Categories
life

“Whole Foods” Republican


photo credit: ilovemypit

Nearly three years ago I publicly wondered where I fit politically. Since then I have solidly concluded that the Republican party is the best fit for me, but now I have found a term for my general political view – I’m a Whole Foods Republican who Michael Petrilli describes as:

independent-minded voters who embrace a progressive lifestyle but not progressive politics. These highly-educated individuals appreciate diversity and would never tell racist or homophobic jokes; they like living in walkable urban environments; they believe in environmental stewardship, community service and a spirit of inclusion. And yes, many shop at Whole Foods . . .

What makes these voters potential Republicans is that, lifestyle choices aside, they view big government with great suspicion. There’s no law that someone who enjoys organic food, rides his bike to work, or wants a diverse school for his kids must also believe that the federal government should take over the health-care system or waste money on thousands of social programs with no evidence of effectiveness. Nor do highly educated people have to agree that a strong national defense is harmful to the cause of peace and international cooperation.

Categories
General

Of Big Tents and Purity

It’s a busy holiday time so I’ll spend more time quoting and less time expounding. Back in May, Jim DeMint expressed the very opinion I still hold about How Republicans Can Build a Big-Tent Party by holding to one key principle:

There is a question Republicans do need to ask: What is it that binds our party together?

. . . Moderate Republicans are right to remind conservatives that they cannot build a center-right coalition without the center part. And conservatives are right to remind moderates that Republicans only succeed when we rally around clear principles.

The real mistake is that Republicans became more concerned with staying in D.C. than reforming it.

Despite notable successes at both ends of Pennsylvania Ave., it seems to me that Republicans in Congress and in the Bush administration forgot a simple truth. To paraphrase C.S. Lewis, if you aim for principled reform, you win elections in the bargain; if you just aim for elections, you get neither.

No Child Left Behind didn’t win us “soccer moms,” but it did cost us our credibility on locally controlled education. Medicare prescription drugs didn’t win us a “permanent majority,” but it cost us our credibility on entitlement reform. Every year, another Republican quality was tainted: managerial competence, fiscal discipline and personal ethics.

To win back the trust of the American people, we must be a “big tent” party. But big tents need strong poles, and the strongest pole of our party — the organizing principle and the crucial alternative to the Democrats — must be freedom.

(emphasis mine)

We’ve been discussing the ideas of purity, conservatism, inclusiveness, and intra-party division a lot in the last few months. I believe, along with many of you, that holding to principle and being inclusive are not mutually exclusive goals. There must be strong poles to hold the tent up, or to put it another way, there must be something in the tent that makes people want to enter. I agree with Senator DeMint that freedom would be a very enticing offering – but we have to find a way to articulate the vision of freedom and not allow the message to by framed in negative terms by those who disagree with our vision.

Categories
National

A Short-Term Vision of “Purity”


photo credit: David Reeves

It’s never safe to focus so much on the present that we lose sight of the future. This seems to be what is happening with the push by some to codify a purity test within the GOP. If you have not heard about this I would sum it up like so – there is a resolution before the Republican National Committee which would prevent them from giving financial backing to a candidate that did not support at least 7 of the following ten principles:

(1) We support smaller government, smaller national debt, lower deficits and lower taxes by opposing bills like Obama’s “stimulus” bill;

(2) We support market-based health care reform and oppose Obama-style government run health care;

(3) We support market-based energy reforms by opposing cap and trade legislation;

(4) We support workers’ right to secret ballot by opposing card check;

(5) We support legal immigration and assimilation into American society by opposing amnesty for illegal immigrants;

(6) We support victory in Iraq and Afghanistan by supporting military-recommended troop surges;

(7) We support containment of Iran and North Korea, particularly effective action to eliminate their nuclear weapons threat;

(8) We support retention of the Defense of Marriage Act;

(9) We support protecting the lives of vulnerable persons by opposing health care rationing and denial of health care and government funding of abortion; and

(10) We support the right to keep and bear arms by opposing government restrictions on gun ownership.

I am amazed that the people backing this proposal do not see how short-sighted this effort is. I believe that their efforts are sincere, but sorely misguided, as they seek to define the GOP in a way that is more concrete than “not the democrats.”

Without going into specifics I am basically in favor of principles such as those outlined above, and the fact that the resolution only requires 70% support for those principles to receive party support is proof that they are not trying to weed all but the staunchest conservatives from the party (especially since they do not specify any subset of the principles which demands 100% conformity).

The shortsightedness is evident in the specific references such as “Obama’s ‘stimulus’ bill,”, “Obama-style government run health care, ” and “victory in Iraq and Afghanistan” (or maybe they are just admitting that this is a perpetual project).

