This article “Obama Mulls Rental Option for Homeowners” has finally brought my husband over from the dark side!  He proclaims himself a moderate, a centrist, undefined by any party ideology.  Of course I think that is catagorically impossible.  All policy must be evaluated through some kind of lens and your lens will ususally be to the right or to the left given the defined platforms of conservatives and liberals.  But be that as it may, while he is a “registered” Republican that is more of a function of our local politics and my political campaigns than his true party beliefs.  I would typically have described him as “left of center”.  He has been generous in his evaluation of Obama and has been kind of put off by my criticism.  He thinks I’m being harsh and unnecessarily tough on the guy – you know, a right wing hack.

Well No More! Thank You Barack Obama! 

We have real estate.  We own a house that we live in and two investment properties.  We are Realtors and don’t have access to company provided pensions or 401Ks.  We are self employed and real estate is our retirement.  We respect homeownership and the responsibility that comes with it.  We respect contracts and promises – whether verbal or written.  We respect work ethic and never expect a handout.  We have struggled like many of our collegues but we made good decisions and while money is tight, we ought to be able to get through it without losing anything.

Along comes Barack Obama.  The man who singlehandly want to give away the store.  To our Esteemed Leader contracts mean nothing!  With a stroke of the pen they are “poof” – gone! Corporate Bond Holders?  Get in the back of the line!  Mortgage Lenders – You just stop those bad foreclosures now!!!  Your lien means nothing!  Hey – want to keep your home? Stop paying the mortgage! 

Wow.  Stunning isn’t it?

Here’s what we worry about. We have made a long term plan for the rest of our lives based on certain truths. Real Estate will always be a good investment.  Private Property Rights are fundamental and unshakeable and contracts are enforced.  Last night, after reading that article, my husband has seen that these truths may  not mean a damn thing.  He sees that this one man seeks to undermine all that for what?  Obama sees a culture where work is meaningless, homeownership is bestowed, not earned and those that risk do so with no expectation of any return and every reason to believe that what is realized will be taken away.

Its been less than 7 months and I am scared to death.  But at least my husband is now quaking with me.

It’s probably premature for any of us to comment on why Sarah Palin has made the announcement she has.  She has been on my mind.  I’ve had a constant thought born of a kind of kindred relationship I’ve imagined we’d have if we ever had a chance to meet.  I don’t have hero worship or strange stalking syndrome – I’ve never written her a letter or tried to crash an event she was at.  I was asked to be a “warm up” speaker at one of her Florida campaign stops and it was an honor to be asked, and frankly, I rocked that little speech of mine.  But I didn’t rush the stage on her.

It has scared me, what she’s gone through.  It’s been disgusting and disquieting to watch – horrifying really.  It’s been a puzzle to me how she has been so vilified.  How her family has been so freely ripped at.  There has been no shame nor outcry.  Women have been silent. Parents have been silent.  In many ways, both those groups should have been at her defense at the first shot but instead they have enabled a start to what could be the beginning of heinous actions by anyone else now. 

When I ran for office I sat down with my  husband and my children and made it very clear that there was a strong possibility that people would say things about me that weren’t true or took liberty with the truth. I gave them responses they would need if a friend at school said something to them so they would be prepared and made sure they were ok.  I told my husband he would have to keep his “Man Thing” in check and let me handle the barbs if they came.  And they did.  One opponent started a whisper campaign that I was once a “pole dancer” (and when we made it public he lost because of it – sweet justice) and negative ads came out that distorted my physical appearance.  My family was ok.  It was about me and while they didn’t like it, they understood.

If ever, for one minute, I thought that these negative campaign strategies would turn to them – I would never have run.  I would never put my children in a position to be publically humiliated, ridiculed or made the butt of jokes.  What parent would?  How selfish would anyone who bears and rears children be if they thought that was ok and asked them to “suck it up”.  You don’t ask a teenager to suck up a joke that is intended to humiliate them in front a world audience.  Who would ask a spouse to sit back when some man on tv calls you a slut?  Slut - an unbelievably ugly word.

