Why Can't the GOP Raise Money?

Was reading today about the fact that the Democrats have been beating the Republicans in fundraising by about 2 to 1. Obviously, they are very happy about that, and believe it further proves that they will own all branches of government after next year's elections.

At the same time, I've been reading about the reasons behind the dismal fundraising efforts by the GOP. Those reasons suggest something much deeper than apathy or general frustration with the party. Instead, they loudly and consistently demonstrate that the conservative base is sick of electing Republicans who go to Washington on promises to govern according to conservative principles, then suddenly do an about-face and govern like drunken (or drugged-out) Democrats.

Failing to enforce the borders in the face of real terrorist threats, then trying to push through a Democrat-written amnesty bill makes most conservatives absolutely livid. Just ask John McCain, who thought he would be a front-runner in the 2008 presidential campaign.

Giving great speeches about low taxes and less government and responsible spending, then going wild with secret earmarks in every budget bill drives everybody crazy - even those who support Democrats.

Instead of going to war in Iraq with a purpose to oust Saddam and help democratize the country and wipe out Al Quaeda and all other opposition, all of a sudden our president and his cabinet get soft and execute a John Kerry-like "sensitive" war. Oh my, we shouldn't shoot back at insurgents shooting at us from their mosques. Let's not anger Dems by prosecuting their traitors in the congress and CIA who routinely leak classified national secrets to the press. When they accuse the President of all manner of lies and corruption in the Iraq war effort, there's no strong response or fighting back, but just a turn of the other cheek.

Bush tries to make nice with those Democrats that have hated his guts ever since he "stole" the election by letting Ted Kennedy write the "No Child Left Behind" bill. He also worked with Ted and the gang on Medicare Prescription Drugs. Both nothing but failed boondoggles that did little more than siphon off more taxpayer dollars to line pockets of the undeserving. And such bipartisan cooperation got Bush not a single shred of respect or appreciation from the Democrats, who if anything increased their vitriol against everything he says or does, even making up nasty accusations when they could get away with it.

The only way the GOP can excite their base again is for new blood to step up and address these frustrations with specific messages about how things will be different in the new administration. The presidential candidate that can reach the masses with the strongest, most logical, and best message on cleaning up the party and Washington can and will win.

Unfortunately, we don't know who that candidate is yet. Maybe there isn't one. The alternative is Hillary. Say hello to the final slide into European-style socialism, beginning in 2009. Right now it looks inevitable.

Are Both Sides Equally Guilty?

Those who want to present a reasonable or moderate stance on politics typically will suggest that both political parties are guilty when discussing the latest stupidity or outrage in DC.

Lately that argument doesn't seem to work. Lately it seems the Dems are stepping in it almost daily. The sad part is that they don't seem to be smart enough to recognize the fact.

Last week they went way over the line in the House by stealing a vote. The vote to shut down an effort by Democrats to stick an amendment into an energy bill that provided for benefits to illegals was gaveled closed by the Democratic chair with about a two vote victory for the opposition. Realizing their mistake, the Dems tried to pretend the vote wasn't closed. They twisted some arms among their party members to make them change their votes, and suddenly seemed to turn a 2-vote defeat to a 2-vote victory. Republicans walked out in protest.

They seem to have proceeded to falsify the record after the fact. Pretty outrageous, it seems to me. Especially given the subject matter.

Obama has been forced to begin making policy statements, because up to now he's just been an empty suit spouting platitudes. Now that he's talking policy, he has exposed himself as a bit of a lightweight. He gave Hillary a great opening by promising to meet with rogue dictators without precondition, to which Hillary responded with the obvious observation that he's naieve. She was being nice.

Then he said he would invade Pakistan to root out Al Quaeda if he got solid evidence they are there. Whether or not that's a good idea, it's just plain stupid for a Presidential candidate to say it out loud. Again, naieve is the nicest thing you could say about him.

Then there's Hillary, who sent some sort of politically-motivated letter asking for an Iraq withdrawal plan. She got a response from some underling that said it encouraged the enemy to make political statements about withdrawal, so she figured she could make hay for her campaign out of that response. The boss of the respondent tried to soften the message, but Dick Cheney went on TV and said, yes, it is helpful to the enemy when Democrats talk incessantly of withdrawal.

When is the truth an outrage? When it runs counter to the Democrat agenda, it seems. Speaking of naieve Democrat presidential candidates, aren't they all naieve in their belief that abandonment of Iraq at this stage would result in anything other than complete disaster? If Dems want to truly solve the problem and still stay true to their core beliefs, wouldn't it make more sense for their presidential candidate to run on the platform of bringing UN Peacekeepers into Iraq gradually to allow the US to draw down gradually? Strange we're not hearing that plan from any of them.

Speaking of empty suits, why does John Edwards get any attention or support at all? His demand that everybody give back any money they got from Rupert Murdoch, as if they wouldn't know about his million dollar book deal with a Murdoch company, was jaw-droppingly stupid.

