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But it may be a tougher road to doing so. The hard left is pushing for the “Fairness Doctrine.” It is an Orwellian name for a piece of legislation that would have the opposite effect, by demanding that radio companies put on an equal amount of programming of the opposing point of view to Limbaugh, Hannity, or even O’Reilly. Liberal talk radio never makes money, which is why Air America went belly up. But the left isn’t concerned with balance. They want silence from anyone who opposes their Marxist world view. The good news is that companies like Premier, (who’s parent company is Clearchannel) are not likely to go quietly. If the worst case scenario comes true, and the doctrine is reinstated, the constintuionality will likely be challenged, and the left will lose in the court of public opinion, particularly if the plaintiff goes down the road of challenging the “fairness” of the network newscasts. If they further go after MSNBC, expect some comedy in the courtroom. In my last post, I expressed serious concern about the left’s plan to take away your 401K. It is my opinion that neither of the above will happen. They’ll try, but it won’t happen. As far as talk radio, there are too many stations making lots of money by airing it, and the owners won’t be grabbing their ankles for Barack Obama, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, and Dick Durbin. With regard to people’s 401K plans, can you imagine the panic in the stock market if people decide (en masse) to take out their money, pay the tax penalty, and stash the money somewhere other than in investements in the stock market? Yes, expect the liberal left to over reach. Expect the possibility that Al Franken could steall the Minnesota Senate election from Norm Coleman. That could happen. But now that conservatives are flushing turncoats out of the mainstream of the Republican party, (like the cowards who attacked Sarah Palin) we’re in for better times, just not right away.

To all the voters who thought that Barack Obama was going to save the country’s economy and make the world safer by “restoring our position of respect in the world,” or however that pablum catch phrase went, how do you feel about your choice now? For students of history, the market had a major rally in the wake up the 1980 election when Reagan defeated Carter. According to the news publications and websites I’ve been reading, a post election rally isn’t that uncommon even when a Democrat wins the White House. However, the Dow Jones Average has lost 780 points as of this writing since Barack Obama won the election. That’s the worst post-election selloff since 1900. Limbaugh and Hannity have been sounding the alarm on another socialist plan. The government taking over your 401k and putting it into Social Security. If that makes you feel INsecure, it should. Now Vladimir Putin wants to return as President of Russia, and put missiles in Europe to aim at Poland. Senator and Vice President Elect: Joe Biden said that within six months someone would test Obama. His words seem to have been prophetic, if a little bit early. I had just hoped that our adversaries would wait until Inauguration Day. The question now is does anybody who cast their ballot for the first term Senator from Illinois have buyer’s remorse…yet?

John McCain conceded last night. Lots of red states including Indiana and Virginia going to Obama. Swing states: Florida and Ohio as well. North Carolina still too close to call as of this writing. John McCain with only a .4 % edge. So far, 349 electoral votes in the blue column. Not quite the Obama landslide the media was projecting but a win’s a win. I had always said that Mitt Romney would’ve been a more effective standard bearer for the party during this cycle than John McCain, and events could be interpreted to bear that out. Unfortunately, the Republican brand was so tarnished this year that there’s really no way to know.

And the question is why has the Republican brand been so tarnished?

1. George W. Bush: A mixed bag of a presidency. He put through tax cuts that were great for the economy and job creation, but he wouldn’t veto a single spending bill. Democrats are bigger spenders but never seem to get the blame for it. President Bush also has through strong management of our national defense kept our shores free from attack since 9/11/01. Conventional wisdon was that that wouldn’t be possible. Even his management of the war in Iraq was lagging in terms of taking down the terrorists and insurgents in Iraq. (To his credit, McCain argued for the surge when the surge wasn’t cool.) Ultimately President Bush pulled the trigger, installed General Petraeus, and Iraq has since turned around, and we’re winning. However, when President Bush and members of his administration were attacked and falsely accused of anything, from the outing of Valerie Plame to the false narrative of no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, they refused to respond even when they had a good case to make. General and former Secretary of State: Colin Powell, in all likelihood knew that it had been is Deputy Secretary of State: Richard Armitage who had leaked her name to Bob Novak, yet said nothing and allowed the administration to twist in the wind, and Scooter Libby to accumulate mountains of legal bills. General Powell, is to be saluted for his service in the armed forces and the Joint Chiefs. He however has turned out to be a disloyal Secretary of State to the man who gave him his biggest job yet. Hopefully he’ll be happy working for an Obama administration, but Rockafeller Republicans like him, we don’t need.

