Ever since the heady days of Ronald Reagan, the Republican Party and Conservative Movement—and the Tea Party is now a key element of both—have been yearning for “another Reagan.”

President Reagan is remembered as a successful conservative President who had it all: he was attractive, great on TV, a natural leader and he united the country.

Even though he was a once-in-a-lifetime political candidate and a truly historic figure, many on the Right think we’ll find another Reagan just by looking!

Beginning in 1999, this “another Reagan” yearning manifested itself in the spectacle of hundreds of GOP officials rushing to Austin and begging then Governor George W. Bush to run for the White House.

In 2008 this syndrome manifested itself in former Senator/actor Fred Dalton Thompson. Sadly, Mr. Thompson proved to be a lackluster candidate—certainly not a Reagan.

Now, in 2012, after a miserable three years of recession and the Obama Administration, the Right has ping-ponged from Sarah Palin to Donald Trump to Michelle Bachman to Rick Perry and Herman Cain—all in less than six months!

And now they are putting the full-court squeeze on Governor Chris Christie, who is speaking tonight at the Reagan Library.

The governor is the victim of a political party unsure of itself and—since the death of Ronald Reagan—without a leader who speaks to our souls and best exemplifies all that is good about being both a Republican and an American.

All of this is happening because each candidate gets one moment in the conservative spotlight. If any one of them had seized the moment—the way Reagan did in 1964 when he gave what became known as The Speech on national TV on behalf of Barry Goldwater’s campaign – they would have become the new Mr. or Mrs. Conservative. From there it is an almost-automatic step to the GOP nomination. And then the White House is within sight.

But each of these candidates has flubbed their chance. And the spotlight then moves on, searching for someone to seize that opportunity.

Chris Christie is more popular as a non-candidate than he would be once he got into the race.

He might in fact wear badly over time. He is aggressive and a bit abrasive – precisely why the Right likes him from afar. But every day—through multiple news cycles—would his in-your-face style play well? Would independent voters like that style? And would Christie’s somewhat more-moderate views on some issues turn off the Right, the way Perry’s soft stance on discounted tuition for the children of illegal aliens has sent him spiraling downward in the polls?

Ronald Reagan was soft-spoken, light-at-the-right-time, tough-when-needed – but he knew how to modulate.

We do not know if Christ Christie—in office for a grand total of 22 months—has any of those skills.

The GOP—desperate to find the Next Reagan—today thinks Chris Christie is the new Savior.

Maybe they need to realize something: there will never be another Ronald Reagan. We were fortunate to have him. It is asking too much of God to send us another one.

Now it is time for us to realize something that Ronald Reagan knew: America does not get “saved” by any one political leader; she is saved by us—the American people.

What we need is a new leader who runs as a traditional conservative—and who will govern that way, too.

That is not too much to ask, is it?

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.

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.

The just-completed C-PAC annual meeting has–gain–shown us that we on the Right do not have a front-runner or even a plausible candidate to unite us as we head into the crucial 2012 presidential and congressional elections.

In fact, C-PAC demonstrated that the organized Right, which sold its soul to a faux conservative in 2000, G.W. Bush, and then supported him and an irresponsible GOP-run Congress as they partnered to bankrupt our public fisc and squander our moral and military advantage for six years, is now devoid of a true conservative who understands and believes in the principles that separate us from the squishy middle and the out-of-touch Left.

First, this C-PAC event shamed itself by inviting Donald Trump to speak. Who can take him seriously in a political context? He is not, nor has he ever been a conservative. How quickly C-PAC organizers apparently forget Trump’s support of and praise for both Bill and Hillary Clinton in all their campaigns–as well as the scores of other liberal Democrats he has financed in states where he buys their influence for his business interests. How quickly they also forget Trump’s sordid marital and sexual history.

This is someone to be listened to? Especially as he trashes the one candidate, Ron Paul, who has maintained steady and consistent principles for over thirty years?

Last Sunday we celebrated the 100th birthday of America’s greatest conservative leader, Ronald Reagan. But by Thursday we were listening to Donald Trump comment on public issues?

Do we need any more proof how far off the rails the Right has gone?

As for the other possible GOP 2012 presidential candidates, it is clear none of them connected in any emotional way with the majority of conservative activists sitting in that hotel ball room over the weekend and who came to DC desperate to find a new leader.

Instead, the candidates demonstrated their ability to pander–and their scripted anti-Obama rhetoric–but noneof them–other than Ron Paul-touched the souls of the thousands of activists who are the Army of the Right.

A note about Ron Paul: he is indeed a libertarian more than a traditional conservative. But the key to Ron is his constant adherence to his principles no matter how many times he has been defeated or his ideas rejected. Ron is the Energizer Bunny of the libertarian right–and we on the Right all respect that perseverance, as we have all been rejected, humiliated and treated with contempt over time by the smug leftists who think they are smarter than everyone else.

It was poor form of Trump to come to C-PAC and dump on Ron Paul. And it shows that Trump did not know his audience—or did not care about their respect for Congressman Paul.

