Category: political challengers

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political challengers

Who’s In, Who’s Out

Hopes for a “Tea Party”-based revolution sputter against the rocks of partisan politics. The non-​partisan nature of the movement has dribbled away as Republicans — not Democrats — have courted Tea Party support.

And GOP leaders have remained firmly in control.

James Hohmann, writing in Politico, shows that the old guard “has withstood the tea-​party revolution.” A recent insider meeting in Scottsdale showcased the persistence of the old way of doing things:Tea Party protest sign: Liberty is all the stimulus we need

The … movement’s influence has waned everywhere since its apex in 2010. Most visibly, the Republican Party is poised to nominate the most pragmatic of the men who ran for president this cycle even though many tea-​party groups vocally opposed him during the primary. Indeed, Mitt Romney received a coronation of sorts at a unity lunch here Friday, soaking up standing ovations and basking in blessings from 2008 rival Sen. John McCain.

Though it may be that “it’s only a matter of time” before Tea Party folks run the GOP (as “the longtime national committeeman” from my state put it), the price of admission to the higher ranks seems calculated in the abandonment of principle. Hohmann quotes one old party hand as saying that Tea Partyers need to learn “that everybody who is in government is not evil, that we’ve got some really good people in government. Let’s don’t burn the barn down to get rid of the rats.”

And here you have the real problem.

Real change isn’t about putting “better people” in office. It’s changing the principles by which anyone in government — good, bad, or indifferent — must operate.

The founders knew this. Today’s Republican insiders do not.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

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ideological culture political challengers

The BWIA Taboo

Last week, a Mommy Maelstrom unleashed when Democratic strategist Hilary Rosen, interviewed as an “expert” on CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360, charged that Ann Romney, who reared five boys as a stay-​at-​home mom and continues to be the better half of presidential candidate Mitt, had “never worked a day in her life.”

Super-​swaddling mothers of all sorts were outraged. Their husbands, as I can attest, were offended as well.

Stay-​at-​home mothers work. Hard. Long hours. So, there!

After denouncing Ann Romney’s career status, Rosen added that, “She’s never really dealt with the kinds of economic issues that a majority of the women in this country are facing in terms of how do we feed our kids, how do we send them to school and, and, and how do we worry — and, why do we worry about their future.”

So perhaps Rosen wasn’t attacking Mrs. Romney’s decision to stay home and rear her kids, but, instead, Romney’s commission of a more heinous crime: BWIA (Being Wealthy in America). She should be ignored not because she’s a homemaker, but because she’s rich.

That bias against “the rich” is nearly official national policy. Though a devoted and hardworking mother, Ann Romney should be seen and not heard.

What upset Ms. Rosen was not that she might be seen and heard by us, but by her husband, if elected. You see, when we vote for a president we in effect vote for an unofficial advisor. With Bill Clinton we got Hillary; with Mitt we’d get Ann.

By Washington’s standards, Rosen’s worst transgression was to remind voters that Ann Romney exists — for as soon as Ann gets into the picture, Mitt doesn’t look so bad.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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political challengers

Agreeing with a Communist

There’s not much I have in common with Van Jones, the Yale-​educated lawyer, community organizer, former advisor to President Barack Obama, author of a new book, Rebuilding the Dream, and self-​proclaimed communist. But that doesn’t make him wrong on everything.

Yesterday, as I was fixing lunch and experimenting with political hormesis by watching “Now with Alex Wagner” on MSNBC, I caught a discussion about leftwing frustration with the president.Van Jones

“We thought we had a movement that was for the people,” Jones said about electing Obama.

“We have the wrong theory of the presidency,” Jones explained. “LBJ did not lead the civil rights movement.… You have to have two kinds of leadership, not just one, if you want to change the country. You got to have a head of state who’s willing to be moved, but you have to have a movement willing to do the moving.”

Rolling Stone magazine writer Tim Dickinson told the story of President Franklin Roosevelt, who responded to organized labor’s complaints, by saying, “Make me do it.” Dickinson explained, “He meant: ‘I need you guys to go out and create the conditions that force the government to act.’”

Van Jones has a frightening agenda, but on political strategy, he’s correct.

Remember when conservative activists, led by the late Paul Weyrich, stood up to block Bush from nominating Harriet Myers to the Supreme Court, giving us Justice Samuel Alito, instead?

Those of us fighting for freedom at the grassroots cannot rely on those we elect to do the right thing. We have to make them do it.