I believe that there is value in talking about what defined ideological purity within the party – we certainly need to have some idea about who we are in order to be able to identify what the party has to offer voters but this particular proposal is significantly too blunt an instrument to benefit the party. Without any extended study of exactly the best way forward for the party I have a few suggestions, based on the existing proposal, for an approach that would be more likely to make things better rather than worse.

Categories
General

Phony Federalism


photo credit: estherase

Gene Healy wrote about what he called Obama’s phony federalism but what he was really talking about was a relatively universal perspective on federalism:

Not yet a year into his administration, Obama’s record on 10th Amendment issues is already clear: He’ll let the states have their way when their policies please blue team sensibilities and he’ll call in the feds when they don’t. Thus, he’ll grant California a waiver to allow it to raise auto emissions standards, but he’ll bring the hammer down when the state tries to cut payments to unionized health care workers.

. . .

Just a few years back, the Republicans — nominally the party of federalism — were busily wielding federal power to enforce red state values . . . In that odd political climate, you often heard liberals lamenting the decline of states’ rights.

That strange new respect for the 10th Amendment lasted roughly as long as the blue team’s exile from power.

Federalism then, as understood by both major political parties is simply a tool to bash your opponents into conformity and then deflect their power from affecting you when you are on the defensive.

Categories
State

You Must Answer These Questions

Jim Matheson voted against the health care bills – that’s old news already. Some Democrats have, with varying degrees of seriousness, questioned whether they should  run or nominate someone else for his seat – that’s not really fresh news either. The news that I am following is that along with the ruminations regarding a new nominee there are some important questions being asked among some 2nd district Democrats:

Do you really think you’ll be better off if you take him down in the convention or a primary?

. . .

Is it more important to have the seat in your camp or feel good about pushing out anyone who doesn’t push the party line?

1) Is there anything that I’m currently getting with Jim Matheson as my “representative” that I couldn’t get with a Republican in his seat?

2) Is there anything Democrats living in the 1st and 3rd Congressional Districts get with Matheson in office that they otherwise wouldn’t get.

While these are specifically being asked about Matheson by these people right now, they are the same questions that the members of any party must ask when they are unhappy with the incumbent of a seat they currently hold. It should be noted that there is no universal right answer. Sometimes it’s more important to keep a Matheson and other times it’s more important to toss a Cannon. (I chose both of those examples because they are choices that have been made in the past – I do not intend to either endorse or refute those actions nor am I trying to suggest that the actions of the past must determine the actions of the future.)

These are the same questions that Republicans all over the nation are trying to answer on a large scale as well as in individual races (just notice that the number of Republican challengers for Bennetts’ seat changes regularly). Sometimes (such as with Bennett) tossing the incumbent does not do much to endanger the chances that the party will continue to hold the seat while other times (such as with Matheson) it could seriously endanger those chances. Regardless of how it alters the outlook for the party those questions can go either way.

The choice of who to support hinges not only on how well you like the incumbent, but also on answering those questions.

Categories
General

Individualism vs Collectivism


photo credit: 416style

It seems that the churning within the GOP is a conflict at various levels between the forces of individualism and collectivism. There is the question of whether the party faithful should do what they think is best or what the party determines to be best. There is the question of whether the national party should be uniform, or whether the local parties should be more autonomous, and there is the question of whether government should enforce the collective good, or allow for more individual choice in society.

With all the jockeying within the GOP there have been plenty of calls for a return to small government principles within the party and generic statements about various groups spoiling the supposed conservatism of the party but in a Los Angeles Times article yesterday Edward Crane sounded a call I never thought I would hear – The GOP Should Dump the Neocons. The first thing I had to do as I read that was confirm the accepted definition of “neocon” to decide if I could believe what I was reading and if there were any implications that I would disagree with. It turns out that I think I can fully agree with this position.

Categories
National

Decision Time – GOP or ATTAP


photo credit: Pat Rioux

When I learned that Dede Scozzafava dropped out of the NY-23 race, and even more when I learned that when she dropped out she endorsed the Democratic candidate rather than the Conservative candidate, it really got me thinking about what parties are supposed to be. That endorsement would indicate that the GOP establishment in that district is closer to the Democrats than it is to the Conservatives (or else Ms. Scozzafava is playing sour grapes, but somehow I don’t think that’s the explanation). In theory there’s nothing wrong with being closer to Democrats than Conservatives but in practice it depends on what the GOP stands for – which is the question currently raging within the party membership.

