This started last week as the left-leaning pundits referred to us as organized by the GOP or some deep-pocketed right wing group.  As citizens around the country turned out in greater number to so-called Town Hall Meetings, the message became even more clear… Americans do not want government run health care. Rather than hear us, they are trying to dismiss us again.  Just yesterday I saw some liberal Congress woman on Fox proclaim that all of these protests are organized by Americans for Prosperity, who teaches a few people to make their numbers look greater to have a larger impact.  She posited that there really wasn’t that much opposition to ObamaCare, it was just groups like Americans for Prosperity manipulating the media and spreading disinformation.

I couldn’t help but laugh.

The GOP is so effective that they tried to get all of the protesters in Raleigh to move away from MoveOn.org, away from Obama’s motorcade, away from cameras and away from the school.  They might as well have asked us to go home and protest in silence.

Americans for Prosterity did no better.  The Health Care protest they organized was over three miles away from President Obama’s Town Hall meeting.  Three miles away and inside a hotel ballroom.  When was the last time you heard of a protest occurring inside a rented hotel ballroom?

No, the people who showed up and made a difference were a rag-tag group.  Some loosely organized by NC Freedom, Triangle Conservatives Unite, and a host of independently run websites and blogs like this one.  Some other protesters had been to a TEA Party and wanted their voice heard.  And some just showed up on their own because the President was going to be in their town and they wanted him to see and hear their opposition to his plans.

Make no mistake, the “organizers” the media and left-wing want you to believe are pulling the strings have little control in this fight.  They might make noise from time to time, but they are following the charge not leading the way.  I don’t know if they have too much money or have been in politics for too long… but the opposition to government health care isn’t from them, it is from all of us.  It is the grassroots taking a stand and making a difference.  Our heterogeneous group easily outnumbered MoveOn.org and the ObamaCare proponents by 3 or 4 to 1.  Imagine if the GOP and Americans for Prosperity had actually showed up too.

I am a Republican but my party isn’t pulling the strings.  No right-leaning group is pulling the strings.  We the People are pulling the strings now. That is how it should have always been.  If we stay vigilant, it is how it always will be.

And the woman above, supposedly organized by Americans for Prosperity… she didn’t hear about the Town Hall from them, she heard it from Senator Specter himself.  His office sent her an e-mail asking her to come out.  That is exactly what she did.

Here’s more:

If it’s 2012 and our party is defined by Palin and Limbaugh and Cheney, then we’re headed for a blowout.

Weaver’s last job?

close adviser to Sen. John McCain.

Mr. Weaver, how’d 2008 work out for you?

I am bloody sick of this argument, which is being fueled by the liberals who want to see us lose.  If you want to be a Liberal, then follow Arlen Specter and get the heck out.  But our party is going to have values and principles or we will continue to fail.  And when we fail, the country suffers.  You don’t win by mimicking your opponent, you win by beating them.  And you beat them by returning to American Values and the Rule of Law.

Fiscal responsibility.  Personal responsibility.  Have integrity.  Speak the truth.  Quit acting like a politician and act like an American.  An American who understands our nation’s history and the war currently waged on our culture.  You win with strength, leadership, and character… three things severely lacking in Washington DC (just ask Nancy Pelosi).  You win by telling the truth and not backing down.

We will never beat Barack Obama at his own game, nor should we want to.  We are better than some slick used-car salesman who says anything to gain power and whose ego is larger than our county can contain.  Its about America, not a man.  Its about a country, not a party.  Its about doing what’s right, not doing what some strategist says will help you win.

Our country was built by men who put principle and the promise of a nation above themselves.  Are any of them left?

Rush Limbaugh, Governor Palin and Vice President Cheney may not be the face of the party in 2012, but they have something that John McCain lost, Barack Obama never had, and Mr. Weaver clearly does not understand.

A spine.

People who lose elections should really stop telling us how to win.  You had your chance and you blew it.

Don’t believe that spin for a second.

If Arlen Specter’s character was unimpeachable, why did he promise not to leave the party last month?

