Taking Back The Oklahoma Republican Party

In 1964 Barry Goldwater started a movement to return the Republican party to its roots, paving the way for the Regan revolution in 1980.

Unfortunately, George Herbert Walker Bush squandered the momentum, as did Newt Gingrich when he failed to follow up on the Contract With America.

Currently the Republican party is being controlled by liberal Republicans and that must be changed. Here in Oklahoma, starting a third party is nearly impossible ballot restrictions. Therefore, we have three choices, reform the Republican party, reform the Democratic party, or ram through ballot laws that open up Oklahoma to a viable third party.

The Democratic party is most likely too far away from us in political theory and practice and changing ballot laws is a task for a well developed political machine. That leaves us with reforming the Republican party out of necessity.

The idea of re taking the Republican party is spreading. At this website, they discuss exactly what can be gained, how precarious the establishments hold on power truly is and what it takes to get there.

Re Taking The Republican Party

We are lucky to be living in Oklahoma, the reddest of the red states, but we need to improve upon our position by helping conservative Republicans to take control of their party. This will require us to register as Republicans, then spend a few hours for a few days attending Republican precinct events.

What is to be gained is largely symbolic yet there are practical gains, the power to endorse Republican candidates, the power to educate future and present Republican party members, and most importantly, a very public bloody nose to the present Republican party leadership.

We have attended tea parties and made it clear that we have had enough, it is time to show the public that we intend to act on this. On the 10th of October, the Sooner Tea Party is hosting a statewide meeting of patriot and libertarian groups to begin to work together on projects.

One of the projects to be discussed is retaking the Republican party.  Janruary 27th is the date of the first Republican precinct election, if you miss that election, you won’t likely be able to vote in the next ones.  Some counties might have different dates for the initial precinct election so the first thing is to locate your county chairman and get in touch with your precinct captain to get the latest information.

The Country’s Problems

The American Thinker has a great article regarding a common-sense approach to getting America right.

Feds sued to keep out of states gun affairs.

Here is another outrageous article about the Fed attempting to pre-empt states rights.

What Were Those Things Called Again? — Jobs?

Ah, let’s begin by discussing this disasterous economy in the wake of the housing crisis.

Why did we have a mortgage crisis? Because we had a “housing boom” caused by loose credit. But why was credit loose, bundled and sold upstream with nothing to back it except the over-priced houses of a bubble market Because every banker has to invest in something to make money off of your money. It’s reminiscent of the oil bust of the 80’s.

As a nation, we needed SOMETHING to manufacture in America that couldn’t be imported more cheaply from overseas – and that was houses. Thanks to our environmental policies, our pesky desire for more than a bare existence standard of living, and our blind eye to the unfair trade policies of other countries, we had little else to actually build, to make and sell. So Republicans cried foul over the threat to cut off the housing industry’s source of cheap labor (hint: they came from Mexico), and everyone touted the housing boom as a sign of prosperity rather than a scheme run up on one huge-a$$ unsecured pay-day loan from the Chinese.

So high-up muck-a-mucks of both parties pumped sunshine into the bubble and made as much dough as they could, and bundled the debt and had AIG stamp it with their meaningless insurance guarantee, knowing that eventually you and me, the good ol’ too polite to complain taxpayers, would eventually have to suck it up and foot the bill.

Now the housing bubble has burst and guess what? The manufacturing sector is in the pits, the USA is running up trillions of dollars of debt, and only a few brave conservatives are actually offering solutions for how to revive America’s ability to manufacture – that is, add work to raw materials to create things of value the rest of the world might actually buy. You know – create jobs?

As of today, if laid-off workers who have settled for part-time work or have given up looking for new jobs are included, the unemployment rate rose to 17 percent, the highest on records dating from 1994.

So what to do?

Here are my suggestions:

Ditch the “green economy” and unleash America’s native energy sources. Burn coal, fire up plants, toss aside overpaid union labor, and MAKE THINGS.

Get out of NAFTA, CAFTA, WTO – it’s every country for itself.

Dramatically lower taxes on businesses big AND small.

Don’t import from slave labor countries who pollute to the high heavens and send political dissidents to the firing squads.

Repeal the “stimulus”

Give every American shares of stock for every dollar uncle santa has doled out to a bank, company, etc. WE should own those companies, not “czars.”

Redirect scholarships to the smartest, not the neediest, and to the engineers.

Export illegals en masse.

Get rid of 2/3 of all our darned regulatory rules and agencies and let ingenuity thrive.

Ease patent aplication requirements and get the heck out of the way of folks who can build a better mouse trap.

Cut trial lawyers down to stubble – shrink the culture of “sue sue sue”

limit congress to three months every two year and impose term limits

close the door from representative to lobbyist

school vouchers = competitive education = smarter kids with less indoctrination

FIGHT LIKE THERE’S NO TOMORROW TO REBUILD OUR MANUFACTURING INFRASTRUCTURE

Ross was prophetic about the “giant sucking sound”.

Reason.tv Interviews Richard Viguerie

Al, Christina and I attended Richard Viguerie’s seminar on 9/11 in DC.  He had a lot of good advice for us rabble rousers.  Here is a recent interview of Viguerie where he repeats a few of the things we heard on 9/11.

