15 Minutes Decides the Election

The curtain set last night on debate season and John McCain FINALLY began articulating Barack Obama's many half-truths on economic policy. Joe the plumber got me so excited during the first 30 minutes I thought with glee, "Finally, John is proving why even more jobs are going to be killed if you tax the very people who actually have the money to pay us." I was actually excited about his determination in explaining core conservative economic principles.

But, then IT happened and sadness returned to the very depths of my political soul. Comments on Bill Ayers and Acorn reared its ugly head and will go down as the 15 minutes which finally put McCain away. While I totally agree Ayers-Obama, as well as many other Obama associations, speak directly to the heart of the man's character this was not the time to discuss them. Most people don't care who Obama associates with if they are convinced the rich are evil and he will be the Robin Hood to middle class America at the expense of job creators. McCain looked bad discussing this and the Obama camp knew they could play up the ‘personal attack’ aspect to this. Conservatives like me already agree Barack is an anti-American sympathizer, so he has my vote already. The critical women's vote needed to see John's empathy for their situation, not further discussion about Barack Obama singing kumbaya with Bill Ayers.

Barack adeptly redirected the conversation back to checkbook balances and it resonated beautifully with 'the folks' who've witnessed a 40% drop in their 401K's. Obama successfully personalized his false message to the people. McCain talked truthful facts to the camera. Therein lies his fatal downfall. In those 15 minutes McCain allowed Obama to insert 'terrorist' and 'kill him' into the dialog without explaining that a person who is sworn to protect us from terrorists shouldn't be associated with one. It would’ve been a neutral draw, but instead from that point on, McCain fell back and all momentum was lost.

The debate switched to health care and Barack began his heart wrenching tale (which I agree is a very terrible situation) about two women in their 50's with no health insurance who are fretful about their fate if they became sick. Instead of asking Barack who was going to pay for these 2 women's (and frankly the other 47 million Obama promises to cover) insurance policies, McCain started trying to explain his health care tax credit. Barack personalized the issue and McCain talked theory.
This was clearly McCain's strongest performance yet but Barack is too much style and it doesn't matter what the substance is. To pull decisively ahead McCain need to have both. While I'm quite sure Joe the plumber is going to be all over YouTube the next several weeks, in the end, free health care and redistribution of wealth are just too appealing to voters.

If you are a McCain fan, don't give up. These are just my opinions and I hope for our country's sake we don't end up down the same path Europe has already has gone. Don't stay at home or do some write-in protest vote that really is a vote for Obama-Biden. We cannot afford higher taxes on the very people who can get us out of this mess. We cannot afford secular progressive policies aimed squarely at our government deciding who should and should not keep their hard earned money. We cannot afford appeasement to every people and ethnic group who has a grievance against us. We cannot afford liberal Supreme Court judges intent on making up laws to further their radical social agenda. We cannot afford putting more people into office who give more value to criminals by opposing the death penalty than to protecting babies who are innocent. We cannot afford socialist ideals at the highest level of our government if we care about our long term position as leader of the free world. We cannot afford Barack.

How bad is the U.S. economy?

All year I've heard how bad off we are economically, but it this true? If we had a Democratic president right now, would the media be fixated on telling us everyday how terrible things are? Do they have an agenda in getting somebody else elected that is more important than facts?

I was sitting here listening to Barack Obama's "change" candidate, VP nominee Joe "I've been in Washington over 30 years" Biden prattle on for 10 minutes about everything wrong with our country. Barack Obama's been doing the same for months. From their descriptions, all but about 10% of the population is practically destitute. Sure, we've hit a rough spot, and times are difficult for folks. But, in many cases, what is the definition of "difficult" we are using?

*70% of folks own homes. Home ownership has never been greater in our nation's history. Of course, the average home size has doubled in the last 30 years.

*A generation ago, families were lucky to have one car. Now most have two, three, or four cars. And until recently, many of them were the big gas guzzling kind.

*96% of all mortgages are paid on time. Of course, the default rate more than tripled in the past several years as people took out loans for even bigger homes they couldn't afford.

*Americans gave away over $300 billion dollars in charitable contributions last year.

*In 2007, the national GDP (gross domestic product, or the value of what we produce) was almost $14 trillion dollars. That is bigger than the next four countries combined (Japan, Germany, China, UK).

I think many of us are greedy. The next "thing" is never enough. Everybody has to best their neighbors and friends. And for the past 25 years, we've been doing so. Maybe we have to make a few choices now, so we get grumpy and want the government to bail us out. You mean I can't put zero down on a house with a monthly payment that is 40% of my salary anymore? I shouldn't buy trucks & SUV's with near single digit gas mileage? I shouldn't take my kids to watch Kobe Bryant and pay $500?

This country is unbelievable in what we've achieved. Despite the network news media's daily axe grinding, we are still the envy of the world. When they need somebody to step up we do. When they need someone to buy their stuff we do. When they need someone to beat back communism and fascism we do. Let's go back to the days of Reagan and celebrate our republic's achievements. Are we perfect? Of course not. But we are the last great hope for freedom in this world and we should never forget it.