Conservative Common Man

This excruciatingly pro-longed election season has been a mental and emotional roller coaster for most that follow it closely. I can only speak from my personal conservative perspective and say that the current situation might qualify as a crisis. This crisis demands action… yet who knows which course of action is in the best interests of our nation? This particular day, September 11, is a reminder of what has been done to our nation and what we are up against. Today’s reminder of the threats we face makes the conservative voter’s decision making even more difficult.

The American Heritage Dictionary defines crisis as:

1. A crucial or decisive point or situation; turning point.

2. A sudden change in the course of an acute disease toward improvement or deterioration.

My personal ride on the “Election 2008″ roller coaster began when Rudy Giuliani was being touted as the front-runner for the Republican nomination and peddled by “political strategists” as the only one that could beat Hillary Clinton. Soul searching and self-examination convinced me that I could never cast a vote for a candidate that believes it is acceptable for a mother to request that her child be killed as a matter of “choice.” Once The Republican Party’s preference was eliminated as an option for me, I began to search for a candidate. I found that I could stand firmly behind two candidates while a few more would have been acceptable if the candidates I agreed with were no longer in the race. There were also a couple of candidates for which I doubted I could actually support.

I chose to do everything I could to help the best man in the race, Representative Duncan Hunter, win the nomination of the party to which I believed I belonged. Energized and filled with “hope” (not Barack “Born Alive, Let Them Die” Obama’s brand) I worked as hard as I could for the candidate I still believe to be the best choice for our country. Conservative ideals were not to be heard on public airwaves as the party and talk show hosts decided to push “moderates” with money. Eventually Congressmen Hunter and Tancredo ended their campaigns, leaving a choice between less than conservative Republicans.

While disheartened, I decided to support the most conservative of the remaining candidates. Unfortunately the combination of early “open” primaries and Huckabee’s hatred of Mitt Romney combined to leave one man standing at the end of The Republican Primary fiasco. The low point in the track had been reached as John McCain, champion of illegal aliens, enemy of free speech, and passenger on Al Gore’s anthropogenic global warming bandwagon was left as the the nominee. Naturally, I felt the nausea sometimes associated with a sudden descent, but this time the ill feeling lingered much longer.

Defeated, I searched for an alternative. Where could a conservative go and not feel dirty after voting? The Libertarian Party doesn’t care about the lives of the most innocent so their candidate was not an option. I hope it is obvious that no candidate from the modern Democrat Party could come close to even being remotely acceptable. The Constitution Party appeared promising, but two factors prevented me from joining and supporting its nominee: the American electorate generally doesn’t play close enough attention to politics to allow a third party candidate to win a national election and The Constitution Party nominee does not want to finish the job in Iraq.

The most reasonable course of action (most of the time) appeared to be to vote for John McCain for the sole reason that he is not Barack Obama the socialist… that is of course unless McCain pulled a McCain. Pulling a McCain would involve something along the lines of naming a pro-choice or otherwise liberal running mate or pushing one of his stupid liberal stances during the remainder of the campaign. As the convention drew near and the possible V.P. choices were floated, the empty feeling grew. Hope dwindled to near non-existence.

Then the coaster took a sharp turn skyward when John McCain did the unthinkable. He named a conservative and a “real” person to be his running mate. I was excited! I decided that I would support The McCain-Palin ticket because of a hope that Sarah Palin could be a leader of The Republican Party for the next several years. The goal would be for conservative thought and principles to come home to the party if new, conservative leadership could be established at the highest levels. I still have hope, but it has dimmed somewhat.

The report that a few young men at the Republican Convention were forced to get rid of their “Build The Fence” sign leads one to believe that the roller coaster has reached its peak and is beginning yet another descent. The enthusiasm is dampened by the realization that this is still politics and we are still stuck with two major parties that generally seek power and control with the best interests of our nation along for the ride as an afterthought.

Why is this so difficult? How can we have fallen so far as a society that our next president will be Barack Obama or John McCain? Both men may believe that they will be good for America. John McCain could possibly do a reasonably tolerable job as president. How is that for inspiration? The problem isn’t isolated among the candidates. The party leaders seem to have forgotten our nation’s founding and the actual responsibilities and LIMITATIONS of the offices for which they peddle their substandard candidates!

Are we at a point that a majority just doesn’t care anymore? Do most American citizens:

• feel like victims that cannot provide for themselves and their families?
• believe that they are incompetent and therefore need government to make their decisions for them?
• believe that they are owed something by everyone else?
• believe that the grotesquely inefficient bureaucracy can provide medical care?
• believe that our borders and our jobs should be open to illegal aliens?
• believe that jobs will be created by taxation and regulation of businesses?
• believe that the federal government should hold hearings on professional sports?
• believe that the carbon dioxide humans exhale and plants require is a pollutant that is to be restricted to the further detriment of American industry?

There are so many ridiculous intrusions into American life by our monstrous government that we may indeed be lost. The majority of citizens may be comfortably numb to the reality of our metastasizing government and their may be no hope for “change.” I am not there yet. I am not ready to give in thanks to six particular reasons (the sixth is due in February.) I probably will still vote for McCain because of Palin, but that does not mean he has my support.

I hope that we will badger the next president and the members of Congress, most of whom could be honestly described as parasites, on every important issue that arises. I hope once the election is over, the talk radio voices rediscover McCain’s penchant for kicking conservatives in the crotch and help keep the public informed of the plans being hatched in the pits of Washington D.C. Vigilance will be required as we monitor our elected officials. I hope that as soon as the election results are announced, we begin a new campaign to return our government to the people. We need to find candidates that will not be sucked into the vacuum of Washington power. We need to find candidates that respect The Constitution. Of course we also need to make the majority of citizens aware of the need to return to limited self-government… and that is truly the problem.

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