Give Steele Some Time

I had mixed feelings during the last RNC chair election. I liked Michael Steele based on his appearances on Sean Hannity and other shows. I thought he'd make a good spokesperson and I liked the fact that he was known and popular. I wasn't 100% sure about his core beliefs, but I knew him to be a strong conservative.

However, I really liked some of the other candidates, too. I wasn't familiar with all, but Saul Anuzis and Katon Dawson were two strong conservative candidates. Either one would have done an outstanding job.

I stayed fairly neutral during the selection process although I watched it closely. When it was all said and done and Steele won, I was pleased with his strong finish and thought the change would bode well for the Republican Party.

Steele has had a few ups and downs since taking the helm. Being the RNC Chairman means having every little thing you say parsed to the nth degree. Steele was used to being controversial. His role on talk shows was to spice things up, debate and provoke. Not so with the position he's in now. He has to talk smooth, not ruffle feathers (unless they're Democratic plumes) and pull everyone in the Party together.

Pulling all the various factions in the Republican Party together is not an easy task as anyone on "our" side knows. Herding cats is an oft-used phrase that pops into conversations dealing with pulling us all together.

Conservatives are principled and generally don't like to compromise on their principles. It's easy for us to love our brother, but not so easy to vote for him if his views on abortion are different than ours. It's easy to embrace and try to convert our agnostic sister, but impossible for some to vote for her.

There's a lot of debate going on right now in the Party. Big tent or straight and narrow? Follow the Ronald Reagan path or broaden into moderate territory? Win at any cost or take a chance on losing by sticking with conservative principles?

I'm one who falls into the stick with your true conservative principles court. What's the point of winning the battle (election) if we lose the war (our country, our principles)?

I'm still not exactly sure where Steele falls on all the various issues I raised above. He has certainly stirred the pot in some pretty negative ways. You don't go after Rush Limbaugh and expect to win many friends. Even those who don't like him know he is a powerhouse and he speaks straight.

Steele's recent comments on abortion have another faction up in arms. Can't say I blame them. I am pro-life. Strongly. However, I don't think it should be the ONLY issue we use as a yardstick for measuring the worth of our candidates. It's a tough one though. If someone ran and said they were pro-murder, there is no way anyone, left or right of the great divide, would vote for them.

There's isn't much in the way of middle ground on the abortion issue, which is why it's like storming through a well-seeded field of land mines. No way you're not going to step on one.

I have a friend who loves Ronald Reagan. She has a room devoted to him and a huge bust of him that you see as you walk in her front door. She is pro-choice. She is as conservative as you can get except in that one area. She bleeds red, white and blue. She keeps her mouth shut when the issue comes up and knows she'll never be able to run for office as long as she holds her current view on abortion. Should we kick her out of the Party? I don't think so.

Despite the early controversy I'm still pulling for Steele. I think he has a lot to learn and he has to reshape his way of thinking when it comes to speaking. I am still very open minded and optimistic. He needs to get his act together fairly quickly though if we're going to be successful in the next round of elections.

Despite Steele's rough start, many in GOP optimistic
The new party chair has been mired in internal feuds, but expectations for next elections are building.
http://www.elabs5.com/ct.html?rtr=on&s=o1l,4lge,er,331d,4l66,mbr4,k497

Poor poor Wittle Obama. Don't you cry.

Awww, I feel so sowwy for wittle Obama. Poor Obama doesn't like it that those big bad mean media types over at Fox News are asking him those tuff qwestions. Don't cwy Mr. Obama, everybody else is protecting you.

What a wuss. Whine, whine, whine. Toss a chunk of cheese at him to go with the latte.

Have you heard about the interview he did with the New York Times Magazine? He said Fox News has cost him a couple of points in the polls. They have the audacity to portray him as a liberal. Oh my! I'm shocked.

Here's a quote from an article on Fox about the Obaby's interview:

"I am convinced that if there were no Fox News, I might be two or three
points higher in the polls," Obama says in the article. "If I were watching Fox
News, I wouldn't vote for me, right? Because the way I'm portrayed 24/7 is as a
freak!"

