Wictory Wednesday

RNC Day 2: Governator

I'm not feeling energetic enough tonight to cover days 2, 3 and 4… so I'm just going to do day two right now. Tomorrow, perhaps I'll do both of the remaining days. On a side note, it seems a new Time poll is showing our President with a 11 point lead of likely voters even before his nomination! Exciting, huh?

Arnold Schwarzenegger might be a liberal Republican who is pro-abortion, pro-gay rights and so on, but he is still a very big asset for the GOP, I think. He seems to get along well with the more conservative portions of the party and his name and speaking ability makes him a great way to get people excited about the GOP. If Arnold, liberal or not, can get more people to vote for a pro-life, pro-family President like President George W. Bush, that's great.

His “How to Tell If You are a Republican” part of the speech was great. His humor was good and — dare I say it? — his speech was every bit as energetic and engaging as Barak Obama's was in July. I have no doubt that if the constitution allowed it, that Ahhhnold could win the presidency after his term as governor. He really rallied the troops, so to speak, at the RNC, but he also had non-Republicans excited. He emphasized some fiscally conservative policies, too, which was great.

Certainly, it did not hurt that he managed to fit in the phrase that terrorism will be terminated. Same goes for the story about the wounded soldier that told him that “he'd be back.”

The good governor also is exactly the type of person Democrats don't want the GOP to have. They see themselves as the party for immigrants. Well, guess what? Here's an immigrant that said that when he arrived in the U.S. he became a Republican because he thought the Dems' policies sounded too much like the socialist policies of the Soviet bloc he was familiar with. They see themselves as the preferred party in California. Well, guess what? Their candidate was recalled. They see themselves as the party of those whom John Kerry called the “heart and soul of America” — Hollywood. Well, guess what? One of Hollywood's biggest stars seems to have no love loss for the Dems. And the bitterest pill of all, I am sure, for the Dems: thanks to Ahhhnold, a Kennedy has set foot in the RNC. How's that for an accomplishment?

Overall, he was the highlight of the night. Although I shouldn't overlook the very good speech made by the first lady. Her speech was far less self absorbed than Mrs. Kerry's speech in July and focused most of its attention on her husband (whereas Mrs. Kerry seemed to focus more on herself and her late husband the Republican Sen. John Heinz). Unfortunately, Mrs. Bush had to start off her speech on a very low note.

All the momentum of the night up to that point was just thrown away thanks to the Bush daughters. Their incoherent, horrible example of a bad speech was the worst I've seen in a long time. The ten or twelve year old who spoke at the Democratic convention did a far better job than the Bush twins. They came across as immature brats. It would have been far better if they had just not said anything at all, and someone else, perhaps nephew George P. Bush, had given the introduction speech.

His speech earlier that night was very good. I got the same impression on Tuesday that I did in 2000: if he so desires, George P. Bush has the public speaking skills to do well in politics. I expect to see more of him in the future. Perhaps the GOP finally has its equivalent of the Kennedys in the Bushes.

RNC Days 2, 3 and 4

Unfortunately, not today either. Tomorrow…

RNC Days 2 and 3 Tomorrow

No time to write about them tonight. Need sleep. Goodnight.

RNC Day 1: Slowly We Start

The Republican National Convention day one was somewhat disappointing to me. It just seemed to start and move very slowly and in a disorderly fashion. The Democratic Convention 2004's first day was a lot more organized. Day one was saved by John McCain and Rudy Giuliani, part of the RNC's “showcase of moderates,” but two people should not have to carry the whole program to the extent that they did.

John McCain is a likable guy and it was good to see him getting the spotlight for awhile. His speech came across as sincere and, unlike many more partisan politicians, McCain can pull off a call for bipartisan unity without seeming like a hypocrite (I'd add that being politically partisan and being firm on your values aren't the same thing). I particularly liked his comment,

I don't doubt the sincerity of my Democratic friends. And they should not doubt ours.

His speech was eloquent and well thought out. The most noticeable part, I'd suggest, though, was not really his speech per se, but the booing directed to Michael Moore (who is present at the RNC) when McCain quipped:

It was between war and a graver threat. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Not our critics abroad. Not our political opponents.


And certainly not a disingenuous film maker who would have us believe that Saddam's Iraq was an oasis of peace when in fact it was a place of indescribable cruelty, torture chambers, mass graves… (Emphasis mine)

It took a long time after that comment for the crowd to calm down, and for good reason. Michael Moore is a fruitcake. And I do mean that with all the due respect I can possibly afford him. I'd love to see how Moore spins that in his RNC “coverage” in USAToday (fair and balanced, I'm sure).



