea of an adult carrying a concealed weapon around, for the purpose of self-defense, especially in a public place like a school or a restaurant. They object to the idea of teachers and administrators carrying guns (even if they hold the necessary concealed carry permit), saying that if a teacher ever lost his or her temper in class, they would pull out the gun and shoot a student. What my friends don’t understand is that responsible adults with concealed weapons and the legal permits to carry them are just that: responsible. After going through all the safety training to learn how to shoot a gun and the necessary background checks, they’re not going to suddenly blow a gasket and forfeit their ability to defend themselves. They’re not going to use a gun in public, unless they honestly feel they’re life is at stake. But my liberal friends would rather put an unreasonable amount of a pressure on the police force to be at every crime scene than show a little faith in ordinary people; time and time again, the latter has proved far more effective. As the saying goes, “when seconds count, the police are minutes away.”

2) Education—My liberal friends continue to be shocked when I tell them we need market-based solutions, such as vouchers, in order to improve education in this country. They say that education is too important a priority to leave to the unstable forces of capitalism. The way my friends and many other liberals care about educating kids and preparing them for the future is admirable; their logic, however, is flawed. Essentially, they believe that if we keep dumping more and more money into public education, eventually kids will be educated. In other words, they would rather have faith in the collective system of government than in individual people—in more teachers to get their act together because they know they’ll be held accountable for their performance and the performance of their students; in parents to make responsible choices as to how their kids will be educated; and in kids to learn effectively when pushed to work harder and rewarded for their efforts.

3) Economic Prosperity—Finally, as I’ve asserted before, many of my friends are adamant that the poor in this country need the security blanket of welfare and other social programs. Just like their position on education, they believe that food and shelter are too important to leave to the forces of capitalism. I would argue that freedom and prosperity, and the food and shelter that come along with them, are too important to leave to the overreaching hand of government bureaucracy that more often than not does not help people in the end and that creates a culture of dependency.

The motives of my left-leaning friends in all of these positions are admirable. In a spiritual and moral sense, I wish I were more like them. However, if these liberals really wanted to “empower” and “free” ordinary people, they would realize that government needs to get out of the way. The verb empower suggests giving power to others. Yet that is the last thing that many liberal policies end up doing, regardless of whether hording power for themselves and creating a “nanny-state” of government is the goal that most liberals have in mind. And trust me, I’m inclined to give most of them the benefit of the doubt here.

Ever see that movie “Stranger than Fiction”? The main character (played by Will Ferrell) is going along living his life when all the sudden he hears a women’s voice narrating everything he does. He later finds out that he’s actually a character in the book she’s writing. Well, I may not be hearing voices or anything, but it sure feels like I’m in a book sometimes, especially as a conservative. The country, the world, the economy, etc. are all starting to look like the world of Ayn Rand’s "Atlas Shrugged." And it’s not just because the economy is going under and jobs are disappearing, but it’s because liberal elitists in this country are pushing more than ever the idea that self-interest and selfishness are the same thing. And sadly, many of my friends are accepting this.

Sitting around with some of my co-workers (who also happen to be young college students) a few months ago, we were talking about this very subject. They were railing on capitalism and saying that greed and selfishness had caused it, as if it were a plague. They were saying how evil capitalism was, and I interrupted one of my friends to point out that in virtually everything she had already done that day she had interacted with and benefitted from capitalism—from the clothes and shoes she was wearing and the books she was studying to the building she was sitting in. I couldn’t believe what she said next: “Well that’s the crappy (she actually said something else, but I won’t repeat it here) part about it; you can’t get away from it.” I was stunned. Most of my liberal friends get pretty mad when I insinuate that they are anti-capitalism. Usually, they’ll say something like, “I just think humanity and compassion needs to be a bigger part of the conversation when it comes to social policy.” They’ll usually back down and refrain from admitting they are against capitalism, whether they are or not. I guess I at least have to respect my friend’s honesty here. It’s just sad to watch so many people accept this.

Contrary to what they may think, Self-Interest is actually a good and righteous thing. It is a good and righteous idea that people are and should be responsible for their own physical survival and improvement. Individual people know what is best for them in all aspects of life. Sure, freedom and responsibility come with challenges, some of them very difficult. But, the principle of doing what is best for yourself and consequently of knowing that you have a significant amount of control over your life is empowering, in the long run. It’s not something you should have to apologize for.

