Blogging has been light the last 10 days. For that, I offer this simple explanation: I’ve been fighting a nasty sore throat & a chest cold. Today, though, I return to serious blogging. There’s alot to accomplish; most importantly, we need to rally to Mitt Romney. Here in Minnesota, we also need to stop the “affordable health care” is a constitutional right crowd.

As I wrote here, that’s the battle we can’t afford to lose. Here’s some of the most egregious misinformation from one of the single-payer advocacy groups:

Q: How much does this overhead add up to?
A: Up to 30 percent or more, which means that only 70 percent of every dollar spent for health insurance is available for actual health care. With a Single-Payer system, these costs could actually be used for health care. The savings amount to $630 billion per year, which is way more than enough to provide comprehensive health care for the 54 million uninsured and underinsured.

Q: Well, aren’t these overhead costs just the cost of doing business?
A: No. Medicare’s overhead is in the 1 to 2 percent range. This means that 98 cents on the dollar goes to health care.

Last week, I sent a copy of that factsheet to legislators, BPOU chairmen & women, & numerous bloggers. When I talked with King about the factsheet, he was forced to laughter over the part about Medicare’s overhead being only 1-2 percent. He said that that’s just one of the canards the universal health care lobbyists use. The way they get away with it is because they don’t factor in the overhead of operating a hospital or health care clinic.

Most importantly, conservatives need to jump aboard the Romney express if they object to granting amnesty to illegal immigrants or if you care about keeping taxes low and government spending under control.

Remember this: A vote for McCain is a vote for the Democrats’ agenda.

Technorati Tags: Blogging, John McCain, Mitt Romney, Health Care, Constitution, Election 2008

Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog

Yesterday, I announced on NARN’s Final word that I’d caucus for Mitt Romney Tuesday night. I’ll do everything in my power to encourage others to do the same.

It isn’t a secret that I was a Fredhead from Day One. I said numerous times that he was the conservatives’ gold standard. He had almost impeccable federalist credentials. I knew that he’d appoint strict constructionist judges. He had a strong record of voting for tax cuts and reforming entitlements.

I’ve also been critical of Mitt Romney, especially citing his flip-flops. One thing that I’ve always believed, though, was that he’s an extremely intelligent man. Anyone with a history of accomplishments like he has must be intelligent. I’ve always thought, though, that he was reliably in the conservative camp on immigration, which isn’t a minor thing.

It isn’t a big admission that John McCain has been stronger on Iraq, That said, we’re well on our way to victory in Iraq, nullifying McCain’s biggest strength.

Another plus Romney has over McCain is in their decision-making process. Mitt Romney will pore over significant amounts of data before making a decision. Clearly, that isn’t what John McCain does. In fact, it’s mystifying to me how he can say that the debate is over on manmade global warming. The facts simply don’t bear that out. As George Will said recently, when did anyone have to say that the debate is over on whether the earth is round? We know that because we’ve got irrefutable visual proof. (continue reading post »)

After reading this transcript from today’s Glenn Beck show, I now understand the wisdom of John McCain being the GOP presidential nominee.

STU: Why aren’t you happy? Big primary last night. We had to talk about Republican issues.
GLENN: John McCain won.
STU: Yeah, John McCain, Republican, frontrunner.
GLENN: We’re the Republican radio station.
STU: I know, I know. And John McCain’s Republican. Look at the odds right after his bid.
GLENN: What did you say?
STU: The Rs right after his name.
GLENN: But he is not really a Republican.
STU: No, I said John McCain, R.
GLENN: Have you seen his amnesty proposal?
STU: I know, it’s fantastic. I now love it.
GLENN: What do you mean you now love it?
STU: I now love it. It’s going to be great. The –
GLENN: We were on the air for months hating it.
STU: No, it was –
GLENN: This guy was in charge of the amnesty program. He partnered with Ted Kennedy.
STU: Yeah, I know. We love partnering with Ted Kennedy. I think this is the future of the party.
GLENN: You know who Juan Hernandez is, right?
STU: Oh, Juan, he is a great whopper. He is going to be fantastic.
GLENN: You hated Juan Hernandez. Juan Hernandez is the guy who says there should be one great state, Mex-Ameri-Canada. He says that Canada and Mexico and the United States should just all get together, once a Mexican, always a Mexican.
STU: This is ridiculous. You are talking about yesterday when I said that?
GLENN: What?
STU: You’re talking about yesterday when I said I didn’t like Juan Hernandez.
GLENN: Yes.
STU: This is today. John McCain won last night. Now I love him. I need you to get a little bit more pep in your voice when you are doing these breaks. These songs are way down key. They are low-key. People are excited today to vote for John McCain for President. (continue reading post »)

