The Winner of the election is the Loser.

I've been following the election very closely. For a very long time, I was pretty sure that Obama was going wax the floor with McCain. McCain has run a very poor campaign, and quite frankly, on that criterion alone, he deserves to lose.

But, what we face in this election is definitely a different direction in the country, either now or in a couple years. The party that wins will be the losers.

Let's start with the Democrats first. Barack Obama is the most liberal/leftist candidate I have ever witnessed run for POTUS. He is an absolute socialist/Marxist. (His mantra of change is not a lie- most that are voting for him really don't understand the breadth of change that he will bring to this country.) The fact is, the Democrats essentially cheated to have BHO nominated. They nominated the most far left candidate possible. And if he wins, he will also have a Supermajority in Congress with which he can pass any law his socialist heart desires. And don't forget, he's not going to stop his leftist colleagues in Congress from passing whatever they want, either. The GOP will have zero say in the matter if the Dems get a filibuster-proof Congress.

So, what kind of bills will be passed? All you have to do is look at how BHO has run his campaign to see. Free speech will be drastically limited through passage of the Fairness Doctrine. In one case, the BHO campaign tried to silence a certain campaign from talking about voter fraud because they deemed what was being said as "false." (Does that matter? Once you have the power to silence truly false statements, silencing statements with which you disagree are not far behind.) If you look at how the station in FL was treated when they interviewed Biden in a way that the BHO campaign didn't like, then you might see a glimpse of what is to come.

And you can look at the tax cut/raise stories all over, about how his campaign has started to lower the top amount that will be taxed, from 300k getting tax hikes down to now 150k getting tax hikes.

Look at his associations, and you will see what kind of people he will surround himself with in office.

And so on.

But how is this a losing proposition for Obama and the Dems? As it always happens, the Dems will far overreach with the power that we will have given them. After passing punitive tax legislation, restricting free speech, socializing everything in their grasp, the American people will finally understand what Change BHO meant.

And because of that the GOP will have an extremely easy win in 2010 or 2012. And it is possible that they might actually stay in power for a long time this time.

Now about the GOP.

From 1994-2006, the GOP held a comfortable majority in Congress. But every election, it seemed the GOP slid toward bigger government, massive spending, etc. They have completely forsaken the principles upon which the 1994 Revolution was founded. The GOP practically refuses to fight against the Democrats, which has contributed to their loss and the trashing of the "GOP brand."

If the GOP wins, then the same people will remain in office. The GOP will remain stagnant and the Democrats will be able to regroup, learn from their mistakes (which they do much, much, much better than Republicans) and come back again with a vengeance in 2010 or 2012.

So, in a way, I'm almost hoping for a huge Democratic victory. If that happens, then the GOP's house will be cleaned out of the slackers and in 2010/2012, a new breed of Republicans that actually care about why they were elected will rise up from the ashes.

Why The Right hates John McCain

So, it's pretty much official now: John McCain is virtually the last man standing. Well, Huck is still around, but we know, and have always known, that he'll never make it. He's just in it to be VP or SecState or something. Thanks a lot, Huck. Thanks a whole lot.

Anyway, I've been thinking a lot about John McCain and been doing a little research on some of the stuff he's done. And if you read this blog (population: 3?) you know that I have a love for psychology and trying to fit things into that perspective. I think I've figured out why The Right hates John McCain.

No, it's not because of McCain-Liebermann (Global Warming) or McCain-Feingold (Campaign Finance Reform- CFR) or McCain-Kennedy (Immigration). Well, it is a little bit. As someone said, the attempt at bipartisanship was nice, but what did the GOP get out of those? (answer: nothing)

I think The Right hates McCain because they lack a perception of control over him. McCain mostly votes with the GOP. He's really not a conservative, but he is definitely a GOP. He's probably a little more to the left than W, but he is certainly a Republican. There is no denying that.

The problem that most people have over him (and they probably don't even realize this) is that they feel they can't control him, or more precisely, they can't really predict his behavior. He's not entirely consistent in his voting and legislation creation.

(If you know anything about our basic needs, you would know that the need for control is our most basic need. Forget food. Forget shelter. Forget reproduction. Perceived control is our most basic need. Without it, our health and mental state deteriorates rapidly and all kinds of other bad things happen to us.)

Take any other GOP senator. Let's say... just off the top of my head... Elizabeth Dole. I don't even have to look up her voting record to tell you that she probably consistently tows the party line and votes pretty consistently along GOP lines, doesn't try to work much with Democrats and if something came up, you could probably figure out which direction she would vote. Not every member of Congress completely consistently votes with their party, but a near totality do. You can reasonably predict the direction most of them will take on nearly any issue.

