Inside the Beltway – Page 41

Is Wayne Gilchrest a liberal?

Now I can delete the tease part, I’m actually writing this article up. As I stated last night, this website says Wayne Gilchrest is a liberal. While one would think it’s a creation of the Andy Harris campaign, it’s actually funded not by his campaign but by a known Harris supporter group, the Club for Growth PAC.

I looked through the site today and checked out the votes the group cites here and here. While the evidence is damning in a number of cases, I was sort of surprised and disappointed to find that there were many other GOP voters with Gilchrest on a number of issues, including all 46 earmarks noted in the “Porker” post. Those amendments tended to fail with just the true GOP fiscal conservatives in the House voting to kill the earmark. Meanwhile, the “sampling” post took into account a small number of votes over the last 7 years. Of those 12 votes, the GOP voted in the majority on 6 of them so the Club For Growth’s complaint shouldn’t just be with Gilchrest on a number of those.

While I did not verify yesterday’s claim, that “Gilchrest votes more often with Democratic leadership than with GOP leadership. So far this year (as of Sunday), he has voted with Majority Leader Steny Hoyer 514 out of 866 times. Conversely, he’s voted with Boehner 470 times out of 866,” it’s very plausible given a CQ Politics survey I posted on in July (about halfway down) that showed Gilchrest voted with the Democrats 48% of the time on key issues.

However, I did decide to link to the site on my sidebar so you can check it out for yourself anytime.

In other First District race news…

Andy Harris’s campaign did let me know about an article by Aaron Blake in The Hill Tuesday that talks about the First District battle for endorsements and fundraising.

Also, I found out today that another Gilchrest challenger has signed on to appear at the Wicomico County GOP Straw Poll Monday night, that challenger being John Leo Walter. He’ll join Joe Arminio at the event. I’m still awaiting word on who will be representing both Harris and Gilchrest at the Straw Poll.

Finally, an interesting Arminio aside. On his website under “The Campaign in the News” he has two links – a link to a WJZ-TV article and a “local blog”. It’s my post I did on his entering the campaign back in July. Hey Joe, at least properly cite the source will you?

Observation on progress

Tonight I’m not going to dip into the news too much nor am I going to write a lot. This was just a thought I had about the political process.

Over the last two days General David Petraeus testified in front of Congress and late today it was learned President Bush is expected to announce troop cuts on Thursday to reduce the forward force in Iraq by 30,000. At that point we would be back to “pre-surge” levels as far as staffing goes. Of course as one would expect, Nancy Pelosi and company bitched and whined about not getting out immediately. Anyone who reads monoblogue on a regular basis knows my position, so I’ll not restate it here.

Most of the 110th Congress has been spent arguing over how many troops we have in Iraq anyway, so what’s a few more months of caterwauling on that? Never mind that most of the appropriations bills aren’t done yet. I suppose as far as the Democrats are concerned the less time spent on figuring out where the money goes the higher chance that some devious way of expanding government can be slipped into the budget bills.

With primary elections now spanning a time period 8 to 10 months before the general election, the traditional moratorium on big issues being tackled during an election year makes the next 16 months until we swear in the winner of the 2008 Presidential election a period where little good will come out of Congress. All of the domestic issues that have been eclipsed by the constant bidding by the legislative branch to do the executive’s job and run the military aren’t going to go away, or worse, they’ll simply have more money shoved at them without getting the badly needed reforms in return.

I hear a lot about a lack of interest in politics, particularly on the Republican side. Pundits have all but written off the chances Republicans will win back Congress and look at whoever the GOP nominee will be as just a sacrificial lamb, simply getting in the way of a triumphant Clinton return to the White House. Sometimes I wonder if this Bataan Death March of a campaign isn’t contributing to the apathy on our side. We’ve heard about Election 2008 for months already because of the absurdly early primary schedule. (It’s a good thing I write about other stuff too because I’d be completely burned out by now otherwise.)

A good way of summing up my thought about how the next year of Congress will play out is this: should Wayne Gilchrest lose in the GOP primary he will be a lame duck for almost half his elected term, 10 1/2 months. But I suppose one bright side to this process is that people with nothing to lose and knowing they have a limited time may decide to show true leadership on issues to create a legacy.

Ok, I’m dreaming. But it is nice to do so once in awhile because in reality we’re going to remember the 110th Congress as a do-nothing Congress that if anything made our situation worse. Don’t look for a change on that in the next year either.

Sloganeering redux

I’m sort of bummed because I took too long to write this post and those Democrats picked their winning slogan. But it wasn’t my favorite, which was simply “About DEM Time”. That had just SO many possibilities…

About DEM Time…we let al-Qaeda win
About DEM Time…your taxes get raised
About DEM Time…we suck up to the special interests

I could have had a field day with that one. But no, the Democrats picked this lame slogan:

“Sorry W, I’m the Decider…Dems in ’08”

What the heck are you going to decide as far as President Bush goes? Earth to Democrats – he’s not on the ballot. Hello?

I guess this goes back to the whole 2000 election decided by the Supreme Court thing. They still aren’t over it – meanwhile their last President never got a majority of the votes either. Perhaps if the electoral rules were like those in some places there would’ve been a runoff between the top two and the results could have been different.

The group sponsoring the slogan contest was the DSCC, those who want to extend the slim majority the Democrats have in the Senate. Essentially the Democrats got their Senatorial majority last year because of one word – “macaca.” And for most of the time since, they only had 50 Senators with the illness of South Dakota Sen. Tim Johnson (who by the way has recovered and is back at work.) Obviously they tout the advantage they have of only defending 12 seats in 2008 while the GOP defends 22. These would be the Senators elected in 2002, right after 9/11 and just before the Long War began.

I suppose my question for the Democrats is what they have to offer “deciders” like the California man who entered that particular slogan. So far the Democrats inhabiting Congress have decided that the Long War isn’t worth fighting, it’s not worth saving the tax cuts that ushered in our latest round of prosperity (despite the cooling of the housing market, unemployment is still under 5%), and that the ethics reform they campaigned on isn’t all that important after all. Further, we all know what their ilk in the Free State have up their sleeve, digging deeper into the citizens’ pockets instead of making tough choices about where to cut the budget.

In response to their slogan let me say this: the approval rating of Congress is at a historic low, so maybe America should decide that it’s time to send Harry Reid and the Democrat majority back to Searchlight, Nevada. Putting a true majority in Congress interested in reforming and cutting the size and scope of our federal government would be a decision we could all live and prosper with.

Harris update and kudos

Today I got my “weekly update” from the Harris campaign. In this update he talked about a recent house party on his behalf with nearly 80 supporters (must be a big house!) and, more interestingly to me, Harris noted:

I do not always encourage people to read blogs, but two blog posts this week by Streiff at RedMaryland are quite interesting. (links added to original).

