Where’s Lumpy?

In my “GOP Comeback Fail” post, I lampooned Saul Anuzis, GOP-chair-wannabe, for spamming me with an email call-to-arms littered with Twitter, Facebook, etc. links.  The email suggested that one of the GOP’s problems is that it failed to leverage technology to reach voters.  To drive home the point, the email included a broken link to Mr. Anuzis own website.

Todd from When In The Course bet me 10 bucks in the comments section that Mr. Anuzis, as a Michigan Republican, favors the auto bailout.  I didn’t take him up on that bet, and it’s a good thing.  In his “Open Letter to the GOP” ( <– unlike the one spammed to me, this one actually works), Mr. Anuzis opines:

We were once the party of fiscal responsibility. But when members of our own party led the way in pork barrel spending, which led to the fattest federal budget in history, America lost faith in our party.

And we were once the party that had convinced America that we “shared their values”. But when Republican after Republican was exposed as a hypocrite that said one thing on the campaign trail and behaved a different way in their personal life, America lost faith in our party.

Surely Mr. Anuzis would do the fiscally responsible thing and not saddle the rest of the country with bailing out the Big Three.  Surely he’d be against lobbying for pork barrel benefits to his Michigan constituency.  If he did, he’d be exposed as a hypocrite, right?

Here is Saul Anuzis’ hypocrisy in the pages of the Wall Street Journal for all the world to see:

Michigan today is facing a crisis that is more severe than the troubles afflicting the economy as a whole. Since 2000, employment in the state’s auto sector has been cut in half, manufacturing employment is down by one third, and total wage and salary employment has fallen by one-tenth. If Detroit’s Big Three auto makers collapse, as many as three million jobs nationwide, mostly in the Midwest, could be lost.

Getting down to the nub of it, the proposed auto-maker bailout is an opportunity for leadership. Along with a cash infusion, to really affect a turnaround Congress must also provide relief from arbitrary, conflicting and counterproductive regulations that hamstring our auto makers. I’m thinking of Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards, but there are others. Regulatory reform should be a no-brainer for an industry in crisis, which means it’s up to Republicans to fight for it.

Mr. Anuzis, you are the problem with the Republican Party.  You are a big-spending, pork-barrel-begging, hypocrite.  Don’t worry, though, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid have your back.

Thanks Todd.  I owe you $10, not because I lost the bet, but for the blog fodder.

The outgoing administration used the “war on terror” as its excuse for reckless deficit spending.

The president-elect tells us that with the economy in shambles, now’s not the time to worry about the deficit.

The war cycle and the boom-and-bust cycle don’t leave us much window for addressing the deficit, do they?

How I got on his mailing list, I have no idea, but I got an email from Saul Anuzis, head of the Michigan Republican Party, entitled “The Comeback Starts Now!”  It starts off with this:

Anuzis Launches Bid For RNC Chair

MI GOP Chairman uses Twitter, Facebook and YouTube to announce RNC bid. Says Republicans must embrace modern communication tools. Return to core ideals, principles key to GOP comeback.
Lansing, MI – November 12, 2008

Saul Anuzis, chairman of the Michigan Republican Party, today launched his bid for Republican National Committee chairman on his Twitter, Facebook and YouTube pages, a move designed to illustrate that the GOP must embrace social networks and new media to communicate its core principles and ideals to America.

Apparently Mr. Anuzis thinks the reason the GOP got thrashed was that they weren’t technically savvy enough, so just below that the email includes big Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube logos.

Mr. Anuzis calls himself an “unabashed Reagan conservative” (who in the GOP doesn’t?) in the email, and opines that “When the Republican Party once again returns to our core values and beliefs, and can again convince America that we can be trusted on those issues, we will make a comeback – stronger than ever.”

Saul Anuzis also called for Ron Paul, the only real conservative (perhaps “classical liberal” is the better term) in the primary debates, to be excluded from the primary debates for daring to suggest to Comrade Giuliani that maybe US foreign policy had something to do with 9/11.

So, just to recap, the problem isn’t that the Republicans strayed from their core principles, it’s that they’ve forgotten what those core principles ever were, and oh yeah, they weren’t technically savvy enough.  They’ve got to learn to reach out to all those crazy kids with their Twitters, Facebooks, and Run-D.M.C. albums!

The email also contains a link to “An Open Letter to Republicans” on Mr. Anuzis’ site.  Curious, I clicked on it, and got a heaping helping of delicious irony.

GOP Comeback Fail

He’s off to a GREAT start.  Apparently Mr. Anuzis’ team has no more clue about technology than Mr. Anuzis himself has about the real reasons the GOP took a beating.

