The RNC Benghazi Attack Campaign Ad That Never Ran.

By Tim Newton This ad was one which the RNC created but never ran during the campaign.
Why did the RNC decide not to run this ad focused on Benghazi, which could have put further heat on a president who was nowhere to be found in the aftermath of a deadly terrorist attack on a Libyan mission?



The ad states:"It's 3am and your children are safe asleep but there's a phone in the white house that's ringing, something's happened in the world." It then says: “The Call Came … On September 12, 2012.”  After the screen goes black, the words continue: “Security Requests Denied. Four Americans Dead. And an Administration whose story is still changing. The Call Came.”

ABC News reported:”A source familiar with the creation of the ad says the RNC leadership approved the ad but it was scrapped at the last minute because of objections from the Romney campaign, which was concerned the ad would distract from Romney’s efforts to focus on the economy.”


Upcoming soon, one of our authors will cover the Benghazi story in depth, giving us some understanding of what happened, who's to blame and why it still matters now. But I leave you with one question: Should the RNC and Romney Campaign run this ad? Tell us what you think below.

Mitt Romney, CNN and Religious Fanaticism

Earlier yesterday I posted about civility in political discourse. On April 27th Mitt Romney, the former Governor of Massachusetts and former GOP Presidential Nominee spoke at a commencement for a small college in south western Virginia called Southern Virginia University. The University has 725 students enrolled, and a graduating class of 125 students. Afterward, CNN had this to say:



A few points I would like to make about the speech itself before I begin discussing CNN's commentary on the issue. While the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints(LDS Church) does not own SVU, the University is over 90% LDS presided over by a former general authority of the LDS church. His speech was centered around religious thought it is true, as he was speaking to a religious audience.  The portion of the speech that CNN used was quoting from a verse from Psalms 127:3-5: 

"Lo, children are an heritage of the Lord: and the fruit of the womb is his reward. As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth. Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them: they shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate."

What was Romney advocating? He was advocating for good people to get married and have kids, something he has experience in, and has found joy in. Later in his speech Romney also said “I don’t think God cares whether you get rich…life on this Earth is about learning to live and work in a place where God does not make everything work out for good people,” he said. “The best advice I know is to give those worldly things your best but never your all.”

To paraphrase his speech his message was that as graduates-men and women we need to launch out into the deep, and that by launching deep we are challenged greatly and have the possibility, if we persevere, to have extremely rewarding experiences. He stated that being a husband and a father have been the most challenging and rewarding parts of his life. That by facing these challenges we would grow like no other opportunity would allow us.

It is interesting that CNN was so quick to call this religious fanaticism. That encouraging getting married and having children is now considered to mean a person is a fanatic. Let's do a little symantic study into the idea of what the word fanatic means: "A person marked or motivated by an extreme, unreasoning enthusiasm, as for a cause." What they are implying is "this is extreme religious thought that Romney is advocating, and that this is why he lost the election." 

I do agree with them on one point though-this is the real Mitt Romney. Mitt Romney is a man that is dedicated to his family, supporting and loving his wife, his 5 sons and his many grandchildren. He spent many years as a lay clergyman serving others. His religion is part of who he is and he has never denied that. 

If I get this right; if I speak from my heart on matters of both home and religion in to a religious audience, that now labels me as a religious fanatic? Such extremism and absolutism seems to me a bit extreme myself.

My point is mostly this: I feel that there has been an unusually high bias against religious thought in popular culture and that any appeal to the bible or religious doctrine to support good policy is somehow "radical" or "fanatical" thought. Romney was not suggesting we get married at 16 or that we marry goats which would be extreme. He was talking to college graduates and those who would be finishing in the next few years and telling them that they should get married and have kids because that is what he did and that it has made his own life better.

On a personal note, my own marriage has been the best thing in my life and I haven't regretted it once. It has been challenging and has driven me to be better, and the rewards have been enormous for me. For most of the general population this is true. The benefits of marriage for the general public have been studied at length and are far reaching from health to wealth. 

