There have been countless stories written about the liberal media bias. Which is funny when you consider that the media is calling itself out. Bernard Goldberg wrote a book, and then created a career pointing out how the network news departments slight conservatives and build up liberals. And smack dab in the middle of primary season there's a lot of news coverage! It actually has been ramping up since 2015. And as you can see 2015 had more campaign coverage on network news than any other year leading into an election save for the year Obama started running and the economic collapse began.
Now as expected the most liberal Senator in recent history according to his voting record, Obama dominated the news cycle and won a major victory over Hillary and cruised past the Republican McCain. Conservatives were hopping mad that our candidates can never get that kind of attention. But according to the December 7th edition of the Washington Post Trump received more news coverage than Sanders and Clinton combined.
But so far this year he is blowing away even that stat. In January Trump received more news coverage than all 10 GOP candidates combined and more than both Democratic candidates combined.
When the media complains about the way Trump treats them, remind them that they created the monster for ratings $$$. pic.twitter.com/3fJnMpXZ3E
So I have to ask is the media no longer biased towards liberals? I doubt it. What we see here is a dream candidate for liberals. Someone who if elected would strengthen or enact a lot of liberal policies. Trump is a fan of Planned Parenthood, the Obamacare individual mandate, and for taxing the rich. Trump is a liberals dream in that they love government control. Trump has made it clear that he will bypass Congress to do what he sees fit with ISIS, NAFTA, and Immigration as a whole. He will weaken the Constitution by continuing the trend of seizing power to do what the President wants. When the next President is elected they will take more power until one day a President decides he or she is too important to leave and just outlaws elections. So if this is what liberals want and Trump is offering to help, then I guess it's no surprise that for the first time in TV history a GOP candidate is getting more news coverage than the Dems.
You may be reading this and thinking 'Kelly is a bit late because Jeb quite the race'. I know that. I'm writing this on Sunday 2/21/16. Here's what Jeb and Trump have done to save politics. They have proven that money has very little effect on votes.
The narrative has been whoever raises the most money wins. That the donor class is buying themselves candidates which translates into a corrupt political system. Jeb Bush and his pac have raised 155,6 million. 2nd place is Ted Cruz with 89.9 million. That's not even close which traditionally meant this race was over. Now despite what Donald Trump says on the campaign trail he is raising money. He has raised 19.4 million. You can see a lot of his donors here who have donated 2500 or more. His website asks you to donate here as well. In reality the Trump campaign is skating on thin ice now as they have spent most of that money and are now down to 7 million left. But Donald has spent far less per vote than Jeb. According to a story today in the Washington Post, Trump has spent $64 per every vote he has received. Jeb spent $368 per vote. This shows that ads don't translate into votes. It's the message and the messenger.
Now I hear some yelling at their screen 'Nash you're an idiot! Trump is a candidate like no other so this data is flawed'. Of course that's true. But then how do you explain the candidate who has spent the 2nd most per vote...John Kasich. Kasich has received a little over 100,000 votes and spent $72 per vote. Kasich's message is simple. I'm a right of center guy who balances budgets, but believes government should do more for the poor. I'm very electable in a general election because I am the Governor of Ohio which is one of three swing states which usually decides who wins. The message and the messenger, who comes across as a very competent guy who is very sweet (he is famous for hugging people) is a winner for traditional conservatives.
The mood of the GOP is clearly not traditional this year. Since 2008 the conservative movement has become more frustrated. They want a fighter. They want someone to fix the mess that they perceive the country has been falling into since around 2005. Yes the mood of conservatives started souring during the 2nd term of George W Bush. In other words they have been in a bad mood for about 11 years and it started with a Republican. So it doesn't matter how much Bush or Kasich spends they can't win this year. And that's great news for those of you who are concerned about how much money is in politics.
Now if we can convince campaigns that they're wasting a lot of money with the amount of ads they run, mail they send, and calls they make we can all begin to enjoy the process more.
