“We’re extremely fortunate to be able to engage this tremendously savvy group of seasoned political veterans,” said Committee on Arrangements Chief Executive Officer William Harris.  “They’ll bring to the convention a formidable set of skills, both individually and collectively.”

The appointments Harris announced today were:

 Todd Cranney, currently deputy political director for the Mitt Romney presidential campaign, will be director of delegate outreach.  Before joining the Romney campaign, Cranney was deputy campaign manager and political director for Meg Whitman’s 2010 campaign for governor of California. He was Romney’s 2008 western regional political director and served as field representative for the Bush-Cheney 2004 campaign in California and Nevada. Cranney began his political career as a staff assistant to Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT).

Tony Feather will serve as director of whip operations. Feather is a Missouri-based political professional and is highly regarded for his decades of experience in grassroots voter contact. A principal in the firm FLS, Feather also served as political director for President George W. Bush’s 2000 campaign.

Jim Dyke will serve as senior advisor and will support convention communications. Dyke is a founder and president of the Washington-based firm JDA Frontline. Dyke has worked on four presidential campaigns, managed a congressional race and served as a senior advisor to President George W. Bush and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist. Before starting his own business, he served as communications director for the Republican National Committee.

Anne Hathaway will serve as convention program director. Hathaway, a former Republican National Committee chief of staff, is an Indiana-based campaign veteran whose experience ranges from volunteering in local congressional races to working in the White House, where she was an assistant to Vice President Dan Quayle. Hathaway will coordinate convention program activities.

For more news and information on the 2012 Republican National Conventional visit White House 2012′s RNC Convention Page

That follows the disastrous West Virginia primary in early May, you may have heard about it, wherein a convicted felon, Inmate No. 11593-051, running on the ballot against Obama, earned 41% of the vote.

And let’s not forget Oklahoma’s Democratic primary in March. A little-known Democrat, Randall Terry, stole 18% of the vote. But don’t be fooled, 18% of the vote is impressive if, like Terry, you’ve got more than 50 arrests on your rap-sheet.

So what gives? Have Democrats gone so insane with political-correctness they feel the need to elect criminals? Or has the media been hiding that these primary results are really where Obama is at with his Democratic supporters?

Of course, these primary results won’t change anything, Obama will be the Democratic representative. But they are clearly embarrassing. And if Democratic voters are prepared to mock him like this now, what happens if it continues? Disasters like these can snowball into an avalanche of destruction.

These results point to a reality not discussed in polite company in leftist circles. Obama has a very serious problem. He has no message. His ‘Hope and Change’ message died long ago. He can’t run on his dismal record so all references to his recent past are off-limits. In fact, when was the last time we witnessed a big media push for Obama-care, taxes or green-energy? Other than Romney this and Romney that, things are creepy quiet from headquarters. But his problem is more than the past.

Obama has a problem with the future, too. Because of his socialist-liberal lefty bend, he can’t discuss directly with voters his plans for the future. Imagine a campaign speech about more strangling regulations or of his intent to give away the country by signing U.N treaties. How would that play? We know, thanks to his hot-mic gaffe, that in his second term — when he has more “flexibility” — he plans to cut a deal with Russia (to their advantage, no doubt). But voters know of little else.

Conservatives have a good feel for what the future entails with Obama back in the saddle. But clearly he is having trouble reaching Democrats and moderates because he can’t discuss his agenda. He has an agenda, you can bet money on that. But if Obama went public with his second term plans his political career would be over before the speech was concluded. He is, literally, a candidate without a past or a future.

Conservatives like the ‘without a future’ part — a lot.

Follow I.M. Citizen at IMCitizen.net

The Herd is a special White House 2012 series covering the obvious and not so obvious potential names for Mitt Romney to choose from when picking his vice presidential nominee.  Each day, White House 2012 will introduce you to one of the many Republicans which we believe will at least be considered for for the vice presidency by the now inevitable Republican presidential nominee.

In addition to biographical information and a brief assessment of each potential nominee and their chances of being selected by Mitt Romney, White House 2012′s coverage also includes each potential nominee’s voting records, as well as a listing of their public statements and links to their web sites and records.

Today White House 2012 takes a look at the Governor of Virginia, Bob McDonnell.

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Political Career:

• 1992 – 2005:  Virginia House of Delegates
• 2006 – 2009:  Virginia State Attorney General
• 2010 – Present:  Governor of Virginia
• 2011 -Present:  Chairman of the Republican Governors Association

  During a February 21st, 2011 television interview, when asked“What if the party’s nominee.. came to you and said for the betterment of your Party and your country, I need you to serve as my running mate. Wouldn’t that be a difficult thing for you to turn down?” McDonnell replied simply, “Probably.”  Thus prompting White House 2012 to add Bob McDonnell to what was an already early and premature list of possible running mates for whoever the nominee was going to be that we first created and posted in December 0f 2010.  You see, even back then, there were certain outstanding individuals who many understood, were natural and logical potential vice presidential nominees, simply because they were exceptional leaders.

Today, with Mitt Romney’s selection of a vice presidential nominee soon approaching, McDonnell is still a natural and logical choice for Mitt Romney to nominate  for Vice President.

Bob McDonnell is a solid choice. He carries little baggage, is on the right side of all the issues that the G.O.P. base wants covered and is a strong speaker who would add a level of confidence and competence to the ticket. The greatest criticism might be that he has only been Governor for what at the time will be slightly over 2 in a half years. But Barack Obama was a Senator for less than that amount of time and it was good enough to elect him President. So for a Vice President , that should be no big deal, even though it seemed to have been a big issue when Sarah Palin was nominated for Vice President in 2008..

McDonnell’s establishing himself as a potential Vice President and ultimately maybe even President, did not come over night.  Getting to that point was a journey through decades of personal growth and accomplishments that really began after he graduated from University of Notre Dame on an ROTC scholarship, with a B.B.A. in management.

Upon leaving Notre Dame in 1976, McDonnell  joined the service where he served as a medical supply officer in the United States Army for four years.  Two and half of those years included posts in medical clinics in Germany, and for a year a half, in Newport News, Virginia.   During that time, McDonnell’s never ending drive for knowledge and self improvement compelled him to obtain a Masters of Science in Business Administration earned  by taking night classes from Boston University.

Upon leaving active duty service in 1981, McDonnell continued his military service as a reservist in the U.S. Army but as for a regular job, he took his young family to Atlanta where he was hired for a Fortune 500 Company named American Hospital Supply Corporation.  His work soon earned him a rapid succession  of promotions and after a year, American Hospital Supply Corp. transferred McDonnell to the company’s headquarters in suburban Chicago. The following year they put McDonnell in charge of their multi-million dollar custom  products regional division, based in Kansas City, where he managed the corporation’s  Minneapolis, St. Louis, and Kansas  City offices.   But feeling personally unfulfilled by his work, McDonnell took advantage of his Vietnam-era G.I. Bill benefits that were to cease to exist in 1989, and decided to to go back to Virginia where he enrolled in Regent University in Virginia Beach to seek a Masters Degree in Public  Policy.  Then when the young university opened a law school, McDonnell took advantage of that to also obtain a law degree.

To say the least, it was a rather hectic and sleepless period in McDonnell’s life.  Others may not have been able to carry the burden of  simultaneously attending  law school, while pursing a Master’s Degree in  public policy, and doing so while supporting his family  as a sales manager for The  Virginian-Pilot newspaper, and serving in the active reserves of the Army with the 18th Field Hospital in Norfolk. In total,  McDonnell would serve 21 years in the U.S.  Army reserves until he finally retired as a Lt. Colonel, the same rank as his father, in 1997.  During these years, part of McDonnell’s pursuit of his law degree led him to also do an internship on Capitol  Hill with the House Republican Policy Committee for California Congressman Jerry Lewis, and it was here that McDonnell’s personal journey took him in a direction different than his previous private sector path.

So in 1989, with his degrees in hand, McDonnell took a job as a prosecutor in the Virginia  Beach Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office and in 1991 he ran for the seat representing Virginia Beach in the House of Delegates from the 84th District. He won and was reelected to the seat, six more times.

Here, as was the case with every other position and job McDonnell took responsibility for, he excelled.

Some of the  most prominent bills he drafted, sponsored and shepherded through the state legilature included Virginia’s historic Welfare Reform legislation, the reform of  Virginia’s drunk driving laws, legislation to abolish the death tax and to rewrite and improve  Virginia’s Public Private Partnership Transportation Act.  He was all the prime sponsor of Governor Allen’s Juvenile Justice Reform  Initiative.

In short time McDonnell rose through the House of Delegate’s political ranks and became Assistant Majority Leader and Chairman  of the House Courts of Justice Committee and along the way, in 1996 he was named the Network of Victims of Crime Legislator  of the Year in 1996.  In 1998 he was named The National Child Support Enforcement Association National  Legislator of the Year and  The Family Foundation of Virginia’s Legislator  of the Year.  He was again named The Family Foundations’ Legislator of the Year  in 2001, and in 2005  he received the honor of becoming the Virginia Sheriff’s Association Legislator  of the Year.

