Middle America vs Politicians; Divergent Roads

                                                     
I have to admit to something; I'm a slow learner.  But eventually I will chew on something long enough so that I come to a logical answer to a quandary.  In this case my wonderment has been concentrated on why so many so called conservative politicians have been moving to the left, to a more liberal political spectrum.  Why would politicians advocate for conservative principles for their entire political career, only to abandon those principles in the face of a single electoral defeat?

I refer of course to the new benevolence of Republicans toward illegal immigrants, a new found acceptance of gay marriage and the abandonment of the idea that healthy societies exist only when the traditional family continues to be the cornerstone of community.  And January couldn't come fast enough for Republicans to lay down, spread their legs, and allow Obama to have their way with them as he succeeded in imposing a massive tax hike on the American citizen.

My first thought was that perhaps I am misreading the sentiment of Main Street America!  Perhaps most of America had become "closet liberals" since the mid-term elections in 2010!  Maybe we really did want Obamacare!  Maybe we really did hunger to pay higher taxes!  Maybe those millions of folks that dined on Chick Fil A sandwiches last year just happened to all be hungry for chicken that day!

Then I wandered back to the morning of November 7th and remembered the shock and awe among the citizenry that the worst President in our generation had actually won re-election.   Were people really happy with 8 percent unemployment and 20% underemployment?  Was America no longer worried about a national debt approaching $17 trillion dollars?  Was America, as Obama claimed, giving him a huge mandate to raise their taxes?

 And I remembered all the bitter comments about defeat by those 50% of Americans who opted not to vote!  Even before his second inauguration Main Street turned a deaf ear to Obama's "perty words".  His popularity polls began to sink and his "the sky is falling, Sequestration tour" failed miserably.  And the winter of our discontent became even more pronounced when those who had slept through the election were furious when they took a look at their January paychecks and saw they had lost a couple of hundred bucks in pay through Obama's hike in the payroll taxes.  (Yes, the sleepy citizen, those who bought into Obama's grand lie, and those who didn't even bother to pay attention, those who didn't realize that Obama's cut of the payroll tax was just a means to win re-election; a year long bribe if you will).

So again, my quandary, and my "grand query":  why were Republicans scrambling to abandon conservative principles to curry favor with special interest voting blocks?  Aha!  Said I!  To stay in power!  To maintain their cushy congressional offices and franking privileges and taxpayer subsidized barber shop and gourmet restaurant and lobbyist lunches and paid trips to Europe and all the grand benefits associated with political power!

Sure, we've always had the Republican in Name Only, the RINO's.  But now we are seeing a massive move to RINOism as these so called conservatives scramble to embrace, not what is moral, not what is right, but what is politically correct.

Of course the danger with embracing "political correctness" is that you end up mis-reading the electorate.  And what is politically correct today will surely be something different two years from now.  And then where will these phony politicians be?  Will they get any votes from the liberal left?  Will they get any votes from those 20 million illegals granted amnesty, citizenship and the power of the ballot box?  Absurd to even think so.  Will the gay voter flock to the new "conservatives with a heart?"  I hardly think so.

And yes, as I chew on this grand conundrum,  I continue to ask "has America changed all that much?"
My considered opinion is "no".  As Americans, both those who opposed Obama to begin with, and those "sleepy-heads" just beginning to wake up to the checkbook costs of Obamacare, the bureaucratic minefield they'll be treading through to secure adequate and affordable medical care, will all be streaming toward an alternative; free market solutions in lieu of federal government tyranny over their finances and their personal choices.  And if that is so, where will the American voter find that alternative?  Certainly not the RINO's for they are so closely aligned to the liberal left they pose no alternative choice!

So I chewed and chewed and chewed on all of this...and came to this conclusion.  Come the mid-term elections in 2014 America will still be faced with high unemployment, more deficit spending, they'll be angered beyond belief by the costs of their Obamacare premiums, and they'll be sickened by liberal tyranny!  And they'll begin throwing out the "bums" en masse, Democrats and Republicans both!

America will be looking for "statesmen" and not politicians.  You'll see more Ted Cruz's being elected to Congress.  You'll see more courageous leaders like Rand Paul who'll filibuster for 18 hours for something he sincerely believes in.  And you'll see more apologist RINO's  like John McCain and the other Obama "boot lickers" marginalized and turned out of office..and left wondering what the hell happened.

Obama and his liberal minions won no mandate.  They won because the Republicans put up a RINO for President, a man so wealthy he couldn't connect with blue collar America.  They won through voter apathy as almost half of Main Street America stayed home on voting day.  The Democrats will have no such luck come 2014 and 2016 as the damages of liberal policies begin to hit the American pocket book.

America will be looking for alternatives and the Republican Party would do well not to mis-read what happened in the last election.  Victory will go to those who have stuck to their principles throughout.  The RINO bootlickers, the panderers to special interests will be left out in the cold...as America diverges to a different road.