Happy Constitution Day!

First Page of the US Constitution

The Message

Nobody knew what was going to happen at the Taxpayer March on Washington.  The Capitol Police didn’t know, the media didn’t know, politicians didn’t know, conservative pundits didn’t know, the organizers didn’t know, and the participants themselves had no idea.  Many who weren’t part of it still haven’t a clue what happened.

Three of us from the Sooner Tea Party left our Alexandria hotel early, under rain clouds, to meet up with the busload that would arrive from OKC around nine.  For the whole drive in I wondered how many people would be there, and I hoped it would be at least ten or twenty thousand.  I worried that it wouldn’t be.  Numbers send a message, and we had one for some people here in the capitol, I thought.

When the fifty or so of us Sooners walked away from Union Station we quickly joined a stream of groups and individuals flowing toward Freedom Plaza, the beginning point of the march.  When I reached 13^th Street and the plaza came into full view I was shocked.  From the Ronald Reagan building north of Pennsylvania to the Starbucks south of the plaza there was a mass of people with flags and handmade signs of all different sizes, colors and messages: “If you aren’t outraged, you aren’t paying taxes,” “I’ll keep my fingers, Bible, guns, and freedom – you keep the change,” “How will my children pay for all of this?”  “Clean sweep: Vote them all out.”

There seemed nowhere left for us to stand.  Rising above the assembly was the statue of the Continental Army general, Casimir Pulaski, astride his stallion, ready to lead another charge.  Someone was giving a speech I couldn’t make out and a cheer broke out, then another.  I looked around at others who were just arriving.  From the moment the streams of incoming demonstrators saw that bright and lively multitude, quizzical smiles appeared.  They relaxed, and despite the gloom of a few of the signs and the dark clouds, it became festive.

I entered the crowd saying “Excuse me,” and people made way.  We smiled and nodded in passing.  I climbed to the highest platform I could reach.  How far back did this go?  As far as I could see.  There were speakers like Kenneth Gladney and some music, but that wasn’t why I came.  I snapped photos and began talking to people.  “Where are you from?”  “Sacramento,” one couple said.  “Virginia” “North Carolina” “New Jersey” “Pennsylvania” “Ohio” and the list went on.  When I replied “Oklahoma” to that question I often got a surprised look and “Thanks for coming so far!” and I would thank them back.  In each meeting we made eye contact and there again was that quizzical look, a question expressed in a smile: “Is this really happening?  I thought I was alone, me and my family,” or “Me and twenty or a hundred friends, we thought this was our last stand.”  Then we marched down Pennsylvania to the US Capitol, singing and chanting, smiling and wondering as the clouds broke before us.

We sent a message, but it wasn’t the one we thought we had come to send.  It wasn’t a message to Capitol Hill, or to Obama, or the media, the left, or even the people back home, though some of them may have overheard a bit.  The real message became clear when we walked up to strangers and started talking. Five minutes later we had friends from some other part of the country, email addresses, new websites to check out, and ideas, crazy ideas about changing things that every ex-stranger seemed to share, and it didn’t matter how many we met.  There were always hundreds of thousands more.

The day came to a close and I began to see a new look in strangers’ eyes.  Our group kept talking to more people, briefly now, as we walked back to Union Station.  As darkness slipped across us there wasn’t much smiling, just faces like engineers and carpenters, mothers and veterans wear.  We strangers in the Capitol began saying: “It’s going to be a hard slog.”  “There’s a lot of work to do.”  “This is just the shot heard ’round the world.  Get ready for a fight.”

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This story has been cross-posted at Tea Party Gazette.

Al Gerhart on CNN

CNN interviewed Al right after the Taxpayer March on Washington ended.  Here’s the video:

How To Handle An Interview With A Liberal Reporter

How all of this came about is a pretty good story in itself. I was sitting in the bleachers at the Liberty Summit on Thursday morning, thinking about how I was going to find the other Oklahomans in the crowd. The guy that set up our congressional meetings had set the meetings on Friday, not Thursday as the national schedule called for. As a result, we weren’t going to get any face time with any of our congressmen, just the staff. I wasn’t going to let that happen.

So the speaker announced that they were starting in 5 minutes, and I thought I’d ask if he could announce that I was looking for other Okies. As I was explaining the situation, he tapped a guy on the shoulder, and introduced me. It was Senator Inoffe, my Senator. After explaining the situation, Inhoffe offered to announce my plight during his talk, and asked if we would come see him in the afternoon. We had one meeting with Congressman Lucas, a meeting that I had set up myself, and we found another guy that was meeting with Boren’s staff. Found five or six Oklahomans as well to take to the Boren staff meeting, later we had around 12 to the Lucas meeting, and around 20 at the Inhofe meeting..

So I was waiting by the exit to catch any other Okies, and this lady walks up with a video guy, starts asking questions about why I was there. I thought it was another small patriot group doing some footage, had met one already doing just that. The lady said her organization, but I thought I had misunderstood. She asked if she could come to my meeting with Inhofe, I said yes and went on doing what I was doing.

