Fracking The Party

The reason for Mitt Romney's general unpopularity has recently been exposed, and in the process, so have a great many operatives working for his rise to the presidency. The sad thing is, this has caused a rift in the political family that may be difficult to work past.

For the past few days, the Drudge Report has been plastered with damning stories of Newt Gingrich's alleged infidelity, but not the marital type. Instead, Drudge has linked to story after story of reports from other conservative darlings coming out to figuratively stone Gingrich into oblivion, thereby paving a smoother path for Romney to the nomination.

Ann Coulter -- a huge Romney gal -- has all but Borked Newt, most recently and most shrilly claiming that a Gingrich nomination will reelect Obama. When our beloved Ann uses the scare tactics usually reserved for the "enemy", it is quite unsettling when she turns them on her fan base. Drudge joining in on the antics hasn't helped, either. It's one of my first online stops of the day, and I've been feeling quite glum in the past few. Even Tom Delay piled on, despite the solidarity he enjoyed from many of us just a few short years ago.

"What could be happening?", many of us thought. Since it seemed so unseemly that our former champions could turn on us in such dramatic fashion, I started to wonder early today if I had misjudged Newt Gingrich; I started to doubt my backing him.

Fortunately Red County.com -- an organization to which I am more proud today than ever to be a contributor -- discovered something that both assuaged my  fears and confirmed my worst suspicions; the Republican Party had been fractured. To make matters worse, the very people and outlets I had counted on for truth had lied to me. Whether these are differences that will prove to be irreconcilable or not remain to be seen. I suppose it depends on the level of contrition of the offenders when the dust settles. Suffice it to say that for now, dear Ms. Coulter, I am very disappointed in you. (You're on my list, too, Matt!)

Red County posted an editorial with a a full response from the Gingrich team enclosed. It's an article from Legal Insurrection, written by former Reagan staffer William A. Jabobson, and it puts to rest the notion being spread all over the web by Romney-ites that Gingrich was less than an enthusiastic supporter of Reagan. This bolstered my spirits instantly, but my anger began to mount in unison with the good news when repeated trips back to Drudge failed to mention the breakthrough. That's when I was sure that Drudge was also in the tank for Romney.

Learning later today that Rush Limbaugh had discussed the strafing of Gingrich by his colleagues and railed against it helped to buoy my mood. Ronald Reagan's son Michael also came out to counter the lies being spread by the cabal against Gingrich, but the icing on the cake was seeing Drudge finally and -- I suspect -- grudgingly post this welcome news up on his aggregate.

Speaking to Newsmax, here's part of what Michael Reagan had to say today:

“I am deeply disturbed that supporters of Mitt Romney are claiming that Newt Gingrich is not a true Reaganite and are even claiming that Newt was a strong critic of my father.
Recently I endorsed Newt Gingrich for president because I believe that Newt is the only Republican candidate who has both consistently backed the conservative policies that my father championed and the only Republican that will continue to implement his vision.
It surprises me that Mitt Romney and his supporters would raise this issue — when Mitt by his own admission voted for Jimmy Carter and Walter Mondale who opposed my father, and later supported liberal Democrat Paul Tsongas for president."

“Say what you want about Newt Gingrich but when he was Speaker of the House he surrounded himself with Reagan conservatives and implemented a Ronald Reagan program of low taxes and restrained federal spending.
I would take Newt Gingrich’s record any day over Mitt Romney’s.”

I'm gratified to learn that my allegiance to Newt is not unfounded, but I am deeply disturbed at the depths to which people I have trusted have sunk so as to achieve a goal of promoting a candidate clearly not desired by the choir to whom they preach.

I think the time has come for all of the angry electorate to unite behind the man they would most like to see face Obama in the general election in November. I would also love to see the TEA Party come out in full endorsement of Gingrich. That will teach the haughty among us that they are preferred pundits but not our true representatives.

We can work on the bitter betrayal somewhere down the road.

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At Long Last, the Awakening Masses

And the Scales Fell from Their Eyes

Here we are on the dawn of a new revolution, albeit one a bit tamer than the one of our inception, yet one no less dependent on the extraordinary courage of its participants. After all, this time the stakes just might be higher than 240 years ago, while the combatants include not only ideological enemies but allies gone somewhat awry.

Conservatives have been under attack for the past half century, and have only recently mounted an effective counter-insurgency in perhaps the last decade. Some of the key players in the climb back to respectability have been cult heroes such as Bill O'Reilly and Ann Coulter, and others of their ilk. And while they deserve much credit for the arousal of the right, something happened to them along the way, something that seems to happen to leaders of all stripes at some point; a sense of self-adorned majesty apparently crept into their minds, one that refused to accept defiance.

