If you follow the political punditry you know that all the talking heads are constantly pontificating about how the various candidates and their policy proposals are going to be received by the bloc of the electorate variously described as “independents”, “moderates”, and variations on that theme.

Democrat and Republican operatives alike seem to think that these “independents” are a left-leaning group who want “progressive” social policy coupled with a modicum of fiscal restraint. For the Democrats, this means constant surprise when their policy proposals are rejected by the majority of the electorate. For the GOP this means that the Establishment hacks, in their constant search for winning nominees, repeatedly back the least conservative candidates – commonly labeled RINOs (Republican In Name Only) – in the apparent hope that they’ll be able to lasso in some votes from liberals.

I have no idea where either party gets their ideas of what comprise the “independents”. And I think they’re both dead wrong, other than in the idea that winning over “independents” can be key to winning elections.

The most obvious and recent indication is the rise in popularity and influence of the Tea Party, an amorphous group that rallies around traditional conservative principles of fiscal restraint, small government, individual responsibility, and an Originalist interpretation of the Constitution. These are hardly “progressive” positions. We also saw the rise and fall of the “Occupy movement”, and how they failed to resonate significantly with the populace, and in fact wore out their welcome without really having any effect whatsoever.

Polling data consistently show that the people in this country consider themselves to be “right of center” politically. Further, the data show that over the years, while the percentage of the electorate that’s registered as Democrat has stayed pretty stable in the mid-30s percentile, the GOP has lost about 18% of its registered voters to the “independents”. In other words, where in the past the electorate was split pretty evenly among the three options, the Democrats are unchanged while the GOP’s share has shrunk to the upper-20s percentile with the loss going to the uncommitted.

That’s important to note. The Republicans’ loss did NOT translate into the Democrats’ gain. It translated into an increase in the size of the uncommitted.

The question then becomes: why?

I think it’s instructive to look at the clear lessons of history to find our answers. Traditional American conservatism almost always does extremely well in the voting booth. Look at Reagan’s two landslide victories, followed by Bush the Elder’s landslide as Reagan III and his defeat as his more real and more liberal self. As a matter of fact, whenever the GOP runs their Establishment RINO-type candidates, they don’t do well at all: Dole, McCain; even Bush the Younger didn’t do very well against two rabidly leftist opponents, both of whom ran incredibly inept campaigns.

Contrast that with Bobby Jindal’s sweeping success in Louisiana, running on true conservative principles in a Democrat stronghold; or Sarah Palin’s success (whatever you may think of her now) doing the same thing in Alaska. Even Scott Brown’s success in winning “Teddy Kennedy’s Senate seat” in that most liberal of states, Massachusetts, was based on his opposition to Obama’s landmark socialist healthcare legislation. In Massachusetts, that’s what passes for conservative.

More history: as Daddy Bush became more and more “compassionate”, his support left him in droves and coalesced around Ross Perot, giving Clinton the win. But a mere two years of Clinton’s unchecked leftism swung control of Congress to the GOP and its 1994 Contract With America, a clear statement of conservative ideals, forcing Clinton to “triangulate” into a less-leftist “moderate”.

We saw the pattern repeated with the last Bush. His support kept dwindling as his policies swung more and more leftward, costing his party the control of Congress in 2006 and the loss of the presidency to Obama in 2008 when the GOP ran a candidate – McCain – who was almost indistinguishable from Obama on policy positions. But again, a mere two years of Democrat control of the entire apparatus was enough for the electorate to rebel in 2010, giving the House to the GOP and winnowing the Democrat majority in the Senate to a razor-thin margin. Yet another repudiation of leftism.

I can understand why the hard-core leftists who inhabit and control the Democrat party want to ignore all this. To acknowledge it would mean they’d have to abandon their goal to fundamentally transform this country into yet another “social democracy” such as those in Europe.

But why the GOP keeps clinging to this idea, in spite of all the evidence to the contrary, defies all reason and logic. Are they really stuck on stupid?

To comment on this essay, go to This Link

Last night on his TV show, Sean Hannity asked Gingrich why he sat on that couch with Nancy Pelosi in a TV ad, bleating about “climate change” (though Hannity didn’t ask it quite that way). Gingrich’s response? “It was a mistake”.

When asked why he called Paul Ryan’s budget proposal “right-wing social engineering”, his response? “It was a mistake”.