What is clear is that we do not have a candidate–yet-who can unite the Right and win a majority of the crucial independent voters. Romney, Pawlenty, Huckabee and Barbour? It doesn’t look like any of them can do it. Nor can the others we have seen. They are lackluster and boring and without that special spark that could ignite a prairie fire that sweeps all across this land and then arrives in Washington determined to change the role of the federal government in our lives.

It may be that the GOP will again nominate a dud, ala McCain and Dole–and, frankly, both Bushes, who were uninspiring candidates who won because of other factors (Bush I won because Reagan was President and was handing the Oval Office off to Bush and Bush II might not really have won at all!).

If we do pick another uninspiring, inarticulate, unprincipled bore, Obama will win a second term.

But maybe–somewhere, somehow–in the next year a new candidate will emerge who can bring the passion of the Tea Party and the legacy of the Republican Party together and then give us a chance to save this country from the leftward lurch that threatens to bankrupt us all.

The Left’s immediate, knee-jerk reaction–led by the outrageously political statement by the sheriff of Pima County blaming this shooting on the political dialogue in our country—has been to somehow conflagrate the traditionally anti-Big Government philosophy of the talk radio community and the Tea Party Movement into being co-conspirators in this heinous crime.

We didn’t hear the same left-wing nonsense when another mentally deranged nutcase–John Hinckley—tried to kill President Reagan.

Was that crime because of all the liberal, anti-Reagan demonstrations over the Reagan budget cuts and defense build-up?

No, of course not.

John Hinckley, like Jared Loughner, was sick. Period. And his sickness was not anyone else’s fault. (Except perhaps triggered by the use of illegal drugs that can release/cause/contribute to a range of mental afflictions including paranoia, schizophrenia and anti-social disorders. But the Left won’t want to talk about their glorification of pot, LSD and other illegal drugs in movies and Hollywood etc…)

We cannot use logic, reason and rational thinking to analyze the actions of one crazed, mentally unstable person.

The alleged Tucson killer, Loughner, was–by all reports–off his rocker for the past several years. Reading his posted MySpace comments shows a delusional, ill-educated, ignorant, sick man. Associates and college classmates now say they knew years ago he was crazy. But what does that have to do with talk radio? Or the Tea Party?

No, this is the Left seizing this disaster to go after the Right–the very week they saw their Pelosi-led control of the House and the Congressional agenda switch to the GOP-including the talk radio community which is strongly against bigger government and gun control.

Shame on them!

No one in the Tea Party Movement or on talk radio advocates violence. Instead, they are leading the difficult campaign to shrink government. Period.

The so-called mainstream media who participate in this blame-the-right campaign are a disgrace. But those who present all sides fairly are to be congratulated.

Let us pray for the Congresswoman and her family and for the other wounded survivors and the families of the other deceased victims.

And let us pray for our country to see this for what it was: the actions of one crazed mentally-ill young man.

Period.

My first thought when the news broke on Monday night about the deal to extend the Bush Era Tax cuts: The Republicans secretly placed a new script on President Obama’s TelePrompTer: “I now love tax breaks for millionaires!”

Barack Obama finally became an engaged President. He made a deal designed to get the economy moving by 2012 so that he can get re-elected. The fact that the Left hates this deal shows that Obama is trying to seize the center—again—and win the 2012 election.

Obama’s first two years of massive federal spending—corporate takeovers, TARP and the Stimulus Bill—failed miserably to generate private sector economic growth. And time is running out for him to wait for the economy to start growing.

As a friend of mine put it, 9% unemployment is the over/under for Obama’s re-election chances. Above 9% and he is toast (unless the GOP nominates Palin) and under 9% and he has a fighting chance to be re-elected on the argument that “I have gotten our economy back on track.”

Now Obama has channeled Ronald Reagan with his payroll tax cut and agreement to keep the Bush Ear tax cuts in effect and even to cut the estate tax rates. No wonder the Left is going nuts! Their great hope—Barack Obama—is more Reagan and Bush than they can stomach!

The only loser in this arrangement is the long-term financial viability of our nation as another almost-one trillion dollars will be added onto the already staggering $14Trillion debt we are carrying.

But the President and the GOP leadership decided it was more important to juice the economy now—in advance of the 2012 election (after all, everyone in the House is up for re-election in 2012, too)—and worry about the debt later.

If it works, Obama can get himself re-elected in 2012. If it does not work, the consequences for both parties will be catastrophic. The anger that catapulted the Tea Party Movement to political prominence this year will compound itself into a “throw ‘em all out” fury in 2012.

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.

Ever since Barack Obama burst onto the national political scene in 2004, the conventional wisdom has been to rave about and focus on the color of his skin.

But the real issue is the thinness of Obama’s skin.

He is the most sensitive, thin-skinned President–ever–and it is now shaping his leadership decisions.

He hates criticism, rails against those who dare critique him, and thus goes into this “blame Bush, the Republicans and anyone else but me” syndrome.