Unfortunately, it is somewhere between disappointing and frightening that Edwards has so many apparently equally jaw-droppingly stupid supporters.

I'm in search of a candidate with a brain. Too bad they are in such short supply these days, but I suppose they are just representative of the population in general.

When is it a lie

Sometimes I take a look at left-wing sites to see what they're up to. When I first did so, it was out of the desire to understand a point of view generally contrary to my own. Or see if there might be facts I had missed in forming my personal opinions on issues.

Taking another look today hasn't changed anything. The left-wing sites still prefer hyperbole over substance, feelings over facts, and an amazing prejudice against all things conservative.

Some examples:

The left is into Global Warming. Big Time. Al Gore is their hero.

They still believe some sort of conservative conspiracy culminating at the Supreme Court subverted the Florida results to steal the Presidency for Bush. I think this is at the core of what seems to be an irrational hatred on their part for GWB. Even to the extent many of them believe the same conspiracy re-elected him in 2004. It seems they would be OK with Hillary or Barack, but their dream candidate for next year is Big Al.

The emotional Global Warming argument is roughly that we need to "do something" immediately or face global catastrophe. Of course, for them the argument is settled: Global Warming is real and it is caused by humans. Scientists who question their alarming predictions are vilified as incompetents or hacks hired by the oil industry.

They are also into conspiracy theories about Bush and Company. It's mind-boggling. Forget the old news - Iraq was about enriching Cheney and Halliburton, 9/11 was an inside job, Katrina was a global warming related catastrophe that the Bushies either allowed or helped destroy New Orleans. Even before the story of the bridge collapse yesterday in Minnesota was written, the unhinged lefties were eagerly crafting new conspiracy theories blaming that on Bush.

Looking for rational debate on the issues of our times, I have been sorely disappointed. One item I read was a diatribe against Rush Limbaugh, for example. The premise of the item was that Limbaugh's such a huge liar. So I decided, OK, tell me what lies he is telling.

Strangely, most of their examples went back to his books, which came out back in the early 90's. I couldn't even find an example of something he said recently that they wanted to refute. Even with the old items from his books, they would print a phrase they wanted to refute. Most of those were about old environmental comments attributed to Rush, which they labeled lies and used as their "proof" a quote from some scientist they like. Rush cited scientists for his comments in many cases, so the accuser would dismiss his scientist as incompetent or irrelevant or associated with some right-wing advocacy group.

That got me thinking, so any scientist expressing skepticism about the popular belief in man-made global warming is incompetent or paid for by the right, does that mean that all scientists supporting the global warming belief are completely neutral politically and affiliated with no special interests that could benefit from the politics of global warming? Not likely.

So a quick poll on other key issues:

Abortion: Women need birth control, and opponents want to enslave them and deny them quality healthcare. Wow, really?

Economy: The "Bush economy" only benefits the super-rich. Everybody else continues to lose ground, with the gap between rich and poor widening dramatically. Just curious - are the poor actually worse off than they were 30 years ago? Doesn't seem that way to me - I was very poor during the Carter presidency, which was the worst economy since the Great Depression. If the rich are richer today, wouldn't that naturally mean the gap is bigger between them and the poverty class? Didn't the biggest explosion in the poverty class occur during Johnson's Great Society and contribute to the bad times through Carter?

Iraq: No need to rehash that one. Bush lied. The way they put it, if one didn't know better it sounds like our troops have killed millions of innocent Iraqi citizens. It sounds as if there are no terrorists in Iraq, just "freedom fighters" trying to rid their country of the evil American occupiers. As if they will then live happily and in peace if only our troops would go away. Really strange fantasy going on there.

Religion: As a Christian, I find their hatred toward me very disturbing. Apparently, Christians are a bigger threat to America than Radical Islam. I'm still trying to figure out what Christians have been blowing up gays, or letting women die in childbirth for lack of abortion services (birth control), or any number of other horrific abuses of gays, blacks, women, atheists, or maybe just liberals.

Taxes: They're pretty easy to understand on this one. Stop funding Iraq and the military in general, tax the evil rich, let the Left run the government and all will be well.

Healthcare: See Taxes. Free healthcare for everyone. Except the evil rich, of course, who should pay extra.

As I said, I went searching for well-reasoned arguments and came away disappointed.

Giuliani on HealthCare

Rudi announced his healthcare plan. Based on the news report I read, it's not exactly bold or innovative. His basic idea is to give everyone a tax break of up to $15K per year toward the purchase of their own insurance. It would take some of the burden off employers and, he thinks, put market pressure on the industry to bring prices down to more reasonable levels. He also supports tort reform for malpractice lawsuits.

I don't have a major issue with his plan, and have to admit it's better than the government takeover envisioned by Hillary. But I don't think it addresses the fundamental core problem.

