Ok - Senator Obama has just gone into the realm of the ridiculous.

Obama’s willingness to sit down with the Iranian president demonstrates Obama’s lack of understanding of international relations, McCain said during a speech in Chicago, Illinois.

“Such a statement betrays the depth of Senator Obama’s inexperience and reckless judgment,” McCain said. “Those are very serious deficiencies for an American president to possess.”

Obama quickly responded during a speech in Billings, Montana, asking why the presumptive Republican presidential nominee was afraid to talk to Iran and that it was the “Bush-McCain” war policy in Iraq, not diplomacy, that would make Iran stronger.

“Make no mistake, Iran is the single biggest beneficiary of a war in Iraq that should have never been authorized and should have never been waged,” the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination said.

“Thanks to George Bush’s policy, Iran is the greatest threat to the United States and Israel and the Middle East for a generation. John McCain wants to double down on that failed policy.”

Because of George Bush’s policy. For a generation.

First, George Bush may have been in office a lot longer than you can stand - it may feel like a generation to you - but 8 years does not a generation make.

Iran is the greatest threat to the United States and Israel and the Middle East for a generation because of Jimmy Carter’s policy. A policy that was ill-equipped to deal with the demands of Iranian Islamo-fascists (although we didn’t call them that back then). A policy so entrenched in a lack of resolve during the outbreak of the Iranian Revolution that the message sent by the Carter Administration was ” we are weak”. A policy grasped by leftists in Congress as a Hail Mary pass of appeasement while Iran arms itself with nuclear weapons. The same policy Jimmy Carter is now peddling with Hamas. That you don’t realize that worries a lot of people - hopefully enough to defeat you in November.

Senator Obama - your claim that everything wrong in the world is the fault of President Bush is ridiculous. Your entire presumptuous foreign policy rhetoric is ridiculous.

While there is often a great difference between what people say in candidacy and what they do in office, I am afraid of what is being said by all of the current candidates regarding health insurance for Americans.

What we are being offered is a trifecta of stupid ideas, which have no chance of doing anything to improve health care, nor make it more available. I mentioned earlier in the year that John McCain’s health care plan was going to grow government, but more information is coming our that you should understand.

In the “Before taxes  deductions” column of my pay statement are “Health” and “Dental”. John McCain’s plan will change that. While John McCain wants to offer a $5,000 tax credit for health care, he also wants to move health care into the taxable income bracket. What does this do? Looking at this from a very shallow, strictly monetary standpoint of the average employee, it does nothing. If you have 2500-3000 dollars in cost for insurance today, plus about 2K in out of pocket expenses, you are close to break even.

However, companies now lose almost all of the incentive to offer subsidized health benefits - because they will also be taxed - which makes these benefits either vastly more costly to the average American or incents the companies to drop health care from their compensation packages altogether.  In a climate where businesses are already struggling with the cost of health care for employees, this is going to damage us economically - but more importantly, the morale of the average worker in America will be impacted severely.

The answer to the cost of health care is not creative finances and more government involvement. It is not taking from the average American worker to give to those who have less. The answer is to attack those things which make health care so expensive.  Health care is expensive for several reasons, but the largest reason is liability. Doctors are insured to ridiculous levels because of liability and the potential for punitive judgments against them. Doctors are more apt to order procedures which are not necessary to the case because of liability.

If the government wants to help Americans with health care costs and really wants to make health care more accessible, they should insert themselves in reforming medical tort policy.  Insurance rates would go down for doctors and Americans would be less prodded and prescribed. The cost of medical attention would decrease almost immediately.

Dear Senator McCain,

I understand your desire to run a campaign, which allows you to focus on policy differences between yourself and Barak Obama, instead of the kind of battle we see between the two Democrtats. You must understand, however, this is not going to be possible.

As a military commander, I am sure you understand your plan must take into consideration the composition and disposition of your opponent. The political battle you find yourself in now is not going to be much different. Even if - and I am underscoring “if” - your opponent wants to wage the same kind of campaign you have stated is desireable, there is a lot more at play beyond your ability to impact.

The DNC has already taken your words out of context in a bid to show you as a Caesar, instead of a President, by claiming you are “fine” with the US being in Iraq for 100 years. This, while you denounce the NC GOP ad showing the relationship between Senator Obama and Reverend Wright as an inappropriate topic - a topic Senator Obama himself stated was legitimate.

If you think the people are going to be turned off by the negativity of an ad campaign, all ads should be discouraged. Since that is impossible to accomplish, you had better use every means - exploit every chink in the armor of your opponent - in order to win.

You stated that you are the candidate and it is your desires and your name which should be considered in these things. In this, Sir, you are mistaken. It is the voters who must be considered in this - you are an extension of them. Many of us are supporting you not because we are avid consumers of your policy ideas, but because we are assured you will do the will of the people you represent. Don’t jeopardize your relationship with us by appearing to be less than enthusiastic about soundly defeating our opponent. You are doing to the NC GOP the same thing you are castigated for doing to the SwiftVets. Each time you do this, you strengthen the argument of the other side and do detriment to us all.

