First Principles

Two years ago, on the eve of another historical election, I wrote about my hopes for the election results and the next several years.  I said that my desires, in order of preference, were 1) that John McCain won, and was successful, 2) that Barack Obama won, and was successful, or, failing those two outcomes, that:

3.  Obama wins – and fails spectacularly.

This is the, “It takes a Carter to get a Reagan,” argument.  I don’t like it.  I don’t want to see my country or its President fail.  We all lose that way, and at this point in history there we don’t have the margin of error to recover.

But if Obama wins and fails marginally – that is, we limp along economically with stagnant growth and narrowly avert crises abroad – the continued liberal “solutions” to each problem will sink the ship of state almost imperceptibly.  The press that’s covered for Candidate Obama will not stop their dishonesty for President Obama, blinding us to the growing problems.  By the time the real problems are perceived by enough people to matter, it will be hard to fix them and to clear out the entrenched liberal government “solutions.”  By then, America may well have lost what makes us exceptional, and we will become just another European nanny state – a country on the decline (just as Western Europe is on the decline), with the only difference being more money in the bank to let us limp along for awhile.

If Obama and his liberal Democrats who will be in charge must fail, then I hope they fail quickly and spectacularly.  That way, not even the in-the-tank press can hide the truth of it from the American people, and we will be able to correct ourselves at the very next opportunity – the 2010 midterm elections.

I only pray that the failure, if it must come to that, results in the loss of as little life as possible.  Bad presidential decision making – or the inability to make them – can be a very bloody thing.

It seems that Hope 3 has come to pass – by no rational measure can the last two years have been said to be “successful,” certainly not from the standpoint of the prosperity and liberty of the American people.  And now we have a small chance to rectify things.  At least the failures up until now have been on domestic policy, and less so on the homeland security front.

One should be careful what one wishes for, though.  The opportunity represented by the failures of President Obama is a narrow one, and is by no means assured.  We have already paid a heavy price for this opportunity, and if we falter in our seriousness to restore liberty and prosperity, that price will reach unimaginable heights.

~~~

I’m looking forward to this coming wave, don’t get me wrong.  But I look forward to it with a great deal of trepidation mixed in.  With the winning of the office comes the shouldering of responsibility for what comes next.  The American people want real spending cuts, real transparency, and real economic growth.  They want real leadership.  Are our Republican candidates up to the task?

Being MORE up to the task than Democrats, while true, will not be enough.

If Republicans remain united and principled, and focus on the ball, they will be rewarded electorally as the economy improves and prosperity returns.  If they descend into partisan bickering, investigations, pork-barrel-politics, and reckless spending, they will be fired anew in 2012, and could cease to exist as a party while fed up non-liberals start looking for other options.  Republicans have squandered huge political capital on these things before, and a lot of the same people are still in positions of leadership with the party.  Have they learned?  Can they remain focused and disciplined?

I hope so.  The survival of both the party and the nation depends on it.  I’m hoping that if devotion to the cause of liberty isn’t enough to keep them motivated, a sense of self-preservation will.

~~~

I think that one of the blind spots all politicians have to some degree is that they view getting elected as an end in and of itself, as opposed to merely making it through the first cut.  It’s not that it shouldn’t be celebrated as an important first step (if you support the candidate, anyway), but it’s like stopping to have a party after Mile 1 of a marathon.

The whole point of running for office is not to win for the sake of winning, but to be in a position to enact policy which will put your principles into action.  If you can’t do that after you’ve won, your causes would have been better off had you lost, because now your failure to execute will be deemed a refutation of your principles.

Scott Rassmussen had a piece in the Wall Street Journal today which sums things up nicely – people are not voting FOR the GOP, they’re voting against the Democrats.  Republicans who don’t understand this will make things worse for the country and for themselves.  The American people are firing the Democratic Congress, but they are hiring its replacement on a Double Secret Probationary basis.  Republicans destroyed any benefit of the doubt they may have earned when it came to governing competently, at least in economic terms.  Some of that loss of credibility is fair and some of it isn’t, but it is the landscape nonetheless.