I should never have to apologize for paying for and enjoying a sandwich from subway or loving the feel of newly purchased shoes or enjoying riding around in a new car. All by themselves, these are good things that far from being condemned (simply because some people don’t accept the responsibility that comes with freedom and choose to either pay for things they can’t afford or make materialism too high of a priority) should actually be celebrated on their own merits. We should celebrate the fact that as Americans we do have control over our lives and destinies.

Again, self-interest is not selfishness. In fact, people generally categorized as selfish in our culture, who in this context are absorbed in immediate material gratification and who sometimes ditch their faith or families for worldly pursuits, are not doing what’s in their own self-interest.

I have no moral qualms over condemning material excess or suggesting that people have a duty to help the poor monetarily. My faith and even my, contrary to popular belief, political ideology support this. So, why won’t more of my friends stand up for the principle of self-interest? It’s a principle that they utilize on daily basis and, more than they probably want to admit, actually enjoy the freedom to do so. The fact that anybody should even have to explain such basic economics, such basic principles that our country was built on and that have made America and the rest of the world great since then is pretty sad. It does indeed make our current world stranger than the fictional world of Atlas Shrugged. It’s stranger because we’re actually seeing these ideas played out in our own non-fictional world today.

So Obama botched the whole toasting-the-queen thing in London this week. It’s not exactly breaking news, and it’s ultimately very unimportant to policy-making. But the reaction to his gaffe by liberals in the American media is more proof of their ongoing love-affair with our sitting president.

In case you haven’t heard, President Obama was in the middle of giving a toast to the queen when the Royal Band started playing “God Save the Queen.” He had asked everyone to rise (According to the “English rules”, that means it’s time for the national anthem.), and British Royal protocol says to wait until after the national anthem has finished playing before toasting. Despite the fact that the music had started playing, Obama continued with his prepared speech and then raised his glass to give a toast to the queen. Embarrassingly enough, however, he was the only one with his glass in the air. Everyone else, including the Queen who was sitting next to him, was still standing at attention for the National Anthem. When Obama realized his mistake, he set his glass down and awkwardly listened to the rest of the song. Finally, when the anthem was over, everyone raised their glasses in a toast to the Queen.

It’s been interesting to watch how everyone in the media decided to cover this. They’re saying the band misinterpreted the cue from President Obama. They’re suggesting the band should have waited till after Obama was finished speaking before they played the national anthem. Many of them criticized the queen for not helping Obama out, for not lifting her glass so he didn’t look stupid for being the only one in the room with his glass in the air.

Let me make this clear. I am criticizing the media here, not Obama. In all reality, could this have happened to anyone? Sure. Is a gaffe like this important to national or international relations? Probably not. Do I hope my fellow conservatives don’t take advantage of this opportunity to make a mockery of our president by lowering themselves to the level of the liberal media every time something like this ever came close to happening to Bush? Absolutely.

It’s the media that doesn’t make sense here. If Obama really is the amazing president they believe him to be, why should they have to make excuses for him? Shouldn’t he be able to dust himself off on his own every time something like this happens? If he’s so amazing, shouldn’t he be able to whip out a good joke and laugh at himself like Reagan would have done? According to their own larger-than-life view of him, he should be able to handle it. He’s a big boy. He can take care of himself. He’s more than a big boy. He’s the president of the free world, the president who has the power to usher in hope and change. Why should the queen or the people of England (who were simply following custom and tradition) have to help him out?
You’d think, right? The problem is that Katie Couric, Matt Lauer, Peter Jennings, Tom Brokaw, Chris Matthews, etc. all invested everything into Barrack Obama. They raised him up and supported him and helped him get elected by not only voting for him but by ignoring any and all stories that suggested he was anything less than the greatest president this country would ever see.

The liberal media’s relationship to Barrack Obama reminds me of parents who refuse to believe there is anything wrong with their kid. Whether it’s poor grades, disruptive behavior, bullying, etc., some parents get defensive when a teacher, coach, church leader, or someone else tells them their kid has problems that need to be addressed. The parents don’t want to believe the truth, because it hurts. They’d rather have the short-term satisfaction of ignoring a problem than enjoy the long-term fruits of being humble enough to listen to constructive criticism that others lend them.