Sarah Palin, and any candidate, male or female, is prepared to take the shots.  We know it comes with the territory.  We know what we have to tell our families to prepare for them.  What Sarah Palin and every other candidate who has run for office never thought they would have ask their families is to take the shots themselves.  It never occured to me that it would ever be ok - those things that the Palin family have endured.  The deafening silence from women and parents and other politicians have now made that inconcievable possibilty a reality.  Because if it was ok to do this to Sarah Palin, then its ok to do it to anyone else.

So if, and I mean IF, Sarah Palin’s decision to leave her office was in some way designed to take her family out of the filth that has been laid at her feet, then I support her decision.  No parent or spouse could ask those they love to do it – if they really love them.  There wasn’t any heat in any kitchen.  This was a sewer that a back hoe dumped her and her family into with cheering throngs lining the perimeter salivating as though they were early Romans watching the slaughter of Christians.  I only wonder what took her so long.

My good friend and President of our local (Sarasota, Florida) Young Republican Club, Matthew Cochran, had a great blog post today debunking this idea that somehow Marco Rubio’s charisma, background and incredible oratory skills are such that he is our own “Obama”.

Apart from the fact I find the comparison insulting, it couldn’t be further from the truth and Matthew does a great job explaining why:

The difference between Rubio and Obama is that Rubio supporters know their guy has substance and will make a good Senator.  Obama supporters “like” their guy and that’s about the jist of it.  Rubio isn’t the GOP’s solution to their problems because of any characteristics that make him like Barack Obama.  He is the cure to the GOP’s dilemma because of his true conservative values. And values are not what Barack Obama was elected for.

I try.  I really really try.  There are things that I dislike.  I don’t like the fact I dislike them and it makes me feel bad.  I want to understand that just because I don’t like something that doesn’t mean it isn’t likable.  Take country music.  I really don’t care for country music.  I guess its nice.  Its generally uplifting and upbeat but I don’t have an ear for it.  Once, while on a very long drive before the advent of IPods and satellite radio, I had to drive to Grandfather Mountain in North Carolina from southwest Florida and through Georgia there were parts that the only thing I could get on the radio was country music.  So I decided to devote at least one hour to listening to what was on the radio in rural Georgia.  I quit about the time I heard “Queen of my Double Wide” or something to that effect.

I have recently tried to understand the mind of the modern day progressive/liberal.  I have tried to watch an entire episode of Rachel Maddow and I just can’t do it.  What a snarky, unappealing ridiculous program she has.  Its not so much that she wears what I call the classic “angry liberal face” but the stuff that comes out of her mouth just drives me nuts.  I throw things at the tv.  Its not fun and I admit defeat.  I will try again – I know I will – and maybe I’ll have found a better temperament and get through the whole hour. Me and the other couple of people who actually watch her show.

Another of my attempts at trying to be balanced and at least understand that there IS another point of view is to put the Salon.com opinion page on my Google Reader.  Robert Reich has become my new “Queen of My Double Wide”.  I would consider it a great victory if I could get through one of his columns without hitting the “Mark as Read” button before the end.  Well, today I did and what a HUGE mistake that was!

This guy is supposed to be an expert at something I suppose.  Heck, he was the Secretary of Labor for a freaking President – doesn’t that mean something?  He is supposed to be a smart guy. I may not AGREE with the progressive/liberal point of view but I don’t assume that those who have it are stupid.  I believe they are smart (just perhaps misguided).  Bottom line is he should be smarter than me.

Today’s column from Salon was about the government “takeover” of GM.  He actually closed with this little ditty:

Behind all of this is a growing public fear, of which GM’s demise is a small but telling part. Half a century ago, the prosperity of America’s middle class was one of democratic capitalism’s greatest triumphs. By the time Wilson left GM, almost half of all US families fell within the middle range of income. Most were headed not by professionals or executives but by skilled and semi-skilled factory workers. Jobs were steady and health benefits secure. Americans were becoming more equal economically.

But starting three decades ago, these trends have been turned upside down. Middle-class jobs that do not need a college degree are disappearing. Job security is all but gone. And the nation is more unequal. GM in its heyday was the model of economic security and widening prosperity. Its decline has mirrored the disappearance of both.

