HOUSTON, WE HAVE A PROBLEM
Today while I was in Starbucks, this college kid who goes to our church, sings in the choir, came in, for some juice.  Full disclosure is needed here – he works at a rival coffee shop a few blocks farther down the street. He was very excited over the fact that one of his instructors held a straw poll today – and Barack Obama won every class. I expressed my dismay.  He is enamored of Obama, BTW.  

“What Obama’s ethics problems?”

“He has none.  Look at the man there now.”

“GWB is a Christian.”  This guy is very religious for an Episcopalian.  (Don’t hyperventilate, it’s an Episcopalian joke.  We are infamous for our humorous self-deprecation).  That reminds me, a filthy martini would be very good right about now.

That did not matter.  “I believe Barack.”
“But what about the ethics problems.”

He said they amounted to nothing, just election year hype.  I mentioned the Chicago ward-healer politics.  He was too young to know what I was talking about.  No use even mentioning the Kennedy irony.

“He’s never going to lie to us like Bush has.”

I sighed, “Where has Bush lied?”

“All the time. Okay, WMD’s.”

“Have you read the most recent report.”

“Even Condi Rice admitted they redacted documents so they could go to war.”

“I did not realize you are a truther.”

“It was in Mother Jones.”

“Read two versions before you make a judgment.”

We have a very serious problem in the GOP dealing with kids his age and the age of my niece, Rachel, who is enamored of Obama. I am afraid they are indicative of an entire generation.  If the Republican Party does not address this issue we are going to be a minority party for many, many years.

All of this battling about who is the most conservative is only damaging the party, not because we are going too left for conservatives, but because the all or nothing ideologues are determined that they are the “base” of the GOP and call the shots. There is one specific fallacy here and it has to do with mathematics even I can comprehend.

DO THE MATH
Let’s say we have 100 Republicans sitting in a meeting.  The “Conservative Base” is no more, and conservatives admit, no more than 30%.  That is 30 Republicans.  Let’s put them in deep, dark red hats and have them sit by themselves.  Now, is that a majority?  Even I know that 100 – 30 = 70.  Now, let’s eliminate the “Liberal Minority” – I’m going to say 15.  Let’s let them wear my favorite color, pink.  They go sit by themselves  If you subtract 70 – 15 = 55.  There are 55 remaining Republicans.  They aren’t too conservative and they aren’t too liberal, they are “just right”.  Now there are 55 of them, all clad in Cincinnati Red!  That’s 55% of 100%.

Would someone please tell me how 30% which is a lesser amount than 55% can be a base.  The base if 55%. I know I’m not mathematically inclined.  Fact is, I have a serious learning deficiency with numbers due to my dyslexia, but even I know that 55% is a larger number than 30%.

THE GREAT SCAM
Now, according to my father who is absolutely amazing with numbers he said anything can be a “base” because it is a nebulous number that means nothing. If this is the case, the Rush Limbaughs of the world have been playing fast and lose with semantics and are basically pulling a conservative flim flam scam.

The vast majority of Republicans are everyday people.  I think the comment that Rush Limbaugh needed to get out of his studio and meet real people in the real world is very important.  It is quite obvious Limbaugh, Levin, Drudge, and their little syncopates are so completely narcissistic that they cannot comprehend there is life outside of their small, small world.  We also need to face the very pleasant fact that Ann Coulter is so far out there, she’s not even firing on all thrusters let alone living within the bounds of reality.

These people, along with their little toadies in the conservative media and a few (and I do mean few) conservative top shelf bloggers are perpetrating a great big scam on all of us.  I think the very, very conservative blogsphere is not helping matters.  This past week I’ve come to the conclusion that we are dealing with a minority of individuals, the “conservative” version of Ron Paul Bots.  They have the same zealot mind-set, and are completely incapable of rational, logical thought patterns.  Bill O’Reilly probably has the right name for them, “Kool-aide Drinkers”.        

While these people are not ‘Ron Paul Bots’ it is the same mind-set.  They are the easily led.  The tragic thing about all of this is the fact that by leading the easily led astray, people like Rush, Malkin, Coulter, Ingraham, and the lot are proving that they are not Republicans.  They are Conservatives.  They are ideologues.

