Matters Of Opinion

Remembering the Fallen

On Memorial Day, we remember those that have fallen.

On Memorial Day, we remember the lives that have been lost. The people who have given everything to their country. Not because they had to. Not because it was “just a job”. But because a handful of our nations brightest and best decided that it was their calling to serve and protect this country. While you all are grilling out, and swimming, and enjoying this beginning of summer with friends and family, take some time, say a prayer, and remember those that have died to help protect this country.

I always think about a conversation I had with a buddy of mine at work.

We were talking about a fellow co-worker, James, and how he continually signs up to go back overseas. My buddy says, “Man, I don’t know how he does it. Every time he comes back to work, he’s only back for maybe a year and he signs back up for another tour and is off again! I don’t get it.”

Myself, also not being a military person, responded back, “Yeah, I don’t get it either. I don’t know how he leaves his family and children behind to go overseas. But you know what? Thank God for people like James, because if it wasn’t for people like James, you and I would be crapping ourselves in a ditch somewhere right now.”

And that’s the truth.

Always remember.

Kirk Pulls a “Blumenthal”

Less than a month after the “Blumenthal debachal”, GOP Senate contender for Illinois Mark Kirk put his OWN foot in his mouth by admitting that his claim of winning an award for “officer of the year” in the Nazy was false. It was false in his ads, in his book, and…well…everywhere else it was spread.

Republicans, if they’re going to have a hope of winning these seats (which should pretty much be “gimme’s” this year) need to pull their heads out of their collective asses and stop stuff like this.

This, of course, was over this Memorial Day weekend, which is just icing on the cake.

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As you can all tell, this post is a bit shorter than my other posts. That is because this post was written for www.thepetersonpost.com, a new site that I now am a contributor for. The nature of the posts on this site are much shorter than I am accustomed to writing, however the site is definately a great site to check out, and I encourage you all to do as such! So if you see a short post, perhaps 150 words or less, you’ll know that that is the reason it is that short, it is for the Peterson Post.

Where Have All The Cowboys Gone?

That’s me, meeting my beautiful son Gage for the first time a little over a year ago. It was the first time that my life went from “should do’s”, and “can do’s”…and was replaced by a slew of “have to’s”. It’s a part of becoming an adult. Becoming a man. Not an older child, but a responsible father and husband who HAS to work, pay bills, and support his family. At least, that’s the way it’s supposed to work.

My concern with so many in my age group (Hell, plenty of others that are much older than I am) is that the actual “men” are becoming more and more scarce. So many fathers of schlepping off their responsibilities in lieu of a good time, and so many “adults” aren’t too concerned about holding up their end of the anatomical bargain.

For example, today: I worked day turns, which means I had to be up by 4:30 AM (0430 for my military friends out there) and didn’t get home from work until about 3:15 PM (or 1515). My father needed help bailing hay, and so I went over to his house to bail hay. At about 7:30 PM (1930…I realize after starting the trend of doing this that it is a bit redundant, so from here on out, no more military times) I got home, showered, ate some left overs, and have held/played with Gage until…ohhhh….fifteen minutes ago. Needless to say, I’m exhausted and need to go to bed: but first, I needed to write this post.

Not every person my age would put himself through a day like today. A day full of hard work, helping out family, and sore muscles. I’m not doting on myself or pissing and moaning about my day, don’t get me wrong. I’m simply using my day as an example of what adults do, and do quite often.

That’s also, not to say, that one has to perform physical labor to be a “man”. A banker could just as easily be a man, but his long hours and sacrifice are of a different kind than mind (probably more mental and stressful, to be honest). And I know some college students who don’t even work who I consider “men”, or “adults”, because of their responsibility and leadership role taking abilities!

My point, after almost 400 words of rambling…is that real men are starting to become more and more scarce, and part of the problem is this view that has been fed to my generation from society that we are still “kids”. I’m sorry, but at the age of 18, it’s time for you to step up to the plate and start swinging! That’s not to say that your first job is going to be your dream career choice, or your first girlfriend is going to be the person you end up marrying, but it’s important to take that teet out of one’s mouth and start venturing out on one’s own! Start learning some responsibility!

