Karl Rove resigns

Karl Rove resigned from the White House today. Liberals in the press took advantage of the situation to try to trash Karl Rove. What do they have on him? Nothing.

The media started to tell the Valerie Plame story, claiming that Karl Rove leaked the her name for revenge. They didn't get a chance to mention that it was actually Richard Armitage that leaked the name to Robert Novak. They then jumped to the firings of State Attorneys, which was neither illegal or even proven to be politically motivated. After trying to tie these non- scandalous scandals to Karl Rove, they continued to try to paint every single apparent failure of the Bush administration to Karl. They started with the President's approval rating, Katrina, the Iraq war, etc...

Today I salute Karl Rove because any man that the left hates that much, is a friend of mine.

Mitt Romney wins the straw poll

It comes as no surprise that Mitt Romney won the Iowa straw poll. He has been well organized in Iowa for a long time. The other top tier candidates didn't participate because they wanted to save face. They wouldn't be able to put together a good showing. Rudy says that this is because he got a late start in Iowa and that he is concentrating all his effort to winning the caucus.

The truth is that winning the Iowa straw poll helps you win the Iowa caucus. You have large number of people who have already committed to you. You also risk offending Iowa voters by giving off the impression that the Iowa straw poll isn't important. Iowa voters have a severe ego problem, they will not vote for someone who makes them feel unimportant.

I think that it is safe to say that Mitt Romney is now the front runner for the nomination. If Mitt Romney wins Iowa and New Hampshire, it will be very difficult to beat him for the nomination. He is leading by large margin in both.

Hispanic vote: who's gonna get it

Who in the Republican presidential field is going to win the Hispanic vote? In Florida the Hispanic vote is important for the Republican nomination because of the large number of Republican Cubans.

John McCain was winning this effort by far because of his stance on immigration and because of his friendly rhetoric towards Hispanics. During one debate he pointed out that many of the names on the Vietnam memorial were in fact Hispanic. But since then, John McCain's campaign has all but died. He's not even considered a top tier candidate anymore.

Because of the heated immigration debate, Republicans are scared that any targeting towards Hispanics may seem like pandering to illegals. In Florida this is not the case; although we have many Hispanics, very few of them are actually illegal. Who's going to have the guts to go after that vote?

Univision, the Spanish television channel, planned two debates, one for Republicans and one for Democrats both in South Florida. Hillary Clinton has announced that she will attend, I'm sure the other Democrats will have no problem also attending. John McCain is the only Republican who has agreed to attend and Mitt Romney has rejected the invitation. I think this is an opportunity for Romney and others to explain to the Hispanic community that they are not anti-immigration, but they are just anti-illegal immigration.

Of coarse this is a calculation that every candidate has to make for himself. For example it wouldn't make sense for Tom Tancredo to attend because he is indeed anti-immigration because of the cultural problems he thinks it brings. If the candidates feel they are just going to get beat up than they will not attend. If they don't attend, which I suspect is what is going to happen, then I feel like an opportunity was lost to heal some of the wounds created between the Republican party and the Hispanic community by the immigration debate.

UCF needs more money for Med School

Coming at a great time because of the budget shortfall, UCF and FIU have asked for an additional 110 million dollars for their first 10 years of operation. President Hitt said that the cost are higher than predicted because they had to meet certain standards from the group that accredits medical schools. What can I say? This is the nature of government, wasteful and inefficient. I'm still happy we're getting a medical school though.

The Florida Board of Governors, the board that oversees public universities in Florida, also asked for 3.8 billion dollars for next year. Don't worry, that's only 2 percent higher than this year's budget.

Orange County considering a ban on corporate donations

The Orange County Commission is considering banning corporate donations in their elections. This is troublesome for various reasons.

The first thing that people should understand is that corporations represent people. A donation from a corporation is just like a donation from a group of people. More specifically they represent share holders, employees, and ownership, all of whom are people. A ban on their ability to donate is a violation of their freedom of speech just like it would be if such a ban affected a labor union.

The leading argument for the ban is that developers are using campaign contributions to get what they want and to corrupt the system. First of all companies don't buy off politicians with campaign contributions, they give their money to the politician who already agrees on the issues affecting the company. Secondly, and most importantly, why do developers feel they need to take an active role in supporting candidates for county commission. The reason is that property rights have quickly disappeared in America. The county commission has the power to tell the developers: what they could do on their own land and when they could do it. This means that the developers don't really own their land. They have to help elect people who will tell them that it is okay for them to do what they want on their own land.

Every piece of land is owned by the government today. The founders of this nation fought for freedom and we have begun to give it away piece by piece, without a fight.

Recapturing the base: Welcome back "W"

The Bush administration has begun to take steps to recapture the base of support that it lost during the immigration debate. In my opinion the immigration fiasco did more to harm the president's popularity than Katrina did. In politics there is a group of people that you should never piss off, your base.

Last week I was attending the Young America's Foundation student conference. As part of the conference we had the opportunity to go to the Eisenhower Executive Office Building to get a briefing from Tony Snow. Tony Snow informed us that talk show host from all over the country were invited to the White House to meet with the President. Sean Hannity had a one on one meeting and Rush was supposed to do the same. Showing that the President still regarded them as part of his base, Tony Snow jokingly said, "They're still our peeps."

Yesterday the President made it clear that he wanted to send a tax plan to Congress that would cut corporate taxes. There is little to no chance that a plan like thing would pass the Democratic congress unless it was part of a compromise that gave the Democrats something they wanted. After all the Democrats have already tried to pass mass tax increases, why would they go in the opposite direction. The purpose of this plan is for the President to regain support among his base.

