Can we get serious here for a second?

Mitt Romney is the most uninspiring, milquetoast “front runner” for a major Party Nomination I’ve ever witnessed in my adulthood. And that includes Micheal Dukakis. He inspires no one. He creates no “buzz”. He has no bandwagon, beyond the golf-cart of the political professionals, and the governing elites. Everywhere he goes, his main line of defense is, “Yeah, well, he may be a Ken Doll, but, hey… he can beat Obama.”

When was the last time you witnessed a standing ovation for a political candidate– that, according to the polls, at least, isn’t going to win? It is bizarre. You would think the non-stop cheering and standing ovations would be for the front-runner. But, they aren’t. Weird.

Romney speaks, and you can hear the buzzing of the fluorescent lights. His faux laugh is as grating as the harsh “ssss” emanating after the dangling consonants from Barack Obama. Nobody knows what Mitt Romney stands for, or if he can be trusted to govern the way he is projecting.

He is surrounded by calculating political professionals of no particular stripe, other than moneyed elites. They, too, generate nothing in terms of excitement, leadership, or rhetorical substance. Now that Romney is tapping on the 35% poll barrier, were all supposed to fall in line, and shut up. It’s over. And THAT evidently, is what is supposed to inspire us.

Well, I don’t know how to tell the political elites, and the Washington GOP Establishment this, but, their candidate inspires nothing, no one. He plays only to the fears that he is the last possible bulwark against a disastrous second Obama term. While that’s a motivating factor, it isn’t a terribly inspiring one.

Yep, give me a fellow who can get people out of their chairs and on their feet in powerful, excited ovation about traditional, constitutional conservatism. Excitement and enthusiasm, much as the governing elites may poo-pooh it, is part of the essence of Leadership.

And, so far, their “leader” ain’t showing any; Only the guy in second place is…

All Right! Whoo-Hoo! It’s Recovery Winter!

According to the Labor Department (yes, that’s right: Obama’s Labor Department!) is shouting from the Mountaintops that we’ve added 140,000 jobs in November.

Cool. I mean, wow…  I’m all tingly.

When numbers like this pop up, we tend to think of a really big stadium, jammed with 140,000 people, each one celebrating their newly-found gainful employment. Except…

There are 50 states in the United States (regardless of President Obama’s assertions to the contrary). So, that means each state created about 2,800 jobs.

Also, there are 3,161 counties in this nation. So, that means about 42 jobs for each county. Old, broken down tourist courts hold more people. But, still… A job’s a job, right?

Except, about 320,000 folks just simply fell out of the workforce in November. So, each county had around 100 folks  just give up, and stay home (or, move back in with the folks, or the ex, or what-have-you). So…

Each country in America had a net loss of around 66 fewer folks even LOOKING for work.

Man, we’re on the way now! Print up the T-Shirts! Get the party hats! Break out the Pat Boone Records!

We’re gonna party like it’s 1934!

Who we as Republicans elect to the Presidency is important. Who the President appoints to their cabinet is just as important. Here are some suggestions to animate the discussion…

Secretary of State: John Bolton

Secretary of the Treasury: Steve Wynn

Attorney General: Kenneth Cuccinelli

Secretary of Defense: Lt. Col. Oliver North

Secretary of the Interior: John S. Walton

Secretary of Energy: Sarah Palin

Secretary of Commerce: Richard Dreiling

Secretary of Education: Lawrence Arn

Secretary of Labor: Scott Walker

Secretary of Health and Human Services: Jeb Hensarling

Secretary of Transportation: Roger Penske

Secretary of Federal Government Reduction and Accountability: Edward Crane

ADDITIONAL PICKS–

Chairman of the Federal Reserve: Lawrence Kudlow

Press Secretary: Monica Crowley

AM Radio used to be the home of static and Saturday morning recipe shows. It was the place you could hear (faintly) Elanor Rigby for the three-millionth time. You could catch your hometown high school football team if you weren’t more than five hundred yards from the transmitter.

