Ask Randy: What Happen?!!!

A friend asked me a few weeks ago about what I thought would happen in the presidential election. My sage response was that it would either be an extremely close race with McCain the winner, or it would be a blowout for Obama. As history will record, it was a blowout for Obama. I hate being right sometimes. I had hoped for the former but expected the latter, though I had a hard time understanding how the majority of the electorate would be able to embrace a candidate who had so many associations with unsavory and despicable people, the most liberal record in the Senate and a desire to redistribute wealth like Karl Marx. The answer, I think is several fold.

In the first place, Obama was the favorite of the mainstream media. It has been shown that the news media reported negative stories on McCain to the tune 60 to 70 % compared to 15 to 25% on Obama. The only place you could find serious reportage on Obama’s relationship with the racists, terrorists, crooks and anti-Israeli characters was on talk radio (from the beginning), Fox News (at the very last), and Republican ads (during the few days). Every time new information popped up that might hurt Obama’s chances, the mainstream media refused to look into it, or seriously comment on it. And, when the economic news swelled to fever pitch during the last few weeks of the campaign, the media refused to report on the blatant connections between the Democrats in Congress and their manipulations and unhealthy relationship with the directors of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which started the whole sub-prime lending institutions and housing market going into a tailspin, effecting the overall economy. Further more, as things began to look good in Iraq and positive things were happening which reflected well on the Bush administration and McCain, who pushed heavily for “the surge”, the media virtually dropped all coverage of the war in Iraq. Let’s face it; the mainstream media was in the tank for Obama.

In the second place, the American electorate is largely uninformed and unconcerned about anything that dose not seem to directly affect them personally. Let’s also face the fact that they are lazy about educating themselves. Our education system in the United States, hamstrung by teachers unions in the K through 12 group and quasi Marxists in the university, has failed to teach us about history, economics, and society without requiring their students to master the subjects, or so skewing the information that our students often leave school with an extremely frail grasp on reality. I am often appalled when I see people on the street interviewed and asked the simplest questions having to do with history or even current events and they have no clue. These are the nunmb skulls whom the the Democrats count on to swing elections in their favor. According to exit polls this last election, we have roughly 20-some percent of the population who describe themselves as liberals—I assume they know at least something about ideology to make that self assessment—and there are slightly more, around 30 percent, as I understand it, who describe themselves as conservative—being one myself, I am relatively more assured that this group knows something of political ideology and history—and the rest claiming to be moderates—this means to me that they have no moral compass or clear idea of what they truly believe and will sway with the wind. If it is indeed true that 50 percent of the population has no deep convictions or clear idea of what they believe, it is easy to understand how they can be manipulated by the untrustworthy media and their perceived economic woes.

The third nail in the coffin of reason for the American electorate is their ignorance of faith and a strong religious value system. The most glaring example for me is the issue of abortion. As I understand it, the vast majority of our population believes in God—around 80 percent, I am told—and still a majority of over 50 percent believe that abortion is wrong and should be limited to some degree. It is therefore hard for me to understand how we can elect a man to the office of President of the United States, who will have the power to reinforce the state of abortions in our nation by wielding the power of nominating federal judges who will necessarily be supportive of the unconstitutional Roe v. Wade decision. Obama has consistently fought to protect abortion on demand, including so called “late term” abortions, where the baby is partially delivered during the last trimester and has it’s brains sucked out before completely leaving the womb, and even voting against providing life support for babies who live through botched abortions, allowing the babies to die unattended. It is an emotionally cold people who worry about something as superfluous as “Change” when thousands of babies (black, brown and white) are being sacrificed on the altars of selfishness and personal convenience.

So, “what we have here”, as the immortal Cool Hand Luke said, as he was about to be shot to death, “is a failure to communicate.” The public cannot seem to connect the dots when it comes to cause and effect in the economy, social injustice or world affairs. Rightly so, we tend to turn to Republicans when self defense is the issue. But, for some crazy reason, when national security is not at the front and center, we turn to the Democrats when the economy is the issue, even though raising taxes and government spending has never caused the economy to grow, but rather, they have historically stifled productivity. Yesterday we elected a President who promises to punish business and the wealthy, who already provide over seventy percent of revenues and increase government spending to provide “tax relief” for 40 percent of the population who already do not pay Federal income taxes with welfare checks. And we have enlarged the majorities that the Democrats in Congress, where the likes of Pelosi and Reed, who have enjoyed even lower approval ratings than George W. Bush, will have full sway, with their most liberal colleague of the Senate signing their craziest and most liberal legislation. We only have to look back to the Johnson and Carter administrations, when the Democrats controlled Congress and the White House to anticipate what we likely have ahead of us.

So, though I pray that President-elect Barack Obama has an epiphany as he takes office and tries to govern more from the political middle than his record would suggest, I foresee a long 4 years ahead of us. I hope there is not so much damage done in regards to federal judges, the War on Terror, the economy, energy policies, the 1st and 2nd Amendments, the sanctity of marriage, etc. that we are unable to repair it when sanity reigns again or the fickle 50 percent of the voting public wants another change and decides to lean back to the right.