Returning Republicans to power in Congress in 1995 and to the executive mansion in 2001 resulted in fourteen years of higher debt, greater spending, a housing bubble, suppression of civil liberties, and out-of-control government. We should have expected no less. They are and have been part of the establishment and most are statists. And Leftists have been disappointed in Obama’s resistance to their socialist agenda, regardless of how bad the Right has portrayed it. He has pushed the envelope, to be sure, but as the selection of Van Jones as the "Green Czar" illustrated, the Left wants much more. Obama has betrayed Leftists on the war in Afghanistan, the dismissal of Jones, and the elimination of a "public option" from health care "reform." Leftists vote Democrat and continually get left in the cold.

Voters who wish to see "change" should remember this lesson. The only real choices are third-party candidates at the federal level, or if none exists, vote for the person you don’t want to win or simply don’t vote. This will again hasten the de-legitimization of the political process. The forty-five percent of the total voting population who choose not to vote in federal elections are making a solid statement against the federal leviathan. At the same time, Americans should be concentrating their efforts at the state and local level. As I pointed out in Decentralization for Socialists and Why the Tenth Amendment? the state offers the only hedge against cultural, religious, or economic centralization and ultimate annihilation. The states are not perfect but definitely closer to the location of power, and that is precisely what both the Left and Right want: greater control over the direction of the government.

So, in future elections, if a third-party candidate does not suit your political philosophy, vote for the individual who least resembles your ideology and then bolster your power by selecting state and local candidates who will push a state rights message. The Right should be privately cheering Obama’s election. He is quickly bringing down the Democrat Party. Just don’t let the Republicans swoop in and take credit. They need to go, too. Vote Obama and bring down the federal leviathan"!