I found this interesting because Andy uses the Eastern Shore bloggers, including me, to get his word out. (Also, one article Andy cites on the RM blog refers back to my recent post on the WCRC meeting.) But Red Maryland is an excellent blog to read anyway and a fellow MBA member to boot.

There is one thing I truly appreciate about the Harris e-mail. I don’t know if he’s reading my mind on this or what, but with it now being after Labor Day and things getting heated up with an early primary on the horizon, I’ve been mulling restarting the Election Calendar that was a regular Sunday feature during the recent 2006 campaign. Part of his e-mail talks about his upcoming schedule…however, at the moment he’s not scheduled for an appearance on the Lower Shore.

Also, Andy is supposed to have a big announcement today. Haven’t seen anything on it yet so I guess I’ll be watching my e-mail box.

Lucky number seven?

It may have escaped notice in yesterday’s Daily Times article but there’s now seven chasing after the Republican and Democrat nominations for the Congressional seat Wayne Gilchrest holds.

I just added the GOP hopeful, John Leo Walter, to my link list this evening and will add Democrat and perennial candidate Kostas Alexakis once his website is up again.

So the field tightens up a little bit. At the moment Walter’s site is up but still undergoing construction – however, I did sign up for e-mail updates. He does put the WCRC in a quandry though because we only have three speaking slots remaining before the primary aside from a brief chance to address the audience at our Straw Poll next month. We may end up with a twofer during one of the meetings, which has happened on occasion.

Meanwhile, Alexakis is trying for at least the third time to get the nomination, and this means both of the 2006 primary losers are in the field. However, Dr. Jim Corwin thus far has made no indication about getting back into the race – you may recall he won the primary for the Democrats but only garnered 31% of the November vote.

At this time, I’ve heard nothing about minor party candidates but I probably wouldn’t yet link to them anyway since they don’t undergo the primary process – nine months is plenty of time to learn about a candidate. It’s quite amazing to think that, if Wayne Gilchrest loses in the primary to one of his GOP challengers, he’ll be a lame duck Congressman for 10 1/2 months. Silly how far back the primary season has gotten, isn’t it?

WCRC meeting – August 2007

In what is hopefully a precursor to next month’s Wicomico County Republican Straw Poll, we had a full room tonight to hear our Congressman, Wayne Gilchrest, speak. But judging from the fact that I was the only “media” person present (with the possible exception of Kathy Bassett) I suppose the story of the event will come from monoblogue.

I do have to say that tonight’s meeting was the first one I ever attended with a protestor:

This gentleman wanted both Bush and Cheney impeached. The Vietnam veteran was handing out a cartoon mocking Bush for not having served in Vietnam.

I don’t know if the Congressman gave him an audience, but I do know that one attending inside and paying rapt attention as well was Dustin Mills from the Andy Harris campaign. Thus there were a few calling cards left behind.

Plenty of signs for Gilchrest's opponent but I didn't see any takers.

The same goes for Harris's literature - then again I already have some.

What may have impressed us most is that Gilchrest was there just about the time we got underway, so we only had time to do the Lord’s Prayer, Pledge of Allegiance, and a runthrough of June’s meeting minutes before Gilchrest spoke.

Congressman Wayne Gilchrest speaks before the Wicomico County Republican Club, August 27, 2007.

Wayne wanted to talk about three subjects and ideally planned on devoting 10 minutes to his remarks and 40 minutes to answering questions. I think it was more like a 20 to 30 ratio as he spent a good deal of his remarks speaking on the Iraqi situation.

He started out however by discussing energy independence. Citing that the goal of Congress was to be energy independent within 20 years, he stated that the United States had already reached its peak of oil production back in 1970 and the worldwide oil situation was similar, with production expected to peak in the next decade or two. For that reason he was supportive of a bill that passed which looked for alternatives to oil and coal. (I believe he’s referring to this session’s HR 6, which he voted for in January.)

On immigration, the Congressman said that it was a “volatile, huge issue not easily solved with one piece of legislation.” On this occasion and several others while answering questions, he noted that the House had twice passed measures relating to border security but they died in the Senate. It was President Bush’s idea to combine a lot of different reforms into one omnibus bill (the one recently debated in the Senate) rather than a more incremental approach, with separate parts focusing on:

expanding legal immigration (stressing that was important for the Eastern Shore economy);
border security (both in technology and additional personnel);
and getting the technology to employers to instantly determine whether an applicant was legal or not.

But the bulk of his initial remarks talked about, as he put it, “what I know about Iraq.”

He began with recounting some of what we all know: after the 9/11 attacks, we retailiated first against the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. While there has been some success, he did say that it’s “not like how we would want it” there.

Then Gilchrest told us about some of the other players in the region, describing Syria as a secular Islamic nation, but one that is not allied with us whereas Saudi Arabia, a nation we consider an ally, is very fundamentalist – in fact, the Saudi brand of Islam is illegal to practice in Syria. And while Iran gets a bad rap about being on the fundamentalist side, it is more religiously liberal than the Taliban was. Further, Gilchrest said we’d done both Iran and Syria a favor by getting rid of the Saddam regime.

But the mistakes he cited were many. First of all, Gilchrest alleged that the military brass in the Pentagon (as opposed to the civilian side) did not want to invade Iraq, and when forced to come up with a plan they thought 500,000 troops would be needed. At the moment we have 160,000 troops and 100,000 civilian contractors doing some military tasks, continued the Congressman.

Another error was disbanding the military and civil service because they were Ba’ath Party members and thought to be likely Saddam loyalists. So security and governance at the start was nonexistent. In his eyes, the problem in Iraq was both “political and cultural” and asserted that Iraq’s neighbors wanted there to be no instability in the region.

So, he asked rhetorically, how do we create a stable Iraq and a stable region? First of all, he stressed that no bill he’d voted for mandated a pullout date for our troops in Iraq. The bills only were to express the “sense of the Congress” and carried no weight as far as the number of troops was concerned. Gilchrest noted the current Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, has quietly begun putting elements of the Iraq Study Group report he (Gates) coauthored into place, including conversations with Iraq and Syria. Unfortunately, Gilchrest opined that Iraqi Prime Minister al-Maliki has not resolved the reconciliation issues in his own country as of yet.

Summing up his position, Gilchrest called for a policy of “strategic patience”, a process that included “conversations” with Iraq and Syria, implementing the idea floated by Virginia Sen. John Warner and beginning the “process” of withdrawal (but maintaining some military presence) and following through on other ISG recommendations. Gilchrest closed this part of the remarks by noting we can’t win with just the military. In his words, as a former grunt Marine, he’d rather see people talk than shoot to solve the problems.

