Jesus has my Soul, the Republicans have Everything Else…

I love attention-getting titles, don’t you? But then when that’s all they are and the article is just stupid or not really related to the title, then I’m so disappointed. Oh well, this one is kind of true. Volunteering for the Roskam campaign for 3-4 hours a day, 5 days a week (when I don’t have other mandatory obligations, which are few) has really galvanized my love of politics. Going door-to-door, calling people has really allowed me to see the direct interaction side of politics. We hear about the policies in Washington, we see Congressmen on TV, but we don’t often think about all the interns running around the neighborhoods, whether by phone or car.

Another thing has been that I subscribe to and follow a bunch of (mostly) conservative political sights. One of the ones I forgot to mention in a previous post was the Drudge Report (The link is here). This is basically a plain site with text and pictures that captures headlines form a smorgasbord of different websites, all with different topics. The vast majority of the news is about politics and the headlines are usually sort of hyped-up to slam the Democrats. It’s very informative though because it also has foreign relations news and of course, a smidgeon of the most essential celebrity gossip (Like Bristol Palin and Levi Johnston). I think that I’m going to really try to let my political views show more in my high school this upcoming year. I mean, there isn’t too much room for it because a lot of people just don’t care, but I think now the atmosphere might be a bit different because it’s an election year (albeit not a Presidential one) and Golden Boy Obama’s not what many people thought he’d be. It’s actually kind of frustrating to see how many people whose parents generally are more conservative be quite Democrat. Again though, I think this was part of the Obama-effect because DuPage County (and all the usual conservative counties surrounding Chicago) went Democratic in 08. Obama won in our school’s mock election with 63 percent of the vote or something. I just figure it was the “popular thing to do”.

Anyway, I’ve also linked up my GMail account to Youtube (I didn’t know how useful a GMail account was simply for all the other OpenID places you can use it with) and subscribed to a bunch of GOP Congressmen whose ideas I support. Besides my own Congressman, so far I have Jeb Hensarling  whose articulations during the Financial Regulation C-SPAN debates were quite moving and Eric Cantor, the main Republican Whip and also the header of the YouCut initiative. I’ll definitely be adding more as time goes on. But as a note, it’s awesome to watch the short Congressional speeches made by guys like them. They just sound so articulate and line up well with my beliefs. But it’s also cool just to see anyone speaking in Congress. There’s an air to it that’s pregnant with authority and awe.

Another project I am going to be doing is the Republican Illinois Victory campaign, which is this massive calling program that’s there to take advantage of the best Republican chances for victory in IL in a long time (For those of you who don’t know, IL is a very blue state, but it’s mostly because of Chicago and a few other counties near the Mississippi and by the Southern tip). So you can do things like calling from home, which sounds cool to me. It also sounds cool because when I said I wanted to go to a call center, the nearest ones were far away, so they became unviable.

The Politics of Our Beloved Land

Politics has interested me for a while, and President Obama’s election really sparked that interest in me quite a bit. Being in Wheaton in Dupage county, I am in one of the wealthier and more conservative counties in Illinois (And no, we’re not wealthy. I have 5 siblings, remember? I’m paying for all of college myself). However, Wheaton North Public High School was a different story. It seemed, as national polls indicated, that all the young people were in love with Obama, and hated Bush and “that old senile white guy” McCain. Liking Obama was easily the “Cool thing to do.” I’ve just finished a mini lecture series on the history of US Presidential elections, and it was made in 2008 with the last lecture being an analysis of the 08 election. So I could see pretty specifically the massive “Blue shift” almost every single state had during that election. Besides Arizona, Oklahoma, Kentucky, and Tennessee, every other state and countless counties voted far more Democratically than the had in 2004. Even my country, along with many other “Wealthy and white” fast growing suburban counties that had previously been Republican strongholds either went Democratic (As was the case with all the counties surrounding Chicago) or saw their Republican majorities strongly reduced. So that was surprising to me, even though I had predicted early in the Summer that Obama would win by a sizeable amount.

Now today, the Democrats in Congress are in serious danger of losing the House and are probably going to see their majority in the Senate sharply cut (But that’s only because 36 are up for reelection this year). Obama’s approval rating is hovering around the 48-52 range and is at it’s lowest point ever. People are fed up with the liberal agenda that has totally ignored what a majority of the people really want. The deficit is incredibly high and the national debt is staggeringly huge. The new financial regulations bill (Whose Congressional debates I have watched hours of) is also meant to unreasonably restrain businesses (especially farmers) and banking in a way that severely limits their ability to lay safety nets for themselves and is again putting the government into every aspect of our lives. Now granted, some of the reforms have good ideas. Would it be nice to have cheap healthcare for everyone? Of course! Is it good that large financial institutions aren’t being irresponsible with funds and aren’t trying to make money on corporations failing? Yeah! But then do you make taxpayers foot the enormous bill, do you slow down the system, do you harm businesses? No! It’s just like most things the Democrats have come up with over the centuries. Unions were good ideas. They provided workers with better conditions and better pay when they were being exploited. But now, they’re simply out for themselves and don’t seem to care for the companies they actually work for. They are limiting business and slowing down production and aren’t doing much good. Was old age and disability insurance (Social Security) a good idea? Sure! But now it’s going to bankrupt out country because there are and definitely will be in the coming years far more retirees than workers. Things are not getting cheaper and if everything continues, Social Security expenditures will comprise a massive amount of our spending, again raising our deficits and national debt.

So essentially, the Democrats are fantastic at doing things that seem great, but in reality cost far too much money, and cost far too much government. Obama has for the moment lost quite a bit of popularity and many Blue-Dog (Fiscally conservative) Democrats that were swept into office in 2006 when the Dems were energized  are going to be swept right back out as many have not stayed true to their constituents and have obediently bowed to the more liberal wing of the Democrats that has controlled the agenda. Obama’s support among Independents-a key to his 08 victory-has all but vanished. So now, the Republicans are riding a wave that could land them quite a few seats. Republicans are extremely energized, even more so than they were in 94 with the “Republican Revolution”. The problem is, according to some poll (I forgot which one, maybe Gallup) most of those who are planning on voting for a Republican (And there are plenty) are doing so not because they like Republicans and their ideology, but because they dislike Obama. So Republicans cannot be overconfident in thinking that this is the beginning of a major change in American thinking and that they’ll be in power for years to come. As with almost every single movement centered around the hatred or dislike of a person or idea, once the object of dislike is removed, support for that movement vanishes. So Republicans must continue and support what the majority of Americans (And especially those Independents and Democrats) is supporting: fiscal restraint and deficit/debt reduction. Now I know that I have heard and seen personally many representatives (My own, Congressman Roskam *Beams*) especially Republicans that are advocating just that, but we need to make sure that Obama’s fad support doesn’t become our support, where it’s just “cool” to not like the Democrats. That way, we can set this country again on the right path toward a better future for all Americans. (Sorry, couldn’t help adding the melodramatic note at the end)