Republicans

2 Comments Posted on '08 Election, Conservatives, Republicans

exit strategy

After last night’s debate, I think Ron Paul needs to make a graceful exit from the presidential race. It’s not because his ideas aren’t worth discussing, although I think that it would be hard to make the case for eliminating the FBI and CIA post-911. He was right to point out that our intelligence agencies didn’t work as well together as they should have leading up to the tragedy of September 11 as well as the war in Iraq. That problem can’t be fixed by spending less money on intelligence, yet this is what Paul seems to be suggesting. And whether you agree with Ron Paul’s assessment of the Iraq war or not, I don’t think that Paul represents a realistic approach to dealing with threats to our national security in the Islamic world. That’s not where the Republican party is on national security and the war in Iraq, and the more he tries to sell his withdrawal plans, the less convincing he becomes. The prescription by Dr. Paul is the wrong one, and we need to seek a second opinion.

This isn’t about shutting down alternative points of view to the Republican front-runners. Ron Paul has had more than enough time to make his case to the voters of this country, and it’s time to recognize that he hasn’t managed to do that. Not only that, but he has become a punching bag for Giuliani and Huckabee, which can’t do much for his credibilty or viability as a candidate. I think we have heard enough from Ron Paul to decide that he isn’t the right person to lead our party in the next election.

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4 Comments Posted on Republicans

hypocrites and stone-throwers

It is the tendency of the media, and to some extent, the blogosphere, to breathlessly report on perceived hypocrisy by Republican politicians.  I suppose it’s better to have no moral boundaries at all in your personal life, so even though you may do immoral things, you will never be accused of hypocrisy by the press.  Because after all, there’s no higher authority to answer to than the ladies and gentlemen of the fourth estate.  Those who honestly seek to honor their marriages and their families –by keeping the commitment they made to be faithful to their spouse and to keep their family a top priority– sometimes fail. Republicans fail. Democrats fail.  We are all prone to human weakness.

In Senator Craig’s case, I find it hard to spare any sympathy for him.  When a Senator plays the “Do you know who I am?” card and tries to use his office to get out of trouble, there’s no excuse for that. Senator Craig also didn’t help himself by trying to excuse his behavior instead of coming clean about it from the beginning.

I do feel sorry for his wife, and I can’t imagine what she must be going through right now. While I do think Craig should resign, I have a problem with those who want to score political points off of his humiliation.   It’s true that Republicans have always been the party promoting “family values”, and that we generally oppose same-sex marriage. (Of course, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama also oppose same-sex marriage, but somehow that fact gets glossed over by the media with their prewritten narrative about the Republican party…) Maybe that’s why the members of the Republican party in Washington, DC are held to a higher standard than their Democratic counterparts.  I have no problem with this.

Unfortunately, many of these Republicans have fallen short of our expectations, and there’s no easy way to regain the trust that voters once placed in our party.   Sometimes apologies aren’t enough, because the damage is too deep.   If we want to win any elections in the future, we need to keep those high standards, and hold our fellow Republicans accountable for their actions. Then maybe we can regain the trust of the American people.

1 Comment Posted on '08 Election, Random Musings, Republicans

thoughts on ames: part 2

People of faith, and Christians in particular, need to get out of the political king-making business. We have more important things we need to be worrying about than who wins elections. We condemn elitists. We say that politicians are out of touch with our values. And you know what? We are absolutely right to be doing that. But we cannot, and we should not, be telling people to vote for or against a candidate because of the level of their belief or non-belief in God. With all the flaws in the Democratic strategy over the years, I don’t recall them ever fighting about which candidate is more religious, and basing their support on who appears to love God the most. It’s a stupid argument that we are having here, and we need to recognize that the more important characteristic than a person’s religion is how competently that person can run the US government and how aggressive she/he is in protecting this country from foreign enemies, both terrorists and rogue regimes seeking nukes. If we can find someone as a Republican nominee who will appoint strict constructionist judges to the Supreme Court in addition to that, that would be a bonus.

We have to ask ourselves how aggressive we want the federal government to be as advocates for a social conservative agenda. Do we really want government programs to push an agenda that would be better carried out in the private sector with non-profits and charities rather than adding another appendage to the government monolith? I would like a candidate who is a social conservative and who shares my values, but I would have to think about whether I want the government to be funding religious activity. The reason for that is that what government funds, it will eventually control. I don’t want the government to have any control over religious organizations at all. So keep funding of faith-based organizations in the private sector where it belongs.

