The Great Crusade

Jeb Bush Is Right

Don't get me wrong. I do cherish and respect what President Reagan did for our party and our country. His ideas and his efforts gave America twenty-five years of prosperity. Had Clinton followed his foreign policy example, we may have seen a much more secure America as well.

It's time to move on. It really is.

I am not saying we should forget Ronald Reagan. We never forgot Abraham Lincoln or Dwight Eisenhower. We should do a lot more to remember William McKinley who was a stronger supporter of free markets than the more flamboyant Theodore Roosevelt. However he belongs to history now.

People my age and older will have a hard time with this. We lived through the 1970s and remember the misery. Ronald Reagan raised us from all of that and restored our country's position in the world. But we must remember that millions of voters were not even alive when he was president. To them, he is as unreachable as Lincoln, a picture in a history book instead of a living example. If we continue to venerate Reagan, we risk looking like the old Franklin Roosevelt stalwarts of the not too distant past. Who in West Virginia even in the 80s and 90s did not know at least one person who voted the straight Democratic ticket because of FDR?

The Republican Party must start searching for the next Reagan because America will need some renewing in 2012. Obama has deconstructed much of our economic and diplomatic position in a shockingly short amount of time. Who will be the Republican to inspire this generation? Where will the ideas that wil shape the 21st Century come from? Hopefully we see one emerge soon.

Do not forget the past, but do not let the past blind us to the present or the future.

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Remember when we said on this blog that Ford Motor Company will not only be fine, but end up in a strong position when this economy shakes out?

Ford just leapt over Toyota to once again seize second place in US auto sales last month. Ford's new midsized Fusion is a hit with consumers and recreates the success enjoyed by that company in the 1990s with the unspectacular, but dependable Taurus.

General (soon to be renamed "Government?") Motors is still the nation's best selling company, but they and Toyota both lost market share to the aggressive and still completely private sector Ford Motor Company.

To be honest I still think GM should be split into two if not three parts. Chevrolet and Cadillac would probably prosper alone.

Kudos to Ford!

William Seward and Hillary Clinton

Remember when there was a prohibitive favorite for the party nomination who breezed into the primary season thinking they had it and the presidency in the bag. Then from out of nowhere came this guy from Illinois who changed history at the last minute. Then he graciously appointed his former rival as Secretary of State.

I remember that situation. It was Abraham Lincoln and William Seward.

When Lincoln assumed office, Seward assumed he was the real president. He compared himself to a Prime Minister or a power behind the throne. Seward had the experience and the connections while Lincoln was a nobody from Illinois. When Seward started making deals behind Lincoln's back, the president called him to the carpet in private.

Lincoln used a folksy down home style to mask a precise legal mind and a sometimes ruthless mentality. Opponents and even friends underestimated him because of the is purposeful front he built. Dwight D. Eisenhower operated in the same manner and people fell for his facade as well.

The question here is, when Hillary asserts herself how will Obama respond? And how many friends does he have? He has surrounded himself with Clintonites as opposed to bringing in new blood. A liberal friend asked me the other day who else I expected him to choose since the Democrats have so little government experience. (Duh! This is why we voted for John McCain!)My response was that in domestic policy, certainly there are some governors, big city mayors, or former congressmen that could be helpful. Honestly how do you claim to be for change, then appoint virtually the entire Clinton Administration?

I am sure that more than a few Obama supporters have quietly asked teh same questions.

This means Hillary has more friends than Barack and Bill is still out there playing the free agent. A situation such as this could turn decisively ugly if not handled correctly. Let us hope it does not endanger the nation in the process.

Where Have the Heroes Gone?

Real heroes are important. They give us models on how to get to where we want to go, on how to conduct ourselves, on what is important versus what is trivial.

