In the wake of the killing of Osama bin Laden, self-elected political experts are rushing to proclaim, “President Obama is now guaranteed to win again in 2012!”

A word of caution: not so fast.

In 1945, less than six months after he led Great Britain out of the darkest days in her history to defeat Nazi Germany, Prime Minister Winston Churchill was himself defeated at the polls.

More recently, in 1991 President George H.W. Bush defeated Sadaam Hussein’s forces in Kuwait and drove them back into Iraq. By May of 1991 President Bush had a record-high 91% approval rating. Yet 18 months later, Mr. Bush received a mere 37% of the vote in losing to Bill Clinton (and Ross Perot).

So anyone who thinks this wonderful, long-awaited killing of Osama bin Laden guarantees President Obama’s re-election 18 months from now is just plain mistaken and short-sighted.

However, here is a simple, two-point plan that would almost guarantee Obama’s re-election:

1) Use this long-awaited killing of Osama bin Laden as the point of demarcation for the U.S. to end its occupation of Afghanistan. The President could announce, in effect, “We have succeeded in our first mission–to capture or kill Osama bin Laden–and we will leave behind a skeleton force to guarantee our second mission–that Afghanistan will not become the launching pad for more attacks on the United States.”

The President could then order a drawdown of 90,000 troops and leave 5,000-10,000 either in Afghanistan or in the theater to monitor future terrorist activities in Afghanistan.

As for the effect of this withdrawal on the future of Pakistan, their obvious complicity in hiding Bin Laden disqualifies them as an American ally worthy of our help and protection.

In other words, to Hell with them.

2) Obama’s other action which would virtually guarantee his re-election is to make The Grand Bargain–the deal with the Republicans and Tea party Congressmen to cut the National Debt and deficits by changing Pentagon, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid spending in a fundamental way.

If he did this, the financial markets would rejoice and foreign investors would flock to the US. The reaction would be positive–that the US has finally addressed its long-term budget problems.

Declaring victory in Afghanistan and withdrawing most of our forces and seriously implementing a debt reduction program would leave the GOP almost nowhere to run in 2012. The key voting bloc–independents–would go for Obama in a big, big way.

Only one caveat: if the economy goes back in the tank, then Obama would still have trouble in 2012. Barring that, he’d be heavily favored.

Let’s hope he doesn’t read this column.

There is genuine despair on the Right.

More and more Republicans and conservatives see President Obama’s re-election as a disaster for future of the United States—yet feel powerless to stop it unless we find a special candidate to unite the shattered Right/GOP/Tea Party Movement, win over independents and then defeat Mr. Obama.

That “special” candidate needs a unique combination of skills and temperament not seen since the days of Ronald Reagan: a strong vision of where the country ought to go combined with a personality that can sell that vision to more than 50% of the voters–plus a thick skin to be able to weather the inevitable onslaught from the virulently pro-Obama leftist so-called-Mainstream-Media which has everything they have ever believed in riding on Obama’s re-election. In their minds, Obama’s ascension to the Oval Office was an affirmation of their dreams–and his re-election will solidify and affirm that dream; his defeat shatters and rejects all they have believed in. Thus, they will do virtually anything to win the 2012 election. Losing the Senate–while a huge problem for the Left—is even acceptable to them; losing the Obama Presidency is not.

First, this Special Candidate has to have the Five Tools of Politics:

1. Fire-in-the-belly. This over-riding hunger borders on the obsessive. Virtually all successful political candidates, no matter how well they disguise it, would “walk over their mothers” to win, as Nixon White House aide Charles Colson once put it.

2. Self-discipline. The ability to rein in one's own worst instincts, habits and weaknesses.

3. Authoritative presence. Especially in the television era, candidates must project an air of gravitas and weight.

4. Raise money. All successful candidates find a way to raise enough money to win. Some, like JFK, merely asked their father to pay. Others spend years developing a network of donors; others cultivate special interests. However they do it, winning candidates always come up with “the mother's milk of politics.” Team Obama will raise $1 Billion. The Republican is going to have a tough time matching that.

5. Communicate a positive vision. Derided by President George H.W. Bush as “that vision thing,” it is this singular ability that elevated Presidents Kennedy, Reagan and Franklin Roosevelt into the political Hall of Fame. The skill to speak in a way that inspires voters is invaluable-and very rare.

For the 2012 race, the only conservative/Republican/Tea Partier who can defeat the Obama Machine will have to have all five tools–plus he will have to connect with the American people like no other candidate since Reagan.

Pollster Scott Rasmussen says that “the odds are the GOP candidate next year will not come from the current group of Romney, Huckabee, Pawlenty, Palin, Trump; it will be someone we are not yet talking about or focusing on.”

He is right: if we are to defeat Obama in 2012, we need to find that Special Candidate. And, so far, he has not appeared on the political scene.

