Powerline’s John Hinderaker has an interesting report on Pawlenty today.  He writes: 

On Wednesday, I was part of a group that heard Minnesota’s Governor Tim Pawlenty talk about his current battles with the Democrat-controlled Minnesota legislature; Pawlenty, like Horatius at the bridge, is all that stands between Minnesotans and a massive tax increase. But that was only the beginning: Pawlenty went on to lay out his vision for Minnesota with respect to some of the big issues of the day–the economy, education and health care. With few exceptions, his observations and prescriptions could easily be adapted to the national stage.

It was a masterful performance. Pawlenty is a conservative with a disarmingly moderate style. He is smart, articulate, youthful, energetic and likable. He is, to boot, one of the funniest storytellers in American politics. When he had finished, the question in my mind was: who in American politics is better? The only name that came to mind was Bill Clinton, but thankfully he’s retired. Among Republicans, only Mitt Romney comes close. But Pawlenty communicates better with a wider range of people.

Around the country, Republicans are looking toward 2012. It is very early, obviously, but potential candidates are already evaluating whether to enter the race. Today’s landscape is reminiscent of 1989-90. At that time, Democrats were reeling from three straight devastating Presidential defeats. The first President Bush was riding high in the polls and many thought he would be unbeatable in 1992. Some prominent Democrats, like the overrated Mario Cuomo, decided to sit out the race, leaving it to a lesser-known filed. But one of that group, Bill Clinton, turned out to be a political genius, and in the event, the Democratic nomination was very much worth having….

Much will happen between now and 2011, when the Presidential race gets underway in earnest, and events as yet unknown will shape the race in ways we cannot foresee. But here’s a guess: when the dust settles, Governor Pawlenty will be a top contender for the Republican nomination. And another one: the Republican nomination in 2012, like the Democratic nomination in 1992, will turn out to be very much worth having.

Read the whole thing.

I encourage everyone to watch this, pass it along in your network and link on your blogs.     

With two of the three major network evening new anchors blogging FOR the Huffington Post (I believe they are paid by Ms. Huffington) and CNN news anchors lying to their audience so that they can attack Republican politicians, I can honestly say that our media no longer supports a liberal agenda, but is part of the liberal agenda.   

H/T: Matt Wolking, who serves as President of the ACSU.

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Kristofer Lorelli can be contacted at lorville@rogers.com, on Facebook and twitter/Kris_Lorelli.

Hays Research Alaska Statewide Survey

Would you say you feel positive or negative about Sarah Palin?

Very/Somewhat Positive 54% (60%) [61%]
Somewhat/Very Negative 42% (35%) [33%]

Would you say you feel positive or negative about Lisa Murkowski?

Very/Somewhat Positive 76% (72%)
Somewhat/Very Negative 18% (21%)

Survey of 400 Alaskan adults was conducted May 4-5. The margin of error is +/- 4.9 percentage points. Results from the poll conducted March 24-25 are in parentheses. Results from the poll conducted March 13 are in brackets.

Mike Huckabee has made a scathing attack (in a press release) against the National Council For A New America, specifically its panel of experts, which includes Mitt Romney, Jeb Bush and Bobby Jindal.

It was “sad day” in Republican politics when “we think it is necessary to form a ‘listening group’ to find out what Americans think we should be fighting for.”

“Our problem is not lack of ‘experts,’ but too many of them and not enough attention to the hard working people in our communities that aren’t connected to the Beltway, but to the heartland,”.

“Frankly, the party was in pretty good shape then and can be again, but Ronald Reagan didn’t summarily dismiss values voters like this new group of ‘experts’ has by not listing any of the issues that still matter to many of those common Americans this group wants to listen to,”

Aside from Huckabee’s attacks on the panel, another fascinating angle from the Politico report was the sloppy roll-out of this organization.  This would explain some of the confusion over the involvement of  Mark Sanford and Sarah Palin.  Both received very little notice from Cantor’s office ahead of the initiatives announcement. 

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Kristofer Lorelli can be contacted at lorville@rogers.com, on Facebook and twitter/Kris_Lorelli.

Rasmussen 2010 Texas GOP Gubernatorial Primary

• Rick Perry 42%
• Kay Bailey Hutchison 38%
• Other 7%
• Not Sure 13%

How would you rate the job Rick Perry has been doing as Governor? Do you strongly approve, somewhat approve, somewhat disapprove, or strongly disapprove of the job he’s been doing?

• Strongly/somewhat approve 72%
• Somewhat/strongly disapprove 26%

Favorable / Unfavorable (Net)

• Kay Bailey Hutchison 73% / 24% (+49%)
• Rick Perry 72% / 27% (+45%)

Survey of 700 likely Republican primary voters was conducted May 6. The margin of error is +/- 4 percentage points.

Inside the numbers:

Perry leads by 15 percentage points among conservative voters but Hutchison leads by 35 points among the moderates.

Twenty-five percent (25%) Strongly Approve of the way that Perry has performed his job as Governor while 10% Strongly Disapprove.

In a television appearance with CBS47, Governor Mike Huckabee refuses to commit to running for President in 2012. 

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Kristofer Lorelli can be contacted at lorville@rogers.com, on Facebook and twitter/Kris_Lorelli.

-The following post is written by Matt Sanders, aka MWS.

Imagine for a moment you are Franklin Roosevelt (work with me here). It is early 1944, and while the Second World War is showing signs of improvement, the situation is still dire. Germany and her allies still control the bulk of Continental Europe. You need a foothold in the western continent to launch a major invasion and roll back the Third Reich. So what kind of soldier do you want to plan your D-Day invasion? Do you select a man (like, say, Eisenhower) who is battle tested during the war, or do you bring a very competent 1930s general out of retirement who has been teaching at West Point for the last 8 years?

If the economic situation is still dire in 2012, voters will be asking themselves what kind of executive they want to lead us through our current economic “war.” Historically, voters have discerned that they want the “right kind” of experience, meaning current or former governors usually. I think 2012 may up the stakes for what voters consider the “right kind” of experience, meaning, I think they will want a governor with “wartime” experience; a governor who has governed during this period of falling revenue, rising unemployment, strained social services, crumbling infrastructure; all with the need to balance budgets and not hurt the economy further while doing it. This would advantage our current “wartime” governors, Pawlenty, Daniels, Palin, Jindal, and Huntsman, depending on how well they each handle the situation in their respective states. The disadvantage, obviously, goes to Huckabee and Romney, who may have governed well pre-war, but who are not battle tested in the current war. They are the generals of the 30s where the job of the army mainly involved polishing tanks and counting rifles. Now they are retired from the army and teaching. Sure, they can talk about what they would have done, or what should be done, but that’s all kind of theoretical. Maybe one or both of them would do an excellent job. The trouble is they have no war stories. They do not have a wartime record to contrast with Obama’s wartime record.

Now if the economy recovers strongly, Obama is probably unbeatable, even if he did mortgage the future (Americans mainly care about the here and now). But if things are still bad, I contend that more voters are going to be looking for a ‘wartime’ governor, and will discount what it was like governing 10 years ago.

What would the conflicting political ideologies do without California?

It appears as if the State of California is looking at proposals to legalize and tax marijuana, not for the purpose of individual liberty, but as a measure to counter CA’s budget short-fall.

* According to the Christian Science Monitor, he is making overtures that he (Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger) is ready to listen and discuss the legalization and taxation of marijuana.

* Estimates suggest that the legalization of marijuana and its taxation could add up to $1.3 billion to the state’s strapped budget.

* On the flipside, a new government agency or at least office dedicated to overseeing the sale and taxation of marijuana would have to be created. Children would have to be protected from (for them) illegal drugs that would then be so much easier to obtain.

Already disliked by conservatives, Arnold will certainly draw more fire from those on his political right, if he goes ahead with this initiative.

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Kristofer Lorelli can be contacted at lorville@rogers.com, on Facebook and twitter/Kris_Lorelli.

The following is from the official release issued minutes ago:

“After careful consideration and many conversations with friends and family and the leadership of my party, I have decided not to seek the Republican nomination for Senate.

“I am enormously grateful for the confidence my party expressed in me, the encouragement and kindness of my fellow citizens in Pennsylvania and the valuable counsel I received from so many of my party colleagues. The 2010 race has significant implications for my party, and that required thoughtful reflection. All of the above made my decision a difficult and deeply personal conclusion to reach. However, this process also impressed upon me how fortunate I am to have so many friends who volunteered to support my journey if I chose to take it and continue to offer their support after I conveyed to them this morning how I believe I can best serve my commonwealth, my party and my country.

