The Battle of 2010 - First Shots in the Election Season Have Been Fired.

Even though the November elections are still nine months away, the battle lines are being drawn and if nothing else, 2010 promises to be a figurative fight to the death between two fundamentally different ideologies. The left still doesn’t understand what has happened. They are used to doing battle with Conservatism and their tactics have always relied heavily on Alinsky’s strategy of framing the arguments and controlling the press to sway the opinion of the masses. That methodology is usually centered on having a villain on which to focus America’s anger. The rich, the Republicans, the economy, the environment and even some phantom persona known only as “the system” were all brought under fire at one point or another and with varying degrees of success.

This time it’s different and it is frustrating and confusing Progressive politicos. For the first time, the opposition they find themselves fighting are the American people themselves. In early debates over healthcare reform, they challenged the sincerity, identity and patriotism of those that were protesting against this government planned takeover of our healthcare system. What they failed to identify in time was that the protestors were not a fringe group of ultra right-wing anti-Obama radicals or some orchestrated attempt to catch media attention paid for by the RNC, PACs or members of the health industry. The protestors were in fact, regular people that for the first time were fearful enough about the direction this country was heading to have organized themselves in neighborhoods and communities, eventually taking to the streets en mass in Washington and at Congressional offices around the country.

How can this be? Conservatives don’t protest! Moderates don’t protest! Why, they write letters or better still, quietly mumble their discontent at the newscasters on TV and radio in the comfort of their own homes; but in the end, they just lie down and take it. Tax increases, fees, fines, new regulations and government bureaucracies were all things that they hated but historically, would eventually accept because unlike the radical left, they had grown up believing that “you can’t fight City Hall”. Before the left realized the real source of this movement, Nancy Pelosi had called them manufactured, Harry Reid called them a mob, the liberal press called them (and some still do) racists or the disgusting and derogatory term “Tea-baggers”, President Obama called them inconsequential and SEIU goons were out violently stomping on people handing out Tea Party literature.

In August 2009, a man was peacefully handing out flags in front of a Tea Party gathering in Missouri was confronted by a group of angry thugs. Kenneth Gladney, who happened to be black, was thrown to the ground by the gang of counter-protestors wearing SEIU shirts, who then beat and kicked him while peppering him with racial epithets. Local law enforcement in St. Louis, where the incident happened, took months to investigate; eventually charging several of the assailants with the misdemeanor equivalent of disorderly conduct. Another violent incident occurred in September of 2009 at a rally opposing healthcare reform in Thousand Oaks California. This time, the assault would send a 65 year old man to the hospital after a portion of his finger had been savagely bitten off by one of the counter protestors bused in by MoveOn.Org, a civilian group organized by the Democratic Party. The results would be the same with local law enforcement pursuing the assault as vigorously as they would for littering. The official lack of concern for these “hate crimes” were obviously driven by unspoken support for Obama and his unofficial army, which only served to enrage Tea Party Patriots even more.

Beyond the protests at town hall meetings and in the streets of DC, the visible backlash of ignoring this movement became visible in November of 2009. The gubernatorial race in Virginia was won by Republican Bob McDonnel but the shocker came in traditionally Democratic haven of New Jersey when Republican Chris Christie unseated Democratic Governor Jon Corzine despite last minute visits by Party big-wigs and President Obama himself. Most savvy politicians would have recognized the warning signs and sought to mend the fences between the people and the Party but not Obama. He pressed on demanding that Congress act on healthcare even though the unemployment rate had by then, surpassed 10% and most people were screaming “It’s the economy stupid!”

To make matters worse, Harry Reid closed Republicans out of the debate and took healthcare behind closed doors obviously, because the people could no longer be trusted. Congressional Democrats voted against a proposed bill that would require them to publish the completed bill on-line at lease 72 before a vote and then the special $300 million dollar deal to purchase Louisiana Democrat, Senator Mary Landrieu’s vote made it to the news. If that were not a large enough insult, the cost of the Cornhusker deal for Democrat Ben Nelson’s vote can’t even be calculated. Nelson’s State, Nebraska, would be exempt from the increases in Medicare liabilities the healthcare bill will force on every other State, not for the two or three years that Mary prostituted herself for, but in perpetuity. It was these deals that turned anger into rage and despite the public outcry, the Senate would pass the bill in a rare late-night, weekend session and the House would follow suit, forcing a vote along Party lines on Christmas Eve. Immediately after the vote, Pelosi stood there with her vacuous smile announcing that what a wonderful Christmas gift this was for the American people.