And now, with the latest health care bill (“children” can stay on Mommy and Daddy’s health insurance until they are 26 now! Awesome! Even MORE 26 year old children!) we are again being told that our children don’t have to grow up and figure this crap out. It’s disturbing.

Let me throw a hypothetical scenario out there. I’m almost 24. I’m married, have one child, and another on the way. I could, theoretically, have FOUR extra people on my fathers health insurance. Not to mention my sister, brother, and mother! How, again, are premiums supposed to go down?

On top of that, it’s disturbing the number of “adults” who:

• don’t have a job, and haven’t been serious about looking for one
• still live with their mom and dad (college students excluded, of course)
• don’t show up to work, if they HAVE a job
• can’t change a tire
• don’t care to learn how to change a tire
• don’t pay their own bills
• [fill in blank here]

Now I’m not saying that I’m “Mr. Manly McManster” here or anything. I’m not suggesting I can chug ten beers and smash all the cans on my forehead while playing football and lifting weights all at the same time. To be an adult, a “man” as compared to a “boy”, requires so much more, and quite frankly, more than I could even type tonight! It’s caring for your wife when she’s having morning sickness and missing your favorite TV show. It’s continually taking the stroller in and out and in and out and in and out of the car while going around to garage sales. It’s helping your 50 something year old father bail hay because he needs the help, it’s showing up to work and making money to support your family, it’s making hard decisions and, when times are tough, eating Ramon so that your wife can have something better. It’s seeing your son being born, and not being able to stop yourself from crying, because you never thought that you could love anything so much, and then making a pledge to always be there to take care of him.

It’s having morals, not cheating on your wife, it’s…so many things. Yet none of the above things may be YOUR things. And I don’t claim to be perfect. My wife tells me I can lose my cool sometimes and get angry (especially at stupid people), and though I can hardly believe it myself (as the sarcasm drips from the computer screen), I’ll take her word for it and address the issue.

To all the men out there, I hope that you take your life roles very seriously. I hope that you are true “men”, not just grown up “boys” who can vote, be drafted, and buy cigarettes.

What Does a Rand Paul Win Mean?

Probably not very much.

I’m more than willing to be fair here. I know very little about Rand. However if he tows the exact same lines as his dad, I’ll tell you right now, I’m probably not going to be a fan. The fact that he won so big over the establishments pick is largely a combination of the fact that he had a large TEA Party support group and ran against the, well, establishment, in a year when anti-establishment sentiments ran high.

Kudos to Rand Paul, for what it’s worth, the Republican voters in Kentucky chose you to represent them in the general election, and so it is what it is.

However, there were two separate aspects to this story that burn straight through to the front, for me at least.

First, there can no longer be any argument of the overwhelming libertarian presence in the TEA Parties. Some have argued that this isn’t the case at all, and that it is about traditionalism, more than anything, but if you look at two primaries where TEA Party groups either openly endorsed or had a large amount of people endorsing a certain candidate over others, you’ll see those candidates are the libertarian picks: Hostettler here in Indiana, and Paul in Kentucky. If that’s the case, that’s fine. Don’t misunderstand this point to come across as condescending. If the TEA Party is going to be an arm for the libertarian party or the Liberty Caucus of the Republican Party, so be it. It will at least establish where the groups stand on candidates and issues instead of claiming to be all things to everyone.

The second aspect of this story is that Paul had a great promotional backer in Sarah Palin.

Now, anybody that has libertarian friends on Facebook will note the numerous links by libertarian groups who despise her because they believe her to be a “neo-con” (which , according to her rhetoric, is probably the case). So, in order for Sarah Palin to support a libertarian candidate, one of a couple of things would have to be true.