I am staying a Republican because I think I have an important role, a more important role, to play there. The United States very desperately needs a two-party system. That’s the basis of politics in America. I’m afraid we are becoming a one-party system, with Republicans becoming just a regional party with so little representation of the northeast or in the middle atlantic. I think as a governmental matter, it is very important to have a check and balance. That’s a very important principle in the operation of our government. In the constitution on Separation of powers.

Based on reports today, he obviously didn’t mean a word of that. Maybe its just me, but I don’t see lies and flip-flops as signs of someone’s character. No, this wasn’t about character, it was about self-preservation and Arlen Specter’s overwhelming desire to maintain his power. And that my friends is exactly why we don’t need him in the party or the Senate any more.

All this action does is prove that what a lot of us thought was true… Specter never was a Conservative nor much of a Republican. If he caucuses now with the Democrats then Specter will virtually assure a filibuster-proof majority… destroying any chance of preventing Obama’s Socialist policies. If that happens, Specter deserves all the blame.

Specter has already started slinging mud and lies at his likely challenger Pat Toomey. Let’s support Toomey for Senate and make sure this former RINO retires for good.

I’m far from a tool or devotee of the Republican Party establishment, but I am a Republican.  I don’t agree with Michael Steele on everything and I certainly didn’t agree with President Bush on everything.  Just check this blog for complaints about George W. Bush’s handling of the mortgage crisis long before TARP came around.  The party is broken as are many of its major players.  But the way to fix it is not by walking away.

When a tree fell on our home a few years ago destroying our roof and some of the trusses, we didn’t abandon the house and try to build again from scratch.  When your teenager rebels, acts like a fool and gives you countless sleepless nights, you don’t try to put them up for adoption or kick them out on the streets.  When things are broken, we don’t just throw them away.  Maybe that’s the mentality we’ve learned over years of excess, but its not the American way.

Our government is broken and our country is ill.  But other than the IRS and the tax code, it’s not time to throw the baby out with the bath water.  We don’t need to start this great experiment over again.

The problem is people get disheartened with their leaders or disenfranchised by the figureheads and then they shut down or walk away.  But this isn’t a restaurant that gave you bad service, there’s not another one to choose from around the block.  The way you fix things is from within.  And that’s what Conservatives and Libertarians need to do if they want to save the Republic.

I’m more Libertarian or Conservative than Republican.  Heck, call me a Federalist if you want.  But if I abandon the party because they peed in my cornflakes last year, what can I do to change them?  Do you think my voice is louder on the outside or from within?  At some point you have to pick your team and make a stand.  The coach might need to be changed, the back office might need some adjustments and the quarterback might just plain suck.  But that doesn’t mean you jump ship for the division rivals.  What the Liberals understand is that a collective voice is louder… so work within the system, change the collective and *then* amplify your voice.

Conservatives, Libertarians and others who understand our Constitution and the responsibilities within didn’t do that last year.  We had a fractured primary and a fractured party, and the results are ever so clear.  In fact, we failed much earlier than that.  We didn’t hold our leaders accountable, didn’t keep our voices loud, and the Contract with America and Conservative Revolution floundered as soon as we took our eye off the ball.  We failed to stay connected and keep our politicians honest… and the contrasts between our guys and the left faded away.

Want to make a point to the Republican Party?  Redirect your contributions to candidates that live by your values and govern by your principles  Then tell the party why.  Tell them that as an organization they aren’t living up to your ideals so you had to bypass them with your support.  Money talks, and if enough people did that, the weight of the entire party would move.  And if you get involved with the people that hold your values, you can propel them to office, pushing your guys to the top and your ideals with them.

Are many Washington Republicans corrupt, misguided or completely and utterly lost?  You bet they are.  They may be beyond repair, but the party is not.  Take a stand, get involved, and make your voice heard.  Unless you want to secure even greater powers for the liberal left, the last thing you should do is break away.  If you do, you can bet voices like Meghan and John McCain will reshape the party and then the American political system will continually offer the same choice that the 2008 election gave us… Liberal or Socialist.  Either way, if those are the choices, we lose.  But if we work to change the party from within, we can conform it to the voices that matter to us like Ronald Reagan, Fred Thompson, Mark Sanford or even Glenn Beck.

