I don’t dislike Mitt Romney or Newt Gingrich and if either of them were the GOP nominee I would happily vote for him against Barack Obama.  And there’s no question that either of them argue splendidly for so many of the mainstream conservative positions on a wide range of issues we care about.

I’m voting for Rick Santorum for President here in Pennsylvania on April 24 because he best articulates our issues and isn’t afraid to speak to the forgotten values voters of the GOP who have been the so often forgotten group yet who vote, work for and donate for every candidate we put up against leftists for the past generation.

I’m for Rick Santorum because above any other issue or quality people in America vote by wide margins for the people they think are good men and women, who live by the principles they espouse, and who are guided by their faith and who, however they stumble and sin, always return to the course set by their moral compass.

I’m for Rick Santorum, not because he merely speaks to the issues but has lived his life in accordance with those principles.

I’m for Santorum not because he has the best voting or track record but because on the issues we conservatives have cared about the most while he was a U.S. Senator, everyone active in our cause knew he was the “go to” guy who could be counted on not just to vote right but to do the behind the scenes work that helps you win.

I’m not “against” Romney or Gingrich.  I am sick and tired of hearing those candidates or their supporters get excessively zealous in extolling the negatives of their competitors.

Yes I already know that Obama can claim some of his ObamaCare ideas – particularly the idea of a “mandate” – came from Romneycare.  And I don’t like it.   I know that Romney has done very little to make the leadership of the conservative cause – national security and economics conservatives but most especially the values voters who he feels don’t trust him – feel comfortable with him.  I know he hasn’t reached out as he should have.

Yes I already know about Newt Gingrich’s indiscretions in his life – what he and Catholics call sin – and also that this is his past, not his present.  More important, I already know that Newt as House Speaker actually cut down some conservative movement initiatives and had the mentality that we could fund activities from the federal government that would get our majority reelected.

I know Gingrich made many of our most important conservative leaders very angry and frustrated to the point that when he stumbled, they deserted him and forced him to resign.

And yes, I already know that Rick Santorum’s labor record wasn’t perfect – even though big labor in Pennsylvania always vigorously opposed him in every election.   And I know that you should never speak about your faith or your belief in Jesus Christ, or refer to the “centrality of faith in your life.”

I know that every one of our three mainstream conservative candidates has issues that conservatives can argue disqualify them.  I don’t buy it.  Any of them would be much better watching on TV, and reading their words in the newspapers, and listening to them on the radio, and seeing and hearing about them every time I connect my computer to the internet for the next four years, than the current occupant of our White House.

It seems every time we hear Barack Obama speak it is some new attack on the free enterprise capitalist system, a new attack on our Constitution, a fresh assault on our institutions, a new justification for socialism.  Or all of the above.

I don’t want to see an entire generation growing up with that kind of influence in their lives so I’m voting for Rick Santorum and whether he wins or loses on April 24 here in Pennsylvania, I’m voting against Barack Obama and for the Republican nominee for President in 2012.

I’m not going to listen to brand new Tea Party activists to tell me who to vote for, to tell me who they think stinks, when they admit they slumbered through the election of Barack Obama and did nothing to stop Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid from winning such enormous majorities in the House and Senate and helping Obama begin his work to “transform” America.

I respect the newcomers but so many of them – often the loudest of them – are ignorant of history, need to spend a little more time reading the constitution and learning about the Christian faith of the founding fathers, learn about the giants of the conservative cause upon whose shoulders they are standing and above all, they should stop sounding so danged bitter and angry, smile a little more, and offer constructive alternatives and make a better effort to play nicely with the other kids who were already in the sandbox they are claiming leadership of.  If they make that effort they’ll find they are very welcome, their meetings will stop shrinking and they will have much more influence in America in the future.

And I most certainly am not going to listen to people whose websites and facebook pages constantly remind their followers that we are not conservatives, who constantly  proclaim their hatred of  the establishment, the bankers, the corporations, Wall Street, the Jews, the Zionists, the Republicans, the neocons, the military. They sound like Occupy Wall Street, like the anti-war, pro-drug, hateful leftists of the 1970′s who always complained about “the establishment” and who wanted to “tear it all down.”

They come into our  midst for the sole purpose of proclaiming their hatred of so much that we conservatives believe, and when they do not get their way in the party which is most hospitable to us, they storm out of “our room” and vote for another candidate.  I trust them only when they say they are not of our cause and hate us.

No, I’m not speaking of lower case “L” libertarians who I very much like and listen to carefully – they are people who I do listen to even if I don’t always agree with them.

Whether it is their concerns about the Patriot Act and its setting aside of the 4th amendment guarantee against unreasonable search and seizure, or their concerns about setting up a national “E-Verify” system to stop illegal immigration.

They raise valid points worthy of consideration by all of us who love freedom.

And for all the arguments in favor of E-Verify I surely am concerned about any proposal to require the federal government’s “permission” before an employer is allowed to hire me, and worried about allowing police officers to stop people without probable cause, if they are suspicious abut whether or not you have proper insurance (yes that was in legislation in one state).

I do not know how a free people could be willing to tolerate “sobriety checkpoints” to allow police officers to ignore the fourth amendment because nowhere do the Bill of Rights give government the right to exempt themselves from the restraints on their authority to steal our freedoms.

On these and many other issues I’m very much open to considering ideas from “lower case L” libertarians and to working with them on those issues where we agree.

But people who proclaim their hatred of conservatism and conservatives, should not have any influence on you and me, except to note that they hate Rick Santorum more than anyone else running for President including Barack Obama and their reverse endorsement alone should be sufficient argument for us all to vote for Santorum.

I’m not impressed with those who argue that voting for someone other than their Third Party Champion temporarily GOP candidate for President is a sellout to liberal Republicans.

Those who shout at us that we are selling out to liberal Republicans like that are the same people who never walk the precincts for conservative challengers, make the phone calls, write out the donation checks and in between elections stand shoulder to shoulder using the full range of tools available to each and every one of us to influence public policy as American citizens.

They are on the scene for the sole purpose of trying to confuse us, divide us and defeat Republicans – and so they are the ally of liberal Democrats whose hatred of and smears against conservatives they often emulate.

I’m for Rick Santorum because even what so many consider his weakness, is to me, his defining strength, his willingness to defy liberal-left orthodoxy by whatever name it calls itself, and clearly say that the centrality of faith is foremost on his mind and in his heart when he stands up in the public policy process to articulate his views.

I respect the conservative leaders who counsel us to vote for Romney or Gingrich, and I pray that we will all keep in mind that our minor divisions during this primary – which will soon end – are as nothing compared to the urgent need to remove Barack Obama as President and bring to an end his domination of the Congress and the courts.

I will proudly vote for Rick Santorum just like the Reaganites of old who worked their hearts out for him in 1976 and again in 1980.

They didn’t care so much whether Reagan won or not – it wasn’t what influenced them to make their stand with him.

Those old Reaganites knew that when their children and their children’s children asked, if God forbid today is the high water mark of freedom in the United States, what did you do Grandpa, to stop this from happening, you’ll have an answer to give them that enables you to hold your head up high and not be embarrassed.

If years from now it is but a distant memory what the Constitution actually meant and what freedom actually was, and my kids and grandkids ask me, I’ll tell them there was a fellow who, however imperfect, represented the last best hope for our cause, spoke most clearly to our vision of freedom and right, and your grandpa donated money to him, voted for him in Pennsylvania and took every chance he could find to write to influence others, to join me now in standing with Rick Santorum.

I hope I’ll never have that conversation with my kids or grandkids but instead can tell them, there once was a threat so bad, a darkness so close to extinguishing the light, that it is hard for you kids to imagine it.

And I pray that God willing I will be there to tell them, there we overcame so many who wrote and said that those who know right from wrong, who unashamedly articulate our belief in God, who had true courage, must driven out of public office.  But our people looked at the faith of those who would be their leaders, and chose them and ignored the critics.

I do not know whether I’ll be telling my kids and my grandkids, if God allows me to be here, that this today is the high water mark of freedom and that after 2012 we are in fact transformed as Obama says he will do, or will this be the turnaround that saves the American system that has worked so well these past two centuries.

But the issue is in doubt today, so my vote is for Rick Santorum now that it is my turn to vote here in Pennsylvania.

And when this is over and done, whether Rick Santorum is our champion as the GOP nominee or not, I will cheerfully and gladly keep in mind where our enemy is – there on the left – far far to the left – stands the one who with his allies aims to finish the job he has started, with a wrecking ball to the work of the American founding fathers – and our standing together united and facing towards him, may be what decides the issue.

HanoverHenry of RED STATE is Pat Henry on Facebook, and I’m on the lookout for new friends there. You can also communicate via private mail at Facebook, and I welcome new sources for my articles focusing on the conservative-Christian viewpoint in Pennsylvania.  I appreciate your sharing this article elsewhere and only ask that you include this “disclaimer” in any reprints or sharing you do.  And I thank those whose information have helped me with some of my reports, including those who do not wish to be quoted by name.

Links to articles I wrote at RED STATE at my Facebook Notes section. 

Leftists and libertarians on one side, and the supporters of Rick Santorum on the other side.  That was the more recent “Battle of Gettysburg” that I reported taking place this past Tuesday night.

It seemed to stir up quit a fuss when I reported on the recent “line in the dirt” at Gettysburg between the two sides in that battle.

It wasn’t just my opinion but the actual FACTS that seemed to be in dispute by people who weren’t even there but wanted to continue their attack – on Santorum but also on Romney and Gingrich and all conservatives – which I wrote about.  They proved my point by their response to that article.

These are the mad Barbarians at the Gate of the conservative cause we saw in Gettysburg.

These are the people who have targeted you and me just as we reach the beginning of the end of our GOP presidential primary process and the start of the Battle for the White House and the future of America.

On one side for the Rick Santorum appearance were those who either support him or those who wanted to respectfully listen to what he had to say.

On the other side out in the street were what at first glance appeared to be a crowd of leftist protestors. The mad Barbarians, trying to crash the party, to “occupy” the high ground held that day in Gettysburg, by the supporters and friends of Rick Santorum.

To seize as much of the Santorum “earned media” as possible – and they in fact, succeed in getting nearly half of all such media attention (high five’s for the mad Barbarians).

Eyewitness accounts and news media cameras both reported Ron Paul signs in that protestor street crowd.

No one has reported that Occupy Wall Street (in the main) is a hotbed of Libertarian Party and/or Ron Paul support so, I suppose, whether you like it or not, you can truthfully report – as I did – that they were together to protest Rick Santorum, and they were literally so intermingled in the street that you honestly could not tell them apart.

But I did go further in my report.  I expressed my opinion based on the facts that I reported:

The leftist-libertarian crowd hates not just Rick Santorum.  And believe me if you were there with those who provided me eyewitness reports, you’d know they were not exaggerating – the protestors really do very intensely dislike us (or go ahead and say it: HATE us).