This is un-Presidential–and it is hurting him, even among his supporters.

Politics “ain’t beanbag” and you have to have a thick skin to survive. That is not to say you ever have to like the criticism; you don’t ever like it. But you cannot show your critics that their criticism is getting to you. President Obama often invoked the “transitional” presidency of Ronald Reagan during his own 2008 campaign. Mr. Obama was and is right to use Reagan as an example on many levels. Coming off LBJ and Vietnam, followed by Nixon and Watergate and the growth of the Imperial Presidency and then the failed presidency of Jimmy Carter, the office of the President of the United States was itself under assault when Dutch Reagan arrived in the Oval Office on the afternoon of January 20, 1981.

The White House Press Corps, led by the hype-aggressive, always-shouting Sam Donaldson, was in the habit of swallowing and then gleefully spitting out presidents. They loved tearing presidencies down. Reporters became millionaires if they could bring a president down, i.e. Woodward and Bernstein.

But Ronald Reagan was old, had been in the public eye for five decades and knew how to handle criticism. He just chuckled and said, “Gee, Sam, you don’t really believe that, do you?” All done with a twinkle in his eye and a gentle smile–and performed in a way to disarm the critic.

No Nixonian anger or pledge to “get” the critic. No promise of retribution. And no blame, either. Instead, a healthy dose of self-deprecating humor.

Obama should watch some video tapes of President Reagan (what a shame we have a President who has to learn so much on the job as he was clearly not ready for prime time when the Left picked him.) But in order for him to survive for the next 2 ½ years, he needs to toughen up and learn how to be President. And Lesson Number One is to grow a new, tougher, less-sensitive skin.

The Left worries about it—and denigrates anyone who even talks about it. But they know that illegal immigration is a huge issue that just again surfaced when Arizona enacted and then adjusted a bill making life uncomfortable for the 450,000 illegals living in Arizona.

Indeed, this issue—the influx of up to 30 million illegal aliens who have surreptitiously crossed our southern border—is one of the most important issues in every state even though the so-called mainstream media does not want to talk about it.

Hospital ERs, public schools and local law enforcement are often over-run by illegal aliens. Budgets are stretched during a tough economy. Jobs are lost and given to below-market illegals who get paid under the table and do not get benefits. This is happening everywhere. Big Business—and the rich—often love this cheap labor. Thus George W. Bush and now his ambitious-to-be-the-third-President Bush—Jeb—embrace amnesty-for-illegals before our southern border is sealed up tight.

The media castigate politicians who want to distinguish between those who went through the rigorous, time-consuming and frustrating process to come into the U.S. legally and those who cut the line and broke the law to come here illegally. These pro-amnesty types lump all immigrants into one group—and thus accuse those Americans who want to enforce existing law as racist, hate-filled zenophobes.

These same elitists despise the Tea Party Movement. And they do not see the angst and unhappiness that have driven 80% of the American people to distrust the government, as the respected Pew Poll revealed two weeks ago.

Indeed, the media and political elites have utter disdain for these 80%; they think the American middle class is a bunch of stupid, un-educated bozos who do not know what is good for them.

Well, this November this 80% bloc is going to vote in extraordinary numbers for a mid-term election. The passion is on the side of the Out party—the Republicans—and against President Obama. (That is not to say that the 80% is happy in any way with the Republicans; they are NOT! But they are the only vehicle on the ballot to express the discontent.)

The illegal immigration issue combines with the long-term downward trend of the economy to inject a level of despair into the body politic.

This despair has been building since the 1990s and manifested itself in the election of the CHANGE candidate—Barack Obama—in 2008.

But the change was not the change people thought they were getting. The trillions spent on corporate bail-outs and a useless Stimulus plus the dirty way the Health Care vote was rigged have actually increased the level of despair.

Prediction:

This despair is so prevalent and widespread that it is hurtling the U.S.A. in directions the elites cannot predict. The creation and surprising growth of the Tea Party movement is one sign of the unexpected directions we are headed. So is the widespread—60% nationally—support of the Arizona immigration bill. And so is the continuing desire to repeal—58%—the Health Care Bill.

The next Reagan—if there is to be one—has to feel this despair in his bones and then translate it into a campaign and a government that listens to the 80%.

None of the GOP candidates on the scene today really feel it; they may say they do as they listen to pollsters and consultants.

But we will know when the right candidate comes along because his story will be filled with the same despair we all are feeling.

A Look at the 2012 GOP Presidential Race

Because Mitt Romney is on a pre-2012 presidential campaign book tour—and because Sarah Palin is constantly in the news—and because President Barack Obama is in self-destruct mode—let’s take a look far, far ahead at the present state of the 2012 GOP race for president. After all, 2012 is now wide-open:

Romney is a bit hot right now. He is back in the news, on TV and radio shows. He is a good-looking man and with a business background he can speak to the still-deteriorating economic situation all around us. He has learned from some of his mistakes from the 2008 race, too. He now appears more humble.

