Dr. Michael Farris, the founder of the Home School Legal Defense Association and Patrick Henry College, posted in Facebook his exceptional explanation for how he came to a decision on how to vote in this current presidential election. Actually, what he outlines is a principled approach that I would recommend for all Christians and/or conservatives as we contemplate candidates. So often, we want perfection in our candidates, but that’s a rarity. I asked Dr. Farris if I could use his essay as my post today, and he graciously agreed.

As you read his explanation, you can see that he has a sharp legal mind—it comes to the forefront as he lays out the case step by step. I am deeply impressed by the logic of his writing and only wish I could be that clear as I try to persuade people to consider the things I write.

The essay is a little lengthy, but I predict that if you are honestly seeking answers, or if you are looking for a strong rationale for why you believe as you do, you will want to read it to the end.

Mike Farris: Principles for Christians as They Decide How to Vote

This has been the most unusual election season of my life. The chief reason for the difference is my very active participation in Facebook—which has thrust me into a wide-ranging discussion (and sometimes heated debates) in a format that is very egalitarian in nature. I can only hope that I have contributed to others as much as I feel that my FB friends have contributed to me.

But because of my background, I have been asked countless times for my views about the various candidates. And during the primary process I was very open about my inability to support the “front-runner” Mitt Romney.  In the context of a primary election, there is no doubt that I had to support someone who had views and a record much closer to my own views. I supported Rick Santorum.

But now it is general election time. And I have to say that I have been much slower to reach a decision regarding the General Election than any previous election in my lifetime.  I have heard the arguments about the inappropriateness of choosing the “lesser of two evils.”  I have taken these arguments very seriously.

I have spent as much time as I have had available thinking about the broader question: How should an American Christian make a decision in a general election? Asking the question this way helps to focus on both halves of the criteria that seem appropriate to me. There are factors which arise because I am a Christian and other factors that arise because I am an American. I look to both sets of factors.

First, and most importantly, I am a Christian. I need to do my very best to understand God’s standards from the Word of God. I reject the idea that God’s Word has nothing to say to us about voting. Proverbs 3:6 says: “In all thy ways acknowledge Him and He shall direct thy paths.” There is no exception to this rule for politics. All means all. God has something to say to the Christian about every aspect of his or her life.  

In Hosea 8:1-4, God rebukes Israel for choosing Kings and Princes without His approval. And in Deuteronomy 7:14-et seq. God gives Israel the standards for choosing a King. God has something to say to us about our choices of political leaders.

But, even though I have been involved with the Christian-political world essentially on a full-time basis since 1980, and having read extensively in this area, I do not think that American Christian leadership has done a proper job of developing, justifying, and teaching a clear set of principles for this purpose from the Word. I have been tempted to develop my own set of principles. But, even though I think I could do a decent job on this point, I feel that it is arrogant for any individual Christian to attempt to speak in a normative way on this subject in an attempt to tell the whole Body of Believers what the correct standard is for making voting decisions. So I share with you my views but not with a claim that my views should control yours. Of all of the biblical conclusions I have reached about this election, I hold one view the strongest based on Romans 14:4: “Who are you to judge someone else’s servant? To his own master he stands or falls. And he will stand, for the Lord is able to make him stand.”

I have to confess that I have lost patience with people who seek to batter other believers into accepting their views about this election. There are many who feel compelled by conscience to vote for Mitt Romney because the alternative is so frightful to consider. There are others, not as many (but very vociferous) who think that voting for the lesser of two evils is a grievous sin. And they have concluded as a matter of conscience that they cannot vote for him.

Here is my statement to both camps. Leave each other alone. If you want to tell people what you have chosen to do and why, that is perfectly acceptable. But, I view it as a sin for any of you to attempt to override the conscience of another believer by the sheer force of your will. That is what Romans 14:4 teaches. Accordingly, I am instituting an immediate policy of deleting any comment that appears to me to be a violation of this rule. (I will not come to your FB page and seek to enforce this rule. Your wall. Your rules. My wall. My rules. I will insist on civility.)

