This is sort of a carrot and stick diary…as I won’t be doing any more long windy pieces until after the election. That’s the carrot…and the stick is I am also setting aside my usual politeness in that time period for the quibblers, hair-splitters and others who decide to sit out this election cycle because the Republican table isn’t set just so-so. Nitwittery and teatfittery will have to wait until December.

When Time Stops

Everybody knows when time stopped on December 7, 1941. Young men suddenly wheeled, walked off their jobs, quit school, gave up every hope and dream they’d worked for, then without thinking twice marched straight into Hell for three years…well, the lucky ones…Eternity for a quarter million others.

But they were only half the heroes. Back home people still went to work, went to movies, played baseball, football, collected stamps, weeded the garden, fell in love, got engaged, and tried to live normal lives, but over-hanging everything they did, even the air they breathed, was that war and all those “boys” over there. Unless you have had a loved one in harm’s way in Iraq or Afghanistan you can’t know the depth a war can dig into the souls of so many not in uniform. Sometimes I think the soldiers are the lucky ones, for I don’t think they ever know the vast halo they wear into battle on behalf of so many people. Imagine, 50,000 troops remain today in Iraq, and no one is supposed to even be shooting at them (yeah!) but still, over a million prayers-up every day. Every day, just for them…by name. Think about it, then consider those more than a million men in harm’s way 1942-1945. The recording Angels must have been pulling triple shifts.

Thank God (and I mean it) that wars are getting smaller, for in those days, women everywhere could look out their kitchen windows and see that brown government sedan drive down the street, each praying that it wouldn’t stop in front of their house, then quietly weep as it stopped at another’s. With those images, even the most personal indulgence, such as buying nail polish or a box of JuJuBes at the movies had a tinge of guilt attached to it. The war was everything.

That’s how it is when time stops, and I want to convey here the shared sense of sacrifice that now should define us, we few, as only the Good War can reveal this in a Good People.

In our own time, for many of us Time stopped on 9.11.01, when America wheeled and realized something fundamentally had changed. Many came back to God. Still others found a wellspring of resolve and fortitude they’d thought had long been lost. But for others it was 2006, or 2008, and for many more, the last straw, in March, 2010 when Congress said loud and clear it no longer cared what the American People thought. Our 225 year old Contract had been broken, irreparably and as indecently as if we’d just walked into the bedroom and caught our spouse in delicto flagrante, and all could he/she could say is “What the hey”. We hadn’t just been screwed, blued and tattooed, worse, we’d been brushed off. “Hell should have no fury more than citizens scorned.”

On 9.11.01 we were little Satan’s to be killed as indiscriminately as sand fleas by fringe religious murderers who have since taken on a measure of worldwide respectability just as Arafat, Hamas, Hezbollah, and others terrorists before them. In like manner, by March 2010, we were irrelevant pipsqueaks to be dismissed like kitchen help and ordered around like sheep. I don’t know about you, but with a backward glance I’ve found an eerie sameness in the hatred and disregard shown Americans on 9.11.01 and on 3.23.10 as those two threads seem to have to have merged now and stationed themselves at 51Park, also called the Cordoba Project…and the single phrase, “Submit, or else!”.

For me, time stopped in 2006, long before I’d ever heard of Baraq Hussein Obama, because it was then I knew “They” had gone all-in, and they were after “Us” with a finality that even our parents and grandparents in WWII could never have believed.

All Hands on Deck

From where the sun now stands, there is ONE THING, and ONLY ONE THING ONLY for the next sixty days…and that is getting every possible Republican elected to Congress. I didn’t say Conservative although I wish it were so. I said Republican. Had Bob Bennett won in Utah I would have included him. Had Charlie Crist not pussed out against Marco and gone on to beat him in the primary, I would have included him. The same for Lisa Murkowski and Mike Castle. Only for that SkuzzyFlavor woman in NY-23 would I balk.

(Both Bennett and Crist revealed themselves only after they lost or knew they would lose, and while EE pats himself and his crew on the back for being able to pick conservative winners to replace those slugs, their greater skill may in being able to mine the craven and puerile attitudes such poseurs have kept hidden all these years. Both have revealed personal traits that, while highly adaptive to that den of thieves called the Democrat Party, are still universally reviled in civilized company as sure signs of low character and poor upbringing. That hunt continues. I may even ask Vinnie & Augie to bring out their dogs, if it continues.)

