A Bob Hope Classic

In the spirit of cordial partisanship, I thought everyone would get a kick out of this Bob Hope Classic. Someone forwarded this to me tonight calling it the "greatest movie line ever". Enjoy.

You Don't Know Where You're Going...

We've all heard it. "You don't know where you're going if you don't know where you've been." To a point this is true, but at times, this can be taken too far. With in the Republican Party right now, this has been taken too far.

Let me say up front I know this is not going to be a popular opinion but I think it needs to be said. Our 5 main candidates for the presidency (Romney, McCain, Giuliani, Thompson, Huckabee) have all at one time or another claimed they would be the President that "most resembles Ronald Reagan." I ask, so what?

Yes, Ronald Reagan was a great President, and Abraham Lincoln is everybody's favorite Republican. This post by no means intends to disrespect these two wonderful leaders. However, if the Republican Party doesn't get their minds out of the past, we're quickly going to get swept under the carpet. Instead of being the party of the past, we need to be the party of the future.

Every one of our presidential candidates brings something to the table that most of us identify with: Huckabee and social conservatism, McCain and national security conservatism, Romney and economic conservatism, Rudy I think has both national security and economic conservatism and Thompson, quite frankly, has all three but just hasn't quite put it together, at least yet.

The great thing about what I think is going to be a very long nomination process, perhaps even making its way to the Convention, is that the Republican Party is FINALLY going to have the opportunity to have a debate amongst itself and decide what issues and what philosophies are going to be our future. With such a distinction among our candidates -- this can and must be done right here, right now. Currently, we're a party without much of an identity and this process playing out will let us re-shape, and re-discover who we are and what we stand for.

The talking heads and pundits in Washington are all claiming that the potential for a very long nomination process spells doom for the eventual GOP nominee. I couldn't disagree more. Yes, we're a party fractured in our interests and motivations at this time but this process will give us an opportunity to fix that. To build it up again we must first break it down. But we're not going to do this by being the "Party of Reagan" - we're going to do it by being the party that has the guts to stake out its identity for the future.

Your thoughts? Please feel free to comment.

Quick Note on Upcoming Events

I wanted to make everyone aware of a couple of very
important upcoming events.

1. On Thursday, January 24th we are going to have a
full committee meeting and also invite all of those
interested in becoming a committee members or getting
more involved with the Party. At the meeting we will
cover the petition process and the upcoming year. The
meeting will be @ 7:00 p.m. and will be at the McKean
Township Bldg. 8952 Main St.(Rt. 99), McKean, PA
16426. This will be a VERY IMPORTANT meeting so
please try to attend if possible.

2. This year's Lincoln Day Dinner will be on February
1st at the Maennechor Club. A reception is at 6:00
p.m. and dinner is at 7:00 p.m. Cost is $30. The
keynote speech will be given by Congressman Phil
English. If you are planning to attend and we missed you
via snail mail, please call 814-504-1542.

Words Matter

Words matter. Especially in campaigns. I finally had to shut the tv off this morning. If I heard one more of our presidential candidates, on both sides, use the word "change" one more time I was going to scream. All of these men and women are intelligent. They wouldn't be in the positions they are in if they weren't. I can't understand for the life of me how none of them, or any of their over-priced "consultants" for that matter, can't come up with another way to talk about "change".

A quick punch of the thesaurus comes up with the following synonyms for "change": alter, modify, vary, transform, revolutionize, adjust, amend, alteration, modification, variation, transformation, revolution, conversion, adjustment, amendment, difference. The ones bolded would all be a nice substitution for any of the candidates.

Speaking of the word "change" -- count how many times Speaker Gingrich said the word in his interview on ABC's This Week this morning. On a more positive note however, make sure to watch his comments about 6 minutes into the interview on how our division in the Republican Party among our choices for our nominee is actually a healthy thing for the Party. We are in a transition and will redefine our party with this nomination process. Look there, two words that both mean the same thing and are synonyms of "change".

Funniest Ad of the Campaign

Check out Mike Huckabee's ad that started airing today with Chuck Norris. It definitely takes the cake for the funniest ad of the campaign so far.

Changing the Way We Think

The 2007 elections are behind us. Congratulations to our victorious candidates for local offices and our two new Superior Court Justices, Cheryl Allen & Jackie Shogun.

One thing became crystal clear through this campaign though -- we as a Party have to change the way we think about politics. No, that does not mean abandoning your principles.

Over the next couple of months I am going to invite you to become part of a discussion about "Changing the Way We Think". Who are we as Republicans? What do we stand for? What kind of elected officials and candidates do we want representing us? What core issues do we believe in? How are we broadening our Party? How will we broaden our Party? How do we recruit other dedicated Republicans to get involved? How are we going to spread the word? How are we going to raise the resources to do all of these things? Is this something you want to be a part of?

We will tackle these questions and more with a three-pronged discussion. 1. Message: Who are we as Republicans and what do we stand for? 2. Infrastructure: Recruitment, Training, Fundraising 3. Our Elected Officials and Candidates: How do we decide who we recruit and support? How do we run campaigns and win elections?

This will become a very public discussion in our community. Not only will we have this conversation among ourselves, but also in the mainstream media, on talk radio, over the internet, in classrooms, and in meeting halls all across the county.

The next two years will perhaps be the two most important years in our party's history. 2008 will feature everything from picking our new Commander & Chief to several state legislature races. In 2009, we will elect the next Republican County Executive. If there's ever a time to get involved in the discussion, it's now.

The Economic Debate: Assessing the Field...

As the Erie Times News diligently pointed out this morning, many voters are looking ahead to 2008 and the 2007 elections are already in the rearview mirror. Though we have some races we're going to need to do a lot of work for the next month, candidly, John Guerriero's assessment is true (sorry, no link on goerie today).

Tonight was one of the many Republican Presidential Debates that have been held. Many of us continue to roll our eyes at the length of this campaign -- but the Iowa Caucuses are only a few months away...

I loved the format of tonight's debate. Limited rules, 2 hour length, and the focus on one range of issues (tonight's issue: the economy). The candidates had time to get into the issues in-depth and you can really start to see differences on their economic philosophies. If you didn't get to see the debate -- some thoughts on each of the candidates.

John McCain: He's gaining everyday. He's at his best when his back is against the wall. If he doesn't end up pulling this out, whoever the nominee is should seriously consider making him his running mate. His candidness and thoughtfullness to every question is refreshing.

Fred Thompson: It was fun while it lasted. He doesn't even look like he's in the same league. He'll also be another VP option for our nominee after he's sharpened up a bit.

Mitt Romney: Probably the smartest guy on the stage but I just don't think it's going to happen for him. He looks too scripted -- everytime I see him. It doesn't look like it takes much to ruffle his feathers either. Secretary of Treasury or Commerce?

Rudy Guilliani: Still the guy to beat. Needs to get away from "what [he] did in New York" and start getting into the meat of the issues though. However, people like leadership and can just taste the Rudy vs. Hillary match-up already.

Mike Huckabee: I have yet to figure out why he isn't a top-tier candidate. His Fair Tax proposal scares me a little but atleast he's thinking outside the box. If he had the resources, he'd be in the ball game but he's just not there yet. He has a future, somewhere.

Ron Paul: I have a lot of very close friends who are big supporter's of Paul's but frankly, I don't see it. The circus needs to stop soon.

Duncan Hunter, Tom Tancredo, Sam Brownback: Memo: Get out -- please.