However, he also has many of the same problems from the past: he is a political chameleon who can change a position at the drop of a hat. He was an enthusiastic booster—and as governor, a signer—of Massachusetts’ own version of ObamaCare. It is now widely unpopular in the Bay State—and one of the reasons Scott Brown won that January 19 special senate election.

Health care premiums have exploded in Massachusetts since that bill was enacted—and may very well be a precursor of what will happen nationally if ObamaCare passes.

Is Romney the Republican ONE or is he, as someone recently put it, an “elegant snake oil salesman”? (See answer below.)

Sarah Palin hit a home run as a stand-up comic on Jay Leno last week. She is just plain good on TV. She is shopping an Alaskan reality show with mega-producer Mark Burnett. She has the Fox News gig and earns huge speaking fees. In sum, she is raking in the big bucks.

If she runs for president in 2012 then she has to stop most of this money-making. Or, another way to read it is that she is making this money—people look at her on TV and pay to hear her speak—precisely because she might run for president. So, if she does not run, does much of this money-making capability dry up? Or is she banking a ton of dough now and will worry about running later?

Either way she is a major player for this pre-primary period. If she says she is not running, then it is a new race altogether. But until then she dominates all the calculations, sucks up the political oxygen and complicates the race—and the fundraising—for all other candidates.

Speaking of other candidates there are the usual names: Huckabee, Pawlenty, Haley Barbour and Mitch Daniels. They all bring something unique to the table. The question is: can any of them “connect” with voters and light a fire?

In late 2007 and early 2008 Huckabee caught fire, passed Romney – who never caught fire at any time in the entire race by the way—but then that fire petered out. No one else caught fire inside the GOP. So McCain won by default. He was a terrible candidate who ran a horrible race.

Today’s fire is not inside the Republican Party. It is inside the Tea Party anti-establishment movement.

This is a movement that sees the establishment of both parties plus Wall Street, Hollywood and the Big Media as corrupt, dirty and rigged. And they are!

This is what the Tea Party Movement is all about.

And the next ONE—the next Reagan—the next Mr. Conservative—has to feel this anger in his bones. No, he can’t come across as an angry person. But he has to feel this anger and this despair and translate it into all his speeches and interviews. Only then will he “connect” and catch fire with this growing band of swing voters who will elect the next president in 2012.

Mitt Romney does not connect. Nor does he really feel that anger. He may yet win—by default; he may stand out in a desultory field the way McCain did in 2008. But he will never really lead this country. You know why not? Because he doesn’t really believe in anything. He looks good but stands for nothing. And this will be his undoing.

The One we are all waiting for—the next real leader of this nation—has not yet appeared on the national stage.

Let us hope he does by 2012.

Arlene Bynon and John LeBoutillier discussed the Tiger Woods press conference and the passing of former Secretary of State Alexander Haig, Sunday on AM640Toronto. Listen below:


Arlene Bynon 02 21 10 by bootsblasts

After the Bill Clinton Years of immaturity and sexual misconduct, the G.W. Bush Frat House Years filled with excessive federal spending and wars based on lies and now a clearly in-over-his-head Barack Obama and his Let‘s Spend Everything We Have Now—including our money and his political capital—program, the American political world needs an adult voice, an experienced and wise hand at the rudder who knows what to do and how to do it and, most importantly, what not to do.

Recent history tells us much abut this situation:

After more than a dozen disastrous years of LBJ and Richard Nixon, Watergate and Vietnam, the nation looked for something “different”—and settled on former one-term Georgia Governor Jimmy Carter.

He soon proved to be in clearly over-his-head.

So the nation searched again in 1980 for the antidote to Carter and we found it is the previously-unelectable former movie actor Ronald Reagan.

In other words, things were so bad that the nation went with someone who, in more normal times, would not have been seen as “electable.” And it worked out! Reagan proved to be much better than even his critics had expected. His age, the vicissitudes of his up-and-down career and marriages and his years of working for conservative causes had created a wise, experienced leader who earned the respect of almost all people once they got to know him directly—not through the filter of a biased, liberal news media.

Now cut to 1999. The Clinton-Gore years were coming to an end. The Republicans were mortified over the thought that Al Gore might win in 2000 and continue the Clinton Legacy. So they orchestrated the most amazing spectacle: hundreds of GOP officials and elected leaders traipsing down to Austin to beg George W. Bush—as if he was the New Savior—to run for the GOP nomination. This charade was all a scripted masterpiece by the Bush Family which held the levers of power inside the national GOP back then.

The image-meisters morphed G.W. Bush into the Son of Reagan, replete with the obligatory ranch, cowboy boots, belt buckle and halting diction.

Only he was no Ronald Reagan.

He turned out to be the anti-Reagan.

He almost single-handedly destroyed conservatism and the Republican Party.

Instead of repeating all that happened over the past 8 years, suffice to say that the Bush Administration so screwed up things that they made two previously un-electable candidates—Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton—into viable candidates for the White House.