Let’s hope he does–no later than this fall.

Donald Trump’s emergence as a possible 2012 GOP presidential candidate has to be compared to the last billionaire—Ross Perot—who burst onto the political scene in February 1992 on CNN’s Larry King Live and completely altered that race and, in effect, elected Bill Clinton over President George H. W. Bush.

There are a few similarities between Perot and Trump but many differences, too:

• As billionaires they are seen by the public as too rich to be corrupted by our dirty political culture;

• In a time of national economic distress, billionaires are seen as guys who know how to make money when none of us can; they know how to do all the things we cannot do—in sum, many people think billionaires are smarter than anyone else; this is ironic as most people think billionaires don’t pay their fare share of taxes—yet they still want the billionaire to be the savior;

• Ross Perot and Donald Trump do share several characteristics that come from being rich: they are both their own bosses and thus the normal political and media rules do not apply to them;

• They have enormous egos;

• They don’t listen to people very well;

• They can get on any show any time they want—something only a sitting president can do;

• Now, how are Perot and Trump different?

• Perot is a Naval Academy graduate and thus was always a straight-laced square person who wanted to focus his campaign not on himself but more on the debt status of the federal government.

• Perot’s true—and heretofore-unknown—reason for running in 1992 was to ruin George H.W. Bush’s chance of being re-elected as payback for Bush’s criminal behavior in covering-up the truth about the POWs left behind—alive—in Vietnam when the war ended. Bush was head of the CIA in 1976—and has been dirty on the issue ever since. Perot was out to “get” him for this perfidy—and he did.

• But that was all about a serious public policy issue—not about the personal aggrandizement of himself;

• Donald Trump is all about himself—period!

• Everything he touches has to have his name splashed all across it. (Will it become The Trump White House if he wins?)

• Trump’s business and personal behavior over the years is not on the same level as Perot’s pioneering career in computers. Gambling casinos and three marriages are not going to fit with the still-powerful Religious Right—even if much of what (now) says on China and OPEC and Obama strikes a responsive chord.

Conclusion: While our country is floundering in a weak economy, the allure of the billionaire savior can be intoxicating.

But American does not need a savior! We are America’s saviors!!!

Do not fall for the (momentary) allure of the easy fix—the idea that one rich man knows better than we do.

No, as we see with the Tea Party Movement, we, the American people, are pushing, clawing, scratching and fighting to change our country’s economic future. We are saving the country!

We just need to keep on pushing—and, like the Founding Fathers—God’s grace will shine on us.

We are witnessing today—for the first time in American history—a roll-back of government at the state level and, perhaps even at the federal level, as well.

This concept—limited and smaller government—has been the basic precept of American conservatism for decades. But it has never been enacted—even under conservatives. Ronald Reagan, our greatest conservative politician, as governor in California and as president did not shrink government; he only decreased the rate of increase.

Other so-called “conservatives,” like the two President George Bushes, grew government, increased the deficits and national debt, and made a mockery of the once-clear distinction between Republicans and Democrats.

But the 2008 subprime mortgage meltdown and subsequent recession/depression have now rippled all the way through our economy. First it was the still-ongoing housing crash followed by massive private sector lay-offs. That has lead to a precipitous drop in government tax revenues and an equal increase in new government pay-outs for unemployment benefits.

The result of this is near or virtual bankruptcy in many states—New York, New Jersey, California, Illinois and the other upper mid-west states. But because of state constitutional mandates requiring an annual balanced budget, governors from both political parties are faced with the same problem: how to either cut government costs or raise revenues. Only Illinois has implemented a massive personal income tax increase; all the other states are instead trying to cut costs, realizing that tax increases during a recession will drive businesses out of their states.

And that leads us to Wisconsin. There the Republican governor and state legislature has identified the long-term culprit as spiraling public labor costs, including not just salaries but especially health care contributions and retirement, as the area that must be brought back into balance with private sector workers.

The questions are simple: why should public employees not pay more for their share of health costs and retirement? If private sector workers have to pay their fare share, shouldn’t government workers, too?

This is not an assault on labor—although Big Labor and the Obama White House are trying to make it such. No, this is the pendulum swinging back to the economic and political center. Government workers are not being fired or laid off; that is the last option governors are taking. Instead, the idea is to reduce costs and try to save these jobs.

But there has developed a new—and arrogant—mentality in our nation over the past fifty years: government workers—town, county, state and federal—have grown to expect special privileges and extra benefits as part of the job. Thus, in many ways, these jobs are cushier and more secure than their private sector counter-parts. These jobs have become a special, protected, superior class of workers.

