The New Obamamobile

NOW THAT PRESIDENT OBAMA has taken over GM, the new Government Motors is pleased to unveil the new 2010 Obamamobile:

Features:


This car runs on hot air and broken promises. It has three wheels that speed the vehicle through tight left turns. It comes complete with two teleprompters programmed to help the occupants talk their way out of any violations. The transparent canopy reveals the plastic smiles still on the faces of all the "happy" Democratic owners.

Vote your conscience

AS I WRITE THIS there are only five days left before we must make a choice in what some are calling the most critical election in our lifetime. A Catholic organization produced the following video that I believe reflects the values of all people of faith, regardless of their religion. Please, before you vote, take three and one half minutes out of your life to watch and listen to this:

All hail our Lord and Messiah Barack Hussein Obama, President of the Socialist States of America!

Thanks to the Glenn Beck Show!

Knights of Columbus to Sen. Biden: You don't know what you are talking about

September 19, 2008

Dear Senator Biden:

I write to you today as a fellow Catholic layman, on a subject that has become a major topic of concern in this year’s presidential campaign.

The bishops who have taken public issue with your remarks on the Church’s historical position on abortion are far from alone. Senator Obama stressed your Catholic identity repeatedly when he introduced you as his running mate, and so your statements carry considerable weight, whether they are correct or not. You now have a unique responsibility when you make public statements about Catholic teaching.

On NBC’s Meet the Press, you appealed to the 13th Century writings of St. Thomas Aquinas to cast doubt on the consistent teaching of the Catholic Church on abortion.

There are several problems with this.

First, Aquinas obviously had only a medieval understanding of biology, and thus could only speculate about how an unborn child develops in the womb. I doubt that there is any other area of public policy where you would appeal to a 13th Century knowledge of biology as the basis for modern law.

Second, Aquinas’ theological view is in any case entirely consistent with the long history of Catholic Church teaching in this area, holding that abortion is a grave sin to be avoided at any time during pregnancy.

This teaching dates all the way back to the Didache, written in the second century. It is found in the writings of Tertullian, Jerome, Augustine and Aquinas, and was reaffirmed by the Second Vatican Council, which described abortion as "an unspeakable crime" and held that the right to life must be protected from the "moment of conception." This consistent teaching was restated most recently last
month in the response of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops to remarks by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Statements that suggest that our Church has anything less than a consistent teaching on abortion are not merely incorrect; they may lead Catholic women facing crisis pregnancies to misunderstand the moral gravity of an abortion decision.

Neither should a discussion about a medieval understanding of the first few days or weeks of life be allowed to draw attention away from the remaining portion of an unborn child's life. In those months, even ancient and medieval doctors agreed that a child is developing in the womb.

And as you are well aware, Roe v. Wade allows for abortion at any point during a pregnancy. While you voted for the ban on partial birth abortions, your unconditional support for Roe is a de facto endorsement of permitting all other late term abortions, and thus calls into question your appeal to Aquinas.

I recognize that you struggle with your conscience on the issue, and have said that you accept the Church’s teaching that life begins at conception – as a matter of faith. But modern medical science leaves no doubt about the fact that each person's life begins at conception. It is not a matter of personal religious belief, but of science.

Finally, your unwillingness to bring your Catholic moral views into the public policy arena on this issue alone is troubling.

There were several remarkable ironies in your first appearance as Senator Obama’s running mate on the steps of the old state capitol in Springfield, Illinois.

His selection as the first black American to be the nominee of a major party for president of the United States owes an incalculable debt to two movements that were led by people whose religious convictions motivated them to confront the moral evils of their day – the abolitionist movement of the 19th Century, and the civil rights movement of the 20th Century.

Your rally in Springfield took place just a mile or so from the tomb of Abraham Lincoln, who in April 1859 wrote these words in a letter to Henry Pierce:

“This is a world of compensations; and he who would be no slave, must consent to have no slave. Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves; and, under a just God, cannot long retain it.”

Lincoln fought slavery in the name of “a just God” without embarrassment or apology. He confronted an America in which black Americans were not considered “persons” under the law, and were thus not entitled to fundamental Constitutional rights. Today, children of all races who are fully viable and only minutes from being born are also denied recognition as “persons” because of the Roe v. Wade regime that you so strongly support. Lincoln’s reasoning regarding slavery applies with equal force to children who are minutes, hours or days away from birth.

The American founders began our great national quest for liberty by declaring that we are all “created equal.” It took nearly a century to transform that bold statement into the letter of the law, and another century still to make it a reality. The founders believed that we are “endowed by [our] Creator with certain unalienable rights,” and that first among these is “life.”

