From the New York Post
 
April 16, 2009 --

THE top suits and some of the on-air talent at CNBC were recently ordered to a top-secret meeting with General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt and NBC Universal President Jeff Zucker to discuss whether they've turned into the President Obama-bashing network, Page Six has learned.

"It was an intensive, three-hour dinner at 30 Rock which Zucker himself was behind," a source familiar with the powwow told us. "There was a long discussion about whether CNBC has become too conservative and is beating up on Obama too much. There's great concern that CNBC is now the anti-Obama network. The whole meeting was really kind of creepy."

One topic under the microscope, our insider said, was on-air CNBC editor Rick Santelli's rant two months ago about staging a "Chicago Tea Party" to protest the president's bailout programs -- an idea that spawned tax protest tea parties in other big cities, infuriating the White House. Oddly, Santelli was not at the meeting, while Jim Cramer was, noted our source, who added that no edict was ultimately handed down by the network chieftains.

CNBC flack Brian Steel confirmed the get-together, but insisted: "The dinner was to thank CNBC for a job well done in our in-depth reporting throughout the financial crisis. As far as our coverage is concerned, we are built for balance and we are unabashedly pro-investor."

Our source retorted: "That is complete bull[bleep] . . . they didn't invite a lot of people to [the meeting]. There were many staffers who were working 24/7 during the crisis who weren't asked to attend, even Santelli, who was a big star for the network during those weeks. Why not?"

In addition, the insider said: "News of the meeting is starting to leak out and people are contacting a number of the on-air people to ask if they've been muzzled by GE."

General Electric owns MSNBC, CNBC and NBC.  It was bad enough that GE permitted its mainstream media subsidiaries to help promote the current economic climate of fear that has undermined our economy, in order to help elect the presidential candidate they wanted, and to create an opinion climate in which his radical agenda could be railroaded through Congress.  This climate has forced their GE parent to reduce its stockholders' dividends by 68%.  GE stockholders have suffered more economic damage from their own mainstream media subsidiaries than they ever have from competitors.

Now, GE has gone beyond simply tolerating the intolerable, letting a subsidiary sabotage the prosperity of the entire company with all its stockholders, business partners and employees.

They have become the active accomplice of the Obama administration to silence its critics.  They have willingly become a political thug.

It is time to respond to the new General Electric by boycotting all of their products, from their wind turbines right down to their light bulbs.  It is time to write to their Board of Directors telling them exactly why they are being boycotted.  It is time to light up their switchboard with complaints.  It is time to demand the resignation of Jeff Immelt, and the divestiture of MSNBC, CNBC and NBC.  This proud company was the graduate school of American business under Jack Welch, Jeff Immelt's predecessor, and under Jeff Immelt GE has become the protector of the leftist mainstream media and is now becoming the goon squad to force it even further to the left.  And to silence the opposition, Chicago style.

www.ohiofan.org 

            So what should he apologize for that he has not already? Well, for giving the Queen that Ipod for one thing. Talk about the height of American arrogance. Did he think that England is some backward third world country unable to provide their Queen with an Ipod if she wanted one? And filling it with his speeches is over the top. Giving an Ipod filled with your speeches to your elderly mother is understandable if she is still doting. For Obama to give an Ipod filled with his speeches to anyone else is beyond arrogance; it is something that smacks of pathological narcissism. Especially for a man who can barely vocalize a complete thought without the aid of a teleprompter.

            But more importantly, Obama owes an apology to some of the people who have been closest to him, people who have been there for him through thick and thin, year after year. He has pretended he did not know them, did not agree with them, publicly repudiated their views and finally even disassociated himself from them.   He threw them under the bus in order to win the election. 

            He owes Reverend Jeremiah Wright a big apology for repudiating him and his sermons condemning America and demanding that America be punished for its sins. Yet Obama is even now championing the very type of economic “reparations” that Reverend Wright prayed for in his Black Liberation Theology.

He owes another big apology to Bill Ayers, the old Weatherman bomber who tried to lead a group of domestic terrorists but eventually gave up and pursued a less dangerous strategy for destroying America. After pretending that all of their work together to funnel millions into the political indoctrination of our public schools “didn’t happen”, Obama is doing to our armed forces and homeland defenses what Bill Ayers only dreamed of in his wildest imagination. 

