Buckeye RINO

What happens when one challenges the status quo?  What happens when one upsets the apple cart?  What happens when one deals a blow to the good old boys and politics as usual?

The politicians get angry.  They have an axe to grind.  They scheme of ways to get even, bring down the crusader, and reinstate the status quo.

The public, though, is pleased.

The job approval ratings of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin hover in the vicinity of 80%, and it’s been that way for two years.  They respect that she ousted the head of Alaska’s Republican Party who used his time on the job as an oil commissioner to run the state GOP.  They respect that she divested herself of some of the perks that the prior good-old-boy governor had accumulated.  They respect that a natural gas pipeline project that had sat idle for 30 years is now on the front burner.  They respect that the Alaskan government is more transparent, including putting the state checkbook online.  Transparency has heightened the need to be more prudent with expenses, so Sarah Palin has vetoed $500 million of wasteful spending, and she has dramatically chopped the number and amount of Federal earmarks that Alaska is seeking.

Those spending cuts anger state legislators.  The legislature approves the spending just to have Palin veto it.  Every earmark that Palin rejects creates more enemies, and those enemies are powerful special interests, or at least, special interests who used to enjoy power and who would like to reassert their power vis-a-vis the current Alaskan governor.

The Alaskan public remains delighted with the strides that Palin has made, and wishes other politicians had acted in much the same way a long time ago.

Meanwhile, the conniving politicians who want revenge hope that they have found a turning point that will allow them to stop the roll-back of their political power in its tracks in the person of Walter Monegan, a former administrator responsible for Alaska’s safety forces.  Walter Monegan was offered a choice of assuming another position within the administration or being terminated.  He chose termination, and then made an issue of it, alleging that Palin was misusing her power.  When that allegation was made, the heads of the spurned politicians turned.  Instead of allowing Palin to continue on the path of shaking up Juneau, they could charge her with misusing power.  Perhaps this was the first way to check Palin’s immense popularity, if they could redefine her as a powermonger rather than reformer.  The state legislature decided to launch an investigation.  Clearly, they have a motive for finding fault with Palin.

Meanwhile, the public, I’m sure, is laughing off the redefinition of Palin as a powermonger instead of reformer.  Their former governors were powermongers.  Their former governors made no attempts at reform.  The public was able to tell the difference between Palin and her predecessors.  After the “trooper-gate scandal” first went public, Palin’s approval ratings dropped to . . . 76%!!!!  How many governors in America enjoy approval ratings of 76%?

Did Palin abuse her power by dismissing Monegan?  Was the termination the result of Palin’s frustration that she couldn’t get Monegan to fire her ex-brother-in-law?  I think not, and here’s why:  1) Monegan says that he wasn’t asked to fire anybody, that he’s just trying to read between the lines.  2) Monegan was offered another position within the administration. 3) Most importantly, Monegan’s replacement has not fired the ex-brother-in-law.  If it was all about getting the ex-brother-in-law fired, wouldn’t dismissing Monegan be all about putting someone else in that position to take care of that one little detail?  If the ex-brother-in-law was fired after getting Monegan out of the way, then one might conclude that it was indeed personal.

Now that Palin has become the VP nominee, the MSM has piled on, and the “trooper-gate” is becoming larger than life.  Politicians with an axe to grind now have the MSM and the Obama campaign in their corner.  The McCain camp stated today that the fix is in, and that the state legislature’s investigation has become a political machine determined to make a ruling against Palin.  I think the only reason the vengeful state legislature hasn’t already ruled against Palin is that they are timing the announcement according to the needs of the Obama campaign in order to inflict maximum damage on Palin, weakening her as much as they can in order to begin their push to reinstate politics-as-usual.

If American voters, though, follow the lead of the Alaskan public instead of jilted Alaskan politicians, they’ll recognize this episode as the bogus witch-hunt that it is and see that Palin truly does stand on the side of the people, which is why the Alaskan people stand on the side of Palin.

