While Archimedes-in-a-pantsuit tries to rewrite the laws of mathematics, the rest of the nation has properly begun to weigh the Presidential contest between Sens. McCain and Obama.

Obama has, however, learned a valuable Clinton trick from this protracted primary--how to obliquely reference the "vast, right-wing conspiracy" to misdirect people's attention away from glaring, personal deficiencies.

During his victory speech in North Carolina on Tuesday night Obama said, "We know what's coming...the same names and labels they (Republicans) pin on everyone who doesn't agree with all of their ideas."

Actually, we have some new names and labels thanks to Mr. & Mrs. Obama's own words and ideas, as well as the Senator's cozy relationships with corrupt influence peddlers, domestic terrorists, and a hateful, bile-spewing spiritual advisor.

That right-wing conspiracy shtick--being "Swift-boated"--is going to work out about as well for Obama as it did for Clinton and for the same reason-because it is without merit.

"Swift-boated" has been added to our political lexicon by the Left to lament the alleged unfair attacks to which John Kerry was subjected in the 2004 Presidential race.

And yet, it was John Kerry who made his military service an issue. He sought to use his service to distinguish himself from President Bush and to characterize both Bush and Cheney as reckless chicken-hawks.

It was John Kerry who saluted the nation nearly four years ago and said, "I'm John Kerry and I'm reporting for duty." It was John Kerry who brought several of those with whom he had served in Vietnam on stage at the Democrat National Convention to show them off to the country.

On the contrary, the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth were effective with their anti-Kerry message because it was a substantive one. The facts were on their side. The fact was that Kerry's entire chain of command, every officer under whom Kerry served in Vietnam, questioned his fitness to be Commander-in-Chief. Many Kerry detractors were Democrats but they were also proud and decorated veterans who believed that Kerry had acted dishonorably and that his campaign was being run disingenuously. Theirs was a legitimate perspective for the country to hear.

Similarly, it is Barack Obama who has presented as his core argument that he possesses the superior judgment to be President. That demands a thorough examination of both his personal history and professional record.

The process demands and will extract the same from John McCain.

So as we begin the compare and contrast on the matter of the two men's judgment, at the behest of Obama, consider these two snapshots at a watershed moment in each one's life:

At the same respective points in their lives as grown men in their early 30s, Obama decided to sidle up to Chicago political machine bosses and their financiers and the chichi Hyde Park set of pseudo-intellectual socialists to advance his political career. That earned Obama an appointment to a State Senate seat in 1996.

At a similar age, John McCain made an important decision as well. He decided to forgo his early release from a North Vietnamese POW camp, an offer extended to him because of his father's position in the military. McCain would not walk unless the other POWs who had been captured before him were also released. That earned McCain an additional five years of torture in a Viet Cong prison camp and, for all he knew at the time, was a decision that would cost him his life.

What would you have done if presented with the same offer with which McCain was presented?

What do you think Barack Obama would have done as you have watched him over the last couple of months provide ever-evolving answers and, ultimately, denunciation of his 20-year pastor (only because Rev. Wright wasn't properly concerned about Obama's campaign)?

These snapshots of course do not tell the whole story of either man, but they do tell an important part of the story for each, about the values that have informed their lives.

Call it "Swift-boating" if you want but Obama's ethereal campaign will be done in by his own bad judgments measured against the very standard he has set to define the race for President.

Labels: Barack Obama, Dan Proft, Swift-boated

The two Jerrys are in the news again.

One is a pompous ringmaster who appeals to the lowest common denominator, exploiting ignorance, and preying on people's irrational fears.

The other one is Jerry Springer.

Together, Jerrys Wright and Springer represent the most startling examples of a disturbing socio-political phenomenon where we are instructed to treat remorseless carnival barkers as serious contributors to civilized society.

Barack Obama's ole, kooky uncle Jeremiah, a living, breathing Horn of Plenty for John McCain, spent yesterday giving David Axelrod heart palpitations by roosting his chickens before the National Press Club.

