I never thought our first African American President would be the one to bring back slavery. But obviously I’m no psychic.

In a hideously underpublicized clause of Barack Obama’s plans for his first term, one I wasn’t even aware of until yesterday, there is word of a mandatory service initiative, a “calling on” of all American citizens to donate a certain amount of time per year to community projects. Every middle and high school student will be required to do 50 hours, and every college student will be required to do 100 hours per year of enrollment. Retiring citizens, age 55 and over, will be “encouraged” to serve in programs appropriate for their age group, and all other citizens will be pushed to join one of the many programs Obama wants to either grow or start up, namely the Peace Corps, Health Corps, Clean Energy Corps, Veteran Corps, Head Start, and Youth Build.

Note that I am not anti-community service. I have done a decent share of it throughout my life, starting with making layettes in my dad’s Crisis Pregnancy Center office to participating in Walk for Life to giving 17 inches of my hair to Locks of Love to tutoring, and I don’t plan on being an stingy, uncharitable adult in the years between now and my death. Charity is good. Community service is good. People should do it.

But requirement? Not only does this completely contradict the very heart of charity, it is borderline slavery. The government cannot control our time and our good deeds. We are not indentured by our citizenship. If a legal adult does not want to do community service, that’s a legitimate choice. It is none of anyone else’s business. We’re being treated like criminals, but instead of a court-ordered service to compensate for a misdemeanor, it’s a government mandate to further a socialist, false utopian agenda.

Did I mention the bribery involved? Obama is offering a $4,000 tax credit to be applied directly to a college student’s tuition should he or she complete the 100 annual hours of community service (overall, $1,000 per year for the average student). This promise 1) negates the term “charity” and 2) forces American taxpayers to shove out payment for work that would have otherwise been done by true volunteers at no cost. Even as a college student who could certainly use an extra 4k in my UNC account, I think this idea is ludicrous and backwards.

While change.gov has made some slight alterations to the careful wording of the “Service” paragraph, eliminating the word “require” that appeared frequently in the first published draft, the principle is the same, as is the underlying problem: we are being turned into the government’s slaves.

Time to re-excavate the Underground Railroad, huh?

I’ve been trying to find the right message for my first post-election essay. Looking for the perfect words, the most moving theme, what people need to hear. I’ve been riding on a seismograph of emotion, up from crying on the phone with my mom to angry debating with a stranger in the dorm lounge, down to denial and shock, and finally finding a positive medium where I can find contentedness in my faith in America’s resilience. My father encouraged me with a reminder of my own strength and that of my political brethren. We have been hurt, there’s no doubt, but we’re not dead.

I know that my party is not done. While we’re going to have it rough for a few years, fighting to balance seemingly unchecked liberal control in all three branches of the government, we can do it. We should’ve known all along that we’d never go down without a fight; this election was just one round in a series of many matches to come. Let’s call it a warm-up. We are going to regroup after this loss, pick up our things, center ourselves, and move on. We will use this defeat as a wakeup call, alerting our members with a call of duty. We have a job to do now, and it’s time to get to work.

All we need is a strong leader to emerge. That has been our downfall over the past few years, no impressive orator, no head honcho, no Reagans or Buckleys or Lincolns. I don’t know who it will be or where the person will come from, but I’ll be looking. Maybe Palin, maybe someone we haven’t heard from yet, maybe someone we won’t expect. No matter who it is, the bottom line is that this person needs to make him or herself known soon. In the meantime, the rest of us need to man up, get together in our towns, and prepare our revolution.

If you’re a conservative reading this, you know exactly what I’m talking about and you’re with me. If you’re a liberal reading this, you think I’m crazy. But you’re not my audience right now, so that’s ok. This is a message to Sean Hannity’s “Conservative Underground.” We’re in it together, and we’re going to win. It has started already. Walking to my first class this morning, I had an unspoken bond with everyone I passed wearing black. We’d nod a somber nod to one another, and no one else seemed to see it. If secrecy and stealth missions are the future of the Republican Party, so be it. We’re good at stuff like that.

As scared as I am for the future of our country and of our party, I am hopeful, because I know how strong we are. We have stood against evil before and won, and those are the battles that trained us. Our courage has been fortified in the fires of war, our faith is founded in God’s will, and our characters have been tested, more tryingly in recent months than perhaps ever before, and have passed with flying colors. Our patriotism is not this easily snuffed, and we know that America is the greatest nation on earth, one well worth the battle ahead of us. We have fought for Her glory before. We will do it again, starting today.

Do not be discouraged. Instead, take this as a warning of things to come if we continue to do nothing. If we all still want prosperity and peace and reform, failure is not an option at this point. Dress your wounds and come with me.

While we’ve still got the right to bear them, I’m bellowing a call to arms. Republicans of America: It’s go time.

This is the third shift in a row that I've spent hours sitting at our customer kiosk with absolutely nothing to do. There are no customers now, there haven't been since I got here two hours ago, and there probably won't be for the next two hours I have to stay awake through before I go home. I'm bored out of my mind.

So I took the opportunity to think. And if you know me at all, you know my mind wandered to politics. With only four days until the election, this whole economic recession thing is just now hitting me. I knew it was bad, but I didn't see it affecting me too strongly. After all, I'm poor, I have no stock or investments, no 401K, no business ownership in jeopardy, and I'm just a kid. I thought I'd be immune from the aftermath of an economy gone sour, but the silence in this empty Best Buy is screaming otherwise.

