// Grizzly Groundswell

With Party conventions approaching, Republicans have thrown their lot behind John McCain while Democrats are still locked in a bitter struggle between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. What choice is there for the country?

One of the three mentioned is going to be our next President, like it or not. It seems like many from the Democrat Party and media have already ordained Barack Obama the nominee, demanding Hillary Clinton drop out of the race.

Encouraged by her husband, former President Clinton said, “Don’t believe all this stuff you read in the press, she can still win this thing if you vote for her big enough,” just last week.

Confident that he has already secured the nomination, Barack Obama speaks plans of debating Republican John McCain this summer.

Calls for Hillary to be the Vice Presidential choice have been vetoed by Michelle Obama and Ted Kennedy.

For her part, Hillary spent Mothers Day in West Virginia stumping for every vote she can get in hopes of another win as she enjoyed in Indiana recently.

John McCain, on the other hand, seems poised to glide into the GOP nomination with ease, seeing every other viable candidate drop by the way side.

Some choices we are left with. Obama and Clinton both advocate higher taxes, sure to further erode consumer confidence that has been plummeting since the Democrat Party swept back into power in 2006.

McCain, though, joins his Democrat counterparts in desiring to sign onto the punitive Kyoto Protocol, potentially more damaging to the U.S. economy than even the Democrat love of higher taxes.

Both of the Democrat potentials advocate some form of legalization for the onslaught of illegal immigrants who have flooded over the borders over the years. McCain, though, co-wrote the failed and flawed Kennedy/McCain bill, a “non-amnesty amnesty” bill, so to speak. He now claims he has given up on getting it reintroduced and passed, but on ‘Cinco De Mayo,’ he was quoted, “We get in this kind of a circular firing squad on immigration reform in the Congress of the United States, and the lesson I learned from it is we’ve got to have comprehensive immigration reform,” indicating his desire for a broader approach that includes a temporary guest worker program and tamper-proof ID cards.

There is little doubt whichever Democrat wins, they would nominate Supreme Court Justices to fill expected openings that will swing the court further liberal. McCain claims he would appoint qualified nominees more conservative, but it was he who initiated the so called “gang of 14” compromise in the Senate that kept the filibuster intact and denied some of President Bush’s nominees to the Federal Courts from getting hearings. He also recently mentioned his intent to talk more about the good his “gang of 14” accomplished.

Both Democrat candidates have openly stated their opposition to the battle in Iraq in the Greater War On Terror, both advocating abandoning the fight and allowing the Iraqi’s to flounder on their own. McCain says he will win the battle, but he also has advocated closing of the Prisoner Camp in Guantánamo, Cuba.

All three oppose harsh interrogation techniques that may reveal the next major terrorist attack and would bring those terrorists up from Cuba to American prisons, granting them full legal rights to council, which undoubtedly would draw the ACLU lawyers out from out of the woodwork to line up to free those same terrorists.

How would McCain prosecute the battle in Iraq given that he would leave our rear flank unguarded and open to attacks from within?

There is more, naturally, but as one can see, we really haven’t much of a choice in whom to cast our ballot for this year. Of course, leftists prepared to sell out America will readily cast votes for whoever the Democrat is, regardless of claims now being made they would switch to the GOP candidate should their candidate not get the nomination.

It is expected that the Democrats would distance themselves from President Bush, but for McCain to also distance himself is proving detrimental to his hopes as Big Business Donors that donated heavily to George W. Bush are shunning McCain in favor of the Democrats.

Donations are running low for the Republican Party as others distance themselves from President Bush and abandon Reagan Conservatism that American Conservatives voted them into power expecting to receive.

For Republicans, though, McCain is it. Writing in someone, even on principle or throwing away their vote by casting one for Texas Congressman Ron Paul may hand the election to the Democrats. Yet, if McCain wins, as many think, will the country be much better off?

If McCain wins in November and the Democrats keep control of both houses, or gain more seats, even if McCain vetoed any abandonment of Iraq bill, would it be overridden by the Senate and we once again abandon a struggling ally in their hour of need and let them fall prey to despots and terrorists that surely would make the slaughter of Southeast Asia look minor?

Would they succeed in raising taxes anyway and further destroy our faltering economy? Unemployment was at 4.5% when Democrats swept into Congressional power. In the succeeding months it has grown to 5%. More homes are in foreclosure and the Stock Market has ceased the record closings we all enjoyed over the first 6 years of the Bush administration. As a result, home values are in a decline.

As easy as it is to blame it all on Bush, we must remember that no President passes laws, the House and Senate do, both under Democrat control today. Would a Democrat Congress return the favor of McCain’s many expeditions crossing the aisle to side with them? Personally, that is doubtful.

Unspoken but no secret is the desire to move towards Socialism by the left and Democrats. Should they gain more control in Congress, conservatives will have little representation as the leftists sweep over whom we do have.

Regardless of which candidate ends up in the White House, the Presidency seems lost. Better to concentrate more on where the real power is, the House of Representatives and Senate. It is there that the focus to save our country must be placed. It is there where the power of government exists. It is there where we need to stop the leftist Democrats from wresting more power away from Americans in their ceaseless quest to turn America from free to Socialist.