Nancy Pelosi is sending President Bush a letter.

WASHINGTON, April 22 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — Speaker Nancy Pelosi sent the following letter today to President George W. Bush urging him to sign into law legislation that Congress has passed to help American families with the rising price of gasoline.

“I respectfully ask you again to work with the Congress to allow the Justice Department to pursue oil cartel price-fixing, allow the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) the authority to investigate and punish price gougers, end taxpayer subsidies to Big Oil and invest those funds in renewable American energy. Lastly, your Administration must use the authority given to it by the Congress to end market manipulation. We cannot wait to act in the face of these prices increases,” she wrote.

Big Oil! Boy they are just soaking us, are they not?

The US Consumes 388,600,000 gallons of gasoline per day. This is 141,839,000,000 gallons per year.

Big Oil and Retailers markup represents about 9% of the cost of a gallon of gasoline. About 32 cents per gallon profit at $3.50 a gallon. The Federal Government gets about 19 cents per gallon in taxes and the states average about 23 cents per gallon in taxes.  So taxes represent 42 cents per gallon. Now, you tell me who is gouging.

Out of a cost per gallon of $3.50, Big oil makes 32 cents. The rest is cost of oil, refining, transpertaion and distribution, and taxes.

Both John McCain and Nancy Pelosi have called for legislation to help Americans struggling with fuel prices. Notice the differences in approach. With John McCain’s model - the price of gasoline can be reduced almost instantly and push money into the economy almost immediately. With Nancy Pelosi’s model, oil companies will start cutting costs - which always means cutting jobs - which takes money out of the economy. Yet, with her way the government will get paid at the detriment of Americans.

The difference is Pelosi wants the oil companies to give the fuel away, and John McCain wants the government to stop gouging Americans.

This is a dream campaign - man oh man!

I was in despair - truly. My thinking was we Republicans didn’t really have the best candidate running for president. Yet, John McCain has managed to settle my stomach a bit. As we get closer to the convention, my distrust has turned to reservations, which are now turning into “this will be ok”. I will trust, but verify.

Now, my tepid to luke warm to warming up feeling about our candidate must be something others like me feel as well. And as I keep an eye on the Democratic candidates, something hits me. Right on the noggin, where it does me some good.

Regardless of the family feud we have in the Republican party - we will coalesce. At the worst, we will do so out of far of the alternative - but I think it will be more than that. I think people are warming to John McCain. He has been talking the right talk and looking presidential. The Democrats, on the other hand, are it this knuckle and skull. They are not playing party politics - Hillary and Obama are playing for keeps.

This is good.

I have seen this same protracted battle for dominance out at the dog play area at the city park. Total seriousness on the part of the competitors.  I will tell you why this is. These folks are running for more than to be the president. That’s big enough, but each of these candidates thinks they will make history. They will be in the history books for 500 years. They are running for a spot in history and there is no way either of them is just going to say, “yeah, I should probably bow out”. There is too much at stake.

Keep fighting, Hillary! Keep fighting, Barak! You are both going to be the most successful “almost got elected” people in US history and I love you for it. You rock!

Obama: “I always reserve the right for the president … to make sure that we are looking out for American interests,” Obama said. “And if al Qaeda is forming a base in Iraq, then we will have to act in a way that secures the American homeland and our interests abroad.”

As long as that president isn’t George W Bush.

McCain: “I understand that Sen. Obama said that if al Qaeda established a base in Iraq that he would send troops back in militarily. Al Qaeda already has a base in Iraq. It’s called al Qaeda in Iraq,” McCain said.

 ”It’s a remarkable statement to say that you would send troops back to a place where al Qaeda has established a base — where they have already established a base.”

 Obama:  “But I have some news for John McCain, and that is that there was no such thing as al Qaeda in Iraq until George Bush and John McCain decided to invade Iraq.”

Ah - well this brings up two points.

Bin Laden’s Justice Department indictment specifically states - despite the 9/11 Commissio’s white wash - Al Qaeda had a relationship with Saddam’s government based upon an agreement that Al Qaeda would not work against the Iraqi government and would assist on certain specific projects Iraq was involved in - assuredly with regards to support of Hizb’allah. This went back to the time when Bin Laden was in exile in Sudan prior to moving his base of operations to Afghanistan. Al Qaeda may not have been a fighting force in Iraq prior to the invasion of Iraq, but they would not have had anyone to fight there, now would they?

Al Qaeda was in New York and Washington DC “until George Bush and John McCain decided to invade Iraq.” They have not - apparently -been back since.

It is interesting how Obama seems to gain points for making inane promises of military might he does not espouse, and then also be able to gain points for making inane anti-war proclamations which reflect a false sense of history and a proven failed approach to combating terrorism.

Obama’s answer is talk - you cannot reason with a rabid dog, Mr. Obama. You put the dog down.

This had to happen. It is the only way conservatives will support McCain.

Don’t take this post as any capitulation on my part regarding John McCain - not yet anyway.

