I’ve been having this discussion with my Republican Party friends and officials in December. It’s about the Occupy movement, big labor and the DNC. It’s about a vision I’m sensing of impending doom for the Republicans… I’m starting to see the “we are the 99%” yard signs in our conservative county.

“Are You With the 99%?  

Or the 1%???”

Now, I listen to Rush and Hannity when I can in my days – I’m a huge Rush fan but I am getting more and more unhappy with Sean for leaning on the likes of Rove, McCain and the establishment R’s to prop up his guest roster. I swear he doesn’t get that he’s losing the conservatives over this. Anyway, back to my discussions.

The other day Hannity was doing a monologue in response to a Democrat caller. He spent a lot of time trying to explain what the Dems are going to do with the narrative in 2012. The Democrats are going to use “politics of personal destruction” in 2012, because they don’t have a record to run on, etc. etc. with Obama as the offender in chief. All true, but my vision is far, far worse for what is awaiting the Republicans in the great debate of 2012. This, I believe, is what the Occupy movement was for all along.

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I especially like the first half – would almost be good as a stand-alone video indictment of the the first 2 years of ObamaNation.

The second half is too kitschy for me – when will these Repub frontrunners take the administration head on in their ads regarding the leftist regulatory changes, fixation on taxation and coddling of international criminals while ignoring our borders?  Voters want specifics now.

I wanted to put my $.02 in for a candidate I believe in this gubernatorial primary season in Pennsylvania. I’ve known Chet Beiler for a number of years, and have seen him work hard at his profession, public service and with his family. His conservative credentials are impeccable – easily the best of the field in the race for PA Lieutenant Governor.

As has been so common around the country this season, the establishment within the R party has selected someone over Chet to ride the coattails of Tom Corbett’s ascendancy (and that’s another story…Go Sam!). Chet’s campaign has had to work hard to get the word out, but the message is a solid conservative one that is resonating.

For this small-town Mayor’s money, Chet Beiler is the real deal and worthy of full-guns conservative support. If you’re a PA resident wondering what to make of the dizzying array of names on the Republican ballot next week, take my advice and throw the lever for Chet Beiler.

Chet also needs our support right now, so if you can contribute to his campaign for the final media push I’m sure he’d be very appreciative. You can do so online at this address:
https://secure.conservativedonations.com/votechet/?a=4119

Rep. Bart Stupak’s GOP opponent is gaining Facebook friends tonight…at a rate of about 1 per second.

Do the right thing…

Glenn Beck has a policy of not endorsing candidates – sort of.  While he is faithful about his disclaimers on air, he finds it hard (as most of us would) to not like one or the other contestant in a race.  His trusty assistants Stu and Pat don’t make it any easier with their on-air needling of him about the statements made by candidates while they are being interviewed.

Generally the callers acquit themselves well, and some really shine such as when Marco Rubio calls in or Chuck DeVore.  This time, however, things really went the wrong way with Glenn had on Debra Medina of Texas.  I think it’s safe to say that the radio audience was probably as shocked as the guys in the studio as the questioning of her positions unfolded.

Read the transcript here.  Definitely worth the read.

Open Thread…

I posted this elsewhere as a comment and decided to add & expand on it as a diary entry.  I know there’s a lot of Palin lovers out there and she has a lot to commend her, no debate.  When I sat down to commit an hour of my time tonight with my wife to her speech at the Tea Party Convention, it was with as much goodwill as I could muster.  What happened, though, was me ending up with the couch pillow pressed over my ears from an early point in the video. And shouts of “no!”,”no!”, and “don’t go there!” several times.

I couldn’t believe it.  She started out decently enough, doing the expected green truck references, etc.  But then it started.  Her speech devolved too quickly into a virtual rehash of her 2008 message, concept for concept, only now laced with (all too) concrete examples of the current administration’s failures. I don’t begrudge her that, and even had a big chuckle over the Biden comments.

However, she really seemed to not be aware of the core tea party (small case) principles, limited & decentralized gov’t and extreme fiscal restraint.  Or, her prep work missed the essentials of what she should have been hitting hard on.  Either way, her intense foreign policy segment seemed to me to be where the wheels started coming off of the speech. It’s obvious to even casual observers that the tea party movement is a growing coalition that has lots of members who are not “hawks” in even the remotest sense. Libertarians and Paulites in the audience were probably appalled at her reading on foreign interventions.

Then the McCain stuff was just uncalled for…why even go there? The crowd shots during the middle of her speech were telling – lots of tense faces and arms crossed. Nobody needed reminding of the fall of 2008 in that room.  Even a lingering sense of loyalty to the man did not justify the time given to him at a gathering of tea partiers.

I firmly believe that the tea party (small case) crowd is more likely to be better informed on the consitutional issues than the typical “base” voter. Really, that’s the glue that holds the whole movement together. The garden variety tea partier is looking to throw the bums out (both parties included) and start over with constitionalists. Instead of “throw the bums out” she went down the “tough love/bipartisan” road instead. Sorry, I stood smack in the middle of the 9/12 rally and there wasn’t a SINGLE “bipartisanship now!” placard in sight…to a tea partier it’s not about “solving problems” in the economy and “drill now, baby”. It’s about “throw the bums out and start over”, Sarah.

