American Political Revolution

It might be a bit too premature and over dramatic to use such terms, but it is not very difficult to make the case that what happened yesterday in Massachusetts is not some isolated election anomaly, but part of a burgeoning nationwide American political revolution.

Since Republican Henry Cabot Lodge was defeated by a young, upstart politician named John F. Kennedy in November of 1952 and left office in January of '53, at least one of Massachusetts' two U.S. Senators has been a Democrat. Two years after JFK was elected to the Presidency in 1960, his brother Ted Kennedy assumed the seat and owned it until his death last year.

The other Massachusetts Senatorial spot was won by Paul Tsongas for the Democrats in 1979. He was succeeded in 1985 by ultra-liberal John Kerry, and so the Democrats have had solid control of both U.S. Senatorial seats from Massachusetts for a generation. In what has to be a stunning, bitter, ironic defeat for the Dems, the seat virtually owned by the Kennedy's and controlled by liberal interests for over a half century was lost yesterday.

In the special election held yesterday to replace the deceased 'Lion of the Senate', 50-year old Scott Brown was chosen by the previously reliable voters of Massachusetts to become the first Republican U.S. Senator to represent the commonwealth in three decades.

It is that very idea of previously 'reliable' voters rising up and throwing out the candidates presented by their political party, particularly the Democratic Party at this time, that leads to the notion that there is something more brewing here than simple dissatisfaction in local politics.

A year ago today, Barack Obama was sworn-in as the 44th President of the United States. The first minority to hold the office, Obama was elected after a campaign that promised to "fundamentally change America" in his very own words.

It has become abundantly clear in the ensuing year that what Obama and his ultra-liberal congressional leaders, U.S. Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi from California and U.S. Senator Harry Reid from Nevada, consider 'Change' is very different from what the vast majority of those who elected him expected.

The majority of voters are generally 'centrists' who do not adhere to any political idealogy on a stringent basis in their daily lives. They may be generally conservative in nature, such as myself and most Republicans, or generally liberal, as most Democrats, but they begin to get very turned off when the far-end of either party begins to attempt to assert control over their lives.

The voters should have understood what Obama meant by his 'Change' because he was really no secret. By every measure he was the most far-left of the liberal Democratic U.S. Senators. His personal, educational, social, and political associations were all at least bordering on socialist and communist. He is certainly the single most politically progressive individual to ever hold the highest office in the land.

But the fact is that the majority of voters just didn't get it. They were wooed by Obama's dynamic public speaking ability and by a liberal-dominated mass media into buying into the notion that he would simply be a compassionate, intellectual alternative to lead a younger generation of Americans forward in a changing world.

Instead, what Obama did was almost immediately undertake a radical policy to have the federal government take over large swaths of American private industry. He and his political allies who are currently in control of Congress and the Senate have taken what was already huge public debt and driven it to irresponsible levels. This will undoubtedly lead to massive tax increases in the coming months and years.

Many people now believe this is an intentional attempt to collapse the American financial system and lead to complete government control of most or all sectors of public life including the financial, labor, health, educational, and media systems.

None of these actions are in compliance with the stated intent or the spirit of the U.S. Constitution or the traditional American precepts of self-reliance and independence. As the year has worn on, Americans finally began to sit up, take notice, and then stand up to be heard.

At what became known as 'Tea Parties' and at town hall meetings across the country, Americans let their elected officials and representatives of the Obama administration know that they were not happy with the direction in which the country was heading. Rather than pay heed to the obvious discontent fomenting among the people, the arrogant politicians plowed on with their plans, often publicly stating that they didn't care what the people want.

Then came the fall, and election season. In New Jersey, uber-rich, ultra-liberal incumbent Democratic Governor Jon Corzine was defeated by Republican Chris Christie. In Virginia, Republican Bob McDonnell ousted liberal Tim Kaine from the Governor's seat held by the Dems for eight years. The issues and personalities were indeed local, but in both instances reflected national opinions and trends.

For months now, almost every single reliable poll taken across the country has shown great dissatisfaction among the electorate with the programs and the policies undertaken by Obama and being plowed through congress by his lock-step Democratic Party cohorts. The polls are showing that the gubernatorial elections in Virginia and New Jersey were akin to tremors preceding an earthquake. What happened yesterday in the Massachusetts Senatorial election is the strongest in what is now a continuing series of these tremors.

What seems crystal clear at this point is that traditional American values are under attack, and Americans have had enough of both parties. Going forward, at least in the short term, it appears that no incumbent who ignores their electorate is safe. Americans don't want party politics as usual, they want people who will speak the truth to them, and who will respond to them. Either that, or the people will resort to the old political axiom of 'throw the bums out'.

This coming fall Americans will go to the polls all across the nation in what will be pivotal times for the future of the country. Will the United States continue to slide closer and closer to full-blown socialism by keeping the current liberals running the Democratic Party in control? Or will the American political revolution begun at the 2009 tea parties and town halls, carried into Virginia, New Jersey, and now Massachusetts, lead to a reclaiming of traditional America?