Reverend Ocho Cinco tended to his theatrical excesses high-fiving one audience member, pointing and winking to another like he just scored a touchdown while he boasted about his military service as evidence that he was more patriotic than Dick Cheney.

By Wright's, ahem, logic, Lee Harvey Oswald, Timothy McVeigh, and John Allen Muhammed, all of whom served in the U.S. military, are also more patriotic than the vice president. The point is that military service, including Wright's, is deserving of respect and thanks but it does not provide lifelong absolution for everything a person does or says.

Meanwhile, Jerry Springer was busily figuring out how to fit a pithy anecdote about a Nazi werewolf boy who married his pet parakeet into the commencement speech he was invited to deliver at Northwestern University Law School in two weeks.

One can only hope U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, a NU Law alumnus, is on hand for this dignified affair to join in the chanting: "Jerry! Jerry! Jerry!".

In response to the howls of protest over selecting Springer, Northwestern Law School Dean David Van Zandt offered the non-responsive response that Springer held public office and was successful in the entertainment industry implying that he was therefore a legitimate choice.

Dean Van Zandt glossed over the fact that while in public office Springer distinguished himself by getting caught paying for a prostitute with a check and that Springer's "success" in entertainment was predicated on himself being a prostitute, servicing the general public with every possible incarnation of inbreeding.

So here's my "Final Thought": What a society exalts, it begets.

I am not concerned that the two Jerrys are held in high esteem by common sense Americans--that is certainly not the case.

Rather, I get concerned when I consider exactly what we as a nation are begetting when a venerated law school and the likely Presidential nominee of the Democrat Party take their respective Jerrys seriously.

Labels: Dan Proft, Jeremiah Wright, Jerry Springer, Northwestern University

I have had the good fortune to speak at many county GOP Lincoln Day dinners and before a number of Republican organizations around the state over the past several months. The speech I have linked to here was last week before a great group of concerned Republicans in Yorkville (Kendall County) as represented by the Kendall County Women's Republican Club.

Click here to watch the video...

My talk breaks down into four component parts and is, in part, my contribution to the important discussions and debates Republicans across the state are having as to how to make our party relevant and competitive again in Illinois. The four parts: (1) Where are we? What is the landscape?; (2) How did we get here?; (3) Where do we want to go? What kind of party do we want to be?; and (4) How do we get to where we want to go?

I want to again thank the Kendall County Republican Women for their indulgence as well as offer my thanks to the many other GOP county chairmen, township GOP organizations, and rank-and-file Republicans throughout Illinois who have welcomed my thoughts and observations (and who, of course, have expressed their undying devotion to WLS-AM 890 and the "Don Wade & Roma Show").

I would welcome your feedback and your ideas as to the policies and practices the Illinois GOP must embody in order to be successful again.

--DP

Labels: Dan Proft, Kendall County Republicans

The argument between a Yale law grad and a Harvard law grad as to who is most in touch with working class Americans is like listening to a debate about which is the tallest skyscraper in Wichita.

Welcome to the Kabuki Theater that is the Democrat Presidential primary.
Hillary Clinton downs a boilermaker at a local watering hole in Crown Point, Indiana, and we are supposed to understand that symbolic act to mean she is a regular Johnny Punchclock?

We know instead that Hillary would bite the head off of a live kitten and drink the blood from its still twitching carcass if that should earn her one additional vote.

Barack Obama offers condescending statements about small town Americans who "cling" to "guns or religion or antipathy to people that aren't like them" at a San Fran funder with his effete, liberal friends, but he just chose his words poorly.

In response to the firestorm, we get glibness from Obama to make it all better, "Now I am the first to admit that some of the words I chose I chose badly, because as my wife reminds me, I'm not perfect," so said Obama.

Actually, Obama was not the first to admit it and he only reluctantly conceded the point after being pressed on the issue. Further, Obama's imperfection is not being hotly contested. It is rather his perfectly clear mischaracterization of those who have not embraced his candidacy.

But is not the pandering or the indignation that most clearly exposes both Clinton and Obama as tasked, in their minds, with having to save all of us mouth-breathing troglodytes across the American countryside from ourselves.