There’s nothing inherently bad about a kid acting up in class at school, just as there’s nothing inherently bad about Obama toasting the queen too early. Mistakes are part of life. But if you ignore your own or those of someone you love, you’re not doing anyone a favor. If the media really had Obama’s long-term interest as a president in mind, they would report the objective truth about these gaffes he seems to find himself in. Their “mother hen” status is really starting to show through. It’s showing through them, and it’s showing through Obama’s followers, from academia to Hollywood. They’re all beginning to realize (as they look at the economy, the war on terror, immigration, his handling of natural disasters, etc.) that he’s not the superhero they thought he would be. And they’re scared of what it means for them and their careers.

Tonight, I want to address the controversy and conspiracy theories surrounding Barrack Obama’s birth certificate. I realize this may be old hat for many people. Once again, I am writing about an issue long after it may have already died (or at least after it has been buried temporarily). Seriously, though, I think we conservatives can take a few lessons from this issue.

First of all, one of the biggest problems with modern-day politics in general is that people of all viewpoints accept the logical fallacy that they need to believe every bad rumor or theory about a politician with whom they disagree on policy. They think anything less than doing so equals disloyalty to their respective movement or party. However, to a certain extent, believing that represents a degree of disloyalty to such a party or movement. Let me explain:

Several weeks ago, a woman called Rush Limbaugh’s show to chide him for not putting more pressure on Obama and left-leaning media to release his birth certificate. This was right around the time that more people, led by Donald Trump, were pressuring Obama to release his birth certificate. And, as we all know, the Whitehouse did release a more detailed version of Obama’s birth certificate than the one the Obama than they had before.

Anyway, this woman was irate with Limbaugh (given his influence on the media and national politics) for not demanding that Obama release his birth certificate. Mr. Limbaugh then did this woman a huge favor in how he defended himself. He told her that she was living in a fantasy world to think that simply removing a bad president from office was going to solve the country’s problems.

I will be honest here. I can relate to this woman’s frustration. During the 90’s, when we conservatives mistakenly thought we’d seen the worst U.S. president ever (in the form of William Jefferson Clinton), I remember thinking how convenient it would be if he just magically disappeared. But now that I’ve stepped back and looked at everything, I realize that such a wish is just that: a wish. It’s not reality.

The sitting president of the United States may have a lot of power but at the end of the day, his election simply reflects the sentiment of the country at the time he was elected. And the sentiment of the country is formed by the thoughts, emotions, and the logical and sometimes not so logical conclusions of its people. The president is just one person. And when it comes to American politics, somebody always steps up to the plate to take advantage of the sentiment of the country. At the end of 2008, America was disillusioned by the War in Iraq, worried about the economy, and the liberal media had convinced them that they needed a president from the opposite party. The mood of the country was such that if Obama had not become president, Hillary Clinton would have. If not her, someone else. If not that someone else, then another someone else, and so on and so forth.

The birthers, to put it bluntly, need to wake up and start talking about the actual issues if they want to save this country from its Constitutional demise. Don’t get me wrong. I would not be the least bit surprised, given the way the liberal media covered Barrack Obama’s campaign in 2008 and the way they’ve tried to protect him and his bad policies since then, if there are a lot of skeletons in Obama’s closet that simply sound like conspiracy theories right now.

However, if these birthers really want to change the long-term future of the country, if they want conservatism to win, they will stop putting all their energy into finding short-term solutions, if you can even call them that. They will stop putting all their eggs into one basket. They will stop banking all their energy and hope on what is simply, excuse the pun, a “Trump” card for saving America.

If the birthers want long-term conservative victory in this country, they need to join ranks with fellow conservatives by arguing about the merits of their policy-oriented ideas. They need to engage in a war of ideas and principles, rather than wasting much needed energy on political strategies that may or may not work and will do little, if not nothing, to help solve this country’s problems.