The Left preferred Obama and morphed him into their version of the New Savior—The One—the New Messiah.

Eight months into his Administration, it is clear he really has no clue how to run anything. He has taken a vast reservoir of political capital and popularity—handed to him not for anything he has ever done in his life or in his political career—and frittered it away.

His throwing everything into this health care debate at this time of a sour economy makes no sense at all. He was elected in the midst of a financial meltdown that was not caused by the health insurance industry. So why spend all his political capital on this—now—including hundreds of speeches and Sunday’s almost-full Ginsberg spate of morning TV appearances?

Because he really is too inexperienced—and too young—to know better.

The wisdom earned through the ups and downs of political battles won—and lost—is not in Obama.

The knowledge of political history is not in Obama. His team just wants to not repeat G.W. Bush’s mistakes—as if that alone will make Obama a success.

It won’t.

So, looking at the future, here is where we are headed:

The Democrats will lose double-digit seats in the House in 2010 but probably not enough to lose control. (The Bush Hangover is still too strong for the nation to revert to GOP control.)

If the economy rebounds and starts to improve substantially by the second half of 2011 or early 2012—and that is most measured by new job creation and the public “believing” things are indeed getting better—then Obama has a real chance of winning a second term.

But, if we continue this feeling of sourness, then he will be in Big Trouble.

However, you can’ beat somebody with nobody. To defeat Obama in 2012 there must be a better candidate who is seen as wise, experienced, knowledgeable, steady and capable of settling down a political system which appears to be out-of-control.

None of the present-day GOP names fit this bill. Nor do they need to—yet. We have a long, long way to go before we need a New Leader.

But the country cannot afford to lurch back-and-forth between Presidents who do not have a clue how to behave or how to run the Federal Government.

We need a new candidate who truly is The One—the one who knows how to use the Presidency to address our problems in a coherent, logical manner—and who knows that most of these problems come from the government itself!

So don’t give up hope. Carter gave us Reagan. Maybe Obama will give us someone who can get this country back on track.

It has taken ten days of lies, tear gas, baton-beatings—and finally cold-blooded murder by the corrupt, filthy-rich, fraudulent hypocritical Iranian mullahs and their marauding militias to get our new President to even seem outraged.

He finally read a statement—after all, he reads everything that comes out of his mouth—at his Press Conference Tuesday afternoon that came close to echoing the feelings of most Americans that we stand with the protestors who have the right to an open and honest election.

Having the President of the United States make a statement like this is not provocative or “Bush-the-Bully-like”—something Obama is clearly afraid of seeming.

Go back to the early days of Solidarity. Lech Walensa was thrown in jail by Soviet-backed General Jaralelski. What did our then-new President Ronald Reagan do? He had Solidarity candles burning in the White House windows at night.

That image flew ‘round the world—and let everyone know just where America stood.

Why doesn’t our new President wear a green arm band—an image that would say more than any TelePromptered-statement read at a Press Conference?

Richard Wolff in his new campaign book about the 2008 Obama-Clinton race, reveals that back in 2000 when Obama ran for the House in a Democrat primary against Congressman Bobby Rush, Michelle Obama saw her husband as “cold and distant.”

That is how he now appears as President. He hides his emotions too well. He is too self-controlled, too self-disciplined in not allowing the people to feel his emotions.

A leader must connect viscerally. His approval up to now is more for the “change” we all wanted after G.W. Bush—not for anything Obama has done or fought for. In fact, he has never fought for anything—except his own political advancement. His election and the racial apect of it has made many people admire Obama-the-Symbol. But when you get past that and look at Obama-the-Man, he is hidden, cool and indeed distant.

Now we are beginning to see the polarizing of the American electorate—again. The new President’s honeymoon is coming to an end. The out-of-control spending is scaring Independents away from Obama. And he is beginning to suffer from a self-created over-exposure - a speech per day plus fawning media ‘availabilities’ like this ABC-from-the-White-House health show.

It is inevitable that people are going to grow weary of Barack Obama. And he is then going to learn that his—any President’s—coin of the realm are his appearances, his speeches, and access to him. By doing so many such appearances, speeches, YouTube weekend speeches, Town Hall Forums and Press Conferences, he is cheapening his power.

He needs to be seen a little less frequently.

And he needs to re-focus on one Big thing at a time.

As of now there are too many balls being juggled at once—and none of them are particularly popular.

As predicted here last year, by this coming October Obama will not be too popular. Yes, the Democrats will adore him and the conservatives will oppose him. But the middle—where the action in politics and government really is—is where Obama will lose support. These self-described Independent voters—many of them former GOP voters who split for Perot in 1992 and still searching for sane fiscal policies—will have abandoned Obama by the fall. But they will not be going back to the GOP either. They will sit—alone—unhappy—and wait to see if anyone speaks to their issues of responsible spending and budget practices.

The Republicans?

They have not even begun to figure out how to come back from the Bush Years.