It is that both believe that they are entitled to make choices for which others should not be similarly endowed.

Both Clinton and Obama can send their children to expensive, private schools but believe that low-incomes families in failing school districts should not have such a choice.

Both Clinton and Obama can make millions of dollars through politics but target producers in the private sector with class envy politics and redistributive policies.

So is it Clinton or Obama who is the elitist? Yes.

Labels: Barack Obama, Dan Proft, Hillary Clinton

On Sunday, Fox Chicago Sunday with host Dane Placko featured a full hour devoted to the discussion of Rev. Jeremiah Wright's impact on Sen. Barack Obama's Presidential campaign and the larger issues of race and religion in the political arena. The first two segments featured an exchange of views between: WVON (V-103) radio talk show host Santita Jackson; Eric Easter, Director of Digital Strategy for EbonyJet.com; and yours truly.

Following our panel was a revealing conversation in terms of how those who present the news view the newsworthiness of the Wright/Obama connection wherein several reporters and anchors for Fox-32 offered their views.

A lot of thought-provoking material from persons with widely diverging views. Thought you might be interested to give it a look in case you missed it.

Click here to watch the video. Note: There are five separate segments that follow the one linked. To view the remaining five segments of the program, please click the images in the "Side Bar" area next to the video player on the website.

Labels: Dan Proft, Fox News Panel

His autobiography was entitled, "In the Arena" and that is most certainly where Charlton Heston lived his life.

When fundamental principles of individual rights and human liberty were at stake, Heston wheeled his chariot into the arena to do intellectual battle. He was the rare iconic figure who did not let his status inhibit him from consistently acting in furtherance of what he knew to be just.

News accounts about his passing have detailed his record on civil rights and gun rights but it is on free speech rights that I am able to give eyewitness testimony.

There is an independent, student newspaper on the campus of Northwestern University today because of Charlton Heston.

Ten years ago, at the behest of the student government and with the tacit acceptance of the university's administration, the Northwestern Chronicle was to be silenced.

The student government did not like some of the right-of-center views expressed in the Chronicle so as leftist hypocrites who preach tolerance and practice intolerance are want to do, they moved to "derecognize" the newspaper, which effectively would have prohibited its publication.

Northwestern University President Henry Bienen (who is still the university's president) said at the time that expunging the Chronicle was not a matter of free speech.

The Northwestern alumni who founded the Chronicle in 1992--including me--strongly disagreed.

Heston had also attended Northwestern (where he met his wife) prior to being called up to serve by the U.S. Army Air Forces during World War II. We believed he would be concerned about what was happening at his alma mater-and he was.

We brought this matter to Heston's attention and he intervened on the paper's behalf.

Heston corresponded with President Bienen and availed himself to both local and national media outlets that picked up the story.

Upon further reflection, the university's administration rekindled their stated love affair with academic pluralism on campus and a permanent stay of execution for the Chronicle was so ordered.

There were many prominent persons of varying political stripes that entered the fray to defend the Chronicle. Liberals like Chicago Tribune columnist Eric Zorn and Medill Journalism Professor David Protess as well as conservative commentators like Tom Roeser and John Leo all came to our aid. But Heston's involvement was clearly the key.

This may not seem like a big deal to some. Heston used his influence to save one campus newspaper at one small, private university. So what? How much difference did that make in the grand scheme of things as political correctness still rages on in colleges across America?

To assess Heston's actions in terms of scope is to miss the fundamental point.

Heston saw an opportunity to assist those who were acting in accordance with a shared belief that institutions of higher learning should be free marketplaces of ideas. Because it mattered to us, it mattered to him.

Heston made all the difference for us as well as for the annual addition of new students that publish the paper to this day.

Fortunately, in one of the true highlights of my life, I was able to publicly thank Charlton Heston for the difference he had made when he came to speak at Northwestern and I was privileged to introduce him.

The morale of this story and, for that matter, of Heston's life is not to be found simply in the magnitude of his accomplishments but in his enduring personal example of principled activism.