Once in power, there will be no margin to indulge irrelevant causes or special interest posturing.  When unemployment is 10% and we’re $13 trillion in debt to the largest communist nation on earth, no one gives a DAMN about which sports star might have used steroids and sullied their records ten years ago, or whether so-and-so had an affair in college with what’s-their-face.  There will be no credit given for the the funniest appearance on the Daily Show by a member of Congress.  There will not be enough patience to even hear the end of the sentence, “What I meant to say was…”

Every policy thrust must be clearly articulated, and every vote must be capable of being satisfactorily justified.  Every single dime spent must have a clear and convincing reason behind its expenditure.  Every word of every bill must be read and understood by the person voting on it.  Campaign promises to cut spending and stabilize and reduce regulatory burdens of employers must be remembered and actually acted upon.  The refs are in the bag for the other team – get over it, and play past it.  Whatever you do, don’t whine – people are looking for grownups in their government for a change.

Much of the commentary on the right is of the opinion that the Republican establishment must hear this message, but I believe tea party candidates need to pay just as much attention.  Some of these folks are sure to win, and when they do, there will be a temptation to read their own mandates too broadly.  God bless the people waiving Gadsden flags, but even unprecedented and genuine grass roots uprisings don’t represent everyone, or necessarily even majorities.  Ignoring any Republican deemed “impure,” allowing the perfect to be the enemy of the good in legislative compromises, and refusing to engage with media outlets assumed to be “hostile” will be self-defeating strategies.  And they must always remember that they themselves aren’t immune from the temptations of power and high office, and be ever vigilant against their own corruption.  Hubris is a bi-partisan affliction.

In other words, Republicans of all stripes, don’t you dare get cocky.  The hard work has only just begun.  As President Obama has learned, campaigning against every mistake those in power have made is easy, but defending decisions while in power is much harder.  The only route to success in the long run is to make decisions worth defending.  And the people will be watching.

~~~

The United States is heading for a cliff.  Our accelerant is continued deficit spending, and ever-increasing control over our everyday lives by government bureaucrats.  If Republicans content themselves with merely LESS deficit spending and a slower growth of government, they will be every bit as responsible for our nation’s decline as the reckless Progressives currently in power, and more to the point, the inevitable decline will continue.  Such action will be an embrace of liberalism after running on a promise to repudiate it.  But much like the ridiculous letters to the editor who claim Republicans over the last decade were “anti-government” and had “no regulations” even though government grew to a record size while those Republicans were in power, the blame will fall upon Conservatism itself, and it will make it harder for true conservatives to turn things around.

It is not enough to merely slow down, we must fully change direction.  If the direction cannot be changed because Democrats still control both the Senate and the White House, no Republican can afford to be seen as collaborating with this reckless joyride.  If they do, then the gains seen this election will have been for nothing, because this new class of Republicans will have failed their probation, and will be punished accordingly.  And when you’re heading towards the cliff, eventually you run out of time to keep looking for people to hire who will actually stop and turn things around.

~~~

One thing’s for certain – I’m looking forward to this cycle being over.  It has been intense and exhausting.

As always, all Americans should be proud.  These are revolutionary times, politically speaking, but it is a revolution at the ballot box, as it should be.  At the end of the day, as sullen as she may be, Nancy Pelosi will willfully turn over her gavel.  This is rare in the history of mankind, and we should always be grateful we live in a country where political turmoil is not synonymous with AK-47s.

But for the first time, even that faith is wavering ever-so-slightly.  Ever increasing reports of fraud, and even more reckless accusations of fraud, undermine the faith and confidence in our system which this peaceful transfer of power requires.  I hope that margins of victory are larger than margins of fraud, and fear they won’t be.  The Obama Administration’s partisan deployment of poll watchers does little to boost my confidence.

All Americans of every political stripe must be ruthlessly vigilant against this sort of thing.  Voter registration fraud must never be dismissed as “not really as bad as actual voter fraud”, because the only reason for the former is to effectuate the later.  Conveniences which make committing fraud simpler, like early voting and freely handing out absentee ballots to anyone for any reason, should be rolled back or eliminated completely.  We should return to old fashioned paper ballots in all circumstances, and require photo ID in every polling place in America.  Election fraud will never be completely eliminated, but just because thieves will always exist isn’t a reason to leave your door open for them.

~~~

Tomorrow morning, my family and I are going to vote.  (Did I mention I don’t like early voting?)  My daughter, just shy of her first birthday, will be with me, oblivious to the impact of this election on her future.  I’m voting with the hope that the Republicans I’m voting for are listening to the reasons I and most other Americans are voting for them, and that if and when they win, they govern with principle, seriousness, and humility.  For the Democrats who will remain, I pray for the same.

To them ALL, I say to remember – our patience is thin, and we’re watching.

Good luck to us all.