If you want my prediction on how the rest of the race will go, it's simple. The 3 candidates have drawn their bases already. Trump is the guy who will fight to blow up a broken system. Cruz is the guy who will never compromise to outside pressure or bend to the liberals. Rubio is the guy who can fix the system buy luring lawmakers back to the conservative agenda. All 3 are outsiders with the 2 Senators first going to DC in 2011 and 2012 as Tea Party candidates, who beat well established Republicans, and Trump having never served. Obviously the blow up the system crowd has a lead. But the stand firm to liberals and the lure the liberals crowd are pretty popular as well. I predict that there's no possible way to know who will win at this point, because so much can change. But I do know it won't be Kasich or even Carson.
Carson is on that top tier of fund raising having raised over 66 million. And he has a message that probably would have worked this year. However his energy is too low for people to see him as a fighter which is required from this cycle of GOP candidates. And we know that because Carson has outspent most candidates. You didn't know that did you? Cruz and Rubio combined have spent 50 million. (28 for Cruz, 22 for Rubio) Carson has blown through 47 million himself! And yet no votes. Carson has by far the worst ration of dollars per vote at $795/1. With a general election winner receiving around 60 million votes the Carson campaign would have to spend 47 billion! Not only is that impossible (that far surpasses the amount of money the TV and radio and internet ad business brings in during a year) it still wouldn't move the needle much. Because it's what advertisers have known for years. If your product isn't something the public wants you can only fool them with marketing till they try it. Once people have seen Carson and Kasich for themselves the interest the ad's created blows away. And no amount of money can bring it back.
I have been fortunate that through my job, I have met most of the candidates and had an opportunity to discuss issues with them. But even if had I not, we can all listen to their speeches. We can all see how they interact with the public. We can look up their voting records or if they don't have a record listen to how they say they would vote. I have thought about it for many months and decided that Marco Rubio, is in my opinion, the best person for the job.
Since announcing that I have been blown up on Facebook, Twitter, e-mail, voice mail and I'm expecting quite soon carrier pigeon, by other candidates supporters asking me to defend my decision. I will attempt to address all of the criticism and concerns people have expressed about Marco without disparaging any of the competition.
For those of you who think Marco is a puppet of the GOP please look at his voting record and how many times he went against leadership, or at the very least his conservative ranking from the Heritage Foundation which lists him as the 4th most conservative member of the Senate. Cruz supporters point out that Ted was ranked #1, and that’s wonderful. My point is Marco is very conservative and far from a puppet.
Detractors of Marco point to the “amnesty gang of 8” bill. Let’s not distort what that proposal was. It was not amnesty. It was a proposed solution that would help the US deport illegal’s who committed further crimes, while imposing fines on those who had broken our laws by crossing our border. We have had amnesty for many years, because we have allowed the problem to grow so large that millions of them pay no punishment at all for their crime! This cannot continue! Marco has learned a lesson from this gang of 8 stuff, and that is that the border must be secured and the American people must have proof that it’s secure, before the 2nd part of their plan can be even considered. As most conservatives hold Ronald Reagan to be the standard by which their future leaders should be held, we remember that Reagan was burned when he signed into law genuine amnesty for 3 million illegal’s before the border was secure. Thankfully Marco has learned that lesson before becoming President.
So why not go with Cruz who is ranked as the most conservative? Because a President must have the ability to win people over to their way of thinking. Ted Cruz is an outstanding lawyer when arguing facts about law. But we’re not arguing law. We’re persuading Congress to write new bills that can become laws. That takes someone with a different skill set. Congress writes the laws (lawmakers), the President enforces those laws (protect and defend the constitution) and the Supreme Court interprets the law.
Marco Rubio is a devoted follower of Jesus Christ. A man who knows and loves our Constitution and understands as Judge Scalia did that it’s not a living document open to further interpretation. When the 10th amendment says: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people, it means what it says. State governments have had their power eroded by the federal government and any future Supreme Court justices need to acknowledge that before nomination.
We need not only a strong leader, but a leader whom the people will love. Reagan was loved for his wit. He had a gentleness about him that didn’t intimidate anyone… other than our enemies. Marco has that same spirit. Our enemies will fear us, and our allies will never be embarrassed by our leaders’ words or actions. I want our leader to be that type of person, and I want our nation to be strong and that’s why I endorse Marco Rubio and pray that God will bless us with Marco as the next President of the United States of America!
