McConnell heads for tall grass

Bob McConnell, who twice in the past five months told Republicans in western Colorado he was their man for high office, today set some kind of record by quitting the party in righteous indignation less than 24 hours after receiving his second rebuff. McConnell lost the August primary for Congress to Scott Tipton (who went on to unseat Democrat John Salazar), then lost last night's state Senate vacancy race to Jean White, then let loose today with the following mass email announcing his exit from the GOP.

crv email edition feb2011

Notice the military boast with which he signs off: "Rangers Lead the Way." Would that be the way to the tall grass when the going gets tough, Bob?

WHY I AM NO LONGER A REPUBLICAN January 4, 2011

To those of you who listened when I asked you to trust the Republican Party, I apologize. The GOP has failed us at the national, state, and local level. I am no longer a Republican because the GOP no longer represents me or what I believe. When I stepped into the fray a year and a half ago I thought the evil I was fighting was the progressive movement. I was only half right. We must defeat Barack Obama and his agenda. The GOP is not up to the task. It is time to face the reality that conservatives are being shut out of the Party. Conservative values, not a "go along to get along, what will keep me in office" mentality will defeat Obama in 2012.

As I drove back from the vacancy committee meeting in Craig last night, I heard that the RNC is $4 million in debt. And these are the people who will lead us to fiscal responsibility? Small wonder contributions are evaporating after we learned last summer that more than two-thirds of all contributions go to keeping the national machine in first class when they travel to gala dinners, and the occasional massage parlor visit. GOP "leadership" in the US Senate and House is an oxymoron - a true contradiction in terms. Mitch McConnell and John Boehner are poster boys for the GOP "paid their dues" mentality. They are the same two who with Pelosi and Reid, "led" us through the Bush 43 and Obama era financial debacle. Last month they caved on critical conservative issues during the lame-duck, and I sense that was just the beginning. Refusing to allow Michelle Bachmann a leadership position was a slap in the face to the Tea Party energy that put a new group of Republicans in office. Soon Congress will vote on whether to keep the government open by funding it with money we don't have. How will Republicans vote? And before May, Congress must vote whether or not to raise the debt ceiling AGAIN, further financially strapping our grandchildren. How will Republicans vote - based on the promises they made while campaigning or based on what they're told by the poster boys?

At the state level, the GOP looked like the Keystone Cops during the last election - funny if not so pathetic in result. Last night the SD 8 Vacancy Committee appointed Al White's wife to finish his term - liberal bloggers say the fix on that has been in for weeks. I am sure liberals celebrated with champagne when they heard the result. When a selection as important as the SD 8 seat is made by secret ballot, we, the people, suffer.

I am now registered as Unaffiliated. It was easy to disengage; just go to a website , and then start paying attention to patriots who pledge allegiance to the flag, not a party.

We need a vehicle other than the GOP to defeat Obama, because the GOP is not up to the task. It is a waste of time to try and change it from within; they have made it clear we are not welcome. The only way to get their attention is to leave. Not necessarily to form another party, but to stand together outside the Boy's Club as independent voters. We can field candidates who have no party allegiance or affiliation. We can choose people who have integrity and want to serve us, not just more mediocre life-long politicians who have paid their dues. Let's get their attention.

I have always urged you to "keep the faith." That never meant faith in the Republican Party, or any political machine. I ask you to have faith in yourselves, in ourselves as conservatives, to overcome the most serious crisis the Republic has faced in a hundred years. We must not repeat 1912 in 2012 and the GOP is well on the way to doing just that.

Rangers Lead the Way!

Bob McConnell

beawatchman@aol.com

970-846-4907

Andrews' Christmas Carol

(Denver Post, Dec. 25) Senator John was a political man, a driven man, some would say a hard man. At dusk on Christmas Eve, he squinted from his office window through falling snow toward the Capitol, and grumbled to his assistant about the latest Bill Ritter gimmick: low-energy holiday lights. His clock struck five. “I suppose you’ll want all day tomorrow,” the aging conservative barked. “If you please, sir,” Joyce whimpered. “It’s only one day a year.” Back came the senatorial snort: “One day less for this office to defend faith, family, and the flag, while you fritter at home with your relatives and pastor. All right, but you’ll owe me an extra Reagan catechism on Monday.” Hurrying past a shopping-cart woman on the corner, Andrews got in his gas-guzzler to head home. Driving south, his thoughts turned northward, not to Santa’s workshop but to the ANWR oil reserve. He ejected his wife’s “Messiah” CD, popped in the latest Cato Institute lecture, and speed-dialed Douglas Bruce.

