THE CAUCUS – A LAST BASTION OF SELF-DETERMINATION
Unless you live in one of the 17 states that still use the caucus as part of the political nominating process, your knowledge of that institution is likely limited to Iowa caucus reports on the news. Yet the caucus plays a broader, important role in our presidential nominating process. In states that have retained or returned to the caucus - such as my state of Colorado - every election year sees a spirited debate over the merits and demerits of the caucus system. The young lady who cuts my hair, a staunch conservative Republican, expresses the negative viewpoint as well as anyone. She doesn't like the caucus system because it excludes too many people. To prove her point, I suppose, she self-excluded herself by not attending the caucus in our precinct, despite my strong encouragement to do so! Our local Republican Party treasurer, on the other hand, champions the caucuses because they're the only place the average voter can actually participate in debates on issues and candidates and have those debates translate into meaningful action. I myself like the caucus system for an entirely different reason.
WHAT A BEACH PARTY!
Sunset on the beach at Sarasota, Florida, with good friends and an adult beverage. Can't beat that, especially when those friends are fellow TTPers. All of us sure did have a good time. Here's a synopsis of what we did and what we learned.
MCCAIN AS THE ANTI-REAGAN
It's going to take a while for conservatives to become fully resigned to John McCain's securing the Republican presidential nomination. They may never be if he does some incredibly dumb thing like picking a Preacher Socialist - Mike Huckabee - as his running mate, or his supporters continue to demonize conservative heroes like Rush Limbaugh for not genuflecting at the saintly image of Sir Galahad McCain. No Knight of King Arthur's Round Table, like Sir Galahad who McCain pretends to be, possessed "a strutting self-righteousness... that goes hand in hand with a nitroglycerin temper." That memorably accurate description of John McCain by Mona Charen explains why McCain is the Anti-Reagan. Aside from Ronald Reagan the politician, statesman, or political conservative, Ronald Reagan the human being was someone of great-hearted likeability. It was almost impossible to dislike him. The contrast is stark. It is almost impossible to actually like, to be genuinely fond of John McCain because at the bottom of his character he is an insufferable jerk. Because of his essential unlikeableness, McCain cannot create conservative passion for him. This truth will outrage the McCainiacs, who will thus angrily blame his loss in November upon conservatives. But as anyone should know on this Valentine's Day, you can't force someone to love you. You've got to entice them instead. You don't angrily stomp your feet and call them deranged if they don't love you. There's no bigger turn-off than that.
REAGAN VS. CLINTON BY THE NUMBERS
Under which recent president do you think the U.S. economy performed best? The policies of Presidents Bush, father and son, and Jimmy Carter clearly did not work as well as Ronald Reagan's and Bill Clinton's. So let's compare their economic performance. For the numbers show that Democrats can continue "the-Clinton-economy-was-best" ploy only if the Republicans and the news media let them get away with the factual misrepresentation.
THE ACCIDENT OF MCCAIN
Assuming John McCain gets the Republican nomination, it will show how whimsical history can be. It would be the first time in living memory that a Republican presidential nomination went to a candidate who was not merely opposed by a majority of the party, but was actively despised by about a half of its rank-and-file voters across the country -and by many if not most of its congressional officeholders. After all, the McCain electoral surge was barely able to deliver a plurality of one-third of the Republican vote in a three-, four- or five-way split field. He has won fair and square - but he has driven the nomination process askew. This result reminds me of the nursery rhyme:
TTP AND HISTORY
At the Winter Rendezvous this weekend in Sarasota, one topic of discussion will be how to make improvements in To The Point, making it even better. We're jumping the gun this week, and making one many of you have been requesting for a while. That is to provide a side bar for categories of articles. Over the next few weeks, we'll be adding categories with links to all the TTP articles on say, Islam, or Mexico, Russia, China, Democrat Fascism, Global Warming, Science, Health, etc. The first one, however, is history. In the TTP Article Category side bar will be a link to all the articles on the history of various countries and regions of the world. It's the one many of you have wanted most of all. Here's the list. There will be more lists to come.
WARS ON THE WAY
While attention is fixated on Iraq and Afghanistan, the possibility of a number of other wars clearly emerged in the past few days, three in particular. Starting January 30, a total of five undersea telecom cables have been mysteriously cut in the Persian Gulf and the Middle East area. This is no accident, comrades. Someone has been slicing them. Someone with submarines to do the slicing. Who could that be? And what would be their target? That's a prelude to war in the Middle East. How about a war in Europe? One being promoted by Condi Rice and our State Department in support of Moslem narco-terrorists taking over a Christian country? That would be a region of Serbia called Kosovo. Close to home is a third war on the horizon, between Venezuela and Colombia.
DOUBTING MCCAIN
Whoa... what a firestorm. At the insistence of many TTPers, last week's How the Clintons Will Destroy John McCain was made a free access article and promptly went viral over the Internet, becoming explosively controversial. As you can see from the comments on the Member User Forum (201, a TTP record), the response from TTPers was overwhelmingly positive. I also received a number of responses from personal friends. Most were very supportive, a few were vehemently upset, with most of the latter assuring me that I remained their friend nonetheless. I cannot adequately express how much this meant to me. Then there were those among the latter whose friendship I have lost. I am most regretful of losing that of Jim Warner's. Jim had been a dear friend of many years. I know of no finer man than Jim Warner, a man of unquestionable character and integrity. As a captured POW held by the Communist Vietnamese for over five years, and a cell mate in the Hanoi Hilton of John McCain's for over a year, Jim felt it necessary to write a rebuttal to my article - without mentioning either my name or the article - in FrontPage Magazine.com. It is easy to understand Jim's desire to defend his cellmate with whom he suffered indescribable horrors at the hand of the communists. Thus the excruciating irony of Jim's article - for John McCain possesses a fraction of the integrity and decency of character of Jim Warner. I would trust my life to Jim Warner without a moment's hesitation. I would not trust my life to John McCain for a moment.
THE END OF DEMOCRACY IN EUROPE
Democracy died in Europe at the end of 2007. Last December, governments leaders of the 27 European Union member states convened in Lisbon to sign the EU Reform Treaty. This treaty of 76,250 words is a rewrite of the EU Constitutional Treaty, which was rejected in 2005 by referendums in major European countries. European leaders carefully avoid to call the reform treaty a "constitution," however, because they do not want to submit it to their peoples in a referendum. French President Nicolas Sarkozy conceded in November that the treaty would be rejected "in all member states if they have a referendum." Politicians like Mr. Sarkozy and Germany's Mrs. Merkel are the driving forces of this process because it enhances their powers. Today's EU's governmental bodies - the European Commission and the European Council - are unelected; they are appointed by the national governments. As the British author John Laughland explains: "The EU is a cartel of governments, engaged in a permanent conspiracy against their own electorates and parliaments."
THE CASE FOR MCCAIN
[Jack Kelly makes as good a case as can be made for John McCain. I remain afflicted with what he calls MDS. Yet I readily admit he makes a good suggestion for a vaccine. ---JW] The race for the GOP nomination for president is all but over, save for weeping and gnashing of teeth among conservatives. I don't think Sen. John McCain would be a good president. He lacks the temperament for it; he has virtually no managerial experience, and the economy is, as George Will put it, "a subject with which McCain is neither conversant, nor eager to become so." But there is a big difference between being a mediocre president -- as one could argue George W. Bush has been -- and being an awful one. Yet many conservatives talk about Sen. McCain as if he were Satan's first cousin. What Web logger Roger L. Simon calls "McCain Derangement Syndrome" is as irrational and unbecoming as is the Bush Derangement Syndrome that afflicts so many liberals.