Are the Republicans smart enough to win in 2016?

As Republicans start to jockey for position in next year’s primaries, there’s one lesson they need to learn in order to win. It seems to be the hardest lesson of all. Moderate Republicans don’t win presidential elections.

There’s this notion that the nation has moved to the left therefore the Republicans must moderate their positions if they’re going to win. Mitt Romney recently said the Republicans need to swallow hard and pass amnesty. He either believes that’s the only way Republicans can win or he believes that’s the proper course of action for the country. Either way, he’s wrong.

Folks like me point to the last time the Republicans won by a landslide. That was 1980 and 1984 with Ronald Reagan. Reagan won 44 states in 1980 to Carter’s 6 and flogged him in the electoral vote 489-49. But here’s the interesting part. The Republican Party was far more liberal then than it is now. And this is the strategy behind another conservative victory in 2016.

In 1980, the major GOP candidates were George H. W. Bush, John Anderson (who went on to run as a third-party independent), Texas Gov. John Connally, Tennessee Senator Howard Baker, and Kansas Senator Bob Dole. Everyone with the exception of Reagan was a moderate. Remember, this was the era of Richard Nixon, Nelson Rockefeller and Gerald Ford. Moderates were the mainstays of the party. Reagan was regarded as a right-wing crazy by the party establishment. That’s why the GOP primary was filled with moderates. That’s where the Republican Party was at the time.

What happened was the moderates all fought for the moderate Republicans and Reagan took all the conservatives. The mainstream media had no idea there were enough conservatives to take Reagan to victory but, at the end of the process, Reagan had 60 percent of the vote. His closest rival was Bush with 24 percent. Once Reagan won in a landslide over Jimmy Carter it became cool to be conservative. Truth is, this country has been center-right for a long time. The media either tries to convince us it isn’t or they just can’t see it based on their own circle of friends.

Flash forward to 2008. Vying for the nomination against John McCain were Fred Thompson, Alan Keyes, Mitt Romney, Ron Paul, Mike Huckabee, Rudy Giuliani, and Duncan Hunter. With the exception of Romney and Giuliani, all of these candidates were to the right of McCain. Even Romney positioned himself as a conservative. The end result was a much more conservative field of candidates than in 1980 but the conservative candidates split the conservative vote and gave McCain the nomination.

Here’s an interesting fact to ponder. Up until Super Tuesday, when most of McCain’s competition dropped out and gave him the nomination, he only had 32 percent of the Republican vote in the primaries. Astonishing, isn’t it? Sixty-eight percent of Republicans preferred another candidate, primarily a more conservative one.

That’s how moderates get nominated these days. In 2016, the conservatives better wise up. There will be Jeb Bush and probably Mitt Romney. There may be Lindsey Graham and possibly Chris Christie. But the rest of the potential field is decidedly conservative, just like the rest of the country. Names like Ted Cruz and Rand Paul and Ben Carson and Scott Walker. This time the conservative candidates are going to have to decide who has the best chance of winning and get behind that candidate. Maybe they give it to South Carolina, but conservatives beating each other up all the way to the convention has to end.

Phil Valentine is the host of the award-winning, nationally syndicated talk radio show, The Phil Valentine Show.

The left is sniped by 'American Sniper'

Why all the surprise over the success of the movie American Sniper? When the trailers first started running on TV I thought they were some of the most intense promotions of a movie I had ever seen. The critics were saying Bradley Cooper gave a performance of a lifetime. Then the movie hit the screens and the left went nuts.

Seth Rogen, who was at the center of the recent North Korea/Sony hacking story, said the movie looked like a Nazi propaganda piece. According to The Daily Caller, one member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences that awards the Oscars said Kyle “seems like he may be a sociopath.” As it turns out, this particular member hadn’t seen the movie, which is typical for many who vote on which movie gets the best picture award. It looks like actually seeing all the nominated films might be a requirement.

What upsets these leftists is the fact that the film makes a hero out of a hero. They say it glorifies war but war can be a glorious thing if you’re on the right side. That’s where the ambiguity sets in. Leftists aren’t sure we’re on the right side when it comes to fighting radical Islam. In fact, many — including our commander-in-chief — won’t even call it radical Islam. They say these terrorists are cultists who have nothing to do with Islam. Well, if that’s the case, why do they and the ACLU insist that Gitmo and other detention centers cater to their every need regarding Islam? If these terrorists aren’t really Muslim then let’s stop this nonsense of providing them Korans and bowing down to their dietary demands. Forget the prayer rugs and allowing them to pray five times a day.

Obviously, we regard these terrorists as Muslim. It’s only those who are willfully blind who deny it. That’s not to say that all Muslims are terrorists but these days most terrorists are Muslim. Can you imagine our not giving a German living among us a second thought during World War II? But that’s the very essence of political correctness. It’s about flying in the face of logic and common sense. The PCers love to defy conventional wisdom, as if their “wisdom” is somehow superior because it doesn’t employ stereotypes.