“Public service has long played a significant role in my life. That service does not end here. There are causes to which I remain intensely committed, including my work on behalf of the disability community, our nation’s veterans, our national security and the GOP — the party I enthusiastically joined more than four decades ago.

“To those who believe that the Republican Party is facing challenges; they are right. To those who believe the Democratic Party is without its own difficulties, they are wrong. No one party has a monopoly on all of the answers. The more important view, in my mind, is that we remember, whether Republican or Democrat, we are foremost Americans. And as Americans, we have always overcome challenges when we put partisanship aside and solutions first.

“And so my desire and intention is to help my party craft solutions that both sides of the aisle can embrace. My hope is to raise the level of civility in public debate and raise the bar on outcomes that serve our citizens fully, fairly and equally. My belief is that those in my home state can best be served by the principles of limited government, less taxes, competent governance and shared responsibility. So I stand ready and excited to help my party and my country prevail as we continue to work to preserve and protect our strong, storied and much beloved nation.”

Hat-Tip: TommyBoy

Tom Ridge enjoys a massive lead over Pat Toomey in the Republican primary and leads Benedict Arlen by a comfortable margin in the general:

Public Opinion Strategies (R) 2010 PA Senate Poll, conducted May 3rd-4th, 2009

Republican Primary

• Tom Ridge 60%
• Pat Toomey 23%
• Undecided 16%

Democratic Primary

• Arlen Specter 57%
• Joe Sestak 20%
• Undecided 22%

General Election

• Arlen Specter (D) 49%
• Pat Toomey (R) 40%
• Undecided 10%

• Tom Ridge (R) 48%
• Arlen Specter (D) 41%
• Undecided 10%

The National Journal reports that Gov. Romney may establish a new primary residence by 2012 – most likely in New Hampshire but possibly even in California:

Romney spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom said that the former governor is in the process of opening up the Lake Winnipesaukee house this month and “will be spending more time on the East Coast.” Since last year’s election, Romney has been busy selling houses in Utah and Belmont, MA.

Asked where Romney will establish a primary residence for the purposes of paying taxes and voting, Fehrnstrom demurred. “I have no announcements to make on residency,” he said. “He just recently closed on selling his Belmont house and, as of now, he’s still registered to vote in Massachusetts.”

But sources familiar with Romney’s activities say the Republican, whose 2008 presidential campaign fizzled, intends to make his primary residence at the family vacation home in Wolfeboro, NH, which is also a favorite vacation spot of Romney’s children and grandchildren.

Romney is also maintaining a new home in the San Diego area, where his second eldest son, Matt, lives with his wife and four children; and his wife, Ann, enjoys the warm weather and riding, which is therapeutic for her multiple sclerosis, diagnosed in 1998. She is also recovering from a pre-invasive condition of breast cancer that was treated in December 2008.

Romney has already established a beachhead in the Granite State; in March, his Free and Strong America PAC registered with the NH Secretary of State’s office. The PAC made a $1,000 contribution to former GOP congressman Jeb Bradley, who won a special election for a state Senate seat that includes Wolfeboro on April 21. Bradley did not endorse in the 2008 GOP presidential primary.

…At the same time, a case could be made for Romney to establish residency in CA instead. Romney’s loss to McCain in the Golden State on Super Tuesday last year was the death knell for his candidacy, given the state’s large share of delegates. Former eBay CEO Meg Whitman is a strong GOP contender for the open gubernatorial contest to replace outgoing Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R), while Democrats barrel toward a competitive primary. Whitman originally endorsed Romney and assisted him in his primary campaign before he ended his bid, and former Romney campaign staffers are flocking to Whitman’s effort. And former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, a top McCain surrogate, is looking seriously at a challenge to Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA).

I would venture to say that Mitt would serve himself better if he made camp in NH.  He has owned a vacation estate in the Granite State for some time, so that, coupled with NH’s close proximity to Massachusetts, would make the move appear less opportunistic.  Furthermore, he would stand to gain more electorally if he decides on New Hampshire, as he would need a victory in the state to combat the winner of the Iowa Caucus, where he faces an uphill climb (due to the makeup of the state’s voters).

Let’s face it, the GOP is down at the moment.  No amount of wishing and hoping is going to change that fact.  Because of this, many of the factions of the GOP are taking the opportunity to try and throw others overboard in order to take command of a sinking ship.  We need every vote we can get, so why throw people overboard? 

This brings up social conservatives.  Many feel that we should move more strongly in their direction to win elections.  While I think that would be a bad move (as I don’t think the electorate cares enough about these issues to vote for a candidate based on them), there’s evidence that it wouldn’t hurt.

Take, for example, 2004.  Several social issues were prominent in  that election cycle (particularly SSM), and the GOP did pretty well.  Granted, several other factors were in play that cycle, but my point is that it didn’t hurt.  Move up to 2006, where moral and ethical lapses in the GOP led to several election losses.  Again, being on the wrong side of social issues (personally, not politically) contributed to (though wasn’t the main cause of) the losses.  Finally, in 2008, where was the social crusade?  You can scream at me that Gov Palin’s selection was because of social conservatives (I’d somewhat disagree, but I get the argument), and that her selection cost Sen McCain the election (a dubious charge, as his erratic campaigning, along with a severely tarnished GOP brand, would have made Pres Reagan a tough sell in ’80, much less Sen McCain in ’08) all you want, but on social issues, what was the policy being pushed?  We heard almost nothing on the campaign trail concerning any social policy or initiative, and several SSM bans on the ballots significantly outperformed the GOP ticket.

In short, quit screaming at social conservatives to sit down and shut up.  Their policies aren’t hurting, and the GOP isn’t really pushing these policies anyway.  I disagree completely with making social issues a litmus test for the GOP, but as it isn’t, what are you complaining about?

In somewhat of a continuation of Matthew Miller’s/MWS’s discussions of “conservative populism” (title pending) and a new party coalition centered in the Industrial North in 2012, perhaps we overlooked a highly accomplished candidate from a Midwestern state: Mitch Daniels.  Last December, Michael Barone highlighted a press release from Daniels’ 2012 campaign manager.  Some highlights from the press release:

Daniels won southern Indiana by 57%. Southern Indiana is known as Blue Dog/Reagan Democratic territory and is currently represented in Congress by D-Rep. Baron Hill and D-Rep. Brad Ellsworth. Hill won re-election 57-38% and Ellsworth won re-election 64-35%.

Daniels won every county in the blue collar UAW region (Howard, Grant, Madison, Delaware ), an improvement from 2004.

Daniels received 20% of the African American vote, up 13% from 2004. In 2004, Daniels lost Marion County (the state’s largest county/Indianapolis) by 18,000 and won it this year by 48,000 votes. To further illustrate this over-performance, Daniels received 7,000 more votes in Center Township than he did in 2004, up 10%. Center Township is the heart of Marion County and is represented by D-Rep. Andre Carson in Congress. Daniels got 31.6% of the votes from African American majority precincts throughout Indianapolis. Daniels received 71,000 more votes in Marion County than Senator McCain.

Independent voters favored Daniels 57%-39%, a massive 38 point swing from 2004 when this group of ticket-splitters favored his opponent 58%-38%.

…Daniels won every age demographic, including the 18-29 year-olds by nine points (51%-42%). 18-29 year-olds were 19% of the Indiana electorate in 2008, compared to McCain receiving 35% of Hoosier 18-29 year olds. Seniors 65 and older were his strongest demographic, supporting him by 36 points (67%-31%). This is a 19 point improvement over 2004, when Daniels lost voters 60 and over by two points (48%-50 %.).

…Daniels talked about “change” in 2003 before “change” was cool. When first elected, he inherited a dysfunctional state government, hundreds of millions of dollars in debt. Since taking office, he has had only balanced budgets, the biggest tax cut in state history, telecom reform, ethics reform, and millions of dollars have been paid back to schools and local governments. Indiana is now the only state in the nation to have a fully-funded ten-year transportation plan with no debt or tax increase.At the same time, Indiana has added 800 child case workers, increased the number of state police, and passed a long overdue state veterans benefits package. Indiana has the lowest unemployment in the region and a healthy rainy day fund, instead of the budget shortfalls shared by surrounding states. Despite strong resistance to a few aggressive proposals at the time, it was affirmed that Indiana is better off today than four years ago and better off than all surrounding states. Daniels proved results matter. Daniels talked about these real accomplishments and did not rely on slick D.C.-created direct mail pieces to share his message. These same accomplishments earned him and Indiana various national awards including Governing Magazine’s “Public Official of the Year” award and the best Bureau of Motor Vehicles in the country.

