Those who are lifting the world upward and onward are those who encourage more than criticize.
Elizabeth Harrison
A Rant On the Uncivil Tea Party "Leadership"
I admit in past posts that I've signaled my disapproval with the public faces of the Tea Party movement; media conservatives are in a loose alliance with them, agreeing that more pragmatic conservatives (and I consider myself one of them) are the "real" enemies. If you are a Republican whom reaches across the aisle, you are considered a "RINO", a sellout, the infidel. In fact, I am more Tea Party than the Tea Party. But I'm a problem solver and a change agent by nature, in positions where I had no formal authority and I've had to tell client managers things they didn't want to hear. I've had to deal situations beyond my control. I've played hardball when I've had to, but I've mostly relied on my ability to persuade. On all those occasions, I never relied on threats, warnings or personal attacks. (I did once tell a manager that I would do what he wanted, but I would put my objection in writing, and he immediately backed off.)
I am tired of the constant exaggerations and condemnation of Senators McCain (R-AZ, lifetime ACU rating: 82/100), and Lindsey Graham (R-SC, 90), Lisa Murkowski (70), the Maine senators range from 48-50, Mike Castle (52), and Mark Kirk (58). To contrast, one of the most conservative "Blue Dog" House Democrats, Frank Kratovil (who was endorsed by the US Chamber of Commerce but lost to Andy Harris (thumbs UP!)), received a rating of 28. Let me make myself clear: what American voters want is not a dysfunctional government in gridlock, screaming at each other. The progressive Democrats still control the Presidency and the Senate. You have to find some way of making progress towards conservative goals, and you're not going to get it with people seeing a half-full glass as a betrayal of principle. We've already seen what happens when there's not enough bipartisan compromise (i.e., the Democratic Party Health Care Law). I don't want the ideas of conservative reform being represented by self-promoting, inflexible, polarizing ideologues like Michele Bachmann, Sarah Palin or Jim DeMint, sarcastic, petty media conservatives (name your poison--e.g., Ann Coulter or Michelle Malkin) or the same for self-appointed leaders to the Tea Party movement, like Mark Williams.
Maybe the "establishment Republicans" or the "RINO"'s will ignore these self-important populists, but I have no problem with playing hardball. And let me point out that you can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig. These self-important people decided not to go after 2 Senate races in New York and Senate races in Oregon and Maryland also went without serious contenders. Even though the Republicans retained the seats in Utah and Florida, Bennett had a solid 89 ACU rating, and Charlie Crist was by far the most qualified and proven statewide candidate with a solid fiscal conservative record. I'm sure that Rubio fans will point out the proof is in the pudding, given Crist's mystifying campaign. But, in fact, they seem to conveniently forget that Crist was consistently in the lead in the early part of the race. I personally don't care about the fact that Crist, as a governor trying to balance a budget, welcomed stimulus money and hugged Obama. I realize that Crist, after it became apparent that he was losing ground to Rubio, put forth some political spin, which I took as more of a face-saving move, about having migrated his views more leftward. Crist should have signed teaching reform, he should have stuck to his guns on oil drilling despite the BP oil spill, and he should have made it clear he would caucus with the GOP; not returning campaign contributions after he was hinting at an alliance with the Democrats was morally unacceptable. I don't know what he'll do now; I suspect Obama will find a place for him in the administration, but I would counsel Crist to just take a break from politics and try to mend fences with the GOP.
And then, of course, the Tea Party Express cost US Senate seats in Delaware, Colorado and Nevada; anyone who disputes that fact is in a state of denial. There were polls taken before the primaries where all 3 Tea Party candidates ran far worse across the board. Here's the point (which I've made in the blog before): the Tea Party was insisting it was talking on behalf of the American people. But in fact moderates and independents preferred these "establishment Republican" candidates more than these ideological candidates. If the Republican Party is to survive, it won't be because of their infidelity to ideological purity, but it needs to put more controls over its nomination process.
What started me on this rant? There was an op-ed in the Washington Examiner, once again trying to blame the Republican Party leadership was the real problem: "GOP Establishment Was More of a Liability Than the Tea Party Ever Was". The Freire commentary is a paranoid, superficial diatribe, lashing out at Republican moderates and party leadership, convinced that the GOP was willing to sacrifice its own unapproved candidates versus deployment of a limited amount of resources. I've pointed out I didn't see a single TV ad for Eric Wargotz, the losing candidate against Barbara Mikulski, although I saw several for Bob Ehrlich. I've made it very clear where I stand on Mike Castle, Lisa Murkowski and others he attacks in this piece. Most American conservatives are probably sympathetic with Freire's point of view, but I do want to point out one interesting result related to an incident he mentions in a notable North Carolina race: if you recall, I mentioned a viral video of Bob Etheridge, an allegedly inebriated Democratic Congressman whom didn't like a student reporter asking him questions, infamously roughly handling him and repeatedly demanding to know whom the student was. Renee Elmers defeated Etheridge in a close election (THUMBS UP! It couldn't happen to a nicer guy!)
More Political Potpourri
- Update on the House Races. Three of the 9 undecided House races I mentioned in my November 3 post (corrected for typos) have been settled by inference from the RCP House final vote summary page: one for the GOP (WA-3, turnover), two for the Democrats (the 2 Arizona seats), for a current count of 260-189 (a minimum 61-seat pickup). Six seats remain, with NY-25 switching to a GOP lead: Republican 3 (NY-1, IL-8, NY-25) and Democrat 3 (KY-6, CA-11, CA-20).
