Now, as the American electorate is being introduced to Santorum, their first reaction will be to run over to Google and type in “Santorum” or “Rick Santorum.”  Many will not like what they find, but not just for political reasons.  If they Google “Santorum,” the first 2 results and 6 of the 10 results on the first page will refer to the aftermath of a specific sexual activity (full definition of Santorum here, I warn you, its really gross).  If you Google “Rick Santorum” #3 refers to the same activity.

Santorum got its alternative meaning in 2003 after he made anti-gay comments, including comparing being gay to bestiality.  Sex advice columnist Dan Savage proposed renaming a sex act with Santorum’s last name to forever stain his name with his antigay comments.  I remember reading the original columns in The Onion and thinking it was pretty funny, but never thought that the campaign would actually catch on like it has.  Savage set up a website and it quickly went viral.  I cannot hear his name without thinking of the other meaning and now Google is introducing millions more to the alternative meaning.  Savage offered to take down any references to the other meaning if Santorum stopped his anti gay rhetoric and then donated $5m to marriage equality causes, but Santorum turned him down.

So what does this mean for Santorum the candidate?  And what does his story mean for the rest of us?  I think Santorum’s original comments in 2003 ruled him out from winning a Presidential election, so in the grand scheme of things, it won’t really change his chances of winning.  But it does make him answer uncomfortable questions.  And I think it’s the start of a trend.

Google and other social media have become such powerful tools, especially for people with influence.  It shows that if you piss off the wrong people on the Internet, you too can be synonymous with something equally disgusting.  Before, people were accountable for only what people could remember, or what they could find in librarian’s archives.  Now, anyone with a voice can share their opinion.  And their opinion is there forever.  Google and the Internet never forgets.

What happens when my generation decides to start to run for office?  We’ve had Facebook, Twitter, blogs and personal websites since our teens.  It’s going to be really easy for people digging up dirt to find photos of us wasted or doing stupid things (more likely both at the same time.)  What about old status updates and non-mainstream political ideas?  Bad jokes we made to friends that can be taken out of context?  We’ve all got it and if you don’t you’re either incredibly private or really boring!  People will either disqualify presidential candidate with these “problems” or they will realize taht everyone has similar posts and decide that it’s just part of life.  I sure hope it’s the former or we’ll have some really boring people in office!

The other issue that’ll affect all of us, not just politicians, is that the Internet never forgets.  Before the internet, we could reinvent ourselves, change our opinions, do dumb things when we were young and nobody besides the people involved would know your past.  We could start fresh.  It’s part of what made us human.  Now our past is all out in the open for anyone to find. From blogs to twitter to tumblr and now the Facebook Timeline, anyone with enough time or curiosity can find exactly what I thought in 2005 via my Facebook Timeline, my political views in 2007 via my blog and dumb things I tweeted to my friends in 2009.

In the past, we could change our opinions when presented with new facts.  In fact, that’s the most admirable trait that I think someone can have.  Now, if you change your opinion, you’re branded a “flip-flopper” or you “don’t have strong convictions.”  I think that’s bullshit.

Eliminating the ability to change and reinvent ourselves is going to be a really big change for humans.  There’s no way to put a wild past, a flirtation with a non-mainstream ideology or simple youthful exuberance behind you.  There’s always a record.  I’m not suggesting that it’s good that people can lie about their past, but I don’t think its healthy to be able to get as specific as the internet allows you to.  And Santorum is  one of the first public figures to experience our new reality.

                          

If an IP holder, for example Warner Brothers, believes that a website is harming their rights, it can demand that search engines block the “offending” website in search results, payment processors stop processing credit card transactions and advertising networks stop displaying advertising and sending payments.  They can even demand that the domain name be blocked in the United States.  All for one link to potentially protected IP content.    If these companies comply, they are immune from any damages relating to copyright infringement.

“Offending” websites have five days to respond. This means that if Facebook has one link to an illegal download of a Warner Brothers movie, Warner Brothers can demand that search engines, payment processors and ad networks stop doing business with the ENTIRE company.

Facebook is now a huge company and would fight back, but imagine Zuckerburg getting a letter from Warner Brothers in 2003.  He’d have to buckle to Warner Brothers’ demands immedately because he didn’t have the resources to fight: he was building Facebook into a billion dollar business that now employs over 3000 people.  SOPA will kill innovation and job creation.

