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10.17.2014 0

Security Issues jump to fore with Ebola crisis

USebolaBy Rick Manning

Elections are unpredictable by nature, yet every October in an even number year there are those of us who do just that, attempt to predict their outcome.

If asked on October 1, the number of pundits who publicly wondered if Ebola in western Africa was going to be a major issue was pretty close to zero.  Now, by mid-month, the great unknown of how Americans feel the government is doing in containing the Ebola virus after it arrived on our shores may just be the issue that tilts control of the Senate.

It is not because anyone is pro-Ebola, instead it is about confidence and security.

The federal government has a primary national security responsibility, and this 2014 election may just be the first in a decade that turns on this key issue that has waned from the collective consciousness since the end of the Cold War.

However, the security issue is not just about the Obama Administration’s failure to take the threat of a worldwide pandemic seriously.

It is about the horrifying realization that there are people in this world that would behead any one of us just because we are Americans, and the stunning admission by the President that he didn’t have a strategy to deal with them.

It is about a President who treats a beheading in Oklahoma of a middle aged grandmother as just another incident of workplace violence, leaving the rest of us to wonder what planet he’s living on.

It is about a Secret Service that cannot even stop a deranged idiot from jumping the fence surrounding the White House, running one hundred yards across the lawn, entering the White House building, and going through a number of rooms within the Executive Mansion, before being detained.

It is about a border that is a sieve and a national policy to not enforce the laws on the books, encouraging more illegals to pour across unimpeded.

It is about the growing sense that things are not going to get better economically, and that this economy is as good as it is likely to get for most Americans.

At the end of the day, people want to get up, go to work, come home, enjoy their families and make enough money that they can go have fun on the weekend and be able to retire while they are still young enough to enjoy it.

Americans don’t want to worry about a preventable infectious disease threatening their family because no one in Washington thought closing the door that let the virus in was a good idea.

And they definitely don’t want to wonder if the President has a clue about what is going on, and if he does, whether he even cares.

What they want is to live their lives with the knowledge and assurance that the nation is basically safe, and key agencies of the federal government like the Department of Defense, the Center for Disease Control and the Secret Service are competently run.

They want to think that when an Ebola outbreak occurs, a Dustin Hoffman-like hero is battling it and stuffing that deadly genie back into the bottle.

Instead they are hearing on all fronts what sounds eerily like politically motivated spin, and after six years of boondoggles, stonewalling and lies, they just no longer believe it.

That’s why election 2014 may well turn on national security issues, and if they do, it will be an extremely bad year for Democrat candidates.

Rick Manning is the Vice President of public policy and communications for Americans for Limited Government.

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