Political parties, rightly and of necessity, are coalitions of voters. In theory those voters share some political views in common in order to participate in the coalition. If that is the case then it must be accepted that some parties will have no presence in some locations because in some locations there will be no voters who share the views belonging to a particular party. I’m not suggesting that a place as large as a state would be devoid of voters for any significant party, but individual districts, cities, or precincts might easily be split more between the Green party and the Democrats or between the GOP and the Constitution party than they are between the Democrats and the GOP – assuming that the GOP and the Democratic party each have some core values politically.

Categories
General

In Search of Banzai Republicans


photo credit: jpellgen

Holly has a great post/discussion about why Unity at all costs is the wrong message for the GOP today. Within her post was one small statement that I had been thinking about for weeks:

Too many are not willing to lose . . .

I thought of calling such leaders Kamikaze Republicans but there is an important difference. Kamikaze attacks could not have the attacker survive and have the attack be successful. Banzai attacks had a low probability of success, but the attacker could still hope to both live and be successful. Kamikaze attackers intend to destroy themselves in hopes of breaking their opponents while banzai attackers are willing to stand for their principles even if it means they lose in the effort.

Show me the republican leader who is willing to end their political life in order to maintain a principle in which they should not compromise. For that matter, define for me the principles of the Republican Party for which the party should take an uncompromising stand.

Categories
National

Half-Truths from the White House

I am not naive enough to expect more than a half truth from a political leader anymore but I am still naive enough to do what little I can to expose the half of what they say that is false. The White House blog sets out to expose the Republican Leaders’ Plan to “Delay, Define, and Derail” health care legislation. Their closing statement is the classic half truth:

. . . while we remain committed to working with those in both parties who have good-faith proposals about how to strengthen the final reform bill, we will not stand idly by in the face of false accusations aimed to score political points or maintain the status quo at all costs.

They toss around the “false accusations” claim within eye-shot of publishing some false accusations of their own. For example, in that very statement they imply that  Republicans have offered no good-faith proposals. That’s not the first time they make that claim in their post. Earlier they said:

Republican leaders will resort to the time-honored tactic of attempting to stall reform to death – raising arbitrary and disingenuous hurdles under the guise of wanting further debate, when in reality they have no intention of offering constructive proposals.

Every time they make the claim that Republican’s have offered no constructive proposals voters need to recognize that only two types of administrations could make that claim right now. Either the administration is lying through their teeth (the more likely of the two) or else they are genuinely unaware of the good faith proposals that Republicans have offered such as HR 3400, which Democrats in control of Congress are not even willing to debate. Either kind of administration (dishonest or ignorant) is extremely dangerous to our nation. If they are dishonest they must be stopped. If they are ignorant they must become informed. I’m willing to work on both routes until I can prove which kind of administration we have.

Another half truth offered by the White House in that post is to reassert the claim (by using the CBO) that their bill will lower the deficit.

Republican leaders intend to repeat their claims that reform “will raise insurance premiums on individuals and families, while failing to lower the overall amount of money that the U.S. spends on health care… even though the nonpartisan CBO predicted the [Senate Finance Committee] bill would reduce the deficit and lower the cost curve, even as it extends coverage to millions of uninsured Americans.”

It has already been shown by history that the CBO estimate is based on the shakiest footing imaginable because it depends on Congress doing what it has never done before – cutting medicare spending. Until democratic leaders can show how they will actually fulfill the mythical fiscal promises in the bill that make that CBO estimate possible there’s no reasons to believe them over the Republicans. No matter who is proposing a bill there is no reason to pass it so long as there are significant unanswered questions about how it will actually work.

The Democrats are proposing bills that will not take effect for years and which depend on premises that are not dependable and then they wonder why people are hopping off their “Hope and Change” train.

Categories
National

Honest Democrats in Congress

by Lori Spindler
by Lori Spindler

If we are ever to achieve any health care reform that will actually have a positive impact on our society it will require that we have honest Democrats in Congress. Not just any honest Democrats, but enough of them and in the right places that they can use their honesty to guide the debate. The way that you will be able to recognize a Democrat with the honesty to help the process is that he will reject the assertion of President Obama that Republicans only want to maintain the status quo.

An honest Democrat would have to recognize and admit that Republicans have been publicly acknowledging for years that we need health care reform. An honest Democrat would work from a position that understands that believing that the proposals they currently don’t have time to read are actually worse than the status quo (as Republicans generally do) is not the same as believing that the status quo is acceptable (as Republicans generally don’t). Using the scare tactic that doing nothing will make the cost of health care double within ten years without acknowledging that a poor solution could be crafted in a way that makes the cost triple within nine years is not honest. Such honest Democrats would be willing and able to actually have a dialog with Republicans and see if they have anything of value to offer on this issue.