Rudy offered a good speech as well. Much of it had similar content, only with a bit more humor and less eloquence. His speech, like McCain's is worth listening to at GOPConvention.com if you haven't already heard it. On the other hand, be warned that it is a lengthy speech — a bit too long in my opinion. Overall, however, it was good and again supported the idea of unity while respectfully disagreeing. He emphasized the need for the war on terrorism as well, just like McCain did. Of course, all of this was done with the New Yorkian attitude and style that makes Giuliani who he is.



Overall, I'd say the Dems outdid the pachyderms on the first night in style, but not content. Tomorrow, I shall aim to provide some remarks on RNC Day 2, including the Governator's speech.

Something to think about...

ALAN KEYES, IN MY ESTIMATION, is probably one of the most eloquent conservative figures presently in politics. Frankly, he was my favorite in the GOP Primary in 2000, alas he never garnered more than 10% of Republicans' support in polls, even at the best of times. Of course, he was running against two folks with far better political machines. Now that we have McCain and Bush working together so that we don't have to face four scary years of Kerry, the most liberal member of the senate, and his running mate, the fourth most liberal member of the senate (“the balanced ticket” they say…), it looks like the final member of the GOP 2000 trio is back in action too.

As you've all undoubtedly heard, Keyes is running for the senate seat in Illinois being vacated by Sen. Peter Fitzgerald ®. Jack Ryan might have been the original choice of the people of Illinois, but I think Keyes could be the really great blessing in disguise of the whole scandal mess concerning Ryan. Keyes has the oratorical skills needed to compete with Barak Obama, and his national renown should help fund raising efforts (a very important thing since he has to raise enough to compete with Obama's $10 million dollar war chest in just three months).

One thing Keyes would like to do is abolish the IRS. That's right, read his lips… no [income] taxes. Not “no more taxes,” but no IRS taxes at all. The interesting thing here is that this has been desired by conservatives for years, but never came to the mainstream until just last week. Last week, speaker of the House Rep. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill) started talking about pushing a plan to abolish the IRS in favor of a national sales tax if President Bush is in office over the next four years (because tax hiking liberal Sen. Kerry would never go for it).

Here's the deal. For most Americans, you'd probably pay the same amount to the government every year. Because, most Americans don't save their money, they spend it. So why is this a good thing? First, let's consider the obvious: does anyone really enjoy filling tax returns? Your time, money spent to pay for tax filling services and programs and so on are all things you would be saving. Most importantly, the money would stay in your pocket for longer. If you aren't self employed, most likely, your tax payments are coming right out of your check and straight into government coffers. With a sales tax system, it would stay in your pocket until you bought something — thus you'd make interest on your money.

Furthermore, many important things such as education and services aren't taxable. That makes Sen. Kerry's proposed tax credit for college education look down right small. Unlike a tax credit, you'd keep the money rather than waiting for a refund check to get your money back. You'd keep your money in your pocket where it should be. It would also encourage people to invest in the stock market and other long term investments because you wouldn't pay capital gains taxes when you pulled your money out to buy things after already paying taxes on the money when you earned it. It'd be the end of the death tax (double taxing at its worst) and the marriage penalty.

Something tells me if Americans vote for more positive change through four more years of Bush-Cheney, and Illinoisans vote for two more years of Rep. Dennis Hastert and six years of Alan Keyes, we could see some really great common sense changes to the tax system. Let's hope this happens!

The Results Come In: Victory, Mostly

The Marriage Amendment seems to have passed enthusiastically (based on 3700 of just under 4000 precincts reporting). It seems it passed with a small margin even in Kansas City and St. Louis counties, failing most notably in St. Louis City (no, I'm not contradicting myself here, St. Louis city isn't in any county, St. Louis County boarders the city limits). Anyway outside of KC and St. Louis county, it seemed to win counties by an average of a 60 point advantage. St. Charles county voted for it with a 40 point advantage (which is, incidentally, the state wide margin of the win 70 to 29).

The casino amendment failed (more good news — it would have been a shame to ruin the Branson Tri-Lakes area with a casino) by a 12 point margin 44 to 56. This passed, not unexpectedly, in both St. Louis City and Kansas City, but failed in St. Louis county and seemingly most every place else).

