(Note: This article originally appeared on the Intellectual Conservative Feb. 13, 2014 at http://intellectualconservative.com/the-importance-and-potential-of-the-catholic-vote/ and was re-published on EzineArticles Feb. 17, 2014 at http://ezinearticles.com/?The-Importance-and-Potential-of-the-Catholic-Vote&id=8326004 )
Almost any candidate running for president of the United States, for a state governorship, or for a U.S. Senate or House seat these days is clearly aware that he or she probably won’t win the election unless the better part of Catholics participating in that election choose to vote for him or her. In twenty-first century America, how Catholics vote generally determines the outcome of national and state election campaigns. The first presidential election of the century, the election of 2000, was an exception to this general rule, with Republican candidate George W. Bush barely scraping victory despite narrowly losing the Catholic vote. But in the more typical election of 2004, 52 percent of American Catholics cast their ballots for the Republican candidate, George W. Bush, resulting in his re-election as President of the United States. In 2008, on the other hand, Catholics opted for the Democratic candidate, Barack Obama, by a 55 percent margin, putting him in the White House by a comfortable margin. The historic 2010 midterm elections revealed Catholic voters as a major driving force of the Tea Party landslide: 58 percent of them chose Republican candidates for governor, House and Senate seats. Finally, U.S. Catholic voters tipped the close presidential election of 2012 in favor of Barack Obama by a margin of 50 to 48 percent—the same margin as the rest of the electorate.
The significance of the Catholic vote in American politics is unquestionable. But what exactly is this thing called “the Catholic vote,” and how does it work? To find out, let’s take a closer look at the political, social, and religious characteristics of the Catholics of the United States today.
Catholics are a complex and unique group politically. Although they comprise a substantial chunk of the U.S. population (roughly one-fourth or about 70 million), unlike Jews or Evangelicals, they are not overwhelmingly committed to a single political party. Rather, they’re split about 40/40 between the Republican and Democratic parties, while the remaining 20 percent or so are “swing voters,” those who aren’t firmly committed to either party and whose choices in a given election are shaped by a variety of superficial factors. It is these swing voters in each national election, as well as in most state elections, who determine whether the majority of Catholics goes for one party or the other and thus which party wins high office. So savvy politicians spend a great deal of money and effort to try to win this narrow demographic of Catholic swing voters, who comprise no more than 5 percent of the total U.S. electorate.
Part of the reason why Catholics as a whole are not committed to a single party is that they are a motley bunch, hailing from a variety of ethnic and economic backgrounds. They include Caucasians, Hispanics, Filipinos, other East Asians, African-Americans, rich and poor, business professionals and farm workers, urban and rural folk. Catholics are found in every milieu of American society; they inhabit every state and geographical region of the country (although they are spread more thinly in the South). These characteristics set Catholics apart from other religious groups, such as the Protestant majority (which is mostly white and Republican) and Jews (who are mainly Democrats and confined to the largest cities). Thus, it can be said that, given their political, ethnic and economic diversity, Catholics are generally representative of the nation as a whole.
The political characteristics of American Catholics are greatly influenced by how they believe and practice their faith. Less than one-fourth of them are faithful, practicing Catholics who allow their faith to shape their voting decisions and who follow the guidance of their bishops regarding both the negotiable and the non-negotiable issues at stake. For these good Catholics, the right to life of innocent unborn children, the definition of marriage as the union of a man and a woman, the right of the Church to act in accord with its teachings and the rights of Americans to act in accord with their moral consciences and religious beliefs, and the right to life of the ill and elderly are of fundamental importance in choosing which candidate to vote for. While a candidate’s positions on other issues such as poverty, war, immigration, taxes, health care, or the economy are carefully considered as well, these negotiable issues are ultimately subservient to the non-negotiable issues of life, family, the moral law and human rights that form the very cornerstone of society. Since the Democratic Party has fervently embraced abortion and deliberately ostracized pro-life candidates, these devout Catholics usually end up voting Republican even if that runs against their preference because they have no other choice in good conscience. They are not necessarily loyal Republicans, and many of them are would-be Democrats. They are de facto Republicans whose voting habits are consistent and easily predictable.
Unfortunately, more than 75 percent of American registered Catholics do not even fulfill their basic religious obligation of attending Mass every Sunday, and of these non-practicing Catholics, a substantial portion are “cafeteria Catholics” (heretics) who refuse to accept certain teachings of the Church. Included within this latter group is the 40 percent of all U.S. Catholics who believe that a woman has a right to an abortion under certain circumstances. Also included within this group is the lion’s share of the more than 50 percent of American Catholics who use artificial contraception within their marriages in violation of Church teaching. These staggering numbers indicate a serious crisis of faith in the American Catholic Church, and they betray grave problems in the Catholic vote. Many of these so-called Catholics always vote Democratic regardless of their candidate’s position on life and marriage; some always vote Republican, even when the Republican candidate supports legalized abortion and same-sex “marriage”; and the remainder are swing voters who pick their party and candidate in each election with little or selective regard for Church teaching on the issues. Some nominal Catholics do agree with the Church that abortion is gravely immoral, but this does not stop them from voting for pro-abortion candidates in clear violation of Church teaching.
Within this overwhelming multitude of Catholics in name only, which includes some 60 million Americans, it is swing voters who determine the role that the Catholic vote plays in each national election as well as in most state elections. Catholic swing voters reelected President Bush in 2004 (that was good), elected President Obama in 2008 (that was bad), helped push the Tea Party to gubernatorial and Congressional victories in 2010 (that was good), and reelected President Obama in 2012 (that was bad). The fact that 55 percent of American Catholics helped put in the White House the most radically pro-abortion president in our nation’s history, and that 50 percent chose to reelect him despite his blatant attacks on the moral law, the Catholic Church, religious liberty and moral conscience rights, is a crying shame. These tragic results were due to Catholic swing voters allying with the substantial minority of Democratic pro-abortion Catholics.
Of course, it’s great when Catholic swing voters do the opposite, and join forces with faithful Catholics and staunch Republican Catholics to assure a victory for human rights and traditional values. In a triumphant press release following the historic 2010 midterm elections, Bill Donohue of the Catholic League announced that “Catholics voted 58-40 for the Republican candidates last night.” He noted that “[t]his was a dramatic 20-point swing from two years ago,” but then added, “What caused Catholics to bolt is not clear.” The reason for this dramatic swing was Catholic swing voters riding the wave of Tea Party enthusiasm that swept the country in reaction to President Obama’s unpopular and immoral healthcare reform law—which is now unfortunately in effect, thanks to those same swing voters having reverted to the Democratic Party two years later.
The fact of the matter is that these Catholic swingers, together with the vast assemblage of non-practicing Catholics in general, are essentially indistinguishable from the secular society and culture around them. They think and vote the way the people around them think and vote; their Catholic faith has little or nothing to do with it. Because they are not well-grounded in their faith, they allow the winds of fashion and popular opinion to blow them to and fro like rudderless sailboats. In 2008 the winds were blowing gently towards the Democrats, so that’s the way they headed. In 2010 the winds sharply shifted course towards Tea Party Republicans, so they caught the gusts and sailed along in that direction.
