In my opinion, given the mood of the country, it's not at all about Democrats or Republicans, or Tea Party or Coffee Party or One Nation.
Want to win elections? Today's successful politician won't promise to bring home the bacon. Today's successful politician will promise to bring home the individual freedom.
President Obama has had literally trillions of dollars to spend and has had two years to do it, and unemployment remains at ridiculously high levels. That fact alone ought to disabuse anyone of the idea that a president can create jobs.
And I'm not picking on Obama here... that's across the board. There isn't a single president who can create jobs. Nor is there a governor who can create jobs. Nor is there a mayor who can create jobs.
Unless they're growing government, no one in government creates jobs. Saying otherwise is to insist that there truly is a Santa Claus.
Jobs are created when an entrepreneur takes a risk, works to create an attractive service or product for the market, and then sells it at a profit. When there are profits, that money can be used to hire someone and - tada! - a self-sustaining job is born.
Those in government take no risk, don't care whether the service or product is attractive, and profits don't drive the sustainability of the job. Government just forces us to pay more to it if there isn't enough money to sustain the job.
What a government can do is to create a risk-friendly environment for entrepreneurs to create jobs. By encouraging and rewarding risk, jobs can be created by risk-taking entrepreneurs.
Some presidents have been great at that, and others suck. In my lifetime, President Obama is the worst at it. In fact, he's just about doing everything he can to make taking the risk as frightening as possible to even the most resolute of entrepreneurial souls. This is why our economy can't get up off the ground.
And if you're reading this far, this is why I have been so adamantly opposed to President Obama all this time. He telegraphed his hatred of capitalist America in his campaign and throughout his presidency. He's spending a ton of money while killing the job-creating environment that produces the income that's taxed.
Can a president create jobs? No. Can a president kill jobs? Oh yes. And Barack Obama excels at that.
Over the weekend, New York Republican Gubernatorial Nominee Carl Paladino said this:
"I just think my children and your children would be much better off and much more successful getting married and raising a family, and I don't want them brainwashed into thinking that homosexuality is an equally valid and successful option - it isn't."
Upon pronouncement, Carl effectively certified the election for Cuomo.
When the Republicans champion freedom for everyone, they'll represent America and win in a huge way. When they steer off into championing so-called "social issues," they'll force us to decide between social freedom, represented better by the Dems, and economic freedom, represented better by the Repubs.
Why can't one party actually choose to champion both?
The Stupidity of Social Issues Candidates, Part II
Ah, Carl Paladino... we hardly knew ye. And then you went and opened your mouth. And now, we reap the consequences in the form of Gov. Cuomo.
Carl's writing a book now that's entitled, "How to Lose Big Time in a Republican Year." The first chapter is about hating on people while pretending to be a Christian.
Humanity is full of people with biases and prejudices and opinions. It's normal to have them. But where you lose people is when you bring those to the level of government, aka the State. Nobody wants morality legislated. People want the freedom to be who they choose to be, and the rest of us expect that they won't step on the liberties of others in doing so.
And for those who think that all law is the legislation of morality, that would be incorrect. All law is the preservation of freedom. The law steps in when someone's freedom is violated. So back up with your morality and don't force it on me.
As I sit here in the cheap seats and watch the election math test unfold, I'm reminded of Stephen Covey's Circle of Influence and Circle of Concern. I'm concerned about the results, but I have very little influence, though I certainly did my best. Therefore, I'm kind of shrugging as we slide into these final two weeks.
I don't watch a lot of TV, and what TV I do watch is on my DVR - which allows me to skip the commercials. The local political ads for the Congressional race are mostly from the Democrat incumbent, Leonard Boswell, and he's throwing every negative ad he can at his cheery opponent, Brad Zaun. Boswell was down 10 points in the polls a month ago. Are the ads, which are ludicrous, having any effect? I guess we'll find out how easily swayed Iowans are...
Which kinda gets to the point I want to make: there are two ways to win elections.
Have a ton of money, to persuade people with your message via the media.
Have a ton of people who can personally ripple your message out to those they know
The latter is much harder, which is why money rules in politics.
If the Republicans win election, I'm not convinced that they will stop the stupid spending in Washington - or in Iowa, for that matter. The Republicans, in my view, are only slightly better fiscally. Take this message from Chuck Grassley:
That's exactly what we don't need: an attack ad on drug companies that can hire people during a down economy and that touts Grassley's big spending solution. And that's a campaign ad for this election cycle from Iowa's top Republican. Hell, that could have been from Tom Harkin.
So the Republicans have a lot to prove, which is why I'm not heavily invested in their success. Color me skeptical, but when Grassley comes out with an ad like that after all the tea parties and town halls last year, it just goes to show that he doesn't care to listen at all. So I find it hard to care back.
We saw the movie, "Red," over the weekend. I rarely give one, but this gets my highest recommendation. A slightly military, slightly political film, I shudder going into these flicks because there is inevitably some lefty commentary of some sort - but not here. Pure entertainment, excellently delivered.
The greatest invention of all time was digital video recording, because it allows me to skip past all of the smarmy political ads that spotlight some incident from long, long ago that had no impact on my life whatsoever in an effort to make me forget what some politician did in the last year that completely impacts my life.