1)Sarah Palin doesn’t know ANYTHING and vetting people she supports because she’s a populist at heart. If Palin were to have properly looked into Paul’s background regarding his families foreign policy and the conflicts that arise with her own foriegn policy rhetoric, she would have backed away from supporting him.

2)Sarah Palin has consistently lied, through her rhetoric on foriegn policy, and is actually much more in line with libertarian isolationism. This makes Sarah Palin just another lieing politician, which she claims to despise.

3)Rand Paul is actually more of a hawk than his father. This is a possibility, and would be the most rational explanation of why Palin would throw her name behind Paul in the first place. Perhaps he is a bit more of a realist than his father is, regarding foreign policy? If he were to be a hawkish, social conservative, economic libertarian, then hell, I’d probably start supporting him myself.

4)The last possibility would be that Sarah Palin may have made a political play, weighed the odds, and wanted to have her name behind the winning candidate for future political endeavors. This may be the most realistic of the four possible scenarios, and perhaps the least perplexing as well, since it would be worse than her lying about where Palin stood on issues: it would show that she would be willing to sell herself out to make the appearance that she can make winners.

So which of these four outcomes is the most likely?

Reagan’s Tax Reform

I wrote a my final paper for my Congress and Presidency class on the Reagan tax cuts, and thought it would make a nice post. Here it is, the instructor gave me an A, I’d like to hear your grade.

“The line has been used “We’ve never had it so good.” But I have an uncomfortable feeling that this prosperity isn’t something on which we can base our hopes for the future. No nation in history has ever survived a tax burden that reached a third of its national income. Today, 37 cents of every dollar earned in this country is the tax collector’s share, and yet our government continues to spend $17 million a day more than the government takes in. We haven’t balanced our budget 28 out of the last 34 years. We have raised our debt limit three times in the last twelve months, and now our national debt is one and a half times bigger than all the combined debts of all the nations in the world. We have $15 billion in gold in our treasury–we don’t own an ounce. Foreign dollar claims are $27.3 billion, and we have just had announced that the dollar of 1939 will now purchase 45 cents in its total value.” (Ronald Reagan, “A Time for Choosing Speech”)

The excerpt from the speech above is part of the reason that Ronald Reagan became such a person of interest for those in the Republican party, and was part of the reason that Reagan became Governor of California at all. Ronald Reagan gave the “A Time for Choosing Speech” during Barry Goldwater’s Presidential nomination in 1964, and it helped to launch “Ronnie” into the lime light even more than his film career had done.

After giving that speech, Reagan (a former liberal Democrat) ran and won two terms as Governor of California from 1967 to 1975, based primarily on his national momentum gained from the 1964 election. Reagan ran for President several times, each year coming in just short of winning: whether it was Nixon or Rockefeller or Ford, it seemed that Reagan would continue to run but never get anywhere. Some pundits of the day depicted Reagan as “running in place”.

Ronald Reagan ran his campaign in 1980 under a very simple, pragmatic banner. He wanted tax cuts, he wanted to bring back the ailing economy, and he wanted Americans to feel safe again. The 1980 campaign was to be the campaign that broke Reagan out of his “running in place” and allowed for him to win not only the Republican primary but also to best Democratic incumbent Jimmy Carter and make Carter a one term President whose time in office will always be marred with economic disaster, gas shortages, and Iranian hostages.

1980 was a good year for Republicans across the board, but even though the Republican party won over the Senate and gained 34 seats in the House, Congress was still a Democratic majority. This caused potential problems for Reagan, since Democrats were less likely to adhere to Reagan’s ideas regarding tax cuts and “supply side economics”. “Supply side economics”, also characterized as “Reaganomics” throughout Reagan’s presidency and through today even, was a new idea that many leading economists of the day were lauding, and luckily for Reagan he had those economists on his side.