If we fall into recession, it's affecting every single one of us. Companies, even huge ones like the one I work for, will have to budget labor hours into such scarcity as to lay off employees left and right. I'm new at this store, so if my department needs to trim the fat, I'm the first to go. I wouldn't be able to find another job because no one would be hiring. I'd run out of money fast. I wouldn't be able to buy food for myself or help pay my college bills or put gas in my car. I would have no idea what to do.

What about everyone else? The people who have to pay rent every month and feed their kids and keep the electricity on? Their collectors will come to call much faster than mine if their money runs out. The pending recession became a frightening reality to me tonight. And what is further frightening is the idea that this recession is signed, sealed, and delivered if Obama wins on Tuesday.

Every other time in history that the U.S. has neared recession and subsequently raised taxes, economic doom has followed. Obama has been pressed on this and has stuttered nonesense about how this time it won't happen. Because he's just awesome enough to defy historical fact.

Here's the bottom line: When Obama's tax promises go into effect, any hope of economic well being plummets. It goes right down the drain. Unemployment will skyrocket. My own might contribute to that figure, as might yours. So on Tuesday, please vote McCain, and then come buy a cell phone from Best Buy. I'll thank you twice for double-insuring my job security.

At the KNUS News/Talk Rally I attended last Monday, Dennis Prager cited a research study that found out some interesting things about the correlation between political affiliation and self-rated happiness. The Pew Research Center performed an objective survey of just over 3,000 Americans, 34% of which rated themselves as very happy. Regular churchgoers ranked happier than non-churchgoers, dog and cat owners rated the same, African Americans were the least happy race of all minorities, and married people were surprisingly happier than the single. But what I found most interesting as I looked closely into this study was the difference between Republican and Democrat happiness.

Only 30% of Democrats called themselves very happy, compared to 45% of Republicans.
Statistically, we’re the more joyful party. A Democrat may accuse that that’s because we’re the ones swimming around in our pools of blood and oil money or that we feel euphoric stomping our big, greedy feet all over the impoverished or that ignorance really is bliss.

I don’t particularly like any of those theories. Prager summed it up nicely: Republicans, he said, are happier because we feel we are in control of our own lives. We are not the puppets of big government or the victims of too much control. Democrats feel that their happiness is out of their own hands. They vote for over-taxation and restrictions on the market and less choice in health care and education and don’t realize that these are the things that contribute feeling like nothing but a passenger. Republicans are in the drivers’ seats. We vote against giving the government the final word on everything, and thus, we know that destiny is ours to create. It’s extremely liberating.

I know in past posts I’ve come across as angry. But that’s when I think about becoming a liberal nation. Just the thought of liberalism ticks me off, and I can see why only 30% of you can find elation in your lives. When I think about my own views, I’m satisfied. I can honestly say that I’m among that 45% of very happy Republicans. I have a bright plan for my future and, should the government not interfere, it will be actualized, and I will be genuinely happy for the rest of my life. I like the person I am and have a great group of friends who accept me, Democrats among them. My family is great, and, as Republicans, I think they’re all really happy, too. I don’t know a lot of people who can say that.

Even now, when the Democrats are supposedly on the brink of presidential victory, they’re angry. All I hear from them is irate screaming whenever McCain shows up on TV or the scribbles of nasty vandalism on the other side of my door. They can’t stand that anyone disagrees with them, and instead of trying to rationalize with us or being civil, they just yell. You’d think they’d be happy that Obama is doing so well, but instead they’re angry that he’s not winning over all 100% of us.

I’m a Republican and I’m happy. I’m not saying if you’re a Democrat you’re unhappy; you could well be in that 30%. But if you’re feeling blue, maybe you should consider going red.

At the KNUS News/Talk Rally I attended last Monday, Dennis Prager cited a research study that found out some interesting things about the correlation between political affiliation and self-rated happiness. The Pew Research Center performed an objective survey of just over 3,000 Americans, 34% of which rated themselves as very happy. Regular churchgoers ranked happier than non-churchgoers, dog and cat owners rated the same, African Americans were the least happy race of all minorities, and married people were surprisingly happier than the single. But what I found most interesting as I looked closely into this study was the difference between Republican and Democrat happiness.

Only 30% of Democrats called themselves very happy, compared to 45% of Republicans. Statistically, we’re the more joyful party. A Democrat may accuse that that’s because we’re the ones swimming around in our pools of blood and oil money or that we feel euphoric stomping our big, greedy feet all over the impoverished or that ignorance really is bliss.

I don’t particularly like any of those theories. Prager summed it up nicely: Republicans, he said, are happier because we feel we are in control of our own lives. We are not the puppets of big government or the victims of too much control. Democrats feel that their happiness is out of their own hands. They vote for over-taxation and restrictions on the market and less choice in health care and education and don’t realize that these are the things that contribute feeling like nothing but a passenger. Republicans are in the drivers’ seats. We vote against giving the government the final word on everything, and thus, we know that destiny is ours to create. It’s extremely liberating.