This is a far cry from fifty or more years ago when a “government job” was a lesser job than a private sector job. There used to be a stigma—“you are second rate if you have to work for the government”—attached to these jobs. But, in the 1960’s, that began to change. Public workers grew in number as government grew under LBJ’s Great Society. Unionization then soon came for these people. Public teachers, especially, became the single most active on-the-ground field workers for the Democratic Party. In fact, at every Democratic National Convention, public teachers are the largest group of delegates, thus demonstrating their crucial role in the Democrat Party.

When Democrats won state houses, they rewarded their friends by giving them the very benefits that are now about to be taken away in Wisconsin and soon other states, as well.

Plain and simply put: we are broke. We have to cut some benefits from everyone. No one is excluded—not even government workers—and that will soon include seniors once entitlements come under reform. (And they will.)

One more related thought: it has taken about 30 years to go from a National Debt of under $1 Trillion (1981) to over $14.2 Trillion today. OK, that is 30 years—under presidents of both parties.

This problem cannot be solved overnight, or in one year or five.

Why not this plan: Congress adopts a 30-year pay-off-the-National-Debt Plan—just like any of us would agree with a lender to pay off a debt over time. We steadily pay down the National Debt, year after year, through cuts in spending and entitlement reforms, until we are debt-free. $500 billion per year—no matter what. That times 30 years and the National Debt is gone—and so, too, is the $1 Trillon per year interest payment we are paying each year before we pay a soldier or issue a Social Security check.


The markets would rejoice over this plan. The dollar would strengthen. America would be seen as finally addressing its most serious long-term problem.

The United States of America always faces up to its problems. And solves them. Maybe not as quickly as we’d like, but the system drives us to fixing the mistakes we have made. The rise of the Tea Party movement—based on citizen outrage like that seen at the Boston Tea Party—is driven by the realization that our debt will soon bankrupt us.

That spirit is what is at stake today in Wisconsin and Albany and even in the House of Representatives in DC.

When all is said and done, the long-held conservative dream of a smaller, less-intrusive government will be realized.

Barack Obama’s presidency is quickly descending into Jimmy Carter territory. That means he is not only out-of-the-mainstream and out-of-touch, he is now being seen as an incompetent president. And once that happens, the vultures begin to circle.

Recent evidence that this is happening:

• Democrat Congressional candidates are begging the White House not to campaign for them this fall; these candidates do not want to be photographed with Obama! Who would have predicted that 18 months ago?

• The President’s performance on the New York City Ground Zero Mosque has roiled his weakening political situation;

• Rahm Emanuel spent three days this week on the phone begging Democrats not to split – as Harry Reid did – from the President over this Mosque issue;

• New polls show an increase in the number of Americans who believe Obama is a Muslim; and these polls were conducted before his ham-handed handling of the Mosque controversy.

• A new story has been published revealing that the President still has not joined a DC area Christian church. He says it “would be too disruptive for the church” if he joined. What hogwash!

• Add in the recent Michelle Obama Spain trip and the President being left alone on his 49th birthday and you have to wonder exactly what is going on inside the Obama White House and the Obama Family, too.

All of this makes political professionals scratch their heads. The smooth-running 2008 campaign operation has not translated to a well-run White House. Take the Mosque: Friday night at a Ramadan dinner in the White House, the President reads from his ever-present TelePrompter and clearly referred to the controversial downtown NYC Mosque, despite his next-day denials.

For that speech to make it up to the TelePrompter it had to go through a series of White House offices–ranging from speech-writing to the political office and probably the National Security Council as well–before getting to the Senior Staff for their review. So what Obama said that night was indeed the policy of the White House. This was not some off-the-cuff gaffe.

Clearly by the next morning the White House was besieged with calls of protest from stupefied Democrats running for office this year begging the President to back off. And thus Mr. Obama did try to retract his Friday night statement–thus now showing a lack of command for the issue.

He is indeed incompetent. He fumbles each issue–and reacts to criticism with lightning speed by often reversing himself.

If we use the Jimmy Carter analogy, then let us follow it all the way. By 1980 Democrats were split over re-electing Carter. And the GOP had an establishment candidate in George H.W. Bush versus the outsider, Ronald Reagan. Reagan trounced Bush and then trounced Carter.

So, is something similar shaping up for 2012?

Or will the GOP this time – like they did in 1996 and 2008–opt for a mediocre, boring, un-daring, timid candidate who will be easy meat even for Obama?

That is the question.

There is no question that Rush Limbaugh is the single most influential leader of the Conservative Movement in the United States today.

But Rush took a bad step 17 years ago and he thus is partly responsible for the disarray we find ourselves in today. An explanation:

Late 1991 and early 1992 President George H.W. Bush - Bush 41 - was running for re-election and had Big Trouble on his right flank from Pat Buchanan. Bush had reversed his No-New-Taxes-Read-My-Lips pledge and indeed allowed a tax increase - a big No-No to the Reagan Wing of the GOP. And he had blasted some on the Right as “extra-chromosome conservatives.”

