Obama as Topper, Trump Tape & Evan McMullin?

Some of my recent Facebook Posts & exchanges:

Oct. 1:  Examples of Obama's strategy of “If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun:"

1. (Small) Arms for hostages (Iran/Contra under Reagan) vs Nukes for hostages (Obama/Clinton Iran nuclear & hostage deals)

2. Increase in National Debt: $5 Trillion under Bush, $10 Trillion under Obama

3. Recession recovery:  Reagan’s recovered all jobs lost in 36 months, but after 67 months of Obama’s, we still haven’t recovered all the jobs lost, and in fact we’ve lost millions (after 67 months, Reagan had added 10 million).  Reagan’s GDP growth after 5 ½ yrs. was 20%, Obama’s 3%.  “Middle class incomes have continued to fall during Obama’s recovery, losing even more ground than during the recession.  The number in poverty has also continued to soar during Obama’s supposed recovery, to about 50 million, the most in the more than 50 years that Census has been tracking poverty, with the poverty rate up to 16.1%, higher than when the War on Poverty started in 1965.  Indeed, despite all of Obama’s rhetoric, inequality has started rising during his Presidency.” (See http://www.forbes.com/sites/peterferrara/2013/08/04/how-does-president-obamas-economic-recovery-compare-to-those-of-other-presidents/print/)

And Hillary appears to be following the Obama lead.  Hillary Care outdoes Obamacare.  Her spending plans grow even more, with free college for all, etc.

Oct. 8:  The Trump Tape

The Washington Post & NBC News obtained audio & video recordings of Trump 11 years ago making lewd comments about women as he waited to go on a cameo soap opera appearance, not knowing he was being recorded.  He has apologized, and said that it “…was locker room banter, a private conversation that took place many years ago.”  Like most men, he acknowledged that “I’m automatically attracted to beautiful women.”  He said earlier that “a lot of that was done for the purpose of entertainment [no doubt not unusual banter for a soap opera crew] ….And I can tell you this, there’s nobody – nobody – that has more respect for women than I do.” 

He added that “Bill Clinton has said far worse to me on the golf course – not even close.” 

Making political capital out of it, Hillary twittered “This is horrific.  We cannot allow this man to become president.”  She hardly has room to talk.  She was certainly aware of Bill’s sexual predatory behavior – not only words like Trump’s, but actions.  And she not only turned a blind eye to it, enabling it, but attacked, threatened and further victimized the victims of his assaults.  She not only allowed, but promoted, her husband to become president.  Of course Bill was impeached, but not removed from office. She never called Bill’s actions “horrific,” or anything close.  All for the purpose of maintaining their political power, and her future aspirations.  And of course she has leveraged their political influence for huge financial benefits – many tens of millions of dollars.  And many millions came from corrupt, misogynistic rulers of countries where women have few rights, are stoned for adultery, can’t drive, can’t be educated, etc.  Again, turning a blind eye.  Unless, of course, it is some relatively lesser offense committed by Republicans, which can be capitalized on for political gain.

Even if Trump raises these points in the debates & campaign, which he is now more likely to do, it likely won’t have much effect on Hillary supporters who have already turned a blind eye to all of her & Bill’s faults, and Democrats who have a long history of turning such a blind eye to their leaders’ sexual exploits – including Jack & Ted Kennedy.  Of course the primary effect of Trump’s lewd remarks will be on the conservative Christian GOP base, who have a higher standard of conduct than the Democrats.  Many of them already are reluctantly supporting Trump over Hillary, weighing their respective flaws.  Ryan & even Pence have cancelled speaking engagements today with Trump in the wake of this, and some are even calling for Trump to step down, and Pence to head the ticket.  Trump says he will not step down.  Hopefully he will make a greater attempt to show his contrition and that he’s turned his life around, to shore up his base, at least, and maybe win or keep some more much-needed independents.

Of course his remarks are totally unacceptable, and to be condemned.  Still, we must remember as conservative Christians to condemn the sin and not the sinner, to be open to the fact that this was many years ago, that he regrets them and has changed.  He apparently has had a good marriage for the last 10 years, and has good family relationships with his older and new children.  He says that “anyone who knows me, knows that that’s not who I am.”  And if the testimonies of the many women he has worked with are an indication, we have reason to believe so.  George Washington and other founding fathers also were fond of women, and like most men struggled to control their actions – which Trump seems largely to have done. 