Two VP candidates hit the campaign trail this morning.  Sarah Palin was in Golden, Colorado, speaking of the things that she and John McCain would do if elected to the White House.  The message of reform was one that provides hope.  Joe Biden was in Saint Clair Shores, Michigan, speaking of pocketbook fears, predicting what John McCain would not do.  After listening for 15 minutes of attack after attack on John McCain, I realized that Biden had not even mentioned Senator Obama, let alone what Senator Obama plans to do about Wall Street jitters.  One campaign has a message of what they’ll do, and one campaign has no message, maybe not even a clue, about what they’ll do.  Isn’t this a huge flip-flop for the Obama campaign, to run on the message of fear and not hope?  Isn’t this a huge flip-flop for the Obama campaign to run on the old-style politics instead of a new kind of politics?

I have a recommendation for every household this weekend: stockpile food and other household goods–perhaps 3 months worth.  The financial house of cards on Wall Street is ready to collapse.  It might happen next week, it might happen next month, it might happen next year, but our nation’s financial foundations are not on good footing.

In a prior post, I urged the Federal government to not bail out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.  It looks like the fix is in and they will be bailed out.  Lehman Brothers is apparently pleading for federal guarantees so that someone will acquire it.  A decision is expected by Sunday.  Other financial institutions are at risk, as are other industries.  Whether the Federal government bails everybody out or not, there is a risk that our currency could take a big hit, and if that happens, expect an inflation spike.  If inflation spikes, expect that the stuff on store shelves will be really expensive.  If you can manage it, I think it’s good to keep a stockpile on hand to keep your family afloat no matter what happens to the financial markets.

With a short-term inflation spike, some prices won’t be able to move much, such as rent (already stipulated in a lease agreement), mortgage (a contract already agreed to when you purchased your home), and utilities (utility companies would have to get the state of Ohio to agree to a tax hike before they could raise their rates).  Prices of anything not already locked in, though, could skyrocket.

Of course, we are already experiencing financial distress in Ohio, but, believe it or not, it really can get worse.  Among those who think it could get worse is Governor Ted Strickland, who is trimming the state budget to anticipate impending shortfalls rather than tap the state’s “rainy day” fund. (Hat tip to Lisa Renee at Glass City Jungle.)

On the lighter side, maybe another step one can take to prepare one’s family for a nationwide financial collapse is to obtain fishing licenses and hunting licenses, so if food temporarily becomes too expensive, we can gather it ourselves, just like Sarah Palin’s family fishes and hunts for food.  It’s too late to plant a vegetable garden now, but you might want to plan on planting one next year.

Speaking of hunting, the deer population in Ohio is many, many, many times larger today than it ever was at the time the state was first settled.  According to early accounts of Ohio at the time of settlement, Ohio was wall-to-wall carpeted in trees with very few clearings.  The forest canopy shut out sunlight necessary for thick forest undergrowth, so deer didn’t have a lot to feast on in Ohio.  The Native American populations were also small in Ohio, as hunting was not as successful here as elsewhere because of the relative lack of game.  Often, the Miami nation, that inhabited SW Ohio, would make major hunting treks into Indiana and Kentucky, where game was much more plentiful.  These days, there’s lots for deer to forage upon in Ohio, and the large size of the deer population reflects that fact.

In any event, I encourage families to have a meeting to launch an action plan to be prepared in case of severe economic shocks.

Ketchikan, Alaska is not a large town, with perhaps 8 or 9 thousand within the city itself with another 7 thousand living outside it but on the same island.  Though you have to take a boat or plane to reach Ketchikan (as you cannot drive there by car), you can imagine that the airport at Ketchikan is not all that big.

As I mentioned in my prior post, I’ve been to Ketchikan twice.  During my visit this June, our tour guide pointed out that the locals get to brag that their airport is an “international”  airport.  The story of the “international” designation dates back to September 11, 2001, the day 4 commercial passenger jets were hijacked by terrorists and crashed into the World Trade Center in New York City, the Pentagon in the Virginia suburbs of DC, and a farm field in Pennsylvania.

All planes were ordered to be grounded across the USA and Canada that day.  International flights bound for the USA that day were re-routed to Canada.  A Canadian commercial passenger jet en-route between two Canadian locations happened to be closer to Ketchikan’s airport, so when the plane was ordered to be grounded, the plane was told to land in Ketchikan.  The pilot looked down at the relatively short runway in relation to the size of the aircraft he was flying.  Reportedly, his reaction was, “I have to land THIS on THAT????”  The plane landed safely.  That’s the story of Ketchikan’s first international flight arriving and departing from their humble airport.