The result of that entire session of Congress, those deals, that vote and the open disdain Congress had for the American people through the whole process cemented the Tea Parties until they had become a unified movement. The level of angered directed at Congress finally boiled over and the unthinkable happened. Republican Scott Brown won the special election to fill the Senate seat vacated through the death of Ted Kennedy. This election took place in one of the most Liberal States of the Union to fill the vacancy left by one of the most historically Liberal members of the Senate. The White House was so sure that this seat was securely Democratic that they didn’t even bother to campaign in Massachusetts until the poll numbers showed Coakley trailing Brown a week before the election.

Strike three and your out, right? Well, not of you are Barack Obama and you are on a mission to “fundamentally transform” the United States of America. The President spoke before Democrats after the Brown election and tried to ignore the loss of his filibuster proof majority in the Senate by joking that “the Republicans were bragging about their 41 to 59 majority”, reminding Senate Democrats that they still held the bulk of power. He then took his show on the road and tried to garner support from some of the more moderate Republicans in an attempt to shame them to support his agenda or face accusations of obstruction. Rush Limbaugh correctly pointed out that if the bill is bad for America then being called names should be the least of their concerns. Instead of worrying about being called “the Party of no” they should stand proud and declare that they are “The Party of NO MORE!”

We can already see Progressive Democrats circling the wagons and the one thing they know how to do is shape opinion within the Party. By November, they will all be using the same ads and catch phrases; carefully selected words and images from the millions they are spending on focus groups to see what will fool you into forgetting what they did last year. Apparently the statute of limitations has not run out on blaming Bush and the latest take on that is that Obama doesn’t have to take credit for the rise in unemployment or for the failure of the economy to respond to the Stimulus Bill because Bush had caused much more damage than originally estimated. Some might even believe the Bush connection if business owners and investors weren’t standing on hilltops yelling out that it is their uncertainty of the future because of Obama’s agenda that has prevented any real recovery. No one is willing to hire or expand until they know what next years taxes and energy costs will look like and that is what responsible business owners must do to survive.

I think we all have an idea what the Democratic strategy will be. We’ve seen it before and the only reason it worked then was that Democrats were running against their Republican challengers and not an opposition movement of so many angry Americans. The Republicans would be wise to listen to what is being said because the mood out there is not largely an anti-Obama or even anti-Democrat movement; it is an anti-incumbent movement and the people that win will be the people that have worked hard to regain the trust of a very wary and disenchanted public.

The Democrats have badly damaged their chances in the upcoming election so they have twice as far to go as the Republicans do. That does not mean the Republicans can coast to the finish line and if they are smart, they will put down the newspapers, turn off CNN and visit their home towns. They should listen carefully to the issues their constituents have raised and most of all, they must remember that the last time there was a tangible difference between Democrats and Republicans in the public perception, was during the Conservative Revolution of Ronald Reagan. The People elected George H.W. Bush believing he would carry on the work begun by Reagan and he failed to honor his most basic promise of not raising taxes. They elected George W. Bush after another 8 years under the embarrassing behavior of Bill Clinton, hoping “W” had learned from his father’s mistakes, but he had not. Barack Obama did not win the election by promising to be a radical, tax and spend Liberal, he won by promising change to a people that felt betrayed by two Republicans that failed to act like Republicans.

Tomorrow: some tough love for Republicans.

Paul

Palin calls for unity at Tea Party Convention

Sarah Palin made her much anticipated speech before the First National Tea Party Convention in Nashville Tennessee on Friday night. For the people that are familiar with Ms. Palin’s credentials, her message contained few surprises but for those that were only exposed to the highly critical coverage of the Tea Party movement through a mostly Liberal press, viewing her speech may have given them their first real look at the core values of this growing wave of Conservative Constitutionalism. Of course, that is assuming they took the time to watch it in its entirety and did not foolishly rely on the carefully selected snippets and caustic analysis of the Chris Mathews and Keith Olbermanns of the world.