It is unfortunately true that Catholics in name only control the power of the American Catholic vote by virtue of their sheer numerical monopoly. That is a scandal. What’s even worse is that this situation is allowed to persist by another group we have not yet mentioned: millions of otherwise good practicing Catholics who don’t bother to register or go to the polls on Election Day. These Catholic non-voters frequently and adversely affect the outcome of elections by their failure to participate in the political process. Together with Catholics in name only, they are traitors to both their Church and their country. If these otherwise good Catholics were mobilized to do their duty to God and country, they would add to the faithful Catholics who already vote and help to neutralize the deleterious effects of the Catholic swing voters, thus critically influencing the outcome of important elections. It’s a shame to see the Catholic vote split among pro-abortion Catholics, faithful Catholics and swing Catholics who ignore or selectively apply Church teaching on the issues, while other Catholics just sit by and watch. These divisions are preventing the Catholic vote from achieving its true potential as a great force for good in our country. Meanwhile, so-called “Catholic” politicians eagerly exploit the Catholic vote for their own political gain while promoting a woman’s “right” to abortion or attacking the Church’s right to practice its teachings in public life.
The good news, however, is that these grave problems with the American Catholic vote can be overcome. In fact, change for the better within the American Catholic Church is not only possible, it is gradually unfolding before our eyes. Most “cafeteria Catholics” are over the age of 60, while most faithful Catholics are 45 and under. Young Catholics in particular are fervently dedicated to the pro-life cause. This was nowhere more clearly demonstrated than in the March for Life in Washington, D.C. in January 2013. Of the more than 800,000 people who took part in this event, a majority were Catholic teenagers and younger adults born since Roe v. Wade. This army of young, pro-life Catholics—some of whom were elected to state governorships and U.S. House and Senate seats in 2010 and 2012—continues to grow, while pro-abortion Catholics in the mold of Ted Kennedy are gradually declining and dying out. Younger Catholic priests are not afraid to speak from the pulpit the truth about the evils of abortion, artificial contraception, and gay “marriage,” and their numbers are slowly on the rise as well.
Imagine what the Catholic vote would be like if American Catholics were solidly united in the full belief and faithful practice of the religion they profess! Just imagine what would happen if all Catholic voters in the United States voted in accordance with Church teaching in every election. No pro-abortion candidate for president or governor would ever make it into public office; nor would most such candidates for U.S. Senate and House seats. Politicians would have a holy fear of the Catholic vote, knowing that to publicly take a pro-abortion or pro-gay “marriage” stand would cost them the support of their Catholic constituents. Furthermore, the already massive and growing pro-life, pro-marriage and religious liberty movements would be much stronger and even more effective if our elected representatives had four times as many Catholic constituents knocking on their doors and pressuring them to do away with legalized abortion, gay “marriage” and the HHS mandate. If every American Catholic citizen took seriously his or her grave moral obligation to form and vote his or her conscience in accord with Church teaching, we would have a different and much better country. And all this would happen if only Americans who currently profess to be Catholic took their faith seriously. The Catholic vote would take on even more formidable proportions if half of all American ex-Catholics—another 50 million people—were to return to the Church and begin voting as faithful Catholics. Imagine the beneficial consequences to our country of such a massive reversion to Catholicism!
As Catholics vote, so goes the nation. Good Catholics make good citizens. The sacraments (especially the Holy Eucharist and Confession), prayer (especially the Holy Rosary), and sound catechesis are the keys to revitalizing and renewing the Catholic Church in the United States—and in so doing, to unlock the hidden potential of the Catholic vote and make it truly a force to be reckoned with in future elections.
Copyright © 2014 Justin D. Soutar. All rights reserved.
Showing posts with label 2012 elections. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 2012 elections. Show all posts
Friday, March 7, 2014
Monday, December 10, 2012
Election 2012: What Happened?
by Justin Soutar
December 10, 2012
Like many other Americans, I was taken by surprise and deeply disappointed when Barack Obama was re-elected President of the United States. For several months prior to the election, I had been seriously expecting Republican challenger Mitt Romney to unseat President Obama. I envisioned the latter as the Jimmy Carter of 2012, a sitting duck just waiting to be blown out of the water by the Ronald Reagan of 2012. And I wasn’t the only one: other, more seasoned political observers than I such as noted libertarian Wayne Allyn Root were also predicting a landslide Romney victory, and for the same reasons I was. We noted that Barack Obama has presided over the worst economic recession since the Great Depression, and history shows that no incumbent president wins re-election amidst an economic crisis (take Herbert Hoover, for example). Furthermore, President Obama has utterly failed to deliver on his 2008 campaign promise to help the average struggling American in these difficult economic times. Rather, under his administration the middle class has continued shrinking; unemployment rates have been double to triple what they were during the Bush administration; the gap between rich and poor has grown to unseemly proportions; and the number of Americans in poverty has climbed from 12 to 14 percent.
Meanwhile, President Obama’s rampant fiscal irresponsibility, with massive spending contributing to an out-of-control national debt, has contributed further to his negative image in the minds of many Americans. In 2010 he and his Democratic cohorts in the U.S. House and Senate forced on our country the infamous $1.2 trillion health care reform law known as Obamacare, the most expensive and controversial reform legislation in American history, which sent President Obama’s approval ratings plunging into the 40s and resulted in a spectacular Tea Party victory in the 2010 midterm elections in which Republicans regained control of the House of Representatives, increased their strength in the Senate, and swept governorships across the nation.
The Tea Party movement succeeded in focusing public attention on President Obama as the most radically pro-abortion president in American history at a time when a majority of Americans identified themselves as pro-life; it also raised the suspicions that Obamacare would mandate “abortion coverage” and fail to sufficiently protect the conscience rights of health care workers, employers and insurance carriers who refused to be involved in abortion or contraception. In January of 2012, our worst fears were realized with the advent of the HHS mandate, which forces all businesses and charitable organizations that serve the general public to cover or dole out immoral “preventive services for women” in violation of the First Amendment. At the time, I felt that this flagrant attack on the religious liberties and conscience rights of the American people would seal Obama’s fate as a one-term president and carry the Tea Party to a Republican landslide in November of 2012. Judging by its remarkable performance in 2010 and the outrageous behavior of the Obama administration since then, I reasonably expected the Republican Party to take full control of Washington in this election. That didn’t happen. Why not?
