Preponderance of National Security types vie for Congressional seat

During this mid-term primary season, there is something
different, something more urgent and closer to the bone in
the air. One sees and feels it at the kind of routine
political meetings that have always taken place.

But now, the mood is very, very different.

Though it was a gathering of well-groomed, very polite
people, many of them professional, still more of them
proprietors of businesses in a generally upbeat meeting in a
squeaky clean, utilitarian, tilt-wall municipal building and
partaking of a catered meal of roast beef, potatoes and
green beans, there was a palpable undercurrent of rage -
fear.

It oozed out of every comment that was made, every
candidate's presentation, every announcement. There were
numerous references to the dire nature of the times and "how
bad things really are."

It's all about - this - just this, the shrugging speakers
said. They make a certain gesture universally understood to
signify this. Palms upraised, shrugging the shoulders,
nearly all who spoke said something must be done about this.

Their remarks were met with nods of approval and
understanding from their audience.

So, what is this and how will the question of whither the
national ship of state should be steered?

There will be a mid-term election in November, primaries for
which come in the first week of March.

The Republicans of the Bosque Valley and Waco and greater
Central Texas intend to reverse - this!

A candidate was tracking the special Senatorial election in
Massachusetts on his Blackberry. He made numerous
interruptions to keep people abreast of the progress of
projected vote as the polls closed.

When the announcement came that Republican Scott Brown had
defeated Democratic candidate Martha Coakley by a solid
majority in the special election to occupy the seat vacated
by the death of Senator Edward M. Kennedy, there was
thunderous applause. There was a feeling of jubilation in
the air.

The addition of a 41st Republican Senator is expected to
thwart, through filibuster, the Democratic Party's effort to
pass health care reform during the current Congress.

And, so, it became totally apparent that this crowd that
occupied every seat at every table in the auditorium, these
polite, well-groomed, affluent people of the managerial
class, are terribly involved with what was happening in
faraway Massachusetts. It's of vital importance to them in
their businesses, their families, their lives.

Obamacare scares them to death and they're going to do
something about it.

Why?

Money. It's that simple.

These are the people who meet the payrolls, plan the
budgets, write the checks. They're staring down the twin
barrels of a depression and they are scared to death.

Deficit spending is perceived in their circles as something
that will eventually drive the United States into the status
of a Third World nation - one that can't pay its debts no
matter how much money it prints or how much money it borrows
from foreign creditors.

Why does this huge issue, one that is played out on a
worldwide stage, affect these people in this way, in their
world, Central Texas?

They are concerned that if and when the national financial
collapse they foresee occurs, the government will confiscate
all they have worked and saved and borrowed and leveraged to
acquire. It will leave them penniless - broke - with the
status of people who have never hit a lick at a snake. In
this doomsday scenario, the government will then begin to
borrow against the collateral of what was once private
property, creating even more national debt.

Wealth, both corporate and personal, would then become a
thing of the past.

In fact, many in that club that met at the Clifton Civic
Center on Tuesday night - The Bosque County Republican Club
- think that is the actual overall strategy of the current
national leadership. They see deficit spending as a
socialist plot to eliminate private property. They blame
President Barack Obama, the Federal Reserve and the present
liberal majority in Congress.

Then there is an opposing minority view held by such
economic luminaries as Peter G. Peterson, a former Secretary
of Commerce in the Nixon Administration, CEO of Bell &
Howell and Lehman Brothers, and the successor to David
Rockefeller as Chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations.
He has held that the current recession and the huge rate of
deficit spending was spurred on by Republican recklessness
and a reliance on supply side economics.

No matter who or what one may blame, the numbers are grim to
behold.

The current national debt is about $12.3 trillion and
counting. A trillion is a thousand billion and a billion is
a thousand million, so to speak. The numbers are so
astronomical that they are difficult to understand.

Ask the Republican candidates what - this - is, of what does
it consist, and why is it a problem of such a pressing
nature.