There’s plenty more where that came from.  This brings me to my main point: would Daniels make sense for the campaigns Miller and MWS described?  For a different kind of campaign?  For none at all?  Let’s hear your thoughts!

Hat Tip to Red State for the idea for a Star Wars re-enactment of Specter being broken down to “Freshman Senator, Third Class.”

Quinnipiac 2010 Ohio Gubernatorial & Senate Races

GOP Gubernatorial Primary

• Mike DeWine 35% (32%)
• John Kasich 23% (27%)

Gubernatorial General Election

• Ted Strickland 51% (51%)
• John Kasich 32% (31%)

• Ted Strickland 48% (50%)
• Mike DeWine 36% (34%)

(more…)

The folks over at Cato-at-liberty.org point to a DEA in Afghanistan segment on the ABC nightly news, as evidence that attempts to end the drug trade in Afghanistan are actually counterproductive.  Here’s the video.

David Rittgers writes:

As I have said before, the quickest way to create an insurgent is to burn a man’s livelihood. This may be a competent counternarcotics tactic, but it is an epic failure as a counterinsurgency strategy. We can fight a war against the Taliban or we can fight the war on drugs, but we can’t do both in the same place at the same time.

Brad Warbiany at Liberty Papers adds:

Internally, libertarians can debate the merits of the Afghanistan conflict and whether the end result will be a safer or less safe America. My view is that if done properly, counterinsurgency operations can be successful over the long term, but it is situationally dependent whether they’re worth the effort.

What I think we can all agree on is that the drug war is unwinnable, and that fighting the drug war in Afghanistan is a mutually exclusive goal with our counterterrorism efforts there. If we have to give up one goal, I suggest the drug war.

While I have no reason to love the drug war, I find this commentary a little curious.  As Rittgers notes in another post, opium production has accounted for as much as half of the Afghan GDP in the past.  It’s destabilizing to Karzai’s regime and cripples the country’s economic base. Further, the opium trade funds the Taliban; even if America could afford to say, “yes, we’re just creating more terrorists, so let’s take another approach” the Karzai government can’t, and won’t, say that.  Iran’s role in this whole scenario highlights this.  From a May 5th BBC report:

Iran has vowed to purchase Afghan farmers’ agricultural products in order to help them substitute opium agriculture by other cultivations.

“Iran and Afghanistan have expressed determination in anti-drug efforts and have reached important deals,” said Deputy Head of Iran’s Anti-Drug Headquarters, Taha Taheri after a meeting in Kandahar with General Khodadad, the Afghan Minister of Counter-Narcotics.

According to a Press TV correspondent based in Afghanistan, Taheri stated Iran’s readiness to transfer its experience to Afghanistan in many areas including education of special anti-drug forces, investment in the development of alternative livelihoods for Afghan poppy-growers and treatment of Afghan addicts.

Over the past five years, Iran contributed 50m dollars annually to the Afghan government to help the country in its anti-drug campaign.

Iran is already funneling money into Afghanistan to stop Opium production.  How much more would they funnel in if the US wasn’t tackling the problem as well?  And what sort of influence would that buy them with an increasingly unstable regime, which could easily be made into a puppet?  Like it or not, basic realpolitik concerns probably militate against ending this aspect of the drug war, until some sort of stability can be achieved in Afghanistan.

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Matthew E. Miller can be contacted at Obilisk18@yahoo.com

Over at The Next Right, Michael Turk argues that the conservative embrace of Twitter signals a potentially real shift for the right. He notes:

I specifically remember more than a few people, myself included, who watched the rise of the online left with initial derision. As late as 2004 and 2005, I heard things like, “The Democrats and their blogs. How’s that working out for them? All that effort and how many wins has it resulted in?”

Beginning with Conrad Burns and George Allen, we began to quickly see the results of “those blogs”. It’s a lesson we failed to heed early on, and it contributed greatly to our demise.

What we failed to recognize was the infancy of an effort to use new technology to mobilize. It was an effort to build a new network and the infrastructure to disseminate a coherent message.

I have argued that the reason the Democrats never mastered talk radio was very simple – they never had to. In modern politics, the insurgent party will adapt to the most interactive (and the most real-time) technology available at the time. In 1992, having lost the White House, House and Senate, the GOP gravitated toward talk radio. Despite it being a broadcast medium, it was the most interactive medium available. It was adapted to facilitate the conversation about the direction of the party and the country.

The Democrats, rising out of the loss in 2000, had to coallesce around a platform. Talk radio, had the Internet not been available, would likely have become the staging area and the rise of the left on talk radio would have been a near certainty. But a funny thing happened on the march toward the AM dial.

With the Internet, blogs and Meetup became the new polis for the exiled Democrats.

This seems almost certainly right to me. I think it’s played out right here at Race. We’re the story of dissidents and outcasts, to one degree or another, from Republican orthodoxies. Who were the initial founders of Race42008? Kavon, obviously, but also notably DaveG. Both were Rudy supporters. Similarly, some of the most prolific early FPP’s were Rudy supporters. One of them was named, fittingly I guess, Rudyblogger. Rudy’s support elsewhere online was wafer thin. Look at the site’s trajectory after that. During the primaries, we were, oddly enough, seen as a haven for Romney supporters. Romney’s followers later built up independent networks, but in the early going the “Mormon candidate” and his “Mormon followers” were very much outcasts on the right. This sort of thing continued as the site added new front-page posters. I was a Black right-leaning independent who hadn’t voted in 2004, and who was openly flirting with Evan Bayh. Alex, while clearly a Republican and a conservative, had his own set of heresies. All of this flourished as the right, in general, floundered.

Even the expansions and contractions of popular conservative sites reflect this trend. Hot Air, run by the agnostic libertarian AllahPundit, has become the most popular right of center site. The more traditionally and reliably conservative RedState has faced a number of set-backs. Michael’s definitely on to something: when people feel like outsiders, they’re more likely to actively seek out different ways to express their views. And that tendency can only help the right broadly, as we slip into a long period of exclusion. Hopefully twitter is only the beginning.

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Matthew E. Miller can be contacted at Obilisk18@yahoo.com

Chris Christie released a new campaign ad, targeting opponent Steve Lonegan.

http://www.christiefornj.com/

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Kristofer Lorelli can be contacted at lorville@rogers.com, on Facebook and twitter/Kris_Lorelli.

Daniel Larison looks at Ross Douthat’s latest column, and wonders if there’s an obvious distinction between principled “moderates” and feckless “moderates”. He writes:

As a rule, someone earns the name “centrist” in our political discourse by simply endorsing a major goal of the other party: McCain was granted this description by a once-fawning press corps because he backed campaign finance reform and later backed amnesty, and Lieberman’s hawkishness has earned him this title despite his otherwise left-liberal voting record. This occsasional, sometimes single-issue “centrism” is not really all that different from what the Northeastern moderates have done for decades, except that it is less frequent and therefore somehow more “principled” than the relatively more ideologically consistent moderate and liberal Republicans who are less reliable partisans. In effect, the “centrist” is someone who betrays the party on key issues, but votes with them the rest of the time, while the hated, “unprincipled” moderate is a less reliable vote for what might actually be more coherent reasons….

It seems to me that there is a very thin line between the “hacks and deal-makers” who are supposed to be despised and the serious “centrists” who would never permanently cross party lines for their own political ambition. However, as we know, out of little more than personal pique two of the most famous “centrists”–Joe Lieberman and John McCain–either broke with their party when denied re-nomination or seriously contemplated switching sides after being denied presidential nomination. In the end, long-term ambition prompted reconciliation with their respective parties, whereas in Specter’s case ambition dictated that he jump ship. Beyond that, the differences are minimal, which raises the question: is there such a thing as a principled “centrist” and what would such a creature look like?

Well, first of all I’m not sure that Larison has understood what Douthat means by a “principled” moderate. Even someone like Clinton, who surely isn’t “principled” in the sense of being courageous, fits into Douthat’s idea. Because one suspects that, whatever sort of triangulation Clinton was engaged in, he had beliefs strongly rooted in liberalism which he simply wouldn’t have abandoned, for any political gain. For instance, imagine that the anti-illegal immigration movement had struck 8 year earlier, and in the both parties. Can anyone imagine Clinton becoming a quasi-nativist, ala Tancredo, or even a queasy-restrictionist, ala Romney? I think it’s fairly clear that Specter is NOT, at least as a Republican, that sort of principled centrist. There’s no orthodox conservative belief, let alone a broad conservative world-view, I could imagine Specter defending in the fire.