A combination of related factors are to blame for the results of this election. The most significant (and unfortunate) factor is that the Catholic vote went the wrong way: by a margin of 50 to 48 percent—the same margin as the general electorate—Catholic voters chose four more years of President Obama in open violation of clear and consistent teaching from their own bishops against voting for a pro-abortion candidate. It would appear that half of Catholic voters don’t even listen to their Church leaders or practice their faith in the voting booth when it comes to the extremely serious matter of the murder of millions upon millions of the innocent unborn. Shame on those so-called “Catholics” who voted for Obama. They will have a lot to answer for come Judgment Day. The bishops have been very clear that the right to life of the innocent unborn human being is the most fundamental voting issue at stake in our country today and that voting for a pro-abortion candidate is a gravely immoral act that makes one complicit in the evil of abortion. For the second presidential election in a row, the better part of the Catholic electorate has ignored the voice of its religious leaders and deliberately chosen to collaborate with Barack Obama’s radically pro-abortion agenda.
What’s even more unfathomable is that Catholics voted to re-elect an administration that has declared open war on their Church and the Constitution by passing a law that forces Catholic institutions to provide contraception, sterilization and abortion-inducing drugs in violation of Catholic moral teaching and the First Amendment. As with the issue of abortion, our Catholic bishops have spoken out clearly, forcefully and consistently on the issue of religious liberty, but it appears that many Catholics have been listening more to the propaganda dished out by the Obama administration than to the message of their own Church hierarchy. A poll taken in mid-2012 showed that a majority of Catholics—mainly those who don’t fulfill their obligation to attend Sunday Mass each week—were actually oblivious to the clash between the Obama administration and the Catholic Church over the HHS mandate, and had heard little or nothing about the bishops’ nationwide religious liberty campaign. Even if these non-churchgoing Catholics knew about this particular issue, polls suggest that they probably would not be too concerned about it because for years these same Catholics have been using artificial contraception in violation of Church teaching. A profound crisis of faith has infected the American Catholic Church, and it is now showing up in the direction our nation is moving. As the great Catholic preacher Father John Corapi used to remind us, immorality is un-American and a threat to national security. The only thing worse than immorality is when a Catholic supports or participates in it. Catholics must stop betraying their religion and indulging in such scandalous behavior. They need to get their act together and start forming their consciences properly and start voting their faith in unison—not only for the salvation of their own souls, but for the wellbeing of their Church and the good of their country. Catholics who don’t want to vote pro-life or stop using artificial contraception should either repent and change their ways or leave the Church and quit pretending to be Catholic.
On a related note, I think it was smart of the devil to take Father Corapi out of action well ahead of this presidential election. His defection to the Evil One has been a tremendous loss for the Church in America and for our country in general. As a popular and effective Catholic preacher who reached millions through the Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN), he would have been at his best during the 2012 presidential campaign season, loudly decrying the HHS contraceptive and abortifacient mandate and the direct attack on the Catholic Church which it represents, and rallying the Catholic faithful to defend the rights to life and religious liberty on which their nation was founded. He would have considerably amplified the voice of the bishops on the fundamental issues of abortion and religious liberty and made more Catholics fully aware of the choice they were facing in this election. Had he remained faithful to God and to his calling, I think the election result would have been quite different.
I can also point an accusing finger at myself in one respect. As a Catholic author, I could have—and should have—written more about abortion, religious liberty, and President Obama’s radically secularist agenda in order to help shape public opinion in the months prior to the election. I was busy working on a book and other projects, but I should have made more time to write about these current issues of such momentous importance to our Church and our nation.
Moving on to another factor that influenced the election, it seems that Americans in general actually like President Obama and are not as dissatisfied with his performance as we imagined, judging by fairly steady approval ratings of around 50 percent over the last four years. Despite his radically secularist agenda and grossly irresponsible behavior, President Obama manages to convey a respectable image of a president who is doing his best in spite of everything. With the mainstream media firmly on his side, the propaganda power and communication skills of the Obama administration have proven effective. People believe what President Obama tells them on TV, whether it is true or not, because they like him personally. As the old saying goes, “If you tell a lie long enough, people will believe it.” So when Obama and Biden kept lying that the HHS mandate does not force religious institutions to violate their moral convictions or that Obamacare does not really raise taxes by a trillion dollars, people started to believe those lies because they liked and trusted their elected officials who were telling them.
Another factor in this election that we just hinted at was the incumbent advantage. When people like and trust their familiar elected officials, they tend to re-elect them, which is what they did last month. When a new and unfamiliar candidate breaks onto the scene, be it Bob Dole in 1996 or John Kerry in 2004 or Mitt Romney in 2012, people are a bit suspicious. They know that they like and trust their current president, but they’re not sure about this challenger guy who claims he can do a better job. Why elect a new president when you’re happy with the one you have now? Furthermore, Barack Obama significantly augmented his incumbent advantage by spending a record-breaking one billion dollars on advertising for his reelection campaign. Romney spent nearly as much on advertising but Obama had the incumbent advantage.
Another factor in the election outcome was that the economy is not as bad as we sometimes make it out to be. We need to keep things in perspective. Even with the serious economic issues noted above as well as underemployment and the precipitous drop in median household income over the last four years, the average American in 2012 is still much wealthier than the average American during the 1930s, and 8 to 12 percent unemployment pales in comparison to the 30 percent unemployment that America suffered during the Great Depression. Nine out of ten Americans currently have a job; furthermore, most Americans eat three meals a day, have plenty of clothes to wear, live in heated and air conditioned homes with running hot water and electricity, and have a washer and dryer, a dishwasher, a TV (with Obama on it), a stereo, a computer, an Internet connection, a cell phone, and a car or two in the garage. Life is pretty good for most of us, and when we’re comfortable, we don’t want change. As Thomas Jefferson famously wrote in the Declaration of Independence, “mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable.” Most Americans apparently feel that the current economic crisis is not insufferable, so they have opted to maintain the status quo. The American middle class is “doing fine,” says President Obama on the TV tube, and many people seem to agree.
Part of what did in Mitt Romney was his campaign strategy of focusing mainly on the economy. This was the same strategy employed by John McCain in 2008 and it didn’t work for him either. Romney’s plan to foster job creation and economic growth through free enterprise and opportunity instead of big-government bailouts, taxation and redistribution certainly did resonate with and appeal to many people. However, Romney failed to take into account the relatively contented nature of the American middle class or the fact that the economy was not a serious enough issue in enough people’s minds to sufficiently motivate them to replace President Obama. I think Romney should have focused primarily on the great moral issues of our time such as abortion, religious liberty, traditional marriage, and the radical secularist takeover of our country. His stances on these fundamental issues were clearly distinguished from those of Obama, but as a presidential candidate he should have articulated them more clearly and communicated them more effectively. Taking a strong stance on these moral issues and speaking out strongly about them makes good sense even from the strictly political point of view. Most Americans are pro-life, religious, Christian, and see marriage exclusively as the union of a man and a woman. Focusing on the right to life of the unborn helped sweep the Tea Party to victory in 2010. Despite raising much less money than Romney, Rick Santorum did well in the Republican presidential primary contest because he passionately defended the rights of the unborn while Romney was passionately defending his business career.
