I ran across this article this morning and was rather shocked by these sections that describe previous Obama votes with regard to abortion.

He voted against requiring medical care for aborted fetuses who survive.

...

He had a 100 percent rating from the Illinois Planned Parenthood Council for his support of abortion rights, family planning services and health insurance coverage for female contraceptives.

One vote that especially riled abortion opponents involved restrictions on a type of abortion where the fetus sometimes survives, occasionally for hours. The restrictions, which never became law, included requiring the presence of a second doctor to care for the fetus.

...

Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs said voters will be able to judge distorted accounts of his votes against his legislative career in general.

"I don't doubt that if you take a series of votes and twist them and kind of squint, you can write a narrative the way you want to write it," Gibbs said. "I think what people understand is that (what matters) is taking the full measure of his career and the full measure of his legislative efforts."

I'm not sure that it's possible to take a vote to allow an unborn baby who was harmed in an abortion procedure - but survived - to die, outside the womb in some cases, without giving him/her medical attention - and twist it. I'm also not sure how one can twist a 100% pro-abortion rating. What's really twisted in my opinion is the type of thinking that says that this is okay and should be permitted to happen in the United States.

Tsk tsk tsk. Where is the Club For Growth when you need them? So much inefficiency in government that I haven't seen them complain about.

We've all heard nothing but bad news about the Interest-only mortgages lately. But, looking at summary data concerning the Federal Budget, it looks like we all have one in some way or another.

Let me explain. In the 2008 Federal Budget, we are paying interest on the National Debt to the tune of $261 billion. There doesn't seem to be a line item for paying principal on the National Debt because it certainly doesn't appear that we're paying any (unless some clever member of Congress is using some secret slush fund to make a dent in the debt in a patriotic but anonymous fashion. But I think that's just my wishful thinking).

While we paid $261 billion in interest, we have a Federal Deficit of about $240 billion. Which means, simply, that while we make our interest-only payments of $261 billion, we're borrowing $240 billion of it right back again.

So, $261 billion in interest paid minus $240 billion in new money borrowed equals a net payment of $21 billion.

On the interest.

See a problem here? Isn't this how some homeowners went broke?

The simple point that no one who has true power in Washington wants to face up to is that we're spending too much money. Someone will say "that's all okay because the tax cuts stimulate the economy!!" I agree that tax cuts do stimulate the economy. But what good does it do to take in more money if all we're going to do is to spend even more than the new amount we receive?

If we continue to spend more than we as a nation make, making more net revenue won't help. Because as soon as we get more, we'll spend even more than we get. It's a time-tested formula for going broke. Just ask Mike Tyson.

It's one thing to spend money on things that are truly worthwhile, like helping people who are truly in need and who can't help themselves (including our needy children), making sure that our Armed Forces are the best in the world and that people will think twice before engaging us in conflict, etc. All of that is great. But to dole out money on things that we don't need - or that should be paid for by the states (like the "Bridge To Nowhere" as one example among thousands) - doesn't seem like such a hot idea.

On that note, we need to take a look at the state dependency on the Federal Government to investigate why we keep spending so much money. In the World Almanac 2008 page 384, there is a table that draws data from the Tax Foundation report on the amount of money states get from the Federal Government compared to the amount that the people of the states pay in taxes. In all, as of 2004, 32 of the 50 states get more from the federal government than its people put back into the federal treasury.

The states (don't feel insulted if you live in one of them; so do I)

Carrying the load for us (sort of - we do have the little itsy-bitsy $240 billion dollar deficit that adds more debits to what is presently a $9.4 trillion dollar national debt) are Indiana, Oregon, Georgia, Texas, Washington, Michigan, Wisconsin, Delaware, Colorado, New York, California, Massachusetts, Nevada, Illinois, Minnesota, Connecticut, and New Jersey.

It's not clear how much of this is due to pork barrel spending. There are some states that have very limited populations and that may have a very limited tax base that might need a little extra help from the Federal Government. But for states like Virginia, Maryland, Tennessee, Missouri, Pennsylvania, Florida and Ohio - with their large populations and in many cases, decent per capita incomes - it is hard to understand why the states need more than they give back. We need to learn to live with less government. And we all need our local U.S. Representatives and Senators to stop doing us "favors" and stop making the whole country pay for things that might benefit us and our neighbors but hurt the nation as a whole.

Everyone who has ever had a credit card which has carried a balance knows how cumulative interest works. If you don't pay off the principal, the interest charges will keep growing more and more. With our national interest-only loan, we are not paying off the principal but we are "charging" almost the same amount that we're paying every year. On the interest. And because we're not cutting into the principal, the interest amount we'll owe in years to come will inevitably grow. The consequence of this will be that in future years, if we don't change, we'll have to spend so much of our national revenue every year on paying an even greater part of the interest - still not cutting adequately into principal - that we might not be able to spend on other things that we need. And though some people think that the obvious answer to this is to raise taxes, the reality is that the government is already too dependent on individual taxpayers. If people are already having a hard time paying their mortgages and buying gas now (even some of the "rich"), how much harder will they be hit if the government decides to take more of their paychecks? We can only raise our national revenue through the traditional means but so much further. We really need to spend less.

One day, if we don't have leaders who stand up to stop the unnecessary spending, all of this will catch up with us. And the longer we wait to address it, the worse it will be. We need to put pressure on Congress, the President, and our Presidential candidates to only spend on what we need - and not one thing more than we can afford.

A Reagan imposter, from the movie Point Break

Just in case anyone's curious about the nature of my problem with Romney, I want to get something clear.

Early last year, during the early part of Romney's campaign, a popular local talk radio host asked listeners the question about whether or not they'd be willing to vote for a Mormon candidate. To my surprise and dismay, a number of callers called in to say that they would never vote for a Mormon. Although I was on a long-distance road trip, I tried to call in to voice my point of view - I didn't make it on the air. I planned to tell the host that although I have deep disagreements with LDS doctrine, that I'm not voting for a Pastor but for a President and that his religion would not be a factor in my vote. I was going to say that I don't think that a candidate's religious faith is a reason to vote for them or a reason not to vote for them. It should be off the table and the discussion should be about their character, experience, and plans. And I still feel the same way today.

At the time, not knowing about Mitt's continually shifting positions on almost everything, not yet having seen him run his campaign using the Tonya Harding Doctrine (knee-cap your nearest competitor), and not yet getting the snake oil salesman vibe from him, I actually liked Mitt initially. I initially was considering voting for him. But then he started talking.

The only aspect of his church membership that affected me from a voting point of view was when I later learned that people who look like me weren't admitted to his church. And that he didn't oppose the policy even at age 31. And seeing him explain on Meet the Press, stuttering and stammering, how he was pretty sure that black people weren't cursed. But, if he had been the type of person who really felt comfortable and himself around everybody, he probably could have worked to convince me that he disagreed with and repudiated those policies. However, there were a ton of other factors that turned me off toward him. Every time he opened his mouth, his "Values Voter" approval rating (well, mine, anyway) dropped.