To close on the Middle East topic, Gilchrest asserted that he was told in a briefing that there were no WMD’s transported to Syria (contradicting allegations made by an Iraqi general, Georges Sada) and also that he felt some of the troubles in the Middle East (such as Syria vs. Lebanon) originate from border disputes simmering since the days of the Ottoman Empire.

I also found it interesting that Wayne felt Iran was “quite a few years away” from having nuclear weapons. Conversely though the topic of almost all of the questions he took was not his Iraqi stance, but immigration.

To the group that was the hot-button issue. It gave Wayne a chance to rehash some of the things he’d already mentioned, although he added that amnesty was now “off the table” and steps were being taken by President Bush to crack down on so-called “sanctuary cities.” Another question that came up was why we didn’t help the home countries of illegals, and the Congressman answered that some of the strife and volatility in Latin America discouraged the investment needed to help those economies.

Gilchrest did step in it at one point in the conversation. Talking about foreign workers, he stated that employers like Mexican workers because they ”show up every day” and are hard workers. After having it pointed out to him that the statement could be construed as a knock on American workers he quickly apologized and stated he shouldn’t have said such a generalization in his remarks. (However, being in a related industry I know that it is part of the reason a lot of Mexicans get hired – they are on jobsites literally sunup to sundown and beyond. That doesn’t make hiring illegals right, though.)

On the whole, he got a reasonably positive reaction from those that were in attendance. I do have some comments to make regarding his stance on Iraq and the Long War, but for this exercise I’ll stay strictly “just the facts ma’am” and expound on my thoughts in a later post.

And that was most of the meeting as Wayne spoke for just under an hour all told, being scheduled to head out at 8:30. We did do some business afterward, though and I’ll touch on it briefly.

Obviously, our upcoming Crab Feast (September 15th) needs helpers and items to be donated to the silent auction. I donated one tonight. We also need staff to man our booth at the upcoming RiverFest on September 8th and longer-range at the Autumn Wine Festival in October. In other business, we distributed some proposed revisions to our club’s bylaws which should bring them a little more in line with the state GOP’s.

We also had a short discussion about getting behind the state adopting what are called “transparency laws”, which 19 states have adopted in an effort to allow the public a better glimpse at how their state spends their tax money. Unfortunately with the current O’Malley regime and his toadies in the General Assembly, the chances of that passing are slim and none – and Slim just left town. But we can always press as the minority party (for now.)

Obviously I didn’t write this down in my notes but I also discussed our next meeting, which is a special meeting for the Wicomico County Republican Straw Poll. Hopefully I’ll fill that room up twice as much for the event and I’m working on getting help in one way or another from the nine major GOP candidates.

There was one sad note though. For the first time in many moons, we actually lost a slight bit of ground to the Democrats in terms of registration. Guess it means I have more work to do in order to make that a one-time blip on the radar. We are the true majority in Wicomico County (based on recent election results) so we’ll change our strategy where required to gain those voters back.

Slim pickings at best

A post today at Delmarva Dealings reminded me of something I meant to write about over the weekend. While I did a long series of posts on picking my favorite GOP Presidential candidate, the sad fact was that none of them were remotely close to perfect. Certainly all of the candidates had their high points, but there was also at least one strike against them. There’s at least one thing I don’t care for with each.

John McCain did well on the Long War but is completely wrong when it comes to immigration.
I strongly disagreed with Sam Brownback‘s energy stance and he flip-flopped on the immigration bill vote, voting aye before switching at the last minute to a no vote.
Fred Thompson has a lot of promise, but has yet to publicize his positions on a number of issues. I’ve also read where he’s not great on the campaign stump.
For the most part, I love Ron Paul‘s ideas about shrinking the size and scope of government but cannot abide his stance on the Long War.
The same went for Tom Tancredo, although he’s almost too hardline on immigration and has advocated for a pullout date in Iraq.
Mitt Romney also seemed to me as fairly weak on a number of issues, and I’m certainly not sold on his health insurance idea that was passed in Massachusetts. But in his favor is the amount of money and organization he already has and his having a large core of experience in the private sector.

And then you have the three who topped my field – but I still see issues with them as well.

Mike Huckabee, as noted in the YouTube video cited on Delmarva Dealings, does have a disturbing tendency to be a big-government “conservative” in the mold of President Bush.
Rudy Giuliani topped my field in supporting “victory” in the Long War and said the right things to me regarding the role of government. But would social conservatives vote for Rudy with his known liberalism on social issues like gay marriage and abortion? They may feel like they have no choices in ’08 and sit out.
And my endorsee, Duncan Hunter, was very strong on a number of issues. He topped all 10 (at the time) candidates on eminent domain, trade and job creation, and the Long War (tied with Rudy) plus was a close second on education. And he had a number of intangible issues I liked his stand on. But he polls practically zero. If he’s not elected President, I think he’d be an outstanding choice for Secretary of Defense with his grasp of those issues.

It seems to me, based on the limited exposure we have to the GOP race here in Maryland, that the best organization by far is Mitt Romney’s, but Rudy Giuliani also has some powerful allies in the hierarchy of the Maryland GOP. Again, it makes me ask the question whether the base of the GOP is that excited about a Giuliani-Romney race. We know that John McCain had the early momentum but lost it on the immigration fight and his campaign has fallen to second-tier status because of it.

Quite unfortunately, the folks on the right side of the GOP have a number of choices splitting their admiration. While Fred Thompson is becoming less and less of the great unknown, we still have Newt Gingrich sitting on the sideline debating whether to enter and shake things up. So our options aren’t really clear-cut yet.

In some ways our Congressional race has evolved the same way as there’s now two choices to appeal to conservative voters (not to mention the two Democrats who seem to be running toward the right-center on many issues). It’s starting to look like a 1992 Presidential election scenario, where Bill Clinton won with 43% of the vote because Ross Perot siphoned off 19% and denied George H.W. Bush a second term. Wayne Gilchrest may make it through the Republican primary with similar numbers.

I guess what me and a lot of GOP voters are starving for is leadership in the mold of Reagan. There’s no one out there who’s really taking it to the Democrats – instead a lot of the GOP candidates are doing the Democrats’ work for them by infighting and exposing what they consider hypocrisy on some issues. It’s especially true with the frontrunners Romney and Giuliani being attacked by the more socially conservative candidates. We’re all waiting for someone to call out the Democrats on a regular basis – saying in effect to hell with working with them, they are going to work with me and if they don’t I’ll use my bully pulpit to get them out of Congress.

That’s the sort of leadership I’m thirsting for – the uncompromising, unflinching kind. I do see hints of it in Duncan Hunter but not in the frontrunners. But as usual I see myself having to pick a compromise candidate and voting more against a Democrat than for a Republican. It’s happened 3 elections in a row and there’s nothing I see at the moment to promise me the string won’t continue to four.