Rush likes to point to his ratings, which are astronomical are considerable.  If they are believed, they weekly incorporate close to a third of the GOP electorate.  BUT – there’s a problem here that no one seems to want to acknowledge.  While the 2000 and 2004 elections did not see a great third party movement, in 1996 Ross Perot received a good 8 million votes. In 1992 he received nearly 20 million votes. It is obvious in 2993 he siphoned enough votes from George Bush #41 to prevent his re-election.  The point is, there are a good 8 – 10 million voters who identify themselves as “conservative” who ARE NOT AFFILIATED with the GOP. This is terribly important and is something our narcissists do not stop to consider when threatening the Republican Party.

What if – what if Rush Limbaugh’s listeners were not 100% affiliated with the GOP.  I would almost guarantee that at least a third to fifty percent of his listeners ARE NOT Republicans.  Now, if you cannot comprehend the importance of this, you are part of that group.  There is a growing movement of these non-aligned individuals into the Libertarian, Constitution, Conservative, and (unfortunately) National Socialist parties.  Given a “decent” independent candidate, and I hate to say Ron Paul and the word “decent” but I will – he’s going to pull millions of votes.  Of these voters, a good half will be Rush Limbaugh listeners and most of them will be Savage listeners.

The implications of this have yet to be explored, anywhere.  In order to prepare the GOP to deal with new voters like my friend, we are going to be required to jettison the Rush Limbaugh listener who IS NOT a Republican.  We also need to understand these are the individuals who promoted a strangle-hold form of immigration reform.  They are plugged in.  They are vocal.  They are organized.  They have money to spend.  They are EXTREMELY conservative.  They ARE NOT Republicans.  They have never, ever been Republicans.  While they may periodically vote GOP, they are not Republican.  They are conservative ideologues.  

It is of immense importance for the Republican Party to do some very serious demographics and pin-point which of these conservatives are actually Republicans and which are not.  I simple set of questions could solve the problem.  A true Republican is going to hold their nose and Vote the Elephant.  They may be the way we are right now, a noisy, fighting family, but in the end you Vote the Elephant.  Someone who is an ideologue responds like a Coulter, a Limbaugh, or a Dobson and holds out for abject purity.  

Let’s put it another way.  A good 30% of the US electorate consider themselves independent, but will often register as either Democrat or Republican simply to vote in primaries.  If this is the case, those individuals, who are not aligned with either party, have ABSOLUTELY NO RIGHT to dictate terms of ideological purity to the rest of us.  Unfortunately this is what is happening within the GOP and the “conservative” blogsphere.  

If a person does not have the courage of their convictions to list what their party affiliation is, but only call themselves “conservative” then they should have absolutely no voice in the entire proceeding of choosing a GOP candidate.  They are doing nothing but muddying the waters, and inflaming the egos of a group of narcissists who are now so drunk on their own words that they are becoming a danger to us all.

Just go down the list of the “top” blogs.  How many “Conservative” blogs even admit to being Republican.  Let’s use Michelle Malkin as an example.  She calls herself “conservative” and demands a say in the GOP agenda, but refuses to identify herself as a Republican.  How dare she do this.  Just go down the line.  Does Hugh Hewitt identify himself as a Republican?  Does Rush?  We all know that Michael Reagan is. I think Mark Levin is registered as a Republican.  Fine, he can shoot off his mouth.  We know Michael Medved is.  But – how many more celeb pundits and talk show hosts even identify themselves as GOP.  If they don’t have the courage to do so, then shut up about it and leave us the you know what alone.  This includes Rush Limbaugh, Laura Ingraham, Michelle Malkin, Ann Coulter, Hugh Hewitt and any other narcissistic cult leader.

I am angry.  We are facing a serious generational change.  Because these people are demanding their own increasingly extreme version of conservative we cannot address the future.  Their choke hold on the GOP must be broken.  Okay, let’s put it this way, if they wanted an ideologically pure Republican candidate, why did they not support Sam Brownback?  Why?  They don’t want a candidate, they want a platform to spout their increasingly extreme rhetoric that has nothing to do with the political reality of the country.

If these people cannot identify themselves as loyal Republicans and work within the party apparatus then they need to “butt out” and leave the rest of us alone to go about the process of choosing a President of the United States who fits what WE want, not what THEY want.  There is a difference.

