Dakota Beacon

The problem in trying to unseat an incumbent president is obvious… the incumbent doesn’t usually have to fight off a serious challenge from his own party in the primaries. Meanwhile, the egomaniacs in the challenging party come out of the woodwork like hungry cockroaches, eating each other alive for months on end. By actually discussing the real issues facing our country, the challenging cockroaches are rewarded with shoe stomps from a happily compliant media until only one is left to fight in the general election. The friends of the vanquished cockroaches, having been humiliated and ignored, “elect not to elect”!

So the problem can be corrected by eliminating primaries and caucuses where anyone can masquerade as a Republican or Democrat voter, right? Well… not entirely. You see, the problem is deeper than that. To understand, we must discuss politics as a “business”.

The Republican “establishment” pays a lot of money to secure the nomination and subsequently the election for one of several of its “golden boys”, the “princes in waiting”. Campaign “middlemen” cost a lot! So eliminating the “middlemen” is the best option to secure a candidate at the least cost. But how does this work? What replaces primaries and caucuses?

Well, if North Dakota is a typical example, the wealthy businessmen (or labor leaders, lawyers, public employees, welfare recipients, and wacko environmentalists in the other party) pay their way onto the national convention delegation through a “money-biased incumbency-rewarding” system of delegate selection that includes other underweighted criteria such as volunteerism, activism, convention attendance, and defeat of opposition candidates in recent elections; essentially to result in a few “token serfs” to give the appearance of inclusiveness.

Under a proposed “reformed” system of national candidate selection, these well-heeled Republi-crat delegates will select the nominee at a so-called “open” or “brokered” national convention, insuring the continued rampant march of “crony capitalism”. Those who pay… are rewarded… just as our founders warned! Back to the smoke filled rooms… but repeated mistakes of the past are not real reform, are they?

So what WOULD work well and reflect the founders’ values?

One of the main problems that I and fellow activists have recognized is the lack of “skin in the game” by voters outside of the “takings coalition”. Voters who don’t get checks from government far too often do not even vote. Voters seem to think that they can ignore issues, vote on looks, name recognition, personality, and their perception of the “well-meaning” quotient of candidates. They vote for people that are “good persons” who “want to help their fellow man”. What our country really needs are candidates that know how to repeatedly say NO!

So what if only those who pay $36.50 for North Dakota Republican party membership get a say in selecting the presidential nominee? I would call this an “honest primary election”. And what if the delegates to the national convention were committed (on only the first ballot) to the results of such an “honest primary election”?

Had this system (except the party membership requirement) been in place in North Dakota prior to the last Republican convention, the national convention delegates would have been committed, on the first ballot only, to the caucus results as shown below:

In actuality, Santorum and Gingrich released their delegates to Romney. Ron Paul was legally plundered of three delegates to the national convention. The plundering of Ron Paul delegates at both the state and national conventions was a major factor in disgruntled conservatives and libertarians staying home on election day and the subsequent defeat of Romney.

Another likely reason for Romney’s defeat was the “fallout” from a Democrat “spy” recording his words referencing his campaign’s largely ignoring the 47 percent of Americans who receive regular federal government checks in the mail. Lastly, Clint Eastwood did Romney no good with his crude diatribe at the nationally broadcast national convention.

And what WOULD work well to actually win the 2016 presidential election?

After McCain and Romney…my suggestion to Republican Party members would be to nominate a Selfless & Passionate Conservative Republican instead of a Selfish & Boring Moderate Republi-crat.

I believe Rick Santorum would have continued to show respect to all of his opponents in the primaries and would have won the 2012 general election… Obamacare would now be a distant memory…. And Russia would not be rebuilding the Soviet Union. I put this all on the party establishment that insisted on a recognizable name, a silver spoon, and a pile of money… in place of self-made attributes and a steel will to stop the growth of government and support freedom throughout the world.

Presidential candidate selection by those “identifying” as Republican?

Would voters identify with the party if they don’t have a “cost-free” opportunity to vote for the presidential candidate of their choice? I worry that they would not! It is for this reason that I think the requirement to be a “paid party member” to vote your presidential preference would be a mistake.

I believe that unless the Republican Party trusts voters to be honest, it will eventually be replaced by a coalition of libertarians, tea partiers, independents, and conservative former-Democrats and former union members. Recent union elections indicate that 80% of union members would bolt if membership were voluntary. This coalition I would call the Workers Party… not to be confused with the socialist workers party… because using the words “socialist” and “worker” in the same sentence is outrageous. And the Democrats and newly recruited Republi-crats I would refer to as the Skimmers Party. The future of the Republican Party lies in the balance… and I think time is not on the side of the Republican status quo. Either the party becomes one of “selfless conservatives” or it will die on the vine.

Lastly: Bush vs Clinton in 2016? Not if we wish to remain Monarchless!