Independents Day

Last week I was wandering around the rightosphere and saw this post at Drang’s.

It has occurred to me that it is quite possible that the two things that Barack Obama has done that piss me off the most are:

To get me thinking of myself as a Republican, instead of an independent who usually finds the Republican candidate/position less objectionable than any others, and

To turn this into a political blog more than, say, a guns and amateur radio blog.

I have seen quite a bit of this as of late and I stand here now to warn folks to think before they think. Or, to think after they think but before they hit “publish”.

Party politics is cultish, and cults are dangerous to the health of people and the nation.

Party does not stop someone from wasting your money.

Conservation or nepotism? Since 2007 Rogers has been promoting a bill which would provide federal grants to overseas wildlife protection for lions and cheetahs. Surprise! Rogers’ daughter is the grants administrator for the Namibia-based Cheetah Conservation Fund, and has been since—you guessed it—2007.

And politics will not stop the party from fighting against their loss of power.

A reliable source unaligned with either GOP senatorial campaign in Alaska, and positioned to know, confirmed for me last night that the Alaskan Republican Party (ARP) stepped up their efforts on behalf of Sen. Lisa Murkowski in the closing days of the election, going so far as to phone bank for her from the Alaska GOP’s headquarters on election day.

And

17,000 of the 24,000 absentee ballots in Alaska will probably be counted Monday. Given Joe Miller’s late surge, it may not help him. However, I am told by a number of people that given where those absentee ballots came from and his overall support in the areas, the odds remain in joe Miller’s favor.

But word is coming out of Washington that the National Republican Senatorial Committee, already in “cover their butts” mode, is intervening in Alaska to help Lisa Murkowski.

The Republican Party seems to be in fighting mood against those who would help them that they can’t even defend the votes of those who vote for their candidates in overwhelming percentages.

In Washington, politicians always like to release bad news on a Friday, as fewer people notice. Today, the Pentagon announced that it had granted the waiver requests of five states seeking to escape requirements to protect military voters.

They have not earned your vote and you should not let them assume that they have until they have at least made promises, even if you know they probably won’t keep them.

This is the first year of the Independent. Make them work for your vote and then make sure they know you are going to hold them too it before you give it to them again in 2012.