Americans know instinctively that abortion is morally wrong. It has been a uniformly negative experience for all those involved in it. It has hurt the lives of tens of millions of women, many of whom are now fervent pro-life advocates. The pro-life movement in America is now very strong and continues to grow stronger. Abortion rates are down to what they were in the 1970s and continue to decline while voters continue to enact additional state restrictions on abortion. Romney should have taken advantage of all these facts and tapped into the enormous reserve of political capital hidden in the pro-life movement and built his campaign on that, even more than President George W. Bush did. He should have spoken passionately about the horror and magnitude of the abortion holocaust, in which more than 55 million innocent Americans have been legally slaughtered over the past forty years since Roe v. Wade. He should have reminded Americans incessantly of Barack Obama’s criminal record on abortion as an Illinois state senator, as a U.S. senator and as president, and drawn attention to the unholy alliance between Planned Parenthood and the Obama administration. He should have reminded people of the draconian Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA) that President Obama promised to sign upon taking office in 2009; FOCA would have done away with all state restrictions on abortion and compelled all physicians to perform abortions (among other things), and it was only defeated by a massive outcry from the American people. He could have also fostered discussion on the broader negative impact of abortion on American society and the economy, from single-parent families and low marriage rates among young people to economic stagnation, and how things might be different if those 55 million Americans murdered in their mother’s wombs were alive today. And he should have billed himself unapologetically as the pro-life candidate for president who would work aggressively to end the scourge of legalized abortion in America forever. To his credit, Romney did pledge to defund Planned Parenthood and declared his support for overturning Roe v. Wade—two things President Bush never ventured. But had Romney given the right to life of the innocent human being in the womb the center of attention it deserves as the most important issue facing America today, I think he would have won the election.
But perhaps this was not to be expected of Mitt Romney, a wealthy businessman and politician from Massachusetts with a somewhat weak record on the crucial moral and social issues. Here we come to another reason why President Obama was re-elected: his challenger was a somewhat liberal candidate from the American political establishment who failed to present a credible conservative alternative to Barack Obama. People didn’t trust Romney and weren’t quite sure about him because of his mixed record. Had the Republicans nominated a strong candidate like Rick Santorum with impeccable conservative credentials, he would have soundly defeated Barack Obama—no question about it.
Romney was not a genuine Tea Party candidate, although we wishfully tried to make him so and although he tried to be so for us. He might have partially defunded Planned Parenthood, repealed the HHS mandate, got the economy going again, and done a few other good things for our country. However, he would not have significantly changed the dynamics of the deeply entrenched and deeply corrupt Washington political establishment, comprised of movers and shakers from Planned Parenthood and homosexual rights activists to the pharmaceutical, biotechnology and insurance industries to the big multinational corporations that run Wall Street.
That establishment—allied with the mainstream media—is what promoted Romney’s candidacy and defeated the attempts of genuine conservative candidates like Ron Paul, Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum to win the Republican presidential nomination. Such candidates, although more favored by the American people, would have upset the D.C. status quo too much. Romney bagged the Republican nomination, not because he was the most qualified candidate for president, but because he spent the most money on advertising and because he was the least threatening candidate to the Washington establishment. Romney tried to solve his conservative problem while remaining friendly with the establishment by picking a true conservative running mate. But that strategy of compromise didn’t work for him, just as it didn’t work for John McCain. Romney was Obama’s saving grace—the opposition candidate whose nomination would help assure his own re-election. Deep down this past summer, I suspected that the establishment wanted Romney nominated, and that his nomination would probably lead to a close presidential contest in which Obama would just squeak by. But I refused to listen to my hunch because I was strongly biased against Obama and willfully blind to the realities of the American political landscape as suggested by the polling data.
Ultimately, the reality of the 2012 election came down to three things: communication, compromise, and corruption. President Obama won re-election because he is a great communicator and because he’s in bed with corrupt special interests in Washington. Romney lost the election because he failed to communicate himself as well as Obama did, but he won the Republican nomination over his conservative rivals because the corrupt establishment helped him to do so. And the Tea Party movement compromised its core values and became complicit in the very corruption it decries by abandoning true conservative presidential contenders and surrendering to Romney as the only alternative to Obama.
Communication problems and Washington corruption also conspired to prevent the Tea Party from taking over the federal government in this election. The party allowed the economy to distract it from vigorously defending the right to life, traditional marriage and our nation’s fundamental Christian identity and from effectively communicating to the American people the outrage of the Obama administration’s assault on religious liberty and the First Amendment represented by the HHS mandate.
Our nation’s Founding Fathers, especially George Washington, warned that a national political party system would become a tool of corrupt special interests. Unfortunately, that is exactly what has happened. We now have corrupt private interests ruling our country through the Senate and the White House for their own private benefit instead of honest public servants who govern responsibly for the sake of the common good. The Tea Party movement came into existence precisely as a result of this situation, but it must become much stronger and more courageous if it is to achieve its goal of restoring honest and responsible government to both houses of Congress and the White House.
The corrupt Washington establishment will certainly continue doing all in its power to keep the Tea Party from gaining full control of the federal government because this would spell its own death sentence. However, the 2010 elections demonstrated that this corruption is not an insuperable obstacle to a robust popular movement whose leaders communicate effectively on the moral issues affecting our country. The Tea Party can still achieve its goal—but its future depends on whether or not it learns from the mistakes it made in 2012. If it hopes to bounce back from this defeat to victory in future elections, the Tea Party must do the following:
1. It must give pride of place to the all-important moral issues by which our nation stands or falls—especially abortion, religious liberty, marriage, and radical secularism—and it must articulate and communicate its positions on them clearly, consistently, passionately, and effectively.
2. It must remain committed to its goals of ending legalized abortion, repealing the HHS mandate and all of Obamacare, protecting traditional marriage and the nuclear family, restoring our nation’s fundamental Christian identity, and returning honest and responsible leadership to the legislative and executive branches of the federal government.
3. It must remain committed to the traditional Republican ethos of limited government, low taxes, a balanced budget, a strong national defense, and promoting a favorable climate for small businesses.
4. It must remain seriously committed to the long-term goals of abolishing the Federal Reserve, the IRS and income taxes, and restoring the value of our currency through a return to the gold standard on which our nation thrived for more than 150 years.
5. It must return to the “city on a hill” concept of the Pilgrims and Founding Fathers, i.e., to spreading freedom and democracy by the power of our example at home rather than by the force of arms abroad. In line with this principle, it must reject costly foreign wars of national liberation (e.g. Afghanistan) and aggressive “preemptive” wars to eliminate nonexistent WMD programs (e.g. Iraq and Iran)—both of which are driven by corrupt special interests—and commit to bringing all of our troops home and keeping them home to defend our coastlines and borders.
6. It must remain faithful to the above stated core principles—above all to the moral ones in items 1 and 2—and firmly resist the temptation to compromise any of them for short-term political gain. This means it must not back establishment candidates or proposals that are at odds with any of its core principles. This also means that it must clearly distinguish itself from the corrupt Republican/Democratic political establishment currently in control of Washington.