Setting the priorities straight

I’m going to tread a bit into the territory that Crabbin‘ usually covers pretty well, but he may not have caught this story.

When you have a question of border security vs. a count of people who shouldn’t be here in the first place (because they’re ILLEGAL) there shouldn’t be a question. But apparently in our screwed-up federal government there is.

The idea of the census was to provide the number of citizens in each state for proportional representation. It’s why every decade some states lose members of Congress and others gain more representatives. And in theory, additional population in border states would tend to help Republicans because, with the exception of California, the states along the Mexican border were all “red” states and the additional Congressman or two that those states would be entitled to would in probability be added to the GOP column.

On the other hand, a closer look at where these illegals congregate shows that large numbers move to the bigger cities – areas that vote Democrat. Additional population there would juryrig the districts into overweighing the actual legal city residents at the expense of suburban and rural areas, as well as changing the distribution of federal dollars unfairly. (Personally I’d love to see fewer federal dollars going to any area while more dollars stay in citizens’ pockets!)

Yet another concern I see is that the Census Bureau missed 10-15% of illegals in the 2000 census anyway, so they attempted to estimate the population in order to do what they considered an “accurate” count. Another effort like that in 2010 will also tend to shift population and power into urban areas, so naturally Democrats would be all in favor of that.

Quoted in the FOX News story I link to is Michigan Rep. Candice Miller. She introduced a bill that would amend the Constitution to count only citizens for the purposes of Congressional apportionment. While one would think the Constitution already mandates this, a look at the Fourteenth Amendment states that, “Representatives shall be apportioned…according to their respective numbers, counting the whole numbers of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed.” It says nothing about citizens (as opposed to occupants) which is what Miller’s bill intends to address. As one would expect in a Democrat-controlled Congress, though, the bill has sat in committee for the last 6 1/2 months.

While Miller’s goal is admirable, it’s a sad statement that she feels a Constitutional amendment is necessary to deal with something that lies within the realm of good old common sense. But common sense is and has been in short supply inside the Beltway for many moons, and we’re a long way from bringing it back. The Census Bureau’s harebrained idea to stop enforcement of our laws and give illegal immigrants yet another get-out-of-jail-free card just illustrates another example of the idiofluenza that permeates Foggy Bottom.

I go away for a week and all hell breaks loose…

Back to live blogging again; well sort of. It’s actually Thursday afternoon as I start this for posting later this evening and I know my Shorebird of the Week post comes up tonight. So I don’t give him short shrift, check him out here and then come back to read this!

It was soooooo boring for the last 2-3 weeks before I took my break so I guess they were waiting for me to take a few days off to have all of these events happen just so I had time to digest them and make some sort of reasoned commentary. There were seven events over the last week that I think are worth commenting on and alluding to. I’m going to go more or less in chronological order.

“Robinson on the Radio” gets cancelled.

I know there were a few who didn’t think I came across well on the radio but geez, I feel like Typhoid Michael now. I’m a guest and ONE WEEK later the show’s axed. I wore the shirt I got one time!

Oddly enough, I missed the actual announcement since he had a guest on that, frankly, I had no interest in listening to. So I turned off the radio that Thursday about 3:10. Once I saw the blurb on the internet I made the effort to listen to his final show last Friday but my parents arrived about 3:15 or so – thus I missed the sign off.

What the situation has begat is a continuation of the flame war between John Robinson and a certain local blogger where the blogger takes great pleasure in the little parody piece that WICO played on Monday at 3:00. Meanwhile, Robinson talks about going into the web news business. Now John, if you were complaining about losing a six-figure amount of business time because of the radio show, what makes you think that doing an internet news site (even for just local events) isn’t going to cost you plenty of time when time is money? Even if you have hired a reporter as you state, there’s still work involved. I do this as a hobby and don’t do a news site, but still spend several hours a week on doing my website. Just a word to the wise as a friend.

Regardless, the local blogging scene has become more contentious than its usual warlike state as a result.

Andy Harris makes spending and pork an issue.

I got a press release while I was away detailing how the Club For Growth has endorsed Andy Harris over the incumbent Wayne Gilchrest. Apparently, the Gilchrest camp responded in kind (I’ve not received their reply) so Chris Meekins of the Harris campaign fired back a reply this morning, which I excerpt from here:

As I read Congressman Gilchrest’s campaign statement in response to our comments on his fiscal spending record, I felt the need to clarify and reinforce some of the issues the statement addressed.

Over the course of the next weeks and months, our campaign will continue to provide objective information, including the roll call vote number, so that you can see for yourself how Gilchrest voted on ALL of the amendments offered by fiscally responsible Republicans to cut spending growth – the vast majority of which Gilchrest voted AGAINST. We applaud him for voting for two amendments to cut spending, but two out of more than a dozen is not something one should be touting as a clear record of fiscal restraint.

Also, we will discuss how, in the last month alone, Gilchrest voted for over $15 billion dollars in tax increases. And we thought the $1.5 billion in tax increases the Democrats in Maryland are proposing was a lot!

Our campaign was very surprised to see the incumbent actually vigorously defend earmarks (otherwise known as “pork”). For those who may not be aware the Office of Management and Budget defines an “earmark” as: “funds provided by the Congress for projects or programs where the congressional direction (in bill or report language) circumvents the merit-based or competitive allocation process, or specifies the location or recipient, or otherwise curtails the ability of the Executive Branch to properly manage funds.”

Members of Congress insert earmarks into much larger spending bills hoping they will be overlooked or lost in the thousands of pages. Earmarks don’t consider which company can do the best job and they take competition on price and quality completely out of the government procurement process. Basic free-market economics teach you that non-competitive contracts by the government will always increase the cost to you the taxpayer and may frequently lower the quality of the work done.

According to the Office of Management and Budget’s website, the Fiscal Year 2008 appropriation bills in the House contain over 3814 earmarks totaling $2.4 billion.

(snip)

Think about this situation. The owner of a company raises funds for a congressman’s reelection and a congressman in turn, repays him by putting an earmark for that company for millions of dollars for a noncompetitive contract into a bill. By Congress continuing to vote for earmarks, the opportunity is present for corruption to occur. But that’s the way business is done in Washington these days, it appears.

Andy Harris will continue to oppose earmarks. Andy beleives the people of the first congressional district do not want their tax dollars to reward companies who generously donate to the Democratic Party. Andy believes cleaning up the earmark process is the first step in eliminating corruption in Congress. Harris opposes out of control wasteful government spending – which is why as a state senator, he voted against six of the last nine state budgets.

Wayne Gilchrest spoke out strongly against the Washington establishment when he was first elected to office in 1990 – now he has become a part of it. We sent Wayne to change Washington – but Washington has instead, over the years, changed Wayne.