Anyone whose ever done business with me knows my favorite saying is tried and true.  It’s easier to keep a customer than find a new one. The same holds for the party, and the same holds for us. Stay involved and it would easier for the party to conform back to our ideals than to find someone to replace us.  Likewise, it would be easier for us to move the party on principles than start something new.

The party may be about power.  But if we become the party than the we have the power.  Isn’t that what the founders intended in the first place?

Still, its not the balance of power that leaves me less than inspired with a Chambliss win. My problem is Senator Chambliss himself. Chambliss is hardly a RINO by any standard, but elephants have long memories, and our own party should not be precluded from criticism or reflection. Lest we forget, Saxby Chambliss was one of the Gang of 10 who stabbed all of us Conservatives in the back when Domestic Drilling was a rallying cry for Americans across the country. When we had a winning issue and momentum at our back, it was Chambliss and a few others who sought to torpedo our efforts and surrender to Democrats with a loosely veiled attempt of so-called bipartisanship. Compromise is fine when both sides have merits, but there is no place to compromise when you are right, and there is never a time to compromise your principles.

Don’t let the media fool you.  Vying for the moderate vote is a losing issue.  John McCain’s candidacy proved it.  If you don’t have any core principles or values, then you have nothing.  That lack of principles is why Americans have so little faith in our elected officials and why the Republican Party has lost so much ground.  The time for so-called moderate voices or compromise for the sake of compromise is dead.  That unprincipled pull to the center is what led our country into record deficits, ridiculous bailouts and an utter lack of domestic integrity.  Values and principles are the only way to get us back.

So congrats Senator Chambliss for holding his seat.  Here’s hoping a Domestic-Drilling Supporter and staunch Conservative will take his place in six years.  We are called elephants for a reason… and this is one elephant who won’t forget.

Governor Jindal was on MSNBC.  Thanks to HotAir for posting the video since I my remote never seems to stop at that bastion of liberal propaganda any more.

I especially liked hearing Governor Jindal discuss the states as “laboratories of experimentation.”  That’s exactly what the founding father’s intended, is the bedrock of federalism, and something that Fred Thompson discussed a lot during the primaries.

The idea behind a limited federal government with the power residing primarily with individual states is that each state is a microcosm of the nation as a whole and each can take its own approach to solving problems.  Thus we have the potential of 50 different laboratories researching and combating similar issues, the best solutions from one can then be borrowed by the rest.  Certainly in a time plagued by a number of national issues (credit, taxes, housing, health care, education, etc) we would be better served with fifty different groups in touch with the needs of their citizens trying to come up with solid solutions as opposed to one inept base of power continually making mistakes.

I am a Palin supporter.  I am also a Bobby Jindal supporter.  As charismatic conservatives who have records of real reform, I think the two of them offer great hope to the future of our Party.  But they are not alone.  There are other strong conservatives in America, and hopefully over the coming years a few of them will rise to the top and carry the party forward.  We must resist all attempts to move to the center and lose our soul.  That is a losing proposition every time it is tried.  The liberal media will try to persuade us otherwise, but make no mistake, John McCain was the case study of moving the party to the center and he failed… miserably.  George W. Bush tried to move to the center, and that lack of discipline and principle damaged his presidency.  The liberals are going to hate us either way, so we might as well have our dignity and principles in tact.  Its much easier to defend yourself when your position is not defenseless.

Our country has taken a serious step back, and over the next two years it could get much worse.  We are in no position to protect the judiciary, the military, the Constitution or the unborn.  We must fight to make sure we never find ourselves in this position again.

2010 is not a long way off.  That will be our first chance to push Conservative voices in Congress.  We must start now.  But this fight is more than just promoting candidates with the right ideas.  We have the chance to reshape the Republican Party and have it focus back on the core principles that matter.  The “first principles” of our founders.  The party is beholden to no one because the party lost.  Its not time to rebrand or renew, its time to rebuild and reform.  We need more discipline and integrity in Washington.  We need more values and responsibility.  Those are the same things we need from our party, and if we enforce within ourselves, we will get back into a place of prominence.

I vow to not give up the fight.  Will you join me?

