Political Rant

I don’t like to talk about politics, but I keep letting myself get drawn in. Both Friday and Saturday nights, I ended up in the middle of conversations with my neighbors (different folks both nights) about the presidential election. I live in Virginia’s 7th Congressional District, which is the most conservative in the country. I consider myself a conservative, but I do not consider myself a Republican – especially not a part of the “New Republican Party” of Bush and McCain.

Could we have had a more ineffective president (ok, you got me – Jimmy Carter)? By my count, he has only done two things right.
1. No terrorist attacks have happened on U.S. soil since September 11, 2001.
2. He has somehow managed to get two pretty good Supreme Court justices confirmed. I think this may be the most important job of the president.

But he has presided over possibly the largest increase in the federal government in U.S. history. As a “true” conservative, I believe that big government is a big problem. I am a believer that our founding fathers wanted a small federal government and would be appalled at what we have today. The federal government was given only those powers explicitly granted by the constitution. That which was not explicitly granted by the constitution was by default granted to the states.

I am very unhappy with the two major party choices this year. Are these really the best candidates from each party? Absolutely not! McCain is the Bob Dole of 2008 – no true conservative can get excited about him. Obama is a Socialist in sheep’s clothing. I’m certainly not a Clinton fan, but I’d be much more likely to vote for Hillary Clinton than B.H. Obama (or McCain quite honestly). On the Republican side, Congressman Duncan Hunter would have been my choice – he truly is a conservative. A close second would be Governor Mitt Romney. McCain was near the bottom, just above that nut job Ron Paul and right there alongside Mike Huckleberry err Huckabee. I’d be more likely to vote for either man’s Vice Presidential nominees that I would be the man at the top of the ticket.

Where am I going with this? If Virginia still appears to be up for grabs on November 4th, I will grudgingly vote for McCain, because Obama projects weakness to our enemies and that scares the heck out of me. If the Commonwealth appears to be solidly in someone’s column, I’ll vote for Libertarian Party candidate Bob Barr. The Libertarians cry for less government and I’ve been making that same plea for years.