Many of the social conservatives running for president seem to want to have an activist government on social policy. Is that really what we want? Here’s something else to consider. Is it the government’s job to provide free health care to all Americans? Is it the government’s job to ensure that people can afford a house? Is it the government’s job to make sure that you have a job?

No. It is not.

If we say that we are for limited government, and we actually mean it, then this should mean that the candidate we nominate should be more interested in protecting our country than protecting our faith. That’s what churches are for. That’s what our pastors are for. That’s the role of our families. That’s not the role of our government.

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Posted on '08 Election, Random Musings, Republicans

random thoughts on ames: part 1

Ron Paul sounds more like he’s lecturing the country than he’s motivating the country.  Some of his good ideas get lost in the bizarre presentation. The problem is that the hard truths don’t usually come from the candidates who can win.  Activists don’t usually win elections as candidates.  Ron Paul sounds like an activist, as does the other unknown candidate, John Cox.  Ron Paul says America is becoming a tyranny.  There’s a difference between being a realist and being a scare-monger.  Ron Paul sounds a lot like Kucinich in his views on trade.  The Paulites are kind of scary.  I agree with Paul and Neil Boortz that we are becoming less free due to increased government bureaucracy. There’s a logical argument that we should focus more on the problems we face domestically than on foreign policy.  What sympathizers of Ron Paul’s seem not to understand is that we need a muscular foreign policy to allow us to stay free and prosperous, and to live the life that we are used to as Americans.

I love Mike Huckabee’s speech, even though he did rip off Newt’s Fed-Ex analogy on illegal immigration.  It’s more pep talk than lecture, and filled with enough one-liners to pack any campaign article.  He is missing his true calling – motivational speaker.  The audience absolutely loved him, and I hope that he sticks around until the end and shows well in Iowa today.  I don’t know why those who are supporting Huckabee are not concerned that he might be one of those “compassionate conservatives” who show compassion by the way they allocate money to federal programs and bureaucracy.  With all of Bush’s strengths, he has been weak on controlling spending.  If you are a person who is serious about that issue, Huckabee might not be your guy.  On the other hand, I’m not sure any of the top three are committed to reducing government spending either. Rudy is probably the most likely to do that, but do we really know for sure?  I don’t think we have that kind of candidate.

It’s a shame that Duncan Hunter hasn’t gotten more traction.  For conservatives, he’s the closest we have to everything we want.  He is a social conservative, and he’s strong on defense issues, including border security.  I’m not sure why his speech is focusing so much on trade and China.  The applause by the audience seems to be even for just about every candidate.  It’s hard to predict the results of the Iowa straw poll based on audience applause.  His best moments in this speech are when he talks about his area of expertise: border security.  Duncan Hunter ends with a shout-out to the military.  Always a quality option in Republican-friendly towns.

I missed Romney’s speech, but I’m sure there was nothing in it I hadn’t heard before.

Romney may win, as everyone is predicting, but it wouldn’t surprise me if there were a few surprises coming out of this straw poll.

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1 Comment Posted on '08 Election, Conservatives, George W. Bush, Republicans

stand by your man (part 1)

Let me preface this by saying that there are many areas where conservatives believe that President Bush has disappointed them. The debate over McCain-Kennedy comprehensive “immigration reform” is the most recent example of this perceived apostasy, and it’s a great example of how tone-deaf the administration has become lately. We are also annoyed with the massive increases in federal spending that the President allowed to pass his desk. To some conservatives, there is a long list of Dubya’s sins, real and imagined, and they are ready to move on from this President. Our reasons are different than those of the Democrats. While acknowledging that he should be given all of the credit for his SCOTUS picks and some of the credit for our strong economy, we still find him lacking in other areas. Some of the criticism is unfair in this way: He never ran as a fiscal conservative. He was always supportive of making it easier for illegal immigrants to come here. We voted for the President, not because of these things, but because of Iraq and because we wanted conservative judges on the Supreme Court.

Bill Kristol believes that President Bush will be judged as a successful president. His argument almost convinces me, but even though I know that there have been some successes with the surge strategy, I’m just not buying his optimism on Iraq. He says that in order for a war president to be judged a success, the war has to be won. Many of us are discouraged with Iraq. Maybe we are buying in too deeply to what the MSM is selling. Maybe we are just being realistic about the obstacles the administration is facing in continuing the surge and trying to improve the conditions on the ground in Iraq. In either case, it’s an uphill battle to keep the Republicans from defecting to the Democratic side on the war, and it’s a continuing struggle to keep the impatience of the American people with the progress of this war from forcing those defections from those standing for re-election next time. I’m not rooting against the President. I want him to succeed, not because it validates me, or neocons, or because he would have a better legacy. I want Iraq to succeed because that would mean the terrorists and insurgents have failed there.

