The past week was very interesting in Presidential politics.  The darlings of the rank and file Republican Party, New Jersey governor Chris Christie and former Alaska governor Sarah Palin, have concluded it is not time to run for President. Herman Cain (who was recently labeled a racist by a Democrat strategist on CNN) has become the sweetheart of the white-supremacist, right-wing Tea Party.

The popular press is lauding liberal Democrats for having finally found their own voice in the Occupy Wall Street protests. And Missouri’s Democratic Senator, Claire McCaskill, did not even show up for President Obama’s (who polls below 30% in MO) fundraiser in St. Louis. And a rumor is circulating that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has told Obama he cannot win passage of the jobs bill as proposed and will only take it in pieces to the Senate floor, thus distancing himself from the President.

Does anyone need to know anything else about the 2012 elections?

The problem for decades in Washington has been that lawmakers, Republican and Democrat, have spent their way to political success. Now that there is no more money, nobody knows what to do.  In fact, there is only one Congressman, Darrell Issa (R-CA) who has started (not inherited) a successful company that sold a product and wasn’t just in the service industry, law, accounting, insurance, medicine, banking, you get the idea.  The genesis of American capitalism is an agrarian society taking the risks necessary to make something from nothing and selling it.  He is likely the only one that has made the sacrifices necessary to build something from nothing, and make a profit.  The concept is that without actual profit you can’t spend money.  Everyone else, Democrat and Republican more resembles the Occupy Wall Street group who want to tell everyone where money should be spent, decisions based on personal interests and taxes, not capitalism.  The situation is exacerbated by the contempt and lack of cooperation between the congressional parties, as well as between members of Congress of both parties and the executive.

For some time, the question of when that animosity began has gone unanswered. Certainly there have always been hard-fought ideological battles in the halls of government. But there have also been famous relationships between party leaders, relationships that helped bring these leaders and the country together. When did our modern politics deteriorate so much? Recently a longtime friend and Washington insider suggested that it began with the defeat of the nomination of Judge Robert Bork, the highly respected and superbly qualified candidate, for the Supreme Court. (more…)

Republicans should welcome a comparison of their party’s history with that of the Democrats – the party of slavery and socialism, Big Government and the Ku Klux Klan.

As Republicans try to repel the socialist onslaught, the way to win – and to deserve to win – is to embrace our party’s original reform agenda.   The patriots who created our Grand Old Party did so in order to preserve the vision of the Founding Fathers.   And the way they did it has valuable lessons for us today.

Let’s first look at the party currently in power.   Democrat ties to the legacy of Thomas Jefferson are negligible.   In fact, the Democratic Party was established in 1832 at a national convention organized by Cabinet secretaries and other prominent supporters of the Andrew Jackson administration.   From the start, the Democratic Party was a top-down organization.   Submission to the grand leader and astroturfing – that is, fake grassroots activity – for the Democrats it’s the same old same old.

In contrast, the Republican Party began as a truly grassroots movement very similar to the Tea Parties now sweeping the nation.   Ordinary people doing extraordinary things – that’s what created the GOP.   For example, at the famous meeting in Ripon, Wisconsin that named the party “Republican” there were no politicians at all, just fifty-three men and women who took a stand.  The first Republican state convention, in Jackson, Michigan, was attended by thousands of farmers and laborers and small businessmen.   From the grassroots upward, that’s the Republican Party at its best.

The Republican Party was born as a civil rights movement.

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