Chicago Columnist Illinois Leader Political Analyst Entrepreneur Business Advisor Chicago Illinois Review

SEIFFE:  Reagan's Legacy Realized 

Saturday, February 23, 2008

By Ralf Seiffe

This week’s shoot-down of a defunct spy satellite reminds us why conservatives so revere Ronald Reagan’s memory.  Regardless of the actual technology employed, the dead-bang hit of the falling satellite’s gas tank stunningly realizes the 40th President’s vision of a “Star Wars” missile defense plan.  The reaction from our enemies, past and future, confirms the profundity of the Navy’s miracle accomplishment and for Americans who understand a new storm is gathering, it’s a moment to celebrate.  Indeed, the events over the Pacific serve as a metaphor for the coming contest between Barack Obama and John McCain. 

Barack Obama’s altitude, his incredible momentum and his latent danger all remind me of the satellite—he’s in an unsustainable orbit and like the satellite’s thousand pounds of hydrazine, he’s filled with ideas that are just as toxic. There are other parallels, too. The spy satellite and the presumptive Democrat nominee were both launched just a couple of years ago.  A launch pad and gantry sent the satellite up while a podium and speech at the Democrat National Convention propelled Obama to a similar apogee.  Each went into lofty orbits but once they became heavenly bodies, both failed in their mission.  The satellite immediately went black.  Likewise, Obama went to Washington after his landslide but instantly (in the special relativity of U.S. Senate time) abandoned Illinois’ concerns to run for president. 

The mission of the satellite was to linger in outer space, sneak up on the enemy and steal from them.  This sounds suspiciously like Obama and his fellow Democrat’s permanent class warfare and tax plan.  They want to hide out in the vastness of arcane congressional rules which mandate higher taxes will sneak back into the economy without their affirmative vote to re-authorize them.  And, like a satellite the enemy knows is there, Obama and his supporters gleefully let us know these taxes are coming. 

Once scientists determined when the failed satellite would fall from the sky, the Navy prepared the SM-3 missile to smash it into pieces, an achievement that has been described as using one bullet to hit another bullet.  But even the fastest bullets only travel some 3,500 feet per second while the satellite was moving at some 25,000 feet per second.   That’s nearly five miles per second.  Moreover, the SM-3’s payload had to actually hit the satellite because it did not have an explosive warhead, just a 40 pound “fist” designed to physically smash the target into harmless pieces.  The missile not only hit the target—itself a miracle—but fire broke out and showed the weapon scored a direct hit on the satellite’s fuel tank! 

John McCain’s task is equally difficult.  Like his old Navy buddies, the senator’s first task consists of knocking Obama out of his orbit.  To succeed, the Senator McCain must synthesize the same elements the Navy used to blast the spy satellite—a vision, a plan and the hard work necessary to deliver the payload to the mind of Americans.

The vision starts with realizing it is possible to beat Obama.

Many believe Obama’s soaring rhetoric indicates that the Illinois Senator lacks gravitas and that he should be defined as an empty suit.  It’s a strategy Hillary has adopted as her “change you can Xerox” flop indicates.  Hitting Obama for specifics and charging plagiarism is a tactic that has utterly failed and one our side should recognize it a losing strategy, right now.  Rather than follow Hillary into obscurity by under-estimating Obama, our side should realize that Obama is full ideas that are just as noxious as hydrazine.  Our goal must be to confront these ideas and oxidize them. 

The plan should consist of two elements, just like the Navy’s.  First, Republicans should position Obama’s idea as a danger to liberty—the first step to fascism.  Our side is unusually sensitive to charges of “McCarthyism” but in Obama, we are faced with a genuine socialist.  We’re lucky that Leonard Peikoff and recently Jonah Goldberg have made the intellectual case that liberty is threatened much more by the left than the right; we need to exploit their ideas and explain the danger to Americans.  We need to overcome fear of offending the sensibilities of The New York Times and properly characterize the Junior Senator from Illinois as a Wilsonian, proto-fascist.   

That will be hard work for a party—and a candidate--who believe an attack on their opponent consists entirely of accusing him of being “the gentleman from Illinois”.   Initial engagements are not encouraging—McCain described Obama’s rhetoric as “eloquent but empty calls for change.”  Exactly the wrong apprehension of Obama's appeal and an indicator of the hard work that lies ahead for our candidate.
 
The Navy’s job after neutralizing the poisonous hydrazine’s danger to the public was to positively demonstrate to the world that the SM-3 would destroy a re-entering spacecraft. This was a much more difficult feat than the kill Chinese accomplished when they hit a satellite in a lazy, geo-synchronous orbit, last year, as concerning as it was.  The SM-3 demonstrated capabilities that puts potential enemies on notice that their weaponry is no match—in fact, it’s obsolete—in a modern theatre featuring effective defenses.  The Navy’s success this week raised the economic and technical stakes in much the same way Reagan did with Soviet Union in the 1980’s. 

The analogous job for Republicans is to make just as unambiguous a demonstration why liberty is better than “free” health care, more social security and a more intrusive nanny.  They must use traditional values—limited government, privacy, economic opportunity and a rational view of the world’s dangers--as the smart path and the exclusive alternative to Obama.  It’s that simple. 

Conservatives like me worry that Senator McCain’s history shows he isn’t interested in offering a principled, conservative campaign.  We worry that he will not recognize the only path to victory is one that vigorously and optimistically advocates American values.  Conservatives note that John McCain created legislation with the most obnoxious Democrats’ names hyphenated to his and if that John McCain appears on the campaign trail, most of us will not be enthused.  It is why we ask  “Where’s Reagan?” 

On the other hand, there is the John McCain who separated himself from other Republican hopefuls with his deserved halo of military service.  Senior military officers are among the smartest and most capable of American executives and most voters recognize this fact. The military McCain will understand that victory means knocking Obama out of his orbit and extinguishing his supporters’ will to win.  That means rising up to meet the Democrats, head-on, with a plan that defeats them, not one that half-heartedly chases after them. 

By taking a real fight to the Democrats, John McCain can destroy the appeal—and danger-- Obama represents even if he does not win.  If he also offers a competitive, conservative message voters can believe, he will win.  If Senator McCain masters both imperatives, he deserve to be President McCain.  If he then governs by these principles, McCain he will eclipse the Reagan legacy.

Ralf Seiffe advises business start-ups and product launches from Chicago, Illinois and is a political analyst and columnist for the Illinois Leader and Illinois Review.

Webmaster Contact:  Alynn Patzer alynn11111@aol.com