Only in America can the desire to do good be so great that we bend over backwards and elect someone whose own supporters admit they don’t even know.  Only in America would we take a chance on an unknown with seriously questionable rhetoric and ties because we have faith in the greater good.  Like our troops and our treasure, we risk it all on the mere hope of a better tomorrow.

I congratulate Barack Obama.  He is my President.  I pray that God gives him the strength and wisdom to make the right choices and the humbleness to know to ask.  But as my President, Obama is also a paradox.  He epitomizes both the best and the worst of our great nation.  His political ideology offers a stark reality that is the very antithesis of what it means to be American, yet his story could not have happened anywhere else.

America proved it is both a naive child and an unequaled leader on the world stage.  Only a child would have such blind faith and optimism when all realistic expectations point to a fairytale.  Only a brave leader could have the courage to allow that optimism to lead the way.

Make no mistake, I disagree with virtually everything that Barack Obama stands for.  But the symbolism of his achievement is something I will forever cherish.  I congratulate him and his campaign on accomplishing such a novel and monumental feat.

And now it is time to lead.  Young and old, from history through today… millions of Americans have paved the way for Barack Obama to become President-Elect.  And he is beholden to honor their every sacrifice.  He has promised a lot.  He better live up to the hype.

As for the rest of us… Conservatives… it is time to lead.  It it time to place principle and purpose above all else.  It is time for the revolution to begin.  You can choose to leave the Republican Party and go astray… or you can dig in, dig deep, and make it the party that it should be.  Voters and providence will always be on our side if we can only find our way.  For too long we have listened to pundits and moved to the center… for too long we have forgone values and principle for electoral expedience and easy compromise.  But we should never compromise when we are right.  We have to find that right path once again and never, ever give it up.

Its time for the revolution to begin.  Its time for Conservatives to unite.  America needs us.  The unborn need us.  Our troops need us.  The Constitution needs us.  Demcracy needs us.  The economy needs us.  The next generation needs us.  They don’t deserve anything less.

May God Bless Ronald Reagan.  May God Bless the United States of America.  Never forget.  His fight then is remarkably similar to our fight today.

Video via Da Mihi Animas, hat-tip: Gateway Pundit.

Republicans don’t just need a manager. Republicans need a communicator and a visionary. That’s Fred Thompson.

So, what if the Republican Party split the role within the RNC, tasking one of the potential candidates with the Management role, while Fred Thompson took the Leadership role? If there is any figure on our present stage who can credibly and powerfully take on Democratic leadership, it is Fred Thompson.

The progressives and netroots did not take over the Democratic Party by nominating Howard Dean for Presidential; they did it by putting Howard Dean in charge of the Democratic Party. If Republicans want to take back the Republican Party, then we may need to draft Fred Thompson again.

h/t: Instapundit.

McCain’s speech was good, got better as it went on.  Sure he’s not Obama… but we don’t want him to be.

I’m sure some people think the Code Pink Wacko Protestors are heros or something… but they are not, they are cowards.  The man on the stage is the hero, and the protestors looked all the smaller and out of touch for it.  Of course the cameras loved covering the protestors… no surprise there.  Hey Protest Wacko — You don’t like something in America?  Get involved, run for office, make your voice heard… but do it in a respectful way.  Otherwise you come across as small, petty and your argument is lost.  I guarantee you that the man on stage understand war and hates it more than you do.

Sarah Palin didn’t like how things were going in her home town, so she got involved.  From PTA to City Council to Mayor to Governor.  Sarah Palin got involved to shake things up and make things right.  That’s what America is about.  Hiding in the seats, pretending to be someone you are not, and then yelling and disrupting a speech is not how democracies thrive… its how cowards act.

Now back to the speech. Of course Sarah Barracuda’s was more exciting, but McCain’s was excellent.  I think he once again framed the debate well and showed just a piece of the stark contrast between him and the socialist on the other ticket.  I particularly liked the part about how his time as a P.O.W. converted him from a self-involved man to a man putting Country First.  Real world experience makes conservatives, and real world experience is something McCain has ten fold.  Who better to lead us in the next phase of the Greater War On Terror… who better to challenge us to make the personal sacrifices we need to make in this time of economic uncertainty, energy shortages, and a war on two fronts.  Who better to offer real change and real reform and not just hope and hype.