This election has caused me to understand that there is a difference between “endorsing” a candidate and voting for a candidate.  Because of my leadership position, I have come to understand that there should be a very high standard that I should employ before I endorse a candidate.  As you will see, I have come to look at candidates in one of four ways: 1. Those who are very supportive of my views. 2. Those who will listen to my views. 3. Those who are indifferent to my views. 4. Those who are openly hostile to my views.

In the past, I have tried—more or less—to only endorse candidates who are in the first category—those who are supportive of my views. I intend to follow this standard very rigorously from this point forward. Accordingly, I will make no endorsement for President in 2012. This does not mean that I intend not to vote. I will vote for a candidate for reasons I describe below.

There is no candidate in this race who is supportive of my views on my five most important issues. This includes third party candidates and the possibility of write-in votes. Part of the reason that I say this is that I view experience and leadership as biblical standards that are an important part of the calculus for a voting decision. Concerning elders the Bible says, “Lay hands on no man suddenly.” 1 Tim. 5:22. And concerning the selection of deacons, “They must first be tested; and then if there is nothing against them, let them serve.”  I believe that it is appropriate to apply these standards by extension to candidates for political office. I want candidates who have been tested and who have the experience to perform the task at hand.

Other than the two major candidates, I have seen no one who claims to be running for president who meets the test of life preparation and experience to hold this weighty office.

This conclusion, however, does not necessarily mean that I will automatically vote for the “lesser evil” of the two remaining candidates. The idea of not voting for anyone is something that I have seriously considered.

This test is akin to the test of personal character that is applicable to church leaders and I believe is essential for the evaluation of political leaders as well. I realize that on the issue of personal character we have limited information for both Obama and Romney.  There could be skeletons hiding in the closet for either or both of them. And in terms of their political lives, both men are subject to criticism for saying one thing and doing another. That matters. But, the area of character that is most visible to all of us is the marriage and family life of both men. In our society, marital faithfulness is passé for many. And giving some priority to your children is unfortunately rare.

In these areas, I would say that both men seem to be very good to their wives and their children. Whatever their other faults may be—and they are many—I have to say that I admire each of these men as it pertains to their family life.

Now we turn to the issue of the public policy positions of the candidates—as measured by both their speeches and their records.

If perfection is our standard for the evaluation of policy issues, we will never find a candidate to fulfill our wishes.  (Even I would not be perfect in the eyes of many since I hate chocolate and really don’t care for the Lord of the Rings movies.)

I have decided to evaluate the candidates based on the issues that are the most important to me using the four-standards I mentioned earlier.  Take the issue of abortion, for example:

1. Does the candidate enthusiastically agree with my pro-life position?

2. Is the candidate willing to listen to my pro-life position and work with people like me to move in the right direction?

3. Is the candidate indifferent to my pro-life position?

4. Is the candidate openly hostile to my pro-life position?

If a candidate is in the 1st or 2nd group for all—or nearly all—of the issues that are most important to me, then I am willing to vote for such a candidate.  If a candidate is in the 4th group (open hostility) for any of the positions that I hold to be most important, I would not be able to vote for such a candidate.

I admit that this is a pragmatic method of decision-making. But, I think that God tells us to use pragmatism in our long-range decisions. In Luke 14:28-30, the person building a tower was admonished to count the costs of the building project and to make sure that he had the money and materials to complete the project. The builder could have just “trusted God” to supply his needs. But, God does not praise that kind of presumption. He tells us to plan and to make sure that we have the materials to do the job. That is pragmatism.

This is not to say that pragmatism is the trump card for all matters—not at all. Rather, I read this passage (and others) to say that practical thinking has a role in these kinds of decisions.

Here are some of the components of my pragmatic assessment of the situation.

• People who hold my worldview are not in the political majority.

• Many who share my basic religious beliefs, have significant gaps in their worldview because of lack of training.