Even on Iraq, which Larison mentions, Specter was maddeningly squishy. Yes, he voted for it, but he was also one of many to oppose the surge. He said at the time :

On this state (ph) of the record, I cannot support an additional allocation of 21,500 troops because it is my judgment that that would not be material or really helpful in what is going on at the present time.

He hedged this by refusing to vote for cloture, and later refusing to support a timetable. Even then, this was one of the least principled, by any definition, positions a politician could take on Iraq. “I oppose it, mind you, but you can do it anyway” won’t be winning anyone a profile in courage. In retrospect it looks worse than unprincipled; it looks genuinely silly. So this is one of the first rules I’d write in my book for the principled moderate; if you’re effectively supporting some unpopular aspect of your party’s orthodoxy (as Specter was)…well, actually support it.

Here’s another way of spotting a principled party moderate; he agrees with prevailing party orthodoxy on his core issues. To go back to the Clinton example, a lot of people think Clinton was actually convinced by moderate economics and welfare reform; no one thinks those were the issues the drove him. He spent 2 years trying to push through liberal orthodoxy, before realizing that he had to actually tack to the center to be effective.

I’d also suggest a final rule: a principled party moderate does not attack his party on an issue where he can’t possibly hope to change the orthodoxy. Christie Whitman screaming, from a bunker in Trenton, that the GOP is controlled by religious wackos is an example of an unprincipled party moderate. What does she hope to accomplish by this action? Does she suppose that the party will suddenly become pro-choice if she only complains loudly enough to liberals? No of course not. She’s screaming because it gets her attention, and because there are plenty of people in the media and the Democratic Party, willing to use her as an example of a “good Republican” to set against those “crazy Republicans”.

It’s possible, of course, to break this rule, and still be principled. Larison himself does so himself, persistently and compellingly criticizing Republican orthodoxy on foreign policy and trade. But, it’s not possible to do so while going on talk show circuits glorifying in your heresy. In short, a principled party moderate knows when he’s being made a useful idiot.

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Matthew E. Miller can be contacted at Obilisk18@yahoo.com

Alright, Adam, let’s go another round…

[Huckabee] understands what many of the elite have forgotten. The common man, beset as he is with the concerns of every day life gives to others the authority to govern. It is the responsibility of those in leadership to remember and to care about the great mass of people. Instead, we’ve had a party elite that has done violence to the trust that was given it and therefore lost it as members have fattened themselves and their contributors on the future of the next generation.

Actually, I agree with this sentiment. It’s important for politicians to remember. Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton were masters at this game, as they used it as a unifying force. Huckabee uses it to divide. Adam is hardly conscious of this, since he fits exactly the sort of demographic profile that Huckabee seeks to appeal to. Inside of that echo chamber, he’s utterly baffled as to how anyone could not find him a breath of fresh air. But to millions of Americans, he’s a divisive force. Anyone intent on “writing God’s standards into the Constitution” is inherently divisive. It’s also just a really bad idea.

Then Alex alleges some unproven racist connotation. This is silly as Huckabee is one of the few Republicans with a serious record of picking up African American votes, which is one of his big advantages over Sarah Palin.

No, no, no, no. I didn’t mean that it was racist. I meant that it has an exclusionary air to it. Juanita Hernandez isn’t a Joe Six-Pack or a Sarah Hockey Mom. If you want to be a white Protestant party, then go right ahead and support Mike Huckabee, Sarah Palin, and their brand of identity politics. But it’s not going to help expand the party.

Mike Huckabee indeed won a decent share — all things being relative — of the black vote in Arkansas. But that was a state level. It’s a fundamental fact of politics that voting behavior operates differently at the state level than at the national level. Popular Senate and gubernatorial incumbents regularly receive sixty to seventy percent of the vote, for instance. That’s practically unheard of at a presidential level.

Moving on:

How about you see if you can get a big banner saying that at the next Republican Convention? That cynicism is gnawing. I’ve certainly heard some weird theories since coming to Race42012, but the theory that we lost because we didn’t nominate enough sleaze bags takes the cake.

OK, well, this basically amounts to “I don’t like how this argument made me feel.” Needless to say, you don’t let people know that you don’t think that character (necessarily) counts. It counts if it can help you win. But you always keep up a face of being — implicitly — the more virtuous party. Let me repeat my original argument, since it was not replied to and it is very relevant:

Yes, everyone loves good guys. And everyone loathes the truly morally wayward sentiments that plague men. But let’s be frank: going after Bill Clinton’s character backfired in the late 90’s. Why? Well, for one, there are hypocrites in both parties, and only a party stacked top to bottom with morally pure leaders is going to survive in the PR war. Second, most of the country simply does not care much whether their leaders are a bit sleazy on the side as long as they’re willing to get things accomplished.

It goes back to, as I noted last night, whether a person views politicians as ends in themselves or means to an ideological goal. If Robert Kagan had sex with a hooker, I’d still want him to be Secretary of State one day.

It is not true, as some might assert, that moral waywardness “does not exist in a vacuum” and always creeps over to affect policy in some way. It simply does not, and we have evidence to show it. Rudy Giuliani cheated on his wife, but he managed to get quite a bit done in New York City. Martin Luther King, Jr., Franklin D. Roosevelt, and others were notorious womanizers — and yet they accomplished great things. So let’s drop the nonsense that only the morally pure make good leaders.

We avoid sleaze if we can get someone who is both electable and virtuous. But if it’s a choice between one or the other, give me electable.

Finally a word on Alan Keyes, the “ultimate intellectual,” according to Adam. Here’s a few prime cuts from Keyes:

“Obama is a radical Communist…he is going to destroy this country.”

“According to the Constitution, in order to be eligible for president you have to be a natural born citizen. He has refused to provide proof.”

“I’m not sure he’s even president of the United States…neither are many of our military people now who are now going to court to ask the question, ‘Do we have to obey a man who is not qualified under the constitution?’ We are in the midst of the greatest crisis this nation has ever seen, and if we don’t stop laughing about it and deal with it, we’re going to find ourselves in the midst of chaos, confusion and civil war.”

Not enough for you? Here:

“It’s obvious that they will stop at nothing,” Keyes told attendees of a reception in Fort Wayne, adding, “We may wake up one day and there’s a series of terrorist attacks, the economy is paralysed….martial law will be declared everywhere in the United States and it won’t end until the crisis ends.”

Keyes said that Americans should be thankful if they even see another election in 2012, stating, “If we don’t wake up and work to see that it happens, we will not see another election.”

“The minute they think they can get away with it, they will end this system of government and that is their intention,” added Keyes, noting that everyone acting as if the time we are in was just “business as usual” reminds him of the attitude of politicians in the Weimar Republic when Hitler was rising to power or eastern Europe when the Communists were taking over after the second world war.

So yeah, Alan Keyes is crazy.

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Alex Knepper can be contacted at apkkib@aol.com

The commenters have pointed out many flaws in Alex’s argument to make points that I never made. I will assume that the points Knepper didn’t respond to, he accepts or at the very least knows aren’t easily challenged.

However, let me go ahead and take Alex’s four points on. Point 1:

The real divide is between merit and identity. It has literally nothing to do with where one went to college, how much money one has, or what family one comes from. Intellectualism can be embraced by the poorest high school dropout among us, really: it has to do with critical thinking, merit, and the triumph of good ideas. That is utterly rejected by Huckabee and Palin, who proclaim that Joe Six Pack is virtuous not for what he thinks but for who he is. That his methods are good because of who they come from rather than what they achieve. There is something inherently less valuable in an idea that comes from an elite, in the minds of the Huckabee Republicans. That is what I reject: identity politics.

Actually, I think Knepper is taking Huckabee and Palin to say things they never said. Having read three of Huckabee’s books and know that he certainly doesn’t proclaim all people to be virtuous, or all working people to be virtuous.

Rather, he understands what many of the elite have forgotten. The common man, beset as he is with the concerns of every day life gives to others the authority to govern. It is the responsibility of those in leadership to remember and to care about the great mass of people.

Instead, we’ve had a party elite that has done violence to the trust that was given it and therefore lost it as members have fattened themselves and their contributors on the future of the next generation.

