Posted on Conservatives, Liberals, Republicans

know your role

What makes Michael Steele great on TV and talk radio makes him controversial as the RNC Chairman.   There are very few Republicans currently holding political office who could be successful pundits, and there are even fewer Republican politicians that would continue to win elections saying things that the members of their party don’t want to hear or acknowledge.   Those who have survived doing this, like Senator DeMint, most likely come from solid red states, where the base completely supports their efforts to fight the Washington mentality.  We are more likely to find honest political dialogue from those who never intend to make a profitable career out of politics than from anyone currently engaged in that pursuit.

This is the difference between Michael Steele and Rush Limbaugh.  Each man has a different objective.  For Michael Steele, the goal should be to get back to basics on core principles of our party, and to regain the confidence of the country in the Republican brand — which can only be done by acknowledging where our politicians have failed and increasing the level of accountability to show that we are serious about more than just winning elections.   His job is also to present our party in the best light possible, which means he cannot continue to speak off-the-cuff when the media is now closely paying attention to every word he says and looking for an opportunity to further divide the Republican party into factions by using our Chairman’s own words against him.

Rush Limbaugh is an entertainer, and a darn good one at that.  You don’t get paid what he gets paid without delivering the goods and the advertisers 3 hours a day / 5 days a week.  In the process of that entertainment, he shares his own opinion on the present administration and what he believes the next steps should be for conservatives who don’t agree with the direction of this country under President Obama.  Love him, hate him, or call him a drug addict — it doesn’t have any effect on the guy at all.  It might make lefties feel better about themselves to rip Rush every day, and good for them if that’s the case.  It just doesn’t do much to move the leftist/statist agenda forward.  At some point,  surely even the leftist might question the wisdom of all Barack’s free spending.  Or maybe not.  Some people are just hard-core enough that they don’t care that these bills will be paid by our children and grandchildren just as long as they get their “free government stuff”.

To Michael Steele, I offer these words of advice from former (?) pro wrestler and current Disney “star” The Rock, “Know your role”.  There’s a time to speak out, and a time to shut up.   A wise chairman knows what time it is.

Posted on Conservatives, Republicans

expand the message

I don’t think there’s much I can add to Matt Lewis’s post on the Townhall blog.   Republicans need to stop surrendering issues like health care, jobs, and the environment to the Democrats.   This limits our ability to compete when national security and cultural issues are not the most important things on the minds of voters.  We need to recognize that our inability to challenge the common belief  that the Democrats have the best answers on health care, the economy, and the environment not only damages our chances of winning elections, it also enables bad policy to be implemented without a fight.  There are so many areas where viable conservative solutions can be discovered if we choose to compete in all arenas, not just the ones that are traditionally strong for Republican candidates.

As Matt says, this is not a call to water down our core beliefs and to become Democrat-lite.   We win converts to the conservative cause not by pandering or making easy compromises  — we do it by standing for the ideas we believe in and standing LOUD for those ideas.  In the absence of conservative alternatives, the Democrats are more than happy to fill that void with sweet-sounding promises of more government care and benefits that the working people of this country will never be able to pay for.

Posted on Conservatives, Democrats, Republicans

pulling no punches

Ah…seems that our RNC Chairman had something interesting to say about Senator Specter becoming a Democrat.  This bridge has been incinerated.  There’s no turning back now, Senator Specter.  Either way it’s going to be a tough election campaign.

Here’s Michael Steele (quoted at Politico):

Some in the Republican Party are happy about this. I am not.

Let’s be honest-Senator Specter didn’t leave the GOP based on principles of any kind. He left to further his personal political interests because he knew that he was going to lose a Republican primary due to his left-wing voting record.

Republicans look forward to beating Sen. Specter in 2010, assuming the Democrats don’t do it first.

And Steele’s not quite done yet.

CBS News:

Steele called Specter’s maneuver a “cold, crass political calculation by a senator who could not get reelected through a nominating process in the Republican party.”

“This has nothing to do with philosophy and principle and all those wonderful-sounding words.”

It’s rich of Senators Specter, Snowe, and to some extent, Lindsey Graham to accuse the Republican Party of wanting to throw the moderates overboard.  I say to them:  Where’s the evidence?  President Bush supported Specter, as did many other prominent Republicans, including the unfortunate Rick Santorum, over the more conservative Pat Toomey.  The Republican Party ultimately supports the candidate they believe has the best chance to win the contest.  In some cases,  that candidate happens to be a moderate.