• Many others have significant differences in their worldview because they have listened to voices that are not based on biblical presuppositions.

• A great number of people who are likely to hold to the worldview that I believe are not registered to vote or, if registered, are indifferent to actually voting.

• Christians, especially pastors, are responsible for these factors that have significantly diminished our potential influence in an election. If Christians were reaching our own with proper training and if our own actively participated, we would be a much more powerful force in politics.

 We need to face the pragmatic fact that we are a minority. Thus, if we cannot make alliances with people who are open to working with us, then we are doomed to lose everything that is important to us.

As a dedicated minority group, we can accomplish our highest public policy goals if we are properly engaged in the rough and tumble world of coalition politics. Homosexuals are a tiny minority, yet they have had extraordinary political success by becoming an integral part of the liberal coalition.  Homeschoolers are also a tiny minority and we also have had extraordinary political success by becoming an integral part of the conservative coalition.

Consider the relative success of these various components of the conservative movement:

• The pro-life movement

• The traditional marriage movement

• The anti-pornography movement

• The anti-tax movement

• The anti-Federal Reserve movement

• The anti-government debt movement

• The homeschooling movement

The fact is that none of these causes, except one, have gained much ground. Homeschooling freedom has come a long, long way in the last 30 years. Accordingly, I think we need to look at this movement’s tactics to see what works.

It is pretty clear—we have been successful because homeschoolers have been willing to work with two kinds of politicians—those who fully embrace the idea of homeschooling (i.e. homeschooling parents and graduates) along with those who will listen to homeschoolers and are open to working with us to advance our goals.

If we had demanded that every candidate become one of us in order for us to work with them—homeschooling would still be illegal in 47 states (according to the government officials) rather than being recognized as legal in all 50 states.

Political success comes when we work with: 1. Our kind of people and 2. Those who will listen to us and work with us. That is the only way that a minority group can ever succeed.  And, again, we are a minority group on the broader range of issues that are important.

I wish we were the majority. But, we will have to tackle that problem on another day. For now, I will just say that it is going to take a revolution among pastors to turn our minority into the majority that we could become. (This revolution will require rethinking many things—the way we share the Gospel, the way we train our children, and the way we think about politics.) But for today, we are a minority and we have to act like a smart minority aiming for success rather than a misguided minority aiming for an all or nothing strategy. Before I turn to my analysis of the issues—I have to face my own rather strident comments toward Mitt Romney during the primary process.  Some may ask: What changed? Three things.

• First, the Supreme Court’s decision on Obamacare was a real surprise to me. I was convinced that it would go down to defeat and there was no chance that a new Congress would re-enact it.  If this law is not reversed before it is fully implemented we will never rid ourselves of socialism.

• Second, the Obama administration made a very strong attempt to pass the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities—demonstrating an intention to fully enact the entire UN agenda. This is coupled with Mitt Romney’s strong position in opposition to this kind of use of international law. I cannot stress too strongly how important this is—at least to me.

• Finally, I actually paid attention to the comments of my friends here on FB and elsewhere. I would have to say that the tenor of the comments meant as much to me as the substance. I became open to rethinking my views in light of these comments.  And that rethinking has led me to address the two candidates on an issue by issue basis.

So, what are the issues that are the most important to me? I am going to share my list. I do not claim that your list should be exactly the same as mine.

 1. Does the candidate support or oppose American self-government?

The reason that our Founders declared independence from England in 1776 was not because of religious liberty or tax policy—it was because they believed that the principle of American self-government was worth the risk of their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor.

Barack Obama is openly hostile to the principle of American self-government. He wants to seek ratification of every currently unratified UN treaty including the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. These treaties would use international law to override American self-government on parental rights, abortion rights, homosexual rights, gun rights, and a host of other issues while fully mandating a robust socialist state. These policies are bad substantively. But, they are far worse when they are forced down our unwilling throats as a consequence of the primacy of international treaties.

