Republicans

Posted on '08 Election, Conservatives, Republicans

defending ron paul (sort of)

It’s fashionable in Republican circles to bash Ron Paul for his non-interventionist views of foreign policy, and unfortunately for Dr. Paul, that argument doesn’t seem realistic based on the actions of Iran, North Korea, and others wanting to join the nuclear club. It also sounded too much like what the Democrats would have said if they were given the same question. That’s why Giuliani was able to score significant political points by condemning Paul’s remarks on 9/11.

Less worthy of discussion were Paul’s remarks on cutting the size of government. Every Republican running for President talks about reducing spending and the size of government, but when asked what they would cut, only Ron Paul had actually thought much about the subject. Wendell Goler asked him this question, and here’s what he said.

REP. PAUL: I’d start with the departments — the Department of Education, the Department of Energy, Department of Homeland Security. We’ve started with — we’ve just — the Republicans put in the Department of Homeland — it’s a monstrous type of bureaucracy. It was supposed to be streamlining our security and it’s unmanageable. I mean, just think of the efficiency of FEMA in its efforts to take care of the floods and the hurricanes.

So yes, there’s a lot of things that we can cut, but we can’t cut anything until we change our philosophy about what government should do. If you think that we can continue to police the world and spend hundreds of billions of dollars overseas, and spend hundreds of billions of dollars running a welfare state, an entitlement system that has accumulated $60 trillion worth of obligations, and think that we can run the economy this way; we spend so much money now that we have to borrow nearly $3 billion a day from foreigners to take care of our consumption, and we can’t afford that.

We can’t afford it in the government, we can’t afford it as a nation.

So tax reform should come, but spending cuts have to come by changing our attitude what government ought to be doing for us.

You can disagree with him about foreign policy, but on spending and bureaucracy he’s exactly right. I’m not convinced that congressional Republicans still subscribe to Paul’s skepticism of the effectiveness of bureaucracy and the necessity of reducing spending (if in fact they EVER did). As we have seen, they excel at paying lip service to what they think we want to hear, and then proceed to feed the beast, feigning surprise that this government behemoth continues to grow. And somehow it’s all someone else’s fault.

Ron Paul says that we need to change our philosophy about what government should do. Hard to argue with that statement. We have given the responsibility to government to fix everything that ails our great nation, and that has been a huge mistake. Both Republicans and Democrats now believe in an activist government, and even some conservatives are buying into the myth.

Continue reading →

Posted on '08 Election, Conservatives, Illegal Immigration, Republicans

that didn’t go very well

This hasn’t been a good week for Senator John McCain and his pal Senator Lindsey Graham.  After McCain’s stronger showing at the 2nd debate, his campaign was on the rebound.  The timing of this announced deal on “comprehensive immigration reform” couldn’t be any worse for him, and standing next to Ted Kennedy and Arlen Specter talking about how wonderful bi-partisan deals are isn’t the best way to win over that already suspicious conservative base. It’s a great example of how out of touch with the conservative base McCain is, and how out of touch our senators and congresspeople are that they would not realize that there would be strong opposition to this immigration proposal.  Here in South Carolina,  we had an chance to voice that opposition directly to one of the senators responsible for trying to push this proposal through before we have a chance to examine it carefully.

I give Senator Graham credit for being willing to show up on Saturday at the South Carolina Republican convention and attempt to explain why he supports this legislation. But I believe he’s wrong on this, and so do most of the conservatives in attendance Saturday. That’s why he got such a negative reaction. Some of them consider this issue so important that there has been talk of finding a primary challenger for him when he’s up for re-election next year.  I’m not ready to sign on to that effort just yet, but that’s how seriously Republicans here take this issue.  I emailed Senator Graham Thursday to let him know that I was opposed to this bill, and I must not have been the only one, because he was noticeably on the defensive Saturday. He shouldn’t act so surprised that we booed him when he tried to convince us that this was the best deal we could get on immigration. If he didn’t completely understand the extent of our opposition when he walked into that convention hall, he understands it now.

We can also credit the “comprehensive immigration bill” with doing two other things: causing a minor scuffle between our senators Jim DeMint and Lindsey Graham and providing an opportunity for Romney to indirectly hammer McCain, which he did.  Senator DeMint, to his credit, has called for further review of this bill and wasn’t afraid to challenge supporters like Senator Graham directly in his remarks to the convention.  That made for some awkward moments, since DeMint spoke right after Graham. On some levels, it is unfair to tag John McCain and Lindsey Graham as RINOs or apostates simply because they defend this flawed legislation.  On most issues of importance to South Carolinians, they are two of the most reliable conservative votes.  However, the problem with illegal immigration is one we take very seriously.  We see the lack of border enforcement now, and we can’t help but notice that only lip service is paid to current laws.  Supporters of this bill may very well be correct that there are penalties for law-breakers in this immigration bill, but when current law is not being followed, how can we possibly believe the government is up to the challenge of enforcing all these new restrictions? The short answer is: we don’t.