There is no doubt of this, and hardly a surprise to anyone who has attended a Conservative Political Action Conference in the past, or watched (as did I) on TV and saw the boos from Libertarians in the room during the standing ovation for former Vice President Dick Cheney, the second most popular speaker in the history of CPAC (behind only Ronald Reagan, who the Gettysburg street people ALSO do not like at all).

No, it isn’t just Rick Santorum they hate.

They hate Santorum but also Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich.

They hate conservatives.  They hate Republicans.  They hate all of the above, far more than they hate any liberals or hate any Democrats, about whom incredibly enough, they are very silent.

But there’s more.

They hate you.

I mean the normal conservatives here at RED STATE who actually subscribe to its purposes as I do, and are here to learn or express their views in support of this cause, as I am.

They hate all the normal conservatives and while we are arguing among ourselves about our differences they are laughing because to them – that crowd in the street who represents some of the loudest people in our midst – they are full faith believers (if I dare use the word “faith” with that crowd) in the old maxim of someone most of them know nothing about – George Wallace.

And like George “not a dime’s worth of difference” Wallace of 1968, they say today’s Republicans, conservatives, and the whole “establishment” needs to be thrown out and lets start all over again, and lets knock down anybody standing in our way.

So, I suggested in my last column that you who are normal conservatives – like me sometimes pretty frustrated with what one of our rank long ago called “the stupid Party” you might need to be more careful who you associate with in the future.

Because to these allies of the left (which is what they are) you and I are also the same thing as the “Stupid Party.”  We’re all the same in their eyes.

The reason that these folks have influence FAR out of proportion to their numbers is that they spend far more time than other people with families and lives, on the internet, and they are very good students of Saul Alinsky (even if many of them learned from a teacher who didn’t bother to tell them his training source).

And they spend far more time on the attack, including personal attack, against their targets, just as their teacher suggested (Saul Alinksy of course) so they have no ground to defend and their purpose is to put YOU on the defensive.

If you have spent any time here at RED STATE as a reader you’ve noticed how they pop up with the arguments of the left even on these pages, but call themselves part of our team… but their arguments are the same, and their attacks are more often directed at conservatives than at liberals.

In other words, like the recent “battle at Gettysburg” you can’t tell “a dime’s worth of difference” between a leftist standing out there to protest Santorum, and a Libertarian or Ron Paul supporter who hates Santorum and wanted to also “protest.”  They stood shoulder to shoulder in their common cause.

How about it, men and women of Red State – shouldn’t we also stand “shoulder to shoulder”?

During the past few years I’ve noticed – especially in social media clubs and pages – that this small minority I am speaking of is 100x more active than our folks are in the internet world.

There are a number of logical reasons for that.  For one, less of them have regular jobs.  For another, more of them have hourly paid jobs where they go home and they are done – they don’t own businesses as much where you are “at work” all the time.

For another, many are younger and their parents pay the bills and instead of doing homework well, this is what they do.

Many of them have those little “smart phones” they call it.

You know – where you type with your thumbs (how smart!) instead of all 10 fingers, and you squint at a little screen about 3 inches by 4 inches (instead of my 25 plus inch monitor).  And so many do NOT use high speed cable for their internet access, nor speak in more than grunts and short messages (it is hard typing with your thumbs).

Perhaps the most innocent and innocuous reason they have an internet advantage over us is that we – the older people – paid for our kids computers, smart phones and internet access.  What library’s costs – where you can access the internet for free – was paid for by taxes from teens?

They grew up with this “free stuff” and many of our age have still not figured out why they should even CARE about this Facebook and social media thing.

But before you laugh about them too hard remember, you and I are also paying many of these youngsters to use their “smart phones” right now – some 20% of all hourly paid work hours are now used by employees to surf, send texts and emails etc. – or perhaps to post Occupy Wall Street anti-establishment rhetoric here at Red State and on Facebook.  Yes, while on company time.

And so even at conservative-Christian pages their anti-conservative, anti-GOP and Ron Paul arguments sometimes fill a page far more than those who are members of and founded that group.

And if you read the above you will understand better why so many of their “posts” are short, negative attacks which so often sound very similar – they are typing with their thumbs onto little tiny screens.  These are not, very often, very deep thinkers.

You can go to the York and Adams County parts of Pennsylvania (as I have) and easily find such Facebook pages but they are all over America.  They proclaim Tea Party, 912 or even Christian/conservative but for some of these pages, when you arrive “in their room” you find that it is full of news about the Libertarian Party, or why conservatives and/or Republicans are terrible and are all the same.

That negative, anti-conservative and/or anti-GOP stuff easily outnumbers the conservative messages at best and at worst it dominates, on so many “pages” which attracted your attention because you thought they were conservative and/or Christian oriented.

But I wish to go further and to my point:

Look at your own Facebook page and see: do you have those same people LISTED AS YOUR FRIENDS – the sort of people cheering for or using the same rhetoric as, the Occupy Wall Street/Libertarian Party/Ron Paul group out there in the street of Gettysburg this past Tuesday?

I wish you would understand: they hate us all.  It isn’t speculation. Anyone can read and see their words, even here at Red State, although very toned down.

They hate Santorum true – he is the flavor of the month they most hate currently, and he was even chastised by Bill O’Reilly recently.

The very wise O’Reilly chastised him for “falling into the trap” of allowing the media to get him to answer any social conservative questions and questions about his faith.

Any “smart politician knows” avers O’Reilly, “that the media can ask whatever they want but you do not have to answer them, you know what they are trying to get you to say.”

“Of course” says O’Reilly, “they’d never get away with that stuff with me, because this is the ‘no spin zone’ reports the very humble Irishman, a fellow humble but sometime errant Catholic.

His point is that Santorum brought his trouble on himself by stepping out into the public square and (in effect) admitting that he is a Catholic and that he would differ with Nancy Pelosi (as I prefer to put it) in NOT denouncing his own Church’s teachings.

Santorum also specifically differed with another famous Catholic, then Senator John F. Kennedy, who in 1960 said that we Catholics should silence ourselves on matters of faith when we step out into the public square (see my earlier RED STATE treatment of that, including direct quotes and analysis of what Santorum said versus what Kennedy in 1960 said).

But the point isn’t what Santorum said, or the “advice” that Catholic Bill O’Reilly offers, effectively, to follow the self-silenced Senator John F. Kennedy on the “separation of Church and state” and be silent on faith.

Nor is my main point that those protesters in Gettysburg – and the few in here too – hate that strawman they created – that Rick Santorum or the Catholics are “trying to tell us what to do.”

No.  They want us to be silenced on matters of faith, as O’Reilly and his ally, the late Senator and later President John F. Kennedy demanded.

My point is that even Mitt “etch-a-sketch” Romney’s “restart” and conversion from a “severe conservative” during the GOP primaries into a mainstream guy in the general election, even Newt Gingrich’s more skillful banter on this subject, change nothing in their eyes.

All these candidates AND YOU who support them, are the enemy.  They hate you.  They hate what you stand for.

When you offer any expression of your faith it intensifies their hate.  They want to tear you down, silence, you, humiliate you, embarrass you.

The mad barbarians in the Gettysburg street opposing Santorum weren’t there to say a single bad thing about President Obama.  They weren’t there to criticize the Democratic Senate.

Even the fool who carried a sign saying “Stop Medicaid Cuts” didn’t see the irony.

I was told that one of the conservatives on his way inside, had this fellow step in front of him brandishing his weapon, as if it would win the battle by his making such a stand.

My source reports he dryly asked, “so you oppose Obama’s recent cut in Medicaid.”  The poor fellow was totally confused.  I suppose they didn’t pay him to actually talk, just carry the sign.

At least with a Libertarian he would have talked…. or is that a disadvantage, if your purpose in being there was to go inside and listen to Santorum?

What then, is my advise to the group of us who, whether we like it or not, are in this together?

Not just advise for my fellow Rick Santorum supporters.

But to the Romney supporters, whose detractors may not have heard him say in the last 24 hours, that he will fight this President “who is crushing the dream, and the dreamers.”

Honestly, even if he did not do all that I would prefer on policy, if he wins the nomination and then does his “reset” with the etcha-sketch plan, he wins the election and then speaks like that good “We Believe in America” stuff for the next four years, wouldn’t that be a massive improvement over what we’ve had to listen to for the last three years?

The country would be far better off with speeches like that from Romney then what we have been listening to since “hope and change” arrived.

And I know those people standing out in the Gettysburg street, will be mad as heck, if they had to listen to a President Romney.  Oh you can be sure that same crew we saw in Gettysburg will be marching again if your guy wins.

To the Romney supporters, to my friends who support Newt Gingrich (whose books and movies I have read and watched and who I admire too), I suggest you keep your eye, on who our enemies are and on something very important they have to teach us.

They say, there’s no difference between us.  Romney, Santorum, Gingrich, conservatives, GOP.

While I see differences (as a Santorum supporter) and each of us may say the same thing – THEY don’t.  We are to them, ALL the enemy.

A specific example, even as I am writing this, is another attack-post from such a person at the ACTION OF PA Chester County Facebook webpage where I’d mentioned yesterday’s article about Gettysburg.

Actually the guy had a “wingman” (they often do).  The two anti-conservatives (or the same guy with two pen names) on duty there immediately went on the attack on my article of yesterday.

One wrote, “Romney is Santorum is Gingrich is Obama is Bush… All a sham man.. So tired & old.”

I do not know if by this he meant himself, his rhetoric or the candidates.

And immediately above brilliant riposte, another ally of Occupy Wall Street posted HIS attack on the SAME article I wrote.  Attacker number 2 attacked me by saying that (according to him) Rick Santorum says that Obama is the same as Romney.

Hilarious.

The two attackers essentially, shot each other – like a circulator firing squad – with their arguments.

They appear to not only NOT read what I wrote but not even what they each wrote attacking me.

And their attacks had NOTHING at all to do with my original REDSTATE article, but only PROVED my point: these guys (and them) hate us all the same.

(No.  Do not ask me why are they allowed to do this.   I have no idea. It is a Christian-Conservative group, so it says.  A rebuttal can be created and have its OWN Facebook page but, the attacks are right there on this groups page rather regularly).

Yes, it is laughable how these “not a dime’s worth of difference” guys attack you from BOTH directions and totally contradict each other in their attack.

But their “party line” or “bottom line” is always the same – the establishment, GOP, conservatives, Romney, Gingrich, Santorum, and you and me: all BAD, they complain.

“Overthrow it all, on with the Revolution, they are shout.

Exactly as the radical left of the 1960′s preached, and exactly as the Occupy Wall Street leftists and their libertarian/Ron Paul friends in the street at Gettysburg, say.