Barack Obama’s hostility to American self-government makes all of his other bad policy positions seem like child’s play in my view. This is the biggest issue to me—and Obama is hostile to this central premise of American political life. He is strongly desirous of making America subject to the rule of international law under the UN.

Mitt Romney has told me in a one-on-one conversation that he fully agrees with my view that such UN treaties have no legitimate place in our legal system. He has sent me a personal, signed letter saying the same thing. This letter has been made public. There is nothing in his past to cause me to doubt his sincerity on this issue. So on this issue, I rate Mitt Romney as “one of us”—fully agreeing with our position. (This is the only issue where he gets this rating from me.)

2. The Right to Life.

Barack Obama is openly hostile to the right to life. He is absolutely committed to Roe v. Wade and the full support of Planned Parenthood. He will fight us every step of the way on this issue.

Mitt Romney has a checkered past on this issue. He claims that he has been converted to the pro-life position. I don’t feel convinced that he has fully converted. However, it is clear that he is talking pro-life talk and taking pro-life positions. I think he does this, at least in part, because he realizes that being perceived as pro-life is necessary for his political success. And I don’t think he thinks that it is just necessary to be pro-life until November of 2012. He wants to be re-elected. So, at a minimum, I think we can count on him to keep up this pragmatic approach until November of 2016.

This does not make Mitt Romney my enemy. I think it is fair to say that he is listening to pro-life people and wants to work with pro-life people. I give him a “2” on this issue. He is not one of us. But he listens and is willing to have us in his coalition and knows the necessity of advancing some of our pro-life priorities.

3. Marriage and same-sex issues.

Barack Obama again in open-war against our values on this issue. He could not be worse.

Mitt Romney has a very troubling record on this issue–so troubling that I have a difficult time believing that he is a “2” on this issue. He now says that he is against same-sex marriage. But his rhetoric and record is so mixed on homosexual rights issues that it is hard to know what to expect. But, he is not openly hostile to our agenda. I conclude that he is someplace between a 2 (listening to us) and a 3 (indifferent to us). 

4. Religious freedom.

Barack Obama is batting four-for-four. He is an enemy of religious liberty. Only those religious groups that do not challenge his worldview should be allowed to have freedom. Pro-life religions are not tolerated. The name of Jesus cannot be prayed in military ceremonies.  He is worse than any American president in history on this issue. Bill Clinton actually supported religious liberty. I would give Clinton a 1 on religious liberty (back when he was president, not now.) I give Barack Obama a 4. I do not mean to suggest that President Obama is actively rounding up Christians to arrest us for our views. However, there is a systematic pattern of favoring government power whenever religious people bump up against the politically correct thinking of the left by refusing to fund insurance for abortion services or by insisting on praying to Jesus as a military chaplain.

Mitt Romney supports religious liberty in a robust fashion—today. Some people claim that some components of his record in Massachusetts demonstrate an indifference to our view. From what I know, these examples are pretty few in number. But, today he is saying all of the right things on this issue. Has he fully changed? I don’t know. If he had fully changed, I would give him a “1”—being one of us—but, because of my doubts on his changes, I give him a “2”—he listens to us and is open to advancing our viewpoint on religious liberty.

It is highly relevant to note that the LDS Church has an exemplary record on the issue of religious liberty for a long, long time. I think that Mitt Romney will listen to voices of religious liberty.

5. The Scope of Government (taxes, spending, etc.)

Barack Obama advocates a socialist state. Anyone who doubts this has never read or digested the UN’s Millennium Development Goals. Obama not only wants government services for their own sake, he actively believes that the redistribution of wealth is the morally appropriate policy. He is an enemy of those who believe in a government based on liberty, not socialism.

Mitt Romney will spend way too much money and will promote programs at the federal level that properly belong to the states. But, unlike Barack Obama he does not believe in the redistribution of wealth as a moral imperative.

Accordingly, I give Obama a 4 on this issue and Romney a 3. He is indifferent to small, government conservative views on spending, but he is not an enemy of private property that is inherent in those who believe in the redistribution of wealth.

