A VIEW FROM THE CHEAP SEATS
By Rich Trzupek
Right Priorites
Dear Fellow Conservatives,
This letter is for you. I apologize to the rest of my readers who are busily flipping back to the Police Reports. We'll be back to silly fun next week. Promise.
I'd like to talk to you fellow conservatives about the next election and what can happen - indeed is likely to happen - in the State of Illinois. You have the ability to save your State, but it means that you have to do something that we conservatives are terribly bad at: you need to get over it already.
I realize that many of you are very upset with the Republication Congress in Washington. They've spent money, much of it on garbage, like Teddy Kennedy on steroids. It's a tribute to the strength of the economy that the federal budget still was able to land $200 billion in the black last year, but if those idiots could stop being politicians for five seconds, we would have made a much bigger dent in the deficit. I can't wait to hear Democrats try to sell their "the government is underfunded" message again, when the GOP has been running around with an open checkbook for the last three years.
Many of you are also disturbed by the President's handling of the war. Not because we don't believe it's important and correct to fight this war (as they claim on the other side of the aisle), but because Bush has tried to finesse our efforts. More force, applied earlier, would have been much more effective at cutting the terrorists off at the knees according to many in the military. Again, I share your concerns.
We can, and we should, talk about the best way to correct the mistakes in Washington. But, among the answers that we will discuss, staying home in November is not acceptable. Not when there is so much at stake right here at home.
It would be a shame - a disaster even - if we got so caught up in the big picture that we ignored the smaller picture, which will have an even larger effect on our lives and that of our children.
In about any other election year, we would not be talking about the possibility of Rod Blagojevich's re-election without a laugh track in the background. Ethically, he's managed to make George Ryan look like a candidate for sainthood. Fiscally, he's shown all of the restraint and long range planning ability of a spoiled teenager with Daddy's credit card in hand.
Blago is a joke. Under his "leadership" (and never has the word been used more lightly) Illinois government has become a playground for the Chicago machine and Mike Madigan's political schemes. Together, they ran up impossible credit card bills, single-handedly destroyed the State's pension fund after a decade of rebuilding; made pork the meat of choice in Springfield, and created a system where mutual back-scratching is a way of life. Even in the cynical world of politics, it doesn't take a lot of insight to realize this is nuts.
In practically any other year, the result of this election would be a foregone conclusion. But this year, because of George Ryan, because of Congress and because of Iraq, a disaster like Blago actually stands a fair chance of winning re-election. Fellow Dems realize this of course, which is why they approach this election like a kid breaking into a candy store. Anything goes.
For if the conservative base is so discouraged that it doesn't turn out to vote, the election is over before it starts. Having Judy Baar-Topinka atop Illinois' GOP ticket doesn't help. Her position on social issues offends many conservatives. Pile that on top of the rest of the factors and it's easy to see why many of you may just stay home and drink the first Tuesday in November.
Personally, I'm not terribly excited by some of Judy's positions either. It would be nice, for example, if she could find at least one Gay Pride Parade that she didn't feel obligated to march in (not that there's anything wrong with that). But it really doesn't matter.
The state race is not about who we wish the Republican candidate could be, but about who the Democratic candidate actually is. It's not a matter of Washington's mistakes, but of Springfield's excesses. Focus people.
If we sit back, either choosing not to vote, or voting without enthusiasm - and thus not creating a buzz along the way - we'll be guilty of handing our state over to a pack of vipers for a generation to come.
We owe ourselves, and our children, so much more. Instead of moping about and pining for what might have been, we must dedicate ourselves to stopping the bleak future that can be.
A second Blagojevich administration means more pork, more patronage, more fire sales of State assets and more jobs fleeing across the borders. Illinois was once the leading state in the Midwest. A second round of Blago-tics will go a long way towards turning us into the next Arkansas.
The time to fight the hardest is when the future seems most bleak. That's called "honor." If you're not willing to go to war to fight all that is wrong in Illinois, you have no honor kids, and you ought never call yourself a conservative again.
Sincerely,
Rich