Anybody who would stand with those mad Barbarians in the Gettysburg street is not somebody I’d care to be associated with, not here, not on Facebook and most certainly not in real life.

The Occupy Wall Street leftists and those standing with them denouncing us all the time, there’s not a dime’s worth of difference” between YOU.  We conservatives are not “the establishment” but we will defend the American dream from your assault.

Thank you so much for reminding us who our real friends are.  Despite our differences, they are nothing compared to how we differ with you mad barbarians at the gate.

Some of us may have been so focused on the differences between Rick Santorum (who I favor), Newt Gingrich and Mitt “etcha-sketch” Romney during this GOP Presidential primary, that you may not have noticed there’s a crowd out there which doesn’t care, because they hate us all the same.

For them, the “line in the dirt” is very clear and they are taking dead aim to all of us they see on the other side of that line from them.

Yes, they hate us, you and me and all of us, regardless of which of these three candidates we support.

To these haters, there’s not a “dime’s worth of difference between Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich.

To the haters there’s only two sides in this battle – and most people who are RED STATE and Human Events readers and who support any of these three candidates for President, are on the wrong side of the line, are the enemy.

And they hate us.

Which side of this line do you stand on?

The street protestors who hate all conservatives and Republicans but especially Rick Santorum – their “flavor of the month” lately, or on the other side from them?

I do not know if your mother or father ever told you they did not want you to be friends with someone you wanted to be friends with.  I had such a situation at a very young age.

I listened to my parents but I was really upset about it what I thought was unreasonable interference with my private life (makes me sound either very young or else, like a liberal or libertarian?).

Well, that kid ended up being arrested a few years later and went to jail.

Whereupon, it dawned on me that “there but for the grace of God” while true, is incomplete until you add, “and the choice my parents forced on me at that youthful age, of who I should NOT associate with.”

Harken.  (“listen well” for you youngsters, per Merriam Webster).  Therein lies a lesson.

For most of us today it is your choice, not your parents, who you associate with.  Who would that be?  It tells the world a lot about you, who your choice is.

We oldsters, not as well versed as the “now” generation with their “smartass” phones and their 2-thumb typing, their “social” media and their Facebooking, know something you might not have yet figured out.

You are who you hang out with.

Oh you can argue about that – but few argue with Plato’s old “perception appears to be reality” idea (popularized into what he did NOT say – perception is NOT reality it just appears so).

Your choice of friends, gives the appearance of WHO you really are.

Or as some who “bastardized” the original Plato might put it today, “your friends SAY WHO YOU ARE.”

As we listen to complaints from our libertarian friends about the surveillance and “information mining” (as it was called by Admiral John Poindexter who under our hero Ronald Reagan, first proposed it), that the “guvamint” is “collecting” information on all of us – and they are – the people who complain the loudest should HARKEN the most.

You are who you hang out with.

In today’s facebook age you go to someone’s facebook page and you see some real crazy people sometimes, on their facebook page as their “friends.”

What do you conclude about that person, whose page you are looking at?

If you are like me, a little older and “choosier” about who you might want to be friends with, you draw a conclusion – and in some cases you say OK, and accept their friend request – or even initiate it.

But in other cases you run like heck the other way – perhaps you click IGNORE (that is Facebookese for “no I do not accept”).  Or you go further in your flight and you click BLOCK (which means, we have each turned “invisible” to each other using the “Facebook” search).

But how many of those young people who laugh at us oldsters, how many of those libertarians worried about the “guvamint’s surveillance” of publicly available information – such as our Facebook page – have ever considered this question: WHO are your friends, and what does that tell the world about YOU?

I recently had one of my friends “refer” or recommend someone, using the Facebook mechanism, to become MY friend – I had but to do one “click” to accept the invitation and invite that person.

After looking at that referral’s facebook page, I wrote this, which I wanted to share with you (blocking out the name of the friend of mine who kindly suggested this for me).

“(name of my friend), just wanted to thank you for your recent “referral” but I must decline in this instance.  Although I am more of a “mainstream/full spectrum” conservative, people who identify themselves as a capital L libertarian (ie. Libertarian Party) tend to call people like me “neocons” and they especially hate the Christian-right.  It is not a mutual feeling, ie. I do not know any people on the Christian-right who ‘hate’ anybody, much less hate Libertarians. 

“But for an example of what people like this GET ANGRY ABOUT (ie. who you recommended to me), read my column of today.  The people who were there to jeer and express hatred towards Rick Santorum (Tues. nite in in Gettysburg, PA), as I report from eyewitness accounts, were BOTH the Libertarian (capital L libertarians) and the Occupy Wall Street, and from the perspective of any fair minded observer they are the same thing, they mingled together comfortably, and they hate the same thing/same people/same candidate. 

That would be my friends standing in the line to hear Rick.  And it includes (especially) Rick.  And it would include people like me, who gave a ‘fair and balanced and truthful’ report on what ‘Libertarians’ were up to yesterday. 

“So long as somebody identifies themselves as your friend did who you recommended to me, not as an open minded, fair minded, affable lower case ‘L’ libertarian that Ronald Reagan spoke of over 25 years ago but instead as a partisan, anti-conservative, Santorum-hating, capital ‘L’ libertarian, I am not interested in being publicly identified, not on Facebook and not anywhere else, as a ‘friend’ with such a person, or even of being associated with such a person in any way.  See my RED STATE column of today for specific reference  … and thank you again for thinking of me in making the referral, I do appreciate it.  -PAT HENRY”

Now the liberal left is big on the theory of “free speech” and the first amendment, although they never do read the entire text – “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

Notice it does not say there, that your “freedom of speech” is absolute?

Notice the First Amendment ALSO refers to our right to assemble, petition, and to practice our religion?

Notice most of all, it does say that I must give you a platform on my Facebook page to express YOUR views which oppose mine, nor do I have to give you access to MY FRIEND LIST so you can go spew forth onto them, views with which I don’t agree?

Most of all, notice that it does not say, you have the right to “pose” as if you were my friend – using Facebook – while you post on MY WALL and speak to MY FRIENDS, views I don’t at all agree with and don’t wish to be associated with?

It is one thing to be “friends” with someone who is for Rick Santorum while you are for Mitt Romney or for Newt Gingrich.  You might disagree on a few things and friends can do that but still remain respectful and amiable towards one another.  Especially if they say that they are Christians.

But when the core of your belief is that there’s no difference at all between the two political parties, that you want to stand side by side with Occupy Wall Street protesters expressing hate towards Rick Santorum and with those who are standing in line to hear him and see him – as happened at Gettysburg, PA, then it is time to draw a line, and see which side of that line you want to stand on.

Yes I know.  I’m not Colonel Travis, and last night was Gettysburg and Santorum, not Alamo and Davey Crocket.

But the line is there, nonetheless.  On this side of that line stand I, and most of those who support Santorum, Newt Gingrich and yes I do believe, Mitt Romney as well (even though many are far more moderate than those of us who support Rick or Newt).

Most of us are not at all Olympia Snowe Republicans (though some are) and if we live in Pennsylvania most of us didn’t agree with Santorum and didn’t vote for Arlen Specter as he suggested..

On the other side of this line, are those who stood with Occupy Wall Street last night in Gettysburg.  Who think it is great sport to brandish about – on their Facebook pages in some cases – the symbol of leftwing Occupy Wall Street – the terrorist Guy Fawkes’ mustachioed cartoon drawing or even the most “popular” image in the world (see wiki’s entry) of that other terrorist thug, Che Guevara.

They love that quote, those on THAT side of the line, about the blood of patriots and tyrants refreshing the tree of liberty (as did I until I kept seeing it on their pages), they sport photos of guns and knives and happily of themselves bearing it, of “speaking truth to power,” and “throwing them out” and even “resist.”

Sounds like the Black Panthers from the 1960′s so far?

They hate all GOPers, most often hate all conservatives who they say are just apologists for the wicked Republicans.  They say they cannot see any difference between the GOP and the Democrats.  It is all “the establishment” to them, all needs to be torn down and lets start anew.

They are for “power to the people” and most often have no clue that is exactly what the 1960′s leftists used to chant, and it is what the Occupy Wall Street crowd says, and why they are so comfortable with them, and with their rhetoric.

They don’t like you is an understatement because so many of them HATE you and they say it loud and clear.  And some of you my friends, are THEIR friends on Facebook because, I suppose you would say, you have “an open mind”?

When it comes to trash and filth and those tearing down America I must tell you plainly, I do not have an open mind at all.  My mind is very made up.

When it comes to protecting my wife, my family, my country and my faith, my mind is very, very made up.

And you and I my friend, should be far more “choosy” about these matters and about the friends we have – especially on place like “Facebook” where your choices very much help define WHO you are and what you stand for.

I’m very happy with the company I keep, here at RED STATE online and in what some of us still call “the real world” – the people that would NEVER be seen associating with the people on THAT side of the street in Gettysburg, PA.

It has nothing to do with Rick Santorum, who was there in Gettysburg on Tuesday night, nor with Mitt Romney nor with Newt Gingrich.

The sooner the supporters of these three candidates understand the real “line in the dirt” is not between us, but between all of us and those people in the street at Gettysburg last night, the sooner we can get back on track to throwing out of office those people who are destroying our country and defeating in primaries those who won’t stand up to them but wish to run away from battle.

Most of us here agree with the purpose of RED STATE – to help the most conservative, articulate and experienced candidate available win primaries and then help them win elections.

We can only win in general elections by defeating in primaries the wishy-washy “etcha-sketch” Republicans who RED STATE’s Erick Erickson warned us about – one of whom won renomination anyway on Tuesday in Illinois’s 16th Congressional District (A Case Study in Why Republicans Do Not Fear Conservatives).

That is what happens when we don’t stand together.  That is what happens when we say “oh I’m just too busy” instead of doing what several hundred people did this past Tuesday night – turn off their TV set, get out of their comfortable house and drive off – some drove a few hours – to stand up on the other side of the line from the Occupy Wall Street leftists and their hater-allies in Gettysburg.

The winner when we don’t stand together, are those people in the street at Gettysburg two nights ago – the Occupy Wall Streets, the direct descendants of the hateful radical left of the 1960′s, those who line us all up in their gunsights and say, “we do not see any difference between them.”

Despite some differences in primaries – and I do remain a steadfast supporter of Rick Santorum – the real “line in the dirt” is between us, and those who would either help, or stand to the side, while Barack Obama and his army tramples us to win reelection in 2012 and continue their “transforming” work on our beloved country.

Defriend them on facebook.  Stand apart from them.  Take issue with them.  They are not your friends and they think all of us are the same thing, all of us are “neocons” and all of us conservatives, are the same thing as the liberals.

They cannot tell the difference between conservative Senator Marco Rubio and leftist Senator Chuck Schumer.  The two parties are the same thing they keep chanting.  It is right there on their Facebook pages, and some of these people are listed as YOUR friend.

