Political Science


Hopefully, many voters remember this little “slip of the tongue” by the ethically challenged Congresswoman Maxine Waters.  The voting record of many Dems has long left us with the idea that the imposition of socialism into our government was their purpose.  Now, we have evidence that it is more than just a philosophy. 

The Socialist Party of America has released their list of members who also are members of Congress.   Arizona has 2 illustrious members on the list, the full document is 15 pages.  Here are a few of the highlights:

American Socialist Voter–
Q: How many members of the U.S. Congress are also members of the DSA?
A: Seventy

Q: How many of the DSA members sit on the Judiciary Committee?
A: Eleven: John Conyers [Chairman of the Judiciary Committee], Tammy Baldwin, Jerrold Nadler, Luis Gutierrez,
Melvin Watt, Maxine Waters, Hank Johnson, Steve Cohen, Barbara Lee, Robert Wexler, Linda Sanchez [there are 23 Democrats on the Judiciary Committee of which eleven, almost half, are now members of the DSA].

Q: Who are these members of 111th Congress?
A: See the listing below

Co-Chairs
Hon. Raúl M. Grijalva (AZ-07)
Hon. Lynn Woolsey (CA-06

YEP!  Our very own “Boycott Arizona” Raul Grijalva is an avowed Socialist! 

Under the long list of D’s I also found this name

House Members
Hon. Eleanor Holmes-Norton (DC-AL)
Hon. John Olver (MA-01)
Hon. Ed Pastor (AZ-04)
Hon. Donald Payne (NJ-10)
Hon. Chellie Pingree (ME-01)
Hon. Charles Rangel (NY-15)

The voters in CD-7 and CD-4 should know…you are not voting for Democrat but a Socialist! 

All of Arizona should know this.

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While we often don’t get the flavor of John McCain that those ‘in the know’ back in Washington DC experience, the following essay describes the essence of the man John McCain, that some here in Arizona  have experienced, and the resulting taste; that we’d desperately love to wash away this election season.

It’s from the July 19, 2010 edition of New York Magazine written by Joe Hagan. The title appropriately enough is:

“What would a Maverick Do?”

http://nymag.com/news/politics/67144/index

An early quote from the Hagan’s article pretty well sums up McCain’s dichotomy: “The former maverick who once fought his own party on everything from tax cuts to torture, who built a reputation as a prickly independent, now marches in lockstep with his party, from his objection to Sonia Sotomayor’s Supreme Court appointment to his support of a draconian new immigration law in Arizona that would have repulsed him three years ago.”

Now, THAT’S the John McCain we’ve come to know this campaign season. So what is this article really about?

The key word in this lengthy article is simply: “Paranoia”; as best exemplified in the next quote: “From the first, there has been a sense of urgency in this campaign that was absent from his presidential run. McCain told friends early on that he didn’t want to ‘go out like Barry Goldwater,’ his Arizona predecessor in the Senate, who barely eked out his last reelection bid. Though no credible candidate had yet appeared to challenge him, McCain harbored a healthy paranoia.”

The result of this paranoia is now clearly seen  over the last year plus, as he desperateley traveled the state practically begging, cajoling, bribing or blackmailing elected officials for their endorsements. So concerned was he that, as Hagan aptly points out, as the campaign in 2008 McCain feared the conservative backlash in his own state.  He worried greatly about a highly visible conservative running to his right, challenging him on his core values. That challenge from the right truly bothered him.

What he needed was a shell of a candidate that talked a good conservative talk, yet stood zero chance of winning.  Along came Jim Deakin; a candidate so utterly unfit for this office prestigous office, and bereft of any political experience.  So perfect is Deakin, THAT if John McCain did NOT encourage him to run through one of his intermediaries, with promises of significant military contracts; McCain TRULY would wish that he HAD RECRUITED HIM! So incredibly Machiavellian! 

There’s much more to learn about the ‘not so wonderful’ side of McCain, that is covered so well in the article, that my analysis could not do it full justice.

Want to know more? About the John McCain known so well in the ‘other’ Washington? Read the rest of the article!