I am angry. I’m not angry at John McCain - he is what he is. I am angry at the Republican party. I think our party is selling our ideals out for the sake of seats on committees. Now, I am watching “respected conservatives” selling those same ideals out and it makes me wonder. Am I wrong? Did I miss something in Conservatism 101? I don’t think so, but it’s possible.

At the same time, I am much encouraged by the tossup states for the upcoming Senate races. Encouraged enough to think the next president is going to be fairly ineffective in taking the country any further to the left in the coming four years. The House will probably stay Democrat controlled, but the Senate is a good start.

These are the things which uphold my decision - to date - not to support John McCain. And it is my decision, so Neal Boortz can kiss my grits. I am tired of people not in the Republican party telling Republicans why they should accept something outside of Republican ideals. I and others who think like me are going to change this party - not abandon it. You can call our thinking on this asinine if that floats your stick, but this is not your fight. This is our family feud.

Which brings me full circle, doesn’t it? What is the most effective way to be agents of the kind of change our party needs?  We either support McCain and then fight him tooth and nail when he wins or we don’t support him and fight Hillary Obama.

McCain has been offering a lot of promises to garner the conservative vote and I don’t believe a word of it. We know what Hillary Obama is all about. No way they get my vote. Yet, do I overcome my ambivalence toward McCain - suck it up and drive on?

Well, this brings me to something I have been talking about for a couple of years. I think I got the idea from Cobb, but it immediately made sense and it grew on me. You see, the thing with all of us conservatives is very passionate right now and that might not change. But we’re going to get in a voting booth in November and we will be given a binary choice - zero or one. When you are in that mode - decision time, make or break - all of the emotion is gone. All of the angst is irrelevant. You will decide based upon what is in the core of your mind - survival. If you are a liberal, most of your survival instinct is already gone, so don’t try to understand this.

Hillary Obama will shrink America’s relevance and hard-won gains in the war on terror. They will lead our nation to the largest military cuts in history and laud over it. They will open us to more attacks abroad and prey on weaker Americans by creating more government dependency at home. They will work hard to make sure no one ever has the ability to get as rich as they are, because that’s what modern day “progressive” ideology is all about.

I know in my heart that John McCain is a poor choice for America on so many issues - maybe all of them - except one. He won’t let America roll over and die.

I am still a Maverick Voter - I’ll make my decision closer to November.

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.

I have problems with some of Mitt Romney’s political past. But, I will vote for him in the primary. I think a Romney GOP platform would not be terribly divergent from the core beliefs that I hold - especially on those matters which are most important to me.

The war is important and we don’t want to remove our focus on an outcome of a stable and self-sufficient Iraq. McCain is pretty strong there, but that is already going much better now that the lessons learned from the early days are being applied. We have a greater degree of cooperation from Iraqis and across a broader spectrum of religious and social sects in Iraq. the model for success is more mature now - that is not a reflection on any single leader or policy. It is evolution. Mitt Romney is not going to negatively impact that. John McCain is not going to be capable of doing anything on Iraq that speeds us to the results we need there than he could have on the weather in Pago Pago. I encourage someone to provide a specific action McCain could take that Romney could not. Specific.

So, for me the major differences are on the economy, immigration - which directly translates to the sovereignty of our nation - and a small thing called the sanctity of life.

John McCain is unexperienced in economic issues and has no economic policy. This is really important, especially in light of the situation we’ll be in after this stimulus package gets forced down our throats.

John McCain has a horrid record on securing our borders. His votes, not his words, should be what one focuses on. Those are the manifestations of his beliefs, not the sound bite he crafts for the news.

John McCain advocates federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. Despite the fact that skin cells, umbilical cord cells, and adult stem cells have produced far more promising results without destroying human life.

So, what would a McCain GOP Platform look like?

This might give you some food for thought.

This landed on me like a ton of bricks tonight while reading Hugh Hewitt’s post-debate

post:

Romney began by listing the series of assaults on conservative values championed by McCain including McCain-Feingold, McCain-Kennedy, the McCain-Lieberman global warming regulatory monster, the opposition to exploration in ANWR and the votes against the Bush tax cuts.

Has anyone stopped to think that if McCain gets the GOP nod, there will come a time when the party has to draft a platform with an obstinate, if not defiant, McCain - an often angry man with a history of holding conservatives in disdain? Someone pinch me, please. Has anyone thought of what that platform will look like? In 2004, it was called pablum by Novak. In 2008, I’m thinking tofu. Or, maybe cereal. Wouldn’t want to make the old folks have to chew.

Now, I believe you can only change a party from within - so I have not really made a final decision yet. If McCain gets the nomination and once I see the ticket, maybe the VEEP candidate will rock my world. I really hope we don’t get to that. Really careful consideration has to go into the decision of what to do, if McCain indeed becomes the nominee.

But - perhaps it is as Dan Riehl says. And maybe the wake-up call for Republicans to stop allowing mediocre candidates become “the one we must all vote for” is an Obama Administration. It brings that “I have to put down the suffering family dog” feeling in the pit of my stomach, but the way this party is shaping is getting insane.

Speaking as an Independent, you guys have gone insane. That may mean McCain fits right in, but, geez, guys, you may have to count me out.

Maybe.