Give'em hell, Sarah

Gov. Palin is correct: she and Harry Truman do have a lot in common. Consider this time capsule from 1944: "Poor people of the United States. Truman is a nice man, an honest man, a good Senator, a man of great humility and a man of courage. He will make a passable Vice President. But Truman as President of the United States in times like these?" That was Richard Strout, writing in the New Republic shortly after FDR named his fourth-term VP candidate. In the short time since she was announced as John McCain’s running mate last weekend, the New Republic and other publications have again begun laying judgment on the merits of a choice for Vice President. Peter Scoblic of the current New Republic calls Palin’s resume “frighteningly thin” and the choice of her as VP “arrogant”. Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post said McCain had put “politics over country” in choosing a candidate with so little foreign policy experience. John Dickerson of Slate called it “reckless” and Jonathan Alter at Newsweek is sure she’s likely to “bellyflop” when faced with questions from reporters on issues she’s not familiar with.

They obviously hadn’t met “Sarah Barracuda” yet.

They sure have now. If Sarah Palin’s rousing speech at the Republican National Convention is any indication of how she will handle herself – as both candidate and office-holder -- the media and the pundits will be eating their words. In her speech on Wednesday night she deftly made reference to these doubters in the media -- and to her own unusual road to the nomination -- by referring to “a young farmer and haberdasher from Missouri who followed an unlikely path to the vice presidency.” She was referring, of course, to Harry Truman – a small town man of common means who became both Vice President and later President in a time of war – and ended up being what many now consider one of the better presidents of the 20th century.

It is a comparison that fits Palin well – and may help to quiet those who say that she isn’t yet ready to be Vice President. As noted biographer David McCullough writes in Truman, he was the “son of rural, inland America”, who never went to college and served with distinction as an artillery officer in the Missouri National Guard in World War I. He tried his hand at several vocations before starting his haberdashery business – which ultimately became a casualty of hard economic times. Like the life of Sarah Palin and her family, it was not one of privilege -- rather it was filled with the ordinary challenges of an ordinary American.

Also like Palin, Truman began his political career in small-town politics -- as an administrative judge of the Jackson County Court, where he was known for his honest efficiency and ability to “get things done”. After a series of local government posts, he entered the larger stage as a United States Senator from Missouri in 1934. Truman’s senate career was largely uneventful until the early 1940s when he led what became known as the “Truman Committee”, investigating waste and fraud in defense contracting. He made his name on something that Sarah Palin would certainly appreciate – pushing back on graft and “sweetheart” deals inside the government.

Harry Truman’s experience as a Senator wasn’t especially broad or deep, and it hardly prepared him to be Vice President in a time of war. He was VP for just three months and rarely saw FDR alone before the President’s death. Upon becoming President himself, Truman had little inside knowledge about the key issues facing him: he knew little about how World War II was being prosecuted and knew nothing about the Manhattan Project and the development of the atomic bomb. He also was totally unprepared to deal with Joseph Stalin – who had been pushing around an ill and weakened Roosevelt in negotiations over a defeated Europe. By all measures, Truman was hardly qualified to step into the presidency. As McCullough writes, the reaction in the country was initially one of panic: “Good God, Truman will be President”, it was being said everywhere. “If Harry Truman can be President, so could my next door neighbor.”

And yet, history shows that Truman was more than up to the job. He went to Yalta just after FDR’s death and took the measure of Stalin and saw that he was not to be trusted -- making it clear that the United States would not stand pat while the Soviet Union annexed all of Western Europe. He made the tough decision to use the atomic bomb against Japan because he knew it would end the war in the Pacific. He went on to pass the Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe. He desegregated the U.S. armed forces and recognized the state of Israel. In short, he made tough decisions on the most complex issues of the day -- decisions that have stood the test of time.

The foundation for these decisions came not from experience, but rather from a wellspring of solid character, reliable instinct and good judgment. As Mary McGrory wrote in the Washington Post on the day of Truman’s death in 1972: "He was not a hero or a magician or a chess player, or an obsession (emphasis added). He was a certifiable member of the human race, direct, fallible, and unexpectedly wise when it counted.

