My friends,

Townhall.com has served me well. Since May of 2008, Mind & Morals has been an outstanding means of communicating the ideas and values that I believe in, and that America was founded upon. But the time has come to make a change.

This is not goodbye. But Michael Coyne will have a new home on the web from now on.

You can still get the same, quality analysis that you have come to love from my new blog, RepublicanBlue, at http://republicanblue.wordpress.com.

Feel free to visit any time. Mention townhall, and I'll know that you've been with me from the start.

God bless you all. And God bless America.

-Michael Coyne
http://RepublicanBlue.wordpress.com/

“Despite his ties to other plots, including the one against the Army post at Fort Dix, some 20 e-mails between Awlaki and Major Hasan were dismissed as "innocent" by a military investigator working on the FBI's Joint Terror Task Force in Washington, D.C.” ~ABC News (link below)

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/anwar-awlakis-terrror-ties/story?id=9055322

I want everyone to think about this. Officials saw no need to investigate a Muslim military officer who was actively contacting a radical cleric who moved to Yemen after the US declared him a wanted man. Are you flipping kidding me?

There is no way to deny it: this attack on US soil, by a homegrown Islamic terrorist could have and should have been prevented. But it wasn’t.

Why wasn’t this prevented? Political correctness.

My readers know that I’m not one of these loons who advocates hunting down everyone who’s either Muslim or of Middle Eastern descent or both. But the evidence here was overwhelming that an investigation needed to be done.

1. If you have nothing to hide, why hide it?

Investigate! There is no reason not to check on communications to and from foreign addresses, specifically for this point. The Fed doesn’t care if Becky has a crush on Billy. The Fed doesn’t care if you email your family overseas several times a day, telling them how much you love them. They would be looking for communications that pertain to terrorist activity. If you have nothing to hide, why hide it?

2. Terror profiling is a valuable tool.

An 89-year-old white grandmother who has a cross necklace on is not going to be the next terrorist. We cannot let the forces of political correctness prevent American investigators from scrutinizing those who are demographically or statistically more likely to commit acts of terrorism. Nadal Hasan proves this point. When you see a Muslim engaging in suspicious activity, look into it. It’s a matter of common sense. When you see anybody engaging in specific activity, look into it. His ethnicity and religion shielded him from the investigation that would have saved 13 lives.

3. What’s right is rarely popular.

The Bush Administration had this right. This is an area where the Obama Administration is failing. It’s not popular or fun to say that certain people of the Islamic faith need to be scrutinized. But Bush said it. And we didn’t have an attack on US soil for nearly eight years. Obama refused to say it, and we had an attack in his first year. Yes, I do blame the limitations placed on law enforcement agencies and the specter thereof for the Fort Hood Massacre.

            It’s not news that there is a budget crunch in Illinois. An idea that has been floating around the General Assembly involves putting Government-owned video poker machines in various bars and dining establishments. This idea seems to have found its way into Chicago’s City Hall.

            The logic behind this idea certainly does scream “Chicago Democrat,” doesn’t it? There’s a financial crisis on, so let’s give people a brand new way to toss away their savings. Good plan.

            So what does this mean for you? Think about walking into one of your favorite eateries some time and being encountered with a box in the corner, not unlike a Pac-Man machine. Except this machine is targeted toward adults, and one such adult is hanging off the front of the machine, mesmerized and hooked. It’s a video poker machine, and, given what gambling does to many people, it should not be in the picture. Right now, targets are specifically bars, but restaurants and diners are not by any means off the table.

            Now, to be fair, like the Lottery, video gambling machines probably would drum up a few extra quarters for the city or state governments. However, the likely slight revenue increase does not justify playing on people’s vices—or, perhaps creating a new vice for those uninitiated Chicagoans—as a means to suck the change from their pockets.