And Obama doesn’t even have the decency to share the credit with his old buddies. What a friend. Such loyalty.  

But worst of all, he has failed to apologize to the woman who bore his children. Months ago Michelle got in hot water with her remark after Obama won Democratic party nomination, “For the first time in my life I’m proud of being an American”. The public reaction was swift, demanding to know if that meant she had been ashamed of being an American all of her life and if so, why. The Obama obfuscation machine swung swiftly into action first trying to pretend that she hadn’t said what she had said, and then trying to characterize it as being “taken out of context” and finally , made two mutually exclusive excuses at the same time, arguing that she was misunderstood and had simply misspoken. Throughout all this Obama himself remained aloof, independent and unaffected … because he did little or nothing to stand up for his wife and her beliefs. He distanced himself from that attitude. 

            Until, of course, the “apology tour” of Europe that he has just completed. On that tour he “outed” himself and demonstrated loud and clear that he shares the view that there is little or nothing to be proud about to be an American. He just wasn’t man enough to stand by his wife when she “said it like it is”.

            It is time for Obama to apologize to those closest to him. With friends like him …

www.ohiofan.org

            Many things led to the loss of the White House last fall; RINO Republicans destroying the credibility of the brand, Crony Capitalism unchecked if not participated in by Administration executives, a Republican party organization that forgot why grassroots support was necessary much less how to nurture it, obsolete fundraising techniques further hampered by the McCain/Feingold, assault on our Freedom of Speech, failure to exploit available technology … but more than anything else there was a Propaganda Machine that waged a successful war of attrition on all things conservative, while concealing and protecting all things liberal.  The Media toiled relentlessly and unsuccessfully for years, trying to undermine our economy, then the war, then back to the economy in order to create the catastrophe that would lead to a liberal being elected President in 2008. 

            But it wasn’t working very well until Senator Schumer fired a torpedo at the sub-prime mortgage house of cards that he and his Democrat colleagues had worked so diligently to help create, and to protect from Republican reformers in 2005.  He knew full well what would happen to the twin towers of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and shortly thereafter to the economy as a whole.  Who would have thought that he would “blow up” a Democratic fiasco, in order to destroy the chances of a Republican being elected President in 2008.  One would think that he and his fellow Democrats would be exposed and run out of town on a rail, or tarred and feathered.  But Schumer knew that nobody would “connect the dots” of his published letter that caused the failure of a sub-prime mortgage lending giant, IndyMac last July to the domino effect that included the collapse of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the subsequent economic crisis.  He knew that because of the Mainstream Media he and his party would not suffer the repercussions; the Media would blame it all on Bush and Republicans.  They did, they still do, and they will continue to do so. 

            Now the same media that “endorsed” (chose) our Candidate for us only to destroy him (as predicted by Rush Limbaugh at the time), has resorted to trying to assassinate the character of any potential conservative leaders.  They intend to do to Palin, Jindal, Romney and even Limbaugh what they have done before to George Allen and Tom DeLay.  Their intent is to mortally wound the public image of conservative figureheads, so that they have no credibility with the general public.  That is why their mention on the media is accompanied with sneers, smirks and ridicule, and never with facts or reasoned viewpoints.  The media has become the snipers of the left.

            What can we do?  More than you think.

            ABC, NBC/MSNBC, CBS, CNN all have a weakness.  They are for-profit subsidiaries of for-profit businesses.  And as businesses, they are suffering mightily from their own ideological war against free enterprise.  Moreover, they are helping to pull their parent companies down and building public antagonism toward their parent companies.  We need to help them enjoy the fruits of their labors, even as we endeavor to spare the rest of the American economy from them.

            How?  We need to build a list of the advertisers on these networks, and publish them on the web.  Then people can know which businesses are providing economic support to the war on free enterprise, and take their business elsewhere.  Over time, this will result in diminishing revenue to the mainstream media, and they should applaud our “socking it to the rich”.  If we also write or email their advertisers to inform them of our decision to take our business elsewhere and explain our reasoning, that will help expedite the process. 

