No matter what side of the argument you are on, you always find people on your side that you wish were on the other.
Jascha Heifetz
Towards a More Diverse GOP
One of the rock stars of the GOP is Indian-American Piyush "Bobby" Jindal, Governor of Louisiana (and former Congressman), whom jawboned the incompetent, foot-dragging Obama Administration during the BP oil spill crisis in the Gulf of Mexico. We now have the first female Indian-American governor elected in the state of South Carolina, Nikki Haley. Also, the GOP fielded a record 3 female former CEO's running in statewide races in California and Connecticut (unfortunately, falling to professional politicians in blue states). We also have elected the first Latina governor, New Mexico's Susana Martinez, and Florida has elected its second Latino US Senator in a decade, Marco Rubio.
The first African American GOP Congressmen elected since Oklahoma's JC Watts retired are Tim Scott and Allen West. Tim Scott was elected from the Deep South, the first black Republican since Reconstruction, from the area that witnessed the opening shots of the Civil War, a district that is 75% white. Allen West, a retired Army Lieutenant Colonel, was elected to Florida's 22nd Congressional district, which is 82% white; Congressman-elect Allen West is perhaps best known for a viral video that got considerable attention in conservative circles, including a subsequent appearance on the FNC Hannity show. Anyone who thinks that only narcissistic progressives of color make for powerful orators should listen to an officer and a gentleman whom truly understands traditional American values.
Enough of the Thuggish Threats, Media Conservatives!
Speaker-elect John Boehner still has the lame duck session in front of him but the extremist snipers of the Tea Party Express, in a coalition with the same, tired, predictable, hostile media conservatives (e.g., Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, Laura Ingraham, Michelle Malkin, and I could go on), are ready to claim credit for Tuesday's House turnover win (NOTHING COULD BE FURTHER FROM THE TRUTH!) and are already publicly threatening Boehner and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, predicting the GOP is doomed if Boehner doesn't pass their agenda past a Democratic Senate majority and a Presidential veto. Don't be absurd! Maybe Sarah "I Quit" Palin, the charismatic, incompetent, unqualified demagogue whose knowledge of policy is as thin as her bumper sticker politics and spin and whose record contradicts her pretentious "conservative" credentials, is delusional enough to believe that spin, but the American people know better.
Even comedian/radio talk show host Dennis Miller has gotten on my nerves by joining in the absurd chorus of "if the Republicans fail, it's all over for them" and his post-primary celebration of O'Donnell's uphill victory over Castle. If the GOP could survive Richard Nixon and Watergate, they can survive whatever problems John Boehner has trying to get legislation past a Harry Reid-led Senate and President Obama, wielding a veto.
Michele "Litmus Test" Malkin really tested my patience yesterday with her petty, behind-the-back, nonsensical "RINO" attacks on moderate Republicans Mark Kirk and Mike Castle. I lived in Senator-elect Kirk's district for 4 years; he is no "RINO". Both Kirk and Castle served in purple districts with coastal areas where the environment is a key issue. I have no idea why the media conservatives are just obsessed with a vote that barely carried the House which had a super-majority of Democrats; it was clear that the legislation would never clear the Senate as is. Describing Kirk as the "lesser of two evils"? The reason why Reagan was popular was not for ideological reasons. If you guys were consistent, you would have called out Reagan for agreeing to a social security tax increase (among other tax policies), immigration reform, and massive federal deficits.
The new GOP House majority will NOT be thrown out if they fail to deliver on unrealistic expectations. It was NOT the Tea Party Express that made the difference Thursday. It was independent and moderate voters--and unlike past elections where a House turnover also resulted in a Senate turnover, the GOP almost certainly lost seats based the failures of 3 prominent Tea Party Express-backed candidates: Ken Buck, Sharron Angle, and Christine O'Donnell. In fact, after the late scandal broke on Joe Miller, McAdams, trailing earlier head-to-head polls against Miller by less than 10 points , could have taken that race without Lisa Murkowski in the race, and Illinois, which had consistently voted blue statewide since the 2004 elections, almost certainly wouldn't have voted for any Republican other than Mark Kirk, whom barely defeated a scandal-ridden opponent. Toomey, a more traditional conservative, barely beat one of the most liberal Democratic Congressmen in the state--in a bad election year for Democrats; is it any wonder that a more moderate Arlen Specter had won multiple elections to the Senate?
As for Marco Rubio and Rand Paul, let's face the facts: if Crist was the GOP nominee, he would have won easily against Meek (about 15% more in prior head-to-head polls). In contrast, Rubio led, but by a smaller percentage (11%). Grayson would have beaten Conway by 13% while Paul led by 8%. We see a similar pattern with more traditional Republicans vs. the Tea Party Express candidates. Norton had beaten Bennett in 11 of 16 polls (2 of the others was a tie or a 1-point Bennett lead). And Lowden, before her campaign melted down in the late stages of the campaign, had led Reid in double-digits in 11 polls. And, of course, as I've mentioned in prior posts, Mike Castle's worst showing against Chris Coons was an 11-point lead; Castle had won 9 consecutive terms in the Congress.