The main focus of her speech noted the disparity in the vision that the American people have for the future of the United States compared to the agenda of the current body politic. While the main focus of the Sunday morning “talking heads” was the sharp criticism she had regarding the direction the President has taken our country in the past year, Palin’s criticisms were by no means, limited to one man or even to one Party. She possesses something that has been long lost in Washington; a keen understanding of the factual definition of a Federal system of government. Palin recognizes the root cause of the anger on which the Tea Party movement was founded and she is one of the few political people that have validated the widespread disdain for the Washington machine that has thwarted that rule of law and ignored the will of the governed.

The founders intended to form a union of sovereign states, each possessing the power of self determination and all guided by a Constitution of laws that were mutually agreed upon. The States voluntarily entered into this union and a Federal Government was established to perform the functions of government that would unify the States, provide for the common defense and establish a uniform relationship between the “united” States and foreign governments. The Constitution granted limited powers to the Federal government and only to the degree required for the Federal government to fulfill the duties designated to it under the Constitution. All other powers were to be retained, entirely, by the States and their citizens.

While Sarah Palin did not speak of the political history that mutated the Federal government into this insatiable leviathan, she apparently understands that the government has criminally deviated from these Constitutional directives and has been on a slow, methodical march to usurp State Power under some mystical authority derived from a bastardization of judicial and legislative policy. Palin noted the historical failure of the Federal government to provide even basic services without an enormity of waste and the blatant insensitivity to the crisis’s they have themselves created for main street America while serving the interests of unions, friends and political allies.

Palin spoke quite eloquently of recent Federal blunders and abuses of the Federal Government: the ineptitude of Federal bureaucrats that have not only failed to accurately track the effects the Stimulus bill had on job creation but in fact, have no idea where billions in Stimulus funds have even gone; citing money spent in dozens of Congressional districts that do not exist; the overreach of Congress by assuming authority it does not have to interfere in private corporations, take over auto makers and force its vision of healthcare reform on an unwilling nation; the ignorance of a Justice Department that grants Constitutional rights to foreign combatants that are hell bent on the destruction of America and the arrogance of a President that refuses to hear the voice of the people and still plans to proceed with an agenda that we keep telling him over and over that we do not want. I’m sure if she presented a full list of the past year’s failures, she could have easily spoken for hours but that was not the point of this convention or of her speech.

The main point of her speech was in recognition of the composition of the Tea Party movement itself. While the opposition to Washington has unified a great number of people, those people do have a wide and varied list of concerns that the individual members consider important. The difference in those interests could spell trouble within the movement unless there is a greater goal in mind and Palin tried to narrow the focus of the movement towards a goal they can all agree on. While born out of negativity, she challenged the conference attendees to focus on their hopes for the future. Palin invoked the memory of Ronald Reagan on the anniversary of his birth and reminded the audience of Reagan’s legacy.

Reagan had also inherited a nation in recession and could very well have taken the low road of blaming Jimmy Carter for the country’s financial difficulties but instead, he forged forward with his vision of restoring prosperity by enacting enormous tax cuts; cuts that even his critics admit, did bring a tripling of revenues to the treasury. Of course the recovery could have been far greater if it were not for the last great battle of the cold war that spawned massive increases in military spending and the TEFRA act of 1986, an act that would severely curtail the scope of deductions business could claim as exemptions. While opposed to TEFRA, Reagan was forced to accept this or risk losing his entire tax reduction package. The end result was that TEFRA limited the amount of money that business would invest in itself and in new employees but the cuts did have a spectacular effect on the economy despite that limiting factor.

The important part of Reagan’s legacy was in what his leadership provided for the spirit of America. In what seemed like a single moment, Reagan swept away the depression of Viet Nam, the shame of Nixon’s resignation, the hopelessness of the Ford and Carter economies and the indignity of Iran’s assault on our embassy and our pride. Moments after his inauguration, Reagan stood before the crowd and announced that the American hostages held in Iran for 444 days, had been released and had already crossed into international air space. Iran knew what Libya, the PLO, Hamas and other terror networks and nations would soon learn the hard way; Reagan would not yield to bullies, would not negotiate with terror and would bear any expense to enforce justice anywhere in the world. In that sense, Ronald Reagan truly was the embodiment of hope in America, not the half-hearted campaign rhetoric of a junior Senator whose only real experience in government was how to spend taxpayer money at the local level.