            We should certainly write to the top executives and members of the Board of Directors of the companies that own these major networks, and let them know we do not appreciate their company aiding and abetting the war on free enterprise.  And boycott their products as well.  Westinghouse owns CBS.  Time Warner owns CNN.  ABC is owned by Walt Disney and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group.  My understanding is that Disney theme parks are expecting a bad year, because of the economic malaise that their network news has helped produce.  NBC/MSNBC is owned by General Electric.  This past week GE had to reduce their dividend to investors by 68%, thanks to the economic downturn that their own network subsidiaries have worked hard to promote and continue to promote for ideological purposes.  We’re sure that the corporate CEO’s of Avon, Proctor & Gamble, Johnson & Johnson, Conoco-Phillips, J.P. Morgan Chase Bank & Penske who all sit on the Board of Directors at GE, are either unhappy about the results that GE’s network subsidiaries have produced for their own companies, or are comatose.  After thirty years in the corporate world, my bet is that the leaders of these companies are not comatose.  Maybe at some point they will grow a pair and decide that maybe the GE dog should wag the NBC/MSNBC tail for a change.  And maybe get rid of some fleas. 

            I am slowly but surely compiling and working my own list of key contacts, and would certainly appreciate your contribution to the lists.  These lists need to be available to the general public, so that we can all contact the Corporate CEO’s and members of the Board of Directors.  When even ultra-blue Democrat Warren Buffet starts whining about a 96% drop in quarterly net income, when the Democrat Party architects of the sub-prime mortgage disaster start public vilification of the architects of corporate America, trying to manage their businesses, overruling their Board of Directors and determining their compensation, all at the applause of a growing “looter class” mentality, it is time for corporate America to wake up and give a good, hard tug on the leash. 

            I am thinking that on this and other conservative sites we need to establish a Media Governance group that shares contact information, best practices, sample letters and other resources for the purpose of breaking through the insulation that surrounds the ultimate owners and managers of the mainstream media, awakening them to the damage that their own subsidiary is doing to them, regaining control over the leftist media elite, and returning the Fourth Estate of government to its proper role as an independent and objective provider of information to a self governing public.  We can leverage the research of other groups that have documented the bias and abuses of the media, and be the messengers that get that information delivered to the people who can and should do something about it.  I suggest that we call this group, the Media Spankers, because that’s what needs to be done.

            What do you think?

Jim Woods

http://www.mcfan.org

            But what about the Democrats? What do the two Senators from Montana get for the people in their state? The last I heard, Montana doesn’t have a lot of union people to reward with this ‘stimulus’ bill. The last I heard, there weren’t many ACORN community activists there that wanted to be put on the government payroll. The last I heard, there aren’t a lot of illegal aliens who will appreciate getting a check from the government. Montana’s government isn’t going broke and doesn’t need to be bailed out by an even bigger and less responsible government. It appears that Montana citizens are able to manage their own schools just fine without Washington’s help, thank you. So what do the people in Montana get out of this, other than the satisfaction of transferring massive amounts of money into places like Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland and Pittsburgh? What about the two Senators from North Dakota? They appear to me to be in the same category as Montana. The same for Louisiana. What do these states get out of the $800 billion stimulus bills? I suspect that they are getting a poorer return on the dollar than a kid stuffing quarters into a machine trying to “win” a toy worth a nickel.

            One would think that a person that lives in the “rust belt” like myself would appreciate the benevolence of these Senators on behalf of their hardworking citizens, to send all these boxcars full of freshly printed money into my area to help save us from the consequences of the kind of government we’ve had for the last forty years. But I don’t.

            All that money from Montana, North Dakota, Louisiana and other “producer” states will just be poured down the same old rat hole here in the “declining” states. Nothing will change. Our greatest export will remain college educated kids looking for a career, second only to the jobs we export to the south and west or overseas. The only difference is that now states like Montana, North Dakota, Louisiana and others, get to participate in and enjoy the benefits of the same approach to economic prosperity through government that have been so successful in Detroit and Cleveland. Thanks to your Senators. Be sure to thank them.