We have had our favorite commentators since the Clinton presidency, and we have allowed ourselves to fall comfortably into the warm folds of their embraces, somewhat secure in the notion that they shared our core values. What we have seen in this primary season is not so much a betrayal of those shared values, but a sudden veering off the road to their achievement. We're now sharply at odds with the voices we not long ago cherished over the proper course to our nation's revival, and our alleged leader-pundits are not at all happy over our detour.

Ann Coulter -- who I love dearly -- has become apoplectic over the possibility that Newt Gingrich could become the republican nominee to face Obama. No, she warns, only Mitt Romney can save us! Once upon a time, many of us would have fallen into lockstep with Ann's decrees, but the times, they are a-changin'.

A Crowd of Motivated TEA Partiers

Thanks in part to the TEA Party, we are poised to see a record number of voters turn out for a presidential election. More importantly, however, is the fact that many more people are actually engaging early and making their wishes known, and clearly. Traditionally, perhaps half of the electorate hibernates throughout the primary process, relying on sound bites and campaign ads and emerging on Election Day like Punxsutawney Phil to cast their votes for -- or against -- whomever the eventual nominee may be.

Not so this time around. People are angry, frustrated, fed up with this failed president, and disgusted with the mainstream media for its malfeasance in  reporting accurately on it. To top it all off, we have learned to stand on principle rather than probability, making the voices of our side less crucial to the decision making process.

This is why Newt has done so well; we know of his foibles and frailties, and they are not that important now in the face of the task we must undertake. That is because we also know of Newt's strengths. We are no longer going to meekly offer up a candidate we are told can garner the most votes. We are prepared to put up the candidate we believe will be the most effective, and then we will vote for that candidate en masse.

Timidity is what gave us John McCain in 2008, and that was slightly more palatable than today because we had only a speculative notion of Barack Obama. Now that we have experienced three years of Obama's "leadership", the urgency to be rid of him has aided in our boldness.

It seems we are more than sufficiently motivated to grab the reins of our own destiny in this election year, even if it does cause some past heroes a bit of agita.

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Fair Tax? No, Just More Tax

The idea floated by Mike Huckabee during the campaign - although it was not his idea - was a good one. The Fair Tax would replace income-based taxes in favor of a national sales tax, thereby allowing every working American to keep what they earn and pay taxes as they consume products and services. For anyone who believes that the "rich" must pay more because they can, this is their baby, because Bill Gates will certainly pay one heck of a lot more on his new car or yacht than I will on my thirty dollar speaker system for my computer.

Amused as I have been by so-called economists who have gone out of their way to denigrate the Fair Tax, the level of incredulity has reached new heights that would be laughable were it not so terrifying. For as much as they claimed that the plan would yield not nearly enough to sustain the economy, former opponents to the idea of the Fair Tax now claim with equal fervor that it is the best revenue-producing conception they have seen. The only problem is, they don't want to replace the income tax system...they want to add to it.

Yes, the current "Axis Of Taxes" - a term I gleened from a brilliant Tea-Party-goer in Chicago - of Obama, Reid and Pelosi have determined that, having spent virtually every viable cent in the nation, that they need a new source of revenue. That, ladies and gentlemen, would be us. What's frightening is the incoherence of this new plan and the complete lack of comprehension on the part of our elected leaders where the health of our economy is concerned.

In true socialist fashion, they view the people they allegedly serve as cash cows whom they can tip in the middle of the night like so many drunk and visiting city teenagers. While the current administration claims to endeavor to spur our sputtering economy, every action thus far has had the opposite effect, and further taxation on already over-burdened people will spur an even more intense lockdown on spending, which is the ultimate engine of growth. Product demand and consumption are the stuff of jobs creation, after all.

President Obama recently declared that we are "out of money" while conveniently neglecting to mention that it was so because he had spent it all, and then some. Now claiming that more is needed to fund his grand vision of "national health care" - something that has not been clamored for by we the people - Obama laments soaring budget deficits with the sypmathetic ear of congress. As the Washington Post reports:

With budget deficits soaring and President Obama pushing a trillion-dollar-plus expansion of health coverage, some Washington policymakers are taking a fresh look at a money-making idea long considered politically taboo: a national sales tax.

If the plan was to finally implement the Fair Tax, I would cheer the move. Sadly, that is not the case, and I am now wondering how long it will take for this terrible triad to destroy America once and for all.

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