GOP creating fuel for Obama

Charles Dillon "Casey" Stengel, the early 20th century baseball legend who played on five teams and managed four, said, "It's easy to get good players. Getting them to play together, that's the hard part."

What's true in sports is definitely true in politics, but even more so.

Many say, 'tis the season for GOP rivalry, but when does inference turn to infighting? When does public debate dismantle our conservative solidarity? When do campaign commercials compromise our unity to fight together? And when does friendly bantering turn into friendly fire that is fuel for our foes?

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I know we are in a GOP presidential race. I understand the tactics to win a regular election, but this is no typical run for the presidency. There is a progressive insurrection underway, and at the heart of their political warfare is the disunity of conservative consensus.

In this unique presidential race, I would propose at this particular point that our infighting is, indeed, not only the recipe for the president's petroleum but also a major strategy in the progressives' plan to keep their incumbent in the Oval Office.

Former House Speaker and GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich told an audience in Iowa last week, "President Obama is legitimately and authentically a Saul Alinsky radical." I completely agree, as well as the majority who truly understand Obama's origins and political philosophies. Even the New York Times back in August 2009 wrote, "Saul Alinsky, the Chicago activist and writer whose street-smart tactics influenced generations of community organizers, most famously the current president …"

Alinsky's bible for community organizers is "Rules for Radicals," the principles of which can be viewed in almost every action of the left, including the present White House. For example, in the chapter on "power tactics," the fourth tactic is: "Make the enemy live up to their own book of rules." While conservatives regard congruity as commendable, Alinsky considers it an opportunity for raising disdain among the public and infighting among enemies, because no one can perfectly live up to his or her own message.

This is where Alinsky's fifth rule follows and applies: "Ridicule is man's most potent weapon." And the best missile in that arsenal is the friendly fire (ridicule) caused within the enemies' own camps.

The goal is "conflict among themselves" – what Alinsky calls "power cannibalism," "a road from which there is no turning back" because "it permits only temporary truces." Indeed, according to Alinsky, they will suffer a form of selfish implosion while attempting to appear selfless, as "individual units attempt to exploit the general threat for their own special benefit."

Alinsky concludes, "Here's the vulnerable belly of the status quo."

Tragically, by their infighting, the GOP candidates are playing right into President Obama and Saul Alinsky's hands. The fact is, that while the majority of GOP candidates think they're merely competing for the prize of nomination, they are running exact plays from Alinsky's playbook, often pitted by the main stream media and the White House, who are playing them like pawns with their questions, accusations, and innuendoes.

Consider just last week alone how the Alinsky's scorecard read.

According to the Associated Press, this past week Gov. Mitt Romney's camp "announced a $3.1 million TV ad campaign in Iowa beginning Friday that includes the new commercial assailing Gingrich on a host of fronts."

On the other hand, look at what Former Speaker Newt Gingrich said in a speech in Charleston, S.C., "I do approach this whole campaign, I think, differently from everybody else. We have a number of friends who are also running. We have no opponents except Barack Obama. I think that's very important. I think [Abraham] Lincoln was very wise, as was captured in a book called 'Team of Rivals,' in actually developing literally everybody who [was] his opponent ended up in the [presidential] cabinet, because he needed all of them in order to be able to put together the political power during the crisis that we faced. I would say the same thing. I don't know a single person currently running who wouldn't be a very effective member of an administrative team who doesn't have real talent and in some way would bring a unique strength. I don't have any opponents on the Republican side."

Newt's wisdom reminds me of a Japanese Proverb, "A single arrow is easily broken, but not ten in a bundle." (I recently wrote about this very unifying idea in a column I titled, "The 8th miracle to save America.")

Now, you tell me, which type of leadership is going to win us back the White House: one that rallies the country or divides the house?

Being duped to submit to Saul Alinsky's schemes is not only occurring among GOP presidential candidates at the moment, but much of the conservative media and public. While we slander our own presidential candidates within the borders of our First Amendment rights, we inadvertently abandon the strategy to win the White House. There's a fine line between free speech and freedom of the press and commentary that is now turning into friendly fire that will give fuel for our adversaries.

It is particularly time for Republican politicians and pundits to stop criticizing GOP candidates, like I saw Sen. Tom Coburn, Okla., and Judge Napolitano of Fox Business Network recently do, because they are just handing over ammo to the Obama campaign machine. To Sen. Coburn, in particular, I would say, let bygones be bygones, unless you want another four years of President Obama. Don't you think that the GOP candidates have enough trouble dealing with mainstream media, unions, Democratic politicians and the White House without us antagonizing them, too?

Every conservative I know agrees that any GOP candidate will be better than the leadership we currently have in the White House. I firmly believe their positive attributes definitely outweigh any of their negatives.

With about three weeks to the Iowa Caucus, it's high time that we quit allowing the left and even our own preferences and prejudice to polarize us any further. It's time we lay down our egos and our innate bent to tear down and fight to unify for our republic's sake. If we are going to win the war for the White House, it's going to be solely in our ability to rally together and keep our scopes on the current occupant of the White House, not by aiming at one other.

It's time we turn the tables and beat the progressives at their own game, by overturning their own rules – Saul Alinsky's "Rules"!

So let's flood the media and blogosphere with discussion about the positive strengths each candidate possesses. Let's keep the focus on real solutions to get this country back on track. Let's live out the acrostic, T.E.A.M., and show progressives and the world that "Together Everyone Achieves More," namely winning back the White House, Senate and maintaining a majority in the House of Representatives, which will save our Republic.

United we stand; divided we most certainly will fall.