     The voters of Arizona have made it clear…in polls and surveys, one after another, they will re-elect John McCain.  Just how wide is the gap between his challenger, the former radio talk-show host, infomercial huckster, and un-elected Congressman Hayworth and the former POW, ranking member of the Senate Armed Forces committee, 2008 GOP POTUS nominee, and esteemed Senator McCain?  Well, apparently it grows daily. 
     Team Hayworth had high hopes that the long demanded debates would give JD a boost.  It didn’t happen.  In fact, when he strutted his stuff…as only JD can do…on to the stages of Phoenix and Tucson, the whole state saw first hand how the name “Foghorn Leghorn” came to be.  The arrogant demeanor he exhibited did nothing to build his position, in fact, it reinforced what many already had heard but now…saw for themselves.
     Senator McCain has been a leader in the Senate in opposing the Obama administration and their flawed policies and agenda for America.  He understands what it takes and has the ability to get it done. 
     The concept that the value of a Senator is based in “what have they done for Arizona” is reminiscent of the Robert C. Byrd mentality.  One can throw a rock anywhere in West Virginia and hit something named after the most prolific pork bareller of all times.  It is understandable that JD would use such a template for evaluation of success.  He was the highest spending member of our GOP delegation in his time in Congress.
 
 
Voters in Arizona know the difference between someone who needs a job and someone who has a job to do.
Yep….the people of Arizona are behind McCain!

McCain widens huge lead over Hayworth

At the request of James Allen, I’m reposting his article here. You can find the original at http://jamesallenshow.com/blog/2009-11-28-13-43-29.html.

In the current condition of our political landscape, we Republicans could say that we are in exile, captivity, or wandering in the wilderness. We hear things like “conservatism in exile” on the Sean Hannity Show and “refounding America” on the Glenn Beck Program. Witnessing this phenomenon in the news and also from the R.N.C. leadership harping on the need for a bigger tent, the question of who will lead the Republican Party in 2010 and 2012 haunts the airwaves.

I find this idea laughable. The Republican Party is not in need of a charismatic spokesman or master rhetorician. First, we need to rediscover the principles that separate our party from its opposition—call them progressives, the left, the Democrats, etc.—before a legitimate leader can even be identified. All the talk about who will become the next Reagan assumes that someone out there actually understands what Reagan did.

It has been said that it would be rather simple to just train a leader, if there were one, to reiterate the correct message. However, such a statement misses the point entirely. The message is clear because it has been conserved from Mount Sinai to Greece to Rome to London…and then finally to Philadelphia in the Constitutional Convention and boldly consolidated in the Declaration of Independence. As Russell Kirk taught us, the permanent things remain. In essence, these are the universal principles that make America unique and will give the Republican Party a great advantage. I am a conservative because I am conserving these permanent principles against the prevailing skepticism of our day, and I am a Republican because I believe in a Republican form of governance. (I hope you realize that we live in a republic and not a democracy. If you do not understand this, please stop reading now because you will be wasting your time.)

So, are we in exile? This is an interesting question, and the answer is simple: No. We are not in exile—we still live in a right-of-center country. We see this in the discontentment of Americans taking to the streets during the first nine months of the current administration. With Cap and Trade and the Health Care bills going to the Senate, we are witnessing the goals of the Progressive movement coming to fruition—the state control of the individual in every detail of his life. Please understand, this goal has been a well-calculated plan for over eighty years, and we (conservatives) must put a plan in place to return to the promised land of liberty, equality, natural rights, consent of the governed, religious freedom, private property, the rule of law, constitutionalism, self-government, and independence. These are the “ten plagues” that will destroy the Progressive movement and the ten principles that Matthew Spalding has so eloquently expressed in his book, “We Still Hold These Truths: Rediscovering Our Principles, Reclaiming our Future,” a must-read if you are interested in destroying this notion that we are in exile.

