Early Voting Ends Soon! I Just Voted.

I went and early voted this morning in Olathe. There were no lines at all. A sign on the door said "Early Voting Ends at Noon Today". That is just an hour away so run over there if you need to advance vote. I was literally in and out in less than 10 minutes.

That said I want to urge you again to vote either today or tomorrow for Jerry Moran for US Senate.

I've had some fun with this particular race.

I've become exceedingly weary of the way our government spends money. I'm tired of how they borrow and spend, borrow and spend, borrow and spend some more.

I've also tired of the same old arguments that feel like the same old nature-nuture arguments pitting government entitlements versus tax rates. Really, just like the nature-nuture argument it is almost always BOTH.

Our biggest problem is that we commonly have kept taxes low and spending high. It simply doesn't work. I've written before and I continue to believe that the worst crime our generation is committing is the debt we are putting on our kids and grandkids.

We can't afford the government we have. More importantly, our kids and grandkids can't afford the government we have. Nobody talks about this enough. Nobody has the courage to cut spending.

The government spending needs to be minimized the same way everyone else is cutting their personal spending.

I'm becoming convinced it isn't as much about tax rates at all. Of course keeping them fair and low enough to encourage investment is important but we all know from personal, simple experience that it is easiest to minimize what you spend than to find more income.

That is what drove my vote today. I believe Jerry Moran is a common sense Conservative. He voted against the stimulus spending and the bailouts. I believe he doesn't have a sense of entitlement and understands Kansas core values which includes living within your means. I believe character and ethics do matter.

I believe in the value of life. I believe all life is precious. I am pro life. So is Jerry. This pro-lifer voted for Jerry Moran.

When did McCain get so conservative?

I was thinking the other day when reading about the upcoming campaign for president how just a few years ago all us Republicans were in a uproar about how John McCain was in serious discussions/negotiations to switch parties.

This was extrememly serious chatter at the time and people were pointing to his work, his ability to work with key liberals like Feingold, Kennedy and Liebermann on legislation. He was called by many to be more than a maverick who is really principled but a moderate who was starting to lean more left all the time. A quick google search revealed the truth. An article in May 2002 by Josh Green called "The Big Switch" is very telling of what people were saying and how McCain was feeling. Very interesting read.

Fast forward to today where he is being repositioned by the democrats as running for George W. Bush's third term. Where is the media on this extreme contradiction? This guy is not a hard core conservative he is a fiscal conservative and a hawk but on many social issues if you peel back the rhetoric you'll see he is much more moderate.

So, I think you'll see this floated in the back channels of the campaign to earn the votes of Hillary democrats. What you have is the choice between a moderate in McCain and an ultra liberal elitist in Obama. Only Obama's wife is more liberal than Barack himself.

True conservatives will have hold their noses when they vote for McCain and it will be much like Bush 41 all over again.....who by the way wasn't a Reagan conservative either.

This brings me to my last thought on this issue. I was watching the politico pundits on TV and they were discussing the polling data on which way Hillary democrats will fall with her out of the race. I make my voting decisions on ideological grounds so I'll never understand how someone could support Hillary and then turn to McCain rather than Obama. It is just such a leap. Same with McCain with conservatives. They keep saying he has to woo the right wing of the part with a more conservative person as Veep. I don't understand that at all. If you are a true conservative how could ever consider voting for Obama? His ideas are contrary to everything you hold dear. Given any real thought to the election at all would lead a conservative to pick McCain even if just as the lesser of two evils. It just proves what we are all really afraid of and that many and most people must vote by emotion or most people or so hopelessly confused in the middle that they don't have a political philosophy.

I'd love to hear from someone who is a conservative Republican who is actually considering voting for Obama and why? Don't try to fake it either if you are a liberal.....I'll sniff you out in 2 seconds.

Don't trust him........Jeremiah Wright

Never trust a guy who claims to speak for a whole segment of society. Reverend Wright claims to speak for black churches in America. He has taken their traditional positions on social justice and radicalized them beyond recognition. I saw Juan Williams on the news last night and he is a liberal....but a smart one and he doesn't trust him.


Here is the deal. This whole run of speeches by the Reverend Wright is a set up to try to help Obama. Here's how it works. Obama tries to support Wright early on but gets plenty of backlash when people start watching all Wright's comments on youtube. People start to get more upset when they realize that Obama was in the pew nodding in agreement during many of those sermons.