California and New Jersey. These two states used to hold their presidential primaries on the first Tuesday of June—the last primaries in a grueling, long process that began in the snowy cold of Iowa in January. Depleted, exhausted candidates had to criss-cross the nation for a week and advertise in the huge media markets of Los Angeles and New York, San Francisco and Philadelphia.

All of that is changed now. The presidential nominations are pretty much decided earlier—and these two states have moved “up” in the primary calendar.

But California and New Jersey may still be influencing and predicting our political future. Here’s how:

For almost 40 years California has been a ‘predictor’ for trends that would soon sweep the nation. The grass-roots tax revolt of the 1970’s began through referenda in California. It changed America. For the better. It re-energized an almost-dead GOP; launched Ronald Reagan on his journey to the White House; and subsequent referenda allowed the people to tell their politicians what to do—not the other way around.

However, since the mid-1990’s California’s trends have been all negative: a massive influx of illegals from south of the border coupled with a flight of middle class workers and tax-payers to neighboring states (Oregon, Washington, Nevada and Arizona). This trend—coupled with unrestrained government spending and debt in Sacramento—has brought the state to the verge of bankruptcy. It has also destroyed two successive governorships—Democrat Gray Davis and one-time GOP icon Arnold The Terminator Schwarzenegger.

These disturbing trends—massive government spending at a time when the tax base is declining thus causing huge debt—is what we are now seeing in DC!

Is this the latest national trend predicted by California?

And if it is what does this tell us about Obama, the Democrats, the GOP - and 2012?

Across the nation - in the Garden State - we have another state government over-spending and over-taxing under a liberal Democrat stranglehold on the levers of power in Trenton. Governor Jon Cozine is in deep, deep political trouble as he runs this year for re-election. His numbers are under 40% - terrible for an incumbent- and the GOP is re-energized after being out of power for ten years.

They have just nominated former U.S. Attorney Chris Christie who—correctly—is trying to focus on economic issues instead of social issues in the otherwise-liberal-blue-state-New Jersey.

Corzine is personally rich and will now set out to destroy Christie and try to paint him with a “he’s an out of the mainstream right wing nut” campaign.

If Christie can side-step that pathetic diversionary tactic by a desperate Corzine, he can win in a solid Democrat state.

And if he does—will this concentrate-on-the-economic-issues-and-massive-government-over-spending strategy become the new trend that sweeps the nation?

Let us hope and pray!

Amid all the back and forth over the Obama Budget, Rush Limbaugh, the C-PAC meeting, the Jindal Meltdown, the GOP opposition in Congress and the new leftward direction we as a nation are taking, no one has yet raised another important - political, economic and historic - consideration:

What happens if, after the Obama Plan is adopted and becomes law - which it will in large part with a few tweaks here and there - and then by 2011 or early 2012 the economy starts to rebound?

• First of all, President Obama and his crack PR/campaign team will take all the credit and proclaim him a transformational, historic President - and he would most likely be re-elected;

• The Democratic Congress will also stay in the majority;

• But equally as important - massive government spending, trillion dollar annual deficits, a new, more interventionist federal government - will be seen as the reason the economy is recovering - even if it was not!

• (After all, at some point the economy will bottom out and begin - on its own - to rebound and recover. The Obama Plan may actually hinder and delay the recovery. But we will never know the causes and effects - if it recovers during Obama’s first term);

• Liberal economists will be vindicated!

• They and their political followers will all proclaim, “Big Government works!”

• Historians will also proclaim Obama the Second Coming of FDR - and, in fact, in retrospect the New Deal will again be credited with ending the Great Depression (an interpretation that has lately come under fire);

• The Republican Party will be consigned to the back bench for a long, long time;

• Conservatism - or what has lately come to be called conservatism (it hasn’t been truly conservative since the Bushes seized control of the GOP - oh why did Ronnie Reagan ever pick G.H.W. Bush in 1980!!!??? - will be blamed for creating the Bush Depression; we will not see a resurgence of the conservative movement for years, maybe even decades;

• Western European- style socialism will be the model; cradle-to-grave government programs will be the order of the day;

• And all of this because the economy shows signs of a rebound - even if the Stimulus and Obama Budgets have nothing to do with the recovery. After all, how does anyone really know why the economy recovers?

• In 1984, Reagan took credit for the recovery - Morning in America - and attributed it to his massive 3-year 25% across-the-board tax cuts. He was not only massively re-elected, but Reaganomics (supply-side tax cuts to spur economic activity) became the accepted lifeblood of the GOP and has remained so until today.

• But it might have been Fed Chairman Paul Volker’s inflation-squeezing tightening that was the real reason for the 1983/1984 recovery. We will never know for sure;

All of this is what is at stake here.

And the Republican Party and conservative movement - they are not necessarily one and the same - can do nothing politically to affect the outcome. We are on the side lines now - thanks to Bush and his acolytes and lackeys - including some famous radio talk show hosts who checked their objectivity at the door and became suck-ups to the Bush White House - who drove the GOP right over the cliff.