They are either stupid and/or misinformed or they are purposely lying with the purpose of destroying us, discrediting us, defeating us.

Either way, stand apart from them.

It is time for us to have a clear field of fire, regardless of which candidate for President each of us on THIS side of that line support.

Take a good look, at who is throwing the rotten eggs and tomatoes, the epithets and angry words at us.

It is clearly there to see.  In the street of Gettysburg this past Tuesday night.

On the pages of Facebook, all over the internet, at hate sites like Daily Kos and at the Facebook pages of those who echo that hatred and that defamation of conservatives and in some cases use the material from the leftwing hate sites to attack conservatives.

Take a good look at those who hate us, and then make a decision.  And then I pray, you will do something about it.

As for me and my house, we serve the Lord, and we stand with Ronald Reagan in urging, “hold up that banner of no pale pastels but of bold and vibrant colors.”  The Colors of concerned Christians who will not lay aside our faith when we step into the public square.  The colors of conservatives, proud of our country’s heritage and determined to preserve all that is good.

We did terribly in Illinois watching conservative Don Manzullo go down to defeat in a primary at the hands of a GOP “regulars” candidate.

As Erick Erickson said, so often, conservatives “won’t pony up for their own. (therefore we are) Paper Tigers… desk ornaments, not cause for concern.”

Men of the West, to echo Tolkien’s King, make your stand now.

Oh.  And as for a choice of friends?

Were I there this past Tuesday night I’d have happily stood on the Santorum side of the line, and this weekend, I’ll be there with Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney’s emissary Gov. Nikki Haley at the PA Leadership Conference.  Stand with me there in Harrisburg, now and onward, and I’ll happily be friends with most anybody there.

Stand with me, with RED STATE activists, on this side of that line in the dirt.

HanoverHenry is Pat Henry on Facebook, and I’m on the lookout for new friends there.

Links to articles I wrote at RED STATE at my Facebook Notes section.

The crowd who showed up to “protest” Rick Santorum’s arrival last night to speak to an overflow crowd of supporters and assembled TV cameras and a national audience in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, looked like a solid phalanx of leftists transported from the 1960′s and slightly warmed over for this 2012 appearance, according to various on the scene eyewitness accounts.

But mixed in with the group of disgruntled, sloppy looking protesters with faces scrunched up with hatred and carrying a wide ranging batch of anti-America and anti-Santorum and other angry protest signs – including the memorable “no vaginal probe” signs – were the “Ron Paul for President” signs.

One could not tell one outside protestor group from the other outside protestor group – they all appeared to be there to “protest” Rick Santorum and get some free TV air time for their “protest” cause and they mingled together in their protesting party in the warm spring evening.

It would be impossible to video the crowd without getting them all together in the same image – Ron Paulies and anti-war, anti-Santorum protestors.  But that’s being redundant.

Gettysburg was of course, the turning point of the civil war, the high water mark for the southern cause.

The Santorum forces hoped Rick Santorum’s appearance – which caused a line several blocks long outside waiting to get into the standing room only overflow hallway outside the filled ballroom – and the victory of primary rival Mitt Romney in Illinois tonight – also mark the “high water mark” for him and the start of a string of victories for Santorum next.

Just like at one point on the Gettysburg battlefield after Pickets Charge, there is an actual location marked as the “high water mark” for the southern cause and the start thereafter, of a string of northern victories.

The neat dressed, polite and family oriented crowd that stood on line and assembled inside to hear Santorum was a marked contrast with the outside protesters, a mix of young and old who appeared to have been transported from a 1960′s anti-war leftwing rally of disgruntled and angry protesters.

A report came to me of an exchange with one hippie looking protestor who carried a sign that protested “Stop Medicaid Cuts for Elderly.”

When asked by a couple who were there as Santorum fans if he was protesting President Obama’s cuts in medicaid for seniors, we are told the protestor appeared very confused and disoriented, unsure how to respond.

“Poor fellow looks like he was totally unprepared to actually SPEAK to anybody, he was just told to hold the sign” our source reports.

Another report was of a little girl with her mother pulling her along with one hand as the other hand held up a sign pointed towards the line of Santorum supporters outside the hotel, which informed them that “Jesus was a Liberal.”

The little girl’s sign did not appear to make any converts among the Santorum supporters in the line.

I do not know what Rick Santorum’s “path to the nomination” is at this point, nor like most of those who attended the Gettysburg rally for Rick Santorum last night, and like his supporters watching his speech on TV (as I did), do I especially care.

I do know that the biggest contrast of the night wasn’t listening to Rick Santorum and later on TV Mitt Romney’s speeches that night .  It wasn’t that while Romney does speak favorably on many of our issues while Santorum continues to be far more capable of articulating conservative values and of recruiting, motivating and energizing conservatives and values voters.

No, the biggest and best contrast that show us what is at stake in the 2012 election year was to look at the contrast in the appearance of the two crowds.

One crowd well dressed, neat, polite, conservative, well informed and able to articulate their usually Christian and always pro-family, conservative, “values” oriented views.

And the other crowd that looked like anti-war leftists from the 1960′s, with the prominent “no vaginal probes” sign to protest the introduction of HB 1077, the “Women’s Right to Know” bill that requires a examination to determine that there is in fact a pregnancy involved BEFORE Planned Parenthood can do the abortion they want and collect their fees.

In only a very small number of those cases, if the external ultrasound “picture” does not provide the information needed, then the more invasive procedure would be done to confirm whether or not there is a fetus present and its age, or is there some other problem which may require some OTHER procedure other than the abortion the Planned Parenthood is anxious to administer.

Planned Parenthood has already admitted that they ALREADY have done the ultra sounds.  They just don’t want to be required to do them and certainly don’t want to be required to show the mother.

The crowd outside appears to stand with the “vagina probe” sign carrier – and with Planned Parenthood’s  side of the argument.  “Don’t make us find out” to paraphrase them, and “don’t ask don’t tell the mother” to put it yet another way.

The conservative group of Rick Santorum supporters and politicians gathered inside to hear Rick Santorum, seemed to be on the other side.

Sources from this Santorum Gettysburg Rally say their seeing State Representative Scott Perry, who is one of seven candidates claiming to be “the true conservative” seeking the open Congressional seat in the area being vacated by 6-term Congressman Todd Platts, left them favorably impressed with him.

They do not know if he is supporting Rick Santorum.  They do know that his respect for the candidate to come and meet and hear Santorum, left them very pleased.

I do anticipate reporting later this week on the battle to pass House Bill 1077, the “Women’s Right to Know” bill which would require Planned Parenthood to inform and show the mother an ultra sound to confirm that there is a pregnancy and the age of the baby before proceeding.

I wrote this past Friday of reports that State Rep. Scott Perry had withdrawn from that battlefield and as a co-sponsor of HB 1077.  I have been awaiting his reaction to that story carried in RED STATE online.

State Rep. Rick Perry told an Action of PA member at the Santorum Gettysburg Rally that he was most interested in protecting the rights of both the pregnant mother and the baby and would be delighted to meet with a delegation from that group to discuss how this could best be done, and how they could help him in that battle.  More later, stay tuned.

We congratulate Mitt Romney for his victory in Illinois tonight but warn him and his supporters.

This Illinois defeat did nothing to quench the enthusiasm for Rick Santorum in this conservative grassroots crowd and across America.  And so Mitt Romney has two big challenges ahead of him.

First, can he overcome and defeat Santorum in future contests by enough of a margin to gain a majority of convention delegates?

And second, can he do this in a way that doesn’t turn this crowd off, and leave him alone to face the protest crowd outside who hate everything that both Santorum and Romney speak for, and whose work will otherwise guarantee the reelection of Barack Obama in 2012 along with a U.S. Senate and House that will support his liberal-left agenda?

The Mitt Romney big dollar donors who benefited from government “save Wall Street” dollars in the past, won’t man the barricades of the campaign fight between these two different crowds.  They won’t donate enough to close the gap between a GOP nominee and Barack’s Billion.

So far, we’ve not seen anything from Mitt Romney that will generate intense enthusiasm from these conservatives, which McCain failed to enlist and which caused his defeat in 2008.

The turnout in this part of Pennsylvania, a “red state” segment of the population, was actually 8 percent less than in the past, helping Obama carry the state in 2008.

And unless we do see that enthusiasm for Romney then in future primaries coming right up, including Pennsylvania on April 24, then it might turn out to be more than a just a spring-night’s dream, that the crowd at Gettysburg will have seen a second “high water mark” in this little but now historic Pennsylvania town last night.

HanoverHenry is Pat Henry on Facebook, and I’m on the lookout for new friends there.

Links to articles I wrote at RED STATE at my Facebook Notes section. 

While others will tell you the “news” is that Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich, Gov. Nikki Haley, Herman Caine, Senator Pat Toomey, Fox TV’s Brit Hume and other nationally recognized speakers very popular with conservatives are all speaking at this weekend’s Friday-Saturday (March 23-24), 2012 annual Pennsylvania Leadership Conference, in my book that is only the third best reason to attend.

First and foremost, is this PALC is the most important networking opportunity for movement conservatives short of going to Washington, DC.  Harrisburg, PA is a lot closer for most of us who live in Pennsylvania and certainly less expensive.

One of the prime opportunities for conservatives to network together over the past 40 years has been the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC).

What I liked best about CPAC has been the opportunity to meet like minded, mainstream conservatives from all around the country and share ideas and war-stories, build fellowship, and in so many cases find new friends that I worked with for many years to come on projects of common interest.

The second major benefit of a conference like CPAC was that the exhibit booths area were without a doubt, a major attraction for mainstream conservatives and for those who wanted to specialize in a particular topic.

So whether your interest is right to life or values issues, or the gun rights issue, or youth issues or social issues or national defense, there were competing groups all over the place offering their literature and materials, books, and in many cases the opportunity to chat with major leaders of that group and in many cases, major leaders of our cause.

The only drawback for that CPAC – and it is still true about it today – is that it cost a lot of money and took a major commitment of time to make it all the way to Washington DC to reap those very worthwhile benefits.

And not everyone I knew who was committed to the conservative cause, could always make that sacrifice or afford to pay that cost in time or money to attend.

This coming weekend, the show comes to town, and people who live in Pennsylvania have a chance to go to a much less expensive version of CPAC right in the state capitol, the Pennsylvania Leadership Conference.

While it has no connection to CPAC – which itself has been hosting spinoff, local events similar to this Pennsylvania version – the PA version of this confab for conservatives, is a true delight for the same people who have traveled to CPAC in Washington in years past or those who wish they could have.

In fact, many of the people – the most dedicated and committed ones that is – who you will see strolling around the exhibit areas and visiting those literature/sponsor booths, have also attended CPAC in the past and are long term, committed, mainstream conservatives.