Don't Believe the Polls

If there is one thing that history has taught anyone who has bothered to pay attention it is that polling lies when it is taken to be looking at results weeks before a national election. From the infamous "Dewey Defeats Truman!" headlines right up until the most recent election, when John Kerry was said to hold an 11 point lead in some polls with just weeks to go, polls lie, and I believe that they do it on purpose. Just as there is a quite obvious liberal news media bias that paints Democratic candidate Barack Obama in bright, positive, shining colors and portrays Republican candidate John McCain in a negative light, so are polling results skewed by the political agendas of the groups behind them. In that 1948 example, Harry Truman was seen trailing Thomas Dewey by anywhere from a 5 to 15 point margin, with Truman actually ending up on top by just over 4 points. After that embarrassing result for pollsters, the powers that be within their organizations trashed old systems and rolled out new ones in attempts to ensure that the same problems did not materialize again. David Moore in his 'The Super Pollsters: How They Measure and Manipulate Public Opinion in America' has stated: "Poorly worded questions and unrepresentative samples continually skew polls results. It is important that the validity of survey results be questioned and poll watchers need to always be attentive to the source of the poll and to the methods used in polling." Despite all of their attempts at refining their polling methods, and in spite of the occasional result that was in the end close to their polling samples, the fact remains that public opinion polling is at best an inexact science, and at worst a propaganda tool. Public opinion polls in this current election cycle have regularly shown Obama to hold anywhere from a 5-10 point lead, with John McCain only taking small, short leads and none of those recently. That is pretty incredible when you consider that virtually every reliable source continues to say that the country is divided evenly down the middle between conservative and liberal ideologies, and that the 'undecideds' are generally a myth in any significant numbers. I have a poll up at my own website here which shows McCain ahead by a 76-18 margin, with 6 percent stating support for an 'other' candidate. Anyone who wants to shill for the McCain campaign could easily see my poll and make the truthful statement: "I have seen some polls that show McCain way ahead of Obama." Sure you have, if you looked at mine, but my poll is in no way scientific, as the majority of folks who pass through the site are expected to be conservatives. The fact is that this election is not going to be decided until the voters go to cast their actual ballots on election day in 2 1/2 weeks. Until then the majority of polls, with liberal agendas behind them, will continue to skew the results towards Obama in an attempt to kill enthusiasm among Republicans. They want to plant the thought in Republican minds that "Hey, McCain can't win anyway, so I'm going to stay home." Nothing could be further from the truth, as George W. Bush's 2004 victory over John Kerry clearly showed. As of today, the Gallup poll shows Obama with a slim 2 point lead, basically nothing in an industry that says it's results have a margin of error of plus or minus 3-4 percent. Rasmussen has Obama up by 4, Zogby by 5. In other words, when factoring in their own error margins, the race could be anywhere from a 9 point Obama lead all the way down to a close McCain victory. I once heard someone say that they didn't need a weather man to tell them it was raining, all they needed to do was stick their head out the window. Likewise, I don't need some agenda-driven polling organization to tell me that this election is going to ultimately be decided by 2 points or less, and that it could go either way. The fact is that you need to get up and go out and vote on election day, and the fact is also that in more instances than not you should not believe the polls.

Obamacrite

Will the real Barrack Obama please stand up? And this time perhaps show our flag and our national anthem some respect by paying attention, covering your heart with your hand, and perhaps even singing the song? I mean, you are running as the candidate for President of the United States, right? This man has done more flip-flopping in his effort to get elected as the first black American President than his predecessor as the Democratic nominee, John Kerry, did four years ago. You remember Kerry, who famously "voted against the war before I voted for it." Remember all the controversy when Obama refused to wear the iconic American flag pin on the lapel of his suits? The one he claimed was only a "substitute for real patriotism"? The pin is now worn at all times by the candidate. The new claim would appear to be "if a pin can get me elected, whatever its meaning, pin it on me." Obama spent decades attending the Trinity United church under the spiritual guidance of the Reverend Jeremiah Wright. When Wright let loose earlier this year with an anti-American diatribe, Obama immediately defended him, saying that Obama "could no more repudiate his church than his family." So much for that. Wright was tossed under the bus of political expediency, and Barrack left the church. Obama has flip-flopped on trade and the world economy as well, going from a position of vocally denouncing NAFTA to one of strongly supporting free-trade. Now come Barrack Obama's new television commercials, where he extols the "values straight from the Kansas heartland" as taught to him by his suddenly sainted grandma. Wasn't this the same woman who Obama denounced for a racist reaction when she was accosted by a black man on a bus? Obama is doing what politicians do best, and what Democratic politicians do better than any others. He is pandering to what he thinks people want to hear, especially those people who are legitimately undecided in their Presidential preference. If he is talking in front of a group of the military, he will extol their virtues and express his strong support. If in front of a liberal anti-war group, he will talk out of the other side of his mouth. If in front of law enforcement, he will back strong police actions in fighting crime. In front of the ACLU and their buddies, he will talk about police misconduct and abuse. You support the 2nd amendment, he is with you. For handgun control, he's your man. He challenged union contributions to the Edwards and Clinton campaigns as 'special interest' money, and now gleefully accepts those same sources of funding to his own campaign with open arms. In 2004 he stated that it was time to end the embargo with Cuba, but in 2007 he told a group of Cuban-Americans that he would not end the embargo as it was an "important inducement for change." Obama spoke and wrote against the troop surge in Iraq, saying that it wouldn't stop the violence. Now that it has proven an unequivocal success, he says that everyone knew it would work. The man has a 16-month troop withdrawal plan for when he enters office one day, the next he talks about having to stay in Iraq for as long as needed. It all just depends on who he is talking to, and on what the current political climate 'feels' like to him and his team of advisers. It is back to the Clintonista style of campaigning and governing by polling data. Barrack Obama has more faces than a Swiss watch factory, and he has completely misjudged what most Americans want, especially voting Americans. Especially in these difficult times, what we want is a politician who we feel will speak the truth to us. Someone who doesn't feel the need to massage us with what will make us feel good, but instead will tell us how it is and let us in on the discussion to make things better. A vote for Barrack Obama in the fall is a vote for a return to the Clinton days of deception and denial, and of putting off or glossing over problems rather than actually fixing them. Give me John McCain's straight, no-nonsense, tough-love truth any day over this Obama hypocrisy and position-juggling. The Dems have once again given us a hypocrite as their nominee, this time we can perhaps call him the Obamacrite.