Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano will head the Department of Homeland Security. This is like having the fox guard the hen house.
This is quite possibly the worst appointment Barack Obama can make, unless he taps Chuck Hagel to run the DoD. Here we have a governor who does practically nothing to defend the border with Mexico, and our great leader wants her to help come up with solutions to defend us from terrorists? Does this show great judgement, or what?
Napolitano is notorious for only targetting businesses that hire illegal immigrants and other systems that “exploit” them. Look, I’m all about going after businesses that knowingly hire illegal immigrants, but she ignores her responsibility as the governor of Arizona by not going after the illegal immigrants themselves! How in the heck can a former Attorney General of her state blatantly disregard the law? She has even publicy criticized an Arizona Sherrif for volunteering to capture illegal immigrants to be deported.
If people like JaNo (as a friend of mine from Arizona refers to her) are going to be helping Obama protect the country, then we should all be afraid. After all, he already said he would meet with rogue dictators without preconditions; why not seal the deal with putting someone in charge of homeland security who doesn’t even bother to protect the border?

Guess what? The Republican Party (as well as conservatism) is dead. The death occured on November 4th, and the funeral was on November 5th.
Not only is this hogwash, but it’s served as a rallying cry for me. I know conservatism is alive and well, and I still know that the United States is a center-right country. Anyone else who tells me otherwise gets a fierce debate beat-down from me.
If conservatism is truly dead, then why did Democrats use it in 2006? Why did Barack Obama abandon any talk of his socially liberal positions and talk explicitly about tax cuts (even though his liberal voting recrod proves otherwise) and his hawkish talk on getting Osama bin Laden? It’s strange how they label these tenants of the Republican party as dead, but use them in elections to win power. The saddest part of all is that they’ve been better at it for the past two years.
I’ve seen and heard a lot about what the Republican Party has to do to get back on their feet. Some say we need to move to the center, some say we need to move left of center, and some say we need to move further right. I ask, why does this have to be about left vs right?
Democrats have proven (at least for now) that you can include many socially conservative people in a party that has a pretty liberal view on issues such as abortion, gay marriage, the war on terror, and taxes. This is how everything started in 2006. Sometime after 2004, Republicans lost the ability to court more centrist voters, mainly because most of the Washington Republicans governed like Democrats, and also because we weren’t inclusive of many people who weren’t 100% conservative on all issues.
Instead of focusing on the differences, we need to focus on the similarities. Republicans in Texas, for example, have a lot more in common than Republicans in New York than we think, so how do we get this done?

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How Ted Stevens is in a position to win his Senate seat in Alaska is beyond me. The man was convicted on multiple counts almost two weeks ago on not reporting gifts to turn (at least from what I’ve heard) a simple cabin into something like the White House. I understand he has gotten a lot, and I mean a lot of stuff for Alaska through huge chunks of pork, but Stevens coming close to re-election is as puzzling to me as Al Franken coming close to winning in Minnesota (please Lord, not Franken), or the 12th district in Pennsylvania re-electing a man who refered to his constituents as racists, and then rednecks.
If Stevens winds up getting jail time, what happens to his seat? Does Sarah Palin appoint someone to fill his term if he goes to prison, or is there a special election? I don’t know what Alaska state law is, so what are the options on teh table?
Another interesting question is that if there has to be a special election, would Sarah Palin run to fill the seat herself?
If it comes to that (and I might be getting ahead of myself here), she shouldn’t run. Focus on getting back to work as governor, do what she needs to do, and prepare for the bludgeoning Democrats will attempt to hand to her when she runs for re-election in 2010. It’s also interesting to note that Lisa Murkowski’s Senate term will be up in 2010 as well, so we know that she could conceivably challenge for that seat as well.
I heard somewhere that her approval ratings have dropped 20 points in Alaska since her selection as John McCain’s running mate, but I haven’t seen any data to support that. One thing is clear, she does have some options, and the Democrats will do anything and everything to either unseat her as Governor or beat her up even more (if they can) to the point she wins a close election and won’t even consider thinking about the Iowa or New Hampshire primaries.
The GOP also needs to make sure she’s included in the future for the party. I have a hard time believing (without new leadership) that the establishment will include her, but discarding the fastest rising star of the party would be a huge mistake. I just hope Palin and the Republican leadership make the right decisions.

I thought John McCain’s healthcare plan was a pretty good start. A $5000 tax credit so you can buy the coverage you need to get from whoever and wherever has the best plan to fit your needs. I thought this was a very good way to promote free market solutions to the cost of health coverage, but it wasn’t enough.
In the past few elections, it seems that from Bush 41, to Bob Dole, to Bush 43, and to John McCain, Republicans are about as uncomfortable talking about healthcare solutions as much as they’re uncomforitable courting and recruiting more minorities to join the party. It’s very sad that we don’t have a clear agenda. As much as we disagree with socialized healthcare, at least the Democrats have a plan to speak of.
The most popular phrases I hear is “make healthcare more affordable.” That’s great. What we tend to not get after the phrase is how to do it. If McCain had a clear and concise plan rather than his tax credit when he said “make healthcare more affordable,” he could have scored some points with lower-income voters.
So, how do we do it?