Earlier today, Captain Ed announced that he’d caucus for Mitt Romney when Minnesota holds its caucuses on Super Duper Tuesday. Of the remaining candidates, I find myself agreeing most with Mitt. Something that Captain Ed said, though, raised some red flags for me. This is the part that caught my attention:

This decision did not come easily. Some have complained about the choices available to the Republicans, but I have seen the field as a collection of highly accomplished, experienced candidates, almost all of whom I could support, enthusiastically, in a general election. That made the decision as hard as it was, and it forced me to analyze what I want to see in a nominee.

Frankly, this isn’t a great bunch of candidates. John McCain is certainly strong on the Iraq war but he’s also the guy who would pick justices who would preserve his only legislative ‘achievement’, campaign finance reform. He’s also the man who thinks that manmade global warming is so important that he’s willing to co-sponsor a huge tax increase to reverse manmade global warming.

That’s before we start talking about his role in the McCain-Kennedy Grand Bargain amnesty bill. Sen. McCain says that he “got the message” on immigration reform, that he’ll shut down the borders first before giving all the illegal immigrants amnesty. As I wrote here, we got the message, too, when he hired Juan Hernandez as his “Hispanic Outreach Director.”

That isn’t the resume of a great candidate. The only way you get there is if you’re good at rationalizing and if you use the loosest of subjective criteria. (continue reading post »)

The Weekly Standard’s Andrew Ferguson has a must read column on why Fred Thompson’s campaign failed…and why it shouldn’t have failed. Here’s a delicious sample of Ferguson’s thinking:

The man or woman who seeks out such a life and enjoys its discomforts is not normal. Not crazy necessarily, but not normal, and probably, when the chips are down, not to be trusted, especially when the purpose of it all is to acquire power over other people (also called, in the delicate language of contemporary politics, “public service” or “getting things done on behalf of the American people”). The case is made, in defense of the contemporary campaign, that this is an efficient if unlovely way to choose leaders: It winnows out those who lack the stamina and discipline necessary to lead a rich, large, powerful, and complicated country. By this argument, Thompson failed because he deserved to.

But the opposite case is easier to make, that the modern campaign excludes anyone who lacks the narcissism, cold-bloodedness, and unreflective nature that the process requires and rewards. In his memoir, Greenspan remarks that of the seven presidents he has known well, the only one who was “close to normal” was Jerry Ford. And, as Greenspan points out, Ford was never elected.

Fred Thompson probably feels terrible at the moment, but he should be honored to be in Ford’s company.

Frankly, I was upset that Fred didn’t garner more votes than he did. I’m more upset with the way the media gave his campaign less attention than they’d give a leper. Most of all, I’m upset with right-of-center commentators who talked endlessly about the latest poll, the candidates’ cash on hand and other horserace-related topics while ignoring the candidates’ qualifications.

To this day, I’m still convinced that Fred Thompson was the most over-qualified presidential candidate since Reagan. To this day, I’m upset that conservatives, who say that the GOP has to be the party of ideas, ignored Fred like he was the Invisible Man. (continue reading post »)

After getting his ass handed to him on immigration reform the first time, John McCain started saying that he’d “gotten the message”. He still insists that his bill wasn’t amnesty, though, making conservatives wary of his immigration ‘transformation’. This information should remove all doubt:

A reader alerted me to the fact that McCain’s “Hispanic Outreach Director” is the same guy who held that job for Mexico’s President Vicente Fox! U.S.-born dual citizen Juan Hernandez was in Fox’s cabinet as Director of the Office for Mexicans Living Abroad and is notorious for having said of Mexican Americans on Nightline on June 7, 2001, “I want the third generation, the seventh generation, I want them all to think ‘Mexico first.’” Does McCain agree with this? Has he offered Hernandez, a former high-level foreign government official who presumably swore an oath to uphold the Mexican constitution, a place in a future McCain Administration? That’s not a rhetorical question.