            Don’t misunderstand me; legalizing gambling is not necessarily a bad move, but the idea of using it as a means to generate revenue does not have the ring of sound fiscal policy. The idea is comparable to California’s proposal to legalize marijuana for the specific purpose of collecting the sales tax revenue it would generate. We, as a society, need to be discouraging these vices, not using them to put money into government. Here’s a radical thought: if City Hall and the General Assembly are finding themselves strapped for cash, why don’t they stop spending our money?

            Freedom means choice. If someone wants to gamble, that is his or her decision, and I have no complaint there. I do have an issue with governments endorsing vices specifically to effectively tax them. Cook County Government is not a casino. The house always wins, and when the government is the house, the people lose.

Right now, the Illinois Video Gaming Act allows individual townships and counties to create and enforce their own bans on video gambling. Cook County recently passed such a ban.

            In a public statement released shortly after the county vote, Tony Peraica, Commissioner for the 16^th District of Cook County, said that the ordinance banning video gambling “ensures that we will not repeat the mistake that other communities have made in their mad quest for easy money.”

            Remember that video gaming exists to tempt the user and entice him to continue wasting his money when he knows that he should stop.

            Is it really so unreasonable to ask people to do their gambling on adult cruises? Why do we need to bring video gambling into our own backyard? Quite frankly, if Chicagoans are running out of excuses not to get things done, I can make some recommendations of time-fillers that cost less and are infinitely less addictive—such as chess, MASH reruns, or reading a good book. We do not need gambling to come to Cook County.

Remember my post on May 19 of this year? I told everyone that that was exactly the day that the Obama Administration took its sharp left turn full throttle and began to look like Soviets. Only a handful of you believed me on the significance of that day.

I told you that three things were emerging from the administration that should scare to death any good American who knows about the old USSR menace. Those were OHFA—Obama healthcare for America, GM—Government Motors, and GPOU—Government Political Opposition Unit. 

It’s no coincidence that GPOU shares initials with GOP. GPOU is my name for those individuals in the Obama Administration whose job it is to silence or marginalize anyone who even gives a whiff of dissent from the Government’s party line. Most recently, that target has been FOX News.

GPOU operatives like David Axelrod and Anita Dunn made official the war on FOX by passing over the network for various interviews and by calling them “opponents” or the “communications arm of the Republican Party.”

To the credit of all of the major networks, when the White House tried to bar FOX from a roundtable interview of the new “Executive Pay Czar,” ABC, CNN, NBC, and CBS all threatened a boycott of the interview until FOX was allowed in as well. Stories from even the New York Times and the Washington Post have illustrated the absurdity of the War on FOX (articles below).

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/postpartisan/2009/10/obamas_dumb_war_with_fox_news.html?hpid=opinionsbox1

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/23/us/politics/23fox.html?_r=1

In typical far-Left ideological fashion, the First Amendment freedom of the press applies only when the press is friendly to leftist goals. Thankfully, this doesn’t look like it will stand, and the administration will unwind itself if it begins to look as though the GPOU is in full swing.

However, should leftist voices prevail and FOX is marginalized—if anything, the opposite is happening, FOX’s ratings are jumping even higher than they were before the GPOU took aim—then we will see an end to freedom.

I will close with some words from a man who, in your heart, you know was right.

“Those who seek absolute power, even though they seek it to do what they regard as good, are simply demanding the right to enforce their own version of heaven on earth. And let me remind you, they are the very ones who always create the most hellish tyrannies. Absolute power does corrupt, and those who seek it must be suspect and must be opposed.”

 

In the debate over government-run healthcare, I’m pleased that the debate (if not necessarily the actions of the Democratic congress and the White House) is going in the right direction. Americans are largely saying, as my grandmother used to when voicing dissent, “nothin’ doin.’” It’s a fight we can still win.

There is, however, an element of the debate that is going all but completely ignored: secularization.

The two closest hospitals from my old neighborhood were called Resurrection and Lutheran General. Consider other hospital names across the country: First Methodist, Holy Family, Zion, Sinai, etc. Were the government to employ a system in which they pay the doctors and medical staff, they run in the tricky area in which taxpayers are funding religious organizations. The ACLU would be up in arms in a matter of minutes.

