GARY BAUER

To: Friends & Supporters

From: Gary L. Bauer


High Court Rules On Marriage

Friends, we are still digesting the complex decisions handed down today by the Supreme Court regarding the Defense of Marriage Act and California's Proposition 8. At first glance it appears to be a split decision, but not as bad as many feared it would be. We will have a special report later this afternoon with more analysis.


Buckeye State Buyer's Remorse

When I read new polling data today out of Ohio, I couldn't believe my eyes. Just 40% of Buckeye State voters approve of President Obama's job performance, while 57% disapprove. That is Obama's lowest approval rating ever in this key swing state.

But my astonishment soon turned to anger. Why? Because for the second time in a row, we lost Ohio to Obama. The reasons are many but the conclusion is obvious. The state is dominated by blue-collar working-class people, who tend to be pro-life and oppose same-sex "marriage." Yet they determined that the Republican standard bearer and the GOP generally did not care about people like them.

Of course part of the reason they believe that is due to the unceasing class warfare campaign that has been waged by Obama and his left-wing allies. Countless millions of dollars were spent depicting Mitt Romney as a job-killing "vulture capitalist" who was oblivious to the struggles of average people.

Here's what has me so angry. We can't control what Democrats say about conservatism. But we can fight to control the agenda the GOP offers to the American people.

If our party continues to talk about nothing other than cutting Social Security checks and tightening our belts, if it keeps falling on it sword to prevent tax hikes for billionaires and if it embraces an immigration bill that clobbers working-class wages, we will continue to lose elections to the likes of Barack Obama.

Listen to Republican politicians and count how often they talk about hard working families. Count the speeches devoted to ending the unholy alliance between Big Business and Big Government -- crony capitalism. Count how many times you hear them getting tough on China and how it robs our economy of blue-collar jobs.

You will seldom hear these issues addressed because the party's rhetoric is almost exclusively devoted to investment and Wall Street concerns. Those are important issues, but they are not enough to win elections.

And, of course, count how many times you hear Republicans talk about the sanctity of life, religious liberty and strengthening the family for everybody, including minorities. All too often they are giving it lip service. Yet they can't figure out why Ohioans are voting for Obama rather than taking a chance with Mitt Romney and the Republican Party.

You'll hear a lot of rhetoric from Republicans about entrepreneurs. I am a big supporter of men and women who risk their capital to start new businesses. That should remain one of the main focuses of our message.

But most Americans will not start their own business. Most Americans will work for someone else, and the conservative message has got to appeal to those millions who live paycheck to paycheck.


The Left Fights To Win

Last night the Texas legislature failed to pass an abortion reform bill that would have banned late-term abortions performed after 20 weeks of pregnancy. According to a January Gallup poll, only 27% of Americans believe abortion should be "generally legal" in the second trimester and just 14% believe abortion should be legal in the third trimester.

This should not be a controversial issue. So what went wrong? Once again the left resorted to mob action to defeat the bill. Hundreds of screaming pro-abortion protestors shouted down legislators as they tried to conclude the session.

We are seeing this tactic over and over again. Do you remember the riots that occurred in California after Proposition 8 passed? Do you remember the mobs in Madison, Wisconsin?

This strategy is being used right now in North Carolina, where voters have elected a Republican majority to the state legislature for the first time in modern history. The GOP is undertaking needed reforms, but day after day rent-a-mobs are showing up to harass conservative legislators.

New York Senator Chuck Schumer recently threatened "massive demonstrations," "a million people on the Mall in Washington," unless the House passes the Senate's amnesty bill. Increasingly the left is using intimidation to turn America into something we won't recognize.

Among the dozens of things the conservative movement needs to do when it comes to building assets -- more funding and better technology -- we'd better start finding ways to get conservatives to "vote with their feet" in order to counter the increasing use of political mobs by the left.


Radical Islamists In The White House

The  Investigative Project on Terrorism released a disturbing report today indicating that radical Islamist leader Sheik Abdullah Bin Bayyah attended a meeting at the White House earlier this month with top administration officials -- at the request of the Obama Administration!

According to a White House spokesman, those in the meeting discussed "a wide range of issues including poverty, global health efforts and Bin Bayyah's efforts to counter the Al Qaeda narrative."

Bin Bayyah may not be a card-carrying member of Al Qaeda, but he's far from a "moderate." He is a supporter of Hamas, which carries out homicide bombings and calls for Israel's destruction. In 2004 Bin Bayyah supported a fatwa calling for the killing of U.S. soldiers in Iraq.

If this report is accurate, members of Congress should be holding hearings and demanding resignations.

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