I strongly urge my conservative friends in Pennsylvania to attend all or part of this conference, with full registration available online.

And if you simply cannot swing the cost for a full registration, just visiting the exhibit area (zero cost) is worth the trip all by itself.

The cost of the hotel is much less than the cost at a CPAC in Washington so even staying overnight if that is necessary for you, will be much less of an expense for a great networking opportunity like this.

As an incidental, there will also be speakers representing the candidates for President – and in two instances – Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich – the candidate himself has confirmed to speak to the conference, while Gov. Niki Haley will be the rep for Gov. Mitt Romney.

While I like to emphasize the “mainstream” conservative aspect of an event like this, there are a host of “special interest” or narrow focus groups that will have literature booths and speaking roles at the Pennsylvania Leadership Conference so whatever your interest in the conservative cause, you will likely find one or more groups there playing a major role, and ready to provide you information and a source of new friends who share your interest.

And if you are “open minded” about which issues you want to focus on you cannot find a better way to “shop around” than to visit this “cafeteria” of the conservative cause, where you can go down the line visiting all of the booths, chatting with people and groups representing gun interests, tax cut, right to life, and the groups that do not focus on an issue but on the “how to” aspects of organizing for our conservative cause, whatever aspect – media relations, social networking, fundraising, membership recruiting etc.  And like a cafeteria line, you put on your tray what you like and no one is going to mind what you don’t choose – it is up to you and there’s a lot of variety here.

Having attended several of these events I have to say that the top two reasons to attend are the same as for the CPAC’s I’ve attended – the networking and meeting of new friends and getting the chance to see old friends from out of town who I haven’t met up with in awhile, plus the literature booths.

But the lineup of speakers for this conference may very well be the most impressive yet.  The candidates for President are well represented, as I mentioned.

In addition, one of the people who is perhaps the “Networking King” for conservatives in Washington, Grover Norquist, will be one of the speakers.

Norquist represents Americans for Tax Reform but perhaps of more importance to full spectrum conservatives as well as those committed to one aspect of our cause, is that he also operates a “conservative networking meeting” (the Wed. club I believe it is called) in Washington, DC.  He was also the subject of a cover article recently in Newsmax Magazine because he has been such a fixture of the conservative cause.

Any group which aims to reach out to other groups and movement conservative staff from Senate and Congress, would do well to secure a few minute presentation slot at this regular meeting presided over by Norquist at his group’s Washington, DC office.  Not enough time to fully explain your issue but plenty of time to make an impression so that those interested can look you up after the meeting.

Other speakers include Fox News Senior Political Analyst Britt Hume, Former presidential candidate Herman Cain, PA’s conservative U.S. Senator Pat Toomey, Lt. Governor James Cawley, film producer Ann McElhinney, Human Events political editor John Gizzi at the two day conference.

There will be four interactive panel presentations as the “policy” part of the conference.  The conference offers the option of an extension of time – a real bargain – because several participants have pre-conference events.  One such is a “Bill of Rights” seminar.

And on Friday morning, March 23, there is an “activist training workshop” conducted by the Americans for Prosperity Foundation and the Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity.  The Center also helps extend the conference further with a post-conference seminar on how to use video in messaging.

One of the many “literature booths” in the exhibit hall will be operated by a group I’ve reported about in these pages several times in the past, ACTION of PA (Americans for Christian Traditions in our Nation).

For those who recognize the urgency of voter registration, the Heritage Foundation and the Family Research Council are sending a “Values Bus” to promote voter registration.  Heritage Action operates a PA affiliate which focuses on issues of interest to us here and on our Congressional delegation.

To vote in the GOP primary on April 24 in Pennsylvania you have to be registered to vote by March 24 (30 days in advance).  So this is a very timely topic and one that should be of interest to all conservatives.

If you want to be sure to miss nothing you’ll need to make plans to arrive before 9 AM’s workshop kick off on Friday, March 23, and stay through the dinner which starts that day at 6:30 PM.

Get ready for a very early start on Saturday, March 24 at 7 AM and continuing through a 3 pm seminar by a young fellow who first came to our attention because of his work “busting” the ACORN scam and working with Andrew Breitbart – James O’Keefe will be speaking on Video activism and sharing how any of us can “capture the real story the mainstream media won’t cover by using the power of live video evidence the media can’t spin.”

For those still trying to figure out who they like best as a candidate for U.S. Senator in the April 24 GOP primary, the candidates will have a debate during the conference – and of course given the nature of this conference you can be sure they are coming well prepared to tell us why “they are the true and best conservative” of the candidates running.

Student registrations are available for only $40, and the dinner only (and don’t forget the invaluable exhibit area!!) is $50 while the best deal is the full registration including the dinner and breakfast, for $85 ($160 for a couple).  And there’s an option to get up more close with the dinner speakers for an extra $100.

You’ll find more details than I’ve covered here, including the agenda by topic, time and speakers, and a registration form, at the PA Leadership Conference website.

If you are a mainstream conservative or wish to seek out from among their ranks people to work with your particular group or campaign from the ranks of the best conservatives in Pennsylvania, this, PA Leadership Conference isn’t something you want to miss.  I highly recommend this conference.  Lowman Henry and those helping him organize this event have once again done a superb job, and I thank them.

HanoverHenry is Pat Henry on Facebook, and I’m on the lookout for new friends there.

Links to articles I wrote at RED STATE at my Facebook Notes section. 

Once again as I review the newly passed voter ID law sponsored by State Representative Daryl Metcalfe in Pennsylvania which requires you to show a photo ID as a condition of being allowed to vote, I am reminded how good laws are, and should be, based upon right and wrong, and the liberal-left ignores this fundamental truth at its peril.

Pennsylvania became the 16th state to enact such a law, although the Justice Department of President Obama has moved to disqualify Texas’s law recently and the Wisconsin passed law is tied up in the courts.

Aiming at the 2012 election and hoping that enough new American (legal immigrant) voters, Hispanics and black voters will be ignorant enough to believe them, the legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Pennsylvania branch argues that he thinks this is “an attempt at voter suppression.”

Conjuring up images of the Klu Klux Klan rampaging in Pennsylvania and the other states in America that require you to show a photo ID – available on request free if someone does not have the means to pay for a low cost identification such as a drivers license or an alternative available at the same office you get your drivers license, the hope is that there will be an army of black, Hispanic and other immigrant voters marching to the polls to throw out the evil racist Republicans.

In defense of the measure that he sponsored and which has now been signed into law by the Republican Governor, my “Facebook friend” State Representative Daryl Metcalfe, a champion of many different conservative causes over the years, said on his facebook “fan” page:

“I believe every single individual has a right to have their vote counted and if any individual vote is being canceled out by a fraudulently cast vote, that is one too many.”

Many forget that passage of this measure is no small accomplishment because Rep. Metcalfe had to overcome an alliance of determined liberal left politicians in both chambers of the legislature, allied to liberal leaning Republican legislators plus the weak kneed Republicans who call themselves conservative but “run for the tall grass” at the first sound of battle from the left.

This is a tremendous accomplishment for Rep. Daryl Metcalf – who appeared on Greta Susteren‘s Fox TV “On the Record show being interviewed last night – and for conservatives in Pennsylvania and around America owe a tremendous THANK YOU to him for passing such a bill in a blue state like this – you can send him an email at dmetcalf@pahousegop.com and you can also “like” his facebook page, “PA State Representative Daryl Metcalfe.”

The ACLU and their leftwing allies have assembled their armies to make this a major issue in this year 2012.

In states like Pennsylvania, which went RED the last time around and elected a Republican Governor, and a majority in the State House of Representatives and State Senate, the liberal-left aims to reverse this and restore Democrats to power in both chambers of the legislature and setup to retake the Governor’s mansion two years later.

Their first counter-attack against conservative legislators like Rep. Metcalfe, is to use the courts to reverse what elected officials have enacted as law with popular support.

Before you dismiss their chances of success, consider this.

In Wisconsin a judge has supported the ACLU’s request in court to throw out the simple requirement enacted by the representatives elected by the people that a reasonable requirement to vote is to prove you are who you say you are.  And the Eric Holder/Barack Obama Justice Department’s “ruling” to throw out a similar law in Texas is now being challenged in court there.

In many states you do not even have to prove that you are an American citizen eligible to vote, to receive a photo ID which in turn would then enable you to register to vote and to vote.

But even that requirement is called “onerous” and “burdensome” for blacks, Hispanics and other Americans who, the liberals argue, are being blocked from voting because of this simple requirement that they prove they are who they say they are at the polling place.

Putting such a requirement to prove you are who you say you are, into the same category of hateful, bigoted, masked and robed Klu Klux Klansmen out marauding, pillaging and lynching uppity blacks for trying to speak out, to register other blacks and to vote, is absurd, ridiculous, and is a clear and present danger to free elections in the United States.

Not to mention, this tactic by the liberal left is a repugnant, despicable and misleading fright to legal black, Hispanic and recent immigrant voters in America, who should be reassured that of course this does not interfere with their ability to vote in elections.

The clear aim of liberal-left strategists is to terrify a voter segment they think is totally stupid and gullible.

Those in the know in Washington, DC and who have been politically active as conservatives for more than 10 years are already aware that Congressman Robert K. Dornan was defeated in 1996 by a very slim margin provided to his liberal-left backed Democrat opponent via illegal aliens voting in his Congressional district.

Because the Congressman was very popular with conservatives but detested by moderate Republicans, his appeal of the rigged election results resulted in a one-sided denial by the House of Representatives – his court of appeals- where some moderate Republicans joined a phalanx of Democrats in denying him the right of an incumbent with the evidence he carried to the table, to have a formal investigation launched to review the evidence he presented.

Radical leftist activist and “author” of smear/hit-books aimed at conservatives, Al Franken is widely reported to have “earned” his U.S. Senate seat the same old fashioned way – cheating when the Republican running for that seat started out with a very clear lead after the polls closed but they kept “finding” more stacks of votes and the results were “switched” to declare radical Franken a new U.S. Senator.

Plenty of people are still upset that in Iowa, Rick Santorum did NOT lose to Mitt Romney as originally reported but actually WON that election.  It did him no good finding out three weeks later because two more primaries had gone by during that time – the precious time needed to “boost” your fundraising from that “victory lift” was gone, stolen, poof.

Whether that was a simple mistake or an example of the Republican “regulars” stealing an election we may never know.  But we do know that the sanctity and security of American elections was once again thrown into question – to those who voted, to those who sacrificed so much so that America could continue as a self-governing society as founded in 1776, and to those around the world who look to us an example.

In Florida the 2000 election virtual tie that was then tied up in courts until the Supreme Court finally decided on a 5-4 vote to uphold the state’s election results awarding the electoral college votes and therefore the U.S. Presidency to George Bush, the popular mythology to this day is that somehow the Republicans “stole” the election and the Republican majority on the Supreme Court upheld that robbery.

