The Democratic Party voters have an interesting challenge. Looking at it in a strictly clinical way, I find it a laudable challenge - they will be choosing either the first black president or the first woman president.

Yet, to most voters it is going to be something different. It isn’t going to be clinical at all - very little of what occurs in liberal politics is based upon anything other than raw emotion. Think about it. Democrats have what is a very exciting prospect before you and rather than coalesce into a strong political force, they are melting down - attacking each other as rabidly as they typically attack Republicans.

Just as they were tickled by the Republican in-fighting during the primary season, the media is unable to understand the vehemence - while privately enjoying it for its ability to draw audience - with which the Democratic candidates attack each other. This is a highly polarized primary for the Democratic Party to be sure.  So, rather than having the honor of choosing one or the other historic candidates, the democratic voters are going to have the chance to reject either the first black president or the first woman president.

Rather than tearing each other down so publicly, each candidate should be “Vying for Veep”. There are three ways we get a Democratic president in 2009.

1. Joe Lieberman is the VP on one or the other candidate’s ticket - not going to happen.
2. 30% of republican voters stay home in November - also not going to happen. We have time to heal and consider the alternative, and in November Republicans will be out in force. Most Republicans understand what kind of politics Obama represents and ALL Republicans understand what kind of politics Hillary represents.
3. Clinton and Obama run on the same ticket - unlikely.

I say unlikely because the Democratic Party leaders may demand exactly such a scenario as the only means they can win in November. In politics, winning is everything - even stronger than political ideals in most cases.   And the highly charged, emotional campaign each Democratic candidate has run will have voters from each side opting out.

Yes, it can happen. Look.

It is easily possible for the Obama - Clinton spatfest to go as long as September.  The Convention is going to have a candidate for President of the United states come hell or high water. So, you have the rest of September and October to get your party coalesced? A lot of voters are going to opt out.

Take a look at the high turn-out through the primaries - voters are galvanized for their candidate and are coming out in strength. That power is only harnessed with a Clinton-Obama Vote-o-rama.

Have you noticed John McCain has time for fact-finding trips across the globe? He is out there being presidential while Obama and Hillary throw accusations and challenges at each other.

Barak Obama and Hillary Clinton have already closed the door to one being the other’s VP in a public spectacle earlier this month.

Democrat Barack Obama ridiculed the idea of being Hillary Rodham Clinton’s running mate Monday, saying voters must choose between the two for the top spot.

The Illinois senator used his first public appearance of the week to knock down the notion that he might accept the party’s vice presidential spot on the fall ticket. He noted that he has won more states, votes and delegates than Clinton so far.

Yep, the dream ticket is likely nothing more than a dream. It is impossible for the liberal psyche to ignore a political spat - even if it is among themselves.

We have been drilling in on the votes of McCain and Hillary, yet Obama has managed to keep his campaign in the ether. He has not had to defend his position on anything because he has rarely referenced his record on anything.

Votes on legislation have the virtue of being concrete and precise, showing a pattern of belief and conviction.

So, what do Obama’s 1100 senate votes tell us? Well, they tell us we can forget on the ecumenical kumbaya that some Republicans are beginning to buy. Obama is a dedicated liberal who is not going to be reaching across the aisle.

I say this about all of our candidates - McCain wants change in the political stalemate we find ourselves in. Hillary just wants regime chang. And Barak Obama wants change we can believe in. Well, all of this change is about people changing other people in some way. The last time one person changed another person there was a diaper involved.

Change is an immature, lazy response to a problem for which we already have an answer. America has been strong because we have solid principles which create consistency in how we govern ourselves.

I am doing some business travel this week - spending time in the cold hitting the Midwest. I had forgotten the ear-biting cold that sub-zero temperatures bring, but it is something I will remember for a month or two now. I think it is going to be something Hillary feels as well - I will tell you why.

There are not dramatic differences between the politics of Hillary and the Politics of Barak. Small nuances to most democrats, who are generally ambivalent toward the thing that solidifies most Republicans - the war. So, the choice seems to be who believes what I believe and who is going to be a good representative to the international community. These are not my words - it’s what I hear. A lot of it is the exact same reason Hillary feels she needs to have little emotional moments. He is genuinely personable and she is genuinely not.

In the airports, shuttles, rental agencies, hotel lobbies, diners, everywhere you go - What I see is Barak Obama has sold a lot of books lately. Buying a book and reading it in public is a commitment to my way of thinking. It is more of a surety than investigating someone you might like to know more about. You don’t do that in public.

I am not a fan of this guy’s politics and this is not an endorsement. I am just calling this the way I see it. People are intrigued with Barak, they want to know who he is.
Hillary should be very concerned by what I see.