Continue reading →

2 Comments Posted on Conservatives, Illegal Immigration, Republicans

fight

If we really want to see the Republican party become more responsive to conservatives, we can’t jump ship. We have to stay in the party and work to keep them accountable for their actions. Conservatives haven’t won a lot of victories from the fighting we’ve been doing with Republicans in Congress and with the Bush administration. But we won’t get any more victories, even of the minor variety, if we give up and stop fighting for what we believe is the best direction for our country. Even the smallest spark can start a fire. We got the immovable to move when we stopped the nomination of Harriet Miers. Another “success” of the conservatives could be the furious debate we had about the Dubai ports deal. If we get enough people to care enough about the direction of this country and the direction of our party and to speak up about it, eventually Washington politicians will pay attention.

The leadership of the Republican party knows that there is no place for social conservatives in the Democratic party. They are confident that small-government types won’t find much to like about the Democrats’ approach to social programs and spending. They also know that what conservatives find lacking in the Republican party can’t be found in the Democratic party right now. They take us for granted, because they can. If our senators do not understand that a majority of Americans want a commitment to border-enforcement first before any concessions to illegal aliens are made, then they need to start paying more attention to what their constituents have been telling them. Maybe this immigration debate will cause more people to start paying attention to what Congress is trying to do, and at least some good will come out of this flawed legislation. Speak up. Speak louder. We have the attention of Congress at this moment. Let’s see what we can do with it.

Tags: , ,

Posted on '08 Election, Conservatives, Republicans

debate wrap-up

What a pleasant change from the first Republican debate this one was. Yes, it was hosted by the EEEVIL Fox News Channel, but no objective person could accuse the moderators of throwing softballs at any of the candidates. The questions were pitched high and hard and some of ’em landed a significant blow on their targets. I would really like to see the Democrats face the same kind of abuse, but thanks to John Edwards’ tough stand against Fox News, it won’t happen. Speaking of John Edwards, he got a little smack from Mike Huckabee (with much applause): “Congress is spending money like John Edwards at a beauty shop”. HAHA. That will get him a few YouTube clips. Mike Huckabee looked just as strong in this debate as the last one, and I would like to hear more from him, including more on the Fair Tax.

My overall impression of the top three hasn’t changed, but I would rank them differently than last time based on their performance last night. Romney moves down to third. Solid but not spectacular showing. He also had one sound-bite type line where he says that McCain-Kennedy (the immigration bill) would be just as bad as McCain-Feingold. (I’m paraphrasing, but that’s the general idea.) He got the predictable “how conservative are you…REALLY”? His answer was a strong one, at least in my opinion. I think it’s a fair position to support 2nd amendment rights and also to support an assault weapons ban. I have no problem with people owning guns, and there’s a good argument to be made for that right. But I don’t see any solid reason why the average citizen should own any kind of assault weapon. That’s a reasonable restriction to have on the 2nd amendment. It also should be ok to oppose discrimination against gays and lesbians while still believing that marriage should be only between a man and woman. Neither of these issues should be an either/or proposition. He handled this question better in this debate than the last one. I liked what he had to say about Iraq, and he seemed to understand the broad scope of the GWOT. I’m still not sold on that “personally pro-life” line, but it sounds better to me than how Giuliani explains why he’s pro-choice.

McCain did well, even though I thought that his “drunken sailor” joke fell flat, especially when compared to Huckabee’s John Edwards crack. He didn’t have any memorable moments except for his attempted slap at Romney, after Romney criticized both McCain-Kennedy and McCain-Feingold.  In any case, I would put McCain in 2nd place.

Rudy gets the top spot, just because of his awesome smackdown of Ron Paul. The other candidates would have wanted to get this KO on Paul, who blamed the US for 9/11. Rudy got the fat fastball, and did not miss the pitch. He asked Ron Paul to withdraw that statement. Paul was given the opportunity to back off, and he did not. Video here. Even though I have strong reservations about Giuliani as a social conservative, he continues to impress in other areas, and that’s why social conservatives will continue to consider Giuliani as a potential nominee.

Continue reading →

Posted on '08 Election, Republicans

rudy and those planned parenthood donations

What Matt Lewis said.