Unfortunately this difference is going to become greater and greater during the next few years as the “Obama” voter grows into maturity.  If the GOP cannot learn how to reach out to these people, we are condemned to be a minority party.  It is increasingly obvious we are going to need to jettison the ideological conservative extremes, and get back to Republican basics.  It is only by Republican basics that we can hope to bring new voters into the fold.

We need to face the fact that we are dealing with a younger generation of voter who is not as well educated as are we, simply because of the pathetic educational system we now have.  They are what I call  2nd Generation Day Care.  As a rule they have no table manners.  They are selfish, but ideological.  Over half of them come from broken homes.  They do not want a broken dysfunctional party, they want something strong and steady, where they can feel at home, loved, important, safe and secure.  You can’t do this with the Rush Limbaugh philosophy of life.  They need rules and regulations.  They need to learn how to become individuals but part of a group.  They need us.  They need real, steady, rock-sold Republicans, not a group of “Kool-aide drinking” Rush Limbaugh cult followers.  

If, as was discussed on Medved’s excellent show today, we are going through a 4th religious awakening in the US, we cannot allow the ideologue to supersede the GOP.  There is no stability.  They are sucked into a cult.  And, because of their back-grounds they have no defense against this sort of a thing.

I go back to the Gene Roddenberry philosophy of Trekkies.  He was fully aware that the average Trekkie was easily lead, the same way the Limbaugh “Kool-aide drinker” is lead.  The difference between Limbaugh’s narcissism and Roddenberry’s sense of responsibility is the fact that Roddenberry created a universe where might was always superceded by right.  The good guys always won as long as they were moral, decent, acted with honor, and had a sense of rules and values.  You cannot do this with an ideology.

The Republican Party is truly standing at a cross-roads.  In many ways John McCain is the perfect standard bearer for the youth we need to attract.  He is a connection between the past and the future.  In many ways we may never fight another war the way he fought it.  Our young people need to know what it is like to have suffered for freedom and to stand up for what is right, honorable and decent no matter what the cost for physical safety.  

I come from the tail end of the Vietnam generation.  I wore my POW bracelet and still have it somewhere.  My POW never came home.  I remember when the lists of who was coming home were published in the papers, we went through so many names, but mine was not here, he had died in captivity.  I remember sitting there, watching as these men came home, plane after plane landing.  My family sat there, three generations, watching and crying as we watched those heroes.  These kids who are of the generation of my nieces and nephew need to understand this.  Then, maybe they will understand freedom.

And then to hear that two bit, tin-plated narcissistic dictator with delusions of god-hood (okay, I am paraphrasing a Star Trek episode) sit and defame a man like John McCain is beyond insulting.  Then you hear these people give lip service to supporting our military, but then when it comes down to it, they thumb their nose and spit on them, just like the draft dodgers did when these men came home.  

I never thought I would be the adult generation working to bridge the gap.  I’m a grow-up. I am accepting my responsibility.  Are you?  It is time to jettison these blow-hards who cannot take a stand for what is right and honorable.  If all they can do is destroy and break down, then we need to marginalize them.

WHAT IS AN IDEOLOGUE?
i ·de·o·logue n  an ideologist, especially a particularly zealous or doctrinaire supporter of an ideology
i·de·ol·o·gy n 1.a closely organized system of beliefs, values, and ideas forming the basis of a social, economic, or political philosophy or program   2.    a set of beliefs, values, and opinions that shapes the way an individual or a group such as a social class thinks, acts, and understands the world

Something else my father said.  He is disappointed because these people are strictly for themselves.  That is like Rush, he is for himself.  They’re not living in the real world.  They don’t know what they are doing.  That’s why so many of them can go out and support anti-immigration – they don’t care.  They don’t know what is really going on in the world and how to interact with real people.  That’s why we have a two party system, to get things done.  Independents can maybe get a Congressman or two, but that’s it.  Rush is nothing but a self-centered blow hard who is only out for his pocketbook.