He continues that he is being typecast as "the latte-sipping, New York
Times-reading, Volvo-driving, no-gun-owning, effet, politically correct,
arrogant liberal. Who wants somebody like that?"

Obama's reference to his poll numbers comes at a time when he has
opened up a commanding lead over his rival, John McCain, in national polls, as
well as in several battleground states. A recent New York Times poll puts Obama
ahead by 14 percentage points.

Have you heard Sarah Palin whining about how ALL of the media is treating her? Have you heard John McCain whining about how the liberal media is attacking him? They answer a question if asked, but you never hear them taking on the trash job the media does on them every single day.

Obama gets the red carpet royal treatment by the majority of the media.

Can you imagine what his reaction is going to be if he's elected? What do you want to be that the Fairness Doctrine comes into play? How long do you think it will be before he shuts down some of the media because it's "contributing to the bad economy"?

If Barack Obama can't handle the kid-glove approach even Fox News has taken with him (aside from maybe Sean Hannity or Bill O'Reilly), I can't wait for the first time the media types don't like something he does and they actually ask him a tough question.

What a whiner. Ya think he's gonna stand up for us if he can't even handle Fox News? What do you think is going to happen when the French, the Chinese, the Iranians don't like something he does? Oooh, his feelings will be hurt and he'll have to do whatever it takes to make them happy.

Wimp.

NYT: Obama Laments Media Image, Says FOX News Cost Him in Polls
Barack Obama riffs on his media image in an interview for the New York Times Magazine, which quotes him as suggesting FOX News has cost him a few points in the polls.
The interview with reporter Matt Bai, to be published Sunday, features the Democratic presidential candidate feeling lamenting a "media narrative" that has pigeon-holed him as a liberal stereotype.
http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/10/15/obama-nyt-interview/

Outraged in Georgia

I was out in the studio glazing some pottery and decided to listen to talk radio for a change since it was rote work, not really creative and I needed something to occupy my mind.

Usually WSB 750 AM radio (Atlanta area) is conservative talk. Sean Hannity, Neal Boortz and others fill the airspace with a wide range of views but generally all in the conservative bent.

Not this afternoon. They had a guy, Mark Arum, who usually does the traffic hosting an afternoon show. I've picked it up before and he usually does light fare and stays away from politics.

I found out why he stays away from politics today.

He's really out in the ozone.

I didn't mind that he was an Independent and was curious to see how the program would flow once I heard the topic. He set up the scenario that he was an undecided voter who wanted the public to convince him to vote for their ticket.

I thought it would be fun to listen to the varying views and arguments.

However, it became patently clear that he had made up his mind on Sarah Palin. He did nothing but mouth the left's talking points. Almost verbatim. He spoke highly of John McCain but questioned his judgement for picking someone who wasn't qualified to be President, who didn't know which newspapers she read (if any), who had no experience... you all know the drill.

When he told a caller (who asked) that yes Todd Palin was part of a separatist movement but hey, they were up in Alaska and that was a different breed (or something along those lines) and that no telling what would happen once they got the pipeline set up, I decided I'd about had it with this guy. Whacko.

BUT, BUT, then he went WAY over the top. When he made the comment that Sarah had four children that we KNEW were hers... I popped the radio off.

He twisted whatever anyone said to make them sound like imbeciles. He admitted he was an elitist who thought that while there's nothing wrong with the actual colleges Sarah chose, it proved she wasn't smart enough. He said it differently, but he said it often. He was looking down his nose at her education as if that was the be-all, end-all for qualifying to be VP.

The guy is fooling himself if he thinks he's Independent. Either that or he's only listening to one side, isn't intelligent enough to do any research and obviously easily buys into the rumor mill.

It's a free world and we have free speech so I'm not going to get all riled about the station picking this dumb bunny to host a talk show in a generally dead time slot. However, I'll be exercising my freedoms and will listening to a CD on Saturday afternoons in the future.