UNBELIEVABLE!

As I told my wife, I can't believe I "supported" this guy in the 2008 Democratic Primaries.  Okay, I didn't ever actually vote for him nor did I send his campaign any money.  But I rooted for him against Hillary Clinton because I was so tired of the Clinton "dynasty."  

George W. Bush is looking more and more like the bravest, strongest and toughest President we have ever had.  Okay, that's a lot of Presidents, but still he was unafraid to take bold new chances and actually wage a WAR ON TERRORISM.  I urge you to read this George W. Bush speech on the War on Terror from 2005 and even watch the video.  Creating Guantanamo as a place to keep enemy combatants and using non-traditional means to deal with them.  That used to be the way we fought a war.  FDR was unafraid of hurting people's feelings and rights because he wanted America to win World War II. This guy, Obama, has pulled right back to where Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter had put this country.  Being tepid and timid and weak against terrorists.  Obama is so concerned with his Nobel Peace Prize image that he will no longer wage this war against terrorism -- he will treat it as a criminal matter.  

These last two weeks have shown Obama is just going to drive this country as far to the left as he can make it go.  He's lost the center, as seen in the November 3 elections, so he's pushed for a Health Care takeover vote by the house, he's minimized the significance of the Fort Hood Terror Attacks by Nidal Hasan and now he's bringing Khalid Sheikh Mohamed from Guantanamo to New York for a trial.  And he is dithering about Afghanistan, which he had declared a year ago as a war we should be fighting.  Now, since his left wing wants out, Obama refused to affirm General McCrystal's request for an increase of 40,000 troops so we can wage this war properly.  All he has left, politically, is his far left base and the mainstream media.  All he can hope is that he can get them so enthused by his far left liberalism that they will overpower the independents and Conservatives who are just apoplectic at what has happened in just the last ten months under this guy.

I usually try to write with respect towards the office of the President but I am so  peeved this week that I have not addressed our President with the respect I usually do.  I will try to do better in the future...

Why I'm No Longer A Democrat

1) Foreign Policy -- During the Cold War, liberal Democrats (yes, there used to be conservatives in the Democratic Party) continually sought to downplay the harshness of communism and attempted to accommodate rather than confront the Soviet Union.

Today, Democrats again seek to accommodate rather than confront terrorism.  The Ft. Hood shooting was clearly a case of Islamic jihad and yet the President and his supporters strongly resist the obvious.  

Yesterday, a friend on Facebook posted something observing the 20th Anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Someone commented that the fall of the wall was probably a good thing, but that the "trillionaire" politicians needed to create a "War on Terror" to keep the military industrial complex making money.  Thankfully, my friend could write from real experience in living in Germany in the 1970s that there was terrorism and that the communist countries made their citizens terrified.  

Oh, for the clarity on the war on terror that George W. Bush had!  

2) Economic Policy -- Democrats are insistent that the free market is flawed and must have so many governmental intrusions and regulations for it to function fairly.  The health insurance debate, the "cash for clunkers" program, the $8,000 House Purchase Tax Credit are just three recent examples.

3) Social Policy -- Democrats believe that government should be intruding on most aspects of your life, except when it comes to traditional values like life ("abortion rights") and marriage ("gay marriage").  In those areas, they are eager to let everyone do whatever they want to!

Election '09

A huge victory for Republicans last night. Independents voted in massive numbers for the Republicans in Virginia and New Jersey. Will Barack Obama and the national Democratic party leaders listen or will they continue to take this country in a very unpopular direction? Perhaps, seeing the writing on the wall, Democrats will redouble their efforts to quickly pass whatever they can now because they know their powers will be greatly diminished after the 2010 midterm elections. The dramatic swing from Democratic support to Republican support in both of these states is quite reminiscent of the 1993 elections. Of course, it was in 1994 that the House of Representatives was won by a majority of Republicans for the first time since the Eisenhower Administration.

I was mostly surprised by the New Jersey gubernatorial race yesterday. I've watched over the years as Democrats have snagged victories from the jaws of defeats so many times in recent years. For example, Sen. Bob Torricelli was so tainted as a candidate that in October 2002, Democrats dropped him from the ballot in favor of former U.S. Sen Frank Lautenberg. This was all done after it was legally permitted to change the ballot in New Jersey. The courts in New Jersey allowed the changes nonetheless. It had become clear that Torricelli was about to lose to the Republican candidate. Other seemingly close New Jersey races eventually swung heavily to the Democrat in recent elections.

The Virginia race was an overwhelming landslide for Republicans. Just one year after then-Senator Obama was able to win a resounding victory in this state, a conservative Republican beat his Democratic opponent by a 59% - 41% margin. Two months ago, the Washington Post revelation that Republican Bob McDonnell had written a socially conservative graduate thesis at Regent University was supposed to be his downfall. Well, it turned out that the voters rightly paid no heed to such an irrelevant piece of information. In a time of economic crisis, are we really supposed to care what you wrote in your graduate thesis?

The race for Congress in what used to be Bill Baker's and then Ellen Tauscher's district in California was won by a Democrat, John Garamendi. This Congressional District has been so gerrymandered that Garamendi, who lives in Walnut Grove (near Sacramento) will be representing Alamo. That's a ridiculously drawn district which seeks only to maximize the number of congressional Democrats in California. In the 1980s, Alamo was represented by Ron Dellums of Berkeley. Only when the Democrats were unable to draw the districts in 1990 was the district an accurate representation of the area, linking the Alamo, Danville, San Ramon and Walnut Creek areas together, if I recall correctly. Although California still had a Democratic Legislature doing the redistricting after the 1990 census, the fact that the governor was a Republican kept Democrats from being the final say. Also, California had gained a number of new seats, and the 10th District was one of those new seats. I helped on the 1992 Bill Baker for Congress campaign.