An Open Letter to the Undecided Michigan Voter

When it comes to balancing the budget, lowering taxes and achieving American independence from foreign oil, Michigan voters have a healthy skepticism whether Barack Obama would fulfill his campaign promises in his first term.

But it hasn't cost him their support. . . .Significant numbers of voters say Obama has won them over with his judgment and how he makes them feel about America's future.
--November 2, 2008 Detroit Free Press

If you don't see how that lead makes no sense, then you’re the one I want to talk to.

If you have a “healthy skepticism” about Obama but still intend to vote for him because he makes you feel better, ask yourself how long you’d give a marriage where the teenage bride-to-be said this to her frantic parents:

“I know he gets fired from every job, took my car without asking and wrecked it, and had some trouble with the law, but Rooster makes me feel good and I LOVE HIM!”

The point I’m trying to make, if I may switch metaphors, is this.

They don’t make a morning-after pill for this. If you wake up groggy on inauguration day, or a week out, or 6 months later, it’s not just going to be as simple as feeling around for your panties, calling your roommate for a ride home, and getting on with Plan B. There is no Plan B for this.

Nine months into this mistake, you won’t even be through your first trimester.

The thing is, there are some mistakes it’s better not to make at all, because it's too late to fix them later.

If Obama’s plans for the economy lead to getting it wrong, so that taxes soar, businesses and jobs flee, trade slows, regulations increase, and the energy and oil industry are so hounded and crippled you’ll be dreaming of $4 gas—if the Saudis and Chavez only let us have it that cheap--it will be impossible to undo.

If he gets the Supreme Court wrong, it won’t just be a matter of waiting until 2012 to fix it. It will be 2032. At least.

If he gets national security wrong, the least of it is that more Americans are going to die. I know Obama says we’re less safe than we were on 9/11, but that’s ridiculous, even if you don’t like George Bush. On 9/11 we were so unsafe that terrorists hit us on our own ground and 3,000 Americans died. Since then, no terrorists have struck us at home, and it’s not for lack of trying. That 3,000 to 0 score means we’ve been safer. And what is there about that success in the war on terror that Obama plans to change? Do you really know? And will those changes make you safer?

It’s true what the national security experts say. The terrorists only have to get it right once to kill us. We have to get it right 100% to stop them. Do you think Obama is going to meet that 100% standard?

Even Obama can’t just “hope” and “change” us back to 9/10. Have you ever once heard Obama admit that terrorists are a threat anywhere but in the mountains of Afghanistan and Pakistan? What about the Iranians, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, the PLO, all those radical clerics in all those mosques from Copenhagen to Marseilles to Dearborn?

I know what you mean by your weariness of “the last eight years.” You want to wake up and have it be 9/10, or at least the Clinton administration, when everybody loved us, (or that's how it's remembered now).

But as far as the war on terror goes, that’s like wanting to go back to the moment just before the smoke alarm went off, when the house was already full of carbon monoxide, and your housecat had already suffocated.

Yes, it’s tempting. Obama’s offering hope. You have things you’re hoping for. I'm only saying it makes sense to ask, is he hoping for the same thing you are?

He says he’s all about change. There are changes we’d all like to see. But are Obama’s changes the same changes you want? Because he knows exactly what he wants to change, and he’s not going to ask you about it once he’s in office.

Obama keeps telling you that he intends to change this country in a fundamental way. The last time someone changed this country in a fundamental way, we went from being an English colony to an independent Republic. Is that really the level of change you want? Because Obama isn’t kidding.

Okay, we’d all like things to be better, fairer, safer, cheaper. All elections are about changing something. But we aren’t demanding perfect, we don’t believe elections are about bringing heaven on Earth. We want a better America, but we want it to still be America. We aren’t trying to knock it down and start over.

Don't you wonder why so many of Obama’s friends (and you know darn well they’re his friends) do want to knock America down and start over?

Can you think of any American cultural, economic, religious, or political institution that Obama wants to preserve, or that he hasn’t criticized, on some fundamental level? Marriage? Religion? The Family? Capitalism? Freedom of speech? Wealth Distribution?

So if you can put your mood aside for a moment, and just concentrate on some of these certainties:

Obama might answer your hopes. He will raise your taxes.

He might work to improve America’s popularity in the world, but he will signal to our enemies that he is reluctant to resort to the use of force. Meanwhile, no matter who gets elected in November, the use of force will remain the bedrock of our enemies’ strategies.

We’ve already seen some changes in that area because of Obama's pronouncements. Leaders in Iran, Libya, Gaza, the West Bank, and Al Qaeda are all in favor of an Obama presidency. Do you think that’s because they want you to have a better life? Why are Iraq and Israel scared to death Obama’s going to win?

Obama might “change” the health care system so that it’s someone’s idea of “fairer.” But when you think of fair, do you think of giving up your current health plan and putting your family on the equivalent of Medicare?

So much for what Obama might do. What Obama can’t do, in spite of the promises, is save the Planet. He will not make the ocean levels drop. He cannot make our enemies love us; he can only take steps either to make them respect and fear us, or persuade them we’re ripe for attack again.

He will not bring the nation together. His campaign has been one of the bitterest in memory. Blame that on McCain’s supporters if you must, but this race is tied. That’s half your countrymen. Or do you think Obama signing the Freedom of Choice Act will cause Pro-Lifers (60% of Americans) to flock to his support? Do you think Obama instituting the Fairness Doctrine will cause listeners to talk radio to embrace him as “The One”? Do you think Obama’s commitment to wealth redistribution will lead to businesses creating jobs, or else to their hiding their capital offshore away from the taxman? Do you really believe America abandoning Iraq will result in peace in the Middle East? Do you really think terrorists will disarm after we’re gone? We’re they disarmed and pacific before we went over there?

No one is claiming McCain is perfect. Perfection isn’t the standard, and if it were, would Obama meet it, except to his most deluded worshippers? This is the Presidency we’re talking about. If you’ve got a score to settle with George W. Bush, would you consider settling it someplace else outside the voting booth?