My faith beliefs and social positions could fairly be described as extremely similar to those of Mike Huckabee. But, here's a shocking statement to some who think that they've figured out us values voter types ... I think a person who does not share my faith can be a good President as well. What's more, there are many people who do profess to share my faith in Jesus Christ as God the Son whom I would never vote for (Pat Robertson for example). For me, what really counts on Election Day for me is a mixture of factors, including their positions on issues important to me, along with their experience. But it also includes their level of sincerity. I didn't oppose Mitt because of his religion and I didn't support Mike because of his religion (although I do love the fact that Mike shares both my faith and positions and is sincere, experienced and likeable). It was largely about character.

A person who is willing to say anything to get elected and who has no core guiding principles is the most dangerous type of politician. Because even if they agree with you on every point today, they're likely to change on every issue as soon as they feel they need to in order to accomplish a political objective. They're ideologically unstable - as undependable as the weather. I'd actually prefer dealing with someone whom I can predict - even if they didn't totally agree with me.

So, when Romney made his famous JFK speech, the thing that really rubbed me the wrong way was that either he a) missed the point about a valid reason why many people didn't like him or b) wanted to divert attention from the valid reason many people don't like him by concentrating on an invalid reason why some people don't like him. Since Mitt is a very smart man, I think it was probably the latter. But if he had simply run an honest campaign highlighting who he was and what he believed (and was up front with it) instead of trying to tell me what I wanted to hear and all the reasons not to vote for whoever polled close to him, my feelings would be different. He probably still wouldn't have gotten my vote (based on his positions on abortion). But he might have gotten my respect.

I actually respect Rudy Giuliani's relative honesty about his positions many times more than I respect the way Mitt has run his campaign. And that's saying something! It took guts for Rudy to be a total social liberal and get on the podium and speak to the Values Voter's summit. It takes no courage at all to try to be all things to all people all of the time and to tell people whatever you think they want to hear.

No matter how hard we try to forget him and move past the horrors of his campaign, our pal Mitt keeps showing up over and over again. I guess if you can't buy the Presidency, you might as well try to buy the Vice Presidency.

Let me quickly explain why the very flirtation with the idea of picking Romney as a Vice Presidential candidate would be a complete disaster.

Or better yet ... let me allow Mitt do that with his own words, for starters. That will save us a little time.

Romney has a lot of friends in the New-York based media establishment dominated by Fox News and Clear Channel communications (the latter of which was being purchased by the company Romney founded during the time of the campaign). He didn't do so well in the rest of the country, however. In fact, he generally only won in three types of states:

• The states he used to live in or the states that border or are very close to them: Michigan, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, and Minnesota  (if he had won Arizona in February and could win New Mexico in June, he could claim the title of the "Four Corners Candidate")
• The state where he used to govern: Massachusets (and even there, he only beat McCain by ten points)
• The states where no other top-tier candidate visited: Montana and Maine (Ron Paul spent a little time there)

      (I'm not sure if North Dakota and Alaska fit into any of the above categories, but they probably do)

Having compiled a grand total of four years and two days of experience as an elected official as Governor of one of the most liberal states in the country, he also has less experience in elected office than any of the past nine U.S. Presidents.

Romney failed to win many of the critical and electorally rich states in the south. In most cases, he came in third.

He has tremendous credibility problems, having been caught on numerous occasions making statements that simply were not true. I am not the only person who has noticed the uncanny resemblance he bears, both physically and stylistically, to Joe Isuzu. He's flipped positions on a range of issues (abortion is only one of them).

And for all the talk of Barack Obama and his relationship with his "Rev" Jeremiah Wright, Romney, whose church did not allow blacks to have full membership, stated that he cried when he heard that the policy would change in 1978. Here is an excerpt from a CBS Interview he did last fall:

Back in the U.S. at Brigham Young, when boycotts and violent protests over the university's virtually all-white sports teams broke out at away games, he stayed on the sidelines.

At the time, the Mormon Church excluded blacks from full membership, considering them spiritually unfit as the result of a biblical curse on the descendants of Noah's son Ham.

A handful of students and prominent Mormons called for an end to the doctrine, but Romney wasn't one of them. When he heard over a car radio in 1978 that the church would offer blacks full membership, he said, he pulled over and cried.

Just the type of thing that is an answer to the Democrats' prayers in turning the page from the Wright remarks. Along with the fact that in a McCain/Romney ticket, questions would be raised about why both the candidates skipped both GOP debates held for black voters (all the other Republican candidates other than Giuliani and Thompson attended at least the second one).

And beyond the fact that he would add almost nothing to a McCain ticket (except for the love of the "conservative" media - the ones who have seen Republican voters do the exact opposite of what they've suggested), he would take away something that's been very important for several decades. Many social conservatives simply do not trust him, despite the endorsements he's gotten from a few leaders such as Paul Weyrich (who now admits that he was wrong in doing so). But the votes from the actual voters haven't been there to back it up. And Mitt wasn't even second in line for those votes - the second place for Evangelical voters went to McCain.

I almost forgot to mention the fact that during the course of the campaign, almost all of his competitors - and their staffs - deeply despised him. The words "just tell us what want us to do — we've got to stop him" were not uttered by Republican campaign staffers about Barack Obama or John Edwards. They were talking about Mitt Romney. By his fellow candidates and their staff members, he was described at various points as having a "wholesale reinvention," as well as of being an "actor." The staffers for various campaigns were trading strategies with staffers of other campaigns about new ways to attack Mitt on various postions. They also made a pledge amonst each other that "no matter what happens with us, we all need to make sure it's not him." But besides all that, he'd be the perfect choice to unify the party.

I'm going to close it off here. But, for every reason to consider Romney as a Veep, there are about ten more compelling reasons to not even think about the idea. I think that adding Anchorman to the ticket would help to energize the Democratic voters, as he is the closest thing the Republicans have ever had to Hillary Rodham Clinton.

As April 15th looms near and a couple of weeks later, Tax Freedom Day comes up (the day after which you can keep the money you earn instead of just working to pay taxes), I've been thinking about recycling an very good old idea. Ever been to a fast food restaurant drive through where there is a sign at the window saying that if you don't get your receipt, the meal is free? Some of those places are pretty durn serious about making sure that you know exactly how much you paid for that Bacon Cheeseburger.

So, the question is, why is it that we get receipts for small purchases while we get no receipts for what is generally our biggest expenditure of the year in any particular year - our Federal Tax bill?

It's only fair, right? We work a substantial part of the year just to pay taxes to the government. The government spends more than what we give them, which guarantees that in the near future, both we and our children will have to work even harder in order to pay the taxes required to pay even just the interest on the debt. What's more is that a lot of the spending is done for things that have no value to most of us at all but are in many cases simply used to help our Washington elected officials curry favor at home so that they can get re-elected every two to six years. And then they get to abuse the taxpayers for many more years to come.

Let's say, for argument's sake, you were personally spending $100 bucks a year to ensure that the bridge to nowhere was being built. Or that Washington was taking $25 out of your pocket every year in order to build that lovely snowmobile trail in Vermont.  Don't you have the right to know that you're paying it? Whatever fractional amount of the cost is being passed on to you is besides the point; it adds up. And the cost of gas isn't getting any lower and, most importantly, we can't afford to waste money. We are massively in debt as a nation and we are going deeper in debt every year because our we spend more than we take in.

The U.S. government receives $2.66 trillion a year in revenue. Forty six percent of that money, $1.25 trillion, comes from individual income taxes paid for by people like you and I. Corporations pay about twelve percent, or $314.9 billion. If you and I had time, I'd go into a discussion of why the Fair Tax, which would overhaul the way our government gets revenue and replace both of these, is the best idea ever. But that's another day's discussion.

