Will Obama Overcome?

Donald Douglas has an interesting post at American Power Blog on the significance of Obama's election and race relations. Obama said himself in his election night speech at Grant Park the following:

"If there is anyone out there who doubts that America is a place where all things are possible; who still wonders if the dream of our Founders is alive in our time; who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer."

Eloquent words to be sure, and fitting perhaps: no matter what you think about Obama's politics, the historic significance of his election can't be denied. Just 44 years ago Lyndon Johnson signed the landmark Civil Rights Act that sought to outlaw segregation in public places once and for all. It was part of an America that was still largely split in two, especially in the South: one for whites and one for "colored" folks. In little more than a generation, America has shed these bonds and put a black man in the "people's house". It is, by all accounts, a historic event.

But will Obama be an historic president not for what he is as a black man, but what he does as a president who is also black?

This is a critical question -- for there will be tremendous pressure on Obama to give in to the old-style "grievance" politics of Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Maxine Waters and many more in the Congressional Black Caucus. The racial politics of the Democratic Party have been long mired in a "reparations" mindset. This goes hand-in-hand with a culture of victimization that has marked the way blacks have come to view their lot in life. From this has stemmed a number of negative trends in the black community, including a general lack of personal responsibility that has wrecked the nuclear black family: nearly two-thirds of all black children are born out of wedlock. The virtual absence of fathers reflects a "gangsta" culture that puts a premium on sexual conquest without the attendant bonds of having to deal with its consequences. Bill Cosby has been one of the few black voices to call attention to this and other problems within the black community. He wasn't made more popular among blacks because of it.

During the long campaign, Barack Obama did call attention to the need for black fathers to be more responsible. In a speech at the Apostolic Church of God on Chicago's South Side in June, Obama said this:

“Too many fathers are M.I.A, too many fathers are AWOL, missing from too many lives and too many homes,” Mr. Obama said, to a chorus of approving murmurs from the audience. “They have abandoned their responsibilities, acting like boys instead of men. And the foundations of our families are weaker because of it.”

Obama, to his credit, went before a largely black audience to give this message. To put a point on it, he also said this:

"But we also need families to raise our children,” he said. “We need fathers to realize that responsibility doesn’t just end at conception. That doesn’t just make you a father. What makes you a man is not the ability to have a child. Any fool can have a child. That doesn’t make you a father. It’s the courage to raise a child that makes you a father.”

This is a forceful message given by someone who is now the leader of the nation. If this is the way Obama will lead as president, he may indeed overcome the divisive grievance politics of the past -- setting blacks on a more productive path toward self determination.

Time will tell.

Bush Fatigue

I noted yesterday in a post entitled "The Morning After" that I believe Obama's victory on Tuesday was as much a product of the public's "Bush fatigue" as it was any ringing affirmation of the liberal policies that Obama will pursue as president. I argue this because Obama ran primarily as a centrist, coopting the Republican tax-cut mantra by promising his tax reduction for "95% of working Americans" and talking up his desire in general for middle class tax relief. It was a great strategy and proved extremely effective -- particularly given McCain's ineptness in arguing that the Obama plan amounts to another entitlement program. In the end, of course, we all know that with the Democratic robber barons in Congress leading the way, tax increases are coming for everyone -- and not just the "rich" folks making in excess of $250k per year.

In my view there is no fundamental "realignment" in this election -- the country remains a center-right nation that wants small government and low taxes. In today's Wall Street Journal, Pat Toomey makes a very compelling argument to this effect:

A poll commissioned by the Club for Growth in 12 swing congressional districts over the past weekend shows that the voters who made the difference in this election still prefer less government -- lower taxes, less spending and less regulation -- to Sen. Obama's economic liberalism. Turns out, Americans didn't vote for Mr. Obama and Democratic congressional candidates because they support their redistributionist agenda, but because they are fed up with the Republican politicians in office. This was a classic "throw the bums out" election, rather than an embrace of the policy views of those who will replace them.

This is exactly the point I've been making: the 2008 election -- like in 2006 -- was a referendum on George W. Bush and the Republican "bums" that the public associates with failure. It was not a ringing endorsement of "spreading the wealth around" and doesn't amount to an affirmation that wanting to keep more of your hard earned money is "selfish". This was not a realignment toward socialism. It was a rejection of Bush, pure and simple.

