Never before have I felt tension for being Republican when I voted. Today I was sized up, and then after presenting my info to the person issuing my ballot the REP appeared, and you could cut the tension in the room. I felt uneasy to say the least and a bit surrounded. I thought after I left (and told the exit poller outside I was not interested in participating in their poll) that maybe it was all in my head... till I spoke with my wife. She voted after me about an hour later and told me she experienced the same thing. I am frankly appalled. Are all polling precincts equal? Considering the obvious Obama force in the room I would say not anymore.

Flashback 2000 - The Main Stream Media called the Florida election for Gore before the panhandle finished voting. Many believe this caused many to not vote in the central time zone of Florida. Let's not allow that to happen this election! Pay no attention to early calls from the likes of NBC. Don't be intimidated or discouraged. VOTE!

1. Historically, exit polls have tended to overstate the Democratic vote.

2. The exit polls are likely to overstate the Obama vote because Obama voters are more likely to participate in the exit poll.

3. The exit polls have tended to skew most Democratic in years where there is high turnout and high vote interest like in 1992 and 2004.

4. It is not just the national exit poll that skews Democratic, but each of the state exit polls also suffers from the same Democratic leanings.

You may recall Obama’s much publicized comments on small-town Americans while speaking to a group of wealthy California donors in San Francisco on April 6, 2008:

“…they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”

Well, as Mayhill Fowler wrote on huffingtonpost.com, “Obama made a problematic judgment call in trying to explain working class culture to a much wealthier audience.”

A problematic judgment call.  Hmm...  Doesn’t sound like someone who’s ready to lead the free world to me, seeing as how he can’t even relate to large segments of the very population he claims to want to unify. 

The media and right wing supporters alike had a bloody field day with the “guns or religion” part, but even Fowler makes no stink about the “antipathy to people who aren’t like them” statement, which--if we're all honest with ourselves--is simply a not-so-veiled way of calling small town Americans racists.

But wait! There’s more!

Equally disturbing were other parts of Barack Obama’s April 6th speech that never made waves on the national news circuit…  To wit:

“I think they’re misunderstanding why the demographics in our, in this contest have broken out as they are. Because everybody just ascribes it to ‘white working-class don’t wanna work — don’t wanna vote for the black guy.’ That’s…there were intimations of that in an article in the Sunday New York Times today - kind of implies that it’s sort of a race thing.”

And, 26 minutes into that very same speech, Barack Obama says:

"When people tell me they've all stressed about racial discord, well, you know, try slavery for a while."

Excuse me?  Slavery?  Yes, I can agree that slavery sucks, but… What the…? How can one "try slavery" in this day and age in America?  Didn’t a Republican named Lincoln issue the Emancipation Proclamation to end slavery in America in 1862? Or was my history teacher smoking crack when he told me that? 

And, how is the long-dead issue of slavery in America relevant in the 2008 election, anyway? 

Oh, right… I forgot. To win this election, Barack Obama has to take every available opportunity to pull out that race card, which is just dripping with white guilt over an issue that’s well past its sell date--by over 140 years. 

When hard work is encouraged, it breeds success. When success punished, it breeds poverty.

I‘ve worked hard to get where I am in life, and it has not been easy. When I left home as a teenager, I took little but my clothes and a few knickknacks and photographs (the sum total of my possessions fit easily in the trunk of a mid-sized car). There were times in my early adulthood that I struggled and on occasion went a few days without a meal or a roof over my head.  

Still, I draw deep fulfillment from the fact that what I have today has come from my own hard work, with no help or handouts. Today I have a decent job. I own a home and two cars. Other than my mortgage, I have managed to stay debt-free for several years. I support two dogs, and we all eat well.

You see, I was raised by depression era parents whose values included honesty, hard work, and fiscal responsibility. Not a day goes by that I don’t remember those values and use them as the yardstick for all my decisions.

Eventually--through his hard work, common sense, and persistence--my father was able to rise above his meager beginnings and become a successful man. With no college education, he supported a wife and three children on his sole income, and he always kept his bills paid. He always believed that “your first bill is yourself,” so long before any Section 401(k) legislation was passed, my father faithfully saved 10% of every paycheck for the twilight years of his life so he wouldn’t be a burden to another generation.   He only borrowed what he knew he could afford to promptly pay back. He never lived beyond his means, nor did he concern himself with status symbols. He worked hard, made himself an expert in his chosen field, educated himself on fiscal matters, and made a series of thoughtful decisions that enabled his family to live the kind of upper middle class life many Americans dream about.

The heartbreaking part of that story is how much punishment I watched my father endure at the hands of his own government for his success. Prior to his retirement, the last time my father got a big raise at work, I had just turned seventeen and I remember how depressed he and my mother seemed after he received that pay increase. When I asked my mother why they weren’t excited about it, she said, “He’s in a new tax bracket now, and that means he’s bringing home less than he did before.”

I was stunned and disillusioned. How could someone work so hard, sacrifice so much, be so honest, and end up with less as a result? The raise for which my father worked so hard suddenly seemed like a hollow reward. And, at the time, poorly regulated government handouts had reached an all-time peak, and many of the people who chose to accept those handouts no longer had to live by the sweat of their own brows.

In a democratic society, it hardly seems fair or just that our government has seen fit to make itself the largest charitable organization in history. Is it reasonable that 10% of our country’s citizens are already paying 80% of its taxes, and yet liberal legislators and their supporters insist that is still not enough? Is it fair to give tax refunds and handouts to people who never pay into the system themselves? That’s not democracy. It’s socialism. And if history has taught us anything, it’s that socialism doesn’t work.

Hello? Does anyone remember the USSR?

And what happened to our Constitution? I thought it was our government’s Constitutional responsibility to protect its people, not to take from Peter to give to Paul. That is the role of charitable organizations, ministries, and churches.

While we’re at it, what happened to parents actively teaching their children the values of personal accountability, hard work, and fiscal frugality? The media now overloads us with sensationalist images of those who cheat the system through sleazy lawyers, exploit outdated beliefs to leech money they haven’t worked for, spend money like drunken sailors on things they can’t afford, and evade responsibility to support their lifestyles.

At the same time, these very people are celebrated with media attention, and the cult of celebrity brainwashes the uninformed into believing that such behavior is not only acceptable, but worthy of emulation. And these people are voting!?! I can’t help but think that all those lazy parents who use the TV as a babysitter have left the rest of us to suffer the consequences.

I’ve worked hard to get where I am in life, and it has not been easy. So I ask you… If I achieve a modicum of success through my hard work, personal accountability, and persistence--should I be punished for it?