Although the government receives $2.66 trillion a year, it manages to spend $2.9 trillion a year. When you consider the fact that we're already 9.3 trillion dollars in debt and our kids are going to be working to the bone to pay it down - unless of course foreign governments and investors stop loaning us money and we go broke altogether - I think that we're entitled to peek under the covers and see where our money is really going.

Tax cuts definitely do stimulate the economy. In fact, we need to replace our current tax system altogether. Increasing taxes is not the answer, as tax cuts do cause the economy to grow. But that's also irrelevant to the point here. If you spend more than you earn, does it matter how much you've earned?

Getting a receipt - even if it were just a web site we could go to and see how much we personally paid for the nice things Washington buys for us - would force some much needed accountability into our government. When government financial matters are put into personal terms, it takes on a much different meaning. When you know that you worked extra hard in order to build that new highway some for a few nice folks 2,000 miles away, you tend to be a bit more interested in making sure that it's really needed and that it's being done in the smartest and most cost-efficient manner possible.

We also need to have a personal indication of how much of a state of the national debt we owe. Dividing the national debt by the U.S. population, every individual in the United States has in effect a credit card debt, courtesy of Washington, that is in excess of $30,000. And unlike a regular debt that you will be free from when you die, this debt will follow your family line down the generations until it is paid off or forgiven.

Maybe we could even do like the restaurants and have a rule that says that if we don't get a receipt from the government, our whole year is tax-free.

Well, these are just some thoughts, everybody, on how we can make our great system of government even greater and even more efficient. We bring grassroots-level accountability into the process and educate everyone on how our nation's finances affect us personally. And if the public cares enough and puts enough pressure on legislators, those good folks, being as smart as they are, tend to modify their behavior. And they need to, because we can't afford to keep going the way we've been going.

I should have written in the title "Hillary Clinton's campaign has not demonstrated a high level of integrity." But - hey - get off my back. I'm human.

Hillary Clinton braving grave danger in order to visit Bosnia in March of 1996. Not pictured are the snipers she mentioned who prevented the greeting ceremony.

The story about getting shot at in Bosnia - but later being shown to have given an incorrect account about it - is perhaps the latest example in that great and awesome verbal phenomena that American society has known for the past sixteen years: the Clintonism.

What exactly is a Clintonism? Well, there are at least two definitions for it. The first one, which we can find in Wikipedia, refers to Clinton political policies. But the second one, the one we're familiar with from interviews and scandals, is certain type of lie, either told by the Clintons or by those closely associated with them. In technical terms, a Clintonism is a lie that is so unnecessary, so arbitrary in nature, but yet so easy to detect that it deeply confounds those who hear it as to why it was said in the first place. It leaves the hearer with the sinking feeling that the one issuing the Clintonism has low regard for the intelligence of the general public.

(The Hillary story about landing under sniper fire has an eerie similarity to Mitt Romney's repeated and later refuted claims that he saw his dad march with Martin Luther King. Hmmm. In an era in which we're finding out that politicians whom we never thought were related were in fact blood kin - Obama and Cheney being the prime examples - I wonder, will we discover one day that Mitt is related to Hillary?)

Before the newest Clintonism, Hillary embarked on all types of crazy schemes to derail her arch enemy, Barack Obama. The tears in New Hampshire. The racially-tinged attacks in South Carolina.  A statement by Bill that they had always, despite their records and statements, opposed the Iraq War. The attempts to get Florida and Michigan's delegates to have full representation, even though it was understood by all parties in January that they would not be seated. The talk that Obama is an inexperienced, Muslim-middle-named youngster who did bad things in his relatively recent youth - but would be just great to hold the position that is one heartbeat away from the presidency. This campaign has become the bad joke that someone chooses to keep on telling day after day.

And almost as sad as all of this nonsense is the pity of how poor a strategy her campaign has executed. On this point, I sort of feel sorry for her. She's a very smart person and - you've got to give her some credit - is tenacious to a fault. But she has had the benefit of tremendous name recognition, a powerful political machine, and more than one hundred million dollars in campaign money before the beginning of this year. But, less than three months into the year, she is behind in almost every metric (unless you count the number of vowels in the names of the states she's won - the next metric to be used by Camp Clinton, I'm sure), and it appears to many that she has resorted to bolstering her appeal by making up stories about braving danger in the course of an official visit. This isn't funny. It's sad to watch.

Now as we see that Hillary has been publicly caught making a statement that was not true, my mind shifts back to the honorable man whom she accused in public of lying six in a half months ago. General David Petraeus came to report to Congress the state of progress in Iraq since the advent of the surge. And in a manner that no high officer of the military should experience without cause, she essentially stated to the entire American public that his progress report was a lie.

And now she wants us to believe that her completely inaccurate account of what she along with the comedian Sinbad and others experienced in Bosnia was just a mindless mistake. And my answer is that for us to buy that explanation would require a willing suspension of disbelief.

Looking at a table of the events that happen in the course of human life development, it didn't take a lot of keen observatory abilities for me to notice a pattern. Here's the table (derived in part from Wikipedia and its sources):

Hmmm. Let's think for a moment. What is it that every line in the table has in common with all the other lines. They all relate to human life development, but that's a bit too vague. Oh - I know! Every one of them occurs on a time schedule that's relative to the point of conception. Yeah, that's it!

Simply put, every event in our lives occurs at some time offset from the moment of conception. That includes our birthdays and all the biological events in our unborn bodies that were within our mother's bodies that led up to our original birth day. Whenever your birthday is, you were conceived at some point probably about 37-40 weeks before then (unless you came early, in which case, never mind). And the little things that happen during the time our mothers were pregnant with us, like the formation of our lungs, our brains, and our eyes, occur with such rough precision at specified intervals from the moment of conception that we can almost set our watches to them (well ... if you wanted to know the current time plus or minus a couple of weeks, that is).

(Some funny guy or gal will ask "well, why don't we celebrate our birthdays on the day of conception?" Well, one good reason for this is that no one can know exactly what that date was. But, hey, if you're so inclined, bump up your birthday celebration by 40 weeks. Of course that would make you almost a year older. In my case, I need every one of those forty weeks - so I'll stick with my birth date, thank you very much!)

When people who call themselves pro-life suggest that life begins at conception, the good people who disagree with that notion often chime in with counter arguments that assert that we are claiming that individual sperm cells and ovum (eggs) are people as well. And then the funny jokes start rolling in, about how some event involving just an individual acting in isolation can result in the deaths of millions of babies (yeah, that one sounds funnier every time I hear it). But, seriously, here's something to think about. A sperm cell that never fertilizes an ovum will remain an individual sperm cell (which does not live long outside the human body). An ovum that is never fertilized by an egg will remain an ovum. It's not the individual reproductive cells in isolation that yields people, but the cells fused together in fertilization that ultimately leads to birth of a human baby.

Once fertilization and implantation occur, a living, breathing human baby will be on the other end of that human development process unless one of the following things happen: miscarriage (also known as spontaneous abortion), stillbirth, or abortion. So, the discussion about "when life begins" is not as theoretical and philosophical as some people make it out to be. Once conception occurs and the unborn baby is in place in the uterus, some new little person will be breathing and pooping in nine months unless one of these three tragic events occurs to end that life that has begun developing. It's a definite.