Then in 2006, McDonnell decided to run for Attorney General and after election results that were initially disputed, he was declared the winner by 323 votes.

As Attorney General of Virginia, McDonnell went right to work.  He established a “Senior Alert” to assist in locating missing seniors  with mental deficiencies, created a state of the art Sex Offender Registry, strengthened Virginia’s mental  health laws, and provided new tools for law enforcement involved in online investigations of  identity theft, sexual predators, and other 21st Century criminals. McDonnell  also created and led Virginia’s Youth Internet Safety Task Force, which was credited with improving online  safety, and establishing the ongoing Attorney General’s Task Force on Regulatory  and Government Reform. That task force made over 300 recommendations to  streamline Virginia’s Administrative Code, and reduce burdensome government  regulation.

But in 2009, McDonnell resigned as Attorney General in order to spend all his time and effort on running for Governor, a job he won in a landslide which saw him receive more votes than any candidate for  Governor in Virginia history.  McDonnell’s landslide also helped to sweep many new Republicans in to the Virginia state legislature.

Upon becoming Governor, McDonnell inherited a $6 billion deficit but in a year’s time he turned it in to a $400 million surplus.  And he did so after defeating a proposed $2 billion increase in the state income tax, and keeping the state’s existing car tax relief.

But perhaps the most profound immediate positive impact McDonnell has had was his ability to in less trhan two years, take Virginia’s unemployment from 7.2% to 5.6% after creating 111,900 new jobs in the state.

All this is probably why in 2011, McDonnell’s Republican colleagues chose him to be the Chairman of the Republican Governors Association.  It is also one of the reasons why Bob McDonnell is seen as an obvious choice for Vice President.

Pros:

• McDonnell is a skilled campaigner and legislator whose talents can only help the ticket
• “If” this a close presidential election, Virginia is a state that Romney must win in any formula that allows him to reach the 270 electoral votes needed to take the White House.  Bob McDonnell can deliver Virginia to the Republican column
• McDonnell can help Romney among evangelicals who he needs to cast their ballots for him in record numbers.
• McDonnell can help Romney in the South where he needs bridge the enthusiasm gap that exists for Romney
• McDonnell’s record on jobs, energy, budgets, and deficits is an invaluable asset that will help draw sharp contrasts with Obama’s record
• His experience in law and law enforcement, and on matters concerning the Constitution is unparalleled by most other likely contenders for the vice presidency and it helps to call in to question the credentials of the Obama Administration concerning ther Adminsistrations many legal challenges to states and their sovereignty

Cons:

• McDonnell’s addition to the ticket does not bring the type of diversity which other potential candidates like Marco Rubio, Condoleezza Rice or Susana Martinez can, and that diversity might be needed to help win in key battlegrounds states like Ohio and/or Florida
• McDonnell signed an executive order removing anti-discriminatory protection for gays and lesbians in Virginia, rescinding a 2006 order from Gov. Kaine which had prohibited discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation.  This will mobilize liberal gay activists to the point where they may get some mileage from attempts to paint McDonnell and by natural extension, the Republican ticket,  as out of touch, right wing extremists
• Governor McDonnell issued a proclamation designating April 2010 as Confederate History Month and the initial proclamation left out any anti-slavery language.  McDonnell rectified this  but the issue is one which the left may try to exploit
• McDonnell signed in to law a measure that mandates ultra sounds for pregnant women seeking an abortion.  The measure came after McDonnell initially supported an earlier bill requiring  women to get an intravaginal ultrasound before an abortion procedure
• Lacks any immediate foreign affairs experience

General Assessment:

McDonnell has his fingerprints are all over the solutions to the most critical problems ailing the nation. On an issue such as energy, he has led the way in making Virginia an national resource for natural energy with his support drilling for oil off of the coast of Virginia while simultaneously developing new technologies for wind, solar, biomass, and other renewable energy resources and expanding investments in renewable energy sources while also incentivizing  green job creation.  On the issue of jobs, CNBC named Virginia “The Top State for Business” in the country and while the nation has been focussed on not counting the number of people who have dropped out of the job market, since taking office McDonnell has has created 112,00 net new jobs and the number of unemployed Virginians has decreased by 21%.  That’s  a reduction in unemployment obtained by counting new jobs not by stopping to count the number of people who gave up looking for jobs.

On budgetary matters, while the nation lost its AAA bond rating, and the deficit has ballooned at an unprecendented rate, McDonnell took his state from one with a record deficit, to where now each year he has been in office, it has a surplus.

As one newspaper put it On those issues important to  all – taxation, jobs, schools, – Bob McDonnell did not disappoint.  “Priorities were set and addressed.”  And that is exactly what people want in a Republican presidential ticket and why McDonnell is only a logical choice.

However Mitt Romney may find that he can select others who have similarly positive but are more established.  Like Indiana’s Mitch Daniels.  Or that he could find some of similar accomplishments but unlike McDonnell, could also bring diversity to the ticket.  Names like Louisiana’s Bobby Jindal and New Mexico’s Susana Martinez come to mind.

Romney may also want to try to get someone whose record lacks the type of controversial social issue positions that McDonnell has brought to the table.  The thinking there is that Romney does not want to give President Obama and the left, the opportunity to focus on things will distract from the G.O.P.’s ability to get voters to focus on the Obama record and the Obama economy.    With McConnell’s decisions regarding things like issuing a proclamation designating a Confederate History Month,   removing so-called anti-discriminatory protections from  gays and lesbians, and the decision mandating ultrasounds before a women has an abortion, Romney may fear that McDonnell could be “Palinized” and that those issues will can become the distraction that Democrats want.  But such can be done with the record of any conservative.  Or liberal for that matter.

So it is hard to say with any certainty that Romney will tap McDonnell for Vice President.  But you can bet that McDonnell’s name is one of the top five on the short list for the job.

Recent Key Votes

Bob McDonnell on the Issues

According to PJ Media upon asking this unnamed Super PAC leader about their thoughts on Portman as a potential vice presidential nominee, an email reply from them stated the following;

He could bring Ohio!!! And he is very experienced and he won’t spend $100,000 on clothes in two months!  The goal this cycle is “safe, not sorry. But win Ohio!”

Now I do not question the credibility of PJ Media, I do question the intent of this unnamed insider who feels the need to, out of nowhere, come out and take a foul, unjustified, and totally senseless shot at Sarah Palin for circumstances that were not of her own doing and which she rectified.

I also question whether or not this so-called consensus among G.O.P. operatives about Portman being Romney’s pick has anything to do with knowing what only a select few under Romney’s Senior Advisor Beth Myers, know and are discussing amongst themselves?

Myers served as chief of staff during Romney’s term as Massachusetts governor and managed his 2008 presidential campaign.  She is now overseeing  Romney’s vice presidential selection process and is undergoing a vetting process that involves only a select few Romney confidants who discuss aspects of the vetting process among only themselves.  And any discussions of the process among this small group of trusted advisors, is done only on a need to know basis.  Which is why there have not yet been any leaks which have led to the upping or lowering of the odds for of being picked among any of the known potential nominees.  The Romney team is probably one of the most talented and professional political or for that matter, non-political organizations there has ever been.  It is a consequence of Romney’s own managerial expertise and Midas Touch.  Say what you want about Mitt but he knows how to run  things and get a job done.  And so the only way that a leak about who has picked for Vice President would come about is if it was intentional.  And this “consensus” based declaration about Rob Portman was not sanctioned by Team Romney.

Furthermore, I doubt that the leader of a Super PAC, even a pro-Romney Super Pac, would be privy to such insider information.  In addition to it being questionably illegal or at the very least,  unethical for such communications between the Romney campaign and any Super PAC, it would not benefit Team Romney to exercise the type of loose lips that would give away a secret as big as this one.

So while I do not wish to call in to question the credibility of the claim that Rob Portman is going to be Romney’s running mate in November, I must do exactly that.

Portman could very well be the individual Romney picks but only a select few know how truly likely that is and they are not talking.

Speculation about who the Romney’s running mate will be is the last big question that remains in the race, aside from who will ultimately win.  And the suspense is just killing most political junkies, myself included.  However it must be understood that any public discussion about who Romney will pick is simply conjecture on the part of conducting the discussion.  In the case of the latest scuttlebutt concerning Rob Portman, it would seem to be based mainly on his ability to deliver Ohio for Romney in November.  But it has been my sense that Portman is not necessarily established well enough to be counted on for that purpose.  That sense of mine was only verified when a recent Quinnipiac Poll concluded the following;

The presidential race in Ohio remains too close to call as President Barack Obama gets 45 percent to 44 percent for Republican Mitt Romney, with a 45 – 45 percent dead heat if the GOP adds home-state Sen. Rob Portman as Romney’s running mate.

