10/31/2008
Want change? We already got it!
By Travis Baugh

Well, we’re in the final stretch for Election Day 2008. Barack Obama seems to have a commanding lead in the race for President. Pundits are predicting major gains for the Democratic Party, in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. Isn’t it amazing how the media and the Democrats have spun this election? How this is all about President Bush and failed Republican policies. Their central message has been: WE NEED CHANGE! Funny thing is, the “inconvenient truth” is that in the 2006 elections, the Democrats already gained control over both the House and the Senate. They ran on a “change” agenda then too. Remember how things were in 2006 before Democrats took control? Let me jog your memories. In spite of the fact that we were in an unpopular war on terror with two active fighting fronts, consumer confidence stood at a 2 1/2 year high (after falling to an all time low after 9/11). Regular gasoline sold for $2.19 a gallon. The unemployment rate was 4.5% and our homes were our greatest source of savings. Since voting in a Democrat controlled Congress in 2006, we have seen consumer confidence plummet, the cost of regular gasoline soar to over $4.00 a gallon (only to fall recently due to the recent crash of the economy), unemployment rise to 6.1% (a 36% increase). In addition, Americans have seen over $2 trillion in equity value evaporate in stock and mutual fund losses, their home equity drop by over a trillion dollars and a record number of their homes in foreclosure. Well folks, we voted for change in 2006, and we certainly got it! Too bad it did not turn out to be a change for the good. Why has the national media not focused on this? Why are Democrats not being held accountable for the mess that occurred on their watch by these bastions of fair and complete reporting?

There is the current voter’s registration scandal going on in various states around the country. In Ohio for example, there is substantial evidence of massive voter fraud. Is anyone doing anything about it? The Ohio Secretary of State (who is, not coincidentally, a Democrat) refused a federal judge’s order to simply compare the registrations to the Department of Motor Vehicles drivers’ license database for inconsistencies (the U.S. Supreme Court recently determined it would not force her to do so, indicating it would be an intrusion on state’s rights). This is nothing more than a blatant attempt to steal the election in a “battlefield state.” Some of you may remember the scandal from the 1960 presidential election about dead people who reportedly voted in Illinois for John F. Kennedy. But why use dead people when you can have a live person vote 72 times! That is literally what happened in one case in Ohio where ACORN organizers hounded one person to register, knowing full well that he had already done so several times (I told a good friend of mine from Cleveland who is a Democrat that I had a new bumper sticker “Ohio- vote early, vote often” but he was not amused). Who is at the heart of one of the most massive voter fraud campaigns in American history? It is none other than the Association of Community Organizations and Reform Now (ACORN). ACORN as you may recall is the organization that for years has been suing banks for discrimination and non-compliance with the Community Reinvestment Act, a law enacted by a Democratic administration and Congress which ultimately led to the demise of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, as well as our entire investment banking industry. ACORN is also at the heart of voter fraud investigations in Washington, Missouri and twelve other states. Senator Obama’s supporters claim he is not presently associated with ACORN. Hmmm. Let’s examine that claim. Of course, he admits he was ACORN’s lawyer in Chicago, where he sued banks on their behalf and helped them raise money. The Chicago Annenberg Challenge, a charitable trust which Senator Obama and his terrorist friend Bill Ayers co-chaired, provided ACORN with funding. During his tenure on the board of Chicago’s Woods Fund (also with Mr. Ayers), the fund gave more than $200,000 to ACORN. As recent as February of this year, the Obama campaign paid $832,000 to ACORN affiliate Citizens Services Inc., a voter registration and canvassing group that has worked with ACORN in the past. The Obama campaign initially told the Federal Election Commission this money was for “staging, sound and lighting” but later had to correct its previous report to state that the donations were to help ACORN for “voter registration.” But Senator Obama says he is not “presently associated with them.” Yeah, right. Worst yet, ACORN receives our tax dollars and tax subsidies to commit these crimes. The Employment Policies Institute estimates the ACORN Housing Corporation alone received some $16 million in federal dollars from 1997-2007. Did you hear about any of this from CBS, NBC, ABC or CNN?

Barack Obama and his team (including the liberal media) want you to believe that John McCain and Sarah Palin are not fit to lead this country. On what basis is this claim made? Sarah Palin isn’t qualified to run for national office? Guess what: Sarah Palin has better credentials than Barack Obama does. Look at the facts, not the media spin. Sarah Palin ran her first political campaign against a Republican incumbent mayor, and won in spite of being discouraged by the Republican Party establishment. She turned in the chairman of the Republican Party for misdeeds and got him fined $12,000. She took on the incumbent governor of her own party, beat him and then handily won in the general election against her Democratic opponent. When has Barack Obama shown the courage to take on his own party on any issue? The only thing Barack Obama has ever done is write books and speak eloquently about the “need for change.” As governor, Sarah Palin is also the head of Alaska’s national guard. You may not be aware that Alaska is the home of America’s first line of missile interceptor defense that protects the entire United States, the 49th Missile Defense Battalion of Alaska National Guard. As such, Governor Palin is routinely briefed on highly classified military issues, homeland security, and counter terrorism. She has proved she can be trusted with classified information. Compare that to Senator Obama, or his running mate Joe Biden, who in his role on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (during wartime) has bragged about killing U.S. counter surveillance programs by threatening to leak them. Who is more trustworthy? Personally, I vote for candidates based on their character, their ideology and how I perceive them to react to issues that are important to me, not how they perform in a twenty-second television sound bite.

In the course of serving his only term in the Senate, Barack Obama has shown that he is one of the most liberal members of Congress. He has been very clear about his vision of what needs to happen in America: the redistribution of wealth. And if you really believe he will limit the confiscation of income to just those persons who make over $250,000 per year, think again. He cannot possibly pay for the programs he has proposed without going much deeper. John McCain has been a pain in the butt for Republicans since he took office. The term “maverick” was originally applied to Senator McCain by the Republican Party leadership, and was certainly not one of endearment. As pointed out earlier in this article, Sarah Palin’s resume is full of examples of her taking on the establishment. Who do you think will be more an agent for positive change? Barack Obama, Joe Biden and an extension of the current Democratic majority in both houses of Congress?

It is also important that everyone understands the consequences of having one party in complete control of the White House and both houses of Congress. This is particularly true in the Senate, where a Democratic super majority can limit debate on any issue and prevent the only last-ditch effort of any minority party to prevent mayhem: the filibuster. So it is just as important that we try to keep the two parties numbers in Congress as close as possible so that neither party can do too much damage. Frankly, things seem to work best when neither party controls too much of the process.

Whatever happens, don’t let the pundits and naysayers talk you into staying home and not going to vote on election day. You have to make sure your voices are heard. Don’t believe the polls as they don’t really have any way of knowing for sure what will happen (no pollsters have spoken to me- did they speak to you?). Remember that even if Barack Obama does manage to win the presidency, showing a significant “Not for you” vote will send a message to the newly elected President Obama that he does not have a mandate to reshape America to a socialist society. Senator Obama was allegedly quoted as saying “My friends, we live in the greatest country in the history of the world. I hope you’ll join with me as we try to change it.” Whether he misspoke it that way or not is not important- what is important is that we prevent him from changing what is still the greatest country in the history of the world into the one that was.