Then it happened. Distracted by an Obama bumper sticker, the grouchy Republican braked too late for a red light and skidded into a fire hydrant, triggering both a geyser and his airbag. That was the last thing John remembered; everything went black.

A gray-haired lady was shaking him. He sniffed the musty air of Buena Vista’s old elementary school. “You’re not…?” Dorothy Roman smiled. “Yes, I am: your teacher from 1957. For a smart boy, you’re often still a dunce. Follow me.”

Stopping at several homes, she showed him classmates he’d looked down on. Peeking into a church, he saw two brothers ridiculing a less affluent family’s Christmas attire. “Ouch,” he murmured, “Jim and me.” Then to the Andrews ranch, where his mother sat by the fire in tears. “People matter most, John,” Mrs. Roman said quietly. “You’ve often written that, but do you live it?”

“Dad, are you okay?” From the darkness, the dazed rightwinger heard his policeman son shouting through the shattered windshield. But an instant later it was blazing daylight, Christmas morning, and he was 500 feet above downtown in Jeff Puckett’s “Prayer One” helicopter. “Joy to the world, the Savior is born,” crackled the pilot’s voice over the intercom.

Fellow passengers began identifying landmarks. Ron McKinney, a Salvation Army captain, gestured to Red Shield Community Center in a gang neighborhood. Kent Hutcheson pointed out school after school where Colorado UpLift staffers mentor inner-city kids. Bob Cote waved up at them from the Step Thirteen shelter and rehab facility.

Far below, a beaming teenager with a new basketball emerged from a boarded-up house. “Look, Pops, it’s one of the families our company adopted through Denver Kids Inc.,” said John’s daughter over the intercom. He tried not to think about his new landscaping at home. Rev. Tom Melton, who coordinates the weekly prayer flights, greeted them upon landing, serious for once. “Remember, Senator, we’re all one city.”

Flashers from an emergency vehicle blasted his eyeballs. The Cato lecturer was droning on about Ayn Rand. John blacked out, then seemed to waken amid the smell of sanitary chemicals and body fluids. A gaudy banner proclaimed this was Sunrise Assisted Living and it was New Year’s 2030. What was so familiar about the bent man dozing in front of the TV?

“Patty Gordon, who left us back in 2007, was always so warm and kind,” a nurse was saying. “So was her daughter Donna, John’s wife. But with old Mr. Brainy, it was always books and ideas, votes and visions. Now look at him. Too bad.”

The horrified columnist screamed and woke, himself again at last. Paramedics jumped back as he leaped from the wreckage, shouting: “Holy Scrooge, a second chance! Goodwill toward men and no excuses. I’ll try harder, God help me. Merry Christmas, everyone.”

What's Jay Say? Government, Humbug

Some timeless wisdom for Obama: "This country has achieved its commercial and financial supremacy under a regime of private ownership. It conquered the wilderness, built our railroads, factories and public utilities, gave us the telegraph, telephone, electric light, automobile, airplane, radio and a higher standard of living for all the people than obtains anywhere else in the world. No great invention ever came from a government-owned industry." - George B. Cortelyou

Beware backdoor socialism

John Andrews writes: My comrade-in-arms Kevin Miller, the former CCU business dean who is now a Centennial Institute Fellow, has brought out a book-length treatment of his landmark essay on freedom and virtue [photopress:kevin_miller_book_cover_1.png,full,pp_image] in American politics, which we first published a year ago in Centennial Review.

Freedom Nationally, Virtue Locally - or Socialism was released Nov. 29 by Denali Press. Learn more and order the book here.

