It has become clear that John McCain is having trouble with the solid conservative base of the Republican party. It is now crucial that he work to show that base that he will address their issues as a president. McCain’s support of the recent immigration bill has really come back to haunt him as it is a proof of some of his left-leaning ideals. Choosing the right running mate could be a big boost for McCain and may be just what he needs to get back into the good graces of the republican party base.

Romney 52%

McCain 21%

Paul 19%

Huckabee 6%

John McCain has become a bit of a problem for the Republican party. The all important party base does not see him as a true conservative Republican. The same base was crucial to the win of George W. Bush in each of his winning presidential elections.

So what is McCain going to do? McCain does draw a lot of independent and even democrat voters due to his middle of the road politics.  So can he win in a general election without the solid republican base? I think he could do it against Mrs. Clinton but may have a tougher time against Obama. The reason being that McCain and Obama are both going after the same middle ground voter, the undecided.

McCain is a war hero, yes; this will give him some respect from the base, and their are those that feel it’s his turn to win the nomination. (similar to Bob Dole). However, if you can’t and don’t shore up your base first, it can be very difficult to win the general election.

The largest number of states hold their primary or caucus on this date, 23 of them (plus Democrats abroad). Super Tuesday is often the unofficial final say of who will win the nominee for each party.

States holding their primary/caucus this Feb 5th are:

Democrats

Republican

To fully understand the huge grass roots support for this “unknown” candidate, you have to start at the beginning. The beginning of this country. America was started on the premise of freedom. Largely freedom from the government interference and control. This was the mindset and the goal of those coming over to start a new life in America. Now we fast forward to the declaration of Independence and the writing of the Constitution. Those same values of personal freedom and personal responsibility are written into every line of those documents. So when we finally wake up and look at what our country has become today, we are a far cry from what our founders envisioned. What has become of this country, where is the pride, and the personal responsibility. It seems we are a country of “what can I get”. Are we to far removed from our early settlers and their sacrifices, do we now take for granted all that was accomplished to get us to that point in 1776 at the writing of the Declaration of Independence?

Our current government is so bloated and powerful, that it has become a mess of waste and inefficiency. We are being taxed beyond what many can bear. The government acts as if it is doing us a favor by granting tax rebates, and other programs. How about letting us keep more of our own earned money to begin with.

So now we fast forward again, many Americans are starting to realize this country is NOT being run according to the constitution by any means. It’s principals have been stretched and interpreted to fit whatever a politician or government official needs it to say.

Now Dr. Ron Paul choses to run for president, suddenly there is a large groundswell of support around him. Now this is even as he is ignored by major media and free publicity all other candidates enjoy, yet his popularity is still growing. Americans are realizing how far from the constitution we really are today. How many of todays problems, both political, economic, and foreign, all stem from this diversion of policy away from a strict constitutional interpretation.

The truth about the sorry state of our tax system is that it attempts to spend our money better than we could ourselves. It takes a tax dollar from the working American and tries to pump it through a government system, then back into the community to help that taxpayer. Meanwhile that tax dollar has eroded away to almost nothing as it passes through an agency to collect it, an agency to disperse it, and on and on, by the time that dollar comes back around it is just a shadow of it’s former self.

“…Allow the people to lead their own lives.” - Dr. Ron Paul.

I believe the quote above is a good summary of the Ron Paul revolution. Even if Ron Paul does not get the nomination, perhaps enough of America will have heard what he has to say and start to consider the constitution when choosing how to vote.

About Ron Paul

In the past two Presidential elections, voter confidence has been compromised. The adoption of electronic voting machines and inherent flaws in the process have left many wondering if the General Election even matters anymore. Over fifty years ago we faced a time when certain segments of society were disenfranchised of their votes. While it isn’t as blatant, there are still people in this country who are being shut out. America has many hurdles to climb if they are to ever honestly claim “one man, one vote.” To make U.S. elections truly democratic there are many things that need to change.

The biggest hurdle in fair Presidential elections is the persistence of the Electoral College. This organization is the actual entity responsible for selecting the President. The Electors in a state are expected to vote in the same way their state did. While they can change their mind the majority of Electors do stick with the way their state voted. On the surface it seems like a more formal way of documenting the popular vote, but the system is prone to being upset and not reflecting the true will of the American people.

The Electoral College robs the individual of their voice. A Conservative voting in a heavily liberal state does not as strong of voice as one in a state where political opinion is more evenly split. This unbalanced system can lead to the candidate with the most votes losing the election. It has only happened four times, most recently in the 2000 Presidential race. Unfortunately, there is no proviso in the Constitution to allow for this rare occurrence.