SOPA and PIPA replace DMCA, or Digital Millenium Copyright Act, which passed in 1998.  It was a compromise between the content industry and the technology industry that has worked really well.  It provides four safe harbors, immunity, for companies that follow the rules: if they are notified of offending content, they can ban the user who is posting it and remove the links.  Now websites are liable for the content their users post.  This is a horrible idea.  DMCA has worked really well for the past 14 years, but the music and movie industry wants more power.

They’ve used their lobbyists to write a broad, vague bill that eliminates these safe harbors and concentrates power with large companies at the expense of free speech and startups.  Platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, WordPress, Reddit, Blogger, Google and many others are at risk.  Individuals who download content or stream videos face criminal prosecution.  Some examples that will be illegal under SOPA: posting a remixed song to soundcloud, posting a video with copyrighted music in the background, covering a copyrighted song and posted it to Facebook.  It’s crazy, someone who illegally downloads a Michael Jackson video could face a longer prison term than the doctor who killed him.  There’s even talk that Justin Bieber’s original cover songs on YouTube could have been censored.

The consequences of these bills are huge.  It has the potential to end the internet as we know it.  It will kill startups.  It will unfairly punish individuals and artists using copyrighted material in remixes, videos and art.  It will allow large companies to block access to websites they find objectionable without a full court order and a transparent appeals process.  If a dictatorship was proposing a similar law, the US would be running to condem it.  This law uses similar techniques to China’s great firewall to get what it wants.  It’s not democratic, its probably unconstitutional and will harm one of the last job creating industries in the United States.  SOPA signals the end of the Internet as we know it.

In the last week, Congress has stopped trying to ram these bills through, mostly because of outcry on the internet.  You can do your part.  Share posts like this, look at companies that are supporting SOPA and think about contacting your representative.

For more information check out Hollywood Finally Gets A Chance to Break the Internet and Stop America Censorship.  They both make a better case against SOPA than I do.

PROTECT IP / SOPA Breaks The Internet from Fight for the Future on Vimeo.

                          

On the tax side, I see four main problems.  First, the wealthiest are not paying enough.  Second, too few people are paying income taxes and the taxes they do pay, like payroll and sales tax are regressive.  Third, the tax code is far too complex and doles out favors to political contributors.  Fourth, the tax code does not distinguish between investment and speculation.

I’ve blogged about all four problems before, but I want to focus on the fourth problem: capital gains taxes are completely out of whack.  The left focuses on raising income taxes and letting the Bush tax cuts expire so that “the wealthy pays their fair share.”  But they are ignoring that the majority of wealthy people earn their income from capital gains: investing in companies, stocks, property, fine art or anything else they can buy and later resell at a higher price.

Capital gains are broken into two levels, short term capital gains and long term capital gains.  Short term capital gains are things that you buy and hold for less than a year before reselling them.  Short term gains are taxed as normal income, 35% for top earners.  Long term capital gains are things that you buy and then sell after more than a year and are taxed at a 15% rate, a 43% reduction from the normal income rate.

This discrepency is why people like Warren Buffett pay a lower overall rate than his secertary.  I believe that investment is the engine that drives growth and ultimately creates jobs and innovation in our economy, but I believe that one year is way too short of a window.  I would change the capital gains system so that it encourages real, long term investment, not speculation.  Here’s what I would change:

Years                    Rate

0-1                   Normal Income (35%)
1-2                       30%
2-3                       20%
3-4                       15%
4-5                       10%
5-6                       5%
7+                        0%

I want to incentivize people to invest for the long term, not speculate in the short term.  I want to make it more risky to play in the casino that has become our economy and make it more attractive to look for real value, for real innovation and for real job creation.  This system would raise revenue by raising rates on the highest earners, those who are speculating right now.  It will impact the real rich and will actually change the system instead of just raising income taxes, which won’t affect the truly rich.  For example, 1400 millionaires didn’t pay a penny of income tax in 2009 because they didn’t take a salary.  It was all capital gains.

Congress should differentiate between speculation and real investment and push people to invest long term, not short term.  It’s a fix that I believe makes sense and could gain bipartisan support in Congress, but so far, both parties are looking at the red herring that is the income tax rates.  True long term investments are in startup companies, publicly traded companies you truly believe in, alternative energy that pays off in 5-6 years, new buildings, etc. Fix capital gains, then move onto the other three problems.

PS – An added loophole that defies logic?  Hedge fund managers have been allowed to take billions in profits and income as capital gains instead of normal income, saving them billions in taxes.