With Buchanan scoring well in the polls and getting a good vote in the New Hampshire primary, the Bush Team needed help on the Right - and quick. So they invited Rush for an overnight stay in the White House Living Quarters.

Rush has told this story on his show many, many times. He was greeted by the President. “Rush, Rush, is that you?” The voice preceded the President’s arrival in a waiting area where Rush was sitting with his suitcase, which the President of the United States picked up and carried to Rush’s bedroom.

Who wouldn’t be impressed by a President carrying your bags?

The dinner that night upstairs with the President and Mrs. Bush - very kind and hospitable hosts when they wanted to be - was wonderful as was the after-dinner conversation. In sum, Rush was hooked. The Bushes had seduced him.

Indeed, from that night on, Rush Limbaugh became a key backer of Team Bush. Just a few months later - after Bush 41 had vanquished Buchanan and virtually secured the nomination - he faced yet another dire threat - this time from Ross Perot. And who came along and savaged the little Texan day after day, week after week with the most humorous and to-the-point parodies but Rush Limbaugh.

That fall in the general election again Rush did his damndest to ruin Bill Clinton, the Democrat nominee, and Perot who by that time had re-joined the race. But it wasn’t enough. And Clinton was our new President.

Rush Limbaugh believes in loyalty. And he remained loyal to the Bush Family, never forgetting his night in the White House. In 1999 and 2000 as another George Bush geared up to run for President, Team Bush made certain to get Rush on their side from Day One.

Thus Rush became one of G.W. Bush’s strongest advocates - and helped get him elected in 2000.

Throughout the eight years of Bush 43 Rush was always there for President Bush - always shoring up the GOP and the Right for him. But as things began to deteriorate - as the Republican Congress spent money like crazy - with nary a word from the Bush White House - and as the Bush Administration took the GOP and the Conservative Movement farther and farther from the political mainstream Rush only occasionally expressed veiled reservations over what was happening. But by 2008 he was tired of it all. He didn’t like McCain and didn’t want to have to support him. But there wasn’t an acceptable conservative in the race. So Rush, like many on the Right, swallowed hard and supported the GOP ticket.

And thus we have Obama - and a totally Democrat-controlled Congress today. The GOP and the Conservative Movement have become almost irrelevant.

Rush Limbaugh got suckered by the Bushes back in 1992. He fell for their patrician shtick. He then remained loyal to them. And he then fell for the G.W. Bush is the Son of Reagan campaign to secure the 2000 GOP nomination. He used his incredible clout on the Right to enable the Bushes to take over the conservative movement - which they did and then they drove it right over the cliff.

As much as Rush today is trying to right the ship, it will take years to get real conservatism back on track. Rush acolytes like Bobby Jindal are not the answer. And while Rush himself has become more beloved to his core audience, he has become radioactive to everyone else.

He cannot and will not be able to lead the conservatives back to power. He can help in that effort, but cannot be the Front Man for 21st century Conservatism.

Until a new leader of the party and the movement emerges - on his or her own and not as a puppet of anyone - we are going to remain in the wilderness.

This is going to be an ugly election for the GOP and for the conservative movement, which lost its way when it allowed the Bush Family to co-opt it back in 1999.

Frankly stated, we are going to get creamed across the board - White House, Senate and House.

Obama will earn more than 350 Electoral votes - and win 54% of the popular vote.

Tuesday’s election will be a complete and total rebuke of our party and movement - and especially of the Bush Presidency.

John McCain has run a poor campaign and is a weak candidate. He looks old and does not inspire his audiences. His selection of Sarah Palin has backfired as she has become a major distraction and detriment for the GOP ticket.

We are also going to get wiped out - for the second consecutive election (2006 being the first) - in both the House and Senate.

Almost all the Big names like Liddy Dole and Gordon Smith and maybe even Norm Coleman are going down. So, too, will about 30 GOP Congressional seats.

Ted Stevens will lose.

Mitch McConnell and Saxby Chambliss will have to sweat it out on Tuesday night. Don’t be surprised if one of them loses.

This will be the second GOP train wreck in a row.

Thus the Bush Legacy will be one of total, abject failure on every level - not the least of which is to wipe out his party and the philosophical movement which he took over in 2000. Just like his father before him, G.W. Bush has handed the keys to the White House to the Democrats.

The Republican brand is severely damaged. Tuesday’s election will feature a huge anti-Bush and anti-GOP passion - coupled with a less-then enthusiastic effort from the GOP. There will be a disproportionate turnout - more Democrats will vote and fewer Republicans will bother as they can see the handwriting on the wall.

To sum it up: Tuesday is going to be a wipe-out of the Republican Party.

And on Wednesday we begin the process of re-making the party into a smart, effective political party devoted to doing good, not to advancing one family’s political fortunes.