I recently had a Bernie Sanders supporter ask me why I was against investing in our countries future by providing free college for all Americans. Their logic was a portion of society can't afford college so as a nation we miss out on their gifts. For others they are saddled with so much debt that their college loans become their biggest monthly payment, which surely affects our economy in a negative way.
Free college would hurt the education system similar to how free K-12 has hurt the education system. Now before you start screaming at your computer screen, there have certainly been some benefits to public education being run by the government. But there is no one, and I mean even the staunchest of public education supporters, who would claim free school works as well as paid for private school. Granted one of the reasons private schools are able to offer a better educational experience is because their students come from homes of enough means to pay for it. Meaning they don't have to work with kids who are malnourished or neglected. Also they have a lower teacher to student ratio. They also have better facilities in most cases.
However the reason paid-for private school has better results is also because the parent is paying for a product. And if that product is substandard they will no longer pay for it. That's competition. But no where near enough competition to drive down prices. We'll get to that in a minute. The vast majority of American children receive an education that isn't as good as children in other parts of the world. We know that, because children around the world take the same tests, and ours do worse. Private school is an expensive escape for parents who can afford it. It's expensive because of a lack of competition. Competition drives down costs while improving the product or service. The government acknowledges this because they have anti monopoly laws. US Steel, Standard Oil, AT&T and others have been broken up by the feds because the companies were so big that they were able to squash potential competition which hurt consumers. Free school isn't technically a monopoly, but because it takes most of the potential consumers out of the market, it allows private schools to charge far more than if everyone was in play.
If college became free, the quality of the education would drop significantly. This is not in doubt even among the people pushing for it. To argue otherwise is simply a fairy tale. Some Americans believed that fairy tale with regards to the Affordable Care Act. That somehow we could add millions of people into a system without adding doctors and the quality would stay the same or improve. As for why we can't add more Doctors that answer was provided years ago. As you can see in this 2011 survey of Doctors. Once they saw the details of what the Affordable Care Act meant to them only 26% of Doctors said they would continue to operate as they had before. The majority were opting for early retirement, or cutting back on patients and hours. Still others opted out of the system entirely like my Doctor at Irmo Primary Care.
So the business model for Irmo Primary Care, and hundreds of others who want to provide the type of service they were able to provide before Obamacare, is to no longer accept insurance. Now patients who want that level of care are forced to pay more for a service outside of the government control. Before tax payers covered public education, local communities covered it. The results were a better service at a lower cost. The teachers were paid more, the facilities were better, and the kids learned more. However only the wealthy and upper middle class kids were receiving an education. The trade off was made by voters to get all the kids into the system.
Because government is a filter for money your tax dollars first go to local and federal coffers and then after bureaucracy takes what it wants, it filters the rest back to the schools. In addition to wasting so much of our tax dollars on bureaucracy the lack of competition builds complacency. One way to inject some competition would be the school choice voucher system. So parents could remove their student and bring them to a better performing school. Of course unions have squashed that idea for decades, and so they continue their downward slide. If you were to "make college free" it would then come under the same system that has given us the current mess we have. Curriculum would be brought down. Because it wouldn't be fair for say Clemson to have the best engineering program and USC to have the best business program for the students who can't attend. So the program would become more uniform so the students at not only College of Charleston but say Fresno State to have access to the same education. Forgetting that the reason the engineering program at Clemson excelled was because they have attracted the best engineering students year after year so the educators can further and further in their development. Now we have to make sure the kids who aren't as gifted can keep up in a free federal world. The only way to do that is to lower the standards at the better performing schools.
There would be some schools who try to break free from the system like Irmo Primary Care has broken free from the health care system. But much like the private schools in the K-12 category there wouldn't be enough students to drive down prices. So a good education would cost more. Meaning fewer American's would get one. Meaning the dumbing down of our work force. Meaning the weakening of our country. That is why free college is bad for all of us.