That poll was taken just two weeks ago but it is safe to say that those numbers have not changed much since then and it led Politico to report a story entitled “Poll: Rob Portman no GOP boost in Ohio”

As indicated in an abbreviated White House 2012 Vice Presidential Contender page prepared for for Bob Portman back in April, historically, the vice presidential nominee only affects the presidential election results in their home state by no more than four percent.  If that were to hold true here, according to the closeness of the race in Ohio so far, Portman could actually put Romney over the top.  But the polls do not yet bear that out and  even if they did, we are long way from Election Day and the Obama campaign will not give up Ohio easily.  As such,  in my opinion, the Obama campaign’s ruthlessness and billion dollar campaign war chest will simply inundate every media source with an endless array of stories focussed on destroying the record and reputation of Bob Portman.

Don’t get me wrong, I believe Portman is exceptionally qualified and although he is not my first choice to be the next in line for the presidency, I can easily support him.  His record of fiscal responsibility is far superior to most political leaders out there and he is extremely competent in other areas of concern too.  But Portman’s ties to the G.W. Bush Administration will be exploited by the Obama team in a way that will take on a life of its own and the lies about him will have a way of becoming true in the subconscious of an ad weary electorate.

Such was the case in 2008 with Sarah Palin.

In a documentary entitled Media Malpractice, one is taken on a step-by-step walk through of election history that documented what I call the palinization of Sarah Palin.  It was a process that showed how the left inundated our world with an endless array of salacious stories about Sarah Palin.  Every day some new liberal inspired charges or unseemly story was leaked and for days, each one captured the headlines.    As the documentary then shows at the very end, when asked what was true and what false during the campaign, voters got each answer wrong.

For instance, when asked which person running on either of the major presidential tickets pretended that their daughter’s son was their own, all those questioned answered Sarah Palin.

However, in that same documentary when asked which candidate on either of the major presidential tickets had to drop out of a previous race for President because they were caught plagiarizing the speeches of a British Labor Party leader, voters again answered Sarah Palin.

In both cases the answers to those question were wrong.  As most of us know, Sarah Palin did not pretend that her daughter’s child was her own and as for the candidate who dropped out of a previous race for President in disgrace because of plagiarism, the answer of course is not Sarah Palin.  It’s Joe Biden.

But politics is perception and the Obama campaign successfully created false impressions about the Republican ticket which casual voters believed to be true.

This can of course be done to any candidate, and with Team Obama it will be done.  It will be done to Mitt Romney and whomever he nominates for Vice President.  The problem is that given how pivotal Ohio may be “if” this election is as close as many think it will be, the Obama campaign will invest so much time and money into Ohio and into destroying Portman that in the end, even Ohioans will be embarrassed to support Portman on a presidential ticket.  I say this not because Portman will not be able to defend himself.  He will.  I state this simply because Portman is not yet the kind of established figure in Ohio who I believe can withstand the type of relentless assault upon him that the Obama strategists will engage in.

Bob Portman has not yet established the type of bond with Ohioans that is necessary to overcome the type of treacherous rewrite of history that will be done regarding his record.  Ohio voters are not yet so familiar with and loyal to Portman that they embrace him as one of their own in a way that they did other Ohio politicians such as the legendary Robert Taft or even more recently, John Glenn.  Those were leaders so loved by Ohioans that if they were put through the type of character assassination attempt that Portman will experience, it would backfire.  But that is not the case with Rob Portman.  At least not yet.

So I would not bet the farm on Rob Portman.

As for myself, I have used White House 2012 as the platform for a series called The Herd.  It explores a herd of 25 names which I believe are being or should be considered for Vice President by Mitt Romney.  Each day, in alphabetical order, one of those names is discussed.   We are currently up to the “M’s”.

In each of those profiles, I present a case for why each person is being or should be considered and address the pros and cons of their potential presence on the Republican presidential ticket.  In creating this series, I have established my own assumptions as well as my own preferences.  But deep down I know that in trying to predict who Mitt Romney will actually nominate, no matter how much I try to put myself in his position and try think to like, I know that I am not Mitt Romney and that even after studying Romney’s personal history and management style, no matter how in tune I may think I am with his thought process, I know that only Mitt Romney knows who he will choose and at the moment I do not even think Mitt Romney yet knows who that will be.

But stay tuned because once The Herd has posted the profile of each of those names that we believe are in contention, I will offer my best guest as to whom Romney might pick, as well as the name of the person I believe he should pick and who this conservative wants to see him pick.

  Today we take a look at some powerful pitches made by Mitt and some heavy hits taken by President Obama, as well as a look at the interesting background of lil’ liberal puke Chris Hayes of “They’re not heroes” fame, the not so amsrt gay marriage battle by Democrtas, a new Romney ad, and much more from aroun the web and out of the campaign trail.

• A win in tonight’s Texas primary means that Mitt Romney will unofficially reach the number he needs to be nominated President in August
• Will Obama get snubbed (again) in Texas primary?
• Romney slams Obama on Syria as U.S. expels diplomats
• Trump ccontinues to campaign on the birther issue but now on Romney’s behalf
• Will America Really Say Yes to a Second Date with Barack Obama?
• Gay marriage fight may not be smart politically for Obama and Democrats
• Down With Hayes Because Our Military Men and Women Are Heroes
• Obama is having trouble replicating Ted Kennedy’s successful 1994 attacks
• Mitt’s pitch for America
• “Obama is Giving Taxpayer Money to Big Donors”.  New Romney Ad Strikes a Nerve

The ad entitled “Not Even Half” [see a White House 2012 video presentation of the ad below this post] is one of the first truly hard hitting ads by Romney to use undeniably tangible evidence of the corrupt and inept wat our President has been handling the economy.  Gone from  this ad are any abstract messages that merely address voters with rhetorical attacks on that which could be considered subjective and is open to varying degrees of disagreement.  In this ad, the cold, hard facts are presented.  Cold, hard facts that tell a story of a President who has set a billion  dollar fundraising goal for his reelection campaign and in doing so has rewarded at least hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer’s dollars to big businesses that have donated money to his campaign.

In the real world one is not permitted to give money that doesn’t belong to them to their friends.  But in the world of Obamanomics and liberal politics, using taxpayer’s money to invest in the failing businesses of friends  is a logical and legitimate practice.  In the real world, if a business made a deal that cost its stockholders hundreds of millions or billions of dollars, liberals would be calling for hearings, investigations, stricter regulations, and as in the case of Morgan Stanley CEO, Jamie Dimon whose recent  $2 billion loss due to a complex hedging  strategy involving hard-to-value  instruments and embedded riskS that eluded him, compelled liberals to call for his resignation.

However, similar  practices by the President go unaddressed and are even ignored.

The new Romney ad cites solid examples of the Administration’s shady and incompetent economic decisions such as the call to issue $3 billion in taxpayer backed loan guarantees to First Solar, a company that is now cutting jobs and seeing its stock at an all time low.  Then there’s Ecotality which received $126 million dollars in taxpayer’s money, only to lose $45 million and now find itself under investigation for financial impropriety.  Another example is Sunpower, a company that received $1 billion in taxpayer backed loan guarantees from the Obama Administration last year and this year, has lost half a billion dollars and is laying off workers.

There are more examples cited in the ad and many more are not included,  but each of them on their own would be enough for the left to crucify Mitt Romney for if they were carried under his Administration.  And if they found out that those who received preferential treatment from the Romney Administration, also donated to the Romney campaign, the din from their cries for impeachment of Mitt Romney would be deafening.

To compound the situation, is the fact that President Obama tries to claim that these transgressions were all a part of his good work to turn the economy around.  The Obama Administration calls these transactions “investments” that are all a part of successful efforts to turn the economy around.

As this ad suggests…….how’s that been working for ya so far?

Is investing the hard earned money of struggling taxpayers in the pockets of failing businesses that are firing more workers than they are hiring a good business decision?  An even better is question is should the federal government be picking winners and losers and placing those bets with the taxpayer’s money?   And is it right that President Obama’s big business donors to his campaign are the ones who his Administration funnels the taxpayer’s money too?

Bernie Madoff couldn’t have, shouldn’t have, and didn’t  get away with misappropriating funds.  So why are we allowing President Obama to?

This new Romney ad does a good job of pointing all this out.  And it does so in  a way that voters can easily understand.  It is the type of ad, that helps to keep the focus on the Obama Romney record and it is the type of ad that presents actual examples of the incompetent and unethical actions of the Obama Administration, while also reinforcing the incompetent impression the President has created for himself on the economy.  The best part of this ad is that it will carry a great deal weight among Independent voters who are not willing to ignore the facts and who are willing to consider the possibility that President Obama’s policies are not helping us.

Another benefit of this ad is the solid but subtle strategy to play on one of Mitt’s Romney’s strong points…..the impression that he is a good businessman.

When you consider the decisions that the Obama Administration made concerning investments in failed and failing business, you can’t help but think that a good businessman like Mitt Romney would never make the same obviously dumb decisions that our current President is making.

The Herd is a special White House 2012 series covering the obvious and not so obvious potential choices to be selected as Mitt Romney’s vice presidential running mate on the Republican presidential ticket. Each day, White House 2012 will introduce you to one of the many Republicans which we believe will be at least considered for for the vice presidency by the now inevitable presidential nominee, Mitt Romney.

