Month: October 2007

11 Comments Posted on '08 Election, Republicans

reagan’s appeal

Mark Levin explains what we are missing in the new Reagan wannabes.

Reagan helped build and lead the modern conservative movement. That can’t be said of any of the current Republican candidates. He helped give it substance and voice. He fought the Left in Hollywood. He was an outspoken Barry Goldwater supporter when Goldwater was fairly unpopular with the general public. He took on Gerald Ford, challenging him from the Right. Indeed, his candidacies in 1968, 1976, and 1980 were all ideologically based. And he obviously won in 1980 as the most conservative candidate in modern history. And both as a candidate and president, Reagan constantly spoke of conservative principles, as he had since the mid-to-late 1950s. He was not a recent convert. He used his position to educate the people about government’s limits. But he also understood, like Edmund Burke and many others, that changing half a century of liberal government would take time.

So, while he couldn’t succeed in every respect as president, and would reach compromises now and then, he tried to push the massive ship of state in the right direction. And he had many successes (too many people focus on the setbacks). He left a legacy that could have been built upon by his successor, but it was not.

That’s it. That’s where Giuliani, Romney, McCain, Huckabee and others can’t duplicate Reagan — the leadership he showed, not only as President, but as someone who not only believed in conservatism and was willing to fight in the arena of ideas. You can’t buy that kind of resume. You can’t be converted into it. You can still believe in conservative principles to varying degrees, and still not have the ability to fight for and advance those principles as Reagan did while he was our President.

Most of our top tier candidates are more than capable of leading the country in the right direction, but as far as finding a new leader for conservatism, you won’t find one of those in the Republican presidential candidate pool. Maybe we need to look somewhere else for that person, and be willing to settle for someone who won’t exactly be the kind of leader that Reagan was. The future of conservatism is not in the hands of any of these men, or in the hands of the Democrat contenders. So it won’t be lost no matter what happens in the next presidential election. We just have to fight a little harder if Hillary wins.

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Posted on '08 Election, Democrats, Republicans

embrace the nuance

Michael Medved explains why Rudy is different than Hillary on abortion.

Consider, for instance, the key differences between Giuliani’s platform and those of the leading Democratic candidates. Giuliani has committed to preserve the Hyde Amendment, banning taxpayer money for abortions; the top Democrats urge repeal and favor federal funding. Giuliani applauded the recent Supreme Court decision upholding a ban on partial-birth abortion; all leading Democrats condemned it in harsh terms. The former mayor supports tougher rules requiring parental notification (with a judicial bypass) for underage girls who seek abortions; Clinton and Barack Obama oppose such legislation. Most significant of all, Giuliani has specifically cited strict-constructionists Antonin Scalia, Samuel Alito and John Roberts as his models for future justices of the Supreme Court — and all three of those jurists have signaled their support for allowing states more leeway in limiting abortions. The top Democrats regularly express contempt for the conservative jurists whom Giuliani admires, and worked against the Alito and Roberts nominations.

I will note, however, that Rudy’s position on federal funding of abortions has changed over the years. But I think there’s common ground to be found here on the abortion issue, especially when pro-lifers consider the alternative. The pro-life community has a moral problem with abortion, and even though most Americans don’t agree with banning abortion entirely, both sides should agree on reasonable limits to the practice. That’s where social conservatives who consider abortion one of their main concerns can accept Rudy Giuliani as the Republican nominee, because there are significant distinctions between his pro-choice position and that of any of his Democrat opposition.

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Posted on '08 Election, Republicans

romney’s problem

Patrick Ruffini:

Romney should resign himself to the fact that he won’t be able to out-conservative Thompson or Huckabee on issues.

But he does have unique qualities that make him a more appealing choice than the other conservatives in the field on other grounds. In short, his path to the nomination is to out-conservative Rudy Giuliani (and only Giuliani) and out-executive and out-bio Thompson or Huckabee.

In all the ads we’ve seen so far, where is Romney the incredibly successful businessman — the most successful one in North America according to Jim Cramer? Romney the father of five? (this one’s only made the occasional cameo before social conservative audiences). The guy who was home with his wife doing his HBS homework while George Bush was out partying? (Okay, go light on the last part in the primaries.) Or the guy who saved the Olympics?

These were all the inspiring reasons why a one-term Massachusetts governor could run for President to begin with, and instead we get awkward metaphors about three-legged stools and blue vs. black suits.

He’s right.  We are not hearing much about Romney the businessman, Romney the family man, or the guy who saved the Olympics.  All we hear are assurances about Romney’s new conservatism.  He can pass himself off as more conservative than Giuliani.  But Giuliani will always be more authentic than Romney, because he is honest about his differences with social conservatives on gay marriage and abortion. Even though Romney has conservative views now, that is not his strongest argument for the Republican nomination. His strongest argument is his resume, and he is not using that to his advantage in this race.