If the basic tenet of conservative thought is correct - that massive government makes things worse, not better - then the Obama Plan will fail. And he will then fail politically. And then all of the above will not matter.

But we have a long four years ahead of us.

Let us just quickly sum up what happened on Tuesday - and then we will move on to the future - of the nation, of the Republican Party and of the conservative movement:

Barack Obama won on Tuesday precisely because - as Buffalo Bills quarterback Trent Edwards said last weekend - he is “the most opposite of the guy we have in there now.”

Indeed, the exit polling confirmed what I have been writing in this space for a long time: G.W. Bush had become a millstone around GOP candidates’ necks. He - more than anything else - is why the GOP got wiped out on Tuesday.

What President Bush represented to a majority of people is a sneering, arrogant, chip-on-his-shoulder, my-way-or-the-highway face of this era’s conservatism; in fact, that also became the face of the United States around the world. And it was that face that voters rejected on Tuesday.

President Reagan was just the opposite: a cheery disposition, a funny laugh and chuckle - and a pleasant demeanor all while trying to convince - not browbeat or threaten - others to change their minds.

If we, as conservatives, are to come back to power we will have to project a totally different face and persona.

The Republican Party will have to become a party of “smart” people who can reach out to the suburbs (where we were completely wiped out) and to educated people. And at the same time we need to keep our base of committed conservatives, too.

In fact, we have to get rid of this exuberant disdain for well-educated people and for education itself. G.W. Bush and Sarah Palin have reveled in their dislike for education, for well-educated people and for reading and for acquiring knowledge.

It used to be in this country that everyone worshiped education and wished to have a great education but somewhere along the way many on the Right have transposed their hatred (well-deserved, by the way) for the Leftism taught in our colleges and universities into hatred of the actual education itself. And that is a tragic mistake. Because only reading the Bible and nothing else isn’t enough to solve this nation’s multitude of problems. In fact, we need to ask God to help us all learn more and know how to learn more in order to keep up with the ongoing and exponentially expanding base of knowledge on all topics.

So we are going to need to change the face of the conservatism; less anger, more brains.

And we need to move on from the Bush Era. Please, no talk of Jebbie in 2012!

Let us first settle on the direction we need to move - and then find new candidates who can sell that message.

For those of you who think the country is doomed, you are wrong. Any time you believe that a majority of your fellow citizens are idiots, you don’t get the majesty of our nation. Obama’s election means something to these people. It is good that they have their chance to run our country. If they do well, we all do well. And if they can’t get a handle on our problems - and if we re-make ourselves into a smart party - then we can and will come back to power.

But first we have to earn our way back.

More on all of this to come in subsequent columns.

Here is where we are now in the Presidential race:

• The McCain-Palin post-convention “bounce” has ended. This was predictable - and inevitable as gravity always ends any bounce;

• The Palin Effect - that explosive, exuberant excitement that a new and attractive political figure brought to the political table - is wearing off.

• It seems more exposure to her through the campaign and even the Charlie Gibson ABC interview has started to erode her polling numbers; the new NYT/CBS poll shows a one-week decline in her “readiness to be Vice President”;

• Have no doubt about the powerful - if subtle - effect of the weekly headlines and stories in the National Enquirer about Sarah Palin; more people read that magazine each week than read Time and Newsweek combined; for the third week in a row the Enquirer has hammered the Governor for an alleged adulterous affair and other dysfunctional family issues; these stories do bleed into some voters’ minds;

• Obama’s campaign has gotten off their high horse and - finally - realizes that they might lose an election that was teed up for a Democrat to win this year. They have stopped the empty and lofty and useless rhetoric and gone on the attack against John McCain.

• The have started hammering McCain on his lack of economic experience;

• They have also realized that Palin can and will sink or swim on her own and they don’t need to attack her. Instead, stick to attacking McCain.

• Now comes the earth-shattering Financial Crisis: first shot out the box, what does McCain say? Forgetting that he is not yet the President, McCain tries to reassure a jittery electorate by saying, “the fundamentals of the economy are good.” Hmmmm...true or not, the public does not believe that - and thus by saying it McCain seems - again - out of touch and old and “not with it.”

• The McCain Camp soon realized their candidate’s mistake and tried to correct it. But in this age of constant news cycles, the Internet, blogs and 24-hour cable that “fundamentals are good” statement was McCain’s (bad) signature moment of the week;

• Now, here is the rub: the ending of McCain’s bounce - empirically seen in a number of polls: Zogby, Rasmussen, CNN, NYT/CBS - happened before the latest bad financial news hit. So what we need to look for now is whether or not the fear that our economy is teetering on an even bigger collapse helps or hurts either presidential candidate.

• Many suspect this fear will help Obama - as the candidate of the Out party - and hurt McCain who, hard as he may deny it, is inextricably tied to Bush;

• Neither Obama nor McCain have a clue about business or economics or markets; instead, both candidates are “government men” - those people who basically just want to be inside government all their lives in one capacity or the other.