Those are my five issues. Obama is openly hostile to my views on all the things that I believe are the most important. Romney is “one of us” on the issue of American self-government and listens to us on most of the others and is truly indifferent to our views on only one.

With this in mind, am I giving into an improper “lesser of two evils” argument?

I don’t think so. Every election is a contest between two sinners—so it is always a question of the lesser of two sinners.

I think the more relevant analysis boils down to the question of whether both candidates are our enemies. If both are our enemies, then neither should get our votes. But, if one is clearly an enemy of our deeply-cherished values, and the other is (on average) open to listening to us and working with us—this is not merely the lesser of two people in the same category.

While he is not “one of us”, Mitt Romney is not our enemy. He wants us in his coalition. Barack Obama strongly opposes our most important values.

Only an all-or-nothing approach views these two choices as equivalent. All or nothing is not the way homeschoolers have achieved victory. And I aim for victory on the issues I believe in.

It is the American self-government issue that is the most important to me. If we retain American self-government we live to fight again on all the other issues. Obama is going to eliminate self-government through the use of UN treaties. I view this moment as do or die for American self-government.

I am going to vote for Mitt Romney.

However, I would say that if Mitt Romney gets elected president, it will be the job of every loyal American to make sure that he lives up to the promises he is making to us now. I am hopeful he will do the things he promises. But, I will be watchful and ready to call the alarm.

Yesterday was the day of shock. Top-ranking Democrats seemed to wander the nation unsure what to say or do in the wake of the Disaster in Denver. About the best the Obama campaign could do was to sponsor an ad that accused Romney of being mean. Well, what would you expect? They couldn’t exactly defend their candidate’s performance, so they dragged out the old canard of blaming the other guy. They’ve practiced it repeatedly the last four years with respect to George W. Bush, so why not use it again? Once you’re in the habit . . .

What they don’t want to admit is that they were trounced not just because of style or ability to debate, but that they had nothing substantially that they could legitimately defend when it came to the economy, and that was the primary subject of the debate. They already had a losing hand going in; the only suspense was if they could bluster and mislead cleverly enough to obscure the reality. It didn’t work.

Obama’s dismal appearance on that stage resurrected in the minds of some cartoonists the Clint Eastwood ploy at the Republican Convention:

This one had a slightly different take:

Obama was the student, Romney the instructor.

Even the media arm of the Obama campaign—otherwise known as MSNBC, NBC, CNN, ABC, CBS,the New York Times, etc.—has had a tough time trying to swallow what took place. They seem off-balance. If only they would revert to genuine journalism, but that’s a rather fanciful dream:

I actually think the media organizations, in their desire to protect the One, did him a real disservice the past four years. He has never been challenged with any regularity throughout his 2008 campaign or his presidency by a media seeking truth. They’ve coddled him, which is something he has been used to throughout his life. As a result, when faced with genuine questioning of his policies and his truthfulness, he has had no practice in thinking how to respond. When you lead a sheltered existence, it comes back to hurt you in the end.

So now we’re told the Obama team is retooling in preparation for the next debate. They’re revising their strategy. We’ll have to wait and see how that works out. Some conservatives have warned to expect the full Chicago treatment from now on. What October surprise will they attempt? Even if they can’t come up with one of those, they have the old tried and true advantage:

The real question is whether the electorate will once again be swayed by the goodies. Or will we make a mature decision instead?

Last night’s presidential debate wasn’t even close. It turned into a Romney rout. That’s not merely my judgment nor the judgment of Republican backers of the candidate, but of practically the entire political world, Right and Left, and everyone in between.

When even Bill Maher—the million-dollar-Obama donor—tweets that the president needed his teleprompter, and radical celebrity filmmaker Michael Moore moans, “This is what happens when you pick John Kerry as your debate coach,” you know Obama had an awful night. It was so bad I almost questioned whether my personal beliefs were getting in the way of evaluating the debate without an undue bias. Obama just kept endlessly repeating the same tired talking points. He was uninspiring and flat. As many commentators noted afterwards, he acted like he didn’t really want to be there.

