jim wilson

It's not simply that Bush sailed to reelection with a comfortable majority
of the popular vote and a clear, unquestionable win in the Electoral
College. Republicans added to their majorities in both the House and
Senate, where Democrats were utterly repudiated by the electorate. Probably
the single most welcome development was the long-awaited defeat of the
Senate Minority Leader, Tom Daschle of South Dakota. John Thune, the
Republican candidate, whupped his liberal butt with room to spare. How
personally gratified I feel to have contributed $20 to the South Dakota
Republicans and another $20 to Thune, himself. I was already tapped out
with multiple contributions to Bush-Cheney '04, the RNC, Senate Republicans,
and etc. Once you get on the list, you are peppered with several
solicitations per week, most of which you must ignore. So don't think all
I've done is to mouth off in support of my candidates and my party. I put
my money where my mouth is. But the sort of thing I do on here, coupled
with dozens of emails, letters, phone calls, and opinions expressed on the
radio, remained the bulk of my contribution. I don't know how much good it
did, but I did my best. Therefore, I feel the right to gloat just a little
bit. After taking massive amounts of some truly nasty heat for daring to
express my generally conservative viewpoint in this overwhelmingly liberal
venue over the last four years, I earned that much.
Daschle's defeat has been a long time coming. He has served as the
Senate's leading liberal firebrand and major obstructionist to the
"compassionate conservative" agenda put forward by President Bush. His
active and sneaky participation in wooing William Jeffers of Vermont from
the ranks of Republicans may have put him back in control of the Senate for
a short time, but that situation was thankfully overturned at the midterm
elections. Nonetheless, it earned Daschle the lasting emnity of
conservatives. We became determined more than ever to send him packing back
to the coldly featureless landscape of Aberdeen, South Dakota. We will have
a new Senate Minority Leader, thank God.
By the way, all you liberals who have read this far. The morons over
at Free Republic think I'm a communist. I dared to suggest that Republicans
must come up with a viable alternative to socialized medicine and they
barred me from posting there. So I am fully aware that morons exist at
either end of the political spectrum. As I have stated on many occasions,
my politics combines conservative positions with occasional liberal ones and
I am probably just to the right of center. I believe in protecting the
environment. I think marijuana should be legal (no, I don't use it any
more), and I think doctors who are in it to make a comfortable living should
look elsewhere. Politics in this country, particularly on the Internet, is
a very polarizing experience. When Hillary Clinton, whom I cannot stand,
persisted in referring to all of her husband's critics as "rightwing
extremists," the battle lines were drawn. If you want to fully participate
in what happens in the coming four years, I strongly suggest that you drop
the easy labels, condemn those who make unwarranted personal attacks without
significant provocation, and start facing a few facts. We have enemies that
want to kill us all. We have myriad problems that will need solving.
Mindless conformity to any perspective, lifestyle, or ideology will not fix
a thing. We need to consider new solutions to common problems and new ways
of seeing the world.