Tobiasly’s Blog

The July 16, 2005 edition of the American Perspectives program on C-SPAN features the “Freedom Fighters” panel of which I was part during the Young Republican National Conference.

The panel featured myself and several other veterans of Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom. We discussed the lopsided, inaccurate view of the situation in these countries (particularly Iraq) as portrayed by popular media. I spoke mostly about my experiences as a reserve component soldier during OIF.

The video is available for download from C-SPAN.org for a limited time. I also have a copy available for download from my website. My portion of the panel is about 27 minutes in to the program. (You’ll need RealPlayer to view the video. Click the link below to download if you don’t have it already; be sure to click the “Free RealPlayer” and not the “free trial” of the paid version.)

We just got back from the Young Republican National Converence 2005. This was the farthest West I’ve ever been (same goes for Elizabeth) and we had a wonderful time. Vegas was simply amazing.

We also spent a couple days before the conference began to drive out to Los Angeles and visit the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum. This was an incredible experience, and the view in Simi Valley was beautiful. I took some pretty good pictures, but as usual, not as many as I would have liked to.

I must admit that I wasn’t putting much faith at all in the Iraqi elections as a “turning point” in that country’s return to stability. I was afraid that too much of the population would see the elections as an American-engineered attempt to cement our influence on that country. I knew that elections were an important step, but I didn’t think that event in itself would really bring much of a change in attitude to ordinary Iraqis.

I was indeed very happy to read on Jan. 31 the glowing reports of the process which went off much better than it could have (or than was even generally expected), with throngs of voters literally risking their lives to take a part in democracy for the first time in generations. For once, the media actually seemed to be concentrating on the positive work we are doing in that country instead of presenting a one-sided story of death, destruction, and chaos. But I still didn’t think that one day would really have a lasting effect on the general population and their disillusionment towards their situation. There are still huge problems with the infrastructure (such as delivery of gas and electricity) that affect people’s lives each day.

However, MSNBC is reporting that there may very well be a sea change in attitudes since that day. Citizens now view the emerging police and national guard forces more favorably and have been providing better tips which have led to more arrests. A renewed sense of national pride has helped to dispel support for the insurgency and moderate some of the anti-American sentiment. And an Iraqi policeman named Abdul Amir, who gave his life to thwart a would-be terrorist bomber from attacking a crowd waiting to vote, has emerged as a new national hero.

CitizensUnited.org, a pro-Bush advocacy group, is buying several billboards in Hollywood during the month of February near the site of the Academy Awards. The billboards thank certain outspoken liberal Hollywood icons for their help in getting President Bush re-elected.

All my predictions were pretty much correct, except that Bush’s electoral victory was smaller and his popular victory was larger than I guessed.

While we did win two seats on the Clark County Council, I expected Jim Smith to be one of those two! Since he is currently on the council in a district seat, the Ds attacked him pretty hard (although he still did better than two of the three Democrats). However, concentrating their efforts on Jim meant that Monty Snelling and Danny Yost were able to get in. So now we have 3 Republicans on the Council out of 7 members… not quite a majority, but a historic feat nonetheless.

We definitely worked longer and harder this year than we ever have in the past. Thanks to Mitch Daniels’ Final Mile campaign, we were also able to have an order of magnitude more grass-roots workers in the final days of the campaign.

A Floyd County friend of mine, Abe Navarro (who works in prosecutor Keith Henderson’s office) told me that a Democrat attorney said to him the day before the election: “Abe, I heard there is an army of Republicans knocking on every door in Clark and Floyd counties. Is this true?” To which Abe replied, “yes it is.” We weren’t really trying to knock on every door, but it makes a good story nonetheless! I’d guess we did talk to (or leave information for) over 30,000 households.

Since I ran over my camera a couple weeks ago, I unfortunately wasn’t able to take as many pictures of our 11th-hour activities as I would have liked, but suffice it to say we had lots of fun and everyone had a well-earned sense of accomplishment. I didn’t sleep for about 40 hours in a row, but once we found out that Mike Sodrel won by less than 1500 votes we knew it had all been worth it. I was more worried about his race than any of the others, but knowing that southern Indiana finally has a representative who actually represents our values sure is a great feeling.

I loved Peggy Noonan’s article wrapping up the election, especially this quote: “The Democrats have lost their leader in the Senate, Tom Daschle. I do not know what the Democratic Party spent, in toto, on the 2004 election, but what they seem to have gotten for it is Barack Obama. Let us savor.” (Please note that neither Ms. Noonan nor I intend this as a slam against Obama, who is indeed a rather eloquent speaker and who I’m sure will be a respectable senator).

I was really looking forward to Michael Moore’s analysis of the election, especially considering that he realized months ago what a poor campaign Kerry was running, but he has been strangely silent since the election.

Just a few more days to go until campaign season is over. Elizabeth and I have both been run ragged these past couple weeks, and it only gets worse before it gets better. I hope Al and Jackie still recognize us when this is all over!

I’m thrilled about the direction this country is taking with regards to voter attitudes. Voter registrations are way up, people are turning out to vote early in droves, and overall voter turnout is expected to blow away any other year for which data was taken. It’s good to see so many people actually taking part in democracy.