I’ll be brutally honest here. On an editorial level, it should be known that I support Andy Harris. In the interest of voter education though, I have and will place items on monoblogue from any of the five announced candidates – whether they be GOP or Democrat – because I believe that a voter should be as well-informed as possible.

The one fear I have in this race is that the conservative supporters will split and leave Gilchrest as the winner with a plurality of the vote (think Bill Clinton in 1992.) Having said that, though, later this fall I will prove that even though Gilchrest is much farther left than I like he’ll still be preferable to a Democrat in the seat.

Ames Straw Poll results in first GOP casualty.

And I correctly predicted who it would be. It was pretty much speculated (even by his opponents) that Mitt Romney would win the Straw Poll, so the real race was for second. That position was held by one of my top choices, Mike Huckabee. Unfortunately, my endorsed candidate, Rep. Duncan Hunter, finished near the bottom in Ames. Over the weekend, I want to delve back into this race because it’s sort of sad that no candidate is really a “perfect” candidate for me – someplace I had to make some compromises.

But maybe Hunter will do better in the upcoming Wicomico County Straw Poll on September 24. Since we notified our WCRC members about it first, I’ll spread the word here as well.

The Maryland GOP is broke.

At least it is if you believe the Baltimore Sun article from Saturday. That tends to happen when a party has little to no power base in a state. If this were in a deep red state like Idaho, I’m sure we’d find the Idaho Democrat party runs on a shoestring budget as well.

But a lot of the article talks about the infighting between moderates and conservatives in the party, particularly in Anne Arundel County. (Brian Griffiths and redstate.org is on that like a blanket.)

I ran for my post because of two things I believe in: one, that the Republican Party if it follows principle is the most effective tool for bringing about change in our government to lessen its power over the common citizen; and secondly, that the voters should have the final say in who best represents the Republican Party at the general election ballot box. While I may not agree with their primary choice, the voters are the ones who should make that decision, not a state party annointing a candidate and trying to throw out all would-be challengers. (Refer to Ohio Republican Party 1998 and 2006 for examples.)

So at the moment we have infighting because there is a group who believes the incumbent should be supported at all costs vs. a group I align with that thinks the people should decide whether the incumbents are worthy of another term. Obviously when it comes to the First Congressional District I don’t. But I’m certain we will come together in time for 2008 because we have bigger challenges to face, most likely she’s named Hillary Clinton and he’s named Frank Kratovil, and both are backed in Maryland by the tax-raiser Martin O’Malley.

Karl Rove leaves his post.

Well, now who’s the liberals going to blame when they don’t get their way? The guy is a Deputy Chief of Staff, yet they get all worked up about him. I hope Karl enjoys his family and his retirement, although having his first post-announcement interview on Rush Limbaugh’s radio show was a nice little thumb in the MSM’s eye as well.

By the way, would Rove not be a kick-ass Lincoln Day speaker next year? Hell, put him at the Red, White, and Blue Dinner and the Maryland GOP will be out of debt in no time!

monoblogue server issues.

Yes, I was frustrated too. As far as my server company goes, there’s never a good time to have outages but within the last three months of your server term is REALLY bad timing. I can eat a few bucks if I can be assured I’ll have more reliable service that’s not out anywhere from 2 to 14 hours at a stretch and a local person to bitch at when it does. How I moved up in the BNN Influence Rankings from #9 to #8 with the artificially lower readership is beyond me.

West Salisbury Little League.

I’m going to end on a positive note. Right now our fair city, for all its faults that are detailed on several other websites that I do and don’t link to, has within it one of the 16 best Little League teams in the world. Even if they don’t get to the finals these kids have nothing to hang their heads about, but I’m hoping in a week or so we’ll be glued to our TV’s watching them take on a team from some distant shore for the LLWS title.

And for the really positive note – I missed sitting here and writing monoblogue on a daily basis but the time off was worth it when I get to spend time with people like this. Yes, that’s my kid. The picture’s too big to use here so I just linked to it.

Who will I support? – the intangibles and final decision

“It’s time to clean house. Clean out the privileges and perks. Clean out the arrogance and the big egos. Clean out the scandals, the corner-cutting and the foot-dragging. What kind of job do you think they’ve done during all those years they’ve been running the Congress?… Now, just imagine what they would do if they controlled the executive branch, too!… But now we have arrived, as we always do, at the moment of truth—the serious business of selecting a president. Now is the time for choosing.” – Ronald Reagan

As I did my research on this subject, I found that the ten major GOP candidates didn’t just speak to my pet issues – in fact, none spoke to all of them and the best ones only spoke to 8 of my 12. But they do have their own set of items they hold dear and many of these are worth looking into as I make a decision.

So I decided to do this part where a candidate stance on a particular issue could gain them an extra point (or, by the same token, have a point deducted.) Because the totals turned out quite close, this takes on additional importance.

I also found out in researching Duncan Hunter that my original read on his view of free trade and job creation was completely off the mark. I interpreted his brief statement as being anti-free trade but after I found this video I realized he wanted to completely renegotiate our trade pacts to make them more beneficial to our interests, plus as an added bonus give tax breaks to manufacturers. So, instead of being docked one point I’m going to give him 9 points, which places him in second with 78 points.

I’ll go through each GOP candidate in turn, one final time.

Sam Brownback:

Add points for: being for marriage being between one man and one woman, support of Israel, judicial philosophy, government noninterference in religious beliefs, being pro-life.

Subtract points for: supporting intrusive broadcasting laws, “New Homestead Act”, farm subsidies and biofuels.

Net change: add 2 points.

Rudy Giuliani:

Add points for: judicial philosophy.

Subtract points for: moderately pro-choice, for domestic partnerships.

Net change: subtract 1 point.

Mike Huckabee:

Add points for: government noninterference in religious beliefs, support of Israel.

Subtract points for: farm subsidies and biofuels, support of a Constitutional marriage amendment.

Net change: none.

Duncan Hunter:

Add points for: government noninterference in religious beliefs, judicial philosophy, condemning “hate crime” legislation, defunding the National Endowment of the Arts, belief in “peace through strength”, support of Israel, rejection of treaties that subjugate our sovereignty, philosophy on “handouts”.

Subtract points for: support of a Constitutional amendment prohibiting abortion, support of a Constitutional marriage amendment, support of federal involvement in parental rights, supporting intrusive broadcasting laws.

Net change: add four points.

John McCain:

Add points for: none.

Subtract points for: calling for action on global warming.

Net change: subtract one point.

Ron Paul:

Add points for: being pro-life, stance on personal privacy, health freedom.

Subtract points for: none.

Net change: add three points.

Mitt Romney:

Add points for: being pro-life.

Subtract points for: support of a Constitutional marriage amendment, investment in rightfully private-sector research.

Net change: subtract one point.