If you want to improve the education system get the federal and even state government out of it. Let the citizens of each community decide how much they want to tax themselves and what kind of system they want their future leaders to go through. To set a safety next there should be some sort of minimum standard required. Does that mean that rich kids are going to have a better education? Yup. Is that fair? Nope. But lowering everyones standards to the bottom so no one can get ahead is exactly what socialism does. Capitalism is about incentives to push individuals further. Parents work longer and harder to get into better school districts, or start at home schools. Those kids then can have a better life than their folks and we all benefit from having better educated people. Communities rally around their schools now. It will be even more so when they have direct control over it. School pride will swell. All of those things are next to impossible when the federal government controls your local school.
The great economist Milton Friedman had a special on education years ago that you might enjoy.
Cam Newton recently was asked why he believes he is so divisive. He answered "I’m an African-American quarterback that may scare a lot of people because they haven’t seen nothing they can compare me to", That may have been true for Doug Williams who was the 17th pick of the 1978 NFL draft. He was 6'4" 225 lbs and black. The prototype for a running QB in the 1970's were Fran Tarkenton at 6' 190 lbs and Roger Staubach 6'3" 195 lbs, Doug Williams was a lot bigger and stronger than others at that position. Plus he was the only black QB in the league. He was paid $120,000 a year which was lower than 12 backups in the NFL were paid that year. Doug broke the mold, and went on to become the Super Bowl MVP in 1988. Since then we've had some amazing black QB's like Warren Moon, Steve McNair, Michael Vick, Randall Cunningham, Donovan McNabb etc. When confronted with this truth by ESPN Cam replied; "I said that I’m not a person that can necessarily be labeled because when I was coming out, I was labeled to guys that no longer are in this league. I didn’t mean it to come off as a race thing; I didn’t mean it to come off as anybody that’s being brash or flamboyant about a specific question. I was saying facts. I am hoping to be a trail blazer to give an avenue not only for African-American quarterbacks, but athletic quarterbacks as well.” Cam found something that had some truth in it, that allows his believers can than call the rest of us racist if we thought his original comment had to do with race. Now let's look at Trump.
Yesterday Trump said: "We’ve got to do something. You can’t have a — a small percentage of our economy, because they’re down and out, have absolutely no protection so they end up dying from, you know, what you could have a simple procedure or even a pill. You can’t do that. We’ll work something out". For months he had been saying "Obamacare is a total disaster and I'm going to repeal the entire thing". That get's him huge support from conservatives. But liberals have been hammering him with the "what are you going to do for the people who can't afford insurance" question. So now he's giving them this shred of truth. Because we've never allowed people to die who needed a simple procedure or a pill. Today conservatives are hammering him on his socialized medicine plan, so he's saying "I'm not talking about single payer. But look if this means I'm going to lose an election because I want to blow up Obamacare and replace it with something better, then that's fine. Because unlike all of these other guys I'm out here telling you the truth, and I've got the guts to stand up to them and fix it". Complete crap. But again if you like him it gives you something to point to.
Trump and Newton are both incredible talents in their chosen fields. Everyone agrees on that point. Cam is the MVP of the NFL and Trump has become one of the wealthiest and most famous men in the world. But being incredible doesn't make you likeable. To be good you need confidence. You have to believe you can win. But you don't have to gloat and boast about it. You don't have to call people competing with you ugly names. You don't have to do over the top gestures to show you have succeeded in gaining a first down.
When the Cam Newton quote about people not liking him because he's black went viral last week I tweeted to him
And if one of the greatest QB's ever was still alive perhaps Johnny Unitas would have tweeted his famous quote; "There is a difference between conceit and confidence. Conceit is bragging about yourself. Confidence means you believe you can get the job done". It really comes down to class. Trump goes on and on about how rich he is, and yet there are lots of people in his own city who have made far more than him. Are they smarter? Maybe but they don't talk about it. Cam says there's nothing we can compare him to in the league right now. But we've seen his game before and we will see it again. It's special for a few years and then it will be forgotten. The greatest athletes of 1916 are all forgotten except for history books that no one reads. In 2116 no one will be talking about Cam Newton or anyone else from today. So seeing that the only people who will remember you, are the ones you're going through life with, you should take care to leave them with a good impression.
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