This might seem like old hat to some of you, but I want to address something that occurred to me tonight while discussing politics with friends. It’s not the biggest thing in the news right now, but a lot of us Republicans are curious to see the GOP frontrunners for 2012 make their formal announcements. I still don’t know who I would support; they all seem to have their strengths and weaknesses. However, I do want to attack a premise that, contrary to popular belief, I think is actually hurting the GOP, and the conservative movement in general.

A lot of the more recent buzz about potential candidates was generated by the speeches of potential candidates at C-PAC, the annual Conservative Political Action Conference held in Washington, D.C. every February. People like Mitt Romney, Haley Barbour, and even Donald Trump were all testing the waters. Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels created some buzz with his speech. I listened to his speech, and liked most of what he said. Something he said, though, bothered me then and still does now.
He said something to the effect that, “To win in 2012, we’re going to need people who never tune in to Talk Radio.” At first, I didn’t think much of it; it seemed like a practical thing to say. This is a common belief that you have to be able to appeal to the moderates in the middle in order to win an election.

Yet, the more I thought about it, the more I was bothered by this part of his speech, especially that verb need. Let me make one thing clear: Mitch Daniels seems like an awesome governor. I’m very happy that the people of Indiana have somebody with the guts to tackle their state’s budget, like he has. So, I can’t judge what he intended to say. I can only judge his speech by what he did say.

People forget history, and sadly too many of those people are conservatives and Republicans. They forget that Conservatism works. It provides jobs at full employment (Most, if not all of the current recession we find ourselves in came from liberal, big government policies. Sadly, some of them were pushed and passed by none other than President George W. Bush—a good, principled, classy, and gracious man who still took a less than conservative approach when tackling a lot of domestic issues.), it keeps America safe from enemies abroad, and it allows Americans the freedom to live their lives in peace. And people respond well to conservatism. Reagan’s landslide elections in the 80’s, the rapid emergence of the Tea Party, and the 2010 Midterm Elections are just some examples of how well people respond. But, too many Republican leaders forget this. They either forget that it worked in the 80’s, or else they lack the confidence in its ability to work in modern-day politics.

Therefore, if Conservatism works, why should candidates have to shy away from talking or being less than conservative? A typical response to this might be, “they can’t shut off the moderates.” Well, if that is really the concern of Romney, Daniels, Gingrich, and others, why don’t they simply take the approach of Ronald Reagan-the man they’re obviously trying to emulate?

See, Reagan was a smart man. He understood how unreasonable it was to expect every member of his party to be homogenous, robot, Conservatives, who don’t think, act, and live for themselves? (Honestly, I think that is a common and at times even warranted criticism of Rush, Sean, Glenn, Laura, and others. If any Republican is less than completely conservative, he or she is branded by these talking heads as a traitor to Conservatism, as someone who cannot be trusted.) Reagan knew, as anyone knows that we are a diverse country with diverse ideas and diverse life experiences. He understood that people’s philosophical and political views are usually a reflection of that.

But, Reagan also knew that Conservatism works. And he didn’t apologize or back down from his confidence in it. So, to keep the middle and flank of the party with him, he did something that no Republican before or since him, to their own detriment, has tried. He issued his “Big Tent” Invitation to anyone who wanted to be with him and the Party. He, in effect, said to all of America: “We’re going to move this country back to the principles it was founded on. And you’re all welcome to join us, whether you agree with fifty, eighty, or one hundred percent of our agenda.”

If the potential candidates, both those in the limelight as well as those who still have yet to come out of the woodwork, would realize that they can be conservative and still win elections, they could win in 2012, and they could ultimately change the direction of the country for the better, as long as they stay conservative while in office. If we want to end the recession, stop the tsunami of wasteful spending domestically, win the war on terror, and restore the American Spirit (Sounds like Reagan’s goals, huh?), we need to remember that Conservatism works, and people respond to it positively—both on the campaign trail and afterward. It’s not enough to just switch the control of our federal government from Democrat to Republican hands. It’s not enough to push even harder on the car breaks of our economy sliding quickly downhill, and thereby simply postpone the inevitable crash at the bottom. We have to shut the ignition off completely before we can turn the car around and start driving back up the road. Conservative solutions work. They are what Americans have always needed, and they are what they need now. Somehow, each of the GOP candidates need to get that through his or head; and they need to get it through their heads even before they make any kind of formal announcements.