Unlike Barack Obama, who is an obsession of the left, Sarah Palin from this vantage point looks a lot like Harry Truman: a small town woman with five kids and a husband who has a regular job. She began her career as a small town mayor, close to the people and their problems. She took on the entrenched interests of her state, resigning as Chair of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission in protest of ethical violations by another commissioner that were ignored by the sitting governor. When she became governor herself, she quickly broke up the old boys network that is Alaskan politics, rejecting the infamous “Bridge to Nowhere” and passing real ethics reform in the state. She’s a reformer who is tough and principled, and who has earned the respect of her opponents. And based on her speech Wednesday night, it is not difficult to imagine Sarah Palin standing firm with Vladimir Putin if put in that position -- much in the same way Truman handled Stalin.

Indeed, those who have seen Palin in action in Alaska attest to her good political instincts, her toughness and her broad-based appeal to ordinary Americans. As Christopher Orr of the New Republic writes: "What the Democrats seem poised to miss now (about Palin) --is that she is a true political savant; a candidate with a knack for identifying the key gripes of the populace and packaging herself as the solution. That keen political nose has enabled her to routinely outperform her resume. Nearly two years into her administration, she still racks up approval ratings of 80 per cent or better."

If the Democrats missed it before, it will be hard (but not impossible – such is their disdain for her) to underestimate Palin after the performance she put on tonight at the Republican National Convention. What they saw was a natural at work.

Orr goes on to make another critical point about Palin: "Sarah Palin is a living reminder that the ultimate source of political power in this country is not the Kennedy School or the Davos Summit or an Ariana Huffington salon; even now, power emanates from the electorate itself. More precisely, power in 2008 emanates from the working class electorates of Pennsylvania and Ohio."

My guess is that in this election year, Harry Truman would have appealed mightily to those working class voters in Pennsylvania and Ohio – regardless of how many Senate hearings he’d held, or how much foreign policy experience he has. And now, after Sarah Palin has had a chance to introduce herself to the American public, I bet that she will, too.

Warning: 'Green Can Be Mean'

Editor: Are the Dems ready to fracture down the middle if attacked on the fault line between labor and environmentalists? New contributor Bob McBride thinks so. His message to union members suffering in the paycheck and cost of living from enviros' policies boils down to a cheeky bumper sticker: "Green Can Be Mean." Maybe McBride is onto something. See what you think. Bob McBride writes:

It has been correctly determined that the Democrat Party is a coalition…some say of nitwits and misfits, but an effective coalition nevertheless. For years this coalition approach worked well, the various segments could support each other’s single- focus interest because there was no conflict by and between them. “You vote for my constituent’s interests and I’ll vote for yours” was the way to play along, get along and stay along.

The two primary groups that give substance and strength to the Democrat coalition are organized labor and organized environmentalists. Labor unions not only have and offer money, the mother’s milk of politics, but also provide direct votes and actions influencing other voter activity. The teachers' union for example, is in an excellent position to influence parents' voting activity, by making available yard signs and other literature for school children to take home to their parents. There is no stated penalty for not supporting the teachers’ union election objectives, but there are anecdotal instances of suggestion.

The environmental segment has been incredibly successful in globally positioning itself above mere mortal standards and has cloaked itself in a holier-than-thou attitude toward clean air and clean water. The fact that their current interests and intrusions go far beyond these basics, and negatively impact many areas of economic importance and individual rights, is never given the attention it deserves. The media, either through ideological sympathy or fear of reprisal, never negatively present environmental causes when it is deserved.

What could be worse for a business or an individual than to be branded, constantly and contemptuously, as anti-environment with the emphasis on clean air, water and children? One could spend a lifetime and a fortune trying to disprove the slur.

Both organized labor and environmental organizations are critical to Democrat election victories, for the both are suppliers of funds and feet on the ground. If the Republicans develop a strategy to break the back- scratching relationship between the two, and cause a defection of either from the Democrat party, the result will be electoral victories for decades. The opportunity to do so exists.

Let’s dispense with the myth that organized labor is still run by a bunch of people on or from the factory floor, as in its inception. Organized labor is big business and it’s run as a business by MBA’s. Running a business requires tough decisions and Labor has made such a decision in its strategy for growth.