Tom Tancredo:

Add points for: being pro-life, judicial philosophy, stance on political correctness.

Subtract points for: farm subsidies, support of a Constitutional marriage amendment.

Net change: add one point.

Fred Thompson:

Add points for: none.

Subtract points for: none.

Net change: none.

Tommy Thompson:

Add points for: being pro-life, judicial philosophy, being for marriage being between one man and one woman.

Subtract points for: none.

Net change: add three points.

Here’s the final standings. Drum roll please…

Duncan Hunter, 82 points
Rudy Giuliani, 79 points
Mike Huckabee, 76 points
Mitt Romney, 45 points
Tom Tancredo, 41.5 points
Fred Thompson, 37 points
Ron Paul, 34.5 points
Tommy Thompson, 24.5 points
Sam Brownback, 20.5 points
John McCain, 18 points

So at this time I endorse Rep. Duncan Hunter to be your next President of the United States, based on the careful study I’ve done of the issues I feel affect our nation.

I also strongly recommend for your consideration Rudy Giuliani and Mike Huckabee.

These three candidates have set themselves apart from the field and proven themselves worthy of the task of leading our nation.

I must say though that the jury is certainly out on Fred Thompson based on his strong showing on a few issues and as his campaign evolves he may move into this upper tier. Also possibly meriting consideration should he join the race is Newt Gingrich. I do have a few reservations about Newt; having read Winning the Future I’m concerned that he wants to expand federal power more than I’d like. But I have admired his futuristic thinking and that would be an asset for anyone seeking to be our next leader.

This has been a ton of writing and hours spent in front of my computer. But one purpose of monoblogue is to inform the voters, and I feel having taken the time to do the reading on issues where I laid out arguments to buttress my point of view as being correct, logical, and good for our nation both in the present and future, it’s led me to the candidates that I feel would do the best job in leading our nation.

I must caution that all of this goes to naught if we do not elect a Congress that’s supportive of the philosophies that guide my top choices. If Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi continue to be the leaders in Congress, at best we can hope for gridlock and paralysis; at worst, if I’ve miscalculated the leadership qualities of my top three, our nation would slide further into a morass of additional federal interference in our lives and pocketbooks.

Later this year, I’m going to do this same exercise with our Congressional candidates. Although I’ve already come out on record as supporting Andy Harris for the Congressional seat held by Wayne Gilchrest, by doing the twelve steps again it will illustrate the differences even between Gilchrest and the two leading Democrats for the seat. I’m thinking this will be done later in the fall.

So for now, I’m taking a break from my 50 year plan and its effects as an online subject. But I’m going to slowly look into the print version and begin some of the research I think is necessary to continue to build up my arguments. There will still be plenty of political news to go around and now it’s fairly apparent what my viewpoint on it will be.

I appreciate your continued readership and patience as I slowly dragged out this subject. But I think all of us should at some point do a similar amount of research on those people who would deign to lead us, whether locally, statewide, or on the highest federal levels.

Also, since I’m referring back to this post for later ones, here are the twelve previous parts as I dealt with (in ascending order):

Who will I support? – part twelve

At last, we come to the finish line. Well, for Democrats it is…for the GOP there’s still a few intangibles I want to get through because no candidate has dominated and I want to make sure I get through everything as I make this decision. That will wrap up the point totals tomorrow.

Today we get to my number one topic, which is the Long War – otherwise known as the War on Terror.

As you may know, my philosophy is one of achieving victory, which I define as when the threat from al-Qaeda and other radical Islamic fundamentalist entities is subdued militarily to a point where they are no longer a significant threat to our security and safety here in America. At that point, I expect the restrictions placed temporarily on our civil liberties (such as the PATRIOT Act) to be lifted. And if we withdraw from Iraq now, we cannot achieve that objective unless the fight is brought over here because at this point the military fronts are Iraq and Afghanistan.

As always, the GOP goes first in what they have to say about our fight.

Sam Brownback:

After my recent trip to Iraq, I am even more convinced that the situation there is precarious, but hopeful. I see hope in the Iraqi people. I believe this hope will be the foundation of a new Iraqi society. Much remains to be done, and I think we need a plan to turn this country over to its citizens. I will continue to work with the leaders in our country, as well as leaders in Iraq, to find a solution that protects the future of Iraq, and the pride and dignity of its citizens.

Rudy Giuliani:

Rudy Giuliani believes winning the war on terror is the great responsibility of our generation. America cannot afford to go back to the days of playing defense, with inconsistent responses to terrorist attacks, because weakness only encourages aggression. Americans want peace. We’re at war not because we want to be, but because the terrorists declared war on us – well before the attacks of September 11th. Rudy understands that freedom is going to win this war of ideas. America will win the war on terror.

To watch Rudy’s commitment to staying on offense against terror, please click here.

Like all Americans, Rudy Giuliani prays for the success of our troops in Iraq and their safe return home. But he believes setting an artificial timetable for withdrawal from Iraq now would be a terrible mistake, because it would only embolden our enemies. Iraq is only one front in the larger war on terror, and failure there would lead to a broader and bloodier regional conflict in the near future. Building an accountable Iraq will assist in reducing the threat of terrorism.

To watch Rudy’s comments on the War in Iraq, please click here.

Mike Huckabee also splits his views on Iraq and the War on Terror.

Duncan Hunter makes his arguments here.

Obviously John McCain, as a Vietnam veteran and POW, has strong feelings about this war.

Ron Paul explains his views here. I also got an e-mail recently where he notes in part:

As I told the crowd, with our non-interventionist foreign policy, there would be 3,600 young Americans still alive, and 25,000 more not badly wounded. It got the biggest response of the evening.

Then a 14-year-old girl told me she was helping the campaign so her daddy, a soldier, would not have to go to Iraq. I told her there are many thousands of us working to that exact end, to keep him and all the others safe. What an outrage that we are accused of not supporting the troops. What a scam when the warmongers claim to be pro-soldier.

Lots of military people turned out to be aware that our campaign got more donations from soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines than any other. Funny, that made a big impression in Congress too. Many of my colleagues were amazed and encouraged that you can be against this unconstitutional and disastrous war, and get military support.

I like Mitt Romney‘s website link, it’s called defeating the jihadists.

Tom Tancredo points out his views here and also says:

America’s noble sacrifice has purchased Iraqis a precious opportunity for democratic change; it is now up to them to ensure success. Setting the President’s November benchmark for shifting control as an actual timetable for disengagement will let regional powers and Iraqi factions cooperate to forge a new balance of power.

Homeland security plans which do not include enforcing our immigration laws and securing our borders are entirely inadequate. A CIS study of 94 terrorists prosecuted for their crimes in the U.S., found that nearly two thirds had committed immigration fraud. It is difficult then to justify the rigor, expense, and inconvenience of new safety measures at our airports and harbors, while leaving the door open for terrorists to slip across our southern border undetected.