This election has certainly taught us some painful lessons: Moral issues go in first place. Communication is critical. Corruption controls Washington. Compromise is the short road to ruin. And wishful thinking is no substitute for reality. We’d do well to keep these lessons in mind when the next election seasons roll around in 2014 and 2016.
Copyright © 2012 Justin D. Soutar. All rights reserved.
December 10, 2012
Like many other Americans, I was taken by surprise and deeply disappointed when Barack Obama was re-elected President of the United States. For several months prior to the election, I had been seriously expecting Republican challenger Mitt Romney to unseat President Obama. I envisioned the latter as the Jimmy Carter of 2012, a sitting duck just waiting to be blown out of the water by the Ronald Reagan of 2012. And I wasn’t the only one: other, more seasoned political observers than I such as noted libertarian Wayne Allyn Root were also predicting a landslide Romney victory, and for the same reasons I was. We noted that Barack Obama has presided over the worst economic recession since the Great Depression, and history shows that no incumbent president wins re-election amidst an economic crisis (take Herbert Hoover, for example). Furthermore, President Obama has utterly failed to deliver on his 2008 campaign promise to help the average struggling American in these difficult economic times. Rather, under his administration the middle class has continued shrinking; unemployment rates have been double to triple what they were during the Bush administration; the gap between rich and poor has grown to unseemly proportions; and the number of Americans in poverty has climbed from 12 to 14 percent.
Meanwhile, President Obama’s rampant fiscal irresponsibility, with massive spending contributing to an out-of-control national debt, has contributed further to his negative image in the minds of many Americans. In 2010 he and his Democratic cohorts in the U.S. House and Senate forced on our country the infamous $1.2 trillion health care reform law known as Obamacare, the most expensive and controversial reform legislation in American history, which sent President Obama’s approval ratings plunging into the 40s and resulted in a spectacular Tea Party victory in the 2010 midterm elections in which Republicans regained control of the House of Representatives, increased their strength in the Senate, and swept governorships across the nation.
The Tea Party movement succeeded in focusing public attention on President Obama as the most radically pro-abortion president in American history at a time when a majority of Americans identified themselves as pro-life; it also raised the suspicions that Obamacare would mandate “abortion coverage” and fail to sufficiently protect the conscience rights of health care workers, employers and insurance carriers who refused to be involved in abortion or contraception. In January of 2012, our worst fears were realized with the advent of the HHS mandate, which forces all businesses and charitable organizations that serve the general public to cover or dole out immoral “preventive services for women” in violation of the First Amendment. At the time, I felt that this flagrant attack on the religious liberties and conscience rights of the American people would seal Obama’s fate as a one-term president and carry the Tea Party to a Republican landslide in November of 2012. Judging by its remarkable performance in 2010 and the outrageous behavior of the Obama administration since then, I reasonably expected the Republican Party to take full control of Washington in this election. That didn’t happen. Why not?
A combination of related factors are to blame for the results of this election. The most significant (and unfortunate) factor is that the Catholic vote went the wrong way: by a margin of 50 to 48 percent—the same margin as the general electorate—Catholic voters chose four more years of President Obama in open violation of clear and consistent teaching from their own bishops against voting for a pro-abortion candidate. It would appear that half of Catholic voters don’t even listen to their Church leaders or practice their faith in the voting booth when it comes to the extremely serious matter of the murder of millions upon millions of the innocent unborn. Shame on those so-called “Catholics” who voted for Obama. They will have a lot to answer for come Judgment Day. The bishops have been very clear that the right to life of the innocent unborn human being is the most fundamental voting issue at stake in our country today and that voting for a pro-abortion candidate is a gravely immoral act that makes one complicit in the evil of abortion. For the second presidential election in a row, the better part of the Catholic electorate has ignored the voice of its religious leaders and deliberately chosen to collaborate with Barack Obama’s radically pro-abortion agenda.
What’s even more unfathomable is that Catholics voted to re-elect an administration that has declared open war on their Church and the Constitution by passing a law that forces Catholic institutions to provide contraception, sterilization and abortion-inducing drugs in violation of Catholic moral teaching and the First Amendment. As with the issue of abortion, our Catholic bishops have spoken out clearly, forcefully and consistently on the issue of religious liberty, but it appears that many Catholics have been listening more to the propaganda dished out by the Obama administration than to the message of their own Church hierarchy. A poll taken in mid-2012 showed that a majority of Catholics—mainly those who don’t fulfill their obligation to attend Sunday Mass each week—were actually oblivious to the clash between the Obama administration and the Catholic Church over the HHS mandate, and had heard little or nothing about the bishops’ nationwide religious liberty campaign. Even if these non-churchgoing Catholics knew about this particular issue, polls suggest that they probably would not be too concerned about it because for years these same Catholics have been using artificial contraception in violation of Church teaching. A profound crisis of faith has infected the American Catholic Church, and it is now showing up in the direction our nation is moving. As the great Catholic preacher Father John Corapi used to remind us, immorality is un-American and a threat to national security. The only thing worse than immorality is when a Catholic supports or participates in it. Catholics must stop betraying their religion and indulging in such scandalous behavior. They need to get their act together and start forming their consciences properly and start voting their faith in unison—not only for the salvation of their own souls, but for the wellbeing of their Church and the good of their country. Catholics who don’t want to vote pro-life or stop using artificial contraception should either repent and change their ways or leave the Church and quit pretending to be Catholic.
On a related note, I think it was smart of the devil to take Father Corapi out of action well ahead of this presidential election. His defection to the Evil One has been a tremendous loss for the Church in America and for our country in general. As a popular and effective Catholic preacher who reached millions through the Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN), he would have been at his best during the 2012 presidential campaign season, loudly decrying the HHS contraceptive and abortifacient mandate and the direct attack on the Catholic Church which it represents, and rallying the Catholic faithful to defend the rights to life and religious liberty on which their nation was founded. He would have considerably amplified the voice of the bishops on the fundamental issues of abortion and religious liberty and made more Catholics fully aware of the choice they were facing in this election. Had he remained faithful to God and to his calling, I think the election result would have been quite different.
I can also point an accusing finger at myself in one respect. As a Catholic author, I could have—and should have—written more about abortion, religious liberty, and President Obama’s radically secularist agenda in order to help shape public opinion in the months prior to the election. I was busy working on a book and other projects, but I should have made more time to write about these current issues of such momentous importance to our Church and our nation.
Moving on to another factor that influenced the election, it seems that Americans in general actually like President Obama and are not as dissatisfied with his performance as we imagined, judging by fairly steady approval ratings of around 50 percent over the last four years. Despite his radically secularist agenda and grossly irresponsible behavior, President Obama manages to convey a respectable image of a president who is doing his best in spite of everything. With the mainstream media firmly on his side, the propaganda power and communication skills of the Obama administration have proven effective. People believe what President Obama tells them on TV, whether it is true or not, because they like him personally. As the old saying goes, “If you tell a lie long enough, people will believe it.” So when Obama and Biden kept lying that the HHS mandate does not force religious institutions to violate their moral convictions or that Obamacare does not really raise taxes by a trillion dollars, people started to believe those lies because they liked and trusted their elected officials who were telling them.