Since that time, the runway has been lengthened for purposes of homeland security in case jets have to make emergency landings there in the future.

The Ketchikan airport is not located on the island that the city of Ketchikan is on.  Instead, the airport is located on an island populated by 50 persons, but the airport’s island is close to Ketchikan’s island.  There is just a narrow channel of water separating the two islands.  People going back and forth between the airport and Ketchikan must take a ferry across that channel.  There once was some talk of building a bridge to link the two islands, but that idea was shot down, as that proposed bridge was the infamous “bridge to nowhere.”

Perhaps that story might offer a slight idea of why certain politicians might have been for the bridge before they were against the bridge.

My favorite quote from Sarah Palin’s speech at her homecoming in Alaska was the one that appears in the title.  Alaska is the state “where men are men and women win the Iditarod.” One of the feelings one gets from a Palin speech is a feeling of empowerment.

An Obama speech on the economy is one that is deflating, as he drives home a message that we just can’t make headway on the economy without the Federal government (led by an Obama-Biden White House, a filibuster-proof Democrat majority in the U.S. Senate, and a Democrat supermajority in the U.S. House of Representatives) rescuing us.  I don’t have confidence in our Congress.  So, if Obama and Biden tell me that they will partner with Congress to improve our economy, I have to say to myself that the outlook is quite bleak.  There is nothing empowering in the message of Obama.  It is a message of dependency designed to lure us toward greater socialism, and that path leads away from individual liberty.

Individual liberty is what has made us the best country on Earth, a position in the international pecking order that every other nation on earth envies.  The other nations will not become greater than America so long as their governments choose to retain more power than they relinquish to their people, and so long as we don’t allow our government to usurp more of the people’s power.

The reform message of McCain and Palin is an empowering one because it is couched in the candidates’ confidence in the people, not confidence in the government.

I am sure that the MSM, looking for dirt on Palin in Alaska, will find dirt.  Palin is not a perfect person, so I’m sure she’s made mistakes.  But she is not following in someone’s footsteps.  She’s blazing a new trail because the path that prior Alaskan governors took was one that led through quagmires of corruption.  There are times in my life that I blazed a new trail without a mentor, without footsteps of predecessors to tread in.  I made mistakes.  But I am so happy that I pushed back my horizons–those are the times in my life that are marked by achievements.  So, instead of looking at Sarah Palin to discover her mistakes, I’m looking at where the trail she blazed leads to.  It leads to government that subordinates itself more to the people.

Palin’s approval ratings hover around 80%.  It would be more useful for the MSM to discover what Palin is doing right than to only seek out the mistakes, and nothing more.  All the rest of the states have governors who make mistakes.  They could use a few pointers about how to do the job right.

The MSM thinks Palin’s approval ratings are an anomaly, an inexplicable phenomenon.  So they send their reporters to Alaska, commissioned with the task of finding Palin’s mistakes.  With those blinders on, the MSM will miss the explanation behind the approval ratings.  Let me assure the MSM that Sarah Palin did not arrive at the mountain top of public approval ratings by falling to the summit.  She climbed there.

I have been blessed to visit Alaska, the Last Frontier, on two occasions so far.  Alaska is very alluring.  I heartily recommend vacationing there.  I visited in July 2003 and in June of this year.  Let me give you a tiny peek at the land where men are men and women win the Iditarod.

In Ketchikan I rode in a small boat over the waves (lots of small jellyfish visible in the water) to an abandoned cannery that now serves as a museum where tourists become acquainted with Alaska’s fishing industry.  I attended a lumberjack show where log-rolling, pole-climbing, and other extreme sports feats (some of which get televised on ESPN from time to time) take place in an outdoor arena where audience members become acquainted with the lumber industry.  Most striking of all Ketchikan tours, though, is a journey into the folklore of some of Alaska’s indigenous peoples, the Tlingits, as exhibited by the finest totem-pole carving in the world.