And so, based on the fact that everything that makes a person a person happens after conception in addition to the fact that prior to conception, nothing happens relating to human development, I feel comfortable in concluding that conception is the event that starts the human development process. Or in other words, the biological development of the life of every human being begins at the moment of conception, and not at any point before hand or afterward. It's the only logical conclusion.

We measure our calendar years as a time offset from the presumed date of the birth of my Lord Jesus Christ and suffix the years with Anno Domini ("in the year of Our Lord"). Perhaps we need to have a calendar system for our fellow people who haven't yet been born yet but whose lives are definitely in a state of active development and who we'll be interacting with some day barring the three terrible events that would prevent that from happening. Maybe we should just call it "A.C." - for dating events in a person's life according to how long after conception they occur. For example, by the time a parent knows that a baby will be coming, that unborn baby's calendar is already at two weeks A.C. The baby's heart will start beating by three weeks A.C. Their first birthday will probably be at approximately 92 weeks A.C.

(I won't divulge what month A.C. I am living in right now. The important thing is that I feel young!!)

But the reason for going into all of this is that as we talk about issues such as abortion, embryonic stem cell research, and related issues, we need to remember that we're talking about human lives in development whose A.C. calendars have already started flipping pages. From a purely biological point of view, human life does not begin at the moment of birth. Biologically, it begins at the moment of conception.

Oh yeah, and if you were a full-term baby and were born on a day that falls on or near New Year's Eve - I'll go ahead and wish you a Happy Birthday!!

Here are some interesting bits of information gleaned from the MSNBC reports of primary votes per candidate per state and the Wikipedia article for fundraising reports as of the end of last year. This information is based on all the primaries and caucuses up through the March 4th Texas Primaries (not including the Texas Caucus). The information compares the number of votes that each major candidate in each party spent compared to the number of votes they received in the primaries, resulting in statistics relating to cost per vote. The cost information isn't totally accurate as we only have information on how much each campaign spent through the end of last year. However, it's a pretty good rough indicator of how much the candidates who wanted to administer America's finances got in terms of voter support for their own campaign money.

Let's start with the Republicans.

The following chart shows how much each Republican major candidate spent for each vote they received in all states. We can see that Fred Thompson, who had spent $19 million by the end of last year and dropped out after Iowa, Wyoming, New Hampshire, Michigan, Nevada and South Carolina, effectively spent $121.25 per vote. Mike Huckabee, who had spent $7 million by that same time period, in effect spent $1.80 per vote. In between are John McCain at $5.35 per vote, Mitt Romney at $20.05 per vote, Ron Paul at $24.99 per vote, and Rudy Giuliani at $89.06 per vote.

If we break it down further in terms of just the 2004 "red" states, the states that voted for Bush, we can see that Thompson still spent the most - $154.62 per vote. Huckabee still spent the least at $2.54 per vote. McCain spent $10.20 per vote, Romney comes in at $43.35, Paul at $49.92 and Giuliani at $147.20.

Looking at the blue states, the states that voted for Kerry, Thompson also spent $561.67 per vote while Huckabee spent $6.22 per vote. McCain continues to have the second lowest price per vote, at $11.23. Romney's blue state votes cost $37.30. Paul's were $50.05 and Giuliani's were $225.47.

Now, let's look at the Dems.

The Democratic candidates had a bigger budget (I can see a new slogan - "Real change. A New Change. It took a lot of change") but also got many more votes overall. Richardson spent the most per vote (because he didn't get many) at $1,506.07 per vote, while Obama spent the least at $6.37 per vote. Clinton spent $7.93 per vote and Edwards spent $45.17 per vote.

Breaking it out to just look at Democrats in the 2004 red states, Richardson paid $17,292.38 per vote (wow! A number that even Mitt Romney thinks is a little high). Obama also got the best value here at $13.29 per red state vote. Clinton spent $16.87 and Edwards spent $74.52 per voter in Republican states.

In the blue states, Richardson spent a much more affordable $1649.75 per vote while Obama kept finding the bargain votes at a mere $12.22. Clinton spent $14.97 per vote and Edwards spent $114.68.

Other observations

Reverend Wright has preached a lot of sermons, and the Clintons have a lot of skeletons in their closet but not hardly enough exists of either for the Republican Party Establishment to feel in particularly good shape for this fall. Overall, the number of votes for Democratic candidates in the primaries and caucuses held so far exceeds that of Republicans by 61.92%. The Democrats nearly doubled the amount of votes as the Republican candidates in the 2004 blue states that voted for Kerry. But more surprisingly, the amount of Democratic turnout in Republican States exceeds that of the Republican turnout by 38.24%.

None of this might mean anything as not all states have had primaries or caucuses for both parties so far. Also, the primary turnout may or may not be an indicator for projected turnout in the fall. But the differences are substantial and notable.

In terms of fiscal conservatism in practical every day terms - Return On Investment - Mike Huckabee has clearly gotten the most bang for the fewest bucks. Five Republican candidates spent at least twice the amount he had spent by the end of last year (almost three times as much) and he got more votes than all but two of them and stayed in the race longer than all but two of them. On the slightly less economical side, Mitt Romney spent even more by the end of last year than Barack Obama, having spent $87 million by the beginning of this year. But at least he got votes and won states (many of them places where he lived or once worked). Rudy Giuliani had spent nearly $49 million during this time period and did not win any states and not many votes. Fred Thompson had spent $19 million and didn't do as well as Giuliani.

On the Democratic side, both Clinton and Obama performed similarly with regards to votes per dollar although Hillary had spent more money by the end of last year. John Edwards spent nearly as much money by the end of last year as John McCain but won no states and received less than one thirteenth of the votes of either Obama or Clinton. Richardson spent slightly more money than Ron Paul or Fred Thompson but got very few votes and did not win his home state.

The two winners in the cost per vote contest were Barack Obama and Mike Huckabee. But, Huckabee's performance is particularly notable as it was accomplished with just under one twelfth of the amount of money that Obama spent in the same time period. The former Arkansas Governor does not have an economic background (like Romney, who got very little return for his campaign dollar investment). He must have stayed at a Holiday Inn Express last night.

When I heard the remarks of Obama's former Pastor Jeremiah Wright, the comments angered me on several levels. As a Christian, I was pretty horrified to hear him say the things he said, the way he said them, from the pulpit. As an American, it deeply bothers me to hear people say bad things about our great country. And as an African American, I am bothered by racial insensitivity toward other ethnic groups just as I am bothered when it is done to us.

But, I am growing a bit tired of the statements that all sides are making that "this is the type of thing that happens in a black church." A few black pundits have suggested this on the news networks and Rush Limbaugh has also chimed in ("So it's just another example of what's going on in a black church" - Rush, have you ever been to a predominately African American church congregation before in your life?) Beyond my assertion that there is only one Church and there isn't a "black church" and a "white church" (there are congregations that have memberships of various ethnic mixes), let me point out that there are indeed two types of church congregations, but the distinction has nothing to do with skin color. The two types are churches that are oriented around the Word of God and churches that aren't. Both types of congregations have people of all skin colors that belong to them. I've belonged to and visited a large number of congregations that have had predominately or all black membership over three decades and I've actually never heard anything of a racist or anti-American nature preached from the pulpit (I go to churches in the first category). And in all of the predominately black congregations I've belonged to as an adult, there have also been white members who feel right at home and know that we're all part of the same family of God.