Now, I know what you’re thinking, and you’re right. I am focusing on a very small part of an infinitely larger picture. However, in a country where First Amendment religious freedom is a bedrock element of our founding principles, I feel as though someone needs to talk about it. Secularization is dangerous, and the next salvo from the secularist left is going to be coming out of the Trojan horse of federal healthcare.

It goes without saying that the American left has taken a very extreme interpretation of “separation of church and state” in recent decades, and it seems that this would be a predictable extension of that viewpoint. Imagine: hospitals being forced to change their names, to fire chaplains, and to seal off chapels in order to accept patients under the government healthcare plans. Or worse: ambulances ordered to redirect patients only to secular hospitals. If a hospital called “Sacred Heart” is four miles away, and one called “County General” is ten miles away, it would make basic sense for the ambulance carrying the patient in cardiac arrest to go to Sacred Heart. But, pursuant to the logic of the Democratic Party’s directing of tax dollars, the ambulance would have to go to County General. And the patient could die in the process.

Now, I’ll cede that nobody on the left has made this call yet. To my knowledge, nobody calling for government healthcare is demanding a directing of funds away from religious-backed organizations, but I know liberal America, and I promise you that this battle is coming. And sooner than you think. Remember, this is the political ideology that has complaints with Christian crosses on sites of veterans’ monuments and memorials. Would these people really sit by quietly while tax dollars went to institutions named after religious figures, employers of workers whose jobs center on religion, and edifices that house religious monuments (such as chapels)?

When the government gets involved with something, that something will invariably break down and do more harm than good. Healthcare will be no exception. Should the DC Democrats get their way, religious America will suffer yet another blow from the same minds that brought you the removal of the Ten Commandments from a courthouse. 

            I’d like to congratulate our president for his winning of the Nobel Peace Prize, and for his astounding and earth-shattering achievements in the field of world peace.

            In that same spirit, I will now accept your praises and gifts for my outstanding achievements in the field of shaping the global political debate.

            Not buying it? Good. We’re getting somewhere.

            All that the president has really done is talk. A lot. And while talking is wonderful, it does not amount to achievement. I operate a blog—which, by the way, may have recently earned a second or third regular reader—and write for a college newspaper. I also rant to anyone who will listen. I’ve influenced a few minds, I’m sure. But if someone were to tell me that I’ve won an award for my work, I’d respond with the sentence, “Put the damn bong down, you pinhead!”

            President Obama has been in office for nine months. He has talked about closing Gitmo, but keeps pushing the deadline back. He talked about pulling us out of Iraq, but troops won’t be off the ground until at least 2012. He nixed the missile defense shield in Europe, but that was only in the planning stages anyway. No actual action was required. So I must ask, when did great oratory and lofty goals amount to actual accomplishment?

            What has the president done in the international stage? He has snubbed our allies and cozied up to our enemies, such as Hugo Chavez. All this tells me is that the president is very confused. It does not tell me that he has made strides or steps or even stumbles toward a greater, lasting peace in the world.

            Perhaps, had he accomplished something, the president might have earned the Nobel Peace Prize a couple of years into his term, but not nine months into his term.

            I am not saying that the president will never deserve recognition, but I am saying that he doesn’t deserve it yet. Let’s wait until something of substance actually gets done, then, we’ll talk. But for now, I think that the Nobel Peace Prize has just reached a point of negative value.

My regular readers know that it must be an extreme state of affairs when I am forced to utter the following:

Today, I am more proud of Canada than I am of the United States.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/09/23/canada-boycott-ahmadinejad-unclear-join/

Fox News reports that Canada will be boycotting the speech to be given at the UN by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Citing Ahmadinejad’s anti-Semitic views and anti-Israel policy stances, Canada says that their seats will be empty.

Well, God bless the Canadian delegation on this one. They have made a bold statement and will not allow the vitriolic sentiments directed against the only thoroughbred ally of freedom in the Middle Eastern world: Israel. Canada will stand by her friends.