From Bloomberg:

The Federal Reserve is refusing to identify the recipients of almost $2 trillion of emergency loans from American taxpayers or the troubled assets the central bank is accepting as collateral.

Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said in September they would comply with congressional demands for transparency in a $700 billion bailout of the banking system. Two months later, as the Fed lends far more than that in separate rescue programs that didn’t require approval by Congress, Americans have no idea where their money is going or what securities the banks are pledging in return.

…

Bloomberg News has requested details of the Fed lending under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act and filed a federal lawsuit Nov. 7 seeking to force disclosure.

Good for Bloomberg.  Perhaps Michael has an ulterior political motive here, but inquiring minds do want to know.

Of course, not everyone thinks transparency is a good idea.  Exhibit A, Barney Frank:

In an interview Nov. 6, House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank said the Fed’s disclosure is sufficient and that the risk the central bank is taking on is appropriate in the current economic climate. Frank said he has discussed the program with Timothy F. Geithner, president and chief executive officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and a possible candidate to succeed Paulson as Treasury secretary.

“I talk to Geithner and he was pretty sure that they’re OK,” said Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat. “If the risk is that the Fed takes a little bit of a haircut, well that’s regrettable.” Such losses would be acceptable, he said, if the program helps revive the economy.

Barney, Barney, Barney, you just don’t get it.  If you think that the public trusts you and Geithner, you’re delusional.  We’re not worried that the Fed will “take a haircut.”  We’ve suspected all along that your proven ineptitude, coupled with the Fed’s uncontrolled power, is a recipe for theft.  Get this through your thick head:  the US Constitution requires full accounting of public funds.

No money shall be drawn from the treasury but in consequence of appropriations made by law; and a regular statement and account of the receipts and expenditures of all public money shall be published from time to time.  (United States Constitution, Article I, Section 9)

I’d like to say that I’m glad this entire election will all be over tomorrow, so we can end this sorry charade and take the beating that’s coming to us.  It might not be over for a long time, as tales of overwhelmed polls, long lines, voter (and voter registration) fraud, and computer glitches dominate the headlines and cast doubts on the outcome.  The “Obama nation” of freshly registered young voters might hand the far left a margin of victory beyond their wildest dreams; or, the time-tested definition of a “likely voter” as someone who has actually voted in recent elections might prevail, and keep it close.  The extent of the “Bradley/Wilder effect” will be debated, whatever happens.  The mainstream media might be skewed in its predictions of an Obama victory, or it might be portraying the race as closer than it is to keep us coming back to gawk at the headlines.  McCain might win small, or Obama could win big.  If you’re looking for predictions, you’ve come to the wrong place.  I only know this:  if McCain does somehow pull it out, the far left will go ballistic.

The prospect of Democratic control of the White House, the Senate, and the House is as bleak as it gets.  With rumors of SCOTUS justices set to retire, we’ll certainly risk the appointments of new justices with expansive views of the Constitution – making defective rulings like Roe v. Wade and Kelo v. New London all the more commonplace.  President Obama might have his hands full smacking Pelosi’s and Reid’s hands out of the cookie jar (your wallet) in trying to keep his campaign promises of a middle class tax cut, if indeed candidate Obama ever intended to honor those promises in the first place.  According to his commercials, Obama intends to pay for his big-government schemes by diverting those $10 billion a month we’re spending in Iraq.  Translation: federal spending will remain at the same unsustainable levels; we’ll just be spending it on other stuff, and digging ourselves deeper in debt.  We might end this adventure in Iraq, only to be drawn into others in Iran and Pakistan besides.  How are we going to pay for that?

In the other corner, we have John McCain, self-styled maverick with friends on both sides of the aisle.  His supporters despise him less than they outright fear Obama.  The base loves Palin, not because they’ve been following her exploits for years, but because she’s not pro-abortion Tom Ridge, and she’s most certainly not dead-wrong-on-every-single-issue Joe Lieberman.  If they blur their eyes and squint hard enough, she’s just enough to convince the Republican base that they haven’t been abandoned.  For this, they’ll vote for McCain tomorrow.  As I’m a pro-life evangelical Christian, they expect and beg me to do the same thing.

I suppose I have some ‘splainin to do.