The poll results cited by Toomey clearly back up this position:

Consider the most salient aspects of Mr. Obama's economic agenda: the redistribution of wealth through higher taxes on America's top earners; the revival of the death tax; raising the tax on capital gains and dividend income; increased government spending; increased government involvement in the housing crisis; a restriction on offshore drilling and oil exploration in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR); and "card check" legislation stripping workers of their right to a secret ballot in union elections.

On each of these issues, swing voters stand starkly against Mr. Obama. According to the Club's poll, 73% of voters prefer the federal government to focus on "creating economic conditions that give all people opportunities to create wealth through their own efforts" over "spreading wealth from higher income people to middle and lower income people." Two-thirds of respondents prefer to see the permanent elimination of the death tax, and 65% prefer to keep capital gains and dividend tax rates at their current lows.

These results read like a Conservatives dream: a focus on individual effort to create wealth, elimination of the death tax and low tax rates. Unfortunately, the voters -- in rejecting McCain as another vestige of the Bush Administration -- elected someone who stands in opposition to all of these positions. Obama is on record as supporting increases in the death tax, capital gains and dividend taxes, income taxes on the highest tax bracket, the expiration of the Bush tax cuts and many other tax increases. One of the poll results that shocked me from Tuesday was that Obama won among tax payers in the $200,000 and above income category -- the very category that he was openly targeting for a tax increase. Voters seem to be against tax increases -- but they didn't vote that way on Tuesday.

This seeming contradiction is tough to explain. It is a given, of course, that many voters don't pay attention to the details, and vote on the basis of emotion and personality. On that score Obama won hands down. Many of the voters in swing states ended up voting against their stated interests and desires, by electing Obama and increasing Democratic majorities in the House and Senate. The emotional wave of "change" -- coupled by an incoherent Republican opposition and a total failure of leadership -- created a Democratic wave. Caveat emptor: they just bought something that was both defective and dangerous.

How long will it take before massive "buyer's remorse" sets in? That depends on how well Obama is able to manage the massive liberal forces that will now be pushing him hard to the left. Whether it be the far-left interest groups that poured massive money into his campaign, or the Democratic leadership in Congress that wants socialism on a grand scale, Obama faces some powerful groups that want precisely what most Americans do not. Whether he can (or will) resist this and govern more to the center is unclear. Nothing in Obama's past indicates a courage of conviction or a willingness to buck his party's power brokers. If Obama is unable (or unwilling) to control these forces, he will quickly find himself with a groundswell of opposition among those who decided (against logic) to vote for him. It won't be pretty.

In the end, this election amounted to a clear signal to conservatives that the issues that fueled the Reagan Revolution -- smaller government, less regulation and low taxes -- still resonate broadly with the American people. George W. Bush was never a leader of this movement, and his prolifigate spending and lack of fiscal discipline helped to ruin the Republican brand. Now, Conservatives need new leadership and new ideas that will take the Reagan-era philosophies and update them for a new generation of Americans. Barack Obama won the presidency but he hasn't changed America.

The Morning After

Like many Americans I feel a sense of frustration, sadness and yes, even some anger over the election results last night. While I recognize the "historic" nature of Obama's victory, unlike many I am not really all that moved by the event -- the first black to be elected president. I have never thought that race was a big issue in the country today, and I long ago accepted blacks as equals. While I understand the history of slavery and racism, I believe that we moved past that decades ago; I never accepted the media's view of America as a "racist" nation, and always discounted the notion that race would have an impact on this election in negative terms.

In the end, race did play a role in the election -- but it clearly worked in Obama's favor: it won him the election. There is no doubt that Geraldine Ferraro was correct when she said that Obama's rise and victory over Hillary Clinton in the primaries was largely due to the color of his skin. Without it, he'd have been just another radical Chicago politician still sitting in the Illinois State Senate. Obama being black has much to do with his winning last night. If that's racism (and in some ways it is), I'm sure the left won't be complaining about it any time soon.