More accurately, the question is - Who is responsible - legal obligated - to protect you from crime?

The state? The City, County? Federal government? The answer might surprise you.

The “state” - meaning the government at large is under no obligation whatsoever to protect you or your property. There is precedence for this going back to the 1960’s.

Bowers v DeVito resulted in the following judgment:

…the Constitution tells the state to leave people alone. It does not obligate the federal or state government to provide any services – even so elementary a service as providing law and order.

The ramifications of this case go into a lot of different areas - areas more libertarians would really appreciate - but I am  going straight to Second Amendment rights. You see, the leftists who are trying to take your guns away from you in the name of peace are always pointing to the police as a reason why citizens should not be armed. However, the government has no obligation to protect you.

Here is a simple example - you go to court and get an order of protection against another individual. Now, if they find your defenseless, cold, dead body in your house and it become known that this person your were “protected” from by the order did the deed, can your estate expect damages of any kind from your estate? Of course not, right? Why? Because the government does not have to protect you.

Here is another example - If you go to the police station and say that a certain person is stalking you and you need to be protected from them, what is the most likely reaction? Unless a specific threat has been made that you can prove, nothing happens. You go get an order of protection.

Now, if the state is under no obligation to protect you, who must? You - using the right to keep and bear arms in order to “secure a free state”. You see, it is actually your obligation to protect the government (since the government is of the people, it makes sense), not the other way around.

This election cycle has a lot more happening - and probably equally important happenings - than whether we end up with McCain, Obama, or Clinton.

Thirty-five of the 100 senate seats are being contested with 33 of those being regular, six-year term elections. We currently have a democratic party controlled senate, but what is the chance of turning that around?

Twenty-three Republican seats and 12 Democratic seats are up for grabs, which tends to bode better for a continuation, if not a strengthening of Democratic party control in the Senate - or does it?

Let’s take a look at the toss-up states:

Louisiana

Mary Landrieu will be defending her senate seat this cycle and Louisiana is not the same politically since Hurricane Katrina. The utter failure of the elected officials at both the state and local levels, most of which are Democrats, combined with the fact that a lot of the residents of areas hard hit have not returned to Louisiana, could make a difference in how this race turns out. She is being opposed by a guy named John Kennedy, who switched parties to oppose her as a Republican.

Colorado

Wayne Allard is retiring and that is probably a good thing. Former Rep. Bob Schaffer - a conservative.

New Hampshire

This is John Sununu’s seat. He is opposed by 3 or 4 Democrats, but his major opposition will come from Jeanne Shaheen, the former Governor.

New Mexico

Pete Domenici is calling it quits. Reps Heather Wilson and Steve Pearce are vying for that seat, as is Democrat Tom Udall.

Minnesota

Norm Coleman will be defending his seat against Democratic party candidates Al Franken, Mike Ciresi, and Jim Cohen.

Virginia

John Warner is retiring. You’ve got two former Governors running. The Republican Jim Gilmore and the Democrat Mark Warner.

Oregon

Gordon Smith is running for re-election, but has to defend his seat from Democrats Jeff Merkley and Steve Novick. Smith has a good approval rate, but may be a target for a couple of groups he has not made happy over the past few years.

There are a couple of other incumbent races that could go either way, but are less likely to change parties than these.

Nebraska is worth keeping an eye on with the retirement of Chuck Hagel and no clear front runner developing out of the furball.

The Senate is currently 49-49 and 2. So any one of these races could be a tipping point with regards to judicial nominations, the war, the economy, and a myriad other issues we are bound to face coming into the new decade. I’ll soon post my breakdown of the 20-odd contentious races for US house seats.

Romney’s exit from the race for nomination signals the end of the primaries, as the different facets of the party coalesce behind the Republican nominee. The conservatives are left out in the cold, but many of them will see it as their duty to support the Republican nominee as a part of party politics.

Romney’s exit also signals my return to furthering the debate about the issues in the context of liberal vs. conservative beliefs.

We have a great deal of work ahead of us on issues, such as abortion, the economy, illegal immigration and immigration policy reform, tort reform, energy, education, and preserving our right to bear arms (and returning our gun rights).  Those battles will have to be fought regardless of who ends up in the White House.

The work of the electorate is never done, so please continue to read and participate. Please continue to listen to our weekly talk show. Hopefully, we are touching political passion points for you, and not just shouting into a dark room.

Folks like me who won’t support John McCain are being dubbed “Suicide Voters”. The people who call us this assume that voters owe something to the party, in spite of their political beliefs. This is, of course, a myopic view of politics. It assumes the party gives political  power to voters in the same way some people think the government gives citizens their rights.

Jimmie, at The Sundries Shack has coined a phrase which much more accurately describes our view as voters. We are Maverick Voters.