I’ve said many times that people didn’t trust McCain’s second attempt because La Raza (NCLR) had veto power over anything brought up. NCLR are open borders advocates. Add the hiring Juan Hernandez as his “Hispanic Outreach Director” to the NCLR debacle and you’ve got an immigration reform disgrace. It’s pretty apparent that John McCain hasn’t changed his views one iota. He’s still the same pro-amnesty guy he’s always been.

McCain’s actions tell us what his position is. His actions don’t agree with his words, which is a polite way of saying that McCain shouldn’t be trusted with immigration policy. He’s as stubborn and prideful as anyone I’ve ever seen in public life. Frankly, I wouldn’t trust him on immigration policy if my life depended on it. (continue reading post »)

Though I hate admitting it, it’s time to move on now that Fred’s dropped his presidential bid. Before we move on, though, I think it’s important to learn from Fred’s campaign.

The biggest lesson to be learned is that Fred shouldn’t have teased us so long with his entry. Fredheads should’ve contacted his campaign and told him he needed to get in so he could carve out his niche. Had the Fred Thompson of the last few debates jumped in in July or August, I’m convinced that he’d be the prohibitive favorite for the GOP’s presidential nomination right now.

The next biggest lesson we must learn as a political party is that Thompson’s type of conservatism is appealling. The other lesson we need to learn is that we don’t need to abandon conservatism to attract more squishy moderates. I’m all for a big tent but I insist that it’s a principled big tent. Which leads to this important point.

John McCain’s way of collaborating with Democrats is the opposite approach that Reagan used in winning over liberals. Reagan won liberals over with policies that made too much sense to argue against. McCain hasn’t tried winning liberals over. History will show that McCain caved each time he worked with Democrats. The only time he didn’t cave was on the surge.

McCain caved on the Gang of 14 without a legitimate reason. McCain caved on the First Amendment when he teamed up with Russ Feingold, Christopher Shays and Marty Meehan on campaign finance ‘reform’. He caved to Ted Kennedy on immigration ‘reform’, even allowing an open borders advocacy group like NCLR a seat at the negotiating table for the second bill.

Because NCLR was doing the negotiating, we knew that McCain wasn’t talking straight with us when he said that he’d learned his lesson about comprehensive immigration reform. Everyone knew that he and Ted Kennedy simply repackaged the same teethless provisions into a new bill. (continue reading post »)

Jonah Goldberg has a great article up talking about the various types of conservatism. Here’s a little glimpse into his article:

Many of the younger conservative policy mavens and intellectuals have become steadily less enamored of free markets and limited government. Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson, formerly Bush’s chief speechwriter, has crafted a whole doctrine of “heroic conservatism” intended to beat back the right’s supposed death-embrace with small government and laissez-faire economics. He calls for moral crusade to become the animating spirit of the right. He’s hardly alone. “Crunchy conservatism,” the brainchild of Dallas Morning News columnist Rod Dreher, is also a cri de coeur against mainstream conservatism. Both of these derive from the kind of thinking that led Bush to insist in 2000 that he was a “different kind of Republican” because he was a “compassionate conservative”, a political program that apparently measures compassion by how much money the government spends on education, marriage counseling and the like.

What these gentlemen are talking about isn’t conservatism. Gerson particularly isn’t talking about conservatism. What he’s talking about is a mix of populism and conservatism. It’s the product of his belief that government is part of the solution. Personally, I’d call it watered-down liberalism.

Bill Kristol’s editorial tries making the argument that conservatives should welcome this year’s candidates, an argument that I reject:

For example: John McCain, with a lifetime American Conservative Union rating of 82.3, is allegedly in no way a conservative. And, though the most favorably viewed of all the candidates right now, both among Republicans and the electorate as a whole, he would allegedly destroy the Republican party if nominated.