The truth is it was ballots designed by Democratic Party officials in Democratic Party controlled counties which they were criticizing.

And it was THEIR third party problem that year – Ralph Nader – who siphoned off enough votes from Al Gore to enable George Bush to win in a squeaker.

But the most important – and almost totally unreported – factor in the Florida election result is that military voter’s absentee ballots were trashed (as they so often are), if they even made it from around the world and to the states and to Florida where an out-of-country stationed American soldier, sailor, airman or marine was stationed.

Those who gave up the most for us to have the right to continue as a self-governing Republic were in fact, the most disenfranchised voters of the past quarter century.

But in Florida their being disenfranchised almost enabled the Democrats to win that state in 2000 and to elect radical left, phony environmentalist Al Gore to the Presidency.

In Pennsylvania, Rep. Metcalfe spoke very clearly about the previously reported fraudulent voting in cities which is a matter of record in his previously cited interview with Fox TV’s Greta Van Susteren last night.

Metcalfe said in that interview, “As a veteran, I want to ensure every citizen that wants to vote is able to vote and that their vote is not canceled out by the forces of corruption, as we’ve seen taking place throughout the history of Pennsylvania, with overturned elections, prosecutions — prosecution of a Pennsylvania congressman back in 1998 in the Philadelphia area” (entire transcript).

Now we come back to the 7th Commandment, “Thou Shalt not Steal.”

And we come back to the belief by Christian conservative activists that all good law is law based on the very basics of right and wrong, exactly as the founders intended when they first announced the Declaration of Independence in 1776, and then later when they created the Constitution with the Bill of Rights.

Democrats aim to steal the 2012 election by having people vote who have no right to vote.

Democrats aim to win the 2012 election by scaring the heck out of blacks, Hispanics and recent immigrants who DO have the right to vote, falsely claiming that their franchise to vote is about to be stolen from them by Republicans.

This “invented” issue very simply is: unless they return Barack Obama and the Democrats to power in Washington and the states, then the evil Republicans aka Klu Klux Klan, will forever disenfranchise them and rob them and their children of their precious right to vote.

In states like Virginia where a U.S. Congressional seat last time was decided by less than 1 percent in favor of a liberal Democrat, having enough illegal alien voters participate and having them believe they have to stop the Republicans who are trying to steal their rights, would be more than sufficient to decide that and many other contests.

In the last election the $700 million raised by Barack Obama included many clearly illegal donations – as has been documented in a cover story several years ago by Newsmax magazine.

There were so many variations on “Mickey Mouse” and “Santa Clause” making $25, $50 and $100 donations as to defy belief.

There was even a photo distributed by the Associated Press and carried in many newspapers across America, showing someone described by the pro-Arab, anti-America photographer/reporter as a “Palestinian refugee” who appeared to be 20 or 25 years of age at most, making phone calls the article said, to Americans urging them to vote for Barack Obama.

There was nothing in this widely reprinted photo with caption to confirm if this person in the photo was an American citizen or if he had legal permanent American resident status which alone allows him to donate and participate in an American election.  To the contrary, he was identified by name and only as a “Palestinian refuge” who supported the election of Barack Obama for President.

For those who do not know the history two facts are critical to understand the significance of this photograph and the caption:

First, the term “refugee” is from a U.N. resolution in 1948 recognizing displaced people in the middle east as “refugees” after they fled Israel at the end of the first Arab-Israeli war.

Not to wade into middle East politics but, the question is, how can a 25 year old making phone calls be a “refugee” from a war that ended 52 years earlier?

And most critically, why is a foreigner making illegal calls to Americans to tell them how to vote, and this is being blithely reported without question by all of the newspapers across America who use material provided to them by Associated Press, including the work of this so-called “photographer-reporter” who is actually an activist supporting all the usual anti-America, anti-Israel causes in the middle east and paid by AP?

Another important detail is that the actual place where the phone call came from was noted for its people – the “Arab Street” as they are called – going out in wild celebrations outdoors on two specific occasions we might want to remember: first when the “Blackhawk Down” incident happened and 19 American Army Rangers were killed by Taliban-trained militia trying to steal the aid we were donating.

And second, the “Arab Street” of Palestinian “refugees” where this fellow was calling from to urge votes for Barack Obama, was wild with joy and celebration on September 11, 2001 when they heard of the suicide bomber attack that killed 3000 Americans.

So as the liberal-left gears up for what may very well promise to be the biggest election robbery in American history this year – with both fundraising, campaigning and actual vote counting threatened to be the most blatantly illegal of all time, we have a new battleground in Pennsylvania emerging.

The Republican Governor, Tom Corbett, said he signed this measure into law “to prevent voter fraud.”

The ACLU’s man on the scene, Vic Walczak, legal director of the Pennsylvania ACLU, said in what passes for eloquence on the left, “that’s a crock.”

Regardless of whether the courts follow Walczak and the ACLU or not, the left is aiming to galvanize enough angry immigrant and black voters with the charges that their votes are “being suppressed” so as to win Pennsylvania and other battleground states which have large cities and large populations of this fertile recruiting territory for them.

Remember, the last election put Pennsylvania into the Obama column for two reasons: in the “red state” parts of the state such as my own Hanover area and south central PA 19th Congressional district where Republicans always win, there was about an 8 percent drop off in voter turnout.

While in the “blue” state part of Pennsylvania – mainly Philadelphia and Pittsburgh – there was an enormous JUMP in the usual vote turnout as the ACORN and liberal-left “get out the vote” (GOTV) apparatus did its work to turn out votes, any votes.

Now this is another of the “issues” they aim to use to boost voter turnout in the same “blue state” parts of Pennsylvania and indeed, across America in the precincts normally voting for Democrats.

The two things that will decide whether they get their way is this:

First, will their ploy with blacks and recent legal immigrants and Hispanics, work?

Will this “issue” they have created produce more voter turnout?

Their entire assumption is that those they are targeting, are completely stupid.

Their entire assumption is that the blacks, Hispanics and recent immigrants will only have the information THEY provide – that Republicans hate them and are trying to suppress their votes.

It is a totally concocted issue and will only work if in fact, the central premise the radical left holds up: their target audience is both stupid, and willing to steal.

“Thou shalt not steal,” can be a stumbling block to the left in its goal of galvanizing this particular target audience.  An enormous number of them are in fact, Christians.  That means they have more than passing familiarity with this idea, THOU SHALT NOT STEAL.

The liberal Democrats are basically saying: we want people who have no right to vote, who are not American citizens, to be able to vote in American elections.

The liberal left and the Democrats are saying THOU SHALT NOT STEAL except for blacks, Hispanics, recent immigrants and most of all, for illegal aliens not registered to vote.

Is it possible they miscalculated and a large number of these people know right from wrong, and know that this “gift’ being offered to them, actually trashes their sacred right to vote which they earned if they are immigrants and which is a sacred birthright if they were born American?

Is it possible a large number of blacks, Hispanics and new Americans will say: but you want to let people citizens, vote the same as me … me who am an American… you are stealing, you are cancelling out my vote… could this happen?

I pray that our side does in fact convey this argument in the year ahead at every opportunity we can.  I pray  that we do in fact, convey our respect for the right to vote for all legal Americans and that we will fight vigorously to defend this right – and not let the liberal-left destroy our lawful votes being cast by American citizens.

We do have powerful and eloquent champions who argue our side in this battle against the liberal left and if you did not know it let me tell you plainly: the liberal left despises them beyond anything you can really understand.

You will never fully understand what I am talking about unless you go ahead and speak to one of these fearless champions of our cause to the “new Americans” immigrant community, Hispanics, blacks.  It is important that we support and encourage such emissaries wherever we find them.

Several examples come immediately to mind of such champions.  If there are others who you think of I will appreciate your adding a comment at the end of this article about who they are and how you think they can be reached to be thanked.

Tito Munoz in Virginia has a regular radio show and gained fame (or “notoriety” to the radical left which hates him) as “Tito the Builder” in campaigning for GOP candidate John McCain for President and many Republicans before and since.

A popular fixture at many TEA Party rallies including some in DC I have attended, I know that the battering Tito receives from the left and his critics takes a terrible toll on him and his truly wonderful and supportive wife, very articulate a champion of our cause in her own right.

You can support TITOpac or you can simply send him a THANK YOU message at his PAC webpage.

Another articulate champion for our conservative cause who speaks with tremendous credibility to the “new Americans” community is Ana Puig, the Freedomworks Pennsylvania State Coordinator, whose country of origin is Brazil (she is actually of Brazilian-Portuguese background).

I have heard Ana speak about American freedom and know she is a terrific, fearless and articulate advocate for our cause.  She is also my “facebook friend.”  You can send Anna a thank you note encouraging her to redouble her efforts this election year at apuig@freedomworks.org.

And a third champion for our cause to one of these liberal-left targeted communities is the organization which I have written of before, Americans for Christian Traditions in our Nation, which has a number of black pastors attempting to communicate with their own congregation about the importance of looking beyond color of skin or past proclivity to vote for one political party but to look at the issues and the values of the candidates.

Three examples of champions of this ACTION of PA cause are the York County Chairman, Pastor Ken Gibson, and black Pastor Thaddeus Godwin, who both spoke at a recent gathering of pastors – many of whom are black – sponsored by Action of PA’s York County, PA chapter.

Pastor Gibson is responsible for bringing the terrific pro-family, pro-fatherhood, Christian movie Courageous to York County by organizing 1000 Christians to attend the first weekend showing at a movie theater and he showed the movie again at his congregation last week.

Pastor Thaddeus Godwin has spoken out on radio interviews about the genocide of black babies in inner cities by the crime of abortion administered by Planned Parenthood.  A registered Democrat, Pastor Godwin is a member of the Board of Directors of ACTION of PA’s York County Chapter, in itself a “profile in courage” given his situation.

Both Pastors Gibson and Godwin are educating their congregations, registering them to vote, and persuading them why they should vote for ideals and issues not just for political parties.

And, also speaking at that recent lunch gathering of Christian Pastors hosted by ACTION of PA of York County was Father Samuel E. Houser of St. Patrick’s Catholic Church.

Introduced by one of his parishioners at the lunch as “a genuine profile in courage” for doing the same thing as Pastors Godwin and Gibson in the inner city of York, PA – urging his parishioners to register to vote, to ask questions of the candidates, to consider issues of concern to us as Catholics and to look past political parties and to how the candidates answer those questions before deciding how you will vote (you can send him a thank you note at SamuelHouser@yahoo.com).

Thou shalt not steal

“Thou shalt not steal” means very simply, we want everyone to remember there is a gang of thieves at work trying to steal this 2012 election.  The thieves are every leftist, every liberal, and every Democrat, who thinks having a photo-ID as a condition of voting, should be outlawed by the courts.