When asked why, back in 1995, he supported the idea of a government mandate that people buy health insurance, the equivalent of Obamacare, his response? “We were mistaken”.

His latest gaffe? In the GOP debate two days before Thanksgiving – a time when most people aren’t paying any attention to politics – he came out for, essentially, amnesty for illegal aliens. Yes, he tried to gussy it up, but there’s not enough lipstick in the world for that pig, as John McAmnesty learned three years ago.

What’s going to happen when people start paying attention to politics after the holidays, and he finds out how unpopular that position is? Is he going to admit another “mistake”?

How many “mistakes” does this guy get? How often does he get to be on the wrong side of the issues?

This is one of the big problems with Gingrich: he always thinks he’s the smartest guy in the room, and he’s arrogant enough to think that because he is, all he has to do is make a pronouncement and everyone else is going to fall in line and follow him blindly. He’s the personification of hubris. He believes his own press releases.

I’m not even going to raise the issue of his personal baggage, other than to say that if he went on a cruise, the ship would have to tow a barge behind to load it all in.

The fact that he’s polling so well illustrates one of the big weaknesses of the GOP: they always seem to fall in love – or at least lust – with whoever is the latest Stage Door Johnny with a line of patter and some snappy responses to the press … or in this case the debate moderators. Last time it was McCain the “maverick”; this time it’s Gingrich the “tough talker”.

I take comfort in the fact that it’s still early in the race. At this time four years ago, it looked like Giuliani had it sewed up; McCain was on the verge of dropping out; Huckabee was running strong. Look how it turned out.

The GOP still has a chance to redeem itself.

In 1965, when that song came out, California epitomized the American Dream. Surf, sand, sun, and mountains, it was where everyone wanted to be. Hollywood, Carmel, San Fran, and magnificent LA. Breadbasket to the world. Home to movies and the aerospace industry. Banker to the West and the emerging Pacific Rim. Get rich in beautiful surroundings; and even if you fail, you won’t freeze to death. Opportunities abound. If you can’t make it in California, you can’t make it anywhere.

What the hell happened?

California now has about 14% of the nation’s populace and about 35% of its welfare recipients. Somewhere between 30% and 50% of the country’s illegal aliens live here, depending on which survey you read. We’re awash in a sea of red ink and have been for years. First under Schwarzenegger and now under Brown, the governors and their cohorts in Sacramento have been pushing for tax increases to address a multi-billion-dollar annual deficit. According to the state’s Legislative Analyst’s Office report (here), “The budget problem consists of a $6 billion projected deficit for 2010–11 and a $19 billion gap between projected revenues and spending in 2011–12.”

For quite a while now, we’ve been bombarded with threats of curtailed services if tax increases aren’t enacted: reductions in police and fire protection; closing of parks and libraries; shortened service hours at the DMV. Felons are already being released early from prisons because we don’t have the money to build more. Brown has repeatedly called for a ballot proposition to increase taxes, which if passed would then presumably indemnify him and his allies from the political consequences of a tax increase because the electorate would have voted it onto themselves.

Yet somehow, in the midst of this fiscal hurricane, Brown and his leftist buddies in Sacramento found the money to provide taxpayer dollars to illegal aliens so they can go to college.

On the 8^th of October – a Saturday, a day on which most people don’t pay attention to the news – Brown signed into law the California DREAM Act Part 2, which provides government subsidies – “financial aid” – to illegal aliens to attend college. He evidently hoped this would slide by unnoticed.

We allegedly don’t have money for cops or firefighters or to keep felons in prison, but we sure have enough to pay illegals to attend college. According to Brown, "The Dream Act benefits us all by giving top students a chance to improve their lives and the lives of all of us."

How so? Assuming they graduate from college, all you’ll have is a batch of well-educated people who will still be illegal aliens. It will still be illegal for them to work in this country.

Really? Is that all he has? He’s just a one-trick pony?

ANYway….

On the "tax the rich" nonsense:

Here's where the whole idea falls completely apart. Our debt is now over $14 TRILLION. Our entire annual GDP is $14 trillion. In order for taxation to solve the problem, the government would have to tax every single person and every single business at 100% of their gross income for a year to eliminate the debt.

In other words, everyone would have to work for a year at zero income to balance the books. It's really that simple.

