Rick Santorum and the conservative right are the reason the GOP lost the last election.  They refused to back the agreed upon front-runner.  They did not work for him after he was chosen and they refused to vote for him on election day.  The conservative right complains that the left will not cooperate but it is equally true of them.  Santorum attacked Romney so viciously that Rick couldn’t honestly overcome the visceral nature of his attacks.  So, he and his followers and moneyed backers simply licked their wounds and went home sulking to come out and fight again this time.  The same is true of Gingrich, Ron Paul, (not Rand) and of most other conservatives.  Limbaugh, Hannity and Levin never really backed the agreed upon candidate.  Limbaugh eventually agreed that although Romney was not really a Limbaugh conservative (and therefore, not really conservative enough) nonetheless, Limbaugh agreed that Romney was the best Republicans had.  It was a veiled rejection of Romney, I believe.  Hannity, never really backed Romney until the very end, and then only with the same caveats as Limbaugh.  Levin, the same.  I guess, you need to believe, like Obama does, that you are the only person who is right and pure and righteous.  I guess you need to believe that the 595 members elected to the Congress by the people are the enemy.  And, like Obama, you can rule the nation with your selected ideas, subjecting the people to your imperial will.  So, here we go again with various factions of the electorate rallying to their narrowly defined “preferred” candidates…all good,  that is the American way….but if the Republicans agree to one of them at the convention and then the factions refuse to work for the candidate, refuse to donate and just go home, sulk and refuse to vote, then the Republicans will lose again.

The good news is that the Republican party is a society of thinkers, poets, progressives, moderates, liberals, conservatives, libertarians, and many others.  It is not a party of single minded thinking and locked in step obedience to the leader.  The Republican party is a true reflection of the American people who are themselves a people with varying opinions, religions and political philosophies.  The Republican party are fighters for their beliefs.  This also is good news because we need people of conviction willing to wrestle for their positions in the public square of ideas.  Sadly, this writer believes, that the Democrat party is of one mind.  It is the mind that is defined by the leadership and to which all Democrats bow.  The Democrat party is not reflective of the variety of positions within the populace.  Oh yes, individual Democrats may personally believe this or that idea, or think that this or that method is better than the one officially endorsed by the party.  But the Democrat will always support the official position of the party no matter their own personal beliefs.  This locked in step obedience to the party is why Democrat Senators and Congress persons were willing to pass Obama- care without reading it.  They were told by “you cannot know what is in the bill until you pass it…” Nancy Pelosi and “Dead on Arrival if it does not agree with me” Harry Reid…that they must vote yes.  And all Democrats did as they were told to do.  Obama and the Democrat party leadership said to jump and they responded, “how high and how fast?”.  It didn’t matter if the Democrat person thought that Obama-care was good or bad.  The only thing that mattered was the decision of the Democrat party leadership.  That decision was to be obeyed without question.

Too bad for America that our people seem to think that absolute obedience to the Democrat party leaders is better than public debate, public wrestling and public disagreement.  We are a people growing too willing to live in the cartoon world of Barney and Dora and the Disneyland of fairy tales without any difficult characters. Is that the result of the Disney iszation (I know it is not a word) of our society?  Some say, we are becoming too soft minded, all messy inside our heads.  Some say, that males are being tamed and “feminized” and that the wilderness character of people like Davey Crochett, Kit Carson, Abraham Lincoln, Lewis and Clarke is lost.  In response, the tea party movement has tried to revive interest in our founders, such as Thomas Jefferson, Samuel Adams, George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison- seeing in them the successful nation that arose from their religious, philosophical and political struggles.

America today is facing an election for the House and Senate.  Hopefully, there will be lively and vibrant debate.  However, it must be a debate about ideas.  The presentations must be cogent, coherent and convincing.  The facts must be true and not created by “talking point” mentors who tell our politicians what to say to which group today, only to slightly modify it for the next group tomorrow.  And there absolutely must be an end to name calling, stereotyping, and feigned co-opting which has been so readily apparent with Obama, who says that Republicans must cooperate with him because he wants to cooperate with them, but, the same day, he tells the crowds that the Republicans are recalcitrant, red necked, backward and obstructionist who are to be blamed for everything from the state of the economy to the state of the weather.  (Did you notice how adroitly the Democrat party crafted the narrative that hurricane Katrina was the fault of the Republicans.  Katrina was President Bush’s hurricane and by careful inference, they said that all of results of Katrina were his fault.  And have you noticed that Mayor Nagin, the Democrat hero of Katrina, fled to Texas during the storm and is now under Louisiana and federal indictment for criminal activity before, during and after Katrina?  Amazing, to this writer, that Nagin’s  indictment is getting meager coverage by the major news media!!)

The run up to the 2014 election must reject the prevalent immorality of our Obama administration which evidently knew that Benghazi was a well planned terrorist attack against our embassy with the intention of murdering our ambassador, yet went to the United Nations and blamed it on an amateur You Tube video.  The 2014 election debates must refuse to accept the concept that our UN Ambassador must be promoted to the  National Security Council  because she obediently went on the Sunday Talk Shows and repeated the lie that the Obama Administration wanted all of us to believe.  We must reject political advertising that portrays people like Congressman Ryan as pushing our wheel-chaired grandmothers over the cliff.  And most certainly, we must reject the guilt be association that blames Hilary for President Clinton’s having oral sex with a young female White House intern. And we must also reject life style morality debates, especially over gay and lesbian and transgender issues.  However, as least for this writer, I do think that the place of these issues in the public school curriculum and the methods and age appropriateness of what is taught about these issues,- I believe, these to be legitimate issues for research and high level discussion and debate.  Yes, even political debate, although it is all too often not high level.

Finally, I’d like to make a simple statement about the race issue.  It should be a non issue.  As long as we keep it in the forefront as an issue, then racism continues.  Do we see a yellow man or a man who’s ancestry is Asian?  Do we see a black woman, or a woman who’s ancestry is black skinned.  What is an African anyway?  Egyptians, Libyans, Moroccan’s, Tunisians are Africans but they are not black.  Is African a racial characteristic?  Do we really want to say that it is?  Is it accurate?  Is Africa a continent or a country?  Is a Nigerian the same ethnicity as a Congolese? What is black, anyway?  Is it a racial characteristic?  Do we really want to say that it is?  Is it accurate? New Guinea aboriginals are black but they are not African.  Many peoples in India are dark brown or even black skinned but they too are not Africans.  I know Italian friends who get really dark skinned in the Summer.   The race debate is meaningless and President Obama, who thinks that many American citizens reject him because he is black skinned, is not helping.  I remember when the Cambridge Massachusetts police arrested a university professor.  President Obama said openly that the white policeman acted wrongly.  Obviously, our President saw it as a racial issue because he cast it as a white policeman acting wrongly against a black university professor.  That was the start of racial division politics from then till now.

Ok, I think I have wandered a little in this blog.  But at least it is out there for you to read, ponder and respond, if you care to engage.

There is a lot a stake in our nation.  We are under going a national wrestling match which may result in a “pin” or a technical win.  But to use another metaphor, it will not result in a knock out punch.  Nor should it.  Because a pin in wrestling is a win of strength that does not unduly hurt nor seek to destroy the opponent.  A knock out is a knock out. ( Yes, I know this is not the best analogy. If you care for another share it.!  I just hope you get the idea.)  I think we need to wrestle with each other but we do not need a fist fight  and definitely not a brawl.