                          

I think conservatives are wrong to simply dismiss the protesters as lazy and looking for handouts. Our economy has become incredibly unbalanced over the past few decades.  Wall Street, large corporations and the already rich are able to take advantage of advances in technology, government policy and changes in how the economy works to make huge sums of money, while firing US based employees or moving production offshore.  Those without skills or cash have not been able to.  The vast majority of people are struggling.

When recession hit, the government bailed out Wall Street at the expense of Main Street, stimulated “preferred” industries and passed bills approved (maybe even written) by  lobbyists.  We have a dysfunctional government led by a President who is unwilling or unable to lead, a Republican obstructionist Congress with no clear message and ineffective Democratic opposition.  We now have close to 25% un/underemployment.  People are angry and scared.

I see huge parallels between the #occupy protests and The Tea Party.  When the Tea Party First started, it was a movement against huge government debt, government spending, higher taxes and the new health care law.  Within a month or two, it was co-opted by the religious conservatives in the republican party like Michelle Bachman.  What started as a movement from outside the system with narrow objectives with real grievances became just another far right republican movement.

The same thing is happening with #occupy, but much more quickly.  It started as a grassroots movement, led by people who believed that the bailouts to wall street were unfair, that there is too much money in politics and that our economy needs to be reset in order for us to grow again.  Within two weeks, its been co-opted by far left activists, labor unions and now many Democratic elected officials with a broad range of issues.

Just like the Tea Party, elected officials and those with power saw that they could benefit from latching onto the cause.  They see another way to gain popularity and potentially stay elected.  Both movements started with reasonable grievances, but are now being co-opted by the extremists in their parties.  I believe #occupy has the chance to be as big and as influential as the Tea Party has been, but both movements have lost chances to be as important as they could have been because they have allowed themselves to be taken over by people on the extremes.

I believe that we need to incorporate grievances from both the tea party and the #occupy movement:  Our government is too big, is fairly dysfunctional and costs way too much.  We never should have fully bailed out Wall Street and done nothing to help main street.  There is far too much money in politics, on both sides of the aisle.  Pretty much all of congress is bought and paid for.

We also should be realistic:  We are in the biggest period of change since the industrial revolution.  We now have to compete with people around the world.  The internet is replacing jobs with computers.  Every industry is experiencing productivity increases at the expense of people.  Recovery is not right around the corner.  It will be hard and will require sacrifices and big changes (including lower standards of living) by pretty much everyone, the rich, the middle class, the poor.

I believe #occupy and the tea party have a ton in common.  We need a 3rd centrist movement that incorporates the good from both #occupy and the tea party, without the extremists.  What do you think?

                          

I’ve been interested in the message that foreign involvement sends to dictators around the world.  In 1979, the US placed Libya on the new “state sponsors of terrorism” list as the State Department believed that Libya and Gaddafi were actively supporting terrorist networks around the world.  Over the next 24 years, US/Libya relations worsened, reaching a nadir in the aftermath of the Lockerbie Bombings and subsequent retaliation in the form of increased sanctions.  Full chronology here.

In the mid 90s, Libya restarted its nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs and further moved into isolation.  Things started to thaw in the 2000s, and by 2003, the US, Britian and Libya reached an agreement where Gaddafi would give up his weapons of mass destruction, let foreign inspectors come in and dismantle the plants and stop any further development.  Libya also exposed AQ Khan’s nuclear secrets bazaar, making the world a much safer place.  In exchange, the sanctions against Libya were annulled and Libya was removed from the State Sponsors of Terrorism list.

Fast forward eight years later.  Libyans rise up against the Gaddafi regime, demanding freedom and self rule.  Gaddafi’s troops respond and start to put the uprising down, but the US and NATO intervene and begin to bomb the Libyan army and later “command and control” infrastructure all over the country.  They demand that Gaddafi step down and attempt to kill him and his family with bombs.

What lesson does NATO’s intervention teach rouge regimes, dictators and others with aspirations counter to western interests?  First, NATO and the US negotiate to get what they want: Libya gave up their WMD asiprations, let foreigners in to actually do the disarmament and later renounced terrorism.

Then a few years later, NATO tries to kill you and your family when there is an internal armed uprising.  This is not to say Quadaffi is a good guy, but after seeing what happened to Hussein and now Gaddafi, Bashar Al Assad, Kim Jong Il, Mahmood Ahamdinejad, Pakistan’s rulers and others must think that the only thing protecting them from foreign bombing or invasion is weapons of mass destruction or a huge military with the ability to strike back at western targets.  It seems like a really bad lesson to teach these foreign dictators who have interests counter to the US and NATO’s.