The total federal annual revenue (income) is $2.2 trillion (tables). Of that, "the rich" already pay more than half, say about $1.1 trillion. They're taxed at an average rate of 35%. So... even if you tax them at a 100% rate – confiscate everything they earn – all you'd get is an additional $2 trillion.

Annual spending for this fiscal year is budgeted at $3.7 trillion (tables). So no matter how much you raise the taxes on "the rich", you're still not going to solve the real problem, because the government's still spending $1.5 trillion more than it takes in, to which Obama wants to add almost $450 billion in new spending.

Well... I guess maybe at 100% tax rates for "the rich" – defined as those earning in excess of a paltry $200K (how does $200K become "millionaires and billionaires", by the way?), the math does work. But that means the government will be setting a cap on earning, at $200k. Is THAT what America's come to?

Even at that, all we do is balance current government income and spending. It doesn’t do a thing about eliminating our current debt.

No, the problem isn’t taxation; it’s spending.

Obama and his minions are at it again. Now they have a website called AttackWatch.com where you can “Get the facts. Fight the smears”. It’s “Paid for by Obama for America”. Here’s the link. They also have a link that allows you to “Report an attack”, and the “attacks” can be categorized as “TV interview, public statement, forwarded email, rumor, TV ad, video ad, radio ad, robocall, website/blog”. I kid you not, folks; those quotes are right from their website.

Now, when you do a web search for “Obama for America”, you end up at this website: here. According to Yahoo.com, “Barackobama.com is the official re-election campaign website of President Barack Obama”.

Last I heard, the “official” re-election campaign organization is run with the explicit knowledge and approval of the candidates involved. Meaning that the President of the United States is running an operation that encourages citizens to snitch out fellow citizens who have expressed views or opinions that are critical of our Incompetent-in-Chief. I seem to recall these tactics being used a few times before. The Gestapo and KGB come immediately to mind.

Well, good citizen that I am, I had to report a repeat offender: myself. Here’s what I wrote:

“This blog, written by myself, consistently attacks Obama – even calling him ‘Bat Ears’ – for his blatant Marxism, lack of intelligence, inexperience, dogmatism, lies, unconstitutional actions, abject ignorance of free market principles, his illegal obstruction of that same free market, his Big Government nanny-statism, and a host and variety of other un-American activities and policies.

“The author of this blog – me – happens to be a ‘potential terrorist’, according to that bright light Janet Napolitano, because he’s a conservative Christian gun-owning veteran. You need to keep a close eye on this guy.

“Here’s the URL of his blog: http://viewfromtheisland.blogtownhall.com/”

I contacted you after your two votes to support the original Bush "bailout" and told you that it was insane fiscal policy – which history has proven to be true – and that in light of that vote I wouldn't support you in 2010. And I didn't.

This issue of the debt ceiling increase was your opportunity to redeem yourself and prove that you actually will act to further the principles you profess to support. Yet once AGAIN, you failed, and voted in favor of this abortion of a bill.

Needless to say, I won't be voting for you next year, either, and will urge all of my friends and acquaintances to not vote for you, too.

You’ve become a huge disappointment as a self-professed “conservative”, and an embarrassment to this valley. You’ve become just another Establishment Republican, the kind of professional political hack who’s even more problematic than the Democrats. At least they’re honest about their goal, the transformation of this country into a social-welfare state. You and your fellow Establishment Republicans, in contrast, claim to support traditional conservative principles, but when push comes to shove you’re too weak or too afraid to actually stand firm on just about anything. No wonder this country is swirling the drain.

It’s because of Republicans like you and McCain that I cancelled my GOP membership of almost 40 years and re-registered as “Decline to state”; an Independent.

Fortunately for you, this district is pretty conservative, so your Democrat Party opponents don’t really have much of a chance at defeating you. That makes your seat pretty safe. But if I were younger, and didn’t hate the idea of living in the DC area so much (I’m originally from there) I’d campaign against you next year as an Independent. And you know what? I think I’d have a pretty good chance of actually winning. Or at least getting enough of the vote to assure that you’d lose.

And just FYI, I’m posting this email on my political blog as an open letter:

http://viewfromtheisland.blogtownhall.com/

In the mid-1800s the issue was slavery. The country was bitterly divided; the Democrats were pro-slavery under the banner of “states’ rights”; the Whig Party was generally anti-slavery, but refused to take strong positions against it, preferring instead to compromise all over the place.