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The Republican party is in trouble. Big trouble. And this is from a state that is supposed to be redder than blood, if there’s such a thing.
Barack Obama had a huge advantage in money. Ignore the fact that he backed out on his promise to accept public financing. The money gave him serious advantages in the swing states, and it’s one reason that Indiana, Virginia, and North Carolina; all GOP stalwarts, went blue.
But Republicans are in danger of losing Nebraska. There is a changing demographic up here, and the Democrats were able to get an impressive ground game and volunteer effort that just surprised me beyond all belief. The Obamabots knocked on my door twice, Scott Kleeb and Jim Esch (Democrat Senate and 2nd Congressional District candidates, respectively) knocked on my door, and they all called my home as well. Heck, I was contacted by Obama’s Omaha campaign office on my cell phone. I personally thought it was a prank at first.
In terms of Republican contact, there were a few internal poll calls to my home. The only knock I had on my door was on Sunday evening at about 6:00pm. I asked the worker what took so long in getting on the ground, and he had no clue. He looked at me like I had two heads.
Hopefully, this was a fluke, and we just took everything for granted. However, this doesn’t bode well at all.

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It seems there are a lot of bitter feelings towards Sarah Palin from certain McCain staffers. Palin denies there was any type of rift, and maybe she honestly believes that, but it’s pretty obvious that she, like President Bush, is getting tossed under the proverbeal bus.
Carl Cameron reported earlier this afternoon on FOX some wild stories; she refused preparation for the interviews with Charlie Gibson and Katie Couric, she got upset about the negative media coverage and even threw temper tantrums about it, going off script, opposing the decision to pull out of Michigan, and not knowing Africa was a continent. I doubt the last statement, however, considering Barack Obama he’s been to 57 states, and Joe Biden thought “jobs” had three letters in it and mentioned an eating eastablishment that’s been closed for nearly a decade in the VP debate, gaffes are bound to occur at times.
John McCain’s people, and maybe even McCain himself, have some obvious tense feelings towards Sarah Palin. Sounds to me like they’re blaming her for the loss. I see it a different way. Palin gave McCain a chance, albeit a small one, to win. Had Romney, Huckabee, Lieberman been selected, this election would have been conceded shortly after the second round of polls closed. Palin gave McCain an excited base that was cold to McCain in the first place.
As far as my reference to President Bush, I’ve already stated you can attack me for supporting him. I’ve had disagreements with spending, illegal immigration, and his prosecution on the war in Iraq. However, the economy was strong for the majority of his presidency, he kept us safe after 9/11, helped gain seats in both the House and Senate in 2002, and actually tried working with both parties to accomplish things for the country. He had no defense from practically anyone in 2006, and in 2008 the Republicans said, “don’t call us, we’ll call you.” Kind of harsh, even though he has low approval ratings. As the party’s leader, he was tossed aside with yesterday’s trash. Folks, this was the leader of the party. Part of me thinks Bush told himself “to hell with you all,” and for good reason. While I’ve had disagreements with him, I think he’s been a good president overall and treated unfairly by the party. With no leadership, what did we expect to happen?
Going back to Sarah Palin, she was at first getting treated unfairly by the media, and she’s now getting the same treatment by people on the McCain camp, who ran a pretty lousy campaign in their own right. As more and more of these reports leak out, it will even further damage her reputation, embolden Democrats to attack her re-election bid for governor, and pretty much force her to forget about 2012. So much for energizing the base.
I’m sure more will be coming out and there will be a book deal in it for someone, but this isn’t good news. If we start twisting the knives now and playing the blame game, how can we look to win over the people when we can’t even win over each other?

Sometimes we get so caught up in politcis that we put aside the fact that the people we either support strongly or oppose with every last breath are human beings just like us.
I just saw on CNN.com that Dick Durbin’s daughter passed away earlier today. Even though we disagree with Durbin on pretty much all of the political issues, no parent should have to bury their child, and this is no doubt a tragic day. Please send the Durbins, her widow, and her son your prayers.

According to the McCain campaign e-mail update I got last night, they are very excited about their chances in possibly winning Iowa and Colorado on Tuesday. I don’t know if I am as optimistic, but then again we were supposed to believe that Obama should already appoint his cabinet and start working on his agenda with Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi. I said in another post that we’ll be up for a long night on Tuesday, and I’m beginning to have second thoughts about that now.
Barack Obama may legitimately win this election on Tuesday. But I fear a repeat on Florida in 2000 where they called it for Gore early on. Karl Rove, to this day, still claims it cost President Bush a ton of votes, when they called Florida for Gore. This caused voters in the midwest and mountain regions to think the race was over and made some Bush voters stay home.
I think this is what will happen on Tuesday. I believe that the MSM (CNN, CBS, ABC, MSNBC, and NBC) will call Florida, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, and quite possibly Ohio for Obama within a half hour after the polls close. If Iowa and Colorado are truly very close, they will do what they can to crush the enthusiasm of any McCain supporters out there to wrap this up as soon as possible so the celebration can begin.
Look, the media has been in the tank for this guy since he won the Iowa primaries. They’ve overlooked everything about his past, and all of his drastic shifts in policies and statements from the primaries (where he was running as a far left loon) to the general election (where he’s running like a centrist, echoing the tone of Ronald Reagan). If they’ve given him a free pass and not investigated him like they should have, then what’s one more night of twisting things around to get him elected? I can seriously see this happening, and FOX News may be the lone outcast, refusing to call states for Obama until the vast majority of votes (at least 80%) have been counted.
I still plan on keeping the TV on FOX all night Tuesday, (I might be dragging all day on Wednesday from lack of sleep) but please heed my warning here. If you watch CBS, ABC, NBC, MSNBC, or CNN they will call the election very early for Obama. Watch them at your own peril. Don’t let them get you down. We’re in striking distance of pulling off an upset, and I’m not going to let them ruin my night.