Then Alex alleges some unproven racist connotation. This is silly as Huckabee is one of the few Republicans with a serious record of picking up African American votes, which is one of his big advantages over Sarah Palin. Of course, some party leaders are willing to sacrifice any chance of winning the Black vote. Said one:

You have to learn to live with less than 100% of the vote. I think one of things that has been a lesson of the Bush years…is that although you can see a lot of socially conservative views amongst blacks and Hispanics, that they are going to vote their economic interests ahead of their values. The votes with whom Republicans should have the best chance, middle-class African American voters, are much more heavily dependent on government employment than non-African American Democrats. I think that Republicans just have to accept that they are never going to do well with government employees. So that may mean leaving some of those votes on the table.

So Blacks and Hispanics were written off…by someone I know Alex is aware of…David Frum, who apparently wants to build “a conservatism that can win again” (without all those pesky minorities).

Alex writes:

2. Yes, Character Counts, When It Helps Us Win

 How about you see if you can get a big banner saying that at the next Republican Convention?  That cynicism  is gnawing.

I’ve certainly heard some weird theories since coming to Race42012, but the theory that we lost because we didn’t nominate enough sleaze bags takes the cake.
3. The “Good Old Boys” Are Not Defenders of Our Constitution

Alex doesn’t actually dispute my point here to prove that the establishment/good old boys/intellectuals love the Constitution. Instead he tries to throw dirt on people, some I  like, some I don’t. Really, a distraction or a straw man.

4. We Didn’t Mourn the Loss of Alan Keyes Because the Man Is Insane

Alan Keyes is insane? Really, did I miss the competency hearing? You may not like him, but that doesn’t make him insane. In fact, Keyes is the ultimate intellectual nerd. You listen to a speech and you’ll be sure to learn the roots of at least three words. 

In addition, Bob Barr was mentioned in my piece and Barr is certainly not insane.  The fact remains that:

1. A moderate leaving the party is a tragedy that shows the party has gone astray while a conservative leaving the party is crazy or childish.
2. A moderate failing to support the party’s nominee is okay, maybe even noble. A conservative who does so will be cut off forever.

There’s a double standards and Republicans have got work to do.

Apparently the newest Democrat in Washington received a big smack in the face tonight.  From Politico:

Sen. Arlen Specter lost big under a resolution approved by the Senate Tuesday night: He won’t be able to retain his seniority on five committees this Congress.

In announcing his switch to the Democratic Party last week, Specter said that Democratic leaders assured him that he would be treated as if he were elected as a Democrat 29 years ago — essentially allowing him to leapfrog most Democrats and put himself in line to become a committee chairman if he wins reelection in 2010. Several Democrats have taken exception to the notion that Specter would be taking possession of their prized real estate.

By voice vote on Tuesday night, the Senate sided with that sentiment in approving a resolution that adds Specter to the Democratic side on Judiciary, Appropriations, Veterans Affairs, Aging and Environment and Public Works — expanding Democrats’ majority on those panels.

Specter will be treated as the most junior member of those panels — putting him last in line in speaking time during committee hearings and limiting his influence on those panels. When the Judiciary Committee considers Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nominee, Specter will be the last Democrat to speak, and he’s last in line to chair the committee if the current chairman, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), steps down.

The move may have come as shock to Specter. Speaking on NBC’s “Meet the Press” Sunday, he said that it’s an “entitlement” for him to retain his seniority on those committees.

“I was elected in 1980. I think that’s not a bribe or a give for something extraordinary,” he said. “I’ll be treated as a Democrat as if I was elected as a Democrat.”

A Democratic aide said Tuesday night that Specter’s fate was sealed by comments he made suggesting that he wanted Norm Coleman to win the disputed Minnesota Senate race and by senior Democrats who were angry at the prospect of losing seniority to Specter.

Hey Arlen, this just goes to show what happens when you screw so many people over for personal gain.  Good riddance!

(h/t) JayPe

Today, Marco Rubio announced his Senate candidacy, confirming weeks of speculation about his intentions:

And here’s Politico’s take:

Rubio will be mounting an aggressive conservative challenge to Crist, and has accused him of betraying core Republican principles. Since announcing his exploratory committee for Senate in March, Rubio has been openly telegraphing his disagreements with the governor.

A young, Cuban-American conservative, Rubio has the ability to run competitively in a primary against Crist by forming a coalition with the heavily-Republican Cuban vote in south Florida along with conservative voters across the Sunshine State. Rubio originally was leaning towards running for governor if Crist entered the Senate race, but changed his plans as Crist continued to alienate the state’s conservative base.

For the party’s and Rubio’s sakes, let’s hope that Crist decides to remain in Tallahassee.  If Charlie really has his sights set on running in 2012 or getting VP consideration, he would serve himself best by running for another term.  With Marco’s immense potential and Charlie’s success with expanding the party’s reach in the Sunshine State, we need Rubio in the Senate.

Although I grew up only a few blocks from where Tom Ridge grew up, and at about the same time, I did not meet the man until he was a new congressman and I was living a thousand miles away, and back visiting my home town.

From that first meeting, I sensed that Ridge was not just an ordinary politician from Erie, Pennsylvania. Although this small industrial city had been settled before 1800, and had a notable share in early American history, it had not ever had a truly nationally-known political figure emerge from it. But Ridge has a distinctive way of filling political vacuums. Growing up in public housing after World War II. he had obtained a scholarship to Harvard, and after graduating, enlisted in the U.S. Army, fought with distinction (and received two bronze stars) in Viet Nam, gone to law school, passed the bar, and had become assistant district attorney in the city of Erie.

By 1982, Erie was passed its industrial prime, Its many plants of tools, metal parts, paper, steel and plastics manufacturing were being bought out, merged or closed, unemployment was high, and its “rust belt” appearance was obvious. Ethnic politics now dominated the city as Polish and Italian working class immigrants filled the voting booths and elected their own to high and low office. Erie politics had been notorious for its corruption and lack of leadership for decades. Bribery charges and indictments were all too frequent. To complicate matters, the city, located in the far northwestern corner of the state, had been largely ignored in the capital city of Harrisburg which understandably paid more attention to the larger population centers of Pittsburgh, Philadelphia and central Pennsylvania.

With its heavily blue collar Catholic population and strong labor unions, Erie was a Democratic town. Rural Erie Country was agricultural and Republican, as were the neighboring counties which had composed Erie’s congressional district over the years. Two Republicans and one Democrat had represented the area in previous decades, but none of them had made much of a mark. (one of them, indeed, had been named by a DC publication as the “dumbest member of Congress”). When the Erie seat came open in 1982, it was expected that a Democratic Italian-American with labor support would win the seat.

But it was an Irish-Ruthenian-American Indian Republican prosecutor who beat all comers by a narrow margin that year in his first election, surprising almost everyone. After that first race, Ridge won re-election four times by huge margins, winning the support of Democrats and union members. Then Ridge was elected governor of Pennsylvania (to the surprise of most political observers, and re-elected by the largest margin in state history before being picked as the first Secretary of Homeland Security after September 11 by President George W. Bush. Ridge retired, undefeated in any election (including running for president of his class at Harvard) at the age of 58 in 2005. Three times (in 1996 by Bob Dole, in 2000 by George W. Bush, and in 2008 by John McCain) he had been a finalist in the consideration to be his party’s vice presidential nominee.

Since that time, Ridge has devoted most of his efforts to creating a worldwide consulting firm providing governance and security advice to governments and large companies. For Ridge, his family, and to the political entourage accumulated around him over the years, his days as an elected public official were considered over. He had made quite a mark, becoming Erie’s most prominent and important politician ever. A major environmental center, a college building and Erie’s international airport has already been named after him. His two children were college age, and it seemed time for new directions.

Then last week, Arlen Specter, the 80 year-old, four-term Republican U.S. senator from Pennsylvania, announced he would switch parties back to the Democrats in order to run for a fifth term. Specter, a Philadelphia prosecutor, had switched from the Democrats to the Republicans to run for district attorney, and then became almost a perennial losing candidate for high office in the state until he finally won the senate seat in 1984. Considered a “liberal” Republican, Specter often voted with Democrats in Washington, DC, and had almost been defeated in the GOP primary in 2002 by a conservative congressman. After voting for President Obama’s stimulus bill earlier this year, Specter’s standing among Republican voters plummeted, and polls indicated he would lose a GOP primary next year by a wide margin. Recovering from serious illness, and clearly in his senior years, Specter nevertheless has tried to hold on to his office, and switched parties was self-admittedly a desperate measure.

