Vote, with vengeance or principles?

Let's face it: many conservative voters are in a bind this year in choosing the next president. Conservatives are not thrilled with Sen. John McCain, but casting a vote to the opposing candidate, the furthest-left ever in American history, would cause countless sleepless nights. Many people will go the "lesser of two evils" path and stick with McCain. 

Then there are those who will vote blue (and turn blue as well?) to punish the GOP for its failure to reign in government largess and the prolonged war in Iraq. That's the mentality of Radley Balko who'd voted Republican in 1996 and 2000, but voted Democrat in 2004. His frustration is clear as he pens in Reason "Why the Republicans Must Lose":

...The Republican Party has exiled its Goldwater-Reagan wing and given up all pretense of any allegiance to limited government. In the last eight years, the GOP has given us a monstrous new federal bureaucracy in the Department of Homeland Security. In the prescription drug benefit, it's given us the largest new federal entitlement since the Johnson administration. Federal spending—even on items not related to war or national security—has soared. And we now get to watch as the party that's supposed to be "free market" nationalizes huge chunks of the economy's financial sector.

Agreed, agreed, and agreed. But even Mr. Balko understands "This isn't to say that Barack Obama would be any better." So why vote for the "more of the two evils"?

His argument is simply... revenge. Wake up call. Punishment for the GOP. Let the Republicans have it for four years and hopefully they'll come out better and stronger. But guess what? Politicians, Republican or Democrat or whatever, won't suffer as much as the everyday folks, supposedly the "Joe the Plumbers" across America.

Your vote, that piece of paper so honored in a democratic society, is not really a weapon. Don't think of it as a firecracker that'll get a politician's undivided attention. Rather, think of a vote as a reflection of your beliefs and principles. Cast your vote because you agree with Obama or share McCain's agenda.

Don't throw away that vote simply because of your vengeful partisanship.

Obama foretells victory

Remember when Obama gave a speech at a podium with a mock presidential seal? The media had a frenzy. Now we have Obama acting like the race is over, talking about his transition in the White House. His campaign is spending tons of money in preparation of the election night party in Chicago.

Several polls have Obama in the lead with as high as 10 points. But there are polls with the delta of around five points or less. The race is most definitely not over.

The end of journalism according to a Democrat

Orson Scott Card, an author, columnist, and Democrat, writes in the Meridian about the whole subprime fiasco and how journalists ignored the facts. His words aren't very flattering:

Your job, as journalists, is to tell the truth. That's what you claim you do, when you accept people's money to buy or subscribe to your paper.

But right now, you are consenting to or actively promoting a big fat lie — that the housing crisis should somehow be blamed on Bush, McCain, and the Republicans. You have trained the American people to blame everything bad — even bad weather — on Bush, and they are responding as you have taught them to.

Ouch!!! The truth hurts, especially coming from a Democrat against the left-leaning MSM. Kudos to Mr. Card for setting aside partisanship and presenting the facts.

Spinning voter fraud

You'd would think that voting is a straightforward subject as it's something that's bound by various state laws. But in light of the recent ACORN debacles of registering dead people, fictional people, and football team members, the left has some pretty crazy spins about "voter fraud." Check this out.

McCain's reason for targeting Pennsylvania

Chris Bowers of OpenLeft has a good analysis of McCain's efforts in Pennsylvania.

Biden unsure of Obama's leadership

Sen. Biden predicts that should Obama becomes president, he will be tested with an "international crisis" within six months, "to test the mettle of this guy..." And that "he's gonna need help..."

It looks like Obama's V.P. choice isn't so sure of his boss's abilities in a time of crisis. Is Biden simply insinuating that he is the one with more foreign policy and crisis management experience?

Biden avoiding the press

Remember the complaints about Gov. Palin being shielded from the press? There was a reason for that... Palin needed a crash course and some protection before being thrown to the press wolves. After all, she's been fairly new to the Washington game.

But what's the excuse for Obama's running-mate, Sen. Joe Biden? Being a career politician, he's certainly not new to Washington and the press. Could it be that now with two weeks to Election Day, the Obama campaign wants to make sure Sen. Biden doesn't make any gaffes to hurt Obama's lead?

Colin Powell, GOP's Lieberman

The Democrats have Sen. Joe Lieberman to hate. The Republicans have Colin Powell, now undoubtedly labeled a RINO (Republican In Name Only).