Former Governor Palin reminded people that conservatives united to support Reagan and that support transcended party affiliation. She cautioned the audience and the Tea Party movement in general, not to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory by letting that unity elude them now. The greatest strength of the movement is that it is focused on the Constitution and not on any one person. That can also be its greatest weakness if this sea of individuals allows the movement to splinter. There is a larger game afoot and people must not let one issue or another confuse the bigger picture of restoring the democratic republic based on the ideals clearly defined in the Constitution. Indeed, our future lies in the past and if we fail to look beyond minor details or become fixated on the foibles of some very human candidates, the Progressives in Congress may win by default as our votes are cast to the four winds. The Tea Party should not become a third party but rather, their future lies in shaping the electoral process as an advocate; lobbyist, if you will, for the Constitution and for the sovereignty of the States.

In a question and answer session after the speech, Palin noted that there are many Conservative Democrats, otherwise known as Reagan Democrats that are equally disenchanted with the direction of Washington. While she sincerely hopes that the Republican Party finds their Conservative roots so they can gain the trust of the Tea Party rather than compete with them, she also hopes that the Tea Party can remain focused on issues and not ideology because that is what is needed to attract and retain the Conservative factions within the Democratic and Independent Parties.

The time for unity is now and the Progressives are already trying to divide the Republican Party between Conservatives and Moderates and are attempting to isolate the Tea Party entirely. We must remain strong, we must remain focused and we must remain united. Remember, one of the first flags flown at the time of the revolution was that of a dismembered snake emblazoned with the words “Unite or Die”. It would do us well to fly that flag again.

Paul

What Does the Election of Scott Brown Mean?

After a two week absence, so much has happened that I barely know where to begin. I suppose an obvious place to start would be the election of Scott Brown to the Massachusetts Senate seat previously held by Ted Kennedy. This Republican victory overshadowed both the Virginia and New Jersey gubernatorial races for several reasons. First, the “Liberal Lion”, Ted Kennedy had held that seat for nearly fifty years and the White House felt secure that a Democrat would have no problem capitalizing on Kennedy’s legacy. Second, Massachusetts is well known to be one of the most Liberal states in the union, consistently sending the left of the left to Washington and third, without the 60th vote in the Senate, the President’s healthcare reform initiative would be all but dead, something Massachusetts Liberals would want to avoid; at least that is what everyone thought.

Scott Brown campaigned on the idea that his was the vote that would finally put the brakes on the President’s agenda. There was no doubt that this election would determine if the healthcare reform act, as well as many of the President’s other ultra-Liberal programs, would ever see the light of day and the Democrats responded with as vicious a campaign as had ever been seen. Even after all the stops were pulled including a last minute Presidential visit to try and garner support for Coakley, the voters would elect Republican Scott Brown to replace Ted Kennedy by a tidy margin.

To most reasonable people, this was a wholesale rejection of not only the healthcare reform bill but of the openly corrupt tactics that were being used to force it through the legislative process. Congressional Democrats had defied the will of the people and those people were given an incredible opportunity to send a message that could not be ignored. Well, it could not be ignored unless you were a hopeless ideologue that intended to pursue your agenda regardless of the consequences. Moderate Democrats heard the message loud and clear but our Progressive friends and their President seem to have missed the mark entirely.

According to the President, they were so busy handling the fiscal crisis that he inherited from Bush that they…get this….”failed to adequately speak to the American people about what their core values are”. After the 1994 mid-term elections, President Clinton faced the nation after a massive Democratic defeat and said quite eloquently “We hear you”. Not this President. Instead of admitting that the defeats in Virginia, New Jersey and finally, Massachusetts, were the revocation of the mandate that he only imagined he had, Obama would rather believe that he didn’t explain his ideas in terms that we could understand. How condescending can one man be? Obama apparently believes that if the voters rejected his plans, it was only because he didn’t speak slowly enough or didn’t use the little words that we idiots would understand.

Obama added that the anger of the voters that prompted them to vote for Scott Brown was the same anger that had swept him into office a year earlier. A psychologist on one talk show panel said that this displayed what could only be called, narcissistic tendencies; that this statement was as foolish as a man that would say his wife filed for divorce to be with her new lover not because she was rejecting him, but as a different manifestation of the same love for her new man that had first brought him and his wife together years earlier. I know that sounds foolish but think of what is being said here. Obama believes, or at least he says he does, that the recent Republican victories are just an extension of anti-incumbency anger and that is really only a rejection of previous Bush era policy, not his. The only problem with that argument is that Coakley is not an incumbent that supported Bush policy; she is a Democrat that supports current Obama policy.