You have a choice: you can listen to your conscience and work to secure the rights of the unborn to share in the fruits of our hard-won liberty, or you can choose to turn your back on them.

On behalf of the 1.28 million members of the Knights of Columbus and their families in the United States, I appeal to you, as a Catholic who acknowledges that life begins at conception, to resolve to protect this unalienable right. I would welcome the opportunity to discuss these issues personally with you in greater detail during the weeks between now and November 4.

Respectfully,
Carl A. Anderson
Supreme Knight

Sarah Palin: Straight Talk Express Co-pilot

"We knew through early testing he would face special challenges, and we feel privileged that God would entrust us with this gift and allow us unspeakable joy as he entered our lives. We have faith that every baby is created for good purpose and has potential to make this world a better place. We are truly blessed."

Alaska Governor Sarah Palin the day

after giving birth to a Down syndrome child.

* * *

The Straight Talk Express now has a co-pilot: Sarah Palin, conservative, pro-life, 44 year-old first-term governor of Alaska. Like John McCain, Palin has a reputation of being a maverick herself; running on an ethics platform, she defeated incumbent Governor Frank Murkowski in the 2006 GOP Republican primary than went on to top former Democratic Governor Tony Knowles in the general election.

She was nicknamed “Sarah Barracuda” during her high school years because of her intense play while she was captain of her high school basketball team. The team won the state championship when she hit a late free throw. She has a degree in journalism from the University of Idaho then worked as a sports reporter for an Alaskan television station and was runner-up in the 1984 Miss Alaska contest.

Her husband, Todd, is a commercial fisherman. She and Todd have five children, two sons and three daughters. Her eldest, Track, is an infantryman scheduled to be deployed to Iraq next month. She is serving her first term as governor and is the former mayor of her hometown, Wasilla.

Hussein who?

SEN. JOHN McCAIN TOOK THE HIGH ROAD after one of his supporters disparagingly emphasized Barack Obama’s middle name, Hussein, during an Ohio campaign rally. Sen. Obama was named for his late father, Barack Hussein Obama, Sr., a Kenyan.

Radio talk show host Bill Cunningham repeatedly used “Hussein” in reference to the Democratic front-runner. The implied suggestion is that Sen. Obama is some kind of closet Muslim, or should be identified with Saddam Hussein. Unfortunately, there are some on the right who are now criticizing McCain for his apology.

Here is what Sen. McCain said: “I have repeatedly stated my respect for Senator Obama and Senator Clinton; I will treat them with respect. I will call them ‘senator.’ We will have a respectful debate, as I have said on hundreds of occasions. I regret any comments that may have been made about these two individuals who are honorable Americans.”

The election of a president is too serious to rest on name calling. The process should be respectful and dignified, and fought on the issues, as Sen. McCain has said.

Besides, there is more to criticize Sen. Obama for than his name. The American Civil Liberties Union gives him an 82% rating on its congressional scorecard, the second highest in the senate. Compare that to Sen. Hillary Clinton who only rates 67%. In that 82% there should be enough fodder to take down Sen. Obama, whatever his middle name happens to be.

So Obama wanted to starve Terri . . .

TWO YEARS AGO I WAS appointed to represent a 42 year old black woman, severely retarded from birth, who was blind and deaf. She was kept alive with a feeding tube. The Iowa Department of Human Services wanted court permission to disconnect the tube. I visited the women at her bedside and interviewed the floor nurses in her ward. I filed an objection to the proposed action and during the court hearing the DHS representative, in answer to one of my questions, admitted that if the tube was withdrawn the woman would starve to death.

Fortunately, I won the case and the judge ordered the feeding tube to remain in place. Shortly afterwards I had a very pleasant phone call from Bobby Schindler, Terri Schiavo’s brother.

I was floored last evening when Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama suggested that he should have tried to block congress when it authorized federal jurisdiction for Terri’s case. Of course, from a candidate and a party that supports the infanticide under the euphemism of a “woman’s right to chose,” that should not have been a surprise.

Read the story here.

Presidential first: Two Senators will face-off

MITT ROMNEY’S DEPARTURE FROM THE PRESIDENTIAL race presents an interesting historical first. Sen. John McCain will now become the Republican presidential nominee and will face either Sen. Hillary Clinton or Sen. Barack Obama in the general election.

This will be a historical first; two sitting senators will face each other in the presidential race.

My political science students are always surprised to learn that presidents don’t usually come from the senate. Governors and military men have been elected more often. In fact, only two sitting senators have been elected president: Warren G. Harding in 1920 and John F. Kennedy in 1960.* Harding’s opponent was Ohio Gov. James Cox (Franklin D. Roosevelt was his vice presidential running mate) and Kennedy’s opponent was Vice President Richard Nixon.