The President has also vowed to veto all of the Democratic congress' spending bills until they get the excess spending under control.

All of a sudden we have a President who is willing to fight for our principles. I applaud the President's efforts to reunite the base. I hope and look forward to a George W. Bush who is willing to fight and struggle for the conservative principles he was elected to push forward. Welcome back "W".

The advantages of a budget shortfall

Yesterday I was pretty tough on the People's Governor, but there are some advantages to his populist crap.

Because of the correction in the housing market, which has hit Florida particularly hard, there is not as much money coming in to government as expected. Our great governor ordered state agencies to cut their budget by 10%. This is by far his greatest action as governor.

There is a bunch of stories out today talking about this event as if it were a strategy. Ex. "The demise of a popular antidrug program for children. Less money to care for adults with disabilities. No funds for a Tampa Alzheimer's research center, and more offenders released from state custody" (The Tampa Tribune). Do not be fooled. Once you stop thinking emotionally and start thinking logically you can see how great this is. The smaller the government is the better off the economy will be. Government spending has an adverse affect on the economy. As a conservative smaller government is our number one goal.

I congratulate the governor on this action. I know it only came about because of the shortfall in the budget. I hope for nothing more than for Crist to continue to order state agencies to cut their budget every year. If they did then we could eliminate some of the taxes that do so much harm to Florida's economy, like the corporate tax.

Gov. Charlie Crist: Did we pick the wrong guy?

I think that there's a question that conservatives all over Florida should be asking themselves: Would things be any worse for Florida politics if Jim Davis would have been elected governor?

The immediate reaction is to say, "Sure things would be worse; Jim Davis is much more liberal than Charlie Crist." But if you think about a little bit, you may realize that it is not that simple. The Florida legislature is overwhelmingly Republican, most of whom consider themselves conservative. They would be happy to fight Davis' liberal agenda every step of the way. In essence, nothing would happen that Republicans didn't approve of first.

On the other hand Charlie Crist has been able to move the Florida government to the left in ways that Davis would have never been able to. The reason is that legislators feel obliged to support the governor, the leader of their party. A governor from your party can bring hell to pay for any legislator. Under Crist there has been: huge government intervention into the home insurance market (which hasn't worked), huge government intervention into the energy market, and a reinstatement of voting rights to felons.

The only conservative policy that has taken place is a property tax cut. Even here, Crist's lack of political courage led to a cut that is much milder than Speaker Rubio would have liked.

So why the betrayal. Crist ran as a conservative and on Jeb Bush's legacy and has governed to the contrary. Crist wants to stay popular because Crist wants to be Vice-President. Crist's strategy to achieve this has been clear: count on party loyalty to stay popular among Republicans and pander to the left to gain their support. In addition, Charlie Crist has established what is the closest thing to direct democracy in the United States, he checks the polls and uses the data to craft his policy. To tell you the truth Crist becoming Vice-President might be very good for Florida conservatives because it would take him out of Tallahassee. Unfortunately the Florida legislature made it so Crist wouldn't have to resign to run for V.P., which means that if Republicans lose nationally were still stuck with him.

Should Crist rethink his strategy. Crist was initially counting on a John McCain nomination to become Vice-President but everyone knows that's gone to hell. Rumors through the political grapevine suggest that Crist may now be counting on a Rudy nomination and that he doesn't like Mitt Romney. I don't think that Rudy would pick Crist because that wouldn't help the Rudy ticket at all. What could a non-family values Republican do for another non-family values Republican? In all likelihood, if I am correct, Crist will stay as Florida governor. What will happen in his next election? Who will walk for him? Who will donate to his campaign? Who will replace his base? Crist is very popular but his support is very shallow. There really isn't many Crist lovers out there that are willing to sacrifice to get him elected. As for me, unless things change, I may vote for Crist but I will not move a muscle to help Crist be reelected.

Hillary the Moderate

If the Democrat presidential nomination debates serve no other purpose, they have made Hillary Clinton look like a rational moderate.

Last night at the AFL-CIO debate Hillary Clinton was accused of being too friendly with corporate America. This is the same person who said that she wanted to take (think Karl Marx) the profits from oil companies to use it for her own purpose.

Her foreign policy seems very rational when compared to her opponents. Obama promised to meet immediately with our enemies and to attack one of our allies. Hillary Clinton condemned this.

The rest of the candidates are so overwhelmed with their hatred of President Bush but Hillary Clinton admitted that we are safer today than we were on 9/11, although she added that we are not safe enough.

Do not be fooled. Conservatives cannot begin to believe that a Hillary Clinton presidency "will not be that bad." We hate this woman. She's a socialist who would do more harm to our country than any president since Lyndon Johnson. If she becomes president we will lose some freedoms that we may never get back.

What's a Conservative?

There are many ideas of what makes a political conservative in the U.S. This could be the topic of endless debate. I thought that as my first blog it is important to give my definition of a conservative. This will give you an understanding of why I take the stances that I do.

A conservative in these particular beliefs: that all men and women are endowed with inalienable rights. These rights go as far as someone else's rights begin. The sole purpose of government is to protect these rights. There is very few legitimate actions government has beyond protecting these rights. It is legitimate for government to provide certain things that are necessary for the survival of a society and cannot be provided by the free market. For example, providing a currency is a legitimate function of government.

There are four major elements that makeup conservatism in the United States: strong defense, free market, small government, and traditional values. These issues provide the coalition of people that raised Ronald Reagan to the presidency.