I know in past posts I’ve come across as angry. But that’s when I think about becoming a liberal nation. Just the thought of liberalism ticks me off, and I can see why only 30% of you can find elation in your lives. When I think about my own views, I’m satisfied. I can honestly say that I’m among that 45% of very happy Republicans. I have a bright plan for my future and, should the government not interfere, it will be actualized, and I will be genuinely happy for the rest of my life. I like the person I am and have a great group of friends who accept me, Democrats among them. My family is great, and, as Republicans, I think they’re all really happy, too. I don’t know a lot of people who can say that.

Even now, when the Democrats are supposedly on the brink of presidential victory, they’re angry. All I hear from them is irate screaming whenever McCain shows up on TV or the scribbles of nasty vandalism on the other side of my door. They can’t stand that anyone disagrees with them, and instead of trying to rationalize with us or being civil, they just yell. You’d think they’d be happy that Obama is doing so well, but instead they’re angry that he’s not winning over all 100% of us.

I’m a Republican and I’m happy. I’m not saying if you’re a Democrat you’re unhappy; you could well be in that 30%. But if you’re feeling blue, maybe you should consider going red.

I don’t like to be lied to. I think that’s a trait I share with just about 100% of all Americans. We like to be in the know, we don’t like it when people patronize us or pull the wool over our eyes, and when others lie, we typically get angry. There was that Clinton fallatio business, accusations over Bush’s WMD statements, and that whole Watergate thing. Presidents lie. And we don’t like it.

But usually the lies come post-election. Seldom are lies told during campaign season, because we’d never voluntarily elect a liar, right?

Yeah, if that were the case, McCain would be creaming B.O. instead of clawing his way to a tie. America has been bamboozled into electing a man who is engaging in blatant lies before even being inaugurated.

I’m not talking about the birth certificate rumors or the “Muslim” school accusations or even his ridiculously shady campaign finance (although I can’t promise I won’t harp on that some other time). I’m talking about his economic plan.

You make less than $250,000 a year, right? So you’re among that 95% Obama keeps talking
about, right? The 95% that he promises won’t see any increase whatsoever in taxes? The only people getting taxed are those evil corporate executives, the ones who have the audacity to employ millions of people and stimulate the economy and donate exorbitant amounts to charity. The tax hikes are just for the multi-millionaire professional athletes and movie stars and talk show hosts. And they all seem to be ready and willing to redistribute their wealth. So for the Left and the middle class, Obama’s tax plan is utopian.

If only. Here’s the truth: Obama is not going to raise taxes. Technically. But he is going to allow Bush’s tax cuts to lapse, returning everyone’s tax rates to their 2000 levels, an increase on all 100% of the American people, no matter the income. And that’s an increase you’ll see, even if you’re in that 95% he keeps babbling about. It’s a flat out lie.

Small business owner and political analyst Ned Barnett* did the math for us by taking his 2007 income figures and plugging them into the pre-Bush tax plan, the same state Obama would allow us to return to under his economic “wisdom.” The difference? An increase of $3,824. And he’s a regular, middle-class guy making way under $250k.

So how much will your taxes go up? How much will the single mother’s taxes go up? The schoolteacher’s? The just plain poor? Everyone’s taxes are going up with Barack Obama’s plan, and that’s the truth. While the Obama campaign keeps harping on McCain for his tax cuts for the wealthy, a larger scope reveals that McCain is cutting taxes for everyone. Not a single person will see an increase in their taxes, including the 5% that Obama wants to tax into bitterness. McCain will make Bush’s tax cuts permanent as well as instate his own. He’s going to cut taxes and cut spending, whereas Obama is secretly going to increase both. Do you really think this is the kind of economic irresponsibility we need at the brink of a recession?

ATTENTION HALF OF AMERICA: YOU’RE BEING LIED TO. Wake up and vote for John.

* Check my sources at: http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/10/senator_obamas_four_tax_increa.html

I’m waiting for the doors to open at a KNUS News/Talk rally in Denver. I’m thankful for my wisdom to show up three hours early because the line is already long and predictions say the 1,300 seat room will fill up in a snap. While I’m thrilled to be in a convention center that’s busting at the seams with Republicans after my own heart, I can’t help but notice the common demographic in this audience: middle-aged white folks. Some are elderly, some are minorities, but at first glance all you see is a cross-section of Dick-and-Jane vanilla couples. They don’t look anything like the crowds I’ve seen at Obama rallies. Those crowds are full of teenagers and college kids and urban trendsetters. They’re hip and current. And I’m starting to fear: Is my party dying out?

Well, yes.

We are a dying breed. The ratio of conservatives to liberals in my generation is a frighteningly steep depletion compared to our parents’ generation, and if this trend continues we’ll be a one-party country in no time. This cannot happen.

While I sometimes joke about seceding from the Union or shipping all the Democrats I hate to a quarantined Long Island, I do, deep down, acknowledge our need for Leftists. Both parties work a sensitive teeter-totter of keeping the other in check, making sure we don’t move too far to either extreme. As much as we might loathe one another from time to time, we’ve been doing a decent job of working in tandem thus far.

Right now, we’re on the brink of a four year stint of pure liberalism. If Obama is election, all three branches of our government will be controlled by the same party, allowing one mindset to run rampant until 2012. And there are certain things they’re planning to do that could never be undone.