So, are we in captivity? This is not as simple of a question to answer because we are free to act on our liberty if we want to, but without the knowledge of the previous mentioned ideals, we are stuck in an Egypt of our own ignorance and on the way to wandering in a wasteland of statism. Our founders made a very bold statement in saying, “We hold these truths to be self-evident.” As a political community we must indeed hold these truths, but those truths were only self-evident at that time due to the culture. They have been forgotten, and we need to teach these truths, and the principles upon which they stand, to each generation to prepare our heirs with the proper arguments and understanding to face the challenges of the day. These truths are not known by intuition, experience, or social experimentation, and they are not merely a result of what we like, but they are known through inference and education. As President Reagan noted, “We didn’t pass it on to our children in the blood stream.” We must learn to argue for these positions, stand on the shoulders of the giants of Western Civilization and realize that this is an ideological battle, age-long, and often agonizing.

So, are we wandering? Yes! We are indeed wandering in the wilderness trying to be everything to everyone. We have been trying to make our tent so big that the tent is collapsing. We are falling into the relativistic thinking of our opponents because we have been unwilling or unable to show how our principles, and the truths upon which they stand, are clear. Recently, the 2008 Republican Party Platform was taken down from the AZ GOP website. Naturally, you must be asking yourself, “Why?” Could it be a broken link, broken thinking, or maybe a broken party? I would suggest that it is broken thinking, and thankfully, it is back up at the GOP website. However, it is still very difficult to find—as if we should be ashamed of our conservative platform. The current administration is doing us a great favor by moving so fast with their progressive platform that it is shaking the ordinary citizenry out of their apathy. It is driving the average person back to these first principles and the truths upon which they stand, and it is creating a desire to understand the American ideal. This momentum—if backed with a concern for our history and heritage and the willingness to do the hard work of overcoming objections—can leave us with hope that our country will improve dramatically.

With a renaissance of conservative thought, the Congress can be taken back in 2010 and the Presidency in 2012, but if we stop there it will not be enough. Just as a person learns to become a carpenter or an engineer, we too need to learn to become citizens and not mere taxpayers.

I still hold these truths—do you? If you say yes, you’d better be ready to give an argument, because traditions change. The internal rules of institutions are not universal, and our country requires a common goal, but truth is clear and can be shown by reason. The truths enumerated in our founding documents are precious and are in need of our care. We have been given a republic if we can keep it, and what was self-evident to our founders is no longer self-evident today.

According to Rasmussen, Sen. John McCain continues to build his lead over JD Hayworth.  Every indication is the only safe choice to oppose Rodney Glassman in November is John McCain.  All polls show a very weak, if any, advantage JD would offer against the top Dem contender. According to Real Clear Politics, the 2 Dem polls are split, with one giving JD a +1 point advantage and the other a Glassman +3 point advantage with JD receiving a weak +5 points in the Hayworth/Glassman match-up when all polls are considered.  While Rasmussen offers JD a +16 point advantage over Glassman it is only at 49% support; in the most encouraging of all reports less than half of voters polled would support Hayworth.  The same Dem polls give Sen. McCain a +13 and +16 point advantage and a combined polling average of an overall +20 points, with the latest Rasmussen putting the Senator at +29 point advantage over Glassman.   

The polls show Sen. John McCain is viewed as the popular candidate by voters as the choice to represent Arizona in the US Senate with JD never able to muster a majority.  With the Hayworth campaign floundering in fundraising and unable to define his previous Congressional record as positive, even if Hayworth could overcome his huge public polling deficit behind McCain and pull out a primary victory, can he raise enough money to overcome his personal reputation/record and Glassman’s personal wealth ? 

Glassman is the son of very wealthy California liberals and closely aligned with Raul Grijalva.

If the name Dennis DeConcini rings a bell…it is the wake-up alert that without a doubt a vote for JD in the primary is too much to risk. 

An online poll posted at a liberal Arizona website is showing John Dougherty the Democratic choice.  I would have posted his own website’s pic of John, but he’s wearing a bit too much eye make-up to be taken seriously.  When combined with the angle and his haircut, the effect is truly studding for a U.S. Senate candidate!  Have a look: http://www.johndougherty2010.com/

 

 

Congressional aide to Congressman Raúl Grijalva now Tucson city councilman, meet 1st Lt Glassman USAFR. Hey, this pic is direct from his website.

 

 

 

We think the Democratic candidate for the AZ U.S. Senate seat (John Dougherty) is the guy in the middle, but we're not sure. This is what happens to old liberal journalistas.