Sound familiar?

Ultimately, a strong dissenting faction arose within the Whigs, a faction that viewed slavery as a crucial issue over which there could be no compromise: it was either going to continue, or it was going to end, and they wanted it to end.

The establishment Whigs weren’t willing to go to the mat over that issue, and ultimately the dissenting faction broke off, forming their own political party, the GOP Republicans. In 1860 they ran Lincoln as their candidate, the first Republican president.

And now, here we are again, except this time the issue is whether or not our country is to be run under a very limited government based on fiscal responsibility, equal opportunity, property rights and individualism; or if we’re going to be a Europe-style social welfare nanny-state with profligate spending beyond our means, wealth redistribution, the penalization of individual achievement and initiative through confiscatory taxation, and social engineering.

The issue is every bit as profound as slavery; all one has to do is look at Greece to see where we’re headed (or California, on a more local level).

And I see the historical arc repeating itself on another level, too. Once again, the Democrats are on the wrong side of this issue, but now we have the GOP playing the role previously filled by the Whigs, and making all the same mistakes.

Three years ago, when McCain was running for President, I made a pest out of myself urging all my conservative friends to not vote for him. Here on the Townhall site, I and like-minded people formed the informal Saint Crispin’s Day Society (SCDS), a precursor to the modern Tea Parties, because we knew that electing one more “moderate” – read that as “unprincipled” – Republican wasn’t going to turn things around. Not only am I still proud of taking that stance, but I think history has already vindicated us.

Had McCain won, we would have continued the inexorable slide to destruction, and there would have been no one on whom to pin the responsibility, as it would have been “bi-partisan”, the result of a Democrat Congress and a Republican President driving the bus over the cliff.

Instead, we have the current situation: liberalism taking a severe beating during the mid-term elections of 2010, Tea Party candidates having won many of the races across the country at all levels; Democrats losing control of the House and losing their veto-proof majority in the Senate; and a leftist/socialist President suffering severely in the polls.

Liberalism is taking big hits.

But now we’re reaching the situation the Whigs were in during the 1850s. Upstarts – Tea Partiers – are upsetting the establishment apple cart; they’re no longer willing to “compromise” on this fundamental issue, currently represented by the debate on the debt limit; their position – with which I firmly agree – is that they won their seats based on their determination to force this country back on the right path, taking the Establishment types along with them for the ride; and that if one isn’t up to fighting a battle to the bitter end in the hope of actually winning… well, why even start the battle at all?

And it’s not just confined to the current battle over the debt limit. This confrontation between traditional American conservatism and rampant, out-of-control liberalism – or socialism, to call it what it really is – is only the opening sally in a war long overdue, and upon which the future of the country rests. I am not overstating the seriousness of the times we’re in.

If the Establishment GOP drones who are still in power – the Boehners, McConnells, etc. – fail to remember the lesson of history taught by the Whigs’ experience, they and the GOP are doomed to repeat it.

But the ultimate bottom line is this: there’s no way to “compromise” ourselves out of this mess anymore. The issues and the divisions are clear. One side or the other is going to win … decisively. Either Reid and Obama are going to make the GOP cave, or the GOP is going to have to force Reid and Obama to give up unless they’re willing to face the extinction of their own party.

The GOP already blew this once with their “compromise” a few months ago after taking control of the House of Representatives. They don’t seem to be doing much better this time around, what with Boehner and especially McConnell wimpily allowing Bat Ears Obama and Reid to dominate the news with scary saber-rattling about withholding Social Security checks and other hollow threats like that.

The GOPers are afraid of taking a whipping at the polls like they did in 1995 when Clinton turned the government “shutdown” of that time into an albatross around the GOPers’ necks.

It's true that Clinton managed to best the GOPers in '95 after the government shutdown. And the fear of that happening again this time if the debt limit isn't raised is also a big factor. That's why McConnell is doing such a lousy job in the negotiations -- again -- and has always been one of the big reasons GOPers are lousy at fighting.

First of all, fear of what the other guy is going to say about you is essentially a self-imposed handicap. If you're going to actually FIGHT for something, how can you do it if you're afraid of the result of your fight? You have to just say to yourself, "the hell with the consequences, I'm going to the mat for this no matter how it turns out".