So, I'm calling all you media conservatives out on your intellectually vapid analyses and talking points. Tell me again how your Tea Party Express candidates supposed crossed the party lines, with disaffected Democrats and independents, but traditional Republican candidates did a much better job attracting support behind them?
The American people have been upset with an arrogate Democratic Congress that had decided to shove an unpopular health care law on a strictly partisan basis down the throat of America, in the face of the American people whom consistently opposed the law down the stretch and voted Scott Brown, campaigning as a filibuster-sustaining 41st vote against the health care bill, in as the first Republican US Senator from Massachusetts since the 1970's. They were concerned over trillion dollar deficits, but most of all they were unhappy with the Democratic agenda out of touch with key concerns over the economy and unemployment. And here's a key point: they see the Democrats and the Republicans as polarizing opposites while key issues go unresolved and kicked down the road to a new Congress.
There are a couple of tactics one could take. First, you can try to push all-or-nothing budget cuts, a business tax/regulatory reform act, and a health care repeal--and dare the Senate majority and/or President to vote against key issues during the 2010 campaign, which would almost certainly frame the 2012 elections. You have to be very careful because the devil is in the details. For example, you can predict that no matter whatever reductions are made, Democrats will try to make it about abandoning Grandma to eat cat food, laying off police officers on the beat, laying off teachers in the classroom, etc. Gingrich tried to play a game of chicken with Clinton on a government shutdown. Instead, Gingrich had to back down, and Clinton used this and other missteps to propel himself to victory in 1996.
The second is to provide a number of smaller scale, salient initiatives and a more inclusive style. For example, for health care, I would do away with the polarizing mandate (which, in fact, Obama opposed during the 2008 campaign, so he would be hard-pressed to veto it). Second, I would call for a 10% budget cutback across the board, and a freeze on hiring and compensation, with salary cuts for everyone (including legislators) over $100K. Third, I would focus on a pro-business growth package, including a freeze on investment taxes and a reduction/flattening of business tax rates. Fourth, on individual taxes, announce the intent for tax increases to be rolled back retroactively, establish a low estate tax, and to freeze any individual income tax rates until economic growth exceeds 3%. Fifth, I would work to divest government investment in private sector companies, including reform/breakup of the GSE's.
Finally, I would advise against what most independents and moderates may see as partisan investigations of the Obama Administration. Recall, Obama did not want to go on a witch hunt against Bush Administration officials, and I think it would be to the GOP's advantage to be conciliatory.
A New Analogy
I think Obama needs a new analogy; the Government Motors car he's been driving is due for a trade-in. Think of the federal government as a computer. In 2006, the country was frustrated with a GOP Congress that seemed to have lost its bearing: scandals, earmarks, and an occupation in Iraq seeming to chew up America's finest soldiers and resources. They decided to uninstall GOP majority leadership in the House and Senate and install Democrats, In 2008, with a slowing economy and a Republican President sinking in approval ratings, the Democrats argued what they really needed to do was to upgrade the Democratic majority in both houses, and install another Democrat into the White House, in place of the expiring Republican. Surely, with a plummeting economy, America could trust the Democrats to jump start things if they gave the Congress a super-majority. The Democrats immediately installed a stimulus bill that took a lot of the nation's resources but didn't seem to do much of anything. Soon the American people found a whole raft of cascading progressive bills, sapping all of the computer resources, not doing the people's agenda, but what progressives in a paternalistic manner believed to be in the best interests of the US. Surely the American people would come to see the light if the President and Congress kept repeating themselves... The American people were frustrated because the programs weren't working the way they should; they tried to CTRL-ALT-DELETE, but the healthcare program was installed without their consent and against their wishes.
Finally, the American people powered down the Democratic-controlled system using the only means available: the midterm elections. They then promptly uninstalled the Speaker of the House.
"Rights, Liberties & The Libertarian Viewpoint": Podcast 8/13/10
Robert Levy of the CATO Institute, co-author of The Dirty Dozen, gave an interesting talk, arguing that conservatives often neglect the ninth amendment (e.g., the Patriot Act) while liberals do the same with the tenth (the recent Democratic Party Health Care Bill). I'll just briefly mention a couple of examples he uses in contrasting conservatives with libertarians. The first example involves the question of medical malpractice reform, a key conservative talking point (including myself) during the health care debate. In fact, there's an interesting argument here involving the marketplace. Many of us conservatives look at state regulation of health care as a restriction on individual choice. State regulatory authorities establish high barriers to entry and are vulnerable to special interest/crony capitalistic influence by adding expensive mandates. Thus, interstate marketing in theory would force state regulators to drop expensive mandates to compete. But then who regulates insurance across state lines? (The progressives argued against this, complaining about a prospective race to the bottom of mandates.) In a sense many large companies spanning states are allowed to self-insure, typically with around 10% administrative costs with a federal basket of insurance mandates.