The Mainstream Media: This is undoubtedly the most partisan intellectually dishonest set of people ever in history. And what’s remarkable they would deny that fact en masse, even if they by their behavior made no attempt to hide it. The cliche about Bush Derangement Syndrome is unfortunately so true. I was voting and debating politics in the 80’s and I can’t remember anything quite like this. There was name calling and condescension but nothing quite to this level. The media always hung around the left side of the cliff. After this past eight years, I can honestly say that they’re over the cliff. They knowingly willfully pursued dubious stories without proper research because those stories fit the narrative that they wanted to tell, and they buried stories about Barack Obama to avoid making “The One” look bad. (The L.A. Times refuses to let anyone have a copy of the tape that shows Obama toasting Rashid Khalidi in 2003.) They’ve always been liberal, they always engaged in liberal groupthink, but to paraphrase Bernie Goldberg, this isn’t just groupthink, this is group lying. I have to believe that this will slowly catch up to them in terms of ratings, revenue, and job cuts. It’s already started but they deserve to have their income cut off since they don’t deserve it. Shame on the networks, and the major newspapers for perpetrating fraud on the population instead of doing their job.

John McCain: We all knew that Republicans weren’t going to have it easy in a year like this. People don’t like the brand because of President Bush’s problems. The media was not honest. That’s the unfortunate nature of the situation,  but it is what it is. John McCain lost because although he had the tools in front of him to help him win, he chose not to use them. Reverand Wright, Obama’s ties to unsavory characters, and his calls for socialism all were fair game, but McCain only picked up the socialism theme toward the end of the campaign. He barely touched on Bill Ayers, and wouldn’t go near Reverand Wright. And he misassigned blame for the financial meltdown. He called it greed on Wall Street, when it was really greed on the part of beaureucrats at Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac. Jamie Gorelick and Franklin Raines made multiple millions of dollars cooking the books, but somehow the public laid blame for the mess at the feet of President Bush and the Republican party. Senator McCain had a chance to get this message and chose not to. Bill O’Reilly stated that McCain should just annouce Mitt Romney as his treasury secretary, and Rudy Giuliani as the attorney general who’s going to investigate and find out who did this to the American people and punish them. If only McCain had listened to O’Reilly instead of the people that ran his campaign, maybe he would’ve stood a chance.

The Mushy Middle: People elect Democrats because of a pervasive perception that only the Democrats care about the “little guy” or the “have nots.” It’s a myth, but a myth that has lasted for generations. When taxes, inflation, and unemployment get too high even if they’re worried, they’ll turn to a Republican, because of the thought that “If big business works, at least I’ll have a job.” That certainly was the thought process of people I knew in 1979 and 1980, that under no other circumstances would’ve considered voting for Ronald Reagan. The lesson that John McCain has learned only too late, if at all, is that you can’t be a “moderate” Republican that goes after your own party for the satisfaction of looking like a nice guy. A nice guy, war hero, and moderate Republican named Bob Dole ran in 1996…and lost.

Gerald Ford-moderate-1976-lost.

Ronald Reagan-conservative-1980, 1984-won.

George H.W. Bush-moderate-1988-won but not by near the same margin

George H.W. Bush-moderate-1991-lost to a small state governor who was going to be the Democrat’s sacrificial lamb because none of the heavy hitters wanted to run against Bush.

George W. Bush ran as a conservative and won narrowly in 2000, by a much better margin in 2008, but then began to tarnish his conservative image by signing onto out of control spending

John McCain-moderate-2008-lost.

There is the pattern. The good news is even though the Republican presence in Congress is smaller, it’s more conservative. And hopefully, so will be our next standard bearer.