Immediately before they became president: William McKinley was governor of Ohio; Theodore Roosevelt was vice president; William Howard Taft was in the cabinet; Woodrow Wilson was governor of New Jersey; Harding was senator from Ohio; Calvin Coolidge was vice president; Herbert Hoover was in the cabinet; F. D. Roosevelt was governor of New York; Harry Truman was vice president; Dwight Eisenhower was former military; Kennedy was senator from Massachusetts; Lyndon Johnson was vice president; Nixon was a former vice president; Jimmy Carter was former governor of Georgia; Ronald Regan was former governor of California; the first Bush was vice president; Bill Clinton was governor of Arkansas, and the second Bush was governor of Texas.

That lists goes back to the 1896 election. You can follow the line of presidents back to George Washington and you’ll see the same pattern. Just an interesting bit of trivia you can throw into you next bar-stool conversation.

*Ironically, neither lived out his first term; Harding died in San Francisco in August of 1923 and Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas in November of 1963.

The Great Endorsement Game

I THINK IT STARTED WITH OPRAH. Then it was Shawn endorsing Rudy, though Rudy has endorsed McCain and so has the Governator, but Rush isn’t endorsing anyone. Teddy is supporting Obama and so is John’s girl, but Bobby’s kids are for Hillary. Edwards is out and not saying, and nobody is for poor Romney.

Got it? Well, in case you missed it, those weren’t the biggest endorsements of the year. What were? None other than Sylvester Stallone for McCain and Chuck Norris for Huckabee.

Now as the tea leaves start to point to a possible McCain-Huckabee ticket (Mac and Mike – how’s that for a bumper sticker?) I can just picture the closing session of the Republican National Convention. You know the shot, as the balloons and confetti drop the presidential and vice presidential nominees clench their hands in the air in a victory pose for their partisan supporters.

But this year, behind the candidates, not quite out of their shadows might be Sly and Chuck, also clenching their hands and posing for the crowd. Think of it: Rambo and Texas Ranger, together at last!

All you al Qaeda guys and border jumpers, you have been warned!

Was Hillary the Big Winner in South Carolina?

WHEN BARACK OBAMA WON THE CAUCUSES here in lily-white Iowa it was because he was a presidential candidate who only happened to be black. Now, thanks to the Clinton “win at any cost” political machine, Obama is the black candidate for president; this despite his huge win in the South Carolina primary.

After years playing the race card to demonize Republicans, Democrats are now playing the race card on each other; or perhaps to put it more fairly, the Clintons have now used the race card to tag Obama in a sorry attempt to diminish the importance of his victory. I have to admit my bias: I have never liked Hillary Clinton, that said, her racial smear of Obama has to be the low point of an already very low career.

Simply put, Bill and Hillary have shown to their fellow Democrats what many of us on the other side of the aisle knew all along: That they are only out for themselves and will do anything to win; ethics and morality be dammed!

In the short run it might work, delivering the white primary vote to Hillary. But in the long run it could cost the Democrats. How many new, excited faces that are joining the Obama campaign will sit out the general election if Hillary’s racial pitch carries her to the Democratic nomination?

I teach political science. Last year I told my students that 2008 was colored blue and riding in on a donkey. But, I warned them to never underestimate the ability of Democrats to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. How ironic it would be if that defeat came because of a racial backlash.

An Insider’s Look at The January 3 Iowa Caucuses

AS I DRIVE THROUGH THE STREETS OF DES MOINES it is hard to miss the campaign buses and network news vans that are covering the campaign for the Iowa Caucuses. Unfortunately, outside of Iowa not too many people understand what a political caucus is or how it works. So here is a quick primer on the caucuses adapted from a column I wrote for The Wanderer:

First, a caucus is simply a precinct meeting where party members do more than pick a candidate. They also select delegates to county conventions, who will in turn select delegates to go on to district, state, and national conventions. They will also discuss items for inclusion into the party’s platform and will elect precinct committee people who will organize the local party infrastructure.

Second, in some areas up to 200 plus people will attend a single precinct caucus. Anyone who will be 18 by Election Day 2008 may participate and you can go to either party’s precinct caucus by simply claiming to be a member of that party.

Third, and most important, as far as presidential preferences go the Democrats and the Republicans conduct their caucuses very differently.

In the Republican caucus, each participant is given a piece of paper and told to write down his presidential favorite. Those ballots are counted and the results called into to county and state headquarters where the totals are added together to produce the resulting state-wide totals. In many respects it is similar to a primary election held within the caucus meeting. Republicans then go about their other business without regard to presidential preferences.