Now, about the bigot comment above. Martin Lindstedt was running as, in his own words, a “racist candidate” for governor with a platform of eliminating benefits to all but Caucasians. He said he wanted to return the state to “1875 when that white man was superior.” This guy even had a militia that he bragged about on his candidate information page on the Post-Dispatch web site. Scary. But here's the thing: many would probably say he'd do better in, say Stone and Taney counties (in the Ozarks) than in St. Louis City. But throw away those notions of country conservatives. State wide, this scary fellow won 1.1% of the Republican primary vote for governor. That's about what he got in Stone and Taney counties (and most other counties — in St. Charles County he got .9%), but in urban, liberal St. Louis City, he earned nearly 2%!

And finally about “Guv Bob.” I feel sorry for him. Yeah, I don't agree with him on most issues. I think he did a bad job on a lot of things. But I don't think he was a terrible governor. As a person, he seemed just fine, free from any scandals or corruption as far as I know (I can be politically across the aisle and still like politicians — brace yourself — I admit on occasion to liking President Clinton). It just seems like a cruel political fate to lose your reelection bid to an overzealous person of your own party during the primary. Claire McCaskill seems to have almost the same views as Holden, but is a new face, which I think voters thought would be more “electable.”

While I admit I thought this too, and was hoping for that reason he'd win the primary instead… I also kinda hoped so just because I thought he deserved the chance to win or lose because people either agreed or didn't agree with him as compared to Republican challenger Matt Blunt, not because democratic voters apparently thought his mediocre term might be a liability necessitating a new face on the same policies. Ending one's political career in the primaries after several decades working one's way up to governor seems to be the worst possible way for a politician to go.

So, yes, I sort of hoped he would keep “holden on”… until November, of course.

Who I Voted For

Michael had the good idea to post who/what he was going to vote for today. I thought I'd do the same — if nothing else for something interesting to look back on in a few years.

Federal Offices
U.S. Senator: Christopher “Kit” Bond (Incumbent)

U.S. Representative - District 2: Todd Akin (Incumbent who replaced then Governor hopeful and now U.S. Senator Jim Talent, who retired from congress in 2000) [Unopposed.]

State-wide Offices
Governor: Matt Blunt (Secretary of State, going against Incumbent Bob Holden or possibly new Democrat Claire McCaskil). [Winning as of 8:00 PM with 3% of precincts reporting.]

Lieutenant Governor: Peter Kinder (State Senator [side note: the only politician I have ever heard Rush Limbaugh endorse through an ad on the radio]). [Winning as of 8:00 PM with 3% of precincts reporting.]

Secretary Of State: Catherine Hanaway (Speaker of State House) [Unopposed]

State Treasurer: Sarah Steelman (State Senator) [Winning as of 8:00 PM with 3% of precincts reporting.]

Attorney General: Chris Byrd [Winning as of 8:00 PM with 3% of precincts reporting.]

Local Offices
Circuit judge Circuit 11 Division 1: Jeff Morrison (Fmr. St. Peters City Alderman. In the general election, I'll probably vote for Democrat Ted House, who I usually vote for — whatever office it is he may be running for — he's a good guy.) [Winning by 4 votes (less than 1%) as of 8:10 PM with 13% of precincts reporting.]

State representative 16th District (Rep): Carl Bearden (Incumbent) [Unopposed]

State senator 23rd District: Chuck Gross (Incumbent) [Unopposed]

Local Propositions
Proposition R (Extend 0.5% Sales Tax for road work): No [Passing as of 8:00 PM with 13% of precincts reporting.]

Propositions and Amendments
Constitutional Amendment 1 (Riverboat Gambling on White River near Branson [Rockaway Beach): No [Failing by 10 point margin as of 8:00 PM with 3% of precincts reporting.]

Constitutional Amendment 2 (Codify marriage as between a man and a woman): Yes [Passing by over 60 point margin as of 8:00 PM with 3% of precincts reporting.]

Can't Kerry On

How better to comment on John Kerry than by quoting his speech (and a few other choice quotes)? I think I will do that. And in doing so, let this serve as my official nomination of a presidential candidate (click the link for the nominating portion of this post — if you can't wait — otherwise, “kerry” on for just a bit longer).

John Kerry on Negative Campaigning
Point:

I want to address these next words directly to President George W. Bush: In the weeks ahead, let's be optimists, not just opponents. Let's build unity in the American family, not angry division. … My friends, the high road may be harder, but it leads to a better place. And that's why Republicans and Democrats must make this election a contest of big ideas, not small-minded attacks

Counterpoint:

“I will be a commander in chief who will never mislead us into war. I will have a vice president who will not conduct secret meetings with polluters to rewrite our environmental laws. I will have a Secretary of Defense who will listen to the best advice of our military leaders. And I will appoint an Attorney General who actually upholds the Constitution of the United States.”