From The Pink Flamingo

Limbaugh is quoted.
"...“…Well, conservatism isn’t dead because it cannot be dead. Conservatism is not manmade. Conservatism is a philosophy. It’s not a scheme. It’s not a plan to figure out what the American people need and want, and then give it to them. That’s populism! Conservatism is a philosophy based on God-given natural rights. The Declaration of Independence, is that dead? Of course not! What’s dead is leadership on the Republican side, and because there is a lack of leadership of someone who the substantive understanding of liberty and the political skills to advance it, we get all this cockamamie nonsense about the death of our principles. Our principles are not dead! Our principles cannot die. I’ll tell you, in a lot of ways this reminds me of Jimmy Carter and his malaise speech. He blamed the American people for his miserable failures as president. Now we have conservatives and conservative wannabes, many of whom have held high office or hold high office or speak and write from formerly conservative outposts, who blame conservatives for their own miserable failures. What is lacking is not ideas and principles. What’s lacking is the right people to speak those ideas and principles, folks….”

Contrast to this:
The principles of conservatism are sound because they are based on what men and women have discovered through experience in not just one generation or a dozen, but in all the combined experience of mankind. When we conservatives say that we know something about political affairs, and that we know can be stated as principles, we are saying that the principles we hold dear are those that have been found, through experience, to be ultimately beneficial for individuals, for families, for communities and for nations -- found through the often bitter testing of pain, or sacrifice and sorrow....Let us lay to rest, once and for all, the myth of a small group of ideological purists trying to capture a majority....If there is any ideological fanaticism in American political life, it is to be found among the enemies of freedom on the left or right -- those who would sacrifice principle to theory, those who worship only the god of political, social and economic abstractions, ignoring the realities of everyday life. They are not conservatives....And just to set the record straight, let me say this about our friends who are now Republicans but who do not identify themselves as conservatives: I want the record to show that I do not view the new revitalized Republican Party as one based on a principle of exclusion. After all, you do not get to be a majority party by searching for groups you won’t associate or work with. If we truly believe in our principles, we should sit down and talk. Talk with anyone, anywhere, at any time if it means talking about the principles for the Republican Party. Conservatism is not a narrow ideology, nor is it the exclusive property of conservative activists.
..."

WHAT IS A REPUBLICAN
I'm a Republican Because...

I BELIEVE the strength of our nation lies with the individual and that each person’s dignity, freedom, ability and responsibility must be honored.

I BELIEVE in equal rights, equal justice and equal opportunity for all, regardless of race, creed, sex, age or disability.

I BELIEVE free enterprise and encouraging individual initiative have brought this nation opportunity, economic growth and prosperity.

I BELIEVE government must practice fiscal responsibility and allow individuals to keep more of the money they earn.

I BELIEVE the proper role of government is to provide for the people only those critical functions that cannot be performed by individuals or private organizations, and that the best government is that which governs least.

I BELIEVE the most effective, responsible and responsive government is government closest to the people.

I BELIEVE Americans must retain the principles that have made us strong while developing new and innovative ideas to meet the challenges of changing times.

I BELIEVE Americans value and should preserve our national strength and pride while working to extend peace, freedom and human rights throughout the world.

FINALLY, I believe the Republican Party is the best vehicle for translating these ideals into positive and successful principles of government.

John McCain
“…We Republicans have always known that the first responsibility of government is to keep this country safe from all enemies foreign and domestic, and the American people unburdened by the heavy hand of government that spends too much of their money on things they neither want nor need, while failing to do as well as we should the things none of us can do individually. Government must defend our nation's security wisely and effectively, because the cost of our defense is so dear to us, measured in losses so hard to bear, and in the heartbreak of so many families. Government must respect our values because they are the true source of our strength; and enforce the rule, which distinguishes successful democracies from failed societies, and is the first defense of freedom. And the judges we appoint to federal benches must understand that is their only responsibility, and leave to elected officials their responsibility to make the laws that they enforce. We believe government should do only those things we cannot do individually, to tax us no more than necessary, and spend no more than necessary, and then get out of the way of the most industrious, ingenious and optimistic people in the history of the world so that they can build an even greater country than the one they inherited….”

THE REPUBLICAN CREED
I do not choose to be a common man.
It is my right to be uncommon.
If I can seek opportunity, not security,
I want to take the calculated risk
to dream and build, to fail and to succeed.
I refuse to barter incentive for dole.
I prefer the challenges of life to guaranteed security,
the thrill of fulfillment to the stale calm of utopia.
I will not trade freedom for beneficence,
nor my dignity for a handout.
I will never cower before any master, save my God.
It is my heritage to stand erect, proud and unafraid.
To think and act for myself,
enjoy the benefit of my creations;
to face the whole world boldly and say,
"I Am A Free American."
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