Perhaps it was the whole notion of a “Tea Party” (in caps) “Convention” that that she was playing to, and I do give her high marks for chutzpah etc etc as stated by everyone else. But I suspect she’ll have to do a lot more homework on what is making that movement tick before she’d be ready to expect broad-based support from that corner.  If it wasn’t for her star power, I don’t think her talking points would have earned her a speaking slot.  The Q & A was a redemptive point, however, in my opinion.

As my wife astutely pointed out – “it seems as though she doesn’t know who she is yet”.  It will be interesting to see how her fortunes mesh with the fortunes of the tea party movement in general over the next year or so.  As it stands, I’ll take Marco Rubio or Chuck DeVore any day.

I’ve been working on a new daily news site for the last two months, trying to pull together the top stories from south east Pennsylvania in one place.  One great byproduct of my research is that I am seeing new things virtually every day.  And since I was sworn in as Mayor of my town last week, that’s a good thing – seems as though I’ve got a lot to learn, however.

I’ve been hearing about earmarks for the last few years in the national scene.  Mostly the Repubs making some claim or other in an election cycle that they would stand against them, etc etc.  Then Saint O made his grandiose posturing last year only to cave on earmarks like all the rest.  Clearly, it’s an accepted piece of Washington business that the politicos aren’t going to give up without blood in the streets (so to speak).

Now, I see that the Pennsylvania Legislature has been busily working to keep pace with its “big time” counterparts inside the beltway.

What I’m referred to is the infamous “table games” legislation, more properly known as Pennsylvania SB711, which passed last week after Governor “Fast Eddie” Rendell used Pennsylvania jobs as a tool to blackmail the legislature into approving the bill.  What first drew my attention was a WGAL story picking out some of the “pork” in the bill.  Then, this week came the story that a local Republican State Senator Jeff Piccola had voted against the bill (which I had expected of him) but had included earmarked $$ for his district.

This led me to do a little more digging.  Turns out there are plenty of news stories out there about the pork being spread around within this bill – for example:

http://www.delawareonline.com/article/20100104/NEWS/1040321/Pa.-gaming-bill-now-includes-payouts-for-local-earmarks

http://citizensvoice.com/news/earmarks-tricky-to-identify-in-table-games-legislation-1.500634

Then some names popped up in addition to Senator Piccola.  The one that really grabbed my attention was that of Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi, however.  So, like any budding political reporter I went immediately to his Facebook page.  Ha?  Well, right there on his page is an entry from January 6th relating the following:

The Senate approved SB 711 (gaming reforms and the authorization of table games) yesterday. It could be considered by the House today. The bill includes a provision to use Chester’s local share of the table games revenue to make it more affordable for residents of the Chester-Upland School District to attend Delaware County Community College.

A “provision”, eh?

Tracking further into things, I found an entire press release trumpeting Senator Pileggi’s “achievement” of earmarking money for his district.

Some of the news stories I read cited popular approval of the process of using convoluted language within bills (see page 132 line 2 of the bill linked above for an example) to bypass constitutional waypoints in assigning fund dollars to specific areas and projects.  Here’s a quote from an article:

Proponents of the local set-aside say the idea has popular support among rank-and-file lawmakers, as well as mayors, county commissioners and other community figures.

Not from THIS Mayor…

It seems glaringly obvious that the local officials and “community figures” referred to don’t realize that apportioning public monies in this fashion is at best constitutionally suspect, and at worst flat-out unethical behavior from otherwise (supposedly) respectable public stewards.  I’m sure someone can give me a reasonable argument in favor of using earmarks to save an inordinate amount of dollars from flowing into Rendell’s preferred locales of Philly and Pittsburgh, but it seems to me that the “spirit of 2010″ is partly an intentional revisiting of integrity in public office, and using ‘fire to fight fire’ just reduces the Republican party in the public square.  Are state representatives and senators supposed to be PROUD they siphoned off public money for their districts and pet projects?  Even better, should they be applauded for voting against an appropriation bill while including earmarks, as Senator Piiccola apparently did?

As someone who views the public trust as the highest of responsibilities, I am disgusted that this is clearly viewed as conventional tactics.  More so that the Republicans are actively involved.  Earmarks as a concept need to go and not return, with statewide projects and organizations applying for funding publicly and proper notice given of the process.

But of course I’m not inside the Harrisburg Beltway.

It Began November 6th, 2008

It’s time for change in the Republican Party. And it’s up to us.

The Republican Party, the great party birthed in the throes of the upheaval of a nation in 1860 as the party of liberty and freedom, has been all but completely nullified as a principled voice in the American arena. The 2008 election proved beyond a doubt that the party organization has been overrun by men & women who are either ignorant of or deliberately undercut the rich heritage of limited government, fiscal restraint and strong values. Almost as bad is the palpable lack of momentum at the local level.

My wife and I witnessed the new momentum in American politics this Tuesday as we worked a Lancaster County, PA polling place for a Republican statewide candidate & personal friend of ours. We discovered that the poll had not been staffed by the party for two thirds of the day. In addition, there wasn’t a sign in sight, other than the button on my wife’s collar.

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