Posted by
Bob Wood aka TrekTek on Tuesday, October 07, 2008 2:13:29 AM
Liz Sidota has the right idea in mind. McCain needs to sieze the offense. But he probably needs to do a bit of homework first.
McCain says he was a foot-soldier in the Reagan Revolution. He needs to become one again. By embracing true conservative principles, he would be able to effectively communicate with the masses that gave Ronaldus Magnus two landslide victories.
McCain has repeatedly said that "Washington spends too much." And he is absolutely correct. He should then list three or four of the most outrageous pork barrel expenditures he can think of off the top of his head. In his 26 years in Congress, he can surely come up with a lot of different outrageous examples. (My favorite was the study to determine whether a housefly executes a half-loop or a half-roll in order to land upside-down on the ceiling.)
McCain has said that taxes are too high. He is right. When it takes the combined incomes of two wage-earners in a household to pay for a roof over their heads, food on the table, gasoline in the tank, home utilities, clothing, raising a child (or children), medical and dental care, and all of the associated expenses, taxes are too high at 40-50% of income. Our governemnt did just fine without an income tax until 1913, and ever since its enactment the government has used it to exercise control over the way we live our lives. We have now created two, maybe three, generations of latch-key kids who do not know what it's like to come home from school each day to a loving parent.
The bailout bill is the largest intrusion of the federal government into the free enterprise marketplace since the creation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska, said, "... [T]his bill is nothing more than a slippery slope to Socialism." The United States Constitution gave Congress no authority to do either, and the Law of Unintended Consequences has once again taken over. And once again, Congress has proved that the Federal Government can not do anything as well as the private sector. For one thing, they just don't understand the profit motive that keeps business going. They just bailed out failure.
McCain says he will name the names of the earmarkers, and there was $110 billion worth of pork-barrell spending in the bailout. He needs to name the guilty parties. And while he is at it, he needs to defend President Bush's record on the current economic crisis and name the Democrats who have been feeding at Fannie's and Freddie's trough while impeding McCain's and Bush's efforts since 2003 to regulate these two behemoths. President Reagan's 11th Commandment should still apply: "Speak no ill of a fellow Republican." It should be expanded to include, "Let no Lie against a fellow Republican go unchallenged."
Once he has done these things, he can really draw the distinctions between himself and The Chosen One. McCain said of Obama, "Here's a man who has written two autobiographies, but his life is hardly an open book." He should demand an accounting of any accomplishments on behalf of other people that Obama cares to list. He has none.
Obama has spent his entire career moving from one "job" to the next without accomplishing anything noteworthy. That includes the past associations Obama cultivated with criminals, terrorists, and racists to advance his career.
Obama has been up to his eyeballs in ACORN and its criminal activities. The lamestream media has neither investigated or reported on his activities and association with it. But we do know that ACORN is busily "registering" voters - as they do every election cycle. You would think by now they would have registered every homeless and dead person in all fifty states. And used every vacant lot and empty storefront as an address. I guess now they are working on every online alias and nom-de-plume...
And of course, McCain must relate - with everyday examples - how disastrous Obama's policies will be to each one of us. John McCain must let the electorate know that he understands, as Ronald Reagan did, that more government is not the answer - it is the problem.
UPDATE: Has everyone (including me, apparently!) forgotten that we are involved in a war against Islamic fascism? They have not forgotten about us. And does anyone really think that Barack Obama has ANY experience whatsoever to lead this country in a time of peril against our homeland? He has already said that (paraphrasing), "First, I'll call in the Joint Chiefs of Staff and tell them to end the war." He does not know that the Joint Chiefs are Presidential advisors, not a part of the chain of command. This is basic stuff. Obama has no experience on which to judge any military advice he is given or to understand the formulation of military strategy.
It is a cinch that the Islamo-fascists will see him as a weak "leader", and we will see a whole new series of attacks against United States interests around the world and here at home. With our economy in a weakened state due to the politically-correct meddling in the private markets, can we tolerate being militarily weak as well?
I think not.
Reagan also said that peace comes through strength. America has never been attacked because we were militarily strong. The only attacks against America have come when it was perceived that we were weak. And Obama, Pelosi, and Reid would once again decimate the military budgets in order to use the funds for more social programs (read, vote-buying schemes.)
McCain should hit him hard on both of these points.