Maybe we are asking for too much in our presidents and in our presidential candidates. After all, none of the Republican presidential candidates currently in the field are as committed to reducing the size of the federal government as the average conservative is. They don’t have any new ideas on Iraq, Iran, or North Korea, and they would not implement anything different from what Bush has done so far. On the other hand, Romney, Giuliani, and Fred are all better communicators than President Bush. Romney is probably the weakest of the three because of his tendency to sound wonkish when discussing anything. All I’m saying is that if conservatives intend to vote for a Republican for President in ’08 (rather than sitting the election out and giving the election to Hillary by default), that means that we will have to settle for someone who doesn’t fit everything we want. And that includes FRED.

2 Comments Posted on Democrats, Republicans

this is not a surprise

So much for “openness and transparency” in the new Democratic-controlled Congress for those earmark requests.

CNN informs us:

Staffers for only 31 of the 435 members of the House contacted by CNN between Wednesday and Friday of last week supplied a list of their earmark requests for fiscal year 2008, which begins on October 1, or pointed callers to Web sites where those earmark requests were posted.

Of the remainder, 68 declined to provide CNN with a list, and 329 either didn’t respond to requests or said they would get back to us, and didn’t.

“As long as we are not required to release them, we’re not going to,” said Dan Turner, an aide to Rep. Jim McCrery, R-Louisiana.

Shouldn’t the Democrats be setting the example by releasing each and every one of their earmark requests and requiring the release of all earmark requests? This is, of course, a bipartisan effort to withhold disclosure of how members of Congress want to waste our money. Republicans are guilty of this as well as Democrats, but the Democrats are in charge now. Seems to me that no significant change will happen if they keep enabling the status quo to protect themselves.

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Posted on Editorials, Illegal Immigration, Republicans

mostly dead

Thanks to the conservatives who cared enough to tell the Republican minority how they felt about this immigration bill (and thanks also to the non-clueless senator from SC), the Republicans summoned enough votes to kill this bill. This battle is over for now, but we have to keep our eyes open, because this won’t be the end of proposals like this. John McCain is lucky to have such a loyal friend in Lindsey Graham, but they are both going down with this ship. It’s difficult to be angry with someone who votes on principle, even if they have a position totally different than yours.  However, it is never smart to vote in opposition to a large majority of your constituents (as Graham did) and expect anything good to come of that.  Like I said before, Lindsey Graham is a reliable conservative vote on most of the issues that are important to South Carolinians. But the way he and some of his colleagues have handled criticism on this legislation is unacceptable, and we really need to think about whether he deserves our continued support.

The incredible arrogance of the President of the United States, Trent Lott, John McCain, and others supporting this comprehensive immigration bill is stunning. It shouldn’t be.  We shouldn’t need any more proof that the Republican leadership doesn’t care what we think most of the time, and it takes a massive effort on our part to get them to pay attention. In a way, this is a good thing, because we need to care more about where Congress is taking our country. 

This is not about wanting to deport 11,12 million illegals.  Everyone knows this is impossible. What we can do right now is enforce current laws and finish that border fence. If there is a proven continuing commitment to border enforcement, then maybe we can talk about guest worker programs — but there is no reason to believe that the federal government or Congress has any intention to secure our borders.

There is a huge disconnect between D.C. elitists and the conservative base in the Republican party, which was highlighted by this struggle over immigration. They have decided that they know what’s best for all of us, and if we don’t agree with them, we must be uninformed. If they keep up this arrogant attitude, they shouldn’t expect our money, our support, or our votes.  But they don’t need us, right?

 

3 Comments Posted on '08 Election, Conservatives, Republicans

questions and answers

This was one of the questions posed to the Republican presidential candidates Tuesday night:

We’ve lost 3,400 troops; civilian casualties are even higher, and the Iraqi government does not appear ready to provide for the security of its own country. Knowing everything you know right now, was it a mistake for us to invade Iraq?

(That’s not a loaded question is it?)

ROMNEY:

Well, I answered the question by saying it’s a — it’s a non sequitur, it’s a null set kind of question, because you can go back and say, if we knew then what we know now, by virtue of inspectors having been let in and giving us that information, by virtue of if Saddam Hussein had followed the U.N. resolutions, we wouldn’t be having this — this discussion. So it’s a hypothetical that I think is an unreasonable hypothetical. And the answer is, we did what we did; we did the right thing based on what we knew at that time. I think we made mistakes following the conduct — or the collapse of Saddam’s government.