Of course, it would have been difficult for any Republican to win yesterday. The Republican brand is now toxic -- associated with graft and pork and the massive downturn in the economy that has wiped trillions from 401k balance sheets across the nation. It matters little that the facts show Democrats to be as (or more) culpable on all these issues. It only matters that a media bent on an Obama victory used its bias to make a powerful case that Republicans are the party of greed. This was a narrative that McCain -- to his detriment -- stepped right into, calling Wall Street "greedy" and talking about the scourge of "predatory lenders" as the root of the problem.

Making matters even worse, tn the wake of the financial crisis, McCain's campaign talking points were virtually indistinguishable from that of his opponent. Rather than reinforce a philosophical opposition to the tax-payer bank bailout that would have given voters a choice on the issue, McCain backed the same rescue plan that Obama did. And when you put into the mix McCain's antics of "suspending his campaign" when it was clear he didn't have a path to fix the problem, he just looked anxious and uncertain. Not good if you are marketing yourself as the candidate of experience and substance.

Last night in my post I discussed some of the feedback from voters garnered in the exit polls in key states. What I took from the results was that this election does not mark a fundamental realignment in our politics from "center-right" to "center-left". It was, to be sure, a bad night for Republicans -- coming off an equally bad night in 2006. Taken together, the Republicans lost over 50 House Seats and 1o Senate seats in those two elections. But both 2006 and 2008 amount to a massive, sustained repudiation of the Bush presidency -- not an overwhelming validation of Barack Obama and what he stands for. This election (and in 2006) was in my view a protest election of the last four years of the Bush presidency.

It is thus no surprise, then, that voters chose the "anti-Bush" on the ballot. Try as he might, John McCain was not able to shake off the Bush brand, and his poor communication and rhetorical skills only made him seem more like the current president. One of the reason voters were so taken by Obama's speeches and rhetorical flourishes is that they have been numbed by Bush's total inability to communicate his ideas and policies effectively. Voters want a president who can speak like John F. Kennedy or Ronald Reagan. Obama beat McCain on this score by a massive margin.

And he beat McCain by seeming to embrace and understand "nuance" -- that slick concept the left embraces because it makes it possible to squirm out of having to take a hard stand on the issues. George Bush was famous for his lack of nuance -- his "with us or against us" mentality, and his willingness to go to the mat to embrace principle over popularity. Many of us have long valued Bush's certitude and clarity on core issues like Iraq and the war on terror, and supported McCain principally because we saw a similar courage of conviction. But we were clearly in the minority; most voters last night understood the value of McCain's experience and judgment, but discounted its importance in favor of the well-spoken guy who might do a better job on the economy. My feeling has always been that if a terrorist detonates a nuclear device in the middle of Manhattan the economy is a moot issue. Obviously, most people don't see it that way.

Barack Obama is now to be our 44th president. It is a day I have long feared, because we know very little about what Obama truly believes. The American people have taken a huge leap of hope and faith, electing an unknown, inexperienced 47 year old man in a time of war. It is incomprehensible to me that this has happened.

But it has. I awoke this morning after to find that it hadn't been all just a bad dream. Now we will see if the bad dream turns into full-fledged nightmare.

Curtains for McCain

It is 7:18 pm on the West Coast and the election is over. Barack Obama will have over 300 electoral votes when the counting is done, and will be the 44th President of the United States and the first black American to hold the office.

He deserves credit -- for tapping into the angst of the country and fashioning a message that obviously resonated with a vast number of people. In looking at the exit poll data from various states that were either battleground or swing states (from red to blue) the overwhelming message was that this was as much a referendum on George W. Bush as it was an affirmation of Barack Obama. The exit polls showed that the Bush stain on the Republican Party was both deep and broad. McCain lost among independents in a year when he should have been able to win them over -- and this was principally because the Bush legacy has been so negative. It is clear now that no Republican could have won the presidency this year. And, had Hillary won the Democratic nomination, she would have won as well.

On the positive side, it looks increasingly unlikely that the Democrats will reach 60 votes in the Senate. And while we may yet have to stomach the sight of Al Franken and his nasty demeanor in the Senate, we will at least have a chance to stop the Obama/Pelosi/Reid juggernaut. That's something, anyhow.

In the balance hangs the future of the Republican Party itself. Was Sarah Palin a net positive to McCain? Though she mobilized the base, she clearly turned off the Hillary voters based on exit poll results. Is she the future? Or has she seen her best days already?