Over the weekend on Meet the Press, President Bush's first Secretary of State endorsed Obama for president. What's really painful is that he's also a long time friend of Sen. John McCain. His endorsement doesn't really come as a surprise. It's a well known fact that during his tenure as Secretary of State, he didn't get along well with the president and his neoconservative buddies. He resigned in November 2004, near the end of Bush's first term.

As Dick Polman of Philly.com puts it, Powell still has "symbolic power" and the endorsement will cause trouble for the McCain campaign. Powell is well liked by many veterans and his opinion may sway the "soft supporters" of McCain to vote the other way as Newsweek's Andrew Romano points out.

Buffet upgrades America to "Buy"

In an NYT op-ed by the Oracle of Omaha, he shows leadership in this difficult economic time in urging readers to accumulate stocks instead of sitting on cash, providing some historical insight:

Over the long term, the stock market news will be good. In the 20th century, the United States endured two world wars and other traumatic and expensive military conflicts; the Depression; a dozen or so recessions and financial panics; oil shocks; a flu epidemic; and the resignation of a disgraced president. Yet the Dow rose from 66 to 11,497.

And guess what? The Dow is up (so far). Would his article have something to do with it?

Holes in Obama's tax plan

The Obama campaign's talking point on its tax plan: We are going to cut taxes for 95 percent of Americans.

Where is the 95 percent going to come from when at least one-third of Americans pay no income taxes?

Philip Klein of The American Spectator pursues this issue with members of the Obama campaign, but nobody really gave a decent answer.

Obama vs. McCain, final round

Last night's debate was definitely more interesting than the previous one. Both candidates were focused, knowing that this would be the last chance to sway voters on television. McCain seemed more energetic -- probably because he's the underdog -- in his answers, often going on the offensive. He brought up issues about Obama's ties to Bill Ayers and Obama's contribution to ACORN, the community organization under investigation in several states for voter fraud. Obama was on the defensive, trying to explain the allegations of wrongdoing.

McCain scored points for the attacks, but Obama handled well in defense. At no time was Obama thrown off balance by McCain's punches. My opinion is that McCain should've done these in the second debate and not the last one. I don't think it was enough to refuel the buzz in the last weeks of the campaign.

Karl Rove in his WSJ column points out that there are still a significant number of undecided voters:

Barack Obama holds a 7.3% lead in the Real Clear Politics average of all polls, but the latest Gallup tracking poll reveals that there are nearly twice as many undecided voters this year than there were in the last presidential election. The Investor's Business Daily/TIPP poll (which was closest to the mark in predicting the 2004 outcome -- 0.4% off the actual result) now says this is a three-point race.

Mr. Rove aka "The Architect" has a very good point. It's always been the undecided and independent voters who'll determine the outcome of an election.

What's worse than an Obama presidency?

Mona Charen paints a bleak picture of an "Obama/Pelosi/Reid regime." Riding on Obama's surging popularity and the worsening economy (by the way, notice the correlation), the Democrats are within reach a super-majority in Congress, having enough seats to be filibuster-proof. If that scenario comes true, then the country will be looking at some very liberal changes in government which will trickle down into society, affecting the lives of everyone.

Democrats want bigger government, and obviously to support that you'd require more taxes. How else can government fund nationalized healthcare? How else can government give credit for college education?

These points seem lost to Harold Meyerson of the Washington Post, who writes:

...the Reagan-Thatcher faith in unregulated capitalism, to which every GOP presidential candidate was pledging allegiance just last winter, has collapsed? The doctrine of laissez faire has been so dominant, so pervasive over the past three decades that hundreds of Democratic politicians can deliver a paean to the market at the drop of a hat, but not a single Republican pol can plausibly defend government as a check on capitalism run amok, even at the drop of thousands of points in the Dow.

The truth is that laissez faire works. The credit crisis that's going on occurred because of government intervention in the first place! The government interfered with free market principles by passing legislation which created a subprime mortgage market. Any bank in its right mind would never offer loans to people who cannot afford to pay back. Yet the government forced banks to lend to subprime borrowers, then created Fannie and Freddie to back those loans, and look what happened...

The issue is beyond nationalizing banks and injecting trillions into the economy. Mr. Meyerson fails to point out that government was the problem, and now government still is the problem.

Ayers friend defends Obama

In the WSJ today, Thomas Frank says he is friends with Bill Ayers and that Obama shouldn't be attacked for the same association. In typical elitist fashion, he complicates the relationship with historical references to the Civil War and the culture wars.

I don't care if Mr. Frank is a friend of Ayers or even Usama bin Laden -- he's not running for president. But Obama is, and his past associations, especially with an unrepentant terrorist, should be examined and questioned.