They tried to fix AM radio with some contrivance called “AM Stereo”, as if hearing a fade from one speaker in your car to the other would fix Elanor Rigby, or the static, or the football game.  It didn’t work. The only people listening to AM Radio were the ones without FM Radio.

Then, in the late 1980′s, the “Fairness Doctrine” (an oxymoron if there ever was one– how, after all, can fairness be “doctrinaire”?) was thrown on the bonfire, and Rush Limbaugh was suddenly on 600 radio stations, and AM Radio was never the same. Now the only people that listen to FM Radio are the ones that can’t get AM Radio. A single fellow, with a creative approach, salvaged an entire industry.

As Rush is fond of saying, what saved AM Radio was “content, content, content”. It wasn’t that Rush was some genius, it is rather that he was allowed to say on the radio what a huge segment of the population was already thinking. And people listened. And people continue to listen to this day, to the tune of 28 million each week.

So, Katie Couric is “Out” at CBS News. Big surprise, eh? Watching her deliver the news always reminded me of how mis-cast Sally Field was next to Tom Hanks in “Punchline”.

Now, if CBS was really interested in fixing its plonking, broken antique News Division, they would make Rush Limbaugh an offer he couldn’t refuse: Give him a 40-million dollar a year salary, give him editorial control of the broadcast, let him loose, and watch him absolutely crush ABC, NBC, and, in all liklihood, Fox News. I, for one, would make the CBS Evening News destination television for the first time since Dan Rather was hired over Roger Mudd, and I was still a zit-faced high school student.

Of course, the very thought of this makes CBS News soil itself, so the likelihood of it happening is microscopic. But, just a suggestion from fly-over country.

One political party, one world view, and one President have wrought a monumental disaster on the mighty Armed Forces of the United States of America.

I only WISH these same wretches had been as focused on winning wars, providing for our wounded warriors, getting the absolute best materiel and armaments for our soldiers on the battlefield, as they were focused on all their stupid, trifling little social concerns.

What an absolute disgrace.

Let’s take these fools at their word: That there are scores of thousands of homosexuals just simply DYING to serve their country in the Armed Forces, but were hitherto too embarrassed to join. Uh-huh. That explains why the Marine Corps Recruiting float was one of the most popular in last year’s New York "Gay Pride" parade. It’s also why there are so many VFW’s popping up next to the late-night bath-houses in San Fran.

Whatever. The simple fact is that the modern Democrat Party has been working to destroy the combat readiness of the United States Armed Forces since the disgrace of the Lyndon Johnson presidency. As Bill Clinton so accurately observed while protesting and smelling like BO in London in the early 1970′s, "I Loathe the Military". Yep. You and every other pantywaist cowardly liberal that’s been born since Nixon was president.

So what do they do? They can’t outright assault and shut down the military (because they would get creamed in any election featuring normal Americans), they instead attempt to starve it of funds, re-write its Codes of Conduct and Military Justice, and cram down the most ridiculous social policies they can think of to extinguish the military’s ability to fight effectively.

Not only does this achieve the Liberal’s main objective of getting brave, highly-trained, grim-faced, stoic, patriotic American warriors killed or maimed (-maimed to them is better to the uber-Nancy liberal, because it forces these armed troglodytes into the social welfare paradigm), it also adds to Democrats preferred statistics and film-footage that PROVES America would be better off without so darn much tacky military stuff around.

This will add to the already stellar reasons to join Barack’s Army: Go to wars in third-world hell-holes, without any fighting objective! Have your previous Commander in Chief called a liar by the current one! Cut pay! Have soldiers provide for their own needs if they are injured! Go to wars where we’ve already announced our surrender date!

To this list, we can now add: Join the Army, and never be quite sure what the "soldier" in the bunk next to you is thinking when he gets lonely! Or, won’t it be simply swell to see two Navy Officers french-kissing on the club dance floor! It will make those sermons about defilement and abomination you heard before you joined seem rather outdated, which might undercut the very reason you are serving.  And, it will make all those community showers EXTRA specia l!