Another factor in this election that we just hinted at was the incumbent advantage. When people like and trust their familiar elected officials, they tend to re-elect them, which is what they did last month. When a new and unfamiliar candidate breaks onto the scene, be it Bob Dole in 1996 or John Kerry in 2004 or Mitt Romney in 2012, people are a bit suspicious. They know that they like and trust their current president, but they’re not sure about this challenger guy who claims he can do a better job. Why elect a new president when you’re happy with the one you have now? Furthermore, Barack Obama significantly augmented his incumbent advantage by spending a record-breaking one billion dollars on advertising for his reelection campaign. Romney spent nearly as much on advertising but Obama had the incumbent advantage.
Another factor in the election outcome was that the economy is not as bad as we sometimes make it out to be. We need to keep things in perspective. Even with the serious economic issues noted above as well as underemployment and the precipitous drop in median household income over the last four years, the average American in 2012 is still much wealthier than the average American during the 1930s, and 8 to 12 percent unemployment pales in comparison to the 30 percent unemployment that America suffered during the Great Depression. Nine out of ten Americans currently have a job; furthermore, most Americans eat three meals a day, have plenty of clothes to wear, live in heated and air conditioned homes with running hot water and electricity, and have a washer and dryer, a dishwasher, a TV (with Obama on it), a stereo, a computer, an Internet connection, a cell phone, and a car or two in the garage. Life is pretty good for most of us, and when we’re comfortable, we don’t want change. As Thomas Jefferson famously wrote in the Declaration of Independence, “mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable.” Most Americans apparently feel that the current economic crisis is not insufferable, so they have opted to maintain the status quo. The American middle class is “doing fine,” says President Obama on the TV tube, and many people seem to agree.
Part of what did in Mitt Romney was his campaign strategy of focusing mainly on the economy. This was the same strategy employed by John McCain in 2008 and it didn’t work for him either. Romney’s plan to foster job creation and economic growth through free enterprise and opportunity instead of big-government bailouts, taxation and redistribution certainly did resonate with and appeal to many people. However, Romney failed to take into account the relatively contented nature of the American middle class or the fact that the economy was not a serious enough issue in enough people’s minds to sufficiently motivate them to replace President Obama. I think Romney should have focused primarily on the great moral issues of our time such as abortion, religious liberty, traditional marriage, and the radical secularist takeover of our country. His stances on these fundamental issues were clearly distinguished from those of Obama, but as a presidential candidate he should have articulated them more clearly and communicated them more effectively. Taking a strong stance on these moral issues and speaking out strongly about them makes good sense even from the strictly political point of view. Most Americans are pro-life, religious, Christian, and see marriage exclusively as the union of a man and a woman. Focusing on the right to life of the unborn helped sweep the Tea Party to victory in 2010. Despite raising much less money than Romney, Rick Santorum did well in the Republican presidential primary contest because he passionately defended the rights of the unborn while Romney was passionately defending his business career.
Americans know instinctively that abortion is morally wrong. It has been a uniformly negative experience for all those involved in it. It has hurt the lives of tens of millions of women, many of whom are now fervent pro-life advocates. The pro-life movement in America is now very strong and continues to grow stronger. Abortion rates are down to what they were in the 1970s and continue to decline while voters continue to enact additional state restrictions on abortion. Romney should have taken advantage of all these facts and tapped into the enormous reserve of political capital hidden in the pro-life movement and built his campaign on that, even more than President George W. Bush did. He should have spoken passionately about the horror and magnitude of the abortion holocaust, in which more than 55 million innocent Americans have been legally slaughtered over the past forty years since Roe v. Wade. He should have reminded Americans incessantly of Barack Obama’s criminal record on abortion as an Illinois state senator, as a U.S. senator and as president, and drawn attention to the unholy alliance between Planned Parenthood and the Obama administration. He should have reminded people of the draconian Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA) that President Obama promised to sign upon taking office in 2009; FOCA would have done away with all state restrictions on abortion and compelled all physicians to perform abortions (among other things), and it was only defeated by a massive outcry from the American people. He could have also fostered discussion on the broader negative impact of abortion on American society and the economy, from single-parent families and low marriage rates among young people to economic stagnation, and how things might be different if those 55 million Americans murdered in their mother’s wombs were alive today. And he should have billed himself unapologetically as the pro-life candidate for president who would work aggressively to end the scourge of legalized abortion in America forever. To his credit, Romney did pledge to defund Planned Parenthood and declared his support for overturning Roe v. Wade—two things President Bush never ventured. But had Romney given the right to life of the innocent human being in the womb the center of attention it deserves as the most important issue facing America today, I think he would have won the election.
But perhaps this was not to be expected of Mitt Romney, a wealthy businessman and politician from Massachusetts with a somewhat weak record on the crucial moral and social issues. Here we come to another reason why President Obama was re-elected: his challenger was a somewhat liberal candidate from the American political establishment who failed to present a credible conservative alternative to Barack Obama. People didn’t trust Romney and weren’t quite sure about him because of his mixed record. Had the Republicans nominated a strong candidate like Rick Santorum with impeccable conservative credentials, he would have soundly defeated Barack Obama—no question about it.
Romney was not a genuine Tea Party candidate, although we wishfully tried to make him so and although he tried to be so for us. He might have partially defunded Planned Parenthood, repealed the HHS mandate, got the economy going again, and done a few other good things for our country. However, he would not have significantly changed the dynamics of the deeply entrenched and deeply corrupt Washington political establishment, comprised of movers and shakers from Planned Parenthood and homosexual rights activists to the pharmaceutical, biotechnology and insurance industries to the big multinational corporations that run Wall Street.
That establishment—allied with the mainstream media—is what promoted Romney’s candidacy and defeated the attempts of genuine conservative candidates like Ron Paul, Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum to win the Republican presidential nomination. Such candidates, although more favored by the American people, would have upset the D.C. status quo too much. Romney bagged the Republican nomination, not because he was the most qualified candidate for president, but because he spent the most money on advertising and because he was the least threatening candidate to the Washington establishment. Romney tried to solve his conservative problem while remaining friendly with the establishment by picking a true conservative running mate. But that strategy of compromise didn’t work for him, just as it didn’t work for John McCain. Romney was Obama’s saving grace—the opposition candidate whose nomination would help assure his own re-election. Deep down this past summer, I suspected that the establishment wanted Romney nominated, and that his nomination would probably lead to a close presidential contest in which Obama would just squeak by. But I refused to listen to my hunch because I was strongly biased against Obama and willfully blind to the realities of the American political landscape as suggested by the polling data.
Ultimately, the reality of the 2012 election came down to three things: communication, compromise, and corruption. President Obama won re-election because he is a great communicator and because he’s in bed with corrupt special interests in Washington. Romney lost the election because he failed to communicate himself as well as Obama did, but he won the Republican nomination over his conservative rivals because the corrupt establishment helped him to do so. And the Tea Party movement compromised its core values and became complicit in the very corruption it decries by abandoning true conservative presidential contenders and surrendering to Romney as the only alternative to Obama.