Not so for the US. Apparently, in addition to the Obama Administration’s soft-line defense of Israel and willingness to talk to the Iranian regime, they feel the need to lend credence to Ahmadinejad by sitting like patient schoolchildren while the dictator rambles on—likely defending his country’s “right” to pursue nuclear weapons and denying the Holocaust. Does it really take a Canadian to have the courage to skip class that day?

America is better than this. Through the years, our truest allies have consistently been Britain and Israel, and more and more it seems that the Obama Administration is selling them both up the river in a Chamberlainian streak of mass appeasement. Rather than tell the new Hitler that he’s a worthless little scumbag, let’s all grant him everything he wants and, hopefully, he’ll just settle down. Yeah, because that theory worked so well before WWII.

Even Germany has vowed to walk out on the Iranian psychopath… er… president, should he begin to even hint at saying something, well, in-character.

So the tally is three nations: Israel, Canada, and Germany who will all stand up and send a powerful message to the international community. But America will, apparently, continue on its path of apology. This is a stupid move, Mr. President and Madame Ambassador; defending liberty and standing for freedom is what our country does. It is never something to be ashamed of or to hide.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/09/23/obama-world-dont-expect-america-fix/

Good job, Mr. President. Stand against one of America’s best allies. This is a dark day for America; this is the day we stood with despotism over democracy.

If the current Administration loves liberty, hates tyranny and is willing to stand up for justice, then Susan Rice and the rest of the US Delegation will all be fully absent from the rantings of this madman.

President Obama and the Democrats, in hopes of passing a new version of the healthcare bill, have altered the “public option”—a government-run healthcare plan that would essentially decimate the insurance market—and replaced it with a “trigger option.”

The new “trigger option” would create a public option system only in those areas where one insurance company has a virtual monopoly over the local industry. For example, in a region of Alabama, there is more or less only one major health insurance company, so if people want insurance, they are all but forced to go through this company. Thus, the free market has failed in these regions and government interjection would appear to help with the quasi-monopoly situation. I like this idea, to a point.

Don’t get me wrong, government intervention is almost never the way to go, but, if this “trigger” plan were to set up government health care companies and provide them with some sort of path to privatization, then we could see the shot in the arm that the healthcare industry that Americans seem to want, without the possibility of a government takeover. More specifically, rather than Congress simply making a healthcare plan, Congress would launch a healthcare company, which, after a couple of years, would be allowed to enter the private market and to “cut the cord” from its mother, the Government.

This would, however, only be effective if, as yet another option, incentive-based, privately-owned health savings accounts were brought into the picture. Because, let’s face it, not everyone wants health insurance. John Stossel recently did a piece on ABC’s 20/20 that illustrated that people who do not buy health insurance actually save money over those who do buy insurance.

Now, here’s why the vision articulated above will not see the light of day anytime soon: first, the Democrats are split over whether or not to include a government option of any sort to begin with. While most, if not all Republicans are firmly in the “no” camp, there isn’t enough agreement to move forward. Second, the Democrats will never agree to a path to privatization because they fundamentally distrust the free market. Which is a shame, because what I have here is exactly the compromise that would save this debate.

There seems to be some controversy brewing regarding the President’s upcoming address to schoolchildren tomorrow. Having read the speech (link below courtesy Yahoo! News), I can honestly say that I don’t understand the problem.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090907/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_obama_school_speech_text

Agree with him politically or not, Barack Obama is the President of the United States. That, in itself, deserves our respect, regardless of how vehemently we may disagree with his policies.

The speech, at its most basic, calls on students to work hard and to stay in school. It reminds children that they have a duty to their Nation to work hard and to succeed. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that. In fact, hard work and self-reliance are pillars of conservative philosophy. So why would some criticize this speech?

The answer is simple: there are elements of the Republican Party and of the conservative movement that will fight against absolutely anything the President does, regardless of how benign the action may be. This is dangerous.

For starters, America can’t miss the Republican Party if we’re never really gone. There are times when we should simply nod and give silent support to our President. This is one such time. If we waste our energy balking at every single little move the President makes, then we sound reactionary. We are better than that.