The biggest question as to the decrease in young Republicans is not in any way quantitative, but rather a resounding, “Why?” As my sister asked me once, “why is our generation so blind?”
I have developed one major theory and, ergo, have pinpointed the underlying thesis of a book I plan to write in the next year or so. Our generation has been tainted against conservatism in several ways, from enduring eight years of Bush, a poor representation of our party’s values and yet still far too severely crucified, journalistic bias from Katie Couric to SNL to Jon Stewart, and an adoption of the idea that celebrities are qualified to give endorsements worthy of mimicking.

But the foremost reason liberalism is running rampant among youth? It’s got a head start.

I am a member of the first generation to be directly affected by purposeful liberal indoctrination. I didn’t know it was happening back then, but in retrospect, I can see instances as early as Kindergarten that required me to use fundamental principles of the Democrat party, and had I not had parents who actively showed me the other side, I’d be voting for Obama this election just like the majority of my peers.

I’m not saying you’re all brainwashed. But if you’ve never been exposed to my side, or dissected the inner workings of your side, maybe you are. I have done my damnedest to observe both parties objectively and I have come to my own conclusions, many of which I’ve made very clear to all of you over the past months. Even though my past thirteen years of public school have taught me that humans are evil, that evolution is truth, that we need to help those who won’t help themselves, that English alone isn’t sufficient, that we have to love everyone, that no opinion but the common one is wrong, that God is dead, that free speech is reserved only for some, that violence is never, ever an answer, and that superior intellect should be ignored and quashed so that we may focus all of our energy on dragging up the slow, I have clawed my way across the aisle into conservatism. I have had to fight so hard for my right to be a Republican, and you better believe that I struggle every day to maintain the pride I have in my party. Even I, the one you all think is the strongest conservative on campus, have trouble standing up to the constant pelting of liberal ideas, and I can’t imagine anyone who’s starting their search for political identity on the fence to have any opportunity to get to the Right side.

I already know that my beliefs are worth fighting for. That’s why I do it so hard. But if the Left keeps making it this impossible for the Right to live and breathe and speak, I will end up being the last one standing when our generation comes of age and into power.

Look for my book. It’ll be called Through the Cracks: A Memoir of One Student Liberal Education Missed.

It’s not over yet.

I thought it was a done deal. I thought Obama had it in the bag, I thought McCain WAS an old bag, and I thought I’d have to move overseas. But a Republican victory could still happen, and I’m going to do everything in my power to assist it.

It took the comment of the stranger to alert me as to how negative and embittered I’ve become in my posts lately. (S)He said something about how I couldn’t be surprised that people in my dorm were lashing out against me when I was sending out so much anger myself. While I am still angry, and very much afraid, I’m starting to see the light at the end of a formerly closed tunnel, and from here on out, my message will be one of hope. Not in the smarmy Barack way, but in a genuine, starry-eyed youth sort of way. If elementary school fluff taught me anything, it’s that dreams are possible, and I can be and do whatever my heart desires. And what I desire now is a McCain triumph, an Obama annihilation, and proof that our country still has two brain cells to bang together.

But Kelly, you might say, I thought you’d given up! After all, the polls show Obama leading, you’re surrounded by his followers everywhere you go, and there’s less than two weeks left ‘til election day!

Maybe this is what the news media, a source that has been unashamedly vocal in their one-sided support, would like everyone to believe, because if our competitiveness gets choked, we’ll give up and hand the crown over to their golden boy. Their sneaky tactics worked well, even fooling me into a temporary, premature defeat. But let us not forget that polls have lied before. If polls were always right, Carter would’ve beaten Reagan, and both Kerry and Gore would’ve beaten Bush Jr. The Electoral College predictions are too close to call right now, and the polls are slowly but surely swaying away from Obama, even if it’s only a percent or two. The race isn’t over.

So to my fellow McCain supporters: don’t shut up and don’t lose faith. Keep campaigning and spreading the word, and don’t you dare stay home and opt out of voting because you think it’ll do no good. And heck, even if we lose, we’ll still know we were right. We’ll all get those bumper stickers that say, “don’t blame me, I voted for McCain,” and everyone else will watch us drive by as they’re waiting in line at public hospitals for hours upon hours or pawning off their jewelry to pay exorbitant taxes or holding their breaths for that first time Obama gets “tested.” We’ll probably be miserable, sure, but we’ll have been right, and that might be all it takes to get us through four years of hell.

Stay strong. I’ll see you at the booths.

I have become this morning’s weather.

When I woke up, I looked out my window to see what our Colorado climate had come up with for the day. There was a low-hanging fog on the grass, floating and swaying and swelling and churning. It was beautiful for some, eerie for others. By the time I stepped out of the building to make my trek to West Campus, the fog had risen and traveled on, but it had left a chill behind, one that sunk into my skin and slowed my heartbeat and set a perfect tone for the encounters I’d have on my way.