Now, Wright goes out and doesn't back off from the statements and even goes further by saying negative things about Obama and basically saying he lacks the character to say what he is saying because he must be political. Instead of Obama distancing himself from Wright, Wright distances himself from Obama. Then Obama comes out and says.....I told you this guy doesn't speak for my values and beliefs. Brillant strategy. Clinton.....and then McCain need to keep tying Obama to the cultural beliefs of Reverent Wright. For Obama to say the effort isn't coordinated is a lie.

So how does this relate to southern Johnson County? I guess I'm just commenting on what one white, republican, southern johnson countian thinks about it. I'm not sure how the other sojocoians think about it......I don't speak for them.

By the way.......did you know about this?

And......I never want to hear anyone call Bill Moyers a journalist again. That interview of Jeremiah Wright was not journalism. I don't even think you can call it an interview. It was an infomercial and at best social commentary by a liberal pretending to be a journalist. I'm glad too because others picked up on it and are seeing him for what he is......unapologetically biased. Bill Moyers is no more than a commentator and calling him a journalist is a slap in the face to any and all real journalists who take their job and role seriously enough to ask the real questions....the tough questions. Shame on you Bill Moyers.

President Bush is Sassy

I'll make this one short because I want to blog on something else today but I have to get this one on the books first.

If you had a chance to see President Bush's press conference yesterday there were some really interesting things that happened. Anyone who reads this.....crickets.......knows I'm a conservative but I don't want this to be political. This is a critical look at how he performed yesterday. I'm thinking he has been watching old tapes of Reagan, President Clinton, and Obama stump speeches .

First, he was really good and smart. I mean better than maybe I've ever seen him. It certainly makes you rethink him as the class dunce that the media makes him. Where has this been for the past 7 and 1/2 years? He was quick. In the past it was like he stopped to think..."what did Rove tell me say about that?" When President Clinton did it he would bite his lower lip and we all thought he really thinking about his answer with some deep thoughtfulness. He pulled it off perfectly everytime. He was funny. He often tries this but it never seems on the mark or an inside joke the rest of us aren't in on. He was a little surly, yet sublte, on politics. He said he didn't want to comment on the current campaign and then proceeded to land jabs and right crosses on Obama which didn't go unnoticed by Obama. That tells you they were worth noting. President Bush hasn't been subtle with too much so it was the finer points that were well done.

Second, he used questions from reporters to make points instead of just answer questions. One example was on the question about $4 gasoline. When asked what he would recommend to make people feel better about inflation...stagflation he said make the tax cuts permanent. It was really dumb to say that he hadn't heard that experts were predicting $4 gas by summer because that makes him look out of touch. Anyone who watches the news or reads a paper got that because the liberal media loves that stuff. CNN ran it over and over again. You know he doesn't watch that channel. It was the only sound bite I think the late night shows and pundits will enjoy using. If he hadn't made that comment it might have said it was his only perfectly executed press conference of his administration.

Last, I learned that I think the media really actually likes him as just a guy. I mean the media that covers him day in and out at the White House. I think they enjoyed the interaction. When one reporter asked a question directly on politics that he said he wouldn't answer he gave her another try. The press corp clearly didn't like her follow up question because you could hear the moans in the room and one actual....."come on". Whereas the President shrugged and said should we all vote on it? They clearly don't agree with him because they are the media and the media is liberal.....Norah O'Donnell excluded.....but you could tell this is a guy they like. I'll be interested to see what they say about that after he is out of office.

And because it was so good I saw little coverage of it on the afternoon and evening cable shows. I was really looking forward to Hardball. I'm thinking, Matthews has to even admit this was a great show for President Bush and ask the same thing.....where has this been for 2 terms? But no, barely a mention except for the $4 a gallon gas deal and how Obama used it to make him look out of touch. For me, it was simply evidence of just how good it was for them not to cover it better. They love the gaffes and because nobody watches that stuff most will never know.

How about Matt Drudge outing Prince Harry for serving his country? What a putz. If nobody else will apologize for him to England.....I will. Sorry about that mum. That was in poor taste.

Here is a picture of my favorite press secretary of all time..........