 

 

 

We're sure Parraz is the one in the middle this time. An organizer from the California strawberry fields, Randy is the former director of the Az AFL-CIO

 

 

 

Rodolfo "Rudy" Garcia, a community organizer and advocate of Obama's Change. How's that working out for ya? And yes, a cog in the Grijalva / Pima County culture of corruption.

 

 

We're not sure, but this is either the Cat-in-the-Hat or the JMac secret weapon. Either way, we're sure his political future in Arizona is fully sun baked.

 

 

 

As liberal as Arlan Specter, this old AZ senator has had 22 years to listen to Arizona and DO something about our border!

 

 

Consistantly Conservative and right for Arizona.

 

 

I found this an excellent analysis.  Perhaps you’ll consider exactly who or what is the POTUS … think about it and try to avoid a knee-jerk reaction for 5 minutes.  Thanks.

Article from the Wall Street Journal Forum by Eddie Sessions: 

“I have this theory about Barack Obama. I think he’s led a kind of make-believe life in which money was provided and doors were opened because at some point early on somebody or some group took a look at this tall, good looking, half-white, half-black, young man with an exotic African/Muslim name and concluded he could be guided toward a life in politics where his facile speaking skills could even put him in the White House.

In a very real way, he has been a young man in a very big hurry. Who else do you know has written two memoirs before the age of 45? “Dreams of My Father” was published in 1995 when he was only 34 years old. The “Audacity of Hope” followed in 2006. If, indeed, he did write them himself.

There are some who think that his mentor and friend, Bill Ayers, a man who calls himself is “communist with a small ‘c’” was the real author. His political skills consisted of rarely voting on anything that might be deemed controversial. He went from a legislator in the Illinois legislature to the Senator from that state because he had the good fortune of having Mayor Daley’s formidable political machine at his disposal.

He was in the U.S.. Senate so briefly that his bid for the presidency was either an act of astonishing self-confidence or part of some greater game plan that had been determined before he first stepped foot in the Capital.

How, many must wonder, was he selected to be a 2004 keynote speaker at the Democrat convention that nominated John Kerry when virtually no one had ever even heard of him before?

He outmaneuvered Hillary Clinton in primaries. He took Iowa by storm. A charming young man, an anomaly in the state with a very small black population, he oozed “cool” in a place where agriculture was the anti-thesis of cool. He dazzled the locals. And he had an army of volunteers drawn to a charisma that hid any real substance.

And then he had the great good fortune of having the Republicans select one of the most inept candidates for the presidency since Bob Dole.

And then John McCain did something crazy. He picked Sarah Palin, an unknown female governor from the very distant state of Alaska . It was a ticket that was reminiscent of 1984′s Walter Mondale and Geraldine Ferraro and they went down to defeat.

The mainstream political media fell in love with him. It was a schoolgirl crush with febrile commentators like Chris Mathews swooning then and now over the man. The venom directed against McCain and, in particular, Palin, was extraordinary.

Now, nearly a full year into his first term, all of those gilded years leading up to the White House have left him unprepared to be President. Left to his own instincts, he has a talent for saying the wrong thing at the wrong time.

It swiftly became a joke that he could not deliver even the briefest of statements without the ever-present Tele-Prompters. Far worse, however, is his capacity to want to “wish away” some terrible realities, not the least of which is the Islamist intention to destroy America and enslave the West. Any student of history knows how swiftly Islam initially spread. It knocked on the doors of Europe , having gained a foothold in Spain.

The great crowds that greeted him at home or on his campaign “world tour” were no substitute for having even the slightest grasp of history and the reality of a world filled with really bad people with really bad intentions. Oddly and perhaps even inevitably, his political experience, a cakewalk, has positioned him to destroy the Democrat Party’s hold on power in Congress because in the end it was never about the Party.

It was always about his communist ideology, learned at an early age from family, mentors, college professors, and extreme leftist friends and colleagues. Obama is a man who could deliver a snap judgment about a Boston police officer who arrested an “obstreperous” Harvard professor-friend, but would warn Americans against “jumping to conclusions” about a mass murderer at Fort Hood who shouted “Allahu Akbar.”