In Juneau, I visited the state capitol (without any tour guide), marveled at the wares in the numerous souvenir shops, took a tram ride up Mt. Roberts, toured some ghost town ruins on Douglas Island (the photo is from the shoreline of Douglas Island looking back across the channel to the mainland near where Juneau is situated), and most amazingly of all, took a bus past Mendenhall Glacier to board a boat to have an encounter with humpback whales.  When the captain of the boat spotted some orca and some humpback whales, he cut off the engines and passed around binoculars so we could glimpse these magnificent creatures.  He explained that Federal law required them to stop a certain distance away from the whales.  We watched a pod of humpback whales surround a school of herrings, and the captain remarked how rare it was that we, as tourists, happened upon a collective feeding ritual that professional marine biologists wait for hours and days to catch a glimpse of.  Our delights did not end there.  Three humpback whales decided to come meet our boat!  They swam to us!  They not only approached closely enough to touch them with an extended arm (we restrained ourselves from doing so), but they swam under the boat and emerged on the other side!  What a thrill!

I had the opportunity to take a ferry from Skagway to Haines.  From Haines, we studied the wildlife, from the tidal basin, to the grassy meadows, to the steep mountain slopes.  Bald eagles soar through the skies, bears forage for food, and mountain goats defy gravity as they clamber up steep cliffs.

Also from Skagway, we took a ride on the White Pass and Yukon Scenic Railway, with a voice over an intercom pointing out natural wonders, such as thundering waterfalls and seismic fault lines, while telling us the tales of the Klondike gold rush of 1898.  The cog railway took us from sea level in a valley scooped out by glaciers, up a steep grade along mountain cliffs to the summit of the White Pass at the Canadian border.  Our journey also proceeded through portions of British Columbia and the Yukon Territory before returning us to our cruise ship docked in the fjord at Skagway.

I’d like America to feel a little more like Alaska, a place where you can sense exhilarating freedom. America, where men are empowered to be men, women are empowered to win, and the people are sovereign.

McSame?  Sorry, Obama, that tag line isn’t working with me.

Frankly, there’s a lot of things you’ve been trying in the past week or so that doesn’t work with a lot of people.

You haven’t figured out where to take your campaign from this point on.  You are lashing out in several directions hoping something will stick.  The MSM is trying to help as much as they can, but they don’t know which direction to focus their attacks on, because you aren’t providing the leadership to point out the avenue that they should pursue.  The bloggers of the left, seeing that you aren’t directing the message, are stepping forward to try to help you out.  They are imaginative, as the left-blogging rumor mill is generating leads for the MSM to track down.  Unfortunately, the MSM has been arriving at dead ends on stories such as Palin mandating creationism instruction in Alaska’s public schools.  The rumors turn out not to be true.  The only clear message that America is getting from this consortium of your campaign, the MSM, and the left blogosphere, is that the Palin witchhunt is on.

And since we Americans can see that it is a witchhunt, the poll numbers show that a number of us are changing our minds about who the real change agents are.  Not only will the McCain ticket NOT be eight more years of the same, your ticket is now attempting to return us to the politics of personal destruction of past campaigns.  So much for change we can believe in.

Your words may say, “McCain-Palin does not represent change,” but your bewildered reactions say, “Whoa!  Too much change!”

Note to Congress:  Don’t do it.  Don’t bail them out.

Yes, dominoes will topple in the economy.  People will blame you, the Congress, when our financial house of cards tumbles.  I know you see a bailout as a way to redeem yourselves, to at least stave off the blame.  But, guess what?  The American people don’t approve of your performance, anyway.  Look at it this way:  When it comes to Congressional approval ratings, you’ve got nothing to lose.  Go ahead and take the blame, and let Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac collapse.  Let the marketplace correct itself.

Congress, if you bail out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, do you know that it will cost $2 trillion?  If you spend $2 trillion, what will it do to the budget deficit?  What will it do to the national debt?  What items in our Federal budget will be displaced if you commit that much money to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac?  Will it kill our defense budget at a time that we are waging a war on two fronts?