It remains to be seen as to whether this is a realigning election marking a shift in the electorate to the left, or whether it was Bush and Iraq fatigue that led to this result. I am betting the latter -- but I will have more on that in the coming days.

He'll never be my President

On the eve of the election, let me leave you with this searing critique of our possible president of the United States, Barack Hussein Obama. It is by Thomas Sowell, a brilliant black writer who also happens to be conservative.

The piece is entitled Ego and Mouth. It is the perfect summation of the Democratic nominee. It is the lasting impression I wish to leave my readers with before tomorrow.

Sowell writes:

After the big gamble on subprime mortgages that led to the current financial crisis, is there going to be an even bigger gamble, by putting the fate of a nation in the hands of a man whose only qualifications are ego and mouth?

Barack Obama has the kind of cocksure confidence that can only be achieved by not achieving anything else.

Anyone who has actually had to take responsibility for consequences by running any kind of enterprise-- whether economic or academic, or even just managing a sports team-- is likely at some point to be chastened by either the setbacks brought on by his own mistakes or by seeing his successes followed by negative consequences that he never anticipated.

The kind of self-righteous self-confidence that has become Obama's trademark is usually found in sophomores in Ivy League colleges-- very bright and articulate students, utterly untempered by experience in real world.

The signs of Barack Obama's self-centered immaturity are painfully obvious, though ignored by true believers who have poured their hopes into him, and by the media who just want the symbolism and the ideology that Obama represents.

The triumphal tour of world capitals and photo-op meetings with world leaders by someone who, after all, was still merely a candidate, is just one sign of this self-centered immaturity.

"This is our time!" he proclaimed. And "I will change the world." But ultimately this election is not about him, but about the fate of this nation, at a time of both domestic and international peril, with a major financial crisis still unresolved and a nuclear Iran looming on the horizon.

For someone who has actually accomplished nothing to blithely talk about taking away what has been earned by those who have accomplished something, and give it to whomever he chooses in the name of "spreading the wealth," is the kind of casual arrogance that has led to many economic catastrophes in many countries.

The equally casual ease with which Barack Obama has talked about appointing judges on the basis of their empathies with various segments of the population makes a mockery of the very concept of law.

After this man has wrecked the economy and destroyed constitutional law with his judicial appointments, what can he do for an encore? He can cripple the military and gamble America's future on his ability to sit down with enemy nations and talk them out of causing trouble.

Senator Obama's running mate, Senator Joe Biden, has for years shown the same easy-way-out mindset. Senator Biden has for decades opposed strengthening our military forces. In 1991, Biden urged relying on sanctions to get Saddam Hussein's troops out of Kuwait, instead of military force, despite the demonstrated futility of sanctions as a means of undoing an invasion.

People who think Governor Sarah Palin didn't handle some "gotcha" questions well in a couple of interviews show no interest in how she compares to the Democrats' Vice Presidential candidate, Senator Biden.

Joe Biden is much more of the kind of politician the mainstream media like. Not only is he a liberal's liberal, he answers questions far more glibly than Governor Palin-- grossly inaccurately in many cases, but glibly.

Moreover, this is a long-standing pattern with Biden. When he was running for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination back in 1987, someone in the audience asked him what law school he attended and how well he did.

Flashing his special phony smile, Biden said, "I think I have a much higher IQ than you do." He added, "I went to law school on a full academic scholarship" and "ended up in the top half" of the class.

But Biden did not have a full academic scholarship. Newsweek reported: "He went on a half scholarship based on need. He didn't finish in the 'top half' of his class. He was 76th out of 85."
Add to Obama and Biden House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, and you have all the ingredients for a historic meltdown.

I couldn't have said it better myself.

A historic, epic meltdown. Giving the keys to the kingdom to a self-absorbed talker who has never run a business, never run a town, a city, a county or a state. Nothing.

Should he win tomorrow, it will be the most pathetic statement about our electorate -- taken in by some bromides of "hope" and "change" -- underpinned by the most socialist economic agenda the nation has ever seen. Ever. Including the New Deal and the Great Society.

Let's hope that substance triumphs over style tomorrow.

But should he win -- let me say on the record: He will never be my president. My president is a hero. His name is John S. McCain.