One vote short of absolute control of the U.S. Senate, President Obama and Democratic senate leaders have welcomed Specter into their fold. But backbenchers in the Senate have chafed at the “deal” made to bring him in, that is, giving him seniority for chairmanships in the 2010 session, leapfrogging him over several veteran Democratic senators. As well, several Pennsylvaniapolitical figures who were planning on running for the senate may not step aside for Specter, and it is unclear yet how the state’s Democratic voters feel about the former Republican.

Notwithstanding these problems, Specter was an early favorite to win re-election against former Congressman Pat Toomey, the Republican who had almost beat him in 2004 and now was the president of the conservative group Club for Growth. Specter was also expected to win a Democratic primary.

But there is one figure in the state who beats Specter, and that’s Tom Ridge. Immediately, state and national Republicans began calling the former governor to see if he would run. A just-published Quinnipiac Poll demonstrates Ridge’s strength in a race against Spector. While Specter beats Toomey by 20 points, he only leads Ridge by 3 points, and is well under 50%. Ridge, who has not run in an election campaign in Pennsylvania for almost 10 years, but is a legendary hard campaigner, could easily pull ahead in this race.

As someone who has known him for almost three decades, my guess would have been that Ridge would say “no,” having already embarked on the next phase of his life. I was surprised to learn after speaking with him, however, that he is seriously considering it.

It turns out that his running is not only important to Republicans in Pennsylvania, but to his party nationally which has suffered huge defeats in the last two elections. Specter was what is called a “RINO” or a Republican In Name Only. Although he is moderately pro-choice on the abortion issue, and irritated some of his GOP colleagues when he sometimes voted for labor when he was in Congress, Ridge is by contrast with Specter a solid economic conservative Republican. (His rapport with blue collar Democrats and independents is a very large plus in this race.) His military, prosecutorial and homeland security background does not fit any “liberal” stereotype. He has not lost any election in the state of Pennsylvania (nor anywhere else). He is 63, but seems to be in his late 40′s. He is, if he wants to be, a political force to be reckoned with.

Most importantly, Tom Ridge, if elected to the U.S. senate in 2010, would help restore his party’s image as the popular conservative centrist party, the place where the GOP, under Ronald Reagan and Newt Gingrich, brought the “party of Lincoln” back to power in the 1980’s and 1990’s, and where, many political observers contend, it must be if it is have a chance to win back the Congress and White House in the decade that looms ahead.

-This article appears courtesy of The Preludium News Service. Copyright (c) 2009 by Barry Casselman. All rights reserved.

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Editor’s Note: Please stay tuned for information on the official launch of BarryCasselman.com. Coming Soon!-KWN

Romney;

Marriage is a status, not an activity.

There should be a national standard.

I obviously disagree with Governor Romney’s position (I support Vice President Cheney’s position), but his answer was significantly more articulate than the answer from Rep. Cantor.

I used to believe that a Romney-Cantor ticket might work in 2012, but after watching the two of them together, I am not convinced that Cantor would be the best option for Governor Romney.

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Kristofer Lorelli can be contacted at lorville@rogers.com, on Facebook and twitter/Kris_Lorelli.

Despite all the whining over a narrow tent, Republicans remain open to moderates in blue states. That’s showing with the efforts at candidate recruitment this year:

• In Delaware, Michael Castle is considering taking on Beau Biden.  A recent Susquehanna Poll shows Castle thumping Biden by 55% to 34%. This is an excellent pick-up opportunity.

• In Connecticut, Rob Simmons continues to poll competitively against Chris Dodd with several polls showing the moderate Republican Congressman ahead.

• In Pennsylvania, Tom Ridge is polling slightly ahead of Arlen Specter, according to Susquehanna.

• In New York, George Pataki is polling ahead of Kirsten Gillibrand, the recently nominated Democrat Senator by 46% to 38%

• In Illinois, Mark Kirk is ahead of or even with any prospect Democratic opponent for the Senate race.

• In Colorado, a very moderate Republican named Ryan Frazier is making a run in the Senate primary.

• In Florida, moderate Republican Charlie Crist is pondering a run for the Senate. If he runs he’ll be a shoe-in.

All across the country evidence of the Republican Party’s big tent is in evidence. While Specter switching parties is showy, it says more about Specter’s personal problems than the Republican Party.

OK, here we go again. Adam Graham knocks down straw men with as much vigor as our esteemed president. His latest piece does a bang-up job of misrepresenting my views. A few correctives are in order, especially, since commenter Tommy Boy has noted, this website is turning into Race4AlexKnepper.

1. The Divide Is Not Between Good Old Boys and Harvard Professors

When William F. Buckley said that he’d rather be governed by the first two hundred names in the phone book than in the Harvard faculty directory, he was attacking Harvard’s ‘intellectual morons,’ not glorifying the guys in the phone book.

The vast majority of the country, of course, fits into neither category: it is a preposterous dichotomy with absolutely no relation to reality. It is meaningful only in that it helps Adam favorably contrast his brand of anti-intellectual populism with a bunch of self-interested eggheads.

The real divide is between merit and identity. It has literally nothing to do with where one went to college, how much money one has, or what family one comes from. Intellectualism can be embraced by the poorest high school dropout among us, really: it has to do with critical thinking, merit, and the triumph of good ideas. That is utterly rejected by Huckabee and Palin, who proclaim that Joe Six Pack is virtuous not for what he thinks but for who he is. That his methods are good because of who they come from rather than what they achieve. There is something inherently less valuable in an idea that comes from an elite, in the minds of the Huckabee Republicans. That is what I reject: identity politics.

Worse still, they are a sure loser from an electoral standpoint. Appealing to the identity of the white working class is in the worst of the conservative tradition, going back to George Wallace and Jesse Helms. It has evolved over time into a less bombastic brand, but retains a strong exclusionary aura. Are Hispanic women “Joe Six-Packs” and “Hockey Moms”? If not, then it’s probably a bad idea to form a party based around them, because we’re going to be a majority-minority country within the next few decades. The solution is obvious: be a party of ideas, not of identity. As I noted last night: we’ve already got one party that’s polluted with that evil sentiment. We don’t need another.

2. Yes, Character Counts, When It Helps Us Win

Yes, everyone loves good guys. And everyone loathes the truly morally wayward sentiments that plague men. But let’s be frank: going after Bill Clinton’s character backfired in the late 90′s. Why? Well, for one, there are hypocrites in both parties, and only a party stacked top to bottom with morally pure leaders is going to survive in the PR war. Second, most of the country simply does not care much whether their leaders are a bit sleazy on the side as long as they’re willing to get things accomplished.

It goes back to, as I noted last night, whether a person views politicians as ends in themselves or means to an ideological goal. If Robert Kagan had sex with a hooker, I’d still want him to be Secretary of State one day.

It is not true, as some might assert, that moral waywardness “does not exist in a vacuum” and always creeps over to affect policy in some way. It simply does not, and we have evidence to show it. Rudy Giuliani cheated on his wife, but he managed to get quite a bit done in New York City. Martin Luther King, Jr., Franklin D. Roosevelt, and others were notorious womanizers — and yet they accomplished great things. So let’s drop the nonsense that only the morally pure make good leaders. (You know what Jesus said about casting the first stone, anyway, right, Adam?)

3. The “Good Old Boys” Are Not Defenders of Our Constitution

There is a strong paranoid, secessionist streak in the vanguard of the “down-home” types. Todd Palin was once a member of the Alaskan Independence Party, whose founder made a scathing anti-American speech at the United Nations, sponsored by Iran. Half of Texas Republicans and a third of Georgia Republicans contend that their states would be better off as an independent nation than as a member of the United States. Mike Huckabee disturbingly noted that “God’s Standards” (as he perceives them) should be written into the Constitution. Phyllis Schlafly, Jerome Corsi, and Pat Buchanan all subscribe to notions that a “North American Union” is imminent. It should go without saying that men like William F. Buckley, William Kristol, Milton Friedman, and F.A. Hayek would want nothing to do with such nonsense.

Now cue Kristofer, resident messenger-shooter, to note that my arguments are wrong because I linked to an MSNBC article and a Daily Kos poll.

4. We Didn’t Mourn the Loss of Alan Keyes Because the Man Is Insane

No explanation is required.