Romney isn’t the most conservative guy in the race, whether he came by those views in a genuine conversion or a politically convenient one, and he does himself no favors trying to sell that concept.  Sell the resume, not the conservatism.  That’s the only way he can get past all the other candidates.

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Posted on '08 Election, Conservatives, Republicans

second look

Let me be clear about this: I don’t see John McCain rebounding enough in the presidential race to knock off Romney or Giuliani. He has burned quite enough bridges to make more than a few enemies along the political road. His dogged stubbornness to defend stupid policy like campaign-finance reform and that misguided illegal immigration bill is the main objection conservatives have with him. He is also seen by some as arrogant because of this. Not exactly the perfect Republican messenger.

That’s the case against him.  Let me attempt to make the case for him.

McCain is a bona fide fiscal conservative.  If we want someone who has always been committed to reducing government spending, John McCain fits that description. When he calls for spending cuts, he has credibility because he’s done it many times and he has fought pork projects every time they pop up in a bill. I think McCain is being overlooked as a small-government guy because of our focus on the more outspoken Ron Paul and Rudy incessantly talking about his NY tax cuts.

McCain is a bona fide social conservative, if by that you mean pro-life.  He’s always been pro-life, no conversions, no fudging it, nothing like that.  Sure he’s not totally with us on gay marriage, but his overall record in the Senate shows that, as he says, he is a reliable conservative vote on the family issues that count to the social conservatives.

McCain has solid military experience.  He served in Vietnam.  So did John Kerry (if you hadn’t heard).  If that qualification was good enough for Senator Kerry, why wouldn’t it be for John McCain?  He can speak with authority on the military and on national security matters, because he knows what needs to be done to keep our military strong and to respond to future threats against our country.  If national security and the war on terrorism is the main concern of the base, why would you consider this a strength of Giuliani and leave McCain out of that conversation?

Giuliani isn’t the only one who can claim that he has taken unpopular positions, and never wavered from them.  McCain can also make this claim.  We may not like some of McCain’s policies and proposals (campaign finance and illegal immigration), but I believe that he’s closer to everything we want in a candidate than Rudy Giuliani is. If we are trying to elevate Huckabee or Thompson, or to a lesser degree Romney, on the basis that they are currently pro-life (and Rudy is not), then we should take a second look at John McCain.  He brings the pro-life record, fiscal conservatism, and a solid military background as just a few pieces of his presidential resume, and it’s a resume that we should take a closer look at before rejecting him as a Republican nominee.

As I said, I think the die has already been cast against McCain, but we should give him another look before we settle for Rudy Giuliani.

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Posted on '08 Election, Conservatives, Republicans

expand the message

The Economist, whose writers and editors mostly live in one of Europe’s many welfare states (that would be the UK), lectures our presidential candidates on how to keep businesspeople interested by talking about smaller government. They blame the socons for distracting the Republicans from talking about taxes, trade, and healthcare to talk about God, guns, and gays. I have an answer for the Economist: none of these Republicans (except possibly for Rudy and Ron Paul) actually believe in small government. They pander their little hearts out, because they know it’s a popular message for fiscal conservatives — making government smaller, and taking power away from government. Don’t think for a second that most of these candidates believe there should be less government. This is especially true of candidates like Mike Huckabee, a guy who is popular with socons and libs alike, who wants to use the power of the federal government to impose the Arkansan nanny-state on the federal level. I’m glad he lost weight, but it should not be the federal government’s job to make you stop smoking, eating fast food, or to make more healthy choices in your life.

There’s nothing wrong with talking about issues that resonate with the many social conservatives in the Republican base, but I think that the Republican party needs to broaden its message. The one thing that attracted me initially to the Romney campaign was that he was the only guy talking about education and health care, normally issues co-opted by Democrats. The Republican party should be a party that remains true to its values on “God, guns, and gays”, but we shouldn’t allow the only ideas on education, taxes, trade, health care, and poverty to come from the Democrats. The Democrats had 40 years to fix education and health care, and they still promise to fix them when their candidate becomes President. Maybe it’s time to find alternatives to what the Dems have been proposing. We should not allow issues that everybody cares about to be the primary domain of a party with more questions than answers.