President Obama said the US got involved in Libya to prevent a massive slaughter of civilians, but in reality, our governemnt really supported an armed rebellion to overthrow a dictator.  Its clear that this dictator did some horrible things, but he did sit down to the negotiating table and give up his WMDs and do exactly what we wanted.  On the other end of the spectrum, we invaded Iraq after Hussein refused to allow inspectors.

If this is how we are repaying those who actually sit down and negotiate and give us exactly what we want, how can we really get mad at dictators and foreign heads of state who refuse to negotiate?  In their eyes, the only way to avoid being attacked is to either have no significant natural resources (Darfur), build up significant armed forces (Iran and Syria) or build weapons of mass destruction (Iran, North Korea, Pakistan).  If you are weak like Hussein or give up your weapons like Gaddafi, you’ll be attacked at the first sign of weakness.

The US/NATO has two conflicting objectives.  Our government wants to stop the spread of weapons of mass destruction and also support uprisings against dictators (Egypt, Libya etc).  I think that we need to look very carefully at the message we are sending to the dictators of the world with our Libya intervention.  In the short term, we’ve helped remove a brutal dictator, but in the long term, have we lost even more of our credibility?  If I’m a dictator, I’m going to build up my army and my WMD program so that the US cannot bomb me without fear of retaliation.  I’m not going to risk being weak like Hussein or make a deal like Gaddafi.  Not a good message to be sending.

                          

Chicken breasts are now up to $7 per pound, up from $4.50.  Beef stew meat is $3.99, up from $2.50.  A box of frosted mini wheats $4.75, up from $4.  Premium deli roast beef $10.50, on sale, up from $8.50 when I left.  It’s crazy.  My favorite sandwich shop raised prices from $5 to $5.50 and my favorite bagel store raised prices by $1.

So why are prices so much higher?  It’s a confluence of government policy, a falling dollar, rising commodity prices, mandates for corn based ethanol and crop failures around the world.  In the last six months, corn has nearly tripled in price.  Farmers feed corn to chickens, pigs and sometimes cows.  Add in higher fuel prices for transportation and you get much higher prices.  Pork has gone up 33%. Beef at least 12%. Chicken at least 10%. Wheat 25%.

The government claims that inflation is 1.8%, but since it does not include food and fuel, it’s a completely meaningless number.  When I left in November, the average price of a gallon of gas was $2.85.  Now it’s $3.96, a 39% increase.

Rising food and fuel prices disproportionately hurt the middle class, the poor and seniors on fixed income.  Food and fuel make up a larger portion of the monthly budget for those who are not wealthy.  Government policy is to blame.  Instead of letting banks and bondholders take losses, the Federal Reserve cut interest rates in an attempt to let the banks earn their way back to solvency.  Low rates hurt savers and retirees who put their money into CDs, money markets and savings accounts.

On the other hand, banks can borrow from the Fed for virtually nothing and led it back to the government at 3%, generating 100% risk free profits.  With “quantitative easing,” which is just another name for printing money, the value of the dollar is falling quickly.  Since commodities are priced in dollars, it takes more dollars to buy goods.

Government policy is to bail out the banks at the expense of the poor, those on a fixed income and the middle class.  It started under Bush and has accelerated under Obama.  I don’t understand why more people aren’t outraged.

                          

I can see it on Facebook and Twitter in the status updates of my friends and network.  I can see it in the moods of my friends without jobs or stuck in dead en jobs.  I can see it in the blogosphere, cable news, the looks on people’s faces walking around town and how people are treating each other.  I saw it in the airport security line in NYC as the TSA employees and passengers struggled to interact civally.  I saw it on my flight to Milwaukee when two women got in a fight over a reclining seat.  It’s especially evident in Wisconsin with the current administration and counter protesters.  The anger, tension and fear is there.

Beyond the recession, our political climate is toxic and people feel powerless to make their lives better.  It used to be that if you worked hard, got a good education, you’d get a good job and be able to support yourself and live well.  Both the left and the right are getting more extreme and the center is increasinly empty, silent or powerless.  The reasonable center is afraid to speak up, or believes they can’t do anything.  In order to be heard, the reasobable center is moving to the margins and becoming more extreme, or just checking out entirely.

Our politicians are not willing to do what is actually best for the country, they are simply trying to win political points and get reelected.  There are hundreds of policies that both sides could likely agree on, but will never get voted on because they do not win political points.  Both sides are cultivating the us vs. them narrative and becoming more extreme.  Reasonable political discussions are almost impossible.  You risk getting your head bitten off.