This is Common sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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national politics & policies political challengers

Enemies, Bedfellows

The Ron Paul 2012 campaign’s caucus-​state delegate strategy, discussed here before, aims to work around the candidate’s biggest hurdle: Republican voters. Though Ron Paul has a strong appeal to the young and to independents — constituencies needed to win against a sitting president — older, mainstream Republicans voters aren’t especially responsive to the maverick’s charms. Concentrating on selecting actual delegates at the caucuses, rather than the media-​hyped (and electorally meaningless) straw polls, is a clever strategy.

But what’s good for the goose is great for the gander. A video from Washington State shows a self-​proclaimed “mainstream” GOP activist offering caucus participants a slate of 31 delegates allegedly divided up amongst Romney, Santorum and Gingrich supporters, explicitly promoted to make sure that Ron Paulers don’t “take over” the party as they did, to his horror, in the Seattle area.

The Ron Paul supporters touting the video call it “election fraud.” Well, “caucus fraud” might be more to the point, considering that the slate offered was rejected by Rick Santorum’s  supporters as a con job. Since then Santorum folks and Paul folks have united. As one Santorum activist put it, “[i]n order for us to win the nomination in Tampa in August, we must deny Romney delegates to that convention. If … Romney receives 1,144 delegates before the national convention, it is all over for our campaign. That is the reason why the Senator himself directed us to coalition with the Ron Paul delegates to deny Romney any state delegates.”

Whether as a grand dialogue of ideas or a horse race, this time around the politics is interesting.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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political challengers

Quietly, Stunning

Wouldn’t it be nice to replace our entire current Congress with brand new people?

Tuesday’s Ohio Republican Primary was a start. Congresswoman Jean Schmidt lost to challenger Brad Wenstrup, a surgeon and Iraq war veteran. As Dennis Catanese at Politico intriguingly put it, Schmidt was “quietly upended in stunning fashion.”

“Stunning” — because incumbents virtually always win, especially in their own party primaries. According to the Alliance for Self-​Governance, “God recalls incumbents more frequently than voters do.” Between 2002 and 2008, only twelve congressional incumbents lost in their primary elections, while thirteen died in office.

“Quietly” — because some folks didn’t see it coming. Sadly, not everyone reads Common Sense. Back in February, I said there may be “no better Valentine for our Republic” than the effort by a new SuperPAC, the Campaign for Primary Accountability, which targets incumbents for defeat in primary elections.

The Campaign goes after both Republicans and Democrats. Further, “[w]e are not issue-​driven,” says Curtis Ellis, the group’s spokesman, who declares the goal is simply “holding incumbents accountable.”

Made possible through the new campaign finance rules won in the Citizens United court decision, the Super PAC has raised $1.8 million and spent $200,000 against Schmidt. Their Web advertisement squarely told voters:

Congresswoman Jean Schmidt was named “most corrupt” by a Washington watchdog group. Schmidt voted to increase your taxes by opposing a tax cut extension. Then, Schmidt increased the federal debt by $2.8 trillion. One bailout vote gave $50 billion to the parent company of her husband’s employer. Rock the boat. Vote in the March 6 Primary. It’s time to end Schmidt’s cruise.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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ballot access national politics & policies political challengers

Seven Million for Show

Complaining about the cost of holding an election is usually done by those who fear the election’s likely outcome, not the price.

I’m not very sympathetic.

Yet, I’m in total agreement with Andrew Wilson, a resident fellow at the Show-​Me Institute, whose article “Money Down a Drain: The Millions Spent on Missouri’s No-​Show Feb. 7 Election,” states flatly that legislators ought to be “embarrassed” for calling “a statewide election” in which “nobody came.”

Missouri taxpayers forked out $7 million to hold the state’s February 7 presidential primary, which produced only a meager eight percent voter turnout, netting a whopping $25 cost for every vote cast.

The legislature had moved the primary date up to gain a greater edge for the state in determining delegates for deciding the presidential nominee. When that timetable didn’t work with the National Republican Party’s nominating rules, legislation was drafted to cancel the primary.

But the legislature and the governor couldn’t bring the bill beyond the draft stage. Instead, they stuck Show-​Me State citizens with spending seven million for, well, show …  the primary having been rendered absolutely meaningless in terms of winning delegates.

Hence the low voter turnout.

There is a very simple solution. Let political parties have the freedom to run their own affairs, their own primaries. And let them do it without taxpayer subsidy.

Governments (taxpayers) pay for the general election; parties pay for their primaries.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.