A MAN FOR OUR SEASON by Tim Siggia

A MAN FOR OUR SEASON

By Tim Siggia

June 14, 2007

With the next presidential election still a year and a half away, it now seems that most candidates on both sides of the aisle either officially or unofficially have made their intentions known. On the Democratic side, Her Royal Most Imperial Majesty's announcement came as a surprise to absolutely no one, despite her repeated previous denials of presidential ambitions. Illinois senator Barack Obama seemed to spring up from out of nowhere. One day he was the guy from Chicago Ted Kennedy was mistaking for Osama bin Laden, and the following day he was being hailed by Democrats, Hollywood and the "mainstream" news media as the Next President of the United States. If I'm not mistaken, Shakespeare wrote a play about him entitled, "Much Ado About Nothing." Then there was John Edwards, Bill Richardson, and a host of others including, of course, Connecticut's own Chris Dodd, who has already pronounced his all-but-futile run for president to be his swan song from politics.

On the Republican side we have the Big Three: former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, and Arizona senator John McCain, followed by a succession including the likes of Sam Brownback, Mike Huckabee, and so on. Besides their party affiliation, the Republicans all have one thing in common. They all claim to be conservative. This should come as no surprise, since, despite the ever-annoying presence of RINOs (Republicans in Name Only) in our party, the party's base is still conservative. The strategy here is oddly not unlike that of the Democrats: play to the party's base for the primaries, then shift to the center for the national election. In the case of Republicans this means, of course, a shift to the left.

Despite all the conservative talk Republicans are hearing from the various candidates, few are being taken in by it. Though what the candidates are saying is what conservatives want to hear, the truth is borne out in the records. We have a candidate whose record as a crime fighter is indeed laudable, but who also quickly reveals himself to be a typical Northeastern liberal on social issues. We have another candidate who, while having done an admirable job in bringing taxes and spending into line in his home state, has also flip-flopped on his ideology. Has he truly had a political epiphany, or is this just plain old political opportunism? And are we the people really willing to take that risk? Another candidate is a Navy retiree and a former prisoner of war who knows the military inside and out. He is also, with regard to the opposite party, the personification of "go along to get along," most notoriously in having been the co-author of the unconstitutional bill for campaign finance reform that our president unwisely signed into law.

From among a cast of lip-service conservatives-of-convenience, there is, surprisingly, one candidate who not only talks the talk but has walked the walk, and continues to do so even now. He is not only an announced candidate for president, but was one of the very first to announce his candidacy. Despite an obvious handicap of low name recognition, he has served his San Diego district as U. S. representative since 1981, and has a lifetime rating of 92 from the American Conservative Union. The liberal Americans for Democratic Action, on the other hand, gave him a rating of 5 for the year 2005. He is a Vietnam veteran, having served with the 173rd Airborne Division and the 75th Army Rangers. He is an ardent defender of the right to life, a strong proponent of national security and defense, and a staunch foe of amnesty for illegal aliens.

His name is Duncan Hunter, and he is my personal choice to be the next president of the United States.

Admittedly, Duncan Hunter's name does not carry the same instant recognition as that of McCain, Giiuliani or Romney, and right now his chances of being nominated, let alone elected, are roughly about equal to those of Christopher Dodd. But when it comes to traditional Republican conservative issues, no other candidate even comes close. He is a strong supporter of missile defense, and of Israel. He was responsible for building a fence along the U. S.-Mexican border in San Diego that cut smuggling of drugs and illegal aliens into the United States by 90 percent, and is currently continuing the fight to build a fence along the entire border whose construction was in fact approved by the Congress and signed by the president. He was the co-sponsor of a bill in Congress that would require a two-thirds majority vote to raise taxes. He opposes the McCain-Kennedy amnesty bill for illegal aliens. He is a strong proponent of fair trade, and would fix some of the bad trade deals made by previous administrations in order to keep high-paying jobs in America. He has a 100-percent Pro-Life rating from National Right to Life. He believes marriage to be a sacred contract between a man and a woman -- he and his wife, Lynne, have been married more than 33 years -- and supports a Constitutional amendment to protect marriage. He is a strong defender of the Second Amendment and has an A-plus rating from the National Rifle Association. He also supports school choice.

The only issue on which I personally disagree with Mr. Hunter is on the subject of federal tax. Hunter is a co-sponsor of the Fair Tax, which would abolish the I. R. S. and the federal income tax, and replace both with a national sales tax. My disagreement comes from a belief that such a policy would hurt us economically in the long run, with the simple fact being that when the prices of goods and services are raised, as the would necessarily be under this program, people naturally tend to buy less. I have long advocated the Flat Tax, which would also abolish the I. R. S., but would keep the income tax at one percentage for all, after the Steve Forbes model. This, however, is a small disagreement, since neither the Flat Tax nor the Fair Tax stand any chance of being enacted.

The web site for Duncan Hunter is www.gohunter08.com, and I strongly urge all who are serious about putting a true conservative into the White House to visit it.