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Thought For The Day

A Little Spine-Stiffener From Winston Churchill

By: Dan McLaughlin (Diary)  |  November 3rd, 2008 at 10:02 AM  | 

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Winston Churchill, October 29, 1941:

You cannot tell from appearances how things will go. Sometimes imagination makes things out far worse than they are; yet without imagination not much can be done.

Those people who are imaginative see many more dangers than perhaps exist; certainly many more than will happen; but then they must also pray to be given that extra courage to carry this far-reaching imagination.

But for everyone, surely, what we have gone through in this period …this is the lesson: never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never-in nothing, great or small, large or petty – never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense.

Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.

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  • ContraMundum

    …The world needs more Churchills.

  • sergee3

    Also quite inspiring for this election, here.

  • kowalski

    I have a fairly vivid imagination and so do many of the members of our punditocracy about the underlying meaning of the Obama campaign, but to me it’s still essentially simple:

    Combine an unpopular President who is no longer an effective leader and rallying point for his party with two wars being conducted in parallel and then throw in a recession and all the attendent economic woes, and you have the necessary conditions for a change in power in the executive branch and an expansion of the realignment in Congress.

    Then add a guy who is the culmination of the inchoate wishes and dreams of liberals spanning more than three generations to a campaign that has been masterfully constructed as a charisma vehicle, and you see why Obama is leading.

    The strange thing is that he’s not leading by even more. The fact that McCain is inside the MOE on many metrics is pretty astonishing given the political climate for Republicans and the overwhelming support Obama has received from the media and from academics.

    If it hadn’t been for the economic problems, Obama wouldn’t be winning this election. It really is that simple. Absent the financial turmoil there would have been nothing except banalities for him to run on, and McCain would be leading, and we’d probably be gaining seats in Congress if not taking back the majority in one or both houses.

    So don’t despair. Keep fighting, and remember that this election is an incredibly difficult fight for Republicans: the usual 2-term incumbent party difficulties, and a sour public mood added to the messianic devotion that Obama has inspired and there’s nothing mysterious about it.

    If you want to win the Presidency and keep control of the legislature, you have to have some combination of credibility, peace and prosperity. You can’t lose all three and expect an easy time.

  • lonebeagle

    I just spent the weekend canvassing for McCain/Palin in Henderson, Nevada. I was a volunteer from Southern California (California Calvary). The Republican Party bused us from Burbank to Henderson and put us up in a Best Western in Las Vegas.

    It was a well organized effort and we were targeting specific households that were supposed to be “marginal” voters who had not voted recently or might not be McCain supporters. My partner and I covered hundreds of households and found that the vast majority of people who were home were for McCain.

    We heard the same story from McCain supporters–they hoped that people weren’t going to fall for all of the propaganda from the MSM and that McCain supporters would get out and vote. These people felt that McCain had very solid support in Nevada.

    The meanest and nastiest people were the Obama voters. Most people were courteous but there were some on the opposition that were just plain rude and one fat white middle-class guy threatened to call the cops on us. The trouble with that is that we weren’t breaking any laws.

    So I can tell you from our limited experience that Obama voters don’t believe in diversity or differing views and that McCain supporters were universal in their support for McCain AND Palin. I did not encounter ONE person that had ANYTHING negative to say about Palin.

    It was a very difficult and tiring weekend. The RNC had organized a massive vanpool/carpool to shuttle teams of two people all over the Henderson area. The local volunteers were great and they had food, water and drinks for everyone.

    It was hectic but I think that it was worth it. We didn’t arrive back in Burbank until midnight Sunday.

    One thought on the accuracy of the polls. The voter registration rolls that our canvassing books were based on had many errors–lots of people had moved and there were many times when we found people living in a home that were registered to vote but not at that particular address. We also found that about half or more of the households were not home or did not answer the door.

    These kinds of errors can really foul up a poll or sampling frame. That’s why the polls are so unstable and unreliable. You can’t get an accurate poll when everything has so many errors and there is also a very high non-response rate.

    We were told by the Nevada RNC managers that their internal polling indicated that the race was neck and neck in Nevada. We were also told that Obama was using PAID people to canvass for him and that the Republican effort was much larger than the Obama one. We also found that Obama people had visited many of the households that we were targeting.

    Rudy Giuliani came to the headquarters and gave a great speech–we were all very surprised that he was there in Henderson. So it must be tight if Rudy was going around revving up support! Sarah Palin’s brother accompanied Rudy. Rudy was just fantastic and he is a great speaker.

    So get out there and vote and remind everyone that their vote counts!

  • MadHatChemist

    …in the Aeneid:

    “Attack, attack, even more boldly then even fortune seems to permit!”

  • charliej

    As a proud resident of the reddest county in Georgia (based on the 2004 Presidential and 2006 Governor races) I urge all to GOTV!!

    The early vote is almost 50% in this county. Keep the faith and vote; and may God Continue To Bless America!!