What Mr. Frank fails to understand is that pundits aren't that angry about Ayers' past. What really bugs us is that he feels no remorse for his past crimes and has gone on the record about it. If Ayers had issued a public statement about being sorry for his past mistakes, then more folks would be understanding because, well, we all make mistakes.

Obama finally explains his tax plan truthfully

In an exchange between Obama and a plumber, the candidate finally let slip the truth about his tax plan: to "spread the wealth around."

Thanks for the socialistic clarification! My only hope is that the plumber understands the implications and won't vote for Obama...

Acorns falling everywhere

More bad news coming out about ACORN and voter fraud. Enough that the Obama campaign is distancing itself from the troubled organization.

Insulting Sarah Palin

Liberals gone wild! Look at these T-shirts. Aren't you glad you're not an Obama supporter?

Freedom of speech only when it favors liberals

Evidently liberals believe in the First Amendment only when the other side is shut up. Michael Barone of Washington Times calls it "liberal thugocracy" --

Today's liberals seem to be taking their marching orders from other quarters. Specifically, from the college and university campuses where administrators, armed with speech codes, have for years been disciplining and subjecting to sensitivity training any students who dare to utter thoughts that liberals find offensive. The campuses that once prided themselves as zones of free expression are now the least free part of our society.

Not to mention liberals' infatuation of the "fairness doctrine," a weapon against the conservative media, especially talk radio. Liberal talk radio, Air America, crashed and burned because it simply cannot compete against conservative talk radio. Liberal bias permeates the print and television media, so who would want to listen to more of that nonsense on radio? If you can't beat 'em, silence 'em. That's the liberal way.

Obama obstructed Iraq security effort

Is there a presidential candidate more arrogant than Obama??? He's acting like he's already the president. Remember the Obama "presidential seal" gaffe? Or his whirlwind tour of Europe, meeting the European heads of state? Now we learn that he privately urged Iraqi leaders to delay the agreement being negotiated with the White House until next year when a new president is inaugurated.

Here we have a United States senator undermining the efforts of the current administration. This is like the times when a few Democrats went overseas to badmouth the administration. This is like when Nancy Pelosi went overseas to criticize the president. No shame.

Liberals trying hard to paint Palin a radical

Look what happens when Palin starts throwing punches at Obama in regards to his ties with terrorist-turned-educator Bill Ayers... The media comes to the rescue of the Obama campaign. We have Max Blumenthal and David Neiwert of Salon digging into Palin's political past in Alaska and her association with the Alaska Independence Party. The authors write about Mark Chryson, former AIP chairman, and his political friendship with Palin in her Wasilla mayoral bid.

What a desperate attempt by the authors. Comparing Chryson and his associates, who have never harmed anybody in their political goals, to Bill Ayers, who made bombs and targeted government agencies with the intent to kill. Comparing AIP, a legal political party, to the Weather Underground, a domestic terrorist organization.

Allow me to suggest a way for liberals to defuse the Obama-Ayers situation. It's simple. Obama should just issue a press release to renounce Ayers' past and admit his poor judgment in serving on boards with him and befriending him. But instead, Obama and his campaign continue to find excuses, saying that he was just a little boy when Ayers was a terrorist and that he had no knowledge of Ayers' past activities when they server together.

If the Obama campaign is hoping for the media to be his attack dogs, I'm sad to say that the media isn't doing a very good job based on what Salon has put out.

What if it was Obama vs. Huckabee?

I've been a Mike Huckabee fan since he announced his campaign for the GOP nomination, knowing he was a supporter of the FairTax. Plus, how can anyone not like a man endorsed by martial artist badass and actor, Chuck Norris?

McCain's diminishing approval among voters prompts Andrew Romano of Newsweek to ask the question I've had swirling in my head for the past few days: What if Huckabee were the nominee?

The economy is front and center on people's minds now, not the war in Iraq or hunting down terrorists. Joe Sixpack is worried about keeping his job, keeping his family in the house, and keeping his retirement savings. When the Dow closed under 9,000 today, so did McCain's poll results. Battleground states are now showing a hue of blue.

Armed with the FairTax and a track history of helping the middle class, Gov. Huckabee would fare well in the current economic environment and counter Obama's economic plans. He also has a great sense of humor -- imagine pairing Gov. Palin with him. The crowds would be incredible! And with his former profession as a Baptist minister, he'll have a lock on socially conservative votes.

A Palin/Huckabee ticket in 2012 would be so much fun.