As Joe Biden is here this morning, political minds are tinkling all about campus. Such were the conversations I overheard during the, say, fifteen minutes I was outside. For my first few steps from Wiebking Hall to the 10th Avenue intersection, I was in a fine mood, optimistic for the day and delighted that my first class had been canceled in honor of the VP candidate’s presence. Then I got to the curb. A kid was talking to his friend, a girl with big earrings and a puffy coat. He had one white earbud in his ear, the other hanging to the side to share his blaring rap music with the world. The tongues of his sneakers were enormous and free-flopping, and I could’ve de-pants’d the kid right then and there. I didn’t. The girl didn’t say an audible word the whole time we stood waiting for the little white man to illuminate and tell us the coast was clear to cross, but the guy monologued nonstop for the solid two minutes we lingered. He called his female friend a “huge d-bag,” said his weekend was “off the chain,” and dropped at least 20 F-bombs. I tried to zone him out, a tactic I often use when obnoxious people interfere with my joy, but I couldn’t help but overhear one thing he said in a most serious tone: “In Obama we trust.”

My jaw and stomach dropped in tandem. Here everyone is making jokes about how the media thinks Obama is Messiah, how deified this man has been in recent months, and this kid goes and proves everyone right. He took an American motto, extracted God, and put Barack Obama in his place. The issue here is not of Obama’s trustworthiness, but of his mortality. He is not God. He is not a god. Neither he himself nor his congregation should paint him as such. I’ve seen bumper stickers reading, “I already have a Savior, I’m looking for a President.” Is that what some Obama voters are? Lost souls in need of a Messiah, unable to differentiate between running for office and being almighty? And what I worry is that if people exalt this man, they will be able to see no fault in him. He will be free to do whatever he chooses, because God will never choose unwisely. This is a frightening, uncontrolled government.

I shook off this feeling as I climbed up and down the hill by the UC. I went down the stairs into what I fondly refer to as the Rape Tunnel and, as I walked alone, I was free to observe all the messy graffiti therein. The white wall to my left read “Obama,” then further down, “Hope.” Great, I thought, I want to elect the man supported by vandals. But I lived with it. I looked to my right, though, and saw that someone had written “Fear” exactly opposite “Hope,” and it got me to thinking: We are in the middle of something huge.

This is a pivotal election for the future of my country. The same man who inspires hope in the hearts of half the nation evokes fear in the others’ guts. At a time when I thought we were all looking for unity, we are instead going to swear in a guy whose policies alienate 150 million people. No one is listening to each other, our ideas have become more polarized than ever, and there is hatred flying back and forth all the time. Because this man we’re electing (yes, I have accepted McCain’s defeat) is so one-sided, I predict he will only further this rift. We are going to stop allowing coexistence. We are going to reach civil war.

You may not fear Obama’s platform as I do, but I would think you might at least fear this division. United we stand, divided we fall, right? So why are you aiding the wedge?

America is in a fog. It’s not affecting any one particular party or set of beliefs; we are all being consumed by it. The chill has slowed all of our heart rates, and we’re reacting at a snail’s pace to things that should be slapping us to attention. Maybe it’s too late to change the vote, but I can still aim to make sure everyone is awake and observant for the next four years. If we keep sleeping through the static here, we’re going to wake up to our ruin.

Usually when I write about my politics, it comes out a place of agitation or fire or frustration. Today, it’s because I’m scared. I’m starting to get genuinely terrified for the future of our country, and it’s making me sick to my stomach. I’ve got a lump in my throat like I swallowed a tennis ball, I’m shivering under my fleece hoodie, and my hands are almost too cold to type. Physiological fear over US politics. Maybe I’m just obsessing too much over this election, or maybe, just maybe, it really is this bad.

I think it’s really this bad.

I just looked up the current poll numbers from Gallup, and Obama is leading McCain overall by 50 to 42%, well outside the 4% margin of error. Right after McCain announced Palin as his running mate, I felt a surge of confidence that he had victory in the bag, but her freshness wore off far too quickly, and now, as the McCain ticket continues to run an unaggressive campaign, I’m starting to think it’s too late. We’re going to lose. And I feel utterly helpless.

I don’t know what else to do. I’ve been screaming at the top of my lungs for months, but the world has gone deaf, and I am going hoarse. Why doesn’t anyone get it? He’s bad. He’s dangerous. He’s going to be our demise.

It’s not enough that he refuses to salute our flag or wear its pin. It’s not enough that he is the least experienced presidential candidate ever put up for office. It’s not enough that, in a time when I thought we all agreed we needed to start working across the aisle, that he’s the most liberal member of Senate we’ve got. It’s not enough that his long-time mentor repeatedly expressed anti-American and racist, Black Supremacist views. It’s not enough that his very campaign began at a backyard barbeque at the home of a radical 1960s terrorist who still stands by his murderous actions. It’s not enough that he’s gotten generous campaign contributions from a prominent Chicago business criminal. It’s not enough that he vocally supports the banning and censorship of television advertisements and radio programs, solely on the grounds that he disagrees with them. It’s not enough that his economic plan closely resembles one that, less than thirty years ago, proved to be detrimental to America and its citizens. It’s not enough that he openly supports socialist ideals over democratic fundamentals, and it’s certainly not enough that he shares circumstances, slogans, and character traits with the same kinds of men who came to power in places like Germany, fascist Italy, and Cuba.