- Progressives in a State of Denial. RealClearPolitics features a video clip of Hillary Clinton discussing what RCP refers to "pulling a Bill" in terms of midterm elections. However, she refuses to concede that Bill moved towards the center (i.e., the era of Big Government is over, welfare reform, etc.), claiming he always acted from progressive principles and made the best of the cards he had to deal with. We are seeing ludicrous lessons drawn the election from Obama and Pelosi, hosting her celebratory party of Dem "accomplishments" this term: it was just about the economy, not their progressive, partisan agenda or proprieties. Just a brief response: 1980. The misery index. Yet the American voters, while replacing the Democratic President, didn't turn over the House to the GOP.
- Bachmann Drops GOP House Conference Chair Bid. Rep. Hensarling has clinched the necessary support (thumbs UP!)
I'm going to start a tongue-in-cheek feature on Joe Miller, the unexpected GOP victor in the Senate race for incumbent Lisa Murkowski's seat, sniped by the Tea Party Express, and Murkowski launched a Republican write-in campaign for the general election campaign. Yesterday I wrote some background on Miller, explaining my belief that some negative developments late in the campaign (including violating IT policy in a burough legal office) and the "arrest of a reporter".
Joe Miller is arguing legal spin, which can be even worse than political spin. Knowing that the state court has held that VOTER INTENT is the predominant standard, he went to FEDERAL court (so much for the tenth amendment, Joey!) in an attempt to enforce an Alaskan statute which prescribes an exact match on a write-in for a vote to count. Even libertarian former Judge Andrew Napolitano said on a Fox News interview disagreed with this, even though he is an ardent Tea Party supporter.
Let me express the core point, unlike these lawyers, in plain English. You have a core right to vote as a US citizen. If the means of voting does not provide you a usable way to vote for the candidate of your choice, you have a right for people to count your vote as intended. Just because Miller's name appeared on the ballot and all you had to do was check/click a box or oval in a simple way, Lisa Murkowski's was not available in a more usable form. I've already explained how it's fairly easy to create computerized pick list of declared write-in candidates (where, for instance, if you typed 'Lisa', all the 'Lisa' candidates could be listed to provide a selection), but the Alaska election system is the way it is. So the question is: can you be deprived of the right to vote your choice because your candidate's name is difficult to spell? Of course not. No matter what the Alaska legislature officially describes as the official way to vote, the court system says that you have a fundamental right to cast a vote, and if your vote is recognizable from context, that vote couldn't be excluded, no matter matter what the state statute says, because you have an individual right that the state cannot deprive you of in specifying an ideal voting procedure or context. This is not judicial activism; it's an intrinsic individual right. For someone like Joe Miller to knowingly challenge the right of voter intent, to arbitrarily strike legitimate votes with minor misspellings to his own political advantage, is unconscionable; it's very clear what the voter intended. Joe Miller has lost my respect; in my opinion, he has no integrity.
Here is a summary from Fairbanks Daily News-Miner:
An early tally of 19,203 ballots Wednesday showed Murkowski winning 89 percent of the write-in vote without dispute. Another 8.5 percent of ballots were counted for her but contested. There were two write-in votes for "Joe Miller."
Observers for Miller - whose vote total trailed the number of write-in ballots cast in the Nov. 2 election by 10,799 as of Wednesday - were quick to challenge virtually any ballot on which Murkowski's scribbled-in name was misspelled or letters were difficult to decipher.
It wasn't only Miller's camp that raised objections. Fenumiai's call to disallow "Lisa Murkaska" drew a challenge from one of Murkowski's attorneys.The last one: give me a break: that's clearly a misspelling of 'Murkowski'.
Government Responsible for American Success? Hardly, Mr. Biden
Donald Boudreaux of the Cato Institute points out that Biden, whom used the fact of land grants to build the transcontinental railroad to argue government is the reason for American progress over the last couple of centuries, doesn't know the actual facts concerning the transcontinental railroad. HINT: If you think that the USPS has a huge success story under government ownership, wait until you see how crony capitalism worked with the railways...
Political Humor
"MSNBC news anchor Keith Olbermann will be back to work on Wednesday after being suspended without pay for giving campaign contributions to Democratic candidates, which is against the rules at MSNBC. See, if only he had done like Eliot Spitzer and given his money to hookers, he would have gotten his own prime time show on CNN." –Jay Leno
[MSNBC rapped Olbermann for operating outside its employee defined contribution system to George Soros' operated "investments".]
"It’s Carl Sagan’s birthday. I think Carl Sagan would have been proud of the way we continue to search for aliens. Except for you, Arizona." - Craig Ferguson
[Governor Jan Brewer (R-AZ) doesn't mind visits by E.T. (provided he has a US-approved intergalactic passport), but she would prefer that Carl Sagan escort Darth Vader to his leader, California Governor-elect Jerry ("Space Cadet") Brown. But first, Darth Vader will go to a taping of the Maury Povich Show so he can prove he is NOT Luke Skywalker's father.]
Some originals:
- Newsmax recently released a poll showing 80-year-old billionaire Warren Buffett beating Obama 52-48. I attribute it to Warren's reaching out to the youth vote with his Lizard Ballad, "All for You" featuring "Axl" Buffett... Buffett attributes his investment success to not
spendinginvesting his money in green energy, education, and health care. - European progressive critics panned George W. Bush's new book Decision Points for defending the decision to approve limited time span, strictly controlled waterboarding (which they consider "torture") for 3 high-level international terrorists. Progressives believe in a more subtle form of torture called "brainwashing", i.e., our education system.
- Obama hasn't decided yet on whether to buy a copy of George W. Bush's Decision Points. If his decision timetable on the Afghanistan surge has any bearing, we can expect a decision by the time the book comes out in paperback.
John Williams, Theme "Star Wars"