Obama Shows His Class

Something lighter this time (not that being "light" is easy for me at this moment -- but I'm trying):

Not sure if you remember this from the primaries, but Obama did this to Hillary, too.

Did he mean to do it to McCain or did he not? What do you think? Let me know in the poll to the right of this post.

I wouldn't be surprised if he did mean to do it...it seems too practiced to me. But I'll let you be the judge:

Leftward-Ho!

Today, courtesy of the Wall Street Journal, come a trio of articles that will show just how sharp a left turn the country will take tomorrow if it elects Barack Obama president. As I have been writing for months now, Obama is at the forefront of a left-wing movement that will make the moderates in the Clinton Administration seem like conservatives. At risk here are all the major gains made in the private sector that have created an economic climate for growth: low taxes, low regulation and fewer torts from the notorious plaintiff's bar.

First up is a piece by Corey Dade entitled Liberals, Sensing Victory, Try to Pull Obama Left. It discusses the pressure already mounting on Obama to radically restructure the Democratic Party along the designs of left-wing interest groups that want a government based on big taxes and big spending:

A phalanx of liberal think tanks and interest groups -- anticipating a Democratic victory on Tuesday -- are mobilizing to push Sen. Barack Obama to the left of his campaign positions.

In recent weeks, groups have held conferences, drafted policy papers and lobbied campaign advisers in the hope of influencing what they believe would be the most receptive administration to the political left since Jimmy Carter. The Obama campaign declined to comment about pressure from liberal policy groups.

A number of the economic and social prescriptions being pushed on Obama advisers would require greater spending that almost certainly depend on raising taxes -- threatening Sen. Obama's campaign promise to cut taxes.

The Campaign for America's Future, a progressive Washington group founded by a former adviser to the Rev. Jesse Jackson's presidential bids, is organizing a conference for this month on creating a government-funded investment fund for public works projects. The Center for American Progress recently released a two-year, $100 billion plan for producing renewable energy, and its president, former Clinton administration Chief of Staff John Podesta, has been tapped to lead the Obama transition team.

Last month in Washington, an organization recently formed by Martin Luther King III, son of the slain civil-rights leader, attracted more than 100 leading activists on poverty and other social issues to a daylong conference. Mr. King demanded that the next president appoint a cabinet member dedicated to eradicating poverty. In a keynote address, Columbia University economist Jeffrey Sachs called for substantially higher tax collections to fund government investments in energy production, public works and eradicating poverty and other ills.

Some groups already have emerged as Obama advisers, such as the Potomac Coalition, a collection of African-American former Clinton appointees and Senate aides, that advises the campaign on the economy. The members, many of whom now work on Wall Street, urged Sen. Obama to back the addition of homeowner assistance and a contracting provision for minorities and women in the $700 billion rescue of the financial sector.

So, for those of you who are convinced that Obama will provide a "middle class tax cut" for 95% of tax payers, you should hold on to your wallet. The likelihood that Obama, posted up by these groups and a left-wing controlled Congress will be able to resist the calls for new taxes is almost non-existant. Believe him at your own risk.

Next, is a piece by Nick Timiraos entitled Lawyers Aim to Roll Back Curbs on Lawsuits. Here it becomes clear that the trial lawyers -- long a bulwark of Democratic support -- are planning an assault on many of the tort reforms that have begun to take hold around the nation. These reforms have served to reduce the number of nuisance and frivolous lawsuits filed against businesses as a form of corporate extortion.

Plaintiff and consumer groups, buoyed by prospects of a Democratic president and expanded Democratic majority in Congress, are preparing a big push for legislation that would roll back limitations on personal-injury and class-action lawsuits.

The plaintiffs bar's legislative wish-list includes limiting companies' use of federal regulations as a shield from litigation under state law, and laws to end mandatory arbitration in consumer contracts, opening potential new avenues for civil lawsuits.

...Pro-plaintiff groups see an ally in Sen. Obama, a former law professor, who has offered support for tighter consumer-safety regulations and co-sponsored a bill in August to roll back mandatory arbitration for military-service members and their employers. The bill remains in committee.

"There's a lot of hope because Obama ... should at least understand these issues and their importance in a way a lot of politicians don't," said David Arkush, director of Public Citizen's Congress Watch, a consumer-advocacy group.