The absurdity of that was lost on no one. He has since compounded this by calling the Christmas bomber “an isolated extremist” only to have to admit a day or two later that he was part of an al Qaeda plot. He is a man who could strive to close down our detention facility at Guantanamo even though those released were known to have returned to the battlefield against America .. He could even instruct his Attorney General to afford the perpetrator of 9/11 a civil trial when no one else would ever even consider such an obscenity. And he is a man who could wait three days before having anything to say about the perpetrator of yet another terrorist attack on Americans and then have to elaborate on his remarks the following day because his first statement was so lame.

The pattern repeats itself. He either blames any problem on the Bush administration, or he naively seeks to wish away the truth. Knock, knock. Anyone home? Anyone there? Barack Obama exists only as the sock puppet of his handlers, of the people who have maneuvered and manufactured this pathetic individual’s life. When anyone else would quickly and easily produce a birth certificate, this man has spent over a million dollars to deny access to his. Most other documents, the paper trail we all leave in our wake, have been sequestered from review.

He has lived a make-believe life whose true facts remain hidden. We laugh at the ventriloquist’s dummy, but what do you do when the dummy is President of the United States of America?”

The question then is, who is the “voice” behind the dummy?  Who’s lap is he sitting on?  I can only refer to the Bible on that count, “… by their fruits you shall know them.”

Jesse Kelly

“This morning the British army in Boston…disgracefully quitted all their strongholds in Boston and Charlestown, fled from before the army of the United Colonies, and took refuge on board their ships…The joy of our friends in Boston, on seeing the victorious and gallant troops of their country enter the town almost at the heels of their barbarous oppressors, was inexpressibly great.”

-As reported by an American newspaperman after the first Washington-led, American victory in Boston, 1776.

Just think about what conservatives have accomplished in 2010. Not in my wildest dreams could I have thought that a fiscally conservative candidate could be Massachusetts’ newest senator. Like General Washington’s victory at Dorchester Heights, the war for the future of liberty in America won its first great battle in the Bay State.

Like many of you, I saw the storm clouds gathering for over a year. The previous administration began an attack on our constitution and our free market system through big government conservatism. President Obama continued the assault on our liberties by putting big government into overdrive. Obama, Pelosi, Reid and Giffords all supported nationalizing our industries, taking over our healthcare and strangling us with environmental regulation. The free citizens of Southern Arizona and these United States are saying, “NO MORE!”

Pundits on every cable news channel are likening this year to 1994; however, they are missing the fundamental difference between that year and this: 1994 was a Republican revolution, 2010 is a CONSERVATIVE REVOLUTION.

No sitting congressman or senator is safe this year. Not Harry Reid, not my opponent, Gabrielle Giffords, not John Murtha, not John McCain. Both Republican and Democratic voters are shouting, “This is not about political teams, team elephant or team donkey! This is about limited government, fiscal sanity and free market solutions to our nation’s problems!” It is fundamentally important for incumbents and challengers alike to realize the following fact: if Republicans are conservatives, they will win. If Republicans are merely tax cutters, but have a record of out-of-control spending, they will lose. If Democrats are conservative, they will win. If Democrats vote with Pelosi, they will lose.

The greatness of the conservative revolution of 2010 lies in its ability to act as a driving force for America far longer than its Republican counterpart 15 years prior. The Republican revolution of 1994 was successful in its onset, but failed to be a lasting movement because it was not wholly and completely rooted in conservatism. Identity without ideology is empty, and the longer the Republican Party occupied the seats of power in Congress, the easier it was for them to stagnate and whither from the vine.

In the conservative revolution of 2010, candidates like me see the Republican Party as an organized medium for my actual ideology, conservatism. Where some want to label Republicans as “the party of no,” conservatives will always be full of pragmatic, new ideas, rooted in the first principles of the Founders. While Republican values are malleable and ill-defined, conservative values are fixed, well reasoned, and applicable to everything from political theory to everyday living.