Romney was the polar opposite. He was eager to jump in and give his perspective on taxes, the deficit, Obamacare, and how to get the economy running again. He had reason to be eager; his command of the facts was superb and his delivery was forceful without being arrogant or overbearing. Further, he, at times, channeled a bit of Ronald Reagan when he lifted the debate above the mundane economic facts and spoke of his vision for the country. Particularly satisfying to me was his reference to the founding documents—the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution—and his pointed reminder that there is a Tenth Amendment in that Constitution that says the federal government doesn’t run our lives, that the states and the people, respectively, are to have most of the governmental authority. One cartoonist, before the debate, predicted the essence of what took place on that stage:

Insta-Polls taken by CBS and CNN immediately following the debate showed an overwhelming victory for Romney. CBS gave him a 46-22 edge; CNN’s poll was even more amazing: a 67-25 Romney advantage. A focus group moderated by Frank Luntz on Fox News stunned Luntz. The majority of the 20-odd people in his group said the debate changed their minds, and they were now planning to vote for the Republican challenger. He said he’d never, in all his previous experience, witnessed such a turnaround.

How is this going to affect the polling going forward? Will this debate prove to be the watershed event of the campaign season? Will public opinion begin to trend toward Romney? That all depends. There are two more presidential debates; Romney has to continue what he started last night if he’s going to seal the deal. He will still have to battle a media that desperately wants Obama to be reelected. Pollsters are going to have to be more honest in their samplings and realize this is not a 2008 electorate. A lot depends on how many of each category—Democrat, Republican, independents—they include in their polling. There’s also the character and leanings of the pollsters themselves to consider; questions can be framed in such a way as to lead the electorate to the “proper” answer:

Next on the docket is the lone vice-presidential debate on Thursday, October 11. Paul Ryan has to make sure he is as well prepared as Romney was for last night’s debate. Frankly, I would be shocked if he didn’t deliver as strong a performance as Romney’s; Ryan is well prepared all the time, since he practically lives and breathes policy. He has another factor working in his favor—he gets to debate Joe Biden.

Biden rather infamously, in a speech earlier this week, decried how the middle class has been buried the last four years, apparently forgetting who has been in charge all that time. Even some Democrats refer to him as a human gaffe machine. May he live up to his reputation.

Last night proves there is still hope for a genuine change. It’s now more than a four-year-old empty slogan.

I noted yesterday that I don’t really believe those polls showing the president to be far ahead of Romney. I believe they are bogus, constructed with skewed samples. However, it cannot be denied that this race is either tied or Obama is slightly ahead. Considering the damage he has done to the country during his tenure, the fact that he could even be in the running is disturbing. It’s a warning signal for us as a people. What have we become?

I’ve spent countless hours over the past three-plus years attempting to show how he has led us to cliffs both moral and financial. Lately, his foreign policy has come to the forefront: his disdain for Israel, sympathy for Islam, and utter cluelessness with respect to the true nature of our enemies. I question whether he can even identify our enemies.

We now know that within twenty-four hours of the attack on our consulate in Libya and the murder of our ambassador there that the administration had all the intel it needed to conclude this was a terrorist attack associated with Al Qaeda. Yet Obama sent out his UN ambassador, Susan Rice, to all the Sunday talk shows to declare unequivocally there was no terrorism involved. This was all born of a horrible video about the prophet Muhammed, we were told. It took many days for anyone in the administration to say otherwise; Obama himself still hasn’t been able to articulate the “new” perspective. In his speech to the UN earlier this week, his focus was once again on the video and how it was the real cause of the inflamed passions in the Muslim world.

In Obamaworld, one cannot criticize Islam. He will feign commitment to the First Amendment right to free speech while simultaneously seek to punish those who exercise it in areas where he disagrees.