“As president, I will not privatize Social Security. I will not cut benefits. And together, we will make sure that senior citizens never have to cut their pills in half because they can't afford life-saving medicine. … And that is the choice in this election.”

“For four years, we've heard a lot of talk about values. But values spoken without actions taken are just slogans. Values are not just words. … You don't value families by kicking kids out of after school programs and taking cops off our streets, so that Enron can get another tax break.”

Tim Says: Did you notice how he mentions Enron? Not just the rich — after all, not all of us hate the rich.

“[T]hink of what Ron Reagan said of his father a few weeks ago, and I want to say this to you tonight: I don't wear my own faith on my sleeve. But faith has given me values and hope to live by, from Vietnam to this day, from Sunday to Sunday. I don't want to claim that God is on our side.”

Tim Says: If you didn't realize it already, Ron “Rampaging” Reagan was attacking President Bush with that quip. And, yes, despite Reagan Jr.'s delusions, President Reagan was quite religious — “Moral Majority,” anyone?

John Kerry and His Family on Outsourcing
Point:

“We value an America that exports products, not jobs — and we believe American workers should never have to subsidize the loss of their own job.”

Counterpoint: The Times of India reports, courtesy of BlogsForBush:

“H J Heinz & Co, the family business of Kerry and his wife Teresa, has spread its ketchup operations across the world. Of the 79 factories that the food processor owns, 57 are overseas. Heinz makes ketchup, pizza crust, baby cereal and other edibles in such countries as Poland, Venezuela, Botswana, Thailand, and most of all, China and India.”

John Kerry on Health care

“Our health care plan for a stronger America cracks down on the waste, greed and abuse in our health care system, and will save families up to $1,000 a year on their premiums. You'll get to pick your own doctor — and patients and doctors, not insurance company bureaucrats, will make medical decisions. Under our plan, Medicare will negotiate lower drug prices for seniors. And all Americans will be able to buy less expensive prescription drugs from countries like Canada.”

Sounds like private health care still, right? Maybe not:

“And when I'm president, America will stop being the only advanced nation in the world which fails to understand that health care is not a privilege for the wealthy, the connected, and the elected — it is a right for all Americans.”

A $1,000 tax deduction will not provide universal healthcare. So what is John Kerry talking about? The true meaning of this can mean one of several things. Most likely, he either means that the government will offer everyone “senator quality” health care, or he will expand Medicaid to provide health care to those who don't have it/can't afford it.

Which will not help the deficit, it will cause it to skyrocket. There's a reason we are the only advanced nation with a relatively small 33% tax rate for most incomes. Many “advanced nations” with health care have over 50% taxes on income. Will you be better off with “free” health care but with nearly 50% more taxes?

If universal health care is provided, consider if it cost just $50 a month per person, far less than private health care does. While that is not likely, let's just consider it. What would that do to the Federal budget? It would add $175,800,000,000 to it ($175 billion dollars) per year. Now, consider that bypass surgery costs at least $30,000 per operation and consider this is a very frequently performed surgery. If we figure that each person's share of the health care costs was $50/month, it would take fifty years for the government to break even on that one person. Now if we assume that probably everyone will need at least $30,000 in health care services over their lifetime, and very likely many will need far more, you'll see how $50/month per person just isn't enough. And, what if we bumped it up to $100/month per person — still less than half of a private insurance plan — the Federal budget would then go up by a whopping $350 billion dollars a year.

That's without considering that usually when the government is involved the prices of stuff goes up. So, when hospitals cost more to use, drugs cost more and doctors cost more… will even $350 billion dollars a year be enough?

As an aside, the anti-Bush tax cut Tax Foundation site puts the Bush tax cuts for 2002 and 2003 at just $188 billion, less than what we've calculated above is needed just to provide universal health care. John Edwards, on Wednesday, told us the Kerry-Edwards plan would only roll back the tax cuts for the top 2% of income earners and would use it to pay for all kinds of things — where is the rest of the health care money going to come from?

Also, consider this: you might say, well, just provide socialized health care to those who don't have health care. Well guess what? As soon as businesses learn they don't need to provide health care to attract employees, do you think they will still foot the bill? Likely not. So, the amount of people that the government would need to give health care services to would vastly increase at an alarming rate.

John Kerry on Stem Cells

“What if we find a breakthrough to cure Parkinson's, diabetes, Alzheimer's and AIDS?  What if we have a president who believes in science, so we can unleash the wonders of discovery like stem cell research to treat illness and save millions of lives?”

