Political Arena

One of the best things about the TEA Party folks is their courage to speak out and their commitment to reach more people. Too many Republicans are tired and frankly flat-liners when it comes to basic communication. The GOP can learn from the TEA Partiers. Townhall.com columnist Meredith Turneyrecently wrote:

“With the ascent of the Internet, modern political warfare is now increasingly waged online. The Obama presidential campaign raised millions of dollars through the Internet last year, and in doing so set a groundbreaking benchmark for utilizing social media to engage voters. Conservatives have openly acknowledged their fatal ineptitude at marshalling support via the Internet. But conservatives are quick studies and they’re learning from their counterparts how to bypass old media and communicate directly with their base.”

I didn’t hear the broadcast but evidently our Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele was on the radio in Illinois this week endorsing Mark Kirk for the U.S. Senate. With that, Steele joins the knuckleheads at the National Republican Senatorial Committee in Washington and the corrupt old guard players here at our own state GOP.

For years I’ve been asking people a simple question: what kind of compromise do you get when you have one political party seeking massive increases in government spending and the other political party seeking to spend more too – but just not as much?

Long time readers of this website know that this writer have been the loudest critics of Illinois Republican Party Chairman Andy “no litmus test” McKenna. If you doubt that, click through our archives. We never feared telling…

Everyone is human. That said – those who run for and win high public office had better start figuring out how to succeed despite their humanness. Every day they don’t succeed just adds to the cost taxpayers are all going to have to pay.

The 80% rule and the 11th commandment are meaningless clichés now mostly used by two kinds of people. The first kind are up to no good. They want you to buy into their severely flawed candidacy, ignore their corruption, or keep your disagreeing mouth shut. The other kind are people who don’t like to think too deeply about anything – especially not about politics.

The alphabet soup from my title above is as follows:

NEA = National Education Association

APA = American Psychiatric Association

ALA = American Library Association

All three are in the news of late, and that last one – the GOP, the “Grand Old Party” has of course been in the news as well.

Let’s start with this last one first. Nine months ago there were predictions of doom for the future of the Republican Party because of the widespread Obama delusion. Only foolish and uninformed young people and members of the hard left still cling to the delusion. Most everyone else now understands that “hope and change” doesn’t mean good times unless you’re a government employee with a government pension.

Three years ago the liberal Republican Judy Baar Topinka won the nomination for governor in part because of the theory that it would take a “moderate” Republican to win statewide. That theory was destroyed when Topinka won less than forty percent of the vote in the general election.

That’s right, less than 40%. That Associated Press called the race one minute after the polls closed. It wasn’t even close.

You would think that three years later some people in Illinois would have learned, but I guess not.

What’s happening in today’s America was predicted long ago by men who understood human nature and the potential problems of big government. Frederick Bastiat and Alexis de Tocqueville both lived during the first half of the nineteenth century, and here is what they had to say:

“Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else.” – Frederick Bastiat, (1801-1850)

Two weeks ago Republican U.S. Sen. John Ensign admitted to an extra-marital affair. Last week, the childish melodrama of GovernorMark Sanford made big headlines. Make no mistake – there are more GOP scandals in the offing.

Those of us who don’t suffer from amnesia recall very well what happened with Illinois’ own Dennis Hastert’s pro-homosexual staff who looked the other way when Florida Republican CongressmanMark Foley had inappropriate (to say the least) contact with under-aged male interns.