Cup half full?

"I've tried to be a team player with Republicans for years," said DeMint, who spent six years in the U.S. House before serving his first six-year term in the Senate. "I decided a couple years ago that that wasn't working. The Republican establishment seemed happy with the status quo. And we've got to change that."

Read more: http://politics.blogs.foxnews.com/2010/11/03/kingmaker-demint-urges-change-within-gop#ixzz14E3lSdcV

 

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I had to start with that quote from South Carolina's Jim DeMint, who won handily last night. He has become my new political hero over the past years. Many other Republicans are saying things that sound good, but I'll have to wait and see if they've had a true conversion or if they're just talkin' the talk to keep their butts in power. DeMint is walkin' the walk and now he has some others to give him much needed support.

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Cup half full?

I was thinking this morning about all that we've accomplished in recent months to start the much needed cleaning up of our political system. Last night we took the House, we cleaned clock across the country in state races including the governors races and we increased our voice in the Senate. I should be elated. 

I am happy. However, I can't help focusing on that half empty part of the glass. I wanted to bump Reid in Nevada. I was hoping we'd pick up the Senate seat in California despite the fact that they lean so far to the left that you have to dig holes to accommodate their slant.

I'm watching Alaska and will be following it closely but it looks like Murkowski, who'll do anything to keep her power, who was helped tremendously by sitting Republicans in Congress, might go back to Washington. Buck in Colorado is headed toward a probable recount and we know how the Democrats manage to find felons to tip the scales in their favor... Who else? Oh, still waiting to see if we can take out Murray in Washington.

Yet we had a HUGE victory last night. As said, I should be elated. I will be when I put things in perspective, which I'm attempting to do as I write!

Who'd have thunk that we'd have come roaring back so quickly after our resounding defeat two years ago? Time Magazine declared us dead. We listened to chants of "O-baa-maa" and watched as he twisted our country into knots and began shredding the Constitution.

During the past year or so the Tea Party, 9-12 groups and other similar groups have sprung up to fight for our country. Patriots across the board fought to push us back on the path to American sanity and prosperity. We made historic strides in the election last night and have a clearer path to redistricting in key states thus keeping conservatives in control... as long as they do what they say they're going to do.

 

Tea Party / 9-12evs won many high profile races: Marco Rubio, Nicki Haley, Rand Paul and others.We added a whole bunch of sturdy conservative bricks on our path to a bright future last night.

 

We also defeated all the pro-same-sex marriage advocate Supreme Court justices in Iowa. Joe Manchin won but did so by promising not to support many Obama initiatives and leaning very conservative, a place he'll have to stay if he hopes to get re-elected. California said no to legalizing marijuana for recreational use. There's a long list of positives we should, we need to focus on! Me included.

Ah, I just figured out part of my angst... some of the Tea Party candidates lost last night...and some of our strong female candidates also lost. Some very visible candidates, ones that the so-called main-stream said couldn't win. They also painted Tea Party / 9-12ers as out-there, fringe elements somewhat, barely, successfully.

 

However, I'm concerned because those in the 'losing' states are probably very discouraged. I don't want those who busted butt for the candidates who lost to stay that way. I don't want to lose the momentum. I don't want to lose their enthusiasm. We're awake and working hard to shake up a system that is entrenched and intent on conserving their power. The power-mongers aren't going down easy and they have a whole lot of support from the media and big money. They know how to corrupt minds, prey on our weaknesses and our strengths. 

We need to reach out to the folks in Nevada and Delaware and even California and start working on the next election. We need to see where we can make changes within the states. We need to continue to strengthen our patriotic networks so that we won't have a Lisa Murkowski saying it was "outside" influences that put a Joe Miller into a winning position. 

One thing I learned last night is that we have to focus on state issues just as much as the national in the next election. We mainly made it about the direction of our country, what Obama and Pelosi were doing to change the foundation of the country, and similar. People came out and worked as a result of that, but I'd bet many thought it was 'the other guy' who was the problem, not their guy. 

 

Here's some final thoughts: It seemed that those we lost were the result of 1) unions 2) huge money and soldiers on the ground from the Democratic machine 3) the ability to paint the Tea Party candidate as whacko with the complicity of the media 4) their ability to make it a state race rather than a national referendum.

 

The mainstream media is going to continue to try and paint Tea Party / 9-12evers and conservatives as out-there, fringe, crazy types. We're going to have to get smarter, vet our candidates much better and raise our children to be conservative reporters (smile). We need to take some pages from their book and work behind the scenes, get involved in the school system, change things from the very local level up. If we don't have strong candidates on our local school boards, commission and city council seats, then we don't have a foundation to build upon. 

OK, I'm back in form... especially since I just heard that Alex Sink is getting ready to concede in the Florida Governor's race! The glass is more than half full at the moment. The 'machine' is going to try and make us focus on the half empty part and they're going to try and tip some of the water out of our glass. We have to keep drilling wells, turn the faucets up and keep working to fill that old glass up completely.