As a conservative and as republican, I announced my candidacy in early 2009 because I saw the revolution ahead of us could not only be victorious, but also glorious. In my race, in Arizona’s 8th congressional district, I am battling against a big government Republican in the primary and a big government Democrat in the general. It’s time to open up the western front in the conservative revolution of 2010.

Jesse Kelly
Congressional Candidate
Arizona’s 8th District

It is very easy to armchair quarterback, nit-pick and manipulate a story, then package your message to be appealing.  Anyone can sound good when they pick and choose the topics, script the dialogue, and set their own stage.   It is far more difficult to actually be “the guy”, no choices about who, what, when, or where…you must take on all comers.  Exposure comes when you must deal with real issues and make hard choices that will be subject to criticism by those who have no idea the effort involved or the sacrifice paid and won’t be held accountable for their opinions even when they are promoted as fact.

 This famous speech captures the sentiment well:

 It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

– Theodore Roosevelt, “Citizenship in a Republic: The Man in the Arena” Speech at the Sorbonne, Paris, France – April 23, 1910

John McCain is not perfect nor has he had a perfect career.  That is what is so hard about being human, none of us are.  But, he is the current voice of strength for conservative ideals in the Senate.  Scott Brown made that very clear last week when he singled out Senator John McCain in his acceptance speech.  I find it funny how appreciative conservatives where when they thought his relationship with Lieberman could be used to our benefit, but how quickly some turned it into a sign of defection when it suits a negative attack.   Sarah Palin is everyone’s darling based on her vision and beliefs, unless of course she would dare suggest she supports John McCain’s re-election.  She is either flawed or foolish…but she cannot be right?  

I do not believe this is the time for our energies to be spent on electing a different Republican when we have so much opportunity to elect NEW Republicans in Dem held seats.  I am not dissuaded with the twisted tales, selective snippets, or outright personal attacks.  Do I agree with everything he has ever done or said?  NO.  Is John McCain a bullheaded, hard-nosed, my way or the highway guy?  Probably.  Does he play hardball and expect you to be ready for it or get out of his way?  I think so.  Could it be those very attributes have uniquely placed for the time we are in to be a stalwart of Republican domination of the Democratic efforts?  Definitely!

The insurgency against “fundamentally changing America” has begun!

With the victory tonight in Massachusetts, the “Progressive’s” effort to “fundamentally” socialize America has been derailed!

Democrats (and even incumbents) across the country need to be very afraid as conservatives and independent voters who are now leaning right of center, are out for “political blood.”

Here in Arizona, even our own incumbent Republicans should not take it for granted that they are in good favor with the voters. Governor Brewer should expect to face an extremely difficult primary by challenger John Munger and man on a mission, Dean Martin, who has been warning for over a year of the impending Arizona budget doom.

Democrats in supposedly “safe” districts should now take heed as insurgent-backed conservative candidates like Ruth McClung and Janet Contreras wage ground-level campaigns against incumbents, ultra-liberal Raul Grijalva, and deeply submerged, Ed Pastor. The best and most tangible consequence of the Massachusetts miracle would be for both these women to receive the full-fledged support of tea party activists and anyone intolerable of the status quo.

Kirkpatrick, Mitchell and Giffords can also expect the same type of beating from whoever wins the GOP primaries in their districts.

If fiction can become cold hard reality in a place like Massachusetts – the bluest of blue states in the union – it can even happen in Arizona’s purple districts.

Finally, Senator McCain should not take it for granted that “this is his time” despite his best efforts to give the perception he is leading the charge. This is no longer his battle. This is the people’s battle now – those who have tirelessly worked, protested and waited for battleground days as today. The people want fresher angrier people from among their midst to wage this war of ideas. Old warriors step aside. New warriors have arrived and it is their time.

Stunning essay by Pat Buchanan on WorldNet Daily today entitled, “Is America’s financial collapse inevitable?”

But if taxes are off the table, Afghan war costs are inexorably rising and cuts in Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and entitlement programs are politically impossible, as pressure builds for a second stimulus, how does one reduce a deficit of $1.4 trillion?

How does one stop the exploding national debt from surging above 100 percent of GDP?