A bit later she came back and we talked some more. I decided she was asking a lot of questions, so I asked again who she was with. CNN…. I liked to have fallen over.

She showed up at Senator Inhoffe’s office at the meeting, filmed part of the 20 person meeting till Inhofe asked her to go so we could talk privately. They waited outside till we got done, then interviewed me. They tossed me some soft ball questions, then asked about Joe Wilson and what he said at Obama’s speech. Luckliy, I had been too busy to keep up with the current stories, so I didn’t have a clue who Joe Wilson was.

Then Saturdayafter the event had shut down, the producer called again,asking if I would interview live. Our bus was about to leave, but we had plenty of help to see them off (I was flying in the next day), so I decided to do the interview. CNN had a platform set up near the stage, where they had filmed the event. They had maybe six people making things happen. It was pretty interesting. You see these interviews all the time on TV, the anchor sits in New York, and the interviewee has a camera trained on him, microphone and an ear plug, where he can hear the anchor’s questions. You don’t see the anchor, just listen to him.

They had two guys with some of our white signs, using the back of the signs as reflector to correct the lighting, one guy held up the carboard on each side of you as they filmed. The producer tracked the anchor man as he broadcast the show, giving us cues as to when we were going live. Then there was a sound guy that wired me up and managed sound levels, and of course an couple of their reporters, one of which was Jim Spellman.

Jim Spellman was the reporter that followed the Tea Party Express bus across the land. Here is a video of the guy http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/08/28/tea.party.express/index.html?iref=newssearch#cnnSTCVideo.

At first they had me siting some distance away, I could watch, but not hear what was going on. As my time spot got closer, they moved me in about six feet away, started hanging the microphone on me, earphone, checking sound levels. At this point, Jim Spellman starts a live report about seeing a dark side to the Tea Party movement, Nazi swastikas and AK47s at the Tea Parties along the bus route, saying that many of us believed there were concentration camps that Obama was going to use on us, shutting down the internet, just about every far out rumor that has been spread around. I’m sitting there thinking that I had walked into a trap and was going to get chopped up. Jim Spellman really takes a hatchet to us then they go into a break. Probably commercials.

They finish with him, rush me up onto the small platform you stand on, test the microphone, that sort of stuff. I’m wondering if I should just bail out, but decide they are likely trying to rattle me, to get me upset enough to make a fool out of myself and the partiot movement. That makes me start getting mad. It takes about ten minutes for the program to get back to me, and I can hear the program through my ear piece.

My interview starts off with Don Lemon, the anchor, introducing me, where I am from, pleasentries really. Then he references Jim Spellman’s report earlier, without being specific, leaving some doubt as to whether it was the hatchet job Jim did on us right before the break. Don then asks about the “dark” side that Jim was speaking to. I was ready for that one, had planned out several replies, all of which put the blame back on Obama and the politicians for not being clear on their plans for the nation. I blamed the extreme talk on fear and rumors, then started leading the conversation away from the “dark” side and into safer ground, the slide into socialism. I knew I could get him to bite on that bait.

Sure enough, he swallowed it hook, line, and sinker. I got into GM, insurance company, and bank bailouts, leading him further and further away from where he started. From his stumbling response, you could tell he really didn’t know the difference between socialism and othe forms of government, didn’t get that government control of businesses was a step in that direction. Really, facism fits the definition better, but I didn’t want the discussion to be about facism or Hitler. But I had the hook set well, so I interrupted him while he was speaking, correcting him when he said we were a democracy. Putting him off balance, leading him away from what he wanted to talk about and to where I wanted to define our movement. At this point, he is stumbling, not for sure if we are a capitalistic society or a democratic one so I offer him a lifeline, I turn the discussion to health care.

Again he follows, seeing some firm footing in the swamp and goes for it. He doesn’t quite understand how he got to this point, from asking about the “dark” side of our group to now talking about health care, but he thinks he is on familar ground. Quickly he grabs a lifeline “Al, has his, but what about others?” He is trying to define me as “selfish” now. At this point we are far away from dangerous ground, so I can hammer home the facts, that no one has to worry about health care in this country, or if they do, it isn’t the disenfranchised that worry, it is the middle class. He has to admit, on the air live, that there is no health care problem for the poor. With no legs left to his arguement, he is forced to change his focus from combative to concilitory so he asks me what we want we want done. He isn’t likely smart enough to have picked up the “control” issue that is waiting in the wings should he be slow enough to stay on the stubject.
My final thoughts were that the guy isn’t a monster,he is just a regular guy, but he hasn’t enough real education to understand the different forms that government can take. He doesn’t have a lot of experience with people challenging him so he isn’t ready to address real facts. Some serious challenging of his “facts” might well change his opinion eventually. His staff gets it, they congratulated me on handling the situation so well.

Here is a link to some of the reporting they were doing that focused on the most extreme of the protesters.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/09/12/tea.party.express/index.html?iref=newssearch

And here is the CNN video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bNPu5keAdc

General Pulaski Smiles

Brigadier General Casimir Pulaski, Continental Army

(Why this photo?)

The March Begins