Second, we want leaders to address schoolchildren. It’s important for kids to feel somehow connected to their government, otherwise they will grow up to think that they have no stake in America’s wellbeing.

I, for one, am glad that America’s students will be listening to the President tomorrow. I remember a girl on my high school newspaper remarking to me about how much more she liked then-President Bush when she had a chance to hear him speak, rather than listen to analysts dissect his words. It is a fact that people feel more connected when they have the chance to listen to people like the President tell them that what they’re doing is important.

I fully support this simple decision by the President. And I hope that he—and other elected officials—takes the time to talk to American youth more often.

I just got out of a political policy class, in which the professor stroked one of my pet peeves: he referred to abortion as a “women’s issue.” If you’ve read my blog for any length of time, you’ve likely read the rather lengthy piece that I previously wrote on abortion. But the entire time that I listened to this professor (who, for the record, I still like quite a bit) emphasize his point about policymaking by saying that a man had no reason to march for abortion, my thoughts drifted to my friend, Jack.

Jack (not his real name) had been seeing this girl for some time. The two appeared as close as any couple, and they seemed as happy as could be. And, as you can imagine, I was happy for them.

I knew that the couple was having sex, which is completely their business. I know that I am never in a position to judge or gauge a relationship unless I am a part of it. So, again, I just shrugged and was happy that Jack was so happy.

I should pause here to talk a little bit about Jack. Jack is a smart guy. This is the kind of guy that you go to for help. Any kind of help, really: homework, life, relationships, etc. He listens. And, because he is such a go-to kind of guy, it was flattering to me that he comes to me for the kind of advice and listening that he provides for others. Jack is not a particularly religious guy, but he does have a strong moral compass that constantly points north. He knows what he believes in, and he knows that there is a right and a wrong.

So one time, in spite of Jack’s responsibility and in spite of the efforts he and his girlfriend made to the contrary, everything that can go wrong did go wrong, and she got pregnant. I know Jack. His family doesn’t have a lot of money, but he would have embraced the challenge before him and accepted fatherhood. Jack would have gladly taken a full-time job and transferred to a community college, if need be, so that he could help to support the child he created. But there was a problem: the way that Jack found out about the baby.

Jack and his girlfriend were eating out when she gave him the news. The problem is with the news that she delivered. She didn’t tell him that she was pregnant; she told him that she had already had an abortion. This girl, without ever consulting the father of her child, had decided, for whatever reason, to “terminate her pregnancy” without the slightest show of concern for the father. Jack found out that he was a father only to discover that his baby had been killed before he even got a chance to love the child.

So, what, exactly could I tell Jack? Today, I dare you to try to tell him that abortion is a “women’s issue.” He explodes at the very mention of the argument. “You think abortion is a women’s issue?” he exclaims, “Tell that to my dead baby!”

Abortion is about more than just the woman who carries the baby. It’s also about the man who co-created the child. And, most importantly, it’s about the baby who does not get a voice, who has no one to advocate for him. It’s about that baby who doesn’t get a chance to draw his first breath. It’s about the baby who doesn’t get to cry. It’s about the baby who will never get to be held by someone who loves him.

It’s about Jack’s baby.

 

 

 

*Note: I have been given express permission to tell this story, however, to protect Jack’s privacy, his real name will not be released under any circumstances.

Today, America lost a true legend.

Senator Edward M. Kennedy was the last icon of a political era. He served his country for nearly 47 years and never failed to stand up for what he believed in. The Senate’s Liberal Lion was an amazing public servant and a gifted compass for the American Left.

Whether or not we agree with Senator Kennedy’s politics, we should all respect his years of service and be grateful for his presence in American politics. We should all see Ted Kennedy as a shining example of an American who proudly, unwaveringly stood up for what he believed in, as we should all do at all times.

I hope all of my readers will join me in prayer for the late Senator and his family.

In death, let man remember the good, and let God sort out the bad.