And among church leaders, the line between those who have made inflammatory and controversial statements and those who don't isn't based on color either. While everyone is paying close attention to the Wright statements about America, we have already forgotten that two years after he agreed with Jerry Fallwell that America helped to bring the 911 attacks on ourselves, Pat Robertson, a Giuliani supporter, vented his frustration at the Bush State Department by (presumably jokingly) suggesting that blowing the agency up with a nuclear bomb might just be the answer. Foolish talk knows no color boundaries.

For those of us who are sincerely bothered when we hear any hint of racism towards any ethnic group, which I believe is most of us, we have some moral credibility when we get mad about what we perceive to be racially-tinged language. But when I hear Rush Limbaugh stepping into the dialog about the racial aspect of the Wright remarks, I honestly wonder if there is any nationally known broadcast personality (either of the "drive-by" or "conservative" variety) who has less credibility in criticizing others about showing racial insensitivity.

I say this because, Rush, as talented an entertainer as he is, has done his own share of usage of racial jokes and mockeries. What do you think it's like to be a black conservative and to listen on the radio to a popular radio show hosted by someone who shares your general views on the role of government (it should be small), the direction that taxes should go (down), and the effects of the "nanny state" (it takes away our rights), and to be greeted to the sound of the song "Barack the Magic NEGRO" (similar to the title of an article originally written by a black journalist but set to music by Rush) being gleefully sung by the EIB choir? I'm sure you can imagine that it doesn't feel too good. I also didn't appreciate in January when, in criticizing Hillary Clinton's usage of the word "spadework" (and noting the double standard of what would have happened had a Republican used that word), when he went on and on, putting together a long story emphasizing the word "spade" (an old slur for African Americans - he said it slowly and repeatedly for maximum humorous effect). And then, because of requests to replay it, he repeated it in another segment. It's not funny.

Unfortunately, while many of us, of all ethnic groups, have relatively clean hands with regard to our attitudes and statements regarding race, and can condemn the racism we hear in others without being hypocritical, some of us don't and some of us can't. There are many examples of others who have purposefully exploited the sensitive fault lines of race in America or who have failed to condemn and distance themselves from others who have. And while Obama's Pastor's comments about race and America itself deserve condemnation, those who fall into this category need to worry about righting themselves as well while they criticize the wrongs of Rev. Wright.

We need to ALL show intolerance for racism and racial insults in all directions, whether it is directed to our own group or to others. And we need to do it before we cast judgment on others who we think to be ethnically intolerant. And when we get to the point where our intolerance for double standards gets beyond the silly argument of "racism" versus "reverse racism" (it's all plain old racism regardless of the direction) and extends to holding ourselves to the same standards that we hold others to, at that point we'll all have less audacity and a lot more hope.

The Republican Party Establishment and the "conservative" media have painted themselves into a corner. By repeatedly falling in love with the wrong guy over and over again, and going with a series of self-destructive candidates, each one's campaign going down in flames in different spectacular and dramatic ways, they managed to knock a set of preferred alternatives out of the race until all they were left with was one of the candidates they least wanted: Sir John McCain.

Every instinct and intuition of the highly paid Lords of Conservatism (well, the Washington and New York variety of it, anyway) has been wrong. Every one of the "ones" that they've anointed - the "one true conservative," the "one who can win the war on terror," and the "one who can beat Hillary" (the most important character trait of all) - has fallen on their face after raising much fanfare and spending even more money. Their track record for picking candidates could be much improved, to say the least.

Some in the "conservative" media have dedicated a notable amount of effort to attacking John McCain and weakening his standing among Republican voters, only to find themselves now scrambling to pretend that they've liked him all along and that they were just kidding about calling him a liberal. And as a result of a series of their own bad decisions, their biggest hope for winning the fall election has shifted from the strength of their own candidate to the hope for a Hillary candidacy to the hope that Rev. Jeremiah Wright will preach next Sunday's Easter sermon ("Congregation, let me tell you what I REALLY think!!!"). Their constant miscalculations have really put them in a bind.

But, instead of beating up on the decisions made in the past any further, I want to give our friendly Republican Party Establishment guys and gals some advice for a better strategy down the road. This simple strategy is derived this time not from the Bible, from the Constitution, from a Reagan speech or from a Karl Rove Power Point presentation. This strategy comes from the eighty sixth episode of Seinfeld. In a nutshell: when every decision you have made has been wrong, if you do the exact opposite of what you've done, every decision that you make will be right.

It's really important that they all take up new approaches to making decisions. Because they're all in the process of influencing the second-most important decision for Republicans in the fall: the call of who will be McCain's running mate and who will potentially add some needed spice and fervent support to the GOP ticket.

So, let's start undoing the damage, shall we? Let's do the opposite of what we did before.

Old Tactic #1: Draft somebody who is popular. The opposite: Pick someone who is willing to work very hard

The Fred Thompson 2008 operation was the most anticipated Presidential Campaign to have never happened. He was "the true conservative" and had been successful in everything he had done in life. He looked and talked like a conservative. But he didn't want the job. However, in spite of the fact that he didn't want the job, his supporters presumed that they could will him into the White House and channel their enthusiasm for him into his wanting to work hard enough not just to campaign for President but to work once he got the job.

But that didn't work. You can't draft people to do such an important job if they're not 100% committed to working hard enough to get it. So, let's do the opposite, Establishment folks. Only pick someone who has shown that they're willing to put forth serious effort in a campaign.

Old Tactic #2: Pick whoever the "conservative" media wants. The opposite: Listen to the voters

To listen to the wisdom of your favorite New York or Washington-based "conservative" media personality, Mitt Romney was not just the one. He was the One. Why, according to them, he practically is the ideological clone of Reagan (although he didn't support Reagan while he was alive and didn't have that many socially conservative positions until he started preparing to run). And in addition to having the coveted blessing of the media, he had another important asset: assets. Lots of them. He poured a massive amount of money into the campaign, flooding the electorate with advertisements showing a dozen reasons to vote for him and hundreds of reasons not to vote for whoever polled closest to him. But the $100 million dollar man failed to complete his mission.

By Super Tuesday, one thing was pretty clear. Mitt Romney was pretty much capable of only winning states where either: a) he used to live, b) he used to work or govern, or c) no one else spent time on the ground campaigning against him. It seems that many people just didn't trust him or think he was sincere.

So, from now on, why not do the opposite of what failed for us before? Listen to the actual voters and not just the "conservative" media.

Old Tactic #3: Annoy the heck out of Social Conservatives. The opposite: Treat them with respect

Rudy Giuliani is your basic Reagan conservative except for the a few pesky details. Like the fact that he supports abortion up onto the moment of birth, supports gay marriage, doesn't believe illegal immigration is a crime, and that about a third of Republican voters decided they would rather form another party than vote Republican if he got the nomination. In the past, the tactic of angering social conservatives didn't work (and neither, for the record, did the "Florida Doctrine"). So, let's do the opposite, PubCentral, and give Social Conservatives someone who is at least ideologically in our same time zone.