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Alex Knepper can be contacted at apkkib@aol.com

David Brooks managed to write a column I rather enjoyed today. In it, he suggests that Republicans should look to the values of John Ford- not John Wayne- westerns (yes, I know there’s all sorts of overlap), to find a way out their mire. He writes:

For example, in Ford’s 1946 movie, “My Darling Clementine,” Henry Fonda plays Wyatt Earp, the marshal who tamed Tombstone. But the movie isn’t really about the gunfight and the lone bravery of a heroic man. It’s about how decent people build a town. Much of the movie is about how the townsfolk put up a church, hire a teacher, enjoy Shakespeare, get a surgeon and work to improve their manners.

The movie, in other words, is really about religion, education, science, culture, etiquette and rule of law — the pillars of community. In Ford’s movie, as in real life, the story of Western settlement is the story of community-building. Instead of celebrating untrammeled freedom and the lone pioneer, Ford’s movies dwell affectionately on the social customs that Americans cherish — the gatherings at the local barbershop and the church social, the gossip with the cop and the bartender and the hotel clerk.

Today, if Republicans had learned the right lessons from the Westerns, or at least John Ford Westerns, they would not be the party of untrammeled freedom and maximum individual choice. They would once again be the party of community and civic order.

They would begin every day by reminding themselves of the concrete ways people build orderly neighborhoods, and how those neighborhoods bind a nation. They would ask: What threatens Americans’ efforts to build orderly places to raise their kids? The answers would produce an agenda: the disruption caused by a boom and bust economy; the fragility of the American family; the explosion of public and private debt; the wild swings in energy costs; the fraying of the health care system; the segmentation of society and the way the ladders of social mobility seem to be dissolving…

The Republicans talk more about the market than about society, more about income than quality of life. They celebrate capitalism, which is a means, and are inarticulate about the good life, which is the end. They take things like tax cuts, which are tactics that are good in some circumstances, and elevate them to holy principle, to be pursued in all circumstances.

The emphasis on freedom and individual choice may work in the sparsely populated parts of the country. People there naturally want to do whatever they want on their own land. But it doesn’t work in the densely populated parts of the country: the cities and suburbs where Republicans are getting slaughtered. People in these areas understand that their lives are profoundly influenced by other people’s individual choices. People there are used to worrying about the health of the communal order.

This reminds me of a David Hackett Fischer book I was reading recently, Albion’s Seed. Fischer contended that America’s different regional values were largely formed by the four great Anglo migrations which occurred in the 17th and 18th century; you end up with Puritans in New England, Quakers in the Delaware Valley, the Scotch-Irish in Appalachia, and Anglican aristocrats in the Chesapeake Valley. Fischer, I think, would have a lot to say about this community and freedom divide and I suspect he’d reject it. As he convincingly demonstrated, there were four distinct ideas of freedom in the early American experience; one for each of those regions. In New England, “ordered liberty” reigned and it was very much focused on the idea of community, particularly the community of the Puritan church. In the Delaware Valley, “reciprocal liberty” held sway, which also had clear communal elements. The other two strains were more individualistic; Chesapeakers focused on “hegemonic liberty”, and Appalachians believed in “natural liberty”.

What Brooks is calling for, it seems to me, is not “more community”, but rather a different sort of liberty; one closer to either the Puritan concept of ordered liberty or the Quaker concept of reciprocal liberty. As someone who rather likes “ordered liberty”, even under the Puritans, and especially under Burke and late 19th and early 20th century American conservatives, I have more than a little sympathy for this project.

But, I think, on specifics Brooks is largely defeating strawmen. Modern conservatism already has a great deal of ordered liberty. Community and civil order are real priorities for millions of conservatives. Social conservatives in particular have fought for these things; think of obscenity laws, faith-based initiatives, tax breaks for families, etc. Prominent conservatives like Ramesh Ponnuru and Brooks’ colleague, Ross Douthat have written…well, whole books in some cases about the need to expand conservatism’s reach to families and communities.

Even non-social conservatives, like Rudy Giuliani, have played a key role in this kind of conservatism. What is the broken window theory, if not an attempt to reset community norms through the imposition of order? Brooks is right that conservatism needs to be about more than pure individualism, but he’s wrong in thinking this requires a transformation. We’re 70% there.

Still, “community” can quickly become a catchall rationalization for any policy under the sun. To say, as Brooks does, that the “community” is disrupted by “wild swings in energy costs” is to strip the word of all meaning. Swings in energy costs are inconvenient but not especially disruptive, outside of oil states. Nor is it easy to understand why conservatives should repair a “fraying health care system” out of concern for community and civic order. There are good reasons to reform health care, but community isn’t one of them. Community then becomes a way to smuggle in essentially moderate and liberal policy goals, without justifying them on their own terms. Brooks’ isn’t looking for a “new conservatism”, modeled on something Republicans should embrace. He’s pining for his beloved moderation, and he thinks it’ll be an easier sell hitched to John Wayne’s wagon.

Traditional conservatism and classical liberalism set out limits to why and how you should use government to inform and mold community. They take into account Fischer’s other conceptions of liberty, particularly the “natural liberty” of Appalachia, and they’re perpetually skeptical that government can do more good than harm, as issues get more complex, and the community becomes more distant. Ultimately, conservatism shouldn’t be purely individualistic, but neither should it be Brooksian.

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Matthew E. Miller can be contacted at Obilisk18@yahoo.com

We tend to forget the real Ronald Reagan and his real “big tent.” Mark Joseph has a great piece on what Reagan in action looked liked:

When Reagan took over the levers of power at the GOP convention in Detroit one of the first things he did was force his will onto the GOP platform on issues like abortion and the Equal Rights Amendment.

Those GOP forces who today misquote Reagan and have misunderstood Reagan’s idea of a big-tent need look no further than Mary Dent Crisp, once a prominent leader in the Republican party, who in 1977 was appointed its co-chair.

Although Crisp had been a Republican longer than Reagan and had worked her way up the ladder of party leadership, Reagan was now defining what the party stood for and Crisp was outraged at the party’s new values on abortion and the ERA.

“Although our party has presented the outward appearance of vibrant health, I’m afraid we are suffering from serious internal sickness,” she said during platform committee meetings in 1980. “Now we are . . . about to bury the rights of over 100 million American women under a heap of platitudes.”

The next day Reagan showcased his big-tent philosophy, telling reporters that Crisp “should look to herself and see how loyal she’s been to the Republican Party for quite some time.”

Crisp got the message, left the convention and signed on with the third party candidacy of a more moderate/liberal Republican named John Anderson.

Reagan, the big tent guy took action that was so offensive, it out a former RNC Co-Chair out of the Party, but don’t worry Reagan had a big tent, but it was under his terms:

First, he did indeed have a big tent, especially in 1984, which allowed 59% of the electorate to vote for him, but it was a tent of Reagan’s design in which those who disagreed with him had little say about how the tent was constructed, but were welcome to stay anyway. Pro-choice women were welcomed into the tent as voters so long as they didn’t try to change the party’s position on the issue of abortion, one which Reagan held dearly enough to have written a book about while still in office. Union members were courted by Reagan, so long as they didn’t mind Reagan’s tough policies toward organizing which included his firing of striking air traffic controllers and eventually came to be known as “Reagan Democrats.” Those jittery over Reagan’s bellicose statements on foreign policy were also welcomed, provided they could live with his tough posture toward communism. And even Rockefeller Republicans were allowed to stay in the tent so long as they realized that they were joining his party and not the other way around, that while they would be horrified by the new boss’s position on social issues for instance, they’d find something to cheer about in his tax cuts.

Reagan’s big tent also included some unsavory characters on the extreme right. While disavowing any connection to the John Birch Society, accused by some of having racist tendencies, Reagan invited its members into his big tent saying that if members supported him it was in indication that he had ”persuaded them to accept my philosophy, not me accepting theirs.”

In contrast, Reagan considered members of what has derisively come to be known as “the religious right” as not a fringe group to be courted, but a foundational element of the big tent he constructed. Meeting with Christian leaders in 1980, he famously declared “You can’t endorse me, but I endorse you,” and made sure that platform committees that were to decide party policy were heavily stacked in their favor.

In Reagan’s big tent, the likes of Arlen Specter would always have been welcomed, so long as they were willing to go along with Reagan, but the moment they stood in the way, as Mary Dent Crisp did, and sought to assert their policies on his vision for the party, they were shown the door.

Now, that’s the type of Big Tent, I could live with, rather than the circus tent of incoherence and lack of principle that we are constantly called to build by so-called moderates.