But more importantly, the world is a different place from what it was like in '95. Back then, with only a few exceptions, the MSM ran the news and opinion world. But that's no longer true. The MSM press is essentially going bankrupt. Fox News is the most popular MSM source. Internet and talk radio dominate the debate, and they're conservative arenas.

What the hell are the GOPers afraid of? Didn't they pay one bit of attention to the outcome of the 2010 election? Well, what did that election tell us?

That conservatism is a big winner; unabashed, Tea Party conservatism. It swept Congress, returning the House to the GOP and narrowing the Senate to a razor-thin margin. It swept statehouses and governor's mansions across the country.

I don't see how it could possibly be any plainer than that.

And the congressional GOP wienies like McConnell and Boehner STILL don't get it? What the hell is wrong with them? Bachmann gets it; that one woman has more balls than both of them combined. Cantor and Ryan get it.

Obama and Company take swipes at the GOPers for being obstructionist and the "party of no" when they haven't even proposed a budget for OVER TWO YEARS???????????????

And Boehner and McConnell let them get away with it??????????????

I'd be banging that drum like Gene Krupa!

THAT'S what I mean about not knowing how to fight.

There was an interesting family event this weekend which prompts this essay.

My 24-year-old daughter occasionally gets migraines. Generally, she’s used prescription-strength ibuprofen, and it’s had very limited efficacy. So when she started getting a migraine this weekend, she decided to see if she could get a more effective medication.

She found a clinic that was open and manned by a PA. For those who may not know, a PA (physician’s assistant) is one step down from being a doctor; in California they have to have a Master’s Degree. They can treat and prescribe and perform many duties of a doctor, including even some minor surgery.

Anyway, this PA told me daughter that there was a different med that could be prescribed, but he refused to do it unless she had a CT scan first.

Why? Defensive medicine, of course! On the off-chance that my daughter might be the one in ten million who may have a tumor or something. On a holiday weekend, where was she going to get a scan done, or the several hundred dollars to pay for it, just to get some headache pills?

This is a classic example of why healthcare costs are out of control. NO common sense was being exercised whatsoever; the incredibly remote possibility of some kind of malpractice lawsuit developing somewhere down the road obviously precluded that PA from making a judgment call and giving my daughter a med that would be more effective than the one she already has.

And what can we expect under Obamacare? Even more of the same. Because there’s nothing – nada, zero, zip – in that program that does anything at all to address the real problems we have in our system. In fact, it further complicates an already overcomplicated system.

Is there medical malpractice tort reform? No. Is there a removal of the restrictions to interstate competition among insurance providers, which would lower the cost of insurance? No. Is there anything at all that makes sense in a free-market system? Emphatically no!

Today, the International Energy Agency (IEA) announced it was releasing 60 million barrels of oil from its emergency energy reserves (Here), sending oil prices tumbling, a good thing for consumers. Further, the Obama administration announced that 30 million of that would be American oil (Here).

What does that tell us? Well, first of all it’s important to put it into the proper perspective. Sixty million barrels sounds like a lot of oil, but it’s really only a drop in the proverbial bucket. This country alone consumes 20 million barrels a day, so we’re talking about only three days of US consumption having such a whopping effect on oil prices.

Second, it tells us that the Saudi/OPEC stranglehold on oil prices is a chimera, and easily broken.

But most importantly, it clearly illustrates how the full utilization of our own domestic deposits would allow us to break that stranglehold of dependence on foreign oil and stabilize prices at a much lower level than where they’re at now. If such a tiny increase in supply can have such an effect, think of what would happen if we move forward full steam.

After reading the chart, the question occurred to me:

Is such a disparity of contributions a statement of political ideology?

Or is it just cheaper to buy Republicans?

OPTION NUMBER 1

It’s January of 2013. Obama has just been sworn in for his second term in office after a relatively easy campaign against one of the GOP’s usual lame nominees.

BUT…

The new Republican majorities in both chambers of Congress have also taken their seats.

Now what?

1)    DeMint (great conservative) replaces McConnell (weenie) as Senate Majority Leader. Paul Ryan (great conservative) or Cantor replaces Boehner (weenie) as Speaker of the House. GOP-controlled Congress finally grows a spine, gets its act together, and actually starts passing conservative legislation. Obambi threatens to veto everything. Congress holds firm, and the PR war begins. The experienced true conservatives controlling the message defeat Obambi, and he’s basically gelded for the remainder of his term.

or

2)     The GOP leadership under the new majorities remains the same. Ignoring the fact that their ascension to congressional control is due to conservative/Tea Party support, the GOPers lapse back into their usual ways of being wary of criticism from the MSM and their fear of not being invited to the fun parties in DC. Obambi takes control of the message as confrontations begin, and with the help of a complicit press outmaneuvers the GOPers in Congress, managing to save parts of his agenda, though in watered-down form.

