How Conservatives Can Defeat Liberalism

Two weeks after the election, conservatives are still asking why Mitt Romney lost. That, however, is the wrong first question argues Charles R. Kesler in his new book "I am the Change: Barack Obama and the Crisis of Liberalism." We cannot fully understand Romney's defeat, implies Kelser, until we first understand why conservatives have lost the majority of policy battles over the past 100 years. Despite having won their share of Presidential elections, conservatives have not slowed the advance of the welfare state.

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Regime Change in Iran the Real Answer

The final debate between President Obama and Gov. Romney won't likely change the course of the election with barely more than a week to go, but one sticking point in the debate -- U.S. policy toward Iran -- could well change hopes for peace in the world.

Although the president touted economic sanctions against Iran as the best way to stop the rogue nation from its quest for nuclear weapons, he has, from the onset of his 2008 campaign, put great faith in his own power to negotiate a solution with the mullahs. In 2008, he famously said that he would sit down with the likes of Fidel Castro, Kim Jong Il and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Of course, the talks never happened -- but not because President Obama wasn't willing. Castro is incapacitated, Kim is dead, and the mullahs who actually control Iran weren't interested. As a result, Iran is four years closer to nuclear weapons.

Now the president would like us to believe that economic sanctions will force Iran to back off its nuclear ambitions. The international sanctions are certainly a step in the right direction, but the Obama administration dragged its feet on tougher sanctions. Only when bipartisan support emerged in the Senate and House did it change its tune.

But sanctions -- or a military strike -- are not necessarily the only ways to stop Iran from developing nuclear bombs. Regime change should be the ultimate goal of U.S. policy, but the president seems reluctant to embrace this option.

In 2008, candidate Obama said this of his approach to Iran: "I think it is important for us to send a signal that we are not hellbent on regime change, just for the sake of regime change, but expect changes in behavior. And there are both carrots and there are sticks available to them for those changes in behavior."

Unlike many of his promises, President Obama kept this one. In 2009, when the people of Iran took to the streets to oppose massive election fraud by their murderous regime, President Obama largely kept quiet.

Again, however, what he did say was telling. "My understanding is ... that the Iranian government says that they are going to look into irregularities that have taken place. We weren't on the ground, we did not have observers there, we did not have international observers on hand, so I can't state definitively one way or another what happened with respect to the election."

It was humiliating to watch brave Iranians holding up signs in English begging America to stand with them only to have the president act as if there were two sides to this story and that he wanted to give the mullahs a chance to explain.

On Oct. 3, tens of thousands of Iranians again took to the streets to protest their government. The Iranian regime has blamed the demonstrations on the MEK, a group the Secretary of State belatedly took off the U.S. terrorist list in September after a U.S. court decision directed the state department either to show evidence that the group was a threat to American interests or delist it. But the state department continues to be hostile to the MEK and its umbrella group, the National Council of Resistance of Iran.

The demonstrations in Tehran began in response to the precipitous collapse of the Iranian economy, largely the result of international sanctions and the diversion of resources by the regime to military purposes, including direct support for the Syrian government, Hezbollah, Hamas and other terrorists. But, according to eyewitness and news accounts, chants in the streets included direct calls for regime change, as well as opposition to the mullahs' nuclear program.

It is time the U.S. made clear our goal in Iran is regime change. We should be doing all that we can to support those who want democracy, separation of church and state, gender equality, guaranteed rights of ethnic and religious minorities and a nuclear-free Iran -- the stated platform of the NCRI. Instead of joining the Iranian regime in continuing to demonize the MEK and the NCRI, our government should be encouraging Iranian dissidents, both in Iran and in exile. Without regime change in Iran, there will be no peace in the region.

The Election and Racial Preferences

Let’s start with some good news:  On Election Day, Oklahoma passed a ballot initiative banning preferences and discrimination on the basis of race, ethnicity, and sex in state and local government contracting, employment, and education (including public universities) — a.k.a. affirmative action — by an overwhelming margin, 59 to 41 percent. It joins California, Washington, Michigan, Nebraska, and Arizona — the other states that have passed these measures.