It would be hard to argue that the current Electoral system can be unfair. It is confusing that a country that claims democracy would not let the people have complete control over who leads them. Why in only the Presidential race does one man’s vote not count as one vote for their chosen candidate? The logical solution is to pass an amendment allowing the popular vote to decide the outcome of Presidential elections. Unfortunately, this would only be a baby step towards healing voter confidence– the last election left the American people with more technical concerns.Imagine your casting your vote for Homecoming Queen your senior year. This year the Student Council has decided to “update” the way they tally the votes. Instead of sketching an “X” next to the name of the girl you find most deserving (or attractive) you must whisper it into the ear of the Math Club President. After everybody has filed through and whispered in his ear he calculates the final results in his head. He announces the results, and the new Homecoming Queen and the Math Club President walk to the lunchroom and start making out. This sounds a little fishy, so you approach the Principal to see if there can be a recount. He assures you he’ll fix it and asks you to follow him. In the lunchroom the Principal breaks up the two love birds (the female lovebird looking relieved for the break) and demands a recount. The Math Club President takes a quick glance at the Homecoming Queen. “She won,” he says, “go bother somebody else now.This little scenario might sound ridiculous. What decent student would allow this sort of thing to go on? Surely the other potential Queens would not let this go? Unfortunately that’s exactly what happened in the 2004 Presidential election. To bridge the “technological gap” of paper ballets many states adopted electronic voting machines. So many states did this that 80% of the results were supplied by two companies: Election Systems & Software and Diebold Election Systems.In trying to get in line with technological standards election officials have compromised the security of the voting process. They claimed electronic voting would make the process more exact and secure, but it’s done anything but. Voting machines used in the last election have since been shown to have many untraceable security flaws. Some were hacked over a network. Princeton later did a study proving how an intermediate hacker could influence the vote tally. Before the election the President of Diebold even said in a fund-raising letter that he would ensure Bush received more votes in Ohio. Senator Chuck Hagel, chairman of ES&S, was the first republican to win a Nebraskan seat in 24 years. His voting machines were used in the Nebraskan elections and lead to urban communities voting Republican (by a large margin) for the first time.

While no conclusive evidence has come to light regarding tampering with these machines there is no real way to validate the vote. The machines only store the data. There is no paper trail. This concerned many voters. Many requested paper ballets when they went to the poles. In many communities where a large investment had been made in the voting equipment people requiring paper ballets were quickly turned away. How can we trust the election results when the only way to verify them is by processing the data they may have been compromised? Who can be trusted to fix this?

Legislation is currently evolving that would require a paper trail, as well as a publicly accessible copy of the source code that runs the machines. Every citizen needs to contact their Representatives in Washington and let them know this is a top priority.

There are many factors contributing to the dearth of voter confidence in this coming election. Americans are honor bound to act. Would there even be an America if a few people hadn’t stood up and said “This is wrong!” There may not be enough time to fix all the issues with the current election process, but if even one of these problems can be resolved before the 2008 elections it would significantly increased the chance that every voice is deafening.

Talk of impeachment has been in the news a lot recently, and this discussion is not only limited to the current President. Dennis Kucinich is currently sponsoring a bill to impeach Vice President Dick Cheney. Many people say that this is a futile gesture this close to another election. Ironically, many who say this fought to impeach Bill Clinton in the late twentieth century. Though the power in this country is about to change hands it’s not too late to hold Cheney accountable.

Cheney has done many things to get him to this point. The greatest crime he has committed is the lies he spread to the American people. He gave inconclusive evidence to justify the war in Iraq, and when he found out how faulty it was pressured the CIA to change their findings. He lied to us about WMD’s, and he lied about a strong connection between Iraq and al Qaeda. This has become a self-fulfilling prophecy as our continued occupation of Iraq has allowed al Qaeda to take hold in the land. In a war the Downing Street memo has proved was pre-meditated Cheney found a way to sell the American people on a senseless war.

Cheney was also involved in the outing of CIA officer Valerie Plame. They exposed her to the press because her husband, a former ambassador, had negative things to say about the Bush White House. This retaliatory action solidifies the arguments for impeachment. Outing a CIA operative is a treasonous offence, punishable by death. Why then is somebody who has actively taken part in treason continuing to serve in one of our highest public offices? The law says this Benedict Arnold should be executed, yet he advises the president of matters of high security. He actively endangers our way of life by leading us down a warmonger’s path.

Now, Cheney looks to start a new war. Iran has shown no signs of aggression towards the United States. The lies start again. They have not threatened our unconstitutional occupation of Iraq. They do not harbor terrorists. They have given America no reason to back-handedly suggests nuclear options. Their leader has not claimed Iran has no homosexuals, only that they are not as open about it over there. And now a significant amount of Americans actually believe that the Iranians have directly threatened our country because of the lies of our vice-president.