Old Tactic #4: Gang up on your most likeable and most experienced candidate. The opposite: be fair

Once exposed to the charm of Mike Huckabee, most Republican voters really liked him - until they were officially instructed not to. While Huckabee was a mere second or third tier candidate, the Establishment found him cute and harmless. Only when he started to catch on late in the year did they decide that they couldn't let a Huckabee candidacy happen. Everyone within earshot of either Fox News or a Clear Channel-owned station heard the name Wayne DuMond with such frequency that they thought he was a candidate as well. But, Huckabee not only got more votes per campaign dollar than any candidate in recent memory, but he did it without establishment help. And by pushing candidates more preferred by themselves but who were not well received by the voters, the Establishment unwittingly made room for Mr. McCain. They need to do the opposite: spend less time in the punditsphere talking about what conservative voters want and instead pay attention to what conservative voters have told them with our nearly four million votes.

One great day in the life of George Constanza should show us all that just because we've always been wrong doesn't mean that we have to continue being wrong from this point on out. The Republican Party needs to make the second most important decision of the campaign. I recommend that they do the opposite of whatever they've been doing to get to this point in time.

Adam's blog has an interesting piece about Mitt Romney, "The Man With No Core."  Every time I really try to leave Mitt Romney alone, either he opens his mouth or one of his employees - oops - intermediaries - goes on the air and talks about how much he is the next Ronald Reagan. And then I'm compelled to speak up.

If there is anything that would compound the disaster that the GOP might face as a result of betting on the wrong candidates, it would be using the same strategy to pick their backups. The party bosses need to take a lesson from the character George Costanza from Seinfeld, who once figured out that since everything he did was wrong, all he had to do was the opposite of his natural instincts, and everything he did would be right.

Republican party power brokers and "conservative" media types, if you are reading any of this, let's talk for a minute. Take stock of yourself. Look in the mirror. Are you happy with the way the nomination battle turned out? Be honest. It's just us talking. If not, then why not use the opposite of the strategies you've used to get you to this point in time. A person who will say anything to get the job is not the person who deserves it. It will only lead to another disaster

Obama with his mother, with his grandparents, and in a fifth grade class picture

I have been critical of Obama because of his support for abortion (I can't vote for someone who has a 100% pro-abortion record) and have lit into his church for the horrible remarks of his former Pastor. But, I don't think for a split second that Obama is a racist. In fact, I think he probably understands both perspectives of racial issues much better than most of us ever will.

The standard defense for anyone accused of racism these days is to nervously respond with "b-b-but ... I have plenty of black friends!" Or, if you're black and accused of being militant or having something against whites, you would probably mention the fact that you have white friends, white congregants, or something like that. But, what better defense is there to the charge of being a militant black racist than to say that your mom and your grandparents, who raised you, were white? That you've spent much of your life making friends and being popular in environments in which there were very few other blacks? And that you, yourself, have both African and Caucasian heritage in your immediate lineage? There is none.

I'll put it this way. Barack Obama probably knows more about what it's like to be the only black guy in a room full of whites or the only guy with a white parent in a room full of blacks - and being comfortable and at home with it - than most of us ever have been. Obama has his faults and weaknesses. But being racist isn't one of them. He isn't.

Furthermore, the Republicans are going to have a tough time turning Obama into the boogeyman. He's not the boogeyman. He's a nice guy. And the guy can talk his way out of a jam every bit as well as Clinton could - but unlike Clinton, he doesn't lie when he's doing it. In a world where winning an election is as much about getting your party's base to rabidly hate the other guy as it is about having them like you, the GOP really has its work cut out for them (and this is the case because they've bet on the wrong horse). But, even if you totally disagree with many of his positions, you have to admit that this guy is pretty hard to personally dislike. He's darn good.

Unsolicited friendly advice to Senator McCain: You are going to face this guy, Obama in the general election this fall. He is going to win the Democratic nomination. As you can tell, he is immensely charismatic. You need someone on your side who is at least equally charismatic. Simply put, Mike Huckabee is the only thing that might prevent you from losing the election. This guy is just too good! Either it's McCain/Huckabee (assuming that you give Mike the mike and let him get camera time at every opportunity) or I just don't think you can win.

The United States Government publishes a document every year that summarizes the statistical patterns and raw numbers for  abortion. I think that every American citizen, whether we call ourselves "pro-life" or "pro-choice" needs to actually become educated on the numbers and percentages of abortions that occur in this country every year. The numbers are quite startling - and even tend to surprise people who don't think abortion is a good thing but think it should remain legal. Many self-described "pro-choice" people actually agree with pro-life people that abortion is horrible and should be rare. But, unfortunately, very few of us understand how common and widespread it actually is.

Some politicians have claimed that the abortion rates have declined and that it should be less of a topic of discussion today. While abortion has probably declined since its national peak in 1990, it is very difficult to get accurate statistical information nationwide, as a number of states, including California, have ceased to provide the numbers of abortions performed there to the Federal Government after 1997. But what we do know is quite disturbing and gripping.

 Anything but rare

All of the following statistics are for the year 2004, the last year for which there is a CDC report available.

For starters, let's look at the national abortion rate. This statistic - the rate of abortions in all the areas that do report to the Federal Government compared to the number of live babies born in those same areas, shows that there are 239 unborn babies aborted in the U.S. for every 1,000 babies born in the U.S every year. Or, to simplify the math, for every five babies born in this country, one unborn baby is aborted.

In the United States, for every five babies born, one unborn baby is aborted.

If we look specifically at the African American community, the numbers are significantly greater. For every 1,000 live African American babies born in the United States every year, there are 472 unborn African American babies aborted in the U.S. every year. Or, put differently, for every two black babies born here, nearly another unborn black baby is aborted. And according to the Alan Guttmacher Institute, black women are 4.8 times as likely as non-hispanic white women to have an abortion. Hispanic women are 2.7 times as likely to have an abortion.

Among African Americans, for every two black babies that are born, another unborn black baby is aborted.

A few other disturbing facts that contradict what most people, both pro-life and pro-choice, believe:

• In New York City, for every 1,000 babies born, 770 additional unborn babies are aborted
• It is commonly believed that most abortions involve teenagers or other very young women who get pregnant unintentionally. However, 50% of abortions are had by women who are over age 25.
• Based on the percentages given, about 327,298 abortions occurred after eight weeks gestation. By eight weeks of development, the unborn baby has a heartbeat, brain waves, and every organ is in place in their bodies.
• Based on the percentages in the government report, about 11,749 abortions occurred after 21 weeks gestation (reasons not given). At this stage of pregnancy, the unborn babies are viable or nearly viable (in fact, a baby was born at 21 weeks gestation last year and was able to leave the hospital with her parents within a week after birth).
• 47% of abortions are obtained by those who have had at least one previous abortion. (http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/fb_induced_abortion.html)

"But, legalized abortion has saved many lives"

We need to examine the facts surrounding another of the primary arguments for legal abortion - the argument that Roe v. Wade has saved many lives and that there would be large numbers of women who would have died in illegal abortion procedures if not for Roe. There is a paper titled Lessons from Before Roe: Will Past be Prologue?, which talks about the number of abortion deaths that occurred in the earlier part of the 20th century going forward to 1972, the last full year during which abortion was illegal in some part of the United States.  But what's very interesting about these figures is that it's obvious looking at the numbers that abortion deaths declined significantly prior to abortion becoming legal in this country and not as a consequence of it. Take a look at the following chart, which includes numbers on the abortion deaths over the decades prior to Roe, in the year before Roe and in recent years afterward.