Our party is more pragmatic than conservative.  That’s why we are struggling – because we value winning over any other objective.  Ideas motivate people.  Ideas fire people up and get them excited about their involvement in the party.  Where’s the creativity?  Where’s the ideas?  What does our party stand for, and how do we get back to those core values? There’s nothing wrong with being the party of NO when the current policies are wrong.  But it wouldn’t hurt us to come up with a few alternative proposals to the Democrat agenda that won’t continue to compromise our nation’s financial future.

Posted on Conservatives, Democrats, Liberals, Republicans

see ya

Senator Arlen Specter finally makes the decision to leave the Republican Party and officially join his fellow Democrats by running for re-election as a Democrat.  I can’t say I’m terribly upset about this news.  His motivation for doing this doesn’t really matter to me.  It does open up more options for challengers like Pat Toomey…or it could lead to a different Democrat replacing Specter, because there’s no guarantee that he gets the Democrat nomination without the other candidates pulling out of the contest. I do think that his announcement was self-serving, and it failed to acknowledge those Republicans, such as President Bush and VP Cheney, who supported him against Toomey the first time.  The national Republican Party hasn’t thrown Specter under the bus.  He chose this path for himself.  When he votes the way he does, he should expect conservatives to loudly oppose those votes.  But the Beltway Republicans have a far different agenda than the rest of us — they would have us go further to the left and abandon social conservatism or any pretense of fiscal accountability / responsibility.

It is not the agenda of the leadership of the Republican Party to weed out the moderate / liberal elements of its membership.  If you need evidence of that, witness our presidential nominee, John McCain.  He agreed more than he disagreed with Barack Obama on domestic policy, although I suspect he would have embraced keeping more tax cuts than President Obama has.  Our party supported Arlen Specter, even though he hasn’t done very much to merit our support.  We don’t even consider challenging Snowe and Collins.  So our far-right takeover hasn’t occurred yet, and my guess is you won’t see that until we can recruit much stronger candidates to challenge the Republicans already in the Senate and House.

There’s much about this move that I can be happy about.  Allowing the Democrats a  60-vote majority means they take full responsibility for anything they screw up.  On the other hand, I’m not sure I am willing to accept the consequences of the Democrats passing whatever laws they want to pass, no matter how crazy or misguided those laws may be — and I’m certainly not optimistic that all the damage done would be reversible.   Once we all get national health care, there’s no going back.  Look at Britain.   If you even hint at NHS (national health service) reforms that would assign some responsibility back to the recipients, don’t expect to win any national elections.  That’s the danger here.  We need to keep a close eye on what’s happening in Washington, and raise awareness of how all this will affect our lives in the long run, because we might only get one chance to keep this country from absorbing some big mistakes made by the politicians.

Posted on Baseball, Random Musings

random thoughts on the day

Daniel Murphy might be a good outfielder some day for the Mets, but my guess is that it won’t be any time soon.

I have zero confidence in the Mets’ starting rotation, with one notable exception.

ESPN baseball commentators try too hard to fill dead air by telling us useless information and heaping effusive praise on the home team — as they are doing tonight. Often this leads to fans of one team (such as my own) accusing the fellas of complete favoritism toward the opponent. This seems entirely justified, especially when your team is losing the game.

Earth Day won’t make a significant impact until we ban all the cars and all the humans.

Posted on Conservatives, Democrats, Liberals, Republicans

moving on — part 1

After spending part of my weekend with my fellow right-wing extremists from the York County Republican Party,  the experience left me feeling more reflective on the current direction of the national party rather than energized about the good stuff happening on the local level. I’m going to try to put those impressions into words, but it may not all make sense.  I’m still trying to work through what I believe the next steps should be for the Washington Republicans, but I’m going to suggest a few things and throw them out there for discussion.

So here goes…

Step #1:  Recognize and acknowledge your own failure to live up to the standards you set when running for office. For the Party itself, acknowledge the deviation from what we claim as our core values — limited government and a commitment to fighting wasteful spending. It also wouldn’t hurt to find strong candidates to replace any corrupt Republican survivors in our Congress.