In addition to biographical information and a brief assessment of each potential nominee and their chances of being selected by Mitt Romney, White House 2012′s coverage also includes each potential nominee’s voting records, as well as a listing of their public statements and links to their web sites and records.

Today White House 2012 takes a look at the former Governor of Oklahoma, Frank Keating.

Former Oklahoma Governor Frank Keating

Frank who?

Many, non-Southerners may not know or remember Frank Keating, but they should because he’s worth remembering.   He is truly one of the most successful conservative leaders and genuinely nice guys politics has ever known. As such, those of us who do remember Frank Keating are stirred by feelings of respect and confidence, when we think about him. Which is why when considering people as prospective vice presidential nominees, Frank Keating should be considered by Mitt Romney.

Keating, a former two term Governor of Oklahoma began his career in law enforcement and his good work in that area eventually led President Ronald Reagan to appoint Keating to be the United States Attorney for the Northern District of Oklahoma, where he served with distinction from 1981 to 1984. In 1984 he ran for Congress in Oklahoma’s 1st congressional district and lost but came close to defeating House Budget Committee chairman Jim Jones

Following that loss, President Reagan appointed Keating to serve as an Assistant Secretary of the Treasury and later as United States Associate Attorney General, where he became the third ranking official in the Department of Justice. In these positions, Keating managed both the Justice and Treasury departments’ law enforcement agencies, as well as the U.S. Customs Service, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center, the Federal Bureau of Prisons, the United States Marshals service, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, and all 94 United States Attorneys.

Following the election of George H.W. Bush in 1988, Keating continued on in the Justice Department but in 1990 was elevated by the first President Bush to serve as General Counsel and Acting Deputy Secretary of Housing and Urban Development under Secretary Jack Kemp. He began his work there in 1990 but on November 14th of 1991, Bush nominated Keating to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. Keating stayed on as Acting Deputry Director at H.U.D as he waited for his nomination to be taken up the Senate, but with Democrats in control, the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee and their partisanship caused them to sit on the nomination and never bring it for a hearing and vote. This allowed incoming Democrat President Bill Clinton to nominate a fellow partisan Democrat instead. The Democrat controlled Senate did act on that nominee in a timely fashion. Keating finally left his post with H.U.D. in 1993, after the Clinton Admimistration replaced him in that job too.

Keating then headed back to Oklahoma where after a years in the private sector, he decided to run for Governor of Oklahoma and in November of 1994 he defeated his Democrat opponent by 17 percentage points.

Within just three months of taking office, on April 19, Governor Keating became a man in charge of what at the time, was the greatest single act of terrorism in the United States. It became infamously known as the Oklahoma City Bombing and ground zero was the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. One explosion ignited within the confines of a large U-Haul truck that was parked in front of the building killed 168 Oklahomans and injured 800. The blast tore down the Alfred P. Murrah Building and destroyed or damaged more than 300 buildings in the surrounding area, leaving several hundred people homeless and shutting down business.

Governor Keating orchestrated an unimaginable mobilization of relief and rescue teams to handle the tragic event. His leadership help coordinate the efforts of over 12,000 people in the days following bombing and his masterful handling of it all earned him worldwide attention for his efforts to help the victims and their families.

Aside from the testing of Governor Keating under fire through the tragedy of Oklahoma City, Keating undertook an aggressive political agenda that included environmental protection, road building, tougher law enforcement, economic development,education reform, public safety, tax relief. he even initiated the creation of an innovative public-private partnership that assured care for the indigent as well as a stronger medical education program. Passage of these initiatives was not east and despite several bitter battles with the Democrat controlled state legislature, most of Keating’s initiatives were passed.

His first major success was passage of the first welfare reform law in the nation in 1995. By y 2001, those reforms had reduced Oklahoma’s welfare rolls by over 70%., but it’s early success was so great that success made Keating’s reforms a national model that was mimicked by the historic welfare reform act of 1996.

From there, Keating moved on to other memorably successful efforts. As a law and order politician, Keating used his career in law enforcement to serve Oklahomans. He implemented tough parole policies and introduced the landmark truth-in-sentencing legislation. Keating also showed little amnesty when handling death sentence criminals, allowing many of those sentenced to death to be executed. Keating also raised the salaries of Oklahoma’s state troopers from the lowest in the nation to the 24th highest.

But the greatest success of Keating’s first term came in 1998 when he become the first Governor of Oklahoma in 50 years to successfully maneuver the passage of a cut in the state’s income tax. Something that was made all the more remarkable given the fact that he had already successfully reduced the states unemployment tax, sales tax, and estate tax. The sum total of these policies and cuts created over 130,000 new jobs in Oklahoma Oklahoma and amounted to the largest tax break in the state’s history.

In his second term Keating set four goals for Oklahoma for his second term:

1. Ensure one out of every three Oklahomans has a college degree by 2010
2. Decreasing Oklahoma’s divorce rate by 50% before 2010,
3. Raising Oklahoma’s Americas College Testing scores to the national average by 2005
4. Raising Oklahoma’s per capita income to reach the national average by 2025

This focus led to an agenda that focussed on education by introducing charter schools in to the system and by increasing spending on the enhancement of vo-tech and higher education facilities. It also led Keating confront the problems involving substance abuse , child abuse, and out of wedlock births.

Other extraordinary achievements of Keating included

• A criminal justice bill that reformed Truth in Sentencing (TIS) to Oklahoma and ensure that violent and repeat offenders remained in jail
• Overseeing the largest road construction project in Oklahoma history.
• Leading his state through the historic and devastating tornado season of 1999
• Raising more than $20 million in private money to replenish a state fund that went dry during WWI and was meant to complete the Oklahoma State Capitol with a dome.

Since leaving office, Keating has enjoyed much success in the private sector sector where he served as President and Chief Executive Officer of the American Council of Life Insurers. In 2002 he wrote a children’s book about famous Oklahoman Will Rogers and in 2006 he authored another children’s book. This one was about Theodore Roosevelt. Then in 2008 came Standing Bear, his third book for children.

On January 1, 2011, Keating became president and CEO of the American Bankers Association.

During his post gubernatorial days, Keating flirted with the thought of running for President. However in 2008, he decided that compared to the earlier starts by the McCain and Romney campaigns, it was too late for him step in to the race.

Between his experience, personality and accomplishments, Governor Keating is probably more qualified to be President of the United States than any one who is or who were running for President in 2012. From a conservative standpoint, Keating is brilliant. From a non-partisan standpoint, Keating is a level-headed doer who looks beyond the obvious problems that needs fixing and dives full on in to a mission to fix them, but also has the vision to make sure that they won’t need to be fixed again in the future.

Governor Keating is a charming, inteligent, experienced, knowledgeable, accomplished leader who avoids partisan political bickering and reminds his colleagues that voters do not care about politics, they care about policies, policies that work. The type of Keating policies that increase, jobs, grows the economy, limits government, and is willing to accept the fact that government is not the answer to everything, but that government can help to unite the private sector in a way that allows them to do a better job than government ever could have.

Keating also has something that only a handful of other potential VP nominees have. Signature achievements that bring a level of undeniably proven credibility. The type of credibility that has also withstood the test of time. Frank Keating has truly walked the walk not just talked the talk. He has a proven record that if given the attention it deserves, could impress more than a few voters and make them say “we need someone like him to do for our nation, what he did for his state”.

It is simply a shame that Frank Keating didn’t become a candidate for President in 2012.

His record as Governor is one which not only demonstrates how good he was, it shows us a man who was ahead of the times. While many states are only now struggling with right-to-work laws, Frank Keating addressed them before they could become institutionalized problems in his state. While many states are finally trying to deal with the often tragic results of a lack of truth in sentencing, Frank Keating long ago solved that for the people of his state.

Be it matters of infrastructure, education, taxes, jobs, or the economy, Frank Keating has created road maps that have taken people in the direction before and there is no reason to believe why he can’t again. And he has even been successful at changing the dynamics of late which have people believing that all things must rely upon government. As Governor, Frank Keating was able to demonstrate the benefits of having government rely on the private sector and in so doing, proved that the private sector can do better than government. Between that and his having more hands on experience in the areas of public safety and law enforcement and what you have is a man who few are looking at now, but many could be wanting once they are reminded of who he is.

Pros:

• Incredible experience in law enforcement
• Has a record of governor that is full of reform, innovation, fiscal success, and managerial expertise, all of which touch upon important issues in this election.
• Respected among the conservative base that Romney needs to excite and get behind him with enthusiasm

Cons:

• Does not bring any needed extraordinary geographical pluses to the ticket
• His post-gubernbatorial work in the private sector as a lobbyist for bankers and insurers will be turned in to something evil by the left
• At 68, some may try to subtley use his age against him
• His representation of Banks as the ABA President will be used to try paint a Romneky/Keating ticket as an out of touch, rich Republican team of banking and Wall Street special interests as a part of the ongoing liberal class warefare startegy

General Assessment:

Keating is everything that conservatives want and more. Not only has been there and done that when it comes to every issue that we are discussing today, he has taken those issues by the horn and in his state, solved the problems surrounding those issues. As a candidate, Keating would be a strong, articulate candidate who people could relate to and with whom they could connect. He also comes from a school of politics that when compared to today’s politics, is much more mature and non-partisan. And although many people might not exactly recognize the name, once his story is told, people will automatically respect him for both who he is and what he accomplished. However I do not think Mitt Romney wants to have to tell Keating’s story. Doing so would drive some unwanted contrasts between Romney’s record and Keating’s record that Mitt may not want to have to address. And finally, I think Mitt may want to try to bring a relatively fresher face to the stage.

