Category: political challengers

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political challengers

Will Tea Party Politics Change Party Politics?

Rand Paul’s supporters weren’t alone in celebrating his big win. The AP headline read: “Democrats relish Paul’s GOP win in Ky. Senate race.” Sen. Robert Menendez, Chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, chortled over the “stark contrast between Rand and his opponent, state Attorney General Jack Conway.” He thinks Paul’s easier to beat come November than the establishment opponent Paul clobbered.

That used to be the rule. The more radical a candidate, the more likely to be trounced by the status-​quo alternative.

But something’s different this time, right?

Not long ago Rand’s father Ron Paul was regularly ridiculed for being too extreme and “nutty.”

Now it’s the centrists who look nutty. Or, as Rand put it, “The tea party message is not … an extreme message. What is extreme is a $2 trillion deficit.”

Across the country in Washington State, a state representative is being challenged by Tim Sutinen, who is running explicitly under the “Tea Party” banner. A local paper quoted Sutinen as advising the legislature to declare a fiscal emergency and renegotiate state employee contracts. 

The Democratic incumbent showed less glee than his Kentucky colleagues: “Those folks that represent the tea party are obviously good folks who have a view of government and they are frustrated. A lot of people are frustrated about the economy.”

My reading? It’s not just the economy. Continued dishonesty and self-​dealing by politicians even in the midst of the crisis — that’s what’s frustrating.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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local leaders political challengers too much government

Tea Party Talking Points

Amy Kremer, director of the Tea Party Express, one of the many organizations that try to steer the Tea Party movement, appeared on The View, recently. She stayed on point, talking sense, on the whole:

  • The movement is all about fiscal issues, limited government, responsibility, and free markets. No social issues, she said. 
  • “We have no leader, the leaders are all across the country.” Sarah Palin is not the Tea Party’s leader.
  • The Tea Party is non-​partisan, crossing “all party lines,” with independents, Democrats, Republicans and libertarians participating.
  • Tea Party folk are most angry at the GOP because “there’s no denying that the spending started under Bush.” 

Ms. Kremer ably steered the conversation away from the traps that The View folk might have liked to see her fall into. Co-​host Joy Behar appeared quite pleased that Kremer acknowledged Bush-​era Republicans as responsible for starting this current trend in over-spending. 

So, good talking points. Other Tea Party folks should emulate her. I say this in part to reiterate points I made on Townhall not long ago. To seriously tackle our massive fiscal problems, the Tea Party will have to confront spending across the board, including a Sarah Palin/​John McCain-​style foreign policy.

How is it that people from across the political spectrum can work together in this movement?

It’s simple: No one but a fool would flirt with government insolvency and ruin.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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initiative, referendum, and recall political challengers term limits

Competition in Michigan

Michigan’s career politicians are pushing to more than double maximum tenure in the state house and almost double it in the state senate.

Michigan currently caps service at three two-​year terms, or six years, in the house and two four-​year terms, or eight years, in the senate. Thus the “combined limit” on both chambers is 14 years. The new law would allow lawmakers to serve up to 14 years in a single legislative seat. This of course would drastically weaken term limits and severely crimp electoral competition.

Now, term limits help make possible such refreshing political campaigns as that of Leon Drolet, director of the Michigan Taxpayers Alliance and a former state representative. He is vying for Michigan’s 11th state senate seat, now open because the incumbent is prevented by term limits from standing for re-​election. Another former state representative as well as a current one are also running for the seat.

I bet that when one of these challengers gets elected — and certainly if it’s Drolet, with his strong anti-​tax, anti-​pork message — incumbents will keep moaning about the loss of “experience” wrought by term limits. 

But Drolet has experience, too — fighting governmental assaults on the liberties of citizens. His co-​authoring of a constitutional amendment to curb government’s power to grab private homes through eminent domain is relevant.