Lady Penguin only last week reminded us what real class looks like in losing, enjoining us to extend our hands in both victory and defeat…but not just because we’re good sports, but also because we know the real stakes in this fight…a fact apparently a lot of our moderate wing doesn’t know…Or, possibly, as Crist and Bennett both showed, who would prefer to hold onto their reserved spots in the cheap seats of the Ruling Class more than they want to preserve the dignity of the GOP legacy, the Constitution or the Republic. No-class scoundrels can be expected to sneak off to visit Obama on the Cape, or hire their son out to work for the opposition Democrat candidate.

Beyond that, if you want to quibble about this declaration of intent til the End of Days I ask you do it elsewhere or wait til December, when we’ll all be back here in full dress regalia, and can once again trade barbs, polite or otherwise. But from now til November it’s infantry OD’s and combat boots only. War gear, not LA Gear. Just remember; the German churches quibbled themselves into oblivion in the 1930s…all according to a plan not dissimilar to the one we face now. This is where we stand now, at that same crossroads, so please pause and reflect. I can’t speak for everyone here, but I won’t have time for you.

So, from now until November 3 there is ONLY THIS ONE FIGHT along with all the little side tussles that will be necessary to bring about this victory, from a giant Get Out the Vote project, kicking off this week right here on RedState, to all the little and big acts (sometimes anonymous and unrewarded) of leadership that will be necessary to go out and forge alliances, and move and persuade people, again as Lady Penguin mentioned, and recently has demonstrated.

The ADD Republic

Only a few rules from me (feel free to add more): One, in all cases the Conservatives have to be the moving parties if there is to be any alliance with Moderates. We must extend the hand of partnership. This is both an act of leadership as well as a signal of a promise we will keep, for Conservatives do have a track record for keeping our word. We don’t back-stab. Two, modifying Ronald Reagan’s 11th Commandment; if you don’t like the Republican in your district or state, please keep it low-key and abstain from the high dudgeon and hyperbole of the teat fit, and please, don’t enlist others. This is a selfish vanity. Go watch Greer Garson (below) and learn a thing or two about humility. Let us only lose one vote, not a dozen. And especially, do not speak vicious of any Republican running in a district or state outside your own. To me, that is as delicious as Swiss chocolate in the off-season, but I’m giving it up. Even Mitch, poor ol’ Mitch, can take a breather the next 60 days. This lion is going to lay down with that lambie pie…if it kills me. But I can find no profit except for the Democrats in demeaning him, or in Ken Buck losing in Colorado because of a tidal wave of negative karma in Iowa who liked Jane Norton better. I will support, even speak well of Eric Cantor, a shoo-in,who is not in my district, and even his protege Robert Hurt in VA-05, who we all hope will upend One-Term Tom Periello, the New York carpetbagger. Enough said.

Finally, and most importantly, put on that game face. Learn to think like those folks in WWII. Go out and read Leon Uris Mila 18 (about the Jewish uprising in Warsaw…a running battle that went on four months, non-stop) and learn what it’s like to eat, sleep, even make love in the middle of a battle, or watch Since You Went Away (Claudette Colbert) or Mrs Miniver (Greer Garson) and learn how deeply a wahr being fought far away from your nest can still mold every waking moment of your life. (Neither are chick flicks.) Immerse yourselves in this war and the ideal of the Good War. Give up Alan Sandler. Pretend it’s Lent. From now til November my idea of a comedy will be Inglorious Basterds.

American culture is “riddled with ADD” (h/t Glenn Beck) and we were conditioned that way on purpose. We are allowed our moments of focus, but moments only, for we also need to be sold things, whether new toys or old, bad ideas. The best way to do that is in 45-second bytes. But in order to fight and win these next 60 days we have to be literally bathed in this war. Whether as a prayer or as an uncomfortable, nagging thought, keep this fight in the back of your mind and on the tip of your tongue every waking moment. Like a good single malt scotch or listening to Mahler, this is an acquired taste. It came to the WWII generation naturally, but for us we have to train and practice. Do mental pushups. (1 Corin 13:11). Every little pleasure you indulge in, short of reading your kids a bedtime story, which after all, is why we fight, look for that invisible warning label that says “There’s a War On.” This is now the season for it. (Eccles 3:1-8)

Be vigilant, never drop your guard, for the Left will come at us with everything they have, and from the least expected directions. Remember, their army is bigger and better financed. And meaner, at least when they think we are defenseless. And they will first assault your senses. Then your emotions. (They don’t really believe you can think, so will miss that altogether.)

