[newheart]

Yeah, I saw the list of so-called "traitors" and yes, Lankford is on that dubious list of 49. But the question for me is how you define amnesty. So far it appears that anyone who is reluctant to hold minor children responsible for the actions of their parents is considered to be in favor of amnesty, a RINO, not a conservative, and, according to Coach is Right, a traitor. That is the kind of bombastic rhetoric I was referring to.

Lankford has been consistent. He unquestionably supports requiring illegal immigrants to return to their country of origin before they are eligible for citizenship. "We must protect our borders. Anything beginning with the word illegal should not be as tough as we have made it. Illegal means illegal, period. The federal government has the responsibility to protect our borders and enforce immigration policies that benefit the citizens of the United States. Secure the borders first and enforce existing immigration laws. We must stop illegal crossings at every border and we must stop turning a blind eye to illegal alien employment."

But somehow because he takes a slightly different stand than those who demand ideological purity in the extreme—whether out of compassion or out of pragmatism based on a significant Hispanic population in his district—he is now a traitor?

The accusation of traitor can only come from someone who brooks no dissent and allows for no freedom of conscience. And frankly, totalitarian from the right is just as evil as it is from the left.

I for one will proudly vote for Lankford next Tuesday. If he loses, I will be more than happy to support Shannon in the general. If that makes me a traitor, then it is certainly not a traitor to the principles on which this country was founded. Both men are conservative and men of faith and character. I repeat my original assertion: As long as partisans choose to demonize rather than debate on the merits, the numbers of conservatives getting into the game will dwindle.

[SoConPubbie]

There are real and sincere differences between Lankford and Shannon, conservative differences. It is telling that when given the chance in one of the Reddest states, between two candidates who are Republican, you choose the lesser of the two conservatives.

T.W. Shannon on ObamaCare:

Repeal ObamaCare

ObamaCare must be repealed. Government intervention has broken the health-care system. Costs are rising at unacceptable rates and too many people are losing the quality health-care plans they had. ObamaCare cannot work because it puts Washington bureaucrats between the patient and the doctor, which is why I strongly oppose it. I will fight for free-market driven solutions that lower costs, reduce red tape and encourage competition. As speaker of the Oklahoma House, I worked to restrict the further expansion of government-provided insurance, blocking what would have been a massive expansion of a Medicaid. America can start addressing its health-care problems when it puts patients and physicians in charge of health-care decisions instead of bureaucrats.

Lankford on Obamacare:

Lankford wants to gut Obamacare but said the best way to make progress is "four yards and a cloud of dust," not always Hail Mary passes. He told one attendee that while he had issues with the IRS, abolishing it was not realistic. And his biggest applause lines came after he celebrated Attorney General Eric Holder's cancellation of an Oklahoma event on Thursday -- and when he pitted his battles as ones against Democrats, not Republicans.

[RitaOK]

In this country we parents are held liable and responsible for our kids from how to load them as we leave the hospital(!) until they are 18 years of age, (increasingly to the point of jail when they are truant) and now for their college expense after they are found to have spit in our eye, as one recent court case proves!

We conservatives raise hell and flames when we as parents are circumvented by public schools on the sly for myriad of reasons, and Planned Parenthood birth control devices and abortion arrangements, all on the sly.

You are saying loud and clear that a moral gap as wide as the Grand Canyon must be plowed through, for illegals. They come here illegally with their illegal kids to suck up citizen-only benefits, reaping favoritism that insults us and assaults both the pocketbook and the security of working Americans who have to pa for these leachs, because we are under the boot heel of those in office forcing down our throat. No other country in the world tolerates this behavior against their citizens.