I know this gets said pretty much every 2 years, but I think this might be the most critical election I've ever voted in.  I'm 44 years old, and I've voted in several now.  It's not just the presidential election, because it looks like unless a miracle happens, there will be a liberal in the White House in 2009.  I suppose I'll vote for McCain, but then again, if there is a viable third party candidate, I'll probably not vote for McCain.

The real fight that conservatives need to win is in the House and Senate, and in the state and local elections.  This country is in large part conservative, I believe, but for the most part we are being represented by professional politicians who don't care about much of anything except getting re-elected.  American is standing on a precipice, and now is when we have to take back our streets, our schools, our law enforcement departments, our city and county and state governments.  Those of us who believe in values such as self reliance and protecting our borders need to step it up a notch.  We can't leave it to our neighbors to do our jobs for us.  We need to vote, but we need to carefully research whom we vote for.

In this internet age, there is more and more information available about the candidates.  Most of them, even on a local level have web sites.  We need to take the time and look at as much information as we can digest and vote with care.  I'm tired of seeing RINO's (Republicans In Name Only) and CINO's (Conservatives In Name Only) elected to office, only to buy into liberal scams as a way of becoming popular with the media or the liberals themselves.  In my opinion there is nothing wrong with partisan politics when it means choosing between right and wrong.  Washington D.C. seems to eventually pollute the minds and morals of even the most honest politicians, and I believe we need to keep that in mind before we vote for an incumbent again.  Case in point:  Lindsay Graham used to be my Congressman here in South Carolina, and I thought he did a great job.  I voted for him when he ran for Senate, but I'll not be voting for Senator Graham again.  Graham has bought into the John McCain theory of compromise politics, and I now find it hard to believe that he ever was a true conservative.

Schools are a particularly important issue in my opinion.  Our government run schools are doing a very poor job of educating our children, and the problem grows worse every single year.  I'm not blaming the teachers, because most of them seem to be at least competent in their jobs.  I do blame administrators though, for allowing our children to be fed a liberal agenda that just gets worse every day.  There are some exceptions, but even here in the red state of SC, we have many liberals in high powered positions in education.  I've seen some great teachers, and I've seen some who basically just try to keep the kids busy enough to behave, without really teaching them anything.  I've seen administrators who felt that teaching political correctness was more important than teaching math, or English, or history, or science.  I've asked 16 and 17 year old kids, who made really good grades, to point out to me on a map of the world the location of the United States, or on a map of the US, where South Carolina was.  A disturbing number of them didn't have a clue.  On the US map, I was as likely to see fingers pointing at Oklahoma as I was to see them pointing to any state in the southeast.  I've asked some of these same students what a preposition was, and probably half thought it was a legal term, not a term having anything to do with grammar.  By the time I got around to math, well, they were pretty bored.

The point I'm trying to make is that our children will one day be voters, and with such a poor education, how can they be expected to make wise decisions when it comes to pulling the lever?  When your average 18 year old doesn't know the difference between the 100 Years War and World War II, how will they have a clue as to who is more qualified to defend the country?  Apparently an 18 year old is considered old enough to have a job and pay the government a lot of their hard earned money in taxes, but they aren't deserving of a proper education.  Education must be a priority, or this country will simply cease to exist as we know it now.

This year, state and local elections are very important.  It might be time to tune out all the rhetoric that will be spewing from the mouths of McCain, Clinton, and Obama, and start listening to what the local politicians are saying.  We need to start taking the country back from the liberals, city by city, county by county, and state by state.  It all starts at home.