Labels: Charlton Heston, Dan Proft, Northwestern University

It should be required reading for every member of the Illinois General Assembly, particularly as they contemplate new and exciting ways to fleece the state's producers.

At the end of 2007, the bipartisan American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) published a study done by noted economists Art Laffer and Steve Moore entitled "Rich States, Poor States".

The study did two things. First, it provided an economic performance ranking over the past 10 years (1996-2006) state-by-state. Second, it provided an economic outlook ranking, again state-by-state, based on a comparative review of 16 separate economic indicators.

Am I boring you yet? Well, here's where the information gets more stimulating:

The upshot for Illinois is that, over the past decade, we would have been better off with MC Hammer setting the state's fiscal policy.

Illinois' ranked 48th out of 50, ahead of only Michigan and Ohio, in economic performance over that time.

There were 727,150 people who got hip to this reality well before the ALEC report. That is net number of individuals who moved out of Illinois between the years 1996-2006. Only New York and California lost more population.

Besides contributing to Illinois' incredible shrinking tax base, that population loss has Illinois slated to lose at least one congressional seat after the 2010 census. It is so bad here that not even waning political clout can motivate our Honorables.

As important as who and how many are leaving is who and how many are not coming in the first place. Illinois ranked 45th in the nation when it came to attracting college graduates to locate here (Federal Reserve Bank of New York - August 2007 study). The good news is we are poised to shoot past West Virginia, a state whose senior U.S. Senator is a former member of the Ku Klux Klan, for 44th place. Look out, West Virginia, we're coming for ya!

Add to this that in our state's largest public school system only 6 of every 100 high school freshman will go on to earn a bachelor's degree (Consortium on Chicago Public School Research).

Thus, Illinois neither produces college graduates nor does it attract them. How's that working out for us in the hyper-competitive, digital, global economy of the 21st century?

Just about how you think it might: Illinois is 44th in the nation in per capita personal income growth and 47th in job growth over the decade that was studied.

The bad news for Illinois is compounded with our high property tax burden (41st), an unfriendly legal liability system (46th), and a high minimum wage (44th).

Tally up those dismal numbers and Illinois' 16-variable composite score gives it an economic outlook ranking of 42nd. In other words, the outlook is depressing or, perhaps more accurately, a Depression.

Edwin Moses could not clear all of the hurdles to economic prosperity state lawmakers have put in front of Illinois families and Illinois small businesses and therefore, the exodus.

Sans a crash course in Econ 101, this study is a message to Illinois lawmakers to identify their gut instincts when it comes to thinking about state economic policies and then do the opposite.

Labels: Dan Proft, economics, illinois

Earth Day. Live Earth. And, now, Earth Hour.

The latest bright idea from the country that gave us "Crocodile Dundee" is to have everyone across the globe turn off their lights for an hour at 8 p.m. Saturday.

Apparently, a bunch of neo-Luddites in Sydney did this last year and it made them feel good about themselves, so they've decided to give the rest of the world a chance to achieve a similar sense of self-worth.

Because, if we are being honest, Earth Hour, like its forefathers, is not about environmental policy--it is about social networking and self-importance.

Earth Hour is for those consumed with monitoring their carbon footprint and confused about why they do it.

The desire to be relevant and to have a positive impact on the world is a good instinct. But it's lost in the self-involved nature of exercises like Earth Hour.

The Gandhian ideal "to be the change you wish to see in the world" requires thoughtful, measured action toward an end bigger than one's self.

Earth Hour, by contrast, smacks of desperation for self-actualization.

Rather than creating a platform for compelling, fact-intensive arguments about eco-threats or creative ideas for green energy, Earth Hour is another in an endless series of symbolic events that define intergalactic participation in "something" as an end in itself.

I understand that there are those who believe that rapture is upon us because, over the past 100 years, the temperature on Earth has gone up a little less than 1 degree Fahrenheit.

That, some may argue, is the higher calling to which Earth Hour is responding.

But, even accepting the premise, is the Earth Hour response on point?