Democrats are playing the class card, but doing it poorly.  There’s a difference between a rich small business owner or entrepreneur and the finance guys who are just moving money around.  Republicans are attempting to cut social programs, while keeping taxes low for the rich and demonizing the people who are not finding success in this economy.  Many on the right are anti intellectual, under the guise of anti elitism.

Well intentioned guys like President Obama and Representative Paul Ryan have never had a private meeting, even though they are trying to fix the same problems.  Although they don’t agree, leaders should be talking.  But they don’t.  Both sides look for outlandish claims to punish new thinking.  President Obama equated Ryan’s plan with murdering old people and the Republicans have come with all sorts of nonsense to attack the President. Nothing will get done if we keep going down this path.

People have a feeling that the game is rigged, but they don’t think they can do anything about it.  Every week, there’s another scandal, but people dont seem to react.  People know they are getting fucked by the banks, their government, insurance companies and other lobbying groups, but they don’t have any idea how to fix the situation.  They feel powerless and this leads to tension, anger and the current mood of the country.

It was really jarring to come back to the US and feel the tension.  The reasonable center needs to start speaking up, challenging both sides and demanding compromise.  We need to stop dealing in half true soundbites and start actually talking.  We need to demand more from ourselves and our politicians.  We can’t keep going on this way.

                          

In the US, most of us refer to our country as America and ourselves as Americans without a second thought.  Growing up, we just assumed that’s who we are.  It’s used offhand every day by millions of people.  Pretty much every Presidential address in my lifetime has begun with “my fellow Americans.”  It’s part of our culture.

Before I arrived in Chile, I already knew that some people found it offensive that people in the US have appropriated America to only refer to the United State because I had learned about it in a Latin American studies class in college, but I assumed that it was mostly overly politically correct people.  I had seen the famous Alfredo Jaar video from the 80s called This is Not America, but believed that only the far left cared about the term.  I was pretty clearly wrong.

Once I got here, I realized it was more widespread than I thought.  Everyone seems to have an opinion.  Some Chileans don’t care at all and refer to the US as America and its citizens as Americans without a second thought.  Others playfully pointed out that they too were Americans and other were actually offended.  I’d say that most were in the middle.  They’d prefer that the US didn’t call itself America, but weren’t really offended.  Some examples:

I was at an asado and a Chilean friend of mine asked a girl where she was from.  She said America.  He responded with a smile, “oh yea, me too.”  He told me he loves to do that, mostly as a joke, but partly to make the point to people from the US that they are not the only ones from America.  Another friend cringed when I said something about America to refer to the US and corrected me.  He wasn’t offended, but said it grates on his ears when someone from the US uses America that way.

The new US startup program is called Startup America, which is especially galling to some in Chile, as the program is basically a knock off of Startup Chile, but appropriates the name of the entire hemisphere.  Another friend posted the Alfredo Jaar video on her Facebook wall and got 10 likes in under 5 minutes.  24 hours later, there were over 100 likes and 15 comments.  She told me tons of her friends posted it on their own walls, creating a mini-viral campaign.  Most of the comments did not seem to have any vitriol behind them (see graphic below).

I’ve also seen many Chileans mostly playfully turn the globe “upsidedown” so that Chile is at the top.  The most southern province, Magallanes, even has their official symbol with Antarctica at the top of the map, not the bottom.  From my view there are only a small group on the far left that are truly, deeply offended by the term American, but there is definitely a large group of people who would prefer that people from the US didn’t say American to describe themselves.  It grates on them, but it’s not a huge deal to them.

I think it’s important to point out that we say “America”  completely offhand, and don’t mean any offense.  It’s just how we were raised.  For example, we were in Austin for South by Southwest and a very nice, stereotypical Texan sat next to us while we were drinking some beers, waiting for our table to be ready.  He struck up a conversation with our group that included two Chileans who were in town for the conference.  He was incredibly nice, shared beers with us and told us places to visit.  As his table was called he said “have a great time here and welcome to America.”

He, like 99.99% of other people from the States don’t mean anything by it.  We just don’t have any other word to call ourselves.    North American doesn’t work, the Canadians sure don’t want to be lumped in with us.  In Spanish you say estadounidense, but in English there just isn’t a word other than American.  I’ve pointed this out many times, and I think the best response came from one of my Chilean friends.  She said something along the lines of “you guys took the name, you gotta come up with something to replace it.”  So I’ve taken it on myself.  I guess I’m Unitedstatesian.