The chart shows the number of reported abortion deaths per year from 1930 until 2004 at selected intervals (shown in the table below). The data is from the Guttmacher Institute paper linked above. The number of abortion deaths fell dramatically a long time before Roe v. Wade. Also, maternal deaths were also very high at the same time abortion deaths were very high. They both fell at the same time and to roughly the same degree, all long before Roe. The most likely reason? I would suspect the advent of antibiotics and other medical advances.

It is interesting to note that at the same time that abortion deaths were at their highest, maternal deaths of women who did not have abortions were also at their highest. And when the death rates for childbirth in general fell, so did the death rates for abortion - all long before Roe v. Wade was decided. When you look at this information, combined with the fact that the overall maternal death rate for women who didn't have abortions has also decreased, by a factor of 100 (which is roughly the same percentage decline as the abortion death rate), during that same time period, we can safely form a few conclusions:

• Although it is commonly believed that Roe v. Wade saved lives, it appears that the number of deaths declined rapidly long before any state made abortion legal or before the Supreme Court overturned abortion restrictions. What was the most likely factor for the reduction in deaths? Probably the reduction came in large part from the same factors that made childbirth safer over the same time period, which would include the advent of antibiotics and other medical advances.
• By the last number in the chart, the highlighted 2004 statistic, we can see that women still die during abortion procedures. Abortion is certainly not safe for the unborn baby but also poses a medical risk for the mother. And when you think of the fact that in the last full year before Roe, there were only 63 deaths (about 40% of them occurring during legal abortions) compared to ten deaths four years ago, it takes the wind out of the argument that Roe has saved a massive number of lives.
• Someone will probably say that these numbers aren't complete because abortions were performed in "back alleys" and the government doesn't know about everyone who died during them. They could have some point - we will never have a full statistical picture of what happened then (but then again, we don't have a full statistical picture of abortions occurring today either). But, one thing our government does very well and has always done very well is to keep track of who dies and why they died. And this is probably especially true for women of child-bearing age who die under mysterious circumstances.

Supply and Demand

There couldn't have been many "back alley abortions" in 1974, because the Supreme Court revoked the state's ability to restrict abortion in the first two trimesters. The same was true in 1975, 1976, and onward. But, as you can see from the chart, the demand for abortion increased as its availability increased during the years that abortion became widely available.

Roe has actually increased the demand for abortion. In 1974, the first full year in which abortion was legal everywhere in America, and, as a result, there would have been no "back alley" abortions, the abortion ration was 196 abortions per 1,000 live births. Ten years later, in 1984, the ratio was 364 abortions per 1,000 live births. The demand for abortion went up as the supply of available abortion providers went up - even when you consider just the years in which there was no such thing as illegal abortion in the United States.

Conclusion

Lastly, the discussion over the very emotional topic of abortion needs to be handled with sensitivity. The purpose of highlighting these statistics is NOT to in any way make judgments on people who have had or who have been involved with abortions in the past but rather to bring to light the statistical realities of the practice. But, if we are going to discuss the issue of abortion during this election year, we need to know the facts. And the facts are not nearly as neat and nicely packaged as the catch-phrase "safe, legal and rare."

Senator Obama seems like a nice guy. In fact, I'll even say that I personally like him and think he's run a very good campaign. But he has incredibly bad ideas on what constitutes human life. And I cannot in good conscience vote for anyone who is so out of step on the fundamental issue of human life. Senator Clinton is certainly not much better (although I was stunned to learn that even she supports parental notification), and is pretty much of the same mindset as Obama on the issue of abortion. And John McCain for that matter, although he has much more of a decent anti-abortion record, doesn't seem to completely comprehend that life begins at conception, based on his support for embryonic stem cell research. What a lousy year for a pro-life voter to have to go to the polls!

Images of the line that forms much of our border with Canada, the 49th Parallel, from Wikipedia and from photograpy from a page belonging to an artist named Gregor Turk. Not only is much of our two-part border with Canada not as well defended as it should be, but the U.S. actually spends money ensuring that the border is free of brush and vegetation for ten feet on either side of the border for 1,349 miles.

Feeling insecure? Rest assured. The U.S.-Mexican border at Imperial Beach, California is protected by the coveted border fence.

I'm sorry. I know I'm slow. A lot of politicians as well as many voters have gotten really pumped up over the idea of a border fence as a means to "protect the border" (which would be awesome if we only had one border). But, even if we were to build a twenty foot high wall across the entire 1,969 mile-long border we share with our neighbors to the south (hey - we can call it "The Great Wall of Chihuahuan"!), and then reinforce it with the millitary, some Minutemen, and a few of those hi-tech gadgets from 24, I keep getting the nagging feeling that we're forgetting something important. Hmmm. What could it be?

Could it be those huge, 5,500 mile-long undefended international borders to the north and northwest? Nah. All the politicians say we'll be just fine as long as we protect THE border. And I know they mean the southern border - the important one. Those terrorists have simply got to be as exclusively obsessed with the southern border as all of us are!

Not only do our politicians publicly ignore the northern and northwestern borders (we share two separate borders with Canada), but, we spend a substantial sum of money making sure that our border with Canada is free of brush, vegetation and debris. So, just in case an illegal entrant wanted to know exactly when he was about to illegally step into the United States, when he reaches the twenty foot-wide, thousands of mile long break in the tree line, he'd know he was here for sure. And he never even crossed THE border!

The International Boundary Commission is an agency jointly run by the United States and Canada, and is chartered to maintain the monuments and markers along the U.S.-Canada border but also ensure that the border is nice, neat, and clear from obstructions. From its site:

If you look along the International Boundary between Canada and the United States in any forested area, it will appear simply as a 6 metre or 20 foot cleared swath a long open vista stretching from horizon to horizon, dotted in a regular pattern with white markers. Over mountains, down cliffs, along waterways and through prairie grasses, the line snakes 8,891 kilometres or 5,525 miles across North America, tranquil, undefended but not uncared for.

These are all good goals set by good people during less dangerous times. But, the last time I heard a politician talking about "THE border," the focus was on making it secure and keeping terrorists out. So, a good, logical question is, why are we spending money to build a fence along one border at the same time that we spend money to make sure that a combined border that's nearly three times as long as the one we're protecting is "open" - in the most literal sense of the word?

Do we really think that terrorists are so stupid that they look at a map of the United States and, like some of us, only see one way in over land?

Some people believe that because Canada is a well-developed country with a strong government that it is somehow not a place that terrorists would use to get to the United States. But, in addition to having its own home-brewed Islamic terrorists, Canada has liberal immigration policies and allows people from all over the world to gain sanctuary there.

When we think of the "border" states, one's mind thinks of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California. But, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Minnesota, North Dakota, Montana, Idaho, Washington and Alaska are all also border states as well - states that border Canada. But, I'm sure a terrorist would be much more interested in visiting New Mexico and Arizona.