There is so much criticism of Democrats and President Obama (most of it well-deserved) about their agenda and the outrageous sums of money that will be spent by this administration. Republicans (and especially fiscal conservatives) are correct to be concerned about that. What Republicans fail to recognize is their own culpability in the wilderness state than our party now finds itself in. We did start this fiscal irresponsibility, and a few folks in our party are in fact corrupt. Failing to admit that continues to damage our credibility, and it prevents my party from becoming a viable alternative to the President and the Democrat party.

Admitting there is a problem with the lack of direction / leadership in our party is not the most painful part of this recovery process, however. We must make a choice to change our behavior — not so much to attract the independents and moderates, but to regain lost credibility on the issues we used to own over the Democrats. You can’t win elections without the base, and moving left loses that base for the Republicans.

Taking this first step won’t automatically fix our problems. There may be a few more lost elections in the current future of the Republican Party. But we can accelerate the process of regaining what we have lost if we start by admitting our mistakes and making a clear break from our past failures. Then when we attack the Democrats for wasteful spending and President Obama for his entire agenda, people might actually start listening to what we have to say.

Posted on Baseball, Random Musings

down go the yankees

Well…at least they have that gorgeous new ballpark. Today makes two days their starting rotation has been torched for many runs, and it’s only April! 🙂 I feel safe in predicting today’s loss to the Indians, even though the game’s still in progress. Not even the Indians could blow a 20-2 lead in the 6th inning.

This has been a good day for fans of Cleveland sports teams. I mentioned the Indians. The Cavs, led by THE OTHER #23, LeBron James won their playoff game today against the Pistons. Of course he’s not Michael Jordan. There will always be only one of those. But LeBron could get the Cavs to a championship, something the Cavs have never experienced in their history.  If he pulls that off, that alone will set him apart, even if he never wins another ring.

Posted on Conservatives, Democrats, Random Musings, Republicans

happy jackie robinson day!

Well…at least it was around the world of MLB. For the rest of the country, the discussion was about tea parties and the annual rite of passage for taxpaying citizens to fund wasteful government programs for all Americans. Another April 15th has come and gone, but nothing really has changed. The tea parties, while meaningful and important because of the message the participants delivered (no on Washington and the wasteful spending), will not sustain whatever momentum could have been gained from these events. For a political protest to have any staying power in the long run it requires some kind of ongoing commitment to the cause for those who are involved in that protest. Many of the participants have that kind of commitment — to keep fighting for limited government, lower taxes, and reduced government spending — and they will stay involved locally and hold their local politicians accountable in these areas. That would have been true without the tea parties. The success or failure of Tea Party Day should be measured by what happens next. Will this spark lead to more involvement in the political process by those who are disconnected from both parties as a result of finding common cause with these protesters? Or will we all go back to our own lives and forget all the great things that happened today?

Future results are TBD.

2 Comments Posted on Conservatives, Republicans

it’s not going to happen

Newt Gingrich knows how to say things conservatives like to hear.  He can dish the red meat as well as anyone in our party when he has the inclination to do that.  It’s easy to appreciate those who are speaking out against the policies of the Obama administration, even though we realize that reversing course requires winning elections and developing alternatives to current policy that people can support.  Concerning alternatives and ideas, Newt’s got a few.  Actually more than a few.  Some ideas may be useful, and others may not be practical to implement.  That’s his strength — advancing big ideas.  Unfortunately for Republicans, what Gingrich has been proposing is compassionate conservatism on steroids.  I think it’s fair to question some of his agenda items as less than committed to this limited government ideal we keep talking about.

He is entertaining and has piles of figures on every possible subject.  But he has no chance of ever becoming President, or even the Republican nominee.  This is good for all of us.  Newt Gingrich could never survive the vicious vetting process of the media in addition to winning the trust of anyone yet undecided about his fitness for the Presidency.  If you believe that Sarah Palin got a raw deal (regardless of her qualifications to serve as VP), can you imagine how much harder it would be for Newt once he officially announced his intention to run for President?  Some of the bad press Newt gets he deserves, but I can’t imagine a scenario where he could shed enough of his baggage to make a 2012 presidential run successful.  God may forgive and forget, but the media never does.