Similarly, Tommy Thompson has a link and a statement:

Governor Thompson believes the nation must recommit itself to rebuilding the American military because our armed forces must have the capacity to dominate any war or any conflict we must enter – all while having the capability to fight a multi-front war. Our military is simply stretched too thin to protect American interests overseas and at home in these dangerous times. At the same time, our foreign policy cannot be based solely on military might. We must reach out to the rest of the world, and a good place to start is with medical diplomacy. Governor Thompson’s initiative would take America’s great doctors and health professionals, along with our medicines and technology, to some of the most distraught places in the world, helping to comfort and nurse the poor to better health. By doing so, we can begin to heal some of the wounds with our global neighbors.

All right, now it’s time to look at the cut and run brigade, also know as the Democrat Party. I’ll let the reader go ahead and explore the particulars on their own; in this case I’m just going to tell you by what date the Democrats want troops out.

Joe Biden: except for a “residual force”, the end of 2007.

Hillary Clinton: “before the next president takes the oath of office.”

Chris Dodd: March 31, 2008.

John Edwards: “complete withdrawal…in 12 to 18 months.”

Mike Gravel: “home within 60 days.”

Dennis Kucinich would immediately cut off funding for the troops for an “orderly withdrawal.”

Barack Obama: March 31, 2008.

Bill Richardson: “withdraw ALL troops in six months.”

It’s almost like a perverse “name that tune” for the moonbats:

“I, candidate A, can withdraw the troops in 12 months.”

“But I, candidate B, can withdraw the troops in 60 days.”

It goes without saying that every Democrat would lose the points (this part is worth 27 points, the highest number.) I guess just for comparison’s sake to the GOP I’ll put up their final scores at the end of the post.

But more importantly for me and my vote, I have to rate the GOP contenders.

Sam Brownback does his best to neither offend the people on my side by fully embracing diplomacy or offend the “cut and run” types by advocating military victory. What he says does absolutely nothing for me, so I’m not giving him any points.

On the other hand, Rudy Giuliani is exactly right, and I think he understands the best among the GOP contenders because he’s dealt with terrorism on our shores firsthand. He will get all 27 points because “America will win the War on Terror.”

Mike Huckabee has some very good points and also wants victory; however, there’s one statement that bothers me to an extent. He notes, “President Bush declared that all other countries were either for us or they were for the terrorists. Such a black-and-white stance doesn’t work in the Arab and Muslim worlds, where there are more shades of gray than you’ll find at Sherwin-Williams.” Personally I thought President Bush was correct.

Overall, he has a good stance on the Long War though so I’ll give him 23 points, because of just that slight difference of opinion.

Duncan Hunter has an excellent understanding about what’s at stake and if you watch the video (about nine minutes long) you’ll notice that he thinks beyond the obvious enemies and considers other sources of possible aggression from without. He also notes that the Iraqi Army is gaining strength and would seek to use them as well. I would be very confident with him as Commander-in-Chief, so he gets 27 points.

There is only one thing I don’t care for about John McCain’s approach, where he notes, “The answer is for the international community to apply real pressure to Syria and Iran to change their behavior.” To me that implies the United Nations and they’re far from backing our efforts. McCain is correct in stating that we need to win the homefront. But would he be able to seize the bully pulpit in a Reaganesqe style? I’m giving McCain 23 points for that slight flaw, much like Huckabee.

I have a problem with Ron Paul. I understand his principle about “entangling ourselves in the affairs of other nations.” However, if we wish to spread freedom around the world as I feel we should, and protect our vital national interests, we need a global presence. While I realize life is not a game of Risk, if you play that board game in an entirely defensive mode you’re bound to lose.

The other thing that I have to mention is that, yes, we’ve lost 3,600 soldiers who volunteered to fight and die for our country. What would the toll be on our shores had we done nothing and stood by awaiting another attack?

Because he has held to his beliefs throughout (even if they’re incorrect) I’m not deducting all 27 points, but he’s going to take a 20 point penalty.

Mitt Romney just doesn’t seem to go as far as the others in seeking victory. He understands that we face a “sinister and broad-based extremist faction” with a “very 8th century view of the world” but I think he looks more to diplomacy and isn’t as sold on a military solution, despite wanting to increase military spending. His solutions just don’t come across to me as well as some of the others, so I’ll give him 18 points.

Oh, Tom Tancredo, you came so close to the finish line with victory in hand. But like a steeplechase rider whose horse falls “at the last”, you snatch defeat from the jaws of victory by wanting a timetable for Iraqi withdrawal. Even if you keep forces close by, that still gives a propaganda victory to our enemies and the will to keep fighting. I’m giving you the same docking I gave Ron Paul, 20 points off.

Tommy Thompson has some good points and some bad points. I suppose it’s true that we are in Iraq at the pleasure of their government, but I think the Iraqi people can sense that we’re not there as invaders but as protectors from the larger threat to their own safety that al-Qaeda brings with their Iranian sponsorship. I do agree we should build the military, but the “medical diplomacy” leaves me a bit cold. I’ll give him a lukewarm 10 points since he’s not saying to cut and run.

Ok, we’ve reached the end, almost. It’s close enough at the top that I have to look at intangibles to make my choice, and that will occur tomorrow. At the moment, here are the GOP standings:

Rudy Giuliani, 80 points
Mike Huckabee, 76 points
Duncan Hunter, 68 points
Mitt Romney, 46 points
Tom Tancredo, 40.5 points
Fred Thompson, 37 points
Ron Paul, 31.5 points
Tommy Thompson, 21.5 points
John McCain, 19 points
Sam Brownback, 18.5 points

Final standings for the Democrats. How low can they go?

Mike Gravel, -42 points
Joe Biden, -62.5 points
Bill Richardson, -75.5 points
John Edwards, -75.5 points
Hillary Clinton, -82.5 points
Chris Dodd, -84.5 points
Barack Obama, -93.5 points
Dennis Kucinich, -124.5 points

If you want an illustration of the difference between the two parties, it’s made clear right here. Tomorrow I look at the intangibles for the GOP and finally stop dragging this out. It will be time to throw my support behind somebody.

Who will I support? – part eleven

The end is in sight as I’ve hit my second-most important issue, border security and immigration. Yes, I’m a border hawk and I’ll be scoring the candidates accordingly.

I’m going to jump right into this installment with the GOP’s Sam Brownback. He actually has a pretty long description on his website, one I’ll cut and paste a bit as a summary.

Sam Brownback:

Border security is Senator Brownback’s top priority and has consistently voted to immediately secure the border. “One of the primary jobs of the United States government is to ensure the safety of the American people. In order to do so, we must secure our borders.”