If anyone wonders why he is doing this, all you have to consider is that it’s campaign season. He doesn’t want anything to rock his world as he goes “forward.” Surely his outreach to the Muslim world has worked, right? He has reset our bad relations with other countries, correct? He is the anti-Bush, so everyone now loves us. The reality upsets his paradigm. And when it comes to dealing with the reality, he is still voting “present,” which was his favorite vote as a state senator. He really is the empty chair Clint Eastwood mocked:

Yet the only way most of the electorate will know about these failures and lies is to watch Fox News or other alternative internet sources. The mainstream media, both on television and in print, ignore his failures. They are on his side and are working actively for his reelection.

Meanwhile, Mitt Romney can be slandered mercilessly without the media objecting, although I have to give credit to one media person who did ask the president if any of his campaign ads might cross a line. His response?

I’m sure he’ll now correct those misperceptions and deal honestly with Romney’s real record. Keep watching.

If this president is reelected, we will have no one to blame but ourselves. It will reveal once and for all the spiritual poverty that dominates in our nation. At root, this is a spiritual crisis. Our problems, whether economic, moral, or in foreign relations, all stem from our rejection of the Biblical worldview. Electing Mitt Romney doesn’t solve our deeper problem, but it at least will give us a chance to regroup; it will be a second chance. We have to pray for God to be merciful to a people who don’t deserve His mercy. Fortunately for us, His nature is to show mercy whenever He can. May He do so again. May we have that second chance.

Fascinating. Truly fascinating. And totally unbelievable. To what am I referring? Polls released yesterday indicate that Obama is ten points ahead of Romney in Ohio and nine points ahead in Florida. Why don’t I believe them? I’ll get to that in a moment, but first, are we really supposed to believe that a president who consistently shows weakness in polls about policy is that far ahead in these critical swing states? I mean, there’s an awful lot of baggage to consider:

But the media is fighting diligently for his reelection. Last week, when an audio tape surfaced of Obama in 1998 declaring his belief in redistribution, there was no pile-on by media elites. To them, this was not in the same league as Romney’s 47% remark. Romney was excoriated over that one, while Obama got his usual pass:

It is possible, of course, that the electorate is deaf, dumb, and blind to what has occurred over the last four years. In that case, these polls might be accurate. There are videos going viral right now showing Obama voters displaying their ignorance over the basic facts of American government, current policies, and even the identification of the candidates. So, yes, there is the possibility those polls are revealing this abysmal lack of knowledge and astounding ideological rigidity.

But there are solid reasons to question the accuracy of the latest round of polls. A look at the breakdown of those being polled reveals a stupefying oversampling of Democrats and undersampling of Republicans and independents. Most of the pollsters—not all, thankfully—and the ones who are receiving all the publicity, are using the 2008 election turnout as their basis for whom to poll. Well, 2008 was the high water mark for Democrat turnout. Is it even reasonable to assume the turnout will be the same for 2012? Not only is the energy level of Obama voters ebbing, but independents who went for him in 2008 are having a lot of second thoughts. Nearly every poll indicates they are disillusioned with the results of 2008.

What are the pollsters missing? How about the 2010 congressional elections? Remember those? That’s when the House turned Republican and Republicans increased their numbers in the Senate. It’s when Tea Party-backed candidates such as Marco Rubio stunned the political establishment. Florida voters put Rubio in office even as he ran not only against a Democrat, but also against turncoat Charlie Crist. Rubio, in that three-way race, still broke the 50% mark. Is that same electorate going to go strongly for Obama? Hardly likely. It seems to me that 2010 is a better marker for following the voting trend.

Think a minute. Has Obama done anything since the congressional elections to increase his popularity? The economic news remains dismal. His Obamacare mandates are forcing religious organizations to go against their beliefs, putting freedom of religion in jeopardy. He is currently being caught in a boldfaced lie about the real cause of the Libyan uprising.

It is manifestly dishonest to conduct skewed polling. It is a violation of sound journalistic practice to become a cheerleading squad for the president. I’ll be very interested to see what the true voice of the people is when the one poll that counts is tallied on November 6.