A union can grow revenue in either, or both, of two ways; raise the dues or increase the membership. Needless to say raising the dues is not looked upon favorably by the union’s customer base, the rank and file. In the past increasing membership in major union- target industries were fairly easy, using restrictive work rules as the instrument. However globalization and world outsourcing has made that much more difficult. Therefore the focus now is on the growth opportunities by organizing employees in new and different industries, and as we have seen, particularly with government workers. As a result Big Labor is spending millions in support of Democrats with the objective of getting legislation that makes organizing much easier and simpler, with little interest in the existing union member’s needs, as we shall see.

The chosen instrument at the moment is the Employee Free Choice Act which is not only a noxious euphemism but action contrary to the core principles of the labor movement… private elections and secret ballots with federal board oversight. The unions want to change the historic rules so that organizers need only 50% of employees to get it done, with individual workers forced to declare in the open. This is known as card check. The opportunity for coercion and intimidation is obvious. This change is so onerous to any right-thinking person that even George McGovern, a noted union supporter and staunch Democrat, railed against this subversive objective in an article for the Wall Street Journal.

The real point is Big Labor has abandoned the long-time union members and the industries in which they work. Where is Big Labor’s wrath at the environmental zealots and their political handmaids that have caused so much hardship and misery with the workers in the heavily unionized airline, automotive, and trucking industries? Why isn’t big labor exercising their leverage with the Democrats to get them to stop inhibiting oil drilling? Where are their efforts to stop the idiotic use of food as fuel, thereby driving the cost of living up for all workers?

Labor has chosen to ignore the past and chase the promise of the future. To labor leadership it is more important to keep the coalition in place, to ensure a Democrat victory and then pressure the winners for favorable organizing legislation, than it is to speak up on their member’s behalf and demand the Democrat Congress pass legislation for tapping our country’s energy assets. As mentioned above, in major industries hundreds of thousand of union members are out of work due to the price of oil and their unions are doing nothing about it.

Union thinking seems to be that the current unionized industries are probably not going to grow, so disregard them and use their organized members as the cash cow to fund the pursuit of greener pastures by the union leadership. So much for how sincerely the unions and the Democrats care about the worker. And that presents the opportunity for the Republicans. Here are the steps I would recommend.

The objective is to cause a fracture in the coalition within the Democrat party with a focus on the conflicting goals and objectives between labor and the radical environmental obstructionists. For the first time this conflict is real and very important .It must be made dramatically important to union rank and file.

First develop an advertising campaign that highlights the fact that union member dues- funds are being spent by the big shots at labor to buy prestige and votes from Democrat lawmakers and the presidential candidate, as well as to party at the recent convention. This ad should talk in real terms about union expenditures on behalf of Democrats and the fact that it is the Democrats that are holding up legislation on domestic and offshore drilling. It should also present the real number of people out of jobs by industry that is the result of the price of oil and its refined products. These ads should feature real people in real hurt. Pristine tundras don’t put reasonably priced food on the table or create paycheck jobs. It is the environmental extremists and their stranglehold on the Democrat party that is causing this misery and strife

In battleground states and particularly hard hit areas use as much local focus and facts as possible. The bumper sticker is “Green can be mean”. Ask the question of the union member: why should your dues be used to keep the party in power that has caused your job loss? Is that what a union that looks out for its membership does, or is the union leadership far more interested in feathering a future nest and cozying up to powerful politicians?

Too late now for this next little gambit --but what fun it would have been to look at the number of United and Frontier airline employees either out of work or soon to be out of work in Denver, and try and mount a picket line of union members at the DNC the final week of August, calling attention to their plight at the hands of Democrats. That could have been a show stopper.

We missed that one, but all sorts of other opportunities to dramatize the contradiction and drive the wedge will come along. The larger point is simply this: We need an incessant drumbeat that pits “enviros” against organized union workers. This should cause the permanent fracture of the coalition. It will be interesting to see which side the party hacks cling to. Will the Democrats choose labor or enviros? Create the atmosphere that they can’t have both.