We have sustained this party for decades, and will do so again. So many are looking at 2008 as a singular event - discounting both history and the future.  Whether John McCain or Hillary Obama are president, the political landscape is going to shift to the left, unless the congress itself is changed. People are so focused on the executive as our only way to be free of leftist policy - well that is not tenable anymore. Fight the fight elsewhere.

It was disconcerting this morning to hear a local political talk host on the FM dial discuss how he came to a decision on who to vote for in yesterday’s party primary here in Tucson, Arizona.

Let me paraphrase:

I wasn’t sure who to vote for, so I called my brother. It was between Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee for me. But my brother reminded me that Mitt is a Mormon and that our beliefs were somewhat different, being a Presbyterian . Even though these two candidates were equal for me in every other respect, a person’s values drive their decisions and their values are derived from their religious beliefs, so I voted for Huckabee.

This is bigotry.  It is the kind of bigotry that, in its extreme, is the foundation for the kind of sectarian strife and violence we are seeing in Iraq. It is the kind of bigotry that leads to civil wars and persecution.

It is interesting that we are so sensitive to racial and sexual bigotry that we have built protected classes of people upon them , but we find this sort of thinking acceptable.

As a caller to the show in question mentioned, Christians do indeed need to be very careful about attacking one another’s religious beliefs. Christianity in all of its manifestations is increasingly the target for marginalization and destruction by people who do not believe in absolutes of any kind. We certainly should not be contributing to our own demise.

McCain delegates in West Virginia came in third behind Romney and Huckabee during the first ballot there today. Since they could not get a win for McCain and didn’t want Romney to win the state, the McCain backers threw their support behind Huckabee.

So, Huck - don’t be so smug. YOU didn’t win the state.  Maybe you’ll get to be Vice President or Ambassador to France or something.

If John McCain gets the party nomination, we are going to have a Democrat in the White House on January 20th, 2009. It’s that simple.

McCain has held conservatives and conservative principles in disdain as his evolution to left-of-center politics reaches its peak. He wants your vote now.

The Republican frontrunner for president, Sen. John McCain, promoted his conservative bona fides on Face The Nation, while also admitting that, should he win the GOP nomination, he would likely not win the general election without the backing of the party’s conservative base.

Guess what? I am not supporting, nor voting for the Mav. I would rather spend my energy working to get the right people into Congress. that’s where the battles are going to be fought. This Pyhrric victory syndrome we Republicans are engaged in is ridiculous.

There is a lot of weak tea rhetoric going out right now:

• Our duty as Republicans - we owe it to our party to vote for McCain no matter what
• McCain is better than the other two
• We can vote for McCain without violating our principles
• Four years of a Democrat in the White House will ruin the nation
• We should separate ourselves from the issues and just vote along party lines

Let me tell you - that’s crap. It is outright hackery.

• You want to know what we owe our party? The strength of our Republican principles.
• McCain is not better than the other two - he is unpredictable, which makes him much more dangerous. That is why they call him the Maverick, right? Politically, that’s what they are referring to.
• You cannot vote for someone who denounces your principles, and calls you foolish for having them, without having abandoned them. It is delusional to think that your vote does not directly correspond to your beliefs. That is a play right out of the John Kerry play book.
• Four years of a Democrat in the White House can be harmful to our ideas of government - if we abdicate the congress to the left as well. Work hard to support solid Republicans with solid voting records to the front line positions in the Senate and House. That is where the judicial nominations battles will be fought. That is where the health care battles will be fought.
• The party lines have been blurred beyond recognition by the likes of John McCain. With it, many of our pundits are dithering and quibbling about how “we gotta win”. There is no win in the White House this fall - triage this race and you will see what the choices are.

I am voting for Romney in the primary elections because I believe he is more open to input from constituents. I am not thrilled to do so, but I am beyond looking for political purity here. However, let me offer a prediction:

John McCain will get the Republican Nomination - and he will then choose Joe Lieberman as his running mate. This solidifies several things for him:

• “Proves” he can work across party lines
• Garners a lot of Democrat votes in key states
• Levels the polls playing field and throws the current statistical models out the window.
• Removes his need for conservatives in order to win in November.
• Creates the one scenario that neither Hillary, nor Obama can defeat with the relative ease the pundits think this race is going to exude

RNC, you are on notice. Strap a two-by-four to your back while you un-screw the motivations of Republican policy and recover your spine. We’re done with the status quo and not giving a dime until you get back on target of smaller government, individual freedom, less spending, and the sanctity of life. Call us together, when you are ready to talk.

I told you, there will be a Democrat in the White House in November. The question is whether or not that person is registered as a Democrat.