Communication problems and Washington corruption also conspired to prevent the Tea Party from taking over the federal government in this election. The party allowed the economy to distract it from vigorously defending the right to life, traditional marriage and our nation’s fundamental Christian identity and from effectively communicating to the American people the outrage of the Obama administration’s assault on religious liberty and the First Amendment represented by the HHS mandate.
Our nation’s Founding Fathers, especially George Washington, warned that a national political party system would become a tool of corrupt special interests. Unfortunately, that is exactly what has happened. We now have corrupt private interests ruling our country through the Senate and the White House for their own private benefit instead of honest public servants who govern responsibly for the sake of the common good. The Tea Party movement came into existence precisely as a result of this situation, but it must become much stronger and more courageous if it is to achieve its goal of restoring honest and responsible government to both houses of Congress and the White House.
The corrupt Washington establishment will certainly continue doing all in its power to keep the Tea Party from gaining full control of the federal government because this would spell its own death sentence. However, the 2010 elections demonstrated that this corruption is not an insuperable obstacle to a robust popular movement whose leaders communicate effectively on the moral issues affecting our country. The Tea Party can still achieve its goal—but its future depends on whether or not it learns from the mistakes it made in 2012. If it hopes to bounce back from this defeat to victory in future elections, the Tea Party must do the following:
1. It must give pride of place to the all-important moral issues by which our nation stands or falls—especially abortion, religious liberty, marriage, and radical secularism—and it must articulate and communicate its positions on them clearly, consistently, passionately, and effectively.
2. It must remain committed to its goals of ending legalized abortion, repealing the HHS mandate and all of Obamacare, protecting traditional marriage and the nuclear family, restoring our nation’s fundamental Christian identity, and returning honest and responsible leadership to the legislative and executive branches of the federal government.
3. It must remain committed to the traditional Republican ethos of limited government, low taxes, a balanced budget, a strong national defense, and promoting a favorable climate for small businesses.
4. It must remain seriously committed to the long-term goals of abolishing the Federal Reserve, the IRS and income taxes, and restoring the value of our currency through a return to the gold standard on which our nation thrived for more than 150 years.
5. It must return to the “city on a hill” concept of the Pilgrims and Founding Fathers, i.e., to spreading freedom and democracy by the power of our example at home rather than by the force of arms abroad. In line with this principle, it must reject costly foreign wars of national liberation (e.g. Afghanistan) and aggressive “preemptive” wars to eliminate nonexistent WMD programs (e.g. Iraq and Iran)—both of which are driven by corrupt special interests—and commit to bringing all of our troops home and keeping them home to defend our coastlines and borders.
6. It must remain faithful to the above stated core principles—above all to the moral ones in items 1 and 2—and firmly resist the temptation to compromise any of them for short-term political gain. This means it must not back establishment candidates or proposals that are at odds with any of its core principles. This also means that it must clearly distinguish itself from the corrupt Republican/Democratic political establishment currently in control of Washington.
This election has certainly taught us some painful lessons: Moral issues go in first place. Communication is critical. Corruption controls Washington. Compromise is the short road to ruin. And wishful thinking is no substitute for reality. We’d do well to keep these lessons in mind when the next election seasons roll around in 2014 and 2016.
Copyright © 2012 Justin D. Soutar. All rights reserved.
Friday, November 9, 2012
Another Four Years of the Obama Nightmare
Sadly, President Obama--the most radically secularist and pro-abortion president in American history who has dared to attack our fundamental religious liberties and conscience rights with the monstrosity known as Obamacare while utterly neglecting to help the average American deal with the worst recession in 80 years--has managed to pull re-election out of the hat with 50 percent of the American popular vote to 48 percent for Romney.
This isn't just a defeat for Mitt Romney--it's a defeat for the innocent unborn, a defeat for religious liberty, a defeat for traditional marriage, a defeat for our economy and jobs, a defeat for responsible limited government and lower taxes, a defeat for our Constitution, and a defeat for the Christian moral and ethical values that made America great.
Our nation is in big trouble. God help us.
This isn't just a defeat for Mitt Romney--it's a defeat for the innocent unborn, a defeat for religious liberty, a defeat for traditional marriage, a defeat for our economy and jobs, a defeat for responsible limited government and lower taxes, a defeat for our Constitution, and a defeat for the Christian moral and ethical values that made America great.
Our nation is in big trouble. God help us.
Monday, November 5, 2012
Tomorrow is Election Day
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This is a pivotal election in American history. The right to life of the innocent unborn, our religious liberties and conscience rights, traditional marriage, our economy, and the future of our country are on the line. We can't just sit idly by and watch our nation go to the dogs. Edmund Burke once said, "All that is needed for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." In our case, all that is needed for the triumph of evil is that good people fail to exercise their right to vote.
As Catholics and as American citizens, it's our duty to God, our neighbor and our country to vote for candidates who stand for what we believe in.
Let's do it.
Monday, February 6, 2012
Just a Few Thoughts About the Presidential Race
I haven't turned out many articles lately because I've been occupied with the Mother Teresa book and some other things. Nonetheless, I've been thinking about and reflecting a little on what's going on in our country lately, specifically the 2012 race for the presidency which is heating up right now. That's where a blog post comes in: it's a great place to share your random thoughts on a specific topic without having to organize them into a formal article. So here I'd like to share just a few of my thoughts on the presidential campaign.
When I checked the news this morning, I saw the story about former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney winning the Republican primary in Nevada. The mainstream media is making it look like Romney has already clinched the nomination and has "crushed" his rivals. Even before the Nevada election, they produced a poll showing Romney favored by 50 percent of likely voters and Gingrich by 25 percent--a 25-point difference between the two candidates. In the actual election, Romney won 44 percent of the vote, Gingrich 26 percent. That's only an 18-point difference. I get the sense that the mainstream media is pushing Romney and trying to ruin the other contenders, especially Newt Gingrich but also Ron Paul and Rick Santorum. Why? Well, for one thing, I think it's because Mr. Romney is a great friend of the Establishment--what our founding fathers called the "moneyed interests." For years now, major corporate enterprises in this country have been manipulating our government (both parties), the economy and the media to promote their own interests. The American people are fed up with this corrupt setup and they want real change, hence the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street movements. But the Establishment hangs on tenaciously and won't give up without a fight. Its members have come up with a pretty smart plan to keep their sinking enterprise afloat: Hey, lots of Americans are unhappy with President Obama, so let's promote a Republican alternative to Obama who is a friend of ours. That way, whether he gets elected or Obama gets reelected, we'll be safe. On the other hand, Gingrich, Paul, and Santorum are friends of the American people, and each represents a threat to the Establishment in some way. All three are staunchly pro-life and anti-Obamacare, which threatens the abortion, pharmaceutical and insurance industries; in addition to that, Paul would abolish the Federal Reserve and income taxes, dramatically downsize the federal government, and end our foreign wars, which would utterly destroy the Establishment. Paul and Gingrich have huge followings, so the mainstream media, which is controlled by the Establishment, is going to do everything it can to try to keep those men from getting anywhere near the White House.