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Diversity for its own sake? Why?

With a woman on one ticket and a black on the other, let's not forget that the popular slogan that "diversity is our strength” rests on a historically and empirically unwarranted premise. The notion was started by the Marxist in the 1950’s as a divide and conquer strategy, no more no less. I remember going into the Communist Party bookstore in San Francisco as a college junior to load up on stuff for a class I was taking at Berkeley. (In those days it wasn’t completely taken over by the Marxists as it is now.) I remember seeing the “Hero Negro” comic books they’d pass out to blacks. If the Feds photographed everyone who went in and out, I’m probably on the list.

Ever since then, the Marxists have successfully pitted various groups against each other: ethnic groups, young against old, poor against the rich, gay against straight, town vs. country, anything they can find and exploit. They get all these groups discontented and clamoring for their entitlements, creating disunity. Sound familiar, say in the Obama campaign? This Marxist premise has been virtually unchallenged over this ensuing generation.

Remember Rep. Pat Schroeder’s pressure on the armed services to insert women into positions of authority in the early 1980s, just for the sake of it? This notion has spread up the chain until we see what we have today even at the presidential level.

So in the present situation, if we’re going to assert that this notion “diversity is our strength” is detrimental to the country, we will have to start at a much more foundational level than McCain’s choice for VP.

Ask any woman what she thinks of the Sarah Palin VP choice. I would wager she has a positive feeling about it. I know my wife was in tears of joy when Palin gave her acceptance speech. McCain’s political calculation is to capitalize on the discontented Hillary voters. We will see quickly what the progressives do to counteract this. You can bet they will marshal great resources to quash this threat: ** Dig dirt ** Strategic disinformation ** Put the word out to Al Qaeda in Iraq to capture or kill Palin’s son to grieve and destabilize Palin emotionally. Doing this before November 4th would be the most effective. ** Do something to destabilize her marriage, such as siren seductresses targeting her husband, lonely with the Mrs. away for weeks at a time, complete with hotel rooms with hidden video cameras to record the proceedings.

In the long run, if we have a President whose response to a crisis is to burst into tears and cease to function, then the Marxists have succeeded, and we’re fornicated. But we’ll see. Margaret Thatcher and Golda Meier were pretty good leaders, so I am cautiously hopeful.

$10 gas okay with Salazar

Today's entertainment is a video clip from the floor of the US Senate that looks like an absurd skit, but it's actually Sen. Ken Salazar refusing to contemplate more drilling even if pump prices reach $10 a gallon. No kidding; see for yourself. More proof that today's omnipresent videocams are the bane of politicians who say dumb things. More proof that YouTube rocks. More election-year misery for the Democrats. Here's the Grand Junction Sentinel story with Salazar's lame excuses.

Hat tip to State Rep. Rob Witwer, who caught up my radio listeners last night on this howler from early August.

Dressed for the War Room

If you haven't visited the GOP War Room, McCain's rapid response media facility at 2810 Speer Boulevard, it's worth a look today or tomorrow as the DNC approaches its climax (orgasmic pun intended) with Obama's big stadium speech. I stopped by there on Tuesday to gather news, not make it, but Myung Kim of the Rocky was intrigued by my pro-Bush tee shirt and posted this short item about it. She also snapped a photo, but since that didn't appear, here's one of my own:

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The War Room is an impressive operation and was buzzing with activity when I was there. Mitt Romney was in front of a bunch of TV cameras in the inside studio, and Rudy Giuliani was in front of a bunch more outside, sweltering in his NYC dark suit. The place is a bit tricky to find: go north on Speer from I-25, past Zuni, then right on Firth, which curves into a sort of alley from which you enter the 2810 building on the rear, away from Speer.

As for my "10 of 10 Terrorists" shirt, the last time I wore it for anything but yard work was at the 2007 Bolder Boulder, where I figured it would stir conversation among fellow runners -- and perhaps incentivize me to run faster, lest the Bush-haters beset me. And it must have worked; I almost ran my age, 64 minutes for the 10K. Here's hoping it brings my side good luck in the much bigger race of these next ten weeks.