Democrats, on the other hand, tie their delegate selection process to presidential preferences. Thus, Democrat caucus attendees will be asked to divide into presidential preference groups. Any candidate with 15% of the caucus attendees is considered viable and that group will be allowed to elect a proportion of the precinct’s delegates to the county convention. Any candidate group with less than 15% is considered non-viable and will not be allowed to elect a delegate. However, those attendees will be given the opportunity to re-group.

During the re-grouping, minor candidates can join together to produce an uncommitted group which, upon reaching the 15% threshold, could elect a delegate, or they can join with another candidate to augment that candidate’s strength. So for the Democrats, the attendee’s second choice can be as important – and sometimes more important – than his first.

The differences between the parties can also impact the results in other ways, too. For example, since Democrats divide pre-determined numbers of delegates by presidential strength, a candidate who can attract an additional 100 voters in one precinct will not be as competitive as another candidate who can attract 20 additional voters to five separate precincts. The effect is much like the Electoral College where the winning candidate needs to have his support spread throughout many states rather than concentrated in only a few.

This presents a problem for candidates who courted the college vote. Since most college students live in precincts surrounding dorms and off-campus housing, they could affect only a small number of delegate races without upsetting delegate selections in the vast majority of precincts. A big win in one precinct will only shift the delegate count in that precinct. Since the results are reported by delegate count only, the student effect state-wide could be limited.

Republican students, on the other hand, will have their strength added to the party’s state-wide totals. Therefore, no matter what their numbers – big or small, concentrated in one area or not – their numbers will be reflected in the final results.

So a little strategy: Like any election, this is a numbers game and you need to produce the numbers to have any hope of winning. Thus a good organization that can identify and turn out your supporters is a must.

For Democrat candidates, however, you must be concerned with second choices. If, for example, you are supporting a candidate who may not have enough participants to form a viable group, where do you go?

Four years ago former Sen. John Edwards (D-NC) cut a deal with the supporters of Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) to support one another in precincts where one was not viable. The deal worked to Edwards’ advantage who used Kucinich’s support to take second place.

This year those second and third tier candidates will not want their supporters going to either Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) or Sen. Barrack Obama (D-Ill), since a good Iowa finish could propel either to other early victories and a quick wrap of the nomination. So it might make sense for them to urge their supporters to go to Edwards. He has the poll numbers in Iowa to put him in a position to win, but he doesn’t appear to be a threat anywhere else. Thus, he could be useful as a way to stop Obama from catching fire and to tarnish the image of Hillary’s inevitability.

The Republicans just need to turn out their supporters; they have no problems with second choices. However, there is a bit of strategy here, too. Social conservatives and Evangelicals who make up about a third of the Iowa party base are rallying around former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee. Huckabee’s rise seems to be the result of several factors, not the least of which is the unimpressive showing of the great conservative hope, former Sen. Fred Thompson (R-Tenn.).

Huckabee’s tortoise-like rise in the polls, from the low single digits in early summer, to now besting the long-time Iowa frontrunner, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, plays into the hands of former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Sen. John McCain (R-Arz.). Romney’s strategy was to win Iowa and New Hampshire, the two early contests, to create his own image of inevitability and to off-set an expected loss in South Carolina where his Mormon faith is suspect. To affect that, he has spent a fortune in advertising, built the best organization, and took a commanding lead in the early polls.

Huckabee’s rise has given added hope to Giuliani and McCain. They have more-or-less abandoned Iowa, hoping for a Huckabee victory and waiting to take on a damaged Romney in New Hampshire where both have the funds to compete, unlike Huckabee who has only a shoe-string budget and can be expected to run out of money.

Predictions mean nothing in this game, but if my analysis is correct, look for Democrat Edwards to be the recipient of a lot of second choice votes. On the Republican side, look for a contest between the plodding tortoise and the hare’s organization; my guess is the tortoise, by a hair.

Brownback’s Ticket Home; Huckabee’s Ticket Up

KANSAS SENATOR SAM BROWNBACK’S anticipated withdrawal from the GOP presidential race may give former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee a first-class ticket out of Iowa on caucus night.

I have opined before that conservatives and evangelicals were starting to coalesce behind Huckabee. This became evident after his surprising second-place finish at the Iowa Republican straw poll in Ames earlier this year. It became even more obvious as his strong debate performances started pushing up his poll numbers. And the good news for the Huckabee camp kept coming: this week two major polls put him in the Iowa top three.

Senator Brownback – a Catholic convert – had been the other logical choice for evangelical conservatives, receiving a lot of attention from the right-to-life folks who will show up on caucus night. His departure leaves Huckabee – an ordained Baptist minister – their obvious next choice.

While it is too early for the Huckabee people to start whistling “Hail to the Chief,” the thought of a “President Mike” doesn’t sound too bad, does it?