Energy consumption is the problem. Turn off your lights for an hour is the answer. Really?

Maybe for a household in the short term, but for nations in the long term?

Along this line of logic, I should counteract America's dependence on foreign oil by riding my bicycle to work--but just for one day?

The reality is that we do not want to live in the dark and we do not want to take a date out on our Razor Scooter. Viable eco-friendly policies will not come at the expense of our quality of life and the mobility we currently enjoy.

The other reality is that the impact of Earth Hour and these other faux call-to-arms events is negligible, if not outright counterproductive, relative to actual conservation or even to advancing a particular remedy.

That's why the explicit mission of these events is routinely the cleverly nebulous and unquantifiable raising of "awareness."

Think about Al Gore doing his excruciatingly awkward hipster routine with Leonardo (or "Leo" as he calls him) DiCaprio at his Live Earth concert last July.

How much wattage was required and how many metric tons of garbage were created so Kelly Clarkson could screech on about her man troubles? That was conservation? That was a global wakeup call?

No, it was a platform for self-congratulatory celebrities and a few bloated politicians to "raise awareness" of their deep-seeded sense of social responsibility prior to taking off in their Escalades and Lear jets.

Fast forward to Saturday. You are sitting in the dark hoping CBS will re-run the episode of "How I Met Your Mother" you are missing (be sure to turn that TiVo off). You are thinking about what you're going to do with that cool $1.20 you're saving off of your ComEd bill this month.

And, wait, what was the point of this again?

No one is for capricious destruction of the environment. Truly being "green," however, demands more than annual self-esteem boosters.

http://redeye.chicagotribune.com/red-032708-proft,0,6335659.story

Labels: Dan Proft, Earth Day, Earth Hour, Green

Maybe his friend Oprah can hook him up with Dr. Phil?

After watching Sen. Barack Obama's major speech on race in America yesterday (read: Rev. Jeremiah Wright), I am convinced he is dissociative.

Webster's dictionary defines the psychological condition of dissociation as "the separation of whole segments of the personality or of discrete mental processes from the mainstream of consciousness or of behavior."

Obama's speech was thoughtful, history-rich, deftly composed, and, in parts, refreshingly candid about racial divides in America and the sources of those divides.

However, he spoke as if he was an innocent bystander to the history he recounted.

Obama discussed our nation's failings as though he was powerless to act previously or presently.

Obama lamented, "Segregated schools were, and are, inferior schools; we still haven't fixed them, fifty years after Brown v. Board of Education, and the inferior education they provided, then and now, helps explain the pervasive achievement gap between today's black and white students."

That is true.

Although I would offer another notion that may help explain those achievement gaps. What about the cowardly politicians in the pockets of the teachers unions who pay lip service to education while they let generations of low income kids be forced into schools that they know will fail them?

That is what Obama did as a state senator representing Chicago's south side. And that helps explain why, when he left his state senate seat, there were more than 12,000 kids in failing schools in his district (according to the No Child Left Behind standards).

Obama had seven years in the Illinois General Assembly to do something about perhaps the worst urban public school system in America. He did nothing except propagate the status quo. It is Sen. Obama who has countenanced the pernicious philosophy of "separate but equal" for the children of low income families during his time in public life.

Obama called for white and black middle class Americans to focus on the "real culprits of the middle class squeeze" decrying a Washington that is "dominated by lobbyists and special interests."

Yet, as Illinois annually contends for the title of most politically corrupt state in America, what was Obama's record here?

Well, last week Obama appeared before the editorial boards of both Chicago daily newspapers to answer questions about his association with Tony Rezko, an influence-peddling, fundraising impresario who is under federal indictment for a variety of alleged pay-to-play schemes that involved shaking down companies that did business with the state of Illinois. In other words, illegal special interest politics.

Late last year Obama pegged the total amount of campaign contributions he had received from Rezko in the $50K range. Upon further review, Obama disclosed last week that the number is more like $250K.

Moreover, while Rezko was widely reported to be the subject of an ongoing federal probe in 2005, Obama transacted a hinky land deal with him that ultimately resulted in Obama purchasing a parcel of land from Rezko for about $300,000 less than the original asking price.

