True North

Today marks the fifth anniversary of me starting blogging. It's understatement to say that it's been a great experience. During those years, I've watched history being made, starting with the elections in Afghanistan, then Ukraine's Orange Revolution (that's how I first learned about King), followed by Iraq's Purple Finger election on Jan. 31, 2005, immediately followed by the Cedar Revolution in Lebanon.

The Cedar Revolution was started when Syrian thugs assassinated Rafiq Harriri, the popular leader of Lebanon.

Over time, LFR evolved into a mostly political blog. Thanks to Final Word, I got interested in state level politics. On that front, the best is yet to come. There will be exciting news coming on that front soon. I'll just say that it's about putting a common sense blueprint for winning in 2010.

As always, this isn't about just saying whatever to attract people. This is about putting together a set of priorities that employ time-tested conservative principles in winning. We've seen how well that worked in Virginia and with Sarah Palin.

Many challenges lie ahead for the conservative movement. We need to do a better job with messaging. That doesn't mean just using Twitter or Facebook. It means telling people how conservative policies will positively affect their wallets, their kids' future, their retirement and their health.

When President Obama won last year's election, lefty pundits heralded the 'fact' that we'd become a center-left nation. I didn't buy that and neither did you. Now we're seeing proof of that. Had a real transformation happened, popular support for the Democrats' health care reform legislation would've been overwhelming, President Obama's job approval rating would be in the mid-50's and Democrats would have a comfortable margin in the generic ballot question polling.

As you know, none of those things are reality today. Support for the Democrats' health care legislation is mostly confined to the leftist elements of K Street and to uberliberal parts of the country. President Obama's job approval rating keeps sinking. Republicans have held a nice lead in the generic ballot question since late August.

It's time we started trusting in conservative principles. It's time we remembered that people are conservative by nature. 2010 will give us proof of that and I'll be around to chronicle the strengthening of conservative movement. Our job, which we should accept with enthusiasm, should be to tell 'conservatives-in-waiting' why their future will be brighter with limited government and the liberty to make our own decisions.

Our goal, which I'm confident we'll choose, is to put in place policies that (a)liberate us financially, (b) reduce the regulatory burden on us and (c) keep protecting us from future terrorist attacks.

LET FREEDOM RING!!!

Comments welcome at LFR.

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