On a related note, I have a copy of 1984 edition of Politics in America and took a look at Specter’s entry. (Yes, I have a copy of a 24 year old political almanac. Politics geeks may respond with appropriately to such an act of supreme geekiness with a Wayne’s Worldesque, “We Are Not Worthy”)

Specter actually was one of the Republicans who voted against Reagan’s agenda most in his first two years in office.

The second thing I noticed is that the Benedict Arlen label was first applied to Specter by Democrats in 1965 after Specter switched parties for the principled reason that he’d lost the Democratic Primary. A name can be unfortunate, but sometimes it fits like a glove.

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Adam Graham’s blog is being attacked by hackers and held hostage by tech support agents who are trying a new business model called, “Customer Dis-service.”  In the meanwhile, you can enjoy him in 140 character doses by following him on Twitter.

Alex’s defense of the party elites is stirring. Issuing a defense of elitism in this atmosphere is akin to issuing a defense of Nero as Rome smolders. Though, I guess the best defense of Nero is the same as the best defense of the Party establishment. “The Christians did it.”

The difference, I would suggest between Alex and myself is that I have faith in our ideas and the power of them. Carl Von Clausewitz, who in his book On War wrote:

If the enemy is thrown off balance, he must not be given time to recover. Blow after blow must be struck in the same direction; the victor, in other words, must strike with all his strength, and not just against a fraction of the enemy’s. Not by taking things the easy way—using superior strength to filch some province, preferring the security of the minor conquest to a major success—but by constantly seeking out his center of power, by daring all to win all, will one really defeat the enemy

I believe in an aggressive strategy. I believe in the power of conservative ideas, communicated, and fought for.  Alex believes in timid conservatism, the politics of the least common denominator, playing it safe, taking no great risks, and therefore enjoying no great victory.

Alex blames religious conservatives for the decline of the Republican Party in the Northeast. For my lot, I never gave a Nickel to a conservative challenger running against Snowe, Collins, or Jim Jeffords. Religious conservatives have never dominated that party and outside of Rhode Island and New Hampshire, I’m unaware of any pro-life candidate being nominated for anything by the Republican Party anywhere in New England. What Alex and many other moderates refuse to acknowledge is that much of this is due to changes in the Northeast itself.

Many sane people have fled the asylums of New York State and Vermont, and been replaced by liberals or in some cases, or not replaced at all as evidenced by the slow shrinkage in New England population. You can find ex-patriates from the Northeast who tired of the area all across the country. So when asking where the old Yankee Republicans are, the answer is usually in the cemetary or somewhere South. California is slowly becoming the de-peopling process as people try to make their escape.

And I’d suggest that the Social liberalism of the prior generation of North Eastern Republicans have gave birth to the most liberal of Democrats. Hamilton Fish IV was the 4th Generation of an American political family and a liberal Republican particularly on social issues. His son, Hamilton Fish V is  a radical far leftist not an economically conservative, socially liberal Democrat turned off to the GOP by its far right social stances, but Hamilton Fish V is a fringe left guy. When social conservatism is gone, economic liberal will grow after it, as the less our cultural mores, the more government we will need. It also doesn’t help when these rich Republicans send their kids off to be educated in liberal universities by Marxists like Barack Obama. But that’s another story.

Alex pooh poohs the idea of candidate sincerity, saying he doesn’t care if his candidate is off having sex with an 18-year old run-away high school dropout prostitute in a back alley or whether he actually believes what he’s saying. He mocks the idea of fearing a traitor in the midst. To which I would offer six words:

Mark Foley
Duke Cunningham
Bob Ney

Character counts. Honesty counts. Sincerity counts. The fact is that on these counts,  Republican leaders have less credibility than Benny Hinn. And that lack of sincerity is a turn off to most young people who aren’t looking for a job in a future presidential administration. I’d suggest it’s a turnoff to most voters.

It must be said, though, that there’s a perverse irony in a member of the party of merit — rather than identity — worshiping the ‘common man’ as the ideal and attempting to tear down the influence of the intellectual wing of the party. The Palin-Huckabee wing, in its eternal wisdom, has not merely said that it’s acceptable to be a Joe Six-Pack — which, like the words ‘queer’ and ‘nigger,’ seems to have been “reclaimed” for those it was once used against — but that it is a desirable ideal to be reached. I state, in contrast, that it is acceptable, but nothing worth glorifying.

From time immemorial, intellectual and political elites have utilized voters as means to an end of advancing their ideology. That is not only what is but what should be — unless you support the idea that, regardless of the level of one’s intellectual engagement, it isn’t possible to really say that anyone knows better than anyone else at any given time. That we shouldn’t really exercise our judgment after careful study — in which case, you ought to go head over to the Democratic Party, because they’ve built an entire brand out of that construct: it’s called identity politics. It’s already polluting one party. I don’t want it here.

Let us address this point blank. Our party is a party of merit, and I believe there’s something to be said for the view of Thomas Jefferson of  an aristocracy of merit.

That said, based on merit, which would be the results, I can say safely say that we have an aristocracy of incompetence running the Republican leadership in Congress. An aristocracy promoting no other goal other than its own power. An aristocracy so arrogant that they expect grassroots roots folks to work for no other reason than to ensure the election of people devoid of any principles.

What we have running the GOP is what song writer Washington Phillips would have called, “Educated fools.”

It was the smartest guys in the room that thought TARP was a Jim Dandy idea. It was the smartest guys in the room who said that deficit spending in the Bush years was a-okay even when we should have been trying to balance the budget by reducing out of control domestic spending.

It’s the party elite that have urged party faithful to follow them like lemmings to the sea and choose the most “electable” good old boys who sit there like greased filthy hogs at the trough while our nation sinks under a load of debt and cultural rot.

What I would remind Alex about this aristocracy of merit is that it is not only open for the guy who went to the great school or who has the big money, but that it is open to the common man who works hard enough. The Republican Party’s first President didn’t go to college and had little formal education at all.

Our Greatest Republican President of recent times went to a small college in Illinois. Both men came from humble origins, but Lincoln and Reagan made it based on their ideas. Reagan made it in spite of the current elites of his day and in fact, displaced them.

Both Palin and Huckabee speak to the American average person because there is far more fidelity to the constitution of the United States, the flag of the United States, and the principles of free government among people in the middle of this country than there is in the Washington elite who worships no god other than its own power and know no principle other than its own victory.

I also must take Alex to task for attacking those of us who have said that they would not support a Republican Presidential who supports abortion rights. My reason for this stance is that it downgrades the effectiveness of the pro-life message and efforts to recruit people who are opposed to abortion into the Republican Party.

I would note that Alex has in times past stated if Mike Huckabee were the nominee of the Republican Party, he would not support him. As has been seen, there’s a double standard.

I would note that this double standard is seen in the reaction to the departure of Arlen Specter.

In 2006, former Congressman Bob Barr left the GOP. In 2008, Former Republican Presidential Candidate Alan Keyes left the Republican Party. Where was the beating of the chest about how the party had moved so far to the left that good Republicans like Congressman Barr who served the GOP honorably for eight years in Congress and Alan Keyes, who in 2000 finished second in balloting at the Republican Convention, could no longer remain members of the Party.

Of course, problems with both individuals could be cited, but the list of conservative issues with Arlen Specter just as long if not longer than any issues that anyone might have with Barr or Keyes.

Thus when a conservative leaves the party, it’s a sign of petty bitterness and we’re better off without them. When a liberal Republican leaves the party, it is a tragedy worthy of a Shakespearean play.

When a conservative fails to support the Republican nominee for an office, it is a sign of petty immaturity. When a moderate refuses to support the Republican nominee for an office as Rudy Giuliani refused to support the Republican nominee for Governor of New York in 1994, and John Warner refused to support the Republican Nominee in Virginia in 1994, it is done with impunity and forgotten by everyone other than those of us who like good elephants never forget.

Finally, not in this post, but in other ones, Alex has suggested that my uncompromising character has to do with the fact that I’m from Idaho, and he’s from Maryland, and knows that to win you need to compromise. I’d point out that in Maryland, Republicans have not won a U.S. Senate election since 1980, and has won one gubernatorial election since 1966. This is whether the nominee is liberal, conservative, or otherwise. To ask advice from a Maryland Republican about winning elections, makes about as much sense as asking the Orioles about winning baseball games after 1997.

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Adam Graham’s blog is being attacked by hackers and held hostage by tech support agents who are trying a new business model called, “Customer Dis-service.”  In the meanwhile, you can enjoy him in 140 character doses by following him on Twitter.