Firing a Few Rounds

Honestly, you can not be completely surprised I have a few rounds left to fire off in the circular tent squad.  I already unleashed most of the clip in my first election analysis.  However, there are two other things I want to address.

First is Chris Christie.  I have heard a lot of people blaming him for the election loss, though I feel that is a lot more emotion than deep analysis.  It is pretty easy to knee-jerk against a guy who embraces the most dangerous president since Woodrow Wilson.

That said, I think they may be preparing to kiss here.

That being said, I do assign a very small portion of blame to Chris Christie.  The problem was not Governor Christie's complimenting of Barack Obama.  The problem is that he complimented him, at best, for getting nothing done.  At worst, he complimented Obama for a job badly done.  Power was inevitably going to return slowly considering how widespread the damage was.  The real problem lay and still lies in what is happening while the power remains unrestored, particularly the logistical nightmare triggered by the disruption of commerce.  People starve, freeze and live in filth as long as that has not recovered.

Yet, FEMA under Obama, much like under Bush, was woefully unprepared to deal with a disaster of this magnitude.  And Chris Christie complimented him on a job well done, a move which I have no doubt helped to solidify the appearance of Barack Obama being in control, despite people suffering a week later when the polls opened.  He complimented the president for doing a few photo-ops in a bomber jacket.

Ultimately, I think that the governor killed any prospects he had of national office.  While I do not hate him like some seem to now, I am immensely disappointed in the man.  No one should be in the business of giving undeserved accolades, whether because they are blind, for the sake of their own reelection (Christie will be up for reelection next year) or just to seem bipartisan.

Finally, my last problem is with those people who believe that the Republican party should divorce itself from the social wing.  This seems to come up every election (often from liberals...hm...) and frankly, I think is a foolish idea to consider.

For one, social conservatives bring the bulk of the energy and enthusiasm to the GOP fold.  Additionally we have numbers that moderates lack.  Splitting the party along these lines would shrink the influence of conservatives and right-leaning libertarians as they would fight amongst themselves more to vie for influence than come together.  The Republican party serves, in many ways, as a means to smooth over the differences between the two and allow them to face the left side of the aisle with greater unity.

The other problem is approaching moderates as some sort of monolithic block.  I believe this to be silly, at best.  The fact of the matter is, everyone who claims to be moderate/independent leans one way or the other.  It is not a matter of dumping social conservatives to appeal to these people; it is a matter of making a cogent argument to them in the first place.  I do not believe conservative values will fail to resonate with people when articulated clearly. 

Moderate candidates cannot do this and that, I believe, is where the problem truly lies.  As long as we keep selecting Doles, McCains and Romneys to represent conservatism on a national stage, we will continue to fail.  Now, I do think it is reasonable to debate which issues should take precedence.  Dropping certain planks because they are politically inconvenient is not the solution, however.

I believe the Democrats and progressive recognize our weaknesses when we choose moderates.  It is why they goad us into considering dumping certain ideologies and morals, particularly when elections go their way.  They wish to use this period of post-election soul searching to divide us further.  The least I can ask is that we don't fall for this kind of silly, knee-jerk stupidity.

Since there is one more big, very important topic that I wish to discuss, there will be one last blog post tomorrow or Tuesday.  Until then, readers!

Also, I hope you spent at least a little time today thinking about the veterans in your life.

Shooting the Circular Tent Squad

I think I just mixed metaphors.

Yes, yes I did.

It was not an aimless mixing, however.  Though the wave seems to be subsiding now, I noticed over the past few days a tendency for conservatives to lash out at each other in the wake of the election.  And by lash out, I do not mean "have introspective conversations with one another that occasionally become heated, but otherwise stay cordial."  I mean full blown nastiness as people would fly off the handle at each other over relatively minor disagreements over causes for the election results.  Likewise, in the immediate aftermath, I saw many jump to hilarious conclusions or assume that single issues were the sole reason for our election defeat.

Now, I do not blame people for getting emotional.  I think all of us conservatives flipped out at some point following the election.  My moment was the morning immediately after.  However, I feel we should be careful with how out of control we allow our emotions to get or, more accurately, who we take those emotions out on, no one being preferable.  Perhaps our gut feelings are right or maybe they are wrong, but we most certainly can stand to wait a day or two to articulate them in a way that does not involve attacking our friends and allies.  It is what I did and do you see any profanity in this post?  Hell no!

...Oops. (Warning: it happens again).

Part of the reason this knee-jerk emotionalism bothers me so much is that it is what liberals do.  So many liberals arrogantly began to preen about their victory, showing little grace and class in the aftermath of the election.  Indeed, the hashtag #F---WhitePeople was trending on Twitter for a time immediately following the result.  However, conservative reactions were not much better and I was disappointed.  Keep yourselves in check, people.  Be better than them.

That leads me to a few incidents that occurred during the election.

Congressman Ego.

First is the situation with Todd Akin.  Now, before you think I'm crazy, I am not defending his statements, but I do feel the need to defend him against how he was treated.  It is true he said something colossally stupid then compounded the problem by having a massive ego to boot.  Sadly, that colossally stupid thing was also taken out of context, as his overall point was that the child conceived in rape has a right to live.  However, pulling back from the man was not the solution.  He was the candidate we had to deal with.

He received far too little support (considering a straight apology and an admission of the stupidity of his statement) and he was still ignored until the last minute, despite running against a woman considered the most vulnerable senator in the country. I feel giving him greater support could have given him a shot against Claire McCaskill.  However, even if he could not have possibly won, at the very least, I feel that we could blame Akin and only Akin had he the support.  As it stands now, we will never know.

Next is Richard Mourdock.  His statement on rape was ill-conceived, but not wrong.  Anyone with common sense knows he was referring to God's plan for the child conceived in rape, not that God intended the rape.  This has been Christian belief since its founding, yet liberals pretended to be shocked at it due to (very) inartful wording.  Though not as strong as Akin's, I believe the blowback and lack of support, again, damaged Mourdock's effort severely.

Richard Mourdock

Indeed, he was asked a question that he doubtless could not have prepared for in that debate, since rape was not a pressing issue this election season.  Liberals brought it up, of course, but it is doubtful it filtered down into state races all that often.  Are conservatives telling me that if blindsided by a question, they're not going to fumble for an honest answer of what they truly believe?  If you say no, you're daft. 

I also don't buy into the argument that these men were not ready for prime-time.  Akin was a six-term congressman and Mourdock had won several statewide elections in Indiana.  Both had ample experience.

Both just ultimately made mistakes that we all make and they (and we) paid the price.  Acting like we need to find perfect men and women to represent us is an election is a pipe dream.  We are the ones who believe that man is inherently imperfect and will make mistakes.  If I may be blunt, sh*t happens.  The least we can do is stand by our fellows when they stumble instead of leave them out in the cold to be torn apart by the wolves.  We do ourselves no favors when we show a willingness to abandon otherwise principled men to gratify our own egos (even as Akin gratified his).

I would continue, but this post has gotten uncomfortably long.  As such, I'll save additional thoughts for later today or the rest of the weekend.