Post Election Open Letter to Barack Obama from Joe the Plumber

President Elect Obama (yes, it sounds so good),

I am Joe the Plumber. Not really, I'm an attorney by training and an entrepreneur by choice and my name isn't Joe. I'm a product of public schools. I've served in our military (11 years In the U.S. Air Force with service in a foreign military conflict--Operation Just Cause). I put myself through college and then law school. I am a registered Republican. I have supported Republican candidates for President since Gerald Ford in 1976 (with one exception, I voted against George W. Bush in 2004) and I have always considered myself a conservative, that is the kind of conservative who believes in small government, low taxes, unintrusive policies, freedom of and from religion. I supported Barack Obama as the 44th President of the United States. I manned phone banks, canvassed the streets of the West Grove in Miami, volunteered as a poll observer on election day and proudly cast my vote for Barack H. Obama on November 4, 2008.

I cheered as you won the election by an electoral landslide and the Democrats won greater control of both houses of Congress.  While the current Congressional leadership has done nothing to warrant retention of their jobs or their leadership posts (approval ratings are practically subterranean), it seems likely that Representative Pelosi and Senator Reid will continue in their present posts.  What is important for you and all of our elected officials to understand is that this is not a mandate for liberal partisan politics to replace conservative partisan politics, or liberal political realignment.

We, the Joe the Plumbers (and Josie the Plumbers) of the country, are fed up with the petty, partisan politics that has crippled Washington DC for the past 8 years, and probably longer. We want solutions to serious problems.  We want leaders who lead.  We want elected officials to repair our ailing economy, shore up our financial system, and return to capitalistic principles (our government shouldn't own our banks or our businesses) as soon as possible.  We want an energy policy that is sustainable, respects the planet, and rids us of dependence on foreign oil. We want the United States to be the most respected country in the World, not the most reviled. We want to return the balance of power from an overly powerful administrative branch to the legislative and judicial branches.  Most importantly, we want to stop the divisive rhetoric that inflames the far right or the far left base because it is politically expedient. The solutions to our nation's problems likely lie outside the "box" but are not on either extreme.  Be mindful, there is nothing  you can do that will make the twenty percent on the far right admire you and there is very little you can do to make the twenty percent on the far left abandon you.  It is time to govern for the sixty percent in the middle.

This is the mandate that I supported with my volunteer work and my vote for Barack Obama. The silent majority of Joe the Plumbers across the country have similar expectations.  I expect no less (in fact, I expect far more).  I will accept no less.  This is the mandate.  We will continue to fight for these basic principles until our elected officials listen to us and start governing with honesty, dignity, and integrity with the single goal to solve problems that make America great rather than appease their base or perpetuate petty partisan bickering.  I believe that you, Mr. Obama, have the intelligence, judgment, and temperament to rise above the status quo and truly effect change, but I know that you cannot do this alone.  You will need the help of great Americans.  Not great partisan political advisors, but great Americans.  We must begin to separate the two and only elect and empower great Americans.

God speed Mr. Obama.  This is not a religious endorsement, just a very nostalgic phrase from a time when America's greatness wasn't in doubt.

"Joe the Plumber"

aka Curtis Wolfe, an Obama Republican (Obamacan!, you read it here first)

Miami, FL

Man without a Party

After leaving my post as a volunteer attorney observer (we need those in Florida) at a polling place in South Miami on election day, I spent the balance of the evening watching the election returns with a group of Democrat friends and many hugs, tears, and glasses of champagne, the handful of die hards who remained decided that I was a decent enough person that I should be invited to leave the Republican party and join the dark side.  This was not the first time in the past three months since I had spent many days and nights working phone banks and canvassing neighborhoods for the Obama for Florida campaign and even attended a rally in Miami when Senator Obama was visiting in October, but I know that I don't fit into the Democratic party.  I'm a fiscal conservative who believes in free markets and capitalism, and a social moderate who believes in limited government, personal responsibility, and unintrusive government policies.  

So, how is it that I have come to the point where I find myself not only voting for a Democrat, but working to ensure he is elected?  The Republican party is adrift in a sea of divisive partisan politics, engaging in unparalleled spending, trampling on civil liberties by spying on Americans and imprisoning people with a complete lack of respect for due process.  The Karl Rove Republican party is not the party that I joined many years ago and because the party has lost its morale compass with regards to fairness, justice, and equality, it has lost its soul and has been hijacked by the religious right who believed that by dividing the country, the moral majority would actually be a majority.  

Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and other ultra-conservative pundits have said since election night that the party lost the election because its candidate was not resolute in conservative principles and have vowed to take the party farther to the right.  Clearly, the Republican party is at an impasse.  Moderate Republicans don't identify with either the Democratic far left or the Republican far right.  We are without a party.  

Becoming an "independent" isn't an valid option.  Independents are by definition without identity.  They decide each issue on its merits, which is respectable, but without a core set of values, like a small, limited government, Independents are destined to always be joiners rather than leaders.  I want my party back.

Real Republicans can take back the party of Lincoln by divorcing the party from the radical right (they are welcome to form a new party) and recommitting to its core principles.  By doing so, the party will actually grow (much like when the government cuts tax rates, yet collects more tax revenue) by being an attractive alternative for moderate Democrats and other libertarians.  

The time has come for the Republican party to regain its original mandate.  Religious conservatives should take note that we want our party back.  We must not tolerate Karl Rove's followers to destroy the Republican party.  The time is now.