But I could easily be, and in many ways hope I am wrong, because if anyone would make a good Vice President, it would be someone who would make an excellent President, and Frank Keating would make an excellent President. In the end, as much as glad as I would like to see Keating tapped for the nomination, I think he is a longshot for the job because of the lack of geographical electoral benefit he brings to the ticket and because of the propoganda rich image the left would be given because of Keatings representation of insurance interests and as the President of the American Banking Association, banking interests.

Frank Keating On The Issues

Other White House 2012 pages dedicated to potential vice presidential candidates include links to the websites, and Facebook pages of the candidate it focusses on. Keating’s lack of political inolvement since 2002 has left Keating without a need or desire for such pages so there were none to link to. Inlieu of such pages, we have instead provided several video interviews of the Governor.

Recent Interviews of Frank Governors

Frank Keating, the former Oklahoma Governor who was named chief executive officer of the American Bankers Association, talks about his work on the Bipartisan Policy Center’s proposal for changes to the U.S. budget.

ABA CEO Frank Keating speaks at the ABA’s 2011 Convention about the Dodd-Frank Act and the importance of banks in building strong communities.

Former Governor Frank Keating talks about anger in America 15 years after the Oklahoma City Bombing with CNN’s John King.

Three plus years into the supreme ruler’s reign, enough time has now passed for all adult Americans to somehow be effected by the current state of things. Those with jobs, for instance, know family members or friends that have lost them. Perhaps they suffer anxiety wondering if today is the day they get called to the chopping block. Homeowners have lost their equity. Many Americans know friends or family or neighbors that have lost their homes. Shoppers have seen food prices rise and drivers have seen gas prices climb. The sad state of the union is more than apparent — it is painfully obvious.

Informed conservatives raised concerns about Obama being too anti-business before his election. Meanwhile, McCain and other establishment Republicans were either oblivious, didn’t care or were too timid to bring it up during the campaign. The media, of course, hide Obama’s background and political outlooks from the common folk.

Even post-election, as conservatives began putting the pieces of the puzzle together, as they supplied the meaning and intentions behind Obama’s political moves, skepticism and dismissal were the typical responses. Well, now the cat is out of the bag. Obama is indeed hostile to business. He has proven he will intentionally hurt industries (and therefore America) for his own political gain. Memorial Day conversations across the country can attempt to unravel whether Obama’s hostility toward business is good or bad for the country but, like the sad condition of the economy, his actual anti-business leanings cannot be disputed.

And that begs the question: just how moronic is Obama, really? For millions of Americans this election is everything about the economy. And yet, Obama and his campaign wizards, using Bain Capital as cover, think it best to attack capitalism. Is that wise? Sure, the hard left loves it but they’re votes are in the bag. And clearly Obama will get a percentage of naive college students to bite. Except all it takes is a good keg party to jeopardize those votes. So who is the target for the anti-capitalism message? Moderates? Is it for the moderates that are worried about when they have to face the chopping block? Is he targeting the moderates that are trying desperately to scrap together the cash for a summer vacation. Or is it the moderates that just saw Hewlett-Packard announce last week they’re dumping some 27,000 jobs because they can’t turn a profit. America’s economy is crumbling around us and team-Obama has chosen an anti-capitalism campaign message. How astonishingly ludicrous. Who’s in charge?

It’s no surprise that over the last couple of weeks some 15 Democrats have backed away from this simpleminded message, shouting ‘he said it, not me’ as loud as possible, including Massachusetts Governor and Obama-buddy, Deval Patrick. These politicians know who’s buttering their bread.

Didn’t Obama, or at least his campaign folks, watch the Republican primaries? If they had, they would’ve seen what you get from attacking capitalism — no matter how deftly you use Bain Capital as cover. You get backlash, you get scorn and get an immediate drop in numbers. Will he continue down this path? Saddled by an enormous ego and loath to admit mistakes, Obama may well indeed try to ride this hobbled pony to the finish line. Patrick and the others seem to think he will.

But it’s not rocket science. Ultimately, the candidate that successfully answers the most questions — who, what, where, when, why and how — regarding America’s ability to do business is going to get elected. Capitalism, not government, rings the cash register. And it is that sound, cha-ching, that Americans want to hear.

According to Hayes;

I think it’s interesting because I think it is very difficult to talk about the war dead and the fallen without invoking valor, without invoking the words “heroes.” Why do I feel so [uncomfortable] about the word “hero”?  I feel comfortable — uncomfortable — about the word because it seems to me that it is so rhetorically proximate to justifications for more war. Um, and, I don’t want to obviously desecrate or disrespect memory of anyone that’s fallen, and obviously there are individual circumstances in which there is genuine, tremendous heroism: hail of gunfire, rescuing fellow soldiers and things like that. But it seems to me that we marshal this word in a way that is problematic. But maybe I’m wrong about that. (see video below)

Well Chris, certainly was wrong about that.

People who are willing to sacrifice their lives for the sake of others most certainly are heroes.  There are few other words that can be ascribed more accurately to men and women who are so giving and strong in character that are willing to die for the founding principles of our nation and willing to give up their own lives so that even an ignorant American whose only claim to fame are the connections which got him his job, can spew the type of liberal vitriol and disrespectfully politically correct, talking points that Chris Hayes did on the day before Memorial Day.

Hayes tried to trace his discomfort with calling “all” America’s war dead heroes, to his belief that doing so seems to justify war.  And therein lies one of Chris’ problems.  He does not believe that any war is justifiable.  He believes that no matter what, it is better to ignore the enemy or to conform to their wishes than it is to say “no” to them or to refuse to compromise with them.  And that is because as you will find out, Chris Hayes has a silver spoon stuck in his mouth and lacks any real passion for principles or for anyone other than himself.  He is a shallow follower of hypocritical liberal doctrine who believes that ours is not a particularly special nation or that our role in the world is any more significant than say, Uganda’s role in the world.  He is a typical liberal elitists and that is what accounted for his truly stupid attempt to try to avoid calling those who gave their all for us, heroes.

No one likes war and no sane person wants war.  And no one dislikes war more than modern day warriors.  But the men and women who voluntarily enlist in our military to defend the values and principles of America and the freedom and rights of individual Americans, know that there are things worth fighting and even dying for.  And that is exactly what made those who died in the service of our nation heroes.  They were brave enough to do what most of us aren’t…..risk it all for their beliefs.

Following Hayes’ ignorant Sunday remarks on his obscure little MSNBC talk show “Up With Chris Hayes”, he issued a carefully phrased apology on Memorial Day that read as such;

On Sunday, in discussing the uses of the word “hero” to describe those members of the armed forces who have given their lives, I don’t think I lived up to the standards of rigor, respect and empathy for those affected by the issues we discuss that I’ve set for myself. I am deeply sorry for that.

As many have rightly pointed out, it’s very easy for me, a TV host, to opine about the people who fight our wars, having never dodged a bullet or guarded a post or walked a mile in their boots. Of course, that is true of the overwhelming majority of our nation’s citizens as a whole. One of the points made during Sunday’s show was just how removed most Americans are from the wars we fight, how small a percentage of our population is asked to shoulder the entire burden and how easy it becomes to never read the names of those who are wounded and fight and die, to not ask questions about the direction of our strategy in Afghanistan, and to assuage our own collective guilt about this disconnect with a pro-forma ritual that we observe briefly before returning to our barbecues.

But in seeking to discuss the civilian-military divide and the social distance between those who fight and those who don’t, I ended up reinforcing it, conforming to a stereotype of a removed pundit whose views are not anchored in the very real and very wrenching experience of this long decade of war. And for that I am truly sorry.

Personally, after reading that, I wasn’t quite sure which was more offensive, his original attempt to try to explain why he won’t call our war dead heroes, or his fake apology regarding that explanation and continued refusal to call those dead warriors heroes?

That question arises because you might note that Hayes did not apologize for trying to deny those in the armed forces who gave their lives  proper credit as heroes.  Instead he states that he is deeply sorry for not living up to his own standards for himself in the areas of respect and empathy.  What he does not say he is deeply sorry for is his desire to deny calling those who made the greatest sacrifice heroes.

Instead of apologizing for that, this stuck up, pseudo-intellectual, liberal snob, tries to redeem himself  by attempting to reinforce the validity of what he describes as the real point of the discussion that led him to make his inappropriate remarks.   In his apology he goes on to claim that his desire to avoid using the term heroes in regards to our deceased military fighters was an example of the disconnect that most people have with what our service members do and with the reasons for their actions.  The inference being that by not calling those we memorialize on Memorial Day heroes, he too was demonstrating a disconnect of his own therefore his “greater” point was correct.