OPTION NUMBER 2

It’s January of 2013. Romney/Gingrich/(other Establishment GOP Hack) is being sworn in for his first term as President.

AND…

The new Republican majorities in both chambers of Congress have also taken their seats.

Now what?

1)     The Establishment GOPers in both chambers of Congress decide it’s back to business as usual, since the old GOP “message” of being the Dem-Lite Party worked once again, a la both Bushes and now the new guy. Tea Party conservatism is shoved to the back burner. The country continues to hurtle toward the cliff, but just a little bit slower.

and

2)     The Democrats feel especially emboldened, because even though they lost significant ground in the election, they see the President as being weak in the traditional “reach-across-the-aisle” mode, and they know that if they continue to play their traditional hardball they’ll be able to continue pushing their agenda forward, though in weakened form… for now. They’re encouraged, because the results of the election have assured them that the GOP still hasn’t even learned what a “hardball” is.

or

3)     Congressional GOPers – with the understanding that their electoral sweep is due to the unrest of traditional American conservatives, including “Independents” and Tea Partiers –  elect a hardcore conservative leadership and force the new “moderate” President down the path of true Reaganist conservatism. Frankly, I consider this the least likely scenario of all.

OPTION NUMER 3

It’s January of 2013. The new President – one in the Reagan mold – is being sworn in for his first term in office.

AND…

The new Republican majorities in both chambers of Congress have also taken their seats.

Now what?

1)     The GOP finally gets the message – at least temporarily – that traditional American conservatism is the vehicle that drove their electoral success. They heed the message and put forward their policies, the only hope for the future of this country.

2)     There is no “2)”. There’d better not be.

Because here’s where the rubber really meets the road; any meaningful recovery from over seventy years (with the exception of the eight-year Reagan Era) of primarily liberal and socialist policies – from FDR to Obama – is going to be extremely painful. Can it even be done?

I don’t know. I do know that if we don’t even give it this shot, this country as we know it is over.

But it’s going to require political courage of a magnitude that was required to carry out the Revolution and the Civil War. Do any of today’s politicians have that level of courage, conviction, and skill?

Again, I don’t know.

Even more importantly, do the American people have those qualities?

Once again, I don’t know. I see signs of it.

As we all know, Giuliani dropped out (good!), but McCain – AKA “Juan McAmnesty” – won the nomination and went on to lose to Obama.

I lived up to my promise and refused to vote for McAmnesty, and am glad to this day that I did so. I believe that his loss to Obama fueled the fires that led to the formation of the Tea Parties – of which I consider myself an unofficial founding member – which as far as I can see is the only hope for the survival of this country as we know it. I got so disgusted with the GOP that I cancelled my membership of almost 40 years and re-registered as “Decline to State”, Commiefornia’s version of “Independent”.

Now the GOP is poised to commit the same error again, ignoring Santayana’s dictum that “those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it”. Let’s take a look at who’s throwing their hats into the ring this time.

MITT ROMNEY

Good… Grief.

This is the guy who, during his time as Governor of Massachusetts, signed into law the state’s mandatory healthcare law, the very same law that was used as a guide by the socialists in Congress and the White House when they foisted Obamacare on the country.

So, when he officially announced his candidacy, in full knowledge that Obamacare is one of the huge issues with conservatives, what did he do? Did he renounce his support of that program? Say he’d reconsidered and realized that it was a bad idea?

Nope. He tried to rationalize the whole thing by saying that he thought it was the right idea at the time and for that state, and that the states were designed to be the “laboratories of democracy” where ideas are tried out and either succeed or fail.

Well, that second part is true… but that doesn’t make the idea of socialized medicine any the more palatable just because it’s at the state level. In other words, Mitt’s clueless as to what he REALLY did wrong, i.e. he failed to stand up for traditional American conservatism and principles.

Further, he gets a failing grade in smarts for not even getting that NOW, when he’s trying to get the GOP’s nod as the candidate.