Reagan met with a group of the nations leading economists during his presidency for weekly lunches, where they explained to him the inner workings of the theory and gave Reagan a crash course in Economics. The group was composed of Arther Laffer (who actually coined the Laffer Curve, which demonstrates how lower taxes will actually generate more governmental revenue), Milton Friedman (who is a legendary economist of the day and is still lauded as one of, if not the, most influential 20th century economist) and Stephen Moore (who writes for the Wall Street Journal and is seen on a weekly, if not nightly, basis on several talk shows and political forums), among several others. ( The End of Prosperity: How Higher Taxes Will Doom the Economy–If We Let It Happen by Arthur B. Laffer, Stephen Moore, and Peter Tanous). This helped Reagan in his battle for substantive tax reform before he was getting the knowledge straight from the horses mouth, so to speak. While politicians will often claim that they know the field of economics or will repeat economic theory (often times while misrepresenting the economists views), Reagan was able to sit down with these men and, detail by detail, have a well laid foundation for a tax reform package that would be not only sell-able to the Democratic controlled House (which holds the country’s purse strings) but would have the best chance of actually working.

Reagan approached Congress with his tax reform package shortly after a failed assassination attempt, and during his first State of the Union Address used the catastrophe as a starting block for his plan.

“The last decade has seen a series of recessions. There was a recession in 1970, in 1974, and again in the spring of 1980. Each time, unemployment increased and inflation soon turned up again. We coined the word “stagflation” to describe this. Government’s response to these recessions was to pump up the money supply and increase spending. In the last six months of 1980, as an example, the money supply increased at the fastest rate in postwar history 13 percent. Inflation remained in double digits and Government spending increased at an annual rate of 17 percent. Interest rates reached a staggering 21 1/2 percent. There were eight million unemployed. Late in 1981, we sank into the present recession largely because continued high interest rates hurt the auto industry and construction. And there was a drop in productivity and the already high unemployment increased. This time, however, things are different. We have an economic program in place completely different from the artificial quick-fixes of the past. It calls for a reduction of the rate of increase in Government spending, and already that rate has been cut n early in half. But reduced spending alone isn’t enough. We’ve just implemented the first and smallest phase of a three-year tax-rate reduction designed to stimulate the economy and create jobs. Already interest rates are down to 15 3/4 percent, but they must still go lower. Inflation is down from 12.4 percent to 8.9, and for the month of December it was running at an annualized rate of 5.2 percent. If we had not acted as we did, things would be far worse for all Americans than they are today. Inflation inflation, taxes and interest rates would all be higher. A year ago, Americans’ faith in their governmental process was steadily declining. Six out of ten Americans were saying they were pessimistic about their future. A new kind of defeatism was heard. Some said our domestic problems were uncontrollable that we had to learn to live with the-seemingly endless cycle of high inflation and high unemployment. There were also pessimistic predictions about the relationship between our Administration and this Congress. It was said we could never work together. Well, those predictions were wrong. The record is clear, and I believe that history will remember this as an era of American renewal, remember this Administration as an Administration of change and remember this Congress as a Congress of destiny. Together, we not only cut the increase in Government spending nearly in half, we brought about the largest tax reductions and the most sweeping changes in our tax structure since the beginning of this century. And because we indexed future taxes to the rate of inflation, we took away Government’s built-in profit on inflation and its hidden incentive to grow larger at the expense of American workers. Together, after 50 years of taking power away from the hands of the people in their states and local communities we have started returning power and resources to them.” (Reagan’s First State of the Union Address,January 26, 1982)

This was, of course, a shrewd and effective political tool to help push the tax cuts that would become his coup de grace. The only hurdle now? The Democratic House. If Reagan wasn’t able to rally them behind his message, he would accomplish nothing. Already, people were become discontent with the President not following through on his campaign promise, and polls from that time period reflect that sentiment.

Tip O’ Neil, the House Majority Leader, was actually willing to work with the administration to make the reforms. The debate on the floor was intense during that session, however because of “boll weevils” (Southern “Reagan Democrats” who consistently took conservative positions) a middle ground was made with the reforms.