To those who support this man: what is enough? What else could I possibly tell you to open your eyes? Obama leads 2 to 1 among young voters, and I feel that as a young voter, I’m at liberty to say that this is because, as a whole, we’re naïve and impressionable. We’re jumping on his bandwagon because he’s got hype, he’s got excitement, and he’s got the media’s blessing. But if our generation is the one looking toward the future, trying to make sure things are still good for our children and grandchildren, claiming to be informed and intellectual, then this man is not the one to represent us.

I know I’m just one voice. And I know that I’ve been using my one voice this whole election season and changed a grand total of 5 minds. But I can’t stop trying. My fear won’t let me. So if you’re with me, pass it on. If the McCain campaign won’t get aggressive, we have to. There’s still a solid 28 days until the votes are counted, and until then, I will be writing, talking, and, most of all, praying for a shift in the wind.

Don’t let me do it by myself.

A friend of mine asked me to put together an educational “seminar” for her about politics. She wanted a nonpartisan presentation of all the major issues and where the candidates stood on them so that she’d be ready to make an informed decision come time to cast her vote. I began preparing for this “seminar” tonight by going to each candidate’s website and reading what they had to say in the Issues sections. I began with Defense. And as I began to copy and paste key passages from barackobama.com to a Word document for later reference, I started to think that something was off.

Until tonight, I was under the impression that Obama wanted to cut defense spending. I got under this impression because that’s what he’s said. One video clip I saw on YouTube captured him saying “I will cut tens of billions of dollars in wasteful spending. I will cut investments in unproven missile defense systems. I will not weaponize space. I will slow our development of future combat systems.”

But then his website says things like, “we must build up our special operations forces, civil affairs, information operations, and other units and capabilities that remain in chronic short supply; invest in foreign language training, cultural awareness, and human intelligence and other needed counterinsurgency and stabilization skill sets.” He says he wants to increase the size of our military, taking the Army to 65,000 troops and the Marines to 27,000 troops. He even wants to further fund weapons research, making sure that we’re keeping up with the 21st Century in terms of naval ships, missile defense, and armor. His website would have me believe that he’s totally pro-military. And that’s a Barack Obama I could support.

So where did the other guy go? The guy that who wanted to save us tons of money by jeopardizing our safety? Because it looks to me like that guy done and turned into John McCain.

The Defense plans on both the Obama and McCain websites are almost identical now. While they still disagree on the Middle East exit strategy, their general military attitudes are the same: more troops, better weapons. So I guess Obama has changed his mind again.

Oh, is THAT what Obama’s always talking about when he says, “change, change, change”? Changing his MIND? I get it now!

But seriously. While I’m not angry that Obama realized he was wrong and switched his stance, I do wonder what effect, if any, this is going to have on his economic plan. As Obama has been criticized for his proposed increases in government spending, he has been able to justify them because of what cuts he also says he’ll make. Several billion dollars of these so-called cuts were supposed to come from the defense budget. Now they’re not. So it’s a whole lot of spending and not a whole lot of cuts. Sound wise to you?

It looks to me like Obama’s got to change something. Again. Whether he returns to his anti-military ways or revokes his proposals for more and more spending, his platform as it stands now is imbalanced. If a candidate keeps trying to switch things up to make people happy, he’s got to make sure none of those people are paying close attention when he starts to spout off non-sequiturs.

Sorry, Obama. I am.

This week, while Joe Biden was wandering around Home Depot, mumbling to himself in the third person, Sarah Palin must’ve been cracking the books, running through flash cards with a campaign adviser, and trying out some of Ron Burgundy’s articulation warm-ups, because she gave a stellar performance in tonight’s Vice Presidential Debate. It was undeniably clear to me which candidate won this one, and I think tomorrow’s headlines will agree with me (unless Katie Couric writes them).

While Biden didn’t give a laughable performance, I was taking notes, and I found numerous arguments whose holes I could walk through. And I’m a big gal. For instance, one of the moments that will perhaps be reported as Biden’s strongest, was when he spoke of his family’s financial struggles in his childhood and gave a quick synopsis of his rags-to-riches story. I don’t deny his sincerity. But what baffles me is that he can use this history as justification for his policies when, in actuality, it is a perfect example of what the Republicans stand for: you can make success out of any circumstances. Even in his closing statement, Biden quoted his father saying, “Champ, when you get knocked down, get up.” But according to Biden’s party, the anecdote should go: if you get knocked down, stay there whining until the government comes and gives you soup and a band-aid. It’s backwards.

I also failed to see the difference between Biden’s pride and go-getter attitude when questioned about being “an interventionist” and the sole purpose of what we’ve been doing in the Middle East. He wants to save people and bring freedom to Darfur, but as his current outlook on Iraq and Afghanistan would lead us to believe, he’ll probably lead us in (as he did with his vote in favor of the War on Terror) and lead us out prematurely (as he’s trying so hard to do now).

On the other hand, Sarah Palin brought back the fire we all saw in her when she spoke at the RNC. Over the last couple of weeks, I was starting to lose my infatuation with her because she had some poor interviews, first with Charlie Gibson and then with Katie Couric. I thought that Sarah was fading, fumbling. But tonight in her closing statement, she commented on how she was happy to one again be able to talk to the American people “without the filter of mainstream media.” It occurred to me that that was the problem. She, in and of herself, is wonderful, and has gotten a bad rap from liberal media, tainting even initially strong supporters like me against her.

