Elephants and Donkeys

In what has become Divided States of America, Republicans and Democrats are on opposite sides of issues that directly affect voters and are at odds with each other on who are best to carry out voter empathy. Each has a sound bite that they believe will resonate with the public. The Republicans have, "Vote like your life depends on it. Because it does." This is in reference to an advertisement touting the apparent weakness in the Democratic Party by not allowing National Security Agency Wiretaps without warrants. The Democrats counter with their own sound bite: "Iraq is a failed policy." Democrats hope this phrase reverberates through the mid-term elections, sweeping them into a majority, thus allowing them and not the Republicans to set the legislative agenda for the next two years.

Democrats may be the recipients of voter backlash this fall. Most scientific polls; Zogby; ABC News/Wall Street Journal; CNN/Time Magazine and other leading market researchers have indicated that the Democrats will win a majority in the House of Representatives and may even take over the Senate. Democrats though, have consistently been on the wrong side of National Security the past fifteen years. Somalia and World Trade Center in 1993; Failed attempt to assassinate Usama Bin Laden in 1996 and 1997; Former President Jimmy Carter sent to negotiate with North Korea over the nuclear weapons program in the mid 1990's; Bombing of Kohbar Towers in Saudi Arabia in 1996; Bombing of the United States Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 and the homicide bombing of the U.S.S. Cole in Yemen.

With the exception of the arrest of Sheik Kalid Mohammed for the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, no other individual has been brought to justice and North Korea has tested a Nuclear weapon. Former President Clinton ordered a Sudanese pharmaceutical factory attacked in an apparent retaliation for the bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, only to find out later that is was only a medical factory and nothing to do with bomb making. Democrats have demonstrated over the years that National Security is not what they are known for and appeasement is a failed policy.

Republicans, in contrast, have distinguished their party as 'Hawks'. Saber rattling and the new Bush Doctrine of Cowboy Diplomacy-A doctrine of preemption-has the United States on the offensive in the twenty-first century. Attacking terrorist where they breed and not waiting for Islamic-Fascist to kill Americans within our borders has proven successful through 2006. With the passage of the Patriot Act has increased the government's domestic powers in law enforcement and infuriating card-carrying ACLU liberals who see themselves as protectors of the Bill of Rights. Republicans have scored legislative victories with the Patriot Act; Domestic Surveillance Act and two United States Supreme Court appointees. The war in Afghanistan and the second Gulf War, according to Republicans, proved how decisive military action can be when resolve and moral turpitude outweigh liberal ambiguity. Overwhelming military force is the only response to Islamic extremist who willfully embrace indiscriminate murder. Action, not inaction, is how the United States will win the war on terror.

In describing the differences of our two-party system, doves and hawks, elephants and donkeys, the contrast is clear; liberals view the world as hands-off, non-violent and not our
problem. Conservatives conversely, perceive the threat, have vision to look ten or twenty years down the road, and are willing to act preemptively to abate the threat.