            The Republican National Committee has the same task before it; to select the right person for the next two years. The future of the party and potentially our country, depend upon the quality of that decision.

            So what do we need for the next two years? Well for one thing, we know it must not be “more of the same”. We cannot afford another election in 2010 like the ones in 2006 and 2008. The change must be significant, not incremental.

We know that we cannot continue to lag behind in our use of technology, especially the internet, and we cannot continue to neglect building the grassroots.  We know that if a candidate for Chairman of the RNC does not have a well thought out plan to strengthen those two elements, then they probably should not be considered. 

But technology and grassroots building are merely tactical issues. What is needed is a strategic approach. We need to realize that for improved technology and grassroots building to work, we must attract, inspire and motivate people. 

Look at what BlueStatesDigital did for Obama. They provided fairly common technology, supported by fairly common technologists, to deliver highly compelling messages two, three, four times per week from the time they collected someone’s email address right through the election. They became a pumping station for volunteers and dollars.

The people who crafted the messages that pulled in people and money were not technologists. BlueStatesDigital gives them the title “strategist”. They know how to communicate with people who have never been interested in politics before, and get them engaged. They know how to appeal to people who would have never considered making a political contribution, and get $5 from them either through Pay-Pal or their Daddy’s credit card. Politics is all about “winning the hearts and minds” of the people. The technology was merely the hammer. The “strategists” were the carpenters.

In order for a strategy to attract, inspire and motivate people to be viable, we need a compelling message. Obama used the themes of “Hope” and “Change”. Our compelling message is the core principles espoused in our Party Platform. We know that the overwhelming majority of Americans agree with those principles. So why did they vote for the other guy? Because they don’t associate the Republican Party with them. We don’t communicate them often enough, or clearly enough, or loudly enough. All too often we apologize for them, or sacrifice them in order to curry favor with the media or to try to get the Democrats to like us because we’re “being nice”, an unconditional and unilateral cease-fire that has never been reciprocated in my memory. 

Actions speak louder than words to our natural majority, and when we abandon our principles we pay for it at the polls, regardless of our excuses.   

I think we have two outstanding choices among the candidates for RNC Chairman who could be that “right person” for the next two years. Both of them appear to “get it” about the hammers of technology and grassroots, but even more so they “get it” about the nails of effectively and continuously voicing and practicing the Republican principles, because that’s what we need to do to win back the hearts and minds of the American people. They are leaders who can attract and develop more leaders to rebuild the party. Let us hope that the RNC picks one of them.

Note: The 168 members of the Republican National Committee are the Chairman, National Committeeman and National Committeewoman of the fifty states, plus Washington, D.C. and five U.S. Territories. They are usually identified on the website of your state Republican Party or equivalent.

http://www.ohiofan.org

            Many years ago while working my way through college, I became incensed by continuously escalating student fees on what was a “commuter” campus. Most of us were part-time students and the overwhelming majority of us had full or part-time jobs. The school was not our home and playground, as it seemed to be with the “professional students” under twenty-two, and we received little or no benefit from the student fees. In fact, much if not most of the fee money went to subsidize organizations or causes that we found objectionable. But every fee increase proposal was passed easily, in no small part due to the fact that the polls were open all day long, five days a week, and closed just about the time that most of us were arriving from work for our one-to-three times per week classes. And of course there was a small cadre of activists within the ranks of full time students who did all the campaigning in support of the student fee increase; usually the leaders of the organizational groups and causes that most of us would never have supported given the choice. They were less than two hundred in number, but they were the tail wagging the dog of an eight thousand strong student body.

            I decided to do something about it and made contact with the two students who were members of a national conservative youth group. I learned who they were by calling the national headquarters. Then I initiated a public meeting of that group under its national logo, and about half a dozen people showed up. We agreed to form an organization to oppose the student fee increase, and set out to get more people. Almost as soon as we began beating the bushes for more people someone came to see me to inquire about our group, and I remembered his name from a Letter to the Editor of the campus newspaper the previous semester. He was impressed that I knew of him and liked what he had written. He was the leader of a group of libertarians on campus, and our group tripled in size before he walked away. At our next meeting a Friar from a monastery that the campus had been built up around showed up, with his Right to Life group. They had heard that a conservative movement had sprung up on campus, and wanted to help as non-student activists, something the liberals use extensively. A week later a fellow with muscular dystrophy inquired if we would let him help. We said yes. Within a week he had recruited almost every handicapped student on campus to join us.