Even were he to get the nomination, his opponent would beat him to death with the FACT that he supported socialized medicine when he had a chance to stand against it. It’s called “hypocrisy”, and it’s a character failing.

LOSER.

NEWT GINGRICH

The moon-faced former conservative named for an amphibious reptile.

Gingrich lost all “conservative” creds with me when he sat on that couch with Pelosi in those TV ads bleating about “climate change”. What the hell was he thinking? He’s either incredibly politically stupid – sitting on the couch with conservatives’ avowed ENEMY? – or he really believes in that “climate change” garbage, in which case he’s the wrong guy for the job anyway.

Then today, on “Meet The Press” (Here), he said this:

“I've said consistently we ought to have some requirement you either have health insurance or you post a bond or in some way you indicate you're going to be held accountable.”

That’s a slightly modified version of the Obamacare “mandate”. The very same idea that’s so unconstitutional and so inflames conservatives. It’s the very essence of the meaning of the words “socialized medicine”!

What in God’s name gives this Bozo the right to call himself “conservative”?

Then, of course, there’s Gingrich’s “personal baggage”, of which there’s enough to fill a barge. Girlfriends, wives, affairs, divorce papers served to one on her deathbed, congressional investigations; a soap opera worthy of Peyton Place or Bill Clinton.

So… a fake conservative with loads of baggage he can be clubbed over the head with.

Now we want to take THAT national?

Yeah, he hasn’t formally announced… yet. Hopefully, he was just playing for some face time on camera, and he’ll go back to “firing” D-List “celebrities”. The guy’s a complete joke; the Clown Prince of this election Silly Season.

His tough talk was just meaningless mumbo-jumbo. How’s he going to “force” Saudi Arabia to lower its oil prices? How’s he going to “force” China to open its markets to the US? Those are sovereign nations. Is he planning on going to war with them? Is he going to go to war with every country with which we have disputes? Isn’t that gonna spread us pretty thin? Is he planning to do that without congressional approval, which is required by law?

He’s just a blowhard promising the moon, which he will be completely unable to deliver… again just like our girly-man Governator.

RON PAUL

Paul’s announced another run for the office. Paul’s an interesting study. He has a small following of devoted, almost cultish devotees, mostly extreme libertarian types.

He also has some very, very good ideas in line with traditional conservatism. Unfortunately, when he goes wandering off into some of his more “libertarian” beliefs, he goes WAY off the reservation.

He’s for legalizing all drugs, including heroin and cocaine. He doesn’t believe we should engage in any wars, pretty much, unless our own country is directly attacked. His policy on immigration is garbled; he’s for unrestricted and uncontrolled immigration when times are good; not so much when times are bad. He doesn’t believe in round-ups and deportation, but he’s against amnesty. He’s all over the map. Stuff like that. As far as I can tell, there’s no coherence nor consistency to his stances on issues, which is confusing to voters (to say the least).

Zero chance of even getting the nomination.

SARAH PALIN

She hasn’t said she’s going to run. She hasn’t said she not going to run. Like Fred Thompson did last time, she seems to be playing a game of tantalization in which she’s waiting to see how many people are going to “clamor” for her candidacy.

Personally, for a variety of reasons I don’t think she’s qualified for the job. But I’m not going to go into that. I’d rather assess her strengths and weaknesses as a candidate.

She has a very strong following of devotees, like Paul and Trump. She also has a very large disapproval rating. Hand it to Palin; people either love her or hate her. There doesn’t seem to be any middle ground.

Like Trump (and Schwarzenegger), she seems to talk in platitudes and slogans, with little real meat in the bun. But far more importantly, she has very little experience at which she can point as qualification for the job as President of the United States, arguably the most powerful individual in the world.

She has one uncompleted term as Governor of Alaska, a state with a population smaller than that of Los Angeles County. She didn’t even complete that term, quitting for incomprehensible reasons never clearly articulated. Something about the “strain” put on her family. Well… what about the pressures of the job of Prez of the USofA? I think those would make the job of Alaska’s governor pale by comparison. So people can’t help but ask themselves: what would you do as Prez? You going to quit that, too?

That’s the problem with being labeled a “quitter”. It sticks.

She also has absolutely zero foreign policy experience or expertise.