The following is a telling display: our Vice President choking up at the memory of Kennedy.

http://abcnews.go.com/video/playerIndex?id=8417834

So apparently, everyone who asks a tough question of one of our elected Congressional Democrats is a part of some vast right-wing conspiracy. Yeah. Sure. Haven’t we been on this ride before?

What amazes me is that the Dems seem intent on claiming that those who are critical of the Obamacare proposals are right-wing nut jobs that think that the President wasn’t really born in America. Don’t see the connection? Me neither. But that doesn’t stop Liberals from calling opponents of the healthcare bill “loons” or from both sides alternating calling each other “fascists.” Constructive, no?

Here are the points I want to make:

1 – The purpose of a town hall-style meeting is for congressmen and senators to listen to the people. So how does this fit? We’ve got congressmen shouting down anyone who voices opposition at these meetings:

            http://abcnews.go.com/video/playerIndex?id=8364201

2 – When the Dems try to draw a line connecting the town hall dissenters and the dopes that doubt the President’s citizenship, do they really think that they’re accomplishing anything? True: 25% of the GOP doubts that President Obama is a natural-born US citizen. But the following is also true: 33% of Democrats believe that George W. Bush had a hand in plotting 9/11. Seriously, folks: there are crazies on both sides. Let it go. These are the people who live in their own little world and would not listen to reason if their lives depended on it. Debate the rational people, and let the crazies twist in the wind. I’m a college student from Chicago; I know better than most that there exists a multitude of ignoramuses who will not listen to anything anyone says unless it fits their ideology.

 

I have a plan for the Republican Party. This is wild; you’re going to love it. Are you ready for this: we all shut up about healthcare. Seriously. Let the Dems drive themselves into the ground. They will pass a healthcare bill. With such a grotesque majority in Washington, it’s unavoidable. Americans know that Republicans hate this bill with visceral passion, as does most of America. When the Democrats spend every bit of their political capital on this bill, then we will take back America. We won’t see the Obamacare machine exist for long. It will flop within a couple of months and Democrats themselves will dismantle the machine, effectively saying, “Republicans were right.” When that happens, we will have no shortage of people shouting, “I told you so!”

So, in summary: the bill (or some version of it) will pass. But America will not live under Obamacare for any substantive length of time.

Short of the woman contracting a flesh-eating disease or video of her defecating on a copy of the United States Constitution surfacing, it is more than less inevitable that Sonia Sotomayor will be confirmed to the Supreme Court. Republicans should not have been upset about this, as we are trading a liberal (Justice Souter) for a new liberal. The ideological makeup of the court is going to be the same.

Had I been Chairman Michael Steele, I would have issued an official statement formally saying that the Republican Party will not oppose Sotomayor’s appointment or confirmation. I also would have sent some sort of statement or strategy memo to Senate Republicans asking them to simply let Sotomayor in. This should not be a big battle; Republicans are not losing anything here, nor are they gaining. This is a lateral move.

But instead, the Party has vocally opposed Sotomayor and fought against her appointment with most of the weapons in their arsenal. See the link below. This was a stupid move.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/07/21/judiciary-republicans-delay-sotomayor-vote-week/

In the relatively near future, we are facing the loss of moderate-conservative Justice John Paul Stevens. Should he leave the court before 2013 (which all indications are that he will), Republicans will desperately need to fight against President Obama’s likely Far-Left nominee. The problem is that the American people will be yawning. The public will unanimously say, “We’ve seen this show before.”

A political party that speaks with a relatively united voice—as the now-minority Republicans have—has very limited political capital. If it appears that the Party fought too hard against Sotomayor, we will have no political capital left to spend on the Stevens replacement, and the makeup of the court will shift to the Left.

I understand the concerns of my fellow conservatives. Sonia Sotomayor is not someone that I am fond of, either. However, letting her pass is in our long-term best interest. Progress comes slowly. Patience is everything. We need to remember that, if we want affirmative action upended, if we want Roe v. Wade overturned, and if we want an America where judicial activism goes the way of the dodo bird, then we have to pick our battles very carefully.