I do not know if they will succeed in their goal of using stark terror to increase the turnout of these targeted voter constituencies who sometimes vote as high as 90 and 95% for the liberal-Democrat candidate, but the critical work of good people like Tito Munoz in Virginia and Ana Puig in Pennsylvania, of Pastors like Thaddeus Godwin, Samuel Houser, Ken Gibson and so many others like them in Pennsylvania and across America could in part, help foil them this year.

The second thing the left is counting on in their gambit to make an “issue” of this “right to steal” for illegal voters, is that THEY will galvanize more voters than our side will.

Will conservatives who are not happy that their choice for President, actually fall asleep again as so many did in the McCain 2008 election?

Will many heed the siren call of those who chant “not a dime’s worth of difference” between the two parties, the old rally cry of such disparate forces in American politics as George Wallace in1968, Ross Perot (who was sufficiently successful in pulling enough votes away from GOP Bush that he enabled Bill Clinton to win with a plurality of 43% of the popular vote) and the last dozen years of Libertarian Party candidates?

So the next time somebody tells you that they cannot see any difference between the two parties, Republican and Democrat, ask them which party in Wisconsin and in Texas and now in Pennsylvania, is the party that defended the sanctity of the election process, defended our votes, and put in place a measure to STOP the Democrats from stealing more elections?

And which party is the one that supports overturning this law in Wisconsin, Texas, in Pennsylvania and every other state that has enacted such a provision to prevent stealing votes?

Which party applauds the recent complaint by Mexico to the United Nations, to investigate how America is “disenfranchising” Hispanic voters (who also vote in Mexican elections if they are dual citizens)?

Remember, the Mexican government of course, requires her citizens to show a photo ID to vote.  The same Mexican government which is asking the United Nations to “investigate” America for disenfranchising Hispanic Americans.

Regardless of whether you prefer Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, or (my favorite) Rick Santorum to win the GOP nomination to run against Barack Obama, there is without a doubt, a lot at stake in this year ahead in thwarting the liberal-left’s attempt to turn Thou Shalt not Steal upside down, establish by court and federal Justice Department edict “the right to steal” and brand Republicans as the modern day resurrection of the Klu Klux Klan.

The despicable and hateful work of the liberal-left to terrorize blacks, Hispanics and new American immigrants should be thwarted by conservatives who are thankful that we have champions like Republican Daryl Metcalfe leading the charge.  And we should follow where they lead and put more like him into legislatures here in Pennsylvania and across America.

HanoverHenry is Pat Henry on Facebook, and I’m on the lookout for new friends there.

Links to articles I wrote at RED STATE at my Facebook Notes section. 

Contrary to leftwing chants echoed in some chambers of the conservative cause, Rick Santorum is not running as the soulmate of Jerry Falwell and the religious right but as a full spectrum conservative.

But they keep focusing on any instance in which he does exactly what Ronald Reagan always used to do – give thanks to God and refer to “the Centrality of Faith” to him as he champions conservative values.

This refusal to back down on this “faith” topic puts Santorum in marked contrast to another Catholic who ran for President over 50 years ago, Senator John F. Kennedy, who as I wrote in a previous REDSTATE column, said in a now “famous” speech (I think of it as notorious along with Santorum) that those who step out into the public square must be silent on this most critical subject of what animates, motivates and guides them in life and as a person seeking office in the United States.

That “separation of church and state” pretext has been hurled at conservative Christians ever since, designed to silence or discredit us.

As so often happens with the radical left they simply establish a strawman – a fictional accouint of Rick Santorum’s beliefs – and then attack that strawman.

As John F. Kennedy did in 1960, these critics claim say they oppose having our priests, ministers and rabbis TELL us who to vote for, which political party to support, which legislation to support and which we must oppose.  As if any of us ever advocated such a thing.

And you can count on them trotting out these 50 year old “strawman arguments” every time someone who is a conservative makes any reference to his faith.

And you can count on them ignoring it every time one of their friends on the left does the same thing – such as supporters of Barack Obama openly recruiting “congregation captains” to help reelect their candidate, at each Church in America.

To put things in perspective we ought to focus on what Rick Santorum actually said.  As opposed to what his critics CLAIM he said.

Therefore today, irritated as I am by reviewing the strawman arguments this week after another Santorum string of victories in Alabama and Mississippi, I thought I would bring you two segments of his victory speeches.

Both of Santorum’s speeches outrage the left because he specifically refers to his faith in God in both of them and relates that to the issues we face in seeking the defeat of Barack Obama.

And both of these Santorum victory speeches energize and fire up his supporters while reaching out to new friends

And that is the reason that Rick Santorum is the biggest threat to the left.  When people actually hear him instead of the version brought to them by the likes of Rachell Maddow, MSNBC, Media Matters, Daily Kos, Huffington Post and all the other extremist hate websites, groups and personalities, together with those who echo their words while posing as a part of our conservative cause or those who are simply gullible, there is a huge difference in their perception.

Rick Santorum sounds very reasonable when you actually listen to him instead of the distorted echo of his words reported by the left and the conservative-Christian haters.

One of the two Santorum victory speeches is from 48 hours ago when he won in these most recent two states.  The other is from his string of victories on Super Tuesday.

Santorum speaks of Obamacare and what motivates him to run for President.  But he speaks clearly as to one major difference between us and Obama – that we along with the founders know that our rights under threat today, come from God, not from the State.

And in his second victory speech he very specifically refers to “the centrality of faith” at the conclusion.

If you do believe in God, if you do believe He created us, and if you do believe that in the end He will judge us, then why is it that the left makes Santorum out to be such an extremist for simply saying that such a belief – shared with most Americans – is “central” in his life?

Read first, what Santorum said after his Super Tuesday victory where he won in Tennessee, Oklahoma and North Dakota and tied in Ohio, despite being massively outspent and facing a multi-million dollar blitz of anti-Santorum advertising from the Gingrich and Romney campaigns.

Santorum Victory Speech, March 6, 2012 (partial text)

We have a group of people in Washington and in other places around this country who believe that the elites in Washington are the ones who should be making the decisions for all of us, and they have systematically gone and grown the size and scale of government to beyond where it’s — well, it’s just unrecognizable. We are running deficits, where we’re borrowing 40 cents of every dollar.

And as you look at all of the young people here, the leaders in Washington are saying to you, on your tab, and you will pay for this, the rest of your life.

What right does the government have to do that to the next generation?

We have people who believe that America’s best days are behind us. They believe that it’s no longer possible for free enterprise, a free economy, and free people to be able to build strong communities and families and be able to provide for themselves and their neighbors. No, we now need an increasingly powerful federal government to do this for us.

The reason that Karen and I ultimately decided to get into this race was because of that issue, and in particular one issue. I’ve said it almost every stump speech I’ve given. If it wasn’t for one particular issue that to me breaks the camel’s back with respect to liberty in this country, and that is the issue of Obamacare.

What we have — what we will go to in a very short period of time, the next two years, a little less than 50 percent of the people in this country depend on some form of federal payment, some form of government benefit to help provide for them.  After Obamacare, it will not be less than 50 percent; it will be 100 percent.

Now, every single American will be looking to the federal government — not to their neighbor, not to their church, not to their business or to their employer, or to the community or nonprofit organization in their community — will be looking always to those in charge, to those who now say to you that they are the allocator and creator of rights in America.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is the beginning of the end of freedom in America. Once the government has control of your life, then they got you…

Ronald Reagan, in his farewell address to the American people, worried about whether America would remember what made us great, that we are not a great country because we have a great and powerful government. We are a great country because we believe that rights don’t come from the government, but as in our founding document, the Declaration of Independence, says, our rights come to us from our creator.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is an election about fundamental liberty. And the signature piece, the signature piece of legislation that points this out, where you have economic rights created by the government, and then the government using its heavy hand to force you to buy insurance, to force you to take policies that you don’t want, and, of course, to force you to take coverages that may even violate your faith convictions…

…in this race, there is only one candidate who can go up on the most important issue of the day and make the case, because I’ve never been for an individual mandate at a state or federal level.

And this gem is the conclusion of his victory speech two days ago after winning another two states:

Santorum Victory Speech, March 13, 2012 (last paragraph)

“You stood with a guy ….you knew, shared your values, and was going to go out and work for you to make sure this country was free and safe and prosperous based on believing in free people and free markets and the free economy and, of course, the integrity of the family and the centrality of faith in our lives.”  

Because I believe he represents our best chance against Barack Obama I’m for Rick Santorum for President.  Because I believe with Bill Buckley we should always support the candidate who is the most conservative and who has the best chance of winning, I support Santorum.

Because I think we can get a better deal than Mitt Romney, who if he were the nominee I’d happily vote for, I’m for Rick Santorum.  Because I think he would do a far better job of representing our views opposing Obamacare and its “edict-mandate” I’m for Santorum.

Because I continue to respect Newt Gingrich, am proud to own books and videos he has produced and written and I want those ideas to prevail in this contest, I’m for Rick Santorum.

Because I want to win against Romney and then against Obama I beg Gingrich supporters who read this to BOTH publicly switch to Santorum – announce it on your Facebook page, in these pages and to everyone who will listen.  And write to tell Newt Gingrich you have switched and beg him to join you.

I do not know if we will prevail at the GOP convention, or against Barack Obama.  I know because of “the centrality of faith” and our duty to the next generation and the future of America, that it is our responsibility to try, and I believe Rick Santorum would be our best bet as an advocate.

And if in the end we lose, let it be with a standard bearer who truly represents our beliefs and articulates them accurately and courageously.  Rick Santorum.

HanoverHenry is Pat Henry on Facebook, and I’m on the lookout for new friends there,

Links to articles I wrote at RED STATE at my Facebook Notes section. 

It is only fitting that the mudslinging now coming out of the Mitt Romney camp is occurring here in Florida. When it comes to dirty politics, the Sunshine State stands in a class all it’s own.

After Newt Gingrich’s overwhelming victory in the S.C. primary and subsequent surge in the polls, a real sense of desperation set in for Romney.

Desperation that manifests itself in the aggressive demeanor he’s taken on and in the negative campaign ads that have inundated the airwaves in Florida.

Such as the ad that falsely claims that Gingrich “resigned in disgrace” which Romney is still running and even had aired during last night’s CNN debate. A claim that none other than Charles Krauthammer himself has stated is not accurate.

Although, were you to ask Mitt Romney about this ad, odds are you will get feigned ignorance. A bothersome trend from the former Governor, whether you’re asking about sleazy campaign ads or Swiss bank accounts, is for him to deny knowledge and divert the responsibility to others.

Yet, desperate times call for desperate measures and fortunately for Romney, his chief campaign strategist and several of his most senior campaign staff were Charlie Crist’s top political advisers who are ever so familiar with the political turf here in Florida.

And this ‘win at whatever cost’ approach now seen coming from the Romney camp is eerily reminiscent of good ol’ Charlie, leaving one to wonder if this is driven by the sense of entitlement that seems to be inherent in the political class, a.k.a. the establishment?

And make no mistake about it, the ‘establishment’ is fully behind Mitt Romney, as evidenced by the likes of John McCain and Connie Mack IV out stumping on his behalf. Individuals who are always quick to rail against the very system they have become an embodiment of.

In truth, McCain’s appearance signals something far more sinister. Mitt Romney has not put forth much effort to court tea party support, much like Crist’s moderate, ignore-the-tea-party strategy. Which makes sense considering the same individuals are behind both campaigns.

As we often see in both Washington and Tallahassee, the political class is first and foremost about outmaneuvering it’s opponents and the tea party needs to understand that the moderate wing of the GOP sees it as much of an opponent as it does the Democrats. Perhaps more so, since both parties share a common benefit from a continuation of the status quo.

And if Mitt Romney can secure the nomination without so much as crossing the street for the tea party, it will serve the dual purpose of ensuring the establishment retains control with ‘their guy’ and will go a very long way toward suppressing the rightward shift of the party brought on by the tea party.

Yes, the GOP presidential primary comes down to the moderate wing versus the conservative wing of the party – the establishment vs. the tea party.

With Newt Gingrich, in all his glory, representing the conservative tea party position.

In reality, this has been a two man race for some time now. Rick Santorum is reportedly pulling up stakes on Sunday and returning home two days before voting takes place. Simply put, he just doesn’t have the resources to compete in an expensive state like Florida where it’s winner take all.

Much like former Gov. Sarah Palin, who wants to see the nomination process continue to play out, Santorum supporters AND the tea party movement in Florida must see the long term effects of a Romney win. If he prevails here, the race is all but over.

A vote for Newt Gingrich ensures a continuation of this process and all parties involved live to fight another day.

One thing is clear, with Romney as the Republican nominee, the tea party may as well pack up and go home – it will have zero influence in his organization.

The moderate wing of the party is counting on the political immaturity of the tea party to prevail, the fierce independence of the many groups to prevent it from seeing the long term strategy playing out.

What is really encouraging here is that just as it has been from the very beginning, the people have it within their power to control the outcome. The question is do we choose to exercise this power.

Cross Posted at Florida Political Press

A scary thought struck me this week- we are already in primary season. As of yet, the Republican Party can’t seem to find a candidate who has the ability to inspire both the base and Independents alike. I believe they are desperately seeking a Reagan but, sadly, Reagan is dead and the current candidates don’t look too good themselves.

Republican and conservative voters want a candidate we can believe in, someone who will blow us off our feet and blow the competition away. Where is the candidate who rallies the base and, like Gandalf on the bridge of Khazad-dûm, tells the Obama machine “Go back to the Shadow! You cannot pass”?

Let’s be honest, Herman Cain was a fiasco. We were hoping for a Godfather but got a playa instead. What is most frustrating about the situation, though, is that Cain had some innovative ideas and was able to articulate with passion. Now his economic proposals will be discounted in light of his (allegedly) atrocious treatment of women.

Of those candidates left, only four can realistically win the nomination at the end of the primary season, but no one is celebrating yet. Each candidate is solid and proven, but none are lighting any fires in the party’s faithful. Why not?

To start with, Romney has all the thrill of a glass of buttermilk. Sure it’s rich and has beneficial qualities, but who wants to guzzle it down and instantly demand another? On the other hand, we are told that Gingrich too much baggage.

Baggage? Baggage? We don’t need no stinking baggage.

Actually, Newt is like a lit firecracker. You know it’s going to go off in a spectacular display but no one is sure where the explosion will take place and how destructive it will be.

The other two are from Texas, which says a lot. We’re told that everything is bigger in Texas, but Perry’s campaign seemed to have missed the memo. When Perry entered the race, he was sitting tall in the saddle. Unfortunately, voters soon discovered that saddle was on a Shetland Pony.

And then there’s Ron Paul. In 2008 I voted for Paul in the N.C. primary even though McCain had already won the nomination. This year I’m not so certain. Paul increasingly reminds me of Cousin Eddie in Christmas Vacation- he means well and can be devastating in his critiques, but every time he speaks you have to hold your breath for fear of what he might say.

So here we are in late December. What can be done with only two weeks left?

I am of the opinion that only two of the final four have the potential to become the candidate we can passionately support. Those two are Mitt Romney and Rick Perry. Why not Gingrich or Paul? For very similar reasons.

Gingrich has the propensity to speak without thinking, believing that his erudition will overcome any final objection. Unfortunately, it doesn’t. For Paul, the Libertarian nature of his words will hamstring him. I can imagine Obama facing Paul in a debate and bring up Paul’s stance on ending, or at least auditing, the Fed. Obama would only have to say that ending the Fed would disenfranchise minority voters, eliminate jobs, hinder a child’s education, destroy the environment or any of his other standard objections to reason, and Paul would be finished.

So we are left with Romney and Perry, but not really. Perry’s freezing in a debate was his undoing. Certainly he recovered well, but what Republican thinks that a good showing on David Letterman is something to get excited about? I don’t.

Therefore, the GOP’s hopes appear to rest solely on Romney. He has been groomed for this, he has the look (and the hair!), he knows the issues and has the business experience needed in a down economy. What he needs to do is unleash some passion- un-tuck the Oxford, mess up the perfectly coiffed “do” and raise his voice a little. Not to the Howard Dean level of screeching, mind you, but some volume changes and body movements wouldn’t hurt.

Mitt can handle himself in a debate. He knows the issues and is able to lead. All that remains now is excite the voters. Mitt, you can do it! Come on baby, light our fire.

It is not my attention to pile on Herman Cain or to get further into the abortion imbroglio covered in detail here at Redstate.  Instead, I want to take a moment to talk about the concept of “professional politicians.”

People love to hate politicians and often for good reason. And in our hyper-populist mood these days there is a scrambling to be anti-politician, anti-Washington, anti-government, etc.  Conservatives in particular are enamored of businessmen and figures who can plausibly claim to free from beltway and big government thinking.

Obviously, Herman Cain benefits from this dynamic; and Mitt Romney has – awkwardly and unsuccessfully in my opinion – tried to use this to his advantage.  There is one small problem with this idea: it is naive and unrealistic and leads only to problems for candidates and their supporters.

The truth is that being a politician is a profession whether we like it or not.  Outside of local positions, and very small jurisdictions, elected office is a full time job.  The size and scope of government, and the nature of modern society, means the larger the responsibility and power attached to an office the more difficult it is both to get elected and to do the job.

In my opinion the the idea of citizen legislators is a myth; a nostalgic belief that does not match reality.  This is true at the state level.  Budgets and legislative issues require a knowledge base and skill level of a professional; you can’t just walk in off the street and be successful.

In a similar way, running for office requires a set of skills and base of knowledge that is beyond the average person. Yes, you ca surround yourself with good staff and good advice but running a good campaign is a skill and requires experience; the more you do it, generally, the better you become.

Take all of this to the presidential level and the pressures and complexity of it all is off the charts.  So why do we expect that someone with very little experience in this area can just waltz on to the stage and succeed?

Herman Cain is a talented businessman.  He obviously has experience with leadership and management.  And this background brings with it a unique ability to speak to the issues from a fresh perspective and in a way that appeals to many outside the political process.

And you can’t be involved in business at the level Cain has without being politically involved.  Cain is no stranger to politics or to government.  But running for president is in many ways sui generis; something unlike anything else.

And I hate to break it to fans of Herman Cain, but I think the last few weeks have shown that Cain is not quite ready for the pressure involved.  The media spotlight is hostile and white hot. Everything you say is scrutinized and attacked. Your history, your motives, your every decision is researched and probed for weaknesses (unless of course you happen to be Barack Obama).

Most people simply can’t handle this.  The list of people who have in important ways been ambushed by this process or who have not held up under the pressure is  long.  Michelle Bachman, whatever you think of her positions, etc., went from building momentum and gaining support to fringe pretty quickly.  Or, and again whatever you think of her choices and or style, Sarah Palin; thrust into the spotlight and forced to compete on the national level in the most hostile of circumstances.

All too often conservatives swing between a naive idealism and a harsh, almost Machiavellian, pragmatism both, and often ironically, infused with a strong element of the cult of personality.  We latch on to a rising star or a fresh face and insist they are the second coming of Ronald Reagan and George Washington combined and deny for as long as it is possible that they might not sweep into power and change Washington forever.

Or we get behind what we perceive as the most electable candidate and then insist that they have no faults or that their are no trade offs involved in politics. After a loss, or when the responsibility of governing grows tiresome, the blame game begins and we too often fail to wrestle with the blinders we put on during the campaign.

I would suggest that there is an important conservative principle in seeing politics are the art of the possible. It is important to play the ball as it lies; to take a metaphor from the game of golf. And we ignore this reality at our peril.

This doesn’t meant that we abandon principles or turn harshly cynical.  Yes, first principles and policy stands are important; as is the ability trust a candidate to follow through on promises and make the tough choices based on their ideals.

But it does recognize that there are no perfect candidates, that politics is a necessary part of our public life and that it requires skills and experience just like any other profession.

You don’t just jump from never having run for public office to becoming president of the United States.  You can’t just figure out how to act on one of the largest stages imaginable on the fly.  Running for president isn’t like running a business.

And “Lame Stream Media” or not, effective communication, management and style play a crucial role in success today.  Is it fair or ideal? No, but it is reality.

In my opinion, on a number of issues recently Cain has simply not shown the basic level of competency necessary to run for president let alone get elected.  When pushed to take his message from basic marketing to more detailed policy debate he has offered confusion and, at times, outright incoherence.  Given what is at stake this is not acceptable.

Now, before the flame wars begin let me just say that none of the candidates have exactly shone in this area.  They all have weaknesses from seemingly doing nothing else but run for president to all the baggage of a long political career; from brutal honest that quickly slips into the fevered swaps to an inability to defend and sell your very strong record of achievement.

And to be honest, I think Michelle Bachman in many ways forshadowed Cain’s problems. I also think Rick Santorum’s spectacular electoral failure the last time he ran for office, and his inability to come off as anything but angry, make him fatally flawed.

So here is my, probably equally naive, plea: lets debate and discuss this primary with an awareness that politics is a profession that requires skills and experience; and that all of the candidates have strengths and weaknesses.  We need to decide who we think has the best blend of the skills and experience necessary to get elected and succeed in office. We need to decide what policy or beliefs are non-negotiable and which tradeoffs we are willing to make in order to move our ideals forward (or at the least prevent further destruction).

In other words, we need to go into this with our eyes wide open to the actual political landscape we find ourselves in not the one we wish existed.

This isn’t easy I know, but it is the task that is set before us.