Ask Dave McIntyre, a candidate for U.S. House of
Representatives from College Station. He is a professor at
Texas A&M following a 30-year career as an Army officer, a
paratrooper by training who was at one time dean of
instructors at the National War College and served in the
Office of the Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army.

His normally expressive countenance nearly explodes as the
figures trip off his tongue. His outrage grows with each
statement he makes. There is a definite sense of urgency,
the kind of motivation an experienced senior officer can
project when he's talking about needing some results - and
how.

Here are some figures from his campaign literature.

"The coming bill that the Social Security and Disability
account cannot pay has risen from $3.98 trillion to $5.66
trillion in the past five years.

"The coming bill that Medicare Part B cannot pay has risen
from $11.5 trillion to #17.2 trillion in the same period.

"The prescription drug plan that looked so good in 2004 has
a coming bill of $8 trillion that it cannot pay.

"Overall, just in the area of health care for seniors, we
have a bill coming due of $43 trillion that we cannot pay."

What kind of person is Mr. McIntyre? His specialty is
national security, the kind that the Armed Forces can
provide so that business can be done here - in America - no
matter what is going on in other countries. His experience?
He has led or been involved in missions to two dozen foreign
nations. Recently, since the war has come to American
shores, his area of expertise has become what is now called
homeland security.

His concern is that America is borrowing money at a dizzying
rate - money it can't possibly pay back - in very dangerous
neighborhoods from very dangerous people, the kind of people
who don't have much regard for the safety of the American
people and their children.

"...the biggest single concern is the national debt and the annual deficit which is adding to it every year. We can recover from every other challenge we face - no nation can recover from the crushing debt we soon face if Washington does not turn from its reckless ways," according to Mr. McIntyre.

"Here are the specifics of the debt crisis we face Last year the US took in about $3 billion in revenues. We spent about $4.2 billion. That means we borrowed about $1.2 billion from our future and our children. That is 1.2 thousand billions of dollars. This year. One of every 4 dollars spent by the US government was borrowed. What family could stand to spend 25% more than it earns every year, year after year?

"That debt mounts up. Today we owe $12 trillion dollars that we borrowed from our children and grandchildren. We borrowed it from the Chinese, the Arabs, and others mostly overseas. That is 12 thousand billion dollars. And that debt is increasing at about 10% each year. Soon we will be spending 8 cents of every dollar just to pay the interest.

"So 33 cents of every dollar the federal government spends will soon be borrowed or spent on interest.

"No nation can survive this. We must turn the situation around now. Now.

"And the best way to turn this around is the creation of new, well paying jobs. Not more old jobs - where pay is declining. And not jobs with big business - which is not creating jobs but is laying people off and has been for 10 years.

"We have to train and educate people for new jobs on a large scale. I know how to do this -- I have been doing it for the last 10 years.

"Fire Chet - Hire Dave - and lets get started returning America to greatness."

When he asked me if I have any questions, I said, "Sir, I have no questions. Thou art a bodacious good communicator and I am hereby motivated."

Republicans are vigorously challenging Democratic office
holders on every level, but there are no races anywhere near
as hot as that of the 17th Congressional District, home of
long-term Democratic Representative Chet Edwards of Waco.

Rob Curnock, a former KWTX sports anchorman and owner of Dub
L Tape Video Services of Waco, nearly beat Edwards in the
latest election of 2008. Though he was outspent by his
Democratic opponent 23 to 1, he still came up with 45.5
percent of the vote.

Along with Dave McIntyre, the Republican challengers include
Chuck Wilson, a Waco homebuilder who is a former CIA case
agent whose team helped apprehend the infamous Venezuelan
international terrorist, Carlos the Jackal, and turned him
over to the French authorities where he now languishes in Le
Sante Prison, Paris.

Timothy Delasandro is a former Naval intelligence Russian
language specialist who is now a Registered Nurse at Bryan.

Eric Finley has an intelligence background with the U.S. Air
Force, chiefly in the Iraq campaigns, and today is a small
business owner.

William Flores is a recent arrival to the College Station -
Bryan area, a transplant from Sugarland.