Not once does Hayes state in his apology that contrary to his initial remarks, those Americans who died on the field are in fact heroes.  Instead he tries to shift the focus away from his disrespectful thought process and shine it on something which he claims he is right about……… that most Americans do not fully comprehend what our military men and women go through.   His claim is that his remarks demonstrated the same “social distance” between the military and civilians that he was addressing and that in doing so he accidentally demonstrated the same lack of appreciation for what our military members go through that he was trying to explain.  And so as he put it, “for that I am truly sorry“.

His regret is not for denying that the members of the armed forces who have given their lives are heroes, it is simply for his claim that  coming off people gleemed from his remark a sense that he doesn’t understand what our veterans went through.

That just goes to show you that Chris Hayes just doesn’t get it.

He doesn’t understand that the vast majority of people who heard about his remark (most people only heard about it through other media sources because few people actually see his show) are offended by his inherently liberal desire to try to avoid justifying any American military actions.  And in this case to do so by denying the participants in those actions the right to be considered heroes.

This whole incident and the thinking behind Hayes’s remarks and the Memorial Day weekend timing of them, was hard for me to understand.  At least up until I found out who Chris Hayes is.

You see, like most people, I never heard of this guy.  And like most people I never heard of or saw his two hour long, weekend talk show on MSNBC called “Up with Chris”.

So I poked around a bit and what I learned allowed me to make perfect sense of it all.

Chris Hayes is nothing but a purely partisan, liberal propagandist who was born in to money, married in to power, and given a career because of who is father-in-law is.

This Bronx, New York born MSNBC star happens to be the husband of Kate Shaw, the Associate Counsel for President Barack Obama.  And Kate happens to be the daughter of award-winning Chicago journalist Andy Shaw, a frequent liberal guest on MSNBC and a reporter with close ties to President Obama.  And to make the picture even more clear, Hayes brother Luke is a Democrat party operative.

Prior to his big job on the low rated MSNBC, Chris recieved an undergraduate education at Brown University where he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Philosophy.  Philosophy!

In 2006 Hayes parlayed that expertise in philosophy into a gig as a contributing write for the pro-communist rag called The Nation.  In 2007 that liberal stink tank made him their Washington, D.C. editor.  Now he writes for a a monthly liberal tabloid in Chicago called “These Times”.

As for his show on MSNBC, that came about in 2011, after he filled in several times for the legendary liberal lesbian Rachel Maddow of the too low to be rated Rachel Maddow Show.  Hayes also filled in for such MSNBC liberal luminaries as Ed Schultz, self described socialist Lawrence O’Donnell, and the king of liberal lunatics, Keith Olbermann.

These details helped  me to understand what was really at the heart of the controversial remarks that tried to deny our military men and women who died in combat, the proper respect and right to be called heroes.  The problem is nothing more or less than liberalism and I have come to realize that liberalism is not really an ideology or set of beliefs.  It is merely a mental disease that denies its victims of any sense of proper perspective or logic.  It is a malady that erodes at our cognitive abilities and chips away at the heart of our founding principles.  Liberalism is nothing other than a corrosive contaminant that courses through our national fiber and erodes everything from our pride in our nation to our acceptance of reality.

Once you come to realize that, you also come to realize that Chris Hayes is just another random metastatic cell to come out of MSNBC the, nation’s largest incubator of this disease called liberalism.

But from the answer come two questions.  Will we ever find a way  to cure liberalism? And will we ever find “without invoking the word  hero“, a conservative leader who can finally show people the way to try to even find a cure?

On this day, remember that were it not for those men and women who gave their lives in the service of this nation, we would not be able to enjoy life safely and freely.

It is a day when the eternal tribute by the Tomb Guard sentinels at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington National Cemetary, provide us with an example to follow for at least a few brief moments.

The Tomb Guards sentinels, are all volunteers, and they are the best of the elite 3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment which is also known as The Old Guard., and for 24 hours a day, seven days a week, month after month, and year after year, they stand guard over the tomb and the unknown soldiers buried in it.

The Tomb Guard is eternally vigilant in their watch over the unknown soldiers, forever insuring that the unknown soldiers representing all the unidentified and never found war dead of our nation, receive the proper respect that the memories of their lives and appreciation for their defense of our nation deserves.

In a non-stop cycle, individual members of the Tomb Guard march 21 steps down a black mat behind the Tomb, turn, faces east for 21 seconds, turn again and face north for 21 seconds, then take the 21 steps that symbolize the highest military honor that can be bestowed, the 21-gun salute, down on the mat.   After the turn, the sentinel executes a sharp “shoulder-arms” movement to place the weapon on the shoulder closest to the visitors to signify that the sentinel stands between the Tomb and any possible threat.  Then they repeat their march in the opposite direction.

Occasionally, when a group of visitors fail to conduct themselves in a way that does justice to the souls buried in the tomb and the souls they represent. The Tomb Guard will abruptly stop their march and in swift order, take their rifle from their shoulder, grasp it straight out from their chest and at an angle, point it towards the sky, as they turn to those failing  to follow the proper protocol at the tomb, and firmly, and loudly snap out the following words;

 “It is requested that everyone maintains a level of silence and respect”. 

They then click their heels and fall back in to their regular marching pattern, as the stunned visitors stand in shocked reminder of the solemn and respectful required by their presence and deserved by the entombed soldiers.

This eternal display of dedication to insuring that our war dead are honored and properly respected, should act as a reminder to us all that such respect and honor is deserved for all those who gave their lives in the service of our nation, and that out of all the days of the year, Memorial Day provides us with the opportunity to set some time aside for at least least considering to maintain even just a brief personal, level of silent reflection and  demonstrable respect and gratitude for our war dead.

The harried pace of our everyday personal lives does not always allow us to stop and make a conscious effort to not take for granted the sacrifices that others have made for us.  It is understandable but also unnacceptable.  But not on Memorial Day, the one day of every year that is designated for just such a purpose.  On this day you need not be at the Tomb of the Unknows to respect our national heroes and express our gratitude to them for giving  their all for us all.  And to do this you need simply to remember how we as a nation arrived to this place in time we are now in and how much blood has been shed to insure our way life.  If you can do that, than not only should it bring a tear to your eye, it should also compel you to put down your beer, or frisbee for a moment and personally praise those who made this the nation the home of the brave and made it possible for you to live in the land of the free.

Below you will find a White House 2012 Memorial Day tribute called “Remembrance” and below that you will find a history of the holiday from MemorialDay.org

The following is from MemorialDay.org

Memorial Day, originally called Decoration Day, is a day of remembrance for those who have died in our nation’s service. There are many stories as to its actual beginnings, with over two dozen cities and towns laying claim to being the birthplace of Memorial Day. There is also evidence that organized women’s groups in the South were decorating graves before the end of the Civil War: a hymn published in 1867, “Kneel Where Our Loves are Sleeping” by Nella L. Sweet carried the dedication “To The Ladies of the South who are Decorating the Graves of the Confederate Dead” (Source: Duke University’s Historic American Sheet Music, 1850-1920). While Waterloo N.Y. was officially declared the birthplace of Memorial Day by President Lyndon Johnson in May 1966, it’s difficult to prove conclusively the origins of the day. It is more likely that it had many separate beginnings; each of those towns and every planned or spontaneous gathering of people to honor the war dead in the 1860′s tapped into the general human need to honor our dead, each contributed honorably to the growing movement that culminated in Gen Logan giving his official proclamation in 1868. It is not important who was the very first, what is important is that Memorial Day was established. Memorial Day is not about division. It is about reconciliation; it is about coming together to honor those who gave their all.

Image from MemorialDay.org

Memorial Day was officially proclaimed on 5 May 1868 by General John Logan, national commander of the Grand Army of the Republic, in his General Order No. 11, and was first observed on 30 May 1868, when flowers were placed on the graves of Union and Confederate soldiers at Arlington National Cemetery. The first state to officially recognize the holiday was New York in 1873. By 1890 it was recognized by all of the northern states. The South refused to acknowledge the day, honoring their dead on separate days until after World War I (when the holiday changed from honoring just those who died fighting in the Civil War to honoring Americans who died fighting in any war). It is now celebrated in almost every State on the last Monday in May (passed by Congress with the National Holiday Act of 1971 (P.L. 90 – 363) to ensure a three day weekend for Federal holidays), though several southern states have an additional separate day for honoring the Confederate war dead: January 19 in Texas, April 26 in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, and Mississippi; May 10 in South Carolina; and June 3 (Jefferson Davis’ birthday) in Louisiana and Tennessee.

