Hugh Hewitt: Clip and save until November 2 | Washington Examiner

Hugh Hewitt: Clip and save until November 2
By: Hugh Hewitt
Examiner Columnist
August 15, 2010

November's elections are undeniably party elections, as the two major parties clearly have split in profound, undeniable ways.

If you favor all or most of Obamacare, you should vote for every Democrat in every election, as Obamacare represents a victory for the entire Democratic Party organization, one it has been seeking since 1993.

If, on the other hand, you oppose all or most of Obamacare, or even just the unconstitutional individual mandate that requires every American to buy health insurance, then vote for every Republican at every level of government, so as to fully repudiate the Democratic Party that has foisted this job-killing and economy-chilling disaster on us all.

Many Democrats will try to flee their party's legacy in this area, just as they will want to distance themselves from the failed $850 billion "stimulus" and the seizure of General Motors by the government.

Many Democrats will also want to try to avoid the president's endorsement of the mosque at ground zero, the left's war against marriage, and the Democrat-applauded actions of an activist, manipulative federal judge's bizarre show trial and tortured opinion in the Proposition 8 case, as well as his post-decision effort to deny an appeal to defenders of California's state constitution.

Democrats want to avoid their party leadership's absolute commitment to ruinous and massive tax increases at the start of 2011, just as many Democrats want to shed responsibility for the president's decision to sue Arizona over that state's rather modest attempt to help plug the porous border.

But the president's Department of Justice can only be overseen by congressional committees, which are all governed by Democratic congressmen who hold their jobs by the favor of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. So a vote for any Democrat at any level is an endorsement of a party that refuses to act with resolve on the border fence that is the outward and effective manifestation of an inner resolve to secure the border against the growing chaos of the evolving Somalia to our south.

The Democratic Party as a whole is also responsible for the fanaticism of the global warming cultists who are now operating through the unelected and unsupervised bureaucrats at the Environmental Protection Agency to impose a massive federal regulatory scheme on businesses across the land, a naked power grab necessitated because 41 Republicans refused to be bullied into any version of cap and tax in the Senate. That's the Democratic way -- seize by administrative diktat or court order what you cannot gain via legitimate legislative victory.

If you favor keeping what remains of the free-enterprise system and you embrace the belief that Congress, not bureaucrats, ought to decide when that system is to be burdened with regulatory controls, then vote for every Republican at every level.

The same chasm separates Democrats from Republicans on a host of other issues, from defense spending Iran policy, the support of Israel and the so-called "card check" law that would end secret balloting in union elections.

You can't have it both ways, and there is no third way. When Republicans last controlled the federal budget, the deficit was $160 billion. Next year, the legacy of a Democrat-controlled Congress will be a deficit of about $1,600 billion.

There's "Democrat" and there's "Republican," and in this election, every vote for a third party is a vote for the party in power -- the Democrats. Real change requires a straight party vote from top to bottom.

Either you are with the president, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, or you are against them. Vote accordingly, in every race for every office.

Examiner Columnist Hugh Hewitt is a law professor at Chapman University Law School and a nationally syndicated radio talk show host who blogs daily at HughHewitt.com.