And we ought to continue to weigh in the balance the relative merits and faults of Trump & Hillary.  Hillary’s actions & inactions about Bill’s vastly worse actions, her dishonesty and corruption in office & since, and her disastrous policies in office, together with the kind of Supreme Court justices she would select, and continuing ruinous policies (economic, health care, foreign) still easily tip the balance in Trump’s favor.  

The WikiLeaks emails coming out may turn some of the attention back to Hillary – stay tuned for more October surprises! 

Oct. 8-9:  3rd Party Candidate Evan McMullin?

Mark Clayson Unfortunately, withholding a vote for Trump, or voting 3rd party, only means a vote for Hillary. So one must make a choice between the lesser of two evils. One must weigh carefully the flaws of the two, and their policies, and consider the future of our country. There is no perfect choice.

One friend: “unless we can get a decent movement towards third-party we will never be able to fix the two party system. If there's never a threat… Why change?”

Mark Clayson An interesting point. Although the whole Trump thing was basically a revolution from within the GOP to change it within. Unfortunately a successful, but ill-advised one. The runner-up, Cruz, was a better choice for change within. The currently viable 3rd/4th parties are way too extreme departures from conservative principles & policies. The Sanders movement was a similar attempt to change the Democrat party from within, albeit a very extreme one, but nearly succeeded.

Mark Clayson Also, note that those surfacing the lewd Trump video/audio -- the liberal media & Democrats -- really have no qualms about the morals of it -- they just want to further reduce Trump's base by dissension within the GOP, to assure a Hillary victory. And it appears they are having success. The question is, for the purists, what will results of that be for the country?

Mark Clayson  I'll repeat what I've blogged before, that at least a loose cannon points in the right direction some of the time, whereas one fixed in the wrong direction never does. A choice between the somewhat uncertain, and the certainly bad. And we are getting more and more confirmation of that with the leaked emails.

Trump's first and most important choice as candidate was Pence -- a solid choice. And his list of candidate Supreme Court justices was also solid. If he continues to show good judgment in who he hires and surrounds himself with, I'll take him any day over Hillary or any 3rd party.

"Perfect is the enemy of good" -- it enables the bad to win. There is no perfection in this world, and certainly not in this election. But there are relatively better, viable choices that will leave us better off. My conscience tells me to choose & promote (even if I live in California) the better, viable, more impactful, not the "perfect." We can begin to change California -- Christie gave hope for that in New Jersey, as I heard him tell me & the other California delegates in 2012 in Tampa.

A case in point for "perfect is the enemy of good" was when out of necessity we sided & cooperated with Stalin in WWII to defeat the more imminent Nazi/Imperial Japan threat. Stalin was clearly an evil, murderous tyrant. Purists would perhaps advocate not cooperating with Stalin, or fighting Stalin, Germany & Japan all at once. How would that have turned out? Or if we'd only picked perfect democracies as allies in the Gulf War? Or not allied w. the monarchy of France in our Revolutionary War?

When asked about possibly voting for Evan McMullin, I replied: “Sounds like a very good man, but I think it would be only a symbolic, and wasted, vote. Effectively giving Hillary even more advantage in this election. Despite his saying "it's never too late," maybe if he'd declared earlier than just a month ago he could be taken more seriously and have even a hope. Maybe a vote for him will make the "never Trump" folks feel better and more principled, but the practical result will be giving the Left yet 4 more years after the last 8 to perhaps do irreparable harm to our country. I agree with Dennis Prager on that. I think in that regard that the result will be just like the effect in the last election of those who refused to vote for Romney because of his religion -- he wasn't religiously "pure" enough. Look what they got, instead. And perhaps we have them in part to blame. I want to be part of the solution, not part of the problem.”

One friend said, “I am banking on the fact that the Electoral College votes can allow for a 3rd party win. All Evan McMullin needs to do is win 1-2 states. Utah is looking very promising, and there are others quickly picking up steam.”

Another friend:  “After studying information on Evan McMullin, I find him as the best candidate for President. He represents my values, respects people, the Constitution, and Conservatism.”

[me]  All that you say may be true. And yet I believe a vote for him and not Trump is effectively one more for Hillary, who would be much worse than Trump. I want the best candidate who can win, for the country.

I think too many unlikely "ifs" to be a serious, realistic possibility. Many of us were hoping also for a contested convention to put Cruz over the top, but that never happened -- although there were several precedents for that. One more unstated and considerable hurdle is that he is LDS, and we saw what happened with that in the last election.