Ok…I can’t let it go at that. We have known all along that Rudy was pro-choice, so this shouldn’t surprise any of the conservatives out there who have been paying attention to the ’08 candidates. Most conservatives who support Rudy do so because they think he would be tough on terrorism and because they like his record on crime in NYC. Those conservatives see the life issue as secondary, so the fact that Rudy Giuliani donated $900 to Planned Parenthood won’t make much difference to that group of supporters.

Rudy’s problem is that he tried to pull a “Mitt”– where his “I hate abortion” line is his equivalent of Romney’s “personally pro-life” line. There’s no question that Romney has some work to do on the abortion question to convince pro-lifers that his conversion is genuine, but at least he has, to some degree, admitted that he changed his mind on that subject. What conservatives respected about Rudy Giuliani is that he was unapologetic at one point about being pro-choice, and that he was willing to defend his opposite views from the SoCons on gay marriage and abortion. He was the “authentic” candidate (for lack of a better word). Giuliani can’t legitimately claim that he hates abortion if he supports taxpayer funding of abortion and speaks at NARAL “Champions of Choice” lunches. Like Matt Lewis said, that looks more like someone who is not simply pro-choice, but an abortion advocate.

Will this matter to the majority of Republicans who would be willing to sell their souls if it meant beating Hillary? Probably not. This sounds a bit harsh, I know. We have to be honest with ourselves about what we are willing to accept in our nominee and whether winning has to mean compromising on issues like abortion and gay marriage.

Tags: , ,

Posted on '08 Election, Republicans

ronald reagan is still dead

The only Reagan I saw in that debate hall Thursday night was Nancy Reagan…and she’s probably a moderate on social issues. But seriously folks…

Chris Matthews adds an interesting dynamic to the normal cookie-cutter type debate, where the moderator generally tries to stay above the fray and just asks the questions. Matthews should have been watching how Brian Williams handled the Democrats in their debate.  I can’t be objective about this overbearing jerk, and I can’t believe that I actually watched him badger the candidates when I could have been watching good stuff on network TV. Just as Mike Gravel and Dennis Kucinich were the distraction in the Dem debate, Chris Matthews filled the same role for this Republican debate. Grrr…I just wanted to slap him half the time.

Candidates who looked pretty good in my view:  Romney, Giuliani, and Huckabee.  Romney needs a better answer to those abortion questions. He needs to explain his conversion/evolution on that issue by being honest about his past. He won’t ever be that 100% conservative, but he might be able to change minds if he can just get his story straight on who he really is. Giuliani deserves credit, I guess, for telling us how he really feels about overturning Roe, but the answer that he gave could be a sticking point against him for SoCons who might have found other reasons to support him.  Huckabee performed better than I expected.  As others have said, there’s nothing to distinguish him as a leader or someone who one could see as the President of the United States.  He deserves a second look, but I don’t know about a second debate.

There’s no doubt in my mind that McCain would scare the heck out of terrorists, his views on torture aside.  But I didn’t see anything from him that convinced me that he should be the Republican nominee. His performance was disappointing.  It’s still early, so he has time to recover from this.

I liked listening to what  Ron Paul had to say.  Even though he had different views than most of of the other candidates, he still was able to articulate those views without sounding like Mike Gravel or Dennis Kucinich.    Unfortunately for him, only his die-hard fans believe that Dr. Paul actually won the debate.  (I really can’t say what exactly they saw that I missed…)

The rest of the field just faded out. We gave those second and third-tier candidates a chance to blow us away with their performance in this debate, and they did not.  I’m not sure whether this is a good idea to have all these candidates with minimal support as a part of debates. It limits the time for every candidate involved, and we need to hear more from Romney, Giuliani, and McCain than every other candidate.  I know that we are dissatisfied with those choices, but I didn’t see any of the other candidates step up Thursday night and show that they should be right there with the top three.

There’s also no guarantee that Fred Thompson will be the right guy for the Republicans to nominate.  Sure his record looks good, but do we really know that he could be a good President?  Being popular and photogenic only seems to work for Democrats. He’s the anti-”Rudy McRomney” and that seems to be enough for Republican conservatives.  Is this really the guy we want to run the country?  Maybe I’m the only one still skeptical of all the Fred hype.  We should nominate the best guy for the job, not necessarily someone who gets the most publicity.  I’m still undecided after this debate.  There’s still time for the top three (or Fred) to get my attention.
Tags: , ,

2 Comments Posted on '08 Election, Republicans

more mitt

Here’s my theory that I’m just going to throw out there for discussion: Mitt Romney was never able to completely convince pro-choicers that he was one of them, no matter what he said publicly. We are quite familiar with the Senate debate video clips, and the accusations leveled of flip-flopping on the issue of abortion. Less familiar to conservatives still struggling with supporting Mitt is the fact that he had the endorsement of Massachusetts Citizens for Life in 1994…because “he supported parental-consent laws, opposed taxpayer-funded abortion or mandatory abortion coverage under a national insurance plan and was against the Freedom of Choice Act that would have codified Roe”. He certainly didn’t convince Kate Michelman of NARAL that he was 100% pro-choice.

In the above linked article, Michelman accuses Romney of a “campaign of deception to hide his anti-choice views”. Interesting. Even after all the signs pointed to Romney being, at the very least, pro-choice friendly, there were still doubts about his position on abortion by activists like Michelman. The whole American Spectator article deserves a look, because it does shed a little light on Romney’s past record on abortion, and it brings out several things the casual observer may not realize about that past.

I’m not suggesting that Romney was always pro-life, just that he has taken positions in the past which are consistent with pro-life positions, even before he became governor. He admitted that he has changed his position on abortion, but I’m not sure he was ever 100% pro-choice to begin with. It takes extreme political skill to convince activists from both sides of this issue that you support their view, and it’s not surprising that Romney couldn’t completely pull it off.

Tags: , ,

Posted on '08 Election, Conservatives, Republicans

mccain

maybe he’s not the conservative’s prince charming, but right now he’s saying all the right things.

“I’m not running for President to be somebody, but to do something; to do the hard but necessary things not the easy and needless things. I’m running for President to protect this country from harm and defeat our enemies. I’m running for President to make the government do its job, not your job; to do it with less, and to do it better. I’m running for President to defend our freedom and expand our opportunities. I’m running for President not to leave our biggest national problems to some unluckier generation of leaders, but to fix them now, and leave our grandchildren a safer, freer and more prosperous country than the one we were blessed to inherit; I’m running for President to make sure America maintains its place as the political and economic leader of the world; the country that doesn’t fear change but makes change work for us; the country that doesn’t long for the good old days, but aspires to even better days. I’m running for President of the United States, not a defeated country, not a bankrupt country; not a timid and frightened country; not a country fragmented into bickering interest groups with no sense of or dedication to the national interest; not a country with a bloated, irresponsible and incompetent government. I’m not running for town manager or school board member or corporate treasurer or surgeon general or head of the trial lawyers association or secretary of the local charity. I’m running for President of the United States, the most powerful, prosperous nation and greatest force for good on earth. And if I am elected President I intend to keep it so. Thank you.”

read it all here.

tags: ,

2 Comments Posted on '08 Election, Conservatives, Republicans

struggle

Getting involved on the grassroots level of politics usually means that, during that process, you end up meeting people who are very passionate about the candidates they are supporting and the party they belong to.  It’s necessary that there is diversity of opinion in a political party, and there is no possible way that everyone will always be on the same page. What worries me going into ’08 is that this passion will cause divisions between members of the same party who, after our candidate is selected in the primary process, could refuse to support that candidate because he might not pass all the ideological roadblocks that have been placed in his path.

There are folks that I respect very much who have decided to support several of the second and third tier candidates in the Republican field.  I also know several people supporting Romney and McCain whose opinions I value a great deal.  In the absence of a viable “true conservative” who is 100% in the Reagan mold, we have the current front-runners, who all have some problems with the conservative base.  During the primary process, it is absolutely fair to try to convince supporters of another candidate, like Romney, for example, to back a more conservative, but less viable candidate like Huckabee, Duncan Hunter, or Sam Brownback. I don’t think the conservative cred of any of those gentlemen is in question.  I will concede that to their supporters. But there are other considerations for the Republican nominee for President than just being conservative enough for the base.

There is a fight going on for the soul of the Republican party. Every group wants a piece. The SoCons  (or the religious right), the fiscal conservatives, those who are more liberal on social issues, and the “compassionate conservatives” who support excessive spending on programs that do not work and see no problem with allowing illegal immigrants who have broken the law to continue to do so…these are just a few of the constituency groups we have to deal with. This is a healthy debate to have within the party, and one could make a strong case that the Republican party has strayed from its roots. I don’t think you would get much argument from conservatives on that, especially social conservatives.

But I’m not ready to exclude candidates who have a good chance of winning the nomination / Presidency simply because they can’t check off on a checklist all the conservative hot button issues. There are others who feel the same way that I do about this, and none of us should feel that we are less of a conservative just because we may not be supporting the most conservative candidate in the field.  This is the message we are getting, whether intentional or not, from supporters of Huckabee, Hunter, and Brownback, and I just don’t think that this is the best argument to make to fellow conservatives.