I feel completely psyched about the candidates I’ve been campaigning for this year. I feel best about Mitch Daniels’ chances for being elected governor, but I have a pretty good feeling that Mike Sodrel will make it too in his congressional seat. These two men have run the cleanest campaigns I’ve ever been a part of and they both deserve to win.

Locally, we have a very good shot at gaining Republican control of the county council for the first time in the history of Clark County. The Democrats who have been running our county have made an absolute mess of our finances and have raised record levels of new taxes. People are finally getting tired of it and may actually forget their party ties long enough to do something about it this year.

So, here are my predictions for election night; we’ll see how many I get right :)

Bush will win re-election. The popular vote will be very close, but he will have enough of an electoral advantage that it won’t drag on like last time. The thing about Kerry is, if he were half the campaigner that Clinton was, I think he would be up by 10 points by now. Instead he wasted the entire first half of his campaign talking about Vietnam, and then failed to articulate an Iraq strategy in time to get the point across to people. Instead of using his convention to set forth his agenda, he beat the Vietnam horse to death some more.

Then he had to use the whole month of August to dig back out of the hole he was in when the inadvertent attacks on his service came out. And finally, he changed his staff so much during the final stretch that his campaign has lacked direction for the past month. Whoever thought up that ridiculous goose-hunting expedition is sorely out of touch with the voting public if they think it actually picked up any votes.

Of course, Bush isn’t without fault either. His wholly lackluster performance in the first debate gave Kerry a much-needed shot of momentum. Fortunately, Kerry was unable to convert that momemtum into a decisive lead. If Bush would have had better responses to Kerry’s claims (such as saying he would never send troops to combat without the equipment they need) instead of repeating his worn-out stump lines, he would now be up by ten points.

As I said, I feel best about Daniels’ chances this year. I think he’ll win by 6 points. He is getting endorsements from many organizations that conventional wisdom says should go for the Democrats, and people are responding very well to his positive message of reform. Seeing Kernan lose will be a happy moment for me personally, after he kept two companies of my battalion waiting on the plane for 30 minutes after we got back from Iraq, while our families and friends that we hadn’t seen in a year waited outside in -15°F weather. And this was after our plane was already an hour late! Anyone who would put his National Guard through that because he couldn’t show up on time for a photo op doesn’t deserve to be in office.

I think Mike Sodrel is going to squeak by Baron Hill, but this race will be very dependent on turnout. People in the 9th CD are finally realizing just how liberal Baron is, and that he doesn’t represent our values.

I think we will end up with at least three and maybe four seats on the county council. If Jim Smith wins at large, we gain not only his seat but we get to fill the vacancy from his district seat as well.

Anyhoo, that’s my take on where things stand, based on my experiences this year and how things are shaping up so far. I wish I could have been writing more during this campaign season but I just haven’t had the time.

I’m sure lots of people dread this time of year, but I love it. Presidential election season is America at its best. And no, that’s not sarcasm — for all the faults of our government and the politics surrounding it, it’s still the best in the world.

I wonder if Kerry will now actually center his campaign around something besides what he did decades ago. I’m not going to question his service, although what he did afterwards was certainly traitorous. But it really burns me up every time Kerry shows up for some pep rally or stump speech, gives that dorky salute, and says “reporting for duty” or whatever. It’s such a blatant and disgusting display of pandering to the military.

Really, he served for a few months, thirty years ago, and now he thinks that qualifies him to be president. He whines about the Swift Boat Vets attacking him, while MoveOn.org and all the others have been doing the same to Bush for much longer. Well, now he’s slipping in the polls and he still wants to go on and on about his military service. Even his favorable ratings among veterans are dropping like a brick.

On a more positive note, the president’s speech tonight was awesome. Myself and many other Republicans were starting to worry about the fact that Bush hadn’t laid out a second-term agenda, but tonight certainly took care of that. Ahnold’s was great too, although I missed Zell Miller’s. Of course, everything can change at any moment, but I fully expect Bush to be up 6-8 points by next week.

I’m just thankful that Kerry is running such a lousy and misguided campaign. Otherwise, he could easily be up by double digits by now.

I am in Dallas this week on business, and last night I was flipping cable channels in my hotel room. I caught part of Dennis Miller’s new talk show on CNBC, and really enjoyed a comment he made during a debate with one of his guests. I’m not sure who the guest was or what exactly they were discussing (it was either directly or indirectly related to the November election), but I’ll lamely try to paraphrase the exchange anyway.

Miller’s guest was lamenting that American politics has, in his opinion, become too polarized lately. Miller replied: “Why is it that people think polarization is bad? Why do so many people think that everyone should be somewhere in the middle, singing kumbaya and agreeing on everything?”

His guest (apparently not expecting someone to argue against polarization being bad) hemmed and hawed something about “I like kumbaya” and that people should be willing to change their minds.

Miller replied “look, the time for sitting on the fence is over. If you’re still in the middle, pick up a newspaper and make up your mind, because it’s on!”

I’m sure I didn’t get it quite right, but I really liked the point he was trying to make. If you don’t know where you stand on Iraq, the war on terror, the economy, and this administration, it’s your duty to make up your mind and let your voice be heard this November.