Tim Says: This would easily fit into the Bush bashing quotes I listed at the beginning next to Kerry's quote about positive campaigning, but let's consider it here instead. Does President Bush believe in science? Yes, I think so. But believing in science doesn't require doing everything science can do when there are ethical issues involved.

Guess what? There are ethical issues involved. If you are like me and believe that even the tiniest embryo is a real human being, then you must be willing to advocate murder before you can advocate stem cell research. Maybe that isn't the case — but I'd rather assume that and be proven wrong some day (although how you prove this either way other than through philosophy is beyond me) than to assume embryos are just cells and find out I advocated murder. President Bush took the middle ground: he chose to allow continued federal usage of already created stem cell lines, but prohibited further stem cell line creation — that makes sense (note that the President hasn't and can't stop private funding of stem cell research by himself).

Secondly, what Kerry and Company want to do, essentially, is promoting cloning for research and as well as using the murdered babies that died through abortion for research. The former is done through a technique known as Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer (SCNT). SCNT is what was used to create Dolly the Sheep. SCNT is what Embryonic Stem Cell researchers want to use to create more stem cells to use. It is prohibited in Germany because the difference between the process to clone a human being for reproduction and for research is non-existant. The Germans don't want to come anywhere near the Nazi-era legacy of eugenics and such — and we would do wise to heed what they know by experience.

Thirdly, many scientists now think that using stem cells in the umbilical cord, after the birth of a baby, may be just as useful as the embryonic stem cells Kerry and Co. want to use. Finally, many (most?) scientists who are really willing to research the evidence admit that stem cells don't appear to be doing anything useful for Alzheimer's like they thought they would.

John Kerry Lies

“You don't value families if you force them to take up a collection to buy body armor for a son or daughter in the service, if you deny veterans health care, or if you tell middle-class families to wait for a tax cut, so that the wealthiest among us can get even more.”

Tim Says: The body armor, from what I've read, was/is included in the $87 billion dollar budget John Kerry “voted for before [he] voted against it” (his words).

The President's tax cuts have applied across the board. It is silly to suggest the cuts have only been of benefit to the wealthy. It is also foolish to suggest that the wealthy should front the bill for all of us, in essence, to level the playing field. That kind of thinking goes under a name John Kerry doesn't want associated with himself: SOCIALIST.

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Whereas the current president of the United States is the forty third president of this union.

Whereas the forty third president of the United States of America is George Walker Bush;

Whereas the present year is the two thousand and fourth year of our Lord;

Whereas the current election pits John Forbes Kerry, a senator with a dubious record, against George Walker Bush;

I hereby declare the forty-third president of the United States of America, George Walker Bush, the official candidate of asisaid in the upcoming presidential election.

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Go! Go! Go! Four More Years! Go Dubya!

Observations on DNC Night Two

Senate hopeful Obamba definitely stole the night. Bar none, hands down. He probably stole the whole two nights, and I wouldn't be surprised if he's the one people are talking about after the convention is over. This guy was a politician's politician and gave a very good speech on his upbringing and unifying the nation. He only sent a few barbs toward the Bush administration, which was an added plus.

Mark my words: this guy will be running for the president in a few years.

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Earlier in the night Gov. Howard Dean of Vermont gave a decent speech that began after the longest applause thus far during the convention. He lamented that he had hoped to receive such a reception, but had hoped it would be on Thursday rather than Tuesday. He didn't say a whole lot new or different from his stump speeches, but this time it was (obviously) for Kerry rather than against him. Given his clear popularity with the audience and medical credentials, I betcha he has the title Secretary of Health and Human Services coming his way if Sen. Kerry beats President Bush on November 2.

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Ron Reagan did a speech arguing for Embryonic Stem Cell Research, arguing that it doesn't involve fetuses (give the man a prize, that must be why they call it embryonic). He then proceeded to explain that the embryos weren't human because they didn't have fingers and toes and so on as if that was a clear fact. Anyone who didn't agree with that, he essentially stated, “has a political axe to grind.”

Reagan then used an ends-justifies-the-means argument referring to the situation of a girl who does have fingers and toes and a brain. He argued that this wasn't a political speech he was going to give, but urged people to “vote for stem cell research on November 2.” Reagan, despite mounting evidence against it, argued that embryonic stem cell research would provide replacement parts on demand for people as though this was a known and confirmed fact.

Drudge reports than Michael Reagan has again denounced this stand and says his sibling is being used by the Democrats. The senior Reagan son in June pointed out the fact that reports citing that the Reagan family supports stem cell research sadly excluded himself and his father.