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I am slowing down on the blog, no doubt about it. It isn't writer's block. It isn't the enthusiasm gap. It's deeper than that. In a sense, I feel that I have fulfilled my missions at this blog. Diminishing returns are here.
Some elaboration. Voter remorse is palpable. More than one former Obama supporter has expressed some disillusionment to me. These are people who have never visited this site. For a multitude of reasons, they acknowledge that Obama is a disappointment.
Understand, these people would probably not vote for McCain if they had a second chance and they do not like Republicans generic or specific. But they view Obama as more Jimmy Carter than Bill Clinton. They recognize that Obama will never be a man of the people.
The final bale of straw was Obama's stance on the Ground Zero mosque. This is visceral. Prior to the mosque, disagreements with the president were mostly intellectual. Yes, there was the apology tour and a few other times where his heart seemed to be elsewhere. But then the mosque slapped us in the face and the president did not feel the blow. Obama does not feel what we feel.
Whereas the sensible people are jumping ship, Obama's total approval has held steady at 42% to 46% (Rasmussen.) He still has his legions of hardcore fans who cannot be bothered with facts. Then again, I am not going to reach those people with my blog. Some vapid celebrity might be able to reach them but not a purveyor of reason. Someone else can gather the lost sheep.
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Glenn Beck also got my head spinning. I kind of wish that he would have held off with his "Restoring Honor" rally until after the election. There is an unackowledged schism between fiscal conservatives and social conservatives. It might be the most substantial political divide in this country.
I side with the fiscal conservatives and I am suspicious of the social conservatives. The two philosophies are incompatible. Given the chance, the social conservatives will stab us in the back every single time. Ronald Reagan ran a deficit each of every eight years in office while kissing up to the social cons every step of the way.
We then read Bush's lips. Later his son, the first MBA to become president, would show the world that Harvard Business Grads are incapable of balancing a budget. Of course he was able to find moolah to promote abstinence training and faith-based initiatives and even more of our dough to harass pornographers and medical marijuana advocates and to make life difficult for online poker players.
9-11 was unifying. I would rather take my chances with the Ashcrofts than Al Qaeda sympathizers. Ashcroft only put burkas on statues. Live women were spared his silliness.
Obama has also been a unifier. The Tea Party drew from disparate sources but at least we stood united against reckless spending. For once, fiscal conservatism was front and center. Yes, Obama made a lot of us uncomfortable with his hollow patriotism and his thinly-veiled contempt for traditions like the Constitution and Judeo-Christian principles. But those were side dishes. The entree was fiscal responsibility.
If we want to continue the culinary metaphor then I suppose we should acknowledge that a food fight is a-comin. It would be better to fight this battle in say, the 2012 GOP primaries. But Beck has re-opened the wound. Let's hope we can hold off on the pie throwing until after the first Tuesday in November.
Come November 3, let the cream pies fly! I can hardly wait.
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