I am firmly in the camp of ‘Anybody but Mitt’. However, my preferred candidate is not in the race so I am left squarely undecided. I am researching and listening to everyone in the field, yes everyone. I haven’t made up my mind yet, and won’t until the primary gets to Georgia. My concern is that we are all so apoplectic about NOT choosing Mitt Romney we cannot unit strongly enough behind any one candidate to beat him. This will mirror 2008 giving us a squishy like McCain, which will hand the election to four more of Obama I fear.

I have been saying ‘I will NOT vote for Mitt Romney no matter what’. I am now squarely faced with the very real possibility of having to vote for a third party candidate, and I DO NOT WANT TO DO THAT. I realize a third party vote is all but assuring us of four more with Hoppey McChange the socialist clown. I do not want that, but I will NOT compromise my principals anymore and ‘hold my nose’ because either the media intelligentsia or the Establishment Republicans say ‘He’s the only one who can beat Obama’.

No he is not.

So, here is an open call to Mitt Romney (not his operatives or supporters) to explain why what he’s done in the past that wasn’t conservative won’t happen again?

Before you Mitt supporters post something like, ‘well that’s what he had to do to get elected in Massachusetts’ understand that is an answer that will drive me away. That is an answer from someone who has no convictions, principals, or moral standing who is going to stick a finger in the wind and run in the direction of the mob. My fear about Mitt Romney is he will tout all the right conservative catch-phrases during the primary and once he has secured the nomination he will break the sound barrier as he runs to the middle, which is where he will govern from.

To escape and repair the damage done these past three years (four by the time the next president is elected) we will need someone who believes, TRULY BELIEVES government isn’t the answer. We don’t need someone who thinks like Establishment Republicans that if only ‘We’ could do it ‘Our Way’ everything would be right. No, not at all.

We do not need more laws and regulations. To create jobs businesses need less. We do not need more handouts and entitlements. People need to be required to stand on their own or they won’t learn how to walk. We don’t need more Federal spending to get the economy going again. We need less debt looming over our heads to give us hope again. Ultimately it is that hope things will get better that will move people to action, taking risks again. We need the risk takers. We need them to look to the rewards worth risking for or they won’t. If you remove the prospect of failure, which is the downside of risk, you also remove the possibility of reward which is why the risk was taken in the first place.

So, my question is simple: Mr. Romney et al how do you propose to return the prospect of success and the hope of things worth being risked for to the American people?

Cross posted at my website, firstchevalier.com

Image that you first at bat in professional baseball is in the world series facing a Cy Young award winning pitcher with a MVP catcher standing behind you. That does not even come close to the pressure faced by Jim Deakin in the Senate debates with sitting Senator and former presidential candidate John McCain and former Congressman and professional media man JD Hayworth. I cannot even begin to imagine being in that spot going toe to toe with 40 years of entrenched political experience used to spinning questions selecting between memorized talking points to give non-answers. Jim Deakin, the citizen candidate, did so. With one, just one, televised debate under his belt Jim went head to head with Senator McCain and Congressman Hayworth and more than held his own in tonight’s debate. He demonstrated the wisdom of our founding fathers in their desire to have citizen legislators, not nearly ennobled politicians, representing the people in our constitutional republic. People who deal in the real world, not DC, know how it works and what works on main street and to whom The Constitution is not a buzz word, the hottest poll tested catch phrase. It is in their blood and it is their foundation.

I wrote on many blogs that I had not yet announced who I would endorse as a PC, who I would get out the vote for.  Continuance of Senator McCain progressivism while running every 6 years as conservative was unacceptable. I have lived in AZ throughout Congressman Hayworth’s career and always felt he did best as a sports caster. I could not see any difference between the two except Senator McCain is rarely eliquent and Congressman Hayworth takes 30 minutes to make a brief comment. I saw no difference between the two incumbents and their combined 40 years of political mismanagement. The question I had was could a citizen candidate step up to the plate and play at the level. Jim Deakin hit it out of the park this evening in the Tucson debate and reaffirmed my sometimes challenged belief in the ability of Americans to step up to daunting challenges. Jim earned my endorsement tonight and deserves serious consideration by all those of us who find the insanity of DC and the mismanagement of our great nation unacceptable.

Originally published by Mike “gamecock” DeVine as Charlotte Law and Civil Rights Examiner for Examiner.com

Read More →

Thursday night/Friday morning, on the eve of John McCain’s announcement of who his running mate would be, was an all-nighter for this scribe. I really was tired and sleepy, but I just couldn’t make myself go to bed. Instead I was following this thread of comments on the Draft Sarah Palin For Vice President website. Adam Brickley, who created the site in February of 2007, has faithfully and tirelessly promoted Gov. Palin for the vice presidency ever since. My own meager efforts in support of Palin consisted of a couple of journal entries (here and here), so they pale in comparison to those of Adam, Palin’s true web champion.

The thread was a fascinating thing to watch as it unfolded. The contributors tried to separate solid clues from rumor as each new comment was posted. Pawlenty was in Ohio. No he wasn’t; he was staying in Minnesota for the state fair. Palin was in Alaska. No, wait, she might be in Ohio. What really intrigued me were the reports taken from a site which tracks aircraft flights. There was a lot of activity with a couple of chartered bizjets, one which flew from Alaska to Arizona and back, and another which made its way from Alaska directly to Ohio. The dates and time were just too convenient to be coincidence, and it seemed like a troublesome and expensive way to misdirect attention away from any other potential nominee.

Read More →