Or take Mike Huckabee. He was a well-regarded and successful governor of Arkansas, reelected twice, the second time with 40 percent of the black vote. He’s come from an asterisk to second in the national GOP polls with no money and no establishment support. Yet he is supposedly a buffoon and political naïf. He’s been staunchly pro-life and pro-gun and is consistently supported by the most conservative primary voters, but he is, we’re told, no conservative either.

Or Mitt Romney. He’s a man of considerable accomplishments, respected by many who have worked with and for him in various endeavors. He took conservative positions on social issues as governor of Massachusetts, and parlayed a one-term governorship of a blue state into a first-tier position in the Republican race. But he, too, we’re told, is deserving of no respect. And though he’s embraced conservative policies and seems likely to be steadfast in pursuing them–he’s no conservative either.

Kristol’s blinders prevents him from seeing that we need a Reaganesque conservative now. His argument for John McCain, in particular, is feeble. McCain’s lifetime conservative rating isn’t the issue. Most of that rating was built his first 2 terms. The statistic that Mr. Kristol should be talking about is what McCain’s conservative rating during the Bush administration. Why is Mr. Kristol ignoring McCain’s global warming legislation? Why is Mr. Kristol ignoring McCain-Feingold, the most despicable assault on the First Amendment in US history? How can Mr. Kristol ignore the McCain-Kennedy amnesty bill, which abandons any pretense of abiding by the rule of law? (continue reading post »)

To say that Mike Huckabee doesn’t have a steadfast governing philosophy is understatement. This article offers sufficient proof of Huckabee’s ‘flexibility’ in his attempt to be all things to all people.

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee yesterday continued to move to the right on immigration during this year’s presidential campaign, signing a pledge to enforce immigration laws and to make all illegal aliens go home.

The pledge, offered by immigration control advocacy group Numbers USA, commits Mr. Huckabee to oppose a new path to citizenship for current illegal aliens and to cut the number of illegal aliens already in the country through attrition by law enforcement, something Mr. Huckabee said he will achieve through his nine-point immigration plan.

“Some would say it’s a tough plan. It is, but it’s also fair and reasonable,” Mr. Huckabee said.

It’s also the opposite of Huckabee’s policy before the presidential spotlight got shined on him. It’s obvious that he’s pandering now after getting slammed for wanting to give illegal immigrants in-state tuition. This happened just a day after his flip-flop on signing a federal ban on smoking.

In other words, he’s saying whatever he thinks will gain him a few extra votes. That isn’t that dissimilar from John McCain’s approach. It doesn’t much courage to be all things to all people. It takes steadfastness to stand for the same underlying principles year after year, decade after decade. (continue reading post »)

Mike Huckabee is thought to have the gift of gab. According to this quote, Gov. Huckabee didn’t have that gift going yesterday:

”Folks, I don’t know what you are going to hear, about that I’m not a conservative, but when you cut taxes, and you increase the per capita income, you improved the schools, and you rebuild the roads, and you preserve the national resources, and you streamline government, your government grows at a rate that is half that of the average of all states,” Huckabee said, his voice rising. “Call it anything you want to, but anybody with an I.Q. above broccoli calls that conservative, rock-solid, kind of leadership.”

I’ll start this fisking with the tax thing. When you cut some taxes a little bit but raise other taxes alot, you aren’t a conservative.

Next, let’s talk about the education issue. You aren’t a conservative when you get endorsed by the NEA, especially when you tell them that you’d veto any school voucher legislation that made it to your desk.

Next, let’s talk about the things that Gov. Huckabee didn’t talk about. When legislators here in Minnesota tried passing the DREAM Act, it was supported almost exclusively by the DFL. (DFL is Minnesotan for flaming liberal.) Mike Huckabee supports giving in-state tuition to children of illegal immigrants. At least he did before flip-flopping and saying that he’d deport every illegal immigrant in the US.

BTW, the outcry against Minnesota’s DREAM Act was so loud that the DFL dropped that out in conference committee.

If Mike Huckabee is the GOP nominee, I won’t vote for him. I’ll focus solely on local races. It’s time that the GOP faithful rejected Gov. Huckabee’s flippant one-liners and his inconsistent beliefs.

Technorati Tags: Mike Huckabee, Taxes, DREAM Act, Education, School Vouchers, Immigration, Election 2008

Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog