Chef Newt presenting LowDownCentral's favorite dish - cooked goose.

 

#7 - John Edwards - for running on family values while fathering a child with his mistress during his wife's fight with terminal cancer.  Yes, we know this is a peacock.

 

#6 - Peggy Noonan - Cocktail conservative journalist and former Reagan speechwriter - for her slagging of Sarah Palin while forgetting the title of her book on Reagan, "When Character was King."

 

 

#5 - Maxine Waters - who threatened government control of the oil industry even before Obama was elected.

 

#4 - Senator Chris Dodd - Single-handedly blocked any reform of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in the Senate, thus creating the current economic crisis, while receiving preferential loans from the sub-prime lender he was supposed to oversee.

 

 

#3 - Chris Matthews - who has vowed he will do everything he can to make the presidency of the man that sent that thrill up his leg - work!  No wonder MSNBC has such low ratings.

 

 

#2 - Barney Frank - The Elmer Fudd of the House Financial Services Committee, dupe and foil for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, whose idea of fixing things are huge tax increases and massive defense cuts.  It will take billions of wabbits to clean up his mess. 

 

 

#1 - Joe Biden - Barack America's choice for Vice President, who, by his own admission, was less qualified than Hillary.  Apparently true, since he believed FDR addressed the nation on television in 1929.  So go ahead Chuck, Stand Up! and applaud our new VP and turkey of the year.

 

 

 

 

by Lance Thompson

The recent election left the Republicans out in the cold. Some have recommended that the GOP chase the Democrats and their votes leftward across the political spectrum. Others believe we should return to the core principles of conservatism, and stand up for the issues which once defined us.

But what are those principles? Where is the source? Is there an ancient conservative manifesto buried deep under some Revolutionary War monument, awaiting discovery by intrepid archaeologists?

There may be, but we don’t need an archaeologist to unearth the founding principles of conservatism. They are clearly, concisely, and powerfully presented in Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater’s 1960 book, The Conscience of a Conservative. It’s a quick read, well-organized, and crystal clear. In this it differs from the avalanche of candidate biographies and philosophies that are spewed out during presidential campaigns. The Conscience of a Conservative is all Goldwater–no co-writers or ghost writers intrude. These ideas may not have originated with him, but he manages to communicate them effectively and forcefully.

Displaying the prognosticative talents of a Nostradamus, Goldwater correctly predicts the leftward tilt of the media (back when there were only three networks and everybody read newspapers), the usurpation of workers’ rights by unions (the Workers Free Choice Act, which takes away an individual’s right to vote for or against union participation by secret ballot is a major initiative by Democrats in the coming year), the abrogation of individual rights by the federal government (long before homeowners were forced to give up their properties for the benefit of private developers), the anti-Americanism of the United Nations, the folly of farm subsidies, the increasing encroachment of the Supreme Court into the responsibilities of the executive and legislative branches, the debilitating cancer of the welfare state, the necessity of standing up to and opposing the Soviet Union (a nation currently rearming and challenging us around the globe), the failure of public education, and the self-deluding folly of foreign aid to unfriendly nations. Goldwater couldn’t have been more prescient if he’d predicted the 2008 winners of the World Series, the Super Bowl, and the Kentucky Derby.

The Conscience of a Conservative strongly defends the rights of the individual as guaranteed in the Constitution. Goldwater believes the wisdom in our founding documents is profound and far-sighted, with no need to be reinterpreted according to current fashion. He believes welfare, if extended indefinitely, weakens the recipient as well as the provider. He believes higher taxes are crippling to economic strength and lower taxes a key ingredient to a healthy economy. He believes an individual should not only be able to choose whether or not he wants to join a union, but also whether or not his union dues should be used to support a candidate not of his choosing. Finally, Goldwater believes that our nation’s enemies should not be tolerated, negotiated with, or accommodated. Rather, they should be confronted, opposed and defeated.

Barry Goldwater was the Republican candidate for president in 1964. He was defeated by Lyndon Johnson, who had already started his vast expansion of the welfare state under the Great Society program and had committed the United States to war in Vietnam. Yet Goldwater was painted as the irresponsible, belligerent candidate, while Johnson was depicted as the moderate. Johnson won in a landslide, and his first and only full term as president was marked by controversy, violence and upheaval at home and abroad.

After his spectacular presidential defeat, Goldwater was re-elected to the Senate in 1968, and served several more terms, during which his conservative principles found more favor in the GOP. In fact, one positive outcome of Goldwater’s campaign was a televised speech on the principles of conservatism that was broadcast on NBC a week before the election. The speech was not delivered by Goldwater, but by a retired actor whose movie career seemed to be fading, and the broadcast was almost canceled by some members of Goldwater’s campaign. But the actor’s friends and supporters, who had paid for the broadcast time, insisted that the speech go ahead as planned. So on October 27^th, for the first time before a national audience, Ronald Reagan espoused the conservative philosophy that would take him to the White House sixteen years later.

Reagan’s conservatism was more optimistic and inclusive than Goldwater’s. But both men shared unshakeable conviction in conservative principles of individual freedom, limited government, lower taxes, and strong national defense. If you’re looking for the roots of that conviction, Goldwater’s book is a good place to start.

 

by Lance Thompson

In the wake of the presidential election, some Republicans are recommending that the party should soften its views, back away from hard-line conservatism, and blur the differences between us and the Democrats. These people are called moderates, and the prescription they offer is deadly.

The Democrats did not win with a moderate candidate. Barack Obama was the nation’s most liberal Senator until he became the nation’s most liberal president. John McCain, on the other hand, was a moderate Republican, with a record of reaching across the aisle and favoring Democrat views on issues such as immigration, global warming, and tax cuts. This moderate candidate was clobbered by his immoderate opponent.

In response to the election, moderates will say that we must follow the trend, that Republicans should embrace the issues the Democrats won on. They encourage us to abandon conservative principles, evolve with the times, and adopt positions more in line with the Democrats, who scored many victories.

But we can never out-Democrat the Democrats. The closer the GOP gets to Democratic principles, the less reason there is for Republicans to exist. Why would a Democrat vote for a watered-down version of his own party? We will not only fail to woo Democrats with a slightly less-liberal version of their own platform, we will also alienate the ideological conservative core of our own party.

If liberals are right, and most of the nation subscribes to their principles of peace at any cost, of punishing success with high taxes and redistribution of income, of turning America into a nanny state where all people are dependent on the government for their needs, of opening our borders and legitimizing illegal aliens, of crippling industry as a sacrifice to the false faith of global warming, then conservatives are wrong and should retire from politics.

But if conservatives are right that freedom must be defended at all costs, that success is the well-earned reward of individual initiative, that government should be small and unobtrusive, that our borders must be secure and that immigrants must follow our laws, that global warming is a chimera whose remedies will cripple our economy, then why should we moderate our views at all?

If conservatives are right, what value is there in diluting our just cause? Would you trust a business partner who is moderately honest? Would you place your life in the hands of a moderately skillful surgeon? Would you be happy in a marriage to a moderately faithful spouse? Then what value is there in a moderately conservative candidate? To whatever extent he departs from conservative principles, he is to the same extent departing from the proper course.

Moderate Republicans have already diluted tough immigration laws, voted for the financial bailout bill, and blamed the failure of the incompetent McCain campaign on Sarah Palin--the most promising new conservative in a quarter of a century. How much more damage can they do to conservative principles if their views shape the future of the GOP?

Moderate candidates do not prevail. Voters don’t rally to the banners of moderate candidates. Moderate candidates are compromised in their principles by definition.

Moderate voters are equally uninspiring. These are the ones who aren’t interested in the campaign during the primaries, don’t focus on the issues until the last few weeks or even days of the campaign, and haven’t made up their minds until the last minute. Moderate voters don’t knock on doors, work the phone, send out e-mails and plant yard signs. Moderate voters do not contribute to campaigns or financially support candidates. Moderate voters are the casual observers at the fringe of the fight, with little invested in either outcome.

The reclamation of the GOP will not be accomplished by moderate candidates or constituents. The beacon for Republicans is not straddling a fence or sitting in the middle of the road. Our destination is defined by strong, unyielding conservative principles. There is no need to qualify our creed with labels such as "compassionate conservatism" or "new conservatism."

Much effort will be required to rebuild the Republican Party. That effort will only be rewarded if we start with a solid foundation. We must not build the future of our party on the shifting sands of moderation, but rather on the solid bedrock of conservative principle.

 

By Rose Pedenko and Tanya Simon

 

“When you look long into an abyss, the abyss looks into you.” - Friedrich Nietzsche

 

Irony never fails to slip through the cracks in our lives at some of the bleakest moments – like the black widow that entrenches itself in damp crevices and awaits its prey, closing in on it in ever-tightening circles.

 

When the moment is ripe, irony rears its fangs and sinks them into our moral, intellectual and spiritual arteries, and none are conscious of how fast the poison spreads until it’s too late.

 

The irony we refer to in our parable is that the spider is actually the media and they are about to devour the meal they have been nurturing for two years, and oh what a tangled web they wove!

 

Neither his blanket inexperience nor his dubious personal associations precluded their spinning of Obama’s vainglorious curriculum vitae. In the end, his “successful campaign strategy” became his principal claim to experience for the office of president of the United States.

 

The future president will learn soon enough that this black widow is insatiable and feigns loyalty in order to snare its victims – that anything that moves within sight of its nest is fair game, and it waits unwearyingly in the shadows ready to entrap and devour their prize elected fly.

 

They will begin by spinning his silky campaign promises into their own escape-proof, beautiful trap and leer at him with disdain as he vainly attempts to free himself from their neurotoxic venom. Just ask Sarah Palin, the spider’s most recent appetizer.

 

Like the spider in Mary Howitt’s poem, they romanced the President-Elect, telling him:

 

“You’re witty and you’re wise, how handsome are your gauzy wings, how brilliant are your eyes!”

 

And he fell for it – lock, stock and mandibles.

 

He was indeed “chosen” by that hairy spider for a specific purpose: not to lead our nation to safety, prosperity and unity, but rather, in spite of their mutual ideologies, to continue to feed the spider’s writing frenzy. And just like the black widow, the media kills whomever they join with after the ritual “mating.”

 

And so, there, in the center of the black widow’s web, sits President-Elect Obama – bouncing up and down, like a happy little kid on a backyard trampoline, unawares of the multi-legged arachnid sneaking up stealthily from behind.

 

Obama’s road to the White House was an open highway, paved smooth by the spider’s secretions, making it free of the bumps, potholes, detours, and dead ends that are part and parcel of most campaigns.

 

Empty champagne bottles litter the landscape and are stacked to the brim in trash cans. The senator’s rooters are slowly recovering from their Kool-Aid hangovers, and are expecting miracles from him.

 

Now, however, the seemingly endless and enchanted silk surface has been spun into a gigantic fly trap: this super Fly must navigate the reality of a credit meltdown, the war on terror, illegal immigration, oil exploration, Iran and their threat of nuclear armament, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Israel, Palestine, Putin, Chavez, gang infestations, and crime-riddled cities (like Chicago) – or, like so many arrogant flies before him, be eaten alive by the spider.

 

But what he and the 63 million that voted for him didn’t count on is, for the merciless black widow, a political miracle is yesterday’s news.

 

There will be no more unicorn rides, Senator. No more cartoon bluebirds flying onto your shoulder.

 

The party is over. A pall of silence has fallen upon your suitors and supporters, and it’s time for you to soberly face reality, which is with every statement you make and every step you take, the spider will be on your heels, ready to spring upon what is anticipated to be your first of many mistakes.

 

So keep this little ditty in mind when you take the oath of office:

 

“…And now dear little children,
who may this story read,
to idle, silly flattering words,
I pray you ne’er give heed:
Unto an evil counselor,
close heart and ear and eye,
and take a lesson from this tale,
of the Spider and the Fly.”

 

The abyss awaits you, Mr. President-Elect.

 

Vote for McCain and for a higher standard.