I want to make one thing very clear: the fact that John McCain was very likely no RA-member’s first choice is no excuse to sit back and let the radical left win this election. I know you aren’t doing that, but I want to remind you. We are in a fight for our lives this year, and only partly because of Barack Obama. I think few – if any – of our people fully realize the degree to which the Bush veto shelters us from the worst instincts of the leftists now in power. But Obama plus a filibuster-proof Senate – and every poll shows this to be possible – means all the restraints will be gone.

They will ban talk radio: Pelosi promised it last week.  They will pass net neutrality and use it to stifle conservative internet-based media.  They will pass hate crimes laws expressly designed to go after our churches.  They will pass 50-state gay marriage and force churches to perform it.  They will pass the ERA, which they now claim is still alive and needs only three more states to ratify it, and they will use this to enact the entire gay agenda from the bench (and go after churches who even so much as speak against woman and gay pastors or preach from Romans 1).  They will reshape First Amendment jurisprudence to match Europe and Canada, by rushing through hundreds of 35 year old federal judges, MoveOn accolytes all, who'll be there till they die (you don't think the backlog in judicial confirmations is accidental, do you?).

And this will be their warm-up, before nationalization of 40% of the US economy (health care, and all the ultimate power that will give them over our individual lives; plus their just-announced plan to nationalize the oil industry like Hugo Chavez), before they make D.C. and Puerto Rico states (4 new permanently Dem Senators and 9 new permanently Dem Congressmen, plus 10 new permanently Dem electoral votes, plus an irrevocably bi-lingual country at the official level with all that implies), before they make most of Hawaii a semi-autonomous region based on race, before they open the borders wider than we've even imagined while changing the voting laws even further in favor of those illegals and undermining or abolishing the Electoral College so the "blue states" dominate from now on; but not before they surrender to al Qaeda and every foreign enemy and/or international body in sight.  Our soldiers will stand before the International Criminal Court, and before we're done, our pastors may too, in the name of "human rights" and every other high sounding thing.

These are the Democrats’ words, not my words. We need to take them at their word.  They mean not just to win the game, but to take us out of play.  Complaining about things we should have settled in the primary just leaves us divided, not fighting the real enemy, and presuming upon God for a miracle when we need to stand and fight.

And fight we must.

The NFRA is about grassroots. This election can be won at the grassroots. And this election is about a lot of things. It’s about passing an abortion ban in South Dakota that has a decent chance of overturning Roe without a single new Supreme Court justice. It’s about preserving traditional marriage in California, Arizona and Florida. It’s about whether we drill for oil or burn our corn crops as fuel while starving children around the world. It’s about holding the line in the Senate, whoever wins the Presidency. It’s about whether our pastors will have freedom of speech and religion, and whether you will have freedom to choose your doctor, and about whether the Rush Limbaughs of the world will be driven off the air.

If NFRA stands in the gap, on the ground, organizing precincts, knocking on doors, turning out good conservative people, we can make a big difference in all those fights, and a decisive difference in some. In the process, where we’re small, we can grow large, by identifying many like-minded people who can join our Assemblies, in precisely the way Ron Paul’s people have done. There is no victory without a lot of shoe leather spent. We should be the ones to spend it, and the ones to reap the reward.

We can sit by and let events roll over us, and possibly sweep us away; or we can use this opportunity to build. And building means not just that we can seize the future, but that we’ll deserve to.

Let’s quit talking about what the RAs ought to be, and let’s go build it. Let’s quit talking about what conservatives ought to have in the Republican Party, and let’s go earn it. This is, or should be, who we are.

For freedom,

Rod D. Martin

NFRA President