            On the ballot of the next student fee increase there were four options, 1) big increase in student fees to be distributed to all student organizations, 2) big increase for the leftist student organizations and moderate fees for all other student organizations, 3) moderate increase for all student organizations and 4) no student fee increase. The leftist activists campaigned strongly for option 2 because some non-radical groups didn’t have a need or desire for more money. 

But this time the activists had opposition. We named our organization the For Four Committee, and we campaigned for option 4) no student fee increase. 

The leftists went nuts. They had never been opposed before. They spent more time attacking us, than trying to convince students of the merits of a student fee increase. If we put up For Four posters before we went into a class, we had to put new ones up when we walked out of the class to replace the ones that had been torn down. We found out quick that every invitation to speak was an invitation to be subjected to a room full of heckling activists, or worse. We were called every epithet the leftist activists could think of when we walked down the hall. But when other students heard that we were the For Four Committee, they applauded. When the unusually large number of votes were counted, the activists became even more hysterical. We had won.

The liberal campus activists immediately cried "fowl" and demanded a re-election.  They were certain we had found some way to cheat.  After all, even though the For Four Committee had sprung up out of nowhere and now numbered over forty people, we were just part-time students.  They still outnumbered us by more than five-to-one.  And of course, they remained convinced that the majority of students supported their liberal causes, or would if they weren't ignorant.  They convinced the left leaning campus administration that the student body had been "confused", and the left leaning campus administration agreed to repeat the election.  The Chair of the political science department was instructed to put just one clearly worded question on the ballot, yes or no to increase student fees.

The election was repeated with only the yes or no question. The liberal activist groups put on a full court press trying to convince the student body of the value of funding radical political, economic and social organizations.  But by now the entire student body had become aware that it is possible to win against the campus liberals and they turned out in droves, many of them taking time off from work to come in and vote during working hours. The "stake in the heart" of the liberal activists was when an attempt to "adjust" the voting machines was stopped by the police, called in by a poll watcher in a wheel chair.  When the dust settled we won again, by an even bigger margin than the first time.

            I am going back to my first impression of Obama. During the last few months of the campaign, his lifelong association with and mentoring by people who hated America caused me great concern that he was their Trojan Horse. His mission was to penetrate the inner circles of power, and to open the gates for the people who groomed him. But his selection of his new administration, predominantly second-tier retreads from the Clinton and even the Carter administrations, belie that concern. The fact that he has even been so silly as to give the Clinton’s a cabinet post from which to snipe at him, undermine him, and use their old connections with people from their administration to intrigue against him, reinforces my thoughts that my first impression was the more accurate.

            So what was my first impression? That Hillary Clinton was the greater threat. She is more radical left than her husband, has always been the bread winner in the family and knows how to get things done, and she is ruthless. It is entirely conceivable that if elected President without getting the ego-spanking she has received running for President in the past year, she might have helped Bill Clinton to become the next Secretary General of the United Nations, and signed treaties with the UN that would have superseded our own laws, our own constitution, and our own sovereignty. Scary.

            And Obama? A person who has been groomed from childhood by radicals to be a next generation radical. A person whose every success in life was engineered for him by someone else, almost invariably someone who hated America, and dropped in his lap. A person with no apparent accomplishments of his own. A person without his own vision, but a very effective showman. A person whose rhetorical skills are focused upon what people will approve of him saying, rather than upon enlightening them. A fellow who cannot make a decision and stand by it in the face of criticism, but will equivocate, obfuscate or vote “present” incessantly rather than make allow himself to be pinned down. A fellow who recognizes the power structure and does what he is told, going along to get along to advance himself. He is a machine politician, but as a foot soldier, not as an officer.

But now, he is at the top. He is where everything he was ever told, by everyone he ever listened to, he would never be. And he just doesn’t have the skills he needs in order to lead. Those who groomed him to be the Trojan Horse are likewise unprepared for this victory, because even though he is now inside the walls of Troy, they are not. He could not carry them inside, without being exposed for what he is and what they have been to him, and losing the election. 

