NeoMugwump

Why Is Jon Huntsman Losing?

2012-01-09T10:45:00.000-08:00

I've never made it a secret that I really like Jon Huntsman for the GOP Presidential Nomination. I like the former Utah governor's record as a solid Republican that had more moderate to liberal social opinions. He seemed to court a lot of love from a number of moderate and liberal pundits, but when it came to actually campaigning for President, he's been at near the bottom of opinion polls.Why is that?Back in November, Ross Douthat tried to answer that question and came up with the following which is pretty plausible:

Huntsman has none of Romney’s health care baggage, and unlike the former Massachusetts governor, he didn’t spend the last decade flip-flopping on gun rights, immigration and abortion. Meanwhile, on many of the highest-profile issues of the primary season (the individual mandate, Paul Ryan’s House budget, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac), he has arguably been more consistently conservative than Gingrich.

At the same time, because Huntsman is perceived as less partisan than his rivals, he has better general election prospects. The gears and tumblers of my colleague Nate Silver’s predictive models give Huntsman a 55 percent chance of knocking off the incumbent even if the economy grows at a robust 4 percent, compared to Romney’s 40 percent.

In theory, then, Huntsman seems like he could occupy the sweet spot that Gingrich claims to have all to himself. In practice, though, his campaign to date has been an unmitigated disaster.

This isn’t for want of substance. On issues ranging from foreign affairs to financial reform, Huntsman’s proposals have been an honorable exception to the pattern of gimmickry and timidity that has characterized the Republican field’s policy forays.

But his salesmanship has been staggeringly inept. Huntsman’s campaign was always destined to be hobbled by the two years he spent as President Obama’s ambassador to China. But he compounded the handicap by introducing himself to the Republican electorate with a series of symbolic jabs at the party’s base.

He picked high-profile fights on two hot-button issues — evolution and global warming — that were completely irrelevant to his candidacy’s rationale. He let his campaign manager define his candidacy as a fight to save the Republican Party from a “bunch of cranks.” And he embraced his identity as the media’s favorite Republican by letting the liberal journalist Jacob Weisberg write a fawning profile for Vogue.

This was political malpractice at its worst. Voters don’t necessarily need to like a candidate to vote for him, but they need to think that he likes them. Imagine a contender for the Democratic nomination introducing himself to liberal voters by attacking Planned Parenthood, distancing himself from “left-wing nutjobs” and giving a series of interviews on Fox News, and you have the flavor of how Huntsman’s opening act was perceived on the right. The substance mattered less than the symbolism, which screamed: I want your vote, but I don’t particularly care to be associated with your stupidities.

There was a time in my life I would have been upset at such a statement. I would have totally disagreed with the analysis. Now? Not so much. The thing is, if you're going to run as a Republican, you have to respect the base of the party. No one should expect to get very far in the GOP selection process if you call those who you're going to vote for cranks. Douthat is correct that people don't need to like a candidate, but they need to know that the candidate likes them. While people on either side of Mitt Romney see him as a flip-flopper who tries to please the base, the fact of the matter is if he wanted to be considered a candidate he was going to have to tailor his views to the GOP electorate.

Of course, if moderates were more involved on the party level, then candidates like Romney wouldn't have to give up their views on gay rights and abortion in order to be considered in the GOP.

But I think this all goes back to how the base is treated. I don't think one has to give their more moderate social views to be considered for President, but you need to bring the focus on issues like jobs and not give Christmas presents to pundits by calling folks who might vote for you crazy. It's crazy to think you can do that and get votes in the current primary system.

John Huntsman: Tea Party Candidate?

2011-08-01T21:17:00.000-07:00

So says Condi Rice's former speechwriter. Elise Jordan thinks that the former Utah governor could be the person that brings moderates and Tea Party conservatives together:

His views, though, may prove to be much more popular among tea-party conservatives (and New Hampshire primary voters) than one might at first assume. Tea partiers, like so many other Americans, are fed up with the decade-long war in Afghanistan. Huntsman has made it clear he’s ready to wind it down, leaving behind only a nimble and aggressive counterterrorism force. Although the Pentagon and the commanders on the ground are still pressing to keep as many nation-building troops in Afghanistan for as long as possible, Huntsman said he’ll trust his own instincts. (Unlike frontrunner Mitt Romney, who said he’ll do what the generals tell him to do.) “I’ve been engaged in that part of the world for many years, and I lived next door for the last two years,” he said. “We’ve already had wins for the United States [in Afghanistan]. We can’t wish for stability more than they want it.” And though he’s been portrayed as too moderate for the Republican base, he has a consistent pro-life record, is a big Second Amendment supporter, and enacted the largest tax cuts in Utah’s history.

James Joyner thinks Huntsman could prove an inviting alternative for conservatives:

Indeed, the notion that someone could be elected twice as governor of Utah, arguably the most conservative state in the union, and be some sort of closet liberal is baffling. Then again, Ronald Reagan made many compromises that would render him a RINO in today’s climate.
Still, while I like what I’m seeing in Huntsman, he’s not yet a significant candidate. Indeed, he’s no longer even showing up in the RealClearPolitics numbers while non-candidates Rick Perry, Sarah Palin, and Rudy Giuliani all register in the double digits.
Then again, it’s pretty clear that Republican voters aren’t exactly in love with Mitt Romney. He remains the presumptive favorite for the nomination but couldn’t even beat a lackluster John McCain last cycle.

While the Herman Cain bubble seems to have burst, Perry, Palin, and Giuliani are all getting significant interest because the nominating electorate is looking for someone to excite them. It’s probably not going to be Newt Gingrich or Tim Pawlenty. And I believe Michele Bachmann tops out around 15 percent. Perry’s path to the nomination is the most plausible of the others.

Huntsman represents an interesting alternative–a conservatism of a style that put together three consecutive national Electoral College landslides in my lifetime. I’d like to think that it could come back into vogue and, for example, once again put California into play for Republicans. But it’s just wishful musing at this point.

I do think that what is needed is to find a candidate that can somehow please both moderates and the Tea Party. Huntsman has received a lot of knocks for being too moderate, but a Rick Perry or a Michele Bachmann candidacy will rally the red meat conservatives without making a dent beyond the base.

The question right now for Huntsman is can he get noticed enough to run with the big dogs.

Magical Thinking on Debt and Deficits?

2011-08-01T20:47:00.001-07:00

I would agree with a fair amount of David Frum's latest op-ed, but there one part of article that doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me:

2) The deficit is a symptom of America's economic problems, not a cause.

When the economy slumps, government revenues decline and government spending surges.

Federal revenues have collapsed since 2007, down from more than 18% of national income to a little more than 14%. To put that in perspective: That's the equivalent of losing enough revenue to support the entire defense budget.

Federal spending has jumped to pay for unemployment insurance, food stamps and Medicaid benefits.

Fix the economy first, and the deficit will improve on its own.

Cut the deficit first, and the economy will get even sicker.

3) The time to cut is after the economy recovers.

Businesses are hoarding cash. Consumers are repaying debt. State and local governments are slashing jobs. (Since 2009, the number of Americans working for government has shrunk by half a million, the biggest reduction in civilian government employment since the Great Depression.) Right now, there's only one big customer out there: the federal government. How does it help anybody if the feds suddenly stop buying things and paying people?

I have two problems with this. First, Frum has talked a lot about David Cameron's Conservative Party which has been busy in the midst of this recession cutting government programs. Yes, there are some differences, but what makes it okay for the Conservative Party to tackle debt, and wrong for the GOP to not take on debt?

Also, Frum says that if the economy is fixed, then the debt will take care of its own. Really?

I think the economy can help make a difference, but part of the reason we were able to get the deficit under control in the 90s was party because President Clinton and the Republican Congress came together to make certain decisions. The same goes for the 1990 Budget deal when President Bush made deals with a Democratic Congress. Deficit issues just don't solve themselves all because economy gets better. Debts and deficits get solved when lawmakers get together and make deals. I'm not saying the economy has no role in alleviating those problems, but to say that somehow problems with the deficit will go away when the economy gets better is about as silly as saying that tax cuts will solve the deficit or revive the economy or cure cancer.

The other problem that I see here is that while I do think most people don't want an all cuts deal as what was agreed to, the fact is voters decided last fall to elect people that at least said they were concerned about government spending. As much as I think that Republicans are wrong to assume that the American public wants only to cut spending alone, legislators would be foolish to ignore that part of the reason the GOP is in control of the House and made gains in the Senate was because of a desire to restrain federal spending.

What Frum has been arguing for within GOP is a kind of conservative-Keynesianism that was fashionable in the Republican Party from Dwight Eisenhower to the Reagan years. Beginning in the 50s, the GOP made (some) peace with the New Deal. This meant allowing for high taxes and government spending. Unlike a lot of folks, I don't think there was anything wrong with this approach way back when. But the problem is, the country has changed. Many liberals (and some reformed-conservatives like myself) thought the election of Obama would usher in a Second New Deal and a rebrith of Keynesianism. But America has changed and in many ways is backing away from full on Keynesianism. That doesn't mean that the nation has embraced the Tea Party's vision for America, but it does mean that the era of big government solutions is long gone.

Tea Party conservatives are wrong to think we can go back to some pristine era of minimal government, but reformist conservatives are wrong to think we can go back the Eisenhower years. Conservatives are going to have to forge a new vision that is centered on a small(er) government that is still activist and willing to be the GOP for today and not sometime in the past.

On the "Cult of Balance"

2011-07-29T22:11:00.000-07:00

Over the last few months, I've had a number person chastise me on these pages for being so "even-handed" on the current political climate. Most of the respondents who tend to be liberal, get upset that I try to say their is some blame on the Democratic side. In the minds, they can't understand why I just can't see that this is all the Republicans fault.

I don't think I'm trying to split the blame 50-50 when I do take the political system to task. I think there are many cases where the GOP is more at fault than the Democrats. I think the GOP needs to get off its "no taxes" kick. I think the GOP does need to clean up its act moreso than the Dems.

But I don't think the Democrats at blameless. I don't see them as victims. But that's what those who complain want me to say: that the Democrats are wonderful, good-hearted victims, that have made conscessions to heartless Republicans. They want that the press and the general public punish the GOP for extremism and let the Dems do what they believe needs to be done.

The problem is that in the real world, no one is all innocent or all evil. We are all limited and fallible human beings and politicians are not immune. Here's what Paul Krugman said today about "centrists" who want to place equal blame on both parties:

Many pundits view taking a position in the middle of the political spectrum as a virtue in itself. I don’t. Wisdom doesn’t necessarily reside in the middle of the road, and I want leaders who do the right thing, not the centrist thing....

So what’s with the buzz about a centrist uprising? As I see it, it’s coming from people who recognize the dysfunctional nature of modern American politics, but refuse, for whatever reason, to acknowledge the one-sided role of Republican extremists in making our system dysfunctional. And it’s not hard to guess at their motivation. After all, pointing out the obvious truth gets you labeled as a shrill partisan, not just from the right, but from the ranks of self-proclaimed centrists.

But making nebulous calls for centrism, like writing news reports that always place equal blame on both parties, is a big cop-out — a cop-out that only encourages more bad behavior. The problem with American politics right now is Republican extremism, and if you’re not willing to say that, you’re helping make that problem worse.

Clive Crook is also wondering why folks like Paul Krugman think the answer is just to put all the blame on Republicans:

Paul Krugman and EJ Dionne agree that too much centrism is what ails the United States. What the country needs is fewer moderates and more people ready to stand firm on principle come what may. (Actually Dionne draws a distinction that eludes me between moderation and centrism--they are not just different but opposed--but let that pass.)

Lacking a Nobel prize, I find this theory odd. If only centrists would come over to the left and deplore Republicans more vigorously, all would be well? Right now, I would be willing to help out--but would this do much to reduce the House Republican majority? If centrist commentators only joined Krugman's anti-Republican crusade, the country would see its mistake and put things right at the next election? It's flattering, but surely we feeble soggy centrists have nothing to offer that would improve on the quality of the arguments already put forward by writers such as Krugman, Dionne, and many others. Surely they are refuting conservatism as effectively as anybody can.

Of course, what Krugman wants is for the GOP to be entirely discredited if not simply disappear. But that's not going to happen anymore than the Democrat would fade from existence and frankly, you aren't going win centrists over if you come accross in the same snippy tones that Krugman is so good at.

In non-democratic societies, the dictators love to see themselves as angels fighting whatever demon that threatens their powerbase. But in a democratic society, all we have are fallible humans, which means that we all have some (not equal) blame.

Has Huntsman Stalled?

2011-07-27T20:52:00.001-07:00

Solomon Kleinsmith wants to know why GOP Presidential Candidate Jon Huntsman isn't going anywhere. The National Journal's John Kraushaar makes a good guess:

The biggest problem with Huntsman’s campaign isn’t his centrist ideology; it’s his campaign’s tactics. Huntsman has decided to ignore the fundamental rule of politics—a campaign is about contrasting your record against those of your opponents. Instead of taking on President Obama, he’s praised Obama’s good intentions and avoided outlining many areas of disagreement. He’s run to the left of the president on Afghanistan, calling for faster and deeper troop withdrawals. And at a time when voters are hungry for solutions, he offered a platitude-filled kickoff speech that barely touched on the economic problems that Americans want solved.

This is a Republican Party that wants head-on confrontation with Obama, but Huntsman is selling détente and civility. It’s an electorate that wants a candidate who identifies with the struggles that Americans are dealing with. Instead, his introductory campaign video focused on his love of motocross—an image of recreation at a time when the country is facing major economic pain. Huntsman is also courting independents in the New Hampshire primary, whom he assumes are in the mold of Michael Bloomberg but are as disaffected as any group out there. (In the latest July Granite State poll, 61 percent of independents said the nation was headed in the wrong direction, with a 47 percent plurality disapproving of Obama.)

Huntsman has a good story to tell. He governed Utah at a time of economic prosperity, lowered taxes, and opposed abortion rights. He was one of the first presidential candidates to come out squarely for Paul Ryan’s entitlement reforms—which have become close to conservative orthodoxy these days. His apostasy is hardly more egregious than that of George W. Bush, who championed comprehensive immigration reform, downplayed social issues, and acknowledged climate change. Like Huntsman, Bush even expressed his distaste for “nation building” in the 2000 presidential race, though he clearly shifted his views after the 9/11 attacks.

But unlike Bush, Huntsman is making little attempt to sell his conservative views to voters. Instead, he’s offering a milquetoast message, believing that Republican voters prefer conciliation over confrontation. Bush ran his 2000 campaign on the theme of “compassionate conservatism;” there’s no sign Huntsman is campaigning on anything conservative.

Kraushaar makes some good guesses and I think there is some truth to all of this. But instead of merely talking about the article, I want to answer Solomon's question. So here are a few reasons why Huntsman isn't going anywhere right now.

It isn't 2009 anymore. I do think Kraushaar is right here. After the 2008 election, there were a lot of folks, myself included, that said it was time for the GOP to moderate, to be more open to centrists and independents. By 2010, the GOP had scored several victories to be within striking distance of taking the Senate, and took back the House from the Dems. All the talk of being more moderate ended. I like Huntsman and I still think the GOP needs to moderate. But it's not 2009 anymore. What is selling is trying to be conservative. He has to find a way to remain open to moderates and also speak to conservatives who want to talk about cutting spending and taxes. It's a delicate balance, but he has to do that in the changed climate.
Michelle Bachmann. The congresswoman from my current home state of Minnesota has basically sucked the air out of the room. The media is focusing on her and she is leading in Iowa polls. Get a conservative firebrand and everyone pays attention. Huntsman's more modest campaign can't really compete with Bachmann's presence, at least at this moment.
Debt talks. Most of the media is focused on the debt ceiling talks and that has pushed the GOP presidential race to a distant second.
The Vision thing. I don't like Michelle Bachmann and I think she is plumb loco, but you at least know where she stands. As Krushnaar notes, Huntman is selling a more genteel Republicanism that prefers "concilation over confrontation". In many ways, I resemble that description. But I think Huntman and indeed, most of moderate-centrist pols and movements fail because they lack a fire in the belly. Compromise is a good thing, but I tend to think that a problem with folks like myself and Huntsman is that compromise becomes an end in and of itself. I think people want folks to compromise, but they also want the folks to stand for something. Huntsman's record does indicate a good governing conservative, but he hasn't really communicated that and he hasn't done it with a sense of passion. He used the backdrop of the Statue of Liberty to announce his campaign, evoking Ronald Reagan. Nice, but he also needs to evoke some of Reagan's passion as well.
It's only July of 2011 for Pete's sake! We seem to forget that New Hampshire and Iowa are still months away and anything can change. Remember how McCain's campaign was imploding in the summer of 2007? And yet, somehow he ended up the Republican nominee. Bachmann, might be the bees knees now, but will she be come January of 2012? Huntsman still has time to get his message out there.

So, that's my take on Huntsman. What's yours?

Grover Norquist and 1990 Budget Deal

2011-07-27T20:48:00.000-07:00

Tyler Craft takes issue with Grover Norquist's assertion that the decision by then-president George Bush to raise taxes led the nation into a recession:

George H.W. Bush’s famous (or infamous, depending on one’s point of view) increase to taxes (and reversal in his, in my opinion, foolish “no new taxes” pledge) came out of the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (OBRA) of 1990, which took affect on January 1, 1991. So what actually happened? Technically yes (see graph below), the United States went into a recession following the OBRA of 1990 going into effect. Per the official definition of a recession, that a recession is two consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth (I’m using real GDP figures), the United States experienced negative growth in the fourth quarter of 1990 and the first quarter of 1991. HOWEVER, the largest period of economic contraction actually occurred in 1990 NOT 1991. The first quarter of 1991 showed a trend of growth beginning that would continue throughout the rest of the 1990s. So using Grover Norquist’s post hoc ergo propter hoc view of the world, The OBRA of 1990 actually brought the country OUT of a recession rather than INTO a recession – of course this would be equally (well maybe not quite equally) fallacious....

One of Norquist’s economic statements was correct; spending did grow following the OBRA of 1990 and along with it the deficit. In fact, public debt as a percent of GDP in the mid-1990s is very similar to its levels in the mid-2000s (around 67% of GDP in each case) – of course we all know that the late-1990s and late-2000s saw deficit and debt figures move in opposite directions (surpluses in the ‘90s reduced debt while growing deficits in the 2000s caused even higher debt). There is, again, more to this story however. The next graph illustrates how total spending and non-defense spending evolved for the last few decades compared to GDP. It shows relative rises with respect to GDP around the time of various recessions and also shows the spike Norquist alluded to in 1991. This is where the data does not tell the whole story and the historical narrative provides some important information. The OBRA of 1990 was not the first budget proposal by President Bush that year, it was actually the third. The first included spending cuts with no tax increases and was rejected by Democrats, the second included spending cuts with tax increases and was rejected by Republicans, and the third was accepted. Interestingly enough, the third proposal increased spending more than the second proposal, but came in the face of government shutdown, which forced enough support to get higher taxes through. The third option also shifted much of the tax increases from excise increases to income tax increases, which is also less conservative – although preferable from a growth and equity perspective.

Is Obama Still a Lock for '12?

2011-07-27T20:41:00.001-07:00

When President Obama won in 2008, people already thought he would automatically be a two-term president. I still think it's more likely than not that Obama will win next year, but some folks think Obama is in trouble in the battleground states:

The race for president isn’t a national contest. It’s a state-by-state battle to cobble an electoral vote majority. So while the national polls are useful in gauging the president’s popularity, the more instructive numbers are those from the battlegrounds.

Those polls are even more ominous for the president: In every reputable battleground state poll conducted over the past month, Obama’s support is weak. In most of them, he trails Republican front-runner Mitt Romney. For all the talk of a closely fought 2012 election, if Obama can’t turn around his fortunes in states such as Michigan and New Hampshire, next year’s presidential election could end up being a GOP landslide.

Take Ohio, a perennial battleground in which Obama has campaigned more than in any other state (outside of the D.C. metropolitan region). Fifty percent of Ohio voters now disapprove of his job performance, compared with 46 percent who approve, according to a Quinnipiac poll conducted from July 12-18.

Among Buckeye State independents, only 40 percent believe that Obama should be reelected, and 42 percent approve of his job performance. Against Romney, Obama leads 45 percent to 41 percent—well below the 50 percent comfort zone for an incumbent.

The news gets worse from there. In Michigan, a reliably Democratic state that Obama carried with 57 percent of the vote, an EPIC-MRA poll conducted July 9-11 finds him trailing Romney, 46 percent to 42 percent. Only 39 percent of respondents grade his job performance as “excellent” or good,” with 60 percent saying it is “fair” or “poor.” The state has an unemployment rate well above the national average, and the president’s approval has suffered as a result.

I still think it's just way too early to start thinking that Obama is in trouble. While things look pretty dark for the president right now and the economy is in the tank, we are still well over a year before the election and six months before the GOP primaries begin. If we start seeing these week numbers in February or April of 2012, then its time for the Obama team to worry.

The other factor is that we don't know who the GOP nominee will be. It very well could be Romney, but you can never count Michelle Bachmann out. Who that challenger will be and how they run their campaign will be a factor in whether or not Obama gets a second term.

The Reasons for a Third Party

2011-07-27T20:40:00.000-07:00

Observing the current crisis, Wendy Kaminer thinks a third political party would only make things worse, not better:

But perhaps the greatest fallacy of the third party movement is the unspoken, perhaps unacknowledged, underlying assumption that members of a third party would be more informed, intelligent, and rational and less self-interested and demagogic than members of the first and second parties. What if the problem isn't the two party system but the flawed human beings who would also participate, as voters and candidates, in a three party system? What if the problem, in part, is us?

Now Kaminer is well to the left for my tastes, but there is a grain of truth in what she says. I don't think a third party is going to easily solve all our problems. A third party is not going to automatically be better informed or less suscpetible to partisanship. A third party might only make the situation worse.

I've more than once have fallen for the temptation that a "knight in shining armor" in the form a third party will just solve everything. But that's the wrong reason to want to see a third party. If one is going to support a strong third party, it has to be to give people more choice in politics or to represent a group that doesn't feel currently represented in the current system.

But Kaminer's last statement is the one that I think it most interesting. I think it has been easy for us to lampoon those idiots in Washington and to see ourselves as pure and innocent, just wanting to get something done. The problem with that is because in a representative system, we elect the candidates. We support candidates that tend to be the most uncompromising. We throw out members that even dare to talk with the other side.

The problem is totally the fault of the populace, but it does share a good amount of the blame because we elect these folks to Washington to do our bidding.

What's happening in DC with the debt ceiling; this unwillingness to compromise is as much mirroring contemporary American society than it is that Washington is dysfunctional. We live in little universes where the only people that matter agree with each other and where the other side is not simply wrong, but evil. All you have to do is look at Facebook to see people posting about how bad conservative/liberals are and how they are on the side of the angels.

The world that we now live in is one where we really don't talk to each other. We go to places of worship where everyone seems to agree with each other. We have mostly friends who share our world view. There are few public places where we have to get along with each other.

So, if we live in such segregated worlds, why on earth do we expect Washington to be any different?

A third party alone is not going to be the savior of our nation. Unless the American people are willing to change themselves, then we can't expect change from Washington.

The Federal Debt Ceiling for Dummies

2011-07-25T20:43:00.000-07:00

Douglas Holtz Eakin explains the consquences of not raising the debt ceiling in less than a minute:

Starring the Tea Party as William Howard Taft

2011-07-25T20:41:00.000-07:00

Jonathan Rauch has an fascinating piece on how the upcoming 2012 General Election is in effect part two of the 1912 election:

The Republican incumbent, William Howard Taft, was a conservative traditionalist who saw the Constitution as providing a short leash on federal power. He faced no fewer than three significant opponents that year, the most formidable being none other than his Republican predecessor in the White House: Theodore Roosevelt had come to believe that a narrow view of federal power left Washington unable to cope with the challenges of the industrial age. He broke with Taft to lead a new party of his own, the Progressive Party.

Jumping on the same bandwagon but shrewdly presenting more mainstream alternative, Democrats nominated a progressive of their own, Woodrow Wilson. And there was an important fourth candidate, the Socialist Party’s Eugene V. Debs, who led American socialism to its only respectable electoral performance: 6 percent of the popular vote.

Roosevelt’s progressives believed that only a stronger, more centralized national government, vigorously led by a powerful presidency, could cope with giant corporations and the increasingly national — indeed, global — economy. Expert-led bureaucracies would guide a newly empowered Washington away from cronyism and toward innovative, impartial solutions.

The Constitution, the progressives insisted, was no pair of rusty shackles. It must flex to accommodate the people’s desires and the nation’s needs. “The people are the masters of their Constitution,” declared the Progressive Party’s 1912 platform. The country’s “resources, its business, its institutions and its laws should be utilized, maintained or altered in whatever manner will best promote the general interest.”

Taft opposed all those principles. He argued for localism, limited government and a constitution that worked like a brake, not an accelerator. The progressives, he warned, would demolish the government’s “checks upon hasty popular action.”

Sounds familiar, doesn't it. Taft lost the election big time, and while Roosevelt lost, he basically won the argument. That set forth the expansion of federal power in American society that has held until this very day.

But a few mainstream writers have begun to see how the progressive era might be winding down. Robert Samuelson notes that the old order, which he describes as the modern welfare state that has been in place since the closing days of WWII is crumbling:

The old order, constructed by most democracies after World War II, rested on three pillars. One was the welfare state. Government would protect the unemployed, aged, disabled and poor. Capitalism would be tamed. A second was faith in economic growth; this would raise everyone's living standards while permitting income redistribution. Growth was ordained, because economists had learned enough from the 1930s to cure periodic recessions. Finally, global trade and finance served countries' mutual interests.
All three pillars are wobbling. To be sure, the financial crisis worsened matters, and each country's situation is different. America's welfare state is less generous than Germany's. Greece's crisis began because it had vastly underreported its budget deficit; Ireland's stemmed from a burst housing bubble that led to a costly bank bailout. But these differences obscure large similarities.

Start with the welfare state. A blessing to many, it's also a common burden. Its expansion was huge. In 1950, government spending as a share of a nation's economy (gross domestic product) was 28 percent in France, 30 percent in Germany and 21 percent in the United States. By 1999, figures were 52 percent of GDP in France, 48 percent in Germany and 30 percent in the United States, according to the late economics historian Angus Maddison. Aging societies would boost future costs for social security and health care. From 2008 to 2050, the 65- plus population is projected to rise 40 percent in Germany, 77 percent in France and 121 percent in the United States.

Given this outlook, even countries without immediate crises are embracing austerity measures. All face a ruinous choice: The higher taxes or deficits needed to finance more welfare spending might further damage the economy, but cutting benefits stirs popular backlash. Still, benefits are now vulnerable. Ireland cut benefits for the unemployed by about 10 percent, reduced child payments by 16 percent and, beginning in 2014, will gradually raise the retirement age from 65 to 68.

Enter the Tea Party. Just as we saw their predecessor in 1912 try to fight off an ascendent progressivism, we see them now as progressivism is at its nadir.

Does this mean the Taft/Tea Party side is now on the right side of history? Probably not. But the rise of Tea Party means that the old progressive order no longer makes sense in the 21st century.

Teddy Roosevelt could see the changes in the nation and made the case for strong federal government. Do we have a TR for our time that can see the changes coming down the road in economics and tailor a government to fit the times.

I don't think the Tea Party's rigid constitutionalism is the answer, but they are a sign that what has worked for a century isn't going to work anymore.

Where Have You Gone, Ted Halstead?

2011-07-20T20:50:00.000-07:00

Back in December of 2010 Clive Crook had some harsh words to say about the launching of the centrist organization, No Labels. To say he wasn't impressed is putting it mildly:

Just before Christmas, a group of self-styled moderates launched a campaign against “hyper-partisanship”. The group calls itself No Labels. “We are Democrats, Republicans, and Independents who are united in the belief that we do not have to give up our labels, merely put them aside to do what’s best for America,” says their website.
Oh dear. Accentuate the negative, as any marketing expert will tell you. Put the stress on what you are not. No Labels! Well, come to think of it, keep your labels, as the website says: then, united in the belief that you do not have to give them up, put them aside. I think it means keep them out of sight. Wear your label but hide it, with pride, under your coat.

I have another suggestion. No Ideas. Or how about: No Point? Would that be dull enough?
Washington’s partisan warriors of left and right ridicule moderates as unprincipled or clueless or both. Splitting the difference does not give you the right answer, they say. Once in a while, in fact, it might – but in general the partisans are right about this, and the No Labels crowd is the proof.

Ouch.

The thing is, I think Crook is correct. Taking a look at the No Labels website, you see a really slick site talking about working together and all that, but there is no there there. There are no policy ideas, just sentiment.

Which is something that has bothered me about centrists at least as of late: the movement, seems based on niceties more than it does about ideas.

It wasn't always this way. There were what I would call centrist thinkers that proposed ideas that could have been the basis for a real, sustained movement. About ten years ago Ted Halstead along with Michael Lind, put forth a book called The Radical Center. In many ways, this book was a manifesto for centrism in America. Halstead was one of the founders of the New America Foundation and he was able to craft a book crammed with ideas that were not totally left leaning or conservative, but were distinctly American.

Halstead was busy during the Bush years writing opeds promoting centrist ideas. Here's an example from an article he wrote for the Los Angeles Times in 2004:

here are seven big ideas for improving our national condition, each of which defies the conventional political spectrum and could be ripe for the picking by either party:

Every baby a trust-fund baby. Just as the nation broadened the ownership of land in the 19th century through the Homestead Act, and of houses in the 20th century through the mortgage interest tax deduction, expanding the ownership of financial assets should be the cause of the 21st century. British Prime Minister Tony Blair set the example by championing a law that endows every British newborn with financial assets from birth. We should follow suit and inaugurate a new era of universal capitalism in the United States.

Universal coverage for universal responsibility. Why not approach health insurance like car insurance by making it mandatory? Coupled with public subsidies for those who need them, mandatory insurance could cover all 43 million uninsured Americans and lower the cost of coverage for those who are insured (by broadening the risk pool to include the young and healthy, the 18- to 34-year-olds who are the most likely to be uninsured), all while costing the government less than Kerry's plan, which is said to reach 27 million uninsured.

Tax consumption, not work. You would never know it by listening to politicians, but more than 70% of American families pay more in payroll taxes than in any other tax. Yet no other tax does more to retard job creation or to reduce take-home pay, especially among low-income workers. By eliminating the payroll tax and replacing it with a progressive national consumption tax, we could create a lot more jobs and generate a lot more savings -- thereby solving our two greatest economic problems at once.

End all farm subsidies. Our farm subsidies are vestiges of the past. They harm farmers and the environment, create agricultural gluts, retard global free trade, hurt Third World countries and cost taxpayers $20 billion a year. By ending these subsidies, we could not only alleviate these various problems but free up the resources to, say, endow every child from birth with financial assets. While we're at it, let's end all forms of corporate welfare, which would free up an additional $50 billion for better uses.

Family-friendly workplaces. Although the traditional family is no longer the norm, our workplaces have yet to adapt, penalizing those who need flexibility to fulfill their caregiving responsibilities, often by depriving them of good jobs and basic benefits. This two-tier labor market should be ended by making basic benefits citizen-based instead of employer-based and by giving all workers the flexibility of today's part-time workers, along with the benefit security of full-time workers.

A race to energy independence. It is a cliche that the United States should pursue energy independence with the same vigor that once fueled its race to space. Yet we lack a viable plan to light this new fire. The answer may lie in another recent revolution -- the biotech one -- in which a competition between private industry and a public consortium greatly accelerated the mapping of the human genome. Why not apply a similar model to energy efficiency by funding a high-profile contest between public and private parties?

Building a global middle class. At a time of a ballooning trade deficit and global overcapacity, the U.S. needs other countries to consume more and to export less. The best way to accomplish both is by exporting the middle-class development model (such as 30-year mortgages) that created mass affluence in our own nation half a century ago. By recasting the globalization debate around the overarching goal of building a global middle class, we could promote prosperity and stability at home and abroad.

Halstead was not just griping about the current state of political parties, he was actually putting forth ideas.

Halstead stepped down as chairman of New America in 2007 and his bio says he's involved in a new green startup and sailing around the world with his wife. Frankly, I wished he would get out of his boat and get back to providing some new ideas.

The reason at times that I've become cynical about centrism in the United States is because it doesn't seems to stand for much of anything, presents few new ideas, and does very little except complain.

I miss not having thinkers like Ted Halstead around. We need someone like that to fire the imagination of centrists in America.

In December I agreed with Crook's assessment of No Labels and wrote the following:

My ongoing problem with No Labels is that I think it is another weak-willed effort to come up with some effort calling on politicians to be nice and nothing more. There is little talk of ideas that might be able to move the country forward.

What I’d love to see is a true centrist ideology, along the lines that Crook talks about or maybe the classical liberal model found in the Free Democrats in Germany or the Liberal Democrats in the UK. Yes, civility is important, but frankly I want bold ideas and people willing to back them up.

I feel bad talking smack about a movement that is all about civility. But at the end of the day, I also think that ideas count for something as well in a democratic society.

Come back, Ted Halstead. We need you.

Goodbye, Borders

2011-07-18T20:49:00.000-07:00

A few months ago, I had written that it was a bit too early to write the obituary for the bookstore chain Borders. I had hoped the company would continue, but I was wrong. The chain will liquidate its remaining stores. I wrote back in February that in many ways, Borders caused its own demise for not keeping up with the times:

I would agree that the advent of Amazon and e-readers like the Kindle have made bricks and mortar stores obsolete, but I also think the damage done to Borders was just as much the fault of Borders than it was technology. The bookstore chain was slow to getting online and even today, it’s web presence is not that great. Recently, I was looking to purchase a book and wanted to see if I could buy it at the Borders website. The price for that book was twice as much as it was on Amazon. Borders wasn’t even close to being competative with the Amazon. If the chain wants to survive, it’s going to have to make the website on par with Amazon and be ready to play hardball.

Barnes and Noble saw the handwriting on the wall and has been able to keep up with Amazon, not only on the web, but also in the e-reader market with its own machine- the Nook.

Borders in many ways was stuck in its heyday of the mid-to-late 1990s, long before Amazon and anything like a Kindle or the Nook. It never really took the changes in the book market, from brick and mortar to the web, seriously and it has paid for that ignorance dearly.

I don't know what it is with Michigan-based businesses that they get stuck in their halcyon days and don't stay competative. General Motors and Chrysler were saved only because the government came in to get the into shape.

Borders will be a lesson on what not to do when it comes to business and technology.

That said, I will miss the chain. I always liked it more than Barnes and Noble.

Goodbye, Borders.

The (Tea) Party's Over

2011-06-26T21:19:00.001-07:00

So says, the Economist:

My bet is that Mitt Romney wins the nomination, and at the moment, barring a substantial economic recovery, I'd give him better than even odds of winning the election as well. I suspect that Mr Romney is an empty shell without a soul, but he's a pretty smart empty shell without a soul, and I don't really subscribe to the idea that a candidate needs a deep core of authenticity in order to be a successful political official. Within the category "Republican politicians", the fact that Mr Romney apparently lacks any firm ideological convictions seems to me a blessing rather than a curse. A Romney presidency would be unlikely to feature the spectacle of Congress threatening to destroy America's AAA credit rating in order to score political points, and my guess is that it would make Barack Obama's health-care reforms permanent, with some sort of fig-leaf adjustments that would allow Mr Romney to claim he had undone the hated ObamaCare and replaced it with a Republican alternative that is substantially the same.

I'm left wondering, however, what happens to the tea-party constituency in a scenario in which Mr Romney wins the nomination. As I've said before, I have no instinctive understanding of what tea-party supporters think about anything; their worldview makes no sense to me. But going by what I see on their websites, most of them (though by no means all) seem to be currently convulsed in hatred for the orgy of RINOness that Mr Romney represents. Can they reconcile themselves to voting for him? My guess would be yes, easily. If Mr Romney becomes a serious challenger to Mr Obama, people who today consider themselves irrevocably opposed to both RomneyCare and to Mr Romney's weaselly attempts to distinguish it from the president's reforms will figure out some plausible-to-themselves arguments for supporting him after all. Partisanship is far and away the most powerful force in America politics, trumping all other substantive or ideological concerns.

I tend to think Romney will ultimately capture the GOP nod as well. I know folks like Texas Governor Rick Perry and Congresswoman Michelle Bachman are getting attention, but if Obama is as vulnerable as some think he is, then I see the party putting forward someone that has a shot at winning, not someone that can make the die-hard conservatives swoon.

Would this be the end of the Tea Party? I wouldn't say as much that this the end of it as much as it becomes marginalized. This is par for the course in American politics. The far left of the Democratic Party is usually contained so as to not cause too much trouble. Let them out enough to get some attention, but don't let them run the whole show. I think that come 2012 the GOP will find a way to co-opt the Tea Party- adopting some of its demands- but find a way to fence them in and nominate a candidate that could actually do something in office.

What 'Tax the Rich' Gets You

2011-04-19T11:46:00.001-07:00

Mike at the Big Stick points to a blog post by Iowahawk on the fallacy that taxing only the rich will solve anything. It's pretty tounge-in-cheek but the point is made: raising taxes soley on upper incomes won't solve our fiscal problems. Mike says it best:

The point is that while the rich are a convenient target for the Left it’s a fantasy to believe that raising taxes on them will create financial solvency. What is necessary, in my opinion, is raising taxes on all but the poorest Americans and cutting spending deeply. Anything else is pointless.

Indeed. Much has been said about the conservative fantasy that all fiscal problems can be solved by cutting the budget. But it is equally silly to think that "the rich can pay for it all."

There is saying that Americans want Swedish-style government at Mississippi-style prices. If we want to make sure that government is well funded and sustainable, then both sides will have to give up their fantasies and come up with some mixture of spending cuts and increased taxes accross the board. Anything else is a pipe dream.

In Search of a Grand Bargain

2011-04-16T11:43:00.000-07:00

In my most recent post, I got some pushback from one person who really doesn't agree with my viewpoint. In some ways we were talking past each other, with our own views of the other person instead of listening to the other person. As David Brooks reminds me in his latest column on the budget, the current partisan climate doesn't really allow folks to get to know each other and at the very least understand each other. Maybe if they had lunch, things would be better. Here's what Brooks says:

President Obama and Paul Ryan are two of the smartest, most admirable and most genial men in Washington. It is sad, although not strange, that in today’s Washington they have never had a serious private conversation. The president has never invited Ryan over even for lunch.

As a result, both men are misinformed about the other, and both have developed a cold contempt for the other’s position. Obama believes Ryan wants to take America back to what he sees as the savage capitalism of the 1920s (or even the 1760s). Ryan believes Obama wants to turn America into a declining European welfare state.

If they met, would they resolve their differences? No, but they would understand them better.

About a month ago, Newsweek ran an article about the loss of the party culture in Washington where folks of differing political persuasions got together. Decades ago, most legislators and their families lived in DC and did things together. It was the days of martinis and smoke-filled rooms. It was in this environment that things got done because you trusted the other guy. You might not agree with him (and most likely back then it was a "him"), but you thought he was a good guy because you spent time with him.

But Washington isn't like that anymore and neither is the rest of the country. We are increasingly growing apart, and that seperateness breeds distrust. If this were 1965, Paul Ryan and Barack Obama would sit down at the White House, smoke some cigars, have a few drinks and maybe at the end hammer out a deal on the budget. Neither side would get all of what it wanted, but they would learn how to find some kind of consensus, a Grand Bargain.

But since this is 2011 and not 1965, we have Ryan and Obama looking at the other with distrust and a bit of contempt. The same goes for me and the commenter. So we design legislation and ideas that in Brooks' words, pretend that the other political party doesn't exist.

If I can add another thing wrong with Ryan budget is that it was written as if Democrats didn't exist. But the thing is, they do and they won't stand for a plan that they think will hurt the poor and let the rich get off. Conversely, the Obama plan pretends Republicans don't exist. But Republicans do exist and they won't stand for a plan that they don't see tackling entitlements.

In a democracy we have to realize that there are others that don't share our views. The trick of a democratic society is how to reasonably work out a deal between competing interests. In the end, this means compromise. That can't happen if you don't trust the other side.

The plans released by Ryan and Obama could have been starting points to reach a workable budget deal. But what both ideas will become are platforms for the 2012 election season, platforms to beat up the other side.

I want to see some kind of compromise reached. But I also would like to see Democrats and Republicans just meet for lunch sometime, away from the cameras. Maybe if they shared a meal, things could get done.

The Utah Way

2011-03-29T21:56:00.001-07:00

The story of Utah's attempt at immigration reform is a story that has not received a lot of attention and it should. As this story from NPR notes, the state is about as Republican as they come and they came up with an approach that was part-enforcement and part-guest worker program. The story notes that Republicans in Utah learned from their conservative brethren in Arizona what NOT to do:

If you were to choose a state that would allow illegal immigrants to work and drive without fear of deportation, you probably wouldn't pick Utah.

"We have to understand, Utah is one of the most conservative states in the country," says Alfonso Aguilar, who runs the Latino Partnership for Conservative Principles. He says that Utah's new law shows that Republicans can find a middle course.

"The governor's Republican; the House and Senate are dominated by Republicans," Aguilar says. "And they saw what happened in Arizona. They passed an enforcement-only law. It has driven away investment, business, workers that the Arizona economy needs."

In Utah, Aguilar says, "they wanted to deal with enforcement — but balance it with measures that are more business-friendly. And that's exactly what they did."

Last Wednesday, Utah's Gov. Gary R. Herbert signed a package of immigration bills. One is an enforcement law, milder than Arizona's, but still opposed by liberal immigration advocates. Another is a guest-worker bill, which is opposed by some conservatives as amnesty.

It's heartening to see conservatives come up with an approach that is realistic and not punitive. Will Washington's conservatives follow suit?

h/t: Solomon Kleinsmith

Can Detroit Be Saved?

2011-03-27T21:13:00.001-07:00

While on vacation, I heard the latest bad news to come out of Detroit: the loss of 25 percent of its population from 2000-2010. The new population according to census figures is 713,777; the lowest figure in a century and before the Big Three made the Motor City the fourth largest city in nation in the middle of the 20th century.

During the vacation, a friend commented on how we are seeing the death of an American city. I have to admit that such talk bothered me. Of course, part of the reason it does bother me is because it's so personal to me. I'm not from Detroit, but my hometown of Flint is just 70 miles up the road and I have relatives that live in and around Detroit. So, it's hard not to take such talk of the death of Detroit as a slight against me and my people. I know my friend meant no offense, so I'm not mad at him. Just goes to show that when you hail from Michigan, you tend to feel somewhat embarassed from being from there because of the current state of the economy.

The continued loss of population makes one wonder: can Detroit be saved? It's been the question that we Michiganders have been asking for about 30 years or so. I think Michigan's largest city does have a future, but I think that the state and the city have to find ways to build a future where cars are not king.

Cars are what made Detroit Detroit. Just like Pittsburgh was known for steel, Detroit was known for the horseless carriage. The problem is that the world is changing. When the Big Three were king, they ruled. Future competitors like Toyota weren't a factor since most of Japan was bombed into the last century. But over time, Japan rebuilt and made affordable cars and later cars that were just as good as the Big Three if not better.

Detroit has never been able to really respond to changing tastes and the rise of competitors in Japan and later Korea. The jury is still out as to whether General Motors, Ford and Chrysler have learned their lesson. Ford, I think is getting the idea, but the other two are still doubtful.

For Detroit to rebound, it has to give up it's car addiction. Autos will still have some role in Southeastern Michigan, but let's face it: the days when the Big Three employed tens of thousands of Michiganders is long gone. The Economist links to a Bloomberg article that Detroit is seeing a big growth in tech jobs, but there's just one problem:

Auto industry executives are trying to make Silicon Valley engineers feel at home in Detroit. With a burgeoning number of technology job openings to fill, they’re scouring Internet companies for workers, wining and dining applicants, and seeking promising students at schools such as Stanford University...

Expertise in cloud computing, mobile software applications and energy management are in demand in the Motor City as automakers replace car stereos with Internet radio and gasoline engines with motors powered by lithium-ion batteries. Technology job postings in the Detroit area doubled last year, making it the fastest-expanding region in the country, according to Dice Holdings Inc. (DHX), a job-listing website.

Do you see the problem here? Yes, there are tech jobs to be had in Detroit, but they are coming from the auto industry. I don't have a problem with these jobs per se, after all, as cars get more technical the auto industry has to become more high tech. The problem here is that this seems to be the same song with a different verse. Michigan is again hitching its star to an industry that could bring some great highs and some really low lows.

Here's what the Economist has to say about these tech jobs:

I think it's a little disconcerting that so much of the hiring seems to be driven by carmakers. As a kernel around which to build an initial concentration of talent, that's fine, but ultimately Detroit's success will hinge on whether it becomes a hub for new firm growth. There's just a limit to the extent to which the carmakers can scale up tech employment. For the city to rebound as a tech centre, skilled workers need to be able to strike out on their own and start new enterprises that then employ many more people.

This is one place where Detroit is at a significant disadvantage thanks to the condition of its broader economy. A tech worker in Silicon Valley who tries to start a new firm and fails will probably be able to find new tech employment fairly easily. A tech worker in Austin who starts a new firm and fails may not immediately find another tech job, but can almost certainly find some work. This safety net of employment reduces the risk of entrepreneurship and encourages new firm formation. In Detroit, could a worker who sets out on his own and fails expect to be re-employed within a few months?

Detroit has a lot of things that could make it a Silicon Valley of the north, but as the blog notes there are also a lot of knocks against it.

For Detroit to survive, it has to create a sustainable base of jobs. That's why southern cities like Raleigh and Austin are doing so well. The problem is that Detroit has never created a base of sustainable jobs; it never had to. After the wrenching changes to the auto industry that started in the 70s, Detroit never really seriously tried to move beyond cars. In Detroit and in most of Southeastern Michigan, there has always been hope that something would come and make things like they were circa 1962. We have always hoped the auto industry would come bouncing back and things would be okay. The articles I've linked to shows we still cling to that hope.

What Detroit should be doing is trying to bring the Dells and Apples to the area in ways that Raleigh and Austin did. It should also help foster new industries to develop that are not so tied to the Big Three. The first step to rebuilding the city ( to make it sustainable, NOT make it what it once was) is to admit we have a problem with an addiction to autos. Once we can be free of that habit then maybe Detroit and the rest of Michigan can grow.

So is anyone up for an intervention?

Photo by Shakil Mustafa.

Here or There?

2010-12-13T07:44:00.000-08:00

I've blogged here for about nearly five years. I started blogging there less when I was asked by Travis Johnson to help him run what was then Progressive Republicans and then Republicans United. Republicans United has morphed into Big Tent Revue and I had hoped it would become an active group blog. That hasn't happened. I'm not a good a salesman when it comes to plugging a blog, much less asking folks to join as co-bloggers.

So, I'm wondering if I should just make Big Tent Revue my primary blog or it down and go back to regular blogging at NeoMugwump. I'd love to get your opinion on this. Let me know.

The Myth of John McCain

2010-11-22T09:37:00.000-08:00

There was a time in my life when I loved John McCain.

I saw him as the bulwark against the rise of the far right in the Republican Party. I cheered his every move. His stand against the Bush Tax Cuts. His participation in the so called "Gang of 14." His strong environmental record. He seemingly strong stand on gay rights.

And then, little by little, I started falling out of love with McCain. As 2008 drew near, he started changing his positions on issues. By 2008 he started to look like someone that had sold out for the GOP nomination.

I don't really know how many times, I've heard people talk about how John McCain has changed and how they have grown to hate the Senator from Arizona. The media, which really fell hard for McCain in 2000, has turned against him and can't wait for a moment to report the latest infraction. In the eyes of many, John McCain sold his soul and many of his former followers are saying "good riddance."

But did we really know who John McCain was? Did we see a few actions and imagined that he had to be "just like us" only find out that he wasn't? Did John McCain really change?

I'm offering a counter-argument to the one posed by many liberals and moderates (like myself). I think in a way what many people who claimed love of McCain were really in love with a myth, maybe partly stoked by McCain himself. I think we saw what we wanted to see in McCain. Like how many saw President Obama when he campaigned for the presidency in 2008, we made the John McCain into something bigger than life and were shocked when at the end of the day he was a politician.

We tend to forget that politicians are people-pleasers. They try hard to appeal to the electorate. Sarah Palin took advantage of the growing Tea Party movement and fashioned herself as its leader. Barack Obama spoke at times as a post-partisan moderate and at others an old-fashioned liberal during the 2008 campaign. They do what they can to win.

But in our modern political environment, where we view politics as a religion, we tend to view mere pols as gods that can do no wrong.

Writing in 2008 Edward McClelland notes that McCain was and is a politician that wants to win. He isn't God, or Ghandi or Martin Luther King, but a candidate that wanted to win. McClelland writes:

McCain has run for the presidency twice, as two completely different candidates. His campaigns and his image have been shaped by the nasty partisanship of the late 20th and early 21st century, an era that may be remembered as the Late Culture Wars. McCain has never seemed comfortable with that style of politics. Despite his identification as a conservative, he's been willing to reach across the aisle to work with Democrats who shared his concept of reform. In 2000, McCain tried to be a liberal's conservative, holding stream-of-consciousness press conferences on his bus, bashing right-wing preachers as "agents of intolerance" and opposing repeal of Roe v. Wade. Republicans were unimpressed, so when McCain finally won their nomination, he picked as his running mate a woman who had less than two years' experience as a governor -- a woman young enough to be his daughter, or his third wife, even -- but who belongs to a Pentecostal church, baits the Washington media and wouldn't allow any woman to have an abortion...

McCain and his journalistic entourage also had a common enemy: the Republican Establishment, personified by George W. Bush. It felt ennobling to travel with a candidate who whaled on Jerry Falwell, and whose underfunded campaign checked in every night at the Marriott. A lot has changed in eight years: By 2008, McCain had given a speech at Jerry Falwell's Liberty University, had promised not to repeal Bush's tax cuts, had declared his opposition to Roe v. Wade, and was staunchly defending the war in Iraq. The anti-politician had learned that stiffing the Republican base was no way to win the party's nomination.

In his first run, McCain campaigned as a reformer who could win over independents. That was before anyone had heard the terms "red state" and "blue state." In 2008, there is no middle ground. There is a liberal America and a conservative America, each unable to acknowledge that the other side is intelligent, honorable or possessed of a reasonable opinion. To win his party's nomination, McCain had to campaign under the team colors. The man who had sworn he would never compromise his principles to win an election, had become ... a politician. That transformation helped McCain with Republican voters, but not reporters. Wait a minute, they seemed to say, we thought you were one of us. But you're nothing more than a, a ... conservative!

The thing is, McCain was and always has been a conservative. Yes, he strayed from the path from time to time, but he has been pretty consistently conservative. Don't believe me? Well, in a 2008 blog post, Jim Geraghty notes that McCain's lifetime rating from the American Conservative Union was... 82.1. That might not be perfect, but it's still pretty good to be considered on the right side of the political spectrum.

But what about all his flip-flopping on things like immigration reform or Don't Ask, Don't Tell?

McClelland notes that the electorate had changed mightily in the eight years between McCain's presidential runs. In 2000, he could fashion himself as a moderate because there still seemed to be a middle ground. That middle ground was eroded over the Bush years, and by 2008 McCain realized that to win the Republican nomination, he had to run as a loyal Republican. This meant changing his stance on immigration, somewhat slightly in 2008 and even moreso in his 2010 primary run.

I know there are some who think that McCain should have "stood his principles" and been willing to lose rather than sell out. But again, we forget these are politicians who have sacrificed a lot to win office. They are not going to give all up just for the good of the nation or what have you.

Which leads to another point. McCain's support from 2000 was a mile wide and an inch deep. Yes, there were a lot of people who said they liked him, but you never really heard these people going out and knocking doors for McCain. He said things we liked to hear, but we weren't going to much other nod our heads in agreement.

McCain, who wanted to win, knew he needed to get conservatives on board. They were the ones that were organized and would support him even if they really didn't think he was a "true conservative."

I'm not saying all this because I like what John McCain has done recently. I don't. But that said, I do understand why McCain does what he does. And I now see that McCain was and is a politician, not some kind of Moses leading us all to the promiseland.

There is a lesson for moderates and even liberals here. We need to stop falling in love with politicians and see them as they are: our represenatives that can work with us, or not. But that means getting away from our computers and getting organized in ways not unlike the Tea Party has.

In the end, I'm not mad with John McCain. He never was in love with me in the first place.

Israel, the TSA and "Touching My Junk"

2010-11-16T21:07:00.000-08:00

In light of all the chat about the new TSA policies, I've been thinking about my parents.

Next week, they are going to get on a plane in Michigan and fly to Minneapolis. I have this uneasy feeling that they are going have to get searched rather agressively by some TSA person. The thought of some guy trying to do a full-body pat-down of my elderly parents make me feel uncomfortable.

The other side of that is that last year, the so-called Christmas bomber was trying to detonate a bomb on a plane as it readied to land in Detroit. Metro Airport is only about an hour north by car to where my parents live in Flint, so I tend to wonder if planes make a big circle over Flint as the prepare to land at Metro, and if so, what would have happened had this plane actually blew up raining fragments down at people below.

In this day and age we live with twin fears: one of terrorists who might seize a plane, again and use it as a weapon, and the second fear is that in light of fear number one the government might over-reach in trying to protect people. Most people either support side one wholly or side two wholly; few are concerned with how we balance both concerns.

I tend to fall in the middle here. I really, really don't want the government feeling me up, even if it is in the name of safety. And yet, even though it might not be a great possibility, I want to make sure that airplane can be secure from terrorism. My frustration at times is that some are so concerned about terror that they think anything goes, and there are some so concerned about civil liberties that they tend to not care about security.

The problem here is that we really have not thought about how to best meet both objectives and frankly very few seem to care about meeting those objectives.

Kevin Drum shares what Israel does when it comes to airport security and I think it could be done here with some modifications. It's better than relying on invasive technology or touching my nether regions.

We can talk about government crossing the line when it comes to civil liberties, but we can't do nothing or pretend the problem doesn't exist. We have to find ways to make sure that terrorists don't use plane as weapons and make sure we uphold our rights as a democratic society. That requires some actual thinking on the issue, not just snarky blog posts.

Minnesota, the Outlier

2010-11-02T21:13:00.000-07:00

After living here for nearly 15 years, I have concluded that Minnesota is truly an odd state.

In this "red tide" tonight we have seen several states in the Midwest elect Republican governors tonight. Minnesota is a different story. After 8 years of a Republican governor in Tim Pawlenty, it looks very likely that Democrat Mark Dayton will win, running on an old-time "tax the rich" strategy. Republican Tom Emmer ran on a very hard right agenda, that scared away moderates (who broke for Tom Horner of the Independence Party).

The lesson I can see in all of this is that if the GOP wants to have a lasting majority nationally, they have to run campaigns that are more welcoming to moderates and independents. If they choose to run to the hard right, they will find themselves in the same spots Democrats are facing tonight.

Update: I spoke way too soon.

The Real Tea Party

2010-11-02T14:07:00.000-07:00

John Judis and Timothy Dalrymple have some of the best takes on the Tea Party movement that I've seen so far, in this case on the left and right respectively.

The Loneliness of a Minority Conservative

2010-10-28T20:12:00.000-07:00

D.R. Tucker has a fascinating blog post about Glen Loury, a black conservative who left the conservative movement a decade ago over the movement's lack of interest in Urban America. What was telling in the blog post was learning of Loury's isolationism from African Americans and conservatives. Tucker shares a story:

A 1995 New Yorker profile of Loury noted that in 1988, “…while Loury was in New York for a Public Interest board meeting, he had a revelation. Touring the Metropolitan Museum with Lisa Schiffren (who later wrote Dan Quayle's ‘Murphy Brown’ speech), he lamented the fact that, despite his prominence, he was completely isolated from his colleagues-that, in short, he had no friends. ‘But, Glenn, we're your friends,” she reassured him. ‘You're a member of a historically liberal ethnic minority, who through your own intellectual evolution have come to dissent from its convictions pretty much down the line. You voted for Reagan, you're pro-life, for family values--you're one of us.’’

Evidently, Schriffen failed to grasp the extent to which Loury felt isolated because he was a member of a “historically liberal ethnic minority.” Loury was, in short, an outcast among his own kind—and in his mind, the right wasn’t doing enough to alleviate his isolation.

Tucker gets at the heart of the matter: that conservatives of historically liberal groups, be it African American or gay, tend to feel isolated. They are viewed as suspect by their own kind, as well as by conservatives. It leads to minority conservatives to have to choose between their community and their ideology. After a while the strain is way too great and they are more likely to go with their community.

It's not that white conservatives , contrary to liberal beliefs, are inherently racist, but it's that they don't feel the need to be hospitable to minority groups. When I say, hospitable, I mean that they don't try to come up with ideas that will attract and retain African Americans.

Part of that lack of interest in trying to attract those voters lies in modern conservative belief. The way that liberals have attracted those groups is through government programs and government jobs or through laws like Civil Rights and those regarding hate crimes. Conservatives offer...what? Because of a belief in not rely on government, conservatives don't have much to offer African Americans.

That's why idea of volunteerism as a conservative program won't work. This is not a knock against those efforts, but the fact is, most inner city folk see these kind of programs already and alone they won't do much.

Which is why conservatives have to work on ideas concerning Urban America. There has to ways to use government to help spur growth and entrepeneurship instead of just giving folks a check.

When conservatives actually start thinking and bringing ideas to the table, then maybe black conservatives won't feel so isolated.

The NPR Brand

2010-10-24T19:49:00.000-07:00

What is the word that comes to mind when one thinks of National Public Radio?

One word: liberal.

Now, I don't think that's a bad thing; it just is. No journalistic outfit is free of bias. They are made up of humans who have certain viewpoints and that means that news organizations tend to have a certain view of the world.

In what could be the best piece of writing on the NPR/Juan Williams affair, Conor Freidersdorf calls a New York Times reporter, and by extension, NPR for not admiting that they have a certain view of the world:

NPR and Fox News are actually similar in some of the ways that Mr. Stetler says they’re different. Both media organizations broadcast a mix of coverage, some of which is labeled news and other coverage it labels opinion. At both places, the line between these two styles of broadcast are a lot muddier than management likes to acknowledge. The business models of both organizations depend on catering to the sensibilities of people with a certain world view. And I am not just talking about ideology when I say that.

Despite identifying as a right-leaning independent with conservative and libertarian sympathies, NPR is much more my style than is Fox News. Sometimes when I listen to the radio network, I’m attune to the ideologically liberal assumptions that inform its coverage. But more than a political ideology, I’d say NPR’s sensibility is informed by a sort of urban cosmopolitanism and a commitment to airing a diversity of viewpoints — a commitment that is certainly executed imperfectly at times, but that is nevertheless noticeable in the coverage that is presented. I also think there are people doing reporting at NPR who try their best to give facts without bias, and believe that’s what their superiors want them to do. There are times when I think NPR coverage doesn’t do justice to conservative insights, but there are other times when I think they’ve done their best to present strong arguments with which a majority of their audience will disagree.

Like Conor, I tend to have some conservative and libertarian leanings, so there are times I notice that NPR doesn't do justice to a story about conservatives. That said, I think they try. But for me, it's pretty obvious that there is NPR has a certain cosmopolitian liberal view of the world. Now, being someone who lives in a cosmo city like Minneapolis, I'm okay with it. I don't always agree, but I'm probably not their general audience.

But one of the reasons that I like NPR is that even though they want to pretend that they have no opinion on matters, they do strive to be inclusive as best they can. That has gotten the network in trouble, with liberal listeners getting steamed, as they did a year ago, when NPR did a story on a speech given by former Vice President Dick Cheney criticizing the President.

On the other side, Fox News doesn't pretend that it's above the fray. They cater to Red America with what many consider an alternative to the "liberal media." In some ways, I like that Fox doesn't try to live in the fantasy land of objectivity, but because it is trying to placate conservatives with red meat, it doesn't do a good job at all at presenting the other side. Liberals are carictures, not real people. Fox basically acts like a very partisan blog that affirms one's views.

At the end of the day, NPR is as much a brand as it is a new source. It has a specific audience that it caters to as much as Fox caters to a specific audience.

What happened this week is that NPR had to own up to its brand after trying to pretend it didn't exist.

Answering a 21st Century Question with a 20th Century Answer

2010-10-12T09:00:00.001-07:00

Walter Russell Mead doesn't buy that the Democrats are going to lose in the midterms because of the economy or just because its the midterms:

Forget the excuses: bad economy, midterm blahs. Franklin Roosevelt inherited a bad economy from his GOP predecessor. And the Depression wasn’t over by the 1934 midterms. Far from it. Unemployment still stood at 21.7%. The Depression still had six years to run...

In 1934 Democrats gained 13 seats in the House and an impressive 9 in the Senate. Today, they are heading for what George W. Bush would call a ‘thumpin.’

Why? Basically, because voters believed that the Democrats had the answers to the country’s problems. Deficit spending, government intervention, support for the labor movement, heavy infrastructure investment: people believed that the only way forward was to have more of these things.

Mead notes that when the Democrats came back into total power in 2009, the tended to think that the answer was simply a repeat of what they did some 70 years earlier: lots of deficit spending. But this time, instead of helping the Democrats, it has lead to their undoing:

What is killing the Democrats this fall isn’t the midterm blues. It isn’t the bad economy. It is something much deeper, and I don’t see it changing anytime soon. The national economy is changing in ways that make traditional Democratic solutions less useful even as change makes traditional Democratic concerns more important. Yes, inequality is rising. Yes, the standard of living of many Americans is no longer rising. Yes, access to vital services — especially, but not only, health care and higher education — is increasingly difficult for many Americans to secure. Yes, the financial system went haywire in the last twenty years, generating enormous amounts of wealth for some without creating lasting value for society as a whole.

All this is very real, and for many Democrats and die-hard liberals it makes the call of the New Deal impossible to resist. That the history of the 1930s was repeating itself was the core conviction of many Democrats as President Obama took the oath of office. The economic crisis was a liberal opportunity not to be missed. Just as the Depression allowed FDR to transform American society and grow the government, so the Great Recession would allow President Obama to reconfigure the role of government in America today.

What Mead is talking about is the "Blue Social Model" something he discussed earlier this year. The Democrats thought that the advent of Obama meant the advent of a new liberal age...which would look like the old liberal age.

But the thing is, the Blue Social Model has been unraveling since the 70s. What once worked, is not working so well now.

Mead thinks that the way forward is a kind of governing libertarianism ( my words); a government that would free the economy to encourage small businesses to flourish, using the marketplace to provide social services like health care and providing an affordable plan to rebuild America's infrastructure.

The problem is that most of these suggestions are an anathema to Democrats because it would mean going against vested interests.

One would think that the Republicans would be the ones that could step into this breach and create a new social model (the Red Social Model?) that would be the blueprint for the 21st century. The problem is at this point the GOP is not interested in coming up with new ideas. Like the Democrats, they are stuck in a past history- in this case the 1980s- thinking that tax cuts all the time should be the answer to all our nation's ills.

While the GOP is on the path to winning back Congress, they will do so without a viable idea on how to tackle our economy. If the public rejected the Dems for wanting a 1930s style solution, they will oust the GOP for their 1980s-style solution. It's time both parties look to the present and come up with ideas for the present, not some glorious past.

Liberaltarians, Safety Nets and the GOP

2010-09-07T21:25:00.000-07:00

While E.D. Kain and I no longer share the same ideological family (though I still think he is one of the best thinkers out there and will continue to read him), we do agree on one thing: the necessity of social safety nets.

I can already hear a few people screaming that this somehow disqualifies me as a true conservative. After all, humans were born to live free away from the grabby hands of government.

Snicker all you want, I do think we need to have a less dominating government, but I also see the importance of safety nets, like Medicaid or unemployment benefits.

I don't say these things because I'm so lover of all things government. I say this because I've experienced times when I've needed these programs. In 1996, I caught the flu which then went to pnuemonia and then to a bad bacterial infection. At the time, I didn't have health care; couldn't afford the insurance offered at the coffee chain I worked for. I ended up in the hospital and because of the efforts of a savvy nurse practitioner, Medicaid was able to pay most of the bill.

In 2005, I was let go from a job. I applied for unemployment insurance. It wasn't a lot, but it sure helped in the weeks I looked for work.

No doubt there are a lot of folks who are conservatives who see these programs as wasteful. And sometimes, they are correct that these programs can be run rather inefficiently. But that said, I've usually called for reform, not for their abolishment.

Which gets me to liberaltarianism. While I have some big problems with it, I do think it at least wants cares about "the least of these" and how best to take care of them. But like I said, I have my doubts about liberaltarianism. Maybe it's still nascent, but it's hard to see where it contrasts with American liberalism. I'm not that interested in making the return trip to liberalism.

That said, I am interested in a more generous conservatism, and I think that can be found in the old tradition of liberal conservatism.

The problem with modern conservatism (and modern libertarianism as well) is this love of a laizze faire past, a place and time free of government meddling. In a recent post, Dave Hart has this to say about that past and about safety nets :

Quite simply, that period's approach to laissez faire capitalism was unsustainable. It was precisely this model that millions of people revolted against, turning to communism or fascism as an escape. Modern day capitalism is softer (although the degree to which it is softer varies across Europe, North America, and Asia). By offsetting the harsh realities of capitalism with a stronger safety net and progressive redistribution, contemporary capitalism has succeeded in neutering many of the harshest criticisms against it.

To a certain extent, bigger governments are the product of greater wealth. Rich societies inevitably demand greater government involvement since, as wealth increases, so do expectations regarding standards of living. For examples, one need only look to capitalist Hong Kong, where welfare benefits far surpass those in communist mainland China. There is absolutely no good reason why wealthy countries should tolerate the levels of depravity suffered by those living in the glory days of laissez-faire.

But this is not a one-sided dynamic. The success of the social safety net is itself contingent upon the success of the capitalist model. It is not possible to continue to raise living standards without economic growth, and economic growth requires a free market. If government growth outpaces the economy, a painful re-adjustment will inevitably follow (viz. modern day United Kingdom).

I think that many of my side of the fence forget that the reason that communism became such a potent force around the world was because of laizze faire. We also forget that the lack of government intervention made life worse for people, not better.

Is this all a suggestion that we should all go and support the president's plan for more and more government? Or that we should leave Social Security alone? No. I think "Obamacare" should be look at again and not made so cumbersome. I think we need to consider some benefit cuts to Social Secruity. But I don't think getting rid of such programs will allow us to enter a libertarian paradise. If we didn't have Social Security, we would have a lot of old people without any resources dying miserable deaths. No food stamps, and we would see a lot of hunger issues. It's one thing to argue for womb to tomb are ala many European societies. It's another to say that we should get rid of basic programs that protect people from the ravages of poverty.

What saddens me these days is that the GOP has lost the drive to support a liberal conservatism that backs reform of government programs, not their abolition. Yes, there are people who still believe in this in the GOP, but their voices are barely heard above the dim of the Tea Party movement.

What is needed is an American version of liberal conservatism, something akin to David Cameron's Conservative party. As Niall Ferguson said in a 2006 article, it's time for the GOP to follow it's brothers and sisters accross the Atlantic towards a more pragmatic ideology.

From Two to Four?

2010-09-02T12:51:00.000-07:00

Via Solomon Kleinsmith, the Washington Post's Charles Lane thinks that there is going to be a crack-up within both major parties between their activist and pragmatic wings:

Insurgent Republicans keep winning: Rick Scott defeated Bill McCollum yesterday in the Florida gubernatorial primary, James Lankford came out on top in Oklahoma's congressional runoff, and Joe Miller is edging out Sen. Lisa Murkowski in Alaska. Clearly, the Tea Party is as much a revolt against the allegedly insufficiently conservative Republican establishment as it is a revolt against Obama.

If the GOP takes the Senate -- admittedly still a big if, but increasingly thinkable -- I wonder how Mitch McConnell plans to control the likes of Miller, Rand Paul, Sharron Angle, Marco Rubio and Pat Toomey. Wouldn't be at all surprised if they fuel a run for majority leader by Jim DeMint.

As the split between right and center-right accelerates within the Republicans, I expect an internal Democratic bloodletting if that party loses Congress, between the left and the center-left. How much longer can these two aging party structures contain the contradictory forces within them?

This post builds off an earlier post where Lane says there has always been four parties patterened after our forebearers from the British Isles:

You might even say that the four parties I'm talking about correspond roughly to the four political cultures first identified by historian David Hackett Fischer in his classic book Albion's Seed. That book traced the main currents in American political ideology to the folkways and notions of liberty imported from four British regions that provided the population of early America.

East Anglia gave us the Puritans of New England, with their emphasis -- "liberal," in today's terms -- on community virtue. The Quakers who settled the Delaware Valley established a society and politics built on problem-solving and compromise. Southern England gave us the Virginia cavaliers, founders of a conservative, aristocratic tradition. And the Scotch-Irish who settled the Appalachian backcountry produced a populist, anti-government, "don't tread on me" mentality.

Now, however, under the Internet-intensified pressure of recession, terrorism and global uncertainty, the four parties are breaking out of the two-party mold that had previously contained them. On the Democratic side, President Obama finds himself torn between progressives demanding an ideologically pure health-care program, among other agenda items, and a pragmatic wing desperately attempting to hold together 60 Senate votes by whatever means necessary. On the Republican side, it's unclear whether the party's right wing is angrier at Obama or at its own leadership. Certainly the fury of the Tea Party and similar groups threatens here and there to overwhelm more conventional conservatives (just ask Charlie Crist in Florida).

So is there going to be a crack up? On the one hand, I'm a little wary of a so-called "centrist caucus" forming, partly because...well, most talk of all things centrist tends to be just that...talk.

But I also think that in this age of the internet, where we tend to associate around like causes and beliefs, mass groups like our two large parties may no longer be relevant in today's world. I think one of the reasons people are looking at the GOP again after booting them out of power in 2006 and 2008 is that the Dems went a bit too far to the left in regards to the stimulus and health care reform. If the GOP makes big gains or even takes Congress in this fall, expect that they will feel the wrath of voters if they focus on investigations of the Obama Adminstration instead of the economy.

I think there is a big group of people in the middle that would like to see things done. Where I tend to disagree with the "centrist caucus" folks is that the center doesn't agree on everything or even how to get things done. While both parties have pragmatists, they are still tied to some ideology.

That said, it would be nice to see both the Dems and the GOP split up. That way we could have a more pragmatic conservative party ala the Conservatives in the UK and a pragmatic liberal party maybe more like the Liberal Democrats in the UK or the Free Democrats in Germany.

I'm all for more competition in the American political spehere.

Introducing Big Tent Revue

2010-08-27T21:02:00.000-07:00

I forget to tell folks that I've started a new group blog called Big Tent Revue. It kinda rises from the ashes of Republicans United, and the goal is not as much to try to change the center-right as much as present an alternative vision and start a discussion on ways the center-right can be reformed.

Notice, I didn't say this was a Republican blog. This is a center-right blog because I want to open up the conversation to folks who might want to be conservative but are put off by the current movement. I also hope to interview some folks and basically have fun blogging.

I will still be blogging here, but please check out BTR to see some other viewpoints. Also if you are interested in co-blogging, please let me know.

Enjoy!

Missing (and Proving) the Point

2010-08-24T12:14:00.000-07:00

David Brooks column today is a good one, but it has already stirred a bit of ire from some libertarians who in some way prove his point. The column is about how we are not as hardy thinkers as we used to be, not allowing for any thought that just might upset our mental applecarts. Here's a taste

The ensuing mental flabbiness is most evident in politics. Many conservatives declare that Barack Obama is a Muslim because it feels so good to say so. Many liberals would never ask themselves why they were so wrong about the surge in Iraq while George Bush was so right. The question is too uncomfortable.

There’s a seller’s market in ideologies that gives people a chance to feel victimized. There’s a rigidity to political debate. Issues like tax cuts and the size of government, which should be shaped by circumstances (often it’s good to cut taxes; sometimes it’s necessary to raise them), are now treated as inflexible tests of tribal purity.

It's a worthwhile read because what Brooks is getting at is that we are less willing these days to really use our brains and think about the beliefs we hold in a critical light. Instead, we want our beliefs to be confrimed, we want to have the feeling that we are always right and that we never have to change a thing.

As if on cue, Matt Welch replies with a snarky post calling Brooks a lover of big government. He takes Brooks quote on the issue of taxes and the size of government, and makes it sound like Brooks is saying that any talk about free markets is bad and any talk of government (as well as higher spending and higher taxes) is good:

So after a decade of hysterical growth of government at all levels, which has left us with a crappy and unimproving economy, unprecedented debt and deficits, and a long-term fiscal outlook too horrifying to contemplate, it is a demonstration of confirmation bias, herd thinking, and inflexible tribal purity to question the continued growth of the state. I sure do hope that David Brooks is good enough to let us know when it's okay to come outside and criticize big government again. Though judging by his track record–whether 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2002, 2004, 2005, 2008, or 2010–it may be a long time coming.

I think this is a rather unfair assessment. Brooks isn't saying that we should never question government spending. Anyone that has read Brooks over the years know that he tends to favor smaller government. But he is saying to both those that favor smaller government and those that favor larger government that they need to step out of their ideological cocoons sometime.

And that is the problem with our political discourse these days. On the conservative-libertarian side, there seems to be only one answer for everything: Government is always too big, it needs to be smaller. Okay, I get that and tend to favor that. But the problem is that it becomes the answer to things people aren't asking. When it comes to things like the economy or housing or economic development, sometimes saying "let the market handle it" is not always sufficient. So how can the government have a role that doesn't make it expand greatly or raise taxes? Now that would mean using your grey matter. But too many people don't actually want to think, lest they be branded as a traitor by their compatriots.

The same goes for liberals who think the government can solve everything and should regulate everything. As E.D. Kain noted a while back, regulation can at times, lead to oligarchies that keep out smaller businesses. Because of government regulation, niche breweries were shut out of the American market for years until President Carter deregulated the industry in the late 70s. But again, we don't want to think outside of the box at times; we don't want to be accused being capitalists.

What Brooks has long advocated, and what I have agreed with, is that government has to be both small and active. It has to be willing to provide some leadership to society issues, even if it is not the one that provides the answer. Small government is great, but it is of no use if it is inefficient and not able to help when people do need it.

It doesn't take much a brain to advocate for ever bigger government or to whack all government programs. It does take thought in how to provide the government services needed and not expand government.

When America is able to get out its ideological cul-de-sacs, the we will become a more functional society again.

Great American Melting Pot

2010-08-21T21:55:00.000-07:00

I'm a child of the 70s.

One of my faves from that time was watching "Schoolhouse Rock" on Saturday mornings. Maybe the one I like the best was the following one about immigrants. It's strange how important this little video is nearly 40 years later.

Yes, Virginia There Are Muslim Republicans

2010-08-19T07:08:00.003-07:00

..and they are taking their fellow Republicans to task for their opposition to the building of the Cordoba House project also known as the so-called Ground Zero mosque.

Hip-Hop Republican shares a note from a number of Islamic Republicans speaking out against the opposition to the building near Ground Zero. Here is a snippet:

While some in our party have recently conceded the constitutional argument, they are now arguing that it is insensitive, intolerant and unacceptable to locate the center at the present location: “Just because they have the right to do so - does not make it the right thing to do” they say. Many of these individuals are objecting to the location as being too close to the Ground Zero site and voicing the understandable pain and anguish of the 9-11 families who lost loved ones in this horrible tragedy. In expressing compassion and understanding for these families, we are asking ourselves the following: if two blocks is too close, is four blocks acceptable? or six blocks? or eight blocks? Does our party believe that one can only practice his/her religion in certain places within defined boundaries and away from the disapproving glances of some citizens? Should our party not be standing up and taking a leadership role- just like President Bush did after 9-11 - by making a clear distinction between Islam, one of the great three monotheistic faiths along with Judaism and Christianity, versus the terrorists who committed the atrocities on 9-11 and who are not only the true enemies of America but of Islam as well? President Bush struck the right balance in expressing sympathy for the families of the 9-11 victims while making it absolutely clear that the acts committed on 9-11 were not in the name of Islam. We are hoping that our party leaders can do the same now - especially at a time when it is greatly needed.

Republican Muhammed Ali Hasan, the founder of Muslims for Bush, is even more to the point, calling those against the project bigots:

I am deeply proud to be an American, with a proud, personal history of denouncing terrorism, including my founding of Muslims For Bush. However, what truly reeks within this debate is not the shadow of bigotry, but rather, the cloak of dishonesty. In the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, where I was born and raised, it is believed that your word -- your honesty -- is everything that makes you a man.

My fellow conservative leaders, please quit lying. If you are against the mosque, then call yourself a bigot and give us the gift of an honest dialogue, the kind we carry on so proudly here in America.

Yes, you will be a bigot -- but at least you will be a man.

Read both articles.

Off-Target

2010-08-17T21:10:00.000-07:00

I have not said much about the Target controversy. For those not in the know, the discount-store chain Target, decided to give $150,000 to an indpendent political committee that supports Republican Tom Emmer for Governor. Emmer tends to be not-so-friendly when it comes to gay issues. Target, which is based in Minneapolis, made the donation because they view Emmer as pro-business, while Mark Dayton the Democratic candidate is not viewed in the same way.

(Irony alert: Dayton's family started the Target chain.)

This has set off a storm of protest from many in the GLBT community who were shocked that Target would do something like this. Target has a reputation of being one of the better employers for gays and has been viewed as incredibly gay-friendly. Many gay folks were shocked that Target would ever dream of doing something like this.

While I was dissapointed, I wasn't surprised. I know that Target executives had supported Republicans at the local and national level for a while and I also know that Target was making a business decision; not a moral one. Emmer's pitch is about trying to shrink government and lower taxes while Dayton is all about taxing the rich. If you are a large business, I can tell pretty much tell you that they are going to go for door number one. Do I think it was a good decision? No. But I also understand why Target did it.

I have to admit that I have mixed feelings about it all; on the one hand, in this post- Citizens United world, where companies can give directly to campaigns, those businesses that give to campaigns are now free to give openly. That said, having the freedom of speech to give to a campaign now means that you are opened up to criticism, which is also a freedom our nation celebrates. If Acme Widgets decides to give money to a campaign that supports clubbing baby seals, Acme should prepare for anger from their customers.

But I also have take some issue with how the gay community is dealing with this issue. As I've said, Target has had a history of being a good friend to the gay community. I think that has to be taken into account in light of this donation. The problem is , many in the gay community have not looked at its past actions and weigh that against the current issue. Groups like the Human Rights Campaign have tended come out against the company with both guns blazing-demanding that Target either give back the donation or give an equal amount to a cause or campaign that supports gay equality. Now, this might have been a worthy request to make. The problem is that it should have been done behind the scenes. Why? Because for the most part, Target has been an ally. It makes sense to handle some of this away from the public and not try to purposely embarrass Target. But many wanted to make an example of Target. I guess in my view, I would have hoped that they would have quietly worked for an apology and maybe a donation to a gay rights group without trying to rake Target over the coals.

The other problem that I have here is that there seems to be a hint of partisanship here. As Stephen Miller notes, I doubt that there would be so much kerfluffle is Emmer was a Democrat:

Of course, if Emmer were a Democrat who opposed gay marriage it's doubtful that HRC would be targeting Target, given that HRC has itself supported the campaigns of candidates such as Virginia's Sen. Jim Webb, a Democrat who favors keeping "don't ask, don't tell," as well as a great many Democrats who oppose gay marriage to varying degrees. Maybe HRC should target itself?

At the end of the day, I think that Target will learn a lesson: not to never give to anti-gay candidates, but to be far more discreet about the donation.

America, the (Kinda) Beautiful

2010-08-17T07:57:00.000-07:00

Indian-born Shikha Dalmia notes that even in the wake of the protests against the so-called "Ground Zero Mosque" America is still a beacon of religious tolerance compared to other nations.

Our Race, Our Selves

2010-08-13T22:21:00.001-07:00

John McWhorter writes what might be the most honest and yet most depressing critique of the state of the black community , like ever.

In a review of a book by Amy Wax, he basically says that African Americans have spent too much time focusing on government programs and the legacy of racism than in trying to solve the problems that are plauging the community, such as poverty.

There is a belief among many African Americans as well as not a few liberals, that it is racism that hold us back. The belief continues that if only America spent more money on the black community through increased government spending, then the problems facing African Americans would be solved. McWhorter provides a living example of how simply more money won't work:

In 1987, a rich philanthropist in Philadelphia “adopted” 112 inner-city sixth-graders, most of them from broken homes. He guaranteed them a fully-funded education through college if the kids would refrain from drugs, unwed parenthood, and crime. He even provided tutors, workshops, after-school programs, summer programs, and counselors when trouble arose. Forty-five of the kids never made it through high school. Thirteen years later, of the sixty-seven boys, nineteen were felons; the forty-five girls had sixty-three total children, and more than half had their babies before the age of eighteen. Crucially, this was not surprising: The reason was culture. These children had been nurtured in communities with different norms than those that reign in Scarsdale.

Of course, no one wants to talk about culture. It's far easier to talk about race than it is about the cultural patterns that keep African Americans down. McWhorter gets right to the point that the best way for blacks to not be poor is not have babies before marriage:

One of the most sobering observations made by Wax comes in the form of a disarmingly simple calculus presented first by Isabel Sawhill and Christopher Jencks. If you finish high school and keep a job without having children before marriage, you will almost certainly not be poor. Period. I have repeatedly felt the air go out of the room upon putting this to black audiences. No one of any political stripe can deny it. It is human truth on view. In 2004, the poverty rate among blacks who followed that formula was less than 6 percent, as opposed to the overall rate of 24.7 percent. Even after hearing the earnest musings about employers who are less interested in people with names like Tomika, no one can gainsay the simple truth of that advice. Crucially, neither bigotry nor even structural racism can explain why an individual does not live up to it.

So, why are African Americans so afraid to talk about culture? Why are we more enamoured with the radical ala Jeremiah Wright?

I think the answers are many, but here are two points.

First, talk of culture seems like blaming the victim and ignoring racial prejudice, which does still occur. Second, culture tends to be associated with conservatives and most African Americans tend think that conservatives either are indifferent or hostile to the interests of blacks. White conservatives have not helped when they talk about culture and family in relation to African Americans, but then don't seem to do anything to help change the situation. The common refrain of conservatives is to talk about the evils of big government, but then do nothing to help with civil society.

So what can change the situation? Well, African Americans are going to have to talk culture more seriously and realize that government can do somethings, but it can't change people's hearts. As Wax notes:

The government cannot make people watch less television, talk to their children, or read more books. It cannot ordain domestic order, harmony, tranquility, stability, or other conditions conducive to academic success and the development of sound character. Nor can it determine how families structure their interactions and routines or how family resources—including time and money—are expended. Large-scale programs are especially ineffective in changing attitudes and values toward learning, work, and marriage.

I can remember my mother making poster boards of numbers and letters so that I would learn both before I entered kindergarten. That's the type of parenting that will help a kid succeed.

Government has to play some role in helping lift people out of poverty. I know some will chafe at that notion, but we do need to have some safety nets to protect people from the ravages of poverty. But to help someone thrive, we need more. Conservativism has always believed that society is made up of institutions: businesses, government, the church, the family. I think what is needed is a revival of black civic culture. Churches and other civic groups need step up and help shape and form individuals to learn how to respect each other and not be making babies when they are no more than babies themselves. Many black churches are already doing this, but there needs to be more. If White conservatives really believe in civil society, then they will put their money where their mouth is
and fund initiatives that will help the black family. If you want to see an example of conservatives trying to use a conservative approach to solve social issues, one might want to at the Big Society initiative from the Conservative Party in the UK.

At the end of the day, though, it is up to African Americans to do deal with our own issues. We have to be willing to want to reduce out-of-wedlock births, and the crushing poverty rate and not dilly-dally. It's time for us to heal ourselves.

Islam-bashing is Cool!

2010-08-12T09:09:00.000-07:00

Andrew Sullivan links to an old article about some of the early signs of Isalmaphobia among conservatives that helps to frame why it's become so fashionable among conservative pols these days to not simply bash Muslim extremists, but the entire faith of a billion people as well.

It wasn't that long ago that then-President Bush tried to separate the extremists within Islam from the rest of its adherents. Bush had his faults, but he did try to present a more tolerant version of conservatism at least when it came to religion. How times have changed. A recent Politico post shows that many of the potential 2012 GOP presidential nominees are already showing their anti-Muslim credentials in speaking out against the so-called "Ground Zero Mosque."

The thing about this, is that when you basically decide to play the game that Muslim extremists want- which is a war of between civilizations, there is basically only one way to settle things: through war. I'm not a pacifist and I'm not anti-military, but I tend to think that you don't want to use the military all the time. Americans are willing to fight for what they believe in, but they aren't willing to engage in endless war.

In someways, what Sullivan says in another post makes some sense:

I think it's time to acknowledge what we are increasingly learning: the base of the GOP - aided and abetted by what's left of their elites - want a religious war abroad and at home not on Jihadism, but on Islam itself. And a vote for the GOP is a vote for this agenda. It is a vote for global warfare and domestic division.

Now, I think that Sullivan is, as usual, being a bit too sweeping in his statement. I don't think all Republicans support this bigoted agenda. But I do think that what is called the base of the GOP is declaring war on Islam and that's bad news for all of us.

That said, it is up to those who are conservative and/or libertarian to speak up against such hatred and denounce politicians who play along. It's the only way to save conservatism and the Republican Party from itself.

Big Love

2010-08-09T22:07:00.000-07:00

It was all Daniel's idea.

My now husband, Daniel was talking about having a wedding from an early point of us dating. For Daniel, a wedding was important. He even said shortly after moving in together that he didn't want to "live in sin." For me, not so much. I supported same sex marriage, but actually having a wedding? Well, I didn't see the need.

Daniel is not the type that one says no to, so I agreed to a wedding. Saying yes, changed a lot of things. For one, it forced me to come out to my dad. I had been out to my mother for years, but not to my Dad. Since I wanted to have them at the wedding, I had to tell him. Dad was somewhat put off by it, but in time learned to accept the fact that his son was getting married...to a guy.

To make a long story short, the wedding was important because it signified something big was happening. For better or for worse, I was stuck with this big Norwegian. And for better or for worse, he was stuck with this odd African American. I know saying "stuck" sounds bad, but I think you know what I mean. On that September day, we made a committment to each other and we basically said that this relationship was not just a passing thing, this was the real deal.

Ross Douthat makes an interesting argument both for and against same sex marriage. While he knocks down several of the arguments against gay marriage, he also tries to argue why gay marriage opponents want to uphold the "traditional" view of marriage. He shows monogamous hetrosexual marriage as the "ideal," something that has been of value to Western culture:

So what are gay marriage’s opponents really defending, if not some universal, biologically inevitable institution? It’s a particular vision of marriage, rooted in a particular tradition, that establishes a particular sexual ideal.

This ideal holds up the commitment to lifelong fidelity and support by two sexually different human beings — a commitment that involves the mutual surrender, arguably, of their reproductive self-interest — as a uniquely admirable kind of relationship. It holds up the domestic life that can be created only by such unions, in which children grow up in intimate contact with both of their biological parents, as a uniquely admirable approach to child-rearing. And recognizing the difficulty of achieving these goals, it surrounds wedlock with a distinctive set of rituals, sanctions and taboos.

The point of this ideal is not that other relationships have no value, or that only nuclear families can rear children successfully. Rather, it’s that lifelong heterosexual monogamy at its best can offer something distinctive and remarkable — a microcosm of civilization, and an organic connection between human generations — that makes it worthy of distinctive recognition and support.

Now, I would agree that in the heterosexual world, having a two parent family- with mother and father both present, is the ideal. One can look at the breakdown of the family in among African Americans and the results of that breakdown to see the need to find ways to shore up American families.

Douthat rightly sees that a new ethic has arisen in the last few decades- one that supplants the older view that Douthat treasures. He notes:

If this newer order completely vanquishes the older marital ideal, then gay marriage will become not only acceptable but morally necessary. The lifelong commitment of a gay couple is more impressive than the serial monogamy of straights. And a culture in which weddings are optional celebrations of romantic love, only tangentially connected to procreation, has no business discriminating against the love of homosexuals.

But if we just accept this shift, we’re giving up on one of the great ideas of Western civilization: the celebration of lifelong heterosexual monogamy as a unique and indispensable estate. That ideal is still worth honoring, and still worth striving to preserve. And preserving it ultimately requires some public acknowledgment that heterosexual unions and gay relationships are different: similar in emotional commitment, but distinct both in their challenges and their potential fruit.

This is kinda where I lose Douthat. I don't think my wedding was just an "optional celebration of romantic love." We patterened the wedding off of what we found in the Book of Common Prayer. We saw this not as an event, but- being two church geeks and committed Christians- as a worship service giving glory and honor to God and also publicly acknowledging our love and care for each other. The rings were not just shiny trikets, but symbols of our covenant to each other and to God.

The second thing that bothers me is this insistence on procreation. Now yes, children are usually the result of a heterosexual marriage. But it seems to me that Douthat is making the case that procreation is the over-riding concern of a marriage with love being a byproduct. The emphasis is to create society instead of a covenant between two persons.

The final problem is the supposed superiority of heterosexual marriage. While I don't think Douthat is intentionally saying this, it feels as if gay people are being told that our committments are only second-best to hetero-relationships.

Andrew Sullivan responds to Douthat with a very passionate defense of same sex marriage. Sullivam begins by saying what I have already said earlier: that marriage between same sex partners is a way of destroying the closet:

And - this is my main point - Ross' argument simply ignores the existence and dignity and lives and testimony of gay people. This is strange because the only reason this question has arisen at all is because the visibility of gay family members has become now so unmissable that it cannot be ignored. Yes, marriage equality was an idea some of us innovated. But it was not an idea plucked out of the sky. It was an attempt AA16 to adapt to an already big social change: the end of the homosexual stigma, the emergence of gay communities of great size and influence and diversity, and collapse of the closet. It came from a pressing need as a society to do something about this, rather than consign gay people to oblivion or marginalization or invisibility. More to the point, it emerged after we saw what can happen when human beings are provided no structure, no ideal, and no support for responsibility and fidelity and love.

And what happens when there are no structures for gays? Well, lets go back in time 30 years to a little thing called AIDS:

If you have total gay freedom and no gay institutions that can channel love and desire into commitment and support, you end up in San Francisco in the 1970s. That way of life - however benignly expressed, however defensible as the pent-up unleashed liberation of a finally free people - helped kill 300,000 young human beings in this country in our lifetime. Ross may think that toll is unimportant, or that it was their fault, but I would argue that a Catholic's indifference to this level of death and suffering and utter refusal to do anything constructive to prevent it happening again, indeed a resort to cruel stigmatization of gay people that helps lead to self-destructive tendencies, is morally evil.

What, in other words, would Ross have gay people do? What incentives would he, a social conservative, put in place to encourage gay couples and support them in their commitments and parenting and love? Notice the massive silence. He is not a homophobe as I can personally attest. But if he cannot offer something for this part of our society except a sad lament that they are forever uniquely excluded, by their nature, from being a "microcosm of civilization", then this is not a serious contribution to the question at hand. It is merely a restatement of abstract dogma - not a contribution to the actual political and social debate we are now having.

We gays are here, Ross, as you well know. We are human beings. We love one another. We are part of countless families in this country, pay taxes, work hard, serve the country in the armed services, and look after our own biological children (and also those abandoned by their biological parents). Our sex drives are not going away, nor our need to be included in our own families, to find healing and growth and integration that alone will get us beyond the gay-straight divide into a more humane world and society.

Douthat is correct that sexual mores are changing. But he is wrong in trying to make gay people pay for the "sins" of those changing mores. Those mores have been changing since the introduction of the pill, the feminist movement and changes in divorce laws and other things. We can mourn those changes (though some won't), but we can't blame gay people for those changes or lash out at them because we could not do anything else. Gay people don't want to enter into marriage on a whim- I sure didn't. We want to be full members of our society. We don't want to destroy marriage, we just want to do what straight people have done for so long because we think it's important. We want to be part of the same institution that you straights have been a part of because we agree that its important.

So, could you stop viewing us gays as scapegoats? Please?

*Daniel and I taking our engagement photos in 2007.

The Decline of the "McCain-Lieberman" Party

2010-08-09T09:58:00.001-07:00

Blogger Tyler Craft revists a 4 year old article by David Brooks about the rise of a "third party" that existed between the two traditional parties. Craft notes that the party really no longer exists:

Earlier today I found myself rereading a column by David Brooks from August 10, 2006 entitled "Party No. 3." In the column, Brooks described the difference between the rising influence of the Democrats, the struggling influence of the Republicans, and how a group in the middle, which he called the McCain-Lieberman Party, was being marginalized. While I believe the roles of the two dominant groups have possibly reversed since that time, what pains me is that the third group seems to have fallen away. No longer is there a significant voice in Washington that does not seem to value party politics above all else. Arguably there are whispers here and there, mostly coming from the two Republican Senators from Maine, occasionally from Sen. Lindsey Graham, but rarely from others.

Read the whole post. It's interesting that since Brooks wrote that piece in 2006, John McCain has steered farther to the right to stay in office, while Liberman has become somewhat of a gadfly that exists soley to bother more liberal Democrats.

Sacred Ground

2010-08-03T21:10:00.000-07:00

“Whatever you may think of the proposed mosque and community center, lost in the heat of the debate has been a basic question: Should government attempt to deny private citizens the right to build a house of worship on private property based on their particular religion? That may happen in other countries, but we should never allow it to happen here."
-Michael Bloomberg, Mayor of New York

Christian tradition tells us that one day, Jesus went into the region of Samaria with his disciples and stopped at a well. His disciples went into a nearby town to get something to eat, but Jesus stayed at the well. Now, Samaria was a region that most Jews liked to avoid. They didn't much care for Samaritans because of their mixed heritage and because they worshipped God a bit differently. But Jesus didn't seem to mind, and so here he was at this well.

After a while around noontime, a woman comes up to the well to draw some water. It was a bit odd for this woman to come to get water in the heat of the day, but here she was. Then, Jesus did something strange: he asked the woman a question. He asked her if she had any water.

The woman was shocked because this man was talking to her. And Jesus kept talking to her and because of this her life was forever changed.

This story, sometimes called the Woman at the Well is one of my favorites stories in all of Scripture. It's a wonderful example of Jesus reaching across the many boundaries of that time to treat this woman with respect. It was nothing short of a miracle for a Jewish man to be talking to a Samaritan woman. Two people, from two different faiths were able to cross what had become a great divide.

The recent controversy surrounding the so-called "Ground Zero mosque" has me wondering if my fellow conservatives are able to reach across a modern religious divide. So far, the results are not encouraging. Leading conservatives such as Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich and Rudy Giuliani have come out against building this place of worship because it is two blocks from Ground Zero, where thousands died on September 11, 2001.

Yes, we know that it was Muslim extremists who somehow thought God would be pleased if they rammed planes into buildings. That said 19 people who had a warped sense of their faith should not be considered the standard bearers for a faith of a billion adherents.

This issue has confirmed something that I have suspected for a long time: that there is a growing problem with religious bigotry within conservatism. I hear many conservatives talk about dealing with "radical Islam" and I tend to think that when those words are uttered it means that all of Islam is radical, not just a small portion.

As conservatives, we love to talk about how we tend to adhere to the Constitution and yet this issue has shown our love for that document to be a lie. If we can't respect the very first amendment which guarantees freedom of religion, then I doubt we will respect the rest.

There has been a lot of talk about sacred ground recently. Ground Zero is definitely such a place. The mosque inside of the Cordoba Initiative is also a sacred space for people to commune with their God. As Christians, we see our churches as sacred spaces as well. But sacred ground can occur whenever we learn to see our sisters and brothers of differing faiths as...well, sisters and brothers. It happens when we learn to live with each other and try to respect our differences.

September 11 happened because there were some that didn't want to live with others different from themselves. I think to not allow this mosque to be built would have basically supported their beliefs to divide people, to disrespect others and treat them as less than humans.

It's time for conservatives to not take the bait. We must be willing to say no to those who want to spread death and division. We must be willing to say yes to creating sacred ground in our communities, to welcome those who might not even worship the same god or worship no god at all.

It's time for us to go into our own Samarias, come to the well and meet whoever is there. We might realize we are standing on sacred ground.

"One Tough Nerd" Wins the GOP nod in Michigan

2010-08-03T20:13:00.000-07:00

In a year when it seems like the Republican party has been taken over by nutjobs that have no interest in reaching out to independents, moderates and Democrats (prime example is the GOP candidate in my adopted state of Minnesota) it is wonderful to see a sensible moderate conservative win the Republican primary for governor in my home state of Michigan.

The Detroit Free Press is report that Rick Snyder, a former Gateway executive has won the primary with 37 percent of the vote. He was able to win against more conservative candidates and was able to appeal to those not firmly in the GOP column:

Snyder, who’s never run for elected office before and has spent nearly $6 million of his own money on his campaign, was banking on Democrats and independent voters to cross over to his side in an effort to upset the GOP establishment, which is largely behind Cox and Hoekstra. Free Press interviews with voters suggest some and perhaps many are doing so...

At Ferndale High School, voter Joan Taylor, 49, of Ferndale said she voted for Democrats most of her life, but this time she went for Republican Snyder. She said she is tired of partisan politics.

“If we are going to be moving forward, I think we need to move forward together,” Taylor said.

Of course, not everyone like Synder because he tends to stray off the path of what some consider "true Republicanism." You can read a post on RedState to see that, as usual, condemns the Republican that can win and lionizes the people that have no chance of winning in the general election.

Synder's win gives me hope that a moderate can still win in the GOP. Congrats, Rick!

What Political Party in the UK Would I Belong To?

2010-08-03T07:08:00.000-07:00

Professor Steven Bainbridge decided to take a survey to find out what political party he would belong to in the United Kingdom. I decided to take the test myself and here's my result:

Which UK Political Party Am I? Your Result: Conservative Conservatives key priorities at this next election include: begin spending cuts in 2010 to eliminate most of the UK’s structural deficit within five years; real terms increases in health spending; allow charities, trusts, voluntary groups and co-operatives to set up new Academy schools, independent of local authority control, and to run other public services; scrap identity card scheme; "recognise" marriage and civil partnerships in the tax system.
Labour
Liberal Democrat
Green Party
United Kingdom Independence Party
British National Party
Which UK Political Party Am I? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

Anne Rice and Christianity

2010-08-02T14:13:00.000-07:00

Below is a post I wrote for my other blog on Anne Rice's recent break with Christianity.Anne Rice and Christianity

Where There Is No Vision...

2010-08-01T22:38:00.000-07:00

Reading former Reagan Budget Director David Stockman's takedown of the last 40 years of GOP fiscal policy left me with two thoughts: the first one being that he is for the most part, correct in his analysis. The second thought was if Stockman had a better idea.

If you want to get lots of attention these days, all you have to do is be a disgruntled Republican and write a scathing op-ed or blog post about how your party has gone off the rails. Stockman is the latest, but Andrew Sullivan and Bruce Bartlett also do it all the time, write pieces that talk about how stupid the GOP has become and how angry they are at what was once their political home.

There is a lot to be said about calling a spade a spade. There truly is a lot wrong with the GOP and with conservatism in America in general. I'm not saying that there shouldn't be any talk of what is wrong with conservatism; I would just like to hear more of what can be an alternative vision.

I agree with Stockman, Bartlett and Sullivan that current conservative fiscal policy is a joke. But what is an acutal conservative alternative? What are alternative conservative solutions to health care reform, or climate change, or the war in Afghanistan or how to deal with entitlements? It's easy to complain about what's wrong, but not so easy to say how to set it right.

What I long for are people who are willing to provide solutions and not simply sink into cynicism. I'd like to hear the Stockmans of the world come up with an alternate vision that might even challenge the prevailing wisdom.

What I'd love to hear at the end of the day is hope, not sunny optimism, but hope- a hope that conservatives can and should provide real solutions to our nation's problems and not simply wallow in despair.

Thoughts from A Freeway Lover

2010-07-28T22:02:00.000-07:00

Ever since I was a little kid, I've been fascinated with transportation. Airports, train stations, subway platforms, you name it, I've had a fascination with it.

(This is probably in keeping with my having Aspergers: a lot of people with high-functioning autism tend to be really interested in transport.)

Of all the modes of transportation, the one that held my interest the most was the freeway. Maybe it was growing up the son of autoworkers, but I've always had an interest in the Interstate Highway System. I remember sitting with a Rand McNally map of the United States and just spending time looking at all the routes of the various interstates throughout the country. I would even draw imaginary places that had freeways criss-crossing the area and going to other cities nearby.

I still go to websites to find out things about a certain roadway (such as, Interstate 94 is the longest highway whose number doesn't end in 5 or 0).

I know that many people prefer the classic two lane highway, but they never held the same appeal that that a freeway held for me.

Over time, I've learned that most people don't share the same interest I have in freeways. Where I see order, symmetry and efficiency, others see blight and devastation.

Blogger Tim Lee wrote a post last week about his belief that freeways killed St. Louis. Erik Kain chimed in with a related post sharing his visceral dislike of freeways.

I have mixed feelings on both essays. Freeways have done great harm to many urban areas. For example, when Interstate 94 was being built through St. Paul,MN it was went right through the Rondo neighborhood, which was predominantly African American. It pushed these people out of their homes and left deep wounds in the St. Paul's black community. So, yes, freeways can be detrimental to cities.

But I do they lead to the decline of great cities as both Lee and Kain suggest? I'm not so certain. I could look at my home state of Michigan and look at a city like Detroit. Did Interstate 75 destroy the city? Maybe, but so did the fortunes of the auto industry.

I don't think St. Louis declined simply because they decided to build I-70 through the city. Did a changing economy also have a role as well?

Let's look again at the Twin Cities. Even though we have freeways that go into both urban cores, both cities are rather vital places. While the building of interstates did do damage in specific neighborhoods, they didn't necessarily destroy St. Paul or Minneapolis.

I do think that it would have been better if Interstates had been designed to go around cities instead of through them, but what is done has been done. Yes, there are efforts to remove freeways from some cities and maybe that's a good idea. But I don't know if that alone is going to be the answer to help declining cities. Getting rid of Interstate 475 in my hometown is not going to restore Flint to its former glory.

On the other side, there are costs to not having freeways in the urban core. Washington, DC stopped efforts to have the nation's capital laced with freeways. I think that was probably a good idea, but the result was putting all the traffic on surface streets which, at least when I lived there in the early-90s, was clogged with traffic.

Erik Kain also make a quip about how Phoenix would never be a "great city" because of its freeways. But what makes a great city? Does every city have to be like New York to be come great? If Phoenix isn't a great city, then why have so many people moved there? What if someone has their own idea of what makes a great city?

I will still love freeways, even with their problems. I also admit they have problems and believe there should be some solutions. But Cities live and die for a lot of reasons, not just because someone decided to ram a freeway through.

The Palin Effect

2010-07-27T11:04:00.000-07:00

I've been saying while Sarah Palin might play well in Republican circles, when it comes to the general public, there isn't much love for her and that will show up come November.

Well, it seems we have one example of how toxic Palin is to GOP candidates. The leading GOP candidate for a Senate seat in New Hampshire is Kelly Ayotte, who had a good following with moderates. She recieved and endorsement from Palin and saw her standing among moderates evaporate:

Kelly Ayotte's seen her appeal to moderate voters crumble in the wake of her endorsement by Sarah Palin and her lead over Paul Hodes has shrunk to its lowest level of any public polling in 2010- she has a 45-42 advantage over him, down from 47-40 in an April PPP poll.

There's not much doubt that the shift in the race is all about Ayotte. Hodes' favorability numbers have seen little change over the last three months. Where 32% of voters saw him positively and 39% negatively in April, now 35% have a favorable opinion of him to 40% with an unfavorable one. But Ayotte's seen a dramatic decline. Her favorability spread of 34/24 in April was the best we've measured for any Republican Senate candidate so far this year but her negatives have risen 15 points since that time while her positives have increased only 2 and she now stands at 36/39...

The Palin endorsement may well be playing a role in this. 51% of voters in the state say they're less likely to back a Palin endorsed candidate to only 26% who say that support would make them more inclined to vote for someone. Among moderates that widens to 65% who say a Palin endorsement would turn them off to 14% who it would make more supportive.

It will be interesting to see what will happen in the coming weeks and months when Palin-endorsed candidates will have to face the wider public and not simply the adoring fans of the GOP base. Something tells me my hunches about how Palin will shrink the party instead of grow it will turn out to be correct.

Can Conservatism Be Reformed, Continued

2010-07-25T12:05:00.000-07:00

A Reader responds:

I have faith in our political system that eventually the GOP or some other conservative party will be that reformed conservatism that you and I are looking for.

I always felt that 2008 wasn't enough to get rid of all the bad influences and extreme talking points on the right. I had hoped that it would reform but didn't think it would.

No(w) I feel that politics is cyclical, it will take a couple Mondale like thrashing(s) and wandering into the wilderness for sane conservatism to come back. Maybe like liberals will we come out with a new name, maybe ironically classical liberals (or just plain libertarians).

But whatever it is, I just can't see this country staying as it is, demographics and even ideologically the data says it won't. And no I don't believe in a permanent majority of any party. Eventually things change.

But that change might not be for decades and frankly that sucks for you and I.

All you can do is try to speak your views and vote for whoever you feel best represents them.

I think he has a point. At this point, the GOP losses in 2006 and 2008 were only seen as mere bumps in the road, instead of signs for reform. With the economy the way it is and with Obama presently in the doldrums, it seems like a chance for the Republicans and conservatism to strike back with no changes in their agenda.

In some way, I think the GOP is repeating the some of the same mistakes the Democrats made 30 years ago. After losing big time in 1980, the Democrats gained some seats in 1982- a year when the economy was still in the dumps and President Reagan was losing some of his popularity. These signs made them think that nothing had to be changed and former Vice President Mondale became the Democratic nominee in 1984. Mondale went on to be crushed by Reagan in November of that year, winning only 10 electoral votes.

In someways, it feels like history is repeating itself. I can see the Republicans gaining seats in November and feeling overconfident. Believe that nothing need be changed, I can see the GOP nominating someone like Sarah Palin and then going down to a devasting defeat.

Of course, history doesn't repeat as much as it rhymes. Things might change between now and 2012. But I do know that American Conservatism won't change until it enters the wilderness and ends the denial that it is currently in.

The Republican Agenda: Subpoena Everybody

2010-07-23T07:20:00.000-07:00

For those of us that crave a real Republican agenda, one that deals with issues like, you know the economy, expect to be sadly dissapointed if the GOP takes the House come November. Congresswoman Michelle Bachman said recently that a Republican house would basically issue subpoenas and hold endless hearings:

“Oh, I think that’s all we should do,” Bachmann said. “I think that all we should do is issue subpoenas and have one hearing after another. And expose all the nonsense that is going on. And it’s very important when we come back that we have constitutional conservative leadership because the American people’s patience is about this big.”

On the one hand, I can't believe she is saying this. On the other hand, I've observed her long enough to know that she would say something this stupid.

Listen, I'm not a big fan of Obama, and I have some issues with the health care plan and some other legislation. But I really don't think it's necessary or wanted to hold basically hold a witch hunt at the people's expense while the economy is still perilously weak.

Ugh.

Can American Conservatism Be Reformed?

2010-07-21T12:20:00.000-07:00

I've been reading the ongoing debate about where Libertarians belong with some interest. Folks like Brink Lindsey are aruging that the conservative-libertarian alliance must end, and that libertarians must make their own way. Bloggers like Tim Lee and Mark Thompson go even further, arguing for a left-libertarian alliance (the liberaltarian arugment that Lindsey was a part of until recently). The argument for leaving conservatives behind is the same in both camps: conservatism in America is made up of those who might talk a good game about freedom, but in reality are not interested in freedom when it comes to civil liberties or acceptance of various minorities. This is what Tim Lee says:

Conservatives care about “protecting individual liberty” for some people, but the conservative movement includes many people who are indifferent, if not hostile, to the liberty of foreigners, immigrants, drug users, gays and lesbians, women who want abortions, broadcasters, sex workers, criminal defendants, Muslims, publishers of pornography, atheists, and so forth. It’s true, of course, that you can compile a similar list (gun owners, business owners, etc) on the progressive side. But I see no reason to think the progressive list is longer, or that the people on that list are somehow more important, than the people on the conservative list.

This belief is shared not just by some libertarians, but conservatives and Republicans as well. More than once I've seen people come to the fore with the sunny hopes of presenting a more inclusive vision of conservatism and the GOP, only to give up months later when they encouter some of the darker sides of the American right.

This all leads me to wonder: can American conservatism every be reformed?

There really isn't a strong movement in the United States that is committed to a more moderate version of conservatism. There are a few groups, but there is not strong reformist presence within what makes up the American Right in the same way that there is in the United Kingdom. Across the pond, the Tory Reform Group has been around for 35 years representing a more moderate brand of conservatism and they can be credited for helping get the Conservative Party back in power.

But the impulse here in the States among those on the Right who are disatisfied with the state of things, is to simply walk away. Whether its Brink Lindsey now touting a "libertarian centrism" or Tim Lee flirting with the Left, the usual result of frustrated folks on the right is not to change things, but to leave and look for greener pastures.

Why is that? Why is there no impulse to change the Right?

I think I have a few reasons.

The first is the word "conservative." When someone uses that word it is almost always about the more negative aspects of human nature. If a community or person has issues with same-sex marriage we tend to say that they are "conservative." Conversely, the word "liberal" tends to have more positive connotations. All the philosphical meanings of conservatism that came from people like Edmund Burke or Russel Kirk are never thought of in common parlance. If being a conservative means being anti-gay or suspicious of immigrants, well, who would want to be a part of that, let alone try to reform it?

Related to that, is how we see conservatism. If conservatism is made up of bigots, whom we believe can't change, then why bother trying to reform anything?

Finally, I think there has been so little impulse for a renewed conservatism, because there has not been a keen vision of what a renewed conservatism would look like. While there has been some attempt to start this project,
for the most part there really has not been any strong desire to frame a new conservatism for the 21st century. There's a lot of talk about what conservatism was like in the 1980s under Reagan, or about the moderate Republicanism of the 1950s through 70s, but very few have said this is what conservatism should look like today.

If you are someone under say, 40 years old who believes in limited goverment, but sees a conservatism that is filled with bigots and with no one really crafting a more positive vision, then you would probably want to ignore the conservatives and leave them to their fate.

For me, the question is not can American conservatism reform, but should it reform and I believe wholeheartedly that it should. The reason I believe it has to reform has to do with the fact that unless something radical happens, we live in a two-party system. While many folks have left the conservative movement, there are still a fair number that remain and they are more radical than ever. It is less thoughtful and deeply suspicious of anyone that doesn't think or see things in the way they do. It is a movement that is built more on resentment than on the sunny conservatism that Ronald Reagan once espoused. On paper, a party like this should be on the margins, but because of our two party system, they are the alternative to Obama and the liberals. As the alternative, it means they have a greater shot at winning. As Jeffrey Goldberg has noted in his blog posts on Sarah Palin and the New York mosque controversy, a simple-minded conservatism is dangerous to the health of our democracy.

From the Better Late Than Never Dept.

2010-07-19T20:35:00.000-07:00

In March of this year, anti-gay state Senator Roy Ashburn got caught driving drunk after leaving a gay bar in Sacremento. Since then, it appears he has finally come out of the closet and offers a mea culpa:

I should begin with an apology. I am sincerely sorry for the votes I cast and the actions I took that harmed lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. Just as important to me, I am sorry for not stepping forward and speaking up as an elected official on behalf of equal treatment for all people. For nearly 26 years, the voters in my area of California trusted me as their elected representative. I look back now knowing there is so much more I could have done to inform the public about LGBT people and to fight for equal rights under the law. Regrettably and selfishly, I took another path in my life and political career—I chose to conceal who I truly am and to then actually vote against the best interests of people like me. All this was done because I was afraid–terrified, really–that somehow I would be revealed as gay...

Gay people being treated with respect and having the same opportunities for a good life regardless of sexual orientation should not be topics of political debate. How can it possibly be that there is a partisan political divide over equal rights in America? At a time when our country is deeply divided over the proper size and scope of government, when people are hurting in a bad economy and when we face real threats from terrorists determined to end our way of life, shouldn’t we be united on at least one principal–that equality for all Americans is fundamental to who we are as a nation of freedom-loving people?

Now, I am somewhat of a novelty in politics. I am a gay Republican. I have always been a Republican, even as an eight-year-old boy with an intense interest in campaigning, elections and government. To me, Republican principles hold that each individual is special and unique; each individual should have the maximum freedom and opportunity under our Constitution; that government has no business in the private lives of our citizens.

It would have been nice had never took part in ways to hurt the gay community, but at least he is admiting his wrong and trying to start anew. It's good to have another strong Republican advocate for equality.

The Passion of Charlie Crist

2010-07-19T11:18:00.000-07:00

Newsweek has a glowing article about Florida Governor Charlie Crist, who is leading the field in the race for a Senate seat even though he bolted the GOP and is running as an independent. Crist is lifted up as a model for centrism in an age of extremism, especially right-wing extremism.

Now I do think that Crist's lead in the Senate race over GOP challenger Marc Rubio, highlights something I've said for a while: that while the Tea Party might play well in Republicanland, it will not do as well among the general public. Rubio is too far to the right to be acceptable in such a purple state as Florida, the GOP should have got behind a centrist candidate.

That said, I don't think Charlie Crist is a great model for centrism. As I've said before, Crist is basically an opportunist who makes decisions based on the political winds of the moment. I've faulted the GOP for basically putting people in ideological straightjackets and I stand by what I've said in the past. But having no principles is no better than clinging to principles too tightly.

Liberals like E.J. Dionne and the writers at Newsweek are giddy at Crist's centrism, but that's because he is spuring the GOP and he is agreeing with them on various issues like offshore oil drilling. What happens if he wins and then changes his positions (again) when the political winds shift right? Something tells me that all the accolades from the Left would stop.

I just think centrism or moderate politicians have to be about more than just being rank opportunism. If that is what being a moderate is all about, then no thanks.

Race and the Tea Parties

2010-07-18T21:06:00.000-07:00

Matt Bai's column today about race and the Tea Party movement seem to answer two issues that have been making the news as of late.

The first is of course, the latest round in the "Is the Tea Party racist?" meme. The answer to that question is not a simple yes/no answer. While I think there are racists that have shown up at Tea Party rallies and while I don't think the Tea Parties are helpful to the Republican Party, I tend to think that on the whole the Tea Party is not racist.

That said, I don't always get the impression that the Tea Partiers or the wider conservative movement goes out of its way to actively welcome minorities. So, no, the Tea Party is some modern incarnation of the Klan, but it isn't Sesame Street either.

Of course, I'm also a 40 year-old African American that's never really dealt with the racist animosity that my father dealt with. I have a feeling that if you asked my 80 year-old Dad, he would probably say that this movement is racist.

And that's what Bai is getting at in his article today. The recent spat between the NAACP and the Tea Party might seem on the surface to be about race, but it what's really going on is an argument between two aging groups, with younger generations sitting on the sidelines.

This is how Bai describes the make up of the Tea Parties:

...the insidious presence of racism within some quarters of the movement — or, maybe more accurately in some cases, an utter indifference toward racial sensitivities — shouldn’t really surprise anyone. That’s not necessarily because a subset of these antigovernment ideologues are racist, per se, but in part because they are just plain old — at least relatively speaking. According to a survey by the Pew Research Center in June, 34 percent of Americans between the ages of 50 and 64 — and 29 percent of voters 65 and older — say they agree with the movement’s philosophy; among Americans 49 and younger, that percentage drops precipitously. A New York Times/CBS News poll in April found that fully three-quarters of self-identified Tea Party advocates were older than 45, and 29 percent were older than 64.

This does not mean that there aren’t hateful 25-year-olds coming to Tea Party rallies and letting fly racial slurs. What it does mean is that a sizable percentage of the Tea Party types were born into a segregated America, many of them in the South or in the new working-class suburbs of the North, and lived through the marches and riots that punctuated the cultural and political upheaval of the 1960s. Their racial attitudes, like their philosophies of governance, reflect their complicated journeys. (This is true for a lot of older, urban Democrats, too, who consider themselves liberal but whose racial commentary causes their grandchildren to recoil.)

And the NAACP is also showing its age:

White Americans of that generation are not the only ones whose longstanding views on race seem increasingly dated. The N.A.A.C.P. has over the years lost its currency among younger, more educated African-Americans, whose sense of opportunity is such that they are less convinced of their need for a traditional civil rights organization (let alone one with the word “colored” in its title). A lot of older civil rights leaders and black politicians have been frustrated with President Obama for not advancing a specific agenda for his fellow black Americans, a grievance that seems not to bother many younger African-Americans, for whom the civil rights movement is a chapter in a history text, rather than a searing memory.

Bai's article brings up a lot of thoughts about how this plays into the future of the GOP. The Tea Party and the GOP tend to overlap in members and both tend to be both white and old. While these older folks have excited the GOP and might give them a good shot at taking Congress in the fall, one has to wonder how sustainable this all can be as younger generations come to the fore. While neither the Tea Party nor the GOP is inherently racist, there has been a whole lot of indifference towards minorities (and when it comes to immigration some hostility). That's been a turnoff for minorities, but it is also a big turn off for younger whites who have grown up with diversity as a norm. I've seen a lot of young white folks, especially under the age of 30, who might be fiscally more conservative, shun the GOP because of its standoffish approach when it comes to diversity.

The GOP has a problem in the long run. While it might enjoy the energy of the Tea Party now, these aging men and women can't help the Republicans down the road. Conservatives are going to have to find ways to actively welcome minorities and the young. That will also mean creating policies that will help minority communities.

Will the GOP realize this in time?

As I said earlier, this article answer two questions. More on the second one later.

Standing Up for TARP

2010-07-14T11:21:00.000-07:00

Call me old fashioned, but I expect politicians to make hard decisions. It doesn't matter if I voted for them or not, I tend to think that Senators, Representatives, Governors and Presidents are elected with the implict trust of the people that they will do their level best to govern. Sometimes that means doing things I might disagree with, but I tend to understand that they were called on to make the hard decisions and that's what they did.

I see the vote for the Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP) as one of those hard votes. A lot of people found it rather disgusting that we had to save the very people who helped bring the economy down, but it was either that or see the economy implode. It's a vote that I can imagine many a lawmaker had to hold their nose and vote for, but I trust that they did the right thing.

The sad thing is that Republicans who voted for TARP are catching heat from Tea Party folks for their vote. As Jeb Gonklin notes, the recent losses by Bob Bennett and Bob Iglis were because of their support for TARP.

So, what would those opposed to TARP would have done? The thing is, they have never given an answer. At least nothing more than doing nothing.

Of course, the Federal Reserve chose to do nothing when Lehman Brothers collasped and many (including myself) thought it was a good idea. We had to let Wall Street know that Washington would not always come to their rescue. Then, a few days later, the markets went into free fall. The idea of letting the market handle it was not working.

None of this seems to matter to some people. Even though the perferred "let the markets handle it" was failing big time, many in the Tea Party still think their approach was the right one.

Again, I expect lawmakers to make the hard decisions. That's what leadership is all about. Leadership is about making those decisions and not simply pleasing the rabid base. We need people who are not simply bound to their ideology, but are able to govern with their brains and in the interest of all the people. A lawmaker that never makes hard decisions and only follows the party line, is not leadership. As Gonklin notes, its high time Republicans in tight primary battles to go on the offensive and not only defend their vote on TARP but challenge their opponents to explain what they would have done. If the opponent says the market would handle it, then they shouldn't have the priviledge of serving in Congress.

"Bullworth" Republicans, Revistied

2010-07-11T20:57:00.000-07:00

Remember when I said that Republicans rarely speak the truth until after they are out of office? Well, a good friend reminded me of Lindsey Graham's interview recently in the New York Times where the South Carolina Senator does speak rather freely. My bad.

The "Bullworth" Republicans

2010-07-10T21:25:00.000-07:00

In the space of 24 hours, two stories have come out about two Republican lawmakers who lost their chances for re-election. The first is from Congressman Bob Inglis who had some choice words for "demogogues" like Sarah Palin. The outgoing Utah Senator Bob Bennett said that incumbent Democrat Harry Reid will probably win in the Nevada Senate race over Republican/Tea Party challenger Sharon Angle.

All of this truth-telling by Republicans having to look for new jobs has some people wondering why they never said anything while in office. This is what one person said responding to a blog post at the Moderate Republican:

So, Bob Inglis finally joined Bob Bennett and Dede Scozzafava in going "full Bulworth." I'm conflicted...

While he expresses opinions that are clearly shared by a significant portion of what remains of moderate Republicanism, I have to stop short of calling him "brave" for stating them.

Brave will be a politician that lets us in on what they're really thinking while they're STILL in office, not after they've left, or as a lame duck. When that starts happening, we may get somewhere.

There is a bit of truth here. It's pretty common for Republican politicians to spill the beans only after they are out office. The become "Bullworth" Republicans, named after the 1998 movie about a senator that has a nervous breakdown and starts telling the truth. But they tell the truth from a place of safety.

I'm a little wary of judging these politicians too harshly. I don't think it's very easy these days to be a Republican legislator that, well...wants to legislate. I tend to think there is a climate of fear among these politicians, and they know that if they do anything that upsets the base, they will get a challenger come election time.

On the other hand, what have they got to lose? Yes, they could lose their office, but that's politics.

At some point, a Republican in office is going have to say "enough." They are going to have to stop living in fear and having to say the stupidest things just to keep the Tea Partiers at bay. They might go down in defeat, but if one GOP office holder speaks up and then another, and then another...well, we might have a revolution on our hands.

I commend Inglis and Bennett for saying what they said, but give me some legislator that says this while in office.

The July Pause

2010-07-09T21:16:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the lack of posts lately. I work for the local governing body of the Presbyterian Church (USA) and have been busy with the General Assembly which has been meeting here in Minneapolis all week. Expect more posts soon.

Gary Johnson 2012?

2010-06-30T21:56:00.000-07:00

I remember hearing about former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson about a decade ago and I found him refreshing. He was an iconoclastic Republican that could appeal to folks who would never pull the lever for a Republican. There are several libertarians and heterodox conservatives who are talking up Johnson as a potential 2012 Presidential candidate.

I was initially wary of such a campaign, especially because of his ties to libertarian superstar Ron Paul. But the more I learn about him, the more I think he might be a good dark horse candidate for the GOP in two years.

Why? Because while I don't like some of things Ron Paul stands for, he is willing to "make his own kind of music," something that is becoming increasingly hard to do in the modern Republican Party. I think Johnson could blaze his own trail even more so and also present a more mainstream face to libertarianism. A Johnson candidacy might also bring new people into the GOP, something - for good or for ill - that did happen after Paul's 2008 campaign. He would be a candidate that would be serious about curbing and controlling public spending and maybe create a smaller but active federal government. He would also present a more socially liberal Republicanism, one that is pro-gay. In short, a Johnson campaign could be as transformative to the GOP as Reagan was back in the late 70s and early 80s.

Now, I could be reading too much into this. But I tend to think that a Johnson run may be the best thing that happens to the GOP.

The Texas GOP Non-Story

2010-06-25T21:44:00.000-07:00

Earlier this week, news came out about some anti-gay planks in the Texas GOP platform. I know that it was all over Facebook and several gay news publications. It was another sign of how bad things are getting in the GOP.

There was just one problem: it wasn't a new story.

As the Dallas Voice writes, these planks have been in the Texas GOP Platform for years and groups like Log Cabin Republicans have worked to get rid of them.

This story has been all over the blogosphere this weekend, after the Texas GOP released its 2010 platform, which was finalized during its state convention two weeks ago in Dallas. Among other things, the platform calls for again making sodomy a crime and for making it a felony to issue a same-sex marriage license. The anti-gay language in the platform has prompted headlines on some blogs comparing Texas to the African nation of Uganda, which sought to impose the death penalty for homosexuality.
But the story is hardly new. This anti-gay language has been in the Texas Republican Party platform for years, and it was unchanged during this year’s convention. We’ve reported extensively on Log Cabin Republicans’ efforts to get the anti-gay language removed, and two years ago, The Dallas Morning News even picked up the story.

In another post, John Wright of the Dallas Voice includes a statement from Rob Schlein, President of the Dallas Chapter of Log Cabin Republicans:

We just noticed that Rob Schlein, president of Log Cabin Republicans of Dallas, has posted a response to the story about the GOP platform on his Facebook page. Schlein’s group has fought, to no avail, to have the anti-gay language removed from the platform in recent years. Here’s what he said:
“This is an article that’s gaining a lot of traction on the internet. I have had a lot of requests asking about it. Although much is not really ‘new’ because it existed in prior platforms, it is being used again as a tool to damage Republican politicians. To my R friends: we need to reform this next time as Democrat activists are using it against us! To my D friends, these planks were put in place by a tiny minority of grassroots activists (among the religious right) and does NOT represent the overall views of the rank and file politician or voter who identifies themselves as Republican. Many politicians claim either to not having read the platform, or will bluntly say they disagree with these planks.”

So, why did something that had been part of the platform for years become a story all over again? Wright blames the herd-like mentality of the media and the blogosphere, but I think there is something else going on: laziness.

This is what we expect from Republicans. We expect Republicans to be hostile to gays, so we just assume that some story about planks in the Texas GOP platform just have to be page one news, even when it happened long ago.

But I think in our laziness, we miss out on the other stories that are going on: we miss out on groups like Log Cabin Republicans that are working to change the platform and have been doing that for years. We miss the Republican Liberty Caucus issuing a statement calling on the state GOP to deal with the anti-gay planks. Heck we miss out on the fact that there are pro-gay Republicans.

Instead, we focus on an old story because, Republicans are all anti-gay bigots.

I'm not saying that we minimize the anti-gay bigotry that does occur in the GOP. But bloggers and reporters alike need to be more intellectually curious and understand that the Republican party is far more complex than they tend to assume.

That, and they need to do some damn fact-checking.

On Dave Weigel

2010-06-25T15:13:00.000-07:00

For some reason, the whole dustup over now former Washington Post blogger Dave Weigel's rants on contemporpary conservatism to a liberal email list has been intriguing. I've been of various minds on this issue. First off, I have to agree with Ross Douthat that it seems rather unconscionable for someone to share what were considered private emails to the public. Just because it's on the Internet doesn't mean it's always available for everyone to see.

That said, there is another aspect of this whole issue that has bothered me. It can be summed up in something Andrew Sullivan said regarding Weigel's departure:

A sad day for journalism. Ben Smith claims Dave is a liberal. Not from where I sit. He's a sane libertarian, which means he understood just how completely nuts the conservative movement and Republican party now are.

Weigel more often than not, focused on the more crazier parts of the conservative movement and the Republican party. Of course, they are the more "interesting" parts of the today's GOP, but Weigel seemed to be guilty of something many journalists have done: focus exclusively on a small segment of the party.

Jim Geraghty at National Review says this about Weigel:

From where I sit, he spends too much time writing about fringe figures and trends that are largely irrelevant to national politics (Orly Taitz, Birthers, etc.), but perhaps that’s his genuine fascination and/or what his employers wanted. Righties suspected Dave wanted to spotlight the freakiest and least appealing self-proclaimed “conservatives”; I suspect that at least part of Dave’s mentality was simply, “You have got to hear what this lunatic is saying.”

But Weigel is not alone in this. Many pundits, including Sullivan, tend to focus almost exclusively on the crazies, and ignore anyone that presents a sane view- unless said politician or pundit is being pilloried by the far right.

Back in late May, Mike at the Big Stick wrote about how the wider society wanted to view conservatives. He wrote:

I’ve sparred with my friend Ames over at Submitted to a Candid World for a long time about the tone of voices from both sides. He usually prefers to link to articles at RedState or Fox News clips rather than any kind of reasoned or intelligent conservatives. This is of course by design because Ames is, if nothing else, a loyal soldier for the DNC. He is smart enough to know that if he persuades people that RedState and Glen Beck are the norm for the Right and the sum of all intelligent thought it advances the liberal cause i.e. election wins. He also knows that links to RedState generate the most traffic.
Whenever I’ve pointed out his affinity for bottom-of-the-barrel conservatives his counter-argument is that until the more intelligent conservatives have the audience of Fox News, they are irrelevant. Of course this is a catch-22 scenario because they can only get that kind of audience if smart people listen to them and recommend them to others. The problem is that there’s too much risk involved in that approach. While eventually liberals like Ames might be convinced to entertain well-reasoned conservative positions, the danger is that they might just be persuaded.

Of course, conservativism and the GOP have its share of crazies and they have seemingly grown over the last few years. Contrary to what Sully thinks the Republicans have had to deal with craziness for a long time. But I think that as long as writers like Weigel only focus on the Sarah Palins of the world and miss out on the reform minded folks like Republicans for Environmental Protection, the road to reform within the GOP and wider conservative movement will be damaged.

The Republican Party and conservatism are much more than the Tea Party.

Will Sarah Palin Play in Peoria?

2010-06-24T21:47:00.000-07:00

If you listen to some in the media, Sarah Palin has become a kingmaker in the GOP. And she has become a kingmaker, in the GOP. Outside the GOP? Well, that's another story.

I tend to think that the true test of Palin's power will come in November. If I were a betting man, I would say that we will see that Palin is not all that and a bag of chips in the real world.

Greg Sargent sums it up in his post that says it all: Sarah Palin is Toxic.

Commentators keep telling us how influential Sarah Palin's endorsements are, and even if the whole "mama grizzly" meme is clearly overstated, there's no quibbling with the fact that Palin has pull among GOP primary voters.
But the more interesting point to be made about Palin is how toxic she's become among the broader electorate. In fact, buried in the internals of the new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll is an amusing number: A majority see a Palin endorsement as a clear negative.
The poll asked people how they'd respond if a Congressional candidate had various hypothetical attributes. Asked how they'd feel if a candidate were "endorsed by Sarah Palin," the response was....
Enthusiastic about this attribute 8
Comfortable with this attribute 17
Have some reservations about this attribute 15
Very uncomfortable with this attribute 37
So a majority, 52%, reacted negatively. And an astonishing 37 percent would be "very uncomfortable" about a Palin endorsement, more than four times the eight percent who would be "enthusiastic" about it.

I can pretty much tell you that getting an endorsement from Sarah Palin doesn't necessarily want to make vote for said candidate.

I know that Sargent is a liberal blogger, but facts are facts. Palin is not admired outside of Republicanland. Come November, I think Republicans will find out that the former Alaskan governor has not been a help to us at all.

The Coming Republican Minority

2010-06-23T21:17:00.000-07:00

With all the talk about how Obama is not doing well and that the Democrats are expected to lose seats in November, it's not surprising that there are a lot of Republicans thinking that everything is coming up roses for them. All the talk of a decades-long Democratic majority has dried up and the GOP seems energized by the growing Tea Party movement. The recent wins by Nikki Haley and Tim Scott also show a party that at least seems more acceptable to women and minorities.

But while I believe that the Democrats will lose seats in Congress in the fall, and while I believe it is a good thing to see a woman of Indian-origin and an African American man win in South Carolina, I fear that things are not all well for the party that I have call home. There are serious demographic issues that the Grand Old Party has not dealt with, and if they refuse to do any time soon, they will be in a world of hurt.

Tom Schaller over at Five Thirty Eight reviews a report by Ruy Teixeria about the future of the GOP. Now Teixria is a committed Democrat, but that doesn't discount what he has to say. Schaller did a good job of summarizing the paper and basically says that demographic changes will favor the Democrats and that for the Republican party to survive, it will have to move towards the center. Teixeria's perscription includes:

*Move to the center on social issues. The culture wars may have worked for a while, but shifting demographics make them a loser for the party today and going forward. A more moderate approach would help with Millennials, where the party must close a yawning gap, and with white college graduates, who still lean Republican but just barely. The party also needs to make a breakthrough with Hispanics, and that won’t happen unless it shifts its image toward social tolerance, especially on immigration.

*Pay attention to whites with some college education and to young white working-class voters in general. The GOP’s hold on the white working class is not secure, and if that slips, the party doesn’t have much to build on to form a successful new coalition. That probably also means offering these voters something more than culture war nostrums and antitax jeremiads.

*Another demographic target should be white college graduates, especially those with a four-year degree only. The party has to stop the bleeding in America’s large metropolitan areas, especially in dynamic, growing suburbs. Keeping and extending GOP support among this demographic is key to taking back the suburbs. White college graduates increasingly see the party as too extreme and out of touch.

*In the long run the GOP has to have serious solutions of its own that go beyond cutting taxes. These solutions should use government to address problems but in ways that reflect conservative values and principles. Antigovernment populism is something the party is clearly comfortable with— witness its evolving line of attack on the Obama administration. But it’s likely not enough to just denounce the other side and what they have done or propose to do in populist terms.

In short, the “party of no” has a limited shelf life. That strategy might help the party make significant gains in 2010, but it will not be enough to restore it to a majority status.

Schaller notes that the GOP is not making any of these changes at this time. Of course not.

Republicans are still in denial of what happened in 2006 and 2008. They still tend to think they loss in 2008 because John McCain was too moderate. They also see polls saying that many people favor the draconian immigration law in Arizona and think that being anti-immigrant is the way to go. Because Obama and the Democrats made the mistake of trying to be the second coming of FDR, the Republicans see a chance to regain power without having to change.

The problem is the GOP is not looking long-term. Let's say that a moderate and crafty Democrat becomes the leading candidate in say, 2016. Instead of offering big, expensive New Deal-type programs, he (or she) offers smaller-scale programs such as health care or climate change. If this candidate is able to provide a mix of fiscal conservatism with a social liberalism, AND if this person is able to get the Democratic Congressional Committees to do the same, then you can expect a long term Democratic majority with a liberalism ready for the 21st century.

The strategy for the Republicans has been either by design or by default, to appeal to white, Christians. And while the young Millenials that voted for Obama in droves might not vote in such numbers in 2010 and 2012, as they get older they will vote more and they will vote for the party that believe in inclusion. I can tell you that a party that excludes immigrants is party that won't get the vote of many 20-somethings now and long into the future.

In all this gloom, I think there is are some seeds of hope. The hope is that as America becomes more "brown" and more accepting of gays and lesbians, I think there will be a revival of the GOP's more moderate wing. I just think that if the GOP is subjected to diminishing returns in following their old strategy, there will be those calling and organizing around reform. Think I'm crazy? That's exactly what happened with the Conservative Party in the UK. After dealing with loss after loss, they were forced to change.

It will happen here to the Republicans. It's a question of when and not if.

Immigration and the Rule of Law

2010-06-23T08:49:00.000-07:00

While I have supported immigration reform and have long argued that the GOP's anti-immigrant stance will hurt them electorally in the long run, I have always believed that those in this country without going through the proper channels have to respect the rule of law and try to become citizens. I am not for trying to round up all illegal aliens and send them back to their countries of origin. But I do think we have immigration laws for a reason, and even as broken as they are, they need to be respected. This was the reason I supported the immgration policy supported by President Bush that created a path to citizenship, but also made those in the country illegally have to pay a fine. The proposed law both welcomed new immigrants and also upheld the law.

My belief in upholding the rule of law comes from another belief: that to be an American is not simply about paying taxes to the government, but it is about learning about the history (good and bad) of this nation, and learning the ways and customs of the United States. (I'm probably doing a bad job of explaining this, but think of it as orientation class.)

So reading Tim Lee's takedown of those who talk about respecting the law is a bit troubling to me. (Lee talks more on the "rule of law" argument at his own blog.) I do think the case of Eric Balderas is a sad one, and I don't think he should be blamed for something his parents did. It's why I think we need to have immigration reform to allow for someone like Eric to become a citizen without having to leave the only home he knows.

That said, I think Lee tends to paint with too broad a brush those who want the rule of law upheld. He notes:

Balderas's real crime is neither sneaking across the border 15 years ago nor failing to fill out the right paperwork. Rather, his crime is belonging to a nationality that American policy makers have decided is over-represented in this country. And there's a significant constituency for this policy among American voters, some of whom simply believe that there are too many foreigners here. But this viewpoint has little to do with the rule of law. The rule of law doesn't demand that we punish children for the crimes of their parents, or that we punish people for crimes they committed decades ago. And if you demand stricter enforcement of the existing laws while vociferously opposing all proposals to expand the legal channels for coming to this country, then I hope you'll forgive me if I conclude that you don't actually care about people like Eric Balderas.

Now, I get what Lee is trying to say. If you are talking about rule of law, but in the same breath calling any proposal to make reform immigration "amnesty" then yes, one has to question if what bothers them is the color of their skin and maybe their accent. But Lee doesn't make that clear until the last paragraph and seems to portray anyone that does think the rule of law matters as some kind of narrow-minded redneck. I am pro-immigrant and cases like Eric's remind us why we need reform. And we need reform to reform our laws. But we have laws for a reason. As Travis Johnson noted, we have immigration laws to help protect us as a nation from outside threats.

Immigrants who came to the states came here illegally and in violation of the law. That's not a good thing. The answer to this is to reform the law and also find ways to help the immigrants come out of the shadows, own up to their violations (by paying a fine) and them find ways to legally intergrate them into American society.

As President Ford once said, we are a nation of laws and not men. The law should not be an instrument of exclusion as some on the right want it to be, but neither should it be ignored.

Can The Tea Party Play in Peoria?

2010-06-21T10:12:00.000-07:00

David Frum comes up with a good analysis of what will probably happen to Republicans come fall. With all the talk about the Tea Party and how it is transforming the GOP, and how they will take back Congress from the Democrats in November, there has been little talk about how "seaworthy" these Tea Party candidates will be when they come face to face with Democrats.

As Frum notes, in states like Illinois, Ohio and New Hampshire, mainstream Republicans are the standardbearers who will probably win their races for the US Senate. In contrast, the Tea Party candidates such as Nevada's Sharon Angle and Kentucky's Rand Paul might have captured the imagination of activists, but so far are not catching fire with the general electorate. Here's a sample:

...Republicans (in New Hampshire, Ohio and Illinois)nominated a range of mainstream candidates. In Illinois they have Mark Kirk – a socially moderate, fiscally conservative member of Congress, who represents the suburbs north of Chicago.

In Ohio, the Republican candidate is Rob Portman, a former US Trade Representative and White House budget chief. Kelly Ayotte is likely to win the Republican primary in New Hampshire. Currently the state's attorney general, she is a mainstream conservative: for lower taxes, against abortion. This is exactly the kind of candidate Republicans ought to nominate, and all three look set to win. Result: two holds and one net gain in the Senate.

But this good news for the mainstream GOP is balanced by the grim tally for Tea Party candidates. Consider another set of races. In Kentucky and Nevada, Tea Party activists won nominations for two of their own: Rand Paul and Sharron Angle. Both have aligned themselves with an array of wild positions. Mrs Angle wants to abolish social security and Medicare and has spoken favourably of armed insurrection against the federal government.

Mr Paul has declared his dislike of laws forbidding businesses to discriminate on grounds of race. He fears that global elites are plotting to abolish the dollar and substitute a new North American currency, "the Amero".

The Tea Party has been a sensation, but only within the GOP. When these candidates come in contact with the real world and with worldy Democratic candidates, we might see that the power of the Tea Party is that of a paper tiger.

Elections have to be won by getting the votes in the center, and when you have people running for office believing in some crackpot theories, you've pretty much lost the middle.

I think come November, we shall see if the Tea Party has any staying power.

A Libertarianism for the Rest of Us

2010-06-20T21:10:00.000-07:00

Whenever I take one of those political quizes one finds on the Internet, more often than not, I end up in the Libertarian quadrant. I'm not waaay up in the corner, but I am solidly in Libertarianland.

That said, I've always felt a little uncomfortable around most libertarians because at times they seem rather odd. They tend to believe that there is no need for the state at all and seem to believe in some utopia that I don't think could ever exist. Folks like Ron Paul turn me off with his oddball economic theories and his daliances with racist groups.

So, it was a delight to read this article by libertarian scholar Brink Lindsey who makes a case for a more pragmatic libertarianism; one that acknowledges that the real world exists, and try to figure out ways to reform the state and make it more managable rather than hoping it will disappear.

Lindsey lays out in this 2003 article that there are in actuality, two libertarianisms:

The radical libertarian vision starts with an abstract ideal: a polity in which government's sole function is to protect individual rights to life, liberty, and property. A "true" libertarian, in this view, is someone who upholds this ideal as the summum bonum. True libertarians may get their hands dirty in the real world and advocate incremental reforms, and they may even be coy about their long-term hopes, but when pressed they must declare their allegiance to the ideal. Any deviation from the ideal, any support for any extension of government's proper role beyond rights protection, is seen as impure and compromised. Such deviations represent concessions to statism; they "open the door" to relentless and limitless expansion of Leviathan.

Pragmatic libertarianism, on the other hand, starts with the status quo in all its wretched messiness. Reformists share with their radical confreres a moral commitment to the sanctity of individual rights, and a deep appreciation of the fertility of competition and the limits of centralized control. But reformists apply their principles in a very different way: not as blueprints for an ideal society, but as guides to incremental reform. As to the precise outlines of an ideal society they are agnostic or even indifferent. For them the goal is expanding the real-world frontiers of liberty, not spinning utopias.

Pragmatists do not measure a person's libertarianism on the basis of doctrinal arcana, by whether he supports fully privatized roads, for example, or the elimination of compulsory vaccinations even during epidemics, or the repeal of laws against blackmail. That anyone would actually hold such positions, or, worse, use them as litmus tests, strikes the pragmatic libertarian as crankish and bizarre. No, reformist libertarians determine their allies on the basis of the major issues of the day. Does a person support reforming the tax code to shift its focus away from social engineering and toward raising revenue in the least burdensome way possible? Does he support the phasing out of pay-as-you-go public pensions? Does he support measures that would subject the public school monopoly to vigorous competition? Does he support a move away from drug prohibitionism? These are issues that matter, and all those who are willing to join in these causes are welcomed as fellow reformers, not scrutinized for hidden heresies.

If this were the libertarianism that was promoted, if there was a libertarianism interested in not only making government smaller, but smarter, then I would be totally on board.

I tend to believe that a pragmatic libertarianism could be, should be the agenda for a revitalized Republican party. My problem with the Tea Party version of libertarianism is that it tends to be too utopian and not really interested in governing and coming up with solutions. A pragmatic libertarianism would be willing to offer solutions and ways in shrinking government and making it more efficient. Of course, that isn't as sexy as shouting about small government when one has no intention of doing so.

I wish that Mr. Lindsey would give up the hope in a new relationship with liberals and steer the conversation to using the GOP as a vehicle to promote a better libertarianism. I'd sign up for that.

This Execution Will Be Tweeted

2010-06-18T21:17:00.000-07:00

Yes, it was in bad taste, but really, should we be surprised? Those of us that have talked about all the glories of social media should not be shocked that a politician used one of these famed devices to tell the world that someone had been executed by the state.

To me, this is the downside of social media: nothing is left private- everything, and I mean everything is out in the open.

I say this as someone that's been using some form of social media for nearly a decade. People have been known to put of some incredibly inappropriate stuff on places such as Facebook.

So yes, what Attorney General Mark Shurtleff did was in bad taste. But am I surprised? In an age when we expect politicians to keep us informed all the time, no- I'm not surprised at all.

h/t: James Joyner

Big Me

2010-06-15T15:38:00.000-07:00

As I've been listening all the anger directed at BP and the federal government because of the Gulf Oil Spill, I can't help but feel a tad bit annoyed.

I'm not as annoyed by the oil giant, or even the feds. Yes, BP was responsible, so I'm not leaving them off the hook. As for the feds, well last I checked the president doesn't have special powers to blow back the oil, or catch BP executives with his lasso of truth ala Wonder Woman. The federal government can only do so much.

No, what I'm upset about is that someone else is getting away scott free during this tragedy.

It's us.

As Americans we love to add the word, "big" to something we don't like: such as, Big Oil or Big Government. Well, I think it's time to add another one: Big Me.

Americans like their freedom and like to drive big cars. We want to drive big trucks and throaty cars and we want to do this all on the cheapest gas possible.

As we see the oil spill out into the Gulf of Mexico, I think we need to be reminded that this environmental disaster is as much our problem as it is the problem of BP. As much as might want to hurl BP execs into the deep to stop the spill, we might want to look at ourselves as well: the oil companies were only doing our bidding.

It is our thirst for oil that has prodded oil companies like BP to go out into the deep, hard place to extract oil to make sure our big cars have enough gas to get us going. It is our thirst that makes us beholden to regime that have what we want but don't like us very much: the Venezeulas, the Russias and the Irans.

Back in 2008, when gas reached well over $4 a gallon, Americans complained about the "high cost of gas" and politicians accused the oil companies of gouging the American public. We had a right to cheap gas, dammit.

For a while, Americans started buying more fuel efficient cars and even riding more mass transit. But when oil went back down the economy picked up again we went back to our old ways.

In the days following the spill, there have been calls for banning offshore oil drilling and more emphasis on alternative fuels. While some bans might be needed and alternatives to oil are needed, they won't solve the main problem at this time. Also "drill, baby, drill" is also not an efficient solution to dealing with Big Me. None of these can make a difference, because we are not focused on consumption and conservation of oil. We use a lot of oil because of it's relatively cheap. The problem of Big Me is a problem of not wanting make sacrifices to not only better the environment, but to enhance our national security and leave a better world for our children.

Which is why Americans have to learn to consume less fuel. That won't come from Washington offering edicts to automakers to make their fleets more efficient. Consumers will just ignore all those fuel-sipping cars in favor of the gas-guzzlers.

What has to be done is to make the cost of fuel more expensive, and that can only be done by raising the gas tax.

Republicans are supposed to abhor any and all taxes, but I am in favor of a gas tax because it will lay out to Americans the cost of oil and the cost of our choices.

The reason Europeans tend to drive smaller cars is not because they are more rabid environmentalists; it's because their governments have imposed taxes on gas making it more expensive and nudging Europeans in making choices that favor conservation over consumption. People aren't banned from buying a big car, but they will pay more in fuel costs for their choice: as someone once said, you are free to do anything, but you should be willing to pay the price.

We haven't raised the federal gas tax since 1993. No sane politician wants to raise taxes, but raising the gas tax will not only help us to consume less but it will allow us to fix our aging infastructure and save us money in car repairs.

Big Oil and Big Government have their hand in this tragedy, but we need to focus just as much on Big Me to find ways to help us use less oil and to atone for our own role in this mess.

How Hungry Are Republicans?

2010-06-09T21:07:00.000-07:00

Peter Bienart criticizes Republicans for picking candidates in last night's primaries that will face uphill battles come November:

For the Republican Party, Tuesday's primaries contain good news and bad news. The good news: Republicans are angry—angry at Barack Obama, angry at the national debt, even angry at some of the leaders of their own party. Anger is a good motivator, and in midterm elections, where turnout is small, a little motivation goes a long way. The bad news: Republicans are not hungry. They're not willing to submerge their anger for the sake of winning elections. They either don't think they need to compromise their ideological purity to beat Democrats this fall or they don't care. In either case, they may be blowing their shot at a midterm landslide.

I believe Bienart is right of course. As much celebrating there has been about the wins of folks like Sharon Angle and Carly Fiorina, and as much talk as there has been about how Sarah Palin is the new kingmaker in the GOP, the real test will come in the fall when these candidates will face Democratic opponents who have a trick or two up their sleeve and may very well eat these newbies for lunch.

But there remains a question. Bienart talks about "Republicans" blowing it. But who are these Republicans? In many cases, the GOP establishment has put up candidates that tend to be appealing to independents and moderates only to have them slapped down by groups like the Tea Party. Dave Weigel explains this in a conversation he had with Democratic Senator Bob Menendez:

I asked where Democrats could take this argument, exactly, if Angle and Paul simply closed off access to the national media. "Well, we're happy to engage them because they're out of the mainstream," he said. "Nevada is not an isolated incident. In Florida the establishment candidate was forced out of the party, in Kentucky the Republicans nominate a candidate who questions the Civil Rights Act. They forced out the moderate candidate in Connecticut. Even where they get the candidate they supposedly want in California, in Carly Fiorina, she's had to run far to the right to win over the party. Republicans are in the very unique position of having to support the candidates they didn't want. There's a reason the party wanted Sue Lowden and Trey Grayson to win -- they wanted candidates who could appeal to independents."

I think what these wins are showing is a Republican establishment that is weak, unable to place a check on the more passionate groups within the GOP coalition. Contrast this with the Democrats whose establishment was able to beat back a challenge from the Left to Arkansas Senator Blanche Lincoln.

Which also leads me to wonder if the loss of more centrist Republicans over the years has led to a weakened GOP leadership. Centrists within the party tended to respect the establishment, since in many ways they had a hand in the establishment during the mid-20th century.

This is a long way of saying I don't think the Republican Senatorial and Congressional Committees want to support weak candidates, but they don't really have the power to stop special interest groups from taking over the process.

I tend to believe this will be the case until one (or both) of two things happen: either the GOP gets a chairman with a strong vision for the party who can exercise party discipline, or the interests groups are discredited by an astounding loss.

I think we shall find out come November.

Epistemic Closure on the Left

2010-06-08T20:58:00.000-07:00

About a month ago, there was a discussion across many blogs about epistemic closure taking place among the political right. In short, the argument goes that with the advent of media outlets like Fox News, conservatives have closed in among themselves, not willing to look outside their cocoon.

Now, I think this is all true. I think that a large part of conservatism has lost its curiosity to wander outside the box and learn from others.

So, does that mean that there is a more open atmosphere among the political left?

Not necessarily.

Michael Kruse, who blogs on political as well as religious issues, decided to look at a recent post by Jim Wallis on libertarianism. Wallis who leads the Sojourners community in Washington, basically said that what he calls "Tea Party Libertarianism" is not very Christian.

The thing that bothers Kruse is that Wallis decides to deem libertarianism not Christian under the guise of "dialogue." His last few paragraphs are instructive:

What is the surest sign you have encountered someone living in an echo chamber? When they say, "My side is so reasonable and civil, but see how mean and hateful the other side is."

The fact is that hyperbolic rhetoric is part and parcel of American politics. It ebbs and flows in intensity but there never was some golden age of nonpartisan government from which we have fallen. So I expect hyperbolic rhetoric from all sides. What I do take exception to is people engaging in hyperbolic partisan rhetoric while purporting to speak with a moral Christian authority. I don't care if you name is Jim Dobson or Jim Wallis.

While I think that "epistemic closure" does indeed happen amongst conservatives. It's not healthy. That said, it also has happened within the Left. I've seen people talk about the "incivility" among the Right and then go and be uncivil to conservatives.

I think the problem that is taking place within American politics today is that there is little room from self-examination. We don't spend enough time testing our convictions, making sure we are not deluding ourselves. We don't spend time trying to understand those we may not agree with.

It's time to get out of our echo chambers and out into the light.

GOProud's Shame

2010-06-07T10:39:00.000-07:00

GOProud, a group of gay Republicans that split off from Log Cabin Republicans, has endorsed Carly Fiorina for GOP nomination in California. In a recent press release they went against another candidate, former Representative Tom Campbell, for being too "liberal."

Today, GOProud, the only national organization representing gay conservatives and their allies, endorsed Carly Fiorina for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate in California. "Carly Fiorina is the candidate conservatives can trust," said Jimmy LaSalvia, Executive Director of GOProud. "Unlike liberal Tom Campbell, Fiorina has signed the Taxpayer Protection Pledge; supports a strong, confident foreign policy; and will defend our 2nd Amendment rights."

"The more Republican primary voters have learned about Tom Campbell, the more it has become clear that his nomination would be a disaster for the GOP," said LaSalvia. "Like the campaign of liberal Dede Scozzafava, nominating Tom Campbell would divide the Republican Party at a time when we need to be united to turn back Barbara Boxer and her Democratic colleagues' radical left wing agenda on Capitol Hill."
-a June 2 press release

Now there are a few things odd with this. Tom Campbell supports same-sex marriage and wrote an article back in 2008 where he showed his support and urged people to vote against Prop 8 the consitutional amendment that banned same-sex marriage in California. Because of this, the National Organization for Marriage, an anti-gay marriage group has gone after him and in this blog post they boast of their taking Campbell down:

Three polls in the past week show pro-gay marriage RINO Republican Tom Campbell's support has plummeted. His money has dried up and his campaign is in freefall.

What a difference a week makes!

Just a few weeks ago, pro-gay marriage Tom Campbell was leading Carly Fiorina and Chuck DeVore—some polls said by as much as ten points or more. Now, he’s suddenly twenty points behind Carly Fiorina in the race that will determine which Republican has a chance to unseat California’s Democrat Sen. Barbara Boxer.

Tom Campbell’s collapse in public opinion is no accident.
NOM's “Two Peas in a Pod” television ad established that Campbell and Boxer are well, two peas in the same liberal pod. His poll numbers slipped. But television in Califorinia is hugely expensive (especially once Meg Whitman started buying up all the air time), so we followed up with a frugal and effective second punch: phone calls to 600,000 likely primary voters, telling them that Tom Campbell is a pro-gay marriage RINO. We think NOM's effort had such a big impact in part because it coincided with efforts of prolife groups to make sure voters know Campbell's record on other social conservative issues like abortion.

And what is Carly Fiorina's position on same sex marriage? She's against it and even claims to have supported Prop 8.

So, here you have a group of gay Republicans and an anti-gay group both supporting a candidate that does not support same sex marriage.

(For the record, Log Cabin Republicans has endorsed Campbell.)

Gay Republicans constantly have to battle the image that they are unhappy folks that hate themselves and vote for anti-gay politicians. The thing is, GOProud's endorsement of a candidate that isn't doing anything for the gay community and has in fact gone against is mind-boggling. It reinforces the gay Republican sterotype.

I frankly don't get GOProud's stance.

* Full disclosure: I've been involved with Log Cabin Republicans for 8 years.

Tom Campbell's Viral Campaign

2010-06-02T14:00:00.000-07:00

Tom Campbell's campaign to be the California GOP candidate to challenge Barbara Boxer this fall for Senate has run or tough times. He is being outspent by his main challenger Carly Fiorina, who has backing from social conservatives who don't like Campbell's socially liberal record.

Campbell is now low on funds and has pulled his television ads. Now, he has chosen to go viral, using the internet and phone to get his message out.

This is his latest:

I've supported Campbell and even given some money to his campaign, since he tends to reflect my own views. I want to believe his last ditch effort as well as independents who vote in the June 8 primary will make him the winner, but I fear Fiorina is going to win. Fiorina might be able to buy her way to winning to the primary, but as the LA Times shows, only Campbell is able to beat Boxer this year.

Another example of the GOP picking the pure candidate over who could actually win.

Update: It looks like I wasn't the only person giving him money. Campbell is now saying he is back on the air:

I want to start by expressing my heartfelt thanks. In the last 72 hours you’ve rallied to the side of this campaign like never before. Thanks to that support, we’re taking the good news that I am the only candidate who beats Barbara Boxer to California’s airwaves!

Having read so many of your notes of support, I can sense that something big is happening beneath the surface. Conservative Republicans are starting to tell us that they’re switching because I’m the only one who can beat Boxer. Independents are pledging to vote for the first time in a Republican primary. And many Democrats say they look forward to voting for me in November, though they can’t say the same of my fellow candidates.

In the closing days of this campaign, it’s becoming clearer that I am the only candidate who can unite principled, Constitutionalist Republicans, Independents, and frustrated Democrats in a coalition to oust Senator Barbara Boxer.

Maybe the race isn't over yet.

Spotlight on Tom Campbell

2010-06-02T08:47:00.000-07:00

A gay magazine in Los Angeles interviews Tom Campbell, who is running in a three-way race to be the Republican who will face California Senator Barbara Boxer this November. Campbell is a wonderful oddity in the GOP these days: someone who is pro-gay. Here's a sample:

Tom Campbell does not look or act like the Republican politicians LGBT people are used to seeing on cable news. He’s more Clark Kent with a sense of humor. But underneath that collegial demeanor is the steel spine of a strongly principled moderate/conservative Republican with a laser focus on federalism, less government and more individual freedom...

Interestingly to LGBTs, Campbell is leading among the usually anti-gay Republicans, despite his long-held views as a pro-choice, pro-gay rights, pro-marriage equality social moderate. That’s because the different wings of the GOP are finding common ground in response to the bad economy, Campbell told Frontiers during a 45-minute interview before a Log Cabin Republican-sponsored gathering.
Read the whole thing.

h/t: Independent Gay Forum

Moderate Republicans are Dead. Long Live Moderate Republicans.

2010-06-01T20:13:00.000-07:00

At the same time that we hear of their demise, both Mother Jones and the head of the Ripon Society talk about the quiet comeback of moderates within the GOP.

I'll write more about this later.

Noonan and Wingnuts, Continued

2010-05-29T20:02:00.000-07:00

Erik has responded to my prior post. A few explainations:

I wasn't bothered as much by Erik's criticism of Noonan as much as his tone and his calling her a "wingnut." Maybe Erik has a different definition, but I tend to reserve that for more "crazy" folks like Mark Levin who make a living being obnoxious. Noonan might have been over the top, but I don't think that qualifies calling her a wingnut or saying that she is unhinged, as Andrew Sullivan did. I know Erik probably thinks differently and I can't change that opinion. But of course, I'm entitled to mine as well, and maybe we are going to have agree to disagree.

As for trying to be the "nice police" well, that wasn't my intent. Civility doesn't mean we never say harsh things at other people. I do agree with him that there are times when we need to be forceful- it's just that I didn't find this was case to go nuclear.

Has Peggy Noonan Gone Wingnut?

2010-05-28T20:42:00.000-07:00

If I can sum up some of the best conservative columnists out there, it would have to be David Brooks, David Frum, Ross Douthat, Kathleen Parker and Peggy Noonan. All of them are great observers of the political scene and rarely go down the angry path that Rush Limbaugh has blazed. I especially like Peggy Noonan because she can be critical of both parties and yet does it with a sense of grace, which you feel even if you don't agree with her.

Now, I don't always agree with her. In fact, I don't always agree with any of the above writers all the time. Some of their columns can bother me. But at least I hope I don't call them a "wingnut" because they wrote something bad about President Obama.

However, that is exactly what blogger E.D. Kain does in a post today where he rips Noonan for her column which chides the President's handling of Gulf oil spill. Here is a sample:

Peggy Noonan was one of the more (ostensibly) reasonable voices on the right during the run-up to the 2008 presidential elections. All that has changed. Noonan’s latest column on Obama’s dire predicament not only conveniently ignores the president’s continued popularity, but also wildly exaggerates the impact the three ‘crises’ he has faced in his short term as president. The oil spill looms largest, but Noonan also includes Obama’s healthcare reform bill and his opposition to the Arizona immigration law as evidence of his impossible position come 2012.

This is crazy.

The healthcare bill will work in Obama’s favor in the next election, and the immigration issue – while still probably an important one – will not focus on Obama’s reaction to the controversial Arizona law. The oil spill is the only potentially damaging thing, and even that is unlikely to really hurt Obama who is much more likely to respond to the disaster in the next two years with strong environmental regulatory reforms.

Now again, I disagree with Noonan over the immigration law in Arizona. But she does make some sense on how the public might percieve the health care bill and the President's handling of the oil spill. Now, I would agree that there is little the President can do, but Americans tend to buy into the cult of the presidency and believe that the President is superhuman and can solve any problem in a snap.

Of course, E.D. might be correct and come 2012 Obama will be re-elected. Truth is, we don't know yet.

E.D. also notes that the President is "popular." Okay, but polls are also giving the President poor marks in his handling of the crisis. Is that fair? Probably not. Again, I blame the cult of the presidency. But let's not pretend that the public is still gaga over Obama.

What Noonan wrote was critical of the President, but it was hardly Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck territory. She has written several pieces that were critical of Obama. Does that make her a wingnut? No, it makes her a conservative. If E.D. were paying attention he would notice that Noonan also writes columns that are critical of conservatives as well.

In some way, the whole argument about whether or not this is Obama's Katrina is really about Bush and Katrina. Conservatives who felt burned by all the scorn heaped on them in the aftermath of Katrina want to use this as a way to get back at the Left which showed Bush no mercy. Liberals want to relive Katrina to remind us of how bad the conservatives were and how Obama is not Bush.

As for how the oil spill will play out, well, we will have to see. It could be a black eye for the President, but it might not. Unlike a lot of other conservatives, and like Noonan, I am not rooting for him to fail. But the public is fickle and they can get pretty mad about a President that seen not doing anything while the seas turn black and gooey. I don't think it's fair, but it comes with the job of being president.

As for E.D., this post is part of a trend. When I started reading him, he seemed like a thoughtful hetrodox conservative that was interested in reform. Over time, he has grown more understandably frustrated with conservatives and has seemed to trend more and more leftward and become more angry in his postings. I frankly don't care if he becomes a liberal, but I wish he still showed more of the thoughftful and civil approach of his past writings. The blogosphere is already full of hyperbolic writers on both sides of the isle, we really don't need another one.

Up the Long Ladder

2010-05-27T21:37:00.000-07:00

Newly installed Prime Minister David Cameron tapped openly gay Conservative MPs Nick Herbert as the Minister of State for Justice and Home Secretary for Police and Alan Duncan as the Minister of State in the International Development Department.

Duncan and Herbert, were among the first out gay election candidates who currently hold civil partnerships with their longtime partners, they are now some of of the highest-profile and most senior openly gay ministers in any government. Duncan and Herbert join Guido Westerwelle, Germany’s Vice Chancellor, as one of the highest ranking openly gay elected officials.

During the campaign, Herbert took a leading role in recruiting support among the gay and lesbian community in the United Kingdom for the Conservative Party. He underlined a number of advanced positions which his government would support, including combatting hate crimes, a matter he now overseas as Minister of Police, employment non-discrimination and even expanding the current right for same-sex couples to have civil partnerships to full marriage equality.

-from Blog Cabin, the blog of Log Cabin Republicans

Conservatism in the UK seems to be undergoing a transformation. In the run-up to the elections held earlier this month, Conservative Party leader David Cameron lead a party that was more moderate and inclusive than in the past. Dissident conservatives here in the US looked with awe and a bit of sadness. Bloggers such as Andrew Sullivan and E.D. Kain seem to act as if conservatism in America is past the point of no return. It is a movement that is not serious about governing, trapped in an information cocoon, and filled with hatred for gays and anyone not white.

Which of course, can accurately describe some parts of American conservatism and the Republican Party.

But is it too late for reform? And if it isn't, how should it take place?

There are times that I think otherwise, but I don't think it is too late for conservatism to reform. The questions for me is not if conservatism will reform, but who will reform it.

I think the answer to the question is that conservatism will reform when there are enough people who want it to reform. I'm not talking soley about the politicians, but the rank and file, the everyday folk who get sick and tired of being sick and tired.

The thing is, most of the rank and file tend to walk away and give up the fight. Tired of the bigoted and small minded people who tend to be the voice of the American Right, many just give up and leave the Republican Party and conservatism. Why that is? That's the subject of a future post.

American conservatives, both those interested in reform and the Tea Party types, tend to believe in a "Great Man Theory" of history. They believe that somewhere, a great man with charisma will come and make grand change. Republicans tend to think that way with Ronald Reagan forgetting that there was a movement filled with policy wonks and writers who were making changes that helped propel Reagan to the White House.

But history not as simple. Great changes in history came not only from great men, but from civic organizations that were working long before the great man came on the scene. Case in point is civil rights. Organizations like the NAACP were working on striking down Jim Crow long before Martin Luther King joined the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

David Cameron did not just come down from heaven with an idea to create a more moderate Conservative Party. No, it came from reform-minded associations like the Tory Reform Group, that worked long and hard for a kinder, gentler Conservative Party.

I believe that for the GOP to survive in the long run, it has to become more "moderate," to be a more inclusive party and willing to find ways to run a smaller and activist government. But none of this will happen overnight. It will happen when regular people decide to get involved in reform-minded groups and fight for change.

One of the reasons I decided to become a Republican was because of groups like Republicans for Environmental Protection. They have long staked out a lonely voice, but the keep at it, working for a more "green" Republican Party.

So, yes I believe conservatism in America can be saved. But will only change when those who complain the most, get to work.

Man or Superman?

2010-05-27T14:08:00.000-07:00

Mike is very angry at the White House response to the oil spill in the Gulf:

With this oil spill I’ve seen an unforgivable lack of government response. They’ve put all the responsibility on BP to fix this mess. I say my anger is directed at the White House because this is not in state-controlled waters. I also think the US navy and Coast Guard should have been deployed to help weeks ago. We have around 240 active ships in the US navy which doesn’t include hundreds of smaller support vessels. There are over 300,000 active personnel. I don’t care if they are out there with buckets, they should be trying to help. It’s insanity not to use the resources we have.

This situation is going to get a lot worse before it gets better and I hope the White House realizes they need to step up. Otherwise, the people of the gulf coast have once again been abandoned on their time of need.

While Mike wants to call the Navy to combat the oil spill, Yuval Levin thinks people have an unreasonable expectation of government:

I think it’s actually right to say that the BP oil spill is something like Obama’s Katrina, but not in the sense in which most critics seem to mean it.

It’s like Katrina in that many people's attitudes regarding the response to it reveal completely unreasonable expectations of government. The fact is, accidents (not to mention storms) happen. We can work to prepare for them, we can have various preventive rules and measures in place. We can build the capacity for response and recovery in advance. But these things happen, and sometimes they happen on a scale that is just too great to be easily addressed. It is totally unreasonable to expect the government to be able to easily address them—and the kind of government that would be capable of that is not the kind of government that we should want.

Both Presidents Bush and Obama are taking heat for not moving heaven and earth to solve their problems. But the thing is, I think the problems presented, a hurricane hitting a major city and a massive oil leak are not things that can be easily solved. As Americans, we want to believe that there is some technology or process or law that will easily solve whatever problem we are facing. Americans are not accustomed to the limits of..well, anything.

Government can and should respond to disasters. However, that doesn't mean that they are superheroes that can just solve a problem in a snap. Some scenarios are so huge, that government can only do what it can.

It's hard to see all this oil spilling into the Gulf and feel helpless. But that's what is going on right now.

Did Libertarianism Cause Jim Crow?

2010-05-25T07:38:00.000-07:00

Rand Paul's comments on libertarians and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 has given some people a chance to blame libertarianism for the Jim Crow segregation which took place throughout the South in the early 20th century.

Conservative Bruce Barlett is one of those that has been quick to blame the ideology for the oppression of African Americans from the Civil War to the Civil Rights Act:

The libertarian philosophy of Rand Paul and the Supreme Court of the 1880s and 1890s gave us almost 100 years of segregation, white supremacy, lynchings, chain gangs, the KKK, and discrimination of African Americans for no other reason except their skin color. The gains made by the former slaves in the years after the Civil War were completely reversed once the Supreme Court effectively prevented the federal government from protecting them. Thus we have a perfect test of the libertarian philosophy and an indisputable conclusion: it didn't work. Freedom did not lead to a decline in racism; it only got worse.

Now, on the surface, I can see some of my liberal friends nod in agreement. But the fact is, the years of Jim Crow were not the result of libertarianism, but state-sponsored racism. In short, Jim Crow came from the government, in this case, the state government. State after state created laws that seprated the races and gave African American children a sub-standard education. Bartlett is correct that the federal goverment expanded rights to include African Americans. It's an example of why many on the right are wary of government: it is powerful enough to both expand and retract rights. Case point: the internment of 100,000 Japanese Americans during World War II, something that was done by the federal government.

David Bernstein offers a pretty good explaination of the post-Civil War era and how it was anything but libertarian in regards to civil rights. He goes after Bartlett with these words:

...for Bartlett to attack libertarianism with the premise that American law was libertarian with regard to how blacks were treated in the Jim Crow South, when in fact they suffered from overt government discrimination, blatantly discriminatory Jim Crow laws, private violence acquiesced to by the government (and sometimes with the participation of the government), and a denial of voting rights based on race, is just risible.

The fact of the matter is, racism has been deeply woven into all sectors of American society. No institution, no ideology was left unscathed. (Conor Friedersdorf has an excellent post -using material from Barlett, no less, about how some heroes of the left thought about minorities way back when.)Government, especially the federal government, has done a fair share to help African Americans and other minorities in America, but it has also done a lot of harm to those communities as well. That is one of the reasons racial discrimination persisted. The fact that government, state and federal, is no longer able to participate or give its blessing to racism has paved the way for African Americans to have greater participation in American society. It's why we now have an African American president. Now that's libertarian.

Tom Horner and Moderate Republicans

2010-05-24T08:27:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking lately about Tom Horner and Moderate Republicans.

For those who don't live in Minnesota, Tom Horner is a former Republican who is running for governor under the centrist Independence Party banner. He's been a lifelong Republican, who believes that the party no longer represents his brand of a more center-right Republicanism, so he has gone to the IP to seeks it's endorsement.

I have mixed feelings about all this. On the one hand, I tend to share Horner's center-right views and find the GOP candidate for governor, Tom Emmer an extremist who will take Minnesota in the wrong direction.

On the other hand, save for it's star candidate Jesse Ventura, the IP has never had a strong slate of candidates or even a very strong governing ideology, with candidates all over the political spectrum. The 2006 governor's race had the IP candidate finishing a distant third at about 6 percent. And even if Horner were to win, he would have to face a legislature that is made up of Republicans and Democrats that will resent having this outsider as governor.

Which leads me to ask this question: why didn't Horner just run as Republican? Yes, with the current makeup of the state GOP he would not have won at the state party convention, but he could have challenged Emmer in the state primary which takes place in August. He could have made this a true fight, a battle for the soul of the GOP. Would it have been a losing battle? Who knows. But it would have been a honest battle, where Horner would have stood his ground and presented a kinder and gentler Republicanism and defend it against Emmer and his ilk.

In someways, Horner is already doing that. On his Facebook page, he is going after Emmer and the GOP. But it seems less than an honest fight, doing it from the confines of a minor party.

This brings up a bigger question: why is there no drive to reform the GOP or stand up and fight within the GOP? The ideologues in the party don't have a problem with standing and fighting, but moderates tend not fight. We tend to whine and moan, all amounting to very little.

On Friday, David Brooks wrote about the problem "Ben" a fictional voter who is a centrist looking for some hope. But when he looks to Washington and to so-called "centrists" he is found with few choices:

Once there was a group in the political center that would have understood Ben’s outrage. Moderates like Abraham Lincoln believed in the free labor ideology. Their entire governing system was built around encouraging labor and rewarding labor.

But these days, the political center is a feckless shell. It has no governing philosophy. Its paragons seem from the outside opportunistic, like Arlen Specter, or caught in some wishy-washy middle, like Blanche Lincoln. The right and left have organized, but the center hasn’t bothered to. The right and left have media outlets and think tanks, but the centrists are content to complain about polarization and go home. By their genteel passivity, moderates have ceded power to the extremes.

I think Brooks is spot-on. The center in America is weak. What was the center in the GOP is very weak, not willing to stay in the fight for the long haul and come up with policies and plans tailored to today.

My own cynical take is that moderates within the GOP are not willing to pay the cost in order to swing the party back towards the center-right. We might say "It's My Party, Too" but do we really mean it? Are we really ready to fight for our values and our place in the party? Or do we expect to be catered to, to have all the hard work of politics done for us? Are we a Republican only when it suits our purposes, or are we willing to say that we are Republicans because of the wonderous past we had standing up civil rights, political reform and individual liberty?

I wish Mr. Horner well and hope he does in well in November, even though I think history suggests he will not win. But I feel that he missed a chance to take part in a honest fight about what Republicans stand for.

You Aren't Alone, Ann

2010-05-21T20:35:00.001-07:00

From the Orlando Sentinel:

Much has been said about the plight of the moderate Republican — a seemingly dying breed of conservative.

The truth of the matter, though, is that I don’t believe moderate Republicans are a dying breed. I believe they still constitute a large chunk of the party. It’s just that they are often drowned out by the louder and more extreme factions of conservatives that make headlines and fill the AM airwaves.

In fact, I hear from moderates all the time — longtime GOP donors, former legislators, retirees, civil servants and more — often lamenting their shrinking role in the party. But not as often do I see them speak up … the way the louder segments do.

Read on to find hear the story of one moderate Republican who did speak up.

The Good 'Ole Days Weren't Always Good

2010-05-20T13:43:00.000-07:00

I wrote this last month at Republicans United during the whole "Confederate History Month" issue. In light of the Rand Paul issue, I thought I'd bring it out again.

Let me start with a story.

My Dad, who turned 80 last November, told me story. He moved to Michigan from his native Louisiana back in the 1950s to work in the auto plants. From time to time, he would go back to the South to visit his mother. When he made the trek his sister in Michigan would make a basket full of fried chicken for Dad to eat on the trip. His mother would do the same thing when he left Louisiana and went back to Michigan.

The reason the women in Dad's life did this was because back in the 1950s, he would not be able to stop at a restaurant to get food. Why? Because Dad was and is a black man, and back in those days, blacks didn't automatically get served in a restaurant.

Dad also had to learn to pull over when he was tired and sleep in his car, or until a cop told him to move on. Why? Same reason. A black man in the 1950s wasn't just going to find a hotel room any old place.

One of the common refrains from conservatives and libertarians these days is that we are "losing are freedoms." The argument is that there was some small government utopia where Americans were truly free. Speakers will talk about how the founding fathers set up a small government society based on freedoms and now we have lost all of that.

David Boaz, vice president of the libertarian Cato Institute, argues that there never was a "golden age of liberty" in America. For starters, at the founding of our nation- that time that conservatives and libertarians like to see as the Golden Age- not everyone was enjoying this "freedom." As Boaz reminds his fellow small government travelers, if you were black, you weren't free:

Did "early Americans consider themselves free"? White Americans probably did. But what about black Americans, and especially the 90 percent of black Americans who were slaves? Slaves made up about 19 percent of the American population from 1790 to 1810, dropping to 14 percent by 1860. (In that period the number of slaves grew from 700,000 to about 4 million, but the rest of the population was growing even more rapidly.) Did Mr. Hornberger really forget that 4 million Americans were held in bondage when he waxed eloquent about how free America was until the late 19th century? I know he isn't indifferent to the crime of slavery. But too many of us who extol the Founders and deplore the growth of the American state forget that that state held millions of people in chains. (I note that I'm not concerned here with self-proclaimed libertarians who join neo-Confederate organizations or claim that southerners established a new country and fought a devastating war for some reason other than the slavery on which their social and economic system rested; I just want to address libertarians who hate slavery but seem to overlook its magnitude in their historical analysis.)

Boaz then links to a post from Brink Lindsey that reminds people that we live in a more libertarian age than just a few decades ago:

Nevertheless, the fact is that American society today is considerably more libertarian than it was a generation or two ago. Compare conditions now to how they were at the outset of the 1960s. Official governmental discrimination against blacks no longer exists. Censorship has beaten a wholesale retreat. The rights of the accused enjoy much better protection. Abortion, birth control, interracial marriage, and gay sex are legal. Divorce laws have been liberalized and rape laws strengthened. Pervasive price and entry controls in the transportation, energy, communications, and financial sectors are gone. Top income tax rates have been slashed. The pretensions of macroeconomic fine-tuning have been abandoned. Barriers to international trade are much lower. Unionization of the private sector work force has collapsed. Of course there are obvious counterexamples, but on the whole it seems clear that cultural expression, personal lifestyle choices, entrepreneurship, and the play of market forces all now enjoy much wider freedom of maneuver.

In the same week that we saw Virginia Governor Bob McDonnel make a colossal mistake in making April Confederate History Month, I think this essay sums up a problem on the American Right. It's not that all conservatives and libertarians are racists who want to see African Americans in chains, but the problem is that many conservatives and libertarians rarely notice the plight of African Americans. It's not active hate, but for the most part it's benign neglect.

For all their faults, liberals at least try to understand and recognize African Americans in our society. I think at times it can start slipping into victimhood, but that's for another blog post.

Maybe part of the problem is that conservatives don't want to go down the "politically correct" road that liberals have sometimes taken, so they end up not doing anything lest they become PC nuts. I think that most black folk just want to be treated as people. We don't want any special treatment, we just want to be seen and heard. That means hearing our stories and our history which is part of American history.

My Dad, who went to segregated schools in the South, and took the crappiest job in the auto plants because he was a black man, was not free. As time marched forward and the Civil Rights movement came to focus, things changed. By the time I came around and started joining him in trips South to see my relatives, we could stay in motels and eat in restaurants.

There are still many problems, but I think that life for African Americans is a lot better now than at the time of the Revolution. We can vote. We can marry. We aren't treated as furniture.

Are we in a libertarian paradise? No, but then as Boaz notes, there never was a paradise and their never will be.

Boaz ends his essay reminding those of us on the Right that the issue here how government uses power:

We often focus on the size of government, as measured in percentage of GDP taxed and spent by the government, which is an important and measurable concept. But our real concern is power. What kind of power does the government wield over the people? Powerful state institutions tend to be large, but that doesn't mean that a larger state is necessarily exercising more power. Imagine a small town that adds two officers to its police force. Now it has more police officers, and that costs more money; the government is "larger." But if the officers now do a better job of arresting violent criminals and protecting the lives and property of the people—and refrain from arresting or hassling non-criminals—then the government has not expanded its power. Indeed, better eight officers protecting lives and property than six officers enforcing drug laws and blue laws. We should focus on what is actually important—the exercise of arbitrary power over others. And in that regard slavery and conscription, among other things that marred parts of our American past, loom very large.

I would argue that in the past, government was used to keep blacks down. Slavery laws and later Jim Crow laws were used to treat us like second class citizens. People worked to free African Americans from a governmental tryanny. If that's not libertarian, I don't know what is.

I'm reminded of a song by Billy Joel that white conservatives and libertarians must remember: the good ol' days weren't always good.

h/t: Burke's Corner

Rand Paul, Civil Rights and the Limits of Libertarianism

2010-05-20T07:30:00.000-07:00

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US Senate Candidate Rand Paul is getting into a lot of trouble with his comments on civil rights during an interview yesterday on NPR. Above, is an interview with MSNBC host Rachel Maddow on the Civil Rights, where Paul tries to explain himself. The gist of it is that he thinks governments should not discriminate, but he doesn't want laws that tell private businesses that they can't discriminate.

Now, I need to say straight up, that I don't think that this is proof positive that Paul is a racist. I also don't think that the late Barry Goldwater is a racist. That said, I also think they are both very wrong.

Libertarians tend to be very wary of having the government get involved in telling private businesses what they can and can't do. I can understand that. But I also think that there are times when it might make sense for the government to tell a private entity that they can't do something that impinges on the liberty of another person. For example, people have to eat, or get a job or live in home. If someone says to a person of another race that they can't eat at this restaurant, or have this job or live in this neighborhood, then that person is being denied their freedom to live as they see fit. The whole problem with racism is that it limited the liberty of a whole people simply because of the color of their skin. The problem with Mr. Paul's answer is that at some level, it isn't very libertarian. Libertarianism is about, well, liberty, and if someone is totally free to live here and there and have this job or that one while someone else is not, that isn't liberty to me.

Mr. Paul may have done himself harm. He will be percieved, wrongly in my view, to be a racist. I don't think he is, but he is rather clueless when it comes to the issue of race. Sometimes, the government does have to step in ensure liberty and justice for all.

UPDATE: Ann Althouse has some really good comments on this issue.

Last of the Independents

2010-05-19T12:34:00.000-07:00

Glen Bolger of Public Opinion Strategies muses that the days of bipartisanship are going to be as rare as unicorns. He writes on last night's wins and losses:

Not every incumbent is endangered for renomination. However, those who face anger from the grassroots, coupled with a challenger candidate with the resources to get their message out, have challenges.

This post is not to bemoan the choice of BOTH parties’ primary electorate to choose confrontation over compromise. It’s simply analyzing the results from a different angle. It’s not just anti-incumbency coursing through the veins of the primary electorates, but it is supercharged by a distrust of the other side. Like unicorns and rainbows, bipartisanship is going to be rarely spotted over the next few years.

Bipartisanship has taken a beating over the last few years, especially from bloggers who seem to think that elected officals should only follow their own narrow agendas. One of the reasons that Bob Bennett was axed in Utah was for taking part in what I would call "mundane bipartisanship" in voting for liberal judicial nominees when Bill Clinton was president. Of course, when the president of one part is in power, they tend to have the perogative in nominating whoever they want to be a Supreme Court justice. Yes, the opposing side can oppose, but in the end their isn't much the other side can do in stopping the president, lest they find that the nominee is sacrificing chickens or something. A senator in an opposing party could get a way with voting for a nominee without being considered a traitor.

Call me an old romantic, but being in a democracy means working with people who you might not agree with. It means coming together and finding what will work for both parties.

But it seems that these days, we tend to see government as a winner-take-all game. If one side wins, it has to be seen as a total victory, where the losing side can only surrender.

Something tells me that the next five to ten years will not be an exciting time in governance, but a lot of fighting and bickering where nothing gets done.

The Liberaltarian Future

2010-05-19T10:39:00.001-07:00

Mark Thompson opines that the future of libertarians should be with the political left and not the right:

If libertarianism has a future with either of the two main political coalitions in this country, it is with the Left, not the Right.

As Mark admits, a liberal-libertarian fusion, or "liberaltarianism" is his "hobby horse." In fact, it has been a pre-occupation with many libertarians during the Bush years, as they became fed-up with the Republican Party's new found love of authority.

But the thing is, I think libertarians would be just as unhappy with the left as they were with the right. The problem is that both sides like big government to solve their issues.

I tend to think that maybe instead of wishing and hoping for the Democrats to notice them, libertarians might consider moving into the party that bears their name: the Libertiarian Party, and create a liberal-libertarian coalition there. The problem with the Libertarian Party as it exists now is that it is not practical at all. It seeks some kind of libertarian utopia that very few Americans want.

But what if liberaltarians came in and proposed a new agenda: one that was business friendly, socially liberal with a smaller role for the state and an enhanced federalism, sort of like the Free Democrats in Germany. I think then you could have a winning coalition that might just pass the other parties by.

Just a thought...

"Snarlin' Arlen" is Done

2010-05-19T09:21:00.000-07:00

There was a time that I really respected Arlen Specter. As the Commish notes, he was regarded as a principled independent centrist in the GOP.

But over the last year, I lost respect for Specter. His move to the Democrats was not out of conscience; it was because he was being challenged from the right and knew he was going to lose. Once he joined the Dems, he became the perfect Democrat, therby losing his independence. He thought moving over the Democratic column would be a safe harbor from any challengers, only to be beaten by an insurgent from his left who called him out on his cynical move.

I don't share the belief that some Republicans have of Specter as a traitor. Most conservatives never liked Specter, so the charge is somewhat baseless. That said, I do fault him for his rank opportunism. Democrats in Pennsylvania have rejected him for the same reason.

Muslims in Bikinis

2010-05-18T11:06:00.001-07:00

Via Andrew Sullivan, Andrew Sewer of the liberal magazine American Prospect nails what the all the hubbub on the Right over Rima Fakih winning Miss USA is all about:

I'm not really a fan of beauty contests, but the tone and substance of the fever swamp's reaction to an Arab-American winning a beauty contest is at least useful for pointing out how some people's political opinions aren't based so much in questions of policy as anti-Muslim animosity. The level of anger is just so plainly disproportionate to the matter at hand as to be self-implicating. These people aren't worried about terrorism -- they're offended by the idea of Muslims being integrated into the most mundane and banal aspects of American society.

Agreed. You can dress it up in concerns about terrorism, but in the end, this is all ugly bigotry against anyone that's Muslim. Shame.

Miss USA is Crowned; Conservatives Go Crazy

2010-05-18T09:58:00.000-07:00

As someone from Michigan, I am glad Rima Fakih won Miss USA last night. And I don't care that she is Arab American. Again, coming from southeastern Michigan, I know that it's home to a lot of Arab Americans and it doesn't bother me...I think it adds to the character of my home state.

But it seems that there are some conservatives that don't feel that way. It seems that giving Ms. Fakih the honor of Miss USA was basically honoring terrorism. Rick Moran has the rundown of how some conservative commentators have gone off the deep-end in their condemnation of Fakih. Moran highlights one particular crazy, Debbie Schlussel, who goes off on a hate-filled rampage- throwing out accusations that can't be substantiated:

Rima Fakih, Miss Michigan USA, who will compete in Sunday Night’s pageant broadcast on NBC, is a Dearbornistan Shi’ite Muslim who is a supporter of Hezbollah and used the pageant name at a forum promoting Islamic subjugation of women. She was born in the Hezbollah stronghold of Srifa in South Lebanon, which Israel was forced to attack in the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war because it was a site of Hezbollah weaponry. Her devout Muslim family comes from the Hezbollah-controlled South Lebanon. Intelligence sources confirm that at least three of Fakih’s relatives are currently top officials in Hezbollah and that at least eight Fakih family members were Hezbollah terrorists killed by the Israelis in past Israel-Lebanese wars and interventions. Some of her family members were originally in Harakat Amal [the Shi'ite Amal militia], which is now essentially a part of Hezbollah. There’s a reason that even Al-Manar TV–Hezbollah’s official TV network–is high on Fakih in the Miss USA pageant.

Last year’s Miss USA pageant was controversial because airheaded Miss California bimbo Carrie Prejean rode both sides of the fence in responding to pageant judge and gay activist Perez Hilton’s (a/k/a Mario Armando Lavandeira, Jr.) question about gay marriage. But will judges in this year’s pageant have the guts to ask Miss Michigan USA a far more important question: if she will condemn Hezbollah, the Islamic terrorist group which murdered over 300 US Marines and civilians in the 1983 bombings of the barracks and U.S. Embassy in Beirut? Will they ask her to condemn the group that tortured and trampled to death Navy Diver Robert Dean Stethem after hijacking TWA flight 847 and tortured to death Col. Rich Higgins and CIA attache William Buckley? The group working with Al-Qaeda to provide explosives to blow up our troops in Iraq and to blow up innocent civilians in several other Qaeda/Hezbollah joint ventures? Don’t count on it. And they have to ask her to specifically condemn Hezbollah. The usual nebulous “Islamic terrorists” condemnation doesn’t count because they don’t think any of their groups, like Hezbollah, are terrorists, but “legitimate resistance.” And don’t wait for them to ask her if she recognizes Israel’s right to exist.

First off, I how does she know that Fakhi's relatives are involved in Hezbollah? What "intelligence sources" does some blogger have? How is she responsible for the 1983 bombing of the Marine barracks in Beriut, something that took place three years before she was born?

I don't know about you, but where I come from (which happens to be the same state that Ms. Fakih and Ms. Schlussel come from) someone who judges someone based on their heritage is called a bigot.

There is too much of this crap taking place within conservatism. A legitimate concern over terrorism has been used to hide bigotry and hatred aimed towards Arabs and Muslims. I am thankful that people like Moran are calling people out on this and showing them for what they are: small, hateful beings.

And that's sad, because Rima Fakih's win is a testament to what makes America great. In other parts of the world, Ms. Fakih would not be able to wear a skimpy bathing suit and prance about a stage. Here is a woman who is Muslim, and able to be like any other woman. There was no religion or government that was stopping her. THAT is what is wonderful about our country. Melissa Couthier says it best:

She’s in America. She’s doing what beautiful American girls do. She’s acting Western.

In an Islamic country, she’d likely be hung, beheaded, tortured or “honor” killed for shaming her uptight, sexually repressed, backward, stone age husband or father.

So while I get that people are upset about this, I suggest taking the big picture here. We have a young Muslim woman, without a burqa, who won Miss USA.

Let the Islamofascists put that in their pipe and smoke it.

And by the way, did anyone notice that she's hot? If a gay man can say that, you know she has to be beautiful.

The Center and the "Elites"

2010-05-18T09:55:00.001-07:00

According to Ross Douthat and Jonathan Chait, I don't exist. At least when it comes to politics.

I tend to be one of those people that probably cause Douthat and Chait to roll their eyes: I tend to be fiscally conservative and socially liberal. Douthat has written on various occasions that basically those types are persons are should just join the Democrats and be done with it.

It can be frustrating for people like me, because while I'm definitely put off by the social conservatism of the Republicans, I am also uncomfortable with the economic policies of the Democrats. In some ways, I am one of those persons that longs for a viable third party.

Former Clinton advisor Mark Penn opines that if the economy doesn't get better soon, we might see a third party arise. Now I've heard that before and nothing ever does really happen, but what did ring true in Penn's piece is the feeling that there is number of people out there that feel without a political home.

Rubbish, says Chait. Most of the so-called independents are really well-heeled Republicans and Democrats:

...pollsters and public opinion experts -- a group that apparently excludes Penn -- understand that independent self-identification largely reflects a desire not to be seen as a closed-minded, automatic vote. It does not, however, reflect actual voting independence. Most self-identified independents are at least as partisan in their voting behavior as self-identified Democrats or Republicans. It's largely a class phenomenon, with wealthier and more educated voters being more likely to call themselves independent, but not more likely to go astray in the voting both. The rise of independent self-identification has little to do with voters moving toward the center or the parties moving toward the extremes. Plenty of those self-identified Democrats in the 1950s voted for Ike.

I don't know about that. There are a lot of people that I know that call themselves "independent" and yet are more partisan than they care to admit. But there are also a lot of people who do truly feel homeless. They vote for one party more than the other because they might agree with that party over the other one, but they are truly not affiliated with either major party. Others are people whose votes go all over the map. I tend to see these homeless people in my daily life, on the blogs and among friends.

Chait and Douthat both have stressed that the "socially liberal/fiscally conservative" group is just made up of upscale snobs, while both parties ignore another group: "big-goverment social conservatives." I'm always a little skeptical of such a group. Maybe it does exist. It could be made up people from the working class that don't tend to haunt the blogs.

That said, I have never seen them interviewed, or create Tea Party-like groups demanding that we ban gay marriage and enact universal healthcare.

I do not understand the aversion to people like me.

Not Jumping Ship

2010-05-14T06:46:00.000-07:00

I've been quite surprised to see the reaction to my thoughts about leaving the GOP the other day. Let me just cut to the chase: while I respect the decision Travis made in deciding to leave the GOP, I've decided that it's not time to jump the Republican ship.

The reason why? Well, because there really isn't anywhere else to go.

I didn't become a Republican on a lark. I did a lot of thinking and a lot of reading and came to the conclusion that I was philosophically a Republican. If one is on the center-right here in America, then you don't have many choices. I could call myself an Independent as is the trend these days, but the fact is, a lot of people who call themselves Independent are not really. They tend to lean one way or the other, but just have refused to be labeled.

But there is another reason to stay. It's the "green shoots" of hope that show that while the Tea Party crazies might be the ones talking now, that will not always be the case. It's the fact that there are Republicans who do care about the plight of our planet. It's a former First Lady who comes out in favor of same-sex marriage. It's a raft of candidates that are good moderate conservatives.

The fact is, there are still some good people in the party. The problem is that too often people like Travis and myself tend to only look at the loud voices that present themselves as the face of the GOP. But they really aren't the face of the Republican Party, or they are only a face of the GOP not the face. A blogger responding to a post by the Moderate Republican on the creation of a third party had this to say about political parties in America:

What people need to realize is that the party is merely a conduit. It is a means by which we seek to achieve an end. If you get an algebra question wrong on a test, is the problem with the question or with the methodology by which you sought to find the answer?

To sum it up, garbage in..garbage out. Third parties can indeed prove beneficial but merely jumping to the independence party or otherwise in hopes of something different presupposes that the independence party is filled with anything different than the other two predominant parties.

Tis why I say, if you're not involved at the BPOU/Precinct level then you will continue to get the government you deserve.

The writer hit the nail on the head. Political parties in America are only conduits. That means that if a Tea Partier wants to use the party to make it...to suit their purposes, I can do the same thing. I am as much the face of the Republican Party than they are.

So, I'm not jumping ship. I will stay and make myself known...as a Republican.

Is It Time for a New Center-Right Party?

2010-05-11T11:09:00.001-07:00

For many years, I've been part of an effort to make the Republican Party more inclusive in various ways. I believe it is important to have a good and strong center-right party in order to counter the Democrats.

That said, I am not as certain that the GOP can reform itself anymore. From the recent ouster of Utah Republican Senator Bob Bennett, to the ultra-crazy Maine GOP Platform, to John McCain whoring himself to the far right in order to win a Republican primary for the Senate, I am starting to come to a place that many of my friends have come to long ago: that the Republican Party might be too far gone to save.

Which is why I am beginning to think that it's time to look into creating a new center right party in America. But before I say what I do want, I want to make clear what I don't want:

A "centrist" party that tries to reach both Republicans and Deomcrats. In Minnesota, we have a viable third party called the Independence Party. It's claim to fame is that Governor Jesse Ventura has been their only sucessful candidate. That said, it is not a strong third party partly because it tries to be a party without ideology. It is trying to capture that middle ground in American politics, which is laudable. However, their disdain for the rigid ideologies of the two major parties have produced a party that doesn't know what it stands for. It tends to capture both former Republicans and Democrats and the result is a mismash of the two ideologies.
Independent Candidates. While it is the dream of some to see more candidates running without any party affiliation, I tend to think this option is not the best. The record of winning independent campaigns is not very good and independent candidates lack the "people power" that political parties can provide. Also, they have little staying power- once the successful independent candidate leaves 0ffice, traditional party politics comes back.

No, I think there is a need for a credible center-right alternative to the Republicans. One that isn't wrapped up in the Tea Party/Sarah Palin/ Religious Right/Ron Paul nuttiness.

It's time for a center right party that is truly fiscally conservative, truly believes in limited goverment and is truly socially liberal. A party that is interested in reaching the Center as much as it is in reaching the Right. One patterned more after One Nation Conservatism is the UK.

So here's a message to Bob Bennett, John McCain and other Republicans: maybe instead of trying to make a purse out of a sow's ear, maybe it's time to start anew and create a new center-right coalition.

Crossposted at Republicans United

The Consequences of Arizona

2010-05-03T20:11:00.000-07:00

My mother has an accent.

Born and raised in Puerto Rico, my mother learned English in school, but the accent stayed with her, even when she moved off the island to Michigan in 1963.

It remains with her to this day. What's so funny about it is that as her son, I never realized my mother ever had an accent until I was well into my 20s. Other people would remark about her accent, but I never noticed it- it was normal to me.

I grew up in a household where English and Spanish was spoken. Several of my mother's relatives moved to Michigan after she did, including 2 uncles and mi abuela, my grandmother. I learned Spanish by hearing my relatives speak to one another.

I'm very proud of my Puerto Rican heritage in addition to my African American heritage. I also consider myself lucky to have been raised in a bilingual household, where I heard two languages being freely spoken.

When I think about the current mess concerning the new immigration law in Arizona, I have to wonder how comfortable my Spanish-speaking relatives would feel down there. Something tells me they would not feel welcome.

In the aftermath of this law, many conservatives have defended it saying that something had to be done. While I agree that something does need to be done to deal with immigration and border security, the law in Arizona was the wrong way to do it. The law is discriminatory towards Latinos and regardless of whether that was intentional or not, it will have the affect of driving Latinos away from the Republican Party.

Why you say? Well, because the law as is written, could allow the police to stop anyone who might look like an illegal immigrant. Since most illegal immigrants in Arizona tend to be Mexican and speak Spanish, I have the feeling that there will be a lot of stops made because someone was "DWH" or "Driving While Hispanic."

Some say the answer to this law is that legal residents should just carry their papers. So, someone who might be born here and raised here, has to keep proof of citizenship on their person at all times because their name happens to be something like "Sanchez" while the guy named "Johnson" can just move along with no id at all? How in the world is that fair?

What has bothered me is how many Republicans have not bothered to even think how this would affect Hispanic Americans and their views of the GOP. It doesn't matter if the intent was to curb illegal immigration, it looks like conservatives have it out for any who has a "funny" last name or talks with an accent.

The passage of this bill has damaged the perception of the GOP in the minds of millions of Hispanic Americans. This law has basically told the fastest growing minority in America that they are not to be trusted. They will respond by not voting Republican.

As someone who is part Hispanic, this law offends me. I am ashamed today to call myself a conservative.

By the Time I Get to Arizona

2010-04-30T19:42:00.000-07:00

Would police in Arizona pull over my mother?

My mom was born in raised in Puerto Rico. She came to the mainland in 1963 and settled in Michigan, where she met my dad. All of my uncles on my Mom's side tend to be dark-skinned, reflective of the African heritage that is part of what makes up modern Puerto Rico. But my Mom and my late Grandmother are lighter skinned, blessed with a rust colored skin that is common among many Puerto Ricans.

But would a cop in Arizona know that? Would they realize that she is and has always been an American citizen? Would they even know Puerto Rico is part of the United States? Or would they look at her skin and her accent and assume that she might be an illegal immigrant?

As you've probably guessed, I am not in favor of the current law in Arizona signed by their Republican governor. I think it could lead to racial profiling of Hispanics; putting them up for suspicion simply because of the color of their skin. Meghan McCain couldn't have said it any better:

Let me say upfront that I do not support the bill that was signed by Governor Jan Brewer. I believe it gives the state police a license to discriminate, and also, in many ways, violates the civil rights of Arizona residents. Simply put, I think it is a bad law that is missing the bigger picture of what is really going on with illegal immigration. The concept that a law-enforcement official can stop an individual when “reasonable suspicion exists that a person is an alien, who is unlawfully present in the United States” is essentially a license to pull someone over for being Hispanic.

I'm not someone who favors "open borders" believing anyone should just come into the United States. As Travis noted, we want to make sure that no bad guys are coming in along with all the good people. I also believe we are a nations of laws, and those who enter the country illegally have broken the law and have to pay for that.

But this law is the wrong way to try to solve this issue. I can't say that if it is intentional, but I believe the law is at least in application, racist. It is based on fear instead of reason.

We need an immigration policy that is based on security and enforcement. That said, we also need to do something about the 12 million who are in the country illegally. It is not feasible, nor is even ethical to try to round up all of these folks and send them back where they came from. So, that means trying to find ways to get them to come out of the shadows and create a process that allows them to become Americans.

I can already hear the cries of "amnesty!" coming from some conservatives. Nevermind that some of the more recent attempts to reform our immigration laws included having these immigrants pay a fine for coming into the country illegally. Anything short of putting these people on a bus headed South will be called "amnesty" by these folks and says speaks volumes about their hearts.

This law also will ruin chances of the GOP reaching out to Latinos. President Bush was not my favorite president, but he at least tried hard to make the party more inclusive to Hispanics. He tried to reform immigration in way that would be more inclusive, but was rebuffed by the hard right. That might please whites in the GOP who seem afraid of brown-skinned persons, but in the long run, as America becomes more diverse, it will be Republican Party that will be on the losing end.

If there are any Republicans left who believe in fairness and justice, we must speak out against this law and call for real reform. This is a slap in the face to a party founded on equality and civil rights.

John Avalon and the "Phony Centrist"

2010-04-30T11:21:00.001-07:00

Perhaps the best known "centrist" out there these days is John Avalon, a former aide to Rudy Giuliani and author of the book Independent Nation: How the Vital Center is Changing American Politics.

You might think that he of all people would support Charlie Crist's declaration of Independence. Nope:

As an independent and a centrist, I should be a textbook supporter of Charlie Crist’s newly announced independent candidacy for U.S. Senate.

But I’m not—because Charlie Crist confirms the worst stereotypes of a centrist. Instead of being principled in his differences with his party, he is opportunistic.

Read the rest. Avalon gives a good reason why Crist is just not the real deal.

Charlie Crist and Moderate Republicanism

2010-04-28T20:30:00.000-07:00

Well, it looks like Florida Governor Charlie Crist is going to run for Senate as an Independent after all.

If you would have asked me a few months ago about the prospects of Crist leaving the GOP, I would have said this is yet another sad reminder of the Republican Party's tilt to the far right. I would have cast Marco Rubio, the Crist's conservative opponent in the Florida Senate race as the evil conservative out to destroy all that is good and right with a moderate, conservative Republicanism.

But now, I'm not so sad about Crist's decision. Don't get me wrong: I am concerned about the ongoing "purging" that is taking place within the GOP. I don't like how a certain ideological rigidity has taken over. I think that there should be a moderate faction within the Republican party.

But I want a principled moderate or centrist Republicanism, not one that seems based on changing political fortunes. The problem is Crist tends to be somewhat of an opportunist, willing to shift to the prevailing winds that will assure him victory.

On April Fool's day, Ross Douthat wrote on his blog about Crist and how many liberals have mischaracterized him. At first read, it seemed like yet another post from Douthat bashing moderates. A second reading though, revealed that Crist was not the martyr I made him out to be. As Douthat states in a reply to writer E. J. Dionne:

E.J. Dionne’s latest column is a classic of a well-worn liberal genre: He heaps praise on the “nonpartisan, non-ideological” Charlie Crist, with his “sunny” attitude and his “buoyant moderation,” and bemoans the rising tide of right-wing extremism that’s going to cost Crist the chance to be the next Republican senator from Florida.

Notably absent is any defense of Crist’s actual record as governor, which has been “moderate” in the worst sense of the word: Fiscally irresponsible on taxes and spending alike, and eager to use bailout dollars to delay the hard choices that Crist’s own profligacy created. Absent, as well, is more thorough accounting of why so many Florida Republicans have turned on the once-popular governor.

Douthat links to a piece by Reihan Salam that shows that Crist doesn't come close to what one would hope a moderate Republican would act when it comes to fiscal matters: in a fiscally conservative manner. In the article, Salam points to an interview Crist gave to the Miami Herald where he lauded the stimulus package passed last year. In Crist's eyes, the state didn't have to worry about raising taxes and could even more money than what was previously planned. As Salam notes, Crist used the stimulus to fund 12 percent of the state budget. He also vetoed a plan by state Republicans to make some painful spending cuts and instead cut taxes, paving the road for a fiscal nightmare down the road.

If you want another example of how Crist has created a potential fiscal trainwreck in the Sunshine State, read Eli Lehrer's piece in Frum Forum.

An article in Salon gives an even clearer picture of a political opportunist. It shows a guy that changes his position to fit the moment:

In 2008, during the period when he was under consideration for the McCain ticket, he abruptly withdrew his previous opposition to offshore drilling, a change that brought him into line with McCain's views.

As a state senator in the mid-'90s, Crist's record on criminal justice issues was hard-line enough to earn him the nickname "Chain Gang Charlie." He also backed a bill that required convicted criminals to serve at least 85 percent of their sentences. While running for attorney general in 2002, he sought to gain a political dividend from these positions by running what the St. Petersburg Times described as a "dark, harsh ad that features violent criminals."

Yet by 2007, Crist was arguing for the restoration of voting rights to felons and stating, "I believe in my heart that everyone deserves a second chance. They deserve an opportunity to get on with productive lives."

After reading all this, I've come to the conclusion that Crist isn't some poor centrist getting bullied by mean conservatives, but a political chameleon that was done in by his own smarts.

There's a lesson here for moderate Republicans. We can't simply support someone because they follow a certain checklist of our issues (gay rights, abortion rights, environment). If they can't govern worth two cents, then they don't deserve our vote. We have to support people who can govern competently and have values that they try to adhere to, and not just latch themselves to whatever or whoever is popular.

I don't know if Rubio is worthy of my support, but I know that I won't be supporting Crist in his Independent bid. A moderate has to have some values.

Postal Savings Accounts: An Idea Whose Time Has Come (Again)

2010-04-28T06:26:00.001-07:00

In the rush to reform the financial system, there has been a lot of talk about making sure that all sorts of financial firms like credit card companies and banks offer plain "vanilla" products that are easy for the common consumer to understand. Reihan Salam thinks that maybe there should be a "public option" that could sell these simple products. The state would sell these products by using an existing goverment agency that has some history doing just these things: the United States Postal Service. Salam explains:

In many countries, including the United States in decades past, the demand for consumer-friendly financial products has been met directly by the state, e.g., through postal savings accounts invested in ultra-safe state assets. We've moved away from this model and towards explicit guarantees for for-profit firms. It's hardly surprising that these guarantees come with strings attached — more and more strings all the time.

Indeed, the Postal Service did just that during the early and mid decades of the 20th century. Here's a snippet of an article from the National Postal Museum:

In 1871 Postmaster General John A. J. Creswell first recommended a postal savings bank (such as Great Britain started in 1861) to generate funds for a postal telegraph network. Nearly four decades of debating the proposed federal savings institution peaked when the 1907 Panic shook the public's trust of private banks. President Theodore Roosevelt advocated using post offices to fulfill the needs of moderate depositors and communities without banks. Under his successor, William H. Taft, legislation for the postal savings system passed on June 25, 1910. It authorized the Post Office Department "to establish postal savings depositories for depositing savings at interest with the security of the Government for repayment thereof, and for other purposes." Politicians instilled the postal savings system with their intents to: provide a safe financial institution in communities across the country; entice hoarders to get their money out of hiding; offer immigrants the familiarity of postal savings common in many of their home countries; encourage thrift among the working, poor, and children; and pose no competition for banks.

While it wasn't very popular in the early years, during the heights of the Depression it became a shelter in the financial storm. Because of better interest rates and banking reforms (such as the FDIC), the system lost favor and was abolished in 1966.

It seems to me that re-establishing a postal banking system might be a way to provide some financial products that aren't confusing and out to fleece consumers and also provide a way for people to save. In 2008, Michael Lind wrote about why have a postal banking system again. He states:

A new postal savings system should be part of America’s post-meltdown financial architecture. When Congress created the postal savings system nearly a century ago, one of its goals was to encourage savings among the large number of low-income immigrants. A new system would help today’s immigrants as well as the native poor. Banks are not interested in people with so little money, many of whom are preyed upon by payday lenders and credit card companies.

A postal bank could also supply middle-class and affluent Americans with an extra layer of financial security. The accounts would be limited to a small amount per person. They would provide a government-guaranteed, low-risk, low-return investment, even for those who put most of their financial assets in conventional bank accounts and the stock market.

In essence, this would provide a safety net in the financial system, which sounds a lot easier than trying to force banks to provide simple banking services or forcing them to move into neighborhoods they aren't interested to move into.

Not only that, but it could also help buy down our public debt and bring the Postal Service out of its own debt.

I dunno, it looks like a good idea that can solve a lot of issues. Could it happen? I don't know about the Democrats, but since it seems that the current thinking among conservatives is that any form of government involvement is socialism, it may not get very far.

But why not give it a shot?

Meet Harold and Clay

2010-04-20T20:09:00.000-07:00

The National Center for Lesbian Rights has more about Harold and Clay, a California same-sex couple that was manhandled by the government of Sonoma County, California. Here is a sample:

The response to the horrific story of Clay Greene and Harold Scull has been very gratifying and inspiring. Clearly, their story struck a chord in all of us. To some degree we can’t help imagining ourselves in exactly this situation. Forty-eight hours ago, few people knew their names, and now a Facebook page in their honor has more than 5,000 fans. Quite simply, this case demonstrates how our relationships as LGBT people are so fragile, especially when we reach our later years. Just one small incident, in this case a fall down some steps, sends the world crashing down.

Harold and Clay were in a committed relationship for twenty-five years, and they lived together for twenty years. Both Harold and Clay had worked in Hollywood and were passionate collectors of film memorabilia. Harold had worked for MGM studios in the 1950s and was a favorite of Louis B. Mayer in the studio’s heyday. At the same time, Clay worked in television with many popular stars of that period. In addition to his film industry career, Harold was an accomplished artist and avid collector, especially of Mexican and Central American Santos religious art and artifacts. Art, heirlooms, and memorabilia graced the walls of their leased home, in which they planned to live together until their deaths.

From a conservative viewpoint, I find this nothing short of astounding. It's a horrible example of the state placing itself over and above the rights of the individual. Conservative believe (or should) believe that a man's home is his castle and that what goes on in said home should be respected and left the hell alone by the government.

Those of us who are Republican and believe in the rights of same-sex couples to live their lives must speak out and say how unconservative this whole action is. I sometimes wonder, what could happen when my partner Daniel and I get older? Will we be treated with respect, or could something like this happen to us?

Feeding Sarah Palin

2010-04-16T06:43:00.001-07:00

I have not written much about Sarah Palin over the last few months. Part of the reason, is that I didn't want to give her attention. I tend to believe that part of the reason she has become such a "rockstar" is because of the attention the media has given her. Bloggers on both the left and right watch her every move. If Palin writes something on her Facebook page, it's immediately news.

The thing is, Palin should have been a footnote after the 2008 elections. In another reality, she would have gone back to being a governor and basically faded into obscurity.

But we don't live in that alternate reality. I wish we did, but we don't. Instead, we see conservatives deify her, making her into some kind of "Reagan in high heels" (when she isn't) and the left loves to place her as the face of the GOP to show just how silly and dumb conservatives are. Both sides have their uses of Palin. They keep feeding Palin in order to prove that their side is correct.

In a post today, David Brooks wishes people would just stop talking about her:

First, let’s all stop paying attention to Sarah Palin for a little while. I understand why liberals want to talk about her. She allows them to feel intellectually superior to their opponents. And members of the conservative counterculture want to talk about her simply because she drives liberals insane. But she is a half-term former governor with a TV show. She is not going to be the leader of any party and doesn’t seem to be inclined in that direction.

The Sarah Palin phenomenon is a media psychodrama and nothing more. It gives people on each side an excuse to vent about personality traits they despise, but it has nothing to do with government.

I really couldn't agree more with Brooks. Palin is not as much the face of the GOP than a symbol of what is wrong with politics in America: it reduces it to mere enterainment. Palin is not popular because she is charismatic or has some great policies. She is popular because she is walking, talking reality show. And like those reality shows, we just can't turn away.

As if on cue, Andrew Sullivan responds to Brooks seeing Palin as the face of a dysfunctional party:

None of this makes any sense, but Palin, unlike some of her rivals who feel some kind of lingering need to relate their policies to fiscal and global reality, is a thoroughly post-modern creature. She creates her own reality, and that is an incredibly important talent for a party base that desperately wants to live in another reality (a kind of souped-up version of 1950s culture and late nineteenth century economy). Her book - a fictional account of an imagined life - sold well with the GOP base because they too want a fictional account of America's current standing in the world and an imagined set of viable policy positions. She so lives and breathes this magical-realist culture she doesn't need to channel it. She knows we can keep social security and Medicare and global power for ever and balance the budget without any taxes - because that is what she wants to know. And she has never let reality get in her way. Reality is one of those doors she keeps crashing through.

Yes, many tea-partiers do not think Palin is "qualified" to be president. But primaries are won by enthusiasm and star power. Palin has both. And she has money. And, most important, she has a media machine dedicated to promoting her outside of any real scrutiny or questions. She has never faced a real press conference and speaks to "pre-screened" questioners at debates and speeches. She is a test-case of how willfully divorced from reality a segment of America can remain, and how irrelevant reality is for today's niche-targeted media. All of this makes Palin the most potent force in American politics since Obama.

But there's a problem here: part of the problem is Andrew himself, who keeps writing about her every move pumping her up into this media goddess. It's not just Fox News who is doing this.

Of course, he has a reason to do this: to prove as he says at the end his post that the GOP is no longer a credible governing force. But in doing so, he basically helps suck the air out of the room- leaving other candidates with little air to share their visions and viewpoints. That allows Palin to only grow in stature and relevance.

The media, and that includes bloggers, need to stop focusing on Palin. There are a lot of real issues that need to be talked about concering the GOP. There are a lot of problems wrong with the GOP. But focusing on Palin allows us to ignore the more substantive issues.

I think Palin is more the face of American political culture instead of just the GOP. It's a culture that is more interested in enterianment than it is in trying to solve problems facing the nation.

It's Sarah Palin's show. We just allow ourselves to watch it.

The Last Liberal Republican

2010-04-13T11:55:00.000-07:00

As you know, as also blog over at Republicans United, a centrist Republican blog. One of my co-bloggers, Martin Rybicki, is definitely a rare bird these days: a liberal Republican. I don't always agree with him, but I can say he is well-versed in what he believes and why. His latest post makes the case for ideological diversity in both major political parties. It's a worthwhile read, even if you don't agree with it. Give it a go.

In Search of a Moderate Republican

2010-04-13T07:19:00.001-07:00

Are there really any moderate Republicans in office anymore?

Clive Crook is beginning to doubt it , and to be honest, so am I. John McCain is trying to pretend he never was a "maverick" and as Crook notes, thoughtful leaders like Mitt Romney are running away from their more moderate stances. It seems that there is a spirit running within the GOP that crushes any differences and imposes a soul-killing conformity that screams meaningless phrases like "secular socialist machine."

Crook notes that the passage of Obamacare should have prompted a more reasonable response that would have captured fustrated centrists. He writes:

Republicans are right to say that the Obama administration has over-reached. Democrats failed to convince the country that their healthcare reform was the right solution to an obvious and pressing problem, yet passed their law anyway. Many voters are angry about this, and entitled to be. Also, despite the administration’s denials, the reform will most likely add to public borrowing, which was on a dangerously high trajectory to begin with. Again, they are right to be concerned.

Disenchantment with Mr Obama and the Democrats is especially pronounced in the political centre. (Conservatives, of course, were dismayed before the evidence was even in.) You might have thought this would commend a centrist platform to the Republican party approaching November’s mid-term elections. Swing voters decide who wins, and they were up for grabs. Why are Republicans steering to the right?

Crook then says the culprit is the Tea Party. The GOP sees this still forming movement as its salvation and has focused all its energy on that movement. Populism is always more sexy than the usually dowdy centrism. Right now, GOP leaders either feel forced or want to try to go for the sexy sizzle of the Tea Party partriots, than the steady and boring centrists.

Crook also notes that the current incarnation of the GOP is many things, but one thing it is NOT is fiscally conservative, which might spell doom for us all:

There is a good chance that control of the House will switch. In narrow electoral terms, the Republicans’ militant posture is working. This dynamic has disturbing implications. A populist-right Republican party is not a party of fiscal conservatives. It is a party of tax-cutters and middle-class entitlement protectors – budget deficits be damned. A populist-right Republican party has no trouble calling for lower taxes, opposing cuts in Medicare (the programme that poses the greatest fiscal danger), and deploring public borrowing, all at the same time. This, in fact, has been its line on healthcare reform.

That reform, with its $1,000bn of extra costs over 10 years, is now law. Democrats may flinch, like Republicans, at cutting Medicare to pay for it, but they have no strong objection to raising taxes once that becomes inescapable. A Republican-controlled House would have strong objections. It might very well refuse to do it, preferring possible fiscal catastrophe to higher taxes.

It's funny that this party that seems to talk about the spectre of socialism and about "a government takeover of healthcare" are also the ones that want to protect entitlement programs. Because raising taxes is a no-no and we are too chicken to make meaningful cuts, if the GOP gets back into power, we will just go back to "borrow and spend," which of course is so much better than the Democrats "tax and spend."

Crook thinks the GOP is basically a narrow sect instead of a "broad church." I would agree. The GOP is dazzled by the Tea Party, but what happens when reality sets in? The Tea Party is not America, after all. What if the GOP doesn't do as well in November? What if they lose big time in 2012? What if the Tea Party goes and creates a new party? What if the economy goes south again and the public demands some kind of government action?

Most moderate groups like the Republican Leadership Council or Republican Mainstreet Partnership, which were calling for a bigger tent in the GOP after the 2008 elections have either grown silent or have gone along to get along in wake of the new environment, lest they be targeted. The same goes for moderate politicians. After Dede Scozzafava, very few moderates dare tout their centrist credentials.

My own guess is that there will be some breaking point where the current strategy will fail. It might be that the economy gets better and the Dems pick up more seats than expected. It might be a landslide election in 2012. Whatever it is, there will come a point where the moderates in hiding will be tired of hiding.

I'm looking forward to that day, but it will be hellish in the meantime.

Will Erick Erickson Grow Up?

2010-04-02T07:37:00.001-07:00

Erick Erickson, the prolific blogger from RedState, is a new political commentator for CNN. Below is an interview Erickson took part in on CNN. It's quite eye-opening.

I guess what bothers me here is not his extreme views as much as his childish behavior on a blog that has such massive hits. I mean, you write a blog where you call a retiring Supreme Court justice a "goat f*****g child molester" and think that only a few people are watching this?

He says that he knows he needs to grow up and carry on a more dignified discussion, but I have my doubts. The reason he is so popular and why CNN is taking him on is because of his behavior.

I agree with E.D. Kain on this one: when there could have been a number of thoughtful and smart conservatives to choose from, CNN went with Erickson.

And you wonder why CNN's ratings are in the toilet.

The Republican Political Trolls

2010-04-02T07:36:00.000-07:00

Mark Thompson has an interesting views of the GOP during and after the debate on health care reform. He bypasses all the talk about how their historonics have created a climate of fear or even talking about civility and instead liken the tactics of Republicans to that of an internet troll. He explains:

...what the GOP and conservative leadership did was to refuse to respond to any of the Democrats’ actual arguments or counterargument for their health care reform bill. When the reforms were proposed, they cried “socialism!” and “fascism!” and, eventually, “death panels!” So far, so good, though – by themselves these claims aren’t too much different from implying that Barry Goldwater was a card-carrying member of the KKK with a devious plot to initiate a nuclear holocaust. Where they went off the rails, though, was when they failed to address the Democrats’ calls of “Bullshit!” – calls that usually came with at least some evidence. As soon as the Dems called “Bullshit!” the cowards turned tail and ran from the argument rather than defend themselves. Rather than waving aloft provisions of the bills that at least provided a grain of truth to their hyperbole or refuted the Dems’ own defenses, they just shouted “death panels” as if that were an argument; instead of putting Ruth Ann Johnson, that poor widow from Wichita who’s going to see her Medicare benefits cut, on center stage, they just whined about how those mean liberals are being so uncivil to them; and so on.

In essence, from my perspective the course of the debate seemed to go thusly (and remember, I think the health care reform bill that the Democrats passed will cause far more problems than it solves):

Democrat: We have 55 million uninsured in this country who need our health; health care reform will go a long way to solving that problem.

Republican: Bullshit! It’s socialism! And fascism! And there’s going to be death panels!

Democrat: This bill ensures health insurance remains a private sector business. And what death panels? There’s none in this bill. And as things are, we already have death panels – they’re called insurance companies.

Republican: It’s socialism! And fascism! And there’s going to be death panels!

Democrat: Hey asshole, are you deaf? Did you not hear anything I just said?

Republican: How dare you call me a deaf asshole? This is just proof that you are not at all interested in anything that I or anyone of the decent, hardworking real Americans that I represent have to say, you liberal, latte-sipping East Coast elitist douchebag!

Democrat: Aw, screw it. I think we’ll just take our chances with our 60 votes in the Senate.

It's a worthy argument to make and I think Thompson makes a lot of sense. Now, I don't think the Dems were as serious about bringing the GOP on in the health care debate, but then the Republicans were never that serious either.

I dealt with my share of internet trolls both on this blog and elsewhere. You try to talk with them and bring some logic into the debate, but all that the people are interested in is fighting. So after a while, you tired of trying to reason with them and you leave them alone.

The GOP was interested in trying being the troll and leave it to moderate and pro-life Democrats to scuttle the bill. Of course, the moderates and pro-lifers decided to make deals and support the bill and left the Republicans looking like fools.

The fault of the GOP is not in their rhetoric as Mark states. The problem is that this was all they had and in the end it was not enough.

That's All, Folks.

2010-03-22T19:22:00.001-07:00

The Washington Post is reporting that the health care bill has passed in the House by a vote of 219 in favor and 212 against. So, now that all the votes have been taken, and conservatives and Republicans have egg on their faces, I have a few thoughts:

I'm come away with mixed feelings. Like many, I have long thought that the health care system needed an overhaul. I've gone without insurance, not knowing how I could afford the medicines I take for depression and racking up bills while off of insurance. During one of those times I was without insurance, I came down with a severe infection that landed me in the hospital. If it wasn't for a government-sponsored plan (in this case, Medicaid) I would have faced a huge bill that I would still be paying for today, some fourteen years later. So, I know that there needs to be reform and I acknowledge that the government has to have a role. I am glad the current bill would ban insurers from using pre-existing conditions as a way to not insure people.That said, I don't like this current bill and what it will create in America. I'm not worried about a "government takeover," but I am concerned that about how this program will pay or not pay for itself. I tend to believe that this will impose a new entitlement on Americans that we can't afford. If you thought the addition of prescription drug benefits to Medicare was costly, just wait. Peter Suderman and Douglas Holz-Akin do a good job of trying to explain that the supposed savings of this plan are just that, supposed.
Does anyone really believe when Republicans say that they are going work to repeal this bill? I mean, who the hell are they kidding? Are you really going to tell older Americans that they will reinstate the so-called "donut hole" in currently in Medicare? That's not gonna happen, and those bloggers and politicians that are pushing for repeal are either lying or smoking something.
I've already said this before, but I think the GOP really blew it in their handling of health care. They expected a repeat of 1994. That didn't happen. Then they hoped that socially conservative Democrats would block the bill because of fears that it would fund abortions. They didn't expect the President to make deals with those Democrats. David Frum had a good piece about a year ago about the so-called "Goldwater myth" that allowed the Dems to spend like crazy and invest in programs that were wasteful. 1994 might not be repeating itself, but 1964 surely is.
I also don't see Congress going back to "fix" things later. We've spent a year debating this bill, does anyone think we want to go back to debate again? Megan McArdle is correct:
Those like my colleague Andrew, who want Republicans to turn to the task of improving this monstrous bill--how is that going to happen? The "fixes" are all the unpopular stuff: the taxes, the spending cuts. You think that now that Democrats got to hand out the goodies, Republicans are going to be the nasty folks who volunteer to hand around the bill for a law they didn't even want to pass?

Every time I hear comments on this sort of thing, I want to say, "And what other things have you been wondering during your visit to our planet?"

For better or for worse, and I think there is a little bit of both, we are stuck with this bill. I'm glad we might be able to give health care to millions of Americans that are without it, but I do have to wonder at what cost, and if we can afford that cost.

Did Gays Get Shafted in the Health Care Deal?

2010-03-22T19:19:00.001-07:00

Two conservative gay groups, GOProud and Log Cabin Republicans are reporting that several provisions that would have helped gays and lesbians have been scrapped. They were in the House version of the bill, but dropped in the Senate version, the same one that passed the House last night. As far as I can tell, it won't none of the changes will be included in the so-called "fixes" the Senate will take up after the President signs the bill into law on Tuesday.

Stephen Miller of the Independent Gay Forum shares one of the missing GLBT friendly provisions:

The original House-passed health care bill contained a provision extending to domestic partners the same tax exclusion on the value of employer-provided health benefits that spouses of employees receive. That was a major step forward—the taxes paid by domestic partners but not spouses for "family coverage" are huge.

The Senate dropped the tax-equalizing provision entirely in its version of the health care bill, although at the same time it loosened the language restricting government funding of abortion. Score: One for the pro-choice/abortion lobby, zero for gays.

A news service article shares that the efforts of Tammy Baldwin, the only open lesbian serving in Congress, to include gay-friendly provisions came up short:

Baldwin had sought and secured four pro-gay provisions in the original House version of health care reform, including a prohibition on discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity in health care.

But neither the Senate bill nor President Obama’s proposal late last month included those provisions. Baldwin had held out hope, as late as Thursday morning, that at least two of the provisions might be added back under whatever legislative package the House and Senate would eventually vote on.

But by Thursday afternoon, when the text of that final package was posted on the Internet, that hope was quashed.

The version of health care reform legislation being considered now by Congress - with the final critical votes scheduled to begin this weekend - does include some relief for people with HIV on Medicare who must purchase expensive AIDS-related medications.

But it does not include the anti-discrimination provision or three others. Those others included the “Early Treatment for HIV Act,” which sought to allow states to provide Medicaid coverage to low-income HIV positive individuals; the Tax Equity for Health Plan Beneficiaries Act, which sought to end the tax for gay employees whose partners/spouses are covered under their work health insurance coverage; and a provision to collect data toward ending disparities in health care for LGBT people.

However, the DC Agenda notes there are some bright spots for persons living with HIV/AIDS:

Although the LGBT and HIV/AIDS provisions unique to the House legislation weren’t included in the reconciliation package, the final bill has one provision aimed to help to HIV/AIDS community that was included in both the House and Senate versions of the legislation.

The language would enable AIDS Drug Assistance Program expeditures to count toward out-of-pocket expenses under Medicare Part D. In other words, people with HIV/AIDS on Medicare who receive help purchasing HIV drugs would have a lesser burden for other prescription drug costs.

Other provisions in the final bill less explicitly directed at people with HIV/AIDS would assist people living with the condition.

The final health bill eliminates discrimination based on health status or pre-existing conditions, such as HIV/AIDS. Additionally, the bill expands Medicaid eligibility for people with incomes below 133% of the federal poverty level, allowing more low-income people with HIV to access Medicaid and its prescription drug coverage.

I'm not under any illusions that Republicans would have done better on these issues, but it does seem like yet again, the Democrats are taking advantage of the gay community and we are letting them do it.