The first strike against American Sniper was the fact that it was produced and directed by Clint Eastwood. Clint’s a conservative and doesn’t really care who knows it. Remember his famous ‘talking to the empty chair’ speech at the Republican National Convention? Why, he dared mock the Dalai Bama, an unforgivable sin in Hollywood. The fact that American Sniper garnered six Academy Award nominations is a wonder in and of itself. But it’s a testament to the power of the film and the story it tells. That’s what the Hollywood leftists really hate. This story was so strong that even they couldn’t ignore it, and now some among them find it irresistible to bash.

The irony is Chris Kyle, the central figure in American Sniper, was fighting to preserve the rights of people like Seth Rogen to do what they do. As we saw in the threat from North Korea to blow up theaters, terrorists will do anything to quash dissent. It’s people like Kyle who risk their lives every day to take down the terrorists before they take us down. Michael Moore called Kyle a “coward.” How ironic that this slovenly, soft leftist fires shots at heroes from behind a Constitution that people like Kyle protect with their blood, their limbs, and their very lives.

Phil Valentine is the host of the award-winning, nationally syndicated talk radio show, The Phil Valentine Show.

The truth behind low gas prices

For months, I’ve shared my theory on why gas prices are so low and for months I’ve gotten the skeptical e-mails and phone calls to my radio show. A recent piece from Bloomberg.com is vindication, of sorts. In that piece, they describe how OPEC has “weaponized the price of oil.”

A couple of months back, some egghead with Bank of America issued a paper on how OPEC was finished, done. He pointed to the fact that OPEC had done nothing to stop the plunge in oil prices. My theory was it was all on purpose. Bloomberg agrees. They wrote, “If there ever was doubt about the strategy of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, its wealthiest members are putting that issue to rest.”

Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Kuwait are out to kill the fracking business in this country and they’re on their way to succeeding. Yeah, the oil prices might be low now — and they’ll probably go lower — but this is all by design. Fracking is an expensive proposition. Frackers can’t stay in business with oil this low. OPEC has purposely glutted the market with oil to bring the price down to a level where they can’t survive.

How long will this last? That’s anyone’s guess but you can be sure that OPEC is waiting until the last fracker is out of business before they tighten supply. And they have the luxury of time. They have around $826 billion to sit on while the prices are low. Once they’re convinced the frackers are done it’s back to business as usual. Well, almost.

A Saudi prince has let it slip that the days of $100-a-barrel oil are over. He didn’t show his hand but what he really means is they’ll never let prices climb back to a point where fracking is profitable. That may mean gas prices will not go back to $4-a-gallon but it still means OPEC is very much in control of the world oil prices. Someone needs to send a memo to that so-called expert at Bank of America.

We need to take ourselves off the world oil price. If you think this is folly you need to understand that oil has only been traded on the world market since the 1970s. Before that, the price was determined by each country’s market.

Imagine a world in which we drill all the oil we need for our own use and we never have to fight another war over oil. In order for that to happen we need to open up all available public land, within reason, and drill, baby, drill.

What’s ironic is the dirt people and the government caused fracking to start with. Let me explain. The EPA so constricted the drilling for oil on public land that it drove the price of oil through the roof. This was the environmentalists’ dream all along. Al Gore wrote in his book Earth in the Balance that we needed expensive gas to drive people to so-called “green energy.” The problem was green energy was not yet ready to take the place of fossil fuels. What happened instead was the high prices made fracking feasible and fracking is the environmentalist’s worst nightmare.

But, no worries. Fracking is probably done but thanks to fracking we’ll probably never go back to outrageously high gas prices. Which means the chances of ever moving to green energy are dimmed, as well.

It’s funny, when you think about it. The dirt people tried to kill Big Oil and gave us affordable gas instead. You gotta love it.

Phil Valentine is the host of the award-winning, nationally syndicated talk radio show, The Phil Valentine Show.

De Blasio turned his back on the police first

New York Mayor de Blasio is upset that police officers literally turned their backs on him at another police officer’s funeral. He says the officers were “disrespectful to the families involved.” No, Mayor, they were actually honoring the officers who lost their lives in the line of duty. Let me be blunt. Mayor de Blasio has blood on his hands because of his outrageously irresponsible comments in the wake of the the death of Eric Garner. Instead of showing respect for the grand jury system and the citizens who serve on it, de Blasio took the opportunity to stoke the flames of the great racial bonfire that now burns out of control in this country.

Much like our commander-in-chief who possesses the power of unity but casts it aside for the politics of partisanship, de Blasio squandered a golden opportunity to put his office to good use. The mayor has repeated his “centuries of racism” remarks several times, as if the Eric Garner death had anything to do with race. The supervising officer on the scene was black. Garner’s own family says the incident had nothing to do with race but was more an issue of excessive police force.