The Office of Tax Analysis of the United States Department of the Treasury summarized the tax changes as follows:
*phased-in 23% cut in individual tax rates; top rate dropped from 70% to 50%

*accelerated depreciation deductions; replaced depreciation system with ACRS

*indexed individual income tax parameters (beginning in 1985)

*created 10% exclusion on income for two-earner married couples ($3,000 cap)

*phased-in increase in estate tax exemption from $175,625 to $600,000 in 1987

*reduced Windfall Profit taxes

*allowed all working taxpayers to establish IRAs

*expanded provisions for employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs)

*replaced $200 interest exclusion with 15% net interest exclusion ($900 cap) (begin in 1985) (Caputo)

The critics were quick to point out that with out decreased spending, the National Debt would still continue, and especially since we were, at the time, beefing up our military due to the arms race that resulted in the end of the Cold War, spending did in fact continue to go up. Critics also claim that because of the tax cuts, the amount of revenue the Government would have seen coming in did not rise at the rate that it could have. Supporters and economic think tanks across the country, however, to this day, credit the Reagan tax cuts as the reason that the economy was able to recover in the first place. (Young)

What, exactly, did the Reagan tax cuts do, ultimately? They helped to make the general population less burdened by their debts to the government, and they helped to boost the American moral that the government wasn’t the “bad boogeyman” coming after their hard earned dollars. The Reagan tax cuts also show what can be done when those in Government take a moment away from politics, reach across the aisle, and work together for the good of the American people.

A Conservative In Need

Patrick Leahy…the names enough to make you say, “Go f*ck yourself”.

Senator Leahy, who is one of the most progressive and incompetent (I know, I know…redundant) Senators in Congress, has a tough election in front of him. Len Britton, a conservative Republican Vermont businessman is running (so far) unopposed against Leahy in a year when polls are favoring Republicans and predicting big wins. Some people have even went as far to compare Britton to Scott Brown: they are both young, energetic conservatives who are running for a seat that has been held by a liberal Democrat for…decades? centuries? let me check that real fast…Holy Cow! Leahy’s had that seat since 1975!

To put this in perspective, in 1975:

• Volkswagen introduces the Golf, its new front-wheel-drive economy car, in the United States and Canada as the Volkswagen Rabbit.
• Wheel of Fortune premieres on NBC.
• The Weather Underground bombs the U.S. State Department main office in Washington, D.C..
• Bill Gates founds Microsoft in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
• Two separate attempts are made on President Gerald Ford’s life.
• Wrongly convicted murderer Andrew Dufresne escapes from Shawshank State Prison

Perhaps Leahy’s time as Senator is just about up, what do you think?

Another fun fact: Leahy is the first Democrat elected to that seat…of course he’s been there since the Watergate scandal, but still…

The point of all this is that Britton needs help. While this is a favorable year for R’s and a poor year for incumbents, Leahy has his heels dug in the dirt and a war chest that would make Genghis Khan blush.

I implore any conservative with a few extra dollars to contribute to Len Britton’s campaign, and let’s take down another Democratic regime this November! You can contribute and read more about Len here.

In the mean time, you can see his new campaign video below: it’ll make you laugh and cry at the same time.

Don’t Treat Islam Better Than Any Other Religions

Those of us in the 18-25 year old bracket have grown up with South Park, and through the years have watched as Matt Stone and Trey Parker, the creators of the hit TV show, have maneuvered countless celebrities, religions, political figures and pop culture icons into the cross-hairs. South Park can be amazingly smart and clever, and can also be disgustingly vulgar and lewd. But those of us that have grown up with South Park have always known one thing about the show: anything goes.

A couple of weeks ago, however, Comedy Central censored a South Park episode making fun of the Prophet Muhammad after the creators were threatened by a Muslim extremist website (the site is now, consequently, shut down) which said that Stone and Parker would “wind up like Theo Van Gogh for airing this show.” Theo Van Gogh, for those of you that don’t know, was a political figure who was later assassinated for his anti-Islam stance.

