In the Conservative Trenches We Look to Leaders

What can I say.

When change is needed we need leaders

Chris Christie governor of New Jersey has through his leadership and vision prodded the State Legislature into passing a balanced budget.

Chris Christie has proven himself to be a leader.

What makes this so striking is that out of a 21 billion dollar budget they were short 11 billion. That they made up a 33% budget short fall is improbable enough. To do that by not raising taxes and mainly from cutting spending is a feat not seen in recent memory.

The video below makes clear that they were able to do that only with some bi-partisan support. The unions in the state were running nonstop terror ads about people and children who would be dying if this were to happen.

Guess what, the citizens of the state told their Legislators that they didn't believe the politicians any more and they wouldn't accept more taxes. As Chris Christie in the video said "the system is flawed", and everyone knew it.

The majority of the politicians had for decades bowed to those special interests that benefited when taxes were raised, to cover the short falls in budgets. Mainly unions, mainly public sector unions. The citizens said enough is enough.

In the videeo it was a shock to the commentators to hear the Governor explain how hard it was to get the unions to pay 1 1/2% for their health care when the rest of the workers were paying up to 20%.

The really shocking part to me wsas that I and the citizens in NJ knew that the public union workers were making a good deal more than private sector workers doing the same thing, and yet they whined about 1 1/2 %.

The first 1 1/2 minute is Clinton babbling like he so cutely does then the rest is Christie.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

If we want this to happen in Michigan, we have to get off our butts and help elect Conservative candidates in the primary and then see it through the general election. Then on top of that keep the pressure on them to do what they say. Heck you might want to join a Tea Party or something. (LOL)

We need as conservatives to see to it that Republicans gain in the Senate and win the House back. The near dictatorial powers of the Speaker (Mr. Dillon) needs to be changed. Then of course we need a new Governor.

I've posted before asking if we have any gubenatorial candidate with the chuptza to pull this off. I'm putting my money on Hoekstra - does he have the guts of a Christie?

?????? """????? One thing I'll tell you is that if a new crop of conservatives are elected to the state house to watch his back, Pete may be more inclined to take the really big chances necessary to really change things.

In the 91st (Muskegon) state house we need to electKen Punter in the primary.



If you feel like you’re at war with Lansing (thanks jDawg) the primary is the chance you have to elect someone who knows how to fight back – a Marine --- vote in the primary for Ken Punter.

Think about it.

If you want a change -- the Primary is all important.

Think about it.

Tired of the same old wishy washy candidates?
Tired of them giving in to special interests, just to get elected?
How about 22 years a Marine, 15 years on the school board ???
You can say Ken Punter knows how to say no to attacks on our Freedoms
Both Foreign and Domestic.

Ken Punter is beholding to no special interests or political lobby, he would not be waiting on the sidelines while a "Chris Christie" type Michigan Governor battled. Punter would be there digging in with the Governor.

Regards, Live Dangerously Be A Conservative

Who Needs This Kind of Help ???

The poor governor of Arizona went to Washington to get help from the President about strengthing the border to stop illegal aliens from overwhelming her state. The President said he would help.

Wow Some help. LOL or should I say




As time went by and nothing was being done to fullfill that promise. Something was done and seemingly the Arizona Governor rues the day she asked for help from this Predident.

I mean it's like going to the police after someone broke into your house, had a drug orgy and you asked them to help. Wow how would you feel if all they did was put up signs all around your neighbor hood advising people not to go to your house as it is unsafe.

Big Help that is. Really Takes the load off, or should I say What a Load.

Weeeeell

The Governor seemingly thought the same thing.



Sleep tight tonight America as we know how the One is protecting us.

Regards, Live Dangerously Be A Conservative

Incentivize Spending Cuts ???

We need a mechanism to incentivize spending less.

I see it all the time. Money allocated to a program takes some creative action some times to be completely spent. When asked why not just give it back or not spend it, I’m told a couple of things.

