Two weeks too late..

pI offered some suggestions to the McCain Campaign on how to win the election.  Of a few things to talk about at the first debate.  Obviously the McCain People didn't heed my advice.  Here's more to talk about, from Rod Dreher:

My friends, I am neither young nor eloquent, handsome nor smooth. But I have lived a long life, much of it in service to America in war and in peace. And I have always stood for straight talk. There has been no time in our nation's recent history when the American people more needed to hear the plain truth from their leaders. A fundamental reason our country faces economic catastrophe is that we have built our lives around running from truths about the American way of life.

Washington has run from the truth. Wall Street has run from the truth. And if we're honest with ourselves, all of us have, in one way or another, run from the truth.

We have accepted the lie that we can live exactly as we want to live, with no concern for the consequences. We have taken the blessings of liberty and prosperity and turned them into a curse of debt slavery - bondage that will be visited on our children, and our children's children, if we don't change.

Everybody has a theory about how we got into this mess, and it's usually one that absolves them and their party from blame. My friends, I'm here to tell you that this crisis is the Republicans' fault. It's the Democrats' fault. It's the fault of every one of us who believed in the fairy tale of a free lunch.

It's time for all Americans to take responsibility for what we've done. It's time for all Americans to pull together to help our families, our neighbors and our country through hard times.

I will not lie to you and tell you that the road ahead will be easy. I will not insult you by giving you simple villains, simple heroes or simplistic solutions. As the song says, everybody wants to get to heaven, but nobody wants to die. My fellow Americans, all of us must sacrifice to endure the trials that history sends our way and to rebuild our nation on a solid foundation of honor, truth and plainspoken virtue.

I know something about sacrifice. And I know something about the way life can break your pride. I was a cocky Navy aviator who thought he was invulnerable. Then I was shot out of the sky and spent five years in prison. That experience did not kill me. It made me stronger. It taught me how much I loved my God, my family and my country - and what trials I could endure for the sake of that love.

I am a patriot. I believe we are a nation of patriots, of men and women who are ready and willing to put country first. But over the years, our leaders, Republican and Democratic, have asked us to do little more than to go shopping, to vote for them and to blame other people for what's wrong with America. Anything to keep us from facing the truth and changing our ways.

As your president, I will ask you to do hard things. I, too, will do hard things for the good of this great nation. Serious times call for serious leadership. In his first speech as prime minister, with his free nation facing the might of Nazi Germany, Winston Churchill refused to mislead the British people about the gravity of their situation. We remember today his words to them: "I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat."

Churchill did not give cheap optimism. He, too, had fought and suffered for his nation, both on the battlefield and in Parliament. He had known the joy of victory and the humiliation of defeat. What Churchill, from his incomparable experience, could offer his people was the gold standard of hope. Hope is the conviction that whatever suffering we must go through, goodness and right shall prevail.

Today, when I survey the gathering storm, I am certain that if we, the people, stand together without fear or favor, victory will be ours. I ask you to give me the privilege of leading this great nation in a time when heroes will be made, and all good men and women must come to the aid of their country.

Thank you, and God bless America.

Comments

[GWK]

Comment by Resolute - October 6, 2008 at 11:07 pm

I know that everyone has heard Sen. Obama talk about lowering taxes, but you’ll never hear him talk about his record of lowering taxes in the Illinois State Senate or the U.S. Senate.

You’ll hear him say that he will reach across party lines to get big things done and change the way Washington works, but you’ll never hear him talk about the time he stood on principle and went against his own party or point to the major piece of legislation he co-authored with a leading Republican that got real results.

He talks about improving our schools and housing opportunities, but you’ll never hear him lift up examples from the work he did in Chicago.

He’ll talk about defending this country and fighting for working people, but it seems he always needs to be elected to a higher office before he can get started on that work.

You’ll hear a lot of talk and promises from Barack Obama, but then we’ve already got plenty of that in Washington, don’t we? And just look where it’s got us.

So as you hear him say all these things again tomorrow night, I ask you to look back at the record at the dozens of times he voted to increase taxes on the very people he is promising a break to today.

I hope you ask him about the results of the housing projects he got funded for his friend Tony Rezko. He’ll have to admit they failed and Mr. Rezko is now a convicted felon and on his way to prison.

Ask him how the millions he funneled to Bill Ayers helped school kids achieve higher test scores and lifted them to a life of better opportunities. He’ll have to tell you that it didn’t. That it was spent instead trying to convince teachers and students that America is a hateful place that needs to be destroyed.

Ask him about the legislative achievements and he’ll talk about one thing or another that never got fixed.

Ask him about the courage of his principles in standing up to his own party and I bet he won’t admit that instead he took more money from Fannie & Freddie than anyone but Chris Dodd to look the other way, while his fellow Democrats gave them cover to defraud the American taxpayer.

There’s no polite way to say these things, but they’re true. You see, John McCain never saw his time in public service as the next step to a higher office. Instead, he worked every day, and many nights, right where he was, to see what he could do to make my country a better place.

You know the names McCain-Lieberman, McCain-Feingold and McCain-Kennedy not because they were his campaign tickets, but because they represented real work with serious Democratic Senators, fighting to get results on the biggest issues our country faced.

If he was followed around by screaming crowds it was because he made a lot of people mad, in both parties, calling them out when what they were doing was hurting America. Like the folks who gave Obama advice after they’d falsified records and looted Fannie & Freddie for all they could get.

It’s all in the record. Just as his wife spent time in the classroom, teaching real students and encouraging them to achieve what we all know is possible in America. You know who John McCain is, where he was and what he was doing to make America a better place.

So you’ll hear a lot from Senator Obama tomorrow night, but as you look at him, ask yourself, “When did I ever see him fight for my country? When did he risk his life for the love he held for this nation? When did he shed his blood to defend the future of our democracy? When did he ever do anything that wasn’t a stepping stone to achieving his goals and instead was a real accomplishment that helped you achieve yours?