Since I devoted all of last week to laying out the case against President Obama’s reelection, I didn’t have time to comment on some of the happenings in the campaign. For instance, there was this big hullabaloo over a remark Mitt Romney made about how 47% of the electorate is getting some kind of government assistance and won’t be as amenable to his message. He said they were basically in the tank for Obama.

That comment brought a storm of criticism from the media—the same media that is working actively on behalf of the Obama campaign. You would have thought, given the extent of the coverage of what they considered a “gaffe,” that this was the most shocking statement ever to come from a political candidate. They did their best to put his remark in the worst possible light and create anxiety in the electorate.

I do believe Romney exaggerated the numbers a bit, simply because he also counted those who are receiving Social Security, which is primarily getting one’s money back from the government after being without it for most of our lives. However, even those on Social Security often don’t want any boat rocking. They want nothing to touch what they were forced to hand over to the government all those years. That makes some of them skittish about any talk of real change in government spending and taxation. What Romney was really doing was pointing out a sad fact of American life in the twenty-first century: we are creating a nation of people who feel they are victims and who need the government to bail them out:

Therefore, Romney was correct in principle: those who receive a benefit want it to continue; they are more closely tied to the ones who are offering the benefit. In this case, the giver is the Obama money machine. Never mind, of course, that anything he gives first came from the people of the country—or from the printing press, as we churn out more of the greenbacks to pass around. Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke is on the job:

Unfortunately, this bad example could become contagious:

I’m impressed that Romney hasn’t backed down on the principle. The message needs to be spread far and wide, and with passion: it’s time to turn the corner away from government paternalism. If we accept the role of government as our father and provider, we regress into helpless children. We are in deep need of maturity. It’s time to reject paternalism and regain our self-government and self-respect.

In one of my posts last week detailing the case against Obama’s reelection, I wrote about his character. The most blatant trait I believe he possesses is an ego far outside the norm. I’m certainly not the first person to comment on the perceived arrogance of the man. In some cases, his followers have taken devotion to him to an extraordinary level. A couple of months ago, some of his campaign headquarters were flying this flag:

That raised the ire of many who saw it as a desecration of the American flag. There was enough blowback that this emblem soon disappeared. Then just this last week, the following showed up on Obama’s website for admirers to purchase:

Someone apparently didn’t learn the lesson. It also has quietly been removed. But it was there long enough for at least one cartoonist to draw attention to it:

I recall nearly four years ago after Obama won the election, whenever he would speak publicly, he would stand behind a podium the likes of which had never been seen before in American politics:

That also was unprecedented. He seems to enjoy the status of the office, if not the actual responsibilities. His spokespersons say he didn’t refuse a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, but the word from Israel is just the opposite. It’s a shame to have to say I accept the word of a country other than my own in the controversy, but this administration has been anything but forthright on a number of issues. Obfuscation has become more of an art than ever. We are told Obama has avoided his daily intelligence briefings consistently, even in the aftermath of the Libyan attacks and the murder of our ambassador. Clint Eastwood’s empty chair is seeing a lot of play lately:

Just yesterday, the president was in New York City as world leaders were gathering for talks at the UN. He sent Secretary of State Clinton to meet with world leaders, but he had more pressing matters on his mind:

Yes, trolling for votes among his legion of fans was far more important. The one substantive interview he did submit to was on 60 Minutes where he, without the aid of his teleprompter, stirred up controversy once again by calling the rising tide of unrest and protests in the Muslim world simply bumps in the road, and referring to Netanyahu’s urgings to take the Iranian nuclear threat seriously as “noise” that he intends to “block out.”

Does he believe at all that there is a legitimate radical Muslim threat against the United States?

For the sake of our security, he had better start believing it. For the sake of the future of our nation, we need to put someone in the Oval Office who is a true friend of Israel and recognizes the threat. There is one out there.

May it come to pass.