"It's deja vu all over again!" (Yogi Berra)

I'm beginning to have flashbacks to the 2008 Presidential campaign and I'm worried that this is a nightmare, and when I wake up on Election Day morning, I'll again be stuck with one of those "lesser of two evils" type of choices yet again.

In that campaign, pundits of both ideological stripes, as well as Republican Party establishment gurus warned us with their allegedly sage intuition that the GOP must settle for a "centrist," "middle of the road," "moderate" candidate to win both independent as well as Republican voters. Good morning, America! So....how did that little pearl of wisdom work out for you?

Worse than the semi-flip-flopping, foot-in-each-camp, John McCain, now it looks like (and I hope I'm wrong), we may be stuck with the incessantly flip-flopping, left-leaning (at least as far as anyone can truly tell), uptight, plastic, elitist, Ken-doll look-alike, Mitt Romney, with his paste-on smile, and abysmal, fumbling attempts at humor, awkwardly ambiguous references to his preferred height of trees, and perpetual lobbying to convince us that he is a regular guy. This is the same stiff, corporate, cover-your-butt buffoon, who in a 2008 Presidential debate when asked what he would do if America was being attacked said he would consult his lawyers while Ron Paul trumped him and brought the house down with raucous laughter and applause by saying he would simply "consult the Constitution." I would just be impressed if Romney could just make one definitive issue statement and actually stick to it for more than an a hour without taking a poll.

And the opponent is the same, Barack Obama, the most socialist thinking President and greatest danger to our Constitution and liberties since Woodrow Wilson. (With a couple of rest stops along the way at Jimmy Carter, Lyndon Johnson, and FDR!)

Different year, same mantra. The alleged "conventional wisdom," as we are told, is that "Flip" Romney, who has referred to himself in the past as a "moderate with progressive views" and formerly promised not to take us back to the "Reagan-Bush" years, and now is feebly trying to promote himself as a conservative, has the ability to capture the far right wing as well as the center of the electorate. I'll just be happy to see where the dart lands next on the ideological dartboard of this now alleged and self-promoted "conservative," who once claimed to be further to the left on gay issues than Ted Kennedy. (Gee, and I always thought the wall was there!)

That's my problem. First of all, did we ever hear anyone from the left warn us that Obama was too far left and could not capture both the left and the center? And then, just the other day, we have former First Lady Barbara Bush shooting off at the mouth, whining that no one in the GOP is now capable of compromise! Gee, does she mean like her "Republican In Name Only" ("RINO") husband? Hey Babs, "Read my lips...."

As unabashedly far right as I am, even I have to admit that I still have more respect for a far left Democrat who knows what he believes and who he is than a liberal Republican who either is so bereft of core values that he is unable to formulate an opinion, or is such a political whore that he keeps a foot in each camp to placate the ever dumbed down, mouth breathing electorate, who would be hard pressed to name their elected representatives, but can quote you chapter and verse of the stats of the entire bench of their favorite baseball team, or who got knocked off on the inane reality show du' jour on the boob tube the night before. And yes, these are the same morons who voted in this smooth-talking, inexperienced activist clown from the corrupt and incestuous Chicago Democrat political machine, right after wiping the drool off their chins because they still think "Constitution" means a lack of success on the commode!

The polls even show that many voters are favoring Romney (even if while holding their noses) because they believe he can beat Obama. Well, now there's a vote of confidence! With that kind of deep thinking, why did Castro have to lead a coup against Batista?

I am also not ruling out the strategic thinking of these voters, assuming they still realize that newspapers are for something else besides fireplaces, litter boxes, bird cages and fish wrap, and that the Internet can actually provide resources besides video games and pornography. Romney, of the four GOP candidates, has the best funded and best organized campaign right now. He should. He's been running for this office for six years now, and maybe even longer. So in terms of both money and name recognition, he now has a leg up, even if the attached foot is wearing a flip-flop.

The establishment GOP for far too long has treated the conservative faction as red-haired step children. Come Election Day, they desperately want us, but the rest of the time, they ridicule us while their pointy little noses are maintained in the same northerly direction as their pinky fingers while supping from their martini glasses. Being principled does not necessarily mean being "opinionated," any more than being "reasonable" (in their vernacular) always must always mean having no core values other than only serving one's self interests, and the country be damned.

