Our GOP Presidential Candidates

Republican presidential candidate, Rick Santorum had a clean sweep of  caucus and primary voting in Missouri, Minnesota and Colorado. With all the hoopla, the bottom line is obtaining the 1144 delegates needed to get the nomination. Mr. Santorum did not really get any delegates from his triple victory. I still feel Mr. Santorum is the 2012 version of former presidential candidate, Mike Huckabee and may go on to win some primaries but not get the Republican presidential nomination. If I am wrong, it will be a nice surprise.

At this point, if he makes it to the PA primary in April, he most likely will get my vote over Newt Gingrich. I also consider Mitt Romney for pragmatic reasons, because I still see problems with Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum winning against Pres. Obama.But then, Mr. Romney is losing some steam. I am not one of those on the right that ignores the left. Along with reading and listening to the Republican and conservative right punditry and comments, I also squeeze in some reading and listening to the Democratic, liberal left punditry and comments. That side would love for Mr. Gingrich or Mr. Santorum who they see as the flavor of the Republican month to be Pres. Obama’s opponent, because they feel either one of those candidates will make for an easy Democratic victory.

I continue to hear and read of Independents who are unhappy with the Pres. and are looking to what the Republicans have to offer and there is not much of a “wow” factor. Mitt Romney at the beginning of his campaign attracted Independents, but now he is losing them through his continuing efforts to prove his conservatism.

Let us face it, Newt Gingrich is a strong negative to some Republicans, and conservatives. He does not seem to attract Independent voters who are pretty much the deciders of who gets to be President these days. The Catholic Rick Santorum is revving up the conservative evangelical voter (count me as one), but along with the Independent voter there are many who vote Republican who do not particularly like conservative evangelicals, such as libertarian thinking Neal Boortz and do not want a resurgence of them dominating the Republican Party. Along with the very conservative Michael Savage, there are conservatives coming together with those on the liberal left in viewing Rick Santorum as sanctimonious.  They do not like candidates who are outspoken about living their lives from any kind of spiritual faith base.

If you are wondering about all of this in relation to Mitt Romney, well that is another post that would include the Mormon historical negative spiritual belief concerning black people, which has somewhat changed. But one has to wonder how the weight of that historical perspective colors his general views on non white people. Again, there is much distance between me and the Ron Paul supporter. His libertarian views in foreign policy are a very big negative to me. There is also the racial issue, but I have to look more into that situation, even though I do believe Rep. Paul knew of the negative generalizations of black people in his own newsletters. He is the last of the remaining Republican presidential candidates who would get my vote.

Oh, will we ever have another Ronald Reagan? By that, I mean a strong conservative candidate who coalesces Republicans and conservatives behind him and has Democrats and Independents voting Republican like he did! That is what we need or Pres. Obama just may get that 2nd term.

A Great Education Discussion

I watched a previous discussion on public education on C-SPAN that took place in Arkansas as a part of the Clinton School speaker series. When it comes to education, I think many Democrats and Republicans come to the same page. Some conservatives were angry with Newt Gingrich for teaming up with  leftist liberal, Al Sharpton to rally for education at different schools around the country solely because of Al Sharpton, but more understood. The teaming was not about the conservative Republican/liberal Democrat debate over throwing money at schools.

It was about dealing with the disparity of graduation rates and education of minorities through driving the importance of learning, not disrespecting teachers in the classroom and taking going to school seriously throughout life. I cannot fault Mr. Gingrich or Mr. Sharpton for doing that. Hey, non graduation rates for black males is the highest in Detroit. See the Education section in Tale of Two Cities. I am in no way excluding parental blame, because there is some to go around, but this concentration is on the school/educator side.

On C-SPAN Mayor Kevin Johnson (Democrat and formerly of the NBA) of Sacramento, California and his fiancée, the former chancellor of the District of Columbia Public Schools system in Washington, D. C., Michelle Rhee  discussed  the “State of Education.” I was on Ms. Rhee’s side during her embattled time as the D. C. schools chancellor.  Mayor Johnson’s past education building efforts led to a low-income area majority black student school out performing suburban majority white schools in test scores.

I restrain my partisan being when it comes to education.  Please at least listen to a portion of the entire discussion in the video here. You will hear Mayor Johnson talk about the school that out performed suburban schools among other great things.

 

Get Rid of Those Rehired Central Falls High School Teachers

Okay, what is with Rhode Island’s Central Falls High school? If you recall, the school district fired ill performing teachers. They legally fought their firings and won. They returned to their jobs. One would think that these teachers would be grateful for the outcome. How many people are you personally aware of being fired and then have the termination revoked and return to work? In these downed economic times when people are being laid off regardless of how well they perform their job duties, getting a chance to return to work after being fired is very rare. One would think the teachers would return to work with a mind for success. So why are many of rehired  Central Falls High School teachers playing the game of call out? Most importantly, why are they hurting their students’ education?

To be rehired, the teachers agreed to work a longer school day, undergo more rigorous evaluations and provide more after-school tutoring, but they are calling out instead. They sure do not care about their personal integrity and being viewed as liars. These selfish teachers are getting back at those who fired them and saying to H#!! with the students. There is a prevailing negative attitude about the teaching profession, such as seen in TV programing i.e. teachers being the butt of jokes on comedy shows. There is also the proverbial saying, “Those who can, can, but those who can’t teach.”

I have the highest regard for school teachers. What these Central Falls High School teachers are doing is furthering negative attitudes of classroom teaching and doing great damage to their students’ education. That school district needs Gov. Chris Christie and Michelle Rhee. Shame on those Falls High Teachers. Since they are not doing what they agreed to do to be rehired, they need to be fired for good this time and not just from teaching in that highs school but from the teaching profession. Read more about it here.

The Reading of the U. S. Constitution

With the Republicans taking over the House portion of Congress, they have put new rules into place. One of them is having the Constitution read in full on Jan 6, after the 112th Congress convenes. Okay, you may feel that this is just ceremonial and has no real deep significance. But those behind this new rule say the goal is “to underscore the limited-government rules the Founders imposed on Congress – and to try to bring some of those principles back into everyday legislating.” It is not just to remind the Democrats, but also the Republicans who in the past have lost their way when it came to limited government. I think it is a good idea. Read more from here.

Let’s face it, many of us do not know what is really in the Constitution. For example, we blame presidents for spending when if we truly knew  the Constitution, we would know that the blame is misplaced. The President cannot spend without the authorization from Congress. Remember a Democratic Congress authorized the spending in the last 2 years of Pres. Bush. That is in article 1, Section 8, which also stipulates that Congress has the power to lay and collect taxes, not the President.

I finally received my pocket-sized Constitution and Declaration of Independence from the Heritage Foundation. It is free. Go here to get one of your own so that you can have it on hand for discussions and arguments on the Constitution and constitutional related subjects or just for your own knowledge.

Well, this post is supposed to be just an announcement, but I ended up blogging anyway. So the announcement is from this point on I am taking a few days of this Christmas week off from blogging. See you in the New Year.

Addendum: But please check in to see interesting headlines of choice in my Titter feed in one of the left sidebar columns.