Please tell me why the 22nd Secretary of Labor for the United States of America can’t make the connection between the changes and evolutions of our enonomy, the failure of public schools to match the needs of a 21st century work force and is somehow stuck in this ridiculous notion that everything should be the same as it was in the 50′s?  Three decades ago we were presented with “A Nation At Risk” that foresaw exactly what he laments as lost. Did he not READ it? Truly – the conclusion he hopes to leave us with is that our country is a failure because we no long have a manufacturing economy?  The loss of this manufacturing economy is somehow responsible for the loss of the “middle class” as he defines it?  I am dumbstuck.  Truly dumbstruck.

The failure of GM is evidence of an impossible grasp to a past life that protects only those who gain power by making others believe it is truth in order to protect that power.  The old union model has been dying on the vine for a long time and it is nearly criminal that union leaders continue to make their members believe its someone else who is taking advantage of them.  I think auto and teachers’ unions lead their members to slaughter while convincing them its truly heaven they head towards. It is in this unholy union that our society suffers.  The incredibly sad lie is that we can somehow recapture the glory days of union represented manufacturing and all will be wonderful. The needs of the world have changed, the economy of country has evolved away from manufacturing and that is in of itself not a bad thing.  And in concert is a teacher’s union that continues to stand in the way of educating our students for a world that waits for them upon graduation.  While we continue to fight for better standards, better teachers, better curriculum, better outcomes, union representatives distort reality and prevent true innovation and foster the belief that what they allow to happen in our classrooms that was good enough half a century ago is good enough today and that at the end of 18 years, those jobs Robert Reich seems to think we should mourn as being gone actually left a long time ago.

Why is it I know this and he doesn’t?

I blogged the other day about the Op-Ed piece written by the Governor of Florida (now Senatorial Candidate) trying to establish his conservative credentials just before he signs a bill with a record number of new taxes and fees and after he stands on a stage wrapped in a warm embrace of the most liberal president of our time and I am ridiculously hopeful that some MSM will call out his hypocrisy.

Silly me.

If you read my profile you will find that I ran for office in the last two election cycles.  I didn’t win (which I now believe is a good thing).  I am not nor have I been naive about what I would experience being a politician. I have very thick skin and I can put the process into perspective.  Being intimately involved in the last election cycle was quite the eye opener.  More like an eye-popping opener.  No, more like a “my eyes are literally falling out of my head and exploding on the ground” kind of eye-opener.  And I am caught in a whirlwind of memories and discovering that I had pushed my own experiences into a dark place in my mind now pulled out and vividly replayed annoyingly over and over.

As a candidate for office, I had no delusions of a fair press.  I live in a community served by one daily owned by the New York Times, a weekly with such a small staff the news and editorial division are one in the same and a second weekly owned by a very conservative publisher.  The first two lean heavily to the left and the third obviously way to the right.

I had an interview one day with the conservative paper.  A very young man came to ask me a series of questions about my background and positions etc.  Typical.  I asked him if he was going to be asking the same questions of my opponent – an incumbent liberal democrat (teaches political science at a liberal honors college).  “Of course” he replied.  Then I asked him if he was going to fact-checking any of what we were telling him or was he simply going to regurgitate our answers.  He said no – and this was the conservative paper!

This incumbent Democrat had just completed his first term of office in the Florida House of Representatives.  He had not passed one bill in two sessions (claimed his good ideas were stolen by Republicans).  He made wild claims about his “influence” that with 5 minutes of research could be debunked.  When I quoted the language from his bills, he said I obviously didn’t read them. 

Guess how much of that appeared in any news story?  When we sent mail or did ads highlighting his failures, even publishing a website with the documentation to back it up – it was ignored (although one of his supporters did call, wished I would rot in hell AND left her name and number.  That was nice).  Heck, a couple of reporters even called me screaming about how I could LIE about the incumbent, but admitted they hadn’t looked at any of his record nor would they bother themselves with looking at the documentation we provided.  Bordered on surreal.