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Misleading on Libya

President Obama gave a vigorous defense during this week's presidential debate of his handling of the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya -- but his answer could come back to haunt him. The natural instinct of most Americans is to rally round the president when they feel the country is under attack. But if they believe that the president has tried to mislead them, that support will dissipate quickly. Monday night's presidential debate could be that turning point.

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GOP Folly

There may be no single, simple explanation why Mitt Romney lost the election this week -- but clearly the perception that the GOP is anti-Hispanic didn't help. For years, I've been warning my fellow conservatives that their position on immigration would be costly, not just politically but for the economy as well.

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Racial Preferences for the Privileged

The Supreme Court this week took up a case that just might put an end to race-based college admissions. The justices heard arguments Wednesday involving an affirmative action program, at the University of Texas, whose whole purpose seems to be to give special preference to black and Hispanic applicants who come from middle-income and affluent homes.

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Why Mitt Romney Will Win

A few weeks ago, I wouldn't have made this prediction, but with only days to go before the election, I'm confident Mitt Romney will be the next president of the United States. My conviction has as much to do with my faith in the American people as it does my belief in Gov. Romney.

Don't get me wrong, I think Gov. Romney is exactly what we need to get the economy out of the mess it's in and will make a very good president. But what I'm really counting on Election Day is the common sense of Americans to recognize they made a bad bargain in 2008.

Barack Obama promised Hope and Change in 2008. Now he wants us to look Forward in 2012, which is just another way of saying 'don't look back on what I've accomplished -- or failed to -- in my first term.'

The two big accomplishments the president can point to over the last four years are a wholesale revision of the U.S. health system and the killing of Osama bin Laden. The first is highly unpopular with the American people, for good reason. It will degrade the overall quality of healthcare and make it more expensive for those who currently have coverage.

And his attempts to take credit for the second accomplishment have been more than a bit unseemly. From his first announcement of bin Laden's killing to his use of the issue on the campaign trail, he's always given himself the lion's share of the credit instead of the brave Navy Seals who risked their lives on the ground. He mentioned himself and his direct involvement five times in 11 lines of his address announcing the killing before he got to a single mention of the Seals' action.

And it's been more of the same self-serving rhetoric on campaign stops.

But it's what President Obama hasn't accomplished in the last four years that will make the difference Nov. 6. Despite nearly a trillion dollar federal stimulus package, he's done nothing to bring back jobs to the U.S. economy. With at least one in twelve workers unemployed -- and a greater proportion if you count those who have had to accept part-time jobs at much lower pay -- virtually every voter is either personally affected or knows someone who is. They've given this president almost four years to fix it, and he hasn't.

It's true the president doesn't control the U.S. economy. But any administration and Congress can play a significant role in either depressing economic growth or encouraging it. And the president has done the first, not the latter.

He's made businesses wary of hiring new workers by imposing a costly new healthcare program on employers. He's increased red tape and threatened to raise taxes on small businesses that several analysts say will result in a loss of about 700,000 jobs. And he's denigrated the role of individuals in building their own businesses and promised to punish the most successful among them.

Most importantly, the president has run a campaign devoid of ideas except clever ways to attack his opponent. His operatives -- official and otherwise -- have consistently demonized Mitt Romney as heartless, greedy, and mean. It's wrong when fringe conservatives continue to raise questions about President Obama's birthplace -- but it's even worse when Democratic lawmakers and pro-Obama ads accuse Gov. Romney of causing a woman' death and cheating on his taxes.

As someone who lives in one battleground state and spends significant time in another, I've watched the campaign ad blitz for months. And while both campaigns have spent most of their time and money on negative ads, there's a marked difference in the substance: The Romney ads have attacked the president's record; the Obama ads have attacked the governor's character -- even his basic humanity.

But once most voters got their first real look at Gov. Romney, the Obama message simply didn't jibe with what they saw and heard, which is why the polls started trending toward Romney. The president's record, however, remains as abysmal today as it has over his entire term.

It may have taken voters awhile to figure this out -- they like the president personally and wanted to give him a chance to prove he deserved re-election. But he hasn't given a single, convincing reason why he should be, which is why I believe Americans will vote for genuine change Nov. 6.

Trading Places

Who was that stiff, out-of-touch guy onstage in Denver at this week's presidential debate? He looked a lot like Barack Obama -- but how could that be?

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