The early 2000s is dimmer in my memory than any other decade. I remember my marriage….my ex wife being chased by bees….9/11….the birth of our son…..long hours at work….and beginning to pray every day I would not wake up. I didn’t really follow politics. On my drives between stores in my sales routes I would sometimes listen to conservative talk radio. Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and, in my heart, the best of them, Jerry Doyle. Frankly….the only one I am not currently a bit ashamed of having listened to would be Jerry Doyle.
Time passed. George W Bush was the darling of the Conservative movement, till we took Iraq and it was revealed they had no weapons of mass destruction. He declared “Mission Accomplished” in a war that broke Vietnams record as America’s longest (and arguably most failed) war. And then I heard the news about his failure to provide leadership with hurricane Katrina. There was backlash, and the Republican party that had had power handed to them on silver platters by a populous terrified of another 9/11 turned to the Democrats. The Democrats, like everyone, wanted the old glory days back and tried to nominate Hillary Clinton. But there were too many scandals, and she just did not connect with people like Barrack Obama did.
This was the time I was starting to lose faith in conservative talk radio. I heard so many things about how evil Obama was, how he was racist, how he was Muslim. John McCain led his campaign (if memory serves) mostly on issues, claiming that our military had been badly downgraded. He chose Sarah Palin as a running mate, and Rush Limbaugh lauded that as brilliant, but the liberal media eviscerated her. It seems to depend on which side of the aisle you sit on whether she deserved this or not.
And a name popped up in this campaign that stirred very vague memories. A Libertarian, and every single conservative talk radio personality I listened to, except Jerry Doyle, berated the man for being crazy, unelectable, and dangerous.
His name was Ron Paul.
Obama was elected, and conservative talk radio spiked up the rhetoric. Don’t get me wrong, some of the news items were true, and like all Presidents I have studied, there were plenty of things that, if I could have confronted him face to face, I would have called him out on (the whole “Fast and Furious” debacle).
By the next election, conservative talk radio had convinced me of all the evils of Obama (again, my thinking is no longer the same, so don’t turn me off if you are a lover of Obama). The only two things I was never convinced, because the talk shows did not give convincing proof, I was never convinced he was a Muslim, and I never believed Michelle was a woman.
Obama’s last election was when I gave up on politics. Talk radio was making all these insane claims and was demanding that someone take the political fight to the Democrats. At the time, I was blogging. The election got me off topic (about which, the less said, the better), and I honestly was not liking the direction either party was going. There was no leadership, no vision. Just good ol’ boy politics and business as usual.
I researched the heck out of things when the Republicans were down to four front runners. Romney, the one who was nominated, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, and Ron Paul. Conservative talk radio was not excited about Romney, but they fawned all over Gingrich and Santorum. But of Ron Paul….I heard so many warnings that he was going to be the end of the Republican party. So I researched, and when I was done, he was “my” candidate.
I honestly don’t want to rehash all my old thinking here. I’ve changed since then for one, and for another, I wrote pretty extensively about things back then, in a fly by night blog entitled Noxforchristmas. I thought about leaving a link, but my ex wife has carved it up so much, and so many of the videos I linked to it are now down, that I frankly don’t feel the desire to link to it. But I promise, I put a lot of reasoning into being a Ron Paul backer.
And it was all for nothing.
I won’t reproduce here the many pages I wrote trying to convince what was then twenty or thirty followers why they should vote for the man. That cause is lost, and America as a Republic had already been dead for a couple of decades. But in the end, he profoundly affected how I think. For what it is worth the guy is extremely intelligent, and incredibly well read. His faith in liberty is admirable. Maybe he is wrong. I know I have been many and many a time. But I’m glad I learned about him. I learned a lot about politics. Oh yeah….
Why did I mention the Mandela Affect at the beginning of the blog? I seem to remember him only getting one or two percent of the vote….yet when I looked him up today, the internet shows he obtained 8.09 percent of the delegates at the National Convention. Second only to Romney. I suppose that is possible, but it is hard for me to understand. But at the end of the day, the cause of Liberty is lost, anyway, or so it feels.
I won’t continue my deconstruction of my political thought any further, unless someone has some excellent questions I can answer with another post. Let me know in the comments what you would like me to write about next, or if you ever followed a political figure you felt was the best thing ever, only to have them fail, or have them let you down? I’d love to know what other people’s experience has been like.