So I am afraid we will see more of this on a grand scale.  Where is the mocking of the Governor’s op-ed? Why give him a pass?  Reasonable people should ask this – demand it actually.  But alas – it will not be. A liberal wrapped in a conservative’s clothes is still a liberal underneath and the MSM will not be the ones to disrobe him.

I am so freaking annoyed! 

Today I read Charlie Crist;s op-ed piece in the Tampa Tribune where he – get this - says he OPPOSES Obama’s spending programs. 

In addition, the president’s plan will severely increase our national debt.

Seriously?  Has he forgotten he stood on stage with the President with his hand out and tongue wagging grabbing the goodies from Washington dangled before him?

And then there’s this:

The destructive power of a program dependent on increasing taxes begins with the disincentive Americans will be given to work, save and invest. As rates approach 40 percent or higher, what incentive is there to pursue greater productivity and innovation when nearly half of the benefit of such individual successes are captured by the federal government to pay its debts?

The personal incentive of income as a result of hard work is a cornerstone of American prosperity and must be protected.

He is about to sign a budget for Florida that increases taxes and fees all across the board AFTER he signed a No New Tax Pledge. 

I think I have barfed a bit in my mouth.

But here is what really frosts my cookies.  There are “republicans” who are buying this crap.  He will, for now, get a pass.  Some ghost writer probably penned this piece for him and it gets published and he will hit the road speaking out of both sides of his mouth choosing which side to use depending on who he is speaking to.  Deja Vu all over again.

Grrrrrrrr.

Since the announcement by Marco Rubio that he will seek the Republican Nomination for Mel Martinez’s Senate seat, news stories and articles like this from the Weekly Standard are making a big deal of Charlie Crist’s primary victory over Tom Gallagher in the 2006 Florida Republican Primary for Governor.  Tom Gallagher was (and still is) a very conservative Republican.  He has consistently been so and ran his primary campaign on those very themes – fiscal responsibility, family values, small government. Charlie Kicked His Butt.  Therefore, logic – and the press – dictates that Charlie has a great advantage over any Republican who seeks to challenge him.

In 2006 Charlie ran on soundbites and clever policy names.  He was dubbed “Chain Gang Charlie” for requiring jail inmates to do roadwork.  He ran for Governor touting his “Anti-Murder Bill” which would require that a probation violator head straight to jail.  Charlie Crist is personable.  He is a good speaker.  He had a long record of supporting self-made popular measures and compared to the dry, rather wonkish Mr. Gallagher – he shined like a ray of light.  I had the opportunity to attend an early primary dinner featuring Mr. Crist and Mr. Gallagher and while I truly truly like Tom Gallagher and supported him, he was completely out performed by the charasmatic Charlie Crist.  And Gallagher never learned to overcome that.

Holding seats like the Commissioner of Education and Attorney General are important and they provide a great opportunity to build leadership capacity and enhance your profile in public life but, frankly, those that hold those offices don’t generally get a lot of press attention (unless, like Charlie you’re really really good at self-promotion).  However, holding the office of the Governor of the State of Florida means a whole lot of attention and what we have seen from Charlie Crist is an absolutely utter lack of leadership on matters of importance to conservatives.

There is probably no greater example of trying to have it both ways than the Governor’s actions during a Special Session held in January of this year to address the State’s budget shortfall.  Revenues were not coming in at a rate necessary to meet the budgeted expenditures of this fiscal year so a special session was called.  The Governor did not have a clear agenda going into this session – only that the Legislature needed to cut oh – a few billion – from the state budget.  It was a gruesome task and the legislature made some gut-wrenching recommendations.  There were those who believed the Governor was on board and would sign that budget amendment.  Instead, the Governor restored popular spending measures earning praise from various consituencies from around the state and leaving the legislature with mud on their faces.

These things add up.  And Conservatives have been watching.  The similarities between Charlie Crist and The President are alarming.  Perhaps the rise and style of this President will actually hurt Crist in this primary.  Conservatives are paying attention.  I would suggest that those who think that the Crist/Gallagher primary was some harbinger of what the anticipated primary between Marco Rubio and Charlie Crist will turn out to be are not.