WIN, WIN, WIN—-FIGHT, FIGHT, FIGHT

You will see a slightly different face on the Front Page at RedState, for as EE wrote last week, conservatives have won nothing so far. We’ve only put ourselves in a position to win. The days of helping conservatives choose their candidates is almost over. Now is the time to put them over the wire. But the Enemy never sleeps. Here on what is already one of the best daily political news magazines, and head and shoulders the best on-line activist site in America, you will continue to get up-to-date news on what, for the most part, will be the Left’s attempts to derail our election plans for November. Everything they do, from legislation to dirty tricks to Jennifer Brunner (but I repeat myself) to the Unions (ditto) will be designed to change the course of the election…by hook or by crook. Hopefully the dairy side at RS will reflect this focus and sense or urgency as well. I sure intend to.

I plan to dwell on it because some wonderful things will be going on here, and through these pages the next 60-days you will be able to keep up with a lot more than just some old crank’s opinion. We’re making history here. Real history. Come and be part of it.

So rather than thinking yourself a Hair-Splitter of One, become a Leader of One. Better still, bring someone else over with that extended hand of a leader. Actually five is even better (see LaborUnionReport’s Power of Five Plan). Trust me on this, i know how it all plays out, I can see the future, if we only do these things.

For you doubters, although it is unlikely the GOP will provide you assurances, assume the Conservatives, this Movement, our Movement in which you are now involved will bring out a leader, actually several, many unseen and unnamed. They will all emerge at their appointed time. Some already have. Bank on it, for it will happen, as nature declares that it must happen when so many are plowing the ground to make it happen. Till the ground and nature brings forth fruit. That’s a law.

Just don’t stand and tap your toe or your watch expecting it to happen according to some plan inside your mind, and then wake up one day to find it has all happened according to a script written by that same Invisible Hand that writes all such scripts, only you’d already picked up your ball and glove and gone. Be a leader and follow…yep, follow the GOTV Project (“Get Out the Vote” for you incoming freshmen at Hofstra) laid out here by LaborUnionReport. Be a soldier, follow. (For some of you followship is hard, i know, but I follow good generals here. So can you.) Then lead, and enjoin others to lead. And it doesn’t matter if you are in a safe GOP district and believe the ” tidal wave” will produce itself without your help (I’m in one)…it’s important that every district in America show the largest Republican turnout in history, and that ever safe Democrat district, including Pelosi’s, Rangel’s, Waxman’s, show the closest races since the Dem’s officially disavowed Jim Crow (which they still cling to it like mother’s bosom). It’s the number or people who vote that will matter in this election. That will define the possibilities. Even the dead can’t beat a tidal wave.

The New GOP

Carry the Water and the Day for the GOP and we will win. The hell you say? Why them? Well, because at some point you are going to turn and see nothing but millions of yourself standing next to you and it will dawn on you that you are now the GOP. This is going to happen more quickly than you can imagine, trust me, I know, because of things such as the way our own at RedState (LaborUnionReport-Ron Robinson) and GOTV are doing the heavy lifting for the GOP this campaign, and how our own ColdWarrior and his Precinct Project will change the landscape and redefine Republican politics by this time next year. Then it will be you(us) who chooses who sits in Michael Steele’s chair at the RNCC or who turns the Senate Office Bldg broom closet into Lindsay Graham’s new office until he finally retires from public life in 2014.

The old order, the ancien regime, is about to pass, so just use your head and see how this might happen. For you purists try disassembling a car’s engine in your mind, beginning with the last piece first as a part of your pushup regimen. That’s how. Our democracy, as the Founders designed it, is supposed to be just like a grease monkey sees that engine, not as a BMW design engineer sees it. We have to make it last a thousand years, which means we wash up at the end of the day. It’s a dirty job, not antiseptic…one piece at a time.

Just don’t worry. Achance from Alaska made a comment only a day or so ago from which I’ll borrow a line or two, namely that when we take back the Senate our new conservative leadership will be wise (or else) to give all the moderates an office with no windows, no staff, a desk with no drawers that open, an over-turned peach crate even better. And a meal ticket down at the NCO mess at Ft Myers. How about a ’92 Camry as a limo. When genuine conservatives actually run the show at the NRSC and NRCC the Tweedles Dee and Dum Blueberries will never want the job of US Senator from Maine again. Or Delaware, and these silly debates of right righteousness will cease, while Lindsay Graham spends his time trying to find someone to press his trousers. I like this. That day will come, I know, for we are a tide. The pieces just have to be peeled back one leaf at a time.

Just get us from here to there first.