The Supreme Court is unlike any other American Government establishment in that there is no mechanism in which it can be held accountable to the American people. As such, progress comes at the speed of continental drift. But it is a battle that the side of right and the Right side will eventually win. It will just take time.

Has anyone else noticed that almost everything funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (aka: the stimulus) involves construction and/or roadwork? So I made an observation:

Well, damn.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/07/12/politics/main5153575.shtml

Okay, so just when I thought the Republican Party’s biggest problem was about to go away… I was a victim of my own wishful thinking.

It’s worth pausing here to explain in better detail my feelings regarding Governor Sarah Palin.

In a strictly personal/political point-of-view sense, I have no problems with her. I likely agree with her around 85% of the time politically, and I think that she has a relatively good ability to rally both the Republican base and the “everyman” small-town independent voter. Good for her. However, even with all this, I desperately want her to disappear from the national stage. And the sooner, the better. Here are the two big reasons:

1) Perception is everything. Sarah Palin may, in fact, be capable of great things. But as far as the media, the late-night comedians, and the segment of the general public that still depends on NBC as an honest news source are concerned; Sarah Palin is George W. Bush 2.0. That’s bad. Really bad. As much as I respect and hold a favorable opinion of Bush 43, I’m also smart enough to know that much of America is not on board with that. And if the Republican Party appears to be led by an army of plainspoken, small-town values, big-government conservatives (henceforth known as The W Army), then we are officially dead as a party. The good conservatives and capable Republicans that actually make up 99% of the party will be a nonissue because the prevailing face of Republicanism will be distasteful to the American public at large.

2) Palin is a loose cannon. Unpredictability is dangerous, just ask Vice President Biden’s press secretary. While there was a time that I would have thought that the honesty and shoot-from-the-hip bluntness that hallmarked both of the 2008 Vice Presidential candidates would have been beautiful for the party’s leadership, it is the wrong thing for us right now. Much like perception above, the issue here is marketing. Let’s play a little game: pretend that the Democratic Party is Pepsi and the Republican Party is Coca-Cola. We are in the middle of the 1980s, right now, where Pepsi sales are up and we are trying to figure out how to get back some profit margins. The temptation is to create New Coke—i.e. recreate the Republican Party into something totally new, abandoning much of what made us the party of Reagan, Goldwater, Nixon, Bob Taft, Coolidge, and Lincoln. But we must remember that New Coke was a colossal failure, as evidenced by the resurgence of Coke sales with Coca-Cola Classic’s triumphant return. It’s not that people are opposed to our party’s belief systems; we merely failed to sell it over the past six years or so. It was a marketing issue. Governor Palin represents a lateral move from Bush-era marketing. Those things that we love about Sarah Palin are largely the same things that we loved about George W. Bush circa 1999-2000: small-town appeal, simplicity, honesty, straightforwardness, etc. But we need to sell our message in the inner cities, in black and Hispanic communities, on college campuses, in bookstores, and most importantly on television and the internet. Sarah Palin may be a fantastic woman, but she is completely the wrong face for Republicans and conservatism in general.

I believe that Republicans are beginning to come to this conclusion about Palin, as well. The party subconsciously knows that everything that made us like her as Senator McCain’s running mate would cause her to slip a noose around the party as a leader. This is likely why she is even doing the bipartisan shtick regarding her new political committee; she knows that Republicans may very soon develop the tendency to avoid her like the bubonic plague.

The one and only thing that might have saved Palin from harsh judgment regarding resignation was an explanation for why. Why did she resign? Was it merely to evade the corruption charges that were beginning to swarm? She would have needed to make it look like a sort of self-sacrifice, as it was for the resignation of President Nixon. Nixon saw that the Watergate mess was distracting America from functioning properly, so his resignation has the historical flavor of almost falling on a sword. Palin could have used to take notes from the video below. Fortunately for the Republican Party, Palin doesn’t have Nixon’s savvy.