It’s easy for a Republican candidate to play the Victim of Media Bias card, but this argument, in Sarah’s case, was legitimized when the first reaction from Katie Couric on CBS was, “at least she didn’t embarrass herself.”

Palin was real. She was relatable and honest, and even as Biden tried to convince us that McCain was the out-of-touch candidate, next to Palin, he looked just like the old-school, white-haired, nothing-new Senator he was degrading. Whatever Palin may lack in government experience she more than makes up for in Middle-American life experience. If the everyman is who we’re after, she’s the pony to bet on.

My favorite differentiation between the overall statements of each candidate was the line between past and future, and who was on which side. Claiming to be the ticket of change, all Biden did was criticize Bush policies. The party’s only claim to the White House this time around in one man’s past blunders. Palin made it clear exactly what she and McCain want to do to initiate changes in our country, and she was able to make the distinction between their ticket and the Bush/Cheney regime without stepping on any Republican toes. In each of their last words, Palin looked forward, and Biden was still looking back. And at his age, necks don’t turn so easily.

Whenever given the opportunity, Palin had a beautiful rebuttal to whatever Biden had to spit out. My favorite was when, after Joe discussed the 16-month removal plan, Palin took a moment, breathed, smiled and shook her head, and said so matter-of-factly, “your ‘plan’ is a white flag of surrender.” The Republicans watching in our dorm’s basement lounge cheered for her, already knowing at this mid-point of the debate, that she was the victor.

I could divulge further into an answer-by-answer recap of what each person said and why Sarah’s was consistently superior, but you can watch the debate and have Palin do that for herself. I’m just so tremendously overjoyed that our girl’s back and, with her, our party’s hope for electoral victory.

But I’d like to end with a yarn about two of my friends and their post-debate reception. They traveled up from the basement to the first floor lounge, where the Democrats had gathered to watch the debate. When they walked in—silently—someone asked, “So, do you guys think Sarah won?” They nodded, and out flooded attacks and venom from several persons present. One girl went so far as to say, “I can’t even be in the same room as them,” and she walked out, mumbling something about closed-mindedness. Now, I’m not upset that they thought Biden won. Maybe he did. But they failed to provide any concrete and relevant evidence, and they dismissed all rules of common courtesy. So I’m giving you all this chance: if you thought Biden won, don’t yell at me for thinking the contrary, tell me why. And, if you know some of the attackers from the lounge I’m talking about, consider passing your information onto them so that they don’t make such fools of your party again.

On a possibly unrelated side note, someone keeps drawing (and labeling) vomit on my dorm door’s whiteboard. If this is in reference to my political swag, again I say hats off to another well thought-out argument. Thank you.

My post-debate reactions were unimpassioned; I felt each candidate gave a mediocre performance. Obama seemed more smooth, of course, and McCain seemed more relatable, but neither gave overly convincing arguments or seemed to capture and quell the underlying frustrations of either party. If I were an independent voter who, as of Friday night, had no idea who to vote for, I would still have no idea who to vote for.


So I’m calling it a draw.

But because most political media is still focused on trying to decide which man was the victor, it has been easy for Obama to sweep some bad press under the rug as he proves himself to be a proponent for censorship and the revocation of essential, long-standing rights.

Yesterday, Obama’s campaign caught wind of some NRA-PVF (that’s the National Rifle Association’s Political Victory Fund) ads that were set to air in the coming weeks. The ads dug into Obama’s longstanding anti-gun voting record, which he apparently wants to keep a secret.


While I’m not wildly dedicated to maintaining the 2nd Amendment, I support it. I have an NRA sticker on the back of my car from the previous owner, and, if I’m being honest, I keep it there because it kind of makes me feel cool. I’ve always thought that if we outlaw guns, we’ll just find guns in the hands of outlaws. And then the responsible citizens who use them wisely won’t have them when they need them. The right to bear arms is one of the originals, something our founding fathers thought was absolutely essential, and I think it ill-advised to go questioning the wisdom of these men.

I think, though, that when most people debate this issue, their minds are primarily on handguns. But Obama is so liberal, so extreme, that he has voted to ban nearly all guns, including rifles, shotguns, and all the ammunition most common for hunting. My dad, my grandpa, and all my uncles hunted regularly when I was growing up, and not a single one of them ever got shot. This is in part because to obtain a hunting license, you’re required to take a gun safety course. But it’s also because hunters don’t typically use their rifles for murder. A 2006 study showed that 9 in 10 crimes involving a firearm were committed with handguns, not with hunting rifles.

So I’m not sure what Obama’s justification for his many anti-rifle votes is. Other than furthering the government’s control over our lives.

But I’m not sure what irks me more: Obama’s voting record, or his new-found love of censorship. His campaign is doing everything in its power to make sure no one ever sees these NRA ads, including threatening TV and radio stations who are considering airing them (if you want to see the most controversial, go here: http://election.newsmax.com/nra_Hunter.html). I understand that sometimes campaigns get down and dirty, divulging personal secrets or attacking a candidate’s family members or bringing up irrelevant issues just for shock value. But this series of ads is legitimate, and I see this issue as fair game. America households, nearly 40% of which report owning at least one gun, need to know about this candidate’s leftist past (and present and future) in order to cast an informed vote. And unless Obama is, for some reason, ashamed of or embarrassed by this record, he should be just fine with letting these ads air and showing the voting public where he stands.

