Monday, January 24, 2011

The Conservative Candidate for 2012 – Mr. Issues

Warning, warning, Will Robinson! My sensors have detected a long post ahead!


Since President Obama has unofficially kicked off his reelection campaign for 2012, it’s time for us conservatives to begin to plan our strategy.

In our oblivious past, we’ve considered our presidential candidates based on superficial qualities, such as who has the better appearance, or speaking voice or the best suit-and-tie combination (or pantsuit). Much like the Queen of the Prom, we’ve chosen our president based on who we thought would look good standing next to us for the prom picture, rather than who would be best qualified to set our national agenda.

Much of this tendency had to do with our belief that whomever we elected would automatically do what was in our best national interests. However, the election of Barack Obama has shown us the error of this presumption, good and hard.

Hope and Change proved to be the ultimate in political superficiality.

Such gauzy platitudes only disguised a leftward lurch the likes of which we’ve never before experienced, at least in my lifetime. Most of us who weren’t paying attention, the 52% of the public that voted for Obama, have reached the grim realization that we’ve been had. Behind the classic columns and soaring rhetoric lurked a most decidedly anti-American dedication to Big Government. Takeovers of General Motors and Chrysler, the college loan system, Wall Street and health care caught the nation by surprise. Aided and encouraged by the worst leaders in congressional history, president Obama set a course toward European-style Socialism that has proven to be an unparalleled disaster for our country.

We are now suffering from record high unemployment, record numbers of Americans on food stamps, record numbers of Americans living in poverty, millions of homes in foreclosure and more on the way, the spectre of mass businesses foreclosures following suit and more, all as the result of the American ship of state listing hard to port.

By every measure, we’ve failed ourselves in spectacular fashion. It seemed like we had to have our generational fling with Socialism. Now, it’s the morning after, and all that’s left is a hastily scribbled note on the nightstand containing a promise to call, a fifty-dollar bill next to it, and a severe headache.

And some soreness...

But all is not lost. November’s mid-term elections showed that we’ve finally had enough of this nonsense. We voted for a course change back to our original destination.

We’re not fully back on course yet, which is why the 2012 presidential election is so important. The political winds have shifted, making our course correction a bit easier. Americans who stated their political affiliation are fleeing the Democrat Party in numbers not seen in recent history.

However, the lefts’ willing accomplice, the Mainstream Media Machine, is already on the job. Candidates are being propped up in front of the electorate in their attempt to get Republicans to nominate the weakest opponent possible for Obama, thus insuring a four-year delay in reaching our national port-of-call.

I’m going out on the yardarm here to suggest a different tack. Let’s look a bit deeper at what needs to be done and then pick a candidate that best understands the navigational charts and who can at least avoid the icebergs. Our current captain can’t even read the compass.

In other words, we need to establish what needs to be done, and then find the best person to do it. We need no longer pick the lesser of two evils. We have an opportunity that we haven’t had in recent election cycles to nominate a true conservative for president.

We already have a good idea, given that we’ve experienced two years of what not to do. Actually, if you count the takeover of Congress by progressive Democrats in 2007, we’ve had four years of misdirection and disaster. You could easily say, “Oh, well, just do the opposite of what’s been done the last four years and we’ll be on our way.” Um, that’s the old way of thinking. We need to not only undo the damage done by the worst congress in history, we need to state in no uncertain terms what needs to be done, then set about to find someone do it.

A checklist, if you will, for a potential candidate to fill out.

We need to say, "Here's what we want done. Will you do it?" If not, then on to the next one until we find a presidential candidate who has a clear vision of the future for America and will know what is expected of him or her.

No bullshit, no excuses, no vagarities, no confusion.

Just a straight-up, "yes or no" on a national agenda that puts Americans first.

To be continued tomorrow...

No comments: