Tag: Republican

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incumbents national politics & policies

Gravy Train Engineers

A lot of big money in the Republican Party is now actively being marshaled to make sure that Tea Party efforts come to naught.

The latest endeavor bills itself the Conservative Victory Project, and has been written up in the New York Times, which relates the group’s intent: “to counter other organizations that have helped defeat establishment Republican candidates over the last two election cycles.”

You see, campaigns to unseat staid, big-government “conservative” Republican incumbents have not gone unnoticed amongst the Old Guard of the GOP. And these folks are worried about the quality of the gravy their gravy train returns. So they seek to shore up the “winners”:

“There is a broad concern about having blown a significant number of races because the wrong candidates were selected,” said Steven J. Law, the president of American Crossroads, the “super PAC” creating the new project. “We don’t view ourselves as being in the incumbent protection business, but we want to pick the most conservative candidate who can win.”

Law is, of course, thinking of several Tea Party candidates in the last election who blew it, Big Time. You know the ones: the candidates who talked weirdly of rape.

But it’s not just Tea Party Republicans who shoot themselves in the proverbial foot, or place foot in mouth. Mainstream “conservatives” blow it, too, as Grover Norquist pointed out in the Times article. “People are imagining a problem that doesn’t exist,” said Grover.

I worry that “the real problem” Law and his cronies (such as Karl Rove) are fighting is the specter of a successful Tea Party contingent, with Rand Paul at its lead. Real change is awfully frightening to the whip hands on the gravy train.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Accountability free trade & free markets national politics & policies too much government

McCain’s Admission

John McCain is a man on a mission. But it was his admission that Republicans in Washington have lost their way that jumped out at me as I listened to his speech accepting the Republican Party presidential nomination.

“I fight to restore the pride and principles of our party,” he told Republicans. “We were elected to change Washington, and we let Washington change us.”

Everyone already knows this. We’ve watched power politics triumph over principle.

But it was still nice to hear McCain say it. The first step toward solving a problem is to recognize you have one.

McCain went on to admit, “We lost the trust of the American people when some Republicans gave in to the temptations of corruption. We lost their trust when rather than reform government, both parties made it bigger.”

Oh, yeah, a whole lot bigger.

I began shouting about Republicans selling out principle early on, when, after Republicans took the House back in the 1990s, they quickly also took a dive on enacting term limits.

And the sell-outs just kept coming. Republicans traded their rank and file supporters for a bevy of big special interests.

McCain says he wants to take the party “back to basics,” vowing “low taxes, spending discipline, and open markets.”

That’s the right message. And McCain’s opposition to earmarks is to his credit. But are voters ready to believe it?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Common Sense

Decrease Your Vocabulary

Do you ever get tired of hearing certain words?

This election, I’m already sick of “change.” And hey: I want change; demand it. But the only change I can believe in is change with some specifics attached.

Put “Change” on hold, politicians, go to a thesaurus and look for another word.

For a change.

Another word I’d like to hear less of is “staunch.” Somehow, “staunch” only applies to conservatives. He’s a ““staunch conservative,” they say; she’s a “staunch opponent of big government.”

Can’t we think of another word? Like, uh, “principled”?

Why not put the word “staunch” on our taboo list for a year? Or, at the very least, try applying it to liberals only for a while.

I have a friend who thinks the word “natural” should never be used by theologians or political philosophers. What’s natural, for them, he says, is to make too much of the concept. And I’ve noticed that “natural” is meaning less and less on packaging these days.

Another friend thinks itâ’s a pity that Democrats get to call themselves “democrats” when they usually oppose democratic reforms like initiative and referendum. He also regrets that Republicans have come to support imperial stances, not republican ones, including an imperial presidency. But they still call themselves “republicans.”

I guess our favorite political words become not only cliché, but become the very opposite of what they originally meant. The more things change . . .

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.