Then there’s her position on amnesty for illegal aliens. Her last official position, when she was McCain’s running mate, was pro-amnesty. As I said, a deal-killer for me. Since then, she’s never disavowed nor even modified her position. She’s got the same problem with amnesty that Romney has with socialized medicine. Yet more weaknesses and inconsistencies with which her opponent can club her to death, and use to alienate from her the base support she’d need to win.

Unless something radically changes, if she gets the GOP nod, I vote third-party again. Further, if she gets the nod I think she goes down in flames, big time.

LOSER.

So, there you have it. My analysis – for what it’s worth – of the state of the GOP race for the nomination and presidency as of now.

Bottom line: the GOP is poised to make the same errors they did four years ago, which could give Obama the second term he wants so badly. Now, that’s not quite the disaster it may seem to many. If the GOP retains the House, and particularly if they take the Senate, and especially if they start paying more attention to the base and the Tea Partiers, a second Obama term would be pretty harmless, as he’d be gelded by a GOP-controlled Congress.

I have to say, as an Independent – the demographic both parties claim to clamor over – there’s no way I vote for Obama… but there’s no way I vote for any of these five people, either. If any of these people are the GOP nominee I’ll be voting third-party again.

We’ve been hearing the mantra for years, but in this spring of 2011 it seems especially galling as the country’s mired in economic crises, unemployment is through the ceiling, and gas prices at the pump are so high that we’re used to $4 per gallon and are being set up to get hit with five bucks per. And that war cry grows shriller by the day.

But there’s a dirty little secret you should know.

The reality is that this country is absolutely awash in oil. We have more oil right here than Saudi Arabia. In recoverable shale oil alone we have over a TRILLION harvestable barrels of oil available according to the Department of the Interior's (DOI) own studies ( Here ). In Utah we have about 18 billion barrels recoverable in tar sands. We have oil in Alaska, offshore, all over the place. We’re actually drowning in oil.

Or we would be, if we actually used any of it.

We’re the only oil-producing country in the world that doesn’t utilize its deposits to the fullest extent possible.

According to that DOI report, we use about 20 million barrels of oil a day. Do the math. That means that in shale alone we have enough oil to last us 50,000 days, or one hundred and thirty-seven years. Throw in all our other known resources, then add those so far undiscovered, and we have plenty enough oil to be, not only completely energy-independent, but a net-exporter country well into the next century if we so choose, with petro-dollars flowing our way instead of to foreign nations.

Canada’s Athabasca tar sands project has proven the technology viable and economic. As a matter of fact, we import quite a bit of our oil from Canada, and that’s exactly where it comes from: the tar sands.

Further, as extraction technology advances even MORE oil will become available. Wells that were previously capped because the remaining oil was deemed unrecoverable will enjoy new life. And who knows where the next fields will be discovered? Well, surely not us, since the government makes exploration and development almost impossible by making the task of getting permits an insurmountable hurdle.

The ugly truth is that there is no “shortage”. There’s an artificial scarcity created by bad government policy pursuant to enviro-fanaticism. Our personal finances and the economic viability of this country as a whole are being held hostage to the demands of the eco-freaks.

The price of fuel to power our transportation grid is a major driver of economic health, as transportation is where 70% of the oil is used, and as those costs rise so do the costs of virtually everything else in our economy.

The enviroNazis' response? "Projects would take years to come on stream and would only increase our oil addiction, the heart of the problem." (LA Times, 15 April 2011)

Well, if we'd started using these deposits all those years ago, instead of letting enviroNazis block them, they'd all be online now. The words “oil addiction” reveal the true agenda: social engineering.

Lunacy.

Instead, they propose we develop forms of “alternate energy” that are even further down the road (if they’re achievable at all), depending on wishful thinking and bad science.

Yeah, okay, maybe the Vulcans will show up and share their dilithium crystal technology with us, but unless they do we're stuck with oil to power our transportation infrastructure for the foreseeable future.

You can't power ships and aircraft on solar power. Some ships can use nuke power, but the ONLY way to fly jet aircraft is with kerosene. Period. And that ain't gonna change.

Further, what about the hundreds of millions of cars and trucks already on the road? Gonna just wave a magic wand and make them disappear? Replace all the gas stations with... I dunno, something else? Absurd.

The ONLY reason the price of gas will continue to go up is because of the artificial shortage created by that self-same government and the "enlightened" elitists who then bootstrap that "shortage" into a "reason" for why we should do away with cheap personal transportation.