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My endorsement of democrat Barack Obama has elicited a voluminous collective of e-mails, from the sublime to the ridiculous, from supportive to threatening, from genuine inclusion to overt racism.

Since having announced my support of Mr. Obama's quest for the Presidency of the United States, one of the more common laments I've received is a general misconception that I've somehow ‘betrayed' conservatives, or even traitorously changed my party affiliation.

The reality is that, as a moderate conservative, I reserve the American privilege and right to formulate my own political convictions. I never claimed to be ‘Republican,' nor ‘Democrat'; both parties have become a murky, muddy gray and are antiquated reminders that, indeed, change is needed in restoring the two-party system on which this Nation was founded.

Each have become equally ridiculous, embracing self-aggrandized decay of modern America's geo-political landscape. Since I had no ‘party' from which to ‘change sides' in the first place, I now find myself in the tedious position of having to sift through ignorant e-mail assertions from overly emotional knee-jerk partisans from both political camps.

No, I have not "changed sides," politically, as numerous e-mails to me over the past days have suggested. Since I am a moderate conservative without Party leanings, I base my political overtones on personal conviction, social indicators, contemporary morays, apolitical analysis and, yes, even a wee bit of the religious values around which I was raised, bohemian as they might have been.

As a Moderate, I do not blindly polarize to a term, but weigh each issue an each issue's potential for merit and shortfall alike. In as much, I have not ‘changed sides.' Rather, the parties, the issues, the candidates have transcended America's new 2008 geo-political frontier and, collectively, changed me.

As a Moderate, I still hold true to my core beliefs and idealistic leanings, the roots of which take seed in equally, the liberal movement AND the conservative movements. In no particular order, my personal core beliefs and political idealistic leanings include, but are in no way limited to, the following....

• That a woman's body is her own and not subject to legal interpretation;
• That Roe Vs. Wade should stand and remain unchanged;
• That illegal immigration is a threat to America and our nation's Southern boarder should be sealed with military enforcement;
• That homelessness is a governmental issue deserving of a government's solution;
• That hate crimes targeting any legally protected class, to include homophobic hate crimes, should be tried as Capital offenses.
• That the war in Iraq is concluded and our troops must begin an immediate rotational drawback for immediate return back to our Nation's soil;
• That upon their return, our Nation's returning troops should be deployed along our Southern boarder utilizing Deadly Force as necessary to dissuade illegal immigration into our UNITED States;
• That our Nation's schools are in need of serious revamping with our Nation's deserving teachers compensated at a salary rate-of-pay equal to that of any Fortune 500 CEO;
• That AIDS should be eradicated and that without appropriate funding, this will not happen;
• That animals have rights to non-torture and non-suffering even in mass food production environments;
• That our natural resources must be harvested completely regardless of potential for environmental impact;
• That environmental impact standards must be devised and employed to maintain our Nation's ecological beauty;
• That ‘Global Warming' is naturally occurring phenomena, exacerbated by human intrusion into the environment;
• That the death penalty is deserved and reserved anti-social nitwits incapable of rehabilitation;
• That The Beatles, David Bowie, Led Zepplin, Michael Jackson, Green Day, Pulp, Oasis and Peter Murphy are all musical geniuses (sorry... HAD to slip this in to lighten the mood!);
• That same-sex ‘relationships' should be recognized as ‘legal unions,' but that defining them as ‘marriage' imperils traditional family values and forces upon all citizens the private personal sexual agendas of select individuals;
• That ‘Road Rage' and DUI's need to carry mandatory and immediate felony convictions;
• That a violent crimes against children will incur mandatory life-interment prison sentences;
• That one unified currency, such as the proposed ‘Amero' for Canada, Mexico and the United States would be catastrophic to not only North American commerce and free trade, but globally and specifically all G7 nations
• And, last but not least (nor in any way the ‘end') that in post-divorce situations, fathers have rights, as well.

So, no, I have not "changed sides." Stop e-mailing me longwinded, bizarre, conspiracy-theorist e-mails with subject lines like ‘Bassodict Arnold,' ‘traitor' and ‘Jilted Conserv-i-Star.' I had "no side" from which to effectively ‘change' or ‘leave' in the first place and all of this 2008 Election collectively, has changed me.

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Our nation sits upon a precipice of change with an important and historic Presidential election only 4 days away. At this stage, there are no ‘undecided' voters. Anyone claiming such political malaise at this juncture is either completely apathetic of the process, or had no intention of voting in the first place. Opinions and decisions are decided and have been tabulated; votes have been cast in record pre-election numbers by absentee and early voting ballots.

Yes, this election is now essentially concluded; all that remains id the tally of the count and the declaration of the results.

Contrary to Democratic theory garb, should Obama clinch the Presidency, it will not be the result of the Democratic Party's juggernaut push to resister record numbers of supposed new voters throughout the election process that led up to Election Day 2008. An Obama victory will be the result of a splintering Republican ideology and a division in Party agendas and ideals. Retired general and former Secretary of State Colin Powell's endorsement last week of Barack Obama a clear indication of that.

As our Nation now stares down these final days of this historic election, it will be the Disenfranchised Conservatives and the Partisan Stone-Wallers ultimately responsible for determining this Nation's 44^th President.

Disenfranchised Conservatives, such as I, will place their votes behind Obama, not out of liberal duplicity of the Republican ideal, nor betrayal of the conservative movement, but due to the unsettled reality that, in pursuing the greater National good, this current path of Bushian Dismalism can not, nor should not, be maintained any longer. Further, because McCain is so clearly committed to four more years of the last eight years of status quo, any vote contrary to McCain (in this case a pro-Obama vote) is the only logical method of derailing the disastrous George Bush express from its tracks.

Conversely, Partisan Stone-Wallers rigidly unyielding, will continue to demonstrate blind partisan loyalty with little regard for a party-neutral broader assessment of today political issues now at hand. Maintaining the political status quo, as heralded by the 2008 Republican flag-bearer, John McCain, will be the only acceptable voting option.

In a Nation with more registered Republican's, and amidst those registered Republicans there are fragmented splinter theories, each voting in polar opposition to each other, this tight race for the 44^th President of the United States of America long ago transcended Senator McCain and Senator Obama.

In these twilight days of this historic election, two opposing Republican factions each hold the keys to unlocking the door of Election 2008.

And when that door opens and our Nation's next President steps through that doorway, who will these small Republican factions have elected?

A change we can believe in or a staying of the course?

Your vote counts.

BE the process.

And, God bless these United States of America.

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© 2008 - R. MARTIN BASSO & 3 Doves Media