Is it slipping away?

By James Edmund Pennington

There was a time when I believed Republicans could dominate if they would but campaign ruthlessly on the issues where their advantages are greatest: defense and national security, unquestioned patriotism, and moral values, opposition to affrirmative action and unrestricted immigration. In these circumstances, I don't know how effective that would be.

The economic meltdown and the catastrophic "fix", which now looks good to go, seem to have changed that. I don't think Mccain can segue to this other, more favorable, ground, until he articulates a strong position on the Big Mess. He has got to find a resonating theme on this, and then role out the howitzers in other areas of the front. He has little time.

The electoral default mode in the current circumstances is a McCain defeat. McCain must wrench the game from its present course: to a clear articulation of the Dem's knee-deep complicity in Fannie May /Freddie Mac, perhaps a populist promise to chase the Wall Street bonus money, socked away in the mansions, bank accounts and expensive diversions of those who gave us this debacle, and a reminder that no sane American would want the President to be of the Party that made the mess, will have unchallenged dominance in the Congress, and, last but not least, will have absolute control over more money than any government in history.

This is simply too much power to confer on one man and one Party. Especially this party, with its history of pofligacy and strong strain of utopian lunacy.

Then, on to National security, the safety of America and our allies, Ayers, Wright and perhaps judicially-imposed homosexual marriage.

The last month has to be jacket off, fighting mad, Harry Truman and a communicated passionate desire to save our country.

If this doesn't do it, McCain will have fought the good fight. If McCain doesn't attempt this, and continues in his careful, polite mode, we will forever wonder whether the soldier who survived five years of torture could have brought it off, had the lion in winter possessed the eagerness for battle and the feistiness of his younger self.

I am beginning to grieve for my country, for the West and for Israel. I hope it's just my personal gloom. I fear it is not.