Guess what, Congress?  If you bail out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, how many more industries will you be bailing out?  The message you sent by bailing out Bear Stearns will only be magnified a hundred times when you bail out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.  How many more Wall Street firms will ask for a bail out?  How many more of Bear Stearns ilk?  How many more banks?  Automakers?  Airlines?  Will you print more money to cover these trillions of dollars for the bailouts?  What will the increase in the money supply mean?  A worthless dollar?  Inflation that will put prices of household goods beyond the purchasing power of household budgets?  Will taxes have no choice but to go up?  Or will the interest on the national debt end up consuming more than whatever revenue the Federal government scrape together, and then find our Federal government in default?

When we let Enron go under, there was an economic earthquake in Houston.  But guess what?  Now, Houston is one of the best places to earn a wage and support a family.  When average wages are compared with the cost of living, Houston is tops in the nation for letting people take a crack at the American dream.  We let the market correct itself.  After the darkness, there will be a new dawn.

Congress, these firms that want to be bailed out engaged in bad behavior.  Terrible behavior.  Horrendous behavior.  They cheated in an attempt to get ahead.  They had their day in the sun.  Now it’s time to pay the piper.  Why should we let good money chase after bad?  We shouldn’t.  If our taxpayer dollars have to be spent on subsidizing anything (which I don’t think it does) in the private sector, why the worst performers?  Why not the best?

Trust capitalism to work out its own kinks.  Don’t socialize industries so huge that they’re too big for the Federal government to swallow.  The communist nations like the old Soviet Union fell because they let good money chase after bad, shoveling rubles into the money pit of industries that were corrupt, grossly inefficient, and totally lacking in innovation.

It is better for Wall Street to go belly up than for the nation, itself, to go belly up.

So I implore you, Congress, just don’t do it.  Don’t.

Barack Obama isn’t the only one who is trying to figure out how to step out of the shadow of Sarah Palin.  I think Bob Barr and Ron Paul have to be concerned, as well.

I was among the Republicans who might have cast a vote for Bob Barr in November had John McCain picked a liberal VP nominee.  If Bob Barr had siphoned off enough Republican votes, Barack Obama could win the election with a minority of the popular vote, just like Clinton did when Ross Perot was in the running.  I think the Republican base has been so energized now, with Palin on the McCain ticket, that Bob Barr will lose traction with those who had entertained thoughts of defecting.

By all accounts, Ron Paul had a successful convention of his own in the Twin Cities.  But when the roll call at the RNC was taken, there were less Ron Paul delegate votes than anticipated.  Ron Paul supporters certainly recognize that Washington has gone astray.  By choosing Sarah Palin, John McCain has underscored his message that Washington is wayward, in dire need of reform.  John McCain’s acceptance speech included barbs against the Beltway Republicans that were every bit as stinging as Ron Paul’s barbs.  There are still vast areas of disagreement between the McCain camp and the Paul camp, but I think Paul supporters have to feel a bit more reassured about McCain after the Palin pick than they were before the Palin pick.

McCain’s Republican base has clearly become more solidified and energized, stealing thunder from Barr and Paul, thus allowing McCain to turn his attention toward independent voters and give Obama a run for his money.

I predict that McCain’s speech at the conclusion of the Republican National Convention was better received among Ohio’s rank-and-file Republicans than it was among the audience in attendance in Saint Paul, Minnesota.  I say that because of the audience responses to McCain’s promises of reform, which were warmly received in Saint Paul but would have been wildly and enthusiastically cheered in Ohio.  While McCain clearly showed that he never approved of the excesses perpetrated by Republicans in Washington, a lot of the people who DID approve of those excesses were in the Saint Paul audience, dampening the crowd response.

In other words, the Republicans of the much-reviled Bush Administration were very well represented in the convention hall.  I think that’s a shame.  It clearly is time to turn the page.

Ohio’s rank-and-file Republicans have suffered embarrassment for the last 4 years, as scandals tainted the Republican brand when Bob Ney, Bob Taft, Joe Deters, and others, turned out to be undesirables.  We rank-and-file Republicans in the Buckeye State are still dismayed by some of our state legislators and Congressional Representatives who still adhere to the principles of pay-to-play politics.  We are hungry for a better crop of Republican officeholders.  Clearly, if there are any Republicans anywhere in this nation eager for the McCain-Palin reform message, they are here in Ohio.

