Regardless of which political party you support, in order to gauge where exactly the country would be headed under a particular candidate's leadership, most people would listen to the speeches, read the party platform, or in the case of Candidate Obama, simply take him at his word. Conventional wisdom holds that comparing a candidate's voting record to their rhetoric exposes any weaknesses in their commitment to actually do what they promise. But if one desires a truly unvarnished look into the political future under either party, one need look no further than the 2008 National Conventions in Denver and St. Paul.
Of course, protesters targeted both conventions. And of course, in both cases the protesters were liberals. It was awful hard to tell which party bears the brunt of their anger. The ones who targeted the Democrats were actually asked prior to the convention by the Denver City Council to sign pledges not to bring buckets of feces to their protest. The protest groups were apparently insulted, because according to them, they already verbally pledged not to do such a vile thing (obviously having done so before). If you ask me, the insult is not that they were asked to keep their excrement home where it belongs, but that the City Council actually had to ask its citizens not to engage in that sort of filth. And during the Republican Conventions, some protesters accosted members of the Connecticut delegation, ripping credentials from their necks and splashing them with bleach, soda and God knows what other liquids, while others so bravely verbally assaulted Fox News reporter Griff Jenkins. When Jenkins asked what message the protesters had for America, one of them swaggered up to reporter and camera, repeatedly dropped the F-bomb on television telling Jenkins where he could go while flipping off the camera screaming Jenkins had blood on his hands. All this from the party who claims the political discourse has gotten out of control.
Notwithstanding those protests and the identically obscene amounts of money spent by corporate lobbyists bending the ears of political heavyweights by plying them full of as much alcohol, food and entertainment as they could swallow, [1] the two conventions couldn't have contrasted more. The first thing I noticed when I listened to the speeches of both Obama and McCain, was the stark contrast in content, delivery and tone. While McCain used his campaign speech to point out some of the problems in this country, it is evident how truly the man does love America. In his speech, he made a point to call out out at least some of the good things about it. In contrast, Obama's speech was overwhelmingly negative. It focused on everything bad; everything he hates about America. It was heavily laced with fear-mongering, rhetorical references to a third Bush term, the Bush-Cheney tax cuts, Bush's failed policies and other nonsense. He had the audacity to suggest that the entire U.S. government sat on its hands watching, while New Orleans drowned, despite the fact that thousands ignored orders to evacuate. If Obama is truly concerned with moving forward and uniting the country to change its ways, he should concentrate on his opponent who has a concrete factual history of bucking his party and exercising independent thought when his principles dictate he do so, instead of bashing the outgoing Bush Administration.
This contrast in tone is not just campaign red meat either, as some may believe. It can be directly equated to the sum of each candidate's life experiences. A window into their soul if you will, but far more accurate than peering into Vladimir Putin's eyes. McCain, the P.O.W. surely longed for his country, believing he would never repatriate in the midst of his tortures, whilst Obama the organizer most assuredly resorted to cynicism towards his government and country in order to galvanize the community into action.
Those who attack GOP V.P.candidate Sarah Palin do so out of fear. They hate everything this woman represents. To them it is simply inconceivable that she would --in Obama's words-- "Punish her daughter with a baby." Or perhaps it was because aborting her own baby with Downs Syndrome was inconceivable to Palin. That is truly the central issue Democrats are fretting over with Sarah Palin. Democrats have said as much. She represents such a threat to their message of death that they hypocritically demonize her parenting skills instead of focusing on the issues they tell us to focus on. For 40 years, feminists and liberals of every stripe have been calling for the oppressive glass ceiling to be shattered. Along comes Sarah Palin who ascends those lofty heights, one heartbeat away from the presidency as Democrats so eloquently noted, and instead of congratulating her, they turn up their noses, unable to withhold their scorn. Such hypocrisy speaks volumes about true Democrat principles.
America instantly connected with and fell in love with Sarah Palin, not because she and her daughter decided to do the morally straight thing and keep their babies. America connected with and fell in love with Sarah Palin because when she spoke to us, she came across as a real person. A hockey mom with values, spunk and a sense of humor, not some scripted, polished career politician with botox injections and bad hair who is obviously and repeatedly coached to stay on message. Barack Obama wants me to believe Joe Biden is grounded enough to understand my problems because he actually commutes home every day.
Finally, there have been many occasions where I have personally called into question the patriotism and loyalty of, not just Barack Obama, but the entire Democratic Party. I have never and will never apologize for that. Every time liberals attack me for that stance, yet another shining example of said patriotism oozes to the surface from the depths of their depravity. On Saturday, September 7th, it was reported that a vendor in Denver who was closing down after the Democratic convention found thousands of miniature American flags --some 12,000 in all-- that had been discarded in plastic bags. They were unceremoniously piled up next to dumpsters and were destined for the trash. The flags were turned over to the McCain campaign who handed them out at a Colorado Springs rally in return for a promise to treat them respectfully. Apparently the party so big on symbolism rejects America's most precious symbol, our flag. Predictably, Obama's response was to accuse the McCain campaign of questioning the loyalties of Democrats [2] who improperly and disrespectfully disposed of the flags when their faux display of patriotism was complete. And while I accuse Democrats of doing just that, McCain said no such thing, nor did any of his surrogates. They simply paid the proper respects to those flags without comment.
That flag proceeds our soldiers into every battle they have ever fought or will ever fight. It is one of the military's most sacred honors for the man who is chosen to carry those colors to a fight. But to Democrats, it is something to wipe their behinds with in protest one day, then something to wave proudly at a rally the next when cameras are looking. A mere prop to be disposed of like last week's garbage when it has fulfilled its purpose. How ironic that to liberals, the Constitution is a living document, but the flag is a mere inanimate object. Nothing more need be said on that subject as the mounting historical record on where Democrats stand concerning reverence for our flag is crystal clear.
There is no doubt this country has proceeded down the wrong path for the last decade. A path totally divergent from our ultimate destination. But realistically, no President is going to change the Washington culture all by himself. Paradoxically, the party that holds the supposed progressive, forward-thinking ideals in this contest must repeatedly look backwards in order to keep their base not just awake and lucid, but also in tow. They portray conservatives as Neanderthals, while it is they who seek to turn the clock back on a woman's progress because they feel threatened by what she represents.
The 2008 election is not about empty slogans of change in Washington. Lobbyists and the career politicians whose palms they grease will see to that. It is about the future of The United States. It is about whether we return to those life-affirming Constitutional principles that founded this country and kept us free, or we progress down the path of extreme liberalism, a dead-end path littered with broken promises of Revolution and chosen decades ago by the party of empty symbolic gestures, weakness, immorality, death and defeat. The party whose platform rests upon no more than a perverse, collective, nationalistic hatred founded on guilt, class warfare and a decay of societal norms. Oh, I forgot to mention those gaudy Greek columns that flanked Obama during his speech and are due back on Monday morning.
