Following the Election

I'm not going to cry voter suppression. I'm not going to argue that the military absentee ballots haven't been counted yet. I'm not going to call for lawsuits in Ohio, Virginia, or Florida. I'm not going to jump onto the legal team in the suit claiming Obama has no standing to be President. I won't even whine about the Rasmussen poll that shows a majority of Americans think the press helped Obama to win (http://news.yahoo.com/s/rasmussen/20081105/pl_rasmussen/reportershelpedobama20081105). Obama won. McCain lost. Let that sink in for a moment.

Moving on, we must examine the fact that Republicans as a general rule do not run good political campaigns. Exit polls showed that the majority of voters in Ohio listed the economy as the number one concern in their decision. And the numbers from Ohio show 51% voted for Obama. And here begins my frustration with the election. It's not so much that Obama won. It's the false perception with those who voted for him. Let's review:

• Obama's platform was "CHANGE". There was not a group in America that couldn't identify that. Colin Powell called him a transformational candidate. And yet, in 8 years in the Illinois legislature and what will be 4 in the US Senate, he has no record of standing for change.
  
• Obama ran as the guy who will bring everyone together. Again, he has no record of doing this. The legislation he's sponsored with Republicans has been bland stuff that had near-universal support anyway. Doesn't take a lot of political courage to pull that stuff off.
  
• Obama won as the more qualified economist. But the redistribution strategies he supports have never served to get us out of a bad economy. McCain's platform of keeping low tax rates on the top income earners is the same plan that got us out of the worst economy since the Depression.
  
• Obama ran as the reformer, sent to make changes to the way government runs. Again, he has no record of this, and the record he does have shows him supporting corrupt organizations like ACORN, being supported by corrupt organizations like Fannie Mae, and having personal ties to corrupt individuals like Tony Rezko.
  
• Obama is supposed to be the friend of the little guy. However, his days as a community organizer show little to no accomplishment. The attacks from his campaign against Joe the plumber and Sarah Palin show how he treats regular people who don't agree with him. And perhaps the biggest sign out there is that he has numerous family members living in poverty while he and Michelle have cleared tens of millions in recent years.
• Many of the claims of the Obama campaign can be shown to be false or misleading. One example is the idea that Obama is a supporter of gun rights. Another is the tired idea that Republicans give tax breaks for taking jobs away from Americans.
  

Of course, a campaign can position itself as it chooses. I'm disappointed that the McCain campaign didn't do more to highlight the falsehood and talk about facts, ideas, and the middle class. Republicans need to take note of this in 2010.

Speaking of the future, things looked bleak for Republicans in 1976, but it took just four years of Jimmy Carter to revitalize the conservative movement and pave the way for eight years of Reagan. It took just two years of Bill Clinton and a Democrat Congress to usher in a new conservative agenda. So take heart, my conservative friends. And beware, my liberal friends. With the Republican Party squarely out of the spotlight, we'll be watching.