Obama now calls the land deal with Rezko a mistake.

Obama has also refused to take money from lobbyists and PACs--in his presidential campaign. That is a luxury he can now afford.

When it was not such a luxury regarding the financing of his campaigns in Illinois, Obama was not so doctrinaire, choosing instead the path of least resistance relative to "special interest" campaign cash. This is typical of how Obama cleverly dissociates himself from such previous unpleasantries, as if it was a failure of the system he wants to fix and not his personal choice.

Following the Obama editorial sit-down with the Chicago Tribune, columnist John Kass quoted Obama as saying, "I know that there are those, like John Kass, who would like me to decry Chicago politics more frequently. I'll leave that to his commentary..."

The implication of Obama's glib remark is that it is not his job to rail against rampant political corruption in Chicago and Illinois. That is a job for op-ed writers. When, in fact, that is precisely part the job, particularly in Illinois, of someone who seeks to be a leader in public life.

The operative word being "leader".

When Obama fails to venture into the fray, we are told that he is transcending politics as we know it. What it may instead be is a willingness to do the right thing amidst controversy or political danger only as a last resort.

And that brings us to good ole Uncle Jeremiah Wright, Obama's pastor and spiritual advisor.

Obama's answers to even the most basic, staple questions from the media about his relationship with Wright and his knowledge of Wright's views have clearly "evolved" over the last several days as the controversy went from percolating to boiling over.

I will leave the parsing of words to Obama and rather note the more general observation that, here again, for two decades Obama had the opportunity to go on the record, publicly or even privately (of which he has made no mention to date), and rebuke Jeremiah Wright's hate-filled spewage.

For two decades, Obama had the opportunity to open up the frank and rational discussion on race that he was forced to endeavor to facilitate yesterday in order to create space in the public's consciousness between Wright and him.

For two decades, Obama chose to instead go along to get along--with a radical, anti-American, bile-discharging "man of God", just as he did with the Chicago political machine bosses and their financiers.

Do I think Obama subscribes to the kooky conspiracy theories and overheated rhetoric of Jeremiah Wright? No, I do not. That is only my sense from those who know him well, however, because Obama certainly has not earned the benefit of the doubt on this score.

Going along to get along, not standing up when he knew better, has finally caught up with Barack Obama.

The consequence is that Obama will not be able to dissociate from this political reality: his 35-minute treatise on race relations in America will quickly evaporate into the ether whereas the videos of Rev. Jeremiah "God Damn America" Wright's fire-breathing denunciations of the "U.S. of KKK A" are hermetically sealed to his candidacy.

Labels: Barack Obama, Dan Proft, Wright

Dan Proft, a principal of Urquhart Media, LLC, has run political campaigns and served in various capacities in state and local government for the past 13 years.

Proft is the featured political commentator on the Don Wade & Roma Morning Show on WLS-AM 890, the number one news talk radio station in Chicago, where he provides a weekly commentary. His commentaries also appear regularly in Human Events (HumanEvents.com), the nation's leading journal of conservative thought since 1944.

Additionally, Proft is a frequent guest on Illinois radio and television public affairs shows. Proft is also a regular panelist at workshops and conferences on media, politics, and foreign affairs.

Among his civic pursuits, Proft serves as a Board member for the Illinois chapter of Operation Homefront, a non-profit whose mission is to provide assistance to military families, particularly those with a spouse serving overseas. He also serves on the Associate Board of The Cradle, an Evanston-based adoption agency.

Proft, a practicing Catholic, grew up in west suburban Wheaton, Illinois. He is a 1994 graduate of Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. In 1992, while at Northwestern, Proft helped found an independent weekly campus paper, the Northwestern Chronicle, which continues to publish to this day.

Proft, an avid sports fan, also coaches youth basketball in Cicero, Illinois.

dan@urqmedia.com

Check out Urquhart Media and listen to Dan's archived contributions to the Don Wade and Roma Morning Show here.

Labels: Dan Proft