Mark

http://www.onntv.com/live/content/local/stories...

I doubt that you can call NCLB, increased government spending, a creation of another cabinet department, open borders and unlimited immigration, new medicare entitlements, and a ton of pork programs as being conservative.

There is nothing conservative about expanding the size ans scope of government while running up huge debts.

It is hard to argue that the Democrats are not authoritarian when they have been in front of the supreme court arguing that racial discrimination is legal (Gratz), that the government can take any property it wants whenever it wants it (Kelo), and that social engineering is more important than academic education (Seattle and Louisville).

When the bluest cities in the U.S. want to regulate what people eat and whether they can protect themselves, it is hard to see Democrats as social libertarians. About the only two topics that Democrats want to be libertarians on are sex and drugs.

DLS, I agree, the Republican party would be very wise to move away from the authoritarian style they've been using for the past decade or so. The Democrats also need to be wary of moving into an authoritarian movement too.

It'd be great if both parties would become more fiscally responsible as we need to address our deficit. We can't keep pushing the debt onto future generations.

Note that the low approval currently held by the President is due to 2006-election-time-onward dissatisfaction with Iraq and the GOP being like the Dems (power hungry, contemptuous of public desire for spending control, corrupt) as well as disassisfaction with or disappointment in the President personally (and the behavior of his administration).

* * *

“I'll agree that the GOP needs to do some soul searching and move back toward the center, but the same could still be said of the Democrats.”

The GOP's problem is that it is not an obvious conservative alternative to the Dems. They need to be more conservative (in the libertarian sense, not the authoritarian sense; they should shrink Washington and public spending substantially), not less so.

“Hopefully the Libertarian party can really take off on it's own this year.”

It needs to get rid of some of its wackier members. (Besides, that party in no way is the official designator and in no way constitutes the official definition and practice of libertarianism in this nation, something that all Americans but the most hard-core collectivists possess to some extent.) More to the point, the only way for that party to succeed is the same as for the Greens and other hopeless far-left movements, which have a proportionately tiny fraction of support in this country (as opposed to support for libertarianism if not the Libertarian Party). The answer is a multi-party system and proportional representation in the House of Representatives and state legislatures, in place of the more and less liberal, big government Duopoly we have now. (I'd also want the approval vote for single person offices.)

the Republicans tried moving to the middle with President Bush. All they got was 5 trillion in debt, more government entitlements, a federal budget full of pork programs, and 20% approval rantings. Of course the Democrats like the huge budgets and the pork programs because they get most of the pork and stick the Republicans will the blame.

One of the reasons that the Republicans will soon be irrelevant is that they are in a demographic trap. The Republicans are a minority party but any move they make will lose more votes than it gains. See the immigration proposals of President Bush. President Bush pander to get Hispanic votes but ended up losing more white voters than gaining any Hispanic votes.

There is no issue where the Republicans can move to the middle, gain votes while not being out pandered by the Democrats.

SD, your doom-and-gloom for the GOP is getting old as is usually wrong. I'll agree that the GOP needs to do some soul searching and move back toward the center, but the same could still be said of the Democrats.

Hopefully the Libertarian party can really take off on it's own this year. I know, others have accused me of being some huge liberal leftist around here, but I'm not. I don't totally agree with the Libertarian party, but I do on more than I do the Democrats and Republicans.

SD: Even if GOP prospects are as dim here as you suggest, a run for Veep, especially one in which the candidate gets high marks, could help and would certainly increase name recognition.

At present, I think that McCain has a fifty-fifty chance of winning in Ohio. The state is so balanced politically and the Clinton campaign here brought those doubts about Obama, once below the surface, out in the open.

Twenty-two of Ohio's 88 counties are in the Appalachian region in which I now live and I believe that these counties could literally swing either way. Northeast Ohio is apt to go for Obama in a big way, as will the Toledo area. Cincinnati and southwest Ohio will go to McCain. Metro Columbus, the largest urban/suburban complex in the state, is a swing region.

As far as Ohio's 2010 elections go, Democrat Ted Strickland presently looks like shoo-in for re-election. If he successfully passes educational reform, including a new state plan for funding public schools, he will probably win with no less than 65% of the vote, no matter who the Republicans nominate. (Our public school funding formula has been ruled, by the state Supreme Court, unconstitutional on four different occasions.)

But a Republican could well be elected to take over the scandal-plagued state Attorney General's office in November's special election. The GOP has picked a Mr. Clean and I think that they will back him to the max.

So, I expect that, barring a great depression which could be attributed to either of the two parties, Ohio will remain a swing state for some time to come.

Thanks for your comments.

Mark Daniels

That veep nomination is the last card in the deck, and the fact that he can do it the day after Obama's acceptance speech is one of their best advantages going into the fall. Were he to name it today, it would be more than the scent of desperation. I would BE desperation.