                          

There are four main things I don’t like about the Walker vs. Public Unions battle going on back home in Wisconsin.

First, I don’t like that Walker is just ramming this bill through without any debate.  It’s same problem I had with the Democrats in Congress the past two years.  Our political system should not be either side ramming things through whenever they have the power.  There should be debate, an attempt at compromise, then a bill, then if necessary, ram away.

Second, exempting firefighter and police unions from the bill is a clear case of quid pro quo.  These two unions are the only ones who supported Walker in his election bid against the Democrats and now are being given much better deals.  If you’re going to propose a bill like this, you have to go all in.  You can’t pick and choose based on who supported you in the last election.

Third, I have a problem with many of the responses from union members.  Some are calling Walker “Hitler” and others are basically saying, “if anything we deserve a raise because we’re underpaid.”  Calling someone Hitler because he’s cutting your pay about 15% is completely uncalled for and only makes you look like an idiot.

Union Supporter from Facebook

Fourth, I don’t like the idea that these cuts are being made across the board.  Cutting someone who is fully funded by the federal government weakens services and does not help our current budget problems.  Gov. Doyle did the same thing when he required federally funded state employees to take furlough days, now Walker is cutting state employees who are federally funded again.  It doesn’t make sense to make cuts with a machete, it should be done with a scalple.

It’s pretty clear Walker is trying to smash the public employee unions.  He could have gotten the same contractual result by bargaining to an impass and then imposing his will, but he decided to make a show of force.  Most public employees can’t strike, so Walker is sending them a clear message that he’s serious.  I think his message goes too far, but I think the unions have to realize that cuts will be made.

Our state has a 140m huge budget deficit this year and one in the billions next year.  The problem will only get bigger as most of the older workers retire on nice pensions.  Our state pensions and health insurance are sort of like the auto companies, meaning something has to be done.  I understand that nobody likes to have their salary and benefits cut, but there are only three options.  Cut employees benefits packages, cut services or raise taxes.

I think we should be looking at all options and nothing should be spared from intense scruitany.  My first cuts would be to administrators at public schools.  My old high school has 7 administrators, a full time athletic director and it’s own superintendant for one school.  I’d merge our high school district with the middle and elementry district and cut the fat and move that over to retaining teachers.  It’s insane that there’s this much fat in a school with about 1500 kids.

I don’t have time to look for more places to cut, but you get the idea.  There’s fat in most areas of state government and it will have to be cut.

My question to the people protesting:

If not your pay, what else should be cut from the state budget to close our deficit?  If nothing, should we raise taxes?

                          

I’m a 25 year old technology entrepreneur originally from Milwaukee, WI.  I went to school at the University of Wisconsin and have stayed in Madison after graduating in 2009 to start another web business.

I’ve followed your career with interest since I first heard about you sometime during high school.  I’ve always been impressed with your views on the economy and your willingness to propose solutions to issues that other politicians have been unwilling to take on.  This is exactly what we need from our politicians.

It was great see you take on some of the political third rails of our budget process when you released your Roadmap for America.  While I don’t agree with everything in your new budget proposal, I’m extremely happy to see you proposing real solutions to the huge problems we face as a country.

I’m writing today to tell you to keep up the good work, but I also want to implore you to not fall into the trap of veering right on the social issues and falling into the religious right.  I talk to business people all the time who would love to support you and your ideas and view you as one of the only competent politicians in the United States today, but if you start talking the talk of the religious right, you’ll lose much of this support.  Don’t get co-opted like the Tea Party did.

I’m not telling you to change what you believe in.  I believe that our fiscal problems are the single biggest threat to the United States and believe that if nothing is done, we’ll turn into a third world country, complete with huge inflation, income inequality and a huge underclass of unemployed people.

I don’t know what you believe on abortion, gay marriage, don’t ask don’t tell, drug legalization, creationism or any of the other religious right issues and honestly I don’t care.  Just focus on the economic issues and you’ll likely have my support, along with a huge amount of business people who want to support you.

Simply saying, “I don’t support abortion and gay marriage, but the biggest problem facing the United States is our budget deficit, national debt and the economy.  I want to fix these huge problems first before we talk about these other important issues,” will give you huge credibility and I think it’s what the country needs.  While I will disagree with you on most of those issues, I’m willing to overlook it if you don’t veer extremely right and make it a focal point of your platform.  Please don’t fall into the trap John McCain fell into in the last presidential election.

Please continue to focus on economic issues and continue to represent Wisconsin well, especially tonight when you give the response to President Obama.