America is the oldest and greatest constitutional republic, the model for all the others. But if our elected politicians are incapable of imposing the sacrifices needed to pull the nation back from the brink of a devaluation or default, is democratic capitalism truly, as Francis Fukuyama told us just two decades ago, the future of mankind?

What the looming fiscal crisis of this country portends is nothing less than a test of whether this democratic republic is sustainable.

Buchanan paints a devastatingly bleak outcome for these United States which makes me wonder if it does indeed happen, won’t those in control ultimately get to rebuild the Constitutional Republic or Socialist State as they deem fit?

Call me a natural born pessimist but I cannot see any light at the end of this economic tunnel other than November 4th, 2010.

Emil FranziBy Emil Franzi, Special to The Explorer

I do not “blog,” although I post on some. I dislike the format because it allows for anonymity, which I don’t hide behind on my own posts. You want to run off at the pen, have the guts to tell me who you really are like I tell you.

Something we who do talk radio learn quickly is to dump the dumb caller as rapidly as possible. Allowing some yahoo to rant is an invitation to station change.

The late Marshall Fritz, well known in libertarian and educational freedom circles, once explained to me a principle from Little League coaching he called “Gresham’s Law of People.” Taken from the economic principle that bad money drives out good, he believed that loud-mouthed jerks drove away good folks and should be purged early and often for the health of any organization.

Newspaper editors have discretion when it comes to letters to the editor, which must be signed hopefully by a real person or even the person who actually wrote them. Some blogs are policed better than others. But the amount of illiterate drivel allowed to pass from left, right and ignorant center is still appalling.

I find many right-wing posters to be embarrassments, not for me personally or my philosophy, but for themselves. Hyper-active newbies always emerge whenever there is any kind of popular awakening, from opposing the Viet Nam War in the ’60s to opposing the Obama leftist agenda now.

California conservatives had a name for the worst of this category in the early ’60s – one-book Birchers. They read “I Saw Poland Betrayed.” Actually, they got up to page 23. It took three days. They found out there were communists and that was enough. They usually didn’t stay active long. This was pre-blog or they would’ve hung around longer.

There are left-wing equivalents, but they’re not my problem. You know who they are. Some of them on both sides are decent folks who just don’t know any better. My job is to help clean up my own. Best way to do that is to clarify the most commonly abused terminology.

• RINO, or Republican in Name Only. A simple measurement separates them from liberal Republicans. RINOS are Republicans like Tucson Mayor Bob Walkup, who are not only liberals but don’t support other Republicans in general elections. Except for the Mecham recall in 1988, Sen. McCain hasn’t publicly dumped on other GOP nominees. He’s not a RINO and is too inconsistent to qualify as a liberal. I think CINO probably fits him best.

Conservatives and particularly conservative Republicans must learn these distinctions. Mayor Guliani is not a conservative, but supports the ticket. Mayor Bloomberg is a Republican out of convenience only and doesn’t. Real RINOS were the GOP officials who walked on Barry Goldwater in 1964. Those like Oregon’s Mark Hatfield who didn’t deserve consideration for playing by the rules.

• Conservative. There’s broad philosophical diversity in the movement which includes some libertarians. There are libertarians who don’t consider themselves conservatives, and conservatives who agree. Before you decide to yell sell-out or RINO, please note the lack of conservative consensus on immigration, fair tax, term limits, the Afghan war, and the foreign policy diversity you get from Ron Paul and Pat Buchanan. Both qualifed as RINOs for having once run on another party’s ticket. Republicans holding party roles talking third party also qualify.

• Socialist. Has specific meanings and, like conservative, is highly diverse. Marxist? Positivist? Fabian? National? Fascist? Hint: It was not socialized medicine when the Roman Army sent early medics along with each Legion. Learn to focus.

There’s more. Hopefully there are some folks I have thoroughly offended. I can only hope those wishing to berate me will use their real names.

Hear Emil Franzi and Tom Danehy Saturdays 1-4 p.m. on KVOI 1030AM.

There’s a film clip circulating on the Internet featuring what is obviously a legislative body in session.

A member is making a speech from the podium while other members can be seen in various frivolous poses, including playing video games on their desktops. It is being used to encourage term limits for Congress.