So now what? He needs to staff an administration without the people that he could not carry inside because they are too radical, too controversial. The Prophet of Change has limited himself to leftovers from previous democrat administrations, because they will be tolerated. They will do all the work for him, since they have a clue what it is and he does not, and take the blame if things go wrong. He will be happy to take the credit if things go well. Now he has a new house, new prestige, new fame. And he wants to stay there. The new Obama may need to change every fabric of his life, in order to become the new Obama he needs to be to keep what he has won. On the job training for the state senator from Illinois has just begun.

Meanwhile, we need to continue doing exactly the same thing we would have needed to do, regardless of who won the election. Over two thirds of the American people share our core beliefs and values. We must continue building the grassroots organization to enable the American people to rise up and stop their government from doing the wrong thing. And when the government begins to do something that two thirds of us agree is unacceptable, we must unite in opposition. As Thomas Jefferson said, “Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves are its only safe depositories.” Our way of life remains secure only so long as we make it so. 

     It is a strange quiet.  Minor battles continue after the recent big one, the Presidential election of 2008, in Alaska, Minnesota and Georgia.  But here it is quiet, as we work hard to build up our conservative grassroots strength for the conflict we anticipate in the future.  Frequently, we look up to the horizon to see if the next big challenge has appeared.

     The contest in Alaska for the U.S. Senate seat is disturbing.  Senator Ted Stevens is the kind of corrupt Republican that has undermined the credibility of the Republican party.  His "Bridge to Nowhere" set the record for pork barrel spending, and the Republican party has been shamed that a Republican initiated it.  Regardless of how critical it is to maintain enough Republican Senators to uphold a veto, we cannot bring ourselves to hope for his re-election.  The fact that the election is so close in spite of the stakes, we think, indicates that the people of Alaska have the same problem we do with his being re-elected.  He would be one of only two active U.S. Senators to be re-elected in spite of a felony conviction.  If you're unaware of the other one, do a google search on "Ted Kennedy" and "Chappaquidick".  Some people think he could be pressured to resign and that Sarah Palin could fill the vacancy.  But what in his recent behavior gives any indication that he would do the right thing?  And why would Sarah Palin become a U.S. Senator.  Ronald Reagan didn't need that.  Theodore Roosevelt didn't neet that.  Even Franklin Roosevelt didn't need that.  FDR was elected President before completing his first term as Governor of New York.  Never mind Carter and Bush never having had "Senate" experience.

     In Minnesota we have another Florida brewing.  The votes are being recounted, and recounted, and recounted because the Democrats don't like the final numbers, with the apparent intent to continue recounting and "discovering" new ballots in automobile runks, under mattresses, and wherever else needed until they have the majority.  If recounting is stopped before they get a majority, they'll take it to court.  And if they lose in court they will appeal it.  Democrats just don't believe in the democratic process any more.  This is one for the lawyers, and for honest journalists (there are still some of those, mostly locals).  We can't help.

     In Georgia, Rep. Saxby Chambliss is in a runoff election with Democrat Jim Martin, scheduled for December 2.  We were involved in helping Paul Coverdell and John Linder win by less than 200 votes many years ago, throwing them both into runoff election.  Runoff elections are won by grassroots organizing, period.  Back the Democrats owned almost every federal elected office except President and the 6th Congressional District (Newt Gingrich), and were complacent.  They are definitely not complacent any more.  Moreover, Obama dollars and Obama volunteers are flooding into the state  If soneone wants to go out of state to be a volunteer somewhere, this is the place.  Focus on Gwinnett and Cobb County which usually determine state and national elections, or Fulton County which is ground zero of the battle between suburban Republicans and Atlanta Democrats.  Or send a check.