I have personally known disgruntled "moderate" Republicans in politics who have picked up their bats and balls and gone home, and backed a Democrat candidate over a conservative Republican or even independent conservative. I've lived among and worked with these "Republic-crat" frauds in my home state of Connecticut. When push comes to shove, they inevitably lean left, while fiercely bristling at their alleged Republican credentials. Yeah, right. And the Emperor is wearing new clothes. In 2009, we saw the same scenario in New York's 23rd District Congressional race, when liberal Republican, Dede Scozzafava dropped out and endorsed Democrat Bill Owens, rather than endorse Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman. Undoubtedly to Scozzafava's delight, Owens won, but to New York Republicans, both conservative and otherwise, "Scozza" certainly did them no "favas." Unlike more national Republicans, who are both fiscally and socially conservative, for the alleged "moderate" Republicans, the bottom line is simply money, power, and greed.

George W. Bush proved to be less than conservative everyone thought, and more of a big government, big spending liberal, but he still won in two terms and against two far left liberals, as did Ronald Reagan. What is the Republican establishment afraid of? (Besides everything!) The party of the feckless needs to man up. So what if our final candidates in an election are a far left wing Democrat and a far right wing Republican? Given that premise, if even at surface level, we've won four times already. For that matter, how does a conservative Republican like Bret Shundler get himself elected Mayor to an ultra-liberal city like Jersey City, New Jersey from 1992-2001, when that city last elected a Republican Mayor in 1917? America's predominant ideology is supposedly center-right, and when explained rationally, in context, clearly, and fully, our conservative principles and issues make sense, and they work.

Republicans of the country's two fringes (geographically, as well as politically), the liberal northeast and the west ("left") coast, cannot be trusted, period. There are far more Scozzfavas out there than we realize, who, I believe, sub-consciously, if not deceitfully, are more Democrat than Republican, and want Democrats to win. They are political chameleons, canards, who are little more than "frugal Democrats," and in some cases, not even too frugal. Many of these two-faced hypocrites claim to be fiscally conservative at least, even if they are social liberals, and in many cases, they can't be trusted in either circumstances when the time counts. They are their own self-made gods, and such is where their true allegiance can be found. If the pinnacle of their conservatism is about fiscal matters, then why do they so detest and separate themselves from the Tea Party folks, who are simply garden variety Americans with a concise three-plank-platform of less taxation, smaller government and elimination of wasteful spending? On the federal level, many so-called "moderate" Republicans cozy up to one-world order organizations like the Council On Foreign Relations, the Trilateral Commission, the Bilderbergs, etc...They ridicule true conservatives because like the Communists before them, they try to silence dissension first with insults and to give the impression that they are the so-called "main stream." To paraphrase Hitler's propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels, a lie told often enough eventually becomes truth.

Given the prospect of voting for a far left or far right candidate, independents have four choices:

1.) The far left candidate

2.) The far right candidate

3.) Voting for a third party or write in candidate (Good luck with that strategy!)

4.) Declining to vote

Some of these voters may walk away, but others will vote for somebody, and predictably some votes will go to both of the two major candidates. So where do these Republican elitists dream up this tripe? They keep dredging up Richard Nixon, another quintessential politico, who advocated veering right in the primary, and back to the middle in the general election. Like I said before, "whore." Freud once said that sometimes, a cigar is just a cigar, and likewise, sometimes, a whore is simply a whore. Too many of these political hacks are whores. We have too many politicians, from both parties, and not enough statesmen, and a clueless, apathetic, moronic faction within our electorate that frankly deserves what it gets. (The problem is that the rest of us get dragged along kicking and screaming !) It's a simple theory really: crap in, crap out. The only unresolved issue is whether the chicken came first or the egg. (Or is it just both?)

While I would favor a conservative candidate, that's not to say I am advocating that "moderates," should never be candidates for either party. I am just sick of being dictated to by self-aggrandizing bluster bags with the pabulum that only centrists are capable of capturing the majority vote. Both parties have now proven that such is not the case, but only the ever compromising, apologizing, bowing, cow-towing coreless, cowardly, two-faced, Republicans haven't gotten the memo yet. Wake up, folks! In political parties, the only thing you typically find in "the middle of the road" are long, yellow streaks, and dead skunks. And if you continue to follow that "middle of the road" long enough, it just might even lead you to a surprise gift - in the form of a Trojan Horse.

Unless of course, that's what you really want anyway (wink, wink, nod, nod...).

Doug Wrenn