Only the legislative body pictured is the California Assembly, which has been term-limited for 20 years. It doesn’t work.

One of the great by-products of federalism is the ability it gives states to find out how well certain things will work – or not. States like Arizona having term limits aren’t governed any better than those that don’t.

One problem with term limit proponents is their belief that the Founding Fathers wanted everybody to just serve for a bit and go home. I devoted an entire column recently to listing all the major figures in our nation’s birth, and noting how from Sam Adams to James Monroe they all spent considerable time in various public offices, both appointive and elective, and we should be grateful to them for that.

The short-term service argument is a myth. What matters is the ability and quality of the character of those we choose.

One thing has changed in the last 200 years, and term limit supporters would be wise to notice – and propose remedies – for it. We allowed the terms of office to be lengthened to the degree that too many public officials are far less reachable.

Patrick Henry served seven terms as Governor of Virginia, John Hancock six as Governor of Massachusetts. Those were one-year terms. Most local and state officials had one-year terms well into the 19th Century.

Debates over ratification of the original constitution focused not on term limits but on term length. Many complaints were made about allowing members of the U.S. House to serve for two full years.

The idea of representatives as policy makers as opposed to actual representatives became popular with academics and among the original Progressives towards the end of the 19th Century, when terms of office began to be extended. The argument given was “we don’t want our representatives to be constantly campaigning.”

Translation – we don’t want them going back to the folks who elect them to discover the ideas we’re selling them on really suck. We need to isolate them from their constituents for as long as possible to get all this unpopular crap passed.

Two-year terms for governors and others became common at the beginning of this century, driven by a coalition of policy wonks and politicians who wanted less supervision. That has now been extended almost everywhere to four-year terms. The group of elitists centering around former Justice Sandra Day O’Connor is pushing it for legislators.

One unintended consequence of the four-year term in Arizona has been the incredible growth in recalls, particularly in local governments like town councils and school boards where the jurisdictions are still small enough to be handled by citizen rebellion. It would make more sense to simply put the terms back to two years.

It would also make sense to reduce terms for all state and county officials as well as city councils and school boards. One can directly chart the growth of government at all levels to the growth in the length of terms for those who did the growing.

One additional advantage is that off-year and local elections are great message senders to those holding power. Having them twice as often would greatly enhance that communications device and give us less reliance on guys like Rasmussen and Zogby for national trends.

Hear Emil Franzi and Tom Danehy Saturdays 1-4 p.m. on KVOI 1030AM.

This in today.  There is to be a conference call in which the doctrine outlined in the Victory Plan Draf will be ratified.  This appears to be being done outside of AzGOP State Mandatory Meeting slated for next month.  Now who could be behind this nefarious plot?  Hmm… maybe the man who brought us President Obama by not waging campaign 2008 with the vigor he should have.  Thank him for the current POTUS.  Oh, and they’re doing it on the eve of the New Years Holiday so you will be otherwise distracted and wake up with this hangover come January 2, 2010.  Flush the John!

Attention Big Game Hunters - Target Sighed

Attention Big Game Hunters - Target Sighed

I have read the many concerns about the Arizona 2010 Victory Plan Draft.  I agree with all of them.  However, the most egregious part of the plan to me is the third bullet under overview and goals.  “Reelecting all current federal office holders”  The special deal “earmark” for federal office holders is a prime example of why the American voter rates the Congress , both Republican and Democrats, so poorly.  The hubris in the directive that we reelect all current federal office holders is unfathomable and hypocritical.  The back-up for it, “popularity of our incumbents” is just down right  untruthful.
Have the Stakeholders not read the polls indicating how out-of-touch with the Republican base the Republican voter believes our federal representatives are?   In essence, the stakeholders are telling us they have done away with the primary elections for our federal incumbents.   They believe the governor should go through a primary but not our special privileged federal office holders.   I know Campaign Finance Reform was an incumbent protection act, but I had no idea it would be taken to this length.
The Stakeholders like to proclaim that the Republican Party is a bottom-up organization.  This plan proves otherwise.  The Stakeholders have become like the Congressional Democrats they complain about who abuse their political power.
Rob Haney
Chairman
Maricopa County Republican Committee

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