Canada is and has always been a great neighbor with awesome citizens and has a long-standing friendship with the United States Government and its people. And, while the vista is aesthetically beautiful, it is a bit ridiculous to assume, as many politicians do, that we only need to worry about protecting less than two thousand miles of our more than 7,500 miles of international land border. As I've asked before, would it make sense to live in a dangerous neighborhood, knowing that people want to break into your home and harm your family, and put a triple bolt deadlock on the front door - while leaving the garage door and patio door wide open? Similarly, it doesn't make sense to protect THE border. We need to protect all three.

Last week, somewhere deep in the heart of Conservative America (Washington, D.C. or New York City), some party hack typed into his spreadsheet with glee as he moved the 30%-40% of Republican voters who supported Governor Mike Huckabee over into the column of GOP Nominee John McCain. He is probably thinking to himself that all he needs now is to bring over a couple of Independent voters and a few Democrats and, PRESTO! The GOP has the far-fetched opportunity to possibly, maybe, in the best case scenario, win the General Election by a single electoral vote. But this is fine with him because simply winning is all that's important to him and all he has the capacity to comprehend. The fact that he's attempting to build additional stories onto a building with a decayed structure and that any success he might have in building upon it may be short-lived totally escapes him. All he's focused on is making sure that his building is an inch taller than the one across the street.

Also, in addition to his inability to exhibit long-term thinking, there's also a huge problem with the assumptions made on his spreadsheet. Not all of the voters in column Huckabee are going to move over to Column McCain. But, that's another story.

Folks, the Republican Party is in need of a major overhaul, as it is pulling away from its ideological foundation. And while no one here wants to see four years of tax hikes and destructive liberal social policies, the big elephant is still in the room and staring at us until we acknowledge a sad truth. The truth that there really isn't as much difference between the two major parties at this point in time as some of us like to think. I'm sorry to have to report it to those still in denial. But there really isn't.

It's no big secret that many in the Republican Party leadership have abandoned fiscal conservatism. Yes, many in the party are fine with the idea of cutting taxes, which is always a great idea. But they've spent with such an incredible recklessness that our nation owes an unbelievable nine trillion dollars in debt, a debt that grows deeper every single day because we also have a severe budget deficit. It is abusive to raise already high taxes and is thievery to be wasteful in spending of the public treasury (Calvin Coolidge called it "legislative larceny"). But, doing what has been done for the past several years - cutting revenues while at the same time wildly raising expenditures - is a little bit like demanding a huge pay cut from your employer and then going out to buy that nice new Lambourghini. It's a prescription for bankruptcy.

Ask yourselves, does it make sense that President Clinton, who is from the party known for "taxing and spending," lowered the deficit every single year of his presidency until we had a surplus, after which time he made the surplus larger every year? While at the same time, the party that used to be known for fiscal conservatism has risen the national debt from five trillion to nine trillion in a span of seven years (six of which it controlled the White House and both houses of Congress)? It's ridiculous. And please don't tell me that it was all needed to protect America from terrorism. A good bit of it came from out of control pork barrel spending and "I'll build your highway if you build mine" backroom dealing. In truth, this fiscal mismanagement has come from members of both parties. But, we expect more from the GOP than the Democrats when it comes to fiscal restraint. Republicans need to stop spending as if they were Democrats at the shopping mall on the day after Thanksgiving.

What is more surprising is that in the 2008 elections, the Republican Party has also begun to abandon social conservatism. After loudly touting the objections of the Evangelical community to abortion and same-sex marriage and crediting the high turnout of values voters for the re-election of President Bush, some geniuses calling themselves strategists must have sat in a Republican conference room last year and thought to themselves "I know who the base will really love. Rudy Giuliani!!" Then, after Rudy self-destructed, they set their hearts on someone who recently held the same exact social views as Rudy, but experienced a miraculous yet unexplained election year conversion. Mitt Romney's elevation to the darling of the conservative establishment can only be compared to a movie scene in which Lincoln Chafee steps into a phone booth and walks out of it as Rick Santorum, Super Conservative. The problem for us observers is that we strongly suspect that the switch was just a hi-budget special effect.

We've heard pundit after pundit who railed for years against the Democratic Party for being pro-abortion and anti-family suddenly decide that those qualities are only bad when they apply to Democrats. One of my favorite expressions from the quasi-conservative punditry over the past year is "I'm pro-life, but ...," followed by any one of a number of reasons why it's suddenly not so bad to not be pro-life. Or to hear them suggest that people who are concerned with these matters represent a few nut cases on the far right. But, just four years ago, those same people were in total agreement with us that the issues we think are very important were good reasons not to vote for the Democratic candidates. Today, things are ... well, different. And so are they.

Folks, I'm sorry to report that the present day Republican Party, just like the present day Democratic Party, has become more of a vehicle for power for the individuals currently running it than a channel for the execution of ideas that will affect the American way of life. Ronald Reagan vocalized an excellent set of principles for government and formed a confederation of interest groups who displayed a fierce loyalty to the party. But, that Republican Party has decayed to the point that it's a fragment of what it once was and is more in need of emergency structural repair than a good candidate for adding on some additional layers.

Let's get something straight - the Democratic Party does NOT hold the answer to what's wrong with the Republican Party. In addition to the Democratic Party's hardened adherence to abortion, lack of support for the traditional family, and its thinly veiled hostility to people who hold strong religious convictions, the party espouses a role of government that infringes into multiple individual Constitutional rights. The American Government was never envisioned to be a catch-all that catered to every need an individual might ever have, which is what many Democratic leaders tend to propose. And many people of all party affiliations want an alternative to the Democratic Party but have grown equally fatigued by the modern-day Republican Party Establishment. What is sorely needed in America is an alternative to the current two-party system, or, at the least, a rebuilt Republican Party that provides a clearer distinction from the other party.

The Republican Party needs to return to the principles of respect for human life at all stages, commitment to the traditional family, religious freedom, limited government, fiscal responsibility, and accountability, in addition to building the best, most well trained, and most prudently utilized armed forces in the world. And although ethical scandals affect members of both major political parties, the GOP portrays itself to be the party of accountability and morals, and because of this, needs to begin holding itself and its members to a higher standard of ethics. In addition, the Republican Party needs to begin making an aggressive and prolonged effort to reach out to conservatives of all ethnic groups and in all economic brackets. The Party has on occasion made ephemeral and often half-hearted attempts to bridge the divide with African American voters but seems to always abort the outreaches at the first sign that fifty years of estrangement can't be overcome in time for the next election.

It is highly doubtful that the current crop of party establishment personnel can carry out the repairs that need to be done. The party needs leaders who have credibility, courage of their convictions, and the ability to connect with a wide range of voters. Leaders like Mike Huckabee, Bobby Jindal, and Michael Steele, among others, need to become the new faces of the party. Some others, who have failed to demonstrate conviction and commitment to the ideas that have brought social, fiscal, and defense conservatives together, who have no new ideas on implementing these principles, and who have not attempted to broaden the base of conservatives, need to step aside.

If the Republican Party can return to its roots and find new and clearer voices, the party will have an excellent future, as the ideas behind conservatism are far superior to those pitched by many in the Democratic Party, whose ideas on the role of government encroach upon individual liberties and whose ideas on social morals are often reprehensible. But if the Republican Party continues as it is now, having abandoned conservative principles while at the same time limiting the audience to which its ideas are sold, the party faces a dark and uncertain future, both in 2008 and beyond.