In 1915, inspired by the poem “In Flanders Fields,”Moina Michael replied with her own poem:

She then conceived of an idea to wear red poppies on Memorial day in honor of those who died serving the nation during war. She was the first to wear one, and sold poppies to her friends and co-workers with the money going to benefit servicemen in need. Later a Madam Guerin from France was visiting the United States and learned of this new custom started by Ms.Michael and when she returned to France, made artificial red poppies to raise money for war orphaned children and widowed women. This tradition spread to other countries. In 1921, the Franco-American Children’s League sold poppies nationally to benefit war orphans of France and Belgium. The League disbanded a year later and Madam Guerin approached the VFW for help. Shortly before Memorial Day in 1922 the VFW became the first veterans’ organization to nationally sell poppies. Two years later their “Buddy” Poppy program was selling artificial poppies made by disabled veterans. In 1948 the US Post Office honored Ms Michael for her role in founding the National Poppy movement by issuing a red 3 cent postage stampwith her likeness on it.

Traditional observance of Memorial day has diminished over the years. Many Americans nowadays have forgotten the meaning and traditions of Memorial Day. At many cemeteries, the graves of the fallen are increasingly ignored, neglected. Most people no longer remember the proper flag etiquette for the day. While there are towns and cities that still hold Memorial Day parades, many have not held a parade in decades. Some people think the day is for honoring any and all dead, and not just those fallen in service to our country.

There are a few notable exceptions. Since the late 50′s on the Thursday before Memorial Day, the 1,200 soldiers of the 3d U.S. Infantry place small American flags at each of the more than 260,000 gravestones at Arlington National Cemetery. They then patrol 24 hours a day during the weekend to ensure that each flag remains standing. In 1951, the Boy Scouts and Cub Scouts of St. Louis began placing flags on the 150,000 graves at Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery as an annual Good Turn, a practice that continues to this day. More recently, beginning in 1998, on the Saturday before the observed day for Memorial Day, the Boys Scouts and Girl Scouts place a candle at each of approximately 15,300 grave sites of soldiers buried at Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park on Marye’s Heights (the Luminaria Program). And in 2004, Washington D.C. held its first Memorial Day parade in over 60 years.

To help re-educate and remind Americans of the true meaning of Memorial Day, the “National Moment of Remembrance” resolution was passed on Dec 2000 which asks that at 3 p.m. local time, for all Americans “To voluntarily and informally observe in their own way a Moment of remembrance and respect, pausing from whatever they are doing for a moment of silence or listening to ‘Taps.”

The Moment of Remembrance is a step in the right direction to returning the meaning back to the day. What is needed is a full return to the original day of observance. Set aside one day out of the year for the nation to get together to remember, reflect and honor those who have given their all in service to their country.

But what may be needed to return the solemn, and even sacred, spirit back to Memorial Day is for a return to its traditional day of observance. Many feel that when Congress made the day into a three-day weekend in with the National Holiday Act of 1971, it made it all the easier for people to be distracted from the spirit and meaning of the day. As the VFW stated in its 2002 Memorial Day address: “Changing the date merely to create three-day weekends has undermined the very meaning of the day. No doubt, this has contributed greatly to the general public’s nonchalant observance of Memorial Day.”

On January 19, 1999 Senator Inouye introduced bill S 189 to the Senatewhich proposes to restore the traditional day of observance of Memorial Day back to May 30th instead of “the last Monday in May”. On April 19, 1999 Representative Gibbons introduced the bill to the House (H.R. 1474). The bills were referred the Committee on the Judiciary and the Committee on Government Reform.

To date, there has been no further developments on the bill. Please write your Representative and your Senators, urging them to support these bills. You can also contact Mr. Inouyeto let him know of your support.

Visit our Help Restore the Traditional Day of Observance page for more information on this issue, and for more ways you can help.
To see what day Memorial Day falls on for the next 10 years, visit the Memorial Day Calendar page.

Obama has been exposed in yet another blatant campaign lie.  This one wasn’t even really his fault.  Rex Nutting, a writer for the mainstream/yet left leaning Marketwatch prepared a chart that shows Obama hasn’t really grown spending all that much.  The administration quickly ran with it, putting the chart on their facebook page, and announcing that Obama was a model of fiscal restraint.

So how does this economist at Marketwatch, and now Obama and media reporters who can barely add two and two, come to figure out that Obama is so thrifty?  Simple.  Their percentages make one major assumption that makes the percentages meaningless.  Every dollar of spending in the first year of a President’s term is directly a result of the budget the previous President wrote.

To put it simply, the $787 billion dollar stimulus bill that Obama ran on, lobbied for, pushed through the Democrat super majorities in the House and Senate, and signed was actually spending that should be attributed to Bush.  Of course once you do that you have majorly inflated Bush’s spending and deflated Obama’s spending so that percentages make Obama look like a champ.  I’m not making this up.  This is actually what Rex Nutter did.  He also included 2013 in Obama’s figures even though Obama’s budget lost in the Senate something like 99-0.

The footnote is misleading. Nutter means only $140 billion of the Stimulus (the portion passed in October) is attributed to Obama.

Nutter should be fired, but who is going to fire him?  Journalists rely on people like Nutter to be the “experts”.  That way they don’t have to actually do any work.

“I was for tax and spend, before I was against it!”

Obama’s budget cuts the deficit by $4 trillion over the next ten years.  Of course, like Clinton’s last budget in office, it is simply words on a page that have absolutely no bearing on reality.  But nevermind the fact that $4 trillion over the next ten years wouldn’t cover Obama’s deficits for his first four years or that his numbers are probably about as accurate as the CBOs estimate of the costs of Obamacare.  Since when did Obama decide he was against tax and spend??

Obama, on the one year anniversary of what Nutter seems to think was Bush’s stimulus, praised the stimulus package as having saved us from another great depression.  So shouldn’t we be thanking Bush?  While Obama has been running as a tax cutting President who pinches pennies on his facebook page, just a couple weeks ago he re-affirmed his tax and spend stance in the upcoming debt ceiling debate.  Obama went from tax and spend, to proud tax cutting President when he was forced to extend the Bush tax cuts, to tax and spend when the debt ceiling debate rolled around again, and back to tax cutting for the 2012 election.  Even John Kerry was more consistent.

Biting the hand that feeds them

It is not coming up all roses for the Obama propaganda machine.  Obama is betting the farm on a populist attack against Bain Capital where Romney used to work.  But the Left has been heavily funded by private equity, and most private equity companies didn’t get the memo about Obama just saying whatever it takes to get elected.  Some of them are actually getting offended by the attacks.

Democrats are getting nervous too.  Apparently not every Democrat feels comfortable biting the hand that feeds them.  But what else does Obama have to attack Romney on other than the fact that he is successful and the “independent” liberal voting base is anti-success?

The attack on Bain is dubious anyway.  As a venture capital company, they may have had lots of layoffs on their watch in order to fix businesses, but Obama has seen 2.5 million net jobs lost on his watch.  Actually, let me borrow some Obama math and accuracy and adjust that number to 6.7 million jobs lost.  After all, if the net loss is 2.5 million, but Obama claims he added 4.2 million, then shouldn’t we be using the total jobs lost figure instead of the net?  Just trying to be consistent, Mr. President.

Obama is running as a conservative while acting like a liberal.  When conservatives force his hand, he is happy to take credit for the results.  When liberalism fails, he is happy to pass the buck to Congress or the previous administration.  He will say or do whatever it takes to win re-election and cannot be trusted.

New Mexico Governor Susana Martinez

Born	(1959-07-14) July 14, 1959 (age 52) El Paso, Texas, U.S.
Political party	Democratic Party (Before 1995) Republican Party (1995–present)
Spouse(s)	Chuck Franco
Children	Carlo
Residence	Governor’s Mansion
Alma mater	University of Texas, El Paso University of Oklahoma
Signature

Martinez is a strong, Thatcher-like, conservative, woman who in 2010 handily won her election and became the first female governor of New Mexico, and the first female Hispanic governor in the United States. Beyond both the appeal of the balance she would bring to the G.O.P. as both a Hispanic and a woman, Martinez is simply a strong conservative leader with solid conservative positions and a powerful conservative agenda that translates into the type of solutions that New Mexico and in many ways, the nation requires .

Martinez has pursued an aggressive approach to the problem of illegal immigration in her state, and as a four term district attorney, Martinez she has a powerful law and order agenda. She has sought to repeal state laws that provide illegal immigrants access to driver’s licenses and to deny children of illegal immigrants access to higher education through the New Mexico Lottery Scholarship Ironically Martinez has admitted that her paternal grandparents were illegal immigrants. While that may become a laughing point for the left, it does however give Martinez a unique ability to lead on the issue.

Governor Martinez has also been a leading “good government” advocate who has pushed for transparency in government every step of the way. This probably stems from her years as a prosecutor in which she focused on cases involving public corruption. And when it comes to fiscal conservatism, Martinez is a trim, female version of Chris Christie. While far more attractive than Christie, she shares his approach to budgetary matters and has proposed to reduce New Mexico’s debt without increasing taxes, and by proposing state spending reductions and agency budget cuts. Martinez has also called for pension reforms, that have reduced the state’s pension contribution and required their beneficiaries to pay an additional 2% into their pension funds. In other areas Martinez has promised to revamp the state’s education plan by investing in private education

Martinez is pro-life and is opposed to elective abortion. She supports parental notification laws for minors under 13-years-old who seek an abortion. She is also opposed to same-sex marriage. Martinez supports a balanced budget and lower government spending. She also favors putting taxpayer money into a rainy day fund, and refunding taxpayers to attempt to stimulate growth.