1. If we do the money will just be spent on something else and at least this way we’ll know how it’s spent.

2. If we show a surplus then we will be docked that amount next time they give us money and we can’t have that.

Has anyone ever seriously tried to come up with a way to promote departments saving money? Incentivize the process? I’ve blogged before about the need for such a plan but couldn’t come up with one.

I just got an email about a Mackinac Center blog on state employee pay growing 25% over inflation. The interesting thing that brought this idea of mine up was that while the government was paying out 25% more to the employees overall, the state employee work force had shrunk.

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http://www.mackinac.org/12568
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To me that meant that employees were getting cut while budgets were getting bigger. That told me that cutting services does not cut spending by the government. It told me that no matter what, the job of the bureaucracy was to get more money regardless of need. See # 2 above.

The sub headline of the Mac Center article read; Total Payroll Up $1.5 Billion Despite Fewer Workers.

That sub headline told me also that if the government unions were worried about hiring more people they would of found a way of doing so with that extra five Billion instead of whatever they did with it. I’m sure some of that was due to hopefully efficiencies of processes making some jobs obsolete but it makes me wonder.

I called up Ted O’Neil at the Mac Center to see if they had done any thinking along those lines. They hadn’t, however Ted brought up the idea that when government makes the rules for giving out money to private industry, he offered roads as an example; they put in rewards for being ahead of schedule and penalties for coming in behind schedule. I also assume that employees that helped made that happen stood a chance in sharing in that reward. He did think that it was odd that government didn’t do the same for itself.

I was thinking maybe he was catching my point. He did say that he would bring it up when they did their brainstorming thing. (“thing” being my word as it is much too trite for a think tank LOL)

Privatizing government functions is not a panacea only a useful tool.
Let me flush out what I’m thinking of doing. It has to do with embarrassment. Hopefully not mine – but you can be the judge.

It seems to me that any plan in order to work will have to come from the Bottom Up. What if I was to set up a bank account strictly for the national debt? Then each week I would put in a dollar. In one year I would have collected $52. Ok, pretty stupid huh?

What about if this idea went viral? What if others started putting in $1 cash a week then gathered at a local spot to collect the cash and have a big shot count and put it in another bank account? So far not much traction except some people might start to feel like they have some skin in the game. (The Big Shot would or at least he would tell everyone he or she did – and that’s fine in fact that’s the idea).
That “skin” is the key. If I commit to $50 a year to pay down the debt especially with cash that people can touch see and feel combined with a public display; well some politicians might get on board. With enough public pressure perhaps the bureaucracies could be embarrassed enough to donate some.

I know -- I’m the one feeling embarrassed. Oh well what’s new? I want people to get involved in government and get some skin in the game. However that can happen I’m for. If the citizenry is willing to bite the bullet to get spending under control, they will probably find it rewarding to vote out people who think otherwise or try to tell them they’re “skin” is stupid.

Here is another idea. What about using the same citizen savings idea and get the politicians to pass a law that the government will match dollar for dollar the private contributions. By the way I would make this collection a private thing and hopefully talk the banks into setting it up pro bono. God knows they could use the good pr.

Get some really big names at whatever level to oversee the process again on a pro bono, good publicity or public image basis. The trick would be to have this law somehow make sure the matching government money would have to come from reductions in funding or spending. Taxes could not be raised to offset the cost. I would envision an across the board type of cut to minimize the threat of service suspensions to thwart the plan.

This even if and when it started would not amount to a lot when compared to the national debt. The biggest benefit would be to give the people putting in their “skin” a perfect object lesson in how large a million or a billion or a trillion really is and how massive the problem really is so they might get mobilized to put into office people more willing to cut government.

Kinda of a back door grassroots driven spending cut.

The real key is that something like this can show in black and white how basically simple the solution to this complex problem could be.

I know this is embryonic in nature. Or you might think, not well thought out. I agree, but that is the point. I’m not in a think tank. What say you Mac Center? Let me know how crazy I really am. Work with me on this.

Regards, Live Dangerously Be A Conservative

Ladies of the Lake

Waldo was found Wandering far afield from Muskegon.

Click on any pics to enlarge
Click again to get bigger yet!


Friday I wanted to go to Lake County specifically to Peacock Mi to attend the always fun and filling Lake County Lincoln Day Dinner. I saved gas because I only had to drive to Hart where Goeff and Tammy Hansen gave me a ride the rest of the way. I and my old truck thank them. On the way we picked up the Chair of Oceana Co. Juanita Pierman. I was in my element, lots of good political talk on the way.
As we made the last turn on 4th st. after miles of driving through the National Forest seemingly in the middle of nowhere --- There was Waldo bravely exclaiming that even way out there, they "HAVE HAD ENOUGH".



Then to my extra delight there were more Waldo's at the site of the Lake Lincoln Day Dinner. I was happy to see Mama Waldo there. She is the "Join the Lake County Republicans" sign. That sign gave birth to the "Had Enough" sign. The Runnels were the brains behind that.


Inside, there were around 50 people and plenty of great smelling food. Here is a picture of the Ladies of the Lake who were responsible for the meal and the work that went into it.


I'm getting to know some of these people and my hats off to the Runnels who are the driving force behind this growing enclave of Republican support in an otherwise Democrat Blue county. As in my Muskegon environment the Runnels too know what I mean when I say "Live Dangerously Be A Conservative.


Goeff Hansen was the master of ceremonies and kept things moving along through a packed agenda with wit and humor.

Lots of candidates up and down the line and a lot of auctioning of donated items which fetched high prices due to the generosity of the bidders ably egged on by Tammy Hansen among others. Darwin Booher among others found themselves more generous than they thought they were.


Darwin Booher and Jay Riemersma were the guest speakers who each gave good talks. I was especially happy when Rep. Booher started his speech by saying he was heartened and knew he was at the right place when he saw a sign proclaiming “Had Enough !! Vote Republican” I and Waldo were smiling.

The clear winners of a straw poll were Pete Hoekstra for Governor, Bill Huizenga for the 2nd Congressional, Darwin Booher for the 35th state senate seat, Marc Libants for the 100th state house seat, Michael McManus for Secretary of State and Mike Bishop for attorney general. Here are some general pictures of the crowd etc. plus one of Tammy doing her Vanna impersonation.






It ended up being a long evening due to the ride back to Hart then Muskegon but the time was spent talking politics on the ride back to Hartm which is like mother’s milk to me.

Next morning (Sat) and I was up early blogging and doing a lot of stuff on the Muskegon Patriot site. Our meeting is coming up this Tues the 27th at Whitlow’s banquet room at 7:00. A busy agenda is in store. This is the meeting to get candidates up for an election to be held at our following meeting May 11th, at the same time and place. The meeting this Tues is to continue our process of organizing activities and groups.

We are becoming a group, so far we're working through our growing pains.

Sat afternoon was dedicated to helping the Punter campaign in starting up an ambitious door to door campaign. Fred Bertsch on his way down from Whitehall picked me up at 12:30 and off we went to Ravenna.


Ken and Kay kicked off this drive in Ravenna as it is their home turf. This was just a start in this effort to cover the whole county. This was a test run to see if the system worked. Door to door is actually knocking on doors and talking with the people about Ken and asking for their support while handing them some literature. We also if appropriate ask if they’d be interested in putting a Punter sign in their yard when the time comes.


I’m pretty new to this but seemed to have caught on pretty quickly. Kay had a script for us, to help us get over the nervousness, but the people were so friendly that I soon didn’t need the script. I was happy to see the large number of signs people wanted.

Ken bought our lunch at Ravenna Round Table LLC, 12396 Stafford Street, Ravenna - (231) 853-2106; a nice clean family owned restaurant with a touch of class.

Afterwards, it was back to Ken and Kay’s home where we plotted some strategy and tweaked our door to door and lit drop plans. Fred and I got our marching orders for lit drops in our respective areas. I have to say here that Kay, acting as her husband’s campaign manager is pretty awesome in what she has accomplished with limited resources. She is doing what another campaign would hire 1 or 2 extra staff to do.

This isn’t hit or miss or slipshod either. She has gone to several campaign training events across the state. She has learned and is networked throughout the district. She spends all day on the campaign. She knew nothing about campaigns to start and now is, well a professional, without the pay of course.

She has had Ken attending every chicken fry or public gathering throughout the district on a daily basis. It is starting to work. I saw when we were going door to door that Ken is in his element just plain talking with the voters. His honesty and integrity are coming to the fore.

They are raising money and dipping into their own pocket. They are dedicated. I am impressed with how frugal both Kay and Ken have been and what they have accomplished with so little letting their war chest keep ahead of their spending.

I wouldn't mind seeing more of that in Lansing.

At this point I’d like to make a plea for volunteers to help their efforts. Money is always nice LOL. What we need now however is “boots on the ground”. The Primary is coming up. Ken Punter and Holly Hughes are the two Republicans in the race for the 91st House Seat. Go to my Candidate page and look for their websites.

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http://bottomuppolitics.com/candidates_12.html
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Make up your own mind.

I’ve made up mine obviously. Ken Punter’s motto is “People over Politics”. He brings a fresh alternative to “politics as usual” to this race. There is a clear choice.

I’ve learned in my short time blogging and playing around the edges of politics that helping a campaign is rewarding in a character building type of way. This is how I get to put my words into practice. This is how I try to keep myself honest.
Candidates in general are always needing volunteers, full or part time. Look through my Candidate page linked above and pick on you like and volunteer. They will take any kind of offer to help seriously. If you want to help once for an event or if you want to become their constant companion (LOL) they will welcome you.

In a campaign every minute of a Candidates time is valuable and called for. Candidates understand how valuable your time is and will thank you for donating it to them.

It’s a personal thing.

Regards, Live Dangerously Be A Conservative

Chutzpah

Does Hoekstra have the chutzpah?



Michigan is in dire financial straits. There is lots of waste and duplication of effort in a lot of areas plus outright fraud. Reforms along these lines are nice but where the real money lies is in the Land of the Unions. All up and down the system.

Unions aren’t bad, Big Unions like Big Business or Big Government is.

Chris Christie knew that and he had the chutzpa to say it.


He pulled off a major upset by winning the New Jersey special election for governor. He had campaigned as a conservative. Boy do I hear a lot of that these days coming from politicians all up and down the campaign trail.

Unlike 95% of those talkers, once Chris Christie became Governor he not only kept right on talking like a conservative, which is rare enough but starting trying as hard as he could to effect change.

The state is heavily Democrat. He shouldn’t have won on party lines. The new Governor is a Republican. Unlike Scott Brown Christie did not immediately swerve to the middle once elected.

Michigan is a lot like New Jersey as far debt ridden and the majority of the voters being fed up with failed Democrat policies. In New Jersey they were willing to give full measures a chance.

His first speech to the legislature was absolutely so politically incorrect that I found myself cheering at my computer. Of course I blogged about it at the time. Once at the link scroll down for the actual speech.

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http://conservativeinmuskegon.blogspot.com/2010/02/cats-out-of-bag.html
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New Jersey had a budget deficit over $10 billion: wow. Makes Michigan’s short fall seem a lot easier to handle.

But with that $10 Billion to make up the new Governor went to work, he attacked things all the paid consultants I’m sure told him were untouchable. He was honest with the people in what he planned to do as a candidate and he is trying to keep the promises he made. Some of the smaller more member orientated are joining him! His promise was simple, namely to balance the budget and live within their means. By doing whatever was necessary.

To do that he is fighting back against the unions and the war they are waging against him.

Below is a link to the nastiness of the union using their teachers to use their students to fight against Christie.

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http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2010/03/nj_gov_chris_christie_budget_c.html
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Hat tip to Muskegon Pundit for this.

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http://muskegonpundit.blogspot.com/2010/04/george-f-will-bringing-thunder-ous.html#links
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Muskegon Pundit’s post brought Christie’s efforts back onto my radar when he linked a George Will article in the Washington Post.

Christie is definitely on George’s radar.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/21/AR2010042104451.html
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Some of the politicians I know around here tell me that the voters while they like the rhetoric will not stand for it if you actually try to cut government.
The rest of them seem to think they can’t get elected it they stray from the political middle.

The middle of what is what I’m asking. Inbetween a Democrat and a Republican? The voters are fed up with both. They want someone to do their job period and New Jersey so far has that.

That need to find that safe middle ground might be so here,(I Doubt It) but it seems to be proving false in New Jersey, that dark blue state. Voters at the school board level have just rejected well over half of the proposed budgets for the schools, forcing renegotiations. Part of Christie’s original message was that he was going to create tools to help districts negotiate with Unions; he is making this happen.

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http://jammiewearingfool.blogspot.com/2010/04/earthquake-in-new-jersey-majority-of.html
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So far the voters are watching Christie’s back instead of sticking a knife there.
If Chris Christie would have tried some half measures I doubt he would have won in the first place or have the continued trust of the voters.

So the question remains in my mind. Does Pete Hoekstra have the chutzpah to actually make these fundamental changes in Michigan?

If he does, he is keeping it close to the vest as far as particulars. That maybe good until the general election; but I’m hoping to see some of that New Jersey Hell Fire in Michigan. Of all the candidates for Governor I think Pete has the tools, hopes he uses them.

The voters I’m betting would like to be trusted and willing to trust and vote for someone who does.

Regards, Live Dangerously Be A Conservative

Campaigns, meetings and Where's Waldo Now?

Back to posting on events.

Today Tues. the Punter Platoon gathered at the Punter house to stuff some envelopes, good fun and good food made the job go pretty quickly. Lots of lively repartee and outright sniping kept things going. In the pic below Kay, Ken’s wife is the one at the head of the table. As Ken works for a living he wasn’t there.


After stuffing envelopes I heard that the Where's Waldo sign. (Had Enough Vote Republican) had reappeared in a new place. So off I went to find It's new home. I found it on Harrisburg Rd in Ravenna. That is the fourth place in Ravenna for that critter.



Muskegon GOP had their monthly business meeting.
Click to enlarge pics.

W came to visit and got cornered by Goeff Hansen and by the looks of his expression; Goeff must be raking him over the coals about the TARP mess pretty good. Looks to me like George is looking for a way out.



David Farhat chaired the meeting and some business was done and we talked of the Grand Old Picnic this summer among other things. It was our first meeting in the HQ on Henry St. We will have them there from now on and when it gets cold due to the election we will probably keep it heated till after. We’ll discuss it further at that time.


Jerry VanWoerkam and Goeff Hansen talked of what was going on with the budget and the state legislature. Marve, John and Bob brought us up to speed on the County Commission’s business. Mainly the candidates spoke their pieces. Holly for the 91st along with Kay who stood in for her husband Ken who couldn’t make it.



It was nice to see Ken Berman and Amber Weerstra stand and let everyone know they are running for County Commission seats. Ken will be battling against the County Commission Chairman Kenneth Mahoney for district #1. This will be an uphill battle but Ken seems fired up and already hard at it.

Amber Weerstra is running for the 10th Commission seat. Incumbent Democrat Roger Wade isn’t running this time ????? Because of that this race which leans Democrat gets a lot closer and from meeting Amber she brings a lot of energy to the table. She has a nice website and an active facebook page. People in our party are readily helping her according to their talents. Below are her Website and facebook links.

Web http://amberweerstra.com/donations.htmlFacebook http://www.facebook.com/#!/profile.php?id=1306131474

I will be adding over the next week the Musk. Co. Republican incumbents and candidates for the Musk. County Commission, to my candidate page on my website.

Check this link next week.
http://bottomuppolitics.com/candidates_12.html

Life is good, WE can make it better.
As Amber said on facebook. “ When a hen gives you an egg, that's involvement. When a hog gives you bacon, that is commitment.”

http://www.facebook.com/#!/profile.php?id=1306131474&ref=mfTime to go whole hog I guess.

Regards, Live Dangerously Be A Conservative