The tort bar is a notorious burden to business -- and for every meritorious law suit filed, there are dozens filed on behalf of plaintiffs with little or no merit. This is another threat to our economy.

And finally, because the left has trouble winning the battle of ideas, comes the return of the

Fairness Doctrine. In an article by Amy Schatz, Democrats seem interested in bringing back the 1950s era concept that requires equal time on public airwaves for both conservative and liberal programming.

"As things now stand, if Barack Obama is elected, he could simply snap his fingers and we would have a Fairness Doctrine because he selects the FCC chairman, and with a majority vote, the FCC could declare the re-imposition of it," said L. Brent Bozell III, founder of the Media Research Center, a conservative media watchdog.

Democrats have complained about the rise of conservative talk radio, but they have had little success putting the rule back into place. In some ways, technology has made it less relevant, since the Internet gives commentators on both sides ample space to talk about political ideas and controversial issues.

Though Obama has stated his opposition to formally bringing back the Fairness Doctrine, you can be certain that if the FCC and the Congress push it, he will be hard pressed to ignore the left-wing interest groups that will want it. The specter of an Obama veto is hard to imagine.

The country is set for a hard left lurch -- and don't be surprised if the federal government again starts a Great Society-scale program to combat poverty and a host of other social objectives. Paid for by your tax dollars.

IBD-Tipp Poll: McCain Can Still Win

I know the narrative in the mainstream media is that this race is "over" and the Obama will win in a landslide. As I wrote a month ago, Obama himself has been confident of a massive victory on Tuesday. It's part of the left believing that this is their year, and no matter who they put up to run for office, they will win. I believe it is part of the arrogance that led to Obama's razor-thin victory over Hillary Clinton in the primaries. Democrats got greedy; they chose history and youth over steady practicality. Obama appeals to many Democrats because he is black, young and part of the new generation of liberal leadership. But he is a virtual unknown, and his negatives were something that the party as a whole didn't understand. Hillary, on the other hand, also has high negatives -- but they are well known and in many ways easier to defend than Obama's.

It may yet be a choice that the Dems live to regret. While this election season has been filled with hundreds of polls, there is little reason to be confident that these polls are going to be accurate this year. The presence of a black candidate, a far-left political orientation, an expected increase in youth-vote, and a rise in cell-phone only voters -- all make traditional models of polling unreliable. You can see this by the extreme ranges you will get in different polls on the same day -- from Obama up by 13 in one poll to Obama up by only 3 in another. They just aren't accurate this year. And, remember, in 2004 they also were largely unreliable -- many polls at the end of October actually had John Kerry ahead of George W. Bush, and exit polls were dramatically in Kerry's favor. Bush won by 2.5%.

The most accurate poll of 2004 is the one I think will give us the best indication of what will happen on Tuesday night. The final Investor Business Daily-TIPP poll had Bush beating Kerry by 2.1% -- just .04% off the actual result. Today, the latest IBD-TIPP Tracking Poll has Obama leading McCain by 2.1% with 8.7% still unsure. That is a huge block of undecideds, and the general belief out there is that most undecideds at this late date will break for McCain. We shall see. The IBD-TIPP poll today (Sunday) described its results this way:


The race tightened again Sunday as independents who'd been leaning to Obama shifted to McCain to leave that key group a toss-up. McCain also pulled even in the Midwest, moved back into the lead with men, padded his gains among Protestants and Catholics, and is favored for the first time by high school graduates.

Tomorrow, there will be another set of polls -- the last before the vote. If the IBD-TIPP poll has narrowed further, this race will come down to the wire.

Stay tuned!

A Vote for Victimization

I have spent much proverbial ink making the case against Barack Obama, something that hasn't been difficult for me given the clear and compelling character deficiencies he has -- not to mention the horrific policies he will pursue as president. For anyone who has been paying attention and who really understands what Obama represents, opposing the Democrat in this election is a no brainer.

Of course, brains are hard to come by in our electorate -- even among the so-called intellectual class among the left, who live in a world of idealism and good intentions. For them, Obama is a "righteous wind" of soaring rhetoric that fulfills their fondest ideals of an America of perfect equality. But these "intellectuals" live in a their own world of privilege and money; for them, "equality" is a concept that they preach but don't live. It's easy to be a leftist in a limousine. Just ask anyone in Hollywood. For them, a vote for Obama absolves all manner of guilt and enables them to go on making millions without feeling so badly about it. Wow. Isn't America a great country?