One area where Martinez may be seen as wandering off the conservative Republican ranch. While the Party line generally focusses von cutting services, the opposition often attempts to use that as a way to paint the G.O.P. as out to decimate programs aimed at helping the sick and poor. But such charges can not be used against Martinez. She goes out of her way to make it know that she believes in providing services to adults and children who can’t take care of themselves. That belief even prompted Governor Martinez to wrest an additional $6 million in Medicaid money out of the New Mexico legislature during her first year in office, despite inheriting a a $450 million deficit. This may earn Martinez some sharp criticism from fiscal conservatives on the right, but in the general election, it could a long way in compensating for the harsh image that the Obama and the pro-Obama media will create for Republicans when it comes to the most vulnerable in our society.

In many ways, Martinez is shrewd or to put it in a more accurate and less ominous way, she is politically savvy. She knows that her political future is bright and so she has been very carefull in her political decision making. She has avoided any of the political landmines that often eventually blowup in the faces of other politicians. In many ways, you can say Martinez is pacing herself. She offers bold conservatives solutions that are designed to address the problems of her state but she as avoided getting heavily invested in anything that would anger one segment of the electorate or the other. This may not be seen as a profile in courage but from a political standpoint, New Mexico governors are limited to two terms and if Martinez does a job that is good enough to get reelected, her second term could be the one in which she uses to shoot for more bold, sweeping reforms.

In the meantime, Martinez has one of the highest approval ratings of all the governors in the nation and she is in a perfect position to bring that type of popularity to the Republican presidential ticket.

If tapped for Vice President, the left will surely try to palinize Martinez. Like Palin by the time of the 2012 election she will have served only half a term as Governor and many will draw comparisons between Palin and Martinez. But such comparisons would be a mistake. The two are very different people, with similar conservative solutions but with distinctly different personalities and approaches. Martinez could be a strong running mate for any presidential nominee. But her willingness to accept the VP slot if asked is in great doubt. Voters of New Mexico were not very happy with their last Governor when he briefly ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008. Governor Bill Richardson was term limited and could not seek reelection but New Mexicans were still not happy with the time he spent running for office instead of running the state.

Which might be one reason why Martinez claims to be dead-set against running as Romney’s Vice President. Another reason could be her dislike of the Republican establishments approach to immigration and appealing to Hispanic voters. In regards to Romney’s call for policies that promote illegal immigrants to self deport, Martinez sate’s “‘Self-deport?’ What the heck does that mean?” She also adds that Martinez “I have no doubt Hispanics have been alienated during this campaign. But now there’s an opportunity for Gov. Romney to have a sincere conversation about what we can do and why.”

Martinez has many of her own ideas on how to do that. One of them includes reminding Latinos that President Obama promised to pass comprehensive immigration reform by the end of his first term year in office and to make them aware that as it turns out, he “didn’t even have the courage to try.” Another suggestion is for Republicans to come up with their own, very real, multi level approach to immigration. An approach that includes a guest-worker program for people who want “to go freely back and forth across the border to work”; increased border security; a visa (coupled with a “penalty” or a “tagback”) that allows rest of the illegal population to remain in the U.S. while they follow standard naturalization procedures. deportation for criminals; and a DREAM Act-style pathway to citizenship, through the military or college, for children brought here illegally by their parents.

But with such strong opinions and an obviously bright future of leadership, it is very possible that Martinez could be convinced that by joining the Republican presidential ticket, she might be able to accomplish these things. With Republicans needing close to at least 40% of the vote if they wish to win the White House, there is no good reason for Mitt Romney to adopt the ideas of Martinez and unleash her on the nation to campaign for the their implementation.

Given the reality of it all, Martinez is by far the best choice for Mitt Romney. Like Marco Rubio, she appeals to Hispanics, but as a Latina she also appeals to women, and not just Hispanic women. Martinez also comes from a state that if Republicans win, could make it impossible for President Obama to hammer together the 270 electoral college votes that he needs to win reelection. Martinez is also a top notch campaigner whose natural people skills goes a long way in compensating for Romney’s robotic personality. In that area, what Romney lacks, Martinez more than makes up for.

Although Martinez’s record is not blemish free, her placement on the G.O.P. ticket as Romney’s running mate could make all the difference in a close election. While the selection of some potential vice presidential running mates like Marco Rubio of Florida and Rob Portman of Ohio may be essential to winning one or the other of those two states that are critically needed for Republicans to win in November, Martinez could change the electoral equation of all the states by cutting in to the Democrat’s traditionally reliable strength among women and Hispanic voters.

Pros:

• Is solid enough on most conservative issues to satisfy and energize the Republican base that Romney is on shaky ground with
• She comes from a state that Democrats can’t afford to lose
• She has regional appeal in the Southwest
• As a Latina, Martinez who speaks fluent Spanish, can appeal to both Hispanics and women in ways that no other potential running mate can
• Martinez’s position on Medicare and other government entitlement programs can help counter the left’s harsh rhetoric that tries to paint the G.O.P. as heartless
• Martinez is a very strong Thatcher-like figure who connects with people and is an excellent speaker and campaigner
• Her personal story is a quintessentially American one that can help voters relate to her and appreciate her
• Will be able to address the issue of comprehensive immigration reform quite convincingly

Cons:

• Open to criticism from fiscal conservatives on issues like Medicaid
• Will have been governor for two years and will initially have to contend with comparisons to Sarah Palin
• Will have to contend with rumors about her grandparents having been illegal immigrants
• Will face sharp criticism for the handling of a mentally ill man who was held without a trial for two years at a county prison while she was D.A andfor being briefly fired in 1992 when her boss accused her of bringing in a case her husband had investigated.
• The left will try claim that Martinez participated in patronage by awarding casino contracts and energy appointments to campaign donor

General Assessment:

While there are several other favorites of my own such as Mitch Daniels, Bobby Jindal, Allen West, Marco Rubio, John Thune, and Jeb Bush, New Mexico Governor Susana Martinez is another contender I am cheering for.

Martinez is a strong, convincing conservative voice with a compelling story and powerfully confident record on conservative issues and as a state executive. Her Thatcher-like strength goes a long way in providing a sometimes sexist male electorate with confidence in her and her ability to relate to women and Hispanics is unparalleled by any other figure on the national stage today. Those latter two points can have a major effect on the election, especially among those Hispanics and women who are independent voters.

From my perspective Martinez is a perfect choice not just for Mitt Romney but for anybody. She is right on the issues and is better suited than any other potential Romney running mate to articulate the Party’s position positions on those issues than most others, and when it comes to women voters and Hispanic voters, she is better than any other national figure especially when it comes to adding diversity to the ticket.  The only way Martinez could add a more perfect angle of diversity to the ticket would be if she was a lesbian.  Could you imagine the frustraqtion of the left having to contend with a conservtive Latina lesbian?  And contrary to what you might think, they do exist.

But I am not the presidential nominee. Mitt Romney is and I do not think he is likely to select Martinez as his running mate for several reasons. Martinez is probably not the non-controversial choice that is safe enough for his comfort level and he will probably want to avoid the distraction that the media will cause with inevitable comparisons of his campaign to John’s Mc Cain’s losing 2008 campaign and the selection of Sarah Palin, another woman and freshman Governor selected to be Vice President.

Another possible reason for not selcting Martinez is her prior criticism of Romney and her demonstrated disatisfaction with some of Romney’s polcies..  That is addition  to her indicating that she will not consider accepting the position if it was offered.  I hope I am wrong about Romney’s thinking though, and I would hope that Martinez would reconsider her earlier protestations because I truly believe she is one of the best 5 men or women for the job.

Recent Key Votes

SB 9 – Changes Corporate Income Tax Rates and Filing Requirements

HB 72 – Relating to Judicial Retirement

Martinez On The Issues

  Today’s election news summary takes us on tour of a new Romney ad, tough questioning for Romney, vice presidential auditions, the liberal war on money, Biden’s “us vs. them” problem, non-issues used to the Left’s advantage, how big labor is making Scott Walker a star, and the view that socialism id the answer, as well as much more.

• Search for Romney running mate in audition phase
• Mitt Romney faces tough questions from black leaders
• The Democrats’ war on money
• Vice President Joe Biden: Tea Party Contributed to Bad Economy, and more!
• Newt Gingrich to attend Romney fundraiser with Donald Trump in Las Vegas
• Campaigns target voters through their phones
• Democrats driving the agenda with fake issues
• Clark County GOP officers quit in Ron Paul flap and now Paul fans want RNC Chairman Reince Prebius to do the same
• Will Big Labor make Scott Walker a national hero in the GOP?
• “Socialism Is The Answer”.  Must See Occupied Video
• Mitt Romney Ad:  Stories From The Obama Economy: