On What Comes After

Conservatives have been joking for quite a while now that we "can see November from our house!"

Well, I'm looking a the calendar, and November is here.

A lot of my fellow pundits are going to make predictions on what they think the outcome of tomorrow's elections will be, hoping that they will hit the mark and gain some credibility for their precision, when what happens tomorrow at this point is nothing but a SWAG.

I'll leave the prognosticating to the man I think is best at it, my fellow North Carolinian (and a very nice guy) Scott Elliott. He'll have his final numbers up soon (and they may be up by the time you read this).

I'll shock precisely no one when I tell you that if I was betting on the election I would bet heavily on the Republicans, but I might surprise a few if I told you the specific final results of the elections don't mean that much to me.

I'm certain we can count on our would-be betters in the MFM to throw some digital chicken bones on the floor screen in a lame attempt to declare that they understand the divine meaning of the ballots cast, but you know better.

This election is about one thing, and one thing only... trust. When it comes down to it, that is what all elections are about. Which candidate or party do I trust to make the big decisions that will affect the country for the next few years? Which party can we trust with our nation's economy? Our security? Our history? Our future?

In the 2006 and 2008 elections—and with quite a bit of help from the MFM—voters went to the poll and decided the nation's future would be be run by the elitist far-left wing of the Democratic party.

Well, we've had our liberal Congress. We've had our liberal Senate. And we have a liberal President that would rather bow to foreign dignitaries or talk to half-empty college auditoriums or play golf or watch ESPN than actually lead a nation desperate for real leadership.

But when the leaders fail, the people will lead. It's what Americans have always done, since before we thought of ourselves as "Americans."

It is a beautiful accident of our collective DNA that we are populated by people always looking for a fresh start and more opportunity, who never quit, and who refuse to be told they can't do more, have more, dream more, and be more.

And so tomorrow will end, I suspect, with Republicans firmly in control of Congress, possibly in control of the Senate, and facing one of the most bitterly partisan Presidents in living memory and his rabid followers in the press.

If history is any guide, the professional Republicans will declare themselves as riding a mandate from the people, which they will them immediately scuttle as they return to being the other craven party of Beltway elitists that helped get us into this present predicament.

And so I would remind my fellow fiscal conservatives—which at this point should be all Americans—that when the smoke clears tomorrow, the campaign against the Republican Party and what remains of the Democratic Party begins in earnest.

The Tea Party drove this election, and attracts the sympathies of a growing number of Americans because it found the common ground we must share and exploit if we are to weather the tough times ahead and come out of this worldwide financial crisis still holding our heads high as a nation.

We cannot allow the GOP Elite or the RNC or the pundit class or social conservatives to hijack and divide a movement built upon a promise of returning to the first principles of small government.

That means ending entitlements. That means removing withered social safety nets already collapsing from their own rot. That means reconsidering how we live as individuals and families, and if we are really better off being a nation of reckless, overextended consumers.

I hate to sound dour. Perhaps you, like many people we know, have already rediscovered people as a far more rewarding way to spend your time. You don't miss much when you miss today's Hollywood's movies, just special effects unable to cover the absence of a plot.

In some ways austerity helps up refocus on those things that are really important, even if the adjustment was uncomfortable or even sometimes traumatic.

Our bloated government, far too large and unhealthy for its own good (or ours) similarly needs to go through a period of adjustment, belt-tightening, and refocusing, so that it, too, focuses on "We, the People" yet again.

But that will not happen.

Or at least it won't happen if won't continue to grow the movement for small government fiscal conservatism, if we don't continue to pressure the old guard and support the newly victorious US we're sending to Washington.

We can't let ourselves get distracted, or greedy, or preachy, or too proud.

The hard work of rediscovering and rebuilding America begins with sweeping up the ticker-tape.

Let's roll.