It’s just that ample experience in helping restrain government power isn’t the kind that certain politicians applaud.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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political challengers

Pardon the Vote

Over the weekend, Utah Republicans defeated three-​term incumbent U.S. Senator Robert Bennett at their state convention. Two more conservative candidates, both with support among Tea Party activists, now move on to a primary election to decide the eventual GOP nominee.

Senator Bennett’s defeat marks the first U.S. senator to be denied re-​nomination in Utah in 70 years.

The strangest part of this, though, is the strange reaction of much of the media. The morning paper says Bennett was as conservative as any rational human being could possibly desire … citing Democratic National Committee Chairman Tim Kaine. 

Kathleen Parker, the liberal Washington Post’s idea of a conservative, lectured before the vote that “Tea Partyers risk losing some of their strongest voices.” Tea Party supporters seem determined to decide for themselves which voices speak for them. 

Parker also smeared Tea Party folks as an anti-​intellectual rabble, characterizing Bennett’s long tenure in Washington to be “as disadvantageous as having an Ivy League degree. Those out-​of-​touch elites, you know.”

Touchy. Very out-​of-​touchy. Forgotten by the maven? Bennett’s old pledge to serve only two terms. 

Bennett had been seeking his fourth term. 

E.J. Dionne called the Utah result a “non-​violent coup.” Yes, just exactly like a coup — except for that voting part. 

For those counting coup right now, establishment folks are receiving a whacking. No wonder they bristle. 

Expect more.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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political challengers

If This Be …

Joe Klein, author of Primary Colors and contributor to Time magazine, is very defensive about criticism of the current administration and Congress. 

Of Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck, he says the two talk “borderline sedition.” 

Nice hedge, that word “borderline.”

But he’s merely repeating something he wrote last year about Senator Tom Coburn. The Oklahoma senator, responding to the Democrats’ extremely unpopular (and later successful) machinations to enact a form of national medical insurance, said that he understood why some would give up on their government. For this, Klein dubbed Coburn’s comments “borderline sedition” as well as “hate speech.”

How do I see it? Well, to note that Congress is unresponsive to Americans (and thus a cause for hopelessness) is not even close to sedition. It’s to recognize the obvious. 

I’m not saying it doesn’t incite a kind of rebellion. But remember: In America, rebellion against those in charge is not just allowed, it’s been institutionalized. 

The institution is called “elections.”

The current unrest in America — exemplified, at present, by the “Tea Party” protests — seems to be very much a patriotic thing. If the bulk of Democrats and Republicans get targeted as deserving to go, then the means to their removal is obvious. It comes next November, and in November 2012. 

And it does not mean that restive American critics of unconstitutional government and habitual over-​spending are not “loyal to the most important American ideals.” It means they understand these ideals better than does Joe Klein.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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political challengers

Merging or Diverging?

We live in interesting times. Strapped for cash, local and state governments are cutting spending and raising taxes. The federal government, with its chummy relationship with the Federal Reserve and our money supply, along with a shopaholic’s addiction to debt, continues to spend at record rates. 

In this context, perhaps it is not so shocking that Congressman Ron Paul, known for being tight-​fisted on spending, and for his push to audit the Fed, is basically even in a head-​to-​head match-​up with President Obama. A Rasmussen Poll ticked Obama at 42 percent against Paul at 41 percent. 

Interestingly, only 66 percent of Republicans chose Paul. It’s independent voters who are nearly 2‑to‑1 for Paul over the President.

Why do Republicans hesitate? Paul is a severe critic of the Republican Establishment, especially the GOP’s recent fondness for undeclared wars.

Meanwhile, the Tea Party movement is being courted by Alaska’s Sarah Palin and Minnesota’s Michele Bachmann. Representative Bachmann went so far to say that the GOP and the Tea Parties are merging.

I hope not. The main unifying feature of Tea Party protests remains out-​of-​control federal spending and borrowing. The GOP did nothing to curb this problem when it was in charge.

Both parties created the problem, as Rep. Paul points out. That’s why the Tea Party will be more effective as an independent political force, rallying Americans to hold both parties and all public officials accountable.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.