Another reason Romney gets so much media attention is because he is very media savvy and has a lot of money to spend on marketing himself. This guy is not just a politician; he's a practiced businessman, a self-made multimillionaire, and he knows how to sell a product and make mincemeat of the competition. In this case, he's trying to sell himself to the American people as the best candidate for president, spending tens of millions of dollars on glossy ads to exalt himself and push his rivals out of the way. He's very slick and polished. Romney is a rich man, but I have serious doubts about whether he is an honest man. Please forgive my frankness, but Romney seems fake to me. His Establishment connections (notably the one with Obamacare) make him a definite enemy of the Tea Party. As a pro-life president, Romney would be a significant improvement over Obama, but beyond that, I don't see how his presidency would differ much from that of Obama's. When you get down to the important issues facing our country, Romney is surprisingly vague on many of them. His plan for rebuilding our economy, for instance, remains a mystery to me. (Perhaps I need a course in Romneynomics--can anybody out there help?)
On the other hand, Ron Paul has a fine reputation as an absolutely 100 percent honest and consistent man, a man of integrity and truthfulness, who is not part of the Establishment and never has been--and that's saying a lot in today's corrupt political environment. Predictably, that dooms him to chronic mainstream media blackout. However, because of his reputation, Paul still manages to raise millions of dollars through the use of alternative media, especially the Internet. I don't agree with all of his issue positions, but I think a Paul presidency would be enormously beneficial for our country, getting us back to the Constitution and in line with what our founding fathers intended. The reality, though, is that he probably won't win the Republican nomination for president getting "only" 15 or 20 percent of the primary vote in each state.
I think our best choice this primary season is to get behind Newt Gingrich for president. Although he has a few Establishment connections, he is an honest and consistent man like Paul, which can be verified by checking his thirty-year-long voting record. He is a representative of the Tea Party on the issues. He would defeat Barack Obama, defund Planned Parenthood, repeal this Obamacare monstrosity, cut taxes and downsize the government. That's good enough for me. And I believe there is a good chance--despite all of Romney's money and connections and show-biz glitter--that Newt will eventually overtake Romney and win his party's nomination for president. There are still forty-five state primaries left, and I think he can do it. In short, I think this is a classic case of Mother Angelica's axiom, "Don't let the perfect get in the way of the good." Ron Paul is the perfect, Newt Gingrich is the good. The bitter irony is that if we try to hold out for the perfect, taking support away from Gingrich and giving it to Paul, we may wind up with Mitt Romney as the next president of the United States.
When I checked the news this morning, I saw the story about former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney winning the Republican primary in Nevada. The mainstream media is making it look like Romney has already clinched the nomination and has "crushed" his rivals. Even before the Nevada election, they produced a poll showing Romney favored by 50 percent of likely voters and Gingrich by 25 percent--a 25-point difference between the two candidates. In the actual election, Romney won 44 percent of the vote, Gingrich 26 percent. That's only an 18-point difference. I get the sense that the mainstream media is pushing Romney and trying to ruin the other contenders, especially Newt Gingrich but also Ron Paul and Rick Santorum. Why? Well, for one thing, I think it's because Mr. Romney is a great friend of the Establishment--what our founding fathers called the "moneyed interests." For years now, major corporate enterprises in this country have been manipulating our government (both parties), the economy and the media to promote their own interests. The American people are fed up with this corrupt setup and they want real change, hence the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street movements. But the Establishment hangs on tenaciously and won't give up without a fight. Its members have come up with a pretty smart plan to keep their sinking enterprise afloat: Hey, lots of Americans are unhappy with President Obama, so let's promote a Republican alternative to Obama who is a friend of ours. That way, whether he gets elected or Obama gets reelected, we'll be safe. On the other hand, Gingrich, Paul, and Santorum are friends of the American people, and each represents a threat to the Establishment in some way. All three are staunchly pro-life and anti-Obamacare, which threatens the abortion, pharmaceutical and insurance industries; in addition to that, Paul would abolish the Federal Reserve and income taxes, dramatically downsize the federal government, and end our foreign wars, which would utterly destroy the Establishment. Paul and Gingrich have huge followings, so the mainstream media, which is controlled by the Establishment, is going to do everything it can to try to keep those men from getting anywhere near the White House.
Another reason Romney gets so much media attention is because he is very media savvy and has a lot of money to spend on marketing himself. This guy is not just a politician; he's a practiced businessman, a self-made multimillionaire, and he knows how to sell a product and make mincemeat of the competition. In this case, he's trying to sell himself to the American people as the best candidate for president, spending tens of millions of dollars on glossy ads to exalt himself and push his rivals out of the way. He's very slick and polished. Romney is a rich man, but I have serious doubts about whether he is an honest man. Please forgive my frankness, but Romney seems fake to me. His Establishment connections (notably the one with Obamacare) make him a definite enemy of the Tea Party. As a pro-life president, Romney would be a significant improvement over Obama, but beyond that, I don't see how his presidency would differ much from that of Obama's. When you get down to the important issues facing our country, Romney is surprisingly vague on many of them. His plan for rebuilding our economy, for instance, remains a mystery to me. (Perhaps I need a course in Romneynomics--can anybody out there help?)
On the other hand, Ron Paul has a fine reputation as an absolutely 100 percent honest and consistent man, a man of integrity and truthfulness, who is not part of the Establishment and never has been--and that's saying a lot in today's corrupt political environment. Predictably, that dooms him to chronic mainstream media blackout. However, because of his reputation, Paul still manages to raise millions of dollars through the use of alternative media, especially the Internet. I don't agree with all of his issue positions, but I think a Paul presidency would be enormously beneficial for our country, getting us back to the Constitution and in line with what our founding fathers intended. The reality, though, is that he probably won't win the Republican nomination for president getting "only" 15 or 20 percent of the primary vote in each state.
I think our best choice this primary season is to get behind Newt Gingrich for president. Although he has a few Establishment connections, he is an honest and consistent man like Paul, which can be verified by checking his thirty-year-long voting record. He is a representative of the Tea Party on the issues. He would defeat Barack Obama, defund Planned Parenthood, repeal this Obamacare monstrosity, cut taxes and downsize the government. That's good enough for me. And I believe there is a good chance--despite all of Romney's money and connections and show-biz glitter--that Newt will eventually overtake Romney and win his party's nomination for president. There are still forty-five state primaries left, and I think he can do it. In short, I think this is a classic case of Mother Angelica's axiom, "Don't let the perfect get in the way of the good." Ron Paul is the perfect, Newt Gingrich is the good. The bitter irony is that if we try to hold out for the perfect, taking support away from Gingrich and giving it to Paul, we may wind up with Mitt Romney as the next president of the United States.
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