• Neither candidate has a coherent World View - ala Ronald Reagan, who saw the interconnection between all thing: economics, the role of government, business, trade, defense and foreign policy.

• One of these candidates ought to realize the proper role of government in overseeing the economy: to be a referee who says what an industry cannot do; but not to be telling an industry what to do; this is not a narrow distinction.

• Conclusion: whatever momentum exists in this race has (slightly) switched from McCain back to Obama.

• It may very well switch again - and again in the 6 ½ weeks we have left.

• The September 26th Presidential Debate will be a possible Turning Point - one way or another.

• Plus the always-unexpected events - like this week’s still-ongoing-financial-meltdown.

TRYING TO BE REAGAN


Looking at all the present GOP presidential candidates, there are several common threads:

1) They all invoke Ronald Reagan as their ‘model.’

2) None of them ‘get’ Reagan - or have anything in common with the qualities that made him unique and a great president.

3) The mere fact that they all imitate and try to copy Reagan exemplifies just how un-Reagan- like they are.

Let us explain:


What made Reagan so successful?

It is - and - was quite simple: he was already a ‘made’ man before he entered politics. Yes, he was a radio, TV and movie star; but, more importantly, he had matured, suffered many ups and downs and, most of all, he knew who he was and what he believed. His political philosophy was his - not the product of focus-groups and adjustments.

His first wife, Jane Wyman, left him ostensibly because all he talked about was policy and politics. But he loved it!

He developed his (conservative) philosophy when it was not popular. But he was so sure of himself - and happy and secure in his own skin - that opposition to him and his views never phased him. Ever.

Did you ever see an angry or a flustered Reagan?

Did you ever see Reagan changing his hair style...his clothes...his entire persona?

Did you ever see Reagan lash out at people?

Did you ever see Reagan brag about his ongoing conversations with God? Did he ever wear his religion on his sleeve, as is so popular these days?


Now, let’s take a look at today’s politicians and candidates - as they all invoke Reagan as their ‘model’ and ‘mentor’ - but, in fact, none of them even grasp what Reagan was all about:

John McCain: a wicked temper, an internal ‘unhappiness’ reflected in his disparaging of underlings and staff; an inveterate - and admitted - womanizer (a sure sign of something lacking) - and an in-bred sense of superiority coming from a privileged upbringing by his father, Admiral McCain, which allowed John to overcome and escape the consequences of his repeated bad behavior.

Rudy Giuliani: a mess of an individual. Yes, tough and rough and goes all out to get what he wants. But at what cost to others? He will stomp on anyone who gets in his way; just look at the numerous criminal indictments he brought as US Attorney in the late 1980's - for headline purposes to further his career - but never prosecuted.

Look at how he treated Wife # 2: humiliating her by bringing girlfriends right into Gracie Mansion during their marriage.

Look at how he didn’t attend his son’s high school graduation. (And he wants to be the nominee of the GOP - a party that says it respects ‘family values’?)

Rudy is smart as can be - but he, too, is a mess of a human being - with this over-riding drive to be a somebody - whereas Reagan’s drive was to do something - in his case implement strong defense and try to reduce the scope and power of the federal government.

Plus, Rudy surrounds himself with sleazy people and friends. Bernard Kerik is now well-known. But there others. Like attracts like.


Mitt Romney: nick-named Flipper at the recent CPAC meeting in DC, this son of a former Michigan governor has also struggled with finding himself. In the 1990's he wasn’t a Republican. He was an independent and voted for (liberal) Paul Tsongas for President in the 1992 Democratic primary. Then, in 1996 when he ran against Teddy Kennedy, he bragged about being “to the left” of Kennedy on gay rights and abortion rights.

Now, as he runs to be Mr. Conservative, he suddenly flips all his positions to be a true-blue conservative. And he trots out one tortured explanation after another for his sudden changes.

Newt: smart, calculating, undisciplined - and totally incapable of containing his out-of-control ego. He is indeed the sharpest and most intriguing of all the GOP candidates. But in his time as Speaker, we saw his weaknesses: the GOP Revolution quickly morphed into the Gingrich Revolution; he began comparing himself to historical giants like Churchill and FDR; and he started talking in the third person, “Gingrich will go down in history as...”


An addition - on the Democrat side:

Hillary: a total disaster of a human being. A foul-mouthed, cold, angry woman who has spent all her adult life trying to hide her liberalism and radical feminism. She hooked onto Bill Clinton and rode him to the White House. But it was his tremendous political skills that got him there - not hers.

Now that she is on her own, you get glimpses into her emptiness. Yes, she works hard and has self-discipline. But her ever-changing hair-styles and repeated re-launches of her ‘personality’ (“I am the best known person no one know”) are a brief window into a person who is never happy with herself.


Conclusion: so far, as we gear up for the 2008 campaign, none of the candidates has demonstrated that ‘internal confidence’ that is then manifested publicly. They are all indeed driven - but just to get power; not to use that power for any specific purpose.

What we need in this country is simple: a leader who wants to do something - not someone obsessed with becoming a somebody.