I was watching O'reilly the other night and he had  Dick Morris on. One of the topics was who should be, could be, or wants to be the leader of the Republican party. Morris was on the money, O'reilly not so much. While Bill doesn't see any real challengers that rise to Obama's stature Morris sees it like I do and for that matter, the way Karl Rove sees it. No one needs to step up....just yet.

 

President Obama and speaker Pelosi are doing all the work for us. Morris and Rove have suggested to take it issue by issue and they are right. There are plenty of issues coming down the road and the issues in the news right now that Republicans are winning without having to go on offense. Amazingly, the one man who has gone on offense and has come out on top is the constitution shredding, draft dodging, hate mongering, oil grabbing, war criminal, Dick Cheney. For me this was a significant moment for the Republican party in the race back to power. Vice President Cheney has been thoroughly villified by the media, the Democrats, and even some in his own party. After his speech at A.E.I I saw no less than three Republican lawmakers run to get  Mr. Cheney's back, but the media itself was pretty quite on the matter. When the left leaning media is at a loss for words about the ex-vice president after a major speech then you know somethings up. The only one who had something to say was you guessed it Keith Olbermann and he had an absolute meltdown. This particular hissy fit was even more over the top than his usual hissy fits, saying the ex-vp was more dangerous than the terrorists themselves. Vice President Cheney's approval ratings since he left office have gone up 8 points, and that was a poll done before the speech. What exactly had Cheney done to improve his image before that? All I can point to is his urging President Obama to release memos that illegedly show how inhanced interrogation techniques worked and stopped further terrorist attacks. Basically, he hasn't done anything to repair his image. One of Obama's pledges was to change from the Washington of old and turn the page. None of that has happened and in fact it's gotten worse. Just last week Speaker Pelosi charged the C.I.A with lying to her on E.I.T's and generally lying or "misleading" congress on a regular basis.

 

Obama ran as a moderate but to those of us who follow politics closely knew he was no such thing, in fact he was the most liberal Democrat to ever run as documented by his voting record and illustrated by his former pastor. If the media had done their homework on the then Sen., if the Republicans had rightly shown Democrats were even more copable if not completely responsible for the housing collapse, or the campaign had gone on a month or two longer we might not even be having these debates. Were the Republicans really that far off? An unpopular war, a large deficit, percieved illegalities committed by the White House, and a completely bias media, John McCain still garnered 47% of the vote. Just shy of 60 million votes, all things considered McCain did pretty damn good.

 

Now former Republicans such as Colin Powell are saying the party has gone too far to the right. I personally am a former Democrat and the General is being intellectually dishonest. I actually left the Democratic party because they started moving to far to the left. As Dennis Miller put it, Gen. Powell is in the "Colin Powell legacy business",  he feels he got used by the Bush administration over Iraq and he's out rehabilitating his image. So as Republicans, if Gen. Powell offers up stategy on winning the wars in Iraq or Afganistan, drop everything and listen up. If Gen. Powell is offering up strategies on how Republicans can win the next election, take a pass. We nominated John McCain and while Sen. McCain considered himself a foot soldier in the 'Reagan Revolution' I don't think anyone would confuse the two. I listen to conservatives on t.v. and radio and while respected for his service Sen. McCain has never been a favorite.

 

On the economy: Spending in the tens of  trillions over the next 4 years, cap and trade, nationalized health care, bank takeovers, car manufacturer takeovers, promoting legislation such as card check that favors the unions while giving the unions majority shares in Chrysler and Gm, capping executive salaries, and the eventuality of tax hikes on small business and the middle class, will not let Obama hold on to Independents, fiscally responsible Democrats, and Republicans who strayed. On National security: How many libs will the troop surge in Afganistan, the slow down of the withdrawl from Iraq, re-instituting military tribunals, and holding detainees indefinitly, put off?  He's already been shut down by his own party on Gitmo. He's also been talking  immagration reform, undoubtedly this will include amnesty. The country has already spoken on the issue, come here legally. Will these new strategies on "The War On Terror", I forgot we don't use that term anymore, whatever we call it, will these new strategies/policies work with Obama's touch? Some might take, but I think the majority will fail. These policies deal with most serious issues our country has ever faced. If 50% fail he's sunk. If we are hit again, he's sunk. My grandfather used to say "don't bite off more than you can chew". I used to work in the bar business and when bar tenders we're overwelmed they would say that they we're "in the weeds". Well, Obama has bitten off more than he can chew and he's in the weeds. He's tried to do too much too fast and he's too far to the left.

 

So who? Romney/Pence. Thats right Romney/Pence. Two guys who can speak, who are good looking, and who present themselves as adults. This last week I thought I heard an emerging narrative come out. Obama's administration compared to Bush's was one of a child seeing the world for what it wants it to be and one of an adult seeing the world for what it is. Conservatives are the adults and Liberals are the children. We are also a narcissistic nation and Obama won on all the aesthetics. That's my ticket for now, it could change. Like I said earlier we don't need anyone to come forward just yet. Lets take it issue by issue and let the Pelosi/Reid led congress and the Obama administration take their natural overreaching coarse.