Some of these benefits include:

1. Increasing Your Pay
A Virginia Commonwealth University study found that married men earn 22 percent more than their similarly experienced but single colleagues.

2. Speed Up Your Next Promotion
Married men receive higher performance ratings and faster promotions than bachelors, a 2005 study of U.S. Navy officers reported.

3. Keep You Out of Trouble
According to a recent U.S. Department of Justice report, male victims of violent crime are nearly four times more likely to be single than married. You may remember this as Mitt Romney mentioned that one way we could decrease crime is to have two parents and for men to marry.

4. Help You Beat Cancer
In a Norwegian study, divorced and never-married male cancer patients had 11 and 16 percent higher mortality rates, respectively, than their married counterparts.

5. Help You Live Longer
A UCLA study found that people were 88 percent more likely to die over the 8-year study period than if they were single.  To quote from the study:
"Virtually every study of mortality and marital status shows the unmarried of both sexes have higher death rates, whether by accident, disease, or self-inflicted wounds, and this is found in every country that maintains accurate health statistics.”

6. It is Likely to Help You Remain Sane and Happier 
Several studies have shown that men who are married have lower instance of mental health issues than the general public and generally remain happier throughout their life



Not all of popular media took the same view as CNN though, an article from the Atlantic said this about Romney's speech:
 "In this passage, Romney articulates the so-called "cornerstone" theory of marriage: that marriage is an institution worth building life on, not something to enter into once you're already established in life. This vision of marriage is countercultural at the moment, of course: As the National Marriage Project's "Knot Yet" report shows, people are getting married later and later, and more and more people are seeing marriage as a "capstone" to life's achievements rather than a foundation for those achievements (and inevitable disappointments)."
The article continues:

"More remarkable, in my view, is how he holds in tension two ideas that often drown each other out in discussions of marriage: that marriage is both 'tremendously challenging' and 'enormously rewarding.' As I've written about before, people today tend to have an unrealistically rosy view of marriage—that it'll be an endlessly fun, sex-filled slumber party—or an unnecessarily negative one—that the institution is so broken it's not worth entering into. Both of those perceptions of marriage are too extreme. Marriage is good, but hard. Marriage is hard, but good."

I am glad that one organization was willing to view what Romney had said and look for the positive in it rather than belittling and condescending the man. I am glad they analyzed it and adapted it to their own perspective, and then reported what they learned, rather than attack the man without considering what he was saying. 

To CNN and the other news outlets that had negative things to say about Romney I ask this: So if it is counterculture to tell men and women to get married is this really a bad thing? Mitt Romney was not glorifying marriage as the end-all be-all of life or this blissful happily ever after thing. He said that it is "tremendously challenging" and "enormously rewarding." He said that by doing so you would be stretching and learning and that you would find great rewards from doing so based upon his own familial and religious experience.

I find it a little disturbing CNN's coverage had no defense for Romney's speech, not one person stood up for his point of view, and said "hey this guy was really saying..." but instead they shrunk to hitting a man for his religious beliefs. This kind of incivility in the media is both shameful and saddening to me. I hope that in the future we can learn to disagree with a person's beliefs without shrinking to attacks on their person. 

To watch his full speech see the video below.

I Believe in America

Mitt Romney Believe in America

As many of you who know me well are aware, I am a bit of a history geek. This passion has led me to study intensively the history and founding of our nation. I believe deeply that it is important to remember that throughout our history, we as a people are responsible for the leaders we elect. The election we are now preparing for could possibly be the most important we have ever had, for it is a battle for the soul of America, or rather, it is a battle for what type of America we will have for us and future generations

I believe in our country, I believe in our proud heritage and I believe that America has the ability to continue to be a great nation. I believe we can be the best force for good in the world, and stand up for what is right and good. We can understand and believe that with the right leadership we can get headed in the right direction. To paraphrase Ronald Reagan, we can be the shining light on the hill to the rest of the world.