The Republicans have been a distracted party, but this distraction certainly doesn’t come from wayward socons. It comes from getting too comfortable with power to constantly re-evaluate what’s working and what’s not working, and to come up with innovative ideas for reform and change that would really make a difference in our lives. I’m not talking about new government programs. What I’m talking about is ways to empower people, not politicians. We hear all the time from the left about people-powered politics. The frustration both left and right share is with the Washington establishment bureaucrats who have stopped taking risks, and politicians who have stopped listening to what the people want. The system enables this malaise, and that is why Newt Gingrich’s American Solutions is such a revolutionary concept. It allows ordinary people to have a voice and provide ideas for reform.

I’ve said all along that the dissatisfaction with the Republican presidential candidates is more about their lack of vision than any credentials they may lack with economic, social, or fiscal conservatives. They don’t have any big ideas to inspire the base. Maybe this will change closer to the election, but to keep the activists motivated, our nominee can’t just run as “Not Hillary”.

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Posted on '08 Election, Republicans

doom and gloom

And now this word from the folks at NRO…

Rich Lowry says all the republican candidates suck.

Jonah Goldberg assures us that yes, in case you weren’t sure, Reagan is still dead. Not to pick on Mr. Goldberg, but apparently it’s not true until someone other than me writes it.

Deroy Murdock tells the stubborn social conservatives to shut up — of course Giuliani is not a threat to them. I’m not likely to take any politician on faith, even Giuliani. Even though Giuliani is considered more ‘authentic’ than Romney, he doesn’t get criticized half as much for similar shifts to the right on guns and abortion. It’s a curious thing. I guess being the Hillary-killer is enough to cause this collective amnesia about Rudy’s socially liberal past. I guess the difference is that Rudy has never attempted to be a social conservative and that he seems more honest about his differences with us. We seem to have resigned ourselves to the possibility of Giuliani being the Republican nominee.

Depressed yet?

Read more from Townhall. Mona Charen gives a few reasons why Republicans are doomed in ’08.

Wow.

Fortunately, there is always that eternal optimist, Bill Kristol, who tells Republicans to lighten up because there is still hope for us. I wish that I shared that optimism.

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Posted on George W. Bush

george bush hates children of all ages

That must be the reason that he wants parents who can easily afford it to pay for their kids’ health care without government assistance. That must be the reason why he wants to restrict the program only to children. (Some states even cover adults under SCHIP, and that’s why we need so much more money than Bush wants to allocate to it.) Kanye West helpfully explained to us that Dubya hates black people. It’s certainly not a stretch from that perspective to also believe he hates children as well. He probably kicks cute puppies and kitties, and plans new ways to torment Americans in his spare time. This makes sense in liberal-progressive world. I mean, if it were up to George W. Bush, no one would have government health care — and by no one I mean people who can afford to pay for their own health care.

President Bush wants to expand SCHIP by 5 billion dollars. That’s “billion” with a B. If you can’t cover all the poor children with an extra 5 billion dollars, then your wonderful government program needs a serious overhaul. I’m not at all suggesting that every dime spent on SCHIP is spent wisely. You can’t make that claim of any government program. But if we want to keep costs in check, we can’t expand SCHIP to cover middle-income families and adults, because that was never its purpose.

Where was this guy’s veto pen on all of the less popular, less PC and utterly wasteful government spending before October? Just askin’.

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Posted on '08 Election, Republicans

where has this guy been?

In a New Hampshire speech,  John McCain, shall we say, seriously questions Mitt Romney’s authenticity.

Courtesy of the Corner:

I don’t usually do this but I’m going to depart for a moment from the issues I want to talk to you about today.  One of the other Republican candidates made an extraordinary statement yesterday.  Former Governor Romney yesterday proclaimed himself the only real Republican in this race.  As we all know, when he ran for office in Massachusetts being a Republican wasn’t much of a priority for him.  In fact, when he ran against Ted Kennedy, he said he didn’t want to return to the days of Reagan-Bush.  I always thought Ronald Reagan was a real Republican.

When Governor Romney donated money to a Democratic candidate in New Hampshire, I don’t think he was speaking for Republicans.  When he voted for a Democratic candidate for President, Paul Tsongas, I don’t think he was speaking for Republicans.  When he refused to endorse the Contract with America, I don’t think he was speaking for Republicans.  And when he was embracing the Democratic position on many major issues of the day, I don’t think he was speaking for Republicans.

So you’ll understand why I’m a little perplexed when Mitt Romney now suggests that he’s a better Republican than me, or that he speaks for the Republican wing of the Republican Party.

I think I’ve gotten to know the people of New Hampshire pretty well.  I know that before I can win your vote, I have to win your respect.  And to do that, you expect me to be honest with you about what I believe.  You might not always agree with me on every issue, but I hope you know I’m not going to con you.  The most important thing we have in this life is our self-respect.  And I’m not going to trade mine for anyone’s vote or for any office.  I’m going to tell you what I believe and let the chips fall where they will.  I’m confident New Hampshire Republicans feel the same way about your self-respect as I feel about mine.