General George S. Patton is spinning in his grave.

Can I be candid for a moment?

Barack Obama is the first President in my lifetime to have had the luxury of some twenty-four months in office, and yet have no need to exhibit even the slightest bit of leadership…

On anything .

He’s deferred tough decisions regarding the budget deficit to a "blue-ribbon" commission. He let Nancy Pelosi and her gang of Merry Pranksters write the $900-billion dollar "stimulus" bill. He let his Attorney General, Eric The Holder, write the administrative policy regarding civilian trials for enemy combatants.

He let Harry Reid take the slings and arrows on "Obamacare", even to the point of just letting the House of Rerehensibles vote on THAT version– Obama never DID introduce his own version of "health-care reform". He has Janet Incompetano take the heat for the new search-and-destroy guidlines at airports. He let BP, Haley Barbour, and Bobby Jindahl, et al, run around in a frenzied panic while the Gulf of Mexico (which is supposed to be guarded and patrolled by US forces) became an oil slick. (–On second thought, I guess he did command a rear-guard action of attorneys to sue someone –anyone — for the disaster.)

Obama lets his wife zumba about, attacking fat kids, while he stays home, eats burgers, smokes, and watches basketball on TV. He has his pantywaist generals stand in front of the microphones and defend the repeal of "don’t ask, don’t tell (I’ll give you a call, sailor!)". He let his arch-nemesis George Bush write both his TARP legislation, and, off all things, his tax policy.

The President, as far as I can tell, has presided over nothing , unless you count the ballooning of both the national debt and the unemployment rate, which has skyrocketed from the high 6-percents when he came into office, and has settled in nicely around 10%. In the end, we called it "Obamacare", but it’s quite evident that the past two years ought to just be called "Obamacouldn’tcareless".

In fact, the only time I see the man exhibit any passion at all is when he’s late for a vacation, or a date with Michelle: "Hey, guys, can you hurry up with all this governing stuff? I have a 2:45 tee-time".

We were supposed to be all giddy back in the winter of 2009 when he "gave the command" to allow a marine sharpshooter to pick off a dirty , teen-age Somali pirate– Look at the Leadership! And even here, he left it to his field commanders to devise the follow-on strategy.

Which leads me to a question: What will happen when America really needs a leader, rather than a legislative liaison, or a Fuss-and-Feathers General Oompah-Pah to revue the troops? What will this man, who, as far as I can tell has never had an original thought, do when faced with a crisis?

I have an inkling: Just think Jimmy Carter, and crashed helicopters in the sands of Araby.

I simply love all the strutting around, the political preening, the blabbering and moral indignation being slathered on like buttah from the Great Seers and the Senators regarding the "repeal" of "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell". Ignoring for the moment that these self-same Divas of the Defense Department are the same ones whose skivvies get all twisted and start screeching that NO federal statute or law can be repealed (think "Obamacare"), I’d like to see their huffing and puffing be more widely disseminated, and applied to other similar situations. Like, over the entire Tax Code.

Tell you what: If the IRS doesn’t ask me how much money I make, I won’t tell them.

This hysterically circumspect behavior toward those of a non-Euclidean bent cracks me up, especially from the same government that pretends there is this barely detectable inherent right to privacy that emanated from the penumbra if you want an abortion, but no such right exists if you don’t want the same damned  government from knowing (-to the penny) how much money you make.

Of course, pointing out the hypocrisy of the Gubment is like pointing out the raindrops during a thunderstorm: it all gets rather predictable and boring. Yes, there is a right to privacy, if you want to kill your baby in the womb, but not if you are a male who is just turning 18, in which case, your right to privacy ends where the post office begins, and Selective Service makes you register for the draft. And, certainly, there is not a right to privacy, if you want to have a three-gallon flush toilet.  "Sign zee pahpers, Old Man, and you can have zee toilet!"

"Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell." Hmm. Alrightee…

Don’t ask me my speed when I’m driving, and I won’t tell you. Don’t ask me if I have a driver’s license, and I won’t tell you. Don’t ask me how old I am when I buy a bottle of wine, and I won’t tell you. Don’t ask me for a prescription when I want a case of 1,500mg tables of Oxy-Codone, and I won’t tell you. Don’t ask me if I have a building permit when I add onto my garage, and I won’t tell you. Don’t ask me if I have C-4 tucked in my BVD’s when I go to the airport, and I won’t tell you.

I know, I know. "Unit Cohesion" won’t suffer if "Don’t Blab, Don’t Probe" is repealed.  Blah, blah, blah. The same body of logic might, just might, be applied to the IRS.

Okay–; All morning long, I’ve hear the refrains of Roy Clark tumbling around my brain-pan:

I’ve made a small fortune, and you’ve squandered it all…

You’ve shamed me till I feel about one inch tall.

But I thought I loved you, and I hoped you would change…

So, I gritted my teeth, and didn’t complain

…Thank God and Grayhound, She’s Gone!

Now, I know the professional scolds will look down from their lofty perches and pronounce that America has spoken, and what America said was “now, Go Forth and Work Together”. Hmm. Methinks their “Politicalese-to-English” translation book needs a bit of an update; Only the political class would figure that an historic 65-seat swap in the House of Representatives means “work together”.

All this much-vaunted Congressional “work” seems to be what has clearly stuck in the craw of America. We don’t want Congress to “work”. When congress has “worked” over the last four years, all we received in return was a direct assault on our liberty, theft of our private property, and the murder of our currency. We want Congress to “stop” (or, to coin a phrase, “check”) the train-wreck we now lovingly refer to as “The Obama Administration”. We want them stopped. And we wanted Nancy Pelosi gone.

Thank God and Grayhound, She’s Gone!

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Hold on, hold on. The title here is what is known in the writing biz as a “metaphor”.

Polling, while being more of an exacting art than it was a generation ago, is really nothing more than guesswork– albeit, guesswork based on the inexactitude of earlier guesses. My sense (that, and $1.75 will get you a cup of coffee at McDonald’s) is that the Republicans will pick up a net gain of 63 House seats on November 2nd. They will also rule the Senate by Wednesday Morning, 52-48. Not to put too fine a point on it, but I “sensed” McCain would choose Sarah Palin as his running mate back in late April of ’08. Yep, I impress even myself…

Of course, this sort of mammoth Republican victory has been my “sense” for three or four months now. My sense is based on several bits of intuitive guesswork–my own kind of “polling”, as it were.

First, that liberal Democrats have never won major national elections based on the merit of their ideas, or upon the articulation of their worldview (-whatever that might be, beyond institutional graft). They win when outside forces meddle in the free flow of events. Or, when they steal elections. Or when the perception is that Republicans have screwed up. NEVER and I repeat, NEVER has a major Democrat victory been achieved because America woke up one day and collectively said “Gee. America sucks. The Democrats have persuaded me to vote for them because, darnit, Marxism is better than liberty.”

No, Democrats win when Richard J. Daley is counting the votes –at least, those that didn’t get thrown in Lake Michigan– in Chicago (JFK, 1960). Democrats win when the nation mourns for a lost President, and the sympathy vote comes in torrents (LBJ, 1964). Democrats win when the Republicans screw up (Jimmy Carter — barely, 1976, and Barack Obama, 2008).

Second, there simply is no guiding Democrat world view that queues up, people admire, and then vote for. People vote for it if their husband is a School Bus driver, or their wife is a teacher, or if Dad is a rabid union steward. Or they think they deserve some government “benefit”. Beyond stingy self-interest, people aren’t motivated to vote Democrat based on intellectual persuasion.