What kind of message is this teaching the general public, specifically those in a younger age bracket? In the same episode that was censored (the word “Muhammad” was bleeped out and a giant “censored” block was placed over Muhammad’s likeness in the show), Jesus Christ was depicted watching pornography and Buddha was using cocaine. Did this offend Christians and Buddhists? Sure it did! But the Islamic religion gets special treatment because Muslims will actually follow through and kill somebody for making fun of their religion; thus terrorism is achieved.

Because Comedy Central caved under pressure (for the record, Matt Stone and Trey Parker did not censor their work, nor did the FCC) they have continued to set the standard for Islam as a “superior religion” and an “untouchable” topic. All that this does is foster the kind of behavior that we see out of radical Muslims all of the time!

We shouldn’t be bending over backward as a society to try and not offend them, lest we do the same for every other religion, group of people, celebrity, etc. Instead, Comedy Central should stand up and not allow themselves to be bullied.

Just like on the playground in elementary school, the best way to solve a problem with a bully is to stand up to him and let him know that you aren’t going to be pushed around. The only difference between the playground and the real world? The bully on the playground usually isn’t willing to blow up himself and a whole crowd of infidels just to prove a point. It’s a shame that we have to worry about that, and more of a shame that we’ll allow that kind of terrorism to dictate our lives.

Originally written for and published in the Northwest Indiana Times May 10th, 2010

The “N” Word

This past primary cycle there were a lot of words and insults thrown around, including the ever insulting slur…neoconservative. What? What did you expect me to write? Racist.

But seriously. On all of the Facebook pages and posts on different sites (mostly conservative sites) the word “neoconservative” is thrown around like it’s a bad word or something! Yes, I consider myself partly neoconservative. Yes, I’m a “hawk” as opposed to a “dove”. And yes, I think it is of the utmost importance (both for win-ability and for safety of our country) that the Repbulican party remains “neoconservative friendly”.

Many libertarians on this site (depending on where you are reading this, I cross-post to several sites) will pigeon hole neoconservatives as “war mongers”, even through this is not the case at all. Neo-conservatism means, literally, a “new conservative”. If there is anybody reading this that at one point considered himself or herself a liberal and was brought over from the dark side, then you are guilty of being a “new”, or “neo”, conservative.

There is an excellent book that can be found at the library called “The Neoconservative Manifesto”, which is a collection of papers and documents by Kristol, Thatcher, Rice, and many others, which outlines both the main points of neoconservatism and the mistakes that the Bush administration made with what was a half-hearted attempt at spreading democracy. In fact, many of the authors in the book were dissapointed with Bush and Cheney, because the duo didn’t follow the structure that neoconservatives laid out for such a plan yet kept with the neoconservative tag, therefore giving neoconservatism a much more…negative vibe than what it deserved.

I have no problem with the ever growing reality that America MUST continue to be the worlds super power and has to help protect our liberties as well as other smaller countries. That’s a part of the burden of being the greatest country in the world.

Part of what I’ve seen has been that libertarians will use the neocon tag with…well…pretty much any Republican that isn’t Ron Paul or a Paul supporter, and I’ve seen a lot of arguments where libertarians don’t like being associated with the 9/11 “truthers” or having their ideas unfairly criticezed (their words). Well, I’d just like to point something out. While Bush was in office, instead of constructive criticism, many libertarians decided rather to side with liberals on the issues of the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars, and called neocons “dangerous”, “war mongers”, etc. So now that some neocons (or even more hawkish conservatives) object to libertarian policies or ideas and say that the policies are “dangerous”, or “isolationist”, or “crazy”, or “stupid”, or “childish”, or…well…you get the point, so many libertarians feel like they are being picked on. If you can’t take the criticism, don’t dish it out.