Even more bizarre than Obama’s statements are those of the Progressive Democrats in Congress. They are blaming the defeat of Coakley on their failure to push harder for a healthcare reform bill that contained a strong public option. Howard Dean, former DNC Chairman and failed Presidential candidate, absolutely refuses to accept that this is in any way a rejection of Obama’s Socialist agenda and instead believes with all his heart that the Massachusetts’s voters were punishing the Democratic Party for not being Liberal enough. Let me get this right. Massachusetts’s voters were so upset that healthcare reform hadn’t passed that they elected the only credible roadblock to the passage of the healthcare reform bill? He is crazy, isn’t he?

Democratic Strategists are even funnier as they weasel their way around questions about these three major losses for Democrats. The first thing they have all done was to point to the special election in New York’s 23rd district where the Conservative candidate Doug Hoffman was narrowly defeated by Democrat challenger Bill Owens. The results had Owens winning with 49% of the vote to Hoffman’s 45% with Republican Dede Scozzafava still holding 6% of the vote a week after she dropped out of the race, throwing her support behind Owens. Unfortunately, the race was close enough to fall pray to the “ACORN affect” as ACORN focused their “get the vote out” campaign solidly behind Owens. Considering the indictment of ACORN employees for voter fraud in other states, I would guess that if Doug Hoffman had persisted, there would probably been a sufficient number of suspicious ballots found in a comprehensive recount to have shifted the election in his favor.

The race in Massachusetts was lost in part because of the perception of the American people that we are not only being ignored by Congressional Democrats and the President but that since we are resisting this push towards socialization, we are not even worthy to see what they voting on; that even the discussions of the bill are to be hidden from the ungrateful masses that don’t understand that the President is doing this for our own good. The message was certainly clear but the intended recipients are still ignoring it. They have already said that they intend to force this legislation through in true Saul Alinsky form…by any means necessary. The difference between politicians and ideologues is that politicians can be swayed by the threat of losing an election. Socialist ideologues will sacrifice themselves to progress their agenda for the good of the collective. This message of “full speed ahead” only serves to tell us who these people are. Their intent is clear…to bring about massive social change that cannot be reversed no matter who is elected later. There are already provisions in the healthcare bill that will prevent the repeal of certain key portions of the reform act should the “wrong” Party gain power in the November elections.

The election of Scott Brown may be the single most important electoral race in the past 100 years and the only hope of defeating the nefarious plans of the Progressive movement. What must be watched very closely now is how long they will attempt to delay the certification of the election results. Obama spoke out against delaying the certification process but I fear that is just to get his voice on record as opposing that dirty little trick to distance himself from something that he knows is already in the works.

The State of the Union address is coming this Wednesday and I will bet now that it will be another hour long stab at blaming Bush for the economy, the recent attempts by Al Qaida to inflict more damage on the United States and the anger of the American people. Once he is confident that everyone remembers Bush he will make another pledge to have healthcare reform back on the table as a dire need of a compassionate nation. Lenin never took no for an answer and neither will his protégé, Barack Hussein Obama.

Paul

Wolves in Sheeps Clothing: The Scozzafava Story

The Congressional race in New York’s twenty-third district is turning into one of those defining moments in political history. This Congressional seat has been held by Republicans since 1993 and probably wouldn’t have drawn nearly as much attention if it were not the subject of a special election one year after the election of Barack Obama. The former U.S. Congressman from the twenty-third district, John M. McHugh, resigned on September 21, 2009 to assume the office of Secretary of the Army in the Obama administration. Democrat Bill Owens, Republican Dierdre (Dede) Scozzafava, and Conservative Doug Hoffman entered the race for the vacated seat.

Since Barack Obama had won by a narrow margin in the general election of 2008, the Democrats suspected that they could possibly win the twenty-third district again. Some say that while McHugh was one of several qualified contenders for Secretary of the Army, that his eventual appointment to the cabinet was part of a strategy to remove an incumbent from that district to better the chances of a Democrat challenger.

The importance of a win for Democrats in the New York district became elevated as Creigh Deeds, a figure in Virginia politics since 1991, found himself pitted in a much closer race for Virginia governor against Republican Bob McDonnell than expected. As the battle for healthcare raged in the Senate, Deeds found himself trailing McDonnell in the polls and by October, the gap was already double digits. Incidentally, Deeds had only lost one election in his career and that was the 2005 race for Virginia Attorney General which he lost to Bob McDonnell by a margin of only three-hundred and fifty votes.