It used to be easy to find heroes. Schools used to place them on the walls of each and every classroom. Framed prints of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln beside the large United States flag once dominated each room. These men defined courage, strength, and fighting against fearful odds for the cause of right. We learned about other heroes as we made our way through history. We got to know Thomas Jefferson, both Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, Dwight Eisenhower, Martin Luther King Jr. and so many others. Great men and women who made a strong impact upon history deserve attention. Students deserve to learn about people such as Jesus Christ, Moses, Queen Elizabeth I, Catherine the Great, Martin Luther and a long list of mentionables.

Open a textbook used in public schools these days. Where can one find a hero? Today the books and many of the new teachers represent the new style of teaching history. Let me be correct, social studies. The word history evokes the powerful narrative of human development from tyranny to the freedom we enjoy today. Social studies does not have quite the same power. It's not meant to. Nowadays you read more about how America has oppressed this group or that group at any given time much more so than you learn about an America that learns from its mistakes and strives to meet its own standards.

The textbooks and many of the teachers create a massive drumbeat of a message. They developed during a time when the academic world rejected the idea that individuals could make a difference. Rightly they sought to study and emphasize peoples heretofore ignored by history. Wrongly they destroyed the idea of "hero." George Washington's status as a slaveowner makes him a villain rather than a hero that stood for the kind of principles that would later insist upon emancipation.

To the new social studies experts, all capitalist and democratic forms of authority differ very little from dictatorships. President Thomas Jefferson does not differ much from Idi Amin. To the new way of thinking, authority exploits unless it is grounded in some "progressive" (read Marxist) line of thinking. Heroes don't exist because the new social studies shows that social movements matter, not individuals. If you did not have a George Washington to lead the Revolution, some other exploitative authority figure would have.

It's not American and it's blatantly wrong. Individuals can make a difference. They do matter. We need heroes now more than ever, men and women that stand larger than life and represent something real. The good side of this is that the heroes are still with us. We've been taught for so long to ignore or dilute heroism and not think of great individuals. The challenge to those that still believe in a heroic America is to find these men and women, lift them up, and give them the attention they deserve. Not for the sake of the heroes themselves. Real heroes usually do not like recognition. Do it for the sake of those looking for inspiration, who still believe an individual can make a difference doing the right thing instead of the wrong thing.

I'd like to thank President Eisenhower!

I recently completed a business trip to Nevada for the annual SEMA trade show. That is the largest trade show in the world and it just happens to be in the industry that I am in. Unlike most people that flew to the trade show, I chose to drive.

Yes you read that right. I drove from Keyser, WV to Las Vegas, NV. 2300 miles out in 35 hours, and 2300 miles back in 36 hours. We switch off drivers and drive non-stop. That would not have been possible just 40 years ago.

In 1919 a then Lt. Eisenhower was involved in a military experiment. A convoy left Washington, DC in route to San Fransisco, CA. It took over 2 months to drive across the nation. The roads were horrible. An excellent book American Road by Pete Davies chronicles the trip. I highly recommend reading it. Today you can drive that same trip in 48 hours by switching drivers.

In 1945 then General Eisenhower saw the Autobahns in Germany and how easily it was to move transport. The combination of those events in Eisenhower's life led to him signing the Defense Highways Act in 1956, which created the Interstate Highway System we enjoy today.

While we complain about the road construction, we have one of the best highway systems in the world. Sometimes we tend to take that for granted. During my trip of close to 5,000 miles I encountered very few problems. On they way back Interstate 44 through Oklahoma City was probably the worse piece of road. West Virginia actually had some of the best sections of Interstate.

It is easy to see that roads are essential to commerce when you drive the nations interstate system. At night across Kansas and Colorado on the way out, and across New Mexico, Texas, and Oklahoma the road became almost the exclusive domain of heavy trucks. While the travelers mostly stop at night, commerce keeps right on rolling.

The Interstate system lead to the huge growth in the US Economy since World War II, and for the most part that system is working well. In West Virginia we face a crisis in roads and we need to solve the problem. As we go deeper into the 21st Century we will need to look at new ways of funding our highway system. We need make sure the WVDOH is properly funded, but we must also make sure they are spending funds wisely.