Ouch. That’s the kind of message that can resonate with people.  That’s McCain’s strength as a candidate.  He is authentic.  You know where he stands.  Unfortunately, he stands opposed to conservatives on issues like illegal immigration and campaign-finance reform. He has burned a lot of bridges with us, and this is what is keeping him from being a factor in this presidential race.

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4 Comments Posted on Democrats

jane harman is right

We should never shrink from our responsibility to recognize and to condemn genocide wherever we see it, but the timing of this House resolution condemning Turkey for their past actions against Armenians is very questionable. We have passed similar resolutions previously, and I don’t see the purpose in another resolution, especially now, when we depend so much on Turkey for help with Iraq and in the region.  Besides, I thought that the main focus of Democrats as far as condemning genocide was Sudan.  When did the focus shift to Turkey?  Turkey may have an imperfect past.  Right now we need them.

Representative Jane Harman, one of the sensible Democrats, explains why she no longer supports the resolution that she co-sponsored:

I originally co-sponsored the resolution because I was convinced that the terrible crime against the Armenian people should be recognized and condemned. But after a visit in February to Turkey, where I met with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Armenian Orthodox patriarch and colleagues of murdered Turkish Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, I became convinced that passing this resolution again at this time would isolate and embarrass a courageous and moderate Islamic government in perhaps the most volatile region in the world.

So I agree with eight former secretaries of State — including Los Angeles’ own Warren Christopher — who said that passing the resolution “could endanger our national security interests in the region, including our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, and damage efforts to promote reconciliation between Turkey and Armenia.”

Timing matters. I asked a leader in California’s Armenian American community just days ago why the resolution was being pushed now. “They didn’t ask me,” he said. It wasn’t his call, and he probably would not have pushed it.

So what is the endgame? I would hope that, regardless of the outcome of the vote, Turkey and Armenia will work toward reconciliation and normalization of relations.

About 70,000 Armenians live in Turkey, and Turkey continues to admit more. Yet Article 301 of Turkey’s Constitution prohibits insulting “Turkishness” — a disturbing provision that has been used to punish Armenians in Turkey who insist the genocide took place. Surely an act of reconciliation would be to embrace the Armenian population in Turkey and repeal Article 301.

Further, Turkey and Armenia have held recent talks about normalizing relations. They share mutual interests in trade, especially in the energy sector. Now is a good time to engage.

And, of course, there is the need for stability in the region. Turkey shares a border with Iraq, and the need for its continued restraint with the Kurds and for its leadership in promoting stability and resolving the Israel-Palestine issue is obvious. Armenia can help.

Harman makes a convincing argument here. We don’t have many allies in the region, and it would be in our interest not to alienate the ones we have. This is not a question of being silent and allowing atrocities to occur.  Turkey has moved on from that, and since we have already passed resolutions condemning Turkey for similar crimes, we need to move on as well.

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Posted on '08 Election, Conservatives, Republicans

the case for staying with the GOP

Frank Donatelli lays it it out here.

One sentence version: Any of the Democrats who would get elected as a result of a third-party candidate would be worse than Giuliani on the issues that are important to conservatives, including with Supreme Court nominations. Yup.

John Hawkins agrees:

The point is: the GOP is not perfect and it’s not ever going to be perfect, but if conservatives want to get our agenda enacted or to block the Democrats agenda, we need Republicans in office — and the more of them the better.

Does that mean we’re, “supporting the leftward shift of the Republican party?” No, it means that we’re acknowledging that the GOP is the imperfect instrument through which conservatives enact our agenda. It’s better to put Republicans in office and try to shape their behavior to our liking than to put Democrats into power and then pat ourselves on the back for our purity.

Hawkins also points out that the challenges should come in the primary process, whether it is a presidential race or a congressional race. We have every right to support challengers who we feel are more ideologically pure, or for the simple reason that the incumbent hasn’t been an effective representative for our interests. That’s where the presidential race is now. Everyone has their own pet issues, and none of the candidates are seen as the perfect choice. It comes back to something I have always believed and have written about previously…it’s always better to get most of what you want with Republicans than to get none of what you want with Democrats. That is especially true when we consider a potential Hillary-Rudy matchup next November.

While it makes sense to vote for someone like Giuliani over Hillary, I can understand why someone who doesn’t believe that Rudy’s the right guy wouldn’t want to donate money to him or to volunteer for his campaign. You can’t sell a candidate you don’t believe in.

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