In a jacket blurb, I call it a guidebook for helping "conservatives rediscover the 'render to Caesar principle," without which "America won't remain the land of the free."

Bill Armstrong, the former US senator who now heads Colorado Christian University, says the book is "full of passion, wisdom, and horse sense... Kevin Miller is an important thinker."

Miller's argument in brief, adds James C. Bennett, author of The Anglosphere Challenge: Why the English-Speaking Peoples Will Lead the World in the 21st Century, is that "while freedom is an attribute of political system, virtue is an attribute of human beings -- and so the attempt to use the state to pursue visions of virtue is undermining the republic of the Founders."

Josh reminds me of Barack

So our beloved Broncos have found their home next to the Titanic. At the bottom. In a sea of darkness. Hopes and dreams quite literally drowned. This development was as predictable as daylight to many of us when young Josh McDaniels was named coach less than two years ago. McDaniels carried with him the seeds of his and the Broncos destruction. In a phrase, the catastrophe is summed up in the proverb; “Pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall.” (Proverbs 16:18) But it is instructive to break it down. First, McDaniels thought his ideology, his “system” was so superior that all he needed to do was find athletes and “plug and play.” It was the system, not players, that mattered. So he first concluded that a Matt Cassell was a better quarterback than Jay Cutler. Yes, Cutler is an annoying prima donna but his upside is so much greater than a Cassell’s or a Kyle Orton’s, any fantasy league owner could see. This was followed by numerous personnel decisions that ranged from bizarre to disastrous concluding with one of the worst trades in Bronco history—Peyton Hillis for the not-so-mighty Quinn.

Second, when you know everything you do not need or want assistants around you who might disagree. So from drafting to play calling to selecting coaches McD revolved out the people who were not “yes” men. The most inexplicable was Mike Nolan. The only redeeming characteristic of the 2009 Broncos was their defense, so, let’s fire the defensive coordinator. Who knows what Nolan said to be shown the door. But you can bet it was some kind of disagreement with Josh the Omniscient.

Third, when you are a cut above the rest rules which apply to other people do not apply to you. So, in a still mystifying maneuver, McDaniel’s videographer taped a San Francisco practice, in clear violation of NFL rules. Good grief—the 49ers! Then he Watergated it by trying to hush it up. Don’t tell anyone. But one of his coaches leaked the truth and that was the final nail in the old coffin.

Let’s shift from Denver, Colorado, to Washington, D.C. where this same type of drama is playing itself out in eerie similarity; a place where hubris can do some real damage.

Our young president came into office full to the brim with himself. His inauguration would be noted as the time when the “planet began to heal” and the “oceans would recede.” He would incarnate the slogan, “We are the change we’ve been waiting for,” and other inscrutable and mind-numbing slogans.

His administration would be composed of the anointed. No one with business savvy was needed. No one to the right of Karl Marx need apply. It didn’t even matter if you paid taxes—you could help precipitate the greatest spending orgy in world history. And when nervous Democrats warned of impending electoral disaster, the young president reassured them, “This time you’ve got me!”

Then there would be no need to listen to the unwashed masses, the flotsam and jetsam of humanity. After all, these are people who “cling to their guns and religion” because an enlightened government had not done enough for them. But not to worry. The Enlightener himself had arrived. And what about all those foolish people who, because of their fear, were unable to “think scientifically.” No problem. The president would do their thinking for them. After all, McDaniels-like, he was the smartest man in any room he entered.

Finally, who need rules? Constitutions are for suckers. What people really need are a string of syrupy slogans and endless, endless, endless speeches from the Anointed One. Heretofore, congress had been governed by regulations and procedures. No need for those now. Dispense with them and ram Obamacare down the throats of the critics. They will come to appreciate what their betters have done for them.

And so our national government has come to look like the Broncos. Only the stakes are a bit higher. The future of constitutional government is at stake. And so is our ability function as a free market society. Josh McDaniels was fired twenty-two months into his reign. Obama would have suffered the same fate if the constitution so allowed. Let’s hope and pray that in four years it won’t be too late. Imagine what McD would have done to the Broncos in two more seasons.