Dusting off old candidates...?

The pendulum of politics has swung left, as far left as we have seen in generations. The spending and government dependency being crafted by the current presidential administration is unlike anything this country has seen since the boondoggle called the new deal.

Franklin D. Roosevelt presented his plan for economic recovery to the masses as a means to rebuild the American infrastructure and put people to work in a time when there was very little work. Today we call this ‘stimulus funding.’ We prop up corporations like GM and declare that ‘we’ cannot ‘afford’ to allow them to fail. ‘We’ are now getting exactly what we asked for right? The new deal failed miserably and the economic policies of the administration today will fail as well.

As Republicans we have an opportunity. We have an opportunity to recast ourselves as the party of the people. We are the people who cherish freedom, liberty, and respect the constitution as scribed by our founding fathers. It will never cease to amaze me that the founding fathers of our country, and there are many who do not get the credit that they are due, we so brilliant in construction of a free country. This was done in a time that travel was difficult, getting together as a political group involved great sacrifice to family and farm, and yet these sacrifices were made in the name of something great. Most helped shape our constitution and form a government, then went quietly back to their farms and families without fanfare.

As history tells us, our political landscape changes over time and the pendulum is as far left as it can go right now. We need to gear up and be ready for the swing back in the right direction. We can dig up our candidates of old and dust them off to march in parades and kiss babies, or we can take this opportunity to recruit our party back to greatness. I find it impossible to believe that we are so thin of right thinking people in this district that we cannot offer the voters a ‘great’ candidate. If we are in fact so thin of our base in this district, we indeed have a large hill to climb.

I don’t believe that we are thin of right thinking folks in this district. In fact, I believe that we are in the majority and in recent past the all too silent majority. Our message has not resonated with the majority and for this we have failed and given way to the left.

Gore Vidal once said,” Democracy is a place where numerous elections are held at great cost without issues and with interchangeable candidates.” Our platform has not been defined in a way that the voters in this district can attach hope that things will change if our candidate is elected. The silent campaign slogan has been, “ If elected, I will go to St. Paul and vote the party line, fall in line with the senior members of my party, bash the opposing party at every corner, and allow nothing to be accomplished as long as I hold the office!.” This campaign strategy knows no party line. Of course I am being facetious, no candidate in their right mind would actually utter those words out loud, but that is the message that the voters are hearing.

We have an opportunity to speak our message loud and clear. There has never been a better time to define ourselves as the party who represents the people, the individual, the small business owner, and the farmer, while assuring the downtrodden that there will be a helping hand available when needed. The people of this district are listening and we need to speak to them.

We will miss the opportunity of a generation if we don’t make these next elections great and elect candidates worthy of those who founded our great country and this great state. Dusting off old candidates who have made politics a career is a bad plan, more of the same old same sends a bad message to the voters and will only ensure that the strangle hold currently known as a DFL majority remains in St. Paul.

My 2 cents worth...