The problem is that in a national scheme, you have a single point for mandates. Under the way it has been done (prior to the Democratic Party Law) is that the federal rules focused on basic mandates. However, under a progressive national exchange, the process of special interest groups to socialize their expenses is reduced in complexity from individual state mandates.
What does this have to do with medical malpractice reform? In fact, Mr. Levy is making a valid point. Texas went through tort reform and as a result attracted more doctors and malpractice insurers to do business in Texas. If states refuse to make the same type of reforms as Texas, Texas retains a competitive, more cost-efficient advantage. I think in part where I think there's a national role is the fact that the federal government currently pays somewhere in the neighborhood of 50% of the nation's health care bill, and we are currently are ultimately paying for the costs of malpractice insurance and related defensive medicine. No doubt Mr. Levy would argue that the federal government has no business paying half the nation's health care bill, and in theory I agree. Given the status quo (including commitments to workers whom have paid into the Medicare system), we conservatives are motivated by considerations of fiscal discipline in the national budget, while the Democrats seek to protect their special interests, e.g., trial lawyers.
A second example is marijuana legalization, which I oppose. I understand the libertarian arguments against pot "prohibition"; to a certain extent, it's difficult to enforce because of the low barriers to entry, but there is a direct relationship between legalization and use, it has different effects on brain chemistry than modest amounts of alcohol, it can be addictive, is a predictor of serious criminal activity (beyond the drugs themselves), is a gateway to or leading factor to stronger illicit drugs, can adversely affect work performance and/or educational performance in tax-funded schools and universities, and there are related public safety issues, law enforcement and criminal justice system costs, and health costs (including victims of violent behavior or theft and treatment of addiction).
I think the difference between conservatives and liberals is the nature and extent of government intervention. We conservatives have more of a minimalist approach; we are not looking to micromanage the affairs of our fellow fallible men or to foster undue dependence on the people. We understand the need for a common defense, rules and transparency of salient, information to support fair transactions, a justice system to enforce them, and and a suitable infrastructure to promote economic activities.
Christine O'Donnell: It's Time To Move On
Christine O'Donnell, the Tea Party Express-backed 3-time US Senator candidate from Delaware, showed up on the O'Reilly Factor (for possibly a third time) yesterday. [O'Reilly a couple of months ago claimed she had said some "crazy stuff" in past appearances but refused to make the footage available.] O'Donnell is playing the politically correct victim card, just like Sarah Palin (as a conservative, I find it highly annoying to find other "conservatives" refusing to accept responsibility for their failures and trying to blame other people). Once again, she plays up the fact that the Delaware Republican head had push for Castle's nomination and she claims that the state party refused to deploy resources on her behalf. In fact, the state chair did support the ticket, and the losing GOP Congressional candidate pulled roughly the same type of support that she did. Yes, Christine O'Donnell did lose some GOP support, but keep in mind nearly half of the primary voters went for Castle. In a sense, O'Donnell has the same problem as Palin: most intelligent conservatives would never vote for them because, in my opinion, they are clearly unqualified. Whereas Palin is viewed as charismatic, she also has high unfavorable ratings among moderates and independents, a group that will make a critical difference in running against Obama in 2012--and that was before she quit her job. Despite the highest favorable ratings of any GOP candidate, Palin almost never tops 20%--and that's before negative attack ads.
Bill O'Reilly really had little to say other than say she probably shot herself in the foot by not appearing on his broadcast; O'Reilly overestimates his impact... O'Donnell's 15 minutes of fame is probably going to result in a lucrative book deal. The problem is--most candidates, unless they are unusually qualified (e.g., a female CEO or a high-ranking general), usually have some public sector experience before running for higher office. She might want to run for city council or mayor or run for the state legislature. But stop making excuses for the election results. You don't have to come up with a Republican conspiracy against you to understand it's hard for any Republican or conservative to get elected from a blue state, never mind the late-breaking details regarding her background, education, financial problems, and the infamous masturbation and "dabble in witchcraft" kerfuffles.
What If...Kanye West Had Been At a Presidential Address?
Remember where Kanye West boorishly interrupted country teen star Taylor Swift's acceptance speech at the MTV MVA's several months back? Somebody did this remix of a heckler during one of Obama's Congressional addresses... I just saw it for the first time. Funny!
Political Humor
A few originals:
- California Proposition 19 (to legalize marijuana) lost Tuesday. When reporters interviewed some stoners for comment, they responded, "What election?"
- President Obama is set for a state visit to India this weekend. He's clearly concerned that Speaker-elect John Boehner is considering outsourcing administration jobs as a cost-saving move...
Musical Interlude: Instrumental/One-Hit Wonders
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, "Hooked On Classics"