     In Ohio, we celebrate Bill Batchelder's election as House Republican caucus (minority) leader, and wish that the Republican party had been able to keept its majority in the House of Representatives so that he would have been Speaker of the House.  We elected him in Medina County, and need to help strengthen grassroots conservatism in other counties so that we regain the House, and Jim can become the Speaker.  Even more important is replacing Secretary of State Brunner with someone honest.  She was one of the successes of the far left's "Secretary of State Project" to get Democrats elected to this position in a number of states, with the expectation that they would do what Brunner has done in this state.  If she thinks that "homeless" people whose legal residence address is a park bench should be allowed to register and vote, then the voters in this state should vote to make her one of them in 2010.

Although our own (MCFAN) grassroots organizing exceeded expectations and provided a powerful boost to our local Republican party organization, the same was not true statewide or nationwide. We heard repeated complaints that in state after state, potential volunteers were rebuffed by moderate “regular party” Republicans. An exclusive party is a permanent minority party. The party that does the best job of attracting, welcoming and empowering new people has a decisive advantage in close elections, and the power to overcome other disadvantages. So long as elections are determined by votes, not dollars, grassroots organizing will remain decisive. We must continue our grassroots organizing and extend it to the state and national levels.

2.     Fundraising

The McCain campaign stuck with public financing as envisioned in McCain/Feingold, even after Obama recanted his pledge to do likewise. McCain might have had a chance to match Obama if he had responded by abandoning his own legislation and like Obama leveraged the internet for fundraising. He didn’t. So Obama ended up with several times as much money to spend on the campaign as McCain, probably the most imbalanced “war chest” in a century. The money that flowed into McCain after Palin was announced went to a “Compliance Fund”, and only a part of it came back to help McCain. Never mind the observation that sometimes when you reach across the aisle to the other side, you may lose your arm. Instead observe that technological obsolescence in the age of the internet age can be a decisive disadvantage in building grassroots organization building and fundraising. We must ensure that our side catches up with technology.

3.     Message

Obama had a message of Change, and he stayed on message throughout the campaign. McCain’s message was not as clear, not as consistent. Exit polls indicated that 23% of the voters viewed themselves as liberal, 44% as moderate, and 33% as conservative. According to that, McCain should have won handily as he is slightly to the right of moderate. Obama we believe, is way left of liberal. Even the “left coast” of California voted for Proposition 8, to restore the sanctity of marriage. That was not a normal ballot proposition; they had already passed a similar proposition which was overturned by the California Supreme Court. Proposition 8 was a constitutional amendment to overturn the California Supreme Court, and it won. If even the people of California believe that firmly in a “conservative” principle, how could we lose this election?

Because we did not communicate a consistent message that resonated with the voters. We must do better getting the right message to the American people and staying on message, because they share our values and beliefs.

4.     Media bias

Polls indicate that the American agree by more than 7-1 odds that the mainstream media was blatantly biased in favor of Obama. Even though they recognized that bias, they were affected by it. It may be a long time before they come to appreciate how distorted the news was, or how much innuendo supplanted news, or how much news and even facts were even suppressed in favor of Obama. We must support alternative channels of information including local news sources, encourage our fellow American to learn how to find their own information and form their own judgments, challenge the mainstream media on its disinformation and express our displeasure with the advertisers that keep them afloat.   

5.     Events

The mainstream media has capitalized upon every opportunity to turn the American people against the Bush administration (and by extension, the Republican party and its next candidate). They have had a host of such opportunities; the War in Iraq (pre-surge, before it was clearly winning), gasoline prices (before the call to resume domestic drilling poked a hole in the speculators’ balloon), expected hurricane disasters (new Republican governors prevented the disaster), and finally the economic collapse. Even Bill Clinton laid this last one at the feet of Congressional Democrats before a national audience, but it went nowhere on the national media. It has been pointed out (Gingrich?) that with an unpopular President, an unpopular war, out of control gasoline prices, a reeling economy and the uncertain effects on the American people of the bailout, the wonder is that a candidate of the same party as the incumbent President obtained even forty percent of the vote. The fact that McCain / Palin did as well as they did, indicates that Obama and the Democrats do not have a mandate and should proceed with caution.

Speaking of the percentage of the vote, 2008 was not a record setting year. In 2004, 65% of registered voters voted in the Presidential election. In 2008, only 60% of registered voters voted. The missing 5% probably voted with their feet for “none of the above”, by staying home. In 2010 and 2012, we need to get them back to the polls.