Kucinich’s movement to impeach the vice-President is active in congress right now. This is a non-partisan issue. If we as a country can attempt to impeach a man for lying about an affair we are honor-bound to impeach a man for lying about a war that has killed thousands of people and taken the reigns of revolution out of Iraqi people’s hands.

54% of Americans want Cheney impeached. Remember, it’s never too late to see justice served…

In other words, there are plenty of urgent and weighty topics for the candidates to address - topics which affect the daily lives of ordinary Americans. But are we hearing the candidates talking passionately about education, health care, and rebuilding roads and bridges? We are not. Instead, we’re hearing the same relentless drum beat of scaremongering and tough-guy posturing that we heard last time. It didn’t lead us anywhere good then, and there’s no reason to believe that things will be different this time around.

In interviews and debates, the candidates are concentrating on issues calculated to appeal to people’s emotions, especially to their fears. The War on Terror. The horrors of gay marriage. Illegal immigration. All these issues focus on groups outside the American mainstream (Islamofacists, the gay community, brown-skinned foreigners who don’t speak English) and define their members as the amorphous and sinister “them,” as opposed to the good all-American “us” who, so we’re told, are under attack by “them.” The underlying message is that it’s a big scary world out there and there are bad guys who are out to get us, so we must trust Uncle (or Auntie) Candidate to keep us safe. This is no time, apparently, to worry about unimportant matters like health care access and educational standards because our very existence is at stake.

They’re falling over themselves to out-do each other on how tough they’d be on Osama bin Laden if they caught him, while not mentioning that he’s presently sheltering in a country (Pakistan) whose President is a friend of the US government. They’re parroting the slogan that “we’re fighting them over there so we don’t have to fight them here,” as if Middle Eastern terrorists are incapable of finding their way to the United States as long as there are US troops in Iraq. They’re debating constitutional amendments to outlaw gay marriage, as though the prospect of gay people getting married poses a greater threat to the livelihood of ordinary Americans than tainted food, polluted water, and the prospect of foreclosure. They’re foaming at the mouth about illegal immigrants while corporations shift jobs overseas and slash health care and pension benefits. They’re making fine speeches about freedom and accountability while letting the Administration get away with wiretapping, eavesdropping, and supporting repressive regimes which happen to be friendly. And if the American people raise their voices to object to this cynical manipulation, they invite the accusation of being unpatriotic in this time of war.

The candidates are insulting the intelligence of the American people by treating them like scared children. They seem to believe that if they play on people’s fears and prejudices, ordinary Americans won’t notice that the things which actually do affect their lives are falling apart. It worked last time, and we’ve had four years of steadily declining standards as a result. This time, we shouldn’t let them get away with it.

Most of her arguments can be broken down into all the stereotypes one might find on an episode of The Simpsons: the black criminal, the lazy Mexican, the greedy Jew. But while The Simpsons pick at these stereotypes to point out their absurdity, Coulter tries to assert that these are realities, that every person of a certain persuasion behaves a certain way almost across the board. While anybody who has lived in a mixed community knows that everybody can exhibit these qualities, those in a more rural community have nothing to dissuade them from these bigoted ideas.

No rational conservative would say in a public discussion that women should not have the right to vote, yet they cheer Coulter on when she makes such statements. When Ann Coulter said that Christians were “perfected Jews” on CNBC’s The Big Idea in 2007 one would think that there would have been an outcry from conservative Jews. Instead several Jewish radio hosts contended her comments were not anti-Semitic.

It is surprising to learn that Coulter is a huge fan of the Grateful Dead. One would think that spending hours with self-proclaimed radicals would have made her more tolerant to other viewpoints. It seems the only thing she really picked up in those smoke-filled venues was a love for listening to old men play the same songs they were playing twenty years ago with a slightly better lighting set-up. Coulter, above all else, protects a status quo that was horribly out of fashion by the time she was born.

The real problem with Ann Coulter is the way she paints member of the opposing party. With book titles like “How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must)” and “Godless: The Church of Liberalism,” she creates an image of the Left as heathen monsters. This encourages the human need to sort things into little boxes. Ergo, somebody on the “right” should never mix with somebody on the “left” because then it would become much harder to classify “right” from “left.” “Good” from “evil.” “Us from them.”

This brings us back to our definition. Just as a Coulter rips through the soil and divides it, so does Ann Coulter cut through the fertile ground our democracy was planted in and chops up any remnants of the last harvest. With the soil divided, the farmers may come to check on their crop and find that the virility of amber waves of grain has given way to a field of weeds.