PS…..I never knew this, but even though he didn’t run in 2016….one of the electors voted for him…..just….saying
Tired Midnight Blogger (What Blogs at Midnight) 
100% — the Party of Ronald Reagan is dead.
(And poor son RAND Paul has gone wack-a-doodle, probably in an effort to stay in the news.)
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Yeah, I need to do more research on Rand. But for good or ill, don’t entirely write him off. There are still folks who love him. And frankly, if it’s a choice between him and Trump, I’ll vote for Rand….
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Our former First Lady Michelle Obama is a women. Her work since graduation with Bachelor degree from Princeton university and doctor degree from Harvard. She was amazing First Lady. People say that about her because she’s the first African American First Lady. People hated the obama’s because of their skin color not for anything else. She learned hard work and determination from her father who had Multiple sclerosis (MS) used 2 cans to get to work to save money to pay for her education. I believe research her through valid site. Like
I’m leaving you this article from the WH site http://www.wh.gov
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First Lady Michelle LaVaughn Robinson Obama is a lawyer, writer, and the wife of the 44th President, Barack Obama. She is the first African-American First Lady of the United States. Through her four main initiatives, she became a role model for women and an advocate for healthy families, service members and their families, higher education, and international adolescent girls education.
Each of us also comes here tonight,” Michelle Obama told the Democratic National Convention in 2008, “by way of our own improbable journey” and “driven by a simple belief that . . . we have an obligation to fight for the world as it should be.” Michelle Obama’s journey began in the South Side of Chicago, where Fraser and Marian Robinson instilled in their daughter a heartfelt commitment to family, hard work, and education.
Her father was a pump operator for the Chicago Water Department, while her mother stayed at home to care for Michelle and her older brother Craig. As she watched her father refuse to give in to multiple sclerosis, use two canes to get to his job, and save money to send her to college, she learned that “the only limit to the height of your achievements is the reach of your dreams and your willingness to work hard for them.”
Michelle earned a bachelor’s degree from Princeton University and a juris doctor degree from Harvard Law School. In 1988, she returned to Chicago to join the firm of Sidley Austin. It was there that she met Barack Obama, a summer associate she was assigned to advise. They were married in 1992.
By that time Michelle had turned her energies to public service. She was assistant commissioner of planning and development in Chicago’s City Hall before becoming the founding executive director of the Chicago chapter of Public Allies, an AmeriCorps program that prepares young people for public service. In 1996, she joined the University of Chicago as associate dean of student services, where she developed the university’s first community service program. In 2002, she went to work for the University of Chicago Medical Center, where in 2005 she became the vice president of community and external affairs. During these years the Obamas’ daughters Malia and Sasha were born.
As first lady, Michelle Obama initiated Let’s Move! a program aiming to end childhood obesity within a generation. Through it, elected officials, business leaders, educators, parents, and faith leaders worked together to provide more nutritious food in schools, bring healthy and affordable food into underserved communities, plant vegetable gardens across America, and provide new opportunities for kids to be more active. Each year local schoolchildren helped plant and harvest the garden she started on the White House South Lawn. Its vegetables and fruits were served at the White House and donated to soup kitchens and food banks.
During Barack Obama’s second term Michelle spearheaded the Reach Higher Initiative to help students understand job opportunities and the education and skills they need for those jobs. She encouraged young people to continue their education past high school in technical schools and community colleges as well as at colleges and universities. Worldwide, she championed the education of girls and women. In a commencement address at the City College of New York she told graduates, “Never view your challenges as obstacles.” It is a lesson she has embodied all her life. Throughout her time in the White House Mrs. Obama worked to support veterans and military families. She also focused her energies on what she calls her most important role: MominChief to her daughters, who grew into accomplished young women during their eight years in the White House.
The Presidential biographies on WhiteHouse.gov are from “The Presidents of the United States of America,” by Frank Freidel and Hugh Sidey.
Learn more about Michelle Obama’s spouse, Barack Obama.
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Very thoughtful post. I know she is one of your heroes, and I hope it didn’t sound like I was saying she was a man. Even when I’d become someone who believed most the party line, I never believed she was a man. Too many people out there are willing to say anything just because it supports “the cause.” Respectfully…..CS
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