More bad news looms for Democrats in New Jersey as the incumbent Governor, Jon Corzine, finds himself locked in a three way battle for that election against Republican Chris Christie and Independent, Chris Daggett. Corzine was widely criticized for doubling taxes in New Jersey, bringing their rate to one of the highest in the nation. Even still, he held an early if not slim lead in the race but lost momentum as the economic forecasts worsened. As the recession deepened even further, people began to accuse the Obama administration for a lack of meaningful action, and since Corzine had aligned himself with the administration’s agenda, he slowly began to share in the administration’s pain.

As Election Day draws closer, Daggett’s numbers have been dwindling as his relatively few supporters realize the futility of his situation. As Daggett’s numbers droop, those that saw Daggett as a non-party alternative to Corzine shifted their support to Christie. Daggett still holds a minor percentage of the vote, mostly by those that are angry enough with government that they can’t bring themselves to vote for either party or by those that find Daggett’s environmental platform to their liking. This leaves Corzine and Christie in a statistical dead heat, with Christie leading by only one percentage point with one day remaining until the election. Since Daggett was an independent with an environmental twist, his supporters may bail at the last moment and support Corzine for a last minute rally or they may be so disgusted with the cost of Corzine’s tax policies that they may not vote at all. We will have to wait until tomorrow for the final word on this race.

In a move that surprised all but those that saw Scozzafava for what she really is, Scozzafava withdrew from the New York race yesterday and issued a statement urging her supporters to vote for the Democratic candidate, Owens. This infuriated Republican leadership and voters. Many stated that this was the act of vengeance for Republican leadership shifting their support to Hoffman when Scozzafava’s numbers proved disappointingly low and her third place position continued to drift further behind Owens and Hoffman.

This was no act of vengeance. Scozzafava is not a spoiled child throwing a tantrum at her lack of Republican support and to those of us that took the time to examine her; it was no surprise that she endorsed Owens when her own bid for that seat collapsed. Scozzafava is at heart, a liberal Democrat so why in God’s name did she join the Republican Party? Well, you can’t join a horse race with a giraffe and she lived in an area of New York that traditionally supported Republican candidates. Since her desire was to enter New York politics, she basically had two choices; join the Republican Party as a Democrat “spook” or move to an area that was more favorable to her ideology. She chose the former.

Her sneaky little plan worked and she was elected to the New York State Assembly in 1998. Dede was actually a good fit in her newly acquired seat since the New York State Assembly is widely recognized as one of the most dysfunctional state legislative bodies in the nation. Liberals in New York tend to blend in nicely earning reelection time after time regardless of their home district as each represents just one drop in the sea of liberals that flood that house annually.

This race was different in that the Tea Party movements had coalesced in their opposition to the radically socialist agenda that the President was trying to force through Congress. People were taking notice, not just at the wide support the President had in the extremely liberal arm of the Democratic Party, but in the ineffectual opposition that was launched by the Republicans. The idea that several so-called Republicans were actually considering supporting these bills troubled Republican and Conservative voters deeply, causing them to question their allegiance to a Party that was obviously disconnected from the conservative views of the constituency. Had the Republican Party lost its soul or was this some lame attempt to “remain in the game” when the Democrats held power in both houses of Congress and had a willing partner in the White House? They haven’t figured out that just because you negotiate the menu with a cannibal, it doesn’t mean you won’t end up as the main course anyway.

The Democrats are trying to chalk this up as deep divides in the Republican Party and that may be partially true. Tea Party patriots are demanding that the Republicans get back to their roots or risk losing the Conservative vote. They are willing to support Conservative third party candidates and even lose elections to the Democrats in certain areas to reinforce the message. The other side of the coin is that the Scozzafava’s in the party may find themselves being tossed out in future elections as the “grass roots’ go on a political witch hunt to drive these wolves in sheep clothing from the party. Either way, this election is just as much about the purity of the Republican Party as it is about the agenda of Barack Obama. The family feud that has the Democrats smiling now may bring them heartburn in 2010 as they find they are facing a unified and focused Republican Party for the first time since the days of Ronald Reagan and that my friend, is a change we can really believe in.

Paul