That’s where the discussion needs to be centered. I, like many others, watched that video and thought the police were heavy-handed in their treatment of Mr. Garner, but a grand jury disagreed. We have to respect the grand jury system. Mayor de Blasio should know that more than anyone but he’s a cheap, partisan hack who, like Sharpton and Jackson, never misses an opportunity to exploit race.

Like the Michael Brown case in Ferguson, the grand jury is the issue, not the police. I ask those who call into my radio show upset about both decisions what they would replace the grand jury with. They have no answer. That’s because the grand jury system is as close to jurisprudence nirvana as we have on this planet. Is it perfect? Certainly not, but it’s a system whereby ordinary citizens — not politicians or anyone else with an ax to grind — come together and decide if charges against a fellow citizen rise to the level of indictment.

That’s what happened in Ferguson and that’s what happened in New York City. In the aftermath, the mayor should have made that point clear. Instead, he traveled down that racism road. It certainly takes a bigger man to choose the road less traveled.

The mayor’s constant drumbeat of “centuries of racism” certainly didn’t help to make police officers safer. In fact, many believe his remarks helped build the climate of hate that led to the two police officers being assassinated. Apparently, thousands of police officers concur.

Police Commissioner Bill Bratton agreed with de Blasio’s comments that the back-turning by officers was disrespectful to the families of the slain officers. “I just don’t understand it,” he said. Commissioner, if you don’t understand why men and women in blue would be upset with a mayor who called the police a bunch of racist and said they needed to be “re-trained” then you have no business being their commissioner.

Two men gave their lives for the city they loved. Two men died needlessly at the hand of some crazed gunman who somehow got the idea that police in New York were racist. Hmm. Wonder where he got that. If Mayor de Blasio really wants to honor the memories of the fallen officers and show some respect for their families, he needs to do the decent thing. He needs to resign. And take Bratton with him.

Phil Valentine is the host of the award-winning, nationally syndicated talk radio show, The Phil Valentine Show.

What exactly is a community organizer?

Curiosity finally got the best of me. I had to know. What exactly is a community organizer? According to Wikipedia, community organizing “necessarily involves conflict and social struggle.” They supposedly help the little people. They supposedly bring power to the powerless. Al Sharpton is a community organizer. ACORN was a community organizing group, one that discovered the founder’s brother had embezzled nearly a million bucks from the group and covered it up. So much for the little people.

Community organizers basically gin up discontent in minority communities and pit them against the rich. Usually those rich are white folks since they seem to be the easiest target. They’re better described as community agitators.

The most famous community agitator of all is Barack Obama. His advocacy group, Organizing for Action, has embarked on a plan to train 10,000 new agitators in 2015. They’re training the next generation of people who will raise countless millions from the powerless in exchange for a suitcase full of empty promises. 

The recent protests over Ferguson and New York City have been organized by professional agitators. People like Sharpton who make a living off keeping the hate alive. They’re taught to totally disregard the judicial system. The grand jury in Ferguson and New York were racist, even though a good number of them were black. In fact, a jury is inherently racist, unless it’s the jury that turned O.J. loose on society. The justice system is only truly just when the honky dies.

I hope we’re somehow better than that in 2015 but I have no reason to believe it. The agitator-in-chief has managed to divide this country by race like it hasn’t been divided since the 1960s. He and his wife have uttered ridiculous accusations of racism like him saying that no black man alive hasn’t been thrown the keys at valet parking and told to park the car. What an utterly ridiculous statement. Quite honestly, I wouldn’t trust Obama with my car.

His wife claimed it was racist when a woman at Target had the audacity not to recognize her and asked her to get something off the top shelf. I’m sure it had nothing to do with the fact that Michelle is 5’11”. And since when does a racist assume that everyone who works at Target is black? I’ve been to Target many times. Most of the folks I see working there are white. Uh-oh. Maybe Target’s racist.

They’ve blown it, these two. They have the model family for black America. They’re successful, yes, but more important, they’re together. You wanna know why black men are getting shot by white cops? Because most of the population is white therefore most of the cops are white. And although black folks only make up about 13 percent of the population, they commit half the murders. So, chances are if you’re a black criminal you’re going to come into contact with a white officer.

And why are black males committing so many murders? Because Uncle Sam has become Baby Daddy Sam. If you’re a black child born today there’s a 73 percent chance you’ll be born to a single mother. The rate in the white community is about 29 percent and I’ll guarantee you that’s the pool from whence the white criminals come.

The breakdown and break-up of the family is the prime driver of crime. We all know it. We solve that, we solve many of society’s ills. That’s going to take some heavy lifting to solve. And it ain’t nearly as much fun or profitable as hating whitey. 

Phil Valentine is the host of the award-winning, nationally syndicated talk radio show, The Phil Valentine Show.