This title is taken from a term in baseball. A hitter is determined to have “warning-track power” when he can hit long fly outs but lacks the power or the bat speed to drive the ball over the fence for a homerun. In some respects our current Tea Party, Liberty or Restoration movement resembles a player with warning-track power. We have the activity, the people and the influence to force candidates to sing our song for the primaries and for most of the general election. After they assume their offices, however, our power shortage becomes apparent. Their singing transforms into lip service, and the business of governing goes on as before. The movement has to develop the power and the speed to hit “homers” rather than long flies.
The occasional benefit of warning-track power is that one can hit a sacrifice fly and drive in a run from third base. Those are small victories that are produced by making an out. To save the country and to win the game will require massive rallies and some homeruns. In earlier columns I have written about the need for restoration groups to form alliances. Without combining our power and playing team ball, we will be relegated to long outs on the warning track. They’ll represent a lot noise, ooh’s and ahh’s from the crowd, but will be outs. We have to get to first, followed by second and third to score. Someone has to be available to get the hit to drive in the winning runs. That takes teamwork. Teamwork requires teams…not small clusters on power trips.
One benefit of this baseball metaphor is that it does allow for metaphorical opposition…the lefties, progressives, statists. They must not be merely defeated. They must be crushed and driven from the field. That goal cannot be achieved by a number of little groups each going its own way. That strategy may work for school board and local offices, but it will not be effective for state legislative, statewide officers or federal positions. The weakness with a focused concentration on local races is that by the time the candidates have become “experienced” enough, they have been morphed into political careerists.
Any top-flight baseball game requires someone to monitor the players to make certain that the rules are strictly followed. The umpires in our game are the “moderates.” They set the rules, and they control the game. Too often our players have sided with the officials in vain hopes that they would call the game in our favor. RINO’s are masters of deception. They talk the talk, but never attempt the walk. They look good, smell good and sound good, but they suffer from a massive principle deficit. In the world of baseball officiating they would have beautiful mechanics and an abysmal and inconsistent strike zone. Any player with any real knowledge of the game would detest the RINO umpires because their subjectivity makes a travesty of the game. So, our team is, in essence, playing against two opponents. One clearly attempts to thwart every move we make, and the other pretends to be neutral but stacks the deck and the calls against us.
There are two solutions for warning-track power: more strength or increased bat speed. Developing more strength is obvious. Restoration groups must either recruit more activists or form strategic alliances with other organizations. The bat speed metaphor can be realized by one group maintaining an intense level of activity. One group must do the work of two or more. While this stratagem may succeed in the short run, the long term prognosis is not good because of fatigue and burn out.
The malady of warning-track power cannot be overcome by a single group. Liberty organizations must double their efforts and combine their resources. If we are going to strike for freedom, we must keep our eyes on the ball, and be willing to sacrifice if the time is right. If we all pitch in and work in unison, we can steal a victory and bring it home. Politics is a foul business, but we can make it better if we work together. We can score, and we will.
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