Several of the early speeches of the day were dreadful.  How in the world does Kansas put up with its singularly uninspiring U. S. Senator Sam Brownback.  His speaking manner was absolutely annoying.  I was at the point of turning away from C-Span coverage.  He was followed by a speaker that was nearly as bad: Oklahoma Congresswoman Mary Fallin.  They need professional help to improve their speaking abilities.  It’s a good thing the other networks talked over top many of these early speakers, because whatever lift Giuliani and Palin provided last night would have been quickly deflated if everybody heard those speeches.

McCain should have had nothing but passionate reform, reform, reform speakers tonight in order to keep the ball rolling from last night’s performances.  Speaking without passion and detouring from the reform message by some of the earlier speakers was dampening enthusiasm.

I think many of those Beltway Republicans in attendance were subtly trying to sabotage McCain by not reacting enthusiastically to the McCain reform message, like when he talked about the spending, the earmarks, the corruption, the selfishness.  Some of those selfish Beltway Bandits may be hoping that McCain falters this year, mistakenly thinking that they can be leader of the pack in 4 years.  Brownback certainly performed that way.  Some Beltway Bandits haven’t figured out that ordinary Americans are not proud of their behavior (and some may be in for a rude awakening when they’ve lost re-election bids this November).  Other Beltway Bandits (like U.S. Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska) perversely feel that they will not be denied the spoils, no matter what, and those are the ones that will sabotage McCain and welcome Obama as President.  Those are the ones that were resisting McCain’s message in Saint Paul.

I think it was necessary for McCain to own up to the fact that our Republican representatives in Congress have let down the voters, despite the bad vibes it caused among GOP bigwigs in Saint Paul, and even though it could be used as cannon fodder by Obama.  In order to give McCain any credibility at all for the prospects of reform, especially for any independents that may have been paying attention, McCain had to clearly show he was not going to lead the nation through 4 more years of a Bush Administration.

Overall, I think the McCain speech was effective, and I’m hoping that most viewers didn’t tune in until the later portions of the evening.  I did feel that stir of patriotism within me as McCain spoke with conviction of his solemn commitment to our nation.

Obama has seized upon a quip by a senior campaign advisor to McCain about fleshing out a portrait of McCain based on his personality rather than his views on the issues.  How disingenuous.  Of course, views on the issues are extremely important when running in a legislative race.  There is a place for defining character traits when running for the executive branch.

Obama, in making his campaign all about judgment, has certainly put personality front and center.

McCain has wanted to address the issues much more than Obama has.  McCain invited Obama to make a series of joint townhall appearances so that voters could get an apples-to-apples comparison between the two major party nominees on the issues, but Obama rejected the invitation.

If Obama wants to turn the campaign back to issues, then, by all means, resurrect the notion of joint townhall appearances.  Obama doesn’t want to be pinned down on issues.  He wants McCain to speak out on issues first so that Obama can find fault with what McCain says no matter how McCain says it.

Why has the McCain camp made a recent effort to flesh out McCain’s personality during the convention?  I think it’s an opportunity to push back against Obama’s biggest lie:  McCain is Bush and Bush is McCain.  If anyone is paying attention, McCain is laying to rest any notion that he is Bush.

McCain, I am certain will be happy to leave behind the “McCain is Bush” narrative to more fully address the issues, but Obama would have to abandon the “McCain is Bush” refrain.  Obama would have to agree to joint townhalls or, at the very least, more debates.  Obama has shown no inclination to move beyond “McCain is Bush,” so his criticism of the McCain camp for defining McCain’s personality is nothing but a gimmick.

The first Obama campaign response to McCain’s VP announcement of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin didn’t highlight that she was a governor.  Instead, it belittled her as a small town mayor.  This morning, I finally remembered what Barack Obama said to his San Francisco peers about small-town-America.  Is he trying to communicate that Sarah Palin is one of those bitter Americans, so bitter that her reason for clinging to guns and religion is self-explanatory?  My goodness, what if she gets elected, and actually brings her guns to Washington with her?  What if she starts each day on the job as VP with prayer?  Can we afford to have a bitter American as VP who will turn Washington on its head like Palin would?

Maybe I’m way off base.  Hugh Hewitt has written a compelling blog entry at Townhall.com that offers an alternative explanation of the Obama camp’s urge to tear Sarah Palin apart, and I recommend that everyone read it.