This is the same John McCain who called evangelicals “agents of intolerance,” and who got Senator Arlen Specter to call my house this just this evening proudly affirming their mutual support for embryonic stem cell research.  This is the same John McCain who tested the wisdom of naming pro-abortion Tom Ridge to the undercard, not against his own principles, but against public opinion, with this little trial balloon:

“And also I feel that – and I’m not trying to equivocate here – that Americans want us to work together,” he added. “You know, Tom Ridge is one of the great leaders, and he happens to be pro-choice. And I don’t think that that would necessarily rule Tom Ridge out.”

This is John McCain of the McCain-Feingold campaign censorship fame.  We want to trust him to appoint strict constructionists to the courts to interpret the Constitution, while McCain himself shows a stunning disregard for that document and the liberties enshrined in it.  I yield to George F. Will on this one (emphasis mine):

McCain, co-author of the McCain-Feingold law that abridges the right of free political speech, has referred disparagingly to, as he puts it, “quote ‘First Amendment rights.’ ” Now he dismissively speaks of “so-called, quote ‘habeas corpus suits.’ ” He who wants to reassure constitutionalist conservatives that he understands the importance of limited government should be reminded why the habeas right has long been known as “the great writ of liberty.”

The same John McCain who so ardently supports the Patriot Act might well be transferring that unprecedented and unconstitutional authority to President Obama’s administration in a few months.

He who effectively paints Obama as a lightweight on diplomacy for his willingness to negotiate with the leaders of our enemies believes that our interests can best be protected through humor.  His idea of effective diplomacy is to sing “Bomb Iran” on the record.  When told of the export surplus of cigarettes to Iran, he opined “Maybe that’s a way of killing them.”  That’s the steady hand of statecraft for you.  If I wanted a conservative comedian in the White House, I’d vote for Dennis Miller.

The same John McCain who wants us to believe he’s a small government conservative, bent on cutting wasteful spending and corporate welfare, dutifully tore himself away from the campaign trail to lobby for the $700 billion bailout, a redistribution of wealth on a grand scale.  He met Joe Lieberman at the capitol tram station, and together with Obama they gave Hank Paulson more money than he knows what to do with.  They shoved so much money down PNC Bank’s throat that PNC went out and bought National City.

What about Sarah Palin?  Governor Palin was viciously attacked by the yammering left, and I’ve defended her against them.  The fact that she’s been unjustly persecuted doesn’t count as a qualification for office.  The state she governs has a population less than 1.5 times that of my ancestral home, Lancaster County PA, Amish buggies and all.  She has a zero experience in DC, and only a vague idea of what the Vice President actually does.  In theory, I like the idea of an outsider reforming Washington, but she’s got no chance.

I’ve heard that in picking Palin, McCain committed himself more than he knows to placating the base, should he be elected.  Hogwash.  McCain cherishes his maverick persona above all else.  His ties to Lieberman and other Congressional Democrats and RINOs run deep; he met Sarah Palin only once or twice before he named her to his ticket.  As chief executive, whose advice will he take?  A public spat between him and his VP would only end badly for the VP.  If the lurid accounts of a campaign rift between the maverick and the “whack job diva” who has “gone rogue” are credible, that kind of spat is likely to spill over into their first term.  The maverick has more motivation to marginalize the diva, tout de suite, should he win tomorrow (alliteration FTW!)

My earliest recollection of political dialog is some big kid teaching me to chant “Ford, Ford, he’s our man, Carter belongs in the garbage can” on the school bus.  That kind of polarized sloganeering is fine for first grade, but it’s time to grow up and admit that it’s precisely what serves up tomorrow’s wretched Sophie’s choice.  I don’t buy this crap that I’m somehow obligated to vote for either McCain or Obama, or to vote for anyone at all.  It’s dangerously easy to make an idol out of a candidate, and I freely admit it’s just as easy to idolize a perfect candidate that doesn’t exist.  Still, enough’s enough.  If Pennsylvania’s ballot laws weren’t so hostile to third-party candidates, I might be able to vote for PA native son Chuck Baldwin of the Constitution Party.  As it is, I’m with Lew Rockwell, withholding my vote so as not to legitimize either McCain’s or Obama’s presidency:

You might say that this is ineffective. But what effect does voting have? It gives them what they need most: a mandate. Nonparticipation helps deny that to them. It makes them, just on the margin, a bit more fearful that they are ruling us without our consent. This is all to the good. The government should fear the people. Not voting is a good beginning toward instilling that fear.

This year especially there is no lesser of two evils. There is socialism or fascism. The true American spirit should guide every voter to have no part of either.

I will cast a vote in other local races where the choices are less revolting.  Representative Gerlach, don’t get your hopes up.  You failed us on the bailout, and I fervently hope to see you removed from office.