There seems to be this fear that the Republican party will lurch inexorably left should Giuliani or Romney get the nomination. I don’t see this happening. Conservatives will always be part of the Republican party, just like liberals will always be part of the Democratic party. This won’t change.  The Republican party has had capable and worthy nominees for President not named Ronald Reagan in the past and the same will be true in ’08, whether the candidate is conservative or not.

Tags: , ,

11 Comments Posted on '08 Election, Republicans

romney on hannity and colmes

sean hannity interviews governor romney:

HANNITY: What do you think about Speaker of the House Pelosi, against the will of the White House, the recommendation of the State Department, is going to Syria to meet with the Syrian president? Is that the wrong thing to do? Does that send the wrong message to the world?

ROMNEY: It’s outrageous. What she’s doing is absolutely outrageous. I’m afraid she has been taking John Edwards’s talk to heart, which is that there are two Americas, one led by the president and the other, which is led by her.

But there is one America. It’s the United States of America. We have one foreign policy. If people don’t agree with that foreign policy, they can elect new leaders. They can elect a new president in two years, and they can pursue a different course.

i love this. governor romney is exactly right, and this is what it boils down to here. congress doesn’t have the role of commander-in-chief. if they want that role, they have to get a democratic president elected. the democrats are in danger of overstepping their constitutional role by any freelance foreign policy they are doing, so speaker pelosi and her bipartisan delegation need to be careful that the United States speaks with one voice to terrorist-supporting states like Syria and Saudi Arabia.

he continues:

But the idea of having the speaker of the House, the third person in line for the presidency, of the United States, being with Assad, being welcomed and given diplomatic coverage, shots of her on TV and the media and the way she’s being used by the Arab press is just outrageous.

HANNITY: Let me go to the issue of Harry Reid earlier this week said, in fact, he would support Russ Feingold’s bill to defund the war in Iraq within 120 days of its passage if, in fact, the president goes forward with his threat to veto the supplemental that was loaded up with pork and, of course, this artificial timetable, as the president says?

How should the president react to that and what do you say to Senator Reid for that proposal? That basically guarantees defeat.

ROMNEY: Well, it’s a terrible idea. And again, I think people are playing politics with foreign policy.

No one likes the fact that we’re still in Iraq. Everybody wants our troops home as soon as they possibly can be home. But people who have studied it very carefully and put politics aside recognize that if we simply withdraw on a precipitous basis, we open a risk of a very substantial nature to America’s interests.

The risk is that Iran, the nation we just were speaking about, grabs the Shia south of Iraq, that al Qaeda plays a dominant role among the Sunnis, that the Kurds destabilize the border with Turkey, and that potentially from any one of these acts that we end up with a regional conflict. And that our friends like Israel get drawn in, and then America has to go back in a far more difficult position.

These are the consequences of improper departure from Iraq, and so we have to make sure that we — we manage to the extent humanly possible this process to maintain order and a decree of stability we don’t let this country to fall in complete and total collapse.

HANNITY: If that were to come to fruition, Iran and al Qaeda would also have the oil reserves in Iraq, which would create the financing as they, you know, basically have a new staging area for terror.

ROMNEY: The people in Congress, and the people of America have to recognize that you’ve got to separate our disappointment and, in some cases, anger with where we are in Iraq. We made a lot of mistakes. Look, this has not been — once we knocked down Saddam Hussein, the war has not been conducted perfectly by any means.

We are, to a certain degree, responsible for the mess we find ourselves in. But as long as there’s a reasonable probability that a pathway exists for us to maintain a central government in Iraq, with a central military, albeit with strong sub-states, that’s a pathway which is in the best interest of America.

governor romney had a very strong interview here, in my opinion. what i’m still trying to understand about romney is why he feels the need to not only support conservative positions like gun rights, but also to insist that he has always been the strongest supporter of those positions. romney’s strengths and weaknesses will always be competing for the public’s attention. rudy guiliani has never been a favorite of the SoCons, but at least he is what he is: a strong supporter of abortion (even public funding of abortions) and gay marriage.

let me pass along some free advice for mitt romney: what conservatives want to know is whether you will do what you say you will do when in office. i think you are trying too hard to sell yourself as the most committed conservative candidate in the field. i’m not sure that this will work for you, based on your past history. we want to be able to trust you. don’t go to extremes to impress us. be who you are. that just might be enough to get the nomination.

tags: ,