We've already decided as a society that we won't deny healthcare to someone if they can't pay. Despite the insensitive rhetoric out there from both libs and cons suggesting that fat people and smokers don't deserve healthcare (funny how they leave out alcoholics and drug abusers), very few people would be comfortable with the idea of withholding lifesaving surgery to someone because they aren't insured.

So let's review the causes of high healthcare costs:

• Those who don't pay have their costs passed on to those who do
• Providers have to maintain large administrative staffs to manage a wide range of claims procedures unique to each insurance plan
• Providers have to take out malpractice insurance at very high premium rates to protect themselves against frivolous lawsuits, which they have to pass on to their patients
• Insuring all healthcare, including basic office visits and prescription drugs, encourages overuse of the system by patients and contributes to higher pricing (especially for prescriptions)
• Specialization in an increasingly complex medical field means patients need to see a different doctor for every condition, driving up costs
• Illegal aliens cram emergency rooms to receive all kinds of care, for which they do not pay and are not insured
• We care deeply about our elderly parents and grandparents, many of whom rack up huge bills for care during their last few months of life
  
• A plurality of the public now believes they have a fundamental right to free healthcare; thus the success of politicians pushing government control of the system
• Defensive medicine is a fact of life, with unnecessary tests routinely ordered for no other reason than protection from malpractice lawsuits
• A wealthy and powerful drug company lobby insures that no politician will pass legislation that harms their ability to continue charging inordinately high prices for patented prescription drugs

Some things I think could help solve many of those problems are

• National standardized electronic insurance claims processing
• Eliminate insurance for office visits, basic blood tests and xrays, and prescription drugs. Everyone has to pay for their routine healthcare out of their own pocket. HSA's and tax considerations can ease the burden on patients, while the market will force drug companies to ease their more outrageous pricing policies
• Affordable Major Medical coverage must be made available at an affordable price to everyone. No insurance company would be allowed to turn away higher risk patients.
  
• Eliminate preferred provider networks. HMO's would have to adapt their product to compete, probably by offering unlimited routine care for a reasonable monthly subscription rate
• Tort reform, of course. Designed to discourage frivolous suits by people hoping to win the healthcare lottery, but still is available to help purge true incompetents, charlatans, frauds and negligent providers.
  

Nobody is out there with these ideas, at least as far as I can tell. Nor will there be I suspect, because anybody making these sorts of recommendations would immediately alienate powerful interests - trial lawyers, drug companies, insurance companies, unions, and politicians, to name a few.

Handicapping the Presidential Race

Unless one or both make a bad mistake in the next 6 months, a la Howard Dean, the Democrat candidate is already set. It's Hillary. And the safest bet you can make today is that Hillary will make Obama her Veep. The way such races happen these days, the media annoints their candidate. Even if there's some Democrat out there everybody on that side would adore, they won't ever find out about him. The left media, led by the NY Times, has already chosen Hillary. So Hillary it will be. (Unless she pulls a Howard Dean or somebody exposes her in a major scandal)

The Republican candidate is much harder to predict. Giuliani is the front-runner, but the Republican base feels ambivalent about him. Republicans like him because he's tough on terror and shows strong leadership qualities. But they are decidedly uncomfortable with his liberal social positions. He might be able to pull stronger support from the Republican base for the general election if he chooses a strong conservative for his Veep.

Most Republicans are sitting back and watching without getting behind a specific candidate at this point. Lots of folks like Duncan Hunter, for example, but hesitate to line up behind him unless he starts polling in the top tier. And everybody else is just waiting for Fred to jump into the race. If Fred takes his strong, no-nonsense conservative message on the road and doesn't make a big mistake, he's the one guy that has a chance to energize the Republican base.

Conventional wisdom now says it's a foregone conclusion. The Democrat candidate will win easily. Be careful about conventional wisdom, because it comes from the same media that has already anointed Hillary. Their message to Republicans is, Give up guys, Hillary's already won.

Maybe. But I think there are some things brewing that could change that in the next year. Success in Iraq being the number one - reports are increasingly positive that Bush's hated "Surge" may be working. Democrats have been desparately trying to short-circuit the whole thing, because actual success in Iraq will sink them.

If Iraq turns around, there are two other things I think could almost guarantee a win for the Republican candidate. Number one is if Republicans take the lead in finishing the fence and beefing up border security, cracking down on visa overstays, then widely publicizing the success. Number two is the introduction of a smart energy plan with a media blitz that shames the blue dog Dems into signing onto a plan that promises increased exploration, increased refining capacity, and overall energy initiatives that will bring the costs down while protecting the environment.

Number one is very achievable, but the leadership seems too dumb to carry it through. Number two is nearly impossible, but if a strong leader emerges to champion the case, it could have an outside chance.

Current prediction: Clinton/Obama vs. Giuliani/Thompson