For those of us who don't make millions but run businesses in the real world -- who strive to make enough to retire early and enjoy the fruits of our labor -- John McCain is the only choice in this election. McCain is a man of principle and courage, who understands that America is an exceptional country built on hard work and the promise of reward. It is not a nation of economic redistribution and social welfare, but one of individual liberty. McCain will not forsake those in need for greed; but neither will be forsake those who prosper in favor of those who choose not to make something of their life. Note I use the word "choose" here, because I believe that many in our society have chosen to succumb to the narrative that they are victims, that opportunity doesn't exist, and that they must depend on government to help them.

This is nonsense. Opportunity exists for everyone in this country -- from the poorest whites in West Virginia to the poorest blacks in South Los Angeles. Education is free -- including community colleges, which provide an excellent two-year degree for virtually nothing. It only takes an understanding that as an individual you have only ONE life to live; you can sit and sulk at the injustice of it all, or you can take advantage of the opportunities available and make something of yourself. Is it easy? No. Is it possible? Absolutely.

My father grew up dirt poor during the Great Depression with little material wealth. But he had guts and determination, and decided that he would not let his circumstances control his destiny. He studied hard in school -- while working odd jobs to help his family pay the bills -- and won a national merit scholarship to the University of Chicago at the age of 16. At an age when most kids today are playing video games in their basement, my dad went off to college to study Latin and the humanities. He struggled mightily. But he didn't give up, eventually earning his Ph.D. from UCLA. My dad's odds were long but he knew that no one would help him if he didn't help himself.

That is the promise of America. It is not a story of dependence, but one of courage and determination. It is a story of self reliance and personal responsibility. And it is a story that is being slowly but inexorably lost today. We are fast becoming a nation of children who want to be coddled and excused when we make mistakes. Its always someone else's fault -- from poverty to crime to the housing mess. We are now in the age of victimization.

And a vote for Obama will be a vote for victimization, for this is a man who has spent his entire life working to reinforce the idea that race and class are the prime obstacles in people's lives. He is all about cultivating inequality and using it as a cudgel with which to remake society in the image of his deepest fears of an oppressive white establishment with an exploitative economic system. His view of our country is based on the politics of black and white -- regardless of how he has spun his "hope filled" campaign. Barack Obama has cast himself as a mainstream candidate, but his past and his proclivities are decidedly on the fringe of the Democratic Party.

The impact of an Obama victory will be to dramatically increase the divide in this country on virtually every level. Rather than bringing "hope" and a "stronger America" to the nation, Barack Obama will bring racial and political polarization.

Obama is a man who believes America to be a deeply flawed nation. He is not the man to lead this great country.

Vote John McCain on Tuesday. Our future as a great nation depends on it.

Another Skeleton in Obama's Crowded Closet

So now it turns out that Barack Obama's aunt, Zeituni Onyango, has been living in the U.S. illegally since 2004, when she was ordered by an immigration court deported from the country.

Better yet, she's been staying here on the taxpayer's dime in a subsidized apartment-unit recently refurbished with a HUD-HOPE block grant to Zeituni's Boston public-housing complex.

Check out the video here:

Obama's response was that they haven't had "much contact" recently, that "he didn't know she was here illegally", etc. etc. etc. I guess his aunt "isn't the aunt he used to know". She's in very good company in Obama's parallel universe, sitting with the Tony Rezko, the Bill Ayers and the Jeremiah Wright he used to know. Barack Obama used to know a lot of shady people.

You just can't make this up. Can you imagine if this were about John McCain? Or course, you CAN'T imagine this about John McCain, because McCain has character and knows the difference between right and wrong. And he isn't willing to consort with radicals, criminals and illegals to achieve his selfish political ends.

This election should be about character -- because the presidency is all about one thing: honesty, integrity and judgment. Barack Obama has none. He should lose on November 4. But if he doesn't, let the people beware. You are putting an unprincipled, dishonest schemer into the White House.

h/t again to Donald Douglas