I encourage anybody who will jump on the “neocons are dangerous power hungry war mongers” band wagon to first read through the papers and drafts of many that have taken neoconservative ideas and applied them through theory and practice, and who have critiqued foreign policy and have even laid some of the ground work for this great nation’s standing army today, before making that ultimate decision to be so negative towards libertarians. I know what one of the first comments will be: But Travis! Be fair! Read some libertarian literature! I have and, even though I find so many of Ron Paul’s ideas so absurd, I will continue to at least hear out the libertarian arguments (even those that are dangerous, or crazy, or isolationist, or…)

What Does the Future Hold (The Glenn Beck Effect)? A Matters of Opinion Critique

Well, it’s the day after the primaries. It was exciting, had it’s ups and downs, and now Republicans can stop yelling at each other and start yelling at Democrats. Thank God.

However, as I always like to do, I’d like to critique the two contenders that won in the top slated seats in my area: Mark Leyva for House District One and Dan Coats for Senate.

Mark Leyva

This will be Mark Leyva’s 5th time running against the Democratic incumbent Pete Visclosky, and I (and I think many other Republicans) are wondering: what really makes this time much more different? Don’t get me wrong: I’ve met Leyva, I have no problems with the guy, and he’s going to get my vote. This piece (for both candidates, by the way) is not a smear piece in any way, shape, or form. However, the question IS out there: Leyva hasn’t been able to beat Visclosky, and in a year where “name recognition” is supposed to be a bad thing, why would he be voted in? Granted, Pete’s got some legal clouds hanging over his head, and that may help. Also, Democrats statistically just don’t show up to the polls on off year elections. But with that being said, let’s look at another scenario. Let’s say that Leyva wins. He hasn’t been able to win the past 5 years, which may reflect his campaign and organizational abilities. What happens if during that two year stint, he doesn’t do a whole lot? District One is a HEAVILY Democratic area, and what is needed is a Republican who can work across the aisle and make deals. With Leyva being heavily involved in the Lake County TEA Party activities, will that hurt his chances of bringing in moderate Independents? I’m not sure yet. Certainly Leyva will be better than Visclosky (who won the seat from God himself, bada chum!) but even if he would be better Representative, right now it’s about being the better candidate, and Visclosky has the charm and the war chest to win. I hope that Leyva can pull it off, and that the political climate works out favorably, but if past indicators are any indication, I won’t be too awfully surprised if number 5 is just as unsuccessful.

Dan Coats

Coats was the guy that many conservatives outside of the political arena didn’t want to win (Stutzman and Hostettler were the two grass roots favorites) and those actually working in the party were rooting for. The Republican party actually brought in Coats because they didn’t feel that there was a strong winner on the ballot. I disagree, but regardless, the decision was made, the votes were counted, and Coats is the candidate. Coats has a lot of experience in a year where experience isn’t supposed to mean anything (ironically, Leyva, who has name recognition, and Coats, who was a former Senator and US Ambassador, were the House and Senate primary winners in this year) and has a moderate voting record while talking up the conservative talking points. The biggest problem? The TEA Party groups despise him, and with Glenn Beck getting more and more attention with his “It’s not about D’s and R’s” message, there’s a good chance that Coats will lose to Ellsworth. The Times has already begun labeling Ellsworth a “conservative Democrat” in today’s paper, and with that seat being vacated by another “conservative Democrat” (Evan Bayh, who Ellsworth looks eerily like, in my opinion) I’m worried that voters will look at two people with conservative talking points, moderate voting records, and decide to simply pick the (much) younger of the two. This is part of the same series of problems that we have seen, especially as of late, with so-called conservative Democrats who get in and start to fall right in line with the Harry Reid’s in Congress. Ellsworth will probably end up doing exactly the same, because Coats will get lambasted by grass roots conservatives and TEA Party members (some will be very fair assessments, to be honest) and the charge that the Republican party should have this year will fizzle and burn. Plus, with such a weak top of the bill for Republicans, that sentiment carries on through and hurts all of the other candidates as well.

As I said, I’ll still be voting a straight R ticket and if Leyva and Coats want to put signs in my yard and need help, I’m more than happy to help however I can, and conservatives and Republicans in Northwest Indiana will hopefully do the same. I just wanted to throw my honest observations out there and see what everyone thought. And?