Which brings us to where we are today. The Democrats will lose in spectacular fashion because, during perilous times, people want ideas on how best to diminish the peril (unless, as I noted above, the Republicans in power screw up, as they did in 2008, and then all bets are off). Democrats simply don’t conduct themselves in the arena of ideas. They simply play on the peril, and warn those to whom access to other people’s wallets and tax receipts are their business model, that voting for Republicans may result in cutting off their gravy-train.

The meritorious nature of Republican vote-getting is NEVER factored into polling data because it can’t be: To suggest this would put an end to public polling. But the evidence is clear: People are flocking to Republican and conservative candidates not because the Democrats screwed up (people almost expect Democrats to screw up) in the previous 22 months; people are flocking to Republicans because they understand intellectually both the nature of where conservatism wants to take the nation, and what the results of unbridled radical liberalism are. This can’t be summed up, by the way, in some sort of amorphous “enthusiasm gap”. It can only be summed up as voters saying, “Oh. I see your point now”. This is called “persuasion”, not “enthusiasm”, per sey.

But, more to MY point (and more to the title of this Diary entry):

To use a good golf analogy–We will crush our drive on Tuesday, November Second: straight down the fairway, right up to the apron of the green. Then, things can go haywire.

But, I have a plan to mitigate the danger:

THE OBAMA VETO-TALLY.

We all know that Mr. Obama cannot countenance the spectre of actual Conservatives telling him what to do, and when to do it, so his veto pen will need gallons of ink. This is a forgone conclusion. Therefore, the incoming Freshman Republicans in both the House and the Senate should, on the second day of the 2011 session, hang electronic signs in their respective chambers, that keep a running tally of the vetoes that President Obama issues.  Of course, these nifty LED signs should be hung where they are highly visible on C-SPAN. Every time the new conservative majorities send the President a piece of legislation, be it de-funding Obamacare, or eliminating the Commerce Department, or what-have-you, and he scrawls all over it with his mammoth left-handed veto-pen, they add it to the running tally.

That way, when BO starts campaigning against the “Do Nothing Congress”, the congress can say, no, we are the “Do Everything Congress –, and the President just says ‘NO’ to all of it”, and then they can invoke the dozens of vetoes the President cum Community Organizer has issued. And point to the Tally Signs.

We must make sure that all the cameras are trained on those signs as they swiftly add up the totals, day over day, week over week.

Yep, this is the sort of thing that throws down the legislative gauntlet: But, then, gauntlets are appropriate in Obama’s age of “hand to hand combat” in the Congress. And, this is the sort of thing we need to do to make sure we don’t three-putt after our crushing drive.

You pack up several thousand absentee ballots, for the jurisdictions from which your soldiers hail,  ship them via Second Day FedEx to Afghanistan and Iraq, and you mark them "Urgent". You then inform CentCom that you screwed up getting ballots off to our fighting men and women in time, and that you would appreciate their help in making sure these folks get the ballots they need and deserve. Let them distribute them as requested: one per serial number. Include a list of those running for all state and local offices–be creative. Think , for a change. No big deal. There’s three weeks until the election. If we can pass a massive spending bill like TARP in 48 hours, then we can get this done, don’t you think?

You also provide each ballot with a self-addressed, pre-paid FedEx overnight envelope. This will also mean that our magnificent warriors can track the shipment of their envelopes back to the Illinois Secretary of State, who will then have their canvassers open them, and count them.

It seems like the least we could do to help make sure that those who are off fighting in the hell-holes of the planet to help establish and otherwise promote democratic prinicples, actually get to participate in democracy. If we have to dispense with certain byzantine election protocols to make it happen, well, if "votes" can be "discovered" in the back of moving vans that suddenly put the likes of Al Franken in the Senate, then we can damned well make sure our soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines get their legitimate votes counted.

Isn’t it absolutely fascinating that this only happens in the bluest of "blue" states like New York and Illinois? I thought the total rube, backward, inbred and incompetent states were those Down South– how come they can manage to get this sort of thing right?  Hmm??