It was the early ‘90s and my new veterinary practice was growing rapidly. The harder, faster, smarter, and longer I worked, the better the cash flowed, which is completely contrary to President Obama’s recent declaration of “you didn’t build that.” (I have the scars to prove I did build it.) As I was always seeking new ways to gain market share, I purchased a 16 foot gooseneck trailer and tweaked it into a fully enclosed, large animal, surgical unit. I planned on backing the trailer up to the rotting remnant of a farmer’s corral, loading a cow with a calving problem into my surgical suite, performing a c-section, and then hosing it clean before racing down the road to the next case. It appeared brilliant on paper.

Because it is contradictory to pull something as classy as a surgical suite with a hail damaged ranch pickup, I traded my ‘84 half-ton for a brand new, Ford Supercab. The blue and silver Ford so perfectly matched the paint scheme on the trailer; I parked it in plain view of Main Street so clients driving by could marvel at my handiwork. In the parking lot, my surgical trailer was impressive, but there was one day my brilliance unraveled, prompting me to abandon the entire idea.

It was a Tuesday morning, when I raced out to my first calving call of the day. Steve and Rob’s cow was in an old barn a good half mile from their calving shed, so this was a perfect time to use my surgery trailer. I rolled to a stop in their barnyard and pointing through an old corral, I asked, “Can I pull my trailer through there, and back up to the barn door?”

Rob answered, “Yes,” so I blasted into the corral. What Rob actually said was, “Yes…but you will probably get stuck.” He was right. I buried my pickup and trailer in a 50-year-old, composting mass of straw and manure. Fixing the cow and then getting unstuck cost me an hour I did not have and feeling the pressure, I hustled to get back to the clinic. I was nearly there, when Teresa radioed saying I had a uterine prolapse at Bill’s up in Molt, so I raced north out of town, fixed the prolapse and sped back to Laurel. I had barely rolled to a stop at the clinic, when Teresa radioed there was a ewe with lambing problems in Joliet. (Teresa never did like me.) The trailer was not needed for this call, so I dropped the tailgate, cranked the gooseneck off the ball and trotted into the clinic to fill my coffee cup. As I sprinted back to my pickup, I wondered if I should just leave my tailgate down for the 16 miles to Joliet, or stop and close it after pulling away from the trailer. Distracted by the pressure, I absent mindedly flicked the tailgate shut, jumped in the pickup, stomped the gas and zoomed ahead for about 48 inches.

The feel of a gooseneck bending a new tailgate into a “V” is indescribably painful. Exasperated, I jumped from the pickup like a raving mad man and tried to jerk the tailgate open. It was stuck. I needed to get to Joliet and with my blood pressure fully pegged, I hopped back in the driver’s seat, backed up and smacked it again. After three jerks, the tailgate was hopelessly wedged in place and the sides of the pickup were tapering inwards. Figuring the tailgate would eventually lose interest and let go, I dragged the trailer all over the parking lot, going so far as to block the trailer tires before ramming it again and again. I was wrong and I was stuck. My friend, Mark, drove up about then and spotting the veins popping out on my neck, asked if he could help. With his calming influence, we methodically and slowly disassembled the tailgate latch assembly and freed my pickup from the trailer. Had Mark not appeared, I might still be dragging that trailer around my parking lot, so I learned, when all seems lost it is best to step back and look at things from a different perspective. This brings me to my point.

Many Republicans went to bed election night with the same crazed look as I did when I smashed my new tailgate. Desperately desiring power, party pundits are demanding the GOP modify their platform and join the Democrats in offering free goodies to America’s 50 million “tooth fairy voters”; those demanding free contraception, free abortion, free food stamps, amnesty and Obama-phones. Calm down; you are acting like crazy veterinarian. The Democrat platform is founded on the Marxist principles of freebies and it will be impossible for the GOP to out fairy the tooth fairy. Engaging the Democrats in a give-away-war will guarantee financial collapse because we are shooting each other with the same taxpayer dollars. Instead, the GOP must shift to the right; back to our country’s founding principles. There we will find enough Libertarians and Constitutionalists to help us restore our great American republic.