As we consider leaders, we often seek ones with experience, with leadership qualities we admire, and with a good ability to communicate. Today I will focus on experience though. When we think about the United States of America, it is a very large and complex body, comparable to a very large ship. It has many different moving parts, personnel that need leadership, and it needs direction and navigation both to move through the storms ahead, and to reach the destination we seek that of an America that is the beacon of hope to the world.

America deserves a captain that is familiar with the ship, its parts, its personnel, and has a clear view of the greatness that America can achieve. That is where Mitt Romney comes in. His experience in such various roles, from businessman to governor has prepared him to be a great leader in America. He has weathered storms as captain of the 2002 Olympics. He has an intricate knowledge of the economy, and a clear view of where we need to go in our future.

Our current president, on the other hand has come into this office with little to no real experience and America has suffered. It is not his fault the economy was suffering when he came into office, but it is time that we realize, under Obama things have not improved as they should have. Why? The reason is because we have had a captain that hasn’t known how, where and when to lead. He relies on his advisers to lead, which has led to some of them being out of control and unaccountable. He has attacked business owners and business in general. FDR once said “the business of America is business.” It seems to me that our current president’s opinion is that the business of America is to attack business.

Financially Obama has increased our debt more than any president, and he has done it in less than 4 years. What has it accomplished? Are we safer than we were four years ago? Is our economy better off than it
was four years ago? No. Having a captain who doesn’t know how to turn the ship around has led to Americans suffering to survive. Attacking crucial mechanizms through over regulation, burdensome tax standards, devaluing our currency, allowing other countries to bully us on economic policies, and leaving future generations with a load of debt that seems insurmountable, does not strengthen america.
In simple terms, we can’t afford to spend four more years on a president who doesn’t understand how the economy works, who doesn’t appreciate the entrepreneurial spirit, and who doesn’t seem to have a  clear view of where America should be heading.

We need a captain, a leader, someone who has been storm tested and has a definite view of the destination.
I believe in America,

do you?


Some reading I encourage
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/post/romneys-foreign-policy-the-opposite-of-obamas/2012/07/24/gJQAytNc6W_blog.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/charles-krauthammer-did-the-state-make-you-great/2012/07/19/gJQAbZOiwW_story.html?wpisrc=nl_opinions

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/charles-krauthammer-the-imperial-presidency-revisited/2012/07/05/gJQAR66PQW_story.html

The Battle for the Soul of America

As we begin to consider national elections this year we must begin by understanding ourselves and what we wish for our country. The majority of our country believes that we are not heading in the right direction. I believe that we must seek for wise leaders who have correct priorities in their actions as elected representatives. The question becomes what qualities should we look for to determine said wisdom?

Recently a friend of mine Kyle stated "If you really want to change the country for the better then fix the family and study the founders. And I don't even need to say study conservatism because once you study the founders then conservatism becomes the obvious choice. It is the perpetuation of everything the founders stood for - most importantly freedom and individual liberty." I believe that strong conservative values have been the foundation upon which our country has been built.

As a conservative at heart I do believe that conservative values that promote individual liberty and limited government are essential to a free society. Our country was founded on the belief that hard work, strong moral values, and faith in God were essential to our success and prosperity as a country. Through the last few years we have struggled in more than just economics. We have struggled for the soul of America. This struggle on whether we are going to stand by the same values we have held for many years or let them fall.
Holding true to our values is essential and we must not compromise our values. Our founders had varying opinions of what a free society needed in terms of government, especially the national government. What set them most apart, and what we remember them most for was their ability to compromise, and by so doing bringing to pass action, which in turn has brought to pass a prosperous country of over two hundred and thirty years. We have come to an age however that it seems that individual thought clouds the capability of many of our elected officials from being able of acting in the best interest of the country as a whole. While I do not blame either party individually I do blame both for playing to the extremes of their parties. However there does need to be compromise on the issues where we can come together.
What we most need are leaders who will unite us and lead us rather than divide us and follow others. We need leaders who understand how to inspire us to action and to be more than we are. We also need leaders who will lead us into the future.

I encourage you to consider these as you decide on who to vote for this year, I especially encourage you to research each candidate including and most importantly your local officials, and make a decision according to your conscience and vote.