The Old Guard or The New Guard: McInnis vs. Penry

Where has fiscal Conservativism gone? The actions in recent months of our President and Federal Legislators have unleashed a litany of outrage among the voting body. Moreover, contrary to our mass media’s insistence, Conservatives cannot boast a monopoly on the nation’s growing frustrations. The immense bi-partisan concern for our government’s outrageous spending has swelled to epic proportions. Our elected officials’ treatment of our hard-earned dollars have left many asking what has happened to fiscal responsibility. It has left most conservatives asking what has happened to the Republican Party. There is no denying the Democrats have not been known for their fiscal discipline but Republicans, at least during the Reagan years, had once been able to boast of a reasonable degree of spending restraint.
As we approach the sunset of 2009, a new era of monumental spending has erupted. Undoubtedly, our current Democratic leadership is to blame for much of our bloated budget but Republicans are not exactly free of guilt. That growing ambiguity between the spending habits of Democrats and Republicans segues nicely into Colorado’s 2010 Gubernatorial Republican buzz. Of particular interest is the state’s captivatingly diverse concoction of Republican Candidates. With current Colorado Governor Bill Ritter’s approval rating plummeting as consistently as President Obama’s, the spotlight has begun to shift to the growing list of Republican contenders. Three names currently fill that list, two of which I will address in this article. In this climate of swelling government spending and subsequent voter outrage, I thought I would dedicate an article to the fiscal track records of Colorado’s three Republican Candidates vying for the party’s gubanertorial ticket.
Scott McInnis, former five-term Colorado Congressman from Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District, announced his Gubernatorial Candidacy in May of this year. What McInnis brings to the political table is evident: experience. It should come as no surprise then that his campaign has chosen to build their message around the former Congressman’s proven track record. More specifically, the campaign has gone to great lengths to highlight McInnis’ record of fiscal discipline, something most voters will likely take into consideration as they cast their 2010 ballots. Colorado’s state budget deficit has been growing alongside its national counterpart for some time. Many feel that government program expansion in conjunction with rising unemployment and exorbitant tax increases are much to blame. McInnis has made consistent efforts toward linking the state’s rising unemployment with an executive leader whose fiscal experiences and disciplines are scant.
Running on the same message of return to fiscal conservatism but with a whole-heartedly new approach, State Senate Minority Leader, Josh Penry, threw his hat into the gubernatorial ring in July. Penry, a thirty three year old success story, has challenged McInnis’ call for more experience in our leadership by arguing the failure of that exact group of leaders to carry the torch of fiscal conservatism for the better portion of the last decade. According to Penry’s campaign message, only through the emergence of a fresh new generation of Republican leaders, will the solution to the party’s current identity crisis be resolved. Like McInnis, Penry promises an administration of fiscal Conservatism. Unlike McInnis, Penry asserts that only new guard Republicans can be trusted with the responsibility of a renewed commitment to Reagan Conservatism. Whether the solution to our party turmoil is found in the reinvigoration of experienced and proven leaders or by way of fresh new faces, one point is inarguable: Ritter’s support among Colorado voters is in serious jeopardy.

Both at the state level and nationally, Republicans have some monumentally important decisions to make in the coming months. Indeed, some have come to view Colorado’s current gubernatorial ticket as a reflection of the larger decision currently before the party. With our nation in fiscal peril, what path more likely guarantees a return to a Reagan policy of fiscal responsibility? With any degree of appreciation for the fiscal principals of our Founding Fathers, there is no denying Conservative ideals of limited government and a decreased burden on American taxpayers are the only roadmap to economic recovery. Thus the 2010 question before the Republican Party: will it turn to the wisdom of the past or forward to the wave of the future? Only time will tell.

President Obama Speaks to the Nation's Youth: Why Many Parents are Disturbed

This coming Tuesday, President Barak Obama will stand before a televised audience, an audience not the American Voter. Not yet that is. On Tuesday, September 8th, the President will collectively address our nation’s children on what will serve for most, as their first day of school. His speech is expected to include such noble reminders as the importance of education and the virtues of working hard. In many respects, the idea of a Presidential Address to our children seems a reasonable means for educating our students in civic awareness. In fact, much of the anticipated content is in perfect keeping with many of our most basic Conservative principals. Why then the public outrage?

On his radio show last night, Mario Solis Marich encouraged anyone with an intelligent justification for the angry response to news of the President’s speech to please speak up. The answer is really quite simple. A growing number of Americans do not trust President Obama. The cult of personality that has grown to define this administration has left many Americans justifiably apprehensive about Barak Obama, the man. This paranoia is not restricted to the Right. On Progressive Talk Radio, talk show hosts such as Thom Hartmann have gone to great lengths to differentiate between Obama Policy and Obama celebrity. Since his inauguration in January, the president has acted upon a great many policy objectives he vowed just last year to actively campaign against.

His official policy decisions have run so contrary to “Candidate Obama’s” campaign promises that his ardent supporters have had to perform intellectual gymnastics in an effort to defend his administrative decisions. He has delivered countless speeches so inanely riddled with convenient ambiguities he has left even the most politically savvy scratching their heads in confusion. In doing so, he has exploited the American People’s trust. They can no longer boast confidence in an Obama Administration that means what it says and says what it means. It should come then as no surprise that some parents might be reticent about entrusting their children’s impressionable young minds to a leader who not only lacks integrity but seems at the same time dogged in his quest to revolution the United States. For all of his charm and inarguable charisma, President Obama has been praised neither for candor nor humility.

At the same time, do I fear that students will come home from school on the evening of the 8th pledging servitude to the great leader Barack Obama as Demi Moore, Ashton Kutcher and so many other persons of little consequence have already done? No, I give our children far more credit than that. But I do respect their parents’ right to decline participation in the event and so should the school boards. Very likely, President Obama will deliver an undisruptive speech as regards staying in school and pursuing dreams. All the same, his mind-boggling sense of political invincibility, despite his plummeting poll numbers has many wondering where he will ever draw the line on his political invasiveness. So as a growing number of uneasy parents pledge to keep their children home or take them fishing on the 8th, I challenge the Administration to rethink their pre-conceived notions about the sort of the “change” the American People were looking for back in November. We will always, in keeping with our nation’s first presidential precedent, pledge our allegiance to an ideology of freedom and individual liberty and never to a man with a crown.