But instead, he’s trying to control what our media is allowed to show us. He’s trying to limit free speech. He’s trying to keep us blind and defenseless.

But who knows? Maybe I’ll just ask George Orwell who I should vote for.

Whether or not you agree with or oppose extensive gun control legislation, I think we can all agree that we’d like to keep one right, that of our First Amendment, intact. And I’d like a president who’ll fight for that, not quash it. If you think I’m taking this too far, look up some of Obama’s comments about Rush Limbaugh and Bill O’Reilly. You might start to understand that this is a man who digs censorship in many forms.

I pray that none of you vote oral duct tape into our White House. Just something to think about.

It seems strange that there has been so little campaign activity in the past few weeks. I haven’t seen any outlandish breaking news or scandals, no badmouthing from one side the other, no venomous ads, not even any vandalism on my door. It’s as though we’re in this eerie calm before the political storm, and I’m not sure if I should wait it out or start stocking up on canned goods.

I claim not to be a prophet, but I feel like, just maybe, I might know what’s coming. This idea isn’t purely of my own premonition, mind you; many strategists have been musing over this quiet possibility since the RNC and are just holding their breaths for the moment it actually happens. Predictions say: Biden is stepping down, Hillary is swooping in.

This notion terrifies some people. It encourages some others. I’m not sure how I feel about it. My first assumption is that it would backfire. Everyone would be able to see (because the transparency is atrocious) that it’s out of pure strategy and is a lame, copycat move because Sarah Palin has shaken poll numbers like crazy since her debut. Replacing Biden with Hillary would put another tick mark under the already crowded “Obama Copies McCain Whenever Popular” column, and maybe, finally, people would start to see that the self-proclaimed catalyst of change really isn’t much of a free thinker.

The Republican ticket is getting more female support than ever. Obama, assuming his studliness would woo every woman’s vote (a tactic that was actually working for a while), is a little T.O.’ed that Palin has teetered her gender’s opinion. His vengeance may come in the form of the thing closest to a woman the Democrats have to offer: Hillary Clinton. Would it work? Would the women return to the Blue camps because Hillary, their heroin, came back as a second-best to the party’s golden boy?

Or would her supporters still feel shafted?

And would Hillary even be willing?

Or, the scenario I see as the most likely, everything might just even out, and this whole upheaval will have been for not. Some Hillary supporters will be happy to see their girl’s name under VP, and they’ll vote with the Democrats. Some Hillary supporters will be disgusted to see their girl’s name under anything but President, and they’ll vote with the Republicans as a silent protest. Women on the fence will be split down the middle, some thinking that Obama finally came to his feminist senses, and some thinking that making such a drastic change this late in the game is a foreshadow to how erratic his presidency would be. Polls will rise, fall, and readjust to approximately right where they are now.

And right now, McCain is owning. So do it, Obama. I really don’t mind.

When I first came to college, I kept my mouth generally shut whenever someone brought up politics, mostly because I could tell that the speakers who initiated such discussions were the overly-vocal, stubborn, uninformed members of their respective parties, and whatever I had to say, be it in support or opposition, would be discounted. I then quietly staked my claim as a proud Republican, and, as many of you know, I got a decent amount of flack for it (on a side note, my beliefs remain unaffected).

Things quieted down after people started to realize that—what a shocker—I might actually know what I’m talking about. They didn’t start agreeing with me, and I didn’t expect them to, but they at least respected my opinions and noted that they were all backed with factual support and logic. But I am not by any means the only Republican in history to have substantiated my platform. For some reason, though, we have been conditioned to think that we’re wrong, to think that we should be ashamed of ourselves for sporting elephants and red, to think that we shouldn’t speak because someone else will attack. We have, therefore, been silenced, and have thus lost touch with our comrades.

But we are not rare. We are not the minority. We are equally numbered and equally strong. We’re just not as damn loud about it.

I have two bumper stickers on my car, one that states simply “McCain for President 2008” and another that subtly reads, “No thanks, keep the change.” Driving to Boulder this past weekend, I stopped at a red light and noticed in my rear-view mirror a man and his wife reading the back of my car. They chuckled, saw that I saw them, and gave me a thumbs-up. Later, the same stickers got me flipped off, but I was still so happy about the first reaction that I didn’t care. I was glad to be a lifeline for one conservative couple stuck in a liberal town. I was glad to be a ray of hope that told them, “no, you’re not alone.”

I know you think I’m overdramatizing this, but until you’ve had your political identity stifled into a coma, you can’t understand. And in the past two days since the thumbs-up incident, I have had a girl stop by my dorm to thank me for being her fellow Republican, and another message left on my whiteboard saying, “Yay McCain! Finally!” These people have been so starved for allies, fighting so hard not to be force-fed false hope and loose change, that something as simple as a sticker can create a haven for them.

If you’re preaching coexistence, practice it. Let the Republicans of the world thrive, too, and don’t try to shame us for thinking our thoughts. We might not be the media’s favorite children or live beneath rainbows or really, really hate guns, but we have the same liberties as the Democrats next door. Grant us our rightful speaking privileges, if you would be so kind.

And, to the Republicans in the audience, quit shutting up.