Dakota Beacon

Now that yet another “conservative” candidate has emerged to run for president, we should pause – before the herd grows to its accustomed 12-man size – to evaluate what we have so far – and perhaps what we can anticipate shortly.

Most recent to join the crowd is Florida Senator Marco Rubio.  Here’s a man with a story to tell:  hard-working refugee-cum-citizen parents, a desire, so he tells us, to restore the American Exceptionalism which brought them to our shores.

Rubio was the hero of Florida’s patriots back in 2008, when, with their overwhelming effort, he trounced RINO Charlie Crist.  (These Florida patriots were fully vindicated when Crist subsequently joined the Democrat party.)  But then things turned dark.  Rubio revealed, through his actions, that he was actually closer to the Bush philosophy of government than to that of Adams and Jefferson.

As “Senator” Rubio, he participated in drafting a bill providing millions of our taxes to racist and anti-American organizations such as and including La Raza.  He has continuously promoted amnesty through his material efforts while in office.   He’s labeled as “racists”, “haters”, even “slavery supporters” those who have called him out on this.  Rubio is no conservative, no admirer of our Constitution, or even of America.  He is something else – something we’ve seen too much of in 21^st Century America – he is just another wolf in sheep’s clothing, a “faux conservative”.  He will campaign hard for our support. To get it he will have to pose as a true Conservative.  He can’t let him fool us.  His announcement speech scorned the past.  But, like the poor, the past is always with us, the good and the bad of it.  Does he care about the past – a few years past – when we had a balanced budget?  When we were respected on the world stage?  When our dollar was sound and our economy thriving?  When our borders meant something? Many voters would like to return to that past.  Many voters are Rubio’s elders.  Does he speak to them or for them?  Or would he like to consign them to the proverbial dustbin of history as well.  He cannot.  The past is represented in our present and our future by our debt, for one thing.  For our promises for another.  We are not talking about even the remote possibility of forgetting the past now.  Our grandchildren will live with it – government spending has so decreed.

Then we have Rand Paul.  Does anyone know what he stands for?  What he advocated in his announcement speech with regard to incarceration of criminals bears inspection, inasmuch as anything this bizarre must be both original and a closely held belief.  He would “take off the books” laws which have resulted in “disproportionate” incarceration of any given group.  What does he mean?  If there are more drive-by shootings involving Blacks, then do we legalize or decriminalize drive-by shootings?  If honor killings result in more convictions of Muslims than of other populations, do we countenance them?  What about spouse abuse?  More men do time for that, in all likelihood, than women.  Should that be okay, then?  If Rand Paul is this incoherent in his planned announcement, what would he do in a debate?  What, God help us, would he do as a president? 

This isn’t all, of course.  He wants to suck the oxygen out of the effort being made by others to free us of the IRS yoke through an alternative tax system, by proposing huge tax write-offs or deductions for college tuition.  The big winner there would be the salivating colleges and universities – who will see to it that tuition goes to the moon itself on this.

Rand Paul, whatever he is, which includes a supporter of Obama’s recognition of the Castro regime, is no conservative.  He is, perhaps best used by the Republican Establishment as a distraction from more serious, legitimate conservative candidates.  His slogan is to “dismantle the Washington machine”.  If he had desired this, he could have done his part by helping Matt Bevan defeat his fellow Senator, Mitch McConnell, last summer in the Kentucky Republican Primary.  McConnell is the very embodiment of the Washington machine; Bevan was a grassroots Tea Party candidate.  But instead of lending his support to someone who would help him begin dismantling that machine, he threw his support to McConnell (who, by the way, has since done yeoman service for Obama’s policies).  Rand Paul’s signature flip-flops, available for $20.00 on his campaign website, say it all.

Too bad Scott Walker didn’t think of them first.  Walker hasn’t announced yet – he’s a dark horse upon whose bandwagon I’ve seen a number of unthinking conservatives eagerly jump.  They should have looked before they leapt.  Walker presents a credibility problem t those who scrutinize his performance and proclivities in office.  He says he’s “pro-life”, yet he has surrounded himself, as Governor of Wisconsin, with pro-choice advocates.  Whom would he appoint as President?  But he won’t come out to say this because he needs our pro-life vote.  He has been on all sides of the evil of “Common Core” in our schools, but at the end of the day, Common Core is in place and running in Wisconsin.  He’s played a shell game with Common Core, just as he has with the issue of amnesty, which he was for prior to his Governorship, before he was against. 

Walker has one other card to play – he has defeated a recall effort and won re-election.  But that itself could be less a long-term benefit than a handicap for a presidential candidate.  Walker’s recall was precipitated through his battle against the unions.  His supporters brag that he beat them soundly.  Now, I am never in favor of going astray on principle to court the Democrat vote.  But if that vote can be won ON principle, nothing could be better.  Ronald Regan won 40% of the labor vote.  This is not so surprising when you recall what the Carter Administration managed to do to our economy.  The Obama Administration has been far, far worse for the working men and women of America.  Obamacare has cut employment and downsized companies.  People are being forced from a 40-or-more-hour workweek to 30 or even 20 hours per week, requiring them to seek second and third jobs to pay for the mandated and mostly useless (considering the deductibles) health insurance.  Amnesty threatens their chance to find those jobs or even keep their own.  Even high-tech jobs are going to immigrants.  Recent studies show that ALL employment growth has gone to the so-called “new Americans” and we are being flooded with more, legal and otherwise, every day. 

Keeping this in mind, it is not unlikely that Labor might have difficulty in delivering for Democrats in 2016.  It would not be surprising to many if a large percentage of the labor vote usually destined for the Democrat candidate, might, in its own self-interest, do what it did in 1080 – support a principled Republican candidate who stands for more stable economic growth and opposes amnesty and Obamacare.  Unless the Republican candidate is Scott Walker, whose only claim to fame is that he humiliated the unions in Wisconsin.  Does this sound like a winning formula?  I’m not saying to kowtow to Big Labor, but in light of this year’s political climate, is Walker’s fame as a union beater such an asset?  It would surely help unions deliver their votes to Democrats in2016, even as working people are truly suffering under them.  And all for what?  Scott Walker – a mugwump on every other issue he’s weighed in on.  A pseudo-conservative, he’s not worth it.

We will see others come forward in days to come, some worthy, some less so, some excellent prospects for Vice President.  But if they are to be a legitimate alternative to Jeb Bush they will need to offer a  vision of America returned to greatness, freedom – from Obamacare, from government surveillance, from illegal aliens (yup, I said it), from our very own version of the KGB, the IRS.  They will need to show us – not tell us – that they support not only the spirit, but the letter, of our Constitution.  They will, in other words, do what Ted Cruz has done – demonstrate in their actions what they tell us with their words.  Search all you want.  You will not find Cruz on both sides of any issue.  You won’t find him supporting remnants of that evil Washington machine.  In fact, Cruz went to bat for Bevan, opposing McConnell and big government in Kentucky.  Cruz has a story even more compelling than Rubio’s but unlike Rubio, he has built with his acts and words on the principles he campaigned on, rather than betray them.  Unlike the seemingly flaky Rand Paul, he promises stellar debate potential because he actually believes what he says and he relies on truth, not mere image, for his stand on issues.  His vision for America and its economic recovery is one that will attract, not repel, working Americans. 

There are some who think that a conservative free-for-all will yield not only entertainment but a good candidate to challenge Jeb Bush (who is guaranteed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory in2016).  The colorful donnybrook they’re asking for, though, is not worth the splintering and damaging of the Right.  And our only hope for our children to grow up in an America we recognize is going to come from the Right.  We need to lose no time in coming together quickly – behind Ted Cruz.