GIULIANI:

Absolutely the right thing to do. It’s unthinkable that you would leave Saddam Hussein in charge of Iraq and be able to fight the war on terror. And the problem is that we see Iraq in a vacuum. Iraq should not be seen in a vacuum. Iraq is part of the overall terrorist war against the United States.

The problem the Democrats make is they’re in denial. That’s why you hear things like you heard in the debate the other night, that, you know, Iran really isn’t dangerous; it’s 10 years away from nuclear weapons. Iran is not 10 years away from nuclear weapons, and the danger to us is not just missiles, the danger to us is a state like Iran handing nuclear weapons over to terrorists, so it has to be seen in that light, and we have to be successful in Iraq.

Just for fun…let’s look at what FRED! said about that question when Hannity interviewed him post-debate. His question was slightly different (whether we did the right thing invading Iraq).
THOMPSON:

Yes. Sean, what people don’t think enough about is what — if we had not gone into Iraq. You know, after defying the United Nations 17 times, after corrupting the oil-for-food program and the United Nations itself, Saddam would have been there — and defying the United States, of course — Saddam would have been there, the new king of the hill in that part of the world, with his murderous sons still putting people in human shredders, still a threat to his neighbors, still developing his plans for a nuclear capability.I mean, he had those plans. He had the technical expertise. Whether he had them on one particular day or not is almost irrelevant. Especially today, looking at what Iran is doing, he certainly would have had his hands or been working assiduously toward getting the capability of nuclear weapons. And that’s what we would have been faced with had we not done that. Going in there and deposing him was a good thing.

In some ways, it’s unfair to compare CEO Mitt to “America’s Mayor” or to Fred Thompson. They all know the right answer to the question, and all three have demonstrated that they get the war on terror. But in this one answer at least, Rudy and Fred get to the point faster. Romney may have all the right answers and he may be dynamite with a PowerPoint presentation, but that’s only a small part of what we are looking for in a nominee. Both Rudy and McCain personally connected with the audience Tuesday, and that’s the element Romney seems to be missing. As others have said, Romney was off his game in this third debate. Rudy won this third debate because he showed command of all the topics he was asked about, and in every debate performance, he keeps looking stronger and stronger (as long as the questions are not focused on those troublesome social issues)

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6 Comments Posted on '08 Election, Conservatives, Republicans

newt takes on the establishment again

From the New Yorker:

Newt Gingrich is one of those who fear that Republicans have been branded with the label of incompetence. He says that the Bush Administration has become a Republican version of the Jimmy Carter Presidency, when nothing seemed to go right. “It’s just gotten steadily worse,” he said. “There was some point during the Iranian hostage crisis, the gasoline rationing, the malaise speech, the sweater, the rabbit”—Gingrich was referring to Carter’s suggestion that Americans wear sweaters rather than turn up their thermostats, and to the “attack” on Carter by what cartoonists quickly portrayed as a “killer rabbit” during a fishing trip—“that there was a morning where the average American went, ‘You know, this really worries me.’ ” He added, “You hire Presidents, at a minimum, to run the country well enough that you don’t have to think about it, and, at a maximum, to draw the country together to meet great challenges you can’t avoid thinking about.” Gingrich continued, “When you have the collapse of the Republican Party, you have an immediate turn toward the Democrats, not because the Democrats are offering anything better, but on a ‘not them’ basis. And if you end up in a 2008 campaign between ‘them’ and ‘not them,’ ‘not them’ is going to win.”

I think Newt’s right about this. Republicans have been tagged with that label, and it’s going to be hard to recover from that perception. Congressional Republicans did not handle their responsibilities well when they had the majority, and voters recognized that last November when they handed over power to the “not them” Democrats. President Bush should share some of the blame for what happened in the November mid-term elections as well.  The President of the United States is supposed to be the head of our party, but instead he has abdicated that role to conservative talk radio and blogs.  It’s up to the grassroots activists to fight for a re-direction in Congressional priorities and the needed reforms to solve the problems we face as a nation, since no one in Washington D.C. has the desire to do that.

The question becomes whether Newt is the “not them” candidate for the Republicans in 2008. He certainly hasn’t been shy about criticizing Congress and the Bush administration. He has some fascinating ideas, and I would love to see a debate between Newt and Hillary, if only for the sheer entertainment value of such a confrontation. Maybe he’s been out of Congress long enough to be considered an outsider, but it will be hard for him to shake his controversial history while Speaker of the House.  I’m having a hard time believing that Newt Gingrich is electable, but it’s probably a mistake to underestimate his chances, especially this early in the presidential race.

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