McCain, and a few others, are different. Joe Lieberman has the same problem on the Democratic side. He fairly consistently votes to the Left of Center, but sometimes, he stands up for something on the Right, and the Left then whine and wail and then things settle down until it happens again.

Basically, I think that The Right simply doesn't trust McCain. He's not predictable and therefore he somewhat messes up the little box most of them have their worlds packaged into. I personally think that McCain's leadership ability leaves a lot to be desired for this exact reason, but politicians really aren't leaders so much as they are managers. Most Americans don't really understand this, but that's another story.

What most people on The Right don't understand now is that there is really nothing that McCain loves more than his own power, which is pretty much like most other politicians (This is why CFR was passed). And to keep that power, he will need to appeal to The Right, which so far he has not done because he hasn't had to or desired to. But what they don't understand is that if he is elected President (Ha Ha Ha!) the control we would have over him, or the perceived control we would have over him, would be greatly increased. First of all, if McCain is elected, it is because the GOP elected him. If that is the case, then the GOP will have likely retaken Congress, which wouldn't send any bills to him that would anger his base. Secondly, if you remember what happened with the whole immigration thing last year, I'm sure it would happen again if McCain tried to pull any dirty tricks.

So, I think that if McCain could possibly convince The Right that he'll "be good" and tow the party line from here on out, he'd probably get a lot of mileage out of that and win a good portion of The Right back from the brink of leaving the party. The only problem is, he'd lose a lot of independents, which is exactly who gave him the nomination.

A Perspective on Political Persuasion

Here's an interesting take:

Look at it this way. You've been stranded on an island inhabited by people who look like you but who have strange beliefs. They think you get more jobs by raising costs on people who provide them. They think you get less poverty by paying people to prove they are poor. They think you move toward a color blind society by requiring people to check a box for "race" on official forms. They think a jury is better informed if evidence is withheld from it. They think war is best avoided by not preparing for one. They think voter choice is improved by outlawing ads paid for by citizens (with exceptions given to the candidates themselves and newspaper editors).

Can you guess to whom it refers?

Primary Predictions

If you've been paying attention, you'd know that it's basically a fight between Romney and McCain. I'm not going to go into all the details about how McCain has gotten to where he is or why this was Romney's race to lose or whatever else I've had on my mind lately. I just want to offer a few predictions as to what I think is going to happen on and after next Tuesday (Super Duper Tuesday).

1. Huckabee will not drop out before Super Tuesday. Everyone, including Huck, knows that he cannot possibly win. But, every vote for Huck is a vote for McCain, simply because Romney and Huckabee attract basically the same voting block. I smell something fishy.
   
2. If McCain wins the lion's share of delegates on Super Duper Tuesday, point number one will be why.
3. Because of this, McCain will pick Huck for VP. I suspect some sort of collusion.
4. As soon as it is absolutely clear that McCain is the nominee and there is no chance of anyone else getting it, the tone in the media will change. McCain will be MURDERED (no, not literally) by the MSM. No more love-fest for him. Ever heard of the Keating 5? Probably not. But you will. Did you know that McCain called his Vietnamese captors "gooks?" You will. Over and over again. Did you know that McCain had Melanoma? Oh, you certainly will. And you'll get worst-case scenarios all over the place about how he could have a recurrence of it.
5. If McCain's should candidacy should possibly survive the nine-month onslaught of vicious negative reporting and he happens to win the presidency, the millions of GOPers that contributed to his nomination will very quickly have a "Oh God! What have we done?" moment.
1. The Fairness Doctrine will be passed. Why? Because the Democrats will have a majority, possibly a Super-Majority in Congress, so even if McCain would veto it, they will over-ride it. I predict that he would sign it, as punishment to the conservatives who now are trying to mobilize the GOP to vote for Romney.
2. Shamnesty. Period. It will likely be the first law he signs.
3. Supreme Court justices? Ha! You think Bush had a hard time? Geeeez....
4. McCain will start his presidency with lower approval ratings than Bush had at his worst. The GOP doesn't trust him, even dislikes him. The MSM will ensure that McCain is well-hated by the GOPers that don't already dislike him. The Left hates him because he has claimed total credit for the success of the Surge, which has utterly embarrassed the Left on the subject of the war. McCain is in a Lose-Lose situation.
   
6. If it's McCain vs. Hillary, then McCain might possibly win because of the high negatives that Hillary has and the possibility of Nader or Bloomberg getting in the race and taking votes from Hillary.
7. If it's McCain vs. Obama, you can forget it. Obama will crush McCain. Easily. The debates will be like a train hitting a compact car.

Okay, so it looks grim now, according to my predictions. I hope I'm wrong and Romney pulls out a few victories on Tuesday so that the GOP doesn't all go into this big 5 year state of depression...