Go and FInd Yourself a Message

Los Cruces,  NM- About 20 years ago, the state of Texas was not the deep, dark, bleeding-red Republican state is today. But in 1994, George Bush Jr. wanted to bring down the immensely popular governor of Texas, Anne Richards and replace her with himself. A lot of people thought it could not happen. But, with what senator Ted Cruz called “an almost inhuman commitment to staying on message” Bush won.

Such an “inhuman” commitment would well serve many of the Republicans who say they are running for president.

It served not only Bush in 94’ but also, much more recently, just this year, in Britain, another conservative, David Cameron, was running for reelection to the prime minister of the United Kingdom. He campaigned relentlessly on the fact that he had created a thousand new jobs a day during his administration, and that the Labor Party, his opposition, had in its last span in office, a thirteen year span, at that, had run the country out of money. Cameron repeated those facts until, whether they were true or not, every British person had heard them, and enough believed it to give Cameron a stunning victory.

But in 2015, with Republicans having a field so large that someone would want to try to keep pounding their message until it got into the thick scull of the American voter, only a few seem to be doing it. In fact, only a couple of members of the GOP Field have managed to define themselves, and not in a good way.

Donald Trump has defined himself as a loud mouth and an annoying person. Jeb Bush has defined himself as someone who might win but without much enthusiasm. For the others, they still seem to be fighting for a definition

 Although it would seem that by now Rand Paul would be pretty well branded as a libertarian, many still question his serious far-right credentials. Marco Rubio has established that he is a real conservative, but many are still unsure about him, and he really does not have a national brand at this time. His message is unclear. He says things like "fix America" but he has yet to lay out a way he will do that.

As for the rest, Ted Cruz, for better or worse, true or not, is known as a crazy man by many. Yet that doesn’t tell Americans much about what he plans on doing should he become president. But even that label stands out in a field full of the likes of George Pataki, John Kasich, Lindsey Graham, Bobby Jindal, Carly Fiorina, Rick Santorum etc. Candidates who, it seems, the last time they really articulated their message was on the day they announced they were running, if they even did it then.

You don't generally win just by saying empty things like "bring back the American dream" "restore America" etc. That is all good and well, but that is not a vision, and eventually people will want to get past all of the sugar candy and find some real message, and most of the candidates aren't doing that, so they aren't going anywhere in the polls.

Donald Trump is doing it, which is why is having such great success. Everyone from Rick Perry to Lindsey Graham would do well to take at least one lesson from the Donald, and that is to find yourself a message, and stick with it.

Andrew C. Abbott

Preparing for the Debates: What to look for

San Antonio, TX- We are now one week away from the first GOP Debate. In Ohio the top ten in the polls will come in from the fields and mount the stage. Instead of yelling about each other, all of these men and the one woman running will have a chance to yell at each other. There are several things to look for.

Firstly, the interesting thing is who is going to be there. Many, such as Rick Santorum, are very unhappy about FOX’s new format of only allowing the top ten in the polls to participate. And there is still some confusion about who will be there. FOX has not said exactly which polls they will average, nor how they will average them, nor even what they will do if there is a tie.

If they were rounding numbers, on Debate Day, they might be as many as twelve candidates on the stage, as Rick Perry, Chris Christi, and John Kasich are all very close to each other at the bottom end of the GOP Ladder.

One of the other interesting things to watch is can Donald Trump behave himself? Will he act like a real candidate, talk about substantive things, and show his vision for America? Or will he call the other candidates idiots, pound the podium, and argue with the moderator? If he does, it will make for great television, but also most likely bring about the long expected dive in Trump’s poll numbers.

Another person to watch is Jeb Bush. By this time he was supposed to be riding high, but instead he has been overshadowed by the wild rhetoric of Trump and the enthusiasm of Ted Cruz and Rand Paul supporters. Jeb is not doing well in the early state polls, and the debates will be a good metric of whether he can give some shots, let Donald Trump run his way out, and use the Bush money machine to gravel over any gap in enthusiasm.

But perhaps the person with the most to lose on the sixth of August will be Scott Walker. Polling well in early states, he lacks the perceived craziness of Trump and the money of Bush, but he still remains strong in early voting states, and nationally. There remains among some questions about Walker’s intelligence because he dropped out of college and won’t say if he believes in evolution. A mistake that by another candidate would simply be glossed over or completely missed could potentially be blown way out of proportion as “proof positive” that Walker is not intelligent enough to be president.

And, last but not least there is the question of the unknown candidates. The guys people have only heard about but don’t really know, or those who are doing poorly in the polls, but could have a strong debate showing. These include Ted Cruz, a great debater in his college days-who could do well. Also Marco Rubio, is still doing relatively well in the polls, but has lost traction as the Trump juggernaut began to get rolling. With Rubio’s great debates in the race for Florida Senate under his belt, he could conceivably use the debates as a staging his grounds for healing his beleaguered campaign. There is Kasich, Christi, Perry, and Carson, all of whom could do something unexpected and take a climb.

Anything can happen in debates. In 1960 they cost Richard Nixon the presidency, and in 2012 they all but destroyed Rick Perry when he said “oops.” Crazy things could happen. Trump might stay calm, Bush might lose it, Cruz could call someone a liar and lose any hope of establishment money, Walker might say the wrong thing, or Rand Paul might admit he is still an isolationist.