John McCain and Sarah Palin are clearly the best choice to move America forward.  The only question is whether people are so entrenched in their Bush Derangement Syndrome that they are too blind to notice.

The excitement, pride and patriotism I felt last night didn’t come from a book, a conversation, the video replay or text of the speech.  It came from the moment.  A moment that was set-up by a much too long primary season and a much fractured Republican Party.  A moment that was then gift wrapped when the Democratic Party nominated a socialist who is full or rhetoric but short of substance.  The man can speak, but unlike my hero the Great Communicator, all he has are words.

Sarah Palin has words too… and she can deliver them with wit, a little bite and not an ounce of condescension.  While the elitist Obama writes his American memoir while sitting on a beach in Bali, our Vice Presidential Nominee was raising a family… running a government… kicking the ass of corruption on both sides of the aisle… and bagging a few moose for good measure.  She is the embodiment of the American Dream and the American woman.  And she does it all without patting herself on the back or forming her own religion.

The Republican Primary was full of people trying to summon the legacy of Ronald Reagan.  They each evoked his name because they knew the party had lost his spirit.  Every one of them fell short.  All strong candidates in their own right, but none of them were enough.  None of them had everything so we each picked sides for something.  Evangelicals over here, fiscal conservatives over there, security hawks there, federalists over there… and the rest went to Ron Paul.  The curse of our primary was that all of our candidates to one extent or another were close… but none of them were close enough.  And the result was a compromise that left everyone scratching their heads.

And the compromise, as worthy as he is, left us with a void.  We wanted that excitement.  We wanted that champion.  We all thought we found our Reagan and all came up short.  John McCain is a remarkable man with a remarkable career who is best equipped to be our Commander-in-Chief.  And in these serious times, that’s exactly what we need.  But we want more.

And we got it.

Only time will tell if Sarah Palin can stand up to our standard bearer of old… but one thing is certain from last night… she certainly got us all excited again.  She changed the game, elevated the debate, and pointed out the hypocrisy in the arguments on the left.  She broke the symbolism of their candidate, by being a symbol herself, only to shatter both symbols with a real record of real reform.

John McCain found his Vice Presidential pick and we found our party again.  Thank God for Hillary and high gas prices.

She is from a small town, with small town values, but that’s not good enough for those folks who are attacking her and her family.

Some Washington pundits and media big shots are in a frenzy over the selection of a woman who has actually governed rather than just talked a good game on the Sunday talk shows and hit the Washington cocktail circuit. Well, give me a tough Alaskan Governor who has taken on the political establishment in the largest state in the Union — and won — over the beltway business-as-usual crowd any day of the week.

Let’s be clear … the selection of Governor Palin has the other side and their friends in the media in a state of panic. She is a courageous, successful, reformer, who is not afraid to take on the establishment.

Sound like anyone else we know?

She has run a municipality and she has run a state.

And I can say without fear of contradiction that she is the only nominee in the history of either party who knows how to properly field dress a moose … with the possible exception of Teddy Roosevelt.

She and John McCain are not going to care how much the alligators get irritated when they get to Washington, they’re going to drain that swamp.

Cassy Fiano thinks this is a “brilliant move” for Republicans and I couldn’t agree more. There is no excuse for any elected representative not to act.

We have been beholden to foreign resources and OPEC manipulation for far too long. We should have been working to reduce our dependency on foreign oil for decades. Instead we’ve wasted time and money on the farce of corn-based ethanol and been held hostage to the demands of liberal lunatics and the environmental lobbies. Hopefully Americans are now ready to keep the pressure on, and support Senate Republicans for finally taking up the fight.

Its sad to think that the Dems are doing nothing about this in an effort to keep people feeling the pain at the pump so they are disgusted at the administration and vote against the GOP in November. Similar manipulative tactics worked to enable a Democrat landslide in 2006.. but once they got power, little (if anything) was actually done.

Contrary to what Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid appear to believe, the pocket books and wallets of the American people are not pawns in their arrogant game of chess. Its past time to take real action, now.

Drill Here. Drill Now. There is no other choice.