“We will fail to stop illegal immigration until we prove that living and working here illegally is not an option.”

We must enable all law enforcement to identify and quickly remove criminal illegal aliens.

A secure, fraud-resistant ID must be the foundation of a robust worksite enforcement system that requires every new employee to be screened for valid work authorization.

Interior and worksite enforcement are essential for homeland security and national security.

As one of Rudy Giuliani‘s “12 Commitments”, he will “end illegal immigration, secure our borders, and identify every non-citizen in our nation.” But he doesn’t elaborate on this yet.

Mike Huckabee talks about the issue here.

Border fencing is Duncan Hunter‘s bag.

While John McCain isn’t thought of as a border hawk, he speaks his piece on his website.

Ron Paul also devotes a webpage to the subject, a rarity.

As issues become more important to me, Mitt Romney has become a regular presence on my posts. Immigration is no exception.

Tom Tancredo, a known border hawk, posts this and says:

Illegal aliens threaten our economy and undermine our culture. While our brave soldiers risk their lives to protect us overseas, our political elites lack the courage to defend us at home. I am 100% opposed to amnesty. As President, I will secure our borders so illegal aliens do not come, and I will eliminate benefits and job prospects so they do not stay.

Fred Thompson weighs in with commentary about the recent Hazelton immigration decision.

Making it a GOP clean sweep on the issue is Tommy Thompson:

Governor Thompson opposes amnesty and believes that America must enforce its immigration policies to the fullest extent of the law. People who are found to be in the country illegally should be returned to their home countries and should have to wait at the end of the line, behind people who are seeking to enter the country or become citizens legally.

Unfortunately, the Democrats only have 4 of the 8 candidates talking about this vital issue, even if they’re wrong.

John Edwards lumps this topic in with homeland security.

Mike Gravel:

Senator Gravel favors protecting our borders and monitoring the flow of illegal immigrants into our country. He also favors a guest worker program and setting up naturalization procedures that would fairly bring existing illegal immigrants into legal status.

Barack Obama makes his feelings known on border security and immigration too.

And as a governor of a border state (New Mexico) you can bet Bill Richardson knows the importance of the issue.

With 25 points at stake, we’ve reached the point where hitting a home run on the subject, one of my pet issues, will boost a candidate in my eyes while the wrong approach will doom him.

Sam Brownback talks tough, but he switched his cloture vote on the recent immigration bill, going from amnesty to no amnesty as he saw how the vote progressed. So is he sincere about the things he says here? I can’t give him any points regardless of his talk.

I’ll give Rudy 5 points for bringing up the subject with the right ideas, but without details that’s all I can give him. At least he didn’t switch votes.

Mike Huckabee has the right ideas about the border fence and opposing the late, unlamented immigration bill. But aside from those who commit crimes (aside from the very act of entering illegally) he does nothing with the millions of illegals already here or their employers. I’ll give him 11 points – not quite half since he addresses not quite half the issue from my standpoint.

Similarly to Huckabee, Duncan Hunter talks about the border fence to keep new illegals out but nothing about those here. So he gets 10 points.

John McCain has repeatedly voted the wrong way on the issue. If a person is already illegally here, why would they come out to get a “Z” visa? And if they did get one, all that means is they had four years to sit and wait for us to stop enforcing the laws as we’ve done for the last 20 years. I’m deducting 10 points from his score.

Ron Paul gets most of the issue right, with the exception of discouraging employers from hiring illegals. I’d like him to be a bit more specific about how he would physically secure our borders, but overall I think his plan is worth 19 points.

Mitt Romney supports an ID system for those who aren’t citizens, which I suppose I can live with. Of course, that also depends on the federal government actually keeping track of these when they can’t keep track of the green card and visa holders we have now. So that’s a problem, not to mention that anyone can claim to have a Social Security number thus not need the ID. With that and the vagueness about securing the borders, I can only give Mitt 5 points.

While Tom Tancredo has a reputation as an immigration hawk, the idea of cutting the number of legal immigrants bothers me, as legal immigrants are the ones who come here and assimilate into the culture – if not first generation, certainly by the second. He is correct about eliminating benefits so the illegals don’t stay, though. It’s sort of a mixed bag as he’s also nonspecific about methods of securing borders. I’m sort of disappointed that I can only give him 10 points – I was expecting more.

Fred Thompson gets 13 points just for his commentary about the Hazelton immigration decision and critique over Congress tying local and state government hands by preempting the local laws but not enforcing federal laws. It’s too bad he started so late in the game, I’m interested to see how his campaign builds.

Tommy Thompson works to the reverse of most of his cohorts, addressing illegals already here but not border security. He gets a few extra points for advocating the enforcement of existing laws first. I’ll give him 14 points.

On the Democrat side, we begin with John Edwards.

As part of an overall homeland security effort, Edwards wants more personnel on the border (read: more union members). But he fails to address any of the other border issues that can work in tandem with the increased manpower. I’ll give him one point.

It can be said that Mike Gravel is almost in line with John McCain on the immigration issue, since he favors security at the borders but in return giving amnesty for those illegals here. And that’s the wrong approach. I’ll deduct 13 points.

The only things I like about Barack Obama’s approach is the part about legal immigrants who fight for our country getting expedited citizenship and the emphasis on employers not hiring illegals. But then again, if the bill he supported was passed we wouldn’t have any illegals. He joins the chorus in supporting more border infrastructure as well. So I’m dropping Barack 12 points.

Bill Richardson has been there. And although he whines about the federal government not helping him out when it comes to border security, he’s got that same “seal the borders” mentality as most Republicans do, as well as employer verification of legality. But he’s in favor of amnesty and that’s a definite strike against him. He won’t be able to complain about the federal government if he’s in charge of it, will he? I’ll deduct 7 points off his score.

Closing in on the finish line, we have an exciting GOP race with four candidates having a good chance and a couple others not all that far away. Tom Tancredo didn’t take the opportunity to put away the field.

Tom Tancredo, 60.5 points
Rudy Giuliani, 53 points
Mike Huckabee, 53 points
Ron Paul, 51.5 points
Duncan Hunter, 41 points
Fred Thompson, 37 points
Mitt Romney, 28 points
Sam Brownback, 18.5 points
Tommy Thompson, 11.5 points
John McCain, -4 points

On the Democrat side, it’s likely this will be the final order since I see them all scoring the same on the last part.

Mike Gravel, -15 points
Joe Biden, -35.5 points
Bill Richardson, -48.5 points
John Edwards, -48.5 points
Hillary Clinton, -55.5 points
Chris Dodd, -57.5 points
Barack Obama, -66.5 points
Dennis Kucinich, -97.5 points

You may have guessed the contents of part twelve. Yep, it’s the Long War that concludes the 12 parts tomorrow.