Either way, it will be fun to watch.

Andrew C. Abbott



Defund Planned Parenthood

Houston, TX – In recent months, hundreds of millions of Americans across the country have been horrified by images of police brutality in locals as different as South Carolina, Florida, and California. We have watched in disgust as we have seen men and women mercilessly beaten, and sometimes tragically killed by those who are supposed to protect them. And now, again, another scandal is rocking the nation.

This scandal goes beyond skin color. It is about those who are being discriminated against and killed not because of their ethnicity, but because of their size, and their status as unborn children.

Just as most of us knew, before the videos that portrayed the deaths of such men as Walter Scott, shot in the back by a police officer is South Carolina, that there was police brutality, the shocking images on the evening news forced us to stop ignoring it. So in the same way we all know that abortion on demand, the greatest mistake ever propagated by the American Supreme Court when it upheld Roe v. Wade, happens, and that unborn children are killed because they are unwanted every day. However, the recent videos, purportedly showing members of Planned Parenthood, America’s most powerful abortion provider, speaking of killing unborn children, and crushing parts of their bodies to save other parts, have horrified and sickened many, as indeed they should.

But this group, founded by Margaret Sanger, which aids in abortions which roughly half of the nation finds reprehensible, and, like me, believes should be outlawed, rakes in our tax dollars, to the tune of roughly 500,000,000 dollars last year. (Five hundred million.) This was something even Bill Clinton, in his book My Life, protested against, saying he didn’t believe that Americans should be forced to pay for something that they didn’t believe in.

Currently, we have a Republican Majority in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. The Republican Party is the party whose platform states they are opposed to abortion, and nearly if not every single Republican member of both houses of congress say they are pro-life. If they are indeed pro-life, then perhaps the best thing would be for them to start saving life.

Neither the congress nor the president can overturn Roe v. Wade, only the Supreme Court has the power to do that, but statistics show that when Planned Parenthood gets less money, a great deal fewer babies are aborted. So it would seem logical, if Republicans loved life so much, that they would back Rand Paul’s bill that would defund Planned Parenthood.

The American Government wastes a lot of money every year. We waste on agencies that do nothing, we waste on agencies that do the wrong things, and we waste it on agencies that don’t what they are supposed to do. But here is a half of a billion dollars we could save, and save easily.

So let’s Defund Planned Parenthood. And let’s not vote for any presidential candidate in the senate that doesn’t vote to do that.

Andrew C. Abbott

Governor John Kasich: Late to the Party, way too late

Houston, TX - The train has already left the station. The dance floor is already at maximum capacity, and the fire marshal is wondering how soon he’ll need to start pulling people out before something bad happens. And here comes this guy. This…John…Kasich? Ever heard of him? Well, he’s the Anglican, sixty-three year old governor of Ohio with two daughters, and he’s running for president.

But, for Kasich, it’s probably already too late. All the action is already in full swing. There is the king of the prom, Donald Trump, throwing his own money like candy as everyone asks the hired help to throw him out, but for some reason a lot of people love him.

There is Jeb Bush trying to act smart and intelligent and not be too obvious that he is one of the rich kids, the kids everybody envies, and nobody likes. There is Carly Fiorina, the only girl who somehow made it into the this corner, and she’s having a hard time even holding her own. And there are all those young jocks from the senate, Rubio, Cruz, Paul, who everyone is watching, but so far their dance cards aren’t full yet. And that guy, Carson, ("I think he dropped in on the party on his way out from the lab, but I hear he’s leaving soon," someone whispers.)

And those other guys. Graham and Santorum. We don’t know what to say about them, but somebody said that they can't dance as good as they think they can. They have some hard core followings, but they are really small.

There are the governors, (you know, that club of smart guys who meet over in building C every other Friday and all say they're doing the best job, and that their state is the best,) Walker, Pataki, Huckabee, Rick Perry, Jindal, Chris Christi, and now John Kasich. He’s like the kid with braces that doesn’t even want to be here. But his mom dragged him by the ear out of the house and into the car and now he’s here and all the girls are already taken.

It’s so bad for Kasich that even in his own home state, Ohio, where the first GOP Nomination Debate is going to happen; he might not even make it in. According to the nonpartisan polling site Real Clear Politics, Kasich is in 11^th place at 1.5%. In Iowa, Kasich is running in at least 13^th place with less than 2% among likely voters, according to a Monmouth University Poll.

When it comes to the money, one has to wonder where Kasich’s is going to come from. The answer might be nowhere.

So, to sum up Kasich, he is a back of the pack mediocre candidate with little in the way of high flung rhetoric and practically no base to speak of. While he has arguably performed well as governor and indeed won with a large victory in his campaign, the truth is that the most likely reason Kasich is running is because he isn’t getting any younger, and knows that you can’t hang out as a wallflower forever. So its understandable that he would kick up his heels and do something. Its a fun time, you get into the history books, you get to write a book and make some money, your names gets out there for a possible cabinet position, or if you are really lucky, VP. And hey, who knows, if it all goes down, if the whole thing blows up, you just might be president. So yeah, Kasich thinks he'll just run out into the middle of the floor.

Let’s just hope he doesn’t embarrass himself too bad out there.

Andrew C. Abbott